wow. last entry was on April 18th of this year. a lot has happened since then, but none of that matters this morning.

What matters is that, though I was late in getting to my devotional reading, the Lord visited me there and reminded me of what my mission for Him is all about.

Reading through the book of Lamentations, experiencing Jeremiah’s anguish over the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, he dispairs over what the Lord is doing to his bride; “My tears flow down endlessly. they will not stop until the Lord looks down from heaven and sees. My heart is breaking over the fate of all the women of Jerusalem.” (Lam. 3:49-51)

At last I understand my pastor’s anguish over his flock: in performing his duties, he’s developed a passion for his flock, exactly like Jeremiah.

Then it occurred to me, “I have a flock too.” Though I am not a pastor, not having a church, a degree in divinity from some seminary, or the imprimatur of some religious organization, the Lord placed me in a family; The Lord places me in job situations (even though I’m unemployed at the moment); there are groups of people — commonly referred to as a sphere of influence — whom I believe the Lord placed me in to affect for Him.

And I haven’t.

I find it curious that the Lord reaches one individual at a time. I find it curious that He reached down and chose me and compels me to reach others. Except for daily reading His Word, I am no theologian, yet desire to study more and affect more people within my sphere of influence.

And I haven’t.

I prayed that the Lord open my eyes, to see what motivates my pastor, and He did. Damnation is as real as salvation.

If I don’t tell my brothers and sisters (in my immediate and extended families — my sphere of influence) about the dangers and rewards, who will? “Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it.” (James 4:17)

Whether or not my “sphere” accepts Jesus’ gift of eternal salvation, or, by default, damnation, is not my responsibility;
What is my responsibility is to tell them about Him.
The decision is their’s but my eyes have opened, and heart bleeds to tell them.

“My people” won’t know about Jesus unless I tell them.

Lord, give me opportunity, and strength to tell them. Amen

It is against my nature to desire accountability.

I don’t want someone looking over my shoulder and saying, “You shouldn’t be doing that.”
“I know it’s wrong, and I’ll justify my beliefs, regardless of what the Bible has to say.”
“It’s how I am, and a lot of other people think the same way.”
“You’re not my mother!”
“I thought you were a Christian!”

Are these the words of a self-pleaser or one who desires to please the Lord — even at the cost of looking foolish to other people?
Are my views too strict? Am I a prude, just because — though I often fail — I desire to live my life by the standard of the Bible?

My question, and daily struggle is this:
If my desire and will are in conflict with what is plainly stated in God’s Word, which ought to change, His Word, or my way of thinking?

I have a very dear friend in Christ who has, in my opinion, no problem bending and justifying his notion of what is acceptable behavior.
I myself have had issues I’ve had to resolve, and when there has been a conflict, I take it to the Lord in prayer, or ask a number of friends, relatives, co-workers and prayer-buddies, their opinions.

You know which opinions I value the most?
The ones that begin with the phrase, “Well the Bible says…”
Or the ones who ask, “What does the Bible have to say about this?”

I am writing this became of an issue I had this week when I challenged a dear friend in Christ about something he did that I thought was inappropriate. I asked how we ought to behave, if we believe the cliché that, “I am the only Bible most people will ever read.” I sent him an email about my disappointment that he would do such a thing, quoting  1Thess. 5:22, “Abstain (or avoid) the appearance of evil.”

And got slammed for it. Got it thrown back in my face.

What’s does it mean, anyway, “I’m the only Bible some people will ever read?” Don’t I have the freedom in Christ, without having to worry about what other people think?
Do my neighbors really watch me as closely as I think they do, or am I being paranoid?

Am I being legalistic? Am I judging his behavior, when I know I’ve stumbled in this area myself?

What does it mean to be “an Ambassador of Christ,” anyway?
It means His way is the right way, and  I represent Him in this world, especially to those who have marginal or half-beliefs or understandings about what the Bible has to say about how to live their lives, or don’t care to have a Lord over their lives.

