Fear God.

That simple command is plastered all over the Bible and it is hard teaching.

As with other things that are repeated over and over……it must be important……….terribly important.

And yet, we tend to ignore it. We dismiss it. We tone it down. One writer whom I really respect says that it really means to respect or revere God.

But that is not what it says……..the Bible clearly says “fear God”………over and over.

And we really don’t like that…….in fact, we don’t approve.

We don’t approve because we want God to be the kind, loving, soft focus guy who comforts us, blesses us, and protects us.

We don’t approve because we don’t want God to be the stern disciplinarian who punishes us when we mess up. We love the carrot……..but we hate the stick.

The thing is………that God is both. He created paradise……….but he also created hell.

God can invite you into paradise for eternity……..but he can also damn you to hell……..for eternity.

We don’t approve because we don’t want to be punished when we mess up. So…….we ignore hell……..we gloss over hell………many Christians even deny its existence completely. It is a whole lot more comfortable living however you please when there is no consequence for your misbehavior.

So…….we pick through the Bible and memorize and quote the parts that make us feel safe and loved. My favorite is the 23rd psalm………”and I will live in the house of the Lord forever”. But, how often do you hear a Christian quote this……..”fear God”?

Here are the cold hard facts:

God created you.
God loves you more than you can know.
God blesses you…….every day.
God wants you to spend eternity with him in paradise.

But

He will send you to a burning eternal hell if he has to.

How do we reconcile this?

More to the point……..how does God reconcile this?

Enter Jesus.

Jesus is God’s “GET OUT OF HELL FREE CARD”.

The result of Jesus’s ministry is this simple point.

God does send people to hell…….he can send you to hell……or me…….and we should fear that…..we should fear him.

BUT

God will only send you to hell if you consciously decide to reject Jesus and his “get out of hell free card”.

God will only send you to hell…….if you consciously choose to go there.

This changes the landscape completely.

Yes…….God will send you to hell……you can count on it……..but only if you decide to go there by rejecting him……by denying him. And ignoring hell, refusing to “fear God” is…..by default…..a decision to go there.

Ironically………the result of Jesus’s ministry is this:

You really are “the master of your fate……..the captain of your soul”.

Fearing God is like the being the captain of a ship…..he fears the rock……but whether he wrecks on it is entirely his decision.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.

Invictus, Henley

“I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell.

Jesus, ESV

For most of my life I have misunderstood this verse. I always thought that it was about Satan. But Satan, while he wants you in hell…….while he will lure you into hell…….does not have the authority or the power to send you to hell. If he did……we would all be in big trouble. Only God has the power and authority to send you to hell. This verse is a warning that God may send you to a burning eternal hell……..BUT………only if you are determined to go there.

So…….it is entirely appropriate to fear God……..to fear him enough to accept his grace……..his gift of forgiveness……..his parental love.

Very few people are leaders. Leadership is a complex and little understood skill. The most common metaphor for leadership in the Bible is the shepherd. A shepherd lives with his people, protects his people, and serves his people. His primary goal is the well being of his people……often to his own detriment. It is said that a good shepherd smells of his sheep. You probably haven’t spent time with a herd of sheep……..but, I can tell you from experience……..the odor is impressive.

We like to think of ourselves as leaders……..but, the reality is that we are all following someone. Truly original thought is extremely rare. The key to good living is not to figure out……to create….. some new paradigm. The key to good living is to choose and follow the right leader……..a leader who looks…..acts………and smells…….like a shepherd.

There are many levels of leadership…….parent, mayor, governor, president, etc. But, in our modern society, the two top levels are God…….and the culture. Each has its set of rules……norms. You pretty much follow one of these two sets of rules……or the other……one of these two leaders or the other. You can try to split the difference, but, ultimately, in times of conflict, you will choose one or the other.

It is very important that you know which leader you are following……….and where your leader is going. Because that will tell you where you are going.

So, let’s have a look at the choices.

God…..and the Bible. God created you. He gives you a set of guidelines to live by. He loves you with a parental love and wants you to join him in paradise……forever. His norms are simple…..love him and love your fellow man. After this come the ten commandments: Don’t lie, don’t steal, don’t murder, honor your parents, don’t covet, sex is for husbands and wives, rest on Sunday. God’s norms are basic, they are universal, and they never change. They are not there to ruin your fun. They are there to lead you into a full, satisfying, and happy life.

