Oprah Winfrey has said, “Luck is a matter of preparation. I am highly attuned to my divine self.”

A shooting star was seen the night after the murder of Julius Caesar of Rome and since the Romans were very superstitious they believed Caesar had become a god. Caesars’ successor erected “The Temple of the Divine Julius Caesar” where Caesar’s body was cremated.

The superstition of humans possessing divinity is still with us. Oprah Winfrey has said, “Luck is a matter of preparation. I am highly attuned to my divine self.” Dr. Wayne Dyer, of PBS fundraiser fame, tells us, “You are a divine, infinite creation making the choice to be on purpose and to be connected to the power of intention.” One may start to wonder how we explain Darfur and the last two World Wars in light of the promotion of man’s divinity. (emphasis mine in both quotes)

The belief of divinity in humans also leads to an elitism, which makes the “Divine” believe they have the power to control circumstances by their thinking. Oprah has said, “The more positive you are about your life, the more positive it [life] will be,” (emphases mine). Dr. Dyer’s, “Power of Intensions” is nothing more than a formula to teach that your “thoughts” can alter life’s circumstances.

This belief of a divine spark or ‘piece’ of God in man has infatuated the church in the teaching God is within us. This idea comes from the scripture were Jesus says to the Pharisees, “the kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17: 21) Ignoring the fact Jesus just told the “Pharisees” the kingdom of God was in them we have taken this to mean some divine part of God’s divinity is within our human nature. The phrase, “the kingdom of God is within you” was a Jewish idiom meaning the kingdom was very close at hand. The Pharisees were demanding an answer to their question, “when” the Kingdom of God would come and Jesus being the representative of God’s Kingdom was letting them know it was right in front of them. Jesus was not telling the Pharisees or anyone else they possessed divinity.

The Bible never teaches humans or Angels to be divine. Man and Angels are created effects of God and although the effect bears the image of his Cause man is in no way equal to it. For the church to accept or purport anything close to the mentality of humans possessing a divine spark or the ability to alter our circumstances with our thoughts is totally against Biblical teaching. To accept a human divinity is to put ourselves on an equal status with God.

The Bible teaches we are fallen creatures of a sinful nature. Paul tells us, there is none righteous and every man’s heart is wicked. (Romans 3.23) Although we may not like being called fallen creatures this explains Darfur and World Wars more consistently than “human divinity.”

God knows and cares I am sick and can heal me.

As I lay in the MRI being scanned because the doctors found a tumor in the left side of my head, I remembered how I was raised to believe if you have enough “faith” in God he would heal you. Considering I do not accept God is performing miracles today, I asked myself what my hope is in.

I was raised under the false assumption that if you have enough “faith” in God, he would miraculously heal you. When I was a young boy, my father benevolently took advantage of my inexperience. At a rest stop, the water in the men’s room sink was controlled by foot pedals. I, not seeing the pedals, relied on my father’s magic words “hocus pocus” to turn the water on. I was impressed and more than willing to help the next person who did not know the magic words. As I repeated them for a man, nothing happened. I was stunned, embarrassed, and looking for an “exit” when he found the pedals under the sink. This is a great analogy of what it is like being raised to think miracles are at your command. When no miracle materializes, you are looking for an “exit.”

Of the many exits I’ve heard, the cruelest is to blame the person in need of the miracle for not having enough belief (i.e. faith) to move God to perform. I heard a man purport a woman was denied her miracle because unbelievers in the room drained the sick woman’s faith in God.

To me the most indecorous is to imply to the person’s loved ones the miracle of healing took place in heaven after the person’s death. First they are told God will honor a certain level of belief with a miracle on earth, and then they are told God was not satisfied with their level of belief.

A Biblical definition of a miracle is:

“…a divine intervention into, or an interruption of, the regular course of the world that produces a purposeful but unusual event that would not (or could not) have occurred otherwise” [1]

I have adopted the position called “Cessationism.” People who hold this position believe miracles happened in a specific time and for a specific purpose, not that they never happened. As a Cessationist, I do not expect or pray for miracles, or accept what people categorize as miracles, because I believe the purpose and time for miracles has ceased.[2]

Of the thousands of years of Israel’s history, miracles appeared in three limited time clusters. The “Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics” defines these clusters as:

(1) The Mosaic period: from the exodus through the taking of the Promised Land (with a few occurrences in the period of the judges). Moses needed miracles to deliver Israel and sustain the great number of people in the wilderness (Exod. 4:8).

