A Christmas decision

Last year around this time, I didn't post anything (aside from a rant of sorts last November about what I perceive has gone wrong with Christmas) because time had gradually eroded my joy and anticipation for this time of year.  Actually, about the only thing that was still getting me excited about Christmas was the joy and anticipation that I saw in my kids.  For me, it was the growing busyness and over-commercialization year after year during this season of recognition of Christ's birth that caused it to become less important.  In fact, I can state that last Christmas was perhaps the least joyful I had ever experienced.  My lack of posting activity in this blog last December is one form of evidence to support this.

But this year I've decided to post something in the month of December because I've decided to decide that I should be excited about Christmas.  Even though it doesn't mark the actual time of year in which Jesus was born, there has always been the tiniest sense of anticipation for this season in my heart even during the least joyful of Christmas seasons, ones during which I've been under financial or other kinds of personal stress.

What I've always anticipated most is time with extended family.  If Christmas has one lasting virtue in this very anti-Christian culture, it's the fact that Christians and non-Christians alike tend to slow down and take the time to appreciate what's really most important in life:  relationships.  I realize that not all people have them or appreciate them, but I would have to say that this appreciation is what I've observed amongst even many non-Christians.

And so this year I've decided to get excited about the time I'm going to be spending with extended family because they are among God's greatest gifts to me.  Relationships are the true joy in life, one's relationship with God being the most important and joyful and fulfilling of all (at least it was meant to be; religion has warped and distorted the idea of how one is truly supposed to relate to God).  But even among non-believers, the happiest are those that have at least one good relationship with someone else.  And the most miserable of people, Christian and non, are those who've decided not to build relationships with others or to shut themselves off from them.

What will you decide during this Christmas season?  If you're a believer, will you choose to look beyond the busyness and over-commercialization and decide to be excited about the blessings you've been given, relational and otherwise?  If you're a non-believer, will you decide to look into the Christmas story with an open and objective mind instead of assuming it's fiction, and open yourself up to the possibility of entering into the most important and joyful and fulfilling relationship of all?

Whatever you decide, I hope that you can look beyond all that Christmas was never meant to be (all the glitz and hype that we see around us) and instead explore the true Meaning - "the Reason for the season" - and enjoy the blessings of what it is meant to be.

The peculiar faith

Some definitions of "peculiar" include:  out of the ordinary, odd, curious, unusual.  There's no question that the Christian faith is indeed all this!  In fact, in I Peter 2:9 and Titus 2:14, many Biblical translations call believers in Jesus a "peculiar people".

Here are some things that I've realized about the Christian faith through experience and hearing various messages over the years that demonstrate just how peculiar it really is!

• IT'S SIMPLE:  It was never intended to be a complex religion, but the simple (and only) means to a personal relationship with God. - John 14:6
  (It's only a religion now because people, due of greed and misunderstanding, have added conditions, traditions, and rules to the simple message of the Gospel.)

• IT'S EXCLUSIVE:  It's founder, Jesus Christ, taught that a person can know God only through believing in him. - John 3:16-18
  (Religion teaches that you need to go through a pastor, priest, or a set of rituals to know God.)

• IT'S ACCEPTING:  Jesus said that anyone could come to him, and that they don't need to have their act together or try to be perfect in order to be accepted. - Matthew 11:25-30 (note the word "all" in v. 28) and John 6:35-40 (emphasis on v. 37)
  (It's only certain self-proclaiming "Christian" churches and denominations that practice otherwise.)

• IT'S RESILIENT:  Its times of greatest growth have occurred during times of great suffering and persecution, not during times of peace and prosperity.  All attempts to destroy the Bible have also failed.

• IT'S UNIVERSAL:  Jesus only ministered for a period of three years over 2,000 years ago, yet has a global following to this day.  Jesus' followers come from all known races, cultures, and socio-economic backgrounds.

• IT'S COMPLETE:  Jesus claimed that he did not come to destroy the Jewish Law, but rather to fulfill it.  The "Old Testament" teachings about a Messiah have been fulfilled through Jesus Christ. - Matthew 5:17-18

• IT'S DIVINE:  Jesus claimed to be God and a man at the same time, i.e. God living in human flesh. - John 14:7-11

• IT'S ALIVE:  He is the only spiritual leader known to have been raised from the dead AND witnessed (by hundreds of people) for many days after the fact. - I Corinthians 15 (emphasis on vv. 3-11)

• IT'S THE ONLY FUTURE: He is the only spiritual leader who is coming back to rule and reign. - Acts 1:1-11 (emphasis on v. 11), Revelation 1:7-8; 7:9-17 (where "the Lamb" = Jesus); 20:4-6; 21:1-8, 22-26; 22: 18-19

• IT'S BACKWARD:  Among other things contrary to human reasoning, Jesus taught that strength comes from being weak, and that leadership comes from being a servant.
  (The strongest and most effective leaders that I have ever met and heard of are people who have lived these principles.)

• IT'S MIRACULOUS:  Though no longer on this earth, people throughout history have reported being healed by Jesus, yet no medical reasoning has been able to explain how healing could have occurred otherwise.
  (I refer to true, documented cases of healing, often occurring in the presence of only a few people, not those supposedly happening at staged, mass "healing crusades".)

I'm certainly glad to be numbered among the peculiar!  How about you?

Abortion

Well, I guess it's no surprise that a blog like this was going to eventually take a stab at the topic of abortion.  What may be more surprising to some, especially non-believers, is how this topic wasn't addressed much earlier seeing how this is a blog about God, but I guess I had many other things come to mind over the past year-and-a-half that I felt I was supposed to address instead.

So what's my take as a Christian on this immensely controversial topic?  Well, I'm sure you know that my stance on this topic goes without saying.  But because I am pro-life, am I going to froth at the mouth to pro-choice folks?  Am I going to lay a guilt-trip on those who have decided either directly or indirectly to end a pregnancy?  Am I going to bombard your mind with Bible passages that speak to the sanctity and sacredness of life?

Actually, all I want to do is share a revelation of sorts that came to mind recently.  I don't remember exactly what got me thinking about the topic of abortion, whether a news story or a conversation, but while doing so a thought came to mind that, due to its profundity, led me to conclude that it could have only come from the mind of God Himself.  Here it is, and I will do my best to capture this thought in words:

Regardless of when a person believes that an embryo or a fetus becomes a human being - either at conception or after birth - aborting a pregnancy means that a human life will not have a chance to exist.

In other words, the abortion debate seems to be fixated on what happens before birth - on the unborn, on that being that resides within the womb - instead of the reality of the outcome of a pregnancy if it is allowed to go to term, i.e. on what happens at and after birth.  The fact remains that regardless of where you stand on the abortion issue, aborting a pregnancy means that a child won't be born, because I'm sure all of us would agree that birth results in a human being, even if one believes that it is not a human while in the womb.  Whether the unborn becomes a human 40 nanoseconds or 40 weeks after conception (i.e. at birth), it will still be born as a human if it is allowed to be born.

To put a twist on this, in the United States alone according to this source, over 40 million humans since 1973 (about 4,000 per day) have not been allowed to be born.  This many pregnancies have not been allowed to go to term, and thus there have been this many less children born since 1973 in the United States.  Again, whether or not you believe an embryo or a fetus is human, the outcome of a full-term pregnancy will always be a human.

So those are my thoughts on the topic of abortion, and I hope they made sense.  I also hope they were able to put things into a different perspective that what you might have had before.

Cruelty, or consequence?

I started reading through the book of Ezekiel a while back, and one doesn't have to read too much before realizing the intense displeasure and anger that God felt toward the inhabitants of Jerusalem.  The first several chapters describe how God was planning a siege by a foreign army against the city that was to result in starvation and even cannibalism (ch. 5, vv. 9-10).  Chapter 5, verses 5-6 state pretty clearly what God was upset about, and in chapter 6, verse 10, Ezekiel records God as saying, "I did not threaten to bring this disaster on them without a reason."

A thought that struck me after reading these chapters is how a lot of people - especially non-believers, but sadly even some claiming to believe - would consider such actions on the part of God to be too harsh and evidence that God cannot be a God of love.  After all, was Israel not his chosen people?  Were they not through whom God was going to reveal the Messiah?

Yet in these chapters, God is very repetitious as to not only what he was angry about, but what he was going to do about it - and what he eventually did do about it.  Therefore, one can only conclude that God had given his people fair warning to repent, i.e. to turn from their idolatry and turn back to Him, the One who lovingly brought them out of the brutality of slavery in the first place.

Other Old Testament books also make it plainly clear that the Israelites as a whole - not just the residents of Jerusalem - had been given much warning about staying away from the things that displeased God at other times in the past.  Yet most times the nation as a whole, apart from those few who sought God, would be stubborn and "rebellious", in God's words, would keep on seeking their false gods.

So in light of God's patience and His repeated warnings in the form of the many prophets that He sent to warn his people, was God cruel or were the people simply reaping the consequences of their rebellion, getting their 'just desserts'?

I would argue that true cruelty would have been God striking people down with absolutely no warning whatsoever.  This would be akin to a father spanking his child with absolutely no warning whatsoever that the child was repeatedly doing something disrespectful or rebellious that the father was growing more angry about.

