XYZ - eXamine Your Zeal

Since I fell behind, I am finishing with a triple, but I am finishing. I hope to spend May visiting the other A to Zers because I fell behind on that as well. It's called a challenge for a reason, but it's also a fun way to stretch myself. I'd like to thank Arlee Bird again and all the team of A to Z helpers. You all are a wonderful inspiration and encouragement. Thank you for putting this together and inspiring so many. Here goes:

A to Z Challenge

XYZ - eXamine Your Zeal. When you think about what’s been breaking out in cities across the U.S. right now, the riots and the mobs and the protests, can you help but wonder what’s going on? Is their zeal well grounded or unfounded? What is under it or behind it?

I believe within each of us there is a need, a desire to be part of something bigger than ourselves. We may not know it or see it or understand it, but it is there and it shows itself in someway. I believe we are witnessing the ugliness that it can produce when we misidentify what that bigger something is. That the need was placed in us for a purpose. Yes, we have a real need which fuels a real desire, and it is for the something bigger that we were created for, God Himself. We were created to belong in the family of God.

However, we also have something else naturally in us, a rebellious nature. So when that need for something bigger intertwines with our nature to rebel, it can produce the kinds of things we are witnessing in our society. We search to belong to something bigger in all the wrong places. Only God Himself can give us what we long for, what we are created for, relationship with Him. The Bible tells us God has made Himself known within us.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. 

                                                                               Romans 18-23 (NASB)

We should eXamine what we are Zealous for. With what do You Identify? In what do You find You Reality? How do You determine Truth? What is You Ultimate? Are You Equipped to defend or offer an Apologetic Your Worldview? Can You Lay it Out for someone? How do You deal with Your Doubts?  Are You willing to make some Observations to Make the Most of  the Quality of Your Life?

EXamine Yourself and direct Your Zeal towards the One You were created for. You were made to be an Heir of the kingdom of God. Jesus has made a way to restore us to what we were intended for, Glory as children of the King of Kings.

God bless, Maria

SIN

As I have been navigating my way through the 2015 A to Z Challenge, I've been examining briefly various words and concepts in apologetics, that is the defense of what we believe, and for me that is Christianity and the Christian worldview. Today's word is sin.

A to Z Challenge

Sin: The violation of God’s expectations; transgressing divine law; rebelling against God; making something other than God our ultimate thing, our ultimate standard, our ultimate.

…All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Romans 3:23

The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus, Christ our Lord. Romans 6:23

People in America today don’t like to hear the word sin. They think no one has the right to pass judgment on them, even God. Who is anyone to declare something sin? That argument easily falls apart with a little thought, however. If God made us, He knows how we work best, and He has the right to set the guiding principles for how the world and we in the world should operate. If there is a God, then He is the ultimate, and He determines our purpose. In fact He gives us purpose and meaning. If there is a God, as A. W. Tozer said,

“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”

Why do I bring up God in the topic of sin? Because according to the definition of sin, it is God who determines what it is. If He is the King of Kings, then He has the authority to say what sin is and why it is significant.

We must determine what we think about God first in order to have a right view of sin. Otherwise sin has no meaning. Someone who says, "There is no God," likewise must say there is no sin to be consistent, and rightly so. However, if there is no sin, what is the basis for determining right and wrong? If it is just us and our own conclusions, who gets to decide? Think about that to its logical conclusion, and you will understand why Voltaire said,

"If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him."

Are you willing to consider the reality of God and sin? What do you think of Tozer’s statement? Do you have an alternative thought to Voltaire's statement?

Here are a few websites to help you consider what sin is and what to do about it.

What is sin? 

Forgiveness of sin 

Freaked Out by Ordinary Sin 

Maria

Laying it Out

Check out the A to Z Challenge home page. There's always something interesting, encouraging, and inspiring taking place there. There's also the master list of those participating and many are worth a visit. Today, I'm just laying out a little 'A to Z' fun.

A to Z Challenge

Laying it out: answering the question, bringing out the basics, clarifying your case, delivering your message, explaining the essentials, finding the facts, giving your support, holding forth the fundamentals, informing of the idea, justifying the logic, keeping it real, making your message known, naming the nuts and bolts, observing the details, proving your point, questioning the answer, revealing your position, settling the specifics, telling the truth, underscoring the information, verifying the data, weighing the particulars, eXamining the evidence, yielding to reason, zapping objections.

Here are a few 'L' songs and sites to lay out before you more of my message.

 “Living Water” by Bob Carlisle
Life is Story
Lies Young Women Believe 

Maria

JESUS

A to Z Challenge

Jesus – The historical person who Christians accept as the second person of the Trinitarian God on whose birth, Dionysius, a monk who lived in the 5^th century, based the center point of the current calendar. Though his calculations may have been incorrect, the point is that the birth and life of Jesus is accepted by most of the world from a calendar perspective as the center of human history.

