My Dad’s name was Bill Cable.  He was not my biological father but he adopted me when I was only two years old and I never knew or met the man that was there when I was conceived.  He is a father also, to me and others later, I heard, so I hope he has a great day also if he still lives.  But he was not my Dad.  Bill Cable was.

I did not even know that I was adopted until sometime in my fourteenth year.  And Bill never gave me any reason to even think it.  I have a sister and two brothers that he was the biological father of but there was never any favoritism.  Well, actually there might have been at times, but it was favoritism towards me.  He loved me as much as or seemingly even more sometimes as any of us.

He was a small man.  Standing only 5′ 2″ tall and weighing about 125 pounds, I still remember him having me sit in his lap when I got out of the Army at six feet tall and 185 pounds.  It was ridiculous looking probably but I am smiling just thinking about it.  My eyes are a little watery also.

Bill Cable, my Dad, died in 1991 at the age of 55.  Much too young and way too early to go.  I miss him.  I don’t talk about it much but before Jesus introduced Himself to me there was no other person on this planet that I felt comfortable telling my deepest secrets, fears, dreams, and thoughts to than my Dad.  I never have been a very open person and have just started growing into it in the last few years even to the degree I am now.  But my Dad would listen, never judge, and tell me like he saw it.  It was not always comfortable but it was real.  How many people tell anyone anything real anymore?  Not enough.  At least not in my life or experience.

Even though I had the best example for a loving father, not a perfect man by any means, but a real, truly loving man which is what really matters, that anyone could have, I still blew it when it came my time.  I have six children.  Five of them are sons that are not mine biologically.  While I do believe I loved them a long time ago, I know I did not do it the right way.  Some of it was me, some was the enemy of all of our souls, but mostly it was my lack of belief that that enemy or God was real.  My Father, God, has and still is, changing me.  I thank Him for that most of all because I do not like who I used to be.

We all have a Father in heaven, whether we have one here or not.  And He is good and gracious and merciful and loving, but most of all He is real.  And He tells us like it is.  If we will only listen.

If you have a father here, let him know you love him and appreciate him today.  Even if he was or is not who you think he should be, he is your father.  And who among us is who our Father, God, wants us to be anyway.  And if you are a father, then be the best one you can be while you still have time.

Happy Fathers Day to all and Dad, I miss you and love you.

Love you all

Tags: army, Belief, Bill Cable, biological father, Father, God, Heaven, jesus, Love, Self

Yes.  He did.  And we are here, only by His gracious act of creation.  If you have been following along with the posts and especially the commentary the last couple of weeks you are aware that creation has been discussed and I hope will continue to be.  No one is denying the fact of creation, just how to interpret the narrative we have that portrays it.  This post is not about creation in a wider sense.  It is about the many questions I have read out there in cyberspace asking what God created.

There is the question asking, did God create evil?  Another asks, did God create sin?  What about, did God create time?

Some believe He created evil and sin for example, so that we can experience good and His mercy.  Some believe He had to create time because He does not experience duration or sequence because He is infinite, but because we are finite we had to have time created to experience the same.  Some of these concepts are definitely brain twisters and the most vocal of the believers in these things end most of the discussions with the argument of God being so far beyond, above, mysterious, and such that we should not attempt to even ponder them.  Logic seems to have no place for determining what God is like.

I have other questions.  If we need evil to experience good, then how in the heavens are we going to experience good in eternity?  Isn’t the promise that evil will be gone?  Is evil a noun; is it something with independent existence?  Or is it just what occurs when Gods ways are not followed? The same goes for sin.  Isn’t it really just a turning from the path God set before us, missing the mark, as it is defined?

God is good because he said so.  Good has independent existence because God exists.  But God never, ever, said He was evil.  Isn’t evil really just a measurement, as is sin, of how much we are unlike God or how far we or our actions are from Him.  Did God create large, small, sweet, sour, pretty, ugly and such, or are these just descriptives and measurements of the things He did create?  Evil and sin are not things.  They are what things that are created do.

