Blame vs Forgiveness by Josh Fallis
The Poison of Unforgiveness
by Joyce Meyer
Many people ruin their health and their lives by taking the poison of bitterness, resentment and unforgiveness. Matthew 18:23-35 tells us that if we do not forgive people, we get turned over to the torturers. If you have a problem in this area or have ever had one, I’m sure you bear witness with what I’m saying. It’s torture to have hateful thoughts toward another person rolling around inside your head.
Helping Yourself and Others
Who are you helping most when you forgive the person who hurt you? Actually, you’re helping yourself more than the other person. I always looked at forgiving people who hurt me as being really hard. I thought it seemed so unfair for them to receive forgiveness when I had gotten hurt. I got pain, and they got freedom without having to pay for the pain they caused. Now I realize that I’m helping myself when I choose to forgive.
I’m also helping the other person by releasing them so God can do what only He can do. If I’m in the way—trying to get revenge or take care of the situation myself instead of trusting and obeying God—He has no obligation to deal with that person. However, God will deal with those who hurt us if we’ll put them in His hands through forgiveness. The act of forgiving is our seed of obedience to His Word. Once we’ve sown our seed, He is faithful to bring a harvest of blessing to us one way or another.
Another way that forgiveness helps me is that it releases God to do His work in me. I’m happier and feel better physically when I’m not filled with the poison of unforgiveness. Serious diseases can develop as a result of the stress and pressure that bitterness, resentment and unforgiveness put on a person. Mark 11:22-26 clearly teaches us that unforgiveness hinders our faith from working. The Father can’t forgive our sins if we don’t forgive other people. We reap what we sow. Sow mercy, and you’ll reap mercy; sow judgment, and you’ll reap judgment. So do yourself a favor—and forgive.
There are still more benefits of forgiveness. Your fellowship with God flows freely when you’re willing to forgive, but it gets blocked by unforgiveness. Forgiveness also keeps Satan from getting an advantage over us (see 2 Corinthians 2:10-11). Ephesians 4:26-27 tells us not to let the sun go down on our anger or give the devil any such foothold or opportunity. Remember that the devil must have a foothold before he can get a stronghold. Do not help Satan torture you. Be quick to forgive.
I also think it’s hard to hate one person but love another. It’s hard to treat anybody right when our heart isn’t right. Even people you want to love may be suffering from your bitterness, resentment and unforgiveness.
How to Forgive
Would you like to become more successful at forgiving others? There are practical steps that must be taken. One time I asked the Lord why so many people want to forgive but aren’t successful doing it. And He said, “Because they aren’t obeying what I tell them to do in My Word.” As I searched the Word, I found the following instructions:
1. Decide – You will never forgive if you wait until you feel like it. Choose to obey God and steadfastly resist the devil in his attempts to poison you with bitter thoughts. Make a quality decision to forgive, and God will heal your wounded emotions in due time (see Matthew 6:12-14).
2. Depend – You cannot forgive without the power of the Holy Spirit. It’s too hard to do on your own. If you are truly willing, God will enable you, but you must humble yourself and cry out to Him for help. In John 20:22-23 Jesus breathed on the disciples and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit!” His next instruction was about forgiving people. Ask God to breathe the Holy Spirit on you so you can forgive those who’ve hurt you.
3. Obey – The Word tells us several things we’re to do concerning forgiving our enemies:
a. Pray for your enemies and those who abuse and misuse you. Pray for their happiness and welfare (see Luke 6:27-28). As you pray, God can give them revelation that will bring them out of deception. They may not even be aware they hurt you, or maybe they’re aware but are so self-centered that they don’t care. Either way, they need revelation.
b. …Bless and do not curse them (Romans 12:14). In the Greek to bless means “to speak well of” and to curse means “to speak evil of.” You can’t walk in forgiveness and be a gossip. You must stop repeating the offense. You can’t get over it if you continue to talk about it. Proverbs 17:9 says that he who covers an offense seeks love.
Who Should Forgive?
Forgive the person who badly hurt you long ago and also the stranger who stepped on your toe in the grocery store. Take those two extremes and forgive them in addition to everyone in between. Forgive quickly. The quicker you do it, the easier it is. Forgive freely. Matthew 10:8 says, …Freely you have received, freely give. Forgive means “to excuse a fault, absolve from payment, pardon, send away, cancel, and bestow favor unconditionally.”
