A Rant About Marriage

Marriage is a real talked about topic right now, especially in the US where people are praising states that have recently permitted 'gay marriage' and in the UK where the current government is pressing to have 'gay marriages' from 2013.

Well, I'm about to set myself up for some backlash, hate speech and grilling by explaining why marriage is, has been and should always be between a man and a woman and why governments need to back off.

#1
If you're not religious, then you're probably a fan of science am I correct? You probably think that we humans are no different to any other animals right? Well, if that's the case, then aren't we arguably NOT cut out for monogamy? If we're just animals shouldn't our mates just be means for the end of self-gratification and reproduction? In which case, why on earth would you want to create and partake in something called marriage? Something that makes you obliged to stick with the same ONE person. Forever. Even if they're undesirable. Even if they're unable to reproduce.

#2
The whole concept of marriage has been distorted. Marriage is a Judaeo-Christian constitution. Marriage was created by God to create an environment to raise children in. To create a strong bond between a man and a woman, filled with love, where both are wholly committed to each other, sharing and constructing their lives in a way that honors themselves and God. Sticking with each other NO MATTER WHAT, working through every single difficult time and overcoming every obstacle big or small. NEVER giving up, abandoning each other, never being with anyone else.

Now it seems these secular nations and governments think marriage is just a 'thing'. No one expects them to last, most people don't see the point in getting married in the first place and if you throw in the towel it's no biggie. WRONG!! If you have it in your head that marriage is just a thing after a fabulous day that you don't actually have to stick to forever, you can leave whenever you want for whatever reason, then honey you need to not get married! You also need to seriously sit down and think about what marriage is because clearly you don't understand.

#3
So, in light of us just being animals who shouldn't even be monogamous, remembering that marriage is eternally binding, that marriage is a bond between two people for the purpose of honoring themselves and God and creating a safe haven for future children: why do homosexuals think marriage is something for them?  If you're a practicing homosexual, you clearly are not religious because God is explicit in his condemnation of homosexuality (Leviticus 20:13). If you love and follow God, you don't practice homosexuality. Period. So if you are and you want to get married, why would you take a Christian rite of passage and apply it to your life and disregard the rest, including the Creator of that rite? You can't have children either (don't argue that the system allows you to adopt, you know what I mean here, it's not NATURAL that you have children, so there's no need for you to be married for the purpose of raising children).

There is no need, no reason for gays to get married. Why do you people persist? Marriage is completely inapplicable to you just like a prostate exam is completely inapplicable to a woman. Try imagining a woman demanding a prostate exam because she doesn't feel she receives equal medical treatment to men. Sound ridiculous? Well that's how ridiculous you sound when you demand 'gay marriage'. In this instance, equality does not apply to you here. There are some things in life that apply to some people and not others and as such you can't be made equal in that respect. If you want tax breaks, desecrating a Christian tradition is seriously not the way to get that.


People who are against 'gay marriage' are against it because it is not possible. You can't have a Muslim Jew, you can't have a square circle, in the same way, you can't have 'married' gay people. Marriage does not apply to homosexuals.

Living In Sin vs Being a Sinning Christian

To start this post a need to make something very clear: Christians still sin

When you become a Christian, you are still imperfect, still a sinner, still guilty of going against God's laws and still worthy of punishment and unworthy of grace.

BUT because you acknowledge your sin, realise that it is bad and put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ, you receive his forgiveness even though you are unworthy. At that point, you still deserve to be sent to Hell, but you have accepted Jesus paying that price for you and thus you will not go to Hell.

Still with me so far?

This doesn't mean however that Christians can sin as much as they like because they'll still be saved. This is wrong and means you're living in sin. Christians still sin but they do not live in sin and there's a difference.

If you sin against God knowing it's wrong and doing it anyway (we all know what is right and wrong in God's eyes because he has given us a conscience) or pretending it's not wrong and doing it. You're living in sin. When you do these wrong things, maybe it's stealing, maybe it's lusting, maybe it's having sex outside of marriage, maybe it's getting drunk, you deny God and choose your own selfish desires instead of doing what He asks.

