August 28, 2024

                Follow Jesus First

Am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

– Galatians 1:10

What do you believe? What faith are you living? Do you even know?

Our country is so divided politically and religiously. Loud voices mock those who disagree with what they believe. Silence fills our minds as stress hardens our hearts.

It’s so much easier to go along with the crowd. I live in Trump country. I cannot understand the infatuation with a man who continues to lie, call others names, and basically bully and condemn anyone who dares to disagree with him.

Some of my Christian friends assure me that they aren’t voting for the man but rather the principles he follows. No abortion. Close the border. Balance the budget. Take care of the United States first and then Israel. No one else.

Except he isn’t doing that. His abortion stance? Let the states handle it. Close the border? He demanded that his followers in Congress vote against a bi-partisan bill to stop border crossings. Why? Because it looks better for him if the border remains wide open.

Balance the budget? Sure. But let’s not get rid of the pork. Let’s cut social security and any funds aimed at helping children. Let’s balance the budget on the backs of the middle class and poor while rolling out tax cuts and handouts to the wealthy.

Obviously, we all want to take care of our own country and our veterans. And we do support Israel – but not without conditions. The Bible shows us again and again that the Israelites do sometimes turn from God. We should never assume that blindly supporting Israel is what God wants.

We also shouldn’t behave as though we live in a vacuum not impacted by what’s going on around the world. We tried that once before. Then the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and we were forced to look directly at evil and respond.

None of that is popular in the Deep South. But I’m not here to win a popularity contest. I am here to follow Jesus. So are you. 

Neither political party gets it all right or all wrong when it comes to following the Bible. But choosing to follow someone who arrogantly disregards basic character traits of a godly man isn’t the answer. It’s way past time that we stop blindly following men and start truly following our God.

August 11, 2021

 

Words and Actions

 

Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.

– 1 John 3:18

 

We know exactly what to say. We’ve got the answers memorized so completely that others just know our hearts are true. But what happens when things don’t go according to our plan? How do we react when we don’t get our own way?

 

I look around and it breaks my heart. We hurt God so deeply with our hardness. We judge others harshly and call ourselves justified. We condemn their actions while putting ourselves on a pedestal of light. Hypocrites. We are hypocrites.

 

Neither political party is either all right or all wrong. How quickly we side with one or the other, pulling out verses to support our cause while ignoring the whole truth. We simply don’t want to love and do good to people unless they are like us, believe as we believe, and agree with everything we say. How sad.

 

If you are condemning abortion and condemning the poor, then this applies to you. Both are wrong. Is that just my opinion? No. It’s in the Bible if we look at it’s entirely.

 

The same is true of many other issues. We condemn homosexuality but we have no issues with divorced people remarrying. We don’t label them as adulterers because they are like us. We understand and extend grace. We refuse to even contemplate that God created the homosexual just as He created the divorcee.

 

We insist one is a choice and the other a mistake. How do you know? You don’t. But it forms a convenient excuse for not loving the very people God has called you to love.

 

What would happen if we actually starting seeing people as they are? We are all created in God’s image and He desperately wants us all to accept Jesus’ sacrifice and be saved. Honestly, we’d rather some people not join us in heaven one day and that truth speaks volumes about the condition of our hearts.

 

Your mouth may preach the loudest sermon anyone has ever heard, but if your actions don’t live that truth then your words are empty of the Spirit and, therefore, useless.

November 16, 2018

Open Your Eyes

Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.”

Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, “What? Are we blind too?”

Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.”

– John 9:39-41

Does it ever occur to any of us that we could be wrong? Do we ever seek the Bible’s wisdom for what it truly says rather than searching for words that will “prove” what we already believe? What would happen if we truly followed Jesus rather than picking and choosing the parts of Him that feel comfortably in line with ourselves?

Jesus didn’t come to conform to our “wisdom.” He came to save us from ourselves, from the sins that fill us, from the hardness of our hearts. But He left us with a choice. We can choose to follow Jesus or ourselves. There is no room on His path for both of us.

