I have always struggled to understand exactly what the balance is between me accomplish things through my own personal efforts compared to God's will being done to accomplish things in my life. Through studying 1 Corinthians 15:9,10 tonight I felt God was using this passage to give me some more insight into this matter. There is no doubt that God is a realistic God. He expects us to do our part and work hard at everything we do. "We must work hard as if it all depends on us, and then live realizing it all depends on Him". With that said, God is still in complete control of all results. I believe this passage is explaining that only when God chooses to bless our efforts will we achieve success through them. We can work hard at things all we want, but if God does not choose to bless those efforts, then I don't believe as Christians we will see the success we may want, or expect.
Work as if it all depends on me, then live realizing that it all depends on God. The success I achieve will directly relate to the degree that God decides to bless my efforts, for I can accomplish nothing apart from Him.
Tuesday, 20 November 2012
Friday, 14 September 2012
Is there a God Who created the universe? (Part 1)
From "The Case for a Creator" (Chapter 3)
Many people are atheists because they feel that science proves there is no God. I would argue the exact opposite to be true. The more research that is conducted, the more proof there is that God created this universe.
Stanley Miller's experiments which claim to have created life
Some people argue that Stanley Miller in 1953 proved that life can be created from the conditions that would have been found within the atmosphere of a young earth. This is a study which is still printed in textbooks today, but foolishly so, because there are some serious issues with it. For one, experts state that it is impossible to know exactly what those conditions were like; therefore right off the bat, when Miller created an environment to test in, there is no way of knowing that he had it absolutely correct. Jonathan Wells, PHD, PHD states that the consensus within the scientific community is that the environment that Miller used was not at all like the atmosphere of early earth. On top of this, he created conditions and controlled those conditions in order to get the results that he wanted (created life). This is intelligent design! The reason why he had to do this is because the likelihood of all of the materials not only being combined, but being combined in the correct way (ratios, sequence, etc.) is insurmountable. Therefore, it is unlikely that he created accurate conditions of the atmosphere of early earth, but he also demonstrated the likelihood that a Designer was responsible for life.
Francis Crick, a biochemist and spiritual skeptic who won the nobel peace prize for his work in discovering the molecular structure of DNA admitted the following: "An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life apears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going".
Darwin's Tree of Life and the Cambrian Explosion
Darwin argued in his theories that a tree of life can explain the evolutionary progression of life forms. This is the famous idea that organisms start out simple and evolve over time into more complex organisms. When he made these hypotheses, he knew that the evidence did not support this, but believed that science would catch up. Science has not caught up. In fact, the opposite has occurred as a result of the "Cambrian Explosion". This refers to the fossil records which show that there were simple organisms which existed long ago, but then "bam!" all of a sudden in the fossil record there are fully developed complex organisms. They appear suddenly in the fossil record and there is no evolutionary progression in the fossil records which can account for their being evolved. They simply appear fully developed in the record, and this is the exact opposite of what Darwin's theories predicted. It is the opposite of evolutionary processes because the fully developed life forms appear first, without any predecessors. A logical explanation is that they did not evolve, but that they were created fully developed.
The crazy thing is that this theory still appears in textbooks and appears as fact. Jonathan Wells makes a good point in saying that it is not a terrible thing if it appears in textbooks and taught as an interesting theory, but it is wrong for it to be taught as fact, for science has proven that it is anything but. He goes even further to say that based off of all that we know from the science community, "...it is not even a good hypothesis at this point".
Haeckel's Embryos
Another fallacy that has for years been taught in textbooks as fact is “Haeckel’s Embryos”. The story of this is that Darwin hypothesized that embryos in their early stages would show common ancestries with other organisms. The thought was that similarities in the early stages would serve as proof of such common ancestries. Haeckel, in his own studies, had similar theories, and was so confident in his theory, that he created drawings of embryos which were tailored to make embryos appear more alike than they really are. For lack of a better term, he faked the drawings. The truth of the matter with these embryos was that they were quite different between various classes of organisms in the early stages, would become somewhat more similar (but still different) in the middle stages, and then they would become very different again. The inaccuracy of Haeckel’s embryos is a well-known fact in the science community, yet for some reason it is still found in textbooks and taught as fact. These facts are frustrating. Jonathan Wells states that what has happened is that the primary evidence for Darwin’s theories – the fossil record and early embryos – served as the primary evidence for Darwin’s theories being true, but when the evidence proved to be false, scientists said, “Well we know the theory is true, so we will use the theory to explain why the evidence doesn’t fit”, but this is crazy, because then there is no evidence for the theory. None of this makes any sense at all.
