Love Seeks and Cares

Bob Goff (Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Restore International) presents an interesting and very readable volume in Love Does. Love isn’t just a feeling, and it’s more than just words, it’s about change and caring – and this little book will help rise up a real sense of purposed love and joy as you trust God and seek to help, serve, care for, and restore others. Jesus touched, corrected, healed and served others for the glory of God; and we must aim to follow our Lord.

He opines that God “keeps looking. He keeps saying there's more room to those who really want to be invited to where He is” (p. 81).
Love is kind, love never fails, love endures all things … (1Corithians 13). This is what is needed in our relationships and in our social realms - God's love in Christ.

This is not the most solid book in touching biblical theology, but it is engaging and winsome book that will challenge the reader to live a life of love and joy as you serve others.

God is love (1John 4).

Robinson: The Laws of Logic a Christian Actuality - Truth Reality

See the Apologetics post "The Laws of Logic a Christian Actuality-Truth Reality" read it here

Christian Leaders Are Powerhouses on Twitter: NY Times

Twitter is courting Christian evangelical leaders, who have found the network to be surprisingly effective for building influence and spreading inspiration far and wide. see NY time article HERE

 Get in the game - and if u want follow us at: https://twitter.com/#!/Apologetics2020

why Atheism is Bad Philosophy

Atheism is a Parasitic Philosophy

"A given ideology creates a morphic field around a network or group; the ideology is a myth, a saga, a hope for humanity. Ideologies have unlimited power; they give us reasons for living. They are our most prized possessions, but also our most dangerous liabilities, for they operate with an hypnotic magnetism far from consciousness. Ideologies are not only frameworks offering us meaning, but can also become rigid systems, perhaps even prisons, for all who do not obey. They inspire and inhibit, give us vision yet blind us to events which do not fit."

- Arnold Mindell

The root philosophical problem with atheism is that as a negative ideology it stands for nothing intrinsic but the negation of another idea. Theism by comparison stands for itself. For all its ambiguities and paradoxes of the absolute, theism negates nothing. It places all things in an eternal hierarchy. Atheism on the other hand requires additional ideologies to give it positive form, principally Humanism. Atheism is basically a fundamentalist version of Humanism. One that prefers to deny its Romantic and religious roots and which does so by claiming only empirical knowledge constitutes real knowledge. Yet the most important knowledge for the living individual is the knowledge that arises from the subjective experiences of their own life, and this knowledge is anything but empirical .

There is nothing fundamentally wrong with ideology. There is no human mind without its ideological basis. However the coherence and adaptability of our ideology shapes the coherence and adaptability of our thoughts and feelings, and consequently the quality of our lives.  Further, the more ideologies we have operating together in our minds, and the more unconscious they are, the more inner conflict potentially arises.

Atheism doesn't really produce its own concepts and philosophies so much as it bundles together ideas essentially drawn from scientific materialism under an arbitrary banner.  While theists might be unfaithful to God, theism itself is an internally coherent philosophy. Atheism however is a materialist philosophy which paradoxically has God at the centre. This perverse configuration is maintained by reducing God to a single nucleus of meaning, but the technique completes evades the whole problem of the meaning of God. Which is very unfortunate because the meaning of God is the heart of the matter.

The critical problem for atheism has always been defining God. This isn't the same kind of problem for theism since theism isn't predicated on material proof or rational argument in the manner of atheism. Atheism is trying to critique poetry with mathematical logic. Yet God is the deepest metaphor we have and has more meanings than any other word. read the complete article Here
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see my eBook that refutes atheism The Sure Existence of God Here

Some Thoughts on Location and the Law of Non-contradiction

By Ben Russell

If an unbeliever asserts that contradictions can occur because water, grass, rocks, and material things can exist at more than one location at one time simply point out that it is not the case because the properties that make up each individual object are in their own location in space. For example, with the compound water each molecule is made up of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom and each individual atom takes up only one specific location in space (regardless of their size) but those exact specific molecules can't be in the same location as of another location within a single nano second in time which explains why you can have water in more than one location (such as California and China for example) except its billions of molecules of the compound water that is mixed together. That also works with grass, rocks, wood, anything in the universe that is made of matter that does not have a mind or life based functions (people, animals, etc.) Plants are not alive from a biblical perspective (unlike the perspective of many modern day Americans). Accordingly, in the biblical sense--plants, grass, trees, etc. can individually be multiplied at more than one location at a time (such as France and America for example) because of the Bible's definition of what "life" is. We have no scientific based evidence that our specific DNA, mind, soul, spirit, will, etc. exists outside of our current and individual locations. Saying that there is no evidence against such an assertion would commit the logical fallacy called "appear to ignorance." In fact it would break the law of non-contradiction if exact selves of our individual selves were also placed outside anywhere of our current exact locations (such as two feet away, country away, planet away, etc.) but in the Christian worldview we know it is impossible.

