A Lesson from Judge Joe Brown
October 15, 2009
“Your honor, I’m a Christian woman…” the case started out. Followed by “your honor, I listen to Christian music at night” and of course “your honor, I try to live a good Christian life.”
It was about the fourth time the woman emphasized her “incredible” Christian values when Judge Joe Brown had to put things into proportion, by pointing out that neither she or her husband followed the Bible, as they were both (actively) having sex– something Judge Joe Brown points out is forbidden by the Bible.
Amazingly, the woman’s claims of being a “good, faithful” Christian came to a screeching halt! On the flip side, the man (also claiming to be a Christian) said he would have divorced her (if they ever married) simply because she wouldn’t have been able to contribute as much financially to the hypothetical marriage.
Now, I could be wrong… but doesn’t the Bible say something about that too? Just the same, it’s good to know we have two “outstanding” Christians in the world today. And just think how many people today claim to be “good Christians” but fail to keep even the most basic of God’s commandments. How many people claim to love Christ, but fail to demonstrate that love in the most basic of ways.
After all, anyone can “claim to be a ‘good’ Christian,” and look upon themselves as a good person… but what happens to that claim when we compare it against God’s standards? And more importantly, are we trying to obey God, or are we just assuming the title without any dedication? Are we simply being Christians in the areas that it suits us, while ignoring the commandments that do not fit with the lifestyle we want?
Something to think about, because in the end we won’t be answering to Judge Joe Brown pointing out our flaws, but rather the greatest judge in all of creation, in fact the judge who created all of creation. What will His verdict on our life be?
GotQuestions.org - Sept. 11
September 17, 2009
On September 11, 2001, God was exactly where He always is – in Heaven in total control of everything that happens in the universe. Why, then, would a good and loving God allow such a tragedy to happen? This is a more difficult question to answer. First, we must remember, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:9). It is impossible for finite human beings to understand the ways of an infinite God (Romans 11:33-35). Second, we must realize that God is not responsible for the wicked acts of evil men. The Bible tells us that humanity is desperately wicked and sinful (Romans 3:10-18, 23). God allows human beings to commit sin for His own reasons and to fulfill His own purposes. Sometimes we think we understand why God is doing something, only to find out later that it was for a different purpose than we originally thought.
God looks at things from an eternal perspective. We look at things from an earthly perspective. Why did God put man on earth, knowing that Adam and Eve would sin and therefore bring evil, death, and suffering on all mankind? Why didn’t He just create us all and leave us in Heaven where we would be perfect and without suffering? It must be remembered that the purpose for all creation and all creatures is to glorify God. God is glorified when His nature and attributes are on display. If there were no sin, God would have no opportunity to display His justice and wrath as He punishes sin. Nor would He have the opportunity to show His grace, His mercy, and His love to undeserving creatures. The ultimate display of God’s grace was at the Cross where Jesus died for our sins. Here was unselfishness and obedience displayed in His Son who knew no sin but was “made sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). This was all to the “praise of His glory” (Ephesians 1:14)…
Read More at GotQuestions.org
God and Politics
June 19, 2009
America is no longer a Christian nation… that seems to be the top phrase for some politicians today, even with nearly 4 out of every 5 Americans claiming to be a Christian. And of course in Britain, Richard Dawkins helped support a wide-spread advertising campaign on buses, stating there’s “probably no God,” even though a recent census stated that nearly 70% of Britains claimed to be Christians.
The question we have to ask is, if both Britain and America have such high Christian populations… why are we hearing things like, “America is no longer a Christian nation?” Why, if in America nearly 80% of the population claims to be Christian, did politicians try to remove the national motto, “In God We Trust” from the new visitor center? And why, if nearly 4/5 Americans claim to believe in Christ, is God being pushed out of our schools, our parks, and our government altogether?
Did You Know: The Nicene Creed
June 10, 2009
by us (it’s a slow news day)
The Concept of the Trinity was challenged in 325 AD, at the First Council of Nicaea, by Arius who opposed Alexander of Alexandria and Athanasius, stating that Christ was a created Son of God, like all other “sons of God” in the Bible.
The council, an estimated 318 members then voted after hearing the arguments, with all but 3 siding with Alexander and Athanasius. Thus the original Nicene Creed read, “And in one Lord Jesus Christ, begotten of the Father [the only-begotten; that is, of the essence of the Father, God of God], Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father…”
The creed was updated in 381 AD, at the First Council of Constantinople, to include more detail on the creation, crucifixion, the Holy spirit, and the universal baptism through Christ.
Read the Creeds side by side
Don’t understand the Trinity? Read Here
San Diego, CA Says “NO” to Home Bible Study
June 1, 2009
A pastor and his wife who hold weekly Bible studies with about 15 people in their home were interrogated by a San Diego County Official who then told them must stop the Bible studies or face hefty fines.
Attorney Dean Broyles of The Western Center For Law & Policy is representing the couple who wish to remain anonymous until a demand letter can be given to the county..
