Living The Good Life--Life To The Full!

"Who knows but that you have come to a royal position for such a time as this?" (Esther 4:14, NIV).
"And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.  Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life" (1 John 5:11-12, ESV). 
"In him was life, and the life was the light of men" (John 1:4, ESV).
"Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless until it rests in Thee."--Saint Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (Confessions)
NB:  Aristotle, the philosopher, in his book Nicomachean Ethics, laid down the precepts of living the "good life" by the pursuance of virtuous living, describing a life of flourishing and happiness.  

There was once a front-page article in Time magazine all about Sen. Wendell Anderson, former governor, and now appointing himself the senator from Minnesota, demonstrating on the cover with a picture of the so-called "good life in Minnesota" (with him fishing on one of its lakes in a boat!).  People often confuse the so-called good life with someplace to inherit or migrate to and not as a frame of mind or mindset.  

People try to find the good life, life to the max as if it's geographical. People over-spiritualize Scripture and claim we should conquer our personal promised land and take what's ours by virtue of being saved and righteous.  Prosperity theology is fallacious and leads many astray who focus on this life and store up treasures in the here and now, which they tend to keep their eyes on, instead of looking to Jesus (cf. Heb. 12:2).

God does indeed promise to prosper us, but not always in a financial sense, it is erroneous to translate spirituality into riches or to think that godliness is a means of financial gain or advantage.  We will indeed prosper, but according to God's plan and will and whatever we do in His name to His glory (all our godly endeavors).  Jesus promised a more abundant or fulfilling and meaningful life in Christ and this is the eternal life that begins in quality upon salvation.  None can claim that serving God is futile and God doesn't reward us and make it worth our time to invest in spiritual matters.

Part of living a fulfilling and rewarding life is having an impact and making a difference--we do this by finding out our talents and spiritual gifting and being faithful--God is more interested in this than in success, which is up to Him, not us. This can make us feel good about ourselves and we become contagious believers.  One of the greatest achievements and most rewarding applause we can get is that we have had an influence on someone for the better according to God's will and glory. 

Be sure that you seek the approbation of God, not man, though!  We are indeed the hands, feet, heart, and voice of God to a spiritually depraved and deprived world.  We must realize our potential to be actualized or commissioned, and that means knowing like Esther that we were "born for such a time as this" (cf. Es. 4:14).

Opportunity is always knocking and we only need to heed the call.  We become more human by realizing our potential, and everyone has unrealized potential as well as realized potential.  Most of us are not what we have the capability and capacity of becoming in Christ.  Remember, we are here for a reason, to glorify God (cf. Is. 43:7).  Yes, we have the destiny to fulfill and God has a plan already for us to realize if we cooperate, we don't want to settle for second best or have regrets for what could've been and mourn over lost opportunities.  When we have the right mindset and worldview we see meaning and learn to see a purpose in life, which is more than the mere setting of goals, for purposes sound a note that reverberates into eternity and will even outlast our vocation or hobbies.

Part of being content in life is knowing our value to others or that we are important and fulfill a need that others can't do--that we have a unique purpose and calling from God.  We also long to have an impact and know we are accomplishing something and our labor is not in vain in the Lord (cf. 1 Cor. 15:58), but God is not unjust so as not to reward it and bless our efforts done in His name.  Part of our fulfillment also comes in knowing who we are in the Lord--are we just everyone's servant or did God grant us some domain to serve Him in and be responsible for?

We must be willing to be a servant, and in God's economy, the way up is down!  But God gives us prerogatives, rights, and duties to fulfill also and we must seize the day and redeem the time for the Lord and make the most of every opportunity He grants.  We all have talents, skills, energy, relationships, gifts, resources, opportunities, assets, dignity, authority, and general makeup and attributes to use for God's glory and we must do it faithfully in His name, i.e., according to His will, not our personal agenda.

The fulfilled believer knows his orthopraxy or ethics and knows how to be a good Samaritan and good neighbor to those in need in his orbit or circle of friends.  This is where Micah 6:8, ESV, comes into play:  "He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?"  We must not only know the Word and the Author but learn to apply it and be doers of the Word, translating creeds into deeds!  Christianity isn't just pie in the sky!  Nor is it just walking around on Cloud Nine, nor is it a secluded or monastic-styled virtue, separated from the real world--for we are to be in it, but just not of it, being the salt and light.

