Praying for the nation

I hope all Christians pray for the nation in which they live; for the leaders and the people. At the dedication of the new temple, Solomon prayed for Israel. It is a wonderful, robust prayer.

What a beautiful letter

I’m trying to decide between three books I want to order. I should only spend the money for two. Which books are on the list is moot to my point, but I will mention that one of them is “Blue Like Jazz” by Donald Miller. The premise sounded good but I knew nothing of the author. I didn’t want to waste my money on a Word-Faith author, or some complete heretic, so I did some Internet recon.

Donald Miller is unorthodox, but I’d guessed as much. He has a fan site and I was reading letters to him and his replies. I came across one letter that struck me as simply wonderful. Here is the letter:

Who we worship

Did you watch the Oscars last night? Frankly, I loathe all of the various award shows. They are nothing more than a group of people getting together to praise each other, smooch each other and elevate themselves in the process. They are overtly superficial. However, Americans seem to love this stuff. We eat up what some actor or actress has to say on the red carpet. Oh, and let’s not overlook the whole red carpet thing either. It used to be something done solely for royalty. Now our celebrities have adopted it. We want to know “who you’re wearing”, or who will show up as someone’s date for the event, or whose acting work will win the award, and so on. I wonder, “Who cares?”

I decided to compare how we tend to worship celebrities. Let’s start with how they flaunt themselves:

What is saving faith?

I receive a daily e-mail from the Berean Bible Society. Yesterday’s message was titled the same as this post, and it addresses the question of what saving faith is. Here is the content of the message I received:

“What saith the Scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness” (Rom.4:3).

The Apostle Paul uses the above quotation from Genesis 15:6 to prove that “to him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness” (Rom.4:5).

It is wonderful that God does not require — indeed, does not permit — human works for salvation, but only faith. But the question is: What is faith? What kind of believing saves?

There is no indication in Scripture that “the gospel of the grace of God” or “the preaching of the cross” was proclaimed to Abraham. We must go back to the passage which Paul quotes to see what Abraham believed. Genesis 15:5 says:

“And [God] took [Abraham] forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell [count] the stars, if thou be able to number [count] them: and He said unto him, So shall thy seed be.” It is this simple, wonderful promise about the multiplication of Abraham’s seed which is followed with the words: “And he believed in the Lord; and He counted [reckoned] it to him for righteousness” (Ver.6). We do not mean to imply that this was the first expression of Abraham’s faith, for in Hebrews 11:8 we read:

“By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.”

This took place considerably before the Genesis 15 incident and we are specifically told that through his faith he “obtained a good report” (Heb.11:2).

From all this it is clear that Abraham believed what God told him and was counted righteous — as we now know, through a redemption still to be wrought by Christ. We, now, must believe what God tells us — and this is nothing less than the account of the all-sufficient finished work of Christ, wrought in our behalf, on Calvary’s cross.

“[He] was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification” (Rom.4:25). {by Cornelius Stam}

A tale of two kings

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Okay, apologies to Dickens, but it fits the content of this post. Let us look at the biblical record of two Judean kings and examine how they pleased or displeased God.

Do you have sons?

I do. Two in fact, ages 8 and 4. My brother (also two sons) sent me an e-mail he’d received from another man with sons. It’s hilarious and I’ll share it here.

Things I’ve learned from my boys (honest and not kidding):

1.  A king size water bed holds enough water to fill a 2000 sq. ft. house 4 inches deep

2.  If you spray hair spray on dust bunnies and run over them with roller blades, they can ignite

3.  A 3-year old boy’s voice is louder than 200 adults in a crowded restaurant

4.  If you hook a dog leash over a ceiling fan, the motor is not strong enough to rotate 42 pound boy wearing Batman underwear and a Superman cape. It is strong enough, however, if tied to a paint can, to spread paint on all four walls of a 20 x 20 ft. room

5.  You should not throw baseballs up when the ceiling fan is on. When using a ceiling fan as a bat, you have to throw the ball up a few times before you get a hit. A ceiling fan can hit a baseball a long way

