I Testify- An Eyewitness to The Event- A True Fish Tale

I want to confirm that I was an eyewitness to the story below- IT IS TRUE!

February Fish Tales Winner
By Austin Luke
Friday, February 27, 2009

"My story begins back when I was in high school. I went to a small school called Briarwood Christian High and one of the neat things about the school is that is has a creek located behind it that separates the school parking lot from the athletic fields.

I started fishing this creek back when I was in the 10th grade and did well. One day I caught a 5- and a 6-pound bass on two consecutive casts. For the next two years I still continued to catch fish, but it was my senior year that remains my most memorable.

I was out fishing during school - I believe it was during fifth period accounting - when I got the urge to cast a line into "Briarwood Creek."

I was not there for too long when I saw the biggest fish I had laid eyes on come over into a shallow area and sit there. I sight fished her for about 20 minutes when she finally took. The rod bent double and the drag started screaming and 15 minutes later I was proudly holding a 10.2-pound bass caught out of a creek used to drain all the athletic fields.

I took off running with the fish and jumped on top of my truck and signaled (it was more like a lot of hollering and screaming)for my long time fishing partner and football coach to come and see this fish.

Coach Matthews saw me and saw the fish and came running across the football field with the entire seventh grade P.E. class and they all came to see this huge bass.

After about 5 minutes, Coach said, "Austin we got to go show this fish to Coach Yancey."

So after we got a cooler and some ice, we marched up to the school and into the lunch room to show Coach this fish. All the students were at lunch so when I walked in, totally out of dress code, and had a huge cooler on my shoulder, along with the entire seventh grade P.E. class, we obviously attracted a lot of attention.

I proceeded to go to the teacher’s table and slammed this cooler down on the table where all of these teachers were dressed to the hilt in their suits and ties. A crowd of about 100 students started to gather around the table as I reached into the cooler. When I lifted this fish out, you would have thought I had won the Bassmaster Classic.

People were screaming and hollering and clapping. Coach Yancey ran and got the headmaster of the school out of a meeting and brought him to see this fish. For the rest of the day I paraded that fish around the school in and out of classrooms showing what I had caught.

When I saw my headmaster years later I asked him, "Why did you not give me detention for being out of dress code and fishing while in class?"

He said, “If it had been smaller then I would have, but a person only catches a fish that big only once in his life."

A Pastoral Prayer

This was the pastoral prayer by Buzz Graham at Christ Presbyterian Church on Feb. 22.
I thought it was worth posting:

Heavenly Father, Eternal Son, Holy Spirit – Helper of the helpless, abide with us.
We call on you with nothing of our own to commend us.
We call on you for the sake of your covenant with us your people, decreed in eternity, bought with the precious blood of Jesus, applied to us by the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit.

Great Lover of our souls, we have none in heaven but you,
and though we have chased after other desires, only in you do our hearts find satisfaction.
Forgive our wayward longings, pardon our worldly leanings, heal our sin sickness.
Abide with us that we may despair of hope and pleasure in any other.

Lord, we are your people by your choosing under your covenant. We are eternally grateful to be yours.

We join our hearts today in Jesus’ name to pray for each other.
Some are sick – please heal them.
Some are grieving loss - please comfort them.
Loved ones have died, friends and family have gone astray, jobs are lost, money has evaporated.
Yet we remain secure in the hand of Jesus. And if he does not condemn us, no power can separate us from your love. Protect us, provide for us, and bless us with your own sweet presence.

Lord, we pray for those in the military and in law enforcement.
Please protect those who protect us.

And Sovereign Lord, govern those who govern us. We pray for those in authority at all levels and across all branches of government. Grant them good judgment beyond the limits of human knowledge and insight. Give them heavenly wisdom.

Abide with us.

Lord, bless the church as it gathers this Lord’s Day in church buildings and meeting halls and storefronts and homes around the world. Hear our praise spoken in all the languages of man. Hear our hymns of praise. Receive our prayers of petition and intercession. And quicken us afresh as we feed on the Word.

Abide with us we pray in the name of Jesus.

Amen

The Difference Between HTTP and HTTPS-Truth!

ACCORDING TO TRUTH OR FICTION.COM **The main difference between http:// and https:// is It's all about keeping you secure** HTTP stands for HyperText Transport Protocol, which is just a fancy way of saying it's a protocol (a language, in a manner of speaking) for information to be passed back and forth between web servers and clients. The important thing is the letter S which makes the difference between HTTP and HTTPS. The S stands for "Secure". If you visit a website or webpage, and look at the address in the web browser, it will likely begin with the following: http://. This means that the website is talking to your browser using the regular 'unsecure' language. In other words, it is possible for someone to "eavesdrop" on your computer's conversation with the website. If you fill out a form on the website, someone might see the information you send to that site. This is why you never ever enter your credit card number in an http website! But if the web address begins with https://, that basically means your compu ter is talking to the website in a secure code that no one can eavesdrop on. You understand why this is so important, right? If a website ever asks you to enter your credit card information, you should automatically look to see if the web address begins with https://. If it doesn't, no way should you enter sensitive information like a credit card number

Summary of the eRumor: A forwarded email that urges you to pay attention to whether a web address you are using to give confidential information starts with "HTTP" or "HTTPS." It says that "HTTPS" is the more secure of the two.

The Truth: The eRumor is true. Most web addresses begin with "HTTP," which is an acronym for "Hyper Text Transfer Protocol." It's the protocol used to allow you to communicate with web sites. "HTTPS" stands for "Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure." It means that information exchanged between you and a web site is encrypted and cannot be hijacked by someone who might want to electronically eavesdrop when you type a credit card number, a password, a social security number, or any other person information. The purpose of the email is to encourage you to check for the "HTTPS" before you give financial information. Most web sites are not HTTPS, but when you click a link to make a purchase, many of them will direct you to an HTTPS site. According to Verisign.com, a provider of Internet infrastructure services, Secure Socket Layer Encryption is a technology that protects Web sites and makes it easy to develop trust by means of an "SSL Certificate that enables encryption of sensitive information during online transactions. Each SSL Certificate contains unique, authenticated information about the certificate owner and a Certificate Authority verifies the identity of the certificate owner when it is issued. " Just because a website uses such SSL encryption does not safeguard internet users from phishing and other schemes. When visiting websites that accept financial information online it is always a wise practice to make sure the online company is legitimate, has a good reputation in customer service and uses SSL encryption in their transactions.

545 vs 300,000,000 by Charlie Reese

Charley Reese has been a journalist for 49 years.


545 PEOPLE
By Charlie Reese

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don't propose a federal budget. The president does.

You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.

You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.

You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? Nancy Pelosi. She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red .

If the Army & Marines are in IRAQ , it's because they want them in IRAQ

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.

There are no insoluble government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation," or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.

They, and they alone, have the power.

They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses.

Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees.

We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!

Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper

MSNBC vs FOX

I went to workout tonight and happened to be right in front of a TV tuned to Olberman and the lady that follows him.

I need to disclose quickly that I am a Fox News guy and frequently watch O'Reily. I am fully aware of the slugfest that goes on between the two. The NY Times is also frequently a target of attack.

Do I agree 100% will Bill O? No, not at all.

But tonight, I was surprised to find the MSNBC mantra much worse than imagined.

I need to be honest- I don't think the news commentators are good for the unity of our country and I am beginning to believe the damage is irreparable. The viciousness and venom unleashed by the Bush haters went too far for too long. Their lust for prosecution and vengeance is way over the line. The lady after Olberman mocked the GOP in cold sarcasm and disrespect- I was somewhat shocked by the brashness of it.

