What Do We Celebrate when We Celebrate Easter?

This is a card that I made for my friend, Gwenda, and it has symbolism within the design of the card. The red symbolises the blood of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ; the black symbolises our sin prior to His death on the Cross and the white represents the righteousness of the Saints, which is only received through God’s grace and Jesus shed blood on the Cross of Calvary.

Do we celebrate Easter? Well, I know that Easter has long been associated with Ishtar, the goddess of fertility, but we don’t worship her in our home. We worship the one true God, the one who died on the Cross so that we could have everlasting forgiveness of our sins. There was to be no more sacrifice, as the Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world.

Easter has been associated with many things – Easter eggs and hot cross buns, but we need to remember the true reason for Easter, and that is the love that God had for us in sending His Son to be the substitutionary sacrifice for us all. It’s not about furry bunnies, Easter eggs or hot cross buns.

Easter is defined by Merriam Webster’s Online Dictionary as:

• A feast that commemorates Christ’s resurrection and is observed with variations of date due to different calendars on the first Sunday after the paschal full moon.

While the Collins Concise Dictionary that we have at home defines Easter as:

• A festival of the Christian church commemorating the Resurrection of Christ: falls on the Sunday following the first full moon after the vernal equinox.

And World Book Encyclopaedia defines Easter as being:

• The most important Christian festival of the year. Easter celebrates the return to life of Jesus Christ, the founder of Christianity, after His Crucifixion.

Jesus came to give us life and that we might have it more abundantly (John10:10), and it is only through our faith in Jesus Christ that we receive this free gift of eternal life. Christ’s death and resurrection is the message that we should be sending to our friends and loved ones, and it should be His death and resurrection that we celebrate, knowing the love that our heavenly Father has for us.

The Christian and Economic Security vs. The Unsaved and Economic Security

This is the final essay for Christian Growth PACE 138, and I’m very happy with my son’s ideals, his essay writing and logical thinking skills.

There are lots of differences between the Christian and economic security vs. the unsaved and economic security. The unsaved person will have a totally different view of money vs. the Christian, who trusts on God and asks for God’s guiding on any major economic decision; sometimes maybe even in the minor decisions, too. A Christian will have an eternal view, where as the unsaved person will be solely focusing on providing for his time on earth. Colossians 3:2 says “Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.” and that is the major difference in the views of Christians and the unsaved on the subject of economics. Christians will not lay “up for [themselves] treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But [they will] lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:” *

Christians will view economic security with a godly perspective. They will prayerfully lay up money for the future, but with an eternal perspective. They won’t just hoard money for the sake of it. They will seek God’s face in all matters of economic security. Christians will trust God for the means to survive in their later years, whether it is by them saving money or whether it is by the grace of God that they are living. Christians will not be devastated if some catastrophe happened and they were no longer economically secure. They will view it as God’s way of bringing them closer to Him. After all, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”

The unsaved will view economic security from a worldly viewpoint that is influenced by Satan so as to keep as much money from doing good in this world. Satan will influence the unsaved to hoard their money. He loves to see people who are rolling in cash, and yet not giving it worthy causes. He hates to see good being done in this world, whether it is a Christian organization or not. Satan is the “father of lies”, so he likes to give people a false sense of economic security but encouraging them to lay up for themselves “treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt.” Economic security in the earthly sense really isn’t economic security. All that has to happen is for the stock market to crash, the bank to go bankrupt, or some other catastrophe and you are no longer economically secure.

As you can see, Christians will view economical security differently to unsaved people. They will view in light of the temporary, whereas Christians will view it in light of an eternity spent with God, where they will be “judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.” (Revelation 20:12). True economic security is found only in trusting totally upon God.

*Slight changes made, but they don’t affect the meaning of the verse.

DARWIN – The Voyage that Shook the World

Today we didn’t go to church, as it is a hundred and sixty kilometre round trip to church, and as my husband has to travel the same distance to go to the orthopaedic specialist on Tuesday, he didn’t feel that he could cope with two journeys a couple of days apart.

What to do – I love going to church and hearing the Word of God preached well, instilling it into my heart and helping me to grow into the sort of woman that God wants me to be, and to be fit to be for the Master’s use. We decided that we would watch the DVD, DARWIN, The Voyage that Shook the World,  from CREATION.com. We bought this DVD a while ago, and haven’t really found the right time to watch it, so today was it, and I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed watching the movie, as well as the extras!

