I am asking for prayer today. I wrote a Bible study and Pastor Don has asked me to give it at church this Sunday. It will be the second time in three years that I have spoken, and I am praying that it is what God wants me to say. It is far easier to share Bible studies on the internet, speaking in public sort of scares me. So your prayers are greatly coveted.

Heather                             

Following the plan of Revelation, we see that the sixth seal was broken when the people cried the day of God’s wrath has come (but it is not God declaring that it is the day of His wrath, that will not happen until much later in the judgements), but I suspect the conditions on earth are pretty horrific and rapidly getting worse. The signs in the sky of sun darkening, and earthquakes, and moon like blood are terrifying.

God then had the 144,000 sealed, this was necessary before the fifth trumpet when the locusts come up for they will not be able to harm God’s sealed. Now, it is important to keep in mind where people are in Revelation (kind of reminds me of Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, my people keep coming and going so quickly here.) A recap.

Chapter 1 – John is caught up in the Spirit to heaven to see a vision of Jesus and is told to write in verse 19, the things that he has seen (ch. 1) the things that are (ch 2 & 3) and the things that will take place after these things (Ch. 4-22).

Chapters 2 & 3 are on the earth. This is the church age, and it is the state of the churches. Remember that we are not a particular church, that the churches give in total a complete picture of Jesus. and the end of the message always includes the words “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” This phrase will be repeated later in Revelation without the ending of TO THE CHURCHES, just he who has an ear to hear let him hear.

Now at this point the churches and believers are on the earth, but God promises the churches that he will keep them from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth. (The phrase dwell on the earth is often repeated later in Revelation). And God tells us to comfort ourselves with this thought. The idea of the wrath of God is not comforting.

Chapters 4 & 5 we see the church “believers” in heaven worshipping before the throne and singing a song that only believers could sing,  …” have redeemed us to God by your blood.” only believers were redeemed by Jesus’ blood, and if the ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands are singing this song, those numbers would indicate the church in heaven.

The seal judgements happen to those who dwell on the earth, but Jesus is up in heaven reclaiming the earth, for he is the one worthy to open the scroll. What happens with the seals, trumpets and bowls will occur on earth.

This is a long, round about way of saying that at this time the 144,000 are on the earth – but later on we will see them in Heaven before the throne.

Now there is debate, and we won’t know for certain if the scroll contains all the seals, trumpets and bowls, because with the 7th seal the trumpets emerge, and with the 7th trumpet the bowl judgements emerge. What we can be certain due to time phrases is that the judgements follow in order, first the seals, then the trumpets, then the bowls.

With, in Chapter 8, the seventh seal is opened there is silence in heaven for half an hour. Can you imagine how incredible that silence must be? Up until now when we have been given a glimpse of heaven there has been such worship activity, the elders, the multitudes, the 4 living creatures all singing praises to God. Now this silence for 1/2 hour.  During this time the 7 angels who stand before God are given seven trumpets.

Then there is another angel that has a golden censer, which stands at the alter and is given incense. He will offer this with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. The smoke of this incense with the prayers of the saints will ascend before God from the angel’s hand.

Remember that the Temple on earth was a picture of the Temple in Heaven, and on earth there was also a golden censer, that the priest used to offer up the incense offering. This was in the tabernacle before the Holy of Holies. And the incense used was only used in the Temple, it was beaten to a fine power, salted, and composed of sweet smelling spices which were not native to Jerusalem, but had to be imported. The fire to burn the incense had to not be foreign fire. In fact Aaron’s sons used their own fire to burn the incense and they paid with heir lives. The fire for the incense had to come from the altar of sacrifice, and that was initially ignited by God who consumed the first sacrifice, and that fire was kept burning. It was not a fire made by man.

So at this time in the judgements the prayers of the saints are before God, then the angel in Revelation takes the censer and fills it with fire from the altar and throws it to earth. There were noises, thunderings, lightnings, and an earthquake.

This is the second earthquake, for there was also an earthquake in the sixth seal. I am certain that with all of these actions God is hoping that people will wake up and repent. There will still be some who do repent, but because they waited so long they will have to live through many of these judgements. Even during the intense judgements, God is giving people time to come to Christ. The 144,000 are now speaking to people, and soon God will send his two witnesses.

