MASTER LIST | NEXT >> #2 – God and Temptation: Do The Two Really Go Together?

Originally posted June 30, 2012.

IN THE BEGINNING…
A while ago, I was presented with a YouTube video that, among many other things, suggested God’s anger is temporary…no, wait, lasts forever. The video was, admittedly, a very humorous presentation about what the Bible says about a wide variety of things and the supposed contradictions on the same topics. The video was made to be a game show with stick men and was well scripted in style, if not in accuracy of the content is referenced.

A question was given about how long God stays angry at us when we sin. It doesn’t take much to discover that God truly hates sin, but is He always angry, like Zeus with his lightning bolts always at ready, or does His anger eventually subside?

The two portions of Scripture that were pitted against each other were Micah 7:18 and Jeremiah 17:4. Both books are from the Old Testament and are from the “Prophets” category; meaning that the writings deal with periods of judgment over the people of Israel for their unrelenting sinful lives. Typically, as can be especially seen in Jeremiah, God does not always act immediately, but gives people time to repent, or to stop their evil ways and follow God wholeheartedly. One thing is clear in both accounts, God is not happy at the moment.

IF YAHWEH ATTENDED ANGER-ANON
Micah 7:18 (and 19-20 for added context) reads like this:

“Who is a God like You, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because He delights in steadfast love. He will again have compassion on us; He will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. You will show faithfulness to Jacob and steadfast love to Abraham, as You have sworn to our fathers from the days of old” (ESV).

And then we have Jeremiah 17:4:

The wonderful possession I have reserved for you will slip from your hands. I will tell your enemies to take you as captives to a foreign land. For my anger blazes like a fire that will burn forever” (NLT).

To be fair, the ESV translation says, “…for in my anger a fire is kindled that shall burn forever.” It sounds like a contradiction between translations, even, doesn’t it? To be sure, the question doesn’t come to an easy answer in light of such evidence.

If examined alone, the case seems closed against God while exploring the verses highlighted. As with any good investigation, though, we really have to study these in a fuller context. That is, what is the bigger picture found in the passages that each verse is found in?

A HISTORY OF HISTORY
Micah 7:18 is at the very end of the book, and most of the entire account is regarding the promised consequences regarding Israel’s sin. However, it ends with the assurance that there will be a time when Israel will experience a time of renewal as a nation and the past will be completely forgiven. In Jeremiah 17:4, it is at a point where God is expressing His deep anger. That’s not the whole story, though.

Countless times through Jeremiah, God calls to His people through the prophet, the book’s namesake, to repent, and if they do, His grace will abound and the past sins, as terrible as they were, will be forgiven. Even in His fierce anger, God speaks to Jeremiah:

The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah a second time, while he was still shut up in the court of the guard: “Thus says the Lord who made the earth, the Lord who formed it to establish it—the Lord is his name: Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known. For thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the houses of this city and the houses of the kings of Judah that were torn down to make a defense against the siege mounds and against the sword: They are coming in to fight against the Chaldeans and to fill them with the dead bodies of men whom I shall strike down in my anger and my wrath, for I have hidden my face from this city because of all their evil.

It’s very clear that God is upset, but wait, that’s not the whole story!

Behold, I will bring to it health and healing, and I will heal them and reveal to them abundance of prosperity and security. I will restore the fortunes of Judah and the fortunes of Israel, and rebuild them as they were at first. I will cleanse them from all the guilt of their sin against me, and I will forgive all the guilt of their sin and rebellion against me. And this city shall be to me a name of joy, a praise and a glory before all the nations of the earth who shall hear of all the good that I do for them. They shall fear and tremble because of all the good and all the prosperity I provide for it.” – Jeremiah 33:1-9 (ESV)

The bold parts I highlight because I wanted to show that even while God dealt with His people for their sins, He also would not abandon them to the aftermath of the destruction that invading countries would inflict. He would heal them both as a nation and as peoples. This doesn’t sound like a God whose anger lasts forever, now does it?

