Love Truth Blog

As I was scanning through the news today, I came across an interview with the Dalai Lama, wherein reporters inquired about Tiger Woods' recent press confrence, wherein the pro-golfer expressed apologies for his moral failures and shared about reconnecting to his Buddhist faith as part of the process of his restoration. The Dalai Lama, the alleged fourteenth reincarnation of Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion, responded that he did not know Woods, as if the exiled spiritual political leader of Tibetan Buddhist is supposed to be a little interested with American pop-culture's insatiable fascination of the "dirty-laundery" of its fallen icons (yeah, I'm guilty of this too). However, the Dalai Lama did say, "all religions have the same idea" about adultery."Whether you call it Buddhism or another religion, self-discipline, that's important," he said. "Self-discipline with awareness of consequences" ( Dalai Lama: Who...

Tiger Woods’ formal public apology came just a day ago, and many from the social media universe are chiming in on the subject. A few of the responses circulating are from those who consider his presentation a “canned,” performance. I must admit the thought has crossed my mind. “Of course Tiger needs to do this,” I say to my self, “After all many other disgraced public figures pay top dollar to have public relations experts to help restore their marred image, not so much as a way of receiving absolution, but to improve their charisma, so that their name can continue being a marketable commodity. So the ‘Tiger Woods’ must be must be restored, if it is to remain marketable, and keep whatever endorsements remain.” Whether or not his presentation was “canned” is a mystery. Can anyone really judge his motives? To those who find Tiger to be insincere, I ask, “Where’s the beef?” I’m also just being way too cynical to think this is just a well-played PR campaign. I’d say, give the guy the ben...

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent. Sometime ago I was scanning through some Web news and I noticed Christianity Today put up some articles reflecting on Lent. As today, marks the beginning of the Lent season, I thought they would be interesting reads to meditate on: Steven R. Harmon: To Take Up the Cross Frederica Mathewes-Green: For Spiritual Exercise Michael Horton: To Lead Us to Christ I came to know Christ in a Baptist church, so I never really experienced the Lenten tradition, and out of ignorance, filed such practices under “Roman Catholic traditions that Baptists just don’t do.” Of course, it is not just a Roman Catholic thing, and many Protestant Lutheran and Anglican Christians observe the season. Perhaps there may even be something beneficial to voluntarily setting aside special days each year, which allow us to be deeply immersed in activities that constantly bring to mind the story of redemption unveiled to us in the Scriptures. Ashes remind us that from be...

Bill Wiese, a former real estate broker, purports that on November 22, 1998 at 11:00 p.m. he fell asleep alongside his wife Annette and woke up 3:00 a.m. the next morning in the fiery pit of hell, which he describes in a book entitled 23 Minutes in Hell (Lake Mary, FL: Charisma House, 2006). Naked inside a fifteen by ten foot stone prison cell, Wiese testifies to being tortured by four demonic creatures that stood ten to thirteen feet tall that had the form of humans with grotesque reptilian features. After crawling out of his cell, he witnessed a full panorama of hell’s utter darkness and unquenchable fire. He felt intense physical physical pain, experienced an unquenchable thirst, smelled foul odors far worst than any putrid thing in the world of the living, heard the screams of a myriad of tortured souls, and felt the utter hopelessness of those who come to realize escape to be futile, for God kept out of his thought process the very idea of a savior (1-14). After 23 minutes in...

I don’t claim to be some kind of love doctor or anything like that, and honestly I probably don’t know much about love at all. But I came across something today in C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity that really hit the nail on the head! It goes like this: On the whole, God’s love for us s a much safer subject to think about than our love for Him. Nobody can always have devout feelings: and even if we could, feelings are not what God principally cares about. Christian love, either towards God or towards man, is an affair of the will. If we are trying to do His will we are obeying the commandment, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.” He will give us feelings of love if He pleases. We cannot create them for ourselves, and we must not demand them as a right. But the great thing to remember is that, though our feelings come and go, His love for us does not. It is not wearied by our sins, or our indifference; and, therefore, it is quite relentless in its determination that we shall be cured of t...

