Discernment

Spiritual discernment is a big topic. I’m currently reading Megan Basham’s book, Shepherds for Sale. The main indictment of the book is that bad actors who desire to influence the electorate target well-meaning Christian leaders to influence them and those under their spiritual leadership. Megan is from the same denomination as myself and she speaks boldly out against this influence on our own leaders as well as other prominent evangelicals.

I’m through most of the book, and I don’t read it as an indictment of the faith of the men and women mentioned, but of their discernment. As Christians, we want to believe people who present themselves as wanting to help. We want to trust those identifying themselves as fellow Christians. This is normal, and it is usually a good thing. But if you’ve ever worked in benevolence or refugee ministry, you also know that people will say almost anything to get what they want. We learn that over time. I had to learn it, and sometimes it was through foolish choices I made along the way.

In chapter 5 of Megan’s book, she deals with the Covid Pandemic. This chapter is a follow up on some reporting she did the last few years, including this article. In this reporting, Megan documents how a supposed Christian, Francis Collins, worked with Anthony Fauci to push or even guilt churches into following pandemic restrictions on church closures, masks and the vaccines. Mr. Collins met with prominent pastors and Christian thought leaders to push the idea that loving our neighbor meant we had to do what the government said. Those who ignored these restrictions were painted in a poor light as uncaring and, in some cases, Un-Christian.

Like many believers, I had questions about these policies. In another article, Megan documents how Fauci and Collins used the same strategy to encourage church leaders to discredit medical professionals and scientists who didn’t go along with their script. If I’d been more vocal and had a larger platform, I could have been targeted. I agreed with men like Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, professor of medicine at Stanford and others who signed the Great Barrington Declaration, opposing further lockdowns. Most of what we were being told didn’t seem to make sense, whether according to logic, reason or scientific inquiry.

As Christians, we should be discerning. We should strive to have integrity in our interactions. Outside of God’s Word, we shouldn’t just accept what we’ve been told. The truth isn’t relative. We should test things against the truth, especially God’s Word. We should be compassionate, but we shouldn’t be foolish. As Charles Spurgeon once wrote, “Discernment is not knowing the difference between right and wrong. It is knowing the difference between right and almost right.”

As I write this, it is another election year. I despise election year politics, and really, all politics. Politicians always lie, but the lies flying around in a presidential election year reach extreme levels. It is a challenge for a Christian to exercise our responsibility as members of the community to vote with discernment. Some of the choices are clear, according to the Word of God, but others are more difficult.

To add to the challenge, we don’t just have the words of the candidates, but we have the words about the candidates. We’re told in millions of dollars of campaign ads, who the candidates are and what they said. Often, what is presented isn’t reality, but a parody of reality. In earlier days, these parodies existed mostly in campaign ads and in political satire like SNL, Bloom County or Doonesbury. Today, with the majority of the media being controlled by billionaires and corporations, such things are pushed at us in the headlines.

In the classic film, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, the majority of Washington DC is filled with those who appear respectable, but who are actually controlled by organized crime and business. Our hero, played by Jimmy Stewart, has the curtain pulled back by a variety of people and slowly comes to understand what he’s up against. I sometimes feel like “Mr. Smith” when I pay attention to politics.

Today, most politicians are more like serfs doing the will of the rich and the powerful. Lobbying groups that live 24/7 in Washington DC are ready to push their policies even as the people in Congress come and go. We should be able to vote on the policies of the candidates, but too frequently, the candidates run on talking points that they never intend to implement.

With friends all along the political spectrum, I’m fortunate not to live in the echo chamber of one side. When you work with social media in a campaign year, you see every kind of political post. These go far beyond the campaign ads. Memes, videos, soundbites and links to articles that prove the point of the poster flood every feed. Again, most of these are a caricature of their opponent and their policies. Very rarely do you see an honest debate about policy issues. Instead, they’re trying to create a monstrous or comedic version of the opponent that they will convince you to vote against.

Each side wants you to feel it is impossible to vote for the opposing candidate. They want you to feel bad just thinking about voting for them. They don’t want you thoughtfully considering the issues. Our elections grow more like a high school popularity contest each day. They don’t want you to have discernment.

In the face of such a whirlwind of propaganda and mis-information, what is a Christian to do as they seek to be discerning?

  • Don’t Panic! – You need to know yourself. Politics is not essential for life. If your peace of heart and mind are being threatened by the political tidal wave, step out of its way and take a time out. It’s not worth it.
  • Where possible, listen to what the candidates actually say, not what is said about them. The media and social media are powerful tools, but most of what we see on them these days is misrepresented. I’ve had more luck with small, independent journalists than the traditional outlets.
  • “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” Proverbs 3:5-6 – Discernment is not based on our own understanding, but on our connection to the truth. God is true. His Word is true. Our thoughts may be, but they may also be deceived.
  • “And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ,” Phil. 1:9-10 – Pray for one another to have discernment and for yourself.
  • “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Romans 12:2 – Don’t get your discernment from the world. Don’t look for hope in political parties, who do not have your best interests in mind. Instead, renew your mind daily, in Him.

The world will try to program you for their outcome. We saw that in 2020 and we see it today. Don’t fall into their trap. Megan’s book is proof that even of the wisest may be influenced from time to time in the wrong direction, if they’re not careful. Be very careful and remember, real life is lived in your community, with your church, family and friends. That is what we’re put here to do. It is important how we vote, but far more important is how we love, serve and share the truth of the Gospel with those we interact with on a daily basis.

