Isn't It Ironic?

Isn't it ironic how many of the people in this nation, the "United" States of America, claim the title of Christian? Because there are so many traits that many of these people possess which are perhaps the opposite of what Christ taught, or would actually be offensive to the Lord Jesus Christ. So many Americans call themselves Christian do and believe things that must brand them in God's Eyes as "Christian In Name Only" - CINOs.

For example... 
Isn't it ironic that the "evangelical right" in governmental power in 2017 wants to prevent people of Mexican or Muslim "complexion" out of the country...  when Jesus Himself was almost certainly of that skin color? 

Take a look at the region where He was born. Take a look at the people who live in the middle east, where He lived His entire human life. What do you think He looked like?

Isn't it ironic that the CINOs in power want to implement policies that remove health coverage and food supplementation and all sorts of financial aid to the poor...  when Jesus told His followers that at the Final Judgment, in Matthew 25:41-46 →

"41He will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42For I was hungry and you gave Me no food, I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not welcome Me, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’ 44Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’ 45Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ 46And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” 

Isn't it ironic that as the clock ticks incessantly towards the Second Coming, those who claim the title of "Christian" are obsessing more about popularity than morals, about celebrity than humility, and about protecting what's theirs rather than helping the people around them? 

Have we reached the time of The End, when false prophets will be found on every street corner? When men will use His Holy Name as their weapon to do ungodly things to His People? For He told His followers, 3As He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of Your coming and of the end of the age?” 4And Jesus answered them, “See that no one leads you astray. 5For many will come in My Name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray." (Matthew 24:3-5)

Isn't it ironic that as we come within months of the End Times, the love of true Christianity is growing cold, just as Christ warned us. In places in the world, Christians are beheaded for their faith; in the US, we are merely emasculated for suggesting the Lord's course when the prosperity Gospel has led so many astray:

In Matthew 24:9-14, Jesus tells His followers the signs of the End →

9“Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. 10And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. 11And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. 12And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. 13But the one who endures to the end will be saved. 14And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come."

Isn't it ironic that these CINOs in evangelical garb, claiming Christ's Name, honestly believe that they will fool God through their ruse? And yet, isn't it ironic how many good people are fooled by their ruse, led astray by the "easy" promise, when Christ so clearly told us they would try this?

15“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 16You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? 17So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. 18A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. 19Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.

12“So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

13“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. 14For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

21“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of My Father who is in heaven. 22On that day many will say to Me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your Name, and cast out demons in Your Name, and do many mighty works in Your Name?’ 23And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness.’

And isn't it ironic that those who most need this message will never read it... or if they read it, they won't figure out that it's aimed at them?

 

Can you find God in a pill?

What about through a neuroscientist's electrodes? 

Or, perhaps, is God simply in our genetic makeup?

Research is being done in all these areas, believe it or not. I was reviewing an old issue I'd saved of Mental Floss magazine (alas, it has to be old, because they've stopped printing, although you can still go to the website. It's worth it.), and evidence of all three possibilities reared their heads in the article by Judy Dutton (Nov/Dec 2011).

Her article starts with the work of Dr. Michael Persinger, who created a helmet (think motorcycle or, since he's Canadian, snowmobile) that uses electrodes to stimulate different parts of your brain. Interestingly, certain types of electric stimulus of the right temporal lobe triggers what most patients called "a presence", as if they were in the presence of God. Others saw it as an "out-of-body experience", still others decided it was a ghost. Whatever they saw this second "presence" as, it was life-changing for many of the patients, and Dr. Persinger continues to research this possibility (as of four years ago) at the Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada (about 100 miles east of Michigan's Upper Peninsula), despite protest wars both for and against his research at one point.

His research now focuses on the benefits of this type of lobe stimulation for both pain relief and depression, rather than seeking God through a helmet. But ask yourself this question: wouldn't it make sense that you might have certain parts of your brain that are 'hardwired' to link up with the Creator of the Universe? When we pray, does the act of prayer trigger extra activity in a certain part of the brain, our "God-Center", perhaps? And doesn't it make sense for an intellectual activity like prayer to the Living God would take place in a frontal lobe? I have no evidence whatsoever of what I'm suggesting - I'm just making the argument that there's nothing about this that's non-Biblical. 

