Why I Believe In Jesus Christ

There is one major and several minor reasons why this BLOG's author personally believes in Jesus Christ as his Lord and Saviour, Redeemer from sin. The minor reasons are those which merely enable intellectual assent to this divine proposition, without acceptance for one's own life of its true spiritual efficacy. Let us look at those first. 1)Mutually-conspired collusion by the Old Testament prophets to fake a prediction of Christ's coming is virtually impossible: they were not all chronological contemporaries of one another; yet, every prophecy about Christ was fulfilled by His life. 2)Jesus Christ could not have had personal human control over every Old Testament prophecy made about Him, such as His family ancestral lineage, His betrayal by Judas Iscariot for exactly thirty pieces of silver, the gambling of Roman soldiers for His clothing at the foot of the cross, the location of His birth, His abuse and suffering at the hands of the local Jewish crowd on the road to Calvary, and His burial in a tomb borrowed from a rich man(Joseph of Arimathea). 3)Concerning His resurrection from the dead, some cynics say Jesus merely swooned--fainted into temporary unconsciousness on the cross--but later revived in the tomb. Rebuttal: A Roman soldier's spear thrust into Jesus' side should put final end to a mere swoon on the cross. 4)Also concerning the resurrection: Roman soldiers were posted in front of the boulder closing the entrance to the tomb, to assure that Jesus' body would not be stolen. The boulder was huge and heavy, rolling it away would have been a very strenuous task taking too much time to escape the Roman guards' notice. The punishment for a Roman guard sleeping on guard duty was death. So, the body of Jesus Christ could not possibly have been stolen. 5)Jesus Christ re-appeared to His disciples after the crucifixion. All of them acknowledged Him. It is virtually impossible that all were simultaneously experiencing the same hallucination. 6)Cynics say the whole New Testament is a fictitious concoction by the ancient historian Josephus Flavius. Rebuttal: It is highly unlikely that Josephus Flavius had all the Old Testament writings collected together in hand, to invent a New Testament fulfilling of all the Old Testament prophecies about Jesus Christ with such uncanny accuracy. The entire Bible was not formally compiled and canonized into a single book until the time of the early church councils, a few centuries after the lifetime of Josephus Flavius. The authorship of the New Testament apostolic letters after the Four Gospels is well-corroborated and attested as the Bible claims. 7)Finally among the minor reasons why I believe in the Bible is that it is possible to deceive just so many people for just so long: had the whole Bible--or at least the New Testament--been a baloney-sausage, it would have been discredited and forgotten centuries ago, and no Christian church would exist anywhere today.

Now to the major reason why I believe in Jesus Christ. At the outset, it should be said that no man can choose Jesus Christ on his own initiative, nor will he: Jesus Christ must choose men. John 6:44, 15:16. But the main reason for belief is the radically-fundamentally transforming power of people's lives by Jesus Christ today: gamblers, drunkards, drug addicts, liars, rapists, robbers--sinners all--are changed to sainthood by the power of Jesus Christ living in them. No amount or severity of prison incarceration alone can reform wicked and evil sinners like this, as repeat criminals untouched by Jesus Christ prove daily. No external pressures can change the inner heart and soul of man: change must come from inside the man and work its way outward. This is the meaning of "born again" as used by Jesus Christ in conversation with Nicodemus the Pharisee. John 3:1-8, I Corinthians 2:14. Natural men have no spiritual discernment.

Finally, it must be asserted aggressively and unequivocally that science does not refute religion, but is complementary to it. Science is one realm of truth while religion is another realm of truth. Spiritual truth cannot in any way be tested and evaluated within the physical realm of science. Notions of right and wrong can in no wise be measured and tested in science laboratories for corroboration or refutation. From where comes man's unique ability to love, appreciate, value and esteem, as no lower animals can? Science has no answer here.

Jesus Christ is the real deal because He and His followers have faced persecution and opposition to an unprecedented magnitude. Satan the father of lies and ruler of this world leaves his own alone. Nobody ever hears of persecution of Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Taoists or Confucionists. Even Jews, for all the persecution and hostility they have faced down through the centuries, cannot claim a scope and magnitude of persecution matching the experience of Christians. Unfortunately, persecution of Jews since the era of Jesus Christ has been intimately related to alleged Jewish responsibility for the death of Jesus Christ, based on Matthew 27:24-26. Still, salvation and reconcilliation to God is open to all men today, to Jew and Gentile alike.

-LKM

Christianity Not Imposable Upon Unbelievers

In the course of national debate and discussion of the proper role of religion in other areas of national life--most notably in politics--the Christian community has fallen victim from the atheistic secular Left to the accusation that Christians are trying to forcibly impose their religious beliefs upon unbelievers. I would like to clarify the truth of this matter to both Christian and non-Christian alike. The Bible scripture of John 6:44 quotes Jesus Christ to say, "No man can come to me, except the Father which has sent me draw him, and I will raise him up at the last day." So the entire question of who shall/shall not be a follower of Jesus Christ is completely out of the hands of any man to resolve. This prerogative belongs exclusively to God, He chooses His own people at His pleasure. Both Christian and non-Christian must understand this principle. How do we know if God has placed His loving hand upon our lives, to choose us to be one of His people? We know this when we have a continuous on-going desire to live our lives in such a manner as to please God. The author of this BLOG makes claim to this experience: Jesus Christ is indeed the paramount apex of my life, changing it as nobody and nothing else has or ever will. This is not to say I am a sinless saint, as I continue to spiritually grow and develop in Christ daily: this does involve making some stumbling mistakes into sin from time to time. But the difference between this and the unbeliever is the intended direction in which we are going: the unbeliever makes a deliberate point to go in the opposite direction in defiance of God's divine ordinances. Finally, a word about The Great Commission and the good news of Jesus Christ: the atheistic secular Left accuses that Christians are harshly judgemental and condemnatory to those who refuse to embrace the teachings of Jesus Christ and trust Him for their salvation. The truth is just the opposite: the Bible indeed acknowledges that every human being is sinful, believers and unbelievers alike. But the Christian message is not one of condemnation, but of salvation, redemption and reclamation available to all who acknowledge their sins and repent of them. This is the good news of the Christian message. We serve a God of second, third, fourth etc. chance, Jesus did say to forgive other sinners as we would like to have our own sins forgiven. Matthew 7:1-5: With what measure we judge others, that same measure of judgement will return back to us. -LKM

