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Thoughts on Uncertainty

An earthquake with its epicenter in Virginia just shook a great deal of the East Coast, including Washington D. C.  It looks like the revolution in Libya is about to result in the overthrow of its long-lasting dictatorship, following closely on the heels of the revolution in Egypt.  Rockets are raining down on Israel from Gaza again, though it looks like a truce has been signed.  The conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan seem to go on forever, and we wonder more about China than we used to.  Famine is rampant in Somalia, and we are in the middle of a huge drought in Texas and beyond.  And yes, the stock market has been interesting this week as the price of gold goes up and oil goes down.  Morality and values seem to be slipping constantly.  The nation seems to be polarized politically and religiously, dividing into camps.  It can be quite a scary world.  We might think it is worse than it’s ever been and that the known yesterday looks more appealing and comforting than the confusing and chaotic present, and certainly more so than an unknown future.

When I was growing up, two of the three biggest earthquakes in American history happened in Alaska, 1964 and 1965.  Vietnam, a 10-year war, began about the same time.  Most of the young men in school at the time were very sensitive to the possibility of being drafted, as were our moms.  Most of us lived under the constant threat of nuclear attack, remembering the words of the Soviet Prime Minister, Nikita Khrushchev, “We will bury you!”  In the same season, a president was assassinated, as was his brother running for president and a civil rights leader.  The so-called generation gap was advertised by hippies, LSD and Woodstock.  Cities and college campus were rocked by riots — Berkeley, Kent State, the Watts Riots in Los Angeles, the Democratic National Convention in Chicago — while hundreds of thousands marched on Washington to oppose the war and thousands marched through Alabama fighting for civil rights. The nation was divided.  The 1967 war in the Middle East resulted in a resounding defeat for Arab countries and the expansion of the nation of Israel, while the 1973 war in the same country almost resulted in the defeat of that same young, but old, nation.  A famine in Biafra was something talked about in every school as Americans sought to help the hungry there, as Americans help the hungry in Africa today.  Much of this was capped off by the resignation of a president in the early 1970s after Watergate and the beginning of a long recession with interest rates and inflation skyrocketing.  And yes, Vietnam became the first war where America suffered defeat.

My guess is that one can take any generation in human history and record the difficult and traumatic events of that season, and it can seem like the worst time of all times.  It often seems like that for those living through it.   In Jesus’ time, Israel was occupied by one of the most oppressive and immoral regimes in history.  The nation was divided into zealots, Essenes, Pharisees, Sadducees, priests and others living in a season of economic decline and in constant fear of revolution and war.  My parents’ generation dealt with the depression, Pearl Harbor and WW2.  My grandparents survived WW1, a worldwide flu epidemic that killed millions of young people, “the Roaring 20s,” prohibition and the crime that ensued, the dustbowl and that same depression.  The generation not long before that survived slavery, a civil war that had hundreds of thousands of Americans killed by other Americans, followed by the only American president ever impeached.  And yes, earthquakes, hurricanes, uncertain economies and people divided politically, economically and even religiously all filter through the story of every American generation.

There are two things we are all tempted to say that we probably should never say:

1. It’s worse than it has ever been;
2. I wish we could go back to the good old days when everything was better.

No matter the season any Christian lives in, the expectations of God are constant — love God, love neighbor, live the commandments, honor God, keep the faith, serve, give, confess, obey, pray and so on.  It’s not the season I live in; it’s my commitment to be faithful in that season.  In Revelation, a Bible book that speaks of the end times and the birth of the new heavens and the new earth, it encourages us to “overcome no matter what.”  It’s never about fear; it’s always about faithfulness.

What do I do?

“God has shown you what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” Micah 6:8

Jesus said it even more simply.

“Love God with all of your heart, all of your mind, and all of your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.” Luke 10:27

Perspective is always important, but the perspective of the Christian is not found in the news, history or fear of the future.  It is found in the faith we place in Jesus Christ, the love we have for God and our commitment to live a life that pleases Him and makes a difference in the world, all in the context of His Kingdom that is eternal.

Thoughts on discovering God’s will

I couldn’t count the times I have prayed the Lord’s Prayer, from childhood to today, in worship, on the road, in my backyard and in uncountable situations.  The Lord’s Prayer has been prayed by people in churches, in hospitals, at gravesides and on battlefields.  People who may know little of the Bible or the Christian faith often know the Lord’s Prayer, a prayer that was first prayed by the Disciples when they asked Jesus, “Teach us to pray!”

“Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.  Thy kingdom come.  Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven . . .”

The will of God — what an idea, what a question as to how to discover and live in the will of God.

When I was a brand new Christian, I made the decision to accept and follow Christ on a Sunday night.  I think the next few steps I took were as life-changing as the first step to believe.  I began struggling with doing the will of God.

I began to read the Bible.

I went to a Bible study on Wednesday night.

I went to church that Sunday at a small country church in Georgia.

But there is more, even a critical time that could very well have set the stage for more discoveries in God’s will as the years have gone by.  I went to a young adult Sunday School class that Sunday with a middle-aged teacher who had her hair in a bun (I was 20 and had traveled far from church).  She said that the pastor was looking for people to volunteer for more things in the church, so she was going to help him by looking for what we could do — the first search being for new choir members.  There were five or six of us in the class, and I was there for the first time.  She had us each go in a circle and sing a song.  I was on the verge of panic . . . should I leave and go back to the barracks, say “No, are you crazy?” or sing a song.  Since my world did not include many church songs — unless you consider Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven as a church song — the only song I could think of was Jesus Loves Me, a song most of us learned as children.  So, I sang it and ended up in the choir, a choir full of old folks, but I sang anyway.  If this was the will of God, then it was what I was going to do.  The rest, sort of, is history.

The Bible teaches in many ways that those who are faithful in small things — in the little things, in the beginning thing — God will give more.  These things seem to teach that discovering God’s will includes experiencing life as a partnership with God and seeing that partnership as a privilege, a privilege not experienced typically in leaps and bounds but one step of obedience and faith at a time — the first time I open the Bible, go to church, step into Celebrate Recovery, the first time I give a tithe, the first time I forgive my neighbor, the first time I act as a greeter, help in a class, serve in a mission, drop by the hospital, say “I’m sorry” — you understand — the steps of faith that overwhelm our choices and change our course and decide our future as we become available to God, the first step that leads to a second step, and one day to a surprising step on the way God has all along really wanted to bless and use us for His Kingdom purposes.

Thy will be done!

Thoughts on learning the secret

I remember the first time I set foot on a racquetball court.  I had my new racquet and was ready to go.  As the first ball was hit against the wall by my opponent, the experience became laughable very quickly.  With four walls, a ceiling and a floor, the ball can go in multiple, crazy directions leaving the player swinging at air.  But as I continued to play, I began to get better and started to win a few games.  I learned the secret of racquetball.  You don’t run around swinging at the ball, you learn where it is going, get there first and keep your opponent running around.  I learned how to play.

Paul recorded this in Philippians 4:11-12:
“Not that I complain of want, for I have learned, in whatever state I am, to be content.  I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound; in any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and want.”

As once again we hear difficult financial news, the news of a dropping stock market, a raised national debt ceiling and a lowered national credit rating.  This might cause some of us to be anxious.  We like good news.

Paul goes on in the next verse of Philippians to give us the secret:
“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

If our goal is to follow Christ, sometimes “want” can be a problem, creating anxiety and fear.  And yet in the same vein, “plenty” can sometimes be a problem, creating an illusion we don’t really need God.  We learn the secret.

Yet, the Bible promises and advises don’t stop there.  Paul also says in the context of the generosity of the Philippians church:
“My God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” (4:19)

Of course, here the secret is separating “need” from “want” and learning that God’s supply for us is born of our commitment to being generous.  The entire Philippians letter is a “thank you” (our stewardship campaign last year) to a generous church family who even from a foundation of want blessed others with their generosity.

I am continually amazed at the generosity of the First Methodist family, generosity revealed in many ways ever day.  Generosity and trusting Christ is the secret when anxiety-producing news comes out of Washington, Wall Street and wherever it comes from.

Thoughts on defining a miracle

Miracle — A true miracle is an event in the eternal world brought about by the immediate agency or the simple volition of God. (Bible Encyclopedia)

“The Miracle on the Hudson,” most of us remember this as the safe landing of a jet on the Hudson flown by Captain Sullenberger just a few years ago.  After birds hit the engines, the plane landed safely, and all passengers on board walked away.  Many have said Captain Sullenberger is a hero.  He sure is a good pilot.

