Seeking To Find

In today’s culture people place high value on the following ideals open mindedness, uncertainty, theory, and tolerance especially, if not solely, when it comes to moral and religious matters. In efforts to live by such values some take the postmodern view that all religious views are on the same level plane and there is no way better than another as long as we all get along. Others take the view often dubbed new atheism where no religion has validity and all need to fade into the mythological past with the gods of the ancients.


There are, of course, variations of these two themes. Not every postmodern welcomes every religion on the planet as equally good, nor does every atheist think religion ought to be forgotten. Some atheists are quiet open to religion continuing as long as it doesn’t cross any lines into their freedom to non-belief.


Even within Christian circles these ideals aforementioned are close to many a heart. Some professing Christianity aren’t so sure it is alright to believe Jesus is the only way and think it more progressive for Him to be their way and keep all doctrine loose enough to never exclude falsehood from truth.


However, whatever the philosophical affiliation most believe that truth ought to have no boundaries. Certainty carries an arrogant connotation. Asserting a truth with conviction makes people uncomfortable. Even in politics there is a grass roots call for bi-partisanship. Asserting something as the right way is taboo for many ways can be thought up and no one should exclude anyone, or so the thinking goes.


The problem is there are foundational logical issues with the idea of perpetual uncertainty or the acceptance of all ideas. America is a melting pot of ideas designed for iron to sharpen iron to keep the debate open by holding fast to your convictions and making sure the other perspectives are recognized and considered. Truth comes in all packages, but when it is true it also necessarily excludes what is not true.


Truth is simply that which really is. And that which is not is false. We seem to have lost sight of these simple logical truths. A claim to knowledge of what is should not be shunned, but tested. A claim of something being false is based on something else being true. Both claims need testing, but it is okay to draw conclusions.


“Dogma--an evil word,” commented a blogger recently. Is that true? Dogma means “An authoritative principle, belief, or statement of ideas or opinion, especially one considered to be absolutely true.” Sounds like an “authoritative principle, belief, or statement of ideas or opinion considered to be absolutely true.” The commentator said he preferred “theory.” Then it has to be his uncertain theory that dogma is evil, anything else would be dogma.


I’m not trying to pick on anyone so I’m not going to provide the link to the comment I recently read. It just aptly illustrated my point. The point is that no one can get away from dogmatic statements, even those who protest dogma, and that’s okay. We can firmly hold different ideas about the world and still all love each other unless one of our ideas about the world doesn’t allow for such love. I would need to watch my back if I were to befriend a terrorist or someone of that nature.


To anyone who says it is impossible to be certain about truth. I would retort, are you certain? The thing is the necessity of an open mind is to seek the truth and close it around truth and open it to more truth. It’s a process of learning. If it remains open all the time the person is always a seeker and never a finder. Why should anyone seek what cannot be found?


Granted there are many things we will only ever know in part, but we can know a part, or a shadow of the real. But there are other things that we can know and people do know. The problems of doctrine and dogma are not problems of truth claims, but making what is only a part the whole.


You may have heard the story of the three blind men touching an elephant and being asked what the object is. One who has the tail says it is a piece of rope. Another touching the leg thinks it is a trunk of a tree, and so one. Each only experiencing a part of the whole and each firmly believing they know the whole from the part.


Knowing something as true isn’t arrogance, but steps along a journey of truth. Anything can be used in a harmful manner, but that doesn’t make the thing bad. A person can use a firearm in a crime, but that doesn’t mean all guns are bad (though some think so). A person can start a forest fire with a match, but we don’t need to remove all matches from the country. Doctrine, dogma, certainty, knowledge, truth claims, all these are tools of our lives and they can be used in a way that gives life or they can be used in a way that brings bondage.


The problem isn’t the tool it is the heart of the one wielding it. And that heart that wields it wrongly is in each and every one of us and it is that condition of the heart that needs repair and not the tool that needs to be dispensed with. Each of us, whether religious or secular, will bear it in error at times, let us all practice caution and bear truth, as best we know it, ensconced in real love.

Responding To Sin

Sin literally means, “to miss the mark.” Sometimes it is referred to as “falling short of the glory of God.” Sin is a corrupted or distorted reality; it runs amuck of goodness and righteousness. Sin is thus anything that does not align with God’s goodness by any degree. The problem is that today, many see application of the term “sin” as a pious religious condemnation of the one doing the sinning. This happens precisely because this is often true. Christians have thrown around the word “sin” with disgusting venom of condemnation that people feel slighted, jilted, rejected, and ridiculed by the use of the term. The recipients of such terminology rightly feel like defending themselves and others join in to support their cause.


The truth is that Christians have done the world an injustice in producing such negative connotation of this word. The truth is everyone misses the mark. We have all sinned and come short of the glory of God and those who believe they have found forgiveness so quickly have forgotten that they are no different in worth to the Father than those who have not. In fact, Jesus said he would leave the 99 to go after the 1 that is lost.

The reality of sin is that it is a cancer to our physical, emotional, and spiritual selves. Love does not rejoice in wrong doing, but in the truth. Love keeps no records of wrongs. A person who loves doesn’t relish pointing out another’s faults, but always hopes and preservers along side a person struggling in sin no matter the sin and no matter how long that road last even if they never change. Love always forgives. If someone is stuck in a muck of sin, love helps pull them out rather than point fingers at their dirt. However, if that person is content in their muck, maybe because they can’t see it, or does not have hope for freedom, love sits with them and shows them grace and compassion.


