Walking With Jesus

It’s Even Better Than You Thought

“All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip His people to do every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16 NLT)

As a rule, the people who dislike, distrust, and have the most negative things to say about the Bible have never read it. Yes, of course, they may have “cherry picked” a few easily misunderstood passages, taken them out of context and made them say what they were never intended to say, then contented themselves to believe they have done their “due diligence.” But to disregard the Bible is an eternally fatal mistake.

Why would I say that? Because the Bible is God’s Words to a lost world, but especially to His redeemed people. We as human beings are so inclined to trust our own judgment, to believe what we believe is the best way, perhaps the only way to believe, when we have no real frame of reference with which to compare it. It’s our opinions, largely gathered from what our parents told us, plus what we’ve gathered from other people we trusted or on whom we’ve relied.

For the most part, we rarely verify what we hear, we just assume it’s “truth” and follow it blindly until we finally find someone to help us understand what Truth is, or we die. But here’s the Truth, the whole Truth and nothing but the Truth – God is real, Jesus is alive, and the Bible is completely, from cover to cover His Words and they are TRUE.

How can I make such a bold statement? Because I know the Bible’s Author personally, and can vouch for His character. He is the definition of true love and He never lies. He doesn’t have the capacity, it’s not in His nature to tell anything but the Truth. Not only that, He poured Himself into human flesh in the person of His only Son, the Lord Jesus, the Christ, who was born perfect, lived a perfect, sinless life, and died a sacrificial death in our place to prove He was God and had the authority to forgive sin.

Why is that important? Because sin is what separates us from God and robs us of a correct understanding of His Holy Word, the Bible. Glen Scrivener had it right when he wrote: “The Bible is so colossal and world-shaping, even the reasons you might object to the Bible have been given to you by the Bible.” We have nothing to lose by reading, studying, memorizing and following the teachings of the Bible, but we have everything to lose if we don’t.

Why would I say that? Because we learn of Jesus, about whom a prominent figure in the New Testament, Peter, said: “Lord, (in reference to Jesus) to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life.” Why is that so important? Because every human being is going to live for all eternity – somewhere, either in heaven or hell! Don’t you think it’s important to know where you’re headed and why?

“Yeh, but I don’t trust the Bible.” How can you not trust a book that stated hundreds of years before the events of Jesus’ birth the exact details of who would be His mother (a virgin peasant girl), where He would be born (Bethlehem) and even how He would die (700 years before crucifixion was invented). If you’ll do your own research the only thing you’ll find about the Bible is that it’s more accurate and better than you ever imagined it would be.

When you open your life to its main character, the Lord Jesus, you’ll discover life as it was always intended to be lived and find hope, peace, and joy that you never imagined could exist. It’s all in the Bible, read it for yourself, starting in the Gospel of John in the New Testament. You will be eternally grateful. Please click on this link to learn more.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Is Jesus Your Lord?

“Therefore, God elevated Him to the place of highest honor and gave Him the name above all other names, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:9-11 NLT)

If we follow the teaching of Scripture from both the Old and New Testaments, it’s clear that Jesus is God poured into human flesh who lived among us, died willingly on our behalf, and reigns today as King of kings and Lord of lords. The question isn’t “Is He Lord?” it’s “Is He YOUR Lord?” If He’s Lord over all creation doesn’t that include me? You?

Yes, of course it does, but just as the Sun shines on the just and the unjust, Jesus’ reign over mankind includes every person who has or will ever live whether they acknowledge His Lordship or not. While ultimately EVERY knee will bow, only those who willingly bow their knee in submission to His Lordship NOW will be prepared for heaven and an eternity with the Lord.

Jesus’ Lordship has at least three dimensions – past, present and future. In some ways it’s like salvation in the sense that those of us who have committed our lives to the Lordship of Jesus have been saved (past tense). There is a point in time when we opened our heart to the Lord and professed Him as Savior and Lord of our life. But there is also a sense in which we are being saved. Salvation, like life, is a growing process of maturing and developing as a child of God.

