revelife's Revelife

The Blame Game of Fort Hood: Christians Should Stay Out

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 02:03:00 GMT

Do any Google news search for “religion,” “faith,” or “christianity” and you'll find articles written about what occurred at Fort Hood, Texas, last week. It is a tragedy that all of America is trying to understand and come to terms with, and we all have different ways of coping with tragedy. A seemingly more common coping mechanism for this tragedy is that of placing blame.

One entity being harshly criticized is the US government. “Finger-pointing erupted between federal agencies Tuesday over Fort Hood shooting suspect Nidal Hasan,” reads a recent Associated Press article. “Government officials said a Defense Department terrorism investigator looked into Hasan's contacts with a radical imam months ago, but a military official denied prior knowledge of the Army psychiatrist's contacts with any Muslim extremists.”

Even the soldiers at Fort Hood, some of whom were likely the shooter's victims, are being blamed for the massacre. According to ABC News, “his cousin says he was the target of constant harassment from others in the military. His tormentors called him a 'camel jockey,' said his cousin, Nader Hasan.”

Of course a more obvious scapegoat is the Muslim faith. The New York Daily News reports that “Sen. Joe Lieberman called the Fort Hood massacre an act of 'Islamist extremism' - even as top Army brass warned Sunday against guessing at a motive, fearing backlash against Muslim soldiers.” Some have even suggested screening Muslim-Americans before they enter the military. Jon Soltz, a veteran of the Iraq war, writes in his Huffington Post blog:

Brian Kilmeade asked if it's time to have "special debriefings" or "special screenings" of all Muslims in the military. Because, as he said, "If I'm gonna be deployed in a foxhole, if I'm gonna be deployed in an outpost, I'm gonna want to know that the guy next to me isn't gonna want to kill me."

More Here...

Helpful Questions When Dealing With Depression

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:37:00 GMT

By Clayton King

Not long ago, I received an email from a brother in Christ who was really going through a dark valley of discouragement and depression. He asked for my advice. I really believe the Holy Spirit inspired me to respond to him with a list of questions. I want to provide these for you today in hopes that in reading and responding to them, you will be forced to dig deeper into your heart, beyond the tough days and feelings of loneliness, and find some answers as to why you feel like you do sometimes, and what you can do by God’s grace to turn things around.

Here is what I shared with this dear brother, and I share it with you in hopes that you are served and blessed through it.

Take an inventory of your life by asking the following questions:

Do I get enough rest?
What time do I go to bed? How late do I sleep?
Do I eat healthy food or junk?
Do I rely on caffeine or sugar or energy drinks for energy?
Do I have any unhealthy relationships I need to get out of?
Am I bitter or resentful about anything in my past? More Here...

Six Things We Have Faith In

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:53:00 GMT

[By "we", I guess I mean most people. It may not always include me, but it tends to. You might not fit into this, but you probably will. Faith as I use it in this entry, and only in this entry, is belief without empirical evidence to provide grounds for it. This whole entry is just an exercise showing that this is a really broad category.]

Six Things We Have Faith In

1. We have faith that the physical world exists. We can't prove that it exists with evidence that doesn't already presuppose it exists; in other words, we can't prove that it exists without circular reasoning. So we're left to hope that we're not living in someone else's dream.

2. We have faith that we are agents. A dose of physics should dispel the rumor that we are responsible for our beliefs and actions. Instead, we just limit physics, and continue on happily believing that we are things that control our destinies.

3. We have faith in the goodness of humanity. This is despite my lit. professor's insistence that "humanity" is a category that can be deconstructed and done away with for any other category that would be just as valid. And he also believes in the inherent goodness of humanity. More Here...

What Would You Do to See Jesus?

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:31:00 GMT

What does it mean to have faith? How far does your faith go? Does it stop at any closed door? Or does it find away around the door so that it can grow deeper?

These questions bring up a bible verse: Mark 2:1-12.

When Jesus again entered his hometown of Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. So many gathered that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. Some men came, bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four of them. Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus and, after digging through it, lowered the mat the paralyzed man was lying on. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven."

Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, "Why does this fellow talk like that? He's blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?"

Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, "Why are you thinking these things? Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up, take your mat and walk'? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins . . . ." He said to the paralytic, "I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home." He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, "We have never seen anything like this!"

I love this story of Jesus. First of all, it shows how deeply Jesus loves us. He showed the paralyzed man lying on the mat forgiveness, offering him compassion and love. Jesus didn't ask who this man was, where he came from, what this man had done wrong... or anything like that. He didn't want or need to know those things; he just knew he had a sinner laying before him who needed help. So he forgave the man's sins, and when that wasn't enough--and the crowd was bothered by what Jesus said--He told this paralyzed man to get up and go home... and he did! More Here...

Everything Comes Down To Love

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 14:45:00 GMT

There are two extremes in Christianity. One is the side that says that all of Christianity is about love, and the other side, although claiming to love people, hates anyone who doesn't bend to their every standard and rule. I'd like to think of myself as somewhere in the middle, but if I were to lean to one side, which I do, it is the side that is all about love.

What people seem to be missing is the trinity, the three in one, God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost. Each have a different role to play, yet each one is part of the big picture that many seem to be missing. Christianity involves love, death, life, eternity, war, peace, prosperity, poverty, judgment, forgiveness and many other things, but the human part of the whole picture is confined to one fraction of the universal picture.

