Reflections on God … Man … Life
Have you ever felt like this: so sickened by the ocean of dishonesty, lack of integrity, and arrogance of the majority of humanity that you just want to seal yourself off from the ugliness of it all? If not for the mercy I’ve received personally from the Lord, and His forgiveness for my own past dishonesty, lack of integrity, and arrogance, I would be tempted to find a nice isolated corner of the world where I could simply let the… Read more »
Writing to his friend Arthur Greeves in 1933, C. S. Lewis offered these thoughts on the nature of good and evil: I think one may be quite rid of the old haunting suspicion—which raises its head in every temptation—that there is something else than God—some other country . . . into which He forbids us to trespass—some kind of delight wh. He “doesn’t appreciate” or just chooses to forbid, but which wd. be real delight if only we were allowed… Read more »
Our outward actions are extremely important, but when the Lord looks at those actions, He goes deeper and sees the intent of the heart. Sometimes, the outward actions of two individuals may be exactly the same, but the intent of the heart completely different. One may be honoring God by his actions while someone else doing the very same thing may be sinning. Here’s how Charles Finney explains it further: A student labors to get wages, to purchase books, to… Read more »
Item The New Mexico Supreme Court rules that a Christian photographer who didn’t want to photograph a homosexual wedding has to do so. Her faith was not as important as the right of the couple to force her to be their photographer. Her faith has to accommodate to their wishes because anti-discrimination is more essential than religious liberty. Item A bakery in Oregon refuses to bake a cake for a homosexual wedding. The business now faces an anti-discrimination lawsuit. Item… Read more »
Charles Finney takes aim in his Revival Lectures on the imperfect and incomplete way in which we often deal with sin. We tend to generalize and gloss over the immensity of our sinful hearts and the actions that flow from those hearts. Here’s the instruction he gives, and I think he’s on the right track: If you mean to break up the fallow ground of your hearts, you must begin by looking at your hearts: examine and note the state… Read more »
Man, in his sinfulness, will go to any length to excuse himself for what he has become. One of the favorite hobbies of modern man is to push the blame for the problems of the world onto God. In his essay, “God in the Dock,” C. S. Lewis describes this attitude: The ancient man approached God (or even the gods) as the accused person approaches his judge. For the modern man the roles are reversed. He is the judge; God… Read more »
The last couple days I’ve extolled Christian higher education. I believe in it with a whole heart. Yet that doesn’t mean there aren’t problems. In fact, a battle royal is currently waging for the soul of the Christian college and university. Let me comment on that today. Where does one receive a doctoral degree? Overwhelmingly, if you attain a doctorate, you’ve gotten it from a non-Christian university. Relatively few doctoral programs exist within evangelical Christian universities. I, for instance, have… Read more »