The good life consists of having the peace of knowing we are secure in our destiny and salvation in Christ and no one can take this away--not even ourselves! Don't divorce salvation from security in it!  Our walk with the Lord is not just a list of dos and don'ts, nor a catalog of rules, collection of spiritual platitudes, nor a manual of mystical ideas, nor does God exist to grant us religious experiences or highs, au contraire, we are to be real, not necessarily will we be ideal though!

The peace Jesus gives as His legacy cannot be forfeited, and it can only be known because of the finished work of Christ on the cross!  "And the peace of God, that surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 4:6, ESV).  With this peace, we can be content in every circumstance, and even give thanks and rejoice always in the Lord!   

In sum, we can only get the most out of life with Christ in it--things go better with the Lord in the equation!  SHALOM!    Soli Deo Gloria! 

God's Not Dead...

NOTEWORTHY BIBLE VERSES AND QUOTABLE QUOTES:


"The fool says in his heart, "There is no God...." (Psa. 14:1; 53:1, ESV).
"Truly, you are God who hides yourself..." (Isa. 45:15, ESV).
"Oh, that I knew where I might find him..." (Job 23:3, ESV).
"Unless you assume a God, the question of life's purpose is meaningless."--Bertrand Russell
"Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it rest in Thee."-- Saint Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, Confessions
"There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which only God can fill through His Son, Jesus Christ."--Blaise Pascal, scientist
"He is there, and He is not silent."--Francis Schaeffer, philosophical apologist
"The Christian belief system, which the Christian knows to be grounded in divine revelation, is relevant to all of life."--Carl F.H. Henry
 "There are not two realities, but only one reality, and that is the reality of God, which has become manifest in Christ in the reality of the world."--Dietrich Bonhoeffer
"God is not dead; nor doth he sleep."--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow"
[If we are considered without reference to God we become a] "useless passion."--Jean-Paul Sartre


Darwin, in his book Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life, tried to explain the origin of species by means of evolution, but he never got around to explaining the great Achilles' heel of his theory, the origin of species per se and life itself. Note that evolution was first a working hypothesis, then championed as an authentic, scientific theory, and finally touted as unquestioned, scientific fact.  Origin of life experiments have always turned up frustrated and futile and have failed to come off as planned, and must be rigged to even create amino acids, the building blocks of life--cheating here indicates that there is some intelligence or design behind life and we call this God.

The use of the evidence of purpose and design to prove God's existence is known as an argument from design or teleological proof (from the Designer-God).  Friedrich Nietzsche declared that "God is dead" (metaphorically speaking) and he meant not that we had killed Him, but that He was no longer necessary and relevant to explain everything, especially life.  Believe me, the premature reports of God's demise have been greatly exaggerated--He's very much alive in His people. We believe in God who just won't die!  Science has not undermined the Bible, contrary to popular opinion. 

Spontaneous generation has been disproved by Francesco Redi and Louis Pasteur ca. 1860, and science has a principle called biogenesis, meaning that life only arises from life, not inert matter.  Heed the words of American Humanist historian and philosopher Will Durant, who says, "The greatest question of our time is not communism versus individualism, not Europe versus America, not even the East versus the West--it is whether man can live without God."   A word to the wise:  "... Abhor what is evil; hold fast what is good" (Rom. 12:9, ESV).

Saying there is no God is a hypothesis, not based on all the facts; there is evidence of His existence as well as to the contrary.  Evidence is not always conclusive, convincing, nor compelling, and one must be willing to go in the direction of the preponderance of the evidence.  Evidence is merely one argument pro or con, and one must be willing to go where it eventually leads if one is to arrive at the truth.  There is no smoking-gun evidence either way; both positions require faith, and it is just a matter of what one wishes to place his faith in--science or God. 

