4 posts tagged “faith”

A while back I wrote an article on Obama's faith sell to the Christian community and in it referred to another article I wrote about his candidacy.  In that one, I stated that I suspected he could be a Muslim plant.  Today, another ACT member sent me some article links that give more reason to suspect he could be just that.  Nothing strong and certainly not concrete, just more reason to suspect.

http://web.israelinsider.com/views/12917.htm

http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Politics/12745.htm

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=60559

http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5354

The conversations on recent articles have turned to the exclusivity of Jesus as the only way to God.  You can track back to the conversations here and here.  I am brought back to the event of my own conversion to dependency upon Christ from dependency on my own self will and wisdom.  Some years ago, I wrote a poem relating my relationship with God before and after.  It is my hope that the poem communicates to those who believe that Christ is one of many ways to God, something of why my personal experience is more than some wise instructions written in an ancient text.  My relationship with God is present, personal, and constant.  My relationship is no more metaphorical than was Paul's of Silas, the 12th apostle of Christ who met Him on the road to Damascus. 

The Turnaround

Peace I want, for peace I'm searching
hard to find in this world, but well worth reaching
Peace long lost if indeed I've ever known her
Peace moves not, 'tis I who is lost and losing
Not easily reached nor easily sought
too many years wasted because I thought
'twas to be found without, while 'twas within
My own self doubt, my justifying sin

I knew, I knew and seriously didn't want to,
the truth I'd been rejecting, "God is present!"
He's designed a blessing, it was my dissent
that brought me curses, the rules are for ME,
not for Him, and I couldn't see
through closed eyes, His continued plea
fell on covered ears until my pain
and endless tears convinced me my disdain
was foolishly placed against my God.
I turned my face and finally called,
"You're right, You were right all along."

JudgeRight

Christians aren't perfect.  We are sinners just like unbelievers.  The only difference is in the fact that we have accepted Christ's sacrifice to be justified before the Father and in the fact that we turned from our self will.  We have all this programming inducted into our lifestyle by parents, by friends, society, etc., and by our own desires for pleasure and security.  We have determined to read and meditate on the Bible and to employ its instruction.  In doing so, we intend to subject ourselves to the will of God, to put His will above our own.  This is not a simple thing.  For most, lack of self discipline is an early and major hurdle.  Its easy for a while, but as the new experience of absence of guilt wears off, the old habits begin to roll back in like a tide having rolled away rolls back again.  Each bad habit has to be defeated and replaced with good habits as we discover the ill they portray in the Bible's revelation.

It is in this sense, when we say we are traveling the same road as the unbeliever, but we are going in the opposite direction.  We mean we are moving toward God while the rest are moving away from Him.  Again, the Christian is not perfect.  He can still choose to move away from God and prefer to make his own choices according to his desires rather than adhere to the instruction he knows and understands the Bible gives.  Without getting into theological debates over whether this means he has rejected Christ, we recognize that the Christian walk is difficult and any person who has had to break even one habit knows, you can sway back and forth and still wind up defeating the habit.  The point I'm making here is that Christians sin.  That doesn't make him a hypocrite.  It does mean he is working out his salvation.  In the same sense, the unbeliever is not perfectly evil, disdaining the Creator.  He may be wavering between acceptance and rejection of God's will.

Since we are not perfect and still sin, we absolutely cannot depend on our works to make our way to God.  Heaven's reward by any other means than through the sacrificial payment made by Jesus Christ is named as thievery by Christ.  This grace (reward by Christ's sacrifice) is unique to Christianity.  In every other form of religion, works are counted as the only avenue to God and/or reward.  Now, this is where I have to get theological.  Why aren't good works good enough?  This verse in the letter Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus explains just one reason why works are not sufficient to get you into heaven.
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves [it is] the gift of God Not of works, lest any man should boast.
Ephesians 2:8-9
However, this verse gives the most basic reason.  God has supplied the means and to reject this sacrifice is to reject the most valuable gift God could offer.
He that is not with me is against me: and he that gathereth not with me scattereth. 
Luke 11:23

     What makes America great is this; When Christianity goes astray, predominantly Christians in a democracy correct that church, that faith.  This is not the case in Islam in a theocracy.  It is up to predominantly Christians from democracies that correct Islamic, or Nazi, or Communist, or Christian or whatever banner evil pops its head up from under.  This is why America is great, this is why we honor Israel, Australia, and the U.K. and whoever chips into the fight against evil.  These are countries who self correct their own evils and face the threats evil perpetrates on others.  Imperialism charges against these free countries is not only false, it is astoundingly ignorant of history, even recent history to equate honorable people, nations, and religions with those who wreak havoc on the rest of the world.  It is profoundly arrogant and hypocritical for half of the free world to condemn these nations for our actions with military force to bring peace to their own regions and to answer attacks on their nations with overwhelming force.  The moral compass of anyone who equates our actions with those of people who attack innocent citizens using 14 year old children to carry bomb belts into our midst and blow themselves up in the hope of killing as many innocents as possible, has to be 180* out or missing altogether.  To compare Abu Graib or Guantanamo to people who saw off heads, who use piano wire to slice off the faces of children, to excuse any action on the basis of the desperation of the enemy is to lack reason and common sense.

     Dispatches is an English version of a video news magazine similar to 20/20.  These videos are one complete program revealing what is taught in many Muslim Mosques.  It is well worth watching all six of these videos.  As you watch them, keep in mind that the same funding and source of promotional material is being sent around the world, including to the mosques in the United States.  The same brand of Islam is paid for and promoted by the same people who are supporting these mosques in England.  No under cover operation has come to light on the U.S. mosques but they are sourced the same as those in England and around the world.  I cannot re-iterate this enough.  This is what is being taught inside mosques right here in the United States today.