The New Gospel

Are people reading the Bible and living by it?

The Barna research group has been collecting statistics about the state of the Christian Wordview for almost 15 years now.  The summary points are astounding:

• 46% of professing Christians believe in absolute truth
• 79% of believers think the Bible is accurate
• Only 40% of professing Christians believe Satan is a real being
• 53% of professing Christians believe you can get into heaven by good works
• 62% of professing Christians believe that Jesus was sinless

(Barna Research Group)

These statistics beg the question: is there a difference between a true, believing Christian and one of Barnas ‘professing Christians’?  Indeed, Jesus declares:

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’ (Matthew 7:21-23)

This truly means that some people in the church are not saved, and another one of Jesus’ parables makes this same point:

Jesus presented another parable to them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went away. But when the wheat sprouted and bore grain, then the tares became evident also. The slaves of the landowner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ And he said to them, ‘An enemy has done this!’ The slaves said to him, ‘Do you want us, then, to go and gather them up?’ But he said, ‘No; for while you are gathering up the tares, you may uproot the wheat with them. Allow both to grow together until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up; but gather the wheat into my barn.”’” (Matthew 13:24-30)

This concept was placed once again before my eyes as I hosted a dinner party of church-goers and the conversation turned toward scriptural concepts.  I reached for the Bible and quickly opened to one verse after another during the course of the conversation.  One person, and then another opened up to me that after years of church attendance, neither of these people had ever read the Bible.  I was not totally surprised, as when I made my profession of faith in Christ many years ago, I had a friend whom was also raised in the church.  He was shocked in unbelief that someone such as I could actually come to Christ.  He glibly asked me if I had read the whole Bible, which as a young Christian, I had not yet done.  But I saw him about a year or two later and he asked if I was a Christian, thinking that I would have fallen away.  I told him that ‘Yes, I am still a believer’.  He then again mockingly asked me if I had read the Bible yet.  This time my answer was an emphatic, ‘Yes!’, then I asked in retort if he had read the whole Bible.  He was silent for a moment before confessing that, no, he has never read the Bible.  Sadly, this is becoming the norm in the church today.

We can hypothesize as to reasons why people are not reading the scriptures.  Is is that the preacher is preaching too quickly for the people to find the verse?  Is it that the church puts the verses up on the big screen?  Is it that people are not bringing a Bible to church, or that they do not have one?  I am not certain if any or all of these are contributing factors, but I would like to say that I think there is a little more behind it.

First, I think that many of the people in the church are not believers.  After all, believers hunger and thirst for the Word of the Lord (Psalm 42).  If you ask a believer that seems to have it all together, but came to Christ later in life, you will find that they tend to have gone through a period of time when they could not get enough of the Word of God.  They fully relate to the author of Psalm 119.  Secondly, I think that people today are over-entertained.  In a message entitled Media: Friend or Foe, Stuart McAllister says that boredom is a symptom of a media-saturated culture.  If you know any teenagers, you have probably heard the phrase, “I’m bored” more times than you care to.  The problem is that they have been raised in a culture that is totally saturated in games, television, movies, music, and any other type of electronic media that serves the purpose to keep them constantly stimulated.  If that stimulation ceases for a moment, they reach for something to stimulate them again.  This same principle applies to adults as well as kids, lest you want to yell at the children and teenagers.  The fact is, the television, movies, news, or general busy-ness keeps adults from reading the Word.  Third, many people are intimidated by a book as large as the Bible.  It is funny to me that many of the people making this argument have read entire book series that together are several times the size of the Bible.  But another factor that needs to be considered is that most adults do not even read books at all during the year.  If we are not reading, where are we getting our ideas about church, God, and the Christian life?

As I ponder this concept, I think about what I call the New Gospel.  We are in an age where the church tries to get people to profess Christ, but does not teach what to do next.  There is very little accountability in the church, and very little motivation in the members. All this leads to a shallow Gospel that leaves members unprepared for the challenges that surround us daily.  The new Gospel is one where people profess to be Christians, but truly know nothing about the faith they profess.  So how do we move from a Gospel where people profess Christ to a church where people actually possess Christ?  I think that there are a few simple steps:

1. We need a full relationship with God.  The core aspects of a relationship with God are prayer and Bible study.  Take some time to pray every day.  Start out with only a few minutes and build up as you feel lead.  Do the same for Bible study.  I recommend setting aside time each day for a general overview where the Bible is read in one year, and then also setting side time a few times per week for detailed study of specific chapters.
2. Do not let service pass by.  We are called to do good works, not to earn salvation, but because God set them aside for us to do (Ephesians 2:10).  Seek out service that you can do in the church, whether it is teaching a class or cleaning the floors.  You can also find work outside of the church in a para-church ministry or community service.  Whatever you choose to do, do it to the glory of God.
3. Engage in fellowship inside and outside the church.  This is not just doing things with a group of Christians, but rather, spend time with Christians opening up the Word together.  Let your friends ideas influence you and encourage your walk with the Lord.
4. Focus on reducing time that you spend in secular media.  I am not saying to cut it out entirely, but significantly reducing it will make your life far more interesting, and you will also find one of your barriers to reading Scripture will be fading away.  You may even find that after spending so much time in the Word and in prayer will show you that the Christian life is far more exciting than any television program.

