Pray and care...

During EFM Board meetings at the end of May I had an opportunity to pray with Dave Robinson, our Yearly Meeting superintendent. As soon as I greeted him one morning, Dave told me about an email he’d just received. A relative of his, a nephew, was bleeding internally and the doctors were having trouble diagnosing the cause. The family was anxious for a resolution. Internal bleeding does that to families. Folks aren’t especially enthusiastic about serious problems of unknown origin.

Anyway, when Dave finished reading the note, I offered to pray. Dave said alright and we bowed our heads. I prayed about the situation briefly and then we parted ways.

Opportunities to pray with people and reasons to pray for people abound, don’t they? Think back over the past week or two. Do you recall any conversations that did or could have led to a short time of prayer? Think! Did anyone tell you about some difficulty they were facing? In a society that encourages us to hide problems from each other, that’s significant. Most people keep up a façade. “Everything’s fine,” is our mantra. “I’m doing great,” our biggest lie.

If someone tells you they’re in trouble, pray for them. If they’ll let you, pray with them…out loud! God wants to bless them through answered prayer or through his love expressed in your caring offer.

To receive my once or twice weekly message via email, send a blank email to webmessage-subscribe@associate.com. Past messages are available at freegroups.net/groups/webmessage.

DNA of humans and chimps 98% the same...

DNA of humans, chimps have 45,000,000 differences!

That wasn’t the subtitle of the August 17, 2006 Houston Chronicle article on the similarity of human and chimpanzee DNA, but it could have been. There are 3 billion letters in the human DNA genome, and they are 98.5% similar with chimps. DNA is fantastically complex, and the math yields 45 million differences. But of course the Chronicle article stated, “DNA of humans, chimps is 98% the same.”

Most of the “science” in the article was based on the unproven assumption that chimps and humans have a common ancestor. It would have been nice if they had explained how the DNA could have tens of millions of changes in only a few million years (according to their theory), as well as how it kept changing at the same pace throughout the human population without us veering off into multiple species. Or if it changed at a rapid pace, why did it do so for some and not others? And how did the males and females just happen to evolve similarly and simultaneously?

And where are those missing fossils? Shouldn’t the archeological finds be teeming with transitional fossils? Instead, we find explosions of fossils.

All life on earth, from bacteria to human beings, have at last 25% of DNA in common. The DNA of a nematode worm is 75% similar to that of humans. They could have mentioned that our DNA is 30% similar to bananas. But it is the differences that matter.

Nearly all cars have 4 wheels. That doesn’t mean they were genetically related, just that the designers have a model that works well so they replicate it. Perhaps next time the Chronicle will have headlines stating that “chimpanzees and humans are both carbon based life forms” or “Houston is hot in the summer.”

This is just another example of how our biases influence reporting.

Posted on July 15, 2008, by Neil on his 4simpsons blog. The blog is excellent. Check it out.

pastorEMT

I've thought a dozen times of starting a new blog - pastorEMT - to talk about the interesting mix of my two callings. But I've come to the conclusion that it's not to be. What would I write about? HIPAA won't let me talk about ambulance runs that I go on. Ethical considerations prevent me from talking about situations in the church. I'm not going to betray confidences. And then there's a practical consideration that applies to both. In a small town, I can't take the anonymous route. Everyone would figure out who I'd been talking to that afternoon or where the ambulance stopped.

Maybe some day when I'm retired from both...

Crazy relatives...

My nephews and neices made this video when they were together for the Fourth of July. It's pretty entertaining...to an uncle.

Humans more highly evolved?

Most people in our culture hold to the concept that humans are at the top of the food chain. Christians have a reason for making this assertion, however, the evolutionist doesn't. On what basis would an evolutionist believe that humans are better than penguins?

In a discussion I had with an evolutionist a few years ago, the evolutionist objected to the statement that he believes humans are evolved from apes. He said that we aren’t evolved from apes, but both apes and humans are evolved from an ape-like ancestor. This answer really does little to nothing to change the picture.

