A Prayer of the Heart

Lord Jesus - I feel such a heaviness lately...a weariness with the on-going pandemic, an angst for friends and family that I know whose livelihoods are being threatened in a variety of ways, and all the while a deep desire to return to something that more closely resembles 'normal life', we we can interact together face-to-face without the need of masks and distance. Father, my heart also hurts for the racial division in this country. First - that a man lost his life at the hands of another whose job it was to protect it. Second for the open wound of racism in this country and for the pain that it continues to cause day after day. Third, for the small business owners and employees whose storefronts and livelihoods have been caught in the crossfire of anger. Lord, have mercy on us Father - please remember us in our time of need, as a nation.

It is more clear than ever that the very core of man is sinful. Our earthly bodies and minds are continuously ravaged by a desire to make ourselves the center of existence. Lord, we are not worthy to call ourselves your sons or daughters, and yet you love us anyway. In your lovingkindness, Father, you have made a way for us to know you and relate to you. Help us to remember that we were once lost Lord, that we were once your very enemy, but that you were so generous, loving and kind to us and didn't stop pursuing us. Help us to remember this when we want to lash out at others in anger, either in deed or in word. Help us to see the best in others, even when their teeth are gritted and tensions are high. Help us to see other people as you see them Lord, as literal creations of the God Most High, endowed with the very likeness of you Lord. Help us to remember that you said, "greater love has no one than this, that one should lay down his life for his friends." To love one another is to love you Lord Jesus.

Father, my cry is "Maranatha! Come Lord Jesus"! I feel the brokenness in myself and I see it in others. Lord, I confess that I am weak and that I am easily distracted by the cares and concerns of this life. That I quickly lose sight of how unsurpassingly great and powerful you are and begin to doubt. Like Peter with one foot out of the boat, I start to think about the waves all around me and lose sight of where I am going...to take the very hand of God. Lord, please use this time of worldwide upheaval to strengthen my faith and the faith of those around me, to ground us and root us in your truth and promises. Give us boldness to proclaim with our mouths all that you have done for us.

Lord, I pray for your people Israel as well - Lord, that you would hasten the bringing in of the fullness of the Gentiles and that you would begin to turn the hearts of your people Israel back to you. Lord, if there is something I can do, send me, I'm willing.

Father - please be merciful to us; help us to see what you are doing around us and give us a willing spirit to join in with that work. Help us to keep our eyes fixed on your return and Lord, give us revelation and guidance through your Holy Spirit to keep us on the narrow path that leads to righteousness. In Jesus name, Amen.

The Father of Lies

I was thinking about how people are led astray (with my own self very much in view) - and how subtle it typically is. If Satan came around the corner with bright flashing lights and huge warning signs, a serious disciple would see it a mile away and take steps to resist... We don't give Satan enough credit - he is called the 'father of lies' for a reason.

I think about the sin in my own life and it's etiology almost always has its roots in a) something good or b) something small. When I think about how wayward theology is adopted, the same two dynamics are also often at play. Let's take the 'Prosperity Gospel' for example. You can find many origin stories for the Prosperity Gospel, but whether it started in the late-1800s, 1950s or the 1970s, the basic framework is the same - the story is that it started with healing and the idea that one could be divinely healed. In an of itself, there is nothing wrong with that, that is a very Biblical idea. Then others came along and built upon that the teachings of "ask and you shall receive" and "give and it will be given back to you" and slowly the focus became on the things of this life, rather than on the things of God. Where exactly things went off the rails can be debated, but the core of it is, people started putting far too much of their focus on the blessings of God, rather than on who God is and what the totality of Scripture says about how a disciple is to live. The subtlety is that while the blessings of God are good, no doubt about it, they are not everything.