I pray that many people are reached before these times occur, that none will have to be those who dwell on the earth during these judgements.

Heather

I have been puzzling over the response of where Israel will be in the end times, and this morning God gave me an answer when I was showering. Here is what came to my mind:

Romans 11:11-36

Israel’s Rejection Not Final

     11 I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles.
12 Now if their fall is riches for the world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness!
13 For I speak to you Gentiles; inasmuch as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry,
14 if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh and save some of them.
15 For if their being cast away is the reconciling of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?
16 For if the firstfruit is holy, the lump is also holy; and if the root is holy, so are the branches.
17 And if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them, and with them became a partaker of the root and fatness of the olive tree,
18 do not boast against the branches. But if you do boast, remember that you do not support the root, but the root supports you.
19 You will say then, “Branches were broken off that I might be grafted in.”
20 Well said. Because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Do not be haughty, but fear.
21 For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either.
22 Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off.
23 And they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.
24 For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, who are natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?
25 For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.
26 And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written:   “The Deliverer will come out of Zion,
And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob;

27 For this is My covenant with them,
When I take away their sins.”  
28 Concerning the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but concerning the election they are beloved for the sake of the fathers.
29 For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.
30 For as you were once disobedient to God, yet have now obtained mercy through their disobedience,
31 even so these also have now been disobedient, that through the mercy shown you they also may obtain mercy.
32 For God has committed them all to disobedience, that He might have mercy on all.
33 Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!
   34 ”For who has known the mind of the LORD?
Or who has become His counselor?”

35 ”Or who has first given to Him
And it shall be repaid to him?”  
36 For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.

If you have been following the discussions on Revelation on my site, you will see that there are differing viewpoints on Revelation. I am currently allowing those discussions to stay as long as the discussions stay sweet. It is a good object lesson about how people are trained in a particular point of view and will stay in that view, very sure that theirs is right. Truth be told, we really will not know the total truth until the events of Revelation 22 have occurred. I think that sometimes God allows us to not know for sure because that allows us to learn how to work together even with different points of view.

I told Pastor Don that sometimes it is very painful being a living stone in the Temple of God, for when we rub against each other it hurts. Yet I know that that is God’s way of preparing us for being in His kingdom forever.

Perhaps it is because I came to God so late in life that I did not spend most of my life in a particular denomination, so I look at things with no pre-conceived notions. I am not going to pretend that I have the one right and only truth, I have what I have been learning in my studies and make no claim to have perfect understanding. But one thing I do have is a firm belief that if I am in error the Holy Spirit will direct my studies to help me sort things out.

So that my position is clear, I am just sharing what I am learning, how I am perceiving what I am reading from the Bible and the Kay Arthur study I have been taking. I am excited about what I have been learning and am sharing from that Point of View. Some have decided that the errors I am sharing need to be countered – so they are educating you readers. My feeling is that somewhere in the midst of all the points of view is the truth. And God will reveal that to us in His own Time. For now, I still plan to share what I have learned, if it is a blessing that is great, if it isn’t you don’t have to read them. I do challenge those with differing points of view to put up their Revelation studies on THEIR sites for all to share. I will gladly let people know that they are there for the reading. That way people can read and learn even more.

Right now we had been discussing the 144,000 which God says are from the 12 tribes of Israel, to me that says Israel. Now I know that God keeps his promises, and will not change his mind. These 144,000 are most probably Messianic Jews, for they will have accepted Christ, and shared the Gospel with others. When I said that God has not given up on Jerusalem, He hasn’t, He can’t for He made promises. But part of the promise is that they will know the Messiah, so God will help them to do that. Yes there was one provisional covenant but others God cut covenant Himself, not involving man at all, like the covenant with Abraham where Abraham went to sleep and then God cut covenant. But in many of the still to be fulfilled prophesies in the Old Testament He has promised that the Jews would be given a tender heart and they would be saved, at least a remnant. Can these 144,000 not be a remnant? From what I have read, the church is in Heaven, raptured, and a combination of Jews and Gentiles are on the earth from many tribes, and tongues and nations. God will not abandon them, he will keep trying to reach them, not wanting any to perish. But if they choose not to obey, that is their choice. Just like with Pharaoh, at some point they will have chosen one too many times to reject God’s offer, then God will accept their rejection.

