Bright Spot on the Horizon

I love to come across articles like the one I found on CNN's Belief blog. It is called, "Rabbi: Why evangelical Christians give millions to Israel". It is completely refreshing to hear a Rabbi state that the main reason he sees Christians reaching out to Israel is because of their genuine love for them. WOW!!! What a great testimony to the power of our Lord Jesus to change lives (1 John 3:10). Join me in thanking God for the work He is doing. Pray that it will continue until we are known by our love by everyone in the world.

Is it really the recessions fault?

An AP article posted on Yahoo news blames the recession for a marked decline in marriages. The article, "Recession rips at US marriages, expands income gap" imagines a link between the recession and lack of marital commitment. This is a false equivalency. During this same recessionary period people are spending money on things that they want. They make iPads one of the best product intro's ever for Apple. They make the iPhone 4 its fastest selling phone ever. They are continuing to go to movies (we are just finishing September and total box office for this year is approaching last years total ticket numbers). Wine sales are up this year over last. All of this to say that as a people we are doing what we want to do.

The primary reason that people are not getting married is because they do not want to. In our society we seem to realize that this might not be a good thing over all. Certainly it can't be our fault. Let's blame it on the recession. The fact that we don't want to make the commitment of marriage can't be the reason.

The real problem is that people no longer seem to have an aversion to adultery. The atheistic philosophies of our schools and universities have successfully eradicated any sense of moral commitment to marriage. This aversion to marriage is paraded across our TV and movie screens as well. The entire society is beating a drumbeat of me, me, me, me. When our focus is what is in it for me a commitment to someone else fails the "me" test. With no morally compelling reason to commit it is no wonder that marriage is in decline. This should be alarming to us because it signals a real failure of the christian community to be salt and light in our society (Matthew 5:13-16). When you look at the Matthew passage salt and light is not something that we become. Jesus says that we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. In other words without us the world has no salt to bring flavor to life and without us the world has no light to truly see by. God has called us to Himself and placed us where He has placed us for a reason. We must see this and embrace the reality that is before us. Do you know someone who claims to be a Christian that is living with someone else or considering doing so? This might be one of the most difficult things you have ever done, but you should reach out to them in love. Don't condemn but point them to Christ. Help them to realize their need of repentance. Help them to see that to actively engage in pursuing sinful actions against God is to hold the cross of Christ in contempt. Be broken for them because this is where the hardest of hearts come from. Make sure that they know they are loved and that their heart and life should be focused on the Lord Jesus. Do we want to see our society regain its moral bearings? It must begin with individuals caring enough about others to help them catch a vision for pursuing Jesus Christ.

Eclipse...of reason

There is a really insightful article on foxnews on the newly released movie Eclipse, called, "Conservative Imprinting In 'Eclipse'?" While the article is insightful in pointing out some trends and counter culture conservative morals in the movie it fails to realize the greater point of those morals. Morality is never just morality for moralities sake. Morality is rooted in something for a reason. Morality in western culture has been derived from the moral law of God as we find it in the Bible. This is one of the reasons why morals and law seem to go hand in hand. We see the opposite all the time because immorality often leads to unlawful acts. What we often miss though is that the goal of morals or the moral law is not to restrict us but to reveal to us what is pleasing to God. This is why David could say that the law of the Lord is perfect reviving the soul...and...the precepts of the Lord are right rejoicing the heart (Psalm 19:7-8). The idea of making the soul alive and causing a heart laden with sin to rejoice is not a picture of restriction. David says in the same verses that they make the simple wise and they are so pure they enlighten the eyes. So they give us understanding and they help us to see things more clearly. David sees them as so desirable that he paints them as valuable as gold and sweeter than honey (Psalm 19:10). How many people do you know that feel this way about God's law. The point of God's law is to bring us to God. We will never be more satisfied then when we are satisfied in Him. This is where the morality of Eclipse while it might be a good formal acting out of morals is totally bankrupt. The heros in the movie maintain their morality and virginity but to what end and for what reason. Simply love waits...I guess. But you see if the vampire gets the girl in the end she will be joining the undead who cannot give birth because that would be the opposite of what they are. We also know that vampires are the enemies of God because they hate the cross. So if the heros win and maintain their morals then they will be together forever damned. How is that supposed to be a fulfilling end??? The point of morals is to bring is into greater fellowship with God in the context of all of life. Because of morals all of life becomes an act that leads to worship of God. Maintaining virginity until marriage is so that we come into marriage celebrating and consummating the relationship in a way that mirrors Jesus own fidelity for His bride and His bride's fidelity for Him. The goal of morality is to truly engage in the most awesome thing that anyone has ever conceived of -- namely to stand in the presence of the most awesome being that has ever existed. So join with David and delight in God's law and meditate on it day and night (Psalm 1:2).

