A Drop in the Bucket

Do we live in a great country, or what??  Where else can young people aspire to be anything they wish – and achieve it?!  Where else on this big, blue planet can someone be born with the freedoms we have, including the choice to not only BELIEVE in our God, but to speak about Him freely to anyone who will listen?  So why in this election cycle are so many followers of Christ discouraged about the future of this great nation?  Let me explain why we shouldn’t be concerned.  Or better still, let me simply quote the words of the prophet, Isaiah:

Behold, the nations are as a drop in a bucket, and are counted as the small dust on the scales; Look, He lifts up the isles as a very little thing…All nations before Him are as nothing, and they are counted by Him less than nothing and worthless…     (Isaiah 40:15-17)

Now admit it; you didn’t see that coming, did you?  The reason we disciples of Jesus Christ need not be concerned about the future of America is quite simply because God’s purposes are not thwarted by any president or king or dictator.  The fact that God says nations are “less than nothing and worthless” doesn’t mean that God doesn’t care about you.  It means He cares about you REGARDLESS of the country of your residence.  Regardless of the freedoms your government allows you.  Regardless of the color of your skin, whether you live in a red state or a blue state, and regardless of whether you carry a Glock, or believe you shouldn’t be allowed to do so. 

God was in the business of setting people free thousands of years before America was even a dream.  And He’ll be doing it for millennia after America has ceased to exist.  I’m not talking about political freedom, but the freedom that comes from being ransomed from the slavery of sin and being adopted into an eternal, loving relationship by the God who created you.  Are you listening??

Have you not known?  Have you not heard?  Has it not been told you from the beginning?  Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?  It is He who sits above the circle of the earth…Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.  He brings the princes to nothing; He makes the judges of the earth useless.  Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has created these things…by the greatness of His might and the strength of His power; not one is missing.   (Isaiah 40:21-26)

The Christian faith doesn’t require the freedoms of America to function.  In fact, the ease with which we can practice our faith may be undermining our commitment to it.  Early Christians maintained holiness in pagan cultures filled with sensual temptations much worse than ours.  Many 1st-century believers were slaves who worshipped alongside their masters knowing that their circumstance was only temporary when compared with eternity.  I understand your angst over the next four-year term, but what if it’s 48 years and not just four?  Are you up to the challenge?  God told Isaiah to tell you this:

Have you not known?  Have you not heard?  The everlasting God, the Lord, The Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary.  His understanding is unsearchable.  He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength.  Even the children shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall, but those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles.  They shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.   (Isaiah 40:28-31)

Jacob

Does Character Matter Anymore in America?

My writings are intended to be distinctly apolitical, yielding my only allegiance to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  But the abhorrent state of American politics requires a statement on how we ended up on the edge of the moral abyss, ready to elect a lying, self-seeking, narcissistic misogynist regardless of which candidate wins the election.  Though this post is a little longer than normal, I pray you read it to the end and take it to heart.

Alexis de Tocqueville, the famous 19th century French statesman and social philosopher, traveled to America in the 1830s to discover the reasons for the incredible success of this new nation. In his classic work, Democracy in America, de Tocqueville extols the virtue of America as being rooted in her religious character. Some particularly relevant excerpts from his writing include:

Upon my arrival in the United States the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention; …In France I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom marching in opposite directions. But in America I found they were intimately united…

Religion in America...must be regarded as the foremost of the political institutions of that country; for if it does not impart a taste for freedom, it facilitates the use of it.

In the United States, the sovereign authority is religious...there is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America…

I sought for the key to the greatness and genius of America in her harbors...; in her…fields and…forests; in her public school system and institutions of learning. I sought for it in her…Congress and in her matchless Constitution.  Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power.  America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.  The safeguard of morality is religion, and morality is the best security of law as well as the surest pledge of freedom.

Two hundred years have brought amazing and wonderful changes in our country, but not all change has been good.  No longer do children learn Scripture in school – instead those who openly honor God and His Word are judged to be “hateful” because the precepts of faith allow no comfortable resting place for sin.  Righteousness is labeled as intolerance.  Godliness makes people uncomfortable.  And piety?  Who even understands the word anymore?  The Scriptures teach us:

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; Who can know it?    (Jeremiah 17:9)

But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man.   (Matthew 15:18)

Do you know who is to blame for our current predicament?  WE ARE.  You and Me.  We have tolerated, compromised, conceded, and cooperated ourselves into this pathetic, lukewarm state of being where we have religious hearts, but our voices and efforts have been muted by a nation offended by the truths of God.  It would seem our “chickens have come home to roost”. 

Jacob

#characteralwaysmatters  #whathappenedtous?

Are You a Fat Little Baby?

