Made for a Time Such as This

 

     Many thoughts have taken center stage in my mind over the past year or two, a musing of sorts, trying to figure out what the heck is going on?  Are we in unprecedented times or is this a recurrence of times past revisited?  After all, there is nothing new under the sun?  Right?  Sometimes, I think am I just getting old and bitter, like we thought our parents were in the 80's when they were complaining about Madonna and MTV?  What about Boy George?  I thought the 80's were perfect and everything was right in the world, was it because I never watched the news or because we didn't have social media?  I believe I heard that the 80's was a very dangerous time in America, more murders than ever before?  I also think in the 80's there was a sexual revolution going on, but I was totally unaware of it.  We can even go back before that and look at the 60's and 70's:  free love, sex, drugs, and rock n' roll.  Not to mention all the fall out and deaths from the Vietnam War, and the country was divided then too, right?  Even Covid, though it is a new virus, it is definitely not the first deadly virus, there have been others just as devastating, or even more devastating?  So, I guess the question I am posing is this, "Is the world getting progressively worse and worse, and if so, what is our hope?  What is your hope?  What is my hope?

      With truth being so distorted and fluid in our culture, I would like to refer to the only absolute truth I know, God's word, the Bible, to answer these questions.   In 2 Corinthians 5:1-10, it talks about how the whole creation groans as if in birthing pains, waiting until the day Christ returns and restores creation to it's original glory.  The way it was before sin entered the world.  Likewise, we have that same longing for eternity in our hearts.  As we age, we realize how short life on earth actually is, and we long for eternity, where we will live forever with our Creator.  The Bible also talks about the last days (the last days started after Christ's resurrection) saying, "But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty.  For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying it's power.  Avoid such people...." 2 Timothy 3:1-17.  Then again in 2 Peter 3:3-4, "Knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days scoffing, following their own sinful desires.  They will say, "Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation."  As for me, this sounds exactly like the world we are living in today.  However, other generations could have probably said the same thing.  So, my thoughts are centered around "birthing pains."   Any mother who has given birth knows all too well about birthing pains, they start out somewhat mild, and then they increase in intensity and become closer together.   I think (Bible scholars out there please correct me if I am wrong) that this means the world is getting worse and worse in intensity, with moments of relief in between, and the closer the end comes the more frequently we will be subjected to these hard times.  With that being said, that sounds ever so hopeless and grim, so please stick with me.......

     So, if it's true, we are always getting closer to the end times, and things will increasingly become more intense, what is our hope?  What is the silver lining?  What is our purpose in life to be?  Are we just to sit around and become doomsday preppers and hoard toilet paper? Are we to scowl at the generations before us, and think they have no hope?  Are we to stop having children, because you don't want them to have to live in times such as these? Are we to stop eating cows because of their emissions hurting the earth? (I'm being facetious) Absolutely NOT!  According to the Bible, as quoted by Matt Chandler, you and I were exactly wired and placed on the earth for such a time as this!  In Psalm 139:13-16, it says, "For you formed my inward parts; You knitted me together in my mother's womb.  I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.  Wonderful are your works, my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.  Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them."   Also, in Acts 17:24, 26-27, it talks about how God not only uniquely formed you and gave you a specific purpose, He also placed you exactly where you are and in this specific moment of history.  "The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth..... made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward Him....He is actually not far from each one of us..."  

