Responses

The world keeps moving and things keep changing.  Just last week America voted in a historic election.  For the first time in history the United States of America has a black president-elect.  He has been called, through all the ad campaigns, smear tactics, propaganda and fear mongering, things like “Barack Obama is a terrorist, the Anti-Christ, Santa Claus, the cause of Global Warming, the end of the world as we know it, the savior and messiah of the human race and the man who shot Liberty Valance.”  I do not believe Barack Obama is any of those things.  I do not care for the man as a politician because I disagree with his viewpoints and stances on a lot of things.  But what I believe about Barack Obama is beside the point. 

In this time of uncertainty for the future and after this historic election I have heard many Christians say things along the lines of “God is in control” or “It’s in God’s hands”.  These are in fact true statements.  I agree with those statements, but in effect what these Christians are saying is “I wash may hands of any and all personal responsibility and this is just a cop-out I use to get myself out of actually taking a stance, standing firm and possibly getting mud on my face if I am wrong.”  My question is: when did Christianity become an excuse or cop out for a person’s personal responsibility? Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I enjoy waking up every morning to a nice cup of hot tea, Earl Grey, hot, and sitting on the couch while cracking open the New England Journal of Medicine.  However, if you are like most normal people in this world and you’re not like me you probably have no idea that earlier this week the New England Journal of Medicine has redefined death.  The Journal and its staff, in their infinite wisdom, have decided that you shall be claimed legally or at least medically dead after 75 seconds without a heartbeat.  Now most of you are probably saying that seems like a long time, and it is but when you consider that there have been numerous documented cases of people who have had their hearts stopped for 75 seconds or more (the longest I’ve heard of is 5 minutes). 

Now that is significant.  What this means is that doctors will now have the power to choose not to revive you in order to declare you dead so they can harvest your organs for transplant.  That doesn’t seem like a bad idea to give organs to people in need. But at the cost of a life that could be saved, that is a stretch.

Read the rest of this entry »

A note to the reader:

I am quite biased toward this book in that I’ve read it more than two times and advocate many of its principles in my daily conversations.  However, I will attempt to take an objective look at Wild At Heart for your sake.

“Wild At Heart” is a Christian inspirational book written by John Eldridge. It targets a male audience and attempts to explain how one may come to terms with his masculinity while living in a seemingly contradictory world.  The book’s subtitle is, “Discovering The Secret of A Man’s Soul.”  There are over two million copies in print.

In “Wild At Heart”, John Eldridge clearly states what our world has done to men:

Read the rest of this entry »

“There were thousands who died on a cross and many have had more painful deaths than that of Christ.  But only one person has ever received the full measure of the curse of God while on a cross.  I doubt Jesus was even aware of the nails and the spear- He was so overwhelmed by outer darkness.  On the cross Jesus was in the reality of hell.”–R.C. Sproul, Saved from What? 

It is always good to focus on the cross.  When I was younger I used to struggle with one of the questions Mike mentioned tonight: “Why did Christ have to die?”  I did not understand why a God that is so powerful, timeless, holy and loving would not be able to forgive sins without all of this.  I did not understand why God had to be just.  More importantly, I did not understand the many things God accomplished through the cross. 
Read the rest of this entry »

I stumbled upon this article over the summer.  I meant to share it earlier, but forgot.  So here it is.

The article talks about why a son of a Hamas leader turned his back on Islam and embraced Christianity.  I found the article very interesting.  Here is an excerpt of Mosab Hassan Yousef describing his message:

“My message to them is, first of all, to open their minds. They were born to Muslim families — this is how they got Islam and this is just like … any other religion, like growing up (in) a Christian family, or growing up (in) a Jewish family.

So my point is that I want those people to open their eyes, their minds, to start to understand and imagine that they weren’t born for a Muslim family. And use their minds.

Why did God give them minds? Open their hearts. Read the Bible. Study their religion. I want to open the gate for them, I want them to be free. They will find a good life on earth just by following God — and they’re also going to guarantee the other life.”

One thing we shouldn’t forget is that God put us on this earth to share His gospel with those who are blind.  In Acts 26, Jesus tells Paul he will be sending him to his people “to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in [Christ].” 