Living with Cretans

Cretin isn’t a word we use much today. We have our own insults, many of which sound much worse to our ears. If you look up the word in the dictionary, you’ll see definitions which point to an intelligence deficit. In my day, we might have called someone a “moron”. Previous generations called such people a “dunce”. And if you go back far enough, cretin was a common insult.

Not to be confused with cretin, is the word Cretan, meaning those who live on the island of Crete. In the NT, Paul writes to Titus, who is a minister on the island. According to Paul, the Cretans of that day are far worse than cretins. They weren’t ignorant or slow-witted. Paul describes them in Titus 1 in the following way:

“Even one of their own men, a prophet from Crete, has said about them, ‘The people of Crete are all liars, cruel animals, and lazy gluttons.’ This is true.” (1:12-13a)

From among such people, Paul gave Titus the task of appointing elders for the churches. His goal was to find men who “live a blameless life”, and who “lives wisely and is just, living a devout and disciplined life”. 

Quite the opposite of the description of Cretans. These were the kind of people needed to lead the churches of Crete. These elders would call the people of God to live pure and good lives among people who are “liars, cruel animals and lazy gluttons.” Regarding dealing with such people, Paul gave Titus the following wisdom:

Everything is pure to those whose hearts are pure. But nothing is pure to those who are corrupt and unbelieving, because their minds and consciences are corrupted. Such people claim they know God, but they deny him by the way they live. They are detestable and disobedient, worthless for doing anything good. (Titus 1:15-16)

The people of God in Crete weren’t to go out arguing with those who didn’t follow God. Like most of the teaching of the New Testament, Titus is ultimately concerned about how the church acts towards one another, even in the midst of a world filled with those who are corrupt, detestable, and disobedient.

This is because Paul knows that we can’t argue with the Cretans of this world. Their reality is centered around a different perspective and worldview that isn’t submissive to God. Christians live their lives according to God’s Word. The world lives according to their own selfish whims, described well above.

It’s hard living with Cretans. If you hold to the truth of the Gospel, you will stand out as worthy of spite in the world you live in. They won’t agree with you. They won’t think well of you. They will hate you because of Christ. Paul gave Titus the following advice to pass along to the believers in Crete:

For the grace of God has been revealed, bringing salvation to all people. And we are instructed to turn from godless living and sinful pleasures. We should live in this evil world with wisdom, righteousness, and devotion to God, while we look forward with hope to that wonderful day when the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, will be revealed. He gave his life to free us from every kind of sin, to cleanse us, and to make us his very own people, totally committed to doing good deeds. (Titus 2:11-14)

Our ultimate hope is in the future, not in this world. While here, we should live with “wisdom, righteousness, and devotion to God.” We are His people, committed to doing good deeds, and our words and actions should reflect that. 

Good Foreigners

For the last 24 years, I’ve lived as a foreigner in two different countries. Foreigners can have different reputations, but for the most part, the term is used as a negative. I’ve heard the term spoken about me and other friends, almost like it was a curse word. Sometimes, this was because of a foolish violation of cultural norms, but other times, I don’t think I deserved to be spoken to with such derision.

Foreigners are defined by not belonging. They are different from the locals. I grew up in a small town and people could be suspicious of foreigners or unknown travelers who came into our town. This is a common reaction to anything different.

According to the New Testament, I actually became a foreigner much earlier in life, long before I moved overseas. It was over 40 years ago when I made the decision to follow Christ. According to 1st. Peter, this made me a foreigner in this world. 1 Peter 2: 9-12 talks about who we are as Christ-followers:

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.

As this “chosen people, royal priesthood, and holy nation”, we will always be different from the people around us. We are now the people of God, holy and set apart. We are called to live differently, but that doesn’t mean we are supposed to be a bane on the existence of those we live among. By contrary, we’re called to a better purpose.

In verse 12, it says, “Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.” Notice it didn’t say to live a good life and do good deeds so that we will be praised or that our church’s reputation will improve. We’re not to do good deeds so we’ll get more likes on social media or our church will get 5 star ratings.

Instead, we do these things so that God will be glorified. Followers of Jesus should live such good lives that people in your community will give glory to God for the way you live and interact with them. When you think about your actions over the past week or month, as you go to work, school or out into your community, did you behave in a way that is likely to lead others to glorify God? What about your online presence? Do people come away from your interactions thinking God is worthy of worship?

This doesn’t mean that we deny the truth to avoid offense. The message of the Gospel is offensive too many. We are foreigners, after all. We serve a different purpose and live according to a different culture and standards. The same passage challenges us to abstain from sinful desires. We are “called out of darkness.” The implication of verse 12 is that any accusations of wrongdoing will seem ridiculous because we have given our lives over to Godly character.

None of this is likely to endear us personally to everyone we meet. In contrast, many will find reasons to attack us. It doesn’t say the wrong accusations won’t come, only that when they come, the good deeds done in faithful service to the Lord will draw people to worship God. As it says in verse 15, “For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people.”

You have been called out of darkness and into God’s glorious light. It’s time to live like it. We are aliens and strangers, foreigners and exiles in this land. We now live as the people of God. Those who’ve received mercy and we proclaim the mercy of Christ available to all who believe by both our words and our deeds. Live for His Glory and to lead others to glorify Him.

The Kingdom, The Power and The Glory – Book Review

I became aware of Tim Alberta’s book, The Kingdom, the Power and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism shortly after its release. It was going around on social media and I added it to my TBR list, hoping to get to it, eventually. In the last month, a number of people in my circles had read it, posting snippets, recommendations and concerns on their own accounts, and I decided it was time to bump it up to the front of the line.

