Seriously Disturbed
The Only Hope for Monsters
I admit it: I am a total wimp when it comes to scary movies. My tolerance for things jumping out at me in the dark is nearly nonexistent. When I was a little girl, nothing terrified me more than the black-and-white movie Creature from the Black Lagoon.
I spent my childhood praying that the monsters wouldn't get me. Even now, I seldom watch horror movies because they still frighten me, but I braved watching Alien on TV a few years ago. I covered my face with my hands and peeked through my fingers, trying to make the monster tiny and less threatening. The most grotesque part of the movie is when the alien, which has inadvertently been swallowed by a character, bursts out of the man's belly, spewing blood and body fluids everywhere. I thought to myself, What could be worse than having one of those disgusting monsters actually growing inside of me?
Imagine my horror five years ago when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I realized that a real live thing had taken residence in my body—an "alien" that was trying to kill me. Thankfully, surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation brought a halt to the monster's plans. But as dreadful as that experience was, I've since come to believe that an even more malevolent creature grows unabated in my soul.
Earlier this year, an interviewer asked me what I believe about evil. I said that the Bible teaches we are inherently evil, with the capacity to do good when Christ reigns over our lives. She was amazed, thinking that people are basically good with some capacity for evil. The Bible says just the opposite.
"I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out" (Rom. 7:18).
The first time I visited Rwanda, I went ...
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Seriously Disturbed
A Fractured and Beautiful Faith
Streaming This Weekend, May 24, 2013
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daniEL
Can anyone share with me from the Bible where it states that WE are supposed to defeat Evil in the world? I thought that only CHRIST does that after his earthly millenial reign.
Jonathan E. Brickman
When God is at work in an individual, it is very helpful to share the fact with everyone. It is thus that many have learned that God is at work in individuals. It is by such reports that God chose to teach me that He is at work in individuals, and is willing and eager to be at work in myself. I am very pleased that those in whom God is at work do choose to praise Him for His works in them, and I pray that He motivates many more to do so than are now so doing.
Roger
While I don't believe we should ever stop thinking of ourselves as "sinners saved by grace," Warren's article doesn't seem to acknowledge the the spiritual growth that should mark our years as believers. I don't deny my struggles with certain issues in my life, but my capacity for harming another person has grow less as I have grown in knowledge and understanding. Perhaps under the most bizarre of circumstances, I might be able to lash out in anger with words, but do physical harm, I don't think so. Plan and carry out genocide? Not a chance! I willingly give God the credit for his work in me, but I don't believe, at this stage of my spiritual life, I remain capable of that sort of evil. To think so seems to deny the work and presence of the Holy Spirit.