The only time Jesus rebuked someone was when he was talking to religious leaders who acted piously like they had it all together. When he came across a woman caught in adultery, he protected her from being stoned and said that he who was without sin was the only one who could cast stones at her, and He being that One extended mercy and grace to her.


This does not mean that God is complacent about our sin, for it concerns Him greatly, not because it hurts Him, but because it hurts us. That cancerous sin distorts our being and it weighs us down unnecessarily with baggage and bondage. Have you ever been really angry at someone who did something wrong to you and that anger just grew and caused a huge rift in the friendship and weighed you down? Have you ever experienced that freedom that comes when you forgive and release that anger? It’s a freeing lightness that most describe upon forgiving someone. It is like this with other sins, when they pile up and are continually happening in our lives they bind us and often times we don’t even realize how bound we are until we find release and then we feel like we can fly.

The good response to sin is compassion. It’s realizing that sin entangles and binds a person. It’s realizing that sin isn’t something to be scoffed at or offended by, but something to be saddened by and angry for the person not at the person. I sometimes get angry when I see someone trapped in sin, and it’s not anger at the person, but at the entanglement. It’s like finding a person tied to a tree with a gag in their mouth and being angry that they were hurt that way. We can’t turn things that are sin into non-sin because the person is more hurt by calling bad good and good bad then they are by correctly identifying the source of their pain and helping them free of it without any condemnation.


I think Christians have a lot to apologize to people for due to our unjust handling of sin. And I apologize as a Christian to anyone who has been hurt by Christians not showing them love. I have been such a Christian who has not responded with love where I should have. God has broken my heart for people trapped in sin. He has shown me through a very personal encounter with someone struggling in sin that broke me forever to be for people and not against them. He gave me compassion and love for those entrapped in vices that so easily entangle. Sure I don’t do this perfectly, none of us can, but I aim for this. As a Christian, I choose to stand along side those so ensnared and to never be against them.

The World Needs Love

I have twice seen the action packed movie Taken staring Liam Neeson. The film tells the story of a teenage girl kidnapped and sold by a prostitution ring. Her father, played by Liam Neeson, is a highly skilled retired government agent who sets out to rescue his daughter. Throughout the movie one sees the horrendous exploitation of women mostly teenagers and college aged youth kidnapped and drugged, some for the purpose of brothels and others to be sold to extremely wealthy buyers.

This movie shows the harsh reality of what is going on in our world today. The sex slave industry is growing in the criminal world and affecting nearly every country. Organizations such as Wellspring International a humanitarian arm of the Ravi Zacharias International Ministries work to come along side and fund legitimate organizations that are working to bring help to the women and children who are victims of this criminal activity.

As I viewed pictures in the gallery and read stories of the women and children not unlike the women depicted in the blockbuster hit Taken, my heart broke for these precious people who are being so horrendously mistreated. Hundreds of thousands of victims are continually being subjected to this profitable crime wave of the sex slave trafficking.

Invisible Children is another faith based organization that is working to provide relief to the victims of slavery. Invisible Children works in Uganda raising awareness and providing aid to the thousands of children being abducted and made into child soldiers.

As I read down the list of organizations on Wellsprings website working to bring social justice to the downtrodden victims of modern slavery I saw just how large the need is and how much help is needed to end these problems and bring healing and restoration to the victims.

I recently heard Rick Warren on CSPAN speak to a group of Muslim dignitaries from the United Nations appealing to a multi-faith effort to curb the violence and victimization in the world. He asked for a joint effort to work in the countries in Africa and the Middle East to bring relief. He said the governments haven’t been able to bring social justice. Maybe a united effort of faith based organizations could bring hope where the governments could not.

The answer to all these problems is love. If we love each other we would not enslave people and victimize children. And love is the cure for the hearts broken by abuse. I do also want to support the work of the organizations already on the ground loving these people in red light districts, and brothels across the world.

I recently listened to a pastor and his wife speak about how they travel the world with their team visiting the garbage dumps in third world nations to just simply love the people living there amongst the rubbish. They bring them love, music, food and they hug on them showing them there is someone who cares. They also hang out with any marginalized group especially the gypsies who are highly ostracized. They hang out with them, love them, heal their sick, and provide food and care for them. Love is a universal language that meets the needs of the most desperate people on the earth. That love comes from the Father who gives it to his children to give to the world so that the world can know that the Father loves them.

Love is not just a feeling, it’s something tangible we gain more of the closer we are to our Father, and the more we give it away. He gives it to us, we love Him back with it, and that increases it to even greater tangibility, and then we give it away to others. The more we give, the more we receive to give.

Jesus had compassion on the prostitutes and the woman caught in adultery. He showed them loving kindness for it was only love that could heal their broken hearts and spirits and bring healing life to their souls. His love is still working in the world today and each person has the wonderful opportunity to give some away. The awesome thing is, when you give it away you don’t have any less you have even more.

Moving Forward

History is replete with stories of governments becoming abusive to the people they are fashioned to serve. One merely has to read the newspaper to find many instances of modern day abuses and usurpations brought about through governments. No matter the form of government, abuses can be found.

Governments are brought down and replaced by new governments with new ideals. Sometimes this is done for the good of the people, sometimes for the good of the new regime taking power.

Despite so much injustice coming from the hands of those in governmental authority or the institutions of government no sensible people argue that government ought to be abolished altogether. No one wants a return to anarchy. No one trusts human nature enough to unleash a people with no governmental restraints and protections. It is precisely because people have the tendency towards corruption that balances of powers are put in place in democratic governments. It is because of the waywardness of humanity that government is required and yet the governments themselves contain some of this corruption, hence the checks and balances. We don’t argue to abolish government because of the abuses, nor do people leave to go and find a nation without a government when there is a problem with government.

