Yes, the Church needs a new Reformation, one with a better understanding of the Image of God.  That is why a myth worth dispelling is that “Christian Truth Doesn’t Apply to Politics.” 

Our whole Christian worldview—with God as our focus—is supposed to be lived out, not just observed as a museum exhibit, open on Sundays.  

Returning to Pastor J. D. Greear’s commentary, he paraphrases “Thomas Sowell [noting], the Christian worldview teaches incredibly unique things about the nature of man, the value of life, the principles of justice, and the dangers of power. We assume most of those now as givens, but they aren’t. Other worldviews come to different conclusions about all of this, and the vision for public life is accordingly different.”

Different is a kinder word.  A world of decreasing Christian understanding and of theological misapplication is a downward spiral toward hate.  A melting pot world with many true religions leads people away from valuing the Christian worldview.

The social justice movement in our seminaries causes some like a national pastor to ask whether Jesus would be more at home in the migrant caravan or at a Trump rally (seriously, are those my only two choices???) to which the echo chamber proudly proclaimed in reply after reply, “The CARAVAN!”  (I’m trying to wrap my mind around sinless Jesus storming the border of Mexico and Guatemala to force His way in.)

This social justice movement clouds people’s vision.  Consider a woman I’ll call VM who chastised me, “You are delusional because you are blinded by your white fragility and white centric worldview that bars you from seeing clearly…You are misreading scripture!  Perhaps you need to bone up on your hermeneutics.”  (ouch!)

In one of the articles I was reading, a pastor named Lee Hull Moses wrote,

“Can we call ourselves followers of the Prince of Peace and not condemn violence born of bigotry and hate? Likewise, I don’t see how we can read the story of Jesus welcoming the children and not have something to say about the migrant children separated from their parents at our southern border.” 

All this to say that the social justice movement in our seminaries has caused people to focus on the red-and-blue wrong things (skin color, gender, nationality, political beliefs, etc.) and not on the right things (Christ, sinless, perfect sacrifice for sin…for Jew and Gentile alike).  They turn Jesus into another migrant crawling under barbed wire and giving sin a pass instead of a sinless Savior providing atonement.

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Worth asking is how we’ve come to believe a person has more (or less) of the Image of God based upon such dividing points.  It’s not just liberal theologians and shallow thinkers… (to be continued)

Think about it:

• If we saw the Image of God in our fellow man, how would that help us to love our enemies?  To forgive them?  To show them grace and point the way to Christ?

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I pray for today’s election, Lord God, that Your will would be done on earth as it is in heaven.  I pray that all true Christians would have sought Your perspective as our King before voting and would have confidence in You alone.  Help us to take refuge and comfort in Your Word and to live out the high calling to love others as You have loved us.

Luke 6:22 Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man. 23 “Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their fathers treated the prophets…27 “But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you…31 Do to others as you would have them do to you. 32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ do that. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ lend to ‘sinners,’ expecting to be repaid in full. 35 But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.” 

Help us, Lord, to remember the depths from which we have been rescued.  Amen.

So many recent articles have broached the topic of whether the Church should be political.  I read opinions from pastor after pastor of why or why not as well as the no-debate-pastors who simply say we must because it’s a spiritual battle for the survival of the Church.

I tend to agree with Pastor J.D. Greear who writes, “The question of politics has always been a tough one for me. On one hand, I often feel guilty for not doing more. Doesn’t obedience require standing up for truth and justice? But on the other hand, as a Christian leader, I often feel guilty for having said too much. Am I putting too many obstacles in the way of the gospel?”

Ultimately it involves having–and practicing–a highly developed, theologically grounded, and carefully guarded biblical worldview about controversial topics and political ideas in all sensitive areas of our cultural existence.

One such topic used to be called “Abortion” and is now called “Reproductive Justice” thanks in large part to “Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies” at universities like Yale, seminars on women’s equity at Yale’s Divinity School, and at seminaries like Union Theological Seminary whose President Serene Jones tweeted the following:

“Do not trust folk who tell you reproductive freedom isn’t truly on the line” as a follow-up to her tweet “I’m just so sick and tired of men appointing men to strip women of our rights. Lord, deliver us from evil. #SCOTUSPick.” 

Dr. Jones is but one of many “progressive theologians” who have capitulated to the culture and of course, you know what I say? 

As go the seminaries…so goes the Church and so goes the culture. 

