Wednesday, April 3, 2013

ARE YOU A CRITCAL THINKER

    A wise Frenchman, Anatole France, once said, "An Education isn't how much you've committed to memory, or even how much you know;  its being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don't."  Anatole France was a successful French Novelist, Poet, and Journalist who lived from 1844-1924. 
    Mark Scott, who was a successful Talk Radio Host in Detroit 25 years ago, used to talk, all the time about being able to "discriminate crucial differences". 
    In the 'Serenity Prayer' which is used by Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous and many of the 12-step programs that exist to help substance abusers, and those with addiction, we read about the "wisdom to know the difference between those things which we can change, and those things which we are powerless to change.
    It looks like it is very important to be able to discern when we don't know something;  not living in fantasy or deluding ourselves to the effect that we do know. 
    It is tragic that one of the flaws of humanity is that, for the most part humanity doesn't want to face its shortcomings;  they don't want to know, that they don't know.
   It is much safer to face reality, and to square up to the fact that we don't know something, if indeed we don't.  If we face the reality that we don't know, then maybe we can learn it   Otherwise, we will never get out of the darkness of thinking we know something when we don't.  This can have a tragic consequence for time and Eternity.

Monday, April 1, 2013

BETTER NEVER BORN

     Last week was the week between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday.  This is commonly known in the Christian world as 'Holy Week'.  Several days ago, when reading the Gospel of Mark's rendition of the events during the final week of Christ's earthly ministry, I came upon a verse which was rather gripping in it's immediate context.  As I contemplated deeper on this particular verse, it became quite compelling.  These meditations I wanted to write about and share.  
    When Jesus and His disciples were sharing the 'Last Supper' as detailed in Mark Chapter 14, Jesus makes a very singular statement in verse 21.  Here Jesus says:  "The Son of Man indeed goeth as it is written of him; but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed!  Good it were for that man if he had never been born"  Of course, here Jesus is speaking of Judas Iscariot, who treacherously betrayed Jesus of thirty pieces of silver, and would lead them to arrest Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, which we read about nearer to the end of that particular of Mark.
     But what about our lives.  Under what circumstances, could we say the it would have been better for us if we had never been born?.  Each one of us, when we come into this world are shaped with image of God.  We have eternity in our hearts.  Our creator sends us into this world with a particular purpose in mind. He has a job for us in his kingdom that only we can do.  If we miss it or refuse to do it, no one will fill our place.  But, more that that, each one of us, when we come into this world, have the glorious potential of getting to know the God of the Universe.  It is planned for us that we walk with and to serve God during our lifetime.  Furthermore we are destined to spend eternity with God, in His home, Heaven.   
     But we have a problem.  Each one of us, comes into the world with a sinful nature that separates us from God.   Because of this problem, we cannot have fellowship with a Holy God.  We can't ever hope of going to heaven with this sinful nature.  However, God - in His infinite and wholly inexplicable love for his creation, did not want to leave us in this calamity.  
    Before the world be, God devised a plan, whereby he would come to earth in the form of His Son, and take upon Him and live a life on earth as a man.  He would take all the sins of mankind upon him, and would endure all the punishment and suffering that our sin and rebellion deserved from a Holy God.   That is why Jesus Christ came to earth.  He as the Son of God, and the Son of Man-the God-Man, lived on earth, and at the end of his life, God heaped all of mankind's sin, past, present, and future upon him, and He hung on a cross, until he died.  He didn't stay dead.  He conquered death, and folded up the grave clothes for us.  If we would come and see our desparate need, our depraved nature, and cry out to God to be changed, because of what Christ did on the cross, and his resurrection from the dead, we can be transformed and born again from above spiritually.  We then enter God's Kingdom and begin the exciting journey of walking with the God and Creator of the Universe.  As we yield our lives and surrender our wills to God, He delivers us from the sinful nature, and enables us to live a holy life.  We can then seek and embark upon the purpose for which we were created, and born into this world.  When God is ready for us, we will pass from this world into God's home.
     If we refuse to see our need, and to let God transform us, we will have missed the very purpose for which we were conceived.  At the end of such a life we will enter a world of eternal separation-fixed, from the God who created us and loved us.   

   If such a fate happens to us, at that point, it can be said, It would have been better for us if we had never been Born!