When you forgive, you must cancel the debt. Do not spend your life paying and collecting debts. Hebrews 10:30 says that vengeance belongs to the Lord; He’ll repay and settle the cases of His people. Let God pay you for past injustices. Do not try to collect from the people who hurt you, because the people who hurt you can’t pay you.
Also, forgive yourself for past sins and hurts you have caused others. You can’t pay people back, so ask God to.
Forgive God if you are angry with Him because your life didn’t turn out the way you thought it should. God is always just. There may be things you don’t understand, but God loves you, and people make a serious mistake when they don’t receive help from the only One who can truly help them.
You may even need to forgive a situation or an object—the post office, bank, a certain store that may have cheated you, a car that always gave you trouble, etc. Get rid of all poison that comes from bitterness, resentment and unforgiveness. And remember Proverbs 4:23: Keep and guard your heart with all vigilance…for out of it flow the springs of life.
Unforgiveness is spiritual filthiness, so get washed in the water of God’s Word to forgive and stay clean.
This article is taken from Joyce’s audio teaching, Do Yourself a Favor…Forgive.
Jesus Wife? by Josh Fallis
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2014/04/10/study-jesus-wife-fragment-not-a-fake/http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2014/04/10/study-jesus-wife-fragment-not-a-fake Study: ‘Jesus’ wife’ fragment not a fake By Daniel Burke, CNN Belief Blog Co-Editor (CNN) – A team of scientists has concluded that a controversial scrap of papyrus that purportedly quotes Jesus referring to “my wife,” is not a fake, according to the Harvard Theological Review. “A wide range of scientific testing indicates that a papyrus fragment containing the words, ‘Jesus said to them, my wife’ is an ancient document, dating between the sixth to ninth centuries CE,” Harvard Divinity School said in a statement. Scientists tested the papyrus and the carbon ink, and analyzed the handwriting and grammar, according to Harvard. Radiocarbon tests conducted at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology produced an origination date for the papyrus of 659-859 CE, according to Harvard. MIT also studied the chemical composition of the papyrus and patterns of oxidation. Other scholars studied the carbon character of the ink and found that it matched samples of papyri from the first to eight century CE, according to Harvard. “None of the testing has produced any evidence that the fragment is a modern fabrication or forgery,” the divinity school said. Unveiled by Karen King, a Harvard Divinity School historian, in 2012, the scrap sparked a heated debate over Christian history, archaeological accuracy and modern media coverage of contested ancient history. The fragment, which is about the size of a business card, contains just 33 words, including: “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife …” and “she will be able to be my disciple.” Though she dubbed the fragment, “The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife,” King said that the papyrus does not prove that Jesus actually had a wife, said King – just that ancient Christians wrote and discussed the possibility. “This gospel fragment provides a reason to reconsider what we thought we knew by asking what the role claims of Jesus’s marital status played historically in early Christian controversies over marriage, celibacy, and family,” King said. Other Christians have suggested that Jesus may have been speaking metaphorically in the sentence fragments quoted in the papyrus. Some New Testament writers refer to the church as “the bride of Christ.” King and other scholars said they are equally intrigued by Jesus’ mention of a female disciple. “The main topic of the fragment is to affirm that women who are mothers and wives can be disciples of Jesus—a topic that was hotly debated in early Christianity as celibate virginity increasingly became highly valued,” King said. 5 questions and answers about Jesus’ ‘wife’ The Harvard Theological Review also published a rebuttal by Leo Depuydt professor of Egyptology at Brown University on Thursday. “As a forgery, it is bad to the point of being farcical or fobbish,” Depuydt told the Boston Globe. “I don’t buy the argument that this is sophisticated. I think it could be done in an afternoon by an undergraduate student.” The Vatican’s newspaper has also called the papyrus fragment a fake. “Substantial reasons would lead us to conclude that the papyrus is actually a clumsy counterfeit,” the Vatican’s newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, said in an editorial in 2012. Vatican newspaper calls fragment referring to Jesus’ wife ‘a fake’ King and Harvard acknowledge that “nothing is known about the discovery of the fragment.” King has said it was given to her by an unnamed donor. Daniel Burke – CNN Belief Blog Co-Editor
Major Victory by Josh Fallis
Officials at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington have been ordered to pay a teacher $50,000 in back pay and promote him to a full professorship, backdated to 2007, for discriminating against him over his Christian perspectives.