At this point you are delighting in your sin. You are not trying very hard not to do these things and slipping up every now and again. You are fully getting involved in sin, without trying to stop yourself, without feeling bad about it, without regret, but instead with actively enjoyment in the sin(s).

Christians however, do not live this way. Christians (and if they are living in sin, it shows that they are false converts and only fooling themselves) acknowledge that sin is sin. This means they don't fool themselves into pretending something is right. They know what is right and wrong and acknowledge which action goes in which category. In light of knowing what's a sin, they do everything they can not to do these things.

Because we are all born with sinful natures, we are all imperfect creatures, which means we will inevitably sin our entire lives. This won't stop. But Christians make a conscious effort to stop as much as they can. The new desires God gives us mean we no longer want to live in sin when we're Christians (Ezekiel 11:19). Then, when Christians do slip up they repent - genuinely.

Genuine repentence involves 6 steps:
1. Recognition of your sin - you know that what you did is wrong
2. Sorrow - you feel sad that you committed a sin
3. Shame - you are embarrassed that you committed a sin
4. Confession - you admit to God that you committed a sin
5. Abandoning sin - you give up that behavior and turn from it
6. Hatred of sin - you hate the sin that you've committed

And there you have a key difference between being a sinning Christian, who is saved, and being a fake Christian or non-Christian who chooses to live in sin.

For more on this topic from the Bible, please read Romans 6:12-23

If you're a Christian and you're reading this and really struggling with a sin right now, I recommend you read this verse: Romans 7:14-25

"What are you giving up for Lent?"

I've been asked this question a few times and the simple answer is "nothing". In this post I'll explain why.

We are supposed to have a relationship with Jesus every day. Our aim is to follow his example, turn from our sins, show his example in our lives and repent every day. Not just on Sundays, not just at Christmas, not just during Lent.

There is no reason to give anything up during Lent or start anything new. God doesn't want you to be able to go 40 days without coffee or without shopping or whatever, because this isn't an achievement that helps others or you grow in Christ. Unless these activities are where your time and effort goes instead of praising, worshipping and following God, you don't gain anything or benefit in any religious way from giving them up. It would be for your own reasons and not for God.

So if there's something that drains your time away from the Lord, by all means, surrender it or at least cut down on it. But again, that should be the case every day. You are fooling yourself if you think you only need to do it for Lent. If you're still sinning without repenting, but now during Lent you're doing that without drinking coffee... you're still sinning! See what I mean? That's the real and bigger issue at stake. That's what we should be addressing.

You are not any more a Christian if you give things up during Lent or any less a Christian if you don't. Our aim of discipline is to listen, obey and follow God's Word, God's plan and God's direction. Religious discipline is not about how long we can abstain from something we love to do or how long we can force ourselves to start doing something that we really don't want to do.

So, evaluate just what you're giving up and why during Lent

Happy Valentine's Day

We are all desperate to be loved and to love.

We innately search for significance and are created with the powerful need to belong. We seek acceptance from people and groups. We pursue worth in worthless places, taking our self-worth from other people. We establish our own value and worth based on how much our friends like us, how much our boyfriend/girlfriend likes us, how highly our parents regard us. We demand validation from invalid sources, thinking our worth is based on the things we do, the things we own or the amount of money we make.

But all those things are irrelevant. Our worth, our significance, our value comes from God and His love for us. That's all that matters. We can see God’s stubborn love and the absolute sacrifice He made for us when He gave up His son, Jesus Christ. It is only through a personal relationship with Him that we experience authentic love: a love that displaces thoughts of rejection and banishes feelings of abandonment. God loves you for who and what you are. God loves unconditionally, without taking into account anything else, that will never change for any reason.

"For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life" - John 3:16

And if you ever feel that you aren't good enough, aren't wanted by anyone, or that you don't fit in, it is in this priceless gift of God's love that we comprehend the amazing truth - that even if we were never wanted or planned by a human heart and mind, we were always planned and wanted in the heart and mind of God!