Take time to be in the Word and talking to God.  Do not be among the professing Christians that are ignorant of your faith, but rather, learn and practice your faith.

Posted in doctrine, Ministry, Thoughts on the Culture | No Comments »

The Magic Bullet

Americans are always looking for a magic bullet.  Whether it is money, health, or spiritual growth.  We can spot these all around us if we look, and I know that there was a time when I was a victim of the mentality myself.  I was in college studying biology, chemistry, physics and the like.  These were hard courses and like many students, I was having a hard time keeping up in class.  In my struggle, I searched for better books on the topics I was studying.  I found simple books, more books, and other books.  And I kept finding myself in the same situation that I started in:  a difficult class and poor understanding.  But I caught onto the problem early in my college career.  I was lacking discipline.

Discipline has a few good definitions, but here I will focus on a definition of training that corrects, molds, or perfects the mental faculties or moral character.  Discipline is tragically missing today in our daily lives.  We have a TGIF mentality, seek pleasure rather than self-improvement, and it does not seem to matter whether a person is a professing Christian or not.  I will not focus any more on the personal growth issues in this article, but the lessons apply to that easily.  Rather, I am more concerned with the state of personal growth in our Christian walk.  We need more discipline in our churches, and we need more personal lives.

As I was teaching kids at summer camps, I would always go to the book of Titus for a few good reasons.  The first is, it is small enough that I could encourage the kids to read it and they could easily do so before the week is up.  That is encouragement for them that at least one of the 66 books in the Bible has been read.  Secondly, I like Titus because of all of the references to teaching young men to live serious and disciplined lives.  Lets have a look at a few verses that I would speak about over the week in devotions.

Likewise urge the young men to be sensible; in all things show yourself to be an example of good deeds, with purity in doctrine, dignified, sound in speech which is beyond reproach, so that the opponent will be put to shame, having nothing bad to say about us. (Titus 2:6-8)

Look at the contrast between the Word of God and the actual actions of young men today.  While the Bible says for young men to be sensible, our modern age not only allows, but also promotes young men to live erratic and spontaneous lives.  While the Bible commands to demonstrate good deeds, our young men do not have a desire to really help anyone with any thing because it is possible they will miss the fun action of a television program or video game.  Dignity and sound speech are rarely numbered among people today, young or otherwise, and the church is not taking a stand to correct them.  When these traits happen among the unbelievers around us, we can accept it, but when it occurs in the church and no one seeks to correct the youth, the church, not the teenager is to be culpable for the sin (Ezekiel 3:17-21).

The Apostle Paul realized that we do not start out as Christians following God.  He reminds us later in Titus: For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another (3:3).  But Paul does not end there.  He describes salvation to Titus: But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life (3:4-7).  Paul continues: This is a trustworthy statement; and concerning these things I want you to speak confidently, so that those who have believed God will be careful to engage in good deeds. These things are good and profitable for men (3:8).

We are not to stay where we are when we are saved, we are instead to grow through a disciplined life.  You need to transform your mind through the washing of God’s Word.  Romans 12 declares: Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect (1-2).  Do not keep doing the same things.  Learn from the Word and place your new lessons into practice in your personal life.

Posted in Interacting with Youth, Thoughts on the Culture | No Comments »

An Open Letter in Our Mind-Numbed Age

For today’s article, I wanted to resurrect a letter that I wrote almost five years ago.  To set the stage, I had just graduated with my doctors degree and I was teaching at Bucknell University.  I was always in contact with several of my teachers from High School and I noticed that my old principal was still at the school, so I sent an email detailing my academic accomplishments.  He remembered that I was not specifically a problem student, but rather, that I was not a very good student.  I started high school in learning labs for students with low academic success, and I went through low grades for my first year and a half.  He sent me an email asking me what the change was.  I sent the following letter, which I still think is excellent advice for our day today.  The letter only retracts the names of the specific teachers, everything else is unedited.

