I AM INDEED, MY OWN WORST ENEMY

Romans 7:21-25 very clearly reflects our fallen nature. I truly and thoroughly infuriate myself sometimes. Why is it so hard for us to respond with kindness when reviled? To be angry and sin not? To deny ourselves, take up our cross daily and follow Jesus?

Interesting it is, how when we pursue our own happiness, it eludes us, yet when we seek to love the Lord and others first, we find contentment in its deepest form and peace that passes understanding.  What's that?  Social science has determined that folk who volunteer service helping others tend to maintain mental health in their senior years? Sounds familiar. Oh ya, the Bible has revealed and encouraged that for a mighty long time. Perhaps unselfish love is what we were created for? May God grant it richly.

Not so, Daddy-o

Come back soon for comments on some very interesting work on atheism by pscychologist, Paul Vitz.

Addiction

1 Cor 10 ¹¹These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come. ¹²So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall! ¹³No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.

I'm not a follower of metal, but I happened to read the interview by Beliefnet.com of "Fieldy" from Korn.  Fieldy remained with the band, unlike Brian Welch who converted earlier and left.  The question was posed to Fieldy, "Do you have advice for our readers who may be struggling with addiction?", to which he replied, "Remove yourself from wherever the craving is. If you're in the kitchen and you're craving some chocolate cake, go outside and go on a run or go on a walk. Remove yourself [completely]--not walk into a living room. Go get your mind on something else and do something else."  He also referred to the verse at the top of this post as one that has been powerful in helping him.

I like the way Paul implies that none of us are undergoing a "special harrassment" by temptation, but that they are experienced by everyone (even Jesus).

Are we willing to trust the Lord completely, to the point becoming Whom we behold?  Are we willing to be transformed daily, by the renewing of our mind, instead of conforming to the pattern of the world, despite its constant bombardment of our experience with everything ungodly?  Seems the time-tested priciple of delayed gratification is ever present.

Pray for Persecution?

I watched a clip of Jim Daly, Pres of Focus on the Family, on Fox news a few days ago, and he made a comment that stuck.  He said that in 1996, he was leaving China, and the Christian nationals who took him to the airport said they were praying for more persecution of the church in the U.S.

Why would they do that?  I can offer some speculation.  For one thing, the church (mostly underground) in China is getting HUGE (I heard 70 million a few years ago), praise God.  Are we noticing any lessons from history?  Persecution has a powerful purging, purifying effect.  The lukewarm are out of there as soon as it sets in, in effect "weeding the garden".  And then the church grows like a weed.  The very young Christian church was persecuted by the Jews, then the Romans, and it has persisted in various places it seems, with little or no interruption on the globe.

I also heard about an incident, where it was claimed (I believe by Hal Lindsey in "Combat Faith"), that armed gunmen entered a secret assembly of Christians, implying they were going to kill any believers, but those who did not claim Christ could leave.  After the less courageous had gone, the intruders put down the guns and said, "Sorry to put you through that, but we have to be cautious - now let's worship."

Will things ever reach such a point in the U.S. ?  If the "cycle of nations" before God in history is any indication, then eventually; yes.  Perhaps we SHOULD pray for it.  Although the early Christians didn't seek martyrdom, if they were accused, many bravely admitted it and considered it an HONOR to go to their death for the Lord, singing hymns on the way to the arena.  If it happens in our time, how will we respond?  Are we loyal to Jesus to the death?  Can we love and forgive those who hate our guts, even as they kill us?  Clearly, there's no stronger way to shine the light of Jesus on a dark world.

Gospel Authorship

There are claims that the real authors of the gospels are unknown - that they are anonymous.  The suspicion is that the Christians later added the titles (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John).  This suspicion is unfounded, since the earliest manuscripts in existence (not far removed from the originals) have the titles on them.  In this case, the burden of proof lies with the claimants.  Finding at least one copy (preferably more, since copyist omissions can happen) of a manuscript without the title would be a start, but again, secular, anti-Biblical preferences show through and suggestions are given the credence of conclusive evidence.  " 'Tain't fair," says I.

We should keep in mind the historical way the gospels and indeed, the entire New Testament came about.  There is an unbroken chain of custody of the material written by the Apostles and their direct students (the requirement for authoritative canon, of which the Christian community was well aware).  The official canon declaration at Nicea, in AD 325 was a formality only.  I still wait for someone to explain to me how a forger could have snuck his material into acceptance by foundational or subsequent Christian leadership and community.  Why was the work of the Apostles accepted?  They were empowered by the Holy Spirit, which Jesus sent to work miracles and speak with power.  No wonder written work was not accepted from just anyone.

Is God Out to Getcha?

I repeatedly run into objections to the notion that a loving God would create an eternal Hell, and that condemning someone in such a way would be punishing them disproportionate to their crimes.  I'd like to address this objection with two qualities inherent in God's nature - holiness and love.

