Weblog
Monday, 02 July 2012
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Wandering to Macon
By Joseph Craven, guest posting for Tom Zuniga
My advice to recent college graduates is to go to Macon, Georgia and paint a house.Just trust me on this. It’s the best thing you can do for yourself. I can hereby promise that if you do anything EXCEPT that, you’ve failed. I know it sounds like a strange and stupid idea, but to be quite honest, it was the absolute perfect decision for me when I finished college, so I recommend it to everyone who is about to find themselves wandering in that same stage of life.
When you look at the environment of a recent college grad, it’s terrifying. We don’t exactly live in the best of economic climates, and even if we did, things would still be confusing for someone who has just spend the first 20-odd years of their life in a classroom. We live in a society where, truthfully, it’s not strange to be in your mid-20’s (or older) and still be trying to find yourself. This isn’t some society where if you were born into a farming family, then you know you’re going to be a farmer. Things are more complicated than that, so therefore, our lives reflect that complication. More Here...
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What Exactly is Prayer?
Prayer is something that I've been thinking, and probably should have been writing, a lot about lately. I'm starting to think that I've grown up with an incorrect concept of what prayer is and what it does. I've also started to realize I've had an incorrect concept of most of Christianity all around, hence the reason for these recent postings. Prayer is a heavy concept wrapped in a package so simple that it can seem like there must be something more. Prayer is simply carrying on a conversation with God.My understanding of prayer was a lot like how I've heard other people describe it, or how I've seen them try to use it. It was talking to God, but with the intent of getting what you want out of the transaction. It was usually done in a "Dear Lord-- Thank You for -- Please give me -- Amen" format, and there was often a more-than-subtle implication that if we say it just right, with exactly the right words and precisely the right state of heart, we'll get the thing we're asking for, whether that might be a new bike or a cure for someone's terminal cancer. But prayer is not witchcraft; there isn't a spell we can concoct that will make God bend to our will. More Here...
Sunday, 01 July 2012
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Revelife Sunday Sermon: Age of Kings (Part Four)
It's Sunday, readers, and for Christians all around the world, today is a day to attend church. At the local church, Christians spend time with one another, worship God together and listen to thoughtful teaching. It's our hope here at Revelife that you will be able to attend a church service in your community today.
But we also understand that, for any number of reasons, many people don't go to church on Sunday. We know people who are sick or injured who can't make it to their local churches. We also know people who have been hurt by the church and by Christians, who refuse to walk into a church ever again. We can't fix what's been broken, and while we can't fully replace the community found at the local church, we can still provide you with engaging worship and good teaching today.
At North Point Community Church in Alpharetta, Georgia, pastor Andy Stanley is continuing in the series Age of Kings. You've probably heard it said, "With great power comes great responsibility." The kings of the Bible knew this all too well. In this series, Andy is going to share with us some of the lessons learned by these sometimes irresponsible kings.Age Of Kings: Continues This Week from North Point Media on Vimeo.
North Point's services are streamed online live at 9:00am and 11:00am with rebroadcasts at 2:00pm, 6:00pm and 10:00pm (all times Eastern). We hope you will be able to join us for one of these services today!
If you enjoy the services at North Point, you should know that there are North Point Strategic Partner churches all across North America. Click here to see if there is one in your area.
Saturday, 30 June 2012
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Is the “Sinner’s Prayer” a Superstitious Act?
By Sharon at She Worships
Earlier this month the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) voted on a resolution to affirm the use of the Sinner’s Prayer as a means of conversion. For those who don’t speak evangelical lingo, the “Sinner’s Prayer” refers to a prayer of repentance in which the individual “accepts Jesus” into his or her heart. Some version of it is frequently recited at altar calls, but there is no fixed version of it.
Supporting the use of this prayer as a legitimate practice in conversion, the SBC resolution stated,
“We affirm that repentance and faith involve a crying out for mercy and a calling on the Lord (Rom. 10:13), often identified as a ‘Sinner’s Prayer,’ as a biblical expression of repentance and faith,” the resolution said. But it added, “A ‘Sinner’s Prayer’ is not an incantation that results in salvation merely by its recitation and should never be manipulatively employed or utilized apart from a clear articulation of the gospel (Matt. 6:7; 15:7–9).” More Here...
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Reformed Theology and the Future
By Nic Don at Theopolitical
In my understanding, unconditional election is so called because God elects individuals with absolutely no reliance upon their decisions. The reason this is theologically necessary to believe is that if a person’s decisions contributed in any way to their salvation, they would to that degree be earning their salvation.Is that accurate in all the essential points?
If that is the case, is it also true that God elects individuals to salvation without any reliance upon the free decisions of others? Can my free-will decisions affect God’s decision to elect someone else to salvation? If so, doesn’t that make election, in that restricted sense, conditional? And if not, how do things like evangelism and sexual reproduction function in God’s economy? More Here...
