Atheist Angina - A Parable

Imagine.

His heart has stopped beating. He lies on the ground while you administer chest compressions. These compressions are pumping the blood through his body and keeping him alive. Each compression feeds his cells with renewed momentary life. He is conscience, on his back, staring up at you, surprisingly complacent, if not a little cheerful. He feels good … seemingly unaware that without you, he’d be dead.

Spiritual Prioritization - Learning from Mary

He was in his early 70’s and his body was almost done. He had congestive heart failure and a crippling neurological disease. He was feeling a bit down.

A mixture of frustration and phlegm tainted his words.

“You spend all of your life learning how to do something, and being able to afford to do something, and then you can’t do it anymore”.

He was a skilled trumpeter and an avid outdoor’s man. Yet he could no longer control his fingers to play any music. And he could barely walk let alone hike the outdoors.

Life is made up of windows of time. A window of a couple decades is all you have, to enjoy the skills it took decades to develop. And it takes many decades to accrue the wealth to do the things you want. But age quickly detracts from your ability to live life as you once did as a young man. That which was once taken for granted quickly extends beyond our ability to grasp.

Much of life’s enduring endeavors are meaningless and of little lasting value. It took him 20 years to get the tools and know-how to rebuild a car engine. “All that time spent, and for what”? He wondered, as he sat on a recliner.

Honing in on holiness - How an unbelieving husband is sanctified through his wife (1Cor 7:14)

Who you hang with will sharpen or dullen you.

For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. (1Cor 7:14 NIV)

So how does this work? How is it that an unbelieving man can be sanctified through a Christian woman? The bi-product of sanctification is to sin less. It is to become increasingly Christ-like in one’s deeds and actions. It is holy living. So now presume we have a very carnal man, which loves over-drinking, is a brawler, and loves to steal things. These are sinful activities. Yet, by living with this Godly woman, the very nature of her presence will have a positive influence on him. Her light will bother his darkness. He might even occasionally go to Church. And he will moderate his wicked conduct to appease her sensitivities. If he is going to over-drink, but remembers it upsets her (and that she will cry) he will be more inclined to avoid inebriation (or have the shame to at least hide it). If he is tempestuous and wants to punch some bloke’s nose, she might encourage him to walk away and be the better man. Her influence will calm his evil inclinations. Her love will calm his hate. If he is going to steal something from a store, he will be discouraged by remembering that his wife will think less of him if he did. Her influence has a braking effect on his evil tendencies and inevitably draws him into a holier lifestyle (against his nature). The believer sanctifies the unbeliever. This is not to say that the unbeliever’s heart moves closer to God, but that their conduct is swayed by the believer’s influence. (Side note: please remember, we are not to marry unbelievers. This verse in question speaks of a conversion within an existing marriage).

The grey chest hair - an eternal reminder

The other day as I was shaving, I noticed I had a single wiley grey hair on my chest that shone like a beacon amongst its darker brethren. The song, “one of these things is not like the other” played for a moment in the back of my head, until I noticed the tune and smote it violently. These children songs from my kid's DVDs will haunt me till the end of my days

Yet this hair deviled into the germane. Despite a fleeting thought to fetch a black giffy marker to color it, I could not help but see that that hair represented time.Or more specifically, an approaching end to my time.

“Our days on earth are like grass; like wildflowers, we bloom and die.The wind blows, and we are gone— as though we had never been here”. (Psalm 103: 15-16 NLT)

This Scripture when plucked out of the Bible and portrayed individually doesn't give us the most cheerful disposition. Yet that is how it gives us such a profound perspective: on how we should be living in the here-and-now. Our first phase of existence is fleeting, but in the following verse we see a foreshadowing of our second phase. We see an introduction of eternal life, and this is what gives us hope.

“But the love of the LORD remains forever with those who fear him”. (v17)

We only have a small allotted amount of time here on this big blue sphere. And that grey hair proclaimed that over half of my time was up. And I could not help but wonder, “What have I accomplished for my LORD”? He has given me talents and abilities. He has entrusted me with resources and friends. He has touched me with health and situated me in a first world nation. He has blest me in so many ways. I was once darkness but was born again into light. He plucked me up out of the mud, and cleaned me up, and loved me at a great expense to Himself. I know my purpose in creation is to glorify Him: To please Him. Yet so much of my time is spent on myself:  Which eternally, is spent on nothing.

