Archimedes, a Greek mathematician, engineer, and physicist, was trying to figure out how to measure the volume of an irregular solid object and thereby determine the purity of a gold object. When he finally arrived at the solution, he supposedly exclaimed, “Eureka!”—or, “I found it!” (in Greek, of course).

What do you do when you find something for which you have been looking? Two things can be measured by your response: the value of the object of your search, and the gratitude you feel upon its discovery. For instance, what happens if you find the paper clip you dropped in your office? You don’t shout, “Eureka!” and tell your co-workers. You clip the papers and move on. And if you can’t find it, you instantly replace it with another one. Conclusion? An individual paper clip has little value in the workplace. It is cheap to begin with, easily replaced, and not worth the cost of the search.

But some things in life are more valuable than paper clips; they have infinite, immeasurable value. A pagan man in the Old Testament named Naaman had lost something that had great value to him: his health. Naaman and his king agreed to spend a considerable sum on gifts (750 pounds of silver and 150 pounds of gold, among other things) for the person who could heal his leprosy. When he was healed by the prophet Elisha, Naaman concluded that the world’s only true God was the God of Israel. Based on his confession and what he was willing to pay to regain his health (though Elisha refused the gifts), it was obvious that Naaman had found something of great value. In truth, he found more than health—he found life in the God of Israel (2 Kings 5:17-18).

Perhaps like Naaman, you have found that the world’s only true God does exist—the God revealed in creation and Scripture. If you have, there is only one gift that can express the value of what you have found; and it is the only gift God will accept—the gift of a heart devoted to Him. That’s how you say “Eureka!” in the kingdom of God.

God’s Promise to You: “Your heart is the most precious gift you can give to me.”

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“No excuses!” How many times in your life have those case-closing words rung in your ears—or proceeded from your mouth? While the words are often spoken by parents, teachers, coaches, or judges with a finality that sounds irrefutable, there is probably always room for argument in the realm of human experience. Were the instructions really clear? Did my child truly understand? Is the law really without loopholes? Sometimes in life there may be a valid excuse even in the face of “No excuses!”

However, there is one place where excuses are not valid: the court room where the existence of God is on trial. The Bible promises that God has made His existence crystal clear to every person who has ever lived. So clear, in fact, that “men are without excuse” (v. 19).

How can we be sure that God exists? First of all, because God has made it plain. If it is so plain, we wonder, why doesn’t everyone simply see the evidence and believe? Without proposing all of the theological and philosophical answers to that question (and there are some good ones), the problem at its simplest may be one of looking for the wrong thing; not being able to see the forest for the trees. Do you remember the Russian cosmonauts who boldly announced their intention to solve the problem of the existence of God? They would simply look around heaven and see if He was there! Upon returning to earth, they said, “We looked, and there was no God.” In Biblical terms, that’s like saying, “We saw no forest; all we saw were thousands of trees.” They were so focused on seeing a “being” that, in the midst of one of the most spectacular showcases of God’s mighty power, they were blind to the evidence of His existence.

If you ever question God’s existence, simply look around. A star-studded sky, the dimpled cheek of a newborn, the complex design of a flower, the life-giving rain and sunshine—all these and more paint a plain picture of His presence and His power in our world.

God’s Promise to You: “Even in your darkest moments, My presence and My power are plainly seen in what I have made.”

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- This is part of a series on the theme of character. -

When God revealed himself as the compassionate and gracious God who is slow to anger, who abounds in love and faithfulness, who maintains love to thousands and who forgives wickedness, rebellion and sin, he made it clear this his personal character is the absolute standard by which all of these qualities are defined. God is accountable to no one, and there is no higher standard to which he must conform. As the great thinker Anselm said in the 11^th century: “God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived.”

Anselm originally made this statement in an attempt to prove God’s existence. But as Michael Witmer points out,

The real legacy of Anselm’s argument is not its attempt to prove God’s existence but rather how it teaches us to speak about God. If God is “that than which nothing greater can be conceived,” then we know there are certain things we must say about him. For starters, we must use only our best words to describe him. God must be righteous, powerful, loving, and kind – all the things that it is better to be than not to be. We may disagree about what items should go in the list…but we all agree that the list must include all the great-making properties we can imagine….

God is qualitatively superior to anything in his creation. There is nothing that compares with the greatest possible being. He is in a class by himself – literally.[1]

God’s own eternal and uncompromising character is the unchanging standard that gives ultimate meaning to love, graciousness, faithfulness and forbearance. And yet the incredible call of the gospel is that fallen creatures such as we are can now begin to reflect our Father’s character in our own lives. The One who is goodness in his essence, the One who defines virtue by his very being, promises to empower those who will trust him enough to live according to his will.

