The Courage to Be a Christian

He washed his hands of the whole affair. He could have listened to his conscience that told him that this Jesus was an innocent man. He could have listened to his wife who told him that she had a dream about this Jesus. But Pilate did not have the necessary courage it takes to ... be a Christian. He washed his hands of the whole affair and will forever be remembered as the coward who let the Lord of Life be crucified.

The courage to be a Christian. Judas didn't have it either. There was great financial gain for him to give up Christ. There was a position of esteem among the Jewish leaders there for his taking. To stay with Christ would mean to join him in suffering. He didn't have the courage to ... be a Christian.

Joseph of Arimethea was a wealthy man and a member of the ruling Jewish body, the Sanhedrin. He was willing to give up his status in the community, he gave up his secrecy in following Christ, he gave up his burial place for the Lord, he refused to ... give up Christ.

Peter denied Christ three times. But he didn’t give up. He picked himself up from his failure and accepted all that the following of our Lord demanded. His life story has it that when Peter himself was about to be crucified he protested that he wasn’t worthy to die the same way as the Lord and was then crucified upside down. It took a lifetime for this Apostle to muster up the courage he needed, but he was able to ... follow Christ. 

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We live in a world where many of our leaders to not have the courage to be truthful. We live in a world where a higher value is placed on economic gain than on the courage to vote according to convictions. We live in a world where many have lost the courage that is necessary to follow our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

It takes tremendous courage to ... be the only people in the neighborhood who treasure a moral lifestyle. It takes tremendous courage to ... be the only parents who are determined to protect their children from that which could destroy them even though other parents let their kids go to that movie, play that game, and close their eyes to their experiments that are unhealthy. It takes tremendous courage to ... be the only one at work who isn’t a flirt, who doesn’t degrade his or her spouse with the other guys or gals, who doesn’t stab co-workers in the back in order to advance, who is willing to take only what an honest days work provides. It takes a tremendous amount of courage to ... refuse to get involved in a relationship that is immoral, even though friends and neighbors say it is OK. It takes courage to ... challenge yourself, your spouse and your children to make the effort necessary to worship God regular with your brothers and sisters in Christ.

We are not being called today to accept physical death for the Lord, as numerous martyrs and the saints through have done. But we are being called to give witness to our Savior. Remember, the word “martyr” means witness. It takes a tremendous amount of courage to ... follow Christ.

(from Ukrainian Orthodox Word, March-April 2011)

When did dinosaurs live and what happened to them?

My friend Rachel asked me this question recently. Great topic for another blog post. Here goes:

The Bible tells us that God created dinosaurs and all other creatures on Day 6 of creation week (which really was a "day" per the 4th commandment, my condolences to Old Earth apologists!)

We know that when Adam and Eve fell, all creation fell under the curse (Romans 8:19,21). Now that death entered the universe, many animals apparently became carnivores, including some dinosaurs, see Did Animals Eat Meat Before the Flood. The first "Climate Change" took place, putting dinosaurs at a great disadvantage because of their huge size. Most probably men and dinosaurs migrated in different directions, because of the climate and the fear induced by dinosaurs.

The massive changes brought by the global flood of Noah's day ultimately took out the Dinosaurs (a minority opinion is held by Klenk, who says they died out before the Flood because of the dinosaur's affinity with evil, see Genesis and the Demise of the Dinosaurs) If any remained afterward, they were extremely few and far between. The Behemoth of the Job 40:15-24 may have been one of those leftovers, see Dinosaurs and Humans Coexisted.

All this would explain the mysterious but contemporary-sounding quality of all the ancient "dragon" stories that have been passed down to us.

One thing about dinosaurs/dragons. The fear and fascination they universally induce should point everyone to their need for a savior. And the only one who can truly save is Jesus, that's for certain. He says "Fear not, I have redeemed you, I have called you by name, you are mine." (Isaiah 43:1b)

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Azra followed Jesus because she saw how Christians cared for her sister

Our acts on God's behalf ought to be so out of the ordinary that people take notice. Such was certainly case with a young Muslim woman in South East Asia who we'll call "Azra". Several years ago Azra's sister underwent surgery and was cared for over a period of six months by Karen, one of our workers in that country. The woman later died of unrelated causes, and Karen and her family eventually moved away to another part of the country, unaware of any spiritual fruit from their time there.

But last year on a visit to the area where Karen had lived, one of her co-workers encountered Azra, the sister of the deceased woman, and discovered that she had come to faith in Jesus. When asked what had led to her conversion, Azra explained that her decision to follow Jesus was largely a result of what she had seen in Karen and her daughters when they had cared for her sister.

Oh the power of an act of God's kindness, displayed through one of His servants. This was certainly what Jesus had in mind when He said: "Let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven." In a world where people are increasingly lonely, isolated, selfish, and in search of meaning, a simple smile and a word or act of kindness can stand out like an exquisite red rose on a colorless day.

(from a letter by Dale Losch, CrossWorld, March 2011)

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The children of Mount Ararat show that darker skin is not due to evolution

Evolutionists like to trumpet the power of natural selection. Often they speak of it accomplishing a major evolutionary advancement, but natural selection doesn’t think or plan or provide. Does this imaginary mechanism actually “do” anything?

Mount Ararat, rising to 17,000 feet in elevation, is home to hardy Kurdish shepherd families. Inhabitants of mountain clans typically are darker than their city cousins. Living a pastoral life, they usually send their young boys out to herd sheep at an elevation of 11,000 feet or more all summer long.

A darker skin shade  provides a natural barrier to radiation and thus enhances survival chances for the mountain folk. Undoubtedly, many of these boys passed away due to skin cancer before reaching reproductive age. Thus the darker-skinned individuals bore more children. Over the generations, darker skin would become a tribal characteristic in the mountain clans.

But this isn’t evolution. It might appear to be a textbook case of natural “selection,” but is it? Did any selection process even operate at all? All key functions, reproduction, and variability are innate to people. Either the individual possessed a darker skin shade that protected him, or he did not. This was a function of genetic variability, built in from creation and not imposed through selection. The skin shade either resulted in the death or the survival of an individual and the preponderance of a particular trait within the group. Natural selection didn’t “do” anything.

The Kurdish people descended from the Medes of the Bible. They have always been rather brown-skinned, and certainly have always been people.

(excerpted from John D. Morris, Selected by Nature or Designed to Fill? Acts & Facts March 2011, Institute for Creation Research)

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Uh-oh, is Satan missing?

Denying Satan
by Carl Bloch.

Whatever happened to Satan? While belief in God is still credible in America today, belief in Satan represents lunacy to some. Is it some great leap of faith to believe in an evil spiritual being? If so, what is the point in believing in a good spiritual being? I wonder if the cumulative effect of the enlightenment, materialism and rampant secularization has so influenced us that Satan seems no longer plausible, even to believers. If indeed Satan is real and represents God’s arch-enemy, if he is the root cause of the “evils” we see in our world, if he is intimately connected to the fall and sin and the need for forgiveness, if he is constantly tempting believers to fall and preventing others from coming to faith, if he is destroying individuals, marriages, families, whole societies and nations – then one would think he would figure a bit more prominently in our statements representing organizations devoted to advancing the Kingdom among all the inhabitants of this earth.

Of course, we all believe in Satan and his works, but we need to do more to address and resist him. Without a theology that includes him in a prominent way, we easily end up blaming God for evil and shifting the identity of our enemy onto human beings.

(excerpted from Dave Datema, General Director, Frontier Mission Fellowship, 2010 Statements and the Whereabouts of Satan, Mission Frontiers, March-April 2011)

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