If abortion was illegal, would the number of aborting babies due to this country’s promiscuity and our countrymen’s lack of trust in God as our provision be reduce from millions to zero?

No.

If gays were forbidden to marry, would that prevent them from being with each other?

No.

Is abortion a choice?  Is being gay a choice?

Or has God has judged us all and given us up to what we desire in our hearts?

Romans 1:18-32 (ESV) For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

We did not choose to abort babies.

We did not choose to be gay.

God gave us up to our hearts.

We pray.

That God is sovereign.

That He rules over all.

That He appoints leaders and those in power.

That He softens our hearts.

That He gives us His wisdom to know His love for us.

That He saves us from the pit of death.

491 years ago today, a certain German monk by the name of Martin Luther nailed up 95 Theses on the doors of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany.

Simply stated, we do nothing to make ourselves right with God.  We don’t work towards salvation.  Only God makes us holy.  Only God makes us pure.  Only God who justifies.  Only God who saves us.

Not us but Jesus Christ alone.

Then…

Romans 1:17 (ESV) For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

By that God-given faith, then we do works based on the changes in our heart by God especially according to:

James 2:14-26 (ESV) What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder! Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.

It is faith then works.

Not works then faith.

It is not what we do for Him but what He does in us that makes us saved.

Prophetic love often feels painful. It hurts when prophets tell us we have sinned. If prophets let that short term fall in popularity govern their words they are false prophets. And they do not love people, they love themselves. Here is what prophetic love would have looked like in Jerusalem before it was too late.

Lamentations 2:14 (ESV) Your prophets have seen for you false and deceptive visions; they have not exposed your iniquity to restore your fortunes.

Love longs for the restoration of the fortunes of a sinful people. But not by comforting them in their sins. There is a way toward restoration. It would have looked like this:

They have exposed your iniquity to restore your fortunes.

If our sins are exposed and we confess them with faith in Christ, the blood of Jesus cleanses us (1 John 1:9).

The prophetic calling to expose iniquity is not comfortable—for prophet or people. It’s just loving.

Pray that God would raise up prophets in the church who restore the fortunes of God’s people.

By John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

This book was supposed to help me understand the Trinity.

Seriously?

If I would take this book to heart, it would only serve to obscure my understanding of the Trinity.

To be honest, I never finished the book.

Why?

I couldn’t get past the imagery of God the Father.

Not the resulting imagery, mind you, but the fact there is an actual image of the Father:

Exodus 20:4 (ESV) “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

When I think of God as the Trinity, I think of Him in the standard Father, Jesus Christ the Son and the Holy Spirit.  But looking at God as One, I think of the Father being the Soul and Mind, Jesus the Body and Spirit being the Spirit.

In other words, I can imagine what Jesus Christ looked like according to the unromantic, very manly, grimy, plain, just a dude imagery according to…

Isaiah 53:2 (ESV) For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.

I can even imagine the Spirit of God hovering over the waters like in Genesis 1:2 or as a dove according to Luke 3:22 or John 1:32.

But an image of God the Father?  What does the mind or the soul look like?

Honestly, when I think of the throne room with Jesus at the right hand of the Father, the most I could possibly see is the foot of the Father.

Do I dig into Scripture and seek out where God dictated where one falls in love like when Jacob saw Rachel in Genesis 29:10?

Is it when God instructs us to hold off on marriage for the moment like He did in Jeremiah 16:1-2?

Is it when God tells us to marry this one like He did in Hosea 1:2?

Do I stay single like Paul in 1 Corinthians 7:8 and quote the one verse that every person who passionately desires to get married can quote in 1 Corinthians 7:9?

Do I seek out for redemption as a husband and a dad because of my failures in my first marriage?  Do I seek out healing because I am torn from one flesh like in Genesis 2:24?

What is the answer?

Do I know what marriage truly is?  That it is far above my happiness.  That it is taking two sinners and making them live together.  That it is hard work.  That it is the holiness of God.  That marriage is the mirror image of God.

or…

Is it that God is my everything?  That He is my all in all.  That He is my portion and I am wealthy beyond my wildest dreams.  That I am nothing without Him.  That I am not complete without Him.  That only He can fill up my bottomless soul.   That no other loves me like He does.  That no one cares for me like He does.  That no one on this earth can heal me like He does.

That my precious and loving God is most glorified in my life and in me when I am most satisfied in the Christ who is loving enough to be willing to save me and sovereign enough to have the power to save me.