Thinking about God, Jesus and The Big Questions

This question had puzzled me for a long time. If Solomon was the wisest man who ever lived, why did he later stray from God? Surely being so wise, he could see that it was important to be close to God? Luckily, our pastor happened to work this question into a sermon.  Yes, Solomon was wise, but he was human just like the rest of us. All of us are temped to stray away from God. And all of us are able to resist that temptation - when we ask for help from God. In fact, the question of why Solomon strayed from God is not even the right question. In reality, we should be asking ourselves "If Solomon is so wise yet strayed from God, then how do we, as less wise people, avoid straying from God?" It is clear from the Bible that Solomon did not wake up one day and say "OK, from now on I'll disobey God." It wasn't sudden like that. It was a gradual slow ignoring of God, by degrees. He married wives who followed other gods, which influenced his views gradually. This w...

If we read the Old Testament, we can see many examples of the Israelites disobeying God. God tells them not to do something, and they do it. Or He tells them to do something, and they don't do it. We feel like saying "Just listen to God!" It seems so simple to see what the right thing is to do. But we are also disobeying exactly as they are. Even if we don't have the voice of God speaking to us directly, or through the prophets, we still have the voice of God from the Bible. It makes it clear what God likes to see us do. Yet we too have the same struggles to do this. All too often we give into laziness or selfishness instead of doing what God wants.  This problem is expressed most clearly in the New Testament in Galatians: For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want.  Galatians 5:17  If someone who wasn't human (for example, an...

I've written before about why we should still enjoy today even when we know there is a difficult time coming up . Here is another way of looking at the same thing. Suppose someone nice gave you a glass of delicious lemonade every day. Then you learned that a mean person was going to take away one of those lemonades next week and leave you a glass of horrible-tasting kale juice that day instead. Suppose that you were so worried about the kale juice that you just couldn't enjoy today's lemonade, or tomorrow's either. In fact, you weren't planning on enjoying any of the lemonade until after the kale juice day had been and gone. Isn't that a little bit ridiculous? The lemonade is still being given to you by someone who loves you, so why not enjoy it on the days that it is there? On the kale juice day, sure, you don't need to be excited about the kale juice. But don't let the actions of a mean person stop you from enjoying the gift a good person has given to ...

Even though he is the Son of God, Jesus in human form still had human emotions. He was not a robot! He suffered terribly during his crucifixion. In this post though, I'm not going to focus on the suffering that he had then (as important as it is). We're going to take a look at how and when he anticipated this bad time ahead. In a previous post , I pointed out that Jesus did not just curl into a ball and give up on his ministry days, even though he surely had some inkling that he had to go through a very bad time at some point in the future. He carried out his ministry, teaching and healing people, right up until the end. The part I want to focus on is the night immediately before his arrest. He was distressed at what was to come. The Bible says: And they went to a place called Gethsemane. And he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” And he took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be greatly distressed and troubled. And he said to them, “My soul is ...

It often seems so easy to fall into making a bad decision. Even if we know it's something we shouldn't do (e.g. having extra helpings of dessert when we're not truly hungry), it seems so tempting to say yes. I know I struggle with this sort of thing, and it seems easy to justify falling into temptation, especially with the dessert example ("I'm not hurting anyone, after all", I'd tell myself.) Finally, I heard something at church that made sense to me. The pastor said something which I'll paraphrase here: "Better not to fall into the temptation. You'll wind up with a bit of regret at not doing the tempting activity, but it's at least better than to fall into the temptation and wind up with regret at doing it - plus guilt." This is true: it's a small amount of regret on one hand, weighed against a larger amount of regret PLUS guilt on the other hand. When I phrase it like that, it makes it much easier for me to say no to ...

I was recently reading the book of Kings, and noticed the kingdoms of Israel and Judah frequently and repeatedly disobeyed God. Even though they had the information they needed of what was pleasing to God and what was not, they repeatedly went against God's wishes. This disobedience involved things that were against the ten commandments, like worshipping other gods. At first, I wondered why His people would do this, period. Then I wondered why they would do it, after all that He had done for them, and after all the covenants he had made with them. Reading these passages of the Bible, I felt like an audience member watching a play and saying "no, don't do that! Don't do it! That's a really bad idea! God even said not to do it." But yet, I should not be surprised, when I'm disobedient myself! I'm not any better than them. I could equally well say to myself "No, you know that's not a good idea!" Knowing the theory and putting into pr...

