Category: Articles

Categories
Articles

Some good news

Catholic in Brooklyn: The Message of Ascension Thursday

Scripture teaches us that churches have five ministries or functions given to them by Jesus, the Head of the Church. Pastor Rick Warrren called these ministries the five purposes and wrote books that taught both churches and the lives of individual believers should be driven by Fellowship, Missions, Worship, Discipleship, and Evangelism.

COVID-19 disrupted church life as we know it in 2020. Fellowship was handicapped when events, classes, and meetings were postponed or cancelled. Missions or service to others was limited when people were mandated to stay-at-home. Due to state regulations and guidelines, Worship capacity in our facilities and buildings were capped at a percentile that drove down attendance and required us to physically distance ourselves from one another. Discipleship turned digital, unfortunately causing the discipleship ball to be dropped in locations that had not previously readied themselves in and for the coming digital revolution. Likewise, as human contact decreased, Evangelism took on new forms.

The ministries of the church have been hurt by the pandemic, but in more subtle ways, the ministries of the church have also been helped. Churches have been able to become stronger in ministry areas they were weaker in because well, they were forced to. One ministry area the church desperately needs to capitalize on in this time of crisis is Evangelism. Currently, medical companies are sending out vaccines to defeat the evil coronavirus. Are we being evangelistic and letting the world know that Jesus has already defeated sin, death, and hell?

Are we sharing The Story: creation, fall, rescue, and restoration? Are we sharing the grand narrative of the gospel story that takes the stories of our lives and begins to make sense out of them?

Creation: This world was a beautiful place at its inception. It was virus-free!

Fall: Due to man’s original sin in the garden, creation itself now suffers and we have to deal with viruses such as Covid-19.

Rescue: Thankfully, Jesus came to heal us from all our sins and one day . . .

Restoration: . . . We won’t have to worry about the virus called sin that infects us all or sickness such as the coronavirus!

In a world full of bad news, people are dying to hear some good news. Will you be the one that shares it with them?

Categories
Articles

Get Vaccinated

Covid vaccine: When can I get vaccinated in the US?

In his book The Secret Battle of Ideas about God, Jeff Myers acknowledges five non-biblical worldviews that have unfortunately become widely accepted by Christians. Myers compares the ideas of secularism, Marxism, postmodernism, new spirituality, and Islam to viruses that have infected many churches today. In 2015, Barna Research stated that only 6 percent of US adults held to a biblical worldview.

Myers believes the meshing of non-biblical worldviews to the biblical narrative is so pervasive in the church today that, “Chances are you’ve already been infected without even realizing it.” In the foreword to the book, David Kinnaman says, “In order to thrive as exiles in what I’ve come to call ‘digital Babylon,’ we need a shot in the arm . . . to inoculate us against the worldview viruses that suffuse the cultural air we breathe.” Myers goes as far to offer individuals, families, and churches a Worldview Checkup at www.secretbattlebook.com/checkup that can help identify “five fatal worldviews [that] may have made their way into your heart and mind.”

I find Myers’ book to be almost prophetic in the sense that it was written years before Covid-19. I think we would all agree that the coronavirus is one virus we all want to defeat! But Myers goes farther saying that we need to learn how to immunize ourselves from these five other highly contagious and sickening idea viruses. I say “prophetic” because Myers says “Bad ideas can multiply out of control, like the spread of a virus that becomes a pandemic.” Just as the first vaccine was released a few days ago to help prevent Covid-19, so too does the church need to be releasing its own spiritual vaccines against the five idea viruses.

It is too much for me tackle all five viruses in this post, but I do want to touch on one: “new spirituality.” I would prefer to call this new age spirituality. I find this idea virus oftentimes makes contact with another idea virus, secularism, combining to make what I call secular Christianity. New age spirituality typically combines itself with eastern religion or philosophy and is thus heavily inundated with Buddhist and Hindu influence.

