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Hello!

I hope you had a great weekend.

Please keep JCSM in your prayers.  We're always working hard to serve you and the Lord.  If you ever need prayer or anything, please let us know.

Welcome to the new readers of this message!  Here is your Devotion, A Moment of Introspection, JCSM's Challenge, the Word of the Week, a faith-builder from "The Skeptic's Annotated Bible: Corrected and Explained," and the Quotes of the Week.  Have a fantastic week and God bless you!

Love in Christ,

Jason Gastrich, Ph.D.

Contact Us: http://jcsm.org/contact.php

 

JCSM's Weekly Devotions (click here to listen!)

"Extend Mercy and Grace to Others"

Hebrews 4:16  "Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need."

2 John 1:3  "Grace, mercy, and peace will be with you from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love."

Romans 12:6-8  "Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them . . . in our ministering . . . he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness."

Luke 6:36  "Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful."

Ephesians 4:29  "Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers."

Colossians 4:6  "Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one."

Insight: God has given and continues to give us huge amounts of mercy and grace.  We should ask Him for these qualities, so we can have them and extend them to others.  When we realize how much we need mercy and grace, we won't have trouble giving it to others.

Prayer: "Dear Lord, bless us and lift us up.  Thank you for your wonderful mercy and grace!  There is no other like You.  Increase those qualities in us.  Help us to show mercy and grace to others.  Forgive us for the times when we have not.  Praise You for your awesome character and your consistent love.  Increase our faith and our love for You and others.  In Jesus' name, Amen."

 

America's Foundation

Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), was renowned as the "Father of the Science of Hydrostatics." He helped to found the principles of hydrodynamics and made invaluable contributions in the areas of the mathematical treatment of conic sections, the theory of probability and differential calculus, with the invention of Pascal's triangle for calculating the coefficients of a binomial expansion. He also helped in developing the barometer through his discoveries in fluid mechanics, knows as "Pascal's Principle." He wrote his Lettres provinciales in 1656-57, and in 1670, his highly influential religious work, entitled Pensees sur la religion, was published. In it, Blaise Pascal wrote:

"Men blaspheme what they don't know." - 1670, in Pensees, no. 556. John Bartlett, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1855, 1980), p. 300.

Blaise Pascal was well-known for his famous "Wager of Pascal":

"How can anyone lose who chooses to become a Christian? If, when he dies, there turns out to be no God and his faith was in vain, he has lost nothing - in fact, he has been happier in life than his nonbelieving friends. If, however, there is a God and a heaven and hell, then he has gained heaven and his skeptical friends will have lost everything in hell!" - Wager of Pascal. Henry M. Morris, Men of Science - Men of God (El Cajon, CA: Master Books, Creation Life Publishers, Inc., 1990), pp. 15-16.

In his work, Thoughts , Letters, and Opuscules, Blaise Pascal declared:

"We know God only through Jesus Christ. Without this Mediator, is taken away all communication with God; through Jesus Christ we know God. All those who have pretended to know God, and prove Him without Jesus Christ, have only had impotent proofs."

But, to prove Jesus Christ we have the prophecies which are good and valid proofs. And those prophecies, being fulfilled and truly proved by the event, indicate the certainty of these truths, and therefore the truth of the divinity of Jesus Christ. In Him, and by Him, then, we know God. Otherwise, and without Scripture, without original sin, without a necessary Mediator, we can not absolutely prove God, nor teach a good doctrine and sound morals."

"But by Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ, we prove God and teach doctrine and morals. Jesus Christ, then, is the true God of men. Not only do we know God only through Jesus Christ, but we know ourselves only through Jesus Christ."

"We know life, death, only through Jesus Christ. Except by Jesus Christ we know not what life is, what our death is, what God is, what we ourselves are. Thus, without Scripture, which has only Jesus Christ for its object, we know nothing, and we see not only obscurity and confusion in the nature of God, but in nature herself. Without Jesus Christ, man must be in sin and misery; with Jesus Christ, man is exempt from sin and misery. In Him is all our virtue, and all our felicity. Out of Him, there is nothing but sin, misery, error, darkness, death, and despair." - O.W. Wight, translator from the French Language, Thoughts, Letters, and Opuscules, pp. 334-335. Stephen Abbott Northrop, D.D., A Cloud of Witnesses (Portland, OR: American Heritage Ministries, 1987), p. 352-353.

After His death, Pascal left in his effects this writing:

"The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob," not of philosophers and scholars." - 1662, in a writing of his found in his effects after his death. John Bartlett, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1855, 1980), p. 300.

If you'd like to have the citations for the footnotes above, please email us.  If you'd like to see more quotes from those who framed and founded America, please click here: http://jcsm.org/AmericasFounders/.

 

A Moment of Introspection

Mercy is not getting what you deserve.  Grace is getting what you do not deserve.

 

JCSM's Challenge

Show mercy and grace to someone, today!

God bless you as you meet this week's challenge!

 

Word of the Week

oyktirmone (Greek, see Luke 6:36): compassionate: merciful, of tender mercy

 

The Skeptic's Annotated Bible: Corrected and Explained

"The Skeptic's Annotated Bible" claims:

Exodus 20:4 - God forbids making any graven images. But later (Ex.25:18, Num.21:8) he provides instruction for the making of graven images.

"The Skeptic's Annotated Bible: Corrected and Explained" responds:

This Hebrew word for "graven" is also translated "idol."  God is telling the people to abstain from making idols (and worshiping them).

Exodus 25:18 records God telling the Israelites to make two cherubim (angelic beings) to reside in their tabernacle as they worship God.

In Numbers 21:7, the people seek forgiveness from God.  God tells them the way to obtain forgiveness is to look upon the fiery snake that was raised off the ground.  Incidentally, this is a foreshadowing of Jesus Christ's death on the cross and how sinners look to Him for forgiveness.

This snake on the pole was never a graven image or an idol.  Consequently, it was never worshiped.

(This explanation came from "The Skeptic's Annotated Bible: Corrected and Explained", by Dr. Jason Gastrich.  This book is on CD and gives over 4,000 answers to alleged Bible errors, regarding the entire Bible at http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.org.  There is also a 300 question workbook that accompanies the CD-ROM.)

 

Quotes of the Week

Imagine how much better your life would be if you had more of the fruits of the spirit.

To follow the spirit, we must surrender every part of our life.

Some of us were extreme sinners, but now timid believers. Why? Hasn't God given you a bold and extreme spirit to live life on the edge for Him?

The only way to access God's power is to surrender your life to Christ.

Listening, watching, and reading are good ways of learning, but not as good as speaking, doing, and writing.

There is no such thing as Christian and non-Christian music; just Christian and non-Christian lyrics.

A pat on the back is only about 12 inches from a kick in the butt.

Don't worry about what people think of you because what people think always changes.

You can never be more right than God.

In Heaven, you're not going to earn money, argue, or suffer. You're going to worship God.

If you'd like to read more quotes, we have thousands in our archive!  Visit http://quotes.jcsm.org.

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Jesus Christ Saves Ministries
6866 Linda Vista Road
San Diego, CA  92111

Jason Gastrich, Ph.D.

Jason Gastrich, Ph.D.
JCSM's Director

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