The ruling from Senior U.S. District Judge Malcolm Howard comes in the case of Christian professor Mike Adams, who had faced retaliation, according to the jury, for his conservative views expressed in opinion columns, books and speeches.
“This is a great day not only for Dr. Adams but for all who value academic freedom,” said Senior Counsel Kevin Theriot of the Alliance Defending Freedom, which, along with the American Center for Law and Justice, represented Adams.
“The court’s order reminds universities that they cannot retaliate against those who simply express opinions that some officials do not like,” Theriot said.
WND reported last month the jury’s verdict in favor of Adams. The jury concluded the school unfairly denied a promotion to a professor who was celebrated when he was hired as an atheist but then faced retaliation when he became a Christian.
The decision in favor of Adams, a criminology professor at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, was an important victory for academic freedom and the First Amendment, the two groups said.
ADF represented Adams together with lead counsel David French, who began the case with ADF and now litigates for ACLJ.
A former atheist, Adams frequently received praise from his colleagues after the university hired him as an assistant professor in 1993 and promoted him to associate professor in 1998.
But some of his views on political and social issues soon reflected his adoption of Christianity in 2000. Subsequently, his advocates said, the university subjected Adams to a campaign of academic persecution, including intrusive investigations, baseless accusations and other actions that culminated in his denial of promotion to full professor, despite an award-winning record of teaching, research and service.
In his lawsuit against the university, attorneys argued that officials denied him a deserved promotion because they disagreed with the content of his nationally syndicated opinion columns that espoused religious and political views contrary to the opinions held by university officials.
The judge granted the request for Adams’ promotion to the rank of full professor, as of 2007, “when the promotion would have taken effect had UNC Wilmington not violated Adams’ First Amendment rights,” according to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.
Also, the judge awarded $50,000 in back pay and has allowed more time for Adams to request costs and attorneys’ fees for the case that lasted seven years.
The judge also rejected defense requests for any changes in the jury verdict or a new trial.
“The court is fully satisfied there was sufficient evidence as a matter of law presented to the jury to find for plaintiff,” he said.
ACLJ noted that the university’s decision against promoting Adams at the time was not based on his work but on a process “that was chock-full of deception, discrimination, and disorder.”
“This ruling sends a message to public universities: academic freedom isn’t just for the Left, it’s a constitutional right for all professors – even Christian conservatives,” the organization said.
“As the marketplace of ideas, universities must respect the freedom of professors to express their points of view,” said ADF Litigation Staff Counsel Travis Barham. “The jury last month found that disagreeing with an accomplished professor’s religious and political views is no grounds for denying him a promotion.
“The court’s order rights the wrong done to Dr. Adams by granting him the full professorship he has long deserved.”
The jury had found that Adams’ “speech activity” was “a substantial or motivating factor in the defendants’ decision to not promote” him.
The jury also found that the defendants would not have made the same decision “in the absence of plaintiffs’ speech activity.”
The case went to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit for a ruling in 2011 that said “no individual loses his ability to speak as a private citizen by virtue of public employment.”
The court said Adams’ columns “addressed topics such as academic freedom, civil rights, campus culture, sex, feminism, abortion, homosexuality, religion, and morality.”
“Such topics plainly touched on issues of public, rather than private, concern.”
Adams had a novel way of making his point, as WND reported a year ago.
For example, in a Townhall.com column he poked fun at the idea a university should exclude a Chick-fil-A restaurant from its property because of pro-family views of the company’s owner.
Such exclusion, which Adams described as “queer reasoning,” would make the university more “inclusive,” campaigners apparently believed.
“I’ve been thinking about it, and I’ve decided that our LGBTQIA Office here on my campus makes me feel uncomfortable. In fact, the rainbow is a symbol of hate. So, next week, I plan to introduce a resolution to ban them from campus,” he wrote. “I expect the resolution to be defeated because it is idiotic. I’m just hoping I get a special office as a consolation prize – simply for being a narrow minded bigot.”
