You probably suspected……… I’m out on a limb here.

The Bible is loaded with “rules”. They must be there for a reason. On first glance you might think that they tell us what God wants from us. Do this……. Don’t do that. They dictate goals for our behavior. We often get bogged down in these rules. In the church, we call this legalism. Christians are often criticized because of the rules we follow. Christians often beat others up over the rules. A lot of Christians are miserable because of their focus on the rules. And here is the bad news……..they make the people around them miserable too.

Lesson 1: obedience to the rules is not what God wants.

The rules are just the first complicated layer of an onion that, fortunately, gets simpler the more of it that we peel away.
Imagine a parent whose child is going away. The parent says to the child……in so many words…….. come, wrap your arms around me, and give me a long hard squeeze. This could even be an expectation…….a rule. But a squeeze is not what the parent wants. A hug? No, a hug is not what the parent wants.
What the parent wants is to tell the child that the child is loved……..and to be told that the love is returned. What the parent wants is relationship…….and not just any relationship……. the parent wants love……both given and received.

Parents have lots of daily rules. Brush your teeth, don’t cross the street, wash your hands. Same story here, the parent wants the child to be safe. But even that isn’t the final goal. The parent wants to spare the child pain.

Parents have lots of rules about dealing with others. Don’t cut in line, say please and thank you, don’t hit your sister. The goal of these rules is to create the habit of loving the people around you.

And finally………..what may be the deepest layer of the onion. God created you. He wired you up with a set of needs…….and these needs are universal. These universal needs are God’s fingerprint. They create a hunger in you that guides you to the place you need to be. By satisfying these needs, you will find happiness.

And there it is………God wants you to be happy. The rules, paradoxically, are not there to ruin your fun. They are the roadmap to your optimal destination. We should follow the rules, because they are useful. But, we need to keep our focus on our final goal, not on the rules that guide us there.

So……..what does God want?

Relationship, built on love……between you and him.

Relationship, built on love……between you and your fellow man.

Your happiness.

And that……….in my never humble opinion……..is what God wants.

If you have been sold some other brand of Christianity…….something full of rules, punishment, and guilt….. something just plain weird……..then you have been had.

love is the fulfillment of the law

Paul, NIV

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Jeremiah, NIV

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Jesus, NIV

Joseph, Mary, Nicodemus, Lazarus, Martha, Job?

The cast is extensive. It includes all kinds of people: kings, lepers, rich men, poor widows, murderers…….you get the point.

As you look through the very real people who are described, whom do you think you are most like? More to the point……. whom would you choose as your role model?

My starting point is usually one of the heroes of the faith: Paul, Peter, Daniel, Joseph, Martha. I usually think of somebody righteous. They are often powerful, but, if not powerful, they are at least influential. They are usually famous.

But, the more I sift through all of the candidates, I run across a guy who is barely a footnote. He gets about four lines. We are not even told his name. We know next to nothing about his background.

He is theif number two. One of the guys crucified with Jesus.
He admits his sin……that he is getting exactly what he deserves. He recognizes the divinity of Jesus. He asks for forgiveness……..a pardon that he does not deserve……that he has in no way earned. Jesus forgives him on the spot and promises him a place in paradise. Even more, he promises him that they will be together in paradise. They will have a relationship. The theif is given access to God……..as a friend. Simply by asking, his relationship with God is restored.

I choose the theif, because he is the poster child for the gap between where I am……….and where I am heading. He helps me to focus with crystal clarity on the magnitude of the gift that has been given to me…….the fact that no matter how great my failures, Jesus cares about me……. personally.

Humility…….not hubris.

As I move forward I will try to stay focused on where I stand………on who I am.

I am the theif.

One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”
But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence?  We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

Jesus answered him, 

“Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

A conversation between Jesus and two criminals, NIV

Pretty basic.

We all want it……. happiness. Yet consistently acquiring it is a fairly rare “life skill”.

When push comes to shove, we spend our time…….all day, every day……..working on this one simple goal. We usually don’t even realize it. We get so focused on the intermediate steps that we lose track of our destination. We fail to see the forest for the trees.

