The issue of free will has always been at the forefront of theology. But recently, science has been making headway into its attempts to understand our decision making. The New York Times has an interesting article on free will.

This morning, I read the following on Ray Stedman’s Daily Devotional:

In our travels, my family and I were privileged to be in various parts of the ancient world, where we visited many temples dedicated to idols. Though these temples had fallen into ruins, in every place a certain god such as Apollo, Venus, Bacchus, or Zeus had been enthroned and worshiped there. It suddenly struck me, after returning home, that though these temples have been abandoned, the worship of the god has not ceased. We have changed the names, but the gods, the idols, are exactly the same. There is the worship of Narcissus, the god who fell in love with himself. Is this not perhaps the supreme god of humanity: the worship of self, the exaltation of humans? The idea that we constantly hear set forth is that humans are so tremendous, so smart, so brilliant, so clever; they can do so many things. Yet we deny the continual evidence of our senses that the world is crumbling to pieces around us. We have the worship of Bacchus, the god of pleasure, wine, women, and song; the worship of Venus, the goddess of love, enthroned in Hollywood and all that Hollywood stands for; Apollo, the god of physical beauty; Minerva, the goddess of science. Everywhere we have enthroned science.

So, I thought of a little experiment to validate Ray’s theory. I simply visited the front page of DrudgeReport.com to see if the headlines matched what he is saying. Here are the results from just one page of browsing:

• James Camerons says BP are “morons who don’t know what they are doing” (Narcissus/Venus)
• Oil ball continues towards Florida (Minerva)
• Oil lek may continue until Christmas (Minerva)
• Porn actor goes on Rampage (Bacchus)
• Another Party at the White House: Paul McCartney sings (Bacchus/Venus)
• McCartney bashes Bush (Narcissus)
• Man Kills Kitten after it disconnects his video game (Bacchus)
• Spike Lee tells Obama how to handle the Oil Crisis (Narcissus/Venus)
• SURPRISE: Pacific islands defy sea level predictions; Islands stable or growing (Narcissus)

Lends credibility to Ray’s thoughts… Now, if this is one page on the internet, imagine the amount of god’s that are worshipped in all that media we encounter each day!

So easy to forget:

Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another (1 John 4:11).

This is the answer to every lame excuse on our part that says, Oh, I just can’t love that person. You don’t know what she’s like. If you had to live with her as I have to, you wouldn’t be able to love her, either. No, Dear friends, since God so loved us… If you have experienced this kind of love, if you have been to the cross and felt the overwhelming cleansing of God’s love for you, despite the antagonism and hatefulness you have shown Him and despite your loving your own way and wanting to do what you like; if you have felt the cleansing grace of God wiping that all out without any recriminations or calling up of the past, forgetting and forgiving it all, then, as John says, you not only can love someone else but you ought to—you owe it. That is where the word ought comes from. You owe it to love one another.

There is a good book out by Tom Paterson entitled, “Living the Life You Were Meant to Live”. An experienced strategy consultant, Paterson lays out a route to self-discovery:

“In order to see where you are going, you need to gain a perspective on where you have been and what you have been gifted by God to be. There are times when we each need to go to the ‘mountaintop’ to be able to see the terrain below.” Read more »

From a recent Ray Stedman devotional… something that is all to easy to forget:

“This is the great secret, and one of the hardest things for Christians to learn… How did Jesus walk? He walked in total, unrelenting, unbroken fellowship and dependence upon the activity of the Father who indwelt Him. But that seems so hard for us to learn. With us, it is the Son of God who lives within us, and He has come to reproduce the effect of His death and the power of His resurrection—to live again His life in us. But we have such difficulty with this. Our attitude is, Please, Father, I’d rather do it myself We are brought up with the idea that we have in ourselves an ability to act significantly, that God is looking to us to act on His behalf, and if we fail Him, the whole program will fall apart, but if we do accomplish something for God, He should be eternally grateful to us for our faithfulness.

But this is not what a Christian is called to do. A quiet, unrelenting dependence upon an indwelling God to be always at work in us, reproducing the value of His death and the power of His resurrection—that is what Christianity is, that is what fellowship is, and that is what abiding in Him means.”

Donald Miller is a fairly polarizing figure. Though I tend to defer to the likes of CS Lewis and Ray Stedman, Don has re-shaped quite a bit of my theological thinking… whether it has been for better or worse!

Well, he is at it again, blogging about whether God has a plan in store for us. Check it out:

Does God Have a Specific Plan for Your Life? Probably Not. | Donald Miller’s Blog.