Why Bother? ( cont)

 

 It’s an unspoken law that when you start dating and became more serious you owe much loyalty to your girlfriend and eventually to her parents for birthing and raising her. They become a kind of de facto parents to you. Well, it gets more complex as time goes by.

 

Why is that?

 

Think about that. You make that intuitive leap to say, they become ‘in- laws.’ Right!  So since—whenever-- there were rules or laws to regulate and shape relationships up until present times and beyond.

 

So cave man was too cave- like or 'primitive' to have discernibly strong enforceable laws, but we are fairly certain that there was some sort of ‘contract’ between the giver and the receiver of mature children for marriage.

 

Ignoring the present- day fluid customs for the moment; we have the codifying into enforceable written laws of the marriage contract which

 began centuries ago.

So we conclude-- temporarily-- with the statement that love and life began long before you were born and was or became more complex with time and culture and ethics. In this way your life and love is not fully your own. With love and life 'pre-set' before you were born. Is there a way in which there is a greater meaning above the usual understanding?

(Come back tomorrow for more)

 

 

Perhaps?

 

 

 

Perhaps the greatest single chasm that Christians are caused to fall into is that of the” privatisation” of their faith. What do I mean? The usual term means the dismantling of a nation’s socialism, particularly, the return of government- run enterprises to private control.

But that is not my meaning here.

Here, it is the separation of the believer’s spheres of involvement of his faith between ---his private and his public life. In particular the virtual banishment of his faith to that of his private life, not to be included in his public life. Over the last decade I noticed increasingly unspoken social pressure to make my faith exist on a purely personal level, not something to be shared with others—publicly. Now you may agree that it is a private affair –our faith. 

So why is this a problem?

 Where the practice of private faith fails is that its influence is to be seen and heard and lived out in all areas of our life. But the post- modern western world is becoming to be as one of not allowing the invasion of faith in the market place of Ideas anymore.  Here in Australia and the Eurozone and the USA.

The church has faced this opposition time and time before. True as it is, we must fight this battle

 Jesus would have none of this in his day, nor should it be in our modern day.

As one commentator put it, Jesus is not a “religious leader” but Lord of all of life. How can we support that way of thinking in our post-modern world where the Christian faith is being backed increasingly into a corner?  Well, in Luke’s gospel, Simon Peter was brought to his knees pleading over this point. Jesus had borrowed his boat so that He may address the multitudes from near the shore and then told Peter to “put out into deep water and let down your nets for a catch.”  Peter makes a point out to Jesus that is a sadly absurd idea because he had already fished there all night.

This seems to imply that Peter is” the knowledgeable fisherman” and Jesus is “the rabbi.” You do the preaching, I do the fishing is what Peter is saying basically. However Peter obeys, only to find his nets breaking with the catch and the two boats were in danger of sinking.

Like all of us should, then Peter hurries to Jesus’ feet and states, “go away from me, Lord, I am a sinful man.” Thus Jesus is Lord over a thousand hills of cattle and more, is in charge of everything and anything. The whole universe and more is His alone and we are to be His faithful witnesses.

So Lord Jesus over all, for all and in all.

This was written in 2014 and therefore out-dated.

Why Bother?

Perhaps our loves and lives are not our own. Given that thought, we must ask,whose are they, if not our own ?

Who or whose? 

If our lives and loves don't belong to us, then does any of our heart and life belong to us wholly or partially?

Of course, I bristled at that point at the thought thinking, what does that mean? 

I am my own!

 Who would dare to suggest that my life and love doesn't belong to me? My parents gave me life and successfully raised me! So I owe them my first allegiance. My family is made up of siblings and my family of friends is my next obligation.  So where does that leave me? It means that I owe life in a form of familiar hierarchy.  You are highly likely to have that sort of experience as well.

Thank God for that realisation.  Of course, you have already  been aware of that  and acted upon that as well.  Or you may not be fully aware of that that your life and your love are divided between people long ago. Long before you were born. 

( Thank you for reaching this far,  if you are able to read more, then return to read on tomorrow.)

A small recommendation.

Hello, Reader,

I don't often recommend other websites but those who are personally useful.  So if you are willing to give them a try and look see?

Then try the online services of the American Minute.  This is a very brief 1 Minute or less about American ' things' Try it and see.

O' Boy, Brand New!

All things bright and beautiful.  All things  right and true.

God is Investing in you.

Prayer is  much needed for me and you.When all things become in view. Life can begin anew.

A little boy's prayer. 

Borrowed For Monday

 

 

 

John Stonestreet and Shane Morris

Deciding Who’s Better Off Dead   Theologian Stanley Hauerwas once said that “in 100 years, if Christians are people identified as those who do not kill their children or their elderly, we would have been doing something right.” His words are especially prophetic in light of a post-Christian West that has in many ways embraced killing.