“The Miracle on Ice” is the story of the U.S. hockey team where a group of mixed and matched college hockey players faced a professional Russian hockey team in 1980 and won in an amazing fashion in that year’s winter Olympics.  Even non-hockey fans cheered during this cold war face off.

“The Miracle on 34th Street” is a movie that came out in 1947 starring Natalie Wood that centers on the character of Santa Claus.  It is still a classic Christmas story today that may celebrate the innocence of a child as much as the idea of Santa.

Miracle — Anything God does!

To me this means that the very fact you are reading this Thought for the Week is a testimony to God’s miracles in the world and in your life, a testimony to God’s faithfulness, whether it be the parting of the Red Sea, the raising of Christ from the dead, the healing of the man at the gate called beautiful or the many acts of mercy we each experience in our world and in our lives day by day.  I can’t tell my story without telling of miracles, even if I don’t recognize them as miracles because God is always at work, sometimes in a very obvious event, but more likely in events that have become so common and routine that we miss that they are acts of God’s faithfulness in our lives.

After the people of God crossed the Red Sea — maybe the most obvious and celebrated miracle in the Old Testament — they entered a desert, quickly forgot the miracle, clamored for better food and a trip back to Egypt and slaver, which sometimes looked better from their perspective.  But even still, God was faithful.  God gave them everything they needed to make it to the Promised Land, sometimes more, but never less!  And so, God will do for all those who trust Him!

As Paul said on Mars’ Hill, Acts 17:27, “In God we live and move and have our being!”

Anything God does is a miracle.

Thoughts on Miracles

Miracle — An extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs.  (Miriam-Webster Dictionary)

There is more than one powerful connotation about our God Is Big Enough emphasis.  Almost daily I hear stories of how this truth and the visible picture of it through the blue wristband brings hope and faith into multiple situations — at the loss of a loved one, in a hospital room, a police car, an Afghanistan desert, a child dealing with divorce, during a struggle with cancer, in a chapel at a funeral home — the stories go on an on and continue to expand through many other churches.  It speaks of a truth that we need desperately, that there is a God and that that God is big enough.  The foundation of the campaign is that God still intervenes in human affairs and that miracles happen.  We are not alone, defenseless and helpless as we deal with the many limitations of our human nature.

If the first truth is that God is big enough, it is based upon an equally important truth, that you and I are not big enough. “God is big enough, and I am not” is the place where faith is at work, where miracles happen, where life changes, where God is often known and experienced most clearly!

I think sometimes it is easier for us to think that God is big enough than to really deal with the truth that we are not.

We are often surprised when we are ambushed by an illness.  It is difficult for us when someone we care about dies.  When our life hits a wall unexpectedly — job loss, financial problems, health issues, relationship difficulties, even a flat tire or a broken air conditioner — we easily get frustrated.  We can’t believe this could be happening to us, yet it is a part of the human condition, a condition where we are not big enough but God is, a God who loves us as deeply as the cross His Son died on for us, an unmistakable fact of God’s love, an act followed by an equally unmistakable moment of God’s power, the resurrection.  We sin, God gives salvation.  We die, and God raises the dead.  God is big enough, and we are not.  This is faith, this is where miracles happen!

Jesus said, “In this world you will have problems (tribulation), but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world!” John 16:33

1 Peter 4:12 records similar words, “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you.”

The next few weeks our emphasis will be Miracles!  Do miracles still happen?  What is a miracle?  Does God still exercise “divine intervention” in my life, my family, my church, my world?  I think that God does!

God Is Big Enough, and we are not — the place where miracles unfold!

Thoughts on “Guilt & Grace”

Amazing Grace is one of the most popular hymns of all time and has been at the top for generations.  It was written by John Newton, a former slave trader who wrote it reflecting on his old life and celebrating the change that God’s grace had made in his heart.  This ship captain, who was involved in the slave trade for many years, eventually became an Anglican priest (minister) and worked with William Wilberforce to eventually abolish the slave trade in England.

“Amazing grace!  How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me!  I once was lost, but now am found; was blind, but now I see.”

When I experienced God’s grace in Christ at 20, I sang that song all the way from Georgia to Texas, driving my 1969 white Chevy van with green shag carpet and an eight-track tape player.  I was going home to tell my family how God’s grace had changed my life.

