I follow this amazing blog called "Just Wallpapers". The author is dedicated to raising awareness about scary statistics (like that 4,100 people die every day from HIV/AIDS-related illnesses in Sub-Saharan Africa alone) and mobilizing people to share God's love in tangible ways.
He asked a question on his blog recently, and I thought it was interesting, so I decided to answer it here. It's from a book he was reading, called "Just Courage".
"...how do I actually live with bravery, love and significance? And how do I lead others in that path? We have all had moments and glimpses of our own courage. We’ve all been brave when we needed to be. The question is, how can we live more like that? In fact, how can we live like that so consistently that it becomes who we actually are?"
I've said this before, but it's worth repeating. It's my credo, you could say.
For years, I've held that the most important things in life are:
1) My relationship with God, and
2) My witness to others- Christians included.
The nice thing about this set of priorities is that if #1 is in good standing, then #2 usually falls into place. Sometimes I get distracted on focusing on God and I forget that loving God means loving the things He loves, and that includes other people.
For me, the answer to this question lies in striving to be more like Jesus. He was bold and brash when He needed to be, kind and loving other times. He threw tables around in the Temple, and He pulled little children onto His lap. He cursed a fruitless tree and then endured torture and death for our sakes.
Jesus, of course, had wisdom beyond what we can ever hope AND He didn't have that pesky sin nature that bugs us all the time. But regardless, Jesus gave us a command: "If you love me, feed my lambs."
I've often been told that if you tell a lie long enough, you'll start believing it yourself. I know this is true. I struggled for a long time with telling lies, because I thought I needed to make my life more interesting. To this day, there are some stories that I know I lied about for years, but I can't remember the truth because the lies are so pervasive.
But the same is true for truths. For a year or so now I've been saying something to myself that has revolutionised my self-esteem: "I am God's favorite."
Don't tell me it's not true. It is. And this one statement has changed the way I view myself in relation to God. I know longer feel like I have to earn His favor the way I earn everyone else's. I am, just by virtue of being myself- the one God made me to be, treasured most deeply by Him. And it's in this knowledge that I can function more successfully in doing His work.
So when we live more like Christ day to day, eventually it will become natural to us, and we can live in such a way that no one can resist asking us who our role model is.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Monday, December 22, 2008
"I laughed, I cried; it moved me, Bob."
If you haven't seen the movie Freedom Writers, get up and go rent it right now.
No, seriously.
Why are you still reading this?
No, seriously.
Why are you still reading this?
Saturday, December 13, 2008
The Little Christian Who Did (Oh no, you di'in't!)
I never meant to be so accusatory. Maybe I get too excited when I share my opinion...
For several years now, I've been saying that the #1 thing (watch out, here it comes!) in life should me My Relationship With God and the #2 thing should be My Witness To Others. If #1 is goin' good, then #2 should fall into place.
Jesus named these two things at the Greatest Commandments. That's right. Check it out in Matthew 22.
I've been reading a lot of blogs lately who don't think Christian Activism in the world is a good thing because they think that first and foremost, we should be creating more followers of Jesus (or, "Making more of me" as one blogger said). And yes, seeing people saved should be a priority to us. But "Making more of me" is an arrogant statement because it presumes that we can save people, when the Bible clearly shows that people are saved by GOD (and grace through faith plus works- see James 2:14-26 and Romans 5:1) and not by the witness of other humans, no matter how strong or how weak.
(A small Aside: I know, I know... "How will they hear unless someone tells them?". Yes, true. But also remember, "They are without excuse" even if no one tells them. This, however, is no excuse for us not to tell.)
...And we're back.
OK, so let's begin with a slogan. The smartest woman I know (mah momma) always tells me, and has told me for many years, that "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care."
I always assumed that this meant how much you care about the people. But I think it can be expanded to how much you care about people, and the things that they care about. So if someone's concerned about the environment, they're probably not going to listen to you talk about salvation if you're driving and SUV and littering all over the sidewalk. Sorry, you just forfeited your witness.
I'm a big fan of lifestyle evangelism. Yes, I know... for years people have been witnessing at doorsteps and to those in line at the grocery store. Good for them. I, however, lack the gift of striking-up-conversation-with-total-strangers-without-sounding-like-infomercial.
