ad Dei Gloriam Ministries Oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable His judgments and untraceable His ways! Romans 11:33 (HCSB)
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OUR ORIGINAL CHRISTIAN BLOG

We invite you to visit our new blog, The Real Issue, which provides many additional interactive tools than we have here on our original blog. We're posting our latest articles on Christian, cultural, religious, ethical, moral and political topics.

We also post certain articles here, but our original blog is now used primarily for ministry updates, alerts and announcements. Please contact us with any comments or suggestions. We look forward to and enjoy hearing from our readers.

We will continue to archive many of our posts from both blogs which are not time-sensitive. Please visit our Archive Log for a listing and brief description of available articles.

Reflecting on 2009, Looking Ahead to 2010

Posted: January 2 - 19:40 CT

We’ve seen God do some great things in our world this year, and we’re privileged to be a part of it. At the beginning of a new year, we tend to pause and reflect on the previous year and look ahead to the new. I wrote an article called Pressing On about this time last year about reflections and spiritual growth, but didn’t get it published until the spring. We hope to be a bit timelier with our articles this year.

With much of the world, and particularly our own federal government becoming more hostile toward Christianity, we continue to face new challenges. Probably the biggest internal struggle we’ve faced since beginning our website ministry three years ago was answering the question of how involved we should be with the culture. After much prayer and adjustments, we’ve finally come to the following conclusion:

While we should avoid the extreme of becoming so involved with the culture that our kingdom agenda is neglected, to limit ourselves to only the religious sphere clearly contradicts Scripture. We find no delineation between the sacred and secular spheres of society among the saints of the old or new covenant, or among the members of the early church. During Biblical times, every activity was considered as part of the sacred. So, we believe Christians and the Church has the right to bring our spiritually informed opinions to the table. As with all other pursuits, we should prayerfully seek the will of God, attempting to accomplish His purposes in such a way as to not lose our witness. The constitution guarantees us the right to free speech in a legal sense, but morally and ethically, we should evaluate all our actions, political or otherwise, within the context of the Word of God. Finally, we must always consider that, even though God often uses us to accomplish his perfect will, the battle ultimately belongs to the Lord.

We currently don’t foresee ourselves being actively involved in politics in the near future. The primary emphasis of our website will continue to be on education, equipping Christians first to grow spiritually, and then to engage the culture, since changing laws without changing hearts is basically futile. We’re providing many good organization resources in our Ministries and Cultural Action section for those readers who would like additional information on religious and social issues. We also launched our The Real Issue blog in June to allow for more interactivity with our readers.

Our largest current project is our Introduction to the Bible, containing historical backgrounds, summaries, interpretation principles, themes, purposes, timelines, theology and more for each book and section of the Bible. We began this section in late 2008 and are about 15% uploaded on the OT and 35% on the NT, and hope to pick up the pace and be complete by the end of 2010, but will likely take a bit longer. This project has already spawned several additional side articles, and in addition, we’re reformatting our Online Bible to include paragraph headers and a closer tie-in to the Introductions and Commentaries.

As our regular readers know, we greatly appreciate the value of traditions and history, so we opened our Hebrew Heritage section a few months ago to write about the Jewish roots of Christianity. We should also be adding more classic writings and uploading our new Christian Heritage section, which will explore the rich heritage on which our nation was founded.

We have many other plans for 2010, so it will be interesting where God chooses to take this ministry into and throughout the New Year. As always, your input is very welcome and extremely valuable to us. We hope you will also tell your friends about us. God bless you as we begin the year of our Lord 2010.

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Norman, Oklahoma Revolve Tour

Posted: December 7, 2009- 19:11 CT

We recently received an email from Joyce, one of our good friends over at the Women of Faith. She writes:

Good Evening Friends,

We have a short new video clip we’ve produced with surprising statistics about what it means to be a teenage girl today. It’s a LOT more difficult—and dangerous—than you think. We invite you to watch this video. Share it with your friends. Tweet about it. Blog about it. And make a difference in the lives of teen girls you know—take them to The Revolve Tour.

Watch the What's it Like to be a Teen Girl in 2009 video. Joyce also reminds us that the Norman, OK stop is this weekend, so reserve your seats now.

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OT History Books - A Ministry Update

Posted: November 14, 2009 - 18:27 CT

We've finally completed and uploaded the Introduction and Interpretation Guide to the Historical Books of the OT. I've been working on this off and on the past three weeks. My time was limited due to working on a EPA project in Houston. We're still hopeful that we can finish the remainder of the Book Introductions by the end of next year. We're currently working on Deuteronomy and Joshua in the OT, and the Epistles of John and Jude in the NT. This endeavor has been a bit more difficult than I originally thought, but it's been one of the most rewarding that we've undertaken thus far. It also continues to spawn some spin-off articles from some of the books. We pray that this section will greatly benefit your Bible study efforts.

