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Showing posts with the label Pride

Hidden Dangers in Perfectionism

Someone may claim to be a perfectionist, and another might assume that the other simply wants to do things as correctly as possible. Sure, many people strive for excellence. However, perfectionism is quite often a trap. Perfectionists may obsess over their appearance, constantly adjust something unnecessarily that was fine already, and more. It can also stop people from even beginning something because they doubt that it will be perfect.* Consider the fact that "perfect" is often subjective. More than the physical and psychological aspects, perfectionism can be a spiritual hindrance. Imperfect blurred woods, photo by Cowboy Bob Sorensen Yes, the Bible tells us to "be perfect," but that is an inadequate translation. It is better rendered complete  or mature  in many instances — especially when the passages are used regarding our spiritual goals. A perfectionist may walk away from the Word of God and attempt to be spiritually or morally perfect by his own standard . T...

Virtue Signaling and Denying Genesis

by Cowboy Bob Sorensen Over the years, this child has had to endure new expressions while riding the Christian Life Trail. Members of the body of Christ  have been lacking in their commitment to the Word of God almost from the get-go, as the early epistles will attest. It seems that things are getting worse nowadays. Some of the new expressions include woke and wokeness , critical race theory , and other anti-Christian humanistic philosophies that are found mostly on the political left and with liberal professing Christians. A large part of that is virtue signaling , which involves prideful "dig me!" trumpet sounding from those who seek the approval of men instead of proclaiming the truth and authority of Scripture. When these signals and philosophies come from professing Christians, they are even more disgusting than when leftists scream in the streets. Notice how there has been a great deal of news lately about professing Christians who have apostatized such as Mic...

The Origin of Sin

The expected response to the question, "What was the beginning of sin", is probably when Adam and Eve at that apple. Actually, no. The Bible does not say apple , that's a bit of information for you to carry around and shine up to show people on occasion. In addition, Eve was deceived by the serpent, which was the work of Satan. For some reason, Adam chose to eat the fruit that she gave to him. Interesting to note that if Eve had been presuppositional in her approach, she would have stopped the whole thing right there by declaring that she believed God, not Satan. Credit: cropped from Pixabay / RayHolloway If you study on it, you'll realize that the first sin was not with Adam and Eve. Instead, it was when Lucifer rebelled against God because of pride. Before that, everything was very good (Gen 1:31). This raises questions and can give material for a passel of sermons and articles, so we have to keep the subject narrow. Satan fell because of pride, and has appea...

Seeking Belief Challenges

by Cowboy Bob Sorensen No, I'm not the one seeking challenges for my beliefs. Someone was asking what people read that challenge their "deeply held beliefs". The inquirer (who shall remain unidentified as well as my source) does not want to be pigeonholed as someone who believes because he or she was told to believe, and commenced to reading books by atheists. Other folks chimed in and said it was a good idea. Image credit: Freeimages / Stephen J. Sullivan Before I continue, ever have a situation where you explained something correctly, then found out that the person receiving the explanation didn't need it? That's how I feel here. What I'm about to say is valid, but I don't know if the one doing the asking even needs this information, but I'm doing it for someone who may need it. Hope that makes sense. Why seek out challenges to your faith? A Bible-believing Christian gets those on a regular basis from temptations, media, social media, frie...

Emotionally-Based Belief Systems

by Cowboy Bob Sorensen Edited January 2, 2015 Many times in social media posts, videos, articles and so on from anti-creationists and militant atheists, they act like they're doing the world a favor by ridiculing Christians and creationists. Many will go on crusades to rid the world of that nebulous phantom of "religion" that " causes all the wars ", or attack biblical creationists for the sake of protecting "science" (they are not protecting "science" at all, they conflate their religious views of evolution with science, and try to protect that from scrutiny). Purveyors of "reason" use very little of it, and rely on emotionalism and bigotry to persuade people of their views. Many of these keyboard warriors are unwilling to be obstreperous in person, saving their vituperative remarks for safe locations and (frequent) anonymity. It's mighty interesting to see that people who deny God (without whom logic and science are i...

Wimpy Jesus and Sanctimonious Christians

Thanks to Pete Fiske for giving material that helped with this article — and he doesn't even know it. by Cowboy Bob Sorensen This has been weighing on me for quite some time. Recent articles and comments finally give me the impetus to actually write it. And since I'm a cowboy at heart , I'm going to do some straight shooting. Modified from an unknown source Too many religious people have the idea that Christians have to be "nice" all the time. I have been rebuked for speaking out for the truth, rebuking blaspheming atheists and so forth. "If you're not nice, you'll drive them away and they'll never seek the truth!" (A while back, someone announced that he was going to have a debate with a particularly obstreperous atheist. He was told something along the lines of, "Be careful, we don't want him offended and then he'll be lost".) There are two problems with that idea that come to mind. First, we do not do the sav...