Ok, ok, blogs are supposed to be short. I get it. You don’t have TIME to read a lot of words, so here it is, short and sweeeeeet:

Learning is not only a good thing, it’s an essential thing. We need to learn what we don’t know, so we can enjoy a better life.

There are two ways to learn something, so pay attention, because if you learn HOW to learn it will be a great benefit, and you want that!
1. Someone teaches you something, and you eventually get it. The light goes on. Like with Algebra. (Stop here and think about this; ponder what you’ve learned this way.)

The second way of learning is much more important, because it is much more dominant in the process of learning.
2. You wet yourself, over and over.

Science cannot reconcile these differences (from Part 1), and neither can religious dogma, as each side is well entrenched, admittedly resistant to change. I’m sure the scientist feels that one day the discovery will be made to prove the theory into fact. Perhaps with the finding of a ‘missing link’ or some archeological find of a ‘transitional form’ of fish to bird, etc. We’ve had lots of folks looking through lots of scopes, and none so far, but they will keep looking.

Certainly the Christian awaits the Day of the Lord, that great day of Christ’s second appearing, which will clearly end the debate. For the time being, both are in the future, so is there anything more to say? Of course.

The Bible does shed additional light. Moving beyond the story of Creation in the Old Testament, the New Testament writer Paul points out what I call the “tragic exchange.” Both Old and New Testaments reveal the sad consequences of “exchanging” one’s belief in God, or perhaps even more dangerous the “rejecting” of God, for that which God made.

The carved images man makes and worships cannot do anything. The gold and silver images man moulds into idols cannot heal, save, or deliver. The creature is not the Creator, and cannot become God, with Scriptural evidence as to the disaster that happens when it is attempted!

Webster defines evolution as “the theory that all existing organisms developed from earlier forms by natural selection; Darwinism.” It’s a great theory, with much support, taught in all our schools, and even lawsuits and Hollywood movies arguing the case.

Science is defined as “a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws, such knowledge gained through observation and experimentation” with the ability to “prove” or “replicate” the fact or truth…in a lab, and in observable reality.

Science is trying to prove evolution, but cannot. Thus its status as a “theory,” because it is unobservable, cannot be replicated in the lab, thus unproven. The current theory of evolution seems to be standing on the foundation of the belief in “primordial goo,” an undefined substance from which everything else evolved. They cannot start with the goo and move forward, because there is no goo, so they start with man and back their way all the way TO the goo. Let’s summarize the theory of evolution, and simplify it so everyone can understand it. Let’s call it Goo-volution.

Christians believe in One God, manifested as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Who made everything. This is now softened by some to the belief of Divine Inspiration, to include those who believe what they cannot explain but don’t want to admit to Christ, or those who do believe in Christ but don’t want to enflame the argument with religious doctrines that even the Christians cannot agree upon. Christians would also point out that even if there were goo, it had to come from something or somewhere or some One, and would invoke that as proof of God’s hand in the process, thus Creationism. Evolutionists would back the existence of goo to some “spontaneous combustion,” but still not be able to explain where the combustibles came from. For a Big Bang to bang there had to something to explode.

It’s a bit interesting, to me at least, that the very denial of God seems to make the case FOR God.

Have you ever wondered why people in other places think differently about God than you do? They may even think about a different god altogether. Certainly it’s because that is how they are raised and all they know is what their parents taught them, added to the general cultural norms they live with everyday. Thus a Buddhist is such, and so is a Hindi, and a Muslim, etc. Each person is trying to live their life and raise their family, while constantly “searching” for the mystical truths of eternity.

Why isn’t Christian evangelism working very well? What are we doing wrong? Don’t we have the Truth? From a purely practical standpoint isn’t our God the One and Only God, able to do anything He pleases? Are we somehow not communicating this?

Have we somehow lost the emphasis on God being “good” ? To evangelize means to spread the Good News. So what is that good news? Is it good that Jesus Christ is the Savior? That He is the healer? That He is actually coming again?

Have we lost the ability to talk about these things in compelling ways, focused on the good that happens when someone embraces Christ as Lord? If so, what has replaced it?

