Confession is a part of the life of a Christian. The Bible talks about the importance of confession to be free from our sins. Each Christian denomination conceptualizes confession in a different way. As far as I know only the Catholic Church has a structure way of conceiving confession. In this structure the person reviews their conscience, goes to their priest, tells them all their sins, the priest assigns them a penance and once the penance is accomplish the sins are forgiven.
I’m not against confession, or technology for that matter, but I’m pretty baffled by the new I-phone/I-Pad confession application that Apple has recently released. The position of the Catholic Church is that they approve of it, but that it’s not a substitute for face to face confession. What does that even mean? If it’s not a substitute, those using the application would still have to do the face to face? Then, what’s the point!
I also question the potential legal implications for those using the application. Maybe I need to layoff my crime shows but, how confidential will that application be? We know that priest are the only ones covered under legal privilege of any conversation from someone confessing to them, which I think is unfair for other religious leaders, but that’s another conversation. At the same time it’s known that if someone commits a crime or an indiscretion it would be covered under the traditional confession, but if the phone is tapped, could the police potentially have access to that information or even a private investigator?
From the spiritual standpoint, I think it would miss the purpose of confessing to another human being. We confess to God for the purpose of forgiveness, but as indicated in James 5:16 “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective” Confession to another human being is for the person’s own healing. How much of the counseling, prayer and healing can occur during this electronic process?
As much as I favor technology to compliment with information our spiritual walk, this is one of those occasions were in my opinion you can’t substitute human contact.
Just my humble opinion, comments agreeing or disagreeing are all welcome!
Continuing some of this technology talk, I was going through a phase of condemnation about my quiet time with God. Every morning I try to at least read a verse and meditate on it, but I usually don’t find that verse in my actual big bible on my nightstand. I felt bad thinking that because I was not opening the book all the time I was not doing enough.
First of all, I discovered that reading the Word of God is for me and not for God. I always felt that reading the bible was my ritual of worship and that it was done to please God, so I would read some, kind of like you read a billboard on the side of the road and my duty was done. As I’ve grown in my faith I’ve realized that although reading the Word of God it is an act of worship, it’s my heart and meditation in the Word what makes it an act of worship. Also, the bible is my manual to seek God’s wisdom and will for my life, so it’s actually for me that I should read it.
I had this idea that in order to do it “right” I had to do it with the actual big paper book and that’s why I was feeling bad about it. So I stopped being religious about it and realized that I had been reading, meditating and studying the Word of God, it was just in less traditional ways. So I wanted to share with you some of the ways I do so, maybe it will help you expose yourself more to the Word.
Biblegateway.com- Sometimes when reading the word you get a particular message about what God wants to say to you, but sometimes you want to know about what the bible says about a specific subject and it can be hard to find things, especially if you don’t have too many memorized scriptures or if you’re like me that I know the bible says something about that but I don’t know where. This site has a keyword search field that makes it very easy to search by topic or keywords.
This site also has daily newsletters that come to your e-mail and are very educational.
Bible.com- it’s very similar to the one above. To me the distinction is that this particular site has some bibles studies about some very specific topics.
Twitter- Yes, believe it or not twitter has several “tweeps” that post scriptures all day. If you have a Smartphone and you have twitter on your phone, you can follow these people and wherever you are you can meditate on a verse. There are people who actually pray on Twitter everyday, twice a day (@Virtual_Abbey) some of my favorites are: @TopBibleVerses, @GreatBibleVerse, @DailyVerseTweet, and @Gods_Lighthouse You can stop and meditate wherever you are. Of course there are pastors, preachers and speakers who are on Twitter that also post very good things, but I’m focusing on those who just post scriptures. (side note: and if you’re on twitter I hope you’re following us as well @therisingmuse)
Bible on your phone- most people have smartphones these days and there is a free bible application available for most of them. I have a blackberry and the one in my phone not only allows bible reading in most popular versions, but it allows keyword searches and has some bible studies as well.
Facebook- I’ll be honest, I don’t use this one. I do have facebook on my phone, but I rarely look at it, but I’ve seen in some of my friends news feeds some bible verses pages.