       So how are we to not only respond to the times in which we've been placed, but also thrive with joy in the times in which we've been placed??   First of all, without Christ, I absolutely see no hope.  I don't say that to sound harsh, but just to be truthful.  You can live this life for the day, seeking to satisfy your every want and need, having fleeting moments of pleasure, but that will ultimately leave you depleted and headed for death and separation from God.  In fact, when people purposefully turn away from God to seek their own way, He will eventually give them over to a retrobate mind, which means a morally corrupt, depraved person, foredained to damnation.  Christ doesn't want any of us to perish, and He wants us to be His child, but if we refuse that love, He will give us what we want, a life without Him.  We are definitely living in a world that has turned it's back on God, living by their truth instead of God's, calling evil good and good evil.  We are to pray earnestly for those people to turn back to God.  We are to be light in the darkness.  We are called to love those in our path.  God has given us such great blessings in this world and those are to be enjoyed fully, but He has also given us boundaries for our safety and for our good.  It is only when we think we know better than God, that those things can be abused.  As for Christians, we have a great hope, both for now and for the future.  When we set our trust and faith in Christ,  we have the Holy Spirit living within us.  We never have to experience this life alone.  We have a great Comforter who is always with us in the darkest of times.  He guides our paths and works everything for our good.  We can have peace and joy in the middle of hard times because of those truths, and we know that Christ conquered sin and death for us.  We have the hope of living with God for all of eternity, so we become spiritually minded, and set our mind on whatever is lovely, whatever is noble, whatever is pure...  We set our hope on Christ.  It makes the Christian life an exciting life, where our purpose is clear to seek Christ, to know and trust Him more, and to share Him with the world.  Matt Chandler said it best in his book Take Heart, "God has uniquely wired you with specific gifts and tendencies, and uniquely placed you where you live, work and play in order to give you unique opportunities to speak to those he's lined up for you to meet about the God who has done all this.  God could have given today's church an Augustine, a Martin Luther, a Jonathan Edwards, an Amy Carmichael, a C.H. Spurgeon, an Elisabeth Elliot.....  But He didn't.  He gave today's church, in this age of unbelief, you and me.  That's our calling.  That's our privilege.  That's our responsibility."  How dang exciting is that!!!!  We were put here to make a difference for Christ, and that should leave us never bored, because we definitely have our work cut out for us.  For you were made for such a time as this..........

Guard Your Heart

     God willing, the pandemic may be coming to an end soon.  Last year was an unprecedented perfect storm.  A storm of disease, of political and racial upheaval, and of disparaging division not just between political parties, but also in the Church and between families and friends.  Trump became the scape goat for it all, but he was just a pawn in this thing we call life.  The storm had been brewing for a long time now, and most of us were caught totally by surprise.  To be honest, this storm started with the fall of man, when sin entered our world.  From that time on, there has been a war for our hearts.  From the beginning, God has had a sovereign plan for redemption of all creation.  He created all things for Him and by Him to glorify His name.  Not because He is a narcissistic god, but because He knows He is all good and all knowing and that He truly is the only way to true fulfillment.  He left that eternity shaped hole in our hearts that can be satisfied with NOTHING and NO ONE but Him, and one day it will all be consummated in the eradication of all evil and of all unbelievers, and those who are left will bask in His glory forever and ever in a new heaven and a new earth.  That is His sovereign plan.  We could never merit such a glorious ending, we could never be holy enough to abide in such a place, so He made a way for that as well.  He died a horrific, grotesque death on a cross so that all who believe could be made holy before His Father, holy so that we could bask in His glory forevermore.  Even creation is groaning for that day.  In its fallen state, it too waits for a time to be made right again.  It's almost too good to imagine, and yet, whether you believe it or not, it is true.  

     Yet, man continues to think that our plan is greater than God's plan.  We continue to try to be mini gods and control our lives every time we are disobedient.  We take the good things God has given us, food, creation, sex, family, friends, money, positions of authority, leadership, laws, life, art, literature, music, entertainment and we  take them outside of the boundaries God has given us for our good and for the good of mankind.  In our fallen nature, and with the deceitful murmurings of the spirit of darkness, we pervert the things God gave us to enjoy.  That is what has brought us to this place in history, not Donald Trump, not Joe Biden, and not this crazy virus.  It is our messed up hearts, and I'm not just talking about nonbelievers.  I am talking about the Church as well.  Some of us, think we know better than God, and have twisted the Bible to say what we want it to say, as the Bible says, "to tickle our ears."   Some are calling evil things good, and good evil.  It is all so twisted.  If you turn on your television or computer, and if you have eyes to see, in five seconds you will just see how twisted we have become.  The problem is we have become so immune to the darkness around us, that it is becoming normal.  We have let it creep in due to our own desires.   Mankind is arrogant enough to think they know better than God!  