"Prayer is a sincere, sensible, affectionate pouringout of the heart or soul to God, through Christ, in the strength and assistance of the Holy Sprit, for such things as God has promised, or according to his Word, for the good of the church, with submission in faith to the will of God." - John Bunyan

Discuss the origins of the universe and one is bound to get into some debate on subjects like the nature of science and religion, Darwinian naturalism, evolution, intelligent design, creation science, creation ex nihilo , or the age of the earth. Much of the discussion centers on how the material universe came about. Naturally, the origins question must consider the creation account in Genesis 1, and the possible implications, if any, the biblical chapter has in the nature of science and religion debate. Many Christian interpreters understand the days of creation to be descriptive of the processes out of which the material universe came into existence; for some the universe came about in creative acts done over a period of six 24-hour days, whereas others stretch the creative acts over six indefinite but finite periods of time extending millions of years called day-ages. An important angle the Bible student must take into account is the role the Ancient Near East (ANE) worldview played...

Sunday, we sang Be Thou My Vision, which is just one of those rich hymns of the past, and a wonderful meditation on Christ's kingdom ethics. It is food for the soul: Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art Thou my best thought by day or by night Waking or sleeping Thy presence my light Be thou my wisdom and Thou my true word I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord Thou my great Father, I , Thy true son Thou in me dwelling and I with Thee one Riches I heed not nor man's emptly praise Thou mine inheritance now and always Thou and thou only first in my heart High King of heaven my treasure Thou are High King of heaven my victory won May I reach heaven's joys, O bright heaven's Sun Heart of my own heart whatever befall Still be my vision O Ruler of all Here is also a great rendition by Jars of Clay: Be Thou My Vision

The mysterious Long Count Mayan Calendar completion date of its 5125.36 year cycle on December 21, 2012, along with a few promotional Web sites ( http://www.thisistheend.com/ and http://www.theinstituteforhumancontinuity.org/ ), has for Roland Emmerich's 2012 (Sony Motion Pictures) paid off. Released November 15, 2009, the movie “opened at No. 1 domestically with $65 million and pulled in $225 million worldwide.” [1] The 2012 movie actually navigates around any deep exposition on Mesoamerican mythology; rather, it centers on the drama of average people in the midst of a worldwide catastrophe, which brings out humanities greatest virtues and vices. 2012 begins with Dr. Adrian Helmsley (Chiwetel Ejiofor) discovering that solar flairs have caused increased amounts of neutrinos to bombard the earth, thus heating up the earth core to the point where an inevitable near future apocalyptic event would occur, which would include a gravitational pole shift, earthquakes, volcanic erupti...

There is an insightful article in Christianity Today entitled "Sowing Subversion in the Field of Relativism The Global Conversation" by Mark L.Y. Chan I concur with Mr. Chan's assessment on the issues of Christians engaging in a pluralistic global society immersed in postmodern thought. One need not abandon the idea of an absolute truth, particularly the belief in Jesus being the Only Way, in order to respectfully interact with those of different beliefs. Mr. Chan is correct in that religious pluralism is not the way at all. The attraction of an all embracing post-modernism ultimately fails, and really cannot come to a robust understanding of tolerance, which "entails putting up with what one considers to be error." Christians are also to love beyond just exercising tolerance. The first Christians influenced the entire Roman Empire because their lives were transformed by the love that Christ demonstrated upon the cross, which saved them from their sin, and offer...

Jeff wins 5th Grammy... I must say, Jeff brings out the best in a Fender Stratocaster, and the Live at Ronnie Scott's DVD captures this guitar giant in one of his best performances ever. For me, "Rollin' And Tumblin" with Imogene Heap is the evening's climax! This is a must buy for any guitar player.

The following is a well done op ed piece from CT on the recent arrest of the Christians who were attempting to take some Haitian children into the Dominican Republic (see text below). The American Christians may have erred in ignoring certain protocols, but they are not the only relief teams that have made mistakes in providing foreign aid to children. Medefind also observes that other Christian organizations were in Haiti long before the earthquake providing relief service, and these groups have become crucial in addressing the current situation. Moreover, he rightly finds that once all the hype about the Haitian quake is over, the cameras turned to the next "big story," the poverty shall still remain, and this reality must not be forgotten. "Strong on Zeal, Thin in Knowledge: Lessons from Haiti's arrest of American Christians trying to take children out of the country." Jedd Medefind Newswires buzzed recently with reports that a group of ten Americans from an ...

It seems as if these are the days were many are living with heightened fear, and an uneasiness about the worst-case scenario actually coming about. This is certainly true for every generation, and in these days it has been on issues like war, terrorism, injustice, bankruptcy, unemployment, moral collapse and myriads of other things. In all this, I am reminded of the following words of Paul: But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves; we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death works in us, but life in you. But having the same spirit of f...