Similarly, behavioral biologist Roland Griffiths did quite a bit of work that touched on some traditionally taboo ingredients (psychedelic and hallucinogenic drugs) to trigger a "spiritual awakening" in patient volunteers. Like Dr. Persinger, Griffiths had some success with his methodology in more verifiable forms, in this case anxiety relief for cancer and other terminally ill patients in particular, which has allowed this research to move forward. Many claim to have had "a direct experience with God", and 89 percent reported "permanent and positive changes in their lives" after fourteen months beyond the completion of their treatments. There were patients who had "bad trips" - really adverse reactions to the psilocybin which was the base drug Griffiths administered. (My favorite quote is from David Shurtleff, then the acting director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse: "Hey, don't try this at home.") But these drugs seem to do something vaguely similar to the electrodes - they stimulate certain functions and portions of the brain, which as we said earlier may be exactly what earnest prayer does: Open up access to the inborn communication station to God. 

A third avenue of exploration which Dutton's article brings up is the possibility that there is a genetic predeliction towards belief or faith in God. The possibility that the gene in our DNA known as VMAT2 has a specific variant that only appears in people with very high levels of "religious faith" (a phrase that sounds too inclusive to me  - it implies faith for any religious belief, not just faith in the Living God Jehovah).

Needless to say, this is the one which provoked the most outrage from Christians of all sects - the idea that their experiences with God are not truly of God's doing, but simply genetic happenstance did not sit well with many. But let me make a suggestion: one of the most difficult concepts for many of us who study God's Word is the idea that there are a body of elect Christians who will be saved, and others who are not among the elect, who will NOT be saved from Hell. It gives us the impression that no matter what one does, that person cannot reach salvation, and that strikes us as patently unfair. In earlier posts, I've discussed my thoughts on what God may mean by His "elect", but consider this: is it possible that being one of His Elect is 'hardwired' into our genetic structure?

The truth is, I don't have ANY idea what's true and what's illusion when it comes to our feeble scientific attempts to communicating with God, to connecting with God, to being one of His chosen elect. But before we reject any of these possibilities out of hand, I would warn the reader that God invented science. Science should never be opposite of faith. 

As we speak (write, type, whatever),I'm writing a book called The Universe In Twelve Dimensions detailing a man's journey through every dimension: from zero - inside his own mind - to twelve - the realm of God. The primary theme of the book is simple: God wrote the Bible. God invented science. Therefore, don't you think the two of them will agree in the end on what reality is? On how the universe was formed, on where we come from, and so forth? I believe the answer is yes, and I've been working through many of the supposed conflicts by comparing what the Bible actually says, not what we assume it says, to where modern scientific research is and what its newest position is on those pivotal questions. So often, we see the scientific viewpoint coming towards the Biblical truth. (A side note here: the New Earth Creationists tend to make up plenty of "evidence" for their version of events, but that's not necessary - the true age of the earth is indeed in the five billion year range, and that does NOT contradict the Bible's actual text. If you're not sure how that could be, you can read my book when I've completed it around the end of the year.)

Can you find God in a pill? Or from electrodes, or in your genes?  Probably not - but that doesn't mean it's impossible. "All roads lead to God" is a dangerous fallacy: the Bible clearly states that Jesus is the One Way, the Only Truth. But there may be multiple ways to reach Jesus Christ, and if flipping on the communication center in your brain to do it is the best option for you? I can't tell you no based on what I know. Whatever you do, however... BE SAFE.

What's the worst thing you can be in society today?

In the first three centuries of the post Christ era, Christians were not liked very much. At all. 

In fact, they tended to get killed a lot. Crucified, beheaded, burned alive. Does the phrase "feeding the Christians to the lions" ring a bell? Yeah... Christians were NOT popular people. We were the scapegoats for everything wrong with the world - you know, the way Americans treat Muslims today. The way the Jews were for most of history, and for the most part are still treated.

