Journal Entry – May 4, 2000

Well, I have finally finished writing my sermons on knowing why you believe what you believe. It has taken me almost 4 months to get it done and believe me, I am extremely pumped to be finished. Now I will be able to get back to being my usual loser self. I haven’t seen a movie or played dream cast in forever! And starting tomorrow I am going to the Superbowl on NFL 2K!!!!! The sermon that I talked about in my last journal entry has turned into 2 seperate sermons. I am really pumped about preaching them this summer. The first one challenges Christians to have a reason for believing what they believe. The second is an apologetic based message that defends the Truth of Christianity using non-biblical evidences to prove that Christianity is the one and only universal, absolute truth that rules all of existence. 
My faith has been stretched to incredible lengths during my study of these amazing truths. As I was doing my research, I found myself buying, whole heartedly into the truths that support the fact that Christianity is the Truth. So I tried, as best as I could to look at these evidences without allowing my bias as a Christian to allow me to be easily swayed into believing them just because I am already a Christian. It was difficult to do but as I worked my way through this stuff, I found over and over that Christianity is not only a credible belief system but I found that it is a provable truth. I know alot of people say that you can’t prove that Christianity is the Truth but I am convinced that that is not true. Because if you really seek out the Truth you will find that the overwhelming testimony of history proves beyond a reasonable doubt that Christianity is the Truth. It is absolutely amazing how much historical evidence there is that supports the fact that Jesus was and is the one and only Son of God and that He really did resurrect from the dead! The hardest thing about writing the non-biblical evidences based sermon was deciding what to leave out because there is so much evidence supporting the Truth of Christianity.

Check out this list of books that I used in my research: Reccomended Reading list The book “The Case For Christ” by Lee Strobel, is the best one on the list as far as detailed information that is easy to read. If you are a Christian, these books will enhance your faith in Jesus beyond what you could ever imagine. So engage your mind in your faith and start reading so you can be an intelligent Christian rather an ignorant Christian. And if you are not a Christian, I dare you to read these books. They will challenge everything you have ever believed about Christianity.

God bless ya, 
Runks

Journal Entry – April 3, 2000

It has been a long time since my last entry. A lot has happened since then. I have finally finished the first sermon of a series on knowing what you believe and why. It is titled, “Don’t be an Ignorant Christian” It is based out of Hebrews 5:11-6:1 and it deals with going deeper in your knowledge of the deeper truths of Christianity. It basically deals with knowing what you believe and moving beyond a faith based in emotion and moving on to a faith based in knowledge. Right now I am working on a follow up sermon that will deal with knowing why you believe what you believe. It has been awesome studying this stuff. It is stuff that I have known about but I have never really studied it as deeply as I have been lately. I have been reading a ton books on “apologetics” – books about defending our faith to an unbelieving world using non-biblical sources. It is pretty amazing stuff. In this next sermon, I am hoping to present reasons to believe that Christianity is the truth by looking at the historical and philosophical arguments we can use to prove that the Bible is accurate, Jesus was who He said He was, and how we can know that He really did raise from the dead. I have finished most of my research and now, I am trying to figure out how to communicate these truths in a way that Christians as well as non-Christians can understand them. I hope to finish writing it this week. I am so ready to preach this sermon. I am so ready to not only challenge Christians to know why they believe what they believe, but to also challenge non-Christians to look at the evidence that supports the fact that Jesus is the only way to heaven and the only way to true hope in this life. I will let you know how things are going!.

God bless ya, 
Runks

Journal Entry – January 21, 2000

I am seeing something over and over that has become of great concern to me. We are living in a time of incredible spirituality without any grounding in anything other than tolerance, relevance, and humanistic ideas. As a result, our faith is being challenged more than ever and my concern is that most of us are not prepared for the onslaught of non-Biblical ideas that we continually face. I am afraid that when our faith is challenged we will not have the tools to defend what we have always been taught and have always believed. I am afraid that we have a generation that doesn’t know what they believe or why they believe it. Students, I challenge you to seek a deeper understanding of the truth in the face of a world that doesn’t believe in it, so that when your faith is challenged you will be able to stand firm in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. You need to get beyond the “Sunday School” answers! Trust me, at sometime in your life John 3:16 will not be enough to answer the questions you will face. You need to know what you believe and why you believe it so you can take a stand for what is true and not look like a complete idiot. Check out – Josh Mcdowell’s web site or Christian Answers.net. They have some awesome stuff to help you know what you believe and understand how to defend it. Hang in there and know that I am praying for you as you pursue a deeper relationship with Jesus.

God bless ya, 
Runks