agree, disagree?..

“Discussing your values with your teenagers will help them to form their own," "Remember, though, that trying to convince them of what’s right and wrong may discourage them from being open.”

amen to this..

RE: The Coming Evangelical Collapse

from The Point by Regis Nicoll

If you followed the links in Gina's post, you may have decided that MIchael Spencer’s predictions are overly apocalyptic -- like this:

Within two generations, evangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its occupants...This collapse will herald the arrival of an anti-Christian chapter of the post-Christian West. Intolerance of Christianity will rise to levels many of us have not believed possible in our lifetimes, and public policy will become hostile toward evangelical Christianity, seeing it as the opponent of the common good. Millions of Evangelicals will quit. Thousands of ministries will end. Christian media will be reduced, if not eliminated. Many Christian schools will go into rapid decline. I'm convinced the grace and mission of God will reach to the ends of the earth. But the end of evangelicalism as we know it is close.

But if current trends hold, there are, no doubt, troubling times ahead for Christians (but haven't there always been!).

According to a recent survey referenced here (CNN has more), the percentage of Americans who identify themselves as Christians is 75 percent, down from 86 percent in 1990. Perhaps more disturbing is that the only result found consistent from state to state is “an increase in the number of people expressing no religious affiliation.” With the increased social acceptability of “having no religion,” this is a trend that will prove challenging to reverse.

Spencer lists seven things foreshadowing the coming evangelical breakdown, the most significant, in my mind, being, “We Evangelicals have failed to pass on to our young people an orthodox form of faith that can take root and survive the secular onslaught. Ironically, the billions of dollars we've spent on youth ministers, Christian music, publishing, and media has produced a culture of young Christians who know next to nothing about their own faith except how they feel about it. Our young people have deep beliefs about the culture war, but do not know why they should obey scripture, the essentials of theology, or the experience of spiritual discipline and community. Coming generations of Christians are going to be monumentally ignorant and unprepared for culture-wide pressures.”

George Barna would agree. The most recent update from the Barna Group reports that not only has the percent of adults holding a biblical worldview remained essentially flat (7-9 percent) over the last 13 years, “less than one-half of one percent of adults in the Mosaic generation – i.e., those aged 18 to 23 – have a biblical worldview.”

Barna nails the reason: “children are not provided with the basic ability to think in ways that correspond to foundational biblical teachings.” His get-well plan calls for “Christian families, Christian schools, and Christian churches…to invest more effort and tangible resources into helping young people understand and adopt the core ideas of Christianity, and to reinforce those concepts through their own lives.”

Evangelical collapse or not, we Christians have to do a much better job of living out our faith and articulating it, intentionally, compellingly and winsomely, even to those born and raised in the Church.

This mini-soap opera is something I wish upon none of you..

Agent: Pilot mutters "die" as run from law ends

By JESSICA GRESKO and JAY REEVES, Associated Press Writers Jessica Gresko And Jay Reeves, Associated Press Writers – 18 mins ago

AP – Light snow falls on the home of missing Indiana businessman Marcus Schrenker in McCordsville, Ind., Tuesday, …

• Slideshow: Ind. pilot faked death from crash
• Play Video Video: Agent: Pilot mutters 'die' as run from law ends AP

QUINCY, Fla. – An investment manager who apparently staged a plane crash to evade personal and financial ruin was barely conscious and muttered the word "die" when federal agents found him bleeding from a slashed wrist, an investigator said Wednesday.

U.S. Marshals apprehended Marcus Schrenker, 38, late Tuesday at a northern Florida campground two days after the amateur daredevil pilot apparently tried to fake his own death in a plane crash. Authorities believe he parachuted to the ground and later sped off on a red motorcycle he had stashed in central Alabama.

Frank Chiumento, an assistant chief with the U.S. Marshals in Florida, said officers had to tend to Schrenker's self-inflicted gash to the wrist before he was airlifted to Tallahassee Memorial Hospital. Schrenker was listed in fair condition early Wednesday.

The gash was "very serious at the time," Chiumento said. "He was bleeding profusely from the wounds to the left arm." Besides the slashed wrist, there was a puncture wound near his elbow, he said.

Schrenker was semiconscious and muttering single words but appeared to resist first aid from the marshals.

"Just as we were administering first aid to him we were giving him assurances that he would be OK and he seemed to mutter some words that he was resistant to that. He muttered 'die' at one time as if he didn't want the first aid that we were rendering to him," Chiumento said on ABC's "Good Morning America."

