Several of you wanted me to update you on how the intervention with my wife went yesterday.
Not Good!
- When I purchased the IPad for my wife I thought they were nifty devices so I bought one for myself too. My charger is now missing
- I made the coffee yesterday, (and today)
- Breakfast consisted of dieter’s oatmeal – It was foul tasting
- I was lectured by several readers inquiring as to why my wife was not allowed to rest one day a week and me cook. Huh?
- I was lectured by my wife concerning the book that she had downloaded and was so intensely reading; it is a Living Translation Study Bible.
Gulp!
Hmmm…. Sometimes better to keep our thoughts to ourselves.
I vacationed in the keys a couple of weeks ago and had a great time with my family and some friends. I fired up my boat and we proceeded to catch a boatload of Mahi Mahi, “smoking” all of the local charter boats in the process. I visited some of my old buddies while down there. I also conversed (by e-mail) with a gentleman, who I didn’t know, who is an agnostic/atheist, and before I left the Keys I went by his business and gave him one of my books.
This guy believes Jesus lived, was a good man and taught moral truths that will benefit us all, but he is adamant that He is not God. He scoffs at miracles, the Rapture, an all powerful God, and basically ridicules the billions of people who believe in God as needing to believe in something for various reasons that he defines.
I spent some time answering his e-mails and trying to get him to objectively look at things, but he only attacked what I said calling my belief system everything from hocus pocus to nonsensical ancient superstition. He told me he would read my book and send me his comments.
I told him that I didn’t think reading my book would change his mind because it’s already made up. One day we will both die and cross the threshold of this life and face whatever is coming. If he is right and we cease to exist, no harm no foul. But if I am right and he faces God at the Great White Throne of Judgment without the blood sacrifice of Jesus Christ, then he will spend eternity in Hell.
It always bothers me to encounter people like this. I was an atheist and agnostic at one point, but I remained open minded. My dislike for religion stemmed from a combination of bad encounters with so called religious people and hatred of God for my wretched condition in life, (it didn’t dawn on me until later that it was me and sin that were responsible for those wretched conditions in my life and not God).
I did however read the Bible with an open mind. I fully expected that I would read it and find fodder for solidifying my arguments, (that there was no God and all that stuff was just “ancient superstition and hocus pocus”). Instead I found a loving God.
I wonder how this man formed his belief system. I receive letters from time to time from very bitter people who have had bad experiences with religion or religious people. Many have been marred forever by bad experiences,; (one such person wrote that he was sexually abused by a priest).
I saw in the news that a woman teacher, who admitted to being bi-sexual, gave one of her teenage female students a sex toy and tried to hit up on her. The little girl told her father and the teacher was promptly arrested. Of course it has now become almost common to hear of teachers having sex with their underage students. Now if these people followed the same logic of the priest perversion incident, the victims would lose all faith in schools and never attend another school and/or allow their kids to do so. They would hate schools and all school teachers forever and ever!
Wait a minute! We can’t condemn all teachers because of a couple of pervert teachers who somehow got into the mix. Nope, no more that we can blame all believers in Christ because of a few perverts in churches, or their denomination bosses who try to cover up their perversion, or sickeningly pious hypocrites who live for the devil all week and raise their snouts up in the air on Sundays, or those who get on television and preach the word for no other purpose than to enrich themselves, or charlatans who twist the word of God to obtain whatever it is that they want; or a deacon who is chasing every skirt in the church, or whatever….
Jesus Christ – Our Lord God almighty is not organized religion and those people are not His representatives regardless of what they might claim. He is a loving God who extends mercy and compassion and not condemnation. He hates the perversion more than we do and one day He will judge that sin and at that point all things will be made right.
We should not miss out on God and His wonderful blessings in our lives because a few (or many) people in churches or elsewhere claim to represent Him and then do everything but that.
Matt. 7:15
Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.