According to Broyles, the county official asked “’Do you have a regular meeting in your home? Do you say amen? Do you pray? ‘Do you say praise the Lord?”
The pastor’s wife answered yes to all of these.
Broyles said a few days later the couple received a written warning that listed “unlawful use of land” and told them to “stop religious assembly or apply for a major use permit” - a permit that often involves traffic and environmental studies, compliance with parking and sidewalk regulations, and can cost tens of thousands of dollars.
If the do not obtain the permit, the county official reportedly warned, the couple will be charged escalating fines beginning at $100, then $200, $500, $1000, “and then it will get ugly.”
Read More at Christian Web News
UPDATED: County Apologizes (ONN)
The Woman Who Would Have Discovered THE Ultimate Cure For Cancer Was Murdered Today
May 15, 2009
Jane Doe, a woman who was uniquely gifted by God with the perfect combination of intelligence, tenacity and the pure doggedness necessary to do what ever it takes to excel in science in order to conquer cancer was murdered this morning when her mother, a 21 year old college student who didn’t want her life inconvenienced by a baby, aborted her.
Jane’s murder is a major blow to humanity and her death will set the world of medical science back 50 years because Jane will not be present to make her ground breaking discovery that would have lead to a simple Cancer vaccine that would have eradicated cancer once and for all. Jane’s murder means that hundreds of millions of people around the globe will now needlessly suffer and die from cancer for many many many years to come.
Visit Extreme Theology
Related: MaketheRightDecision
Stuff Christians Like: Doubting Doubt
May 14, 2009
By Jon Acuff
Real Christians don’t doubt. Everyone knows that. If you’ve got doubt in your heart, even a smidge, well then, I’m sorry, you’re still a “baby Christian.” I’ll pray for you, I’ll pray that someday you’ll be an “on fire Christian” and not be so wracked with doubt, because us real Christians never feel doubt.
We wake up in the morning and instantly remember all the other times God has come through. When we are faced with challenges, we don’t fear. We don’t worry. We certainly don’t doubt. You know what I do when I run into a difficult time? I giggle. I pick up that challenge in my hands and tickle it’s belly like an adorable little kitten. Because I live a doubt free life. Like every Christian should.
Because otherwise, if you do find doubt in your heart, you better hide that under the bed. Or between your mattresses, God never thinks to look there. But if He does, if He does find doubt in your heart, I hope, for your sake, you’ll be thrown in the regular lake of fire instead of the lake of fire where you have to spend all of eternity noodlin’ for alligator gar. (Noodlin’ is the “sport” where you walk in lakes/rivers and jam your hands down holes in the ground with the hope that a giant catfish will bite you, allowing you to pull it out and capture it. In Africa they have a version of this that involves lions but instead of “noodlin’” it’s called “dyin’”. An alligator gar is some crazy type of fish I just saw on a show called “River Monsters” in which a biologist spends an entire hour trying to catch, you guessed it, a “river monster.” Whole show should take 7 minutes. I think I just broke the legal length limits of parenthesis.)
Read the rest
Never deny
May 13, 2009
By Stacy L. Harp
“I will kiss the rope but never deny my faith!” exclaimed Tahir Iqbal. The soldiers lifted the paralytic pastor out of his wheelchair and slipped the noose around his neck. Today he walks freely in heaven with Christ.
In Pakistan, another seasoned pastor heard a gunshot right outside his house. The bullet narrowly missed him and lodged into the wall behind his chair. He thanked God for another day that he could share Christ in the Muslim-dominated nation.
Raymond Lully left a comfortable position as an Oxford professor and spent most of his life suffering for the gospel. He wrote, “Once I was fairly rich and tasted freely the pleasures of this life. But all these things I gladly resigned that I might spread the knowledge of truth. I have been in prisons; I have been scourged . . . now, though old and poor, I do not despair; I am ready, if it be God’s will, to persevere unto death.”
Read the rest
Also check out the newly-designed Voice of the Martyrs website
To Do You Good in the End
May 11, 2009
By Mark Altrogge
Who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end (DT 8.15-16).
A few years ago, our family took a vacation out west. The hardest part of the trip was Kansas (no offense, Kansans). When you drive through Kansas, for what seems like weeks the scenery never varies. Nothing but farmland, farmland, and more farmland starboard, lee, fore and aft. The highway is monotonously straight. After a few hours you enter a state of suspended animation. To stay awake you slap your face and pound your thighs and turn the AC to subarctic. You play “I spy”, with the kids, but you’re finished in 45 seconds after they guess “sky” and “wheat.” You’re so desperate to entertain yourself you start singing Barry Manilow songs.
Sometimes life feels like a drive through Kansas.
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How to Gripe in the Spirit
May 5, 2009
By Sandra Glahn
As a new Christian, I read guides that told me to pray using the acrostic “ACTS”: Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. And years later when my husband and I experienced seven pregnancy losses and three failed adoptions, I found myself continually drawn to the psalms. New phrases such “How long, O Lord? (6:3) and “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (22:1) filled my prayers. And while echoing these spiritual gripes, I discovered to my surprise that the ACTS formula had left out the most common form of psalm in The Bible—the lament.
