August 10, 2021
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: Dr. Robert Owens, Jesus saves, life in Christ, redemption, Salvation
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We Can’t Do It On Our Own
There is something about us that makes us want to make everything about us. If there is any way to make it appear to anyone, everyone, or even just ourselves we will move any mountain, swim any sea, or rationalize any action to see ourselves as the center of the universe. And salvation falls into this same pattern.
For this reason, every religion man has ever devised has been built upon works. We must earn our way to heaven. That way we can take the credit.
I taught Comparative Religion for several colleges. During the semester as we covered the major and many minor religions of the world I would right on the board a section on each one. In these sections I wrote what it takes to receive salvation or make it to heaven in these different religions. At the end I asked the students to review all the sections and see if they could spot one striking similarity and one striking difference.
Inevitably at least one, often several, would discern that every religion except one required people to earn their salvation. And only one, Christianity, said salvation comes through faith alone.
Several times after this exercise students sought me out after class and accepted the Lord as their personal Savior. One time a woman brought in her whole family, and they all confessed Christ as Lord and professed their belief that God had raised Him from the dead.
We know there is a profound and life altering difference between a mental assent that Christ is Lord and a knowledge that God raised Him from the dead and a living faith in these two realities. The very faith we use to accept and profess is a gift from God. However, God gave us our intellect. He doesn’t mean for us to check our mind at the door when we enter His presence.
Learning the truth is a fundamental step towards accepting the truth.
The heart of the matter is a matter of the heart. Humanity does not need another teacher, a leader, or a new way of looking at life. The problem is that since the fall of Adam man has been spiritually dead. We are separated by an uncrossable gulf from God and each other. What we need is spiritual re-birth and reunification of fractured humanity.
Once we are re-created in Christ our feet are on the highway of holiness leading to life in, through, and with our Savior, but we aren’t merely passive passengers along for the ride. Because once we’re saved, we have work to do.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, Global Studies, and Religion. He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2021 Contact Dr. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Parler, Facebook, Twitter, Gab, or MeWe @ Drrobertowens, or visit Dr. Owens’ Amazon Page / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens
Don’t Just Live Be Alive August 3, 2021
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: Dr. Robert Owens, Jesus saves, life in Christ, redemption, Salvation
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All of humanity have physical life while we spend our moment upon the stage of the world. Most have a soulish, or mental life whether we exercise it or not. But only those who have been born-again and united with Christ have spiritual life.
Try to imagine a human being who has no wisdom or understanding, no mental activity beyond what it takes to move, eat, and exist. This person might be in great shape, but their true humanity would be gone, and they would exist more as an animal than as a human.
This is how it is when we have not been born from above or re-born of the spirit. We may be in great shape, we may even be famous, or rich, handsome, beautiful, and acclaimed by all but we wouldn’t be a child of God. We would be dead in our spirit and separated from all that truly makes life worth living: union with our Creator.
Like casting pearls before swine trying to explain spiritual things to anyone who hasn’t been joined to the Body of Christ and received the Holy Spirit is like trying to hold the opposite ends of a magnet together, they repulse each other by their very nature.
Think for a moment of any funeral you’ve ever attended. There was grief present. There may have been tears. There might even have been stunned silence as the mourners contemplated the suddenness of death and the transitory nature of lie. One thing that is never there though is the one in the coffin taking any notice of any of this.
And that’s just how it is with the spiritually dead. The life of God’s Spirit is going on all around them. His Spirit is upholding and maintaining the integrity of all creation. His Spirit is alive and working in all the born-again Christians walking around them all day every day.
There is no more recognition of the passage, the work, or the presence of God’s Holy Spirit among the lost than there is recognition of all the life going on around a corpse in a casket. The spiritually dead read the Bible as it was just another book. They think of God as if He were a moral principle, the force, or a myth. They think of being born-again as something other people do, something that makes no sense, or else they don’t think about it all.
A person who is blind isn’t startled when you turn on a light. A person who is deaf doesn’t jump when you yell at them. It’s the same with those who are spiritually dead and living comfortably in sin, they couldn’t care less that God is holy and that He will not abide sin. They are neither frightened of the consequences of their sin nor are they enthralled with the rewards of salvation. They are blind. They are deaf. They are dead. When we speak of the deep things of God to these walking dead, we might as well be speaking to a brick wall. We are casting our pearls before swine. There is only one message we should seek to share with the lost: repent of your sins, accept Jesus as your Savior, and find life.