• God is that which nothing greater can be conceived.

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Here is a clear and cogent response to Stephen Hawking’s new book that attempts to explain the universe without God.

John Lennox is Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford and Fellow in Mathematics and Philosophy of Science.

As a scientist I’m certain Stephen Hawking is wrong. You can’t explain the universe without God

By Professor John Lennox  <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/search.html?s=y&authornamef=Professor+John+Lennox+>

According to Stephen Hawking, the laws of physics, not the will of God, provide the real explanation as to how life on Earth came into being

There’s no denying that Stephen Hawking is intellectually bold as well as physically heroic. And in his latest book, the renowned physicist mounts an audacious challenge to the traditional religious belief in the divine creation of the universe.

According to Hawking, the laws of physics, not the will of God, provide the real explanation as to how life on Earth came into being. The Big Bang, he argues, was the inevitable consequence of these laws ‘because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing.’

Unfortunately, while Hawking’s argument is being hailed as controversial and ground-breaking, it is hardly new.

For years, other scientists have made similar claims, maintaining that the awesome, sophisticated creativity of the world around us can be interpreted solely by reference to physical laws such as gravity.

It is a simplistic approach, yet in our secular age it is one that seems to have resonance with a skeptical public.

But, as both a scientist and a Christian, I would say that Hawking’s claim is misguided. He asks us to choose between God and the laws of physics, as if they were necessarily in mutual conflict.

But contrary to what Hawking claims, physical laws can never provide a complete explanation of the universe. Laws themselves do not create anything, they are merely a description of what happens under certain conditions.

What Hawking appears to have done is to confuse law with agency. His call on us to choose between God and physics is a bit like someone demanding that we choose between aeronautical engineer Sir Frank Whittle and the laws of physics to explain the jet engine.

To use a simple analogy, Isaac Newton’s laws of motion in themselves never sent a snooker ball racing across the green baize. That can only be done by people using a snooker cue and the actions of their own arms.

Hawking’s argument appears to me even more illogical when he says the existence of gravity means the creation of the universe was inevitable. But how did gravity exist in the first place? Who put it there? And what was the creative force behind its birth?

Similarly, when Hawking argues, in support of his theory of spontaneous creation, that it was only necessary for ‘the blue touch paper’ to be lit to ‘set the universe going’, the question must be: where did this blue touch paper come from? And who lit it, if not God?

Much of the rationale behind Hawking’s argument lies in the idea that there is a deep-seated conflict between science and religion. But this is not a discord I recognise.

For me, as a Christian believer, the beauty of the scientific laws only reinforces my faith in an intelligent, divine creative force at work. The more I understand science, the more I believe in God because of my wonder at the breadth, sophistication and integrity of his creation.

The very reason science flourished so vigorously in the 16th and 17th centuries was precisely because of the belief that the laws of nature which were then being discovered and defined reflected the influence of a divine law-giver.

One of the fundamental themes of Christianity is that the universe was built according to a rational, intelligent design. Far from being at odds with science, the Christian faith actually makes perfect scientific sense.

Some years ago, the scientist Joseph Needham made an epic study of technological development in China. He wanted to find out why China, for all its early gifts of innovation, had fallen so far behind Europe in the advancement of science.

He reluctantly came to the conclusion that European science had been spurred on by the widespread belief in a rational creative force, known as God, which made all scientific laws comprehensible.

Despite this, Hawking, like so many other critics of religion, wants us to believe we are nothing but a random collection of molecules, the end product of a mindless process.

This, if true, would undermine the very rationality we need to study science. If the brain were really the result of an unguided process, then there is no reason to believe in its capacity to tell us the truth.

We live in an information age. When we see a few letters of the alphabet spelling our name in the sand, our immediate response is to recognise the work of an intelligent agent. How much more likely, then, is an intelligent creator behind the human DNA, the colossal biological database that contains no fewer than 3.5 billion ‘letters’?

It is fascinating that Hawking, in attacking religion, feels compelled to put so much emphasis on the Big Bang theory. Because, even if the non-believers don’t like it, the Big Bang fits in exactly with the Christian narrative of creation.

That is why, before the Big Bang gained currency, so many scientists were keen to dismiss it, since it seemed to support the Bible story. Some clung to Aristotle’s view of the ‘eternal universe’ without beginning or end; but this theory, and later variants of it, are now deeply discredited.

But support for the existence of God moves far beyond the realm of science. Within the Christian faith, there is also the powerful evidence that God revealed himself to mankind through Jesus Christ two millennia ago. This is well-documented not just in the scriptures and other testimony but also in a wealth of archaeological findings.