It’s not “one-and-done” in the sense that salvation is a commitment to the Lord that demands investment on our part. Yes, of course, we’re saved solely on the merit of Jesus and will never in eternity make any contribution to His sacrifice on our behalf, but as in any meaningful relationship, there is give and take, growth, maturity, failure, success, highs, lows.

Lordship implies subjects of His Lordship, Master and servant, Leader and follower, Teacher and student. And yes, I realize that rubs some the wrong way but having been the Lord’s “slave” for more than 60 years, I highly recommend His Lordship. He’s strong, courageous, loving, kind, and will daily do battle on our behalf. I think of the Lord Jesus in much the same way I thought of my dad, in the sense, when He spoke, I listened and obeyed (most of the time 😊), but I also knew nobody messed with me without having to answer to my dad.

Lordship implies a relationship rooted in love. The Lord’s love for us is never stagnant or stale, but ever-developing, growing, expanding, and illuminating new ways to be intentional in our relationship with Him. Similarly, our love and devotion to the Lord should be ever-growing, causing our hearts to love more effectively as we listen to Him more intently and obey Him more enthusiastically.

Submitting to the Lordship of Jesus is a privilege we won’t fully understand until we kneel at His feet in eternity. My mind pauses to consider the joy on Mary’s face and the peace and excitement in her heart as she savored her time at the feet of Jesus. Most of us today can’t appreciate that until we take time to do it – just sit and listen to His voice and sense His loving heart in ways we’ll miss if we don’t take the time to let it happen.

Let me close today with the words of Ray Majoran’s moving and very personal prayer: “Teach us to examine our lives with humility and clarity. Where fruit is lacking, draw us nearer to Christ, the true vine, that our lives may reflect genuine trust and growing obedience (Matthew 7:17-20). Shape us into people who do not merely speak Your name, but who walk in step with Your will, resting fully in the grace that both saves and transforms us.”

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Robin Hood and Britain’s Future

By: John Stonestreet and Dr. Timothy D. Padgett

*Enjoy this informative and insightful article from the Colson Center. Blessings, Ed 😊

A new Robin Hood adaptation for TV is more fanciful than the older Disney cartoon version that featured talking animals. At least that one got the history right. The new series, which will air on MGM+, pretends that Christianity was an alien religion to England in the late 1100s. Part of the plot is that villainous Normans attempted to force Christianity down the throats of noble, pagan Anglo-Saxons.

This is nonsense. Though the Normans were not the nicest people, forcing Christianity on the Saxons was not on their agenda. The Saxons were already Christians and had been for a long time.

According to legend, Joseph of Arimathea brought Christianity to what is now England in the first century. Even if that is just legend, there is evidence of believers in Britannia in the second century. It’s likely that merchants brought the Faith there well before Constantine. By the time the Romans left in the 400s, Britain was Christian. St. Patrick, after all, was British, not Irish.

Starting in the fifth century, Anglo-Saxon tribes overran southern and eastern Britain, calling it Angle-land and naming the days of the week after their gods, Tiw, Woden, and Thor. Celtic Christian culture was suppressed, though it remained on the fringes in Ireland and Scotland. At the end of the sixth century, missionaries reintroduced Christianity, some from Europe and others from the Celtic areas to the north and west.

By the end of the seventh century, the Anglo-Saxons were thoroughly Christian. Beowulf, one of the earliest Anglo-Saxon books, has Christian elements. Christian saints like the Venerable Bede, Boniface, and Alcuin of York worked as Christian missionaries and scholars long before the Normans.

In fact, they’d been Christian longer than the Normans were. Normans is a contraction of “Northman,” as in the Vikings. They became Christian in the tenth century, just a few decades before they came to England. By the time Robin Hood supposedly lived in the late twelfth century, the Saxons had been Christians for nearly 600 years, more than twice as long as America has been a country.