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Jews for Jesus

Posted: October 17, 2009 - 22:43 CT

A few weeks ago, I had the privilege and joy to meet David Bricker, the executive director of Jews for Jesus. We had a great conversation after his sermon at our church and gave me a bunch of his material, some of which I'll incorporate into our new Hebrew Heritage section. David is a very busy man, so if you ever get the chance to hear him speak, we highly recommend attending.

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Old Friends

Posted: October 10, 2009 - 15:17 CT

I've been meaning to post this for some time. My wife and I were recently re-united with an old friend that we had not seen in about 20 years. We lost touch with Stacy back in the early 90's after she made several moves with some job changes. Shortly before Labor Day, I received a call out of the blue from an old tennis buddy, Donnie in East Texas. Donnie was my best friend from the 80's, but we had also lost touch after I had made several moves. I'd meant to call Donnie several times over the years, but the years just got away from us. I look forward to visiting with him soon.

Donnie had kept in touch with Stacy and gave us her number. After my wife called, Stacy, her husband Mark, and their two boys, Bryce and Carson came to visit from Oklahoma for the Labor Day weekend. We had a great visit, marred only by Oklahoma losing their opening football game at JerryWorld (the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium) to BYU. After church, we all went to lunch, in which Mark and myself survived the all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet.

Since then, I've attempted to contact a couple of other great friends that I haven't seen in a long while, but found out both had passed away. I wish I had started sooner. So, if anyone has some old friend they haven't seen or talked with in a while, there's no time like the present. I once heard someone say, we can't do anything about the past since it's already gone, and we can't know the future, so all we have is the present. It is a gift from God. That's why they call it "the present".

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Colonel Howard in Afghanistan

Posted: September 26, 2009 - 19:57 CT

We've just posted an urgent letter from Colonel Michael Howard in Afghanistan. Please Read. Thank you.

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Blog Update

Posted: September 2, 2009 - 21:33 CT

Most of my spare time the past few weeks has been dedicated to creating our new Hebrew Heritage section exploring the Jewish roots of Christianity. The new section has now been uploaded, so we should be able to spend a bit more time on the blog. We've just uploaded a couple of new posts, "The Policeman" and "Fly the Flag on 911" onto our Real Issue blog.

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Should the Church Repent of Religion?

Posted: August 2, 2009 - 20:31 CT

I recently read an article in the Christian Post entitled "Christians Urged to Repent of Religion". The article was based upon a talk by JD Greear, pastor of The Summit Church in Durham, North Carolina, at the 2009 Advance Conference during the first week of June. The theme of the conference was the "Resurgence of the Local Church", with speakers such as John Piper, Mark Driscoll and others offering suggestions on how to "revitalize" local churches.

According to the report, Mr Greear painted religion as a culprit that might be choking the growth of the Gospel and Christianity in America, and said that "until Christians repent of religion, no program, energy or strategy will help them to grow". Finally, he urged the pastors in the audience to repent… not of sin, but of religion.

So, is religion really choking the Gospel, and should we repent of our religious activities? I know members of a few local religious groups who recently returned from mission trips to India, Russia, Peru and Israel. Our church regularly takes up a benevolent offering for those who have lost their jobs. I have other friends that work with those feeding and ministering to the homeless and shut-ins. Others are engaged in prayer, VBS and other ministries. Still others are faithfully involved in church positions such as parking attendants, greeters, and administrators which only indirectly aid in spreading the Gospel. Should these Christians repent of these religious activities?

This illustrates that our original questions cannot be answered without first defining what is meant by the term "religion".

Read the entire Repent article.

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Real American Heroes

Posted: July 21, 2009 - 18:44 CT

I just uploaded a post in our new blog about one way we can support and honor our troops, by sending care packages. It is important to let our troops know that, despite what the media says, there are still many good folks back home who care and realize that they are the real American heroes. While Democratic congresswoman, Sheila Jackson-Lee of Texas was drafting a 1600-word congressional resolution proclaiming Michael Jackson as a global hero, Republican representative Peter King of New York lambasted the celebrity-worshiping media circus in a YouTube video (as reported by Michelle Malkin):

"All we hear about is Michael Jackson. Let’s knock out the psychobabble. He was a pervert … and to be giving this much coverage to him, day in and day out, what does it say about us as a country? … I just think we’re too politically correct. No one wants to stand up and say, 'We don’t need Michael Jackson!' He died, he had some talent, but fine, there are people dying every day. There are men and women dying every day in Afghanistan, let’s give them the credit they deserve."

