Recently I heard of a new book that came out titled, 'Love Wins: A book about heaven, hell, and the fate of every person who ever lived' by Rob Bell. I have a book by this pastor, 'Velvet Elvis', and I remember thinking how uncomfortable I felt about his teaching. I have read a few commentaries on the new book and I have come to find that Bell believes that God loves us so much that in the end he will not let anybody go to hell. I think this is one of the greatest heresies in the world right now. Without there being a hell why would Jesus have to to earth to make right what Adam did wrong? Clearly Rob Bell believes in a different Jesus. Jesus spoke more on hell than any other topic.
Jesus was so serious about avoiding hell that he said this, 43 If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out. [44] 45 And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. [46] 47 And if your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, 48 where“‘the worms that eat them do not die, and the fire is not quenched. 49 Everyone will be salted with fire.
Now, I'm not recommending that people should start cutting off limbs, but this is how serious Jesus takes sin. After all he died a horrible death so we did not have to face this punishment. As I have come to think more about this, I have realized how serious I need to get about getting rid of sin in my life. Paul gives a great take on this in the Epistle to the Ephesians 5:3-5:
But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving.For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person--such a man is an idolater--has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.
So no dirty jokes,swearing, foolish talk, and bad tv shows. I recently gave up watching One Tree Hill. It took me weeks, but I managed to do it! The Holy Spirit convicted me about his like you could not imagine. Believe me, I have not mastered all of these I wrote above but through the Holy Spirit convicting me daily I believe I may one day get a pretty good handle on it. It has been very hard for me to do this. However, as Christians, this is what God expects from us.
For Christians that are reading this I would recommend asking the Holy Spirit to convict you about things you are doing in your life that you know are wrong. I hear of quite a few tv shows that people watch who claim to be Christians. We should RUN from these things and not let them get a foothold in our lives. The more things that you give yourself to, the harder it will be to turn away from it. Your witness will be ruined and you will not take sin as seriously.
The apostle Peter gives a great warning about this is 2 Peter: If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning.It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them. Of them the proverbs are true: "A dog returns to its vomit," and, "A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud."
I'm going to leave you with some words from Jesus in Matthew 5:48, "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." Does this mean that we can become perfect? No, not in this life. I swore today. I thought quite a few mean thoughts about people today. (With the debt commision debacle today it was mostly aimed at politicians.) Am I proud of it? No. However, I know it's wrong and as the days go by I have noticed that I don't do it as much. Believe me, if it weren't for my faith in Jesus, it would be much, much worse.
So getting back to my main point, please do not take lightly the grace God has given us these few years that we are on this planet. Now is the day of salvation.
Monday, November 21, 2011
God's Holiness,Hell
For a long time I have struggled with how God could let one of us human beings suffer in hell for all of eternity. To be honest I still don't think I have my head completely around it. Recently, I listened to a sermon from one of my favorite pastors, Bill Randles. He is pastor of Believers in Grace Fellowship in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He made quite a few very interesting points in a sermon I listened to recently.(believersingrace.com) One of them was that "Can you imagine that just sinning once against God is worthy of eternal damnation, and how unbelievably awesome he must be?" I never really thought of this before. How many of us would be ashamed to do something to offend the President of the United States, in his presense? (I personally would love to with the current one, but that's another story.) Now just think of sinning against God, your creator? God is so holy that someone who sins once against him cannot be in his presense. No wonder Isaiah said this after being in the presense of God, "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty." Isaiah 6:5
This makes me think of my own life and all the things that I have done. How many times in my life have I had unclean lips? How many times today?!
What makes me think that I am so great that I should get to spend all eternity with the Creator of the universe? How arrogant us humans can be! If God just created us for his own amusement, like a game of SIMS, what right would I have to argue with him? I didn't create me. I don't have any right over myself. Only my Creator does. In Paul's epistle to the Romans we get a some perspective on this,
Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.
Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?
Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?
Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?
What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:
And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,
Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?
Romans 9:18-24
So if the clay does not have to right to say to the potter, "Why have you made me this way?",why should we expect any different from God? I'm not trying to say that God is a jerk either. Quite the opposite. He sent his son, Jesus, to die for us so that we could be in heaven with him for all eternity. Just think that the Creator of the Universe thought highly enough of you and me that he sent his Son to die for you? This is why I have such a difficult time with depression. Granted, I know some people have genetic defects, etc. I currently work in this field and I see it every day, but shouldn't the idea that if you were the only sinner on earth that Jesus would've came to die for you be enough? I'm sure some will say, "Well not everybody is going to believe in Jesus." This is not an excuse, IT IS THE PROBLEM! Everybody needs Jesus. It is part of our fallen human condition. Man is so prideful that he thinks all he needs is himself. That is such a joke. We are here today, gone tommorow. Just look at myself. I have cancer. Although unlikely, it could spread all over my body and I could be gone in months. I'm 27 years old. Readers, we have no guarantees in this life. Please accept Jesus now while you still have time. Life on this planet is so short. You never know if tommorow that your number could be up.
This makes me think of my own life and all the things that I have done. How many times in my life have I had unclean lips? How many times today?!
