Sin in Particular

     Let's talk about sin a bit shall we? Sin is an evil thing, a destructive corrosive thing that devours and distorts everything it touches. From our perspective there are bad sins and worse sins and minor sins and slight sins and more, but to God there is just 'sin.' Now one thing we as Christians are getting accused of more and more as of late is picking and choosing which sins we condemn -specifically in others. I have to say I've seen this but really I think this idea stems from our own poor work at explaining reality as the Bible describes it.

     Take homosexuality for example. Just about everybody knows (or should) that Christianity is not fond to say the least but do they know why? Do they understand that God is the rightful ruler of all things and that He has made the world in a certain way. The world may be contaminated but that doesn't change the standard, any deviation from His order is wrong. We create more problems than we fix by always harping on this subject because it creates a skewed perspective both for those outside the faith and for ourselves. How many times have you heard someone ask about the other old testament laws and why we don't uphold those? People see us not living what we preach and it creates a wall of misunderstanding that keeps them away from the truth.

     People need to know that homosexuality is not particularly sinful. By that I mean that it is no more or less sinful than stealing or lying or any other misdeed. Personally I don't find it hard to believe that someone could be born that way, we are corrupted by sin after all however, the Bible tells us that it takes a will to make sin.  Choice is a key component. You cannot have inherently evil objects because it is always a consciousness that defines evil, a willful choice. People get outraged at us partially because we fail to explain that it is not the feeling of a desire that is the sin, it is the embracing and acting on that desire. When we point out the sin without explaining this people naturally feel as if we are telling them that they -as an individual person- are inherently evil. Of course people actually are evil but you get my point.  The understanding that you are guilty of a crime is different than being told that the feelings you have no control over and that seem to be a natural part of you are evil. Again, they are and it is the same for all of us not just homosexuals but the understanding of that comes with a greater knowledge of God and the plight of man.

     We need people to know that we don't think that homosexuals in particular are going to Hell. Everyone is, because we are all deserving of it. Homosexuality is just another sin, another example of man's fallen state. We need to focus less on pet sins and specific infractions and more on the overall condition of humanity. God will punish all sin and evil, not just the ones that are publicly obvious. God hates evil, it is an affront to His purity and righteousness and because He is also just, He must punish and deal with that evil. But God is also love and He loves us despite our sin.

     Because God is just, He must punish evil but since He loves us He made a way of escape. Jesus came down to earth, the Son of God took on the form and nature of man and lived here as we do but without sin. His life and identity made Him the perfect and only sacrifice worthy to pay for our debt. Ultimately it comes down to who bears the burden of your sin, you or Jesus? You can pay for your own sin but it will take an eternity of suffering and punishment, or you can lay your burden at the cross and Jesus can bear it for you. Your individual sins do not set you apart for your evil, they simply mark you as human. We are all sinners, whether in much or in a little, and we are all in need of a savior.

A Letter to Myself in the Moment

Dear Me,

     I know that I'm not necessarily “with” you right now. I know that you may not be thinking clearly and I understand that what I'm telling you may not be obvious to you at the moment. I know that whether you are home alone or going about your day, that you are doing something seemingly normal and yet you are fighting. You are fighting an enemy that knows your every weakness, knows your deepest fears, an enemy that never tires, never loses focus, never doubts, an enemy that hates you more than you can comprehend and wants desperately for you to fail. Worse still you are also fighting yourself.

     I know that your judgment isn't currently at it's best and though you want to win this fight you grow more and more tired with every blow exchanged. I know that there is a voice trying to convince you that what you know to be wrong is anything but, or that it will be okay this one time. The voice tells you that you are weak, it reminds you of every time you have failed and every battle lost. It asks you why you should bother fighting. I know that in the midst of the battle it can all seem so impossible. The lure of the enemy seems so right and their voice so loud that you can barely hear me, can barely hear God. I know that your flesh is a traitor. Your own urges and desires are a turncoat working with your foe to pull you down. I know the outlook is bleak.

     I know all these things but I also know something that you may find difficult to remember as you struggle to lift your sword: the war is over. Th enemy screams and yells to distract you, to keep you from seeing that he has no sword and no shield; his fangs are long since broken and his oily tongue says nothing but lies.

     I implore you, me, for both our sakes, remember who has bought you! Remember that your chains are broken and your slave debt paid. Remember that Jesus has paid for your freedom in blood and that you never need to listen to your old masters again. Remember that the old man may writhe and struggle within you but he is already dead! Remember that you need not, indeed dare not, rely on your own strength. Remember that the spirit of God is there within you with all the power you need and more to win the day. Don't waste time fumbling with useless weapons or futilely raising your wooden shield, turn to your heavenly Father and scream for the help that only He can give! In Him and His strength will you find the victory, in Him alone is the battle won.

     Remember this please, for if you forget it during the fray you -will- fall and when next we meet it will not be in gratitude and praise to God but with with the knowledge that you had no reason for defeat and every assurance of victory. You know that I will remind you of these things. You are not alone. Though you may not hear me when the battle joins, remember these words, and live.

Nothing So Bad

     You find yourself once again in the shadows; at the bottom of a hole without even moonlight to brighten your vision. Maybe you've been traveling along just fine for quite a ways (for once) or maybe you just got out of another hole or maybe you're in the same hole you've always been in, doesn't really matter. We've all been there and it is probably one of the biggest barriers to salvation for a lot of people: how could God possibly forgive me?

     With true repentance comes a far better if not perfect understanding of the reality of our sin. We come to see to a much greater degree just how messed up we really are and how far God will have to bring us if we are to make it to perfection. This is a key part of salvation but many people get stuck here before they even accept God's grace. The shadows seem so dark and the hole they inhabit so deep that they can't imagine a light bright enough or a ladder long enough to escape. So they turn God away at the gate, refusing to believe that He can or will save them. I do think that a part of this is actually pride masquerading as humility, after all humans are not victims and we are not lost innocents who can't find the way despite a desire to do so. We will use even the knowledge of our sinfulness to reject God and continue living in a way that is comfortable and if we really admitted it, we like. However, there are folks that just simply can't imagine that a perfect God would give so much for them.

     Now this may seem an odd way to comfort those people, or it may seem like a totally non-helpful way to explain this but never the less it is a part of the truth: God didn't die for you. Not entirely, anyway. Yes, God gave His Son and died for sinners because He really does love us but if we stop there than we are left wondering why. We don't really have an answer as to why God would do such a thing because we don't have an answer to the follow up. Why does God love us? Many of us, even as Christians, get caught in a never ending spiral of confusion asking what it was that God saw in us that prompted our particular salvation. This is yet another instance where proper theology is vitally important to our faith and our day to day lives.

     The key here is to remember that everything that God does, from the big to the small, is for His glory. Now if we saw this in a human we would call it narcissism or egotism or something worse but with God it is simply proper behavior as He is worthy of all glory and honor and praise. As the one true God and King of all there is no amount of praise that is too much, no glory given that is over the top or inflated. He is due all the love and adoration that can be given and so much more, not just for what He has done but for who He is!

