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Max Lucado told this story―A man was bitten by a dog. When he learned the dog had rabies, he began a list. The doctor said, “There’s no need to make a will—you’ll be fine.” “Oh, I’m not making a will,” he said, “I’m making a list of all the people I want to bite!”

“There is a problem in the church of North America today. The problem is, for the most part, she isn’t hungry for God.” Read more in A Burning Church Is The Only Hope For America.

Evolutionists cannot agree on the mutation rate that holds their theory together.

“You can do two things with pumpkin seeds. Eat them, an excellent source of protein, or plant them, and watch a successful seed bring back 100 more. The farmer who plants the seeds aggressively, without regard for, ‘hey, be careful, I could have eaten that seed,’ often ends up with many more pumpkins and many more seeds. On the other hand, the person who guards all the seeds and then eats them ends up with not much. And of course, money works the same way. Time, too.” —Seth Godin

“According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.” ―C.S. Lewis

Good read: Nothing In Constitution Requires States To Redefine Marriage.

John Stonestreet said, “One reason to stand for religious freedom in America is so that we can speak for our persecuted brethren elsewhere. But turning religion in the U.S. into a purely private matter makes coming to the aid of our persecuted brethren less, not more, likely.” Read the rest of his commentary here.

Links & Quotes

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In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis has one demon giving advice to his young protege demon. This is profound wisdom: “You will say that these are very small sins; and doubtless, like all young tempters, you are anxious to be able to report spectacular wickedness. But do remember, the only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the Enemy. It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.” —C.S. Lewis

Two surveys seem to be related: First, “Fifty-four percent of U.S. teens 15-to-17-years-old do not live in a home with their married mother and father.” Read more in this post. (2) Lee Strobel reports on some findings from a Barna Group survey he commissioned: “Two findings emerged in a new national poll that I commissioned on fatherhood and faith: the younger the generation, the more people report having difficult relationships with their fathers. At the same time, the younger generation reports the highest percentage of people who are struggling with belief in God.” You can read Lee’s thoughts on this in Fathers & Faith.

Frank Viola shared this great story—In light of their doctrinal disagreements, someone once asked George Whitefield if he thought he’d see John Wesley in heaven. Whitefield replied, “I fear not, for he will be so near the eternal throne and we at such a distance, we shall hardly get sight of him.”

“Grace is simply another word for God’s tumbling, rumbling reservoir of strength and protection. Grace comes to us not occasionally or miserly but constantly and aggressively, wave upon wave. We’ve barely regained our balance from one breaker, and then, bam, here comes another.” Read more in Max Lucado’s post Grace—A Never Ending Supply.

Astronomers are perplexed by the size of a black hole. Apparently it is challenging their views on the origins of the universe. Perhaps there is a better explanation….

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Some good reading & watching from today…

[VIDEO] John Maxwell on the importance of follow-through.

Tim Dilena’s post—Pay For The Salsa & Chips—is a great reminder of the power of honesty.

Quite intriguing: Are We Evolving Stupidity?

Another reason to stand-up and speak out for the true definition of marriage—Incest: Another Disordered Image Of Worship.

Soul love is the soul of all love. To pet and pamper and indulge your child, as if this world was all he had to look forward to, and this life the only season for happiness—to do this is not true love, but cruelty. It is treating him like some beast of the earth, which has but only one world to look to, and nothing after death. It is hiding from him that grand truth, which he ought to be made to learn from his very infancy,—that the chief end of his life is the salvation of his soul.” Read more from J.C. Ryle in True Love For The Child’s Soul.

Charles Spurgeon: No One Can Believe For Me.

“Pain is terrible, but surely you need not have fear as well? Can you not see death as the friend and deliverer? It means stripping off that body which is tormenting you: like taking off a hair-shirt or getting out of a dungeon. What is there to be afraid of? You have long attempted (and none of us does more) a Christian life. Your sins are confessed and absolved. Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave it with regret? There are better things ahead than any we leave behind. Remember, though we struggle against things because we are afraid of them, it is often the other way round—we get afraid because we struggle. Are you struggling, resisting? Don’t you think Our Lord says to you ‘Peace, child, peace. Relax. Let go. Underneath are the everlasting arms. Let go, I will catch you. Do you trust Me so little?’” —C.S. Lewis

[VIDEO] Sesame Street parodies Star Wars to teach us about self-control.