There is enough light for the willing to see, but enough darkness to keep the so-called unwilling from seeing.  No one will ever know all the answers or have a monopoly on wisdom, but you don't need all the answers to believe and God can do a miracle to increase our faith as the Lord did to the father seeking a miracle:  "... I believe, help my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24, ESV).  The old saying goes:  A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still."

They say that God is self-evident or the necessary Being, everything that exists is dependent upon something else--going back to the beginning, one finds the first noncontingent or necessary Being, God.  There cannot be an infinite number of causes in a causal chain of events.  But according to sound philosophy, something has to be necessary or nothing would exist at all--let's call that Being God.  You can no more disprove God than prove Him without a shadow of a doubt. There is a continuum of doubt and certainty--no absolutes! One must accept and live with it.

But you can experience Him for yourself if you take a leap of faith.  The reason is that every student of logic should know that you can never prove a universal negative (e.g., to say there are no little green men you would have to know everything--be everywhere and know all!).  Saying there is no God is like saying there are no little green men, but they go one step further and are against little green men, hate them, and the people that believe in them!  Believing there's no God doesn't change the facts--He's there and alive regardless!  Why would you be against them or hate those that don't exist?  

We must weigh the evidence.  There is never enough to convince the skeptic against his will, and one can never say there's not enough evidence if you look for it. They say that if you convince a skeptic against his will, he will not change his mind.  It takes a leap of faith both ways, as Norman Geisler, professor of systematic theology at Dallas Theological Seminary, wrote I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist.  

The biggest argument against God is preying on the emotions and questioning the existence of evil if God is so good.  The reason it exists is that man is free, delayed justice is not justice denied, and if God did stamp out evil right now, we wouldn't be here either!  We can thank God for His patience!  The issue of evil is that if there is no God, there is no evil differentiated either, as Fyodor Dostoevsky said, "If God does not exist, all things are permissible."  But man does know good and evil and will be judged for his sins (cf. Rom. 2:15).  Evil partially exists to bring glory to God, for He makes the wrath of man to praise Him (cf. Psalm 76:10).  For the one who sees no God:  if there is no God, why is there so much good? No, if there is a God, why is there so much evil?  God made everything, even the possibility of evil, for His purposes, even the wicked for the day of destruction (cf. Prov. 16:4).  Skeptics ought to cease bemoaning the existence of evil, for they are evil, and realize the scriptural warning:  "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil..." (Isa. 5:20, ESV).

One must be careful not to invoke scientists to make religious or philosophical statements because science merely deals in the VERIFIABLE AND TESTABLE:  experimental, controllable, variable, measurable, observable, and repeatable.  The so-called experts contradict each other; they don't always speak for their academic discipline, which changes its opinions and so-called facts with time.  When a scientist says God is not necessary because nature could've created itself, he doesn't realize that self-creation is a self-contradiction.  It would have to exist before itself and exist and not exist at the same time!  To believe the universe created you, then who created the universe?  They like to ask who created God, but this only shows both sides deal with faith.  God by definition is uncaused and uncreated, He is the Creator, not a creature.  Both science and theology deal in the problem of origins and this must be settled by faith in either science or God as being the final arbiter of truth.

The Bible is self-attesting, appealing to no higher authority because then it wouldn't be the final delimiter of truth.  It is an appeal to circular reasoning to say that the universe always existed because it exists!  The fact is that everything in time and space had a beginning and everything that begins to exist has a cause--the Big Bang, now touted as scientific fact, had a beginning, and therefore there had to be a Beginner or a cause to that event.  God is the "uncaused cause" or "unmoved mover" (known as cosmological proof) since He doesn't exist in time, neither limited, nor defined by it, but is eternal, He needs no cause or beginning.

Philosophers have known for centuries that nothing can create or cause itself, an uncreated, eternal universe is impossible--the theory of its eternity is untenable--but God is not self-created, but self-existent ( known as aseity)--which violates no laws of science, logic, nor philosophy.  Nothing can happen just by itself!  But God is the so-called "First Cause" as it is written in Heb. 3:4, ESV: "(For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God)."  He needs no cause but is uncaused because He's eternal and even created time. According to the law of the impossibility of crossing infinity, if everything had a cause, nothing could exist!