     This is comfort because it brings us to this simple fact: God did not save you because of anything He saw in you or in what you would become. That means that there was nothing of -you- that caused, brought about, influenced, or affected your salvation. Which further means that there is no amount of sin, no heinousness of deed, no depth of depravity that can make you any less fitting for heaven. God saves the horrible not because He lacks justice or because He saw “the good” in them but because the more unlikely the convert the more glorious the savior. If a “righteous” man turns to God how surprising is it? When the the “good” live by grace are we astonished? How about the murderer? How great is the glory to God when one who is so utterly removed from Him is turned back to their Master?

     So don't listen to the lie that you are too far gone to be saved. Whether it be the malicious misdirection of masked pride or the genuine confusion as to why God would want you, the lie is the same. God seeks the salvation of sinners and if you are more reprobate than your fellow man than your salvation will be all the greater and more telling of the awesomeness of God. There is no debt of sin and no cost of humanity that can be equal to the worth of the blood of Jesus. He has paid our price from an account that cannot run dry and cannot even be diminished. If you do not know Him, know this, He is there for you so turn. Turn away from your life and run to His death and you will find that true life is there under the cross of Christ. If you do know Him than remember when you fall that He knew you would and saved you anyway, that you cannot mount up a debt greater than what has been credited to your account. The glory of God is raised up by the hands of horrible people made new.

More Than Humanity 3: Strength From God

     We can't fight on our own. When we face temptation, when we run up against a choice to either live faithfully or fleshly, when those moments come and we fail, it's because we tried to do battle on our own strength. We're only human and so we lack the ability to succeed in a war against evil if for no other reason than evil is within us! We are born of shadow and will run from the light given the slightest chance. Thanks to Jesus' redemptive work we aren't “cured” from sin but brought from death to life; not sick men made better but dead men made alive. We need God to get us through those difficult moments.

     Our example in this, like in all things, is Jesus. We see in the pages of scripture that while He was on earth He limited Himself. He did not exercise the full range of His Godhood so as to be a proper example and a fit sacrifice. When we see Jesus perform miracles, we often see Him praying before hand asking for these miracles from the Father. Jesus, just like we must do, sought the Father and relied on the Spirit to do what He needed to do. The primary example for our discussion today is Jesus temptation in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-10).

     The devil appears and presents Jesus with several scenarios, different forms or avenues of temptation designed to push Jesus away into sin. It's quite fascinating that no where does Jesus simply tell satan to bugger off or even cast Him away; this of course is well within His power and authority as a part of the God-head. What Jesus does do is use the Word of God. Each time He is presented with a temptation He replies with a piece of Scripture. Jesus knew in that time that no lies can supplant the pure truth of God and that we find that truth in the Word given to us. Again, He didn't simply cast satan away but used the same resources we have available to us: the Word of God and the Holy Spirit.

     We need to learn, to train ourselves to go to God and His word when we are under temptation. More than that we need to ask God to keep us aware of what's going on around us, to make us sensitive to temptation so that we recognize it when it rears its ugly head. If we continue to rely on our own strength we will never see anything more than failure. We were dead before, and dead men cannot fight a war; if we cut ourselves off from that which makes us alive in the first place what do we think will happen?

The Power and Presence of Sin

     We've all been through times when we struggle with sin. Some of us go through years of failure and rallying and failure again; an ongoing battle that saps our strength and weakens our resolve. We start questioning our faith, our salvation, and some even question God. Others spend their lives concerned and worried because of a misunderstanding of what sin is. Distracted and mislead by poor theology and faulty understanding, they fail to find either true victory or substantial progress in sanctification.

     First of all, it's vital that we understand what sin is exactly. Sin is not a foreboding sense of evil or a curse upon mankind. The curse we are under is the result of sin, not sin itself; if anything you might call it “natural sin” but I think a more accurate term is “natural evil.” Sin isn't a cursed object or an unhealthy social connection, it's not about your choice of vocabulary or clothes, it's not about what days you venerate or what days you don't venerate. Sin is choice and will. The reason that objects and things can't be “evil” is because they have no will, no power to choose or take action. This destroys so many popular and illusory myths regarding evil numbers or things or places. Only mankind is capable of sin because only we are capable of choice (and angels too really, but that's another post). We are not made evil by evil falling down upon us but by what we are and what we do.

“When He had called the multitude to Himself, He said to them, "Hear and understand: Not what goes into the mouth defiles a man; but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man."

(Matthew 15:10-11)

     Knowing this is helpful in our day to day but it's not the end of the story. From what I just said you may be lead to believe that actions -alone- are sin. You would be wrong. Actions are the visible manifestation of sin but they do not have a monopoly on it. As Jesus said our sin was sin long before it came out into the world.

"You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.' "But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, 'Raca!' shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, 'You fool!' shall be in danger of hell fire.... You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not commit adultery.' "But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

(Matthew 5:21-22, 27-28)

So we see that the thoughts of our minds and the movements of our hearts are sin first and the actions that may or not follow them are only a further accusation against us. We must seek to give our thoughts and feelings over to God and then our actions will follow them.

     This brings us to an important question and an important point: why then, as a Christian, do I continue to sin? If I am made new by the blood of the Christ how can sin still have power over me? This is because we have been freed from sin's authority and sin's result but not its presence. We still linger in this fallen flesh and in this cursed world. God is not capable of being tempted, not because Satan can't walk up to Him (so to speak) and try and egg Him on. Satan is of course welcome to waste his time but since there is no inclination within God toward sin, He will never sin! We however, continue with our new life in our old bodies. The hand is washed, you could say, but the puppet is still dirty and broken. Here then is the wonder of the end of days, of our glorification: we will be free not only from the power and the penalty of sin but also from its presence; both without and within. We still sin now not because the world continues to tempt us (which it does) but because there still exists within this fallen flesh the desire to rebel. When history is finally at its end and God brings about the final glorification of His people, we will be like Him in the sense that that leaning toward evil will be gone from us!

“Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all fall asleep, but we will all be changed, in an instant, in the blink of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For that which is corruptible must clothe itself with incorruptibility, and that which is mortal must clothe itself with immortality. And when this which is corruptible clothes itself with incorruptibility and this which is mortal clothes itself with immortality, then the word that is written shall come about: "Death is swallowed up in victory.”

(1 Corinthians 15:51-54)

     I cannot wait for that day. When I no longer have to fight myself for control, when I need not fear disappointing my Lord and my God. This world is a struggle, a battle for control and for purity, but its a battle already won. We may see losses and failed fights as we go through our lives but just check the back of the Book, we win! Remember then, that sin is a force that destroys from within and that God is the one who cleanses and redeems, strengthens and saves.