(2) The prophetic period: from the late kingdom of Israel and Judah during the ministries of Elijah, Elisha, and to a lesser extent Isaiah. Elijah and Elisha performed miracles to deliver Israel from idolatry (see 1 Kings 18)

(3) The apostolic period: from the first-century ministries of Christ and the apostles. Jesus and the apostles showed miracles to confirm establishment of the new covenant and its deliverance from sin (Heb. 2:3–4)[3]

Each time a spokesman (prophet) for God came to Israel, God confirmed him with signs and wonders (miracles). Moses was given signs [4] (miracles) to confirm his divine calling as a spokesman to the people of Israel. Signs and wonders were used in both Old and New Testaments to confirm spokesmen for God.[5]

When John the Baptist sent his disciples to ask Jesus if he was the Expected One or should he look for another, Jesus performed a list of miracles to send back to John (Luke 7:18-23). Jesus performed these miracles for the purpose of showing John and the people of Israel that he, Jesus, was the “Expected One.”

In Mark 2:5-12 a crippled man is brought to Jesus by his friends and instead of healing the man, Jesus told him his sins were forgiven. This was rebutted by the scribes in the crowd who asked, “Why does this man speak blasphemies, who can forgive sins but God? Jesus then asked them, “What is easier to say, your sins are forgiven; or to say, Arise, and take up your bed, and walk? But that you may know that the Son of man has power on earth to forgive sins, (he said to the sick of the palsy,) I say unto you, Arise, and take up your bed, and go thy way into your house. And immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went forth before them all….”

The purpose of miracles was to show Jesus the Christ[6] had the authority to forgive sins. I heard someone ask, “If we [Christians] are to perform the miracles Christ did, what do we need Christ for?” In a simple way, this statement nails the whole point of miracles in the New Testament. If it were not for the miracles, Jesus would be just another man, and if Christians were profusely performing miracles today, we all could claim to be the “Expected One.” Those who believe biblical miracles are to be imitated actually dilute the past purpose of miracles which is to point uniquely to Jesus as the incarnation of God and His ability to provide life eternal. Christ walking on the water was not to be imitated, but the miracle of it was to point to his divinity.

God knows and cares I am sick and can heal me. If my brain tumor turns out to be malignant I will not be praying for or expecting a miracle. My hope will be in the historical record of the biblical miracles; miracles whose past purposes were to point to Jesus’ authority to provide forgiveness of sins and provide life eternal. If Christ did not perform the miracles he sent back to John in Luke 7 I have no hope.

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[1] “Miracles and Modern Thought” Norman L. Geisler (Zondervan/Probe 1982) emphasis mine page 13

[2] It does not follow that I have to believe in an un-miraculous future when Christ comes back. That is another specific time.

[3] “Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics” page 468

[4] Exodus 3, 4. Notice the signs of the serpent and leprous hand were to confirm to Israel not Eygpt. Moses first performed these signs to Israel so they would believe he was speaking for God.

[5] Acts2:22 John 3:2 John 9:16 2 Cor.12:12 Signs and wonders followed the twelve apostles to confirm what they spoke was the words of God. This is the doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture.

[6] Paul refers to Jesus the Christ repeatedly in his writings. Christ in the Greek means “Anointed One.” I think it is so important to remember Jesus the man was God incarnate. This is the doctrine of the Trinity.

Christians should remember Whose image we bear when crimes against humanity are committed.

Twelve year-old Jessica Lunsford’s killer, John Evander Couey, was found guilty and the jury recommended death. The news came across the television, as a man sitting next to me said, “I have not one ounce of sympathy for John Couey.” What really surprised me was the audacity of this man professing no feelings toward another human being sentenced to death. I reminded him we all bear God’s image. When another image bearer is killed, we should have sympathy because of Whose image is being destroyed. He gave me a puzzled looked. The conversation ended.