Some people state that early human embryos have slits which resemble slits in early embroys of fish that eventually become gills, and therefore argue that this is proof of the fact that we have an ancestry with aquatic organisms. The fact of the matter is that they are simply not gills. If you look down toward your belly and then feel the front of your neck, you will feel flaps of skin, or ridges in the skin of your neck. This is not to say that the ridges in a human embryo are simply skin flaps, for they are more complicated than that; however, what can be said is that these ridges are not gills, and the argument of common ancestry with aquatic life due to this resemblance has been long dismissed as simply not being accurate. In fact, these ridges in fish embryos, while they do eventually become gills, are not gills at that stage. In fish they become gills, in humans they become something else. Many people will argue that because fish and human embroys share this feature at early stages, with fish eventually developing gills, that this could still be considered proof of early ancestry between humans and fish. While it could seem to be a convincing argument superficially, science has determined that it is simply not fact. Human embryos at no point have gills.
Many people are atheists because they feel that science proves there is no God. I would argue the exact opposite to be true. The more research that is conducted, the more proof there is that God created this universe.
Stanley Miller's experiments which claim to have created life
Some people argue that Stanley Miller in 1953 proved that life can be created from the conditions that would have been found within the atmosphere of a young earth. This is a study which is still printed in textbooks today, but foolishly so, because there are some serious issues with it. For one, experts state that it is impossible to know exactly what those conditions were like; therefore right off the bat, when Miller created an environment to test in, there is no way of knowing that he had it absolutely correct. Jonathan Wells, PHD, PHD states that the consensus within the scientific community is that the environment that Miller used was not at all like the atmosphere of early earth. On top of this, he created conditions and controlled those conditions in order to get the results that he wanted (created life). This is intelligent design! The reason why he had to do this is because the likelihood of all of the materials not only being combined, but being combined in the correct way (ratios, sequence, etc.) is insurmountable. Therefore, it is unlikely that he created accurate conditions of the atmosphere of early earth, but he also demonstrated the likelihood that a Designer was responsible for life.
Francis Crick, a biochemist and spiritual skeptic who won the nobel peace prize for his work in discovering the molecular structure of DNA admitted the following: "An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life apears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going".
Darwin's Tree of Life and the Cambrian Explosion
Darwin argued in his theories that a tree of life can explain the evolutionary progression of life forms. This is the famous idea that organisms start out simple and evolve over time into more complex organisms. When he made these hypotheses, he knew that the evidence did not support this, but believed that science would catch up. Science has not caught up. In fact, the opposite has occurred as a result of the "Cambrian Explosion". This refers to the fossil records which show that there were simple organisms which existed long ago, but then "bam!" all of a sudden in the fossil record there are fully developed complex organisms. They appear suddenly in the fossil record and there is no evolutionary progression in the fossil records which can account for their being evolved. They simply appear fully developed in the record, and this is the exact opposite of what Darwin's theories predicted. It is the opposite of evolutionary processes because the fully developed life forms appear first, without any predecessors. A logical explanation is that they did not evolve, but that they were created fully developed.
The crazy thing is that this theory still appears in textbooks and appears as fact. Jonathan Wells makes a good point in saying that it is not a terrible thing if it appears in textbooks and taught as an interesting theory, but it is wrong for it to be taught as fact, for science has proven that it is anything but. He goes even further to say that based off of all that we know from the science community, "...it is not even a good hypothesis at this point".
