Category: Faith

Creepy Little Lies

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This is good. We all wrestle with different things. Patterns of thought we have fed keep coming back. We often don’t see them for what they are – LIES! We need to be vigilant and expose them for the lies they are. Gossip comes in this way, and we think it is ok; but it is not! We struggle most with the lies about ourselves or what others think of us. We need to be ready to zap them like the creepy bugs they are and let God fill us with “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” (Phil. 4:8)

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It really is true: We must be vigilant and ever-ready to lock up those wayward, yet powerful thoughts that try to infiltrate our minds and hearts.

Every. Single. Day.

We also must remember that we can’t do it in our own power. We have to be on-guard and armed with the power of the Holy and Mighty One; the Loving and Redeeming, Sovereign One.

The Only One ~ the Lord Jesus Christ.

“Why would you share such a thing today? Your blog is just always so deeep. People don’t want to read all of these deep and intense thoughts. You need to lighten up. How are you going to glorify Jesus with all this kind of stuff? Why can’t you be light and fun all the time? What’s the point of it all anyway?”

I had a good day today as compared to all the others over this past week…

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It is Well with My Soul: The Story

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It is Well with My SoulSometimes songs we know have so much more meaning and power when we know the story behind the song.

The song, It is Well with My Soul, is known by most people who have attended protestant church services.

Listen to the traditional hymn once before reading on.

It is Well with My soul

The song title belies the turmoil that led to the writing of it. Following is the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey used to say. Continue reading “It is Well with My Soul: The Story” →

How Were People Saved Before Jesus?

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Chinese home

One of the most asked questions about Christianity goes something like this:

If Jesus is the only way to heaven, what about the people who lived before Jesus was born?

A corollary question is: What about the people who never had an opportunity to hear about Jesus?

I am no biblical scholar, but I have wondered about these things myself.

Jesus seems to leave us little wiggle room when he says things like, “I am the way, the truth and the light, and no one comes to the Father but through me.”

Some say that Jesus was a good moral teacher, but he wasn’t God. A person who made the claims he made (like he is the only way to God), however, doesn’t allow us room to consider him just good moral person, or even a prophet. As C. S. Lewis famously said, a person who makes the claims Jesus made is either a lunatic, liar or God. He not just a good man.

So if Jesus was right about who he said he is, what about the people before Jesus came who knew nothing about Jesus?

Continue reading “How Were People Saved Before Jesus?” →

Putting the Anger of God in Perspective: Part 2

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Sun in the Clouds

Speaking of God’s anger, we experience things that we perceive to be God’s wrath, but they are not. When tragedy strikes – a natural disaster, a terrible accident, cancer – we feel that God is being angry or cruel.

We wonder how He could do those things to people … especially if it affects us!

In reality, God has created a neutral universe in which things happen, good and bad. From our perspective it seems personal, but it’s just the way God made the universe.

It is also the perfect soil in the exercise of free will is given its space to operate. As a general rule, the universe is a neutral ground where favorable and unfavorable things happen all the time (the rain falls on both the righteous and the unrighteous). The important thing is our reaction to those things.

We see the world from a finite, limited perspective. In fact, we tend to think or act as if this world is all there is. Just as the universe had a beginning, it will have an ending. The end of each of us will surely come before the world ends, but end it will – at least in its present form. When life as we know it is stripped away, and the universe as we know it comes to an end, there will remain only eternity with God or eternity without God.

We tend to feel that the bad things that happen to us in our lives are expressions of God’s anger toward us, but it isn’t..

In fact, God’s wrath is not yet revealed. The wrath of God is coming. Colossians 3:6 The day of judgment is still to come (2 Peter 2:9), and, we are told that day will “come like a thief in the night.” 1 Thessalonians 5:2

If we are in opposition to God, with stubborn and unrepentant hearts, God’s wrath is stored up for us “for the day of God’s wrath,” (Romans 2:5) but, that day has not yet come.

