The Five Stages: Changing Attitudes

Saturday morning we were blessed to have one of church worship leaders lead our men's group at 6:30am.  We were blessed also by the fact that he is the leader of our Reflectors Ministry also leading and beginning our mental health ministry.  This man is a very special man, not just because he is a song writer, not just because he has a heart for the broken and the marginalized, not just because he loves the Lord with all of his heart, But because he is a humble man with truly many gifts!His name is Vinnie, and he  was asked by one of our leaders to come and lead worship and to bring a message of his heart:  REFLECTORS MINISTRY.

Enter his message on the 5 Stages of Changing our Attitudes:

Stage 1:  Ignorance - Weaknesses and disabilities are a sign that God either does not care or is not able to fix the situation. In fact, they may be a result of sin or a lack of faith. God is not involved in the life of someone with a disability, because He can’t use people who are so broken. I do not know people with disabilities, nor do I know anything about disabilities. I have no interest in getting to know them or to know more about their life

Stage 2:  Pity - I feel sorry for people with disabilities. It’s too bad, really. I am blessed by God and I can help others. I am grateful that my children are not disabled. People with weaknesses and disabilities obviously need someone like me to help them and give them meaning, due to their troubles. I really don’t see any meaning or purpose to their lives.

Stage 3:  Care - Like me, people with disabilities were created in God’s image. By that virtue alone they have value. I hope that someone will take the time to show them God’s love, and I will happily support such an effort. In fact, I think we need to find ways to help those people. Maybe we should start a special church education class, or respite care for the sake of the parents.

Stage 4:  Friendship:  I have come to know and spend time with a friend who has a disability. This person has value in God’s sight, but also in mine, and I know that my life is better for having known this person, and as much as I have helped her, she has also blessed me. In fact, I now like to initiate relationships with people who have disabilities. God brings many different people into my church and community, including people with disabilities, and we all benefit as we grow in friendship with each other.

Stage 5:  Co-Laborers - If God has called each of us to serve and praise Him with every fiber of our beings, then He has done the same for our brothers and sisters in Christ with disabilities. I think ministry should not just be to people with disabilities, but with or alongside people who have disabilities. Together, we will encourage and equip each other, with and without disabilities, into every good work to respond to God’s call on our lives. We can all give and we can all receive.

There were two passages that were very relevant to his heart in sharing these 5 stages:

The Sheep and the Goats (Matthew 25)

³¹ “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. ³² All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. ³³ He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

³⁴ “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. ³⁵ For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, ³⁶ I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

³⁷ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? ³⁸ When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? ³⁹ When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

⁴⁰ “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

⁴¹ “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. ⁴² For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, ⁴³ I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

⁴⁴ “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

⁴⁵ “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

⁴⁶ “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

The Parable of the Great Banquet (Luke 14)

¹⁵ When one of those at the table with him heard this, he said to Jesus, “Blessed is the one who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God.”

¹⁶ Jesus replied: “A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. ¹⁷ At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’

¹⁸ “But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, ‘I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.’

¹⁹ “Another said, ‘I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I’m on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.’

²⁰ “Still another said, ‘I just got married, so I can’t come.’

²¹ “The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.’

²² “‘Sir,’ the servant said, ‘what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.’

²³ “Then the master told his servant, ‘Go out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in, so that my house will be full. ²⁴ I tell you, not one of those who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.’”

When you read these stories, if you profess the name of the Lord Jesus as Savior, you should feel the Spirit move in you with a heart of compassion and the desire for the need is great and the workers are few to harvest the field.   The reason why these steps were so relevant to our men's ministry is because Vinnie asked us to take a hard look at where we are, not just with special needs, but with our outlook on people in general and in where we are at in our life and what stage in each of those situations we are at - this was a huge question and great topic for our small groups when we pray for each other and share from the heart.

There were other verses that Vinnie raised for our pathway to care and discipleship:

1 Corinthians 12:12New International Version (NIV)

Unity and Diversity in the Body

¹² Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ.

Love in Action (Romans 12)

⁹ Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. ¹⁰ Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. ¹¹ Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. ¹² Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. ¹³ Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.

¹⁴ Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. ¹⁵ Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. ¹⁶ Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position.^[c] Do not be conceited.

