There Are No Shortcuts

There really aren't any shortcuts to losing weight and getting healthy.

We all would much prefer a "magic bullet" to the hard work and discipline required to get in shape.

I would, but I haven't found one.

Oh, I've tried and had limited success with a number of different types of what I will call diet aids--Jenny Craig, Nutrisystem, Weight Watchers, Atkins, low carb, low fat, protein shakes, HCG--but nothing lasting.

Because if it isn't about real change, it isn't sustainable.

So here I am again, down somewhat from where I was before, but not nearly where I should or want to be after so many years of toiling in this struggle.

I think I'm finally accepting that getting to an ideal weight for my height and age, and staying there, requires significant, monumental changes.

I've begun tracking everything I eat using a cool app that my husband introduced me to, MyFitnessPal.  Every morsel.

What I like about this one over other weight loss journaling tools I've used in the past is that it's at my fingertips via my phone; most foods, even brand names, are already in the app so I don't have to guess; and it tells me what my caloric intake should be in a day, another thing that has pretty much been guesswork.

No more guessing.  Guesswork = poor results.

The things that I eat that are pretty healthy, like one egg for breakfast, a half cup of fruit salad, an apple, salad, even chili, have pretty reasonable calorie counts. The things I know I shouldn't eat, like Cheez-its, cookies, potato chips, have pretty enormous calories, even in tiny servings.  Of course, I knew that, but seeing the actual numbers is a huge wake-up call.

I can tell you it is totally possible to eat twice as much as one should in a given day without feeling completely fat and greedy.

Totally.

Those not-so-great calories really add up.

What will it take for change to become permanent?

I'm doing laundry last night and I'm thinking, as I whisper a prayer, then congratulate myself for bypassing the hard candy, that I've never really trusted God with my weight loss struggle.

Why not?

Then, I read an article in the paper this morning about Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis and his incredible discipline for healthy living.  He regularly admonishes his family, especially his mother.  Lewis says, "I stay mad at my mom because she spends so much time with God but doesn't trust God with her body."

Incoming dart.  Right between the eyes.

I would hate for my boys to feel this way.  They could say this to me now, as Lewis did about his mother, and they would be right.

When he had gone indoors, the blind men came to him, and he asked them, "Do you believe that I am able to do this?”

“Yes, Lord,” they replied.

Then he touched their eyes and said, “According to your faith let it be done to you”; and their sight was restored. -- Matthew 9:28-30

Little faith, little success.

Great faith, great success.

I trust God for many things, but somehow not for this.

Why?

I don't have an answer for that one.  I'll be pondering it for a while.

Methinks there are no shortcuts to faith either.

Do you trust--truly trust--God with your chronic struggles?  If you (we) did, would the struggle be chronic or would the struggle be over?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Eat Less:  Overall, not so great, but heading in the right direction.  Becoming conscious of everything I'm putting in my mouth.

Move More:  Sometimes life works with you when it seems like it's working against you.  A little car trouble, resulting in the use of public transportation, goes a long way toward moving more.  Walking daily.

Write:  This is my other focus area, the one that contributes to my mental and emotional health.  Made some progress on the daily writing front, not as much as I would like, but definitely trending in the right direction.

Renewal of Mind = Body Transformation

Here's something I've learned:  you have to be careful who you share with.  Because if you share with people what God is speaking into your heart/life, and they don't see what they consider to be concrete the evidence of the blessings God has promised you, according to their chosen measuring stick, they badmouth you.

Who is "they"?

Friends, family, co-workers, neighbors...could be anyone.

Sometimes, it feels like things are to be shared only after they have come into fruition.  But faith is not that way.  We have to believe--and share--the things we cannot see so that when they do come into fruition, God will be glorified.

I feel that way about a lot of things, one of which is my weight loss.  Feels like I've been sharing and making progress, not so obviously evident progress, for years.  Some may wonder why I bother or at least why I keep talking about it.

Because, with God's help, I'm going to make my goal weight.

This year.  

I've got a little extra motivation this year, but I'll keep that to myself.  For now.

Sure, I've talked a lot here about my weight struggles.  Seems like I'm constantly hitting a snag, gaining more than losing and restarting with a newfound zeal.

Truth is, in the past five years, I've lost weight.  I began this new year lighter than I have in a long time.  

Not where I want to be.  Not even close.

But encouraged.

Even with the four lbs I gained over the holidays (the least I can ever remember gaining during this time of the year).

So I'm not restarting because that would mean I'd have to go back to where I was before.

I'm recommitting.

