Sunday, May 20, 2018

What does eliminating God's place in the world mean for education?

What does eliminating God's place in the world mean
for education? Chuck Colson, in his Breakpoint radio
commentaries, said:

It means schools should not train children in any particular
character traits, like courage or honesty. Instead, schools
should maximize a child's ability to choose for himself, after
critical consideration of competing alternatives.

This explains modern sex education, for example, where
students are not taught to restrain their sexual impulses until
marriage. Instead, they're taught a wide range of sexual practices,
with the message that "Only you can judge what's right
for you." [The DARE anti-drug program uses much the same
approach.]

Colson pointed up the contradictions in such school
teachings based on the concept that there are no absolute
truths based on God's law. He said:
Ironically, if you walk down the hall to the science classroom,
you'll find educators employing the opposite method. There
they have no qualms about teaching that there is one and only
one right way to think—namely, to embrace Darwinism.

Evolution is not open to question, nor are students invited to
judge for themselves whether it is true or not.
Colson asks, "Why such a sharp discrepancy in teaching
styles?" The answer he said is...

...that science is taught in absolute terms because it is regarded
as giving the truth about what "really exists." And what "really
exists" is nature alone. There is no God. Naturalism in science
then becomes the basis for liberalism in morality: If there is
no God, then kids should be taught to make up their own minds
about moral questions. Is it any surprise that some of them
are becoming battlegrounds.

Colson concluded:

If God is kicked out of science courses, eventually His commandments
will be taken off classroom walls—and out of
students' hearts.

Those are thoughts a nation troubled by recurring
in-school murders of students and teachers by other
students must face. The nation also needs to know of
Colson's encounter with a newspaper editor who
boasted of his efforts to remove the Ten Commandments
from the walls of local classrooms. The editor
was proud of his success in promoting a more "liberal"
education.

Yet, moments later, Colson said...

...he was bemoaning crime in the schools—the epidemic of
cheating and fighting. "Perhaps," I suggested, "you ought to
put a sign on the wall...telling kids not to steal." The editor
stared at me and then turned away without uttering a word.
For, of course, he had worked hard to remove just such a
sign—one that said "Thou shalt not steal"—along with the rest
of the Ten Commandments.

Colson added:

What this editor failed to see is that the liberal approach to
education is closely linked to increased crime and disorder.

"Full Text of John A. Stormer "None Dare Call It Education" Internet Archive. The Library Shelf, n.d. Web. 20 May 2018.May 2018.



Now I Understand Why God Insists on Faith in order to be Pleased with You and Me

The Eureka moment came to me a few seconds ago while browsing the internet and it's so important that I spread this insight right away before I put it off - that I rushed to this blog I keep to share it with you.

Here goes.

I saw an email from a Christian site called Rhetorical Jesus. Today's subject line was "What if I asked you to talk to an atheist? Would you do it?"

It occurred to me that, being a Christian, talking to an atheist about faith is almost the same as walking barefoot across a floor full of broken glass shards or going to the dentist to have a molar pulled out. It's something we Christians hate doing, like if it's like swimming against an oncoming tide.

It then occurred to me; how would I explain to this atheist how faith works?

It then occurred to me, and I have a strong belief that this insight had to have come from the Holy Spirit Himself. No one else could have given me information this precious.

We Christians, no matter how saved we are, we too struggle with unbelief from time to time. We get hit with temptations to not believe, definitely to walk by sight and not by faith. Even pastors get hit with such temptations. They're horrible.

So in talking to an atheist, the most important thing, this is what I thought as I pondered on the way of the what, the why of the insight of this gift from the Holy Spirit to me.

