Ancient Vision

 

Ancient Vision ? ( Reworked )

Here is a worthwhile consideration for your heart and life. 

 

Because we believe in him, we can believe in the past. Whether in yesterday, near or ancient past.  I think that true wisdom comes from the ancient world. Why? Because God worked with the ancient nations to produce His people, Israel, particularly Moses, who was the Mediator of the Old Covenant or Old Testament!

 

Hence, the Old and New Testament manuscripts survive today to provide us (the world ) with God's revealed Eternal wisdom.

 Ancient Israel also carried the very DNA of the Messiah in their bodies!  God always plays the long game to achieve his goals!

 

He is meticulously precise and methodical in all he does, using us, his poor human instruments, to achieve Eternal aims!

 

Praise God for His eternal wisdom and unparalleled works!

Restoration Message

Restoring Our Relationship

Man is consistently described as being in a state of alienation and enmity. This condition makes reconciliation necessary. Reconciliation is necessary only when a state of estrangement exists between two or more parties. Estrangement is the natural fallen state of our relationship to God.

How are we enemies of God? Jonathan Edwards provides an insightful summary of the problem. He lists several points of tension between God and man:

1. By nature, we have a low esteem of God. We count Him unworthy of our love or fear.

2. We prefer to keep a distance from God. We have no natural inclination to seek His presence in prayer.

3. Our wills are opposed to the law of God. We are not loyal subjects of His sovereign rule.

4. We are enemies against God in our affections. Our souls have a seed of malice against God. We are quick to blaspheme and to rage against Him.

5. We are enemies in practice. We walk in a way that is contrary to Him.

Given that the un-examined life is a source of instability and extreme disharmony,  we need to 

Examine our spiritual condition in light of Edwards’s five points of tension between God and man.

R.C. Sproul ( mildly edited )

Dr. R.C. Sproul was founder of Ligonier Ministries, first minister of preaching and teaching at Saint Andrew’s Chapel in Sanford, Fla., and first president of Reformation Bible College. He was author of more than one hundred books, including The Holiness of God.

I wish to commend Ligonier Ministries to you for more than excellent resources. 

Ligonier Ministries

The Titanic Clash ?

 

 The Titanic Clash or Crash

 

 

 

If we asked a young university student what do you think about the possibility of God existing?

 

They might reply, I am only a human being. Every person elsewhere is a human being like me because human beings are only sophisticated animals. So we're all animals with a bigger brain, opposable thumbs, complex languages and drive to group and succeed together. Some classic thinkers state that everybody and everything exists in God's measure. That God is in everything, not alone but everywhere.

 

 I am somebody of everybody that exists. So I am that God. Therefore, everything has to go according to my standards and preferences. So essentially, I am that God and so are other sophisticated animals with whom we negotiate our lives. I know two beautiful girls; they are in love with me and I am in love with them. One is enthusiastic about moving in with me to my house. She is attractive, willing, and able to do everything with me.

 

The other is attractive and is not willing and able to move into my house. Why? Because she believes in waiting for Mr Right and has strange ethics and morals.

 

Now I am a God in my reality and if there is no real God out there, I will take over that role. The first willing and able girl who enthusiastically believes what I believe has negotiated her position with me. There is no God, so I will do whatever I want and am only accountable to me and her; even that position is debatable. 

 

This kind of thinking goes on in more people's minds than you or I might believe. This kind of thinking begins with the denial or affirmation of the existence of God. It conditions basic fundamental views of anthropocentric and theocentric ethical behaviour.

 

If man is the ultimate measure of worth and there is no God and therefore no objective right or wrong, then murder, rape and stealing are personal choices. There is no ultimate right or wrong. Everything is determined by individual choice. If enough people think and act the same way, then a group of them can be a society unto themselves and then they can enact and enforce laws accordingly.

 

God and no God are the ultimate two poles of societal division. A theistic or a-theistic worldview is the ultimate division of humanity. Two views exist with a vast gulf, more expansive than the North and South poles. The world is between clashes and inevitably pushes up against each pole. No theist can be a consistently believing person all the time because we are human beings with bias and prejudice built and developed in ourselves. We pick up bits and pieces of insight, syncretically adopt principles, fuse them into a whole worldview, and apply these odds and ends characteristically without real thought to life. So, too, the atheist, who cannot live out the ideals of the atheistic world- view consistently for the same reason.

 

Here is the fundamental dilemma of humankind.

 

It's not either, but something in the gulf between which exists and plays out in real life. Why? Because there are many variations in this scope of the gulf. So, there is much individual mutation or scope of principles within.  It is still basically only a clash of two world views. Every sub world -view is a spectrum of variation between the two most significant perspectives. Within a-theistic beliefs, this can lead to pessimism, leads to misery, which brings meaninglessness into the heart and life of the atheist.

 

We all decide which philosophy or system of thought we will follow, even when we don't call ourselves philosophers. 

 

God helps Christians live and reach people everywhere with the Gospel or Good News of life. Similarly, the new atheist, with human help, evangelises the world just as we do.

 

I appreciate your patience.  Any thoughts or comments you would like to make? Agree or disagree?

God is Love ?

  

What does it mean that God is love?

 

 

 The phrase "God is love" means that God is, in His very nature, infinitely loving and gracious.

 

 God's loving nature is revealed in His saving acts for His people. God's love involves doing what is best for those He loves, which sometimes may not seem loving to us on the surface. God's love does not mean that He shields us from all harm, gives us all we want or never disciplines us. But it does mean that everything God does in our earthly lives is an expression of His love for us and is working toward our eternal happiness and glory.

The gifting of His Son demonstrates his infinite love to pay for the incalculable debt that we, humankind, could not pay to this holy God. We cannot rescue ourselves from the evil works of darkness we collectively committed. If we could recognise that our world was steeped in black, deadly darkness we would not be able to do anything about it!   Jesus Christ died for us to free all from our complete slavery and subjection to our dark desires, our evil selves and total depravity. The living Son of God set us free from ourselves, saving all humanity from certain death and eternal separation from all that is good. So sending all of us on a course to eternal life instead.

The True Basic Building Block.

We all know that God the Father exists! 

We ALL KNOW that. 

This is the basic building block of the cosmos and beyond. 

Fortunately for Mankind, God is very patient and is very long suffering. We all by nature refuse to believe that God is the Holy being that from ALL things have their existence. We deny our basic fundamental belief that everything and everyone came as a gift from this Eternal Being.

A Christian is someone who has evaluated, believed and asked God the Creator to forgive this blatant and willful denial of the Fact that God exists and deserves gratitude with all of our being. 

No one has ever deserved the gifts of life and living to themselves and other humans in this temporal world. 

Really there are only two world views!

God and non- God. 

Theism or A/theism.

Which will you follow?

Which or Who will you thank for your existence?

Unseen Realities

This IS DIFFICULT FOR US TO GRASP

We can  we take on face value that what we see, hear and feel is reality. But what about those things that we cannot see? Scripture speaks about heaven,hell angels and demons which are a part of this invisible spiritual realm.

"I believe that if we are to be consistent Christians, believing all of the Bible rather than portions of it, we must recognize that the supernatural places and beings described on its pages are real. There is an uncompromised supernaturalism at the  heart of the Christian world-view and we must not let the scepticism with regard to these things affect our belief. We must trust and affirm that there is much more than meets the eye."

 by R. C. Sproul