Not a New Year's resolution.  I actually started working on this before Thanksgiving which is how I managed to gain so little.  (I'm usually good for 10+ lbs.)

More like a renewal of the mind.

Romans 12:2 says "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will." (NIV, 1984)

Renewing the mind brings about transformation.

I'm going to transform this body.

This year.

And I'm going with the completely simple, fool-proof method:  eat less, move more.

This, believe it or not, has worked well for many, including myself, in the past.

Oh there's more, including the types of foods I choose, how often I eat, and in what quantities, but this simple phrase--"eat less, move more"--succinctly summarizes the plan.  It rings in my head which makes it easier to follow.

Anybody with me?

Wednesday Worship: Bridge Over Troubled Water

I was looking for Angels We Have Heard On High, but God knew what I needed to hear.

Enjoy this rendition of Bridge Over Troubled Water by Josh Groban and Brian McKnight.

May you enjoy peace this Christmas season and should you need one, may you find your bridge over troubled waters in Him.

Peace & Blessings,

Patricia

Featured Book: Hell is Real (But I Hate to Admit It)

What do you believe about hell?

Today's featured book, Hell is Real, is definitely for adults.

No, correction.  It's for any believer of any age who doubts the existence of hell.  (Younger believers may need translation, but the message remains as relevant to them as to any.)

Read the first chapter.

You may want to read on.

Hell is Real (But I Hate to Admit It)


by Brian Jones

David C. Cook (August 1, 2011)

***Special thanks to Audra Jennings, Senior Media Specialist, The B&B Media Group for sending me a review copy.***

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Brian Jones is the senior pastor at Christ’s Church of the Valley, an innovative community of faith in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Brian is a graduate of Cincinnati Christian University (B.A.) and Princeton Theological Seminary (M. Div.) and has served in leadership positions in churches for over twenty years. His humorous and raw style has made him a popular speaker for conferences, seminars, churches and retreats.


Visit the author's website.

SHORT BOOK DESCRIPTION:

Recently, the media has ignited in a brimstone blaze of controversy over the question of Hell, and the idea that’s generating so much attention is that Hell isn’t real, and even if it were, a loving God wouldn’t possibly send people there. Is Hell real, or is it a concept that is misguided and out of place in today’s Christianity? Many believe the answer to this question will have profound implications on the future of the faith, and important personalities on both sides of this question are drawing lines in the sand.







If you would like to hear his sermon on Hell is Real, see video below...





Product Details:


List Price: $14.99

Paperback: 272 pages

Publisher: David C. Cook (August 1, 2011)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0781405726

ISBN-13: 978-0781405720


AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:

Eternal Damnation, Really?


The great Christian revolutions come not by the discovery of something that was not known before. They happen when somebody takes radically something that was always there.


—H. Richard Niebuhr¹


My three daughters know that I have one sacred, unbreakable rule when our family drives anywhere on vacation: If you have to go to the bathroom once we’re on the highway, you better have a Pringles can close by because we’re not stopping.


I’ve learned the hard way that when it comes to small bladders, you have to exert martial law on the whole van. Otherwise you’ll spend half your vacation touring the country’s finest rest stops and eating twelve times the daily recommended allowance of pork rinds. In fact, after years of driving to remote vacation spots, I’ve learned four key principles for a successful road trip with kids: Keep ’em sleeping, keep ’em separated, keep ’em dehydrated, and keep ’em watching videos. If complaining erupts, I’ve also found it helpful to have memorized Bill Cosby’s classic line: “I brought you into this world; I can take you out!”²


There have been times, however, I’ve been tempted to break my own rules. For instance, I’ll never forget the time we drove from Dayton, Ohio, to Dallas. We had just stopped in Louisville to fill up, and after twenty minutes we had successfully emptied all the bladders, gotten situated with our snacks, and pulled back on the road heading toward the highway. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a plume of smoke rising from the rooftop of a small apartment complex. I looked for a chimney but saw none. I reassured myself that surely someone had already called 911 and everything would be fine.


Besides, I thought, I can’t even tell for sure if there’s a fire.

Yet something inside of me kept wondering, What if I’m the only person who is seeing this right now? As I approached the onramp I went back and forth in my head, Should we stop? Should we keep going? Should we stop? We don’t have time for this! But what if I’m the only person—I swerved to the left at the last second, drove past the onramp, and circled back into the apartment complex. My guilt (or basic human decency) had won out.


As I pulled up I discovered that it was in fact a fire, and by then the flames had engulfed a large part of the roof. Worse, my suspicion was accurate—we were the only ones there. I asked my wife, Lisa, to call 911, and then I ran inside to warn people to get out.


