Counting The Cost

Random thoughts on walking with Jesus in this turvy-topsy world

A loving God and hell

Excerpts from TrueU.org’s article

 

“Getting at the Bigger Questions, Part 2:

God, Love and Hell”

 

by Chris ‘Doc’ Leland

 

 

“In short, because God loved us so much He was willing to give us the option to follow or not. This is a much greater understanding of love than the latest chick flick might perpetuate. It's the kind of love that demonstrates that God is so much bigger and more complex than we try to make Him. Does He want His creations to go to hell? Not at all (2 Peter 3:9). Is hell a reality for those who don't choose to follow Him? You bet!

 

 

Norm Geisler (with Ron Brooks) has put this concept of love in very stark but understandable terms: "Forced love is rape; and God is not a divine rapist. He will not do anything to coerce their decision. God will not save men at any cost. He respects their freedom and concurs with their choice. He is not a puppet master, but a lover wooing men to Himself."

[Norman Geisler and Ron Brooks,

When Skeptics Ask (Michigan: Baker Books, 1990), p. 73.]

 

 

Remember back when you were a kid, and your parents punished you? Since most of you probably aren't parents, let me just tell you there's a certain gut wrenching that happens when you battle with the pain of hurting your son or daughter, and knowing that the lesson is for the best of the child in the long run. As the father of four sons, I think I have gotten a taste of how our heavenly Father feels when we turn away and He knows the logical consequence is separation from Him.

 

 

This happened recently when our 14-year-old did something wrong and my wife and I needed to discipline him. It did not go over well, and his response was to turn and go to his room and slam the door. My wife looked at me and said, "Did we do the right thing?" My response was, "It is not my job to be popular, but to do the hard thing when it needs to be done."

 

 

I believe our Heavenly Father deals with us in very similar ways. When we choose poorly there are consequences and that is part of His love for us....”

 

 

 

 

Click HERE to read this excellent article

posted by: Jrobbins at 16:15 | link | comments |
hell

Defending human rights in India

Excerpt from Breakpoint.org article

“On the Hill: Freedom and Dignity for the ‘Untouchables’”

by Mariam Bell

 

 

“Imagine waking up every day to do the only job anyone would give you: collecting human waste. You have no other choice because of your “station” in society, and you have to feed and care for your family any way you can.

 

 

That is the life many Dalits in India have to face every day. “For the past 20 years I’ve been cleaning toilets because this is the only way I can feed my children,” one Dalit woman told the BBC. Her daughter, Meena, followed her into this degrading line of work. “Initially I tried looking for a job in a school or nursing home, but no one would take me,” says Meena. “The first question they always ask is your caste-system.”

 

 

And so they are relegated to work as “scavengers,” as they are called, and considered “impure.” Bindeshwar Pathak remembers being punished by his grandmother for touching a Dalit woman in his village. “She forced me to swallow cow dung, cow urine, sand, and Ganges water to purify myself,” Mr. Pathak recalls. Today he runs Sulabh International, an organization that seeks to liberate scavengers….”

 

 

Click HERE to finish reading this article

posted by: Jrobbins at 14:29 | link | comments |
counting the cost in india

What does it mean to be "born-again"?

Excerpts from Pastor John Piper’s message

“What Happens in the New Birth?”

 

 

Read, listen, or watch this resource on Desiring God’s website.

Subscribe to their sermon podcast in iTunes.

 

 

 

“Teaching about the new birth is unsettling because it refers to something that is done to us, not something we do. John 1:13 emphasizes this. It refers to the children of God as those who “who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” Peter stresses the same thing: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again” (1 Peter 1:3). We do not cause the new birth. God causes the new birth. Any good thing that we do is a result of the new birth, not a cause of the new birth. This means that the new birth is taken out of our hands. It is not in our control. And so it confronts us with our helplessness and our absolute dependence on Someone outside ourselves.

