Thanksgiving and Christ

Put the fork down. You have eaten too much already. Seriously, have you noticed your pants getting tighter with each spoonful of potatoes you shove in your mouth? If not, wake up. It's happening.

Today is a day where we are supposed to be thankful. But if there were one thing that we could be most thankful for, what would it be? Perhaps you are thankful for your spouse (for some, there is great wisdom in that answer). Maybe you are thankful for your job. Maybe you are thankful for your family or community. Maybe you are like me and are thankful for your new Xbox Live router that allows you to pwn n00bs with raw skill when your stats don't reflect you as 1337 (only nerds will get that last sentence).

All of the things that I just listed, though, have one inherited flaw - those things don't last forever. Eventually your spouse will die. You will lose your job, quit, or retire. Your community will change as time goes on. Someday Xbox Live will become obsolete. While we can certainly be thankful for these things, there is something that we can be thankful for that consistently and faithfully lasts forever.

Simply put, that one thing is salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, which results in eternal life in a state of indescribable goodness. The oft-quoted verse John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life", is a verse that contains something to be entirely thankful for. In love, God gave us his son so that we would have eternal life - if you believe in him for forgiveness of sins. Nothing in this world is capable of trumping this gift of salvation, because it is inherently temporarily. The destination of salvation is not - the destination of salvation is inherently superior to every other thing in the world on the basis alone that it is eternal. In this life, there is evil and pain. Such things will not exist in heaven. A promise that we will go to a place to live forever completely free of pain and suffering if we believe Jesus is our Lord and Savior? What could possibly be greater - and should receive more thanks - than this?

I think thanksgiving will be the only holiday celebrated in heaven. After everything has ceased to exist and we find ourselves before the throne of God, I believe it will necessarily require an attitude of thanksgiving incomparable to anything else this world could deserve.

Happy Thanksgiving from Another Ascending Lark, and look forward to the second annual Albums of the Year posts coming in December!

Ponder This: An Unholy Response to a Holy Salvation

"They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. 1 John 2:19-20 (ESV)"

For my daily devotionals, I have been picking apart 1 John verse by verse. Each day I move along, one verse at a time (sometimes two) and dismantle it as much as possible and then study it to apply it to my life. Today, as I was picking apart 1 John 2:20 (as quoted about with 2:19 for context), when I got down to studying it to apply it to my life, the Spirit spoke to me in a powerful way that I felt compared to share.

In my Intro to World Religions class, our teacher (who is one of the smartest Christians I know) started off the semester by defining "holy" and "profane", two words that should have great meanings to us as Christians. Profane, as he defined it, were things that were common, normal, not holy. Holy was defined as sacred, set apart, transcendent to what is profane. Those two words and their definitions came into my mind as I picked apart verse 20, when it says "you have been anointed by the Holy One". Most likely, what John was referring to by this is the inner regeneration of believers by the Holy Spirit, making an analogy to physical anointings in the Old Testament where oil was used to show outwardly an inner transformation by the Spirit.

With this in mind, a simple thought came to my mind: given what God has done in my life, a holy act of regeneration by a holy being, why does my response to that not take into account that it is a holy act? What God has done in my life and the life of every Christian is a holy act, so I am broken as to why my response to it is one that treats it as a common, normal work when it is anything but that. For the most part, my response to what God has done in my life is one that doesn't take into account how holy, sacred, set-apart of an act it was. My response to his holy act is one that is unholy.

Ponder with me: why is this the case? Why is my response, the way I live my life, so lacking? What must change in my life to where I am responding properly to God's holy work? Ask yourself the same thing.

Rick Cornish on Free Will

There is a handy dandy (but excellent) little theology 101 book called "5 Minute Theologian", written by Rick Cornish, which I have been slowly reading since the start of the summer. I have incorporated it into my morning devotionals by reading a chapter a day, which really does take about 5 minutes. I have found the following quote to be very helpful when talking about Calvinism and free will. Enjoy!

"Like a theological chicken and egg question, the central issue concerns what is logically first: God's plan or man's choice. How one approaches the issue defines the difference between two theological systems known as Calvinism and Arminianism. Calvinists begin with God's plan. Man's decisions and actions are the consequence of it. God's plan is therefore not dependent on man. Arminians, on the other hand, place man's freedom at the center. God's decisions are a response to His knowing in advance what man will choose. God's plan is therefore a response to man's initiative. A partial solution to this great paradox may be found in how we understand human freedom. Upon closer examination, we might discover that our will may not be as fully free as we usually think. But because we do make real choices, maybe we should call it "operational will" instead of "free will." Yes, I'm free to choose what I want, but I don't determine what it is that I want. Heredity, environment, and experience form my preferences long before I choose. If those earthly factors affect what I want, surely God can affect me even more. So, without hindering my ability to choose, God can influence my preferences, making it certain that I choose as He wills, while never violating my freedom. Paradoxical as it sounds, it's another part of the great mystery of God."