The Lord gave me this message: "I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb. Before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as my prophet to the nations" - Jeremiah 1:4-5

So on Valentine's Day, remember the one who loves you more than anyone else and how He will never leave you. If you have yet to accept God's love pouring over you, why don't you consider doing so today?

Thought of the Day: Dust

Most people are familiar with the Bible's teaching that Adam, the first human, was made from dust:

Then the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person (Genesis 2:7)

Today I was reading Psalm 103 and had a thought when I got to this verse:

The LORD is like a father to his children, tender and compassionate to those who fear him. For he knows how weak we are, he remembers we are only dust (103:13-14)

My thought was just a simple reflection - that we really are dust! I've heard people say how stupid it sounds that we are made from the dust of the earth, because actually we are extremely complex. It's true, we are indeed extremely complex. That shows God in itself. But at the same time, in simple terms, we are also nothing but dust. That's what dust is - dead skin cells. Saying that we're dust shows that we're still very fragile, despite our complexity, which is what's being highlighted in this psalm.

A Recent Conversation About Abortion

I thought I would share a conversation that I had with a friend about abortion today. I will abbreviate the boy's name as 'C'. The conversation was in response to this story:

A worried woman went to her gynecologist and said, "Doctor, I have a serious problem and desperately need your help! My baby is not even 1 year old and I'm pregnant again. I don't want kids so close together"

The doctor said "Ok and what do you want me to do?"

She said "I want you to end my pregnancy, and I'm counting on your help with this"

The doctor thought for a little, and after some silence he said to the lady, "I think I have a better solution for your problem. It's less dangerous for you too".

She smiled, thinking that the doctor was going to accept her request. Then he continued, "You see, in order for you not to have to take care of 2 babies at the same time, let's kill the one in your arms. This way, you could rest some before the other one is born. If we're going to kill one of them, it doesn't matter which one it is. There would be no risk for your body if you chose the one in your arms"

The lady was horrified and said "No doctor! How terrible! It's a crime to kill a child!"

"I agree" the doctor replied. "But you seemed to be OK with it, so I thought maybe that was the best solution". The doctor smiled, realizing that he had made his point. He convinced the woman that there is no difference in killing a child that's already been born and one that's still in the womb. The crime is the same!

 

-----

 

C: I believe it's quality of life rather than the quantity of lives. I think it's easy just to say "we can save lives, so no matter what we must save them", but if you're risking the lives of those around the child, and the child's itself just because people want to try and stand on a high moral ground, fighting for something in which they don't really have a huge say in... i dunno, i just don't think it's fair to have loads of peoples lives jeopardised by people who want to wear a big S on the front of their shirt trying to be a hero. It's all fine saying you want to save lives, cool, but how about fighting for those out there who genuinely need it and can't do anything about it. There are better more important things to fight for than trying to say the Quantity of Lives is more important than the Quality. Which i believe, it is not.

Me: I understand what you're saying, but I think the problem is how do we judge a quality of life? People often think abortion is justified if the child would have a 'poor quality of life', well what does that mean? Babies can be aborted if they have club foot. Does that mean they wouldn't have a good quality of life? How can we possibly define that? In which case it seems like a weak reason to abort a baby

C:  Mhm, i doubt anyone can argue with that really, seeing as hindsight is a wonderful thing and it's impossile to know beforehand. Plus, i can see how some people would say a child born into a 1st world country with some family problems would live a much better life than those in developing countries (even though that's kinda path dependancy which is a totally different topic altogether). I just think there are so many negative ethical complications, to what would be essentially forcing a woman to have a child, that it isn't worth the amount of lives you'd put in harms way/problems you'd cause. Sure, it could be the best thing that happens these people around the child, but as a general thing, i don't think it's what most people would say today is 'for the best'

