Be Seekers of Truth

Those who follow Christ, who is the truth (John 4:16), must never take truth for granted, be satisfied with meager helping of it, refuse to test their truth claims against objective reality or fail to work out the implications of their beliefs in all of life. If we are to resist truth decay, the truth must be our most prized possession. As Proverbs says, “Buy the truth and do not sell it” (23:23). Sadly some Christians believe without being able or even willing to fathom the depths of their faith. But as Machen said:

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"The Christian religion flourished not in the darkness but in the light. Intellectual slothfulness is but a quick remedy for unbelief; the true remedy is consecration of intellectual power to the service of the Lord Jesus Christ."

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For many Christians this would mean a radical rearrangement of one’s priorities. Making the search for truth pivotal means cutting against the grain of postmodern culture as well as postmodernist philosophy. It entails being countercultural for Christ, who commanded us to love him with all of our minds (Matthew 22:37-39). J.P. Moreland’s excellent book Love Your God with All Your Mind (1997) addresses in depth the matter of developing one’s mind for God. It should be carefully studied by any Christian who wants to resist the postmodernist spirit of the age.

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Although he was an atheist who hated Christianity and a precursors of postmodernism, Friedrich Nietzsche’s life can be in some ways challenge or even shame intellectually slothful Christians. Bernard Ramm’s excellent chapter n Nietzsche concludes with his rousing (if somewhat hyperbolic) provocation, which I often read aloud to my philosophy students after discussing Nietzsche’s work.

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"What is the devil’s due Evangelicals can glean from Nietzsche? It is the willingness to be driven like Nietzsche It is the willingness to spare no pains in the search for truth. It is the willingness… to work into the late hours of the night or to start in the earliest hours of the day; to pick up a new project as soon as we have finished an older one; to grow weary and exhausted in our quest for truth; to have…our eyes watery form too much reading, and our bodies bent over from long, weary hours at the study desk.
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No Evangelical whose reading habits are a disgrace to the seriousness of the Christian ministry, or who spends more time before a television set than he does in serious reading in his study has the right to damn Nietzsche from the pulpit to some gruesome place in the Inferno. "

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Ramm grants that Nietzsche was “a devil’s hack” and a vicious and unfair critic of Christianity. But if this brilliant but deceived man could expend so much cognitive energy without God’s direction and power, what is possible—and necessary – for those who believe the truth of the gospel?

Don't Waste Your Life

God created us to live with a single passion to joyfully display His supreme excellence in all the spheres of life. The wasted life is the life without this passion.

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"Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?
For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body."

1 Corinthians 6:19-20

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Every person's life will end with a flat line. The beats of your heart are precious and few...and every one of them is a blood-bought gift of God. Don't waste them on petty pursuits and fleeting pleasures, where moth and rust destroy. Take part in the greatest cause in the world and the grandest story that will ever be: the exaltation of Christ in all things for the joy of all peoples.

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Only one life, 'Twill soon be past;

Only what's done for Christ will last.

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http://www.dontwasteyourlife.com/

Quote: Jim Elliot

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose."
Jim Elliot

Jim Elliot (October 8, 1927 - January 8, 1956) was an evangelical Christian missionary to Ecuador who, along with four others, was killed while attempting to evangelize the Waodani people through efforts known as Operation Auca.

Bible Term Defined

Brimstone: A bright yellow mineral usually found near active volcanoes. Large deposits of this substance are found in the Dead Sea region. Highly combustible, it burns with a very disagreeable odor. Brimstone (burning stone) is often associated with fire (Rev. 9:17-18; 20:10; 21:8), and with barrenness and devastation (Deut. 29:23; Job 18:15). Brimstone was considered an agent of God's judgment (Gen. 19:24). In the New Testament, it is used symbolically to represent God's wrath and the future punishment of the wicked (Rev. 9:17-18; 14:10, 20:10).

What's The Word

Psalm 73 25-26
Whom have I in heaven but You?

And besides You, I desire nothing on earth.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Read Pslam 73 here!

Feathers For Arrows

If I offered you a fistful of diamonds or a bucket of cold water, which would you take? The diamonds, of course; who in his right mind wouldn’t? But if you were crawling through a desert with blistered lips and a swollen tongue, dying of thirst, and I offered you a fistful of diamonds or a bucket of cool water, you would despise the diamonds and cry, “Give me water—or I’ll die!” That is called “circumstantial priorities.” Your priorities change according to your circumstances.

Christianity demands a choice between the sparkling diamonds of sin and the cool, clear water of everlasting life. Most people prefer the diamonds of sin, something quite normal for sin-loving humanity. But on Judgment Day their circumstances will radically change. They will find themselves in the desert of God’s Judgment, upon their faces, about to perish under the burning heat of a Creator who warns us that He is a “consuming fire.” They despised the Water of Life when it was offered to them in Christ. Now they must face eternal consequences. Those sparkling diamonds they so dearly clutch will suddenly be the glaring evidence for their condemnation.