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Mr. Russell is an apologist in training. You may contact him through this web site or leave a comment.

GOP Set to Elect First Non-Christian in American History

Whatever happened to the religious right?

By David Mason

Ralph Reed and Pat Robertson speak at the Washington Hilton Hotel, 9/16/94, for the Road to Victory conference of the Christian Coalition. (Juana Arias - JUANA ARIAS)Conservative Christians are starting to line up behind Mormon Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

But they’re not doing so comfortably, and not without clinging to a last, non-negotiable condition that, ironically, makes the conservative Christian voting bloc the force most responsible these days for the secularization of America.

Last month gave us two studies of Mormonism and the American voter. John Green of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at The University of Akron concludes that “the type of campaign messaging that can sway voters away from supporting Mitt Romney because he is a Mormon will be difficult to counter.” On the other hand, Matthew Chingos and Michael Henderson of the Brookings Institution say that their study shows that Romney’s Mormonism has only a “trivial effect” on voters, and that political conservatives—including Christian evangelicals—are “more likely to support Romney” because he is a Mormon.

So which is it?

The real Christian voter who lies between these two studies is, perhaps, best represented by Dallas pastor Robert Jeffress, who late last year characterized Mormonism as a cult and asserted that Christian voters were obligated to vote for a candidate who embraces “historical Christianity.” Jeffress, who is clearly uneasy about Mormonism, now supports Romney. But Jeffress’s waffling is not because of Romney’s Mormonism, as Chingos’ and Henderson’s study would suggest. Rather, Jeffress has decided recently that he can vote for Romney, “in spite of his Mormon faith.”

Pat Robertson followed Jeffress last month with a similarly back-handed endorsement of Romney. “You don’t have Jesus running against someone else,” said Robertson on The 700 Club, ”You have Obama running against Romney.” If Christians don’t have the option to vote for an evangelical Christian, Robertson implies, they can simply vote for the candidate that most seems to espouse the political positions they prefer. That is, religion is not the most important thing in politics.

More to the point, however, is Robertson’s finish: “I can’t imagine that [Romney’s] going to interject the Mormon religion into the way he governs.” This is the condition that evangelical voters set for their grudging support of a non-(traditionally) Christian, but politically conservative, candidate. And it’s the condition that implicates evangelical Christianity as a significant force in the secularization of the country. Romney can be the Christian right’s candidate, but only if he becomes entirely a-religious. The religious voters that Romney is now courting won’t allow him to be religious about anything, not even about issues on which he and they agree.

Proving that he’s as sensitive to political winds as any candidate, Romney has tuned his message and his identity. In a 20 minute commencement address at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University two days following Obama’s public, and avowedly Christian, support for same-sex marriage, Romney offered a single sentence to the hottest political issue of the week: ”Marriage is a relationship between one man and one woman,” he said. To justify his position, Romney cited neither God nor Christianity, neither self-sacrifice nor the Golden Rule. The safest, most effective reason Romney could find to justify his agreement with a football stadium full of deliberate Christians was “American culture.”

Unable to field a viable traditional Christian candidate—who would be welcome to inject his religion into the way he governs—the Republicans are about to be the first of the two major parties to give the United States a non-’Christian’ nominee for president. The demand that this nominee eschew his own, genuine faith in favor of the rhetoric of an “American culture” characterized by what Romney now calls “shared moral convictions” rather than by an evangelical understanding of biblical salvation marks a new age in American politics. see full article HERE

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• The LDS church teaches that God the Father is an exalted man who continues to change and grow (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pp. 345-347). 

In contrast, Christianity teaches that God the Father is not a man (Numbers 23:19; Isaiah 31:3)."As man is, God once was, as God is, man may become" (Mormon Apostle Lorenzo Snow).

"God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens!.. I am going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined and have supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea..." (Mormon prophet Joseph Smith).           

 • The LDS church teaches that God the Father is an exalted man who continues to change and grow (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pp. 345-347). 