 

 

This is unsettling. We are told that we won’t see the kingdom of God if we’re not born again. And we’re told that we can’t make ourselves to be born again. This is unsettling.

 

 

What happens in the new birth is not getting new religion but getting new life. Read with me the first three verses of John 3: “Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, ‘Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.’ Jesus answered him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.’

 

 

Nicodemus did not need religion; he needed life—spiritual life. What happens in the new birth is that life comes into being that was not there before. New life happens at new birth. This is not religious activity or discipline or decision. This is the coming into being of life. That’s the first way of describing what happens in the new birth.

 

 

But the Gospel of John makes something else clear as well: Jesus is the life that the Holy Spirit gives. Or we could say: The spiritual life that he gives, he only gives in connection with Jesus. Union with Jesus is where we experience supernatural, spiritual life. Jesus said in John 14:6, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. In John 6:35, he said, “I am the bread of life.” And in 20:31, John says, “These are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”

 

 

And from our side—the way we experience this—is that faith in Jesus is awakened in our hearts. Spiritual life and faith in Jesus come into being together. The new life makes the faith possible, and since spiritual life always awakens faith and expresses itself in faith, there is no life without faith in Jesus. Therefore, we should never separate the new birth from faith in Jesus. From God’s side, we are united to Christ in the new birth. That’s what the Holy Spirit does. From our side, we experience this union by faith in Jesus.

 

 

So never separate these two sayings of Jesus in John 3: “Unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (v. 3) and “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life” (v. 36).”

 

 

 

 

© Desiring God

 

Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on our website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by Desiring God.

 

Please include the following statement on any distributed copy:

By John Piper. © Desiring God.

Website: desiringGod.org

posted by: Jrobbins at 14:35 | link | comments |
from death to life

Thanksgiving leftovers

"Pride slays thanksgiving, but an humble mind is the soil out of
which thanks naturally grow.  A proud man is seldom a grateful
man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves."

      -- Henry Ward Beecher

posted by: Jrobbins at 14:40 | link | comments |
thanksgiving

The very same Savior

“Now, when the New Testament tells us that Jesus Christ is risen, one of the things it means is that the victim of Calvary is now, so to speak, loose and at large, so that any man anywhere can enjoy the same kind of relationship with Him as the disciples had in the days of His flesh. The only differences are that, first, His presence with the Christian is spiritual, not bodily, and so invisible to our physical eyes; second, the Christian, building on the New Testament witness, knows from the start those truths about the deity and atoning sacrifice of Jesus which the original disciples only grasped gradually, over a period of years; and, third, that Jesus’s way of speaking to us now is not by uttering fresh words, but rather by applying to our consciences those words of His that are recorded in the gospels, together with the rest of the biblical testimony to Himself. But know Jesus Christ still remains as definite a relation of personal discipleship as it was for the twelve when He was on earth. The Jesus who walks through the gospel story walks with Christians now, and knowing Him involves going with him, now as then.”

 

-J.I. Packer, Knowing God

posted by: Jrobbins at 21:30 | link | comments |
knowing god

Faith from a sickbed

"I need no outer props to hold up my faith, for my faith holds me."

 (Said when a stroke had rendered him immobile and almost
speechless after years of missionary work in India.)

      -- E. Stanley Jones

 

 

 

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me."

Psalm 23:4

posted by: Jrobbins at 15:45 | link | comments |

Happy Thanksgiving!

"Thou who hast given so much to me, give me one more thing - a grateful heart!"
      -- George Herbert

Gratitude

by Margaret E. Sangster

I thank You for these gifts, dear God,

Upon Thanksgiving Day-

For love and laughter and the faith

That makes me kneel to pray.

For life that lends me happiness,

And sleep that gives me rest,

These are the gifts that keep my heart

Serene within my breast.

 

Love, laughter, faith and life and sleep,

We own them, every one-

They carry us along the road

That leads from sun to sun.

posted by: Jrobbins at 15:06 | link | comments |
thanksgiving

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