You Can Be Forgiven

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Text: John 1:9; Colossians 3:13. 

Gabrielle Carey is an Australian author most widely known for the movie Puberty Blues, based upon the book of the same title. In a later book, In My Father’s House Carey relates an incident that led to her conversion to Christ.

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 Carey was raised in an atheist humanist household. Her father was a university lecturer with a passionate commitment to the left side of politics. Throughout her upbringing he railed against oppression, capitalism and was a key figure in the anti-war movement during the Vietnam years. He also railed against God and the church, finding it impossible to believe in a God when the world was full of so much suffering.

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But that left Gabrielle tremendously burdened. In her book In My Father’s House she writes, "One of the hardest aspects of growing up as the daughter of a humanist was the worry of having to live up to incredibly high intellectual and moral standards. And worse, what happened when it was discovered that you hadn’t? Would you be given a second chance? Could you confess your weaknesses? Would you ever be forgiven? What would my father say if he found out that I was just another brainless, mind-moulded, media-manipulated failure to humanity?"

It was this burden of guilt Gabrielle found lifted when she converted to Christian faith. "Perhaps what I liked most about Catholicism" she writes, "or at the least the Catholicism the abbot had introduced to me, was knowing I could be wrong, knowing I could behave badly, awfully in fact, and that I would still be loved. That all I needed to do was own up and I’d be forgiven...At least with a Catholic God and father you could fail without feeling that it was the end of all hope. And that was such a relief."

Source: Scott Higgins, based on Carey’s In My Father’s House (Pan McMillan, 1992)

William James Roop

Hospice Care and Dying

The Trucking Tango

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No Atheists in the Water

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Here is a story that illustrates our need for God.

 NO ATHEISTS IN THE WATER

David Harrell wrote a book telling the story of his father, Edgar Harrell. Edgar was one of the 300 survivors of the sinking of the USS Indianapolis, the last US ship sunk by enemy contact in WW2. 600 of the 900 men who survived the ship's sinking were stranded in the water for five days - many with only a life vest - all facing thirst, hunger, injuries, dehydration and sharks. They all came face to face with fear and their own mortality.

Edgar testifies of those days alone in the ocean, "Clearly there were no atheists in the water that day. Gone was that damnable attitude of pride that deceives men into thinking that there is no God, or if there is, they don't need Him. When a man is confronted with death, it is the face of Almighty God he sees, not his own. We were all acutely aware of our Creator during those days and nights."

(David Harrell, “Out of the Depths,” Xulon Press, 2005, 112-113).

William J. Roop

Roop-Crappell Ministries

Hospice Care and Dying

The Trucking Tango

Brother Roop teaches the Bible

Cowboy Belief

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Atheist On A Plane Says There’s No God But A Cowboy’s Reply Shuts Him Down Quick
By Mel Johnson On September 22, 2021, In Funny Stories

In this funny short story, an atheist and cowboy wind up sitting next to each other on a plane. And when the atheist wants to try and argue the existence of God, the cowboy knows just how to shut him down!

When flying solo, some passengers like to keep to themselves. Others prefer to pass the time chatting with the stranger sitting next to them. But what happens when those two passengers have completely opposing views on life?

“An atheist was seated next to a dusty old cowboy on an airplane and he turned to him and said, ‘Do you want to talk? Flights go quicker if you strike up a conversation with your fellow passenger.’

The old cowboy, who had just started to read his book, replied to the total stranger, ‘What would you want to talk about?’

‘Oh, I don't know,’ said the atheist. ‘How about why there is no God, or no Heaven or Hell, or no life after death?’ as he smiled smugly.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Those could be interesting topics but let me ask you a question first. A horse, a cow, and a deer all eat the same stuff – grass. Yet a deer excretes little pellets, while a cow turns out a flat patty, but a horse produces clumps. Why do you suppose that is?’

The atheist, visibly surprised by the old cowboy’s intelligence, thinks about it and says, ‘Hmmm, I have no idea.’

To which the cowboy replies, ‘Do you really feel qualified to discuss God, Heaven and Hell, or life after death, when you don't know crap?'”

We hope this funny story brightened your day. Be sure to share the atheist and cowboy joke with someone who could use a smile!

“There is for us only one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we are for him; and one Messiah, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we have our being through him.” 1 Corinthians 8:6.

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William James Roop, M.A.B.S.

Roop-Crappell Ministries

Hospice Care and Dying

The Trucking Tango

Apostolic Theological Seminary