Yousef’s passion to go back to his people to open their eyes is evidence of grace and salvation.  How awesome is that!  I pray that we may all understand our charge as Christians to go back and share the gospel.  For the gospel is the power of God to save us all (Romans 1) Let’s not forget that, and let’s be encouraged; and may the Body of Christ be edified by what God is doing in Yousef’s life.  I hope we see more of this in the future.

Today, I was listening to a Christian house mix, yes there are Christian DJs that spin house and some of it is really cool.  I love techno and house mixes, and when I found a website that promoted Christian house mixes, I jumped on it.  However, the second song that I listened to really disturbed me, so much so I felt it was necessary to discuss its theological inaccuracies and its impact on our generation in this blog.

In our generation, our culture has several misunderstandings of proper biblical doctrine and many things we promote are not theologically informed.  We have some serious problems, even as Christians, with our biblical understanding.  We say and promote things that are not biblical and thus they become very dangerous to our generation.  We can easily find this in the health, wealth and prosperity gospel that is being preached in many of our churches, in music, in media, and books.

Truly, I believe many believers don’t know that they are promoting biblical and theological inaccuracies.  I would even extend this to some pastors who unknowingly preach this dangerous gospel (But as the bible points out, even if they don’t mean to damage the Gospel, they will be held accountable to what they preach).  These inaccuracies stem directly from a nation full of people who fail to seriously read scripture and meaningfully reflect on its implications to life.

Read the rest of this entry »

This was a response to another blog.  Please visit it here:

NO COURTSHIP, NOW WHAT? « Manspeak

---

I think you hit it.

I wish to place an emphasis on the “Say hello to the Lord” portion even more.

The goal of these little posts is obviously to encourage the saints to take their eyes off of the dating world and rest them upon the God.

First off, the suffering in the gospel: God most glorified through the suffering of his Son, and thus of the saints. We are not even guaranteed life tomorrow, and tomorrow our life could turn into one of suffering, so we should pray that the Spirit enable us to count our days and understand the brevity of life. And if we understand this, what is better than to simply rest in God and seek to love him?

I have been reading John Owen’s Communion with God, and it has been seriously refreshing. The first portion of the book focuses on how we commune with God the Father, in which he proves that it is through love. This love is God’s eternal and unwavering love that he gives us free of charge. So we commune with God the Father by receiving his love in faith thus resulting in us loving him.

He then transitioned to communion with Jesus Christ as our Mediator. He suggests we fellowship with Christ through the eternal joining by the Spirit dwelling within us.

A few nights ago I had also read Song of Solomon (I know, warning, warning, danger, danger this one could stir up some crazy desires). But when you look at this book through a different lens, as love and passion between Christ and his Church, we begin to touch on the subject that is so encouraging!

Between the reading of Song and Owen’s book all I can say is…Oh, how amazing it is to understand Christ as the Rose of Sharon or as the most beautiful lily of the valley (Song and Hosea). As single men (and women), we should pray that the Spirit make Christ the passion of our desires. We should rest in God by wrapping ourselves in his love. Let us drown in his love!

With this brief summary, I submit that when we turn from dating, one should take a moment and meditate on the Father’s steadfast love and Christ’s sacrifice. [If you don’t know what this is, read Isaiah 53, read the book of John.] Take a few minutes and just revel and immerse yourself in his love, commune with God.

I like your question Walt. If we are saying good bye to dating, what should we say hello to? Basically, we are saying good-bye to an idol, and joining our selves with Christ by his Grace. I believe that when we focus on his love, and understand it, and we place our selves in Christ’s Church, the other things you mentioned will follow. We become the lily like Christ. We begin to have a special fellowship with other believers that the world thinks is crazy, but we know it as sweet because the cross has been revealed to us. And we begin to desire to serve. It is all a result of God’s love, because he chose us before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4).

When we rest completely in God’s grace and love, we have nothing to fear but God. And then the things of this world hold very little weight. Christ is all sustaining and all sufficient.

Walt, I love this series that you did. I also agree that this life style is a hard one that requires practice and patience. I would add that on the outside we (the saints as Christians) might actually look exactly like the hypocrite or the moral person that is not saved. In fact it is probably impossible to look much different from others, after all, we are still sinners trapped in this sinful body, ever since the 3rd chapter of Genesis. But, what counts us different is the fellowship we have with Christ on the inside, during the private times of prayer and reading scripture. These are the sweet things we should count as gifts received from God and take a hold of.