So being a technology geek should not keep you from feeding your soul.
Do you know of any other sources and want to share? Feel free to comment we would love to hear from you…
Yesterday was the big day, Super bowl XLV where the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers were going for the grand honor of being the best of American football for 2011. Congratulations to the Packers on their win. Disclaimer to all football fans: I know very little about football, so forgive me in advance for any wrong terminology used in this post. The subject is not football anyway.
I like to watch the Super bowl, just because of the commercials. Advertising agencies get very creative with these mini movies that have very little to do with the products they’re selling and more to do with the entertainment of the viewers. In between commercials I admit to be smitten watching the Puppy bowl on Animal Planet. It makes more sense to me to see the puppies playing, no offense, that’s just my preference.
The thing that came to my attention was the commercial for the new Chevy Cruze. Their pitch was that the car reads your facebook status while driving. Really? I know social media plays an important role in our modern life, but our facebook news feed? Is that how shallow we have become as a society? Just like a friend commented sarcastically, “Of course we need to know that our farm is ready for harvest”. One thing is to reunite with friends, have fun online, but we are creating a new undisguised addiction that could be unhealthy for both children and adults.
People have lost their jobs for things they have posted in social media or the use of it during inappropriate times. We see commercials were families at the table are not communicating; instead they are using text, e-mail to communicate when they are in front of each other, and we laugh at those commercials, but that’s becoming our sad reality. Slowly we are buying into a culture of alienation. There’s no time for family, prayer, creativity, reading or to look at ourselves, we’re too busy being entertained.
Not to be a hypocrite, I have a facebook and twitter account. I look at my Blackberry more times than I should. I play Farmville and Café World, but I do enjoy a good conversation with a friend or a family member. I like to have silent times to actually place my thoughts in orders. I like the silence in the sweet presence of my Creator who doesn’t speak through the noise. All this is kind of hard when you spend your time entertaining yourself with other things. I think that like with other things moderation and balance are the key word here and we’re losing sight of it.
There’s a song that I love by Mercy Me, “So Long Self”. I’ve been meaning to share this for a while, but I just couldn’t think of a way. Some things don’t need presentation as they stand alone. This song presents the decision of getting rid of your old self to allow God to live in you. The way it’s presented it’s like when a relationship breaks up. In reality it’s very appropriate. Until we allow Christ to live through us, we are allowing self to make decisions for us. Self and Jesus can’t live together, because like the song says, “there’s not room for two”.
It also talks about how hard it is to get rid of self, just like a break up is…but just like some break ups it’s necessary.
Galatians 2:20
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live,
but Christ lives in me.
The life I now live in the body,
I live by faith in the Son of God,
who loved me and gave himself for me
So enjoy the song and I hope you get out of it the same thing I did.
I have a few non Christian friends; some belong to other beliefs, some non active Christians (saved but not living for Christ), “spiritual” (those who know that God exists somewhere but have no desire to live for him) and some professed atheists. Ironically, we have a lot of religious conversation and to my surprise sometimes they know more about what Jesus said and his expectations than some of my own Christian friends. Some of them ask me to pray for them when they are in the middle of a situation.
In our conversations I’ve identified certain trends of why some of them are not attracted to Christianity, so I wanted to share them with my fellow believers, because they do have a point.
It’s not Him, it’s y’all-I’ve never heard even atheists’ bad mouth Jesus or Christ. It’s not Him who bothers them, they don’t like Christians. As soon as someone proclaims to be a Christian in front of them they form an expectation of how we should behave and we tend to fall really short in that expectation, giving us very little credibility to our words. In other words, our walk doesn’t match our talk.
