But, it doesn't make sense....

Acting in faith doesn’t always make sense. But, it’s more important to step out in obedience than for it all to make sense.

The Lord told Joshua that He has given them the city of Jericho. But then, the Lord told Joshua some strange instructions, march around the city once a day for 6 days, and then on the 7th day, with your priests blowing the horns and on the final horn blast, all of Israel is to shout – then the walls will fall down. Joshua stepped (with all of Israel) in obedience that what the Lord said will work. It didn’t make sense – but making sense isn’t what was important. (Joshua 6:1-17)…Oh, and to mess up things even more – God told them to save the prostitute!

The Lord told Ananias to go see a man that needed to receive a mighty touch from the Lord. Ananias knew who Saul was, questioning the Lord saying that Saul is here to arrest Christians. Even so, he went against everything his head knew about Saul because He trusted that God knew what He was talking about. In doing so, turned one of the worst oppressors of Christians into one of Christianity’s greatest allies. (Acts 9:1-19)

Peter broke Jewish law. He went against every conviction he had previously about meeting with, talking with, and even more so, being in the house of a non-Jew. (Acts 10). Peter even tells Cornelius, “You are aware that it’s against our law for a Jew to associate with a Gentile”..(v28). He goes on to say…BUT…”God has shown me I should not call anyone impure or unclean. So…I came WITHOUT raising ANY OBJECTION.” From this single act of obedience, having faith that God knows what He’s talking about, the Gospel of The Kingdom was opened to all. (That includes you and me).

God knows what He is talking about. Every time. It might not make sense, and that is OK. It is far more important to take the step and act in obedience to what The Lord is telling us to do than it is for us to understand how or even why. (Prov 3:5-6).

If any one of these three didn’t act and do as The Lord was telling them, someone (even you and I) would have missed a blessing – even salvation.

Our God Is Greater

Our God is greater....

I just wanted to share this little clip. Our 2 1/2 year old Gideon, singing his praises to our God!



Bless you today.

How Do You Respond?

This is a re-post of an entry I wrote last February. I thought it might be appropriate in light of all the recent occupy this and that to protest big corporations....and the Tea Party's "down with Government" marches....oh, the richy rich are the top 1% and the other 99% of us are working so hard and living such horrible lives....and the political elite that want to take all your money and your "rights" away. (see John 8:32-36 and 2 Corinthians 3:17 if you are wondering what your rights are).

WHAT?!?! What are we all so concerned about as we sip our Starbucks and chat on our iPad. (well, I don't really like Starbucks that much and I don't have an iPad - but you know what I mean)

Let's just think - where do we fit with the rest of the world's population? How do they see us? How do we see them? How do we treat them? How do you respond?

Approximately 8% of the people in the world have a car....yes, 8%. As of today, October 27, 2011, it is estimated that there are 6.97 billion people on this earth. So, of those people - less than 560,000,000 of them have cars. I know, that still seems like a big number.

So, here's the catch---92% of the people in the world (that's a little more than 6.4 billion) see you driving in your car - no matter the car, and they think "oh...rich".

But, we're good now - becuase we have ethanol fuel that burns cleaner and puts out less pollution that traditional fossil fuels...so, rather than feed all those hungry people with our 72 million acres of corn worth $15 billion in sales - we'll burn it up in our cars and SUV's.....right?

Well, speaking of feeding people....Did you eat today? What did you eat? How many times did you eat? Did you know that roughly 800 million people in the world won't eat at all today? And, probably 300 million of them are kids. Every couple of seconds, someone dies from hunger.

At least 80% of all humanity lives on less than $10 a day. Hey. Go check how much loose change is in your car. Do you remember that 1% of the most elite richy rich people?? Well....about 1% of the world's population live on less than $1 a day.

Roughly 1 billion people in the world don't have any clean water to drink.

Some experts suggest that to supply everyone in the world with clean water, basic health and nutrition would cost something like 20 billion dollars....which is about how much Americans spend in one year.........on ice cream.

Here are some other interesting statistics:

How often throughout scripture are we called to take care of the orphan, the widow, and the poor? I would like to suggest to you that we are called to do that a whole lot more than we are called do to anything else.

For they will know we are Christians by our Love....

Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends....

Now, go and sell all that you have and give your profits to the poor....

For God so loved the world that he gave His one and only Son....

You shall do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father....

How do you respond?

The Error of Christopher Columbus

There have been a number of books over the years published to give a more accurate understanding of and interpretation of History in recent years. For example, Christopher Columbus biographer, S. Eliot Morison, published his book in which the round vs’ flat earth reasoning for Columbus’s voyage are described and “pure moonshine” and “misleading and mischievous nonsense.”

Modern atheists and rationalists will try to argue that the early Church believed the earth to be flat (in order to undermine and negate the relevance of Biblical teaching). This entirely untrue. In fact, the Church taught that the earth was spherical for centuries before much of the modern world accepted the idea.

