Ithaca Evangelism

Yesterday I went to Ithaca with Jen to go to a doctors appointment for my IT band syndrome that I have been having problem with for about 12 weeks to the day. Afterwards we went around downtown to go to the Ithaca commons which I had never been there and then to see the water falls.

While we were down in the commons we went to a place that Jen and her family love to go called the Matte Factor. It is this little restaurant with this tea called Matte and Jen loves the place because she loves tea and she loves that the place makes everything with natural ingredients including honey to sweeten their tea because she can have honey and not sugar.

We first went in their to get some tea then walked around the commons for a little bit. After walking around and seeing the other stores and such, it was about lunch time and we needed to get something to eat. Jen wanted a wrap from the Matte Factor and I wanted a waffle from this waffle place. Which, my waffle was amazing, it was a cornbread waffle with real maple syrup and chocolate chips on top!!! I got my food and headed over to the Matte place to sit with Jen where she was talking to the guy who works there.

Now, to add a little background, the people who own, run, and work the Matte place are people who are apart of this group called the Twelve Tribes, which we think are like this Jewish cult. They have a website that you can check out called www.twelvetribes.com .

This guy gave her this pamphlet and I walked in on them talking about it. Later after sitting down and eating the guy came back because he saw I was reading it trying to get an idea of what it was saying. They quoted the bible a lot in the pamphlet and asked him why that was. So, we had a nice discussion on what he believes. Basically the man is a Pelagian who thinks men are going to heaven based on their good works and that Christ only came to save those who are just too deep in the whole to get themselves out. I had gone through the Ten Commandments trick with him to show him he is a sinner in need of Christ and he stopped me and said, "have you ever nailed a piece of wood together to something? does that make you a Carpenter? so if no why is it that if I lied once or twice or a few times but not a lot or badly does that make me a lier?"

I must answer this because this was a new thing I had never heard but I think I responded nicely to it. The difference between these two things being a lier and being a Carpenter by profession is that the standard by which the action is measured by. Let me explain, the Law of God says that you break my law you deserve punishment. It does not say how many time you have to break the Law before you finally deserve the justice. Even so was it not by one action of one bite of the fruit of the forbidden tree that sent the whole world into a fallen nature? By one man sin entered the world, is it not right to say that by one sin, justice is to be accounted for? The Carpenter is merely a profession and simply doing things as a Carpenter does does not make you a Carpenter. It is like saying if you ever ran in your life it makes you a runner, or if you ever wrote a poem for class it now makes you a writer. No! I am a horrible writer and by no means it it something that I am. yes I can write, yes I have written but I am by no means A WRITER. The title is stating that it is who I am by what I either enjoy to do often or do professionally. To walk into a room full of writers and say I am one and tell them i wrote a short story for 11th grade English once, they would laugh. The standard is set by society as to what it means to be a writer or a Carpenter or a runner, but not so with being a lier, a murderer, or a thief. The standard is an objective one in which crossing the line now makes your deserving of the penalty. In a court of law it would not stand if you broke it once or a thousand time. Point being you broke the law. In human Law you can break it a bunch of times and not get caught, untrue for God's Law because God knows the hearts and minds of everyone, knowing exactly what Law you broke and how many times whether it be few or many. So, to use that analogy is to compare two different things that do not apply to each other.

Anyways, after talking for a long time with the man who continued to go in circles confusing Law and Gospel, We kindly left the man shaking his hand. I praise God for the opportunity to have spread His Gospel and that by that His purpose will be edified in that man's life. May God's calling be effective always to those whom He chooses to make known to.

Jen then took me to the music store there in Ithaca and that was fun. I got to play a twelve string acoustic guitar which sounded amazing! We then left and kind of got lost trying to find Taughannock Falls, which was a first time for me going there and had to be one of the most beautiful falls in Ithaca by far! It started to rain and so we headed home. What an amazing day with such an amazing girl!

