I’ve launched a new blog

Hey All,

Just wanted to let you all know – I’ve started a new blog which is serving as a complement to the NEW Sunday school class I’m teaching called ‘the story of Christianity.’ It is part of my internship project at Grace Bible Church and will offer weekly thoughts on early church doctrine and its developments throughout church history. While a lot of you are not here in Dallas to attend the actual class, there will still be a lot of great stuff on here for you to peruse and think about. If you’re really interested – don’t forget to click “follow” on the right side to sign up for email updates whenever I post.

Thanks! Here’s the link:
http://earlychristianthought.wordpress.com/ 

and here’s a pic of the website (just in case you’re curious)

 

 

Betting on God

In the last post, I referenced a “fine-tuning” argument for God’s existence and talked a lot about the role that “probabilities” end up playing in a defense both for and against the assertion that God must exist.  Probabilities, for the scientist, are part-and-parcel to the discussion of anything that is uncertain since they help lead to conclusions on what is “most-likely true”. For people, such as myself, who find God’s existence compelling, the uncertainty of a science-driven conclusion isn’t much of a concern. Science isn’t the gold-standard for how I choose to trust the things I think that I know. But for the person who struggles with the level of scientific uncertainty and is unable to assert a set of beliefs about God (aka the “agnostic” view ), the question stands of what they ought to do given their predicament. After all, just because a person determines that God is unknowable, that doesn’t have any real bearing on whether He is actually there or not, correct? All they’ve determined in agnosticism is that a human being is incapable of being able to prove something to the truest sense of the term. Being that one doesn’t know for sure, might the smartest plan moving forward be to begin living in such a way that assumes God does exist as opposed to assuming He doesn’t?

A guy named Blaise Pascal wished for some friends of his to ask themselves that same question about three hundred and fifty years ago. Pascal, before his conversion experience, was a carouser who lived a fast life – women, drinking and lots of gambling. He was also known to be an incredibly brilliant mathematician who was famous for his intellectual ability and mastery of a variety of disciplines including physics, philosophy and others. Pascal’s contribution to this question of God’s existence comes in the way he analyzed what he felt his friends ought to do given their reluctance to believe what he did about a supreme being. When it came to uncertainty, he saw the answer for how to respond in what he and his friends knew best: gambling.

See, when it comes to gambling, one’s best course of action is always to choose the bet which has the highest level of value compared to all the other options one has. For a mathematician like Pascal, the question can be framed in a simple formula.

The value of a bet = ([the probability of being correct] x [the expected payout]) – [the cost of the bet]

All games have probabilities and a known payout (e.g. Texas Hold ’em poker where the probability of making a certain ‘hand’ changes as the community cards are revealed and the payout is sitting right in front of you — the jackpot!). The cost to you is whatever you have to give up in order to make the bet.

In the case of a question like “does God exist?” to the agnostic, the value of placing your bet for God’s existence far outweighs the value of placing your bet against it – this is what Pascal wished to demonstrate to his friends and so I now share with you.

If the truth of God’s existence is a toss-up, then there is a 50/50 chance for both options.

Let’s consider the value of both bets:

1. When the probability of God existing is 50% and the payout of the bet for God is infinite in value (eternal life should you believe in Christ), the product is a value which is also infinite in measure. Should the cost to you to live under that belief be significant, it is still only a finite amount. Therefore the final value of placing a bet for God is infinite.
2. When the probability of God not existing is also 50% and the payout of the bet against God is significant, but finite (earthly bliss – free of morals and absolute truth), the product may be of significant value, but it is still finite. While the cost to you for choosing this option is nothing, the payout is finite and the value to you of betting against God is also only some finite amount…

Pascal was hoping that his friends would see the value in “betting on God” when compared to the lesser value of betting against Him. The question still remains, “what does it mean to ‘bet on God’?” Like I said earlier, Pascal wanted his friends to pursue a life where they would take the chance on God being there and would actively seek to know more about Him.

Will the path eventually lead to a full-fledged belief in Jesus Christ? That again is uncertain and not the point of this demonstration. Unfortunately, I can’t give you faith through a mathematical formula on how to bet. That question is in God’s hands and because of that I pray for you often. “Pascal’s Wager,” as it is called, serves only to be a reminder that your uncertainty doesn’t leave you with reason to assume that you’re not making a bet of some sort regardless of what you do. If you choose a scientific approach to truth, the uncertainty you’re left with forces a bet to be made. Given that situation, Pascal shows that your bet for God is always the better choice.