How about small things? My dad had an object lesson for me one time (he says he doesn't remember this, btw). I had told a small lie and he had caught me in it. He took my arm and the eraser end of a No. 2 pencil, and he started oh-so-gently rubbing a spot on my forearm with it. At first, you could barely feel it - it certainly wasn't painful. After a few minutes of this however, it started to burn a little bit and turn red and if he would have kept it up, I'm sure that it would have turned into an open sore. This is exactly the idea that Satan uses in 'small things'. He whispers into your ear, "oh come on, it's not that bad, it's just a little _____, no one will know." Or, he will say, "come on, you deserve this, you had a really hard week and you need to take care of yourself." Or, he will say, "you had a good reason for doing it, so-and-so has been so annoying lately and I needed someone to talk about it with - they'll never find out I was talking about them behind their back". For me, he will say something like, "you are sooo tired, you should just stay in bed this morning, get an extra hour of sleep - you can read your Bible and pray later today when you get a break." Folks, I've struggled with smoking for over 10 years - I didn't start out with any addiction to it - it started out as something I did here and there, socially. I've actually quit two different times for over a year. I'm not here to say that I think smoking in sinful (though there may be a case to be made there). My point is, what is at best a very bad habit started out small. Same with pornography. We are lulled to sleep by the things of this world. Pretty soon, we start to justify our actions and behaviors and in those justifications, are the very lies of Satan himself. Here's a quote from the "Screwtape Letters" by C.S. Lewis that speaks to this:

[one demon teaching another demon on how to be effective]

"You will say that these are very small sins; and doubtless, like all young tempters, you are anxious to be able to report spectacular wickedness. But do remember, the only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the Enemy. It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out in the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts."

Identifying and rooting out lies, sin and deception in our lives takes a lot of introspection and self-examination (and most likely other people to help us along the way). We have to be willing to look deeply into the motivations behind the things we are doing and into what we believe. Before the last year of theology I studied, I had no idea I was a Supersessionist (someone who believes God has transferred the promises made to Israel, to the Church). Furthermore, I had no idea what the implications of that were in the way I was reading the Bible, in my concept of who God is...none of that, I had no clue. It wasn't until I was willing to deconstruct what I had learned that the Truth became evident to me. Was it sinful to believe what I had believed before? No, I don't think so - but the subtlety was that Supersessionism was affecting how I viewed God and how real and grounded my faith was.

As one example, I was prone to presuming upon Jesus' sacrifice on the Cross. I had no idea how seriously God takes sin. I had been fed a steady diet of 'grace' without hearing enough about His 'wrath'. I thought to myself, "eh, God loves me, He will cover my sin, he knows I'm only human." Friends, make no mistake, God is indeed gracious but that type of thinking is a complete lie. In Hebrews 10:26-27, we read that there is no covering for intentional sin. That is to say, there can be no forgiveness for sin that isn't repented of. How can I repent properly if my attitude is flippant towards Jesus' death for my sin? We know that Grace itself wasn't cheap - that it cost Jesus, the Son of the Living God, his very life. Satan has been telling us a lie - getting us to overemphasize God's grace while simultaneously down-playing God's wrath and coming judgement. We should be holding both in the same hand - God is both loving AND just. He is the very embodiment of righteousness and because of that fact, he cannot call something that is evil good. And yet, because of his mercy and goodness, he gives us every moment up until our death or His return to turn, to repent and believe. After that point, however, there are no more chances. The period of amnesty is up and if we did not bend the knee, then we are an enemy of God - you stand accused like everyone else, but with no sacrifice to pay the penalty for your sin. It's either Jesus life, or your life - a price must be paid in order for justice to be served.

As a final example of subtlety - I was considering the question, "how could a good God send people to Hell" and it occurred to me, that it's the wrong question! "Goodness" is a relative term - the question we should be asking is "how can a righteous God allow unrighteousness into his Heavenly Kingdom?" God is good precisely BECAUSE he is righteous. He has been telling us since the beginning of human history that we are neither good nor righteous, and that nothing we can do will make us righteous in His eyes. The only hope we have for righteousness is to put our faith and hope in the one thing that can cover us and make us righteous in God's sight - the blood of His son Jesus. The Good News is that there is a way to be saved! Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life - no one comes to the father except through me." (John 14:6) Jesus is the way - but that also necessarily means that all other paths lead to death.

"The Messiah, you see, while we were still helpless, at the appointed time died for the sake of the ungodly. It is hard enough to imagine someone dying for an upright person; for a good person, maybe, someone might just stir up enough courage to die. God, however, shows the depth of his love for us in the fact that the Messiah himself died for us when? While we were still sinners!" (Romans 5:6-8 BHT)

Another thing that occurred to me was that whether a person lived in 1200BC or 2020AD, we are all fundamentally putting our hope and trust in the same thing. Hear me out - that person who lived in 1200BC was putting their hope in something not seen, but ultimately in God. What is said of Abraham in Genesis 15? "Abraham believed the Lord, and God credited it to him as righteousness." What did he believe God about? That God was going to do for Abraham what He had promised. Abraham put his trust in God, but the key part is that it was God who credited it - it was God who deemed that trust/faith to be righteous. We know a little more history here in 2020AD, but fundamentally, we are in the same boat as Abraham. John 3:16 - a verse memorized by millions reads, "for God so loved the World that he gave his one and only son that whosoever believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life." We are trusting God that our trust in Jesus' sacrifice on the cross will ultimately be credited to us as righteousness. We are counting on Him to follow through on his promise in that regard, even though we didn't see any of this play out with our own eyes (just as Abraham did not ultimately see the fulfillment of God's promises to him).