¹⁷ Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. ¹⁸ If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. ¹⁹ Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,”^[d] says the Lord.²⁰ On the contrary:

“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”^[e]

²¹ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

----

When it is all said and done, we should be left with three things to do for Jesus:

1. Go- Jesus tells us to go and make disciples.  Go and grab people (who are broken and in need of the Good News:  Jesus Saves) and go unto the highways and by ways and fill his house for the great banquet
2. Compel - build relationships with these who are lost and in need of healing and love and community.  Compel them with the love of Jesus and what He has done for us.  Build relationships through friendships and co-laboring with others to serve and seek those who are lost and broken.
3. Full House - Fill his house, by doing His work.  We are called to share the love of Jesus by loving others.  By truth in love.  Jesus said I am the way, the truth and the life and that no man cometh to the Father but by Him.

What say you?

Go, Compel and Fill our Lords house!

Blessings,

Dante

When I Was An Atheist: Part 2

Stressed and Worried Businessman

In Part 1, I tried to give you my frame of mind when I was an atheist and why I left my faith and the church.  In this post, I'll share how my atheism broke down and ultimately failed me and how I discovered that what I was really frustrated with, was religion and the Church.

My initial reaction was to write a long, voluminous diatribe trying to explain, in explicit detail, every possible angle to this post as I know many atheists will attack me, these post and my stance. But in the interest of the reader and not dredging up the same debates, I decided to keep it short and leave a lot out.  That being said, I know atheists will attack my rational in this post but this is further evidence of exactly the point I'm trying to make.  When I was an atheist, I believed that religion is irrational and dangerous and therefore took the approach that anyone who believed in religion needed to be discredited by any means. This meant mocking religious believers and leaders, proclaiming their religious institutions as irrational, and seeking to discredit the Bible by any means. All civility was tossed out the window in order to debate that my point of view was superior.

My atheism worked well for me in my controlled environment but my sole reliance on logic, science, and reason began to break down when I utilized it in human relations with other people in a not-so-logical world, especially in relationships where emotions like love were involved.  In hindsight, I now know from neuroscience that although logic, facts, and science are helpful - ultimately the human species makes decisions based on emotions not logic and I found that trying to apply logical and scientific reasoning to the thousand or so decisions I needed to make everyday was not only futile but ludicrous to try. Inevitably, we use "thin slicing" in our decisions and it's difficult, if not impossible, to always remain logical and unbiased.

As previously stated, I also experienced that my atheism made me more confrontational if not militant towards my fellow mankind, specifically those who believed in God and faith.  Rather than just living my life (happy in my logic and science) I felt the need to attack, belittle, and debate those who did not share my views.  I wanted to prove them wrong thus making myself feel intellectual superior and elevate myself above their irrationality, when in reality, most people perceived me as intellectually arrogant and egotistical.

My atheism ethos often challenged believers to prove the existence of God which I would then debate incessantly in the form of  disqualifying all their claims based on the grounds that they could not be proven using modern scientific principles and laws and thus were irrational. But as an atheist, I now realize that I simply replaced my beliefs and faith in God - to belief in science, logic and reason which in itself was making a bold intellectual commitment of faith about the nature of the universe, and I made this "leap of faith" while denying, in science, the same type of insufficient data. As Bill Maher once said on Real Time, “many atheists trade faith in a deity for faith in secularism.”

Ask yourself this question: Throughout human history, has science ever been wrong?

A PhD in Zoology and Professor of Biology for over 30 years at a leading liberal university told me, "Science is what we know about the natural world, given the amount of data available at that time in our human history. Scientific advances in the past have proven everything we know and thought to be fact at the time...wrong.  We could make a scientific discovery next week that proves all of our textbooks and theories to be dead wrong." This professor, despite studying evolution for over 30 years, is a Christian. 

Plus, there has been more than one study that has shown that even science is incapable of research bias. Most scientific research gets skewed by researchers because of their need for career advancement, funding for research programs, and competitiveness for staff and research facilities.

So putting my faith in science, logic, and reason was really not empirically true and free of outside bias.  As Bill Maher alluded to, I simply traded religious mysticism for scientific mysticism.

A Freethinking Society Would Advance Humankind?

