Render Unto Caesar but Jesus is Lord!

by | Nov 1, 2024 | Christianity, Culture, Politics, Theology, Worldview

The first confession of the early church was, “Jesus is Lord!” This first confession implied that since Jesus is Lord, Caesar is not. This was a political statement that cost many Christians their lives.

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What do we “render unto Caesar?”

The first confession of the early church was, “Jesus is Lord!” This first confession implied that since Jesus is Lord, Caesar is not. This was a political statement that cost many Christians their lives. The Romans wouldn’t have burned Christians at the stake or fed them to lions or beheaded them for saying, “Jesus loves you!”

The proper starting place for biblical understanding of governing authority is not Romans 13, as many pastors would have you believe. If one runs to Romans 13 as a standalone text, you’re left with an incomplete understanding of authority that leads to bad theology and unbiblical outcomes that cause harm.

“Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.” (Romans 13:1-2)

Actually, one must begin with Matthew 22:17-20:

“Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why put me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. And Jesus said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They said, “Caesar’s.” Then he said to them, “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

This presupposes that some things DO NOT belong to Caesar (the state / government).

So, what things belong to Caesar as opposed to other authorities appointed by God?
Do your children belong to Caesar?
Does the Church belong to Caesar?
Does your body belong to Caesar?
Does your home belong to Caesar?
Does your food belong to Caesar?

During the COVID nonsense, many pastors and Christian leaders trotted out Romans 13 as their hard-and-fast “submit to the governing authorities” proof-text to coerce their fellow Christians to do what the government says (closing churches, social distancing, wearing masks, getting experimental shots, quarantining, etc.). Many manipulated others by saying that refusing to submit was “not loving thy neighbor.” Repent now, if you haven’t already.

This confusion about biblical authority extends beyond pandemic responses to the very heart of our civic duty. Having established what belongs to Caesar and what doesn’t, we face an even more pressing concern.

There is an important question Christians in America fail to grasp.
Will you cast your lot with life or death? Righteousness or sin?

Unfortunately, our choice on the ballot is not between Jesus or Satan. It’s more like Herod the Great or Cyrus the Great. The former murdered the firstborn throughout Bethlehem. The latter was a pagan king whom God used to shepherd God’s people back to Israel: “the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia…”(Ezra 1:1b)

A choice is set before every American Christian voter: a platform of life and order, or a platform of death and chaos.

“I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse…” (Deuteronomy 30:19a)

Not voting is equivalent to silence. If death is a choice on the ballot, then silence is evil when life is on the ballot as well. In fact, in America your vote belongs to Caesar… Render it!

Remember, God’s righteousness can be expressed through a single vote and can be accomplished through many votes.

A biblical case can be made that refusing to vote for the protection and promotion of human life violates the Sixth Commandment: “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13). Implicit in the prohibition of unlawfully taking a human life is the protection and promotion of human life.

Brian Tallman wrote, “Because God is the God of life, and because we are His children and those who walk in the same way in which He walks (1 John 2:6), we are necessarily those who work for the preservation, protection, and promotion of life. This command, then, is profoundly rooted in the nature of God. As John Calvin writes:

“We are accordingly commanded, if we find anything of use to us in saving our neighbors’ lives, faithfully to employ it; if there is anything that makes for their peace, to see to it; if anything harmful, to ward it off; if they are in any danger, to lend a helping hand.””(1)

It’s also our responsibility to steward this blessing God has ordained for American Christians who are eligible to vote.

Just as the early church’s confession “Jesus is Lord!” was a costly political statement that sent Christians to the lions, today’s Christians face their own moment of costly conviction. This is our moment to proclaim with our votes what the early church proclaimed with their lives – Jesus is Lord!

Proclaiming “Jesus is Lord!” costs something.

