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Pithy Sayings

Security at the expense of liberty is a fool’s bargain.

Liberty without character fails.

Refusing personal responsibility blames liberty as heartless.

Liberty permits failure, so the faint-hearted fear it.

In the 18^th century, the authoritarian governments of Europe exiled to the colonies those who were upsetting their systems, thereby assembling on one coast of North America the highest concentration of free thinkers of all time.

Conflict is self-destructive.  Only that which is consistent survives.

The argument that reason and evidence are not necessary is self-defeating.

The opposite of Creation is neither evolution nor the Big Bang, but Always Been.  All of science points to creation.  Always Been assumes that the laws of nature used to be different, but no science supports that assumption.  Strange.

If perception is more than self-deception, then Creation is a fact because our understanding of the laws of nature will not support that the universe has Always Been.

The Creator must be Uncreated, or we need to go back another step.

The Uncreated must be Consistent because inconsistency is self-destructive.

A Consistent Creator must Care, because action without purpose is inconsistent.

A Caring Consistent Creator must Communicate the purpose of creation; we are locked in our finite, physical selves, so we do not have the perspective to figure it out.

To qualify as a communication from the Creator, the message must be universal, understandable, useful, and unmistakable.

Is the Good News truly for all, universal in theory if not in practice?  Historically, the subjugation of West Africans and women has been supported by well-meaning but misguided Christians.  A century from now, at what cultural blindness of ours will our progeny marvel?

The path to successful understanding (fitting into the purpose for Creation) must include both intellectual and ethical growth.  Mistakes in baggage handling should not ruin the trip, but make it more of an adventure.

The self-centered feel sorry for those they perceive as lacking; those who think as a spirit welcome the opportunity to be selfless.

The same statement may be judged true or false depending on your opinion of the speaker.

Delusion is a mechanism to escape the horrors of uselessness.

The less trustworthy the contractor, the longer the contract.

Of first importance is evidence.

When did Christianity abandon evidence as its most important asset?  No other religion as any.  Yet, we entice with feelings, behavior management, pomp and circumstance, and rewards.  Weird.

In the first few centuries of the church, some outsiders thought that Christians were atheists because they had no temples, no clergy, and no rituals.  We have been trying to fit into the expectations of outsiders ever since.

The primary attractive forces to bring an outsider to the gospel, according to the New Testament, are the kindness of God, the character of Jesus, and His mastery of living on this broken planet.  Without evidence, it is all just wishful thinking.

Many focus on the minutia of faith.  We need not defeat the jots and tittles but rather reveal concisely why we are here.

The letters of the New Testament address several problems in the early church.  In each case, the cure was to drop back to a review of the nature and promises of God.

Try harder; fail bigger.  The gospel has a cure.  Know God’s character; know God’s promises.  Trust those promises and the downward spiral reverses.

God’s purpose in creation was to build an incubator for faith.  God desires a family, not worshippers, servants, or soldiers.  We are not conquered by God; we are adopted into His family.  Faith (trust) guarantees longevity both for spirits that have had a physical body and for spirits that have not.

Redemption just gets you even; faith puts you in the black.

Biblical sacrifice has nothing to do with giving something up.  Rather, it is a celebration of forgiveness in the presence of God with family and friends.

Almost all of the letters in the New Testament begin and end with “grace and peace.”  That expression, and others like it, are the focus of the letter, not a throw-away salutation or cultural closing before the signature block.  The point of the letter is to help develop a gracious nature in the Christians to whom it was addressed, and to remind them of the peace the gospel brings: peace with God, peace with others, and peace with yourself.  Try outlining an epistle with that objective in mind.

The reasons given in the New Testament for good behavior are because we know God, because bad choices grieve God, and because bad behavior hinders the spread of the gospel.  The motivator is love (selflessness).