I’m looking forward to future posts where I hope to step past a scientific approach to truth and discuss the reasonable nature of belief in light of what God has revealed to us both in creation and through His Son Jesus Christ.

If you want to talk more about what it means to “bet on God,” email me at salvationassurance@gmail.com. I’ll be glad to continue the discussion.

The Fruit of Their Labor

This video is really incredible.  It’s a ten-minute segment documenting the arrival of the Bible’s New Testament to a people group in Indonesia who have never seen God’s Word put into their language.  Very moving and powerful.  Watching this has certainly renewed my interest in being involved with translation work overseas.  It’s refreshing to see such joy and emotion over receiving God’s Word.

May Valentine’s Night Feel Familiar

This post is being written to all of my single friends (both male and female) at DTS.  It is Valentine’s night and I know many of you are probably hating the feeling of being alone.  I do too.  The only thing I hate more is the feeling of contentment without actually being in love.  So I stay single.  Its the burden of an idealist, a closet-romantic I suppose.  Still, I want to encourage you, if you’ll allow it, to remember this feeling of loneliness and imprint it deep upon your heart and mind.  I want to encourage you to do this for two reasons:

1) It’s remembering moments like this one that will allow you to understand and sympathize with many of the hurting people you may or may not come across later on in your future ministry.  The essence of the ‘human condition’ I feel is the acknowledgment of being lost and alone in this world.  Without the relationship that God meant for us to have with Him, we are empty souls looking for something to satisfy or fulfill us.  We’ve all heard about the “God-shaped-hole” before, but I want to look at it for a moment from a different angle.  Consider the men and women you read about in the news who do horrific things to others.  Think about the men you’ll counsel one day that will sit in your office and confess the affairs they’ve recently had.  Think about the women who will tell you about the abortions they’ve had and how they are pregnant again out of wedlock.  Think of the most terrible thing that we humans can do and consider that maybe the people who commit those things are just people who spent one too many nights feeling the way we do tonight and finally just lost it, doing whatever they could to find some relief.  Offering the witness of the Gospel and the love of Jesus Christ to the lonely and broken-hearted will be our business one day – we might as well get familiar with our target market.

2) Get used to the feeling of being alone.  A good friend once reminded me that leadership is always lonely.  And holding to an uncompromised version of the Gospel of Jesus Christ will increasingly become more and more difficult as our culture drifts further and further from God.  I’m not going to spend this post laying out the reasons why I think that is the case, but I’ll just say again that much of what Jesus explained about following Him had to do with the difficulty of being committed to Him when it involves taking up our cross each day and sacrificing ourselves like He did.  He also talked a little about being disowned and abandoned by even some of the closest friends and family we have.  Just saying…

Leading others in ministry may be incredibly difficult because it may mean stepping out in front to lead, which means initially beginning the journey completely alone until someone starts following you.  Your relationship with God and the intimacy you enjoy with your Savior may become the only thing you’ll be able to count on once it is no longer ‘cool’ to be a Christian around here.  Being alone and learning to appreciate that truth now will only strengthen you for when things get tough down the road.

Anyway, those are my thoughts for tonight.  Loneliness isn’t easy, but in many ways it makes you feel more alive than just about anything else.  There are no security blankets or coping methods.  Just you and God and a little awkward silence to help get a conversation going.

Giving When It Hurts and When It Doesn’t

Scripture Read: Malachi 1:1-4:6

Focus Passage: Malachi 3:8-12

Date: 11/24/10 – 9:28am

⁸ “Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me.

“But you ask, ‘How are we robbing you?’

“In tithes and offerings. ⁹ You are under a curse—your whole nation—because you are robbing me. ¹⁰ Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it. ¹¹ I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not drop their fruit before it is ripe,” says the LORD Almighty. ¹² “Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land,” says the LORD Almighty.

Journal Entry:

This is the passage which I usually camp out on when I read Malachi: God’s declaration and attitude toward those who trust Him with their tithes and offerings.  I can’t necessarily say that I’ve trusted the Lord in this area lately.  Despite having a new job and starting to make a lot of money, I’m holding back in some of my giving and I wonder why.