“DO YOU HEAR THE WORDS THAT ARE COMING OUT OF MY MOUTH?!”
Indeed, when speaking through the prophets, God would often use language that, while literal in essence, was not always as literal in speech. This can get confusing in terms of contrasting different translations (as I illustrated earlier), but doing such comparisons can often shed light on the actual meaning, too.

For hear we see from Micah 7 and Jeremiah 33 that God’s anger isn’t actually everlasting, but simply intense. The NLT translation best highlights that when it reads, “…my anger blazes like a fire that will burn forever.” In this, God’s anger is given a description of how intense it is – not an actual length of time. After all, any fire that is not fed more fuel will eventually consume all its resources and die out. The fuel of God’s anger are people who sin endlessly, who refuse to follow God with their hearts in all they do.

JUST A MOMENT
Since I brought it up, how do we reconcile the ESV translation? Well, consider how God is quoted as saying that in his anger is “a fire is kindled that shall burn forever.” A fire burns best when proper kindling is set. For the non-outdoors people, kindling is smaller wood pieces or other burnable items that light easily to build a fire with. It doesn’t take much to get such a fire going, but it’ll steadily build with more kindling, and eventually larger sticks and logs that only intensify the fire’s ability to burn…”endlessly”.

It’s rather just a different way to describe the nature of God’s anger, not its length. Later in 1 Peter 5:10, we see further support of God’s assurance of grace – not everlasting anger, “And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will Himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.” (The context of 1 Peter 5 has to do with a believer’s struggles to remain strong in Christ while others attack unjustly, but the message of God’s grace in light of trials and suffering still applies: God’s grace triumphs (James 2:13).)

Suffice to say that if God’s anger was everlasting, then even Jesus’ death on the Cross to spare us from Hell and to restore a right relationship with the Father would have been pointless. It’s actually not a stretch to say that God’s anger is proportionate to our sins. Keep in mind, however, that the Father in Heaven is slow to anger (Numbers 14:18, Nahum 1:3, Psalm 103:8 & 145:8), which is made clear by the fact that in Jeremiah many decades past before He finally allowed events to take place so that Israel’s invaders could finally overtake the nation when God’s people refused to obey Him.

God is compassionate, gracious, and never stops loving us, even in His anger. He remembers His promises to bless us. As you read through more of the Bible, you see how God deals firmly with His people and is never soft regarding His expectations, but like a parent to his toddler (or teenager!), the Lord is understanding. It is through that understanding that we are truly just children who have not yet matured that God exercises His grace and mercy, withholding is punishment until it cannot be held back any longer, lest we truly destroy ourselves. God’s anger is not rooted in disappointment, but in a desire to help us grow and discover His love, His goodness, and His blessings…and much more. God cannot help us to see these things if His anger lasted for all time.

Remember that classic 80s game, “Frogger”? Yeah…well…he lost. I managed to run over him during his 2012 revival attempt.

I was going 60 mph. He didn’t really have any hop…I mean hope.

Why the idiot was crossing the road at 3am I’ll never know. That’s the chicken’s job and she’s asleep!

Originally posted July 14, 2010 on my NaitoOfNarnia.Xanga.com account. Reposted with minor edits/additions.

All of these are original Chuck Norris Legend jokes…as far as I know. I made these up on the spot.
ENJOY!
Which ones do you like the best?

1) Daddies with beautiful daughters no longer need shotguns when boys come a-calling. A picture of Chuck Norris on the front door with a note saying, “Chuck lives here,” now suffices.

2) The DNA of Chuck Norris is tough. Bad guys are scared of his unborn great-great-great-great grandkids.

3) Chuck Norris is an ideal missionary for God. He can scare the Hell outta people.

4) If God ever needed a bodyguard, He would call on Chuck Norris. Had Nick Fury called on Chuck Norris instead, the Avengers movie would have lasted five minutes.

5) Chuck Norris doesn’t need to be present to send fear into the hearts of bad guys. He sends a personally autographed post card while on vacation instead.