Grace is pretty amazing because the best way to understand the significance and magnitude of God’s grace — that includes the change it has made in millions of lives, including John Newton’s, mine and surely yours as well — is to know the cost of grace, the price of grace, the value of grace.  I can’t fully understand the nature of sin and forgiveness or the nature of grace and God’s love until I look clearly at the cost.  It is here that we really know God, know ourselves and understand our relationship.

Here we must take a complete look at the cross. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”  The holiness, righteousness and just nature of God demands that a slave trader named John Newton and all the rest of us deserve to perish because of the magnitude of and significance of sin, but instead, we are given the fullness of life.  And, it’s eternal because of the greater significance and magnitude of the gift of God’s perfect son Jesus Christ on the cross.  Eyes that were once on sin and guilt are now on grace and freedom in God’s tangible love and sacrifice in a cross.

Grace can not only be understood and experienced, but also seen in a tangible, solid way, a graphic picture and story of God on a cross.

This weekend a new message series begins, Guilt & Grace.  Another way to put it is guilt is satanic, and grace is God.  Our teaching pastor, David Alexander, will be leading in this three-week series.  Here is what he says about it:

“While grace tells us a story about God that we want so desperately to be true, guilt tells us a story that we often find easier to believe.  The question we want to wrestle with is this:  whose story will we choose to believe?”

 “Amazing grace!  How sweet the sound . . .”

Thoughts on evidence of faith

In some of my final thoughts on War of the Worlds, a message emphasis we just completed, I want you to think about a few words that the Apostle Paul wrote near the end of his life, words written from a Roman prison.

“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.  Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day —and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.“ 2 Timothy 4:7-8

These words not only were a reflection of faith near the end of his life but also had been a guide throughout his life.

What guides you and me through our lives?

When I was on the mission trip in Louisiana with our high school kids, I took a morning off from the kitchen and visited some of the sites where our youth were building wheelchair ramps.  Being absolutely unfamiliar with that area, I depended on my GPS.  All I needed was an address to type in, and then the amazing satellite connection would direct me right to the front door of these homes where our kids were serving so well.  The key was putting in the correct address.  Where did I want to go?  What was my purpose?  Which was the right road?  When do I stop?  Once I got the purpose and the address, everything fell into place.

How does the Christian find the way in a world our faith is often at odds with?

What is the evidence of faith?

“We walk by faith, not by sight . . . the just shall live by faith.”

Some teach the evidence of faith is life going well, things happening as we desire, God working miracles for the believer.  There are elements of truth in this, but faith is far more than our vain attempts to manipulate our world.  Faith is directly related to the life that is lived by the Believer.

What is the evidence of faith?

• Conviction: A conviction is what I believe, who I believe in, what I live for, what my purpose is, a standard of faith that guides my choices, decisions and way of life.  A conviction is not culturally-based but based in what I believe; a biblical worldview is how many describe it.  A conviction is not a life spent seeking to manipulate God in a way one hopes will benefit them but a life lived for God because we love Him.  “I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day.” (2 Timothy 1:12)
• Strength: The strength for the living of the Christian is found in one and only one place — in a growing, developing, serious relationship with Jesus Christ.  Once we are convinced we believe in Jesus as God’s Son and our Savior, then it is a matter of day by day building that relationship through prayer, worship and community.  We will be as strong as that relationship.  “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:13)
• Courage: Courage is the willingness to pay the price, to make the sacrifice, to give oneself for whatever and whoever one believes in, for our convictions.  In a very self-centered, consumer-oriented world, the Christian is centered in Jesus Christ and is willing to pay the price, make the sacrifice, give oneself to that cause, a cause lived out in family, friendships, church, community and wherever the adventure of faith leads someone.  The evidence of faith is a courageous life!  “Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.” (James 1:12)

Thoughts on life

“Everything in the world is about to be wrapped up, so take nothing for granted. Stay wide-awake in prayer. Most of all, love each other as if your life depended on it. Love makes up for practically anything. Be quick to give a meal to the hungry, a bed to the homeless—cheerfully. Be generous with the different things God gave you, passing them around so all get in on it: if words, let it be God’s words; if help, let it be God’s hearty help. That way, God’s bright presence will be evident in everything through Jesus, and He’ll get all the credit as the One mighty in everything—encores to the end of time. Oh, yes!” 1 Peter 4:7-11, The Message Bible

Billy Graham may have led more people, probably millions, to Christ by personal invitation than anyone else in history and has preached and taught as America’s pastor for 60 years. Recently in a Newsweek article he made some serious statements about faith and belief:

• There are many things I don’t understand.
• Sincere Christians can disagree about the details of scripture and theology.
• We can grasp only so much; “For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” 1 Corinthians 13:12
• As time went on, I began to realize the love of God for everybody all over the world.
• With Jesus’ death on the cross some mysterious thing happened between God and the Son that we don’t understand.  But there He was alone, taking on the sins of the world.  I spend more time on the love of God than I used to.

