In Norman Geisler’s book Chosen but Free he assesses the predestination and free will controversy. He entitles his fourth chapter “why blame me?” This is a question I am sure many people have asked before. In our culture and society it seems that no one wants to take responsibility for their actions, and most of the time they do not have to. Geisler poses the question, “…if God is in control of all events, then how can I be responsible for anything that happens even my evil actions?” The answer is free will. Geisler brings up a great point that God did not make the devil, but rather he made the angel Lucifer. Lucifer became the devil by his own free choice; he chose to sin. God did not make sin, he made the possibility of it when he gave us free will. He gave us the choice. So when we do something wrong we cannot blame God or the devil, the only person we can blame is ourselves.
Furthermore it is important to remember that with freedom comes responsibility. A good example Geisler presents is the freedom to drive, a freedom that many of us abuse when we speed or drive recklessly. It would be like saying well the government is the one who gave me this license, so they are the ones responsible for any wrong I do while I am driving. I think we all know that at the heart of the matter this is not true. But we are constantly looking for someone else to blame so that we will not have to take responsibility. As Geisler states, “God made the fact of freedom; we are responsible for our acts of freedom.” God gave us free will but its our choice what we do with it. And this is where evil comes in. Just like we have the power to chose good, we also have the power to reject it and chose evil. As humans we are inclined to do the latter. And again it is ourselves we have to blame for this. God does not give us a desire to sin, but gives us free will to chose. And all events have a cause, our own actions included. So it follows that the cause of our actions is ourselves.
Finally many may wonder if were such evil creatures inclined to sin by our own free will, how can we chose good? The answer is there is a difference between desire and decision. We can have a strong desire to do something yet chose to do something else. We all have plenty of experience with this. Even now being in finals week in college I am confronted with these decisions everyday, I know what I should do is study, but I have the desire to do anything but. This is where free will and choice comes in because I can chose to do the right thing or to not. And if I chose the latter I will have no one to blame but myself for the grade that results. We are confronted with these decisions everyday and God has given us the choice to chose, that is why we are to blame for our actions.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Conflict Resolution
Everyone will at some point in their life deal with conflict, it is inevitable. What is important, and what will define you as a person is how you deal with it. As Christians we are to live up to the teachings of Matthew 18, which coming from someone with first hand experience, is not always easy.
In Matthew 18 we are taught that if your brother offends you, you must go and tell that brother. I think this is all too often our first problem. Many times we will get angry or upset with a person that does not even know they offended us. We cannot always assume someone will know when they have wronged us. Everyone has a different perspective from which they look at life, and what is offensive to one person may be acceptable in another one's eyes. It could also be you took something someone said out of context, and this distorted the whole meaning for you. Then your frustration could be avoided entirely as long as your willing to follow Matthew 18 and go straight to that person. Unfortunately many times this is not the case. I have seen this over and over again, living in a quad with six different girls, with six different minds. It could be as simple as someone doing homework in their room, and someone else being loud in the common area. The person doing homework, more often than not, will get frustrated and take it personally without even asking them to quiet down. We often don't even take it into consideration, the other person may not even know your doing homework in the room next door. When we don't follow the first step in Matthew 18, our frustration will almost always come out in gossip. And gossip is like a wildfire, once you start it its hard to stop it spreading. However if you do in fact go to your brother, and they shut you down, then you must go back to that brother with a few others how know the situation. If they still shut you down, and your outside the church then you must forgive the person and wash your hands of it.
Matthew 18 teaches wonderful solution to conflict. A teaching that too often Christians don't follow themselves. This is unfortunate though because those that do will find their lives to be much less stressful. They will find that they can let go to those frustrating thoughts and forgive one another, whether the one that has wronged them realizes it or not. This isn't an easy task to accomplish, but that is life, no one said it would be easy. And you will so much more gratified when you do.
In Matthew 18 we are taught that if your brother offends you, you must go and tell that brother. I think this is all too often our first problem. Many times we will get angry or upset with a person that does not even know they offended us. We cannot always assume someone will know when they have wronged us. Everyone has a different perspective from which they look at life, and what is offensive to one person may be acceptable in another one's eyes. It could also be you took something someone said out of context, and this distorted the whole meaning for you. Then your frustration could be avoided entirely as long as your willing to follow Matthew 18 and go straight to that person. Unfortunately many times this is not the case. I have seen this over and over again, living in a quad with six different girls, with six different minds. It could be as simple as someone doing homework in their room, and someone else being loud in the common area. The person doing homework, more often than not, will get frustrated and take it personally without even asking them to quiet down. We often don't even take it into consideration, the other person may not even know your doing homework in the room next door. When we don't follow the first step in Matthew 18, our frustration will almost always come out in gossip. And gossip is like a wildfire, once you start it its hard to stop it spreading. However if you do in fact go to your brother, and they shut you down, then you must go back to that brother with a few others how know the situation. If they still shut you down, and your outside the church then you must forgive the person and wash your hands of it.
