Thinking about God, Jesus and The Big Questions

One of my favorite verses of the Bible relates to what happens to your prayers. This was about the devout centurion named Cornelius. In this Bible passage, it tells us exactly what happened to the prayers of Cornelius: In Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of the Italian Cohort, as it was called. He was a devout man who feared God with all his household; he gave alms generously to the people and prayed constantly to God. One afternoon at about three o’clock he had a vision in which he clearly saw an angel of God coming in and saying to him, ‘Cornelius.’ He stared at him in terror and said, ‘What is it, Lord?’ He answered, ‘Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God. Now send men to Joppa for a certain Simon who is called Peter; he is lodging with Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the seaside.’ Acts 10: 1-6 In the above passage we can see that his prayers and alms have ascended as a memorial before God. Wow!  That is not only exciting but ...

The Bible is like spiritual food. We need it daily. Although I had been reading the Bible daily for years now, I didn't "see" this analogy to food or exercise until recently. While out on a run, I contemplated how convenient it would be if I could front-end my year's exercise into a big daily run for the first 3 months and then no more exercise for the rest of the year. I realized sadly that exercise simply does not work like this, any more than food does. You can't just eat lots and lots of food early in the year and then stop eating for the rest of the year. The Bible is exactly like food or exercise in that way. You would be hurting your own spiritual health if you just stop reading the Bible, in the same way that you'd be hurting your physical health if you stopped eating or exercising. You would still be physically alive without reading the Bible, but you would miss out on all the benefits of having your own wise counselor right there (God). You would mis...

In the Bible verses about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, God made provision for Lot and his family's safety. This was because God was happy with Lot: he was the only good man in the city. When God decided to destroy these cities, he sent 2 angels to do this. They appeared as normal men, and Lot invited them to stay in his house with him. The angels explained of the destruction that was about to happen, and that Lot's family was to be spared. Here is the Bible passage: With the coming of dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Hurry! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished.” When he hesitated, the men grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and of his two daughters and led them safely out of the city, for the Lord was merciful to them. As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, “Flee for your lives! Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swep...

What are the end time prophesies in the Bible which I most want people to know about? There are 2 very specific prophesies in the Bible whose events can't easily get mistaken for anything else. The first prophecy is that Greece and Iran will go to war, and Greece will win. The second prophecy is that people will need to get a mark on their forehead or right hand in order to buy or sell anything. It's extremely important not to get that mark, since the prophecy in the Bible tells us that it's the mark of the enemy. The mark could be an implantable chip, a bar code tattoo, or some as yet unknown technology. You can read in more detail about the first prophecy, the one from the book of Daniel about Greece and Iran going to war . You can also learn in more detail about the second prophecy, the one from the book of Revelation about the Mark of the Beast . These prophecies are both quite specific and are unlikely to get confused for anything else.  For example, war in general cou...

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 ...

Most people tend to think mainly of the book of Revelation when considering end time prophesies. However, there were also prophesies of end times in the Old Testament which were similar. The prophet Isaiah from the Old Testament had end time prophesies that were consistent with those in the book of Revelation (and in other places of the New Testament). Read Isaiah chapters 19 and 24 for this.  The prophet Daniel, also in the Old Testament, had similar end time prophesies. Read Daniel chapters 7, 8 and 9 for this. Recall that the Bible accurately predicted the fall of Babylon (at the time of its prediction, unthinkable - similar to the idea of a fall of London, Paris or New York). The Bible's predictions are accurate. This consistency between the Old Testament and New Testament means we must take these end time prophesies seriously. I wrote a separate article explaining why at this very moment we are not at the end of days , but this could change suddenly.  When the end times ...

Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, counseled against knee-jerk reactions. Reacting without thinking is not a wise way to live. Here are his sayings on that: Do not be quick to anger, for anger lodges in the bosom of fools. Do not say, ‘Why were the former days better than these?’ For it is not from wisdom that you ask this. Ecclesiastes 7: 9-10  This reminds me to pray, think, and read the Bible when any issue crops up. I'm not good at it - I still get angry quickly when I know that is not the best way. But I am trying, at least. I realize that knee-jerk reactions are literally the enemy of wisdom, as Solomon said. Mental shortcuts like that remove the opportunity to seek God in the middle of this problem. I find it helps me to think "everything is more nuanced than you think it is at first glance", and we do need God's guidance for that. God is the fount of wisdom, so our number one priority should be to seek Him and His solutions, not to give a knee-jer...