The Existence of God

The existence of the universe is such a powerful proof of the existence of God that only a fool could and would deny that fact. Most people capable of reading and discerning are well aware of the multiple levels of “proof” for the existence of God.

The Bible presupposes the existence of God. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Genesis 1:1.

While the First Cause does not automatically point to the God of the Bible, with a little thought it quickly becomes apparent that it can be no other. For example, there can be only one Greatest Conceivable Being. This fact eliminates all religions that are not monotheistic.

The Bible teaches that God can be known through faith, the result of which is a revelation from God to us about Himself. Even those fools who purport to live by reason alone soon succumb to the need for faith to support their own arguments. This is a result of the fall in which sin limits our ability to rationally understand anything. 

Friday's Thoughts on Marriage

This is number 14 in a weekly series I began on December 21^st/13 with a post called, “Married Forever?

Christian marriage is not lacking a supernatural element. As Paul highlights and John 17 expands, a Biblical marriage is to pattern itself after the union of the Trinity; a relationship between God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit who live in perpetual love and sacrifice. Jesus on the Cross, speaking words “not My own,” was an example of this loving and sacrificial relationship.

We are created in God's image. 

We were not created to live in our own glory. 

We were not created to worship ourselves. 

“Love the Lord you God with all your strength, heart, soul and mind, AND love your neighbour as yourself.”

It we fail to serve God by loving others, by serving others, we fail live out the nature with which we were created. Violating our nature leads to misery and the breakdown of relationships.

“Who ever wants to save his life must lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” If you seek life as this world understands life, seeking self-protection above all else, you will find misery. If you seek Jesus and put Him first in your life, in your relationships, in your marriage you will have a full and abundant life.

More on this next Friday

Friday's Thoughts on Marriage

This is number 12 in a weekly series I began on December 21^st/13 with a post called, “Married Forever?

Self-centredness will destroy your marriage! Does that surprise you? If it does you're in more trouble than you imagined. A self-centred spouse will always trigger resentment in the other spouse. What I mean is, the self-centred behaviours of one spouse will ultimately trigger self-centred behaviours in the other spouse. Self-centred is who we are – Unless we allow Jesus to change us.

The problem of course is that a self-centred character is blind to its own existence. What's more, our self-centred character is almost allergic to the same characteristic in others, especially one's partner. Our corrupt self-love triggers thoughts like, 'Why weren't you thinking about me? You should have been thinking about what I want. How could you not be thinking about me?' 

Only an obedient relationship with Jesus can create an other-centred focus that destroys self-pity.

The Holy Spirit Who displays a giving and serving character will bring about this type of maturity in you. Jesus' Spirit destroys pride and brings about a humility that exudes generosity and deals with the selfishness of others in a mature fashion. The Holy Spirit does not keep score. As seen by the reaction of the world to the mere word “submission,” it's easy to see that without the indwelling of the Spirit, submission is impossible.

If your only source of love is from other people, what happens when those people fail to love you? As the saying goes, “To what will you look to for help if not to that which is stronger than yourself?” The love that we need to give away in order to maintain and grow a healthy marriage must come from a source greater than ourselves.

Here is a reality of life, You will not, and cannot find happiness until you've placed your own happiness in submission to that of someone else. Not just for today but as part of a commitment, a life-long commitment to putting the well-being of at least one other person (hopefully that of your spouse) ahead of your own. 

Christian maturity does this, not in order to get in return, but simply to give. Freely we have received. Freely we are to give. This type of obedience to Jesus, because of what He has done for you, cannot fail to provide peace and contentment.

More on this next Friday.

Friday's Thoughts on Marriage

This is number 11 in a weekly series I began on December 21^st/13 with a post called, “Married Forever?

I'd done a post yesterday referencing the human tendency to name as “love,” what is really nothing more than manipulation. That is, we are sometimes intentionally “good” to someone in the midst of a struggle, be it relational, or financial or addictions etc.. We call tell ourselves that these good behaviours on our part are motivated by love. The sticky part comes when, over the next few months or years, the person in need fails to change or improve. In that case many people become exasperated and pull the plug on what was termed love. The point I'm trying to make is that when we pull the plug, it wasn't love that was driving the “good” behaviours. It was an attempt to manipulated someone into change.

This pattern is seen no less often in marriage. We start off treating our spouses with kindness. We overlook their quirks – for awhile. In a few years however, we begin to think, “If I have to live with that behaviour for the rest of my life I'll go crazy.” And the quest to change another human being begins.

In a Biblical marriage that's not all bad. A Biblical marriage is a union of a man and a woman who have made a commitment before God to “love” each other until the death of one of them ends the union. In a Biblical marriage, this love entails submission to the other as well as a servant's heart. Just as there can be a subtle twist on love which is in reality manipulation, so too with serving one another. In fact, in a marriage there can be a double twist on serving. Here's what I mean.

