The Question

If someone accepts Christ but their lifestyle shows no change, what does that mean and what can we do?

The Assumptions

To answer this question briefly we must assume several points:

That we knew this person before and after conversion well enough to have seen whether their life changes. If this is someone we only see at church, it is nearly impossible to judge their actual life. If this is someone we have known only after they have claimed to be Christian for 10 years, we may have no idea what they were like before.
That this person is in need of a drastic lifestyle change. Someone who was raised in church, never developed bad habits or speech, and talked frequently of God and Jesus – just had not made the commitment – would be difficult to assess as being in need of guidance.
We are in a position where this person knows and trusts us enough to listen if we try to help them. And we ourselves must be living a surrendered life so we can’t be shown hypocritical by accusing another of hypocrisy.

What Does it Mean?

Imagine, if you will, a pair of 10 or 12 year old boys happen upon an old rowboat washed up on the shore of a river. There are no oars, but the boys decide to push it out into the river and go for a ride. While drifting along they joke around and tell each other tales of adventure as riverboat captains, or pirates, or brave explorers. After a while they begin to hear a sound; faint at first, growing louder. Their eyes grow wide when they recognize it: THE RAPIDS! If the decrepit old boat goes into those, it will surely break up and they could drown. They paddle frantically with their hands and manage to get the boat close enough to shore to jump out into water shallow enough to walk safely to shore. They watch from the shore as the boat is tossed by the white water, beaten against the boulders and smashed to bits. What started out as pure fun nearly ended in disaster. This story serves as a metaphor for life. Continue reading “Drifting Through Life”

Bastardized Theology

Originally Published: 2014/11/02

There are a great many people in the world that lay claim to the title, “Christian”, yet know little or nothing about The Bible. They know what they know about Jesus, about God, about His promises and requirements from listening to someone else. Some of those teaching preach solid, biblical lessons – some preach lessons designed to comfort their audience. They pick and choose passages from The Holy Word, taking them out of context and making them mean what they want them to mean to promote their own views of life, Jesus, and God.

This is not new. It was going on in the first century church. Paul cautioned several of the first churches not to be mislead by those preaching a bastardized theology mixing The Way with The Law. Those acknowledged that Jesus was the son of God, and that salvation came through Him: but they also wanted to adhere to parts of the Mosaic law. They wanted an integrated theology that clung to the sacrifices and festivals of the old law yet claimed Jesus as the ultimate sacrifice. To many of the day: Jews by birth, raised in the Jewish traditions, this version of the gospel of Jesus felt familiar, comfortable, acceptable. But it was wrong. Continue reading “Bastardized Theology”

The Future of Motor Vehicles and Travel

This, supposedly humorous, picture has been making the rounds on Facebook. I imagine we’ve all spaced out behind the wheel of our motor vehicles once or twice. What is frightening is that this post has collected dozens of comments from people who say they’ve done it. Many say it’s happened several times. Some say it happens to them frequently. That is worrisome, and the biggest reason I can think of to push for the development of self-driving cars.

My Twin-Brother-By-Another-Mother and I have discussed this a few times, and the following is a melding of our ideas.

Self driving motor vehicles will be a novelty that catches on slowly. People described above will be the primary customers: people who, for whatever reason, cannot manage to pay attention to their driving will see self driving cars as a great convenience. As the vehicles on the road become primarily self-driving, society will be ready for the next step. Continue reading “The Future of Motor Vehicles and Travel”

Lessons Learned from Ananias and Sapphira

In the early days of the movement known as The Way, this congregation swelled rapidly from 120 members to around 5,000 members. Because the Sanhedrin hated Jesus and his followers, any Jew who converted to following Jesus was ejected from the Jewish temple and ordered to be shunned by all devout Jews. This had a major impact on the economy of any Jewish family who became followers of Jesus.

To help these people, as well as the lame and widows who joined them, the “church” took up collections and dispersed goods and funds to those in need. These collections were not forced, but rather the followers of Jesus gave freely out of a generous heart. Acts 4:32 says, “Now the multitude of those who believed were of one heart and of one soul; neither did anyone say that any of the things he possessed was his own but they had all things in common.”