Strength for the Moment

     Your average human is not particularly powerful. Oh sure, some of us are stronger than others, and still others are stronger still. We have body builders and weight lifters with rippling muscles and taught skin. Ultimately though, that strength is lacking. We all grow old and frail or come upon a task that is just too much for our limited muscles. And what about strength beyond the physical? How do we deal with pain, overcome hardship, or endure struggle? How do you measure that strength or how do you increase it? How do you work out a muscle that does not exist?

     The Christian understands that our true strength is not of ourselves. We can go only so far and so long on our own steam and that power we do have is pretty limited. However, we are not alone. God promises to provide us the strength to carry on, to continue, to conquer. It is in Him that we find true strength and the power to persevere. Though we are called to be meek we are not called to be weak. Meekness is strength under control, power properly guided. This world and all of its issues haven't got a thing that can threaten us as we lie in the hands of God. We needn't be afraid.

“For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather of power and love and self-control. So do not be ashamed of your testimony to our Lord, nor of me, a prisoner for his sake; but bear your share of hardship for the gospel with the strength that comes from God.”

(2 Timothy 1:7-8)

     Whatever we do over the course of our lives, God is right there with us. Now if we are doing wrong that should frighten you since your actions sure aren't hidden. If your life is guided by His will however, His presence with you is a source of confidence! Our decisions can be made boldly when we understand that God is there in the details. God's plan for our lives is all inclusive and totally encompassing but it is also not for us to know. He has told us what He wants in His word, namely to love Him with all that we have. Every other choice is up to us to make and weigh against scripture. And I know that He does know those choices and has already incorporated them into the grand design but I'm talking about things from our perspective. So don't fear! Pray, read, consult those close to you and then take that first step!

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

(Philippians 4:13)

     Furthermore, our enemies may be powerful but only when compared to ourselves. When measured against the might of God all their vaunted power is nothing at all. The world, the flesh, and the devil; these things need not be a source of worry or of fear. God fights for you! Really I suppose a more accurate way to understand it is that all sources of evil and pain our on a leash, going no further than their line allows. Look at ancient Israel, when they stood with God and obeyed they were unstoppable. Their comparably tiny army of normal men destroyed the military might of vastly superior forces. The size of the army and the skill of the warrior means little when backed by the power of God.

“Finally, draw your strength from the Lord and from his mighty power. Put on the armor of God so that you may be able to stand firm against the tactics of the devil. For our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with the principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens. Therefore, put on the armor of God, that you may be able to resist on the evil day and, having done everything, to hold your ground. So stand fast with your loins girded in truth, clothed with righteousness as a breastplate, and your feet shod in readiness for the gospel of peace.”

(Ephesians 6:10-15)

“...God is our refuge and our strength, an ever-present help in distress. Thus we do not fear, though earth be shaken and mountains quake to the depths of the sea, Though its waters rage and foam and mountains totter at its surging. The LORD of hosts is with us; our stronghold is the God of Jacob..”

(Psalms 46:1-3)

     Finally we know that God is with us in our tomorrows. Despite all the reassurance, despite all the calming truth, life can get really hard. We do have to encounter sorrow, deal with pain, battle adversity, and resist death. These are real issues and real problems that we face every day. God isn't leaving us here though, not alone, and not forever. The church has a hope that no one else can claim, a future free of despair. After the long years of our lives are spent we will find the gates to heaven open and eternity waiting for us full of joy and peace. We can make through today because tomorrow will come, a new day will dawn, and the Son has already risen.

“On you I depend since birth; from my mother's womb you are my strength; my hope in you never wavers.”

(Psalms 71:6)

Meaning

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you all enjoy your time this year, I'll be taking a short vacation and returning after the new year on January 5^th! Thanks for reading and I'll see you next year!

     Where are you this Christmas? More to the point, where is your heart? Are you caught up in the celebrations? Do the silver bells chime in your mind as you drive to the store to get those last few gifts? Do carols ring as you trim your tree? In all your rush and busy, do take the time to remember why we do all of this? Debates over the origins of the day itself, this holiday is here to commemorate the second biggest event in earth's history; when God himself stooped to our level and came to us.

     Think about that for a moment. The God of all existence, who is far beyond anything we can truly comprehend, who is rightful ruler and master of all creation, who had sat in glory from eternity past, who is endlessly praised by uncounted angels, became a baby boy. He who had sat on the throne of heaven now lay nestled in a simple manger. He who was needed no other now depended on a peasant girl and a carpenter. The God who provides breath and life to every living creature now would need bread from the hand of man. He left all that He had and became one of us: a small, cold, helpless infant. Why?

     Why would He put aside all that He had, all that He deserved, and come here as He did? Because He chose to, because we needed Him to. God is infinite, holy, and righteous. We are finite, simple, and sinful. Every day we choose our doom by rejecting God and making our own path. We are -not- morally neutral, we are naturally God haters and sinners. Can you go one day without lying? One day without stretching the truth? One day without being selfish? One day without being perfectly loving? Caring? Honest? One hour? One minute? The world wants to say that we're all ok. The world will tell you that at least you're better than that guy over there. Hey, you're no Hitler right? But you are. We are all capable of anything given the right “reason.” God was fully within His right to simply scrap us and start over (or not for that matter), but He didn't. He spared us, because He loves us.

     God however, is not only love. God is love but He is so much more! He is also just and because of His justice, He couldn't simply sweep our transgressions under the rug of eternity. Someone had to pay the price of sin and the price of sin is death. We can't pay that price, when we die that's it, end of the road. So in order to fulfill His love -and- His justice, God needed a sacrifice for our sins. Unfortunately there is nothing that exists in creation that has such worth as to be an even trade for the punishment that is our due. The only thing with any real worth after all, is God Himself. So God's son, the second part of the trinity, that divine personality that we also know as the Word of God, that One who formed the world itself, shed His robes of glory and put on humility. For us.

     Only God could pay the price that He himself demanded for our sin. Only God has the power to be born of a virgin and thus apart from the nature of sin that now condemns us. Only God has the power to live a sinless life and fulfill the law, and thus able to provide His people with the same. Only God has the worth to cover the cost of our iniquity, and only God could raise from the dead and defeat the grave. The story of Christmas is a fantastic story but it is only the first chapter. Never forget that the little baby in the stable was already on the road to the cross. Remember to celebrate not just -that- Jesus came but why! That little newborn baby was as newborn lamb and His time on this earth the period of examination that marked Him a worthy sacrifice.

     I love Christmas, but the story of Christ's coming to earth means little apart from the story of how He left and how He lived. I thank the Lord for coming here but I thank Him forever for coming here as a lamb to be slaughtered. I am thankful that the blood of Jesus cleanses me from my sin and that the snow on the ground this holiday season is nowhere near as white and pure as the new garment of righteousness that Christ has laid upon my back. Praise God for what He as done for His creation, for His love and His sacrifice. Never forget that the love we feel at Christmas is God's love, and the joy we feel is because the coming of Christ is the coming of a savior.

