Category: Faith

Peanut-Sized Prayer

1/21/2019

Peanut-sized Prayer - George Washington Carver

   Lately I’ve been reading about prayer. What has been wonderful is that the direction of the author I’ve read is not primarily a theological treatise on prayer. It has been more of the practical work of walking with and seeking God. The reading I did today touched on the life of George Washington Carver. Carver did not have an easy life. He was born toward the end of the Civil War to a family of slaves on the Moses Carver farm. He, his sister, and mother were kidnapped by the Kentucky night raiders. George was rescued and returned to the Carvers who raised him and his brother James. George lived in a deeply segregated south where it was very difficult for a black child to receive an education. Yet through perseverance He not only graduated from high school, but also graduated from what is now known as Iowa State University. He studied botany there as their first black student, and eventually became their first black faculty member. His thirst for learning eventually led him to receive a Master’s degree in botany where he became well-known for his work in plant pathology and mycology. After receiving his Master’s degree he joined Booker T. Washington at what would become Tuskegee University in Alabama.

   There was another side to Carver. He was a very godly man who know the Lord. At age 10 he had the following conversation with his foster father when he asked him about grapes.

“Why are grapes purple?” George asked.
“Nobody knows.” his foster father replied.
“Does God know?” George asked.
“Of course he does.”
“Then I’ll ask him,” George responded, and left the room.
That was the simple faith of George Washington Carver. His foster father was amazed. He said, "George shouldn’t talk that way. He sounded as if he were going to meet God out there – around the house.”

   Fortunately for him - and for us - George didn’t think that way. He developed a lifestyle of prayer that stayed with him throughout his entire life. Those who knew him said he would rise at 4 or 5 a.m and pray to start his day. And George kept on praying like he could go around the house and meet God.

   Alabama and the surrounding southern states were experiencing hard times because they were farming the ground too hard. Dr. Carver taught farmers how to rotate crops. He introduced planting peanuts as an alternative crop to help with this problem. The only difficulty was that there was not a market for all the peanuts that were grown. Dr. Carver began praying about this. One of his favorite Bible verses was from the book of Job.

But ask the animal, and they will teach you,
Or the birds of the sky and they will tell you;
Or speak to the earth, and it will teach you,
Or let the fish in the sea inform you.

He was certain that if he prayed and sought God, that God would give him wisdom to develop ways to use the peanut. In his own wonderfully humble words Dr. Carver related his conversation with God.

I asked God, “Why did you make the universe, Lord?
“Ask for something more in proportion to that little mind of yours,” God replied.
“Why did you make the earth, Lord?” I asked.
“Your little mind still wants to know far too much. ask for something more in proportion to that little mind of yours,” replied God.
“Why did you make man, Lord?” I asked.
“Far too much. Far too much. Ask again.” replied God.
“Explain to me why you made plants, Lord?” I asked.
“Your little mind still wants to know far too much,” the Lord replied.
“The peanut?” I asked meekly.
“Yes! For your modest proportions, I will grant you the master of the peanut. Take it inside your laboratory and separate it into water, fats, oils, gums, resins, sugars, starches, and amino acids. Then recombine these under my three laws of compatibility, temperature, and pressure. Then you will know why I made the peanut.” God said.

   God was true to His promise, and Dr. Carver was true to his work. He eventually found 300 uses for the peanut. The “National Peanut Board” reported that Dr. Carver’s labors revealed that food products from peanuts involved such things as peanut lemon punch, chili sauce, caramel, peanut sausage, mayonnaise and coffee. Then he experimented and learned that cosmetics could be derived from peanuts. The cosmetics included face powder, shampoo, shaving cream and hand lotion. Not satisfied there he also learned that insecticides, glue, charcoal, rubber, nitroglycerine, plastics and axle grease were a few of the many valuable products derived from peanuts. Peanuts, once a non-cash crop, by 1938 became a $200 million industry and one of the chief products of Alabama.

   One of my favorite stories about Dr. Carver is when he was allowed to testify before the House Ways and Means Committee on behalf of the United Peanut Association of America. He was informed by chairman Joseph Fordney that he would receive 10 minutes to testify. Dr. Carver enthralled the committee for an hour and 45 minutes about all that God had taught him about the lowly peanut. He spoke of shaving cream and soap, of cosmetics and wood stains, of glue and linoleum. He even shared with the committee about Worcestershire sauce! When he finished, chairman Fordney told Dr. Carver he could come back whenever he wanted and have as much time as he wanted.

   All this from one humble man who turned to God for help about how he could use the little ole peanut. This godly man, who turned to the Lord early each morning, was willing to listen to God as He spoke through the earth and the plants to teach him. And what a glorious set of lessons God gave him. Dr. Carver didn’t seek patents for all of his ideas. He simply said if God gave them to him, he wanted to give them freely to others. Oh, and by the way, he also learned from the glamorous sweet potato as well, sharing over 100 different uses for it as well.