The first twist is of course “serving” your spouse with the intent of motivating change. This is simply another case of manipulation. The second twist is more subtle. Most people know the parable of the Good Samaritan. A Jewish man is beaten and robbed. Two religious Jewish people see the man lying in the ditch and pass by on the other side of the road. Each individually ignores the man's plight. Then a “despised” Samaritan comes along and without hesitation he helps the injured Jewish man recover from his injuries. He pays for his medical care. He shows him true love. When discussing the parable, we usually talk about those who help or refuse to help and see if we can identify their lack of love in ourselves. Not often do we talk about what it's like for the Jewish man to be helped, regardless of whether it's by a Samaritan. Not often we we talk about our struggle with allowing someone to serve us.

In marriage it's one thing to serve your spouse. It's quite another to be served by your spouse. Secular people gnash their teeth in outrage at the very thought of submitting to and serving one another. That should not surprise. It's pride and corrupt self-love that keeps us from wanting to serve, even the one we claim to love. However it's also pride and corrupt self-love that bristles at the thought of being served by our spouse.

When we serve someone else, when we do good for someone else, it puts us in control. Our worldly (un loving) thinking senses that at some level, helping someone else puts that person in our debt. That kind of serving, like the pseudo love mentioned earlier in this post is also manipulation. People with this mindset keep score regarding who did what for whom. Men especially cringe at the thought of anyone doing for them and this includes their wives. This is pride saying, “I am not going to allow you to put me in your debt.”

The thing is, in a Biblical marriage, there is no such thing as debt. We serve Jesus by serving others – Period. Jesus gave His life for us so we give our life for Him. In a Biblical marriage we live out the Gospel in which there is no score keeping. Jesus freely loved us and we are to freely love one another.

In a Gospel marriage we aren't loved or served because we deserve it. Real love comes with no strings attached. Real love is gladly given. Real love is gladly received. It's a wonderful thing to allow yourself to be fully accepted, fully loved. In Biblical love we don't earn our love. And again, as men, as the husband, as the spiritual leader of the home, we take the lead in demonstrating servant leadership. We model for our spouse and children grace and mercy and love and kindness, patience and submission. We freely give love because real love is patient and kind. Real love doesn't envy or boast and it is not proud. It isn't rude or self-seeking. It isn't easily angered and it doesn't keep a record of wrongs. Real love doesn't delight in evil but takes joy in Truth. Real love always protects, always hopes, always trusts, always perseveres. Real love never fails.

Of Camels and Prophecy

There's been some chatter on the internet lately. Both Time and CNN carried the story. Apparently the Bible can't be trusted because, according to the writer, Abraham had Camels before it is believed that people had tamed Camels. So there!

The solution to why the Bible says what it does, again according to the writer, is that these accounts were written 100's of years after the events in question.

Well, until God opens our spiritual eyes, we can't believe or understand what the Bible says to us so . . .

Regardless, these doubters run into a bit of a problem (they can't see it, but the problem is there nevertheless) when it comes to prophecy of Jesus. By the time these prophecies came true, the Old Testament had already been translated into Greek. They were not written hundreds of years after the fact. So . . .

What is the probability of the Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah being fulfilled? Contained in the Old Testament, there are more than 300 specific prophecies alone that concerned Jesus, the promised coming Messiah. These were written from 450 to more than 2,000 years before his birth. It's been mathematically calculated that the probability of just 8 of the more than 300 prophecies being fulfilled by chance is 1^1017. Anything greater than 1^50 is generally considered to be beyond natural possibility.

Science Digest

How Then Should I Live?

I saw a documentary about some convict who said, “I decided to follow Islam because Christianity is too easy. All you have to do in Christianity is go to Church and read your Bible and you’re in.”

(((Sigh))) It's like he thinks that as a Christian I indulge my insouciant ways with an ice-tea, lying in a hammock while letting my Creator do the heavy lifting. See whether you think being a follower of Jesus is easy –

. Admitting one’s need for forgiveness and admitting that there is nothing that I can do to warrant salvation is the single most difficult thing that a human being can do.

“The road is narrow and the gate is small and only a few will ever find it.” 

Jesus

. Finding and following the Will of God, loving what God loves and hating what God hates bends the intellect almost beyond the breaking point.

. Agreeing with God that what the world has to offer is useless for real life and real living takes constant reminding.

. Having a relationship with one’s Creator whereby we mean it when we say, “That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 

2^nd Corinthians 2:10, is not for the faint of heart.

. Romans 8:29 is God’s goal of each and every Christian, but oh my what a goal it is. “For God knew His people in advance, and He chose them to become like His Son, so that His Son would be the first-born among many brothers and sisters.”