However, when it comes to the Church, people see abuses of power or other problems in a particular church or the Church as a whole and their response is to give up on church, and sometimes on Jesus as well. But many are still alright with Jesus, but disappointed or burned by the Church. We forget that the Church is made up of people like ourselves. Real people who have bad days, make mistakes, do wrong things sometimes, and disappoint people. We forget that being in a church is being a part of a diverse community of people from all different places in their walk with Christ. If we were all the same, I think there would be greater cause for concern and questioning of authenticity.

I am not writing this to make an argument for the existence of God or the validity of Christianity. I am simply attempting to put things into perspective for we often can see things more clearly when we substitute a different example. If people have left church because of matters of truth seeking versus abuses then I am not talking to you at all. Nor am I judging anyone who has been burned and took a hiatus from Church community life. All I am saying is that we are often quicker to give up on Church than we are on a favorite restaurant or even something as corrupt as government. We can’t put church community life into a category that demands it to be all good all the time, for it will fail as much as we fail and yet we miss all the good if we focus on the failures. It is so easy to allow negative things to cloud our vision so much so that we forget all the joys of being in a Church community. We forget the friendships, the love, the family atmosphere, the encouragement, the joy of working as a group toward growing in Christ. We loose more than we think by leaving, but we forget what we are missing by focusing on whatever injustice we observed or of which we were a victim. Being in Christ isn’t just about being in relationship with Him alone, but in being in relationship with other believers; iron sharpening iron, in good times and bad, and even in the midst of failures and disappointments. We also rob our fellow believers of our friendship and aid when we stop fellowship with them. We all need refreshing, but that refreshing comes only from resting in Him. Even in community with other Christians we must live in a place of rest in Him. If our strength does not lie in Him, we work in our own strength, and that will wear on us quickly. That will rob us of our peace and joy.

Maybe as we enter this New Year we can look at Church differently. We can start fresh and remember that we are all part of this family together and we all need each other and the fastest way to learn to work together in the Body of Christ is to do so. The most assured way of having lasting relationships in the Church is to build them in Him and build them as covenant relationships going through all together. Love endures all things. It always hopes, always preservers, always trusts. It keeps no records of wrongs. It will never fail.

Church isn’t an organization. It’s a living organism. It’s a family. It’s a beautiful family, the bride of our Lord.

Regarding Heaven & Hell

A common question of the skeptic to a Christian is the conundrum of how one can believe in a loving God who “sends” people to hell. I can understand how a person could view this belief as unreasonable. However, if one truly thinks through this matter, one can understand it is not unreasonable at all.

First of all it is not difficult for one to believe in a loving God and heaven. It is when the idea of hell enters the picture that a person begins to question God's love. Now if heaven exists as a place where people who have passed from this earth reside with God in all splendor and majesty it would follow that this place would be a desirable place to be. If there was no hell and all people went to heaven it would follow that heaven would not be "heaven" at all, but simply a new place of existence after death with the same people and problems as life on earth. There certainly would not be peace and harmony if people who were lovers of themselves and not of God were then forced to live with God. This would not be heaven for them.

So for heaven to be a place of harmony with God there must also be a place where there is no harmony with God, for those that refuse to accept harmony with God. If one rejects God would it only stand to reason that they would not want to be in a place of God for all eternity. Would a loving God force them to do so?

Moreover, if we start with the presupposition that God is a loving God what does that look like? Would God be a loving God if He forced people to love Him? He would only have one option that would exclude the necessity of hell. Namely, to create robots who have no freedom, but must obey Him and love Him.

So, what does a loving God do? The only way a loving God can exhibit that love is to allow us to have free will that He does not overpower. He gives us plenty of signs of His love, but He does not force us to accept that love or to love Him back. He does this even though it causes him pain, just like a loving earthly father would be hurt if his child rejected his love. He does all that a loving God can do to love and provide a free way for us to have communion with Him forever. For God so loved the world, that He gave his only begotten son so that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16) He is always in pursuit of us with His love.

Now you may be objecting that it is unloving for God to dictate that we love Him and have relationship with Him or suffer. However, the truth is that it is good for us to love God. It is our need that is fulfilled when we love Him. We only hurt ourselves when we reject His love. We do not hurt Him. He doesn’t become less God when we reject Him. He doesn’t need our love to sustain Himself. But He loves us and knows that in Him all things have the fullness of life. He is the life giver. In Him is life. When we fight that reality we encounter suffering, death, and trouble in this world because we are living in opposition to how we are designed to live. It’s like a fish trying to live on dry land. It wasn’t designed to do so, plain and simple. The best habitat for a fish is water. The best habitat for humanity is living united with God through an amazing love relationship. But if we refuse it, as we have the freedom to do, we naturally are the fish flopping around on dry land. We lack the necessary components of the fullness of life. Naturally that creates a problem for us. The problems we face on earth due to our separation from Him are there to point us back to Him. For instance, when a child puts his hand too close to a flame, he feels heat and pulls back knowing that to go further would hurt his hand. However, if the child had no pain receptivity, as some have such a rare condition that they feel no pain; he would burn his hand off and not know he was doing it. The pain is a protection to one’s life.