I know that at the end there is the Great White Throne Judgement, and God will judge all those on earth, living and dead. I have to trust that God’s judgement is sovereign, and that it will be perfectly just. This is one of those mysteries that we have to trust God for. He will make all things right in the end.

******

Revelation 7:13-17

I love this part of Revelation for it is a good model of what the elders of our church should be like. They should be ever ready to share their knowledge, and if necessary ask questions to institute conversation that will edify. (But at the same time, in the quest to edify, it should never be to show how much more knowledge they have over another person, but rather to share knowledge and help all to grow- there is a fine line in that).

One of the elders comes up to John and asks who are those arrayed in white robes, and where did they come from?

John did not have the answer, so the elder answered. “These are the ones who came out of the great tribulation and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”

Can this be the church? no, for we are not destined to go through the wrath of God, we were not to be in the great tribulation, this has to be those who are converted during the time of the tribulation, those who will be martyred for their faith. And those who suffered for holding fast to the truth of the Lord.

The elder continues “They shall neither hunger anymore nor thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any heat; for the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to living fountains of waters. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

Just looking at this as it is written, if they are not to hunger or thirst anymore – it sounds like famine and drought – things that happen during the judgements on earth. The water will be turned to wormwood, grass burned up, seas and fresh water into blood, etc. Remember that the sun at one of the judgements will burn the people. And they will be tormented by antichrist, his minions and the people on the earth for their beliefs. Yet God will bring them through and they will be comforted.

Sometimes in Revelation God gives us a brief overview of what He will later go into more detail about. We will begin to see this more and more in Revelation. For when the antichrist comes into the picture we will see the kinds of torment these martyrs will have faced. (and I know that even today there are antichrists – by definition one who does not claim that Jesus is God and man, but there will be one antichrist who will step forward and make a provisional peace for seven years. We haven’t seen that yet, he hasn’t been revealed).

In my studies we had to make 10 parallel lines about an inch apart. and at the start of the line we wrote the following scriptures:

Revelation 12
Revelation 11
Revelation 6-16
Revelation 13, 17, 19-21
Daniel 7
Daniel 9
Daniel 12
Matthew 24-25
Luke 21
II Thessalonians 2
Ezekiel 36-37

Then we had to write out the events mentioned in those books in order and leave enough space between the events.

For Example in Revelation 12 the events The dragon and stars thrown down from heaven to earth (which would be beginning of time), Birth of Christ (which was a given), then the dragon tries to devour the child (Herod), the crucifixion (again that was given already on the chart), the child caught up to God.   then we moved over to the 7 years of tribulation where there was a war in heaven, the dragon persecutes the woman(Israel) for time, times and 1/2 time, and then the child (Jesus) rules with a rod of Iron.

If you take all the events of those passages you find that they line up perfectly, and the combination of the passages gives a more complete picture of the events of Revelation.

What blew my mind away was how much all was prophesied earlier on and how well all dove-tails together. Sure increased my faith. Maybe that exercise would be a blessing to you.

Hope you have a great Sunday. I will keep posting what I have been learning about Revelation, but a part of me wants to stop. But I will complete what I started.

Heather

Was visiting Jerry Bushman’s (http://www.xanga.com/jerrybushman) site and he put up the following url, old soaps that include Dove soap in them. They are funny. My personal favorite is the Munsters where Lily is compared to a Goth Martha Stewart. They are not up for long, so enjoy.

http://tinyurl.com/bve8v

Heather

Some say that God has given up on the Jews, but if that is so, why would James have written in James 1:1 “James, a bondservant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abound: Greetings.”

You only need to read Romans 9, 10 and 11 to see that God still has a heart for Israel, and that He will save a remnant.

A loving Father, God will not want any to perish, but He also will give free will. If people Jews and Gentiles keep rejecting Him, at one point they will cross that line and God will give them the desires of their heart, to not be with Him.

