He's Never Letting Go

Good morning! Today's passage of focus is Psalm 73:23-26:

Yet I am always with you;

you hold my right hand.

You guide me with your counsel,

and afterward you will take me up in glory. 

Who do I have in heaven but you?

And I desire nothing on earth but you.

My flesh and my heart may fail,

but God is the strength of my heart,

my portion forever.

Let's be real: I'm a moron. I do some really stupid stuff. Sometimes I forget to turn the burner off of the stove. Sometimes I fall asleep in my contacts. Sometimes I forget an assignment for school. Sometimes I forget to feed my cat in the morning. Sometimes I just do stupid things. Maybe you're a moron that does stupid things too. Maybe I'm the only one. I'll let the reader decide that on their own. 

Even more, I'm a sinner: a rebel against a holy God. Nothing is stupider than that. Asaph, the original poet behind this psalm, goes so far as to call himself a "brute" in reference to his own sinful nature, and I can't disagree from my own angle. I'm an oft-wayward son to my always-faithful Father God. 

And yet... I remain with God. He never lets me go, no matter what.

Does He remain, no matter how stupid I am? Yes, no matter what!

Does He always hold my right hand, guiding me like a dad helping a small child across the street? Yes, no matter what!

Does He always counsel and guide me, no matter how many times I have failed to listen before? Yes, no matter what!

And after it's all said and done, at the end of my life, will He bring me into glory with Him as my strength and portion forever? Oh yes, He will. No matter what. 

This is a truth I need daily reminders of. This is why we must dive into His Word and read the Bible: it rejuvenates our very life. I need to hear it, read it, study it, learn it, pursue it--all to remind myself anew amidst the chaos and temptations and hardships and struggles of each new day that the good news of Jesus and His faithfulness will see me through. 

We remain with God. He will never let us go.

Yes, no matter what.

The Contrast of Sinfulness and Holiness

Today's passage is Romans 3:5-6. which says:

But if our unrighteousness highlights God’s righteousness, what are we to say? I am using a human argument: Is God unrighteous to inflict wrath? Absolutely not! Otherwise, how will God judge the world?

I have a cat named Casey, and she is adorable. I love this kitty dearly; I play with her, I start my day with feeding her and petting her, yada yada yada. But there is one time when I avoid her with all of my being: when I am dressed in a pair of black dress pants, headed to somewhere important. 

Without fail, every time I put a pair of black pants on, Casey will find me and start rubbing against the legs of the pants. She may have wanted nothing to do with me just moments before, but now, there are black pants to rub on. If you have a cat, you know where this is headed. If you don't, I have one word for you: fur. 

Cat hair stands out on a pair of black pants brighter than a full moon on a clear night. You can't miss it. Thus, I so try to stay away from my cat when I am dressed up because I don't want to end up with hair all over my pants, which is embarrassing if it goes unnoticed (so I hear).

Here's the deal: like cat hair on a pair of black slacks, our unrighteousness (our sinful hearts, our rebellion against God, etc.) actively highlights our God's righteousness. Our sinful actions show just how holy He is in comparison. Truly, we all deserve wrath and judgment, and there is no hiding it. It can't be missed when put in contrast with the Lord's holiness. 

This is why we daily need to preach the gospel to ourselves. It's not because as a believer we are likely to fall into judgment--we cannot. Christ already paid for that on the cross, securing life eternal for all who trust in Him as Lord and Savior.

However, there are others all around us that are in danger of the coming judgment. They have not put their faith in Jesus, and are sitting in their sinfulness, ready to accept God's righteous wrath if they do not repent. And that's something that should burden believers.

We are called, as the people of God and followers of Jesus, to love our neighbor as ourselves. Just as we love ourselves enough to repent of the sinfulness in our lives (I hope), we must love others well enough to want them to do the same. We must warn a sinful world that a holy God is bringing righteous and deserved wrath upon them, judging them for their blatant sinfulness. 

Lord, work the beauty of the gospel into us today. Show us our need to preach, proclaim, exclaim, and shout the good news of salvation in Jesus as Lord and Savior. Give us a bigger heart for the lost, and a greater love for others--like your love for them. 

Endings (Part 1): Exchanged

As those close to me should know by now, I have recently resigned from my position at Victory Baptist Church in Lexington, Kentucky. This post is not about that. Rather, this post is about what I want my legacy to be at VBC (or really, anywhere else that I ever teach and minister).

I am teaching through a series called "Endings" with the students over my last weeks with them. These six messages will attempt to drive home the six main things I have tried to teach them over the past fifteen months that I have spent as their student minister, and would be the six things that I would focus on more than anything if I were to remain there indefinitely. Thus, I will teach six statements that sum up everything I am about. This blog series will communicate that to whomever else would like to know my heart.

Here's the first statement: We were sinners before God, and now all He sees is Jesus.

That, my friends, is the gospel. That's the Christian's "good news." We were sinners before God, and now all God sees when He looks upon us is Jesus and His perfection. Where am I getting this?

He made the One who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. -2 Corinthians 5:21 (HCSB)

There's a few things of note in this verse that should rock your world.

1. He had no sin. The "One" with no sin was Jesus. He was without any blame or flaw (1 Peter 2:22), despite the fact that He was tempted in every way, just like us (Hebrews 4:15). It wasn't like the devil left Jesus alone on this Earth. Rather, he came hard at our Lord, and He maintained His holiness, innocence, and purity. He was separate from sin and exalted above all (Hebrews 7:26).

2. God made Him a sin offering. So, why does it matter whether Jesus was without sin? Who cares? Is there any reason for why He had to remain perfect and pure? Yes, as it turns out.

If one were to read the account of the first Passover (Exodus 11-12), they would see that in order for the wrath of God to be satisfied, a pure, unblemished male animal had to be sacrificed (Exodus 12:5). This would begin a long line of sacrifices that God would require of the Israelites--all involving lots of blood and killing and death of pure animals. Why was all of this necessary? As we can see in Leviticus 17:11, it is in blood that a creature's life resides, and it is by the shedding of blood that God allowed for atonement (the payment of sins) to occur. So animal after animal after animal was killed under the Old Testament law, and that was how sins were atoned for. However, God was merely foreshadowing to a greater Sacrificial Lamb.