C: Putting it this way, what we're all saying here, is that because the child doesn't have a voice, we're going to give it one by fighting for it's life. But that's exactly NOT what you set out to do here in the first place! (because you make their decision for them!) I think i can speak for most people here when i say that if i had a rational, sympathic, fully thinking brain when i was in my mothers womb, and i had a say in the matter, if my mother didn't feel like she could cope with me and give me a happy life that (i believe) everyone deserves, and that she ultimately isn't ready/doesn't want me at this time in here life, i'd have to bite the bullet and be selfless, saying that it really is, at the end of the day, her call. (So i see what you mean with the whole.... 'where do we draw a line', i guess i'm just saying that we kinda already have a pen in our hands, all we need to draw now is draw it)

Me: I don't think you'd be forcing a woman to have a child, because apart from extremely rare cases where a woman has become pregnant through rape, women can control whether or not they get pregnant. If they didn't want to have a child, they should have taken preventive measures in the first instance. That's where the mother had her call. If she couldn't do that then she only has herself to blame for the situation she now finds herself in. She shouldn't take out her frustrations on the unborn child.

Me: I don't see how ending the life of a child before it's born would ever be a good thing. You just don't know what will happen, for example Steve Jobs is only here because his mother chose to give him up for adoption rather than abort him. Also the baby will feel pain from 6 weeks gestation. From the mother's perspective also, she has no idea what will happen. I know people who've had abortions that now find it difficult to conceive again, or have had several miscarriages, leaving their bodies permanently damaged from the abortion. Was the abortion therefore beneficial even for her? Emotional trauma is another factor, I know people who are tormented by what they did and by thoughts about what their baby would be like now. Thus, where is the benefit to anyone from an abortion?

'Nothing Made Everything' - how atheists think they have the answer to everything

Many people are under the impression that atheism = intelligence and Christianity/creationism = stupidity. I would like to share a video with you that I just can't get enough of. You can try to argue against this all you want if you're an atheist, in which case, leave me a comment answering the questions Todd poses in this video. You can't. I present, the stupidity of atheists...

"Why did God let the Holocaust happen?"

Since it's Holocaust Memorial Day in Europe and I am an Ambassador for the Holocaust Educational Trust (HET), I thought today would be an appropriate time to answer the above question. I've been asked this question a few times, most frequently when I visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps in Poland, as part of my work as an Ambassador for the HET.

I'd like to start this post by directing you to this post over at GotQuestions? They have answered (with reference to Bible verses) the above question for the most part and since they've done it so well, I won't spend time repeating what they've said here. Instead I will summarise (and you can read in its entirety and and check the references) and I'll add what that post didn't say.

In short:

• God's permission is not the same as God's approval. Just because something bad happens, doesn't mean God approves of it
• We will never understand God's plans because we do not have infinite knowledge like He does. His knowledge includes possibilities, past, present and future
• Humans are sinful and pursue sinful, selfish desires. They have the choice to turn from this but many do not. The sinful actions of the Holocaust therefore rest with those involved, who made that choice - not God
• God is just and thus those involved in the atrocites will be punished accordingly
• One good thing to come out of the Holocaust was the establishment of Israel as a nation for the Jews, fulfilling prophecies in Ezekiel 37 and Matthew 24

To add a little more:
The key issue here is free will. Sin exists in the world and it always will. God gave us free will (that's a whole post in itself) so that we could choose to love and follow Him, as opposed to being robot-style humans 'programmed' as it were to love God because He made us that way.

Due to free will, people can do disgusting acts like the Holocaust. God can intervene, but if He did this all the time we'd have 2 problems:

1. This would remove free will. No one would ever get round to actually doing something against God, because He'd always stop them
2. We would stop helping ourselves because we would expect intervention from God all the time. A bit like a superhero situation.

We need to turn from evil and choose good for ourselves and try to convince others to do the same. My last thought on the issue is that when I was at the camps, I felt closer to God. It sounds strange, but it is the eeriest, scariest, quietest, most frightening and morbid place I have ever been, even without prisoners and SS officers. I realised the cruelty of man and the contingent, fragility of life. That brought me closer to God. It made me realise that He is the only way.