Jerry Greenlaw

So I thought of Jerry the other day as I was driving my car to go to the park to chill with friends. I heard the song Born to Run by Springsteen and I couldn't help but think of Jerry. He has been a pretty good friend to me in the past two years at Cortland, just always making me feel welcome. I miss him and my other buddies I have met throughout my college days. I feel like I have fallen off the face of the earth to them. I will definitely have to make trips to see them in the future to enjoy their company as I have done so many times in the past!

Days...

As I am getting older now, the days seem to be getting shorter. The months and years are just moving by faster and faster. But God in my life has been growing me more and more in these days. He has given me graces beyond measure and ultimately the greatest Grace of them all! Living in that I am slowly dying to myself and finding my life becoming different. As stages in my life begin to change I am forced to place everything into His hands, knowing that I am to live my life in the comfort and knowledge of God to help guide me but ultimately He will put me where I am to be. Where I was, where I am, and where I will be is exactly where I am supposed to be. And so, each day I take to that comfort to act in ways that are against my old nature, becoming even more each day, a Child of God.

A long weekend with the Vermaat's

This past weekend, I was invited to come to Jen's Uncle's wedding that was Renaissance themed. It was a very interesting wedding! very low key and close family. I was very honored to have been invited to the ceremony. The bride rode a horse with Jen's Uncle David lead her in. Jen looked amazingly gorgeous in her dress. I wore a pretty neat outfit myself. It was neat because walking around with the horses in our outfits, I really felt like we were actually in the 1600's!

The next day I got to spend more time with Jen's family as they all came over her house for the evening. She keeps tellin me her family is crazy but I think she is too self concious about alot of things because I think her family is pretty neat and pretty funny.

Jen also came with me on Sunday to Church at the Redeemer in Cortland. She said it has been almost half a year since she has been to church. She loved it there. She is always being discerning and so she asked me to clarify somethings she thought she herd like when we had communion she had thought by what the pastor said, she thought that he meant the the bread and juice became the literal body and blood of Christ which she misunderstood just a little.
She also kind of doesnt like how people pray as unworthy when we are now children of God, loved by Him. but i simply explained its not always the case. Granted I find that alot of her concerns come from her dislike of her previous Church within the Dutch Reformed tradition. Granted alot of the things within her specific Chruch are not always the case everywhere and the same goes vice versa. But it is a shame that she is so hesitant to many things within the Reformed tradition because how much it had been skewed within her previous Church.

Jen is one of those believers who stresses the relationship with God while I am the kind that enjoys the relationship with God but it flows from the knowledge of what God has given me in His word through doctrine. She says Christianity is not religion but relationship while I say Christianity is Gospel and not Law. She stresses the heart in which comes the knowledge and I stress the Head where knowledge is proccessed and finds its path to the heart to become exhalted.

Sort of a small dilema but it does not make me love her anyless! She understands many of the same things I do but from a different source and so I praise God for that! I care about her alot and she cares about me and feels comfortable with me, and I see us growing more and more together in Christ. Jen is an amazing girl and I find it crazy that she had been right infront of me for about a decade. Praise God for putting her in my life!

Assateague Island

For summer vacation my friends and I have been plannin a trip to go to Assateague Island down near Ocean City, MD to get away for a few days and go camping and enjoy the beach. As we were driving down there, the weather was warm and cloudy. But, about 15 mins before we arrived, the sun came out and the weather was gorgeous the rest of the week. Jen and I went shopping for food the first day down there while everyone else stayed at the campsite and put the tents and stuff up. When we got back we ate hot dogs over the campfire and then went over to the boardwalk in Ocean City.

After going to the boardwalk we came back to the campsite and walked around the beach in the dense fog and then hung around the fire till we went to bed. In the morning, we all got up really early before 6am to enjoy the runrise. Then we went around over to Ocean City again to play beach volleyball and walk the board walk the other direction. When we got back to the campsite, it was not even noon yet, so we all got in our suites and went swimming and played in the sand digging holes. Afterwards, we got changed, played a long game of apples to apples, some took naps while I made my own kite out of the broken tent materials. When the nappers woke up we went to a Crab Shack just on the mainland from Ocean City for dinner where the meal was really expensive but really good. I had huge bucket of clams and shells and crab which was delicious. Then as we got back we had some ice cream sandwitches around the fire and went for a moonlite walk on the beach then headed to bed.

