Post Category → Religion

Question & Thought for November 22nd, 2015!!!

Question & Thought for November 22nd, 2015!!!
Good Sunday Morning!
1. Question – What did President Kennedy say about religious convictions?
2. Thought – In February 1961, PRESIDENT JOHN F.KENNEDY gave a speech in which he stated:
This country was founded by men and women who were dedicated or came to be dedicated to two propositions: first, a strong religious conviction, and secondly a recognition that this conviction could flourish only under a system of freedom.
​I think it is appropriate​ that we pay tribute to this great constitutional principle which is enshrined in the First Amendment of the Constitution: the principle of religious independence, of religious liberty, of religious freedom. But I think it is also important that we pay tribute and acknowledge another great principle, and that is the principle of religious conviction. Religious freedom has no significance unless it is accompanied by conviction. And therefore the Puritans and the Pilgrims of my own section of New England, the Quakers of Pennsylvania, the Catholics of Maryland, the Presbyterians of North Carolina, the Methodists and the Baptists who came later, all shared these two great traditions which, like silver threads, have run through the warp and woof of American history.
No man who enters upon the office to which I have succeeded can fail to recognize how every president of the United States has placed special reliance upon his faith in God. Every president has taken comfort and courage when told … that the Lord “will be with three. He will not fail thee nor forsake thee. Fear not – neither be thou dismayed.” While they came from a wide variety of religious backgrounds and held a wide variety of religious beliefs, each of our presidents in his own way has placed a special trust in God. Those who were strongest intellectually were also strongest spiritually…
The guiding principle and prayer of this nation has been, is now, and shall ever be “In God We Trust.” (The Founder’s Bible by David Barton)
“Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country!” (President John F. Kennedy)

—

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

Question – Thought & ANDs for August 30th, 2015!!!

Question – Thought & ANDs for August 30th, 2015!!!

Good Sunday Morning! (Continued from yesterday)

  1. Question – Are moral issues individual, cultural or Godly?

2.    Thought – It occurred to me some time ago why the skeptic is so enraged by the professing Christian. These so-called skeptics live without worrying about absolutes. They just flow with the culture. When any moral issues come up, skeptics shrug their shoulders and say, “Well, to each his own.” They give the same privilege to others that they give themselves – namely, that moral choices are personal and not absolute. But what angers them about the believer is that the believer is strong in his or her condemnation of someone else’s immoral life while at the same time living a double standard. In other words, the Christian private life is no different from the one who doesn’t claim to be a believer. The only difference is the arrogance of condemnation in one and the acceptance of personal moral choices by the other.

 

As we have noted in this book, the ultimate calling upon the Christian is to live a life reflecting the person of Christ. This involves a three-fold process. First, we cannot take seriously the skeptic’s difficult questions until we ourselves have also worked through them. Second, when such answers are known, they must be internalized (the process of spiritual transformation) so that, third, these answers will be lived out before a hurting and hungry world.

Because my Hindu friend had not witnessed spiritual transformation in the life of Christians, whatever answers he received were nullified. The Irish evangelist, Gypsy Smith once said, “There are five Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and the Christian, and some people will never read the first four.” In other words, apologetics is seen before it is heard. For both the Hindu questioner and the American doctor, the answers to their questions were not enough; they depended upon visible transformation of the one offering them. (Beyond Opinion by Ravi Zacharias) (Continued)

“Those who believe they believe in God but without passion in the heart, without anguish of mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, and even at times without despair, believe only in the idea of God, and not in God himself.” (Madeleine L’Engle)

AND:Why is the Christian faith not evident in so many confessing Christianity?  This indeed is a great question.  It is a troubling question to most confessing Christians. It is also perceived as an insult to those who believe they are Christians when perhaps in all actuality not really Christians at all.  I have had people come up to me and say they see the Christian in me through my mannerisms…though, to me, I have always been the way I am even before choosing this faith as an adult.  I honestly am both flattered and humbled by such a compliment.  And I immediately feel guilty that I’m not a proper representative of Christ…that I never will be.  Why?  I stumble where Christ stands firm.  I falter when Christ would never.  Perhaps my unbelief is still much greater than my belief that what is impossible is truly possible through God alone.  Basically, I sin…if not by action, then by thought.  I believe non-Christians place undue burden on believers of Christ to be the epitome of perfection.  We are not…nor can we ever be in this mortal life.  What is it exactly the evidence these nonbelievers want?  I think they want us to prove perfection is possible in our mortality…but that is not possible nor Biblical.  In this life, we will have trouble.  It is by grace in how we choose to manage such troubles that define us in our faith from the ones who do not know the peace of Christ to overcome.  What sets us apart from believers of other ethical religions?  To me, it is the logic of the Trinity as relayed throughout both the Old and New Testaments…the tragic love story on Calvary for the human race…the hope that blossomed from the sacrificial lamb, risen to a new day.  To me, my God does not falter…the rock of ages.  No other religion has been able to pass the logic of Christianity as I have slowly studied it…allowing it to stew a while in my mind as I contemplated the possibilities of truth.  No other religion compares as they only serve to lead the followers astray…away from eternity with the great I am (God).

AND: Thought I’d weigh in on this one:  Why is your conversion, belief, faith, etc not visible to everyone is your question.

 

I believe the Christian faith is visible everywhere I look, especially in nature.  Who made the mountains?  Who made the tree?  Who made the river flow to the sea?  And who hung the moon in the starry sky?  Somebody bigger than you and I…..etc.  Remember when Tennessee Ernie Ford sang that one….Then there is the plant and animal life and procreation, having joy in one’s posterity.  Those things are visible.  You can see them.

 

My personal conversion was rather supernatural, but it doesn’t have to be because consistent prayer, reading scriptures, service to our fellow beings, obedience and sacrifice increase faith and makes for a more fully converted person.

 

And how can one not believe in the power of humility and love.  The trick is to maintain humility as the blessings pour in from heaven, because when arrogance and pride creep in faith begins waning.  And therein lies the challenge…..to remember that it was through the most difficult struggles, when we were humbled, that we turned to God.  Continuing in gratitude to Heavenly Father for blessings and remaining humble, I believe, is the challenge.

—

rem – know the why or lose the way!

Question & Thought & ANDs.

www./

Question & Thought for August 29th, 2015!!!

Question & Thought for August 29th, 2015!!!
Good Saturday Morning!
1. Question – “If this conversion is truly supernatural, why is it not more evident in the lives of so many Christians I know?”
2. Thought – I have little doubt that the single greatest obstacle of the gospel has not been in its inability to provide answers, but the failure on our part to live it out. I remember well in the early days of my Christian faith talking to a close Hindu friend. He was questioning the experience of conversion as being supernatural. He absolutely insisted that conversion was nothing more than a decision to lead a more ethical life and that, in most cases, it was not any different from other ethical religions. I had heard this argument before.
But then he said something I had never forgotten: “If this conversion is truly supernatural, why is it not more evident in the lives of so many Christians I know?” His question is a troublesome one. In fact, it is so deeply disturbing a question that I think of all the challenges to belief, this is the most difficult question of all. I have never struggled with my own personal faith as far as intellectual challenges to the gospel are concerned. But I have often had struggles of the soul in trying to figure out why the Christian faith is not more visible. (Beyond Opinion by Ravi Zacharias)
“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” (Nietzsche)

—

rem – know the why or lose the way! 
Question & Thought & ANDs.

Question & Thought for August 23rd, 2015!

Question & Thought for August 23rd, 2015!
Good Sunday Morning!
1. Question – Women of the world, which part have you decided to choose?
2. Thought – Here was a riddle for all the good Israelitish wives and daughters. They had no voice anywhere except in the kitchen; they were like house slaves. No woman had ever appeared in those casual roadside debating societies where Christ and His disciples matched wits with argufiers of all sorts. In those days men believed that woman’s place was in the house. She was expected to be careful and troubled about many things – but never about ideas. Women were workers, not thinkers; practical, not speculative; drudges ministering to the wants of man.
Martha knew her duty and she did it – with the self-righteousness that is found sometimes in such good housewives. And Martha resented any other woman – but most of all her own sister – who wanted to discuss philosophy with a man. No woman, before that Mary, had ever been allowed to do such a thing.
Jesus was opening the door to Mary, the modern woman, when He encouraged her intellectual rebellion.
He said that she had chosen the good part in taking an interest in matters which men had, until then, appropriated to themselves. It was an important matter that He settled on the doorstep in Bethany. Today all the women of the world have chosen that good part, and it shall not be taken away from them. (The Greatest Story Ever Told by Fulton Oursler, copyright 1949)
“Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.” (Jesus, Luke 10: 41-42)

—

rem – know the why or lose the way! 
Question & Thought & ANDs.