I got off the rails a little there - my main point is just a reminder, to both myself and anyone who reads this, that Satan is not new to this game. In fact, he's one of the oldest players in the game and he has mastered the art of subtlety...using things that aren't necessarily bad in and of themselves, and slowly turning them on us in ways that lead to sin.

Forced to Face Mortality

I came across an excellent opinion piece today, authored by an anthropology professor at Wheaton College (my alma mater). She talks about how one of the major things that this pandemic is forcing Western culture to face, is death. I was just thinking about this topic this morning, in a quiet moment of reflection, that most of what I see happening, is an overreaction meant to stave off suffering and/or death...two things which we talk very little about in our culture...neither of which we will ever be successful in preventing or eradicating this side of Jesus' return.

I think it's good to have to face death, to have to think about it and wrestle with it. Death, and thoughts about the finite-ness of our lives, has a way of reminding us to focus on what is important. If you're over the age of 15, chances are good that you have attended at least one funeral and likely many more than one. Some funerals are incredibly sad - especially the ones where people died younger, and you have this sense that they missed out on some life that was left to be lived. Also, you feel intensely for their families, who have to deal with the incredible sense of loss they will feel. Some are more joyous, when the person has lived a long life and are now free of the suffering they had to endure at the end. But whether you are attending the funeral of that younger person, or it is of the ladder kind, a funeral naturally forces you to focus, even if only for a moment, on your own eventual death and if you're an introspective type, that leads you to some self-evaluation.

I dare say we need to think about death more, perhaps much more, than we do. I think one of the big reasons that older people seem so much wiser, aside from years of experience, is that as they have gotten older, they realize they are closer to the end. That realization, I think, helps them put things in perspective. Things that used to seem like a big deal, aren't as much, because their sense of what truly matters has been reoriented. Obviously this doesn't apply to all older folks - some only get more crotchety and rough, but that doesn't seem to describe most.

I enjoyed Dr. Jeske's thoughts on how youth obsessed and how production-obsessed our culture is. I have seen myself get wrapped up in the productivity side of things. It is a very easy trap to fall into. "If some is good, more is better." -- and our culture is only too happy to encourage that type of thinking. Anyway - very good thoughts from Dr. Jeske; alot to think about and consider.

Biblical Fear

When I was growing up, I was taught that the "fear of the Lord" was akin to 'a healthy respect for' or 'reverence for', but I'm starting to question that. The other night, it occurred to me that there are two types of fear mentioned in the Bible; there is a fear which talks about how we relate to God and there is a fear/worry/anxiety about this world or regarding the things of this world. Here are some relevant Scriptures to help me illustrate this:

Matthew 10:28

"Do not be afraid of those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Instead, fear the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell." (NIV)

This, to me, is the clearest passage that distinguishes the difference. Jesus is clearly saying here - do not fear this world because the worst it can do is destroy your physical body, but after that it has no power. God, however, has the power to send you to eternal torment and punishment in hell. If we aren't found in Him on the day when Jesus returns, then we will face His wrath - which certainly merits fear...actual fear.

1 John 4:18-19

"Where there is love there is no reason to be afraid; indeed, love that is blameless drive fear away. Fear, after all, anticipates what? Punishment. If someone fears punishment, he still hasn't been made blameless in love. We love because he first loved us." (Blessed Hope Translation**)

I used to think this was one of those passages that was saying I shouldn't be afraid of God because, "God is love". In reality however, I think it is saying the opposite. I think this is saying that if we live in the Messiah's love, and by that I mean live it out, then we have nothing to fear. But to the one who builds his own Kingdom - to the one who walks around with this "I am awesome" mentality; that person has reason to fear. The verses immediately prior to the passage I quoted highlights this, "Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgement..." (1 John 4:16-17) Implied in verse 16 is that if you do not live in love, you do not live in God and God does not live in you. If love is not made complete in you (verse 17), then you do not have reason for confidence on the day of judgement. Jesus even goes on, a few chapters later, to explain what it means to love him. He says, "On that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you are in Me, and I am in you. Whoever has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me." (John 14:20-21, Berean Study Bible)