Once I reached the third floor, I frantically started to bang on the doors, one by one, but at each door there was no response. I then ran down to the second floor and did the same. As I was about to go down to the first floor, a shirtless young man with disheveled hair stuck his head out of one of the second-floor units. He cracked the door open, and as I ran back to meet him, I was hit with a wall of marijuana smoke.


“Yo, my man, what’s up?” he said with a slight grin.


“What’s up is that your apartment is about to burn to the ground. Put your joint down and help me get people out of here!”


We ran down the steps to the first floor. Two couples responded to our knocking. “There’s an elderly lady on the third floor!” one woman shouted. “Did you get her out?”


My heart sank. After racing back up to the third floor, we began furiously pounding on her door. The first-floor neighbor yelled, “She gets confused easily. We may have to break down the door.” But just as she said that the handle slowly began to turn. Coughing, confused, and minutes away from being consumed by the fire, she followed her neighbors down to safety. As we stepped out the front door, we heard sirens in the distance. After we guided the elderly woman into the hands of the paramedics, I turned around and watched the firemen storm up the apartment steps to stop the blaze.


As I stood there, the weight of it all hit me. I let out a deep sigh and thought to myself, What would have happened if I had kept driving?


A few hours later, when my adrenaline had finally worn down and the kids were asleep, a bizarre thought came out of nowhere. I call it a “thought” because to this day I’m still not sure if what popped into my mind came from God or from the triple stack of chocolate chip pancakes from IHOP digesting in my stomach. Here’s what came to my mind:


Let me get this straight: You’re willing to run into a burning building to save someone’s life, but non-Christians all around you are going to hell and you don’t believe it, let alone lift a finger to help.


Admittedly, I was a little freaked out by the “thought,” but at the time I blew it off as a lingering remnant of my conservative-evangelical upbringing.


Four years prior to this event I had graduated from seminary, and with the endless boxes of books I lugged into the moving truck when I left, I also packed my watered-down theology, a healthy dose of skepticism about biblical authority, and a nail-tight conviction that hell was a mythological concept that no loving and thinking Christian could accept. I had weighed the evidence, read all the books, and sat at the feet of experts for three years. Now the verdict was in—the Bible’s teaching about hell was inaccurate at best and hateful at worst. What I was taught as a child was a lie, and now that I was becoming a pastor, I was sure I’d never perpetuate that ridiculous myth again.


Objections to Hell


Undoubtedly, you’re a smart person. You like to read, and you were intrigued enough by the topic of hell and eternal damnation to give this book a go (either that or the bookstore didn’t have that Dan Brown novel you were looking for). And so I think you can understand the six good reasons it seemed ridiculous to me that God would send anyone to hell. Read through these objections and see if you resonate with how I felt.

1. Hell Is a Very Unpopular Idea


Hell has always been an unpopular concept, and for obvious reasons. According to a recent survey by The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, only 59 percent of Americans believe in hell.³ That’s six out of ten people, a slight majority in any room. But another poll narrowed the question even more and discovered that “fewer than half of all Americans (43 percent) thought people go to heaven or hell depending on their actions on earth.”⁴ Furthermore, in twenty-five years of being a pastor, I would add that maybe three out of every ten Christians I’ve met truly believe people who die without becoming Christians go to hell.


The fact that so few people believe in hell made me wonder if it was about as factual as the lost city of Atlantis.


2. The Punishment Doesn’t Fit the Crime


To my post-seminary self, sending someone to hell for all eternity seemed tantamount to sending someone to death row for stealing a postage stamp. Enduring physical, emotional, and spiritual torture not just for a year, or ten years, or billions of years on end, but for all eternity—it just didn’t seem fair. In fact, it seemed hateful and absurd. Who would propose such a punishment on anyone for anything done in this life? Atheist William C. Easttom put it this way,


                  God says, “Do what you wish, but make the wrong
                  choice and you will be tortured for eternity in hell.”
                  That … would be akin to a man telling his girlfriend,
                  do what you wish, but if you choose to leave
                  me, I will track you down and blow your brains
                  out. When a man says this we call him a psychopath
                  and cry out for his imprisonment/execution.
                  When God says the same we call him “loving” and
                  build churches in his honor.⁵


When I looked at it from this vantage point, I understood why Tertullian, a well-known pastor in the early church, wrote, “We get ourselves laughed at for proclaiming that God will one day judge the world.”⁶ In eighteen hundred years that sentiment hasn’t really changed.