Ask 100 people what they are trying to accomplish…..right now.
You will get a bunch of answers.

Get to work.
Get a job.
Clean the house.
Find my keys.
Pick up the kids.
Get dinner ready.
Pay the bills.

These are accurate. They are true. They are good goals.

But, they are not what we are really…… ultimately …….seeking.

They are intermediate steps that we work on in the hope that they will lead us to our real goal………to be happy. One of our greatest and perhaps saddest failures as human beings is that we can get so absorbed in the intermediate steps that we fail to notice that they are not taking us to our destination. We pursue our career, work 60 hours a week, buy a Lexus, move into a nice house, join the club. And we lose track of our family along the way. I know…….. because I have done this. Men are worse about this than women. Women are naturally more tuned into relationships than men. But, the women’s movement is working hard to teach women that the way to “succeed” is to be like men. Along the way women are learning to fail the same way men have.

We live in a society that tells us that self realisation should be out ultimate goal. We get called the “me generation”. We are told “if it feels good……do it.” Surprisingly, this approach is closer to the truth than we realize. We should be seeking happiness. That is what we are wired for. That is the way God built us.

Happiness is not the problem. Seeking it is not the problem. The problem is that we sit in front of our TV ……in front of our laptop…….and we listen to an endless stream of marketing geniuses and politicians telling us what we need to do to be happy. Did you ever notice that following their advice enriches THEM……..in their mistaken belief that selling you their product, their ideology, will lead THEM to happiness? There is some big league irony there.

Seeking happiness is not the problem. The problem is that we have lost our way. We have bought into Madison Avenue’s pitch…….. that the map to happiness is the accumulation of stuff……..that happiness is somehow connected to physical things.

Trust me…… accumulating stuff……will not make you happy. I have tried this too.

So, if my TV has mislead me about the path to my destination, happiness, what is the true route?

The true path to happiness predates your laptop……it even predates your TV. It is found in the New Testament. The path to happiness is love.

Love God
Love your fellow man

If you reflect on the moments of greatest joy in your life, you will quickly realize that none of them involve getting what the guy on TV told you that you need. They will be the moments when you were loved. And even more so……..they will be the moments when you loved somebody. In your heart, you know this to be true……because God wrote this truth on your heart. It is as much a part of you as your eye color.

There is a true cause and effect relationship between love and joy.

LOVE CAUSES JOY

The fact is that this knowledge about love and joy……..written on your heart…….is one of the clearest indications of the existence of God. It is one of the best “proofs” of the truth of the Bible.

You can ignore it……..you can chase stuff. But the thing about the truth is that ignoring the truth ……denying the truth…….does not change the truth. Even worse, it does not change the consequences of walking down the wrong path………a path that cannot lead you to deep abiding joy.

“ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind .’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments .”

Jesus, NIV

If I speak in the tongues a of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails.

Paul, NIV

Sounds pretty straightforward doesn’t it?

And yet this is something that I struggle with……just about every day.

You see, there is a lot of truth out there. Some of it serves me well. Some, in fact most of it, I like. But there is also a lot of truth out there that runs against my appetites. There is a lot of truth out there that interferes with me getting what I want…..and I don’t like that. Al Gore coined the term “an inconvenient truth”. He and I disagree on a lot of things; but, I think that this idea has merit.

An inconvenient truth is something that is true but that is in your way. It is true, but it keeps you from running your world the way you want to run it. I think that one of the greatest failings of mankind is the way that we deal with the inconvenient truths that we encounter every day.

Here are some examples:

Imagine a guy who shoots and hunts as a hobby. The truth is that a gun is a tool; but, it is a tool that destroys rather that builds.

Imagine a woman, embarking on a high powered career who finds herself pregnant. The truth is that an abortion will advance her career; but, it will kill her child.

Image a man on an exit ramp with a sign that says “hungry”. The truth is that he may be a professional panhandler or an addict; but, he could still use your help.

Imagine being confined to your home because of a virus that is running loose. You are bored and your family budget is shot; but, social distancing is the only tool you have to save lives.