I often hear, and thought myself at one time, that if we could rid ourselves of religion and God, our society would be free to advance and evolve based purely on science, logic and reasoning.

In studying countries and societies who were atheist, the exact opposite happened.

Peter Hitchens, brother of outspoken atheist Christopher Hitchens, spent a lot of time in the Soviet Union towards it's end.  “Godless society was sobering." He wrote of the riots that broke out when the vodka ration was cancelled one week; the bribes required to obtain anesthetics at the dentist or antibiotics at the hospital; the frightening levels of divorce and abortion under their atheist rules.  It was not Utopia. Mankind did not advance. Government sponsored killing and human rights violations escalated.  In fact, China (a supposedly atheist society) despite being a technological powerhouse in the world, is year after year #1 on the list of government sponsored deaths and human rights violations.

Nobel Prize winner Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn stated it this way "But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: 'Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened"

 What's Love Got To Do With It?

Furthermore, my atheism ran into challenges of the heart.  As a atheist, I had to prescribe to the idea that humans have no soul, and we are merely evolutionary advanced animals, so love is nothing more than instinct or hormones.

When a mother, father, husband or wife feels love and says, “I love you,” the atheist says they are not expressing anything metaphysical or spiritual. In fact, the atheist believes, they are just verbalizing their instinct to preserve their species or having increased hormones.  Wouldn't that sound great on a Hallmark Card?

If we have no soul, then there is only the bubbling of the brain. Love is only a response to stimuli and hormones. Tell that to your wife or girlfriend!

The problem for atheists, is that majority of humans claim that they do feel love in mystical and spiritual ways. Anyone who has ever been in love can attest to this and our sometimes irrational thinking because of it. Christians believe that is because our love is connected to our soul and our soul is a metaphysical reality that assumes the existence of God, or at least the supernatural and points us back to our connection with God, our creator.

I've yet to find someone who has been alive more than a few decades who has not had at least one metaphysical, spiritual or supernatural event in their lives that cannot be explained using the laws of science, logic and reason.  Despite what you or I have felt or experienced, my atheists friends claim this is just a momentary lapse of irrationality or that millions of people are just psychological delusional.

I Can't Change, Even If I Tried.

What I found profoundly fascinating (yet its not talked about in atheist and many scientific circles) is that science itself is actually seeing more and more evidence of God and Intelligent Design, specifically in chemistry and in the study of DNA.  British philosopher, Dr. Antony Flew, was once a leading spokesperson for atheism and actively involved in debate after debate. However, recent scientific discoveries in the genome project have lead him and many others to question their atheism. Although Flew did not become a Christian or accept Jesus, he did admit he believed in a God.  Researchers today are learning that DNA is so complex and contains such a specific, written code that if one mistake was made, we'd be a different mutated species altogether.  Our DNA code is compared to the most complex computer program ever written, and in science and technology, a complex computer code has never existed unless it was designed, programmed or coded with an intelligent mind behind it.

Cognitive scientists are also becoming increasingly aware that a metaphysical outlook may be so deeply ingrained in the human psyche, that it cannot be expunged.  While this idea may seem outlandish to my atheist friends —after all, it seems easy to decide not to believe in God—evidence from several scientific disciplines indicate that what you actually believe is not a decision you make for yourself. Your fundamental beliefs are decided by much deeper levels of consciousness, and some may well be more or less set in stone.  This line of thought has led to some scientists claiming that “atheism is psychologically impossible because of the way humans think,” says Graham Lawton, an avowed atheist himself, writing in the New Scientist. “They point to studies showing, for example, that even people who claim to be committed atheists tacitly hold religious beliefs, such as the existence of an immortal soul.”

Hmm...God is so deeply engrained into our being that no matter how hard we try, we still feel his presence despite all our logical thought processes?

"Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?"  - Psalm 139:7

"No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us." - 1 John 4:12

"You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart."  - Jeremiah 29:13

In the Part 1, I explained that these posts were not meant to be an apologetics study or debate of atheism versus faith but my own personal journey.  Although I've spent some time researching a lot of the arguments for and against the authenticity of the Bible, the existence of Jesus, and if he really was the Christ or Messiah - There's a lot of evidence, historical writings, anthropological digs, etc. that we could spend hours debating, but I think one of the most compelling arguments for myself and my own faith, has been the early church and the disciples of Christ.

