Thinking about God, Jesus and The Big Questions

To say that Jeremiah had a difficult life is no understatement. God tasked him with telling the people of Israel what God had to say. Much of it was warnings. Jeremiah did this, but the people wouldn't listen to him. Instead they persecuted him. None of this stopped Jeremiah though. He remained faithful to the Lord and did everything that was required of him. Indeed, he even went what most people would consider above and beyond - he interceded for the people to the Lord as shown in the Bible: Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, look around and take note! Search its squares and see if you can find one person who acts justly and seeks truth— so that I may pardon Jerusalem. Although they say, ‘As the Lord lives’, yet they swear falsely.  O Lord, do your eyes not look for truth? You have struck them, but they felt no anguish; you have consumed them, but they refused to take correction. They have made their faces harder than rock; they have refus

I was reading in the news media about someone who had betrayed someone else. If I had been the victim, I confess I would have had difficulty with keeping my focus on the main thing (God and Jesus). It would have been all too easy to fall into the trap of bitterness and misery in that situation.  Even if I make a conscious effort to rise above the bitterness and misery to keep my focus on God and Jesus, I would still have not liked the person and would have avoided them. Which is OK! Christianity says you should forgive the person, but you need not continue any relationship with them (I talk more about that here ). Your forgiveness is in your heart, between you and God. There is no requirement for you to see the person again or for them to know of your forgiveness. You can cut off contact with them for the sake of your future physical and/or mental health, even if you have forgiven them. Forgiving someone for a specific past event does not equate to you needing to place any trust in the

Some people think that Jesus is just for certain people but not for them. Nothing could be further from the truth! Jesus came for all people. No-one is beyond salvation, no matter what they have said and done in the past, no matter their social standing, no matter how disliked or well-liked they are by others. If they believe in Jesus and repent of their sins, they are saved. Here are some verses that prove that Jesus came for all people . Thus says the Lord God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, I will gather others to them besides those already gathered. Isaiah 56:8 The above verse shows that even those who might consider themselves outcasts, or those who others might consider outcasts, are still gathered to God. Do not let the foreigner joined to the Lord say, ‘The Lord will surely separate me from his people’; and do not let the eunuch say, ‘I am just a dry tree.’ For thus says the Lord: To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths, who choose the things that please me

This past autumn, I was cutting down annual plants which had finished producing and placing them on top of the soil to eventually decompose.  I was rejoicing that this decomposition process would improve the soil. I thought to myself "Decomposition into existing soil improves it so that it is much better than soil that has never been used."  This struck a memory for me of a quote from C.S. Lewis: "For God is not merely mending, not simply restoring a status quo. Redeemed humanity is to be something more glorious than unfallen humanity would have been..." - C.S. Lewis, Miracles 1947, in Chapter 14 "The Grand Miracle". In other words, C.S. Lewis believed that man who is redeemed through the death of Jesus is somehow intrinsically better than unfallen man. I found it a bit easier to see this viewpoint using the gardening analogy. It's not a great analogy, but it was concrete enough to help me. Soil that has never been used is never going to be as good

I know I've covered a bit about forgiveness before; what it is and isn't. But here, I also want to cover more about why and even more importantly, how we should forgive. I have mentioned before that forgiveness forgives someone for a past hurt. It does not require you to have that person in your life again . The person does not necessarily even need to know you have forgiven him or her; that's between you and God. It also does not require you to put any future trust in that person. Here I'd like to cover the motivation for forgiveness. It's simple: we should forgive because God forgave us first. Consider all the sins I've done against heaven; there are countless of those. Because these sins are forgiven via Christ's death on the cross, then surely likewise I should forgive those who have sinned against me. Indeed, the Lord's Prayer says ..."forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us." The word "as" is key here.

Lately, I found myself wondering exactly what I would say to a close friend if I was to explain what the Christian beliefs are.  It is actually pretty simple to explain. God the Creator God is the creator, and created everything in the universe. He also created Heaven. Heaven is a real place, a place of happiness where there is no sickness and no death. The one thing that can separate us from God There is only one thing that can separate us from God: sin. Sin is when we do bad things. God hates sin (he does not hate us , he hates our sin) and does not want to be around it. This is a problem for us, because we all have a sin nature. Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, fell into the temptation of sin. We all have that same nature, so we all sin, even though we try to be good. None of us are perfect. None of us can meet God's standards. A path for us to be saved While this sounds like quite a hopeless situation, it's not, thanks to God. This is why: God made a way fo

Whenever there are times that I don't have the best attitude about life (e.g Monday mornings), I remind myself of the following. Any that have links refer to an experience that you can explore in more detail: I'm alive! I'm on the planet! I'm human, which means I'm one of God's chosen people . Jesus paid the price for my sins already. It's already been paid up. My chains are broken, and I've been set free . Evil has no long-term power over me unless I choose to let it. My chains are broken! I have nothing to lose (except for earthly things which are anyway ephemeral) and I have everything to gain. I need to live accordingly! By the time I've gotten through this checklist of reminders, WOW, I feel like a whole new person all over again. If you found this post interesting, you might also like these related posts on this blog: Straying Blindly Does Reading the Bible and Praying Have Results? Are We Today Those to Whom Much Has Been Given

I realized that it is easy to be straying from God without even being aware of it, which is why I have called this post "Straying blindly." This is what happened to me for a while. I think in a way, this is a lot more insidious that when we knowingly stray. When we knowingly stray, we might not be going to church for awhile, and/or not be praying or reading the Bible daily - not making the time to have a relationship with God. Or perhaps we might be involved in unethical activities. Either way, when these situations happen, we often feel guilty and are aware this is happening. Sometimes we even feel trapped. In any case, in these situations, we know we're straying. However, it can also happen that we are straying without really being aware of it. Like the sheep who thinks the flock is nearby, we might wander off a little further each time, never really realizing that we are away from the Shepherd. In a sense, that is more dangerous because we don't know we have st

Christians believe that this earth (and outer space) are created by God.  In addition to this universe we have managed to detect using physical measurements, there is another Universe, which contains basically everything else that isn't here, such as angels and Heaven.  Our universe is nested within the other Universe. We are a universe within a Universe.  This is not a surprise to Christians, but some atheists find it hard to believe. The difference between the universes: Our universe is enemy-occupied territory (Satan has considerable, but still limited, power on Earth).  Our universe is ephemeral and will not last forever (a really long time, but not forever).  In contrast, the outer Universe is permanent and out there somewhere in it there is a big battle between various heavenly beings over each of our souls (yes, a battle is being fought over us, strange as it may seem).   Some secular themed examples of the concept: This concept of a universe within a Universe, w

Until last night, I was always puzzled by this particular scripture: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God Matthew 5:8 This verse always seemed very generic to me.  What was it really saying, if anything? I figured it had to be saying something important, as these words were spoken directly by Jesus as part of the beatitudes during his famous Sermon on the Mount.  Last night I arrived at the answer, but from the reverse perspective.  I wasn't even thinking about this scripture at the time.  In fact, I had been contemplating the nature of forgiveness.  I had come to the conclusion that forgiving a fellow human is critical for one's relationship with God.  This is because holding onto feelings of anger and resentment will surely cause a barrier to communicating with God.  I realized that if I constantly held anger and resentment toward someone who had hurt me, it was equivalent to saying that I was choosing the negative things involving that person, above G