This new job has become a source of hope in many ways and has encouraged me to get really serious about paying off my debts in the next 2-3 years.  The rising cost of living in the US isn’t helping anything either as life here just seems to be getting more and more expensive.  So when I read this section of Malachi and think about my tithing habits, it begins feeling like one of those situations where you say, “well, this has to be the exception…”

I wonder sometimes whether my debt or life situation is an exception or not.  Isn’t the Bible supposed to illustrate timeless principles from which we can learn how to honor God while adapting its precepts to our modern-day situations?  Why is there nothing about what is required of me when I have mountains of debt and I’m trying to get out from under it so that I can pursue full-time ministry?

Thinking about this for a second leads me to the conclusion that I might not be asking the right question.  What Scripture tells us is that God doesn’t look at the nominal value of what we tithe, but He looks at the real value.  For example, If we have a lot but give only sparingly, what gift is that to Him?  He cares to see whether or not we are making sacrifices to honor Him and show our appreciation for all He’s given us. If we don’t have very much to give, He is still looking for the same type of sacrifice.  What exactly that looks like in each situation isn’t always easy to figure out.  Perhaps it is sacrifices of time or skill for the benefit of a brother/sister in Christ.  Maybe it’s just responding in an appropriate manner to unique situations of need that are brought to our attention.  Whatever it is, it should be from the heart and should be given from joy, not guilt.

Like the passage in Malachi says, God doesn’t care about the donations we make from our excess.  It’s an offense if we simply give to Him what is of no use to us.  God isn’t a Salvation Army drop-off center.  Thinking about it in that way really makes you reconsider your giving habits; both to God as well as to other people in your life.

I Should’ve Been Canned like Tomato Paste

Scripture Read: Daniel 1:1-6:28

Focus Passage: Daniel 1:8-21

Date: 11/13/10 – 12:48pm

Journal Entry:

This passage brings to mind moments during my career working in the secular world when I was faced with a tough decision and the main thing at stake was how much my faith mattered to me.  The best example that comes to mind was when I was working as a stockbroker and I had made the decision to attend seminary at DTS.  The transition to Dallas was still months away and I desperately needed to keep my job at the firm I was working at.  Normally, this wouldn’t be too great of a concern as most jobs simply pay you for the labor you give to the company.  In the brokerage industry, the salary you might receive at the beginning of your career (as I was) is directly tied to the expectations the company has for your future success and the future revenue you will bring to the firm once they’ve helped you get on your feet.  What this means is that if the firm doesn’t feel you’re a worthy investment, they have every right to can you, no matter what your intentions may be for the short run.

I had a difficult dilemma before me: do I keep quiet and pretend that I’m still building my business while I’m secretly just waiting until my departure date for DTS to get closer or do I confess my intentions to my boss months in advance at the risk that he fires me on the spot and just gets my office ready for the next employee?  I prayed earnestly about what to do and I had my church praying as well.  Nervously, but with confidence that the Lord would take care of my needs, I sat down with my boss and hit him with the news.  Thankfully, I had a few bargaining chips that other employees helped me to realize and my boss that day accepted my offer to stay with the firm for a few months as I helped transition my clients to other brokers in the office.  If it wasn’t for the recent resignations our office had and the torrent of market fear that swept over every client during the 2008 calendar year, my boss probably couldn’t have cared less about my offer.  In my eyes, God had worked the entire situation so that I could be faced with such a difficult decision, but when I chose to honor the Lord, he allowed it to work out just right so that His name would be glorified in my life in front of fellow employees and the people at church who were praying for me.

I can’t but see the parallels from Daniel’s situation to my own back in mid 2009.  Many people look at Old Testament stories and have a tough time seeing the model they offer for application in modern times.  The situations may look different, but the principles of honoring God with every aspect of one’s life remain the same.  Amen to that.

Unpacking the Last Post

This will be a little longer than a normal post.

I spent my last post trying to make the argument that Christians are not the only people in this world who live by faith.  Why did I do this?  Mainly because I often  see Christian believers lacking confidence in the truthfulness of what they believe, especially when confronted by someone who thinks the concept of living by faith is foolish.  I want to unpack my argument and illustration a little bit more in this post since it was difficult to do so in under 500 words the last time I wrote.

