Archive for the ‘Christian identity’ Category
The Aliens Among Us
Posted on: November 8, 2016
One common themes in science fiction is the idea of aliens among us. You know, the “others” who look just like us, but who are not, in fact, of this Earth. Sometimes they have taken over living bodies, sometimes they’ve cloned bodies, sometimes they simply morph. Us, but not us. The trick is to identify them.
In less than 6 hours from the time I post this, West coast time, this election season is f-i-n-a-l-l-y going to be officially over. There will likely be plenty of further accusation and mud-slinging and blame-gaming, but at least we won’t have to be endure the constant barrage of campaign advertising and robocalls.
Many Christians are bemoaning the choice of the two front-runners. Both candidates have serious, even shocking, flaws for someone being considered for the highest office in the land. Yet why should we be surprised that these two have reached this stage? Each of them is simply filling a role that the trajectory of our country has created. if we didn’t have Trump and Clinton, we would still have some kind of “Trump” and some kind of “Clinton” rising to power because the deep wells of anxiety, anger and fear that each has tapped into demands an outlet.
It is distressing how many Christians have participated in that anxiety, anger, and fear, how many have polarized themselves to one side or the other. We fret and carry on as if the fate of the country, if not the world, if not even the church itself, depends on whoever occupies the White House, or which party has the majority in Congress, or who sits on the bench of the SCOTUS. We are preparing ourselves for DOOM if the Wrong Candidate wins. We are caught up in the political whirlwind and are blinded by the dust.
Many Christians have worried that if we don’t elect a “Christian” candidate (or at least someone claiming that status), all Hell will break loose. We have to elect someone who will “protect the church.” Yet in the first verses of Isaiah 45, go read what God says of the PAGAN Persian king, “Thus says the Lord to His anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped, … For the sake of my servant Jacob, and Israel my chosen, I call you by your name, I name you, though you do not know me.” (emphasis added) There are also other passages that make clear God’s use of pagan kings in accomplishing His purposes for the nation of Israel. God’s ability to use a non-believer just as easily as He can a believer has not changed.
The kingdom of the earth and the Kingdom of God are not one and the same, and we cannot create the second by means of the first. Indeed, the latter holds complete sovereignty over the other. The Apostle John reports that Jesus told Herod, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given to you from above.” (John 19:11, emphasis added) Paul likewise states in the 13th chapter of his letter to the believers in Rome that “…there is not authority except by God’s will, and those which exist are appointed by God.” Peter echoes the same thought in the passage in the 2nd chapter of his first letter explaining why followers of Christ should obey human authority – “…because they are sent by Him…” No one sneaks into power because they caught God looking the other way.
In Jesus’ day, many attempted to get Him to involve Himself in the political landscape. Always, He refused. Politics get almost no mention at all by the New Testament writers, although for most of the period during which they were writing, the church faced persecution, including imprisonment and horrific death at the hands of Roman authorities. Yet the only mentions of the persecution are in reference to encouraging the believers to endure faithfully through it. There isn’t a single word condemning the Roman government. No call to protest or work for the overthrow of it, even by peaceable means.
Our citizenship is in Heaven, not on earth. Time and time again we are reminded that we are strangers and foreigners. Aliens. In Hebrews 11, the Faith Hall of Fame, Abraham is commended for living “in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, as a stranger, living in tents … for he was looking forward to the city with foundations, of which the architect and designer is God.” There were plenty of cities in Canaan. Cities with sturdy houses. Cities with strong walls behind which to find a sense of safety. Yet Abraham lived there in tents – moveable, not permanent, that could blow away in the wind, that provided no defense against attack. He did not take his identity from his surroundings, but from his future home.
Paul tells Timothy (II Tim 2:4), “No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him.” Are we not soldiers of the Cross, engaged in a mighty spiritual battle? Why then do we allow ourselves to become so engrossed in the affairs of politics that we allow them to distract us from following the directions of our Lord and Commander? When Christians engage in slander, rage, and hatred; when they ignore or excuse evil for the supposed sake of a greater good; when doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with our God is the opposite of what the world sees us doing, then we are living in the world’s cities, not in our tents. We have forgotten the City to which we truly belong.