Yet because God loves us, He gives us fair warning when we're going astray.  But all rebellion must eventually be met with consequences if it continues in the face of constant warnings.

If my children, when they were small, had the bad habit of trying to touch a hot stove element, what should I as a loving father have done?  I believe if I was cruel, I would have thought, 'Let them touch the darn thing.  At least they'll learn the hard way not to do it the next time.'  But as a loving father I would have slapped their hand if I saw it getting too close if my verbal warnings were being ignored.  The pain of a slapped hand would have been a better substitute for the pain of a burnt hand.

What I mean by this is that often pain is, unfortunately, a necessary means of correction.  We humans are often too stubborn and arrogant to listen to warnings or learn from the mistakes of others, and too prideful to think that we won't repeat any mistakes.  As Scripture so rightly states, "Pride comes before destruction, and an arrogant spirit before a fall." (Proverbs 16:18).

Destruction and falls are often quite painful, but I would argue that they never result from a lack of  warning.  Whether the inhabitants of ancient Jerusalem or you and I in the here and now, God will send many people and situations into our lives to warn us when we're on a bad road, when we're heading toward making a harmful decision.  He'll even give us that sense of conviction, that heavy feeling in our heart and mind that really should or shouldn't do this-or-that - that is, unless we've worked hard at suppressing that conviction, or conscience.

It's at that point that we need to make a decision:  do we do what our hearts know is right, or do we do things 'our way'?  The inhabitants of ancient Jerusalem decided - as repeatedly and clearly stated - to continue to stiff-arm God, and they paid dearly for it.  What about you?  Is life always about doing things your way, or do you have the sensitivity to be open to what God might have to say, again through using people and situations in your life?

I know that some people reading this might be wondering why we have to be punished in the first place, why we must suffer consequences for rebellion against God.  You might be thinking, 'Why should I be punished for not doing something God's way?  I thought He gave us free will?  If He's a loving God, He'll respect our free will and not punish me for not living according to what the Bible says.'

"Woe to the one who argues with his Maker - one clay pot among many.  Does clay say to the one forming it:  What are you making?  Or does your work say:  He has no hands?" (Isaiah 45:9)

If you're a believer and you know that God is your maker, why do you - a clay pot - argue with God?  Or why do you keep ignoring the counsel of Scripture and that of the people and situations that God brings your way, out of love with a desire to protect you?

If you're a non-believer, when will you open yourself up to the notion that perhaps you're not the end-all and be-all to existence, that there is something - Someone - greater than the human will and spirit, and that you're actually accountable to Him?  How many more times will you try and fail, or strive and find no satisfaction, or suffer pain and loss until you realize that it's just better to acknowledge God and to do things his way, to let Him run your life - to give the steering wheel over to Him?

He's not trying to bring pain and suffering into your life, but He wants to warn and protect you from the consequences of bad decisions.  He didn't inspire the 40+ authors of what is now called the Bible to write things to make you miserable and bored and bound by religious tradition; He wrote commandments and rules and laws and guidelines so that things may "go well" with you in this life, and in the life beyond.  Out of love, so that you don't have to suffer for an eternity.

But again, there are consequences to decisions to rebel against God.  It's just a fact of existence, and whether you believe or not there's simply no getting around it!  Because God is your maker, He and He alone has the right to decide what they are, and thus He has the right to decide to bless you for decisions that are in obedience to his word and to punish you for decisions that are made out of stubborn, willful, prolonged rebellion to His word.

Stated bluntly, God made the rules.  He decides what's right and wrong.  And your decisions affect not just your quality of life here on earth but also your eternity.  He made Heaven and Hell, and He decides how a person ends up in either place.  If you're upset about all of this, is it worth refusing to accept the rules and suffering the consequences for ever and ever (and ever)?  Is "your way" really that important?  Remember about pride coming before destruction?  Pride sends people to Hell, NOT God.  He could have been cruel in this regard, but the loving God has given us the choice of where we end up; we aren't "sent" by Him to either place.  Sound like pretty fair rules to me.

If you're still angry with God and think all this is totally unfair, shake your fist all you want, but think about the power and sovereignty of just Who you're shaking it at.  And think about whether you'd rather heed His loving warnings now, or face the consequences one day after it's too late to change your mind.  Consider this description of what will happen on the day when Jesus judges everyone who has ever lived throughout history.  Whose side do YOU want to be on?

"Then I saw a great white throne and One seated on it.  Earth and heaven fled from His presence, and no place was found for them.  I also saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened.  Another book was opened, which is the book of life, and the dead were judged according to their works by what was written in the books.

Then the sea gave up its dead, and Death and Hades gave up their dead; all were judged according to their works.  Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire.  This is the second death, the lake of fire.  And anyone not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire."  (Revelation 20:11-15)

THE BLIND

I'm taking a different approach with this post, and perhaps some others in the future.  I've decided this time to express some of my thoughts in poetry, or in this case what might be termed "free verse".  That is, I like to write sometimes in a way that doesn't necessarily have the rhyme or tempo of traditional poetry, although there are hints of them here and there.

I've found this to be an extremely effective way to basically throw some of my thoughts into words when I'm having a time of intense or abundant thought - when I can just close my eyes and type them out at break-neck speed (in my case around 70 words per minute) and not worry about making complete sentences.

For future reference, any post that I write in poetry will have the title IN BOLD LETTERING like this post.  Here goes, and may God speak to your heart about what you read ...

The Blind Leading The Blind

Oprah Winfrey doesn’t have the answers
Eckhart Tolle doesn’t have the answers
Stephen Hawking doesn’t have the answers
Rhonda Byrne doesn’t have the answers

If they did, then why do they still seek?
Why do they never find?
Why do they lack peace?

Books and magazines
“Today’s special guest”
Self-delusion makes a name
Mass-delusion makes a profit

And the masses follow
Blind and led by blind masters
Too busy to seek Truth
Seeking riches, seeking youth
So they accept the lies of others
Without question, without thought

Together they stumble
They wander ever closer
To a pit, The Pit

Truly, they have their reward
Their reward is near
Nothing eternal
They live for right here
Choosing the wide path
That leads to destruction

God is too inconvenient
Bad for their name
Bad for profit

So they keep up the game
Of delusion, denial
“Put Him out of your mind
He’s dead, He’s blind
As if I’ll stand before Him one day
The Bible’s a lie”
Or so they say

They may be here now
But what about tomorrow?
What about death?
What about you – Who do you choose??

What of science?

Science in our modern age has been put on a pedestal.  The media and our educational systems have succeeded to a very large degree in convincing most people that unless something can be quantified and experienced by our five senses, it cannot possibly be for real.  Or at least this is the argument that science uses to try to discredit the unseen, for example things like spiritual experiences and God and the credibility of the Bible.

Yet it is science that attempts to explain and rationalize ideas like the Big Bang and the Theory of Evolution, ideas that are just that - ideas, not facts.  They have required creative imagination and great "faith" in light of their alarmingly conspicuous absence of conclusive, quantifiable scientific evidence.

Yet proponents of these ideas - these pipe dreams, really - appeal to "science" in order to support their existence.

Call me naive, but when I was a science student in public school and in university, I recall that one's hypothesis in a science experiment had to be backed up by quantifiable, visual evidence resulting from the conducting of the experimental procedure in order for it to be considered "scientific" evidence.  How is such evidence possible when one is trying to scientifically explain or rationalize the Big Bang, the Theory of Evolution, or even the Bible and the existence (or non-existence) of God?

In an article entitled "Can We Still Believe in Demons Today?" by Clinton E. Arnold (Professor of New Testament Language and Literature, Talbot School of Theology, California), the argument is made that science "is inherently incapable of answering" the question of whether demons exist.  He further argues:

"Some critics grant science authority to make judgments on issues it is incapable of judging.  Just as science is incompetent to adjudicate on morality, so it is also beyond its jurisdiction in trying to decide the question of demonic existence.  Science seeks to describe and explain natural phenomena.  There is no reason to assume it has the power to answer questions regarding the supernatural, such as whether these beings exist."

This argument can be extended to include the fallacy of using the guise of science to try to explain and rationalize the things I've mentioned above, things like the Big Bang, the Theory of Evolution, and the Bible and the existence (or non-existence) of God.  Science has it limitations, yet its disciples persist in thinking that it is the be-all and end-all of standards by which we can judge something as being true or real.

Scientists and their disciples mock and reject any notion of God or the writings of the Bible because they require non-tangible concepts like faith and belief.  They think that ideas like the empty tomb suggest that Jesus didn't actually exist or that his body was stolen and buried elsewhere.  In their minds, it would be too fanciful to take the Biblical account at face value, to actually accept its claim that Jesus rose physically from the dead and ascended to Heaven forty days later and after being witnessed by over 500 people and even physically touched by a few of them.  They ignore the historical, archaeological, and legal evidences of this and all other Biblical accounts because they can't put them in a test tube or analyze them under a microscope.  Or even if they can, in the case of archaeological evidences, they ignore them and move on to try to poke more holes instead of accepting that they might have been wrong in their assumptions.

