Saturday, March 5, 2011

FROM THE WEEK ENDING MARCH 5, 2011

HELL, NEIGHBORS, PUBERTY, MARRIAGE, LIFE & PRAYER

  • HELL: A REAL PLACE!
"Rob Bell’s forthcoming book Love Wins has already raised perennial questions about universalism, exclusivism, the love of God, and heaven and hell. Every day more voices lend their opinions on the growing controversy—most recently Brian McLaren, Albert Mohler, Scot McKnight, and Mark Galli of Christianity Today among them. The mainstream media, including The New York Times and CNN, have even taken notice.
The book, then, affords Christians the opportunity to revisit the biblical teaching on these weighty matters. Actually, the controversy demands that we seek together how to understand and fit together the Scriptural testimony of God’s character. What did Jesus himself say about God’s wrath and hell? Why did Jesus go to the Cross? And what’s the best way to relate this teaching to a skeptical culture? How do we love our neighbors by relating this news to them?" Justin Taylor

Universalism As A Lure - The Emerging Case of Rob Bell by Albert Mohler

Heaven, Hell and Rob Bell: Putting the Pastor In Context by Mark Galli

Pastor Stirs Wrath With His Views on Old Questions - New York Times

"If there no eternal punishment, then WHY IN THE WORLD....did Jesus INTENTIONALLY walk to the cross to suffer and die?"  Matt Carter

THE BIBLE SAYS:
"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. ...
41 "Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels... 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."
Matt 25:31-33;41;46 (ESV)

13  "Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. 14 For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.
Matt 7:13-14 (ESV)
  • WHO ARE YOUR NEIGHBORS?


Admittedly, we don't have much in common. We were born years apart, he to parents of great means and me to parents grasping to make ends meet and an alcoholic father in search of meaning itself. We've been going our separate ways ever since. I'm happily married. He's not. I enjoy a warm and loving relationship with my boys; the courts dictate when he sees his. I attend church. He doesn't. It's not that he doesn't believe in God. I think he's like a lot of people today. He probably believes in Him, but doesn't really know who He is.  Click here to continue reading.

THE BIBLE SAYS:
And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40  On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets."
Matt 22:37-40 (ESV)

See also The Parable of the Good Samaritan
Luke 10:25-38 (ESV)


  • PUBERTY & DISCIPLESHIP

A friend of mine is about to take his son on a road trip, to talk about the birds and the bees. His son, just a bit older than my boys, is within the horizon of hitting puberty. The father is going to get away with him on a retreat and talk about what’s going to be happening to him in a year or two, and how to handle these changes as a Christian. As I talked with my friend about his plans for the retreat, I wondered why this paradigm doesn’t continue in our churches throughout the Christian life.  Click here to continue reading.

THE BIBLE SAYS:
19  Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." Matt 28:19-20 (ESV)
  • MARRIAGE: One Man, One Woman, For Life

President Obama has said his view of same-sex marriage is “evolving.” Apparently he thinks that the law should be based on a kind of Darwinian jurisprudence that allows it to “evolve” and become whatever the ruling politicians at a given moment say it is (or isn’t). Click here to continue reading.

THE BIBLE SAYS:
4 He answered, "Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, 'Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh'? 6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate."
Matt 19:4-6 (ESV)

  • CHOOSE LIFE
Top 10 Reasons To Be An Optimistic Pro-Lifer by Trevin Wax
Those of us who believe unborn children deserve human rights can be encouraged. Though we still have many hurdles to overcome before we arrive at the place where all human life is legally protected in the United States, we can be optimistic about the end result. Here are 10 reasons why:  Click here to continue reading.

THE BIBLE SAYS:
For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. 14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. 15  My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them. 17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Psalms 139:13-17 (ESV)
  • PRAYER
Over the last few weeks, many of our friends have asked how they could pray for us in a specific fashion. You cannot imagine how such a request blesses our heart, especially since all things come by prayer. So I thought it might help to share with you seven specific prayers we pray each day. Thanks, so much, for praying with us.  Click here to continue reading. 

NOTE: Tom Elliff has been nominated to serve as the next president of the International Mission Board (IMB).

THE BIBLE SAYS:
And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. 11  May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, 12  giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. 13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14  in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
Col 1:9-14 (ESV)

_____
Soli Deo Gloria
ah

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