I’m reading through the book of Acts once again in my devotional reading.  I continue to be struck by the boldness of the early church in proclaiming the gospel to the world.  This is a time in history when God’s people are going to need that kind of boldness again.  We know that is true for believers in the Middle East, China, parts of Africa, and currently in the Ukraine, but it is also needed by believers in the U.S and Canada. 

We are not yet being beheaded in the streets or having our church buildings bulldozed, but just about every Christian value is being assaulted in our nation by special interest groups and even major political parties.  This is a time when the church must not compromise with culture and must speak out consistently for righteousness as defined by God rather than the state.

The Bible declares that “we have not been given a spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound mind (2 Tim. !:7).  There is a spirit of fear operating throughout the world and that spirit has certainly been evident in the U.S. over the past two years. Cable news and other media sources have done their part in creating a sense of dread and hopelessness in our country revolving around Covid, inflation, crime, and now war.  It’s not that these aren’t real issues, but the question is whether we bunker in, isolate ourselves, and stop reclaiming the culture for Christ or face the issues with boldness and confidence.  This is a time to remember that our God is still sovereign and watches over his people while we go about the business of the kingdom.

As I read through Acts, I see three great sources of strength for those believers.  First of all, is the Word and prayer.   In Acts 1 and 2, we see about 120 disciples hiding from authorities in a locked room.  Eleven or so of those leading believers had run away into the night when Jesus was arrested only a few weeks earlier.  There was no evidence of boldness in this group, but they were doing two essential things: they were considering the word of God and praying together for answers to their future.  

Clearly, we need to be spending more time considering the Word of God and praying than watching cable news.  And, we need to be doing that together rather than isolating ourselves from the body of Christ.  There is a spirit of fear operating through the media, most of which, is owned and run by unbelievers and opponents of the cross.  We don’t need to get our “daily bread” from them. I’m not saying we should be willfully ignorant about what is going on in the world because we need to pray about much of that. But, we should limit our exposure to that spirit and our time mediating on scripture and praying should out-weigh our time of exposure to any media outlets that pander fear.

The second source of boldness for the early church was the baptism of the Spirit.  As those 120 met and prayed, the Spirit fell and rested on all those in the room. That “filling” with the Holy Spirit caused an immediate  transformation in those believers. The obvious miracle of speaking in languages unknown to these believers was not the greatest miracle that day.  The new found courage and boldness that led the church into the temple courts to proclaim Jesus was the greatest miracle. We need to pray daily to be filled with the Spirit of God and for his Spirit to impart boldness to us and his church.  That constant prayer is more critical than ever in our day.

Thirdly, the early church had an expectation that differed from most of us in the west.  They anticipated hardship as believers, so that when it came, they did not feel abandoned or betrayed by God.  Most of us in America, feel like it is God’s job to keep our lives trouble free, even though Jesus declared, “In this world, you will have trouble” (Jn.16:33). When we face opposition, criticism or even persecution, we often feel as if God has failed us.  The early church saw trouble as evidence of their faith.  

When threatened by authorities and jailed, the Jerusalem church prayed, “Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly (Acts 4:29-31). 

In Acts 5, after being flogged by the Sanhedrin, the apostles left “rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name (Acts 5:41).  We may need to pray that God will give us a biblical expectation for life as a believer, so that when trouble comes, we are not discouraged and afraid, but emboldened, knowing that God is with us and will give us what we need to endure and overcome.

So…as we face a time when boldness and courage is required, we should consistently meditate on the Word of God and pray with other believers while limiting our exposure to the spirit of fear attached to so many things in our culture.  We should pray fervently to be filled with the Spirit daily and to be filled with boldness.  In addition, we may need to ask the Holy Spirit to adjust our expectation about living as a believer in a fallen and hostile world…for we have not been given a spirit of fear but of power, love and a sound mind.

Lord, give us boldness and courage to face every obstacle in our lives today as children of God, rather than children of this world.  

An acceptable part of our culture in 2022 is for a couple to live together without being married and even to have children together outside the covenant of marriage. Celebrities have paved the way for the normalization of that arrangement, and many young Christian couples have followed in their footsteps.  

It is not uncommon for couples to come to premarital classes at our church or come to Free Indeed, our spiritual warfare component, while living together unmarried…maybe even with children. Many seem to be unaware of the biblical injunctions against that arrangement.  Culture does not change the Word of God and it clearly declares that any kind of sex outside the covenant of marriage is sin.  The biblical term for sex outside of marriage is “fornication” or “adultery” if either party is still married to another. Some want to argue that cohabiting is not sin because both parties are being monogamous and are verbally committed to one another.  This skirts the definition of marriage in scripture but, since either party can take off when they feel like it without legal actions and because they do not present themselves as married, it is not marriage.

Much of the blame falls on my generation of postwar “baby boomers” who took on the mantle of “free love” and living together either as a statement against social norms or as a trial-run before marriage. So many of our children have experienced divorce in their homes that they simply fear making a mistake in marriage and then going through what they saw their parents go through. They also fear putting children through the divorce experience if their own marriages fail.  The response seems to have been almost a cultural decision to test the waters for marriage by living together for months or years to see if life under the same roof was manageable.  In the natural realm, the approach seems to make sense.  Don’t by a car until you have taken a lengthy test drive.

However, in the spiritual realm, it is outside of God’s will (sin) and, therefore, invites the devil into the relationship.  Anytime believers participate in a sin for an extended period without repentance, it opens them up to the enemy.  Since they have come into agreement with Satan in that part of their lives, he has a legal right in the courts of heaven to afflict them and the persistent sin of that relationship withholds God’s blessing from what they are doing.  David declared, “Come and listen, all you who fear God; let me tell you what he has done for me. I cried out to him with my mouth; his praise was on my tongue. If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened” (Psm.66:16-19).

