Neat videos!

LivingWaters.com posted this cartoon. I hope you enjoy it!



Wow, watch this!

Some very interesting websites

One reader has directed my attention to a very good, Biblically based website. She listed another, but I tried http://www.gotquestions.org. I'm briefly looking at it right now, but just looking at their faith statemen, and I'm already impressed. I'll visit the other site sometime later.

I'll post a link for my church's website. Just for the record, I belong to a church who belongs to the Evangelical Free Churches of America, a smaller, but mainline denomination which has pretty much the same faith statement of http://www.gotquestions.org. The wording is a little different, but the ideas are the same. If you want to know more about EFCA, please visit http://www.efca.org. The church I belong to also has a website, http://www.springlakechurch.org. You can listen to past sermons, look at some of our media, contact the pastors/staff, etc. What kind of sermons will you find, dear reader. Well, as an example, starting on October 23 and 24, a study of the entire Bible, book by book, and I believe starting on the diety of Christ although I could be mistaken about the series timeline. It will take an entire year, but it should be, to say the least, very informative. I look forward to it!

God Bless!

Previous Comments

In a comment made by one of my readers, he pointed out that I made a mistake when I compared universal unitarianism and biblical unitarianism. I meant to use the word universal unitarianism in my post. I apologize for this confusion and will try to edit my previous post. They both seem to have a common conception of who God really is… That He doesn’t exist as three persons of the Trinity, but rather in a one God and from what I’ve researched (just briefly, mind you), they have a related background in Arianism (not associated with the Nazi political system). For a starting point, visit wikipedia on Unitarianism and Arianism. As for “Paul referenced the Sacrifice of Jesus as being a complete sacrifice because he was both Man and God”, I was referencing Hebrews (which many scholars attribute to Paul, although some attribute it to other writers of the Bible, or some unknown preacher). I was actually reading this Scripture, which hangs on my wall as a reminder that God in the form of Jesu, stepped down from eternity to experience what I’m going through, so he could feel the full effects of sin and therefore be trusted by me with the work that was set before Him because of the fall. In Hebrews 2:17-18 it states “For this reason, he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.” The reasoning behind why I used this argument is simply this; why would a mere man, exalted though he may be, be able to emphathize with those of us who are being tempted today? He can’t, because he’s not God! I also used this verse because it references the fact that Jesus “had to be made like his brothers in every way”. If something has “to be made[…]” than it must have existed in some form before it had to conformed to something else. I use the word “it” in this manner to demonstrate and communicate an idea. Unfortunately, modern English does not have many choices for gender nuetral personal pronouns. Basically, we only have “she”, “he”, “it”, “they” and variations of these forms. We used to have more but various invasions in the mother country (England), rejection of certain forms of English by kings and rulers in favor of others, and trade with other nations got rid of the other forms and thus created even more ambiguity in the English language. I, by no means, meant any disrespect!

Gods Peace be with you!

Trinity, yet again. Sorry it took so long to blog… been working and have had other issues.

I’m sorry if my previous post makes some think that I believe Jesus was a flawed individual. He was sinless, a perfect sacrifice for our sin and sinful nature, because he was not only a man, but God Himself, coming to live and dwell with us. He was tempted as a man to sin, but because He Himself had God’s perfect nature, and because He was to be the perfect, holy sacrifice for our sins. He remained pure in the flesh (didn’t commit any sin at all) to fulfill what the Father had set in motion before time began. Which by the way, proves that He’s was and is more than just a mere human, since given a chance, those of us who are just human give way to sin. ALL of us who are merely human give into temptation. Jesus did not give into temptation, which means that although Jesus was part of creation, something about Him had to be special, something more than human. He had to live among us imperfect people and feel what it was like to be tempted, yet still retain His perfection in order to be a complete and perfect sacrifice! The only one in creation that is completely holy and perfect is God! So, it’s not too much of stretch in logic to believe that Jesus must also be God, since God is the only one capable of pulling this off.

I’m merely stating that some people believe that a flawed individual, someone who is just merely human could have saved us from sin. Think about it… People born into this world are tainted by sin. Correct? Something must have happened to Jesus before He was born in order to keep that orginal sin from tainting Him, or else God’s plan of salvation would not work. God demands a perfect sacrifice to cover sin. God must of held back that orginal sin stain from His Son so he wouldn’t be a tainted sacrifice (like a lamb, ox, dove etc. because they were affected by the fall and a temporary fix to the problem). He had never done this through another human during the course of history (even in the Old Testament, and most Christians believe that the references to sacrifice et al in the OT point to Jesus in the New Testament).

God sent His Son…

In order to start finding the answer of who Jesus really was, we must ask the following: when was Jesus sent by the Father? Remember when Mary the mother of Jesus asked to help in Cana (Gospel of John). He was asked by her to help with the little trouble of wine running out before the wedding feast was completed. He told her that His time had not come. It wasn’t the time nor the place to perform miracles, even though He was capable of doing so at any moment. But, in order to be obedient to His mother and follow the commandent to honor His parents, He did what He was asked. This was before His baptism (which was a public acknowledgment by the Father and Holy Spirit that Jesus was the Son of God) and before the Holy Spirit sent Him into the wilderness to fast for 40 days/nights.

So, Jesus must have been sent before His baptism. Let’s travel further back in Jesus’s earthly history. Jesus was at the temple at the age of 12 (Luke 2:41). His parents had taken Him there for the festival and realized on the way home that He was not with them. He was back at the temple, teaching the teachers, and they marveled at His wisdom and understanding of the Law and Prophets. Was He sent at this time? No. Let’s go back even further to around the age of 2 or 3 (Matt 2) when the three wise men visited Him. They pronounced Him “king of the Jews” and they had “come to worship Him (Matt 2:1). This is important even though they were probably Zoroastrians (one god with a nature for good and evil, both equally balanced), they recognized this Baby, who was God enough to be worshiped. These men were well educated, though completely pagan, but worshiped Him as God. They risked life and limb, crossing into enemy terratory to worship Jesus. But, back to the question at hand. Was it at this time that Jesus was sent by the Father? No. Go back even further, to the Gospel of Luke chapter 1. The angel of God came to Mary and says that she will have a Son. Mary asks, rightly so, “how can this be, since I am still a virgin?”. The angel says that the Holy Spirit will come to her, and the power of the Most High God will overshadow her, so the one to be born to her would be called the Son of God. Now as stated before, the only one Being that could be called legitamately holy (set apart from humans and not defiled, not to be confused with a title, such as “holy mountain”. Rather, it’s a state of being.), especially when said by an angel (Isaiah 6:3 and aforementioned). Is the angel committing blasphemy? By no means! Then the message that he just delivered about the Son of God would be false and would tarnish the validity of the entire salvation plan of God! No Godly angel in his right mind would do such a thing!

Let’s go back even further. In order for something to be sent, it must have existed at some point in time. We cannot send something unless it has existed in the first place. We are created beings, part of creation. Right? God will not and cannot not violate the Rules that He has set up for His creation, or there would be chaos. That would go against His divine nature. Then it would stand to reason that Jesus must have existed before His birth, since God would not send something that didn’t exist because He will not violate His own laws. God does communicate ideas, via the Scriptures, but He doesn’t send them, just like we don’t send ideas, but communicate these ideas with each other in logical, identifiable formats or patterns.

I hope this clarifies things a little. I’m sorry if anyone took my previous postings as an attack. It wasn’t meant to be… I just wanted (and will continue) to point out what I believe to be true and what other people believe to be true the light of Scripture. I’ll post more later on, but now, it’s getting late, and I’m rather tired.

Good night, and God Bless!