:: Sisters' Weblog: It Bloggles the Mind! ::

Sue's blogchalk:
United States, Tennessee, Humboldt, English, Susan, Female, 36-40, Christianity, Bible Study, church, music, trumpet, CD's.

Katie's blogchalk:
United States, Tennessee, Humboldt, English, Katie, Female, 30-35, Christianity, Bible Study, church, mom with two kids, full-time student.

[::..Button..::]
[::..Interview..::]
Sue at Diary-X
[::..Hits..::]
[::..Blog Archive..::]
Archive
[::..Search Site..::]
Pico Search
[::..Guestmap..::]
Sign Here
[::..Favorite Blogs..::]
Avoiding Evil
Holly the Blog
IreneQ
Meremadness
[::..Recommended..::]
Google
WayFM
Northbrook
[::..Music..::]
Crimson Light
[::..God Blogging..::]
Blogs4God
Exodus
Joy
[::..Blogrolling Etc..::]
Blogroll Me!
[::..Blog Stuff..::]
Ageless Project
Blizg
Blog Universe
Blogarama
Blogger
Bloginality
BlogMatrix
Blogshares
Blogwise
Daypop
Diarist
Geoblog
GeoUrl
Get Linked
Globe of Blogs
Haloscan
Pepys Project
Top Blogs
Wanderlust
[::..Links to Us..::]
@ Blogs4God
@ Blogrolling

:: Thursday, January 23, 2003 ::

Who Tempted Lucifer?

Ponder this.......About a year ago (wow I can't believe it has been a year already) I participated in a study on the book "A Case For Faith" by Lee Strobel. During the study we discussed how evil came into existance. We debated about God creating evil and what it was a product of. Well, it's a long dragged out complicated issue that I am not prepared to go into at this point. However, we were talking about evil on Earth......sin, the fall of man. Last night I got to wondering.......when did evil enter heaven? Why and how? I always have assumed angels to be good and demons to be bad. Demons are supposedly fallen angels......as is Lucifer. Therefore there are good angels and evil angels. God created them all as He creates everything. So, if evil comes from satan...........when and how did satan become evil? If satan is the temptor...who tempted satan to think that he was better than God? Does evil exist in heaven? Also, if evil entered heaven through satan, where did it come from? Did it exist before this time? If so then when God destroys satan and all evil.......what's to keep it from returning? Hmmmmmmm........ I'll have to add that to my list of questions to ask God when I get there.

:: Katie 1/23/2003 02:20:24 PM ** ** [+] ::
...

Secularization

I am currently enrolled in a secular college. Through out the past few semesters I have had to hear over and over how we can't discuss things from a religious perspective. We have to see things from a "Literary" point of view. I am being taught about evolution by a man who graduated from a baptist seminary! To hear biology taught as "these are the facts and this is the way it is" drives me crazy. All of science is based on theories. Even facts are never absolute. For instance if you see a wall and the color is blue....under a microscope that may not be the color at all. It's all a matter of which way the light is bending and the kind of lighting in the room. What if the wall looks white and you put a black light bulb in a room....the color is different then. The only absolute is God He never changes. He is, always has been and always will be God, and He is the one who is spoken of as a "belief" or "idea" or a "philosophy" or simply, an "opinion" that I am not allowed to share in class. Why is it that the secular world has the right to teach me things that go against my beliefs but I am not allowed to take a stand for what I believe in? I get so sick of it.

Why do I have to dish out oodles of cash to go to a private Christian school to be taught Truth? Why can't Truth just be taught in secular schools? It really bothers me when I'm in my biology class and I'm being told that I evolved from an ape as if I really did! I am forced to sit back and accept that point of view. I sit there and think about how I'm being taught lies. I have to take tests and answer multiple choice questions about science and if I write down what I believe to be true.........it's wrong. So, I have to take what I am taught (that I believe is a lie) and pretend that I believe it.

Last semester I had to give a persuasion speech on cloning. One person......ONE... in our group would not speak against it so the entire group decided that we would pretend that we support it even though 3 out of 4 of us didn't. So, I had the biggest part of the speech and I had to persuade people that cloning was ethical. IT'S NOT ETHICAL AT ALL AS FAR AS I'M CONCERNED! IT'S ABOMINABLE!!!!! I hated it but yet, in order to get where I have to go to get my degree, I am forced to play their game their way. The only thing that keeps me going is knowing that soon I will attend a Christian college to finish getting my degree. Then, I will be able to counteract all that I have been forced to do in school. I am cooperating now......but God's day will come. He is equipping me to teach Truth, and I will do my best to undo the injustice that has been done to me since I began college. I just can't wait until it's my turn.

:: Katie 1/22/2003 10:22:57 AM ** ** [+] ::
...

