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.

My Newest Conundrum: Being Christian in a World Gone Mad

  

      I think it is fair to say that we are living in some kind of weird vacuum of madness.  Everything is topsy-turvy.  What was once considered taboo is now celebrated.  There are educated people that hate our President so fiercely they want the people that vote for him to die before the election!  People are screaming in complete strangers' faces! Celebrities are bragging about their abortions!  Families are being torn apart over differences of opinion.  Even parts of the church are deconstructing everything they once believed.  Even though my social media would suggest otherwise, I HATE CONFLICT, and yet, there is conflict in every part of life right now.  I think a large part of this animosity can be contributed to the media and social platforms.  I watched a documentary on Netflix the other night called The Social Dilemma.  The producers of this film interviewed people who once worked for some of the largest social platforms until they deemed  their jobs were ethically immoral.  Their claim is that they would target their audience and cater to their likes and interests, which at first doesn't sound too bad.  What happens though is  you start seeing only what you want to see, and your position becomes blurred by your own biases. For instance, as a Republican, on my social media I see all the great things that the President has put in place during his time in the White House.  I hear what a great job he has done with Covid,  with nominating Conservatives for the  Supreme Court,  with stopping abortion and sex trafficking, and working on criminal justice reform.  In contrast, I see only negative aspects of Biden's campaign, such as him being unfit physically and mentally for the Presidency, of him raising taxes and government control, and of all his racists comments throughout his political career.   It furthers my position to trust Trump and be scared to death of the Democratic party.  However, if you are Democrat, you would see things like Trump has caused thousands of deaths, that he is racist, that he is a dictator, and so on.  They take statements that have a resemblance of truth and exaggerate them.  This puts fear in the user of the "other side."  A fear that I don't think we have had since the Civil War.  Politics are just part of the unrest we have right now.  There is also Covid, racial unrest, natural disasters, and threats to our freedom.  All of which have been heightened and exaggerated by the news and social media.   

     My conundrum is this:  as Christians how do we live in such a evil world?  I know God's word tells us this is not our home, and that we are just sojourners here.  So, Christians were never meant to feel at home here on Earth.  But right now, like I've never seen in my lifetime, there is so much deceit and truth seems to be distorted as never before.  Or maybe it's just me?  It does not bother me that there is disparity between Christians and NonChristians, there is suppose to be a difference.  We are suppose to shine brightly in the darkness.  What bothers me immensely is how the Church as a whole seems to be losing its way, seems to be losing its light, and veering grossly from the truth and becoming more like the world. It doesn't feel like that in the churches I actually attend or watch online.  They seem to be shining brighter than ever before.  Proclaiming God's word, along with His love, and steering their congregants toward peace amidst the storm.  When I enter the church building, I am elated!  Worshipping God, I am elated.  Reading His word and being reminded of his Omnipotence and Power, I am elated.  But then I leave the building or I turn off the online sermon, and almost instantly I am confronted by someone who wants to sabotage all that I have just experienced and know to be TRUTH.  Progressive Christianity is meandering very deceitfully throughout the Church, and in its attempt to appease the world, it has become like the world, or even worse.  I don't believe in brow beating people over the head with their sins as a way of getting them to trust in Jesus.  However, I do believe we ALL need to know that WE are depraved sinners in need of a Holy Christ.  If we think we are enough, that we are ok, then we do not see a need for a Savior.  We have to see the depravity and ugliness of our sin, before we will turn to Christ for our salvation.  In the name of teaching tolerance, we are depriving people of salvation.  Aren't we?  Progressive Christianity also demeans God's Word.  They change the Word to suit their taste and to allow for tolerance of everybody.  Christianity is an all inclusive, exclusive group of people.  A relationship with Christ is all inclusive in that anyone can come to Christ, and it is exclusive in that the way is narrow and few find it.  You come to Christ on absolutely no merit of your own, it is by unmerited grace that Christ saves.  It is a gift that we cannot earn.  However, your walk with Christ does not stop at salvation.  It begins at salvation, and as you learn more of Jesus, spend more time with Him, come to love Him, and are filled with His Spirit, you no longer can tolerate your former self.  It is a heart change.  Out of His love for you and your love for Him, flows a desire for obedience.   There are churches that are saying the Bible is just a book of letters from men who suggest a good way to live.  The Bible is so much more that.  It is the inspired, God breathed word.  It is the truth that establishes boundaries for everything in this world.  It is the Gospel.  It is part of our communion with God.  It is the way in which He speaks to His children.  It is unchangeable.  The meaning has not been lost in translation.  It is one cohesive story of man's depravity and Christ's redemption.  It hurts my soul when people try to discredit it. 