Haeckel's Embryos
Another fallacy that has for years been taught in textbooks as fact is “Haeckel’s Embryos”. The story of this is that Darwin hypothesized that embryos in their early stages would show common ancestries with other organisms. The thought was that similarities in the early stages would serve as proof of such common ancestries. Haeckel, in his own studies, had similar theories, and was so confident in his theory, that he created drawings of embryos which were tailored to make embryos appear more alike than they really are. For lack of a better term, he faked the drawings. The truth of the matter with these embryos was that they were quite different between various classes of organisms in the early stages, would become somewhat more similar (but still different) in the middle stages, and then they would become very different again. The inaccuracy of Haeckel’s embryos is a well-known fact in the science community, yet for some reason it is still found in textbooks and taught as fact. These facts are frustrating. Jonathan Wells states that what has happened is that the primary evidence for Darwin’s theories – the fossil record and early embryos – served as the primary evidence for Darwin’s theories being true, but when the evidence proved to be false, scientists said, “Well we know the theory is true, so we will use the theory to explain why the evidence doesn’t fit”, but this is crazy, because then there is no evidence for the theory. None of this makes any sense at all.
Some people state that early human embryos have slits which resemble slits in early embroys of fish that eventually become gills, and therefore argue that this is proof of the fact that we have an ancestry with aquatic organisms. The fact of the matter is that they are simply not gills. If you look down toward your belly and then feel the front of your neck, you will feel flaps of skin, or ridges in the skin of your neck. This is not to say that the ridges in a human embryo are simply skin flaps, for they are more complicated than that; however, what can be said is that these ridges are not gills, and the argument of common ancestry with aquatic life due to this resemblance has been long dismissed as simply not being accurate. In fact, these ridges in fish embryos, while they do eventually become gills, are not gills at that stage. In fish they become gills, in humans they become something else. Many people will argue that because fish and human embroys share this feature at early stages, with fish eventually developing gills, that this could still be considered proof of early ancestry between humans and fish. While it could seem to be a convincing argument superficially, science has determined that it is simply not fact. Human embryos at no point have gills.
Tuesday, 28 August 2012
Proof of God
For the past 2 months I have been reading 3 books by author Lee Strobel titled "The Case for Christ", "The Case for Faith", and "The Case for a Creator". The best way to describe these books is that they are written by a journalist who was a hardcore atheist, but became a Christian when challenged to examine the evidence for whether or not Jesus truly was, and is, the Son of God. His books provide thoughtful examinations for such proof.
I read these books because I have been a Christian most of my life, but have never felt like I could speak to particular questions that some non-Christians might have about the faith. I could speak to my own personal experiences which have proven to me that God exists, but I wanted to be able to speak to more than that. I have therefore read these books and am now going to blog about the points made in them. I have always found I learn best when I write things out, but I also want these thoughts recorded to serve as a guide for my daughter, for it is my hope that one day she will be interested in doing her own research as she makes decisions pertaining to what she believes and how she will live her life.
I also write out my thoughts for anyone else who is interested. As I mentioned, I have been a Christian for a long time and have enjoyed studying the Bible and growing closer to God through it, but the study I have done through Lee Strobel's exhaustive research has been fascinating, and has truly strengthened my faith. I hope others can find a similar interest.
I read these books because I have been a Christian most of my life, but have never felt like I could speak to particular questions that some non-Christians might have about the faith. I could speak to my own personal experiences which have proven to me that God exists, but I wanted to be able to speak to more than that. I have therefore read these books and am now going to blog about the points made in them. I have always found I learn best when I write things out, but I also want these thoughts recorded to serve as a guide for my daughter, for it is my hope that one day she will be interested in doing her own research as she makes decisions pertaining to what she believes and how she will live her life.
I also write out my thoughts for anyone else who is interested. As I mentioned, I have been a Christian for a long time and have enjoyed studying the Bible and growing closer to God through it, but the study I have done through Lee Strobel's exhaustive research has been fascinating, and has truly strengthened my faith. I hope others can find a similar interest.
Saturday, 7 July 2012
Response to Chalmers' Post
Many people believe Jesus existed, but they choose not to
believe in anything that would require them to change their life and adopt His
teachings. I think there is a bigger
issue here. It is the issue that people
don’t want to change. People don’t want
to accept something to be true that would require them to live their life in a
way which puts God before themself. They
also don’t want to live in a way which would cause the majority of society to
see them as different. I have never
heard one person argue that they believe Jesus existed and that He performed
miracles, but they don’t believe that He rose from the dead or that He was the
Son of God. If you accept that Jesus
existed, you are probably doing so partly because of the historical accounts of
His life. I cannot believe that Jesus
would have been someone who was worth making historical accounts over for
generations if He did not do amazing things to get people’s attention. What he did was perform miracles and one of
those was rising from the dead. People
argue that He was just a good teacher, but a simply good teacher would not draw
this type of historical attention. The
reason why these historical accounts started in the first place was partly because
of His miracles, so to say that He didn’t perform any miracles at all is very
hard to believe. Therefore, if you are
going to believe that Jesus existed, which we have more than sufficient proof
to argue He did, then you have to believe that He performed miracles because
this is a big part of what got people’s attention and led to historical
accounts.