Read the entire Real Heroes article.

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Are Checklists Extreme?

Posted: July 19, 2009 - 20:18 CT

A few weeks ago, while in a class on the Holiness of God, we came to the question of how to approach this holy God. We have a more detailed article in progress on this subject, but at the present time, I would like to briefly comment on a particular aspect of the dialogue, when our conversation turned to Hebrews 4:16, in which we’re encouraged to boldly come before God’s throne. The biggest reservation that many of us have is with the word "boldly". How can a sinner be bold before the face of our holy and majestic God?

We must first interpret this passage in the context of the two previous verses, in which we see that we do not approach the throne based upon our own merit, but that of our High Priest, Jesus the Christ. Thus, "boldly" does not mean recklessly or brazenly, but humbly and with confidence in the work of Christ. Under the old covenant, the people of Israel could not approach God directly. Only the high priest could come into the Holy of Holies, and then only once a year to make an atoning sacrifice to "cover" the sins of the people. Under the new covenant, Jesus, our ultimate High Priest, has atoned for our sins once for all (Heb 9:11-15), the veil has been torn (Mt 27:50-51), and we have free access to God.

Read the entire Checklists article.

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Independence Day 2009

Posted: July 4, 2009 - 17:29 CT

For last year's Independence Day, I wrote about one of the liberal media's "Blame America First" articles. This particular article called upon us to offer a prayer for forgiveness of what he perceived to be our greatest sins, such as electing George W Bush as president, retaliating against those who murdered thousands of our citizens at the World Trade Center etc. This year, I'd like to feature an article which also calls for us to seek forgiveness of our sins, but for very different reasons. This excellent article, entitled The Nations 233rd Birthday - A Call for Repentance is written by Jane Chastain, a Southern California-based broadcaster, author and political commentator. She also includes a sample prayer which we encourage everyone to read along with her article.

Unlike the liberal's list of sins, Ms Chastain, a Christian, encourages us to repent of real sins which are in conflict with the will of the true God. Liberals however, tend to define sin as anything in disagreement with the god of political correctness, or a god who is an extension of their own views. In reply to a question of "What do you consider a sin?", then presidential candidate B Hussein Obama replied, "Anything that goes against my true nature". I sometimes wonder if Mr Obama prays to himself, asking himself to forgive himself for not being true to himself.

Read the entire Independence Day 2009 article.

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Our Fascination with Celebrities

Posted: June 30, 2009 - 21:46 CT

In the past week or so, we’ve witnessed the death of several celebrities such as Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, and even pitchman Billy Mays. First and foremost, we need to remember that these were real people with real families that we need to keep in our prayers. Many celebrities, despite their fame and fortune, tend to be very sad and lonely individuals, usually a far cry from the roles they play.

It’s very interesting, and revealing to watch the reactions to these events from various sources within our modern society. The so-called “mainstream” media virtually ignored the others in preference to Mr Jackson, since he was arguably the most popular and bizarre. Not including commercials, each major network typically broadcasts 22 minutes of what they call “news” during their nightly newscasts. The Media Resource Center reported that, on Friday evening (the next day after Mr Jackson’s death), ABC devoted all but 1:03 to Mr Jackson. NBC gave us 1:22 of other news while Katie Couric over at CBS managed to squeeze in 34 seconds for a total of 2:59 vs 63:01 devoted to Mr Jackson.

Read the entire Fascination with Celebrities article including what drives our obsession with the rich and famous.

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How to Approach Studying the Bible

Posted: June 24, 2009 - 20:53 CT

During a recent Sunday School class, a lovely lady made the comment that when we study the Bible, we should do so with no presuppositions, disregard the interpretations by others, and rely entirely on the Holy Spirit for our understanding. Now, this lady has a high view of the Scriptures and is very orthodox in her beliefs, but having encountered many liberals who take a similar stance in their attempt to validate whatever meaning is convenient to justify their agenda at the time, I jumped in with both feet. I immediately pointed out that presuppositional neutrality was a myth, and that we ignored the interpretations of the saints throughout history at our own peril.

So, which of us was correct in our assertions? After much prayer and contemplation over the past few days, I’ve come to the conclusion that, according to our respective intentions, we both were. Discussions in class are usually time-limited, so we often don’t adequately explain our intended meaning. I’m convinced that she was referring to the initial phase of study where we read the Scriptures and attempt to observe and interpret the author’s intended meaning. On the other hand, I was referring to the entire process of Bible study. I think we can clarify the issue with a brief overview on how to approach studying the Bible.

Read the entire Approaching Bible Study article, including discussions on Presuppositions, Bible Study Methods, and Resolving Disagreements.

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