   Dr. Carver faced a huge, God-sized problem. He had a multitude of peanuts - but no real profitable use for them. Dr. Carver knew from a lifetime of walking with and praying to God - that God had a wonderful answer if he would just seek God.

“Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and mighty things which you do not know.” Jeremiah 33:3, NASB

   Dr. Carver called. God answered and told him. Dr. Carver then used every last ounce of his learning and ability to follow God. Amazing things happened. Kind of astounding what the peanut-sized prayers of a godly man produced? So - what is it that you need to take to God and humbly ask for His help with today?

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Our Amazing Brain and How it Got Here

5/2/2017

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Recently I began to study the human brain by reading a number of different articles written by experts who have been studying the brain for decades. The information that they gave was nothing less than astounding. In fact some of it is so huge that it almost defies imagination. In the midst of my reading and study I came upon how evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins said our brains came into being. What amazed me is how, in the end, Dawkins wanted me to believe him rather than God. Let me share a little bit of it with you.

Our brain is somewhere between 3 and 3.5 lbs as an adult. It easily fits into a gallon jar with plenty of room to spare. Yet, Cambridge Physicist Roger Penrose said the following about the brain, “What’s in our head is orders of magnitude more complex than anything one sees in the Universe: "If you look at the entire physical cosmos our brains are a tiny, tiny part of it. But they're the most perfectly organized part. Compared to the complexity of a brain, a galaxy is just an inert lump." Michio Kaku, theoretical physicist at the City College of New York made this comment on the brain. “The human brain has 100 billion neurons, each neuron connected to 10 thousand other neurons. Sitting on your shoulders is the most complicated object in the known universe.”

Professor of Computational Neuroscience at MIT Sebastung Seung has commented that the human brain contains 100 billion neurons and 10,000 times as many connections. By the way the number of neurons in the brain is about the number of stars that are in the entire Milky Way galaxy. Other Neruoscience experts list the number of connections called synapses at about 40,000 connections. Either way, the complexity of the human brain is astounding!

If this is not enough to blow your mind – the way that our body communicates with the brain is by sending electrical impulses along these neural highways throughout our bodies. Some of these impulses we actually see, feel, hear, taste, or touch, but other messages are constantly being sent without our conscious knowledge of them in what is called our sympathetic nervous system. This is how our heart, lungs, and all our major organs work. It is how all the systems of our body connect and function with incredible accuracy to keep us healthy from moment to moment. The typical neuron fires from 5 to 50 times a second. So in a minute’s time your brain fires off somewhere near 30 to 300 trillion electrical messages within itself or the rest of the body. If you are feeling a little “nerve-tired” – by the end of a typical day your brain has fired off 43 to 430 quadrillion electrical messages to keep you alive and free from pain and doing things that would damage yourself. Imagine a set of highways 100 billion miles long with just over 400 quadrillion cars travelling over them every 24 hours. This is honestly beyond our ability to conceptualize. But then realize that many of these cars are travelling in excess of 200 miles per hour. Oh, and one other thing – all the cars are reaching their desired destination without any accidents or mishaps. Sheesh!

This is what is happening in your brain and the rest of your body each and every day. We can now see why these scientists say that the human brain is the most complex thing in the entire known universe. Yet, the person who holds to an evolutionary understanding of origins says that all this was not designed. It happened over billions of years completely by accident – with no intelligence behind it and no designer responsible for it. Some may think I’m being a little harsh on the evolutionist – but let me give you a quote from Richard Dawkins on how he has come to believe these things happened – based on scientific reason alone. Dawkins, the famed Oxford evolutionary biologist reflecting on the sheer wonder of the emergence of life on Earth and the evolutionary process in his classic The Ancestor's Tale said this:

“The fact that life evolved out of literally nothing, some 10 billion years after the universe evolved literally out of nothing -is a fact so staggering that I would be mad to attempt words to do it justice. And even that is not the end of the matter. Not only did evolution happen: it eventually led to beings capable of comprehending the process by which they comprehend it."

To say that Dawkins statement is scientific - is laughable. Take a moment to consider that a supposed genius scientist has just said that both life and the universe evolved out of “literally nothing,” almost 10 billion years ago. Dawkins also holds that no designer or intelligence was involved. So then, how do we take that statement into a scientific laboratory and test its thesis? First, we’d have to have no intelligence involved in doing the scientific test. Then we’d have to add to no intelligence, no elements whatsoever as well as no where to have them be. So there we sit – not thinking with nothing before us and nowhere for it to happen. THEN – boom (they tend to prefer bang – big bang actually) right before us would be the proof of our thesis – a complete universe in which we can now have a laboratory develop. Then while waiting a few billion years longer, exercising no intelligence in working with whatever it was that big banged itself into existence, life would emerge in complex systems that function due to incredibly complex information systems that perfectly replicate themselves. Then these simpler one-celled versions of totally accidental organization and information centers that replicate themselves, without any intelligence and quite by total accident would (over a few more billion years) become a human being. This human being (ignoring all other systems within the human body) would have within itself (once again quite by total accident and random chance) have a brain that functions to communicate with over 100 billion nerve cells that are highly organized and set (accidentally of course) to stretch over an entire body so that in a days time 430 quadrillion electrical messages can be communicated without any errors in any of their communications. Um,yeah – sure.