In my recent post about environmentalism (you know, the one with Queen), I gave the Evolutionist's (read: naturalist's) worldview- the real one- and mentioned that it doesn't make any sense for them to be the environmentalists on Earth. Let's see what the Christian's worldview should be. To do this, we need to start at the beginning.
Christians believe that God made the Earth and everything in it, including trees, coffee mugs, and people (pardon the homage to Fred Blackburn, my favorite philosophy professor). There are various theories to how much time God took to do it, in which order, and other stuff, but mostly Christians are just concerned about the idea that the creating was done by God. And after God created us, He gave us a duty: take care of the Earth.
And then we screwed it up.
Yes, yes we did. God gave Adam and Eve one rule: Don't eat the fruit from this one tree. So they did. And now the world is what we call "cursed". This means that now people don't like snakes, women have intense pain in childbirth, it's harder to grow food because of disease, pests, and weeds, and we don't live forever (sad, eh?). And, maybe the worst one of all: we lose our relationship with God. We have what we call a "sin nature", meaning that our first inclination is to be selfish, cruel, and generally not-nice people.
And since God knew that this was going to happen, He had a back-up plan. The plan was this: one perfect sacrifice would serve as the atonement for all of mankind.
But there was a problem. No living thing on Earth was good enough to meet the standard. And everybody on Earth that was a descendant of Adam was cursed with this same sin nature. The only person who could fulfill the requirements for being the sacrifice would be someone not descended from Adam.
God had a way. He himself would take on human form, be born as a baby, grow up on Earth, and become the sacrifice.
That's who Jesus was. But when Jesus came to be that atonement, He also came to remind us of a world which we had forgotten. He called it the "Kingdom of Heaven". That world is very different from the one we know. It's all upside-down. Its concerns are opposite ours. People in that world will abandon everything for the one thing they know is of value. People in that world will actually be treated equally, regardless of merit. People will live their lives being prepared for it, but so many will miss it. (Matthew 13 has some great parables about who will "miss" the Kingdom.)
So the question arises: Are you ready?
Remember the bit about the child being tested for bigger responsibility? Or in 28 Days, where the counselor tells the group that after they get out of rehab, they should get a plant. A year later, a dog. Two years later, if the dog and the plant are still alive, they can start dating again.
Reward and Responsibility are both gauged in terms of past record. In order to receive a greater responsibility, you have to prove yourself worthy of the current one. It works in every realm of life and is the basis by which we judge the 'fairness' of someone's promotion.
Same kind of thing happens in the Kingdom, only the criteria are completely different from what we wold expect. In fact, there's no way that we can even explain them. But Jesus' message about the Sheep and the Goats is the best we have to explain the standards of the Kingdom. Check it out in Matthew 25:31-46. This passage, of course discusses our treatment of other people, but it can be easily extended to encompass all of Creation.
(The quiescent Buddhist in me would even suggest that since God permeates all things, then even the way we treat a tree whose roots are cracking our front steps reflects how we treat God. Oh, He's nice... until He gets in the way.)
The bottom line here is that people need to be saved. But if we're trying to get people saved at the expense of the planet, is that an effective witness?
P.S. How do we determine the effectiveness of our witness? Is it in numbers of saved people? "Jewels" in our "crown"? Or something more subtle?
For several years now, I've been saying that the #1 thing (watch out, here it comes!) in life should me My Relationship With God and the #2 thing should be My Witness To Others. If #1 is goin' good, then #2 should fall into place.
Jesus named these two things at the Greatest Commandments. That's right. Check it out in Matthew 22.
I've been reading a lot of blogs lately who don't think Christian Activism in the world is a good thing because they think that first and foremost, we should be creating more followers of Jesus (or, "Making more of me" as one blogger said). And yes, seeing people saved should be a priority to us. But "Making more of me" is an arrogant statement because it presumes that we can save people, when the Bible clearly shows that people are saved by GOD (and grace through faith plus works- see James 2:14-26 and Romans 5:1) and not by the witness of other humans, no matter how strong or how weak.
(A small Aside: I know, I know... "How will they hear unless someone tells them?". Yes, true. But also remember, "They are without excuse" even if no one tells them. This, however, is no excuse for us not to tell.)