3. Life Is Hell Enough


The more I thought about the concept of eternal punishment, the more I kept thinking to myself, Don’t most people go through enough hell in one lifetime? Think about all the suffering people go through in this life. Hell just didn’t make any sense to me. One blogger does a fantastic job of illustrating this point:


                  Given life’s headaches, backaches, toothaches,
                  strains, scrapes, cuts, rashes, burns, bruises, breaks,
                  PMS, fatigue, hunger, odors, molds, colds, parasites,
                  viruses, cancers, genetic defects, blindness, deafness,
                  paralysis, retardation, deformities, ugliness, embarrassments,
                  miscommunications, confused signals,
                  ignorance, unrequited love, dashed hopes, boredom,
                  hard labor, repetitious labor, old age, accidents, fires,
                  floods, earthquakes, typhoons, tornadoes, hurricanes,
                  and volcanoes, I cannot see how anyone, after
                  they’re dead, deserves “eternal punishment” too.⁷


4. Hell Seems Intolerant and Hateful


One of the biggest things that weighed on me was how cruel and arrogant the concept of hell sounded when I talked about it with good friends of mine who weren’t Christians.

A friend once asked me, “How can you believe my great-grandparents who brutally suffered and died in the Holocaust won’t go to heaven just because they didn’t believe in Jesus? They were loving, God-fearing people.” I didn’t have a good answer, and the lack of an answer that sounded loving and moral troubled me immensely. The vast majority of people on this planet think that believing anyone—except people like Hitler who commit heinous crimes against humanity—would go to hell is arrogant, insensitive, ignorant, and hateful.


Victor Hugo wrote, “Hell is an outrage on humanity. When you tell me that your deity made you in his image, I reply that he must have been very ugly.”⁸ I had to agree. What kind of God would send anyone to hell? I thought.


5. Respected Evangelical Scholars Reject the Idea of Hell


What troubled me even more was that everywhere I turned, noted Christian scholars confirmed my inner struggle. For instance, evangelical theologian Clark Pinnock wrote,

                  I consider the concept of hell as endless torment in
                  body and mind an outrageous doctrine.… How can
                  Christians possibly project a deity of such cruelty
                  and vindictiveness whose ways include inflicting
                  everlasting torture upon his creatures, however sinful
                  they may have been? Surely a God who would do
                  such a thing is more nearly like Satan than like God.⁹


Statements like this made sense to me. Knowing that highly educated people like Pinnock and others thought this way gave me more confidence that it might be okay to veer away from my traditional Christian beliefs if I chose to do so. If they veered from clear biblical teachings, why couldn’t I?


6. I Like Being Liked


Finally, truth be told, the need to be liked was a real factor in my personal struggle. I hated the fact that I could have friendships with people, but if I stayed true to my Christian beliefs, I felt like I had to spend all my time and energy trying to convert them. I wanted to embrace them, cherish their uniqueness, understand their beliefs, and celebrate our diverse cultural and religious upbringings. Hell was an affront to all of this. I didn’t want to be thought of as the nutty, intolerant guy who was always trying to get people to admit that they were sinners in need of a Savior. I wanted to be the cool, relevant, and intelligent pastor people liked and wanted their friends to know.


Do you resonate with any of those objections to hell?


An Unexpected Confrontation


The combined weight of the attacks by my professors and the sheer immorality of the idea itself finally broke the theological dam open for me. Over time I simply gave up on the idea, proudly. The problem was that believing the Bible is God’s Word is, well, up near the top of any pastor’s job description, at least in an evangelical church. I needed a job, so I came up with what seemed like a simple solution:


I would never tell anyone about my disbelief. In fact, I carried my secret around for four years after graduate school without ever telling anyone, not the people who went to my church, not the staff with whom I worked, not my friends, not even my wife. The secret was so well hidden that sometimes I was able to forget about it—until that apartment fire in Louisville, and then again a few months later at a monastery in northwest Ohio.


I was in the habit of going to a monastery roughly once a month for a spiritual retreat. I would arrive early in the day to pray, journal, take long walks in the woods, and leave late in the afternoon. On one such retreat I felt an overwhelming sense of spiritual pressure, the spiritual equivalent of the kind of pressure you feel in your ears when swimming in deep water. I sensed that something was wrong, but I didn’t know what it was. For the better part of the day, I locked myself into a cold, cement-block room and asked God to show me the source of my consternation.


For the first three hours, I heard nothing—my prayers seemed as if they were bouncing off the ceiling. By noon I felt like I was starting to make a connection with God, but I wasn’t prepared for what happened next, when I felt God’s Spirit impress upon my heart, “Brian, this charade has to end. You’re a pastor and your job is to teach people the Bible, but you don’t believe what you’re teaching. You don’t believe in hell.”