Barna says that America’s “Judeo-Christian (biblical) moorings have given way to a new moral code — the morality of self-fulfillment,” and backs up its research with findings such as:

-91% of US adults and 76% of Practicing Christians say the best way to find yourself is by looking within yourself

-89% of US adults and 76% of Practicing Christians say people should not criticize someone else’s life choices

I will not list all of the statistics, but I think its important to note that Barna also found that “61% of practicing Christians agree with ideas rooted in new spirituality.”

The face of new age spirituality may be Oprah Winfrey who believes she is a god and that everyone else is too. New age spiritualists don’t condemn Christianity; rather they say its just one more religion that is equal to all the rest. However, that is not what Jesus said as he laid claim that he alone is God and that he is the only way to the Father.

The truth is new spirituality could easily overlap with all of the idea viruses that Myers lists. For instance, Trevin Wax in his new book Rethink Your Self: The Power of Looking Up before Looking In touches on how new spirituality coincides with many popular postmodern slogans of today such as “Follow your heart,” “Chase your dreams,” “You are enough,” “You do you,” and “No matter what, be true to yourself.” Trevin debunks these ideas in his book by pointing out that people should not use God as an attachment to their spirituality, but should rather start with Jesus at their core.

New spirituality would say that the self should vanish away into the world at-large. Postmodernism would say the self exists, but what’s it matter. Secularism would say the self exists and live it up. But Jesus says to deny yourself and to follow Him and to lose your life so that you can find it. In other words, Jesus said he came to give you life and life to the full, but before you can have it, you must denounce your sin, yourself, and all other teachings that run counter to his. Jesus never said this would be easy, but he did say he would leave you his peace. If Jesus gave up his life so that we could find it, why wouldn’t we be required to do the same?

Categories
Articles

iRobot?

Image result for I, Robot

Just when I thought I heard it all . . .

“Sex with robots” . . . Yes, you read that correctly. It is not a misprint. In her book Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other, author Sherry Turkle talks about how “relationships with robots are ramping up” while “relationships with people are ramping down.”

“Relationships with robots are not as risky.” Though robots are less moody and more predictable than women and though robots are less distracted and more present than men, are we sure we humans are ready for such a trade-off?

Turkle speaks of the “robotic moment” as the time when we humans find ourselves ready to make “our robots not only pets, but potential friends, confidants, and even romantic partners.” Believe it or not, there are some who have gone as far as the “proposal and defense of marriage to robots.”

David Levy, a British-born entrepreneur and computer scientist, sees robots as performing a therapeutic role on humans in the future and being able to to substitute where people fail. Levy argues that robots will teach us to be better friends and lovers because we will be able to practice on them. No cheating. No heartbreak. “The machine will be preferable for any number of reasons—to what we currently experience in the sometimes messy, often frustrating, and always complex world of people.”

What do I make of all this talk? Is it even plausible? As I peer into the future, I think Turkle is right. It’s not only possible; it’s highly probable.

This is where it will become imperative that we have a theology of robots. Does all this sound too far-fetched, too out-there? I don’t think so. Just because it hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen. I havn’t fallen out of of my rocker, yet. I never thought our world would change as fast as it did in 2020, but along came Covid-19, political overreach into every aspect of society, and a soft totalitarianism that is steadily rising in our dare I say, democratic nation (for more information, read my last post). Thus, sex with robots may not be as distant as you might think.

I will let someone else write the theology and ethics handbook on how to view and relate to robots. For now, all I will say is that humans are made in the imago dei and robots are not. We may soon make robots into our image, but that does not change the written Word. In the future, man may own many robots, but I see no biblical basis for marrying them or . . . his robots.

Categories
Articles

A Better Story

Image result for God of the bible

Much of the next generation has become enamored with the promises and perks offered to them by a political ideology that is propagated and promoted by mass media, big tech companies, and incessant ads. This soft totalitarianism has traces of socialism, marxism, and communism in it which is mixed together into a woke capitalism that catapults itself off of a materialistic and consumerist culture like ours. It’s harder to identify than communist regimes of the past because it masquerades and disguises itself in a form that the normal American is not used to seeing.

