Skepticism

Someone said, "Whenever there is a hard question, Americans will quickly give an answer whether it is wrong or right. Germans will discuss it for an hour and come with an answer. The French will talk about if for an hour and say, there is no need for an answer. An Indian will discuss it and say there is no answer."

Skepticism can imprison you. You start questioning truth and the meaningfulness of anything and everything. Actually, if you take that kind of a route, you can't prove anything. I could take the route of hard doubt and dispute every claim of yours. You will be hard put to prove that you had lunch yesterday, that you have passed high school, or that you have money in the bank. Pliny the Elder said in Historia Naturalis, "The only thing that is certain is that nothing is certain." If that is true then statement is false; if it is false, it is false any way. You can't say nothing is certain. Skepticism can become a prison, because it does not give you anything to believe. Skepticism tends to and turns to slow suicide. Everything becomes relative. There is an answer for the skeptics among you .

Doubt

Recently, a person said if people gave him money, he would make them all rich. Gullible people invested with this man, and they lost all they had. Another person claimed he had this strange ointment which would make bald people grow hair. His scam was unveiled when someone unknowingly bumped him and his hat fell off. Guess what? He was bald himself. Another said he had found the secret to long life. Now people are waiting to see if it works on him!

Doubt , especially honest doubt is good. It keeps us from being gullible. Skepticism, on the other hand, is not good. I'm going to define skepticism as "dishonest doubt. "

Some skeptics in early philosophy classes doubted that they themselves existed. They went about asking questions like, "Do I exist?" By the way, if any one asks you, "Do I exist?" Ask him if he is serious. If he says, "Yes!" Ask him who is asking the question. If he says, "I am." He has just confirmed his existence.

All unusual claims need to be doubted, but in honest doubt. The issue is not doubt per se. The issue is on what terms you will accept something, some statement, some event as true. That's were the difference is between doubt and skepticism.

Those who aren't willing to accept anything as true are prisoners to skepticism—dishonest doubt. They take a hard approach on all aspects of life.

Choose Life

Your body is more than your clothes, even though some say, “clothes make the person.” The person is far more important than clothes—or else you are not you when you are in the shower!

When you invite the Son of God to be your only Savior, God takes up residence inside you, inside your being, giving you power over your body, providing strength for endurance, and supplying divine help for all your problems.

So, I invite you to receive God’s life. Entrust yourself to the only God who became a human--becoming human included a human body. And then beat the biggest body problem you and I will ever face—the problem of death forever. He offers you eternal life, the very life of God. If you embrace him, the very life of God will start living inside you today.

If you don't entrust yourself to Him, you not only face the limitation of the body journeying to physical death, you will be headed on to eternal death.

We know you didn't ask to be born. But you can ask to be immediately. freed from the spiritual detriment of your body. One day you can be freed from its physical, earthly limitations as well. Your body will be unhindered, unlimited, uninhibited by space, time and death.

The Redemption

Did you know that the Creator gave the best possible compliment to the human body, by becoming man? He chose to be born like you are. He faced blood, sweat, and tears like you do. He was hungry and thirsty like we are. He wept like we did. He knew what it is to walk in our shoes.

Later He was killed. When a person is murdered, especially in prolonged brutality, their body feels the pain. He certainly felt this pain.

So the Creator God who became man for our rescue, knew bodily imprisonment was. But it did not limit His spiritual purpose. He used His body to do God's will. I don't want a God who doesn't know what it is to live in a body like me and then face the terror and termination of death.

On the third day, after His death, the God-Man rose again. Not just in some spiritual sense, but in body.

The only way you can beat your physical imprisonment forever is to entrust yourself to the One who became a body and beat the body-problem. While alive, He served God's will; when He died, He died in God's will; when He rose again--the only self-resurrection in history, He was solving our body problem for ever.

You too can one day have a body that is unlimited, unhindered, and uninhibited. Your body need not be a spiritual detriment to your present life at all. This is His eternal offer for you – when you choose to embrace Him.

What do you think?

The Remedy

I have got good news for you about freedom from your life imprisonment. Our imprisonment is self imposed, which means we can ask for help to get out of our prison. This is good news because you can change your negative view of your body.

Many people dichotomize between your material part and immaterial part and feel constrained by your material part. But you shouldn't do that. Your body is not intrinsically evil. Your body is part of you. Don't separate yourself from your body. We identify and re-identify you by your body, because your body shows similarity between yesterday and today. Your body is part of the person that you call you.

