Stay the Course (from Piper's website) wwwidesiringgod.org

“Here is a call for the endurance of the saints” (Revelation 14:12).

We all long for rest and refreshment. That’s a God-given longing that he promises to fulfill: “I will satisfy the weary soul, and every languishing soul I will replenish” (Jeremiah 31:25).

And in a very real way Jesus gives rest to “all who labor and are heavy laden” and come to him (Matthew 11:28). But in this age, it is not the complete rest.

In this age, Jesus grants us the gospel rest of ceasing the impossible labor of self-atonement for our sins (2 Corinthians 5:21). But in embracing the gospel we find ourselves also drafted into a war — a war to keep believing the gospel and a war to spread it to others. In this age we “strive to enter that [complete] rest” of the age to come (Hebrews 4:11).

And wars are exhausting — especially long ones. That’s why you are often tired. Most soldiers who experience the fierceness of combat want to get out of it. That’s why you feel urges to escape or surrender. That’s why there are times you’re tempted to give up.

But don’t give up. No, rather “take courage! Do not let your hands be weak, for your work shall be rewarded” (2 Chronicles 15:7).

Don’t give up when that familiar sin, still crouching at your door after all these years, pounces again with temptation. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it (1 Corinthians 10:13).

Don’t give up when you feel that deep soul weariness from long battles with persistent weaknesses. “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me (2 Corinthians 12:8–9).

Don’t give up when your long prayed-for prayers have not yet been answered. And he told them [the parable of the persistent widow] to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart (Luke 18:1).

Don’t give up when the devil’s fiery darts of doubt land and make you reel. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day…in all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one (Ephesians 6:13,16).

Do not give up when the fragmenting effect of multiple pressures seems relentless. But as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger . . . (2 Corinthians 6:4–5).

Do not give up when the field the Lord has assigned you to is hard and the harvest does not look promising: And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. (Galatians 6:9)

Do not give up when you labor in obscurity and you wonder how much it even matters. Your Father who sees in secret will reward you (Matthew 6:4).

Do not give up when your reputation is damaged because you are trying to be faithful to Jesus. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account (Matthew 5:11).

Do not give up when waiting on God seems endless. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:30–31)

Don’t give up when you have failed in sin. Don’t wallow. Repent (again), get your eyes off yourself and back on Jesus, get up and get back in the fight. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9); if we are faithless, he remains faithful — for he cannot deny himself (2 Timothy 2:13).

Jesus knows your works (Revelation 2:2) and he understands the war (Hebrews 12:3). “Fight the good fight of the faith” (1 Timothy 6:12). Finish the race (2 Timothy 4:7). “By your endurance you will gain your lives” (Luke 21:19).

Don’t give up.

Jon Bloom

How Shall We Then Live?

Eric Hoffer (1902-), "When freedom destroys order, the yearning for order will destroy freedom." At that point the words left or right will make no diference. They are only two roads to the same end. There is no difference between an authoritarian government from the right or the left: the results are the same. An elite, an authoritarianism as such, will gradually force form on society so that it will not go on to chaos. And most people will accept it-from the desire for personal peace and affluence, from apathy, and from the yearning for order to assure the functioning of some political system, business, and the affairs of daily life. That is just what Rome did with Caesar Augustus.

Francis A. Schaeffer. How Should We Then Live? (L'Abri 50th Anniversary Edition): The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture (Kindle Locations 2221-2222). Kindle Edition.
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International Bible Conference, in Partnership with CenterPoint International, Liberia

Thanks to all the thousands of Pastors who attended the Pastor's conference in Bomi Hills Feb 19-22. Thanks to Pastors' Jeff, Dan A, and Dan M for their Expository teaching of these Pastors from the book of Titus. I will be sharing some of these photos of the conference as I slowly overcome my jet lagged. Thanks for visiting the site, praying and giving to the work in Africa. We covet your prayers for the coming months and years as we plan to equip, and spiritually arm our Pastors with God's word. We covet your prayers as you agonize with us on bended kneels as we change and influence our culture one verse at a time. Your partnership is greatly appreciated.



www.centerpointinternational.org

From New Birth to an Inheritance

I just returned from Liberia where I met with Pastors, church leadership, friends and family to share my vision with them. Liberia is doing well some what financially as things return to normal. But the spiritual health of the nation is slowly declining in the face of a religious awakening. Every block there is a church or worship center. Sunday is like everyone returning or going to Jerusalem for worship. The streets are filled with people going and coming from church. Everyone seemed happy and loving one another.

