Is This for Real?

Being Good to get to Heaven – bad news, good news.

Bad News – You can’t earn you way to Heaven.

Good News – God has provided a way for you.

Galatians 5:16-21
16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. (ESV)

In the preceding context, God’s Word through Paul is clarifying against the false notion that after we are saved, we must fulfill the Mosaic Law. He points out that the Law was a tool to expose our sin, not a tool to earn salvation and inherit God’s Kingdom.

In this text, it’s interesting to note how trying to fulfill the law for salvation is considered ‘of the flesh’ and when put in view the works of the flesh are “sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these”. This means that life under the law exposes to ourselves that these things are in us. To no longer do these things and be truly righteous, we need to obtain righteousness from an outside source, that is, the Holy Spirit put in us through the cleaning power of the blood of Jesus Christ. Trying to be righteous in our own power by our own works leaves us condemned to eternal separation from God in Hell. Being in Christ brings us into God’s eternal Kingdom.

In context with Ephesians, the message is reinforced.

Ephesians 2:8-9
8For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. (ESV)

This is for real.

Real Hope

Holiday Ruling

A good parable:

An atheist  created a case against the upcoming Easter and Passover Holy days.  He hired an attorney to bring a  discrimination case against Christians and Jews and observances of their holy  days.  The argument was that it  was unfair that atheists had no such recognized days.

The case was brought before a judge.  After listening to  the passionate presentation by the  lawyer, the judge banged his gavel declaring, “Case dismissed!”

The lawyer immediately stood objecting to the ruling saying, “Your  honor, How can you possibly dismiss this case?  The Christians have Christmas,  Easter and others.  The Jews  have Passover, Yom Kippur and Hanukkah, yet my client and all other atheists  have no such holidays..”

The judge leaned forward in his chair saying, “But you do. Your client,  counsel, is woefully ignorant.” The lawyer said, “Your Honor, we are unaware  of any special observance or holiday for atheists.”

The judge said, “The calendar says April 1st is April Fool’s Day. Psalm  14:1 states, ‘The fool says in his heart, there is no God.’  Thus, it is the opinion of this  court, that, if your client says there is no God, then he is a fool.  Therefore, April 1st is his day. Court is adjourned.”

You gotta love a Judge that knows his scripture!

Worship news

I’ve got some news for you. As it was in the days of ancient Rome, so it is now. True Christians refuse to worship the Emperor, they refuse to follow popular cultural philosophy that contradicts God’s moral absolutes, they strive to overcome their own human weakness by submitting themselves to the service of the Creator of all things. The results may very well be the same as it was then. The result may be that pop culture will commit the ultimate hypocrisy and violate their own so-called standards by engaging in intolerance.

This is for Real

The national anti-semitism begins

We conservatives tried to warn people that this would happen, and now it is. Even regular working guys like me and “Joe the Plumber” said that if Obama was elected, it would be bad for Israel. And now we see his true nature coming out. While he professes support for Israel, it’s mere lip service, and everything he is negotiating in the Muslim world right now is anti-Israeli, and he is falling in line with Islamic anti-semitism.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/06/04/obama-calls-new-beginning-muslim-world/

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. Pray for God’s protecting on His chosen people.

To Israel from your Goi friend, a believer in Messiah Jesus, I am praying for you.

This is for real

New climate models – we need MORE CO2

http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2009/601/1

Turns out that the evidence shows that greenhouse gasses, specifically CO2, have been diminishing for thousands of years. This would explain the diminishing of the supposed tropical environment the now extinct mega-reptiles formerly enjoyed. This would explain the development of ice caps over where there was once jungle. And this would also point out that Al Gore and the koolaid-drinking, grant-money-grubbing pseudo-scientists that follow him, are desperate to make you and I believe.

Of course the scientists in this study take their evidence, provide a great interpretation, and then come up with a solution that isn’t much better wiser than Al Gore’s quest. Moreover, they make the same mistake that the global warming pseudo-science groupies do and create a virtual existence in a computer model. The problem with that is, that’s the only place that global warming really exists too.