All of these things are true.

Half of them are very inconvenient.

How do you…… How do I……. deal with the inconvenient truths that impede our lives every day? If what I see on Facebook is any indication……….we don’t deal with them very well. About a fourth of the posts that I see amount to somebody shouting a truth that promotes their agenda……..that gets them what they want. They deny or ignore the equally valid truth on the other side of the argument. Kellyann Conway used the term “alternate facts” to address this issue. She was pilloried for it by the press. But, just like Al Gore, she was on to something.

If you speak only your side of the truth and ignore the inconvenient truth on the other side……..then you are an idiot……..in the classical sense of the term. Don’t get offended……yet. “Idiot” comes from a Greek word that means “one’s own”. It accurately describes someone who promotes the truths that serve them, while ignoring the truths that work against them.

If you consistently deny or ignore half of the truth can you really call yourself……….can I really call myself…… an honest person.

I have often said that the most dangerous lies that you will ever tell………are the ones you tell yourself.

My challenge to all of us is this:

We need to roll back the rock and have a good hard look at the inconvenient truths that we have been hiding from.
Maybe then we can have an honest conversation about the problems that we are facing.

I have to believe that fearlessly seeking the truth, whether or not it is convenient will lead us to a better society……..will lead us to love…….will lead us to freedom.

‘Do not lie. Do not deceive one another.’

God, NIV

But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.

Jesus, NIV

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

Paul, NIV

The truth will set you free.

Jesus, NIV

…….but first it will piss you off.

Gloria Steinem

Over the last two posts I have presented the arguments for why the explanation of an intelligent God as our creator and the scientific explanation of our creation by chance are both impossible.

And yet here we are.

The truth is that there is no bulletproof, well documented, scientifically verified explanation as to how we got here. We stand around and poke holes in the other guy’s belief system. We accept the “unprovable” parts of our own belief system with little critical analysis.

The Christian accepts the creation story in Genesis on faith.
The secular humanist accepts the “big bang”, spontaneous generation of life, and Darwinian evolution on faith.

We do this because if the things that we accept on faith aren’t true, then our entire belief system fails apart. In point of fact Christianity and secular humanism are both religions. If you add in Judaism and Islam, the God of the old testament and secular humanism/science are by far the two dominant religions on the planet.

Given the choice of science vs. God, we like science because it gives us more leeway to do as we choose. Don’t like being a man? You can be a woman. Don’t like being pregnant, you can have an abortion. Don’t like being sad……take a pill. Don’t like being sick……. there’s euthanasia.

We believe the premises of secular humanism because they give us what we want……freedom. Freedom from God and his expectations…….freedom to live our lives as we choose.

Freedom to make our own decisions……..good and bad.

Science……..secular humanism………gives us ultimate power. God, on the other hand, reserves ultimate power to himself……and denies it to us.

And there it is…….we want the power……we want control. We want to be in charge.

God is not possible……… because we want to be God.

And there’s only room for one God.

For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.

Paul, NIV

“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand.”

God, NIV

“Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades? Can you loosen Orion’s belt? Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons or lead out the Bear with its cubs?

God, NIV

By science, I mean the overarching explanations of how we got here.

There are four fundamental things that must be explained to answer the question: “how did we get here?”.

The origin of the universe.

The origin of a planet that could support life.

The origin of life.

The origin of the human race.

Cosmologists look at the essentially endless universe, billions of galaxies each containing billions of stars. They have determined that because of a measurable phenomenon called red shift that the universe is expanding. They conclude that if you track this expansion back to its beginning, that it was caused by a cataclysmic explosion which they call the ” big bang”. But they offer no explanation as to how the “big bang” came about, what caused it. There are some theories but there is no solid evidence to support them. We look further out into space each year, further back into time, but we never see back to the “big bang”. It is always just out of our reach. We reach a line where we cross a boundary between scientifically measurably observation…….and speculation. They have a name for this. They call it a singularity. A singularity is an event so disruptive that you cannot see past it. In a word, science has no explanation for the how and why of the “big bang”. Science has no explanation for what preceded the “big bang”. They don’t even try. Cosmologists begin with measurable evidence, they progress to speculation and theory, and then they just give up. Science fails to explain what caused the creation of the universe.