Related Podcast:

Revolution of Man Podcast Ep. 10 Election Predictions, Render unto Caesar, Preaching on Politics w/ Tyler Durham (Spotify) (Apple)

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Clueless Christianity and the Liberal Trap

by | Aug 23, 2024 | Christianity, Culture, Politics, The Church, Theology, Worldview

Clueless Christianity is weak and powerless. It cannot withstand the onslaught of darkness. Only through repentance and an unapologetic return to Biblical truth and faith can we withstand the coming storm. Pray that God raises up saints and sound doctrine against evil and falsehood in our time.
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The biggest problems for evangelicals are not that Satan and the world are against the church. Evangelicals’ biggest problems aren’t external – they’re internal. We’re clueless.

A clueless Christian is open to manipulation, false teaching, and heretical beliefs.

We must admit that most evangelical Christians struggle with Biblical literacy, self-centeredness, uncritical adoption of fads, ignorance of our cultural moment, questionable theology, and avoidance of confronting social issues scripturally. Add to this the recent American theology of “Christian escapism,” and you have a recipe for societal disaster. We wonder why our nation and the church are complete dumpster fires.

The Liberal Trap

Case in point, David French and other “liberal” Christians serve as water-boys for liberal elites (liberal Christianity is heresy, as I will point out later). French and his cohort (Russell Moore, Curtis Chang, Francis Collins, Tim Alberta, Andy Stanley, etc.) lean left and punch right. That is to say, they espouse leftist political and moral positions, wrap them in Christian language, then bash conservative Christians and admonish them to avoid politics altogether. Read their books. They are theological chaff under the pretense of sophistication.

They all superimpose a political framework on their theology, at the same time claiming they are trying to keep politics out of Christianity and the church by bashing conservative Christians through a straw man fallacy of the “right’s political idolatry.” They are so obsessed that when confronted for their folly, they shift tactics to ad hominem attacks, calling those who disagree or expose their falsehoods “Christian Nationalists.” I’d rather be called a “Christian Nationalist” (whatever that means) than actually be a “Christian Socialist.”

Remember, Curtis Chang told Christians the “shot” was a gospel issue and anyone who didn’t get it was breaking God’s command to love our neighbors (1). Chang and others who said that sinned against God’s church. I highly recommend they repent.

Herbert Marcuse must be rejoicing in Hell as these men and their followers impose a form of “Repressive Tolerance” wrapped in a Christian veneer on the church at large.

Note: Every Christian should read Herbert Marcuse’s “Repressive Tolerance” to understand our cultural moment and mood. We are living in the logic of Marcuse. Link below this post.

These men are not shepherds of God’s flock nor are they shepherds for sale. They are mere hirelings of modern Marcusian Liberal Christianity masquerading as pious pastors and thought leaders.

They wave banners revealing their true nature that read, “To Save Conservatism From Itself, I Am Voting for Harris” (David French actually wrote a New York Times piece by that title) leading undiscerning believers toward the outer darkness.

Meanwhile, a mobile abortion and vasectomy van is parked at the DNC national convention offering free abortion drugs to women and vasectomies to men (2). Yet, they can’t tell you what a woman is. Their signs use code-speak like “Reproductive Healthcare” which everyone knows means, kill the baby in the mother’s womb. “Healthcare” for the unborn means death.

What French and his ilk are promoting is not historical biblical Christianity, but another religion altogether.

J. Gresham Machen nailed it in 1923, in his book, “Christianity and Liberalism“:
“What the liberal theologian has retained after abandoning Christian doctrine is not Christianity at all, but an entirely different religion… Christianity is founded upon the Bible. Liberalism is founded upon the shifting emotions of sinful men.“

Clueless Christianity manifests in several ways:

Biblical Illiteracy Crisis

Problem: Our biblical ignorance lets wolves use out-of-context verses to peddle false doctrines.
Solution: Repent of your spiritual sloth, believe the Gospel, and study your Bible.

Self-Centered Worship

Problem: We demand entertainment instead of worship, therapy instead of repentance. We psychologize sin and apply therapy rather than repentance and believing the gospel.
Solution: Repent of your selfishness and trivializing sin. Find a church that preaches God’s Word unadulterated, not some watered-down rubbish.

Following Fads

Problem: Pastors chase pop-culture trends, and use big data and “best practices” to attract the lost.
Solution: Repent of your unbiblical techniques of “doing church.” (What the heck does “doing church” mean anyway? It’s theological nonsense). Get your ecclesiological (doctrine of the church) house in order. Study God’s design, purpose, and destiny for His Church. Remember, what you win people with is what you win people to.

