Category: Conversations

New Blog Series: Testimonies. Share Your Story

Hello Brothers and Sisters in Christ!

Today I am very excited to announce a new upcoming series on Stand Tall For Christ called TESTIMONIES. As you might have already guessed, this series will showcase Christian Testimonies from around the world… and to get this series off the ground I need to hear from you! If you want to be featured… email me today, the following:

  • Your Name (full or abbreviated, whatever you want to use).
  • Your Story of How Christ saved you. This can be your story of salvation or any other way Jesus has saved you (addictions, abuse, etc.) Preferably around 500 words or less.
  • Link to your Christian website or blog if you have one. (optional)
  • Square photo (head shot).

I believe testimonies are one of the most powerful tools God has given us to reach the lost and I always like to tell Christians… your testimony is NOT yours, it belongs to God. By sharing your testimony you are letting the power of God’s work in your life reach others who never knew you… and desperately need to know Jesus.

Email me today if you want to participate in this new series… I hope to get so many emails it will take me a week to read through them!!!

email: standtallforchrist@gmail.com

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TAG! What Is One Big Challenge Christians Face?

This is a TAG! Post, you know… like TAG YOU’RE IT! In this post I will answer one question, and TAG three other Christian Bloggers I know to create a blog post on their site answering the same question. If they choose to participate they will do the same thing with 3 Bloggers they know, and on it goes.

Bloggers – If you decide to participate, send me a link to your finished post and I will add it to the bottom of this page.

THE QUESTION: What is one big challenge Christians face?

MY ANSWER: Knowing how to defend their faith.

In our modern very secular society Christians are often going to be challenged about their belief in Jesus Christ. Many Christians choose to keep their beliefs private to avoid this type of situation, but we should strive to let our light shine as it says in Matthew 5:15-16:

15 Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. 16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.

And in 1 Peter 3:15 the Bible says…

but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,

This is not to say that every Christian has to study Apologetics or go to Seminary, but I would encourage all believers to spend time in the Word of God daily… dig deep into that treasure trove of wisdom given to us by inspiration from God. Pray to God and ask for wisdom and discernment, ask questions to leaders of your church, get involved in some Bible studies.

This way, when the time comes (and it will come) that you are questioned about your faith, you will be adequately prepared. Here are a couple of resources that may be helpful… I currently own and have read them.

Now the fun part! These are the 3 Christian Bloggers I am “Tagging”:

Victors’ Corner

Revolutionary Musings

BeautyBeyondBones

Your challenge should you choose to accept it is simple: On your blog create a post like this, where you explain the TAG! Game, pose the same question above, with your own answer. Then challenge 3 new bloggers to play the game.

REMEMBER: If you decide to play along, let me know the link to your post so I can add it to this one. Thanks for playing!

Stay Strong & Stand Tall

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Rebuking a “Christian” Blogger

truth-likea-lion

Today as I was browsing WordPress I came across a post that upset me, if I am being honest. When I tried to comment on the article, I found the comments closed… so I decided to use my voice here to counter the lies within those writings.

Here is what I found…

During times when I have been immersed in Christian life and enthusiastically proclaiming the gospel message, there has been an urgency to my endeavors owing to a passion for Jesus and a fear that everyone who isn’t saved is going to hell. This is the basis for Christian evangelism, and this is why Christian evangelists can often seem pushy. It’s because they genuinely feel they have an exclusive claim to truth, and that the only way to avoid eternal punishment is by becoming a believer.

But if God is the omnipresent creator of the universe, then He has created every religion, not just Christianity. He is the creator of millions of Muslims, Jews, Mormons, Sikhs and Jehovah’s Witnesses. He is also the creator of all those people who are atheists, or agnostics. He has created literally billions of people who have lived and died outside of the Christian faith. Can it really be the case that all of these lives, with all their richness and diversity, are meaningless, because they are empty of Jesus Christ? 

What is troubling about this message, is that it comes from someone who claims to be a Christian, yet the post quickly descends into patently non-Christian beliefs.