When the Lord appeared to Constantine before the Battle of the Milvian Bridge on October 28th, 312 AD, Constantine declared his army to be a Christian army of the Lord and won a battle over his rival for the Roman throne, Maxentius. Though his army was barely half the size of its opponent, Constantine's men won the day bearing on their shields the symbol of "Chi", the first letter in the Name of Christ - and the shape of the Cross. From 312 on, the Roman Empire was a Christian Empire.

Now, it was safe to be a Christian in the Empire, the realm which ran the world. But being a "Christian" didn't mean you had to be saved. It just meant you had to play the role of a Christian. How could anyone tell whether you were or weren't saved? Only God can look into your soul.

As the Christian church became the Roman Catholic church, things actually got a bit worse. The papal line of leaders were not known for their piety. If you want a good lesson in depravity, read up on the bad popes of the Dark Ages, say, 800-1200 in particular. Christianity as a faith meant well, but it didn't accomplish most of the goals Christ would have wanted. Being a Christian didn't necessarily mean BEING a Christian.

And the same is true today. In fact, if anything, it's worse.

In America, where I live, I would argue that the best "thing" to be, the safest title to hold for yourself, is to say you are a Christian. Go to church occasionally. Own a Bible, and dust it often. Espouse reasonable and ethical beliefs: all people are created equal, "Coexist", take care of the downtrodden when it's convenient, that sort of thing. What that does is prevent anyone from rightly accusing you of being something that might make you a target in modern society - Muslim, I mentioned before, but most other major religions are frowned upon in the US. Your skin color isn't usually variable, but most versions of non-beige can cause you trouble with certain people in this or other western nations.

HOWEVER, the WORST "thing" you can be, in America or (I suspect) Europe for the most part, is to actually BE a Christian. Because if you actually LIVE the role Christ wants you to play, you're going to offend a large number of people. For example, "tolerance" is the ultimate by-word in culture today. Get along with everyone. And within reason, that's correct - except that God points out this little problem with the Rodney King theory of personal interactions ("Why can't we all just get along?")...

But if you're really a Christian, you have to ask yourself: Do you want those people to go to Hell when they die? How can you "love thy neighbor" and let them spend eternity in Hell?

Unfortunately, for societal purposes, that puts us at odds with political correctness. "Respect everyone else's beliefs!" That's terrible advice! "Don't persecute anyone for their beliefs - don't allow anyone to suffer because of their beliefs"... but don't let them go to Hell when they die because you were too busy "respecting" their sinful beliefs to share the Good News of the Gospel with them!

Christians must not fade into the background, as society wants people to do today. We are called to be the salt and light of the world, not oatmeal and mood lighting. If we do not stick our necks out and risk irritating someone by asking if they've accepted God as their Lord and Savior yet, we are not loving our neighbor.

Here are some more examples: being a "Christian-in-name-only" (a CINO) works well in modern America, because you can still go to a football game or the race track on Sundays. Can't stay in church past the start of the first game, now, can you? How many "Christians" do you know who actually KEEP the Sabbath holy? Who truly does NO work that day? Whose homework was done by Saturday? Who leaves the office AT the office on Sundays? How many CINOs do you think go to more than one church service during a week, or crack open the Bible outside of church, even on the Sabbath? How many of you parents ever read from the Bible to their children? How many "Christians" pray outside of one church session a week and the occasional emergency? Do your children ever see you pray outside of the preacher's eyesight?  Being a Christian is a 24/7 job, because we are slaves to the Master of Creation, Who needs our obedience 168 hours per week. Being a CINO only requires an hour or two on Sundays. If the game's not on yet.

What about this detail? Ever notice how many politicians who claim to be Christians propose and lobby for and pass laws which are blatantly un-Christian? Laws that hurt the poor, hurt the needy, hurt the widows and the veterans, hurt the children, for Heaven's sake! Our President is the perfect example of someone who claims to be a Christian because it's an acceptable label in American society, but he lives his life as far away from God's Standards as possible. I have a friend who spent the (first) health care replace/repeal debates arguing with me that there IS no fundamental right to health insurance. My rebuttal argument was simple: I agree, it's NOT a basic right. But I'm more than willing to give up part of my tax dollars to help those who need it. (Especially if I can do so and get back the money going to presidential vacations every weekend and defending a tower in New York City because a billionaire's wife can't be inconvenienced to move to Washington DC. Oh, don't get me started here...)