The whole meaning of the Gospel, the good news delivered to humanity through Jesus Christ, is seen in His resurrection.
Sin, death, and the devil are defeated when Jesus triumphed over them in the pit of hell disarming principalities and powers making a public spectacle of them as He led captivity captive. We must never forget that He was perfectly sinless and that He was delivered to the executioner for our transgressions and then He was raised for our justification.
Jesus didn’t come to die and then rise again to raise our awareness or further our education. He didn’t live a sinless life and then suffer for the sinful merely to provide us with a moral guide. God didn’t sacrifice His only Son to establish a cultural tradition. No, the passion of the Christ happened so that humanity may learn the truth about God’s love for us and His provision of a way to return to Him and become His children. This is the truth, and the truth has been revealed so that we may be free.
When someone has been missing for a certain length of time the authorities begin looking for them. If when they find them, they’re dead, after notifying their nearest family what else is there left to do except burry them. Because once we’re dead, we begin to decay rather quickly.
Preaching the Word without the anointing of the Holy Spirit is no more than searching for dead bodies. For without the Spirit there is no life. An old story says that once a man had a heart attack and died in a spiritually vacant church and it took the EMTs half an hour to figure out which one was the physically dead among all the spiritually dead.
Having scoured the highways and the byways for those willing to give up an hour on Sunday morning and pay their tithes these blind leaders of the blind can do no more with the breathing corpses than burry them in an upholstered pew. They preach a socially relevant something being careful to end the service in time to make it to the local buffet before all the other stained-glass graveyards get out.
It’s amazing but true, many who have never experienced the new birth will dispute with those of us who have what it is, how it operates, and what it does within us. Leave the laws, traditions, and ceremonies of the world behind and find the freedom that God wants you to have in Christ Jesus and don’t just live, be alive.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, Global Studies, and Religion. He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2021 Contact Dr. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Parler, Facebook, Twitter, Gab, or MeWe @ Drrobertowens, or visit Dr. Owens’ Amazon Page / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens
He is the Head We Are the Body October 13, 2020
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: Born-again, Christ the head, Dr. Robert Owens, redemption, Salvation
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As the body of Christ, we are His hands, His feet, and we should strive to speak His words, see with His eyes, and love with His heart. We’ve been washed in His blood and we are the redeemed.
And this is not merely a spiritual renewal though that is the foundation of all that flows from it. We are renewed when we reckon ourselves dead to this world and alive to God. When we put off the old man born in sin in the line of Adam and are re-born in the likeness of our Savior, Jesus Christ, the second Adam.
This action: cleansing the sinner of all guilt and making us able to stand in the throne room in the very presence of God with no shame or feelings of inadequacy may seem extravagant. Paul tells us that we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, and that all this is not some hap-hazard addendum. No, it flows directly from all God’s wisdom and prudence.
This action on God’s part not only impacts the spiritual renewal of the believer. It also leads to a physical and mental renewal which the believer experiences here-and-now. This is the redemption of our bodies.
And just as Christ is redeemed now so is the believer who is in Christ Jesus. Our bodies will someday be glorified fully in the presence of God, but in the here and now we taste the first fruit of our redemption in the total renewing of our lives. For as members of the body of Christ, as children of God, as joint heirs together with Jesus we are born of one baptism and filled with one Spirit. We are the body and Christ is the head.
However, since we are born of the flesh as descendants of the first Adam. Conceived, born, living in sin, and the members of a lost and degraded race, we must be redeemed and sanctified before we can enter the kingdom of God. Remember we were chosen in Christ Jesus before the foundation of the world. Once we have accepted Christ as our Savior and believe in our hearts that God has raised Him from the dead this inheritance is our possession
However, we must possess our possessions for them to do us any good. If we don’t accept the love of God in and through Christ Jesus, they are just so many gifts lying about unaccepted.
The Life is in the blood. And it is the shedding of His blood that is the first action in the unfolding of our redemption. This is the Good News and it’s the best news ever. Christ poured out His blood so that we might be freed from our burden of sin. There is no longer an unbridgeable gulf between God and humanity. The sin life, the sin nature that the first Adam assumed when he disobeyed God and then passed on to all his offspring has been washed away in the blood of Calvary.