In any case, such people are quick to embrace accounts of the Jewish Holocaust of World War II because there are several witnesses to this atrocity who are still alive, who we can still see and touch.  But years after these survivors are gone, you can bet that the detractors, those who deny the Holocaust - who existed even during WW II - will gain followers simply due to the lack of witnesses to stand up against them.

Funny thing, there were still several witnesses to the life and miracles of Jesus - believing and non - while every one of the New Testament letters were being penned, yet somehow none of the skeptics decided to write things contrary to the claims they presented, such as the deity of Jesus Christ.  It has been suggested that there were simply too many witnesses that would have made them appear as fools and thus, knowing they didn't have a case, therefore didn't make one.

So why do skeptics in this day and age think they have a legitimate case against the claims of the Bible?  Why do they think the historical, archaeological, and legal evidences that have always supported its claims are somehow null and void just because two millenia have passed?  It's sure easy to try to discredit something once the living witnesses have all died off, and so the non-believers and mockers of this generation follow in vain the footsteps of those before them, often dredging up old arguments that were put to rest in generations past.

However, their greatest fallacy is the claim that there is no "scientific evidence" for the Bible and therefore the credibility of its God and its claims.  They tend to overlook the scientific evidence that abounds with respect to archaeology, and the historical and legal evidences that many have undertaken through history and found to overwhelmingly support the credibility of the Bible.

But as believers let's face it:  Jesus could appear to each and every skeptic on this planet and perform miracle after miracle and claim after each one that they are the result of being the one and only Son of God - the ultimate display of evidence - but there would still be skeptics not because of lack of evidence, but because of a lack of desire born out of pride and ego that would prevent them from believing.

Oh, but wait a minute, Jesus did appear to believers and skeptics alike during his first time here on earth, and guess what:  some of those who saw him and his miracles and heard his claims were also skeptical despite this ultimate display of evidence!  Why?  How could this possibly be the case in light of the overwhelming evidence?  Because - ta da! - they lacked a desire to believe that was born out of pride and ego, not because of a lack of evidence.  Or to put this another way, it's not that they couldn't believe, it's that they wouldn't. 

Some of these people had a lot of worldly status, prestige, and possibly wealth to lose - or so they thought - if they believed that Jesus is the Messiah and the one true Son of God, and so they simply chose not to believe in order to try to protect themselves.  Not to mention their fear of ridicule and the possibility of losing the respect of family and so-called friends.  The exact same is true in this day and age when people are presented with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

So what of science and its supposed lack of ability to give credibility to the Bible and thus God and Jesus?  Well, it ultimately doesn't matter.  What matters is individual men and women getting over themselves and making a decision in their heart to accept or reject the claims of the Bible regarding Jesus Christ.  Science can't make this decision for them, but only their desire to believe or not believe can.  And no amount of scientific thought or reasoning will be able to rescue them from their fate should they ultimately choose not to believe.

What's your source?

It's amazing how most people come to form an opinion or belief about something.  Often, it's based upon what their parents believe(d).  Sometimes, it's based upon that of another relative or a friend, or even upon peer pressure.  But in all cases, it can be argued that most people form it based upon the opinions or beliefs of someone they look up to, respect, or simply hang out with.

When that opinion or belief is formed - or rather adopted - in this fashion, perhaps the greatest danger is doing so without questioning it, without subjecting it to scrutiny.  Only years after the fact did I realize that all those assignments I did in school and university where I had to "compare and contrast" articles and viewpoints, or to provide references to varying sources in research papers, were not meant to torture me.  They were meant to force me to consider alternate opinions, to support but also subject my theses to scrutiny.

Sadly, most people see taking the time to investigate something before accepting it as requiring too much effort.  Or perhaps they haven't been taught how to compare and contrast, or how to research alternate opinions on something.  Our educational system has certainly become worse in this regard as I compare my substitute teaching experiences with my experiences as a former student.  In any case, most people trust that others have done this for them, and that the ideas they present must therefore be valid.

So what's the source of your beliefs?  Is it the "latest and greatest" author or speaker who just appeared on the Oprah show?  Is it a book like "The God Delusion" or one like "The Case For Christ"?  Maybe it's a book that a relative, friend, or colleague just recommended.

In any case, you need to scrutinize what they're telling you instead of simply accepting it.  For example, is there any scientific, historical, and/or legal basis to what they're promoting, even from multiple perspectives?  How have people fared over a long period who've adopted these ideas and beliefs - the good and the bad stories - not just at the "good times" when they happen to write the book or make the TV appearance?  And what of the people who claim to have fared badly: what is their motive in attempting to discredit a particular person or perspective, and does their reasoning stand up to scrutiny and cross-examination?

Most people think that doing things like this is a threat to one's current set of opinions or beliefs.  However, if one is very grounded, considering alternate opinions can also be a way of solidifying those beliefs even more.

In any case, simply accepting what you're fed can be dangerous, so make the effort and the time to check things out.  Should you do the same with the Bible?  Absolutely, whether you're a believer or not!  Rather than close their minds off to the message of Christ (the Gospel), the citizens of the Greek city of Berea (or Beroea) who heard this message from the apostle Paul are commended in the book of Acts chapter 17 because

"[they] were more open-minded than those in Thessalonica, since they welcomed the message with eagerness and examined the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so."

As an aside, why did they search the Scriptures and not some other non-scriptural body of writings?  Isn't this being narrow-minded?  Because the things concerning Jesus were foretold in the Jewish scriptures - what we now call the Old Testament - so it was only fitting that the Bereans searched them for explanations about how this Jewish Messiah could also be the savior of non-Jews like them.

God even encourages his people in Isaiah chapter 1 to "Come, let us discuss this" or "Come now, let us reason together."  God Himself is in favor of directly being asked the tough questions!

I encourage you to do the same.  Whether you're digging through the Bible to interpret the Bible or through extra-biblical accounts to do so, don't just take the Bible on its own merit.  Find out for yourself whether it's for real through considering other sources (ones that attempt to be objective) before you assume that it isn't for real just because you're too lazy or don't care.  For that matter, you need to do this to any book or belief system that claims to have a new or different truth, whether the Koran, The Book of Mormon, or The Secret.

To not do so can cost you for an eternity.

Almost asleep ...

I can't write what I'm planning to without getting a little personal with you all - well, a lot personal.  The past few weeks I've been caught up with the whole debt crisis thing in Europe while watching the value of my not-so-bountiful Retirement Savings Plan dwindle more and more.  Even as a Christian I've found it hard not to get caught up in the whole idea of worrying about the financial future.  I seriously wonder what I will be able to draw upon to pay the bills once I'm into my early sixties.

My struggle as a Christian goes beyond the financial aspect, however.  My bigger struggle is the spiritual aspect, namely that Jesus basically commanded his followers not to worry about anything, ANYTHING - that if God takes care of birds and flowers he will surely take care of us.  Sometimes it's very difficult to believe this in your heart as well as your mind.  But I'm convinced that people living in even the most dire of straits - famine, genocide, etc. - experience the hand of God when they cry out for his help and provision.  I've read about too many stories to this effect to begin to doubt it.

But this is about my life 20 or so years down the road, not the present.  Sure, I'm convinced about his current provision, but what about when I'm not as strong and healthy to show up at a job every day?  That's where the worry has crept in.

So with these "heavies" upon my heart, I did what any sincere believer should:  I brought these things before God.  But most of the answers I've received this week are absolutely what I did not expect.  First of all, I've received many ideas about how I could structure my RSP in terms of how much to keep as cash, how much to put into mutual funds vs. stocks, etc.  I've even asked him to reveal other investment "vehicles" that might be far less risky than the stock market.  Now I just need the faith - and the discipline - to put these ideas into action and get over the temptation to be greedy, to be content with gains of a few percent a year instead of the much riskier yet higher potential gains (or losses) that I could experience by keeping things the way they are.  Right now, the losses have unfortunately been the norm.

But what has been much more heavy upon my heart - what I did not expect - is what the book of Ecclesiastes refers to as "vanity", or "absolute futility" in another translation of the Bible.  I have looked at how people everywhere around me - Christian and non - are passionately in pursuit of ... themselves.  It seems as though their main goal at the end of the work day, whether working in or out of the home, is to have a time of peace and comfort.  To get the kids out of their hair so they can relax.  To get the yard looking up to snuff for another season of barbeques and lazy summer evenings with friends and family.  To spend time on Facebook catching up with people, or simply to surf the net aimlessly looking at 'stuff'.

It's one thing to have been noticing these things in everyone else's lives at every single turn, but it's been much more humbling to have been noticing them in my own.  Some may think that someone like me writing a blog like this is somehow super-spiritual, "in" with God in a way that others aren't, with my life all sorted out and idyllic.  The only reason I have anything to write month after month, however, is simply because my life is NOT like this!  This week, I've seen with eyes more clear than ever about how much I want the same things as most other people.  But the "big heavy" I've felt is how in doing so, in spending so much time and energy trying to get financial and personal ducks in a row, I'm NOT spending time involved in the lives of others.

Now God is so gracious.  He hasn't revealed these things to me with some huge guilt burden that makes me feel rotten or like an idiot.  Instead, it's almost as though God has been wanting to show me what's more important in life so that I don't get any more caught  up in worrying and planning than I already am.  It's like he's been trying to tell me to pursue "his kingdom and his righteousness" (Matthew 6:33) and not to worry about my life and the true desires of my heart being taken care of, because he'll do that in good order on his terms and according to his timing.