Matthew 18 teaches wonderful solution to conflict. A teaching that too often Christians don't follow themselves. This is unfortunate though because those that do will find their lives to be much less stressful. They will find that they can let go to those frustrating thoughts and forgive one another, whether the one that has wronged them realizes it or not. This isn't an easy task to accomplish, but that is life, no one said it would be easy. And you will so much more gratified when you do.
Conflict Resolution
Everyone will at some point in their life deal with conflict, it is inevitable. What is important, and what will define you as a person is how you deal with it. As Christians we are to live up to the teachings of Matthew 18, which coming from someone with first hand experience, is not always easy.
In Matthew 18 we are taught that if your brother offends you, you must go and tell that brother. I think this is all too often our first problem. Many times we will get angry or upset with a person that does not even know they offended us. We cannot always assume someone will know when they have wronged us. Everyone has a different perspective from which they look at life, and what is offensive to one person may be acceptable in another one's eyes. It could also be you took something someone said out of context, and this distorted the whole meaning for you. Then your frustration could be avoided entirely as long as your willing to follow Matthew 18 and go straight to that person. Unfortunately many times this is not the case. I have seen this over and over again, living in a quad with six different girls, with six different minds. It could be as simple as someone doing homework in their room, and someone else being loud in the common area. The person doing homework, more often than not, will get frustrated and take it personally without even asking them to quiet down. We often don't even take it into consideration, the other person may not even know your doing homework in the room next door. When we don't follow the first step in Matthew 18, our frustration will almost always come out in gossip. And gossip is like a wildfire, once you start it its hard to stop it spreading. However if you do in fact go to your brother, and they shut you down, then you must go back to that brother with a few others how know the situation. If they still shut you down, and your outside the church then you must forgive the person and wash your hands of it.
Matthew 18 teaches wonderful solution to conflict. A teaching that too often Christians don't follow themselves. This is unfortunate though because those that do will find their lives to be much less stressful. They will find that they can let go to those frustrating thoughts and forgive one another, whether the one that has wronged them realizes it or not. This isn't an easy task to accomplish, but that is life, no one said it would be easy. And you will so much more gratified when you do.
In Matthew 18 we are taught that if your brother offends you, you must go and tell that brother. I think this is all too often our first problem. Many times we will get angry or upset with a person that does not even know they offended us. We cannot always assume someone will know when they have wronged us. Everyone has a different perspective from which they look at life, and what is offensive to one person may be acceptable in another one's eyes. It could also be you took something someone said out of context, and this distorted the whole meaning for you. Then your frustration could be avoided entirely as long as your willing to follow Matthew 18 and go straight to that person. Unfortunately many times this is not the case. I have seen this over and over again, living in a quad with six different girls, with six different minds. It could be as simple as someone doing homework in their room, and someone else being loud in the common area. The person doing homework, more often than not, will get frustrated and take it personally without even asking them to quiet down. We often don't even take it into consideration, the other person may not even know your doing homework in the room next door. When we don't follow the first step in Matthew 18, our frustration will almost always come out in gossip. And gossip is like a wildfire, once you start it its hard to stop it spreading. However if you do in fact go to your brother, and they shut you down, then you must go back to that brother with a few others how know the situation. If they still shut you down, and your outside the church then you must forgive the person and wash your hands of it.
Matthew 18 teaches wonderful solution to conflict. A teaching that too often Christians don't follow themselves. This is unfortunate though because those that do will find their lives to be much less stressful. They will find that they can let go to those frustrating thoughts and forgive one another, whether the one that has wronged them realizes it or not. This isn't an easy task to accomplish, but that is life, no one said it would be easy. And you will so much more gratified when you do.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
My Testimony
I grew up in a Christian home, going to church every Sunday. When I was eleven one of the women in my church was explaining to the youth the salvation message, and for the fist time I got it. I understood that I needed a personal relationship, and that ran deeper than going to church or praying before meals. I asked God to forgive me of my sins, and told him I believed that His son is my Lord and Savior and that God sent Jesus to die on the cross for my sins. I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior that day. Since then my relationship with God has been one of many ups and downs. Last year on Christmas day my fourteen year old cousin died of bone cancer. I was so angry with God for taking her I stopped going to church and I started living for myself and not Him. I started drinking, partying, and going to clubs, staying out at all hours of the night trying to fill the void I now had in my life, a void that only God could fill. Before my cousin had passed I had already decided on coming to Liberty, and thankfully I have parents who make me follow through. I was bitter up until move in day, when I literally saw God’s love through the leaders on the hall. Now I realize that God had a bigger plan for my life then I ever had for myself.
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