Moreover, the religious experiences of millions of believers cannot lightly be dismissed. I myself and my own family can testify to the uplifting influence faith has had on our lives, something which defies the idea we are nothing more than a random collection of molecules.

Just as strong is the obvious reality that we are moral beings, capable of understanding the difference between right and wrong. There is no scientific route to such ethics.

Physics cannot inspire our concern for others, or the spirit of altruism that has existed in human societies since the dawn of time.

The existence of a common pool of moral values points to the existence of transcendent force beyond mere scientific laws. Indeed, the message of atheism has always been a curiously depressing one, portraying us as selfish creatures bent on nothing more than survival and self-gratification.

Hawking also thinks that the potential existence of other lifeforms in the universe undermines the traditional religious conviction that we are living on a unique, God-created planet. But there is no proof that other lifeforms are out there, and Hawking certainly does not present any.

It always amuses me that atheists often argue for the existence of extra-terrestrial intelligence beyond earth. Yet they are only too eager to denounce the possibility that we already have a vast, intelligent being out there: God.

Hawking’s new fusillade cannot shake the foundations of a faith that is based on evidence.

God’s Undertaker: Has science Buried God? by John Lennox is out now (Lion Hudson, £8.99).

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1308599/Stephen-Hawking-wrong-You-explain-universe-God.html#ixzz0yabn9HCT <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1308599/Stephen-Hawking-wrong-You-explain-universe-God.html#ixzz0yabn9HCT>

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This is another installment in a series that has been adapted from my 11-part CD teaching series on A. W. Tozer’s spiritual classic, The Pursuit of God.

There are three Latin words that can all mean faith: noticia, assentia, fiducia. Noticia simply means that you saw something or took “notice” of its existence. Assentia means that you acknowledged or gave “assent” to the truth of something. But it is the third word that represents biblical faith: fiducia. This is a word that simply means to “trust.” We must think of biblical faith as more than an intellectual notation, more than a cognitive assent; it is placing one’s trust in truth. And because propositional truth in Scripture always points beyond itself to the author, we see that trusting a certain truth is grounded in our trust of the Truthgiver – we are to look to him who is the Author of our faith, the One who has written everything from the introduction to the conclusion. Therefore, faith is choosing to believe that the Bible is true regardless of any feelings or beliefs to the contrary. Faith always involves a choice of the will and an intention of the heart.

This is exactly what Jesus did; he kept the inward eyes of his heart upon his Father. When he asked his Father to raise Lazarus from the dead, he raised his eyes toward heaven and prayed. When he fed the 5,000, he took the five loaves and two fish and looked up toward heaven and gave thanks. And even as his followers stood “gazing intently” as their resurrected Savior ascended into heaven, they soon learned how to run the race of faith by “fixing their eyes on Jesus.” Throughout his whole life Jesus himself demonstrated this continuous and uninterrupted gaze of the soul in the direction of his Father. Likewise, he calls us to intentionally aim our hearts toward Jesus.

Tozer goes on to say that,

“. . . this one committal, this one great volitional act which establishes the heart’s intention to gaze forever upon Jesus. God takes this intention for our choice and makes what allowances he must for the thousand distractions which beset us in this evil world. He knows that we have set the direction of our hearts toward Jesus, and we can know it too, and comfort ourselves with the knowledge that a habit of soul is forming which will become, after a while, a sort of spiritual reflex requiring no more conscious effort on our part.

Faith is the least self-regarding of the virtues. It is by its very nature scarcely conscious of its own existence. Like the eye which sees everything in front of it and never sees itself, faith is occupied on the Object upon which it rests and pays no attention to itself at all. While we are looking at God we do not see ourselves – blessed riddance. The man who has struggled to purify himself and has had nothing but repeated failures will experience real relief when he stops tinkering with his soul and looks away to the perfect One. While he looks at Christ, the very things he has so long been trying to do will be getting done within him. It will be God working in him to will and to do.”

Most of religion tinkers with your soul, forever trying to figure everything out and get everything right. But you must get your eyes off of all that nonsense and get your eyes onto Christ because when you do, he’ll take over the care of your soul.

• How do we cultivate a beneficial habit of the soul?

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This is another installment in a series that has been adapted from my 11-part CD teaching series on A. W. Tozer’s spiritual classic, The Pursuit of God.