I was a little startled, so I picked up my Bible and did something I had up to that point discouraged people in my church from doing—I played what I call “Bible Roulette.” In his book Formula for a Burning Heart, A. W. Tozer said, “An honest man with an open Bible and a pad and pencil is sure to find out what is wrong with him very quickly.”¹⁰ I can attest to the truth of that statement.


I closed my eyes, wildly fanned the pages back and forth, and randomly pointed to passages and read them. The first passage was about eternal punishment. I looked up at the ceiling and said, “That’s a coincidence.” The second passage was about God’s wrath. This time I felt a little uneasy. Then I did it a third time and couldn’t believe my eyes—eternal punishment again. I’m not usually the most mystical person in the world, but I slowly closed the pages of my Bible, put it down on the table next to me, and said, “I get the message.” Church leaders must “keep hold of the deep truths of the faith with a clear conscience” (1 Tim. 3:9), and hell is one of those “deep truths.”


I spent the next five hours reading and underlining every passage about hell in the New Testament, and as I did, I felt an overwhelming sense of conviction. What I discovered shocked me. I had always assumed that the Bible contained only a few scattered references to hell. I was wrong; hell is taught everywhere.


Take the book of Matthew, for instance, just one book among twenty-seven in the entire New Testament. Here is what we learn about hell from that book alone:


Twelve separate passages record Jesus’ teachings about the judgment of nonbelievers and their assignment to eternal punishment.¹¹ Matthew 13:49–50 summarizes them all: “This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”


Jesus employed the most graphic language to describe what hell is like: fire (Matt. 5:22; 18:9); eternal fire (18:8); destruction (7:13); away from his presence (7:23); thrown outside (8:12; 22:13; 25:30); blazing furnace (13:42); darkness (22:13; 25:30); eternal punishment (25:46); weeping and gnashing of teeth (8:12; 13:42; 13:50; 22:13; 24:51).


Jesus twice used the word eternal (18:8; 25:46) to convey that the punishment of nonbelievers would continue forever.


As I moved from the Gospels into the rest of the New Testament, I was struck by how the writers unashamedly addressed the issue. There is no hesitancy or apology in their words. The basic tone is,


“This is a reality. Now let’s get out there and tell people how to avoid it.” Second Thessalonians 1:7–9 summarizes what these other New Testament authors taught:

                  This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed
                  from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful
                  angels. He will punish those who do not know God
                  and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They
                  will be punished with everlasting destruction and
                  shut out from the presence of the Lord and from
                  the glory of his might.


My heart raced as I flipped page after page after page. I discovered, by the end of my study, that the New Testament’s teaching about hell is not an ambiguous topic supported by a few hard-to understand passages. It is inescapable: Virtually every book in the New Testament underscores some aspect of the reality of hell. Jesus taught it; Paul, Peter, and every early church leader taught it, but I wasn’t teaching it. I realized I had a decision to make. Could I discount what Jesus taught about hell if I based my belief in heaven on similar passages in the same books?


Could it be possible that Jesus’ disciples actually had some of the same reservations I had but still persisted in teaching it because they knew in the depths of their souls that hell was real? Wasn’t my hesitancy to believe in hell a sign of my compassion for people? Yet, if hell really exists, and I knew that but wasn’t willing to tell people how to avoid it, wouldn’t that also be the most extreme form of cruelty imaginable? Most of all, could it be that I was ultimately basing my acceptance of this teaching more on what people thought of me than on whether I felt it was intellectually plausible?


As the weight of it all finally set in, I dropped to my knees, stretched out my arms and legs to the sides, and fell prostrate on the unfinished concrete monastery floor. Not content, however, with the act of simply lying facedown, I shoved my face over and over against the concrete as if an invisible hand pushed against the base of my neck. I buried my face in the silence and wept. After an hour or so passed, I just couldn’t stomach listening to myself any longer. I stood up, gathered my belongings, and walked out of the monastery retreat house I had rented for the day. While my planning retreat certainly didn’t end quite like I thought it would, I left knowing exactly what I needed to do.


I drove straight home and met Lisa in our kitchen, sharing everything that had transpired from beginning to end, and then I begged for her forgiveness. Then I drove over to the church, gathered my staff, and did the same. Later that night at an emergency Leadership Team meeting, I walked our bewildered church overseers step-by-step through every detail of my secret. A few days later, standing before the church, I completely fell apart. Four long years of strategic rationalizing couldn’t protect me from the inevitable—my sin had indeed found me out.