Time is in the same ballpark.  It is a measurement of sequence and duration.  Again, do we say that God created height, or depth, or diameter?  Or aren’t these just concepts that we use to relate to creation?  To me, time fits this description.  I once thought of God as timeless and above and outside time and it gave me nothing but headaches.  Upon further study, prayer, reflection and discussion I have come to the conclusion that this is a manmade concept and is not only unbiblical, it actually goes against much of the biblical witness.

As I read the love letter to mankind that we call the bible, I see a God that desires relationships with His creations.  I see a God that experiences sequence and duration.  A God that asks things like, how long?  How much?  When?  All of these things point far away from timelessness.  In eternity, if God does not experience time, meaning duration and sequence, then how will we relate to Him then?  It will be no better than it is here.

God is everlasting to everlasting.  God simply always was and always is and always will be.  He is the Alpha and the Omega, which are actually finite terms meaning the beginning and the end.  These do not point to timelessness either.  They actually point us to the fact that we find our beginning and ending only in Him.

Did God create…?

As far as evil, sin, and time go, I say no.  It just does not fit the picture of the Father that Jesus painted for us.  Instead we find that He is good, He is perfect, and He will be there with us and for us.  Hallelujah.

Love you all

Tags: alpha and the omega, Beginning, Bible, Creation, Discussion, Ending, Eternity, Evil, Father, God, Good, hallelujah, Heaven, jesus, King, Mercy, Perfect, relationship, Relationships

People come to church primarily for two reasons; for some kind of fellowship with people, or some kind of fellowship with God.  If they are coming seeking God, that is great, but it will not sustain them or keep them in “our” church because, whether they know it or not, they need people.  We all need fellowship.  And without it we ultimately move on.  A lot of people change churches for this very reason and may not even realize it.

If they are coming seeking to make relationships with people, that is actually better in a way.  If we reach out to them and include them then we can probably keep them coming for a while.  There are also potentially two problems with this also.  First, we never introduce them to Jesus, teach them about God, or feed the spiritual hunger in them and they, again, move on.  We can expect this because ultimately someone, maybe even me, will make them mad or hurt their feelings.  Second, we never introduce them to Jesus, teach them about God, or feed the spiritual hunger in them and they do stay, but never mature as Christ followers and may even be in danger of an eternal destination that does not include Him.  Neither of these situations help us grow a healthy church or bring people into the Kingdom.  The first won’t keep them and the second won’t save them.

What is our mission as a church?  It is simple.  It is to make disciples.  But what, exactly is a disciple?

A disciple is one who loves God, loves people, and serves them both.  It is that simple, but yet all too often we mess it all up.  So where are we messing up?  I believe we are dropping the ball right at the start.  We are not properly introducing our Father to them.  Sure, we have preaching, we have worship, we have programs, and we have fellowship; but are we teaching them about a Father in heaven that loved us so much that “He gave His only begotten son, that whoever believe in Him should not perish but have eternal life…” ( John 3:16)  When we speak out to others about our Father and all his love for us, we can help start them down a path of redemption that keeps going and growing.

But we must reach out to them first.  The same people who ask, “Why aren’t we keeping visitors,” are the very ones at fault all too often.  They either see the visitors and don’t care enough, or are too busy, to reach out to them.  We must not wait for the other person to go talk to that visitor.  If we don’t care enough, then we better get to work on our own spiritual health and if we are too busy, we better slow down.

Jesus told us that all we need to do is love God and love people.  The rest of the New Testament writers told us how to serve both.  The whole bible has this simple message at its core.  Yet we have made this whole business of church exactly that, a business.  One church growth program after another is put forward by some great church leader.  There are a wide variety of church marketing strategies that are pushed at any given time.  And they seem to be ever changing, just trying to keep up with perceived changes in seekers needs.  But seekers need only one thing; they need Jesus.  And we introduce them to Him by simply reaching out to them.

Have you welcomed and talked to that couple that has visited for the last month?

Did you truly rejoice and praise God for another brother added to the family when that guy got saved in church last week, or did you just praise God when the pastor quit talking about it so you could get out and miss the lines at a local restaurant?