This was not a new concept, I Chronicles 29:14-16 states that possessions come from God, belong to God, and should therefore be offered back to God when there is need. It is said that a hand opened in giving is ready to receive as well. A hand closed in greed cannot receive anything.

As followers began selling possessions to supply the need; there was, no doubt, some recognition of these gifts by the Apostles.

Ananias and Sapphira sold a piece of land, but chose to hold back part of the proceeds for themselves (Acts 5:1-11) . They told the Apostles that what they gave was the full price they received. Why did they do that? Continue reading “Lessons Learned from Ananias and Sapphira”

Make Your Website Mobile Friendly

In case you haven’t noticed, there is a boom in mobile device usage. The smart phone in particular is rapidly becoming the device of choice for internet browsers. This fact is of vital importance if you run a website or a blog: which is a specialized type of web site. Here’s why your site needs to be mobile friendly.

Mobile devices display a web page differently than a desk top or laptop browser does. In most cases it just isn’t practical to scale a web side down so it fits on a smart phone screen: everything would be so small the user could barely see it much less be able to tap on links accurately, especially in a list of links. Scrolling side-to-site and up-and-down to view the page content as through a keyhole is maddeningly frustrating. So mobile devices simplify your pages and present a lay-out optimized for the devices screen size.

The bad news is traditional web site coding does not have the capability to allow mobile devices to rearrange your page to suit the viewing device. The good news is, you may not have to build a new web site. Before we get into how, let’s talk about why you should.

A Snapshot of True Christianity

When Jesus walked the earth and taught about the kingdom of God and what would come to be known as Christianity, he frequently spoke against the temple model of worship. Briefly, that is: holy places (usually buildings) where holy men interpret holy writings and tell the devout what to think, how to live, and what their god demands of them. The church that Jesus built through his apostles was not this way. Acts chapter two clearly describes what the original Christian church looked like:

⁴² They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. ⁴³ Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. ⁴⁴ All the believers were together and had everything in common. ⁴⁵ They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. ⁴⁶ Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, ⁴⁷ praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. (NIV)

This original, pure “Christian” church (they did not call themselves Christian for some time. Originally this church was called The Way. “Christian” was a derogatory tag hung on them by Roman soldiers at Antioch, which the followers of Jesus picked up and wore with pride) broke the temple model, but it did not last long. Continue reading “A Snapshot of True Christianity”

Adventures in Dentistry

Another article from my moldy-oldies file, but when originally published folks did find it entertaining, so I’ll pop in in here.

Yesterday I renewed a relationship that has for many (many) years been neglected. No, not neglected: avoided; stringently and purposefully avoided. I made a trip to a dentist.

You see when I was a wee lad, long (long) ago, my parents would take me to the dentist every year for a check-up. And it seems he would always find a cavity or two to drill out and fill. Early on they used Novocain and I don’t remember it as being particularly torturous – not fun by any means, but not like being stripped naked, covered with honey and tossed into a fire ant hill. Continue reading “Adventures in Dentistry”

For a Peek Inside

This tale was written years ago, filed, lost, found, lost again, recovered again, and now posted here. For friends and relatives who often jump to conclusions, this is ancient history:
I am not sick.

medical emergency, doctor, hospital, testing, cost The small pick-up truck hurled along the winding, bumpy mountain highway, the tighter turns and bumpiest spots elicited increased groaning from him. The driver looked away from the road just long enough to glance at him and ask, “Are you alright?”

He was curled up in the passenger seat clutching his belly. He reached over and gently patted her arm, “Just ignore the screaming and wailing from this side and get us there as quickly – and safely – as you can.”

Eyes back on the road she steered through another curve and retorted, “If it gets too bad, I’ll just turn up the radio to drown you out.”

“Good girl.” Continue reading “For a Peek Inside”

Author: Doug

Invisible Salvation