I often hear and believed myself that the Bible we have today and ultimately religion was developed by man in order to control and wrest power from the masses.  We could argue that in the Council of Nicea in 325 AD, Roman Emperor Constantine envisioned a way to garner the support and conformity of the people and put the Bible together, along with other pagan rituals, in order to accomplish this.  But none of this stands up to scrutiny or makes logical sense when you go back to the original disciples of Christ.

We now have evidence and fragments of the New Testament dating to within 30-50 years of the death of Christ, some 200 years before Constantine and the Council of Nicea.  The writers of the New Testament (through scribes) were the original followers of Christ, the disciples, and they spent the rest of their lives in poverty, persecution, humiliation and were ultimately tortured and killed for professing what they had witnessed with and through Jesus Christ. In the case with Saul/Paul of Tarsus, he went from hunting and killing Christians, to becoming one of it’s biggest spokespeople after Christ had been killed and resurrected. In the same vein, James the brother of Jesus, did not believe until after Christ was resurrected. If Jesus resurrection was fake, why did these men change their beliefs entirely after Jesus was killed and go one to spend lives in persecution and ridicule?

If Jesus or his divinity was conjured up, as some claim, what did these early followers gain? Why would these eyewitness observers be tortured and die for fiction, with seemingly noting to gain?

The early disciples' prolific writings exist as a historical source. These writers also took the subversive actions of writing to women and slaves rather than pandering only to men, which would hardly have made their writings popular according to the culture of the time. Yet we still have these writings preserved and available as well as outside accounts of Jesus from other historical sources.  The early disciples did almost everything wrong, according to the culture of the time, in trying to create a following or movement.

So if it was all made up, what did they gain?

These early disciples were pursued and hunted by the religious and government leaders of their day. Yet their lives, actions, writings and ultimately deaths gives us further evidence of their quest for truth and accuracy in proclaiming what they witnessed rather than creating popularity, control, power or a large following.

In Part 3, I finish my story by explaining how I discovered that what I really was frustrated with, was religion and the Church and how despite the early disciples and churches best efforts to keep religion out, eventually the old Temple Model crept back into Christianity and caused a lot of bad things to happen in the name of God and religion.

I'll leave you with one finally thought. If Jesus was not the son of God and even more God in human form and was just some guy killed 2000 years ago by the Romans.  If this was the biggest lie ever sold, why hasn't it faded into history?  Why are we still talking and debating him today?  Why do more people attest positive life changes and supernatural events occurring from reading His book and experiencing His presence in our lives?

"But a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law, who was honored by all the people, stood up in the Sanhedrin and ordered that the men be put outside for a little while.35 Then he addressed the Sanhedrin:.......38 Therefore, in the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail.39 But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.”  Acts 5: 34-35, 38-39

Should we keep on sinning

If I were to look at the church from the outside in approach (as not being a Christian) in most American churches I would most like being skewed and left with hypocritical opinion of the church.  That is, to say, that I would probably ask why do I need God if Christians continue to do the same thing that they did before and continue to sin and keep on sinning.  I would say how can they judge me when they keep doing the very things that they say that they are saved from.If I were to look at most men in these churches in America, I would be disappointed by the statistics that compare the world to them, meaning there probably wouldn't be much difference.

If I were to be real with these American churches that were just lukewarm, I would look to the book of Revelation and say to them what Jesus said to one of his churches about being lukewarm - he would rather have that church be hot (on fire for Him and His will) or cold (worldly) instead of lukewarm (which is like vomit in His mouth).

Based on the way that some Christians live, some in the world can conclude that the salvation of that church (living like the world) is like a lottery ticket - meaning that they can be "saved" and also live like they used to live by continuing to keep living the same way as before (this is the world's view). I would caution any church against living a lie such as this...you will be held accountable by misleading others.

Let's test that against Scripture:

Romans 6 English Standard Version (ESV)

 Dead to Sin, Alive to God

6 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self[a] was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For one who has died has been set free[b] from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

 12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. 14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

 Slaves to Righteousness

15 What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves,[c] you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. 19 I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

 20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Salvation is a free gift from God.  The cost of discipleship, however, is a life time process that we strive for as His children through our lives to have our sanctification finally completed by His return.