So what have I realized or noticed specifically?  I've thought about how I sometimes worry about paying the bills when some people can't even pay a single one of theirs.  Or about my house when so many on this planet don't even have one, or one that offers little shelter or security.  Or some of my sore joints when I could instead be a cripple or have a debilitating disease.

Basically, I've noticed how needy so many people are but how so few of us with affluence and abundance and good health are willing to help them.  In response to this, I've been struggling with what I could do to help them.

Now this is an overwhelming thing to think about.  Hey, I was looking for investment ideas, not to be burdened with thoughts of all the human-induced suffering of this world, resulting from the greed, selfishness, and other sins imposed by people on other people!  I was looking for answers to help me, not to be made aware of the problems of others!

I must admit that I'm in a very selfish phase right now where it's been very hard to look away from my situation and to even take time for others.  I'm almost done working toward a particular certification for the industry I'm working in, there are upcoming birthdays in my family, we're excited about plans for a summer holiday, and so forth.  To see if my neighbor needs help cleaning his yard or to take the time to talk to a stranger just so they don't feel alone is more of a burden to me lately than staying in my comfort zone and dealing with me, me, me.

So maybe this is why this week I got the answers I did regarding my plea to rescue my retirement finances.  Maybe God is trying to tell me that I'm wasting my time worrying about whether I'll actually be alive twenty-some years down the road, and instead that I should be more focused on living, loving, and serving in the here-and-now since there is absolutely no guarantee of being alive even five minutes from now!

So why did I title this post "almost asleep"?  Because I realize that the church - the body of believers in Jesus Christ - in our prosperous Western world is made up of far too many believers just like me.  Oh yes, we go through phases like this where God opens our eyes to the plight of others all around us.  But then we - and I - get lulled back into ourselves once again.  We get lulled by all the eye-candy this world has to offer, thinking that we need more of it, so that we'll be distracted from being a positive impact in changing this world for the better.

And who does the Bible say is behind this world system?  None other than God's enemy, the devil.  One of his most effective tactics throughout history has been distraction, getting Christians away from serving the needs of others in order to serve the supposed "needs" of self.  The Western church is almost asleep and no signs of a wake-up call for it are on the horizon as far as I've been able to tell.  In fact, the past year or so I've been really discouraged about its state and its lessening impact with time.  It gets lulled evermore into being an ineffective social club of indifferent members.  But I can only point at it so much without also pointing at me.

But despite this, I realize that the transformation of a body is the eventual result of the transformation of some of its individual members.  I know that God routinely stirs the pot of my life and that of my wife so that we don't become stagnant.  God has always spoken to the hearts of individuals like he's been doing with me lately, but what will I do with these realizations?  And how about you, fellow believer?

I don't know what I'll do, exactly.  I've been hoping that God will stir me enough to get off the couch and at the very least perform random acts of kindness toward others.  (This is far easier for my wife, by the way, so she's often an inspiration in this regard.)  Maybe I'll actually work toward starting that men's group that's been on my mind for months now instead of assuming it won't be well received (another of Satan's favorite tactics:  doubt).

In any case, I too have been lulled almost asleep more times than I'd like to admit.  But it's at times of realization like this that I and those of you who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ need to do something about it - something simple - and then be open and selfless enough to allow God to take us to the next step.  Jesus was all about living for everybody else's needs, and voila - his Father always took care of his.  Go figure!  We just don't want the life of simplicity that Jesus lived.  We still think we need the bigger house and the new car and the latest gadgets, that we'll somehow get "bored" if we live for others and no longer just our desires.  Or worse yet, we assume that by doing so we'll be taken advantage of.

Do you think perhaps that Jesus' life might be an example of how we ought to be living our lives?  I think so, and I pray that not only I but any believer reading this will be convinced and motivated to live the same.

A happy ending

It's hard to imagine anyone but the most hard-core of people not liking stories with a happy ending.  It seems as though everyone I've ever met or heard about seems to like them.  Whether it's a huge volume like Lord Of The Rings or the Narnia series - the books or the movies - or whether it's something very Hollywood like Pretty Woman or wonderfully inspiring like Rudy or the recent movie The Blind Side, there's just something that draws people of all cultures, belief systems, and socio-economic status to stories like this, real or fictional.

It's almost as though we all have this built-in desire for true justice and for things to work out right in the end.  But as soon as the book is shut or the final movie credits start to roll, we're forced to come down off the high and step back into reality.  'Too bad things couldn't be that way in my life', you might think, or 'If only things like that could really come true'.  Sadly, these are thoughts we're more apt to think in our youth.  By the time most of us reach our thirties, we don't even entertain thoughts of any such wonderful things happening in our lives.

But is this true?  Is there really no happy ending for our lives?  (Most of you know where I'm going with this, but bear with me.)  Is life really nothing more than "death and taxes"?  You know, even speaking as a Christian, there are days when I lose perspective and really get bogged down and even depressed about life.  Hey, I'm only human after all - even the most spiritually inclined people can get down about things.

Before I decided to put the full weight of my trust in the promise of the Bible - eternal life to all who believe in the name of Jesus Christ - I must admit that I had no hope of anything and I got regularly discouraged and depressed.  Thoughts of suicide entered the mix on occasion.  Sure, I was working toward a university degree and my future was full of promise, but because I thought I'd be extinct at the end of my life span, I didn't know what I was ultimately working toward.

What was the point if this life here on earth was all there was or would be?  What would be the point of trying to leave a legacy when I would have no recall of it once I died?

But now, seeing things through the lens of the Bible, I see this life entirely differently.  I've never really had a "bad day" since I asked Jesus to forgive me and to become the Lord of my life; it's more like a "few bad hours" at most.  And I realize that life is so much more than money and achievement, although at times it's easy to lose perspective of the important things in life.

The non-believer thinks that people like me are living a fantasy, trying to think "happy thoughts" to ease the pain and burden of this life through belief in a make-believe deity, a figment of my imagination.  I've never been a happy-go-lucky sort of person, but rather a deep and reasoned individual.  I devote a great deal of time and energy into things before making a decision about them, and my decision to accept God's gentle nudges in my life in order to believe in him - as much as I tried to resist at first - were no different.  God was gently pounding away at my thick, narrow-minded, assumptive skull for about two years before the reality of his existence became glaringly obvious to me.  And once that occurred, only then did the promise of eternal life - of the greatest happy ending imaginable - also become glaringly obvious to me.

I know that non-believers think people like me are deluded, brainwashed - whatever - to believe in what the Bible has to say about anything, let alone this promise of eternal life to those who put their faith in some historical figure named Jesus.  But even though I've mentioned this in a previous post, it bears paraphrased repeating now:

What if the Bible is for real?  What if its claims are actually true?  If this is the case, what do I have to gain by believing what it says about Heaven and Hell, for example, and what do I have to lose by not believing?

I realized that if I was wrong and the Bible was right, then I'd be paying the price for an eternity, one of separation from God in a place the Bible calls Hell.  Could I have rationalized Hell out of existence if I didn't want to believe it wasn't for real?  Likewise with Heaven?  Did I want to take the chance and not believe in God and the Bible because I was arrogant, prideful, or afraid of what others might think of me?

I eventually decided that I'd rather assume that God and the Bible are for real - the price would be too great and horrible not to! - and in so doing I accepted Jesus into my life.  Since then, the confirmation of the reality of God and his unfathomable love (not fear of him anymore!) and the absolute truth of the Bible (and no other documents claiming to be "scripture") has been very real and very immense:  God's Spirit living within me has been fast at work revealing these things ever since.  And therefore I have the most unshakable, most confident assurance that by one simple act of faith several years ago - a moment, really - my existence will indeed have a happy ending on the basis of the claims of the Bible, not on fantasy.

Although this conclusion seems foolish to many, I live day to day with this assurance that they will never have apart from Jesus Christ, and therefore I don't fear death - or life - like they do (even though they don't admit it).  If this hope is my "crutch", so be it.  But I'd rather have a crutch like God in my life than the meaningless and non-eternal crutches like status, possessions, career and/or climbing the corporate ladder, drugs, self-help books, atheism, evolutionism, New Age gurus and the like that non-believers put their faith and trust in.

Answers for atheists

A post that I wrote a little while back caught the attention of an atheist, and you can read the entire post and comments by clicking here.  But the main comment concerned some tough questions that have been asked in similar form by many a non-believer, which I will quote here:

If [God] is all good, why do 20,000 children die every day in this world? Surely someone all good, would not let that many children die? So he is either not all good, or he is unable to help them so he is not all powerful..

Do you believe in a devil? If so why would a god "allow" him to exist? If he does, then again he is either not all good or not all powerful and cannot stop him or stop him from existing..

See how quickly cracks appear in even your most basic belief system?

Here was my initial reaction to this comment, so bear with me: I must admit that I was a little put off at first. Was I supposed to abandon my faith simply on the basis of two issues that this person assumed I hadn't found answers to? Perhaps this person didn't really care to find answers to these questions but was simply trying to discredit believers in general and this blog in particular, upset merely by the fact that my belief system runs contrary to his/hers?

