Month: May 2021

Jesus, the Ultimate Blessing

On May 31, 2021

Last week I spoke of the blessings of normal life that are given to us by God, and while those blessings certainly are amazing, this week I’d like to shift course and discuss the ultimate blessing in our lives. After all, without this ultimate blessing all of our other blessings would be temporal and meaningless.

Often, when I think of Jesus I think of a kind and loving “Savior”. While Jesus most certainly is a kind and loving Savior we also must remember that He gave us the ultimate gift – the gift of salvation. He, the Creator of the Universe, came to earth and died an agonizing death on the cross. Above this, He bore the sins of mankind – and by His death we now have the hope of eternal life.

However, the point of this article is not to tell you something that you already knew, it is to remind us of something (I believe) we can often forget. I know that I have had times in my life where I partook of the Lord’s supper and barely regarded Jesus’ great gift to us. We cannot let this happen. Every first day of the week we should take our mind back to the cross and realize that Jesus gave us this precious gift of salvation, and that He suffered greatly so that we could have it.

Imagine a beautiful mansion on one thousand acres of gorgeous countryside. Now imagine that someone gave this to you along with two billion dollars. How would you feel about this gift? Would you consider it a great gift? A precious gift? Well, Jesus’ gift to us makes that gift laughable in importance and prestige.

Jesus offers us the gift of eternal life, which is a gift more valuable than mountains of gold and material wealth. As we go throughout our week (and on this coming first day of the week) let us take time to thank our Lord and Savior for His gift to us. Let us take time to enjoy and be grateful for the ultimate blessing in our lives.

The Blessings of Normal Life

By Jay

On May 24, 2021

In Bible & Doctrine

Too often (especially if things in our lives have been “normal” for a while) we tend to take the wonderful blessings we’ve been given for granted. We no longer seem to notice that we have food, we no longer seem to notice that we have clean water, we no longer seem to notice that we have shelter – and with the weather being what it has been lately – we no longer seem to notice that we have air conditioning! Instead of being thankful for all of these things we seem to isolate and complain about the things that we don’t have (trust me I’m talking to myself here).

It’s a shame that this is the case but I think it is a natural process for mankind to revert back to “taking things for granted”. Numbers 11 has a lot to tell us about this very topic. When the children of Israel were given manna every morning they couldn’t help but complain about how tired they were of the heavenly bread (Num 11:6). They also complained to the Lord about being freed from captivity – they said that they missed the fish and cucumbers they got to eat as prisoners in Egypt (Num 11:5).

As Christians today we need to be on constant guard against this issue in our own lives. It’s very easy to take things for granted and expect them to always be there, but God gives us every blessing. Without Him we would have nothing and we could do nothing:

Joh 15:5 I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

If the pandemic has taught us anything it is the importance of normal life. Our everyday blessings and necessities are by far the most important ones in our lives. And while our physical blessings are certainly wonderful, our spiritual blessings are even more important. As the pandemic slowly fades (and with God’s help may it continue to do so) I pray that we all will be able to appreciate our daily blessings more than we ever have before, and I pray that in so doing we will give God the glory for every gift He bestows upon us.

1Co 1:31 That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.

P.S. Next week we’ll be discussing the greatest gift we have been given – the gift given to us by our Savior Jesus Christ.

I Don’t Believe in the Supernatural!

By Jay

On May 18, 2021

In Apologetics

I find it very interesting that many atheists and naturalists today claim that they do not believe in the supernatural. They claim that unless there is observable scientific proof of something they are not going to believe it.

Well naturalists, I hate to the be the bearer of bad news but this viewpoint is contradictory. If one believes in the “Big Bang” and thus believes in the spontaneous generation of the components of the universe (this means they believe it came from nothing) then one is forced to believe that something beyond observable nature has occurred.

The reason the spontaneous generation of matter is beyond the “natural” is because it has never been witnessed (scientifically or otherwise) to occur. That means that spontaneous generation out of nothing (such as an uninitiated Big Bang) is just a materialistic, man made replacement for God – one that requires these naturalists to have blind faith. Not only that, but they teach this in our schools and present it as scientific fact (which it most certainly is not).

As Christians our faith is not blind, it is backed up by scientific evidence. This scientific evidence is historical in nature, but it is sure and true evidence nonetheless. There are various (scientific and philosophical) arguments for God that have stood the test of time and the Bible itself is rich with prophecy and unerring historical detail (but I’ll save that for another article).

I believe that the main issue at play in academia today is failure to submit to God. Man has always been rebellious in nature and often seeks to “figure things out” in a more complete way than God – and that man-made path always ends in disaster. We can be sure that God is the true supernatural creator of the universe – all we have to do is humble ourselves and open our eyes to the evidence.

Rom 1:20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:

The Perfection of the Present Day

By Jay

On May 11, 2021

In Christian Productivity

While on the phone with my mom the other day she mentioned a quote to me. She had found it on the wall calendar. Now I’m the first to admit that calendar quotes aren’t always the greatest, but this quote was very timely for me. Anyway, I thought I’d write this week’s blog post about it (and hopefully it will be timely for you as well).

Here it is…

Be intent upon the perfection of the present day.
William Law

While I am typically very careful with whom I quote, I feel that this one has little to do with the speaker. Why? Because Jesus seems to share the same opinion (and long before Mr. Law):

Mat 6:34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

Too often today we worry and fret over tomorrow. We add anxiety and stress to our lives by not trusting God and allowing Him to help us along our way. After all, God is in charge of everything, and as long as we do our best to serve Him He will help us overcome any trials we may experience.

Truly, today is the perfect day to live in the present. Today is the perfect day to be grateful for all that we have. Today is the perfect day to stop being anxious and to let go of earthly fears. Today is the perfect day to start living for Christ and hand our problems to Him.

I hope you got as much out of this little lesson as I did this week. I think it lowered my blood pressure quite a bit. Let us all strive to seek God and to trust Him. Let us all live in this perfect present day.

Slow is Smooth…

By Jay

On May 3, 2021

In Christian Productivity

I just finished a book about readjusting your life to better accomplish goals and make less mistakes. In one of the chapters the author mentioned a saying used by the Special Forces when on dangerous and critical military campaigns. The saying is, “Slow is smooth, smooth is fast…”

In military parlance this basically means “if you go slow things will go smoothly, and if things go smoothly then they are going as fast as they can (safely), so go slow to get things done quickly and effectively.” I hope that clarified the saying a bit (the guy in the book explained it in depth).

As someone who far too often leaves behind keys, wallets, (and other possessions) this saying really hit home for me. It really made me stop and think, why does this happen to me? I believe it is because my mind races and moves on to the next thing. In fact it becomes so engrossed in the “next thing” that it forgets to do the “current thing”. The solution is to slow down and get things right – and hopefully get them right on the first try.

I believe we need to do the same thing in order to lead a successful Christian life. If we find ourselves thinking so much about some trivial subject that we forget Christ and his commandments then there is a problem. We can’t allow ourselves to get so involved in the “future state of the world”, or even “the future state of our world” that we forget to do the correct action immediately before us (whether that be a church service, bible study, or even proper behavior).

Jesus told us long ago not to worry about the present moment, and James told us we knew not what was to be on “the morrow”. I think we can all agree that we have enough to occupy us right here in this moment, we needn’t “borrow trouble” from tomorrow.

Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Let us all strive to stay focused on the prize of eternal salvation, and let us do so with deliberate, focused, and patience driven action.

Mat 6:34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

Jas 4:13 Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain:

Jas 4:14 Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.

Jas 4:15 For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.