I remember when I was first talking with Pastor Don I told Him that I felt that God had hardened my heart. That, like Pharaoh, God did not want me in His kingdom so He hardened my heart. At that time I was still angry with God and figured He didn’t care about me at all, because, after all, He did not protect me when I needed Him so badly as a child. He called my attention to Moses’ dealings with Pharaoh and pointed out that  Pharaoh at first hardened his own heart. Up until after the fifth plague, it was Pharaoh who hardened his heart. After that the Lord honored this and hardened Pharaoh’s heart for the remaining plagues. I think there is a certain line drawn, and once we cross it we have committed our selves irrevocably. I am so grateful that I never reached the point where God honored my hardened heart. And like He is going to do for the remnant of Jews, He replaced my hardened heart with a tender heart.

There is an interesting analogy in this too, for when the judgements come down on the people, up to a point God spends a lot of energy to reach the people so that they repent, but after awhile they do not repent.

I suspect that since in Chapters 4 & 5 the Church is in Heaven that God is sending out the 144,000 to spread His gospel to the people to draw more into Christ’s Kingdom. It will not be a pleasant time to be on earth because besides having the judgements raining down, there will also be the need to contend with the antichrist and his minions. There will be persecutions.

If you look at Revelation 7:9-12 you see that there are multitudes that come from the great tribulation. Which is sad for they come through persecution on earth;  but also good, for they are saved. They are standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They have white robes (symbol of righteousness through Christ) and carrying Palm branches. The last time Palm branches were mentioned it was to honor Jesus when He rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. They cry with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” And then they also join in the heavenly worship of God.

I still think of the song, “I can only imagine.” when it comes to worshipping God in Heaven.

Hope you have a blessed weekend. I have not been well, I seem to have caught a bad cold, so could use prayers to feel better. I promised my son to take him and his friends bowling today.

Heather

On to Revelation 7. I think we already know that there is vast disagreement on the subject of this chapter, the sealing of the 144,000. There are some who feel that God is through with the Jews, but that one stretches my faith way too far. It seems that there is selective editing to come up with that point of view. I have struggled with figuring out how God, who knows our end from the beginning, knows from before we are born what we will become (and yet we have free will to choose) could make promises that last for all time, and then change his mind based on the behavior of some (which he already knew would act the way they did). I have to trust that God is sovereign, and even though we with our puny minds don’t see the whole picture, I prefer to take God at his word.

It is very easy to take passages of the Bible and get them to conform to one’s perspective, and I am certain that EVERY denomination and belief system has things wrong, and I am certain that I also am not seeing the WHOLE picture. Truth be told, the final results will be in when Revelation 22 is finished. But a few points that make sense to me is that John wrote Revelation as one of the latest books written by a follower of Jesus. He was taken to Heaven and shown these things and wrote them down. God is not lax with words. He encompasses 6,000 years of history in a few short pages, so God will not waste words. If God were truly done with the Jew, He would not mention the 12 tribes in Revelation, he would have mentioned believers. Anyway, so that you know where I am coming from and how I came to the conclusion that God is not through with the Jews I am going to show a bit of where I got my ideas from.

First lets look at the 144,000 mentioned in Revelation 7, 9 and 14, and figure out who they are just from the words in Revelation.

12,000 from EVERY TRIBE of the SONS OF ISRAEL (last I looked that meant Jews)
144,000 (12 x 12 -= 144,000 Jews)
They are the first fruits of God and the Lamb

How are they described?

Bond servants of our God.
Seal on their foreheads having the lamb’s name and God’s name
Purchased from the earth
Not defiled with women, kept chaste, follow the lamb wherever he goes
They are purchased from among men as first fruits to God and the lamb
No lie in their mouth, blameless

(Now it is important to remember that Revelation 7 follows Revelation 4 and 5. Revelation 2 & 3 are letters to the churches and in Revelation 4 & 5 the church is up in heaven worshipping God – Here is the worship song sung to the Lamb in verses 9 & 10 “You are worthy to take the scroll, and to open its seals; For You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, ahd have made us kings and priests to our God; and we shall reign on the earth.” When John looked he saw angels, the living creatures, and the elder and the number was 10 thousand times 10,000 saying “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom, and strength and honor and glory and blessing!” By just looking at the words of the song, the only ones that can say they have been redeemed by Jesus’s blood is the believers, the church. Where is this song sung? Heaven.)

Who is left on the earth? Those who have not been brought up to Heaven with Jesus in the clouds, that would be Jews who did not accept Jesus as Messiah, and gentiles.

