the fraility of man

although i do not have much experience evangilizing, i have heard people say that believing in christ is not logical and that they can't do it. it just takes to much faith. most of those people are evolutionist, and that takes way more faith, but i won't get into that right now. right now, i want to talk about the fraility of man. how can a finite mind like man's hold the knowledge of a infinite god? it can't, it is totally impossible. so yes, a man can not understand it perfectly, they much except it on faith, faith that is back up by facts. the bible is one of the most printed books and it has had more copies of it in all time then any other book can hope to have. there is more evidence for it then anything, and they are almost all the same. no matter how old.
i have heard people say that they have tired to believe but it all doesn't make sense. it can't all make sense, not even the most brilliant minds have understood all the things in the bible. all most the entire book of revelations is about the future and not much of it have happened yet. so there is no way that i can know for sure what will happen.
that is just the facts about the world. what about the person of god. his infinite love, sovereignty, grace, mercy, omnipotent, omnipresent, jesus christ - 100% god and 100% man, and the list keeps on going. but how can we know all of this. the truth is is that we can not. to say that we can is putting a limit on god. the only way to express it is to say that it is infinite, and our minds can not fathom that. just pondering the eternity of god can give you a migraine, how god has been and will always be.
i have been reading a book about the holiness of god and i have read only the first couples of chapters and it has completely changed my look at god and i still don't even know anything about his emense holiness. moses once asked to see god, but because of god's holiness, He couldn't allow moses to see him or moses would died. god allowed moses to see his hem and it shone so bright that moses' face glowed for days after, and he had to wear a veil to protect the other people who saw him. that is how glorious god is. beyond anything that we can imagine.

the stupidity of man

i posted a blog awhile ago called "i reject your reality and substitute my own." in that blog, i wrote about not doing stuff that the world was doing. i had a friend read it, and they tolf me that i was doing the same thing. i quickly said that i wasn't, and changed the subject; but i have thought about that ever since it happened. looking at my own life, i realized that i was doing the same thing.
in matthew 7:1-5, it talked about judging other people. it says that we should confront people, but only once we have taken care of the same thing in our life. i was looking at the speck in my brother's eye instead of the log in my own. i know that this is wrong, and i know what i have to do to fix it, it is just something that i want to do, but i don't want to do.
i see the world around me indulging in the flesh, and my own flesh wants to do the same, yet my mind and the holy spirit will not allow me to. the hard part is is the some times, the flesh puts up a good argument even when i know that it is wrong. to go against what the flesh wants and to do what is right is always hard, but it is most satisfying, not what flesh want that satisfies for a moment.

i reject your reality and substitute my own

although the title of this blog is somewhat idiotic; i find it appropriate to place on this piece of writing. i am a calvinist christian. so that alone sets me apart from this world. so, although i do not substitute my own reality, i do throw your's out the window, and put in God's, for His is the truth.
what got my thinking on this matter is that i was looking at some pictures of me and my friends at our hign school banquet that we had this past week. and i was just noticing the difference of how we treated out friends. particularly i noticed one of my guy friends and how he treated one of my girl friends; and i compared that to how i treat my best friend who is a girl. although i believe he did nothing morally wrong, i know that i would never allow myself to do what he was. just so that no one gets any wrong ideas, all he did was put his arm around her in a picture, so yeah, nothing really bad. i don't see the reason why we would or, from the world's perspective, should do something like that, even if it is just a picture and we are just friends. to think i could be putting my arm around someone else's future wife, just kinda grosses me out, and makes me not want to do anything like that. sure, in the moment, i might want to, but i just look and think about what i am about to do, and i realize just how stupid and wrong that is. looking at the pictures, i wanted to do that, but thinking about the pictures made me glad that i didn't. it has nothing to do with the girl, or anything like that, cuz i have the bestest friend ever, i just look at the future and i know that i don't want to do that.
if i pursued someone to change for the better with this blog, i rejoice with that, if not, and you who are reading this just blows this off, then i hope that God will give you something to make you wake up to what you are doing, so that you may protect your sisters in christ and so that you may also protect yourselves.

i ask, although i have the authority to command

in philemon, paul is writing a letter to philemon. in part of it, he is asking philemon if his slave could come back to rome and help paul. in verse 8-9a paul says, "therefore, though i have enough confidence in christ to order you to do what is proper, yet for love's sake i rather appeal to you." then later on in verse 14a, "but without your consent i did not want to do anything,"
in just reading this passage, these words many say nothing important, but looking into the person of paul can tell you much more. paul, who was called saul, was raised to be a pharisee, he kept all the law as much as any man could. he was a head huncho in jerusalem. he was then converted to christianity, and became one of the greatest preachers ever. he had great authority with not only the other believers, but also with the roman guards. in Acts on his way to speak to ceaser, paul is bound on a ship, but the commander had heard of paul and allowed him to go onto shore and stay with freinds instead of prison. this shows the trust that the commander had for paul, for if paul ran, the commander died. this trust came from the reputation of a leader. paul was known all over jerusalem and the known world.
now, onto philemon, he was a rich man in the city of colosse, he was not famous out side of colosse. he was a member of the church at colosse, but not a leader of anything important.
so, back to the verses. in these verse, paul, the famous teacher, asks philemon, the wealthy man if he could use his slave. this just amazes me. all through time, the people in authority took things for granted, like people's help, or they just took advantage of the people under them. although this behavior did not depic the people in the church, it was common with the gentiles.
i often find myself, using the authority that i do not have, to make people do what i want or whatever. when someone like paul ask for help, shouldn't someone like me have to beg for it? so, i challege you who are reading this, do not use people, but let people use you. not take advantage of, but allow yourself to be advailable to help, instead of acting busy so that you dont have to work.
"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit."

has the father chosen you?