There is nothing wrong in being a Bush critic and it is completely OK to be a democrat and Obama backer. And yes, there are problems and extremists on both sides. I firmly believe I am more Christian than conservative.

But the degree of the cynicism shown tonight on MSNBC was the worst I have ever seen- Bill O is not exaggerating.... the poison IS that bad.

I am getting closer to consider calling it quits with my TV..... the single eyed idol is blinding us daily to the weakened state of a once proud union under God.

It is only by His mercy that we will survive.

My Apologies?

from my blog www.jayopsis.blogspot.com

A Christian Student Talks to His Friend........

"Hey! We have been around each other a lot lately and I have loved getting to know you. I’ve been waiting for the right moment to have this conversation with you. I hope you will allow me some time to share some things with you today.
I am taking a lot for granted. I am assuming that you want to discuss these things. We both should agree that they are important. I’m assuming with your intelligence you have from time to time asked yourself some questions about the foundation and direction of your life. Maybe you have gone as far to question about death and whether there is an afterlife. Deep down you may ask, how do I know that there is no God?
I hope I am not being too intrusive and you can stop me at any point, but I really desire to discuss with you our differences. I want to hear what you believe and deeply desire to share with you why I am confident of my belief in God.
To start with, I want us to talk about our past. We both have studied the psychological debate of nature and nurture. We both live in a world that seeks to make all truth relative and discount faith as completely separate from any reason. My desire to share this with you is social taboo because I am supposed to keep all of this quiet.

One of your first arguments against my faith will be that I was brought up to believe these things, while you were not.

My answer is that I don’t deny this at all, I was taught to follow God early in my life. But my childhood was not a cocoon. I have heard all the reasons why not to believe and I have observed a lot of people who live differently than me. In spite of issues within and without myself, I am more convinced of the truth of God’s existence than ever before and I am more in love with the Christian gospel than ever before.
You see, without God, nothing in this world makes any sense. Because of God, the whole of history and civilization makes complete and perfect sense. I am so convinced of this that I dare propose that if God is not in back of everything, you cannot find meaning in anything. I can’t argue for God without taking my belief in Him for granted.
Here’s the kicker- I contend that you can’t argue against Him unless you take him for granted also. You see, when I listen to you argue about God I realize that He has given you the very air to breathe the very words, that comes from the very thoughts that come form the very intelligence that He has given you.
After I listen to your arguments, they make no assault on my position of faith, because I believe you argue from the darkness while I stand in the light. You believe the opposite is true.
So, in love, I want to continue my story and then we can proceed.

I come from a family of faith. It doesn’t discount truth to be in it at a young age. Our family wasn’t a bunch of holy rollers, but it was a family impacted by the Christian worldview.

I see you are ready to jump out of your skin to counter me- go ahead.

Why the Christian God? Well I believe in Him and you do not. Let me argue from what I know than from what you can’t know.

Why do you not see Him? Well surely you don’t expect me to bring Him in the room so you can see Him? If I were able to do that, He wouldn’t be the God of Christianity.

What I want to offer to you are reasons to believe. People want proof, but all that exists is evidence. That is true for any worldview. I serve a reasonable God- He invented reason, and organization, and orderliness.

Why are you so agitated? Calm down, I am being a friend. We can stop at any point a get a cup of coffee and talk football.

You ask me why you are agitated? Well, you know what this conversation means. If you change your belief about God, you will have to see yourself in a whole different way- and that may bother you.

Hang with me a little longer- I want to continue my story.

When I was little, our family believed. We said prayers at meals and went to worship services on a regular basis. If I told my mom I was afraid of monsters she would give the answer that you would expect – “ There are no monsters and I shouldn’t be afraid anyway” “Why mom?” “ Your body and soul belongs to your Savior who died for you on the cross and rose again that no one should be afraid.”
That’s the way we talked from time to time at our house. It was the atmosphere of our home. We still watched TV and talked about everyday stuff and even fought! But there were Bibles and Christian music and occasional family devotions.
As I went to Sunday school and Bible camps, I began to grow accustomed to the grand old stories of Abraham and Moses and Paul. All of these things began to condition me. I cannot help but believing. The love of Christ rained on me in soft showers of gentle moments that seemed very insignificant at the time.
Let’s stop there and parallel what you have told me about your life. Your family did not believe in God. Your parents worked hard to keep your upbringing free from the trappings of religion. They spoke to you of hard work and freethinking. They worked hard to cultivate an open mind. Where I was conditioned to believe in God you were left free. But were you free? I dare say that you were conditioned to not believe. You think that religion was poured down my throat and I counter that anti-religion was poured down yours. And that becomes the first truly awkward moment of our conversation. Can you agree with me at this point?
My story goes on. My parents sent me to a Christian school and my conditioning continued. I was daily instructed by a formula – it said that I had been conceived in sin, like all men. But I was now a child of the covenant of grace- redeemed by Christ- and part of my parent’s responsibility was to bring me up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Part of that training was to constantly teach and remind me of what God’s Word taught about the world.
This environment prepared me for the day of my conversion- where I personally committed my trust in Christ’s death as the only means of salvation. According to God’s word, at that moment I was justified and adopted into God’s family. I now began a road of being set apart for God’s work and His glory. I wish I had been completely faithful to this and understood it with the depth I know now. I have done a lot of harm in the name of Christ. I still have sin in me.

You tell me that your schooling was much different. You went to a “neutral” school. Your school outlawed religious expression and remained secular. God was never mentioned in your study of nature or history. Even allusions to the Bible in literature were kind of skipped over as teachers became very fearful of what might happen if they were accused of “bias”.

I hope you are smart enough now to realize that the classroom was not neutral. To secularize the classroom becomes a worldview itself. An unbiased, neutral classroom is just a thin disguise of a negative attitude toward God. Can you agree that the person not for God is actually against him?

I see that you don’t agree with me. Let me put it this way. God is plainly seen everywhere. This is His world, He made it. He made the majestic mountains and encoded our DNA. We are living by His decree and are we are living on His property. You don’t see them, but His ownership signs are everywhere. His stamp is on every song, picture, and poem - He is the expression of life and love and beauty.
If you stay “neutral” to Him- is it not the supreme insult? Atheists will say, ‘God has not given me enough evidence, so how can He blame me?” But our counter is that the evidence is as plain as the engineering of their pinky. If they cannot see, it is because they are blinded by sin. See, the Bible says that we are dead in trespasses and sin. That deadness is also blindness. I am telling you that unless God opens your eyes, you will see me only as a “goody- goody” and will resent my proposition of truth as arrogance and intolerance.
My Christian schooling continued. Can you see the difference in my conditioning? All my teachers pledged to teach their subjects from the Christian worldview. It wasn’t just Bible class. Even Algebra was presented under the authority of God’s Word! We were taught that to leave God out of the picture would prevent us from understanding the framework of truth.
We studied non-Christian teachings and philosophy. I have a keen understanding of Darwinism and existentialism. We read Plato, Kant, Emerson, Freud, and Marx. I was taught the best logical reasons to not believe in God. I heard all these things, but was also given sound refutations of these arguments and philosophies.
My Bible classes became exhilarating. I was exposed to systematic theology and read from great minds like C.S. Lewis. Martin Luther, and Blaise Pascal. I had great teachers explain Biblical history and geography. I learned how to defend the reliability of the Bible and argue my faith through apologetics. I was taught about evangelism and missions. I also heard countless testimonies about the life changing effect of the gospel. I became equipped in sound doctrine and Church history.
I am finished with my background. You know the God to which I am testifying for. This God was behind my parents, my teachers, my youth leaders, and many of my friends. It was He who conditioned all that conditioned me. He is the God of Christianity. He is the All-Conditioner.