Lord, let us see with your eyes, hear with your ears, love with your heart, and touch with your hands. As we strive to be about Your business send us somewhere to be a blessing to someone somehow.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, Global Studies, and Religion. He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2020 Contact Dr. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens or visit Dr. Owens Amazon Page / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens
We Are Accepted September 28, 2020
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: Born-again, Dr. Robert Owens, Jesus saves, redemption, Salvation
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Everyone from the greatest sinner to the greatest saint needs the grace of God. Everyone who wanders through the vail of tears that is this fallen world is tested, tried, and assaulted by our adversary, the prince of the power of the air, who goes about like a roaring lion seeking who he may devour. Our fallen body and soul are open to him and his minions. And if that isn’t bad enough our own sinful desires lure us into trap after trap.
Surrounded and attacked by all this it seems natural that we would cry out with Paul, “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”
There is an answer to this cry. We don’t stand alone before the heavenly court of justice. If we did not even one of us would deserve anything except eternal damnation and separation from God. Instead of standing alone in the withering judgement fire “we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” and the fire of His presence becomes for us the life-giving warmth of His love.
We need to praise the glory of God’s grace, His unmerited favor because, “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” We may have been the worst of sinners. We may have cursed God and persecuted His people but once we turn from the darkness to the light, once we embrace Him and are born again all that changes. We change and the world around us changes.
Peter sums it up well when he says, “But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy.”
The author of Hebrews goes into even greater detail showing how the eternal sacrifice of Christ is superior to the shadow sacrifices of the Old Covenant.
“Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? 1And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.”
This is the description of our present state. We are accepted. We have entered our inheritance. Today we “see in a mirror, dimly,” but once this perishable has been swallowed and replaced by imperishable, we shall see “face to face.” For “Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.”
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, Global Studies, and Religion. He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2020 Contact Dr. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens or visit Dr. Owens Amazon Page / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens
How Do I Get To Heaven? August 20, 2020
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Religion, Uncategorized.Tags: born again, Dr. Robert Owens, heaven, hell, redemption, Salvation, sin
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Many people believe they can find their own way to heaven. They think they can figure it out on their own. That’s sort of like trying to lift yourself up by your own bootstraps. I’ve often offered a one-hundred-dollar bill to anyone who can do that. I still have that hundred-dollar bill.
Some people think they’ll get to heaven by being a good enough person. Some may even fool others into thinking they’ve accomplished it. But in our heart-of-hearts we all know who we are and where we’re lacking in this department.
Some think they’ll have the “Christ” experience and transcend from the normal to the paranormal. I once attended a church that started preaching this as doctrine. Instead of rising into the heavenlies they descended into blatant sin and error calling that which was bad good and good bad.
Some think that belonging to the “Right” church, following the “Right” rules and the “Right” regulations will do the trick. Others follow philosophy, psychology, or sociology, biology or some other “ology.” Still others think that education will enlighten them to the point of revelation or evolution will grow them into the presence of God. We can’t think our way to God. He’s bigger than our mind can conceive or our intelligence can comprehend.
Then again, some don’t even believe in God. Some think they can accept or reject Christ, ignore God and still end up with God when they die. An old saying goes, “You don’t prepare for heaven by raising hell here on earth.” Some think someone else is going to pray them into heaven. And then there are those who think there are many paths to heaven. Another old saying goes, “I know there is no Heaven and I pray there is no Hell.”
Some treat Jesus as just one of many avatars along with Buddha and Muhammed. But when they do this, they call Jesus a liar and how could a liar be a reliable spiritual guide. Because Jesus doesn’t mince words, He claims to be the only way to heaven, “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’”
To understand this and to appropriate its power into our lives we need to take a leap of faith. We need to confess with our lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in our hearts that God has raised Him from the dead. For as the passage continues, “For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” Those who reject the claims of Jesus say, “Show it to me and I’ll believe.” However, the way it works is: believe and you will see.
These scoffers might want to check the company they keep. When Christ hung on the cross paying the penalty for sin the Chief Priests, the Scribes, and the Pharisees laughed at him saying, “Let the Christ, the King of Israel, descend now from the cross, that we may see and believe.”
Before we can stand on solid enough ground to take such a great leap of faith we need to arrive at certain realizations.
First, we must realize that God is a person. By this I mean He is a personal God not just a “Force.” Some believe that the mere idea of personhood when applied to God implies some sort of limitation and therefore should never be applied to what is supposed to be an omnipotent and omnipresent reality.
