God is Love

God is Love

A little while back, I was driving down the road listening to the radio. Someone came on and started talking about what I wanted to write about today. What they said really spoke to me, so I filed it in the back of my mind under ‘Remember for later’ and it stayed there for a little while, until today at church. We have been in a series about Marriage and the struggles in Marriage, but today Pastor Aaron weighted heavily on Love, and it brought the snippet on the radio right back to the surface.

We get in the mindset of God is our judge, which He is, the Bible is clear on that. But so often, and I know I am guilty of it, we take that to mean that God is judgmental. We see God as the punisher, the Almighty man in the clouds watching our every move, ready to strike us down when we make a mistake. In fact, sometimes we even see God as putting stumbling blocks in our path! We forget to stop and ask ourselves, what is the Character of God? We get caught up in this Judge and forget this Savior.

What is God’s Character? How does God act? I was reminded today of 1 John 4:8 “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is LOVE.” Those are great words. God is love, awesome, great…but what is Love? I mean I know what love is, but what IS it? What does this mean God is?   There are some famous verses in the book of 1 Corinthians that talk about love. It goes step by step through what love is; what if we replaced the word love with God. I mean after all if God IS Love, then God is these things.

First Corinthians 13:4-8

(God) is patient,

(God) is kind.

(He) does not envy,

Or boast,

(He) is not proud.

(He) does not dishonor others,

(He) is not self-seeking,

(He) is not easily angered,

(He) keeps no records of wrongs.

(God) does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.

(He) always protects,

Always trusts,

Always hopes,

Always perseveres.

God Never Fails… 

Our wrongs are not something God just laughs off, but remember God’s Character, remember his love.

~David

Relax, Gods Got This

                So today I am straying from the typical subject of history. This is more of a collection of thoughts that I've been having. If this is ok with all of you then read on, if not, close the page angrily and pretend that this blog post never happened.

Relax, God's Got This...

I was out for a walk the other day listening to NEEDTOBREATHE; whenever I listen to them I tend to have ideas of adventure and freedom, though this is beside the point.  I got struck by the amazing world God has created around us. As I looked at the lake, with fountains shooting up, and the massive apartment buildings around the lake that wouldn't even compare to the beautiful skyscrapers in major cities, I realized God created these wonderful things through us. Then I noticed the mother duck herding her little yellow baby puffy balls. I looked up and was taken aback by the thousands of twinkling stars in the sky. 

“What is the purpose of life?”  The question just popped into my head. A quick Christian answer rolled off my tongue like a well-trained dog sits on request. “To glorify God!” And this answer is so true! We are created to glorify this greater being, this Creator of great galaxies and tiny puff ball ducklings, but it’s so easy for us to just say that. How many times am I guilty of slipping into this 9-5 mentality, am I right? We wake up to go to work, and spend the day praying for the weekend where we spend the money we made, just in time to go back to work on Monday! Then another question popped into my head; one I am sure you’ve had before, “Is there more to life then this?” I pondered this for a little while.  This is the conclusion I came up with. We aren’t created to go through life going through the motions! This world that God created is for our enjoyment and pleasure. Does this mean quit your job and go have fun? Definitely not, but when is the last time you took a quiet stroll at night just to enjoy the peaceful stars God created.  Or maybe go and do something just to put a smile on a complete strangers face?

I wondered how can we make peoples days just a little brighter, how can we show the joy we have found in Christ. Recently, I found out they had pianos in downtown Jacksonville; every so often before work I like to sit down, play and just watch peoples days get a little brighter. What’s your talent? How can you give just to brighten up someone’s day? Guys, look at all the amazing blessing God has given us! Breathe in, God gave you that. Close your eyes and enjoy the warmth of the sun.  Watch the birds fly.

I just wanted to type this short note just to share with you all the reminder God gave me. Even though life is hard, life is stressful, stop and enjoy the blessings of the world around you. Ask yourself, what can I do for a stranger; not to get anything, but because it was first given to me!

~David

Cain is Gettin' Hitched

History

Cain is Gettin' Hitched

So I read an article the other day right, and it brought to my attention something I did not know. Did you know it’s a great debate where Cain, brother and killer of Able, got his wife? Did you know that Atheist use it to take potshots at the Bible? I didn’t, but now I do, and I wanted to let you know what this article taught me… So let’s go back to Genesis!

Genesis 4:17 ‘Cain lay with his wife...’ 