Our political system allows for citizen participation. There is nothing wrong with Christians taking advantage of that right if they so choose, but we should never get too attached to our politics. Though there are real temporal consequences, Jesus’ directives for living out the Gospel have far more serious eternal ones. No matter who wins today, our marching orders remain the same.
We are just visiting this planet. We are the aliens among us. Let’s make it easier to identify us!
No Incomplete Sentences Pt. 2
Posted on: October 30, 2016
The first part of this article was posted just previous to the last one. (Since the publishing of that last one, an update on my crazy life, at the end of September, my daughter and I were hit by another car in an accident that totaled mine. I am slowly recovering. In the mornin’, in the evenin’, ain’t we got fun?)
In Part 1, I focused on the fact that when God observed, “It is not good that man should be alone. I will make a helper fit for him”, He did NOT say, “Adam is unfinished. I better make the rest of him.” Adam and Eve were each complete in God just as God made them. Singles need not – should not – ever be considered as or consider themselves to be somehow “less than” because of their not-married status.
However, it’s not just single folks who get confused about what makes a “whole” life.
Our modern romantic expectations of marriage are far beyond what was expected in the past. These days, we’re supposed to be each others’ “soul mate”. Some in the church have compounded the confusion by melding that pop concept with the Biblical description of the two that become “one flesh”. It’s quite an inaccurate reading of Scripture, since “one flesh” is not used only to describe marriage. In I Co. 6:16, Paul warns, “Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, ‘The two will become one flesh.’” No, “one flesh” doth not a “soul mate” make.
Looking for a spouse to be our “soul mate” is dangerous. Some of us have hearts that are easily misled – especially if we are too eager to find Mr./Miss Right. Even if we marry someone who is, to all first experience, such a match, if we start judging our spouse on whether he is fulfilling that role, and he fails, we fuel the fires of discontent and feel ourselves to be incomplete because he isn’t meeting our needs. If we judge our spouse on whether she is fulfilling that role, and she succeeds, we risk putting her in a position only God is meant to occupy. At the root of the “soul mate” concept is the fallacy that ANY person apart from God can complete us. When joined in the mystic union that is Christian marriage, something greater than the sum of its parts IS created – but that something will cease to exist the moment that “death do us part.” Husband and wife are not “partial” people who only become “whole” together, and then are sentenced to live only “half lives” once one spouse has died. Marriage has never been about completing us.
We are complete because GOD is the One Who completes us.
Parenthood has similar pitfalls. Just as those in a marriage may unintentionally put their spouse in a priority where s/he doesn’t belong, those of us with kids may do the same thing. If we have a great relationship with our kids, we may let that substitute for a relationship with our own Heavenly Father. We may so immerse themselves in the lives of our kids that when the kids grow up and leave, all the we can see in our lives is emptiness instead of opportunity. Our children may wound us, turn away from us, abandon us. There are couples who struggle with infertility to the point of becoming so obsessed with it that, like unhappy singles, they define themselves entirely by what they DON’T have.
Yet, although Scripture certainly speaks often of children as a blessing, it just as certainly never speaks of children as making us “whole” people or their absence making us “less than.” No matter what our relationship is with our children, no matter what our children’s choices may be, no matter whether we even have children, we are complete because GOD is the One Who completes us.
Married, single. Parent, childless. Any of these we may be called into or out of, but we must always recognize that our completion does not depend on which He calls us to, on whether He calls us to the role our heart desires, or on the outcome of that calling. For those in an unhappy marriage or divorced or left behind by death; for those who are single but yearn to be married; for those whose children have spurned them or those arms are empty and aching for a child; however incomplete we may feel, we ARE complete in Him. For those in a great marriage, for those close with their kids, however fulfilling those relationships, our completion is in HIM. Content in singleness or childlessness? Remember that “self” is never sufficient; we are complete ONLY in Him. His first calling to ALL is the same as it has always been: to follow Him and learn of Him and allow the Spirit to conform us to the image of the Son. He has promised us that He has given us, is giving us, and will continue to give us, everything we need for this to be so. “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and Godliness, through the knowledge of Him Who called us to His own glory and excellence, by which He has granted to us His precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the Divine Nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.” 2 Peter 1:3-4
None of us are sentenced to a life of being incomplete. In Him, we ARE complete, always.
the susie solution 