Cultural Ignorance

Problem: Ignorance of our cultural moment leaves the church vulnerable to destructive undercurrents.
Solution: Repent of your apathy. Preach God’s Word as it intersects with the actual lives of your congregation, not as if in a vacuum.

Theological Confusion

Problem: Problematic positions on scripture’s authority, inerrancy, the Gospel’s sufficiency, sexual and ethnic identity, and politics have left many in the church confused.
Solution: Repent of your apostasy and heretical theology. Recover biblical categories, anthropology, and sociology.

Social Issue Avoidance

Problem: By avoiding critical moral issues, we allow bad ideas and policies to harm our neighbors.
Solution: Repent of your cowardice. Speak truth to error and against destructive ideologies, theories, and policies.

Christian Escapism

Finally, many believe that Jesus would never allow His Church to suffer trials and tribulations, despite 2,000 years of evidence to the contrary. Are modern Christians somehow exempt from God’s judgment on broader society or persecution?

Problem: This mindset is unbiblical and leaves us unprepared for the challenges of today. Furthermore, the escapist mentality can lead to apathy, inaction, pride, and a lack of care for future generations. “Get people saved and wait” is not Biblical.
Solution: Repent and focus on being faithful to Christ in every moment today so that when He returns, he will find you faithful. Remember, God called us to be faithful in every moment of our assigned station in this life as if Christ’s return could happen at any time.

In conclusion, Evangelicals are invariably 15 to 20 years behind the culture. In a foolish attempt at relevance, evangelicals jump on the cultural bandwagon just as everyone else is getting off. Meanwhile, many hirelings enrich themselves by peddling their books and programs, leading many sheep astray while shaming actual shepherds.

Clueless Christianity is weak and powerless. It cannot withstand the onslaught of darkness. Only through repentance and an unapologetic return to Biblical truth and faith can we withstand the coming storm. Pray that God raises up saints and sound doctrine against evil and falsehood in our time.

It’s time to repent and fight for truth or lose the nation God gave us and men died for.

I leave you with another quote from Machen to contemplate:
“The type of religion which rejoices in the pious sound of traditional phrases, regardless of their meanings, or shrinks from ‘controversial’ matters, will never stand amid the shocks of life. In the sphere of religion, as in other spheres, the things about which men are agreed are apt to be the things that are least worth holding; the really important things are the things about which men will fight.“

 

“So shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him.”
(Isaiah 59:19 KJV)

Citations, sources and links:

(1) https://edition.cnn.com/videos/politics/2021/09/08/curtis-chang-former-pastor-vaccine-exemption-sot-ebof-vpx.cnn

(2) https://www.npr.org/2024/08/20/nx-s1-5081386/planned-parenthood-mobile-clinic-abortion-vasectomies-dnc

Herbert Marcuse “Repressive Tolerance” (1969) https://www.marcuse.org/herbert/publications/1960s/1965-repressive-tolerance-fulltext.html

David French: “To Save Conservatism From Itself, I Am Voting for Harris” (NYT 2024) https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/11/opinion/harris-trump-conservatives-abortion.html

J. Gresham Machen “Christianity and Liberalism” (1923) https://www.amazon.com/Christianity-Liberalism-J-Gresham-Machen/dp/1642894915

Essay: “THE CHRISTIAN DUTY IN POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT” by Lance Cashion (2023)

Please share your insights by commenting below this post.

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Now more than ever, worldview training is essential. It is not a Christian elective. I launched the Forge Room Foundation in order to equip Christians to understand our cultural moment and respond with a biblical worldview perspective.

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From Debate Stage to Spiritual Awakening: Human Dignity and Politics – A Christian Response

by | Jun 28, 2024 | Articles, Christianity, Culture, God, Politics, The Church, Worldview | 3 comments

Last night’s debate revealed deeply troubling issues.
What’s really happening?
How are we supposed to think about it as Christians?
What are we supposed to do?

