Why is there so much evil?

I consider myself to be on front line of this on going war in between good and evil. Although, as some as my atheist friends like to point out, if God was real there would not be any evil at all.

"If God is so good, then why is there so much evil? It does not make sense Zaq, if God is so good to his people then how could he allow events like the Holocaust to happen? Does that sound like a good God to you?"

I will be honest, until now I have not had a good answer to this question. I have always relied on "stock" Christian answers like, "God works in mysterious ways..." but now I agree with them.

No, I am not saying God is not real. I am not saying God is not good. In fact, I believe God is the infinite, never ceasing good. What I agree with is there is no evil.

You see what is wrong with my friends and so many others idea of God is that he can be measured. That science can measure God on some sort of scale but you cannot because God is infinite. God is on going and never ending, much like his goodness.

There are many things science cannot measure, one example is cold. You can measure heat but not cold. You can have little heat, lots of heat, super heat, mega-super heat and no heat, that is what cold is, lack of heat. If you were to measure heat it would start with -458 degrees (absolute zero) and never end because heat, like God, is infinite. Cold is just a word we use to describe the lack of heat. If cold was real, it would go on forever.

Another example is darkness. Darkness is not something but rather the lack of something, the lack of light. Again you can little light , lots of light, bright light and no light which we call darkness. If darkness was something it could get darker and darker.

What is wrong with my friends idea is that it is based of the principles of duality, which says there are two sides to each coin. That there is a hot and cold but we now know there just heat. That there is light and dark but we now know there is just light. That there is good and evil but as I am about to explain, there is no evil.

God is the infinite good. So what is evil but the lack of God? When God flooded the world because man was evil he found that Noah was good because he "walked with God." When I sin, I do not do it with God in mind. When someone cuts me off in traffic and I tell them they are "number 1" I do not do it because God is with me. If you are christian think about it, when do you feel the farthest from God?

I feel the farthest from God when I am in sin. When I do "evil" or when I lack God in my life. You see the Holocaust was not performed by God but rather without God. Man since the creation has been trying to rebel away from God, to take care of themselves. Since that day, we have messed everything up. It was not in God's plan for us to be without him or to be evil. It is my sincerest belief that God has done everything he could to win back our affection, he even gave up his son.

In all of his provisions, why are we so richly blessed?

Are You an Angel?

"In the midst of the most painful faces, Angels show up in the strangest places."

If you do not know my past week was spent serving a family in Bluefield WV. It was such an honor to be able to show the love of Christ to a family face to face. I have given money to charity before but honestly I have not volunteered like this many times. Do not get me wrong, if you donate money to charity that is great, I just have the ability to serve in other ways and have not been fulfilling that obligation.

I will never forget how the son of the home owner told me that, "No one has helped my mother before" and how much this meant to him.

My group had the chance to show the love of Christ to this family for the first time, what an honor but yet what a responsibility! Christ does not love as the world loves; he loves you no matter what. I thought this would be a problem because one little "slip of the tongue" could turn this family away from God.

Then I met Miss Myra and she called us her "little angels." It brought a tear to my eye because I realized what this meant to her. After that I knew that God was working through us and there would be no problems with that!

The point is I became an angel to this family. I made this families life better in a week and next week another group will do the same. Personally I need to reach out more to those who are in need of Christ's love. I am going to try to organize something in the area I live to help people out. If you have any ideas on how to help people shoot me an e-mail.

This is not a story about my week but rather a challenge to you! How will you become an angel?

How Do You Love?

Today when we read our bibles we are not getting the real deal. We are getting robbed of the authors sensory details because the language they used was much more descriptive. When you read the bible you miss so much if you do not know the language it was written in. Now I am not saying I am some "master" of biblical languages, I am far from it. To be honest I only know a few phrases and words of Greek and Hebrew but I believe they are very important to know and understand the bible. For example the Greeks had three primary words that they used for love.

The first is eros and it is a romantic passionate love that often dealt with lovers. We get the English word erotic from eros.

The second word is philia and it is a brotherly love. The love you share with your family and close friends. I am positive you all have heard of Philadelphia, which is the city of brotherly love.

And the third word is Agape which is the unconditional love of God. It is how God loves me and you and Joe Schmo down the street. Agape is the love that allows God to have grace for a sinner like me. Agape is why I take a stand for Christ and love him back but how do I love him? A better question would be how am I supposed to love the most lovely and lovable person to ever live?

"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." Mathew 22:36-37

Jesus said we are to love God with all our heart, soul and mind but how is he saying it? Is he saying eros, philia or agape the Lord your God? It is pretty obvious that eros is not the word he uses, so is philia or agape? Are we supposed to love God like our brother or are we supposed love Him like he loves us? Is it even possible to love Him like he loves us?

The word Jesus uses here is agape, which I find to be amazing. Agape is amazing when it is used to describe the way God loves us but its hard to imagine loving like God. I do not know about you but it is easy to agape God on Sunday during worship but what about on a Wednesday? In the middle of your own monotonous week do you agape God? Do you even philia God by Friday? Or when things are going "good" in life it is easy to agape God but how about during the bad times? In the middle of drought when your are just dying for the rain, do you agape God?

I am ashamed to say it but I do not. It is my life and I have been failing at this aspect so much. By Friday I do not even philia God, he is just after thought in my life. But that is about to change because I am not afraid to agape my Saviour. I beg you to do the same and I beg you keep me conscious about it. There is not a second that goes by that Jesus does not agape me and I do not want to miss a second of agape-ing Him.