In the meantime, we experience God’s forbearance, patience and kindness, allowing us time to turn around and align with Him. Romans 2:4 As the writer of Hebrews exhorted, if you hear His voice today, do not harden your hearts! (Hebrews 3:15 quoting Psalm 95:7) There is still time to change.

The world we live in is the soil in which we grow toward the life that is yet to come. Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world.” John 18:36

Indeed, none of us get out of this world alive. We have the opportunity, while we still live, to plant ourselves in God’s soil, to die to ourselves and to live for God.

The ways we respond to the happenings in our lives guides our growth in the soil of this world. We are either growing toward Him or away from Him. The end of our days is not this world, but the next. Jesus told us that we should not be storing up treasures on earth where things rot and rust; we should store our treasures up in heaven.

Peter reminds us that we look forward to a new heavens and a new earth. 2 Peter 3:13 He exhorts us,

“So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him.” 2 Peter 3:14-15

The Lord’s patience means salvation. 2 Peter 3:16 Bad experiences remind us we are not immortal, that there is an end to this life, that we should be considering where our treasures are.

Putting the Anger of God in Perspective: Part 1

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Lightning on Land Over Ocean - Copy

The anger of God in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament, is inescapable. In fact, God’s anger and wrath is mentioned more times in the Bible than His love and mercy. We can not side step it.

I find myself, as I read through the Old Testament, tempted to want to explain God’s anger and wrath away. The accounts of God’s anger make me uncomfortable and long to get back to the New Testament.

Even in the New Testament, however, we find passages like this:

“Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” John 3:36

“Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.'” Romans 12:17-19

I have spoken with people who do not believe in God or who do not accept the Bible as true because of the statements and stories about God’s anger and jealousy. They say they can’t believe in a God like that.

It strikes me that God, the Creator of the Universe, is no less God if we do not believe in Him or do not acknowledge Him as He is. It also seems the height of folly to submit God to our judgment, which is essentially what people do who reject Him for being or appearing to be angry or jealous.

At the same time, I have long played with the thought, which I acknowledge is just my thinking and may be way off, that what we see as anger is really something very different. We experience it or receive it as anger in a moral and emotional sense, but it may not be what it appears to be.

God is God and cannot be anything other than who He is. We are the ones out of sync. When we are out of sync, we are like the opposite pole of a magnet facing God. We sense that tension. We feel it like the opposing force of north poles facing each other.

If we are to approach God in that state (opposed to Him), we would likely perceive the tension as anger from Him – a sense of repulsion (and being repelled). We can not stand in His presence when we are opposed to Him.

We can hardly stand in His presence when we are in right relation to Him! Moses had to hide His face. Isaiah cried out that was” undone” and “ruined” in God’s presence.

What we perceive as God’s judgment, a moral stance, is really just God’s character. He is who He is. God is the standard by which everything is measured. We can no more divine God to be something other than who He is than turn off gravity (or magnetism), and our judgment of Him is like the ant claiming the ground underneath the elephant’s foot.

The Bible reveals that God wants no one to perish. (2 Peter 3:9) At the same time, He cannot be other than Himself.

“As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways….” Ezekiel 33:11

Evil is whatever is opposed to God.

It is we who need to change and come into alignment with Him. He provided the way in Jesus and his atoning death on the cross. Through Jesus we are aligned with God and can stand before Him and experience His love. When we confess our sins, die to ourselves, accept the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross, receive Him and, thereby, submit to God, we are turned around and aligned with Him.

I dare say that we should not gloss over the anger and wrath of God. “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom….” Proverbs 9:10 If we let the knowledge that God is an angry, jealous God creep into our consciousness, we have motivation to want to make things right with Him.

We can not change Him. “He is not a tame Lion,” as C.S. Lewis says. He can not be other than who He is. We must approach God on His terms. What we find, when we do, however, is that God is Love.

I continue with some additional thoughts on the subject in Putting the Anger of God in Perspective: Part II in the next blog post.