On the thiird day we spent our morning packing everything up and then headed back home. we dropped off Joy in Philly where we picked her up from, and stopped at the Country Junction, the worlds largest general store, to eat dinner and look around.

This trip was an amazing trip. For how inexpensive it was to go and do what we did for a few days, I could not have asked for anything more! By the way Batman stayed up the whole trip!

Jwits at my door

This mornin, a little after I had woken up, I heard the door bell ring. I was two women evangelising for the Jehovahs Witnesses and the Watchtower Tracts Society. I almost invited them in but it has been a long time since I have studied up on Jwits and This was my first ever encounnter with them coming to my home.

They first asked me what I thought about the current world crisises and natural disasters proceeding to hand me a Watchtower magazine that has an article talking about it. I simply told them I dont believe in their god and that I did not want to take the magazine. I realized because I had not studied up on their beliefs recently enough to remember, we simply exchanged some questions starting with theirs first.

They first asked me what I believe God's purpose is, which I answered them that it has always been a history of redemption through the Lord and God Jesus Christ. Then I asked them whether they believe in the Trinity, whether Jesus was fully God and fully man, and they answered no. Come to find out I had asked one of the important questions that is disputed between Jwits and the Church of Jesus Christ, as I had afterwards read up on. They also asked me if I believed if we are currently living in the last days, and I said yes explaining that in this age of grace by the Gospel we are currently waiting for the return of our Lord and God Jesus Christ.

After our friendly exchange they said good bye and they left. I wish I had known more about them to get a better understanding of how to have exchanged with them a little better. Granted that falls mostly on my ignorance and I know to leave it to God to change the hearts of those who are unbelieving. But I noticed something about how they evangelized me. They simply went straight to some abstract concept where God is being questioned and handing me not a bible or bible verses but the Watchtower magazine. I know they need to do this because they are tryinng to "win" converts and are doing all the things necessary to do so and that even means changing the message. But not just that they didnt give me the Gospel but they did not even expound on what their gospel was. I heard no purpose to why I should read except that I could get a better understanding of why bad things are happening. I was left with an emptyness of not truly understanding their views and beliefs with an exception of when I had asked them my question on the trinity. I felt like in order to have truly delt with the situation, not only do you have to know what you believe and why you believe it but know what they believe and why they believe it. I know i should do this but at the same time it upsets me to thing how many people dont know what they believe and why they believe it or have not completely understood everything they believe in order to go out and evangelize. Evangelism should be an act of portraying your beliefs to another and why so that they may either accept or deny that claim, not to vaugely give a brief idea or concept in attempts to possibly decieve the unbeliever.

So again other then from the question I asked them, it sounded to me like they believe basically in the same things I believe, but when you go in and research further it really is not the case. I pray for those two women that by God's grace they will be given a heart of flesh and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as their righteousness and rest in that Gospel. May our conversation we had been to further that Gospel and to glorify God! Amen

Soli Deo Gloria, Sola Christus, Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide, Sola Gratia!

AGAPE Bonfire and more

On Wednesday night I spent the whole afternoon and evening and part of the early, early morning with Jen and my firends from Agape at Cortland. We had a bonfire up at Otisco Lake. It was huge. I think the wood pile was about 12 feet tall and about 12 feet wide at the base. It started out as crummy weather almost about to rain, but then it cleared up and boy was it beautiful. A couple of us went swimming in the lake where it was as cold or colder than some ice baths I have taken previously. I played 16 games of Kan Jam with Sean and we went 15-1, with our last loss because it was practically dark. so we went 15 and 0 for almost the whole day. Me and Brian Keefe went out on the lake with the canoe, and a couple of us walked out on this fallen tree over the lake. Before we started the fire I was given an opprotunity to speak some words to the bunch of people who were at the bonfire about Christ and His Gospel and How it defines us and to keep learning more and more about it. I was blessed with that opprotunity. I love when I am given opprotunities to speak like that because I feel it always necessary to proclaim the truth and the Gospel, even if it is to some believers to build them up in Christ.