I had to take some time to reflect on your question about what drove me to success in academics.  I think it must be a question of either philosophy or spirituality.  From my perspective now, Christ is the reason for this change, but because I never turned to any religious ways until way after I was proved academically successful, I must point to something else, but no matter how I slice it, it is a principle that is found in the Judeo-Christian proverb found at Proverbs 29:18.  There are many translations of this curious verse, but the literal translation is this: “Where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained.”  I think that this basically sums up the mental philosophy of students these days.  Students tend to have no real direction or plan in life, and without it, they “cast off restraint” meaning that they do not discipline themselves to learn because, in their mind, there is no need for it.  Why suffer through the yoke of education when pleasure is so common and easy to get?

To understand this mindset, let me take a brief tour of our culture and mindset and how it has changed over the years.  I would recommend that you would read a few books.  The first two are from the 1980’s by Neil Postman.  In his closely related books “The Disappearance of Childhood” and “Amusing Ourselves to Death”, the author examines the shift in epistemology over the years.  He traces how we are in danger of shifting from a print-based culture able to hold attention into a culture constantly requiring stimulation and amusement.  Sadly, we have arrived to that latter state.  In the recent book “Rejuvenile” by Christopher Noxon, the author clarifies this mindset with the final line in the first chapter, “Play, to the modern rejuvenile, is indeed the whole point of life.”  This book is a must read to understand where we are, but it is scary because of the things that adults are doing across the developed world to cast off responsibility as earlier generations would define it in order to play and be mused.  While I agree that the ‘rejuvenile’ movement has certainly brought to question legitimate points, the answers of that culture are off base and contribute more problem to the society than it solves.  Another book I would recommend is from the field of psychology titled “Emotional Intelligence” by Daniel Goleman.  In this book, the author traces in one chapter how the academic programming in America is stronger than most other countries, but if a student has a life of turmoil, he does not care about solving math problems or other school work, because he has far more pressing matters on his mind.  I believe these cultural shifts in mindset all boil the problem of education down to a core question: How do you deal with the lack of care in careless society?

I believe that this careless is the root to the current education block in America, but the students can break out.  Those that do will hold the world in their hands.  They will be the leaders, the business owners, the scholars, the elite.  And the others will be serving French fries from a drive through window.  This difference in expression is detailed well by the story in the book “Einstein’s Dreams” where the author considers the ‘Nows’ and the ‘Laters’ in a world where time and life goes on forever.  The difference here has little to do with formal education, but rather, care in the careless world.  In my personal case, I did not care because life was too hard for me.  And while I was still statistically on the rarity in that time, the life I lived has become far more common today, that is why I think that education has more to do with the heart than the mind.  I grew up without a father, I was in trouble with the law by 7^th grade, I saw drugs in 8^th grade, I knew of no direction or guidance by 9^th grade.  Life was just hard, and that was that.  In short, I gave up on caring.  Because I had no care, I also did not have direction, a goal, or a mission.  This is where high school was able to step in for me, not officially, but through the teachers, that amazing, dedicated, and often underpaid workforce.  It is interesting that we, as young men and women, do not appreciate the things that we have at the moment.  If you will give me a moment to reminisce, it was [my guidance counselor] who first gave me the hope.  I can not tell you what the conversation was, but she was the first person who told me that I could succeed in life.  I think that was the primary turning point for my change.  It was the vision that I needed, a goal to shoot for, and that single-handedly caused me to examine how I was living.  She was not alone, however, I can remember [my 10th grade English teacher] in conversations about herbs as I was exploring the plants in the world around me.  I still have some of the encouraging remarks she made on class assignments.  [My 12th grade English teacher] and I traded garden plants often thus showing interest in and supporting my hobbies.  [My chemistry teacher] was impressed by my level of skill in math without a calculator and always asked me to keep in touch so she knows what I am doing.  [My environmental science teacher] was certainly instrumental as a friend during field trips in Environmental Biology II.  This was the teacher that passed me in 7^th grade science with a D-, had me again in 9^th grade, and then was completely impressed by my turnaround as evidenced by my knowledge of plants by 12^th grade.  I remember [my government teacher] listening to some of my early poetry and commenting on how continuing to write would help me in my life.  Indeed this is true since poetry has been an important form of expression for me over life.  [My precalculus teacher] encouraging me in the use of the TI calculators and was a great, fun teacher, and I can not say enough about how [my biology teacher] has help me over the years.  I view him, my 10^th grade biology teacher, as a mentor, a role model, a friend, and at times, even a father figure.  What do all those have to do with education?  Simple: nothing…and everything.  Knowing that someone did express real care for me in my life was a turning point for me.  While I did not learn a whole lot of scholarly things from most of my teachers at that time, I believe that they set me up to have a vision for my life.