The primacy of our marriages

Today is my wife and I's anniversary. We usually take some time off every year to get away for a day or three and just spend concentrated time together. Since we are still working with newborns we thought it prudent to delay taking some time off. But in honor of the great gift that God has given us in marriage it seemed appropriate to step back and dwell a bit on what it so appropriately draws our hearts to do. The married couple have a great responsibility before God. They are supposed to love each other. The husband's love should manifest itself in loving her as Christ loved the Church (Ephesians 5:25). The wife's love should manifest itself in submission to and respect for her husband as she would submit to and respect Christ (Ephesians 5:22-24). Why do these two things need to be so primarily in place??? Paul tells us in Ephesians 5:31-32 that the primary reason for marriage even existing in the first place is to reflect or be a shadow of Christ relationship to His bride the church. Because marriage and Christian marriage in particular reflects Christ relationship to His bride then the Christian married couple should be concerned about what their actions say about the church. You see our marriages are primary in reflecting the diversity and unity that is found in the God head. This is a sacred and honorable opportunity. How we personally pursue God will impact our understanding of how important this symbol is to God and ultimately how important this symbol is to us. You see if we men as part of Christ's bride love and respect who He is then what He says will be of vital importance to us. We will be looking to do what we know pleases God because if we really love someone we are always looking to do what pleases them. Do we love God? Are we living a life where everything we do is seen through a focus on our Lord Jesus Christ? If we are doing this then our desire will be to see our marriages as primary. What this means is that our marriages are more important because of what they symbolize than just about any other relationship we have. Our children and friends, our jobs, our hobbies, should all come as a second place finish at best when compared to our marriage. We must guard the symbol because it speaks to those around us about the greatness of our Lord Jesus. It shows them that our relationship with Him is important because our relationship with our wives is important. You see the thing that should drive this enhanced pursuit of the relationship is the relationship with Jesus. In knowing and loving our spouses we show the world that we value things as important that God Himself values as important. Lets work on having a passionate Biblical love in our marriages this is another way in which we can love God.