You cannot prove or demonstrate God to the person unwilling, but you can experience Him by faith (Psa. 34:8; cf. 1 Pet. 2:2, says, "Taste and see that the LORD is good").  GOD INVITES YOU TO  FIND OUT FOR YOURSELF!  Just like you cannot prove there are no little green men, but if you saw one you would know for yourself, but you couldn't prove it unless they believe your experience.  We know God by faith and there is just enough darkness for the skeptic not to see, and enough light for the sincere seeker to see.

The ultimate proof that God is alive is that Jesus is resurrected from the dead and lives in our hearts--this is a properly basic belief of personal experience, but there are many "infallible proofs" of His resurrection according to Acts 1:3.  The fact that He rose from the dead is the ultimate proof of His deity and that He is alive, namely that Jesus is God in the flesh (Rom. 1:4; Acts 17:31).  Yes, there is much compelling, cumulative, and circumstantial evidence that proves the resurrection and this fact would be confirmed by any honest, impartial jury in a court of law that examines the biblical record given by the evangelists.  Remember, juries often render verdicts without all the evidence.

It is futile to resort to claiming or appealing to authorities as to the experts; e.g., Stephen Hawking, now deceased, noteworthy, and distinguished mathematician, theoretical physicist, and cosmologist of Cambridge University, may be an atheist, but Albert Einstein was a believer in God who saw Him as a Great Mathematician, as it were.  Stephen Hawking was an avowed atheist, but he also said that "philosophy [was] dead."  Scientists have no right to make historical claims, that were one-time, such as the creation and say that God wasn't involved--they weren't there!  

These events are outside the domain or realm of scientific speculation.  Science deals with observable, controllable, measurable, and repeatable.  You cannot put God in a test tube or under laboratory conditions and measure Him no more than you can see five pounds of love or two feet of justice. Similarly, we don't measure love with a Geiger counter or radioactivity with the telephone!  In the end, you must go with the flow and direction of the preponderance of the evidence as well as experience: evidence is objective and experience is subjective--both come into play.

Realize that basic principle that all knowledge is contingent and starts in faith with some presupposition you cannot prove. If all knowledge is contingent, you could know nothing if the chain of uncertainty never ended, and so you must appeal to the beginning of the line or God Himself as the source of all true knowledge as Prov. 1:7 says, "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of all knowledge...."  This is known as the impossibility of crossing infinity (infinite regression is inherently illogical and impossible)--you must begin somewhere!  We must start with God and explain the universe, not with man and explain (away) God.

God isn't audible, visible, nor tangible but can still be known by faith-- every time we appeal to a standard of right and wrong or moral principle we are assuming there's a God!  The Christian God is a personal God that knows us and that we can personally know and have a relationship with.  Every time we make moral decisions or try to prove someone wrong we are appealing to God and are making an argument in His favor. There must be a moral Lawgiver and Legislator or arguments about justice, fair play, equity, and human rights would make no sense!   All in all, the evidence for God outweighs the evidence against God, and the premise that He exists fits the known facts and evidence better than the premise that there is no God.

The skeptic wonders where God is; however, the real issue is where isn't God?  Christians see evidence of God everywhere at every level of creation, and cannot deny it.  They are not just seeking a Father image to solve personal problems, but find Him relevant to all of life.  The point is that you cannot argue someone into the kingdom, people must be willing to believe.  Atheism is a bankrupt, irrational philosophy, and one chooses to deny God in his heart first before the intellect, as one becomes embittered and hardened against God and loves his sin.  Faith is a choice, as one chooses to believe with his will.  There's enough evidence if you are willing, but never enough for the unwilling, hardened, stubborn heart!

The good news is that God can make a believer out of anyone!  He does it by grace and does all the work of electing, choosing, calling, drawing, wooing, and regenerating us unto an unmerited faith as the work of God, by our voluntary act of obedience (cf. John 6:29; Rom. 1:5; 4:3; Heb. 3:18-19).  It's a miracle of grace in the heart that you don't need all the answers to believe in God, but can be made willing to take the leap of faith into the light.