Even in the natural realm, statistics show that those who live together and then marry, have a higher divorce rate than those who simply marry.  So, in actuality, the “test drive” gives no real assurance that the relationship will work in a marriage.  I think there are a couple of reasons for that.

First of all, “living together” is a relationship in which partners promise to stay together only as long as it works.  When it stops being fun or fulfilling, one partner has permission and the expectation to pack up and move out.  The relationship is based on the premise that the couple actually anticipates failure, so they will not enter into a lifetime commitment.  That approach to a relationship is a contract, rather than a covenant.  Contracts say “I am in this relationship as long as you meet my expectations.” Biblical marriage is a covenant and covenants are a commitment to make the relationship work…even when one party has a bad day, month, or year.  You know…for richer or poorer, for better or worse, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.

I think living together reinforces the notion that I’m only in this as long as it feels good and is a good deal for me.  Even if the couple eventually marries, I think they often take the same mindset into the marriage because that has already defined the relationship and is the mindset of our culture…so divorce rates are high.

God, however is a covenant God who is faithful even when we are not and who brings all of his resources to bear to restore and maintain the relationships, even when our hearts have taken a vacation.  Without that same mindset, without the Holy Spirit combatting our brokenness and selfishness, and without the blessings of God, few marriages will make it in this world.  Because cohabiting in a sexual relationship is outside of God’s will, those resources will not be available to the couple or will be greatly hindered.

Successful marriages today, require a strong commitment to work through the issues, the failures, and the rough spots.  We all bring a measure of brokenness and selfishness into marriages that will either be healed or will be a constant source of wounding and conflict. 

My experience is that the Word of God activated in our lives, the healing and transforming power of the Holy Spirit, and the support of God’s spiritual family are the best resources for any marriage to make it and to develop into a relationship full of blessings rather than disappointment.  

Couples who are living together outside the covenant of marriage are living without those powerful resources as well as opening the front door of their lives to the enemy who wants only to kill, steal and destroy.  When couples show up who are cohabiting, we do not run them off because God loves them.  But we certainly encourage them to marry, stay sexually pure until they do marry, and to draw close to the Lord where they will  learn to truly love.

Marriage is designed to shape us into the image of Jesus Christ by illuminating our rough spots, our selfishness, and our brokenness so that these areas of our lives can be submitted to Jesus, when we protect ourselves from potential pain by low level commitments, we will not be changed.  We will simply take our baggage with us into the next relationship and the next.

We have an exceptional residential program in our city for single-parent mothers and their children.  Every year I have the privilege of teaching the mothers a workshop on Boundaries in relationships.  A number of years ago, Henry Cloud and John Townsend wrote the book entitled Boundaries that has become a classic used by counselors in numerous settings. 

Whenever a book begins to have such influence, it is always a good practice to ask whether its contents are consistent with biblical principles.  I have seen books sweep through the American self-help sections of bookstores that are not consistent with biblical principles and, therefore, will eventually lead to bad outcomes.  

Paul spoke to this reality in Galatians when he said, “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life” (Gal.6:7-8). In essence, Paul is saying that whenever we consistently follow the impulses of the flesh or the promptings of the world, we will eventually end up in hurtful or destructive circumstances.  Whenever we consistently do things God’s way, we will experience life-giving outcomes.

The concept of boundaries is that we should establish “fences” in our lives that let in the good and keep out the bad.  These “fences” are basically proactive decisions about what I will let into my life and what I will refuse to let into my life.  They are decisions about what I will take responsibility for and what I will insist that others take responsibility for.  They are decisions about where I will draw the line in my actions and in the actions of others.  It is all about what I say “yes” to and what I say “no” to.  

I believe that the idea of intentionally setting boundaries is a very biblical idea and is an essential concept in spiritual warfare.  Joshua told the Israelites, “Choose who you will serve…but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” That is a proactive decision to establish boundaries around your family.  Paul wrote in his second letter to the church at Corinth, “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.” “Therefore, come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.” “I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty” (2 Cor. 6:14-18).

In this text, God is calling us to decide who we are and to live accordingly.  Because we are children of God and followers of Jesus, there should simply be things we do and things we don’t do, people we enter into agreement with and people we don’t.  Each of those decisions is a boundary. So let’s quickly examine of few of the areas in which God actually commands us to establish boundaries. The spiritual warfare aspect of this is that godly boundaries keep the enemy out of our lives, while the lack of boundaries invite him in.

First of all. God tells us to avoid covenants, agreements, and influential relationships with unbelievers.  This is a principle that is clearly stated in both the Old and New Testaments.  It is worth noting, that the verb modes are command modes, not suggestions for Christian living.

God maintains a clear boundary or line between believers and unbelievers.  He is very clear about who is in the family of God and who is not and about those who have the Holy Spirit living in  them and those who don’t.  We typically don’t see it as clearly as God does and tend to think there are good people out there who are not yet Christians that we might marry, form some kind of alliance with, etc.

God says that those in the kingdom belong to Jesus and those who aren’t in the kingdom belong to Satan.  He sees one as belonging to the light and the other as belonging to darkness.  One is influenced by the Spirit and the other by the demons – knowingly or unknowingly.  His point is that entering onto covenants or agreements with those who belong to Satan gives him access to your life.  When you marry, you also marry your spouse’s family and the in-laws can have a dramatic effect on you for good or bad.  If you enter into a covenant with an unbeliever, Satan becomes an “in-law”  because you have entered into an agreement with his representatives.