In the previous post, I used the example of a person who tries to learn about apples by making observations of a few apples and then drawing some conclusions about them.  In logic, this is called inductive reasoning and it is used to summarize a variety of observations into a generalized statement (also known as a theory).  The goal is testing those theories and trying to determine which ones are facts.  Someone using inductive reasoning might say “Every swan I see is white, therefore all swans must be white.”  Now, this method of reasoning is good for the purpose of summarizing data and drawing some conclusions, but its problem is that at the end of the day, it is unverifiable.  In the example of the swans, there is the possibility that a black swan could exist somewhere out in the world and it just has never been recorded.  We may only see white swans now, but the possibility that a black swan could exist somewhere means that the statement “All swans are white” can be disproved, but it cannot ever be verified as a fact.  In fact, for hundreds of years people in Europe assumed that all swans were white because all known records about swans always documented them with white feathers.  This changed when a Dutch expedition to Western Australia in 1697 discovered a black-feathered swan.  Some of you might recognize this illustration from the title of the best-selling book by Nassim Taleb in 2007 called The Black Swan (I haven’t read this yet, but I plan on making it one of my first purchases if an Amazon Kindle happens to wind up in my stocking this year at Christmas (only $139)…hint, hint 🙂 ).

Ok, so why talk about inductive reasoning?  What is your stink’in point, Tony?!?  Well, inductive reasoning is the basis for the scientific method.  This is huge.  Why?  Well, think for a second about why we started teaching evolution and the “big bang” theory in our public schools rather than the biblical account about the creation of the world.  Think about why schools that were founded to train pastors for service in Christian ministry (Harvard, Yale) eventually began questioning the authenticity of anything they assumed as unverifiable in the text of the Bible (miracles, Christ’s resurrection, the inspiration of Scripture, prophecy, etc).  These things happened because the conclusions that scientists came to about these matters were different from the beliefs people had historically held about them.  What they assumed was that since science helped mankind understand so much about the physical world, then that same scientific method must be capable of showing us what we can or cannot believe about religious matters.  What is believed by “faith” then becomes inferior to anything that can be known through scientific conclusion.  If one has faith, let it be faith in science.

The problem for the one who puts faith in the scientific method is that at its core, it is just that: faith.  The scientific method itself was developed by the same inductive reasoning it uses to learn about the world.  As science has developed, scientists have never been able to verify their conclusions.  Any conclusion they come to is always a probability statement (which is the glass jaw of inductive reasoning, as I showed earlier).  Despite this, scientists have actually grown in their admiration of the method and continued to put more faith in its usefulness.  This is crazy.  The trustworthiness of this method hasn’t improved and yet our faith in it has grown incredibly?!  Why?!?

Now…what the scientists have done here is quite sneaky.  They’ve actually tried to steal something from the way a Christian believer reasons about truth.  Why do I say that?  It is because the scientist has tried to take a method that is based in inductive reasoning and (when no one is looking) slap a label on it that says “Deductive Reasoning USED HERE!” Here is what I mean by this:

Deductive reasoning starts out with a truth statement and then draws conclusions from it.  It sounds like this: Thanksgiving always lands on a Thursday.  Therefore, if today is Thanksgiving, then it must be Thursday.  That is basic deductive reasoning.  If you notice, I started with a statement that is always true: Thanksgiving always lands on a Thursday.  It was from this statement that I could make a conclusion about what day of the week it was when I knew that it was Thanksgiving.

Deductive reasoning is king when it comes to learning about truth.  It starts with a truth statement and makes conclusions about what can be logically implied from that truth statement.  The only problem with deductive reasoning is (as some of you I’m sure have caught on): you have to first find the truth statements!!  So, how does this relate to what the scientists have done with the scientific method?  Well, since scientists have put so much faith in the ability of their method to learn about their world, they’ve actually begun believing in its infallibility and have made the statement “science is truth” the truth statement necessary to begin reasoning deductively.  We see this, for example, every time someone really presses a scientist to defend one of their conclusions.  Eventually they say: “We know this is true because science tells us it is.”

WOW.  It is as if the scientist dubbed over a recording of a Christian saying “we know this is true because God tells us it is” and replaced God with science!!

You can see the problem in this, can’t you?  If so, good.  Philosophers have been seeing straight through this “bait-and-switch” for a while.  You can’t use a conclusion drawn inductively as the truth statement necessary to then reason deductively.  You just can’t.  When it comes to verifiable truth, science is still inferior to any belief system that can start with a truth statement and work deductively.  This is where the Christian comes in.