Jesus became the Great Passover Lamb, dying upon the cross and spilling His blood for our sake. He became the ultimate sin offering, and took the wrath of God upon Himself on behalf of sinful men. Do you realize the weight of that? Jesus took the blow for our sin when He had none. He was all of those things that 1 Peter and Hebrews stated above, and yet He also, as 1 Peter continues to point out, was the sacrifice for our sins (1 Peter 2:24). He bore our sin upon the cross. Fair? No. But it was for a purpose.

3. We become the righteousness of God. This is the great exchange; this is the great news of Christianity! We were hopelessly sinful, and yet, He became sin on our behalf so that we may live in His righteousness. He essentially traded our sinfulness for His righteousness. He gave us His peanut butter and jelly for our rotten apple at the great lunchtable of life.

Take some time and look up these verses in Romans: 1:17, 2:13, 3:21, 3:24. They show our hopelessness that became the ultimate hope by receiving the righteousness of Christ. We gained His relationship with and standing before God the Father. That's ours. In fact, our relationship with God is so great that He made us His ambassadors (2 Corinthians 5:20). Doesn't that seem reckless on His part?

It should. However, this is how we must trust the righteousness that has been imputed to (put on) us. That is how we must see ourselves: as holy before God. He knows we still sin. I'll talk about that in another post. However, when it comes to our relationship and standing before Him, He sees Jesus and His sinless perfection. We cannot be removed from Him. We cannot be too sinful to read our Bible or pray. We cannot undo what Christ did. We cannot lose Him as our Father. We cannot expel the Spirit from our hearts when we mess up. We're as secure in our relationship with our God as Jesus is with the Father. That's some Trinitarian-tight bonds right there, and I am beyond thankful that I find myself amongst such a Trio. May we never doubt our relationship with our God and think we can undo the work of His offering!

Since I've Been Gone

Hello there. Long time, no see. I will say, it feels weird to sit down and write on this blog. I haven't seen the familiar orange-and-gray color scheme of the Blogger homepage in quite some time. In fact, I haven't seen my blog much at all in quite some time. I periodically would check in to see if anyone had commented or anything, but overall, I truly left this thing for awhile. I needed to get away. I needed to spend sometime writing, just me and God.

Since then, I have come into a new place. A lot has happened, that's for sure. My, has my life been nuts since May. It wasn't long after my last post that my mom went in for a routine scan (to see if her cancer was back) and found a mass in her lung. About a month and a half later, a surgical procedure found that her soft-tissue sarcoma had returned. She originally had it in her left arm before this find, and went through both chemotherapy and radiation to rid her body of the disease. She was "cancer-free" for about a year-and-a-half, and then the cancer metastasized in her lung. No bueno, that's for sure.

She had the mass removed, but more returned quickly. The cancer was more aggressive and in a more dangerous spot this time, and had to be handled as such. Mom began working with the University of Texas's MD Anderson Cancer Center, which has a large number of doctors devoted to this particular form of cancer (and about every other kind, for that matter). MD Anderson is one of the very best cancer centers in the world, and they have been more than helpful in working to cure my mom.

She is rapidly approaching her final of six rounds of chemotherapy, in which she was forced to stay in the hospital for a week at a time, letting literal poison to drip into her circulatory system. It has been both a blessing and curse, seeing her receive treatment that could save her life, and yet was also making her sicker. While the first bout was difficult, this second bout has been all the more.

While this was all going on, my college ministry at the University of Kentucky (where I still attend) has been continuing our purpose of glorifying God by making disciples of our generation through prayer, relationships and studying God's Word. EPIC Ministry launched a website, made some contacts and gained some members on UK's campus, held an outdoor worship concert and even went through a study on our basic beliefs and values. We even expanded our meetings, going from a small-group Bible study to a weekly gathering with teaching and discussion times. We then brought back the small-group-only format on Sunday mornings, allowing us to spend more time together as a community in the Word and in prayer.

One of my mentors, Wayne Lipscomb, has continued to battle ALS, or Lou Gehrig's Disease. I have watched and followed as this strong man has tried to defeat this neurological monster. He has continued to work at his church, and still preaches regularly, despite being weaker than he once was.

My sister got married not long after I went on my blogging hiatus. She married her longtime friend, Trent, and they had a gorgeous wedding at their church in Louisiana. Not long ago, Trent and Brittany announced that they will be having a baby in the spring. I've already become a brother-in-law, and now it appears I will be an uncle. Weird.

I was blessed to be able to preach on several occasions over the past few months, ranging from churches in South Louisiana to Frankfort, Kentucky, and twice in my home church of Victory Baptist Church, here in Lexington, Kentucky. Each time, I am more and more affirmed in my calling that I am a preacher. That is what God put me on this Earth to do. There is nothing in my life that I receive such satisfaction from doing, and there is nothing I strive for more than to help someone in their understanding of God and His Word. I know I was questioning that when we were last together, and God resolved that internal conflict. He made Bryan Watts for one thing, and that was to preach His Word and His Name to the nations. I am a preacher at heart, and now know that I am, without a shadow of a doubt, been made to do so.

So, what have I learned through all of this? What have I learned as I left on a little time of Christ-reflecting and such? Did I "find myself," or something like that? Here's a brief touch of what I have learned:

1. I'm still learning
• You are crazy if you think that I disappeared for a while and have come back with all the answers. That doesn't happen. We are not able to "find ourselves," because our identity is not in ourselves. If you are a human, and I bet you are, then you were not made for this world. Doesn't it seem like we're always messed up or in the wrong spot? Guess what: it's because we are. We're made for so much more than the petty crap we fill our lives with. I am not made for Kroger and UK and writing and girls and friendships and NASCAR and all the other things I fill my life with. I am made for one purpose: to worship God. I am designed specifically to be a worshiper, an image-bearer of the Lord God who reigns over all. By saving me, He took it another step further by making my heart new and allowing my to come to Him. My identity and my heart are not made of myself; I cannot craft a true identity for myself. I am in Christ, and He is in me. I am His and He is mine. My identity is found solely in Him, and I must continue to realize that as time goes. If you are interested in getting a head start in finding your identity in Christ, rather than yourself, then check out the Identity in Christ reading plan by Mars Hill Church on YouVersion. It's worth a month of your time. 
2. Life is fleeting
• I have written on this in the past, but has become more and more clear to me that our lives are not but a blip on the radar of time. We have such a minuscule, yet useful, span of time here on earth to accomplish what we are set here to do. James 4:14 says that our lives are but a mist, a vapor, wisp of smoke, and that we are not to be presumptuous about tomorrow. Instead, we live for today. When Christ talks about what we treasure in Matthew 6, He goes on to say that would should not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Instead, we seek the Kingdom. We push forward from where we are now, thanking God for the position He has put us in today and living for Him in that position. It isn't unwise to make plans, but it is certainly unwise to make plans without keeping in mind that He determines what we do and could change our little plans at any given moment. Therefore, we prepare for the future, sure, but our primary focus is on what we can do for the Kingdom today. 
3. Prayer is essential
• Oh, how I have seen prayer work in the past few months! I have seen prayer sustain my mother, give my family peace, bring people to hear the Gospel when I would never expect them to listen, help me with temptations, give me direction in my life, affirm my calling and bring me closer to God. Prayer is our lifeline to God, and we must make it a priority. If you are a Christian, you must pray regularly. Nothing is more refreshing to your soul than time spent with God. I am growing in this discipline, and I encourage you to come with me on it. Let's commune with our Lord. 
4. God has got you
• No matter what, if you are in Christ, you are saved. There is no un-saving you. God is not going to toss you out to the cold and forget about you. We are held in His hand, and in Philippians 1, Paul writes that he is confident that God will finish a work in the Philippian believers. Why was he confident that God wouldn't bail on them? They were partakers of grace, and by definition, God's grace cannot have anything to do with what we do. If you are a partaker of grace, then you have God's grace. Good or bad, you're under grace. Therefore, there's nothing you can do to be unsaved! God's got you! That frees us to live for the Kingdom, because we have to pressure to make sure we're still under grace! We can't fall out, so go for it!
5. Our discussions must be intentional
• I have a friend of whom I had the privilege of spending multiple extended coffee times together with over the past few months, and she taught me one thing in particular: our conversations must revolve around Christ. How often can we get distracted in talking to our Christian friends with talk of sports, fashion, music and other odds and ends? How much easier is it to gloss over the impact of Christ in our lives when speaking to our unsaved friends? This cannot be! We must discuss Christ constantly: for encouragement and rebuke among believers and for repentance and salvation among the unbelieving. Our lives on this earth, as well as our unbelieving friends lives forever, depend upon our discussing Christ on the regular. Have we really given up our lives for Him or not?

These are just a few of the lessons I have learned in my time away.  I have learned many more, but these are just the beginning. I'm glad to be back, and I'm ready to write again. Let's do this.

The Protestant Work Ethic and You

"Slaves, obey your human masters with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of your heart, as to Christ. Don’t work only while being watched, in order to please men, but as slaves of Christ, do God’s will from your heart. Serve with a good attitude, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that whatever good each one does, slave or free, he will receive this back from the Lord." -Ephesians 6:5-8, HCSB

I have issues with authority. Anyone who knows me will tell you that while I generally do as I have to, it isn't always with a good attitude or in the exact manner that my superior wanted it done. I am independent, stubborn and tend to think that I know the right way to do things. I find trivial tasks stupid, and dislike being put in a box, given parameters in which I must accomplish my goal. In a sentence, I like to be my own boss.

Yet, I am not. I have a job at Kroger, a grocery store chain in the United States. I am often responsible to do certain tasks, and do them with a smile. Yet, menial tasks (which are common in a grocery store) irritate me. I don't like to do them, and if I have to do them, it will be in my own way or I will dislike that. I'm guessing many of you probably feel the same way in your jobs-- you do you job because you have to, but it isn't because you want to.

This is not how Paul says one should work in Ephesians. The context is that of a slave and a master, but if a slave should reflect this attitude, how much more should a paid employee?! Colossians 3:17 talks of doing everything as if for Christ, which is almost the same message here: we work as if for Christ Himself. Think about your job: if we did our jobs for Christ, what would that look like? If Christ wanted me to clean the floors, how would I clean the floors? How would I cashier or push carts or stock milk? I'd wager my work ethic would look much different.

There's an old phrase called the "Protestant work ethic." This concept probably came from people living out this passage. They served with a good attitude. They didn't work only when watched, but even harder when not watched. They did everything out of an overflow of their heart, a heart that loved Christ and wished to do the will of God.

We must bring this back. We must, as representatives of Christ in this world, show His heart in the workplace. We must work with a good attitude. There is no qualifier; we don't do this "if our boss doesn't suck." No, we do this as evidence of the new heart Christ has given us. Let us show this! Let us prove our remade selves in the workplace!

The End is Coming

"While He was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples approached Him privately and said, 'Tell us, when will these things happen? And what is the sign of Your coming and of the end of the age?'

Then Jesus replied to them: 'Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and they will deceive many. You are going to hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, because these things must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines [and epidemics] and earthquakes in various places. All these events are the beginning of birth pains." -Matthew 24:3-8, HCSB

Headlines on CNN, from the moment I am writing this post, include:

 

Nation mourns Boston bomb

 

Explosion hits fertilizer plant north of Waco, Texas

 

U.S. intel works on new N. Korea nuke assignment

 

Casualties mount in Pakistan quake

 

China bird flu count rises to 83

In the context of that passage I started with, these headlines should get our attention. Wars? Um, dozens were just killed in an Iraq bombing today. Syria is still wracked with civil war. Israel and Palestine are fighting, as usual. Rumors of war? The US and North Korea are currently looking to negotiate some peace, as escalating threats from both sides over the past month have threatened the safety of citizens in both nations, as well as anyone near them. Iran is constantly releasing threats of war.

China and the United States, the two biggest "kingdoms" on the geopolitical map as of today, are not the best of friends. A war with Chinese neighbor North Korea could be all it takes for these two "kingdoms" to rise up against each other.

Famines? Ever seen a picture of Somalia, or Sudan, or North Korea? People in these countries are starving. Literally. 

How about epidemics? Bird flu is slowly spreading in southeast Asia. Tuberculosis has developed incredible resistance to antibiotics in parts of Russia and Peru, among other places. Other killers, such as malaria, HIV/AIDS and cholera, are claiming lives daily.

Earthquakes? Pakistan has 35 dead from a quake a few days ago, with several more in Iran dead from the same quake. Need I even mention the Japanese or Sri Lankan tsunamis, or the Haitian quake a few years back?

The fact is that these things are coming true, and have been for quite some time now. These are, as Jesus says, the "beginnings of birth pains." Creation is groaning for the return of Christ (Romans 8:22), waiting for all to be made right again. If you read further in Matthew 24, you'll see that persecutions will come for those in Christ. Guess what: that's happening all over the world, and will only get worse. Just look at the United States over the past few years: the Christian faith has gone from a primary belief in this nation to a source of jokes and outrage. We are marginalized, mocked and ignored. Christians in Western culture are deemed ignorant and stupid. Things are not getting better; Jesus said so Himself.

