The Fragility of Life

People pass away every day, but unless we lose someone that we know personally, our own death may not be something that we think about frequently.  And yet when in the course of one week, we lose 4 public figures–Michael Jackson, Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, and Billie Mays–we are faced with a very real and haunting (for some) thought:

Life is fragile.

We work hard to achieve success, acquire wealth, fill the aching voids in our heart, and to look good in society.  But often times, we give very little thought to what is beyond this life.  We get caught up in preparing a comfortable life for ourselves here and now and forget about the comfort of our afterlife.  And then one day when it hits us that life is fragile and fleeting, we find that all we have chased after here on earth will not save us when it comes to eternity.

In Ecclesiastes 2: 10-11, the author (who some believe is King Solomon) says, “I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure.  My heart took delight in all my work, and this was the reward for all my labor.  Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done, and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.”

Blogger Tim Challies says this about Michael Jackson:

“More than any other celebrity he embodied the “vanities” of Ecclesiastes.  He was at one time known for what he did so well and then was known for being a freak; he was at one time fantastically wealthy and then utterly broke; he was once loved and then despised.  He had it all and yet, it seemed, he had nothing.  All of it was meaningless, a chasing after the wind. . .But I hope now that he has finally found peace.  Sadly, though, his life showed no evidence that he had found the One who is peace, the one who offers true peace.  And if that is the case, the true horror of it all is that Jackson will spend all of eternity in the same twisted mind that tortured him for most of the fifty years he was given here.  Those fifty years seemed to drive him to the brink of utter insanity; the thought of an eternity in that state is too horrific to imagine.  We may like to think that death inevitably brings peace to a tortured existence.  But Scripture gives us no reason to find hope except in the One who offers hope.”

This makes me terribly sad.  Likewise, I watched Farrah Fawcett’s documentary about a month ago and although she spoke of God, she never spoke of a personally relationship with Jesus Christ nor of a peace she had knowing that she would spend eternity in heaven with her Father.  I can only hope at this point that any of these 4 talented individuals that passed away this week found peace with the Lord before they died.  Yet again, I’m reminded of how fragile life is.  Here today, gone tomorrow.

Are we ready?

While our culture has no problem discussing death on a daily basis–news tickers, sensationalized stories, crime reports, health watches, and funeral arrangement announcements–there seemsto be a shortage of news stories on what happens after death, especially from a biblical worldview.  We have become so “politically correct” that talking about God as the only way to heaven has become increadibly taboo. . .in fact, it’s seen as discriminatory.

Yet the facts remain.

In John chapter 14, Thomas asked Jesus, “‘Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?’ Jesus answered, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me’” (verses 5-6).

Some do not believe in an afterlife.  Some do not believe in God.  Many do not believe that there is only one door to heaven.  Many believe that you can get through that door by good works, rather than by simple grace (Ephesians 2:8-9).  But as Pete Briscoe points out in his book, Belief Matters, “In the end it doesn’t really matter how much you believe.  What matters is what you believe.”  He goes on to say that regardless of our sincerity about what we believe, if what we believe is false, where does that get us?

“If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9).

If you would like to take that step of faith, click here.

Entertaining Angels

 A cool thought for today. . .

Genesis 18 tells the Old Testament story of three men who visited Abraham and Sarah to give them the miraculous news that they would have a long-awaited son in their older age.  Abraham wasted no time in welcoming them in, providing them a place to rest, preparing them food, and serving these mysterious men.  So just who were these bearers of good news?  Hebrews 13:2 lets us know that they were angels and the author reminds us to “show hospitality to strangers, for some who have done this have entertained angels.” 

When I think of having an opportunity to entertain angels, I feel unworthy, but God may give us that chance any day of the week, completely unaware.  Are we prepared?  Are we living in such a way that if an angel of the Lord came to us today, God would be pleased with our conduct towards that angel?  A convicting, yet humbling possibility. . .a lofty, worthwhile challenge. 

To think that we can cross paths with an angel in disguise, today. . .

Reality TV

I’m embarrassed to say that I am at all caught up in the reality TV couple Jon & Kate.  And a disclaimer:  I’ve only watched the show about 5 times total, but I have read their book, so keep that in mind when I offer my opinions. 

Part of me feels quite played by those two, as well as TLC which airs the show.  How much of what we see between them is for entertainment purposes. . .drama for the camera?