After the universe came into being, we need a planet that is capable of supporting life. It turns out that there are far more requirements than you might imagine.

A stable star with the right temperature and metal content.
A planet of the right density with a stable nearly circular orbit just the right distance from the star.
The planet must rotate and have a tilt and a molten core.
It needs water, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen
It needs to be dense enough to have enough gravity to hold an atmosphere.
There must be outer planets to vacuum up space debris.
And many, many more.

We have found a few planets that meet some of these, but none that meet all of them. The probability that a given planet will meet all of the requirements is so low as to be essentially impossible. Some will say that with billions of stars out there, even an extremely low probably event could occur…… somewhere. Statistically, this is true; but it is dishonest. The correct question is not “could there be a habitable planet somewhere in the universe?”. The correct question is “what is the probability that our planet could become habitable….by chance?” An honest statistician will tell you that a guy tossing a coin a few light years away does not affect YOUR next coin toss. Science fails to yeild a reasonable probability that our earth would become habitable by chance.

Science says that life began when a collection of simple atoms bonded together, became complex molecules, assembled themselves into a cell (an extraordinarily complex biochemical factory), and that cell then became alive and reproduced…..all by accident. There is not a whiff of laboratory evidence that this occurred……or is even possible. Some simple molecules have been created in a lab setting. But these experiments all involved a guy in a white lab coat…….. an intelligent creator. Science fails to explain the origin of life by random accident.

After we get to a simple living cell, enter Darwin. Spontaneous mutation, natural selection, and the survival of the fittest turns the primitive cell into Angelina Jolie. She is the product of her DNA which contains about 400 billion chemical bonds…..each of them a random, sequential, cumulative, positively adaptive………. accident. There is not a single solid laboratory documented example of the creation of a new macro species. Antibiotic resistant microbes may be an example of micro evolution but you cannot honestly scale this up to Angelina Jolie. Science fails to explain Angelina Jolie.

These are four sequential explanations. First, you have to have an explosion. The explosion must create a habitable planet. Then, you have to have life that spontaneously springs up from non living building blocks. Then the primitive life form has to change into a modern human. All of this has to happen by random accident. Each of these events can be assigned a probability. That probability, for each event, is extraordinarily low, low enough to be practically impossible. Because they are mandatory and sequential, you have to multiply the four individual, essentially impossible, probabilities to arrive at the net final probability for all four. If you like math….. that comes out to impossible to the fourth power. Even worse, if any one of the four explanations is truly not possible, then the whole system fails.

I would argue that the final probability for the sum of all four of these individual events is so low as to qualify as impossible.

Science, if you assess it critically, fails to explain where we came from.

This is the first in a three part series.

Please don’t get upset until you have seen all three parts.

God is not possible.

A great many people believe this. They don’t come right out and say it……….that would not be “open minded”. But, if you pursue atheism back to its roots, that is where you wind up.

Why is God not possible? Ironically, it is because of the very traits that make him God.

God is not possible………because he does things that we cannot explain.

God is not possible………because he does things that we cannot do.

Good is not possible………because he does things that we cannot see and measure.

God is not possible………because he operates outside of the bounds of current science.

God is not possible……….because he is superior to us. He is “the boss”.

God is not possible………..because he has expectations of us……. expectations that interfere with our appetites. The only way to escape God’s expectations is to prove that he does not exist.

The very characteristics that make God God are the reasons that cause many of us to reject him.

Ironic isn’t it?

There is another irony. There is a very good correlation between people who consider themselves to be open minded or tolerant and people who reject God.

So….why do we deny the existence of God? There are many reasons:

We believe that our understanding is complete.

We believe that the body of knowledge that we call science is complete.

It’s easier to go along with the secular humanists than to argue with them.

The secular humanists will call us names: naive, superstitious, “little people”, fools, childish, judgemental……and we don’t like being called names.

