People of the Fire

“Whatever we build on that foundation will be tested by fire on the day of judgment. Then everyone will find out if we have used gold, silver, and precious stones, or wood, hay, and straw. We will be rewarded if our building is left standing. But if it is destroyed by the fire, we will lose everything. Yet we ourselves will be saved, like someone escaping from flames.”

1Cor. 3:12-15, CEV

“The fire doesn’t make you what you are; it reveals what you were.”

Jack Hyles

Christianity at the end will basically an incendiary endeavor. We understand this and know the need for quality, which we should be building into our lives. What makes us think this is that fire is the metaphor that describes what the Holy Spirit is doing. A torch will be set to ones construction. This sounds all wrong and yet it does explain our built-in need of proving what is authentic. Our building supplies may vary, and the quality will need to be continuously monitored. Things that are real, will last.

When we see the torch thrown on the pile, we must get ready for it to burn all that can be burned. This is undoubtedly an unpleasant and anxious process, but it happens no matter what we think. Only fire will determine our authenticity. As it burns, only precious jewels, gold and silver show a magnificent durability. The rest is reduced to ashes. Things of permanence are left when everything is burned away. We rake through the ash piles looking for the things that have endured. Gold and silver, red rubies and glittering diamonds are that which will survive. The fire could not destroy these precious things.

For years this passage has frightened me. My anxiety over this has grown when I actively consider the negligence and foolishness of my life. When I think about what could be, I’m intimidated by this principle of testing, and the ‘Day of Judgement’. It is hard for me to rest in grace on these days.

I guess I feel responsibility, accountability and my awareness of shame. I have lived my life somewhat ‘frantically’, which has disturbing consequences for me. I don’t want them. I do not want to be evaluated with the torch. The day of judgement frightens me. I do not want to be brought to terms with my mammoth sized foolishness. It makes me very nervous.

But my reading of the Word makes judgement inevitable. But we have been given time and space to change our lives. There is no way we can skirt this reality, the man who was building could choose any foundation he wished– would it be the rock, or the sand? It’s all on you. It’s your call.

The Judgement Day !!!! (dabholkarmadhura.wordpress.com)
Judgement Day is here (themiddlegeneration.wordpress.com)

Making Stripes

I was watching the crew painting stripes in a parking lot. They were methodical and aware, I suppose. I suppose I wondered how they do what they do. I’ve been curious to understand exactly how they can get such straight lines. Perhaps you have seen them. They are as straight as you can get.

As I watched them work, there was an instructive moment. They brought out a “chalk line” and measured out 15 to 20 feet. They snapped the line which was perfectly straight. All of a sudden there was a wonderfully perfect line of chalk. The painters would use this line as they painted the yellow stripe.

As I watched, I felt the presence of the Holy Spirit. He is in a habit of using such things. I considered everything I saw. The chalk, and the line gave me a sense of this present age. In a sense, it was the temporariness of this present moment. The chalk line was merely temporary. It did provide a straight line which the permanent line of paint could use. The chalk line made the paint line precise and accurate.

Reflecting on this, I renewed my vision from the temporal to the eternal. This present life is all chalk. We lay it out, but eternity will paint the line. We do what we must, to make sure our chalk lines are straight. But we also understand that all we do. is temporary. Chalk can easily be washed away. Our heart, to be precise, can easily become nothing.

The yellow paint of the lines, is quite permanent. As they are painstakingly laid out, they cover our chalk with permanence. This is quite amazing (to me, anyway). What is chalk is only the precursor to what is permanent. We must see through this if we will understand what is real, and true.

The chalk lines represent this life. All that we do is significant as it effects our ability to make the lines. But eternity, follows the lines we lay down. If we are somehow negligent, we will never lay down anything straight. We must put down the line that will become eternal and everlasting.

All that we do is chalk, but I truly believe that it has to be significant. What we lay down, in chalk form, becomes a certain eternal value. We direct where the paint will go. And perhaps that is all that is necessary.

ybic, Bryan

Chalk Line Beginnings (bethparkerart.wordpress.com)
Look of the Day: Striped Out (fabsugar.com)
Magic stripes the filled the sky (cassandracamua.wordpress.com)

DOA: How Faith Killed My Faith in Atheism

(In this essay, writer Lee Strobel offers his defense of Easter.)

