I recently read a great article on “Medical Myths“.  It profiled health practitioners advocating certain remedies for particular illnesses.  However, as opposed to providing answers or pointing to to potential cures, they concentrated on “masking” the symptoms.

You may be wondering why a bible teacher would be reading a medical article journal article, but it’s really simple.  In life there are so many parallels.  Both natural and spiritual.  Often you can find something in one area that correlates to another, and that discovery opens up our understanding about life and the answers we seek.

“Perspective”….it makes all the difference in the world!

Many of us live from our “Old Memories” rather than from the “Precepts” of God’s word.  Consequently, we live as “Slaves” of our past rather than in the freedom that God’s word was meant to birth in us.

One of my heroes in the faith, and the best Christian apologist I know, is Ravi Zacharias. Here, he answers a hard question posed by a young man who was at the end of his rope, with regards to why should he go on living, since life seemed so meaningless. When a person possesses such a question, it takes not only knowledge and skill to answer gracefully, but also a loving heart.

My last blog I talked about being in a relationship with God that goes beyond the elementary things of acceptance and forgiveness.

Heb 6:1

So let us stop going over the basics of Christianity again and again. Let us go on, instead, and become mature in our understanding. Surely we don’t need to start all over again with the importance of turning away from evil deeds and placing our faith in God.

Far too often, non-believers are convicted of their rebellion to God and His purposes, and are ready to deal with their guilt over past sin and rebellion. They come to Christ as their Savior, to be forgiven an embraced as an adopted child, but there is so much more that God has in mind for this new relationship which Christ paid for.

Over the last 100 years or so, our lives have been so shaped by the huge technological advancements that we can start to believe man has figured out the universe pretty well and we don’t need God anymore.

This “belief” in our own intelligence and the power of huge super computers has made our culture believe that a belief in a supernatural creator is obsolete, and only for the weak-minded amongst us. That is until you pull back the “green curtain” like in the wizard of Oz.

I grew up watching the Wizard of Oz every year. It was in color, as few movies on tv were. In the movie there seems to be this “powerful” wizard that knew everything and could do anything. The problem was, he couldn’t. He was just a smart guy with a lot of fancy gadgets the “wowed” people.

It is so easy to be persuaded that what we desire is worth believing for, but what if what you believe is wrong or the way you are believing is wrong? What then?

Everyone has faith, but what you have faith in makes all the difference in the world. So many are believing in luck more than anything substantial.

Some have faith in science and trust anything these people say and do. If these people have a degree in science they must be right – right? Funny how each generation claims the same thing only to have more “Truth” added which changes their truth. Unfortunately, kids going to college listen to their boasting about knowing the truth and get these students really messed up from the experience.

Listening to different news outlets talk about the same events can be down right disturbing. No matter whether its sports, politics or the accident in your neighborhood, facts matter. But what if the person or persons we listen to who are reporting an event have a bias? Take the NFL & North Korea.

The real truth is that everyone has bias on multiple topics, news people included. Bias is shaped by the information we receive and how that information is communicated. The human soul processes that information and our previous bias helps us come to conclusions. So if my previous experience identified “Red” as dangerous, I am easily moved to see danger every time I see red no matter what someone might say to me afterword.

The information we are exposed to shapes our thinking and action, whether we like it or not. Our minds are created to process huge amounts of information and develop the ethics we end up with. But what if the information we acquire is either distorted or presented with a bias that we can’t detect on the surface? You know the answer…a distorted view or reality.

If the foundation of our thinking was corrupt or bias at an early stage of our development, we incorporated those distortions into our perception of reality, all the while believing our way of thinking was how life is. I’m still trying to correct those imbedded distortions in my life at the age of 65. Some things are hard to get out of our lives even when we know they’re false.