It's very inconvenient for the rest of society to deal with us Christians and our beliefs. Let's try another one: "Coexist" and "Respect everyone's beliefs" are the watchwords of the LGBTQ community. If you really mean the dictionary definition of "coexist", that's probably acceptable. Christians are commanded to love our neighbors regardless of sins because we have just as many of our own. We've discussed the word "respect" in terms of "beliefs" already, so you know where I'm going with this: You are not doing anyone in the LGBTQ community a favor on God's green earth by allowing them to continue thinking that the Bible "misspoke" on homosexuality. God loves them as people, just as he loves you. God hates the sin that defines their community, just as he hates whatever sin that you have as a core feature of who you are - whether that be adultery, aggression, profanity, or so forth. And God hates all of our sins too much to allow us to keep practicing them. Never mind that it's probably innate, that it's probably not a "lifestyle choice" but something that they discovered about themselves in the course of growing up, just as your sin is probably something you've fought against before and discovered its in-grown nature in your soul. It's your duty to offer to help them understand that just as YOU have sin, so do THEY, and celebrating that sin is as far from God as they can get.

And yet, despite the claim that we are a Christian society, I guarantee that you will be labeled as "the intolerant one" in that conversation, a far worse crime in today's culture than practicing homosexuality and celebrating that in public. I have a gay nephew whom I love with all my heart. I have several gay former students whom I respect greatly. I have a trans former student of mine who was a girl when I taught her and is now a man; it helped him a great deal to go through that set of procedures. Is that a sin? Changing genders? God doesn't say per se, but since He tells us that He made us in the womb the way He wanted us to be, you'd think that not only our sexuality but any emotional or physical defects are also not only intentional but important to God to have given us. WHY? I don't know. But we are all given challenges, and some of the challenges we are given require great effort and sacrifice to overcome. Others merely require resisting a desire.

How do you go about actually being a Christian in a culture where what they want you to really do is to pretend that you're a Christian? 

You just do. You ignore the call of the sinful world and you do the will of Christ. Help the poor, help the needy. Attend church and church functions. Read your Bible AND pray every day. Observe the Sabbath - for real, dudes! Make GOD priority number ONE, 168 hours a week. And most of all, as well as most irritatingly for CINOs... Share the Gospel with everyone in your circle of people - friends, family, colleagues at work. Be a great representative of Christ, a great role model, or else you've horribly undersold what you're supposed to be demonstrating!

And live like a Christian. Be humble, be level-headed, love, forgive, and be generous with all you have: time, love, resources, home. No matter what the world tells you to do.

Why I Love Aussie Rules Footy

[The Roar, April 25, 2017]

            My son wanted to watch some “soccer” on Saturday (we’re American; can you tell?), so we turned on the English Premier League. West Ham United and Everton. To say the game was boring is to insult paint drying. Nil-nil, and even that overstates the scoring chances the two teams created.

            I’ve long considered myself a sports gourmet. The Olympics are my favorite event of the quadrennial calendar, because so many sports we see rarely are featured over a seventeen-day period. But there are reasons those sports aren’t seen the rest of the time: much of the excitement we get watching them during the Olympic Games is that tension that comes from knowing that “these athletes have worked for four years to get to this one moment for the gold medal!” The other 1460 days on the calendar wouldn’t be nearly as exciting to the rest of us.

Soccer, true “foot”-ball, is the best example I know of a sport which is amazing to play but incomprehensibly dull to watch. My sons all played enough for me to testify to this fact: Watching my child play is wonderful; watching other people play is not.