Travel the Highway of Holiness: A call to Holy living

A highway will be there, a roadway, And it will be called the Highway of Holiness. The unclean will not travel on it, But it will be for him who walks that way, And fools will not wander on it. (Isaiah 35:8 NASB) 

Is belief in Jesus all it takes to have eternal life?

 NO.

You say you have faith, for you believe that there is one God. Good for you! Even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror. (James 2:19 NLT) 

Demons know who Jesus is. They believe in Him. But they do not serve Him.

You become who you hang out with

"Do not be deceived: `Bad company corrupts good morals.'" (1Cor15:33 NASV)

deceived = πλανάω = seduced. to wander away.
corrupts = φθείρω = withers or shrivels. to spoil (as in food)

the CEV puts it this way:

"Don't fool yourselves. Bad friends will destroy you".

Paul was an intellectual and can be seen here quoting a common phrase of the day from Menander (a Greek dramatist) who in turn had quoted it in one of Euripides' earlier plays. The Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Commentary tells us the meaning from the play indicates communion with "those who deny the resurrection". The Church at Corinth had fallen back into a sinful state since Paul had left them. And Paul puts some emphasis on the company they keep for this slippage. Your morality is strongly influenced by the company you keep. Those who deny the resurrection are bad company for close friendships.

Friendship with unbelievers

Friendship with unbelievers

Psalm 1: devotional mullings.

JESUS CHRIST - Much greater than a "Superstar

I don't like going to church (especially a new church) and feeling like I've just seen yet another performance of the rock opera "Jesus Christ Superstar."

If you haven't seen the play, it ends with the suicide of Judas and crucifixion of Christ. The end.

We Christians know that the crucifixion of our Savior is not the end. It's a new beginning, a second birth, "born again," to quote Jesus' conversation at night with the sympathetic, believing pharisee, Nicodemus (John 3.)

I've heard the proverbial THE END from prominent televangelists. For instance a couple years ago I was watching Pat Robertson referencing Jesus on the "700 Club." I paraphrase him, "[It's amazing when you realize] that this man was born to die." With all due respect to Mr. Robertson, I ask how is that statement different than any other human being's fate on this earth?

Shame

“Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation: old things are passed away; behold all things have become new”. (2 Cor 5:17)

This article is not for the brow beating of the saints. It is not meant to condemn or diminish the Lord’s children by suggesting they should wallow continually and eternally in the past affairs of their flesh. When we are born again, we are new creatures in Christ, and the feats of the flesh are the dead memory of our old self, our “old man”. This article seeks to look at a rare occurrence where a Christian’s standing in Christ may not be on as solid as they had presumed. And as such, is intended to cause reflection as to whether we conform to this odd spiritual malignity, a holdover from our past that has no place in our present or future.

taming the tongue

Flyleaf: "I'm so sick, Infected with where I live". - The Christian's Conundrum.

Flyleaf expresses our sinful sorry state with their song, “I am so sick”.

Exalting oneself above God precipitated the fall of mankind, and our created order. Questioning His judgment is to replace Him with yourself: to exalt yourself above your Creator. The prideful position that dropped Satan from the heavens likewise dropped mankind from Eden. And we landed in a world of thorns and death. Tainted flesh: Adam’s legacy lives on in his children. We desire to exercise our wills above His own. We trade happiness for sorrow and have done so millennium upon millenniums.


How to crawl out of this hole? As the Flyleaf song sings:

"I'm so sick, Infected with where I live" 

... the allures of the flesh (of this world) are ever before us and within us. As Paul voiced this tension,
"Who will save me from this body of death (Romans 7:24)?". The Flyleaf song sings of sexual tension, but the lures are many. How does one resist the want of carnality, the hunger of iniquity? How does one deflect the attraction of the flesh? And we hear Paul’s reply,

"Thanks be to God who delivers me through Jesus Christ my Lord (Romans 7:25)." Dwell not on the thoughts of the flesh, on the desires for sinful satisfaction. Dwell on and with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. We are prone to stray thoughts. These we must contend with in till the Lord’s return. Yet we should not allow them to covet. We must not fixate them within our minds and entertain them in our hearts. This is a conscience act. A stray thought is a spark in the mind and easily snuffed. But if we capture that thought, and dwell upon it, and nurse it into a fire, it will grow. Carnal thoughts are kindling to fires that will burn your life. When kindling comes along, discard it. Likewise, dwelling on the things of God is a conscience act, to be nurtured and perfected.

"I will break into your thoughts with what's written on my heart
I will break, break"

 

We must take ownership of our thoughts and break out from this cycle of death and decay. We must serve God with our mind and soul, we must serve God with our flesh. And when we do so, we will shed our chains of iniquity and progress on the road of sanctification. The road that leads to Paradise.