      Some might say, so what is your conundrum, Sharla?  Just stay away from people and churches like that.  That is my problem, the people that have questioned the Bible, questioned faith, and wanted to change the truths on which I stand are people I love dearly.  People that I care deeply about their souls.  Some might say I am being judgemental, and that is the last thing that I want to be.  I could care less who somebody votes for, somebody can try to change my mind all they want about politics (I probably won't listen, but they can try), but it really bothers me when someone tries to change my mind about Christ and when people celebrate sin.  You can be a Christian and sin, we will never stop sinning this side of eternity. However, you can't be a Christian and love and celebrate sin and live in sin.  It is a matter of the heart. You can't call sin something other than what it is, right?  I guess all of this is bothering me so much because of this weird season we are all in.  Death has become more real to me.  A few people I know have died without Christ, and I don't want that to happen to one more person that I love.  But I seem to drive people further away from faith than closer to it, and that really bothers me.  I have come to the conclusion that the only thing to do is to walk the walk of faith and love, speak truth in kindness, and do a whole lot of praying.  Do any of you feel or see the same things I am seeing, or is the devil just taking a particular interest in me right now?  (Yes, I do believe in the devil and in hell, another thing Progressive Christianity is denying).  I would love to know if any of you feel the same way.  If you do please leave a comment. I would love to have help with my conundrum:):)

TRUTH

     Truth is not fluid.  It is never changing, but timeless.  When people say, "I'm following my own truth," I cringe.  No one person owns truth.  Truth is a person, Jesus Christ.  Truth is God's word.  Both of which are never changing throughout all eternity.  Truth is solid, it is something you can hang your hat on, risk your life for, bet your eternity on.  In an ever changing world, where darkness is called light, and truth is everyone's opinion, we need this Absolute Truth.  Society needs acknowledgement of this Truth to govern and to abide together in peace.  So why are many turning their backs on this Truth?  God tells us in His word that people want to be their own gods and that they are too proud to surrender their lives.  They love their sin more than their Savior.  Therefore their  hearts are hardened by those sins, and they are blind from the Truth.  I know that to be true because I used to be one of them.  Even though I claimed to be a Christian, believed that Jesus died and rose, believed in the Bible, I took a long time to actually lay down my life and take up my cross and follow Him.  I was looking to other things to be my Savior, and I was too stubborn to turn from my sins.  They were comfortable to me, they took no effort, until I started to see the slow death of my soul and God opened my eyes to see that each sin brought death and meaningless.  I slowly realized that nothing could fill that giant hole in my heart but God.  Each of you that has not accepted Christ as your Savior has that giant hole in your heart as well, and I can promise you that if you are trying to fill it with ANYTHING OR ANYONE BESIDES HIM, you will never be fulfilled, and you will die a slow death every day you wait.  

     Jesus said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life and no one comes to the Father but by me."  At the same time, highly respected "Christian" Oprah Winfrey is saying to society, "There are many paths to God."  I have loved Oprah Winfrey from the first time she set foot on stage, but she is DEAD wrong.   No other religion in the world has a leader that claimed to be God, but the Christian Jesus.  That is what sets Him apart.  So when someone says to you, "Yeah, I believe in Jesus, He was a great teacher, just like Muhammad or Buddha," you can know that they too are DEAD wrong.  If Jesus was walking around claiming to be God, either He was God or He was a nut.  There is no in between.  Therefore, He would not be just a good teacher, and anyone who says that is an anti-christ.  Jesus also warned us of this in His word, that many anti-christs would make claims that would be false.  Christians are to have nothing to do with these people.  Jesus was God in flesh that dwelt among man, was crucified and died for our sins, and on the third day He rose from the dead, and dwelt among us, until He ascended back to Heaven and now sits on the right hand of God the Father.  He is alive.  If that were not truth, then Christianity would have died out thousands of years ago.  If there had been no risen Savior then all His early disciples would not have risked imprisonment and/or being martyred for His glory and the church would have never been established.  BUT, Jesus was God, and he humbled himself to come to us as man, and live among us, and pay for our sins, so that we can dwell with Him forever and ever.  Wow, that's such good news!  We can have a relationship with the Creator of the universe!  We can have a relationship with Him now on Earth and forever in Heaven.   So when the Corona virus comes, or social injustices happen, or when our country starts falling apart, Christ followers can be assured that they are safe and have nothing to fear, for whether in life or death we are abiding safely in His loving arms.  