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Last night’s debate revealed deeply troubling issues.

Links between Biden’s cognitive issues, his performance, and our understanding of raw political power are rising to the surface. These events demand a biblically-informed response from Christians.

What’s really happening?
How are we supposed to think about it as Christians?
What are we supposed to do?

Elder Abuse and Human Dignity

First, last night we saw what we all knew to be true put on display for the world to see. We observed what can only be described as elder abuse. I am serious. I disagree with pretty much all of President Biden’s political positions.

Regardless of Biden’s political and ethical failings, he remains an image-bearer of God. As such, his life has value, worth, and dignity. That is true regardless of how I feel about him as a politician. As a Christian, I must remind people that he is made in God’s image; his life and dignity must be defended (period).

While Biden provided many cringy moments, we should be deeply disturbed and righteously angry that someone is propping him up and manipulating him for political purposes. That is abusive and evil.

It is abundantly clear that President Biden is experiencing cognitive and physical decline.

I have spent enough time with people experiencing various stages of cognitive decline to know. One need not be a physician to understand this. How we respond is important.

Biden’s own team and family deliberately humiliated him. I believe that what the leaders in the Democratic Party and his own family are doing to him is cruel. The man is obviously struggling, but his handlers keep putting him out there. While this begs the question of who’s running the country, let’s set that aside and not lose sight of the main issue from a biblical perspective. Joseph Biden is a human being created in the image of God with dignity. His life has value regardless of his status, ethics, or abilities.

I believe he is the victim of elder abuse.

That needs to be investigated and properly dealt with by law enforcement authorities. I’d go as far as to suggest that if Donald Trump is elected President, one of his first executive actions should be to open an elder abuse investigation into the mistreatment of Joseph Biden. On a side note, I think Trump should be commended for his self-control during the debate.

It is clearly evident that the people closest to Joe Biden (including family members) do not love him or care for his dignity. How do I know this? Because you don’t allow people to treat human beings with disabilities in such a cruel manner. This biblical command doesn’t change due to personal or political partiality. This is where worldview perspectives on human dignity and politics intersect.

Worldview Perspective on The Politics of the Moment

Second, from a political perspective, last night was President Biden’s removal ceremony. While this may be considered speculation by some, let’s see what happens.

Cannibalism is the Marxist’s version of a “transfer of power.” By this I mean they sacrifice and eat their own on the altar of power. We just don’t recognize it because it’s occurring in America. The old ways of replacing the head of the socialist party through firing squad, poisoning, etc., have evolved for the American context.

Keep in mind that within the Marxian materialistic worldview, human beings are simply cogs in the machine of the state. When a cog is no longer useful, it is removed and tossed aside. Sometimes the cog is eulogized as a “man of the revolution.”

In the coming days, we’ll observe the party attack Biden and ostracize him.

A new cog or darling of the party will emerge. Notice all of this is occurring after the primary when Biden could have been replaced but it was prevented, AND this first debate was strangely early by request of the Democratic Party… enough time to replace Biden before the election?

It sucks all the air out of the room from Trump as corporate media places 100% of their attention on the drama of replacing Biden. Who will be the next party head? Whoever it is better have eyes on the back of their head because they are just another cog in the political machinery.

We indeed live in strange and interesting days.

How are we to think and respond from a Christian worldview?

Repent and Fear God (as churches and nation): We are reaping the fruits of the seeds of godlessness, evil, and disobedience that we’ve sown over the past several decades as a nation. God gives people over to a debased mind and unbridled destructive passions when they turn their backs on Him and His revealed truth (Romans 1:18-35). We must humble ourselves and turn back to Him.

Pray (proceeds from repentance): We need to pray for God’s mercy as a nation. Otherwise, the consequences of the deeds of our past will continue to destroy what is left of America.

Wake Up: The church in America has been asleep and/or apostate for too long. She needs to repent and return to the Lord immediately. Then, we need to equip ourselves to love one another and fight the many real dragons that are terrorizing our families and communities. Those dragons are cowardice, apostasy, and abuse in the church, and corruption and dark ideologies influencing the church and culture.