...And we're back.
OK, so let's begin with a slogan. The smartest woman I know (mah momma) always tells me, and has told me for many years, that "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care."
I always assumed that this meant how much you care about the people. But I think it can be expanded to how much you care about people, and the things that they care about. So if someone's concerned about the environment, they're probably not going to listen to you talk about salvation if you're driving and SUV and littering all over the sidewalk. Sorry, you just forfeited your witness.
I'm a big fan of lifestyle evangelism. Yes, I know... for years people have been witnessing at doorsteps and to those in line at the grocery store. Good for them. I, however, lack the gift of striking-up-conversation-with-total-strangers-without-sounding-like-infomercial.
In my recent post about environmentalism (you know, the one with Queen), I gave the Evolutionist's (read: naturalist's) worldview- the real one- and mentioned that it doesn't make any sense for them to be the environmentalists on Earth. Let's see what the Christian's worldview should be. To do this, we need to start at the beginning.
Christians believe that God made the Earth and everything in it, including trees, coffee mugs, and people (pardon the homage to Fred Blackburn, my favorite philosophy professor). There are various theories to how much time God took to do it, in which order, and other stuff, but mostly Christians are just concerned about the idea that the creating was done by God. And after God created us, He gave us a duty: take care of the Earth.
And then we screwed it up.
Yes, yes we did. God gave Adam and Eve one rule: Don't eat the fruit from this one tree. So they did. And now the world is what we call "cursed". This means that now people don't like snakes, women have intense pain in childbirth, it's harder to grow food because of disease, pests, and weeds, and we don't live forever (sad, eh?). And, maybe the worst one of all: we lose our relationship with God. We have what we call a "sin nature", meaning that our first inclination is to be selfish, cruel, and generally not-nice people.
And since God knew that this was going to happen, He had a back-up plan. The plan was this: one perfect sacrifice would serve as the atonement for all of mankind.
But there was a problem. No living thing on Earth was good enough to meet the standard. And everybody on Earth that was a descendant of Adam was cursed with this same sin nature. The only person who could fulfill the requirements for being the sacrifice would be someone not descended from Adam.
God had a way. He himself would take on human form, be born as a baby, grow up on Earth, and become the sacrifice.
That's who Jesus was. But when Jesus came to be that atonement, He also came to remind us of a world which we had forgotten. He called it the "Kingdom of Heaven". That world is very different from the one we know. It's all upside-down. Its concerns are opposite ours. People in that world will abandon everything for the one thing they know is of value. People in that world will actually be treated equally, regardless of merit. People will live their lives being prepared for it, but so many will miss it. (Matthew 13 has some great parables about who will "miss" the Kingdom.)
So the question arises: Are you ready?
Remember the bit about the child being tested for bigger responsibility? Or in 28 Days, where the counselor tells the group that after they get out of rehab, they should get a plant. A year later, a dog. Two years later, if the dog and the plant are still alive, they can start dating again.
Reward and Responsibility are both gauged in terms of past record. In order to receive a greater responsibility, you have to prove yourself worthy of the current one. It works in every realm of life and is the basis by which we judge the 'fairness' of someone's promotion.
Same kind of thing happens in the Kingdom, only the criteria are completely different from what we wold expect. In fact, there's no way that we can even explain them. But Jesus' message about the Sheep and the Goats is the best we have to explain the standards of the Kingdom. Check it out in Matthew 25:31-46. This passage, of course discusses our treatment of other people, but it can be easily extended to encompass all of Creation.
(The quiescent Buddhist in me would even suggest that since God permeates all things, then even the way we treat a tree whose roots are cracking our front steps reflects how we treat God. Oh, He's nice... until He gets in the way.)
The bottom line here is that people need to be saved. But if we're trying to get people saved at the expense of the planet, is that an effective witness?
P.S. How do we determine the effectiveness of our witness? Is it in numbers of saved people? "Jewels" in our "crown"? Or something more subtle?
A New Take on Christmas Trees
I never liked real Christmas trees. I only remember once or twice when my family had one, and I think most of the time we had a potted tree, meaning it wasn't cut down.
When I was a kid and we lived in Mexico, we used to decorate my mom's Ficus benjamina at Christmastime. I thought that was cool- it was different, that's for sure.
But to me, killing a tree every year is akin to those people who go hunting and have their kills stuffed and displayed in the den. There's no difference to me between putting a snarling bear carcass on the den floor and watching a decorated blue spruce slowly disintegrate over the span of a month or more. And then what happens? We toss them out the front door and think of the fond memories we created with that murdered pine? The whole tradition seems gruesome to me.
A few years back, my family splurged and bought a really high-quality artificial tree which is guaranteed for around 30 years or so. No more tree purchases for us!
According to the National Christmas Tree Association, 31.3 million households in the US purchased a real Christmas tree in 2007 at an average price of $41 per tree. That rounds out to about 1.3billion dollars last year spent on Christmas trees alone in the US.
Maybe Africa gives me a different perspective. Maybe my point of view is skewed. But does it seem a bit ridiculous that we're spending this much money every year on killing trees when people are starving? When rainforests are being depleted? When the farmland gets less useful every year because of misuse?
I'd like to encourage you to think about this. Maybe you already bought a tree this year. That's okay. You have a whole year to consider what you're going to do. And as food for this thought, here are some suggestions for what you can do with the $41 you'll save:
- The World Wildlife Fund is sponsoring a program called NewTree to plant trees in Borneo and Indonesia. For $5.50 you can plant a tree and watch it grow on Google Earth. Check out mybabytree.org.
- Sustainable Harvest International is a nonprofit organization that "provides farming families in Central America with the training and tools to overcome poverty while restoring our planet's tropical forests." For $30 you can reforest a family farm. Check out their site.
- At Christmastime every year, World Vision International allows you to donate specific gifts to families in need. For around $14, you can provide 10 fruit trees or enough seeds to start a family farm. For $36 (still less than a live tree) you can give not only seeds, but also farm tools and training to a family. Check out the UK version of "Must Have Gifts" (the US version's link was broken...)
- Finally, if you like the UN, if you're sorta broke, or if you just like getting your hands dirty, you can join a worldwide campaign called "Plant for the Planet" whose goal is to plant 1 billion trees around the world each year. Check out Billion Tree Campaign.
If you're wondering what I'm doing promoting tree planting when people need Jesus, bear with me and read my next post... Thanks
When I was a kid and we lived in Mexico, we used to decorate my mom's Ficus benjamina at Christmastime. I thought that was cool- it was different, that's for sure.
But to me, killing a tree every year is akin to those people who go hunting and have their kills stuffed and displayed in the den. There's no difference to me between putting a snarling bear carcass on the den floor and watching a decorated blue spruce slowly disintegrate over the span of a month or more. And then what happens? We toss them out the front door and think of the fond memories we created with that murdered pine? The whole tradition seems gruesome to me.
A few years back, my family splurged and bought a really high-quality artificial tree which is guaranteed for around 30 years or so. No more tree purchases for us!
According to the National Christmas Tree Association, 31.3 million households in the US purchased a real Christmas tree in 2007 at an average price of $41 per tree. That rounds out to about 1.3billion dollars last year spent on Christmas trees alone in the US.
Maybe Africa gives me a different perspective. Maybe my point of view is skewed. But does it seem a bit ridiculous that we're spending this much money every year on killing trees when people are starving? When rainforests are being depleted? When the farmland gets less useful every year because of misuse?
I'd like to encourage you to think about this. Maybe you already bought a tree this year. That's okay. You have a whole year to consider what you're going to do. And as food for this thought, here are some suggestions for what you can do with the $41 you'll save:
- The World Wildlife Fund is sponsoring a program called NewTree to plant trees in Borneo and Indonesia. For $5.50 you can plant a tree and watch it grow on Google Earth. Check out mybabytree.org.
- Sustainable Harvest International is a nonprofit organization that "provides farming families in Central America with the training and tools to overcome poverty while restoring our planet's tropical forests." For $30 you can reforest a family farm. Check out their site.
- At Christmastime every year, World Vision International allows you to donate specific gifts to families in need. For around $14, you can provide 10 fruit trees or enough seeds to start a family farm. For $36 (still less than a live tree) you can give not only seeds, but also farm tools and training to a family. Check out the UK version of "Must Have Gifts" (the US version's link was broken...)