As well, the disciples all went into hiding when Jesus was
killed because they were afraid that this would happen to them as well. However; after they saw Him risen from the
dead, they dedicated their lives to preaching His message, and this led to all
of them, except for one (who I believe was Mark – I may be mistaken on the
name) dying brutal deaths because of the message they were preaching. It is simple common sense to come to the
conclusion that something radical had to have happened, and that something was
that they saw that Jesus rose from the dead and therefore had to be God’s
Son. As well, you argue that legend was
thrown into the accounts. What about all
of these other disciples, some of whom wrote books of the Bible. These are the men whom it is historically
accounted were thrown into prison, beaten, excommunicated and eventually killed
for the message that they preached. These
men preached the message after seeing Jesus Himself alive in the flesh, after
death on the cross. Therefore, to say
that the Bible is not believable is to say that the disciples who contributed
to it are part of that larger legend.
And at this point, it is no longer making any sense. We know that the disciples existed, we also
know that they died. And we know that
they died brutal deaths for preaching the message that they wrote in the
Bible. The Bible therefore cannot be
legend. You can try to argue that the
disciples were lying about Jesus (which obviously I don’t believe), but you
cannot say that they created a legend.
That would be like saying I added in legend to the life story of my
grandfather, whose life I witnessed. If
I told anything false, I would be lying about accounts of his life, but not
creating legend. And besides, if I did
lie about his life, everyone else who witnessed his life would call me on it –
and this would be the same with Jesus.
If the disciples were lying, then people would have called them on it. But again, I can’t believe the disciples were
lying, because no one is going run and hide, and then go out and die a brutal
death for something that they don’t know for absolute certain to be true. The disciples did exactly this, and they died
because they preached the message of Jesus.
They had to have known it was true, they had to have seen Him alive, or
else they would not have given up their lives for it. Below is hopefully a clearer view of my
argument:
1.
The
disciples went into hiding.
2.
They came out of hiding and died brutal deaths
for preaching the message of Jesus. They had to have seen Jesus alive after His
death.
3.
We know the disciples lived and died because we
have accounts of their writings, and if you believe that Jesus lived, then how
can you believe that His disciples were made up? That does not make sense.
4.
You cannot say that the Bible has legend thrown
in because the gospels were written by the people who lived alongside Jesus
during His life. Therefore, you can say
that they lied if you want, but you can’t say they created “legend”.
5.
It does not make sense to say that the disciples
lied, because we have historical account of their lives, and their deaths,
which resulted from preaching the messages of Jesus Whom they lived
alongside. They would not have been
willing to die for something they did not know to be true, and they were
definitely willing, because they knew that preaching Jesus message would likely
result in such outcomes.
Other people might say, “Jesus was just a good man, but He
was not God’s Son”. Well if He was not
God’s Son, then He was not a good man, because the message He was preaching was
one which gave people hope of salvation and eternity with Him in Heaven. It would not be “good” to give people this
false hope. You cannot say that Jesus
was just a good man, but not God’s Son.
Either Jesus was God’s perfect and holy Son, or He was a liar and
evil. You have to choose one position or
the other, but you cannot mix them.
(This is an argument formulated by C.S. Lewis).
Monday, 7 May 2012
Response to Chalmers Post
This is part of an ongoing discussion with my good friend Alex who has some views which vary from mine, we have always gotten along very well, and I apprecieate his friendship. For the rest of the conversation please see:
http://www.achalms.blogspot.ca/2012/03/response-to-response-of-original-post.html?zx=5392f7fc3f566eff
http://www.achalms.blogspot.ca/2012/03/response-to-response-of-original-post.html?zx=5392f7fc3f566eff
You are right in that it does seem confusing when you look
at John 8:7, combined with Matthew 5:18.