But when you look beneath the veneer of reality the story is different, politically, and religiously. We are morally unzipped, and intellectually uncurbed, to quote Carl Henry. With 9000 UN Peace Keep Forces in the country, the flow of money from relatives living in America and the world; the 1989-2003 civil war is a thing of the past, and no one remembered why we fought and why we killed so many people. Every aspect of the culture is corrupt or getting corrupt. The church is not exempted from these vices, but find herself in the midst of evil and corruption; and doing nothing about it.

Yet, there's hope, in that we find traces of God everywhere we turn in Liberia. He's working behind the scene touching and changing lives. Life of faithfulness, honesty, honor, and wearing the banner of truth in their daily lives. We want to be part of the answers and solutions to our nation's ills. We broke it, therefore, we must help to rebuild it, and rebuilding is always difficult, especially spiritual restoration of a declining culture. Listen to the weeping of the weeping Prophet: "8“Behold, you trust in deceptive words to no avail. 9 Will you steal, murder, commit adultery,  swear falsely,  make offerings to Baal,  and go after other gods that you have not known, 10 and then come and stand before me in this house,  u which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’—only to go on doing all these abominations?" (Jer 7:8-10, ESV). CPI

The Nicene Creed

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all ages; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made. Who, for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was Incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried; and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again, with glory, to judge the living and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end. And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life; who proceeds from the Father and the Son; who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets. And I believe one holy catholic* and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

The Athanasian Creed

“Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the catholic* faith;
Which faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.
And the catholic* faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity;
Neither confounding the persons, nor dividing the substance.
For there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit.
But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is all one, the glory equal, the majesty co-eternal.
Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Spirit.
The Father uncreated, the Son uncreated, and the Holy Spirit uncreated.
The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Spirit incomprehensible.
The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Spirit eternal.
And yet there are not three eternals, but one eternal.
As also there are not three uncreated nor three incomprehensibles, but one uncreated and one incomprehensible.
So likewise the Father is almighty, the Son almighty, and the Holy Spirit almighty;
And yet there are not three almighties, but one almighty.
So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God;
And yet they are not three Gods, but one God.
So likewise the Father is Lord, the Son Lord, and the Holy Spirit Lord;
And yet they are not three Lords, but one Lord.
For like as we are compelled by the Christian truth to acknowledge every person by himself to be God and Lord;
So we are forbidden by the catholic* religion to say: There are three Gods or three Lords.
The Father is made of none, neither created nor begotten.
The Son is of the Father alone; not made nor created, but begotten.
The Holy Spirit is of the Father and of the Son; neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.
So there is one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy Spirit, not three Holy Spirit’s.
And in this Trinity none is afore, or after another; none is greater, or less than another.
But the whole three persons are co-eternal, and co-equal.
So that in all things, as said before, the Unity in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity is to be worshipped.
He therefore that will be saved must thus think of the Trinity.
Furthermore it is necessary to everlasting salvation that he also believe rightly the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
For the right faith is that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and man.
God of the substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds; and man of the substance of His mother, born in the world.
Perfect God and perfect man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting.
Equal to the Father as touching His Godhead, and inferior to the Father as touching His manhood.
Who, although He is God and man, yet He is not two, but one Christ.
One, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking of the manhood into God.
One altogether, not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person.
For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ.
Who suffered for our salvation, descended into hell, rose again the third day from the dead;
He ascended into heaven, He sits on the right hand of the Father, God Almighty;
From there He shall come to judge the living and the dead.
At whose coming all men shall rise again with their bodies;
And shall give account of their own works.
And they that have done good shall go into life everlasting. And they that have done evil into everlasting fire.
This is the catholic* faith, which except a man believe faithfully, he cannot be saved.”


Definition of Chalcedon

Therefore, following the holy fathers, we all with one accord teach men to acknowledge one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, at once complete in Godhead and complete in manhood, truly God and truly man, consisting also of a reasonable soul and body; of one substance with the Father as regards his Godhead, and at the same time of one substance with us as regards his manhood; like us in all respects, apart from sin; as regards his Godhead, begotten of the Father before the ages, but yet as regards his manhood begotten, for us men and for our salvation, of Mary the Virgin, the God-bearer; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, recognized in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation; the distinction of natures being in no way annulled by the union, but rather the characteristics of each nature being preserved and coming together to form one person and subsistence, not as parted or separated into two persons, but one and the same Son and Only-begotten God the Word, Lord Jesus Christ; even as the prophets from earliest times spoke of him, and our Lord Jesus Christ himself taught us, and the creed of the fathers has handed down to us.

*Catholic here refers to the 'universal' church and not to the Roman Catholic Church.

Apostles' Creed

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
    the Creator of heaven and earth,
    and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:

Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit,
    born of the Virgin Mary,
    suffered under Pontius Pilate,
    was crucified, died, and was buried.

He descended into hell.