After God executed humanity, except Noah and his family, in the flood, He reminded Noah of the glory which man reflects. “…For in the image of God made he man.” (Gen.9:6)

Whether noble or deranged, humans share a common feature, God’s image. Man is different from the animals because he is made in the image of a personable, reasonable and rational God. Our Scriptures teach our bodies were made from the dirt of the earth. Then God gave us our soul which contains personality, the image of God. Personality is a combination of the ability to think, feel, and will. These are common in all humans, varying in degree only. It has been said personality “is capacity for fellowship.” Humans have been honored with the distinction of having fellowship with their Creator.

Christians should remember Whose image we bear when crimes against humanity are committed. We should not be the loudest supporters for the execution of any human for the sake of revenge or justice only. Our Creator honors man, not for man’s sake, but for the image which man bears. Understanding the distinction our Creator has given us, we need to consider wisely the motive we portray for executing another image bearer.

In 1998 some Christian leaders, the loudest supporters for capital punishment defended convicted killer Karla Tucker, who showed signs of conversion. Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and others found themselves defensive of their past rhetoric in favor of the death penalty. Pat Robertson on Larry King Live said, “And, you know, mercy trumps justice” for not applying the death penalty to Karla Tuckers’ case. Many people accused Pat Robertson and others of being hypocrites because suddenly they wanted to change their usual posture on capital punishment. The Christian leaders had a problem; they wanted all to see Karla Tucker as an image bearer of God as a reason for mercy, but the argument for God’s image being defamed had hardly made the analysis in Christians position for capital punishment.

The Christian community has screamed so loud for the death penalty as a political litmus test we have lost the real reason why God allowed the death penalty in the first place. E.J. Dionne Jr. of the Washington Post and advocate against capital punishment wrote back during that time, “The best case for the death penalty is that it is the only just sentence for a human being who takes the life of another.” Whether he knew it or not Mr. Dionne was expressing the Biblical view of Genesis 9:6 for capital punishment better than the Christian leaders were. God said “Whoever kills a man, by man shall his blood be shed: For in the image of God made he man.” Man is not an autonomous piece of flesh except for the sacred image—personality­­—of ­­­­God we bear.

Capital punishment is Biblical, but the reason for its existence has been forgotten. We are not executing a human for what they have done to a fellow image bearer but for Whose image they destroyed. It is the image we bear that is sacred not our rights for revenge or justice. For this reason alone, dishonoring the image of God, man should execute man.

Date of Execution: February 3, 1998

Offender: Karla Faye Tucker #777

Last Statement: Yes sir, I would like to say to all of you – the Thornton family and Jerry Dean’s family that I am so sorry. I hope God will give you peace with this.

Baby, I love you. Ron, give Peggy a hug for me. Everybody has been so good to me.

I love all of you very much. I am going to be face to face with Jesus now. Warden Baggett, thank all of you so much. You have been so good to me. I love all of you very much. I will see you all when you get there. I will wait for you.

Is there a problem with this claim?

In his book "Prayer" Philip Yancey says, " Brennan Manning, who leads
spiritual retreats several times each year, once told me that not one person
who has followed his regimen of a silent retreat has failed to hear from
God."

Is there a problem with this claim? For one it posits that the regimen
followed gives a guaranteed result. The other assumption is that God has not
spoken adequately enough to man so as to require Mr. Manning's (or any other
formula) regimen.

Philip Yancey is a well known Christian author being promoted by almost
every church in America. He has written several books like, The Case for
Christ and The Case for Faith, in which he methodically takes the
necessary logical steps to show the rationalization for believing in Christ
and for having a Faith. In the Cases for Christ and Faith, he points his
readers to a studious approach to the Bible and posits historical
investigations in order to believe the dialogue God has given to man. Those
two books will strengthen your belief in God and what He has done in times
past.

However, now when it comes to prayer he goes down a contradictory turn. Mr.
Yancey wants to convince us that although, "I heard no audible voice, and
yet at the end of the week [of Brennan Manning's retreat] I had to agree
with Brennan that I had heard from God."