“All that is not of faith is sin.”  Do you suppose that two people could, by faith, make different decisions in very similar circumstances?  Do you suppose a growing, faithful person might make a better choice the second time around?  God is looking for decisions based on trust of His promises.  The quality of the choices will increase with increasing faith.  But the lesser quality ones (the basically dumb ones) still make God happy simply because the choices were made by the faith you had at the time, not the faith you may have in the future.

US military forces are the best trained and equipped in the world.  Between 2004 and 2011, an average of over 160,000 troops were deployed in the Middle East each year.  Do you think we could have done better with an equal number of well-trained old men armed with the sword of the Spirit?

Bankruptcy court may absolve my debts, but someone is left with an uncollectable bill.  To cover the shortfall caused by bad debts, prices are increased for the financially responsible customers.  So, financially responsible people pay the debts of financially irresponsible people.  That’s why Jesus came.

Each of the Mosaic sacrifices, not just sin offerings, represented a facet of Jesus character, mission, or position.  Further, each type of sacrifice illustrates something about faithful Christians. 

One of the essential characteristics of Biblical faith is a realistic hope of heaven; not a fervent assertion without foundation, not a wistful desire of low probability based on supposed humility, but a confident expectation based on physical evidence.

Abraham Lincoln said, “Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as a heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere.  Destroy that spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.”

Liberty in government and in the church have many alarming parallels.

Liberty fails when the percentage of principled people falls below that necessary for effective leadership.

If you ask God to intervene and you observe the requested result, and then you thank God, you are late.  If you trusted God, you would thank Him for handling the situation at the time of the request, not after you got what you wanted.

The obedience of faith is not about morality or church rituals or following directions but about acting in concert with the promises of God.  Think of it as saying, “This is what I am doing to be consistent with that promise.”

When we first start out in this faith business, we generally bring with us at least the legal limit of baggage.  Whittling our treasures down (disposing of our well-developed bad habits and coping mechanisms) is one of the jobs of the Spirit.  It seems that we have a part in letting this happen.  We can do what the promises imply, or we can keep making choices based on what has yet to actually work.

The ordinary Christian has been promised extraordinary ability.  Most church-goers do not expect to accomplish the humanly impossible.  What would happen if we did?

2 Timothy 3:12 “All who desire to live godly will suffer persecution.”  If American Christians today would cling to common-sense evidence, kindly, gently, and patiently presented (rather than emotionalism, authority, or scholasticism), I am confident that persecution would soon return.  The real question is whether American Christians think that is a desirable outcome.

The gospel is not so interested in how you got to where you are as it is in figuring out where to go from here.

Comforting is what transitions us from downcast to joyful.  Not only are the faithful promised that, eventually and by unknown means, we will get back to joy, but also we are promised comforting along the way.  This comfort is not on the receipt side of the ledger.  It’s a pass-through, an asset to be used.  God comforts us that we may comfort others.  (2 Corinthians 1:4, 7:6)

God presents the outrageous promise of overcoming ourselves to see if we will bite.  Chances are we will drop the ball several times along the way.  The proof of trust is picking the ball back up.  Over time, we get more sure-handed and overcoming becomes a way of life.  But, it is neither the degree of overcoming nor the number of fumbles that interests God, rather the trust to try the impossible, to turn over control to an unseen entity based solely on a promise.  That’s the relationship that makes families last.

Many have taught that Christians are hapless and worthless.  God says we are sufficiently skilled, trained, and armed (priests and kings), and we are magnificent and inspiring to see (the temple).  Confidence and loyalty make a great family.

Human perception is initiated through our various senses.  Therefore, God illustrated the invisible through the symbolism in the Bible.  Jesus taught in the same way.  Faith results in living according to our understanding of the invisible.

Any doctrine or practice that fails to connect to the invisible belongs to the “right-and-wrong” mentality, which always leads to failure, sin, and separation.

To be “filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18) literally says that the Spirit who dwells in each Christian overflows and can be observed by others, particularly outsiders.  Has that happened lately?