To apply this material and directly answer your questions: The first thing to do for the students to somehow let them know how much they are cared for, especially if they do not get that care at home.  Note here that it is often the hardest to love student who needs the most love.  The bullying, outbursts, and tough front are a mask for the great pain behind their lives.  Showing interests in hobbies, music, or even having teachers share their hobbies and interests with students is a great way to begin this course of friendship.  Next, instill in them a vision.  Frankly, it is better that they have a vision to be the best garbage person they could be than to wander through the halls of higher education aimless.  College costs too much to have no direction.  Vision here could be academic success, but it does not have to be, but a person armed with a dream is far more effective at impacting the world than a person armed with facts.  Trust in this: instill in the students a vision, and they will have a passion to pursue education.  Next, provide ways for the students to explore and learn in a safe setting.  Sadly, adolescents will experiment.  To date, I have worked with over 100 children and youth through summer camps, mentoring programs, teaching, etc.  I have seen a lot of experimenting going on.  What I have found works well here is giving them their experiments; otherwise, they will seek out their own experiments, often to their detriment.  An approach to giving them their experiments can consist of giving them clever questions that will inspire them to seek out the answer, or by giving them a project that contains elements one step beyond what the student can do.  In short, give the students love, a vision, and an opportunity, and then let them figure out the rest on their own.

I hope this helps you in your struggles with your students.  It is not a problem localized to your school district, but rather, it is a large scale epidemic.  I see the same trends in my students here at the university level as well.

This is still timely advice for today inside of schools as well as outside of schools.

Peace in Christ,
Tom

Posted in Confronting the Culture, Interacting with Youth, Thoughts on the Culture | No Comments »

The End is (not) Near

The world is abounding with news of the end of the world. Some people are really freaked out about it and others are comically planning ‘End of the World’ parties. That is expected as Peter says that scoffers will come and make light of the end of the world predictions (2 Peter 3:3-9). But Christ says that no one will know when the end will arise (Matthew 24:36). So I do believe we are in the final days, but that could days, months, or even years off yet. I do not know for sure and neither does any appropriately educated Christian.

Of course we all have a morbid desire to know when the end of the world will come, and the apostles were no exception to that trend, and the fact that they asked Jesus when the end times events will come, Jesus gave them, and by extension, us, the answer that no one can ever know the exact time when the end will come, but we do know that it will be like a thief in the night, or in modern terms, a time that we do not expect (Matthew 24). Thus, this day, too, will likely pass with the end coming.

In our culture, we have tended to try to determine the end from information in the past. I am old enough to have lived through various end-of-the-world projections. I remember the initial end predictions from the 90′s from the first accounting of the Mayan calendar. I remember the Hale-Bopp commit cult, Y2K, and a few minor ones. Of course all of these were not even in alignment with the only thing we know about the end times: that God has reserved the end times for fire. Is that nuclear war, or a volcano, or something else? I do not know, the Bible just says that it will be hot (2 Peter 3:7).

So our latest prediction is based on this Mayan calendar and that it ends on December 21, 2012. There are many funny things about this prediction. First, I find it funny that a culture that rejects the Bible because it is ‘old and out dated’ will subscribe to a culture’s calendar which did not even survive to the end of their own calendar! Second, it was written on a round tablet.  How do we know the spacing was correct, and that they were not just predicting the shape of an Oreo cookie! Third, and most important, the Bible says that no one will know the day or the hour of the end times, but somehow this pagan culture figured it out hundreds of years ago? Not likely.

So I declare that the end could very well be here, but I am going to doubt it. After all, we have only had one end of the world party day and there are many more scoffers to come yet. See you on Saturday!

Posted in Confronting the Culture, Examine the Word | No Comments »

How Could a Good God Let This Happen?

Bullets echo through the halls of schools, the corridors of malls, and the darkness of theaters. Gun control proponents scream to ‘get guns out of American society!’ and the world breaks into tears wondering why this would happen…again, and then someone, probably an agnostic, asks if there is a Good God, how could He let this happen? This is a very fair question, but one that is often met with the wrong answer in America today.

Although many news stations have brought on theology experts, I still have not seen a satisfactory answer to this question. Of course it is possible that they are trying to be sensitive and not place an answer in front of grieving people, and thus, I wish to qualify this article to say that I am not talking to the parents who lost little children in the most recent school shooting, for I have no words to give to those people, but I leave it to their friends, families, and religious leaders to address. Rather, I write this article to those people who are watching on the sidelines, wondering what the solutions could possibly be, and asking the honest question: How could a Good God let all of these shootings happen?  And I hope to propose a solution.

