Posted on by Abe Austin

Always Right

It is often easier to accept that God’s laws and principles were right for ancient people than to accept that they still apply today. So much has changed since the time of chariots and slings. Jesus and his apostles never had smartphones or cryptocurrency or space travel or AI. Can words of scripture from thousands of years ago truly never expire?

This is the testimony of all true believers.

Faith in God includes faith that His way was right in 3000 BC, 34 AD, and even in the 21st century. While the situation surrounding man is in constant flux, the word of God is rooted in something eternal, something that runs from before our root and extends beyond our end. So long as we remain human, God’s way will always be right.

Posted on by Abe Austin

The Games That Matter

It is better to be taken advantage of than to take advantage
Better to lose unfairly than to cheat
Better to trust than avoid betrayal
Better to forgive than demand justice

These are hard ideals to live by. They leave us open to being manipulated in the games of life and may very well result in a losing position. But if you play games whose outcome can be manipulated, then it’s a game that doesn’t really matter. If cheaters can get ahead in that game, then winning the game brings no honor and losing it brings no shame.

There are other games that you can play, ones that truly matter. You will know what they are by the fact that no one else can ever make you lose your place, only you.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Kindness in Suffering

If you were an all-knowing God,
And aware that harder and more dangerous times were ahead,
It would be an act of unkindness
To not prepare your people with progressive trials and hardship.

Posted on by Abe Austin

The Unwanted Lord

We are all imperfect people, with imperfect conceptions of God. There are things that we want Him to be that He just isn’t, and things that we don’t want Him to be, that He just is.

Each of us must improve our conception of God, and at one point or another that will have to involve surrendering to a Lord we never knew and never wanted.

In other words, If God has never offended you, you have not yet met the true God.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Faith Tried

Everyone’s faith looks beautiful before it has been tried
But at some point, each must prove whether it is actually useful
Thus, all faiths must be strained, and many of them broken,
To find beauty that can also hold true

Posted on by Abe Austin

Unrealized Potential

Unspent things have no value
Dollars, thoughts, effort
They are only potential until they are given away

Life itself is only idleness
Until it is offered for something greater
It finds it value in being sacrificed

Posted on by Abe Austin

Moral Growth and Decline

If we think that people hundreds of years ago had morally despicable views, and that now we have a better view of the truth, we ought to consider why. What beliefs and values did our forefathers foster that led them to become more moral, leading to where we are now?

And if we are now prying those beliefs and values from the public square, if we are rejecting the faith of the very people who made the world a better place, what do we expect to happen to our morality in the next hundred years?