Musings with PWC

Everyone is created with a free will.   This provided Adam and Eve with the reason or means of disobeying God.   I happen to believe Adam is not only a representative of every human being—he was more—he was LIKE every human being.   What I mean by that is—given the choice—every one of us, sooner or later, would have eaten the fruit. Adam’s free will gave him a choice.  His choice was simple—obey God or act independently.  He chose independence and suffered the consequences. In our freedom, we live life making choices.  We choose a spouse, a baby’s name, a kind of car, a vocation, etc.  Our life is one continual choice. Spiritually speaking: (The following is gleaned from  Gerald G May Addiction and Grace) In our spiritual life—freedom of choice—gives you basically 3 alternatives: # 1.  You risk total obedience to Christ.   # 2.  You strive for autonomy—and do your own thing. # 3.  You give in ...

I recently read Rod Parsley quoting Leonard Ravenhill.  Here is the quote:  “The greatest miracle God could ever do is to take an unholy man out of an unholy world, make him holy, put him back in an unholy world, and keep him HOLY.” Let’s face it—holiness (what ever that means) has reached a pretty low degree on the scale of popularity.  Let me give you a brief description of my journey with the ever elusive holiness.  I was raised and learned my ‘Christian walk’ steeped in a culture of holiness.  This holiness culture was interpreted by me in the following manner: 1.  God is holy—Peter is not. 2.  While the initial dose of holiness came through salvation—after the initial dose, Peter needed to majorly step up to the plate and smarten up. Basically this was interpreted like this:  If it was fun—it was probably wrong. 3.  Unholiness could jeopardize the initial dose of the aforementioned imputed holiness received at salvation...

My eschatology: What is going to happen? 1.  God will reign “The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!”  (Rev 11:15 NKJV) There will be no rival systems, no rival kingdoms, no rival ideas—God will reign as KING. 2.  God’s wrath will be expressed… People’s wrath will be silenced. “The nations were angry, and Your wrath has come.” (Rev 11:18 NKJV) The world is a constant expression of false anger and wrath.  At the end of time…God’s wrath will prevail against all evil.  3.  Pure justice will prevail. “We give You thanks, O Lord God Almighty, The One who is and who was and who is to come, Because You have taken Your great power and reigned. The nations were angry, and Your wrath has come, And the time of the dead, that they should be judged, (Rev 11:17-18 NKJV) All creation will bow to pure justice.  No more crookedness.  No ...

I grew up hearing various interpretations of “anti-Christ.”  These definitions ranged from a special person, a specific denomination or church—someone or some organization that would rise up and deceive the religious world—after the true church had vanished.  While there may or may not be some credence in some or all of that, John in his epistles is the only biblical writer who actually uses the term anti-Christ. John’s definition. ἀντίχριστος,—Literally means, an opponent of the true Christ—John uses it: 1John 2:18, 22; 4:3; 2John 7 This is the spirit of Anti-Christ. 1.  People who say that Jesus was not truly human—that is, Jesus didn’t have a human body.  His body was an illusion.  (This is the ancient heresy of Docetism) 2.  People who say and preach that Jesus was not truly divine. (This is the ancient heresy of Arianism) The other day I heard a radio talk show host state the following.  “I believe in Jesus—but I don’t...

How have we missed this in such a large way? This whole thing about leadership and serving.  At the passover meal—the last one which Jesus ever participated in—Jesus just explained that one of the twelve would betray him.  The response of the disciples was two fold. First, they tried pointing fingers.  They wanted to know who the dirty cop was. Second, they deteriorated into an argument about who is the greatest. What the second argument had to do with the first I’m not sure.  But here is Jesus’ response: “But among you, those who are the greatest should take the lowest rank, and the leader should be like a servant. Normally the master sits at the table and is served by his servants. But not here! For I am your servant.” (Luke 22:26, 27 NLT) Jesus sets the great example for the disciples and for us.  Leaders, masters, those in charge serve the servants at meal time.   Two examples come to mind.  Two ‘famous’ evangelis...

The book of Hebrews is a written thesis with this theme:  the superiority of Christ over Levitical Old Covenant priest/system  Hebrews 7:7 “7 And without question, the person who has the power to bless is always greater than the person who is blessed.” (NLT) This is how I read this: 1.  I need to look for someone better, older, wiser, more powerful—to bless me. 2.  I need to be prepared to bless those under me—releasing blessing into them. It is a family illustration:   the grandfather-father-son scenario— or a grandmother-mother-daughter scenario. Everyone of us is one of the above —at the least—or perhaps two. This requires us to think in terms of being a family and not a lone eagle. We need to purposefully and intentionally develop two kinds of relationships. One is primarily (though not exclusively) a receiving relationship.  The other is primarily (though not exclusively) a giving relationship. We should...

I’d be the first to say—I don’t like pain.  My mother prided herself in saying she had a high pain tolerance—not me!  If I’m in pain, I need CTV news contacted—to get Canada praying for my hang-nail.  Pain to me, is not helpful—it serves no particular purpose—even if I am told differently. Imagine my distaste and unbelief at this statement: Hebrews 2:10 “10 And it was only right that God--who made everything and for whom everything was made--should bring his many children into glory. Through the suffering of Jesus, God made him a perfect leader, one fit to bring them into their salvation.” (NLT) Hebrews 2:10 “10 For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.” (NKJV) Yikes! Note the correlation between pain and leadership.  Jesus was made “perfect through suffering.”  More specifically he was made the...