Summer Beach Read

A few weeks ago, our family took a vacation to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. We spent a week at Duck, famous for Duck Donuts. The little town is just north of Kitty Hawk where the Wright brothers made history flying their first heavier than air plane off the sand dunes just after the turn of the 20th century. For us it was a joyful time playing with our kids and grand kids and generally hanging out with our family. Fern and I love making those kinds of memories.

     With time to relax, I indulged in a summer beach read, Haruki Murakami's What I Talk about When I Talk about Running:A Memoir. The book is a recollection of various events related to the intersection of his two passions, running and writing. I found the book both insightful and sad. It was insightful because it gave insight into a disciplined life. It was sad because of the admission that life is passing all too quickly, and for him there is no hope of a life beyond. I would like to draw your attention to a few of the positive insights from his memoir. Murakami's wrote:

     - "The gym where I work out in Tokyo has a poster that say, 'Muscles are hard to gain and easy to lose. Fat is easy to gain and hard to lose.' A painful reality, but a reality just the same." This is a nice reminder of the importance of staying disciplined, eating well, and getting sufficient exercise and rest. It sounds like Galatians 6:7 and the principle of sowing and reaping.

     -"There are three reasons I failed [In a particular race]. Not enough training. Not enough training. And not enough training." This, too, is a good reminder of seeing and learning from the obvious. Training and discipline are integral to every accomplishment in life. In 1 Timothy 4:7, Paul admonished Timothy to "train yourself to be godly."

     -"This is a trite observation, but as they say: If something is worth doing, it's worth giving your best--or in some cases beyond your best." Again, this is a nice reminder of the importance of doing any and all jobs well. Paul reminded us in Colossians 3:23, "Whatever you do, work heartedly, as for the Lord and not for man."

     Well, these "nice reminders" are a few of Murakami's thoughts. I hope you find them inspiring interesting. The book helped motivate me to be a better writer, and a better runner.

The Next Election: What Is At Stake?

     In the next few weeks, both the Republican and Democratic Parties will finalize their nominations for the President and Vice-President of the United States. In November the country will elect a new President and Vice-President. Greater than the personalities at the head of each ticket will be the agendas each party presents as its guiding principles. These are incorporated in the party platforms which will soon be made public. From my perspective, a litany of critical issues are at stake. Consider the implications of the next election on the direction of our nation.

     First, the President has the responsibility to nominate Supreme Court Justices. Whichever party wins the White House will determine what kind of Justices will be nominated. The critical question is do we as a nation want a court that legislates from the bench, or one that honestly interprets proposed laws based upon original intent? Issues related to abortion and the sanctity of human life, religious liberty and the defense of the free exercise clause, and government over-reach will be decided by the make-up of the Supreme Court. The notion that this does not matter is nonsense. The vote in November will affect the standards of the nation for the next 25-35 years.

     Second, the President has the responsibility to reign in runaway government spending. The amount of the national debt is staggering. It has doubled over the last 8 years. The people of the United States cannot afford to continue on this trajectory. The size and scope of our government needs to be curtailed. If anyone continued to spend borrowed money with no intention of paying it back, we would consider it theft. Why should we assume that this is acceptable when it comes to our national government? Moreover, a serious revision of how our government collects and distributes tax money is way past due.

     Third, the issue of Religious Liberty and the insistence on  the practice of the free exercise clause must be protected. The idea that a pastor would be forced to remain silent on a moral issue  because someone labels a biblical conviction as "hate-speech," is unacceptable. The notion that a Christian would be forced to violate his or her conscience is unacceptable. Government intimidation of churches and threatening to remove tax-exempt status is unacceptable.

     These are three issues that are critical in my estimation.

Who Is Being Naive?

     I was channel surfing the other night when I caught an interesting story on one of the "science" channels. The show was a "documentary" explaining how planet Earth was formed. Over the course of an hour, scientists and astronomers described all the "luck" (that was their term, not mine) that transpired to form earth and the world as we know and experience it.

     It related how "lucky" we are that the sun formed, the mass we call Earth was captured in its orbit, how another massive piece of inter-stellar mass collided with what would be our Earth creating the moon, how multiple millions of years transpired with multiple millions of asteroids and comets containing water crashed into Earth, how the atmosphere  formed and how small microscopic life-forms begin to develop and eventually evolved into all that we see including humanity.

     The longer I watched, the more amazed I was that these learned academics actually believed that all that exists was a catastrophic phenomenon of chance. From where I sit, the notion that everything just happened seems more and more like fool's talk. Now, I am viewed as naive because I believe God, the Intelligent Designer, created it all. I ask you, who is being naive?

     My larger problem is that this secular and atheist mindset which attributes all we see to "luck" totally dominates our world's major universities and academic communities. How did this happen? I am reminded of Psalms which states, "The fool has said in his heart, there is no God."

     I ask you, does it really make sense to believe that nothing plus time plus chance formed the universe with all of its complexity? Yet, belief in this nonsense seems to be the union card into our modern world of academia. Sad.

The Root Cause

     A lot of tragic things have happened in recent days. Mass shootings by a radical Islamist terrorist, a Christian singer murdered, a little child killed by an alligator. Each of these events is a manifestation of evil in its most brutal form. We live in a day when so many things seem to be spiraling out of control that addressing issues, multiple issues, seems to never end. What do you think is behind all of this? The healing of America and the world will never come as long as the diagnosis for what afflicts us is vague and perpetually undefined. I suggest what many may well perceive as a foolish even simplistic hypothesis: The root cause behind these things is spiritual and demonic. Why would I say something like that?