Woah, woah, woah, Wife?! Where did she come from?  Did God make wives for Adam’s sons? Well that is one of the theories, maybe God made other people! That is simple problem solved…but wait…

 Acts 17:26 says, “From one man (Adam) He made all nations…”

So if all people came from Adam, because remember, even Eve came from Adam’s rib, then there seems to be a contradiction. So what is the other theory? Well, the other theory is that Cain married his sister, or niece, or someone along those lines. In fact, every one of those times would have to marry a close relative if God didn't create other people. Atheists, and people who argue the Bible isn't true, point out two problems with this. First, the biological problem, if people marry their close relative, there are genetic mutations. These mutations lead to problems such as Down syndrome. Secondly, Leviticus 18…

'No one is to approach any close relative to have sexual relations...’v6

So is God contradicting Himself? Does this mean we all have genetic mutations? Well actually yes and no! We all do have genetic mutations. According to the article I read, which I will post the link at the bottom, we all have over 100 different mutations in us. Another article I saw put the number at about 60 mutations on average. Well, we are not here to debate how many mutations we have, but let it be known that we are all MUTANTS! Sorry, you can’t teleport or read minds; at best you’ll have a different color eyes then your parents, and at worse you aren't able to read this blog. But to save time we will assume we can all read. Moving on… You see when we were conceived, God gave us two copies of our genes, one from our Dad, and one from our Mom, so if one of these genes are mutated the other parents genes can step in and saved the day! Yay Mom! 

Now if both parents genes are mutated we run into problems, but what are the odds of that happening…Well probably pretty high if they got their genes from the same place, such as having the same parents, such a being brother and sister. The problem reveals itself! So how were Cain’s children able to turn out normal; how were any of us able to turn out normal if all this family marrying was going on in the beginning? 

Let us assume everyone here believes that the Bible story of creation is true. I am going to run on this assumption, if you don’t…well humor me. But God created Adam and Eve perfect, flawless, squeaky clean. This means no genetic mutations, imagine superman, without flying…or lasers, not saying it didn’t happen, but it wasn’t in the Bible so we can only hope. Now it would take many, many, many generation to cause a serious genetic problem, in fact even in Abraham’s time it was still fairly common. Abraham himself was married to his half –sister; don’t believe me, look it up, Genesis 20. So this is how genetically Cain was able to get away with marrying his close relative.

There is still the law, right? I mean, it’s hardly fair, they are breaking a law, but if they don’t break the law they are not doing what God told them, which is populate the earth, but God put the law in place. It hurt just thinking about it. Stop, God didn’t put the law into place until hundreds of years after Abraham, and well over a thousand years after Cain. I will use the example given to me, because I feel it is very good. You have a shepherd watching his sheep. They are in the plains and he can see for miles, no dangerous animals, nothing that the sheep can hurt themselves with, a pretty safe environment. Will the shepherd bother with building a fence? No of course not, but what if they move close to a cliff? Or a pack of wolves move into the area? Will he build a fence? Most likely!  If there isn’t anything to worry about God doesn’t put the law into place, but now a thousand years later the Jewish people are wandering in the desert, they are tight knit group, they don’t take lots of outsiders in for new genetic material, there needs to be some kind of protections of something they can’t even begin to understand. Remember, God places the law into effect; God isn’t subservient to the law!

Can I tell you without a doubt, ‘Cain married his sister’? Nope, wasn’t there. This is my belief, but without a time machine we can only look at the information we have and this seems like the most logical conclusion.

~David Dye 

http://creation.com/images/pdfs/cabook/chapter8.pdf

^

|

|

I read that, you can too. 


"Genetic Material (pardon the pun) has been approved by Shannon Hart, Biology Major of 


the United States Air Force Academy"

The Light of the World

History

The First

So this is the first of hopefully many, but I recently started going through the book of Genesis and studying it verse by verse. I thought I would record little interesting facts I come across via a blog. Fairly simple concept, we shall see if I have the ability to keep this up-to-date.

Firstly, I want to take you back to the very beginning; actually the VERY beginning is just a little bit to far back...

Genesis 1:3 'And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. v4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. v5 God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning  -- the first day.' 

I was watching a sermon by Perry Stone and he brought up something interesting, the sun wasn't created until day four... wait what? Where did the light come from you might ask, if not from the sun. I will show you, but for that to happen we have to skip ahead in the story a few THOUSAND year.

John 1:1 'In the Beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. v2 He was with God in the beginning. v3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. v4 In him was life, and that life was the LIGHT of men. v5 The LIGHT shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

So tell you the truth, If anyone asks you to show them were the Holy Trinity is in the Old Testament, point them them to Genesis One! Because, 'In the beginning God (The Father) created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was on the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God (The Holy Spirit) was hovering over the waters. And God said, "Let there be light!"(Jesus the Savior)


Get EXCITED cause Jesus said in John 8:12!

"I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of Life!"

~David Dye