We eat, live, and breathe in a world like this 24/7, but up until this point, I have not understood why America’s next generation has bought into this semi-foreign ideology hook, line, and sinker. That is, until I read Rob Dreyer’s book Live Not By Lies: A Manuel for Christian Dissidents. In chapter two of his book, Dreyer lists some interesting quotes:

“Totalitarian movements are mass organization of atomized, isolated individuals.”

Due to the next gen’s growing isolation and anxiety in a highly “connected” world, “it is no coincidence that millenials and members of Generation Z register much higher rates of loneliness than older Americans, as well as significantly greater support for socialism. It’s as if they aspire to a politics that can replace the community they wish they had.”

“A polity filled with alienated individuals who share little sense of community and purpose are prime targets for totalitarian ideologies and leaders who promise solidarity and meaning.”

“Why are people so willing to believe demonstrable lies? The desperation alienated people have for a story that helps them make sense of their lives and tells them what to do explains it. For a man desperate to believe, totalitarian ideology is more precious than life itself.”

Did you catch the “why?” It’s really not that hard. The next gen has been swept into a narrative that promises them a utopian future for a better world and though they may not live to see everything they dream of and about this future world, they have a significant part to play.

The next gen is willing to acquiesce to socialism and surrender their hopes, their energy, and even their finances to Big Brother and Big Business because of the utopian worldview that it offers. Those who believe in this ideology will stop at no costs and even no means to— violently, if need be—set the wheels in motion for this belief system to take off in America.

This explains much of what we have seen in 2020 with Antifa, Black Lives Matter Global Network, and even police defunding all becoming prominent issues. History nor the constitution matter to these ideologues. Dreyer writes, “In 2019, The New York Times . . . launched the ‘1619 project,’ a massive attempt to ‘reframe’ American history by displacing the 1776 Declaration of Independence as the traditional founding of the United States, replacing it with the year the first African slaves arrived in North America . . . It’s goal is to revise America’s national identity by making race hatred central to the nation’s foundational myth.” Is there any need for me to mention all of our national monuments that were pulled down?

Ok, you already knew all of that . . . so, what’s the point of this post? The point is The Bible offers both you and the next generation a better story. The Bible is a book of 66 books written over thousands of years by many different authors in many different genres which has stood the test of time. Your story, my story, everyone’s story can be found in the Good Book! But, you and I must take time to read it, to share it, to teach it, and ultimately, to live it. Unlike the multitude of instantaneous satisfactions offered to us by the world, the God of the Bible is someone to be experienced and someone you can never exhaust. God, unlike man, does not even get exhausted, though he may get exhausted of his creation constantly bypassing him for ideologies that pale in comparison to his far-weightier glory.

I challenge you and I challenge the next generation to shut off all social media outlets, all of the news coverage, and all of the high-tech advertising and marketing ploys long enough to read His Story. Reading the Bible cannot and will not happen in a day. But, what you will find as you dig into it over time is a history that is proven and a man named Jesus that stands in the beginning, middle, and end of it all. This man offers a better way because He is The Way!

Categories
Articles

God or Machine?

Inflatable Costumes - cell phone costume

James K. A. Smith has proposed that humans are what they worship. If this is true, I would propose that most humans, then, are nothing less than a walking smart phone. Did you know, for instance, that according to Pew Research, 80% of Americans own a smart phone and that the number rises to 96% if you are in the 18-29 age range?

The smartphone has become so common that many have identified it as an extension of the human body. After all, if an alien were to visit our planet, I think the first question he would ask himself is, “What is that body part called that is always seen protruding out of man’s right or left hand?”

Have man and machine finally collided into an inseparable bond? Wasn’t a man made to be more than a machine and a machine made to be less than a man? Yes, according to Genesis, it was this way in the beginning. It’s rather simple. God made man and man made machine. But now, man not only makes machines. He talks to his machines and his machines talk back. These conversational robots not only talk back. They perform specific actions that man commands and even allow men to talk to other men through them. “Hey Alexa, . . .” However, as time has passed, machine has demanded more from man and man has granted machine his request.