Love, Because, Despite

When once we walked a weary road

Through hardship and through winter cold

When once the darkest night was set

and naught a single need was met.

Though we had journeyed long and struggled far

And still no closer to the nearest star

Though we had given all, offered all we had

We still found life was lonely, sad.

Despite our lengthy list of crimes,

impotent to pay the fines.

Despite the guilt we have had since birth,

He saw in us, essential worth.

Because of who He claims to be,

The God of all whose love is free.

Because He is the Way, the One,

Made a way for sin to be undone.

This God who rules the heavenly host,

Who built the world from peak to coast.

This God who knows the deepest sea,

Has love for even you and me.

Because our sin was vast and deep,

A bitter harvest we would reap.

Because of what we all had done,

We earned the wrath of the Holy One.

Despite how we deserved to die,

He sent us One to crucify.

Despite His unknowable and infinite worth,

God's Son came down to lowly earth.

Though He was here and perfect still,

We missed the point and chose to kill.

Though we threw away the perfect man,

We acted out God's perfect plan.

When nothing seemed to be at peace,

And darkness reined from west to east.

When sin would burn the whole of earth,

God saved us through a baby's birth.

by. Jonathan E. Schaefer

The Blessing of Guilt and Shame

     We have something built into the world to help discourage us from evil and encourage us to righteousness. It works both internally and externally, personally and socially. We feel it in our hearts when we take actions and we experience from others when those actions become known. We may try and minimize it or even vilify it but I see this system as a blessing not a curse. I'm talking about guilt, shame, and regret.

     These three “feelings”, for lack of a better word, go a long way in guiding our behavior. They are in essence, part of our conscience. When we do something wrong we grieve our conscience and feel guilt, when others hear of our wrong doing we feel ashamed and as we remember past mistakes we feel regret. Like our sense of taste which helps us to know which foods are good and which are bad by how pleasant or unpleasant they are to our tongue, guilt and shame serve as the negative responses to bad things that are unhealthy for us; regret in this analogy is the aftertaste, the bitter remnant that remind us of our mistakes.

     When properly understood and used these emotions, these reactions can serve to align us with proper living. What makes us guilty or ashamed is most likely something to be avoided, and thinking ahead can help us decide against things that we will regret doing. This is all paired, of course, with the positive responses: joy, pride (the healthy kind), and praise. Together they enforce the good and discourage the bad, so long as we use them properly.

     That being said, look at what the modern era thinks of guilt and shame. How often are we told that we needn't feel guilty about our choices? How rarely is anyone ashamed of their choices and how much time is really spent on regret? This culture views guilt and shame as societal programming left over from a more closed-minded time. What you're doing isn't wrong they say, it was just looked down up on in the dark ages of fifty years ago. Whatever you like and whatever you want to do, do proudly and openly! Feel no shame in what and who you are, throw all of who you are into the public square (personally and physically) and don't spare a second thought about what's “proper.” Isn't that what we hear?

     How can we expect to know what choices are wrong when we silence the voice that would warn us? How are we supposed to know to avoid the behaviors that damage us when everything is accepted and nothing is decried? Many of us have so ignore and seared our consciences that we don't even feel the twinge of guilt or hear the whisper of restraint. Mankind no longer feels the chains of sin because we've convinced ourselves that it was “righteousness” that held us prisoner.

     Listen to your guilt, listen to your shame, let yourself feel regret. Ask God to resuscitate your conscience and give it life anew. Your guilt will remind you of your sinful nature and keep pride from devouring you, shame will keep your public behavior proper and help you shape your private self, and regret will never let you forget that the God who saved you had every right to condemn you. These three are important, don't let them die in you.

“Love” Thy Neighbor

     Love is very popular. This has always been the case and I suspect it always will be. I think it's safe to say that most people think that if something has love in it, it can't be wrong. Love is a powerful and important force, something that can motivate and destroy us depending on the circumstance. As a Christian we get asked all the time: Why can't you just love everyone? Why do we have to judge others and make sinners out of everyone?

“And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.”

(1 John 4:16)

     The world seems to see the Christian's need to point out sin as being very unloving. We get called intolerant and hateful, bigoted and closed-minded, out of touch and stubborn. They ask us how can the love between two people be bad and why can't we just let them be happy? This world has a love affair with love but sadly, like a teenage girls affection for a celebrity, it's based more on what they think they know then the truth. To love as the world prescribes is to allow everyone their choice and to make no judgments and no comparisons, let us each find joy in whomever's arms we choose. The question is, is this acceptance really love?

“But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him.”

(1 John 2:5)

“Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world.”

(1 John 4:17)

     Imagine that you're best friend is terribly ill, terminal. He will die eventually, it's only a matter of time. Now further imagine that you hold in your hand the cure for his ailment. Now what would be said of you if you -knowing you had the cure- said nothing of it to your friend? This world asks for us to on one hand believe that all men are dead apart from God, and on the other hand to tell no one of their need for Him. They expect us to carry the cure for the only true disease that is killing billions and yet tell no one! Constantly we are told that we can believe what we want, just don't push it on others. They do not understand that to hold our faith properly, we must tell those around us! It is not hatred that compels us to bring light to the shadows where sin is hiding, it's love; or at least it should be.

     It's not love when you allow others to wallow in sin. Would you be considered loving if you let your brother or sister pursue an addiction to some life destroying drug? Would you be hailed for your great acceptance if you allowed a friend to continually rape and murder others because that's where he finds joy? In reality, society is more than happy to accept any sin that a man can do without hurting someone else; “as long as it doesn't effect me,” right? Real love will not stand by and let someone be slowly strangled by sin just because they wish for them to be happy! I love my family and my friends, but I would have every hardship and suffering fall upon them if that is what is necessary to lead them to God! I do not much care for someone's earthly happiness, not for it's own merit at least. Happiness will come when we are right with God. Anything else is a sugar coat on refuse, a nice new paint job on a derelict building.

     Christians should be paragons of love. But that love cannot be shown by sacrificing the soul of the recipient. Love is not a goal. Love is a choice, a means, an action; love is a verb. I don't care if your choice makes you happy if it also makes you sick. God is love. He exampled it and shared it with us as a gift and blessing. God also framed the right and the wrong. This great God of love is the King of creation as well, and we cannot promote peace by lawlessness. So no, I cannot just love my neighbor as you say. I must love them as God has said, by showing them the truth; by showing them God.

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. "For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. "He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. "And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. "For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. "But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God."

(John 3:16-21)

More Than Humanity: A Higher Perspective

     Society all around us is fractured, some would say failing. Our husbands and fathers have become lazy buffoons ripe for parody and mockery. Our wives and mothers are overworked, cynical and depressed; unwilling to fully trust their men and doubtful that they should at all. Our children and teens are jaded, rebellious, narcissistic, and corrupt; unable or unwilling to see past their smart-phones or the opinions of their peers. And in between them all we have an army of the young and unwed, obsessed with themselves and their desires, oblivious to any higher calling and suspicious of anything that claims to be true. These people, our people, need help. This world needs something more than what we see.

