Author: kevingdrendel

I am sixtiesh, an English Literature major in college and an attorney by profession. Faith informs my life, and this blog is about my faith journey.

Search Me Oh God

kevingdrendelLeave a comment
Depositphotos Image ID: 67632305 Copyright: alazs

Judas Iscariot is a tragic figure in the Gospels. He is known best for betraying Jesus Christ, leading to his crucifixion. John wrote this of Judas many years after the events occurred in the garden of Gethsemane: “he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.”

Given John’s characterization of Judas, it’s a bit unnerving, perhaps, to think that Judas spent years in the company of Jesus. Judas knew Jesus intimately and was part of the very inner circle of followers of Jesus. Jesus certainly knew Judas as well. He knew well that Judas would be the one who would betray Him. He “called it” at the Last Supper.

Have you considered the fact that Jesus allowed Judas so close to him all that time, knowing what Judas would do? John’s comment about Judas many years later, describing Judas as a “thief” who helped himself to the funds that Judas oversaw for the group of disciples, suggests that John knew the character of Judas as well.

The betrayal of Jesus, of course, was part of God’s plan. It had it happen. Jesus came to offer himself as a sacrifice for the sins of men, but Jesus added, “But woe to that man who betrays him!”

What sort of man betrays Jesus? Was Judas just an evil person?

Continue reading “Search Me Oh God” →

Ritual, Spirit and Truth

kevingdrendelLeave a comment
Depositphotos Image ID: 23471738 Copyright: ChiccoDodiFC

I was raised Catholic. I say that often. Not that it is a bad thing. It’s just my experience. During my time in the Catholic church, through my childhood and early adulthood, I had no connection with God. I can’t lay the blame for that at the feet of the Catholic Church. That was just where I was.

When I became a Believer, when I accepted Christ as my personal Lord and Savior, my life changed. I also began to see the Catholic Church in a different light. I was never into the ritual and observance, which is a major component of the Catholic Church. Not that other denominations and religions don’t have central religious rituals. All religions have ritual observances and traditions.

Those ritual observances and traditions are not, in themselves, bad, but they can create a facade that hides emptiness, darkness and sin. They can create an appearance of piety with no spiritual reality behind them. They can be more superstitious than spiritual, like stroking a rabbits foot for good fortune. In these and other ways, ritual observances can become a substitute for relationship with God.

Continue reading “Ritual, Spirit and Truth” →

Selfishness to Salvation

kevingdrendel2 Comments
Depositphotos Image ID: 69572625 Copyright: Christin_Lola

Today someone spoke about going “from selfishness to salvation”. I have never heard anyone put it that way before, but it’s as accurate a statement as any I have heard.

Jesus said, “Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” (John 12:25) Loving and holding tightly to my own life, shutting God out, refusing to concede control to my Creator, desiring to go my own way is the life of a person without God. Marked by a desire to control my own destiny, to be captain of my own soul, so that I can say, at the end of the day, “I did it my way”, is a life lived without God.

The terrifying reality is that God will let us go our own way. He didn’t prevent Adam and Eve from eating the forbidden fruit. They were tempted by the desire to “be like God”[a], to define good and evil for themselves, to make their own choices and, ultimately, to usurp God’s place of prominence in their lives.

The fruit they ate was “good”; it was delightful and even desirable.[b] The fruit, itself, wasn’t necessarily bad (the knowledge of good and evil). The decision to go their own ways, to assert their own wills over the will of God, was their downfall.

Without that fateful choice we might live  idyllic lives. We might forever be “perfect” little angels, but God obviously had something else in mind.  God must have known the choice we would make. Right?

That choice doomed us to the imperfection of our humanness, but it also opened the door to something else completely. It opened up the opportunity for us to enter into a relationship with God we could never have known in that “perfect”, idyllic, innocent (and naive) state.

Continue reading “Selfishness to Salvation” →

Does the Bible Speak to the Age of the Universe?

Will the entrance exam to get into heaven depend on your understanding of the age of the universe?

kevingdrendel3 Comments
Photo by Chris A. Fraley

The age of the Earth is a hot button topic for Christians today. Science suggests that the Earth is old, but a large segment of western Christianity has put down big stakes on the claim that the Earth is young. We have to be careful here that this tension doesn’t overshadow the Gospel.

To be fair, it isn’t all western Christianity. It’s American Christianity where the age of the earth has become almost a litmus test in some circles for belief in God. But is it a good litmus test? Does the Bible speak to the age of the universe?

Frank Turek observes that we have to make assumptions when we talk about the age of the universe. (See The Bible and the Age of the Universe) For instance, when we measure the universe by the speed of light, the calculation shows that the universe is 13.8 billion years old. If we assume the speed of light has not changed since the earth was created, then the earth is 13.8 million years.

But, “Is that a good assumption?” asks Turek. What do you think? Does the Bible have answers for these kinds of questions? Read on if you want to know.

Continue reading “Does the Bible Speak to the Age of the Universe?” →

The Sun Shines On Everyone

kevingdrendel1 Comment

Depositphotos Image ID: 39362765 Copyright: elenathewise

The sun shines on both the evil and the good; the he rain falls on the just and the unjust. (Matthew 5:45) People often ask, “Why bad things happen to good people?” Maybe a better question is why do we live in a world that is so beautifully sustaining for life.

Why do we live in a world that is filled with beauty and blessing and good things? Yes bad things happen, but there is much good.

I think about this in the context of the revelation of Scripture. The thrust of scripture is the story of God creating us to have fellowship with us and a reciprocating loving relationship.

God made us in his own image, having a will – the ability to choose. This will God gave to us was displayed in the story of the garden of Eden and is a central theme to the story. Having the ability to choose is essential to a reciprocal, loving relationship.

How do we know that God loves us? Look at the fine tuning of the universe. The universe sits atop a razor edge of cosmic factors that are all finely tuned down to the smallest of parameters, right from the first nanosecond of the Big Bang, so that a planet like the Earth exists to support life like us.

We find nowhere else in the universe a place in which life like ours is able to flourish. (This is doesn’t man that we will never find such life, but it is safe to say that life such as what we experience on Earth is exceedingly rare in the universe, and the whole cosmos seems to be designed just so this one small planet hurtling around a small sun in a smallish solar system can sustain us.)

God created a habitation for us, a place in which we can play out our Eternal choices. A place where we can choose to love Him and, so, to enter into the purpose that was planned for us from the beginning.