Please understand this point:  Works is not a means to salvation and never will be.  The Book of Romans states:  Not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to His mercy He has saved us.  For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.  Bottom Line:  No matter what we do, can do or will do, works will never be good enough to earn our way into heaven.

So now I say to the churches that are neither cold or hot, but rather lukewarm.  To the churches that compromise biblical truth because of family circumstances and/or worldly convictions and/or worldly condemnation - do not compromise the Bible, do not bend the truth do not accommodate the world's desires if it jeopardizes God's truth!

Some of you may read this and think that I am saying to then persecute those who sin.  Stand firm and hate both the sin and the sinners that are transgressing the body of Christ - that is not what I am saying at all.  I am speaking to the Church that is lukewarm and not following Christ's will.  I am asking them to stick to the truth, to trust the Lord with all their heart and to lean not on their own understanding.  To acknowledge the Lord in all that they do and He will make their paths straight.  To the church that is cold - Repent!  To the church that is lukewarm - Repent!

If the world is asking me to compromise Scripture to be accepted by them, then I am going to deny myself to the world and trust God!  Really it is a simple choice.  A humble reminder to everyone is that ONE DAY there will be a judgement!  One day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord.

Either you know Him and He will testify about you to His Father.   Or He will deny you and say depart from me for I never knew you.  Some of the churches may be just doing that - playing church and denying the very existence of why we need a perfect Savior (just going through the motions - these are those that Jesus talks about that will say Lord, Lord and He will say to them, 'depart from me for I never knew you').

Jesus said that His sheep know His voice and follow him.  Scripture tells us to pick up our cross and follow Him.  Jesus tells us that the world will persecute us just as they persecute Him.  If I am going to error, then I am going to error on the side of Biblical truth instead of the desire of the world's version of bent truth.

As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord!  What about you and your house?

Blessings,

Dante

The 5 W's

Many of  you have heard me quote the poem, The 5 Watches, from time to time over the past eight years of being involved with Lance and this blog.  Lance and I do believe that Character, Integrity, Honor, Courage, Honesty, Gentleness, Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness and Self-Control are important to being a Legacy Dad.  It is important because that is the call of the disciple of Christ.Many of us, do to the the lack of time, over-commitments, laziness and/or fill in your blank: _________________, do not always measure up to these demands and some may even feel overwhelmed by the God's call for our lives.  I think if we are honest and really reflect back, I would believe that a majority of us would realize the answer:  It's not because God couldn't do this for us, rather, because we got in the way - we tried to do it on our own.  That is, to say, that we gave him a little of our day (our schedule, our sin, and our lives) but we didn't give it all to him.

The poem that I often quote is this:

Watch your thoughts,

for they become words.

Watch your words,

for they become actions.

Watch your actions,

for they become habits.

Watch your habits,

for they become your character.

Watch your character,

for it becomes your destiny.

How about the 5 W's of the Christian Walk:

• Who do we worship?  (God or god(s) defined as idols that take our attention from who we should worship:  God
• What do our lives tell others what our priorities our?
• Where does our faith belong (where is it currently?  do you have faith in God?)
• When do we believe God (does he really mean His will be done, His abundant life for us?)
• Why should we serve God His way and not ours (not when we want, not how we want, but instead reading His word and serving Him the way that He requires in all of our lives)

What can we do to change our perspective our religion?  When I say our religion, I am defining it as this:  Our religion is that which is what we only take away from reading the Bible (meaning if there is somethings that convicts us or causes us the desire to repent and we ignore that part).  Our religion being defined as we are allowing ourselves to serve both the world (and our own special interests) and God instead of serving him in all that we do.  Our religion being defined as when it is convenient for to serve Him and others instead of when He wants us to serve.

Pure religion in the eyes of the Father is that which looks after widows and orphans and turns away from the ways of this world.  God's religion is for us to Trust in the Lord with all of our hearts, to lean not on our own understanding, but to acknowledge Him in all of our ways.  And He will make our paths straight.

What about you?

Blessings,

Dante

The Hunt for Easter

Apostles' Creed

I believe in God, the Father almighty,

      creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,

      who was conceived by the Holy Spirit

      and born of the virgin Mary.