If we are saved, if we believe and trust in Jesus Christ and follow Him, life on earth is as bad as it will ever get for Christians. One day we will join our Lord in the place He has prepared for us (John 14:2-4)

"I can't believe in something that I don't fully understand, so I'm not a Christian"

A few people have said to me that the reason they don't read the Bible or choose to follow God and become a Christian is because they don't understand the Gospel. The basics of Christianity are really quite simple:

• God created everyone with a purpose and He wants a relationship you
• You have sinned, which means you have disobeyed God's plans for you, like every single person on the planet
• God is upset by this and as a just and righteous God, He must punish you accordingly - which means Hell
• But God will not give up! He loves you so much that He sent His only son Jesus to take the punishment for your sin
• The punishment for sin is death. Jesus, in his perfection, took it upon himself to die an excruciating, horrific death so that we could be forgiven of our sins
• He showed his power and glory, when God resurrected Jesus from the dead
• The price has been paid for us, so that if we believe in God, trust God, choose to obey God now and apologise with sincerity then we fail, we will be saved - we will live with God in Heaven and avoid being sent to Hell

(For a more in-depth explantion of that, you might want to see my posts on why God sends people to Hell and how you can avoid it here and here. You may also want to visit Got Questions?)

If you would prefer to watch a video explaining the Gospel message clearly and concisely, check this out, it's done in the format of spoken word poetry:

credit to Odd Thomas and WretchedRadio

But if at this point you're still thinking "ok, I get that much, but I'm still confused by stuff like Jesus being resurrected, the Trinity, etc" here's my answer to you: yes, it is complicated stuff! God's plan is divine, it has been made with his ultimate understanding and knowledge, with his foresight and hindsight. We do not have this.

It is not important that we understand the ins and outs of His plan entirely, we just need to understand the basics which I have just explaned. God guides us and helps us to understand. It takes time to build up a close communication with God, through Bible study and prayer, as it does with any relationship. But He will reveal himself and help you understand. He listens and waits for you.

Now before you jump to thinking this is a 'cop out', think of it like this: what do you currently follow or believe that you do not fully understand? Do you understand...

• How the internet works? But do you believe that the internet exists? Do you frequently use it?
• How your phone works? But do you blindly use that without understanding it?
• How gravity works? Yet you believe you will stay on the ground
• How the universe exists? The movements of the Earth in relation to the Sun and the moon? But you expect that we'll have day and night

It is possible to know how the things I have just listed work. It is possible to understand God's unique plan for our lives. But both are complicated. If that is not a reason however to shy away or refuse to investigate the workings of the internet, why is it a reason to turn from God? If you can blindly follow worldly things without fully comprehending, why do you reject doing this with God?

3 in 1: My answer to questions about the Bible's compilation and being changed over time

This post is an answer to a few similar questions that I am frequently asked:

1. "How can I believe in the Bible when it has been changed over time?"
2. "How do you know what Jesus actually taught when (insert name of King here) chose what he thought should be in the Bible and what should be scrapped?"
3. "Aren't there bits of the Bible missing because some king put different writings together to make the Bible, leaving some out?"

For anyone who is asking these questions, or similar questions, here's your answer. Firstly, I find it's Catholics (or those raised Catholic) that ask me the 2nd and 3rd questions in the above list the most. I have never attended Mass, nor have I been to Catholic school, but the fact that so many Catholic friends of mine have this strange belief, leads me to think that perhaps Catholics are taught that some man/king/Pope or whoever compiled the Bible. Or perhaps Catholics are not taught this, but it's a conspiracy among the less observant/strict believers.

The first question I get asked a lot by Muslims. Many of them think the Bible has been changed in terms of things being added, things being removed and things being re-written, in terms of the language used, to say something different.