Lawyers said that when Adams was denied promotion in 2006, he had “multiple awards and rave reviews from students for his teaching, he had published more peer-reviewed articles than all but two of his colleagues, and he had a distinguished record of service both on and off campus, culminating in earning UNCW’s highest service award.”
Proof of God by Josh Fallis
Does the Big Bang breakthrough offer proof of God?
Opinion by Leslie A. Wickman, special to CNN
(CNN) The remarkable discovery, announced this week, of ripples in the space-time fabric of the universe rocked the world of science – and the world of religion.
Touted as evidence for inflation (a faster-than-the-speed-of-light expansion of our universe), the new discovery of traces of gravity waves affirms scientific concepts in the fields of cosmology, general relativity, and particle physics.
The new discovery also has significant implications for the Judeo-Christian worldview, offering strong support for biblical beliefs.
Here’s how.
The prevalent theory of cosmic origins prior to the Big Bang theory was the “Steady State,” which argued that the universe has always existed, without a beginning that necessitated a cause.
However, this new evidence strongly suggests that there was a beginning to our universe.
If the universe did indeed have a beginning, by the simple logic of cause and effect, there had to be an agent – separate and apart from the effect – that caused it.
That sounds a lot like Genesis 1:1 to me: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth.”
So this latest discovery is good news for us believers, as it adds scientific support to the idea that the universe was caused – or created – by something or someone outside it and not dependent on it.
MORE ON CNN: Big Bang breakthrough announced; gravitational waves detected
Atheist-turned-agnostic astronomer Fred Hoyle, who coined the term “Big Bang,” famously stated, “A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics.”
As Hoyle saw it, the Big Bang was not a chaotic explosion, but rather a very highly ordered event – one that could not have occurred by random chance.
We also need to remember that God reveals himself both through scripture and creation. The challenge is in seeing how they fit together. A better understanding of each can inform our understanding of the other.
It’s not just about cracking open the Bible and reading whatever we find there from a 21st-century American perspective. We have to study the context, the culture, the genre, the authorship and the original audience to understand the intent.
The creation message in Genesis tells us that God created a special place for humans to live and thrive and be in communion with him; that God wants a relationship with us, and makes provisions for us to have fellowship with him, even after we turn away from him.
So, we know that Genesis was never intended to be a detailed scientific handbook, describing how God created the universe. It imparts a theological, not a scientific, message.
(Imagine how confusing messages about gravity waves and dark matter might be to ancient Hebrew readers.)
As a modern believer and a scientist, when I look up at the sky on a clear starry night, I am reminded that “the heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19:1). I am in awe of the complexity of the physical world, and how all of its pieces fit together so perfectly and synergistically.
In the Old Testament book of Jeremiah, the writer tells us that God “established (his) covenant with day and night, and with the fixed laws of heaven and earth.”
These physical laws established by God to govern interactions between matter and energy result in a finely tuned universe that provides the ideal conditions for life on our planet.
As we observe the complexity of the cosmos, from subatomic particles to dark matter and dark energy, we quickly conclude that there must be a more satisfying explanation than random chance. Properly practiced, science can be an act of worship in looking at God’s revelation of himself in nature.
If God is truly the creator, then he will reveal himself through what he’s created, and science is a tool we can use to uncover those wonders.
Leslie Wickman is director of the Center for Research in Science at Azusa Pacific University. Wickman has also been an engineer for Lockheed Martin Missiles & Space, where she worked on NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and International Space Station programs. The views expressed in this column belong to Wickman.
| The Editors – CNN Belief Blog |
Truth by Josh Fallis
2 Timothy 2:22-26
New King James Version (NKJV)
22 Flee also youthful lusts; but pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. 23 But avoid foolish and ignorant disputes, knowing that they generate strife. 24 And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, 25 in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth, 26 and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will.
Hail Bruce Lee! By Josh Fallis
“Long-term consistency trumps short-term intensity.” ~ Bruce Lee.
One of the things I think we can all draw inspiration from is the belief my father had in himself. He stayed the course in the face of so many obstacles. Success was far from an overnight thing for him. He worked so hard on himself; getting to know himself. As he once said “All types of knowledge ultimately mean self-knowledge.”
Walk on!
Shannon Lee
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Irish Yoga by Josh Fallis
the Key of David 