A Phrase I do not like...

This past Wednesday I was sitting in my Speech class when the guy sitting behind me asked what the back of my shirt said. I responded by saying, "I don't know, my eyes are up here." The class started to chuckle and our instructor walked in. He was curious to what was so funny so I explained to him what happened. With a little laughter he walked over to me and began to read the back of my shirt.

"They brought Him to the place called Golgotha (which means The Place of the Skull)."
(Matthew 15:22)

Not being a familiar with this verse my instructor quickly responded to my shirt by saying, "What kind of cult are you in?"

"The Jesus cult." I responded, "that is from the Bible. You should open one up."

"Oh I haven't in awhile, afraid I will get struck by lightning."

Like nails on a chalkboard.

So many times when I talk to people about going to church or reading the bible they respond in this manner. It is there fear talking. They do not honestly think they would be struck by lighting but I think they are afraid of being found out. I think that when people say this they are afraid of being judged by other Christians because they are not perfect. So they dismiss Christianity because they "cannot live like that. There are to many rules to follow and I would have to give up so much."

So I was just wondering if in the Bible God has ever struck any one dead with Lighting. It turns out that "lightning bolt" only appears six times in the bible and God never strikes anyone dead. In fact he never hits anyone with lightning, he only strikes the earth near people to scatter them. I got curious and wondered if my search was too narrow, so I hacked off bolt. This resulted in 40 more hits (46 in all) and still God had not struck some sinner for walking into his house.

I do not like that phrase at all because it does not represent the true God. If you are searching for him, you do not have to be perfect, you just have to seek his perfection. In his death and resurection he redeemed you.