Given this history, why was the show written this way? Certainly, those responsible for the script must know it is full of easily disprovable falsehoods. So, why do it?

The reversal of history in popular culture is not due to a dispute among historians. Rather, it is a symptom of the Critical Theory mood that has captured the West. According to the intersectional hierarchy, Christianity is an oppressive religion that was imposed by force wherever it spread. It is because of the same framework that Islam is often portrayed as being indigenous to places in which it post-dates Christianity by centuries.

Despite the fabricated history of the new Robin Hood, the British Isles enjoys one of the richest histories of Christian thought, work, and devotion in the world. Divorced from that history, as Rod Dreher’s Substack has recently documented, British culture is turning into a nightmare. Konstantin Kisin recently noted how, in a single year, 400 people were arrested for social media posts in Russia. In that same year, 3,300 were arrested for the same “crime” in Britain. Last year, that number spiked to nearly 10,000. Protestors are allowed to march for approved causes, but prolifers and gender realists get jail time. And most recently, the British government moved ahead with plans to scrap juries from all but the most extreme trials.

As a member of Parliament argued to a mostly empty room just a few months ago:

[T]o repudiate Christianity is not only to sever ourselves from our past, but to cut off the source of all the things we value now and that we need in the future, such as freedom, tolerance, individual dignity and human rights. 

It remains to be seen whether Britain’s future will be that of a nation severed from its roots, or that of a nation renewed. It will depend on the path chosen by those in the present, including how they remember their past and what they do with the Faith at the center of it.

Additional Resources

Beliefs shape lives. Learn how to shape beliefs well.

Join Stefan Wilson to explore what a worldview is and how to form a biblical worldview in students. This course equips believers to grow in their thinking so they can grow in their living.

Have You Made the Switch?

“We are human, but we don’t wage war as humans do. We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments.” (2 Corinthians 10:3-4 NLT)

In a recent devotion by Ron Hutchcraft he told this story: “My friend, Ed, thought he had the perfect hiding place, and he told me about it. Now, Ed’s not really his name, but it is a true story. The incident happened this way. Some years ago when he was a teenager, and he came from a nice Christian family – nice Christian boy, except for some of his reading material. Now, it was before Internet days but there was a magazine called Playboy. He had a habit of going out and buying Playboy and some other magazines like it, and he hid them in an old, unused icebox where no one ever went. And he was sure no one knew the place. Well, when he went to get his dirty magazines one day, they were gone. But that’s only part of it. In their place there was a Bible. He knew his dad had to leave it there. There was never any yelling, his dad never talked to him about it, but he bought no more magazines because of that little switch his dad had made.

Our minds are the devil’s playground, and they’re subject to the old adage – “garbage in, garbage out!” As I’ve shared often, what we think about comes about, so, when we feed our mind on things of this world, we’ll never reap a spiritual harvest. If our goal and ambition is to model Christ-like behavior, we must feed our mind on the truths of God’s Holy Word, the Bible.

Too often our attitude is to skimp on Bible reading and flood our minds with what’s on the news or burning up our text or other electronic feeds, but nothing – NOTHING – will nourish our spirits like Scripture. Filling our minds with God’s words coupled with believing, expectant prayer prepares our heart, mind, soul, and body for whatever Satan throws at us.

Another avenue of healthy mental nourishment is the reading of God-exalting books. There are many very useful books by many godly authors, but if you haven’t yet begun to build your resource library of helpful volumes begin with notable authors like: C. S. Lewis, Major W. Ian Thomas, John Piper, Tim Keller, John MacArthur, Lee Strobel, Andrew Murray, Henry Blackaby, J. Edwin Orr, Erwin W. Lutzer, Rick Warren, Jim Cymbala, John Eldridge and many others. Ask your Pastor or Christian friends to make recommendations.

The point is, make the switch to quality, God-honoring words and themes to feed your mind and build your spirit up in the Lord. Another avenue of nourishing words is conversations with godly friends. If you’re not a part of a small group of hungry believers and you can’t find a good one, start one. There is ample audio-video material in addition to printed materials to use for starting a group.