We must not be surprised that this world kind of sucks. We should not be surprised about the death and dying that is going down, and we should not be surprised by the escalating hostility to the Way. We should expect it, and be watching for the return of our Savior. Let us groan alongside Creation, as our Lord is coming to make all things new. Oh, Lord Jesus, come quickly!

Jesus Believed in Hell

"And if your eye causes your downfall, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye, rather than to have two eyes and be thrown into hellfire!" -Matthew 18:9, HCSB

I chose the picture above for a reason. So often, when people think about Jesus, they picture happy Jesus. Soft Jesus. Lovey-dovey, gentle Jesus. And He certainly is loving and happy and gentle, do not hear me wrong. I'm simply stating that He wasn't like that at all times.

A common claim against Christians who are "hardcore" or "fire and brimstone" is that they are not loving. If you preach a gospel that includes a literal Hell for the person outside of Christ, you will be considered unloving by many. After all, it isn't loving to tell people they are headed to Hell, right?

Jesus did. In fact, Jesus spoke of Hell more than any other person in the New Testament. Not that He wanted people to go to Hell; Matthew 18:14 clearly states that God does not want any to enter Hell's gates. Instead, Jesus preached a literal Hell because He actually believed in it.

Jesus actually believed that if someone were to sin and never repent, that person would be in Hell upon death. He believed in a literal, fire and brimstone Hell. This belief, this knowledge of the very real punishment of sins, is something that propelled Him to preach repentance of sins and salvation in Himself. This compelled Him to look upon crowds with compassion, knowing their status before God and thus their eternal fate if nothing changes.

And we don't ever mention Hell.

We have become so afraid of talking about the punishment of sins that we won't hardly mention the fires of Hell. We don't want to seem mean or old-fashioned or weird, so we just leave that part off. We don't ever discuss the extent of punishment for sins, that Hell is a place of eternal darkness and flames (not sure how that works, but it sounds horrifying), a place of gnashing of teeth. Sometimes, people will make Hell into a place of temporary punishment, like time-out for a toddler.

We've lost our belief in Hell. If we actually believed in this Hell, a literal place of eternal suffering and punishment, then we would do something with that belief. We would not sit by, afraid to saying something to the person outside of Christ. We would preach the gospel to all we could, fueled by the desire to see people escape the punishment.

Our indifference towards Hell and those headed there is at best unloving and lazy, and more likely hateful and damning. We quite literally hold the gospel of Christ in our hands, the way out of eternal punishment, and we never preach it. Our silence will be paid for by our friends for eternity, as they cry out our names, wondering why we didn't care enough to share the gospel with them.

Jesus believed in Hell, and did something about it. Do we?

They Can Only Kill You

"Don’t fear those who kill the body but are not able to kill the soul; rather, fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." -Matthew 10:28, HCSB

Jesus didn't play games. This passage comes from a speech Jesus gave to His disciples as He commissioned them as apostles, as kind of a "hey, this is going to be your life" type of deal. As part of that speech, he starts talking about how people will want to kill them for following Him. They will be hated, mocked and eventually, possibly killed. No big deal.

Then He says "oh, by the way, the people that want to kill you ain't got a thing on God, who can destroy your soul and body forever." Um, intense.

Guess what, yo: this applies to people these days, too. There are brothers and sisters in South America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East dying on a daily basis, all for the Name of Christ. There are siblings murdered, daughters disowned, wives stoned and husbands abandoned for following Jesus. Churches in Nigeria are regularly burned and bombed, and pastors have been skinned in India. Many nations have banned the Word of God, the sharing of one's faith,

And we fret about being made fun of because we are a virgin or don't drink. Ha.

We have to keep this Christian walk in perspective, Western Church. There very well may be someone that reads this in a country where persecution is intense. I regularly have page views on this blog from China, India and parts of the Middle East. These brothers and sisters are being bold in their faith because it doesn't make sense to claim Christ in a lukewarm fashion. Christ equals punishment and death in some places in this world. Making disciples of all nations is not a program or good idea; it is either a command of Christ worth dying for, or a cue to abandon the faith in favor of living.

These are the costs of following Christ in other places, and it isn't getting better here. I hate to be a Johnny Raincloud, but America and the West isn't getting friendlier to the Way. Christ followers are not being welcomed in a greater fashion; we're being hated more and more. We ain't headed for a bright future; Europe has already worked hard at abandoning Christ and the United States is following their cues.

Following Christ in Western culture will continue to be harder as time continues one. Are we willing to take the heat for His Name? Others already are literally dying for His gospel; would we be willing to do the same?

Persecutors on earth have nothing on God, though. I mean, the worst thing that could happen is another human can kill you. God can destroy your body and soul. You tell me: which side is scarier?

We must all decide, at some point in our lives: are we going to fear people on earth, whether they kill us or simply make fun, or will we fear God, who will judge the entire universe. Let's think about this, and live out what should be the natural result of this truth.

Fearing God

"The fear of the Lord
is the beginning of knowledge."

-Proverbs 1:7, HCSB

This idea of "fearing God" is something I have just recently started pondering on. It is a foreign, understudied concept for many of us. I mean, doesn't Jesus want to be our Friend and Father? Why does the Bible encourage fear of God?

It all lies in our definition of fear. When Scripture talks about fearing God, there is more to it than the quaking, trembling sensation that we feel when a wolf is bearing down on us (what, that's never happened to you?). Instead, it is a far larger concept.

Robert Strimple described it as a "convergence of awe, reverence, adoration, honor, worship, confidence, thankfulness, love, and, yes, fear." C.S. Lewis described a person who fears the Lord like this: "...one filled with awe, in which you feel wonder and a certain shrinking or a sense of inadequacy to cope with such a visitant of or prostration before it."

I have been reading R.C. Sproul's book The Holiness of God, and a large focus of this book is the fear of God. You see, God is holy, and holy is a big descriptor. Holy means more than just pure, although that is certainly part of it. Holy literally means "separate." God is separate from everything and everyone else. There is nothing like Him or even close to being Him. He is completely separate and set aside from the world, so there is no sin in Him. He is an entity that we cannot even fathom, and even to say this has really been a bit of a struggle for me. God's holiness isn't just hard to define, though; it is even harder to approach.

