Don’t Be a Coward – Creating Communities of Courage

Don't Be A Coward

Creating Communities of Courage

Cowardice has no place in the life of the Christian or Christ’s Church.

A faith that bows before cultural coercion is not biblical faith. When the individual Christian or church acquiesce to the zeitgeist (the spirit of the age), we are being cowards – we are fearing man over God. Humans worship what they fear. When Christians take their cues from the culture, we are cowards (period) – we are worshipping what we fear – the culture (man).

Throughout scripture, God repeatedly calls his servants, his people to be courageous. True courage is properly grounded in fear of the Lord. When we fear what people might say, think or how they may respond, we are not fearing God but man. If our fear is rooted in the fear of man, the fruit is always cowardice. Christian cowardice has always led to spiritual, societal and cultural decay – and the rise of barbarism (ie. the silent church in Nazi Germany). If on the other hand, our fear is rooted in the fear of the Lord, the fruit will be courage. Not only courage but wisdom, righteousness, love and reflections of God’s attributes.

God’s commands carry blessing for those who obey. The command to “be courageous” is not a suggestion, it is a command to follow obediently. And God, like a loving father, blesses our obedience.

In the face of social pressure or coercion or violence, we sometimes think that backing down or appeasing the enemies of truth will give us relief or buy us peace. That is a lie. Don’t believe a lie and don’t disobey God’s command to be courageous.

The secular zeitgeist is a bully. How does one face down and defeat a bully?
First, you must stand up to the bully knowing that he’s weak and filled with folly. It’s all show.
Second, you fight back. Bullies only pick on people they think are weak. When you demonstrate that you are not going to put up with their crap and push back, they back down. Finally, when the bully backs down, their passive and active support vanishes in a mist of humiliation. But, the church must be careful not to become a bully either.

Both cowardice and courage are contagious.

The Christian must choose. All it takes is one Christian to stand up and others will follow. This is the catalyst that creates communities of courage.

The Church needs a commitment to the truth of Scripture and vibrant communities of courage where the people of God stand against a dark culture. When the redeemed in Christ can truly claim, “we’re in this together”, we have become a community of courage. Christianity is a “Public” faith. We have a public theology. We courageously think, speak and live by truth as Christ demonstrated in his earthly ministry.

Need help in developing courage?

Check out this video: Thinking Out Loud “Courage in a Culture of Chaos”

Feel free to share your thoughts and commend below this post…

 

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What will 2021 be like?

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.

(Comment below)

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Ambling among the stars

Ambling Among the Stars

Lo, these are but the outskirts of His ways…

Last weekend I spent two full days at the ranch.

My only company was Drake (our dog). It was beautiful and cold. And I was on my quest to bag one of those elusive bucks. One morning, I left the house for the deer blind two hours before sunrise. – the temperature was in the low 20’s. The sky was diaphanous and the moon was full, making her way westward. The gelid air was perfectly still. I had no need of artificial light as the celestial hosts were sufficient to illuminate my way.

A delicate dusting of ice crystals covered the landscape. The glittering frosty sheet under foot and all around shattered and reflected the bright full moon and stars above. The ground below appeared as the expanse of sky above. It was quite disorientating for a few moments as my perception of the beginning and end of earth and sky were thrown off in a dizzying display of tiny lights.

All was quiet – no breeze – no crickets – no birds or distant cows moaning. One could feel the stillness all around. The silence was only broken by my own heartbeat, my breath and the crunch of frost beneath my footsteps. I halted my progress to behold the beauty and stillness. A lone man, in a lone field, on a lone planet – under the vastness of the heavenly lights – encircled by exquisite crystals reflecting the exquisite night sky above, I stood breathless, in wonder.

In the quiet deepness of the moment bound among the delicate and the magnificent, God displayed His majesty. And I heard a still and quiet whisper, “Lo, these are but the outskirts of His ways: And how small a whisper do we hear of Him! But the thunder of His power who can understand?” (Job 26:14)

As I beheld God’s thundering power in frozen silence, I held a little Thanksgiving service in that field as I remembered who God is… In remembering Him, I was reminded who I am. To know Him is to see His glory in surprising ways.

A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

There is nothing mundane in God’s manifold creation. One of man’s biggest failures is his love affair with Modernity. Modernity is marked by mundane flattening of all of reality with an impingement of over-skepticism. Wonder is swept away as childish when modern man twists multi-faceted creation into a one-dimensional travesty of meaningless chance and matter.

Don’t confuse ‘child-like’ wonder and awe with ‘childish’ immaturity and selfishness.
To recapture child-like wonder is not at all childish. On the contrary, wonder actually allows the imagination to experience the inner consistency of reality. The gift-nature of creation always speaks and points to something beyond itself – to the Creator God who infused everything with meaning, purpose and goodness.

Read Genesis 1 and 2. Allow the truth of God’s great story to become a growing reality in your life as you play your role in the great story.

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The Great Reset Requires Great Resistance

The Great Reset Requires Great Resistance

Originally posted Dec. 2, 2020

The following section is a flow of ideas – holding little back – including editing.