     At the heart of this problem is, of course, sin. Mankind will always desire to do what satisfies the flesh rather than what is truly good; all we need is the chance. Every one of us has the potential to be the abusive husband or the cheating wife or rebellious child or whatever. We sin, not just because we have to, but because we want to. The reason these ills seem “more” prevalent now is that we have simply given people the opportunity to sin in greater amounts and more freely than ever before. The proposal and rapid acceptance of naturalistic evolution and the advent of “higher criticism” have made it easier and easier to reject God and His Word. We have “science” telling us that God didn't create and so we can ignore the arguments the Bible makes without even reading them. Those who do read them, find that the critics tear them apart so much as make them seem to lose all meaning.

     We once lived in a society -in a world- where you had no choice but to at least consider the possibility of God. Creation screamed at you, the preacher spoke to you, the Spirit whispered to you, and all the world tried to be “good people.” Things are different now aren't they? Creation has been muzzled and painted over with a landscape of death and change, the preacher has been compromised and spends more time building his flock than actually teaching them (not to mention that virtually no one goes to listen anymore but those who already believe), and all the world sings to the tune of “just follow your heart.” Never mind that God tells us in Jeremiah 17:9 that “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked...” Those who we trust with leadership have put forth an immense amount of effort to drive our view earthward, away from the sky and the Son.

     We need to recapture eternity. Our lack of perspective has given people the means they need to pursue their sins. Their is no 'ever-after' so find all the joy you can today, right? There's no judge to make the rules so you decide how to play the game, it's your game after all isn't it? No one made us this way, so we can be whatever we want to be and be with whoever we want to be with. There is no right and wrong only mine and yours. If all we have to look at is the ground around us, is it any surprise that our worldviews have gotten so muddy? When God is on His throne and in His proper place in our minds, we see things as they should be. Our actions have consequence and meaning because they will echo in eternity, who we are matters because He has fashioned us for a purpose, and what we do matters because reality reflects the very nature of its Creator.

     God is more than just a crutch for hard times. He is more than just a nice thought on holidays or a cultural hold-over. God is the very thing that gives our lives meaning and worth. If there is no God then there is no law-giver for reality. If there is no law-giver then there is no objective law by which to differentiate good and evil. If there is no good and no evil then nothing we do can rightfully be condemned. If we make the rules then every argument is simply a matter of survival of the fittest and our future will be nothing but cannibalism, as we devour each other in our effort to have things our own way.

The Three Loves

     It's complicated being human. We are a roiling storm of thoughts, emotions, beliefs, information, and intuition. Being a Christian is even more complex as we take the whole confusing mess and throw spirituality and eternity into it! What can we say about ourselves that has any concrete meaning? How can we understand ourselves in light of our short comings and limitations? How can we describe our ever stumbling quest to do what is right? How about with a quote from Augustine?

“There are two kinds of loves within me. There is the love which loves the good, there is the love which loves the evil, and the best thing I can say about myself is that there is a third kind of a passion that looks at both of them. I have a love that loves the love that loves the good and I have a hate that hates the love that loves the evil.”

(This may be paraphrased as I have been unable to find a direct quotation)

     Do you see what He means? In all of us there is a love, a part of our being, that loves good. We desire to be good people and do good things. We desire to do right before God and to follow His will. We spend hours and days and months and years striving for one step closer to perfection. We praise the good in others and do our best to support them. All of this time and energy spent because there is a part of us that years for righteousness. We are a tainted fallen creation but in our blood is the echo of a memory, a shadow of remembrance of a time now lost when God was here with us and all was as it should be. We love that good memory and the pinpoints of light that we see in this life.

     Yet there is a another passion within us. Beyond our desire for the good and the great is a desire for the evil and the base. A man's desire for his wife is muddied by a wandering lust he cannot seem to control or a woman's desire for beauty is tainted by pride. As much as we love and praise the good in this life we truly desire that which we know is wrong. How much of our culture is focused on sex, greed, murder, revenge, covetousness, and more? We cannot deny that we have a desire, an open want, for the shadows and the dark. We like to think that we are all so civilized but we are lions in a cage and on a leash. The walls of our carefully constructed societies are all that keep us from turning on each other.

     Here then is the only really good thing we can say about ourselves: apart from the two base passions that run within us, there is a third perspective. This third part of ourselves looks at the other two and passes judgment. This third part, this part given -I think- by God, cheers for the love that desires good and rails against the love that desires evil. Paul said something similar:

“I don't understand myself at all, for I really want to do what is right, but I don't do it. Instead, I do the very thing I hate. I know perfectly well that what I am doing is wrong, and my bad conscience shows that I agree that the law is good. But I can't help myself, because it is sin inside me that makes me do these evil things. I know I am rotten through and through so far as my old sinful nature is concerned. No matter which way I turn, I can't make myself do right. I want to, but I can't. When I want to do good, I don't. And when I try not to do wrong, I do it anyway. But if I am doing what I don't want to do, I am not really the one doing it; the sin within me is doing it. It seems to be a fact of life that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God's law with all my heart. But there is another law at work within me that is at war with my mind. This law wins the fight and makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God's law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin.”

(Romans 7:15-25 NLT)

     What then do we do? As always, we pray and seek God in this difficult thing. We nurture that passion that loves good and we do our best to starve the passion that loves evil. We will never be free from temptation and sin while we still walk in this world but we can fight and repent when we make the wrong choice. We must never lose ourselves in our sorrow over sin but use our evils as reminders of the glory of the God so good as to forgive us. We may never be perfect until eternity but we can fight and we can pray and we can try.

'The' Original Sin

     Sin. The thing that separates us from God. We were created as perfect beings, way back when.  In the days of Adam and Eve they were without fault and in perfect communion with God and each other. They had no reason to be ashamed of who and what they were and all was right and at peace, until sin. Until the day that Eve was deceived by the serpent and Adam chose what he knew was wrong, all was as it should be. No longer. Now we live separated from God by sin, in this world tainted by sin, in bodies ravaged by sin, and doomed to death caused by sin. We cannot escape it.

     What would you say is the worst of sin? If asked by a stranger which of the many instances and examples of sin was the supreme example of its evil, what would you say? Perhaps murder, with so many lives having been ended by it; millions of people removed from this life and cut down far before their term in life 'should be' complete. How about theft? Every day and in a million different places people take what is not theirs and leave others without. In many instances this leaves the robbed desolate, as what was taken was precious and the one from whom it was taken had little to begin with. Maybe lying, since it's a destruction or a distortion of the truth? How many lives have been hurt or destroyed by a lie believed? You might even think blasphemy, after all what could be worse than spitting in the face of God?