In Isaiah 6, we see the prophet Isaiah before the throne of the Lord. The angels and other beings are flying all about, praising God and His holiness. God is in His full glory, beaming in holiness on His throne. Isaiah, the prophet of God, responds to this immersion in holiness by dropping to the ground in worship, and yes, fear of the Lord.

Isaiah, when confronted by the holiness of God, didn't have any other response other than "woe is me!" He was overcome with everything Robert Strimple mentioned in his definition of fearing God: he was filled with awe, reverence, honor, fear and worship to start, and once he realized that God wasn't going to smite him on sight for his sin, he experienced adoration, confidence, thankfulness and love. Isaiah feared the Lord.

I've gone through all of this to get back to my focus verse for today, Proverbs 1:7. This verse is considered the theme verse for the book of Proverbs, and it is huge. If fearing God is the beginning of knowledge, then we need to fear God. We need Isaiah's approach to God. We need to look at God with awe, worship, adoration, confidence, love, honor, thankfulness and even an element of fear. He may be our Father and Friend, but He is also our Creator God.

Sovereign Lord.

King of Kings.

Ruler of Everything.

Punisher of Sin.

Holy, righteous, pure.

This is the God we serve, this is the God that has saved us from our sins. Let's look at Him through the lens of all that He is, not just a portion of it. He's a holy God; let's live lives that reflect a fear of the Lord. He commands no other response.

Our Silence Makes No Sense

"Then He touched their eyes, saying, 'Let it be done for you according to your faith!' And their eyes were opened. Then Jesus warned them sternly, 'Be sure that no one finds out!' But they went out and spread the news about Him throughout that whole area." -Matthew 9:29-31, HCSB

So, one day Jesus was walking around when a pair of blind guys walk up to Him, wanting to be healed. They had heard, no doubt, of His healing abilities. Perhaps they even heard that He had healed other blind people. Regardless, they walked up behind Him and yelled for Jesus to have mercy on them.

His response? "Do you believe that I can do this?"

Their answer: "yes."

A repeating theme in the Gospels is faith. Almost anytime that Jesus healed someone, it was a result of their having faith in Him to do what they believed He could do. And really, the same should be true for Christians.

We were once blind when Jesus, by grace through faith, opened our eyes to Him and our salvation in Him. When we are awakened from our sin-induced death and brought into the new birth in Christ, we are healed by Him, like the blind men here, "according to our faith." With that, our eyes are opened.

 For both us and the blind men, Jesus made a command and that command was/is disobeyed. And that's when the similarities disappear.

In the case of the blind men, Jesus told them not tell anyone of what He had done for them, as the time had not come for His awesomeness to be revealed. Yet, overcome with gratefulness and excitement, these men could not keep the news of their Healer to themselves. They felt an overpowering compulsion to share about Jesus with everyone that they came in contact with.

Inversely, Jesus has commanded us to "go, therefore, and make disciples," telling them all about Him and what He has done for us. Yet, we respond in the exact opposite fashion of the blind men. We hold in the news of Christ to ourselves.

Imagine if the blind men were healed, and then ran to an entire group of blind men and women. Upon their arrival at the group, they then proceed to act as though they are blind and refrain from telling anyone how they gained their sight. They have the same mannerisms, actions, words and everything that they had when they were blind. It wouldn't make sense!

And yet, this is us. We are healed of our spiritual blindness, and yet continue on in our lives as though we are still blind, keeping the news of our healing to ourselves.

It must not be this way. We must run to any and all the people that we know, proclaiming the name of Jesus! He has healed us; are we not filled with joy at this truth?! Are we content with our healing so much so that we ignore the blindness of others?!

We have had our eyes opened. It is now our job to do the same with our mouths.

Better Than A Pharisee?

"For I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." -Matthew 5:20, HCSB

Yesterday I was in a discussion with a friend of mine about her weekend. She told me about how busy her weekend was, primarily because of church. Intrigued, I asked how it was that church had made her weekend so busy.

She went on to tell me how she was Catholic, and due to several factors she couldn't control, was late to mass on Saturday night. She told me that mass lasts for one hour, and after she missed the first thirty minutes, she felt like her attendance in mass "didn't count." Thus, she went again on Easter morning, to make sure that she was in a full mass service this weekend.

Now, I am not one to bash Catholics, but this conversation really got me thinking about one aspect of Catholicism that many Protestants deal with, as well: can we earn any good standing before God? This ranges from full-on works-based salvation to just improving how God sees us, based upon our actions. Is there any way to improve our standing before God on our own? Does God have a scoreboard, keeping track of our good deeds? Do we have to gauge whether or not our deeds count?

The answer is no. There is nothing we personally can do to improve our standing before God. We are all sinners, and according to the book of Isaiah, even our good deeds are merely dirty rags in the eyes of God (if you want Isaiah's version, look up the real meaning of Isaiah 64:6).

In the passage I included at the top of this post, Jesus is describing how He fulfills the law of the Old Testament. He describes how He is not the destroyer, but rather the completer of these writings, and how one must be more righteous than the Pharisees to get into heaven.

Now, let's review: the Pharisees were the group of people in New Testament Judea that held to God's law the closest. No one had all of the sacrifices and such down like these people. They gave, fasted and prayed according to the law. They practically lived in the temple.

And Jesus says we must be more righteous than that to enter heaven.

Can you see our dilemma? I don't know how righteous you think you are, but I know I have nothing on the Pharisees. When you've memorized the first five books of the Old Testament AND follow them to a T, lemme know. Until then, we're gunna operate under the assumption that the Pharisees have us beat on the righteousness scale. That is the level we must surpass to get to heaven. Seems impossible, right?

That, my friends, is Jesus' point. He knows that no one follows the law better than them. Jesus knew when He made that statement that all fall short of that level, much less surpass it. Thus, we must conclude that since no one is at a heaven-worthy level (not even the Pharisees are righteous enough), no one can get to heaven based upon their deeds. No one.

"...for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." -Romans 3:23, HCSB

Jesus was preaching Romans before it was written. There isn't a person on Earth that can improve their standing before God with deeds, since we can't get to a level to save ourselves, and even our good deeds are dirty rags to God. This is why we depend upon Jesus alone for our salvation! He alone could be the one righteous enough to earn God's favor, since He was not polluted by sin. He alone could be the spotless Lamb, slaughtered for the salvation of the people of God. He alone could earn our salvation.