But a biblical worldview recognizes that God values the life He gives us because He values the Image of God in which every human being is created. 

God said, “Let Us make man in Our Image” (Genesis 1:26 ) and

The LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. (Genesis 2:7) 

That’s why God cares more about the most basic of rights—life itself—than He does about any court-derived human right for a woman to do what is right in her own eyes…and with her body what she alone wants.

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Chances are good that if your politics of red-and-blue about abortion do not first yield to the Royal color purple of the King of Kings, your worldview lacks eternal standing on the Eternal Word and is sadly, too political.  Ah, but it’s not just women in the seminaries and it’s not just Presbyterians…(to be continued)

Think about it:

• On Yellowhammer, interviewer Tom Lamprecht asks Dr. Harry L. Reeder III (Senior Pastor of Briarwood Presbyterian Church in Birmingham) about a Pew Research Study: “Harry, I look at this list of the different denominations and those who support abortion. Presbyterian Church in America 54 percent, Southern Baptist Convention 30 percent, Assemblies of God 26 percent. Assemblies of God have the best numbers but, still, a quarter of the membership of that Bible-believing denomination would support abortion. Where do we go when our evangelical churches are so lost on this issue?”  Good question. 
• How about this one: Where is God’s purple Justice in a red or blue “Reproductive Justice”?
• Which justice is more like real Justice?  And whose have you been considering in your vote?

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Lord Jesus, please forgive us for exalting human rights in a superficial Christianity that doesn’t revere Your righteousness and Your supreme rights as our Sovereign.  Forgive us for minimizing Your Image present in the unborn, the poor, the sick, the unlovely, the alien, and the elderly.  Forgive us for seeking gods of selfish freedoms, voting outcomes we want, and political figures we like to satisfy our ears instead of prayerfully seeking You, the One True God, the Desired of Nations, and the Living One who satisfies our souls. 

I believe the Church needs another Reformation.  Now. 

If the first Reformation had to do with Church playing internal politics, enriching, empowering, and protecting Church elites, and the issuance of indulgences, this new Reformation also will need to address that same precarious intersection of faith and culture.  It’s still politics.  It’s still promoting an elite group but instead of a hierarchical elite, it’s a culturally-sanctioned mindset, and instead of indulgences, political correctness.  Suddenly what one believes politically (red or blue) is what makes someone moral.  That is being preached in churches all over America. 

That mess is precisely why among Martin Luther’s theses (#54 in his day) was “Injury is done to the Word of God when, in the same sermon, an equal or larger amount of time is devoted to indulgences than to the Word.“

I might argue that a single word change modernizes it: “Injury is done to the Word of God when, in the same sermon, an equal or larger amount of time is devoted to politics than to the Word.“  Or a few words,

Injury is done to Christianity when, in the same life, an equal or larger amount of time is devoted to secular than to the Savior.“ 

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What sent me over the edge to write about this was the feeling of incredible grief I’ve had at what Christ must think of what’s become accepted by, and lauded in, the seminaries and in the pastorate. 

After all, God told us:  Deuteronomy 6: 18 Do what is right and good in the LORD’s sight, so that it may go well with you.”  The Israelites failed miserably, and we do too.  We need to think in purple, knowing that the King of Kings died because we failed to do right and needed a Savior. 

How Christ must grieve over a Presbyterian minister shouting: “We welcome everyone!”  And in the same rant at our President who came in order to honor the dead at the Tree of Life Synagogue where 11 people lost their lives, she cried out in rage, “This is our neighborhood…you are not welcome here!”  (begins at the 6:32 mark)  Imagine how the world would view it if this pastor had shouted that same rage at “migrants.”

She probably didn’t come out of the womb with such insults to others made in the likeness of Christ. She was trained into blatant unforgiveness.  “Surely not!” you say.  Surely yes.  What began as a coddling of social justice in the seminaries is now bearing fruit as injury to the TRUE Gospel in our day.    

As go the seminaries…so goes the Church and so goes the culture. 

It’s not just women in the pastorate and it’s not just Presbyterians…(to be continued) 

Think about it:

• Does the sermon you hear each week focus solely on the Word of God, is it a lecture as a mix of politics and history, or an exposition of the pastor’s opinion on world events?
• How much time do you get in God’s Word each week versus how much do you find news/social media in which to become immersed?

