Tuesday, February 7, 2017
Sunday, November 20, 2016
Thursday, November 10, 2016
A Time For Action
The election is over. We prayed, fasted, and prevailed. God heard our prayers and the country is turning in a new direction, albeit not without a fight. So now we can dust ourselves off and leave the decisions in the hands of our governmental leaders, right? Wrong.
The most dangerous thing we could do is rest on our laurels. The enemy is not going down easily. It's time for action. We need to continue to pray for our leaders and their families, on a daily basis. We need to stand up for our values regardless of the shaming and verbal abuse of the liberal left. They need to know that they are not a majority.
We need to pray for our brothers and sisters who have fallen for the lies. We need to love our enemies. They may or may not see the light. But Jesus still calls us to love them.
We are at the very beginning of a great struggle for our nation. Do we want to continue down the path of liberalism, with its do-whatever-you-want socialist agenda, or do we want to return to a common sense, work for what you want, human beings matter values? Will we survive as a nation if we don't?
This is spiritual warfare.
The most dangerous thing we could do is rest on our laurels. The enemy is not going down easily. It's time for action. We need to continue to pray for our leaders and their families, on a daily basis. We need to stand up for our values regardless of the shaming and verbal abuse of the liberal left. They need to know that they are not a majority.
We need to pray for our brothers and sisters who have fallen for the lies. We need to love our enemies. They may or may not see the light. But Jesus still calls us to love them.
We are at the very beginning of a great struggle for our nation. Do we want to continue down the path of liberalism, with its do-whatever-you-want socialist agenda, or do we want to return to a common sense, work for what you want, human beings matter values? Will we survive as a nation if we don't?
Wednesday, November 9, 2016
Tuesday, January 5, 2016
Jesus is the Way - to God.
There is a great deal of hand-wringing nowadays about the state of the American church. I am not talking about one particular denomination, but about the church as a whole, young and old, coastal or Midwestern, the great body of believers who profess the name of Jesus Christ. The general consensus is that the church is in decline. It is failing to do its job (evangelization) while neglecting sound biblical teaching and discipleship for its attendees. How true this is depends, of course, upon what your local church is up to. If the Christians you know are witnessing to their neighbors, and you are involved in a supportive Bible study/small group, the concerns about the church as a whole might appear to be exaggerated.
There is one (at least) erroneous teaching that seems to be making the rounds of churches, books, and TV, and that is the idea that God guarantees a person success in every endeavor. Certainly Christians should not walk around with hang-dog expressions, crying woe is me. We are to walk in the Spirit in victory. We have overcome the world! Our search for success, however, needs to be in the area of walking with God. God calls us to die to ourselves daily. What does that mean? Simply put, it means that when God says "Do this" we do it, whether we want to or not. And that is hard. We want our own way, especially in the land of the free. Individual rights are highly prized in our culture. The freedom to make our own choices is sacrosanct. But as Christians, we are called to surrender our wills, our lives, our choices, to God. We must turn away from seeking worldly success and pleasures. That doesn't mean we won't or can't have those things, but it does mean that we must not pursue them. Our pursuit should be of God and making sure that we are doing His will. If we seek first the kingdom of God, all these things shall be added as well. But our hearts must be right first.
There is one (at least) erroneous teaching that seems to be making the rounds of churches, books, and TV, and that is the idea that God guarantees a person success in every endeavor. Certainly Christians should not walk around with hang-dog expressions, crying woe is me. We are to walk in the Spirit in victory. We have overcome the world! Our search for success, however, needs to be in the area of walking with God. God calls us to die to ourselves daily. What does that mean? Simply put, it means that when God says "Do this" we do it, whether we want to or not. And that is hard. We want our own way, especially in the land of the free. Individual rights are highly prized in our culture. The freedom to make our own choices is sacrosanct. But as Christians, we are called to surrender our wills, our lives, our choices, to God. We must turn away from seeking worldly success and pleasures. That doesn't mean we won't or can't have those things, but it does mean that we must not pursue them. Our pursuit should be of God and making sure that we are doing His will. If we seek first the kingdom of God, all these things shall be added as well. But our hearts must be right first.
Tuesday, November 17, 2015
It's Okay to Pray for Paris
It's okay to pray for Paris. Really.
Yes, I know you've seen the shaming memes from the PC elites, from the well-meaning, from those in the camp of I-know-when-I-see-a-good-thing-and-can't-wait-to-tear-it-down. The posts go something like this: How dare you pray for Paris? If you haven't prayed for (insert your favorite tragedy here) then you must be a bad person who doesn't care. The posts don't come out and state their premise quite as harshly, but the veiled insinuations are still there.
Here is an example that I read on Facebook on a page that is usually reasonable and sane:
Yes, I know you've seen the shaming memes from the PC elites, from the well-meaning, from those in the camp of I-know-when-I-see-a-good-thing-and-can't-wait-to-tear-it-down. The posts go something like this: How dare you pray for Paris? If you haven't prayed for (insert your favorite tragedy here) then you must be a bad person who doesn't care. The posts don't come out and state their premise quite as harshly, but the veiled insinuations are still there.
Here is an example that I read on Facebook on a page that is usually reasonable and sane:
Sounds good, right? We should all care about everyone who is suffering, right? But the reasoning in this meme leaves a lot to be desired.
First, it assumes omniscient knowledge on the part of every breathing person on Facebook. Or maybe even the world. Western press gave a lot of coverage to the Paris terrorist attacks, because they happened in a Western country. Not the Middle East, which sadly has terror attacks on a continuing basis. The attacks, except for 9-11, are unprecedented and unexpected to the general populace. They were also made on a major U.S. ally, which according to some, is also our oldest and best ally. This is important to the U.S. on many, many levels. But there was little coverage given to the bombing in Baghdad, where 19 people died, and it happened the same day as the Paris attacks. (Interestingly, this meme ignores the suicide bombings in Beirut last Thursday in which over 40 people died. Does that make the writer a bad person?) It is hard to pray about something of which you have no knowledge.
Second, it assumes that if you didn't post about the attacks in the Middle East you are a racist. Never mind if you are actually a person of color, an immigrant from the Middle East, or any other minority. You are a racist because all of the people who died in the Paris attacks were white. Oh, wait, that's not really true, but it fits the writer's profiling.
Third, should people really be telling other people how to feel, think, write, or pray? Doesn't it take a certain amount of hubris and self-righteousness to preach at others about their actions? Aren't we commanded to take the log out of our own eye before we try to remove the speck from our brother's or sister's?
Maybe, just maybe, instead of praying for the world to do what we think is right, we should take a hard look in the mirror, get down on our own knees, and pray over our own sins and shortcomings, rather than trying to shame others over theirs.
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