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This is in response to the latest pew Forum news that 57% of evangelicals believe that other "religions" can lead to eternal life, even though the Bible teaches that a relationship with Jesus Christ is the only way.
As long as all religion is mainly thought of as a system for teaching men and women how to behave themselves morally, there can be interfaith discussions of a peaceable nature considering how much common ground we all have in our natural sense of right and wrong. Most religions of the world insist that the way to set things right in the world is for people to work harder at doing it.
But each religion also seeks to explain how and why things got to be the way they are. These explanations deal with spiritual, unscientific things and are therefore regarded by many as myths and unnecessary to what is assumed to be the essential project of getting moral behavior corrected. However, the spiritual explanations of things lay the groundwork for the moral project, set the direction and establish the method of success. They cannot be ignored. Different religions tell different stories. They cannot all be true. Therefore only one of them tells the true story, because the Truth must be revealed to us by God himself.
There is only one religion that teaches the true story, that mankind exists in a hopelessly weakened condition and can only be made whole by repentant appeal to the all powerful Savior of the world who is Jesus Christ, the only wise God. We know He is God and that His Word is True because He is the only religious leader who ever died and rose again to save mankind from enslavement to a wicked, sinful nature. Believing that and understanding how Jesus’ death sets us free from that enslavement is also the world’s only hope of completing the moral project.
I believe in absolute truth! I will not deny it or ignore it even if you kill me for it. But note this, unlike some Muslims who would kill you for disagreeing with them, I will never. I proclaim and defend the truth by persuasion and in the power of Love. I speak boldly because this confused world needs the voice of Truth ringing in their ears! If that is intolerance, it is only intolerant in the same way that nobody would tolerate anyone claiming that 2 + 2 = 5 and using his belief in that to try to get more change at the cash register.
6-29-08
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Are you an optimist? A glass half full kind of person who looks at
things in that positive way instead of the pessimist who complains that
the glass is half empty? Well that's better than nothing. But
consider this: My cup runneth over!
Child of God, The Heavenly father has said of you, "All I have
is yours!"
Apr-04-2008
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I haven’t looked up the classical definitions to know whether what I am going to say matches the original idea. This is my own idea, based on the concept that to be with Christ is to be in heaven, inspired by the thought of one who wrote, "O my Lord Jesus Christ, if I could be in heaven without thee, it would be a hell; and if I could be in hell, and have thee still, it would be a heaven to me, for thou art all the heaven I want."
The first heaven is simply to be born, for Christ formed me in the womb. The second heaven is to be in Christian Community, for the body of Christ is the presence of Christ. The third heaven is to become a true believer, for the spirit of Christ enters my heart. The fourth Heaven is be regularly in the Word and in prayer for this is to be consciously and conscientiously in the presence of the living God. The fifth heaven is to be sanctified and see the character of Christ growing in me. The sixth heaven is to come to maturity and peace that passes understanding so that the rest of life’s trials and tribulations have little or no negative effect on me because I know myself to be with Christ, loved and protected and perfected by His use of hard circumstances. The seventh heaven then, comes after death when every tear is wiped away and I know him as he knows me!
But oh what joy to reflect on the fact that from the very moment of my conception Christ is with me. So I can look back and see that at every moment I have been in some form of heaven, whether or not I appreciated it with full understanding, nevertheless I was there. When by faith I see it and accept it, from that moment I am truly in heaven, as Paul says, “seated with Christ in the heavenlies” and will move on up to glory!
Jan-17-2008
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Thank you Lord for the Promise in Scripture that you would never leave me nor forsake me. Because you have said that I know that you are here now! I can not sense your presence in the manner that I would really like, such as see you or feel your presence tingling in my skin. But the flesh is weak. In my heart, my soul and my mind I KNOW you are here. I am like a blind man sitting in a quiet room with my father. If it is quiet long enough I might be tempted to call out and ask, “Are you still there father?” But if I can remember that you promised you would never leave, then I would never have to ask as long as I trust that you keep your word. I know that you would not even stir to leave the room without letting me know where you were going, and then, you would take me with you! I shall never be alone! Than you, Jesus!
Dec-30-2007
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In conversation with Kathy yesterday, it was brought to my attention that there are not very many smiling preachers in your Bible. There is good news of salvation by grace through faith. That’s great news! But along with it comes the constant need of remembering the spiritual battle in which we live. The happy people are in greater danger of missing this! We prefer to rejoice in the joys of the world that are obvious to the senses of our flesh. But thw Word says, “Rejoice in the Lord.”
If you can be happy knowing that you have no privacy, that you are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses who are watching your every move to see whether you sin or give glory to God, then rejoice! If you can be happy knowing that among those witnesses are demons who work to lure into temptation and invite you to sin, then rejoice! If you can be happy knowing that the flesh in which you live leans more toward sin and corruption so that your natural inclination is to sin and your sense of pleasure and comfort tends to take you away from God, then rejoice!
If you can stand in the armor of God and enjoy the necessity of preparing every day to do spiritual battle then rejoice! If you can face the day knowing that it is filled with enemy assaults designed to kill your faith and destroy your witness then rejoice!
But if all you do with your Christian life is give thanks for God’s blessings and ignore the spiritual facts of your existence on this battle field that needs your constant attention and diligence, then any happiness you exhibit is based on the bliss of ignorance!