We need to keep the door closed on the enemy and give him no openings into our life. Paul warns us in Ephesians 4 not allow the sun to go down on our anger and not to give Satan a foothold, which in Greek means a territory or a place of standing.  His point is that if we nurture anger and unforgiveness, that sin gives the devil a place to accuse us and to gain access to our hearts or mind.  That foothold can then become a stronghold.

Paul then goes on to say that, in addition to avoiding binding relationships or partnerships with unbelievers, we must consider ourselves different and set apart from unbelievers.  This is not a call to arrogance or self-righteousness, but is a matter of knowing he we are in Christ and knowing that we are set apart from all others on this planet.  We are holy by the blood of Christ and are the temple of God so we conduct ourselves in accordance with the Spirit, not the flesh or the world.

He also says that we are to touch no unclean thing.  That means that we do not involve ourselves in idolatry…not just false religion but even the worship of money, power, fame, pleasure, etc. We don’t touch or embrace what is unclean such as pornography, witchcraft, sexual perversion, dishonest gain, lying, stealing, etc. The world and the flesh will rationalize and excuse those things, but we are to establish clear boundaries in our hearts and minds to say “no” to those things and “yes” to the things of God. That kind of alignment with the Father keeps the enemy at bay.

Those who are afflicted and oppressed by demons have opened the door to their presence through sin and some agreement with the world or have had someone in their bloodline do the same. Boundaries are thoughtful and intentional decisions to let the good in and keep the bad out.  They are for our health and safety. They are lines of demarcation that say we will not go there and are no trespassing signs for the enemy.  God is a god of boundaries and, as his people, we should be clear about those boundaries ourselves.   It might be good to even right down our personal boundaries that keep us close to God…what we will do and what we won’t do, who we will make covenants with and who we won’t, so that, when temptation comes, we have already decided what our course will be.  By living that way, God will clearly be a father to us and we will clearly be his sons and daughters.  

Another interesting cultural trend took the spotlight in Scottsdale, Arizona this past weekend.  Hundreds of members of the “Satanic Temple” held a three-day convention there called SatanCon.  Reported, the Satanic Temple had filed a request to present an invocation before the City Council of Scottsdale.  They were refused the right to offer their invocation, so they decided to have a large gathering in Phoenix to demonstrate the quality of their organization in an effort to discredit the City Council for their rejection and refusal to be “inclusive.”

Although the Satanic Temple uses the satanic pentagram and its symbolism and erects statues of Satan (Baphomet) wherever possible, they declare they are not really Satanists but libertarians joining together to do noble works through social activism.  If you check their website, their mission statement sounds like the Rotary Club.  They claim that they do not participate in satanic rituals or sacrifice, but are simply having fun with the satanic symbols and the name. 

The leaders of the Satanic Temple are either whitewashing their real intent or are incredibly ignorant people playing with fire.  Satan is never more in the driver’s seat than when we don’t take him seriously or don’t recognize his activity.  It is amazing how many people, including believers, think of Satan as mythological or mere superstition.  Many main stream Christians would tell you that they believe that both Satan and hell are real, but have no awareness that there is an actual spiritual adversary scheming against their lives and families on a daily basis.  

The great majority of churches in America have no curriculum or training to address spiritual warfare (Eph. 6:12) or the use of divine weapons. (2 Cor. 10:4). Remember, Paul declared that our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against spiritual forces of evil in heavenly realms and that divine weapons are required to bring down these demonic strongholds.

If we do not view Satan as a real adversary, he will operate, disrupt, and disable without detection like the invisible man or like a cancer that has not been diagnosed.  I know of several churches that have been divided and rendered ineffective by the strategies of the enemy, but have never identified the real cause of their struggles.  Some of these churches had 2000 members a few years ago but now have only a few hundred in attendance.  They replace their staff over and over, remodel to make the building more attractive, and try to employ the “newest” church growth strategies only to continue to waste away.  Yet, it never occurs to them to enter into prayer and fasting, repentance, cleansing the property of demonic spirits or breaking curses that have given the enemy access to that church for decades.

I personally know of individuals who were former witches in our community, but have now come to the Lord and confessed that they used to sit in Sunday services at influential churches and pronounce curses over the church and the pastoral staff.  Some of those churches have since experienced moral failures by leadership, a loss of passion for the kingdom, serious divisions in their membership, and significantly shrinking numbers.  They continue to look for solutions in the natural realm, but have no idea about how to wage war in the spiritual realm.  

If the members of the Satanic Temple think that Satan is not real, but just a mythological character whose likeness and symbols can be used for fun like Santa Claus, they will soon be co-opted, demonized, and controlled for the purposes of Satan.  If you wear his name and wield his symbols, you belong to him…whether you know it or not.  If they are simply putting up a socially acceptable front, we should not be surprised.  After all, the apostle Paul warned us when he said, “And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness” (2 Cor. 11:14).

The SatanCon in Scottsdale is symptomatic of a culture who does not take evil seriously and is too “sophisticated” to consider Satan to be a real being who truly is our adversary.  It is symptomatic of a culture who no longer believes in the absolutes of good and evil.  It is a culture that no longer believers that there is a God in heaven who judges individuals and nations.  As believers, we cannot afford to be casual or ignorant about the adversary.  We do not have to be afraid because Christ has all authority, but we need to be wise and know when the enemy is involved and how to take action when needed. We all should ask the Lord daily for spiritual discernment and wisdom to know how to wield.  We must learn how to do battle, how to pray for our families, churches, and nation and how to stand against the intrusions of the enemy withthe weapons he has given us through the  victory of Jesus Christ.