We are quick to point out that the Bible condemns homosexuality. We aren’t so quick to say that it also condemns divorce. Why would we? In our country, an estimated 40-50 percent of all couples will divorce. We don’t want to condemn ourselves so we choose to ignore what the Bible really says.

We are quick to condemn abortion as murder. We don’t want to support the child. That’s someone else’s responsibility. We don’t want to welcome those who are cast aside for their mistakes. We want them to pay again and again under our condemning eyes.

Obviously, abortion is wrong. So is casting aside an unwed mother. Remember: Mary was an unwed mother too. Before she and Joseph married. Before anyone understood about the Holy Spirit and the Messiah, she was a teenager with a growing belly in a world that would have destroyed her for her “sin.”

We cling tightly to our money, refusing to share or tithe as we should. We ignore what the Bible says about money – and it says a great deal about money – choosing instead to “believe” that everyone must support themselves. It is ours, we insist. Others aren’t worthy, we explain. Except the Bible doesn’t talk too much about worthy or ownership. It talks about gifts from God and sharing our blessings. Judgment isn’t ours to dispense, even when it comes to the money God has graciously given to us.

Oh, and let’s not forget the immigrants. We don’t want them. Period. We may expound our beliefs and justify ourselves but it’s just not biblical. The Bible tells us to welcome the foreigner because we once were foreigners. We are to extend kindness and compassion. But we hold what is ours tightly and refuse to show mercy.

There is no easy walk in our world today. It’s like a tightrope that keeps moving except, well, it doesn’t. The Bible is full of words that contradiction what we believe and what we say we believe. It’s impossible to truly love Jesus and stand only for some of what He says and ignore the rest.

Are we blind? Absolutely. But our blindness is a choice. We have the answers before us but we choose to ignore their truth because it’s uncomfortable and it just might cost us something we hold dear. Our money. Yes, it might cost us our money. It might force us to show kindness to people we don’t like. It might ask us to welcome people who aren’t like us so that we can show them that Jesus loves everyone and welcomes them into His arms.

Open your eyes. See your sin. Make your choice.

April 19, 2016

Stop Pointing Fingers

"If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand." -- Mark 3:25

For those who haven’t noticed, we’re having a fairly heated presidential race in this country. It’s particularly interesting to see Republicans -- typically the “Christian” party -- struggle. They may be about to have a candidate that doesn’t meet their standards. Oops!

It’s funny how that happens. When they were so busy fighting, with a gazillion candidates vying to be the one, another man stepped to the front of the line. By the time they realized it, well, it might be too late.

It’s what happens when a house is so focused on defeating itself that it’s not paying attention. Like us. Christians.

We’re good at fighting amongst ourselves. One of our biggest battles: Do you sprinkle or dunk when you baptize? Like it really matters. Because it doesn’t. What matters is the heart. Is your heart focused on Jesus or on rules?

Other issues -- serious issues -- divide us. Abortion. The death penalty. Homosexuality. All controversial issues. And when we are fighting over these issues we forget that we are to love one another. When we are disagreeing, we forget that we are all sinners and should love the person regardless of the sin.

It’s amazing that others -- those who aren’t Christians even though they may check that box -- can say what we don’t believe in. But they can’t always say what we do believe in. Sad that we are known for hate and polarization rather than for love and compassion.

We forget that as we are shaking our judgmental fingers at the unemployed, that it could be us one day. We assume laziness without ever knowing the story. Another judgment we aren’t qualified to make.

We’d send all the immigrants back. Did they break the law? Some did. Was that right? Absolutely not. Were our ancestors once immigrants? Unless you are full-blood American Indian, yes. Where is our compassion? It sure isn’t evident, even though the Bible tells us to remember that we once were strangers in a strange land.

As Christians, we are to be Jesus to a hurting world. We’re not. We are hard-nosed hypocrites so caught up in our own opinions that we can’t offer the love and compassion Jesus freely offers us. Then we wonder why our nation has fallen away from what we claim are our core values.

Yes, we need to pray for our nation. And we need to stop pointing fingers and change ourselves to be more like Jesus, trusting Him to take care of the rest.