Project- Nutcracker

Now this is the way I want to listen to the Nutcracker- Merry Christmas!

more about “Project- Nutcracker“, posted with vodpod

Does the Grass Grow on Your Path?

“Early African converts to Christianity were earnest and regular in private devotions. Each one reportedly had a separate spot in the thicket where he would pour out his heart to God. Over time the paths to these places became well worn. As a result, if one of these believers began to neglect prayer, it was soon apparent to the others. They would kindly remind the negligent one, “Brother, the grass grows on your path.”

Oh how easy it is to begin to think that we need not pray. We look at the ’small things’ in life and tell ourselves that we can handle it on our own. No need to pray over such small things. We forget that the ‘big things’ in life are composed of the ’smaller things’.

I saw an example of answered prayer yesterday. I have been concerned over finishing my project for my current D.Min class. I had to find a control group of representatives from a world religion such as Islam, Buddhism, or Hinduism. I was then to begin some form of apologetic or evangelistic  discourse or conversation with them. I decided to go with Islam as my group. I looked up the Islamic Center online and got the address and I set off to find the center.

I had done this preparation without even really consulting God. I figured this was a small thing. What did it matter what group I went with? I searched the address and kept circling around the area where the GPS on my phone told me it should be, There was nothing there.

I pulled into a food court located near where I was searching and went inside. I walked up to the counter to order a little something before I asked for directions. The man who rang me up tried to convince me to try one of the apple fritters they had for sale. I told him thank you but I was going to stick with the eclair. He rang me up and then turned back to me. He reached over to the fritters and said to wait. He wanted to give me the fritter. As he was walking over to the microwave to warm it up for me, I felt this strong push to pray. The man ringing me up was from India.I prayed asking God what He wanted me to do. The reply was immediate. ASK him. When the man returned, I asked if he was Hindu and he said yes. I then told him what my assignment was and asked if he would sit down with me sometime to discuss his religion with me. At that moment, another Hindu man walked up overhearing the discussion. They both said yes. By the way, the man’s giving me the free gift makes for a great opening about God’s free gift to us. I had offered to pay but he said no that it was on him. That I am sure was a God thing too.

I meet with them tomorrow. I have to admit, I haven’t felt God’s presence like that in a while. It is probably because the grass has been growing on my path. Yes, I pray but not with the intensity that I should or with the faith that I should.I trust in myself too much. I am what you call a major control freak.

You see, God had a plan for who He wanted me to talk with. He made that powerfully clear. I thank Him for yesterday’s reminder. I also think that my meeting time of tomorrow gives me little time to prepare to my liking. That is probably God’s plan too. He wants me to rely on Him to give me the words tomorrow. He knows that if I had a week to plan, I would attempt to do this mostly on my own with my own intellect and preparation. I think God has a big lesson waiting for me with this assignment. I am excited to WAIT and see what it is. That is the adventure in the Christian’s life. We have to let God lead and trust Him. That means we have to pray more and trust more….

The Silence Of God

The lyrics of this song struck me today. Silence is beautiful sometimes but when the silence is coming from God, it can be deafening. When we struggle to understand why things are they way they are, we wonder why is God silent.  We as the church need to be real about this issue. We question. We struggle. We sometimes even doubt. That is what helps us relate to others and builds a bridge of compassion and an opportunity to share Christ. When we come across as if we have it all figured out, we shut people off. They feel isolated as if they are the only ones struggling to understand. What the world needs to see are real Christians, who even in the silent times, know that God is near and He is at work. Jesus knows pain and silence. He experienced it. He felt it. He understands. He cares.

“And if a man has got to listen to the voices of the mob
Who are reeling in the throes of all the happiness they’ve got
When they tell you all their troubles have been nailed up to that cross
Then what about the times when even followers get lost?
‘Cause we all get lost sometimes…”- Andrew Peterson

more about “Andrew Peterson – The Silence Of God“, posted with vodpod

“We don’t have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness and testing, experienced it all—all but the sin. So let’s walk right up to him and get what he is so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help.” Hebrews 4:15-16 The Message

Behold the Lamb of God

more about “Behold the Lamb of God“, posted with vodpod

This is by far the most beautiful worship song. Every time I listen to this song, I enter into worship. It grabs my heart like no other. My friend Matt introduced me to this artist and I am glad he did. This song speaks to the heart of the saving work that the Lord did for us on that cross. The most powerful act of love and sacrifice.

 

Thanksgiving Thoughts

Today was a wonderful day. It was great just sitting around with family and enjoying some of the best food around. Hurray for L-Tryptophan! I have a very large family to say the least. I am thankful for each of them. I am also blessed to live where I do. Having family surrounding you out in the middle of nowhere is great. Being able to walk over to my mom’s and eat some of the best collards in the world is a blessing. For those of you in the world that don’t like them, that is because my mom didn’t cook yours.

I am thankful for my salvation and my relationship with Jesus Christ. It is what centers me and gives me hope. It also gives me a calling which I count as a blessing everyday. I love teaching and I love my students. I hope they know that and I hope I show it each day in some way.