But for the part that is not a performance–and given the fact that the “big announcement” that is all over the media scheduled for tonight is rumored to be a divorce–here is what I feel:

I feel very sad for this couple.  They are obviously in pain about their relationship.  Marriage is tough, and I can only assume those difficulties are magnified when you have 8 children and a camera in your face all day.  However, I am also very sad for those children.  Media reports say that these kids do not want this intrusion into their lives and it is the parent’s job to put raising their children ABOVE financial gain.

Which brings me to why I’m angry, and I will express myself while still reserving judgment, since I do not know all the facts.  I’m upset because, if in fact a divorce is in the works, a family is being broken apart without the very obvious best option of all being tried–stop doing the show and focus on your marriage!  (Ok, there was a little judgment in that)  Have they given that  a try?  It seems like such an obvious, common sense choice and yet, it seems that option was skipped right over on the road to divorce court and broken families.

After reading Multiple Blessings by Jon & Kate, I know that they have a personal relationship with the Lord.  We know that through Christ we can do all things.  I’m not saying that they may not have very real issues of pain and anger and difficulty between them. . .most marriages go through that to some degree. . .I’m just saying why can’t they go through these things OFF camera, and see if that makes a difference.  Give God a chance to repair the damage in their marriage without the seemingly stronger pull of financial gain (reports are that they are paid quite well for each episode). 

“No one can serve two masters.  Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other.  You cannot serve both God and Money.”  (Matthew 6:24).

This leads me to my 2 new favorite words that I read this weekend in a Max Lucado book called Facing Your Giants.

BUT GOD

No matter what it is that tempts us, scares us, pains us, derails us, or ails us. . .no matter why we want to give up or give in. . .and no matter how seemingly insurmountable the odds. . .

BUT GOD

There is nothing more to say, right?  And that’s not because our problems are small, it is because our God is huge!  For those of us who know the awesome power of Creator God, Savior God, Redeemer God, those two words stop whatever “what if,” “if only,” or “but” we can possibly say.  And so, to Jon & Kate, or to any of you out there that are suffering deeply in a marriage, with a physical ailment, or are in emotional turmoil, I think God is asking us to remember Him. . .His power, His omniscience, His omnipresence. . .because He “is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us” (Ephesians 3:20).  That is Truth.

I’m praying for Jon & Kate. . .and for the marriages all over the U.S. and world that are crumbling at the Enemy’s suggestion and to his great delight.

What Road Will We Choose?

We are at a crossroads.  We are standing at the intersection of two radically different ideologies and being pulled, pushed, coerced, and encouraged to go in one of these two directions (depending on where the pressure is coming from).  The question at hand is:  Will the traditional family survive or will it crumble?  What road will we choose?

Jimmy Evans, founder of Marriage Today, calls our attention to a Harvard sociologist named Carle Zimmerman in his article “The Harvard Prophecy.”  He says that Zimmerman

“published a report called The Family and Civilization.  In his report, he documented that major civilizations from long ago had begun and ended in almost identical ways related to the family and its relation to the social infrastructure.  He found that virtually every major civilization that arose–Assyrian, Babylonian, Sumerian, Greek, Roman, and Western–all began with a strong family unit resembling the biblical model.  He also found that the downfall of each society was directly associated with the breakdown of the traditional nuclear family unit.”

The definition of a traditional family (including traditional marriage) is under attack.  If you were to turn on nearly any news station, you would hear yet another culture-war over marriage and family at some point during the day.  Although, according to a recent Gallup poll, a majority of 57% of Americans still oppose gay marriage, that number has dropped significantly in the last decade.  What road will we choose?

At the risk of being unpopular as I speculate about this, when I first heard that President Obama was encouraging moms to go back to school, I thought this could potentially be yet another thing that drives apart traditional families.  And while I won’t ascribe any impure motives to President Obama, and while I certainly don’t discourage higher education for any man or woman in many circumstances, taking stay-at-home mothers away from their children by enticing them with financial help is, in my opinion, another defeat for the nuclear family.  What road will we choose?