I think this belief arises because these people unknowingly agree with a statement by the ancient Greek philosopher Protagoras, “Man is the measure of all things.” This is usually interpreted to mean that the individual human being, rather than a god or an unchanging moral law, is the ultimate source of value. This belief is taught and ingrained throughout our modern Godless education system to the point that when most people graduate from secondary school this forms part of their subconscious foundation of so-called “Common Sense.”
Based on this erroneous belief people assume since our personalities are limited therefore, personality in and of itself is limited. This, however, is wrong. We are a flawed example. God is the only perfect personality, and though He is endless in all ways we are but a pale reflection.
This realization of God’s personhood is vitally important. Without this knowledge it’s impossible to be convinced of His utter supremacy. If God is not a person how can we sin against Him? And if instead of sinning against a person we are merely violating the rules of some system, that sounds like something we should be able to appeal. If there’s no sin and we’re either working with the “Force” or against the” Force” we might ask, “Is there only one Force or are there multiple “Forces” out there?” And if there are multiple “Forces” can we chose to be ruled by one that supports our lifestyle choices, so we don’t work against it?
This type of thinking easily becomes circular and leads to philosophical tail chasing.
When we acknowledge that God is a person we’re almost assuredly convicted of our sins. We instinctively realize that there’s no way for us to measure up to the holiness of God. We understand intuitively that there is a barrier created by our abject unworthiness and God’s all Holy presence. Anyone who recognizes the vastness of the gulf between our sinfulness and God’s sinlessness sees that we need to be forgiven if we stand any chance of ever entering His divine presence.
Conversely, if we deny God’s personhood it’s easy to fall prey to the spirit-of-the-age and its apparently easy going, “I’m Okay You’re Okay” attitude. Everything is beautiful. Who needs forgiveness if there is no personal God and there is no sin?
The true message of Christian evangelism is to the sinner: the one who is conscious of God. If there is no acknowledgement of God as a person as an individual separate reality the word of God will fall like seeds on the street that birds quickly snatch up and take away.
As a former atheist I can personally attest to the fact that unless and until we come to an acknowledgement of God as a personal reality there’s no way that we can be open to the Gospel. To the sinner who faces his total inability to approach a Holy God the first and foremost message of the cross is, “You’re forgiven through His sacrifice and grace.”
And that’s how we get to Heaven.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, Global Studies, and Religion. He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2020 Contact Dr. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens or visit Dr. Owens Amazon Page / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens
All We Need To Know May 14, 2019
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Religion, Uncategorized.Tags: Adam’s sin, Dr. Robert Owens, Jesus saves, propitiation, redemption, Salvation, the Gospel
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The Bible tells us Adam sold us down the river of sin. His first sin, disobedience was followed by death; spiritual death or separation from God and then physical death. The Bible also tells us no one gets a free pass. Every one of us descended from Adam is born in sin and subject to death. Because that first sin of Adam’s broke humanity’s relationship with God in every way.
However, the far reaching extent of this wasn’t apparent till God made it crystal clear to Moses. Here’s what we learned from God’s detailed and explicit law: Sin is a yawning chasm separating us from God that leads to death. We also learned that even those who don’t sin in the same way Adam did, by disobeying a specific command of God, sin in one way or another. Consequently we all experience both the spiritual and the physical end of life which is separation from God not just as an inheritance but as something each of us earns on our own.
But God didn’t leave us hopeless. When God cursed the serpent for tempting Eve to sin which is what dragged Adam into choosing fellowship with his wife over fellowship with his Creator He also made a promise that from woman would come a Savior. From the moment of the fall comes the hope of resurrection pointing ahead to the One chosen before the foundation of the world to get us off this one way conveyor belt to hell.
To maintain God’s absolute justice sin had to be paid for. The penalty of separation and death had to be fulfilled. All humanity could ever do was continue the cycle over and over since everyone sinned and added to the burden of the verdict. Then Jesus Christ, God Himself, came to bear the burden and pay the price becoming a sinless sacrifice, the just for the unjust. His death foreshadowed by every sacrifice ever offered up under the Law.
However, the blood of goats, bulls, sheep, and other animals could never cleanse from sin. The best they could do was cover symptoms of sin through obedience to the commands of God. They couldn’t deal with the root cause, separation from God because no human ever lived a sinless life after offering one sacrifice so another was always needed and death flowed like a river of sewage through the lives of all.