I finally drove with Jen home but before we got home we stopped in Cortland to have a Midnight breakfast with some of my teammates, so Jen got to meet them. I was blessed with another opprotunity to share more of the Gospel where a teammate of mine had asked the question to me whether God can become a man, where I simply responded, "I believe he has already!" I explained the doctrine of the trinity and the purpose of Christ becoming man. It was an out of no where question but I was obliged to respond. After that, we finally headed home and just as we got into the Forks, Jen didn't want to go home so we drove around a little while as I attempted to bring her to a cool place but I couldnt see a thing in the fog, so she fell asleep and I brought her home fighting my own urges to do the same.

Reality Check!

Well, reality is catching up with me and im feeling pretty sad about it. I feel like I have spent so many hours and many hard times and crapy days in the rain, snow, and wind to not even be able to compete a single outdoor season in a Cortland uniform. I only competed for a gran total of 3 seasons in a cortland uniform. thats only enough to cover 1 year of running. Now I am possibly looking at my college career being over before it was suposed to. I feel kind of empty. Only because I really would have enjoyed trying to run some good times on the outdoor track. So many great expectations that just never even start to happen. I am gunna miss running for Cortland. I really regret nothing but it is just a pity to have the same thing happen to me in college as what happened to me in high school, not getting to finish my last season. I have an extra indoor and outdoor eligability but I really want to get the Grad assistant job to help build my resume and to pay for grad school. I am kind tired of waiting and at the same time being over run by the current workload of school. I feel like I cannot fit anything more into my brain. I feel like I have a bad case of ADD where I just cant pay attention any longer. I cant seem to finish things that I start because I am too easily distracted. I am out of money and I dont have my running to go to as an outlet. I trust God that he has this situation for me for a purpose but I still sometimes His purpose is hard. I completely expected this but the reality of it didnt hit me until I got deep enough in. I just pray that what ever happens is to God's good purpose and if I suffer for it, may god comfort me through it.

10k American Record!!!!

So the last couple years in track and field has been amazing. A resurgence of the sport has been shown with the trampling of barriers that American distance runners has not yet been able to accomplish yet. Not only that but stronger fields within the sport. Stronger front packs, especially lead by the Oregon Track Club Elite. First 2 americans go under 13 mins for the first time since Bob Kennedy in the 90's and one of them being the new american record, happening within 2 weeks of each other. Then almost a year later the first non-african to go under 27 mins in the 10k! Just amazing performances and in our life time. This is just amazing all around to see this happen. This is definately up there with Billy Mills being the only American to win an olympic 10k. Here is the video, the excitement in the last lap is just amazing:

Track and Field Videos on Flotrack

The Folly of Men

Mainly my own folly. I am still amazed that God uses us to carry on His Word. I feel sometimes I am so passionate about the doctrines of Grace that I fail to see the works of another being a hearty message that flows from the Word. I failed to see someones attempt today to try and promote Christianity because I was so focused on doctrine and what I thought the passage was actually speaking. I myself am not an expert with this passage the guy was speaking from and so for some reason I had to act like I was. God forgive me and please continue in your grace for me because I cannot live without it. For without it you should have already struck me down years ago! Humble me Lord!

Pretty good weekend I'de say!

I helped out with my churches youth group with a lock in at the church where we went to the mall and played a scavenger hunt then came back to the church had a devotional time and then did a talent show and had a gutter of ice cream literally, then watched the blind side played a random board game called quelf and then watched avatar. Afterward in the mornin, I drove home then met up with a long time friend and we had a huge talk while we walked around Binghamton University, drinkin bubble tea. And so the next day we basically had a DTR moment and so i asked her dad if I could court her and so thats what im doin now. I have a girlfriend! who has been a long time friend. which is odd because I never thought something like that would happen.