           There’s quite a range of team sports which fall into this category. I find both baseball and cricket to be far too much standing around, and I’ll watch and enjoy the four-minute highlight package of either game much more than the full game. Oddly, the same can be said for American football: if you only show the actual plays, you can condense a three-plus hour game into a half-hour time slot and still show plenty of commercials. (There’s a reason the rise of padded football in America coincided with the advent of instant replay on television!)

           Sports like hockey, softball and ‘soccer’ suffer from another damaging trait, which is the over-inflated importance of a single score. Since one mistake can produce a score, but that one score may be all that occurs in the game, wins and losses rest on not the general tenor of play but on one, maybe two moments of brain lapse. In baseball, it manifests as the “one big inning” syndrome, where in the American Major Leagues, the majority of games have this peculiar trait where one team scores more in a single inning than the other team scores the entire game. Basically, one pitcher’s bad inning ruins the game for his team.

           Basketball doesn’t have that problem, but it suffers from another issue: incessant time-outs. The NBA used to have an expression about not needing to watch until the last five minutes of the game; now, those last five game minutes take forty to play out, and the final sixty seconds take half of that.

The other issue with basketball is that in order to play professionally, you have to have won the genetic lottery and be at least two meters tall to compete. Rugby and American football require men of inordinate mass up front, others of great speed out back. At least the ‘foot’-ballers are usually of a normal build, something that the majority of us can aspire to.

           All of which leads me to MY sport: Aussie Rules Footy. There are enough scores that one mistake settles only a very closely fought match. There’s action going virtually all game long; my novice Yank friends are always aghast that the trainers come out onto the field and action usually works around them when a player is hurt. There aren’t any timeouts to slow the momentum of a team: the opponent’s going to have to find a way to do that themselves. And while there are positions where height is a significant advantage, the majority of footy athletes are simply well-balanced physical specimens who run well for speed and endurance, jump high, catch, punch, and kick with skill, and must use their brains around the pitch to excel. Leads are rarely insurmountable before the fourth quarter, even when they require doubling your team’s output for the day to do so.

And most importantly from my perspective, the team that plays better on that day almost always wins, but that doesn’t mean that the team that was favored always wins! All it takes is for one team to believe their press clippings, and the other to put forth more effort, and an upset can take on epic proportions.

Had Brisbane been able to hang on Saturday against the Bulldogs, the first half of that game would be Exhibit A; as it is, it may still be Exhibit B. The Bulldogs were favored by almost fifty points; for the first time in my memory, literally 100% of the fans on a website I followed picked the same team to win. Yet in the first half, it seemed like a Disney movie: Brisbane could do no wrong; and there was plastic wrap over the Western goal. By half, unbelievably, Brisbane led by 38 points. Late in the fourth, Western finally passed them and won going away. 

Hawthorn’s thumping of West Coast might be a lot of things – a last gasp by a proud team, flat track bullies floundering at the ‘G – but it might also be one team just playing harder than the other on a particular day. And that’s what’s so great about footy. You never know what you’re going to see when you go to a game, no matter how lopsided it looks on paper, but you know that most likely, the team that plays better on that particular day will win.

My Weekly Wanderings: Another thing I love about the AFL is the value placed on traditions. Milestone games mean something (congratulations, Bob Murphy!). The entry banners are important (as long as they can spell “Ziebell” correctly!). Hitting 800 goals means a lot (congratulations, Lance Franklin!), but not as much as reaching 500 and winning the game (congratulations, Jarryd Roughhead!). You mob the fellow who scores his first AFL goal. You back up your teammate who gets knocked to the turf by an opponent. A goal counts for six no matter how it’s scored, but when it’s a thing of beauty, it’s admired forever (Eddie Betts’ name is stapled to this spot). So is a magical mark or a tremendous tackle. The numbers don’t have to be the same from year to year, but the skills that were important for Gary Ablett Sr are just as important for Gary Ablett Jr.

Of course there are flaws in the sport. We’re human; we can’t help it. But don’t lose sight of the forest of beauty of the game for the nitpicking in the trees.

The Newborn Christian (and everyone else!) - Part Four - Taking Out The Trash

The End of Days is coming very soon. For those five to six billion people who are not Christians, that will be the hardest seven year-period in the history of mankind, and at the end of those seven years, death awaits, followed by eternal damnation. 

