Do sinful and bad health habits cloud the mind and interfere with ones ability to make good decisions and understand spiritual things? Theoretically the answer is yes, however, real life often demonstrates that spiritual perceptions and cognitive ability are seemingly unaffected. So how does this work?
I will posit that this question is directly linked to the foundational problem of conscious disobedience to God and/or His revealed will.
In many instances this type of disobedience is more harmful than the associated bad habit a person may be active in or addicted to. To him who know's to do right and does not do it—this is sin (James 4:17). Check out this comparison. While alcohol directly alters ones ability to make good decisions, a person who is active in or addicted to pornography and knows better is altering their mind with disobedience one image and one engagement at a time. While this alteration is not perceptible immediately over time the mind will become noticeably retarded—disobedience of any kind, as minor as it may be, is a most perilous course.
The problem with disobedience is rooted in the question, who is king of your life?
Disobedience to God says, "self is king". Obedience to God says, "He is King"! Someone once said, "he who is self taught has a fool for a teacher", thus it could also be said, "he who serves self as king has a tyrant for a ruler". When we follow self, we respond to the depraved inclinations of the soul and are a slave to our passions and desires which lead only to emptiness.
A.W. Tozer in his book "The Pursuit of God, chapter 2 - The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing, shows us the struggle of the human heart and that the only way to a deeply unrestricted walk with God is—total surrender!
"The way to deeper knowledge of God is through the lonely valleys of soul-poverty and abnegation of all things....Let me exhort you to take this seriously. It is not to be understood as mere Bible teaching to be stored away in the mind along with an inert mass of other doctrines. It is a marker on the road to greener pastures, a path chiseled against the steep sides of the mount of God. We dare not try to bypass it if we would follow on in this holy pursuit. We must ascend a step at a time. If we refuse one step we bring our progress to an end.
As is frequently true, this New Testament principle of spiritual life finds its best illustration in the Old Testament. In the story of Abraham and Isaac we have a dramatic picture of the surrendered life as well as an excellent commentary on the first Beatitude.
God let the suffering old man go through with it up to the point where He knew there would be no retreat, and then forbade him to lay a hand upon the boy. To the wondering patriarch He now says in effect, “It’s all right, Abraham. I never intended that you should actually slay the lad. I only wanted to remove him from the temple of your heart that I might reign unchallenged there. I wanted to correct the perversion that existed in your love. Now you may have the boy, sound and well. Take him and go back to your tent. Now I know that thou fearest God, seeing that thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me.”
One of the foremost components of fearing God and total surrender is obedience.
In a sermon that David Asscherick preached titled, "Why Not Tomorrow?" He amply demonstrates that the person we are tomorrow maybe in capable of make right and good decisions (if faced with the same decisions again) because we will no longer be the same person. This is logically true because the decisions we make today create the person we will be tomorrow and it is foolish and risky to believe that if we wait a day, week, month, or even longer that this new person will have the moral integrity and fortitude to make better decisions at this later time.
This should help us to see how significant obedience to God is, even little things should not be neglected. Essentially true obedience is surrender! Are we preparing now through obedience and surrender to face the ultimate test like Abraham? Or is our mind being imperceptibly altered to the point of no return—to the point where we couldn't be obedient to God even if we wanted to?
This is only a short synopsis of what could be shared on this topic. Many verses could be cited like Proverbs 2:10-22, but I challenge you to wrestle with these thoughts and see if they are true Biblically and experientially.
=D
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Why so much blood?
(1:24pm) - The context and question of this post refers to all the killing recorded in the Old Testament. Why did God kill so many nations if He is a God of love and restoration.
I was asked this question in church yesterday. It's a good question. Much thinking and writing has been done regarding this question because it challenges us to the very core. It's implications are vast, thus finding good answers becomes necessary. I would like to share an insight that I believe God revealed to me. It's a simple thought and while I believe it is a good one, perhaps even profound, I don't believe for a moment that it's complete by it's self, but I do believe it is a foundational corner stone in this discussion.
When asking questions about death it's always important to remember that sin/the sin problem is the larger context. The reason we live in a death saturated world is because Adam and Eve decided to disobey God and sin. How is God dealing with the sin problem and how will He terminate it forever?
Once again keeping it simple, we know that God sent His Son to die for our sins, "because the wages of sin death" (Romans 6:23), and that one day God will destroy sin forever with fire (Revelation 20:7-10, 14; Malachi 4:1 - many more verses could be cited showing that God will one day eradicate sin from the world and the manner in which He will carry this out).
Keep these preliminary thoughts in mind while we look at Genesis 6:11-14. Why did God choose to destroy the world? Why will God choose to destroy the earth a second time? The answer is the same. This is how God wipes out sin.
The world had become so corrupt and sinful during the time of Noah that the best way for God to clean things up was total destruction (with the exception of Noah's family and the animals that God protected in the ark with Noah). The first time God destroyed the world He used water, the next time He will use fire.
In fact God made a covenant in Genesis 9 (see verses 13-15), with Noah, every living creature, and the earth that He would never again destroy the world with a flood.
The rainbow gives us assurance that between now and the end of the world (when it will be destroyed with fire), there will never again be a world-wide flood that will destroy the world by water. Does that mean between the flood and the fire God has no right to deal with wickedness and sin? If God has the right to step in and deal with sin when the world or certain nations become overly wicked how would He do this? What medium would He use? We know He can't use a world-wide flood anymore because He has made a covenant with us that He must and will keep.
