“for the Lord gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding”. Proverbs 2:6
“The Measure of our spirituality is OUR AMAZEMENT at the grace of GOD”.
vvvvv
vvvv
Seek the Lord personally
Stoke or invest in your relationship with your spouse
Forgiveness resolves bitterness and conflict.
My spouse is:
ephesians 5:22
May 6, 2008
Thomas Paine-Atheist? I Think Not:
“It has been the error of schools to teach astronomy, and all the other sciences and subjects of natural philosophy, as accomplishments only; whereas they should be taught theologically, or with reference to the Being who is the Author of them: for all the principles of science are of divine origin. Man cannot make, or invent, or contrive principles; he can only discover them, and he ought to look through the discovery to the Author. When we examine an extraordinary piece of machinery, an astonishing pile of architecture, a well-executed statue, or a highly-finished painting where life and action are imitated, and habit only prevents our mistaking a surface of light and shade for cubical solidity, our ideas are naturally led to think of the extensive genius and talent of the artist. When we study the elements of geometry, we think of Euclid. When we speak of gravitation, we think of Newton. How, then, is it that when we study the works of God in creation, we stop short and do not think of God? It is from the error of the schools in having taught those subjects as accomplishments only and thereby separated the study of them from the Being who is the Author of them. . . . The evil that has resulted from the error of the schools in teaching natural philosophy as an accomplishment only has been that of generating in the pupils a species of atheism. Instead of looking through the works of creation to the Creator Himself, they stop short and employ the knowledge they acquire to create doubts of His existence. They labor with studied ingenuity to ascribe everything they behold to innate properties of matter and jump over all the rest by saying that matter is eternal. And when we speak of looking through nature up to nature’s God, we speak philosophically the same rational language as when we speak of looking through human laws up to the power that ordained them. God is the power of first cause, nature is the law, and matter is the subject acted upon. But infidelity, by ascribing every phenomenon to properties of matter, conceives a system for which it cannot account and yet it pretends to demonstrate.”
Thomas Paine, Life and Writings of Thomas Paine, Daniel Edwin Wheeler, editor (New York: Printed by Vincent Parke and Company, 1908), Vol. 7, pp. 2-8, “The Existence of God,” A Discourse at the Society of Theophilanthropists, Paris.
“..and it came to pass...”.
Marriage God’s Way: Stay together. Outlast your problems!
vvvv
There is a growing movement in the Church that call themselves the "Christian Left" signifying a melding of two opposing ideologies. But I do not understand how, if one has been studying the Bible for very long, one can remain on the Left as a liberal or a Democrat, liberals and Democrats (for the most part, today) being collectivists. Here is what I mean:
Scripture, from beginning to end, is about THE INDIVIDUAL. Individual motivation, the individual heart. God deals with us as individuals, not as a political group, not a government. All the commands are aimed at individuals. Feeding the poor, having compassion on the less fortunate, protecting widows and orphans, being good stewards of his creation, being your brother's keeper, all individual commands on the individual heart. And this verse says quite a lot: "Each one must give as he has made up his mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver." 2 cor. 9:7. Liberals seek to use government to force people to give. Nowhere in scripture does Jesus admonish government to give. He tells us to as individuals. Socialism and Christianity are oxymorons which is why the vast majority of evangelicals begin to understand that individual worth, individual accountability, individual action is a christian imperative and why the majority of Christians become conservatives. Liberalism wars against all of these ideas. I think that when evangelicals sweep every vestige of politics from their lives and give their all to God they realize that conservatism, which deals with the individual, fits their faith. Our faith informs our politics, not the other way around. One can remain a Democrat (as they are defined today) but then God does not become the focus of one's faith; ISSUES become the focus of one's faith and then that person seeks to coerce others to act in the interest of their issues through government and that is clearly not scriptural. The question isn't "how would Jesus vote", the question is "how will God deal with me"? and then "how can I act to do His will"?
And another thing....Jesus did NOT come as a political activist to bring “social justice” to a political regime. He came to bring SALVATION TO THE INDIVIDUAL HEART!
When you embrace the reality that God seeks your individual response, big government which forces others to do his will, becomes odious. ~Deane Pradzinski
Happiness keeps You Sweet,
Trials keep You Strong,
Sorrows keep You Human,
Life keeps You Humble!
Success keeps You Glowing,
But Only God keeps You Going!
vvvv
The War on Common Sense
By AWR Hawkins
While much of the precise scientific work that goes into teleological writing and evaluation is beyond those of us who lack a mind gifted for such thought, the basics of teleology are ingrained in each and every man and are present through common sense. The Apostle Paul said as much with these words: "For what can be known about God is plain to [men], because God has shown it to them." (Romans 1:19, ESV) Paul was simply re-stating a truth that others before him had set forth at various times and in various ways: namely, that the natural world points beyond itself to a first cause, or Designer, and that this witness "in the things that have been made" is so evident that the man who rejects it is "without excuse." (Romans 1:20, ESV)
In approximately 1000 B.C., Israel's King David wrote, "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge." (Psalm 19:1-2, ESV) This knowledge, identified by Paul and King David among others, appeals to the consciences of men through the faculty of common sense: it is not esoteric but plain to all, even to those who suppress it. (Romans 1:18, ESV) One of the chief reasons why the Left wars against common sense is because they wish to extinguish our innate ability to intellectually comprehend the fact that nature is pointing beyond itself to a Designer. And this is because the existence of a Designer is an anathema to ideological vehicles like communism, socialism, and humanism and Darwinism.
Sadly, however, college students are not the only persons whom the Left is affecting with its war on common sense. Our society as a whole seems to have accepted the mental framework which holds as a maxim the idea that we are not allowed to know what we know; rather, we are only allowed to know what we are told. As a result of this, although common, decent, everyday people see their beloved culture eroding and intuitively sense that something is not right..... READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE....
The Faithful Go To Church, The Rest Go To Therapy
At the very heart of the Christian way of life is the belief that we individual Christians, no matter what our faith, can best effect society with gentle nudges towards God by living a Christ-like life the best we possibly can, while recognizing at the same time that there has in fact only ever been one real Christian to walk the Earth - Jesus. We’re not capable of that kind of perfection. We know this. We are merely asked to try.
Secularists don’t know that simple fact about faith and feel threatened by their own ignorance, which quickly spirals into enmity as a defense against what they deeply fear is the truth. After all, Pride is what made the Devil. And the Devil’s main goal is your total separation from any kind of relationship with God, which can easily be described as anxiety, loneliness, fear, panic attacks, suicide…anything to get you away from sincerely trying to follow God. In other words, people of faith go to church while secularists go to therapy.
To quote C.S. Lewis, my favorite atheist convert, “Christianity has not been tried and found false — it’s been tried and found too difficult.”
Indeed.
Secularists throw their hands up and give in to “humanity” instantly, under the guise that urges and desires must be completely natural (which they are) and are therefore just fine to enjoy with wild abandon (which they are not). They do not understand that resisting is the real road to that spiritual Utopia we’re always striving for.
We Christians know all to well that we are human and that sin drives a wedge between us and God. No you’re not “going straight to hell” because you happen to sit in a hotel room with a steady diet of hookers and drugs between movie shoots. Although you may wind up in jail at the hands of your fellow Man, what that behavior will really do is gently and pleasurably separate you from knowing God.
(this brought tears to my eyes! How awesome is He!)
“I would like to buy three dollars’ worth of God, please. Not enough to explore my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine. I don’t want enough God to make me love an Indian or pick beets with a migrant. I want ecstasy, not transformation. I want the warmth of the womb, not a new birth. I want a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack. I would like to buy three dollars’ worth of God please.”