The culture is a bit harder to nail down. It is largely driven by the popular media and by trend setters, largely in big metropolitan centers on the coasts. The culture’s norms change over time. Every year there is a new expectation, a new rule of behavior, a new idea that we are expected to adopt. Some of these ideas are noble…….others……not so much. They have a term for this. It is called being “woke”. I won’t go into a long historical list of these woke ideas. The latest is that a man can declare himself to be a woman, enter women’s sports competitions, and dominate them……to the detriment of the women who preceded him. Each of these new, “woke” ideas builds on last year’s new idea. It’s a little like the frog peacefully sitting in a pan of water that is slowly heated to boiling. If you accept the new “idea du jour”….. fine. But, if you resist…….the media and the trend setters will attack you. They will silence you. They will censor you. They will try to destroy your business…..or your political career.

They will call you names:

Racist
Hater
Intolerant
Bigot
Unwoke
Non-progressive
Troglodite
Homophobe
Misogynist

These names hurt……..and that is entirely the point. The names are intended to intimidate you…..to shut you up…..to prepare you for next year’s new…….woke…… idea.

So you have a choice.

You can follow a leader who loves you and expects you to love him and love your fellow man……..a leader who calls you son or daughter…….a leader who has prepared a place for you.

Or

You can follow leaders who give you new rules every year…….who demand that you to follow them……or else…….who require you to discard a little bit more of the Bible and God every year………..leaders who will call you intolerant, a hater, a racist, or worse if you disagree with them. They hope to take you to a better world that they…….not God…….are building.

You must ask yourself…….which of these leaders loves me? Which of these leaders has my best long term interests at heart?

Which of these leaders acts like a shepherd.

Which of these leaders………….smells like a shepherd?

“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

Jesus, ESV

“You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Jesus, ESV

I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again.

Jesus, ESV

Ok……..so…….the coolest part of my first day in paradise will be meeting Jesus. There will probably be a sudden flash of insight. I will suddenly understand all of the things that went on in this world that never made any sense to me.

But, my great hope is that the second coolest part of my first day in paradise will be when somebody whom I don’t recognize, somebody whom I have never met walks up to me, gives me a smile and a hug and says: “I want to thank you……….I’m here because of you”.

It would be so cool……….if someone is in paradise because of something that I said, or did, or wrote…….or perhaps because of something that I didn’t say, or didn’t do, or didn’t write.

This is my dream.

When I was a boy, I was in the Boy Scouts. It is a fabulous organization. To a large degree, it shaped my character. If you have a son, you couldn’t do much better than to get him into scouting. My membership included a subscription to the magazine “Boy’s Life”. Each month I read it cover to cover. Every issue had a story of a scout who did something heroic……..it usually involved saving someone’s life. It was my favorite part of the magazine. I have always……..even to this day……..dreamed that I would be that guy……..the guy who steps up, puts it on the line, and saves a stranger’s life.

This dream has driven most of the big decisions of my life.I think that this dream is the driving force behind this blog. If this blog changes someone’s mind about Christianity……….it saves a life……..an eternal life. How cool is that?

I recently attended a breakfast meeting at my church. The topic was discipleship. I had never given discipleship much thought. But, if you study Jesus and his life. His ministry was almost purely about discipleship. Teach 12 guys……and they will teach 12 guys and so on………until you change the world.

I think that the main goal of the church…….and the main goal of the individual Christian……. must be discipleship. Many churches today miss this point. They focus on “self actualization”…….on strengthening the individual member of the flock…….or worse……on entertaining them. But, improving the individual Christian, while a good thing, is really only a means to an end. The church improves you as a Christian so that you can go out and improve someone else…….and so on……..until you change the world.

I don’t want to oversell this; but……..It is your job……..and mine…….to change the world.

I’m not naive. This is really hard to do. You will not improve a stranger by annoying them, by attacking them, by criticising them. You will turn their head…..bend their path by using the most devastating weapon in the Christian arsenal………….you will turn them with love.