The Character of God

True that most of the time people ask this question, it is a rhetorical hatred of the Christian claims of an all loving God. I understand that, and I do not wish to cast my pearls before swine. However, there are also people that either honestly do not know the answer to that question, or there are people of faith that want to reconcile this apparent contradiction to have a closer walk with God. It is for these two latter cases that I write this article.

First, we start by saying that God does have the power to restrain evil. He could make the shooter die of a heart attack before the event, but He does not. He allows the tragic events to unfold for a purpose that may be unknown to us, or maybe, there is a cause we can determine. The chief end of man is to honor God and serve Him alone. The first commandment is to place no other gods before Him (Exodus 20:3). And I would point out that a god is anything which you consider more important than God. Is it possible that one reason God allows these events to unfold is so that many people come back to serving Him?

Do you remember September 11, 2001? During that event many people began to attend church again for the first time. Many of those people fell away but some stayed with God since then. This is not God causing the tragic events, but it is God allowing it to happen and using that tragedy to bring people to faith in Him, which achieves the end purpose of man.  This view is not as one person said, God’s judgment on America.  Be sure that God’s judgment, whenever that occurs, will be far more severe than a school shooting or 9/11.  But this is God allowing evil people to do bad things, and then using the tragic fallout for His purpose in bringing people closer to Him.

The second possible reason is there is such a thing as a wrath of abandonment. In this situation, God will give a culture over to sin as a response to constantly ignoring God and refusing to follow His moral law (Romans 1:18-32). If this is the case in these situations, God removes His restraining power over sin and lets a culture into the path that it insists on wanting to go.  This wrath of abandonment will serve to leave the unrepentant sinner to have no good consequences in their life, causing them to hopefully hit bottom because when you are at your most desperate, you start to reach up to the only power strong enough to save you: God, Himself.  There are no atheists in foxholes and when you are at the bottom, the sin is no longer fun.

Indeed, there is sufficient evidence that God is loving, but what precisely does that mean? We interpret love though our selfish ambitions and sinful heart. I know that sometimes when parents do things that they perceive as love, they are actually harmful acts of self-ambition. Think of it, you may think that it is loving to let a child do whatever he or she wants in the world, but in reality, love is to set that child up with responsibility in life. You are loving to say ‘No’ you can not have that whole bag of candy in one day because it would make that child sick. So love does have a standard, not based on our feelings, but rather, based on our ultimate outcome.

So, indeed, God is loving and He does have the power to restrain evil. So there must be a reason that He chooses not to intervene. Let us examine that next.

On Free Will

On knowing that God can restrain evil, it is important that we examine the hot-topic of Free Will. While I do not subscribe to free will in salvation, I do agree that we have free will over many areas of our life. And there is a very good reason why: If God did not give us free will, we would not choose to love Him and our love would be false.

Liken this principle, if you will, to a dysfunctional parent that always insists their child ends the conversation with ‘I love you’. If the phrase is forced, is it really a true emotion? Perhaps, but there is no guarantee.  Rather, the parent will hear the words out of compulsion and feel good, but the child has no free will in this matter and starts to resent it.  What follows is the child blindly says their words, but their heart is far from the feelings.  God is interested in our heart condition, not the blind following of a rule or set of rules.  He gives us free will so that we can love him out of our own choice, not out of compulsion.

The flip side of the free will coin is that people also are free to not love God, and thus, get farther and farther away from Him.  As a person becomes farther from God, the fruits of the flesh as more manifested in their life, slowly over time.  The fruits of the flesh are the following:

Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. (Galatians 5:19-21)

As these list items are more prevalent in our personal lives, they also become part of our culture over time.  As we have removed God from our culture, our culture starts to become more callous, violent, sexualized, and aggressive.  This type of culture is the perfect breeding ground for mass acts of violence among a small set of our members.  Lets examine this a little closer, and see what solution we can find.

God’s Word and Our Life

The book of James calls for the believers responsible living in our world. I want to focus on the fourth chapter. James starts out by examining the source of quarrels and conflict in our heart. He defines the root as our own pleasures that ‘wage war against your members‘, a phrase very much related to Paul and his struggle to do what the spirit calls for though his flesh is not able (Romans 7:14-25). Earlier in his letter, James also identifies our lusts and pleasure as the root of our temptations that will eventually lead us to sin and death if we do not overcome (James 1:13-15). So the first point is that when our pleasures start to control us, it is easy to slip into quarrels and conflicts. If you are still in doubt, place two cookies in a room with three pre-schoolers and watch what happens.

James continues that we lust for things that we do not have, and so we commit murder. Perhaps not literal murder, but anger and envy are just as bad. The point is, when we are energized for lustful desire, we tend to justify any means to achieve our end. We will fight, lie, cheat, steal or anything else needed to get to the proper end.