Which is it? Do we believe the teachings of the Bible based on historical
evidence and prepositional truths in a rational dialogue or do we follow the
Brennan regimen to know God has spoken. Should any teaching in the Bible be
based on any one subjective notion? That Mr. Yancey has confessed to "no
audible voice" and has agreed that Mr. Brennans' regime allows Gods voice to
be heard, makes me wonder why Mr. Yancey bothered at all with investigating
the historical background to prove the existence of Christ or a rational
Faith of the Bible. Why not just ask God to speak all those truths in the first place?

Don't worry Mr. Yancey no one will challenge your suggestion that God speaks
in subjective ways. You are already like most Christians today, who are not
content that the Bible is a sufficient enough dialogue from God to man. Who
needs content when you can take a course on how to hear from God?

Dennis Cogdill
jgdoctrine@gmail.com

“The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth.”

Google “Thomas Jefferson Bible” and you will find “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth.” In 1803, Jefferson removed the miracles from the Biblical Gospels but kept the morals teachings of Jesus. Our fifty-seventh Congress liked it so much they had an edition published in 1904. Mr. Jefferson’s Bible ends with no resurrection. “There laid they Jesus, and rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulcher, and departed.” (Life and Morals, 132)

Jefferson, along with most of our founding fathers, was a Deist. He believed God was like a watch maker who designed the universe, wound it up and walked away. Thomas Jefferson’s idea of God, although nominal, led him to a moral belief that all men were endowed with certain unalienable rights; life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Believing God created all people equal, Mr. Jefferson also saw slavery in the United States as something to be abolished.

French Atheist Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) believed man to be autonomous. He said, “we remind man that there is no legislator but himself…” and, “there must be an absolute truth……it consist[s] in one's immediate sense of one’s self.” Sartre believed the absolute freedom of all men led to all human activities as being of equal value. The man who helps a little old lady across the street has no additional moral standing than the one who runs her over.

Both Jefferson and Sartre are trying to give reasons for man’s morality, otherwise known as ethics. Jefferson praises the moral or ethical teachings of Jesus but leaves him in the grave. If Jesus did not do the miracles acclaimed to him, why should we follow his example any more than Socrates or Plato? Sartre erases God all together and calls man his own "legislator" for all moral decisions. Mr. Sartre's position of no God leaves man's morality dangling with "each" man able to self-govern his own behavior without a judge.

Socrates (427-347 B.C.E.) fought this battle of ethics against another Greek Philosopher Protagoras, who's famous slogan was, "Man is the Measure of all things." Socrates believed man’s morals to have a transcendent base verses being individualistic.

It is a logical necessity for there to be Personal Moral Giver because if not, each individual becomes his own ruler. If each man is “absolutely” free from a transcendent moral base, there is no standard moral rule except what “each person” decides for themselves. If man is the measure of all things, then the dictator cannot be held accountable for “injustices” in which he has legislated as the rule.

The Bible exposes man’s dilemma of morality from the beginning. The Bible states a Personal Moral Giver as the authority behind why "thou shall not.” It proclaims man guilty, as the one who walked away from a Personal Moral Giver, and explains man’s yearning for morality by revealing him to be made in the image of a moral God.

There has to be some authority outside of “man’s morality” to say thou salt not kill, steal or cheat on one’s spouse. If we are going to accept the morals of the Bible we have to accept them in context with the supernatural. To tell someone “you ought to” without a sufficient base gives them the right to ask, “Who made you God?”

Faith literally means trust.

Faith literally means trust. If you have faith in something you believe or trust in it. The Readers Digest Great Encyclopedic Dictionary defines faith as “confidence in or dependence on a person, statement or thing as trustworthy; trust.” Faith in the New Testament primarily means to trust in the statements revealed by God through scripture. Occasionally the phrase “the faith” is used to signify the believed propositional truths of the Bible. Some examples are Jude 3 “….exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith….delivered unto the saints.” In Acts 14:22 Paul is “…exhorting them [Christians] to continue in the faith.”

The best place to understand faith is in the book of Hebrews. The book's main premise is to show Jesus Christ as our hope. He also represents God’s trustworthiness to keep His promise. Hebrews 6:13 says, “For when God made [a] promise to Abraham, [God] could swear by [no one] greater, [so] he swore by [His own nature of trustworthiness].”