So……..the challenge this week…….is to have a hard look at your walk in life as a Christian. You are, no doubt, trying to be a good person, as well you should. But, are you doing anything to draw your neighbor to Jesus…….to strengthen him or her? Even better……are you doing something to bend the path of one committed secular humanist in your world.

Are you setting yourself up……….for the second coolest part of your first day in paradise?

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Jesus, sending out the apostles, ESV

And he called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal. And he said to them, “Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money; and do not have two tunics.

Jesus, sending out the apostles, ESV

‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.

’Jesus, a parable about successfully serving your master, ESV

First, let me recognize that I am painting with a broad brush. No doubt, the vast majority of what science teaches us is honest and true.

Today’s post deals with a small sliver of science……Darwinian evolution. I believe that the science surrounding Darwinian evoultion is dishonest.

For some background, I was a chemistry major in college and worked as a physician for my entire adult life. By any comparison…….I am a scientist. Early on, I learned about the “scientific method”:

Propose a hypothesis…….a theory.
Repeatedly test the theory…….compare it to measurable fact. If it explains the facts, keep the theory. If it fails to explain a fact, propose a new theory and test the new theory. Keep changing the theory and if necessary replacing it until it explains the facts……..all of them.

Einstein was a brilliant guy. His 2 great accomplishments are the theories of general relativity and special relativity. These theories explain a lot. But there are things that they cannot explain. So……people a lot smarter than me are working hard to correct Einstein. They recognise that Einstein’s theories, though brilliant are not the truth. They are looking hard for a theory that can replace Einstein. This is sometimes called “the theory of everything”. This is the scientific method at its finest. This is honest science. This is how I was taught to conduct science.

But, Darwin is not treated that way. There are countless observed facts that Darwin fails to explain:

The human genome is far too large to have accumulated by mutation/natural selection in the time since life began.

How did the genetic trait of nearsightedness survive natural selection. A nearly blind hunter/gatherer would surely have had difficulty mating?

How did millions of human traits cross the Atlantic and Pacific oceans in the age Neanderthal man?

Why do we not see evidence of human evolution today? Did someone turn Darwin off?

How did childhood diabetes, hemophilia, and hundreds of other genetic diseases survive natural selection?

What about the “missing link” between man and the primordial ooze…….(there are actually hundreds of millions of missing links)?

Any one of these failures of Darwinian evolution should cause an honest scientist to reject Darwin and begin looking for another explanation……a better explanation. But that is not what happens. Science either ignores the failure or applies an unproven and unprovable “patch” to the problem.

The problem, it turns out is very simple.

There is only one viable replacement for Darwinian evolution…….intelligent design.

There is only one viable replacement for Darwin…..God.

The problem is that……in the scientific community…….intelligent design……God……is against the rules. And so science clings to Darwin…….warts and all.

And that is dishonest.

Our teachers teach Darwinian evolution to our children as a fact without ever addressing the failures of the theory.

And that is dishonest.

I’m not asking that they teach Genesis in the classroom. But, I am asking that they teach Darwin…..honestly.

Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed.

Moses, ESV

For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.

David, ESV

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

God, speaking to Jeremiah, ESV

This is hard teaching.

Many sincere Christians are probably going to have trouble with today’s blog. Bear with me. To my conservative and liberal friends, I beg your indulgence. To be able to offend both Republicans and Democrats in the same post……….is a rare gift.

First, let me define and limit the scope of my comments. There are parts of the Bible that are clearly symbolic and require interpretation. Think Revelation. There are old testament rules that don’t really apply to our modern culture. I am not talking about those. Volumes have been published trying to parse out these areas……..and I am not qualified to tackle them.

But, there are also parts of the Bible that clearly and explicitly tell us how to live. These clearly stated and often repeated rules are the subject of today’s post.

For example:

Love God

Love your neighbor

The ten commandments

The spoken words of God

The spoken words of Jesus…….that is…….God

Any statement in the old or new testament that is repeated and some are repeated many times.

These rules for living are the guidelines that we have been given by our creator…….they are absolute……they are not open to interpretation…….they are not open to negotiation.

These rules are not subject to our approval……..to our appetites.

Some examples are:

Sexual intercourse is restricted to one man and one woman within the confines of marriage.

If you were born a man….or a woman……that is what God made you to be…….you don’t get to choose.