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Some interesting reading & watching today…

“The treacherous enemy facing the church of Jesus Christ today is the dictatorship of the routine, when the routine becomes ‘lord’ in the life of the church. Programs are organized and the prevailing conditions are accepted as normal. … That would be perfectly all right and proper for a cemetery. Nobody expects a cemetery to do anything but conform.” —A.W. Tozer

John Stonestreet reminds us that even in the scientific community, Macroevolution Has No Clothes.

“Father, we fear our deadly fondness for floating toward the falls when we ought to be swimming against the current. Oh, God, have mercy to waken us again and again to the perils of drifting in the Christian life. Help us heed Hebrews 2:1, ‘We must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it.’” —John Piper

I love this story: Communion On The Moon.

Hamas are terrorists pure and simple. The Egyptians get it. Why doesn’t the Western media get it? Why don’t Western leaders get it? And why don’t Christian leaders get it?” Read more about the Israeli battle against Hamas in Middle-East Meets Middle-Earth.

[VIDEO] Ken Davis has a hilarious take on airplane restrooms.

The Wall Street Journal rightly sees the situation at Gordon College as The Next Religious Liberty Case.

Dr. Tim Elmore lays out The Messages We Must Send To Millennials About Life After College.

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Some interesting reading from this weekend…

A very informative piece on the history of Israel.

Some ministers today preach only a positive message. To hear them tell it, every Christian is getting instant answers to prayer and receiving miracles; everybody is feeling good, living well; and the whole world is bright and rosy. I like to hear that kind of preaching because I really desire all those good and healthy things for God’s people. But that is not the way things are for a great number of very honest, sincere Christians.” Read more in David Wilkerson’s post At The Breaking Point.

[PHOTO] 100 random acts of kindness almost anyone could do.

Judgment is God’s job. To assume otherwise is to assume God can’t do it. God has not asked us to settle the score or get even. Ever!” Read more in Max Lucado’s post Judgment Is God’s Job.

Pretty cool: researchers are discovering ways to restore brain function after an injury.

You may have seen the headlines that claimed children with same-sex parents fared better than children in traditional homes. Hold on a second: the research was flawed.

Regis Nicoll asks a great question: How Should Churches Receive Same-Sex Couples?

These kinds of atrocious reports about Planned Parenthood’s irresponsibility make me angry! Any why are my tax dollars funding this?!?

One of the basic propositions that supposedly makes evolution work is that things remain relatively the same over long periods of time. Yet here is another scientific study telling us that things haven’t remained the same.

“The people with the calculators have seen the problem, but they have not seen God. They have figured things out, but they have not figured God in.” —A.W. Tozer 

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Some interesting reading and watching from today…

“I call love to God the motion of the soul toward the enjoyment of God for His own sake, and the enjoyment of one’s self and of one’s neighbor for the sake of God.” —Augustine

Thom Rainer shares 6 symptoms of a dysfunctional church.

This research says that married people are healthier people.

[VIDEO] Greg Koukl addresses the “God of the Gaps” argument.

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Some things I was reading today…

“Adolescence is an attempt to grab the privileges of adulthood while still clinging to the privileges of childhood” —Rabbi Daniel Lapin. This got me thinking: How am I preparing my kids for adulthood?

Charles Darwin said his pursuit of knowledge diminished his joy of discovery. Read this: Let Darwin Teach You.

“To know nothing but Christ, there must be a continual flow of revelation from the Holy Spirit. If the Holy Spirit knows the mind of God, if He searches the deep and hidden things of the Father, and if He is to be a well of living water springing up, then that well of flowing water must be a continual, never-ending revelation of Christ. It awaits every servant of the Lord who is willing to wait on the Lord—quietly, in faith believing, trusting the Holy Spirit to manifest the mind of God.” —David Wilkerson

As he does so well, Ken Davis uses his hilarious adventures on the golf course to teach us about Golf And Repentance.

