His Burden is Light

"If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love."  John 15:10 Recently, I was thinking about the movie, The Big Lebowski , and how much I had enjoyed it. When it first came out, I was not yet born again and I smoked a lot of weed and had a tight-knit group of misfit friends like Lebowski so I found the movie to be both relatable and very funny. It also seemed somehow mysterious and profound. In part this is due to the main character habitually smoking marijuana, which of course encourages viewers to smoke it also and watch the movie in that state. Generally speaking, things seem more mysterious and profound when a person is stoned. As a C hristian, I still respect that it is well-made and I get that it is kind of anti-cool, which to many appears as cool. I am grieved that t he character of Jesus, a Latino bowler, is a pedophile. I understand that Jesus is a fairly common Latino name and t

Christians often get asked questions like, "If God knew Adam and Eve would eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, why did He put it in the Garden of Eden in the first place?" Or, "Why did God put the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden and then Command Adam and Eve not to eat of it?" I would begin to answer this question as follows. A child is happy in the care of his parents. The child is content even if Dad loses his job and the family has to live in a car or a temporary shelter. That was an evil event that befell the family but the child simply trusts in his father and is sheltered from the experience of evil. The only time the child truly knows evil is if his father himself is taken away. Then the one in whom the child trusted and depended is gone and responsibility for his own needs falls upon the child himself. He now has the knowledge of good and evil. So really the first thing we must understand in answering this question is what

Steven Fish was sitting in his wheelchair facing out the window of the M.C.C. at Southlake Regional Health Centre. He was tired from having done physio/rehab earlier that day but he had just been bathed and that was always refreshing. So while he waited for dinner he wheeled himself to the window and sat looking out at the trees by the creek and the city buildings all around and the distant people walking up and down the sidewalks. It was nearly winter and the skies were grey and it got dark early. Steven didn't have a lot to think about when it came to taking care of himself. His meals and clothes were provided to him at the hospital and his personal needs were also assisted. When he had to go somewhere else in the hospital, such as for physio/rehab, or when his social worker came to visit him, they came to him and took him where he needed to go. He did like to know when people were coming to see him however, so that he could look forward to it. Because Steven didn't have

I was challenged recently to justify Proverbs 6:6-8, which reads as follows: "Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, Provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest." The challenge, as might be guessed, was not to the instruction of the verse but to the statement that the ant has "no guide, overseer, or ruler". Don't we know that ants have queens? Therefore is it not an error in the Bible to say that the ant has no ruler? Let's consider the verse itself first, and what it means to say that the ant has no guide, overseer, or ruler. The context is the work of the individual ant, and the verse is saying that insofar as this activity is concerned, the ant is independent and free rather than following a leader, being driven by a taskmaster, or obeying the command of a ruler. They are wise because they know the benefit of preparing now, when conditions are good, for

What is the difference between the manner of conception of Isaac and Ishmael? I ask this question because they are often used as an allegory for faith versus works. Isaac was born through faith in the promise of God and Ishmael by human works attempting to fulfill God's promise on His behalf. Ishmael turned out to not be the promised son and became instead the figurative father of works-based, legalistic religion such as Judaism and Islam (Gal 4:21-25), and indeed the literal father of the false prophet Muhammad. Isaac, on the other hand, became the only begotten son of Abraham (Heb 11:17), a type of the Lord Jesus Christ. The thought that Isaac was born through faith in the promise of God and Ishmael, through human works to fulfill that promise, omits something very important and this omission leads to an error that denigrates works in the Christian life. The error is corrected when we recognize the fact that Isaac was not a virgin birth. Abraham slept with Hagar, Sarah's

"And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following. Amen." Mark 16:20 This is one of my favourite verses because of course, it still applies today. "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works" (2 Tim 3:16-17). The scripture therefore is much more than just a historical record of what happened in those days but an instruction to us about what will happen still in these days. If you go forth and preach the Word, the Lord will work with you and confirm what you are preaching to be true by means of signs that follow this preaching. This is true and the purpose of this post is to share a recent series of events that demonstrate this. When I saw the signs from the Lord I was so heartened and encouraged, it gave me joy for the

Rom 2:14-16, "For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts , their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;) in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel." We are familiar with this passage, of course, and it is often used in evangelism to explain how Gentiles can know they are guilty before God and need a Savior. The Jews can study the law and know sin and, with the conviction of conscience recognize it in themselves. The Gentiles also can however, without the written law, because it is written in their hearts. For example, as Matthew Henry writes in his commentary on this passage, they have a sense of justice and equity, they have been taught pity to the miserable, conservation of public peace and

I was thinking about the impossibility of human evolution by natural selection, which is based on chance interacting with various natural processes that have the effect of selecting those 'chances' that are retained and those that are lost. I won't elaborate too much because most of us who are interested in this subject have already given it a lot of thought and understand the concept. It is however important to note that the idea, simple in itself, is used to explain massively complex transformations for which no viable mechanism has ever been proposed, via the obfuscating factor of billions of years. "He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end."  Eccl 3:11 It is simple enough to imagine that a fish spawned with a mutant gene that resulted in a slightly modified eye shape and which gave it an increased vision range, making it more