When things aren’t going right, it’s time to look around and find out why. We all have this sense of how things ought to be, and yet we often ignore that sense and think things are as good as it gets. If so, we wouldn’t have this longing for something greater. That desire is there, because that desire has a fulfillment. People try to fill that longing in all kinds of different man made ways. But the only way to fill real longing in one’s heart is through knowing God and coming into His Kingdom.

God gave us free will and man chose to break communion with God and go his own way. Still God provided a way that man could be forgiven and find communion with God again. That way was by sending His own Son, Jesus, who is blameless in every way to pay the price for the sins of mankind.

The Bible says that Jesus, while being God, humbled himself to take human form and even humbled himself to die via crucifixion to pay the price for sins that He did not commit to bridge the divide between God and man. Man need not and cannot work his way back to God. Nor does man need to die for his own sins, but man simply needs to accept that there is nothing he can do to come to God, but to surrender his heart freely and accept God's free and gracious gift of salvation.

Doesn't this sound like a loving God? Just to recap, He gave us free will. We rejected Him. He then sent His Son to die in our place so that we can still enter into the love He has for us if we so choose. And He won't force anyone to have relationship with Him. But He stands at the door of our heart and knocks. He lets us know that He is there, but He won't force the door open. He waits for us to choose to open our heart or close it to Him. The choice is ours, not His. He gave us the choice because He loves us. He desires that none perish, that is His heart, but because He loves us He has to allow us to choose to have life in Him or to perish because our life is not in Him. We can live now with Him forever or we can never live with Him forever. What more could a loving God do to show His great love?

To Love and Be Loved

God wants us to love Him because He loves us first. By loving God, love is activated in us in a deeper measure. It becomes a tangible flowing stream bubbling up within us more and more as we learn to live from His love. When we choose not to love Him, we do not hurt Him, we hurt ourselves. A person cannot truly experience love if they don’t love in return. Being the recipient of love is nothing compared to entering mutual love. However, it is easier to love in return when we are loved first by another. God has eternally loved us and has given Himself for us.

Everything God asks of man is good for man. For instance, giving, in reality, does something in the giver more so than in the recipient. When God asks us to give up anything it is so that He can give us something better. When we give up our will for His, we gain something much greater. When we give up our time, money, food etc. for another, it is the same as giving unto Him. It does something in us that is worth far more than what we give up.

All that He asks of a person is for his or her good. Many think I must love God because He dictates that I do so for His pleasure. The truth is our pleasure is His pleasure. He knows the only way for our fulfillment is Him for He created us to be fulfilled by relationship with Him. He gave us the earth, the animals, the plants and authority over it all. Yet in His love He gave us the freedom to relinquish it all to do our will instead of His will. Yes, He knew what we would choose and could have withheld the freedom, but if He had created us without freedom we would never experience life the way we can experience it with freedom.

Even though we blew it, He knew there was victory coming that would redeem all that was lost and restore creation to an even greater beauty than before. He knew His Son would provide the way to redeem mankind and free man from the debt of his transgressions. Even though we bear the responsibility of sin, He who is without sin, pays our debt for us. We can continue to live in a fallen reality and be in bondage to that world, or we can choose to enter into the greatest relationship of all time. We can experience tangibly the love of God. We can enter a supernatural reality that gives meaning, purpose, and value to nature and ourselves like nothing else can.

I’m not talking about a fantasy land. I am talking about something better than anyone can dream up in a fairy tale story. People write fantasy stories because deep down they know there is a greater reality than the visible world and they desire to know that reality. I am talking about something so real it’s undeniable. I’m not writing about religion. I’m writing about a real relationship with the living God. I do not seek to impose any rules, any laws, or any religion on anybody. I’m inviting you to ask God to show Himself to you and to show you in an undeniable way His reality. I often hear, the burden of proof is upon the Christian. In reality, the burden of proof is on God Himself. Do you really want to know if He loves you? Ask Him to reveal His love to you. You risk nothing, but gain everything.

What is Righteousness?

Righteousness happens in us when we become reconciled to God through Christ. We are aligned to His rightness. The evidence of being righteous is living rightly, but living rightly doesn’t make us righteous. We can’t earn it by works, but are freely given it by grace. We gain a new nature in Christ, one that is reconciled to God and is free of the impurity of sin. Evidence of that new nature is a new way of living; living from love, not from fear, or by following rules. We do what is right because we are in God’s love and it overflows from us back to Him and our fellow man. We do what is right not out of a moral obligation or duty, but because His nature flows through us.

Fear is the opposite of love. “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear.” (I John 4:18) Love always trust, always preservers, and always hopes. It is kind. Not self seeking. It is sacrificial. It keeps no record of wrongs. It does not easily anger. It always protects. (I Cor. 13)

When we are reconciled to God’s love we are made righteous and we live lives of love. Love is perfected in us as we mature in our relationship with Him. We grow in love as we grow in Him. We do what is right because we love, not because we fear. We do what is right because we desire to, not because we ought to, because His love motivates us internally.

We drink from his eternal love; a well spring that never runs dry. We don’t depend on ourselves for the strength to “be moral” we depend on Him for a changed nature being made righteous by His sacrifice and living accordingly by His power.

The Christian Life

A Christian is called to love God and love people. We are empowered to do so because Christ who rendered the greatest act of love lives inside us changing our hearts to carry His love for people. So many don’t know what real love is all about. I Corinthians 13 tells us that love is patient, kind, self-less, hopeful, persevering, humble, delighting in good, and rejoicing in the truth. Love is not envious, boastful, or delighting in evil. Love is not proud and it does not keep records of wrongs. It always protects, always trusts, and always hopes. Love never fails.


