Archive for March, 2008


Crucifixion, Diego Velázquez, 17th c. Abrahamic religions believe in the idea that God can prescribe a means of atonement for sin; in Judaism, by spilling the blood of animals or in Christianity, by the atonement of Jesus.Image via Wikipedia

Number three on the New York Times best seller list does not surprise me. People would much rather believe all these convoluted offerings rather than the truth that a loving God actually cared enough about our pitiful selfs that He sent His only Son to die so that we might live.Now I do not know about you but my best intentions has never led me anywhere but to despair. No matter how hard I tried I could never measure up to be GOOD enough by the so called enlightened crowd so I guess I would be doomed to forever live in despair save for the Lord Jesus Christ who came into my life and rescued me from my despair. Now I know who I belong to and therefore I am no longer looking to the enlightened crowd for my self worth.

Perhaps Chopra and all his adherents would be better served to read the ‘Good Book’.

clipped from www.townhall.com
In the book, released in February by Harmony, Chopra states, “I have written what I think the New Testament means…” And what it means to Chopra, the author of more than 40 books, is quite different from the way orthodox Christians have understood it through the centuries.
Chopra believes that the “real” Jesus — the third Jesus — is much less than the New Testament makes him out to be.
According to Chopra, Jesus was nothing more than an adherent to what we now call New Age philosophy.
“Jesus did not physically descend from God’s dwelling place … nor did he return to sit at the right hand of a literal throne,” writes Chopra. “What made Jesus the Son of God was the fact that he had achieved God-consciousness.”
We shouldn’t discount Chopra’s book and assume no one is reading it. Sadly, the opposite true. “The Third Jesus” — full of New Age, heretical pabulum — was ranked third March 30 on The New York Times’ list for hardcover advice books.

Hollow Rabbit Religion

Insight for your “Journey across the Sky”

A View from the Nest www.eagleviews.org

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aster is the second most important candy-eating occasion of the year for Americans, who consumed 7 billion pounds of candy in 2001, according to the National Confectioner’s Association.

§In 2000, Americans spent nearly $1.9 billion on Easter candy, while Halloween sales were nearly $2 billion; Christmas, an estimated $1.4 billion; and Valentine’s Day, just over $1 billion.

§Ninety million chocolate Easter bunnies are produced each year.

§Chocolate bunnies should be eaten ears first, according to 76% of Americans. Five percent said bunnies should be eaten feet first, while 4% favored eating the tail first.

§Adults prefer milk chocolate (65%), to dark chocolate (27%)

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hey are fanciful, often gold wrapped, usually elegantly packaged, full color presentations. From all appearances those chocolate creatures are a delightful treat to eat. On the surface these beauties are elegant and proud. Inside, however, they are an empty hollow shell.

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do not know about you but I prefer solid chocolate rabbits over the hollow ones. I much prefer to bite into a solid milk chocolate bunny. I have been fooled in the past into purchasing what looked like a solid chocolate rabbit only to get home and find out it was not. One bite is all it took to know I had been deceived. Although it had the appearance of being solid, it did not pass the bite test. Of course I could have employed the pinch test at the store but that would have only left a broken bunny on the shelf where once stood a proud whole rabbit. E312001007

After Easter mark-downs can be found on the broken chocolate rabbits even before the holiday buying season ends. The chocolate still tastes as good as it did when it was in the form of a full standing rabbit, but since it now resembles a pile of chocolate flakes, it lost some of its value. Although the chocolate did not loose any flavor it was no longer pretty to look at.

Hollow rabbits outsell solid rabbits primarily because of the cost. You can get a gigantic 12 inch rabbit for about half the price of a much smaller solid one. Children would love the fact that they have this huge chocolate rabbit to eat, when in reality the amount of actual chocolate in that 12 inch rabbit is less than half of the smaller sized version.

Outwardly these proud rabbits stand tall, but apply just a little amount of pressure and they will crumble. There is no real substance to them. They are of little value when faced with just the slightest bit of pressure. By contrast their solid shelf-mates can withstand tremendous pressure. Have you ever tried biting the head off a solid rabbit?

Solid or Hollow which do you prefer?

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ur church worship could be looked at from the viewpoint of solid or hollow. Are we worshipping with our whole hearts, souls, mind, spirit, and strength, or is it more of an outward show to win favorable ratings from onlookers?

“In the fifth year of King Rehoboam, Shishak king of Egypt attacked Jerusalem. He carried off the treasures of the temple of the Lord and the treasures of the royal palace. He took everything, including the gold shields Solomon had made. So King Rehoboam made bronze shields to replace them and assigned these to the commanders of the guard on duty at the entrance to the royal palace. Whenever the king went to the Lord’s temple, the guards bore the shields, and afterward they returned them to the guardroom (2 Chronicles 12:9-11).”