It's this: When you're talking to an atheist or an agnostic, you're dealing with someone who's having a challenging difficulty, an almost irresistible urge to disbelieve everything you're discussing with him or her. And I mention this because to an atheist, you have the natural aptitude to believe in the existence of God. The atheist cannot believe that to a Christian believer, coming to believe in Jesus Christ, it's a struggle to keep staying in faith. The atheist, I used to be one myself about twenty or so years ago, believes you're either born with the ability to believe in God or you don't in a manner of whether you're born with the ability to sing or draw or whatever comes naturally.

To the atheist, that all are called to believe and be saved - is something that is too good to be true for him or her.

The atheist has the belief, once bitten twice shy.

I've been bitten by that dog before so don't waste your time trying to convince me. The atheist or agnostic is jaded, has been hurt or disappointed big time. So yeah, you're swimming against the tide.

And it's not your job to totally convert the atheist. Your job is to pry the atheist's door open enough for the Holy Spirit to come convict him. You're not assigned to convert the atheist into a believer. God has not given you that kind of power. Your job is to tag team together with the Holy Spirit.

Tell that atheist that faith is about setting aside your natural tendency to see it before you believe it.

BUT TELL THE ATHEIST THAT GOD IS ENTITLED TO EXPECT THAT YOU'LL BELIEVE HIM EVEN WITHOUT SEEING HIM OR LIVING IN THE FLESH THE REWARDS OF HIS ACTIONS. That's what faith is. If you're not willing to set aside your tendency to "Got to See it Before I believe It," it means you're not taking God nor His Word at Face Value. So you don't get to please him. He, God, insists on your setting aside your natural tendency. That's what's so hard for the atheist to get about faith.

And tell him, very certain that whatever struggle it takes to have enough faith in God is as naturally tough for you as it is for anyone else. And tell him, make sure he or she understands that unbelief is every bit as much as the struggle for you as a Christian as for anyone else. Tell the atheist, that believing in a God you cannot see with your eyes is something of a challenge as your natural tendency as everybody's natural tendency is to trust what you do so and hear with your natural senses. And that you frequently ask for more faith from God because there are times when your faith tends to wane and get discouraged. And tell the atheist that the original measure of faith you got from God sometimes doesn't cut it when you're facing the temptation to disbelieve the Bible.



Saturday, May 19, 2018

A Post of Thanksgiving

A Post of Thanksgiving

I'd be an ingrate if I didn't write this post.

Let's see how I can narrate this. 

I work as the Public Defender's Mailroom Clerk which is a State of Florida agency and those of us working as state employees are paid on a monthly basis, once per month.  Now, a mailroom clerk does not net all that much and expenses afflict me as they afflict all others. 

In a month of 31 days, if you've spent most of your money sometime in the middle of it, you won't see any more until the whole month.

This month I had some extra expenses and so by now, this week, I was quite stretched. 

I'm also a Christian. And I have no qualms about asking God for help when I'm in trouble, especially financial trouble. 

At the end of this week, when I found myself the most tightly stretched in my pocketbook, I was pulled out of the whole by the Lord.

How?

Let me backwalk you a little bit, to the year 2010. I was between jobs. The job I had been laid off from had provided me healthcare insurance. The job I have now provides healthcare insurance also.

When I was between jobs, I had to pay my own insurance premiums. I used a good portion of my unemployment benefits to pay those premiums. 

After I got hired by the employer I have now, I was able to say goodbye to that insurance company policy since I would not need it.  The money I had paid that insurance company during that period piled up in my name. 

Guess where the pulled me out the hole came from!

I got a petty cash amount of money, less than $100, to help me with gas and with lunch for this week or so. It was a relief.  The money came from that insurance company since they had done an accounting of unused money and so I got it yesterday.  By the end of this week, that money will already be all used up.

So an insurance policy I had premiums on back in 2010, about eight years ago, came through for me this week when I was really broke and needed relief.  That could not have been a coincidence.  It had to have been God alone who orchestrated all the pieces together to pull me out of the financial pit I was in.

I write to you all because many of you find yourselves in pits and if you put your faith in God to pull you out, He will - if you trust Him. 

Trust Him.