In Defense of the Christian Faith

Today, I want to present this picture as I join Renee in her weekly meme, Something Beautiful ... Of course, as with all my pictures and posts, there is a lesson to be learned from this barn... Proverbs 3:7-10 "Do not be wise in your own eyes; Fear the LORD and depart from evil. It will be health to your flesh, And strength to your bones.Honor the LORD with your possessions, And with the firstfruits of all your increase; So your barns will be filled with plenty, And your vats will overflow with new wine." I am currently listening to the song "Amazing Love," the song popularized by the Newsboys. The line that struck me as I'm writing is this: "In all I do, I honor you." This passage in Proverbs tells us to honor the Lord; do we REALLY honor Him? How do we honor the Lord? By fearing Him. And how do we fear Him? We DEPART FROM EVIL . Obey the Lord, not your own feelings and desires; if you go your own way, you are being wise in your own eyes. To fear the...

Over the last two weeks, I've missed my meme Inspiring Story due to a vacation. But before I share this week's IS, I want to recap the rules and reason for this meme: The purpose of this meme is to encourage you; I believe that each and every thing that the Lord does for us on a daily basis is the biggest evidence for His existence. Therefore, I think we should encourage each other with stories and messages that will keep us uplifted in the Lord, and inspire us to be all that we can for Him. I invite you all to participate in this meme; just keep the content clean and Christian. What has God been doing in your life? I'd love to hear it; if you want to share it on your blog as an inspiriaton to others, just link back here. If you do not have a blog and would still like to share, by all means, comment! I love hearing from you all. So, without further ado, here is the next installment of Inspiring Story on the DCF blog. Enjoy! ---------- Recently, I have had a growing inte...

Hey everybody! I have some apologetics new for y'all. Brian from Apologetics315 has a free e-book consisting of 23 essays on why Christianity is true. I encourage you to go download it! Also, I just discovered a new site called " Debate God " via Twitter. This is one of my favorite topics of discussion, so I was thrilled to see that they have a blog, forums, and much more for discussing whether or not you believe in God. I personally love to engage in such topics, because it's such a great opportunity to examine yourself -- why do you believe what you do? -- and also to learn about others beliefs and, hopefully, show them the soundness of Christianity. And thirdly, a group of top Christian apologists have recently launched a new website, the Library of Historical Apologetics , whose goal is to "be the world’s leading resource for lay apologists, pastors, students, and scholars seeking historical apologetics materials for self-study, church classes, sermon prepar...

Hi Everyone! I just wanted to let you all know that I have a new page up called " My Life ," where I hope to share some of the more personal aspects to my life. The first entry is all about my vacation complete with pictures, so be sure to check it out! Thanks and God bless, Miss S.

Fortresses -- they signify royalty, home, and shelter in most fairytales to the rich. The Bible also mentions fortresses in the same light, but in a much better sense. Today, I want to take a brief examination of this topic. My sister was reading a passage of the Bible recently when she asked me upon reflection, "What is a fortress?" (Of course, she knows what it is, but it helps to get a visual picture when we talk about it sometimes!) I don't remember my answer, but I immediately began to think of this Scripture: "The LORD is my strength and my shield; My heart trusted in Him, and I am helped; Therefore my heart greatly rejoices, And with my song I will praise Him." (Psalm 28:7) I thought, "It's no wonder that David could say, 'My heart trusted in Him, and I am helped' -- He was dwelling in the secret place, in the Fortress, of the Most High where He was safe from all harm! Psalm 18:1-3 states, "I will love thee, O LORD, my strength. The...

Yesterday marked two years since I’ve been blogging! My intention was to do a special post to the day, but since my family and I were recently on vacation, my body’s time clock has been way off – I’ve been exhausted; hence, I missed this very special post. But better late than never, right? So here is a very special post in honor of my two-year blogging anniversary! Enjoy, and be sure to celebrate this special occasion with me! ------------------------- On August 23rd, 2008, I launched this blog. I had been reading many great resources on the Bible’s reliability, and I found the material to be quite fascinating. I began to wonder, “How many people out there don’t know about the soundness of the Christian faith?” Sure, there are plenty of skeptics out there who are just waiting to pounce on the unintelligent; and that is just the point: the Bible makes it perfectly clear that we are to know what we believe and why. Thus, I initiated this blog. Five days later, I did my first offici...

The following a repost in honor of my two year blogging anniversary which begins this Monday, August 23rd! This was the first official post (after the introduction) that I did on August 28, 2008. It is rather long, but it is very informative. Check it out, and let me know what you think! ------------------- Hearsay or Reliable Testimony? Recently, I've come across some who insist that the students of the Disciples (i.e. Iraneus) cannot be trusted, because, according to them, it is defined as either "hearsay” or “from a ‘friend of a friend.’” Some even go so far as to say that the disciples themselves cannot be trusted! This made me do some research. Here is what I’ve come up with: Simon Greenleaf, author of the book The Testimony of the Evangelists (which I highly recommend) and Professor of Law in the mid-1800s, said that when there are no suspicious circumstances, all the witnesses are to be assumed credible, unless the objector can prove otherwise, the burden of proof...