I am so thankful for my friends and I have some great ones. We are there for each other and that is what friends are for. I count them as family too.

I am thankful for the freedoms we have in this country and I am thankful for our military who serve to make that freedom happen.

I love Thanksgiving time because it gives me a chance to think on all my blessings something I should be doing every day!

God Bless

Stones of Doubt

My students and I are studying the story of the raising of Lazarus in John 11. As part of that story we stopped for a moment to observe one of the strong spiritual lessons associated with the event. Jesus had reached the tomb of Lazarus accompanied by the cries of the family as they reflect on the finality of death.  Mary and Martha respond to Jesus with a questioning spirit as to why he had waited so long. According to Jewish legends, the spirit of the deceased remained near a body for three days waiting the possibility of return. The fourth day represented the point of no return because according to their legends, the spirit moves on at this point. Jesus had arrived at that supposed point of no return. Hope had faded and the finality of the situation had set in.

When Jesus asks for the stone to be removed, opposition from Martha ensues. She replies that there will be a bad odor and Jesus reminds her of the need to believe. The stone is rolled away and the miracle of resurrection takes place. What exactly does that stone represent?

The stones of doubt are those things in life which cause us to feel that all hope is gone and that we have reached a point of no return. They are the doubts that creep in when we feel that God is not there and that situations have overtaken us. While the stone remains, the miracle is stifled. The doubt in our life keeps us from seeing the possibilities that exist with God.

We are what often stands in the way of God accomplishing something great in our life. We place these stones of doubt between us and God creating a barrier to his blessings. The channel of blessing has been cut off. It is not God who is in the way preventing it from flowing, it is we who have created that barrier.

There is also another type of stone. These are called memorial stones and mark the path where God has intervened in a  powerful way. They serve as reminders of the faithfulness of God and of the love he has for his children. We set these memorial stones up in our life to remind us of times in the past where God has answered our prayers and to offer hope for the future. The Israelites would set up these remembrance altars as points of reference for future generations to show that God is good and he will provide.

Which kind of stones reflects your life the most?

 

“Take away the stone…Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” John 11:38-40

Free Indeed!

“For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.”

2 Peter 1:8-9

A discussion with my eighth graders yesterday on the above passage sparked a wonderful time of collective insight into one of the most formidable traps in the Christian life.

We all struggle sometimes with eternal security. I believe that one of the reasons we begin to doubt whether we are truly saved is during those times when temptations seem to have the best of us. Because we are struggling so much with sin, we begin to doubt that we are saved. It is as if we think that those who are truly saved don’t struggle daily with such things. I asked my students in one class to raise their hands if they have ever doubted their salvation. All raised their hands. But what does that cause in the life of a Christian? With those fears comes a Christian life that is at a standstill. What better place could Satan want us to be in than at a point of inactivity?

I believe that oftentimes we fail to invite others to church or to witness to others because we are personally not experiencing what it means to be free ourselves. What does the captive have to give to the fellow captive? Where is freedom?

I believe the above passage has the answer. This passage begins by listing out the divine attributes that we are to be partakers of such as goodness, Godliness, brotherly kindness, patience, etc. It says if we continually are adding these to our lives in increasing measure that we will escape the corruption of this world…but… Anytime there is the ability to exercise our free will, there is always a but. The passage says but if we don’t have these in our lives, we are blind to the fact that we have been forgiven and cleansed from our past sins. We are experiencing a crisis of identity.

So, the feeling that we sometimes experience where we doubt our salvation may be because we are not conforming to His image and partaking of His nature. It is not necessarily a matter of us not being saved,it is perhaps a matter of us forgetting that we have been!

We have to submit. Justification is only the beginning. Sanctification is the continuation.

We have to remember whose we are now. We are not our own. We were bought with a heavy price. We do not cheapen the gift by stopping the growth process and rolling once again in the mud of our sin. Who the Son has set free is free indeed! PRAISE GOD! Now go live in the freedom. Don’t doubt, submit.

Limitations of Reasoning

I have been reading Faith Has Its Reasons by Bowman. I have been trying to understand the relationship between reason and faith. Since I am getting my doctorate in apologetics, I thought it would beneficial to know how apologetics really functions in the world. I have read a lot of apologists from the classical, evidentialist, reformed, and yes even the fideistic approaches. I have seen that each of these has positive opinions to contribute to the field of apologetics. But I have not determined that one way is the only or even best way to approach apologetics.

I have decided that apologetics is helpful in providing reasons for rejecting some of the claims against Christianity. It has a strong defensive quality to it. But as far as leading someone to Christ, I see it as only able to assist people in overcoming objections to the faith and in clarifying Christian tenets. There is always that leap of faith that is also required in the process. The Holy Spirit draws one to God. Knowing God transcends the capacities of human reasoning. Apologetics is a tool for evangelism but does not replace the power of God’s transformative Word and the convicting power of His Spirit. But I do believe apologetics assists in the process but with limitations.

