Tag: Jesus

Digging in Deeper: Revelation 20:7-8

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“And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle; their number is like the sand of the sea.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Hell is hard.  Perhaps no orthodox Christian doctrine is as difficult for folks to get their hearts and minds around as is the notion that those who finally reject God will, upon final judgment, spend an eternity separated from Him in Hell.  And, I’ll say this as gently as I can: If the doctrine doesn’t give you at least a bit of unease, you may not be paying very much attention to it. Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: Hebrews 4:14-16

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“Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.  For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.  Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

These are some incredibly powerful truths here.  Let’s treat them in order. Read the rest…

A Hellish Problem

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In this third part of our Reasons to Believe series, we spent yesterday morning wrestling with one of the more challenging doctrines of orthodox Christianity: The doctrine of Hell.  In popular imagining for centuries, the idea of Hell has been one of fiery agony stretching on into eternity.  In the modern mind, shaped as it is by tolerance and pluralism, this idea presents a huge impediment to the faith.  We are left with two choices: Reshape the doctrine to fit modern mores, or try to understand it better to see if it doesn’t present us with a stumbling block at all, but rather a reason to believe.  In what follows we aimed for the latter.  Thanks for reading and listening.

 

A Hellish Problem

Well, this morning as we continue our series, Reasons to Believe, we are taking on a challenge.  We’ve already confronted head-on the objections that truth can’t really be known and that the Bible is untrustworthy in terms of revealing anything about God to us.  This morning we are going to take on a challenge that is much more emotional than either of these previous two.  For many folks it is epitomized in the sermons of men of old, kind of like this one: Read the rest…

Morning Musings: Ezekiel 11:19-20

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“And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them.  I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them.  And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

This is one of the great promises of God in the Old Testament.  Apart from Christ, people lack both the will and the ability to pursue a relationship with God.  It’s not just that we want to, but can’t, or even that we are able, but don’t really want it.  We couldn’t do it even if our heart desired it. Read the rest…

Light to Live By

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In part two of our Christmas series, God Moved into the Neighborhood, we begin looking at how the process of transformation unfolds.  Initially, it’s not very comfortable.  In order to fix the system, we first have to see where and how it’s broken.  Keep reading to see how this works and how to overcome the biggest challenge to it happening.

 

Light to Live By

Have you ever gotten unwanted advice before?  Now, probably there are some folks out there who are far more gracious than I am, but usually when I get unwanted advice my first thought is, “Buzz off, Mr. Busy-Body!”  Who’s with me?  There’s just something a little cynical in most of us that thinks, “You know, they probably mess up at this just as much as I do.  They are in no position to be giving me advice.”  But, there is an exception to this rule.  We as a culture are slavishly reliant on the advice of experts.  If we think someone is an expert, we will listen to just about anything they say.  This phenomenon explains how we got shows like Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz.  They were both regular “experts” on Oprah who became popular enough to get their own shows.  And perhaps you’re sitting there thinking, “Well I certainly don’t listen to those quacks!  You can’t really trust anything you see on TV anyway.” Read the rest…