How do I know what God's nature is?  Has He spoken to me from a burning bush?  No, but He has left word for us in the inspired scripture of the Bible.  I know, some folks dismiss it as written myth, just like any other man-made religion.  I only recommend that before you do that, you study the scripture for yourself, genuinely seeking the truth, rather than accepting someone else's criticism and comments on it.  Many folk appear to have rejected it based on the latter, while conversely, others have set out to thoroughly study the Bible for themselves in order to disprove it, only to experience total transformation through conversion to Christ.

I know that even believers in Christ are often not immune to the misconception that God is watching, like Big Brother, waiting for them to misstep so He can swat them.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  It is true, that God is holy and just and, similar to a human judge in our courts, cannot remain so while leaving wrongdoing unpunished.  Make no mistake, there IS a judgment coming wherein He will do exactly that.  But here is the good news about the matter; God actually wants everyone to be saved.

2 Peter 3  9The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

1 Timothy 2   3This is good, and pleases God our Savior, 4who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. 5For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6who gave himself as a ransom for all men—the testimony given in its proper time.

  So the blood of the cross then, is His gift to us to pay the "fine" that we had coming.  Some seem to be unable to make sense of this good news and the Bible even declares it to appear as foolishness to those who are perishing.

However, the inability of man to earn salvation and the grace God offers through His own suffering is unique to Christianity.  All other religions offer a legalistic system wherein one does good in the hopes of maybe achieving Heaven.  In Christ however, we may know that we are saved (1 John 5:13).  Jesus said to fear not man but God, Who can cast the soul into Hell, and that is indeed an excellent starting point for someone to turn toward God.  If we remain selfish and immature, of course fear shall remain, but with maturity, fear must give way to love.

1 John 4   15If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. 16And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.  God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. 17In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. 18There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

Do you wish to be free from the fear of death, judgment and the wrath to come?  You can be, but not on your own and not without trust.  Does it take a blind, flying leap of faith?  No, but it does take a small, reasonable step of faith.  Take the step!

Does DNA Contain Information?

This one goes round about, typically on whether or not DNA really represents information and people often bring up "Shannon" information versus "Gitt" information.

Since we're focusing on whether or not it required intelligence to come to its current state, let's examine that aspect of information and see if it qualifies.  Interestingly, it appears muchas sources secular refer to the DNA code as information.  This source actually used the DNA example in its definition OF information:  http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/information

Considering the example from computer code (which I assume we agree had an intelligent source), Bill Gates said, "Human DNA is like a computer program but far, far more advanced then any software ever created[1]."  Some consider it quote mining for a creationist to use his quote, since he did not mean it in a creationist context, but I'm considering here his comparison of DNA to computer code, which he is qualified to comment on.  We could also legitimately compare protein building by DNA to the CAD/CAM industry, where computer code is read by manufacturing machines which mold, cut and assemble items accordingly.  For serious info-science types, a full article by Gitt, in which he discusses Shannon's earlier information theory, as well as the information-bearing properties of DNA can be found here: http://wernergitt.com/down_eng/G_1533_Information_science_and_biology.pdf

But let's look at it from a language perspective.  Let's consider for this discussion that information is a series of symbols that convey meaningful ideas to a receiver (I believe this matches or is close to the definition proposed by commenter, ExPatMatt).  If I spell the word "B-A-T", I encode information as a sequence of symbols that can be read by the receiver through a conventional system of interpretation known as reading the English language.  Now if I further sequence multiple words into sentences and sentences into paragraphs, I increase the information and compound the meaning conveyed.  We could even consider the context in which I placed the sentences to increase meaning to a "meta-information" level.  We've all heard of quote mining, where a quote is taken out of the context intended by the author.  Now compare this to shaking the Scrabble letter bag and picking them out randomly and placing them in a row on the table.  The same symbols are used, but have no meaning.  True, the word "B-A-T" could turn up randomly by coincidence, but would be of low quantity and quality, not to mention we would could easily tell which sequences were random and which were applied by their specified complexity.  If on the table next to the one with the random "B-A-T" sequence, we saw "T-H-E B-A-T B-I-T T-H-E R-A-T", we would know it was not coincidence, but a deliberate sequence.

On to a comparison with DNA.  The four nucleotide bases, A, T, G and C represent letters.  A sequence of three bases (a codon) carry the info for assembling an amino acid or a word in our example.  The sequence in which the amino acids chain together determine the identity and function of the protein being built, which in our example would be a sentence.  The way the proteins are assembled form cellular type and structure (muscle, bone, organ, etc.), or "paragraphs", and onward and upward we go, until we have the multiple volumes that constitute a human being (about 30,000 genes, each an average of about 12,500 base-pairs).  The entire genome of DNA information for an organism is contained in every one of trillions of cells.

Though some want an exception in this case, in all of human experience, information has only arisen from an intelligent source.  This is why I agree that DNA is indeed God's signature on every cell.  The more we study DNA, the more we realize that the genes formerly considered "junk" are being found to have non-protein coding, regulatory function (shrinking levels of vestigial code should represent a problem for evolution, btw)  What's really amazing is that about 20% of DNA can also be read backwards for additional information!  Don't worry, it's totally free of Satanic messages.  I say with my science hero, Louis Pasteur, "The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator."

[1] Gates, 1995, Education: the Best Investment, p.188