Take care of the downtrodden within your borders………even if they are not citizens…….even if they are illegal.

Support the church with your tithe…….one tenth.

Do not take an innocent life…….and an unborn child is about as innocent as they come.

If you disagree with these rules, you have a problem. And your problem is not with me. Your problem is with the Bible………and that is a much bigger……..and far more serious problem.

So………are the Bible’s rules valid? This post, like last week’s post is pretty black and white.

If you accept the Bible as the written word of God…..your creator, then there is no problem………study and follow the rules. But, if you don’t accept the rules of the Bible when they are clearly stated……when they are repeated over and over, then you have a problem.

There are two possibilities:

If the Bible is a big complex myth…….a fairy tale, then you are in fairly good shape. You aren’t going to be struck by a bolt of lightning for an infraction. You are, however, stuck, trying to live out your life without a moral code…….essentially travelling without a map or compass. In this situation, you will typically make up your own moral code……one that usually allows you to do whatever you want……..or you could borrow a moral code……….typically from your favorite politician. And I don’t need to tell you what kind of slippery slope that is. A great many Christians on both sides of the aisle torque the Bible around until it agrees with their political party. The truth is that neither party is right about everything.

Neither political party is right about everything.

So……… what if the clearly stated rules of the Bible……..are valid? What if the quotes in the Bible from God……or Jesus actually reflect God’s heart. If that is true…….and if you reject them as invalid in our modern “woke” culture……..then you are in danger.

By rejecting all or even some of God’s clearly stated rules, you are effectively saying that you have a better rule……that you have a better idea. You are saying that you are smarter, wiser, more righteous……….than the creator of the universe. This is a colossal ego boost…….but the chance that it is true is remote. This suggests that you believe that when you do finally meet God, he is going to ask for your advice……..that he is going to ask you what he could have done better………that he is going to submit to your guidance.

Don’t hold your breath.

So, if you pick through the Bible, obey the rules that you approve of…….and dismiss the rest, then you are saying one of two things:

The Bible is a myth…….a fairy tale.

Or

The Bible is the word of God……..but I have a better plan than God.

And that looks like a very shaky ladder to build your theology on.

“If there’s a God, he’s got a lot of explaining to do!”

Robert Dinero, summarizing his religion

“Take all that you can of this book upon reason, and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a happier man.

Abraham Lincoln, when asked about his Bible

“A woman shall not wear a man’s garment, nor shall a man put on a woman’s cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God.

Moses, ESV

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,”

God, ESV

“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,”

Paul, ESV

The post is for those who don’t accept God……for those who don’t care about God…….for those who have serious doubts.

God…..as described in the Bible…….either is real or is not real. This is absolutely binary. There simply is no middle ground. If God is not real, then we will die and that will be the end of it……at least for us. There really isn’t much to say about it. Death is the end. This means that our life is a brief series of chemical reactions in a complex network of nerves. They began with nothing and they will lead to nothing. These chemical reactions are our reality……..our only reality. This means that our life, while it is hopefully fun…..is ultimately meaningless……..a biochemical accident. This is the mindset that allows some of the people around us to commit unspeakable crimes. If your life is meaningless then killing you or raping you is a small inconsequential thing.

In the absence of God……your life……and mine…..has no real significance……….our lives and everything that we do whether great or small are futile. Most of us will not even be remembered 100 years from now.

But…..what if God is real?

This means that death has an entirely new dimension.

God completely redefines death.

Death is no longer the end.

Death becomes merely a transition.

Our life in this temporal world is still extremely brief …..literally the blink of an eye. But, when we die, we will transition into a timeless world that is eternal. This means that this timeless world after death…….is the real world. In comparison, our temporal life is a brief interruption in our real….eternal life.

So……what happens when you die?

Most would say that you are drawn to a source of light……that you will see people whom you have known.

Then, you will meet your creator. You will sense his love for you. You will come to understand many things that were hidden from you during your temporal life. You will get a brief glimpse of paradise.

And then you will be sorted.