How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth…You said in your heart, “I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.” Isa. 14:12-14

You were the model of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone adorned you…Your settings and mountings were made of gold; on the day you were created they were prepared. You were anointed as a guardian cherub, or so I ordained you. You were on the holy mount of God; you walked among the fiery stones. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you. Through your widespread trade you were filled with violence, and you sinned. So I drove you in disgrace from the mount of God, and I expelled you, O guardian cherub, from among the fiery stones. Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor. So I threw you to the earth.   Ezek. 28:12-17

These two passages from the Old Testament are considered by most to be descriptions of Satan before his fall and the reasons that he was driven from heaven and cast down to planet earth.  One is found as part of a prophecy against Babylon and the other against the King of Tyre.  The point is that, in the same way that Satan was strong and powerful once, but lost his elevated position in heaven because of pride and a desire to take the throne himself, these kings would also be judged because of pride and a heart that exalted themselves above God. 

What we need to notice is that Satan, in his corrupted pride and wisdom, desired to take the place of God in heaven where he would then receive praise and worship.  He was created as a guardian cherub who constantly ministered around the throne of God.  Some believe that he was even the worship leader of heaven.  In his beauty and exalted status, he became jealous of the worship God received and wanted it for himself.  He hasn’t changed. Ultimately, his desire is to be worshipped as God himself, although he is a created being.  

In Matthew 4, when Satan appeared to tempt Christ after 40 days of fasting in the wilderness, his final temptation was that he would give Jesus all the kingdoms of the world if Christ would worship him.  In Revelation 13, the dragon (Satan) raises up a beast that all people are amazed at and we are told that all the people of the earth worshipped the dragon.  Satan’s deepest desire is to redirect worship from God to himself.  Scripture reveals that behind every idol is a demon and so demons receive the worship that men give to idols.  Since demons represent Satan, I’m sure he accepts that as worship to himself.

Worship can be a subtle thing.  It doesn’t have to be men and women cloaked in robes in a candle lit room chanting, “Hail Satan.”  It can be as simple as loving the things he loves.  It can be as simple has agreeing with him about values, priorities, and contorted views of God.  It is as simple as calling evil things good and good things evil.  It can be as simple as pursuing the desires of the flesh rather than the desires of the Spirit.  When we love what God loves and hate what God hates, it is an expression of worship because we have aligned our hearts with His.  When we love what Satan loves and hate what he hates, we also are worshipping him. 

We live in a world that constantly exalts and practices the things of Satan – money, power, illicit sex, homosexuality, transgenderism, abortion, theft, violence, atheism, racism, witchcraft, etc.  We hear the constant drum beat that these things are part of an enlightened, sophisticated culture.  Those who would push back against these new cultural “norms” are labelled unenlightened, bigoted haters.  

Let’s face it, things that shocked and disgusted the average American fifty years ago, hardly raise an eye brow now.  We have been exposed to these things so often by the media, that our sensitivities are dulled.  What was considered gross sin fifty years ago is now “cute” and is, at least, a subplot in every movie or television series. 

This is all designed to normalize such behaviors and, over time, align our values with the enemy’s. After years of conditioning, our hearts start to compromise and, perhaps, begin to give some credibility to the arguments that these things are actually normal and healthy.  It is all a great strategy to align our hearts, values, and priorities with the enemy’s.  His goal is to pervert every holy thing that God created and to draw disciples after himself.  All this is to draw worship to himself.  Service is a form of worship and when we serve Satan by agreeing with him in word or actions, then we are worshipping.

In the arena of spiritual warfare, agreement is a huge issue.  Whomever we agree with, we empower in our lives and invite to come in and sit down.  We live in an age when we must evaluate constantly which direction our heart is leaning.  When you survey scriptures that speak about end times, a major theme is that people, even God’s people, will be deceived by the evil one and drawn away from the kingdom of heaven.  

We must evaluate, on a regular basis, who or what we are worshipping.  What are we pursuing with the most passion? To whom or what are we giving our time and finances?  What are we thinking about, dreaming about, or imagining when we are alone? What offends us or what no longer offends us?  

What in our lives are out of sync with the Word of God and the holiness of God?  These are serious matters.  God may not be as casual about our sin and agreement with Satan as we are.  Let me encourage you to evaluate your worship…not just on Sunday mornings, but on the other six days of the week as well.  We must worship God and him only and lets encourage one another to do so as the return of Jesus draws closer.  

It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.  (Hebrews 6:4-6)

I believe in positive preaching that, like prophecy, is designed to strengthen, comfort and encourage.  But there is also a time to issue warnings to the body of Christ.  Hebrews is a letter both of encouragement and warning.  To set the context, 30-40 years have passed since the resurrection and ascension of Jesus. Persecutions had broken out throughout the Roman Empire.   Several decades had passed and Jesus had not yet returned. Pressure from Jewish friends and families who still kept the Law of Moses was probably applied daily to abandon this “Jesus sect” and return to the Law.  

In the context of those things, there were some believing Jews who were beginning to fall away from the church and drift back to the Law of Moses and the temple services in Jerusalem. Something in us tends to want something more tangible, more concrete, more about us than faith sometimes offer.  These believers were beginning to drift away from the truth that we are saved by grace though faith in Jesus and by no works of our own.  They liked a temple they could touch and smell, sacrifices and “good works” that seemed to put them in control of their relationship with God, and a priesthood that could be religious for them.  Although, the law enslaved men, they wanted to go back to the Law like some in the days of Moses had wanted to go back to slavery in Egypt.

In the face of that “falling away,” the writer of Hebrews penned the warning above. There are only a few things in the New Testament that are deemed impossible, but this letter lists one of those.  The writer says that when a person has been enlightened (when they have been taught the truth); when they have tasted the goodness of God and his salvation and experienced the Holy Spirit and his power…if they fall away…it is impossible for that person to be brought back to repentance.