Do you want to know what’s scary? When I confessed this, nobody really cared. In fact, the response from a man on my Leadership Team captured the response of just about everyone: “Oh, thank God. You really scared me,” he said. “I thought you called us together to tell us that you did something serious like have an affair.”


Want to know what’s even scarier? You probably agree with him.


I’ve shared that story hundreds of times over the last two decades, and each time I’ve always gotten the same reaction: “Let me get this straight—you started believing in hell again because you reread every passage in the New Testament that talked about hell and then fell on the ground and asked for forgiveness?”


When you put it that way, well, then yes, that’s exactly how it happened. But it wasn’t that simple. There was much more going on beneath the surface. Undergirding that experience were two foundational truths that I didn’t come to realize until much later.


Christians must repent of “sins of disbelief ” in the same way they repent of “sins of behavior.”


Most Christians I know think they need to ask God’s forgiveness only for things they do that are outside of God’s will for His followers. Did I lie today? I need to ask for forgiveness. Did I gossip? I need to ask for forgiveness for that sin too. Did I take something that wasn’t mine? I’ll ask for forgiveness for that as well. Sins of disbelief are no different. 1 Timothy 4:16 says, “Watch your life and doctrine closely.


Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.”


It’s life and doctrine—we can sin against God in both how we act and how we think. Both our actions and our thoughts should be under Christ’s control because both have the power to negatively impact our relationship with God and the spiritual walk of everyone around us. We can’t live our lives guided by the Word of God and then allow our minds to function differently. Scripture tells us to love the Lord our God with … what? All our hearts, souls, and minds! How we think is a reflection of our love for God. Don’t believe me? Reread the New Testament and notice how many times the phrase false teachers pops up. Then look at how ruthlessly Paul and other church leaders deal with false teaching.


Christians don’t think their way out of a faith crisis; they repent their way out of a faith crisis.


When it comes to leaving behind “sins of disbelief,” recapturing a biblically correct position regarding the reality of hell (and the fact that non-Christians will go there) is never accomplished by laying out all the evidence and weighing the options. It’s about obedience to Jesus Christ. At its core, believing in hell is an obedience issue, not a theological issue. Am I willing to trust Christ to forgive my sins? That’s an obedience issue. Am I also willing to trust what He says about heaven? Of course. He’s my Lord. If He says it, I believe it. Then why would the issue of hell be any different? As Oswald Chambers wrote,

                  The golden rule for understanding spiritually is not
                  intellect, but obedience. If a man wants scientific
                  knowledge, intellectual curiosity is his guide; but
                  if he wants insight into what Jesus Christ teaches,
                  he can only get it by obedience. If things are dark
                  to me, then I may be sure there is something I will
                  not do.¹²


The fact of the matter is: Hell is real. Deciding whether or not hell exists isn’t an intellectual exercise; it’s a matter of eternal life or death. Of course I still have doubts about hell from time to time, but the point is my relationship with the risen Jesus supersedes all my doubts. The reality you and I need to grasp is that this is happening. Right now. On our watch. This is happening to friends and acquaintances of yours and mine who aren’t Christians. And you and I have one decision to make in this matter—are we going to keep on driving and pretend we know nothing, or are we going to turn around?


If you’re ready to slam on the brakes and do a 180, I’ll sit in the passenger’s seat and take that ride with you. I’ll help you understand why hell makes sense. I’ll also help you feel good about believing in the Bible—all of it. I’ll help you feel confident defending what you believe before your friends who lump you together with the crazy televangelists who make people want to throw up in their mouths. Together we’ll discover that believing what the Bible teaches regarding hell is logical, fair, and above all else—loving.


And finally, if you let me, I’ll also coach you on how you can have authentic conversations with your friends without getting creepy in the process. That’s really, really important. More on that later.


However, I have one tiny piece of advice: You might want to grab a Pringles can because we’re not stopping.


Notes


1. H. Richard Niebuhr, quoted in Philip Yancey, What’s So Amazing About Grace?


(Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1997), 13–14.


2. Bill Cosby, “The Grandparents,” Himself (Motown, 1983), compact disc.


3. Greg Garrison, “Many Americans Don’t Believe in Hell, but What


about Pastors?” USA Today, August 1, 2008, http://www.usatoday.com/news/


religion/2009-08-01-Hell-damnation_N.htm.


4. Christiane Wicker, “‘How Spiritual Are We?’ The PARADE Spirituality Poll,”


PARADE, October 4, 2009, 5.


5. William C. Easttom II, quoted in Gary Poole, How Could God Allow Suffering


and Evil? (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003), 59.


6. Tertullian, The Apology, quoted in Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson,


trans., Ante-Nicene Fathers (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1999), 4:52.