Also, as the comments progressed, I had the feeling that s/he was calling my character and level of intelligence into question solely as a result of me believing in God, as though only some half-wit would do something so audacious. You can see in subsequent comments how s/he and I attempted to iron some things out, and how in the end I realized that attempting to answer these questions isn't a bad thing.  However, doing so just wasn't the intention of this blog.  Let me explain.

I started this blog for reasons explained in the introductory post, and I hoped that people would read it so that any comments would not resort to making me feel as though I was being regarded as a second-rate human being for believing in God, for example by inferring that I am "brain washed by a cult" or that by believing in God I "may as well be believing in Santa Claus, except you are an adult". I wasn't expecting to be subjected to ad hominem attacks - to attacks on my character - and to attacks on my intelligence, but rather I had hoped to be asked to reasonably and intelligently discuss matters related to God.

But then I realized that perhaps this atheist has only ever encountered "religious" people, as s/he refers to them (perhaps not yet realizing that true Christianity is actually the anti-thesis and the greatest enemy of religion), who seem as though they are robotically brainwashed by how they act and live.  Or maybe Christians (or those who claim to be) have looked down their noses at him/her and attacked his/her character as well.  Maybe I was simply bearing the brunt of his/her discontent.

Although this person should not have assumed the same about me or done the same to me, I guess I can't blame him/her.  What I realized is that s/he's probably never become acquainted with, let alone met, someone who believes in God like me yet with the integrity, character, and intelligence that those around me know I possess.  It's easy to assume things about someone whose stuff you're only reading about online instead of getting to know them face-to-face. I'm also very well regarded by Christians and non-believers in my sphere of influence because I don't walk around with a 'holier than thou' attitude. I'm very real, and I don't walk around with my head in the clouds. In short, I'm very personable and don't speak with people as though I look like I was weaned on a pickle.

I also realized that to not answer those questions would lead this person to rightly assume that I lack integrity, character, and intelligence. Therefore, I am attempting to answer these questions for these reasons, but also since this person has never met "one single person who can logically answer those questions. Not a priest, not a born again Christian, not Mormons nor Jehovah Witnesses at the front door." However, I do not make this attempt with the illusion that an atheist will suddenly "see the light" regarding Jesus.  This person him/herself has stated that s/he is "not someone looking for God".

So why should I bother answering these questions?  Because I as a follower of Jesus need to be as open, caring, and transparent to non-believers as he was to all around him when he walked this earth. He is the example that sadly most Christians have failed to follow, and I've never wanted to be a part of that majority. If most Christians truly reflected the character of their Savior, their Messiah, then the atheist ranks on this planet would be almost non-existent because the love of God would be hugely apparent, since it is meant to be reflected through Christian believers.  Sure, this person has implied that s/he really doesn't care to know the answers, which means that perhaps instead I'll either be mocked again as I was at first (but hopefully not) or s/he'll simply try to poke more holes into my faith that s/he cannot truly understand apart from that faith.

But maybe none of this will happen; maybe I'm assuming that this person will act exactly how I did as a hater of God for the first 22 years of my life, when I responded to any spiritual inquiries with venom and hatred (and all without objectively considering their viewpoint, by the way) that few non-believers have had the guts to express with a believer face-to-face.  Anyhow, this is a chance I'm willing to take; my faith has and never will be shaken, so really I've got nothing to lose, and maybe it will actually be somewhat informative to this and other atheists/agnostics who stumble across this blog. At the very least, these are good questions that deserve attempts at answers - hey, I wondered about them as well at one time - and hopefully the responses are respectful and reasonable even if someone still disagrees with them.

So here's my approach.  In this post, I've decided I'm not going to re-invent the wheel.  These questions have been addressed somewhat directly or indirectly in this blog.  So first, do a search by blog title or keyword for the items of concern, such as "brainwashing" or "atheists" or "Satan" or "devil".

Second, search online for other sources that will answer these questions, because they've been asked and answered ad nauseum throughout the ages.  I simply feel I don't need to try to answer them myself at this point if others have done so already.

But beware: not all people who claim to represent God truly represent the God of the Bible, the one true God.  So please avoid anyone who has violated the warning of Revelation chapter 22, verses 18-19 like the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses have:  they have tweaked and even re-written the Bible to make God fit their mold, to suit their twisted agendas.  They are cults in the truest sense of the word, and therefore their answers to these questions will be misinformed and intended to mislead.  In fact, any religious movement or self-proclaimed "faith" that has rejected Jesus and therefore the Bible is also not a good source for information (ex. Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc.). I've never found their explanations on such issues to be reputable or even helpful because they lack a true understanding of such issues by, for example, their removal of Jesus from the equation.

Instead, start with organizations like the Christian Research Institute (the best cult-busting organization in existence!), and search for messages from the likes of Charles Stanley and Chuck Swindoll.  I'm sorry, but answers to these questions are only best addressed from a Biblical perspective (since these questions are about God and the devil), so you need to be open-minded about this no matter how uncomfortable this may be!

Now I won't leave you totally hanging.  Here are a few links to answers to the above (or similar) questions to get you started.  Where you go from here is up to you:

If [God] is all good, why do 20,000 children die every day in this world?

• Link 1, Link 2, Link 3

Do you believe in a devil? If so why would a god "allow" him to exist?

• Link 1, Link 2, Link 3

Some of these responses are written from Christians to Christians, but bear with them as you read them. Don't get upset, don't get insulted - just take them for what they are.  In some cases, some answers to the specific questions are sprinkled throughout various parts of the articles.

Third, these questions do not have cut-and-dried, simple answers.  In fact, for me these answers only came after several years of gaining a deep understanding of God through reading my Bible, listening to reputable (not just any) Bible teachers in person and on the radio (this involved me sorting the reputable from the pseudo-biblical and cultic teachings), and through asking God to reveal his truths to me.  Even if I can refer you to cut-and-dried attempts at answers, they'll probably seem non-sensical without a solid background of walking with God.

So there you go!  Now, if you're assuming that this is a cop-out on my part, I hope you will do your due diligence and first research these things more for yourself.  Then, if you really would like me to answer them from my perspective, in my own words that I believe God is revealing to me, please leave me a comment to that effect and I will create a new post.

BUT PLEASE, if your desire is not to really seek to understand God more but rather to try to mock me, my faith, or to just keep asking questions for the sake of mockery and/or to waste my time and energy, then I will no longer be answering such questions.

Again, I intended this blog to share what I believe God has laid upon my heart over the years for the benefit of believers and non-believers seeking to understand God more.  And I will return strictly to this agenda if I sense that my character is being subjected to attack or if my faith is being mocked in a disrespectful fashion.  I am asking you to hold to the same level of integrity that I have hopefully also held to, and I believe this is an absolutely fair and reasonable request.

Not just another holiday

Okay, in the last post I deliberately kept things short and sweet, but I'll probably be back to my old ways this time around.  I have some more thoughts about the significance of this Easter season that have recently struck me, and this time - as usual - I'll use my own words to express them.

I thought this morning about those people who will be working today, not those who basically had to, but those who really didn't need to but did so anyway.  I wondered if any of them will take even a moment to wonder about the significance of this day, Good Friday.  Is it to them some vague holiday like Victoria Day in Canada where no more than a handful of people actually know why it's a holiday?  Will they even think about why some spiritual guy named Jesus died on a cross so long ago?

If they're anything like I used to be, I doubt it.  They're probably thinking about this as nothing more than a great chance to make some holiday overtime pay.  But I so wish that they - and any non-believer just enjoying a 'holiday' - could realize that this Jesus guy they've heard about had each and every one of them individually in mind when he held his tongue in the face of his accusers.  I wish they could understand that Jesus voluntarily gave himself as a sacrifice for our well-being, and that his crucifixion was not some unexpected and tragic end to a promising young spiritual movement.

Jesus was born to die, he was born to pay the penalty of our offenses (sins) against God so that those who accept this gift of Jesus would not have to pay that penalty themselves after their earthly, bodily death.  This has been God's plan since even before our ancestors Adam and Eve destroyed mankind's relationship with God long ago and introduced sin into our world.

Jesus as the one and only Son of the one and only God chose to give up his exalted position for a period of 33 years by living as one of us.  He chose to be born in poor, filthy conditions to everyday people instead of people of power and prestige.  He chose to live a humble existence in full dependence upon his Father who remained in Heaven, humbling himself to the point of death, even death on a cross (Philippians 2:8).

But why would he die for us?  Who are we that he would die for us?  How could he known those of us who weren't even born at the time?  Suffice it to say that the Bible mentions how God knew each of us before the foundation of time, and that he numbered the hairs on each of our heads.  It also mentions in various parts of the New Testament Gospel letters how Jesus and God the Father are one in essence and nature, so therefore what God knows, Jesus knows.

Each and every one of us is so infinitely precious and important to him that sadly only a tiny portion of humanity - only those who've accepted the gift of salvation that Jesus offers, i.e. Christians - will ever have some idea of this before they meet God face-to-face in order to give an account of their lives to him on the appointed day.