Just as Adam’s sin brought death into the world one person condemning many the sacrifice of Jesus brings life into the world One person making the way open for many. Though one foreshadowed the other and one fulfilled the other the gift of Jesus is not perfectly parallel to the death-dealing sin of Adam. You see if Adam’s sin put all of humanity in the well-deserved black hole of separation from God, imagine what God’s undeserved gift poured out through Jesus Christ’s sinless sacrifice can do. How can we possibly compare Adam’s death-dealing sin and Jesus’ life-giving gift? The righteous verdict on Adam’s sin was the death sentence on everyone born of Adam. The gracious verdict on the sacrifice of Jesus is this life restoring sentence on everyone born of Jesus, the second Adam.
Here it is in a nutshell: Death which is separation from God gained the upper hand through Adam’s sin. Now the astounding recovery of life, real life, life in union with God explodes in our spirit as soon as we’re born-again out of the descending line of Adam and into the ascending line of Jesus. Since the price has been paid and an acceptable sacrifice made the just for the unjust everyone who accepts this absolutely undeserved and free life-gift sees reality flow back into the mold God initially wanted for humanity: Living, loving, and praising in union with Him.
That’s the back story now for all you need to know:
If we confess Jesus as the head of our life and if we believe in our hearts God raised Him from the dead we will be saved.
It just that easy and it’s yours if you want it.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion. He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2019 Contact Dr. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens or visit Dr. Owens Amazon Page / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens
Vote For God’s Candidate November 6, 2018
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Politics, Politiocal Philosophy, Religion, Uncategorized.Tags: Casting Crowns, Dr. Robert Owens, Election 2018, redemption, Salvation
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Election Day 2018 and everything is on the line. At least as far as the direction this country is going to take America First or Globalism, capitalism or socialism. Tune in to any one of the talking heads that litter the airwaves and this is it. This is the BIG one.
As a political science teacher I always tell my students don’t let anyone indoctrinate you. Don’t let anyone blindly lead you into supporting something you may really disagree with if you knew more. Study the candidates. Study the issues. And then make an informed decision. I also add one more step. Ask God who you should vote for.
One side says if the other side wins they’ll make America miserable again. They’ll put the brakes on an economy ready to go in orbit, erase the border, and unleash the mob.
The other side says if their opponents win they’ll gut social security, close the hospitals, keep illegal children in cages, and continue to confirm judges who will stop common sense gun control and generally bring back slavery.
It’s all a soap opera. Yes, it makes sense here in a world ruled by sense knowledge. Yes, it’s important who wins here and now but what about in eternity? Ten billion years from now will it make much difference if you were a diehard red or a fanatic blue?
I’m not trying to discourage any one from voting. We should all do our civic duty. We should all study the issues and then vote our conscious. As a pastor I’ve always counselled vote for God’s candidate. Vote for the one who stands up for the things of God. And remember a vote for the lesser of two evils is still voting for evil.
These things intrude upon us from a world that doesn’t want to take no. It bombards us 24/7 from TV, radio, and even our phones. The voices and the images fill social media, the wall-to-wall news spigots, and anywhere else anyone might care to look.
Being a history junky and a politicalholic I have battled my entire life to get my mind right. I can easily become obsessed with the History of the Future or current events as some people call it. Until I was thirty years old that was all I had. I only believed in what I could see, touch, and feel. I was ruled by sense knowledge.
But then praise God I met Jesus. He’d been there all along just waiting for me to notice Him. Once I did I realized there was no one else I needed to know. It’s like the Bible. Once I realized it is God’s Word, His revelation to humanity, the operator’s manual for the planet earth I realized that it was the most important book in the world. And as a readaholic that’s saying something.
So this morning I wake up on what might be the most important election day of my life and what do I find?
Well, woke up this morning with my mind, my mind stayin’ on Jesus.
Casting Crowns describes and defines our situation well in their hit song Jesus Friend of Sinners:
First they aptly describe our current situation:
Jesus, friend of sinners, we have strayed so far away
We cut down people in your name but the sword was never ours to swing
Jesus, friend of sinners, the truth’s become so hard to see
The world is on their way to You but they’re tripping over me
Always looking around but never looking up I’m so double minded
A plank eyed saint with dirty hands and a heart divided.
Then after more insightful verses that expose who we are and what we’re doing they define what we should do with a question:
Nobody knows what we’re for only what we’re against when we judge the wounded what if we put down our signs crossed over the lines and loved like You did?
Then they offer a prayer:
Oh Jesus, friend of sinners
Open our eyes to the world at the end of our pointing fingers
Let our hearts be led by mercy
Help us reach with open hearts and open doors
Oh Jesus, friend of sinners, break our hearts for what breaks yours.