It is a deeply flawed book, filled with personal stories, some good journalism and research and an overarching perspective that the author finds difficult to escape. The book opens with his father’s funeral as the author recounts a painful event in which he is personally attacked at the funeral because of his previous book, American Carnage.

The author’s father was a conservative pastor, and like many pastors, he’d found himself struggling to balance conservative politics with Biblical values and viewpoints. In the previous book, which I have only read a summary of, the author offers a highly critical view of President Trump, his supporters and what he sees as the destruction of the Republican Party.

The sequel is meant to be a similar overview of Evangelical Christianity and an analysis of the impact of politics in general and specifically, the MAGA movement led by President Trump on Evangelical Christianity. The Spector of Trump looms large over the book, but most of the focus is on Evangelicals who compromised their beliefs to support Trump and other political causes.

If you are a Christian or an Evangelical, you’re probably aware of many of those he will target. Parts of the book remind me of a sermon I preached back in 2020, entitled The American Gospel. There is some good analysis in this book and there are a few voices the author highlights who preach a similar message to my own sermon, calling people back to the Gospel truth.

I’ll start with the good of the book. First, there is a well researched evaluation of the history of Liberty University, the Falwell family’s involvement in politics and the Christian Coalition. Most of the content in this section is accurately presented and provides a good framework for the argument. There is much to criticize here and the reporting is fairly straightforward.

Second, as a Southern Baptist, I found the coverage of the problems of the SBC to be fairly unbiased and hopeful. The author represented the good and the bad honestly and any mistakes were more from an absence of information than misinformation.

The further the author gets away from his own personal experiences, the better the book becomes. He has some talent for interviewing individuals and capturing their perspective to tie it together with his greater themes. By interviewing some of the key figures who became the worst offenders of the problem he’s trying to diagnose, he humanizes them without agreeing with them. The author gives some of these men ample space in the book to explain their perspectives.

What I didn’t like. From the first chapter on, there is a condemnation of “these people”. The targets of this book are lined up and shot down, one after another. Some are given a voice, as mentioned in the paragraph above, and others are reduced to a caricature of a few quotes.

Some Christian leaders are criticized for losing their relevance, which is defined as refusing to follow the dictates of the political leaders the author respects and supports and for holding non-Biblical viewpoints with which the author disagrees. Many of these criticisms are far afield from the legitimate criticisms that come at the end of the book when the author interviews some of the good examples of those pastors who are engaging their community for the Gospel.

The author has difficulty seeing the same problem on the left. The Senate race in Georgia was the perfect opportunity to present a non-partisan criticism which points out the misuse of religion by both the right and left, but though he spends many words on the Republican candidate, there is nary a mention of the Reverend Democratic candidate’s mistakes in this area. This would have been a wonderful opportunity to build a bridge to both sides, by treating the race fairly, instead it is completely one-sided.

This is a pattern throughout the book. The Catholic faith of prominent politicians on the left and their moral failures are ignored, while the author keeps coming back to both the failures of the former president and using that as a sledgehammer to condemn any who would support him. Because of this, the author loses some credibility in his criticism. Shouldn’t any Christian who argues that the morality of their political leaders doesn’t matter face the same backlash? The book would have significantly more power if it had taken that into account and shone the same lens on so called “religious” politicians of various political persuasions.

There is a section that starts to talk about the pro-war policies of politicians and the problems these policies have brought. Again, the author ignores that this is no longer a position solely tied to conservatives, but is pushed aggressively by both sides in Washington.

In one section, he puts forth the following statement, “Once a segment of the populace is convinced that they’re under siege, what is to stop them from being radicalized?” This is a fair question. The author is right to criticize those who use a narrative to manipulate Christians, but we’re currently seeing other “religions” radicalized. The terminology “This is the most important election in your lifetime” is used by both sides. Aggressive use of a persecution complex mentality is used by many groups, not just those the author targets, but like most of the book, he limits this only to religious conservatives.

It is difficult to recognize your own biases. Many of the people the author targets for criticism are presented as living in a bubble that reinforces their ideology. It is obvious this is also true for the author. He pushes several “facts” that have already been debunked and some of which have proven false since publication of the book. His perspectives on DC Politics, President Trump and the Pandemic are exactly what you will find if you are informed by opinion pages of Mainstream Media.

Another quote from the book says, “That vocal minority will always push around a timid majority” – this is the problem he sees in churches and as the author interviews the pastors who are struggling, this is the challenge he wants to help them with. The author defines the “crazy” 15-20% that he sees controlling many churches. This does occur in some churches, but strong Biblical leadership and solid discipleship is the best antidote. The author illustrates this when he revisits his father’s church and the pastor there, who, over time, has completely transformed the congregation.

Celebrity pastors who lead cults of personality are a large part of the problem, but really we’re talking about those who move away from the Bible, whether they lead a congregation of 50 or 5000. Pastors who focus on preaching the Gospel and avoid pushing politics and non-Biblical content from the pulpit are the ones who have the least issues today. Even those who dabble in this area continue to struggle. Strong Biblical leadership by qualified pastors is ever the best antidote for churches losing their way. That was the solution in the first century and it continues to be the solution today.

The author almost gets that. He definitely interviews some men who do and much of the last 20% of the book is given to these voices. The book starts out lumping Evangelicals into a big bucket. The heretics and the saints are slapped with harsh labels, especially if they vote in a manner the author doesn’t agree with. Some of the Christian leaders are condemned for this reason alone. At least two godly men of character are treated harshly because they changed their minds between 2016 and 2020.

At first, I wanted to hate this book, and the more I read, the more I wanted to like it. In the end, I found some good ideas, but the execution was lacking. Too many of the arguments were poorly formed and amounted to beating straw men on the head. I suspect he never would have written this book if his father were still alive. It is filled with far too many generalizations and not enough nuance. At times, I thought he was almost there, but the author never quite spelled out the main point of the pastors he interviewed at the end, who are held up as exemplary models.

So, if I were to write my own summary of these ideas, it might go like this. Practical truths that may not be spelled out in this book, but can be gleaned along the way:

The Bible, the Gospel and the Church are more important than politics. Christians lives should reflect that and the way the Church services are conducted should reflect that.

Church services should be centered around the worship of God, the encouragement of the saints and the proclamation of the Gospel.

Christian people should focus far more on grassroots Christian life on life impact in their communities than projecting their opinions on the internet. The Church should lead the way in this kind of local influence and care.

Our ultimate hope should be in Christ and eternity, not in this world or our country.

If this book had been less political, less biased against conservatives and more honed to focus on proclaiming this kind of central message, it would be something I could recommend without hesitation. It could be the kind of book to unite us around true Christian ideals. As it is written, it only serves to further divide the Church, as the author and his friends look down on too many of their fellow believers and judge them as “these people.”

Cultivating Good Soil

In the Gospel of Matthew, in chapter 13, we find what is commonly referred to as the Parable of the Sower. The sower, who could also be called a farmer, is sowing or planting seeds in the parable. In Jesus’ time, it would have been rare for anyone not to be familiar with planting seeds. His audience had seen everything he’s telling them, played out in nature.

There are four groups represented in the parable, or four categories. The parable is both descriptive and prescriptive. Jesus is describing the way things are and will be, but there are also applications and lessons to be learned.

From a descriptive point of view, we can look at the world or at the church or ministry we’ve been involved in and see the truth in what Jesus is saying. When the truth of the Gospel is spread into the world, it lands in different places, coming up against different types of people.

Years ago, I wrote an article about the history of the work in Turkey. As you know, there are few protestant Christians there, less than 10,000. Many “seeds” have been scattered there. People have prayed. They’ve shared the Gospel with people. Bibles and New Testaments have been sent out. Over the years, a lot of seed has been spread. Still, less than 10,000 Christians.

Many more than that have said they want to be a Christian. The best guess is somewhere between 25-40,000 people have professed a belief in Christ in the last 40 years. So, why are there less than 10,000 in the churches?

This parable helps explain it. Some of the seeds fell on the path, some on the rocky ground and some among the weeds. But some was sown in the good soil, and that represents those who believe and continue to walk faithfully with Christ to this day.

You might think about friends you know. People who at one time said they were a follower of Christ, but who now seem to be far from Him. Jesus talks about the problem. He explains why this might happen. He also diagnoses the problem.

When we get to verses 18-23, we see Jesus’ own explanation. This gives us the opportunity to think through Jesus’ words in light of our own lives and to ask the question, “Am I good soil?” As Jesus puts it, “This is the one who hears the word and understands it.” That’s what it means to be good soil. To have the Holy Spirit and have your life aligned with God’s Word. That is how we understand it and how we become “good soil.” There are four different landing places for the good seed of the Gospel in the parable and only one that produces growth in righteousness and spiritual fruit.

Before we look at these four categories, I would note that if you are not a follower of Jesus, you are in great spiritual risk. Jesus is offering you eternal life, but also a life on this earth where you have access to His guidance. These are great gifts. The Bible says, “If you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” Today can be the first day of your new spiritual journey. You can give your life to Him and start this new path. Don’t wait. Don’t hesitate. Bet your life on the safest bet there is in this world.

As for those of you who have already given your lives to Christ, we can learn a lot by looking at this parable. Jesus gives examples that can serve as warnings to us all. If we want our own life to turn out the way God would have it. To see our lives transformed by the good of the Gospel and the Truth of God’s Word, we would do well to read this parable and Jesus’ interpretation and apply it.

  1. Be careful about what you’re listening to. There are voices in our lives. We live in a digital world and the people I know have more virtual voices than real voices in their lives. This is one way that living today is much more complicated than the world that these first century followers of Jesus were living in.

    In the first example, Jesus says the seed fell on the path. He tells us the people on the path don’t understand the word of God. They receive it, but the evil one comes and snatches away the truth that was sown in their hearts.

    So, in this example the truth of God’s Word is falling on a place that isn’t suitable to retain it. The soil of the heart of this person is dry and without the nourishment the plant needs to grow. In the end, because it never really takes root, it is easy for the lies of Satan to overcome it. To replace it.

    Why would the heart of the person be like that? Why would some of your hearts be like that? What dries up the soil of your hearts. In today’s world it could be what you consume. What are you putting into your life every day? What kind of information passes in front of your eyes and into your ears?

    This makes a big difference in how your heart receives truth. You cannot grow in Christ if the seed of God’s Word is just a tiny little kernel in a sea of garbage. In the world we live in today, we can consume media every waking minute. Music, videos, games, and people talking to us about everything. Not just information, but how to think about such information.

    If you cultivate a heart like that, it will become a dry place. An unwelcoming place for God’s Word. By filling your life with every voice, but the truth, we make our heart into the path that is ready for Satan to snatch away whatever remnant of truth that remains.

    What are you filling your mind and heart with? Are these things drawing you closer to God or away from Him?
     