Hated without cause, mocked, lied to and lied about. Jesus, our example and character goal, came to earth knowing in advance that He would be abused, misunderstood, mistreated, rejected, insulted, betrayed and ultimately have humanity do our absolute worst to Him. Yet He entered into a covenant relationship with us anyway because He loves us. And then Jesus said, “Pick up your cross and follow Me (be like Me, do what I did, act like I did, relate to others like I did), and be ready to die (both literally and figuratively) for Me.

. “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”

Col. 3:12,13

Try Jesus and tell me how easy it is.

. Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Pray for those who persecute you.

. Simply “Doing no harm,” as fools advocate, is not good enough for the path of Christ. The way of Jesus is proactive and encourages doing good to all. Lessening the needs of others whenever and wherever one can is a spiritual fallout of a Christ filled heart.

. “If you think you stand, be careful lest you fall.” A follower of Jesus will never overestimate h/her ability to withstand the power of temptation. Flirting with evil is anathema to those who love Jesus.

. A follower of Jesus does good, and not just when officers of the world are watching. Rather, a follower of Jesus does good to please Him who is always present. “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”

. Christian love sees others as worthy of preferential treatment.

“If you have encouragement from being united with Christ, If you have comfort from His love, If you have any fellowship with the Spirit, If you have any tenderness and compassion then in humility consider others better than yourselves. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.   

Philippians 2:3,4,10

Romans 12:10 - “Honour one another above yourselves.”

Gal. 5:13 - “Serve one another in love.”

Eph. 5:21 - “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.”

1Pt. 5:5 - “All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another because the Lord opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

Islam is the end result of a spiritual quest that passes through atheism / humanism on the road to self-salvation. It is the easiest and default path of all who deny their Creator as Lord of their lives. 

Friday's Thoughts on Marriage

This is number 9 in a weekly series begun on December 21^st/13 with a post called, “Married Forever?

“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Ephesians 5:21

Ah submission the dirtiest word in secular relationships. That's okay. Let them fight for their own rights. Let them demand change in their partners while demanding that their spouses accept them as they are. How functional atheists live their lives has nothing to do with us. On the other hand, I hope I'm getting the point across that our behaviours don't determine our character. Rather, our character determines our behaviours. When the Holy Spirit indwells us, when we abide in Jesus, our character becomes like that of Jesus. Humility and submission were two strong, strong characteristics of Jesus.

The fact is the ability to submit, the power and strength to submit our will to another is a sign that the Holy Spirit resides within. Submission to one another is a sign that you are being guided by the will and the wishes of Creator God. Humility (which the world wrongly associates with humiliation) along with the absence of pride (which the world sees as some sort of affliction) and a lack of self-will (which the world associates with social and economic suicide), is what allows couples in a Biblical marriage to show love to one another. In fact, the behaviours of love are actually the duties of husbands and wives in a Biblical marriage. It is only through a Holy Spirit guided ability to serve your spouse that you will be able to meet and overcome the hurdles that so often trip up marriages run by what passes for human wisdom.

Characteristics of those guided by the Holy Spirit are well known among those indwelt by Him: Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self-control. These are the characteristics of Jesus and if you think about these for a moment, you will quickly see how each one is indispensable to a strong and stable marriage. We must allow ourselves to be transformed into the character of Jesus if we are to live out and model marriage as God intends for us. Anything less makes a mockery of stating that we are followers of Jesus.

Even though the circumstances of life change, the character of Jesus does not. That is what creates the ever present stability in a Biblical marriage. With these characteristics present in each partner, it's easy to see that these are not two needy people looking to someone else to solve their own insecurities or to give them value and worth. That's because they already possess these things because of their relationship with and the indwelling Spirit of Jesus. 

We function at our best on the indwelling strength and power of God's Spirit. 

We do not draw life from our partner. Unlike secular lives which produce songs claiming to “need you,” “I can't live without you,” etc., a follower of Jesus has learned that the worship of our Creator produces a human who is fully alive. That is what allows us to be the kind of people that our spouse deserves. To not draw our strength from God causes us to demand from our spouses something that is impossible for them to give.

More on this next Friday.

Friday's Thoughts on Marriage

This is number 8 in a weekly series begun on December 21^st/13 with a post called, “Married Forever?”

So which is it? Is the purpose of marriage to promote the good of family and society? Or is it to enhance the well-being of self? It might surprise you to know that Jesus didn't set marriage up as a choice between one or the other. I know, that's how the world views Biblical marriage - oppression of self-fulfillment. However, like most other things that have to do with Jesus and His teaching, the world is wrong. In reality, God brought marriage into being with the intent of showing that mutual fulfilment could only come through mutual sacrifice for one another.