As I write this, 100 mile per hour winds are buffeting the southeastern coast of the United States as a hurricane works its way north.  Winds and waves like that tend to relocate boats, uproot trees, and weaken the foundations of homes that are susceptible.  When the apostle Paul wrote these words to the Ephesian church, he was concerned about the same thing happening to his readers:

“…that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine…”    Ephesians 4:14

Those words immediately follow Paul’s explanation about the function of the leadership in any church.  That leadership is there:

 “…for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ…”    Ephesians 4:12-13

That last phrase is talking about growing up; becoming mature in the faith.  The idea is picturing ripened fruit – fully mature and not still too “green” to eat.  That’s what is SUPPOSED to happen to ALL of us who follow after Christ.  We are “born again” as babes in the faith, and then we grow and mature, becoming like fully ripened fruit attached to the life-giving vine of our Savior (see John 15).

However, this is where the fat little baby* part comes in.  Take a look in the mirror.  Do you see a fully mature follower of Jesus looking back at you?  And if not, why not? The writer of Hebrews has at least a partial explanation:

 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe.  But solid food belongs to those who are of full age...   Hebrews 5:12-14

Instead of growing up and stepping into the leadership roles Paul was speaking about in Ephesians 4, you struggle with the solid food necessary to grow up in your faith.  The milk is easier, but that’s BABY food!  We don’t feed babies steak for good reason – they aren’t ready for it.  But for heaven’s sake, GET READY for it!  The wind and waves of life are crashing all around us, assaulting the foundations of our faith.  Our solution is to dig a deeper foundation by tunneling deep into the complexities of the Word. 

Babies don’t aspire to grow up because they don’t understand enough to want that.  I’m writing this so you don’t have any excuse.  Don’t keep feeding on the easy milk of your faith – dig in to a hearty meal so you can grow up big and strong.  While advertising will tell you that “Milk does a body good”, I’m telling you on good authority that it keeps you a fat little baby.  Put away the kiddie menu and step up to the buffet.

Jacob

*By the way, the name of this post is inspired by Amy Grant’s song that you can hear at this link (with apologies to Archie Bunker): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnV1aoobQSU 

Have You Had Your Surgery Today?

Who among us doesn’t enjoy slicing into a thick, juicy steak?  (Unless, of course, you’re Vegan?)  But think about how it feels to be the “slicee” rather than the “slicer”.  Most of us have had surgery of some sort, so you already know how it feels!  You’re given some kind of pain-altering anesthesia and then a hopefully-well-trained doctor begins to slice you open, looking for something that either needs repair or removal.  And your last thought before drifting off to la-la-land is, “I hope the doc remembers everything from anatomy class!”  Meanwhile, the doctor is thinking, “Now which one of these is the gall bladder, anyway?”  In any case, when you awake, the result is usually that you’re in better shape than you were before the cutting took place, even though your sick part has been replaced by searing pain.

God does something like that for us when we open the Bible.  The writer of Hebrews describes the process by which our “surgery” takes place:

For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.   (Hebrews 4:12)

Many who follow Christ read a passage like this and nod in agreement without really understanding what happens.  We open the Bible and begin to read; and this WORD (logos in the Greek) that emanates from the Creator of the universe begins to slice into the intricacies of our being to help us see what’s wrong and what’s right about who we are.  Kind of like having an x-ray and surgery all at the same time.  Our spiritual surgery is performed using a knife that is razor-sharp, literally alive, completely powerful, and wielded by the perfectly-skilled hands of the Holy Spirit.  But I FEEL OK, why is God slicing into me today?

We are, as the Bible declares in Psalm 139, “fearfully and wonderfully made” in the image of God.  An aspect of what that means is the three-fold nature of our being: body, soul, and spirit.  Sometimes we confuse the words “soul” and “spirit” and assume they are the same thing.  They are not, hence this wonderful statement from Hebrews about the need for discerning between the motives of the two. 

Our SPIRIT (not to be confused with the Holy Spirit that indwells believers in Christ) is that part of us that is made alive when we confess and repent of our sin, and acknowledge Jesus as the only source of our much-needed salvation.  Our spirit can then commune with the Spirit of God directly.  Prior to being regenerated by the saving power of God, our spirits are dead and unresponsive.

The SOUL, by contrast, is a part of every person, believer or not, comprised of those mental aspects of thought, will, and emotion.  We humans are driven by what we think, what we feel, and what we want, and the habits and drives generated by those kinds of motivations are sometimes hard to separate from what God Himself wants for us.  That’s why we so badly need the skilled hands of the Holy Spirit to guide the powerful Word of God to separate the motives of our own souls from what our spirits should desire. 

We should schedule time for “surgery” every day!  Yes, it hurts, but I can’t really be healthy without it.  “Paging Dr. Logos….”

Jacob