We find the psalms of lament in 6, 13, 22, 27, 44, 69, 70, 74, 102, and 142.
In these prayers of complaint I found some frequently recurring elements: (1) an introductory appeal (2) a description of what’s wrong (the lament itself) and (3) a formal request. Sometimes I’d also see evidence that the psalmist received (4) an oracle from God in response. And finally, following such an oracle, the lament usually ended in (5) an expression of confidence or praise.
Consider Psalm 12, a lament from a victim of slander:
Read the rest …
Bank on Him
May 4, 2009
By Greg Atkinson
God will do whatever it takes to get your eyes on Him - to get your focus, desire, trust and hope in Him; in that way, He is relentless and can go to extremes (as Scripture, myself and countless others can attest to) to get our attention.
In light of our recent economic situation, it occurred to me that God may be at work all around. I travel the country speaking on innovation. One of the ways that I teach innovation is birthed is by desperation, but I go on to say that “it’s a desperation that leads to a dependence upon the Holy Spirit.”
When you hit the bottom in your own way: maybe lose your job, your retirement, your house, your savings, your stock portfolio, your (you fill in the blank)… Could it be that it’s by design by our Creator to bring us back to trusting in Him alone? To quote two spiritual giants and long distance mentors: “God is most satisfied in us, when we are most satisfied in Him.” – John Piper. In The Problem of Pain, CS Lewis says, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
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Letting My Hair Down [27 Christ-Centered Couplets]
May 1, 2009
I hate poetry. It’s blue-collar work. Like a bricklayer, poets grind out an existence one word at a time.
Words become sentences, sentences become stanzas, stanzas become poems…over a period of days. Weeks. Even months.
One fourteen-line sonnet can demand fourteen hours to craft. And then you are not even sure it’s any good.
The process is long, brutal and nasty.
That’s why I like the couplet. You’re only dealing with two lines of five to six words each. Unless you’re writing thirty-nine couplets…like I did with the Old Testament last week.
Or twenty-seven couplets…like I did this week.
I paint a painful picture. Tongue-in-cheek, of course, because I enjoy the final product with a smug self-satisfaction.
So, I hope you experience the same kind of satisfaction after reading these couplets…without the work, of course. Let me know what you think. And have a great Friday.
Matthew
The meek revolutionist surpassed Moses—
Unheard, he redeemed the broken masses.
Mark
Soon I must be isolated, sifted—
Follow me, to death, that none would be wasted.
Luke
God mingled with women, children, heathen
Through Christ-man, who sought the lost with passion.
“I Can’t Call You a Missionary”—ouch
April 27, 2009
By Missionary Confidential
One of our supporters showed up last week. We barely knew her, but she was planning a vacation to our mission field and thought it would be great to stop by and visit. Having gone through this before, we knew the drill what we would be asked and which areas would be key to show our supporter.
Because of the distance from where she was staying, an overnight stay with us made the most sense and we were happy to accommodate. We met up with her and began the tour. First we showed her the church that we work with, which is a Gothic-style, small building in need of repair. Despite the improvements and maintenance needed, it is a beautiful building, complete with stained-glass windows of angels and mortals looking up to heaven. Being American like us, our supporter was astounded by the church, partly because there aren’t too many like this in our home state.
After showing the surrounding areas and explaining the spiritual need of the country, we continued on to our house. As she walked through our place, it was then that she made the statement, with a smile, “I can’t call you a missionary!”
Read the rest …
If God dictated notes to you, would you pay attention?
April 18, 2009
As I continue my year-long journey through my ESV Study Bible, I continue to find amazement.
I am currently in the thirteenth chapter of Leviticus. I have never read this book, and my only recollection of it, is of complaining people trying to muddle their way through.
Frankly, I am finding it fascinating. I think we have to step back and remember what is happening here. Holy God is physically speaking to Moses, and Moses is feverishly writing down every word.
Moses is actually in the presence of God! That all by itself stuns the daylights out of me.
Dear Church with the Corny Marquee Sign
April 17, 2009
By Anne Jackson
Dear Church with the Corny Marquee Sign,
Charlotte Avenue was bumper to bumper traffic as one would expect at 6 pm on a weekday. Why I chose this route instead of taking the highway is beyond me.
As I inched up closely to the next stop light, I glanced up to read your old fashioned marquee sign with the archaic plastic letters, aged and tired. I rolled my eyes at your corny Christian saying.
After what seemed like an eternity, the light turned green and I finished my excursion to The Mecca of Things Unnecessary: Target.
Picking up my prescription (and contributing an additional donation of $64 to The Mecca), I traveled home, back on Charlotte Avenue once again.
Back to you again.
But instead of rolling my eyes again, I flashed back to my formative elementary school years when I’d pull down the boxes containing the same plastic letters in my dad’s workroom in the church where he was a pastor …
Read the rest …