This sorting will not be based on how good or bad you were. This is a very common misconception. The sorting will be based on whether or not you have accepted the reality of God and his gift of forgiveness. This is not fair!……..you say. And you are correct. The thing is that fairness is a construct of our temporal world. We use it to try to make this broken temporal world function……and sometimes it works. But, fairness doesn’t have much meaning in paradise. If it did, we would be punished for every single misdeed……..and paradise would not be a pleasant place. In fact, it is more liklely that fairness is a central feature of hell rather than paradise.

When I die……..the last thing that I want…….is to be treated fairly. If you believe that you can withstand a comprehensive and absolutely fair judgement……..you are kidding yourself.

This sorting is binary:

Forgiveness or Justice

Mercy or Fairness

Paradise or Hell

Given the eternal consequences……..this meeting with your creator…….this sorting…….will be either the best or the worst thing that will ever happen to you. Nothing else comes close.

This sorting is the crux of your life…and mine. It is what every single thing that we do……or say……or think is leading up to. We both need to spend a little effort preparing for it.

Your creator…….God…….Abba……will say:

Either

“Well done, good and faithful servant”

Or

“I don’t know you”

If you are not a believer……..if you are in the second category………then your only hope is that God does not exist.

The terrifying truth is that your “best case scenario” is that you will die and the lights will just go out and there will be nothing……dead black nothing.

And that is a good working definition…….of dispair.

So………as it turns out…..this impending “sort” also divides us into the communities of hope and dispair.

It seems to me that hoping for paradise trumps hoping for dead, black……..nothing.

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,”

Jesus, describing the “sorting of souls”, ESV

Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

John, in Revelation describing the “sort”, ESV

If you cooked down life to the greatest single desire of every human being and named it……..it would be happiness. Seems pretty straightforward……..and yet so many of us struggle with happiness. So many people suffer because they are not happy. They spend their resources going down one path or another……only to find that it wasn’t there. I’m almost 70 years old. I’ve seen a lot of happiness and a lot of unhappiness…….and here is what I’ve learned.

Happiness is not an immediate destination. You can’t go there. You can’t will yourself to be happy. You can’t achieve it directly by action or thought. Happiness, it turns out, is a secondary destination. Paradoxically, you become happy by doing something else. Ironically, the only way to reach this particular destination………is by going somewhere else. But where?

You become happy by doing what you were designed to do. You become happy by doing the work that you were created to do. This work is hard wired into your soul…….it is written on your heart. Any attempt to deny it or circumvent it will interfere with your happiness. Your only hope for true lasting happiness……..is to do the work that you were created for.

So…….how do you go about this? Here are some do’s and don’ts………wisdom from a guy who has been around the block.

Don’t spend your time angry. You were not created to be angry. Every minute that you spend angry is a minute subtracted from your life. The number of minutes that you have is finite……every minute spent angry is wasted forever and cannot be retrieved. It is not possible to be angry and happy at the same time. People will say that you are naive…….generally, these people are unhappy.

Don’t worry too much. Ration your time spent worrying. Things will threaten you and your loved ones. It is perfectly appropriate to worry about some of these threats……but not all of them. Worry can lead you to make changes that will improve your world. So…….it is OK to worry about things that you can change for the better. Don’t waste your energy worrying about things that you cannot change.

Don’t concentrate on stuff. No matter how much or how little you have, there are people with half as much who are happy. Stuff isn’t inherently bad…….it just isn’t the path to happiness. Stuff is a distraction. Stuff is a waste of your resources. It is a waste of your limited time.

Build relationships. We were created for relationship……some of us more so than others. There are two primary classes of relationship…….relationship with God and relationship with our fellow man. In its highest form, relationship is expressed as love. It should come as no surprise that the two greatest commands in the Bible are…… love God……love your neighbor. Because……this is what you were created for………in fact……..this is the only thing that you were created for. From a practical perspective…….how do you go about this? Worship the guy who created you, God……and care for your fellow man. Anything that you do that does not directly or indirectly manifest care and love for God or your fellow man is a distraction that will not make you happy.

And there it is…….love God……love and care for your fellow man…….don’t be angry……don’t worry much……especially about stuff.

I have chosen my epitaph:

A man’s wealth is not measured by the things he has accumulated…….but rather…….by the people he has accumulated

Here lies a wealthy man.

Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath!
Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.

David, ESV

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

Jesus, ESV

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”

Jesus, ESV

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.