A law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because no charges have been publicly filed yet, said prosecutors in Florida are considering whether to charge Schrenker with two federal crimes: one for making a false distress call, and another for recklessly letting his plane crash.

Schrenker arrived at the campground Monday night riding his motorcycle, and paid $25.75 in cash for a night on the grounds, said Caroline Hastings, 32, who owns and operates the campground with her husband. She gave him a code to use wireless Internet, four bottles of water and six bundles of firewood. He also bought a six-pack of Bud Light Lime, and said he was leaving in the morning, she said. But by Tuesday, he still wasn't gone, and hadn't paid for another night.

"He said he was going across the country with some buddies. He wanted to stop. He didn't know if they would," Hastings said.

Chiumento said Schrenker was found based on information from U.S. Marshals officers in Indiana and in Alabama. He did not provide details of how Schrenker was tracked to Florida, but told ABC it was not based on tips from the campsite.

Schrenker is expected to be kept in the hospital until Thursday and then to be held in the Gadsden County jail pending extradition to Indiana, a sheriff's office spokesman said.

Deputy U.S. Marshal John Beeman of the Southern District of Indiana said Schrenker will likely be brought back to Hamilton County, just north of Indianapolis, where a judge issued an arrest warrant Tuesday on felony fraud charges alleging that Schrenker acted as a financial adviser after his state license expired on Dec. 31.

Evidence, including the motorcycle authorities believe Schrenker used to get away, was being analyzed Wednesday morning, Chiumento said. He wouldn't describe what else was found at the Chattahoochee campground, but did say the investigation revealed Schrenker was prepared to be on the run for some time.

Schrenker fled not only the law but divorce, a state investigation of his businesses and angry investors who accuse him of stealing potentially millions in savings they entrusted to him.

"We've learned over time that he's a pathological liar — you don't believe a single word that comes out of his mouth," said Charles Kinney, a 49-year-old airline pilot from Atlanta who alleges Schrenker scammed up to $135,000 from his parents' retirement fund.

On Sunday — two days after burying his stepfather and suffering a half-million-dollar loss in federal court the same day — Schrenker was flying his single-engine Piper Malibu to Florida from his Indiana home when he reported the windshield had imploded over central Alabama.

Then his radio went silent.

Military jets tried to intercept the plane and found the door open, the cockpit dark. The aircraft crashed more than 200 miles farther south in a Florida Panhandle bayou surrounded by homes.

Police believe Schrenker parachuted to the ground in central Alabama, where he'd stashed a motorcycle with full saddlebags in a storage unit in Harpersville rented just the day before his flight.

It appeared, by all accounts, that Schrenker was doing quite well.

At 38, he controlled an impressive slate of businesses. Through his Heritage Wealth Management Inc., Heritage Insurance Services Inc. and Icon Wealth Management, he was responsible for providing financial advice and managing portfolios worth millions.

He collected luxury automobiles, owned two airplanes and lived in a 10,000-square-foot house in an upscale neighborhood known as "Cocktail Cove," where affluent boaters often socialize with cocktails in hand.

But officials now say Schrenker's enterprise was ready to topple.

Authorities in Indiana have been investigating Schrenker's businesses on allegations that he sold clients annuities and charged them exorbitant fees they weren't aware they would face.

State Insurance Commissioner Jim Atterholt said Schrenker would close the investors out of one annuity and move them to another while charging them especially high "surrender charges" — in one case costing a retired couple $135,000 of their original $900,000 investment.

In recent weeks, Schrenker's life began to spin out of control. According to documents in a lawsuit filed in Indianapolis, Schrenker sent a frantic e-mail to plaintiffs on Dec. 16.

"I walked out on my job about 30 minutes ago," it read. "My career is over ... over one letter in a trade error. One letter!! ... I've had so many people yelling at me today that I couldn't figure out what was up or down. I still can't figure it out."

It's unclear to what "error" he is referring. In another e-mail to a neighbor following his disappearance, Schrenker referred to having "just made a 2 million dollar mistake." But it appeared he was hoping to work things out.

But things were now out of his hands.

On Dec. 31, officers searched Schrenker's home, seizing his family's passports, $6,036 in cash, the title to a Lexus and deposit slips for bank accounts in Michelle Schrenker's name. They also took six computers and nine large plastic tubs filled with various financial and corporate documents.

