I Apologize for the Delay...

I've been praying about this like crazy, and after receiving so much confirmation from God, I think it is time to make the following idea known to my readers and to begin making this a reality. To give you some background....

If you have read my blog before then you know, God has gifted me with a brain. Most of my life, it was all I had and I misused it for my own personal gain. Granted, ever since I came to Christ, He has shown me just how dumb I am. I think I'm smart...dude, My smartest thought is no where near God's "dumbest" thought, and let me just say, none of His thoughts are dumb...(Jer 29:11, Isaiah 55:7-8).

For me, when you believe in something, you do all you can to defend it and support it. I used to work at The Container Store, Best Buy, and some web developing company. While working in these places, I was asked to sell products to clients and customers. At the beginning of my employment in all these places, I loved the products. I believed in the products, over time though, the products and the makers of the products showed themseleves to be shallow and empty. The products lost their luster and I began losing trust in the products. So much so that my sales would go down.

The same can be applied to Faith in Christ. The only difference is, when you truly follow after Christ and have a true genuine faith in Him, the "product" never loses its luster. Since God is the same past, present, and future, He remains consistent, and as a result, you are the one who changes. He begins changing you as you come to realize how permanent, real and unchanging His love and all His mercies and truths are.

As a believer, you should take joy in defending that which has saved your life. Enter 1 Peter 3:15. Within the context, 1 Peter 3:15 tells us to be ready to defend our joy. What does that mean? Well in the verses preceding it, Peter talks to us about trials and tribs and suffering, similar to James 1:2-4. What can we get from this? Well to paraphrase and save on time, Peter is telling us that it is a good thing we go through trials with a smile. And be ready, people will ask you why you smile in the midst of trials and why it is you stand firm in Christ while the rest of your world seems to be crashing. In response to these questions, Peter tells us to be ready to defend our joy. The word defend there is the greek "apologia" which means: 1) to defend one's self, make one's defence, 2) to defend a person or a thing3) to give a full account of. If you break the word down even further, one part of it means to separate and the other means of speech. To separate oneself through speech. This doesn't just mean tame your tongue like James says in chapter 3, it means defend your belief through speech.

Set yourself apart from the world through your speech and through your speech defend that which has set you apart (which is the definition of the word saint *set apart*). By now you know what it is I am getting at: Apologetics. I am a huge apologetics fan and in the past couple of months, the Lord has been revealing to me that this is the direction in which I ought go. From now going forward, I will be posting at least one apologetics topic a week on my blog. I'll either pose a question or a statement. I'll present the non-biased side of the skeptic/scientist/world and then present some logical argument that won't include any bible in it, then I'll present the bible. It is going to be sweet. I will say this much, as an inexperienced apologist, this will all be God. God is who has given me this learned tongue, not anyone else. (Isaiah 50:4)

A word to you that the Lord gave me:

Proverbs 15:28 The heart of the righteous studies how to answer, But the mouth of the wicked pours forth evil.

Before going on, remember one thing abour your speech: 1 Cor 13
Before answering a stubborn person, remember what Christ said: Matt 7:6
Remember what James tells us in: James 1:19

I suggest for anyone who is interested in the topic to take a ride through Proverbs and pay close attention to speech. Prov 17:28, Prov 18:21, Prov 19:11, Prov 18:20, Prov 15:1, Prov 15:7, Prov 12:13-14, Prov 13:3, Prov 26:4-5 (I'll be writing up something on this soon).

And as the basis for your knowledge, remember this: Prov 1:7.

This is just the beginning, over the next few weeks, I'll be posting up some stuff God has been giving me in this area. We need to establish the right foundation first before we head into the storm, else we'll fall.(Matt 7:24-27)