     While all of these are good suggestions, and I am sure you could think of a hundred more, I would personally suggest pride as the true origin of sin. How is pride so awful? How often are we told in scripture to think of others and how often are the selfless held up as examples? How often are we commanded to show deference to God and be thankful for what we have? Pride is what tells us that others matter less than ourselves or that they don't even matter at all. Pride puts self first and others, a distant second. Pride screams ME, when God says others. Pride is the heart of every sin. The murderer puts his desire to kill over the the right of another to live, the thief puts her desire to have over the rightful ownership of another, and the blasphemer puts his own authority in place of God's.

"How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, You who weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart: 'I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation On the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.' Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, To the lowest depths of the Pit.”

(Isaiah 14:12-15)

     When we stop putting others first and especially when we push God out of His proper place, we open ourselves to a whole world of trouble. How difficult is it to love someone when they aren't fulfilling your conditions? How hard is it to forgive someone when all you care about is your own hurt? Pride is relentless. When you think you've beaten it, when you think you've really gotten it licked, that is the moment you'll find that it has appeared again. In my own life I find it so easy for pride to get a foothold. When you scoff at someone for not knowing something, when you're angry at someone for inconveniencing you, don't you see how that's all pride?

“Surely He scorns the scornful, But gives grace to the humble.”

(Proverbs 3:34)

“When pride comes, then comes shame; But with the humble is wisdom.”

(Proverbs 11:2)

     God wants us to love others, even our enemies, and to think of them first. Like the good Samaritan we are to seek the good of those around us even when no one else is willing to help. Let us all pray for a selfless spirit and a heart that fights against destructive pride. If you work on being happy with what you have and remembering that you are just another sinner saved by God's grace alone, you'll find that the faults in others don't bother you as they used to and that your time is worth less to you. Pride is the opposite of humility and the enemy of a righteous soul.

“A man's pride will bring him low, But the humble in spirit will retain honor.”

(Proverbs 29:23)

“But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: 'God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble.'"

(James 4:6)

To Love and/or Condone

     Have you ever noticed that we as a people just can't seem to avoid extremes? Have you seen how we swing from one side to the other and nearly never find the happy medium? We spend a few years on one side of the tracks until someone notices a few problems and then we invariably throw the whole thing out and jump to the other side. Take for example the defense of the bullied and the 'oppressed.' The current culture and the internet culture especially seems all too ready to charge into battle and defend anyone we see as being put down or hurt or maligned. To a certain extent this is a good thing as humans have a natural tendency to attack the different and the unknown rather than learn about them. Even Christians have a hard time taking things for what they are and evaluating them in a more level-headed way. So often have we simply attacked sin and destroyed the sinner that the church has rather bad reputation now and many people would never dream of seeking help from the one place they should expect to find it!

     The culture as a whole seems obsessed now with defending the rights of others-or is it? Everywhere you go you'll find posters or .gifs or pithy comments or cute little comics about how we should all just be humans and not label or marginalize others. Although I agree that we should work to respect those around us, I suspect that one of the driving factors behind this movement is not some new found love for others but really a backseat effort to defend ourselves. Race and gender and nationality are all beyond debate but 'lifestyles' are all about the choice we make. We make a case that such and such group should be respected and then this other group and then this other group and pretty soon we have a hard time “judging” anyone and an easy time defending any lifestyle we want! I don't need to defend my sin if I can make a million people on the internet do it for me.

     More importantly I feel that we as a society have made a tragic error in our defense of the victims. We made the right choice at first; those who need help should not be ridiculed. We should foster an environment of love where we seek to help those who are in need of it and no one should have to face a life where they are daily bullied and beaten and accursed. That being said, we got so focused on the defense of these people that we up and forgot to keep in mind that sin is still sin and wrong is still wrong! Laziness, cowardice, homosexuality, “transgender-ism”, teen and unwed pregnancy, and so much more are problems, not lifestyles. God created reality as He intended and our sin has fouled up the works; that does not mean that we now get to define our reality, it means we have to work to keep our reality in line with the truth! We should do everything we can to help people who have made mistakes or who are trapped in sin or who have a condition that screws up their minds and emotions to the point they don't know who they are, but we have to remember that we are treating aberrant conditions and seeking to bring people back from them. If your doctor decided not to tell you about your cancer because he feared it would upset you, he would be considered a bad doctor who is failing in his duty. No one would remark on how caring he is or how much concern he has for the mental well being of his patients!

     In this post-modern world we like to think that everything is relative, even reality. The truth however, is that truth is a solid and unchanging thing not defined by anyone but God. It does not matter how you feel or how you were born because we know that this world is fallen and we cannot expect it to follow the line God has laid out. We must love those around us but to sacrifice truth for the sake of peace is not loving. We will love those in need most when we try to help their needs. The old adage may sound trite but I believe it still stands: hate the sin not the sinner.

What is Choice?

     What is the nature of free will? Are we all on this earth to simply dance to the beat of another's drum or do we make real choices? People have been pondering this question for probably as long as they've pondered at all and I can see why. We don't like to think that our lives our controlled by someone else and if we see that none of our choices matter than it leads to a depressing fatalism. So can we come to any meaningful understanding of this problem? I think we can.

     First off let's look at things from the naturalistic perspective, frankly because it's much simpler. If we are all just animals, meat machines, and more specifically if we are the end result of automatic process working as they have to ultimately culminating in the formation of man, then there is no choice. As Hawking pointed out we cannot avoid determinism if we come at life from this angle. There can be no transcendence in a world that evolved. If we are born of nothing but chemical reactions and the laws of physics and if nothing else exists to interact with this matter than nothing can ever happen but what is programmed into that material (so to speak). Every “choice” that you make is really just what your particular set of chemicals and structures has to do when encountering that situation. In this view all of existence is one big calculation, a series of equations where A + B will always equal C. Your personality, your beliefs, your choice of a job or a spouse, these things are all just illusions of sentience and the reality is that we are all just robots; DNA machines that run on a very complicated set of rules. Depressing isn't it?

You cannot cut the strings

     The problem with this ideology is that we do see glimpses of the transcendent in our lives. We are aware of what we are in a metaphysical, existential sense. This is where Christianity comes in. You see, in the Bible, we are shown to be more than just matter. Made from the dust of the earth God breathed life into us (Genesis 2:7) and made us a living thing. This is important because we see here two huge differences from how He made animals. First we were made 'from' something, unlike animals and the earth which were simply popped into existence by God's own power, we were formed from the “dust of the earth.” I'm sure there are ramifications and reasons for that but it's beyond my abilities to find them. The second and really more important bit is that our life was “breathed” into us by God directly. To me this connects us to God's Word which is described as “God breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16), and which is also described as being “alive” (Hebrews 4:12). Also we were made in the “image of God,” (Genesis 1:26) which obviously doesn't mean that we look like Him since God is spirit and has no set physical form (other than the humanity taken unto the Son, ie. Jesus). All of this points to a creation that is more than just the stuff it's made of, we are both physical and spiritual beings and this allows us the ability to look outside ourselves and to rise -just a bit- above our material.