      He suffered under Pontius Pilate,

      was crucified, died, and was buried;

      he descended to hell.

      The third day he rose again from the dead.

      He ascended to heaven

      and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.

      From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,

      the holy catholic* church,

      the communion of saints,

      the forgiveness of sins,

      the resurrection of the body,

      and the life everlasting. Amen.

God loves us so much that He gave His only Son for us.  Even though Jesus was both man and God, he faced all the temptations, trials and tribulations that we face every day.  Not only did He face them, He succeeded them and lived a perfect life.  Thus, a perfect sacrifice was made to atone for our sins once and for all.  Our debt (of sin) has been paid.  If we admit that we our sinners (and in need of a Savior) and believe in our hearts that Jesus Christ was born of a virgin, lived on this earth 33 years (no historian disputes this) and was crucified and rose again on the third day (we are celebrating His resurrection on Easter Sunday) and confess with our mouths and ask Jesus Christ in our hearts. then you will be saved.

Why is Easter Sunday important to us?  Because He lives.  He is risen.  He now sits at the right hand of God advocating on behalf of us to the Father.

Happy Easter!  He has risen, indeed!!!

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Blessings,

Dante & Lance

Why do bad things happen....?

So I was sending this work email this morning, after men's group, and fell upon this video of a woman who has sadly lost her battle (on earth) to cancer.    This video struck me in so many different ways that I do not have enough time in the day to post on this topic.  That being said, I have shared before that I have had malignant melanoma and there was a time when I almost lost my wife (two years in a row).  I understand pain and loss and the fear of death.  Let's just say that I have spent a lot of time in the book of Job and in prayer during these trials and tribulations.I have been hurt and I have been angry and I have asked why do these things:

• Why is there cancer?
• Why is there evil in the world?
• Why do bad things happen to good people?
• Why is there so much pain?
• Why do we face trials and tribulations?
• Why, Lord, Why?

I cannot pretend to sit here and tell you, the readers, why do bad things happen.  Nor will I ever try to explain your life situation to you without walking through it with you, without being in the trenches with you and/or sharing life with you.  Here is the video that struck me today:

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Two of the most hardest things that I had to endure in my life were:

1)  When I received a phone call from the doctor that said I had malignant melanoma.  I just about dropped the phone on the floor of the vehicle and thought to myself, why God?  My wife and I had our son, who at the time was 10 months old and my wife was pregnant with our 2nd child while this was happening.  The concern from the doctor was my age and the fact that I had malignant cancer at my age.  By the grace of God, my cancer was detected early and I have been cancer free now for over 9 years

2) When our three kids were 1, 3 and 4 years of age, my wife almost went into renal failure and was losing muscle tissue daily.  The doctors knew the effect, but to this day we still do not know the cause.  We went to a top tier hospital the second year of the two years that this happened and even they could not diagnose the cause.  We did learn to be cautious around fevers and so on, but to this day she has been healthy since those days.  The first year that this happened, my wife was in the hospital for 6 days.  That was the most sobering and scariest time in my life.  I wrestled, I prayed and I argued with God (all through this process he was patient and kind and waited for me to trust, obey and surrender to his will).  The idea that I was going to be a widower with three kids 5 and under was almost too much for my soul to bear.  This too passed and God is faithful!

What have I learned through these two heart-wrenching trials (tribulation) was to trust God no matter what.  The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, BUT Blessed be His name.  He is faithful and just and he does have plans for each and everyone of our lives.

I hate evil.  I hate cancer.  I hate what is contrary to the will of God.

I love God, I love the Son and I love the Holy Spirit.  I love those who even persecute me!  Is it hard to forgive and forget (at times)?  Yes, of course, I am human and broken and sinful.  Is it possible to love who God calls us to love?  Through His Spirit and trusting His will - it is!

I believe that God gives each and everyone of us a story for us to go unto the world and tell the good news.  Does He promise us peace and tranquility throughout this journey?  Of course not!  Does he promise us an abundant life through Him?  Yes He does!

For the joy of the Lord is our strength!

Where is your joy?  In good season, in trial and through tribulation?

To God be the glory forever and ever, Amen!

Blessings,

Dante