For further discovery and investigation, see additional links below this post.

Did you know the richest most powerful people in the world have a plan for your life?

Who knew that these ivory tower elite angels have your best interest at heart? I know you’re a breathing a giant sigh of relief – with your mask on, of course. Get ready because, here comes ‘The Great Reset!” (que applause).

Lockdowns and health safety measures have negatively affected churches, small business – including restaurants and schools. Meanwhile, big box stores and national chains are crowded and companies like Amazon are making profits hand-over-fist. You can go to Walmart with hundreds of other unmasked bandits but you dare not go to worship God at your church. People are watching their life’s work evaporate in front of their eyes through edicts issued by government officials who swore to protect them. The US Constitution was NOT established to protect the government from the people. It was established to protect the people from government intrusion on individual, God-given rights. That is reality on the ground but not in the ivory towers.

We’re observing the arbitrary application of law and medical science (if you want to call it that). Once government officials took all decision-making power from individuals, obscured medicine, and handed information operations over to Big Tech – personal freedoms and individual rights evaporated overnight. Everything is politicized now. That’s why the rules, solutions, masks, no-masks, lockdowns, etc. are all arbitrary. Tyranny is always arbitrary authoritarianism.

Ever wonder why many politicians in charge don’t heed their own warnings or follow their own orders?

Do your part … or else!
If you haven’t already, you will be asked (or forced) to sacrifice your personal freedoms and God-given rights on the altars of ‘greater good’ and ‘public safety’. If you don’t comply, you will be shamed, cancelled, black-listed, no-fly-listed, fined, harassed or arrested. All this for a virus that has a 99% plus survival rate. It’s not the bubonic plague, people.

Don’t you know? There is a massive global problem – a crisis!
We’re in this together, remember? Therefore, you must make necessary sacrifices to solve the problem. However, you can only choose solutions offered by the people who want to control you – Big Tech, Big Media, Big Pharma, Big Government, the UN and groups like the World Economic Forum. They are a cult of experts who know how to run your life better than you – and you better let them run your life or they will censor you or call you a name or lock you up.

The ‘Great Reset’ is one of those all-encompassing solutions created and promoted by global elites at the World Economic Forum and embraced by government leaders and globalists – for your good and protection. “We’ll get through this crisis together!” reads the banner. It is a revolution looking to upend human civilization, dismantle it and build it back better.

The vision of the World Economic Forum is to fundamentally transform the entire world economy and interdependent societies made up of 7 billion people into a uniform, single system. They call it ‘The Great Reset.’

It is “a proposal has been circulated among global elites and it goes by the name, ‘The Great Reset’. The values undergirding it are the standard cant—‘inclusion’, ‘fairness’, ‘equality’. It also includes promises of debt forgiveness and universal basic income. Alarmingly, the people behind it are some of the wealthiest and influential in the world. And wouldn’t you know it, their plan just so happens to include the abolition of property and the investiture of power in a global authority of some kind.” (Theology Pugcast)

You’ve heard, “never let a good crisis go to waste”. Well, COVID presents a global crisis on a silver platter to those who would love nothing more than to gain more power.

It’s never been about the VIRUS. The ‘issue’ is never The Issue – The Issue is always the Revolution! “In other words, the cause is never the real cause, but only an occasion to advance the real cause, which is the accumulation of power to make the revolution.” (David Horowitz)

“The COVID-19 crisis is affecting every facet of people’s lives in every corner of the world. But tragedy need not be its only legacy. On the contrary, the pandemic represents a rare but narrow window of opportunity to reflect, reimagine, and reset our world to create a healthier, more equitable, and more prosperous future.”

“Left unaddressed, these crises, together with COVID-19, will deepen and leave the world even less sustainable, less equal, and more fragile. Incremental measures and ad hoc fixes will not suffice to prevent this scenario. We must build entirely new foundations for our economic and social systems.”

Klaus Schwab

Founder and Executive Chairman, World Economic Forum

A New Gospel and a Different Salvation – “We must build entirely new foundations for our economic and social systems.

The secular materialistic worldview sees everything through the lens of economics, politics and power dynamics. It is offering a much different gospel than the Gospel of the Kingdom offered by Jesus Christ. They offer a different salvation than from sin and eternal separation from God (spiritual death). The good news of “The Great Reset” is that man (global elites) has the power to re-imagine and re-make the entire world into his image (think Tower of Babel). We the people must be saved, not from sin but from the virus, climate change, economic disparity, capitalism, private property and all maladies of social injustice and inequalities. The savior they offer is the state (government). The government, like a loving father, promises to care for all people equally.

We only need to place our trust and lives in the hands of groups like the World Economic Forum and United Nations. Then there will be a new era of health, peace and environmental harmony! We just need to follow certain rules and give up a few individual freedoms and rights (like private property) for the benefit of collective humanity. Sound like heaven on earth? Wrong, its a living hell because when the government provides for all of your needs and is the arbitrary lawgiver – you are a slave.