Believe it or not- He also conditioned everything that conditioned you.

I love that laugh of yours. I hear it as one of incredulity.

What do I mean by this you say? He is real and outside of us. He is objective truth. He is the God who controls all things. In Him all things exist and are held together. The counsel of His will controls all reason. We do not condition him - he conditions us. My belief in Him does not make Him anymore real and your disbelief in Him does not make Him less real.
Think about this. I have heard of all of the best arguments against His existence. All of these theories of life and philosophy have been propounded for centuries of discourse and dialect.
I can tell by your gestures, that you cannot understand how anyone acquainted with the facts and arguments can believe in a God who created the world. Well, I am one of many who hold to the faith in full view of what science and philosophy is telling us.

If you give me time, I will be happy to show you where science ends and where faith begins. But again, let me warn you- that all men are biased and all live by faith. The scientist pulls a little sleight of hand and wants you to believe that he lives by fact.

The bottom line is this. When someone rejects God- that person offends Him. God’s displeasure rests on the rejecters. Do you worry about this at all? You and God are not on speaking terms. You feel like you have very good reasons that He does not exist. Now, if He does exist, you are in trouble. Your anti-God glasses are not an excuse for refusing to acknowledge or thank Him. Even the good things in your life heap up wrath because you never thanked Him for any of it- you took all the credit. You have tasted all His goodness without offering even a dime of reverence.

I am about to offend you without apology. I am telling you that God has made His existence and presence plain to you. I can give you all the sound arguments- but you will counter them all. I say creation- you say evolution. I say providence- you say accident. I say prophecy- you say human agenda. I say miracle- you say human ignorance. You ignore him because you want to.

So what am I to do?
I want to win you to Christ. But in every technique of trying to win you I cannot offend my Savior.
I apologize that the Christian church has let you down in this way. The American church in particular is a poor and impotent expression of the true gospel of Christ. We have marketed a messiah to consumers instead of boldly sharing the truth.
But again, in spite of my shortcomings, in spite of the churches failings throughout history, - the sacred canopy of salvation in Christ alone, by grace alone, through faith alone, understood by scripture alone, to God alone be the glory still stands in victory and momentum.
What am I to do? …….. I just did it.
I am to share my story and my faith. It should be plain to you by now the sort of Savior I believe in. It is God, the All-Conditioner. It is God who created all things, including you. It is He who by His providence conditioned me, making me believe in Him, and by His grace makes me want you to believe in Him. It is by His love that I can say that I love you. It is by His word that I want to serve you. It is by His truth that I will not compromise for you.
So our debate is really over. From now on, you need to take it up with Him. Down in your heart, you know I am speaking the truth. I am praying right now that God will open the eyes of your heart. But that is up to His pleasure. I do not have to save you. I cannot save you.
I have peace- do you have peace?
I am not afraid of death? Are you?
I have joy, true Biblical joy? Don’t you want to find that?
I have a purpose? Can you define yours?
I base my belief in a God inspired authority called the Bible? What is your source of truth?

Trust Christ now, please! Each moment you reject Him, the more hardened you get to Him. Your callousness will one day seal an unimaginable doom. God is a gentleman. He will give you your desire- a life without Him.

Just know that at some point the decision will be permanent. The gates of hell are locked from the inside.

I will be your friend. I hope you appreciate that I shared all of this with you because I believe I owe it to you. If I held it back, it would say one of two things. Either I really did not love you or I really did not believe this to be true."

Inspired by “Why I Believe in God” by Cornelius Van Til PH.D.

Christian Quarries and Apologetics

this is from my blog: www.jayopsis.blogspot.com

Growing up, one of my favorite things to do was going on long hikes in the woods just behind our neighborhood. I called it mountains, but it is technically at best ‘hills’. These hills had all kinds of well marked paths and each day was a grand adventure. One trail led to abandoned mine shafts, others went to beautiful points of views and solitude. We named the trails based on what they led to: “fire tower’, "Irondale”, “Mines”, and “quarry”. Our most favorite hike, however, was to the ‘quarry’. It seemed like a grand canyon to my 11 year old life. There were actually three quarries: the’ Big one’, the ‘Smaller one”, and ‘the Little quarry’- all within a ¼ mile area.

It was the Big quarry that capture my imagination and excitement. It had high cliffs which completed about 2/3 of a canyon. The trail was cool because it was all heavy pine and shadows that dramatically opened to this amazing view of old limestone walls and evidence of industry. This was a completely dry quarry that has been recorded in my brain as about 440 yards in diameter. It had basically, a flat bottom, and even had an old abandoned car in it.

My mom would have had a heart attack if she ever saw all that we did in that quarry. We climbed the cliffs (without ropes!) with no worry that a fall meant death. On the top of the quarry, it was a good 100 foot drop! I had a favorite ‘fat man squeeze’ that led to a type of cave. I would climb, squeeze, and then sit in this opening for hours. It was quiet and I felt so alive!

The hollow canyon was strange. I knew that there had once been a lot of activity there. Birmingham had iron ore, limestone, and coal in great abundance which allowed it to blossom into ‘the Magic City” and “Pittsburg of the South” almost overnight.

But it was dead now. Except for quiet shrubs and persistent saplings, it was devoid of life. I loved to sit and look at the evidence of activity, but it was nothing more than a relic. The old car was rusting, the quarry was out of business, and except for a few adventurous neighborhood boy-gangs.

What made me think about this? Well, I have been spending a lot of time lately in another beautiful quarry- Christian Epistemology and Philosophy. Hold on- don’t pull me in front of the Presbytery yet- I have great admiration of these pursuits.

I have been overwhelmed by the intellect and work of Justin Martyr, Iraneus, Tertullian, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Calvin, Kant, Pascal, Kierkegaard, Clarke, and Van Til. I have loved hearing their thoughts and analysis and I have great faith that God ordains this process as a development of our better understanding of Him and the beautiful balance of faith and reason.

However, I have become more and more convinced that Christian philosophy is somewhat a dead quarry. I worry that we have squeezed out all of the ore and left only the outline.

I hear the charge- “There you go- another anti-intellectual Christian”- and that is not it at all. I believe that we have to stay in the academic arena and defend the faith with boldness and clarity. But the basic nature of man will forever place the academic credibility of Christian faith in jeopardy. We never sound ‘retreat’- but let’s not pretend that we will become popular in the devil’s domain.

The more I study the ‘evidence of the mind’, the more convinced I become about the ‘reasons of the heart’. Anytime we separate our rationale from the heart, we create another quarry.

What do I mean?

Well, God is a person.

And that personhood requires heart. We think of apologetics as a tower, God presents it as a dialogue… a relationship. The entire Bible is a story of relationship in which we take sides. We are either a son or an enemy.

Personhood also unfolds as story. God has a narrative. His story is the gospel and its victory lap through history and around the globe. If our apologetics arguments ever detach from the gospel… then the ore has no more value.

Ravi Zacharius reminds us that we argue from theory, illustrate from the heart, and apply at the kitchen table. Music and movies pierce the soul and logic bounces off the brain. The Christian apologist is sharing himself. The warmth of his love prepares the ground for the force of his evidence.

I will not stop studying the men before me; they are my faithful fathers. Because they are men, they all have flaws. Some have even communicated ideas that we now consider heretical. But relationships are never clean and all life points to the need of the gospel message of salvation by faith in Christ’s atonement.

But there has to be heart- there has to be love- what benefit will a clanging gong have on this world?