     I always ask myself, "How did we get to this place?"  And the answer is, we let our hearts be deceived. We allowed people to question the inerrancy of the Bible, we softened the Gospel, we took God's grace and mercy for granted, and we became mini fake gods.  We developed our own individual truth, instead of the Truth.  We traded in the model car of our dreams for a hoopty!  Look at people's faces when they start talking about politics, and they become extremely ugly.  Turn on your TV, and all you will see is division, scoffing, namecalling, sexual deviance, murder, lies, pursuit of wealth at all costs.  It's truly ugly, and we want to wrap it in a big beautiful bow and call it amazing!!  

     So what can we as Christians do?  How do we bring light to such a dark world?  First of all, we fall on our faces and repent of our part in the whole mess.  Then, we turn from the darkness toward Christ and we trust Him to be our God, to love Him with our whole hearts, soul, and mind, and to love our neighbors as ourself.  We stop being consumed by selfishness, and look outside ourselves and allow God to guide us in our lives.  We live, with God's grace and the help of the Holy Spirit, within His boundaries for us.  We trust that His word is true and perfect for our reproof and correction.  We pray unceasingly that God would fill our souls with love for one another, even for those who don't believe, so that they might believe too.  People are always saying, "God hurry and come back."  Which I look forward to that day as well, but too many people I love are not ready, so I pray God please wait until more believe.  I pray for a revival of not just our nation but of the whole world.  God is not slow in coming, He is giving us more time.  My hope and prayer is that God will have mercy on us and more ears and eyes will be opened to His goodness and grace, and that we can return to Him and enjoy our fellowship together.  We can truly love each other through Christ and the darkness can be overcome.  Just be diligent my friends and guard your hearts.

 

Perfect Love Casts Out Fear

      To say we are living in a season of fear and anxiety is an understatement of extreme proportions.  Webster's dictionary defines fear as an unpleasant often strong emotion caused by anticipation or awareness of danger.  There are many legitimate reasons to be fearful in 2020.  There is the fear of the virus taking a loved one,  fear of a loss of healthcare,  fear of poverty and economic demise, fear of climate change,  the fear of  political unrest,  fear of social injustice, fear of  not being heard or worse killed,  fear of loss of our freedoms,  fear of loneliness, and fear of what a post Christian culture could look like, and I could go on and on.  I think you get the point, there is a plethora of reasons to be afraid in this season.  I believe that fear brings out the ugliest portions of our heart and causes us to say and do things we never imagined we would do.  I have acted out of fear many times this year, and yet the Bible says over and over, "Fear not."  So I've had to ask myself, "What is at the core of my fear?"

     I think my initial fear at the beginning of this pandemic was that I  feared the loss of control I thought I had over my life (not that I ever really had control in the first place).  My very breath and yours is and has always been totally dependent on Christ's sovereignty. Nonetheless, the fear of no control was probably my immediate fear.  I also feared isolation and loneliness.  Being newly retired,  I was already missing my North Georgia friends, and then when the shut down started I was missing all human contact.  Dudley and Jackson were gone most of the day, and Cole had newly moved out, and so retirement and an almost empty nest coincided, leaving me more isolated than I have ever been or ever want to be.  It seemed like overnight I went from a house always filled with rambunctious boys to me, my 80 pound lab, and my 17 year old diapered poodle. However, my absolute worst fear has been the lack of fear in our culture and even in some churches for God.  Deconstruction, Progressive Christianity, Universalism are words I had never heard before.  As I have had ample time to study all of these ideas, it has become very apparent to me that there is this ever so subtle chipping away at the Bible and the Gospel, creating a Gospel to "tickle our ears."  Growing up in the south and in the Bible belt, I never heard someone question any aspect of the Bible.  Most people believed in the Bible, believed in God, believed in the Church.  It was our absolute in a life of vicarious uncertainty.  It was my absolute for sure.  As a young girl, I would carry my Bible in my purse.  I wasn't necessarily reading it, but it was like a security blanket to me. I have always taken it on almost every trip I've ever taken.  I have always believed every single word of it.  There are concepts that I haven't understood of course, and will always be grappling with those this side of eternity, but overall, it is Truth.  Christ is Truth.  Has there always been obedience?  Of course not, especially during a time of extreme rebellion against God.  I felt that God loved everyone but me, had died for everyone but me, and that He did not care for me.  I felt rejected by God, and what pursued was not pretty.  I went on a desperate search for love and acceptance, forgetting all the while I had had it all along.  Some skeptics would say, "So it was your crutch because you weren't strong enough to live your life on your own merit."  To that I would say, "It was not my crutch, but my identity. " When I became God's daughter, nothing else mattered.  With increasing realization of who I am in Christ through the years, I have learned to trust, respect, and love Him more and more.   So when people try to change what the Word says to fit their lifestyle or their narrative I become very upset, because it threatens to shake the rock on which I stand.  