What makes me think that I am so great that I should get to spend all eternity with the Creator of the universe? How arrogant us humans can be! If God just created us for his own amusement, like a game of SIMS, what right would I have to argue with him? I didn't create me. I don't have any right over myself. Only my Creator does. In Paul's epistle to the Romans we get a some perspective on this,
Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.
Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?
Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?
Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?
What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:
And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,
Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?
Romans 9:18-24
So if the clay does not have to right to say to the potter, "Why have you made me this way?",why should we expect any different from God? I'm not trying to say that God is a jerk either. Quite the opposite. He sent his son, Jesus, to die for us so that we could be in heaven with him for all eternity. Just think that the Creator of the Universe thought highly enough of you and me that he sent his Son to die for you? This is why I have such a difficult time with depression. Granted, I know some people have genetic defects, etc. I currently work in this field and I see it every day, but shouldn't the idea that if you were the only sinner on earth that Jesus would've came to die for you be enough? I'm sure some will say, "Well not everybody is going to believe in Jesus." This is not an excuse, IT IS THE PROBLEM! Everybody needs Jesus. It is part of our fallen human condition. Man is so prideful that he thinks all he needs is himself. That is such a joke. We are here today, gone tommorow. Just look at myself. I have cancer. Although unlikely, it could spread all over my body and I could be gone in months. I'm 27 years old. Readers, we have no guarantees in this life. Please accept Jesus now while you still have time. Life on this planet is so short. You never know if tommorow that your number could be up.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Please do not let Newt Gingrich fool you. Michelle Bachmann is the only true conservative in this race.
Sorry, conservatives. Newt is just as bad as Mitt Romney. He just hides it better. Global warming commercials with Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry, etc. Saying that the Paul Ryan budget plan was 'right-wing social engineering.' In '07 he visited with Hillary Clinton and said that they had a lot in common with their views on a single-payer health system. I could go on and on, but I'm sure you get the picture. Even though she is a horrible campaigner, Michelle Bachmann, would seek to accomplish what most conservatives want. The sad thing is she and the media torpedoed her campaign. Bachmann made the statement last month that to get the country back on the road to solvency we would need to cut 46.8% of the federal budget NOW! She is the only tried and true conservative in the race. If she could get the country back on the path to fiscal responsibility, I could care less about her gaffes.
Testicular Cancer: Round 2
Hello Everyone. Sorry I haven't posted for so long. I have a pretty good reason. The end of October I found out that I had testicular cancer again. Not much fun. My wife, grandpa, and I went to Mayo Clinic to see if the one remaining testicle I had could be saved. Unfortunately, it could not. So I went in and had the testicle removed and was out of work for around two weeks. (Thank you so much co-workers for helping me out with that.) The surgery went very well. Coming out of anestesia I told my mom, mother-in-law, and dad that I want a new mattress for Christmas. (I HATE THE MATTRESS ON OUR BED!) This was a step up from five years ago when I told the nurses that I want my mommy.
I had a follow-up appointment with my doctor a week after the surgery. It turns out that my tumor was a seminoma and is very susceptible to radiation. Testicular cancer, when caught early with a seminoma tumor, has a 95 percent survival rate. What typically happens after this diagnosis is the patient either has radiation over the lymph node area of the body to kill any chance of the cancer spreading or do something called watchful waiting. I voted for watchful waiting. I did not have a recurrence five years ago so I decided to go this route again. I was also diagnosed with Crohn's disease earlier this year and don't want to aggrevate my stomach. Also, radiation scares the hell out of me. With watchful waiting I have x-rays and blood work done every month for two years, and than have a CT-scan every 3 months for the first year and every 6 months for the second year.
To be honest I was pretty angry with God the past few weeks, but now realize how blessed I am. God doesn't give us a guarantee of how long we are going to live on this earth, so I shouldn't expect one. My wife and I support two kids, and a missionary through Gospel for Asia. If you are ever feeling down about your life just read about what the typical Dalit person goes through in India. I guarantee it will change your perspective on things. God has blessed my life in so many areas that I've just decided to be thankful for today.
I would also like to thank everybody that has been praying for me and for those who will begin praying for me after reading this. There is nothing like the power of prayer.
I had a follow-up appointment with my doctor a week after the surgery. It turns out that my tumor was a seminoma and is very susceptible to radiation. Testicular cancer, when caught early with a seminoma tumor, has a 95 percent survival rate. What typically happens after this diagnosis is the patient either has radiation over the lymph node area of the body to kill any chance of the cancer spreading or do something called watchful waiting. I voted for watchful waiting. I did not have a recurrence five years ago so I decided to go this route again. I was also diagnosed with Crohn's disease earlier this year and don't want to aggrevate my stomach. Also, radiation scares the hell out of me. With watchful waiting I have x-rays and blood work done every month for two years, and than have a CT-scan every 3 months for the first year and every 6 months for the second year.
To be honest I was pretty angry with God the past few weeks, but now realize how blessed I am. God doesn't give us a guarantee of how long we are going to live on this earth, so I shouldn't expect one. My wife and I support two kids, and a missionary through Gospel for Asia. If you are ever feeling down about your life just read about what the typical Dalit person goes through in India. I guarantee it will change your perspective on things. God has blessed my life in so many areas that I've just decided to be thankful for today.
I would also like to thank everybody that has been praying for me and for those who will begin praying for me after reading this. There is nothing like the power of prayer.
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