The seal of the savior means a story to His glory- I hope to daily die to my miserable glory story and walk the way of my Lord.

I now borrow a prayer… stolen from Anselm- the famous ‘credo ut intelligam’

"Nor do I seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe that I may understand. For this, too, I believe, that, unless I first believe, I shall not understand."

This ‘understanding’ comes first through the heart. The amazing thing is that it is sick by sin- but God’s spirit makes it function and God’s son makes it clean.

Growing in Obedience as a Result of Grace

Matthew 7:24 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”

The question of obedience comes up a lot. “Aren’t we saved by grace, not a result of works?” YES.
And yet, I find myself being confronted on this very issue. Pastor Rick Warren in his 8 Principles based on the beatitudes lists this very idea in Principle 5.

Voluntarily submit to every change God wants to make in my life and humbly ask Him to remove my character defects. "Happy are those whose greatest desire is to do what God requires"

Paul is clear about this in Romans 6:1 “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?”

This is a huge part of sanctification, that part of the doctrine of grace that flows out of our justification and adoption in Christ.

I am convinced however that it is a process.

CS Lewis adds an interesting idea in that , at the beginning, we somewhat pretend or rehearse this new life.

In Book IV Chapter 7 of Mere Christianity, he says these very interesting words:

So that, in a way, this dressing up as Christ is a piece of outrageous cheek. But the odd thing is that He has ordered us to do it.
Why? What is the good of pretending to be what you are not? Well, even
on the human level, you know, there are two kinds of pretending. There is a
bad kind, where the pretense is there instead of the real thing; as when a
man pretends he is going to help you instead of really helping you. But
there is also a good kind, where the pretense leads up to the real thing.
When you are not feeling particularly friendly but know you ought to be, the
best thing you can do, very often, is to put on a friendly manner and behave
as if you were a nicer person than you actually are. And in a few minutes,
as we have all noticed, you will be really feeling friendlier than you were.

In reality, of course, it is God who does everything. We, at most, allow it to
be done to us. In a sense you might even say it is God who does the
pretending. The Three-Personal God, so to speak, sees before Him in fact a
self-centered, greedy, grumbling, rebellious human animal. But He says "Let
us pretend that this is not a mere creature, but our Son. It is like Christ
in so far as it is a Man, for He became Man. Let us pretend that it is also
like Him in Spirit. Let us treat it as if it were what in fact it is not.
Let us pretend in order to make the pretense into a reality." God looks at
you as if you were a little Christ: Christ stands beside you to turn you
into one. I daresay this idea of a divine make-believe sounds rather strange
at first. But, is it so strange really? Is not that how the higher thing
always raises the lower? A mother teaches her baby to talk by talking to it
as if it understood long before it really does. We treat our dogs as if they
were "almost human": that is why they really become "almost human" in the
end.


John Frame adds these thoughts in his study of Cornelius Van Til:

"He (Van Til) calls for an increase in the soul’s resolve to do God’s will. But that resolve needs to become more and more spontaneous, fixed, and growing in momentum. What he means is that spiritual maturity brings more internal and less external constraint. Growing in Christ means that we become more and more willing to do His will; our obedience becomes more delightful, more the passion of our own heart. It becomes habitual, in a good sense. A mature servant of God does not need to be browbeaten into seeking God’s righteousness."

So here I am, a believer in Christ since the summer of 1980, and I am still wavering in this idea of obedience. I’m thankful for grace and so dependent on my Lord’s mercy. But isn’t it time I seriously consider my areas of clear disobedience?

VAN TIL CIRCLES AND THE STORY OF LIFE

image source: http://www.christianciv.com/VT_Diagrammed.html

I am reading a book by John M. Frame on the thoughts and teaching of Cornelius Van Til. The above diagram is what Van Til wrote on the chalk board all the time illustrating the basic two world views held by men today. The one big circle illustrates non-biblical worldviews, everything is together. No distinction of God as creator or person. The two-circles show what the Bible teaches. The tri-une God of the universe called everything into existence for His use and glory. Then He chooses to reveal Himself to us (the lines). The resulting application of these worldviews is dramatically different!

The more I read Dr. Frame (and I am also listening to him RTS Apologetics from Itunes U) the more I am overwhelmed at the incredible majesty and depth of this seemingly simplistic drawing.

Of all the good points- the one that has somehow struck me the most is the 'Personhood' of God. Our God has personality! In an age of CSI, where we bow at the altar of test tubes, computers, and techno gadgets- the God of Supreme Personality crashes through in a flood of love, communication, and truth.

Dr. Frame lays this out almost like it is no big deal...but in our world, THIS IS THE BIG DEAL!

Here are some of these crucial points from Dr. Frame:
' There are personal things and impersonal things. People (personal) and trees/rocks(impersonal). The Bible teaches that the impersonal things were made by a Person, for His use. The personal is more fundamental than the personal. But the non-christian does not have this reference, impersonal things are more fundamental. Scientists or philosophers assumes the most complete explanation of things is to reduce them to matter and motion. Your decisions of the will are merely products of molecules and chemicals with input from experiences. In their world, they think to explain things by reducing to the impersonal. (Then they have 'facts', which is the important stuff. For example, in science, the cause of things as starting with a person cannot be accepted because that goes outside science or the bounds of rationality or investigation.)

But in the Christian worldview, the most fundamental elements are personal: things like love, covenants, trust, justice, peace, are fundamental and lasting.

The non-Biblical view sees these things as ephemeral: they will all be wiped away in the impersonal process of nature.'

I am excited to continue into the study of Christian epistemolgy, theories of transcendence, etc. But in my studies, I pray that I will never lose that contact point of my Father being the Supreme Person. Absolute Holiness, but One who offers relationship! Lord, please let that relationship be as a good son and not a rebellious, cold, unreliable enemy.

Our studies and theology are not conventional gadgets to take out play with and put away. They go beyond the mind, soften the heart, and get us into the story of the God of Victory and Love. This is not a cold test tube tale, it is a drama, full of conflict and courage- love and healing, hope and joy. What makes movies meaningful?- All of the elements allow the story to touch deeper. We don't walk out and say, 'those were impressive wires and computer chips'- we are impressed with it as a story it resonates somehow in the soul.

More to come.....

The Mystery and Mastery of the Sermon on the Mount

this is an upload from my blog www.jayopsis.blogspot.com

Read the Sermon on the Mount lately? It is that frustrating and poignant part of the gospels that comforts and terrifies, humbles and encourages, rips and heals …. All at the same time.

It begins with the ‘Beatitudes’ (Latin Beatus- ‘Happy’ or ‘Blessed’) in Matthew 5 and ends with the story of building houses on sand in Matthew 7.

My first encounter with the sermon as a whole was back in 1988. I was newly married, had just accepted a job as a youth minister, had begun the process of seminary, and picked up Martin Lloyd Jones classic commentary, “Studies in the Sermon on the Mount”.

I took each chapter as a morning devotion and poured over the pages. I remember wearing out a yellow hi-liter pen and felt the very core of my soul being touched by the words of Christ.

Here I am 21 years later…. New job, new town, 3 children, Bible teacher ….. and I still am amazed at the eternal concepts and colossal challenges.

No matter what phase I am in spiritually, the sermon says something to me.

When I am weighed down by sin ….. ‘blessed are those who mourn’.

When I see myself as a failure….. ‘blessed are the poor in spirit’.

When I fall short in my desire to serve…..’WHEN you give to the needy’.

When I feel really good about my walk……’ not everyone who says Lord, Lord’

When I condemn other for their lack of faith or zeal….. ‘ do you not notice the log?’