7. Edward T. Babinski, “Hell and Heaven, and Satan, and Christian Superstition,”


October 22, 2005, http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/skepticism/heaven_hell.html.


8. Victor Hugo, quoted in Rufus K. Noyes, M.D., Views of Religion (Boston: L.K.


Washburn, 1906), 125.


9. Clark Pinnock, “The Destruction of the Finally Impenitent,” Criswell


Theological Review 4 (1990): 246–47, 253, as quoted in Randy Alcorn, Heaven


(Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale, 2004), 24–25.


10. A. W. Tozer, The Formula for a Burning Heart, quoted in Martin H. Manser,


compiler, The Westminster Collection of Christian Quotations (Louisville, KY:


Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), 363.


11. See Matthew 7:21–23; 8:12; 10:15, 33; 11:22–24; 12:41–42; 13:30, 40–43,


49–50; 24:50–51; 25:11–12, 29–46.


12. Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest (New York: Dodd, Mead &


Company, 1935), 209.

Copyright 2011 Brian Jones.  Hell is Real (But I Hate to Admit It) published by David C Cook.


Publisher permission required to reproduce in any format or quantity. All rights reserved.

How A Little Can Change A Lot

Today's post is courtesy of Jessica Dotta, Senior Editor of Inspire a Fire., by way of Gina Holmes, author of Crossing Oceans and Dry As Rain.



/--------------------------------------------------------------/

“We have much to be judged on when he comes, slums and battlefields and insane asylums, but these are the symptoms of our illness and the result of our failures in love.” -- Madeleine L'Engle

When my brother traveled to the Sudan he had an encounter that changed his life—and as it ends up, mine too.

He stood in Darfur at an orphanage filled with children leftover from the genocide. There were over 800 children, and during the night wild dogs were dragging them off and killing them.

My brother already felt shell-shocked from the travesties he'd witnessed in Uganda.

The day was hot. The sun beat down upon him. His camera had nearly been ruined from all the dust. He'd barely slept. His gear was heavy. Yet his conscience was seared by the numbness he felt, so he turned and confessed to a Sudanese pastor.

"We shall pray right now that your heart will be opened," he was told.

Not long after that prayer three young children approached Joshua and started to follow him. After a bit, his father nature kicked in and he stopped and sang Father Abraham. It didn't take long before the four of them were dancing and going through the motions.

When they finished, he asked the children to tell him how they came to be there.

The oldest, a girl, answered. "The soldiers came and shot my mother and father, so I came here."

The two other children nodded in agreement. "Me, too."

He was grief struck, but it was what transpired next that tore my heart. "Do you have a Mommy?" The little girl asked my brother.

"Yes," he answered.

"And a Daddy?"

Again, his answer was yes.

"Oh," she said, her voice hinting at a strange intermingling of numbness and grief.

Her question stirs me still. For I believe it came from her soul and revealed the thoughts of her heart. She didn't want to know what his country was like, what kind of food he ate, or what he did for a living. She had her own bullet holes leftover from the genocide. Her world consisted of this single question: Who still had parents and who didn't?

In her questions I heard her worry and fear. Imagine being trapped in a war-torn country, a land of famine, drought and disease. Imagine trying to survive it as an orphan with death threatening you every hour. No matter how much she's endured, at the end of the day, she's still just a little girl. And all she really wants is her Mom and Dad.

I imagined my daughter living as an orphan in the Sudan. If I were shot and dying, it would be my hope that my brothers and sisters would care for her. But what if her aunts and uncles were killed too? What was it then, that her parents hoped?

As members of the body of Christ these children are not alone. They have aunts and uncles. Multitudes and multitudes and multitudes of them. Talk about staggering! These kids are our nieces and nephews! Mine. Yours.

So who, I wondered, within the church has the responsibility to step in?

I didn't like the answer that came. Earlier that week I was shocked to learn that globally I was one of the richest people in the world—even though as an American, I'm pretty poor.

Like it or not I was the rich aunt. I had knowledge of the situation. That made me accountable.

I wasn't comfortable with the knowledge then, and I'm not comfortable with the knowledge now. But I am determined to do something.

Anything.

That day Joshua had in his possession a picture book that someone had asked him to give to someone in the Sudan. It was a children's book with a story about how we have a Heavenly Father who always loves and cares for us. Joshua read the book and gave it to them.

An American woman took it upon herself to raise the money to build shelter. Every person who donated, even a dollar, helped to create a place where the little girl now sleeps safe from wild dogs.