Hebrews 10:26-27

"If we go on sinning deliberately, you see, after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there is no other sacrifice being held in reserve to atone for sins. No, the only thing held in store now is a terrifying dread of judgement and of fire a blazing fury, a fire which is ready God's foes to devour." (Blessed Hope Translation)

"If we deliberately go on sinning after we have received the knowledge of truth, no further sacrifice for sins remains, but only a fearful expectation of judgement and raging fire that will consume all adversaries." (NIV)

To me, this verse couples well with Matthew 12:30 - "He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters." If we are living in God's love, obeying his commandments and relying on the power of the Holy Spirit to keep us holy - then we have nothing to fear, we are "co-heirs with Messiah" (Romans 8:17). If we are being disobedient, however, we are enemies of God and we have only "a terrifying dread of judgement".

Matthew 6:25-27

"For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life?" (NASB)

The things Jesus lists here, food, drink, clothing - they are all things of this world. "Do not fear a lack of basic needs, or make this life all about the things of this world" is basically what he is saying. His summary statement after this is "But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and ALL THESE THINGS will be added to you."

Hebrews 13:5-6

"Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." So we say with confidence, "The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?"

Implied here again is that the world and the things it can do to us; we are not to be afraid of these things.

Another interesting story to consider is that of Adam & Eve. After they ate the forbidden fruit, we read this: "Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, "Where are you?" He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid." (Genesis 3:8-10)
Adam knew that he had broken God's law and he was afraid...and not just a 'reverential fear', but a fear that caused him to literally hide from God. We don't hide from things that we don't have an actual fear of.


I think the bottom-line is that my view of God has been too small. Francis Chan talks about this some in his book "Crazy Love", but that's really is what is comes down to. It makes me think about Job, who sat there and demanded God to give him audience and then God shows up and this is what God says, "Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said, "Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Now gird up your loins like a man, and I will ask you, and you instruct me! Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding, who set its measurements? Since you know."" (Job 38:1-5, NASB) Job's response is perfect, he says, "Behold, I am insignificant; what can I reply to you? I lay my hand on my mouth. Once I have spoken, and I will not answer; even twice, and I will add nothing more." (Job 40:4-5) His breath is literally taken away and you can tell from his response that he now has an appropriate concept of who God is and how unsurpassably great and awesome He is. I need to work on this.

I think fear gets a bad rap - especially spiritual fear. People say that fear is a bad motivator, or that things done out of fear don't last. I don't think that's wrong - but I think fear can be an excellent catalyst for change. I think God's ultimate aim is that we come to love and adore Him and that love will be what motivates our on-going walk with Him (see John 4 above)...but for a lot of people, myself included, the thing that got me on that path towards loving Him was a healthy dose of fear...a kick in the rear, a fire under my butt. It was God saying, "Adam, if you continue in the direction you are going, you will not grow up, you will not mature and the seed of Truth that was planted in you will get choked out and die." It was the 'fearful expectation of judgement' and the realization that I was on a road to destruction.

**A man named Tim Miller, who I have learned a great deal from, recently finished and published his own translation of the New Testament (from the original Greek) and you can access that translation by going to his website, blessedhope.life. He sought to put together a faithful, fully transparent translation and the end result is fantastic, I highly recommend it.

What Are Our Modern Idols?

This whole pandemic situation has left me quite introspective and as normal life has been put on hold and the normal busyness of life has subsided in the wake of social-distancing and shelter-in-place, it has been easier to self examine. Initially, I was quite angry - angry at what I felt (and still feel) was hyperventilation and overreaction, but I couldn't stay in that mode for very long, so my initial feelings of anger subsided into something like acceptance. It's not an idle acceptance, but it is a realization that I cannot change much on my own, so I need to stop being so frustrated by it all. One side-effect of all of this though has been some rarefied mental clarity. I find myself able to think about the big picture of things much more clearly.