But, if as a good soldier, you can stand on the battlefield, prepared, trained, practiced in the swordsmanship of prayer, confident of victory not by might, nor by power but by the Spirit of the Living God, then you have every good reason to rejoice! If you can engage in the battle, fearlessly and boldly assaulting the gates of hell by whatever means of loving service and compassionate ministry, with words of Truth, knowing that God will guide and bring victory, even if personally you suffer wounds along the way through whatever sacrifices and efforts you make, then by all means, REJOICE IN THE LORD! And again I say rejoice! For your happiness is based on the true circumstances of the situation, which are that though you are hard pressed and all the evil forces of this world may be arrayed against you, yet none of them will prevail or have victory over any of those whose confidence is in the Lord’s power to save!
Now at the end of this essay, if you understand and smile with rejoicing, then you have the Spirit of the Lord and the joy that comes from knowing whose you are. But if mentioning all the spiritual forces arrayed to bring you down do in fact bring you down, then you are thinking with your flesh, just like Peter did when the water began to take him down because he looked away from Jesus. Peter rejoiced when the Lord lifted him up! Though the he was still out there on the water the Lord sustained him to walk where no man walked before and that must have brought him joy, joy to be alive even though he was still surrounded by the fearsome waves. Joy to be safe in the arms of Jesus! Rejoice in the Lord, not in the world.
Lord today I see myself as a tiny ember, with a mere flicker of a glow from holy fire. I could so easily be snuffed out. The powers of hell would not need to send more than the merest wisp of a demon to flick his finger at me and I would be gone in a puff of smoke. And I exist at the bottom of a wet and slimy pit, with piles of deep black smoke depriving me of oxygen. Yet the flame burns on! For it is your Holy Fire! Your Holy Spirit in me can not be quenched! I can be aware of both of these positive and negative elements in my environment. My mood for the day depends entirely upon which I fix my gaze.
Like Peter walking on the water toward Jesus, the only thing that tried to drown him was everything in the world, wind and waves and gravity and storm! When he observed all this he felt he would drown and began to go down. But there was one “small” thing in his environment that worked against all the terrible destructive environment. The only thing there was to save him appeared as one small man in the midst of all the enormous world.
Jesus and His power to save were there to counteract all the terrible forces amassed against him. As Peter focused on Jesus, nothing else mattered! It truly was as if all the matter, all the material forces arrayed against Peter that sought to bring him down were as nothing! They had no impact, no effect at all upon Peter while Peter allowed Jesus to have his effect on Peter!
In the same way, because of Jesus, because of the Holy Spirit in me, because of the armor of God covering me, I can stand up to anything! Even if all the forces of hell were arranged against me to snuff me out, they could not prevail. With the power of God in my heart, nothing else matters!!! Therefore God is glorified as I stand and give thanks, even from the bottom of the deepest, darkest, wettest, most suffocating pit of hell. For Satan is confounded by the power of God to sustain faith in one so oppressed! Thanks be to God! And further thanks is yet due. For I enjoy many blessing of wealth and health. I live on a high plain of prosperity compared to many of my more oppressed brothers and sisters in this world. There are far worse places to be than where I am. God is good!! Thanks be to God!
The value of unanswered prayer Gregory Du Bois Nov-09-2007
Do you bribe us with prayer, O Lord? Do you love our company so much that you put up with the foolish baby ways we come to you, just so we come to you? You do not answer prayer just because we ask it, but seek to teach us prayer because we try to pray whether you teach us or not. It is we who are needy! We can not help but pray! Even atheists pray! They have desires like the rest of us. They have yearnings and wishes. Only for some reason they deny or don’t know the ONE to whom they can take their prayers and learn to pray aright. And those like me, who know to whom we are praying, when we start out we do not ask aright or we do not know what we are asking.
Perseverance is so key! If we give up on prayer too quickly, we will believe that you do not or can not answer prayer, or worse do not love us or are not there. We will draw these false conclusions from of our disappointment. You do not bribe us with prayer. Our needs require that we seek you out in prayer, for only you can satisfy! And along the way you meet one need we did not even know we have. We need to learn how to pray, and by unanswered prayer, with perseverance, you meet that greater need, the need to know more deeply and intimately myself and my sinful desires and my Savior, who answers prayers.
© 2009
Welcome to my blog! Gregory Du Bois Jul-04-2007
This is where I will occassionally jot down odd little thoughts, concerns and prayers. I have tried to keep journaling blogs on real blog sites, but I write in this manner so infrequently they sometimes disappear due to lack of activity. So I will keep this simple one to practice and play with.
For what is believed to be a first in history,
the U.S. Senate will, on July 12, be opened with a Hindu prayer. My thoughts on this event.
My concern is not to clamp down on any thing unChristian done by non-Christians. Freedom of religion in our constitution permits prayers to be expressed from any faith. My concern is with the failure of the Christian church to be Christian enough in building the kingdom of God.
Our founding fathers seemed to understand that this nation would only survive under Godly leadership. Theologically we know that only Christian are properly Godly, having right relationship with the one true God. But there are not enough truly Godly Christians pursuing leadership through government. Thus, other ungodly people will step in and take over.
The fault lies not in our current administrative branches of government. They are following the laws of the land when they permit a Hindu prayer. The fault lies with the Church, and each of its members, idolizing comfort and leisure, and giving up the fight to stay on top of things and offer their services to minister in all kinds of offices.
Many of today's Christians suffer the same kinds of delusions suffered by the Israelites just before their exile: a false sense of security based a measure of prosperity plus the longevity of the Church as an institution. But that institution is fast becoming a merely human thing unless we all turn back to God in fear and repentance.
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