Wednesday, July 29, 2020

THE GOD-SHAPED VOID WITHIN YOU



By Ada Brownell
I covered one of the first seminars on the Human Genome Project,[i] for The Pueblo Chieftain in the early 1990s. Reporters from several Colorado newspapers were there.
An international team of researchers were mapping the genes of humans and it was considered “one of the greatest feats of exploration in history.” By 2003, experts could read the genetic blueprint for building a human being. But did they miss anything?
Four years later, a new field, neurotheology, revealed our Creator wrapped faith in our DNA, according to a CNN report by A. Chris Gajilan on April 4, 2007.  Dr. Andrew Newberg, neuroscientist and author of "Why We Believe What We Believe" told how the human brain processes religion and spirituality.
Newberg says the brain’s frontal lobe, the area right behind our foreheads, helps us focus our attention in prayer and meditation.
The parietal lobe, located near the backs of our skulls, is the seat of our sensory information. Newberg says it's involved in that feeling of becoming part of something greater than oneself. The limbic system, nestled deep in the brain’s center, regulates our emotions and it is responsible for feelings of awe and joy.
He suggests brain scans may provide proof that our brains are built to believe in God. He says there may be universal features of the human mind that actually make it easier for us to believe in a higher power.
I remember one brain surgeon who reported stimulating some areas of the brain caused a patient to react in ways that suggested religious activity and faith.
Newberg has written several books about the connection between the brain and the spiritual and a new book is coming out later this year (2020).
Evidence shows we have a God-shaped void within us nothing else can fill. People all over the world search for a Supreme Being because of the emptiness inside them. If they haven’t heard the true gospel or reject it, they worship the earth, animals, stars, the sun, an idol they know is nothing but a figure humans created, or something else they devised such as Humanism, turning unbelief into doctrine or worshiping the created instead of the Creator.
I don’t know where the God-shaped space in us resides, but I know inside each person is a mysterious place where supernatural activities occur. If you’ve given your life to God, that’s the place where you’ll discover unconditional love, unspeakable joy, faith, supernatural peace, comfort, and biblical gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit.
Supernatural joy is a phenomenon different from happiness because it doesn’t depend on circumstances or people. Peter said when a person believes in the Savior and repents of his sins, something amazing happens.  “…The genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen you love. Though now you do not see him, yet believing you rejoice with ‘joy unspeakable and full of glory’” (1 Peter 1:8 NKJ). In other words, too- wonderful-to-describe joy, and only God can be the source.
The joy obviously is linked to awesome knowledge Jesus is God’s only son, who rose from the dead and gives eternal life (John 3:16).
The grief I experienced when we lost a daughter to cancer felt like my insides had been ripped out. Yet, when I believed God’s Word, the Comforter came and gave me supernatural peace and joy, and that’s something unbelievers don’t have.
Humans have wrestled with death since Cain killed his brother, Abel. The Apostle Paul gave amazing teaching in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 that everyone can use. He said, “I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with him those who sleep in Jesus…For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, and with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will arise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore, comfort one another with these words.”
That fills perfectly the God-shaped space in us.

Tuesday, July 7, 2020

Sunday, July 5, 2020

July 4: How God's mercy brought America through hard times


By Ada Brownell
A phone call from our daughter. “Better turn on the news.”
 A click, and I sank into a recliner. Flames shot from the World Trade Center and people jumped out windows. Then a large aircraft plowed into the remaining twin tower, exploding top floors and setting the remainder of the crumbling skyscraper on fire. A short time later, a plane made a direct hit on our Pentagon, and another headed for the White House.
We were at war. Our soldiers still fight the tentacles of terrorism trying to strangle the last breath of freedom from our nation and the world.
What a joy liberty has been in the decades I’ve lived! No bombs lighting the sky in the distance or jarring my bed at night. During my childhood I trembled during World War II when the town siren screamed, “Blackout.” But sirens stopped, our homeland was safe despite carnage at Pearl Harbor, and Americans lived free.
 Yes, war bruised our nation. I remember my sister’s scream when she received the call revealing her fiancĂ© was killed in World War II. We feared Russia during the cold war, and during the Bay of Pigs crisis we wondered if atomic bombs would level our nation before morning. We’re still burying our young killed on battlefields abroad.
Throughout history, America went to its knees for God’s help. They cried out to the Lord during the Revolutionary War, War of 1812, Mexican-Indian War, Civil War, Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War, the Persian Gulf War, the War on Terror in Afghanistan and Iraq; and interventions in Granada, Panama, Bosnia. I’m thankful for those who fought, gave their lives or were maimed.
Liberty prevails, and I believe it’s partly due to our Judeo-Christian heritage that teaches loving God and others.
 Another reason we have been blessed is our nation’s support of Israel.  "And I will bless those that bless you and curse the one who curses you,” God said of Israel (Genesis 12:1-3). Zechariah 2:8 speaks about God rising against the nations that plundered Israel – “for whoever touches you touches the apple of my eye." 
If we turn from God, it even affects the environment: “There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgment of God in the land. There is only cursing, lying and murder, stealing and adultery…. Because of this the land mourns, and all who live in it waste away, the beasts of the field and the birds of the air and the fish of the sea are dying” (Hosea 4:1-3).
And the promise for obedience: “Then all the nations will call you blessed for yours will be a delightful land,” says the Lord Almighty (Malachi 3:6-12).
Even with continued war and our nation divided by different agendas, we are free and blessed. The church still prays for our leaders and our country, and I thank God for His mercy and ask for more.
Ada Brownell, a free lance writer and author of ten  books, is a retired reporter for The Pueblo Chieftain. 

Saturday, July 4, 2020

Sale on Swallowed by Life Paperback!!! Get it now! Find assurance of life after death.




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SWALLOWED BY LIFE: MYSTERIES OF DEATH, RESURRECTION, AND THE ETERNAL
 SALE! Paperback only $3.83; Kindle $2.99.

While we live in these earthly bodies, we groan and sigh, but it’s not that we want to die and get rid of these bodies that clothe us. Rather, we want to put on our new bodies so that our dying bodies will be swallowed by life” (2 Corinthians 5:4 NLT).
Tell your book club, your grief support group, Bible study group, family, friends ABOUT THE SALE!
“You know what we’re doing?” friends asked the author when the Corona virus lockdown began. “We’re reading Swallowed by Life again!
The author’s brother, a pastor, read the book at least three times.
Ada Brownell worked seven years on the medical beat at The Pueblo Chieftain, and covered one of the first seminars on the human genome. In addition to being a newspaper reporter, her articles have appeared in more than forty Christian publications. She has authored ten books.

BOOK SUMMARY:
By Ada Brownell
Peter wrote, "For we did not follow cunningly devised fables...but were eyewitnesses of his majesty."
 (2 Peter 1:16).
13-week Bible study: SWALLOWED BY LIFE


Do you believe you could live with someone else’s heart or kidneys, but not without your body? Evidence shows we’re more than flesh. The author, a prolific religion writer and retired medical journalist, talks about the evidence; the wonder of life with all its electrical systems; the awesome truth about cell death and regeneration; mysteries surrounding the change from mortal to immortal; where we go when our body dies; resurrection; and a glimpse at what we will do in heaven. Questions and answers make this non-fiction inspirational book a great text for group study.

 Swallowed by Life written for support groups, religion classes, people with chronic or terminal illness, individuals who fear death or are curious about it, the grieving, and those who give them counsel.
Review: “It was wonderful how the author merged the medical with the spiritual.”
Available from some bookstores, Amazon and from the author. Buy it here on Amazon: http://ow.ly/U11Rn