The sermon encourages me to fast, pray, serve, study, give and hold fast to God’s timeless laws. It digs down deep, into the very core of my being to check attitudes of the heart and motivations.

Each year, I get to re-introduce this wonderful passage to seniors in our school. The class is called, “Biblical Principles”, designed by brother Steve Wilson. It challenges the students to anticipate the ‘next 10 years of their life’. Eventually we will discuss dating, marriage, college roommates, time management, finances, job interviews, health care, depression, addiction, worship…. But before we do, we review the fundamental principals of faith, gospel, and a little doctrine.

What the students never know is that I have to review these things also. The repetition is good.
This year in particular, the Beatitudes drove deep this year. I had the students re-write them in paraphrase form. Here is what I wrote.

“Congratulations! You finally realize what a loser you are! And you are finally sad about that! Good for you, because I can help you now. Be gentle, submit to my will and it will be great! Use that discontentment with life to drive you to Me- I will fill that hunger with Myself! And now that you see my forgiveness, PLEASE, give others a break. Learn to hate sin, it is serious. It hides Me from you. Put it off and seek Me more. Take the energy and time to help people. Restore them to Me - reconcile them to others. This is the work of my son! You know that people will not understand and some may hate you for this. But keep it up! There is a great reward… both now and forever!”

Will I still be in this…. 20 years from now? I hope so.

THE GOD OF GOOD BEGINNINGS

from blog: www.jayopsis.blogspot.com

On this new day of a new year, I wanted to go back to the big beginning and remember all of the good things that He put in place. According to Genesis 1 and 2, it was God Himself that brought into being not only good things, but things that He named. He was the first to name- “Day”, “Night”, “Land”, “Seas”, “Sky”

It was His idea to mark seasons, days, and years.

He allowed for a division called ‘livestock’- domesticated animals for man’s good. This was apart from ‘wild animals’ and ‘small animals’.

He is a God of lavish blessings- the sea ‘swarmed’ with fish, the skies “filled” with birds. A once ‘formless mass cloaked in darkness’ now overflows with light and life- good bounty and great harvest!

He then patterned people after Himself. We reason, emote, contemplate, choose, and communicate.

It was all excellent and good and He rested, and He designated that rest as 'holy'- set apart for His glory.

The garden had ‘beautiful tress and delicious fruits’. We remember the two trees in the center.

The first tree mentioned is the TREE OF LIFE. It had no restriction!
“You may eat FREELY of ANY fruit in the garden except the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.”

The restriction was a protection- “In the day you eat of it, YOU WILL DIE”

One more blessing…. It was the companion, the helper, the intimate partner.
When I think of all my blessings…. From God…. Seasons and days and light and sky and fish and beauty and trees…. Help me never forget another high up the chain gift…. My beautiful bride. 2009 counts year 21 for us as man and wife. 'BONE OF MY BONE AND FLESH OF MY FLESH.'

THANK YOU LORD GOD JEHOVAH FOR ALL THE GOOD THINGS. YOU ARE A GOD OF GREAT BEGINNING!

Happy New Year to all!

7 Lbs is Too Heavy a Load for a Man

'this is an upload from my blog www.jayopsis.blogspot.com'

Went to the 10 PM showing of "7 Pounds" with my oldest daughter and good friend Ron Smith.

Stayed awake...

Came home thinking about pennance, mistakes, and the problem of evil, which is a bigger problem with the absence of God.

I know, I know.... it's only a movie.

(This will contain spoilers)

When a person makes a tragic mistake, you have to keep the sovereignty of God in the picture. He can bear the weight of tragedy. We do make mistakes, but He allows them. And He controls them. He can even make it for good (Rom 8:28)

We experience consequences, even major life changes- years of pain and regret.

But the message of hope in God is that we do not have to do pennance. We cannot pay for our debt ourselves. We can't give marrow, and liver, and heart, and money, and eyes and undo the damage or mistakes.

Will Smith's character goes looking for those who deserve his gifts. He looks for good people.

The gospel of grace is so much better- it says we do not have to be worthy or good to receive the gift.

In the end, the main character breaks under the weight of the regret- giving his life so that others may live. It is a noble task... one that the Bible recognizes.

"One may die for a good man"

But again the gospel is better..... "But God demonstrates His love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us"

In the end... the problem of pain exists whether we put God in the story or not. It is an easier weight to carry when He is present. His yoke is easy and His burden is light. Christ has borne the load already.

Do you really believe that God can bear the weight of your mistakes?

Another empty tale, another Hollywood moment, another unnessesary sex scene..... (ever experience sitting next to your 15 year old daughter in those moments?)

We did have a good chat on the way home...

I am off to bed now, thanking God for the gift of forgiveness and I do promise to not text and drive.

Woke Up Thinking Football

Once the season is over, I'm ready to escape the game for awhile. Then, at some point I will come back to it.

It is hard to put into words the pain of the end. When you make the playoffs, you realize that only one team will end without a killing. But you jump in with both feet and fight like crazy to stay alive.

What a great season for our team- it feels good to exceed expectations. The low point was after game 5- but to our kids and coaches credit, we never stopped working and turned it around. We won 7 in a row, won the region title, and ended up a state quarter-finalist.

But that last loss, man... it hurts.

We did not play well in the last game. Not sure why. We had a good week of practice. We took the opening drive down and scored, but even that drive wasn't without mistakes.

We had several assignment busts the rest of the game and we were a beat up team physically. In the end, the other team out performed us, especially their Mr Football running back.

In the locker room afterward, it was really sad. Our guys truly loved the game and one another. We had all the Srs line up and all the other guys came by and hugged them. Our seniors handled it well. They were sad, but did not grieve like their life was over. There was strength and brokenness. They were real in their hurt, free to cry... but showed a lot of dignity also. No blubbering silliness.

The hurt I feel is different. It goes deep. Every loss I have ever suffered as a head coach wounds me to the bone. I truly hate to lose.

When we lose the last one, it hits me for about 2 weeks. I go on living, treat my family well, put on a warm outer front. But inside, I play the game over and over. What would I do differently?

But I am healed now. My mental game is now re-working system- dreaming and scheming- ready to do it all again.

My prayer is that I never lose my desire to put the process under the direction of Christ. I hope that through the joy and sorrow, I continue to preach and model the gospel. Without it, this is all just phantasms of futility.

May God be glorified in victory and in loss.

Question 2: Why are there so many starving people in our world?

This response is part of a series of responses back to the challenge: 10 Questions that all Intelligent Christians must answer.


This is a great question if it comes from an honest and open heart. The tone of the question is important here. Is it a ‘childlike why' that will listen to the response or is it a ‘cynical, angry, bitter why' that represents predisposed experience that will not listen to possible explanations?

Why starving people?

Sometimes it is a ‘religious’ or ‘political’ issue. Some of the starvation in the world comes from people turning their back on the true God to follow faiths that are founded on falsehood.

There is enough resources to feed everyone. The fact that we do not, is our fault and another great indicator of human sin and shortcoming.

A Shocking Statement:
Matthew 26:11 (Jesus speaking) For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me.

Free to Not Feed: God allows injustice for a time. He will bring to judgment all who have corrupted mankind by greed and selfishness. Unless Christ covers us, I think we all fail the test. I admit that I have done very little to alleviate hunger. A problem is not world hunger, the problem is me.

