The feminists of the ‘70s talked about moments of epiphany that they – we, actually – called the “click.” They were moments when we realized that reality did not match the feminine ideal, supposedly. But in practice it meant the increasingly frequent realization that we were in the presence of a male chauvinist pig or one of his drones. 

Well, I’ll tell you – a feminist “click” is nothing compared to the epiphanies that become practically a daily occurrence for a new Christian intent on learning about her Lord just as quickly as possible.

Many of my clicks have come from a piece of scientific, historical or cultural information. For instance, one day not long ago I was lunching at a Chinese restaurant with some friends. We each had a “Chinese New Year” placemat, and while everyone else was busy looking for their birth years and those of their mates, I amused myself by looking at the animals chosen for the Chinese zodiac:

Dragon

Rat

Ox

Tiger

Rabbit/cat

Goat

Monkey

Rooster

Dog

Pig

Snake

Horse

I looked again at the first animal: Dragon.

My stomach flip-flopped, just as it had when Paul Newman and Julie Andrews had seen the second bus following them in Alfred Hitchcock’s Torn Curtain.

How is it, I wondered, that the ancient Chinese had chosen 11 real animals, and one mythological critter? 

I remembered hearing, too, that all major cultures have dragon myths (not to mention “great flood” myths), and that ancient dragon images have been found all over the world, from Babylon and Egypt to China; they’ve been found drawn on Viking ships, shown in relief sculpture in Aztec temples, and carved into bones by Intuits. And when I thought about all the dragon drawings I’d seen over the course of five decades, they all blurred into just a few types of creatures.

But of course, scientists have managed to explain these similarities away. Because of course the alternative is unthinkable: We couldn’t possibly admit the possibility that these dragons had actually lived with man, that they were in fact dinosaurs (a word that wasn’t invented until the 19th century), that – horrors! – maybe “millions and millions of years ago” was nothing more than the opening words of today’s adult fairy tales. 

Click.
______________

Excerpted from Heaven Without Her, pp 122-124

For most of my adult life, I thought that the ultimate truths of the universe could be found in my own little brain -- that what I thought was by definition Truth. (Of course, I couldn't be dogmatic; after all, your thoughts were probably different, and they were surely just as valid as mine. Ain't tolerance grand?)

I hear this kind of thing all the time these days from people who are smart enough to know better. "What I think," they might say, "is that everyone goes to heaven, and all our pets will be there too."

"That's interesting," I respond, no longer a big fan of the Wishful Thinking School of Metaphysics. "What's your source of authority?"

"It's just what I believe." 

Oh. Well, then, it must be true. 

"What's your source of authority?" is really a great question. So is "Who exactly are you trusting for the truth on this issue?" 

Now that I finally do know better than to trust my own thinking -- which, after all, is forced to function without comprehensive knowledge of our universe, let alone a clue about the Great Beyond -- I find it fascinating that this is the ONE puzzle we believe we can solve on our own, without even a shred of outside assistance. 

We can’t organize our possessions these days without calling in an expert. We can't prune a lilac or tune up a lawn mower or even properly fertilize the grass without at some point consulting someone who knows more than we do.  We don’t even know what we like in terms of style without taking a look at what the authorities are pushing this year. 

And yet we take the most enormous and eternally important questions of all and trust ourselves to answer them simply by spending a few minutes thinking things through. 

I don't recall anyone ever challenging me on this point. Which is sad, because it might have forced me to question my reliance on my own brainpower years before I was forced to consider the possibility.

Would questioning your beloved skeptic's source of authority spur him or her to seek the truth? Only God knows, of course, but it's certainly worth a try.

We all want to share the Gospel, but it can be tough to swing a conversation to the things of God. Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be difficult; we just have to  train ourselves to spot opportunities and apply the appropriate evangelistic icebreakers. Here are a few idea-starters.

Pets. Try animal talk to reach the hearts of pet-lovers. I often share this thrilling  fact: “In the original Hebrew, the book of Genesis uses the word nephesh, or ‘living soul,’ for both man and vertebrate animals. Does this mean our pets have souls,  according to the Bible? And might that in turn mean that they may go to heaven?"  

Prophecy. Turn the topic to current events in Israel, and you can drive it to God’s word. Chatting with a long-retired general and lifelong agnostic recently, I showed him what the 2500-year-old book of Ezekiel says about Persia conspiring against Israel in end  times. “Persia is Iran,” he said, obviously stunned. “And Persia was always a  friend to Israel.” He looked at me through tears. “Until now.”

Opinion. To cut to the chase, try this: “I’m doing an informal survey. Could I ask you what you think it takes to get into heaven?”

Awe. Start collecting and sharing God-glorifying facts. Here’s a gem I’ve used to get people thinking about our  origins: “Did you know that all the DNA in your body could fit into an ice cube,  but if you could stretch it out it’d reach at least 10 billion miles? Talk about  evidence for intelligent design!”