God is independent of time.  He existed before it was even created, and thus time does not control him like it controls his creation.  Thus he, being all-knowing and in all control of everything, knew about the very second and the very circumstances of everything to do with when each and every one of us would be born.  He knew whether he was going to give us to rich or poor parents, loving or abusive parents, or to biological or foster or adoptive parents, and whether we would be born in a time of peace or a time of war.  And he did each of these things not because he was showing favoritism to some or being cruel to others, but for his own good purposes (not necessarily ours!) that we will only fully understand once we all - believer and non - meet him face-to-face - the great inevitability of human existence.

Some of you might have shaken your fist at God about your lot in life ever since you were old enough to do so.  You curse the day you were born and how a God of "love" could have been so cruel as to let you suffer so much - let alone be born - in the first place.

Yet I have heard more than a few stories of people - and met some - who suffered unspeakable horrors, sometimes for decades on end, but eventually realized the hand of God's protection and provision and comfort during those times.  They decided to no longer shake the fist, realizing that they would have been even worse off if he hadn't been with them during those times!

They realized those times were not so much for building character as for them to realize their desperate need of God in their lives.  So they opened their hearts to allow God to work in their lives, which inevitably lead them to a knowledge of what Jesus' life, death, and resurrection were really all about.  Then they learned about how accepting Jesus into their lives was going to set them free spiritually in this life and beyond even though they might remain in bondage in the here and now:  physical, financial, abusive, etc.

And these things are what God wants you to realize at this special time of year, this Easter season.  He wants you to realize that your life and circumstances are not a mistake, but that they are meant to show your weaknesses in order that you allow him to make you strong.  He wants you to realize that in your own strength you will eventually break or fail, if not on this side of eternity then on the Day of Judgment when you have to explain your life to this Creator of yours that you spent so much time and energy trying to avoid and/or deny down on Earth.

Will you finally accept that the whole plan of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus in order for you to be set free was done with you in mind?  That this plan wasn't reserved for those who show up in church on most Sundays, or give to a church, or belong to a denomination or religion, or live good, moral lives?  That this plan wasn't reserved for those who seem as though they have it all together or all figured out?  This plan was intended for those who realize they need the forgiveness and healing that only God through Jesus Christ alone - and no other person or religious system or amount of money - can offer (read Luke 5:30-32).

This is not only the message of this Easter season, but it's been the message of the Gospel for over two-thousand years, the good news about Jesus Christ and what he has done for you already and what he will do for you if you would simply ask for his forgiveness and then let him into your life.

How deep!

Those of you who read this blog might be surprised by what I'm about to declare:  I plan on making this the shortest entry I've made to date!  Quite a claim from somebody who makes his average post about as long as a typical essay (and sometimes short story).

Anyhow, when I awoke this Good Friday morning, on one of the three most important Christian days of remembrance (what I consider to be #2), I like many followers of Christ had many thoughts about the profound act of Jesus voluntarily giving his life on that Roman cross over two-thousand years ago in order to save ours.

But my thoughts today about this, and what it means to me in particular, are best summed up by what somebody else has written, namely the lyrics of a song written by Stuart Townend.  May they speak to you as they did to me.  (For the record, when you get to the part about the scoffers, there are not many in history who were as vocal and venomous about hating God/Jesus as I once was.):

How Deep The Father's Love For Us

How deep the Father's love for us,
How vast beyond all measure
That He [God] should give His only Son [Jesus]
To make a wretch [any non-believer in Jesus] His treasure

How great the pain of searing loss,
The Father turns His face away
As wounds which mar the chosen One [Jesus],
Bring many sons to glory

Behold the Man upon a cross,
My sin upon His shoulders
Ashamed I hear my mocking voice,
Call out among the scoffers

It was my sin that helf Him there
Until it was accomplished
His dying breath has brought me life
I know that it is finished

I will not boast in anything
No gifts, no power, no wisdom
But I will boast in Jesus Christ
His death and resurrection

Why should I gain from His reward?
I cannot give an answer
But this I know with all my heart
His wounds have paid my ransom

Old vs. outdated

Some people make the assumption that the Bible is outdated simply because it's old, because the last book accepted into the canon of Scripture occurred nearly 2,000 years ago.  But when you think about it, being outdated has nothing to do with age but entirely to do with not being relevant to today.

Consider the fascination with Shakespeare in drama and English classes worldwide hundreds of years after the bard's death.  Think about how the original design of things like the light bulb and the camera are still recognizable in modern light bulbs and cameras over 100 years later.  These things might be considered as old, but their modern relevance and influence prove that they are not outdated.

If you question the relevance of the Bible in our modern world, do the following:

• Read the first ten verses of 2 Timothy chapter 3 and ask yourself if this doesn't with absolute precision describe the world of today, "the last days" that the Bible repeatedly refers to.
• Read Romans chapter 1 from verse 18 to the end of the chapter and ask yourself if the moral abyss the world currently finds itself in has ever been better explained than in this portion of Scripture.

What some people fail to realize is that although cultures, nations, technology, and trends have changed immensely since the time the Messiah walked this planet, human nature has not changed one bit.  As soon as a humanist claims that our species has "evolved" to some higher level of intelligence or sophistication, we read some news headline about a genocide or other unthinkable act of evil that sound  no different from such accounts in the Bible.

The only difference between these modern acts and those recorded in the Bible are the fact that they are being committed by people in different cultures and nations using different technology and following different trends.  Whereas in ancient times some cultures burned their babies alive in the arms of scalding hot idols, we allow girls and women in our civilized, sophisticated modern age to have their unborn child ground into bits and vacuumed from their innards using some of the most intricate surgical instruments and techniques.  Such a practice is not considered barbaric because it is so methodical and sterilized.

Apparently, the accounts (actually disproven myths) of women using coat hangers in back alleys was too inhumane and gruesome for those in the women's liberation movement of the early 1970s to stomach, but I digress.  History since that time has proven that the legalization of abortion was done to serve selfish political, financial, and scientific interests among others, but I raise this issue as an example of how the mere acceptance of this practice is one of countless proofs of how human nature - in this case lying, greed, and selfishness - have only changed in form, not in substance.

While I'm on the topic of relevance, I can't help but question that of the Theory of Evolution in our modern age.  (You can look at the keyword archive in this blog for other thoughts that God has revealed to me about this and other topics.)  Scientific understanding of the workings of the human body were elementary at best at the time of the publishing of The Origin of Species in 1859:  scientists knew what was inside the body at a non-molecular level, but little was known about how body systems and organs worked and interacted.  And nobody - including Darwin himself - had any idea of the unfathomable intricacy and sophistication of the workings of the human body that scream "Design!".  In addition, apart from the human body and that of other mammals, the literally infinite vastness of the universe was unknown and atomic structure was unheard of.

Therefore, this theory at its core is based on outdated science despite all claims to the contrary, on assumptions based upon the scientific understandings (and misunderstandings) of the time that modern science has since largely disproven.  Yet you'll rarely hear about anyone who lacks a true understanding of God, any non-Christian, questioning its relevance in this modern age.  The modern proponents of this theory, who continually churn out new sub-theories to cover up the ones that modern science continues to disprove, gain influence and keep the dead horse of evolutionary theory alive as they wax eloquent and get the Oprah seal of approval for their new book about their new theory - as she has largely replaced God and His Word as the beacon of modern moral, spiritual, and scientific wisdom in pop culture, and apparently in the evolutionist community as well.

Yet begin to seriously ask objective, frank questions about their beliefs - which are different in substance but no different in magnitude from those of Christians - and you get accused of being what they themselves are:  narrow-minded, subjective, and worst of all, "religious" (whether you actually believe in God or not).  The saddest part about the believer of evolutionary theory is that they don't realize that they are themselves disciples of a religion, that of Evolution, the new religion of this relativistic and humanistic world we now live in.

So even though some things are considered relevant in this modern age, we see now how they can be outdated.  Fortunately, anyone looking for something solid to stand on, something that won't be disproven 5, 50, 500, or even 5,000 years from now, need look no further than the Bible, the only true Scriptures and truth in existence.  The Bible is the only body of writings whose truth and claims have withstood all persecutions, all examinations, and all other tests of time.  (If you think you've found a new way to poke holes in its truth and absolute integrity and sink it once and for all, I urge you to do so, but I can guarantee that you cannot do so with an objective mind.)

If you haven't dug into the Bible because you believe that it's outdated and therefore irrelevant and a waste of time, or because you believe the hype that it's a book of fairy tales or riddled with "internal contradictions" and so forth rather than just letting it speak to you on its own merit, then you're missing out on the greatest adventure of this life and the one beyond.  But don't just take my word for it:  be objective and find out for yourself.

Meaning and fulfillment

Charles Stanley made an observation on one of his radio sermons a few years back that has always stuck with me because it was so profound.  He said something along the lines that we were designed by God as spiritual beings, and therefore the only true meaning and fulfillment we are able to find is through spiritual means.  But all too often we aren’t fulfilled because we look for meaning and fulfillment through physical means – money, possessions, sexual gratification, etc.  In other words, because we are spiritual beings we cannot find these things through physical means.  This was truly an amazing revelation that God gave to Dr. Stanley because it explains so much about human nature, particularly our modern culture.