In the supporting affidavit, investigators suggested Schrenker might have access to at least $665,000 in the offshore accounts of a client.

But it wasn't just his finances that were in turmoil.

Just a day before, Michelle Schrenker had filed for divorce. She told the people searching the house that her husband had been having an affair.

Hours after Schrenker vanished, neighbor Tom Britt received what he believes is an e-mail from Schrenker. The tone was ominous.

"I embarrassed my family for the last time," Britt quoted Schrenker as saying. "By the time you read this I'll be gone."

___

Associated Press Writers Devlin Barrett in Washington, Rick Callahan, Ken Kusmer and Jeni O'Malley in Indianapolis, and Harry Weber in Atlanta also contributed to this report.

I am okay to some degree with self analysis and church bashing. But be careful when the proposed answer is to toss out Scripture..

Matthew Helmke: unchristian

from Planet Ubuntu by matthew

I’m reading a book that I just picked up called unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity… and Why It Matters by David Kinnaman. It is an analysis of exhaustive research by the Barna Group and details what people outside of the Christian faith think about it and its adherents and why.

The book is fascinating, not so much because I found the results surprising, although some Christians may, but because of how honest people were in responding to the questions. That gives me some hope that perhaps those at whom the criticism is directed may be able to hear it and do something about it. As a member of the group being critiqued, I both agree with almost all of the criticisms and I think massive change is needed.

In general, the research shows that Christianity is perceived like this:

1. Hypocritical, that Christians try to portray themselves as morally superior, with a polished image that is inaccurate, and that churches convey an image that they exist only for virtuous and pure people.
2. Too focused on getting converts, and not actually caring about people or loving people as they are. Instead, people feel treated only like targets for conversion and (often rightly) question Christians’ motives in interaction with them.
3. Antihomosexual, bigoted and fixated on “curing” homosexuals while also leveraging political solutions against them.
4. Sheltered, old-fashioned, and out of touch with reality, preferring simplistic solutions and answers to a genuinely complex reality.
5. Too political, overly motivated by a political agenda that puts personal beliefs and preferences above valuing others, preferring to represent issues and fight over them instead of engaging in dialogue and working with others to find workable and acceptable solutions to real problems.
6. Judgmental, not honest about attitudes and perspectives about others, and it is doubted whether Christians really love people as we say we do, at least those who disagree with us.

There it is. And you know what? I agree.

Reading through the research, these opinions did not arise in a vacuum. They were not caused by media portrayals. Almost everyone questioned had experience with Christian friends or acquaintances. Most had spent at least one month regularly attending a church. Almost all who expressed a negative opinion said that they did so because of one or more personal bad experiences with Christian behavior or attitudes. Only a small percentage had anything other than a neutral opinion of standard Christian doctrine. Hmm.

I am encouraged by reading that the majority of Christians under the age of about 30 also agreed. This could bode well for some needed changes in behavior and attitudes.

What I would like to see is a Christianity populated by people who are kind, gentle, loving, compassionate, consistent in their words and actions, honest, friendly, and who place a greater importance on serving others than on political action designed to fight against the world. That is also the main thrust of the book, which is mainly intended for a Christian audience, to look for ways in which the overall Christian community is poorly representing what it believes and recommend ways to change, so that behavior lines up more directly with stated doctrine. Here’s hoping the book finds a wide audience.

Good words of financial advice.

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Earn, Save, Give
Christians and Money Management

October 24, 2008

Note: This commentary was delivered by PFM President Mark Earley.

It’s been a rough month financially for everyone. We’ve watched the stock markets plunge and our retirement or college plans shrivel up like autumn leaves. Hard times call for some hard thinking -- and a re-examination of how all of us, as Christians, should manage our finances and plan for our futures. So let’s do it.

The famous preacher John Wesley had the right recipe for Christian money management. It was quite simple: Earn all you can, save all you can, and give all you can.

Simple, yes. But quite profound. In fact, Wesley delivered a lengthy sermon on the topic. It’s a sermon I would recommend you read. But let me warn you: Reading a Wesley sermon is not for the faint of heart. He had the gift of convicting his audience.

You also need to know that Wesley’s thoughts on how to use money are all grounded in the concept of stewardship. As he pointed out, you are not your own. You belong to God, and so then do your finances. You are not an owner, you are a steward.