Before I provide my explanation, I want you to know that I am not one of
these Christians who feels He has to have all the answers. The truth of the matter is that I admit that
I do not by any means have all the answers.
I don’t believe I ever will until I get to Heaven. There are things that I struggle to
understand. There are things that I
wonder why God chose not to make them more clear; but with that said, I
understand that God is God, He chose to do things His way, and I will trust Him
regardless of what questions I have because He has proved Himself faithful over
and over in my life. I think one of the
most dangerous things to do is to decide that I will not believe something
unless I can 100% completely understand it.
Now this does not mean that I should not ask the questions, and that I
should believe just anything, all I am saying is that I have to understand that
there are certain things that God has chosen for me not to understand, and I’m
going to be okay with that because He is God and I know from His track record
in my life He has my best interests at heart.
In regards to John 8:7, Jesus definitely was upholding the
law of stoning as the penalty of adultery.
He said, “He that is without sin cast the first stone”. He was not saying not to stone her. The penalty from the Old Testament laws was that
she was to be stoned and He acknowledged this by what He said. I believe the lesson Jesus was teaching here
was that we must not be so quick to judge, because while the penalties for
different sins may be different, sin is still sin, and we are all guilty of
it. Now one might say that He was not
upholding the law because He let her go unpunished. He did that because He was God, and God has
the power, and the right, to condemn or to show grace. And His grace is one of the greatest gift He
gives to those who choose to believe in Him.
In this case He displayed mercy and grace to the adulteress telling her
to, “Go and sin no more”. This too is a
great message to all those who choose to follow Christ. While He died to pay the penalty of our sins,
He still tells us to repent from our mistakes and to go and stop sinning.
Now in regards to Matthew 5:18; Jesus does say that the law
will remain; however, this does not mean that it is therefore okay to nowadays
go out and stone someone who commits adultery. We have to recognize that the contexts are
very different between now and then.
With this said, the fact that we carry out punishments for breaking the law differently today, does not mean
that the law has changed. The law still
states that adultery is wrong, and therefore the law has not changed, and
therefore what Jesus said in Matthew 5:18 is accurate and in no way a
contradiction.
Now I know that you said that you don’t buy into the “context”
argument. You say that Jesus teachings
should still apply to us today if He was truly the Son of God. They do! Please try and find for me one teaching of
Jesus that does not apply to us today.
If there is one, I would love to examine it, because I can’t think of
any. You say that His teachings should still
apply today so that we do not fall into “iron-age morality”. His moral teachings do still apply
today. As mentioned above, the societal
punishments may now be carried out differently, but the moral principles are
all the same. And I agree with you, if
Jesus was the Son of God, His teachings should still apply today, and I hope
this helps reveal that they in fact do, further proving that He is in fact the
Son of God.
You talk about how the Bible is exactly how we expect it to
be because of the fact that it was passed down from generation to
generation. I mean, how else would it
have been recorded? I understand when
people make the argument that it seems like the accounts may be unreliable, and
therefore this “proves” that it is false.
But remember, we are talking over 2000 years ago. It’s not like there were data banks to record
information and keep it “safe and sound” until computers and other
technological advances came along so that we could preserve them that much
better. And even if there were such data
banks, the Jews and/or Romans would have simply destroyed all of the texts. They killed Jesus because of what He
preached, so they definitely would have destroyed any literature which proved
that he was God, and that they were idiots for killing Him.
You are also forgetting the fact that even though there are
translations, incredible initiatives were taken to ensure that copies of these
text were accurate and not deviating from the original writings in any
way. Research shows that it is crazy how
much effort was put into this. As well,
it is my understanding (although I have not researched this personally I must
admit) that we have a very significant amount of documentation of the Biblical
text which has been recovered and restored.
While yes there have been many translations, we can always go back to
the originals if we think things have gotten misconstrued. I would prefer to have people go and examine
the Bible in this way instead of just saying that we can speculate that it has
been “tampered with”.
