tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-765859905680932230Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:57:05 +0000Welcome! Enjoy! Be Sanctifused!http://sanctifusion.blogspot.com/easter.robert@gmail.com (Robert)Blogger120125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-765859905680932230.post-16171637731532367Sat, 31 Oct 2009 17:28:00 +00002009-10-31T13:03:14.825-05:00church growthlonelinessPerfect lovelovegrowthministrycomfort We were surely all shocked at the news of the brutality that swept Rwanda, and, more recently, Kenya. No doubt this bolstered the prejudices of people who had been brought up under Darwinism to see the African people as in some way less-evolved and more volatile. Groups ranging from the Mau-mau of the Kenyan revolt to the Black Muslim/Nation of Islam have profited from Mr. Darwin's opinions on http://sanctifusion.blogspot.com/2009/10/church-tribalism.htmleaster.robert@gmail.com (Robert)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-765859905680932230.post-6431898559376538450Wed, 14 Oct 2009 04:44:00 +00002009-10-13T23:44:10.144-05:00BaptistRationalismPhilosophyPerfect loveCalvinismAnglicanwholeness For a change in pace, there is an issue that has been  “in the news” now for over 500, maybe a thousand years or so.  What, and where, exactly, is the Church?  At one time it was seen as a cooperative fellowship of Christian gatherings and communities.  Then there came a trend of which bishop, province, or diocese  had higher status for solving questions as they arose, and next there was a splithttp://sanctifusion.blogspot.com/2009/10/atomic-church.htmleaster.robert@gmail.com (Robert)6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-765859905680932230.post-1298341248649734446Mon, 05 Oct 2009 04:01:00 +00002009-10-04T23:04:23.480-05:00BaptistBibledivorceholinesstruthAnglicanwholenesscomfortpastoral "..The Husband of One Wife" An odd phrase, to our ears today. One husband to one wife, one wife to one husband, isn't that the way it works? But the New Testament requires a candidate for Church office be that kind of husband. What does this mean? In modern churches it is common for that phrase to mean that if a man has been divorced, or remarried, he is disqualified because he is either no http://sanctifusion.blogspot.com/2009/10/remarried-and-ordained.htmleaster.robert@gmail.com (Robert)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-765859905680932230.post-5079603981576334262Sun, 27 Sep 2009 03:22:00 +00002009-09-26T22:22:36.334-05:00Baptistchurch growthBibledivorceholinessCalvinismAnglicaneternityIn Western society the Church is in the minority. In even the “Bible Belt” only a minority of the population is actually in church on a given Sunday, or is even nominally active in a church. This much is known and noticed. Yet there is enough of a minority that it should have a significant influence- far more than it does, especially in terms of real evangelism. What is the problem? In actual http://sanctifusion.blogspot.com/2009/09/christian-minority.htmleaster.robert@gmail.com (Robert)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-765859905680932230.post-2031954145155549026Mon, 14 Sep 2009 16:56:00 +00002009-09-15T11:22:15.217-05:00divorcepeacerecoverywholenesspastoralWe looked earlier at the fact that God provided for the first divorce documents under the Law, and that the purpose of that document was to show that the marriage covenant had been broken beyond repair, and that the bearers were each free to make their own living arrangements. Remarriage was not only allowed, but presumed, based on Genesis' “It is not good for man to be alone,” and, “Be fruitfulhttp://sanctifusion.blogspot.com/2009/09/should-divorced-remarry.htmleaster.robert@gmail.com (Robert)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-765859905680932230.post-3105638641611288168Thu, 10 Sep 2009 01:48:00 +00002009-09-09T21:23:00.432-05:00divorcelonelinesshealingPerfect lovewholenessloveministryThis question has plagued people now for centuries. The consensus in many “Bible-believing churches (should this be redundant?)” is that Jesus said it was an absolute no-no because God has decreed that every marriage is forever, end of discussion. But is this the case?Before going farther, there is no intent here to encourage anyone to take the marriage vows any less seriously. “Til death do http://sanctifusion.blogspot.com/2009/09/may-divorced-remarry.htmleaster.robert@gmail.com (Robert)20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-765859905680932230.post-2544649942912090760Mon, 07 Sep 2009 01:51:00 +00002009-09-08T01:49:34.094-05:00divorceguilthealingholinessrecoverygrowthpastoralMy friend,Please accept this letter in response to your questions. Although I'm sure they were meant well, many people do not realise that divorce is rated as possibly the one most painful event a human being is apt to endure. The death of a loved one is hard; the death of a spouse can be much harder than most; divorce, to at least half of the people who go through it, mixes the sense of losshttp://sanctifusion.blogspot.com/2009/09/divorces-request.htmleaster.robert@gmail.com (Robert)3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-765859905680932230.post-514606764428608383Mon, 20 Jul 2009 17:48:00 +00002009-07-20T13:01:06.139-05:00salvationrestorationrecoverywholenessEliot's “Hollow Men” closes,“This is the way the world ends,Not with a bang but a whimper.”Seeing the trends today, with the “Progressives” having their way in Church and in Government while people who know better stand and stare. If previous generations had seen such abuses there would have been blood in the streets, or at least the key players in these coups would have been locked out of the http://sanctifusion.blogspot.com/2009/07/hollow-men-hollow-society.htmleaster.robert@gmail.com (Robert)3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-765859905680932230.post-2179369269356655679Sat, 11 Jul 2009 20:00:00 +00002009-07-13T16:22:50.875-05:00Baptistchurch growthBiblesovereigntyPerfect loveCalvinismsincomfortshame"..nor any other creature can separate us from the love of God."Just to say, for any who might wonder, I do believe in eternal security. Scripture is full of promises that God will never cast out his faithful children or change His mind about His salvation. "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee" cannot be any firmer either in the English, or in the Greek from which it is taken. Psalm 23 endshttp://sanctifusion.blogspot.com/2009/07/eternal-security-in-21st-century.htmleaster.robert@gmail.com (Robert)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-765859905680932230.post-1102065692627483904Sat, 04 Jul 2009 17:55:00 +00002009-07-07T10:29:40.130-05:00joyice creamholinessReligionRealitylifeRebelToday's the 4th. Happy 4th, to all Americans! This day commemorates the children of English and European settlers binding together to form a new nation. Lately, though, that seems to be about all we know about it. Our schools spend precious little time on that era, and what time is taken is put to memorising dates and names the students know nothing else about, making the very study of http://sanctifusion.blogspot.com/2009/07/great-independence-day.htmleaster.robert@gmail.com (Robert)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-765859905680932230.post-7849462090425826471Mon, 01 Jun 2009 21:38:00 +00002009-06-01T22:32:27.638-05:00salvationtruthshamefreedomA murder in Kansas has the attention of all the news media today. However many innocents have died in Sudan or Congo, how many Christians have been imprisoned, tortured, murdered in countries throughout the world, none of that is newsworthy. Neither, apparently, is the growing toll of abortions in this country. One man, one of a handful who openly aborted even babies at the point of birth, and http://sanctifusion.blogspot.com/2009/06/economics-of-murder.htmleaster.robert@gmail.com (Robert)7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-765859905680932230.post-8434879942387050342Sun, 24 May 2009 15:00:00 +00002009-05-24T10:16:23.589-05:00sovereigntyhopesinGodfaithshamefreedometernityOkay, so you're a Christian. Odds are if you're reading this you're an American, where 85% claim to be "saved." There just doesn't seem to be a lot of agreement on what we're supposed to be saved from, or saved for, how we came to be saved, or why. But we're saved. You can bet on it.So a Christian society endorses pornography, abortion, drunkenness, adultery, divorce-for-convenience, euthanasia, http://sanctifusion.blogspot.com/2009/05/end-of-america.htmleaster.robert@gmail.com (Robert)7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-765859905680932230.post-5465375091930107566Sat, 09 May 2009 20:24:00 +00002009-05-11T23:46:06.984-05:00BaptistRationalismchurchCalvinismAnglicanloveministryoutreachLarge