This past  Mother’s Day, I learned about the objection that the United Nations has to our celebration on this day.  Their “Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination (CEDAW) basically has declared Mother’s Day to be sexist.  ”The Committee is concerned by the continuing prevalence of sex-role stereotypes and by the reintroduction of such symbols as a Mothers’ Day and Mothers’ Day Award, which it sees as encouraging women’s traditional roles.”  This is shocking to me!  But you may ask, “Why do we care what the U.N. does?”  Well, in most cases, I wish we didn’t but let me remind you about another issue involving the family that some in our government want the U.N. to dictate.   The U.N.C.R.C.  The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child essentially says that a U.N. Committee could determine how you parent your children, and it has grabbed the attention of the Obama Administration and Democrat-led Congress.  What road will we choose?

 “Out-of-Wedlock Birthrates are Soaring” says one news article, with “4 out of every 10 babies born in the United States in 2007″ being born to unmarried mothers. 

“Census: 6.4 Million Cohabitating Couples. . .” says another source, which equals 10% of all couples. 

“The Rise of Child Abuse as a Result of Abortion” by Randy Alcorn

“Is Marriage in Jeopardy” by Glenn T. Stanton

What road will we choose?

My concern is with the overall attitude towards and acceptance of these ideologies and lifestyles.  Little by little we are chipping away at traditional marriage and family.  Each day that we choose to turn our faces away from what is happening before our very eyes and stay ignorant or uninvolved is a day we might lose a foundational and transformational element of our society.

 

One Nation Under God

The Pledge of Allegiance. . .the Declaration of Independence. . .our Founding Fathers. . .God Bless America

These documents, people, and songs are a part of America’s history and heritage.  They have been the foundation of this country for centuries. . .and what’s more, God has been the foundation of this part of history.  There are some out there today that want to deny that fact, and although it is undeniable that God has been a large part of our past as a nation, there is a strong possibility that He will not be our nation’s future.  Are we sure we want that?  And are we ready for the fight that could ensue as well as the ramifications of denying God?  Our great country will go to “hell in a hand basket”.

The Lord says in Isaiah 65:1, “I’ve made myself available to those who haven’t bothered to ask.  I’m here, ready to be found by those who haven’t bothered to look.  I kept saying, ‘I’m here, I’m right here’ to a nation that ignored me.  I reached out day after day to a people who turned their backs on me, people who make wrong turns, who insist on doing things their own way.  They get on my nerves, are rude to my face day after day, make up their own kitchen religion, a potluck religious stew.  They spend the night in tombs to get messages from the dead, eat forbidden foods and drink a witch’s brew of potions and charms.  They say, ‘Keep your distance.  Don’t touch me.  I’m holier than thou.’”

Our self-centered culture, obsessed with New Age and Humanism, is stiff-arming God, essentially saying, “I don’t need God.  I rely on myself and myself alone.  I’m holy enough.”

Jeremiah 7:27  “Tell them, ‘You are the nation that wouldn’t obey God, that refused all discipline.  Truth has disappeared.  There’s not a trace of it left in your mouths.”

Truth is, in fact, disappearing.  It still exists, as surely as God exists, but it is being denied, refused, and squelched in society today.  Obedience and discipline are fading virtues as well.

Psalm 59:8  “But you, God, break out laughing; you treat the godless nations like jokes.”

Do we really want Almighty God laughing at us and treating us like jokes?!  Yet we continue to desire godlessness.

Galatians 6:7  “Do not be deceived.  God cannot be mocked.  A man reaps what he sows.”

We will sow what we reap. . .individually and as a nation.  That is enough to scare me.

Psalm 33:12 “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.”

Oh, how I long for the United States of America to be a nation whose focus is again on God our Lord!  How I long for a revival so powerful that God and God alone will be praised!

“If we ever forget that we’re One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under.”  Ronald Reagan

How true, and my fear is that we are headed there. . .and headed there fast under President Obama’s leadership, a liberal Congress, activist judges, and corrupt local governments.

Forgiveness & the Missing Ingredient

I recently finished a book that I thought was going to be a review of information that I had heard much of my life — things about forgiveness that we’ve heard many times before. . .how unforgiveness is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die. . .bitterness is like a corosive acid in the beautiful vase it is contained in. . .we must forgive others because God has forgiven us.  And yes, all of those are true, but after reading Nancy Leigh DeMoss’s book “Choosing Forgiveness,” I realized the ingredient that I had been missing all of these years.

Blessing.