The inspiration, knowledge, and hope I always gain from Casting Crowns’ songs always leads me back to the place they got it all: the Bible.
We find a story in the Word of God:
The religion scholars and Pharisees led in a woman who had been caught in an act of adultery. They stood her in plain sight of everyone and said, “Teacher, this woman was caught red-handed in the act of adultery. Moses, in the Law, gives orders to stone such persons. What do you say?” They were trying to trap him into saying something incriminating so they could bring charges against him.
Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger in the dirt. They kept at him, badgering him. He straightened up and said, “The sinless one among you, go first: Throw the stone.” Bending down again, he wrote some more in the dirt.
Hearing that, they walked away, one after another, beginning with the oldest. The woman was left alone. Jesus stood up and spoke to her. “Woman, where are they? Does no one condemn you?”
“No one, Master.”
“Neither do I,” said Jesus. “Go on your way. From now on, don’t sin.”
We’ll never know until we can ask Him in heaven what Jesus wrote that day in the sand. But the Pharisees and scholars were attempting to trap Him by using the commandments He came to fulfill. And he not only fulfilled the old He also gave us a new commandment when He said, “Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other.”
As we enter the voting booth today remember as important as this is there is something much more important, something of eternal significance.
Another prayer from Casting Crowns might help us focus:
Help us to remember we are all the least of these
Let the memory of Your mercy bring Your people to their knees.
Pray before you vote and listen to God. If you are His; His voice is ever there guiding and leading you into the paths of righteousness. If we do what He tells us to do we’ll always make the right choice and remember His guiding will never conflicts with His Word.
May God bless us one and all as we strive to follow Him and may God bless the United States of America.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion. He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2018 Contact Dr. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens or visit Dr. Owens Amazon Page / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens
What Easter Means to Me March 28, 2018
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Religion.Tags: baptism in the Holy Spirit, born again, Dr. Robert Owens, Easter, Jesus saves, redemption, Salvation
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I look at my life before Christ and I am struck by the fact that it doesn’t seem like my life. I was born again on Palm Sunday in 1980. I was thirty years old. That has been thirty-eight years ago. When I was first saved I mourned for all the years I had spent wasting my life trying to do it on my own. I remember praying and asking God to give me as many years to serve Him as I had wasted denying Him. Now, that is just one of the answered prayers in my life.
From the first day I accepted Jesus as my personal Savior I have done have never denied Him and standing on the faith He has given me I never will. Have I always served Him? Yes. Have I always served Him well? He will be the judge. Have I ever fallen short of what He would have me be? Yes, constantly, consistently, and often consciously. Just as the greatest sinner and the greatest saint I will stand or fall based on His grace.
In my years before Him I lived my life into a dead-end of self-seeking, selfishness, and self-loathing. Though I denied He even existed He reached out to me. Though I took His name in vane he loved me. Though I followed hedonism into every type of sin He washed me as clean as a new born baby, as clean as a new blanket of snow.
Jesus delivered me from alcoholism, from drug addiction, from hatred, from envy, and shame. He gave me a new life complete with a new wife, a son, a healthy mind, a healthy body, and a new name.
What He has done for me He will do for you. He loves you as much as He has ever loved anyone. Your name is written on His hand and no one not sin, not hatred, not failure, and not the devil can snatch you out of His hand.
Trust in Him. Reach out to Him and He will reach out to you. He will never leave you nor forsake you. Being God He did not grasp at that but instead emptied Himself and became a man. Living a perfect life He was sacrificed for the children of Adam paying the price for every sin and opening the way through faith to become the children of God. For if we will confess with our lips that Jesus is Lord an believe in our hearts that God has raised Him from the dead we will be saved.
And salvation is not just pie in the sky. It is not just a far off reward for a life of toil and pain. Salvation is a right now new life, a life where we will never be alone for He will send His Spirit to live within us.
Don’t let anything hold you back when Jesus wants to hold you up.
This is what Easter means to me life from death and life evermore. An old song sums it up rather well:
Living he Loved Me
Dying he saved me
Buried He carried my
My sins far away
Rising he justified me
Freed me forever
One day he’s coming back Glorious day
Have a blessed Easter.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion. He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2018 Contact Dr. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens or visit Dr. Owens Amazon Page / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens
Dr. Robert Owens Chronicles the History of the Future 