So let’s start with the obvious… God did not create all of the religions in the world. What sort of nonsensical statement is this? The devil is responsible for most of the false religions and man the rest. God is perfectly Holy and incapable of deceit. Satan is the father of Lies. It is his theory then that God created one true religion and a few millions false ones, just to throw people off course.

Then the writer goes on to conflate… creating people, with creating religion. Of course God created all people that ever lived… what does that have to do with anything?? All through human history mankind has rejected God and chased after false idols… even the Israelites with all of the visible signs of God’s presence kept going back to idols.

He even states that Christians feel they have an exclusive claim to truth. Of course we do! If you have one religion teaching truth, and 1000 others teaching opposing ideas, you cannot have multiple truths. Islam and Christianity cannot be true simultaneously… neither can Buddhism and Hinduism… or any other pairing of religions you can think of. Truth cannot exist in two forms that diametrically oppose each other. So why do Christians believe they know the truth? Because the grave of Jesus Christ is empty.

A history of deception

This isn’t the first time this “Christian” blogger called into question the very nature of our Holy God. In another post he writes…

It does indeed seem foolish to me that God would judge people for their actions when He has caused those actions by His sovereign will in the first place. It seems irrational to me that because Adam and Eve ate some fruit, we are all sinners who deserve everlasting punishment in hell.

In this paragraph he claims that God “forces” us to sin, or that he “Causes” our actions by his sovereign will. Of course he could never provide ANY scriptural evidence to support his lunacy, he is simply relying on his failed human logic… which even by logical standards is sub-par.

Then he continues his assault on the nature of God by questioning the Lord’s divine justice and wrath towards sin, which Jesus taught about more than any other subject. So what we have in this Blogger is someone who is following a false god, because the descriptions and ideas he has about the nature of god run in direct conflict with the Bible.

He may claim to be a Christian (many do), he may say a lot of things that sound Christian-like, he may even attend a true Christian church. But the truth is not in him, and his notions of God border on heretical.

I am not writing this response to create some online war of words with this blogger, I am simply here to defend the faith. As Christians we have to be very discerning on who we listen to and what they teach… someone can sound great 99% of the time and then, in that 1% call into the question the deity of Christ for example. It happens all the time, and when it does happen I hope you are prepared to stand in defense of what you know to be true.

Note: In another article I wrote about the “Fairness of Hell”.

 

Stay Strong & Stand Tall

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Jesus at the Super Bowl?

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Wow what a Super Bowl this year, as the Philadelphia Eagles battled the New England Patriots to an 8 point victory 41-33! This is the first Lombardi trophy for the Eagles and they earned every bit of it, during they game they made some amazing plays, staying ahead of the Patriots for most of it, but you never can tell what’s going to happen with Tom Brady. One announcer said “Tom Brady with two and half minutes, he might as well have a month” LOL.

But as much as I enjoyed the game, it wasn’t the best part for me. Some pretty decent and fun commercials will be the talk at water coolers around the nation tomorrow, but that wasn’t my favorite part either. The half time show with Justin Timberlake! Entertaining to the world at large, but not my thing. No the single best moment of the whole night…

…Was when Eagles Head Coach Doug Pederson made his acceptance speech at the Lombardi trophy ceremony and started with the words “First I want to give praise to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ“!!! This is a bit of a paraphrase, but that’s ok… the whole point is he clearly gave glory to God for their victory tonight!

Now I am not excited about this because I think Jesus wanted them to win the Super Bowl…. but for a different reason. Just about an hour before the game was over, I had a conversation with my wife and asked her why there hasn’t ever been a Super Bowl commercial taken out by a church to preach the gospel to a worldwide audience on one of the biggest stages around? Sure those commercials cost a lot of money, but think of the eyes and ears you can reach! My wife was pretty sure it never happened because of the cost, figuring there are better ways to spend that kind of money in ministry. I think she is right.

So what’s even better than that? A Head Coach giving all the glory to our King of Kings in his victory speech! If there was just one heart touched for God tonight, then that would be worth a thousand Super Bowl ad spots.

Stay Strong & Stand Tall

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