Culture and the Effects it has on Christianity

One of the hardest things a young man or woman can endure, is when several people rise up against them. I don't mean anything aggressive, and that's what this may sound like. Let me better explain with a story about myself and how people used their authority, personalities, and language to changed how I acted as a teenager.


1 year ago, I worked at a place called Jet's Pizza. The store was just opening and I got the chance to work with the first employees and managers of the business. When I first started working there, I was known as the "Christian kid." or the "kid who never sins." Why was this? Well, I got called these names because I wouldn't sing their songs, talk the way they talk about people, swear, and be disrespectful to my bosses. I was a beginner Christian, however, at age 14 (almost 15) I was easily persuaded to the "dark side."

With much persuasion from the employees, which soon made me feel like everyone was nagging me, I started to become a part of their culture. By culture, I mean the way they live, how they act, and all the differences from my own culture to their own.

I started listening to secular music, ones that didn't glorify the Lord at all. I started talking about girls the wrong way, I wasn't giving respect to people, and I continually was slipping away from the relationship I once had with my family. I was removing myself from the Christian and home school culture I had been raised in, and was becoming a sinful punk who didn't do anything that honored the Lord.

I was able to hide the way I acted from my parents, and lived two separate lives that were both dishonoring to my family and to the Lord.

However, a year passed, and my family forced me to quit my job. Not because of how I was acting, but because I was starting High school+college and I didn't have the time to work. I was really mad and this cause my heart to turn away from my family and the Lord all the more.

Although my life was confusing, chaotic, and very sinful during this time; the Lord found me and saved me from all those thoughts, songs and images I had in my mind. Quitting was the BEST option for me. I spent more time with my family, spent more time growing back into my original culture, and started learning more about God and the way Faith works and how Jesus washes away all sins.

I shared this story with you, to hopefully show you how people can influence other people to accept certain characteristics, habits, and/or language. I also shared this story with you, so you can better understand the background I came from, and so you can understand the glory of God; how He saved me and took me from that darkness.

Sure...I know what your thinking, surely all that stuff I learned from those people didn't leave me once I accepted Jesus. That fact is, it didn't. I am still struggling, to this day, with the sinful lusts of the flesh. However, with Jesus's help, I know I can be redeemed from these sins and be able to better serve Him.

Now, back to the main topic I was trying to cover. I know this post is long, but hang with me for a couple more paragraphs! :-)

Culture effects the way Christians behave and act around the world. Sometimes the culture we are a part of is good, and sometimes not so good. Thousands of different cultures live in the world, and every one's stereotypes (the exact characteristics of a person: such as, White, Northern European, Christian, Homeschooler, etc.) are pretty much different!

Let me share with you a conversation I had with someone on Face book. The name of the those who comment on my post will be anonymous. AND I MEAN NO DISRESPECT WHEN POSTING THIS. I am only trying to help prove my point by sharing an example from a couple different people, who are a part of different cultures and have different stereotypes.

As you can see it's a long discussion, however several times "culture" was thrown in there. This is just an example of how culture effects the way Christians think. G is saying that because culture says one way, it's best to just agree with them because you'll fit in as a person better. Does that make sense? There is more details and different lessons that can be learned from the discussion...but that's for another time.

I am sharing all this informmation with you because I am trying to warn you from the effects culture can have on us, as young teenagers, and I want to encourage you to stand your ground! Do not let others persuade you into sin. Instead, pray and ask God to help you stand strong.

Hopefully this makes sense and is an encouragment to you. Please let me know if you have any questions, concerns, opinions, or comments by writing to www.dedicatedchristians.com

Thanks for reading!

Godbless,

Josiah

Book Review 1

Recently I got to review a book called Night of the Living Dead Christian.

This book was a fictional story, based on Zombies, Werewolves, and Vampires. I normally don't read books like these, and I hate what these three "figures" do...

However, this was labeled as a Christian book, and I thought I would read it. I tried keeping an open mind, not letting my personal knowledge/feelings interfere with this book in anyway.

So, to start us out, I will explain what I thought of the book.