I'm answering these 3 questions at once because they all link in together. (Except for the semantic issue of the language used in the Bible when translated, which will be a separate post). The fact is the Bible was actually compiled by the writers of the Bible themselves, who were divinely called to write the scriptures. They knew their calling, wrote the scriptures and those scriptures were then brought together to form the Bible as a whole. (For a more in-depth look at who put the Bible together, click here). Thus, it was not a person putting things in and taking things out to suit their needs. Nor has anything been added since, left out or removed.

We know that everything in the Bible now has always been part of the Bible, as God intended. It is not missing anything. God was the one in charge of putting the Bible together. It is the sceptics and unbelievers who try to portray this message of the Bible being incorrect in one of these ways. Speaking about the apostle Paul, Peter says:

2 Peter 3:16 - He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.


There's also a great, short video from WretchedRadio touching on this topic:

"Why do Christians think humans are a superior species?"

This post is actually not to quote tons of Scripture as to why humans are superior above other animals, etc. The reason being that when I get asked this question, people don't want to hear "because in the Bible it says XYZ". The Bible provides plenty of information if you are interested in why humans are superior from a biblical perspective. In a nutshell, we were created superior: we are made in God's image or likeness, we have free will, we have a conscience, we have rationality, we were made intentionally and with a purpose.

Today I will instead explain how we can see, Bible aside, why scripture is correct in teaching that humans are superior to other beings. Here is a list of what we are capable of in comparison to animals:

• Self-awareness: before you start thinking about Cyberdyne and Skynet and claim that machines can be self-aware, hear me out on what I mean by this. We understand that we exist. We know that we used to exist before this moment in time and we can remember the past and how we existed then. We also understand that we will continue to exist in the future. Think of Dory in Finding Nemo. Although she can remember aspects of the past, this seems coincidental in relation to how we remember the past. The fact that she can remember things like 'P. Sherman, 4 Wallaby Way, Sydney' doesn't mean she is mindful of the fact that she used to exist and will exist in the future. We can, which is the key difference. Our self-awareness is on a higher level, more complex and thus superior in comparison.
• Empathy: humans have the ability to empathise, to feel what it is like for another person to be in a certain situation, without being in that position ourselves
• Mind-reading: not literally knowing exactly what someone's thinking all the time, Edward Cullen style mind-reading. What I mean is we can know what other people are thinking and how they are feeling sometimes without them needing to say anything. For example, you see your friend thinking about something when she hears her favourite song, you might know that she's thinking about the first time she heard it. You see your boyfriend staring into the fridge, you might know he's thinking about what to have for lunch. By knowing a person, we can to an extent read their minds.
• Emotion: we can recognise and know how a person's feeling by looking at them. We both express emotion more vividly and clearly than animals and we can recognise and identify emotions from people's body language, facial expressions and tone of voice. (Well, most of us).
• Language: we have developed thousands of complex, well-developed languages that are completely different from the communication animals use. We can use to talk to each other using these languages to express ourselves specifically, understand one another and respond.
• Predictability: by knowing people, we can predict their behaviour, emotions and responses. Unlike animals, we can weigh up scenarios and compare outcomes (using complex thought-processes and consciousness too for the record) to know how someone will feel about something, react to something and what they'll say to something else. What they'll like or dislike, how they'll react, etc.
• Monogamy: we seem to be one of few, if not the only, species that is capable of and often desires a monogamous relationship. Most animals don't care about the 'personality' of other animals, or even the way the other animal looks. They simply follow basic instinct to find a mate. They may have more than one at a time, or even move from one to the other. Humans have personal interaction with each other, we wouldn't want to end up with just anyone for life. We desire a specific person and want to hold on to them and no other. (Again, 98% of the time)

It's these factors that we can observe everday that go hand-in-hand with biblical teaching that humans are superior. These things I have just listed, show how God made us differently and touch on why He did so. Christians believe humans are superior and stewards of the Earth for these reasons and many others, not just because we want to give ourselves authority to do what we want, feel big and mistreat other creatures.

I hope to the people who've asked me that question, that I have answered it!