  2. Be careful about where you spend your time. In the next part of the parable, Jesus talks about the rocky places. Jesus gives a warning to the person who receives God’s Word with joy and believes it, but doesn’t take care to continue to build it into their life so it takes root. There’s something there, some belief that is real, but the problem is instead of living in the good soil, it’s surrounded by the rocky places. In the parable, the sun comes out and there is nothing to protect the plant and allow it to survive. If you’ve grown plants, you know that sunshine is essential for most plants. In this scenario, you have a plant that isn’t equipped to deal with the sun.

    Why? Because the sun that gives life and light can also burn things up. Jesus specifically mentions trouble and persecution coming. When this trouble comes, the person among the rocky places quickly falls away. They don’t survive the trouble.

    This might be illustrated in the person who grew up in a church family or came to church and heard the word and believed it, but then lives their life outside of the family of God. Maybe they still come to the church meetings occasionally, such as once a month or for a special event, but they are not a part of God’s family.

    God loved us and gave us His word and He established His church. When we live with God’s Word as a part of our daily life and we remain in the Body, learning from one another and growing together, we are well equipped to survive trouble when it comes. Even grow through it.

    The encouragement and support of our fellow believers is often the tangible presence of God’s Love for us during those difficult times. However, when we don’t live connected to the Body of Christ, we make our lives more difficult at all times, but especially in times of trouble. God intends for us to live in Biblical community and when we do, we will grow together through the good and the bad that this world brings.

    Where do you spend your time? Is it drawing you closer to God or away from Him?
     
  3. Be careful about who you spend time with. The third example is seed scattered among the thorns. In this one it says the thorns choked away the life of the growing plants, making it unfruitful. Jesus says they received the word, but the “worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it.”

    These thorns could represent many things, including who you spend your time with. A sociologist said that we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with. If we spend our time with people who are obsessed with money, we will become more obsessed with money. If the people we spend time with are concerned with personal fame, we will soon demonstrate the same traits.

    This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be friends with unbelievers or spend our time reaching out to those who do not yet know Jesus, but who do you spend the majority of your time with? Are they people who love the Lord and are consistently pursuing a growing relationship with Him or are they those who are consumed with the world, the worries of this age? It matters the kind of people we are with every day. Some people speak truth into our lives. They give us God’s Word and their lives are a beautiful illustration of the Word lived out.

    When we are surrounded by those who worship the world, then we will slowly change to become more concerned with the things of this world.

    Who do you spend your time with? Are these relationships drawing you closer to God, or away from Him?
     
  4. The last example is the inverse of all these things. The good soil. We are saved for a purpose. We don’t come into the Kingdom of God to sit and do nothing. The Gospel isn’t about obtaining fire insurance to prevent ourselves from going to Hell. Instead, we are saved to be fruitful. Fruitful = living, growing and bearing fruit. Spiritual fruit. We receive the truth of God’s Word and it grows in our lives and out of that growth, we share fruit.

    This could be the fruit of the spirit. Love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. It could be Godly character traits. That doesn’t just happen because we proclaim it. It happens because of good soil.

    The fruitfulness also relates to the growth of the Kingdom. As the Gospel is lived out in your life through word and deed, you share a powerful call to a new life. We tell people the Good News of salvation through Christ. We show people the Good News of a transformed life, given over to Him. This is fruitful. It is the fruitful life. A life that can yield a crop 100, 60 or 30 times what was sown. Something that is only possible in Christ.

    This is the life God has for you. It is what Jesus was looking ahead and wanting for His disciples and unfortunately, it is the life that many miss out on because they refuse to hear the word of God and understand it.

    They refuse to make good decisions about who they spend their time with, where they spend that time and the influences they allow into their lives. All of these things have the potential to derail us from the righteous life that God desires. Every day, you make choices that draw you towards Christ or away from Him. Today, and every day, you have to choose.

So that is the question for us today. If you are a follower of Christ, will you build your life around Him? Will you willingly choose to immerse yourself in truth in a world full of deception? Will you remain faithful to being a part of Church Community, in a world that refuses to commit? Will you build deep, Godly friendships in the Body of Christ, or live out your life among the thorns?

To put it another way, in the words of Joshua, as God’s people prepared to enter into His promise:

14 “Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. 15 And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

God is the Hero of our Story

In the novel, Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson makes the unusual decision to name the main character Hiro Protagonist. Which is either brilliant or a bad joke depending on the persuasion of humor you find compelling. Hiro is the hero of the story, of course. A hero cut very much from the modern anti-hero cloth. This work of fiction predated and predicted much of modern tech culture.

Hiro is a hacker who lives two lives, one as an elite free-lance hacker in the world of the Metaverse, a technologically advanced version of the internet that resembles many modern implementations of virtual worlds. Off-line, Hiro is a pizza delivery driver, working for a Franchised-Organized Quasi-National Entity known as Uncle Enzo’s pizza. It is weird and wonderful, but the story isn’t for everyone.

In real life, we often see ourselves as the hero of our story. It’s not something we talk about, but we envision that the story we’re living revolves around us. This is normal. We are inherently self-centered. It’s comical if you take a step back. There is no way we’re all the great mover of a grand scheme of which we’re the center. The world doesn’t work if everyone views their lives as if the world has to revolve around them.

That’s okay. We’re not NPC’s either. We have a real life. It has meaning and purpose. None of us are wallpaper. We don’t have to be at the center of everything to make a difference. It’s actually more mentally healthy for us if we can keep our life in balance by pursuing a purpose that is bigger than ourselves. 

About a year ago, a conversation I had online led me to consider thinking through my own spiritual origin story. Questions like: “How did I come to believe?”, “How did the aspects of my faith develop over time?”, and “What is it that causes anyone to believe in something?” Big questions and important questions. Questions on which life hangs.

In the process of thinking about these things, I decided it would be interesting to write what I called a “Spiritual Autobiography.” This was not about my life as much as it was about my spiritual life. I wanted to examine the way different events impacted my own spiritual development. As such, I made the conscience decision to omit specific details including proper names and places. The point of this being that the story wasn’t really about me, but about God in me. God is the real hero of my story.

I first published this story on Kindle Vella, finishing it up in September of 2023. It was a fun and engaging experience and I loved sharing it with my kids when it was done. They mentioned how they learned several things about me that they never knew. Some people read it online as well, and for the most part, it seemed to be well received.

Most people don’t read on Kindle Vella, but via eBook or print book. Because of this, I decided to release this story as a book and it came out at the end of last month. Getting There From Here is of course a play of words on the old saying, “You can’t get there from here.”

The meaning of the title is to contradict that saying, because, in fact, with God you can get there from here. When you make God the hero of your life’s story, you can find a way through the darkness. He’s the way out of the wilderness. He’s the hope for the hopeless and He’s ultimately the secret to finding true meaning and purpose in our lives.

God is the hero of my story and if you’re interested in reading about it, you can pick up a copy here. If you don’t have the spare change it takes to purchase it, just let me know and I’m happy to give you a free copy.

The Anxious Generation – Book Review

You know it and I know it. Smartphones have a negative impact on our daily lives. For most people, it isn’t a question of whether they do or not, but whether the impact is a net negative (more negatives than positives overall). As adults, every day we have to make decisions about the use of technology. There are reminders about our screen time, technology fasts and even cell phone retreats where people pay to go off the grid for a period of time.

Most technology should be evaluated similarly, but no technology is as pervasive as the modern smartphone. It is the gateway to the internet for most people. We have digital assistants, in many cases, powered by Artificial Intelligence. For the majority of society, the first thing they pick up and the last thing they put down each day is their phone.

I’ve been reading about this topic and researching it for over a decade. Early helpful books I read were The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, released in 2010 by Nicholas Carr and What Technology Wants, also in 2010 by Kevin Kelly. Now, in 2024, the definitive book on this topic as it relates to children has been written and it is the first book in this field that I’m ready to recommend to everyone.

Jonathan Haidt’s new book, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness is applied research. It takes a hypothesis and synthesizes extensive studies by others to present a bullet proof case of the damage smartphones are doing to our children.

Gen Y, the generation entering the workforce today, are the victims of our neglect, and ignorance. This is well documented in the book and the studies he relies on, showing an extreme increase in anxiety and depression in recent years, as noted in the graphs below.

Something devastating happened to children in the early 2010s, derailing the next generation. This book is the author’s attempt to answer that question. This can be a scary book to read, but if you’re a parent, educator, pastor or anyone who works with children and youth, you owe it to yourself and your kids to read or listen to this book.

The book is divided into four parts. The first part is the really bad news. It documents the damage done. As you read, I’m sure you’ll be able to think of people who are dealing with the problems he describes. I knew there was a problem, but I’m somewhat sheltered from understanding just how bad it is by my life abroad. While this isn’t specifically a US problem, the US and UK have some of the best data on the issue. We’ve been exporting technology for years and the author tracks its deployment in a variety of countries, showing how the damage occurred when the widespread exposure came into existence.

Parts two and three are the cause. First, the decline of play-based childhood. This is an issue other researchers are examining in detail and I expect new insights to be appearing that confirm this author’s evaluation. Children need “free play” that is unstructured by adults and technology for healthy psychological development. The advance of technology and the movement towards what they call “Safetyism” has put walls around childhood that rarely leaves them with many opportunities for free play.

Part three is the rise of the phone-based childhood. The author examines the differing impacts on boys and girls and the overall “spiritual degradation” that is happening to all of us as we dive deeper into a phone-based lifestyle. Our brains are rewired by both the technology and those behind it. App developers know how our brains work and both social media and games are designed to manipulate our brains to stay engaged with our phones.

The last section is the most important section. Whether you read the book or not, take serious note of the author’s suggestions, which have great merit. If you look at the suggestions below and think they are unreasonable, please don’t take my word for it. Get a copy of the book and I doubt you’ll still think the same way once you’ve read the entire thing.

Four suggestions for saving the next generation and helping the current generation in their struggles:

  1. Delay Smartphone and Social Media Use – No smartphone access until high school and no social media until the age of 16. Parents and educators who join together in solidarity have a better chance at encouraging teens and their friends to develop a more healthy toolbox of social skills by avoiding the social media/smartphone trap. I was impressed by the suggestion that we work together to encourage Apple, Google and Microsoft, to integrate an age verification into the phones and operating systems. That way, when the parent gives the child a device, they can mark the age when they register it. Then enforcement of underage access to platforms becomes much simpler.
  2. Phone-free schools – The author suggests it isn’t enough to have phone-free classrooms. The goal isn’t just to avoid distractions while in class, but to help children and teens learn to relate to one another again. This can only be accomplished if the phones are locked up throughout the school day. Breaks, lunches and recesses can become times for free play again, instead of times where they disconnect from those around them to log into apps and games.
  3. Increased Independent Play – Without smartphones, it becomes easier to create independent play opportunities. This is more challenging to implement, but the author offers several concrete plans parents or educators could choose to carry out.
  4. More Responsibility in the Real World – Kids need to learn responsibility, and growing responsibility as they pass through stages of childhood. Chores and volunteering are some examples, but the author also gives helpful household experiences a parent could use to help their children develop their internal locus of control.

