Month: October 2015

Confessions of a screwed up middle aged man: The most compelling evidence yet

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Today as I was coming to the end of the book “The Case of Christ” by Lee Strobel I came across some of the strongest evidence of the reality of Christ’s resurrection. Now you have to understand. I have been a born again believer since 1985. I have had my ups and downs as is unfortunately normal for this day and age due to the weak society we live within. To hear this evidence worded in such a manner just deepened my belief and faith in God and His Son Jesus.
In the last chapter of the book Mr. Stobel is talking to Dr. J. P. Moreland. Here Dr. Moreland brings up the change that took place within thousands of Jews within Jerusalem. For thousands of year and to this day there were and is still a Jewish people. All other nations that existed since before Joseph led the Jewish nation into Egypt and their eventual enslavement have ceased to exist in their original form or are no longer even thought of. In that time the Jewish people have continued to exist. Many of those traditions are still in use today save the sacrifice and burnt offers. Yet soon after Christ’s crucifixion thousands of Jews abandoned these tradition. Why? Because many had seen the risen Christ and others were witness to the miracles performed by His disciples as well as seen the fires of Pentecost and heard the disciples talking in many languages which many of the Jew understood having come from far parts of the world upon pilgrimages to Jerusalem. This caused them to turn from their traditions to embrace Christianity.
You have to understand this. The world two thousand years ago was nothing like the world we now live within. Today those in this world are weak minded. Going to this fad or that fad. This bit of happiness over here and then a few days later running to this happiness over there. Face it we as a people are weak compared to those that lived not even a hundred years ago due to Television and other devices of technology. So it is hard for many to understand how people can turn away from their cultural foundations and wholeheartedly change literally overnight and stay that way the rest of their lives even under the threat of a torturous death.
God is real. Jesus is real. An eternal life is real and is for all of us. You, me, the person next to you. It is something that is truly worth dying for.
The disciples had run away from Jesus. They had thought Him killed, gone. Then within days after His death they suddenly were literally willing to die for their belief that Jesus rose from the dead, because He did and they attested to that till their deaths, many of which were horrifying.
Think upon that for a while.

Live on Forever

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This is partly inspired by The Afters “Live on Forever.”

What many have forgotten or were never told is that this life we now live in is not the end. There is life beyond this temporal world we now live within. No matter what you’ve been told. No matter what story has been fed to you. The truth is all that is here is not the endgame not the goal.
We are standing before the starting line stretching out muscles. Many have stopped stretching our soul muscles though. Many have stopped stretching and are seeking after the rewards before the race has ever begun.
What is the reward when you never run the race? The answer is nothing. An overly large house, a fancy car, fancy clothes and physical pleasures. All these things are nothing they will turn to dust. Are the Pharaohs still around? Are the Caesars? No they are gone, dust, nothing.
Then what is the purpose of this life? It is a testing, a purging. It is a world designed to weed out the weak, the worthless, the nothing, for nothing seeks after nothing. All the temptations that we go through are designed to see if we will overcome them and win, but can we do it alone? No, for all humanity is built to fail. For within us there is nothing but corruption and decay, there is nothing. Nothing of any true value.
Through Christ our real selves are revealed. Our real purpose is shown to those that listen. Our true life begins when we leave this reality. We truly are meant for more. We are to bow our knees to God as it should be for He is our Creator, but we are to be His tools throughout the universe. We are only answerable to the Divine Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. We are meant to lead, to be governors, tasked with whatever God asks of us to do for all will result in His glory.
There is truly an eternal life that is promised to all. It is not for some distant mythical progeny thousands of years from now, but you, me, and everyone.
The thing is many have chosen this life for this is all they believe that there is. Laughing at my words, thinking me and those like me that know there is a God and know that His Son Jesus is the true Messiah. Born at the time required, and then raised from the dead at the time required to cleanse us of our sin. To give our souls the rebirth mandatory to know that this live is needed to forge us into His tools. That will last for all eternity which will then live on forever.

Confessions of a screwed up middle aged man: I am so glad this is not all there is

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As I have posted before this life we now live within is a test. Within it is pitfalls and heartache; happiness and joy. Things we ourselves think would be good for us God says is not, or at least not now.
Yet it still hurts, especially when you are led to believe something you had hoped for will happen and then suddenly find out there was a “mistake” made and it is not going to happen after all.
I look forward to the days when honesty will always be given. I look forward to hearing true praise for your service and not be lip service. Humans these days do not know the Bible. Humans these days do not care to truly learn it and understand it, for they would rather seek after their own goals and glory no matter the personal cost to others.
I look forward to no longer having to be around people who think they are their own god and all must bow down before them or pay the cost for not doing so. I look forward to the day when people will actually understand that as you age there is more and more responsibility to those about us and not to their own joys which makes them appear to have never left their teenage years mentally. They do not know or care to know that with age truly does come wisdom and that the source for all goodness, greatness and joy comes from God.
I just wish I could cause these people to understand that they are doing more harm to themselves then to those about them. I want to get them to truly awaken to the fact that if they continue to live with this false image they have placed themselves into is escapism for what is truly real and important.
Too many seek after their own rewards upon this earth. The bigger car, the fancy house and the luxuries that go with it. It is not being able to live in sin and think all is well and good.
It is not a belief that God gives us His rewards here upon this earth in this short time span. For the Bible makes it clear that our rewards are not here and those that have their rewards here will have less in the next and eternal life.
God said there are things we must do. God has said there are things we must not do and if we find people doing certain things we are to avoid them for their actions could poison us to our Lord.
These are the things that I seek, but time to time I forget this as we all do and it still hurts when God says “No.”
But He says it for a reason. For His glory and His goals far outweigh mine, or yours.