This movie would have to be the most unbiased DVD that I have ever had the privilege of watching. It talks about Darwin as a young boy, and how he had a very enquiring mind, and he always wanted to know things – why this, why that, but that he also liked to fabricate tall tales from a very early age.

His father was a wealthy society doctor from Shrewsbury, and his mother was from the famous Wedgewood Pottery family. Charles Darwin was surrounded by a massive religious influence, but he was impacted most of all by the beliefs of his grandfather, who was a free thinking rationalist and humanist, who believed that there were going to be “chariots in the air”, that we now know as aeroplanes. Erasmus Darwin wrote the book, Zoonomia, which first theorised evolution, so the theory of evolution is not a new idea, but was simply popularised by Darwin. He also added passages from Zoonomia to his own book.

He loved enjoying himself and spent hours with his friends hunting and collecting specimens, and enjoyed discussing the wonders of nature. Darwin went to Cambridge with the understanding that he would train to become a preacher, and that he would become a country vicar with a comfortable life. However Charles started questioning some of the teachings of the established church.

In 1831, he received an invitation to join the Beagle for a five-year voyage of discovery around the world, and this was to change his way of thinking forever. It was on this voyage that the captain gave him the book, The Principles of Geology, that was written by Charles Lyell, a geologist and lawyer, and which was to have a profound impact upon Charles Darwin’s thinking, and to influence his thinking about the origins of the species. Lyell couldn’t accept the Genesis account of Creation.

Darwin studied such questions as:

• Where did the world come from?
• How was it made?

Darwin’s ideas were of uniformitarianism, influenced by Lyell’s books. Scientists have their own preconceived ideas, and this can influence the outcome. During Darwin’s day, he believed that he was seeing the results of slow, uniform change – uniformitarianism. He believed that at the mouth of the Rio Santa Cruz was an ancient sea channel, and that the ocean raising and lowering over great eons of time caused the change in landforms that he was seeing, and that the ocean had changed the coast. He attempted to travel up the river to prove his cause, but a lack of food and the fast flowing water meant that they had to turn back. Had he continued, he would have found the Perito Moreno Glacier, a large glacier that used to be a kilometre high. When the glacier broke off, there was enough water to cut all the valleys in the area, in days, not aeons of time.

Darwin encountered the people of Tierra Del Fuego, who had been trained in Britain in the manners of civilised people, but by the standards of that time, the people returned to savagery. Darwin found it difficult to believe that they were his fellow men, and didn’t believe that they could be elevated into being proper human beings, but such ideas are now considered extremely racist. The Biblical view is that all people have descended from Adam and Eve, but in 1834 his  experience, and his grandfather’s evolutionary ideas gave him another way of looking at his ideals.

Darwin also read the other two volumes of Lyell’s books and these books expounded long ages of time. He was in the third year of the voyage when he found some fossilised trees, but he believed that the trees grew there and were slowly buried over millions of years. In Argentina, you see two trees – one that has grown there, with soil and roots in place, but there was a tree stump that had no soil, nor roots, so it had to have been broken from a distant forest and buried rapidly -  then fossilised – more evidence of a great, global flood. Rapid catastrophic change is accepted today, but it may be unfair to judge Darwin by today’s standards, as science, philosophy and religion were still closely intertwined in his day.

He visited the Galapagos Islands and studied nature, but he missed vital pieces of information because he failed to document where he took certain specimens from, and it wasn’t until he returned home to England that he was asked where he collected the species. Anyone who believes in a global, catastrophic Flood would also believe that species can disperse and adapt. In Darwin’s mind, MADE BY GOD meant unchanging fixity of species, although his ideas changed later on. The Marine and Land Iguanas have hybridised, and it was an amazing occurrence. This is evidence of a species explosion, and shows that species can merge rapidly.

The beaks of birds on the Galapagos Islands rapidly change from large to small, from one generation to the next, and were affected by the food supply. Darwin couldn’t see this, as he was only on the islands for about five weeks in later 1835.

Charles journals were a sensation, and his friend published them while he was away. His writings undermined all that people believed. Charles belief that we descended from apes was very disturbing to his friends, and he became very ill. His beliefs were influenced by good and evil.