Basically, it perfectly explains why for most people, enough is never enough.  They get the home, car, or job that they’ve always sought after and longed for, but after a time their dream isn’t enough for them any more.  They grow tired of it because it didn’t provide the fulfillment they thought it would.  Then they begin to long for the next home, car, or job that they’re sure will do what the first one couldn’t do for them.  This explains why fads and trends exist, and why people fall for them.

Or they plunge headlong into a relationship with someone because they get such excitement and apparent meaning and fulfillment with that person – until time wears on and they realize that person isn’t always able to provide them with those things.  That person isn’t perfect and they make mistakes and they say and do hurtful things.  Then – more often than not – that relationship ends when one partner decides that being alone or finding another relationship is what will provide the meaning and fulfillment that the previous relationship was supposed to.

Sadly, people who call themselves Christians – those who claim to be disciples of Jesus Christ – fall into the same trap of trying to find meaning and fulfillment in the things of this world instead of the One they claim as their Lord and Savior.  They start looking at the world around them and often unwittingly start wanting what it has to offer.  They look at co-workers and neighbors and start to become conformed to them instead of being an agent of change in their lives.  They compromise their morals in order to try to be accepted by those that hate God instead of daring to be different and taking moral stands and showing the love of God.  They start to buy the bigger houses, the newer cars, and the higher-paying jobs and begin to wonder if it’s really worth it to spare the time and effort toward getting to know their God better.

Then one day, most of these “Christians” by title only wake up and wonder what happened.  They look at their possessions and/or level of life achievement and wonder why they their lives aren’t meaningful or fulfilled at all.  Some think that meaning or fulfillment is still yet around the corner with the next possession.  Others think that God has let them down, as though being blessed only meant being financially abundant.  These are the ones who are still putty in the devil’s hands.

But a few come to realize that the years of effort and sacrifice to find these things through what the world has to offer, through physical means, has only built them a house of cards.  When the winds of life blow and stock prices tumble, or jobs disappear, or health fades, they find their house of cards is not able to protect them, let alone bring peace that passes all understanding, which is a reflection of true meaning and fulfillment.

Only when a person takes and makes the time to know God better – through things like reading the Bible, praying, being with other believers, and letting God love other people through them – will true meaning and fulfillment in life be found, through spiritual acts instead of physical means.

What "religion" are you?

Several times in my life I've had to fill out forms - on paper or online - that ask me what "religion" I am.  I can't help but be tempted to write "Non-religious Christian" because I can't stand the concept of religion nor do I practice a religion.

Now how's that for a contradiction in terms!  How can one possibly claim to be a Christian yet also non-religious?  Isn't Christianity a "religion", and therefore to be a Christian means you're "religious?"  'How blasphemous', you might be thinking.  Or is it?

There's a reason why it's called the "Christian faith", because a religion and a faith are two entirely different things.  People who have not put their trust in Jesus Christ to save them wrongly call it a "religion" because they have a false understanding of who God is and how people are supposed to relate to Him.  However, people who have put their trust in Jesus Christ to save them - Christians - rightly call it a "faith".  They have realized that the salvation given to them through this faith is the "gift of God", that it can't be earned by anything you do (Ephesians 2:8-10).  Thus, they have been invited and accepted into a relationship - not a religion - with the one true God through Jesus Christ and Him alone.

I've come to realize that a religion is a man-made system designed to try to please their god (or gods).  It's full of rules and regulations and ordinances, most of which have no origin in the Bible.  It's also not a very fun system to try to follow, because failure to live up to its standards is constant and therefore it's a great cause of demoralization.  All too often, there is a push to get other people "converted" in a vain attempt to please or appease their god(s) and thus feel more important and better about themselves. 

Sadly, many denominations and movements claiming to be Christian are in fact religions far removed from what God intended Christianity to be.  They go by different names:  Catholicism, Anglicanism, Lutheranism, and so forth.  Then there are the cultic movements, like the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons (Latter Day Saints).  God did not invent denominations or movements; rather, He intended Christianity to be a way to personally relate to Him through Jesus Christ and Him alone - no human intervention required.  However, people unwilling to accept His grace extended through Jesus Christ thought they knew better, and viola - the birth of modern religion.

Unfortunately, a lot of the atheism and agnosticism in this world today stem from those who have felt the pressure to convert to a particular religion.  These mindsets are compounded when these people witness the failure of religious followers to live up to religious standards, such as practicing what they preach.  And when these religious followers fail (not if, but when), they assume - or are told by their religious leaders - that their god(s) will fail to love them.

How the Bible paints a different picture!  If only these people would look past man-made religion and instead to the Bible where they can be told not only of the reality of the one true God, but also His amazing love for them, available without a single religious act on their part!

Here's what the Bible has to say about the Christian faith:

"There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope at your calling; one Lord [that is, Jesus], one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all."  (Ephesians 4:4-5)

What this passage implies is that the "one" Christian faith is therefore the only faith that exists.  It is one of those passages that is very exclusive, the kind that annoys and even greatly angers those outside the Christian faith.  In other words, it implies that there is no Muslim "faith", or Buddhist "faith", or Hindu "faith" and so on.  In reality, these are all religions:  the "one God" is revealed only in the Bible and in no other bodies of scripture, and therefore they are all worshipping false gods.  Also, they all have strict, man-made standards that have created a schizophrenic god or gods who can snap and go crazy on their followers at any moment and, worst of all, deny them passage to eternal paradise.

The appeal of Christianity is so much greater:

"Come to Me [Jesus], all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."  (Matthew 11:28, emphasis added)

"Everyone the Father [God] gives Me [Jesus] will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will never cast out." (John 6:37, emphasis added)

"... [God] is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance." (2 Peter 3:9, emphasis added)

"For God loved the world in this way:  He gave His One and Only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16, emphasis added)

"For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God's gift - not from works [religious effort] so that no one can boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9, emphasis added)

I don't know about you, but I much prefer the "one" true faith that accepts everyone - people of all races and colors and, yes, all religious backgrounds - and doesn't require us to be cleaned up and perfect before approaching the "one" true God and humbly and sincerely asking for His mercy to forgive and cleanse and save us.  How about you?

You're beautiful!

The past few months have been hard on me spiritually, and I've only 'come out of it' in the past couple of weeks.  One evidence for this has been the lack of ideas for this blog, or any ideas that I've had being too wordy and less simplistic, the result of the Holy Spirit not flowing through me but rather the flesh trying to drum up ideas.  I've gone through many struggles where I've questioned God's love for me.  But a rather profound thought that struck me during one of the darkest parts of this struggle became one of the major keys to getting me out of it as I pondered this thought further.

One day while I was looking in the mirror during this time, the thought struck me that my face is exactly how God designed it to be.  In other words, the same God that the Bible says created the limitless vastness of this universe (Psalm 19:1-6) and the billions of human beings that have existed before me also made the effort to arrange the features on my face to make me totally unique from anybody that has ever existed in the past and who will ever exist in the future.

As I've pondered this since, I've been blown away at what this represents.  For instance, the idea that everyone has a "twin" or "look-alike" is not true.  Even if somebody found someone who they claimed to be their look-alike, upon close examination there would be enough differences to sort the two apart.  This is true with even the closest-resembling twins.

At times I've wondered just how God envisioned what I would look like at all the various stages of my life.  Was He staring at my face at the dawn of time as he envisioned it, as close as the mirror that I now look into?  Did His very fingers trace its shape and arrange the features?  I marvel at how He coded my DNA to not only create the appearance but also cause the countless changes in it from conception to death.  Perhaps what is most profound as I write this is to realize that He did all this for me and for each and every one of us.  Even at the risk of you and I rejecting Him by rejecting Jesus, He made the effort to create every one of us to be unique in appearance and personality for His good pleasure.

You might be upset at God by what you see when you look in a mirror.  You might be upset that God didn't make you "handsome" or "beautiful" enough, or not at all.  You might even hate God because you perceive that He played a cruel joke on you, and that your looks have caused you to be the brunt of teasing and even violence that has destroyed any sense of self-respect and dignity.

But have you ever thought that God's standards are not that of man?  Have you ever thought that you are beautiful in the eyes of the One who the Bible says created you, that you are not a mistake?  Some might argue that the corruption of sin also corrupted the beauty of mankind.  Perhaps this is true, but perhaps not.  Consider what God declared to Samuel:

"Man does not see what the Lord sees, for man sees what is visible, but the Lord sees the heart."  (I Samuel 16:7)

Suppose your looks have been the brunt of jokes.  Could it be that the damage caused has been due more to how you've reacted to them?  There are several people I've encountered who don't appear gifted in the looks department, but their personalities are remarkable.  These people have ignored or overcome what others have said about them.  In the case of Christians, they've also learned how to see themselves as God sees them, and to realize that the heart is of infinitely more importance than one's outward appearance, not just to God but to open-minded people as well - those who, like God, look to the heart.

To realize the immense love of God for me in this way and at this time has had incredible meaning, and I'm grateful that He has spoken to me in this manner!  Hopefully this realization will impact you as well.

The perfect time

I find it interesting to think about God's timing, in this case of when he chose to send Jesus to live on earth.  Biblical teachers and scholars have spoken many times of the fact that it was while the Middle East was under Roman rule, for example, and how their transportation network and the common language of the day over a broad geographic area contributed to the rapid spread of the Gospel after Jesus’ death and resurrection.

