Making Life Work

From Ronald L. Dart's Born to Win notes.

    This message is crucial for Christians and non-Christians alike. For too long, for generations in fact, Christians have cloaked their faith in church speak, jargon that too often, even they don’t understand. In a sense, it is inevitable, because most church or religious radio and television programs are taped in church. That is to say that the speaker is talking to an audience of insiders who know the vocabulary, or at least think they do.

    On the other hand, when questioned carefully about their beliefs, too many Christians have to admit they don’t really understand what their church teaches.

    This is one difference between the Born to Win program and some others. I am not speaking...

 

By: Ronald L. Dart

The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law (Deuteronomy 29:29). 

    There are things about God that we are never going to understand for the simplest of reasons. They have not been revealed, and theorizing isn’t going to help very much. It is revelation that we need if we are going to understand.

    One of the things that has been revealed, in part, is the work and character of the Spirit of God, and yet even that is not well understood. A troubling set of questions surround the Holy Spirit, and they suggest that we may have taken a wrong turn somewhere and we need to retrace our steps.

By: Ronald L. Dart

    When God gave Abraham his great victory over the King of Elam, he was met on his return by an enigmatic figure, a priest, by the name of Melchizedek. What is of special interest about this encounter is that Abraham gave Melchizedek tithes (a tenth) of all the spoil he had taken from the opposing armies–much of it the property of the Kings of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 14:20). Why did Abraham do that?

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

    If Jesus told you not to think something, would you believe Him? Or would you continue to suppose that something were true when Jesus told you plainly it was not? For example, if Jesus said, "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets," would you assume that Jesus came to do away with the law?

    Surprisingly, many Christians think that Jesus came to destroy the law when He said specifically that He did not. He said: "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill" (Matthew 5:17).

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

    He is twenty years old, but he looks more like sixteen. In blue jeans and sweater, his hair neatly cut, he looks like he should have books under his arm and be headed for class. The district attorney says he is a cold-blooded killer. It seems he held up a convenience store late one night. The clerk offered no resistance and gave him all the money in the cash register. But as he scooped up the money and stuffed it into his pockets, this “student” calmly raised his pistol and shot the clerk squarely between the eyes just to leave no witnesses. Now the district attorney wants you, the jury, to find him guilty and sentence him to death.

By: Ronald L. Dart

    The Christian faith must seem downright confusing to an onlooker. Even the largest, seemingly the most monolithic Christian denominations are, in reality, composed of many factions. Unless you are an insider, you can remain unaware of the deep divisions that exist among Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans and even Catholics.

By: Ronald L. Dart

    Just what does it mean to "keep the Sabbath?" What should a person do on that day? Or, as some would prefer to ask, what should a person NOT do? Can you work at your normal job? What about emergencies? Can you buy groceries on the Sabbath? What if you have unexpected guests? The Sabbath is indeed a holy day, and to worship God properly requires a right view of His day.

By: Ronald L. Dart

 

 

"And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years" (Genesis 1:14-19).

    Nothing God gave to man has been used so consistently for the purpose He intended. Every civilization of man has used the sun, the moon, or both for the demarcation of time. They had no choice. Even a hunting society had to take notice of the passage of seasons. When would the animals migrate to the north and when would they return? How soon would the antlered animals make their move down from the high country? No people dependent upon the land could fail to notice that there was a time to plant and a time to harvest. Their problem was the prediction of that time, and that required the observation of the sun. It required a calendar, and some form of calendar has always been a mark of civilization.

By: Ronald L. Dart 

    In the aftermath of the World Trade Center bombing, there was one question raised that no one really stopped to answer. Is it wrong for the United States to seek vengeance for the murder of the 5000 innocent people who died on September 11? Should we, as a country, turn the other cheek? There were those who thought the criminals who did this act should be brought to justice, but that it was wrong to merely seek revenge on Osama Bin Laden and the Al Qaeda organization.

By: Lenny Cacchio

    Imagine the angst you would feel if you were caught in a desert place with your children in tow, but no water and no visible means of attaining any.  Imagine if you were there at the behest of a man who had promised you entry into a land of plenty, yet without water whatever dreams you had and whatever credibility he had would both evaporate like the dry well before you.

    I would bet you would have something to say to the man who led you there.  And indeed the people of Israel did just that.  “Why did you bring the Lord’s community into this desert, that we and our livestock should die here?  Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to this terrible place? It has no grain or figs, grapevines or pomegranates. And there is...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    "We remember the fish which we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic, but now our appetite is gone. There is nothing at all to look at except this manna." (Num 11:5-6 NAS)     Somehow the months in the wilderness had dulled their memories. Gone was the Israelite’s recollections of the beatings, the torture, the backbreaking labor, the slavery, and the death. As they wandered in the wilderness with only manna to eat, their vision of Egypt became one of three square meals a day, the security of a place to put up one’s feet at night, and the certainty that tomorrow would bring more of the same.     But now they were free men and women, and the responsibilities of...