To set an example for us, Jesus gave up His rights and He died to self to bring us into a healed relationship with Himself and then He said, “Follow Me, be like Me, do in your relationships what I did in My relationships. Submitting to Jesus by submitting to one another in our marriages brings personal fulfilment. A marriage where two people engage in loving surrender to each other drives away fear of abandonment, ends loneliness, and grows us into Christ-likeness. And that is the point of life (Romans 8:29). That is the “good” that God works for in all things for believers; to make us more and more like Jesus. The more you live out the Gospel of Grace toward each other, the closer you become toward each other and to Jesus. That's the secret, or the mystery of which Paul speaks.

Biblical marriage will change your heart and soul.

I heard a comedian once, who said, “No matter how smart you think you are, you're not that smart.” That's true, but so is the Bible which explains, “No matter how good you think you are, you're not that good.” We need to be changed. Society and the world at large needs us to be changed. A Biblical marriage will bring about that inner change unlike anything else. That is because Biblical marriage teaches us what it means to love.

Through expressing the enormous love that Jesus washes over us, we are truly transformed. However, this awareness of who we really are must be brought forth in an atmosphere of love. Without a loving environment, we simply will not hear the truth. In the absence of the certainty of love, men hear criticism as rejection and women hear it as a lack of love. With the certainty of love we not only hear the truth about our sin with which our partner must live, we long to repent of our sin and be changed. God's mercy and grace, freely received can then be freely given.

More on this next Friday

Are You a Good Person?

If heaven existed, do you think that you should be allowed entrance based upon how good you are? Most atheists for example are adamant that they are good people. They have to believe that because their mantra is, "I don't need God to be a good person." But don't we have to ask, according to what standard should we measure ourselves to make our evaluation accurate? For example:

. How many lies have you told in your life? The average person tells at least five lies per day. What do you call someone who has told countless lies?

. Have you ever stolen something in your life? Have you taken something that doesn't belong to you? What do you call someone who steals?

. Have you ever used God's name in vain, or without respect? That's called blasphemy. What do you call someone who uses God's name lightly or in cursing?

. Jesus said, if you look at another person with lust in your heart, imagining having sex with that person, you are guilty of committing adultery. What do you call people who commits adultery?

Our Creator says that He is the standard by which we measure our level of goodness. Not Gandhi, no Hitler, not your neighbour and not yourself.

By your own admission you're a lying, thieving, blaspheming, adulterous person in your own heart, and that's only reviewing four of the ten commandments. How then can you consider yourself to be a good person, good enough to be allowed into the presence of a perfectly Holy Creator God?

A good Judge must see that justice is done, that wrong is punished and that those on the side of wrong are removed from those who long and choose to do right. Because the price for your sins were paid for by Jesus (God the Son), God the Father who is perfectly Just can legally dismiss your penalty.

Jesus said, “The price of sin, the wages of sin, the consequences of sin is eternal separation from God and everything and anything that is good. We call that separation “Hell.”

Because that reality is so horrific God put in place a plan, whereby the penalty of sin would be paid at His own expense. Jesus paid the price for you sins and He said that if you would seek His forgiveness and obey Him out of gratitude for His enormous love, you can avoid hell and spend eternity in heaven with Him.

What kind of a person would ignore and/or reject that kind of offer?

Friday's Thoughts on Marriage

The 5th in a series -

Have you ever wondered what is the impact on marriage when the reality of God is denied? Think about it! If we used to turn to God for our source of meaning and purpose, love and redemption; those things that humans need in order to be emotionally and spiritually healthy, what do we do when the only true source of those things is ignored? Naturally we turn to another human to supply our deepest needs.

Have you ever wondered what happens to marriages when that kind of pressure is placed on one or both marriage partners? Yep. They disintegrate under the impossible load. Those who contend that traditional (Biblical) marriage is suffocating, in turn reject the only possible way to allow freedom in marriage (each person living for God) and place a truly oppressive expectation on the marriage partners. And then, after the marriage ends, they say, “Life long, monogamous, committed marriage is impossible to create.”

The fact is, society needs people who are able to sustain long-term, monogamous committed marriage. Without our ability to commit to the good of at least one other human being, we will see humanity fragment into billions of pieces. Both the children that inevitably come from sexual unions and the adults around the world desperately need this ability on the part of humans.

Sadly there is only one way to achieve these kind of relationships and those who have rejected God and His guidelines are simply not able to get the job done. I'm not talking about the longevity of marriage. The celebration of the 50^th anniversary make strike a cord within, but longevity is no guarantee of quality. As was heard by a son from his dad after burying a wife of 53 years, “I never loved that woman.” For various reasons, lots of people just stick it out. That's not the kind of marriage I'm advocating.

Ironically, people long to be married; especially those who lack the skills to maintain a quality relationship. And ironically it is those who downplay the effects of sin and who ignore the divine origin of marriage who think they'll do the best at having a good marriage. And when the inevitable crash comes, it is not the people within the marriage who are blamed but the institution of marriage itself.

