Do We Need Religion to be Moral?
I saw this post on someone’s Facebook page recently: “You don’t need religion to have morals. If you don’t know the difference between right and wrong, you lack empathy, not religion.” While this view sounds good on the surface, it is actually contradictory to what many anti-religionists believe about truth. Many non-religious people proclaim that there is no such thing as absolute truth, and they state that absolutely! They have proven wrong their own argument by the very statement itself by saying it so dogmatically. Many...
read moreMy Personal Testimony: Life Lessons from my Story
MY PERSONAL TESTIMONY OF CHRIST’S REDEMPTION It occurred to me recently that few people know the details of my personal testimony. I don’t talk about my pre-Christ life much because honestly, I’m ashamed of it. I identify with the words of the Apostle Paul when he wrote to the Ephesians that it is “shameful to even mention what the disobedient do in secret” (Ephesians 5:12). Therefore, while I will not go into great detail about my sordid past, I do believe there is merit in providing some detail of my spiritual odyssey in order to...
read moreJesus’ Claims Force Black and White Choices
Results of research on religious trends in America by Barna Research Group estimate that 85% of Americans identify themselves as Christians, but only 7% actually embrace beliefs and practices that coincide with the Bible and the teachings and example of Jesus. One criticism leveled at American Christians is that most of them don’t even know much about the Bible. But I would suggest that perhaps not everyone who refers to themselves as Christians are really in the faith. Today we have people referring to themselves as Christians who actually...
read morePutting Honor in its Proper Perspective
In this past Sunday’s sermon we spoke about the Biblical perspective on honoring leaders. This may have been a difficult part of the message to listen to, in that we now live in a society where our government leaders openly oppose the Biblical principles this great nation was founded upon. In fact, our President, Barak Obama, stated in a public address that the United States of America is “no longer a Christian nation.” Indeed, he seems to have much more regard for Muslims than he does Christians and the Constitution. Having said that,...
read moreChristian Junkies
As an addendum to this week’s sermon on faithfulness, today’s post is taken mostly from the my book, The Life God Honors. The foreword was written by my friend, Brian Blair, of The Republic Newspaper. He writes: “When I first began watching ESPN’s Sports Center a few years ago, the NBA highlight reels transfixed me. The nightly wrap-ups featured more dunking than an Oreo cookies-and-milk extravaganza. Since I was raised on the razzle-dazzle high flyers of the now-defunct ABA, once a rival roundball league, I...
read moreLessons from a Blind Piano Tuner
As a follow up to this Sunday’s sermon, I want to share a true story with you. In the sermon I talked about my father and his standards of excellence in his chosen field of tuning and restoring pianos. What I did not mention is that he learned those skills from a blind man. At the age of 12, my father, Bob Robbins, was hired by a blind piano tuner and taught the craft. Now, I learned some of that craft from my father as a teenager, and I can tell you that tuning a piano is no easy task for a person with perfect eye sight. To do it...
read moreThe Power of Your Attitude
In yesterday’s sermon I spoke of the power of attitude. Here’s an important addition to the discussion. It is in your power to choose your attitude. Many people think that their circumstances dictate their attitudes, but this is not true. You are a creature with amazing God-given power to choose your thoughts, attitudes, and even emotions. Yes, thoughts, attitudes and emotions will come and go, but to simply give in to whatever emotions and attitudes that present themselves is the default position. You can take hold of your...
read moreHow To Help Destroy Your Church (and Your Spiritual Life) in 6 Easy Steps
Sometimes I hear people say, “Our church is under attack; we need to pray.” Well, here’s two obvious observations about that. First, most every church – if they are doing the work of the Kingdom at all – is under attack all the time, not just some of the time. We are, after all, engaged in a titanic conflict that has been waged since the Garden. The entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation speaks of a spiritual war that is being fought in the unseen, and we are right in the middle of it. The very fact that a church is founded in the...
read morePop Culture and the Bible
The popular culture in America is becoming increasingly humanistic. The formal definition of humanism is, “An outlook or system of thought attaching prime importance to human rather than divine or supernatural matters.” Humanism, then, has its own set of philosophical doctrines, most of which are in direct opposition to the teachings and doctrines of the Holy Bible. Listed below are a few philosophies of humanism that are increasingly being readily accepted as fact in our culture, but that one cannot embrace if you are a Bible-believing...
read moreWar of the Worldviews
Author: Andy Robbins In 2005 Stephen Spielberg released his remake of the H.G. Wells story, War of the Worlds. This story, of course, is fictional. But the continuing saga of the war of the worldviews is not fiction. As Christians, we face daily pressure to adopt worldviews that are in stark contrast to how our Savior would have us think. How should we view difficult social issues such as euthanasia, homosexuality, abortion, capital punishment, evolution, how to vote, and the claim that all paths lead to God? If we are dedicated followers of...
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