First of all, I thought it was very immature. The writing was kind of poorly written, and I thought I was reading a children's book. The "adult" in this story was especially immature, and made several remarks/statements that disturbed me because of his age.

Also, the book had zombies, vampire, and werewolves....I don't like these figures at all, however they did play out an "important" part in the book, which I will explain later.

Also, the values of a Christian were mixed up...such like the "adult Christian" using a Message Bible, just to make the bible to read more interesting...the Adult Christian (main character in the book) was also extremely immature in his Christian faith, I myself am immature as well, but this character in the book, played out a role where he was helping a werewolf turn to Christ, but didn't even have any knowledge of how to become a Christian. All the "adult christian" was, "Go to church."

This book is all about how everyone has sins, and those sins resemble the creatures such as vampires, zombies or werewolves. Vampires are lustful and prideful, zombies follow anyone who tells them to do something even if it is wrong, and werewolves are rebellious, angry, and abusive. The author was pretty much stating that everyone who did not die for Christ, is one of these creatures. Which is something I do understand and believe. I was a "monster" as well, before I turned to Christ. This was the only highlight of this book for me.

The werewolf is taught how to receive Christ, by Jesus actually appearing to him in a burning building. Jesus asked him if he wanted to believe in Him, and than proceeded to tear off the werewolf's skin and face, revealing the true "human" he was.

I do understand the author was trying to preach a message to the unsaved people of this World...however I was not told this, and I thought it was for Christians as well. This book lacks good information about how to become a Christian, and it lacks the mature content it needs for older readers.

However, Thank you Tyndale Publishers and Matt Mikalatos for letting me review this book. Although my review may seem negative, I enjoyed reading another person's view point of the Christian faith, and how to enter into the Lord's kingdom.

God bless!!!

Josiah

Happy New Year!

Well, Christmas is over. The presents are all in use and you might want to stay up late and watch some glass ball thing fall on New Year's Eve. You also might be working on your New Year Resolutions. As Christians, what should be our resolutions as we go into 2012? I want to present to you today 3 points that you should add.

We should read our Bibles.

Reading our Bibles is known theologically as "special revelation," the way God reveals Himself to us. It is a sure way to draw us closer to Him. So I challenge you to consider a yearly Bible reading plan with me. If you'd like to do this, please leave a comment so that we can keep each other accountable to it. Or if you'd like, you can send me an email at dedicatedchristians@gmail.com.

We should pray.

Where are you in your prayer life? Do you really believe that God answers prayers? Well, He does. He's answered many prayers in my life, even for small things that most people would think God doesn't care about. He really does care about you and what your individual needs are. Praying is our way of talking to God, a direct line, if I may. Praying is another vital part of the Christian life.

And last, but not least...

We should reflect on and share the news of Jesus Christ.

When people look at us, we want them to see Jesus shining through us and His joy radiating from us. This is also vital. Acts 4:13 says: "When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus." Do you want that to be said of you? That you were with Jesus and people could see Him through you?

Not only should people "see" Jesus in us, but we should "tell" them the Good News! We do this by witnessing every chance we get.

Contrary to popular belief, we do need to change. As Christians, we continually go through the sanctification process. We are changed to become more like Christ. Through the things I have discussed above, you can cultivate a deeper relationship with Christ.

I challenge you today to include these into your resolution-- that you'll read your Bible, pray, and reflect Jesus by sharing the Good News.

If you don't know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, feel free to contact me through my email address (above) and I'll try and help answer any questions you may have.

God Bless, and Happy New Year!

Matthew

dedicatedchristians@gmail.com

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!!!!!

Christmas is a time to celebrate the time of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ!

A long time ago, I decided to see if Christmas was biblical to celebrate. Now, I’m not talking about the gifts, Christmas tree, and other traditions people have for the holiday. I’m talking about the celebration of Jesus’s birth. Should we celebrate the Birth of Jesus Christ? Does the Bible clearly say we should?

I asked several people for their comments on the question, and I got some pretty awesome results.