This month, the Dutch government implemented a policy that permits terminally ill children up to 12 years old to be euthanized. In other words, young children can now be put to death without consent. Though the new policy is only supposed to apply in exceptional cases of very serious terminal illnesses, limits on assisted suicide never hold. The most obvious example in the world is Canada. In 2021, 10,000 Canadians were killed by physician-assisted suicide, or one out of every 30 Canadian deaths. This explosion in medically assisted deaths led columnist David Brooks to write in The Atlantic that autonomy-based liberalism, the idea that we each own ourselves and get to do whatever we want with our lives, had gone off the rails. He demonstrated with story after story just how quickly and easily “assisted suicide” blurs into involuntary killing. As many have observed, the “right to die” has a pernicious way of becoming a “duty to die.” This deadly logic is embraced across much of Europe, on a scale few appreciate. Back in 2017, CBS ran a celebratory headline announcing that Iceland was on pace to “virtually eliminate Down syndrome.” No cure had been found for the condition, of course. Instead, Iceland had become so effective at eliminating people with Down syndrome through selective abortion that almost none were being born. A study published in the European Journal of Human Genetics found that across Europe, births of children with Down syndrome are now about half what we’d expect. Again, this isn’t because of some miracle cure, but because parents are aborting around half—in some countries as many as 83%—of children diagnosed with Down syndrome in the womb. Usually, those on the political Left cheer assisted suicide, euthanasia, and abortion “rights.” Increasingly, the post-Christian Right is leading the applause. Political researcher and commentator Richard Hanania, for instance, shared this study and praised the results: “Many of the parents go on to have a healthy child instead, or maybe two. So you get just as many lives but more health. There are actually people who think this is a bad thing.” In response, David Harsanyi at The Federalist correctly identified this as the same logic behind eugenics, and asked: “If eugenics is a social good, why stop at Down syndrome? Why not keep having abortions until you get the perfect kid?”   The logic behind the Western war on the weak is simple and sinister. Thousands of human beings are being told, “You’re imperfect, so you’re better off dead, and everyone else is better off without you.” The United States isn’t far behind. According to estimates, around one-third of children with Down syndrome are aborted in this country, and more states are considering legalizing so-called “Medical Assistance in Dying,” even embracing Canada’s misleading label for it. Both the Left and the Right (though not equally so) are susceptible to this idea that some lives are not worth living. Christianity alone, with its idea of the imago Dei, is capable of grounding human dignity for all and reforming societies that view its weaker, older, younger, and disabled members as disposable. If so-called “quality of life” is all that matters, a systematic attempt to define and control “quality” is inevitable. In practice, such systems never become more restrictive about who is considered unworthy of life. The mass graves are eventually dug, though never at the beginning. Even those who manage to escape this deadly new form of eugenics will still hear the message: You’re better off dead. Writing about “The Last Children of Down Syndrome” in The Atlantic in 2020, Sarah Zhang recounted having lunch with a Danish mom whose son has Down syndrome. At one point, the boy saw his mother look up a documentary on her phone with a title translated “Death to Down Syndrome.” In response, the young man “curled into the corner and refused to look at us.” The mom explained, “He reacts because he can read.” To which Zhang replied, “So he’s aware there are people who don’t want people like him to be born?” “Yes,” the mom said. For the sake of the image bearers who are listening and those who will never get the chance, Christians must proclaim a different message. If we don’t, no one will. This Breakpoint was co-authored by Shane Morris. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.

 

 

 

Opposite?

A Christian's values are measured by transcendent norms of eternal significance.

An atheist's values are measured by transitory norms of momentary significance. 

Anyone who embarks on a .mission of combining Christianity with Secularism embraces a foolish errand. 

The core of  historical Christianity  cannot be unified with the core of secularism. 

The atheist lives only for the here and now. The Christian lives in the light of the eternal. For the secularist,  life is the moment by moment Embrace of the here and now. Nothing eternal exists nor matters forever.  For the Christian, life is the thought by action Embrace of the Forever. Everything is seen, heard and done with Eternity in mind and heart. 

Christianity includes Eternity.

Atheism includes Momentarism.

However we cannot escape the world in which we all live. We dwell on this planet.  In the past, monks sought to escape from this world. To abandon the world to the immediate. But how do we do that? Wherever we run, the world exists beneath our feet.

What outcome can we achieve by escaping now? Instead we must embrace the world without  embracing its worldliness.

We escape the world by living outside the domain of the ideology of the ' living-in- the- moment.' Our lives are reset by the casting off the old clothes and putting on the new. Contrast the looking- to- heaven  Mind with the only earthly-good Mindset.

Where your treasure is, your heart will be also.