      In the meantime, as we try to navigate this crazy earth, we have His Word and the Holy Spirit to build us up, to protect us from evil, and to sanctify us as we get ready for His return.  Jesus was also the Word that dwelt among us.  The Bible is not just a holy book, but it is the inerrant, God breathed inspired word of God.  Therefore, it is to be handled with fear, respect, and trepidation.  Just like there are people trying to dispute Jesus as the only way to God, there are also many people, even people in the church, trying to minimize the word of God.  I believe if you don't believe all of the Bible you are not really believing any of the Bible.   People who worship science and/or the creation more than the Creator try to discredit sections of the Bible all the time.  Once again, that is man's pride standing in the way of him finding Truth.  From Creation to Revelation, the entire Bible is truth.  Richard Rohr, I think, is the priest that says that the New Testament is just letters written by man with suggestions for living a good life.  That is simply not true.  Yes, the New Testament does consist of letters written by Christ's apostles, but they were God breathed, meaning God wrote the scriptures through man.  These were men that intimately knew the Savior, that shared in His sufferings, they walked with Him and talked with Him, and God spoke through them.  The Bible is God's word, it is absolute truth, explicit truth.  It is tried and true, and instead of looking at it as a book telling you all the things you can't do, it is a book that reveals Jesus to you, from Genesis to Revelation.  It is a cohesive story of God loving and pursuing His people, laying down His life for mankind, and saving us from death and sins that enslave us.  It explains our past, our present, and our future.  You need not worry about all the darkness in the world, because you can read for yourself how it's all going to end.  Whether you believe or not, one day we will all bow in His presence, every tribe, nation, and tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord.  You can accept that truth now and live a life of meaning and substance, or you can wait till the day that you bend your knee in fear and regret.  My prayer is that you will not wait one second longer, but you will choose this day whom you will serve.  I promise you that you will never regret a decision for Christ.  You can come as you are, but as you experience His love and sacrifice, you cannot stay as you are.  Surrender your life to Him now.  You won't regret it.  

The Silent Storm of 2020

     In the last couple of months, societal issues have jumped off the pages and slapped us smack dab in the face.  No warning, but rather a tidal wave of racial, political, economical, spiritual upheaval like never before.  People have stopped talking to each other, and replaced conversation with heated arguments.  Among peaceful God fearing protests are evil, lawless rioting, killing, and pillaging of our country.  Fear and anger have replaced faith and love.  A hate for America and God and Trump has lead people to spit in the face of liberty and democracy, and burn our sacred places of worship and our flag, the United States flag, the same flag that draped my dead father's body. With the media feeding the drama, the leader of the Black Lives Movement has inspired the illegal taking down of many of our historic monuments, including those that had nothing to do with racism.  Shaun King is now saying all monuments of Jesus need to be removed as well.  Could this really be happening in America?  When the lockdown first started, a faith stirred deep within my soul, that God was moving and calling us to stop for a while and evaluate our hearts, and after our hearts were cleansed, our lives would be restored to a better place.  A place where God was first, and everything else was here to glorify Him.  But sadly as I turned on the TV, I saw and heard things that ripped at my heart, because I could see that in the world, at least the world the media was showing us, instead of heart changes, there was this arrogance and self efficiency that was saying, "This isn't God, this is us!  We are winning this battle". Blasphemy like I had never heard before, even though I had heard whispers that I thought would eventually lead us to this.  Things like, "the Bible isn't really God's inerrant word, it is just letters that gives suggestions on how to live good lives" or "Jesus wasn't God, he was just a good teacher, like Muhammad or Buddha."  I felt as if there was an attack of a dark nature trying to steal my faith, but thankfully, I had surrounded myself with some strong, faith filled giants, and a God that would not let me go. 