I don’t believe that the writer is telling us that God won’t receive us again, if we repent.  I believe the warning is that our hearts can become so hardened and so indifferent to the prompting of the Spirit, that there is a point beyond which we will not and cannot repent under any condition.  This letter warns us that we can cross a point of no return in our faith.  It may not be a moment we are aware of.  We may not recognize hoe hardened or indifferent our heart has become after we have quenched and grieved the Spirit for so long.  Many will take up an offense toward God because something in their life did not go as they planned or because some prayer went unanswered.  That offense turns to bitterness and the bitterness to unbelief.  They write God out of their lives like an old boyfriend or girlfriend who was unfaithful. You write them out and then after a few years you simply don’t think about them anymore. 

The apostle Paul revealed a prophecy for the end times in his first letter to Timothy.   He said, “The Spirit clearly says that in later times, some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron” (I Tim. 4:1-2).

In these last days, we are seeing many believers fall away from the faith.  They are rejecting the exclusivity of Jesus as the only way to heaven.  They are embracing compromise in the name of tolerance and calling things good that God calls an abomination (abortion, homosexuality, transsexuality, etc.). They are abandoning the local church to stay home and be Christians as if they can separate the head from the body without consequence.  How many of us live out a casual Christianity that shows up or serves only when it is very convenient?  How many of us trade on God’s grace by participating in sin year after year without repentance, believing that God will excuse our indifference to holiness? If we are honest, how many of us have slipped into a mindset that we will still get to heaven because we are better than most people?  How many of us can truly point to the evidence that Jesus is Lord of our lives as well as Savior?

The warning in Hebrews is that we can be drawn away by false prophets who preach a partial truth or even by prophets of culture.  We can forsake our spiritual family by becoming a faithful member of the “electronic church.” We can easily become casual about Jesus and his holiness.  And we can come to a place we don’t recognize, but at which point, our hearts will no longer respond to God again.  All the time, Satan will be whispering that we are in no danger.

The warning is intended to make us wise so that we keep guardrails up around our faith.  The guardrails are staying in the Word, staying connected to spiritual family, staying accountable to other faithful believers, putting ourselves in positions to hear the truth that most often will be counter-cultural, and practicing confession and repentance so that we maintain a concern about our holiness and invite the Spirit to constantly do his work in us.

We live in dangerous times…especially, in the spiritual realm.  The spiritual roads are slippery, dark, and tricky. Don’t be casual, don’t be a compromiser in the name of tolerance, and don’t disconnect from spiritual family.  When you find yourself being apathetic about Jesus, do something about it.  When you know you have sin in your life, acknowledge it, repent of it, confess it. Never allow yourself to even get close to crossing the point of no return.

I’m currently involved in a study of Genesis.  The first nine chapters have turned out to be fairly controversial as nearly every writer and commentator tries to make the narrative of Genesis align with current scientific views of the beginning of the universe and the beginning of life on planet earth.  There are a number of ingenious efforts to do so…the gap theory, theistic evolution, progressive creationism, etc.  All of these are ways to try to adjust what seems to be the natural reading of Genesis to the age of the universe and earth as projected by many contemporary scientists and to find a place where evolutionary theory can also fit into the Genesis account.  Some of these attempts have some merit and are possible interpretations of Genesis, as scholars study possible meanings of Hebrew words, etc.   But many of these attempts seem to be a result of giving science more authority or, at least, the same authority as scripture.

The question arises…what if you cannot marry current scientific views with the Genesis account in any satisfactory way?  Do you choose science over scripture or do you keep insisting that science find other explanations for their observations and theories until they can match the Genesis narrative in satisfactory ways. By the way, there are a number of high caliber PH.D’s out there who do hold to the natural reading of Genesis. They assign dating miscalculations to results of a world-wide flood and point to many geological and paleontological observations that don’t fit the evolutionary model.

I really don’t want to try to evaluate all the views that arise from the first few chapters of Genesis, but I do want to point out the danger of letting culture have so much influence over us that we begin to choose the current views of intellectuals and influencers over scripture.  When it comes to faith, it is imperative that we constantly align our thoughts with God’s thoughts.  It is imperative that we give God’s word more authority than the words of men.  Does that mean that natural science, history, archaeology, and so forth cannot inform our understanding of scripture? Of course not.  But we dare not begin to ignore scripture that conflicts with those views or do violence to a text in order to make it fit the “current scientific view.”

I keep saying “current view,” because science is always changing, while the word of God is eternal.  If you scan the New Testament, you will find dozens of scripture warning, us to be directed by heavenly wisdom, rather than the wisdom of the world.  You know the old propaganda adage that says if a lie is told often enough and with enough conviction, people will begin to believe it is true.  What we see in our culture, in our schools, and in the media is a steady promotion of anti-biblical views and values designed to desensitize us and indirectly make us believe that a cultural stance is true because we see it and hear it all the time.

In our culture, theories are regularly presented as proven facts, as if, no one with any intelligence even questions what is being presented.  Many are “following the science” because it lends credibility to their narrative, rather than because it is true.  Evil is called good and good is called evil so often that we begin to wonder if we have misread our Bibles.  If we don’t read our Bibles, we are certainly easy prey for the world’s propaganda.  There is always danger in coming into agreement with Satan…the prince of this world.  Adam and Eve adopted his view of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and their alignment with Satan ushered sin and death into the world. Alignment with Satan, in any part of your life, will open a door for his activity in your life and the life of your family and the results will be destruction.

I am simply posting a warning here that choosing between the values and positions of the world and God is a serious thing that has real consequences.  As believers, I think we need constant course corrections in our thinking because we are so inundated with lies from the enemy with every facet of culture as his vehicle. With the steady drum beat of culture everywhere we look,   we can slowly but surely be drawn away from God’s truth.  When we feel the pull to agree with something that doesn’t seem to agree with God, we need to slow down and pray for wisdom.  Perhaps, our biblical understanding needs to be tweaked but, perhaps, we are being drawn away from truth in the name of science, education, religion, art, or tolerance.