James uses a very strong phrase next, ‘You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God?‘ James is not talking about the beautiful creation, or being on this planet, but rather, the sin culture. ‘World’ here is the cultural makeup of humanity, complete with it’s sin and hostility. The bottom line here is that God is displeased when we follow the sins of the culture because they are fun, or we have liberty. Rather, he instructs us in the Psalms to place no worthless things before our eyes (Psalm 101:3-4). 1 Thessalonians 5:21-22 He tells us to examine every thing carefully, hold fast to the good things and cast out the evil. Paul says finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things (Philippians 4:8). So let us walk with faith and not entertain ourselves with the sin of the world.

What To Do

It is quite clear that we have excused God from the room of our culture. The restraint that for so long empowered America was that same power over which held the Israelites in power in the time of David and Solomon. But as that people walked away from the commands of God, we have done the same. We have many times even forgotten basic decency in our country. Christian children play games and watch movies that glorify the evil, and no one seems concerned. Christian adults do not think it bad to watch movies rife with immoral sexuality, and we spend so little time in prayer and studying the Word that we so profess on Sunday to have the power for all things in life.  These are the Christians!  Those call to be the salt and the light!  I can tell you first hand what you see among the non-Christians, and it is not pretty, but I will not divulge details here.

If all of this is disheartening, read on, for James gives us the solution: ‘Draw ear to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, your double-minded. Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be tuned into mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the presence of The Lord, and He will exalt you (James 4:8-10)’.  It is simple, turn to God and truly follow His commands out of love.  The result is a manifestation of the Fruit of the Spirit in the citizens, which will bleed over into the culture.  When the culture is defined by individual people that exhibit love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self control, we will be a society that honors God and by extension, loves one another.

So the final answer to our question is this: A Good God let this happen so that we as a culture will turn from our sinful ways and return to Him, and His principles for living.  This does not apply only to the subset of people that experienced these violent crimes, they were no better nor any worse than the rest of us.  These are wake-up calls for all of our society.  The ball is in our court.  How shall we act?

Posted in Confronting the Culture, Thoughts on the Culture | No Comments »

God is the Source

The Cedars are the beautiful trees of Lebanon which were used in the Lords temple created by Solomon.  They are magnificent trees considered of high value in the Holy Land.  The Cedars category comes from the study title that an old pastor of mine used as a method for discipleship.  It is based on the reference of Psalm 92, which I will quote verses 10-15:

But You have exalted my horn like that of the wild ox;
I have been anointed with fresh oil.
And my eye has looked exultantly upon my foes,
My ears hear of the evildoers who rise up against me.
The righteous man will flourish like the palm tree,
He will grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
Planted in the house of the Lord,
They will flourish in the courts of our God.
They will still yield fruit in old age;
They shall be full of sap and very green,
To declare that the Lord is upright;
He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.

We see so much imagery here about the beauty and health of the trees, and it is also an image of us as we couch ourselves in the Word of God.

Verse 10 shows God to be the ultimate source of our growth.  In Christ, we learn of righteousness, and that righteousness will cause us to flourish.  Jesus tells us in Matthew 6:33 to “Seek first His Kingdom and His Righteousness and these things shall be added to you“.  In this instance, ‘these things’ refers to the physical needs of the body.

When we lose our focus on Him, our righteousness suffers and we start to fall into complacency and finally sin.  But keep focus and righteousness will come.  Keep righteousness and His kingdom will be in sight.  Keep that place and He will provide for your needs and you will not have to worry.

Though we frequently forget to keep focus on God and rather focus on all the work we need to earn our paycheck, we should instead to resolve to be sure to take some time each day on relaxed focus on God in Prayer.

Posted in Cedars, Examine the Word | 1 Comment »

Christmas is Coming…Like it or Not!

Every year now Christmas is getting harder and harder of a season to accept.  Apart from our materialistic approach to shopping (which to the best of my knowledge is generally referred to as ‘Christmas Shopping’ even still), we have taken the season and done what first century Israel did…we told Jesus there was no room for Him anywhere.  I have seen articles about praising Hanukkah and the ‘Holiday Season’, but calling the time of the year (that we remember it for) Christmas puts a relative handful of people up in arms.  Of course the people making a stink about it scream, “INTOLERANCE!!”.  Fortunately there are a few people that what to keep Christ in Christmas, but apparently not the parent of one child in Arkansas.

