Baptized for the Dead

For some reason or another when I used to play basketball quite a bit I was often confronted with a problem: tunnel vision. Now I didn't have an actual medical condition that only exhibited itself when I played my favorite sport, but I did have a problem. As the action progressed and my heart pumped in excitement I noticed that I often had difficulty perceiving anything outside of my immediate gaze. This caused problems as you can imagine. Occasionally open teammates were unnoticed and even more often I was unaware of the opposing players' advancement. This meant my dribbling skills did very little for me when someone came out of nowhere to pop the ball out of my hands. I used to be frustrated very much by this condition of tunnel vision. Granted it didn't happen all the time and often I was able to keep a watchful eye on my would be assailants. However it certainly happened more than I desired so I began to give it some thought. You see it often happened when I was overly ...

Most Christians realize that they are engaged in a battle. Too often however they are fighting the wrong people and the wrong things. Striking out in frustration we beat against the wind and we bemoan our circumstances. If only life weren't so hard we'd be able to accomplish all that the Lord wants us too. If only we knew what was going on behind the curtain we'd be able to fight the good fight. The problem with this thinking of course is that it implies God should reveal to us the inner workings of the spiritual warfare all around us. We believe that if we could only see why bad things happen we would be able to step forward. What we forget is that if God did this He would remove the very reason why we have a fighting chance at all: faith. We now know in part and occasionally the curtain is drawn back part of the way for a select few among us. However God does not practice this type of revelation for our own good. The devil was privy to the glories of heaven and yet He rem...