Posts filed under ‘christianity’
Too Many Christian Leaders Act Like Demagogues or Bullies
Here’s what I see happening today. Christian leaders in expensive suits, with “best-selling” after their names, who have power and money and name recognition. Too often, it is verboten to critique or criticize these individuals because they have too many (virulent) followers who will come after you with all manner of evocative in your face finger jabbing techniques and acrimony. But isn’t that also part of the problem?
Our Amazing Eyes and Seeing Through a Glass Darkly
But one day, according to Paul, the things we cannot see now, but surely exist, will be seen. This will occur after we leave our “tents,” our physical bodies behind, exchanging them for new ones that will no longer be affected by sin. Those bodies will be free of the sin nature and the ravages of sin itself. There will not only be no death, no sickness, no fatigue, no need to sleep (though I imagine that if we chose to sleep, it would be sleep like we’ve never experienced!), no real limitations on us. We will literally see and hear what we’ve been missing!
Continue Reading November 4, 2015 at 12:01 PM Leave a comment
It’s Not the Career Necessarily But Living Like a Christian In Your Career That Counts
I now understand more fully that it is not only okay to use our gifts in our career choice, but that we should, and it now makes perfect sense. In any job, we should comport ourselves entirely in a way that brings God glory. This alone creates a testimony that speaks to others, without having to be preachy. Chances are excellent that opportunities will come our way to use our mouths to point others to Jesus. Years ago, I thought all Christians needed to be in some sort of official ministry. Not anymore. God has people He wants to reach in the corporate world, the political world, and the entertainment world. He needs people who want to pursue those areas so that they can be a witness for Him. Certainly, there are temptations and traps in any field and it is necessary for the Christian to avoid them all, but not to necessarily avoid the career path itself.
Continue Reading November 2, 2015 at 4:44 PM Leave a comment
Prayer and Praise, Part 6
Really? What does that mean? Praise God in everything, literally? Maybe Paul’s being metaphoric here. Maybe he’s using the word “everything” like we would say “Everybody in town came out for the football game!” Surely, not everyone actually came out for a football game, but the idea is that enough or most of the people in town went to that game is what is being stated and we understand it to mean that. We don’t actually believe that every single person in that particular town came out for a football game.
Continue Reading November 2, 2015 at 7:38 AM Leave a comment
Prayer and Praise, Part 5
But I also wonder if sometimes, Christians who experience these healings (or medical “cures”) sometimes come to a point of starting to believe that God provided the healing because of their faith in the matter and not because He simply chose to heal according to His will and purposes? I see some whose cancers are in remission and who are living a full life because of it and I wonder if they are often tempted to think that their “faith” made them whole, or “allowed” God to “heal” them?
Prayer and Praise, Part 4
Yet, what do we Christians do all too often? We pray for specifics to a certain situation and often we do so before we even truly know what God’s will is and we rarely, if ever add the words, “yet, not mine, but thy will be done” to our prayers. We tend to think of those words as being “defeatist.” How can we really “believe” God will provide the answer we are looking for if we add those words to the mix? Answer: we can’t believe He will do what we ask, so we don’t add those words.
Prayer and Praise, Part 3
Notice in the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus opens with “Our Father,” and then does not state any reference to Him again except for the use of the word “your.” He didn’t feel the need to insert the Father’s name or reference at the beginning or end of each statement. In fact, we know that God sees the depth of our own thoughts even though we may not actually know how to pray, (cf. Job 31:4; Jeremiah 23:24; Romans 8:26). God knows us! We need to drop the pretense, adopt reverence, and approach Him with awe and praise, understanding who He is, at least as He has chosen to reveal Himself to us in His Word.
Prayer and Praise, Part 1
It is almost becoming the new mantra among Christians today. You’ve heard it and so have I. That mantra – Prayer is a powerful tool! – is supposed to get us on our knees, to help us focus on the God of the universe. Prayer is supposed to put us in the mindset to ask of God and expect Him to respond to our requests in the way we want Him to respond. In some ways, it almost borders on the “name it, claim it” type of theology (poor as it is), that teaches people just that. We should focus on something that we want (or ostensibly believe God wants for us) and by continuing to pray about that situation, event, or item, we then “claim it” in Jesus’ Name. This, we are told, will bring that about because of the “laws of the universe” or some such theology that is so loosely built on the biblical pattern that it can actually be done without even referencing the Bible at all, except for a verse here or that one there.
Prophecies of Daniel 1, Part 6
In Daniel 1:8-14, we see Daniel’s desire to remain faithful to God. In Daniel 1:15-16, we see Daniel actually remaining faithful to God. His desire to remain faithful to God carried him through so that in reality, Daniel was faithful. It all starts with our desire. If we want to be or remain faithful to God, that is more than half the battle and wanting to be/remain faithful will help us get there.
Continue Reading October 20, 2015 at 2:24 PM Leave a comment
Jack Kelly of Grace Thru Faith Goes Home to His Lord
The Book of Job is an example of the difference between Union and Fellowship. Job’s righteousness made him proud, a sin in God’s eyes. When Satan asked to torment him, God had to agree in spite of the fact that Job was one of the most righteous men on Earth, because he hadn’t confessed his sin. As long as Job relied on his own righteousness he was vulnerable to attack, and none of his complaints could change that, even though he remained a child of God. When he confessed, God put a stop to the torment and restored him. The lesson Job learned through his ordeal (and that we’re supposed to learn as well according to Romans 15:4) is that when we justify ourselves, we condemn God. Whenever we start thinking that we don’t deserve something bad that’s happening to us, we in effect accuse God of being unjust. It’s part of our human nature to look outside of ourselves for the blame, but it delays our reconciliation with God.
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