"For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift—  not from works..." -Ephesians 2:8-9a, HCSB

We're saved by grace, not works. We have nothing to bring to God, but praise be to Jesus that He brings it all for us! We may rest in Him, knowing that He is the one responsible for our good standing before God, washed white with His blood before the throne of God!

In Christ alone, my hope is found.

He is my light, my strength, my song!

Why is Good Friday Good?

"It is finished!" -John 19:30, HCSB

It is finished. Que se termine. 它完成. она будет закончена. Il est fini. Consummatum est. それが完了しました. يتم الانتهاء من ذلك. 그것은 완료. Está consumado.

One could say that these may be the most important words in the entire Bible. Out of everything that Jesus said in His ministry, these three words may just be the most impactful, the most loaded, the most beautiful words that came out of His mouth. This is the climax, the highest point, in the entire plot and story of the Bible.

As He hung on the cross, He was not only experiencing the physical side of the crucifixion. Yes, He was in physical pain, but the spiritual pain was much worse. As hung on the cross, He took the burden of the wrath of God on Himself.

I once heard Jesus' taking God's wrath like this explained like this: imagine that we are in a canyon. A small river is trickling through, the product of a dam upstream. That dam is holding back a massive river that would flood the canyon if the dam broke. Needless to say, we don't want to be here when it breaks. Regardless, we throw rocks at it. I mean, it's a huge dam. How could it break?

One rock we threw hit another rock in the wall of the canyon, which in turn caused a group of larger rocks to become unlodged and fall into the dam.

 A crack runs up the middle, splintering across the facade of the dam. Time has worn the dam thin, and it is breaking. Suddenly, the river behind blasts through the cracked dam. The pressure was too much, and the river busts through.

We have since walked a little way downstream from the dam. We hear a loud noise, and turn to see a wall of water headed toward us. This deadly, overwhelming flood will destroy us, and it is our fault that the flood is headed for us.

We start to run, but there really is only time to turn away from the water when we hear a massive roar. Afraid to turn, we run a bit, but then realize that we are not dead yet. We turn around and see that there is no more wall of water.

Instead, a massive hole has opened up in the ground, creating a waterfall. The ground took the death from us and absorbed it all.

This is our story. God's wrath was bearing down on us, punishment due us because of our provocation and rebellion toward Him. Yet, instead of the death we deserved, Jesus took the punishment. He took the full wrath of God: not just my punishment, but also the punishment for you, our families, our friends, the guy across the table from me at the library...everyone. He took it all. Sin and death were defeated forever, all because Christ took the punishment for them away from His people.

If you have believed in Christ and confessed in Him as Lord and Savior, it is finished. There is no more punishment due to you, and there is no more power that sin can hold over you. Jesus took care of that. It's over, it's through, it is finished.

If you have never put your faith in Him, do so today. Feel free to trust in Him as Savior. None of us deserved for Him to die, but out of grace, mercy and love, He did it anyways. He took the punishment. Now it is up to you to accept Him as Lord and Savior and follow Him.

They call today Good Friday, the day that Christ died. But why is today good? Because it is finished.

Two Criminals and Red Pictures

 

"Then one of the criminals hanging there began to yell insults at Him: 'Aren’t You the Messiah? Save Yourself and us!'

But the other answered, rebuking him: 'Don’t you even fear God, since you are undergoing the same punishment? We are punished justly, because we’re getting back what we deserve for the things we did, but this man has done nothing wrong.' Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when You come into Your kingdom!'
 
And He said to him, “I assure you: Today you will be with Me in paradise.'” -Luke 23:39-43, HCSB

Yesterday, we discussed the critics of Jesus that were underneath Him, laughing at Him and His position. Today, we look at the stance of two people, both condemned to death.

There were three crosses standing at Golgotha on Good Friday. One, the one in the middle, held Jesus. However, the two men flanking Him to His right and left were merely common criminals.

One guy (who I will call Rafael) was also mocking Jesus, questioning His power, but also calling on Him to save him from His predicament. Rafael almost seems to buy into the truth about Jesus, yet won't totally believe in Him until Jesus proves Himself, all for the benefit of this criminal. All in all, he won't believe that Jesus is who He says He is until something happens to help himself. Rafael wants what is best for Rafael. 

The other guy (let's call him Eric), meanwhile, calls out Rafael for mocking Jesus. He even goes so far as to admit Jesus' innocence, and supports a lifestyle of fearing God. We then see Eric asking Jesus to remember him when Christ goes into His kingdom, and Jesus tells him "today you will be with me in Paradise." Eric is saved from eternal death.

As I read this story, I was also thinking about the debate over whether the LGBT (Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender) community should be able to marry whomever they want. Some argue that religion should have no voice in the arena of government, while others claim that we should only have the Bible. Some claim that gay rights are the new civil rights, and some claim that they are not related at all.

Many of my Christian brothers and sisters have been rebuking those who support the marriage of same-sex couples. They have essentially been playing the part of the Eric, calling out the Rafaels for failing to fear God.

There is good in this. As long as rebuke is done with grace and gentleness, it is good to call people to turn from sin. A quick reading of any one of the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) will show that Jesus regularly did this. It is biblical and right to call for people to repent of their sinful lifestyles.

However, Eric did something that many Christians tend to forget in this debate. He admitted his wrong past. He told Rafael that they were both guilty and deserving of death.

Christians, we are not more righteous in our lives than any other "sinner." We are not above the LGBT community. If you would like to look through the Gospels, you'll see that Jesus regularly ate and hung out with the "sinners," the people that the over-righteous Pharisees shunned for their lifestyles.

Back then, it was tax collectors and prostitutes. Now it's lesbians and transsexuals. Same story, different roles.

I am not supporting a gay/homosexual lifestyle. I believe that the Bible condemns such a lifestyle, and that all who live like that should repent and come to God. However, Christians, we are not to cast stones and beat people down and act like we have it all together. We're sinners, too. We also once (and many still act as such) were living self-centered, self-pleasing lifestyles of the flesh.

We are a broken race, we humans. Gay, jealous, lustful, hating, drunk... the list goes on. Whichever sins have defined your life have made you just as guilty before God as anyone else. That's why we all needed grace, the undeserved gift of Christ's death for us on a cross. It was on that cross that He took the wrath of God for all sin: homosexuality or judgmentalism. Let's show love and grace to all, and show everyone the nature of God in our actions and with our words.

We must point people away from themselves and their selfish, sinful desires, yes. But if we point ourselves instead of pointing to Jesus and His greatness, we're failing at our rebuke and are sinning ourselves.

