Thursday, November 17, 2011

Your feelings vs. God's Word

Christians have a problem the world over.

The problem, is that somewhere along the line, many of us have decided that what we feel about what the Bible says is more important than what the Bible actually says. Really?

Many Pastors will have you believe that you must interpret the Bible in order to make sense of it. Even worse, they'll also tell you that you should be "applying the Bible to your life". Really?

a) If you interpret the Bible, you'll never know what God has to say, only how you feel about it.
 
b) If you sit there and turn the Bible into a "self help book", you've just exchanged the Bible from "that which speaks of Christ" into "a set of patterns and rules" that will bring you to salvation.

Someone I know likes to say, "If you can learn how to read, the Bible reads like a children's book!" While that may be an oversimplification, he does have a point. If you can learn to stop interpreting everything you read and just read it for what it says, you'll be doing yourself a huge favor.

As for the Bible being a "self help book", Paul tells us that "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast." Do you see what Paul is saying? He's saying (in plain words) that you can not do anything and that your salvation is a gift of God due only to your faith in Him.

So don't wrap yourself up in what I call, "Commandment Worship". Paul tells us that the law is to be a schoolmaster to us, not a RULE BOOK of instructions on what "we can do". The commandments are a great thing to be used as a "moral blueprint" for society, but "religiously following" those commandments is a waste. You can't.

Galatians 3:24-25 (KJV) - Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.

So back to the original issue... Does God care about your feelings? Sure! Any good father would care about their childrens feelings... The thing we must remember though, is no matter how strongly your child feels about something, as a father, you need to be more concerned with the big picture, than whether or not your son or daughter likes your decisions.

So when you apply it to God, it works out the same. God tells us that "His ways are above our ways". What this means, is that no matter what you or I think about any given issue, God's perspective on it is probably different. You can feel as strongly as you want to about: abortion, earthquakes, hurricanes, terrorist acts, wars, or whatever else it is that strikes a nerve, but at the end of the day, if you don't, won't, or can't wrap your head around the single fact that GOD IS IN CONTROL OF EVERYTHING, then you're really setting yourself up for disappointment and even worse, you're setting up everyone who you share your faith with for a life filled with confusion and an endless cycle of them doing it to others too. But from a more immediate concern, you're setting yourself up for constant and continual disappointment, because you're less concerned with GOD'S WILL and more concerned about your own will.

You'll thank me (not that you need to) if you can find a way to just accept the fact that God is in control of all, and how you happen to feel about it is irrelevant. If you think that because I've said that, that I'm uncaring or unkind, then you really don't understand love. While we're told what love is (very clearly I might add) in 1 Corinthians 13, if you don't realize that love (at the heart of the word) means that YOU CARE, then you're missing the point of it all. Just like a parent loves their child enough to prevent them from getting hurt or from sticking a fork in an electrical outlet, I too love you enough, to at least try to warn you of the dangerous paths that you may have set yourself up to walk.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Abortion is Murder!

If you don't understand by now, abortion is murder.

A fetus has a heartbeat by the ripe-old age of 17 DAYS!

It says in Leviticus 17:11 - For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.

At 17 days old, that "baby" is circulating IT'S OWN BLOOD.

I was speaking to a Bishop of a church today and he told me something that wound up being good. It was good, because it reminded me that all of us are fallible! (including myself) He said to me something that should be a reminder as to WHY I tell you in my book, "Never put your Pastor on a pedestal! They're no different than a plumber, a lawyer or a computer repair person. Some of them know what they're doing and some will make your problem worse, because they just don't know what they're doing."

He said to me, "To be honest with you, if my daughter got raped, I'm not sure what I'd tell her to do. I would probably tell her to get an abortion". So I asked him if we could have a discussion about the topic and he refused to hear what God had to say on the matter. He then continued to tell me, "If I came home and found a thief in my house, I've got a gun right here. I would probably shoot him if I found him robbing my home".

To quote my daughter: O_O

Are you kidding me? These are the kinds of things I expect an atheist to say. And more than that, these are the kinds of things that I expect someone who doesn't know the Word of God to say!

In my show tomorrow night, we'll be discussing "Finding a Church". So if you've ever heard your Pastor say something as ridiculous as I heard today, it may be time for you to find a new church. If you're a new Christian or you've had trouble finding a church that you feel called to be at, tonight's show may be just what you need to get you set.


We'll have the chat room open and we'll be taking calls from the audience too. We're also still giving away a signed, numbered pre-release copy of my soon to be released book, "But is it Biblical?" and of course we've also got the book for sale! Be one of the first to have it and place a pre-order today.