Blood of the Saints

Jesus told us that because of following him, the world would violently hate us. Yet for most of us this is at best a fantastical theory. Oh, sure, we sometimes get jeered at for our morals, but here in U.S.A., persecution is extremely minimal.

In many third world countries your brothers and sisters face these peresecutions for simply following Jesus:

Girls are raped and used for prostitution
Boys are sold into slavery and beaten
Women are raped and tortured
Men are beaten to death with electric shockers and many other cruel devices.

These are those who are dying for Christ. I have signed up to blog for the Persecuted Church so please stay posted as I, Lordwilling, fill you in frequently on what your brothers and sisters in chains are undergoing so that you may more effectively pray for and take action in their behalf!

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Matthew 5:10-12 (NIV)

Memorial Day

Memorial Day isn't simply a day off from work and school. It's a day to remember and pray for our troops. Remember those who paid the ultimate price through the years, decades and centuries for you, and pray for those who are still fighting that battle for your Freedom. One soldier's immortal words echo across the ages for all American to remember:
When you go home
Tell them for us and say
For your tomorrow
We gave our today

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The Artist Speaks!

Imagine for a moment that you are a great artist. You have recently painted a moving scene of some great romance or battle. Quite to your surprise, the world is very taken by your picture, and art experts from across the globe are raving about it.

Then some philosophers who’ve nothing else to do but make up ecentric hypotheses, begin telling people that certain things may be determined from this picture about the artist. Some people say that there was no artist at all. Others insist that there were many artists. Others even go further, describing you as a helpless romantic who poured his very self into the paint.
Now naturally you decide put all of these people back in their place and to clear up all the nonsense they’ve created about you. So you publish a book declaring simply who you are. And here is the next surprise. No one believes you! They are all so set on their own beliefs about you, that they all imagine that your book must have been the work of some artistic prude who wanted to stop their imaginations.

Well, actually, that’s what everybody has done to God. He revealed Himself through nature (the painting) and everybody starts making up ridiculous myths about Him. Some say He isn’t there at all (atheist); others say that there are many of Him (polytheists); a few more say that He is the painting (pantheism). The list goes on. So naturally God, foreseeing that all of these lies would pop up, writes a book in no uncertain terms describing who He is, what He expects etc. But most people reject it as nonsense. That book is the Bible.

Probably the best way to know God is by what He says about Himself! Generally speaking, this refers to the Bible as a whole, but we can get even more specific. At certain junctures in the Bible, God Himself speaks. I’ll take a look at a few examples.

Exodus 20: 1-6 Then God spoke all these words, saying, "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments." (NASB)

Malachi 1:2, 3 "I have loved you," says the LORD. But you say, "How have You loved us?" "Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?" declares the LORD. "Yet I have loved Jacob; but I have hated Esau, and I have made his mountains a desolation for the jackals of the wilderness." (NASB)

Mark 1:14, 15 Now after John had been taken in custody, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the Gospel of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel." (NASB)

Revelation 22:20 He who testifies to these things says, "Yes, I am coming quickly." Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. (NASB)

Here is collection of four things God says about Himself, taken from across the plain of Scripture. The first passage establishes God’s holy jealousy and justice. The second presents His love for His elect. The third announces that His Kingdom is at hand, and calls for repentance. The fourth warns that He is returning soon.

There are many, many more things that God says about Himself throughout Scripture, but these four selections highlight His message to mankind - believe the gospel for I am returning soon.

Reality Strike #4

How do you counter this comment by your neighbor, "The Da Vinci Code proves that Jesus isn't really what you Christians say he is." ?

Note: Once again, please don't post if you mind my reprinting your response in a Christian newsletter I write for.

How to Know God II

The first thing that needs to be established before we go on with this series is that there is a great difference between knowing of God, and knowing God. You can know a whole lot of facts about a person, but never be personally aquatinted with that person. I may know that George W. Bush is president of the United States, a Christian man, and that he is married to Laura Bush, but if someone asked me, "Do you know President Bush?" I’d naturally say, "No."

In this brief series, I attempt to guide the reader into knowing about God. There is great danger; however, in just knowing about God and not personally aquatinting oneself with him. J.I. Packer warned against this fatal syndrome in his little pamphlet Knowing God:

"A little knowledge of God is worth more than a great deal of knowledge about Him… We may know as much about God as Calvin knew…and yet all the time…we may hardly know God at all."
With that warning in mind, let us delve into the knowledge of God, which I will begin by expounding on His actions.

I am sure that many are familiar with the movie 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. At one point in the film, when a giant squid attacks the Nautilus, and Captain Nemo, the dictator-tyrant of the ship, is swept overboard by one of it’s long tentacles, Ned Land, an imprisoned harpooner, lunges to his rescue, cutting through the creature’s limbs until finally dragging the captain back into the safety of the sub. Gasping for breath, the Captain looks up at Land, who has previously been an outspoken critic of Nemo, and asks why he saved his life. Land pauses for a moment and then cries, "I don’t know! When I guy does something this stupid, there’s only one thing to do - drink!"

One of the lessons that may be learned from this story is that a person’s actions always speak louder than their words. Actions may undo the impact of words, but words rarely undo the impact of actions. When getting to know someone, a great indicator of who they are is what they do. In the same way, though God’s actions and words are equally important, and His actions will never have to undo His words (or vice versa) people have often tended to interpret Him by His actions so we’ll start here first.

