I'm reading this book...

It's Called Sex God: Exploring the endless connections between sexuality and spirituality by Rob Bell. It was a suggestion from Kati Bailey, and well I am only on chapter 3, but it is AMAZING! So as I am reading it I have been marking different things that have stood out to me and well I have decided to talk about them in a post.

The first thing that struck me was he mentioned the book of Psalms and where it says that "The Lord has established his throne in heaven and his kingdom rules over all." Bell then stated that to the Jewish mind "heaven is not a fixed, unchanging geographical location somewhere other than this world. Heaven is the realm where tings are as God intends them to be. The place where things are under the rule and reign of God. And that place can be anywhere, anytime, with anybody." When I read this I was like WOW!!! That is so true, yet we (as in this generation) forget that God is omnipresent, he really does see EVERYTHING we do and this hit me hard. We think that God only sees us on Sunday, so we dress up, and act like God wants us to act on Sunday then turn around the rest of the week and be who this world wants us to be, and I believe at some point we are all guilty of it. As Bell said the Jewish people don't think of heaven as a set geographical location, and I feel we think of it as having an address, as being like a planet and having its own little spot and destination that we will report to but it isn't. HEAVEN is everywhere and anywhere God wants it to be.

Another point Bell brings up is treating people as objects (which is pretty much the WHOLE 1st chapter). There were a couple of passages I marked that deal with this issue so to speak. Bell had previously talked about the passage in the Bible about lusting and gouging your eye out (Matthew 5:27-30 I think) He stated that Jesus' point with that statement was not to mutilate your body but "that something serious- sometimes hellish- happens when people are treated as objects, and we should avoid it at all costs." There is another whole section in chapter one called "THE NEW HUMANITY" that impacted me also about this topic and I am just going to put little blurps from it: "God created us "in his image"; What we often do is reverse the creative process that God initiated. We start with different cultural backgrounds and skin colors and nationalities, and it's only when we look past these things that we are able to get to what we have in common- that we are fellow image-bearers with the shared task of caring for God's creation. We get it all backward. We see all of the differences first, and only later, maybe, do we begin to see the similarities." I feel that that, speaks for itself. There is yet another paragraph that talks about objectifying people "When a human is mistreated, objectified or neglected, when they are treated less than human, these actions are actions taken against God. Because how you treat the creation reflects how you feel about the creator." This little passage right there spoke volumes upon volumes to me. Sometime in all of our lives I am sure someone has made fun of someone else, by doing this we made fun of God. If we are ALL are made in HIS image then if we made fun of someone we made fun of God. When we exclude because of race, sex, or disability we are excluding God and are tell them, along with him, that "You Aren't Good Enough, Your Different, You Can't Do This or That." So next think are you making fun of God, Is how you treating His creation showing how you feel about him?

That is just somethings I found from chapter 1 that really spoke to me personally, and that I feel would speak to just about everyone. The second chapter was very interesting as well and believe I will cover that one in a separate post (I have quite a bit marked again!).

Christ brought us together through his death on the cross. The Cross got us to embrace, and that was the end of the hostility. Christ came and preached peace to you outsiders and peace to us insiders. He treated us as equals, and so made us equals. Through him we both share the same Spirit and have equal access to the Father. (Ephesians 2: 16-18 THE MESSAGE)