     Right now, the focus is on racism, off of Covid 19 for a bit, with the horrid murder of George Floyd setting in motion a righteous anger for some, and an excuse for others to further their degradation of faith and light.  My opinion is that this righteous anger of the many was bound to come to a boiling point at some time.   It needed to, the devaluing of a life is a wretched sin in the eyes of God, and is not one He takes lightly.  But unlike the Black Lives Matter movement, I feel the answer to racism, poverty, and everything else will be found in turning to God, repenting and lamenting over our sins, including the sins of racism, and cleansing our country of darkness and replacing it with light, using God's wisdom to restore the family, the church, government, criminal justice systems, and any other system that needs repair. The hidden agendas in the BLM movement are not only about racism.  I think most people would argue that racism needs to be totally eradicated.  This is 2020.  America is a melting pot of different races and ethnicities that need to be celebrated, exactly like they will be one day when Jesus comes back, when every tribe and nation will worship Him together.  That union should start now, as I believe it has.  However, the Black Lives Matter Movement promotes some ideology that I truly believe if practiced would tear apart the lives of our black brothers and sisters in Christ.  Before you kill the messenger, let me try to explain.

     Candace Owens, a Black commentator,  said in a YouTube video that in the 1960's black America had 23% fatherlessness, which back then was a high percentage for fatherlessness in the family.  This statistic was taken right before Lyndon Johnson passed the Welfare Act.  Today, 74% of black Americans grow up without a father.  Candace believes this is because the Welfare Act made it more lucrative for a family if the father does not marry the mother or live in the home, forcing families to live without fathers. Therefore, Welfare encouraged fatherlessness.  I was a kid that grew up on a check from the government, although my dad was taken away by war, and that check was our compensation for fatherlessness.  I understand what Candace means when she says  that a government check keeps  you just right at the poverty line or at least the lower middle class line.  I think we were all made to live out our God given purpose, and that if you take that purpose away, people deteriorate.  They become apathetic, depressed, and there is nothing to encourage someone to excel.  People, especially children without fathers, fall in to depression, substance abuse, poor school performance, and eventually, the criminal justice system.  I'm not suggesting to get rid of Welfare, but rather reform Welfare to be a hand up, not a lifestyle choice.  Welfare as a lifestyle choice should be for the severely disabled and mentally ill who are incapable of sustaining any kind of work. The Black Lives Matter does not promote a nuclear family.  In fact, I felt that it did not promote black fathers at all, from what I read it didn't support black men at all.  Well, unless those black men were men transitioning to be females.  Instead of promoting fatherhood, it promoted a village type approach to caring for families.  While I do believe that has become necessary with the absence of fathers, I don't think you should abandon the idea of fatherhood altogether!  This is not only true in black families, but equally true with white, hispanic, and Asian families.

      President Obama said that children who live in homes without their fathers are 9 times more likely to end up in prison!  Fatherlessness in the family is not the only thing that determines incarceration though.  Children who can't read, can't gain lucrative employment, and have no direction from their fathers have a way higher chance of ending up in the criminal justice system.  Candace Owens also said in her Youtube video that 75% of black boys in California cannot pass a basic reading test!!  In Baltimore schools, a study looked across 5 inner city schools and NO black child passed the reading or math exam.  Now, the quick response would be to blame the teachers, but I can tell you that teachers are working harder now than they ever have.  There are more programs to address reading and math than you can imagine, and money is thrown at these situations like you can't believe.  Just like in the Criminal Justice System, it is not the majority of the police that is the problem.  It is the system in which they work that is the problem.  MONEY DOES NOT SOLVE ISSUES, NOR DOES PROGRAMS.  If they worked there would not be 75% of black boys in California that can't read and there would not be the statistic of a person being 9x more likely to be incarcerated if that solved the problem.  I think reformation starts at home first.  The sexual revolution has saturated kids with the notion. that it is ok to have sex before marriage, with anybody or anything.  Children are being sexualized like never before, further traumatizing kids that have no father to mentor or protect them.  Fatherless children are far more likely to be sexually abused, both girls and boys.  Children should not have to think about sex!!!  The media and entertainment industry needs to be cleaned up, standards need to be set for those who can't set them for themselves.  Parentless children or children in poverty are often raised by television.  Imagine what they have seen by the time they enter school.  Parents should be punished for traumatizing them by letting them pick their gender, or encouraging them to look and act older than they are.  We as a society need to protect our children from the darkness of the world.  Next, we need to find ways to encourage dads to stay at home.  Dads can stay at home if they can gain employment and if they are not incarcerated, so can moms.  We, as a society, need to figure out what is keeping this many children from learning.  I don't believe it is intelligence.  I have had EXTREMELY intelligent kids that could not read.  We need to study that from conception, the health of the mother, the neonatal care, and the list goes on and on.  I think one huge deterrent to learning is misbehavior in the classroom.  Nobody can learn in chaos.  Children that live in poverty and who do not have their basic needs met are not thinking about how to sound out words, they are thinking, "How can I get something to eat?"  or they are acting out their anxiety by misbehaving, no attention is being given to learning, which eventually leads down the path to the criminal justice system.