Yes, the body has limitations of space and time. But it is possible to overcome those limitations eventually.

How? Let's start at the very beginning. You—which includes your body, were designed and created by God. God made the body--your body. In fact, God intricately formed you in your mother's womb. When God first made the first human body--it was perfect--it couldn't die, it couldn't deteriorate with age, it was part of man's perfect communication and communion with God.

When man rebelled against God, physical death, and its attendant conditions, aging, wrinkles, and weaknesses invaded the human race. Our bodies became subject to groaning, deterioration, and death. That's why we die, because our body dies.


Yet, I offer you the last great hope of humanity. Your body can be completely remade and restructured so that the hindrances of physical imprisonment that you presently feel will never be permanent. Would you like to know how?

Physical Imprisonment

I was thinking...

Have you noticed that your body, I mean your physical body, keeps following you around? You can never leave it anywhere can you? Like a coat or an umbrella that you forget?

We are geographically imprisoned because of our bodies. Unlike birds which fly, we can't carry ourselves too far. A bird just decides, revs up its wings, and flies to wherever it wants.

I wish I could fly. Humans have been ingenious in inventing automobiles and airplanes to transport us to places. But we are dependent on others to takes us places. Will I ever be free?

Others try to trick this bodily dilemma with mental maneuvers. We take mental flights into other worlds, to a netherworld and beyond. Our imagination helps us transcend bodily limitations to wherever we want.

Yet others spend time daydreaming about their future, girlfriend, or business. This amazing thing called the mind helps you move through space. One moment, I remember visiting Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe, at another moment the Taj Mahal in Agra, India and yet another Empire State Building in New York. Even as I write I am able to do that, even in rapid succession. But I still am sitting inside a studio with my body hanging around all over me talking to you. Will I ever be free?

Yes, the body has limitations of space and time. But it is possible to overcome those limitations, some day, one day, eventually…and for sure.

Fighting God

I was thinking...

God has a purpose for you, His moral purpose and expectations. For instance, He expects people to treat each other in a respectful manner. Actually He has a purpose for the whole world. And you contest it. You say you want to set up and rule in your own kingdom, and pursue your own purposes, and not serve God's kingdom.

Now, you may certainly contest and challenge God, but you will never overthrow him. That’s a permanent personal frustration! Or you not contest God, but you do not have the power to do what you know to be right. That’s the personal problem of lack of power, even if you have the wish.

You have a weakened will--incompatible with and disproportionate to what you really need. It’s like trying to use a cell-phone battery to run your car. The battery really has power, but it is to be used for something else.

You also notice that you don't have control over your own will. Your will is influenced by a number of factors. For example, social factors influence your will. You do what peers in society think is right, even though you know what society thinks is right is wrong.

So how do you stop fighting God and start pleasing him? By embracing the his initiative. God has taken the initiative to bridge the gap that you have created between him and you by your moral departure. We couldn't reach Him.

He has reached us.

The Moral Problem

I was thinking...

The basic human problem in relation to truth and God is a moral problem. The Bible says, "A fool says in his heart 'there is no God.'" He has not said it in his head! If we said it in our head, we could have done something about the problem, but since we say it in our hearts, our heart is the problem. You are your own problem.

While you have willfully and morally departed from God, you can’t claim ignorance. You have some knowledge, even some knowledge of what is right. Those kinds of things are written on your conscience and in your heart. Unfortunately, your willful, moral rebellion clouds your reading of your own heart and conscience.

Evidence of moral departure includes the fact that you think yourself morally superior to others. You should instead compare yourself with God's perfection morality!. Evidence of moral departure includes the fact that you think you can somehow reach God on your own terms, instead of submitting to God's terms to access him. Evidence of moral departure includes the fact that you think you are basically good and do good rather than being basically bad and doing bad. Here you are completely disqualified from perfection because you have at least done one bad thing in your life, but you only count the good things in your life.

You are found guilty, before God’s perfection.

And yet there’s hope of freedom.

Bondage

I was thinking...

Impatience is problem which affects many people. We all know that we should not lose our patience, but all of our knowledge doesn't give us the power to do what we have to do. It doesn't give us the power to do that which is right to do, that which must be done.

