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The Search for Joy
Different foci on living have attracted mankind’s (man’s) attention over the years. Political, religious, and economical perspectives have all taken a turn in being primary for man. The political man emphasized ruling, the religious man emphasized religion, and the economic man emphasized status, wealth, and success. However, in recent decades, the psychological man seems to dominate the perspective of the Western society. Part of the psychological perspective includes self-interest and pursuit of happiness. Man chases after what will make him happy. The world’s search for happiness includes possessions, honor, and wealth which according to Ecclesiastes 6:2 is a gift from God. Man can easily exceed the just, usual, and fond…
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Imagine There’s No Lennon
“Imagine there’s no heaven. It’s easy if you try. No hell below us, above us only sky…” I find the above one of the saddest thoughts ever put to music. Unfortunately this song has become the Humanist theme song. At the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic and shutdown, a bunch of celebrities decided to sing this song acapella and share it with the world… for some reason. Why? It is a melancholy, hopeless song… at least on the surface. And John Lennon is dead. Imagine there is no heaven, no place where people finally find rest from a life of toil and struggle, pain and sorrow. Imagine there is nothing…
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Rebellion and Exponential Evil
“For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but threw them into hell and locked them up in chains in utter darkness, to be kept until the judgment, and if he did not spare the ancient world, but did protect Noah, a herald of righteousness, along with seven others, when God brought a flood on an ungodly world, and if he turned to ashes the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah when he condemned them to destruction, having appointed them to serve as an example to future generations of the ungodly, and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man in anguish over the debauched lifestyle of lawless men, (for while…
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Why Our Work Matters to God
“The Christian shoemaker does his duty, not by putting little crosses on the shoes, but by making good shoes, because God is interested in good craftsmanship.” — Martin Luther Work. It greets us at the dawn of each new day. Whether you serve in a church or para-church organization, business community, or at home, much of our life is consumed with work. It causes us to rise early and stay late. It compels us to do more, get better, grow stronger. Occasionally, we sense the glory of work as God intended it. We feel as Eric Liddell did during his Olympic training when…
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Hike Higher into the Heart of God
Humans construct pyramids, compose symphonies, crack quantum physics, cross The Sahara, and crest Everest. Yet the greatest thing we ever do with our lives is entrust them to the person of God. Such entrusting occurs as we hike the mountains of life, encountering Him and relying upon His character. God provides Scripture as a map for the journey, but sometimes we leave it crumpled in our back pockets. We capitulate to culture, affirming human reason and experience as adequate to navigate the mountains. Sometimes we wrongly rely on others and their interpretations of the map—a podcast here, a conference there. We construct our own concepts. Forecasting this, God stakes His…
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“The Confessions of St. Augustine” (A Conservative Christian Goes to College, part 18)
“Whom could I find to reconcile me to you? Was I to seek the help of angels? By what prayer, what sacraments? Many people in their attempts to return to you and not being able to do so by their own strength have, so I hear, tried this way and have fallen into a desire for strange visions and have become, rightly, the victim of delusions…. They were seeking a mediator through whom to become clean, but this was not he. It was the devil” – “The Confessions of St. Augustine”, Book X, Chapter 42.[1] World Religions Class. It was time for our book reviews to be presented in front…