Jesus taught us to love our enemies. He taught us not to return wrong for wrong. He taught us to give to those who ask. He taught us to turn the other cheek. He taught us to go the extra mile. He taught us to love our neighbors as ourselves.


He, having done no wrong, laid down his life to die for mankind to pay the debt to the justice of God and to bring about a free way of reconciliation between God and man. By His Resurrection from the dead, man can know God by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. “Faith,” meaning substantial trust in Him who we know to be our Savior. No works are required. He freely gives and we freely receive.


When we walk with Christ our lives begin to align with the superior reality of heaven. When earth aligns with heaven miracles happen and God has given His followers the ability to bring about positive changes upon this planet. We can heal the sick, cast out demons, raise the dead. We can give hope to the hopeless. We can feed the poor. We can show the love of God to a people desperate to know Him. This is the work given to the Church. This is the work of Christ in us.


The world is watching to see if our claims have value, substance, reality, and truth. We owe people an encounter with God. We carry the Kingdom of God and we must release the Kingdom to the hurting, broken, rejected, lost of this world. This is the heart of God and we must represent Him in all we say and do.

Justice & Love of God

“God’s justice demands that sin be punished, but his love compels him to save sinners. So by Christ’s death for us his justice is satisfied and his love released. Thus, there is no contradiction between absolute justice and unconditional love. To illustrate, God is like the judge who after passing out the punishment to the guilty defendant, laid aside his robe, stood alongside the convicted, and paid the fine for him. Jesus did the same for us on Calvary. Surely justice and mercy kissed at the cross.”

"Love cannot work coercively but only persuasively. Forced love is a contradiction in terms."

-- Norman Geisler Quotation from “Who Made God?”

Necessity of the Supernatural Life

It is amazing to me how society takes such aversion to anything supernatural. Popular culture tries to discredit anything that has Christian morality behind it or claims to be supernatural. I’ve seen two major examples of this in recent news. One is the continual barrage of articles attacking Sarah Palin’s competence based on her adherence to Christian conservative morality and her potential allegiance with ministries that support Christians being endowed with supernatural gifts of healing, miracles, and revelation. It’s interesting that I had no interest in either Presidential candidate until Sarah Palin was chosen as McCain’s Vice Presidential running mate. Actually, it wasn’t until all the negative press that I began to take note of this woman and began to like everything I was hearing about her that was being journalistically twisted as relaying her incompetence. This country was founded upon Christian principals. It’s a sad day to see people appalled by a candidate with Christian morality and theology as antiquated, incompetent, and destructive for the country. I’m not sure our nation realizes what it is asking for when it wants “progressive” liberalized morality with no foundation upon God. Do we really want such a foundation? Let us consider those countries with this kind of secularist anti-God foundation were known for their slaughter of millions of innocent lives. Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini are prime examples of government leaders who based their communistic dictatorship on Karl Marx’s atheism.

The second major example is the British host of the MTV awards making fun of the Jonas Brother’s commitment to purity with dripping vehemence. Have we gone mad? Is it not refreshing to see young men wanting to save themselves for their future wives and to care for them only without any baggage of past sexual relationships? We are talking young men in the Holywood spotlight! This is unheard of in today’s normalcy of broken marriages, affairs, fornications rampant in Holywood. Kudos to them for maintaining such a testimony of great character in the face of such immorality.

I say all this with understanding that is not fully society’s fault for thinking this way. It is the Church’s responsibility to shine the truth through the way we love. We have failed to show our society that God has the answers to its problems. The world looks at our problems and doesn’t see any reason to look to us for any answers.

How can we fix this problem and stop the deterioration of our government and country which is fast approaching the rampant secularism of modern Europe?

1) Christians need to take serious their responsibility to be lights in the darkness. Not to rise up in religious outrage, but to be examples of Christ love and the wholeness He produces in our lives. Let us be salt and light in this world by the testimony of our lives lived in open devotion to Christ with love for each other and everyone else being evident in our lives.

2) Christians need to operate in their supernatural giftings and not be afraid of praying for the sick. We must step out and do what Jesus called us to do, “heal the sick, raise the dead, and cast out demons.” There can be no denying God’s existence and the evidence of the supernatural when people are rising from the dead, legs are growing out, cancer is disappearing, and people are being set free from the demonic influences in their lives.

3) G.K. Chesterton, a famous Christian writer, once answered an editorial question “What’s wrong with the world?” with the shortest editorial response “I am.” We need to look in ourselves and see the need for a Savior for the evil in our own hearts. We want to right the world and end injustice, pain, suffering, and evil. We need to realize that we ourselves have a plank in our eye that we need Jesus to restore us so that we can love our neighbor the way we should and see the love of God change hearts and minds. We can’t point the finger at others as the problem of the world. To think this way would be like expecting a child to potty train himself. We know the answer; we are more responsible for the world’s problems than those who don’t know Jesus. If we don’t rise lovingly to help our culture transform to the Kingdom of God, who will?

4) In keeping with that, our culture will not be transformed by physical force, but by the love of God. It will be by loving our neighbors as our self, by going the extra mile, by turning the other cheek, by not returning wrong for wrong, by doing good to those who persecute us, by loving our enemies, by praying for our nation, by healing the sick, and by preaching the Kingdom of God.

Rise up Church. Rise up in love.

