Vetrix (Vetrix Series Book 1)

Posted on April 6, 2017 by billbushauthor

Two alien species. One threat to Earth.
But who is the real threat and who can be trusted?

Twelve-year-old Flipper didn’t believe in aliens – until he was kidnapped by one.

When he wakes up one morning on the planet Vetrix he is trapped in the midst of an inter-planetary war. As Flipper struggles to survive and find a way back to Earth he discovers he may be a descendant of one of the warring species and that his intervening in the war may be his destiny, if destiny is decided by a computer program.

On Earth, Allison begins having dreams that turn out to be real experiences. When she watches a purple man disappear with her cousin, Flipper, no one believes her. Allison’s best friend Josh agrees to help and together the two sixth-graders begin their own investigation that leads them to the truth behind the Roswell Incident of 1947 and current alien activity on Earth.

As they try to figure out how to expose the secret colony of aliens and their plans to destroy the human race, Allison attempts to use her dreams to locate and rescue Flipper.

Purchase an autographed copy of Vetrix:

Watch the Book Trailer
Read the First Chapter

Book 2: Earth
Book 3: Zentron
Book 4: Sevitan

The original cover from 2017:

Vetrix (Flipper Book 1) by [Bush, Bill, Bush, Blake]

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Our Hearts Are Conflicted

Posted on November 3, 2024 by billbushauthor

We want to follow our hearts, but our hearts give us mixed signals. Many people ignore the conflicting desires and simply follow their emotions. We can’t do that as believers.

As followers of Christ, we wrestle with the desires of our flesh and the desires of our spirit. We want to do what God wants us to do, but we also are drawn to do things we shouldn’t. Our hearts want both.

Jesus says in Matthew 22:37, “…You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”

Loving God with all of our heart doesn’t come naturally. It’s a decision that demands hard work.

Matthew 5:8 says, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

Loving God and having a pure heart are choices we make, but they aren’t things we can do on our own. We need God’s help, because, as we saw in a previous One Minute Bible Blast, our hearts are deceitful and wicked (Jeremiah 17:9).

David understood this and cried out to God in Psalm 51:10, “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” (NIV)

Only when we can honestly say to God, “Your will be done,” and only then, will Psalm 37:4 become a reality in our lives: “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”

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Our Hearts Are Corrupt

Posted on October 27, 2024 by billbushauthor

They have a good heart. It’s a quaint saying, but it isn’t Biblically accurate.

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” Jeremiah 17:9.

Jesus confirms the fact that our hearts, our inner-most being, are corrupt, in Matthew 15:18-20: “But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person…”

It’s easy to point out where others sin yet miss our own shortcomings because we deceive ourselves. Or more accurately, we follow our hearts, which are corrupt and lying to us.

All of us battle the desire to do things we ought not do.

Proverbs 21:2 says, “Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the heart.”

The solution? A new heart.

Ezekiel 36:26 says, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” (See also Ezekiel 11:19; 18:31)

You may have a good heart compared to someone else. But you don’t have a good heart. Not unless God has given you a new one.

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DO NOT Follow Your Heart!

Posted on October 20, 2024 by billbushauthor

Follow your heart. That’s a great line in a story but terrible advice for real life.

Why? Jeremiah 17:9 tells us, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (NIV)

Following our hearts often leads to self-destruction because we don’t realize that our hearts are corrupt. We all want to do things we ought not do.

This leads to our hearts being conflicted.

Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.” (ESV)

The Bible is clear that we are constantly in a war between our spirit and our flesh—taking up the cross to follow Christ while wanting to indulge in our self-centered desires. Follow Jesus or follow our hearts.

Plus, our hearts are ever-changing. Following your heart may look different today than it will a year from now, a week from now, or even tomorrow.

The solution is found in Proverbs 4:23, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” (NIV)

We should guard our heart, not follow it.

The next three weeks we’ll look at how our hearts are corrupt, conflicted, and changing.

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Neurogenesis, Baby Nerve Cells

Posted on October 13, 2024 by billbushauthor

Last week’s blast talked about how the brain is plastic and can be changed moment by moment by how we direct our thinking—in other words, the choices we make. We control our brains and its pathways by our minds, or by the way we think.