Kierkegaard explains it this way:

“The rule for the relationship between man and humanness is: the more I think about it, the better I understand it. In the relationship between man and God, the rule is: the more I think about the divine, the less I understand it,..As a child I think I am very close to God; the older I become, the more I discover that we are infinitely different, the more deeply I feel the distance, …the less I understand God, that is, the more obvious it becomes to me how infinitely exalted he is.”

Now I may not agree with all of Kierkegaard’s thoughts, but in this quote he does address the fact that God transcends man and man’s capacity for knowing God by reason alone. I believe that the Holy Spirit can enlighten our understanding of God. Therefore what we know of God is what God has revealed to man. But God has given us minds to use. The issue then to me becomes will we submit our rational minds to God even when the truth seems irrational. Pascal says that “the reason it is so difficult to believe is that it is so difficult to obey.” Man’s problem is in submitting to the truths that God has revealed.

So I see a place for apologetics as a tool to assist others to believe in the sometimes seemingly irrational when the seemingly irrational is revealed to be the truth. This is where apologetics can be very helpful in evaluating false religions and worldviews and in answering objections to the Christian faith. Apologetics helps tear down barriers and false assumptions. But then man must listen to the Holy Spirit and obey in faith.

Role of Evidence

One of the methods used in apologetics is the evidentialist apologetic. A few descriptive quotes from Faith Has Its Reasons by Ken Boa sheds light on the specifics of this methodology.

The subjective experience of faith is a response to the objective revelation of God in His revealed history. God chooses to reveal Himself apart from general revelation seen in creation and establishes through His Son a special revelation of Himself. God provides evidence of His existence through His Son Jesus Christ.

Robert Sabath states, “If God exists– the kind of personal creator God… he must exist independent of my subjective experience of him; his existence must therefore be validated by a criterion other than my own personal experience…Christian existential experience is rooted in objective, external works of God himself, fleshing out his life in space and time in the person of Jesus Christ and showing himself to be God by his resurrection from the dead.”

This point to me is very important in our world which values the experience and subjective  over the evidential and objective. Mankind has begun to value personal experiences in spirituality even when they are contradictory and unevaluated. Historical proofs for a belief have taken the backseat to feelings and the subjective experiences of the person. However, feelings and experiences must be based on some historical, examinable truth. They do not possess truth by themselves.

God has provided empirical evidence for the truths of the gospel. This unique basis of Christianity stands in stark contrast to those held beliefs of other world religions. God wants us to believe and has seen fit to reveal Himself. Jesus performed many miracles as evidence of His claims. He provided the empirical evidence of His claim to deity. He gave us the empirical but also requires us to exercise faith as well.

The role of the apologist is to present the evidence and to bring non-Christians to the point where they have a credible basis for believing. Boa then states that the subjective experience of this revealed truth comes from the Holy Spirit when a person responds to the evidence and comes to faith.

John Montgomery states, “The Scriptural Gospel is ultimately self-attesting, but the honest inquirer needs objective grounds for trying it, since there are a welter of conflicting religious opinions and one can become psychologically jaded through indiscriminate trials of religious belief. Only the Christian worldview offers objective ground for testing it experientially; therefore Christ deserves to be given first opportunity to make His claims known to the human heart.”

So many religious  and spiritualist groups claim that personal experience is the basis for belief. Religious truth for them is solely personal and individual and is not associated at all with verifiable evidence. But if there is no objective reasons or evidence for their claims then they cannot be trusted as sources of any truth. We cannot simply say that a person can believe anything as long as they are sincere in their belief. They can be sincerely wrong! The claims of other world religions must pass the tests for truth and they do not.

God’s Word is full of evidence. It is written by eyewitnesses who were willing to die for what they KNEW to be true. So I see conversion as a combination of an acceptance of the evidence that God has given to us and a leap of faith where the Holy Spirit validates that belief. It is Reasonable Faith.

We as Christians have to be ready to defend our faith. We have to have a reason for the faith within us. The days of simply saying ‘because the Bible says so’ is over. God has provided evidence and I believe He calls us to use it as a way to help lead others to faith. As McDowell stated it in the title of his book, Evidence Demands A Verdict. I will add that it also demands a response.

But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. 1Peter 3:15

The Ultimate Apologetic

I am currently reading a book by Kenneth Boa called Faith Has Its Reasons. It begins with an overview of some of the prominent apologists throughout history and the apologetic methods that they utilized.

Classical apologists stress rational proofs for the existence of God. Evidentialists defend Christianity from an empirical evidence approach.  Reformed apologists refute objections to Christianity from an authoritative approach which stresses the presuppositions established in the Scriptures alone. The Fideistic  apologist stresses persuasion and the  religious experience.

All of these methods have their benefits and can be used to help lead one to faith. But I came across one method that has been called the Ultimate Apologetic. It comes from William Lane Craig’s apologetic book called Reasonable Faith. In the conclusion of his book, Craig introduces the Ultimate Apologetic which will win more people to Christ than any other.

The Ultimate Apologetic is to “show our love for God and our love for one another. This then is the ultimate apologetic. For the ultimate apologetic is : your life.”

Wow! We can try to convince, persuade or defend all we want to but if at the end of the debate we have failed to exhibit love then it has all been in vain. Our lives are our apologetic!!