However, if we think like an evolutionist, we begin to open our eyes to understand that humans are not more evolved than apes, nor are apes more evolved than humans, but we are both more evolved than our ape-like ancestor. We are simply evolved in different directions than the other based on our environment. We can then, extrapolate that back through the entire evolutionary tree and affirm that we are no more or less evolved than gnats, or bats, or cats. All biological organisms alive today are equally evolved.

Therefore, why would we be so arrogant as to claim that we are the highest organism? This furthers the purposelessness of the evolutionary worldview. The idea that humans are more evolved than others is borrowed capital, built on top of the Biblical worldview. Only Biblical history has a consistent claim to humans being the crowning achievement, created in the image of God. (Genesis 1:26-28, Hebrews 2:7)

- Guest Blogger, Jon

Alarms...

A week or so ago on a Tuesday evening around 5:00pm, the mournful wail of the fire siren pierced the hot afternoon air. Firefighters came running from this way and that. Trucks sped west, lights flashing. The radio traffic was incessant for the next few minutes as Argonia’s bravest sought to locate the blaze.

A short time later, the alarm sounded again. Another fire, this one to the south. Our trusty volunteers showed their readiness once more. Within minutes of dispatch, their trucks were rolling.

Both fires were put out quickly, the first before they arrived on scene. I talked with a few of the guys at the station after they returned from fire two. They were hot and sweaty and, in their own words, a bit smelly. They were happy, though, as they put things back in order, readying their trucks for their next page out.

It came just before 11:00pm that night. Not sure if the warning went off a third time. I reset my pager, turned down my radio and dropped back in bed. I dreamt while they doused. I, like the majority of you, am not required to respond to most fires with anything more than curiosity.

You know what? God sounds warnings in the hearts of men and women every day. His signals warn everyone, everywhere to quit playing with fire.

Unfortunately, millions in our nation have the same apathetic response to God’s alarms as you and I have to local fire sirens. They yawn and go on. What God says means nothing to them. Who’s he to boss them around? His rules are outdated. They’re free people. He can’t tell them what to do.

And, on average, 5,000 to 7,000 of these Americans die each day.

Some, those who have believed on Jesus for their salvation, are immediately with their Savior in Heaven. Jesus on the cross gave us that hope of immediate reward when he spoke to the repentant thief on the cross. “…today you will be with me in paradise,” were his words of comfort and promise. (Luke 23:43, NIV) For the believer, to be absent from the body is to be present with Christ.

But most of those who die each day in the land of the free do not enter eternal rest. Instead they begin their long, eternal punishment.

Hell is real, folks. It is the forever prison of those who reject God and choose their own way. It is as physical a place as the eternal home of the saints is. Raised from the dead and given new bodies, clothed in the righteousness of Christ, those who have put their faith in Jesus will live joyfully on the New Earth and in the New Heaven. Raised from the dead in eternal bodies, all the unrepentant rebels will suffer unending physical torment and mental anguish in the Lake of Fire. If the one is true, the other must also be. Both places are spoken of extensively in the same book, the book through which God reveals truth. The Bible is clear on Heaven and Hell and clear on how to reach the one and avoid the other. You must believe on Jesus or be condemned.

From Jesus’ mouth we have these words: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.” (John 3:16-21, NIV)

Why do men and women ignore the alarms God sets off in their hearts? They love darkness. They hate the light. They fear exposure of their evil deeds not realizing they’re already exposed before God. If only they would confess, they would be free. Instead they, like Adam and Eve in the Garden, hide from the One who loves them.

Are you among the hiders? God loves you. He sent his Son to die for you. There’s no greater love than that. I urge you to come out of hiding, confess your sin and be freed, be saved, be fully known and loved.

To receive my once or twice weekly message via email, send a blank email to webmessage-subscribe@associate.com. Past messages are available at freegroups.net/groups/webmessage.