We find the Bible, God, to be restrictive.

The Bible is old fashioned, out of date. Today we are much smarter than the old guys who wrote it. The old rules…….some would say the old truths……..just aren’t relevant in our modern culture.

We simply cannot abide a God who would send Aunt Thelma to hell…….a God who could send me to hell.

In a word……..God interferes with our pursuit of our appetites.

So, at best, we avoid the fight. We go along with the culture rather than going along with God. We take the path of least resistance. At worst, we attack those who worship God and actively sell the scientific, Darwinian, story of how we got here.

It’s an easy habit to fall into. It is in our nature to examine critically those ideas that we don’t like…….ideas that interfere with our wants and needs. It is in our nature to casually accept those ideas that we like…….ideas that free us to do what we want. This is true for both sides of the God/science argument. The secular humanist spends a lot of time tearing apart the creation story in the Bible. The creationist spends a lot of time attacking the scientific explanation. But, if you are honest, you must critically examine both arguments. If you really want the truth, you must be just as hard on the scientist/Darwinist as you are on the Christian.

Stay tuned……….next week the scientist goes under the magnifying glass.

“With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible .”

Jesus, NIV

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.

Solomon, NIV

“Take all that you can of this book upon reason, and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a happier man.” (When a skeptic expressed surprise to see him reading a Bible)

Lincoln

Or cat…….. sorry…….. I’m a dog kind of guy.

If you don’t live with an animal, this post may go right past you.

I was sitting in front of the fire one morning, petting my dog……a Labrador…….. arguably the best breed on the planet. I realized that in addition to feeding and sheltering him, I shower him with affection. I never punish him or yell at him. The fact that he is extremely well behaved helps. Then I realized that he treats me exactly the same way. Our relationship is a two way sharing of love. I take care of him……because I love him. He does what I ask of him ……..because he loves me. There is no other “currency” involved in our relationship.

OK……maybe the occasional doggie treat?

This is the relationship that God expects between all human beings. It is the relationship that God expects between us…….and him. Needless to say, we fall short…….on both counts. No surprise there, we fail to meet God’s expectations…….every day.

I try to imagine a world that operates on that basis……a world where every act, every decision is based on love for the other guy…….in short, a world that operates as God originally intended. The first thing that comes to mind is all of the changes that everybody else will need to make. The next thought is “that will never happen!”

Then I recall a rule that I always tried to impress on my sons:

“When trying to solve a problem…… focus on the part of the problem that you can change.”

In this case, that would be ME learning to treat those around me with love…….all day…… every day.

It just happens that I watched the movie “Mr. Rogers” the night before. And I realize that Mr. Rogers came close.

We all have role models. But I bet that very few of us would choose Mr. Rogers………. Dirty Harry maybe…….Arnold maybe……. but not, Mr. Rogers.

And in that, we have missed the boat as a culture, and as a society.

If I could build my ideal man, it would be a man with the physical capabilities of the Terminator but with the sensibilities of Mr. Rogers……..a guy a whole lot like Jesus. So, going back to my rule, I cannot change to develop the physical capabilities of the Terminator………. but I can nurture the sensibilities of Mr. Rogers.

I once read this somewhere:

“I hope to someday grow into the kind of man that my dog thinks I am.”

So, if I want to make things better in this broken society, I will need to base every interaction I have on loving the other guy. Of course I will fail……..but maybe I can get closer to it tomorrow than I was yesterday.

I need to treat my fellow man…………….as well as I treat my dog.

And that………is the very heart of Christianity.

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails.

Paul, NIV

‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’

Jesus, NIV

I recently watched “Bruce Almighty”, for the second or third time. For those who don’t know, the premise is that a guy named Bruce gets to be God for a few days. The movie is a comedy with Morgan Freeman as God and Jim Carey as Bruce. I’m sure that there are those who will object to some parts of the movie. Certainly, using God as a punch line is problematic.

Bruce, needless to say does not have the skill set that being God requires. Furthermore he begins as a shallow, self focused jerk. He has no real interest in the needs of others. He uses the power that has been given to him to advance his own needs and desires.

