Knot Tying 101

My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment. For we all stumble in many things. If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle the whole body. Indeed, we put bits in horses’ mouths that they may obey us, and we turn their whole body. Look also at ships: although they are so large and are driven by fierce winds, they are turned by a very small rudder wherever the pilot desires. Even so the tongue is a little member and boasts great things.

See how great a forest a little fire kindles! And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and creature of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by mankind. But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring send forth fresh water and bitter from the same opening? Can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Thus no spring yields both salt water and fresh.

-- James 3:1-12

Previously on a WCTL Blog…

In Matthew 15 Jesus says, “Do you not yet understand that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and is eliminated? But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man.” In other words, what is in the heart is what comes out of the mouth. If you want good things to come out of the mouth, you have to have good things in your heart. If your heart is lashed to the Lord then so will be your tongue and you will be unable to talk out of both sides of your mouth. Your tongue will not produce salt water, only fresh. Have you lashed your tongue to Christ?

We absolutely need to tie our tongues to Christ so that when we speak what comes out of our mouth will glorify God. So, how do we go about that? Well, if we want to tie something securely we need to learn knot tying. We can’t tie anything if we don’t know how to make any knots. The same can be said for our metaphorical knots, we need to learn how to tie a few or we won’t be able to securely lash our tongue to the Lord. With that in mind welcome to Knot Tying 101. Now, let’s take a look at how to make a handful of the knots we’ll need for our purpose.

Study – Paul tells Timothy that, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” Immersing ourselves in scripture is one method of lashing our Tongue.

Prayer – In his letter to the Philippians, Paul writes, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” In fact it’s not the only time he exhorts believers to pray. When we pray, properly, we grow closer to Christ and tie our hearts more closely to His.

Meditation – In the next couple verses of Philippians chapter 4 Paul says, “Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things. The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you. Meditation has become somehow tied to the eastern religions but meditating on the things of God is another good way of binding ourselves to the Lord.

Fellowship – Fellowship with each other and with God are important. Fellowship binds us to each other and to God. If we want to tie our hearts to Christ we need to be in fellowship. The most beautiful description of fellowship I’ve ever read is in Acts 2 where Luke, talking about the early church wrote, “And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers. Then fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need.

So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.”

We’ve briefly looked at a few knots for use in lashing our tongues to Christ, but there are many more. Service is another good one. I urge you to look for others and to go out into the world and give them heaven.

Look at this Wall

So, the government is shutdown because of a fight between Trump and the Democrats over a wall. The mainstream media and Fox News have taken their usual sides. Social Media is replete with memes from people supporting one side or another. Have you taken sides?

You have? Really, why? Didn’t you think, before choosing sides, that it might be a smokescreen. Politicians are sneaky. They’ve got everyone looking at the wall rather than at what the are doing. They don’t care about the wall and they certainly don't care about us. Most of them only care about themselves, money, power and or status. What are they doing behind our back to help themselves while we’re all looking at the wall?

I will admit that there are a few people claiming that Trump is trying to distract us from something with the wall, but they don’t seem to realize that both sides are dragging this out. What is each side doing that we aren’t seeing? How is whatever it is going to effect those of us who live paycheck to paycheck? I’ll tell you this for nothing, it probably won’t be good for us or they wouldn’t need the distraction!

So, when we finally wake up, look away from their fracas over the wall and realize what they were distracting us from and how much worse off we are just remember one thing. If everybody had voted for third party candidates in the last two elections we wouldn’t still be in this mess.

Proof

The former account I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, until the day in which He was taken up, after He through the Holy Spirit had given commandments to the apostles whom He had chosen, to whom He also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.

-- Acts 1:1-3

“I’ll believe, in God, when I see some proof that there actually is one.” Have you ever heard someone say that, or something similar? Much like Thomas, the doubting disciple, many people want to see proof. Unlike Thomas, however, we don’t usually get any.  In John 20:29 we are given comfort about our lack of proof, “Jesus said to him, “Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”” We are blessed who believe with little to no proof. But that isn’t something that will satisfy an unbeliever’s demand for proof. So, how do we answer them? I’m not sure we can, at least not without the Lord’s guidance, but let’s take a look.

I once was engaged in a debate on a Star Trek fan sight about religion in Star Trek which quickly devolved into a handful of us trying to “prove” that God and Jesus existed. I gave up when someone posted that he would die, turn to dust and would still be dust when the “real Zefram Cochrane makes First Contact.” What I learned from that conversation has steered me toward a different type of witnessing. But first, here’s my biggest take away from my Star Trek experience.

Never engage in an argument about historical evidence. In this case, the definition of argument would be “a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition.” However, what argument usually becomes is contradiction, which is “just the automatic gainsaying of anything the other person says.” It is never fruitful. You can bring up Josephus but his references to Jesus will be dismissed as interpolations by Christian scribes at a later date. You might mention Simon Greenleaf’s conclusion that the evidence for the existence of Christ would stand up in court and have it dismissed because lawyers can’t be trusted. You cannot win. It doesn’t matter if you bring up Pliny the Younger, Lucian or Tacitus they will be dismissed. I know. I’ve tried. People may say they want proof but they don’t. It reminds me of the Babel Fish from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

The Babel fish is small, yellow, leechlike, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave energy received not from its own carrier but from those around it. It absorbs all unconscious mental frequencies from this brainwave energy to nourish itself with. It then excretes into the mind of its carrier a telepathic matrix formed by combining the conscious thought frequencies with nerve signals picked up from the speech centers of the brain which has supplied them. The practical upshot of all this is that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language. The speech patterns you actually hear decode the brainwave matrix which has been fed into your mind by your Babel fish.

Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the NON-existence of God.

The argument goes like this:

`I refuse to prove that I exist,' says God, `for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.'

