Many pray for the right partner but cease to pray for the right union – that they be one as Jesus and the Father are one and so experience the full measure of His joy in the relationship.
Marriage brings face to face two people committed to God whose face is distinctively revealed in each as they see each other in the light of God, shining on each countenance. God brought them close to each other because each was the other’s answer from God, to rescue them from being alone.
Isn’t it ironic that when Islam is in a position of power, Islamic beliefs are forced on everyone, and that when atheism has the upper hand, atheistic beliefs are enforced on everyone? Only in Christianity is the privilege given both to believe and to disbelieve without any enforcement.
The Scriptures categorically state that the problem with such people is not the absence of evidence; it is, rather, the suppression of it. The message of Jesus Christ shifts the charge of insufficiency from the volume of evidence to the intent of one’s will.
Living under the tremendous illusion that personal freedoms and freedom of speech are devoid of moral assumptions and responsibilities, we have bankrupted ourselves, so that honor, truth, and morality have been sacrificed at the altar of autonomy and self-worship.
The worldview of the Christian faith is simple enough. God has put enough into this world to make faith in him a most reasonable thing. But he has left enough out to make it impossible to live by sheer reason alone. The.
In its essence, faith is a confidence in the person of Jesus Christ and in His power, so that even when His power does not serve my end, my confidence in Him remains because of who He is. Faith for the Christian is the response of trust based on who Jesus Christ claimed to be, and it results in a life that brings both mind and heart in a commitment of love to Him.
Yet there is nothing so vulgar left in our present cultural experience for which some professor cannot be found somewhere to justify it. Reason has died.
Thankfully, our disappointments matter to God, and He has a way of taking even some of the bitterest moments we go through and making them into something of great significance in our life. It’s hard to understand it at the time. Not one of us wants that thread when it is being woven in. Not one of us says, ‘I can hardly wait to see where this is going to fit.’ We all say at that moment, ‘This is not the pattern I want.
Faith is a thing of the mind. If you do not believe that God is in control and has formed you for a purpose, then you will flounder on the high seas of purposelessness, drowning in the currents and drifting further into nothingness.
Think long and hard whether you have reached that mature stage of selflessness for this one you think you love so much. The love you enjoy will be the best thing that ever happened to you, but it will cost you your independence... The responsibility of marriage and family demands time, and when we cheat on that, we rob ourselves of the investment returns.
The resulting inability or even desire to reason and think through an idea logically is demonstrated by one-liners such as “I’m not into ’isms.
Are we really ever completely our own person or have we been conditioned in ways beyond our own imagination?
The end result is spirituality without dogma, religion without God, argument without substance, rationalization without rationality, and tranquillity by transfer of funds from the seeker’s bank account to the company that makes the best offer of nirvana, at the same time producing dogmatism about relativism in matters of ultimate meaning.
That is what a well-guarded prayer life can reveal about us, that our trust is not in ourselves but in seeking God’s strength for what we do. Prayer is not a substitute for action, but prayer undergirds action with the strength that makes the difference.
The Christian faith, simply stated, reminds us that our fundamental problem is not moral; it is spiritual.
If musicians and artists have no absolutes, they end up caring more about the way the thing is told than about the thing itself, and they slide deeper and deeper till it’s their means rather than the ends that matter.
In the postmodernist mentality the purpose of dialogue or debate is not for truth but only for feeling, and as passion has taken over, facts are given no legitimacy. The result is hate-filled shouting matches.
So I ask again – if a man who experiences such limited access to his own mental capacities can do such incredible work, how much more grand is the work of our Heavenly Father as he pulls together all the varied strands of life to reveal his grand design? Sometimes he uses soft and delicate colors; at other times he chooses dramatic and vibrant ones.
Accepting and celebrating the thread of your own personality is the first grasp of the Grand Weaver’s design in your life. You are not a number. He knows you by name.