And you mentioned about the fact that you are surprised that
only one gospel contains accounts of the dead being resurrected. While you make a good point that you would
think that an individual would include that in their writing, but the fact that
they didn’t cannot be held as proof that the Bible is unreliable. What about the proof that shows that it is reliable. What about the fact that there are different
authors for each of the gospels, yet their writings are incredibly
similar. This is another counter
argument to you saying that the “Bible is exactly what we would expect it to
be”. If that was true, then we would
expect the various accounts to be incredibly varied. It is the “broken telephone” principle. If the Bible was a document created purely
by humans, with no Divine inspiration, then we would expect to see the broken
telephone principle all-throughout the texts.
Even today if you were to have two people write about an experience that
they shared together – one where they were both in the same place at the same
time and witnessed the exact same things.
If you had them write about their experiences, you would see that their
perceptions of situations lead to varied accounts of the events. We don’t see this in the Bible. People try and find things of the sort and
call them contradictions, but the fact is that the gospel accounts are
overwhelmingly similar and that is because those accounts were inspired by
God. This is further proof that the
Bible truly is the Word of God, and that because of these facts, God must
exist, and if He exists and inspired the Bible, then what it says is true and
needs to be taken very seriously.
I’m a bit confused by your last point. What do you mean by “knowing what we know”
divinity is not a valid option? You
provided an option of what you think could have happened, but what exactly is
it that we know which makes it so that we can’t accept Jesus’ divinity?
Monday, 30 April 2012
It's not worth not spending time with God
The last month or so I have found myself becoming somewhat complacent in my relationship with God. I have allowed myself to get distracted by events taking place in my life and have not dedicated the time that I should to spending time with God in prayer and study of the Bible. And it has been through this time that I have noticed that I don't have the same sense of fullfillment, peace, joy and general happiness that I have had during those times where I have been better focused on my relationship with Him.
The reason why I bring this up is because I have had discussions with people who dismiss my own personal experiences with God as valid proof of His existence. While I understand why they may be hesitant to take my word for it, the fact of the matter is that my claims are true. When I am putting forth my best effort in pursuing and developing my relationship with God, it is during those times that I am most fullfilled. This past month or so has proven this that much further to me. It's not something I'm faking. It's just fact. I know that when others hear this they often become skeptical because they feel that I am doing this in my own mind. They think things like because I am so used to pursuing my relationship with God, that when I am not doing it in a way that I feel is putting forth my best effort, I don't feel "myself" and therefore I don't feel fullfilled, joyful, happy, etc.. I don't buy this argument for one second; with the reason being that if this were true - if people could simply "fool" themselves into happiness and fulfillment - then the universal truth that "money does not buy happiness" would not be exactly that - universal truth. If God were not real, then the joy and fullfillment that Christians who pursue Him feel would all be in their heads. And if this is true, then that means that we are able to make ourselves happy and fullfilled through anything that we truly believe will make us happy - as long as we believe strongly enough in it. Well, a very large percentage of people in our world today believe very strongly that money can make them happy, but human history has proven otherwise. We cannot make ourselves happy by simply believing strongly enough in something. In order to experience true happiness, joy and fullfillment, that "something" has to be real. Jesus is real, and that is why when I pursue Him, love Him, and grow in my relationship with Him, I do feel fullfilled, joyful and happy; and when I am not pursuing Him like I should, I do not feel as much so. It's not something I'm imagining, it's truth. I'd love for all people to be able to experience this for themselves, but sadly most choose not to. In the words of C.S. Lewis, "We are far too easily pleased".
The reason why I bring this up is because I have had discussions with people who dismiss my own personal experiences with God as valid proof of His existence. While I understand why they may be hesitant to take my word for it, the fact of the matter is that my claims are true. When I am putting forth my best effort in pursuing and developing my relationship with God, it is during those times that I am most fullfilled. This past month or so has proven this that much further to me. It's not something I'm faking. It's just fact. I know that when others hear this they often become skeptical because they feel that I am doing this in my own mind. They think things like because I am so used to pursuing my relationship with God, that when I am not doing it in a way that I feel is putting forth my best effort, I don't feel "myself" and therefore I don't feel fullfilled, joyful, happy, etc.. I don't buy this argument for one second; with the reason being that if this were true - if people could simply "fool" themselves into happiness and fulfillment - then the universal truth that "money does not buy happiness" would not be exactly that - universal truth. If God were not real, then the joy and fullfillment that Christians who pursue Him feel would all be in their heads. And if this is true, then that means that we are able to make ourselves happy and fullfilled through anything that we truly believe will make us happy - as long as we believe strongly enough in it. Well, a very large percentage of people in our world today believe very strongly that money can make them happy, but human history has proven otherwise. We cannot make ourselves happy by simply believing strongly enough in something. In order to experience true happiness, joy and fullfillment, that "something" has to be real. Jesus is real, and that is why when I pursue Him, love Him, and grow in my relationship with Him, I do feel fullfilled, joyful and happy; and when I am not pursuing Him like I should, I do not feel as much so. It's not something I'm imagining, it's truth. I'd love for all people to be able to experience this for themselves, but sadly most choose not to. In the words of C.S. Lewis, "We are far too easily pleased".