Anyway, if you look at the description of the 144,000 there is no believer on earth that can claim to have not been defiled by women, kept chaste, etc. We are all sinners in need of a savior. These must be some special people!!!

What are the instructions regarding the 144,000?

They are not to be harmed until they are marked. They will also be protected from the 5th trumpet woe judgement when the locusts torment man, but will not harm those marked by God.

Where are these 144,000?

In Chapter 7 they are on earth
In Chapter 14 they are in heaven, before the throne, before the 7th trumpet.

What are they doing?

They will be standing on Mt. Zion with the Lamb, and singing a new song before the throne, a song that no one can learn but them.

What we need to do is decide if Revelation is the Past, or is it happening now, or is it events in the future. Are we standing on the brink of events that are about to come, or is it an ideal. The way you interpret the scripture will determine what you believe about the Book of Revelation.

The Bible is a book given by God through Man to Man. It is made up of 66 books written over a number of years by a number of different men. If we are to honor the word of God for what it says in its intent and purpose we have to honor what the Word of God says about the Book. in 2 Timothy 3:16-17 it says that ALL scripture is inspired by God. I don’t think we can take some scripture and mold it to our way of thinking, we have to take scripture and interpret it in its normal literal sense.

Our responsibility is not to interpret how the Word of God is going to be accomplished, but to know the Word and wait for it to be accomplished. Many of the theories regarding Revelation can only work if you leave out parts of Revelation. As you will see by going chapter and verse into Revelation, that certain things have time phrases. Things will occur AFTER THESE THINGS. So those who say that parts of Revelation have occurred are ignoring signs that haven’t yet happened, so it leads me to believe that we are still waiting for the events in chapters 4-22 to occur.

Here are three views:

Preterism – prophesy has already been fulfilled, Revelation has been fulfilled, but those who ascribe to that don’t know what to do with Revelation 20, so they say that it is fulfilled except for Rev 20, 21, and 22. They believe Matthew 24 has already been fulfilled. To do this they have an early date for when Revelation is written, saying it is written before 70 A.D. to take into account the destruction of the Temple. All OT scriptures with prophesies according to this theory were fulfilled before AD 70 and God is through with Israel. (We have someone on this site that believes very firmly that God is through with Israel-I DO NOT BELIEVE HE IS THROUGH WITH ISRAEL).

In order to come to this theory, they cannot take Revelation in its normal literary sense. They take what happened in the past and squeeze Revelation into history. They have to say that everything in Revelation was fulfilled in the generation of Christ’s ministry. All events are squeezed like this, Chapter 1-3 the church history, Cha. 5-11 the Churches victory over the synagogue, 12-19 the Church’s victory over Pagan Rome, 20-22 happiness and glory as a consequence.

There are degrees of preterism, from mild to extreme. In the extreme version all of the OT predictions were fulfilled by ad 70.

Then there is the view called HISTORICISM. It is now being fulfilled, events that happen to the World starting at St. John’s time and going right through now. We are according to them in the tribulation period. They can’t say when God says 1,260 days that it is literally 1,260 days, so they interpret it as 1,260 years, the only problem is that they have run out of time. They have to keep moving the date for when all the stuff starts to correlate the events of Revelation with the events of the present age.

FUTURISM  they see the book of Revelation as in the future to the present church age. It has not yet been fulfilled. (THIS IS MY VIEW). Revelation Chapter 4 has not yet been fulfilled, the seals have not been broken, the reason they say that is that you haven’t seen the events literally happen. A literal 1/3 of earth burned up, 1/3 of the seas turned to bitterness, and water you can’t drink. We haven’t seen a literal antichrist ruling for a literal 3 1/2 years or  marks on the forehead and hands.

IDEALISM – say that Revelation is timeless, and there is no specific time regarding the 1,260 days. 1000, years of the millennium. All the book of Revelation is showing you is that God is sovereign over history.

I just want to ask one secular question, except for Israel, what other conquered nation that was scattered abroad the face of the earth ever returned to their homeland, re-learned their language, and have continued to be gathered. To this day I don’t think there are any Moabites, or any of the other “ites” that have assembled and restored their nation. Time after time after time God has restored Israel, he made serious promises to David and Abraham that this people would never perish, that He would preserve a remnant. I think it is rather pompous of us to assume that God did not mean what HE said He meant.