When my wife and I move to a new community one of the first things we do is send a note to 10-20 of our new neighbors inviting them to come to an “open house” at our house so we can get to know our neighbors. Out of that group we send follow-up invitations to come to a study of some sort. We’ve had great success using Rick Warren’s “Purpose Driven Life”, but there’s other quality material available as well.

The point is, feed you mind on the Scriptures which will equip you to become more invested and involved in the lives of those in your spheres of influence. The “switch” to walking in and under God’s authority, brought about by feeding your mind and heart a more spiritually healthy diet will change your life in positive ways you can’t begin to imagine.

Make the “switch”! You’ll be eternally grateful you did!

Blessings, Ed 😊

How Much Do You Love God?

“For God loved the world so much that He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believed in Him will not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16 NLT)

Rick Warren shared this story in a recent devotion: “A while back, a man came into my office and said, ‘I’m a Christian, but I don’t feel like I’m going anywhere in my spiritual growth. I’m kind of stuck in neutral.’ I said, ‘What do you think the problem is?’ He said, ‘I think my problem is I just don’t love God enough.’ I said, ‘That’s not your problem. Your problem isn’t that you don’t love God enough. Your problem is that you don’t understand how much he loves you.”’

Love is always a response to love. The Bible says, ‘We love because he first loved us’ (1 John 4:19 NIV). When you say, ‘I don’t love God,’ it’s because you don’t understand just how much he really loves you.

In fact, God loved you even before he created the earth. The Bible says it like this in the Message paraphrase: ‘Long before he laid down earth’s foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love’ (Ephesians 1:4).”

Any meaningful discussion of love must begin with God, who is the Author of love. John reminds us in his first letter: “God is love!” The Lord doesn’t have the capacity NOT to love. Everything He does flows from His love for His creation. Then why all the evil, sin, and terrible things that happen in the world? Because love doesn’t demand its own way! (1 Corinthians 13:4)

In the beginning love flowed freely between God, the Creator and all His creation, including mankind, but when the freewill of man chose to violate God’s love and disobey Him, all Hell broke loose – literally! Man decided he/she liked making their own choices rather than listening to God and that’s the short answer for why we’re in the mess we’re in today.

The only reason to ever question God’s love for us is because we don’t know Him, and the only reason anyone would choose to not love Him in return is because they don’t know Him. Trust grows out of relationship so, too often, to not know Him is to not trust Him, thus, to not sense His great love. If we’ll only stop to realize what a tremendous sacrifice He made for our salvation, the Spirit will help us open our heart to the gift of His life and love available to us through His Son, the Lord Jesus.

Some misunderstand why Jesus died and believe in some way God was punishing Him for something. Nothing could be further from the truth. Jesus lived a perfect, sinless life, qualifying Him to be the only suitable sacrifice for our sin. God didn’t make Jesus come to earth and die in our place, Jesus believed it was an honor to sacrifice Himself – to voluntarily pour Himself into human flesh, to give humanity (me and you) the opportunity to see in human flesh who God is and how much He loves us.

Dying on the Cross wasn’t to pay the penalty for Jesus’ sin, He had none, it was for us, me and you, who had no way to be free of the penalty of the sin that plagued us and was dragging us to a sure eternity in hell, separated from God and His love. So, you see, it’s not about how much we love God, it’s that we must realize how much He loves us – enough to allow His only Son to die in our place, for our sin.

If you’re not feeling very loved, please don’t blame God. He’s done all within His power to open the floodgates of heaven and invite you in, but you must respond. Please click this highlighted link and allow Ron Hutchcraft to walk you through a simple, straightforward way to open your heart and life to the lover of your soul.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Radiance

“The Son radiates God’s own glory and expresses the very character of God, and He sustains everything by the mighty power of His command. When He had cleansed us from our sins, He sat down in the place of honor at the right hand of the majestic God in heaven.” (Hebrews 1:3 NLT)

Who in your life bears the radiance of Jesus most effectively? Who, when you are in their presence, most reminds you of how you picture Jesus, of being in His presence? Who, upon the thought or mention of their name, almost automatically puts you in the presence of the Lord?