      Depending on what side of the political viewpoints you may fall, I dare to say you have feared the other side.  Democrats have feared Trump would become some kind of dictator, feared they would lose the ability to get insurance, feared he didn't take the virus seriously enough.  Republicans have feared loss of freedoms, especially religious freedoms.  They have feared the aborting of millions more babies, and with the devaluing of life, loss of lives of the elderly or disabled, and fear of financial disaster, and fear of socialism.  I think both sides have been looking to their political leaders to rescue them from this cataclysmic catastrophe of 2020.  With hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of prayers going up for President Trump, I truly believed he would win the presidency this year.  The hype was so huge.  I imagined God coming in to do the impossible once again, and ushering in a win for Republican Christians everywhere.  I also imagined, people like Cuomo, who had mocked Christ on several occasions would be left speechless.  If I'm honest, I felt a huge defeat when this didn't happen.  In my fleshly mind, I thought God this was so a huge chance for you to show your power.  Then again, I imagine plenty of Democrat Christians had prayed for their candidate as well, and may believe God did usher in a victory.  But just like me, I think with either win we are all setting ourselves up for a huge disappointment if we are putting our hope in any politician.  They are not our Savior.  I reminded myself how mad I got at Cuomo for saying God didn't flatten this curve, New Yorkers did....  I was so infuriated!  But was I doing the same thing when I thought Trump was going to save us from this mess??

     All of this got me to thinking about the Jewish people and how they had been waiting for a Savior, a King.   They had their own preconceived ideas of how He would come and how he would rescue them from captivity, and yet He was nothing like they expected.  That is why His own people did not recognize Him.  They were waiting for a King to rescue them from their enemies, but Christ came as a mere baby in a manger to rescue them from their sins.  All through the Old Testament, it was prophesied how He would come, through what lineage He would come, how He would be rejected and mocked, beaten, crucified on a cross, born of a virgin.  All the signs were there but they missed Him because they were waiting on Him to rescue them in their way not His, and here I am doing the same exact thing.  Jesus please forgive me.  Please teach me to look to YOU and YOU ALONE to rescue me, to be my one and only Hope.  Christ loves us perfectly.  He wants to do us good and not harm, even if that means going through fearful times.  For He knows that some things need to be stripped away for us to look to Him for our Hope, our Salvation, our Redemption, our Joy.  If we are feeling fearful or disappointed it is because we have put our hope in something or someone besides Christ.  Thanks be to God, we can repent!  We can fall on our faces and ask forgiveness and turn and put all our Hope in Christ.  His perfect love will drive out our fear of everything.  We are His children, when we put our faith in Him.  Nothing can separate us from His love.  I pray the country will get back to normal, but even if it doesn't, my hope will rest in Christ.  I'm tired of trying to be my own mini god, I stink at it.  I need the one true God, and as His children we are all one.  There is no male or female, black or white, rich or poor, but one in Christ.  Jesus is our only true hope of restoration and peace.  May we all turn to Him in 2021.