The other day, I started thinking about modern idols. Obviously most of us are not walking around making physical idols for ourselves, cast out of some precious material, as in the days of old. No, today's idols are much more subtle, but every bit as misguided. Here are three that I've come up with:

The Idol of Safety
There is no denying, especially now, that we live in a culture that is obsessed with 'safety'. My best evidence of this is the fact that in neighborhoods all across Illinois, they dug up the last square of sidewalk concrete at every intersection to install a "pad" with raised bumps on it in order to prevent people from slipping as they came to stop to wait for traffic to pass...at least I think that's what it intended for. Regardless, the financial cost of doing this had to be incredible while the incidence of injury or death that is saves has to be incalculably small.

The response to COVID-19 has also revealed just how much of an idol safety is. If this is a novel virus (meaning new) which there is no reason to doubt, then everyone is going to get it at some point. All of the social-distancing efforts and shelter-in-place orders were sold as a way to "slow the spread" or "save lives", when in fact, this is a stretch, at best. I see the benefit in not overwhelming hospitals, but this virus will kill exactly as many people as it will kill. That may seem like a tautology, but we do not have cures for viruses - and any vaccine that is developed will likely be fairly ineffective on a broad scale, just as the flu-vaccine is (typically 10-20% effectiveness). We can treat people with viruses, and that may indeed 'save' some small number of lives, but typically, the people who die from viruses are people with co-morbidities or the very old/very young. This virus has been no different - and once the "low-hanging fruit", as one scientist described it, have had the virus, death numbers will drop significantly as the virus encounters healthier people whose immune systems will prove quite formidable. But, I digress. My point is, you aren't any safer in your home than you are outside - and that is true whether you are talking about this virus, or regular daily life. If  you get into a car, you aren't safe. If you're walking down the street, you are not safe - no matter what you do, there are hundreds of things that can kill you - maybe not immediately, but at some point. As the trite saying goes, the death-rate for humanity is 100%. Illness, accident, or evil, something is going to get you. A fear of death and suffering has led to making an idol out of safety - even if that idol is a complete mirage. At the end of the day, it's about control - convincing ourselves that if only we have enough control, we can stop bad things, perhaps even death itself, from happening. It's false. It's empty. It's an idol.

**great verse I thought of after the fact: Matthew 6:27, "Who of you by worrying, can add a single hour to his life?" (BSB)

The Idol of Open Options
I can't claim credit for this one - I first read about it a few months ago in a Gospel Coalition article - but since then, I have seen it over and over. Read the article if you want a full explanation, but in a nutshell, it is this idea that we love not having to commit to anything. The author of the article uses some fairly banal examples - replying 'maybe' to party invitations, always looking for better conversations than the one we're in, etc - but there are some very serious real-life ways in which this plays out, particularly in the life of someone following Messiah Jesus. For example - do we read the Bible and not take some of it's commands at face-value? Let's take 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 which reads, "Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who submit to or perform homosexual acts, nor thieves, nor the greedy, not drunkards, nor verbal abusers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God." I used to read that and think to myself, "that cannot possibly mean what it says  because I look at pornography every once in awhile and if I'm reading this right, it says that will disqualify me from entering the Kingdom of God" (Heaven). That was me, bowing down to the Idol of Open Options. It very clearly DOES say that people who don't obey what Jesus commanded WILL NOT enter with Him into his Kingdom...and yet my flesh didn't like that and so it sought another way, another option.
Jesus very clearly says, three times in John 14, "If you love me, you will keep My commandments" (verse 15), "whoever has my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me" (verse 21) and "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word. My father will love him, and we will come to him and make Our home with him" (verse 23). There is no "if you feel like it" or "if you keep them most of the time" - it's all or nothing. As Christians, we need to first count the cost (Luke 14:28), and then either decide to be 'all-in' or not in at all. There is no middle, there is no having your cake and eating it too. God's primary commandment is "Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength." (Matt. 22:37) There is no alternative. "Having options" is false. It's empty. It's an idol.

The Idol of Community
This could alternatively be called "The Idol of Technology", but most of what our technology centers around today is having or building a sense of community, or connected-ness. I have talked with many parents who have older kids (middle and/or high-school) during this pandemic and they tell me that their kids are 'living' on their cell phones, desperately trying to stay in touch with their friends. I see it in adults too, we can't go out with each other right now, and so we've resorted to endless video calls and the like. Don't get me wrong, humans are relational creatures, and we were created to be in relationship with each other, but I think it has become idol-like in the way, and to the degree which we pursue relationship. I'm not railing so much on actual, messy, real-life relationship, but how we have become obsessed, with the advent of social media, with being 'in the know' about the lives of others without really being involved. There are two sides to this coin, hear me out:

The Observer - I confess, I fall into this category. For me, social media isn't so much about staying 'connected' as much as it is an easy, typically effort-free way of knowing what people are up to. There are many others (usually introverts) like me. I am easily exhausted with having to be "on" in-person, and social media allows me to not have to put forth actual real effort. I can be in touch with someone's life without really having to make much effort.