“Wow…1000 words and you’re still not done, Gryckiewicz?!”

Nope…here’s the point (or maybe point #3 or 4, I’ve lost count):  The Christian belief system is built on a whole series of truth statements called revelation.  Revelation is God’s self-disclosure of Himself through history.  Generally, it is found in His creation and the inherent moral instincts of mankind.  Specifically, it is found in God’s words that He has spoken through His prophets and Christ’s Apostles (Scripture).  These are the truth statements that Christians are able to use to deduce all matters of truth about life.  We know that God exists and we believe that His revelation is truth.  We haven’t modified that belief since the creation of the world and no new evidence found can ever replace that belief.  We don’t depend upon our ability to make observations so that we can determine for ourselves what is truth…we humbly submit to the only One capable of knowing all truth and we believe in what He says.

What’s funny is that over the past 50 years philosophers (atheists included) have actually been realizing the “bankruptcy of truth” that science has left us with.  Some scientists have even been awakened to this reality.  For example, see Antony Flew’s There is a God.  Flew was a famous atheist scientist for years until he started realizing some of these things and changed his mind about the existence of God…I haven’t read it, but I plan on making it purchase #2 on the Kindle this Christmas (hint, hint).

Maybe I’ll talk soon about what contemporary philosophers have settled upon since the scientific method has failed us.  Its very unsatisfying, just to warn you.

If you have comments, be sure to leave them at the website for the blog:  https://atthetrailhead.wordpress.com/

Why We All Live by Faith

If I said, “I live by faith and not by sight,” how many of you would smirk and think of me as naive?  I’d bet that a few of you would as this often repeated worldview of Christians on the surface seems founded upon nothing more than hopes and emotions and grounded in very little “fact.”  I’m finding, though, that the more I read and study about the philosophy of knowledge, the more I’m coming to realize that much of what helps people feel confident in what they can know is based upon a faith they have in “facts” that are well-accepted as unknowable.

Take, for instance, the trust people put place in their experiences.  Having an experience touching an red, round apple allows that person to make observations about it and describe its characteristics.  Studying it in closer detail allows them to develop an “understanding” of the basic properties of apples.  If enough apples all have these same characteristics (round, red, juicy, etc), then the observer can come up with a general set of “facts” about apples.  These “facts” become well-known amongst people and may even be put into textbooks so that this “knowledge” can be passed along to others.

A few years later, someone else comes along and starts looking at a green apple and realizes that one of the supposed “facts” they learned about apples isn’t true in this case.  That person makes new observations and submits their findings to other experts that agree the old set of “facts” (all apples are red) were wrong and need to be corrected or modified (some apples are green).  All of those textbooks with the old set of facts have to be thrown out and new editions need to be written that tell the world some apples are also green.

If you notice, what I just described is a method that our society has come to accept as a reasonable means to discovering “truth” about the world and life.  The only problem with it is that the “facts” that the method produces only stay “facts” until they are disproved by a later set of observations.  What is interesting to me is that this method of discerning “truth” is what many people consider a reasonable alternative to what they pejoratively call “blind faith” in Christians.  It is Christians though who have simply decided to trust in the words of God and believe a message of salvation that hasn’t changed in 2000 years.  We don’t have to guess about what truth is; God has been revealing truth to mankind for 6000 years and its never failed in its reliability.  The only thing that has changed is what we think is the best means for finding truth and all we’ve come up with is a system of how to replace our false theories…ha!

Philosophers say that we cannot know what “truth” is unless we can be sure about the reality we experience.  They also admit that we cannot know what “reality” actually is until we can first decide how to discover “truth.”  It is a dilemma of circular reasoning and I think it demonstrates the idea that people really are living by faith, whether they realize it or not.  I guess I’m really not alone when I say that “I live by faith and not by sight” after all.  This makes me smirk.

The Lord is Still Providing

After sharing yesterday’s journal entry, I thought it smart to give an update on life here in Dallas and display the ways that the Lord is still providing and expressing His faithfulness in my life.  The most amazing thing that has happened recently has been incredible way that the Lord provided me with employment for the fall.  As some of you know, I was working as swim team coach for a junior community swim team here in Dallas.  That lasted through the summer and was a great supplement to the support I received while attending classes from May through August.  At the beginning of July, I began feeling a little pressure in my life as I knew that my job as a coach would soon be over and I’d once again have to start sniffing around for job opportunities.  I had a few parents from the swim team say they’d try finding me a part-time job for the fall and I was checking the DTS job board regularly, but nothing was really coming up.

