The Bullet of Human Nature: Evil Tendencies

Will it ever end? Don’t bet on it until Christ comes again and gives us His perfect Kingdom! I’m talking about “misunderstanding” and all the attached frustrations and bitterness that accompanies the same.

Everyone talks about love, forgiveness, patience and understanding, but relatively few folks show any passion to do anything about it. Even when we want to “forgive and forget” we seem powerless to pull it off. We forgive who we want and resent who we want! The result is enemies, insult, verbal abuse and bitterness.

All of this comes about because man in general doesn’t understand the human situation. We keep laboring under that false and erroneous notion that man is “basically good.” In no uncertain terms the Bible teaches that “man is basically bad although he wants to be good.” Paul, Christianity’s most outstanding saint, confirms this when he says in Romans 7:19 … “the good I wish I do not, but I practice the very evil I do not wish.” This is my own experience and that of everyone I have ever known.

This ignorance of man’s basic “evil tendency” is the bed rock of all of our disappointments, delusions and unfulfilled expectations. Even Jesus didn’t put His confidence in men because He knew the basic evil of their hearts (John 2:24).

A Thanksgiving Reminder
By Ruth Ann Stites

My local public library is a community asset. On any normal weekday, to walk through the door is to see the diversity of people in my growing town, to undertake a treasure hunt through its well stocked shelves, or to be captivated by the effortless movements of a golden eyed, bright yellow tropical fish who lives in the children’s area aquarium. A century of service is represented in this institution, giving continuity to the learning, entertainment, and inspiration found here. The library is a material benefit with a lot of power to affect people – body, mind, and spirit.

This library is familiar, sometimes exasperating when I fail to find what I want, almost always busy. Some days I hurry in, grab a title, and race away. Other times I have the leisure to browse or sit and relax. I usually take my city library for granted; it’s just one of the places I go regularly in my busy schedule.

This Thanksgiving has reminded me to appreciate my library. It has also pointed out a truth about the holiday: We need to be reminded to focus our attention on the good things in our lives for which we are thankful.

This truth applies to spiritual as well as material benefits. We have so many good things in our lives because of Christ. We need to be continually reminded to stop and be thankful for Him at Thanksgiving and on every other day of the year!

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving from all of us at Ventures for Christ.

The Bullet of Faithfulness: Measuring Faithfulness

All of us seem to be filled with self-righteous irritation when people or things we depend on are unfaithful to us. Let me ask you a few questions and please answer honestly:

1. If your car starts one out of three times, do you consider it dependable or faithful?
2. If your paper boy regularly skips leaving two editions a week would you call him faithful?
3. If you failed to go to work three or four days a month, would your employer consider you dependable or faithful?
4. If your refrigerator quits for a day now and then, do you excuse it and say, “Oh, well, I can depend on it most of the time?”
5. If your water heater greets you with cold water instead of hot, one out of two mornings, would it be dependable or faithful?
6. If you miss a couple of mortgage payments each year would your mortgage holder say, “That’s okay, ten out of twelve isn’t too bad?”
   
   Faithfulness means just that. Dependability which is consistent and without excuse! How does the Father view your faithfulness toward His gifts with which you have been trusted … your time, your church, your money, your responsibilities and your opportunities to give?
   
   “In this case, moreover, it is required of stewards that one be found trustworthy.” (I Corinthians 4:2)

The Bullet of Faithfulness: Giving is Natural and Right

Everything we possess has been given to us by God to keep in circulation. We don’t really “own” anything! It is all ours only on a trustee or stewardship basis. Man is God’s “agent” to distribute His wealth.

Everything God made continually gives. The sun gives. The waters give. The air gives. The earth gives. God’s beauty in the skies and the mountains proclaim that the Father’s basic desire is to give!

But man, in his state of rebellion against the God who made him, is different. Man wants to keep. Man’s desire is to get, get, get. Man’s three main words are me, myself and mine!

None of us will ever begin to live until we are faithful to the purpose for which we were created. God has made of us stewards of His wealth. The more you and I keep His gifts to us in circulation the more He will trust us to manage.

In Luke 16:10 our Lord said, “He who is faithful in little is faithful in much.”

The Bullet of Faith: The Great Leap

A great Presbyterian preacher, Louis Evans, tells of a little boy who heard his daddy working in a dark cellar at their northern home. It was pitch black but the boy could hear his father moving around the cellar. The father looked up and could see the form of his son framed in the doorway. To have fun with the boy he said, “Jump son, Daddy will catch you.” Now the little boy believed his daddy was down there because he heard him moving around. He heard him speak and trusted his daddy’s invitation that he would catch him because his daddy loved him. However, the only way to prove that he really believed and really trusted was to jump … to act!! The reason that church life and Christianity is so stale to thousands of people who claim to be following Jesus Christ is that they have never really jumped.

How about you? Only when you “bet your life” on what you say you believe and trust does faith really come alive! That’s why Jesus said, “Be it unto you, according to your faith.”

The Bullet of Faith: Adding One Upon Another

Many people today believe in God with their heads. They believe He is there; they’re not agnostics or atheists. They believe the world is held together pretty much by what He allows and doesn’t allow. Many folks go on to have a trust in their hearts for God. They aren’t against Him; they are for Him. But this is not enough to have real faith … the kind of faith that changes a man, the kind of faith that brings excitement, the kind of faith that makes life an intoxicating adventure. No, these things come only when the third aspect of faith is realized and acted upon. There must be a commitment of the will to what we say we believer and trust or else there is no real faith. Remember the words of Jesus, “Happy is the man who hears and does what I say.”

For years I believed that water skiing would really be fun. I trusted that the skis and the water would hold me up, but it wasn’t until I committed myself to a ski, a lake and an end of rope tied to the end of a motor boat that I began to experience the thrills and joys of water skiing. Authentic Christian faith is just like that – action must be added to belief and trust before it is experienced.

The Bullet of Faith: The Three Things Required

The word “faith” is not a simple word. Witness the confusion, the poor definitions and the inability of thousands to get hold of it. The greatest insight I have ever gained on this powerful little word is that faith is a combination of three things … a belief with the head, a trust with the heart and an act of the will. The Greek word for faith is a verb which includes all three ideas.

For example, let’s take the commitment made at a marriage ceremony. A man might believe in his head that the woman he is marrying is beautiful. He might also trust in his heart that the emotion he feels for her is real. But, unless there is an act of the will in committing himself to her at that moment and for years to come, his belief and trust really mean very little. A woman would be foolish indeed if she would accept the proposal of a man who said he believed in her and had a heart affection for her, but he would rather live with her several years before he married her. She has nothing to gain by this and everything to lose. A man who believes and trusts always commits to action or else there is something wrong with his belief and his trust.