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Lord Jesus, please forgive us for dishonest Christianity that doesn’t revere You as Lord, as King, and the only Righteous One.  Forgive us for minimizing Your sovereignty and ignoring Your will.  Forgive us for seeking gods of news sources, voting outcomes we want, and political figures we like to satisfy our ears instead of prayerfully seeking You, the One True God, the Desired of Nations, and the Living One who satisfies our souls.  

’I will shake all nations, and the desired of all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory,’ says the LORD Almighty.” (Haggai 2:7)

If the Christian walk is more like a marathon than a sprint, a second-wind is a welcome feeling.  The moments just prior to the second wind, not so much. 

But there’s nothing like a crowd of supporters to cheer a person on when running a race.  It’s better than having a shot of espresso or an adrenaline rush which get in to power your system until past the peak and then oh, what a letdown.  A crowd of supporters cheering in an ongoing encouragement don’t peak and valley.  Their encouragement is as perpetually inspiring as the crowd itself.

Such is the case with this great cloud of witnesses the author of Hebrews mentions.   Those witnesses in heaven testify to us forever the power of persevering to the end of earthly life and into the promise of the next. 

It’s encouragement to peel sins off our lives and throw away their burdensome weight that keeps us down and holds us back.  The Christian is forgiven of these things and there’s no need to hold onto them anymore.  The chains have been broken and we can run shackle-free.

Hebrews 12:1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. 2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

Thinking again on our topic of absolutes:

1. Christians, are you weary of all the political?  Pray to align yourself with God, then vote, and then you can throw it off.  A whole heaven of witnesses endured the political of their day and are encouraging your eyes to have a laser-like attention on Christ all the way to the eternal finish line!
2. Christians, are you sick of the attack ads?  Throw them off and see how Jesus kept His complete focus to the very end, even against opposition, and won the prize for us!
3. Christians, are you exhausted by the constant negativity?  Throw it off and see that Jesus died so that you could be positively free! Completely free!  Absolutely free!

That great cloud of witnesses will still be there.  Yes, even after these midterm elections with their tendency to draw our collective gaze away from our Savior.  Yes, the cloud of witnesses will still be cheering, still testifying, and still standing with absolute encouragement, calling you to endure too! 

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Gracious Father, thank You for the cloud of witnesses who have suffered and died for the sake of the Gospel of Your Son Jesus Christ!  Thank You for preserving Your saints throughout the generations in all times, even ones that have been highly-charged political times in world history.  Thank You for Your goodness and mercy, the forgiveness of Your Son Jesus!  Help us to see our sins for what they are, for how much they grieve You, and grant us the strength to do what glorifies You.  In Jesus’ Name.  Amen.

God is a straight-down-the-middle kind of God.  He gives the Truth and He expects obedience to it…straight down the middle.  Take the narrow way, centered on Christ.  With the Law, obey it all.  Don’t flavor it right or left.  Don’t massage it to make it more hawkish or pacifist.  Don’t make it more capitalist or socialist.  Don’t radicalize it or weaponize it.  Obey it…just as it is…straight down the middle. 

Unadulterated Truth.

In our compromiser-culture, this just doesn’t choke down all too well. 

It kind of sticks in the ol’craw. Negotiate a better middle ground between your truth and my truth.  Walk across the aisle, or if that doesn’t work, yell f-bombs at the other side, spit in their faces, and intimidate the bejesus out of them until they knuckle under.  (What a world.)

Into such chaos and darkness, God shines a light, calling us to faithfulness, and He gives us the boldness to do it.

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Joshua 1:7 Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go.

It’s interesting that when God commissioned Joshua (Joshua 1:1-9), He commanded strength and courage, over and again.  It’d take that to obey God’s Law when faced with a pagan culture.  It’s no different today.

Returning to our idea of absolutes, think about this:

• What does compromise do to the Truth? 
• What does a compromise on the Truth do to faith? 
• What does compromise of God’s Truth and our faith do to our success?  If you have time, go back to the link of Joshua 1:1-9 and look at all the absolutes.    
• Think back on this past week with Pastor Brunson being freed from captivity in Turkey.  What resources did God give to Pastor Brunson, his family, our President, and each of us to remain faithful? 
• How should we react when facing a culture demanding constant compromise or embrace of what others believe in the name of tolerance?