Has our determination to be “right” disconnected us from the very people we’re trying to steer from the “wrong” ?

In our truly great and Blessed America we have so concentrated on Capitalism that we’ve made “competition” a national ethic, where “to win” is almost everything. Don’t misunderstand here, winning is better than losing, on many sides of the issue. But what if the “winning” gets off target, such that what is won isn’t what was sought? We certainly haven’t “won” someone to Christ simply because of that person’s church attendance. The creeds are wonderful summaries of and Statements of Faith, but they surely don’t “save.”
Our church governments are necessary to keep order and focus mission, but they don’t heal or deliver. The way we “do church” may change, as certainly as demographics change, but our order of service isn’t what draws one to Christ, it’s His Holy Spirit.

Did Jesus ever compete? Did Jesus ever evangelize by denouncing another’s faith? I know He took on the Pharisee’s from time to time, but not about their Godliness, but rather their un-Godliness. Jesus wanted them to open their eyes and see their Savior, standing right in front of them!!

We surely cannot evangelize someone else until WE’VE been so changed, ourselves, transformed not by a religious system, but by a Savior, personally. We need to fully evangelize our own souls, such that the Good News of Jesus Christ is so rooted in us and so developed within us that it begins to spill out and over to others. Maybe then we’ll see some changes in our lives and in our communities…

I was thinking the other day of those towering men (and women) of faith we read about in the Bible. You know, “those guys” who just seemed to have mountain-moving faith. It can seem like our lives are so much different than their lives, perhaps that we are much more sinful than they, so that we deserve less. And I caught myself in mid-thought, almost angry at my own thinking. I recognized a familiar voice in my head, and it wasn’t the voice of God.

The thing to do in times like these is to actually look at what the Word of God says, and to go with this Truth instead of the lies of that other voice. As I reflected on Hebrews 11 it became clear that we aren’t so different after all, from “those guys” of faith.

Abel brought an offering to God. Do we? Is this really so difficult? Does this take mountain moving faith? I think not.

Enoch was taken up to heaven without dying, because “God took him. For before he was taken up, he was known as a person who pleased God.”  Do we please God? Do we even comprehend the concept of pleasing God Almighty? It’s by faith.

Noah built the ark because God told him to. He was not well thought of during the process, I’m sure, but he obeyed, and was saved. The point? God spoke, Noah obeyed.

Abraham was told by God to go to another place to live. He obeyed, not knowing anything about what was to happen. Do you think he ever had doubts? I’m sure he did. Did he have some peer pressure to overcome? I’m sure he did. But he did it.

Sarah’s story ramps up the faith to another level, because she was much too old to have the child God promised. I can just imagine her saying to God, “You’re going to do what? With me? Ha!”   But God was up to something, and God came through!

“It was by faith that Isaac promised blessings for the future to his sons, Jacob and Esau.” Do fathers today bless their children, in faith, pronouncing upon them words God gives them? If not, why not?

This next one is a real doozy: “It was by faith that Moses’ parents hid him for three months when he was born. They saw that God had given them an unusual child…” Do parents today “see” their children as “unusual,” meaning gifted by God Almighty for some purpose? What a thought! That God didn’t just ‘procreate’ my kids, but that He made them, and with a purpose in mind. God is up to something in my children!!!

By now you get my redeemed thinking about this, that while the enemy lies to us and tries to get us to look away from the Lord, it is by, with, and IN faith that we rebuke the enemy and turn instead to Jesus Christ.

We have faith, because God has deposited it into us. We have somewhat regular everyday lives, just like “those guys,” and perhaps God Almighty is just waiting for us to get it, and allow Him to speak to us. It’s for our own good, after all, that the Father speaks. Our problems may not be nearly as big as Noah’s, or Moses’, or Joseph’s. We’re not about to be drowned, or sent down a river in a basket, or put in a pit to die. Our every day lives may actually seem quite tame compared to “those guys.” But we have the same Lord God of Heaven on our side. Waiting for us to pay attention…