The Bible talks about renewing our minds. Science uses the term neuroplasticity.

I want to introduce another new term this week: neurogenesis.

Neuro means nerve and genesis means beginning. Neurogenesis is the birth of new baby nerve cells.

Every morning when you wake up, new baby nerve cells have been born while you were sleeping that are there at your disposal to be used in tearing down toxic thoughts, and rebuilding healthy thoughts.

The birth of these new baby nerve cells is called neurogenesis, which brings to mind Lamentations 3:23:  “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”  (ESV)

One of God’s daily mercies is the gift of new brain cells to mold by each day’s thoughts in our minds.

The question is: Are you creating positive or negative pathways in your brain.

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Neuroplasticity, Renewing Your Mind

Posted on October 6, 2024 by billbushauthor

Not long ago, scientists believed that the brain was a fixed and hardwired machine; meaning that brain damage was permanent, hopeless, and untreatable.

That belief has changed in recent decades and now scientists have a different understanding of how the brain works.

Neuroplasticity, also known as neural plasticity or brain plasticity, is the ability of neural networks in the brain to change through growth and reorganization. It is when the brain is rewired to function in some way that differs from how it previously functioned.

By definition, neuroplasticity means the brain is malleable and adaptable, changing moment by moment of every day.

Dr. Caroline Leaf, a Christian scientist and author of the book, Switch on Your Brain, states that our mind shapes our brain.

“Our brain is changing moment by moment as we are thinking. By our thinking and choosing, we are redesigning the landscape of our brain.”

We can literally rewire our brain by the things we think.

Romans 12:2 says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” 

It’s as if science is catching up with the Bible.

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Admitted Shortcomings of Major Biblical Characters

Posted on September 29, 2024 by billbushauthor

One of the most comforting aspects of the Bible is that most of the major characters, people we often refer to as Biblical heroes, were flawed. Many have even done worse things than I have.

For instance, Noah got drunk and passed out (Genesis 9:20-27). This was after he obediently built an ark, and God had saved his family from the flood.

Abraham lied about his wife Sarah…twice (Genesis 12:10-20; 20:1-18). Again, after God had promised to make his descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky.

David, the man after God’s own heart, committed adultery with Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11:1-27) and then had her husband killed many years after he had bravely defeated Goliath in a major test of his faith.

Solomon, the wisest man ever, followed the gods of his wives (1 Kings 11:1-13), of which he had 700, as well as 300 concubines.

After spending three years with Jesus and cutting off a soldier’s ear, Peter denied he knew Jesus three times (Matthew 26:69-75).

Paul, who wrote over half the books of the New Testament, persecuted Christians before his conversion (Acts 8:1-3).

Our failures don’t change what God has done or can do in and through our lives.

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The Completion of the Bible

Posted on September 21, 2024 by billbushauthor

Josh McDowell writes in his book, Evidence That Demands a Verdict, “One thing to keep in mind is that the church did not create the canon or books included in what we call the Scripture. Instead, the church recognized the books that were inspired from their inception. They were inspired by God when written.”

The early church councils followed something similar to the following principles to determine whether a New Testament book was truly inspired by the Holy Spirit:

1) Was the author an apostle or have a close connection with an apostle?

2) Is the book being accepted by the body of Christ at large?

3) Did the book contain consistency of doctrine and orthodox teaching?

4) Did the book bear evidence of high moral and spiritual values that would reflect a work of the Holy Spirit?

Again, it is crucial to remember that the church did not determine the canon. No early church council decided on the canon. It was God, and God alone, who determined which books belonged in the Bible. It was simply a matter of God’s imparting to His followers what He had already decided.

The human process of collecting the books of the Bible was flawed, but God, in His sovereignty, and despite our ignorance and stubbornness, brought the early church to the recognition of the books He had inspired.

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The New Testament

Posted on September 15, 2024 by billbushauthor

The process of the recognition and collection of New Testament books began in the first centuries of the Christian church.

