Does Any of This Make Any Sense? March 20, 2023
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.add a comment
Looking at the world around us it’s easy to find ourselves asking this question. When we see the suffering, the depression, the poverty, and the horror of everyday life for so many it’s hard not to see the nightmare reality of this world as a curse.
That’s a good place to start searching for the meaning in it all because it is a curse.
You see when God created the world He created it as a good thing, a wondrous, and beautiful thing. Here’s the rub; actions have consequences.
I’ve always thought if I ever found a perfect church, I’d spoil it by joining because I’m not perfect. Most of us mature enough in life to realize we aren’t quite what we could or should be. Some people never attain this level of self-awareness and we judge them to suffer from a type of psychological problem known as narcissism. A central aspect of narcissism is grandiosity. That is, narcissists tend to think highly of themselves. In particular, they tend to have a positive view of themselves compared to other people.
Most of us don’t suffer from this malady. It is more often some form of feeling we aren’t good enough that plagues us. Those who stumble out of a dysfunctional family are all too often familiar with this one.
Whatever brand of psychobabble seeps through our lives working itself out in hubris and braggadocio or anxiety and self-doubt it doesn’t take a genius to figure out this world is messed up. Neither is it too complicated for the least perceptive among us to discern. All too often what the world calls good is bad and what the world calls bad is good. This alone is enough to make us see the fractured carnival mirror reflection of justice that permeates our reality. Add to this our personal experiences and anyone who thinks we’ve found ourselves in a bed of roses may be fooling themselves, but they aren’t fooling anyone else.
Anyone who can walk through this vale of tears with no faith is a better man then I Gunga Din.
I wasn’t able to do it. I made it till I was thirty years old and the meaninglessness of it all was on the verge of driving me to suicide. I kept coming back to if that’s all there is, my friends then let’s keep dancing let’s break out the booze and have a ball if that’s all there is. However, I found living at the perpetual party at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe was not very uplifting and after a while I couldn’t even pretend it was fun. How anyone can stagger through all this with no hope of anything beyond this is beyond me.
I can only pray that if they ever come to the end of themselves they will look to God. That’s what I did and I was surprised to find that God was looking at me.
‘Why is the world so messed up? Because God made man His viceroy in this creation and instead of listening to God and doing things His way we listened to Satan and gave the whole shooting match away. The story is there for us in Genesis and because of that decision God laid a curse on the whole deal.
But He also gave us a promise at the same time that He would send a Savior. Jesus is that Savior. The penalty for disobeying God is eternal separation from God. The only way back is to live a perfect life which no one can do. God became a human, lived a perfect life, and then died for the sins He never committed as a substitute for us.
In doing this He defeated sin, death, and the Devil. He also opened the way for all of us to get in on the action. All we have to do is accept Jesus as our leader in life and believe that God raised Him from the dead and that’s it. The whole deal is reversed, and we are welcomed home. Let’s run like the prodigal to greet the Father who has waited for us, who greets us like the like lost child we are.
Does any of this make any sense? It does. As a matter of fact, it makes perfect sense.
You see no matter how messed up it is if we will accept God’s offer, if we will step past the end of ourselves and into His waiting arms the veil will fall from our eyes, and we will see this world for what it is: an incubator for the children of God.
It’s not a matter of seeing and then believing instead it’s a case of believing so you can see.
The Bible lays all this out in great detail. Anyone who’s interested can contact me for a guided tour.
This is an excerpt from the book Hope by Dr. Robert Owens. This and all his books are available from Amazon in paperback or kindle at Amazon.
An excerpt from New Old Sayings by Dr. Robert Owens March 19, 2023
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.add a comment
The secret of a successful life is to find out what God wants us to do, and then do it.
An excerpt from New Old Sayings by Dr. Robert Owens March 17, 2023
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.add a comment
When we can’t change the direction of the wind let’s adjust our sails.
Can Anyone Say Amen? March 16, 2023
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.add a comment
Staring at the carnival mirrors of this life we squint through a swirling mist at the constantly shifting mirage of a fallen world. Things are not as they seem. Good is so often trampled underfoot while evil triumphs. Sacrifice devours the innocent as the guilty ride roughshod over justice. Crowds of people walking in the ways of the flesh stumble through a maze feeling all alone. Social Darwinism runs amuck. Survival of the fittest is the order of the day as the weak, the poor, and the defenseless are shoved out of the way for the next conqueror as they elbow their way to the fleeting throne that will eventually become their funeral pyre. Allowing our flesh to rule and guide us is walking with our eyes closed in the dark and following the lie that we can be like God creating our own realities through our selfish choices.