I maintain that without knowing the secret of marriage, that Paul describes for us in the New Testament, no marriage can reach the level of personal satisfaction and glorification of Jesus that it was intended to attain.

More on this next Friday

Friday's Thoughts on Marriage

The 4th in a series:

“If you're kind to me, I'll be kind to you.” I heard that today, from a woman talking to her husband. Makes sense – right? Why would anyone be kind to someone who is not kind back? Well, maybe because that is the type of love that Jesus demonstrated for us and then He said, “Follow Me.” Be like Me. Do in your relationships what I did in My relationships.

Something atheists have shown me is that a radical change has taken place in our culture. Atheists tell us that monogamy isn't natural. Any marriage that is based upon monogamy is forcing an unnatural relationship upon us. That's what many of them say. Guess what? They're right. 

Faithful, committed monogamy isn't natural.

We are naturally takers and schemers and adulterers and liars and self-obsessed and self-centred, willing to sacrifice those we claim to love in order to satisfy our lusts. That's why thinking that you've found “the right one,” or that you've found your “soul mate,” is most often, at best, wishful thinking. The chances of really knowing who you've married, at the time of your marriage, is slim to none.

Modern thinking and every online dating site in existence has led us to believe that if we look hard enough, we can actually find “the right person.” The fact is we almost never marry the right person. Why? Because marriage itself changes people. The person who you marry will not be the person who you are married to a few months or years down the road. As well, we often misread the person in front of us. Or perhaps more correctly, we see what we want to see. That is why a person who seems really stable during dating becomes deadly boring later in life. The person who is outgoing and friendly turns out to be down right flirtatious. The person who is carefree and fun loving turns out to be reckless and undependable. We come to despise the things we once thought we admired and loved. And yet, we promised God that we would love this person – until the death of one of us ends the relationship.

That is what makes a Biblical marriage between two committed followers of Jesus so radical and counter cultural and light-years better than any possible secular marriage. Biblical marriage is a commitment to love the person with whom you are living – Period! It's really not about the relationship with your spouse, but your relationship with God. I will make a profound statement here, with absolute confidence. 

When two married people put their relationship with Jesus first (I'll explain in later posts what that means), their marriage will not and indeed cannot fail to become a profound, wonderful, life enhancing journey.

But what a dilemma! We simply cannot know ahead of time how our spouse will change. That's why traditional marriage vows don't say, “I love you,” but, “I WILL love you, through better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part.”

Now, there are some things that we must avoid at all cost when choosing a mate. A Christian should never ever marry an atheist or someone of another faith. Actually, unless you are a Christian in name only, you would never compromise your relationship with Jesus by being connected to someone who thinks your most important relationship is a farce. As well, you should never marry an addict or an abusive person expecting / hoping that your love will cause that person to change. That's just prideful delusional thinking. It's similar to marrying someone who has been married before and thinking that even though s/he treated former spouses poorly, s/he will treat you wonderful. Again, that's your pride creating delusional thinking. On the other hand, know for a fact that the person who seems so perfect on your wedding day may change a great deal, even by the time you finish your honeymoon. That's because any two people, even those who are mature Christians are and will remain broken by their sinful nature. That means that no matter how much they've grown, they are still profoundly selfish and self-centred. Immature, self-obsessed people do not change for the better just because they've taken part in some ceremony. Sooner or later the pretending will end. Remember, a major task of life in general and dating specifically is to hide who we really are.

That is why any marriage that has endured and flourished and grown into something beautiful will have done so because both partners have come to know the true meaning of love and commitment. This is something that can only be learned by an intimate, healed, forgiven and obedient relationship with Jesus.

More on this next Friday.

Isaiah 55:10-13; Read It!

“The rain and snow come down from the heavens and stay on the ground to water the earth. They cause the grain to grow, producing seed for the farmer and bread for the hungry. It is the same with My Word. I send it out, and it always produces fruit. It will accomplish all I want it to, and it will prosper everywhere I send it. You will live in joy and peace. The mountains and hills will burst into song, and the trees of the field will clap their hands! Where once there were thorns, cypress trees will grow. Where nettles grew, myrtles will sprout up. These events will bring great honour to the Lord’s name; they will be an everlasting sign of His power and love.”

=====

When God's Words go out into the world, they will not return without having accomplished their goal. Okay – so what is that goal, that purpose?

The second stanza of this Isaiah passage shows that the purpose of the Word is to bring forth worship in us. Our desperate situation in a broken world is a drama being played out where the end of it all is a restoration and reconciliation of our brokenness. The whole reason for our life is to come to a point where we long to give praise and worship back to our Creator. For it is when our deepest passions, thoughts, desires and motives are directed to adoration of our Saviour, that we are most fully alive.

