echoes of redemption | steven dilla

I’ll be the first to admit this could be a non sequitur of a post… but I’ve got to throw it out there: blogospheric negativity is a disease that rots the internet. And for some reason, it is near pandemic levels on “Christian” blogs.

I read a decent amount of blogs, and try to check out a new 5-10 blogs a week. It is amazing to me how many Christians have blogs where they post negatively. Toward other Christians. Toward the world. Toward global warming. You name it, you can probably find a Christian’s blog that’s negative about it.

I try to stay overwhelmingly positive when I talk about things on my blog - but here it is, my most negative post yet - I’m going negative on negativity.

• There are few things that waste a Christian’s energy more than negativity. The energy we spend thinking of ways to destroy people verbally is robbed from our calling to bring restoration to the world.
• More often than not our negativity breeds other’s negativity. Instead of building the body of Christ, we tear it down.
  
• Negativity usually is trying to isolate a person or group of people - yet it almost always isolates the negative person. Don’t get me wrong, negative people tend to move in herds. But the downward spiral of negativity in their group has so cut them off from reality, they are clueless to what is really happening.
  

Instead of going negative:

• Use your passion for an issue to drive you into positive action to fix that issue. Turn what could be useless venting into forward motion for a solution.
• Spread positivity like it’s a plague. Find the solution to your problem - God put it on your heart for a reason - and passionately back it.
• Surround yourself with positive people who want to make a difference in the world, not just point out problems.

If you’ve been following the Scripture links out of my posts the last couple of days you noticed I switched to YouVersion for my online Bible.

Really it’s more of an online community around the Bible. You can highlight a verse (or verses) and post links, videos, comments, audio files, etc all to the verse.

Check it out -> YouVersion.com

Bloggers will post hundreds of April fool’s day jokes today - following in the keystrokes of a few that were a bit preemptive, and a few that are just cool. Interestingly enough, most of the pranks on the internet will revolve around something big that just can’t be true.I was reading in Ephesians today and came across a couple verses that could have sounded like a 2000 year old April fools joke. They are just so big… there is no earthly way they’re true.

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he has loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ - by grace you have been saved - And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.Ephesians 2: 4, 5, 8 & 9 

The whole section (2:1-10) is a screaming testament to our salvation through Christ by faith. But how foolish is that to believe? That even though I don’t deserve it, could never earn it and didn’t even know to ask for it, God extended grace?No April fools joke, that’s the gospel (fool).