- Rick Cornish. 5 Minute Theologian: Maximum Truth in Minimum Time (pp. 106-107). Kindle Edition.

To Calvinists and Arminians: Have a Laugh

(Thanks to Mikel Del Rosario for the picture. Check out Mikel's blog at http://www.apologeticsguy.com/blog/)

In the midst of our intense and serious theological discussions, sometimes it is important to have a laugh at ourselves:

 

C'mon. You know this is funny. You have to laugh at this. Well, technically speaking, no you don't, because God could have predestined that...oh, nevermind ;)

The Greatest Commandment: What's Love Got To Do With It?

One time, as Christ was speaking with the Pharisees, he was asked to give the greatest commandment: 

"And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. Matthew 22:35-38 (ESV)

It's interesting to note that Christ told us that the greatest commandment is to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind (the other gospel accounts of this quote sometimes include "strength" as well). In other words, we are to love God with the entirety of our existence.

I think we can make Christianity far more complicated than it really is. Christ gave us clear and simple (though not easy) directives on how to live our lives as followers of him, and he makes clear what the greatest of commands is. Love is the greatest thing we as Christians can do.

Christ was not talking about a love for:

• The church
• The Bible
• The Gospel
• Evangelism
• Philosophy
• Theology
• Apologetics
• Science
• History
• Arts
• Music
• Worship
• Marriage
• [fill in the blank].

Christ was talking about a love for God himself. Not the things of Christianity, God himself. Not rational argument or critical thinking, but God himself. Not even living a life of righteousness, but God himself.

Why would Jesus make an emphasis on loving God the most important thing we can do? Because when we love God with the entirety of our existence (heart, soul, mind, and strength), everything in that bullet list above will fall perfectly into place. It is only when we are in love with God first and foremost that everything above can belong where it should be in our lives.

In short, what does love for God got to do with it? Absolutely everything.

Harold Camping Revisited: The "Actual" Rapture Date

[Sarcasm] This feels like deja vu, but it's not. Harold Camping is back, ladies and gentlemen, and according to Mr. Camping, next week is the REAL ending of the world. Yeah, May 21st wasn't quite right - it's really October 21st, and has been all along. Last time, Harold made a simple mathematics error in his computations of the end of the world, and the new answer (the correct one, mind you) is October 21st. [/Sarcasm]

It's hard to write anything new on this. On Rapture Day earlier this year, I wrote a somewhat detailed post and argument against Harold Camping, and most of what I said then stands true now (you can read that post here). There has been no media splash of his exploits this time around, unlike earlier this year when you couldn't even get away from the topic if you tried. I personally haven't checked into his actions or the actions of his followers, but I hope that the followers from the previous time around have learned their lesson and abandoned Mr. Camping to his delusions. If they still follow him...well, more power to them and their beliefs. It is nothing more than a failing faith.

Thankfully guys like Camping can be good teaching tools for showing what is true in comparison to what is blatantly false. I remember around the time of the first Rapture date, a middle school girl of the student ministry at my church was deeply bothered by the idea of the world ending, and resolved to begin praying for her unsaved mother. And while Camping is in extreme error to think in his "wisdom" that he can pinpoint a date for the end of the world, the whole end-of-the-world hullabaloo did produce a positive reminder - Christ can return at any time, and it is best we live in such a way that the world could really end tomorrow. We would want to share Christ with those who are unsaved in our lives, knowing that tomorrow they would be in hell for eternity. And if some crazy old man can produce a reaction of that kind, then perhaps the church could use another event like this - to wake us up of the true reality we face.


Please check out these other essays and posts by my fellow apologists in the Christian Apologetics Blogger Alliance:
http://www.reasonsforgod.org/2011/10/does-harold-camping-discredit-christianity/
http://www.cltruth.com/blog/2011/is-jesus-christ-coming-back-on-october-21-2011/ 
http://www.hieropraxis.com/2011/10/is-the-end-of-the-world-at-hand-reflecting-on-judgment-day-with-poetry/ 
http://lukenixblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/rapture-judgment-day-and-christs.html 
http://www.thinkingchristian.net/2011/10/harold-camping-a-failure-of-accountability/

David Platt on the Bible and Church Leaders

"The Bible is not in a church leader's hands so he or she can give people answers to every question they have and guidance for every situation they face. Instead, the Bible is in a church leader's hands to transform people into the image of Christ and to get people in touch with the Holy Spirit of God, who will not only give them counsel for every situation they face but also walk with them through those situations. And when church leaders use God's Word for this purpose, then church members develop a healthy dependance on God's Spirit and a healthy admiration of God's glory."

David Platt, "Radical Together", pg 49

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