Although the topic of divine election is not a point of salvation, it can effect your entire life and the way you live. It can cause stress in your life, or give you joy; it can make you an evangelist, or a hermit. All in all, it can make you live life the way God intended, or make you miserable and timid.
The Christian life should be one of joy and happiness, which come from a trusting faith in God. However, if you believe as the Arminian do, they believe that you have to be constantly doing righteousness to keep your salvation. This goes against two doctrines, the doctrine of security of salvation, and the doctrine of assurance of salvation. Although the words are close in meaning, their differences are huge in belief. Assurance of salvation is God's promise to us that once we are saved, we remain saved. So that no matter what we do, we will still remain saved (Romans 6:15-22). The doctrine of security of salvation is that once we are saved, we can never become unsaved again (John 10:21). These two doctrines can greatly impact the joy of your life, mainly because without these doctrines, you would life in constant fear of losing your salvation.
The doctrine of divine election has been controversial since at least the 1600's at the synod of Dort, which refuted the beliefs of the arminians. They spent 7 months pouring over scripture to see if anything they believed was even scriptural. The document that they wrote up against it was later referred to as the doctrine of Calvinism.
Arminians believe that man is only sick with sin and that God calls man to himself, but that man must in fact go to God. They believe that God chooses people based on foreseen faith, not on God's own choice.
Calvinist believe that sinners are dead to sin, totally depraved, and can do nothing righteous without God saving them and then working in them to be righteous (Isaiah 64:6, Romans 3:10) Calvinist believe that God chooses people to be saved not based on anything but his perfect plan. For Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated (Romans 9:10-13).
A true Calvinist must believe that there is no such thing as freewill, for if we are free to do anything, then we could take the glory for that instead of giving it to God. All good things we do is done by the power of the holy spirit moving us. All wickedness we do is done because of our sin nature and the temptations from Satan and his demons.
Now you may say, "but I can do what ever I want, no one tells me what to do." Well, that is true in a sense, God is all powerful, He is totally sovereign and in control of everything, He knows the future and past infinitely, He orchestrates it all; so everything that is done in the world is in him plan and he allows, for He can not sin. Now, we do not know the future, we are not sovereign, we have no real power in this world. We only know the past and what we have done. So, to someone who only knows that past and is living, it seems to him as if we have a choice in what we do, but we really don't, God has worked it all out, everything that is going to happen. So, to our finite minds, we have freewill, but to God, it is all planned out.
So, with this said, what about evangelism? Do we just do nothing? Absolutely not, we must preach the gospel to the ends of the earth (Mt. 28:16-20). Some believe that since God is in totally control, that means that we don't have to witness and spread the word, it is a dangerous mind set, for is Acts 1:8, "but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth." So I challenge you, go through out all the earth, "walking and leaping and praising God" (Acts 3:8) spreading the word and making disciples of every nation.

the joy of the Lord with ETP

the world always tries to satisfy itself with the stuff of the world. i would say that even most christians are guilty of this, i know that i am. i have struggled with this for my whole life basically, but mostly just the last couple of years since i have gotten saved have i struggled with this because i have been convicted of this. i often find myself looking to this world to find pleasure and such, yet every time i do, i come up empty, like drinking from a dirty old cistern. only till resently have i seen the true errors of my ways and seen exactly how foolish this is. it is odd though, the things of the earth satisfy for a moment, and then you feel empty awhile later, while the things of God satisfy and also cause you to hunger more for them. the more time i spend going after god, the least i want to go after the things of this world, that cause me physical and mental pain. in 2 corinthians 12:7, paul talks of a thorn in the flesh, some ailment that god gave to him to keep him humble. i believe that i times, i have one as well. and although i do sometimes get down on myself because of it, for the most part, i realize that it is, infact, a blessing from god so that i do not sin in other ways. if god had not given me this, i would say that i might not be saved. this ailment drove me to god, and keeps me with him. it reminds me that i am human and that i fail. that i can't do it on my own, i require help from something besides myself. through this same thing though, he has brought me my best friend to help me through it. she is not always there, for she is human as well, but she is there when i really need her. she gets me through the day, and i think that god is the one who brought her into my life for this very purpose. she is constatily telling me to be positive, and although i am not most of the time, i am working on it. i am working on enjoying the process. although god has given something that some people could call a curse, it is truly a blessing. this ailment bring me to god and to true joy, and it doesn't allow me to go to all the joys of the world, but keeps me from them. and i thank god for it, for it has brought me closer to him.