Dawkins tells us that trying to describe how all this happened literally out of nothing – with no intelligence guiding it – no pattern which it followed – and ending in the most complex thing in the entire universe – he says that trying to describe that with words would be injustice filled with madness. Please – don’t be scared away from this ridiculous statement. Dawkins is saying the same thing Scripture says, kind of. Here is what the Scripture says, “By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible. Hebrews 11:3 (NASB) By faith we believe that all we see and all that is was created by God as He spoke it out of literally nothing. But Dawkins modifies it this way – by faith in science and what he says it is a fact that the universe evolved out of literally nothing. Since he cannot ever prove this in any scientific laboratory or in any way that would come near the scientific method, we are left with this. By FAITH in what Dawkins says (and he won’t say it because it would be madness to try to say it with any justice to how staggering to the mind it is) the world was made out of literally nothing. Stop and think about those two statements. Both argue for a world created out of literally nothing. One claims God did it. The other claims no one did it – but we should believe him when he tells us this – even though he has absolutely no proof that this is how it happened. At least none based on that it came from literally nothing – because for him to prove this as fact he would have to have something and someone to do it. So our brains came from literally nothing and no one. When we put it that way – yes, it is madness to think this way. It is ridiculousness to the highest degree. It is ridiculousness for Dawkins to tell us as Christians that we are idiots for believing by faith God made the world out of nothing by His Word – all the while holding to a view that nobody using “literally nothing” made it instead. Oh – and you know why we should accept this? Because Dawkins has said it. Seems to me that we are moving from God speaking it into existence with His Word – to Dawkins speaking it into existence with his. Forgive me – but I think I’ll stick with God over Dawkins – especially when both are basically saying the same thing. Oh, and one other thing. I’ll also stick with God since His Word reminds me of the following truth.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. Romans 1:18-23 (NASB)

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Calvary Core Values - Core Value #1 - The Gospel

8/25/2014

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For the next couple of weeks I want to take a few moments to reiterate some very important principles by which we want to live and minister at Calvary Chapel. One might even call these things core principles and values that we hold.

This first of these core values we have is that we believe that there is only one way for sin to be forgiven - and that is through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Scriptures state this fact numerous times.

Jesus *said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me. John 14:6 (NASB)

"And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved." Acts 4:12 (NASB)

"He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him." John 3:36 (NASB)

For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all, the testimony given at the proper time. 1 Timothy 2:5-6 (NASB)

Therefore we hold as one of our core values that the gospel of Jesus Christ is the only means by which anyone can have their sins forgiven and be made righteous in the sight of God. We also hold that this salvation is through Jesus Christ alone, through faith alone, by grace alone. It is not Jesus Christ and baptism (which is the error of baptismal regeneration). It is not Jesus Christ and the church (and by that I mean ANY church - even ours).

Permit me to unpack the rest of that previous statement. We believe that salvation is by faith alone. There are no works that we can do to merit or earn our salvation. Salvation is by faith alone - faith in what Jesus did through His perfect, sinless life - His substitutionary death (meaning He was our substitute on the cross - we deserved what happened there - yet He paid it for us) - and His glorious resurrection, by which God declared that He accepted what Jesus did to pay for sin and make sinners righteous in His sight. Faith is not just mental assent to these facts, but rather is a total commitment to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. It is a surrender on our part, where we lay down our own works as dead works - and our righteousness as filthy rags. We no longer trust in anything from ourselves - no religious standing or good works can make us righteous in God’s sight. The only thing God will accept for that work is what Jesus Christ did for us.

Finally, let me explain what we mean when we use the phrase, “by grace alone.” This phrase has to do with whether we ourselves can do anything for our salvation. The answer to that is a resounding NO! We cannot do anything for our salvation. It was God alone who chose to save us - we had nothing to do with our salvation. Romans 5 describes God’s grace this way,

For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. “ Romans 5:6-8 (NASB)

The Word of God makes it clear that our state before God was that we were, “helpless.” There was nothing we could ever do - no amount of obedience to the Law - no amount of religious works - no amount of religious payments we could make that would ever bring us one millimeter closer to God. We had not just “messed up a little” with our sin. We had, “. . . fallen short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23 (NASB) Therefore as Ephesians chapter 2 puts it, after painting the bleakest picture possible in verses 1-3 about our condition before God, “but God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions - made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved). We believe that we are saved solely because of the grace and infinite mercy of God. Therefore no one may boast of having done anything whatsoever to deserve their salvation. We are infinite debtors to God for His indescribable gift - His marvelous, matchless, incredible grace.

