Just Continue That Thought...

A thought by Larry Osborne, (2009-04-04) from his book, Ten Dumb Things Smart Christians Believe (p. 108). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) I hope you realize this.   If not read on. Larry says, “We assume it can be placed into any situation and it will tell us the moral temperature— too hot, too cold, or just right. But that's not how our conscience works. It isn't a spiritual thermometer. It's a spiritual thermostat. The difference is important. Thermostats don't define hot or cold. They reflect our definitions of hot and cold. We set them to respond however we like.” We are going through a very hot week here in Los Angeles where we live.   Our  thermometer is telling us that we are having highs over 100. Now to be comfortable in our house we set our thermostat at the temperature that we want.   A  thermometer doesn't define hot and cold. We define hot and cold. And as Larry s

A thought by Larry Osborne, (2009-04-04) from his book, Ten Dumb Things Smart Christians Believe (p. 95). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) In talking about Murphy’s Law Larry says, “We know him as the reason why the other line always moves faster; why whatever can go wrong, does go wrong; why the later we are, the more traffic signals we hit.”   He also says, “Those who assume that everything that happens has God's fingerprints all over it fail to distinguish between what God allows and what God causes— what God permits and what God prefers.” You see God created man and he named him Adam and he gave him and us the freedom to choose.   And Adam blew it for all of us by going against God’s plan to his plan.   That is called the fall and that act blew our perfect life that God planned for us.   Larry says, “Any attempt to downplay the universal impact of the fall— or worse, the assumption that Chri

A thought by Larry Osborne, (2009-04-04) from his book, Ten Dumb Things Smart Christians Believe (p. 81). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) But we have so much that we wish was in the Bible, don’t we? Larry says, “Adding rules, regulations, standards, or anything else we wish he'd included, and then judging those who fail to follow our additions, puts us at odds with God. It also puts us at risk of being branded a spiritual liar, no matter how strongly we feel about an issue.” He goes on, “Yet the more passionate we are about an issue, the harder it can be to let it go. Listen to our political rhetoric, our battles over obscure theological distinctives, and our rants against those who do church differently. By far, the harshest letters and e-mails I've ever received have been those triggered by a tradition, a preference, or a topic the writer felt so strongly about— and the Bible said nothing abo