Oh, for a thousand such fathers as this one!
The picture above is a colorized portrait of my father. He has been dead for a dozen years, but as I write this it chokes me up to see my father looking back at me again. He was my protector. While the rest of my family often mistreated me, when dad was home I was safe and he made sure I was treated fairly. My father was a stalwart man of principle, a genius engineer, and a servant of God. He was a formidable man who could bring gravitas to any discussion, but he could also tell hilarious jokes for two hours straight after all the serious matters had been taken care of.
My father showed me how to be a man, by being masculine for our entire life together. His Biblical frame of reference did not bend to accommodate the world, the world had to adapt itself to my…
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SubCreated Worlds 
Hello JJ I do not style myself a Christian. I am not good enough to take that label but refer to myself as a “believer.”
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W. C. Fields is cited as declaring that “Every man should believe in something: I believe I’ll have another drink!”
Belief is well and good, but it is not enough merely to believe. What one believes in (or upon) must be capable of sustaining one in the crisis for which it is believed. Christianity isn’t a matter of being “good enough” in any sense, but of putting one’s faith in Christ’s offered salvation and receiving it in place of one’s own supposed goodness before the throne of God.
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Yes that is true for ALL HAVE SINNED and THERE IS NO MAN RIGHTEOUS, NO NOT ONE…as it is written. My acceptance of my sinful nature, and inability to save myself, save through the Only Way there, to salvation, by Jesus Christ, and my knowledge that I deserve naught but death, judgment and damnation are easy to accept and they are consummate to me.
However, the most misused word in any language is “Christian.” Jesus was and is the Epitome of Perfection among many other things, a far cry from humanity…”and God looked and saw that the imaginations of man were on evil CONTINUALLY and it grieved God that He had made man…” After that came the flood and way down the line came Jesus Christ for the salvation of whosoever would, could come to that state UNAVAILABLE TO ANY who try to dodge that reality and Truth and replace it with a lie.
The apostle Paul described himself as the “chieftest of sinners” but if that is true, what hope do I have? Compare his mission and application to the things at hand and look at those of anyone else. It is true there were and are great men of God today as well as in the past…late Billy Graham is one example. However, I am sure that there will be more people condemned to hell because of religion than any other single sin/cause. There are 1.4 billion moslems in the world and according to their worship of Mohammed, they are all condemned. Most religions in all nations are apostate, including in the western world.
I feel that utilizing the word “Jesus Christ” or parts thereof in any capacity is unacceptable because it defines and draws a line between Purity, Perfection and Salvation with the human malfeasance of sinful, lost and wicked. I also of error (the “Church” defined in scriptures was not a building but individual people who had become believers and partakers of salvation through and by God. I take exception with the churches who use the name of Jesus, God, the Holy Spirit as being guilty of heresy and even taking God’s name in vain. Those churches are filled with people and we are all prone to wickedness, sin and evil. It is our nature. But I also believe that there will be more people damned by sins of omission than by sins of commission.
So I accept salvation and brand myself a believer. I know a man of the same opinion. I have a letter from a sexual deviant participating and practicing perversion, in which he claims to be Christian. We can only be saved by being a believer to begin with and I think that label is accurate and is the beginning and stopping point of it all. You either believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and are saved or reject that Truth and are condemned. I think daring to associate oneself with “Christ” other than being a sinner requiring humility, regrets, confession to Him and asking His forgiveness is a step too far. We are saved by Him and do not at all become like unto Him. Our righteousness is as filthy rags to God no matter how good we or the world thinks it is.
We need to stay in our places before Him, on our faces, and associate with Him only by the Savior/saved formula and result, and by making serious attempts to emulate Him by studying the Word and trying to draw closer, but never forgetting no matter what we do, we are lost without Him as Savior.
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