"You Can't Believe What You Don't"

These are interesting thoughts on belief and unbelief. Is it true what he says that you can't believe what you don't? If so, this must inform how we talk about faith and our beliefs. Addressing even the hard issues of our faith seems to be a better approaching than sweeping them under the rug and hoping others don't notice. If we aren't addressing the hard issues, it is because we ourselves doubt on some level that the object of our faith can withstand the questioning. A genuine search for truth asks the hard questions, even after having found what he/she believes to be the source of that truth. If we ever stop asking the hard questions, we either prove ourselves lazy or afraid of being wrong and unwilling to change. We must look into the face of our own doubts, if we're ever going to honestly walk with others through theirs.

a little off the mark

Here's a little something I learned in my Exegesis of Revelation class. Hope you enjoy. The mark of the beast in Revelation is said to be put on either the forehead or the right hand. One's forehead is the place of perception. The right hand is the place of doing. In light of that, if one lives one's life with a world-view centered on anything but Jesus, or if one's actions are not centered on Jesus, that person has the mark of the beast. In fact, that is the mark of the beast.

If however, one's world-view and actions are centered on Christ, that person has the mark of God.

never heard that before.

a long shot

So Brett Cheek and I just emailed a guy named Andy about jobs with 24-7 Prayer in London (England, not Kentucky). Please pray for us about this (This is begging).

Thanks!

Jason

Holy Ground

So the message I preached on Sunday took a turn on Saturday morning. I was doing some last minute prayer and preparation, and I felt like the Spirit had something to say. I was planning on talking about Moses and Exodus and wrapping up our 2-month series on listening to God. I wasn't ready for what He actually had to say.

Here's how it ended:


God is not silent. He is not even quiet. God is screaming through the cries of 30,000 children dying every day as a result of poverty. He is screaming through the voices of countless women and children in Thailand and India who are being forced into slavery and prostitution. God is crying out through the cries of the hopeless teenagers and men and women who are addicted to pornography, who are addicted to alcohol, who are addicted to drugs. God is crying through the voices of the 15% of Americans who suffer from severe depression. God is calling out through the desperate prayers of the lonely, of the rejected, of the sexually abused, and of the billions of people worldwide who have yet to find hope in Jesus Christ.

"God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house. God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives. God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war. God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives and God is with us if we are with them." -the prophet Bono

So the next time you encounter an overlooked homeless woman in Triangle Park or a forgotten Alzheimer's patient in the nursing home, it would be appropriate to take off your shoes, for in that moment you are on holy ground.