Paul, ESV

OK, maybe hate is a bit strong.

I profoundly dislike starlings…….profoundly.

They are ugly.
Their song is annoying.
They make a mess.
They nest under my chimney cap.
They have invaded my bird feeder to the detriment of the birds that I like.
And to top it off…….they don’t even belong here. They were introduced.

Starlings are the Brussel sprouts of the bird world.

I’m sitting at my breakfast table watching them gorge themselves at my bird feeder.

If I were in charge here…….they’d be gone……poof.

And that is the entire point of this post.

I am not in charge here.

God is God………and I am not.

The guy who created me……..also created the starlings.

This all seems so obvious…….you must wonder why I bothered with it.

The truth is that the failure to recognize this obvious reality is quite possibly the single greatest failure of mankind………and, considering the eclectic list of our failures, that is a bold statement.

Just about everything that we mess up can be tracked back to our failure to subordinate ourselves to our creator and his rules for living. Can you imagine a world where everyone followed the top 12 of God’s rules all day every day?

Love God
Love your neighbor
Have no other gods
No idols
Honor God’s name
Don’t lie
Don’t steal
Don’t murder
Honor your parents
Sex is for husbands and wives
Don’t covet
Rest on Sunday

But we just won’t do that.

Why?

Because we want to be the boss. We want to make the decisions. We want the power.
Because we hate it when God tells us to do something that we don’t want to do.
Because we hate it when God tells us not to do something that we really enjoy……something that we want.

We constantly critique God’s handiwork.
The notion is that we have a better idea…….that we could do a better job of running things. The evidence, of course, says that we are not very good at running the planet. Fact is…..we have poisoned it. But, that doesn’t matter one bit. We want to be in charge……..we want the power.

Don’t think that you are guilty of this? When was the last time that you complained about the weather?

So, instead of subordinating ourselves to God, we try a “workaround”. There are several popular choices:

Deny God…….there is no creator, we are a giant biochemical accident….and we can do whatever we please.

Ignore God…..intellectually we concede that he’s real; but, we just don’t listen to him……..ever.

Put God in a box……we isolate him and let him out for an hour or two on Sunday morning. This feels good…….pious……..and we still get to do as we please for the rest of the week.

Customize God…….we start with God as his Bible describes him……….then we add the traits that we like and we delete the traits that we dislike. We do this over and over until we have a God who conforms to our appetites……..a god who doesn’t interfere with us. We keep him current by adding and deleting traits as the demands of our culture evolve. In essence, we create God in our own image…….or, perhaps, in the image of our culture. But, you have to wonder……..when you do meet the real God…..your creator…….will the God who created you recognize the God that you have created…….or will he say, “I don’t know you……and I haven’t a clue as to who this god of yours is…….leave”.

Which takes me back to the starlings.

I can exercise my prerogative as the ruler of the cosmos and make all of the starlings dissappear……….poof.

Or

I can subordinate myself to my creator……my God. And that includes living with the starlings……..his starlings.

God is God……..and I am not.

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Paul talking about Jesus, ESV

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

Jesus, talking about subordinating yourself to God, ESV

Before I develop this, let me say that I don’t know the answer……..for you. But, I worry about the possibility that some people who identify as Christians may be worshipping an idol.

I’m not saying that you have a golden calf stashed in your attic.

I’m not claiming that the things that you value highly have become idols……..like your Avon bottle collection.

What I’m getting at is a bit more nefarious.

A great many Christians pick through the Bible……they accept parts of it and reject other parts. If you peel off the layers, what it comes down to is this:

They reject those parts of the Bible that they do not approve of. In essence they give themselves a line item veto on the written word of God.

The most obvious example is sexual intercourse between two men or two women. The Old testament repeatedly says that this is wrong. The new testament does not refute this. Yet, many Christians condone it.

We kill 3,000 children every day on the altar of women’s rights……….and many Christians condone it.

We tell children in grade school that they can change their sex…….and many Christians condone it.

Let me be clear that this post is not about homosexuality, abortion, or transgender issues.