It was the worst news I could get as an atheist: my agnostic wife had decided to become a Christian. Two words shot through my mind. The first was an expletive; the second was “divorce.”

I thought she was going to turn into a self-righteous holy roller. But over the following months, I was intrigued by the positive changes in her character and values. Finally, I decided to take my journalism and legal training (I was legal editor of the Chicago Tribune) and systematically investigate whether there was any credibility to Christianity.

Maybe, I figured, I could extricate her from this cult.

I quickly determined that the alleged resurrection of Jesus was the key. Anyone can claim to be divine, but if Jesus backed up his claim by returning from the dead, then that was awfully good evidence he was telling the truth.

For nearly two years, I explored the minutia of the historical data on whether Easter was myth or reality. I didn’t merely accept the New Testament at face value; I was determined only to consider facts that were well-supported historically. As my investigation unfolded, my atheism began to buckle.

Was Jesus really executed? In my opinion, the evidence is so strong that even atheist historian Gerd Lüdemann said his death by crucifixion was “indisputable.”

Was Jesus’ tomb empty? Scholar William Lane Craig points out that its location was known to Christians and non-Christians alike. So if it hadn’t been empty, it would have been impossible for a movement founded on the resurrection to have exploded into existence in the same city where Jesus had been publicly executed just a few weeks before.

Besides, even Jesus’ opponents implicitly admitted the tomb was vacant by saying that his body had been stolen. But nobody had a motive for taking the body, especially the disciples. They wouldn’t have been willing to die brutal martyrs’ deaths if they knew this was all a lie.

Did anyone see Jesus alive again? I have identified at least eight ancient sources, both inside and outside the New Testament, that in my view confirm the apostles’ conviction that they encountered the resurrected Christ. Repeatedly, these sources stood strong when I tried to discredit them.

Could these encounters have been hallucinations? No way, experts told me. Hallucinations occur in individual brains, like dreams, yet, according to the Bible, Jesus appeared to groups of people on three different occasions – including 500 at once!

Was this some other sort of vision, perhaps prompted by the apostles’ grief over their leader’s execution? This wouldn’t explain the dramatic conversion of Saul, an opponent of Christians, or James, the once-skeptical half-brother of Jesus.

Neither was primed for a vision, yet each saw the risen Jesus and later died proclaiming he had appeared to him. Besides, if these were visions, the body would still have been in the tomb.

Was the resurrection simply the recasting of ancient mythology, akin to the fanciful tales of Osiris or Mithras? If you want to see a historian laugh out loud, bring up that kind of pop-culture nonsense.

One by one, my objections evaporated. I read books by skeptics, but their counter-arguments crumbled under the weight of the historical data. No wonder atheists so often come up short in scholarly debates over the resurrection.

In the end, after I had thoroughly investigated the matter, I reached an unexpected conclusion: it would actually take more faith to maintain my atheism than to become a follower of Jesus.

And that’s why I’m now celebrating my 30th Easter as a Christian. Not because of wishful thinking, the fear of death, or the need for a psychological crutch, but because of the facts.

*******

Lee Strobel wrote “The Case for Easter: Journalist Investigates the Evidence for the Resurrection“; his first novel, “The Ambition,” releases May 17.

Please check out some really great stuff at “Speak Easy” from the WSJ. This was taken, and should be greatly acknowledged from http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2011/04/16/how-easter-killed-my-faith-in-atheism/. I discovered several interesting articles there and encourage all BB’ers to take a minute and check it all out. Go WSJ!

Lee Strobel is a “hotshot” writer/thinker/ex-atheist who has embraced an evangelical faith. In many circles he is recognized as a leader in the specifics of Apologetics. He is worth reading.

You also may checkout Wikipedia.org about the “resurrection.” The link is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resurrection_of_Jesus. (Just a fleeting thought. But it’s a bit interesting.)