In contrast, Christianity teaches that God the Father is not a man (Numbers 23:19; Isaiah 31:3).

see book that critiques Mormonism theology Christian Philosophy Examines Mormonism Here

Reasons Why Countless Educated People Affirm Religion and Belief in God

Why Numerous People in Academia  Believe in Jesus Christ

I affirm Christian theism (CT) and practice the Christian religion by God's amazing grace and because I studied the subject as I discovered substantial evidence for theism. I rationally found that God must exist and the contrary is not possible. Thus I aim to faithfully practice the covenant faith because God saved me and calls me to follow Him covenantally; this includes a structured religious form. Countless intelligent believers have conveyed similar thoughts to me. (also see my past post on Theisitc Genises HERE ).

Although the majority of the world, throughout the preponderance of history, has professed and embraced religion and theism, religion can often make some nonbelievers uncomfortable. Sartre claimed that he became an atheist because a man stared at him in public. He felt uncomfortable and dehumanized by becoming an object of the long stare of a stranger. He then reasoned: God is omnipresent, hence God must have His eyes perpetually on Sartre. But he did not like God gazing upon him. Many nonbelievers detest this fact; they are suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. Religion requires commitment and intelligent believers delight in this truth inasmuch as God lives.

These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God (1 John 5:13).

I know that God certainly exists and He has brought me into the covenant and promises through the person and work of Jesus Christ; this is a result of revelation and God’s effectual grace that actualizes my regeneration. So I seek and enjoy my religious obligations. The name “Jesus” (Yeshua) means God is my Savior (or God saves/delivers) and thus Jesus Christ’s name is an ideal fit since Jesus is both God and Savior. We all sin, we all fail, all men fall short and we need a Savior who removes (expiates) our sins and replaces our sinful record with His perfect righteous record (imputation).

The claim that “Jesus is the only way to salvation” is not just a slogan, or a dogma tightly held due to intolerance, but it is true (Jesus is the truth), sufficient (He propitiated the wrath of an infinite God), effectual (all God calls in Christ are justified), and necessary (all men are sinners and require a Savior); moreover the exclusivity of Christ is clearly revealed in Scripture (John 14:6).

Job announced that he “knows my Redeemer lives” (Job 19:25). Paul declares, “I know in whom I have believed” (2 Timothy 1:12). It is impossible for the Christian Worldview (CWV) to be false. I am saved by grace alone, and I have truth and certainty. It is impossible for God not to exist. Calvin said that Scripture was so “clear and certain it cannot be overthrown either by men or angels.” Thus I and intellectual Christians delight in serving the Lord in our religious expression.

All men of sound Judgment will therefore hold, that a sense of Deity is indelibly engraved on the human heart. And that this belief is naturally engendered in all, and thoroughly fixed as it were in our very bones, is strikingly attested by the contumacy of the wicked, who, though they struggle furiously, are unable to extricate themselves from the fear of God (Calvin: Institutes 3:3).

Some people claim that knowledge is impossible. Nonetheless if knowledge is impossible, one could not know that knowledge is impossible because that is a knowledge claim. Christian theism is a worldview (WV) that provides human reason an unchanging foundation for knowledge. Atheism, naturalism, and skepticism all fail to furnish a foundation for the LNC (A~~A); thus they cannot provide a permanent footing for knowledge since knowledge presupposes and requires the LNC; the LNC is an immutable universal and thus requires an immutable universal foundation: theism. Non-theists can only offer a mutable non-universal ground for their WV. Theism is the truth condition for all knowledge because all human knowledge requires the use of unchanging universals. The omniscient, immaterial, and unchanging God alone provides the a priori essentials for the use of nonphysical, universal, and unchanging universals. Non-theistic thought cannot supply the necessary pre-environment for knowledge, thus it falls into futility. Considering that adherents to CT are captured by the truth, they are devoted to God as practiced in religion. The brilliant Anderson states: “At the very least, a person’s presuppositions will be implicit in the way he evaluates evidence and interprets his experience, in how he makes judgment about what is possible or plausible or valuable, and in how he actually lives daily life.” (James Anderson: Speaking the Truth). Lonergan concurs: “Our knowledge of God is both earlier and easier that any attempt to give it formal expression” (Lonergan: Intellectuals Speak Out About God).

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 5:1).

But one day, as I was passing in the field, and that too with some dashes on my conscience, fearing lest yet all was not right, suddenly this sentence fell upon my soul, Thy righteousness is in heaven; and methought withal, I saw, with the eyes of my soul, Jesus Christ at the right hand; there, I say, as my righteousness; … I also saw, moreover, that it was not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame that made my righteousness worse; for my righteousness was Jesus Christ himself, the same yesterday, and today, and for ever (John Bunyan: Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners).