So in this news article, we see that A Charlie Brown Christmas is offensive.  It is offensive because in the presentation, Linus recites the Nativity Story which is the foundation of Christmas in the modern-day era.  All this came out because a school in Little Rock was going to take the children to a presentation of the show at a local church.  The school sent out permission slips even stating this was going to be viewed at a church with a reminder that the show A Charlie Brown Christmas had a part which the Christian story was recited.  Attendance was totally optional, and activities were available at the school.

The report says that many of the children were excited about going, and the parents were happy to send their children to the church for the show.  But one parent had a problem and called the Arkansas Society of Free Thinkers who decided to put pressure on the school arguing that this is a separation of Church and State, which it is certainly not.  In my work as a board member for a Child Evangelism Fellowship chapter, we knew all too well that with parents permission, we can take kids out of the school to an alternative location and teach them material from any faith system.  They ASFT would have been arguably correct IF the school was presenting a version of the production with the Nativity Recital on school grounds during school hours.

Before all of my Believing readers start getting mad at the atheists and free thinkers out there, perhaps they have a platform to stand on and criticize because the church has not been the church.  We are to be salt and light, but as Jesus said, What happens when the salt loses its saltiness?  His question was rhetorical, but the true answer is that when the church is not salty, it sits on the couch and watches reality TV, does not engage the world, and it does not care about the issues of others.  Perhaps if we have been more of a church, we would not be in a place where the atheists have the power to stop a church from performing a public service to school children.

Posted in Confronting the Culture | No Comments »

Who We Are, Who We Were, What We Are To Do

Many people ask the philosophical question: ‘Why are we here?’ In this message delivered at Victory Christian Fellowship, I talk about this question.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

The answer to the question: ‘Why are we here?’ is easy to answer once we know who we were and who we are now.  We see the outline of this principle in the second chapter of Ephesians.

Who We Were
We are sinners by nature, dead and futile.  We lived as the gentiles lived (Galatians 5:19-21) and because of that, we were destined for death (Romans 6:23).  We engaged in our sinful habits and liked it.  We were merely following the devil in the way he runs his world.  Because of this, we were by nature children of wrath (Ephesians 2:1-3).

Who We Are
Even though we were dead in sin, God chose to save us.  It had nothing to do with who we were, or what we did, but only on God who loved us (John 3:16).  The blood of Christ was the purchase price paid to redeem us and adopt us into Gods family (Romans 5:6-9).  The end result is that we are transferred from being children of wrath to being recipients of the immeasurable riches and graces of Christ (Ephesians 2:4-7).

What We Are to Do
Once we are saved and adopted into the family of God, we are now ready to answer the question we started with.  Why are we here?  To do good works which God prepared before He even saved us that we would walk in them (Ephesians 2:10).  Note that in verses 8-9, Paul makes it clear that our salvation is in no way related to the good works which we do.  So what does that mean?  Merely this: Out of the love you have for God, do good works where ever you see them and wait for God to open and close the doors of opportunity.

Posted in Audio Blog, doctrine, Examine the Word | 1 Comment »

Breakthrough

This weeks poem was written in an immunology seminar while I was in graduate school.  It is about overcoming.

Breakthrough

4/3/02

I have been born, the younger of two

And many people saw me right through

Mother had a grateful love

But had no thoughts to show that love.

I grew up in many places

I struggled through life’s many mazes

I tried really hard, and fell right down

But I stood back up when I hit the ground.

After many times of stand and fall

I learned in life to give my all.

I started soon, to come out on top,

And after a while, I could not be stopped.

And then they came, and said of me,

“Your smarter than me, just look and see”

“For you were given so many thoughts”

“I’m jealous of you, you have lots”

“I look your way, your so great”

“I was a failure, that was my fate”

“You were given everything at birth”

“I was given nothing, that’s for sure”

The thing to behold, as I do say

Is nothing was handed freely my way

The fact that separates me from you

Is the work you don’t, but I choose to do.

“You have everything that I want” he said

You have it too, it’s in your head

“I am different than you are”

“I have nothing, see? Your so far”

“You are smart, smarter than me”

THEN WHY DON”T YOU LISTEN TO ME???

Breakthrough to What?

We are not breaking on through to the other side!  I am talking about the various people over the years that kept telling me that I was lucky or given more talent or knowledge.  I do not believe that.  I was raised in a terrible condition overall.  You can read my testimony which talks about most of it. I almost failed many classes growing up, I had a hard time learning, and was placed in some of the lowest classes in reading, writing, etc.  I learned that if I just apply myself I can overcome.  I made a conscious decision that what ever it took, I would finish college in 4 years.  I was almost blocked by what my adviser called the ‘impossible course load”.  Since I kept getting locked out of classes due to low offering in my freshmen year, I had to do Organic Chemistry, Physical Chemistry, and Analytical Chemistry all in the same semester, and I needed more classes to still meet my goal. I succeeded, never getting any grade less than a B in college.  I am not a generous, I ignored fun and entertainment as much as I needed to in order to overcome.  I passed 7th grade science with a D- and went on to finish my PhD in science in 6 years.  None of it had to do with brains.  It had to do with hard work, what MacArthur calls ‘planned neglect’.  In other words, I plan to neglect things that do not have any specific bearing on my goals.  This poem talks about people making the excuse that I am smarter than they are, so I end it by asking why they do not listen to me!