      The other night my family watched the story of Brian Banks.  Brian was a young black male when he was first incarcerated unjustly at the age of 16.  He was falsely accused of rape, with all the evidence pointing to his innocence, and his lawyer talked him into pleading No Contest to save him from prison time.  This however backfired on him, and he was unfairly incarcerated for 6 or 7 years.  This was a wonderful, kind, innocent young man that had his dreams snatched away from him and his mother at a young age.  Throughout the movie, you could see tons of places where criminal justice reform needs to take place.  There are so many instances of people being incarcerated who are innocent.  There are broken systems, I am not denying that fact.  Change needs to take place, but it doesn't come through hate and destruction.    It comes through the people advocating for rational change with rational plans and voting for rational people that can make those changes happen.  It takes leaders listening to the people that work in those systems.  They can tell you where change should happen.  In federal and state government decisions are guided by what gets those institutions the most money.  Money allocated shouldn't be based on numbers, it makes the systems cheat and nothing good can come from that.  I've seen it in education, so I'm sure it exists in the criminal justice system.  Everything is about money instead of truth, justice, and the people that those systems exist to serve.  The people of this great country have ideas on how to make change, somebody needs to shut up and listen.  Then that change can happen.  

      

      

     

Love Your Neighbor as Yourself

Love Your Neighbor as Yourself

     Last night was a time of great sadness and anxiety for our country.  Sadness for those who have had to endure racism, sadness for police officers that are judged for a few bad apples, sadness for the politicizing of every single thing that happens right now, sadness for the evil that is running rampant all over the world, sadness for a virus that is killing our elderly and compromised, and even sadness over a man that would have so much hate in his heart that he would not have compassion on a dying man.   It would SEEM that is all that is happening across this great country of ours right now, but if you put down your cell phone, turn off your TV, and get out your Bible, you will discover that there is nothing new under the sun.  Evil is as old as time, as old as the devil wanting to be greater than God, as old as Eve taking that first bite.  Evil will be here until Jesus's return.  If this world is all you think there is, it is no wonder there is such hopelessness.  Praise be to God, this world is just a blip for those who believe in Christ.  I have argued over and over again that politics won't save us, the economy won't save us, science and medicine won't save us!  We are too far gone, all of us.  Only the blood of a risen Savior can save us.  But just like the Israelites, our hearts are too stubborn to listen, we all think we have the answers, and we are turning to everything but God. 

     Last night we ventured out for dinner.  We were having a great night, everything seemed to be getting back to normal.  We had just left Slick's and were on our way to take Cole back to his apartment which took us through downtown.  Nothing new for us as we do this every weekend.  We love our city, and every weekend we drive around downtown after supper.  Dudley and I both love to people watch.  So, we were quite surprised when we accidentally drove up to a protest happening right outside the court building.  We were driving along, and didn't notice in time, that protestors were running out into the middle of the road to stop traffic or to get away from the courthouse.  All of a sudden, there was a super angry white guy facing our car making crude gestures straight in our face, yelling F... Y.... , and then a black girl threw either a can or a bottle toward our car.  I was yelling at Dudley to turn around, and he was trying to and getting mad at me for yelling, and Cole seemed to be aggravated at both of us.  We quickly turned around and drove off, but the faces of those in the protest stayed with me all night.  Such anger and it seemed directed at all of us in the cars, as people drove off, we had made our way to the ramp, and in the confusion, a young man accidentally hit us from behind.  He was clearly shaken, and Dudley assured him it was ok, and we were on our way back home.  All of that probably happened in 5 minutes time, but it stayed with me all night.  This incident was absolutely nothing to what the people in Minneapolis, Seattle, Atlanta, New York, Dallas, and Los Angeles have experienced the last 3 or 4 nights, so I can't imagine how all of the people involved in these protests, riots, and looting are feeling.  So, I thought what can I do with all this anxiety and sadness? So, after I downed a couple of brownies, watched hours of the riots, looked at Facebook posts, I finally went to bed and prayed.  This morning, I woke up thinking what can I do with all my thoughts, and so I decided to do what I always do, I decided to write....