parts of the Church today are effected by the anti-liturgical movement which seems to date back about five hundred years ago. The main fruit of that vine seems to have been that more and more parts of the Christian Faith have been labeled as "extraneous" or "non-essential," often with the cynical eye of a 1930's SS officer looking for "useless eaters." As the author of this movement1 left http://sanctifusion.blogspot.com/2009/05/so-what-about-liturgy.htmleaster.robert@gmail.com (Robert)4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-765859905680932230.post-5329616844683011505Sat, 28 Mar 2009 23:58:00 +00002009-03-28T21:00:53.953-05:00church growthrestorationhealingholinessdestinygrowthdivine attributesAn anonymous visitor reminds me that it's one thing to talk about why we need to go on to know the Lord, and not merely presume our eternal future on a past moment. Where it gets really sticky is when we ask what we should, or can, do with that information. The whole Bible covers a time frame, not including predictions, of at least 4,000 years, up until about 1900+ years ago. Daily life has http://sanctifusion.blogspot.com/2009/03/recipe-for-revival-living-life.htmleaster.robert@gmail.com (Robert)3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-765859905680932230.post-5143593407253953616Tue, 17 Mar 2009 20:37:00 +00002009-03-18T21:22:18.579-05:00salvationwholenesseternityI have been asked this on more than one occasion, “Do you believe that you can lose your salvation?” and how I answered would determine whether that person would continue in a conversation with me or visit my church. Since I do enjoy a good conversation with people (and, indeed, what is a relationship but a good conversation?), and I do like people to visit my church, this works out to be a http://sanctifusion.blogspot.com/2009/03/losing-it.htmleaster.robert@gmail.com (Robert)16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-765859905680932230.post-1632889624996143752Thu, 26 Feb 2009 05:40:00 +00002009-03-11T19:27:32.530-05:00salvationRationalismchurchReligionRealitytruthWhat's next?Christianity in America is going down:All Protestant churches, even the Southern Baptist Convention, are shrinkingCongress is getting serious about investigating fraudulent preachers with deep collection baskets.Christian Broadcasting has become so dependent on “teaching ministries” that few stations show any depth or integrity in their message.The present regime is committed to a “http://sanctifusion.blogspot.com/2009/02/church-is-going-down.htmleaster.robert@gmail.com (Robert)11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-765859905680932230.post-920599002327906419Sat, 07 Feb 2009 20:36:00 +00002009-02-09T18:37:07.371-06:00TrinityRationalismrestorationAnglicanwholenessfaitheternityHoly MysteriesUnderstanding, or Right Thinking?Today we want to understand- to lay it out, to break it down, to plot it all out with constants and variables.Our faith is Humanism. It's all about us!Right thinking- We knowthere is that there is, beyond knowing:Where did time come from? Where will it go?If all matter come from energy, then what is its source?And who harnessed it?“God is love.” http://sanctifusion.blogspot.com/2009/02/holy-mysteries.htmleaster.robert@gmail.com (Robert)10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-765859905680932230.post-6496079840521202986Fri, 06 Feb 2009 21:40:00 +00002009-02-06T15:54:16.003-06:00TrinityRationalismRealitytruthwholenessloveeternityIn the 1930's German Protestants backed the government's “fight against the spiritual and political influence of the Jewish race,” and into the 40's were broadly quiet about the death camps. Word from the Vatican was that “the greatest charity is not to make problems for the Church.”In America, fifty million children's lives have been destroyed, not to mention the lives of the women so deceivedhttp://sanctifusion.blogspot.com/2009/02/whats-difference.htmleaster.robert@gmail.com (Robert)5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-765859905680932230.post-2799423986178860720Wed, 04 Feb 2009 02:38:00 +00002009-02-04T19:49:13.897-06:00 Psalm: Psalm 147:1-11Old Testament: Isaiah 40:21-31Gospel: Mark 1:29-39Epistle: 1 Corinthians 9:16-23 27 Gospel theme: up & doing. The touch of Jesus, and a sick woman is up & doing. Not sitting around attracting attention for having been touched and