Making Life Work

From Ronald L. Dart's Born to Win Notes  

    In my years of education, from the first grade in 1940, until I graduated from high school in 1952, I don’t remember hearing of a single school shooting.

    I went off to the Navy for four years, and then to college for six years, and I still don’t recall hearing of a single school shooting. Now, it has become like an epidemic. Has something changed?

    Were there just as many school shootings in years gone by and we just didn’t hear about them? Did the media just treat them as isolated tragedies? Are we hearing about these shootings now because of the gun control movement?

    I do remember a group of kids taking shelter under a tree in a thunderstorm. They were all killed when...

An Excerpt from The Thread: God's Appointments with History

By: Ronald L. Dart

    One of the great losses to the nominal Christian faith was the abandonment of the holydays of the Bible, their dismissal as merely “Jewish” institutions. And surely, one of the greatest of the Christian holydays is Pentecost, because it was on this day that the church was empowered to do its work. Some even call Pentecost the birthday of the church.

    But on that first Pentecost of the New Testament church, no one even thought of abandoning this festival. They were too high with the experience. Imagine yourself sitting in a room with 120 of the first disciples of Jesus. You have been...

From the Program Notes of Ronald L. Dart

    When you hear the word “Pentecost” do you automatically relate it to what happens among charismatic Christian groups today? Pentecost is actually older than the New Testament church. Considering the significance of what happened on this day, it’s astonishing that so many Christian churches know so little about this most important day, and so few even keep it or take note of it.

    Let’s consider one statement from the Book of Acts. “And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they [Jesus’s disciples] were all with one accord in one place” (Acts 2:1). But to do what? It is beyond dispute that they were there to observe the Feast of Pentecost. These were all Israelites. So, the disciples had observed...

By: Ronald L. Dart

    Any religious organization, be it a television ministry or a local church, depends on donations to survive. And so they all engage in some kind of fund raising effort to make ends meet. They use all kinds of things to raise money from direct mail to bake sales. It may seem a shame, (I don’t think this requirement of God “is a shame.”) in a way, but money is merely a tool that enables a church or ministry to do their necessary work.

    A few years ago, I had reason to research the fund raising methods of a wide range of ministries and what I found was appalling. Only a few ministries took a straightforward, honest approach by telling their readers and listeners what they wanted to do and that they needed their support to do it. The rest engaged in various gimmicks and tricks to meet their budgets. The television ministries were the worst because they have to raise the most money. A few were downright dishonest or unethical.

By: Ronald L. Dart

By: Ronald L. Dart

In the world you will have tribulation;
but be of good cheer,
I have overcome the world.

    I hope I don’t shock you too much when I say that the Bible is not a particularly comforting book. I know the hope it gives is comforting. I know the relationship with God it offers is comforting. But one night, I was paging through the Bible looking for some comfort and I wasn’t finding much. I wanted to read something to make me feel better, and I wasn’t finding it.

By: Ronald L. Dart

   For over a generation, now, schools, parents and social institutions have been fighting a battle with teen pregnancy. They have tried sex education, and that didn’t work. Pregnancies went up. They tried free condom distribution. Pregnancy went up again. They have tried secret abortions, but that only works after pregnancy. Now some are trying abstinence programs.

    But even if they could have abstinence programs in all the schools, they would only be able to affect the problem at the margins. Some kids are taking chastity vows, and even wearing chastity rings, which Jay Leno thought was really funny.

By: Ronald L. Dart

"Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from you own steadfastness."

By: Ronald L. Dart

    What do you think about an urban school district that, in the first three months of school, had 19 reports of weapons confiscated and 42 assaults by Kids. That’s awful, you say.

What a shame, you say. Yes it is. But that’s not the half of it: That was in kindergarten and first grade.

By: Ronald L. Dart

Was it Jesus’ intent to create a hierarchy of human government over the individual Christian? Does the Christian ministry sit in Moses’ seat for the church? This article explains what you always wanted to know about church government but were afraid to ask!

    Paul stood on the beach staring out to sea. This would be his last time in this place. It would have been good to have visited Ephesus once more, but it was not to be. It was just as well. He would not have been in Ephesus one hour before a coalition of Jews and silversmiths would have been plotting murder. There was no point in putting temptation in their way.

 
By: Ronald L. Dart

    Do you want to live forever? If there were something you could eat that would give you eternal life, would you want it? The search for a magic elixir, a fountain of youth, has preoccupied man ever since Adam was denied access to the tree of life. Legends of the ancient world told of a "Fountain of Youth." Ponce de Leon spent his life searching for it, but all he found was Florida.