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We praise You, Lord, for the release of Pastor Brunson and his safe return to the United States.  We pray for Your Holy Spirit to shower his whole family with Your grace as they transition to being reunited and the inevitable challenges after time away.  We praise You, Lord, that Your Name was lifted in the Oval Office in the White House, in our Nation’s Capitol, for all the world to hear and see. We ask for Your strength and the courage which comes from Your Holy Spirit to keep us safe, our eyes fixed upon You, to witness to Your goodness and Truth in the days to come.  Protect us by the power of Your Might.  Keep us centered and grounded in Your Truth now and always.  Amen.

Be on your guard;  stand firm in the faith;  be men of courage;  be strong. (1 Corinthians 16:13)

If there ever was a time to be on one’s guard, to stand firm in the faith, and to be men and women of courage who remain strong, it’d be the age in which we’re currently living.  It’s a time of division, violence, anger, and unrest. 

Since the time of Christ, we’ve been in such a period of conflict.  Jesus says, Luke 12:51 “Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. 52 From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. 53 They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” 54 He said to the crowd: “When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘It’s going to rain,’ and it does. 55 And when the south wind blows, you say, ‘It’s going to be hot,’ and it is. 56 Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky. How is it that you don’t know how to interpret this present time?”

It’ll stay that way until Jesus returns.  That’s what the Bible says anyway.  For now, let’s do as Jesus says and interpret this present time.  Do you see what is happening in our culture, right now, this week?  Like many of you, I’m bracing for more unrest as things intensify to the midterm elections in the never-ending political cycle.

This week, we have a new Supreme Court Justice.  Irrespective of our political leanings, the Supreme Court is not supposed to be a political body…but a judicial one of fairness and equality in the eyes of God and the Law.  For that reason, all Christians should praise God when a man or woman who reveres the Lord is seated on the bench.  Yet we have divisions in the culture because Jesus brings division and the dividing line is that of His truth.  Our culture–with its firmly held belief in relative truth–doesn’t like that. 

To some in our culture, there is no higher authority than the Supreme Court, and that’s why control of it was so important.  (That’s really sad, isn’t it?)  For Christians, however, we know there is a Higher Authority we cannot control and to Whom every Supreme Court Justice must answer.   Our Lord and Judge is Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and before Him every knee will bow in heaven and on earth.

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Today’s Encouraging Verse to Lift Your Eyes and Touch Your Spirit is a timely reminder to stand firm because every day is a battle until Jesus returns and that Day of Judgment happens.

Think about it with respect to absolutes of truth and faith: 

• What does it say when we elevate politics over faith?  If that is the case, then why do many people do it? 
• How does a 24-hour news cycle and a never-ending political cycle serve to reinforce culture over faith? 
• What would happen if we had a 24-hour faith cycle, worshipping God all day, every day? 

Praise God for His immeasurable grace and love for us which allow us to stand, by faith, in His presence…to worship Him for His holiness and goodness.  Praise God that He holds the hearts of kings and rulers in His hands and directs them like a watercourse!  Thank You, Lord that our obligation is merely to pray…to seek Your will in all things, and then watch for where You work in order to join You in the work You set before each of us!  Thank You, Lord, for being our strength and our refuge, an ever-present help in times of trouble.

Psalm 100:1 A psalm. For giving thanks. Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth. 2 Worship the LORD with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. 3 Know that the LORD is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture. 4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. 5 For the LORD is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.

Do you know grace enough for thorns?  I know thorns.  They’re easy to find.  The pain shows you the way to where they irritate and poke your flesh.  Leave a thorn there long enough and the entry point will become inflamed, infected, and become a chronic reminder that the thorn is there, until you remove it, and even then, it hurts for a while.

In today’s passage, Paul had thorn. He couldn’t get rid of it.  His was a “messenger of Satan” and God wouldn’t take it away.  The thorn had a purpose: to teach Paul about grace enough for thorns.

 2 Corinthians 12: 7 To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

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The pain and hardship in our lives can be a gift. 

Whether it’s the pain and hardship we bring on ourselves or that which we find chasing us down the street uninvited, it can be a gift.  Even when we are unable to shake ourselves free from it, we can embrace the gift.  The pain was great for Paul, and he pleaded three times, a number symbolic of completion.  Paul wanted the thorn gone, gone, gone.  God instead said “Grace, grace, grace…sufficient…as a gift, gift, gift…to show whose power is really at work.”

