prayer requests

ICANRAY: Please pray for Client Eva Doyle recently evicted, She says she needs rent and a deposit for new place, please pray for Pastor Dan as he prepares to be interviews on a local program on WLMB-will air in late February, Pray for $31,000 budget shortfall by September, pray for people who have recently accept Christ to follow through on their decision, Pray for AS-back pain, JK addiction recovery, Several others who have text about health concerns, mental health concerns, and life circumstance. God knows every person's genuine need and we can trust Him, Pray His will be done. Thank you. Any person can be added to receive these prayer prompts by telling them to text ICANPRAY to 419-419-0095. Don't forget to pray for your neighbors by name or however you can. We win in Jesus. If you want to be removed respond STOP ICANPRAY. Responding SETTINGS will allow you to update your profile and choose from other free services. God Bless, P. Dan

A Reasonable Request

A Reasonable Request

We've been working through a number of apologetics texts again at New Heights on the Tuesday nights opposite Faith Force which is our new children's program. During our time together I have been reminded vividly of exactly how reasonable our faith is.

What strikes me hard is this: why did I spend 25 years of my life not recognizing the plain and simple fact that the creation in which we live is so organized as to be undeniably created by an intelligent being? Why did I not make that very logical realization to its next to most logical conclusion? I guess I can understand why I failed to connect Jesus clearly to the God of the universe who must exist. I didn't know much about him or what people were claiming he had done.

As a 25-year-old man I literally only knew one person who was professing to be a Christian and trying to live the way they thought Christ would want them to. If that was so in 1995 imagine how many 25-year-olds now have no living witness in their circle? Don't think about it too long though. It will break your heart.

The teleological argument for an intelligent designer is also called the pocketwatch argument. It basically says that if a person were walking along in the desert and stumbled upon a pocketwatch they would naturally assume by virtue of its intricate design that it was put together by a designer. There's no way the various parts that make up a pocket watch fell together on their own or by the impact of chaotic forces.

Our world shows incredible attributes of intelligent design. There are so many factors necessary for sustaining life and making our planet habitable that if they did not exist we would not exist. Yet, these factors do apply And we do exist.

DNA contains information and everyone who studies DNA recognizes it as essentially a programming language. It's a programming language that exists in every organic thing. Trees have DNA, dogs have DNA, and people have DNA. DNA which is intricate and essentially submicroscopic controls the operations of every living thing like incredibly well-built HTML code. However, DNA is infinitely more complex than HTML.

Someone put it together. I could have figured that out. Maybe I did.

In retrospect, I think I was like a fish in a fish tank. I was considering that the things that I could see were all of the things that I would ever have to deal with. I never considered that the glass walls that surrounded me and contained my life were temporary. That is, I never considered it until 25 years in.

Graciously, God led me to Himself. I don't know how many people encounter God because they take a long and deliberating look. It seems to me like most encounter Him because as Paul says in Acts 17 their life has been organized in such a way that they will look around for him. Then in the looking they find him and realize he was never far away in the first place.

I think we should let our light shine before men. Jesus commanded it of course. But, what I'm saying is that I think it makes sense. We must entreat everyone that we know to accept that the incessant, very clear, merciful pleading of the God of heaven should no longer be dismissed.

This is why we don't save people. Jesus saves people. We can only add our witness. We certainly should. That's the pathway to people glorifying God at the coming of Jesus. Jesus said it this way: So let your light shine before men...

I don't live in regret now. I don't regret the first 25 years of my life that didn't glorify God the way they might have. I don't regret pushing off my decision to be saved two weeks even when I knew with absolute certainty that I was taking a risk he wouldn't call me again. Would I do it again? No way.

Even though I don't live in regret now I know that one day, looking back at my life, I'm going to get a clear view of all the waste. It seems like that will be a sad day, a day when I will need to be comforted by the Lord. As I have been looking at the very logical reasons to believe in a living God, who sent his son Jesus to die for us, came in the flesh was God the Son and took on the sins of men to take them to the cross, and rose again on the third day, I prayerfully desire that I'll find more souls who will join me in the pursuit of representing Him well for as long as we have left.

Tell them. Shine before them. Seek them out. Overcome evil with good. Do not be ashamed of the gospel. Those who hear you and see you will one day wonder why it took you and such a concerted effort for them to see what was right in front of their face.