However, the first idea, that Columbus was sailing around the world to prove the world wasn’t flat is a myth. I actually remember being taught this in my early history education. In the early 6th century, the Pythagoreans (a group that influenced Platonism - out of which we find Augustinian Christianity) taught that the world was spherical, Aristotle proved it by observing that the earth casts a spherical shadow on the moon. The scientists and church leaders of the 16th century taught that the earth was round based on a study that was created using the passage found in Isaiah 40:22 “It is He who sits above the circle of the earth”. Circle, in this case, is the Hebrew word khuwg – which more literally means sphere.

In the same year that Columbus sailed, Martin Behaim of Germany, created a globe - named The Nuremberg Globe. You don’t make a globe if you believe the world is flat.

Here’s the deal with Chris.
The debate in his day wasn’t if the world was flat or round. The issue was the width of the ocean…here-which, Christopher made his mistake. Columbus had underestimated the circumference of the earth and the width of the ocean by quite a bit actually. Providentially (if I may say so) the Americas stood in his way and shortened what would have been an otherwise extremely long and essentially impossible voyage.

The educated opinion in Columbus’s day was that the earth was a sphere about 24,000 miles in circumference. Therefore, since China was some 8,000 miles to the east, the conventional wisdom held it impractical to sail west for 16,000 miles to reach the orient. That is why Columbus had such a hard time finding people to support his idea.

Columbus had calculated the earth’s circumference at only 18,000 miles, and he also believed Ptolemy’s over-estimation of the eastward region of Asia. Combining these two errors, he came to the conclusion that Japan was only about 3,000 miles to the west of the Canary Islands.

Chris made some additional mistakes. He believed the length of a degree was 56.66 miles, when it is actually nearly 69 miles (at the equator). It is possible that if Columbus was correctly informed on the earth’s circumference and the length of a degree, he might have stayed home. Ptolemy’s mistaken calculations were a good mistake for Chris and his crew.

So, what is my point?
While this is all very interesting, there is a lesson to be learned in relation to certain ‘cherished’ myths about the Bible. There are many Biblical myths that have been stuck in The Church for years. Some of these are harmless since they do not effect our salvation; the myth of the fruit in the garden being an apple, that Jonah was swallowed by a whale, or that angels have wings, for example. These “myths” (like Columbus’s flat earth) have little effect on the average Christian, there is however an underlying danger.

If Christians have adopted myths as truth in areas where little if any interpretation is needed, is it possible that we may have adopted myths as fact in areas where greater study is needed?


Look through my blog posts under the category of misunderstood scripture to learn of some of the "myths" and misunderstandings that we have in The Church. I will be writing more in the near future. Some of these are just misplaced facts, while others may very well impact your world view, your view of humanity, and yes...Salvation.

But, It's Not Fair!

Indignant –adjective: feeling, characterized by, or expressing strong displeasure at something considered unjust

Imagine a property manager who went out early in the morning to hire workers from downtown to work in his fields. He finds a few and after some discussion about the work, pay, and their time, they come to an agreement. They all agree on $100 for their day's labor and went to work.

Later, about nine o'clock, the manager was in town again saw some other men hanging around, apparently unemployed. He suggests to them that they go to work in his fields and he would pay them a fair wage. They went.

The manager does the same thing again at noon, and again at three o'clock. At five o'clock he went back and found still more people standing around downtown.

He asks them, 'Why are you standing around all day doing nothing?'

'Because no one has hired us.' They respond

So, like before he told them that they could go to work in his fields.

When the day's work was over, the owner of the fields instructed his foreman, 'Call all of the workers in and pay them their wages. Start with the last hired and go on to the first.'

Those hired at five o'clock came up and were each given their $100. When those who were hired first saw this, they got excited and assumed they would get far more. When they came to their place in line, the foreman paid each of them the same, $100. Taking their pay, they fussed angrily to the manager, 'That's not fair! Those guys started only an hour before the end of the day, and you paid them equal to us...while we slaved all day in the dust under a scorching sun!'

He replied to the one speaking for the rest, 'Friend, I haven't been unfair. We agreed on the wage of $100, didn't we? So take it and go. I decided to give to the one who came last the same as you. Can't I do what I want with my own money? Are you going to get stingy because I am generous?'

Adapted: Matthew 20:1-16

Unlike the workers hired late in the day, those who came at the beginning of the day had worked hard over long hours and in the brutal heat. When the last workers are paid a full day's wage, I'm sure the first were probably expecting a lot more than a full day's wage. Instead, they got the same amount for their work as the last guys who hadn't worked as long. But they got what they had agreed to receive. They were paid the going rate and a fair wage for that day.

So why were they angry? Because they wanted more and felt as if they deserved it.

In matters of our salvation, who can really deserve it? Is there sweat equity in The Kingdom? Remember, it is by grace you have been saved, through faith; and not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast....

The test for us is what kind of people will we be? Will we picture ourselves as those who are blessed undeservingly? Or will we want to show Jesus our spiritual resume?

If we resent the grace that God freely gives to others, may I suggest to you that grace is not fully understood.