healed by the Master, as great as this was, but demonstrating His having touched her by doing for others..Thehttp://sanctifusion.blogspot.com/2009/02/secret-of-perfect-love.htmleaster.robert@gmail.com (Robert)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-765859905680932230.post-7947315071417722946Thu, 29 Jan 2009 00:33:00 +00002009-02-05T18:07:18.851-06:00lonelinessguilthealingholinesshopewholenessscienceshameeternityAbortion- Some Questions, a Few AnswersIn 1973 the whole American ethic flipped upside down, and for the greater part we have yet to come to grips with the fact. A generation that had been taught that people “evolve” in the womb from jellyfish to chimps before appearing as finally human made it legal to kill those “fish” before they became embarrassingly round tummies or troublesome toddlers. http://sanctifusion.blogspot.com/2009/01/abortion-real-victims.htmleaster.robert@gmail.com (Robert)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-765859905680932230.post-2312947029315658629Fri, 23 Jan 2009 17:54:00 +00002009-01-23T22:59:36.506-06:00salvationdeathRealityPhilosophydestinyeternityYou can't take it with you, so they say. But then, who would want to? Do we imagine that there is something lacking in Heaven, if indeed one is headed there? Or any comfort to be found in Hell, no matter how big a suitcase we carry?Hell, they say, is paved with good intentions*. We can easily believe that, as we think of all the pain suffered by people waiting on promised help that never came, http://sanctifusion.blogspot.com/2009/01/good-intentions.htmleaster.robert@gmail.com (Robert)8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-765859905680932230.post-8448098186806690823Thu, 08 Jan 2009 21:50:00 +00002009-01-09T22:12:11.749-06:00sovereigntywholenessdivine attributeseternityPsalm: Psalm 29Old Testament: Genesis 1:1-5Gospel: Mark 1:4-11Epistle: Acts 19:1-7(This Sunday's sermon notes) (Hebrews 4:11-13) Who is this God, 'with Whom we have to do?' This is the Sunday after Epiphany, when we celebrate God being revealed to the nations, as the Wise Men were allowed to see the Christ Child, and as we remember also Christ's Baptism for us all in the Jordan. But Who is http://sanctifusion.blogspot.com/2009/01/epiphany.htmleaster.robert@gmail.com (Robert)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-765859905680932230.post-3260362939683037099Mon, 05 Jan 2009 04:45:00 +00002009-01-07T16:01:41.233-06:00truthstrengthwholenessministrypastoraloutreachJesus said, “He that saves his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake and the Gospel's will find it unto life everlasting*.”Some today go the “career route,” and others are going into “ministry.” Some, like me, tend to get confused over the distinction.In theory, “ministry” is about finding effective ways to give our lives away. When Jesus said “whosoever will be great among http://sanctifusion.blogspot.com/2009/01/is-it-what-we-do-career-and-ministry.htmleaster.robert@gmail.com (Robert)28tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-765859905680932230.post-1965698124113387792Thu, 01 Jan 2009 19:20:00 +00002009-01-01T13:44:45.251-06:00Baptistchurch growthBiblerestorationchurchholinessCalvinismhopeAnglicanwholenessChristmas II, ABCPsalm: Psalm 147:12-20Old Testament: Jeremiah 31:7-14Gospel: John 1:1-9, 10-18Epistle: Ephesians 1:3-14Proem. Gospel message: Christ the Creator as well as Redeemer, Savior as well as Judge. There is nothing in Jesus that is not good, but we can look to Him for all things! (Jones, The Divine Yes )For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, Silvanus and Timothyhttp://sanctifusion.blogspot.com/2009/01/answer-is-resounding-yes.htmleaster.robert@gmail.com (Robert)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-765859905680932230.post-3688061244913755736Tue, 30 Dec 2008 19:58:00 +00002008-12-30T14:04:53.420-06:00TrinitychurchPerfect lovewholenessdivine attributesRomans 1:16 tells us that the gospel of Christ is God's power to save those who believe. So what is this "gospel" that we may believe it?We have two modern options offered as a path to salvation:Classical Liberal Christianity that all are probably saved anyway either because " Christ has redeemed the world" or, "But God is nice, isn't He?" Most commonly reduces the Gospel message to "Love God andhttp://sanctifusion.blogspot.com/2008/12/what-is-gospel.htmleaster.robert@gmail.com (Robert)1