Do what is necessary

If you're like me, you sometimes feel like you're dragging your Christian feet. Many times I ponder, what am I supposed to do? What is God's direction for my life? How am I to serve Him and engage the world around me? I think many times, I simply overthink it. Instead of analyzing how I'm supposed to change the world on some momentous scale, I need to simply be obedient in my neighborhood.

I'm not Mother Teresa, yet perhaps i can buy a burger for a homeless man on the street.

I'm not Billy Graham, yet perhaps I can share my faith with someone close by.

God can use you, to move mountains, even if only in the life of one person.

born again - the metamorphosis of sanctification

 

from a worm (a creature designed and desiring to eat .. a gut with legs)

comes the realization, the touch of God,
of birth, of beauty with the power to fly,
of metamorphosis, of being born again and at one within the sky .. next to God.
it is the path we all take from the dirt to the clouds.
thank God for the chrysalis, that changes the worm,
thank God for the Christ, that changes the soul into something beautiful.

My Sinful Old Shirt

"I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! 

So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin." (Romans 7: 21-25)

The Dueling Madonnas - Saint verses Sinner ... And How it Affects us.

We all have role models, even when we don’t realize it. Influences from what we’ve seen and admired subliminally exert a gentle pull on our souls. An undetected yearning to be like `that person’ or like a particular quality `that person’ has. After watching Schwarzenegger or Stallone I feel an heightened manliness. Their testosterone pumps mine up. I think my chest even get hairier after I watch their movies. I had to stop watching Jackie Chan after I ripped all my pants. You girls may admire the style or attractiveness of some lady, and wish to copy her makeup, hairstyle, or the way she carries herself. If you put a child before the tube with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on, within an hour they’ll be kicking holes in your walls. They want to be a ninja turtle. I’m not talking about idol worship, puppy love crushes, or deification. I’m articulating a principle in humanity where we actively shape ourselves and are shaped by what we see and feed on. And whether good or bad, we are pumped when we see things we wish to identify within ourselves. This when recognized, can be a source of immeasurable spiritual strength. Or when ignored, the means of our destruction. And it is a powerful ingredient in a parent’s cookbook for the development of Godly children.

Faith Bubble - An Unhealthy Substitute for Foundational Faith

Faith is a wondrous thing.  Some people are gifted with it and have a propensity to move mountains. Others are not, and struggle to move the covers off themselves so they can get out of bed.  My mother is a creature of pure faith.  She doesn’t know much about science and isn’t particularly well read historically.  Yet when the antagonists of God berate her, their faulty conjectures strike her as hollow plenitudes: They have no more substance than the breath that carries them.  She isn’t trained in a particular academic field and as such, capable of correcting their folly by referencing publications and learned men.  No, that is not within her scope.  But what she does have is an innate God given PhD In faith; Such that, their attempts to rattle her are futile.  And her exemplified relationship with God rattles them.

We can’t all have my mother’s faith (or a gifting of faith).  And neither do we need it.  Paul instructs us that that which we believe is rational, and he is correct.  What he means is, we can see and affirm many things about God and Christianity without faith - and that this in turn, builds our personal faith. God is evident in His creation, and this insight is unmistakable to many by simple observation, and to others by study.  This does not negate faith.  There are areas where faith is required.  This is God’s intent and prerogative.  Many wonder why He wouldn’t simply reveal Himself to the degree that we could not deny Him.  How could you not believe in Him if He shook the earth from a pillar of flame and commanded us to listen?  Or, wouldn’t it be easier to evangelize the world if Noah’s ark was perched in plain site, and all we had to do was point at it?

Thomas the Engine talks Prozac and Purpose

Did you know you matter?  It’s all about perspective and a lack of it.  If you thought you were amazing, you’d feel better about yourself.  If you knew you were loved, you wouldn’t feel so despondent.  So many things can go wrong when we don’t know who we are.  We can grow depressed and suffer a minuscular self-worth.    For others, their self-worth is associated with temporal things such as power and possessions:  things as useful as a snowman on an hot day.  It may seem fun for a moment, but in the context of the grand scheme of things, it is momentary and insignificant.  If one lacks prestigious employment or a pretty face, they feel second tier and cheated of happiness.  Melancholy can be insidious, particularly when generated by unimportant reasons.  It can impair the pace of our journey and obscure the path we should trod.  We live in a Prozac society and we are a Prozac generation.  How can a train locomotive guide us to completion?