KUDOS TO THIS BROTHER: Another Christian responds:

"Brain begins by creating the same straw man in this question that he made (and which I refuted) in his first question. He wrongly assumes that the Bible claims that God promises to grant all your wishes (to be charitable, many professing Christians do make this claim, but I believe that like Brain, they are in error). Then because God seems to be granting a lot of your wishes and not the wishes of starving children, Brain concludes that there must be something wrong with your view of God. If you do believe that God grants all our wishes, then Brain is right and something is wrong with your view of God. Brain's question should make you feel uncomfortable and make you wonder why starving children aren't getting their wishes answered. But as demonstrated in my rebuttal to his first argument, the Bible does not teach that God promises to grant all your wishes.

In this question, Brain tries to trap the believer even more by treating the phrases "a loving, caring God" and "a God that grants all your wishes" as interchangeable. He says, "Then you push it out of your mind because it absolutely does not fit with your view of a loving, caring God." What he really means is that it absolutely does not fit with your view of a God that grants every wish that every Christian makes (or even most wishes that most Christians make). It does not fit with a "vending-machine" God. By making the equivocation, he traps Christians who do think God is loving and caring into his alleged contradiction, but this is really just a bait-and-switch maneuver. He baits with "loving, caring God" and switches to "God that promises to grant most of our wishes." He actually has a good argument against Christians who already agree with his equivocation and who consider "a loving God" and "a vending-machine God" to be synonymous. I agree with Brain that such Christians have a contradiction in their belief system and need to work it out. I'm not one of them.

And notice also that this is not an argument against the existence of God and in no way disproves God's existence or even makes God's non-existence a more likely alternative to His existence. The difficulty he raises is real, but it doesn't prove God doesn't exist. It just proves that a God, Who grants all or most of our wishes doesn't exist. It is perfectly consistent to believe that God exists, is loving and caring, and does not grant us all our wishes.

But if He's loving and caring, how could He let those children suffer?

That's a great question. I'm glad you asked. I'm afraid you just can't pin this one on God. How can you let those children suffer? We have enough food and wealth in the world to feed everybody. The world is verdant and abundant in resources, so there's absolutely no reason why anyone should starve. So why does it happen? Surely you and I aren't doing enough. But even if we did the best we could, it probably wouldn't be enough to solve the problem because of the political situation in countries where people starve. Starvation in the 21st century is mostly a political weapon. Even if you tried to get food to some of these places, warlords and governments would just seize it and feed their army with it.

But shouldn't God be able to do something about it?

God created humans as free moral agents, that means that we have the freedom to choose how to live and interact with each other. Only free agents are capable of Love, which is the highest of all goods, so without our existence as creatures of free will, none of the created world would be capable of the highest of all possible goods, Love. Yet our free agency necessitates that we are able to choose evil and to hurt each other instead of loving each other. That's built into the definition of free will. If all we can do is love, and we have no say in the matter, then we can't love after all- we'd be mere automata. We have to be able to choose not to love, or else we cannot love in the first place. This is why all sorts of evils and suffering exist in the world, because we have used our free agency to choose evil and suffering for ourselves and each other rather than love.

But can't God create free agents that always love? All things are possible with God, or are you admitting that all things aren't possible with Him after all, that He is not Omnipotent?

Oh no. Nothing of the sort. To elaborate, allow me to quote C. S. Lewis in The Problem of Pain:

"[God's] Omnipotence means power to do all that is intrinsically possible, not to do the intrinsically impossible. You may attribute miracles to Him, but not nonsense. This is no limit to His power. If you choose to say 'God can give a creature free will and at the same time withhold free will from it', you have not succeeded in saying anything about God: meaningless combinations of words do not suddenly acquire meaning simply because we prefix to them the two other words 'God can'. It remains true that all things are possible with God: the intrinsic impossibilities are not things but nonentities. It is no more possible for God than for the weakest of His creatures to carry out both of two mutually exclusive alternatives; not because His power meets an obstacle, but because nonsense remains nonsense even when we talk it about God."


If you haven't read the book and have earnest questions about the problem of evil, pain, and suffering in the world, I highly recommend that you get a copy. It's a very short read and an inexpensive book packed full of excellent critical thinking about God and the existence of pain and suffering in our world:




You're just making rationalizations.

Come on, be fair. My answer isn't some strange excuse for God like the one Brain offered that, "God wants these children to suffer and die for some divine, mysterious reason." This is a pretty strange excuse. I agree that it's not consistent to say that God is loving and that God wants children to suffer and die. That's a contradiction. I believe God wants no such thing. It is not a contradiction however, to believe that God doesn't want children to die because He is a loving God, but that children do suffer and die anyways because humans are free moral agents, and it is consistent for a loving God to create free moral agents who are capable of love, and that in order for them to be capable of love, by definition they must be capable of evil. That answer may not satisfy you if you don't believe in God, and I don't consider it to be an argument for God's existence, but you must concede that it answers Brain's challenge. You must concede that it is internally consistent, does not resolve into contradiction, is not an evasion, and actually makes a lot of sense.

Posted by W. E. Messamore"

THANK YOU- HOPE YOU DO NOT MIND MY REFERENCE TO YOU.
VISIT HIS BLOG: http://www.slaying-dragons.com/

Why Won't God Heal Amputees?

This response is part of a series of responses back to the challenge: 10 Questions that all Intelligent Christians must answer.

Question back: How do we know he hasn’t? I do not have enough knowledge, time, or experience to investigate all of history to know if God has not healed an amputee.

Amputation is a last resort of the medical science to save the life of a person at the brink of death. A limb or a foot affected by gangrene may cause the death of a person; but because of amputation, people are saved from death.

Question back: How many people have been healed because of amputation?
What if an amputation was God’s way of preserving a person’s life a little longer that they may contemplate eternity?

Any unanswered prayer is at the prerogative of the Deity.

PREDISPOSED TO UNBELIEF:
Out first problem is the very concept of a God. He is the Creator and I am a creature. I have asked questions, “God why did You allow this? Why won’t you do this?” I think He hears these cries in a similar way I hear my small children begging to go to the candy store right before supper. At the zoo one time, my 5-year-old daughter wanted to stay and watch the flamingo pool. She started crying when I finally pulled her away to go down the path to other exhibits. It did not bother me at all to see those tears, I knew that something much better was coming. It wasn’t 60 seconds before she was in awe of the full visual of the entire zoo.

The Christian amputee (I’m sorry I know this sounds arrogant)

“Thank you God for my life, look at all I do have. You made my body. Have Your way with me. I am looking forward to the day when I will be whole, body and soul.”

A Shocking Statement:

Jesus says in Matthew 5: 30 "And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell."

As a rational Christian (I know that is an oxymoron to my detractors) I understand that this is figurative and shocking for effect. But the principle is very clear- God is not worried about the amputee's body, He is very concerned about His soul.