The Way We Were Not.....

The author of this BLOG will never suppose that America has ever enjoyed a sinless Golden Age of saintly virtue. To varying degrees, crime, sin, vice and immoral depravity have always been with us since the fall of man in the Garden of Eden. Still, those old enough to remember the decade of the 1950s--as this blogger does--are compelled by the facts to admit that 21st century America has witnessed a dramatic downward morality shift by comparison to where it was sixty years ago, to wit:

1)In the 1950s, children obeyed immediately the commands of their parents without question or debate. THOU SHALT HONOR THY FATHER AND THY MOTHER was still a command, not a mere suggestion.

2)Divorce and extramarital sex were comparatively rare in the 1950s by today's standards, albeit that it certainly existed then as well. Still, divorce and extramarital sex were shameful sixty years ago, while today, they are brazenly shameless and mainstream: what is the big deal here?

3)Pornography and other overt reference to sex was almost non-existent sixty years ago as relatively taboo topics of conversation. Today, those topics are shamelessly mainstream. Yesterday's "hard core" pornography is today's "soft core" pornography, if indeed considered pornographic at all.

4)Sixty years ago, parents did not fear to spank their unruly and rebellious children. But today, thanks to Dr. Benjamin Spock, parents can go to prison for doing the same, on charge of assault and battery, and of child abuse.

5)Sixty years ago, the notion of "political correctness" was unheard-of, and unlike today, people did not fear to speak their honest minds. Today, "political correctness" has trumped our supposed First Amendment right of free speech.

6)Homosexuality was virtually unheard-of sixty years ago, and to date, a "gay gene" has yet to be discovered. Anyone suggesting sixty years ago that two persons of the same sex should be permitted to marry would have been laughed out of town!

7)Traditional male chivalry towards women, unquestioned sixty years ago, is now subject to controversy and debate. "Liberated" women now say women need men like fish need bicycles.

8)Senior citizens. once unquestionably respected sixty and more years ago, are now contemptuously viewed by younger generations as being half-dead old fogies who do not know which end is up. They should all just die quickly, and get out of the way, to give more living space to the young. Age is no longer respected: youth call their elders by first name with no accompanying title of respect.

9)In the 1950s, Christian churches were full on Sundays. Today, in churches not requiring attendance by their members, pews are half-empty, while shopping malls do a brisk business on Sundays.

10)American patriotism and belief in American exceptionalism, once strong in America sixty and more years ago, is today sneered at in contempt by most Americans(especially the foreign-born). John Wayne is dead, and globalist multiculturalism tells us America is "just another country among many", nothing special.

11)Between 1950 and 1980, America bravely fought wars against Communism in Korea and Viet Nam, only now to have Communism advocated by pointy-headed pseudo-intellectual college "professors" on university campuses. In education, Communist indoctrination has replaced honest education.

12)In the 1950s, the man was the unquestioned ruler and master of his own house, and all who were in it with him. Since then, extremist radical feminists have unequivocally declared to American maledom, "We have taken over your office, and here's a list of our demands!" Men are slowly but surely being deprived of their manhood because of this sexual revolution. On the TV show JAG, was Admiral Chegwidden wrong, to tell Colonel Sarah McKenzie that there will never be any female Navy SEALS? This blogger wonders when the U.S. Navy will sing, "Anchors aweigh, my girls, anchors aweigh...."

13)Repair shops were plentiful in the 1950s. One could take broken TVs, radios, watches, shoes and bicycles to them to be repaired. But today, we have become such a throw-away society that such repairs are no longer done. The afore-mentioned commodities, when broken, now must be discarded and new replacements for them bought. Repair shops of yester-year are now gone, and things are no longer valued and conserved as they were by our parents and grandparents who grew up in the disastrous 1930s Great Depression years. It might be well to remember that the earthly profession of Jesus Christ was that of carpenter: where would He be today, in this throw-away society of ours? This blogger believes that His ministry of restoration and redemption of human souls was at least in part inspired by the physical example of his carpentry, i.e. repair of broken pieces of furniture.

14)In the 1950s, the worst things kids did in school was run down the halls, shoot paper-wads with rubber bands in class, and maybe put a live hop-toad in the teacher's lunch box. Today, police are required to be on school property, with cameras and metal detectors installed, out of fear of students committing violent crimes against other students, teachers and school administrators.

15)The tradition of marriage of the 1950s is not quite yet completely gone, but the number of young couples "shacking up" together without formal marriage is now on the increase. Shamefully, governments extend to them all the same benefits they give to validly-married couples.

In conclusion, America is morally going to hell in a hand-basket with younger Americans totally impervious to that danger, i.e. they have no living memory of earlier decades, nor have any sense of historic obligation to the past socio-political and moral values of their once-great country.

-LKM