`But,' says Man, `The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED.'

`Oh dear,' says God, `I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly disappears in a puff of logic.

`Oh, that was easy,' says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.

-- The Hitchhiker's Guide of the Galaxy, Douglas Adams

You can’t argue someone to Christ. So, what do you do? The older I get the more I believe that the only way to witness to the world is to love people. Love and live. Love all and live for Christ. Be a reflection of Him so that others may see Him and believe. It sounds easy, but you’ll need the Lord’s guidance to do it.

Each person is different and therefore they each experience love differently; you’ll need to be constantly in prayer so that you may love each person effectively. That being said, the Golden Rule is a good starting point. “Treat others in the way you would like to be treated.” I believe that this is truly the best way to witness. Forget about finding or providing proof and just be the proof.

Free Book in Exchange for Honest Review

I am giving away free copies of my eBook Light in the Dark in the hope of generating honest reviews. You may enter for a chance to win one of fifteen copies at LibraryThing or you can use coupon code UA92C at Smashwords. Both the contest and the coupon end August 31, 2016.

You are welcome to review the book on your personal blog or at your favorite eBook seller or social networking site. Just remember to be honest; I am not looking to have my ego inflated.

Note: This is a Christian title, if you are someone who is offended by that you are probably not going to be able to write an honest review. However, you are more than welcome to try.

Coming Soon!!

Pharos Publishing is happy to announce that we will be publishing Richard L. Foland Jr.’s new e-book Light in the Dark on June 30th. You can now pre-order it practically everywhere.

The book is an eclectic collection of Blogs, Articles and Talk Transcripts on Christian themes. Topics range from keeping your faith in the middle of a divorce to honoring your parents, from witnessing like Jesus to giving your time to the Church and from taxes to the environment. Ever suffer from Naked Fear or wonder what to do about Teens and Church? Have you wondered why, if God has a plan for your life, it seems that terrible things happen? Within these pages you may find your answers or at least a signpost that will point you in the right direction.

Richard L. Foland Jr. is an Author, Lay Speaker and former Youth Leader. He has lived a mostly nomadic life in western Pennsylvania, southeastern Ohio and (briefly) western New York. Currently, he resides somewhere in the chimney of Pennsylvania with his wife and a constantly shifting array of children and stepchildren. He hates divorce, having been through one, and loathes large gatherings. The latter probably explains why he would prefer to sit alone at a keyboard rather than go to a party.

Review: Wizard Of Ends: Dark Creature

Just over a year ago I reviewed book one in the Wizard of Ends series

and I had planned to review book two shortly after. Of course that means that I'm finally getting around to doing it about a year late. This is in keeping with precedent for the series. Check out the previous review to see what I mean.

Dark Creature picks up from the cliffhanger at the end of Wizard of Ends. The Queen of Ends has been cursed into a creature of darkness. Only Rune Arcana might be able to remove the curse. Lashlor believes he can find Rune in the Mountains of Eclador. The only trouble is – Rune now despises him, and, in all of recorded history, no one has ever returned from these mountains. Fearing the Wizard of Ends will not be able to bring help, the king goes against Lashlor’s advice by enlisting the aid of other magic users.

This book is more of a traditional quest than the previous entry but that's not a bad thing. The plotting is excellent and the characters dance across the pages. Last year I said that the two books read as one and I still stand by that. They could easily be edited together with no sign that they were originally separate novellas. I love this book except for, once again, the cliffhanger ending. My problem last time was that I felt that the story wasn't over but this time it felt like the ending was tacked on after the credits, so to speak. The author could have just left it out and I would still be looking forward to book three.

The bottom line here is, if you've read the first book this one is a must. If you haven't, well in that case, you'd better grab them both and just consume them consecutively.

Vanessa Finaughty Bio:

Vanessa Finaughty is an author of many genres who now focuses on fantasy and science fiction. She’s published 15 books, of which 6 are fantasy. Vanessa grew up in Cape Town, South Africa, and still lives there with her husband of fifteen years, her baby daughter and plenty of furry, four-legged ‘children’. Vanessa has always been passionate about books, and knew from a young age that she wanted to write them one day. She loves animals, coffee and the smell of wet grass, and hates liars, sweltering weather and long queues. Her interests include reading, photography, the supernatural, mythology, aliens and outer space, ancient history, life’s mysteries and martial arts, of which she has five years’ experience.

It’s Not a Bloody Reboot!!!

Over the course of the last eleven years or so I have grown more and more disgusted with the way people, especially Entertainment Reporters, who are too lazy to actually use the correct word to describe something. Specifically the word reboot. So here is a primer on what things actually are.

If some one is making a new version of a movie or video game, etc. that has no sequels it is properly called a remake. It is NOT a bloody reboot! Footloose wasn’t a reboot!

If something is a continuation of a story it is either a sequel, a spin off or a revival. It is NOT a bloody reboot! Star Wars: The Force Awakens was not a reboot! Fuller House is not a reboot! Doctor Who is not a reboot! The X Files is not a reboot!

When you modify situations or characters in an effort to make your series or franchise more commercially successful it is a retool. It is NOT a bloody reboot! Galactica 1980 was not a reboot.

A reboot is when you take a SERIES or FRANCHISE and start over from the beginning. Effectively creating a new Universe from the same ideas but moving in an all new direction. Battlestar Galactica was a reboot. Ghostbusters appears to be a reboot.

Some of these should be fairly obvious but we live in a lazy world with lazy reporters. STOP BEING LAZY! Don’t call something a reboot unless it is one. The planned Mrs. Doubtfire remake will not be a reboot! The planned Highlander remake will be a reboot. Star Wars: Episode Eight will not be a reboot! It’s fairly straight forward. Now, stop overusing the word reboot!