A Look into the Heart

Sue is always telling me that Jesus has a different attitude towards people because He already knows what's in their heart. Well, if His Spirit is alive in us, wouldn't that give us the ability to see inside a persons heart if our own heart was in the right place? Maybe she didn't miss a blessing last night. Maybe she saw past the outward appearances and saw the heart. Maybe the person she helped in November had his heart in the right place and the Holy Spirit saw the man's heart and moved Sue to help. Maybe the same thing happened last night. Maybe the Holy Spirit saw the heart of the man asking her for help. Maybe when she reaches heaven one day, God will show her the things she was spared and she may see that she was spared some horrible consequences last night.....Maybe.

:: Katie 1/22/2003 10:04:25 AM ** ** [+] ::
...

Did I Miss a Blessing?

Back in November I posted about a blessing I received because I felt led to help a stranger out who asked me for help. Tonight, I had another opportunity. It turned out different.

As I was leaving the mall a half hour after closing and walking to my jeep, a man walking rather quickly called out to me. He was behind me a bit to my right and I turned to see what he wanted. He was coming toward me seemingly rather aggresively, and said "Maam, can you give me a quarter for something to eat? Just a quarter...I won't have anything to eat unless you help me." I told him "No, I am not going to help you." It sounded so cold, I know that, but his words sounded so rehearsed that I expected him to start begging me for money and I thought I'd stop it before it started. The man replied. "Ok, Maam, God bless you, Jesus loves you."

What just happened? As I got into the car I thought "Yes, Jesus does love me. Even though I didn't feed this man tonight." Do I need to repent for my actions? Why was it that back in November that I so willingly helped someone who asked me for help, and tonight I turned a man away?

Was it the humility of the first man that let my heart feel compassion? Was it the aggressive way the man tonight walked toward me that scared me somewhat? Was it a spirit of discernment that said "no" tonight? Was it because the man was black? and large? I don't think so, but I have to put it out there. I was somewhat afraid by the way the man was coming toward me. He turned and walked away when I told him no, and then asked God to bless me. Why did the man say that? Was it a meaningful prayer from him? or was it something he used to "convict" me? I wondered why the man asked me for only a quarter...a quarter won't really buy him a meal you know?

I wonder if I missed out on another awesome blessing? Should I praise God for His protection tonight? Man! It's hard being a Christian!

:: Susan 1/21/2003 10:50:17 PM ** ** [+] ::
...

Noah and the Coming of the Son of Man

Matthew 24: 36"No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son,[1] but only the Father. 37As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 38For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; 39and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 40Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. 41Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.

42"Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. 43But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. 44So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.

Luke 17: 26"Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. 27People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.
28"It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. 29But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.
30"It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed. 31On that day no one who is on the roof of his house, with his goods inside, should go down to get them. Likewise, no one in the field should go back for anything. 32Remember Lot's wife! 33Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it. 34I tell you, on that night two people will be in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. 35Two women will be grinding grain together; one will be taken and the other left."

These verses were brought into a different focus for me today as we studied Genesis 6-9. The basics are this: Noah was seen as righteous through God's eyes. Noah could not pass judgement without God's grace, but God chose Him to build the ark. Noah's Ark is not a childrens story, it is a story about the wrath of God's judgement on the wicked. God's grace saved Noah and "shut him in" the ark. The wicked were taken from the earth. It was a new beginning for man. Noah, in a way, was the "second Adam" because he was told after coming out of the ark to "be fruitful and multiply" just as in the beginning. The ark was a kind of microcosm of creation. God didn't destroy his creation, he preserved a portion of it. He removed the wicked from it, to begin fresh and new. However, it obviously didn't get rid of the problem of sin because immediately after Noah emerged from the ark, he worshiped God, but proceeded to get drunk and get naked! The point is Noah represents to us how God's grace can cover us and take us through the judgement. If we are in Christ, we will pass through the judgement.

Now for the interesting ponderable. The above verses tell of how it "was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man." In Noah's day...who was taken away? Who was left behind?

The wicked were taken from the earth. Gone from creation so that creation could start again. Noah's story did point out however, that our problem of sin...is not a product of our environment. We won't survive without God's love and mercy covering us.

In Noah's day "every inclination, every thought of the heart was only evil". Because of this God was grieved. Only his grace preserved his own creation to attempt life and living once again. Northbrook U really challenged me to think about all this today.

1 Thessalonians 1
9for they themselves report what kind of reception you gave us. They tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, 10and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead--Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.

Many believers debate over the end times and what will actually occur. I don't know either, so if you thought I did...HA! What I do know is that God's grace covers me. Whatever happens...if believers are all taken up to heaven before God's wrath on earth...yay us, but remember that (Revelation 12:7) there will be "war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back." so maybe that doesn't sound so cool either. If instead we are left behind and the wicked are taken from us, that there will be heaven on earth. Revelation 21:2 "I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband."...Revelation 21:10 And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God."

So, I've just been pondering about wanting Jesus to come back. When He comes...is He taking me? or taking the wicked away from me? Either way is cool...I JUST WANT TO BE WITH HIM! Woooooohooooooooooo!!!

:: Susan 1/19/2003 05:33:06 PM ** ** [+] ::
...

[::..Voting..::]

Rate Me on BlogHop.com!
help?