INTERESTING:

Christian Group Offers Amputees Support
By DONATHAN PRATER
Published: February 15, 2008 OPELIKA, AL NEWS
To make this team, there aren’t any tryouts held and every roster member gets inked to a long-term contract.
The C.A.S.T. Ministries (Christian Amputee Support Group) is a non-profit support group for amputees and their families that officially incorporated in November 2006. Next month, C.A.S.T. Ministries will hold its first ceremony, which will address the topic of amputations that resulted from medical and health-related illness or diseases.
Woody Thornton, 39, is one of C.A.S.T.’s trainers.
Thornton is also a double amputee.
Thornton was involved in an accident involving a train in 1989 that cost him both his feet.
A few years ago, Thornton had a series of revision surgeries on his legs.
While the married father of six - four girls, two boys - leads a very fulfilling and active life now, he knows firsthand the fear and uncertainty of what a life-changing event like an amputation can entail.
“In my experience, most people who suffer an amputation know very little about what to expect or what can be done to help them,” Thornton said.
But through a combination of spiritual faith and family support, Thornton hopes that C.A.S.T. can change that.
One of the services that C.A.S.T. offers amputees are personal visits from C.A.S.T. trainers. They assist with everything from praying with recent amputees to offering friendship and and an ear to listen “With our visits, we hope to come alongside these individuals and their families and offer them support
based on God’s word,” Thornton said. “In the process, we hope to create friendships that will last.”
C.A.S.T. will welcome guest speaker Becky Guinn, a Chambers County native who lost both her arms and legs due to an adverse reaction to medication she received in the hospital in 2002.
Since that time Guinn has returned to her job as an art instructor and is currently in her 11th year of of teaching at Valley High School in Lanett.
It’s stories of courage and perseverance like Guinn’s that Thornton says personify what the C.A.S.T. is all about.
“Our motto ‘Life defined ... Not Confined’ is derived from 2 Corinthians 12: 9-10,” Thornton said.
“Those verses tell us that if we must boast, let us boast about our weaknesses.”
“It took me a while to figure out that sharing my story could actually strengthen others,” Thornton added. “People recognize me or know who I am by my legs, but through Christ I am empowered through this weakness instead of being confined by limitations.”

This question does not bother me. In the end, a person of faith can actually magnify the Creator in the midst of this suffering. God can be honored in spite of such a significant loss! What a miracle!

QUESTION TWO TO FOLLOW!

My Simple Apologetic

In light of the atheists getting bolder and colder and sensing the growing antagonism to religion in general, I feel it is time to publicly explain “the reason for the hope that is in me”.

My model begins with the existence of God. I believe that all arguments begin with, “Is there a God?” If we begin with man, we start at the wrong place. A lot of people base their whole world view within their own existence, what a mistake!

I answer the question in the affirmative. There is a God. There is too much order, too much beauty, and too much opinion regarding good and evil to explain it away to natural, random occurrences. My own inner life points to mystery beyond me. The world under the microscope is too wonderful for me to accept blind chance and the expanse and beauty of the heavens is too majestic to cynically attribute it to uncoordinated randomness.

General revelation also points to a life beyond this life. Are the seasons merely a coincidence? The life cycle of a butterfly points to rebirth. I was praying one day to see God and as I drove into work on a foggy morning, I saw hundreds of spider webs. They had been invisible for months, but now their design and beauty were clearly seen. The visible world does point to the invisible God.

My next question requires me to ask, “Is there revelation or evidence of specific communication from this God to man?” Again, I believe there are two that give credence to the other. Jesus Christ is a clear manifestation of God and His nature. He did make that claim. He gives support of both the New and Old Testament. Is there valid support of these two revelations? The answer is yes. History supports both in spite of an entire system bent on destroying this precious truth. A seven day work week has been handed down to us from somewhere. The disciples died for a myth? The Bible survives? How?

And no other purported revelation holds water. They are all cheap imitations from a constant enemy.

And finally the message: Who could have made this up?

THE SKEPTICS STRIKE BACK

So there are always the attacks. I’m simple-minded, poorly educated, and have committed intellectual suicide to shake hands with faith. How do you respond to this?

I feel like when someone discounts God on the basis of reason, they are doing the most foolish thing of all. When the Bible speaks of the ‘unforgivable sin’ and ‘blasphemy of the spirit’- it has to be this. When someone says, “There is no God, no angels or devils, no heaven or hell” they are lifting their life experience and powers of reasoning to a god-like status. ‘I must become God to kill God’, Nietzsche understood this.
I’m thankful that I am under-educated enough to keep a healthy self-suspicion of my intellect. Is reason trustworthy enough to gamble on eternity?

What does the Bible say about our ability to reason?

Romans 1:28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God's decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.


Romans 8:5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. 8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.


I Corinthians 1:18 For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written,

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”

20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

26 For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. 30 And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

2:1 And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, 4 and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

6 Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. 7 But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 But, as it is written,

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has prepared for those who love him”—

10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. 11 For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. 13 And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. [6]

14 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. 15 The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. 16 “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.


If you are raising your fist against God, please reconsider. The promise is that those who repent and believe will be rescued. Cry out to Him before it is too late!

“The riddles of God are more comforting than the answers of man” G.K. Chesterton

Walking Through Wounds With Joy and Hope

Life wounds….. there is no getting around it. It isn’t always tragic, it sometimes just pricks like a thorn. But it’s those little tears that can add up the most. Life lets you down.

I want to thank Bill Delvaux for opening a window to explore this, because it is these hurts that point us eventually toward heaven and it is pain that inexplicably keeps the heart alive.

Life is often a series of disappointment: Robert Frost correctly asserted that ‘nothing Gold can stay’- even the good moments are fleeting and drift away in slivers. I always thought it was appropriate that Pip experienced all the shock of seeing his world collapse in “Great Expectations”.

“All the truths of my position came flashing on me; and its disappointments, dangers, disgraces, consequences of all kinds, rushed in in such a multitude that I was borne down by them and had to struggle for every breath I drew.”

But it was the subtle letdowns that he noticed first:

My (new) clothes were rather a disappointment, of course. Probably every new and eagerly expected garment ever put on since clothes came in, fell a trifle short of the wearer's expectation.

A big part of Christian maturity is accepting the ‘beautiful letdown’ as a reality that does not dampen joy or hope.

The apostle Paul makes this point vividly clear in Roman 8:18 “ For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. 27 And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because [6] the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. 28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good…”

But it is not an easy lesson to learn. It must be experienced by faith over time. It means silent suffering and patient endurance. It really is like birth pangs that ebb and flow with variations of intensity.

I have had my share of deep hurts.. including the loss of my mom.

But it is the subtle wounds that can exasperate, partly because they send mixed messages. Is God angry with me? Is this deserved discipline? Is He protecting me?

I look back over old notes regarding a time in my life where I sought a head coaching job. I ended up being the runner up four times in a row! My reactions were all over the place… sometimes anger, sometimes laughter.

Look at some of my former journal entries:

2002
There has always been a cry inside of me. It’s hard to describe exactly, something akin to a hunger. It throbs and fluctuates, groaning to be born. But it always stops. I am somewhat afraid of it…is this the evil part of me? Is it an unquenchable thirst for pleasure and self-satisfaction that wants to destroy all the good intentions of my creator?
I am afraid because I know it is tied to my ego- that part of me that wants to matter, to be noticed, to be applauded as the winner of whatever race I am in. Is it evil? Does it miss the mark- what the English termed a sin?
I am also afraid because it may turn out to be a sham. Some wild excuse to sound pseudo-philosophical and be nodded to by the brilliant. It is so funny, I am a roller coaster between self-assertion and self-denial, self-confidence and self-condemnation…. and now I chastise myself for self-absorption.
I have lived long enough now to have more questions than answers. I have read the great writers and realized that I can’t even read, much less write. I have heard the great preachers, and realized I can’t hear. I have mulled over the great thinkers and realized I can’t think. The only really good thing I do is forget.
Then I soothe myself by finding someone lower than me, only to realize that I perceive him to be lower, I can see no farther into him than he can into me. So what is my premise?
I am glad I am not a mathematician or a scientist. I am glad I am not a lawyer or a doctor. Lord knows we need all of these. I am glad I am not a mechanic, or a plumber, or an accountant, but I am glad my wife is an accountant.
I am glad to be me. I enjoy appreciating the dull things. I do love life and all in all it is an easy one. There is a part of me afraid of God. Afraid that He will look down at me one day and say, “suffer”. I know there is pain a comin’- death of loved ones (update mom passed away in Jan 2004, brother in drug rehab 2004). I feel a knee twinge now, or get a gas pain in my side, or have heart burn and I pause..”is this cancer? A heart attack? Arthritis? Lou Gherig’s disease?” Then I pause again and say, “What a poor view of my Father I have”. God design is not zapping people out of their mirth; it is getting me to trust Him enough to ascend the mountain of His pleasure.
But I’m writing today to say that I fell trapped. I am a gold fish swimming so hard against the edge of the bowl that I am fagged out- (thanks for letting me reclaim the term). I am punching against golden puppet threads and am tangled. I see the air on my gauge at critical, but am too far under the surface to survive. And so I am crying out.
I do not want to be cut loose from my wife or my girls. I do not want away from my Lord. But I need to get away from this sanctuary. I have been too safe for too long. It feels so good to lie here and soak, but I’m afraid that if I stay too long I will lose my desire to ever move again. I’m too young to pull in my reins and rest. Will I then find I have saved all I have, risked nothing, but never gained anything?
So how do I approach this? How does God’s sovereignty fit in with my knack for manipulation and coercion? Can I push so hard that I go where God cannot bless me? Do I sit back and find I never arrived where He could use me? One has faith to sit and wait – am I showing faith by swatting every gnat in my eye?
I am discovering that the truth of God that states that He put eternity in my heart (Ecclesiastes) can feel sometimes like a curse- it is a madness that tortures me. So I am crying to you- Oh my Father- get me out or take me out or take out that part that wants out….just please help…. I am not demanding…. I am begging and it probably sounds like a whimper.


