Crisis or Peace- Relevancy of the Church: 

 

When the Russian armies were invading Ukraine in 2022, Vasyl Ostryi, a pastor near Kyiv, was asked if he might flee, but he assured his people he would stay with them, and then added, if the church is not relevant at a time of crisis, then it is not relevant in a time of peace.

Cited: No Reason to Hide. E.W. Lutzer

( from Digital Anvil )

Three Kinds of Churches.

Pastor Gary Hamrick says there are three kinds of churches. Some will be complicit, participating in the culture without standing against it; some will be complacent, disagreeing with the culture but not actively opposing it; then there are those that will be courageous, saying what needs to be said and doing what needs to be done, and accepting the consequences without self-pity or anger. Lets adopt the attitude of the Apostles,fasting and praying ( and reading the Bible.)

Cited: No Reason to Hide. E. W.Lutzer.

( from Digital Anvil )

Two Days:

Two Days:

The two most important days in your life are the day you were born and the next is the day you find out why ?

Mark Twain.

( from Digital Anvil )

Final Comment:

Plus the ultimate day when you enter Eternity.

Isaac Newton:

Isaac Newton

It is very interesting to look at the early scientists in Western Europe in the 17th and 18th Centuries. One of the greats was Isaac Newton: an English physicist, mathematician and committed Christian. It would seem that Newton's science did not get in the way of his faith.

In our series Jesus the Game Changer, we spoke with University of Queensland professor Peter Harrison. He made this comment in regard to Isaac Newton and his faith:

"Isaac Newton, who is perhaps the most famous scientist ever, wrote much more on theological topics than he did on scientific topics, and one historian has remarked that Newton was a 17th-Century theologian who wrote a few small works on science. You get the idea that there was, at the time, no concept of a conflict between fundamental religious beliefs and scientific beliefs. On the contrary, they were regarded as mutually supportive.

Share this daily - reading.

Thanks, Karl Faase.

(From Digital Anvil.)

 Church and State and Nation:

 

 

"We have all of us- the whole Church and the whole community-we've been thrown into the Tempter's sieve, and he is shaking and the wind is blowing and it must now become manifest whether we are wheat or chaff: Truly, a time of sifting has come upon us, and even the most indolent and peaceful person among us must see that the calm of a meditative Christianity is at an end....

It is now springtime for the hopeful and expectant Christian Church--it is testing time, and God is giving Satan a free hand, so he may shake us up and so that it may be seen what manner of men and women we are...

 

Satan swings his sieve and Christianity is thrown here and to and he who is not ready to suffer,he or she who has called him or herself a Christian only because he or she hoped to gain something for themselves and their nation is blown away like chaff by the wind of time."

Niemoller.

[ Speaking to his congregation under Nazi Germany.]

( from Digital Anvil )

100 of the Best Books for Men:

I'm very happy to receive an endorsement for 100 of the Best Books for Men from an icon in the field, and a personal hero of mine:

"David Maywald has earned our collective gratitude for this comprehensive collection of books about boys and men. In my mind, this book puts boys and men's literature on the map for both individual readers and post-modern culture as a whole. There has been a boys movement growing for decades and Maywald tracks it beautifully via his Stages model. I highly recommend this book." 

  

Michael Gurian, Bestselling Author of The Wonder of Boys and Saving Our Sons.

(From Digital Anvil.)

 

Driven1.2 [Pain of it]:

Driven by performance, numbed by addiction and broken by adverse experience, I encountered the supernatural at my lowest point yet later my highest.

From strident atheist to --- a theist. That encounter while on mind-altering chemicals producing nirvana, ecstatic vision and later a supernatural experience reshaped my life- journey.

 

Creating and evolving via elapsed time and transformed  by Love into the new person I am today. 

With my obvious and blind-to-me flaws, mixed attitudes, desperate beliefs and ordinary desires melded into a walking and talking Christian that I hope I am today.

Though, elapsed time, psychiatry and helpful parents, friends and work all provided support and relative calm. But all this while the floodgates of new experiences were opened, reality was being reshaped, renewed and revitalised almost weekly

 

[All methods are candles besides the searchlight that Christianity became.]

 

 As a University student, my mind and poorly formed character took existential blows that wrong beliefs, poor choices and wrong ideals produce.

Life had reached choke-point .

My point of existence was broken by performative living, harmful addictions and poorly-thought-out worldviews.

Although I remember where I came from, yet I have not arrived at the final destination.

Belonging,  meaning and purpose according to Os Guinness are the essential pillars of human life. But I suggest that there is a necessary spiritual component as well. Many of you will shut down in disbelief and click away having read that.

 

Although science and its sister, technology often lead the way in the world, science can not explain nor cure everything. Many reading this will shut down their interest and break away. Though neuroscience has reached sparkling heights, Scripture was there 2,000 years earlier. Oxytocin may be the hormone the brain releases during loving interaction, however it can not  fully explain all the dimensions of  Love.

The  much vaunted Enlightenment period  summed in one word is "reason"

  Life is much more than reason, so it can never be captured and explained by reason alone—crucial and valuable though reason is. Apply reason as carefully and systematically as you like, and there will always be things it cannot explain, things that simply will not fit into its categories, however hard you push, press and pull            Os Guinness 

    

    It was von Neumann who conceived the idea of programming that led to the computer—the notion that you can break down a problem into a series of simple steps that can be manipulated as numbers are manipulated. But what works for a machine does not work for a human being. If only we humans were more logical, or were only logical.            Os Guinness. 

 

 

Well, with the advent of BASIC, Ruby and other digital yet plainer English programming languages, computers released mankind from analog semi- mediocrity and evolved the Western World into a potentially Utopian Global Fiefdom. 

But human logic isn't enough, other elements predominate regally above Reason.

 

 Who hasn't felt an unmet need or experienced a broken heart? Or watched a beloved pet slowly die? How  can science comfort a perceived failure? Isn't there a dimension beyond the spacetime continuum? Is a Black Forest Birthday cake just ingredients or is there more to it ? What about a broke gambler whose debt is more than money? Or a girl whose dance dress is "unflattering" and a Mum who needs me time with two little boy toddlers in tow while husband is at work?

 

Knowing that the impossible just might be possible with a benevolent GOD hidden from view but involved, caring and readily supportive cracks open living hope and releases it from its earthly prison. Not just a caring GOD but with all supernatural resources to unleash.

 That's what i discovered with Christianity.

 

 Clear across the divide between earth and heaven is a mighty and lovely Being whose clear aim is to help the orphan, the harassed Mum, the homeless woman with a  young girl  living in a car and the team of Netball girls whose flagging spirits need another inspired goal to perhaps win the trophy.

Whether you believe or not, the supra -natural is a heartbeat closer than you dare think. Ask GOD humbly and you'll find that He will not deceive you.

Since the Universe is infinite, then heaven lies somewhere beyond and its not  a cosmic address of 42 universal.

By Digital Anvil