There have been and are people like that in my life and, I pray, in yours. The Lord blessed me with godly uncles and aunts, grandparents, Pastors and friends who exuded and exude the presence of Jesus in their countenance and behavior. That’s what I want in my life. How about you? But how? How can we radiate the presence and power of the Risen Christ in and through our life? And here’s the short answer – we can’t! Only the presence of Jesus can radiate the presence of Jesus. So, what am I saying?

Every born-again believer is filled with the Spirit of God or they’re not born again. How do I know that? Because Paul spells it out in Romans 8:9: “But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you. (And remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them do not belong to Him at all.)”

Then why are not ALL born-again believers radiant for the Lord? My sense is they are on some level, but too often we let our personal emotions rise above the radiance of our Savior. We allow anger, frustration, worry, or other negative emotions crowd out the joy of the Lord in any given moment, but why? Sin!

If “the joy of the Lord is your strength,” as Nehemiah 8:10 clearly states, then what is preventing us from being strong in radiating the joy of Jesus in our families and among our friends, neighbors, co-workers, and everyone else with whom we have contact? Could it be our pride, or other selfish ambition that prefers others notice US more than Jesus? Perhaps, but another explanation is we don’t want to be perceived as some kind of “Jesus freak!” Someone who is so obsessed with Jesus we can’t be related to as a normal human being.

Herein lies the problem with that problem – Jesus wasn’t a “freak” and He was the most relatable human being to ever live. To bear the radiance of Jesus is to be contagious, drawing people to us, not pushing them away. It’s not a life that “preaches” Christ in a negative, pushy, arrogant, or condescending way, but lovingly accepts others where they are, and expectantly points them to a loving Savior who can help them become more than they ever dreamed they could.

When I was a small boy my Uncle Ed would hold me on his lap and exclaim to everyone in the room what a good boy I was. I was NOT a good boy, but I aspired to be after spending time with my Uncle Ed. Are people aspiring to be like Jesus because they spend time with me or you? That’s certainly our prayer! To allow the Holy Spirit to radiate His presence in and through us should be the aspiration of every believer, but here’s the kicker – we can’t force it, we can only lay ourselves before the Lord and allow it to happen. Radiance grows out of submission to the Spirit. We don’t MAKE it happen; we ALLOW it to happen!

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

When the Lord is Finished with Us

“But the Lord stood with me and gave me strength so that I might preach the Good News in its entirety for all the Gentiles to hear. And He rescued me from certain death. Yes, and the Lord will deliver me from every evil attack and will bring me safely into His heavenly Kingdom. All glory to God forever and ever! Amen.” (2 Timothy 4:17-18 NLT)

On December 15, 1967, the Silver Bridge collapsed amid heavy rush-hour traffic, resulting in the deaths of 46 people, two of whom were never found. Why do I mention that? Because one year earlier I crossed that same bridge during that same season and at that same time of day. I sat on it while it swayed and shook under the load of bumper-to-bumper traffic. Still not sure why I mentioned it? Here’s why! On December 15, 1967, the day it fell, I was traveling from Anderson, Indiana to South Charleston, West Virginia on that same U. S. Route 35 for Christmas break from college, the exact same route I’d followed one year earlier.

The route that would have taken me across that bridge at that time. I could well have been on the Silver Bridge that fateful night; however, due to a friend who needed a ride, I took a different route that kept me off that bridge. Coincidence, or the hand of God? Another time I was driving late at night on what seemed to be wet streets when all of a sudden, though I wasn’t traveling at a high rate of speed, the car spun around, crashed through about a 2-3 foot high wall of snow that separated the lanes and launched me across two oncoming lanes.

