forgive me?

I saw this on a friend's facebook page a few days ago and it made me to some serious thinking with a lot that's been going on in my life and around me.

"God forgives sin and wickedness when we repent and come to Him in faith, but he does not always prevent us from experiencing the consequences of our wicked behavior."

Now- the reason I felt like blogging about this is for the main reason that it's come up in several debates in my classes recently, and I feel that this is how a lot of people view Christianity.

Okay, yes. God does forgive our sins when we come to Him. However, that is not an excuse to do whatever you want. Jesus died on the cross not so we would intentionally do things against God's will, but so that while we are trying to be like Christ we're allowed some mess ups along the way. It seems to me that most "Christians" today feel that because God is loving and forgives us when we sin against him, it gives them the license to go around and do as they please- as long as they ask for forgiveness. The purpose of the cross and God's gift of His only Son was NOT so we could take advantage of that gift.

Looking back, one of the wisest things my mom ever said was "sorry means you'll try your hardest not to do it again". I may have fought her tooth and nail about a lot of things in life, but I could never come up with an argument back for that one sentence. When you look at that from a Biblical standpoint, it ties right in to the point I'm trying to make.

Say you have a teenager. This teenager lies to you about everything he does. Do you forgive him for it? Of course- because he's your son and you love him. The teenager can do one of two things. He can say sorry and try like heck not to do it again, or he can repeat the same behavior and be just as insincere with his apology as he was the previous time(s). As the parent, once you see this behavior, hopefully the kid would be getting punished.

The same goes for God. He loves us unconditionally, but somewhere along the way there WILL be consequences for blatant disobedience- and it may not necessarily be on this earth.
Revelations 21:8 says
 "But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”


If you really think about it, all of the ten commandments are listed right there. 
Idolatry-  1, 2, and 10.
Faithless- 4, 3, 5
Murderers- 6
Sexually Immoral- 7
Liars- 8 (stealing is in direct correlation with lying), 9


I believe God forgives us. However, I don't believe for one second if we consciously disobey him (whether there is conviction or not- we know the difference in right and wrong and are capable of reading what God requires) he's going to let us by. If we try and live our lives to please Him and mess up along the way, then I do in fact believe we'll still receive His gift of Heaven. But, not when we only come to Him when we need forgiving.
The Bible also says this in Matthew 7:21-23
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’


And right there in those few sentences it tells us not everyone who is under the impression they're going to Heaven is. You can't just do good works and then go out and live like the world does- you have to live by God's word.


I'm not saying I'm prefect or have never sinned at all. I definitely have had my share of struggles. But now, I'm making an effort to do my best at serving and pleasing God. And I don't say that to brag or be prideful- but to say that it is a constant effort to do the "right thing". You have to try and not let the world sway you, and it gets hard sometimes. But you can't let people convince you to do what you know is wrong.

the day that true love died.

I just wanted to put this up here. It's late right now- I plan on writing more tomorrow though(: I hope everyone who may come across this blog listens to this.

to greece, or not to greece.

So. A huge opportunity has presented itself. This opportunity is a trip to Greece over the summer. The more and more I think about it, the more I want to go. It would be awesome to go over there...and it's only for ten days. I have to raise 2500 dollars though, and would have to give up my trip to Pittsburgh. With that being said, this is an extremely hard decision.
I'm going to get some more information on it and pray about it...I'd also appreciate the prayers of those who read this. I don't want to just up and do something for the heck of it like I did last summer.