From Adam and Eve to Abraham, God promised to redeem man from his fallen nature. Jesus Christ was that promise. Hebrews 10:23 says, “let us hold fast the confession of our hope [i.e. Jesus Christ] that [our faith or trust] waver not; for [God] is faithful that promised.”

Hebrews 10:32 says, “The just shall live by faith.” This verse quotes Old Testament Habakkuk 2:4 where the Hebrew word for faith denotes God’s quality of trustworthiness. The author of Hebrews and Habakkuk are saying we live by the revealed scripture which claims God is trustworthy to keep his promise.

Chapter 11 of Hebrews is often called the faith chapter. Eighteen times in this chapter we have the phrase “by faith” followed by a patriarch's name who followed God at his word. When we read, “By faith Abraham believed God…” we are to understand Abraham considered God trustworthy.

The strength of faith or the ability to believe is only as strong as the source trusted in. As Christians, the Bible is our source of faith. God never intended us to have a blind faith and has provided an historical account of His actions in fulfilling His promise of salvation.

Some teach faith as a force within you to be conjured up to acquire temporal things. Faith has nothing to do with making something happen by believing hard enough. This mentality puts the individual as the source of their own faith. The Old Testament patriarchs "were still living by faith when they died" waiting to see the trustworthiness of God revealed. Martin Luther said: “….Promise and faith must necessarily go together. For without the promise there is nothing to be believed..."

Humans can only bow their knee and accept the promise of a trustworthy God. The Bible shows us what kind of God we are bowing to. We do not believe in Heaven or God because we have seen them nor because we can prove them. Biblical faith is totally dependent on a trustworthy God and Jesus Christ is evidence of God's trustworthiness. I saw a sign this weekend that said, “Faith is unlimited.” Just remember faith in and of itself is not sufficient without a personal God to have faith in.

Come find God’s destiny for your life!

Come find God’s destiny for your life! God has ordained you to prosper!

Preachers will assist you to the next level in finding the divine appointment God has for your life. They teach their airplanes and fancy church buildings are a creation of their faith in God and encourage you to dream big because God is big. Emphasizing God’s power and His unlimited resources, they invite you to their churches to build a better life using God’s “specific plan” for you. One congregation was told God would raise up a millionaire among them so the pastor could fulfill the vision God had given him.

Feeding on people’s lack of contentment and a desire for materialist wealth, these pastors preach what they have accomplished circumstantially and then package and sell the outcome as “God’s favor” on their lives. They teach blessings are God’s favor, but when blessings are absent in your life, a convenient Devil is pulled out of their hat.

Poverty will always be a part of our socioeconomic system. The Bible never speaks against having money, only the love of it. In the book of James there are two kinds of Christians contrasted; one of humble circumstances and the one that is rich.

“Let the brother of humble circumstances glory in his high position [in Christ] but let the rich man glory in his humiliation, [in Christ] because like the flowering grass he will pass away.” (James 1:9, 10)

After the stoning of Stephen (Acts 6-7) a heavy persecution came on the new church and some Christians found themselves poor and destitute. James is not condemning wealth but is warning the rich and poor Christian alike, not to judge themselves or others based on economic standings. James says in this same chapter to count it all joy whenever “any” trial comes your way. Notice James never tells the poor brother to dream big and believe God for more money. Nowhere in the Bible is it taught the accumulation of wealth by simply believing God for it. The Apostle Paul warns us of people who:

“……shall be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, haughty…..headstrong, puffed up, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God” (2Tim. 3:2, 4).

Pastors promoting wealth as God’s guarantee, degrades the Christian brother of humble circumstances and glories in those who have achieved the “promise” of wealth. If you have not acquired God’s destiny of wealth, the rich brothers are dangled like a carrot along with the future announcement of bigger blessings to come to keep you believing. These churches no longer teach about a returning God but what you have coming in His name.

We as Christians are not to look at life with a fatalistic attitude but we are not to expect a utopia either. Our Bible explicitly says this is not the world God intended us to live in and we are to wait patiently for His return when He will restore all things. Teaching people to trust in Christ for God’s mercy, not the thickness of their wallet is the gospel message. Christ Himself is the blessing.