Been Pretty Busy

I havent been on here as much as I have in the past. I think it has been like 2 weeks almost since I have posted anything. I am really busy now with trying to finish up school and get gradiated (spelt that way on purpose) and just trying to move on in my life. I am hurt and havent ran in 3 weeks, and so I luckily have that time now to devote to my work and other things so I am glad that it works out like that bc I would be tanking in everything now if I was running. Anyways I will let everyone know more about my plans when they are more finite and what I have been up to! until then, Praise God, my rock and my deliverer!

My heart would still refuse thee...

Causeless Choice

By John W. Hendryx

Libertarians, of course, like to claim that we also base our compatiblism in philosophical assumptions but this assertion simply doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. There are an endless number of Scriptures that affirm that our choice to believe or reject the gospel is done so of necessity because of our innermost affections and inclinations. For example, in John 3:19 it says that those who reject the gospel do so because the love darkness and hate the light. A libertarian, on the other hand, to be consistent, must assert that one rejected Christ, not necessarily because he hated him, or on the other hand did not chose Him because he had affection for Him, but rather only because he chose to, which is contrary to everything we know of Scripture. We all know that the will ultimately chooses from the desires and affections of the person. Quoting the Old Testment prophet Isaiah, Jesus rebukes the Pharisees for the error of choosing without intent by saying, “THIS PEOPLE HONORS ME WITH THEIR LIPS, BUT THEIR HEART IS FAR AWAY FROM ME.” This reveals that it is impossible to honor Jesus with a faith that does not also honor Him from the heart. This is not very different from the kind of faith libertarians are describing. Later to another group of those who refused to believe, Jesus shows us what the cause of our choices are when he replied,



"I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin...If you were Abraham's children," said Jesus, "then you would do the things Abraham did. As it is, you are determined to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things. You are doing the things your own father does...You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don't you believe me? He who belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God." (John 8:34-47)



Jesus continually points to reasons or motives as the determining factor for believing and rejecting the gospel: they are “determined to kill me”, “their heart is far from me”, they “want to carry out their father’s desire” and they reject me because they “do not belong to God.” Libertarian causeless choice is, therefore, an idea foreign to Scripture and basically goes against all sound logic. If our choice to receive Christ is causeless, not arising of necessity from our affections or desire when we see God’s beauty and excellence, then it is made, as it were, out of thin air, for no other reason but that we chose, as if the person wills to choose something he doesn’t want. To give you a real life example of libertarian causeless choice, read the following excerpt from a recent conversation I had with a libertarian where I asked a simple question about why we believe the gospel. I asked,



“If the gospel is preached to two persons and they both receive equal (prevenient) grace, why is it that one man ultimately believes the gospel and not the other? What makes the two people to differ? Was it Jesus Christ that makes them to differ or something else? If both had the same prevenient grace it wasn’t Jesus that made the to differ, so obviously one had a natural advantage over the other.



He answered in classic libertarian fashion, “One heard and understood, one did not. One believed and one did not. That's the nature of free will. Our decisions are not DETERMINED by forces outside of our will. And that's why one man accepts and another rejects Christ.”



Lets take a closer look at his answer. He said that ‘one understood and one did not’ … but where did such understanding come from to begin with? Was this understanding itself derived from nature or from grace? In the libertarian scheme did God grant this understanding so that one believed? We are forced to conclude that He did not, for if He did this for everyone, then both persons would have the same understanding. So we must conclude that, to the libertarian, such spiritual understanding is entirely self-generated, apart from any work of God’s grace in us. Whatever differences there were between the two men, these differences were not derived from grace. Ultimately, it is a reliance on some innate ability in one man, which the other did not have. So we must ask, then, according to libertarianism, was it chance that generated this difference in natural wisdom between the two? Was it random? Or was one man naturally just smarter or wiser than the other? The only two alternatives left to us here are either that one person just happened to understand (‘just because’) by chance, or that one was already better equipped than the other (in his natural self) to respond positively to the gospel command. Neither of these possibilities is aligned with the teaching or intent of the gospel, which is by grace through and through.