So let’s begin with earning all you can. Wesley was no fan of leisure. But he was huge on hard work. “Gain all you can by honest industry,” Wesley said. “Use all possible diligence in your calling. Lose no time. If you understand yourself and your relation to God and man, you know you have none to spare.”

He was also quite clear what he meant about “honest industry.” He urged his hearers not to take employment that would damage their health, compromise their religious principles, or harm others.

Some jobs, for instance, cannot be performed “without cheating or lying, or conformity to some custom which is not consistent with a good conscience.” These kinds of jobs, Wesley said, “are sacredly to be avoided . . . for to gain money we must not lose our souls.”

On the topic of saving money, Wesley was uncompromising as well in a way that, I’m sure, made his audience squirm. “Do not waste any part of so precious a talent merely in gratifying the desires of the flesh,” he said.

He wanted to be sure his listeners got the point. When it came to fancy foods, the latest fashions, elegant furniture, he had this to say: “Cut off all this expense!”

He even urged Christians not to overspend on the kids. “Why should you purchase for them more pride or lust, more vanity, or foolish and hurtful desires?” he said. “They do not want any more; they have enough already; nature has made ample provision for them.”

Now there’s some tough talk in today’s times.

As for “give all you can,” Wesley again was blunt. You really haven’t saved anything if you merely hoard your money, he argued. “You may as well throw your money into the sea, as bury it in the earth . . . or in the Bank of England.” Not to use it toward a good end is to “throw it away.”

Indeed, according to Wesley, Christians are to use their money to ensure their own health and strength as well as the health and strength of their families, then to “do good to them that are of the household of God,” and then, “to do good to all men.”

Earn all you can, save all you can, give all you can. Simple yet profound advice in good times and in bad.

I hope someone is still reading this blog!

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Names You Need to Know
Challenging the New Atheists

October 10, 2008

You know these names, or at least you know many of them: Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens. They’re some of the best known of the “New Atheists,” the group that’s launched a massive public assault against religion over recent years.

Now here are some more names that you need to know: Ravi Zacharias, Alister McGrath, Timothy Paul Jones, and Dinesh D’Souza, among others. These are just some of the outstanding Christian apologists leading the charge against the New Atheists. Each of these distinguished authors has recently published a book targeted at a specific New Atheist, and their arguments are devastating to the atheistic worldview.

First is Ravi Zacharias’s latest book, THE END OF REASON, a response to Sam Harris’s LETTER TO A CHRISTIAN NATION. Ravi Zacharias is one of the great Christian thinkers of our time, and one of my own favorite apologists.

Just like Harris’s book, Zacharias’s book is written in the form of a letter to the American people. But as Zacharias points out, “By the end of Sam Harris’s LETTER TO A CHRISTIAN NATION, we don’t know who we are in essence or where we are in the grand scheme of a world without God.”

Zacharias wants to set that situation straight. He knows the atheistic worldview all too well, as he states in the book, because he used to share it. And it drove him to the brink of suicide.

It was not until he was given a Bible and came to Christ that his life was turned around. He spends the rest of the book explaining why atheism is “devastating to our hunger for significance,” while the God of the Bible gives us meaning, purpose, and hope.

Then there’s THE DAWKINS DELUSION? by Oxford scholars Alister and Joanna McGrath, which, as the title suggests, deals with Richard Dawkins’s popular book THE GOD DELUSION. The McGraths pull no punches about Dawkins’s book; in fact, they ask, “Is the case for atheism really so weak that it has to be bolstered by such half-baked nonsense?”

Lest you think that’s going a little too far, the atheistic philosopher Michael Ruse actually endorsed the McGraths’ book by saying that Dawkins’s work “makes me embarrassed to be an atheist, and the McGraths show why.”

Though Alister McGrath respects Dawkins intelligence and used to be an atheist, himself, he says the kind of blistering and abusive rhetoric that Dawkins resorts to isn’t worthy of him and is easy to take apart.

Then we have MISQUOTING TRUTH by Timothy Paul Jones, a response to Bart Ehrman’s book MISQUOTING JESUS. In contrast to Ehrman, who argues that the Bible is full of changes and mistakes, Jones provides a serious, thorough examination of how the Scripture was compiled and passed down to us over the years, and why we can trust it.

Finally, Dinesh D’Souza’s WHAT'S SO GREAT ABOUT CHRISTIANITY is a very effective answer to Christopher Hitchens’ GOD IS NOT GREAT.

