Links & Quotes

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“A man may be perfected through suffering or be made worse through suffering, it depends on his disposition.” —Oswald Chambers

“The only option for French atheists (among whose ranks I used to count myself), is to maintain that there isn’t really any such thing as evil. When one denies the existence of God as a transcendent Creator of the universe who ordains how humans ought to live their lives, one is left only with conflicting opinions about what individuals like and dislike. If there is no God then there is no objective truth about the good and the bad…. [I]n reality, to be a consistent atheist one must affirm that the Islamic terrorists in Paris didn’t do anything ‘wrong’, as such. They only acted out of line with our personal preferences, (and in line with theirs). If there’s no ultimate arbiter of right and wrong, that’s all we are left with.” —Guillaume Bignon, a former atheist, after the ISIS attacks in Paris. Read more here.

Josh McDowell answers the question: “If my friends and I have a disagreement, what’s the right way to handle it?

Planned Parenthood asked people on Twitter to give them one word that describes what they do. I’m not sure they liked many of the (true) responses they received. What one word would you use? I would say: evil.

6 Ways To Make Sure Everything You Do Is Sacred

It's all sacredAround 1300 AD, the Church began propagating a myth. It showed up in two words that were created around that time: clergy and laity.

Simply stated, clergy is from a root word that means “the learned men … the ones enlighten for ministry.” And laity is anyone not in that inner circle.

Insecure leaders did this to maintain control. They continued to read the Scriptures in Latin, which few could read, so they made sure that the clergy alone had a Bible, and they alone became the expounders of how the Bible told us to live.

In the clergy-laity divide, they also created a sacred-secular divide.

When Paul addresses the Colossians he does so with anything but a clergy-laity divide in mind. He calls them the holy and faithful brothers in Christ (Colossians 1:2). The KJV translates holy as saints, for that’s how Paul indeed sees them. And he sees them as his very own faith-filled brothers.

Paul also has anything but a sacred-secular divide in mind as he instructs then—whatever you do, whether in word or deed.

He makes it clear that everything we do as faith-filled, holy saints is to be sacred and God-honoring.

How do we do whatever we do in a sacred, God-honoring way? We ask these six questions:

[1] Can it be done with a clear conscience? (Acts 23:1; 24:16)

  • “It is not WHAT a man does that determines whether his work is sacred or secular, it is WHY he does it.” —A.W. Tozer

[2] Will it promote the Gospel? (Philippians 1:27)

[3] Is it a good deed? (Acts 10:38; James 3:13)

[4] Does it point people to God? (1 Peter 2:12; 1 Corinthians 10:31)

[5] Can I do it in the name of Jesus? (Colossians 3:17do it ALL in the name of Jesus)

[6] Does it cause others to be thank-full? (Colossians 3:17giving THANKS to God the Father).

Live according to your high calling, for all you do is sacred!

(To check out more thoughts on Colossians 3:15-17, click here and here.)