The third day He arose again from the dead.

He ascended into heaven
    and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty,
    whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic* church,
    the communion of saints,
    the forgiveness of sins,
    the resurrection of the body,
    and life everlasting.

Amen.

Ravi Zacharias on Religion

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWLzHt8ImyE

Jesus and Buddha

Article ID: DJ660

By: Dr. Douglas R. Groothuis

This article first appeared in the Effective Evangelism column of the Christian Research Journal, volume 25, number 4 (2003). For further information or to subscribe to the Christian Research Journal go to: http://www.equip.org

Popular and prolific Buddhist author Thich Nhat Hanh reports in his book, Living Buddha, Living Christ, that his “personal shrine” contains images of both Buddha and Jesus, whom he deems spiritual brothers, both worthy of veneration. Given the current popularity of the Dalai Lama and books and magazines on Buddhist meditation and practice, it seems many Americans might also hold Hahn’s perspective. Those caught in the strong winds of religious toleration and relativism shrink from logically judging the truth claims of these great religious founders. Instead, people often assume that they were equally significant “spiritual teachers” who taught roughly the same thing. Accepting both Jesus and Buddha as enlightened beings is taken to be nonjudgmental, inclusive, and affirming of both Christians and Buddhists. Why bother considering one teacher above the other — especially in our contemporary pluralistic culture? How should Christians, who worship Jesus alone, respond to this pervasive notion that Jesus and Buddha were great spiritual masters on the same plane?
The essential religious truth claims of Jesus and Buddha differ radically from one another. To think otherwise is to ignore history, logic, and the well-being of one’s soul, since Jesus and Buddha proposed radically different spiritual paths. Jesus, in fact, warned that the path to life was narrow and that many fail to find it (Matt. 7:13). Jesus’ followers must not shrink back from the seriousness of His statement, especially in our pluralistic society.

Before comparing the basic teachings of Jesus and Buddha regarding God, humans, and salvation, one should point out to those enamored of the Buddha that the earliest written documents about the life of Buddha (563–483 b.c.) come about five hundred years after his death. In his edited collection, Buddhist Scriptures, Edward Conze notes that Buddhism has nothing that corresponds to the Christian New Testament, which is an authoritative canon of Scriptures written a short time after the life of Jesus.¹ Let no one, therefore, take Buddhist records as hard history and then discount the New Testament for being too ancient to be historically credible.²

Two Virgin Birth Stories. Some try to narrow the gap between Jesus and Buddha by saying that both are recorded as having come into the world through spiritual means via a virgin birth. In their recent book, The Original Jesus, Elman Gruber and Holger Kersten go even further and argue that the story of Jesus’ virgin birth was borrowed from a Buddhist source that claimed the same kind of supernatural origin for Buddha.³ This is unlikely. First, this view overlooks significant differences between the two accounts. In the Buddhist account, the prehuman Buddha came in the form of a white elephant who entered the side of his mother. Religious scholar Geoffrey Parrinder notes that it “was not a virgin birth, since she was married, and in this story…it is celestial influence rather than a divine seed that enters her.”⁴ The Gospel’s account of Jesus’ conception and birth differs radically (Luke 1:26–35).

Second, the Buddhist sources are dated long after the gospels of Luke and Matthew. The Buddhist story comes from a fifth-century a.d. text and is absent from the most ancient Pali canon of Buddhism.⁵ If any borrowing occurred, it is more likely that Buddhists selectively borrowed from the Gospels than vice versa.⁶ The New Testament documents were all written in the middle to the late first century. According to renowned biblical scholar J. Gresham Machen, the virgin birth material had “been in existence only a few decades from the time when Jesus lived.”⁷ This is quite different from the late emergence of the Buddhist stories.
What about Jesus’ and Buddha’s essential worldviews, that is, their teachings on ultimate reality, the human condition, and spiritual liberation?

Two Views of Ultimate Reality. Jesus affirmed the existence and unity of a personal and moral God, who is both sovereign over history and involved with it. He taught His disciples to pray, “Our Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 6:9 nasb). Jesus never challenged the monotheism of His Jewish brethren but affirmed it and intensified its spiritual and moral challenges (Matt. 5–7).
Buddha, however, did not deem theological matters worthy of consideration. He regarded them as metaphysical speculations, unedifying and irrelevant to attaining spiritual liberation. He challenged key features of the Brahmanism of his native India but did not embrace belief in a Creator God as fundamental to proper spirituality. Buddha’s image is worshiped around the globe, but he never considered himself a revelation of God. He rather considered himself an enlightened teacher (“Buddha” is a title that means “the enlightened one”).