A fellow blogger and friend said this:

So CHRISTmas..... Well, you have probably heard the whole Christmas tree subject discussed in reference to Jeremiah 10... I think it's pretty obvious that it's talking about an idol, not a tree, but a carved wooden image. I don't think it's wrong to have a tree, but I don't particularly like the idea of it just because; it distracts from Christ,
fake trees are ugly, and real ones are expensive,
if you can't have Christmas without it, then it IS an idol, what's the point?,
and why can't we pick something like a Nativity scene instead?!

I think Christmas started up north somewhere, maybe Iceland?? When these pagan people got saved, and the Christian leaders made up a holiday during "Yuletide" (or whatever it's called, that probably isn't it! ;) called "Christmas" so that the people wouldn't want to join the pagan celebration. Of course it's hard to know because there are so many different supposed origins of Christmas that it gets confusing, as my comment is probably becoming about now...

The thing is, I don't think that the Bible clearly supports (or is against) celebrating Christmas. So, since there is no Biblical proof, I think it is up to each person to know what God is telling them they should do.
Of course we know that Jesus wasn't even born in December, but in the fall, more like around September or October, during the Feast of Tabernacles. So it's weird that we celebrate it on a totally wrong date. I guess we Christians could really be rebels and celebrate then...

ANYWAYS..... Yeah. I don't think it's wrong or right, really. Except Santa is disgusting, and too much spotlight is given to the gifts. It seems right (to me, personally) that we would want to celebrate the day that our Lord was born, just like we celebrate the day He died/rose.

This helped me determine where Christmas started from, and when is became a holiday. I looked more closely into the subject I am amazed at some of the facts I learned. I learned most of these facts at a site I used for college; http://www.history.com/topics/christmas. Like the comments above, this holiday, “Christmas” it started in Germany, and several places in Europe. Now, this day was not celebrated for Jesus, instead, it was celebrated for their pagan god Oden. The time was set to celebrate Oden, during December, because that was when the farmers would have the most meat (from cows that they slaughtered for food) and didn’t have much work to do. In Rome, they would celebrate two pagan gods, the planet Saturn, and Mithra (and infant god born from a rock). December 25^th was the day Rome, celebrated Mithra, the god of the unconquerable sun.

So, this gives a little information about how the holiday got started. When Rome and Europe were celebrating these holidays, America was yet to be colonized.

This brings me to my next point. Christians did not celebrate Christmas, instead they only celebrated Easter. Which the Bible, 2^nd Timothy: 8-9, says that we need to remember Jesus’s death and resurrection. So Easter was started for the remembrance of His death and resurrection.

Jesus wasn’t even born during the December 25^th, so why do we celebrate it then? Well, Christians in the past didn’t want to celebrate pagan gods; however, they too had an abundance of food and time to celebrate. So they decided to celebrate their God, Jesus, who was born. So that’s how Christmas got started, and this I believe is glorifying the Lord in a remarkable way.

I will now share with you another comment from another friend:

I did some research on the topic of Christmas last year and did a little more now. I do think some of the parts of Christmas came from wrong origins but overall I think it's a good thing. But in the last year I've found the terrible effects of taking "Christ" out of CHRISTmas. Many companies will not allow their ads to say Christmas in it, instead it has to be "Happy Holidays." It's really sad. Below is a segment of a blog post (that never actually got published) I wrote a while ago, I don't know if I agree with it all now, but I think it's good food for thought.

"...The birth of our Lord Jesus was an amazing thing. A group of people have decided to make December 31 the day we celebrate his birth. All of the things signify something in our holiday.

·         The tree (What Jesus did on the cross)

·         Lights and ornaments (representational of the glory and wonder of what Jesus did on the cross)

·         The gifts (God gave us the gift of Jesus on his birth, the wise men gave Jesus presents, and Jesus also gave us the gift of salvation on the tree. We continue the tradition by following in the joy of giving gifts)

As for "Santa," I've heard about the "Satan" thing before and I believe it may have turned into that. The following quote illustrates what I mean.