Many of us have a tendency to worry about worst-case scenarios, most of which may never even happen. I have my own struggles with this.  Recently, it was revealed to me that this behavior is just like that of the unfaithful servant in the parable of the talents. Let's take a look at the parable: “For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents. In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents. But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you ...

God gave us life in abundance. He knows and we also know that there will be problems facing us at times. Even though God is good, sadly we do have problems, due to the fallen nature of this world: specifically arising from a) Satan's actions to oppress us and b) other people's actions who may be acting to our detriment. Another possibility too is c) problems we have created through our own actions. The aim here isn't to assign blame  - the aim is to point out that no matter what, we will have some problems facing us at many points in our life, maybe even throughout our lives on Earth. Now, that may seem depressing, but the good news is that we can be happy, even when facing upcoming problems! Here we'll find out how. Note: by all means ask God for discernment and guidance when facing such problems. He may show you a path, a way to fix this problem. If it's the sort of problem you literally have no control over, then worrying isn't going to help - by all ...

These last few weeks at church we've been learning about healing, and how in order to be healed through faith we must never embrace sickness, for it is very dangerous. This means instead of saying " my headaches" we should say " the headaches". We also should not pray to God asking him to cure the sickness. We can do that, but it's not what will get us results. What will get us results is having authority for the healing in the name of Jesus. Just like the apostles, we too can cast out sickness from ourselves, but we should remember the healing happens only in the name of Jesus (i.e. not by our own name). It is the Holy Spirit that provides this healing. Jesus did not ask God to heal people, nor did the apostles. We need to use that same delegated power. The power is from God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit; we simply use that power from them to provide the healing. But it is much harder for healing to occur when the person has claimed (i.e. embraced) the...

I think that one of the reasons that the Jewish leaders did not recognize Jesus as Messiah was that they simply didn't expect that it would happen during their days. This sort of thing was to be so special that surely it could not have been for their day and age.... could it? And yet it was. But because they did not consider that possibility, they dismissed Jesus as a scoundrel and heretic. But be warned: Jesus will be coming again: “So when you see the desolating sacrilege standing in the holy place, as was spoken of by the prophet Daniel (let the reader understand), then those in Judea must flee to the mountains; the one on the housetop must not go down to take what is in the house; the one in the field must not turn back to get a coat. Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing infants in those days! Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a sabbath. For at that time there will be great suffering, such as has not been from the beginning of the worl...

I am sure I am not the only one that has struggled a lot with worries and negativity (and still do).  I have been reading the devotional of "The Battlefield of the Mind" by Joyce Meyer over the past few weeks. This has helped me a lot. Certainly, reading the Bible is incredibly helpful in a general sense, but I have also felt immensely helped by Joyce Meyer's book for that specific problem of the battlefield of the mind. In that devotional, I learned that it is deceptively easy for us to get tricked by Satan into turning our attention away from God and into the worries of the world. Sometimes this can even happen due to good intentions on our part, e.g. a desire to empathize and be compassionate. However, if we are not careful, we can all too easily become distracted with all of the negative things that are happening around us, without any thought for a) God and Jesus, or b) any of the positive things that are also happening. Now I realize that God never meant for us ...

Every Christmas season, I reflect on the great faith of Mary. She was told by the angel Gabriel that she was to bear Jesus. In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?”  The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon y...

No. According to the Bible, there is nothing there about an alien invasion. You can read more about End of Times in other posts , and there is nothing to indicate an alien invasion. So, if you've watched Stranger Things or other shows like that, then no, our world will not end with an invasion of the type hinted at there. However, there is one particular area which could suggest the presence of a single alien entity (as opposed to an invasion). This is the emergence of a new ruler at the End of Days as written in Revelation; one which tries to make it compulsory to have the Mark of the Beast on all humans. Read here for why you must never, ever, agree to receive the mark of the beast , no matter how tempted you may be. Where does the possibility of an alien come in? It's because this leader is succeeded by second leader, whose identity not made completely clear in the Bible. Let's see what Revelation has to say about this: Then I saw another beast that rose out of the...