We see God’s actions all throughout Scripture, and of course this is nothing to wonder at because He is the main character!

In Genesis we see God’s creative actions. (Genesis 1-2:22)
In Exodus we see His deliverance. (Exodus 14:30)
In Numbers we see His judgment (Numbers 11:1-3)
In 1 Samuel-2 Chronicles we see God’s exaltation of the humble and righteous. (1 Samuel 16:1; 2 Samuel 7:8-16; 1 Kings 19:18; 2 Kings 18:5-8; 1 Chronicles 4:9,10; 2 Chronicles 15:1,2)
In Daniel we see God’s domination over human kingdoms. (Daniel 5:25-30)
In the Gospels we see His loving sacrificial action. (John 1:12)
In Revelation we see His judgment again (Revelation 20:11-15)

This is simply a whirlwind tour of some of the actions of God - if I were to list every recorded action of God in the Scriptures, the list would be much larger! Some of the actions are seen in several books. For example - judgment is seen in Genesis, Exodus, 1 Samuel-2 Chronicles, Daniel, Acts etc.

The thing to see from this, though, is that just looking quickly at the Scriptures we can learn a lot about God. Just from the above, we have determined that God is creative, just, loving and a deliverer! Imagine the difference if we were to read the Scripture thoroughly!

In conclusion, we may learn a lot about God just by His actions. But of course, this isn’t the only way to know Him.

Reality Strike #3

You hand your neighbor a tract, and turn to leave when he says, "Hey, keep this to yourself. I've had enough of God. If God's love, how come he let my wife die of cancer?" What do you say?


Note: By posting, you give me the right to publish your response in a publication I write for.

How to Know God

The topic of knowing God is perhaps the broadest and most un-ending quest that humanity has ever known. Plumbing the depths of the sea seemed to be a daunting task hundreds of years ago, but now we may know with precision how deep the deepest ocean is. The mystery of the heavens captivated the ancient man, who couldn’t fathom the movement of the sun, planets and moon. Today, we are peeping into far away galaxies. A millennia ago, man was at an almost total loss for what constituted everything around him; today we know that atoms and cells are the building blocks of anatomy. But the quest for God is deeper than the ocean, farther than the furthest galaxy, and more intricate than the ever-elusive atom. It is as infinite as the Being Himself, and a million times more satisfying than any other exploration mankind has undertaken.

Man is naturally an inquisitive creature. The economy of his research is something of very little importance, and everything is in the discovery. It wasn’t propitious for Ernest Shackleton to take his little band of men to explore the south pole, neither was the landing on the moon, or the modern attempts to find life on other planets. The pursuit of God; however, is by nature not only the most exhilarating exploration, the most breath-taking climb, the most overwhelming discovery, but it is also the most economical. The dividends are almost unreal. The soul is enriched, the mind enhanced and the heart enlarged. For the Christian man, the pursuit of God should dwarf all other goals and passions.

So how is one to know this God – this infinite, all-powerful Creator before Whom we are like dust? To be sure, we have a great volume before us documenting His work over thousands of years, but how is one to go about exploring it systematically?

Today one of our greatest flaws has been a warped view of Who God is. This is, I believe, one of the root causes of many church disputes. After all there are two options. Knowing that one person in a dispute is wrong on a given point, we must assume that he either knows he is violently against Scripture and chooses to ignore the fact, or he believes he is flush with Scripture. I want to address the latter error.

A great reason for studying God is to right our construed views of Who He is. Everyone has a view of God, whether it be the "Santa Claus" God, the "Fire and Brimstone" God, the "Clock-Maker" God, the "There is no God" God, or the true God of the Bible, everyone has a concept of God. If this concept is anything but Scriptural, it is sinful, a violation of the first commandment and enough to condemn a person to Hell if they don’t believe in Christ! For this reason, we must be assiduously calibrating ourselves with Scripture’s portrayal of God in order to right our misconceptions and strengthen what we know is true!

Some may ask how a Christian can have a perverted view of God. This would be hard to answer if there weren’t so many evident disputes in the Church among born-again believers. Obviously Christians can have contaminated views of God, and it is our duty to weed them out. There is nothing half so irritating as being misquoted or misused in a way entirely out of conjunction with whom you are. Yet this is exactly what we do to God.

So how do we get to know God? The first thing to be understood is that we should search God out inductively. What I mean by this is that when we go to Scripture, we need to read it in it’s fullness and let it speak to us, rather than simply flipping open the concordance and picking out the verses that support our view because many times they are stripped from context.

Secondly, I think we may learn to know God just as we would learn to know a person. Currently, I am getting to know a girl who I am interested in. Despite the fact that there is a huge distance between us, I still may get to know her. How do I do this?

I evaluate:
How she acts when I do see her
What her conversation is like
What others say about her

In the same way we may evaluate God by:

How He acts
What He says
What His people say

In the next article, we’ll, Lordwilling, take a look at the actions of God. Until then, keep your eyes open as you read your Bible.

Reality Strike #2

You discover that the guy/girl you are dating has already sacrificed their purity years ago. Do you break up and tell the person to marry that person they slept with years ago or do you forgive and forget?

Reality Strike #1

Reality Strike: You are a Christian young person working at a store that sells cigaretts and beer. Should you quit?