It is now more than 6 years later… and I see God’s purposes more clearly. But I am still a man who hurts… cut me and I still bleed.

Losses still hurt…. Arguments still frustrate…. Rejection still wounds me.

But I am more able to at least say, “Blessed be the name of the Lord”.

I see that the granting of tears, teaches compassion. Ravi Z is right, I will feel no passion to change until I feel the pressure in my own soul. There are seasons- A time to laugh and a time to cry- My prayer is that we always show compassion and love first- it is actually more important that the truth that comes later?

The question will come: Why?

There are a lot of wrong answers to the question of wounds and a few wrong responses to these happenings. I don’t have time to go into it in detail- but there is a growing Heresy within the evangelical church that is a new spin in age old unbiblical answers to these issues.

These heretics are not bad people- but unfortunately are giving advice that sounds good to the human ear, but really offers no real hope- in fact, in the end it robs them of a path to true recovery.

So hear me very clearly-God is great and God is good/ Great in that He is in control- He ordains these dark times and will use them to His glory. The very second you say that God is not in control, you began to rob Him of His Godness and you begin to believe that He is not trustworthy.

A surprising help to me is Psalm 107
Let the redeemed of the Lord say so- what is the so? Oh Give thanks to the Lord for He is good, for His steadfast Lord endures forever. Whom He has redeemed from trouble.

4-9 Some wandered- became hungry and thirsty- He led to straight way satisfies the longing. All of us are wanderers.
10-16 Some sat as prisoners- shadows of death- for they rebelled- example of substance abuse - you cannot escape- there are all kinds of dependency- the heart of the addict.
17-22 Some foolish- sowing and reaping-
23-32 Some just experienced storms of life- not making the team/ injury/ sickness
33-42- The general providence of God- divorce/bankruptcy/cancer/crime/ school authority and decisions of those in authority

Hear the promises in this Psalm:
Cry to the Lord and He delivered
Thank Him for His steadfast love
He satisfies- He fills the hungry
He brings them out of the shadow of death
He breaks the bonds- shatters iron and bronze bars
He delivers from distress
He sends His word and heals them
He delivers from destruction
He controls nature
He prospers
He shuts the mouth of the wicked


43- Attend to these things- consider the steadfast love- and SAY SO

TELL OTHERS OF HIS GOODNESS- EVEN IN THE MIDST OF PAIN.

IF YOU CAN HURT AND STILL PRAISE THE LORD…. YOU ARE REALLY LIVING!
IF YOU CAN HURT AND SERVE OTHERS… YOU ARE REALLY CARING!
IF LIFE CAN LET YOU DOWN AND YOU STILL FEEL JOY AND HOPE… YOU ARE REALLY READY FOR HEAVEN!

Attitude of Gratitude

Psalm 144:12 May our sons in their youth
be like plants full grown,
our daughters like corner pillars
cut for the structure of a palace;
13 may our granaries be full,
providing all kinds of produce;
may our sheep bring forth thousands
and ten thousands in our fields;
14 may our cattle be heavy with young,

suffering no mishap or failure in bearing;

may there be no cry of distress in our streets!
15 Blessed are the people to whom such blessings fall!
Blessed are the people whose God is the Lord!

How can we not be thankful this year? How much has God given to me!

Lord,

Thank you for my sweet wife of 21 years... my best friend
Thank you for three beautiful daughters.... how they reflect Your love and grace
Thank you for a job that allows me to serve Your kingdom
Thank you for Your Holy Word that guides me in the truth and sets my paths straight.
Thank you for a way of forgiveness- who can understand that sacrifice?
Thank you for a nation of freedom and laws- may we not lose our way.
Thank you for a life full of sweet memories and good times!
Thank you for health and health care.
Thank you for music and beautiful places.
Thank you for laughs and peaceful faces.
Thank you for rest for the weary and salve for the pain.
Thank you for Jesus!

I could go on and on and on.... the bottom line is:
I AM A MAN OF GREAT BLESSINGS! THANK YOU LORD!

Raging Against the Night

We won in the second round of the state playoffs last night. It was a very physical and difficult game. There was rain and mud, hard hits and turnovers, we had to come from behind and hold on at the end.

I talked to our team before the game about fighting against the night. Colossians 1 says, "13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins."

The dominion of darkness is our enemy's kingdom. As these seniors see the sun setting on their career- they can feel the darkness. I want them to fight it all the way.

Darkness contains depression, doubt, despair and even death itself. Symbolically, the end of a football season contains all of those feelings. The days are shorter, darker, wet and cold.... but we don't lie down and just close our eyes and die.... we fight like hell, we swing our fists, we live as proud warriors in service of our King.

This is how light dispels darkness- brotherhood and confidence- cheer and celebration.

We did our victory chant... it was a sweet locker room!

And we will stand up against the sunset again next Friday.

And we will fight...

One day it will be the sunset of life. Will I be old? Will I have to walk into that sunset in a wheelchair or a walker? Or maybe, I will have to face it in my younger days.

I want to finish with a fight of faith. Giving all the glory to my Savior.

In that way.... there is nothing but victory! AMEN.

Clouds and Darker Days

Revelation 10:1 Then I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven, wrapped in a cloud, with a rainbow over his head, and his face was like the sun, and his legs like pillars of fire.

What do you think of when you read this verse? If you study Revelation, you know that this is a vision that John receives from Jesus. The word "revelation" means "unveiling"- meaning that the purpose of the book is to make it clear. Look at the Prologue again:

Rev. 1:1 The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, 2 who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw.

When I see this figurative vision of this angel I see the clouds and the rainbow, both of which point back to the OT (as much of Revelation does). The rainbow a sign of God's promise and the cloud as a witness to God's presence and glory.

When you look at creation, do you think of God?

We should.

Romans 1:20 For (God's) invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.

During the fall, I see the colors, and the clouds as clear evidence of God and His creation. But the clouds also hide... and they hide for our good and His glory. In our mortal and sinful state, without the clouds- we would be struck down.

So I see God is the clouds, even though it is "murky".

And I experience Him in His word.

As you read Revelation- see the clear message.

There will come a day... when the Lord will say.... no more delay.

The time to repent is NOW.