Now, in his second answer to why one believed and not the other, He answered, “one believed and the other did not” But I did not ask him what he did, because we all know what he did already from my question, but I asked ‘why’ he believed. Our libertarian friend didn’t really answer the question as I asked it, but he did answer it according to his libertarian philosophy, since he believes that it was not his desires (or anything else) that caused him to choose one way or the other. The will itself is sovereign, in the libertarian view, and has an ability of its own which can ultimately choose apart from any gracious affections of the heart. To a libertarian, he can choose Christ even if he does not desire Him. While the affections may influence the choice, in their view, still the will can chose what it doesn’t want ultimately, which, of course, destroys the unity of the person.



But the answer faces the same difficult question as the first --- did one just happen to believe? My gospel says that only the humble, who recognize that they have no hope in themselves, will embrace Christ and, in like manner, the proud will despise and reject Him. Either sin and virtue, of necessity, precede our choice when Christ is put before us. It is the grace of God that makes us humble, not innate ability or chance. But the libertarian is unwilling to say it was only by God’s grace in Christ because he then would admit to God’s sovereign choice. Nor will he provide an answer that reveals a moral virtue in one person (humility) that the other (who was proud), did not naturally have. This would expose his belief in salvation by merit. But these two answers are the only possible conclusions. So if there is not of necessity any moral reasonor motive that ultimately compels one to believe or not then how could God blame someone for rejecting Him? To believe the gospel is a moral choice, from the heart. If not then God could not call the rejection of the gospel a sin. If our affections do not cause us to believe then belief and unbelief is ultimately non-affectional, not from the heart and rejection could not be considered a sin. But if faith is a moral choice then how did one person get a more moral disposition than the other? One remained proud and the other humble? Was this by nature or by grace? If by grace then why don’t all men have it? If by nature then some people are more virtuous than others apart from grace. This dilemma is really fatal to libertarian free will and none of them have been able to answer these basic questions. The answer ‘just because’ is ludicrous.

Monergism = Christ Alone

-John W. Hendryx



Recently a visitor seemed deeply troubled that we would equate our belief in Monergism with "Christ alone" -- that by doing so we were being tribal, because this communicates the idea that synergists do not affirm "Christ alone" and to make this claim is to stir up animosity between brothers. But our purpose is not to create bitter feuds, but to be faithful to Scripture on a foundational subject. For those of us who are persuaded of monergism didn't we all come to embrace monergistic regeneration because it best expresses the Biblical data regarding the extent of Christ's work in our salvation?

Doesn't he word "monergism" itself help us understand this concept? The word consists of two main parts: The prefix "mono" means "one", "single", or "alone" while "ergon" means "to work". Taken together it means "the work of one". That is, regeneration is the work of Jesus Christ alone (as applied by the Holy Spirit), not the cooperation of man and God and not the result of unregenerate man meeting a condition (like faith) before regeneration takes place. THE main difference between Monergism & Synergism, then, is that while synergistic theology affirms the necessity of Christ, yet they do not affirm the sufficiency of Christ. That is, synergists do not affirm that Christ provides everything we need for salvation, including a new heart to believe and understand the gospel. (1 Cor 2, John 6:63-65, 37, 44). Christ does most of what we need, but we still need to meet God's condition to be saved. If, as synergists may say, God grants grace to all men, then we must ask, why do some believe and not others? Did some make better use of Christ's grace than others? Does Christ make them to differ or something else (like our decision)? That 'something else' means that Christ may be necessary to them but not sufficient to provide all they need to be saved (including a renewed heart to believe). Thus 'Christ alone', as it was understood in the Reformation, is a monergistic distinctive. His cross is sufficient to provide all we need including the very faith required of us.

Is our faith, therefore, something we can thank God for, or is it the one thing we contribute to the price of our salvation? Is God's love for us conditioned upon whether we believe or not or does His love meet the condition for us in Christ, according to scripture? We affirm that God gives us this condition but Christ does for us what we are unable to do for ourselves. We are not, therefore, partly dependent on Christ for salvation but wholly dependent.

