The most enduring qualities of lasting faith …
Are gratitude and wonder.
Category: Simple Virtue
Mercy can be either an amazing wellspring for good …
Or a disturbing cover for evil.
Wisdom and discernment make all the difference.
Which is why God never intended that any one gift …
Exist apart from all the others.
Jesus says:
Rescue those being taken away to death; hold back those stumbling to slaughter.
“Christian” existentialists say:
We are neither left nor right, and don’t want to offend, because Christ is All (about our sensibilities).
I am aware of NO instance where Scripture condones cover ups …
When those claiming to be leaders of God’s people use their positions to do wrong and harm others.
In fact, the Biblical approach – both Old and New Testament – is quite the opposite.
Furthermore, truly repentant leaders will not try to hide their leadership sins, but openly confess and publicly repent.
Absent that …
They remain a danger to all.
Which is why 1 Timothy 5:19-21 specifically commands us to investigate and publicly expose church leaders who abuse their position …
As a warning to all.
There are those who proclaim God’s grace, while ignoring His holiness …
And those who proclaim His holiness, while ignoring His grace.
Neither understands either.
Healthy civilizations and societies are a Christian virtue …
Promoted by those who heed Christ’s Lordship in all spheres of life and human endeavor.
Using civil government to compel personal faith and piety, however, is a Christian vice …
Promoted by those who don’t understand Christ’s different jurisdictional limitations for particular spheres of life and human endeavor.
It’s amazing how much huff, puff and indignation arise when you simply ask those pushing their books, blogs and conferences on how to “be the church” or otherwise function as a church …
If they actually are part of one in their own lives and home towns like they keep peddling to others.
Hypocrisy is not a Biblical virtue …
Nor should it be tolerated in those who presume to be leaders among us.
In the New Testament, civil government is not charged with making us righteous …
But with protecting us from the unrighteous.
Someone else’s problem may not always require our intervention …
But when it does, we should earn the right to do so.
In the New Testament, Jesus commands His disciples to be individual peacemakers who turn their cheeks against minor personal offences …
And civil magistrates to be government peacemakers who use the sword to protect others from true evil.
Those who see this as a contradiction or confuse those distinctions …
Lack an authentic Biblical worldview.
Forgiveness isn’t about excusing or setting the offender free …
But fully acknowledging and giving the offense to God so we can be free.
“Forgiving” by minimizing the underlying sin …
Trivializes its consequences and is seldom effective.
To fully forgive, first we must fully acknowledge the wrong and the harm …
Just like Jesus did with us.
There is no freedom in anything less.
My prayer for the next generation:
That you reject the tyranny of “tolerance” without sound morals …
Affirm true liberty, which is the freedom to pursue virtue …
And embrace authentic love, which never forgets that only God’s truth can set us free.
I have the privilege of ministering to the unpretentious …
Which is why my life and words routinely offend the pretentious.
Plus, I have no patience for those who claim to love Christ, while elevating their own ideologies, narratives and sensibilities …
Over God’s authoritative revelation of Himself – and so much more – in Scripture.
The thing is, I think God also has about reached His limits with them.
(Oops, I think I just might have offended them again. 😎)
Eating junk food …
Makes no more sense than consuming junk culture.
One corrupts our bodies …
The other our eternal souls.
Yet the answer to junk culture is not retreat and isolation.
Let’s learn to be immanent in a world God still loves …
While transcending its perils by openly embracing what is eternally true, good and beautiful.
We avoid our hurts and wrongs …
When we don’t confess them.
And what we avoid, we can’t give to God …
To receive His freedom in return.
Contrast the vulgarity of the recent so-called “Woman’s March” …
With the dignity of yesterday’s March for Life.
One degraded women and the entire human race …
The other elevated women and everyone else.
I choose life because I choose dignity …
For all.
When leftist elites redefine “love” as vulgarity and virtue as “hate” …
What we saw at the so-called “Women’s March” in Washington last week is the result.
Don’t get upset at the March’s resulting, open display of depravity by regressive “progressives” …
But rejoice that their utter contempt for decency and virtue – which they previously hid in the shadows while working to undermine our culture – is now on full display for all to see.
The more they expose their true ideology of oppression against all that is right and decent …
The more men and women of good faith will be stirred to action against their underlying obscenities.
Make no mistake:
True “rights” are based on virtue …
And lift everyone.
Anything less is a lie.
Rejoice that their lies increasingly are becoming evident for all the world to see …
While resolving to stand firm once again for true rights based on doing right …
For all.
The ultimate temptation exploits your greatest strength …
Not your greatest weakness.
Governments that can afford to subsidize the bad consequences of our irresponsible choices …
Can’t afford to let us enjoy the good consequences of our responsible choices.
You can either have self rule based on Godly truth and virtue …
Or be ruled by oppressive “progressives.”
But you can’t have both.
Choose wisely.
“Christian Nationalists” and “Progressive Christians” are just different sides of the same coin.
That’s because they’re both utopian ideologies – even though at odds with each other – which claim perfectibility in the here and now.
Inevitably, this leads to tyranny as they are reduced to seeking unlimited government power to impose their unrealistic goals on everyone else …
Under the rationale that it’s for our own greater “good.”
Ultimately, they can’t allow opposing views to get in the way of creating their perfect societies where everyone thinks, believes and acts like them …
Through coercion if necessary.
In contrast, civil liberty this side of Heaven is only possible if we acknowledge our frailties and imperfectibility …
And give government only enough power to protect us from evildoers – rather than the unlimited power needed to turn us into somebody else’s notion of “do gooders.”
Only then can we be free to pursue true virtue as God directs and intends …
Rather than live under the false virtue of utopian tyranny.
Don’t fall prey to either form of unbiblical extremism …
Because God’s into plumblines, not swings of the pendulum.
Wisdom requires perspective and balance …
Which is why we must not fall prey to swings of the pendulum.
To preserve civil liberty in a diverse culture, Christians need a clear concept of what that means.
The First Principle of Liberty is the right to live virtuous lives, and enjoy the benefits, without undue government interference.
The Second Principle of Liberty is the right to live otherwise, and suffer the consequences, again without undue government interference …
So long as it does not violate the right of others to pursue the First Principle.
Even God, with His covenantal blessings and curses in the Old Testament, affirmed these principles.
As the New Testament also affirms, the basic role of Government is to forcibly protect the virtuous against evildoers (Rom. 13:1-7 and 1 Peter 2:13-15) …
Rather than forcibly compel us to be virtuous.
Both repressive “Progressive Christians” and repressive “Christian Nationalists” would do well to heed these distinctions …
For the good of all.
Repressive “progressives” cry “acceptance”, “tolerance” and “understanding” for all …
Except those with whom they disagree.
It’s not just that they are hypocrites …
But when they gain power, they use it to oppose virtue and oppress liberty.
Freedom demands that we not ignore either their hypocrisy …
Or their agenda of tyranny.
Plumbline Faith 