Two Views of the Human Condition. Human beings, according to Jesus, were created by God (Matt. 19:4) and ought to worship and obey God with their whole beings, as well as to love their neighbors as themselves (Matt. 22:37–39). Jesus taught that humans possess immaterial souls that persist after death and that will one day be reunited with resurrected bodies (Matt. 12:26–27; John 5:28–29). Jesus, however, also referred to humans as spiritually “lost” (Luke 19:10) and corrupt at their core (Matt. 9:13; Mark 7:21–23).

Buddha did not speculate about human origins but focused on the human condition as (1) suffused with suffering (2) brought about through unfulfilled desires (the first two of the Four Noble Truths, the essence of Buddhism). He taught that people cannot satisfy their souls with anything because they do not have souls. Just as a chariot has no essence, but is only a collection of individual parts, so the human person has no essence or substance; it is only a collection of parts or states called skandas. There is no personal essence or soul, and there is no personal afterlife. Buddha did not deny the Hindu doctrines of transmigration and reincarnation, but he denied that there is any individual soul that comes back in another form.

Two Views of Spiritual Liberation. According to Jesus, salvation is found in Him alone: “The Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost” (Luke 19:10 niv). Jesus viewed Himself as the only way to restore fellowship with the heavenly Father: “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (Matt. 11:27 niv; cf. John 14:6). He claimed, moreover, to be God incarnate (John 8:58). In light of this, Jesus beckons us to follow Him (Matt. 11:28–30) and to believe in Him for the forgiveness of sins and eternal life (John 3:16; 6:29). These claims, however, were not uttered in a vacuum. Jesus demonstrated Himself to be the divine Messiah through the wisdom of His teaching, His fulfillment of Hebrew prophecy, the unparalleled power of His miracles, His authority over the demonic world, His sacrificial death on the cross, and His own death-shattering resurrection.⁸ 

Buddha taught that spiritual deliverance was found by letting go of desire and the quest to satisfy the nonexistent soul, and by detaching oneself from impermanent things. This teaching is the Third Noble Truth. The Fourth Noble Truth is that salvation is achieved through effort, which Buddha called “the eightfold path.” It requires wisdom (right understanding and thought), ethical conduct (right speech, action, and livelihood), and mental discipline (right effort, awareness, and meditation). Those who succeed leave the realm of karma and rebirth and attain nirvana, which is the blowing out of the human personality in a state that supposedly cannot be described in words. Buddha did not claim to bestow this state upon others, he simply pointed toward it. He never claimed to be God moreover; nor did he raise the dead, heal the sick, or cast out demons. At age 80, he died.
According to the New Testament, Jesus came into the world as a supernatural agent of redemption, who accepted suffering at the hands of sinful humans that He might vicariously atone for the sins of a rebellious world estranged from its own Source of goodness and life. He embraced suffering on the cross in order to rescue those suffering from sin and its effects (Isa. 53). As one poet wrote, “No other God has wounds but thee.” The risen Jesus presented His wounds to doubting Thomas as proof of the efficacy of His mission (John 20:26–29).

The oldest accounts of the life of Buddha do not depict him as a supernatural figure but as an illuminated sage. Images of Buddha worldwide show a man sitting in tranquil contemplation with his eyes shut to a world he wants to transcend. How different from this posture was the defining act of Jesus, who, though nailed to a cross, bruised and bloodied, gazed in love on the world He came to redeem. Buddha taught the dharma (the way or teaching) to many others, but he never claimed to overcome death through his own death or to offer life through his own life. He only pointed the way to nirvana whereas Jesus opened the door to heaven.
The essential teachings and ministries of Jesus and Buddha cannot be reconciled or synthesized. No amount of religious tolerance or pluralism can erase the deep and sharp differences between these two identities, their worldviews, and their actions. By accurately defining these differences we do justice to both religious leaders while communicating the truth in love to those who would place them on the same plane.

– Douglas R. Groothuis

NOTES
1. Edward Conze, “Introduction,” in Buddhist Scriptures, ed. Edward Conze (New York: Penguin Books, 1959), 11–12.
2. On the reliability of the New Testament, see Douglas Groothuis, Jesus in an Age of Controversy (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2002), chaps. 2–3.
3. Elmar R. Gruber and Holger Kersten, The Original Jesus: The Buddhist Sources of Christianity (Rockport, MA: Element Books, 1995), 82–83.
4. Geoffrey Parrinder, Avatar and Incarnation (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1970), 135.
5. See J. Gresham Machen, The Virgin Birth of Christ (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1930), 339.
6. Ibid., 340.
7. Ibid., 342.
8. On the claims and credentials of Jesus, see Groothuis, Jesus in an Age of Controversy , chaps. 13-16; and Douglas Groothuis, On Jesus (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2003), chap. 8.