Post Category → Bible

Question & Thought for April 3rd, 2016!

Question & Thought for April 3rd, 2016!
Good Sunday Morning!
1. Question – How distant do you feel from God after reading The Sermon on the Mount?
2. Thought – For years I had thought of the Sermon on the Mount as a blue-print for human behavior that no one could possibly follow. Reading it again, I found that Jesus gave these words not to cumber us, but to tell us what God is like. The character of God is the urtext of the Sermon on the Mount.
The Sermon on the Mount forces us to recognize the great distance between God and us, and any attempt to reduce that distance by somehow moderating its demands misses the point altogether.
The worst tragedy would be to turn the Sermon on the Mount into another form of legalism; it should rather put an end to all legalism. Legalism like the Pharisees’ will always fail, not because it is too strict but because it is not strict enough. Thunderously, inarguably, the Sermon on the Mount proves that before God we all stand on level ground: murderers and temper-throwers, adulterers and lusters, thieves and coveters. We are all desperate, and that is in fact the only state appropriate to a human being who wants to know God. Having fallen from the absolute Ideal, we have nowhere to land but in the safety net of absolute grace. (The Jesus I Never Knew by Philip Yancey)
“The test of observance of Christ’s teachings is our consciousness of our failure to attain an ideal perfection. The degree to which we draw near this perfection cannot be seen; all we can see is the extent of our deviation.” (Leo Tolstoy)
Have a wonderful week!
rem – I had no knowledge that I had no knowledge.
Question & Thought & ANDs.

Question & Thought for March 30th, 2016!

Question & Thought for March 30th, 2016!
Good Wednesday Morning!
1. Question – Who was the ‘Schoolmaster to America’?
2. Thought – For his extensive contributions to American education, NOAH WEBSTER (1758-1843) is called “Schoolmaster to America.” Also famous for his American Dictionary of the English Language, he wrote:
Any system of education… which limits instruction to the arts and sciences and rejects the aids of religion in forming the characters of citizens, is essentially defective.
​In​ my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed…No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people.
(The Founder’s Bible by David Barton)
rem – I had no knowledge that I had no knowledge.
Question & Thought & ANDs.

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

Question & Thought for March 29th, 2016!!!
Good Tuesday Morning!
1. Question – Do ‘Born Again’ people have a supernatural power that ‘Non-Born Again’ people do not?
2. Thought – I believe that ‘born again believers,’ because of the power of the indwelling Spirit of God, are the only ones who have this free choice decision. We have the authority and power of God to follow His Will regardless of what we naturally think, feel, or want to do. Again, nonbelievers have a choice to decide what they want to do. However, none of them has the authority to choose to go against how they feel or what they think because they don’t possess a supernatural power within them to preform anything different from what they feel or think. Therefore, they don’t have a free choice! They really don’t have any other choice but to “allow self” and follow what their own thoughts, emotions, and desires are telling them.​
​These people, even though they might desperately want to change and not follow their own emotions and desires, can’t make those “contrary choices” because they don’t possess the supernatural power within them to do so. ​Romans 7:18 tells us “to will is present within [each of us], but “how to preform that which is good” is not.
In other words, we all – believers and nonbelievers alike – can choose. We all can make contrary choices. But only Christians have the supernatural power and ability within them to be able to carry out and perform those contrary choices in their lives! (The Way of Agape by Chuck and Nancy Missler)
​“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.” ​(Aldous Huxley)
rem – I had no knowledge that I had no knowledge.

​
Question & Thought & ANDs.

Question & Thought for Easter 2016!

Question & Thought for Easter 2016!
Happy Easter Morning!
1. Question – How distant do you feel from God after reading The Sermon on the Mount?
2. Thought – For years I had thought of the Sermon on the Mount as a blue-print for human behavior that no one could possibly follow. Reading it again, I found that Jesus gave these words not to cumber us, but to tell us what God is like. The character of God is the urtext of the Sermon on the Mount.
The Sermon on the Mount forces us to recognize the great distance between God and us, and any attempt to reduce that distance by somehow moderating its demands misses the point altogether.
The worst tragedy would be to turn the Sermon on the Mount into another form of legalism; it should rather put an end to all legalism. Legalism like the Pharisees’ will always fail, not because it is too strict but because it is not strict enough. Thunderously, inarguably, the Sermon on the Mount proves that before God we all stand on level ground: murderers and temper-throwers, adulterers and lusters, thieves and coveters. We are all desperate, and that is in fact the only state appropriate to a human being who wants to know God. Having fallen from the absolute Ideal, we have nowhere to land but in the safety net of absolute grace. (The Jesus I Never Knew by Philip Yancey)
“The test of observance of Christ’s teachings is our consciousness of our failure to attain an ideal perfection. The degree to which we draw near this perfection cannot be seen; all we can see is the extent of our deviation.” (Leo Tolstoy)
Have a wonderful week!
rem – I had no knowledge that I had no knowledge.
Question & Thought & ANDs.