Whether you agree with all of these measures, we all should be open to making improvements in these areas. Our children’s mental health and future as members of society are at stake. It is irresponsible to kick the bucket down the road. The adults of today, whether they be Gen-X or Millennials, have the power to change the destiny of the next generation. We didn’t grow up with a device in our hands and we can help ensure that our children have a healthier future.

Note: In just the last few weeks, almost to perfectly coincide with the release of this book, the state of Florida has signed into law a social media ban that seems to take to heart many of this author’s suggestions. I was aware of the ban before I read the book and after reading it; I believe it is the right kind of top down response, but is not the best solution. Better solutions will be organized on a more grass-roots level by parents and educators. If both of these things happen, it will be even better for the health of our kids.

I Don’t Hate You

Years ago, famous atheist and noted illusionist, Penn Jillette made a short video on Christian proselytizing. As a known atheist, he’s had many people try to explain their faith to him and the point of his video is it doesn’t offend him. In fact, he has respect for the people who share with him.

The big zinger of the talk is when he says, “How much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them that. I mean if I believed beyond a shadow of a doubt that a truck was coming at you and you didn’t believe it, there’s a certain point where I tackle you. And this is more important than that.”

It’s true. I believe in the Christian faith of the Bible. That faith says that we all stand condemned before God for our sins. Every one of us. Every person who has ever lived. You, your neighbors, your family members. Everyone. According to the Bible, the only hope that we all have is Jesus. You can’t be a good enough person. It is impossible to Mother Theresa your way into eternity. The only hope is one thing:

“If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved.”

Romans 10:9-10

Saved from what? An eternity without God. We live on this earth in a place where we benefit from the grace of God. We know in part the blessings of God. We experience His creation. All people are protected from an unreleased outpouring of evil because of God.

Heaven is forever with God. Hell is forever without Him. There is only one thing that can make the difference. Faith in Jesus. Here is the progression of reality defined by Paul in what is sometimes called the Romans Road.

Romans 3:23 – “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” – This means that we are born into a broken relationship with God. Our sin, which we all have, separates us from Him.

Romans 5:8 – “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Even though we didn’t deserve anything but death, God loved us enough to send his son to provide a way to salvation.

Romans 6:23 – “For the wages of sin is death, but the gracious gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” – It’s a gift, but it must be accepted. If we refuse the gift, we continue on the path to death. We will be paid for our sin with death, which is spiritual death.

Romans 8:1 – “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” – The Bible is a book of absolutes, and this is one of the best ones. If we are in Christ, there is no condemnation.

Romans 10:9 – “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” Back to where we started. This is what we have to do to accept God’s great gift. Confess and believe. There’s no faking this before God, but this is the ultimate Good News.

So, I don’t hate you. If you aren’t a follower of Jesus, you stand condemned and you’re facing an eternity without Him. It is impossible for me to describe how bad that is. You think you know misery and suffering on this earth, but what we face here is just a taste of what is possible in the realm of evil without God. The good news is you don’t have to live with that as your ultimate destination. Today, even in this very moment, you can move your life into the “no condemnation” column.

All you have to do is believe that Jesus is who He says He is and that He did what for us what the Bible says He did. Believe it and confess it, making Jesus the guide for the rest of your life.

Because I don’t hate you, I need you to know this and more. This path isn’t just the best deal for eternity, but it’s also the best deal for this life as well. Living with Jesus helps life make sense and makes our lives better in a thousand little ways on top of the eternal peace. It doesn’t make us good or perfect people. You know that. But it does give us access to a good and perfect guide for life.

This is the most important decision anyone will ever make and I want this great gift for every one of you.

Two Houses

““Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.””

‭‭Matthew‬ ‭7‬:‭24‬-‭27‬ (ESV)

This passage comes from the end of Jesus’ most famous sermon, usually called The Sermon on the Mount. It is the application point of the sermon. He’s giving the crowd a choice to make. The choice every follower of Jesus makes. How will you follow Him? Will you be wise or will you be foolish? Will you build on the rock or the sand?

I don’t know how many of you have experience with building things. Construction in Jesus’ time was much closer to the average person’s daily life. Most people were probably familiar with the way their simple home’s were put together. Many of his hearers in their lifetimes probably saw a house fall because of where it was built. Rain will wash away the wrong kind of foundation. Wind can knock down an improperly put together wall. 

Jesus, in His great love for us, gave us this wisdom. If you want your house to stand you need to build it on a firm foundation. Now, even though Jesus was a carpenter, his primary concern wasn’t construction. Jesus was about building lives. He wanted lives built on the truth. On God’s Truth. As people took the teachings of Jesus and the Bible that they had at the time, their lives would stand strong. 

Jesus is referring to life. Eternal life, a portion of which is lived on this earth, but most of which is in the life to come. We’re all here on this earth for a limited time, and during that time we’re building a life. The wisdom of Jesus is to indicate to people that there is a wise way and a foolish way to build.

Both of the men in the story are building something. They are giving their lives to a purpose, establishing a structure with their lives. The house they are building has elements to it. It has things which hold it together. It has connections. Friendships and family. Meaning and purpose. Every day given to adding something else to the house we’re building. Like we are adding bricks to our house with every decision we make.

Life is a series of decisions and we build our house based on these decisions. Will I give my life to light or darkness? Will I choose life or death?