When I came to rest, I was facing the same way I had been traveling but was off the road on the opposite side of the 4-lane road. Instinctively, I opened the door to assess any damage, only to hear the roar of the river passing several feet below, inches from where the car came to rest. Another foot and I would have been in that river having toppled down a 20-30 foot embankment. Coincidence or the hand of God?

What do these instances from my life have to do with anything? Quite a lot I believe. Obviously, I’m not unique in having what might have been “near death” experiences, but my point is, God has appointed to us a specific time to die and, as His child, we’re not going to die one second before that time. Why is that important to know? Because as long as the Lord has work for us, He’ll keep us around, but when the work is done or He sees we’re no longer interested in carrying out His work, we’re toast, we can go at any second.

When is our work done? Whenever He decides. Some people’s work is done at birth or before. One might think, “What a waste to have an infant die before birth,” but certainly not if their brief existence on earth, and their eternal life in heaven gave their parents, grandparents, or someone else in their life an incentive to come to Jesus. We don’t always know what our mission is, thus, we can’t know for sure when it’s complete. My calling was Pastoral Ministry, but my mission has extended far beyond my years of active Pastoring.

Don’t confuse your mission with your vocation, though they will likely be connected. The Lord has use for your gifts in multiple ways and can open doors of opportunity for you to be useful to Him on many levels. The Psalmist reminds us in 139:16: “You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in Your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.”

Will the number of our days be completed today? Perhaps, it certainly will be for many, but the point is not to fret or worry about our end, the point is, be useful every second of every day until that end comes. Idleness is sin. We must be about our Father’s business until He decides it’s the end of our days.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Mamdani’s Fantasy of “Warm Collectivism”

By: John Stonestreet and Timothy D. Padgett

*Dear friends, for many reasons I’m choosing, at least in the immediate future, to intersperse more articles by other authors I have grown to love and appreciate. I’m continuing to write as the Lord gives me energy and inspiration but can’t keep up like I once could. Thank you for your prayerful understanding. I love and appreciate each of you who faithfully read these blogs. Please enjoy this timely message from the Colson Center. Blessings, Ed 😊

In an inaugural address delivered on New Year’s Day, Zohran Mamdani promised “to replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.” Social media quickly filled with memes that paired the quote with images of the victims of Nazi, Stalinist, and Maoist “warm collectivism.”

For all Mamdani’s disarming smiles, his choice of words was intentional. Regurgitating language from revolutionaries and ivory tower intellectuals, he is not attempting to hide who he is and what he plans to do. As he also said in his inauguration speech:

We will govern without shame and insecurity, making no apology for what we believe. I was elected as a Democratic Socialist, and I will govern as a Democratic Socialist. I will not abandon my principles for fear of being deemed radical.

Except, his principles are radical. In fact, as Al Mohler put it at World, they “come right out of the Marxist nightmare,” and we know how this dream ends. As Mohler continued, “It’s not that (his ideas) haven’t been tried; it’s that they have produced immeasurable human misery wherever they have been adopted.”

Either Mamdani doesn’t understand the history of his ideas, or he believes this time will be different. After winning the race on November 4, Mamdani declared, “We will prove that there is no problem too large for government to solve, and no concern too small for it to care about.” The comment reminded many what President Reagan once called “(t)he nine most terrifying words in the English language: I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help.”

In fact, Mamdani sounds very much like another politician, who said, “All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.” That was Benito Mussolini.  At one time, it would have been problematic for an American politician to essentially sub-quote a Fascist dictator, but many younger Americans are ready to reconsider failed ideas of the past. According to a recent YouGov and Economist poll, nearly half of Americans aged 18 to 29 have a favorable view of socialism. Unsurprisingly, that demographic overwhelmingly turned out for Mamdani. 

