CHANGE
Everywhere one turns today, we hear the word "Change"! Barak is the candidate of change! Businesses go through change! Americans say that we must change the way we view things! People take classes because that have a desire to grow (change)! "I'm divorcing you, honey, because I need to experience more of life so that I can grow" is an oft uttered statement. No one is content where one is ... we must change! Change! Change! Change! Get on the wagon of change or you'll be left behind.
Two ancient philosophers had some thoughts about this:
1. Hericlitus: Whatever is, is changing! The only reality is change itself! One cannot step into the same river twice ... water and sand are moving ... it does not stay the same. If everything we interact with is constantly changing we can never know anything about it because once we learned anything about it, it would change and become something else.
2. Parmenides: Whatever is, IS! Of all the problems of philosophy truth is the most elusive because reasoning, to be of any value must begin with truth. It cannot create truth. What is could never be derived from what is not. That would be absurd. Therefore what is could never have not been. What is, also, could never become what is not, so what is can never not be in the future.
Confused!?
I work in pharmaceutical sales. A few years ago, one of the folks from "sales training" came to a sales meeting and explained that the sales training department had decided that we would be the "best trained sales force in the country"! There had been planned numerous on-line courses and seminars to help us reach this goal! I let him/her babble on for a while and finally asked him to explain exactly what being the "best trained sales force in the country" actually meant. Surely, I thought, with all of this planning, there had to be exact knowledge of our goal ... something concrete that could be clearly described. Like going on a trip and using map-quest to get exact directions. I explained to this person that since most people in the room were very intelligent and had Masters degrees or higher, we would be more than willing to expedite the reaching of this this goal, if he/she would only describe it to us! This person is no longer with the company!
I hear lots of folks today screaming at each other on talk radio about evolution, but I have never heard ANYONE say anything about what we are evolving to! If we intelligent human beings only knew what we were heading towards, we could speed up the process. Somebody just tell us please! And by the way, if we are constantly evolving how are "regressions" explained?
We cannot be changing into anything unless there is something that IS!
If there were ever a time when there was nothing ... there would still be nothing!
THE SHORTER CATECHISM is a great list of questions and answers about our ultimate reality. Three terms are brought up and defined in questions #33,#34 and #35. I will leave #33 and #34 for a later time but question #35 asks: What is sanctification? The answer is that Sanctification is the work of God's free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness. In other words, those who believe are being changed into the likeness of Christ ... not that we are little gods, but simply that we are being changed into something. He is the great "I Am"!
Sanctification is what makes life make sense! There are no cosmic accidents! Everything that happens to a believer in his life serves a purpose. We may not understand it at the time, but we know that it is for our good.
To an unbeliever, life cannot possibly make any sense at all. The unbeliever must simply grit his teeth and do everything in his power to make himself as comfortable as possible during his years on earth. But, life cannot make any sense if one has no understanding of where it is all heading ... DEATH!
To a believer, death is a portal to eternal life! To an unbeliever, there is no belief in a continuum. Get all the gusto you can, because this is your one shot before you become "worm food"! In the grave where you are going, all your plans and schemes come to an end! Hold your head high in your valiant stupor, you are fooling no one but yourself.
Once again, the only way that one can be changing is because there is something that IS.
It is our only hope in this life and the next! It is in Him that we live and move and have our being!
Two ancient philosophers had some thoughts about this:
1. Hericlitus: Whatever is, is changing! The only reality is change itself! One cannot step into the same river twice ... water and sand are moving ... it does not stay the same. If everything we interact with is constantly changing we can never know anything about it because once we learned anything about it, it would change and become something else.
2. Parmenides: Whatever is, IS! Of all the problems of philosophy truth is the most elusive because reasoning, to be of any value must begin with truth. It cannot create truth. What is could never be derived from what is not. That would be absurd. Therefore what is could never have not been. What is, also, could never become what is not, so what is can never not be in the future.
Confused!?
I work in pharmaceutical sales. A few years ago, one of the folks from "sales training" came to a sales meeting and explained that the sales training department had decided that we would be the "best trained sales force in the country"! There had been planned numerous on-line courses and seminars to help us reach this goal! I let him/her babble on for a while and finally asked him to explain exactly what being the "best trained sales force in the country" actually meant. Surely, I thought, with all of this planning, there had to be exact knowledge of our goal ... something concrete that could be clearly described. Like going on a trip and using map-quest to get exact directions. I explained to this person that since most people in the room were very intelligent and had Masters degrees or higher, we would be more than willing to expedite the reaching of this this goal, if he/she would only describe it to us! This person is no longer with the company!
I hear lots of folks today screaming at each other on talk radio about evolution, but I have never heard ANYONE say anything about what we are evolving to! If we intelligent human beings only knew what we were heading towards, we could speed up the process. Somebody just tell us please! And by the way, if we are constantly evolving how are "regressions" explained?
We cannot be changing into anything unless there is something that IS!
If there were ever a time when there was nothing ... there would still be nothing!
THE SHORTER CATECHISM is a great list of questions and answers about our ultimate reality. Three terms are brought up and defined in questions #33,#34 and #35. I will leave #33 and #34 for a later time but question #35 asks: What is sanctification? The answer is that Sanctification is the work of God's free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness. In other words, those who believe are being changed into the likeness of Christ ... not that we are little gods, but simply that we are being changed into something. He is the great "I Am"!
Sanctification is what makes life make sense! There are no cosmic accidents! Everything that happens to a believer in his life serves a purpose. We may not understand it at the time, but we know that it is for our good.
To an unbeliever, life cannot possibly make any sense at all. The unbeliever must simply grit his teeth and do everything in his power to make himself as comfortable as possible during his years on earth. But, life cannot make any sense if one has no understanding of where it is all heading ... DEATH!
To a believer, death is a portal to eternal life! To an unbeliever, there is no belief in a continuum. Get all the gusto you can, because this is your one shot before you become "worm food"! In the grave where you are going, all your plans and schemes come to an end! Hold your head high in your valiant stupor, you are fooling no one but yourself.
Once again, the only way that one can be changing is because there is something that IS.
It is our only hope in this life and the next! It is in Him that we live and move and have our being!
posted by George Goddard at
9:16 AM
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