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he gold was gone. It was replaced with bronze. Although it had an appearance of gold it wasn’t. Bronze is far cheaper to produce than gold and thus less valuable. Although stripped of all the gold, the king made a show of worship anyway. If anyone came to steal these bronze shields would they get anything of value when compared to the golden shields that had been there? Are we “taking away” anything of value from our worship services, any golden nuggets?

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Be careful not to let anyone rob you {of this faith} through a shallow and misleading philosophy. Such a person follows human traditions and the world’s way of doing things rather than following Christ. Cola 2:8 (GW)

All across our land many church houses are filled with bronze where once stood gold. What once was solid biblical preaching has been replaced with hollow messages of self-improvement. These messengers appear to preach solid biblical counsel yet their teachings contain no substance. Unable to offer the solid meat of God’s word, they are left with only hollow arguments to the world’s ills. These solid looking brass shields, though golden in appearance, lack the value of pure gold.

It may be milk and it may be chocolate but is it solid? What is your worship made of? Will it stand up under pressure?What is behind that golden appearance? Is it solid or simply hollow? Can you worship when times are rough? Has the enemy come in and taken all the value out of your salvation experience and left you with just a semblance of true worship?

But those who are waiting for the Lord will have new strength; they will get wings like eagles: running, they will not be tired, and walking, they will have no weariness. Isaiah 40:31 (BBE)

The Original Rolling Stone

He is not here for He is risen just as He said.

Matthew 28:6

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Not So Good Friday

By Patrick Oden

goodfri 4546cToday is Good Friday. A curious name because in reality it was a pretty bad Friday.

Imagine if you were a disciple. You had spent three years following a man who more and more seemed like he was the Messiah. He did miracles. He spoke wisdom. He had a power you had never seen in anyone.

Then, on the day in which his power was tested he failed the test. You had given up everything, all that you were, to follow this man and on this Friday he left. He was killed. And this is just the perspective of Jesus‘ followers. Don’t get me started on how bad Jesus’ day was.

“Take this cup from me,” he prayed the night before. God didn’t. It wasn’t his will that Jesus be saved at this point.

On that Friday it was anything but good. Maybe it should be called Miserable Friday, or Awful Friday, or The Worst Friday Ever. Lives were lost on that day, and not just those crucified. Souls were seemingly lost. Everything went wrong. Nothing worked right.

Oh, yeah, Joseph of Arimathea… he was able to get a tomb and bury Jesus before nightfall. At least Jesus wasn’t thrown to the dogs. Thank God for the little blessings, eh?

Yes, the prophets said something about suffering, and disfigurement and the like. But, what is that on such a day? Everything goes wrong. But God does not do wrong things. What are the prophets when one’s own perception sees the troubles bubbling over? They are forgotten words of a past era unable to speak to the present. Jesus is dead. Jesus is buried. Turns out he wasn’t the Messiah after all. We were wrong. He couldn’t even save himself.

Good Friday? There was nothing good about it.

So why call it this? Why is it Good Friday?

Because of Easter. Because two days later he rose from the dead. Friday is only good because we are able to observe the future of the events. We are able to see that Jesus died, but he died for a reason, a reason only seen on Easter morning. We reinterpret the past events based on the later events. All was wrong on that first Friday… except that it was all right because of what would happen two days afterwards.

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Obama Unmasked

By Dennis Van Scoy

Research tells us that Barack Hussein Obama emerged from a religiously confused and mixed childhood. His father was an atheist, however Barack’s formidable years were influenced primarily through the education and cultures of Catholic and Muslim beliefs (religions that focus on “good works” and “rituals”). He became a very well educated man, attending Harvard (a very liberal and atheistic environment) for his advanced education. During that time, and before he entered the political arena, he began attending the Trinity Church of Christ (of the U.C.C. denomination). It is there that he met and was pastored by the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. The two developed a strong friendship, with Barack Obama accepting Mr. Wright as a friend, spiritual counselor and member of his own family. Over the next twenty years, Barack Obama heard Jeremiah Wright speak hundreds of times from the church pulpit, on audio tapes (when he was away from church), and almost daily in a personal (social) setting, becoming well acquainted with Jeremiah Wright’s deepest feelings on a variety of issues.