[WARNING] There is some fairly graphic language in this post, but it serves to illustrate how profane the pro-abortion movement is Sarah Silverman: The Abortion Movement’s Nutty Professor.

Links & Quotes

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“Accept these [euphoric] sensations with thankfulness as birthday cards from God, but remember that they are only greetings, not the real gift. I mean, it is not the sensations that are the real thing. The real thing is the gift of the Holy Spirit which can’t usually be—perhaps not ever—experienced as a sensation or emotion. The sensations are merely the response of your nervous system. Don’t depend on them. Otherwise when they go and you are once more emotionally flat (as you certainly will be quite soon), you might think that the real thing had gone too. But it won’t. It will be there when you can’t feel it. May even be most operative when you can feel it least.” —C.S. Lewis

Discipline motivates—Punishment mortifies.
Discipline is based on trust—Punishment is based on fear.
Discipline is time in—Punishment is time out.
Discipline is practice—Punishment is penalty.”  Read more from Ken Davis in his post The Power Of The D Word.

Before you go anywhere else with your disappointments, go to God. Maybe you don’t want to trouble Him with your hurts. ‘He’s got famines and wars; He won’t care about my little struggles,’ you think. Why don’t you let Him decide that? He cared enough about a wedding to provide the wine. He cared enough about Peter’s tax payment to give him a coin. He cared enough about the woman at the well to give her answers. He cares about you! Your first step is to go to the right person. Go to God.” —Max Lucado 

Brian Thomas asks, “Has evolutionary faith blinded biologists from seeing the forensic clues within the insect symbiosis they study?” in his post about the beauty and elegance of Creation shown in symbiosis.

[INFOGRAPHIC] How President Obama’s end-run around Congress is going to cost you money. A lot of money!

“Scripture will ultimately suffice for a saving knowledge of God only when its certainty is founded upon the inward persuasion of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, these human testimonies which exist to confirm it will not be vain if, as secondary aids to our feebleness, they follow that chief and highest testimony. But those who wish to prove to unbelievers that Scripture is the Word of God are acting foolishly, for only by faith can this be known. Augustine therefore justly warns that godliness and peace of mind ought to come first if a man is to understand anything of such great matters.” —John Calvin

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Some great reading I found today.

[AUDIO] This is a fascinating lecture from Dr. Glenn Sunshine on Christians in history who changed history.

“This day my God will perform all things for me; what can I do for Him? My thoughts ought to run to Him, for He thinketh upon me.” —Charles Spurgeon

This is appallingPro-abortion group declares bloody, mangled babies are “safe” for women.

“There is no doctrine which I would more willingly remove from Christianity than this, if it lay in my power. But it has the full support of Scripture and, specially, of Our Lord’s own words; it has always been held by Christendom; and it has the support of reason. If a game is played, it must be possible to lose it. If the happiness of a creature lies in self-surrender, no one can make that surrender but himself (though many can help him to make it) and he may refuse. I would pay any price to be able to say truthfully ‘All will be saved.’ But my reason retorts, ‘Without their will, or with it?’ If I say ‘Without their will’ I at once perceive a contradiction; how can the supreme voluntary act of self-surrender be involuntary? If I say ‘With their will,’ my reason replies ‘How if they will not give in?’ … The doors of Hell are locked on the inside. I do not mean that the ghosts may not wish to come out of Hell, in the vague fashion wherein an envious man ‘wishes’ to be happy: but they certainly do not will even the first preliminary stages of that self-abandonment through which alone the soul can reach any good. They enjoy forever the horrible freedom they have demanded, and are therefore self-enslaved: just as the blessed, forever submitting to obedience, become through all eternity more and more free.” —C.S. Lewis

[VIDEO] A great way for Creationists to dialogue with evolutionists.

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