Charles couldn’t accept death and suffering as a result of the Fall. He had three out of ten of his children, who died, and this only served to make him retreat from a loving, creator God to the theory of evolution. He believed that the unfit were going to die, and that they weren’t going to go on to produce the next generation. The death of his children contributed to his theory of the natural selection of the species.
Darwin presented this theory as acceptable to people. He asked people to look at things his way, and explained some of the difficulties. By drawing on the information of his grandfather’s book and Lyell’s books, he was able to create The Origin of the Species, but he still couldn’t explain the origin of life itself. Perhaps he didn’t want to make the commitment of faith! Darwin’s theory (and that’s all that it is) of evolution is not about science – it’s all about God!

What is Your Calling?

Bible Verses Used:

Isaiah 55:11

Trust in God for He will never leave you nor forsake you, and He promises that His Word will never return to Him void. When God is moving us to a different level, we’re supposed to move on. I know that God is with me 100%. When Jesus speaks to us, He expects us to learn from our mistakes and move on. God doesn’t consult our past when He prepares our future.

Once we’ve given our heart and life to Jesus, there’s so many things we can do in serving Him – we can serve, we can pray and we can share what God is doing in our lives. In our weakness, God can be our strength, but I hear you asking – What can I do? There’s plenty that I can do. If you’ve felt it’s not my calling, get up there anyway. We’re called to serve Him.

Perhaps your calling is to clean the toilets. Whatever you do, do it to the glory of God. When you step out, just say, “Here am I, God – use me.” As situations change in your life, offer to help someone. Perhaps you’ve been asked to read aloud in church, and you’re terrified of being humiliated – just remember that God blesses your efforts. God will give you what you need, and He sees your ♥. When you feel peace in your ♥, go with it.

When you’re in any situation you can call on the name of Jesus, knowing that if He be for me, who can be against me? God is there for me; He will never leave me nor forsake me. Jesus didn’t die on the cross and endure all the pain and suffering so that we could backslide. We need to work together in unity – a strong body!

The Holy Spirit gives us an inner peace if what we are doing is right for us. We need to have faith and trust in God. If you trust the Holy Spirit 100% to guide you, you will find inner peace. Sometimes we need to step out of our comfort zone, for we are answerable to Jesus. There are people who have been Christians all their lives, and yet, they don’t have a personal relationship with the Lord Jeus Christ, nor have they stepped out in faith.

If you want Christian input, you need to approach a good strong Christian, who is rooted and grounded in God’s Word. God is building us strong and firm. If our roots are not strong in the Word of God, we don’t have the Living Water. Pine trees have shallow roots;  they wave in the wind and if they don’t receive water, they die. That’s like us – we need to have our roots grounded deep in God’s Word, so that when the storms of life come, we will be strong, and we also need to receive the Water of Life (Jesus).

We all have pressures from family and friends, but it’s up to us how we deal with those pressures. It’s important what God wants! We are all a part of the same body, and we need to fulfil our part – God will bless you for it. If we are faithful in the small things, God will bless us in the bigger things, too.

There are many areas where God can use you. Don’t wait for ten burning bushes. God can and will use you if only you let Him. Make yourself available. God is calling us to be a Holy people, and He’s opening our Spiritual eyes and our Spiritual ears. God will call the people that He wants to use. There’s no better time to make a commitment to the Lord Jesus.

If you don’t know the Lord, Jesus Christ, I ask you to invite Him into your heart, and pray the following prayer:~

Lord Jesus, I admit that I am a sinner and constantly fall short of your glory. I believe that You are the Son of God, and I give my life over to you and acknowledge you as my Saviour.

Then shout it from the rooftops that you are saved!

Worldly Things

Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 1 John 2:15

If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. John 15:19

What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?
For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s. 1 Corinthians 6: 19, 20

For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ. Ga 1:10

What do you wear? Is it important? Are the things that you wear the latest fashion, jeans maybe, or the latest miniskirt? What does God think of the things of this world?

We are told, as Christians, that we are set apart for His service, and that the world will hate us, regardless of what we do, so why do we seek to become more like the world with our dress – both male and female?

We should always aim to please God in all that we do, and to dress in a manner befitting the honour and glory that God deserves. We are called upon to be lords and ladies of the King of Kings – does our clothing reflect His glory, or are we more like prostitutes and pimps?

We are told in the Bible that we are the temple of God’s Holy Spirit, and as such we make up the church. What does God see when He looks at us? Does He see a people set apart for His service, seeking to please Him, or does He see a people seeking to live in the world, wearing what the world wears and living in the way that the world lives? What sets us apart from the world?