1 - Q. How do we know God and/or Jesus really exist if we can't see them?
A. - By looking at the evidence for good and evil in the world (and in our own heart) that corroborates with the struggle human beings have, as described in the Bible. Can you see the wind, air, gravity, your brain, microwaves, radio waves, etc. without instruments? Without instruments, how do we know gravity exists? We see evidence for gravity here on earth and with certain airplanes and spacecraft that experience zero-g's. Christians believe what the Bible tells us; that it is impossible for God to lie. The Holy Spirit helps us get to know God and the Bible. Jesus was the only person who died, rose from the dead and ascended into heaven in view of hundreds of witnesses. 2 - Q. - Don't all roads/paths lead to God/heaven? A. - This reminds me of a joke I heard while vacationing in Oregon, "All roads lead to Crater Lake." Maybe it's true in Oregon folklore but think about the real world; do all roads lead to your house? Can you get to your favorite website by typing in gibberish.com? Can you get on a bus heading to Los Angeles, California and expect to step off in New York City? Christianity is exclusive. It requires faith in Jesus Christ alone for salvation. Jesus is "saving" you from an eternity in Hell; a lake of burning sulfur fire where the flame never goes out and the worm never dies. A place of eternal torment where you'll always be thirsty but there's no water. 3 - Q. - How does someone "believe" in Jesus for salvation? A. - It's not like believing in the word 'believe,' fairies, or pixies. Imagine being on the Titanic (back in 1912) and it has just struck an iceberg and is sinking into the freezing cold waters of the North Atlantic Ocean. You see several lifeboats and one has the name, "Jesus Christ." You see other lifeboats; one is called "good works," "money," "prosperity," "party-boat," etc. You see boats with names of other religions; Buddha, Islam, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witness, etc. but you remember that someone told you "Jesus saves," so you head to the lifeboat with his name on it. As you get closer you see Jesus beckoning you to come to him. He is there to comfort you. Even though you're hungry, wet, cold uncomfortable and scared you are so glad you chose that boat because the other ones have holes in them and are sinking into the water. You look back at the Titanic and realize it would have been futile to try and cling to it because it is sinking fast and within minutes it is almost out of sight. Our earthly bodies will end in death, returning to the dust while our spirit goes to be with Jesus or cast into Hell. Ten out of ten people die. It is silly to try and put all our hopes and dreams in this life alone. Our only hope is to be "all in" with Jesus. You look around at the people next to you on the lifeboat and realize your skin color, bank account, gender, political preference, physical abilities, etc. don't matter to Jesus. You could be an Olympic swimmer and die of hypothermia if you tried to save yourself. 4. - Q. - Aren't all religions basically the same? A. - Not according to the Bible. There's one true God and any other person claiming to be "God" is a demon. Just because it looks and sounds like the "real deal," (Christianity) it is a counterfeit. Think of counterfeiters who try and pass off their fake currency as real money, the closer it looks and feels like a "real" bill, the easier it is to fool the masses. If someone offered you a genuine hundred dollar bill or a counterfeit, which one would you rather have when it is being closely examined? Study the Bible so you can easily discern truth from error. 5. - Q. -How can I tell if I've found the real, living God? A. - God reveals himself to us in the Bible. He's not who we "imagine" him to be, that's called idolatry, making up a god to suit our own wishes and desires. God tells us who He is in the Bible. If we seek him, we'll find him, if we seek him with all our heart. 6. - Q. -How can we trust the Bible since it was written by man? A. - The same way you can trust anything written by man, test it and see if it's true. There are books on every conceivable subject written by man. That doesn't mean that we will never go to a doctor, walk across a bridge, get on a train or ride in an elevator. A book that tells someone how to build an airplane and manuals that tell pilots how to fly and a mechanic how to repair the plane are all written by man but that doesn't keep people from flying. The Bible is a "manual" that teaches us how to know God and get along with other humans. The Bible writers were all inspired by God to write down everything they wrote. It's like sending a text message, email or letter to someone and people start accusing your pen, computer or cell phone of making up words and writing them down. God used men as his paper and ink to write the Bible. 7. - Q. I thought Jesus was all about love, isn't it unloving to tell me my lifestyle is wrong and I'm heading to Hell? A. - If you see a two-year-old taking their toys out to play on a busy road, is it unloving to warn that two-year-old of the danger and try and get them to safety? We are the two-year-olds and God is sending out Christian's to warn other toddlers that their life-style has serious, eternal consequences. God even tells Christian's that we will be held accountable for your punishment if we don't warn you first. Important side note: The Bible warns us that even if an angel from heaven tries to tell us a "different gospel" or how to be "saved" apart from Jesus, we are not to believe them. For more answers: What is Christianity and what do Christians believe? By: Melody Crombie When people tell me they can relate to the love and grace of the New (Second) Testament but reject the God of the Old (First) Testament Bible, I wonder how they would feel if someone were able to separate the left side of their body from their right side; cutting them right down the middle! If this seems gruesome and inconceivable, then imagine how Jesus must feel as he is described as, “. . .The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us.” John 1:14.