Why? Your will is in bondage. Haven't you often done something wrong and wished you hadn't done it? It fills you with remorse as you wonder, "How can I of all people have engaged in such debauchery?"

That is why you are sometimes filled with apathy, because you have gotten so used to doing wrong things that often it doesn't even bother you.

You have to ask,”Who is my will serving? And if it is serving who should be served? And if it isn’t serving who should be served, is it really my will?

Your basic problem is willful, moral departure from the truth. All humans have willfully and morally rebelled against God and that leads to intellectual difficulties with God.

God's Word says, "The fool has said in his heart there is no God." He has not said it in his head. If he had said it in his head, we could have done something about you. Since you say it in your heart, you have a heart problem. I can't do anything for you. But God can. The Truth Can. The Son can.

Are you enslaved?

Patience

I was thinking... about the phrase, "The bondage of the will.” Have you ever heard that phrase? We all experience it often.

Have you ever noticed that what you want to do, you don't do; what you should do, you don't do; and what you don't want to do and shouldn't do, you keep doing? Do you relate to that? It’s a universal problem.

Consider the simple matter of patience and impatience:

Let's say you are driving and somebody cuts in front of you. You hit the brakes with a vehemence and lay your hands on the horn with a vengeance. But the offender is oblivious to your attention getter. He thinks you greeted him with a rather fine "good morning." So you get even angrier. You want to cut back in front of him.

Or, you want to be more patient with your kids or your spouse, and guess what you are not! You know you should be more patient--they really haven't done anything against you. But you are impatient. It is not a case of not knowing what should be done. You are not even able to do what you know should be done. And that is frustrating!

Why? Your will is in bondage. You have to ask; who is my will serving? Can my will be freed?

What do you think?

Freedom

I was thinking...

Consider the prisoner who when given the opportunity to walk away from jail, to be free forever, says that he likes it in there! He gets his food, water, clothing, and shelter. He thinks to himself, "I am satisfied."


We would all think odd of the convict who wants to stay inside the jail for the rest of his life, even when the door is opened, the keys thrown away, and he could walk free. We may even have pity on him.

Has it ever occurred to you; you have been offered freedom from the spiritual sentence that you are serving in a self-made jail?

Do you need freedom, freedom from the prisons in which you live? From a body prison? You can be freed from seeing it as a detriment to viewing it as a compliment to your existence.

Do you need freedom from the soul-psychological prison in which you live? You can be freed from the histories that you have accumulated--personal, cultural, relational bondages of the past. Do you need freedom from the spiritual prison in which you find yourself? God’s Son liberates you from spiritual bondage, now and forever.

His own declaration of truth was that he came to set the captives free!

Ultimately, all bondage is sourced in your wrong doings, in your sin. God attacks the source, demolishes it, proclaims victory, so you can live and walk in freedom from wrong perspectives, practices, and prisons.


Tell me do you want to stay in prison or move out?

What do you think?

Global Economic Crisis, Personal Heart Checks

Global Economic Crisis,

Personal Heart Checks

By: Ramesh Richard

“How is the global financial crisis affecting you?” I asked a wealthy friend. He responded, “I’m having to reassess everything about money, especially my heart.” Reassessment should be a continuous heart-exercise. Solomon recommends that we constantly check our hearts, because the strategies of life flow out of it (Prov. 4:23). The biblical “heart” stands not only for the emotion and the mind, but also for the will that controls life.

I wrote down seven questions of heart-reassessment about money which we can ask ourselves. My only recommendation in this New Year’s exercise: be ruthlessly honest with yourself and invite the Spirit’s probing leadership. You’ll be surprised and comforted.

1. Ideas: What are my ideas concerning the good life? Am I confusing quality and quantity in my understanding? How can I get away from a “numbers” view of life?

2. Beliefs: How do I discern true beliefs from erroneous ones about God and mammon? How do I prudently use my finances? What do I believe is God’s role in providing for both the system and opportunity of making money?

3. Values: Which persons or possessions matter to me the most? Why? If a forest fire was encroaching to snuff out my home what would I take with me? My kids used to think I’d run with my computer first! I have since changed that value.

4. Sources: In whom or what do I trust? Where does my source of security, purpose, and joy lie? Do I consider money as merely a means to peace or the true source of existential peace? How can I be sure?

