NowTHINK!AboutIt

Avoiding Hackneyed...Making Sense

Finding God In Life – What About The Pain?

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Pain should be meaningful not numbed.

Don’t Run From Pain
Or Wish It Away
God May Be The Author

It is quite normal to find God in church but that isn’t the only place we can expect to find Him. God is a little bigger than a church service (omnipresent) and I’m sure He is active more than one hour a week so we should expect to find Him mingling in all of life and by “life” I mean everything outside of church.

Since He created life for us, and us for life, we shouldn’t be surprised to find Him tagging along when we leave church.

Church does serve an important purpose but a very limited one. It is only a classroom and offers only theory. Life offers what the classroom can’t, experience. It is the lab where we learn to apply the theory and God is involved in both places. He instructs us in one and mentors us in the other.

God Isn’t On Emergency Standby

Most people do invoke God’s presence in their daily living but more as a protector or body guard or shield. He gets called for emergencies only.

Life can be hard and we don’t like “hard.” We much prefer easy and convenient. The ideal job is one in which productivity smoothly moves along and the people we work with are always agreeable but who has a job like that.

If you have a boss, and most people with jobs do, he or she is constantly expecting performance quotas to be met. Even if you work for yourself, bill collectors are there to remind you of the same.

And if you are fortunate enough to achieve financial security – that is you don’t have to work – you find you must still work hard and smart to maintain the value of your resources, whether they be investments or savings.

You can’t really get away from it. There is constant pressure and that pressure sometimes produces pain. Jobs aren’t the only source of pain but it one common to us all.

And the question is, where is God when the pain comes? In our thinking God and pain can’t be reconciled. Pain is a problem and God is the solution.

Well, Unfortunately, God is not Vicodin or a magic wand and Life, which can sometimes be painful, is His training ground. [Read more…] about Finding God In Life – What About The Pain?

Why The Bible Is The True Best Seller

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No one is required to own, read, or believe the Bible but people buy it in droves.

The Bible Sells Best Because
It Is Living, Powerful And
Universally Desired

The Bible is often said to be the world’s best-sold book but search the bestseller lists and you won’t find it anywhere, top to bottom.

It makes you wonder. If it’s a best-seller, why isn’t it on the list? Well, the answer is simple.

The annual sales figures for the Bible are so high, averaging between $425m and $650m, repeatedly – year after year – that it dwarfs the sales of all other books. The best any other book can hope for is second place and a very distant second place at that.

A list of “best sellers” is interesting only if the top spot is up for grabs so the real best-seller had to give way to all the rest.

The Harry Potter series, which has enjoyed high volume sales in recent years, is a good example. According to The New Yorker even books with Harry Potter stature don’t compete well with the Bible. Not only is the Bible the best seller of all time it continues to be the best seller every year even when compared to the astounding sales figures of a series like Harry Potter. [Read more…] about Why The Bible Is The True Best Seller

5 Elements of Effective Prayer

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God hears by grace and answers by love.

How Do We Know
When God Really Answers?

Everyone prays but they don’t all get what they ask for. That isn’t because God doesn’t respond. He hears every prayer and like the father who takes joy in giving children what they want, He too looks for opportunities to grant our wish.

But, He’s not indulgent. Your every wish is not His command. Our prayers and His responses are tools that help us develop sensibilities. Prayer changes “things” because it first of all changes us. The need never changes and God never changes. The person praying is the only variable.

His answers make things possible not convenient or easy. Prayer is part investigation, part negotiation, and part activation. It was never intended to be a ceremony. Prayer at its most basic is conversation and the primary purpose is communication.

So, the question is what makes prayer effective? And the answer is: [Read more…] about 5 Elements of Effective Prayer

Calvinism – Devil Doesn’t Believe It!

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Sinners are born sullied not senseless.

The Devil Thinks Calvinism
Is A Great Idea!

And why not? One of his tricks is to make people think they can’t get saved, so anything that encourages doubt works right into his hands.

But, even though he thinks Calvinism is a good idea he doesn’t believe it.

In case you’re not familiar with the tenets of Calvinism it is a philosophical concept – nothing theological about it, although some would argue otherwise – that says God selected certain people to be saved and consigned everyone else to hell. His choices were made in eternity past and are fixed. No appeals allowed.

Yes, if you are a thinking person the logical inference is any individual not chosen for salvation IS chosen for hell. Offensive thought, hey? Calvinists think so too and have responded with long drawn out discussions designed to camouflage the reality. They even came up with a term for it, “double election.”

Google it and read for yourself. One post admits to the offense and suggests ways to soften it, without admitting any error, of course. I won’t take time to explore it here.

But, getting back to my original thought, the Devil doesn’t buy it. Not only does he focus on EVERY person – not just the elect or non-elect – he also works to blind them all to the truth of the Gospel – a condition Calvinists suggest is already existing and is curable only by a special, mystical, enabling by God.

Instead, however, the Bible says the following: [Read more…] about Calvinism – Devil Doesn’t Believe It!

Does God Really Hate Divorce?

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In Defense Of Divorce: Why A Marriage Should Never Be Saved At The Expense Of A Life

“Hate”
Figurative Or Absolute

Does God really hate divorce?

That’s a good question and the Bible accommodates us with what seems to be a very direct answer:

“For the LORD, the God of Israel, says that he hates divorce…” (Malachi 2:16)

But what does that really mean?

  • How literally are we to take this statement?
  • Does God hate divorce absolutely? Is it to be banned forever?
  • Or does God hate divorce like we hate bad days? We don’t like them but accept them as inevitable.

There are several reasons to suggest “hating” divorce is not the same as “disallowing” it.

Translation Issues

Very little is said about it but it is worth noting that the translation of Malachi 2:16 is a point of contention among scholars.

The New International Version follows the standard approach:

“I hate divorce,” says the LORD God of Israel, “and I hate a man’s covering himself with violence as well as with his garment,” says the LORD Almighty.

But the English Standard Version changes the entire dynamic of the verse.

For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the LORD, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the LORD of hosts.

Instead of God saying “I hate divorce” it is changed to “the man who does not love his wife.” In other words, the husband is doing the hating not God. Both translations agree that divorce can be acrimonious – violent.

Admittedly, most translations agree with the NIV but there is a reason for this other than pure academics.

The first English translation to be widely circulated – and to feature the “God hates divorce” rendering of the text – was the King James Bible and it was translated in an era and by clerics dominated by anti-divorce sentiment. Consider the following facts:

  • The first official printing was in 1611 which means most of the translation work was done within 50 years of the Church of England breaking with the Church of Rome.
  • The break came because King Henry insisted on an annulment (Catholic divorce) of his marriage to Catharine of Argon in the hopes of siring a male heir.
  • Many of the translators, though protestant, were still influenced by Rome-ish sentiments toward marriage-divorce-remarriage.

It is no surprise, then, that they opted for a very anti-divorce reading of the text.

It is also no surprise that most English translations followed suit.

Ever since, protestant attitudes toward marriage have been heavily influenced, unwittingly, by Catholic teachings. So most of the new English translations have “kept the faith” so to speak. It always “feels” safe to stay with what you know.

But, even if the “God hates divorce” translation is accurate there are still reasons to reject extreme interpretations. [Read more…] about Does God Really Hate Divorce?