    When you think about it, it is all the more strange that when Jesus finally told his disciples that there really was a "bread of life," many of them took that occasion to turn away from Him.

By: Ronald L. Dart

    In the past few months, I have become more and more persuaded of an old truth about human nature--that there is in the heart of every man a need to belong to something, someone or some place. The desire to belong leads us to join clubs, lodges, associations and even churches. What we belong to becomes a part of our identity. In a sense, we can belong to the company we work for ("I owe my soul to the company store"). The one who made man said that it is not good for man to be alone so he gave him a wife. A man belongs to his wife and she to him. They do not belong to anyone else. Most of us have a place we call home--a place where we belong--and we are restless when we’re away from it.

By: Ronald L. Dart

God so often disappoints us.

    No, let’s not kid ourselves, we place our hopes in God and those hopes are all to often disappointed. The fault, however, is not with God. The fault is with our expectations, and with what I call, "the God of our imagination." The only reason we could ever be disappointed with God is if He somehow doesn’t meet our expectations.

By: Ronald L. Dart

    There are no women in heaven," chuckled the preacher. "How do I know this? The Lord revealed it in Revelation 8:1 when He said there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour."

    It was all very amusing, and even the ladies enjoyed a little laugh at their own expense. After all, more than one of them had "talked someone’s ear off " sometime in the past 48 hours.

    Still, there was a little hurt in the laughter of some. To them it was just one more "put-down" for women. Only this time it came from an unexpected source, their pastor, from whom they felt they had a right to expect support, not humiliation.

By: Ronald L. Dart

    The story of the Bible begins and ends with a tree. In the Garden of Eden, the Tree of Life held a central place. After the expulsion of man from the garden, we don’t hear of the tree again until the last book of the Bible.¹ There, man is in a very different environment called, "The paradise of God."² Once again the Tree of Life is central. But now there is not one tree of life, but twelve. They are on both sides of the river of life and they bear twelve kinds of fruit. Moreover, the leaves of the tree are for the healing of all people.³ It is those who do God’s commandments who have a right to the Tree of Life, and the permission to enter the City of God.⁴

By: Ronald L. Dart

    Is there really an ever–burning hell where sinners are tormented with fire and brimstone throughout all eternity? Is it only for the very wicked? What about the “unsaved”? The Bible tells us there is only one name given in heaven and earth whereby we must be saved–the name of Jesus. What about all those who have never heard that name? Do they go immediately to the torments of a fiery hell at death? What about babies and little children? Surely they don’t go to hell? Churches have an astonishing variety of answers to these questions, but what does the Bible say? How can we really know the truth?

By: Ronald L. Dart

“Let none be faithless to the wife of his youth. For I hate divorce,
says the Lord the God of Israel.”

    Divorce is painful. If you have been through a divorce, you need no one to tell you that. Not only do the children get hurt, there are the grandparents, the family, the friends. And who can tell of the pain, of the anger that comes in the middle of the night to the two people who once loved each other above all others?

By: Ronald L. Dart

Did Jesus adjust God’s ancient laws of clean and unclean meats? The answer shouldn’t be hard to find. It should be right there in the four gospels.

    Everyone is concerned about health these days. Hundreds of books have been written on the subject, and yet people often neglect to consider what the best selling book of all time has to say about healthful eating habits.

By: Ronald L. Dart

 

"What our civilization continues to forget is that we have souls, and when souls are not fed, they distort and warp themselves. And souls today go largely unfed. Every day they must soak up the desolation of the contemporary landscape" – Edward Oakes.

By: Ronald L. Dart

    It was the last night of the revival. The congregation was softly singing: "Just as I am," and the preacher was standing in front of the pulpit with both arms raised in invitation. He knew there were people present who needed to make a decision for Christ. "Jesus Christ could come tonight," he urged. "Will you be ready for Him?"

By: Ronald L. Dart

”And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.” (Mark 9:24 ).

    Jennifer's husband was going into the hospital on Monday for open heart surgery. He was a little young to be having heart problems, but the surgeon said that his youth was in his favor. There were risks, of course, but they did this surgery several times a week at this hospital. They were good at it.

By: Ronald L. Dart

 

“There are two kinds of people in the world,” intoned the preacher, “the saved and the lost. There is no middle ground with God.”

    Now there is a sobering thought. If indeed there are only two kinds of people in the world, and if I am “people,” I must be either saved or lost. And if I’m not consciously aware of having been saved, then I must be lost. And if I’m lost...