Finally, we can know He lives, not only because of the credible testimony of others in their personal experiences, and our hearts bearing subjective witness of the presence of the Holy Spirit of Christ in our lives (i.e., He lives in us), but most importantly, verified by the objective, historical fact of the resurrection of Christ, without which we would have no experience in Christ to base our experience as alive in our hearts.  Our lives don't take a step into the dark, but a leap into the light!   The point that cannot be denied is that changed lives are a miracle and Christ changed the course of history by changing lives: "And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you..." (Ezek. 36:26, ESV).

In conclusion, God is there to be found if we search--He finds us, we don't find Him!  
"I would not have searched for Him, had He not first found me." -- Blaise Pascal

NB:  "Christianity is about the God who is there."--Francis Schaeffer      

Soli Deo Gloria!   

Contemplating Our Unworthiness

"So a man should examine himself..." (cf. 1 Cor. 11:28).


The key to grace is the right mindset toward God--true humility!  "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble" (cf. James 4:6).  We are never worthy of God's grace (or it wouldn't be grace, but justice!), but the one qualification for it is to reckon ourselves as unworthy and unfit--just like our salvation.   Grace always goes to the lowest bidders, as it were.

The Lord's Supper is a reminder of our fellowship and longstanding salvation, whereby we renew our commitment and dedication by remembering what it's all about and the price Christ paid on our behalf.  We must see ourselves as great sinners in need of a Great Savior.  We are exhorted by Paul to examine ourselves at communion to take personal inventory of our spiritual life and give ourselves a spiritual checkup to validate our faith and salvation by seeing Christ at work in our lives and person (Christ lives in us by an exchanged, surrendered, relinquished, substituted, inhabited, and obedient life in Christ by virtue of His power--Gal. 2:20). In 2 Cor. 13:5 it says to examine ourselves frequently to see if Christ does indwell us--i.e., whether we are in the faith.  We are to be fruit inspectors of our own fruits and must test ourselves periodically--not others!

The Eucharist (Holy Communion or the Lord's Supper) is to be given to those walking obediently with the Lord in fellowship and not have any known sin to their account, which would render them carnal.  Basically, if we are enjoying a fellowship with God through Christ and discern the body, as Christ admonished, we are ready for communion. If we have repented we are clean, but we may still need a confession to update our walk with Christ.  But this privilege doesn't mean we are qualified to partake of this grace or ordinance laid down by Christ at Maundy Thursday, or at the Last Supper in the Upper Room celebrating the Passover.  The point to ponder is that we are never worthy, but we can prepare our hearts to receive the grace of God by confession (keeping short accounts and admitting sin as soon as we are convicted, which is the responsibility of the Holy Spirit).

In partaking of the communion emblems, we are to "discern the body" and blood of Christ, reckoning that He laid down His life for us and His blood sealed a New Covenant or Testament, making the Old Covenant or Testament obsolete.  Our humility ought to be such that the more unworthy we feel we are, the more we resonate with God's grace and are in a position to receive the ordinance, just like John Bunyan wrote in his testimony Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, and Paul saw himself as the "chief of sinners" likewise (cf. 1 Tim. 1:15).  It is a fact that the closer our walk with Christ, the more aware we are of shortcomings and failures.  Getting close to God makes us all the more aware of our sins, not our success and holiness.  Samuel Rutherford said to "pray for a lively sense of sin, because, the more the sense, the less sin."

We are admonished by Paul to partake of the elements in a worthy manner (that doesn't mean we are worthy per se), but by discerning the body and being in fellowship with no unconfessed, known sin, we are ready for grace.  The Lord's Supper is more than a memorial we do to proclaim the Lord's coming, but also a spiritual exercise and checkup and discipline to make us experience group fellowship and accountability--church isn't just a private affair but we are members one of another.

In the final analysis, it's comforting to know that Christ knew what we were made of before He saved us and loves us despite ourselves, and His acceptance doesn't depend upon our behavior or performance, but totally on His grace. "Salvation is of the LORD" (cf. Jonah 2:9), not from us. There's no place for merit in our salvation, but we are saved, are being saved, and will be saved all by grace alone (sola gratia in Latin), Christ alone is the worthy one and therefore is worshiped or assigned worthiness.     Soli Deo Gloria!