6.  The glass in windows (even double-pane) doesn’t stop a baseball hit by a ceiling fan

7.  When you hear the toilet flush and the words “uh oh”, it’s already too late

8.  Brake fluid mixed with Clorox makes smoke, and lots of it

9.  A six-year old boy can start a fire with a flint rock even though a 36-year old man says they can only do it in the movies

10.  Certain Lego’s will pass through the digestive tract of a 4-year  old boy

11.  Play dough and microwave should not be used in the same sentence

12.  Super glue is forever

13.  No matter how much Jell-O you put in a swimming pool you still can’t walk on water

14.  Pool filters do not like Jell-O

15.  VCR’s do not eject “PB&J” sandwiches even though TV commercials show they do

16.  Garbage bags do not make good parachutes

17.  Marbles in gas tanks make lots of noise when driving

18.  You probably DO NOT want to know what that odor is

19.  Always look in the oven before you turn it on; plastic toys do not like ovens

20.  The fire department in Austin, TX has a 5-minute response time

21.  The spin cycle on the washing machine does not make earthworms dizzy

22.  It will, however, make cats dizzy

23.  Cats throw up twice their body weight when dizzy

24.  80% of men who read this will try mixing the Clorox and brake fluid

Isn’t that hilarious? Okay, gotta go. I need to see if I have any brake fluid in the garage.

Waiting for the Messiah

I read a story this morning which states the singer Madonna is looking to buy property in Israel.

US pop diva Madonna wants to buy a house in the Israeli town of Rosh Pina, where the ancient Jewish Kabbalah tradition expects the Messiah to appear at the end of the world.

Madonna is into Kabbalah, which I recently learned began as something taught to Rabbis who had achieved a higher scholastic level. Sort of an advanced studies course you might say. I find the story interesting for two reasons. Firstly, that Judaism has already failed to receive its promised Messiah (Yeshua, or Jesus) and that Madonna has turned her back on Jesus. She was raised Catholic, so she’s heard that Jesus is the Christ, received the Eucharist, etc. While I have major problems with the Roman Catholic presentation of the gospel message the crux of Jesus being the Christ is at least there within Catholicism.

At issue is whether Jesus is the Messiah promised to the Jews (i.e. the Christ, the Annointed One). If Jesus is who He said He was, then He is the promised Messiah. If He is the Messiah, then He was rejected by the Jews, because today most Jews are either atheists or still waiting for the Messiah. Let’s see what the scripture says.

The power of the e-Sword

Yesterday I installed e-Sword, a free software program. To call e-Sword a Bible program would be less than fair. Not only is it that, it’s also a study program for the Christian faith. The basic e-Sword download comes with the King James translation, complete with Strong’s numbers and the words of Christ in red text. It also comes with Strongs Bible dictionary. However, there are a myriad of other files that can be added to the basic program, all of which is free (there are a handful which cost but most are free, including some user-contributed files). Allow me to list the components that I installed with the basic e-Sword program:

More kid stuff and a special Bible verse

I was just upstairs in the boys’ room to see what Noah (4, our youngest) was up to. He was playing with little action figures that appear to be ultra-modern firefighters. One has a flashlight clipped onto his helmet, which is common among firefighters. Noah didn’t recognize it as a flashlight so I told him it was. The figure is also wearing a mask and breathing apparatus. Noah proceeded to tell me the figure was a deep sea diver and he used his flashlight to, “…hunt sharks, whales and fish”.

Firefox: not just for geeks anymore

I’ve been using Mozilla’s Firefox browser for quite some time. It was love at first sight. Or use. It began with tabbed browsing and culminated with the increased security (versus Internet Explorer), a multitude of plug-ins and other add-ons and the little things that set it apart. I just learned another of those little things a short time ago. Did you know that if you click on a link using your mouse scroll whell button (push down on the scroll wheel) that link will open in a new tab? No more having to right click and decide if you want the page to open in a new window or tab (I almost always choose new tab, so this is a great feature). If you want the page to open in a new tab just use the scroll wheel button.