It is fairly common knowledge within evangelical circles and among the majority of Christian denominations, that certain churches within the United Church of Christ denomination are deviant from the accepted biblical principles concerning Spiritual salvation (as described in Ephesians 2:8-9 and Romans 4:2-3) proclaiming instead, the heresy of salvation through baptism (Galatians 1:6-9). Some individual congregations even blindly subscribe to teachings of their pastors that stand in stark contradiction to the Holy Scriptures, while the pastors themselves often reject whole portions of the Bible to confuse and control church members (partial Bible theology, – violation of 2nd. Timothy 3:16-17 and Revelation 22:18-19). Within some U.C.C. sects, the Holy Spirit is ignored (Matthew 12:31), and all Biblical interpretation or instruction is filtered only through the finite human intellect of church’s pastor (John 16:13). In this manner, U.C.C. pastors are held to no particular level of accountability regarding misconduct, false teachings or personal lifestyle, thus Jeremiah Wright’s vulgar, hateful and bigoted ravings from the pulpit at Trinity Church of Christ are considered acceptable practice by his congregation, and completely above reproach.

When one compares the liberal voting record of Senator Barack Obama to the ways of God and teachings found in the Holy Bible, it is evident that Senator Obama either does not know God’s instructions, or he is in complete disobedience to God’s words on moral issues facing this nation. Perhaps, it’s because he has never had the opportunity to hear biblical truth, having been tangled in four (4) false theologies and smothered in his own intellectual arrogance (see Psalms 119:21, Matthew 18:3-4 and Romans 1:21-22). He seems rather to base his hope for eternal salvation on his worldly acts of charity and random “good works” (Isaiah 64:6 and Ephesians 2:8-9). Senator Obama claims to believe in Jesus Christ, but there’s a huge difference between believing in the historical personage of Jesus (head belief), and trusting exclusively in the finished work of Jesus as one’s personal Lord and Savior (heart belief) – (see Matthew 7:21). Even the demons “believe” in the person of Jesus, but sincerely trusting in Him requires a heart intent to obey God (1 John 3:21-24) in every area of a person’s life.

As I listened to Barack Obama’s speech to the nation from Philadelphia On March 18th last, it was certainly clear that he is a great orator given to very eloquent speech. It was also obvious that he is a politician trying to whitewash an old friend’s missteps and negate political fall-out to himself. Although he condemned the bigoted, vulgar and ignorant comments made by the reverend Jeremiah Wright (his former pastor), he refused to break company with his old friend, or demand a change in attitude within his apostate congregation. God’s instructions in the Bible make it very clear that each person is to be held accountable and is also under obligation to hold others likewise accountable for sinful or inappropriate misconduct (Ezekiel 3:18-21 and Ecclesiastes 4:9-12). A “Christian” should always lovingly confront a brother who is in error in accordance with God’s instructions regarding church discipline (Matthew 8:15-17 and 1 Timothy 5:20), but if that brother refuses to repent (change), Christians are commanded to have nothing further to do with him (Matthew 18:17b and Titus 3:10), this is the policy Barack Obama should have taken from the very beginning regarding his former pastor Jeremiah Wright. Since it is obvious that Obama’s Trinity Church of Christ congregation is determined to support Jeremiah Wright in his sinful misconduct as former pastor of that church, the whole of the church is likewise in a state of sin and should indeed be abandoned by anyone having a true relationship with Jesus Christ.

Barack Obama’s speech of March 18th, was indeed laced with beautiful rhetoric. He told people what their “itching ears” wanted to hear (2 Timothy 4:3-4) all the while trying to gloss over the hateful, racist, anti-American and vulgar comments of his friend and former pastor who he claims has so deeply impacted his life. If Barack Obama does not to some degree share the views of Jeremiah Wright, he needs to separate himself from Mr. Wright and that apostate church, it’s as simple as that. If Senator Obama really believes in Jesus Christ, he will seek to obey God’s words in the Holy Bible, and “come out from them and be separate,..” (2 Corinthians 6:17 NIV). Believing is as believing does, really believing in Jesus Christ means being obedient to God’s ways in the political arena as well in one’s own private life.

Senator Obama needs to make a heart commitment to Jesus Christ, then daily study the words of the Bible to learn what God expects of him as a leader. He needs to review his thinking on issues like, homosexual rights, abortion (shedding innocent blood), stem cell research, cloning, capital punishment, euthanasia, illegal immigration, same sex marriage, and many more problems effecting the moral climate of this nation. Maybe then he will be able to offer much more than flowery speech and a handful of platitudes. The only “change” America needs is called national revival and that is where Senator Obama could do some good, IF he got in step with God (2 Chronicles 7:14).

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Dennis Van Scoy Sr, is a retired police officer turned Christian, freelance writer. He has been married for 22 years, has 5 children, 4 step-children, 22 grandchildren and one great grandchild. He presently writes a weekly column called THE HEART OF THE MATTER published on Ezraweb.com.

Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com 

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