I have had two dramatic experiences the last two days. My first was visiting with Wendy Sardella’s family, her husband Dave and children Kelly and Nick. She served on our staff and was a longtime member of our church. As we were planning her memorial service, I was remembering what a bright, funny, dynamic and giving person Wendy was.  We all miss her.  Then today I visited with Gary, a member who has been hospitalized several months with a debilitating illness with an unknown cause.  Gary is married to Gabby and has two small children. He wanted some more “God Is Big Enough” wrist bands to give to the nurses. He always wants prayer; he worries about his family, and yet is so considerate of those who have taken the time to travel to Dallas to see him. Both with Wendy and Gary, I understand something about life and the verse above from Peter.

• Everything is about to be wrapped up.
• Take nothing for granted.
• Stay awake in prayer.
• Most of all, love each other.
• Love covers everything.
• Live, love, serve, give, and be generous.
• Give credit to Jesus.
• The end of time is just the beginning for the Christian.

Thoughts on Unified Celebration Weekend

I am excited that our church has partnered with Bethlehem Baptist Church and Dallas Baptist University in planning Unified Celebration Weekend, a series of events over three days that will celebrate our community’s diversity and mark the historic journey from segregation to integration.  The weekend kicks off with a showing of a documentary about John Howard Griffin, the author of Black Like Me, in our church’s Chapel.  After the documentary, I, along with other community leaders will take part in a panel discussion.  I hope you will join me as we come together in a common goal of strengthening Mansfield in the years to come.

Thoughts on War of the Worlds

I have just begun a message series, War of the Worlds, that will continue for the next few weeks. Last Sunday I shared the first message.  I am offering a synopsis of that message here because I think it is a very important message for many reasons, and it certainly is the critical entry point into the rest of the series.  If you heard the message, I hope this is a good review for you.  If not, I hope you will spend some time with me grappling with the tension that exists between anyone who has chosen to follow Christ and the world that crucified Him.  Yes, folks, there is a real war of the worlds.
——————————————-
In 1953, the year I was born, a movie came out called War of the World. It came from an   H.G. Wells’ book written some 50 years previously.  The movie consists of Martian invaders coming to destroy the people of the Earth so that they can take it over.  As the Martians seem to be winning, the heroes of the movie and many others gather in a high-steepled church.  A pastor is praying at the pulpit as together they pray parts of the Lord’s Prayer, turn to God for help and wait for a miracle.  A miracle comes as the Martians begin to die from the common cold.  The Martians had not developed immunity to Earth diseases, so the smallest of God’s creations on Earth wins the war. Movie, war of the worlds, color, aliens, at the end, in a church praying, pastor leading the prayer, germs, God — and God’s creation wins the war.

In 2005, a Tom Cruise remake of the same movie, War of the Worlds, came out.  The Martians still die of the common cold at the end, but God and the church’s place in the movie are extraordinarily different.  At the beginning of the movie aliens burst on the scene, and the first building they destroy is a church.  The viewer watches as a high-steepled church, much like the one in the 1953 movie, is destroyed and crumples to the ground.  It seems like slow motion as the historical icon of America and every American city becomes a moot point in the story line.  It is the last time the viewer will see any prayer or hear anyone ask God for help or mercy.

These movies are a simple, yet powerful, microcosm of the war the believer and follower of Christ is really in.

We live in a post-Christian America.  Now don’t get me wrong, there are millions of Christians in this country, worshiping, serving and loving God.  But the culture does not submit to God, God’s way or God’s will.  One author put it very simply, “God has become weightless.”  Even though 90% of Americans believe in God, few allow God to influence their choices, values and way of life; this is certainly true of the culture as a whole.  This means that those who do want to live for God and churches that want to influence the world from a biblical standpoint will experience a tension, even a sense of being at war with the very world they live in.  The good news:  this is most often where God works, just as He worked in Christ who loved the people of the world, the very people that eventually put Him on the cross.

