A heart transformer

“Jesus Christ did not come into this world to make bad people good, he came to make dead people
live. The good can be as lost as the bad, it is the heart that needs to be transformed. ” – Ravi Zacharias

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Romans 12:2 ESV
http://bible.com/59/rom.12.2.ESV

Slice of Infinity

I subscribe to "A Slice of Infinity" daily email from the Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. And I thought today's was one worth sharing. Really there are many worth sharing. My favorites are when Ravi himsself writes, also when Jill Carattini writes, She has a gift! This one was written by Ravi Zacharias.

Christianity Without Christ?

Paul Tillich, the noted existentialist theologian, traveled to Asia to hold conferences with various Buddhist thinkers. He was studying the significance of religious leaders to the movements they had engendered. Tillich asked a simple question. “What if by some fluke, the Buddha had never lived and turned out to be some sort of fabrication? What would be the implications for Buddhism?” Mind you, Tillich was concerned with the indispensability of the Buddha—not his authenticity. The scholars did not hesitate to answer. If the Buddha was a myth, they said, it did not matter at all. Why? Because Buddhism should be judged as an abstract philosophy—as a system of living. Whether its concepts originated with the Buddha is irrelevant. As an aside, I think the Buddha himself would have concurred. Knowing that his death was imminent, he beseeched his followers not to focus on him but to remember his teachings. Not his life but his way of life was to be attended to and propagated. So, what of other world religions? Hinduism, as a conglomeration of thinkers and philosophies and gods, can certainly do without many of its deities. Some other major religions face the same predicament. Is Christianity similar? Could God the Father have sent another instead of Jesus? May I say to you, and please hear me, that the answer is most categorically No. Jesus did not merely claim to be a prophet in a continuum of prophets. He is the unique and human Son of God, part of the very godhead that Christianity calls the Trinity. The apostle Paul says it this way: “[Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible… He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together… For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.”(1) Moreover, Jesus himself prayed, “[Father] you have given [me] authority over all people to give eternal life to all whom you have given [me]. And this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”(2) As many have observed before me, Christianity is Christ. Indeed, Englishman John Stott writes, “If Jesus was not God in human flesh, Christianity is exploded. We are left with just another religion with some beautiful ideas and noble ethics; its unique distinction has gone.”(3) At the very heart of Christianity, Jesus is the word and the incarnation. And it changes everything. Ravi Zacharias is founder and chairman of the board of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.   (1) Colossians 1:15-20. (2) John 17:2-3 (3) John Stott, Basic Christianity (London: Intervarsity Press, 1971), 8.

The Christian Difference

"...Christianity is not just pious talk. It is neither a collection of religious ideas nor a catalogue of rules. It is a ‘gospel’ (i.e. good news) – in the apostle Paul’s words ‘the gospel of God…regarding his Son…Jesus Christ our Lord’. It is not primarily an invitation for us to do anything; it is supremely a declaration of what God has done"

~John Stott~

Give to Caesar

Voting Day 2016...

Here's to giving to Caesar, that which belongs to Caesar, and giving to God that which belongs to God! Voting for a president, and praying like crazy!!

19The scribes and the chief priests sought to lay hands on him at that very hour, for they perceived that he had told this parable against them, but they feared the people. 20So they watched him and sent spies, who pretended to be sincere, that they might catch him in something he said, so as to deliver him up to the authority and jurisdiction of the governor. 21So they asked him, “Teacher, we know that you speak and teach rightly, and show no partiality,^d but truly teach the way of God.22Is it lawful for us to give tribute to Caesar, or not?” 23But he perceived their craftiness, and said to them, 24“Show me a denarius.^e Whose likeness and inscription does it have?” They said, “Caesar’s.” 25He said to them, “Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” 26And they were not able in the presence of the people to catch him in what he said, but marveling at his answer they became silent.  - Gospel of Luke 20:19-26



Then I saw another angel kflying directly overhead, with an eternal gospel to proclaim to lthose who dwell on earth, to every nation and tribe and language and people. 7 And he said with a loud voice, m“Fear God and ngive him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come, and oworship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the psprings of water.”   Revelation 14:6-7

Political Unrest?

When the options have you scared...

Try and remember His words… When asked if we should pay taxes to Caesar, He said “Give me a coin. Whose image is on this Coin?” And of course it was Caesars face on the coin.

“…Give to Caesar, that which belongs Caesar’s, and give to God that which belongs to God.”

I’ve heard it suggested that the man who asked Jesus that question… ought to have had a follow up Question… “What belongs to God?” And Jesus might have said… “Whose Image is on you?” 

Just this morning on my drive in to work… I saw a license plate that had a prefix of “FTB”  And I said to myself “Face The Book”  Instead of doing FB (FaceBook), we should put it down, and FTB (Face The Book). Give to God that which belongs to God! "All of your heart, soul, mind, and strength." 

"Seek the Lord, while He may be found."

Science ...limited?

Quotes for today...

“Science cannot deal with the simplest questions of a child… ‘why am I here? What is the meaning of my life?” - Sir Peter Medawar 1915-1987  Awarded the Nobel Prize in 1960 for ‘Physiology of Medicine’ and  his work on how the immune system rejects or accepts organ transplants.

“It was my science that drove me to the conclusion that the world is much more complicated than can be explained by science. It’s only through the supernatural that I can understand the mystery of existence.” - Allan Sandidge.   

Allan Rex Sandage was an American astronomer. He was Staff Member Emeritus with the Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, California. He determined the first reasonably accurate values for the Hubble constant and the age of the universe.

Quotes on reaching the end of yourself...

“Meaninglessness, does not come from being weary of pain, meaninglessness comes from being weary of pleasure.”

- G.K. Chesterton.

“It is difficult to resist the conclusion that twentieth century man has decided to abolish himself.  Tired of the struggle to be himself, he has created boredom out of his own affluence, impotence out of his own erotomania, and vulnerability out of his own strength.  He himself blows the trumpet that brings the walls of his own cities crashing down, until at last, having educated himself into imbecility, having drugged and polluted himself into stupefaction, he keels over, a weary, battered old brontosaurus, and becomes extinct.”

– Malcolm Muggeridge.

“the worst effect of sin, is not manifested in pain, and suffering, and bodily defacement, but in the dis-crowned faculties, the unworthy loves, the low ideals, the brutalized, and the enslaved spirit.”

- Edwin Hubble Chapin (1814 - 1880)