- Finally, if you like the UN, if you're sorta broke, or if you just like getting your hands dirty, you can join a worldwide campaign called "Plant for the Planet" whose goal is to plant 1 billion trees around the world each year. Check out Billion Tree Campaign.
If you're wondering what I'm doing promoting tree planting when people need Jesus, bear with me and read my next post... Thanks
Friday, November 28, 2008
Quote- Horace Walpole
"This world is a tragedy to those that feel, and a comedy to those that think."
Comments?
Comments?
Evolution + Environmentalism= Bohemian Rhapsody
In the Western world (and also, though to a lesser extent, in the East) we're seen an uprising of a new religion- the religion of the environment. It's a fully-developed belief system, complete with:
- a god (Nature)
- a definition of sin (carbon footprints)
- a Law for Right (read:Green) Living
- a redemptive goal (become One with Nature. Hm... smacks of Buddhism a bit), and
- a punishment for the unredeemed (exclusion, alienation, etc. Also interesting to me, since the US and most Western countries operate on an individualistic guilt-based culture, as opposed to the shame-based cultures of the East. Seems to me the West is becoming more Eastern, evidenced by the incorporation of a shame-based penal system in this new religion. But that's a discussion for another post).
I love the environment, and I live as environmentally and humanly friendly as I can within my physical and fiscal ability. In fact, just this morning I found a baby lizard stuck to some painter's tape that I had left in the room we're redecorating, and I spent about half an hour freeing him from his unfortunate bondage. I even prayed for him as I was working his belly loose from the tape. Not to pat myself on the back or anything, but I'm just sayin'.
I won't even kill an ant in the house. I'll catch it and put it outside. And it bothers me when people (usually guys. Maybe we need to talk about this) kill or torment animals, no matter how small. I yelled at one of my guy friends recently for stepping on a spider. I do, however, make some exceptions to this: 1) If you're killing the animal to eat it; 2) If the presence of the animal presents an immediate danger- like I killed some black widow spiders at the preschool where I worked; and 3) If the 'animal' in question is a mosquito. For the most part, though, my parents brought me up to believe that all creatures, no matter how small, are God's creations and deserve our care and respect.
Being stewards of the earth is a huge responsibility. When God made Adam and Eve, He told them, "Hey, this is a present for you. Take good care of it, so that some day you can get the next thing." When my brother wanted a blue-tongued skink, Mom told him that he had to take care of his guinea pig (which she had been looking after) for at least a year before he could get another pet. That's the way stewardship works.
The fact that God gave us the Earth as our first thing to take care of is a huge compliment. It indicates God's immense faith in what we are capable of doing (of course He has faith is us- He MADE us). And if this Earth, which has scenes ranging from this
to this
and this
and this,
if this Earth is the test run for the Next Big Thing, then the New Earth is going to be way more awesome. And therefore a bigger responsibility.
However, as far as I've seen, the church's response to the new surge of environmentalism has been pretty sorry. I remember a couple of years ago one of the families I know was running tight on cash and the husband wanted to trade in their Suburban for a smaller, lighter, cheaper, and more fuel-efficient minivan. The wife literally had a fit. I saw her stamp her foot and say, "I want my Suburban." And these people were Christians.
We need to get our act together. I know of a lot of Christians that are starting to think this way too: that maybe we should take care of this Earth and of the people on it. That's a a great thing.
What really makes me sad is that Environmentalism and Evolutionism seem to somehow go hand-in-hand. Seriously? That doesn't even make sense.
Evolution is a violent, bloody, morbid process. It requires death in order to work. And it requires some species to die horrific deaths, either by starvation from lack of correct food, or by exposure to elements for which they are not prepared, or by methodical predation, or by asphyxiation from environmental events outside their control, such as a giant rock hitting the Earth.
And the thing about Evolutionism, or rather about Naturalism, is that in the End, the Universe wins. In the end, we don't get to even be there. Regardless of what we do now (whether we "save the planet" through Green Living or elsehow), eventually, humanity's card will be up, and we go extinct. According to some scientists:
- in several thousand years, a giant rock hits us again and obliterates all life except for Cockroaches, Dick Clark, and Cher,
- in 4-5 billion years, the Earth drifts far enough away from the sun to experience a heat death,
- in 20ish billion years, the sun goes Supernova or just puffs out like a dead candle
- a few hundred billion years, Earth and the whole solar system gets sucked into the black hole a the center of the Milky Way.