When serving in some volunteer capacity as I do at the church, I occasionally have hurt feelings or feelings of conflict if someone has a criticism toward me that is not worded in a constructive or loving manner. To be fair to my church family, this is a rare and unusual occurrence, but when it happens it can feel jarring to me. In this situation it is all too easy to get take it too personally and have negative feelings - whether toward the other person, the church, the volunteer role itself, or whatever. That is a trap that Satan would love for us to fall into. Instead, we need to remind ourselves that when we are serving in any capacity, we are there to serve the Lord as best as we can. We are not there to control everyone else's reaction to our serving role!  If we keep the focus on the fact of our serving role, and on God, that is going to be a lot better than focusing on what others think of us or of our own hurt feelings. But it is all too easy to wind up wit...

I was reading a little bit about spiritual warfare. Spiritual warfare is about using God's love to resist evil. It is not about using physical weapons, nor is it about harming anyone or initiating combat. The instruments of spiritual warfare are those of peace, and are described in the Bible as follows: Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Ephesians 6:13-17 Therefore, spiritual warfare involves using the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the g...

A period of worldwide suffering will occur at the End of Days just prior to the return of Jesus.  This suffering is due at least in part to oppressive governance that will occur here on earth and a dire economic situation  at that time.  Yet, there will be plenty of physical suffering that is additional to this.  Just a few of the many Bible verses describing the end of days say: Another horse came out, a red one.  Its rider was given the power to bring war on the earth, so that people would kill each other.  He was given a large sword. Revelation 6:4 I looked, and there was a pale-colored horse.  Its rider was named Death, and Hades followed close behind.  They were given authority over a quarter of the earth, to kill by means of war, famine, disease and wild animals. Revelation 6:8 Then those who are in Judea must run away to the hills.  Someone who is on the roof of a house must not take the time to go down and get any belongings ...

God is stronger than anything else in the universe.  Therefore, He is capable of vanquishing Satan.  In that case, why doesn't God just kill Satan to abolish evil and temptation?  As a little girl I used to wonder about this.  After reading the Bible, it became clear how much God values Free Will.  He values it so much he even lets Satan, his enemy, have it ( see my earlier post here about Free Will and why it's important).  Therefore, although God has the power of killing Satan, he chooses not to use it. C.S. Lewis adds a corollary to this observation: he indicates that God chooses not to kill Satan for now.  He writes: "Why is God landing in this enemy-occupied world* in disguise and starting a sort of secret society to undermine the devil? Why is He not landing in force, invading it?  Is it that He is not strong enough?  Well, Christians think He is going to land in force; we do not know when.  But we can guess why He is delaying....

When I was a schoolgirl, a friend of mine remarked "God only knows what would have happened if Adam and Eve had not eaten from the forbidden tree."  I still think this is very true.  Before reading the Bible, I used to get mad at Adam and Eve for snatching away a paradise from us.  Now I realize that attitude is a bit ridiculous, because it implies that I could do better.  When I really asked myself, could I do any better than Adam and Eve? - the asnwer was simple: I don't think so.  To do better than them, I would have to be perfect and resist any and all temptation.  That is not me.  I am an imperfect human being, a sinner.  Furthermore, to do better than Adam and Eve, I would need to resist eating from the forbidden tree for my whole life.  The temptation wouldn't just be a one-time test.  After thinking about it, I realized I almost certainly wouldn't be any better than Adam and Eve at resisting temptation.  To tak...

The church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum of saints All too frequently, organized religion (i.e. a church) can seem pointless and boring.  I certainly found it this way before I started reading the Bible.  Often, the lack of interest in church may be caused by one of two main things: 1. The person has had a bad experience previously in organized religion 2. The person feels uncomfortable about realizing that they are a sinner In the case of the first problem, it is quite possible that differences in Christian denominations has confused the person.  It is confusing!  It is important to go to a church whose teachings are in line with the Bible.  Identifying such a church oneself does require a) attending a church and b) reading the Bible. In the case of the second problem, that isn't actually a problem at all for attending church.  All of us are sinners.  It is as simple as that. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of G...