The Word of God as contained in the Bible is a means to an end. And that end is the worship of our Creator, our Lord, our Saviour.

Friday's Thoughts on Marriage

The 3rd in a series:

"Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken, If you want make sure of keeping your heart intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an pet. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all relationships; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket – safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to the risk of tragedy is damnation.”

C.S. Lewis

One thing that years of marriage counselling has done to me is make me ashamed of men. Of course, a Counsellor doesn't get to see those men who are at the top of their game. I only see those who, well, let me just say that I've become a tad jaded and cynical about humans in general and men specifically. I, and most of the men I've met are the working definition of selfishness. To live with us is truly a commitment to more frustration than anyone deserves.

For centuries, at least in cultures that were shaped by Christianity, the most valued characteristic of manhood was self-control, even self-mastery. A man who lacked control, a man who drank and ate and caroused to excess, a man who was not fit to rule himself was certainly considered unfit to oversee any type of business or government, let alone a family. As Christianity has taken a back seat to those who deny God's existence or who are at best functional atheists, that's all changed.

Every year News Reports of reckless and self-indulgent conduct of our politicians and business leaders reminds us that sexual restraint is no longer the sign of a man of valued character. Believe it or not many say that times have changed for the better; “transmitting selfies” of one's penis to a woman (not your wife) or even a series of women gets a wink and a nod and the man can actually be reelected.

While most of the marriages I see are damaged mostly by the men, women are by no means innocent. The mantra today for both men and women is something like, “Love me as I am.” On the other hand people understand, but only dimly and in a very limited way, that if both of you want a relationship with someone who doesn't want nor demands personal change, if both of you want someone who is genuinely “low maintenance” then you are both looking for someone who essentially doesn't exist.

I have never seen a time when so many people, again both men and women who are not so much in love with the person they long to marry, or who they are about to marry, as they are in love with a figment of their imagination. They're not marrying the person as s/he is, but as they want h/her to be. Since they're are dimly aware that who they want (the perfect match) doesn't exist (as adverstised by online dating companies), people today as never before face marriage with fear. Rather than determining to treat another human-being with loving behaviours - for life - men and women today are looking for a good fit. They're looking for someone who will be compatible; a soul mate, whatever that's supposed to mean. This unrealistic set of expectations frustrates and scares everyone involved because at some level everyone sees that based upon these parameters, relationship breakdown is almost inevitable.

Rather than being a venue for character change and for building a safe place for children to grow (Biblical Marriage), marriage today is supposed to provide fulfilled emotional, spiritual and sexual desires. As a result, idealism and pessimism go hand in hand and the fear of marriage causes most couples to “play house” instead. They can neither accept the person who is before them, nor can they accept loneliness. In fact many mistake the fear of being alone with the ability to love. So they live together in a common-law relationship until someone better comes along. Strangely, Biblical marriage is shunned because it is viewed as oppressive, and then, again strangely it's traded for the oppressive, fearful and hopeless life of “we'll be together as long as we both make each other happy.” In reality, people are afraid to marry anyone too much like themselves: selfish and grumpy, someone who judges others by their behaviours while judging themselves by their intentions.

Because of the new ideas of how two people should “love” each other, this failure by design ensures that marriage is no longer a shelter from the storm. Rather it's two people waiting for the expected and inevitable deterioration of the relationship.

This simply does not need to be the case. Our quest for individual freedom, independence and “self- fulfilment” flies in the face of the reality that any relationship where real love is enacted means the voluntary giving away of all three.

On the one hand you want someone who accepts you as you are. On the other hand you know that you have flaws that need to be changed. You know that anyone who has to live with you will desperately want to change those flaws.

Biblical marriage understands these dynamics and Biblical marriage understands that without accepting this reality, we will not know what it means to be loved nor what it means to love another human being.

More on this next Friday.

Friday's Thoughts on Marriage

The 2nd in a series:

Have you got a marriage partner who doesn't treat you good? It's not all h/her fault. You cannot expect a person to treat you good, if you chose to marry someone who is not a good person. In fact, you will not attract a good person if you yourself are not a good person. Health attracts health, sickness attracts sickness. I've said these things before on http://makarios-makarios.blogspot.ca/2006/12/will-i-ever-find-partner-whos-good-for.html so I won't go into it further here.

The reason that I love working with married couples, particularly couples in a Christian marriage, is because there is no relationship in all of humanity better suited to helping us learn to love than marriage. Of course any relationship can help, but none is better than marriage. I've long said,

“We get married because we think we're in love. In reality, it's marriage that teaches us what love is.”

Marriage as the Christian paradigm intends, mimics Jesus' philosophy of life, “I did not come to be served, but to serve and to give my life . . .”

