What does Easter have to do with bunnies?

I have checked my Bible from cover-to-cover and while I find references to lambs, sheep, goats, and vipers … I can find no story about a long-eared, cotton-tailed bunny! And, I’m almost certain real rabbits don’t lay eggs! 

The truth is that the Easter bunny, eggs, Easter baskets and fluffy, yellow chicks have absolutely nothing to do with the resurrection of Christ or the true meaning of Easter.
 
Many of these symbols were part of a pagan ritual, separate from any Christian celebration, from a time when various cultures worshipped gods and goddesses. Over time, they became incorporated with the celebration of Easter.

That's all folks!

How do I tell people about God but it not be awkward?

From my own experiences as well as from what others have said, once the Holy Spirit ("the Comforter" of John 14:1-4, 16) works through you, you become emboldened. This doesn't mean that you instantaneously become an amazing public speaker or someone who totally knows the Bible inside out and has all the answers, but you will find that there is no awkwardness when you have the confidence that the Holy Spirit gives you!

 

Here's the key to talking about God that makes it easy: tell people how God has worked in your life. You don’t have to be a Bible scholar, you don’t have to be some incredible public speaker, you don’t have to be perfect … you just have to be you and be able to relate how Jesus has worked in your life. No one can take that from you or tell you that you’re wrong. You don’t even have to have an amazing or extraordinary story!

 

God constantly used ordinary people throughout history and ordinary stories to relate to regular, ordinary people. It’s just a matter of telling someone how God changed you. The most powerful messages are sometimes the ones that are the most simple.

How can I gain self-control?

This is a very good question and one that shows incredible maturity on your part! So let’s talk about self-control. Sometimes in T.R.A.C.K. I talk about the “18-inch Chasm.” 18-inches is about the average distance between the brain and the heart. I've told the class that there are a lot of people who know Jesus intellectually but don’t really have a relationship with Him. In fact, there are many people who can quote Scripture, who go to church, who pray or who may even lead a small group and who truly can explain the Gospels of Jesus Christ and relate the story of Jesus’ birth, life, death and resurrection but they’ve never put their faith and complete trust in Jesus.

They have never translated that intellectual knowledge into true belief. That’s why I call it a “chasm.” By definition a chasm is a “deep cleft in the ground or a yawning fissure in the earth’s surface.” Picture the Grand Canyon. That is a chasm.

So, when I call it the “18-inch Chasm,” basically, even though it’s physically only about 18-inches between your brain and your heart, the fact that you know something to be true but don’t really believe it in your heart makes it a HUGE gap.

In fact, Jesus even warns those who say they know Jesus but fail to do His will that He will reject them! (Matthew 7:21-23)

So, how do we gain self-control? First, you have to believe in your heart that Jesus is who He says He is. Next, you have to accept Him as your Lord and Savior. Then, guess what happens? You get this Helper inside of you called the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the Third Person that God reveals Himself as and, when you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior and make that decision to follow Him, God enters you as the Holy Spirit to help in those times of need.

Galatians 5:22 tells us that, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” So, you gain self-control through the Spirit of God that is in you! Now, here’s the key: look at the order the fruit is listed. Do you notice anything that sticks out?

Self-control is listed last. You can’t have self-control until you have love for Jesus first. The natural result of loving Jesus and knowing He loves you leads to joy and that joy of knowing Jesus loves you leads to peace. And once you are at peace, you become patient, which leads to kindness. When you are patient and kind, it leads to goodness. Your goodness will lead to faithfulness to Jesus and to others, which makes you gentle and humble. That gentleness eventually leads to self-control. You can’t try and jump to self-control without having the other fruit of the Spirit first. It’s impossible.

So, you have to know God, not just intellectually, but in your heart. More importantly, you have to love God with all your heart, your mind and your strength. Then, God, in His power, will indwell you with the Holy Spirit and you will gain self-control through the “Fruit of the Spirit.”

 

What does 666 mean and where does it come from?

Wow! That is an awesome question! The number “666” is only mentioned once in the Holy Bible and it is in the Book of Revelation in chapter 13, verses 16-18. It reads, “He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name. This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man’s number. His number is 666.”

So, this number represents both the name of the Beast (Satan) and the number of his name. However, the origin of that number or what it signifies isn’t really known.