The best and brightest among us, and Paul was certainly among that group, can suffer from the delusion that our successes are self-created…we are self-made men and women who get where we’re going through hard work and great competence. 

God allows thorns to keep us grounded,

a grim and glorious reminder that we are dust,

and His grace is enough to see us through.

Returning to our idea of absolutes, think about it: 

• Why would God give amazing revelations yet allow the perfect corrective of a thorn? 
• Why is God’s power made perfect in our weakness? 
• Does God give us 95% of the grace we need and expect us to manufacture or scrounge up the other 5%… or does He give all we need…100%?

Praise God for grace enough for today, for tomorrow, and the next.  Praise God that He sustains us one day at a time!  Praise Him for His wisdom and for the training we receive through our difficulties.  Praise Him for not giving us what we want, but exactly, completely, thoroughly, and absolutely everything “we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness.”  Amen.

How can we possibly be strong and courageous?  Haven’t you looked at what’s going on in today’s world: resist, oppose, mean-spirited, lying, accusation, assault, evil’s rise, and its impending darkness?  Yes, I am seeing the same world that you are, but I know what God has told me…and what God tells me is the truth.

Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you. (Deuteronomy 31:6) 

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The truth is that circumstances of this world will pass away.  The same God who says He’ll be with us, that He will never leave us, He will never forsake us, is the same God who holds it all in His hands and tells us the truth about whom to fear. 

Matthew 10:26 “So do not be afraid of them. There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. 27 What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs. 28 Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”

Wise Christians know that evil may seem to win a few battles now and then, but the war’s outcome was determined back on the Cross as evidenced by the empty tomb of our Risen Lord, and that final outcome of victory in Christ is assured by the coming of the Holy Spirit.

Think again about absolutes:

• Does God coddle our earthy fears and tell us we can be slightly afraid?  It’s okay if it’s just a tad…or are we commanded not to be at all afraid of this world, not even a smidgen?
• How is the absolute nature of God and His absolute faithfulness encouraging in that regard?
• How is the Risen Lord able to go with each of us at the same time by our faith in Him?
• With respect to absolutes, when God says to “be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell,” how serious is He about that fear and that destruction?

We praise You, Lord, for Your supreme faithfulness and for Your eternally encouraging Word.  For any who struggle today with fear, we ask Lord, that You would be with them, reminding them of why You are entirely faithful, reliable, trustworthy, and true.  We ask, Father, that You would give us Kingdom vision, so we would see things as You do…in which evil melts away and is destroyed by purifying fire in Your presence so nothing remains but goodness and truth.  We ask for courage where courage is needed, boldness where nothing but boldness will do, and for Your grace to remind us we are dust, saved only because of Your Son Jesus Christ, our Savior.  Remind us daily to “be strong and courageous” and not to be afraid or terrified because of anything this world can bring…and that’s because the LORD our God goes with us; He will never leave us nor forsake us.  Praise God for that!

The Apostle Paul—man, that guy knew how to pray.  I like the Apostle Paul.  He was a word guy who wrote long sentences, deep in meaning, precise in exposition, and with his passion evident in every word.  His ministry was launched with Jesus’ saying, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” (Acts 9:4) and the equally amazing Acts 9:16 “I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.”  Not the commissioning most of us would want.

Yet because Paul suffered, even to the point of a mysterious thorn to keep him humble (2 Corinthians 12:7), he lived his post-conversion days in awe of the love of Christ, the grace of Christ, the forgiveness and mercy of Christ, and he is arguably the most influential man this world has ever known, apart from Jesus.

Today, I’d like to look at one of his prayers in Ephesians in which he lays out a series of absolutes we can count on to encourage our hearts and touch our spirits.

Ephesians 3:14 For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge– that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. 20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

Returning to our idea of absolutes, think about it:  Look at all the absolutes and supremacies listed by Paul in the Scripture above. 

• In what ways do we participate in these absolutes? 
• In what ways does love surpass knowledge?  What are the implications of that? 
• How big is God’s love? 
• How long does this relationship of love last?

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Praise God for His calling us forth to know Him more and more!  Praise Him for His power!  Praise Him for His indwelling Holy Spirit who teaches, admonishes, and guides!  Praise Him for the enormity of His magnificent love shown to us in Christ Jesus!  Praise Him and glorify Him on earth as He is glorified in heaven!  Praise Him all creation!  Praise Him all saints and all generations!  O Praise Him!