So don’t forget those names -- again, that’s Ravi Zacharias, Alister and Joanna McGrath, Timothy Paul Jones, Dinesh D’Souza -- and come visit our website, BreakPoint.org, to find out how you can get copies of their books. You can also order a copy of my book The Faith, which answers many of these same charges. The charges of the New Atheists are all sound bite and no substance. These books will equip you to challenge those baseless assumptions.


Get links to further information on today's topic (http://www.breakpoint.org/listingarticle.asp?ID=9582)

And now, for some real science.. Let's talk about global cooling.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24036736-7583,00.html

David Evans | July 18, 2008

I DEVOTED six years to carbon accounting, building models for the Australian Greenhouse Office. I am the rocket scientist who wrote the carbon accounting model (FullCAM) that measures Australia's compliance with the Kyoto Protocol, in the land use change and forestry sector.

FullCAM models carbon flows in plants, mulch, debris, soils and agricultural products, using inputs such as climate data, plant physiology and satellite data. I've been following the global warming debate closely for years.

When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty good: CO2 is a greenhouse gas, the old ice core data, no other suspects.

The evidence was not conclusive, but why wait until we were certain when it appeared we needed to act quickly? Soon government and the scientific community were working together and lots of science research jobs were created. We scientists had political support, the ear of government, big budgets, and we felt fairly important and useful (well, I did anyway). It was great. We were working to save the planet.

But since 1999 new evidence has seriously weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming, and by 2007 the evidence was pretty conclusive that carbon played only a minor role and was not the main cause of the recent global warming. As Lord Keynes famously said, "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"

There has not been a public debate about the causes of global warming and most of the public and our decision makers are not aware of the most basic salient facts:

1. The greenhouse signature is missing. We have been looking and measuring for years, and cannot find it.

Each possible cause of global warming has a different pattern of where in the planet the warming occurs first and the most. The signature of an increased greenhouse effect is a hot spot about 10km up in the atmosphere over the tropics. We have been measuring the atmosphere for decades using radiosondes: weather balloons with thermometers that radio back the temperature as the balloon ascends through the atmosphere. They show no hot spot. Whatsoever.

If there is no hot spot then an increased greenhouse effect is not the cause of global warming. So we know for sure that carbon emissions are not a significant cause of the global warming. If we had found the greenhouse signature then I would be an alarmist again.

When the signature was found to be missing in 2007 (after the latest IPCC report), alarmists objected that maybe the readings of the radiosonde thermometers might not be accurate and maybe the hot spot was there but had gone undetected. Yet hundreds of radiosondes have given the same answer, so statistically it is not possible that they missed the hot spot.

Recently the alarmists have suggested we ignore the radiosonde thermometers, but instead take the radiosonde wind measurements, apply a theory about wind shear, and run the results through their computers to estimate the temperatures. They then say that the results show that we cannot rule out the presence of a hot spot. If you believe that you'd believe anything.

2. There is no evidence to support the idea that carbon emissions cause significant global warming. None. There is plenty of evidence that global warming has occurred, and theory suggests that carbon emissions should raise temperatures (though by how much is hotly disputed) but there are no observations by anyone that implicate carbon emissions as a significant cause of the recent global warming.

3. The satellites that measure the world's temperature all say that the warming trend ended in 2001, and that the temperature has dropped about 0.6C in the past year (to the temperature of 1980). Land-based temperature readings are corrupted by the "urban heat island" effect: urban areas encroaching on thermometer stations warm the micro-climate around the thermometer, due to vegetation changes, concrete, cars, houses. Satellite data is the only temperature data we can trust, but it only goes back to 1979. NASA reports only land-based data, and reports a modest warming trend and recent cooling. The other three global temperature records use a mix of satellite and land measurements, or satellite only, and they all show no warming since 2001 and a recent cooling.

4. The new ice cores show that in the past six global warmings over the past half a million years, the temperature rises occurred on average 800 years before the accompanying rise in atmospheric carbon. Which says something important about which was cause and which was effect.

None of these points are controversial. The alarmist scientists agree with them, though they would dispute their relevance.

The last point was known and past dispute by 2003, yet Al Gore made his movie in 2005 and presented the ice cores as the sole reason for believing that carbon emissions cause global warming. In any other political context our cynical and experienced press corps would surely have called this dishonest and widely questioned the politician's assertion.

Until now the global warming debate has merely been an academic matter of little interest. Now that it matters, we should debate the causes of global warming.