There is a better way. Walking with God is walking in the light reaching out for His revelation in His Word which is truth.
As we mature by meditating on the Word of God the things of this world grow strangely dim. Suddenly a light shines through the darkness and the spiritual world which is invisible to the natural man comes into focus. Paul put it best in his first letter to the Corinthians, “The unspiritual self, just as it is by nature, can’t receive the gifts of God’s Spirit. There’s no capacity for them. They seem like so much silliness. Spirit can be known only by spirit—God’s Spirit and our spirits in open communion. Spiritually alive, we have access to everything God’s Spirit is doing, and can’t be judged by unspiritual critics. Isaiah’s question, ‘Is there anyone around who knows God’s Spirit, anyone who knows what he is doing?’ has been answered: Christ knows, and we have Christ’s Spirit.”
Look at it this way if tomorrow morning when we opened our eyes we saw Jesus standing right there beside our bed physically manifested before us do you think we might have a different kind of morning than normal? Now imagine if He were to walk next to us all day. Everywhere we went He went. Do you think an experience like that might change the way we saw things?
The Lord is with us every day wherever we are and wherever we go because He prayed that the Father would send us the Spirit of Truth, the Holy Spirit, the very Spirit of God. And we know the Father always hears and answers the prayers of His Son Jesus. Here’s what Jesus said about this, “I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.” He lives within in us. This is the fact of a born-again life. But do we really live this way? Or do we let the mundane sameness of this life gradually gloss over the sparkling joy of our first love? If we will open our spiritual eyes we’ll see through the filthy fog of this world and see Jesus in all the power of His resurrection with us every step of the way.
I’m not saying this will instantly convert a vale of tears into a bed of roses. Jesus told us we shouldn’t expect any better treatment than He received at the hands of man, and they crucified Him. Look at Stephen the first martyr. He preached the good news that man can be reconciled with God by confessing Jesus as the Lord and leader of our life and by believing that God raised Him from the dead. This upset the applecart for all the religious leaders who made their living and maintained their power by confining people within the straitjacket of religion filled with rituals and symbols but lacking in a personal relationship with God.
These wolves in sheep’s clothing couldn’t meet Stephen in open debate. They couldn’t contend with the power of God that was so obvious in his preaching. Instead, they manufactured lies and spread false rumors. They stirred up a crowd and then aimed the violence of the mob directly at this man of God. But even while they stoned him, he had his eyes on Jesus and while the last breaths were crushed from his tortured lungs he cried, “Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!”
We too can live our lives walking, breathing, and speaking in the presence of the Son of Man, Jesus who is the Christ and there’s nothing the world can do about it. No one can snatch us out of God’s hand. To paraphrase one old song Jesus gave it to us and the world can’t take it away. Abandon the snipe hunt of seeking peace or fulfillment through walking in the flesh and embrace the reality of walking in the Spirit. Heed the words of the Master, “Come to Me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
Here’s a prayer I’d like to share, “Father let me see with Your eyes, hear with Your ears, speak with Your words, love with Your heart, and touch with Your hands. Reach through me to those in need. Let the fire of Your love burn so bright in me that when others look in my direction You are all they see.”
Can anyone say, “Amen?”
This is an excerpt from the book Hope by Dr. Robert Owens. This and all his books are available from Amazon in paperback or kindle at Amazon.
An excerpt from New Old Sayings by Dr. Robert Owens March 15, 2023
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.add a comment
Let’s encourage and support our kids because children are apt to live up or down to what we believe of them.
An excerpt from New Old Sayings by Dr. Robert Owens March 14, 2023
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.add a comment
Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they never fail to imitate them.
An excerpt from New Old Sayings by Dr. Robert Owens March 13, 2023
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.add a comment
Good health is a crown worn by the healthy that only the ill can see.
An excerpt from New Old Sayings by Dr. Robert Owens March 12, 2023
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.add a comment
Few know how much we must know in order to know how little we know.
An excerpt from New Old Sayings by Dr. Robert Owens March 11, 2023
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.add a comment
When we stand before God at the end of our life, let us hope that we would not have a single bit of talent left, and can say, “I used everything you gave me.”
An excerpt from New Old Sayings by Dr. Robert Owens March 10, 2023
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.add a comment
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
Dr. Robert Owens Chronicles the History of the Future 