Each covenant of God implies that God will preserve a remnant. 4 of the 5 promises of God in the covenants are unconditional. Those who would deny that God still cares about Israel focus on the one conditional covenant. It is in the enemy’s best interst to foster anti-Semitism.

Again, God is sovereign. And He will make things come out just as He planned, no matter what we believe. If we believe in error, God will still make things come out just as He planned.

If I don’t believe in gravity and jump off of a tall building I will still land with a splat regardless of my belief. Gravity will not change because I don’t believe in it.

I am sharing what I am learning from the best of my knowledge, but I suspect that we all have areas of knowledge that we are in error about. I have to trust that the Holy Spirit will correct any errors of mine and help me see things clearly. And I don’t think the church should be having such division, can’t we trust that God will lead us to the truth, and edify rather than tear down each other?

I have probably opened up a can of worms here, sigh.

Heather

Heather steps up on soapbox.

Came across the book I Still Believe which has a unique twist. I seem drawn to books these days that talk about how people deal with issues of faith, and sharing their faith. This one intrigues me because instead of instantly arguing with the person, the author listens to their arguments. And truth be told, when I was anti-God, I had some of the same arguments that the author presents in his book, and found out that they didn’t hold water when held up to the light of the truth of the Bible. Sometimes the most loving thing you can do is to listen to a person who does not believe, not advance your opinion, just ask questions. You might be surprised at how quickly weaknesses in a person’s belief system come out that way. But it shouldn’t be a contest to see who has the superior point of view, just a loving exchange of ideas. You can be obnoxious asking questions too, if you come at it from a self-centered position, not a relationship position. (You can check out my testimony on 10/7/05 to see how far I have come and from what God brought me out of. Those that I talk to about faith look at me in amazement because they cannot believe what I used to be like, God has changed me so much).

I think most people feel that they have to set a person “right” in their erroneous beliefs, or to show them how sinful they are and how they are going to hell. Believe me, when I say this, when I was in the midst of my sinning the Holy Spirit was there convicting me. I wasn’t as comfortable in my sinful ways, but would never admit it to someone else. I think a lot more reaching of people would happen if people just loved and supported others. A small seed at a right time will bear more fruit than all the intense arguments and unbeliever bashing that sometimes goes on. Now this is not a hard, fast rule. There might be times and instances when a more forceful approach is needed, but any reaching out to another person has to be done in love, with the person in mind, not our agenda.

Great quote from the book, p. 11 “Perhaps I believe because I want it to be true. But then, maybe others don’t believe because they want it to be false.” He also is wondering how people who grow up in the church, when they get to college, often drop out because they don’t have ready answers for all the tough questions non-believers present them, so their faith is shaken. On p. 20 he says, “Strong faith doesn’t accept easy answers.”

I think at one point I really wanted Christianity to be false. I wanted to be in total control of my destiny. After awhile, when my life didn’t work right, I was able to recognize that I needed Jesus in my life. But I had to come to that point before I was receptive to Christ.

Another good book that I just finished is the Coffeehouse Gospel by Matthew Paul Turner. What intrigued me about this book is that instead of shoving a belief system down a person’s throat, the author spent time to listen, to hear the other person’s story, and have a real conversation. Much more could be said and received when the conversation was two way. A large argument that lasts long only causes a person to turn off and reject all. Nothing is received and it wastes both people’s time. Far more effective is a word in season that is short and sweet and thought provoking. And if that is coupled with a sincere care and love and desire to keep conversing, the person will be loved into the Kingdom.

I remember people coming up to me and trying to force-feed me religion, and in crises in my life gave me platitudes that only widened the gulf between me and God. Sometimes we, as Christians, need to learn to listen, to just be there, and speak more loudly with our actions than our mouths. We will get further with love than with sermons. We need to edify, not tear downb. When we criticize and seem like we have the superior way all that does is push the person further away from God. When push comes to shove, we are all sinners in need of a savior, no matter how advanced we think we are spiritually.

Heather steps off of her soapbox.

Hope you are enjoying the snow. My kids had a snowday today and it looks like I have to cancel my Girl Scout meeting, sigh.

Heather