Example: Is God's love like a parent who sees his child run out into traffic and who merely calls out to him to get out of the way or is God's love like the parent who, at the risk of their life, runs out and scoops up the child to MAKE CERTAIN that his child is safe. We all know that true love gets the job done ... it doesn't merely sit on the sidelines when something so critical as ones life is at stake. God's love is unconditional for His people and He sends his Son to make certain His sheep are not lost.

Note: a large percentage of synergists who are Protestants would openly confess that there is no hope save in Christ alone - and for this we embrace them as our beloved brothers in Christ, but the debates come about when their theology blatantly contradicts this good confession, when they believe in Christ PLUS a condition we meet, apart from grace. When we deny the sufficiency of Christ to provide anything (for apart from Christ we can do nothing) then we are not faithfully giving witness to the Scriptural understanding of "Christ alone" .

Michael Haykin rightly said, "It is wrong to suppose that the doctrine of justification by faith alone, that storm center of the Reformation, was the crucial question in the minds of such theologians as Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, Martin Bucer, and John Calvin. This doctrine was important to the Reformers because it helped to express and to safeguard their answer to another, more vital, question, namely, whether sinners are wholly helpless in their sin, and whether God is to be thought of as saving them by free, unconditional, invincible grace, not only justifying them for Christ's sake when they come to faith, but also raising them from the death of sin by His quickening Spirit in order to bring them to faith."



!!!!Also see John's "Eleven(11) resons to reject Libertarian Free Will" !!!!

When the child has no choice

I want everyone to watch this video. I am focused on the part where the man without the microphone brings up the oppression from Christians by giving the example that women are taken of their rights to choose whether to give birth or not to save their lives. He is asked to give an example, where he could not. I will not doubt him that there are women who die from their pregnancy. But, the real question lies not with whether this happens, but whether abortion is justifiable by this statistic.




I have taken the liberty to go and find the statistics myself that the man could not provide. Here is the citation Pregnancy-Related Mortality Surveillance --- United States, 1991--1999 Jeani Chang, M.P.H., Laurie D. Elam-Evans, Ph.D., Cynthia J. Berg, M.D., Joy Herndon, M.S. Division of Reproductive Health National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. Here is the web link to it.

As we can see, "During 1991--1999, a total of 4,200 deaths were determined to be pregnancy-related. The overall pregnancy-related mortality ratio was 11.8 deaths per 100,000 live births and ranged from 10.3 in 1991 to 13.2 in 1999." So within a 9 year span or so only 1.18 out of 10,000 births that actually happen does a mother die from her pregnancy.

So does this statistic justify the number of abortions that are being administered? Here is the source for the next statistic. Abortion Surveillance --- United States, 2006. Karen Pazol, PhD, Sonya B. Gamble, MS, Wilda Y. Parker, Douglas A. Cook, MBIS, Suzanne B. Zane, DVM, Saeed Hamdan, MD, PhD. Division of Reproductive Health National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, CDC. Here is the link.

"For 2006, a total of 846,181 abortions were reported to CDC. Among the 46 areas that provided data consistently during 1996--2006, a total of 835,134 abortions (98.7% of the total) were reported; the abortion rate was 16.1 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15--44 years, and the abortion ratio was 236 abortions per 1,000 live births"

So compared to the total tally of just one year, there are about 850,000 abortions annually compared to the 4,200 childbearing caused deaths within one decade! And this statistic is only for the reported abortions. The numbers do not match up. The number of abortions are far greater than the number of deaths of mothers caused by childbirth. Now can we compare how many women die from giving birth to the number of women who die from having an abortion?

"One out of every 6,000 women who have an abortion after 21 weeks gestation die.
One out of every 166,000 abortions ends in death. Just under one out of every 100 abortions has a serious complication."
[Source: AGI, 1998. Note: These figures may be low due to under-reporting of deaths due to abortions.]

So now we see that there about as much or more death and complication due to having an abortion for the woman as naturally giving birth to the child, except in the case of naturally giving birth the child has a shot at living while in the other, both the mother and the child die.

