A year or so later: A mind constantly renewed, and a newly sensitized heart

I bless the day that I was challenged online to refute an allegation that what I believed in was corollary to believing in fairies and other superstitions.


Because then, I realized that I had no logical position to counter those points and I knew that what I had was substantive, so I began on my quest to discover the substance of what we believe.


And what I found was rich, factual, even more substantive and bolstered what faith I had then to a much stronger faith that I hold now.


Going against the grain of what I've encountered in most Christian groups, which have labelled what I pursue to be "preferential knowledge" or "head knowledge that doesn't improve your walk with God" (which it actually did!) and "theological hairsplitting" - my studies in Christian apologetics, theology, Greco Roman historiography and philosophical thought have broadened my theological and spiritual horizons and allow me to approach the vastly incomprehensible knowledge of an eternal, Almighty God.


Contrary to what I expected I would turn out to be if I walked this path ( become nitpicking, bookish, argumentative and traditional) my continual learning has led me to become more innovative in my thinking - with much clarity, focus and comprehension, as I revert to the thought that should have remained orthodox, classic and immutable concerning the unchanging God who created the universe, and the reality of the Kingdom that His Son, the historical Jesus of Nazareth, proclaimed of during His three year ministry here on earth.


The Kingdom IS real. It's here. Now. And we must proclaim it as well.  And in order to do so in a comprehensive fashion, we must begin with loving the Lord God with all our hearts, with all our soul, strength and our MINDS. (Matt 22:37)


To be sure, there is much yet to be read, much to be thought of and think about, much more to process in order to understand and finally, to be able to give a rational explanation and defense of the faith that we have come to embrace.


But this enterprise starts with a quest for wanting to know the reality of the God of the Bible, getting to know the Living King and Messiah, and the operating Kingdom that He has said was already open to everyone.


I like the version used by Dallas Willard, in his book "The Divine Conspiracy" where he used an appropriate paraphrase of the first message that Jesus proclaimed: Rethink your life in light of the fact that the Kindom of the heavens is now open for all" - Matthew 4: 17.


Not a bad take off point for innovative thinking!


But sadly, the majority of the Christian world today has stopped being introspective, and have become content with emotions and feeling, relying on nothing more than parroted phrases to carry on with their spiritual journeys, and often to the point where their definitions of faith must have nothing to do with reason altogether!


No wonder why there are many among the younger generation in culturally Christian families that depart from the faith when they leave home.  


Because they don't get the answers they need from the people that they look up to for authority, they find the wrong ones elsewhere and worse, their parent's cannot provide the better ones because they don't know them in the first place!


When people began to notice that I was beginning to take my studies in Christian apologetics more seriously than they had anticipated, they were asking me who I was going to be debating with.


I replied then, as I do now, that it is not or ever will be, my intent to be a better debater.


After all, no one ever reasoned himself into the Kingdom of God.  It still has quite a bit to do with believing.


But better explanations to displace an incorrect worldview provides a better platform for belief.


And it also starts with a sincere wish to discover what is true.  And not find more reasons to refute what can be believed in as true knowledge.


There is a hidden life in this invisible Kingdom, and the way it operates is nothing like how we do so in this two dimensional world that we can perceive with our senses. But it is more real than the world that we regard every waking moment of the day.  And we can find out for ourselves how it works, and more importantly, how we figure into this invisible Kingdom as we come to know and behold our presently invisible King.