Marching Forth!

After I landed a high-school job at McDonald's decades ago, I learned things behind the clamshell grill I never learned as a customer.  I was surprised to discover customers could add mayo, lettuce, tomato and the larger onions--or request extra of any topping except cheese--for no additional cost.  It blew my mind to consider every time I previously went to McDonald's I could have ordered a cheeseburger with lettuce and tomato and extra pickles for the same price.  Ordering this way also meant your burger was freshly cooked to order and had not been sitting for an hour under a heat lamp.  My newfound knowledge made a basic burger much better for half the price because of my employee discount. I remember when a workmate clued me in that In-N-Out Burger in California had a secret menu.  He suggested I should try a Double-Double "Animal Style."  I thought he was playing a prank on me.  I scanned the menu and did not see an Animal Style option, so I refus...

A video blurb I saw on social media questioned why the focus of Christianity was often on a Saviour and man's need to be saved.  A false assertion made was that Christianity introduces the problem of sin in the Garden of Eden with the fall of mankind and then offers a cure through control by the church.  As a contrast, he said indigenous spirtuality never required a saviour because the world is not sinful but sacred, that salvation was never the goal.  While there are several fundamental errors with these claims concerning Christianity from a biblical worldview, the main problem with the explanation is the Garden of Eden nor the earth itself are the starting point.  The mic-drop moment for all humanity is the first verse of  Genesis 1:1 , " In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth ."  The purpose of this post is not to criticise or take shots at the spiritual traditions of people but to answer the original querey:  why do Christians focus...

God is more than impressive, for He is awesome beyond comprehension.  It is amazing God our Creator has revealed Himself to us in the person of Jesus Christ, speaks to us in His word, and helps guide us by the power of the Holy Spirit.  His ways and thoughts are completely above ours, and at most we merely perceive the edges of His marvellous works ( Job 26:14 ).  Because the divide between God's miraculous abilities and ours is so vast, we often bring Him down to our size through unbelief.  When we feel helpless, we assume help cannot be found.  God is not always presently in the front of our minds, so we tend to lean on our own understanding and abilities rather than placing our confidence in God. I was immeasurably blessed by a passage I recently read in  Jeremiah 33:19-22 :  " And the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah, saying,  20  "Thus says the LORD : 'If you can break My covenant with the day and My covenant with the night, so that t...

When someone wronged me as a child, I often looked for visible signs of contrition before I would accept their apology and forgive them.  We all realised (even as children) people can say things they do not necessarily mean.  We said "please" and "sorry" because our parents told us we needed to, and doing what we were told was the means of earning good standing with them again.  This, of course, is not the biblical model of forgiveness made possible by God after we are born again by faith in Jesus.  Trying to ensure people prove they really are sorry and have learned their lesson is not the basis of our forgiving of others, but Jesus has freely forgiven us according to His grace.  People are more likely to adopt a system of imposing penance on those who do wrong or put a burden on themselves rather than freely forgiving others and receiving forgiveness by God's grace. The definition of "penance" in the Webster's 1828 Dictionary is as follows:  ...

There was big news in the online gaming world this week when it was announced a live-service game had run its course and would no longer be updated.  For over a decade this game was popular enough to support careers of many content creators who played, discussed, analysed and critiqued the game they thoroughly enjoyed.  When the news hit, there was one content creator who sat in silence as he processed what this meant for him personally.  Moved by emotion, his observations were insightful of how important the game had been in his life.  He compared the game to an "anchor" and a "foundation" he could always return to, and with the game ceasing development he expressed fear about what the future held for him. I don't know if he realised it or not, but the honest, raw realisation of the YouTuber is a microcosm of everyone who puts their trust and reliance in things of this world that are surely passing away.  He came to a conclusion people sometimes found on a deat...

" Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah, saying,  27  "Behold, I am the LORD , the God of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for Me ?" Jeremiah 32:26-27 At Bible study last night we discussed how God's thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways are not our ways; He is altogether higher and His plans are beyond us in every aspect, for the LORD God who created all things rules over everything.  One of the great difficulties people face who personally believe and know God is that He answers our prayers in ways we could not have predicted.  God's greatness defies our expectations and always exceeds them immeasurably.  Though we know this, we would be lying when God does His wonders to say, "I knew it!"  We would be better served simply praising God who is awesome and wonderful in all His ways. The question God asked Jeremiah was a rhetorical question the prophet and all God's people ought to take to heart.  In theory we ascribe to the absolut...