Whatever our physical situations, if our spirits are connected, we are successful.  If our spirits are not connected, we are alone in the human race.

God, Jesus, the Spirit, and the Word (the Quadrity?) are described figuratively as being in the faithful.  The take-home picture is that we are connected to the point of merger with the divine nature, that the faithful are, individually and collectively, fabulously ornate representatives of the divine of whom He is protective and jealous.  To think as a spirit, we must see ourselves as a collective of eternal beings.

(Galatians 3:3)  “Having begun by means of the Spirit, are you now being made consistent by means of the flesh?”  Paul’s point is that the Spirit makes possible a consistent connection between intention and performance, so our focus should be directed to the promised works of the Spirit, not on the psychological techniques of behavior modification.

The faithful trust God because of His track record, so have peace despite not knowing the how or when, just the who.  In fact, the enormity of those promises, the clearly supernatural nature of the results, makes me happy to sit back and just watch and laugh.  Figuring out how to make all those promises work together would just make my head hurt.

We can’t take ourselves too seriously.  Rather, we need to laugh at ourselves for getting in the way of what the Spirit wants to accomplish and laugh with God about our nonsensical reasoning.  If we laugh, we don’t make excuses.

God has not abandoned us in this sinking ship called Earth.  If we make the choice to trust Him rather than to make our own way against impossible odds, He gives us His Spirit so that we can overcome ourselves and the suffering that surrounds us.  We can have a joyful life on earth, whatever the circumstances.  Suffering becomes a problem only for those on the outside, a wake-up call to give up trying to beat the system, but rather to trust God.

The faithful are not perpetual failures.  The faithful have the tools to be like Jesus when He was on earth.  Certainly, we cannot do it by superior self-control.  Rather, the indwelling Spirit transforms believers.  God gave no benchmarks for acceptance like saying a certain prayer or following a certain ritual.  We trust and get out of the way.  We look forward to the goal, not backward to our disastrous wake.  We trust that God can handle it.  It’s about family, not about me.

The first step toward finding joy in everyday life is contained in a simple phrase usually glossed over: rejoice in God or rejoice in the Lord.  The key is the little preposition.  What does it mean to be in God or in the Lord?  Of course, the physical illustration encapsulated in that little preposition helps us to picture what is going on with our eternal part, our spirit.  If I can build a mental image of my spirit inside the Spirit of God, I should catch a glimpse of just how cool that is.  Wherever my physical body might be, calling up that memory puts the present physical situation in perspective.

Love, doing what is best for the other person regardless of the effect on me, is the gateway drug to joy.

The birth of Jesus was not a local phenomenon.  Educated and apparently wealthy people from a great distance saw the markers, packed up, and went.  They knew it was not natural.  Sometimes, God orchestrates big things and scientific people can tell easily that something worth investigating happened.  Science and Christianity are on the same page.  Both are based on evidence.

Fancy building designs generally are structurally weak and difficult to maintain.  The same goes for the gospel.  Our message needs to be founded on high quality evidence, not unprovable claims; building godly character traits, not following rituals; relying on the power of the Spirit, not trying harder only to fail bigger; using plain words that non-church people understand, not big religion words that few can define.  What are you building and what are you building with?

What impossible things can a bunch of cracked pots do?  Christians are promised help from the Spirit, mostly having to do with character development.  We get through hard times with a good attitude, finding peace and joy in a broken world.  We think of the needs of others first.  We somehow manage to drop bad habits rather than excusing them.  The essential finish is to have a clear and simple explanation of how this God stuff works.

Being gracious carries the fear of being overrun by the opportunists.  Being merciful (an unquenchable desire to fix what ails someone else) carries the fear that they might not want to be fixed but rather feel just fine the way they are.  Being at peace makes others wonder if you really understand the gravity of the situation.  Being enlightened means you must admit to having been wrong.  The list goes on.  Being conformed to the image of Jesus is a trip into the most remote (albeit well lit) of unknown places, which is frightening.