Paul wrote, “Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord” (1 Cor. 1:26-31).

This verse suggests that much of what the world presents as wisdom, intellect, and truth are just the opposite of heavenly wisdom, intelligence, and truth.  So, evaluate what you are hearing, seeing, and being told by the voices of the world.  Do not be afraid to disagree and do so without being disagreeable. Do not be afraid to stand on biblical truths and values, even in the face of criticism and ridicule because you will be receiving praise from heaven.

Destiny

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.  Psalm 139:14-16

For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:10

These two familiar passages affirm a very important principle in the life of every believer.  God had a direct hand in making each of us with a design that reflects an ordained purpose for each of our lives.  According to the psalmist, God wrote, in a book in heaven, all the plans that he made for our lives before one of those days came to pass.  The “good works” mentioned in Ephesians are the works ordained for each of us to accomplish.  In summary, he equipped each of us to fulfill our destiny with just the right  natural abilities, temperament, and spiritual gifts.  Even though this is a well-documented biblical truth, it seems that many believers have difficulty discerning what their destiny might be.  Let me suggest two reasons.

Each of us has been designed for greatness in the kingdom of heaven.  However, we must remember that God’s view of greatness is not the same as the world’s view.  The world’s view of greatness is measured in fame, possessions, power, the number of people who serve you and fawn over you, an extensive Facebook platform, and the number of celebrities with whom you keep company.  If we take those standards as indicators of our destiny because they appeal to us, we may chase something that causes us to miss God’s purposes all together.

In fact, by those standards, Jesus was a colossal failure while he walked on this earth.  He had no bank accounts.  He had no palace or even a home to call his own.  Most people did not know who he was or what he looked like.  We still don’t know what he looked like. He served others rather than being served and shunned celebrities as well as celebrity status.  In the only popularity contest in which he participated, his own people chose a murderer named Barabbas over Jesus.  Any yet, by heaven’s standards, he was the greatest who ever lived or ever will live.

God’s desire is that we find and fulfill our destiny. I think many of us miss it because we are measuring opportunities to advance by the world’s standards rather than heaven’s.  We choose the career path with the highest earning potential instead of the highest serving potential. We pick a path that we anticipate will impress or please people we know rather than impressing our heavenly father.  We often seek the spotlight on earth while Jesus tells us to do many things in secret, seen only by God.  Jesus even warns us of missing a reward in heaven because we have already gotten our reward on earth.  As we seek our destiny, we need to measure it by heavenly values, not the values of the world.  We need to teach our children that same principle.

As much as God wants us to fulfill the destiny he has written for us, Satan wants to prevent us from fulfilling it.  First of all, he will misdirect us in our choices and, perhaps. highlight the motives for career choices that the world offers so that we end up not pursing those things that would have actually given us the most fruitful and most fulfilling life.  

If Satan hasn’t been able to set us on the wrong path, then he will simply oppose those things we are trying to accomplish in order to convince us that we are on the wrong track after all.  In his book, Unlocking Destinies from the Courts of Heaven, Robert Henderson says that Satan feverishly hunts for curses that can be activated in our lives so that he can use them to oppose our destinies.  Curses give him a legal right to hinder, oppress, or torment people and he does so to hinder our progress and effectiveness in the kingdom.  That means we must be aware of areas in which we are not flourishing and scan our lives to see if something in our own life or family line is giving the enemy a legal right to oppose us month after month and year after year.  When we find it, we must remove it so that we can begin to fulfill our written destinies as God intends. 

What is critical is that we do not ignore the reality that God has chosen a destiny for us and part of our reward in heaven will depend on how much of that we pursued and accomplished in this life.  Too many believers choose career paths, relationships, and priorities without any thought as to whether or not they fit into God’s plan for our lives or we abandon his plan altogether as soon as resistance comes our way.  As a result, our lives do not live up to our expectations for joy and fulfillment.  

If we could add a beatitude to the Sermon on the Mount, we might say, “Blessed is the man or woman who finds themselves in the very center of God’s will for their lives, because it is there that we find the true joy and abundance that Jesus promised.”  On many occasions, I have visited with men in their fifties who feel unfulfilled as carry a vague sense of failure.  They have provided for their families, but for years have labored in a career that was not fulfilling or exhilarating and they feel as though something significant has been missing from their lives for years.  They don’t want to end their lives feeling as if they missed something incredibly significant that others somehow found.  This is the stuff of mid-life crisis and the stuff of middle-aged affairs.  It is often because they tried to fit into a role for which God did not make them. The very things in which they invested most of the hours of their lives seem to have no eternal significance.  They discover that what they gave a great chunk of their lives to may not matter at all 5 seconds after they die. That is the price of missing God’s destiny for our lives. 

I’m not saying that all of us have to be preachers or missionaries or worship leaders or Christian writers.  God has made us to fit into every nook and cranny of society so that we can be a redeeming force in that slice of our culture.  He has called us to be teachers, truck drivers, policemen, store owners, nurses, bakers, artists, technicians, soldiers, etc.  When we are following our destiny, what we do makes sense to us.  It almost comes naturally.  We find it fulfilling because we sense a purpose in it greater than the check we get at the end of the month.  We see ways to bear spiritual fruit in our career setting and ways to influence people for Jesus.  If we ask ourselves if we want to do other things, we simply know we are already doing what God has designed us to do.  It is a very blessed place to be, even if the material rewards aren’t all we would like them to be  The emotional and spiritual payoff makes up for the big house and the new pickup that will have to wait another couple of years.