By: Ronald L. Dart

    When we are young, we are a little unsure about funerals. We don't like to think about death and we are uncomfortable being around people who are grieving. We don't know how to feel, and we don't know what to say. As we grow older and mature a little, we come to realize that a funeral is a response to death and that grief is an exactly the right response. And we learn that we really don't have to say very much to a person who is bereaved. Just "I am so sorry," and "I love you." That, along with being there is usually quite enough.

By: Lenny Cacchio  

No doubt you are the people, and wisdom will die with you! (Job 12:22 NKJV)      Christians have a problem. We know. And we know that we know. And this knowing can get us into trouble. The Apostle Paul said that “knowledge puffs up” (I Cor. 8:1), and certainly those with lots of knowledge can become arrogant about it.     There was once a Pharisee who went into the temple to pray. Jesus tells us that this man gave a very special prayer of thanks. He said, “God, I thank you.” That’s a noble way to start a prayer. But notice what he thanked God for: “ … that I am not like other men.” (Luke 18:11).     Here was a man who on the outside appeared to be everything God expected him to be. He didn’t cheat people. He didn’t sleep...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    Lost!  It’s an ongoing saga on network television.  It’s also considered a theological term.  Paul used it to describe those who couldn’t understand the gospel message (II Corinthians 4:3).  Jesus used it to describe the people of Israel (Matthew 10:6, 15:24).  He talked about lost sheep (Luke 15:4-7), and the lost coin (15:8-10). 

    Nobody wants to be lost.  Once as a small boy I strayed from my parents in a five and dime store.  I wasn’t being rebellious.  I just wandered off without any thought, and when I looked up and Mom wasn’t there, my stomach knotted up as I frantically searched for the comfort of home.  I was lost, but I wasn’t evil.  

    That’s the way it is with an awful lot of lost sheep, and that’s...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    "Judge not, that ye be not judged" seems to be scripture of the age, even finding itself on the lips of a presidential candidate or two.  We need to be tolerant others, we’re lectured, otherwise we are bigots, and that’s something no caring society can tolerate.

    Judging has earned itself a bad name.

    I’m all for tolerance, and I’m all for refraining from condemning others.  The problem is in the devil’s trick of redefining terms.  Tolerance might imply respect, fairness, and objectivity, but it does not require agreement.  While I might be tolerant of those with different opinions and even lifestyles, I feel no moral need to agree when my investigation and analysis of the evidence informs that such positions...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    In a recent article about George Schultz National Review’s  Jay Nordingler describes a snippet of his interview with this former Secretary of State:

    "At Schultz’s side is an illuminated globe, and this prompts me to ask him about a test he would give to new U.S. Ambassadors.  ‘They’d been through all kinds of exams and so on – confirmation – and I’d say to them, "Well, there’s just one more test you have to pass. … You have to walk over to that globe and demonstrate to me that you can identify your country."  And, inevitably, they would point to the country to which they had been assigned’

    "The correct answer of, of course, was the United States – that was their country.  And Schultz’s moral was, ‘Never...

By: Lenny Cacchio

"It’s a different Greek word," my friend said.  "This is a different word for ‘ministry’ than the one most commonly used."

I looked it up, and he’s right.  The Greek word is leitourgeo, and it means something different than the more common diakonia, which implies service in general.   According to Thayer’s Greek Lexicon, leitourgeo is "a public office which a citizen undertakes to administer at his own expense."

It’s a noble thing to perform acts of service with no motive for financial gain.  The New Testament speaks of such sacrificial service, and more than that, Paul calls himself a bond slave for Christ (Philippians 1:1, Titus 1:1), admitting not only that he serves, but that he also feels bound as a slave to a life...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    The last time I checked, God’s scorecard doesn’t look too good.  Of the six billion people on the earth today, 4 billion of them adhere to a set of beliefs other than what is broadly termed Christianity (source: http://www.adherents.com/). Even if we assume for a moment that all those who claim the label of "Christian" really are Christians in deed as well as name, it means God isn’t doing very well in the battle for souls.

    Add to this the historical reality that the explosion in the world’s Christian population is a comparatively recent phenomenon (the past 500 years), and we must wonder why God seems impotent, if it so be that Christianity’s traditional truth claims are...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    It’s an odd experience to see ourselves as others see us.  When someone new walks into your church, what do they see?  Do they see you parading your neuroses?   Do they see a social club with good music and fellowship, but a lack of the preaching of the word?  Do they see a coffee klatch or a healthy, functioning church?