This core value also comes with a core responsibility. We believe because there is salvation in no one else by Jesus Christ, we are responsible to take the gospel of His salvation to the ends of the earth. Our amazing salvation comes with a very real responsibility. If there is only one way of salvation - then all other religious views that do not come to God through Jesus Christ alone, by faith alone, through grace alone - are false. In the end all their religious fervor will amount to nothing - and they will face the wrath and judgment of God. This places on us a very serious task of proclaiming the gospel to every nation, tribe, people, and tongue (which by the way is Scripture). If our core value of belief in the gospel of Jesus Christ for salvation, does not lead to a core practice of taking the gospel across the street, across the city, across the state, nation, and world - then we are being very disobedient to the gospel, as well as very selfish toward the rest of the world who desperately need to hear of it.

Saints - we at Calvary Chapel of Jonesboro are very, very serious about the gospel of Jesus Christ and its implications. We know that this Core Value is at the heart of all that we do - and indeed is at the heart of who we are as a church. I urge you to consider what has been said here. Think about it and meditate on what is means - for you - for our fellowship - and for the world around us. If we will not just adopt such a Core Value as a statement of faith - but rather as the “reactor core” of our faith - I believe that God will revive us and begin to move among us in powerful ways. I believe those ways will include a reviving of our own hearts as we embrace the truths of the gospel - and a reviving of our passion for the world around us as we grasp the ramifications of the gospel.

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I Just Don't Feel Forgiven, part 2 - Choices Made by Faith

10/12/2012

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Last week we began our look at what to do when we just don’t feel like we are forgiven. This week we will start to examine why this may be the case—as well as—how to deal with these feelings in a biblical manner.

             The Christian life is lived by faith rather than feelings. We get in trouble when we trust how we feel more than we do what we read in the Word of God. The Bible says, “If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness,” but, I just don’t feel forgiven after I confess my sins. Our problem is that we are placing a higher validity on our feelings than we are placing on what God has said. For some reason, no matter how often we hear it or read it, we think that this verse does not apply to us. We are acting as if our feelings are more trustworthy than God’s promises. If we had hard-core facts, you know scientific stuff before us this might be different. We are being asked to accept something by faith—and that is hard to do. So, because we feel a certain way—that is fact.

Some assert that this whole “faith” thing is hard to do. But is it? Is taking something on faith beyond us? The fact is that every day we take hundreds of things on faith. We look at our clocks and accept by faith that the whole    concept of time exists. If we did not, we wouldn’t wake up and hurry to get places. We reach over and turn on a light switch accepting by faith that electricity exists—and that the whole field of electrical engineering is accurate in saying that those funny colored wires have little invisible electrons running through them. There is this “light bulb thing”—which can actually harness these invisible little electrons in such a way that light illumines the room. We turn on our TV’s without truly knowing how they work. (I mean, believing that there are invisible waves flowing all over the world through coaxial cables—or even worse flying through the air into a big metal dish-like thing on our rooftops—into our rectangular box on our wall—and that we see moving pictures as a result?) We get into cars and buy the line that tens of thousands of controlled explosions are happening in a block of hollowed out steel which moves our vehicles forward? Have you tested these things? So in reality, we do all these things by faith. It doesn’t matter how you “feel” about these things—they work these ways and do these things. You receive it by faith and go on with life. Can you imagine a life without faith—you would only do what YOU yourself could prove—and nothing more. If you felt like something might not be true—you’d have to abandon doing these things until you had absolute proof of it. That would cripple you physically. The truth is that you live by faith every day in hundreds of ways.

Our life of faith is based upon choices—made by faith. You trust the automobile dealer that a car will work when you turn that key in the ignition. You find him trustworthy—turn the key—and by faith (whether you know it or not) thousands of controlled explosions propel you forward. You turn on lights, live by time, and do myriads of things by trusting what others say about them. Forgiveness is trusting what Almighty God has said about what He did through Jesus Christ on the Cross—nothing more and nothing less. So the question is not how you feel—it now is this—Who do you believe? Answer this—and your feelings can change.

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Articles

Peanut-Sized Prayer

Our Amazing Brain and How it Got Here

Calvary Core Values - Core Value #1 - The Gospel

I Just Don't Feel Forgiven, part 2 - Choices Made by Faith

Biblical Articles

Categories

​Articles

Peanut-Sized Prayer

Our Amazing Brain and How it Got Here

Calvary Core Values - Core Value #1 - The Gospel

I Just Don't Feel Forgiven, part 2 - Choices Made by Faith

Biblical Articles

Categories

Articles