Humans are easily deceived and manipulated – particularly in times of crisis. So, here we have a bunch of secular godless lackwits with degrees from prestigious universities offering a new gospel and different salvation. I would remind them all that intellect is not synonymous with wisdom.

The Great Resistance

The “Great Reset” is not only weapon’s grade stupidity, it’s dangerous. Ideas have consequences and bad ideas have victims. Collectivism and materialism have been transformed into secular worldviews of total reality that include their own religious practice. At it’s core, its global communistic socialism where the state takes the place of God and the collective takes the place of the individual. More people have been murdered under socialist/communist atheistic regimes in the 20th century than all previous centuries combined… Again, bad ideas have victims.

The Christian must understand that ‘The Great Reset’ is just another false gospel preached by false prophets and followed by a bunch lost people looking for self-centered salvation. Sure, the language sounds enticing. It’s like Geo-political utopian mental porn with catchy phrases, prognostications and promises casting a spell on the hearts of man – beckoning to his deepest desires. It’s a trap to put man in bondage on a global level. Not all the glitters is gold my friend. And if you take the bait, you’ll get the hook.

“I always thought the most powerful weapon in the world was the bomb. I have changed my mind. The most powerful weapon in the world is not the bomb. It is the truth.”

Andrei Sakharov

Father of the Soviet Atomic Bomb

The Christian worldview is the foundation of response and resistance. Our primary weapons are prayer, the truth, and the Gospel of the Kingdom. “The weapons of our warfare are not the weapons of the world. Instead, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We tear down arguments and every presumption set up against the knowledge of God; and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.…” (2 Corinthians 10:4-5)

In order to engage a false gospel and false prophets, the Christian must first have wisdom and discernment. The only way to grow in wisdom and discernment is to read, study and meditate on the Bible. Second, the Christian must have courage and fortitude to engage. Finally, I believe the Christian is historically and culturally obligated to counter, demolish and tear down this worldview. We owe it to God and our children and grandchildren, out of love for them. God is the only one who has the power to redeem and restore all things. Until that time, the Christian and his church will contend for truth, express robust biblical faith and GRIT [Guts, Resilience, Integrity and Tenacity] for the world to see.

If it gets a little messy, so be it – it wouldn’t be the first time.

“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.” – 1 John 4:1

“For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” – Mark 8:36

Further Reading and Investigation

Now is the time for a 'great reset' - Klaus Schwab

“To achieve a better outcome, the world must act jointly and swiftly to revamp all aspects of our societies and economies, from education to social contracts and working conditions. Every country, from the United States to China, must participate, and every industry, from oil and gas to tech, must be transformed. In short, we need a “Great Reset” of capitalism.” Click to read article…

Here's how life could change in my city by the year 2030

(Ida Auken – Member of Parliament, Parliament of Denmark)
“Welcome to the year 2030. Welcome to my city – or should I say, “our city”. I don’t own anything. I don’t own a car. I don’t own a house. I don’t own any appliances or any clothes.

It might seem odd to you, but it makes perfect sense for us in this city. Everything you considered a product, has now become a service. We have access to transportation, accommodation, food and all the things we need in our daily lives. One by one all these things became free, so it ended up not making sense for us to own much.

First communication became digitized and free to everyone. Then, when clean energy became free, things started to move quickly.” Click to read article…

Building Back Better: Why we must think of the next generation

“Building back from COVID-19 will be an inter-generational effort. Decisions being taken now about what sectors of our economy to prioritize and what opportunities to seize in the recovery effort may impact the lives of children and youth disproportionately. Securing a healthy, safe future that is more resilient to global threats is fundamental, as this emerging generation of voters and consumers are increasingly aware.” Click here to read article…

Against the Great Reset, or Why Property Is Freedom

by Dr. Tom Price, Dr. Glenn Sunshine & C.R. Wiley | Podcast - Theology

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Critical Response and Worldview Analysis of the book “White Fragility” by Robin DiAngelo

Critical Response and Worldview Analysis of the book "White Fragility" by Robin DiAngelo

I have written a two part series about the book “White Fragility” by Robin DiAngelo. [Links below]

Taken together, they provide a critical response and worldview analysis. I explain why Christians should not adopt concepts from DiAngelo’s book and I present why the Christian worldview offers the best solution. My prayer that these combined posts will help my fellow Christians think deeply and discern truth from ‘feel-good’ falsehoods.

Links to Parts One and Two:

“But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.” Hebrews 5:14

“The more one understands people’s ideas the better one can communicate the truth of scripture and the gospel to them. That is why one learns about cults and religions. And why missionaries try to understand the cultures in which they live. But not enough Christians put much effort into understanding the culture in which they live. New believers who come to the church bring their worldviews with them. Furthermore, those Christians already in the church who do not understand worldview issues will not realize when they are embracing non-Christian concepts.” – John MacArthur

Meditate on these passages of holy scripture:

“Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.” John 7:24

“For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds.” 2 Corinthians 11:13-15

“For God is not a God of confusion but of peace…” 1 Corinthians 14:33

“See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.” Colossians 2:8

Links:

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