    The Apostle Paul addressed the Corinthian church with such a concern.  That church must have been a raucous place, for Paul warned them that people coming in off the street would see chaos, and perhaps rightly conclude that the church was out of its mind, but "if you prophesy, preaching God’s Word, [even though such preaching is mostly for believers] and an unsaved person or a new Christian comes in...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    When God first rained manna from heaven onto the children of Israel, he told them they had to eat it all in one day.  That is a curious thing to tell someone, akin to telling them not to plan ahead, and to be honest I find it a bit troublesome.

    Everything in my training and everything in my bones tells me to take charge of my own future.  My generation and those behind us know from the simple demographics of the matter that we will not get our shot at the passel of government safety nets that graced the generations before us.  We must save and invest for our own well-being.  Eat your manna today and let tomorrow take care of itself?  I don’t think so.

I can even find scriptural support my position.

“A...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    Odd as this will sound,  what I am about to tell you is true.  I once fell asleep during my own sermon!  It might be hard to believe (unless you have heard me speak), but this really happened.  Read on, lest you think I am spinning you.

    No one knew that I had fallen asleep at such a time until I told people about it, and then it seemed totally in character.  While speaking, I noticed that the audience was generally losing interest in my remarks, and several had eyelids that seemed unusually heavy.  Some time before our church had begun recording sermons, giving the speaker a copy for purposes of self-evaluation.  I listened to myself a few days later, and ten minutes into it I discovered that my sermon was a great...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    “Having a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry the message to other addicts and to practice these principles in all our affairs.”  -- Step 12 of the Twelve Step Program

    “Carry the message,” the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous said.  To those in the Twelve Step Programs it’s more than just a nice thought.   It can be the difference between life and death.  This twelfth step requires those who are recovering from the cauldron of substance abuse to form a network of support for others who suffer from the same problem.

    This is a unique concept, this idea of sinners helping sinners.  It’s a very biblical one, but one that many churches might find troublesome.  Sinners helping...

By: Lenny Cacchio  

    On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water." (John 7:37-38 NKJV)

    In this passage, Jesus is attending the annual Feast of Tabernacles celebration in Jerusalem, one of the annual religious festivals listed in the Book of Leviticus as a time to celebrate and worship before God. Scholars tell us that in Jesus’ day, part of the festival celebration was a water ceremony, where the priest would take water from the spring-fed pool of Siloam and would pour the water on the altar.   Clearly, Jesus was using this ceremony as a reference point...

By: Lenny Cacchio

"The Message" is a modern semi-translation, semi-paraphrase of the Bible. I neither endorse it nor condemn it because it is like most Bible versions - a sincere attempt by fallible human beings to present the words of scripture in understandable English.

One passage from "The Message" nails a concept in a way found lacking in most translations. "All praise to the God and Father of our Master, Jesus the Messiah! Father of all mercy! God of all healing counsel! He comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, He brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us." (II Corinthians 1:3-4, The Message)

The phrases...

By: Lenny Cacchio

Have you ever felt like this?

1.  “God, where have you gone?  Why aren’t you with me anymore?”

2.  “God, take this trial away from me!”

3.  “I am so distraught that I just want to go to sleep and never wake up.”

    If you have ever had those thoughts, congratulations!  You have experienced the same thoughts and emotions as your Savior.  Listen to his words.  “My God, my God!  Why have you forsaken me?”  (Matthew 27:26)  “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.”  (Matthew 26:39)  “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.” (Matthew 26:38)

    The Apostle Paul was right when he said that “no temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man” (1 Corinthians...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    I used to believe that following the Bible would lead to investment success. In spite of the fact that I failed miserably, I still believe the Bible holds the key to financial success. The problem is not the Bible, but in the particular prophetic scenario that I used to inform my investment decisions.

    I was absolutely sure that Western Europe would be the economic powerhouse of the future. The United States would degenerate into insignificance, beset with economic cirrhosis and social unrest. In line with conventional ecological theories of the day, China and India would suffer atrocious food shortages leading to mass starvation of millions. This would be caused partially by a new ice age that we would bring on ourselves...

By: Lenny Cacchio  

    “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.” (Matt 10:28-31 NIV)     Comforting words, those. If God is aware of sparrows falling from the sky, how much more does he know of our travails! Yet missed in this talk of God’s omniscience is a startling fact: sparrows do fall from heaven, and God does nothing to stop it. Many sparrows have fallen in his sight, and not just sparrows. People fall too. It must grieve a loving God’s heart to have seen the sufferings of the ages. Pestilence and storms. Warfare and tyranny. The suffering of martyrs....