In the Christian paradigm, the man is the Spiritual Leader of the home. As such, he is to model for the family:

. submission

. love

. patience

. gentleness

. forgiveness

. mercy

. kindness

. faithfulness

. grace

. self-control

. servant leadership, and so on.

Ultimately husbands and wives show their love for Christ when they unconditionally love their spouse. If you are not loving your spouse unconditionally, you are not loving Jesus. This is a huge, huge difference from what marriage means to most modern day couples.

In fact, completely ignoring empirical evidence regarding longevity of marriage, today more than half of all couples live together before getting married. That may not surprise you, but consider that only 40 years ago, only those on the dysfunctional fringes of society lived common-law.

It used to be that marriage taught dedication and commitment. It used to be believed that marriage provided a safe environment for children to learn about all aspects of life, since in the absence of safety, children function less well in all areas of life. Again, studies are congruent on this conclusion. Today marriage is all about self. I purposely leave out the term “secular marriage” because more and more marriages of couples that would call themselves “Christian” copy their secular neighbour's reasons for getting married. Marriage no longer has anything to do with reflecting God's nature, or trying to better society by bettering oneself. It's no longer about “us” and has become totally about “me”. In fact, the very thought of having a spouse who helps you to change let alone expects you to change is anathema to modern marriage. Not so for Biblical marriage.

More next Friday.

The Bible – Full of Contradictions

My nephew told me that during a family gathering. This is a man who uses these supposed contradictions to keep Jesus at arms length. Because sin makes us stupid, and because atheists are by nature spiritually dull of mind and slow of thought, this man is incapable of discerning between contradictions and different descriptions.

He really can't see that expecting four different individuals to describe any event, word for word the same, is preposterous. He can't see that having for "reporters" highlight exactly the same aspects of the account is preposterous. In reality, my nephew has only heard that the Bible contains contradictions. I didn't want to make a big deal out of it, but when I asked for examples, he could not give me a single one, although he thought the accounts had a differing number of angels and women at Jesus' empty tomb. Sadly, this is enough for him to justify his refusal to examine Jesus' offer of forgiveness.

In order to change the subject, he brought up the “identical story of Mithras and Jesus.” When I asked him to elaborate for the rest of the group; those who may not know what he was referring to, the dear boy did not have a clue. Again, he'd only heard that they were the same.

There was a time when I would have expended great energy in attempting to correct his faulty thinking. I now realize that until Jesus opens this person's spiritual eyes, until God begins to draw this person to Jesus, like all atheists he is incapable of understanding anything regarding his Creator and Saviour.

Married Forever?

The 1st in a series:

Woody Allen, in speaking about being “married forever,” said, “Forever is a long time, especially the bit towards the end.”

Because I'm mostly retired from marriage counselling, I think I'm going to do a number of posts on marriage as it exists from a Christian or Biblical paradigm.

When one is living in a marriage that runs by the rules and values of the world “Praying for the end of time” (Meatloaf 'Love by the dashboard light') is not at all unusual.

Marriage as set up by our Creator however is so radically counter-cultural that few people, even among those who claim to be Christians fathom the deep and personal transforming power that Christian marriage entails.

So, each Friday for a few weeks, I'm going to share some things that my own journey through marriage, as well as marriage counselling with thousands of people has taught me.

What is this Evil?

A couple decades ago, I was still doing some work in the Federal Corrections system. In my off time, after work, I was doing a lot of reading about satanism. Well, one of the guys that I was working with was pretty - um - spooky, creepy, unbalanced more than the norm, and the norm was pretty unbalanced. Anyhow, I had never spoken of what I was reading to anyone. I doubt that my wife even knew (we have very different tastes in reading material so her pile is her pile and mine is mine) and if she did notice what I was reading she never had any contact with anyone who could have told this guy. Long story shorter, this guy comes into the office and after a bit of small talk he says, “You're studying about satanism aren’t you?”

The problem with involuntary facial movements is that they’re, well, involuntary. Noticing the twitch of my eyebrows he said, “I have powers and I know how to use them.”

Evil, has fascinated me for a long, long time. Evil as an entity, evil as a personal agent, personal, social, governmental evil - that kind of stuff. I’ve been fascinated with how we as humans give ourselves willingly to evil and thereby become its slave. After all, if evil is a real entity, like information or logic or matter or energy, and if you are obsessed with attaining power (as is everyone in the prison system (and I mean everyone)) then why in the world would someone want to be on the side of the created (satan) rather than on the side of the Creator?

According to the Bible, God created human beings to bear His image; to possess and display to a limited degree His mercy, grace and love. God created humans to use their intelligence and creativity to manage the earth and walk humbly with their God.

The invited entrance of evil into the cosmos changed everything. Yet, God’s plan for a healed, forgiven and intimate relationship with His creation has not ended. While the presence of evil temporarily adds tension to that plan, that plan itself will not be halted, only delayed. 