When Joshua told me he's going to start a branch of Watermelon Ministries called Media Change, a non-profit encouraging Americans to give up a portion of the money spent on entertainment to serve those fighting world hunger and thirst, I wanted to support it.

For seven years he's helped non-profits raise money that serves the "least of these." He's seen the impact a small investment can have. This is a brand new initiative. He's not quite ready to launch, but you can sign up and be kept updated at http://www.mediachange.org/. His first goal is garner the support of 10,000 people who are willing to give $10 a month. I'm number #3.

This is only a blog post, but who knows what one blog post can do.

What if the task of helping others isn't as overwhelming as we make it?

/---------------------------------------------------------------/

Thank you, Jessica.

If you have a blog and would like to make a difference, please tithe your blog.  For more information:  https://www.facebook.com/#!/events/195671567184043/

Featured Book: Triple Dog Dare

Over the next several days, I'm featuring several books that were on my calendar for 2011 but slipped through the cracks, but I still want to share.


The first is Triple Dog Dare, a devotional book for boys, by Jeremy Jones.

Triple Dog Dare Devotional


by 


Jeremy V. Jones

David C. Cook (October 1, 2011)

***Special thanks to Audra Jennings, Senior Media Specialist, The B&B Media Group for sending me a review copy.***

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Jeremy V. Jones is an award-winning journalist who has served as senior associate editor of Breakaway magazine. He has authored several books, including Toward the Goal: The Kaka Story and The Keeper: The Tim Hoard Story. He also writes for magazines such as Clubhouse and Christianity Today. He resides with his wife and two children in Colorado.

SHORT BOOK DESCRIPTION:

Boys want action. They don’t want to sit around and talk—that’s for grown-ups and girls. They engage life and relationships by doing something: skateboarding, playing games or re-creating favorite movie scenes. So why should faith be any different? That’s why Jeremy V. Jones created Triple Dog Dare: One Year of Dynamic Devotions for Boys—to provide the action boys need in order to grow their faith.

The Bible is full of action. Remember how David slew Goliath, Daniel faced those lions, Paul survived a shipwreck and Jesus stood up for a woman about to be killed? God made boys to take His truth and do something with it, to man up and change the world. These action-packed devotions for boys ages 9 to 12 are filled with godly truth and bold spiritual challenges that transform time with God into the adventure of the day.

Triple Dog Dare connects God’s Word to boys’ hearts and hands with real-life scenarios and activities. Each day is filled with short Scriptures, concise biblical truth and a daily dare, all challenging them to put their faith into practice. Scripture readings from every book of the Bible open up the action-packed Word of God. Whether it’s drawing comic strips of biblical battles, dreaming up a life list of goals, making snack packs for the homeless or producing Bible-based movies, boys will go on daily dynamic experiences with God, taking faith off the page and setting it into motion. Themes cover the daily realities of pre-teen males, including bullying, peer pressure, girls, sibling rivalry, honesty and more.

These exciting devotions will inspire boys’ hearts toward godly characteristics such as integrity, generosity and kindness. Parents will appreciate watching Christ-like traits emerge as each dare is undertaken. It is a manual that will deepen boys’ friendships with Jesus as they look forward to spending time with Him every day. So if you know a boy who is up for the challenge, triple dog dare him!




Product Details:

List Price: $14.99
Reading level: Ages 9 and up
Paperback: 432 pages
Publisher: David C. Cook (October 1, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0781404576
ISBN-13: 978-0781404570

AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER (Click on images to enlarge):

REVIEW

I wanted to take a look at Triple Dog Dare because I've got boys. Three of them. And one is approaching that very interesting period between 10 and 13 years old. Thought this devotional might be something we'd find interesting.

We did.

Everything from trash talking to puking to zombies. That's the part he likes. Then there's everything from practicing patience to respecting others to taking responsibility for one's actions. That's the part I like.

The activities are all about reaching beyond one's comfort zone and getting involved with others. Some seemed more practical and readily done by teens than by this age group, but all are worth consideration. 

Take a look. I Triple Dog Dare you!

Wednesday Worship: Nobody Like You, Lord

Nobody like, nobody like, 

You, Lord, You, Lord.

There is nobody like 

You, Lord, You, Lord.

Picked up Fred Hammond's 2009 Love Unstoppable CD a couple of weeks ago.

I love most every song, as I expected I would--it's the incomparable Fred Hammond!--but this is the one that's been swirling around in my head.

Because, frankly, there's no one quite like Jesus.  

I can't find nobody, 

There just ain't nobody.

Can't find nobody,

Nobody, nobody.

Have you found someone like Jesus?  Do tell, or share why you agree "there ain't nobody...".