And it all goes south. I asked myself why does power work for God but not for Bruce? The answer is fairly straightforward. God uses his power for the benefit of his people. Bruce uses God’s power for the benefit of Bruce. This theme turns up in the Bible over and over…….the idea of the servant King. It is summed up best when Jesus washes the apostle’s feet. I have often said that the surest path to true joy……..is to love and care for others. This is the first lesson of “Bruce Almighty”……….taught by Bruce’s bad example and by his failure.

As Bruce learns and grows, the movie makes a second point, that, in my opinion, is one of the best theological statements that I have ever run across.

At the very bottom of his failure, Bruce cries out to God and asks (I’m paraphrasing)…….

“How do you give someone free will……..and make them love. you?”

God looks back, with pain in his eyes, and says,

“Welcome to my world.”

God doesn’t now and never has forced us to love him.

God loves us. He wants us to be happy. Because he created us, he knows how we work. He knows that the surest path to our own happiness is to love and serve others……and that begins with loving and serving him. By giving us free will, he guarantees that our gift of love to him is real. It is sincere. It means something.

God is not on some eternal cosmic ego trip. If that was the case, he could have skipped the free will part and built us as robotic worship machines. Instead God wants us to be happy…….and the road to that happiness is relationship. He wants a relationship with us that is based on love, freely given by us………just as his love is freely given to us.

Until you understand God, as a servant leader……..willing to go as far as death on a cross in order to have a relationship with you………you will never “get it”. You will never find true love and peace. You will never find the happiness that God intended for you when he created you…….the deep abiding joy that is and always has been your destiny.

And that is the theology of “Bruce Almighty”.

Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death — even death on a cross!

Paul, NIV

“Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all .”

Jesus, NIV

“The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Jesus, NIV

Imagine two couples. One couple is retired and lives on a farm miles from their nearest neighbor. They have a well and a garden. The other couple is a doctor and a nurse in a big city. They are working to save lives every day in tough circumstances.

There is no right or wrong here. Each couple is in the place where life has taken them. The farmers find themselves in a place where they have some control over their environment. They can close the gate. They can largely decide who comes and goes. The doctor and nurse have much less control over their environment. They can stay 6 feet from others, wear a mask, wash their hands…..a lot. But, they must go out among the crowd……they are far more exposed than the farmers.

Along comes the corona virus. It is an invisible, silent killer. It moves through our population unseen, sickening many and killing some. We have no natural defense, no personal immunity, no “herd immunity”. If we contract Covid-19, it will run a very predictable and sometimes lethal course. The only defense that we have is to never be be exposed to the virus………or at least to delay our exposure until treatments catch up with the disease.

Because of the situations that they find themselves in, the farmers have a much better chance of getting through the pandemic unscathed than the doctor and the nurse.

So……..what does this have to do with Christianity?

It turns out that there is another invisible silent killer among us. This one, instead of killing our body, kills our soul……..and this is far worse. We have a lot of symbols and a lot of names for this killer. Many, if not most of us, studiously ignore or even deny his existence. But, in our heart we sense the presence of evil in our world. Forget the guy in the red suit…….forget all of the names you have heard. I will call him Evil. And if you don’t believe that Evil is out there………you just aren’t paying attention.

The farmers have the best defense against the Corona virus that can be had. They aren’t naive, but they are confident that they can survive the pandemic. The doctor and nurse are good noble people and we all owe them a profound debt of gratitude. But, they move among the virus all day every day…….they do their job, but they know that their defenses are weak. If they aren’t scared…….they aren’t paying attention.

The parallels between the Corona virus and Evil are obvious. If you want your soul to survive this life, you must isolate yourself from Evil, because he is very hard to defeat once he is in your heart. Something to think about the next time you turn on the TV to entertain yourself by watching people kill each other.

Jesus gives us the tools to isolate ourselves from Evil.

Love God….. Love your neighbor.

And that is Christianity in one line.

And the LORD said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Satan answered the LORD, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.”

God, NIV

Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm to the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings.

Peter, NIV

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Paul, NIV