Infant dependency

My wife recently gave birth to twins. This has caused me once again to spend some time reflecting on the marvelous grace of God poured out to us through the experiences of life. Infants remind me of how much He is a supplying and sustaining God.
One of the ways that I see this revealed is in how God caused human infants to be so dependent and helpless. In Matthew 11:25-28 Jesus starts out the passage by thanking the Father that He had revealed these things to children. In the context what is revealed is the mighty power of God in Jesus. He has just denounced a list of cities for rejecting Him after seeing the mighty work of God. There is an innocent acceptance in children. In infants there is an absolute assumption of acceptance. They do not try to win our hearts with any showing of specialness. The cry because they are hungry and it lets us know that they are hungry. They cry sometimes just because they want to be held. There is no doing something for us so that we will do something for them. And quite frankly the idea of quid pro quo here is ridiculous. They are helpless and need our care. The reason that I am drawn to this passage where Jesus thanks God that these things (His majesty and power) have been revealed to children is because of the way it ends. Jesus says "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." To understand a little better what Jesus is saying here we can look at His interaction with children recorded in the synoptic gospels (Matthew 19:13-15, Mark 10:13-16, Luke 18:15-17). This story is the one where the disciples are shooing the children away. (As a side note according to Matthew's account this follows the disciples dispute about who was greatest in the kingdom of heaven. In that dispute Jesus said that they needed to become like children to enter the Kingdom (Matthew 18:1-3).) Jesus said to the disciples who were sending the children away that they needed to become like children to enter the kingdom of Heaven. What is a child like? They are dependent. Our idea of children is influenced by our culture. In Jesus' day a boy became a man at his bar-mitzah. A 12 year old would have been an older child. Little children in Jesus day would have been those who were probably six and under. Little children are dependent. They have great needs. They anticipate our love. I think that Jesus' call to come to Him and He would give us rest is in essence a call to become like children. We should remember that we have great needs. We should come with needs depending on Him. We should embrace the unchanging love He's given. Until we become like children we will always be bringing our wood hay and stubble to Jesus. We seem to always be impressed by what we have to offer. None of us has anything to offer. Our best efforts appear as polluted garments (Isaiah 64:6). All we have or ever will have that is of any value comes from Jesus. We truly are like dependent infants producing nothing but poop (Philippians 3:8) and in need of everything. The best we can do in this life is turn our focus to Jesus and bask in the love of our supplying and sustaining God.

Sometimes even pagans acknowledge the wisdom of God

There is a social article on CNN.com called, "I believe in evolution, he doesn't". The article is in a "dear Abby" like column where Wendy Atterberry (aka: the Frisky) weighs in on peoples questions about life. What caught my attention about the article is the way that the Frisky ends up advising the couple. She basically says, "that beliefs are the basis for entire life philosophies values and behavior." She goes on to say that, "if the couple can't talk nicely about it (evolution vs. creation) now, it won't get any better later." She says that if she is not willing to accept him as an equal and back off then she should probably move on. Wow!! I almost could not believe what I was reading. God tells us in His word to not be unequally yolked with unbelievers (2 Corinthians 6:14). This woman is basically saying something similar but not exactly the same. She is pragmatically pointing out that it probably will not work and she would be better moving on. As a Christian I would be saying to the guy, "Do you really love God more than your evolutionist girlfriend?" Because at the end of the day if you really love God more, then the girlfriends beliefs will have to change or there will always be dissension, which is not pleasing to God. But what is really going on is that the guy probably really loves the girl more than God. So the issue is that he is trying to reconcile it all into one package. You may say that this is hard but Jesus is the one who said, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me (Matthew 10:37-38).” In this case the guy has chosen the girl over the cross, and it is the girl getting the good advice from a pagan source. This is one more indication of how far a Christian can drift from the mooring of glorifying God in whatever they do (1 Corinthians 10:31). What is the solution? We need to get people to turn back to pursing God passionately with all that they are.

How fears point us to God

CNN has an article on their site called, "Who's afraid of snakes, spiders, vomit?" While the article deals with phobias it brings up a good point for Christians to consider. The very first time that we see fear mentioned in the Bible is when Adam tells the God that he heard Him and was afraid and hid himself (Genesis 3:10). Fear is a result of the fall and I think that in all of eternity this will be borne out. 2 Timothy 1:7 tells us that God has not given us a spirit of fear but God gave us a spirit of power, love and self-control. The main thing here is that power, love and self-control are all things that put fear to death. It is even this idea of self-control that counselors use to treat phobias. What should our goal be as Christian living a God focused life? To be so consumed with a desire for God and His kingdom that the things of this earth that produce fear in us are minimized. To put it another way we can say that we do not fear man or beast because God has ordained the day of our death (Hebrews 9:27). Men may try to intimidate us but we do not fear them because the power of God is greater than that of any man. Ultimately the thing that will fill our heart with the confidence we need to face and overcome fears of all kinds is the love of God filling and permeating our hearts. 1 John 4:18 says “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.” The love of God experienced in the context of a relationship with Him will fortify our hearts against fear.