What are the odds?

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As I explore deeper and deeper in my faith. I find just how much research has been done that just keeps showing that Jesus did walk the earth at this time two thousand years ago. Fact after fact, item after item confirming Jesus is real. What I found most fascinating though was that someone actually run the odds of a person showing up within the required time for Him to exist, which was just over two thousand years ago, and fulfill the prophecies set forth within the Old Testament. There are a total of forty-eight of these prophecies by the way.
Peter W. Stone ran the odds in “Science Speaks” published in 1969. He ran the odds for some person to accomplish all the prophecies which included a time frame as show in Daniel 22-27:
And he informed me, and talked with me, and said, O Daniel, I am now come forth to give thee skill and understanding. At the beginning of thy supplications the commandment came forth, and I am come to shew thee; for thou art greatly beloved: therefore understand the matter, and consider the vision. Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy. Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
The mere fact that a designated time frame was established for there to be a Messiah and Jesus was the only person to meet that criteria.
Anyway here are the odds as listed by Peter Stone for all forty-eight:
One in a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion or 10^156.
Yet Jesus Christ fulfilled every single prophecy set forth within the Old Testament. Only someone that is beyond human could, can, did accomplish that goal.
Ponder that as you consider if there is a God and if He had a Son and know that there is more evidence supporting that is Jesus real. More than there is for any other person in history, in recorded ancient history.

Those that sin really want to live that way

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I have stated in the past that selfishness is the ultimate sin. The core of all other sins. Today in a way I was given an affirmation of this believe I have come to so ardently hold to.
I have been reading “The Case for Christ” by Lee Strobel. Within this book he goes and interviews leading theological scholars on Jesus and how He is shown within the Bible. In his interview with D. A. Carson, Carson makes several observation about humankind and sin:
“They’re consigned there (hell), first and foremost, because they defy their Maker and to be at the center of the universe….. It’s filled with people who, for all eternity, still want to be at the center of the universe and who persist in their God-defying rebellion”
This is selfishness manifest. Dr. Carson also states, and I’ll paraphrase here, that if God totally removed His presence from the earth, humankind themselves would turn this planet into hell all on their own. I have to totally agree with this assessment.
Today, as those in power push God further out of the place He started at in this nation, this nation falls further into depravity. Mass killings are on the rise, the willful dissection of babies not allowed to fully develop for greed and profit. While those causing the slaughter and hacking up of these innocent lives sits in a hearing twisting the words of those that oppose their actions to make their actions against these children as if it is nothing at all. Then we have those that demand to bring their sins which were hidden in the shadows and bring them into the light, and force others to acknowledge their acts by demanding they be formalized with a document. Not realizing that this legitimization is actually them thumbing their nose at God and telling him “see we can sin and you must accept us in our sin now,” while God in return is saying that they have damned themselves deeper into the pit.
So yes it is true as God is removed this place becomes more and more like a living hell. Reflect that which these rebels so want and desire to come to pass. So who is to blame that when the time finally comes for the judgment of these people by God Himself to arrive? Who is really sentencing them to hell, God? No. They are casting their own judgment against themselves, not God, nor His Son Jesus Christ.
My first encounter with this believe came when I was a child and would watch John Wayne in “Angel and the Badman” (1947). In it the Quaker family had a saying on the wall:
“Each human being has an integrity that can be hurt only by the act of that same human being and not by the act of another human being.”
In the movie it was attributed to violence, but it can be applied to any act of rebellion otherwise known as sin against God.
God. The being that created all and all humans. God. A being that deserves for His creation to honor this creation and thus bow down and acknowledge that His is God. Is this so much to ask for He who cause us to be?
Yet all those that sin be it murder through mass killing. Be it murder through abortion. Be it murder through the rejection to reproduce as God design all life to reproduce. It is a selfish desire to place oneself over God. So as a result of this selfish self-serving desire and an unwillingness to turn from these sins. It is those that live this way and wish to dominate other human beings that the result will be an eternity in hell. That is how it is described in the Bible. I didn’t say it, nor am I condemning or judging any. They that are living in these sins are doing that to themselves.
Genesis 38:8 – And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother’s wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother. 9 And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother’s wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother. 10 And the thing which he did displeased the LORD: wherefore he slew him also.
Deuteronomy 27:25 – Cursed be he that taketh reward to slay an innocent person. And all the people shall say, Amen.
Revelation 21:8 – But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.
Proverbs Chapter 6 – 16 These six [things] doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: 17 A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, 18 An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, 19 A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.
Leviticus 18:22 – Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.
Mark 7:20 – And he said, That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man. 21 For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, 22 Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: 23 All these evil things come from within, and defile the man.

“Son of Man”

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So it appears these three words are some folks reasoning to fully humanize Jesus. Removing Him from His place as the Son of God and a member of the Trinity. To me this again shows where people are not fully reading the Bible or are purposely ignoring parts so it will allow them to reject God or to live in sin and say they are “Christian” when if they live in sin this is questionable at the very least.
Here is the thing that folks need to hear:
Matthew 5:17 – Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
Well is there a prophecy that mentions “Son of man?” Yes there is as follows:
Daniel 7:13-14 – I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.
So Jesus when calling Himself the “Son of man” is identifying Himself as the person in this prophecy, which shows that the “Son of man” will be the leader of all and for all eternity.