6) A battle between Chuck Norris and his clone would result in a never-ending battle.

7) Chuck Norris use sandpaper to shave.

8) Tornadoes and hurricanes start with a Chuck Norris roundhouse kick.

9) Chuck Norris is best friends with Thor, Hulk, and Hercules.

10) The thought of Chuck Norris makes lions and tigers and bears lay eggs. Oh my.  Continue reading →

I work with at least 3 people who are either gay or bisexual. And I get along just fine with all of them. I banter and talk with them like I would anyone else. I would never argue that they are outcasts – they’re not. They are human beings, for better or worse, like the rest of us. I’d even call one a good friend (the other two I haven’t known as long).

I state this to make one simple point. I am un-abashedly anti-homosexualiTY. And yet, even while making such a distinction, I am still called a bigot and homophobe. Even while I share my own views and discuss the matter with my opponents respectfully and stay to the topic, I am personally attacked (not all my opponents on this debate do so, of course; nor are all proponents who share my views as so kind as they should be – that, too, is noted).

For myself, at least, I want it to be understood: Don’t accuse me of being bigoted or hate-mongering or against “equal rights” just because I disagree with you. It’s horribly short-sighted and insulting. It’s misplacing focus on a non-personal topic to a personal focus, all to support one’s opposing argument. So in my further defense on the matter, if I’m going to be attacked, personally, get your facts straight. And the first paragraph of this post are the facts. Thank you.

Originally posted September 15, 2009 on my original blog site, NaitoOfNarnia. Some content has been edited.

AC3* is a place for people like you.
Real people.
At AC3 we take God very seriously
…but we don’t take ourselves too seriously at all.

* AC3 stands for Allen Creek Community Church

That’s my church’s tag line on the front page of the web site – found at www.AC3.org - and I always get a kick out of it no matter how many times I read it. It’s not the typical slogan for a Godly church, wouldn’t you think? Normally we think of the sayings that invoke some kind of spiritual context or references Scripture. But not AC3. At AC3, we do things just a bit out of the traditional. We’re not normal, I tell you.

It should give one pause to think about what makes this particular body of believers so…different. So…peculiar. 

Originally posted June 21, 2012.

Recently, a friend of mine – we’ll call her “Hester” (she’ll kill me for such a name change, but I do have a good reason for it [*] LOL) – texted me and asked a very rare sort of question.

“Hey, you’re the Bible whiz. Do you have any idea where the mustard seed faith thing is?”

I responded back after doing a quick search through the Bible.

“There are a couple, at least: Luke 17:5-10 and Matthew 17:14-20.” I added, “I gave you references to the entire passages – not just the single mustard-seed-faith verses – so you can see the verses in their full context. But not too worry, the passages are very short. And the contexts are not ultra-deep to understand at a glance.”  Continue reading →

Originally posted June 22, 2012.

I’d like to begin by making a clarification. First, I am aware that those in the gay community take their homosexual leanings very personally – as a part of their personal identity. I’m also aware of how disagreements with homosexuality and its (proposed) moral context have been viewed as personal attacks.

Please give me the benefit of the doubt that, while I disagree with homosexuality, in no way is this an attack on any individual who is gay or supports the gay community. As a Christian, I abhor when Christians and non-Christians alike use whatever “justification” they think they have to personally insult and attack the gay community in ways that clearly violate Christian and/or American law. The Bible teaches how to address problems with love. The battle ground should not be a personal one in that regard. I expect better from my fellow Christians, as well – for the standard of conduct has been well set.

This is also not intended to single out those who do struggle with their sexual identity. I can only begin to understand the difficulty such an issue must entail. Once again, there is no criticism against the people who struggle. There is no condemnation to be found here. It is my hope that you are able to read this post without feeling the need to be on the defensive.

MALE or MASCULINE?
While gender identity is, to my understanding, still a very misunderstood topic, I think it’s reasonable to equate psychological gender awareness along with physical gender traits. And this isn’t just mere speculation. There are numerous accounts of studies documented where the male or female gender equates to certain characteristics of the mind (the books “For Men Only” and “For Women Only” offer some great findings on this subject).

