Helping People Develop Roots & Wings
Note: Originally posted in November 2011, and these photos were not taken with a telescopic lens.
If you are ever in Western South Dakota, I would highly recommend visiting Custer State Park. Here are a few pictures from our visit there yesterday:
What really matters to you? And is your life aligned around it?
Two crucial questions that have the power to re-shape our lives.
For many of us, our life is cluttered with things that are not really that important.
Living a fulfilled life is about learning to clean out the clutter and focus on what really matters.
There are two types of things that really matter to us. The first category consists of things that make us personally feel good and whole. These include economic security, intellectual stimulation, rewarding work, mutually beneficial relationships, and physical health.
But there is another category. You find this category by asking the following question (read it slowly):
What is the thing that could cause you to have joy, even if things don’t go well for you personally? Continue reading “What Really Matters”
Wisdom without love is worthless. Love without wisdom is not quite worthless, but it may be fruitless.
When the Apostle Paul wrote to the Philippian Christians, he told them that he prayed “that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight” (1:9).
You often hear, just love people, and that’s all you need.
But that’s not all you need.
Sometimes people with the biggest heart are not as effective as they could be because they just move on emotions rather than thinking through what would be best. Continue reading “Love Needs Wisdom”
In my previous post on the “end times,” I suggested that the church is going to make progress throughout history. This should provide some optimism about the possibilities for good in history.
However, this opinion needs to be balanced with a consideration of the possibilities of evil in history. This is what we can learn from the appearance of the Antichrist at the end of history.
Why is this so significant to the church? Because the power of antichrist is already at work (2 Thessalonians 2:7).
I believe there will be a final manifestation of evil in history, the Antichrist, but I also believe that the spirit of antichrist is already present in history and relevant to each one of us. Understand that the Antichrist takes something that is good and makes it evil. When you realize that this evil is primarily about exalting self, then you realize that the spirit of antichrist is not nearly as far from us as we’d like to think. Continue reading “What the Church Can Learn from the Antichrist”
What progress can the church expect to make in history? What are the prospects of the church before Christ returns?
There are several places in Scripture that indicate a progressive growth in the kingdom of God before Christ’s return. For example, Jesus compares the kingdom to a mustard seed: “Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches” (Mt. 13:32).
Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in Daniel envisions a kingdom that breaks all other kingdoms. It “became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth” (2:35).
I believe that it is very hazardous to predict the future, even with the images that the Bible gives us of the future. Most who have tried to do it in any detail have been totally wrong. It is not for us to know the times and the seasons.
That being said, I predict that Jesus will return on October 25, 2134. Just kidding. Not going to make that sort of prediction.
However, I do think that history has shown us enough for us to believe that these images of progressive progress do tell us something about the direction of history. The movement of history seems also to teach that the kingdom will continue to make progress throughout history before the consummation.
Consider the early church. It grew from a small group in Jerusalem to a multitude of congregations throughout the world.
From there, the church continued to grow until it overran the Roman Empire and displaced the pagan religions there.
After the fall of the Roman Empire, Christian missionaries went out and brought the Gospel to those who had overran the Empire. The conversion of “barbarian” tribes continued throughout the Middle Ages. Continue reading “The Progress of the Church in History”