People don’t want someone telling them they need to consider changing their behavior to how Christ would have them live, how He commands us to live. Are my (non-believing) neighbors, relatives, co-workers and acquaintances watching me, waiting for me to stumble so they can say, “hey, I thought you were a Christian! You mean it’s o.k. to be a Christian, but not change the things you do? You mean I can call myself a Christian and drink as much alcohol, sleep with as many people as I want to, cheat on my taxes and steal from my employer, and God will still accept me?”

Obviously I’m being facetious. Obviously I’m being sarcastic. Obviously, I believe Christ died for my sins, and I desire to change from the ways I used to believe and do, before I claimed Christ as my Savior and Lord. Everyone wants Christ to be their Savior, but few want Him to have Lordship over their lives.

Is it my place to hold my brother accountable to things he’s read (and quoted to me) from the Bible? What does the Bible say?
The Bible says, “If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.“ — Matt. 18:15-17 (NASB)

How does my brother’s sin against God become sin against me?
In this case, we are known to a large group of people — believers and non-believers alike — as being good friends and Christians. His sin, though not evident to most, and certainly not in his own eyes, isn’t based on an egregious commission of a crime, but rather a behavior he takes for granted that “has the appearance of evil;” his sin is that he’s acting like the rest of the world around him without the least care of what Christ, or even his pastor, or good friend would consider appropriate.

I guess the question I have to ask myself is, “How far am I willing to go, to stand on my convictions?” Am I willing to risk this friendship to challenge his belief?
Essentially a moot point, as we had the discussion this morning; though we did not come to an agreement or resolve (other than agreeing to disagree), the behavior won’t be changing, and in fact, he’s engaging in it as I write this.

So how does God speak to us today?
Only through His Word, the Holy Bible, for however amount of time we spend reading, meditating on and studying it?
Only on Sunday, for the hour we spend at church?

Is it possible, that He is constantly speaking to us through all of these ways, as well as through brothers and sisters in Christ who are not afraid of “speaking the truth in love,” challenging us, and even rebuking us on our actions?

If I am wrong, I trust that the Lord, or one of these will speak to me, and not be in conflict with His Word.
If I am wrong, but humble, I will accept God’s Word — at His Word, and change my ways to conform to His Word.

That is what it means tome to be an Ambassador and servant of the Lord.

My prayer is that My Lord continues to accept my questioning, motives and desires; and that He continues to allow for my weakness so I’ll turn to and rely on His strength. My prayer is that, if anything I’m doing appears to be evil (not in accordance with His will), that my brothers and sisters, fellow servants of Christ, fear the Lord more, and have less of a concern for hurting my feelings, or losing my friendship, and more concerned with telling me “What Jesus would do:” “speaking the truth in love,”  out of obedience and fear of the Lord.

A friend of mine emailed this article from Dennis Prager, who teaches Torah at Hebrew University in LA, and has a talk radio program from 9-12 in the San Diego area. The motto for his show is “clarity, not agreement”. I thought this article, (from August 19, 2008,) spoke in a timely fashion, relative to all that’s being spoken against people of faith.

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We are constantly reminded about the destructive consequences of religion — intolerance, hatred, division, inquisitions, persecutions of “heretics,” holy wars. Though far from the whole story, they are, nevertheless, true. There have been many awful consequences of religion.

What one almost never hears described are the deleterious consequences of secularism — the terrible developments that have accompanied the breakdown of traditional religion and belief in God. For every thousand students who learn about the Spanish Inquisition and the Salem Witch Trials, maybe two learn to associate Gulag, Auschwitz, The Cultural Revolution and the Cambodian genocide with secular regimes and ideologies.

For all the problems associated with belief in God, the death of God leads to far more of them.

So, while it is not possible to prove (or disprove) God’s existence, what is provable is what happens when people stop believing in God.