This shouldn’t be confused with personality, necessarily. For we have men, for example, who are very aggressive and stereotypically “macho”, while others are more sensitive and soft-spoken. Some have skills of the mind, while others have strength of body (say, for sports). One may be lazy while the other is a dedicated worker. I think there is a major difference between personality & skills versus characteristics that define what it is to be male or female.

Unfortunately, clarifying what I mean by “male” or “female” is not exactly an easy task when talking about the non-physical, mental make-up.

Originally posted June 10.

Note: The odd display of this image will make sense later in this article.

Free will. An issue highly debated about in and out of Christian thought.

The purpose of today’s article is not about free will, itself, but to say that, if free will really is what it is theorized to be – where we are not controlled in any way regarding the choices we make – then we are certainly guilty of abusing it.

In the book of Romans, Paul is writing to the Christians in Rome regarding the very contradictory behavior of sinning while claiming grace and forgiveness under Christ.

Death and life are central concepts in the Bible – with the former being the ultimate consequence for disobeying the Giver of Life. So it’s no surprise that Paul embraces these topics and pits them against each other as he explains why we ought not to sin further when we have also been reborn in Christ.

Paul starts out Romans 6 with a well-known question, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin [so] that grace may abound?” (verse 1, ESV). This question is birthed from a very lengthy discussion about how God’s Law, while good, led to human nature’s proclivity to sin all the more. Why is this? Because human nature is rot with sin. Sin’s nature is to rebel against the Law, against that which is good. Paul explains, further, saying that, through Jesus Christ, God’s grace set us free from our sinful nature.

Paul summed it up nicely at the end of chapter 5, “Therefore, as one trespass [sin, disobedience] led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness [Jesus' death in our place on the cross] leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord”(verses 18-21, ESV).

Paul is saying that Adam’s sin (Genesis 3) opened up the floodgates for sin. But Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross opened up the floodgates of grace. The question is, which floodgate are you standing before?  Continue reading →

Originally posted April 26, 2012.

Home.

A place of security and rest. Family gatherings, good food, games, security, rest, and warm showers. The place we long for when we’ve worked hard or had an upsetting day of events. It is where we are shielded from the terrors and horrors of the outside world.

No matter what anyone might tell you, there is truly only one place you call home. Not the next-door neighbor’s house. Not grandma’s house (although, depending on grandma’s house, that might be a cozy place to visit). And certainly not some igloo in the North. No other house will do but the one that you call home.

…….

While working at the mall, cleaning the carpets and floor mats, a swift flying object caught my eye. A bird had somehow managed to find its way inside. Back and forth it swooped from skylight ledge, to skylight ledge, to a window ledge just above the mall doors, and back across the mall to yet another skylight ledge. Anywhere it could see bright sunlight and the open sky. Anything that looked like freedom. He was trying to find home.  Continue reading →

Originally posted May 23, 2012.

[WARNING: If you have not seen the movie described in the following article, 1) I highly recommend you do, and 2) be aware that I describe the plot in minor synopsis here.]

In 2008, a film was made that sparked a lot of…fire…in the hearts of many Christians. So rare is it that a film is made about a key value within Christiandom and done so while set against a human trend that almost worships the antithesis of that value.

That film was “Fireproof”, a record-setting independent story that dared to challenge the values and mindset of Americans and the world over with a dare.

Focusing on a husband and wife – a firefighter and hospital PR respectively – the film addresses the issue of marriage and all the things that threaten to rip it apart…and fighting to save it at all costs. The tag line for the movie was “Never leave your partner behind” playing off of the fact that the main character is a firefighter; appropriate given that both characters dealt with two forms of infidelity. It begs, no, cries out with the question, “How much are you willing to fight in order to save your marriage?”

Kirk Cameron, both in and behind the movie, took that dare and answered back triumphantly and passionately, “With everything I have!“