Judgment-We are perceived to function out of judgment and not out of love. Some unbelievers are living lives that according to the Christian walk is outside of the “acceptable”. Some of them have had experiences were they have attempted to reach out to learn about Christ and have been received with judgment about how they are going to “burn in hell” for their actions instead of loving them through their circumstances. I have to stop here and say that this happens to Christians who leave the faith as well or to some of those non active Christians that I was talking about. As humans, we can all fall short of the glory and what are we to do. Galatians 6:1 reads “’ Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted” If the sin of that person is a personal struggle for you, don’t go there, the point is not for you to fall, but help directing the person to someone that can actually help, in love. If it’s a struggle for you, seek help, because it means that you have unresolved situations yourself. Be honest about it. But how many times have people been humiliated and condemned for what they have done instead of pursuing their restoration.
We also sometimes forget how we got to the feet of Christ. I’ve been on both sides of this equation. Personally, when I became a Christian I was very young, so I didn’t experience the redeeming life with Christ after big fallout. I was prideful. I didn’t understand why people couldn’t get it together, until I fell on my face and didn’t know how to come back. It was then when I understood mercy and grace. God placed loving people in my life to show me the way back, but those people never made me feel like I was scum and they were holy, which brings me to my next point.
Being genuine- Life in Christ is a journey not a destination. I think much is emphasized in the church and the rules than the relationship with God. With this I’m not saying that church and guidelines are not important or necessary, but many times we try to make people act a certain way that they are not ready to instead of loving them through the process and allowing the Word of God and their personal relationship to Jesus to flow and do the changes that GOD wants to make in a person, not the ones we want to see.
Just like a child knows when someone loves them or not, wounded people know too. If you honestly don’t love someone, don’t try to fake it, they will know and your words will mean nothing, especially if you’re saying that you love them in Christ.
Authenticity-Trying to fake life and present a holier than thou image just because you’re a Christian and present that once you received Christ live was a bed of roses repels unbelievers more than anything. When people are struggling, thinking that there’s no way that God would accept them where they are now, keeps them away from Christ.
I have a friend who has had some of my same struggles, she was key in my return to Christ because I saw how even though she had gone through, God made it happen for her. She taught me the steps to take out of the gutter and how I had believed the lie of no redemption and how God really wanted me, but she didn’t do it by Bible thumping although we did speak of the Word. She did it by sharing with me how through the Word, God spoke to her in her darkest moments. Wait! She has dark moments being a Christian…Huh, there’s hope for me!
I knew then what to pray for and how to stand on the Word of God, because of her story. Is she perfect? No! Is she living a perfect rosy live now? No! She has a real life with the same struggles that everyone has, the difference is how she overcomes them and that inspires me to overcome mine and hang in there.
Why was this instrumental? Because even though I knew the Lord, up until that time those speaking into my life were just pointing out what I was doing wrong and how I was going to burn too if I didn’t get it together. If I, who knew the Lord couldn’t get back, how do you think someone who doesn’t know his love would feel even compelled to try? Someone said that you may be the only bible someone reads. If you’re condemning other people’s lives, that’s what their erroneous bible is teaching them about a life in Christ. If you’re not real with your own struggles and your own difficulties then, they will know that you’re not trustworthy and that the god that you claim to serve is just as phony as you are. Is that how you want to present Christ to others?
When this subject has come up I’ve told my friends to look at Christ and not at us, because we are human and jacked up. All I can do is try to live as genuine as possible, pray and allow God to work in their hearts and in mine (because I’m still a work in progress), because at the end of the day Salvation is a personal decision and it’s not me who saves, but He who lives in me. So you my fellow believers are you living an authentic life or do you wear your Sunday mask every time you have to talk about Christ? Do you talk about Jesus, or do you try to live like Jesus?
I heard from a local radio station that today was National Chocolate Day? First of all I’m really disappointed as a chocoholic that I didn’t get the memo sooner about such day even existed. I had been using Valentine’s Day, Easter, my birthday, Sunday and any other day to make it Chocolate day.
Now, I don’t know if the people from the radio station have accurate information or my Google search does, but from what I found there are three National Chocolate days, which makes my outrage grow that I didn’t know such things…LOL! According to my sources there’s a Chocolate Day celebrated on July 7th. I wonder if that’s why my mother chose that day as her wedding date.