Will you put your machine down for just enough time to consider, to wonder if you might have been created for something more? You don’t have to be a walking smart phone! You don’t have to be defined by all of your social media accounts and apps that you use and that use you. You don’t have to become your avatar or avatar(s). You can choose to use the digital without worshipping it or worse, becoming it.

How?

Like the coronavirus, shut everything down. Turn off the Wi-Fi and the devices and then Seek God in that moment. Wasn’t it Jesus that said you can’t serve two masters, God and machine, I mean, money. Get alone with God in His Word and see what he might have to say to you about your machine. Oh, that’s right — your Bible is your machine because it’s on your machine. In that case, read the Bible on your machine without attending the bells and whistles of your most recent notification. In fact, turn your notifications off if you have to. Then turn off everything and enter an extended period of time in prayer about what you just read and what God would have you to do from what you just read.

You can have control of your machine, but you must first turn it off. In your solitude, put God first and let your machine fade into the background. In this way, you will see that you are more than your phone.

Categories
Articles

Sharing Jesus in a post-pandemic world

Image result for cowboy wearing a stetson hat

Many Christ-followers freak out when called upon to share Jesus with others. Add a pandemic and you might see these same followers flip out. But in a world that has become increasingly fearful, Christ-followers need not fear.

When it comes to sharing your faith, there’s no need to make things harder on yourself than they already are. You can skip the mental gymnastics because the message has not changed! In other words, don’t worry about what to say; think more about how you’re going to share Jesus and if it’s the right time.

Some of you may say that it’s always the right time to share the gospel. I would politely disagree. We should do our best to live out the gospel at all times, but sharing the gospel may not be the appropriate action in and for every given situation. For example, let’s say an unbelieving friend calls you to tell you that their mother just died from COVID-19. This is probably not the best time to respond, “Well, let me tell you about Jesus.” There may indeed come a time for sharing Jesus and very soon at that, but in this one moment, your friend is most likely just looking to you for sympathy and or a loving touch. Hopefully, you would say something like, “Where are you at? Can I pray for you? When can we talk in-person?”

Remember, conversations are key in sharing Jesus with others! Why is this? Because conversations lead to relationships. Remember Jesus and the woman at the well! And don’t forget that in your conversations, you are to look for shared passions and pains between you and the person you are conversing with. Sometimes you will get both!

The other day I met a stranger in a coffee shop wearing a cowboy hat. Because I am an avid Georgia Bulldogs football fan (my passion), I couldn’t resist from asking the man if his hat (his passion) was a Stetson. I made an instant connection with the man through steering our conversation to the Georgia Bulldogs new starting quarterback, Stetson Bennett. The man went on to share with me his pain. The man had someone in his past do something terrible to him that he said he could never forgive.

Rather than say, “Well, let me tell you about Jesus,” I said to the man “you’ll never forget what happened to you.” As I walked out of the coffee shop, I told the man “God Bless You” as he opened the door for me and patted me on the back. Remember, sharing the gospel is more grand narrative conversation than it is polished presentation. What I did in the span of less than three minutes is set myself up for a possible second encounter with this man whereby now I can share the gospel! If not me, then maybe you! The seed was planted and the man is now open to hearing the good news.

What does the man need to hear next? He needs to hear that first he can be forgiven of his own sins by Jesus and second, that only when this happens will he be able to forgive those that have hurt him in his past. Pre-pandemic or post-pandemic, have no fear! Jesus is here! Let the Holy Spirit guide you in conversation and be in prayer for what you should say and next steps that you should take. Worry less about the results and more about being faithful. Who knows? It may be me who gets to lead someone to the Lord whom you first planted the gospel seed in!

Creation, Fall, Rescue, Restoration—Share the Story!