If you haven’t thought this way about the path of your life or if you started out seeking your calling in Christ, but got detoured, I hope you will return to that quest.  Hopefully, our New Year’s resolutions will help us pursue God’s purposes for our lives and reflect the priorities of heaven rather than earth. I believe finding our calling or destiny and stepping into it is the key to the abundant life Jesus has promised.  

The new year has crept in with all the threats from 2021 still hanging over us like a dark cloud.  Covid variants, runaway inflation, natural disasters, Russian empire building, Chinese economic threats along with their claims on Taiwan, a fiercely divided America, and so forth, still stand unresolved as we try to find hope in 2022.  

I believe this coming year is going to require that we truly keep our eyes on the Lord and stand firmly on the tenants of our faith on many issues.  I’m not sure that life in our time is more threatening or more complicated than in other epochs, but we are certainly more aware of every crisis in every corner of the world, , which certainly makes life more stressful and seemingly uncertain. Every issue we can imagine is in our face 24/7 because of the news on television, social media, and talk radio.  Every event, large or small, is dissected, analyzed, and “disasterized.”  Fear is a major component of media that seems to keep us glued to each station, hoping that the most recent crisis won’t get any worse and that solutions will arise.

On top of global crises, many of us have faced personal crises this past year as well.  The loss of loved ones, challenges to our own health, stressed marriages, increased crime, open boarders, economic loss because of covid restrictions, and so forth.  We wonder if this coming year will bring more of the same.

So…now that I have cheered you up, how do we face a world that seems so bent on self-destruction?  The only way to face such a world with any measure of joy and confidence is through faith in the one who created it, and his promises that the day will come when there will be no death, no war, no sickness, no hatred, no division, no natural disasters, and no lack for any need.

This may be the year to discipline ourselves to watch less news, be less politically charged, and less invested in this world.  I’m not suggesting that we bury our heads in the sand or ignore what may be coming our way, but I am suggesting that we need to believe that if we seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, God will meet every one of our essential needs.

Jesus lived in a world of poverty, famine, earthquakes, political unrest, religious upheaval and military oppression.  His solution was not to worry or be obsessed with the things we cannot affect except through prayer.  His solution was to seek God and believe in his care and protection in the midst of crisis.  Jesus never said we would not have trouble.  In fact, he said that in this world we would have trouble, so we need to keep our expectations biblical.  But in the face of that reality, he also promised that he would always be with us.  Just as the disciples, when crossing Galilee, encountered a storm that threatened their very lives, the presence of Jesus brought peace and safety.  

If you are like me, I often pray for a life that is trouble free, and yet, a trouble-free life requires no faith.  The truth is that faith is the currency of heaven and without faith it is impossible to please God.  Faith is that conviction, that in the midst of trouble, God will see me through…in spite of what appears to be a hopeless situation. I’m not saying to pray for trouble, but I am saying that when it comes, God is with us and the trouble itself, is not evidence that God has abandoned us.  

What if, in this year, we spent the lion’s share of our free time in the Word, in prayer, and in worship instead of on social media and listening to all the bad news the media can discover or even invent?  What if my great concern was in faithfully serving God rather than championing a political party?  Again, I believe we should vote and believe that Christians should be involved in bringing godliness to the political process, but we must always remember that our hope is in Jesus and no political leader, party, or movement. Any organization or movement led buy man will ultimately fail us.  Only God is faithful forever.  

If I am to navigate 2022 successfully, my primary focus will have to stay on heaven and not on earth. I need to know who Jesus is to me before the trouble comes so that my faith does not fail.  Maybe, that priority needs to be clearly stated in our New Year’s resolutions…more this year than ever before!

[I apologize for the length of this blog, but perhaps, you will have time during Christmas to read it.]

Christmas has arrived once again. As a pastor, I see many responses to the season. For some it raises treasured memories of traditional church plays filled with squirming children, bright trees surrounded by carefully selected presents, the warm aroma of favorite foods, and a familiar house filled with love. For others, it registers disappointment and memories of “not-so-good Christmases” stained by alcohol or emotionally toxic family members. For others, grief surfaces once again in a memory of making funeral plans for a loved one that pushed out the joy of Christmas that year and for several years to come. Others face sheer loneliness as they anticipate sitting in an empty house with no one present to share the day that should be about giving and receiving, loving and comforting, laughing and belonging.

As multilayered as Christmas can be, there is always the heart of the story that should encourage us and realign our perspectives, no matter what our situation might be.  Each year as I think about Christmas, the Lord simply reminds me of how costly the coming of Messiah was for him and those who were nearest to the incident. 

We tend to compartmentalize Christ’s sacrifice and suffering and attach it only to Easter – his arrest, his abuse, his crucifixion. We also tend to forget the pain of those who loved him most as they watched their son, their Rabbi, and their Messiah breathe what they thought was his last breath on a Roman cross. Passover and Easter certainly highlight the incredible cost of our salvation, but our salvation story not only ended that way, but actually began that way as well.

Christmas cards sanitize the story so that it might be almost unrecognizable to Mary and Joseph. Susan and I have already received a few with Mary and Joseph and Baby Jesus serenely surrounded by peaceful, adoring animals in a pristine manger along with appropriately awed shepherds and joyous angels. Typically, the scene may also present three royally adorned visitors from the east bearing precious gifts (although they did not actually arrive until months later). 

There is some truth in that scene, but it misses one point. The Christmas story begins with Gabriel appearing to Mary in the backwater town of Nazareth. Luke tells us that at his appearance, Mary was greatly troubled. The original Greek would amplify this word to mean confused, disoriented, and deeply disturbed or distressed. The angel greeted her first, but then added quickly, “Do not be afraid.” You don’t need to say that unless someone is visibly shaken and beginning to panic.

