Nonsensical Ramblings of Mark

By God's undeserved gift to me the stark reality of me is laid bare and I can see more than I used to. Also by God's undeserved gift to me the Light speaks to my heart and both compels and empowers me to take stock of who I am and build his love into my life in ever increasing measure. The Light allows me to see my dark heart. The Light says, "Here is your new heart. Remember who you were and let others know that new life is only found in my Son, Jesus."    The Light allows me to see myself offering up paths that lead into further bloodshed, destruction, and chaos. The Light says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." The Light allows me to see that I pick and choose who I am to love and to treat with respect. The Light says, "I chose you when you when you hated me. Love others they way that I have loved you." The Light allows me to see that I love very little. The Light says, "Never cease doing...

I am not color blind. I see people and, when I see them, I see that many of them are a different color than me. And that brings glory to God because race is sacred. Now, God has created everything and everyone for a purpose. There is not something, specific, in the Bible that speaks to why God created different races, but we do receive some hints as to why. In the book of Romans, chapter 1 verse 20, it states that  "...since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made...". This leads me to think that the creation of different races speaks, in part, to a specific aspect of his divine nature: his diversity.  Even though I worship one God, he is made up of three distinct persons: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God, himself, is diverse and in order for man to reflect his image (Genesis 1:27) it needed to be diverse. Now, of course, we are all individuals and that is...

So I was thinking abut death and catching myself thinking in terms of "or" rather than "and" which I find myself doing far too often than I care to imagine. For the believer the Bible says that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. Now whether this is something instantaneous (which I believe it is) or a promise that is yet to be fulfilled upon our death the fact is clear: our death is a vehicle that carries us into a fuller presence and contemplation of God. For that, death is something that will end in great joy for the believer who dies. We need to rejoice with them and thank God that death is now his servant and that he has subjected it to serve even the ones that he has saved. The one who has died believing that Jesus has forgiven his or her sins is in a splendid state indeed. Yet, the hole that this person can make in my heart cannot be ignored. I have long given up the disdain of someone who longs for heaven more when a loved one dies. Tha...

Part one is  here . Part two is  here . Part three is  here . Part four is here . I think that this will be the last part. The God of the Bible knows the end from the beginning. But more than that he knows me and himself completely. Now that is a stunning statement for I do not even know myself completely. But God, who is eternal, has everything laid bare before himself. That "everything" includes himself. Nothing escapes his attention and that includes everything that has ever happened and ever will happen. Nothing is forgotten (though he can choose to treat is like he has forgotten our sin) and nothing is glossed over. He knows every single decision I have ever made and will make and what the consequences of those decisions will be. So, in our example in Part Four of the drunk driving friend, he knows if that person will get into an accident or not. He also knows, completely, how destructive drunkenness is to the person who is drunk and must do something about it. He m...