If we have people in our life for whom we still feel those unsettling, unresolved emotions, then DeMoss says one of the reasons may be because “we haven’t yet moved on to more complete healing in these areas. . .we’ve stopped short of actually blessing those who have wronged us.”

It says in Romans 12, “If your enemy is hungry, feed him;  if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. . .Overcome evil with good” (vs. 20-21). 

DeMoss continues, “When that person hurt you–that mate, that boyfriend, that parent, that ex-spouse, that college roommate, that aunt or uncle, that stranger who came out of nowhere to mar your life–he revealed that he has a need.  A need he or she misappropriated at your expense. . .Ask God to show you the real need in your offender’s life. . .And see where God directs you to go next, until you actually begin finding joy–His joy–in blessing someone who’s treated you so badly.  In so doing, you will overcome evil with good.”

Wise counsel.  Not easy, especially when we have been hurt and feel that we have “rights,” but if it’s straight from the Word of God, it’s got to be right and effective.

Book Review: The Faith by Charles Colson

In a day when biblical Christianity is being watered down and morphed into a more tolerated version of itself (which I don’t tolerate well), it is imperative that true, born-again Christians come together and unify around the fundamentals of the faith. Beth Moore calls them the “backbone issues”. . .those issues that essentially define Christianity. . .as opposed to those issues that Christians can safely disagree on without damaging the faith.

Chuck Colson, esteemed and internationally known author, has written a book that is a must-read. It is called The Faith, and it clearly and compellingly takes the reader through “what Christians believe, why they believe it, and why it matters.” Colson is a master at weaving foundational biblical truth through the issues that face us as a society, and leaving us with practical and life-altering application.

Here are a few of his best statements and subjects:

Attacking Christianity – After giving us a brief run-down of 4 or 5 authors who have published and released books touting atheism, Colson points out that “according to the Wall Street Journal, these authors sold close to a million books in one twelve-month period alone.”  Colson says that “attacking God” has become quite “lucrative.” 

Textual Integrity — “The ancient manuscripts possess an astounding consistency and integrity.  Scholars have a wealth of documents to work from, far more than are available with ancient manuscripts that no one challenges.  For example, in the case of Aristotle, there are forty-nine ancient manuscripts, the oldest of which was copied 1,100 years after Aristotles’s death.  In the case of the Bible, there are 14,000 manuscripts of the Old Testament alone.  No other book even comes close.  The next closest is Homer’s Iliad with 600.  The devotion of Christians to their Scriptures ensured their transmission to future generations.”

He continues, “Why are the manuscript copies of Scripture so accurate?  Jewish tradition provides one answer.  According to Hebrew practice, only eyewitness testimony was accepted; and when copying documents, the Jews would copy one letter at a time–not word by word, not phrase by phrase, not sentence by sentence.”

Original Sin — “Our culture’s refusal to accept the truth of original sin has created a mentality of wholesale denial.  We find the judgment in the word ’sin’ a far greater offense than the failings to which it’s applied.”

Satan — “As we’ve seen, Satan practices his deception not only on individuals but on whole cultures.  He uses false religions and false ideas to ensnare cultures in evil.  If he can turn a whole people toward worshiping a false god, he can compromise millions of consciences at once.”

The Great Commission — “We have two divinely authorized commissions.  The first is well known, the Great Commission, to make disciples and baptize them (Matthew 28:19).  But the second is equally important.  It is to bring the righteousness of God to bear on all of life. . .to bring a redeeming influence into a fallen culture.  I call this the Cultural Commission.”

Unity and Reconciliation — “The modern apologist Francis Schaeffer wrote a booklet called The Mark of the Christian, describing the importance of our unity and love for one another.  Bitter division, Schaeffer wrote, gave the world the right to disbelieve the Gospel.  That is our scandal.”

The Church — “The Church is a reclamation project, reestablishing God’s rule in the midst of a world still mostly under Satan’s sway.

Holiness — ‘The hard truth is that too many see Christianity in terms of self-improvement or as a guide to successful living; the command to holiness, the impetus for such change, is too often ignored.”