Eternal Love Effectuates Eternal Good

God’s love is the foundation of which flows His goodness. Jesus said that loving God and loving people as we love ourselves are the greatest commandments that keep all others. When we are properly related to God and in proper loving relationships with people we treat them the way they ought to be treated. We live the way we ought to, because we love. When one person loves another properly they are good to them. A loving Father is good to his children. Even in rendering punishment upon a child, he is good for he punishes because He loves the child. Real love includes being able to render correction, rebuke, or punishment.


God is good, because God loves. His goodness is an extension of His love. God’s attributes are eternal. Were they not eternal, He would not be God for God’s nature must be complete in and of Himself: self evidently. If God depended upon anything outside of Himself, He would not be God. Love is actualized through relationships not in isolation. We don’t actualize loving someone when we are not in relationship with that person. To know the love of a parent for a child, you must have a child in which you love as a parent loves a child. To know romantic love you must have an object of that love. Therefore for Him to love, He had to love before He created. He didn’t begin to love once He created the world. He always loved. He always was a personal God. That’s why the doctrine of the Trinity is so essential. For God to love mankind, He had to first love interpersonally the Son of God. Who is begotten of God versus created by God. For God to be a personal God, He had to be interpersonal eternally versus gaining His personal nature with reference to creation. Once again, every attribute of God must be eternal. God loves because He eternally loves the Son and the Son eternally loves the Father. God is the ultimate Father to mankind because He gains His fatherly identity through His relationship with the Son. The Holy Spirit is the agent of His love which binds the Father and the Son and who is given to each person who is in relationship with the Father through Jesus. Jesus said that the greatest act of love is to lay down your life for your friend. Jesus, while we were yet sinners, laid down His life for man. Jesus was purposed to do this before the creation of the world. Before we sinned, He was still going to lay down His life to bring mankind into holiness that is only found in God. Man was made dependent upon God. But the only way we could attain holiness is through God providing that to us by an extension of His grace to us which comes through His greatest act of love and that is sacrificing Himself for us. We were not made equal to God for the created cannot be equal to the Creator, thus to be brought into His holiness He had to elevate us by grace through His supreme act of love which is in Christ work on the cross. Jesus coming to give His life for man was not God’s back up plan because mankind messed everything up. It was still purposed to be. However, when man sinned, Jesus’ sacrifice included His forgiving us our sins.


The doctrine of the Trinity is essential to the existence of God. If God were not a Trinitarian Being He could not be, for a being to have an identity, he has it relationally to another. If God was this cosmic static entity with no persons of the Trinity He could not be self-evident. He gains identity from Himself because He is a personal being. Thus any religion that posits a non-Trinitarian God cannot theologically support the existence of that God. Moreover polytheism fails to be a foundational system of belief for each of the many gods would have to be finite for you cannot have more than one all powerful God. It isn’t logically possible. Thus multiplicity of gods lends itself to finiteness of gods and that is not an adequate foundation for they would not be eternal.


In conclusion, God, being perfect, loves perfectly and eternally and all ethics and morality derive from the goodness that flows from His love. This is why Jesus said the greatest commandments are to love God and love your neighbor and that the second hinges on the first. When we learn how to love God and to experience His love and compassion for us we are enabled to love our neighbor the way we ought. This is why I have repeatedly advocated that morality is not about following the letter of the law, but about the fulfillment of the law which is love. When we are filled up with God’s love we can love others the way we ought to and we do good by them as a byproduct of that relationship with God.


God loves mankind and His love is actualized and experienced through the Holy Spirit who draws all men unto Himself. God is loving us even when we rebel against Him. All the consequences for sin is to bring about our restoration unto Him. It is all for our good even when it doesn’t feel so good at the time. Hebrews 12:11 “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” Even when God is allowing us to reap the consequences of our unrighteousness it is for our redemption.


The end product of a community of people who live lives of love is a beautiful picture. John Lenon asked the world to imagine a world with no religion. In reality, we need to imagine a world where God’s love is known by people and lived out through people. A world of people who live like Jesus lived would indeed produce a utopia. Imagine just a city of people who are living like Jesus. There would be no crime. The jails would be empty. There would be no hate. People would treat each other with kindness. They would always do good for their fellow man. God is calling us to such a way of living and it is possible through Christ.


However, there will always be those who will refuse to live as a part of the Kingdom of God. So even as this community of believers matures into this society built on love those outside of this society will be living lives in opposition to this reality. Hence the world will become darker and darker (more vile and destructive) and the church community brighter and brighter (more pure and glorified) until the day Christ comes for His Bride the Church.

Unity In the Midst of Diversity

A common question regarding Christianity surrounds the issue of unity. If Christianity is true, why are there so many doctrinal differences? If we claim that God exist and that He is knowable and has revealed true information about himself in the Bible, then why do many Christians disagree about many specifics of our worldview?

Jesus prayed in John 17:23 for the unity of all believers and He says that our unity will let the world know that He was sent from God and that God loves the world. So unbelievers and believers alike rightly ask where is this unity? However, they mistake unity to mean uniformity of thinking and doctrine.

At the same time, the same people who claim that for Christianity to be true there must be uniformity do not wish for a moment to ascribe to any belief system that tells them how to think about every little thing. They are the same to hold the mindset that the church ought not to control their thinking. So is it really uniformity they want to see? Or is it what Colossians 3:14 proclaims that over all virtues we must put on love which binds us all together in perfect unity. Unity comes from loving one another not from dictating how one thinks.

