I think we need to re-examine what it means to be “good.” Does God meet our definitions of good? Sometimes not. But if He is the author of goodness, then it is He that gets to define “goodness” – and it may be a bigger, more complicated answer than we’re capable of grasping. Sometimes we want “good” to mean “nice,” and I’m not sure it ought to. Is God safe? comfortable? tame? No. But good, yes.
We see in others only what we believe is possible to be seen. We don’t see others with bird feathers or unicorn horns because we do not believe it is possible. So, if we think we see in someone else a character flaw, we must be honest with ourselves and understand that we believe God could create someone with a flaw. At the same time, we are believing that flaws are possible in ourselves as well. If we see someone with a disease, in lack, homeless, dead, it is only because we believe it is possible for these things to happen.
When we really begin to see the world and the universe as God sees them, we will only see what is eternally possible. We will only see the truth about God and all of His creation.
So, each one of us must check our thinking, our words, and our actions to be sure they are in line with God’s, to be sure they are divinely truthful. This is no easy task, but if we really want to claim healing and good in our lives, we must include everyone in the blessing. We must work to see everyone as good, useful, alert, alive, healthy, well, etc. Only then are we really acknowledging the truth. Only then are we at one with the Father.
My friend is a good and honest man, sincere in his zeal to find truth. Perhaps a bit too zealous, for I fear that he is trapped in modernist assumptions about truth (assumptions that go back to Plato). But as we talked, we looked at how the many atheists seem to have two messages:
Religion is flawed;
We should be really, really angry about this!
The first message strikes me as good and valuable. Even though religion is notoriously resistant to criticism, any perspective that shines light on its failings can only help to further the cause of truth (not to mention goodness and beauty). While I may not share all of atheism’s critique of Christianity, as a Christian who sincerely endeavors to love God with all my heart, mind and strength, I owe it to myself to have as accurate an understanding of my faith as possible — including an understanding of how others see (and disagree) with it.
But it’s the second part of the message that leaves me cold. There’s a level on which choosing to react to religion with anger, rage, hatred, or any other strong passion is simply to give religion power over our lives. And since the main beef of the atheists seems to be that religion seeks to expand its power over people, allowing it to trigger strong passion is, ironically, to play into its hands. The atheist who is consumed with anger and hatred toward faith is, in a very real sense, in hell. Not a hell of divine punishment so much as a hell of his own making. And that, it seems to me, is pretty much useless.
“LIFE Groups” is a term we use to highlight the role of small groups within our fellowship. We use the “LIFE” acronym to mean
L: Live Victoriously or Live for the Sake of Others – The group helps support a victorious, unselfish life.
I: Illuminate Truth, Beauty & Goodness – The group helps to teach about God’s truth, beauty and goodness through our everyday experiences.
F: Fellowship as One Family Under God – The group helps us to unite as one family, regardless of religious or cultural background. Bring the best of your tradition here!
E: Express/Experience God’s Love & Culture – We can share and experience God’s Love and Culture through group interactions.
AEVIA
“Wherever I put my head, that is my place of worship. No matter where I am, that is where God is. Vineyards, roses, nightingales, the sema and loving . . . They are all symbols, the reason is always Him.”
AEVIA Reveals the Source
All they had to do, the scientists said, was add four genes. The genes reprogrammed the chromosomes of the skin cells, making the cells into blank slates that should be able to turn into any of the 220 cell types of the human body, be it heart, brain, blood or bone. For all the hopes invested in it over the last decade, embryonic stem cell research has moved slowly, with no cures or major therapeutic discoveries in sight. But with the new method, human cloning for stem cell research, like the creation of human embryos to extract stem cells, may be unnecessary.
Researchers and ethicists not involved in the findings say the work, conducted by independent teams from Japan and Wisconsin, should reshape the stem cell field.
“The choice we must make is as important as it is clear. It is a choice between corporate power and the power of democracy. It is caution versus courage. Calculation versus principle. It is the establishment elites versus the American people.”
Edwards has made this a master theme of campaign, identifying his willingness to fight the corporations and “beat them again and again” as the major feature distinguishing him from his chief rivals for the Democratic nomination. All the Democratic candidates are for “change,” Edwards notes, but “the real question is how change occurs.” His answer comes straight out of Frederick Douglass, who observed that “power never concedes without a fight.” Without directly saying so, he rightly suggests that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are wedded to a cautious and cowardly corporate-insider model that will compel them to betray their democratic- and populist-sounding campaign promises once they attained power.
“The results suggest that enhanced depression care of workers has benefits not only on clinical outcomes but also on workplace outcomes,” the investigators wrote in the Sept. 26 issue of Journal of the American Medical Association.
The findings indicate that the added costs to employers of mental health benefits may have an even bigger payoff in terms of worker health and productivity, commented Kenneth B. Wells, M.D., M.P.H., and Jeanne Miranda, Ph.D., of the University of California at Los Angeles, in an accompanying editorial.
“The monetary value of the increased work time under the program exceeded the direct intervention costs and likely exceeded or was within the range of cost increases due to greater mental health specialty use under the intervention,” they wrote.
The mystery of one response to a lawsuit against God has been solved. Eric Perkins, an attorney in Corpus Christi, Texas, said Friday he filed a response to the lawsuit from Nebraska State Sen. Ernie Chambers. “It’s kind of a turn on ‘What would Jesus do?'” Perkins said. “I thought to myself, “What would God say?”
“Defendant denies that this or any court has jurisdiction … over Him any more than the court has jurisdiction over the wind or rain, sunlight or darkness,” according to Perkins’ response.
AEVIA Reveals the Source