Should we use the excuse that women are just protecting their lives by aborting their child? Or, is this just an excuse to justify the many women who a selfishly irresponsible and do not wish to suffer their consequence? Granted I don't even believe it to be a consequence but a gracious gift to have a child. Also I know there are some who argue for "what if the woman was raped, etc." I still hold that having a child is a blessing, and that though it is unexpected and a burden un asked for in the womans life, there are other ways of handling the situation rather taking the unborn childs opprotunity to live. To take the childs life for that childs sake also is a completely illogical reason also. To claim to know the horrible life the child may suffer by being given life is opperating upon your personal sovereignty that you do not have and so would be irresponsible to even say what is good for the child when you cannot opperate on the basis of knowing what kind of life that child may live.

So here are some statistics to see and to remember when you think that women are the ones who need to be protected, as Todd Freil states in the video above, that the one not being considered here is the child.

A couple things...

So like I said before I am beat up right now. I cannot remember if I put down in that post that my knee hurts but it still hurts and I cannot run right now. If this continues, I will probably go get a cortasone shot to calm down the inflamation that is causing the pain.

Secondly, our school is located right next to a cemetary. For the two years I have been here I have never seen a funeral take place in that cemetary, until the other day. Now there is more to the cemetary than what we can see from the library, but this funeral took place litterally right next to the fence that seperated the cemetary from the school. It was kind of odd to have seen life continue on at the school people playing their music loudly in their cars as they drove by, people walking to and from class talking about their days. This is all going on while life had ceased on the other side of the fence about 10 feet from us, as a family mourned the death of their loved one. This all just seemed strange to me. Seeing this contrast happening within feet of each other. As I walked by it, I just thought to myself, I hope that person heard and responded to the Gospel. But, I know if they had not, that it would be to God's purpose either way! For Christ is able to save the uttermost, all those whom are called. Not one shall perish who are given to the Son.

Also, I applied to work at Covenant College down in Georgia as a Cross Country Coach. I hope I get the job because that would be sweet to work at that college doing something I love to do and be able to make a living. I am also going to apply to Grad-school here at Cortland. I will be in the Kinesiology M.A. program. If I do that I am thinking about living over at winter street and volunteer coaching with the team here.

So thats what I had to say, a couple things to catch everyone up on whats going on and what I was thinkin bout.

Beat up

So most of you know I twisted my ankle and sprained it a couple weeks ago. Though I am fortunate to run on it, it is popping alot when I run on it and it is not 100 percent. granted it continually is getting better. My other foot though is going through a rough time also. my ankle on that foot is a little sore and I feel like one of my metatarsals on that foot is sore. Where the achillis tendon connects to the heel of each foot are sore and have been for a long time. I have been wanted to start doing morning runs but when I wake up, I can barely walk and the afternoon is prime to run because it provided enough circulation and movement to loosen everything up to run. I am sort of a mess right now but this may be my last season and I dont want this season to be like previous last seasons where I dont get to finish it... like my senior track season in highschool or my last cross country season at Delhi.

The Arrows

Denied but ok with it

Well, I was denied tonight by someone I like. I also was recently denied to PT school. I also have had alot of missed opprotunities this year in runnin such as making it to indoor nationals or becoming all-american in cross country. I wanted to mention this because I have to proclaim the Gospel and not this prosperity gospel that is not really even the gospel... sorry Osteen but it's not. I have to say that in my knowledge of the Gospel, I can accept these things that have been happening to me with hope and endurance. I know that God works all thing for good to those who love Him, but I also know that His ways are not our ways. So I must take things in trust and hope to know that if I am truly ment for someone or something, it will happen and it will be good whatever and whoever that happens to be. My second point is where the Gospel truly comes in, because not only do I have assurance in Christ about God providing for me but that I am provided the greatest gift of all... Faith! Given to me by grace not of my own works or merrit, but of God who purposed it. In that faith I have justification and since I am justified I am no longer condemned. And so, I have peace with God so that though I may suffer in this dying world or accel, I am right with God through the propitiation of my sins through Christ who interceeds before the Father on my behalf. I can now live for God with the God working within me through His Spirit which I have also recieved by grace, replacing my hard heart that rebelled against God, with a heart of flesh that truly lives. So these things have happened to me... Praise God!