Sorry I have been away so long. I am back now. Tell your friends. Both of them.
Archive Page 2
Here is a series of videos of Ravi Zacharias. What do you think?
part 1
Part 2
Part 3
For those of you interested, here is the blog my wife started.
http://longdaysshortyears.wordpress.com/
It will contain Kays thoughts and pictures of the family.
Pretty sweet huh?
I was at work today, riding in a co-workers car. And I realized that if she had a car seat with a bunny rabbit in it, then her car manufacturer did not recommend putting it in the front seat. But as far as I know she is free to put one in the back. I took a picture and posted here for verification.
Careful with your rabbits out there.
Statement: Judging people is wrong, we know this from Luke 6:37: “Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven;”
Question: Is Jesus really telling us not to look at other peoples actions and hold them to a standard
Answer: Yes and No.
If you take the whole of scripture, it is obvious that Christians are to hold other Christians to the standards set forth in the New Testament, and to “keep” their brothers and sisters from staying in sin. We can take a look at a few references for verification.
“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.” -Matthew 18:15-17
“Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ”. -Galatians 6:1-2
For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.” – 1 Corinthians 5:12-13
So with these scriptures in mind, what do we do with Christ’s words in Luke? Don’t Judge in Luke 6, but in Matthew 18, 1 Corinthians 5, and Galatians 6 we are to judge? Is this where we say “the bible just contradicts itself, its not to be trusted?” I don’t think that’s what’s going on here and as we read further on in the teaching I think we see clearly what Jesus was getting at:.
He also told them a parable: “Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit? A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye.”
And by doing this we are not holding other people up to a standard that we don’t hold ourselves up to, going back to the hypocrisypoint. No, done properly with the right motives, this is a corporate act of worship.
When we look at what He says about the blind leading the blind, we begin to see the meaning. Jesus assumes we do not think it a good thing to let blind people fall in holes. In the same turn, we do not leave specks in other peoples eyes. But what Jesus is really warning us about here is hypocrisy. As Christians we are to be introspective (meaning we are to be judging and assessing ourselves) before we look at others and “guide” them back. When we are introspective and we go to others who are perhaps caught in sin, we are probably more likely to be loving towards them. We can empathize, not being perfect beings ourselves.
Things at work at crazy right now. My main struggle is to get into scripture with Kay on a regular basis. I come home and just want to mimic a comatose patient. But that’s not good for the spiritual well being for the home life, since I am technically in charge of that. So any prayers you can lift up for me will be much appreciated.
Lets see, what else is going on…..
I found this article on John Piper’s website about GK Chesterton. Let me tell you about him. He is British. He is Catholic. He is dead. But what he did do while he was still alive was write a book that profoundly effected me at the time, and still does to this day. It effected me because I was an Arminian. If you don’t know what that is, don’t worry, Microsoft Word does not either because it is putting the red squiggly lines under the word. Lets try this: transubstantiation……nope it knew what that was. I see Protestants did not write Microsoft Word. Any way the name of the book was “Orthodoxy”. It was great because one aspect of Chesterton was that he was not a Calvinist (weird, no squiggly lines for Calvinism) and he uses portions of the book to argue against it.
Ironically, now I am a Calvinist and I still think the book is worth reading. You can still learn some good things, like “common knowledge” often times is in error. And He really forces you to think about things from angles you never did before.
John Piper scares me sometimes because His story of how he came into the doctrine of election is eerily similar to mine. Here is the link to his article here. And let me recommend you reading Orthodoxy too, but I warn you: ITS HEAVY, and you will probably need a dictionary.
So Jesus is teaching in a crowded building, and a paralyzed man was trying to get to Him. Apparently he had some friends that wanted to help out lowered him through the roof so he could get to Him. The building was apparently crowded. Jesus saw the paralyzed man and what do you think He did? He didn’t do exactly what I would of thought He would do.