We are more than the sum of our parts.

     It gets a bit more complicated from this point. You see, all of the previous stuff is quite clearly shown in the Bible but we also see that God has total control over His creation (1 Chronicles 29:11-12, Psalm 115:3, Isaiah 46:9-10, etc.). Many people have a hard time reconciling true free will with a being that can simply make you do whatever He pleases. Now I'm not going to get super deep here simply because there isn't time but I've done a lot of thinking on this over the years and I'll simply run you through my current conclusions. The short answer is that no you don't have free will. You do however have free choice, let me define that. Free will is the ability to do whatever you want, to make decisions and plan your life as you see fit. Honestly I don't see that as an option Biblicaly, we do seem to make choices and decisions but the ultimate outcome of those choices is far beyond our control. We can choose to obey or rebel against God but in the end we get heaven or hell and there is nothing we can do at that point to change our destination. I think what we have is what I call “Free Choice.” By that I mean that God has laid out His world and has given us options and we have the freedom to choose from those options. Obey or rebel, love this person or this other person or no one, this job or that job, school or no school, and on and on and on. These choices come to us and some are better than others and some are obviously where God would have us go but He doesn't necessarily force us down these more proper roads. Look at Jonah, God actually TOLD him what to do but he chose instead to run away. This is one way in which our choices can matter and how we can still be responsible for our sins. We chose, in a very real sense, to do that evil. We are always presented with options and we may not like them but they are there.

     When we speak of the big questions of salvation and sanctification, God is just doing what He wants to ultimately, and we can either choose to obey or to rebel. I think that when we move beyond the ultimate questions we have a lot of give and quite a bit of 'wiggle room.' God has plans and purposes but He made them with our personalities and preferences in mind, using us to tell His story so that we are truly involved in the telling; actors not puppets. We may say the wrong line or miss a cue every once and a while but we are right there on the stage. We have to be more than matter for anything we do to matter and our soul gives us that bit of transcendence.   

The Two Reasons

     I was listening to Alistair Begg the other day, and he made an excellent point. There are ultimately only two reasons why anyone rejects the cross of Christ: either they consider themselves too good and have no need of a savior or they think themselves so horrid that God can do nothing with them. All the atheistic showboating aside, that's really what it boils down to. The amazing thing about Christianity is that unlike every other religion, Christ counters both perspectives. All the world religions foster one of two things; either pride in the works you have done toward 'heaven' or despair at your inability to do what you perceive must be done. Again, Christianity confronts and defeats both of these ideas.

     Lets look at pride and self fulfillment. Many of the world's beliefs will tell you that you have to work your way to heaven, that eternity is for those who earn it or that you are the author of the better you. All you need to do, they say, is follow these rules or fulfill these requirements or do this list of actions and -BAM- you're in heaven. The side effect of this mentality is pride, and why not? If I'm doing all this great stuff that makes me such a great or at least spiritually successful person why not think highly of myself? Well Christianity asks this question: what is the entry requirement for heaven? What's the answer? Complete and total perfection! All your works, all your efforts, all that stuff you hold up and think so highly of...pointless. Nothing you do and nothing you say will ever -EVER- be enough. Kind of kills any hope of personal pride doesn't it? This thought spits right in the face of self-fulfillment, you aren't good enough and you can't possibly be good enough.

     Now a look at sorrow and despair (which you may very well find yourself at given the previous paragraph). There are quit a few people that would say, “God can't possibly save me or want me, look at all that I've done!” First of all let me just say that although I'm sure many people actually think this way, I'm also certain that many others are simply masking pride with false humility. Their 'humility' is a way of being unique, “I'm so bad, not even God can help me,” and a way of deflecting having to actually think about things. Back to the point though, The Bible tells us that humanity is utterly depraved, sinful from its birth and incapable of saving itself; but it doesn't leave us there. We see that God uses that fact, the very idea that we are all totally sinful, as a means for hope! It's not just you. Everyone is impossibly far from God, there is no one who is closer and no one who is further away! God can do all things and you're sin makes you no less capable of receiving His grace than anyone else! When we understand that God's grace is meant for the hopeless we can see our sorrow turn to joy and our despair to gratitude.

     We see here one of the many wonderful and unique things about our faith, that God has answers for every perspective. That He has a plan for everyone and everything. He did not slack in His revelation nor did He forget what we would need. We cannot be prideful, it is all too apparent that we are far from perfect and in desperate need of a savior; but we need not despair, God is the hope for the hopeless and the shelter for the lost.   

To Whom Do We Compare?

     We are none of us perfect, and all a work in progress. It can be disheartening, falling down again. We push and we struggle and we try for every inch of holiness and still we have so far to go. Worse yet is the sight of those who are “further along” than we are. It would be easy to get lost in the comparison. It would be easy to see yourself as less, or wrong, or even to doubt your salvation because you're not moving as quickly or as far.

     Don't let that happen. We must remember that we all started at different places, at different times, and as different people. We all walk our own road to heaven so to speak and it would be folly to compare the paths. Don't confuse what I'm saying by the way, there is only one way to heaven and to God, namely through Jesus Christ, but what I'm saying is that no one walks the same steps on our journey. Some of us had the blessing of growing up in Christian homes with Christian parents or having a great biblical church to attend or having great teachers to learn from; others did not. Some people started in more shadowed worlds, or eventually found themselves there. Some of us have more dust to shake off than others.

     What is important is not your position on the journey but that you're making it all! Whether you're a baby Christian experiencing God for the first time or an elder nearing the end of a lifetime with Jesus, we're all going home. Don't worry so much about how much more work God has to do in you, the greatest saint is a horrid creature when compared to God.

     Ultimately God is the one to compare ourselves to, the one and only standard. We may be saddened when we compare our black soul to another's shining white but when laid before God we are all just shades of gray, only He is perfect! It should be a humbling and a hopeful thing to see ourselves compared to the Holy God. We appear so much worse and He appears so much better. Let that remind you that we are all just travelers on the journey, no one any better than another, and to all of us God has blessed us greatly with salvation undeserving.

     If we can keep a right perspective on ourselves and others we will be better prepared not only to continue our own journey but to help out others with theirs. That perfect saint you see may be battling demons inside that are tearing him apart or that struggling new Christian with the course mouth may be just bursting with the love of God! Remember that our only comparison should be vertical, Man to God. Forget how others may look to you or how you may look to others, ask God to help you see everyone -yourself included- as He see's them. That's how to move forward, onward and upward, to eternity.

Battling Decoys

     My word do we love a good cause to rally behind! Every day there's some new atrocity to stand against or some new social initiative to support or some unknown injustice to raise awareness of. Social media lights up like a Christmas tree every time one of these things starts making the rounds on the internet. Nearly everyone it seems, likes to jump on the bandwagon of the newest bit of internet activism and we're no different as Christians.