So far that debate has just consisted of a simple sleight of hand: show evidence of global warming, and while the audience is stunned at the implications, simply assert that it is due to carbon emissions.

In the minds of the audience, the evidence that global warming has occurred becomes conflated with the alleged cause, and the audience hasn't noticed that the cause was merely asserted, not proved.

If there really was any evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming, don't you think we would have heard all about it ad nauseam by now?

The world has spent $50 billion on global warming since 1990, and we have not found any actual evidence that carbon emissions cause global warming. Evidence consists of observations made by someone at some time that supports the idea that carbon emissions cause global warming. Computer models and theoretical calculations are not evidence, they are just theory.

What is going to happen over the next decade as global temperatures continue not to rise? The Labor Government is about to deliberately wreck the economy in order to reduce carbon emissions. If the reasons later turn out to be bogus, the electorate is not going to re-elect a Labor government for a long time. When it comes to light that the carbon scare was known to be bogus in 2008, the ALP is going to be regarded as criminally negligent or ideologically stupid for not having seen through it. And if the Liberals support the general thrust of their actions, they will be seen likewise.

The onus should be on those who want to change things to provide evidence for why the changes are necessary. The Australian public is eventually going to have to be told the evidence anyway, so it might as well be told before wrecking the economy.

Dr David Evans was a consultant to the Australian Greenhouse Office from 1999 to 2005.

Hope some of you guys are still reading this blog. Maybe you will be challenged to consider doing a book study on the book below in your future.

BREAKPOINT DAILY TRANSCRIPT

Taking Holiness Seriously
William Law’s Great Book

September 15, 2008

It may not have a catchy title like some of today’s Christian self-help books, but William Law’s A SERIOUS CALL TO A DEVOUT AND HOLY LIFE is a true masterpiece -- and the subject of this month’s installment of Dr. Ken Boa’s “Great Books Audio CD” series.

Before the word worldview was ever coined, William Law was writing about it, putting before his readers the absolute absurdity of believing one thing and doing another.

You may never have heard of William Law, or A SERIOUS CALL TO A DEVOUT AND HOLY LIFE, which he wrote 300 years ago. But, as Ken Boa shows us, you have heard plenty about the people Law’s book influenced -- among them John and Charles Wesley. John Newton, the man who penned “Amazing Grace,” called reading the book a life-changing event.

Even skeptics were moved by the depth of Law’s thoughts. Samuel Johnson, well-known for his dictionary of the English language, wrote this: “When at Oxford, I took up Law’s SERIOUS CALL, expecting to find it a dull book . . . and perhaps to laugh at it. But I found Law quite an overmatch for me; and this was the first occasion of my thinking in earnest of religion after I became capable of rational inquiry.”

What then has made this book have such a profound effect? Simply this: Law tells it like it is. In his day, church attendance was high, and generally people did not question the veracity of the Scriptures. The trouble was -- as in every age, and today -- their lives did not reflect their professed beliefs. Law writes to believers in the most direct and persuasive way to encourage them to bring their lives into alignment with their beliefs.

Using fictional characters, Law illustrates his points. For example, he writes of Julius, a man who would become so flustered if he missed his weekly prayers at church, but who had absolutely no qualm in living the rest of his life in frivolous diversions. Of this Law writes, “Why is he one person in prayer and another in practice? There cannot be anything more absurd.”

Law takes it a step further in the next chapter asking, “Why are you not as pious or holy as the early Christians? It is not ignorance or inability, [but] because you never thoroughly intended it. They were ordinary people [but] with extraordinary intention.”

Law’s point is a good one. Think how much intention we may put behind succeeding in business or getting in physical shape. We read books; we set plans; we exercise self-discipline; we seek out workshops or mentors or personal trainers. But have we ever been so intentional in becoming holy or -- to put it another way -- in seeing our lives match our beliefs?

Law does not discount the role of divine grace in a believer’s sanctification. But he does chastise us for believing that growing in holiness does not require intent and effort.

As Ken Boa says in his commentary on A SERIOUS CALL, “This book will wear you out and . . . work you over. It will overwhelm you.” Boa suggests reading Law’s work “devotionally because he doesn’t waste words or mince thoughts.”

If you are serious about living as a Christian, I suggest you pick up A SERIOUS CALL or Ken Boa’s CD. It may work you over, but it is a workout we all desperately need.


Get links to further information on today's topic (http://www.breakpoint.org/listingarticle.asp?ID=9263)