I am posting this early Tuesday night for The Word For Wednesday, hosted by Jean , because I will be gone on another day trip tomorrow, and I don't think it's fair to keep my readers waiting so long to hear from me... so while I'm gone, I would appreciate your thoughts; please leave me some comments! :D ----------- A few months ago, I was on a message board typing up a response to a post, when I came across someone claiming the following: "I am not a Gentile, hence, I was never lost." His stance was "Possession precedes loss; Israel was the Lord's possession, we never were." First, let me say that, in my view, this is simply another way of claiming "once saved, always saved." I have encountered a few of these people in the past, but this case was different. I tried to explain to this person that if we were never lost, then there would be no need for Christ to come and make us a vessel of honor. Still, nothing could persuade him that he ...

Last week, I went on a vacation trip with my family. (And, yes, for those of you who were wondering, that is why I haven't been around in a while.) I will write more about that later (and I hope to include some pictures, too). For now, I will say that I have been practicing my photographer's "eye" lately, so when I spotted this, I just had to capture it on camera... Simply stunning, isn't it? I did not photoshop this or do anything to it; this is how it looked in the sky that night! Let's just say that I am more than pleased; it is my new favorite picture. Last week, I talked about how the heavens declare the glory of God , and this picture is no exception. Maybe that's why I like to capture pictures of the sky so much... This picture also reminds me of Genesis 1:3: "And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness." That was on the first day of creation....

"For there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one" ~1 John 5:7 A while back, I started a series on the Trinity entitled " Is Jesus God ?" Today, I'd like to continue on with this topic. Keep in mind that whereas the previous posts have been rather long , I'm going to take the rest of this series in small steps. For the newcomers to my blog, it may be necessary to read the previous posts on this topic before continuing. But before we begin, I would like to clarify a few things. First, I believe in the Trinity as three separate Persons; however, I also believe that They are One and the same, and you will see why as you read on. My purpose in this discussion is to prove the Trinity from Scripture. I am aware that this is a rather "heated" topic of debate among Christians; I have heard some claim that Jesus is not God, that He is merely the Messiah, and I am aware that other religions p...

Today, I'm joining my good friend Renee in her new Monday meme called Something Beautiful in which participants are to post about something that is beautiful to them. So here is mine for this week... A few days ago, I stepped outside for a brief moment and I happened to see a beautiful sight. I raced back inside and grabbed my camera to capture this gorgeous scene: When I look at such a picturesque scene, no one can tell me that this just "evolved" on its own over a long period of time. I think the Scripture is pretty clear about the matter: The heavens tell the glory of God -- He created this beauty! Here is the whole of the passage: 1 ¶ > The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork. 2 Day unto day utters speech, And night unto night reveals knowledge. 3 There is no speech nor language Where their voice is not heard. 4 Their line has gone out through all the earth, And their words to the end of the world. In them He has s...

The following is an excerpt from Rhema's The Word of Faith magazine. Mike Keyes is a 1980 graduate of Rhema and he has a ministry based in the Philippines. His testimony is amazing; I found how he got started in his ministry to be fascinating -- you can read it here . His ministry's Scripture is Mark 16:15-18: "Go into all the world and preach the Gospel..." Today, I'd like to share this portion of his story for Inspiring Story. ------------- For two-and-a-half years Mike worked for [another] ministry teaching in the Bible school, holding crusades, and traveling throughout the islands ministering to as many churches as possible. Preaching in churches, getting people saved and healed, and casting out demons was the easy part. The hard part, many times, was getting to the churches."We would wade rivers, hike up mountains, and sleep on the ground using the Bible as a pillow," he said. "Many times it would be pouring rivers of mud, and we'd be on ...

"I am the Light of the World..." ~ John 8:12 A commentary on this passage reads, "Christ is the Light of the world. God is light, and Christ is the image of the invisible God. One sun enlightens the whole world; so does one Christ, and there needs no more. What a dark dungeon would the world be without the sun! So would it be without Jesus, by whom light came into the world." I once saw a very interesting shirt. On the front it read, "Be the moon." On the back were these words, "Reflect the Son." If God is light and He is in us, then we possess that light! Let's shine that light brightly so that the whole world can see Jesus in us!

Hello everyone! Today, I'm going to be starting a new little snippet called "Inspi-Ration" -- your weekly ration of Inspiration! (And I wish I could take credit for this, but it was inspired by several friends.) I'm going to be posting just a simple Scripture along with my thoughts on it. This is not going to be a big study like I usually do; rather, I hope to encourage you with a daily quote or Scripture that I find to be inspiring, so that you can have something positive to think on for the week. I hope you all enjoy it! Let me know what you think! Here's today's Inspi-Ration... Do you ever feel like everywhere you turn something bad is always happening. Maybe you lost your job. Or maybe your faithful household appliance has just decided to give way. Or maybe it's something that is much more serious to you. Most of these things seem to happen when we aren't looking for them... and when we least want them to happen -- right when we don't need anyt...

This is an age-old question that demands an answer; so many people face tragic circumstances every day. "Why did this have to happen to them?" people ask. "So-and-so was a good person. They didn't deserve this!" Well, first, we must define what "good" means. Jesus defines "good" as follows: "And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? none is good, save one, that is, God. Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother. And he said, All these have I kept from my youth up. Now when Jesus heard these things, he said unto him, Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me." (Luke 18:19-22) To be good, Jesus taught, is to keep the commandments; in fact, He said that no one is good but God! But He didn't stop there; Jesus points to the rea...