Posted in Confronting the Culture, Poetry | No Comments »

The Christian Response to Halloween

The time of year for Halloween is once again upon us.  For a full detail of the history and some really interesting facts, please visit my article from last year entitled ‘Happy Helloween‘.  Today, I wanted to review some basics and give some thoughts on the Christian response to this time of the year.

Origins

The exact origins of Halloween is unknown.  Some will speculate to know the absolute truth from the celtic druids, but that is mostly fable since that particular culture did not have a written history.  The time of year is very significant.  You see, humans are a very religious people, we seek gods and signs because it is a natural part of us, we just do not naturally seek the one true God.  As such, the end of the harvest has spawned many religious ceremonies over the years as people have worshiped their mind-made gods during the rest at the end of the harvest.  That is the truest origin of the holiday.  Even our modern day celebration can not be tied to the Judao-Christian roots as some have suggested.  Even the Adventures in Odyssey (a program I highly support) was totally wrong on the origins.  In that program, entitled ‘What Are We Going to Do about Halloween’ the kids are led to believe that the church dressed up as demons to prank people.  That is close to the truth, but a farse.  The fact is, very few people understand why Halloween is so bad, but Churches preach it to be a day of witchcraft and satanism.

Witches do have some minor celebration on Halloween according to some witches that I have dialoged with.  It is only, in my opinion, to the same degree that pagan people used to worship at the end of the harvest.  As for satanism, according to an open and dialoging satanist, they don’t care at all about Halloween.  So are you ready for the shocking reason why protestant Christians are against Halloween?  Really?  It is because the Puritans banned it due to being a Roman Catholic holiday!  That’s right!  Here is the brief truth of the name of Halloween.  November 1st was a day to worship saints in Roman Catholic tradition.  It was called ‘All Saints Day’ and it was to be one of the most holy (hear Hallowed) days of the year.  They thus believed that demons ran around the day before playing pranks on people to ruin a Hallow day.  So on the night before, or the Evening, saints would dress up as other people, and sometimes as demons, to trick the real demons away.  A means to protect their Hallow day.  That was the Evening before the Hallow day, or the Hallow Evening, which was eventually shorted to Halloween.

In truth, our modern American Halloween had roots in the Irish that came to the country during the great potato famine.  They had a lot of folk-lore tradition that was merely some fun which became most of our modern day Halloween tradition.

The Christian Response

As I mentioned last year, there are three common responses, and two years ago, I saw all of them being played out just in the down-town section of our town.  First, the full-blown cultural participation.  I believe that this is the wrong response.  This church created a slaughterhouse-style funhouse and charged a fee to go in.  They raked in the profits and while people were in line, they were glad to sell hot dogs and soda.  I believe this response is wrong because it embraces the culture and does not do anything to address the sin (some would even argue that this method participates in sin). The second response is to not respond.  Most of the churches in town were just closed.  They wanted nothing to do with this day.  Some of the churches were just confused about what to do, and other churches were branding it as a day from Hell, so we should just lock the doors and turn out the lights.

The final response is to participate in a manner worthy of your calling.  One church dressed in appropriate costumes that would not offend your normal person, and they gave out healthy snacks, tracks, and Bibles.  I believe that this is the best response.

Whats a Parent to Do?

If you have kids, you will want to weigh very heavily if you want to restrict Halloween.  You may cause more issues in our modern culture than you want to.  I would personally give this advice:  If you have younger kids, a community Halloween party would be a fun time with games, activities, and costume contests.  Nothing is wrong with these.  If you have teens, be very careful where you let them go.  Halloween can have an influence on some inappropriate behavior (like any party situation).  So just keep tabs on where they are and who they are with.  You should be doing this all the time, anyway.  As for Trick or Treating, have fun.  Nothing is inherently sinful in that action.

I found these articles informative and helpful:

Grace to You – Christians and Halloween
Focus on the Family – Halloween: Trick or Treat or Abstain?
Challies.com – My Halloween Theory

Posted in Confronting the Culture, Interacting with Youth, Thoughts on the Culture | No Comments »