THE TRUTH

A Newsletter of PURSUING THE TRUTH MINISTRIES
www.pursuingthetruth.org

March 2005

Greetings! I pray all is well with you. How is your relationship with Christ? I pray that you are getting closer and closer in personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

What’s New

I am almost complete the new Pursuing the Truth Ministries’ website. Stay tuned. It still has to go through testing and evaluation and last minute tweaks.

We are planning a seminar for the end of May so stay tuned. The seminar will most likely focus on the reality of God as compared with the pains of this life.

Just a reminder of our new radio time in the Philadelphia, PA area. We are on prime time every Sunday morning from 11:30 to 12:00 am on WNJC 1360 am in the Philadelphia, PA area. Remember that we are still on in the Virginia on WMRV 94.5 FM in the Lynchburg area on Sunday evenings from 7:30 - 8:00.

Prayer Requests

Please pray for a friend of mine who was diagnosed with lung cancer. His name is James. He has begun Chemotheropy.

Remember to look at the prayers section on our website and please pray for those who have asked for prayer.

Listen

My wife and I attended a seminar on the topic of Chinese herbal medicines and acupuncture. The lecturer began talking about creation and the big bang theory. For those who are not familiar with it, the big bang is a theory about the method that the universe was created. All of the matter in our universe originated from one highly dense mass, which exploded causing the formation of galaxies, planets, etc. 

The interesting thing about this theory is that it corresponds with observable data. Cosmologists have determined, thanks in part to Einstein’s equations that the matter in the universe has the characteristics of an explosion that occurred in the past. Perhaps that explosion was the big bank indeed. This is also consistent with the Genesis account of the creation of the universe in the Bible in that the Big Bang theory assumes a beginning of time and our universe. Many believe that the universe is infinite.

Anyway there was a woman in the seminar that obviously was not aware of this and yet she spoke anyway. She made it a point to interrupt the lecture to say that not everyone believes the big bang theory and that God created everything. Shortly after that interruption she decided to interrupt the lecture again to make it known that her husband walked out of the lecture because of the lecturer’s comments about the big bang theory.

Let me digress here to say that the lecturer was not talking from the context of religion when he discussed the big bang theory. His only point was that we humans are all made of the same materials that exist in our universe, which implies a necessity to have a whole scope of nutrients in our diets. We was not inducing a theological discussion on the creation account. The lecturer responded to the lady by informing her that he believes that God created everything and that he is a Christian. I’m sure she was red-faced after that.

I too was wondering where he was going with his discussion of the big bang and other comments regarding creation. I was wondering if he was a practitioner of eastern religions or the like. However, I kept my mouth closed and just listened. It is always a good idea to listen first and gather more data. The lady that interrupted the class did not listen. She did not give the lecturer an opportunity to continue and finish his discussion so that she would understand the whole purpose of it. She instead proceeded to inform the entire assembly how ignorant she and her husband were about the whole thing.

What bothered me the most was that she presented herself as a Christian (or at least one who believes in God as she didn’t say she was, though that was the context). However, she presented herself as an ignorant religious person. I remember thinking how it is no wonder why people don’t like to talk to Christians or religion in general. They many times have to deal with ignorant folks like what that woman and her husband displayed. Perhaps they were new Christians and just overzealous. However, Christianity is already a target by many and there is no need to give Christianity more bad press.

My point here is simply to listen. If you hear something that you don’t agree with then just continue to listen. It’s OK to question the person, but avoid being belligerent. Don’t present yourself as a religious fanatic. Also know what you are talking about when you do speak. This woman must have just been repeating something she heard in church or something that she just presupposed in her mind because her comments were opposite of the facts. The Big Bang supports the Bible’s account of creation. I’m not saying that there was a big bang. However, from a cosmological point of view, the idea is consistent with the creation of the universe in that it presupposes a beginning. I must admit that there are other theories that include the big bang, but not necessarily an absolute beginning of the universe or a God.

Be slow to speak and quick to listen. Discuss differences with wisdom. That woman should have talked with the lecturer after the seminar instead of interrupting the seminar to make her objections known. So listen first and use wisdom when you do speak. It could make Christians “look good” so to speak in that we are seen as objective instead of religions or fanatical. Listen.

A View of God

God is blamed for many things that happen in our lives. He is given credit for good and blamed for the bad. However, does God do things such as throw tornados at us or smash into a town with a hurricane in act of judgment? Is God responsible for the evil or pain that we encounter each day?

I am in the process of reading a book called, “Is God to Blame.” It is a book dealing with the problem of pain issue that we wonder about so much. The author makes a good point that we so quickly forget. The point is that our image of God should not be based on the problems or the mysteries of this world. Our perception of God should come through one source, which God ordained. Our perception of God should come from Jesus Christ. What was Jesus Christ like and what did he do? These are the questions that we answer to find out what God is like and therefore help us to understand that it is not God’s fault that we have so much pain on this earth. As I stated many times in other situations and publications, the earth is a mess primarily because of us.

Now I can’t explain the process of hurricanes killing people and the other effects of natural disasters. However, I can say with confidence that God is not out to destroy us, but to save us. That is why Jesus Christ came in the first place, namely to save his people from their sins (Matthew 1:21).

