There are many different reasons why people turn to God in
Christianity. One of those is the promise of future reward from
God. On the surface it seems a somewhat selfish motive, but it does go
deeper when the full picture is considered.
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One of the challenges of Christian life is that there is a very
high and specific standard set for a believer in God. Such a believer
is called on to take on the attitudes of God himself. Inevitably
people with even the highest of intentions find themselves not
managing to achieve what they feel they should be doing. Then they
wonder why it is that they always seem to fail.
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Psalm 78 is long list of how the people of Israel were given great
signs of the presence and care of their God, but still turned away and
forgot him. It shows how easy and natural it is for people to ignore
all the evidence that God has given, and leave him out of their minds.
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For quite some time now, Charles Darwin's theory of the origin of the
species through natural selection has been taught as something well
understood. However, the preferred model of punctuated equilibrium is
often not the one that is taught, leading to a misunderstood
evolution.
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To God, marriage is a symbol of a unity that is intrinsic to his
creation. From the Bible we find that people were designed with
marriage in mind, so that it is part of our nature. But reaching
further, it is also a relationship that may be abstracted and is
echoed in the one we are called to develop with Jesus.
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For many years, there has been an emphasis in secular society to value
personal freedom. It is contrasted against the oppression that may be
seen in countries that are not ``free''. Indeed many people have
honourably paid a high physical price for the cause of freedom.
However, there is a presumption that when people are free, they will
be happy and fulfilled. While there is a truth in this, the Bible
shows that there can also be a hidden price and that it can be wise to
forgo some opportunities to freedom.
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The accounts of the death of Jesus are surprising in just how weak he
seems to be. We know from his earlier miracles that he was capable of
so many things, and could defeat enemies, but yet here we see him as
defeated under the strength of the opposition. Of his crucifixion, it
was recorded,
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The book of Zechariah starts with an appeal by God at around 500BC for
the people of Israel to return to him. For many years God had
persisted with those people even though they often failed to obey him.
But still, God continued with them, punishing them for their evil and
calling them to return to him. Without ever lowering His own
expectations, he continually reached out to them and reiterated that
they would eventually obey him and be blessed.
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The first epistle of John quite strongly emphasises the importance of
having love for other people. It is placed as being one of the
central attributes that someone must have in order to even be able to
accept or to understand God. Modern society has a whole range of
understandings of what love is, or how it may be expressed. They may
vary among ideas that include lust, and simply making people happy.
The views of our society will affect our initial response, so we need
to take care to find the real interpretation.
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One symbol used of God in the Bible is that he is ``light'' and that
his word sheds light to the world. Then equivalently, the lack of God
in one's life is equivalent to being in darkness. In 1 John 1:5 it
says that in God there is no darkness at all. This suggests that in
the symbol, among the world we can expect to see a mixture of light
and dark, and that mixing can give a false sense of security to
society as a whole.
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