Are you so busy that you do not even know about either the new couple or that guy getting saved?

All too often we are either too self centered or we have a wrong view of ministry, and we miss the simple fact that we are to reach out and embrace the other.  God created man for a relationship with us.  He sent His Son to show us the way back into that relationship after we abandoned Him.  And He lovingly showed us that we need each other, or we won’t make it.  We must realize that if we want to increase our church membership then we must reach out to people in love and stop trying to determine the best program or the newest strategy.  If we reach out in love, we not only may keep them in our church, we may bring them into the Kingdom and the family of God.

If we do not reach out, we won’t keep them in “our” church and worse, they may not ever be shown that God loves them and simply wants to start the adoption process.

Love you all

Tags: Church, eternal life, Fellowship, Heaven, Kingdom, Love, Relationships, seeking god, Self, spiritual hunger

The choir in my church sang a song today called, I believe, We Are Not Ashamed.  They have sung this song on many occasions and I am always moved by it.  It is about not being ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  This is something we should all take to heart.

But do we?  How often do we keep silent when we should speak up?  How often do we make sure we do not put ourselves in a place or a position where we might have to speak of the gospel?

Some of us, maybe even all of us at times, find ourselves embarrassingly inadequate at sharing our faith.  Are we really ashamed?   Probably not.  I truly doubt, except in certain situations, that most of us are really ashamed of our God and Savior.  That would be like being ashamed of our wives or girlfriends, husbands or boyfriends.  Most of us are really not ashamed of those we really love.

So what is really the problem?

I believe it is probably intimidation.  I do not, entirely, mean intimidation in the sense of being afraid, but instead being under the impression that it will do no good.  That it won’t really matter or make a difference.  Some of us are concerned with others attitudes toward us and opinions of us and some of us just really think we cannot make a difference.

Why bother talking to that guy at work who is bragging about his adulterous affair?  He won’t listen if he is that outspoken about it and I just might be ostracized from the group for my holier than thou attitude.

That Muslim you know is just so devout that you know you will never reach them, and you are a little intimidated by what you know of their religion; so why take the chance of being looked on as one of those hate spewing Christians?  We can all live together in love, if we keep silent.

And that goes for that very outspoken atheist also.  If we keep silent about our faith, we can all get along very well.  And maybe even love each other.  And if we can show enough love, then that will win out in the end.  Right?

Wrong.  What love is this that is willing to keep silent about something so important?  I started thinking about this post after listening to this video the other day.  In this video you will hear Penn Jillette, a very outspoken, oftentimes crude, but very logical and consistent thinker and atheist.  He is the talkative half of the comedian/ magician team known as Penn and Teller.

He is also what I call a true atheist.  I was one for many years myself.  I believe a true atheist is someone who says they do not believe that there is a God and they are not afraid of those who believe.  We seem to be surrounded today by people calling themselves atheist that are intent on silencing us.  They seem afraid of something, or maybe it is Someone.

In the video you will hear Penn say that if we, as believers, really love everyone and we really believe what we say about heaven and hell, then our love demands that we tell everyone about it; in effect, we should proselytize.  Evangelize, if you prefer.

I admire his stance on this and find that this was the way I felt also.  As a Christian we must tell everyone the gospel.  If we do not, do we really love?  I can’t see how.

We can never be ashamed, and as I stated, I doubt many of us really are.  But we must also never be intimidated.  We may be called intolerant, or a holy roller, or hateful, or many other things; but we must still tell the story because for the sake of love, it is necessary.  Those that can’t except this and call us all of these things are running scared and can probably be reached.

And those that are not running scared, like Penn and like I used to be, will be reached through the consistent witness of love and the telling of the good news.

Listen to the video.  And pray for Penn Jillette.  A transformation of someone like him would be a mighty witness for the Kingdom.

And the next time you feel a little timid about sharing, remember that if you really love them, you have to.

Love you all

Tags: atheist, Believe, Christians, Church, Faith, Good, Heaven, Hell, Jesus Christ, Kingdom, Love, muslim, Penn Jillette, religion, Self, Sin, witness, Work