Categories
Articles

Faith in the Fear of death

F.R.O.G. Fully Rely On God Silicone Bracelet

What do you do when someone you know and care for dies at a young age? I have experienced this tragedy all too often in next generation ministry. Whether by freak accident, overdose, or the taking of one’s life, the one thing that is certain is that these young ones left us before it was their time. God may allow events to happen where one does lose their life, but it’s not God’s will that one you dearly love be run over by a drunk driver, die to drug abuse, or take life into their own hands.

God’s Word teaches us that we battle the flesh, the world, and the devil and all of these often factor into an untimely death. Abortions and miscarriages are a reality too and the associated pain can last a lifetime. As the old saying goes, “A parent should never have to bury their child.” There are many things we will never understand on this side of heaven. God’s kingdom has begun in our hearts but will not be consummated until the end of time. Until then, we will have to wait for many answers that we have questions for. This includes the question of “God, why did you allow this to happen?”

A key thing to understand in the meantime as you wait is that God did not make this evil happen. God gives humans the ability to make choices and often the poor choices one human makes unfortunately affects the life and health of another human. And yes, fair or not, sometimes this results in one’s death.

I know what it’s like to carry the casket of a young man and a dear friend that left this world too early. I’ve had to do it on more than one occasion. I don’t know what it’s like to bury one’s own child and quite honestly, can’t imagine what it would be like. But, the one commonality we share is that someone in the next generation that we both knew and loved has gone on and passed from this life to the next.

When this happens, you’re really faced with two choices. You can have fear or you can have faith. Two expressions that have become popular in recent youth culture are the expressions FOMO and FROG. There are probably bracelets for both. If you have a “Fear Of Missing Out,” you might do and try a lot of things that you normally wouldn’t because after all, YOLO. Perhaps you are young yourself and you see your friend pass from this life to the next. You may think to yourself, “What if that was me? I can’t wait on God. What if I pass away without experiencing ____________________.” There are many movies that depict this type of scene and the line that causes one character to cave into the peer pressure of another character the most usually goes something like “This may be your/our last day on earth together.”

This kind of mindset, however, is the opposite of Fully Relying On God. No one said trusting God was easy. When I think about a FROG, I think leap or jump. Some frogs jump higher and farther than others. But just like a frog, if you are going to trust God with your life’s circumstances, you are going to have to take a leap of faith. In our minds, some leaps are going to require more faith than others because some trials are harder than others. But I think in God’s mind, if you just have a little faith, he’ll take care of the rest.

Categories
Articles

2020 Attitude Check

20/20 Vision - Granbury First United Methodist Church

Is 2020 turning out to be the year you thought it would? When I think of 2020, I think of 20/20 or what optometrists would label clear vision. I wrote about this in my booklet The Student Ministry Time Machine. I wrote how I thought 2020 would be the year that next generation ministry would begin to catch on. I was envisioning 2020 as the year where churches would begin gaining clear sight on the value of instilling the model of next generation ministry in their locales over and above traditional children and youth ministry programming.

While, certainly, this could still be the case and the pandemic may now urge this new mindset on, I would have to admit this was not what I had in mind. I could not have predicted a global pandemic, a global black lives matter global network, or utter lawlessness occurring in major U.S. cities in 2020. Next generation ministry is all about doing more with less and thus a global recession could indeed force churches around the world to change their model of student ministry. However, and if this phenomenon happens, this would not have been the way I would chosen.

What is God doing? Is he still in control? It is easy in this time to question God. Bigger national and societal issues are at stake than whether our favorite team is going to be able to play ball this fall. I certainly don’t understand it all, but God has never asked me to. God wants us to trust him, especially in these very uncertain times. Many things have been brought to the surface since the pandemic hit our country. However, the most important thing, I think, is that people are forced to evaluate their relationship with God. Pre-Covid 19, was God your family’s number one priority?