Call to repent, Christians, but in doing so, don't forget that someone once had to call you to repent. Otherwise, you'd still be dead in sin, too.

For more of my thoughts on this, check out these two posts I wrote a while back from my unChristian series, which was about how Christians are often viewed, and how Christians should act instead:

unChristian, Part Three: Antihomosexual
unChristian, Part Six: Judgmental

Jesus: Mocked and Dying, Ultimately Loving

"He saved others, but He cannot save Himself! He is the King of Israel! Let Him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in Him. He has put His trust in God; let God rescue Him now—if He wants Him! For He said, ‘I am God’s Son.'" -Matthew 27:42-43, HCSB

Jesus wasn't in the best spot here, y'all. He had been beaten, stabbed, dehydrated, whipped, slapped, pushed, shoved, and oh, by the way, nailed to a wooden cross. His breathing is becoming harder and more difficult. His legs ache, lactic acid in His calves building up from holding Himself up. His hands are throbbing in excruciating pain from the bones in His hands, shattered as a nail went through them.

Meanwhile, the crowds around Him are mocking Him. They are jeering at His condition, laughing at the fact that He is dying. They questioned His power, His authority, His trust in God, how much God loved Him and what exactly His relationship with God was.

And isn't that the case today? Do people not question His ability to save others? Haven't you heard people who doubt His authority as King of all? Don't people scoff at His power over this realm? Don't people question whether or not He was the Son of God, or even a deity at all? Could He have saved Himself?

Thank God He did not save Himself!

It wasn't that He couldn't save Himself, it was that He wouldn't, in order to save us instead.

It wasn't that God didn't love or want Jesus, but rather that God wanted and loved us, too.

It wasn't that Jesus wasn't God's Son. No, no it definitely is not because Jesus isn't God's Son. But, praise be to God above that He wanted and desired many sons and daughters, not just One.

"For rarely will someone die for a just person—though for a good person perhaps someone might even dare to die. But God proves His own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us!" -Romans 5:7-8, HCSB

We didn't deserve the death of Christ. We are not good or righteous; we are sinners. Yet, to show His love for us, Christ, Jesus Christ, died for us. He died so that sinners could become sons and daughters of God.

So the next time people are mocking Jesus, praise Him. Praise God that He would sacrifice Himself, that He would kick His Son to the curb, that He would die for us. Praise be to God, the God who died in order to love the unlovable!

Do You Want to Get Well?

"When Jesus saw him lying there and knew he had already been there a long time, He said to him, 'Do you want to get well?'" -John 5:6, HCSB

I was reading John 5 this morning, and I came across this verse in my reading. It comes from a story about a man who was sick. This sick man was living in an area around a pool that moved every now and then when an angel made the water stir. This stirring of the water announced that the angel had been there, and the first person into the pool after the angel would be healed of their ailment.

Not surprisingly, this pool was constantly surrounded by sick people. I mean, think about it: if a pond could cure what ails ya, wouldn't this pond be constantly surrounded by people?

This man was one of those people. Yet, he was so sick that he couldn't get up and go to the pool when the angel came. Thus, for 30+ years, he remained sick. That's when Jesus walked up and asked him the question that I quoted at the top of the post: "do you want to get well?"

This got me to thinking: does Jesus ask everyone this? Everyone in the world is a sinner, and we are all sick with sin. We walk about in the world, sinning, and Jesus asks "do you want to get well?"

If you do not know Christ, you can get well. Your sin can be removed. Your addictions, your sins, your bad habits; they can all be removed by Christ. Put your faith in Christ, and accept the gift of grace!

And you, Christian, don't think you're out of the woods. How many Christians are battling with sins? How many Christians are hiding a porn addiction? How many Christians are gossips? How many Christians walk around arrogant, lying, hating, cheating and lusting after the world?

If you are a Christian, you should know that Christ has called you to a different life. Put away the life of the flesh and let the grace of God work in your heart. You may feel trapped in a cycle of sin, but He can heal you of that. The question is: do you want to get well, or are you content to lay around, sick in sin and worldly desires?

The Prize, Part One: What's In Your Rearview?

I have a few books in God's Word that really impact me regularly, and I'm bringing a passage of one of them today. Check out this passage from Paul's letter to the Philippians:

"...But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God's heavenly [or upward] call in Christ Jesus." -Philippians 3:13b-14, HCSB

What a great passage, right?! I mean, what an approach to life! Let's break this down and see how we can live this out:

1. Forget what is behind
-Your past doesn't mean a thing. I'm not saying to totally forget your past; I'm not one those types. What I am saying is this: no matter what is in your rearview, it is in your rearview. No matter what I see behind me when I am driving my truck, it is still behind me. Good or bad, I have driven past it and it is relatively unimportant to my further travel.

Yes, our past shapes the present and future. If I just drove through a rainstorm, my truck is now covered in water. If I just left the gas station, my tank is full. The events of our past often direct and effect the manner and appearance of our travels. Yet, we must also move on.

The bad things, the rain storms in your life, can be seen in a new light in Christ. I am not saying they will go away; if anything, I've found that the radar gets more shades of red and orange the further towards Jesus we go. However, our approach to these hard times can be altered by His guidance. If you are in a storm, trying to navigate on your own, it can be easy to get lost. Discouraged. Hurt. You may even veer off the road in the torrential downpours of life if you have no guidance.

With guidance from the Lord above, however, you are able to approach these storms with confidence. You can know that He will guide you through the heart of the difficulty. He will never abandon you, nor forsake you (Deuteronomy 31:6).

In the end, we must forget the past. Our life before Christ is filled with not only storms, but rebellions, lusts, mistakes, lies, troubles... the list goes on. We cannot proceed toward the glory of God if we continue to carry all of this baggage with us.

In the book Pilgrim's Progress, our hero is loaded down with a massive load on his back. Before we come to Christ, we all have a similar load. Like the hero in Pilgrim's Progress, we must have that load removed before we proceed toward God and His purpose for our life. That load, that burdensome past of sin and troubled heart can only be removed by one Being: Jesus Christ.

He died and rose again to remove those burdens from our backs! Our past, no matter what has happened, can be and will be removed by your Savior the moment that you place your faith in His great gift of grace and salvation, calling on Him as your Lord and Savior. Put your past in the rearview! He can put it behind you; allow Him to do so!

Check back next week for the continuation of this passage. We've got the past behind us, so the question is: what's on the road ahead?