If only all decisions were that clear. Think back over the course of the last week. As you watch the replay film, are there decisions you regret? Did you have any moments where you where you did something and immediately you felt in your spirit that you’d violated God’s teaching or stepped outside of God’s path? Maybe it was a moment of intense emotion and you didn’t think about it at all, but the end result was you lashing out with your tongue or actions in a way that did not glorify God.

As we walk through this life, we are to become something new. We are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, as it says in Romans. We are becoming like Christ. That is the calling of a believer. That is the house we’re to build. The only hope of it standing is if it is built on a relationship with Jesus. It is only in Christ that we can build anything that will stand.

One doesn’t become “like Christ” overnight, but over a lifetime of making the right decisions we all can become more like Him. Day by day, moment by moment, we are building a strong house.

There is a trend going around online that talks about life hacks. Things you might not have thought about before that make your life easier or better. The videos you see online might be for practical things like doing laundry or studying more effectively. 

When Jesus talks about these two men building their houses, he is giving a picture of one man putting his efforts to good use and the other who is essentially wasting his life. One of them will work hard over the course of their life, only to find it wiped out when the trials come. The other is building something that will last.

The Bible is the ultimate life hack. Jesus’ teaching is a true path to a better life. This is the real blessing of Scripture. It is not a guarantee or wealth or success, but it is a promise of a life lived in accordance with the world God designed. We can live this life with Him.

We can build our life around the promises of God. We worship Him. We don’t live our life for selfish ends. We come together to encourage and love one another. We get married and build a strong marriage where the husband loves his wife sacrificially and the wife lovingly gives herself to her husband.

We’ll have kids and raise them up in this way of life. We’ll teach them of God’s love and truth and that we are created for His purposes. We’ll tell everyone we meet of the Way, as Jesus’ earliest followers referred to it.

A Way that leads to life, life everlasting through the belief in God’s Son and His sacrifice for our sins. This is the house that is built on God’s Foundation. It is a house that stands when the wind and the rain comes. This house will not fall. It experiences the blessings of a life lived with Him. It holds together with others who walk side by side as a part of the family of God. We live and walk by faith together, forgiven and free. We are sinners, but no longer under the condemnation of a system of works. We follow God out of our freedom, not out of our bondage.

This is the better way. This is the life every young believer should want for themselves, for their family and for their friends. When you look ahead and dream about the future, picture that house built on the solid rock. Imagine the joy of a life lived in faith with Him. A life without regrets. A life where you look back on your past decisions and you praise God for His faithfulness in allowing you to experience the joy of His salvation.

All of you should want this. In a world where we have trouble, just as we are promised, there is a clear path through the trouble. It is not of our own creation, but is paved by the hand of the Father.

Open up your Bibles to Matthew 5-7 today and read the Sermon on the Mount in its entirety and read and understand the great love that God has for you in giving you a better way to live. After salvation, it is His greatest gift to you and me. 

A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War

Anyone who follows this blog, has read my book, Seeing God: For Who He Really Is, or who knows me personally, knows of my love of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R Tolkien. When a pastor friend recommended this book, I knew it would be one of my first reads of 2024. What’s not to love? This is a narrow focused biography, which reminded me most of another book I enjoyed: Steal Away Home.

While some biographies try to be all-encompassing, this one deals with a very specific point. We know that C.S. Lewis and J.R.R Tolkien both fought in the Great War (which we now call World War I), and we know about their friendship at Oxford. The author attempts to take what is written about these things and use them to form some opinions about how the war might have affected their relationship, their lives and their writings.

This is not a work of great scholarship, but it is filled with the kind of conjecture you might find in a well-researched work of historical fiction. Because of this, it is difficult to recommend the book to everyone. Where possible, the author draws upon the original published writings of the two authors and some historical sources like letters and interviews, but this book is comfortable going further than the historical record.

Personally, I enjoyed this journey, and it didn’t bother me that the author makes some assumptions along the way. He gets more right than not and through the recounting of both these authors’ war experiences and the common experiences of other soldiers in the same battlefronts; we get a very clear picture of the potential impact this might have had on Lewis and Tolkien.

“Tolkien and Lewis offer an understanding of the human story that is both tragic and hopeful: they suggest that war is a symptom of the ruin and wreckage of human life, but that it points the way to a life restored and transformed by grace.”

We can be grateful that both the religious catholic, Tolkien and the softening atheist, Lewis, found each other in the aftermath of the war. Tolkien was one of several learned men of faith who played an important part in Lewis becoming “the most reluctant convert.” And it was out of this friendship that the encouragement of Lewis spurred on Tolkien to keep working on his masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings, when he frequently was ready to set it aside for more academic pursuits.

“Part of the achievement of Tolkien and Lewis was to reintroduce into the popular imagination a Christian vision of hope in a world tortured by doubt and disillusionment.”

The author recognizes how unusual these two men’s viewpoints were when compared to the general pessimistic malaise that arose after the Great War. Somehow, in the midst of the despair, they found hope in their philosophical, faith-filled discussions.

“The best thing you can do for your fellow, next to rousing his conscience, is—not to give him things to think about, but to wake things up that are in him; or say, to make him think things for himself.”

Lewis and Tolkien were influential thinkers who demanded intellectual honesty in their discussions and arguments. Out of the discussions of them and their friends were born some of the greatest works of fiction and non-fiction of their age, many of which continue to be read today.

In reading this book, I couldn’t help but think of the challenges of our own day. Looking back on recent days from 2020 on, it would be easy to give in to pessimism and darkness. There is plenty of both to go around, but if Lewis and Tolkien can find a path towards hope out of the horrors they saw and experienced in the Great War, surely believers today can find our own truth to share in this current age.