Archive for September, 2008

  • A Maze n Grace | Posted by Mart De Haan on Sep 29 2008

    Life can seem like a maze. Within its walls we have limited vision, and choices that sometimes seem to go nowhere.
    In narrow passages that make us long for wide open places, we often have more than we need and less than we desire.
    Sometimes our choices take us in a circle, or to one dead end [...]

  • Our Response to the Promise | Posted by Mart De Haan on Sep 27 2008

    Jesus used the promise of his return to comfort his friends and to warn his enemies. On that his followers agree.
    It is at this point, however, that the Body of Christ divides over several prophetic scenarios.
    While many of us disagree among ourselves about whether current events are setting the stage for what Jesus and the [...]

  • What About The Promise? | Posted by Mart De Haan on Sep 25 2008

    Only hours before his death, Jesus told his followers that he was leaving them. Then he said, “Let not your heart be troubled . . . . I will come again and receive you to myself; that where I am, there you may be also” (John 14:1-3).
    Years later, a follower of Christ by the name [...]

  • Roots and Wings | Posted by Mart De Haan on Sep 23 2008

    Someone has said that wise parents give their children two lasting things: (1) roots and (2) wings.
    I’ve noticed over the years that our Father in heaven seems to follow a similar pattern with us. As time goes on, he “carries” us differently in our spiritual adolescence and adulthood  than He did in our infancy.
    On one [...]

  • Jesus and the Fed | Posted by Mart De Haan on Sep 22 2008

    Last Wednesday, the front page of our local newspaper declared, “In the Fed we Trust…bailout of insurance giant aims to stabilize quaking global economy.”
    Then came the bad news. Behind closed doors, Washington lawmakers got enough of a wake-up call to prompt a rare bi-partisan agreement. All said that without urgent Federal intervention, national and global [...]

  • Outside the Book Thinking | Posted by Mart De Haan on Sep 20 2008

    One of the best teachers I’ve ever had likes to say, “Something is not true because it’s in the Bible. It’s in the Bible because it’s true.
    My first impulse was to reject the idea. It seemed like a subtle insult to the best measure of truth we have. After all, I thought, in my better [...]

  • Why We Disagree About Forgiveness | Posted by Mart De Haan on Sep 19 2008

    For the last couple of days, we’ve had a healthy, though difficult, discussion about whether forgiveness is meant to be conditional or unconditional. Not surprisingly, along the way, we’ve agreed and disagreed.
    There are good reasons for the push and pull of our conversation. Sometimes the Bible, itself, calls for forgiveness based on a change of [...]

  • Are There Times to Lovingly Withhold Forgiveness? | Posted by Mart De Haan on Sep 17 2008

    There are ideas in yesterday’s conversation that make a lot of sense to me. It seems to me that it is consistent with the Bible to say that:
    1. Bitterness is not an acceptable option for followers of Christ.
    2. A desire to get even is also not a Christ-like option.
    3. Our Lord gives us reason to [...]

  • To Forgive or Not | Posted by Mart De Haan on Sep 16 2008

    Yesterday, National Public Radio’s All Things Considered recognized the 45th anniversary of the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama.
    It was on Sunday morning, September 15, 1963 that Christopher McNair and his wife Maxine lost their 11 year old daughter, Denise, in the blast that also took the lives of three [...]

  • Envy and the Jealousy of God | Posted by Mart De Haan on Sep 14 2008

    Envy is not always bad. But it can be evil.
    In the best sense it’s a desire for  the good qualities we see in others. In the worst sense it’s a desire to see others deprived of their joy.
    Reference.com says, “Aristotle in Rhetoric defined envy “as the pain caused by the good fortune of others”, while [...]

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