     Let's take homosexual marriage as an example. Many evangelicals today are caught up in the fight to 'preserve' traditional marriage. They rally in town squares, they post long speeches online, they wear cute t-shirts and buttons, and they talk. They talk a lot. Many people also take this issue and just go crazy! They start spewing out hateful language and setting up their opponents as evil tyrannical conspirators out to destroy everything we hold dear. Because that's probably what's happening...sure. (Please visualize a sarcastic, dead-pan face while reading that last sentence.) When did the Christian life become about blasting other people and setting ourselves up as some kind of perfect, holy beings?

     Lets just say this right off, homosexuality is just not Biblicaly supported. We have plenty of verses against it. That being said, we have plenty of verses telling us to love our enemies, to spread the gospel (which in case you missed it, is the GOOD news), and to be humble. We have a whole lot of instruction to go forth and tell people about God and we have pretty much none at all about decrying social evils. Why is that? Well because as a Christian we are supposed to understand that the world apart from God -is- evil. We can't expect evil people and evil institutions to understand and desire good things. What we end up doing is raising our weapons and spending our energy fighting decoys and battling dummies.

     Immorality isn't the issue, homosexuality isn't the issue, homosexual marriage isn't the issue, the breakdown of the family unit isn't the issue; SIN is the issue! We live in a fallen broken world and no matter how much we rattle and rail against these social and societal wrongs they will remain unchanged so long as the people remain unchanged! We don't need to see congress enact laws protecting 'traditional' marriage, we need to see human hearts and souls saved for Christ! And yes, we need to stand up for the Kingdom and defend life as God see's it, but our primary concern is the salvation of the lost. All these other issues will dissolve and fade away when people are brought to repentance. Christianity was never about forcing change on the world but about God changing the people -of- the world.

What We Fight For

     You might hear it if you listen, the battle cry of the faith. Rise up Christian soldiers and stand against the tide! The world we're told, is falling, and we cannot stand aside! And yet some people do. There are a good many people who simply do not educate themselves on true doctrine or who do not stand up for the gospel. Some are just lazy of course, still others simply aren't saved to begin with, there are some however that will question why we need to 'defend' the gospel at all. Isn't God, God, they'll say. Doesn't He not need our help? Why bother?

     First off, and you'll find this is often the first answer regardless of the question, because we've been commanded to! We stand for God's word and proclaim it to those around us because we have been expressly ordered to by our God and King and by the example set forth in scripture.

“But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear...”

(1 Peter 3:15)

“...just as it is right for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart, inasmuch as both in my chains and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you all are partakers with me of grace.”

(Philippians 1:7)

(emphasis mine)

It seems kind of heavy handed to say and it may sound like I'm skirting the real issue but frankly many of the questions we might have as Christians come down to a sort of “because I said so” from God. We have lost some of that prophet, priest, and KING teaching about Jesus these days and we don't always hear about how he is to be obeyed. Not just listened to or taken under advisement but obeyed!

     Let me further say that God -is- God. He really doesn't need our help in any sense. If no one spoke the gospel He could make the rocks beneath our feet sing hymns to His glory! If He desires to preserve His Word it will endure; as it has through all these centuries. That being said, one important reason we 'defend' the gospel is because we aren't defending the gospel at all. What we are defending is the gospel's opportunity to impact, we are defending people! There are people out there -men, women, and children- who might only hear a little bit of the truth over there whole lives. Will you sit back and let that little bit of truth be mired in an ocean of lies? These people we see around us are dieing! The are headed to eternal fire and the world we live in is throwing up a smokescreen of falsehood to blind them off the edge of the cliff! We quiet the noise of evil so that the sweet sound of the gospel can make it to the ears of the unsaved! These people need God, and they need the truth about God; so we fight for that truth to be heard and we strike down falsehood without mercy.

“How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?”

(Romans 10:14)

     Remember that our lives are for eternity, our actions here will echo in forever. In defending the gospel we defend those who will be saved by it. In fighting for truth we help to free those enslaved by lies. When we do the work that God has laid out for us, His name is glorified among the people. Don't neglect your work, don't leave these fallen desperate people undefended. Fight, protect, defend, and stand firm.

“Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or our epistle.”

(2 Thessalonians 2:15)

Is It Worth It?

     I'm coming very close now to the end of my first full year of marriage. We have our plans and are suitably excited and I thank God for this tremendous blessing. As I believe I've mentioned before, I've always wanted to get married.  Now that I'm here I can say that it is indeed better than I thought it would be but also different than I thought. In my previous post “The Amazing and Wonderful Normal”  I talked about the surprising 'normal-ness' of marriage. How everything becomes just another day, and yet more than that.

     Here is where we get to today's point. Some time ago while talking about marriage, I had a friend ask me “Is it worth it?” I nodded and said yes at the time but as I thought about that seemingly simple question I could not help but think of the meaning it might have possessed. Was it meant as more than a trite question that everyone asks but doesn't really think about, sort of like “how ya doin'?” I've had some time to ponder and here are my thoughts.

     On the surface of that question it has to be said that yes, yes it is worth it. Whatever “it” is, marriage's worth surpasses. Whether time spent waiting, the resources used, the effort involved, all of it is worth the result. There are times when, during dating, it may seem like a whole lot of trouble and it would make sense to question the worth of all this hard slogging work. Believe me, if you're doing your dating right there will be times when it is work indeed. The interesting thing is that you can never understand just how worth it it is until you've been married for a while, like how we cannot understand the Word of God as we do until we are saved.

     Beyond that though, I couldn't shake the feeling that behind that question was another question, “Is it worth waiting physically?” This question presents a problems for me as I want to simply answer yes, it is worth it! That however, is hardly the point is it? Our bodies desire that physical closeness and they desire the culmination of that relationship; but we are commanded to be masters of our desires, to lay them at the feet of Christ as our Lord! So whether or not it's 'worth it' to wait, we are to be obedient to God and reserve ourselves to the one to whom we become 'one flesh.' This is what is truly worth it, obedience and submission to God. Not merely God as Savior but God as King of our lives. As David was king in Jerusalem so should Jesus be King in our Hearts, the master of His domain with the final say in all things. We as Christians do not have the right to weigh the odds and compare lists of pros and cons. We listen, we read, we learn, and we obey. That may seem harsh or rigid or even insipid but that is where we will find real meaning. Our worth was only ever to be in our relationship with God and it is only there we will find meaning today! Besides the pragmatic benefit or emotional worth of being able to give all of yourself to your spouse with no one else to lay any claim to you, it is simply of far greater benefit to obey the one who is Lord over all.

     Don't fall into the trap of trying to decide as if you had any power to make a choice. We know what God wants of us and that is all we need. The Christian life is not hard because we have so many choices to make, it is hard because those choices are already made for us and those choices go against the flow of the world. The choice you do have, the only choice, is whether or not you will obey the God who made you, bought you, saved you, and adopted you. The God who loves you. 

Is it worth it?  Yes.  Yes it is.