In conclusion, revival rides on the rising tides of repentance, faith, and prayer. The power of the Christian worldview must be unleashed as we recover GRIT in the Church in America. We need humble hearts and prayerful hands now. We need Guts, Resilience, Integrity, and Tenacity moving forward.

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Taming Politics

by | Dec 1, 2022 | Christianity, Culture, Philosophy, Politics, Stewardship

Politics should not be an idol nor something to be ignored.

Politics should be stewarded with thankfulness.

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Political thinking does not arise in a vacuum, nor do our politics stay neatly within the walls we erect around them…

On the contrary, political convictions emerge from our deep underlying assumptions about reality, life, and what we believe about the world we inhabit. While political possibilities shift, biblical truth does not – neither should our convictions.

 

Some treat politics as a worldview – this is wrong. Politics is incapable of answering the bigger questions of life and existence (origin, meaning, identity, morality, destiny). In other words, politics is too small to function as a comprehensive worldview.

On the other hand, some believe politics has no place within a Christian worldview or mitigate its importance – this is also wrong. If a worldview is incapable of containing politics, that worldview is too small.

Only a full-orbed Kingdom vision is capable of not only containing but taming and shaping our politics. For the Christian, our politics should flow from deeply held truths about God, His reality, His creation, His commands, and our responsibility. We must ground our politics in the Word of God, obey His commands, and reflect on the implications of scripture upon our cultural moment.

Politics properly understood impacts individuals made in the image of God with intrinsic value and worth. Because politics involves people we are commanded to love regardless of their political positions – we have a responsibility to properly steward politics. A good gardener would no more allow weeds and pests to infest his gardens than Christians ought to allow harmful ideas and bad policies to infest the way we govern a society comprised of image-bearers – our neighbors.

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind… And “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37-39 ESV)

Can we truly claim to love God and love our neighbors while allowing evil and destructive policies to harm our neighbors who are created in God’s image?

Someone said that “politics has sucked the air out of the room” in our social discourse. I agree!  However, I will take it a bit further…  Politics IS the room and the door is locked.

I believe the Church is the only institution on the planet that possesses the only key to unlock the door. But it will require the recovery of an integrated Kingdom vision where we live under the rule and reign of Jesus Christ – declaring the Lordship of Christ over all things… even political things.

Politics should not be an idol nor something to be ignored. Politics should be stewarded with thankfulness.

 

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What will 2021 be like?

by | Dec 29, 2020 | COVID-19, Culture, Current Affairs, Encouragement, God, Personal Growth, Politics, Theology, Wisdom, Worldview | 2 comments

What will 2021 be like?

it will not be anything like 2020

Last week I was having a casual conversation with a friend and they remarked, “I can’t wait for 2020 to be over, 2021 can’t come fast enough.”

I hear that sentiment repeatedly. 2020 has been a watershed year across the world. It appears as if a shift has occurred across society and throughout culture. Let’s assess the good and bad of 2020 before diving headlong into 2021. In last week’s post, I pointed out that 2020 was “the year of fear.” Stick with me as I wade through the muck and mire of the bad news – the good news will be worth it, I promise.

The Bad News

In America, we have experienced a virus emerge from a Chinese town that engulfed the world in a pandemic. We have seen major social upheaval along ethnic, academic, corporate and political lines. We have witnessed a heated presidential election that is still being contested. We see businesses, churches and other ‘non-essential’ entities shutdown while perfectly healthy humans (including small children) are forced to wear face-masks through unconstitutional mandates – enforced by fellow volunteer citizens who revel in public ‘face-shaming’ as their civic duty. Keep in mind, the human face is the primary means through which a human being reflects the image of God. If you want to degrade, humiliate and objectify another fellow image-bearer, force them and their children to cover their faces.

We have been taught that “loving your neighbor” actually means isolating yourself from your neighbors (and family). Furthermore, you must ridicule your neighbor for not wearing a mask, not towing the party line or not bowing to the woke mob. Apparently, “loving” has been redefined to mean coercing and shaming because in the new era of ‘social justice’ virtue signaling is far more important than actual virtue.