Culture. Our  culture may ignore the Lord, but you can use it to glorify Him. I recently saw a  dreary but acclaimed movie about Alzheimer’s. The theme? Our utter hopelessness. I now share the story with local nursing home residents, emphasizing that for  the Christian, just the opposite is true: A joyful eternity awaits born-again children of God! 

Once you start looking for potential icebreakers, you’ll find them everywhere – in the books you’re reading, in the creation around you, in art and music, history and science. In short, everywhere.

And once you start using them, you’ll become adept at steering  conversations straight to the Gospel whenever you have a receptive audience. For  instance, the pet example could lead to something like this: “Of course, we have to make sure we get there ourselves. Are you certain that you’ll go to heaven  when you die? No? Have I got good news for you!”

Originally posted 9/9/13

It’s an objection I’ve heard more than once over my 15+  years as a nursing-home volunteer: How can a good and loving God allow all these people to suffer, year after year, from such relentlessly progressive diseases as dementia and Parkinson’s? Yes, He suffered for mankind’s sake on the cross, but it was only for three hours; and He knew His work would then be complete, once and for all. 

Ordinarily, I respond to this objection by pointing out the “what’s in it for us” lessons so many of us have experienced: how the Lord often uses sorrow or pain to get our attention, to draw us to Himself, to usher us through the narrow gate to eternal life. And how it's not always our direct suffering, but the suffering of a loved one, that causes us to seek Him, to cry out to Him, to find comfort and truth in His response to us, and ultimately to repent and trust in His sacrifice to have paid for our sins.  

And of course this is all true enough. I’m living proof. And I’ll bet it’s been true of the majority of born-again believers over the last 2000 years.

But I’ve been thinking lately about how this is only a very partial answer to this critical question. Shouldn’t we instead be looking at this singular event in human history from His perspective?

So I recently returned to the cross and thought again about the three hours He hung there. After all, the Romans crucified thousands, and many of these victims suffered a lot longer than three hours. How can Christ’s anguish compare to theirs?

The answer is in what He bore on that cross: “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). He bore all mankind’s sin – past, present and future – in the process paying its penalty in full, for all time. And as a result, His beloved Father actually turned away from Him in revulsion: “My God, My God,” He cried, “why have You forsaken Me?"  (Matthew 27:46).

Think for a moment about how we react when we’ve been falsely accused of even the most minor offense. We won’t rest until our good names have been cleared, right?

And yet in going to the cross, Jesus not only took the full blame for every sin that will ever be committed on this earth – so that He actually became our sin – but He also paid sin’s penalty in full.  

Think again, this time about the earthly consequences of some sinful act – something as simple as uttering a lie or speaking a few words of gossip. Then multiply those consequences by a number approaching infinity, and consider what it might be like to suffer them not just temporally but for all eternity.  

Can we even begin to imagine what this cost the Lord? Can we possibly fathom what He suffered? 

What’s more, His ordeal lasted for far more than just a few hours. He had known for a long time – perhaps since childhood – precisely why He had come to earth fully God and fully man. He knew how it would end. Witness this scene in Gesthemane: “And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke 22:44). Luke was describing a very rare condition known as hematidrosis, thought to be caused by extreme stress and anxiety.  

These are important truths, I think – truths that should give us an even greater appreciation for what the Lord of glory did for each and every one of us on that cross, nearly 2000 years ago.  

“Death isn’t easy to contend with,” writes Adam Leith Gollner, author of The Book of Immortality: The Science, Belief, and Magic Behind Living Forever, in a Daily Beast column.  

“Imagining that we’ll live forever—whether physically or spiritually—is an elemental solace. No matter how wealthy we may be, we still can’t bribe our way out of dying. But that isn’t stopping these five ultra-rich immortality financiers.” 
 
Gollner goes on to describe the money that these five fabulously wealthy men are pouring  into their quests for immortality. 

One of them is a (surprise) California venture capitalist named Paul F. Glenn, who’s a patron of the Methuselah Foundation – an organization funding such endeavors “a regenerative medicine company that applies proprietary technology to ‘print’ new organs.” 
 
Then there’s the Russian multimillionaire who is supporting efforts to back up our minds in cyberspace so we can download them into bionic avatars. 

You can't make this stuff up.
 
“I’m of the anything-is-possible school,” Glenn told Gollner. But apparently that’s not quite accurate, because he and his colleagues appear to be rejecting the simple truth about eternal life. 
 
Someone should tell them all: They already will live forever. The only question is not how, but where.
 
For the answer, they could start here -- and then simply invest a few bucks, and some serious study, in a good Bible.  

Adapted from an 8/31/13 post.