     How on earth did we get to this moment in history?  With the Corona Virus, I definitely felt God was allowing this evil to give us a moment to get off the hamster wheel of life and take a look at our many idols that we had put before Him, a time to repent of materialism, narcissism, hedonism, and the list goes on and on...  I felt He was giving us a moment to turn back to Him, back to spending time with our families, and to taking time to love each other.  For a moment, I felt that was happening, but last night I felt like all hell was breaking loose.  I started thinking in my little mind, "God, wasn't the virus enough?"  But maybe it wasn't enough, after all, aren't we still fighting over which doctor is right, who should and should not be president, to go out or to stay in, and now mask or no mask.  Really?  What good does that do any of us?  Instead, I feel like I need to take a good close look at how I am contributing to this madness, and repent.  So, that's what I did.  I started taking a hard look at myself to see if there is any racism in my heart.  I didn't know many black people until I started teaching at 24 years old.  I vividly remember one black girl at our elementary school, and she wasn't in any of my classes because she was deaf (back then special ed was totally isolated out of the mainstream).  I remember her to be very sweet and funny.  Then when I was about in 4th or 5th grade a black family moved into our apartment complex.  They were a military family.  They had strict parents, or what I considered to be strict, and we all quickly became friends with their son and daughter.  That was my first friendships with anybody of a different race than mine.  I know that I had no racist thoughts about that family, but I did, out of ignorance, say something really racist one day to my friend, Sophia.  I had gone with another friend to Smallwood, a school for students with behavioral disorders (my friend's mother worked there).  When I got back, I had had a real education to say the least, and Sophia had asked me about it.  I said, "You would have hated it, it was just a bunch of N....... running around."  I will never forget the look on her face.  I had truly hurt her.  In my defense, I don't know where I had heard that word before, but in my thinking it was used for black kids that were bad, just like back then the word "redneck" was used for whites that were bad.  I didn't understand that that word was evil and would be demeaning to a good girl like Sophia.  I shouldn't have used it for the other kids either, but once I did, and once I saw the pain in her face, I never used it again.  Sophia and James and I remained friends until they moved out of our neighborhood, as most military families do, but I never forgot that incident.  This was in the 70's.  I never wanted to hurt another person like that again, and I pray that I haven't.  So, I don't feel like I have ever struggled with racism, but I think I do struggle with people who mock God.  People that don't have the reverence for Him that I think they should.  I have to pray hard to control my anger about people that treat God flippantly, even though I have done the same thing.  People say you hate in others what you hate in yourself.  I do hate that part of me that rebelled against God in my teen years, and so I'm not very tolerant of that in other people.  I don't know what to do with that anger, because I feel like I have a right to be angry about that.  But do I?  Shouldn't I have the love of Christ flowing out of me, wanting to love these people where they are, prayerfully hoping that they too will turn to Christ?  When I see their nameless faces, screaming and twisted in anger, saying things like, "Prayer didn't flatten the curve, we did."  I don't feel love, I feel anger.  When I see someone bragging about having an abortion or bragging about how the abortion industry is a billion dollar business, I feel anger.  I don't feel anger over my friends that have had abortions.  I know their hearts, and they wouldn't have done it if they hadn't felt there was any alternative.  But it is different when someone is bragging about it, and throwing it in your face, and trying to make you feel like you don't respect women if you don't believe in abortion.  So, I just pray for God to take my anger away, but even Jesus felt anger when he threw the money changers out of His house of Worship, right?  I feel like we are in a war against evil.  I know we are in a war against evil, and right now it seems to have heightened.  But we are not without hope.  Those who believe and obey Christ will never be put to shame.  That is a promise of God.  We may lose tiny battles, but ultimately we win.  We must always choose obedience, choose life, choose peace, choose Christ, and pray that the Holy Spirit will give you the power to make those choices, because we cannot do it on our own.  That one thing is very obvious.  But do not despair, be anxious for nothing, and in everything present your prayers and requests before God with thanksgiving for He cares for you.  What two commandments did He leave us with?  To love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and to LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF!