Post Category → Eternity

Question & Thought for August 7th, 2016!!!

Question & Thought for August 7th, 2016!!!
Good Sunday Morning!
1. Question – After some Christians read The Great Divorce, they have concluded that we will have a “second chance” after death to be saved. Do you think this is so?
2. Thought – The problem here is that we don’t really understand what eternity means. To say the God lives outside of time is to say that he experiences all time as a single unity: God does not foresee the future; he sees it as we see the present. Although Lewis’s theology is fully congruent with evangelical thought, he is not a Calvinist. In contrast to Calvinism, Lewis argues that God’s foreknowledge of an event does not necessitate his predestining of that event.
My seeing of a present event does not determine it; why then should God’s eternally present seeing of a future event (future to us) determine its outcome? Because God’s knowledge is ever and always a present knowledge of our present choice, our freedom is not violated; past and future don’t exist in heaven. Just so, the choices the damned souls make are eternal ones that surpass (and, thus, include) the past; as eternal states, heaven and hell work backwards. The souls that reject the offer to stay will find that they have always been in hell, while those that choose to stay will feel that heaven alone has been their home. (The Life and Writings of C. S. Lewis by Louis Markos)
“Worldviews are perceptual frameworks. They are ways of seeing… Our worldview determines our values. It helps us interpret the world around us. It sorts out what is important from what is not, what is of highest vale from what is least. A worldview then provides a model of the world which guides its adherents in the world.” (The Transforming Vision by Brian Walsh & J. Richard Middleton)
Question for you: Are you in hell right now or do you believe you are in a tiny slice of heaven?
rem – I had no knowledge that I had no knowledge.
Question & Thought & ANDs.

Questions and Thought for June 26th, 2016!!!

Questions and Thought for June 26th, 2016!!!
Good Sunday Morning as June closes this week!!!
1. Question – Have you asked yourself, ‘How’s my hope glass?’ Full, Dwindling? Empty? Is my future bright with hope? Do you pray without faith?’
2. Thought – from Streams in the Desert, daily devotion for June 26th, by L. B. Cowman.
I suspect that the source of every bit of sorrow in my life can be traced to simple unbelief. If I truly believe the past is totally forgiven, the present is supplied with power, and the future is bright with hope, how could I be anything but completely happy?
Yes, the future is bright, because of God’s faithfulness. His abiding truth does not change with my mood, and He never waivers when I stumble and fall over a promise of His through my unbelief. His faithfulness stands firm and as prominent as mountain peaks of pearl splitting the clouds of eternity. And each base of His hills is rooted in an unfathomable depth on the rock of God.
Mont Blanc does not disappear, become a passing vision or a whimsical mist, simply because a climber grows dizzy on its slopes.
Is it any wonder that we do not receive God’s blessing after stumbling over His promise through unbelief? I’m not saying that faith merits an answer or that we can work to earn it. But God Himself has made believing a condition of receiving, and the Giver has a sovereign right to choose His own terms for His gifts.
Unbelief continually asks, ” How can this be possible?” It is always full of ‘how’s,” yet faith needs only one great answer to even ten thousand “how’s.” That answer is – GOD!
No one accomplishes so much in so little time as when he or she is praying. And the following thought certainly aligns well with all that the Lord Jesus Christ taught on prayer: If only ONE BELIEVER WITH TOTAL FAITH rises up, the history of the world will be changed.
​Will YOU be that one that rises up, submitting yourself to the sovereignty​ and guidance of God our Father?
Prayer without faith quickly degenerates into an aimless routine or heartless hypocrisy. However, prayer with faith brings the omnipotence of God to the support of our petitions. It is better not to pray until your entire being responds to, and understands, the power of prayer. When genuine prayer is even whispered, earth and heaven, and the past and future, say, “Amen!”
This is the kind of prayer Christ prayed. (P.C.M. & A.E. McAdam & James Smetham & Samuel Hart)
“What if some did not have faith? Will their lack of faith nullify God’s faithfulness?” (Romans 3:5)
“Nothing lies beyond the reach of prayer except those things outside the will of God.”
While walking and exercising the other day I was pondering hope. Lewis has a great chapter on hope in Mere Christianity. The question that kept coming back at me was this: ‘Do you think God would of sent His Son here to save us if we didn’t have hope?’   ‘How’s my hope glass?’
Have a great close of June!
 
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.

Question & Thought for February 10th, 2016!!!

Question & Thought for February 10th, 2016!!!
Good Wednesday Morning!
1. Question – What are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils?
2. Thought – There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors, and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight. (The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis)
“Despair is a greater sin than any of the sins which provoke it.” (C.S. Lewis)
rem – I had no knowledge that I had no knowledge.
Question & Thought & ANDs.