In a similar vein, I am often asked how I 'feel' about “Gay marriage.” My response is usually the same, “The Bible doesn't approve of it and neither do I.” (See Genesis 19 and Romans 1:24-32) This usually produces a negative response from the questioner. My thought process is this; if a toddler were able to get their hands on a medical device that allowed them to reach inside your body and remove any organ they wanted, would you let them? If the answer is, “No,” then why should our response be any different? Are we greater than God? No, not even close! The Bible tells us, “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:9 If Jesus really is, “The word became flesh,” then who are we to try and remove the parts someone may deem as undesirable? As a Christian, we no longer run our lives based on our 'feelings' but on the word of God, The Holy Bible! “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes. . .” Romans 1:16 People have even told me that Jesus never said anything negative about gays or their lifestyle. My response is, “How do you know?” John 21:25 tells us, “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.” Have you ever been near a homosexual and you just know they are gay? Maybe it's nothing overtly obvious, you just know? Scientists have recently discovered that trees secretly talk to each other underground using mycorrhizal fungi. “Scientists call the fungi the “Wood Wide Web” because ‘adult’ trees can share sugars to younger trees, sick trees can send their remaining resources back into the network for others, and they can communicate with each other about dangers like insect infestations.” Scientists are just beginning to become familiar with the, “100 trillion microbes that call us [humans] home; collectively known as the microbiome.” Human beings have a microbial garden that surrounds them and lives inside them. What if our bodies are sending and receiving signals from the biosphere of other humans around us, similar to a tree fungi network? If, for example, someone has HIV or AIDS and their host body is dying, could their microbiome be trying to find a new host before it dies? While scientists are still learning about everything that encompasses our physical existence, as Christians, we will not discount the non-physical part of life, the demonic spirits the bible warns us about in Ephesians 6:12, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” The bible, in James 4:7, tells us to resist the devil so he'll flee from us. 1 Corinthians 5:6 says, “Sin is like “a little yeast spreads through the whole batch of dough.” Because we trust Jesus as our savior, as Christians, we can trust the whole bible as the council of God. In God [all of God] we trust! What's the Universe Made Of? Math, Says Scientist
By Tanya Lewis, Staff Writer | January 30, 2014 08:50am ET BROOKLYN, N.Y. — Scientists have long used mathematics to describe the physical properties of the universe. But what if the universe itself is math? That's what cosmologist Max Tegmark believes. In Tegmark's view, everything in the universe — humans included — is part of a mathematical structure. All matter is made up of particles, which have properties such as charge and spin, but these properties are purely mathematical, he says. And space itself has properties such as dimensions, but is still ultimately a mathematical structure. "If you accept the idea that both space itself, and all the stuff in space, have no properties at all except mathematical properties," then the idea that everything is mathematical "starts to sound a little bit less insane," Tegmark said in a talk given Jan. 15 here at The Bell House. The talk was based on his book "Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality" (Knopf, 2014). Nature is full of mathThe idea follows the observation that nature is full of patterns, such as theFibonacci sequence, a series of numbers in which each number is the sum of the previous two numbers. The flowering of an artichoke follows this sequence, for example, with the distance between each petal and the next matching the ratio of the numbers in the sequence. The nonliving worldalso behaves in a mathematical way. If you throw a baseball in the air, it follows a roughly parabolic trajectory. Planets and other astrophysical bodies follow elliptical orbits. "There's an elegant simplicity and beauty in nature revealed by mathematical patterns and shapes, which our minds have been able to figure out," said Tegmark, who loves math so much he has framed pictures of famous equations in his living room. One consequence of the mathematical nature of the universe is that scientists could in theory predict every observation or measurement in physics. Tegmark pointed out that mathematics predicted the existence of the planet Neptune, radio waves and the Higgs boson particle thought to explain how other particles get their mass. Some people argue that math is just a tool invented by scientists to explain the natural world. But Tegmark contends the mathematical structure found in the natural world shows that math exists in reality, not just in the human mind. And speaking of the human mind, could we use math to explain the brain? Mathematics of consciousness Some have described the human brain as the most complex structure in the universe. Indeed, the human mind has made possible all of the great leaps in understanding our world. Someday, Tegmark said, scientists will probably be able to describe evenconsciousness using math. (Carl Sagan is quoted as having said, "the brain is a very big place, in a very small space.") "Consciousness is probably the way information feels when it's being processed in certain, very complicated ways," Tegmark said. He pointed out that many great breakthroughs in physics have involved unifying two things once thought to be separate: energy and matter, space and time, electricity and magnetism. He said he suspects the mind, which is the feeling of a conscious self, will ultimately be unified with the body, which is a collection of moving particles. But if the brain is just math, does that mean free will doesn't exist, because the movements of particles could be calculated using equations? Not necessarily, he said. One way to think of it is, if a computer tried to simulate what a person will do, the computation would take at least the same amount of time as performing the action. So some people have suggested defining free will as an inability to predict what one is going to do before the event occurs. But that doesn't mean humans are powerless. Tegmark concluded his talk with a call to action: "Humans have the power not only to understand our world, but to shape and improve it." In 2 Samuel 5 The elders came and anointed David as king over Israel.