A key factor is that many in the younger generation simply don’t know better. Their education has failed them. They’ve heard all about the evils of capitalism but not about the many killed attempting to escape socialist regimes or why the escapes only went one direction. They’ve been taught to fear the impending catastrophes of climate change, which is the fault of evil corporations, but not about the mass starvations, which resulted from the state controlling industry and agriculture. They’ve learned that socialism is about sharing; not that the sharing is often forced at gunpoint. They’ve learned that when socialism fails, it was done “wrong,” and that true socialism has never been tried. 

The truth about socialism is that it is inherently immoral. As Ben Shapiro put it a few years ago,  

Socialism is bad, because socialism is tyranny. Not it’s an aspect of tyranny. Socialism itself is tyranny. …The notion of socialism is that you don’t own your own freedom. 

The reason that oppression results every time socialism is tried is because it’s built into the system. Tyranny is not a bug of socialism. It’s a feature. 

This is because, according to a socialist vision, every element of society must either submit to the state, be stripped away or, “better” yet, made another arm of the state. The mediating institutions that Alexis de Tocqueville rightly observed as drivers of American liberty and prosperity—such as churches, schools, volunteer organizations, and families—must devolve under socialism into departments of government power. The state cannot fail. 

But the state does fail, and not just because of inefficiency. Ultimately, socialism is built on flawed anthropology. Socialists claim to be for “the People,” but it’s always for Humanity and never for humans. According to a socialist vision, the individual receives dignity from society, not the other way around. The individual with his or her unique insight, perspective, and preference becomes an existential threat to the grand socialist project.  Within a Christian worldview, dignity was given to individuals by God, who made them in His image. They bring dignity to the families, communities, and societies around them. They are not cogs in a government-sponsored wheel, nor are they problems for the state to solve. They are, to borrow from J.R.R. Tolkien, sub-creators who, given the freedom and chance to do so, will outperform any mass system that seeks to control them.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Every follower of Christ must decide who they will be and how they will live because crisis calls for courage.

Truth Rising will show you stories of ordinary people like you who chose courage over fear, making a difference right where God has called them. Let’s join them! 

Become a catalyst for renewal right where you are. Watch the film. truthrising.com/colson

When God Is Pleased

“So Jesus said, ‘When you have lifted up the Son of Man on the cross, then you will understand that I Am He. I do nothing on My own but say only what the Father taught Me. And the one who sent Me is with Me – He has not deserted Me. For I always do what pleases Him.’” (John 8:28-29 NLT)

It seems clear to me that Jesus found pleasure in the Father as the Father found pleasure in Him. It’s the proverbial mutual admiration society on steroids. Only God the Son knew fully and with complete understanding and appreciation the love and heart of the Father. And only as we have intimacy with the Son can we gain the right perspective and have a right appreciation of the heart of the Father.

It’s hard to please a father who is angry, vindictive, and mean, but it’s much easier when the father is loving, kind, caring, understanding, and open with us, even when we fail and disobey. Often our view of God is slanted and guided by our opinion of our earthly father. If he was absent, angry, uncaring, unloving, and mean, we’ll too often project those ideas onto God our heavenly Father.

Photo by Kampus Production on Pexels.com

But, if our earthly father was understanding, patient, kind, loving, supportive, and forgiving we can more easily see our heavenly Father in that kind of role. What’s my point? It’s easier to please a father who is kind and caring than one who is aloof, dominant and uncaring; thus, the reason Jesus found it so easy to love His Father and why we should as well.

Augustine made an insightful observation when he wrote: “God finds pleasure in us when we find pleasure in Him.” But how do we do that? As human beings we find pleasure in many things. I find great pleasure in writing, listening to the Lord and recording His thoughts, as, I suspect, some of you do. Others find pleasure in sports – participating in them and/or watching them; others in crafts of various sorts, reading, researching, investigating, inventing – the list is long of those things in which we find pleasure.

However, my sense is there is no equal to the pleasure we find in relationships, especially our fellowship with our heavenly Father and His Holy Son, the Lord Jesus. Having walked with the Lord for more than 60 years, nothing satisfies like intimacy with my Savior. To sense His presence, to hear His voice, to walk in obedience to His directives – there’s nothing like it that can be achieved on a human level.