Very early on, some of the New Testament books were being recognized. Paul considered Luke’s writings to be as authoritative as the Old Testament.

In 1Timothy 5:18, Paul writes, “For Scripture says, ‘Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain,’ and ‘The worker deserves his wages.’”

“Do not muzzle an ox” is a quote from Deuteronomy 25:4. “The worker deserves his wages,” is a quote from Jesus in Luke 10:7.

Peter recognized Paul’s writings as Scripture.

He writes in 2 Peter 3:15-16, “Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.”

Some of the books of the New Testament were being circulated among the churches (Colossians 4:16; 1 Thessalonians 5:27).

The first “canon” was the Muratorian Canon, which was compiled in A.D. 170. The Muratorian Canon included all of the New Testament books except Hebrews, James, and 3 John. In A.D. 363, the Council of Laodicea stated that only the Old Testament (along with the Apocrypha) and the 27 books of the New Testament were to be read in the churches. The Council of Hippo (A.D. 393) and the Council of Carthage (A.D. 397) also affirmed the same 27 books as authoritative.

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How and when was the Bible put together?

Posted on September 9, 2024 by billbushauthor

The term “canon” is used to describe the books that are divinely inspired and therefore belong in the Bible. The difficulty in determining the biblical canon is that the Bible does not give us a list of the books that belong in the Bible. Determining the canon was a process conducted first by Jewish rabbis and scholars and later by early Christians.

Ultimately, it was God who decided what books belonged in the biblical canon. A book of Scripture belonged in the canon from the moment God inspired its writing. It was simply a matter of God’s convincing His human followers which books should be included in the Bible.

Compared to the New Testament, there was very little controversy over the canon of the Old Testament. Hebrew believers recognized God’s messengers and accepted their writings as inspired of God. While there was undeniably some debate in regards to the Old Testament canon, by A.D. 250 there was nearly universal agreement on the canon of Hebrew Scripture.

The only issue that remained was the Apocrypha, with some debate and discussion continuing today. The vast majority of Hebrew scholars considered the Apocrypha to be good historical and religious documents, but not on the same level as the Hebrew Scriptures.

Last week we looked at an example of how the Bible survived an effort to extinguish it. During the next two weeks we’ll look at how books were determined to be inspired and how the Scriptures were preserved.

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Voltaire got it Wrong

Posted on September 1, 2024 by billbushauthor

Voltaire lived from 1694 to 1778. He was a French Enlightenment writer, philosopher, satirist, and historian. Famous for his wit and his criticism of Christianity.

During his life he wrote more than 20,000 letters and some 2,000 pamphlets and books and was a successful playwriter. While a Deist, he vehemently opposed the Christian faith and wrote many rather scoffing works expressing his disdain for the faith and the Bible.  

In 1764 he wrote, “The Bible. That is what fools have written, what imbeciles commend, what rogues teach and young children are made to learn by heart” (Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary, 1764).   

“We are living in the twilight of Christianity” (Philosophical Dictionary).

In a 1767 letter to Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, he wrote: “Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd, and bloody religion that has ever infected the world…My one regret in dying is that I cannot aid you in this noble enterprise of extirpating the world of this infamous superstition.” 

Voltaire ended every letter to friends with “Ecrasez l’infame” (crush the infamy — the Christian religion). 

Only fifty-eight years after his death the former home of Voltaire in Geneva, Switzerland, was indeed serving as a storehouse for Bibles and Gospel tracts. While the Evangelical Society of Geneva did not actually purchase the house, Henri Tronchin, president of the Society, resided in the house, and used some of the rooms to store Bibles which Voltaire so vehemently opposed and prophesied Christianity’s downfall! Yes, an ironic twist of divine Providence.

Let it also be noted, only sixteen years after Voltaire’s death, in 1794, the presence of the Bible began making in-roads in the town where he spent the last eighteen years of his life, Ferney, France. On the very printing presses which Voltaire employed to print his irreverent works was used to print editions of the Bible and which were printed on paper that “been especially made for a superior edition of Voltaire’s works. The Voltaire project failed, and the paper was bought and devoted to a better purpose of printing Bibles!”

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