1. Without God there is no good and evil; there are only subjective opinions that we then label “good” and “evil.” This does not mean that an atheist cannot be a good person. Nor does it mean that all those who believe in God are good; there are good atheists and there are bad believers in God. It simply means that unless there is a moral authority that transcends humans from which emanates an objective right and wrong, “right” and “wrong” no more objectively exist than do “beautiful” and “ugly.”

2. Without God, there is no objective meaning to life. We are all merely random creations of natural selection whose existence has no more intrinsic purpose or meaning than that of a pebble equally randomly produced.

3. Life is ultimately a tragic fare if there is no God. We live, we suffer, we die — some horrifically, many prematurely — and there is only oblivion afterward.

4. Human beings need instruction manuals. This is as true for acting morally and wisely as it is for properly flying an airplane. One’s heart is often no better a guide to what is right and wrong than it is to the right and wrong way to fly an airplane. The post-religious secular world claims to need no manual; the heart and reason are sufficient guides to leading a good life and to making a good world.

5. If there is no God, the kindest and most innocent victims of torture and murder have no better a fate after death than do the most cruel torturers and mass murderers. Only if there is a good God do Mother Teresa and Adolf Hitler have different fates.

6. With the death of Judeo-Christian values in the West, many Westerners believe in little. That is why secular Western Europe has been unwilling and therefore unable to confront evil, whether it was Communism during the Cold War or Islamic totalitarians in its midst today.

7. Without God, people in the West often become less, not more, rational. It was largely the secular, not the religious, who believed in the utterly irrational doctrine of Marxism. It was largely the secular, not the religious, who believed that men’s and women’s natures are basically the same, that perceived differences between the sexes are all socially induced. Religious people in Judeo-Christian countries largely confine their irrational beliefs to religious beliefs (theology), while the secular, without religion to enable the non-rational to express itself, end up applying their irrational beliefs to society, where such irrationalities do immense harm.

8. If there is no God, the human being has no free will. He is a robot, whose every action is dictated by genes and environment. Only if one posits human creation by a Creator that transcends genes and environment who implanted the ability to transcend genes and environment can humans have free will.

9. If there is no God, humans and “other” animals are of equal value. Only if one posits that humans, not animals, are created in the image of God do humans have any greater intrinsic sanctity than baboons. This explains the movement among the secularized elite to equate humans and animals.

10. Without God, there is little to inspire people to create inspiring art. That is why contemporary art galleries and museums are filled with “art” that celebrates the scatological, the ugly and the shocking. Compare this art to Michelangelo’s art in the Sistine chapel. The latter elevates the viewer — because Michelangelo believed in something higher than himself and higher than all men.

11. Without God nothing is holy. This is definitional. Holiness emanates from a belief in the holy. This explains, for example, the far more widespread acceptance of public cursing in secular society than in religious society. To the religious, there is holy speech and profane speech. In much of secular society the very notion of profane speech is mocked.

12. Without God, humanist hubris is almost inevitable. If there is nothing higher than man, no Supreme Being, man becomes the supreme being.

13. Without God, there are no inalienable human rights. Evolution confers no rights. Molecules confer no rights. Energy has no moral concerns. That is why America’s Founders wrote in the Declaration of Independence that we are endowed “by our Creator” with certain inalienable rights. Rights depend upon a moral source, a rights giver.

14. “Without God,” Dostoevsky famously wrote, “all is permitted.” There has been plenty of evil committed by believers in God, but the widespread cruelties and the sheer number of innocents murdered by secular regimes — specifically Nazi, Fascist and Communist regimes — dwarfs the evil done in the name of religion.

As noted at the beginning, none of this proves, or even necessarily argues for, God’s existence. It makes the case for the necessity, not the existence, of God. “Which God?” the secularist will ask. The God of Israel, the God of America’s founders, “the Holy God who is made holy by justice” (Isaiah), the God of the Ten Commandments, the God who demands love of neighbor, the God who endows all human beings with certain inalienable rights, the God who is cited on the Liberty Bell because he is the author of liberty. That is the God being referred to here, without whom we will be vanquished by those who believe in less noble gods, both secular and divine.