God the Father sent His Son, who is sinless and perfect in character, to live a perfect life in accordance with God’s Law and sacrifice Him for the sins of mankind. The sins of the repentant sinner are cast onto Christ: the perfect sacrifice. Furthermore, salvation includes the gift of the “righteousness of God” (Romans 3:21-22, 10:3; Philippians 3:9). This is the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21; 1 Corinthians 1:30). His life of sinlessness and perfect obedience to God’s Law on this earth was required to give believers a perfect record in regard to the positive aspect of justification (Christ’s active obedience).

The Kindness of God

But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life (Titus 3:4-7).

The cross is the standard of victorious grace. It is the light-house whose cheering ray gleams across the dark waters of despair and cheers the dense midnight of our fallen race, saving from eternal shipwreck, and piloting into everlasting peace (Spurgeon).

All people are sinners in need of grace. This truth should send the unbeliever to Christ for pardon from sin’s penalty; a penalty that has been paid by Jesus on the cross. No one’s good works can pay the penalty for past sins, only Christ can; the believer’s good works cannot erase past transgressions. If I receive a speeding ticket, and I go to court and the judge asks, “What do you plead?” I say, “Guilty, but I promise I will never speed again. Judge, please forgive my ticket on account of my future obedience.” The judge would say, “It is good that you will not speed again. That is your lawful duty. But you still have to pay the fine for your past mistake of speeding.” The good news is Jesus Christ, as judge, came down, took off His robe and paid the fine Himself for all who trust in Him.

The atonement of Christ expiates the sins of the Christian and rinses his transgressions from his spiritual record. Then God graciously imputes Christ’s righteousness to the believer’s account. We enter heaven free from past sins, and clothed in the righteousness of Christ through faith alone and by grace alone.

The cross is the focus of all human history—I was almost going to say it is the centre of the life of God, if such a thing can be. All the ages meet in Calvary. Jesus is the central Sun of all events (Spurgeon).

 Finding Peace with God

The believer in Christ must say that without Christ there is no truth and goodness anywhere that will finally stand before God. Modern thought, like the prodigal son, is at the swine trough. The believer does not do his duty to men unless he calls them to repentance, and therewith back to the Father’s house (Van Til).

Romans 4:6 declares that God “imputes righteousness apart from works,” hence this righteousness of Christ is imputed to the believer’s account. God forensically (legally) credits (imputes) the believer with the righteous acts of Christ; the flawless works He performed as a perfect man on the earth. This is the great exchange: Christ gives His perfect righteousness in exchange for the believer’s sin. This is great news for sinners who by God’s grace turn in faith to God’s Son; as a consequence, Christ takes their sin and believers receive His perfect record of righteousness.

But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness (Romans 4:5).

Carnal hearts, until grace fully subdues them, are very loath to know their wretched condition. They love to not hear of anything that reveals to them the misery they are in (Watson).

God credits believers with the righteousness of Christ solely through faith by grace alone. Justification forensically renders the believer righteous and gives him peace with heaven. Without justification, the unbeliever has no peace with God. We must never assert that there is peace, when there is no peace between the ungodly and God. Without justification by grace alone, there can be no real peace (Romans 5:1). Imputation is the biblical term for the positive element of justification. One is forgiven and saved through God’s grace by faith: The believer is judicially constituted as righteous. He is declared righteous. We need to be justified by grace. Justification is a forensic term which speaks of the Christian’s legal position before God. The believer is declared righteous despite his unrighteous deeds.

For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly (Romans 5:6).

The Tragedy of Unbelief and the Hope of Faith in Christ

Pugnacious skeptic and libertine George Bernard Shaw wrote, near the end of his life: “The science to which I pinned my faith is bankrupt. Its counsels, which should have established the millennium, led, instead, directly to the suicide of Europe. I believed them once. In their name I helped to destroy the faith of millions of worshippers in the temples of a thousand creeds. And now they look at me and witness the great tragedy of an atheist who has lost his faith.” Yes it seems that nobody talks so persistently about God and religion as those who maintain that there is no God; nonetheless this yields despair. Since all Christians (including the intelligent believer) have complete and eternal forgiveness, they desire to serve God through religious practice.

see my new e-Books that contend for Christian truth:

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