If you ARE a Christian, you need not have that fear, or any of those fears. You will be snatched away, possibly in your very sleep, before it even begins. But you have to be a true Christian, not just someone who says he is. And it won't be your opinion that matters - it'll be His. 

So, to refresh your memory, here are the seven things we've talked about so far in this series that are requirements for every Christian, newborn or not:


1) Confess as a sinner and accept the salvation and Lordship of Jesus Christ. 

2) Be baptized in water and the Holy Spirit

3) Accept communion with the body of Christ on a regular (seasonal) basis.

4) Attend church and bible study, and be a part of that church on a week-to-week basis.

5) Pray to God through Christ every day.

6) Read the Bible every day.

7) Share the Gospel every day with someone as often as possible. 

Yesterday we related these to what a newborn baby needs - the solution for a newborn and a new Christian when they hunger, need rest, or hurt are similar, except for a Christian their solutions are found through the final four requirements above, most especially the Bible reading and prayer.

But what about when, to use a euphemism, a newborn has "filled his diaper"? What is the Christian's equivalent?

What does excrement translate to for a Christian in a sin-stained world?  Committed sin. We create our own garbage. We come in contact with the world's sin, and we commit it ourselves. We find ourselves in a conversation with co-workers which turns to topics that (for example) demean women or other races, exude hatred, fail to show charity, or whatever else contradicts the Word of God. We see something which tempts us, whether it be our lust or our greed, and give in even slightly to the fleshly desire. We are startled by something brought on by the world and the instinctive man rises up momentarily, swearing and hating and cursing the others involved.

What do we do when this garbage piles up in our lives? WE REPENT.

Repentance is the eighth and arguably most important of the things every Christian must do. We must repent REGULARLY, and I would argue daily, to keep our garbage from piling up (and from being forgotten - even long-time devout Christians sin many times per day. You can't keep track of it all if you wait a week!). We must repent SPECIFICALLY, or at least as specifically as we can, in order to seek the appropriate forgiveness for our sins. 

Being forgiven of our sins is critical, but just as critical is to do our best to correct that behavior. We won't ever completely succeed, of course, but it's the attempt that matters. 

I use the following analogy in the book I'm writing right now, A Commission From God, which has as it primary message that we need to repent regularly. Take out the trash every day, and start each new day with a clean slate. Add repentance to your daily prayer ritual, and watch your communication with God blossom!

“Think about it this way, Charlie. Let’s say that you’re hosting a party in two weeks, and you invite me to attend, okay?”

“Okay. I might do that, I suppose,” he says, smiling.

“All right. But the day after you invite me, I go to someone else’s party and destroy their furniture. You’d be less comfortable about my coming to your party now, wouldn’t you?”

“I’d drop you like a hot stone, Andrew,” Charlie says, chuckling.

“Probably. But what if I apologized to you?”

“Hmmm.”

“Well, God’s extremely forgiving, Charlie, apparently more than you are, my friend!” I only worry if the host doesn’t chuckle or at least smile back at that point. “So He lets me keep my invite. But I do it again two days later at Becky’s party, and then I apologize, and then I do the same thing the next night at a different party, and so forth. After a while, no matter how forgiving you might be, you don’t believe my apologies, no matter how sincere I try to make them.”

“That’s what happens with God’s invitation to Heaven, Mr. Rose. God simply can’t tolerate sin. That’s the reason Christ had to die at Calvary – He carried our sins and took the punishment we deserved for us, so that God could accept us into Heaven at all. That doesn’t give us carte blanche to keep sinning, though. We’ve got to not just apologize but make an honest attempt to STOP the sin if He’s going to allow us into Heaven. It’s only through His grace that we get the invitation at all, so if we’re not even making an effort to at least cut back on those problem areas? God literally cannot tolerate our sinful nature.”

“Frankly, Charlie, it’s amazing to me that He allows us in at all, since we will NEVER be perfectly sinless, and we’ll ALL have some sins that we just can’t seem to get rid of no matter how hard we try.”