Grassfire or misfire???

I receive e-mails from a political action group called grassfire because I signed a petition at the urging of a friend a few years ago. I received a new request to sign a petition on May 17th. It was for another group called the Media Research Center. Here are the opening lines of the petition request.

The Media Research Center has just launched an important
petition opposing Comedy Central's plans to air a cartoon
series about Jesus Christ called "JC" where he would move
to New York to "escape his father's enormous shadow."

I'm urging all members of our team to read the details
below and then sign this important MRC petition.

Before you just close this window I really want you to read this and consider what our response as Christians ought to be. I looked up the source material on the Media Research Center web site. The first is an article called "Jesus, Mohammed, and Comedy Central". The second is the actual petition that you can sign called, "Petition Opposing Comedy Central’s New Faith-Bashing Show and the Anti-Christian Double Standard". These are links that will take you to these sites if you so desire.

To begin who are the people who are promoting this hatred of Jesus Christ. And make no mistake they are bashing the Jesus of Christianity not the Jesus of Mormonism or the Jesus of the Jehovah's Witnesses (I know these are both cults but this is an important distinction). If they were bashing the Jesus of these cults they would not cast Jesus as the Son of God. The people at Comedy Central that are planning on making this cartoon series are natural men. They are spiritually dead. They are pagans and we can expect them to do pagan things. The truth is they hate God and the idea of God for good reason (Romans 1:18-25). They are under God's wrath for their unrighteousness. They cannot truly understand a Christians reaction to these things because our reason for not liking them is we have been made spiritually alive and they are spiritually dead (1 Corinthians 2:14). They particularly hate Jesus because He will ultimately testify of the evil of their deeds (John 7:7). In short we should expect the unsaved pagan world to hate Jesus and ultimately to hate us (John 15:18-19, 1 John 3:13).

This presents a dilemma for us as Christians seeking to live a life that is focused on God. The unsaved world has a certain amount of respect for Muslims because their faith is not a true faith. Their faith is a faith that claims you can repent and do good works that will appease their god. In a sense they make man powerful and able to influence God. The Muslim makes demands that comedy central not do something and they capitulate because there is no real condemnation from Mohammed or Islam. We are called by Christ to be different. In Matthew 5:39 Jesus called us to not resist the one who is evil...but to turn the other cheek. The actions of Comedy Central are evil and have a blasphemous and evil intent. Surely they have slapped all of us as Christians. Should we be responding by demanding to be treated with the same respect as Muslims and other cults? Wouldn't Jesus have us turn the other cheek? Paul in Romans 12:19 calls us never to avenge ourselves but to leave it to the wrath of God. After all vengeance is God's and He will repay.

The second part of our dilemma is how do we love these folks at Comedy Central? In Matthew 5:43-48 Jesus clearly calls us to love our enemies. He wants us to be different from the world. If you read the petition you will find that it is not different from the world. It is demanding that we be treated like the rest of the world. It asserts our rights and makes accusations. I do not see how anyone at Comedy Central will feel loved upon receiving this petition. We have an opportunity before us to do something different from the world and yet it looks like we are going to botch it. What we should be doing is seeing this as an open confession of their sinful hearts. Then we should figure out how to reach out to these guys and demonstrate the love of Jesus to them. At this point we would be demonstrating a trust in the ability of the Holy Spirit to convict them of their sins (John 16:7-11). Brothers and sisters lets not start a grassfire on this one. I believe it will only be a misfire that is bound to backfire. Lets instead seek to live a God focused life and realize that He has got this under control. This should free us to love those who are doing this evil in a way that perhaps might bring them to the feet of Jesus. After all isn't that what were here for anyway?