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Posts Tagged ‘who is God?’

THE TRUTH OF ABSOLUTE TRUTH

Posted in Me & The World, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 13, 2021| 4 Comments »

The statement in this meme, made by a Swiss-Austrian-American philosopher of science, is becoming increasingly popular in today’s culture. It’s a perfect fit with the “you have your truth, I have mine” approach to life.

I must write, however, that popularity should never be a measuring stick of truth. Remember: Adolf Hitler was extremely popular for many years and Osama Bin Laden still has millions of fans. So does rap music (hey, this old white guy’s gotta have some fun). 😉

Now consider this: is child pornography always wrong? I feel quite safe in believing that outside of a few very disturbed individuals, all of us would agree. So isn’t that an absolute truth?

Here’s another one: genocide. Can you find anyone besides the occasional megalomaniac dictator and his lunatic followers who think genocide has its time and place?

I believe slavery, racism and deliberately poisoning our air/land/water can be added to the list of universal wrongs.

So there you have it. Five examples of absolute truth and it took me just a few minutes to mentally find them. I bet you can find several others.

If you agree with me so far, then that means most of us strongly believe in a clear and unchanging morality. That leads to my next question: where did this morality come from?

Some people claim morals are simply the result of evolution. But in his book Making Sense of God, Tim Keller notes it’s hard to imagine that noble and moral acts like self-sacrifice or service for someone “outside your family, tribe, or race could have been a trait that led to greater rates of survival.”

I’m going to be bold & radical and declare that absolute truth comes from the creator of time, space, the universe and YOU. In other words, it comes from God.

Now a step further: the originator of absolute truth and morals is perfect and, as the only being capable of sitting in judgment of humanity, that’s the standard He uses. I believe this because I follow Jesus of Nazareth (who many people believe is God’s Son) and Jesus tells anyone willing to listen that “you must be perfect, just as your Father in Heaven is perfect.”

Well, that certainly creates a problem, doesn’t it? If you believe there’s life beyond the 70 or 80 years on this planet, how can you and I get in on that life when we’re so, SO far from being anywhere close to perfect?

The answer is we can’t. Not on our own strength and efforts. We’ll always, ALWAYS fall short.

But God solved this by offering Jesus as a gift to anyone willing to accept it. Jesus died to make up for ALL wrong things His followers have done and ALL the right things His followers have failed to do. So when this life ends and we go to meet God, all He will see in Jesus’s followers is perfection. And we’ll be let in the door to spend eternity with Him.

Just as important, when you seriously and sincerely accept the gift of Jesus, you welcome Him to come into your life RIGHT NOW and start the lifelong process of making you more like the person God created you to be.

Sound like a good deal? Yes or no, post your thoughts below and let’s have a conversation.

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THE DANCE OF BELIEFS AND EVIDENCE

Posted in Me & The World, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 12, 2021| 7 Comments »

I’m fascinated by the underlying points being made by this meme. Maybe you’ve noticed them too:

  1. Authority, revelation or faith are absolutely useless when it comes to beliefs.
  2. evidence will always destroy beliefs.

That’s what Dawkins, the author and controversial atheist, is really saying here. As a person of faith, I don’t agree with him, but having beliefs with zero evidence to back them up is a sad way to live. That said, I can’t imagine there are many people walking around with beliefs for which they can’t provide at least a crumb of evidence.

In my case, I believe in and follow Jesus of Nazareth, who many people believe is the Son of God. I’m not going to get into the evidence for His life, miracles, death and resurrection here (there are many, many books and websites that explore the evidence in great detail), but I will write that without that evidence, I would not have become a Jesus follower.

Still, evidence AND faith are needed to become a Jesus follower and I have no problem with that. Whether we like to admit it or not, we all live with this mix. One quick example: getting on an airplane means placing your faith in the pilots, the maintenance crews and the manufacturer that this metal tube is gonna get you to your destination in one piece. (Wikipedia lists more than 200 examples of where that faith was misplaced, each time killing at least 100 people.)

So let’s get to my main point and that is: atheism is a belief. From my years of interactions, I can tell you that a majority of atheists believe there is nothing behind all we see and experience. A majority of atheists believe we have no soul and, when we die, all that we are becomes nothing more than rancid worm food (sorry to be so blunt, but it’s necessary).

What is the evidence for these beliefs? I imagine they would point to this horribly messed up world and declare no god would ever allow wars, ethnic cleansing, dementia, poverty or hurricanes. All of that is good evidence. But for millions and millions and millions of people like me, it’s nowhere near enough.

Without exploring this in detail (that would require entire blogs), suffice it to say that much of this evidence can be explained by the gift of freewill. For example, poverty happens because:

  • Economic systems keep rich countries rich and poor countries poor.
  • governments spend billions of dollars on military instead of education, social programs and providing clean water.
  • Corruption prevents resources from getting to people in need.

As a Jesus follower, I know that the creator and master of time, space and the universe is working to change that, while still respecting His gift of freewill. Jesus-following organizations like Samaritan’s Purse, LifeWater, Compassion Canada and Christian Blind Mission are among the tools He’s using.

So, what kind of beliefs do you want? Atheism strikes me as being utterly hope-less and I don’t think anyone wants to live without hope. So check out Jesus. Learn why He’s God’s gift to anyone willing to follow Him. And how accepting the gift of Jesus provides you with credible, meaningful hope for this life and the life to come.