I believe it was C.S. Lewis who first said, Jesus must be viewed as a liar, a lunatic, or Lord. You see, Jesus claimed to be God and the Messiah. Here are just three of the many examples.

“I and the Father are one.” 

John 10:30

“Jesus *said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” 

John 14:6

“And those who were in the boat worshiped Him, saying, “You are certainly God’s Son!” 

Matthew 14:33 (He never denied His deity when others worshipped HIM.)

Someone who claims to be God is either seeking to deceive or is crazy. He can’t be a good teacher or just a prophet with the claim being among His proclamations. The third possibility is that He is who He says He is. When I examine the evidence: the eye witness accounts of His life and His miracles, the changed lives then and throughout history, the archeological and forensic evidence of the validity of the Biblical accounts, I can’t help but come away with a conviction that Jesus is who He says He is. 

If He is who He says He is, what you decide about Jesus makes all the difference in your life. Here are a few "J" websites to help you consider Him further.

Jesus Online Ministries

Jesus

Who is Jesus Really?

God bless, Maria

Equip

A to Z Challenge

Equip – the preparation and providing of what is necessary and essential to perform a certain work.

He who descended is Himself also He who ascended far above all the heavens, so that He might fill all things.) And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. 

Ephesians 4:10-13 (NASB)

All Scripture is [a]inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for [b]training in righteousness; 

2 Timothy 3:16 (NASB)

The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. 

2 Timothy 2:2 (NASB) 

There are many sights, some provided in earlier posts, which can provide the essentials for equipping the Christian to understand and give an apologia for one’s faith. There are also plenty of websites that you can find which attempt to equip against the Christian faith. 

As a Christian, I want to be equipped to be an effective Ambassador for Jesus Christ, to examine and be prepared to explain the essentials of the faith and represent the kingdom of Heaven to those with whom I interact.

Here are a few websites which help equip Christians to do just that, to be Ambassadors for Jesus Christ and the kingdom of Heaven.

http://www.equip.org/about/

http://www.iequip.org/news/equip-at-a-glance/

http://evangelismexplosion.org

Delighting in A to Z 2015

I signed up a little late for the A to Z Challenge this year and haven't blogged since last November, and my blog visiting has slacked off lately, but I decided it was too much fun to not jump back in. So here I am, last minute, but here. Since I literally just added my blog on the last day of March, I'm not prepared this year. That will certainly make the challenge more of a challenge, but I have no doubt it will stretch me in a good way.

I believe that we are meant to be always stretching, always learning. As a Christian, I want to be always growing in my faith, testing it, confirming it, deepening it. I want to be able to share it meaningfully, truthfully, lovingly. So in that pursuit, I hope to complete my A to Z with resources that will do that, stretch, and in the stretching, grow faith, and in the growing, share.

I look forward to once again visiting old A to Z friends and making new ones. Thank you to Arlee Bird and all the A to Z team for this blogging adventure. It's time to relearn blogging for me. I have so much to learn and relearn and I will delight in the journey.

                                                                                                                               Maria

S is for Self-Refutation

Self-refutation – Self-refuting statements are those that basically deny themselves. They are self-contradictory in their very nature.

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In his article “Four Self-Refuting Statements Heard on College CampusesAcross America,” J. Warner Wallace gives this example:  “It’s intolerant to presume that your view is better than someone else’s’” / “Tolerance requires us to accept all views equally” and follows with this explanation:  An even more hidden self-refuting statement lurks here in this common errant definition of tolerance. Folks who hold to this corrupted view say they accept all views as equally true. But if you make the claim that some ideas are patently false and have less value than others, they will quickly reject your statement. In other words, they will accept any view as equally valuable except your claim that some views are not equally valuable. See the inconsistency? People who embrace this definition of tolerance cannot consistently implement their own view of tolerance.

Matt Slick in his article, “Refuting Relativism” gives this example, “There are no absolute truths.” And this explanation:  The statement "There are no absolute truths" is an absolute statement which is supposed to be true.   Therefore, it is an absolute truth and "There are no absolute truths" is false.

John Frame in his article, “Self-Refuting Statements,” lists a number of examples including this one:  Logical contradictions, such as “Socrates is mortal and Socrates is not mortal.” If the two occurrences of mortal in this sentence are predicated of Socrates at the same time and in the same respect, then the sentence cannot be true. The first clause refutes the second, and vice versa. 

Glen Smith on his blog, Thomistic Bent, gives a great list of self-refuting statements including this one:  “I’m not saying a word.”

If you would like to examine some self-refuting elements in various world views check out:  Ten Arguments from Self-refutingworldviews at  the blog, 101 Arguments.

Can you think of any self-refuting statements that you may use or have heard?

A to Z Challenge