The fact of the matter is that we humans have the tendency to believe and do what harms us, and the planet is going through what it goes through by divine design in response to our foolishness. “For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now.” Romans 8:22

Not only do we need to stop the foolish pursuit of healing the planet (as if we finite creatures had the power to do so), but we also as individuals need to make things right with our Creator. “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace” Ephesians 1:7

This is for real.

Proof of life baby!

Featured in this Foxnews Article is the story of a boy who as a fetus displayed human contact with a doctor during surgery. Life starts at conception, and we need to stop murdering unborn children.

This is for real

How long was it?

6 literal days, not millions of years.  We have documentation from the eye-witness account of the Creator Himself.

The Bible jibes with the scientific evidence and fossil records better than evolution does.  Have you considered that an intricate design requires a Designer?  Have you studied the most basic information regarding the complexity of the cell structure of plants, animals, and people?   Even the most simple of cells is a magnificently complex system that reproduces based on an organized progSuppose program.  Suppose you were walking through the woods, wild and untamed, and you came upon a cabin.  Did it just happen?  After millions of years did the trees transmorph and come together to form walls, a roof, etc.  Did sand spin out of teh ground and form windows?  Did minerals refine themselves and form plumbing?  No, it’s a planned design, and a built structure.  It required a designer/builder to come into existence.  It didn’t just happen.

Why is is that we have such great faith to believe that matter and energy have always just existed, and by random chance came together to form the complex systems of the universe, atomic structure, cells, and life?  If this is plausible, then why isn’t the eternal existence of a Creator equally as plausible.  The fact is that it takes more faith to believe in matter and random chance than it does a Creator.

Our Creator exists.  Always has, always will, whether anyone chooses to believe He is or not.  Some may acknowledge He exists, but believe He set things in motion and left it to run by itself.  Not so.  Our Creator is still around, and He reveals Himself to us through his word.  He wants to be personally involved in our lives, He loves us, He wants to bless us, and rescue us from the mess we got ourselves into.

Come to know Him.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Psalm 19:1

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. John 1:1-4

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.  Colossians 1:15-17

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

This is for Real

Specious Species Speculation

I find myself failing to understand why environmentalists are so concerned about the extinction of one particular species or another.  My reason is because this position conflicts with their own core philosophy.  Most of these people are evolutionists.  They believe in Darwinism.  They believe in “natural selection”.  They believe in “survival of the fittest”.  So why then do they fight what according to their core philosophy is a completely futile fight?  This is a paradox.  This is hypocritical.  If they truly believe what they say and say what they believe as far as evolution is concerned, then they should shut up and let nature take it’s course.  Why try to save something that isn’t fit to survive?  It’s a waste of time and resources that could be spent on things that are going to stick around.  The factis that most the the species that have gone extinct have done so without our help through natural not man-made changes in the global environment.

Continue reading Specious Species Speculation…

Right, not arrogant

It is not arrogant to believe that there is truth.  It is not arrogant to believe in the truth.  It is not arrogant to boldly stand for the truth.  It is not arrogant to proclaim the truth.  In fact, believing in, standing for, and proclaiming the truth is the right thing to do.

To you the reader this might seem obvious and logical, but to postmodern culture this “feels” wrong, and these days emotion comes before logic.  The reason is that postmodern culture is a refurbished version of the ancient philosophy of skepticism that declares nothing can be known, there is no absolute truth, and anyone who says otherwise is arrogant.  Based on this philosophy the only noble thing you can do is stand for nothing and be tolerant of everything.  And if you actually dare desire to achieve intellectual knowledge, you must limit yourself to being a gnostic, that is, knowing the details of different belief systems, but standing for nothing.

Continue reading Right, not arrogant…

Perspective on the Crusades

The Crusades seem to be view by today’s secularist just another bunch of religious fanatics conquering and slaughtering in the name of their god. The Crusades are viewed much like radical Islam is viewed today. To the secular mind, there is no difference. It’s just the radical cause-du-jour. In a way, the secularists are right.

