We should “Keep our heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life.” Proverbs 4.23

“Yes,” or “No” question: “Are we created in the image of God?”

What is God’s ultimate message to the world?

In the past God spoke to his people by the prophets; ultimately he spoke to us by his Son. “This is my beloved Son;” declared the voice from heaven, “Listen to him.” The Lord Jesus reveals the Father because he is the living Word, the perfect image of the invisible God.

Thus when the disciples asked Jesus to show them the Father, Jesus answered: “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'?” (John 14:9). Whereas he warned the Jews who refused to believe in him that they did not really know God. “You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also” (John 8:19).

I have been much blessed by the writings I have read by John Bunyan, and also reading of his life. Here was a largely uneducated man, a common tinker, who when it came to the spiritual was a genius. Someone like Bunyan, with little to no real education, gives folks like me likewise has had little to no education, great hope, by how he was used by God, despite his not being one of the learned or well bred, or educated, and yet, he too was looked down upon for his lack of learning in his day, much as folks can be today. Charles II asked John Owen, in a disparaging way, why he went to hear the common tinker preach. Owen was an educated man, with a brilliant mind, some would say too brilliant for his own writings to be understood easily by the masses, as his genius often got the better of him, for being able to put his thoughts down, in a way that the rest of us could easily understand. But Owen replied to the king: he would gladly give up all his learning for the tinker’s power of reaching the heart.

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Claire was sentenced to death in Las Vegas, Nevada. The saying goes, “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.” But this has to be told. It’s impossible to believe that any judge would rule in favor of the death penalty under any circumstance. But Jamie Stout, acting judge for the case, felt there was no other choice. A mock trial without a jury and without proper defense ended in the harshest verdict possible, determining that the child’s crime against her mother was punishable by death. Claire’s mother was torn. She knew what society thought and didn’t have the strength to fight.

The execution was scheduled for November 9, 2009. Preparations were started and the clock was ticking to Claire’s final breath. The play by play report appeared on Facebook with desperate pleas for prayer of a reversal. A miracle was needed. The evidence in Claire’s favor was overwhelming but only the judge could reverse the order. Even then doctors would have to fight to save Claire’s life.

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I have been corresponding on the net with a Reformed Pastor who supports our military. My attempts to discuss his position from a Biblical perspective have been stymied by his assertion that discussions of this sort are always buttressed by claims that cannot be proven. He is correct; often what seems palpable to one person bears no witness to another. I countered with the claim that there are principles involved in the conduct of our international affairs that should be evaluated by God’s Commandments. So far we are at loggerheads. (Update: I sent him Fred Reed’s column and he angrily wrote “stop sending this kind of garbage”.)

God’s earth is home to hot and cold, light and dark, calm and turbulent, land and water, gases and substances, earth and sky. It is subject to creatures made in His image that are White, Black, Tan, Yellow, and Red...

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With the publication of Rushdoony's Institutes of Biblical Law, a revolution took place in Western Christian theology. For the first time in over three hundred years, a Christian scholar has taken seriously the cultural mandate and provided the Church with a consistent, theological basis for social theory. Revered by some, despised by others, Rushdoony, building on the seminal philosophical work of Van Til, has rewritten the concept of a truly Christian civilization. By rejecting pluralism, pietism and antinomian heresies, Rushdoony and his followers have provided the means of rescuing Christendom from the horrors of an epistemoligcally self conscious Humanism.

However, Christian Reconstructionism though hardly having been debated, has largely been rejected by Reformed churches...

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“Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s (Matt. 22:21). Secularists and strict separationists like to point to this verse to show that even Jesus opposed mixing religion and politics. We don’t live under Caesar, and even if we did, Caesar would be bound to follow God’s limitations on his civil office because God’s image is stamped on him. Jesus would have told Caesar, “Render unto God the things that are God’s.”

Many modern civil governments contend that they rule at no one’s discretion. Their legitimacy is self-imposed. It’s no wonder that secularists attack any suggestion that might lead to the truth civil government is under God’s sovereign rule and the freedoms of citizens are God-ordained and not a gift from the State. In a 1982 message, Francis Schaeffer made the following point:

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We are able to present a daily testimony for Jesus because the same “power which God the Father worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places,” 94 is currently at work in us!

This is how we can “walk in newness of life,” 95 and “bear much fruit.” 96

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Ephesians 2.10

Even though a person may talk a godly game, his behavior will sooner or later demonstrate whether he is a Christian because in every decision we make, we are either following God’s will, or Satan’s will. Jesus puts it this way:

"He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand: but the hand of the diligent maketh rich (Proverbs 10:4)."

"The hand of the diligent shall bear rule: but the slothful shall be under tribute (Proverbs 12:24)."

For some of you the title of this article may be misleading, especially in this age where rights trump responsibilities, the individual stands in the shadow of the collective, and freedom of speech and religion bows to political correctness. If a victim of public education, some may even think that this is a quote from America's historic Declaration of Independence. Sadly, they would be mistaken. If I was to give this phrase a designation, it would have to be this generation's call for a new Declaration to fit our modern Nanny State.