Covid-19 forced a lot of moms and dads to become children and youth pastors overnight. Parents were instantly forced to take charge of leading devotions in their home because they could not go to church. At the same time, churches instantly became the supporting role to parents that they were always supposed to be. Ministry leaders began equipping parents with the resources that parents needed so that parents could be the primary disciple-makers of their children. Again, this is the way it was always supposed to be; from the very beginning of time. But somewhere along the way, ministry leaders began to take over the parent’s primary role and churches began allowing it. Before long, this trend was not only accepted; it became commonplace and nearly every other model was frowned upon.

Thus, I am thankful for what God is doing. But, I am not always as thankful for the means for which some needed changes have happened. I don’t want to see people become sick and die. I don’t want to see families forced to stay at home and not allowed to come to church. I don’t want to have to wear a mask when I go out. I don’t want to see people lose their jobs. I don’t want to see my nation go down the tubes as its most prominent cities become homeless shelters and places of extreme violence. I want black lives to matter but not at the expense of promoting everything else that the black lives matter movement has come to represent.

If you watch the news 24/7, its easy to become cynical and to complain. But God has called us to give thanks in, not for, all circumstances and also to pray for our leaders. God desires that we turn to him like never before. We must open His Word and seek Him. We must not merely talk about all of the above items. God desires that we pray about them . . . God, help us to find a vaccine for Covid-19, to restore law and order on our streets, and to show the world that all humans are worthy of dignity because they were first made in your image. That’s a simple start, but we must begin fleshing these things out and praying in greater detail.

Don’t give in, give up, or give out. Now is not the time. The battle for our nation’s soul is at stake, but even more, so is the battle for our nation’s souls.

Categories
Articles

Politics, Not as usual

Protesters Burn Bible, American Flag as Tensions Rise in Portland ...

America . . . “land of the free and home of the brave” . . . maybe not for much longer. 1492 has been replaced with 1619. Statues of the founding fathers have been torn down. Police are seen as the bad guys. And all this has happened while states, regions, and cities are being divided on every front . . . with conservative governors suing liberal mayors, with liberal mayors claiming they can override the President’s orders, and with lawlessness in major cities going unrestricted.

Faith, hope, and freedom are all on the line. All the things that made the United States of America the greatest country in the world are now being attacked and that includes the American flag and the Bible. Christians in this land need not only wake up. Christians must stand up, and they must rise up, together. Red, yellow, black, and white, Christians need to show the world there is something greater to unite around than a pithy statement.

I long for the day when Democrats could be what they used to be. But that party no longer exists. Even Republicans aren’t what they used to be. Today’s democrat, at least on the national level, is a socialist, a marxist, a communist. Thus, a vote for a democrat national leader is a vote for an America where the nation’s history goes out the window. In fact, history classes are already being removed from some schools and the history classes that have been being taught have been teaching an UnAmerican history for many years now.

You must see that it is more than America’s history that is being re-written. It is America herself. The America we knew and that has been known for the last 244 years could well be a thing of the past. What we are are seeing unfold daily before our eyes is not politics as usual. The upcoming vote is not just another important vote. The 2020 vote pits ideologies against each other such as lawlessness vs. law & order, socialism vs. democracy, marxism vs. capitalism, and much much more.

I hope you are aware of the “Unity Task Forces” 110 page document, also known as the Biden-Sanders socialist manifesto. Of the New York Post, Miranda Devine writes, “The biggest clue to the destructive ideology that drives the Biden-Sanders manifesto is the word “equity,” which appears 34 times. Equity means equality of outcome, not equality of opportunity. It is the very DNA of Marxism and everything bad flows from it, as we saw in the Soviet Union, Mao’s China, North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela.”

I don’t have to tell you how marijuana dispensaries and liquor stores can remain open while many churches must remain closed. I don’t have to tell you about how many businesses such as health clubs, restaurants, and salons have been treated unfairly and how their owners have been ostracized. The double standard was evident when liberal leaders allowed rioters to destroy their own cities and their own cities’ businesses, all the while not enforcing Covid-19 protocols on the protestors and the rioters. We are fast becoming a land where each is to his own and where everyone does what is right in his own eyes (Judges 17:6).