And if none of that gets you, then just think that everything in the Universe is drifting apart anyway, and Heat Death will eventually take over. Either that or we get sucked into The First Black Hole, the one responsible for The Big Bang.
Whatever the Cause of Death, humans don't make it. Don't listen to all this Will to Survive stuff that you read about. The truth is, in the Naturalistic paradigm, Humans aren't present at the End Times. And honestly, if there's a never-ending cycle to the universe, our presence here is of very minimal importance anyway. In the Grand Scheme of Naturalism, what we puny humans do here on Earth really has no effect on anything. Freddie Mercury put it best:
Nothing really matters
Anyone can see
Nothing really matters
Nothing really matters to me.
The Evolutionist's response to Environmentalism should be, "So? We're all gonna choke in a few billion years anyway, so what's the big deal?"
whereas the Christian response should be, "Heck yes, let's care about the Earth. After all, it's our trial run for the next one."
But it doesn't seem to be working out that way. Wonder why...
- a god (Nature)
- a definition of sin (carbon footprints)
- a Law for Right (read:Green) Living
- a redemptive goal (become One with Nature. Hm... smacks of Buddhism a bit), and
- a punishment for the unredeemed (exclusion, alienation, etc. Also interesting to me, since the US and most Western countries operate on an individualistic guilt-based culture, as opposed to the shame-based cultures of the East. Seems to me the West is becoming more Eastern, evidenced by the incorporation of a shame-based penal system in this new religion. But that's a discussion for another post).
I love the environment, and I live as environmentally and humanly friendly as I can within my physical and fiscal ability. In fact, just this morning I found a baby lizard stuck to some painter's tape that I had left in the room we're redecorating, and I spent about half an hour freeing him from his unfortunate bondage. I even prayed for him as I was working his belly loose from the tape. Not to pat myself on the back or anything, but I'm just sayin'.
I won't even kill an ant in the house. I'll catch it and put it outside. And it bothers me when people (usually guys. Maybe we need to talk about this) kill or torment animals, no matter how small. I yelled at one of my guy friends recently for stepping on a spider. I do, however, make some exceptions to this: 1) If you're killing the animal to eat it; 2) If the presence of the animal presents an immediate danger- like I killed some black widow spiders at the preschool where I worked; and 3) If the 'animal' in question is a mosquito. For the most part, though, my parents brought me up to believe that all creatures, no matter how small, are God's creations and deserve our care and respect.
Being stewards of the earth is a huge responsibility. When God made Adam and Eve, He told them, "Hey, this is a present for you. Take good care of it, so that some day you can get the next thing." When my brother wanted a blue-tongued skink, Mom told him that he had to take care of his guinea pig (which she had been looking after) for at least a year before he could get another pet. That's the way stewardship works.
The fact that God gave us the Earth as our first thing to take care of is a huge compliment. It indicates God's immense faith in what we are capable of doing (of course He has faith is us- He MADE us). And if this Earth, which has scenes ranging from this
to this
and this
and this,
if this Earth is the test run for the Next Big Thing, then the New Earth is going to be way more awesome. And therefore a bigger responsibility.However, as far as I've seen, the church's response to the new surge of environmentalism has been pretty sorry. I remember a couple of years ago one of the families I know was running tight on cash and the husband wanted to trade in their Suburban for a smaller, lighter, cheaper, and more fuel-efficient minivan. The wife literally had a fit. I saw her stamp her foot and say, "I want my Suburban." And these people were Christians.
We need to get our act together. I know of a lot of Christians that are starting to think this way too: that maybe we should take care of this Earth and of the people on it. That's a a great thing.
What really makes me sad is that Environmentalism and Evolutionism seem to somehow go hand-in-hand. Seriously? That doesn't even make sense.
Evolution is a violent, bloody, morbid process. It requires death in order to work. And it requires some species to die horrific deaths, either by starvation from lack of correct food, or by exposure to elements for which they are not prepared, or by methodical predation, or by asphyxiation from environmental events outside their control, such as a giant rock hitting the Earth.