The byproduct of pleasing and seeking to honor the Lord in every avenue and aspect of our lives is living in His pleasure. As Augustine observed, God’s pleasure with us begins and thrives in our pleasure in Him. But how? What does it mean? What might it look like to find pleasure in God? How do we find pleasure in a relationship with anyone? How do you find pleasure with your spouse? Your kids? Your relatives? Friends?

Yes, of course, there’s a level of physical pleasure that can be achieved in relationship with our spouse that was designed by God to be enjoyed exclusively between us as husband and wife, but even that intimacy can be copied, cheapened, and still enjoyed by those who take it outside of marriage and outside the boundaries of God’s design.

But the intimacy we share with God which results from our pleasure in Him and His pleasure in us, can ‘t be duplicated by some artificial means, not even drugs. It’s an unadulterated enjoyment of pure love that’s from the heart of God to our heart – an ecstasy of spirit that cannot be gained through artificial means, but only comes from our heavenly Father as a means of expressing His joy and pleasure in us when He sees and knows that He’s the center and focus of our joy and pleasure in Him.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Power

“For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes – the Jew first and also the Gentile.” (Romans 1:16 NLT)

What comes first to mind when you think of power? Being a lover of Mustangs, I think of a strong, powerful engine, but I also thought of the power of nuclear energy, illustrated through the destructive force of a nuclear explosion. However, as massive as the destruction caused by such a blast can be, it pales in comparison to the unharnessed power of sin unleashed in a person’s life.

Sin is what nailed our Savior to the Cross and what sentences many each day to an eternity of separation from a loving God and His holy heaven. We tend to think of gross evil when we think of sin, and it certainly is, but what’s scary is the subtlety of sin at work in people’s lives who think their own goodness is going to earn them a place in heaven.

It’s easy to understand why a rapist, murderer, gangster, or someone steeped in corruption should go to hell, but what about a person who loves their family, provides for their needs, pays their taxes, goes to church, serves the PTA or other social network and is just a good all-around person? Should they go to hell also?

That’s the frightening dimension of sin. Sin is gross negligence of the presence and power of God available to every person but only activated in and on behalf of those who choose Jesus as their Lord and Master. Sin is choosing to do things our way rather than God’s, believing what we think is best, rather than what God’s Word (the Bible) says.

The real power of God is the Holy Spirit’s activity living in and through the life of a born again believer. The writer of the Hebrew letter reminds us in chapter 12:14: “Work at living in peace with everyone, and work at living a holy life, for those who are not holy will not see the Lord.” The word translated “work” in this verse conveys the idea of “running after” or to pursue with intentionality or on purpose.

Holiness doesn’t automatically happen in our lives, we have to long for it, pursue it, desire it. And yes, of course, it’s a gift from God, but like the gift of salvation, it must be received, cherished, protected, and sought after all the days of our lives. Like salvation, our holiness isn’t received in idleness, but in pursuit of carrying out God’s purposes every second of every day and activated in and through our lives by HIS power, not ours.

William Gurnall reminds us to: “Pray not only against the power of sin, but for the power of holiness also.” What is he suggesting? Holiness of heart and life demands energy that we cannot supply ourselves, it must come as the result of believing prayer, prayer not offered by those who believe they’re good enough without it.

And here’s the scary, subtle part of that to me: my sense is too often people aren’t negligent because they don’t care, but because they don’t know to care; they haven’t been taught to care by those of us who know and love Jesus. Might our ministry to our friends and loved ones, especially those who are nominal or “borderline” believers, be to awaken them to their need to (a) seek Jesus with their whole heart, and (b) learn to pray with diligence and intentionality as they seek to grow in holiness of life.

There’s power in sin to separate us from God, but there’s more power in God’s Spirit to save, sanctify, and satisfy us in the Lord Jesus.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