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Question & Thought for May 29th, 2016!!!

Question & Thought for May 29th, 2016!!!
Good Sunday Morning All!
1. Question – Have you asked God to help with your construction?
2. Thought – I find I must borrow yet another parable from George MacDonald. Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of – throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come in a live in it Himself.
The command Be ye perfect is not idealistic gas. Nor is it a command to do the impossible. He is going to make us into creatures that can obey that command. He said (in the Bible) that we were ‘gods’ and He is going to make good on His words. If we let Him – for we can prevent Him, if we choose – He will make the feeblest and filthiest of us into a god or a goddess, a dazzling, radiant, immortal creature, pulsating all through with such energy and joy and wisdom and love as we cannot imagine, a bright stainless mirror which reflects back to God perfectly (though, of course, on a smaller scale) His own boundless power and delight and goodness. This process will be long and in parts very painful, but that is what we are in for. Nothing less. He meant what He said. (Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis)
“Be ye perfect.”
rem – I had no knowledge that I had no knowledge.
Question & Thought & ANDs.

Question & Thought for May 24th, 2016!

Question & Thought for May 24th, 2016!
Good Tuesday Morning!
1. Question – Do you reject Christianity’s core principles?
2. Thought – Not too long ago, most Americans accepted the basic claims of Christianity, even if they weren’t Christians. Most believed there is a God. Most respected the Bible. Most were convinced Jesus was an actual person. And most generally accepted the biblical moral code: Don’t use God’s name as a curse word; respect your parents; don’t commit murder; don’t steal, or covet your neighbor’s spouse or possessions.
This is no longer true. Many reject Christianity’s core principles. Virtually everything Christians have always believed is being challenged or opposed. These challenges come from schoolteachers, college professors, commentators, writers – seemingly from every walk of life.
These are some of the allegations:
  • There is no God
  • The New Testament is unreliable. Though it may have some good moral teaching, it contains fables and errors.
  • If Jesus existed at all, he was not God; he certainly did not rise from the dead.
  • The Bible is no different from any other religious book. All religions have their own truth.
  • Many paths lead to God; Jesus is not the only way. being good and being sincere about what you believe is what matters.
Many Christians don’t know how to respond to these claims. (Reason for Belief by Norman Geisler and Patty Tunnicliffe)
“From the day of the Declaration…they [the American people] were bound by the laws of God, which they all, and by the laws of the gospel, which they nearly all acknowledged as the rules of their conduct.” (John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State, July 4th, 1821)
rem – I had no knowledge that I had no knowledge.
Question & Thought & ANDs.

Question & Thought for May 19th, 2016!!!

Question & Thought for May 19th, 2016!!!
Good Thursday Morning!
1. Question – “Is it true that Jesus is the only way to God?”
​2. Thought ​- All other religions contradict every core New Testament claim about Jesus. For the final time, we’re brought back to the reminder that contradictory truth claims cannot be true. Look one more time at these statements to see how clear they are about Jesus being the only way to God:
“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me.” (John 14:6)
“Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12)
“Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.” (1 John 5:12)
These declarations are unambiguous. They’re either true or false. Either Jesus and the New testament writers are right or they are wrong. We must make our choice.
If Jesus is God, he cannot be wrong. If Jesus is not God, then he is wrong on the most important matter – how we can have our sins forgiven – and we cannot trust what he says. If he is not God, he would not be the way, the truth, and the life, and he would not be the only way to the Father. In fact, if he did not speak the truth, he is not even a way to the Father – he is not a way to anywhere.
But then again, as we’ve seen, Jesus is God. His words are true.
Here the laws of logic, compel us to make a choice: a choice about Jesus. If his claims to be God are true, and thus his claim to be the only true way to God is true, then everything that contradicts him is false. The claim that he is the only way to God is no more narrow-minded, closed-minded, arrogant, or intolerant than any other belief someone may hold, for whatever they believe to be true, the opposite of it must be false.
And so the only real question is “Is it true that Jesus is the only way to God?” For all the reasons we’ve stated above, this claim is demonstrably true. Now you must ask yourself, “What am I going to do about it?” You have a decision to make.
True or false? Right or wrong? What do you say of Jesus and his claims?
C.S. Lewis, who understood the laws of logic, challenged us to make a decision about the claims of Jesus. Are they true or false?
“You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, or you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon, or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
Lewis is right. The law of noncontradiction insists that we choose. Jesus is the only way to God, or he is not. There is no other option. (Reasons for Belief by Norman L. Geisler and Patty Tunnicliffe)
“I had no knowledge that I had no knowledge.” (Stephen Pratt)
rem – I had no knowledge that I had no knowledge.
Question & Thought & ANDs.

Question & Thought for May 15th, 2016!

Question & Thought for May 15th, 2016!
Good Sunday Morning!
1. Question – Do you love money and have enough?
2. Thought – Being Choked by Wealth
TGIF Today God Is First
Sunday, May 08 2016

“Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income….” – Ecclessiastes 5:10

Workplace believers are especially susceptible to a trap in their spiritual lives – one to which others may not be so susceptible. That trap is wealth. Scripture tells us that if we are having our basic needs met for food and clothing, we are considered to have riches. Jesus cautioned us against living a lifestyle that required more than our basic necessities. However, it is clear that Jesus was not against wealth, but against a dependence on wealth. Jesus continually taught that a dependence on anything other than God was evil. Whenever Jesus determined that money was an issue for an individual, He addressed it and found that the individual could not let go. This was true for the rich young ruler. When talking about what he must do to inherit the Kingdom, Jesus told him to do the one thing that would be the most difficult – to give away his wealth and follow Him.
Jesus was not saying this was what every person must do, only the rich young ruler, because Jesus knew this was his greatest stumbling block. For others of us, it could be something else Jesus would ask us to give up (see Mt. 19:16-30).
Much like the frog in the boiling pot, if we are not careful we gradually begin to acquire and walk the treadmill of material gain. Those around us begin to expect more and more. Soon we begin expanding our lifestyle. Before we know it, we are worrying about how to take care of what we acquire. Our emphasis becomes what we own versus our relationship with Jesus and His Kingdom.
The greater independence money gives us, the less dependence on God we need. Christ talked much about money in the Kingdom because He knew how much of a problem it was. This is why we have so few who are bearing 100, 60, or 30 times what is sown.
Do you have the same hunger for God that you once had?  Ask Him to keep you hungering for more of His presence in your life.

rem – I had no knowledge that I had no knowledge.
Question & Thought & ANDs.