Christian based commentaries and observations.

Quote of Note

Billy Graham's Prayer For Our Nation



: 'Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and to seek your direction and guidance.
We know Your Word says, 'Woe to those who call evil good,' but that is exactly what we have done.

We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values. We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.

We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare.

We have killed our unborn and called it choice.

We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable.

We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self esteem.

We have abused power and called it politics.

We have coveted our neighbor's possessions and called it ambition.

We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression.

We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.

Search us, Oh God, and know our hearts today; cleanse us from every sin and Set us free.
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: Amen!'
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Saturday, November 26, 2005

Talking to others about Christ

I heard Ravi Zacharias say that there are 4 basic questions that everyone must answer for him/herself. It occurred to me that this is how we lead others to Jesus. It is always down one of those four thought paths.
It depends on who I'm talking to and what their present situation and education is. I always pray for opportunities and entrys. In this e-mail I'm only going to deal with the "Why do I or should I need Jesus".
Consider that everyone of is made in the image and likeness of God. Like God has three parts (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) , so we have three parts also (body, soul, and spirit). The Spirit is constantly interjecting, speaking, into our soul, thoughts.It is our thoughts that control our bodies.
Each and everyone of us hears from our spirit on 4 topics and I am thinking of adding a 5th. We all need to settle in our soul (mind) questions of Origin, Purpose, Morality, and Destiny. (The 5Th that I am currently meditating on is Love.) I don't think that we get off this Earth without settling those four and maybe five questions. Some people fight death to the very end because they have not yet made their conclusions. All the business and noise we put into your lives, often to our own peril, is hiding from God and refusing to deal with these subjects.
Consider Adam after partaking of the forbidden fruit. Here he was knowing that God was his origin. Glorifying God by tending the Garden and having dominion over all living creatures (including Eve and the Serpant) was his purpose. Not eating of the fruit was his mandated morality. And eternal life was his destiny, unless he ate of the fruit; then destiny was death. He allowed the serpant to question God's word and place death causing ego and doubt into Eve' s soul. He allows her to think it, reach out and take it and eat it, then he also eats of it. Now he doesn't want to deal with the other four big issues. Conviction becomes guilt. He tries to cover his guilt with fig leaves and hides from God. Now God comes walking in the Garden. Adam hears the footsteps and still doesn't want to deal with the conviction issues: Origin (God) Purpose(his dominutive responsiblity) Morality( the one forbidden sin) and Destiny (his impending death). Instead of crawling out of the bushes to confront his orgin, admitting he failed in his purpose, asking for fogiviness for his lapse of morality, and trying to re-establish of recieve his destiny, he hides. Then when God says, "Where are you" Adam says, "
We were afraid and naked before you" And dishes the blame out on Eve. She in turn not wanting to own the guilt passes the buck to the serpent. Nobody want to own guilt.We all point the finger which proves our sin. God shed the blood of an animal to make clothes (a covering for their sin) and promises to provide a sacrifice which will remove their sins and reestablish them in a destiny of life. Now when talking to someone about the need for Jesus, and his payment for our sin, each of the big four issues is an entry point. By talking to someone about these issues forces them to deal with them. When you talk about Origin of mankind by ready to debunk or cast some doubt on evolution (read a book on it). The simplest way is to take it back to the big bang. "Where did the matter at the beginning of the big bang come from" The evolutionist can only go back to "in the beginning Dirt"! We go to Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created the dirt"! Not one human on Earth has looked up at the stars and not wondered where we came from and how we got here. "Fearfully and wonderfully made in our mother's womb", "We were on his mind before Earth's frame was laid". "In the beginning was the word (Jesus) and the word was...and we have seen him...and known him and he is Jesus. Purpose is general and specific to each of us. Our general purpose is to glorify our creator. Our specific purpose is the use of our special gifts and talents that bring glory to him. We need Jesus and his forgiviness to bring glory to God. And we need Jesus to begin a relationship with God that will eventually lead to learning our special purpose for which we were individaully created and called into the body of Christ. It is in this relation ship and obediance where happiness is and internal peace is found.
Morality is a special subject to attack. An arguement that cannot be countered goes like this. Moral Absolutes exist and God exsists or no moral absolutes exist and God does not exist. A Moral Absolute is a truth placed in the conscience of all humans irreguardless of upbringing or association that we all know to be true. Example: Grotusque mutilation and murder of a newborn innocent child preformed in the helpless view of the parents. Anyone who denys that that would be wrong is lying to themselves and you. We all know it because it has been place in all of us by that unseen force known as "God of Love". We sense that which is detestable to him without ever being told. A child will often do something in secret hiding some small sin without ever having been told it was wrong. Now since God loves us he has given us his written word which reveals not only his commands but also his character which is the Christian's basis for morality. We must all decide what our basis for morality is and where it comes from. There is one big plus to Christian morality though and that is Jesus. Without Jesus it is impossible to be and live a moral life. We must have his forgiveness. Since "...all have sinned..." we all must deal with that guilt and impending destiny of death. We read into the word "guilt" the words "punishment is death" and the Spirit of the unsaved person testifys guilt and death to their soul. This is met with much uncontrolled emotional energy depression , anger, etc. and we don't want to hear it in our souls. The Spirit is heard the loudest when we are bored. Bordem is actually the edge of meditation. When we are bored our bodies and minds are not being externally stimulated. In this state our Spirit is able to get through. The Bible says, "Be still and know that I am God"! What the unrepentant do is jump up and go look for some excitement to drownd out the voice of God. In other words they HIDE. Where do they find this excitment? In more Sin! Sin is exciting. The problem is that more sin leads to more guilt, which testifys death which clashes with their self image as immortal self proclaimed gods. They are forced and compelled to escalate their particular chosen drug/sin to sooth the pain of their conscience. Paul said, " all the members of my body are at war with that which I know I ought not to do" (parphrased) and "Who will save me from this body of death. Thanks be to Jesus Christ our Lord" You see repentance and acceptance of Christ breaks the cycle of sin, guilt, pride ego (repeat).
Everone argues that they have to give up this and that to be a Christian. They cannot see how or why they would want to do that. They don't understand that liberty is in Christ. They see it the other way around because they don't see or know how they are in fact the slaves; slaves to destructive sin. Show them their slavery and the way Christ liberates and lifts off the wieght of guilt that noone wants to own.
The last issue is Destiny. Everybody wants to know what is on the other side of life. Jesus answered that when he rose from the dead. And offers it to us free of charge. The destiny of the Christian is to pass from life to Life. "to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord". Most important only with Chirstianity is there an absolute promise of eternal life in paradise with him. Every religion in the world is based on earning (working) their way into heaven. With Christ it is a gift. Religion is man trying to make himself good enough for God. Christanity is God making Man good enough for himself. Everyone on Earth is counting on either themselves or Christ for their eternity. Make them see "All their righteousness is like filthy rags". And also Hebrew's says, "It is appointed unto man, Once to die and then the judgement"Once means no reincarnation, we get one chance.
Mark

Thursday, November 03, 2005

More to come

Hi everyone,
I've been wanting to get this thing started for some time now. This will be a Christian blog. I have several topics already in mind and will begin as soon as is possible. Next weeks vacation should act as a launching pad. 11/03/05.
Mark