Believing in Life’s Sanctity — “Conservative Christians are seen as concerned only with personal morality, issues related to the family and sexual practices, ignoring issues such as social justice, the welfare of the poor, and human rights.  And daily we hear the hue and cry about conservatives wanting to ‘impose’ their views on an unwilling society.  Interestingly, that fearsome phrase originated not in response to Robertson and Falwell but goes back to the 1860 political campaign when Lincoln’s opponents charged he was trying to ‘impose’ his will upon slave holders.  We can be grateful he did and freed the slave holders as well as the slaves from a morally corrupt and corrupting institution.

The simple fact is no one has the right in a free society to impose his will on anyone.  All any citizen can do is contend for his point of view in the democratic process.

So Christians do not impose; they propose a vision of a culture of life, to educate and persuade, as a marvelous Evangelicals and Catholics Together document on life puts it, so that through ‘deliberation and decision: we might realize the promise of a more just and humane society, committed in life and law to honor the inestimable dignity of every human body created in the image and likeness of God’

Why should we love our neighbor, sometimes sacrificially, if his life is not sacred?  No secular philosophy has ever answered this question satisfactorily.  The Christian commitment to the sanctity of life is the ground from which the Christian’s love for his neighbor and community springs. . .love for neighbor begins with respect for the neighbor’s right to life; that is, to exist.”

Bold Truth — “People may call you an absolutist and accuse you of being judgmental.  This fear of offending, I’m convinced, has caused many evangelicals to weaken their view of the Gospel.  It’s true many see it as politicized, which is sometimes legitimate, and absolutist, which is not true any more than any other truth-claim, such as the sun rises, is absolutist.  Some younger evangelicals and the emerging-church movement, when the shy away from truth claims, are reacting to stereotypes, and so rather than preaching or taking strong positions, they basically want to start a conversation, hoping somebody discovers Jesus.  But ever since the Gospel was first proclaimed, the Good News has had a specific content: Christ is risen!  A bold truth-claim if there ever was one.”

Science — “The belief of Christians in reason - the very meaning of Logos - also drove the scientific revolution.  In fact, science itself might never have been invented if not for Christianity’s belief that all the world could be explored for God’s glory, thus initiating the inductive methods essential to scientific advance.”

The West’s Success — “In Beijing, an American journalist recently encountered one of China’s foremost scholars, a man who had spent long years studying the West.  His colleagues and he had investigated the reasons for the West’s success and preeminence, examining our history, politics, economics, and culture.  Their first conclusion was the West’s success was due to its more advanced military; later they believed it might have been the political system; or perhaps the economic system.  But ‘in the past twenty years,’ one investigator said, ‘we have realized that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity.  That is why the West has been so powerful.  The Christian moral foundation of social and cultural life was what made possible the emergence of capitalism and then the successful transition to democratic politics.  We don’t have any doubt about this.’ “

Orthodox Faith and Changed Lives — “The orthodox faith is the one source that can renew Western culture.  Why?  Because the faith teaches how God can change humanity, and faithful Christians have demonstrated time and again this truth.  If I didn’t believe Jesus changed my life or could change the lives of others, I’d have gone back to the law long ago.”

This book was one of the best (if not the best) books on the Christian faith and its basic beliefs that I have ever read.  Check out The Faith by Charles Colson.

 

Get Ready for the Backlash

Sunday afternoon, George Tiller, the well-known late-term abortion doctor, was gunned down in Wichita, Kansas. As a pro-life advocate who has, from a very early age, stood up for the rights of the unborn in the public arena, I would like to personally condemn this act of murder. The truth in the Word of God is this: “Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge, I will repay,’” says the Lord (Romans 12:19).

You will read and hear many “pro-choice” talking points in the next day or two. You will watch as the left-leaning media paints all pro-life advocates with a very broad brush–a brush that is now defined by this one man (Scott Roeder) who took the law into his own hands and committed an act of violence that 99.99% of pro-life proponents will also condemn. You will hear statistics such as how there have been 17 attempted murders on abortion providers since 1977 and 7 murders in that same time.  Although those 7 lives that were lost were precious to God, let me draw attention to the number of babies murdered in roughly that same amount of time:  49, 915,603.  So as you listen to bloggers (I’ve already read some), media reports (read those too), and talking heads on the news, keep this in perspective.  Yes, we adamantly distance ourselves from taking the life of any abortion provider, no matter how heinous his practices, but we also cannot shy away from the good fight of protecting those innocent babies from their own untimely death.  Let’s resolve to continue the work, but in a respectable, legal, and non-violent way.