I Don't Want to Be "Religious"
The following are notes that I took in church this past Sunday while listening to a great message by Rick Buck, the Pastor at Emmanuel Church in Barrie, Ontario.
Religion is never a good substitute for love of God and others.
Love God passionately and others selflessly If God truly has our heart then we will do this. We should never be focused on being religious, but rather on simply loving God and loving others as He loves us, for when we do this, we are living as Christ calls us to. We will be in the position to live for Him and be used by Him as He sees fit.
It is about relationship not religion. The acts that we do for God needs to be from love and devotion to Him not out of "religious duty" for that is foolish and meaningless.
I don't want to be seen as a religious person. I want to be seen, and to be a person who is in absolute love with God and who's actions are always a reflection of that love. The Bible is not about mechanics, it is about an amazing relationship with God. And this makes sense because if you look at any relationship, it is always about the meaningful experiences you have with that other person. If relationships were about "mechanics" or "rituals" which had to be performed, then the relationship would not be meaningful.
And a true relationship with God must be about what we can do for Him, not about what He can do for us. And the cool thing about this is that when we pursue God in this way it is only then that we can truly benefit from the relationship with Him. But when our focus is on us and what we can gain then we will not fully benefit from the relationship as we could/should.
One of the biggest strategies of satan is to attempt to get us complacent in our relationship with God. It is an attempt to get our relationship to be surface level and about acts of "religious duty". He wants us to feel like being a Christian is about following very specific ritualistic guidelines (i.e. read your Bible for 30 minutes every night - any less and you aren't a Christian). The reason why he wants us to think this way is because such guidelines are meaningless, annoying and leave us feeling empty rather than excited. God wants us to be excited about the relationship we have with Him, and it is a very exciting thing when understood and pursued the appropriate way - and that way is to develop a meaningful relationship with Him which is based on love for Him, and love for others.
Religion is never a good substitute for love of God and others.
Love God passionately and others selflessly If God truly has our heart then we will do this. We should never be focused on being religious, but rather on simply loving God and loving others as He loves us, for when we do this, we are living as Christ calls us to. We will be in the position to live for Him and be used by Him as He sees fit.
It is about relationship not religion. The acts that we do for God needs to be from love and devotion to Him not out of "religious duty" for that is foolish and meaningless.
I don't want to be seen as a religious person. I want to be seen, and to be a person who is in absolute love with God and who's actions are always a reflection of that love. The Bible is not about mechanics, it is about an amazing relationship with God. And this makes sense because if you look at any relationship, it is always about the meaningful experiences you have with that other person. If relationships were about "mechanics" or "rituals" which had to be performed, then the relationship would not be meaningful.
And a true relationship with God must be about what we can do for Him, not about what He can do for us. And the cool thing about this is that when we pursue God in this way it is only then that we can truly benefit from the relationship with Him. But when our focus is on us and what we can gain then we will not fully benefit from the relationship as we could/should.
One of the biggest strategies of satan is to attempt to get us complacent in our relationship with God. It is an attempt to get our relationship to be surface level and about acts of "religious duty". He wants us to feel like being a Christian is about following very specific ritualistic guidelines (i.e. read your Bible for 30 minutes every night - any less and you aren't a Christian). The reason why he wants us to think this way is because such guidelines are meaningless, annoying and leave us feeling empty rather than excited. God wants us to be excited about the relationship we have with Him, and it is a very exciting thing when understood and pursued the appropriate way - and that way is to develop a meaningful relationship with Him which is based on love for Him, and love for others.
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