God is the judge of all things; He makes it clear that vengeance is His and promises to repay those who deserve repercussions. Jesus is the example for the humans. He was the one aspect of God that became a human and was tempted in all the ways a human is tempted. He is the aspect of the trinity that applies directly to us and He is the one we should be mirroring our lives after. God can bring wars upon countries and judge those who have done wrong, because he is just in every way, but as humans, that is not our job. Jesus, as the human example of God, showed only love and compassion while He was here on the earth. Even in the few instances where Jesus rebuked people, it was never in a malicious or antagonistic way, he had a true love for people, no matter what they had done or were doing. More Here...

Learning to Trust God, and My Husband

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 02:12:00 GMT

By Sharon at She Worships

This weekend marked 3 months since Ike and I got married. And an awesome 3 months it has been! We’ve had a ton of fun together, but we’ve also learned a lot about one another and ourselves in the process.

In particular, I’ve realized that I’m a bit of a control freak when it comes to driving. You see, I’m finding myself in the role of passenger more often than I ever have before. Ike almost always drives, and this is hard for me. We’ll be driving some place that I’ve been a million times, but then, horror of horrors, he decides to take a different route. He turns left where I would have turned right. He takes the interstate instead of the back roads. It starts to drizzle but he doesn’t turn on his windshield wipers because he “claims” he can still see out the windshield.

As a result of these decision-making discrepancies, I continually find myself asking gentle yet immasculatingly annoying questions like, “Love, don’t you think you need to turn your lights on at this point in the day?” or “Did you mean to take that turn? This route seems a little out of the way.” It usually bugs him when I ask questions like that so I’m trying to stop, but it’s really hard. Many times I would do things very differently from him. And as a passenger, I feel completely out of control. More Here...

God is For Us, But is He on Our Side?

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 22:33:00 GMT

Though I have often heard people confidently assert, or at least strongly imply that God was on ‘their’ side; Is He, really?!? My smug heart has secretly treasured such an attitude from time to time, especially when I felt pressure or opposition from other people.

Joshua, the loyal attendant of Moses during the wilderness wanderings of Israel, assumed the role of leader of this fledgling nation as they crossed into Canaan through the Jordan River. God had refused to permit Moses to enter the promised land, and so now Joshua took up the mantel of Moses as Israel anticipated the taking of this land. In preparing for Israel’s first siege:

...Joshua was there near Jericho. He looked up and saw right in front of him a man standing, holding his drawn sword. Joshua stepped up to him and said, "Whose side are you on—ours or our enemies'?"

He said, "Neither. I'm commander of God's army. I've just arrived." Joshua fell, face to the ground, and worshiped. He asked, "What orders does my Master have for his servant?"

God's army commander ordered Joshua, "Take your sandals off your feet. The place you are standing is holy."

Joshua did it.
-- Joshua 5:13-15 (The Message)

I think the assumption is that if we are believers then certainly (there can be no doubt); God is definitely for us and with us. But it just seems to me that this reading from Joshua negates that presumptive kind of thinking. More Here...

The Challenge of Applying Scripture

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:58:00 GMT

By Clayton King

In studying for my message this past week, I consulted Gordon Fee’s commentary on the letter to the Philippians. Fee always has a way of achieving a great blend of academic discovery and practical application. One comment I read stuck in my mind. Essentially, he said it would be a great tragedy to lose the heart and meaning of a text by over-analyzing it. His advice was to go back to the scripture and read it again. And again. And again.

I confess that as a preacher, evangelist, and pastor, one of my greatest struggles is reading the Word of God for spiritual nourishment and personal transformation. My tendency is to read it for sermon material. I see passages unfold as if I were preaching them to others. But the Holy Spirit wants to preach that passage to me first.

I would prefer to read the Bible for what it has to say to my audience. I forget that when I read it, I am an audience of one and must decided how I will respond to what God tells me to do; repent, rejoice, give a gift, intercede, or re-arrange priorities. When the message on the page is for everyone else, I escape the personal responsibility of obedience. When the message is for me, I have to give an account to God. More Here...

Death and Wal-Mart

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:43:00 GMT

By Sean at The Mockingbird Blog

Well, I have been MIA for the past few weeks due to moving, traveling, etc., but I stumbled across this article on MSNBC.com a week or so ago, and thought it worth mentioning. It turns out that Wal-Mart has begun to sell coffins online, that's right, coffins. Now it is truly your one-stop shopping destination. The best part is that you can find the caskets under the "health and beauty" section:)

A lot could be said about the new additions to the Wal-Mart inventory, but I found myself feeling very grateful for this development because it reminds us of our mortality. It is not unlike many of the old Episcopal churches in the South that have graveyards surrounding them. I was just down in South Carolina this past week visiting some friends of Mockingbird, and every church I visited sat amidst the gravestones of its parishoners. You don't see this very much any more with many of today's churches worshipping in converted shopping centers and athletic arenas, and I think we are worse off for it. But, those old graveyards remind us that we are not living for this world. They remind us that we are mortal, and ultimately they remind us that we are sinful. Death in this world is a direct result of sin. More Here...

The Triune God

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:22:00 GMT

The doctrine of the Trinity — that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are each equally and eternally the one true God — is admittedly difficult to comprehend, and yet is the very foundation of Christian truth. Although skeptics may ridicule it as a mathematical impossibility, it is nevertheless a basic doctrine of Scripture as well as profoundly realistic in both universal experience and in the scientific understanding of the cosmos.

Both Old and New Testaments teach the Unity and the Trinity of the Godhead. The idea that there is only one God, who created all things, is repeatedly emphasized in such Scriptures as Isaiah 45:18:

“For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; …I am the Lord; and there is none else.”

A New Testament example is James 2:19:

“Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well; the devils also believe, and tremble.”

The three persons of the Godhead are, at the same time, noted in such Scriptures as Isaiah 48:16:

“I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; From the time that it was, there am I; and now the Lord God, and his Spirit, hath sent me.” More Here...