Many Bible scholars believe that the number “6” is man’s number. It is one number short of God’s number, which is “7”. The number “7” represents perfection. We fall short of God’s perfection so mankind is given the number “6”. Because God presents Himself to us as three persons – God, the Father; God, the Son; and God, the Holy Spirit – the Beast tries to imitate God and so we have the number 6-6-6.

Then, there are all sorts of other theories involving that number, which include using some sort of mathematical formula to determine who the Anti-Christ will be based on a secret code involving the letters of a person’s name. In fact, one group of people who believe this (they’re called numerologists) thought that if you make the letter A = 101, B = 102, C = 103 and so on until you get to Z = 126, the name Hitler equaled 666! Weird, huh? 

Still other numerologists believed that if you used the Hebrew alphabet, as opposed to the American alphabet, the name Nero, who was an evil Roman leader who persecuted Christians, also equals 666. 

The truth is we don’t really know where “666” originated from; we just know that it is the name of the beast or the number of his name and it’s based on man’s number.

What does being Agnostic mean?

 The easiest way to answer that is this: A person who is an Agnostic believes that the existence of God is unknowable. That doesn’t mean they aren’t open to the idea that there is a God, it’s just that they are unsure because it hasn’t been proven to them.

An Atheist, on the other hand, completely lacks a belief in God and they believe that they can prove that there are no god(s) both empirically and logically.

The Atheist says there is no God and the Agnostic says, “Well, there might be, but we just don’t know.”

Is Atheism a religion? What do Atheists worship?

Great questions! The easiest way to answer that is this: Atheism is not a religion, it is a belief system. Basically, Atheists completely lack a belief in God and they also believe that they can prove that there are no god(s) both empirically and logically.

Since they do not believe in God or any other deities, they don’t worship anything. It’s all about self-awareness and believing in the potential for humanity, the power of reason, the comfort of love, the value of truth, the beauty and joy of the human experience and the nearly unlimited power of the human will to endure almost any hardship or solve almost any problem. (I got those qualities from an avowed atheist, Richard Carrier)

What I find somewhat sad is that, even in Mr. Carrier’s description of what he believes as an atheist, he does not allow for absolutes. According to him, the “nearly unlimited power of the human will” can endure almost any hardship or solve almost any problem. So, in reality, what he’s telling me is that the “unlimited power of the human will” actually has limits!

I actually agree with him in this way: human will is limited. In fact the Holy Bible tells us that, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:26)

Whenever you are afraid, whenever you are sad, whenever you have doubts…remember this, “I (you) can do ALL things through Christ Jesus who gives me (you) strength.” (Philippians 4:13) The atheist has no one to turn to other than himself/herself or another atheist! Where does he/she turn when things get so bad they become unbearable? What does the atheist cling to that would give them hope???

The truth is we are all spiritually bankrupt and we NEED a Savior! Matthew 5:3 says it the best in the first line of the Beatitudes, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” And even more reassuring is what Jesus, himself, told us: “In this world you will have trouble. But, take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

What was it like before creation? What did it look like, feel like, etc.?

Yahoo! I love that question because the answer goes all the way back to the very first book of the Bible in the Old Testament and describes exactly what it was like before creation in the first two verses ever written! Genesis 1:1-2 says:

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.  Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.”

Whoa! That sounds kinda creepy and scary, doesn’t it? And yet, let’s look a little closer at what the Bible says just in these two verses. It starts, “In the beginning…” which tells us that this is literally the starting point of time as we know it! Then it says, “...God created…” The English word “created” is from the Greek word, “bara.” It is a verb used exclusively for God because it describes a full miracle. No man could ever attain the powers inherent in this word. So, by  an all-powerful, all-knowing, ever-present God, something absolutely new was brought into existence – the heavens and the earth.

Next we see that the earth was formless and empty and that darkness was over the surface of the deep. BUT, we also see that the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. So, even though it sounds kinda scary, God was there! By the way, I find it fascinating that the earth was initially covered in water.

From that point on, God starts doing something absolutely incredible. He literally speaks the rest of creation into being. He creates light, he creates morning and evening, he creates the sky, then dry ground and vegetation. Next, he creates the sun, the moon and the stars. And finally, on the fifth and sixth days, God creates sea life, birds, animals and, lastly, man.

The best part is, God saw all that He had created and saw that it was very good and He blessed it all! He had created the perfect world. Amazing, isn’t it?