Usually if everyone has the exact same response people believe it to be coached and not authentic. We know we are all unique and we think differently about things. One can notice that a car is bright red and the other notices there were three children in the back seat. Both are correct, but different things stood out to them. The problem is when they take that perspective and turn it into an absolute instead of a piece of the pie. For instance, all cars are red, or all cars must have three children in the back seat. Sometimes a truth applies across the board and sometimes it does not. I Corinthians 13 explains that now we know in part and then we shall know fully. On earth our knowledge is partial and not complete knowledge. The more our knowledge lines up with reality of what is the more we know, but even then we still don’t see the whole picture as God does.

Thus, unity is not a matter of uniformity of thinking, but a matter of being bond together by love despite our different manners of thought. And yes, this unity by love is something that is also a process that is being worked out in us and is not fully manifested in our lives. For we are all at different levels of relationship with God--growing into deeper levels all the time and the deeper we go in our walk with God the more love will prevail.

This does not mean that our thinking is not to conform to God’s truth for we can know and agree on many things that are central to Christianity, but that even with those foundational agreements there are specifics that are not nailed down and concrete in uniformity.

However, on the other hand as we mature in Christ we will become united in mind and thought as well, not because a church dictates how to think, but because we have relationship with Him who is Truth. Ephesians 4 says that God has given people gifted as leaders to the church to equip the church until she reaches unity of the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then, it says we will no longer be tossed too and fro by every wind and doctrine. Meaning, that as the Church enters maturity, even doctrine will become solid. One day all will culminate to be a glorified Church made ready for Christ. Still that unity that comes into being will be something greater than uniformity.

Again our whole desire for unity shows that there is One who brings unity to diversity. We do not wish to live in a world of rampant diversity without any unity, nor do we wish to live in a world of strict uniformity and no creative diversity. In the Triune God we find both unity and diversity and that is why He is highly qualified to bring about unity without loosing diversity in our lives. The community believers have with each other and with God joins the diverse parts to effectuate a unified whole complete with our own creative gifts and talents.

Moral Framework Continued

I will now transition from the existence of a common moral framework in humanity to how God sees humans living in that framework. To answer this contention about the nature of the Christian God, I must for the sake of illustration, answer from the Christian worldview that you do not yet accept as valid. Please read this as an answer from Christianity and allow me to establish the foundation for the legitimacy of Christianity in other blogs.

God created a moral framework not as a system of rules by which to bind us, but as a protection against living outside of how we were designed to live. It’s like the warning label on an electronic device that cautions the user not to use near water to avoid electrocution. There is a moral framework written into the fabric of our DNA, but because of our sinful nature we often ignore that framework and do things our own way because we live separated from God. The evil in the world is because of that separation. God provides restoration to the way we were born to live as beings connected with the eternal God.

Jesus was never about imposing laws and rules. He came to fulfill the requirements of the written laws given to Moses by God to enable man to gain redemption and righteousness, not by adhering to laws and rules, but by relationship with Jesus for Jesus came to restore man to God. God’s justice isn’t punitive in nature. He loves mankind. Jesus said that sin entangles us and creates bondage over our lives to sin and death. That is the nature of what sin does. In contrast, God is in the business of freeing people from that sin and death and giving them life, eternal life. That relationship is not merely a matter of eternal destiny, but of present day living on earth. He takes away the weight of guilt from sin. He removes the entanglements and replaces our bondage with His freedom and life.

Thus, Christians don’t practice morality to please God. Their morality is an overflow of the change Christ has made in their life. Because He is love we love. It is out of our fellowship with Him that we live the way we do. Not because we think about if we will make him mad at us or not by our actions. Granted, as you will see in my prior blog entitled “Common Ground” sometimes Christians get into religion and start to become about laws and such, but this is not the standard. Jesus is the standard and He wasn’t about religion.

I believe I have responded to each of your objections or questions in your blog Unmuddling Morality

Who is God?

Who is God? How would you introduce Him to someone who has never met Him? You need to know. There are many who say they don’t believe in God or in the Christian God, but the God they don’t believe in isn’t God at all. It’s this idea of God they think Christians believe in that they are wholeheartedly against, and for good reason. Some Christians even have an idea of God that is less than God. First of all our very lives should be a living testimony of who God is. We should be expressing the heart of the Father to our fellow Christians and to unbelievers with how we live our lives and how we love people.

However, we must also be prepared to tell people who God really is for we claim to know Him, thus making it our responsibility to illustrate Him to the world as best as our finiteness can permit. Alister McGrath a renowned Oxford theologian was once an atheist. He says that in his atheism he was against this idea of God that wasn’t truly God at all. It wasn’t until he met some real Christians and he listened to their caricature of the living God that he saw that his worldview didn’t work like he thought it did. He saw that the Christian worldview had merit and through that understanding his heart was opened to accept Christ as his Savior.

Jesus asked his disciples who do you say that I am? His disciples said some say you are a prophet and some say . . . Jesus inquired further, “but who do YOU say I am?” What a loaded question using the words “I am.” When Moses was sent forth to Pharaoh, God told him to say he was being sent by “I AM”. Jesus wanted to know that they knew in their heart who He was for it is out of that knowing that they can share the truth of the kingdom of God.

God is. He is infinite, boundless, and limitless. He is immeasurable. All things are in Him. There is no reality outside of Him. That is why a skeptic or an atheist has to borrow from the Christian worldview in order to substantiate their questions for there is no other reality.

God never changes. A.W. Tozer writes, “What God was, God is. What God is and was, God will be. There will never be any change in God.” Moreover, “what God is, He is perfectly.” He can never be any less than what He is. Nor can He be any more than what He is because He is immeasurable. I love it when Tozer writes, “God acts justly from within, not in obedience to some imaginary law; He is the Author of all laws, and acts like Himself all of the time.”

