200th Post/Rebirth day Giveaway

It’s been a wild and crazy year on Manifest Blog.  I hit and miss several goals, and some are still in process, but my overall goal of growing in relationship with Christ and sharing what I learn along the way is still moving forward.  In fact today is my six-year rebirth day. 

Six years ago, I bent the knee and surrendered my life as a follower of Jesus Christ.  God audibly told me to “give up everything you love and follow Me”.  I sold everything I had and gave away what wouldn’t sell, and I haven’t looked back.

It’s funny because one of the things I loved that I got rid of was a large collection of books.  I had thousands of the things.  I love to read, but they had to go.  As a Christian I wasn’t really sure how to approach the issue of books.  In fact over the past 6 years, I can think of about 7 books (not including textbooks) that I actually purchased.  But my fellow believers have showered books on me over the years, which I have in turn tried to be faithful and give away when I finished reading them.

Now thanks to this blog, I have publishers shipping me tons of books all the time, and my little three-shelf bookshelf is starting to fill up.

So in honor of my commitment to give up everything I love and follow Christ, I’m giving away a few of my more recent reads:

Mornings With Jesus by Judy Baer et al

The NIV Boys Bible

1000 Days by Jonathan Falwell

Seal of God by Chad Williams

The Mission Minded Family by Ann Dunagan

The Gospel For Real Life by Jerry Bridges

The Christian Zombie Killers Handbook by Jeff Kinley

Radical by David Platt

Just go through the Form below, enter by whatever means you want, and remember "Man casts the lot in his lap, but God determines the outcome" (Proverbs 16:33).  Good Luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Can God Make a Rock So Big . . . ?

Here it is folks!  I have the answer to the age old question “can God make a rock so big that He can’t lift it?” 

I’m pretty sure everyone reading this has heard this particular paradox that attempts to limit God’s omnipotence by saying if He can’t make a rock that big, He’s not omnipotent, and if He can make it, then He’s not omnipotent because He can’t lift the rock. 

Typical apologists tie themselves in knots saying things like it would be against His nature to create something that would limit His omnipotence.  My favorite is that creating a rock of this size would inevitably make it cease to be a rock because at some point a rock becomes a cliff, a mountain, a continent, an asteroid, an orbiter, or a planet. 

But these apologists just play into the hands of the atheists with their rhetorical counters.  Before I became a Christian, I used to get no end of amusement from the foolishness of these replies.  Didn’t they realize they were admitting to their God’s impotence with these non-answers?  Then God audibly spoke to me and turned my life upside down.  He was real? 

Suddenly I didn’t find the paradox quite so humorous.  Is this God who revealed Himself to me omnipotent or what?

So, I started to search the scriptures to find out if there was anything in there about God’s omnipotence.  And it wasn’t hard to find affirmatives to my query:

Jeremiah 32:17 “Ah, Sovereign LORD, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you.”

Luke 1:37 “Nothing is impossible with God”

Matthew 19:26 “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

Mark 14:36 "Abba, Father," he said, "everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will."

Psalm 115:3 “But our God [is] in heaven; He does whatever He pleases.”

The answer seemed to be “yes” God is omnipotent.  So, what to do with the paradox? 

Can God create a rock so big that He couldn’t lift it?  Well, the answer must also be a “yes” lest we try and limit His omnipotence just like the atheists attempt to.  It would be one honking big rock too: infinite in size, way beyond the comprehension of any created being like ourselves, even the angels would ponder the thing in its all-consuming bulk.  And it would in effect limit His omnipotence.  He would cease to be all-powerful because He couldn’t lift it.  But this is all hypothetical because God has not created such a rock (I think we’d notice), and until He did, His omnipotence remains.

Now the question becomes would God ever create such a rock? 

The verses listed suggest that God does whatever pleases Him.  Would He be pleased to cease to be the most powerful being in existence just to make a few tiny people He created, who don’t even believe He exists, feel better about themselves and their sins and iniquities?

I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for the infinite rock to appear any time soon.  God doesn’t disappear in a puff of logic, and He remains omnipotent.  All praise and glory to the One who is, who was, and is to come.