I believe that the story of Jonah (see chapter 3) demonstrates one of the main ways in which God sought to deal with the sin problem in the Old Testament. Simply put God would destroy nations who were totally corrupt and a threat to surrounding nations. But as the story of Jonah notes, God would only overthrow nations (Jonah 3:4), after He did everything He could do to persuade them to turn from their wicked ways.
Had Nineveh chosen not to repent they would have been destroyed. In the Old Testament most of the blood shed by God can be attributed to God judging and sentencing a nation only after they had past a certain point (see Deuteronomy 9:4; note: God would also sentence His own people if they rebelled against Him, Deuteronomy 28:15-68; these are only two references many more could be cited). It would be non-sensical for the Bible to record every single detail of every single story in order to explain to us God's fairness and justice. We must always interpret every story in context of the entire Bible and sometimes there will be stories, events, and ideas difficult to understand, but we can be assured that God is doing everything and anything to save everyone (2 Peter 3:9). Thus, when God is responsible for the death of people or nations it is only after He has given them every chance to repent. Those who choose not to repent choose to die. I know this sounds harsh, but it's true. Sodom & Gomorah is another fitting example.
Isaiah 28:21-22 explains that whenever God rises up or stands up to judge and destroy it is a strange, unusual, and alien task. This is not normal. God's desire is to redeem humanity not destroy them (Matthew 23:37-39). The God of the New Testament is the same God of the Old Testament. When the time comes for God to destroy the world with fire there will be more blood shed and loss of life than was ever recorded in the Old Testament, but this does not make God happy. Judgement coupled with eventual and total destruction of those who refuse to let go of sin and cling to God will be a STRANGE ACT for God.
I look forward to comments, questions, and feedback. This is a starting point for my recent thoughts and I will update this post as I learn and realize more.
=D
I was asked this question in church yesterday. It's a good question. Much thinking and writing has been done regarding this question because it challenges us to the very core. It's implications are vast, thus finding good answers becomes necessary. I would like to share an insight that I believe God revealed to me. It's a simple thought and while I believe it is a good one, perhaps even profound, I don't believe for a moment that it's complete by it's self, but I do believe it is a foundational corner stone in this discussion.
When asking questions about death it's always important to remember that sin/the sin problem is the larger context. The reason we live in a death saturated world is because Adam and Eve decided to disobey God and sin. How is God dealing with the sin problem and how will He terminate it forever?
Once again keeping it simple, we know that God sent His Son to die for our sins, "because the wages of sin death" (Romans 6:23), and that one day God will destroy sin forever with fire (Revelation 20:7-10, 14; Malachi 4:1 - many more verses could be cited showing that God will one day eradicate sin from the world and the manner in which He will carry this out).
Keep these preliminary thoughts in mind while we look at Genesis 6:11-14. Why did God choose to destroy the world? Why will God choose to destroy the earth a second time? The answer is the same. This is how God wipes out sin.
The world had become so corrupt and sinful during the time of Noah that the best way for God to clean things up was total destruction (with the exception of Noah's family and the animals that God protected in the ark with Noah). The first time God destroyed the world He used water, the next time He will use fire.
In fact God made a covenant in Genesis 9 (see verses 13-15), with Noah, every living creature, and the earth that He would never again destroy the world with a flood.
The rainbow gives us assurance that between now and the end of the world (when it will be destroyed with fire), there will never again be a world-wide flood that will destroy the world by water. Does that mean between the flood and the fire God has no right to deal with wickedness and sin? If God has the right to step in and deal with sin when the world or certain nations become overly wicked how would He do this? What medium would He use? We know He can't use a world-wide flood anymore because He has made a covenant with us that He must and will keep.
I believe that the story of Jonah (see chapter 3) demonstrates one of the main ways in which God sought to deal with the sin problem in the Old Testament. Simply put God would destroy nations who were totally corrupt and a threat to surrounding nations. But as the story of Jonah notes, God would only overthrow nations (Jonah 3:4), after He did everything He could do to persuade them to turn from their wicked ways.
Had Nineveh chosen not to repent they would have been destroyed. In the Old Testament most of the blood shed by God can be attributed to God judging and sentencing a nation only after they had past a certain point (see Deuteronomy 9:4; note: God would also sentence His own people if they rebelled against Him, Deuteronomy 28:15-68; these are only two references many more could be cited). It would be non-sensical for the Bible to record every single detail of every single story in order to explain to us God's fairness and justice. We must always interpret every story in context of the entire Bible and sometimes there will be stories, events, and ideas difficult to understand, but we can be assured that God is doing everything and anything to save everyone (2 Peter 3:9). Thus, when God is responsible for the death of people or nations it is only after He has given them every chance to repent. Those who choose not to repent choose to die. I know this sounds harsh, but it's true. Sodom & Gomorah is another fitting example.
Isaiah 28:21-22 explains that whenever God rises up or stands up to judge and destroy it is a strange, unusual, and alien task. This is not normal. God's desire is to redeem humanity not destroy them (Matthew 23:37-39). The God of the New Testament is the same God of the Old Testament. When the time comes for God to destroy the world with fire there will be more blood shed and loss of life than was ever recorded in the Old Testament, but this does not make God happy. Judgement coupled with eventual and total destruction of those who refuse to let go of sin and cling to God will be a STRANGE ACT for God.
I look forward to comments, questions, and feedback. This is a starting point for my recent thoughts and I will update this post as I learn and realize more.
=D
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