The third option and is that of design. Here, I like to use the analogy of the turtle on a fence post. Imagine that you are walking through the countryside and you spy a turtle perched on top of a fence post. You ask yourself how did it get there? Your options: Perhaps it is necessity; by nature it had to be there. But, upon reflection, you immediately realize that it doesn’t have to be there. So, you move to the second option: perhaps it is chance. It is conceivable that a tornado picked up the turtle and gently deposited him on the top of the post by sheer accident. But, as with our hard-typing monkeys, what may be logically conceivable is not always mathematically achievable. In fact, the chances that the turtle’s presence on the post can be accounted for via the happy accident of a violent, 150 mile-an-hour tornado are so remote that it raises questions about the stubbornness of the claimant. But if it is not required to be there, and if it didn’t get there by accident, then the only option left is that of design. Some intelligent force must have intervened. We know that the little brain of the turtle couldn’t have figured out a way to climb up there, so the only logical explanation left is that somebody must have put it there.

When we apply this same reasoning to a world that is resplendent with beauty, intelligence, and complexity, we can see how a scientist can become a more complete scientist if he starts his work by worshipping the One whose handiwork he daily explores and investigates. In the presence of the Creator, the scientist, the theologian, and the child are all allies. My conviction is that if you have the ears to hear, everything in nature points beyond itself to wondrous spiritual truth.

• God has ordained the created order in such a way that everything in it points beyond to spiritual truth for those who have the eyes to see and the ears to hear.

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This is another installment in a series that has been adapted from my 11-part CD teaching series on A. W. Tozer’s spiritual classic, The Pursuit of God.

The second option is that it was chance. It just happened to be this way. This is the option held by most scientists: given enough time, even the most improbable things can happen. But if you put some actual numbers to this position, they never add up. I think it was George Bernard Shaw who hypothesized that if you gave him a million monkeys, all typing on a million typewriters, eventually one of them would type out a play of Shakespeare. At first it sounds plausible, given enough time. After all, with enough time many unlikely have happened. But let’s put some real numbers to this hypothetical scenario. If we assume there are forty keys on the typewriters, that spaces and upper and lower case do not count, that the monkeys are typing at the equivalent of a hundred words a minute 24 hours a day, that you have a million monkeys typing, and that there are only four letters in every word, how long would it take one of the monkeys to correctly type the first word? The mathematics of probability predicts that it would be a matter of a few seconds. To get the second word, meaning that any one of the monkeys would have to get all eight letters of both the first word and the second word in sequence, it would take about five days. To get the third word, i.e., twelve consecutive letters in sequence, it would take approximately 100 years. To get the fourth word, i.e., 16 letters in the correct sequence, it would take about a 100 billion years (most astronomers estimate the age of the universe to be 13.7 billion years). Yet the information contained in one strand of human DNA is far greater than all the combined plays of Shakespeare. If you do the math honestly, you soon realize that the first sentence of the play would never be written.

• Inference to the best explanation is what science should be about, regardless of where the inference leads.

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This is another installment in a series that has been adapted from my 11-part CD teaching series on A. W. Tozer’s spiritual classic, The Pursuit of God.

Failure to hear the Voice as coming from God has created some very interesting reactions. When men heard the Father speak from heaven to his Son, they explained it away. In John 12:28-29, Jesus makes a request of his Father, “Father, glorify thy name.” Then, God the Father says, “I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.” What was the response of the multitude standing near enough to hear it? Some thought that the voice of God they heard was thunder. Others thought that it was an angel. Most missed it. Imagine that. How many times do we assume that all our faith really needs is one clear, distinct, audible message from God? Yet in the responses of those hearers, we can easily recognize ourselves. God speaks and we come to all manner of conclusions as to what it was; all except the conclusion that God spoke.

Tozer concludes, “This habit of explaining the Voice by appeals to natural law is at the very root of modern science.” But, he continues,

“The believing man does not claim to understand. He falls to his knees and whispers, ‘God.’ The man of the earth kneels also, but not to worship. He kneels to examine, to search, to find the cause and the how of things. Just now we happen to be living in a secular age. Our thought habits are those of the scientist, not those of the worshipper. We are more likely to explain than adore.”

But it is important to point out that spiritual truth is not in opposition to science. Science, properly interpreted, is actually an ally of spiritual truth, for it points to something beyond. Ultimately, the person who is looking for a cause that accounts for all that exists has only three options available. The first option is that it was a necessity. It just had to be this way.

• The first option is that it was a necessity. It just had to be this way.

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Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne and I founded empires; but upon what did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ alone founded his empire upon love; and at this hour millions of men would die for him. – Napoleon

The fact that modern man has been able to preserve such a good opinion of himself despite all the obvious refutations of his optimism particularly in his own history leads to the conclusion that there is a very stubborn source of resistance in man to the acceptance of the most obvious and irrefutable evidence about his moral qualities.  (Reinhold Niebuhr)

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