The Sharer - This is the type of person who uses social media as a means of deriving some kind of self-worth from sharing their lives on Instagram/Facebook/etc. They share the good moments, or they make moments look better than they actually are. This isn't necessarily intentional because, afterall, how lame would social media be if we shared a bunch of mediocre (or sad, bad, depressing) moments every day? But it can lead to a false sense of what life is really like, or it can mask the true feelings of the person sharing. Even more insidiously, the sharer can become dependent on "being seen" (likes, feedback, etc) by his or her community - which substitutes for real relationship. If they receive a lackluster response to something, they begin to feel depressed or less-than.

Some people are combinations of the two types, but those two categories seems to describe most people. Someone cynical once told me, "everyone you know is going to disappoint you at some point". It's true - no human-to-human relationship is flawless or perfect; people are always going to let us down. Either they won't do something we want them to, or they will do something we don't want them to do. When we put human relationships on an inappropriate level, we are substituting the value that God says He has given us and that we have in Him, for false value derived from the acceptance and love of others. It's false. It's empty. It's an idol.


I would love to hear from you if you can think of other modern idols. Some are fairly obvious - we in the West are professional idolaters of entertainment and escapism. I could probably write a book on that, with evidence from my own life. But what are some of the less obvious ones? Things that we perhaps even subconsciously bow down to? In 2 Corinthians 13, Paul calls the believers in Corinth to consistently examine themselves to see if they are "in the faith". In Romans 2, he says that believers should "not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the reviewing of [our] mind." Here is my encouragement to be in regular self-examination of what you are giving yourself to. As John Calvin once said, "The human mind is, so to speak, a perpetual forge of idols."

A Preview of The End

Man - what a difference a month makes. On February 21st, my wife and I left for a week-long vacation to Mexico and on March 21st, Illinois was placed on "shelter-in-place" orders due to this stupid COVID-19 thing...and that's to say nothing about the difference in weather between Cabo and Chicago! At the end of last week, I felt like asking people, "how was your month this week?" Time and everything else, it seems, has slowed way down and left a lot of us with time to think. I don't know about you, but my mind hasn't always been going to the healthiest of places. Thankfully, I have a few people in my life who remind me of what's important and that's what I want to talk about here.

As a Believer, I have found myself awfully weak lately. We're supposed to have this Hope right? We're supposed to trust and run to Him with our doubts and problems, right? While it's true that I have found myself on my knees more, I cannot say I've been a shining example of hope and trust. Those friends I mentioned, they have been reminding me about where all this is going - and now I'm starting to come around to thinking that this is just a preview, a practice run if you will, for the end of this Age.

Here's what the Bible has to say about what it will be like when Jesus returns:

"Don't assume that I came to bring peace on the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to turn a man against his father, a daughter again her mother, a daughter-in-law again her mother-in-law; and a man's enemies will be the member of his household. The person who loves father or mother more than Me is not worth of Me; the person who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And whoever doesn't take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me. Anyone finding his life will lose it, and anyone losing his life because of Me will find it." - Matthew 10:34-39

"Wail, for the Day of the Lord is near! It will come as destruction from the Almighty. Therefore all hands will fall limp, and every man's heart will melt. They will be terrified, pains and anguish will take hold of them; they will writhe like a woman in labor, they will look at one another in astonishment, their faces aflame." - Isaiah 13:6-12

"For the day is near, even the day of the Lord is near; it will be a day of clouds, a time of doom for the nations." - Ezekiel 30:3

"Alas, you who are longing for the day of the Lord, for what purpose will the day of the Lord be to you? It will be darkness and not light; as when a man flees from a lion and a bear greets him, or goes home, leans his hand against a wall and a snake bites him. Will not the day of the Lord be darkness instead of light, even gloom with no brightness in it?" - Amos 5:18-20

"But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; avoid such men as these." - 2 Timothy 3:1-5 