"...Young children sometimes confuse Santa with Jesus Christ since "he knows when you've been sleeping, he knows when you're awake, and he knows if you've been bad or good . . .

The idea of gifts for good behavior can connote a "reward for good deeds" mentality which is opposed to God's gift of His Son through faith. Scripture does promise rewards for obedience."

And later on the same page:

"The Santa Clause idea originated with a man by the name of St. Nicholas who was the Bishop of Myra in Lycia in the area of present day Turkey. He went about, often at night, giving gifts to poor and needy children. He later became the patron saint of children in the Roman Catholic Church. From here the story grew and became legend in country after country with various details were deleted and added as the legend of St. Nick grew."

It's all very interesting to think about. We've never done an extensive study of it (I study things for fun all the time) but I think, in ways, it has gone wrong. But we have to remember that around the season it can give opportunity to explain to others where the "Christ" part came from, how He came to earth to die for our sins. What a gift! That should be what we celebrate over Christmas!!

This helped me get a better understanding of the “symbols” we use during Christmas. Such as: the Tree, the gifts, and the ornaments on the tree. I agree with these, however, I noticed that they also glorify the fact that Jesus died for us. So they are linked. Christmas is a way to celebrate Jesus’s Birth as a way to remember he died for us. However, I don’t think most Christians explain this part to their family during Christmas. And most of the families I know (none of you following my blog) don’t even state the fact that Jesus was born.

I will share one more comment from a good friend, and then wrap this up:

At first I thought that it was kind of a silly question!!! Of course Christmas is biblical; it is celebrating Jesus Christ and his Birth! I couldn’t think of any verse or anything though. So I started to look it up in the bible. I still could not find anything about celebrating his birthday! The only thing I found that was sort of close was “...rejoice and be exceedingly glad in His birth…”!!!
And since I couldn't find it in the bible I started to look it up on the internet!!
I found several “Ideas” about how it started … lots of mocking Christ and the “traditional” Christmas, but not much else!
About the tree being an idle… I agree with the previous comment when they said “if it’s not Christmas without it than it is an idle” . I don’t think that it necessarily distracts from Jesus, but if it does than I don’t think that it is right to have one. But I personally think that Christmas trees are so much fun and smell wonderful!!

The Lord, Jesus Christ, was born and we can celebrate his birth. Why? The Bible says to remember and think of Him in all way do. This is why I believe Christmas is Biblical. However, santa and the other things we celebrate such as elves and some of the “symbols” we use during this day, I don’t believe glorify the Lord.

Thanks so much for reading my post, I know it was long, but I learned a lot, and I know I won’t think of Christmas the same way again. Also, I know I will be thinking about Jesus’s birth, as well as His death and resurrection.

God bless,

Josiah

What are we here for?

Hello everyone!

My name is Josiah, one of the (hopefully) many authors of this blog, and I thought I would explain why this blog is here and what our dreams are for this site.

To:

Discover, and determine tons of knowledge about the Bible and our faith.
Evangelize, to help spread the good news about the Lord, Jesus Christ.
Delegate, potential posts given to young Christians to write, or instructions to encourage a relationship with God.
Inform, teach, encourage and help others by telling about our findings in the Word, and our faith.
Communication, the ability for a safe place for Christians to talk to one another.
Adoration, to pray for others, and worship the Lord in all our work.
Teach, not only about what the Bible says, but about how the sins of this world are effecting us and how we are dealing with them.
Emend, help those who are struggling in their faith by encouragement, prayer, and friendship.
Die, we need to teach others to die to their flesh, and give themselves "wholly" unto God.

So, we are Dedicated to do all these things. One of my prayers is that this blog WILL be all these things and, God willing, much more!

God bless!

Josiah

Welcome!

This is the beginning to, God-willing, to something that will lead teenagers around the world to be encouraged in their faith. By hearing stories from other teenagers, how they became Christians, and how their walk with the Lord is currently going.

This blog will hopefully encourage me, and other authors to continue in our faith, and understand more and more about God's Word.

To request to be an author, write to me at dedicatedchristians@gmail.com. Thank you!

Josiah