And the thing about Evolutionism, or rather about Naturalism, is that in the End, the Universe wins. In the end, we don't get to even be there. Regardless of what we do now (whether we "save the planet" through Green Living or elsehow), eventually, humanity's card will be up, and we go extinct. According to some scientists:
- in several thousand years, a giant rock hits us again and obliterates all life except for Cockroaches, Dick Clark, and Cher,
- in 4-5 billion years, the Earth drifts far enough away from the sun to experience a heat death,
- in 20ish billion years, the sun goes Supernova or just puffs out like a dead candle
- a few hundred billion years, Earth and the whole solar system gets sucked into the black hole a the center of the Milky Way.
And if none of that gets you, then just think that everything in the Universe is drifting apart anyway, and Heat Death will eventually take over. Either that or we get sucked into The First Black Hole, the one responsible for The Big Bang.
Whatever the Cause of Death, humans don't make it. Don't listen to all this Will to Survive stuff that you read about. The truth is, in the Naturalistic paradigm, Humans aren't present at the End Times. And honestly, if there's a never-ending cycle to the universe, our presence here is of very minimal importance anyway. In the Grand Scheme of Naturalism, what we puny humans do here on Earth really has no effect on anything. Freddie Mercury put it best:
Nothing really matters
Anyone can see
Nothing really matters
Nothing really matters to me.
The Evolutionist's response to Environmentalism should be, "So? We're all gonna choke in a few billion years anyway, so what's the big deal?"
whereas the Christian response should be, "Heck yes, let's care about the Earth. After all, it's our trial run for the next one."
But it doesn't seem to be working out that way. Wonder why...
Friday, October 31, 2008
Cool Quotes
One of the blogs (Stacy from Louisville) I read recently asked people to put down their current favorite quotes. Mine was a reference from a sermon I heard,
But a bunch of other people put up cool ones as well.
Here are my top ten favorites from that list...
-Humility is like underwear -essential, but indecent if it shows. Anon.
-"The perfect church service would be one we were almost unaware of, our attention would have been on God."C.S Lewis
-“I’m really excited about being part of a church that does not want to be a clubhouse with a cross on top.” Unknown
-"If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our bodies. If they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees. Let no one go there unwarned and unprayed-for." Charles Spurgeon
-"If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?" Abraham Lincoln when accused of being two-faced.
-"You can kill us, but you can't hurt us." Justin Martyr
-"Nobody worries about Christ as long as he can be kept shut up in
churches. He is quite safe inside. But there is always trouble if you try and let him out." G. A. Studdert Kennedy
-"Defend the Bible? I would just as soon defend a lion. Just turn the Bible loose. It will defend itself." Charles H. Spurgeon
-"If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
and the one that started it all...
-"Smite his cheek, and he turns you the other; slap the dignity of the house of prayer, however, and he turns over a table."
"The 'go' in 'go, therefore, and make disciples...' actually means 'go about your business'. Go, be a lawyer and make disciples. Go, be a CPA and make disciples. Go, be a teacher and make disciples. Go, do what God has called you to do. And make disciples." --The guest preacher in church on Sunday
But a bunch of other people put up cool ones as well.
Here are my top ten favorites from that list...
-Humility is like underwear -essential, but indecent if it shows. Anon.
-"The perfect church service would be one we were almost unaware of, our attention would have been on God."C.S Lewis
-“I’m really excited about being part of a church that does not want to be a clubhouse with a cross on top.” Unknown
-"If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our bodies. If they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees. Let no one go there unwarned and unprayed-for." Charles Spurgeon
-"If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?" Abraham Lincoln when accused of being two-faced.
-"You can kill us, but you can't hurt us." Justin Martyr
-"Nobody worries about Christ as long as he can be kept shut up in
churches. He is quite safe inside. But there is always trouble if you try and let him out." G. A. Studdert Kennedy
-"Defend the Bible? I would just as soon defend a lion. Just turn the Bible loose. It will defend itself." Charles H. Spurgeon
-"If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
and the one that started it all...
-"Smite his cheek, and he turns you the other; slap the dignity of the house of prayer, however, and he turns over a table."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)