Out of nowhere, I receive a voicemail on my cell phone one day while I’m exercising at the gym.  A tutoring agency that I applied with a YEAR prior called me out of the blue.  The owner said he remembered me from last year and might have a job opportunity for me if I was still interested.  Two days later, we had coffee at Starbucks and he offered me the opportunity to tutor college students in economics for $20/hour.  Now, I haven’t studied nor tutored economics in over six years, so he offered to pay a former tutor of his to travel back to Dallas and spend a Saturday bringing me up to speed.  I gave my first tutoring session last weekend and it went great.

Talk about an incredible provision.  This job allows me to make my own hours and the great demand for tutoring at SMU will ensure I receive as many hours as I ever really want to take on.  If it is the Lord’s will, over the next two years, this job will allow me to pay down much of my student loan debt and put me in a position that allows me the financial freedom necessary to pursue missions work or a pastoral position regardless of the income it offers.

I really needed to see this faithfulness from the Lord.  The past few months have been tough and I was beginning to think that Satan was sifting me like wheat.  I had nothing to write to you because I felt like the last person that should be sharing his opinion or advice on just about anything.  Perhaps I’ll share more about that later on, but for now I just want to rejoice over the Lord’s provision.  Please praise the Lord and glorify His name.  I’ve appreciated your prayers.

What to Expect

I’ve written on this blog a few times now about the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Recently though, I’ve come to the determination that I need to clear up a few things about what one can expect in the Christian life.  I’d like to apologize if I have ever given the impression that once you put your faith in Jesus Christ, life will be nothing but living from one mountain top experience to another.  That could not be farther from the truth.

The picture pasted above has some sarcasm to it and satire that is based on the concept that the Gospel is constantly preached to be a heal-all to this life’s problems and pains.  The statement in the caption may be true, but what evangelists preach and what the crowd hears can be two different things.  Here’s the real meaning of that caption: God does love you, but that does NOT mean you’ll have a cherry-blossom experience of a life on this side of Christ’s return.  God does have a wonderful plan for your life, but it’s a plan that fits into HIS will and not necessarily yours.

Here’s a look at what you can expect:

• You may be disowned by your family for your belief in Jesus Christ as your Redeemer (Matt 10:35-36).
• People may hate you, ostracize you, cast insults at you and spurn your name as evil for the sake of Jesus Christ (Luke 6:22).

Ok…those two things just have to do with the consequences for being a Christian in an inopportune situation.  The situation is pretty lax here in the theme-park, “Disney Land” playground of middle-class America.  It’s not like we’re getting fed to lions similar to the 1^st – 3^rd century Christians in the above picture.  Nor is it like we’re being set on fire and used as human torches to light the streets of Rome by the Emperor Nero.

But still, life isn’t going to be easy and neither is having a rock-solid faith.

• Today you may be given the grace to believe in Jesus Christ as your Savior and in six months your wife could have a miscarriage.  You’ll cry out to God for answers as you thought that He wanted you to be happy and start building a family.
• You may be a strong Christian believer in Africa for 20 years and then have your people be exterminated through genocide.  You’ll experience evil like no one else on the face of the earth and wonder why God allows it.
• The very foundations of your life that give you hope and peace (food, shelter, health) may start crumbling away and although you won’t want to, you’ll start wondering if God REALLY loves you and still has a wonderful plan for your life.

When you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and died to pay the penalty for your wretched, sinful, depraved state of existence, Christ has made you RIGHTEOUS before His Father – THAT is what you get and THAT is now what you owe the remainder of your existence for.

If you were hoping that I was going to promise fun, excitement and a sweet social network, I’m sorry.  What you can expect is to be born-again into a new spiritual life and be indwelt with the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit will give you the faith to not fall away during these trials and remind you that no matter the evil you experience on this earth, God is perfectly happy with you because of the work that His Son has done to reconcile you with the Father.

Besides this, the Holy Spirit’s work within you will also be in making you more like Christ.  And Christ’s words about His followers:

“If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.” (Luke 9:23)

Do you still want to follow Jesus?  If so, email me at salvationassured@hotmail.com