What I’m getting at is that when you veto a part of the Bible, you change the character of the God whom you worship. I doubt that small changes matter……. does he have a beard?……..what color is his skin?……..is he even a he? But, in an extreme case , is it possible that you have redefined God so much ……..in order to make him meet with your approval …….in order to bring him into compliance with your appetites………that you have fundamentally changed his identity…….his character? Is it possible that you have redefined your God to the point where the God of the Bible wouldn’t recognize himself?

I think that this would take a lot adding and subtracting from the Bible. But; clearly, if you add and subtract until you wind up with a red guy with horns who demands child sacrifice, then you have created and you are worshipping an idol. But where is the line? I worry that this is a slippery slope. Every year that goes by, we add new ideas to our culture in the name of tolerance. Many of these new……woke……ideas don’t line up well with the Bible. Many of these new ideas require us to reject just a little more of the Bible. Many of these new ideas require us to redefine God just a little more than we already have.

Are we Christians slowly building an idol…….worshipping an idol………that we have constructed to meet our approval……..to satisfy our appetites?

Are you worshipping the God who created you……..or are you worshipping a God that you have created?

And worshipping a God that you have created………is a good working definition……of an idol.

Would the God of the Bible…….our creator………recognize the God we are worshipping?

“You shall have no other gods before me. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God”.

God, ESV

“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. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus, ESV

Faith vs. Works

I have struggled with this for a long time. Clearly the Bible teaches that THE requirement for entering paradise is to accept God’s grace….that is, to accept Christ as your saviour. But, the example of “good works” is everywhere, especially in James. How do you reconcile this?

Or

Can somebody who has accepted Christ but has no “good works” be saved?

To begin with…….what do I mean by good works?

Good works are practical everyday acts of love for our fellow man…….they typically involve sacrifice:

Financially supporting the church.
Praying for friends……..and strangers.
Feeding and clothing the poor.
Visiting those in the hospital…….and prison.
Helping the elderly and the ill.
Any small act of kindness to a stranger.

The Boy Scouts include this in their code: “Do a Good Turn Daily”

On the face of it, faith vs. works is tough. First off…..there are Christians who, because of their situation and resources, can’t perform much in the way of “good works”. Let me be clear…..I’m not talking about them. I believe that God can sort this out.

I’m talking about the Christian who has accepted Christ as his saviour but doesn’t help his fellow man, doesn’t support the church financially, doesn’t attend services, and routinely disregards Christ’s teaching. This is the Christian who occasionally “talks the talk”, usually for an hour on Sunday morning but for the rest of the week doesn’t “walk the walk”. This is the person, whom, if you encounter him on Wednesday afternoon, you might not recognise him as a Christian. This is the person with a fish sticker on his trunk who cuts you off in traffic and then gives you the finger. What about him?

I think that the key question here is sincerity. Your faith must be sincere. Your acceptance of Christ as your saviour MUST be sincere. Your acceptance of Christ’s gift of salvation can’t be some kind of cosmic slight of hand………a trick you plan to use to sneak into paradise while nobody is looking. If your faith is sincere, you can’t help but do the good works that are within your power. That may mean building a billion dollar mission ministry. It may mean sitting in your wheelchair and praying for somebody else.

So…….what about “works”? Can you be saved without good works? Sure. Otherwise heaven would be inaccessible to many people who, because of physical/mental/emotional limitations, can’t perform “good works”. For most of us, however, works are a critical indicator of salvation. If you have no good works, you have to question whether your acceptance of Christ was sincere. If your salvation has not led you to do good works, then it is quite possible that you have lied to both yourself and to Christ. We humans are very good at this.

The presence or absence of “good works”, then, is an internal barometer of the sincerity of your faith. If you lack “good works”, then you need to re-examine your faith. You need to ask yourself, “Am I just paying lip service to God………or is my faith real?”

This, by the way, does not work the other way. Works are not an external measure of faith. We are not to judge our neighbor’s faith by counting up and cataloging his works. Especially, we are not to compare our works with our neighbors works in order to judge who is going to get a front row seat in paradise.

Faith is what gets you into paradise…………Works are simply your personal barometer for measuring the sincerity of your faith.

BTW

Have you ever wondered………..what was the greatest example of “good works”?

The crucifixion of Christ.

How’s that for a benchmark to compare your “good works” to?

Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

James, NIV

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Paul, NIV