     First, recognizing the spiritual and demonic presumes a biblical world-view as the unchanging and normative reality. It views God as the Creator and Sustainer of the universe, and Satan and his minions as the rebels attempting to destroy God's handiwork. It sees people as the objects of God's love and Satan's hate. It accepts at face value Jesus' statement, "the thief (Satan) has come to steal, kill, and destroy, but I have come that you might have life and that more abundantly." It also embraces the Apostle John's pronouncement that "The Son of God has appeared that He might destroy the works of the devil."

     Second, recognizing the spiritual and demonic acknowledges their intentional activity as intelligently designed to damage, if not to destroy, the human race. This comes primarily through deception convincing people that good is evil and evil is good. It attacks on a multiplicity of fronts. Satan is an equal opportunity destroyer. If he can distort sexuality, plant greed, create addictions, cultivate pride, foster religions that are destructive to humanity, distort truth, foster racial hatred, or produce power hunger, it all works for him. The goal of his end game is to destroy people and destroy the work of God.

     So, how do we fight and defeat this demonic cancer? First, pray in opposition to what Satan is doing. Prayer is more powerful than anyone imagines. In our world, it is not that prayer has been tried and then failed, rather it has been found difficult and left untried. Let me remind you that Jesus Himself said, “Whatever you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive."

     Second, in your arena of influence, stand up and be counted. Righteousness is something that must be lived out, communicated, and defended. This is true of the home, the classroom, the market place, and the corridors of power. One of the great tragedies of our time is the silence of good people in the face of evil.

     Next, I challenge you to see the powers behind the activities. Our fight is not with people, but rather demonic forces influencing people. Recall James' words, "Submit yourselves therefore unto God, resist the devil, and he will flee." So, let's keep our focus where God instructed us to place it.

     Finally, I challenge you to simply put your trust in God and His power to change the present reality. I remind you of Proverbs which says, "Trust in The Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths."

     If the root cause of the world’s tragedies is spiritual and demonic, then we would be wise to embrace John's words cited earlier, "The Son of God appeared that He might destroy the works of the devil." Let's trust Him to do what only He can accomplish.

Judge Not

     Over the past week, I have heard the phrase, "Judge not that you be not judged" leveled at Christians for not acquiescing to a pro-homosexuality agenda and lifestyle. In short, the verse-quoting was an attempt to tell Christians (who some have irrationally blamed for creating the atmosphere that led to the horrific Orlando massacre) that we should not be verbalizing disapproval of their life-style. Before we Christians swallow this confused interpretation, it would be wise to consider what Matthew 7:1-4, in context, actually says and does not say.

     Before launching into a brief Bible lesson, let me relate something I heard over twenty years ago. A prominent speaker made the observation that the upcoming generation would embrace whole-heartedly this very verse, "Judge not lest you be judged." He explained that a world-view was emerging which asserted that no absolutes existed with respect to truth. When this assertion is embraced, its corollary is that no one can or should form value judgments which are universally true. The result of embracing this perspective is relativism. Relativism declares that there are no absolutes which in its nonsensical way of thinking is the only absolute. So, whenever a person takes a Biblical stand, it should be no surprise that we have this verse brought up. Now, before someone swallows this interpretation and its corresponding mind-set, it would be wise to consider what Jesus actually said and meant in context. From my understanding, these verses are some of the most frequently quoted, yet misunderstood and abused verses in the Bible. So, what does this passage really mean?

     First, if you will read the Sermon on the Mount in total (Matthew 5-7), you will discover that it is full of judgments with respect to absolutes. Jesus made judgments and declared that some things were factual, and we need both to consider and to embrace what He said. For example, Jesus resoundingly criticizes the scribes and Pharisees in 5:20 for holding to an external "appearance" of righteousness while not living righteously. Jesus said that was unacceptable.

     Second, the imperative of the verse (7:1) "judge not" has the plural "you" as the understood subject. His point is that we are not to form our own judgments with respect to right and wrong, good and bad, wisdom and foolishness. Rather, we are to submit to our Creator, the God of this universe, to communicate those things. That is one reason why He gave us His Scriptures. The point is that our human judgments are faulty, and that whenever we make up our own rules apart from God, we are inevitably in trouble.

     Third, Jesus did point out that if we judge with a faulty judgment ("I will make up my own rules and my own standards. I do not care what either God or His Bible says."), we can expect to find ourselves under the judgment of God. In fact, He warns us that if we judge by our own standards, we can expect to be judged by those very standards. Now this context points out that He is dealing particularly with those who profess a certain standard, but in actuality refuse to live by those very standards. Jesus had no patience with hypocrisy.

    Fourth, Jesus gets to the concluding point noting that people tend to judge others while excusing themselves. Human nature tends to overlook and even justify its own faults. At the same time human nature magnifies the perceived faults of those it criticizes. Jesus concludes that we should deal with our own issues first before attempting to address the issues of others. He did not say that it was inappropriate to address the issues of others. Much less did He say there are no standards of morality.

     Everyone has a right to their opinion even if it is wrong. The attempt to silence the affirmation of a Biblical standard of morality by intimidating those who embrace it is wrong, but it works. Burke was right, "The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to say nothing."