Gabriel then goes on to tell her that the Holy Spirit is about to fall on her, impregnate her, and she will have a son whom she is to name Jesus. He will be called the Son of the Most High and he will reign on David’s throne forever. That’s a lot to take in for a 13-year-old Jewish girl brought up simply, humbly, and traditionally. 

The true implications of what the angel had just said were probably not comprehensible…except the part where she would be pregnant without having gone through a wedding ceremony and without her marriage being consummated with Joseph, her fiancé. Surely her first thoughts were about the impossibility of telling Joseph and her family and the almost certain unlikelihood that anyone would believe her.

The liability of being seen as an adulteress must also have loomed somewhere in the back of her mind. Adultery, in those days was, taken very seriously and was still punishable by stoning. In Jewish culture, her engagement was considered marriage, although the sexual union could not occur until after the ceremony. To break the engagement required a divorce. Apparently, her worst fears were realized because, when Joseph discovered she was pregnant, he decided to divorce her quietly to minimize everyone’s shame and for her safety.

 Undoubtedly his heart was shattered by her perceived unfaithfulness and he carried as much shame in the tiny village of Nazareth as she did. Her story was unbelievable even to him…until an angel confirmed what she had been telling everyone.  Still, he had to wonder if he had actually heard from an angel or simply his own imagination trying to excuse what had happened.

The story does not describe the family’s reaction to Mary’s pregnancy and her unbelievable story, but Mary and Joseph’s trip to Bethlehem may give us some insight. According to Luke, Caesar issued a decree for taxation that required the head of each household to register in certain cities. Joseph was a descendent of David whose lineage came from Bethlehem, so off they went on a ninety-mile trek with Mary late in her pregnancy. She was not required to go to Bethlehem. Joseph could have gone alone, but she went along anyway on a trip that may have put her at risk and the child as well. 

To me, the only explanation is that she did not feel welcome in Nazareth, even by her own family, and the birth of her son would not be the joyous occasion she had always envisioned. She had also lost her dreams for a wedding feast with her proud family and friends and a wedding night in which she and Joseph would consummate their holy union. Joseph had given up any dreams he had been harboring as well. So…this teenage mother went with her husband to a place in which they were apparently unknown, only to discover, on top of everything else, that no lodging was available.

Only a small barn or cave was available where she would have to make do with some fresh hay while being surrounded by the smell of animal urine, feces, and barn rats. No family members travelled with them to help with the birth. Apparently, no midwife was available in Bethlehem. Joseph and Mary must have felt somewhat abandoned by God and their families and must have felt very alone. They must have been wondering where the blessings were for their obedience because, day by day, things had not gotten better but worse.

Outside of Bethlehem, another disturbing scene was unfolding. In the middle of the night, shepherds, who were minding their own business, were suddenly confronted by extraterrestrial visitors…angels filling the sky. Luke simply says they were terrified. Of course, the angel said, “Do not be afraid” and eventually calmed their nerves with news that Messiah was being born to them and could be found in a stable in Bethlehem. Eventually that night, they found the stable and shared what they had seen and heard with Mary, who must have been exhausted.

Another hint about the atmosphere of shame, gossip, and suspicion back in Nazareth was that Joseph, Mary, and Jesus did not return to Nazareth after the birth. As far as we know, two sets of Jewish grandparents had yet to see their grandson. Matthew tells us of the Magi, wise men or astrologers from the east, who had followed the Star of Bethlehem to find this newborn King of the Jews. This was apparently 18-24 months after the birth of Jesus and they were still in Bethlehem. It looks as though Mary and Joseph had simply settled in there. 

These unexpected visitors from the east showed up unannounced and brought gifts of gold, myrrh, and frankincense to Jesus. Mary and Joseph must have been relieved to receive such a nest egg for the family and began to believe that, perhaps, peace and blessings were finally coming their way. Maybe he could expand his business or they could build a little house. But they immediately discovered that these were to be traveling expenses.

Herod, hearing from the Magi that a king was being born just seven miles from Bethlehem, determined to exterminate this threat to his own throne. Joseph and Mary were warned in a dream to flee the region and so suddenly became political refugees trying to find safety in Egypt. Herod, in order to secure his throne, simply had every male child under two years old in the vicinity killed that night – a night that became known in Jewish history as the Slaughter of the Innocents. That’s not something we see on Christmas cards. So, the Christmas story is not just a story of angelic visitations and good news, but also a story of fear, shame, rejection, loneliness, lost dreams, and a poor refugee family fleeing their homeland for several years to live once again among strangers where Hebrews had once been slaves.

If you read Isaiah 6, you will also perceive another cost that was incurred, even before the birth of the child.  In that text, Isaiah sees the Lord, high and lifted up, surrounded by his glory and angels that declared his holiness day after day.  John tells us that Isaiah was actually given a vision of Jesus (Jn.12:41) in his glory before surrendering the privileges of deity. At some point he stepped down from his throne, shed is glory and power, and shrunk down to the size of an ovum, only to grow helplessly in the womb of an impoverished teenager.  From there he would be born into a scandal and later deemed illegitimate by many – part of the reason those in Nazareth could never accept him as Messiah.  What cost did Jesus pay even before the cross and what cost did those pay who were near him…even in the beginning of God’s odyssey on earth?  

The ultimate price for our salvation was, of course, the cross. But there were significant payments all along the way that we should not forget.  This thought should not produce guilt in us, but wonder and rejoicing at the value God has placed on each of us.  

Salvation is a gift because we are saved by grace and by no works of our own.  But there is also the gift of knowing how much we are loved, how much we are valued by the Creator of heaven and earth, and how much we can value ourselves as well as all the others Jesus died for.  Be blessed this Christmas knowing that your greatest gift cannot be placed under a tree and that you were purchased at such a price.  Merry Christmas.