"But before all these things [the last days], they will lay their hands on you and will persecute you, delivering you to the synagogues and prisons, bringing you before kings and governors for My name's sake. It will lead to an opportunity for your testimony. So make up your minds not to prepare beforehand to defend yourselves; for I will give you utterance and wisdom which none of your opponents will be able to resist or refute. But you will be betrayed even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death, and you will be hated by all because of My name" - Luke 21:12-17 (corollary passage in Mark 13:9-13)

It doesn't sound like a cake walk right? It sounds hard and arduous. It sounds like something that would really shake you, and perhaps cause you to abandon your faith, if you didn't really trust deep down that God is going to do what he said he is going to do. My question for all of us, is what if this happens in our lifetimes? Maybe it doesn't, but what if it does - are our hearts and minds prepared for that kind of trial and difficulty?

This is where the importance of discipleship comes in. Jesus talks about "taking up your cross daily" and about finding a "narrow road". Paul talks a lot about 'running the race' and about perseverance. These statements and metaphors imply that being a disciple of Jesus requires something significant from us. So often, in church, we hear about the "free gift" of God, of grace for sinners and the promise of Eternal Life. What we don't hear about as much is that though the gift is free, it is also extremely expensive in terms of what it requires from us...our very lives. I don't think that means we have to physically die for Jesus - but it certainly means that we have to die to ourselves. Figuring out what this means and what it looks like for us personally is a lifetime effort, but nevertheless, that is the call. Jesus couldn't have been more explicit about it.

So join me, during this time, in becoming more firmly rooted in the Messiah, in the promises of God made to Israel, through which we can have hope for Eternal Life, a renewed Earth, and a new body of Life. This current trouble, though light and momentary, is just a preview of much harder times that will accompany Jesus' return and we need to be about the business of preparing ourselves and each other.

Commentary: Rhett and Link

I am an occasional reader of The Gospel Coalition website - I think some of the articles found there are thought-provoking or interesting and recently, I stumbled across one entitled, "Let's Deconstruct a Deconversion Story: The Case of Rhett and Link". The story tells of a pair of YouTube stars, Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal, who are former missionaries and Campus Crusade (Cru) staff members and now consider themselves former Christians as well. The TGC article portrays their decision as having a lot to do with the sexual ethic of the Bible and their problems with that, but I listened to both of their testimonies - each about an hour and forty-five minutes long - and I don't feel as though that is a fair portrayal, certainly not for Rhett, but likely not for Link either. That is part of their story, but the etiology of their deconversions is much more subtle.

From listening to both stories, it is clear that this all started with Rhett. He is the one who seems to have a more comprehensive understanding of Scripture and of apologetics; I suspect he started to have doubts on some of the scientific stuff and then started talking to Link about it and slowly convinced his childhood friend away from faith. If you listen to their stories, Rhett is clearly the one putting a lot of time and effort into the struggle and then when you hear Link's story - there are a lot of the same elements, but most of them are referring back to things his friend Rhett gave him or was telling him about. They pretty much acknowledge this straight out at the end of Link's testimony.

I very much identify with some of Rhett's doubt - as someone who has spent some time looking for scientific or archaeological verification of Scripture and desperately wanting my faith to have a strong rational component to it, I can identify the unsettling feeling he had when some of that stuff doesn't match up. But for me - rather than pushing me away, it caused me to ask different questions. Also - it reminded me of God's response to Job:

"Then the LORD spoke to Job out of the storm. He said: "Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you and you will answer me. Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone - while the morning stars sang together and the angels shouted for joy?" (Job 38:1-7)

We can look at the scientific data and the archaeological finds and all of these things in order to try and support a belief in a God of the universe, but ultimately, those pursuits eventually become a God in and of themselves - ultimately it is an attempt to make a God out of 'certainty'. It seems like they are missing the point and by that I mean, the point of God revealing himself through the Bible is not so that we can go and verify everything and come away with some certainty about it all...it's so that we can know Him and know where all of this is going. The bottom-line is that science is not "settled" any more now than it ever has been, particularly in the area of origins of the Universe. For every scientist that has become an atheist because of their work, you will find another scientist who came to belief in God as a result of their work. There are ardent Christian scientists in every field of science, genetics and evolution included. There never was such a thing as certainty and there never will be, in either direction - towards God or away from him.