Ultimately, my hope is not in America or her leaders, be it Democrat, Republican, or Independent. But, I do love my country! I want it to stand for faith and freedom as long as it can. I hope it can return to the God who has been so good to it. I hope it will not have to endure a second civil war, but will instead turn to the only one who can unite it, Jesus.

This is “politics, not as usual” because politics has now overreached her jurisdiction. The political sphere has overstepped its bounds in the economic sphere, in the religion sphere, in the sports sphere . . . pretty much any sphere that exists. What are we to do? As American citizens? and as Christ-followers?

Well, some Christ-followers are standing up, literally. Some professional athletes who are Christians choose to stand for the national anthem and not kneel, because they say that the Black Lives Matter Global Network stands for so much more than the statement “Black Lives Matter.” It is these athletes’ choice whether to stand or kneel, but I do agree with their assessment of the global movement. The movement’s own website declares that BLM is also about destabilizing the family unit and affirming a queer network.

How can you stand up for America and for truth? Besides voting your conscience, I would encourage you to use your social media platform to educate and to inspire. Understand though, that even your content is being censored by social tech companies, further highlighting how we as Americans are losing our freedom of speech. Let’s do our own part and try to keep America a land of the free by being brave ourselves. A better America makes for a better world! It’s not easy to go against the tide, to buck the system, but Jesus has called us to be countercultural. We must go against the grain and swim upstream when our culture is against Christ. We must be in the world and not of it, while loving everyone in the world and praying for their salvation.

We must help the next generation understand that Antifa as a “Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement” along with its ’10 Points of Action’ are not the solution to America’s ails. Jesus is the answer to all humanity’s woes! His movement is eternal and it deals with what plagues us all, sin. We must not sit back while the government impinges upon our freedoms. We must be strong and courageous so that the next generation can inherit a free land and a brave home like we once did.

Categories
Articles

Make God Great Again!

The title for this post is misleading in that God is great whether we as humans acknowledge his greatness or not. This title could also lead mislead people to think I am equating the re-election of President Donald Trump as making God great again, or even worse equating Trump as God. I am doing neither. I am simply stating the need for a spiritual awaking in our country. “Woke” has become the new word of the day. I prefer to use the word in a different way in this post. God’s church needs to wake up and make God great again!

In my last post, I spoke some on the reality of heaven to come. This past week, President Trump said that “If Joe Biden gets elected, the whole country would go to hell. And we’re not going to let it go to hell.” Theologically speaking, Trump is dead wrong. Are there hellish things happening on this earth and specifically in America? Certainly. But, we need to distinguish between what we often call “hell on earth” and hell.

I prefer not to use the word “hell” unless I am talking about the real place the Bible refers to as hell. No matter your stance on the word, you should never use the word in passing or as a way to express your anger. Hell is nothing less than eternal death in an eternal place. Physical death on earth happens to us all in a moment, though our suffering before death may last much longer. But eternal death is different. Eternal death is a state of death that you live in forever, not just a moment. I can’t explain what that looks like. I am not like some who claim they have travelled to hell and come back. These folks usually write books or make movies and then make money off of their experience. The hell I read about in the Bible is different. If and when you go there, you don’t come back. Not only have you died, you are dead forever.

The church needs to make God great again so that people don’t have to go to hell. We need to tell people that it is bad on earth, but that it doesn’t compare to eternal death because anything that happens here is temporary. Jesus is the Way out of hell and Jesus is the way we can all make it through the current mess we have to endure. Joe Biden is not the answer. Donald Trump is not the answer. Jesus is the answer!

But how will people hear the good news of Jesus if the church doesn’t go and tell? The church has already been commissioned and sent. Jesus is waiting on you. What are you waiting on? Trump always talks about Biden hiding down in his basement and not coming out. I worry that Christians are in their basement just waiting for Jesus to come back and take them home. We always need to be on watch! But rather than waiting in our basements, we need to be working for the Master. Does a certain parable in Scripture come to mind? In a land full of division, God has called you to be a peacemaker. Now, go and make peace! Make God great again!