Friend your sins are forgiven you” –Luke 5:20. I thought He would of said something to the effect of “your healed” or “walk”, which he does later on in the story. But the interesting thing is that He does not go straight for that. I think what he does is address the man’s primary problem, and that’s not the paralysis, but his sin.
The Pharisees start to reason among themselves that only God can forgive sins. Jesus being aware of all this says “Why are you reasoning in your hearts? Which is easier to say, ‘Your sins have been forgiven’ or to say ‘Get up and walk’? But, so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, -He said to the paralytic- I say to you get up, and pick up your stretcher and go home.” –Luke 5:22-25
Christ was very merciful when he healed the sick, raised the dead and provided food for thousands out of a couple baskets. But the reason Jesus gives in this passage for healing the paralytic is so we would know that he had authority from God to forgive sins. So one could say the man’s sins were forgiven for his sake, he was healed for our sake, and it was all for the glory of God.
When I was a younger believer I thought the miracles were primarily for the good of the person. And although Jesus showed mercy and compassion in the miracles, the people were not the primary reason for the miracles. The reason for Christ birth, life, death and resurrection, were all for the Glory of His Father. We (namely the recipients of the miracles, and I take being born again as a miracle) were secondary reasons for why he did the miracles, and every other thing Christ did while on earth.
The cross fits in to this category also. I will now steal from John Piper: Take the cross of Christ, for example. The death of Jesus Christ is the ultimate expression of divine love: “God demonstrates his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Yet the Bible also says that the aim of the death of Christ was “to demonstrate [God's] righteousness, because in the forbearance of God he passed over the sins previously committed” (Romans 3:25).
So I am still going thru Luke, and in Chapter 4 I read the part where Jesus was tempted by the Devil. The last section caught my eye because of a discussion me and some other guys are having about how the Old Testament scriptures are used in the New. And strangely enough it was Satan who was quoting the OT to Jesus. That’s kind of funny if you think of it.
He took him to Jerusalem and sat him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written ‘He will command His angels concerning you, to guard you’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone’ -Luke 4:9-11
What I noticed here was that Satan interpreted those verses correctly. If you go back and read the Psalm he is quoting, it is talking about the person who “dwells in the shelter of the most high” -well that would certainly describe Christ. Jesus does correct him though, but not the interpretation, but the application
And Jesus answered him, “It is said, you shall not put the Lord God to the test”. -Luke 4:12
One thing we can learn here is that you can correctly interpret a piece of scripture and then totally mess up (intentionally or not) how that verse should effect your actions.
Awhile back I learned one of the most effective ways of studying scripture. You use scripture to understand scripture. God gives us many truths in the Bible and it always assumes you understand the whole picture. So when it says in Matthew 6 that God will provide for you it does not mean you should be lazy and not work and thus violate 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12. Maybe confusion with evangelism and the sovereignty of God has something to do with this concept?
OK here is a story as best as I remember it. It’s a story about Gods grace in the life of a Sudanese woman named Alice. Alice was caught up in the fighting going on over there and was in one of the prison camps. She witnessed and experienced things that 
I will probably never experience my self. You can probably look up things going on in Darfur and get a good idea as to what went on. Well things got so bad, that she decided the best thing to do was to try to escape and hope she was killed in the attempt. Well she was not caught, and made it all the way to Egypt. In Egypt she met a Christian family that helped her get to America (at some point she became a Christian, at which point I do not know). In America she met the person who eventually told me this story.
That person was a nurse and eventually became Alice’s nurse. I didn’t want to use her name because I didn’t know how she would feel about that. But if she is reading this I would lover for her to add or subtract from the story as needed. Well Alice was eventually told that she had a terminal illness and was going to die. The remarkable thing was that she didn’t cry when they told her. In all of her circumstances, the Sudan and the illness, her faith did not waiver. She was known for her good attitude and just being happy. Alice passed away at the age of 30. She had been gone for 2 hours when her nurse saw her body. She had a smile on her face.
Praise God who gave Alice a faith that overcame her circumstances and allowed her to be happy with Christ alone.
“In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ; and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls.” -1 Peter 1:6-9