Can We Trust the Bible?

“The Bible is true in all that it affirms or teaches according to the author’s intended meaning.”

That says a lot. I believe that all of the Bible is true in what it says. But not all of what it says is easy to understand. The essentials are clear of course. No one will miss the offer of salvation because of some obscure verse(s).

Bottom line, Jesus is the “author” of the Bible, from beginning to end. A Christian, a believer, a follower of Jesus will believe what Jesus said about the Bible.

Jesus taught the Bible with confidence and based His entire ministry on fulfilling the words of the Bible. If Jesus says the Bible is trustworthy, then I believe what the Bible says because Jesus is trustworthy.

Jesus treated the historical portions of the Bible as historically accurate. 

Jesus treated the prophetic portions as prophetically accurate. 

Jesus treated the portions of the Bible that dealt with teaching as portions worth following. 

Jesus treated the spiritual portions as worth heeding if we want the kind of spiritual life that God says we must have.

Can we trust the Bible. Yes. We can trust the Bible because the words it speaks is the message that Jesus intends us to have as a revelation of Himself and His plan for the universe.

She Knew How Babies Are Made

Sceptics and atheists, laugh at the very thought of a virgin (specifically Jesus' mother Mary) becoming pregnant by the Holy Spirit. This would be impossible for the Creator of the universe to bring about, they say, even though your run-of-the-mill gynaecologist could make it happen, practically in h/her office.

Mary knew that virgins don't get pregnant. That's why she asked the angel, “How can this be, for I am a virgin?” People of the day knew that people aren't healed, storms aren't calmed and the dead aren't raised by the spoken word. They knew this, but the events happened before their very eyes. What could they do? They weren't so stupid as to say, as is true of atheists, "Because it doesn't agree with my world-view, It didn't happen.”

This leads to one more reason why the miracles listed in the Bible are believable. You see, the fact that the pregnancy occurred, or that Jesus was walking on water or that the storm was calmed is not argued by the enemies of Jesus. What these hostile witnesses do instead is come up with alternate explanations for what obviously happened. They don't even attempt to say that people weren't healed, for they obviously were healed. Instead, Jesus was accused of healing (doing work) people on the Sabbath.

In the face of reality, atheists are left with helpless pleas that, “It didn't happen.” They do it in multiple areas:

When an intelligent person wilfully abandons reason and begins to posit finite infinities, causeless beginnings and beginningless beginnings, I know that I’m dealing with someone involved in a desperate attempt to avoid a philosophically unacceptable conclusion: Creator God exists.

When an intelligent person wilfully abandons classical historical scholarship and begins to deny known and knowable facts of history, but only as they apply to the person of Jesus, I know that I’m dealing with someone who is confronted with a philosophically unacceptable conclusion: Creator God exists.

When an intelligent person claims to follow whatever ethical standard is currently in vogue and calls that a reasonable way to live, I know that I’m dealing with someone involved in a desperate, fearful attempt to avoid a philosophically unacceptable conclusion: Creator God exists.

When someone ignores Occam’s Razor and goes in search of ever more complicated solutions, abandoning one after another, after another, after another, not because of new evidence but because of a need to avoid the conclusion indicated by current evidence, and when that person never returns to a simple solution that coincides with current knowledge and common sense, I know that I’ve encountered an individual who has been confronted with a philosophically unacceptable conclusion: Creator God exists. 

Jesus Confronts Materialists

Atheists think that Biblical writers lack credibility simply because they lived a long time ago. This, as though “Truth” has a best-before-date, or that materialists and their philosophies haven't always been around as well.

As it is today, when Jesus walked the earth, materialists and those who thought like materialists came in many different forms.

Like atheists today, “The Pharisees objected, “All we have is your word on this. We need more than this to believe.”

Jesus replied, “You’re right that you only have My word. You decide according to what you can see and touch. I don’t make judgements out of the NARROWNESS OF MY EXPERIENCE but in the largeness of the One who sent Me, the Creator, Father God. You are tied down to the mundane; I’m in touch with what is beyond your horizons. You live in terms of what you see and touch. I’m living on other terms. I told you that you were missing God in all this. If you won’t believe I Am who I say I Am, you’re at a dead end in terms of learning.” John 8:14-18, 23,24.

The Bible ("written by bronze-age goat herders") has many, many verses whereby the authors record their dealing with those in their community who were materialists. These authors are trying to explain, both from evidence and from experience that there is much more to life than what meets the eye, or any of the other senses for that matter. 

For example:
Romans 1:1 . . . since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities - His eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”

Hebrews 11:3 - “By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.”

2nd Corinthians 5:12 - “We are not trying to commend ourselves to you again . . . so that you can answer those who take pride in what is seen rather than in what is in the heart.”

2nd Corinthians 4:18 - “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”