God is Just and He is Merciful. His Mercy does not battle His Justice.

To quote Tozer again because he says it so beautifully, “When God looks at a sinner who still loves his sin and rejects the mystery of the atonement, justice condemns him to die. When God looks at a sinner who has accepted the blood of the everlasting covenant, justice sentences him to live. And God is just in doing both things.”

He goes on to say, “It was the mercy of God that gave us Calvary, not Calvary that gave us mercy.”

God is so amazing. When you think on the awesomeness of God we have no other option but to rejoice. It just wells up within us to know God is awesome. God is good. God is love. He is merciful. He is just. He is Holy. And He is infinitely, equally, and perfectly all of these attributes.

We must not only think on these things, but we must discover them in our relationship with Him. We must know them in our hearts to be so because we know God. It’s like you can see all the actions of your spouse’s love, but there is more than knowing those actions equate to love. You know your spouse’s love because you know it within your heart and it is sure, steadfast and known despite any actions or lack of action. We need to know God’s love in such a way as this and from that knowing we must share it to the watching world.

God's Justice & Love

God’s justice does not conflict with his love or his goodness. He does not love less because He is just. He is perfectly just and loving at the same time. It is the human view of love that is distorted. We think of acts of love as always being blissful when in reality the same love employed by a parent that bestows a child with good gifts is also employed when spanking the child when he misbehaves. The parents love is not diminished by spanking the child, but affirmed by the discipline. The Bible says that if you spare a child from a spanking you do not love the child. So if God put forth this standard for parents and if He is the ultimate Father, why then do we judge God as being unloving when His justice brings about unpleasant consequences?

From the time of Adam our very nature has been fallen and separated from God because of our unrighteousness. A chasm of division separates man from God. Yet God sent His own begotten son to live as one of us surrendering his divine rights to even die a tortuous death on a cross for the payment of the sins of all mankind. Christ who never sinned substituted himself to pay our price for reconciliation back to God. He sits with God, one with God, being God himself, as our mediator. Due to His redemptive sacrifice, man kind can be restored to relationship with God. Now if man refuses this restoration which only comes by the finished work of the cross, he remains separated from God and life on earth and after is completely severed from relationship with God. Not because God cast him out, but because man refused life with God. So why now does modern man sit in the judgment seat and judge God for being unloving because of the existence of eternal separation from God which is a very real place called hell? Man would judge God all the more if God forced himself upon man and effectuated a relationship that man did not want or if man had no choice in the matter.

Could it be that man has misplaced his blame and only shakes a finger at God to avoid facing his own need for God?

“The ancient man approached God (or even the gods) as the accused person approaches his judge. For the modern man the roles are reversed. He is the judge; and God is in the dock.” C.S. Lewis – God in the Dock

“. . . as the real meaning of the Christian claim becomes apparent, its demand for total surrender, the sheer chasm between Nature and Supernature, men are increasingly ‘offended.’ Dislike, terror, and finally hatred succeed: none who will not give it what it asks (and it asks all) can endure it: all who are not with it are against it.” C. S. Lewis – God in the Dock

Love v. Law

Jesus is the perfect example of what the Christian life is to look like. He not only preached the things of God, He lived as the perfect representation of the Kingdom of God. While not forsaking His divinity, He lived the life of a man in perfect relationship with God. Jesus claimed of Himself to be the Way the Truth and the Life. He is the perfect personification of Truth.

There seems to be constant tension between the law and love where there should be none. Some feel that if they cease seeing sin through the law they will some how give it permissive license. However, Jesus knew full well the death produced by sin for He came suffer in our place for our sins though he committed none. Just the same Jesus was sent to, “to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.” He came to heal hearts and free and release those in bondage to darkness.

Only love can produce these results. Condemnation and invoking the law only serves to bring bondage not freedom. Every time Jesus refers to the Law and the Prophets he shows that they are fulfilled in love not abolished by love.

Consider the following passages.

Matthew 5: 17 –18 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.”

Matthew 7:12 “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

Matthew 22:36-40 "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

The Law and the Prophets are fulfilled by Love. So why is that people think that responding to sin with love creates permissiveness and violates God’s law? By no means, the law exists because of God’s love and is therefore fulfilled by His love. Love fulfills the law because when you enter into God’s love through Jesus you are freed from the bondage of sin which was illuminated by the law. Morality becomes a byproduct of knowing Christ and not false righteousness of adhering to moral laws.

When sin is seen through love it is far darker and more real than when it is seen through legalism and the religious spirit. I used to think that compassion for the sinner excused the sin whereas condemnation of sorts would break them out of the sin. I didn’t think this consciously, but rather subconsciously. When God gripped my heart for the outcast and the sinners and replaced my judgmentalism with His compassion and love-- I started to see sin for what it really is: a dark bondage that destroys a person. I began to grieve in my heart when I saw people entangled in its web and I was then motivated by love to reach out showing them the love of Christ and the freedom from this disease in which they are so deeply entangled.

Love sees sin worse then legalism sees sin. Love seeks to restore, help, free, release the sinner from their bondages. Legalism seeks to condemn and bind the person to their bondage. The more like Jesus we become the more we should desire the restoration of the broken, the freedom of the captives, the healing of the hurting, etc. All of this will come out of our relationship with Him otherwise it is simply the works of religion. Religion is about law and Jesus is about love. The more we know Him the more love should abound.