As a kid, I was a big fan of the C.S. Lewis books in the series, "The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe". Towards the end of the first book, Lucy and Edmund (her brother) have both found Narnia through the wardrobe and Lucy is trying to convince their older siblings of this place they have found. Lucy insists that it is real and Edmund is more mum about it and eventually, the older two go and tell the master of the house about this, seeking his advice on what to do. He says,

"Logic!" said the Professor half to himself. "Why don't they teach logic at these schools? There are only three possibilities. Either your sister is telling lies, or she is mad, or she is telling the truth. You know she doesn't tell lies and it is obvious that she is not mad. For the moment then and unless any further evidence turns up, we must assume that she is telling the truth."

Neither Rhett nor Link seem to be willing to go as far as Atheism. Rhett refers to himself as a 'hopeful agnostic'. I think they are both open to the possibility that they are wrong - but it seems like they have come to the conclusion, for now, that Jesus is either a madman or a liar. Lying would go against Jesus' very nature (if he is who he says he is) so the only logical conclusion would be that he is a madman - afterall, there is no denying his actual existence and life - that he was a real person who lived on earth is a historical fact.

One thing that struck me about their stories is how big of an impact one person can have on another. As I mentioned above - Rhett has clearly been the one who has led his friend Link away from the Lord. Which makes me feel for Link - I think he understands the doubts and struggles of his friend Rhett, but since they did not come out of his own heart, he is following but isn't as convicted/convinced. Rather, he has justified his own feelings by identifying more strongly with his disagreement with the Biblical sexual ethic that is bothersome to him. Here are some of his comments:

"The specific issue of the LGBTQ issues; the church was a welcoming place and a loving place, but when you really got down to it, they [some of his friends] weren't accepted as couples and that really ate away at me. This was a long time coming - as we made meaningful connections with people here, I couldn't sit in the seat at church knowing that the couldn't get married there. I just felt like it was a betrayal of my friends and what I believed. And so I didn't go back."

"I'm just not ready to enter back into a specific system of belief even if it's different and the practical applications of that belief system are exactly in line with how I want to live my life. Maybe I'm still just too close or have been in it so long that I need more distance from it."

"...it's easiest for me to believe that when you die -- it's just like Dana Carvey said, my Wayne's World doppelganger -- that "when you die, it's just like the experience you had before you were born, do you remember that?" So I'm like, yeah, that's actually comforting and I find it easy to believe that for some reason, I'm not compelled to believe it, but it's just an easy place for my mind to rest."

"...everybody believes whatever they want to believe, like, your innermost desires, it could be something primal like survival and security, there are so many different things - but we have a way of finding what works for us and I think that's instinctive. To put it bluntly, you believe what you want to believe, you know, I find it easy to believe that. I find it easy to believe that because so many people have had so many earth shattering experiences that are in complete contradiction, that probably means that God's not personal." 

"I want to do the work to stay open and not dogmatic - and I know that it will take work, it takes an investment of time and priority to not just sit back and go with the flow. I'm not looking for the next thing to latch onto and believe and start to follow, but being open to how God may exist and may want to connect with me. The main thing is, I don't want to judge, I don't want to condemn - I want to be as loving as I can. [...] I do feel like over the past few years my capacity to love has grown - my capacity to love myself and others has expanded a lot more over the past few years. I take that as a good sign. I just don't think that if God exists, I just can't believe that me being open and sincere and as loving as possible and as honest as possible is disqualifying me from receiving God's love. I can't accept that."

These, my friends, are the comments of an James 1:6 man: "...because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do."

Reading between the lines of some of these comments, which echo some of the comments that Rhett makes in his testimony - I get a sense that "the God of open options" is that one that Rhett and Link have built for themselves. It looks different for each of them, and how they got there was different, but ultimately, the God of the Bible doesn't align with their own views on certain things and because they are unwilling to accept that, they had to create their own God, or abandon him altogether. There was actually an article on TGC about this not too long ago.

Anyway, that's enough from me on this. I find these types of discussions interesting because they get at the heart of mankind. John Calvin once said, "The mind is...a perpetual forge of idols". Jeremiah 17:9-10 says, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his way, according to the fruit of his deeds."
We all have our experiences, yes, but at the end of the day, there is actual, real truth. The question we must ask ourselves is, "Do I trust Him?" That question lies at the intersection of faith and knowledge. Again, hearkening back to the C.S. Lewis kids book series, Susan (Lucy's older sister) is asking one of her new friends in Narnia about Aslan, the great lion who rules over Narnia and she asks, "Is he quite safe?" And her friend responds, "Safe? Who said anything about safe? Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the king, I tell you."