But what I also find interesting – and I’m not sure I’ve ever heard someone speak about this – is how God chose to send Jesus before the human advent of mass media.  From a human understanding, how wise it would have been for God to send his only son at a time such as this when the whole world could have known about him instead of just one tiny region.  People from the world over could then have seen for themselves the first coming of the world’s only Messiah.  Also, it would have shaved millennia off the time it took to spread the Gospel to the farthest, most isolated reaches of the globe.  How many missed out on the hope of eternal life during that time?

But the flip side of this scenario might have been equally scary.  There were enough religious leaders in that tiny part of the world trying to vilify and even kill Jesus, afraid of losing their respect before men and the wealth and prestige that come along with it.  How many more so if his arrival had been broadcast globally in an age of mass transportation!

In addition, the mass media is notorious for distorting and warping the character of people and the nature of events, shaping them to fit their agenda or belief system.  It is enough that many people were doing this even as Jesus performed miracles right before their eyes.  How much more would Jesus and his miracles have been distorted had he been under the constant microscope of reporters and television cameras!

Instead, God chose to bring Jesus into a world where the only effective means of communication was personal; Jesus reached out to people on a one-by-one basis.  Even if he was speaking to a large crowd, the people were seeing and hearing him in person, and in many cases before and after they had an opportunity to have one-on-one interaction with him.  And following his death and resurrection, after the Holy Spirit first entered believers in Jesus on the Day of Pentecost, the Gospel was once again spread in the same manner:  one-on-one or in the presence of crowds within earshot.

In a sense, then, God intended for the Gospel to be introduced to the world then spread in a manner consistent with God’s nature:  personal.  Not in the distant, detached, and distorted manner that the modern mass media has introduced into the world.

The gullible ones

(This post is not intended to make fun of or insult non-believers; it has not been written in a sarcastic tone.  Rather, some observations will be made about how they view believers in God in order to set the stage for my main points later on.  So if you're a non-believer, please note this and maintain an open mind as you read this post.)

Non-believers make some pretty interesting assumptions about believers in God, one of them being that only gullible people would put their faith in some unseen entity and give it a title like "God".  It's as though a non-believer making such an assumption thinks that some Bible-thumping preacher did some 'ooga booga' sort of brain-washing speech that caused people to believe in and follow God like blind, mindless robots.  They assume the believer left their brain at the door and are now under the control not of an infinite Creator, but rather a figment of their imagination that allows those preaching the message of this God to exploit believers for the sake of mind control and financial gain.  (Lest non-believers think that they are not under such exploitation themselves from non-spiritual interests, I'll tactfully discuss the blindness of non-believers later on.)

What I also find interesting is how non-believers will never sincerely ask just how such people came to believe in God for fear that the message they hear might cause them to get "sucked in" themselves.  To avoid this possibility, they instead stand at arm's length and make assumptions about this God and those who are his followers.  Unfortunately, their assumptions are made with an air - even an arrogance - of authority, as though they could possibly know more about God than those who actually follow and claim to have an intimate personal relationship with him.  This is no more outlandish than someone assuming that a complete stranger to you and your friend knows more about your friend than you do.  And what's worse is how the masses of non-believers will buy into these assumptions rather than, as mentioned above, objectively asking the believer about what brought them to faith.

In other words, non-believers accuse believers of gullibility, but aren't they ultimately the more gullible?  They are basing their beliefs about God upon false information borne out of a lack of experience and relationship with him.  They haven't walked both sides of the "spiritual fence", so to speak, like a believer has, yet they talk as though they know what being a believer is all about, as though they've 'been there and done that', spiritually speaking.

I have also noticed how nearly everything a non-believer mentions about a believer is negative.  Countless believers throughout history have given testimony of the power of God to heal broken lives, bodies, and relationships - in many cases baffling the intellectual powers of their day (read the book of Romans, chapter 1, in particular verse 22) - and yet the non-believers have constantly tried to find human or tangible explanations for these miracles.  The idea of an unseen entity, mysterious and more powerful than them, is scary because they cannot explain or control it, so they do their best to try to discredit it.  Because God can't fit into their "box" of understanding, in their minds he therefore must and should not be for real.  They want control because they think being under the control of the one who created them is somehow a bad thing.

They also only see man's religious attempts to please God, the "he loves me, he loves me not" sort who think they're believers, and blind themselves (or are blinded?) to those who enjoy the non-religious relationship of grace through Jesus Christ that God originally intended for everyone, the one which only becomes real to those who want and accept this relationship (these are the true, "saved" believers who have put their faith in Jesus Christ).  Therefore, in the eyes of non-believers, nothing good can come out of believing in God despite testimonies of true believers that indicate otherwise because all they see (rather, want to see) is the pious, holier-than-thou, religious attempts at living up to a system of man-made do's-and-don'ts and the hypocrisy of failure when they don't live up to it.

(If you're a non-believer and anything I've written so far is offensive or questionable to you because you've assumed I've just pulled these thoughts out of mid-air, don't take it personally.  I haven't invented these notions of how non-believers view believers in God; I've simply tried to state the mindset I had while I was a non-believer for the first 22 years of my life.  Your mindset may differ from my old one on a few specific points, but overall your view of God and his followers is probably not much different, but I digress ...)

If I've seemed surprised at how non-believers make assumptions and accusations about believers and seem to be blinded to the truth of who God really is, I'm actually not.  It doesn't surprise me in the least because I was once a blinded assumer and accuser myself.  I was deceived into thinking that I was under nobody's control - man's or otherwise - when in reality I was under the total and absolute control of the enemy of God who wants nothing more than for all humans to believe that he and God do not exist.

This enemy, who goes by the name of Satan or the title of "Devil", does everything possible to keep full control over us without us even knowing it.  Why would he want such control?  Because he wants to drag us along with him into the eternal punishment and torment that he knows he has earned through his rebellion toward God.  Why does he not want non-believers to know that he exists and controls them?  Because he wants them to live under the illusion that they are in control.  Then they won't resist when he leads them around like puppets on a string, distracting them and leading them ever further from the message of Jesus.  For if they hear this message and put their faith in Jesus, they will have found the one and only means by which they can forever escape Satan's control and find eternal life rather than endure eternal punishment and torment.  (Read about Satan's ultimate demise in the book of Revelation, chapter 20.)

Even though Satan tries to keep people from knowing about and believing in Jesus, people unfamiliar with the Bible might be surprised to realize that even Satan and his demonic agents know about and believe in the existence, power, and true identity of Jesus.  Here is one such account:

"In the synagogue there was a man with an unclean demonic spirit who cried out with a loud voice, "Leave us alone!  What do You have to do with us, Jesus - Nazarene?   Have You come to destroy us?  I know who You are - the Holy One of God!"" (Luke 4:34)

Jesus also had a lot to say about Satan's control over unbelievers while he was here on earth.  Here is just one passage:

"Why don't you understand what I [Jesus] say?  Because you cannot listen to my word.   You are of your father the Devil, and you want to carry out your father's desires.  He ... has not stood in the truth, because there is no truth in him.  When he tells a lie, he speaks from his own nature, because he is a liar and the father of liars.  Yet because I [Jesus] tell the truth, you do not believe me ... If I tell the truth, why don't you believe me?  [Because] The one who is from God listens to God's words.  This is why you [non-believers] don't listen, because you are not from God." (John 8:43-47)

In other words, the Father of the believer in Jesus Christ is none other than God himself, whereas the father of all non-believers - and non-Christians - is none other than the Devil himself.  So again, non-believers don't understand believers nor do they really want to understand because they are under the controlling lies of Satan - according to this and other Bible passages - who wants them to remain blind to the truth of God, a truth that if accepted means forgiveness and eternal life from God that Satan once had but no longer has.  Satan is like Adolf Hitler at the end of the Second World War, who wanted to drag everyone else down with him instead of signing a peace treaty because he knew his end was near.  He wants as many gullible non-believers as possible to share in the eternal suffering that he knows is awaiting him.

If a non-believer ever gets the nerve to question me about my level of intelligence and/or degree of integrity, and/or accuses me of gullibility because I believe in God - in particular Jesus - I hope I will have the ability to calmly and rationally ask them if they've ever been fully a non-believer AND a believer like I have.  I have the right and the authority to state what I claim to know about God/Jesus because unlike the vast majority of humanity, I've lived fully immersed for several years on both sides of the "spiritual fence".  Any non-believer simply does NOT have any such authority because they cannot speak objectively about what it means to be a believer - they simply haven't walked a mile in my shoes or those of any other believer, so their arguments frankly lack any and all credibility.

Non-believers can make all the assumptions they want about me, but they can never change or take away the account of how I lived when I hated and rejected the notion of God, how this God chose to make himself known to me and begin to change my heart, how I eventually accepted this loving God and his free, no-strings-attached offer of forgiveness and eternal life, and how my life has been all the better ever since.  In other words, non-believers are unfortunately the gullible ones - not believers - and I say unfortunately because their non-belief has them headed straight to a horrific eternity unless they choose, only while still on this side of eternity, to accept the free gift of salvation and the resulting eternal life offered only through faith in Jesus Christ.