The new scientific orthodoxy has ‘proven’ that rioting and looting are ‘COV ID-safe’ but worshiping God and singing in public are deadly – that masks and social distancing work, until they don’t – that biological sex is fluid and Jeffery Epstein really killed himself (well, the science isn’t settled on Epstein yet)… But, working a ‘non-essential’ job to put food on the table is downright criminal.

Meanwhile, statistics have shown the two of the most life-threatening places in America are nursing homes in New York and pregnant mothers’ wombs – in a nation where people’s right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are ensconced in law and protected (unless you happen to be located in a womb in NYC, then not so much). Job numbers are down while depression, loneliness and suicides are up. Fact checkers can ‘fact check’ those facts – but facts are funning things in a world of relativism, ‘inconvenient truths’ and ‘settled science.’ And, if you don’t agree with the media narrative, you are given a heavy dose of a new drug called ‘Censorship.’ I think its imported from the CCP.

Finally, we are being reminded that God is on His throne, but you better get your COV ID vaccine just in case He isn’t. Many Christian leaders are living and preaching like nihilistic deterministic pagans with one life to live. Media propaganda echoes from many pulpits across the land as a new prophetic voice (divorced from the Bible and trafficking in falsehoods) runs off with the sexy little zeitgeist. Note bene: I said ‘many’ not ‘all’ because there remains a remnant of leaders and churches attempting to take a stand for truth and righteousness.

The Good News

(See ‘The Bad News’ section above but with a reclaimed, redeemed and restored Christian vision infused with grace).

This morning I was reading FW Boreham’s essay, “Catherine Booth’s Text” (1922). I reflected on the past year. What has carried us to the point that you are reading what I’m writing? The answer is, “GRACE!”

Catherine Booth was a spiritual titan of her time. She built her life around a single text, “My grace is sufficient for thee…” (2 Corinthians 12:9a). In his essay, Boreham beautifully describes how the realization of those six words transformed the lives and ministries of John Bunyan, John Wesley, Martin Luther, Catherine Booth, the Apostle Paul and countless others. He argues that we accept the first four words with ease – “My grace is sufficient…” but the last two are only realized in a deep moment of extreme need – “for thee.”

Boreham sharpens his point by saying, “It is always easier to believe that there is a Savior for the world than to believe that there is a Savior for me.” He continues, “Martin Luther believed and preached confidently that Christ died for all mankind, long before he could persuade himself that Christ died for Martin Luther. John Wesley crossed the Atlantic to proclaim the forgiveness of sins to the Indians; but it was not until he was verging on middle-life that he realized the possibility of the forgiveness of his own.”

Closing the chapter 2020 and opening 2021

Charles Spurgeon once said to his students, “There are many passages of Scripture which you will never understand until some trying or singular experience shall interpret them for you.”

If God’s grace was sufficient in 2020, do you believe His grace will be sufficient in 2021 and beyond? In 2020 perhaps you know and believe the first four words, “My grace is sufficient…?” Behold, the dawn of a new year is breaking before us! Just maybe in 2021, the last two words, “for thee” will with great power suddenly break upon you as they did for Bunyan and others.

What will 2021 be like?

I can say with confidence, it will not be anything like 2020. Why? Because God’s grace is sufficient for the world and you and me. Fear and despair cannot exist in the presence and fullness of God’s grace as darkness and cold cannot exist near the light and warmth of a fire.

If you go outside right now and take a several deep breaths would you fear that you would exhaust all of the oxygen in the entire atmosphere? Of course not! Then why would you believe the God who created the atmosphere and your lungs would not provide in Christ sufficient grace for you? There is to be taken a giant step from believing in the head to believing in the heart. Won’t you take it?

My Grace is Sufficient for thee… That means you and me!
I will close with some final words from dear Pastor Boreham, “For it is the glory of the grace that it takes what sadnesses there are and transmutes them into songs sublime.”

Take a few moments to ask God for His sufficient grace to walk into next year. Pray for a clear Kingdom vision, boldness and living faith that sheds the light of true hope in the world. God’s grace is sufficient for thee … for such a time as this.

By grace through faith in Christ alone.

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