Moving to a new blog…
I am getting ready to move to a new blog, new format, new ministry.
The format will be video.
The ministry will be teaching.
The address will be PeopleofThunder.tv
Should transition about 8-1-08.
God bless everyone!.
The fall of a democracy…
There is a quote that has been streaming the internet that goes like this:
A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.
The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years.
During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:From bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage
I couldn’t verify the quote, or its original author, however, In light of the Roman Empire, and the Athenian Empire this is certainly true…
A good look at the book of Lamentations also teaches this…
Why it is so hard to gain perspective…
Excerpt from here…
The lens analogy
A perspective is a particular lens with which you can view reality. Let’s say that subjective reality is a red lens, and objective reality is a blue lens. Now as you look through the blue lens, prove to me that the red lens is real.
That request doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. First of all, if you’re looking through the blue lens, you may be able to find the red lens if you’re lucky, but it won’t look red. It will probably look magenta to you. But you have no way to discern the difference between a true red lens and a genuine magenta one — through your blue lens they both look the same. So this will be a very confusing and frustrating search.
Now let’s suppose you manage to find a genuine red lens with the help of a friend who isn’t stuck looking through a blue lens. As long as you keep looking through the blue lens, your perceptions of the red lens will be limited in their accuracy, even though you can trust that it’s a red lens you’re looking at. Everything your friend tells you about this red lens will seem a little bit off because you’ll be seeing something different.
To understand subjective reality not only requires putting down the blue lens but also picking up the red one and peering through it for a while. If you look through the red lens while still wearing the blue one, you’ll get something entirely different from subjective reality — you’ll merely be studying subjective reality’s projection onto on objective framework, which will make it seem far more complex and incomprehensible than it really is.
The lens of subjective reality (red) and the lens of objective reality (blue) are incompatible with each other. They are contradictory beliefs about reality. You can project either system into the framework of the other, but if you do that, you’re perceiving the projection and not the true reality.
From Me:
This is why Jesus said you “must be born again”… because you have to let go of your truth, and look at life through the lens of “The Truth”…
We were born looking at life through a selfish, subjective lens… and in order for us to see the truth… we must put that lens down, and by faith look through the lens of truth…
What lens are you holding on to?
In vitro
In vitro (Latin: within the glass) refers to the technique of performing a given experiment in a controlled environment outside of a living organism; for example in a test tube. In vitro fertilization is a well-known example of this.
Why do we do church “in vitro” sometimes?
Think about that…
How do I attain faith?
A question by a young man was asked:
I read my Bible every day, and really love discussing theology and enjoy hearing sermons but I am not sure if I have faith that there is a GOD and in turn dont know if I am saved and am scared to die and also scared of hell. My question is how do I know if I have faith and/or how do I attain faith?:
How would you respond to a question like this?
Evidence for a creator … (2)
Bacteria, and the flagellar motor …
What you are viewing below is called the “flagellar motor”, found at the base of the flagellum of bacteria.
The bacterial flagellum is a long fiber that extends from the bacteria providing motion by hyper rotation.
Below is a computer animated diagram of the flagellar motor, in its individual parts:
What you are viewing is an amazing example of creation. The torque in this bio-mechanical engine can operate at 6000 - 17000 rpm and reverse rotation immediately.
Below is an example of a human component of design in automobile manufacturing known as the “rear” differential.
And here is a similar example of human design, found in an automobile transmission.
The torque and speed generated by a transmission do not compare to the flagellar motor.
There are many skeptics looking for “evidence” of God in creation, but God’s fingerprints and elements of creativity found in creation would be absurd to ignore.
The next time a skeptic says “If there were evidence of God I would believe”, just remind them of the bacterial flagellum. Sometimes we humans have our eyes wide shut.
No one would look at an automobile transmission, and say it occurred as a random act of chance. The design in a flagellar motor shows evidence of intelligent design.
Perhaps you are beginning to see God’s fingerprints in creation for the first time.
We invite you to take a look at what God is saying to you.
Evidence for a Creator… (1)
The Human Eye:
The human eye is a complex system of about 49 different subsystems. The retina alone has about 130 million special cells, that respond to light and send messages to the brain.
Incredibly the optic nerve, the eye, and the visual cortex are totally separate and distinct subsystems, yet together they capture, deliver, and interpret up to 1.5 pulse messages per millisecond!
It would take dozens of cray supercomputers programmed perfectly and operating together flawlessly to even get close to this task…
Obviously if all the individual parts of the eye aren’t operating simultaneously, and in perfect unison, the eye won’t work and serves no purpose.
How did the retina, optic nerve, and all the other parts that play a role in seeing come about?
Natural selection can not choose separately between the optic nerve and the retina. The emergence of the lens has no meaning in the absence of the retina.
The simultaneous development of structures for sight is unavoidable. Since parts that develop separately cannot be used, they would serve no purpose and also perhaps disappear with time.
What we have mentioned shows “irreducible complexity”. Complex organs made up of necessary but separate subsystems cannot be the result of random chance, and point to a creator.
We invite you to look at our main website to see what this creator has to say to you…
I saw God today …
This is one of my favorite songs…
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When I was first saved (august 1997), I saw a flower growing in the middle of a snow drift… it was amazing, and that silly little flower made me fall down right there and worship God…
Isn’t it funny how when God changes your life, the whole world looks different, new, and amazing how beautiful what God made is… its cause for worship…
Got my braces off today…
I have worn braces for 3 and a half years…
A few things I have learned from braces…
Not everyone is born with perfect teeth… but mine were severely jacked…
Sometimes to get things straightened, a little pain is required…and a lot of patience…
Straightening things happens little by little sometimes, and you don’t notice how far things have moved (even though you have felt the pain), but at some point you take a good look and realize things have moved a lot…
Seeing the “before” and “after” pictures is an incredible reminder of how far things have come…
Maybe your one of those people who has doubts sometimes whether or not God is at work in your life, and you have been experiencing a little moving, and a lot of pain…
Think for a few minutes of what your life was before Christ, and ask yourself what changes he has made and reflect on them…
You might see something like this:
Craig Groeschel has the gift of prophecy … just ask him…
Did you know that 7 years ago, at the end of a class from Life Church called “Preaching for Dummies”, Craig Groeschel said something to me that God has made come completely true…
I went through the very first course called “Preaching 4 Dummies”, which was a seven or eight day class over several weeks, in which Craig Groeschel challenged us, and shared with us practical things he learned over the years as an effective communicator, and some scriptural prinicples for preaching…
At the end of the course, Craig told each one of us what he thought, and how God was going to use us, and then he prayed for us…
This is what he said to me, and until now I have never told anyone else other than my wife…
“Avery, you have the wisdom of the heavens, and the talk of the streets… go and preach anywhere you can…”
Little did he know that after preaching in several different venues, I was called to street evangelism and sharing the gospel with complete strangers less than two years later…
Since then, I have seen God work to bring many people to faith in Jesus Christ on the streets of many cities throughout the U.S., and have trained others to share their faith as well…
I know many of you who read my blog attend Life Churches throughout Oklahoma City….
So, go ask your pastor if he has the gift of prophecy… (whether he knows it or not he does)….