Let's Just Worship

A worship guide for the new year (and the rest of our lives):

"Sing to the Lord a new song;
sing to the Lord, all the earth.
Sing to the Lord, praise his name;
proclaim his salvation day after day.
Declare his glory among the nations,
his marvelous deeds among all peoples.

For great is the Lord and most worthy of praise;
he is to be feared above all gods.
For all the gods of the nations are idols,
but the Lord made the heavens.
Splendor and majesty are before him; strength and glory are in his sanctuary."

- Psalm 96:1-6, NIV

 

Isn't this a great passage? It has a lot to it, and I really just wanted to share this with you all today. Let's break it down, and I hope you follow each section, worshipping Him:

 

"Sing to the LORD a new song, sing to the LORD, all the earth. Sing to the LORD, praise His name...": Oh, sing to the Lord! Sing with all your heart. May the whole planet, nay, the entire universe sing to Him who is seated above all! He is worth of all praise and glory and honor, forever and ever and ever! Praise His great name, the Name that is above all names!

 

"Proclaim his salvation day after day, declare His glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds among all peoples...": The natural result of, or perhaps better called the continuation of, worshipping our Lord is the declaration of His splendor and majesty and power to the nations for all to hear. If we truly worship Him, it will spill over onto into a flowing river of praise from our lips, taking His name to the ends of the earth.

 

"For great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; he is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the nations are idols, but the Lord made the heavens...": There is nothing on this planet or beyond this planet that is worthy of the praise that our God is due. Why? Because He made it all. He made light and dark and land and water and stars and moons and planets. He made birds and fish and plants and mammals and invertebrates and reptiles and amphibians. He made wood and metal and oil and combustion and paper and jewels. He made relationships and power and love and sex and passion and happiness. Everything you could ever make into an idol, anything that you could put over Him (idols don't have to be objects; they are ANYTHING we put over God) was made by Him or forbidden by Him. In fact, the very act of idolatry is sin.

 

Instead we should fear Him. A writer called the fear of God, "the convergence of awe, reverence, adoration, honor, worship, confidence, thankfulness, love, and yes, fear." All of that is what our reaction toward God should be. Anything less isn't up to par.

 

"Splendor and majesty are before him; strength and glory are in his sanctuary...": This is why we fear Him. Splendor and majesty and strength and glory surround Him; I don't think I have to expand. I don't even know if I can. Our Lord is so majestic and wonderful and powerful and glorious and beautiful and amazing that words simply do not do Him justice.

 

Just sing a song and worship. Just bow and lift up His name. That is the only fitting response.

Welcome to the New America

^"Where is the philosopher? Where is the scholar? Where is the debater of this age? Hasn’t God made the world’s wisdom foolish? For since, in God’s wisdom, the world did not know God through wisdom, God was pleased to save those who believe through the foolishness of the message preached. For the Jews ask for signs and the Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles. Yet to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is God’s power and God’s wisdom, because God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength." -1 Corinthians 1:20-25, HCSB

This verse speaks of how Christians will be deemed foolish by the world, and in the United States, we've escaped much of this. Our nation has long been a stronghold of Christian belief and religious freedom, regardless of what the rest of the world might think.

But it is all changing.

Yesterday, Louie Giglio withdrew from participating in President Obama's inauguration. The popular pastor of Atlanta's Passion City Church, as well as the founder of the Passion Movement, felt that it was for the betterment of everyone involved if he backed out from the great honor of praying before a presidential election. Why would he feel this way?

Approximately 15-20 years ago, Louie preached a sermon in which he clearly stated the sinful nature of homosexuality. Bear in mind, he didn't rake homosexuals over without stating that everyone sins and that we are all in need of a Savior; from the view of a Christian, this shouldn't be any different that stating the clearly sinful nature of murder or lying. All three actions are sins, and all three will equally deem one worthy of Hell.

Apparently some liberal watchdog group found out about this sermon, and started causing an uproar about how no one should be praying at the inauguration that maintains that homosexuality is a sin. Later, the Obama administration put out a notice that they were sorry for any offense taken to their choice (Louie was chosen to pray due to his work with the President on the abolition of slavery all over the world, and not on any other grounds), and that they would never want to go against the "strength and diversity" of this nation.

Yet, having a scenario where Louie felt the need to step down from this honor is also going against diversity. Now, due to this precedent, no evangelical pastor who holds to Scripture (1 Timothy 1:10) and believes that homosexuality is a sin is eligible to pray over the president's inauguration. As the president of the Southern Baptist Seminary, Albert Mohler, stated:

 

"The Presidential Inaugural Committee and the White House have now declared historic, biblical Christianity to be out of bounds, casting it off the inaugural program as an embarrassment. By its newly articulated standard, any preacher who holds to the faith of the church for the last 2,000 years is persona non grata. By this standard, no Roman Catholic prelate or priest can participate in the ceremony. No Evangelical who holds to biblical orthodoxy is welcome. The vast majority of Christians around the world have been disinvited. Mormons, and the rabbis of Orthodox Judaism are out. Any Muslim imam who could walk freely in Cairo would be denied a place on the inaugural program. Billy Graham, who participated in at least ten presidential inaugurations is welcome no more. Rick Warren, who incited a similar controversy when he prayed at President Obama’s first inauguration, is way out of bounds. In the span of just four years, the rules are fully changed."

 

There are many times when I am not a huge fan of President Mohler, but his post on this issue was spot on. Religion, particular evangelical Christianity, is being pushed out of the way in this nation. No longer is a biblical worldview the norm, or even acceptable to many.

 

Now is the time, Church in America. Now is the time to figure out where you stand. I believe that the next 20 or 30 years will change the religious structure in this nation completely, as the "wise" continue to ostracize and mock the people holding to truth of Christ. If you look at Europe, and the fall of religion there, it isn't unlikely that we will follow suit.

 

During the time that Paul wrote the words of 1 Corinthians, the Greeks were considered the wisest people around. Their use of logic and knowledge of the world made them a brilliant empire, and one that we still follow after today. Interestingly (and sadly), the United States is becoming much like the Greeks: arrogant in their knowledge and prideful in their logic. Much of this country, particularly young people (my generation) believe that the ways of religious orthodoxy are obsolete, ignorant of the world, and even hateful towards the rights of others.

 

To all of this, I simply say: "Yet, to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is God's power and wisdom, because God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength."

 

You may mock us, disregard us, and call us whatever you like. My Savior died for me and I will reign with Him forever, regardless of what the world calls wise.