Then there’s the US National Chocolate Day, which is celebrated October 28th. I can see that given that the colors of the fall are brown, beige and terracotta tones. Also the weather starts to cool off so hot chocolate is in order. Chocolate fits right in.
Finally is the World Chocolate Day, which is celebrated on September 4th. Pretty close to Labor Day, nothing better than some chocolate after a hard day of work.
So mark your calendar my friends! If the radio station was wrong, it doesn’t matter, we’re celebrating Chocolate Day today too, for those of us who have discovered the passion for chocolate. If you were to ask my opinion on chocolate, if I have not made it obvious yet, let me just say… Any kind of nut covered with chocolate or anything that has raspberry and chocolate as an ingredient was personally made by the hand of God. : P
I’m dropping just a little note to let you know what’s going on in my writing world. The short story “Loud Silence”, yes the same one on the e-reads will be submitted today for the “Snag Today” magazine writing contest.
My two new short stories, “Hope” and “George” were already submitted this morning for “Nurturing Paws” the new anthology by Whispering Angel Books….
If any of my fellow writers would like to enter their stories, the information is in my upcoming calendar on the Publications and Achievements page. There’s still time.
So, cross your fingers and say a prayer, 2011 here I come!
It’s rare that I would speak about someone in specific, but I think this particular situation warrants me to call out the particular person behind it. To be honest, since I don’t listen to hip hop music, I didn’t know who Kanye West was until the whole Swift Taylor incident. I do understand that people think that bad publicity is publicity anyway, but people have to measure the responsibility that comes with being in the public eye.
After the said incident, he has been involved in other less than desirable situations. In his public apology, he said he had been affected by his mother’s death and that he needed time to get himself together. I’ve read some feedback about him being mentally disturbed, but it makes me wonder if his whole crew it’s mentally disturbed as well when they go along his shenanigans.
The last Kanye thing is the upcoming release of his video “Monster” in which from the leaked preview, shows dead women, clad in lingerie, hang by chains around their necks. West making sexual moves toward dead or drugged women propped up in a bed, and a naked dead or drugged woman lays sprawled on a sofa.
I wonder how he would feel if this was one of his relatives being displayed in this video. This is another way to denigrate women, promote the numbness of violence towards women, which we have way enough of that. Women were not created to be men playthings or to be objectified. Women are a gift from God and as such they should be treated.
With so many campaigns against domestic violence and against violence against women, this video promotes exactly the opposite. This is not what we want our children to learn. I encourage you to sign the petition below and send a message to our media producers that we are really done with just accepting anything that they flash in front of our eyes.
Last week was quite unusual. At least in the south US, things came to a halt. Airports, schools and workplaces were closed due to traffic and weather conditions and many were stranded on the streets. It got me thinking to never underestimate the places where you were assigned to be at any moment in a situation.
Sometimes God’s places us in weird places or even alone for a purpose. You don’t know when the place where you think that you’re uncomfortable and stranded is an opportunity to witness to a person. A simple conversation that starts about a delay can end up in a healing conversation. Isaiah 43:10says“You are my witnesses,” declares the LORD, “and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor will there be one after me”
If you were like me, locked inside your house there are many things that could be done. If you have family, when was the last time that all of you spent time together? Take opportunities like this to get out, play with your children, and find out what’s going on with that teenager that’s been giving you a headache. Use that fireplace that you’ve never used and burn marshmallows on a stick and create the perfect time for a conversation. Look at your spouse, when was the last time that you had a romantic moment?
If you live alone, It was a good time to rest from the craziness of life, instead of trying to craze out of the house. Contact those family members or friends who you haven’t talk to in years. Write that letter that you’ve been putting off forever. I know I did. Anyway, seek God and find out why in this time and in your current circumstances what is the purpose of your place, as it is no coincidence that you are where you are. (Matthew 10:29-31)
I hope you enjoyed this time in a way or another.Now that we’re back to the everyday routine, take time to evaluate how every second of your life has a purpose an enjoy your life, right there were you are. Live with purpose. Live intentional, regardless of your surroundings
Seize the moment and live every moment with purpose to live a fulfilled life.
Naty Matos 