Our view or perception of God should not be based on world events and the like. God has given us a means to know who he is and what he is like. He has given us Jesus Christ. What did Jesus Christ do? Consider the following scriptures.

[Acts 10:38] how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.

[Hebrews 1:3] who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,…

Here we see a glimpse of God according to the Bible, which is the revelation of God to us. Jesus was anointed by God to do good, which was manifested in healing and liberation of those who were sick and bound. Hebrews tells us that Jesus is indeed the image of God so if we see Jesus then we see God (See also John 1:1, 14; 10:30).

If you want to know what God is like then simply look at Jesus Christ. The Bible shows us that there is a war going on between God and the forces of evil. God wins in the end, but there is still a war going on at the moment.

Now there are some that hold that every situation and every event on the earth is orchestrated or in accordance with God’s will. That is not true. The Bible shows us that there is a war going on and that sometimes God’s will is not what happens because of what Jesus had to do for example. Do you think a couples’ daughter who was killed by a rapists is somehow God’s will? Do you think thousands of people dying in a natural disaster is God’s will? Of course it’s not. If it was God’s will then why should we send money and supplies to charitable organizations to help the tsunami victims for example? We would do better to stay within God’s will and let them all die if that statement or philosophy were true. We help those unfortunate people because we are acting on the love of God that is in us, which is to comfort and help those in need.

Marriage Corner—Dissillusionment

There are many people disillusioned about marriage. They get married and find that marriage is not what they thought it would be. Actually, they think that marriage to this particular person is not what they thought it would be. We all come to a marriage with certain ideals. Your ideals were developed over a long period of time and you expect your spouse to coincide with your ideals. The problem is that her ideals might be very different and even contradictory to yours. Friction starts and disillusionment sets in.

We no longer see this person as the love of our life or the one and only one. Your spouse becomes merely another human being and you begin to have issues in the relationship. This is normal and is a phenomenon in any relationship. We all experience this. The thing to do however is to simply deal with it and get over it.

Actually I should say, “get over it.” It is more like work through it. Learn that your spouse is a human too and he or she is not perfect just as you are not perfect. He or she has issues and idiosyncrasies that you would never see while courting. I recall the comments of a couple that I met once who were married for something like 40 years or more. They both said that the key to their marital longevity and sustained love for one another was partly due to the fact that they accepted the other person for who he or she was. They stopped trying to change the person and just deal with and become content with what was present.

I warn couples in pre-marital counseling disillusionment because it will sneak up on them and be the beginning of the end of the relationship. So remember, even if you have been married for many years, that you are probably not going to change your spouse so learn to live with him or her. Accept him or her for who he or she is and begin to enjoy your life with him or her.

Balance and the Enjoyment of Your Life

I have a personal philosophy that we should enjoy our lives as much as we can. We get so busy doing this and doing the other thing that we forget about just enjoying the life that we have. There is so much to do and yet we forget that we should at least find pleasure in the course of our life.

Ecclesiastes is what got me thinking this way. Ecclesiastes instructs us to enjoy the fruits of our labor and such enjoyment is the gift of God. However, many of us go from day to day without any enjoyment. Perhaps you are in a situation that is not enjoyable. Well that doesn’t mean that you have to stay there. Begin to pursue what you enjoy of course with wisdom and in accordance with God’s will and way. Why go through life working real hard and get nothing from it.

However, we must have balance. Ecclesiastes also tells us that there is a time to work and a time to play….Well not really, but the gist of the Ecclesiastes 3 is that there is a time for everything under the sun. However, there is a time to work and a time to play. We have to have balance. There is a time to sleep and a time to get up. There is a time to eat and a time to stop eating. We have to be balance in all that we do. This also promotes good health and a good life in my opinion.

Questions

What was the Sea of Galilee and what other names was it called?

What was significant about Jesus feeding the five thousand men and more as recorded in Mark chapter 6)

Why do you suppose dinosaurs are not in the Bible?

Answers from last month.

What does the word envy mean? Envy is a feeling of discontent and resentment aroused by and in conjunction with desire for the possessions or qualities of another. It is to have ill feelings towards someone because of something he or she has that you want.

What does the word jealous mean? Jealous means to demand loyalty or to be intolerant of infidelity.

Explain how God is a jealous God. God demans our total loyalty to him. There are no other Gods. God does not share who he is and what he is to us with no other false Gods. There is only one true God and he does not accept your partial allegiance to him. We are to be totally loyal to God and God alone. God is jealous because that is what he demands of us in our relationship with him.

Describe "good.” Good is a relative term. However, the Bible tells us that God is good. God is what good really is so that if we really want to know what good is then we need to turn to God. To us something is good when it makes us feel good. However, we know from life’s experiences that even some things that are unpleasant are good for us.

Do you have a question. Feel free to send your questions to question@pursuingthetruth.org.

_______________________________________________________

You are receiving this email because you joined the email newsletter list of Pursuing the Truth Ministries.  If you wish to unsubscribe then simply send an email to support@pursuingthetruth.org and we'll remove your email address.