Indeed, the Crusades are a black eye on the name of Christianity. But the fact of the matter is that the people who perpetrated the crusades did so under false pretenses and did so for power and political reasons only. What many people today don’t realize is that while these military campaigns were supposedly conducted in the name of Christ, they were not led by those who were truly Christian.

Continue reading Perspective on the Crusades…

You are as created

I love the quote from C.S. Lewis that says, “You are a soul, you have a body.”  Interestingly enough the manufacture of the human being by our Divine Creator happened in the opposite order of this statement, yet this statement holds true.  We read the order of events in God’s Word.  The account is found in the Book of Genesis:

“The LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”  Gen. 2:7 NIV

Continue reading You are as created…

Ten Commandments – yep, I said it.

Food for thought:

Do the rules listed below sound bad to you? They sound good to me, but apparently there are leaders of our country who think these words should be banned from the public setting. I guess freedom of speech only applies to those who agree with their ideology.

Maybe you don’t believe in God, but don’t you think if we read and applied these words to some degree then maybe we wouldn’t have some of the trouble we have in our country like Murder, Rape, Theft, School Shootings, Corporate Plunder, Political Corruption, Suicide, Drug Addiction, Alcoholism, Sexual Immorality, broken homes, Racism, Fraud, Child Abuse, and even heath issues related to stress? Maybe, just maybe if we started with these rules, things would be a little better. And don’t we all want that?
Continue reading Ten Commandments – yep, I said it….

Doomed to Repeat History

This is a discussion posting I wrote for a Humanities course that I am taking. I decided to post it here for posterity.

I love what I like to call “mental morsels”. I am talking about those interesting little tidbits of information that you get when studying subjects like this where certain elements of cultural development and etymology are discussed. These kinds of thoughts that the mind can savor, are some of what makes history so important to me.
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Contrast and comparison of the cultural propagation of Ancient Rome and America

The goal of imperialism is to conquer and control. By contrast, the goal of democracy is to put the power and control of a nation in the hands of the electorate, that is, the people. America promotes the ideal of democracy around the world. America is not trying to conquer or rule the world. It is actually those who favor their own version of imperialism who are the ones who accuse America of it. This is irony on a global scale.By proud admission, the Ancient Romans were imperialists. They believed they had the ideal culture, and that it was their destiny to conquer and rule the world under their system. While America has certainly been accused of imperialism, the American way is truly different.

The truth be told, by promoting democracy, America is actually promoting anti-imperialism. Even when we go to war, we do not conquer or take land and resources, we give it back to the people of the country so that they can rule themselves. If America maintains any presence in a country, they pay rent. They do not try to make other countries part of America. That would go against the American ideal of democracy.
Continue reading Contrast and comparison of the cultural propagation of Ancient Rome and America…

We can’t do this on our own

Another one of my Humanities coursework discussion postings:

If one could attribute a theme to the history of humanity it would be this: “we can’t do this on our own”. If we just take western culture as an example, we see that humanity has washed, rinsed, and repeated revolutions of philosophical thought over and over again. We have gone through several micro-cycles of chaos, adjustment, and balance.

After the fall of Rome, western culture had to ‘re-find’ itself. Humanism had failed, but a new direction was given, Christ, the revealed truth. Truth was what the early philosophers sought long before, and now it had arrived. As the years passed, politics took over, and the truth was scattered and mixed among paganism. In the early stages of the medieval period, when we realized that we were too pagan, so we became religious. When we realized that major religious establishment was corrupt, we reformed. But even then some of the reformed doctrines were in error. Once we realized this, we became rational. As a result of rationalism, during the renaissance, we became humanistic all over again. When we realized we were too humanistic, we revived, but by this time we became even more fragmented. Revival gave way to scientific rationalism. The effects of the age of enlightenment continued on. This term is a contradictory term in and of itself for the so-called age of enlightenment was a plunge into darkness whereas there is no truth apart from God. And apart from God we can never get it right. We can’t do this on our own.
Continue reading We can’t do this on our own…