In Revelation 5 a mighty angel is asking who is worthy to open the scroll? One of the elders said, “The Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals.” David was a fighter before and after he became king. As a man after God's own heart, he kept loving, obeying and trusting God his whole life (except for Bathsheba). Don't get discouraged if you are always in a battle! Who does this? Pretty sure it's not the photographer!So glad that, "If God is for me, WHO can be against me!" Romans 8:31
"As for me, I will be vindicated and will see your face; when I awake, I will be satisfied with seeing your likeness." Psalm 17:15 "This page isn't available" image comes up instead of my "Melody Crombie" Public PageThis may be due to my position as a Conservative Christian and a regular re-poster of news articles that reveal the truth about the evils of Islam.
CHANGING OF THE GUARD LESSON FOR TRUMP: DAVID'S ATTEMPT TO MAKE ISRAEL GREAT AGAIN Published: 11/21/2016 at 7:45 PM
Exclusive: Dan Cummins uses tipping-ox-cart story to warn president-electIn the nation’s capital, “personnel is policy,” and the success of Trump’s presidency is being determined right now with his selections for Cabinet appointments. Once the president takes the oath of office on Jan. 20 and the political hostilities begin, that old proverb, “When you’re up to your neck in alligators, it’s easy to forget that the goal was to drain the swamp,” explains why so many idealists who come to The Swamp abandon political principle for self-preservation. In the dog-eat-dog construction world, Trump knows you’re only as good as your sub-contractors, and if he’s to conquer the take-no-prisoner political world in Trump-like manner, he’ll only be as successful as the character and steel of those Cabinet members he appoints. If President Trump is to blast through bureaucratic barriers and part the regulatory skies as he’s done with his new Trump International Hotel – his five-star revitalization of the old Post Office, the most iconic symbol of the oldest of government institutions analogous of bureaucratic red tape – he must hire the most qualified subs. One can only hope for such a Renaissance repeat of his “ahead-of-schedule and under-budget” miracle at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. Maybe his D.C. hotel billboard “Coming 2016 – TRUMP” was a prophetic handwriting on the wall or a sign of the times. “Even so, come, Donald Trump, come.” David, the greatest king of Israel, experienced precisely what wrong cabinet appointments can produce at the beginning of an administration. He campaigned on the slogan “Make Israel Great Again” – and for David, and all of Israel, that meant restoring the Ark of Covenant, the repository of the Ten Commandments, back to its rightful place in government and the town square. You know, the Ark of the Covenant – the one Indiana Jones rescued from those evil Nazi socialists. King David had the task of restoring the Ten Commandments, Israel’s Constitution, from 40 years of obscurity from the public arena, the result of the socialist redistribution policies of King Saul – the people’s king. (By the way, while researching the Hebrew text for this column, I discovered King Saul’s last name – “Alinsky.”) But David’s first attempt to restore their Constitution to the center of public life and governmental policy ended in a deadly and disastrous debacle at the threshing floor of Chidon as his oxen stumbled and his cart tumbled (1 Chronicles 13:9). If King David, a man after God’s own heart, the ultimate political outsider, failed at his first attempt to restore all that had made Israel the most exceptional nation on earth – the first nation to allow its free citizens to own private property and practice free trade in a capitalistic economy – can we expect any more from Trump than Israel did of David? After all, David was not the “lesser-of-two-evils.” Spiritually, he was “head-and-shoulders” above Saul. David’s inaugural attempt to make the nation great again failed because of the advice he received from his cabinet appointees – which in this case were primarily the priests and elders (1 Chronicles 13:1-6). That’s right: The preachers gave the king bad advice – advice they would not have given had they been “well versed” in the Scriptures, advice that publicly embarrassed the king and cost one man, Uzzah, his life. And in the end, it was the politician, King David, that put the preachers in their place, enabling the nation to find its restored glory. The answer to Israel’s restoration wasn’t, after all, politically correct policy but sanctified priestly prayer. This is always the lesson God is teaching the nation – prayer, not politics, is the answer. It will, in the end, be prayer and not policy that drains The Swamp! |
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