5. Relationships: In my relationship to people and things, how am I faring with covenantal responsibilities (i.e., to spouse), and those to whom I am connected genetically (i.e., kids, parents, siblings, etc.) and spiritually (believers, close and far off)?

6. Goals: Is money the goal of my life? A man wondered at 35, “If money was not an object, what would I set out to do?” Now at 70, he notes, “Money is not an object anymore, and I still don’t know what to do!”

7. Habits: Are my principles, priorities, and practices of earning, spending, giving money, etc. usually integrated? How do I deal with my own irrational thinking, incorrect believing, and/or impulsive doing in money matters?

After answering me, my friend returned the question: “How are you affected by the global crisis?” As a novice in money-making, I moved the conversation to a ministry level. I see this global season as a deep time of ministry opportunity.

• Opportunity to repent personally and church-wide for self-centeredness and self-sufficiency, both being tested right now. I sent out an e-mail challenging churches to find five minutes for prayer in their Sunday services before the U.S. election. A couple of pastors wrote back that they couldn’t afford five minutes to pray during services!

• Opportunity to capture this moment of increased personal awareness of spiritual deficit in the deepest, fastest, and widest possible ways for ministry. At the highest levels, our finest leaders are finally and publicly acknowledging the limitations of their intellectual abilities and capabilities. Let’s point them heavenwards.

• Opportunity to help those who are worse-off than us, “to do good to all people, especially to those in the household of faith” (Gal 6:10). I especially think of pastors under terrific economic pressure, or social persecution, or those affected by natural disaster. I know one country where you can only withdraw up to the equivalent of two U.S. dollars each day from the bank, but you spend that much to go on the bus to the bank. It is imperative that we help those in the family of believers at this time.




P.S. A banker friend recently told me, “since most people are worth 30% to 50% less than they were at the beginning of 2008 and are reticent to give, simply say a kind word and be there for the leaders of non-profits.” I am making it my goal to do just that in my sphere of Christian leaders, just like my friends have always been there for me. Thank you in advance and in anticipation for the gift of your presence.

IMPRISONMENT

I was thinking...

By definition, God has no human limitations, earthly inhibitions, or physical hindrances. So you will never be and can never be God. You are human, and being human, you are bound and destined to be in a prison.

At this very moment, you serve a a sentence in one or more of the following prisons:

1. Everyone is imprisoned in a physical prison (we must always live life in our physical bodies).

2. Many are in a psychological prison (connected to their souls).

3. And many more are in a spiritual prison (connected their spirits).


I have news for you; there is a key that can set you free! I too served in a prison view of life. But I bring you this message not from a spiritual prison, but from the advantage of having been freed.

Of course, if life itself is the sentence, why do we put bad people under a life sentence? That practice itself tells you that there is more to this life, than spending time incarcerated in a jail..

I want to give you hope from the One who makes people free. He can free you from your charge, without charge. He frees you from your prison, and puts up a sign in front of the door saying, "no admission." Wow!

The truth shall make you free. You’ve got to receive the truth to make you free. The truth said of himself, “If the Son shall make you free you shall be free indeed.”

What do you think?

What is Life?

I was thinking...

Part of being human is the desire to know the answer to abstract questions that no other creature on earth asks. Recently I asked myself, "What’s life?" This is one question your dog doesn't ask and your computer doesn't ask, but because you are human, you ask it.

And I hope it’s a question you ask with hope . . . a question you ask as though there should be a satisfactory answer.

You may ask this question like a philosopher does. But all too often theoretical findings do not often translate into practical realities. You could ask this question as a psychologist. But a generic answer doesn't help. You may even ask this question as a physician or a scientist doing brain research. But identifying the physical cause does not give you a satisfying answer to our primary question, “What is Life?”

I suggest you ask this question as a searcher--in the quest for life, truth, and meaning.

In your search for what life is, you may come up with an answer like this:

Life is imprisonment. It feels like we are serving time in a meaningless sentence. It seems like we are dealt this life and we have to somehow put up with it. After all, we didn't ask to be born. Some people really do feel that they are serving a life sentence. Or, more truly a death sentence!


Would do you like to stay in a spiritual prison? or be freed?? You can be freed from a prison view of life. Being freed by someone, Life’s freedom giver, who makes you free. Since the truth shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.

Would you like to experience this freedom? Would you like life to have purpose?

What do you think?