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Sunday, January 27, 2013

Ethics of Your Own Volition

Americans are full of themselves. In a study done by OECD, Pisa, they found that, to make it easy, while Americans are uneducated, yet they believe themselves to be hot stuff. Best in the world, in fact. However, this just isn't true. Americans are falling behind, quite quickly in fact, in both Science and Math. But I really don't care about this fact. I've come to find Americans are just as full of themselves in regards to ethics and epistemology. They literally know nothing about ethics and epistemology and yet at the same time are more than happy to educate you on them.. I.e. reddit.. >_< They have no reason for what they do. They have no hope. And yet, you couldn't find someone more convinced that they're right. There are generally two types of people who are going to come against Christians who have any sort of Biblical basis for their epistemology and ethics.

Number one, there are the general homosexual and feminist crowd. This is the far left five percent. Typically, their arguments involve screaming, anger, and other illogical ramblings. The majority have barely evolved past four letter words. There's the occasional smarty who really has no basis for speaking, but they try to sound smart. They occasionally misquote the Bible, and tell you about how they were a Christian at one time. This group has nothing to say, and are really just angry at you for rejecting their evil lifestyles. 

The group that truly saddens me though, is Christians who perceive themselves to be helping out mankind. They say they love God, and yet at the same time hate 80% of what he says. And it's not really hate, because Christians love others. By loving them, they mean sending them on their merry way to hell. The road to hell has always been paved with plenty of good intentions. They're more than happy to join forces with those who hate God and scream with the best of them at Christians who want to see any change.

Ultimately, they don't want change. They may not like what they're seeing in the general culture, and yet have not woken up to the realization that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the very definition of insanity.

We need change. 42% of children are born without fathers. How does no one understand this? And I'm sure this statistic would be in the 60s-75%s if abortion wasn't doing it's best to lower that statistic. How can half of marriages ending in divorce be okay? How can 95%+ of Americans fornicating be a good thing? Millions of babies die every year, due to selfishness and hatred. These statistics are growing, and they aren't slowing down. Is this the country you want to see? 

This is a country that was once great. It had strong Christian roots, with Christians that wouldn't give in to a little persecution. They fought hard to make this country free. They had many Christian fundamentals. It was built on the backs of thousands of pastors who were martyred. They believed in a Christian ethic that is determined by the Word of God. But now, we are no longer Christian. We are now the liberal west. Countries like Russia now look at us with disgust and say, we must reject your liberalism if we will survive as a country.

We have built a country with almost no character. The middle class is being eliminated. Sexuality is almost completely ruined. And yet Christians can barely see beyond the end of their own nose.

Wake up. Smell the blood. It's not pretty.

But what's the solution?

Love God. And obey His commandments. Simple.

"He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him." ~ John 14:21

We have his commandments. They're in that book called the Bible. Study them. And stop listening to the world. Stop reading the Aristotle's, Plato's, and other geniuses who hated God. Study the Word of God. That's where it's at.

Sunday, January 6, 2013

Straight and Narrow

I've taken up off-road biking for the last six months. And as it grows colder, more snow and ice accumulate on the trail, and they are always more than willing to encourage me to get to know the ground more intimately.

As time goes on, I have begun to learn several things about biking.

Number one, look exactly where you want to go. You don't look at the rock in the middle of the trail. You don't look over the cliff on your right. You look exactly where you want to be, and amazingly that's where you go.

Secondly, you have to have a certain amount of courage and healthy fear at the same time. If you're scared, you'll end up going extremely slow and not making it up the hills where you need speed. But, if you're too impetuous and don't know how to slow down when you should, you'll take quite a number of tumbles.

Number three, focus. If you don't stay focused, you'll eventually make a mistake and pay dearly for it with a couple scrapes and bruises.

While I was biking this last week, I was kind of hit by the thought of how much like life, biking really is. If you spend all your time studying the cliff, or watching every rock you could hit, you will eventually fall. You will at some point shoot out off that cliff. When people spend most of their week focused on secular philosophers, ideas, music, and not on God, eventually they will end up jumping off the narrow trail and over these cliffs. Sure, if you spend a small amount of time looking out over the cliff, you'll be fine. I can occasionally dart my eyes off the trail and take in the scenery. But unless I'm looking at the trail, I'm not going to be on it for much longer.

Where our soul longs to be, that's where we will go. Whether it be for good or evil.

Also, life is about courage. Being courageous when we fail. Brushing ourselves off after we take a little tumble in life. Get back on your bike and start again. You learned a lesson. But never quit. You have to balance caution and courage all your life. Knowing when to push hard, and knowing when to slow down. (Not something I'm good at..)

Lastly, focus. Life is a long journey. Biking is only an hour or two. Life is 80+ years. Staying focused on that narrow trail is going to be hard. People will try to distract you. Deep drop offs will be on both sides of you at times. Sometimes, you'll dart through meadows. Other times, you'll be going through difficult boulder fields. But, if you don't focus inevitably you'll be cleaning gravel out of your skin, nursing a broken leg, or cleaning off someone else's street pizza.

Thankfully, we aren't in this alone. God is right there. He is our strength. When we fail, he is there. When we think we got it, and then promptly fall on our faces, he's there. He is our place of safety. We have no need to fear the world, the scrapes, the broken legs, and death. What a truly remarkable feeling.

I love Psalm 18, specifically the 2nd verse. The LORD is my rock, my fortress, and my savior; my God is my rock, in whom I find protection. He is my shield, the power that saves me, and my place of safety.

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Resolutions

Yay! It's 2013. I've happily not touched my blog in 2 months. Woohoo!!! New accomplishment. Well, probably not new.. >_<

I figure I may as well throw some of my resolutions on here so I can come back next year and report as to how I've failed at everything.. Here's some of my more public resolutions..

Fitness:
Run a marathon in another country, olympic triathlon.
Actually limit eating sweets..

Friends:
Hug people more! I'm working on getting rid of handshakes.. We'll see how that goes.
Plan more events with friends. (Edifying events..)
Travel more.

Family:
Honor my parents more. And love them all more.
Go to coffee once a month, with each person in my family. (It's called communication. 0.0)

Faith:
Read through the Bible in a year. I'm already behind..
Actually finish the 5 books I've started.
Read through Rushdoony's Institutes of Biblical Law.
Random 5 other books. (I'm open to suggestions)

Finance:
Work smart.
Work fast.
Reward self with munchies. Which kind of contradicts an earlier goal. But hey, munchies equals celery. Hahaha. ;-)

YAY!