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THE TRUTH ABOUT A ‘MORAL SICKO’

Posted in Me & The World, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 18, 2020| 5 Comments »

If you think about this meme, you’ll realize what it’s really claiming: the creator and master of time, space and universe is a moral sicko who deserves to be scorned by all rational people.

To that charge, let me suggest this: the meme’s creator is depending on you making a superficial conclusion and moving on with your life.

But I’m going to trust that you’re interested in spirituality, so you’re ready to consider a very different picture of God.

First, there’s no doubt in my mind that our creator is merciful. Followers of Jesus of Nazareth, who many people believe is God’s Son, consider God so merciful that He sent Jesus to show us how to live and, just as important, to show us the character of God.

I write that with confidence because in one of the original source documents of Jesus’ physical life on earth, He told anyone willing to listen that “I and the Father are one heart and mind.”

So does God’s mercy extend to “repentant” murderers. It depends. For those who don’t know the word ‘repent,’ dictionary.com puts it like this: to feel sorry, self-reproachful, or contrite for past conduct; regret or be conscience-stricken about a past action, attitude, etc.

From my perspective as a Jesus follower, repenting for the bad things we do — and the good things we fail to do — is very good, but it’s only part of the equation. The other part is accepting the gift of Jesus as Lord and Saviour.

When we make a conscious, thoughtful decision to put Jesus in charge of our lives, then His sacrificial death on a Roman cross wipes away our moral crimes. God sees us like He sees His Son: perfect. And it’s that perfection that opens the door to us spending eternity in Heaven with God and Jesus.

My point is this: repentance plus Jesus makes things right with our creator. I wrote a blog about one notorious man who put these two things together and saw his life transformed: https://wp.me/p2wzRb-6K.

So what about “punishing a moral person for not believing in Him”? It’s not so much punishing as it is not achieving God’s standard for entry into Heaven. To expand on what I touched on earlier, that standard is perfection. I can write that because of what Jesus said: “you must be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.”

We can be a Michael Jordan of morality, but we’re still not perfect. Remember Mother Teresa? She was a shining rock star of morality, but she knew she fell short of God’s standard and that’s why she put Jesus in charge of her life.

So even if you believe you’re a moral person, please consider accepting the gift of Jesus. He’ll take you to a whole new place of morality and joy, starting right NOW. Interested? Yes or no, post your thoughts below and let’s have a conversation.

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LIVING IN MYSTERY

Posted in Me & The World, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 17, 2012| 4 Comments »

question_mark_blueWe live in mystery.

It’s not something people talk about much. But it’s as constant as the northern star and worthy of examination.

Some people like to talk about knowing God. And that is possible for people of faith, especially those who follow Jesus of Nazareth, who many people believe is the son of God. But the mystery remains.

An ancient wisdom writer puts it this way: “When I determined to load up on wisdom and examine everything taking place on earth, I realized that if you keep your eyes open day and night without even blinking, you’ll still never figure out the meaning of what God is doing on this earth. Search as hard as you like, you’re not going to make sense of it. No matter how smart you are, you won’t get to the bottom of it.”

When asked about the end of the world, Jesus told His followers, “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”

So there it is. Mystery, haunting us like it haunted the people of Jesus’ day.

For me, the mystery extends to something most of us don’t think about: what we eat.

I was a vegetarian for 20 years. It was due to ethical reasons and, when I made that choice in 1997, it was with a great deal of emotion and I opted to end any sort of conscious and intentional relationship with God.

But still, the mystery remained, confounding me like a concrete wall I could not climb over or see around. It dominated my psyche and, I’m sure, sometimes made me unpleasant to be around.

Finally, after five years of a face-to-face confrontation with this wall, the anger quietly gave way to a grey numbness. People who have known me for a long time can tell you I’m not a grey person and I don’t do numbness well, so I took the advice of a friend and turned away from the wall.

That turning away was in the form of prayers, spoken on a ski resort chair lift with a friend who follows Jesus.

They weren’t the anguished words of confession or a heartfelt cry of release. They were more like the opening salvo in contract negotiations, something along the lines of “let’s try to find a way to get along.”

In retrospect, it’s clear they were the words for which God was patiently waiting, because when we were next on the chair lift and my buddy asked how I felt, I replied, in a tone of utter astonishment, that I felt better.

The facts that influenced my becoming a vegetarian are as rock-hard real today as they were in 1997. But what happened that day in the Rocky Mountains, and has progressed to this, is I finally, finally let God be God.

That means I agreed to accept and become comfortable with the mystery of Him — the fact there are things we fragile, imperfect humans can never hope to understand during our time on planet Earth.

For many people, this isn’t easy to do. My own experience is glow-in-the-dark proof. But think of it this way: Would you really WANT to understand everything about our creator? He wouldn’t be much of a God then, would He?

Over the years, another friend has often had an email signature that said ‘Living in His mystery.’ For me, once the notion of living in God’s mystery became acceptable, I began to rejoice in it, to realize this is a vital part of taking a step of faith that makes this confession: God is God. And I am not.

What do you think? Does this make any sense? Post a comment below and let’s start a conversation.

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