In a recent survey of Americans, George Barna discovered that only 9% of Americans have a biblical worldview and only 19% of evangelical Christians do.  A worldview is how we see the world, see ourselves, even see God, and how we interact with God and the world we live in.  It is how we experience life, how we decide our values, how we feel, even how we think.  Everyone has a worldview — some a cultural one, some a biblical one.

The simple definition of a biblical worldview as defined by George Barna, the premier church expert, is based on surveys of Christians.  Those who have a biblical worldview believe:

• Absolute moral truth exists;
• The Bible is accurate in all the principles it teaches;
• Satan is a real being, a real enemy;  tangible evil exists in the world;
• A person cannot earn the way to heaven, faith in Christ is the entry into salvation;
• Jesus Christ lived a sinless life on earth, existing as the Son of God;
• God is the all-knowing, all-powerful creator of the world.

With this information in mind, all it takes to be at war, to experience tension in a war of the worlds, is to have:

• A standard of faith;
• A standard of practice;
• A standard of belief;
• A standard of behavior;
• A standard of life.

If I have a biblical standard of practice, behavior, belief and life, the battle lines are drawn immediately:

• When I say I believe in God;
• When I say Jesus Christ is my Lord;
• Whey I say the Bible is my book;
• When I say this is right, this is wrong, this is good, this is bad this is love, this is evil.

The war begins and how I interact with the world changes when the tension starts because we live in a world with a different god, a different lord, different books, different rights and wrongs, different good and bad, a different standard for interaction with the world around them.

“I say these things while I am in the world so that they can share completely in my joy.  I gave your word to them and the world hated them, because they don’t belong to this world, just as I don’t belong to this world.  I’m not asking that you take them out of this world but that you keep them safe from the evil one.  They don’t belong to this world, just as I don’t belong to this world.  Make them holy in the truth; your word is truth.  As you sent me in the world, so I have sent them.” (Jesus) -John 17:13-19

“See to it that nobody takes you captive with philosophy and foolish deception, which conform to human tradition and the way the world thinks and acts, rather than Christ.” -Colossians 2:8

1. Pantheism Impersonal Divinity                  There is no center.
   God is everything — creation itself, the world, humanity, the universe, etc.  God is not identifiable or personal, has no character, purpose or central being.  God is only a spiritual force, and all that is part of that spiritual force.  There is no center, no absolutes, no purpose and no direct contact with any god, much less that Christians celebrate.  Many in our culture believe in a spiritual force calling this “God,” but their god, with teachings, absolutes and truth, is not the center of their worldview.  Many, many Americans have this worldview, and many are in the seats of churches around the country.  With this worldview, there is no center; everything becomes a moving target.
2. Philosophical Syncretistic Divinity                  Humanity is the center.
   People here get to pick and choose, developing their religious or spiritual beliefs and gathering information and ideas from many religions, spiritual ideas, etc., from all kinds of sources.  The Bible might be one of these sources, and Christianity might be one of their ideas, but in the end, their belief system is defined by a “pick and chooses” method that leaves them with much less than a biblical worldview.  This leaves the person at the center, setting their own beliefs, standards and faith, developing whatever works or whatever they like, often looking for spiritual principles that help them either achieve their goals or help them in life.
3. Christianity Jesus is the Son of God.                  God is center.
   There is a standard of truth, an absolute truth that is the Bible, the person of Jesus Christ, the example of Jesus Christ and the teaching of Jesus Christ.  As the Gospel of John says, a truth that works to form and shape the follower of Jesus Christ by truth, “Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.”  Jesus is “the same yesterday, today and for ever.”  This unchanging standard works to create a worldview where God is at the center and the believer continually turns toward God.  We are accountable to God, need God, must accept God and our energy must be turned to know and experience God’s will.

Any worldview we have will dictate how we understand ourselves, understand God and interact with the world.

In 1940, Germany invaded France.  The German ideology we know as Nazism was maybe the most evil, anti-God and anti-people philosophy in the history of the world.  Yet Hitler was able to hijack a nation, mobilize an army and turn on the world.  In just a few weeks, 1.8 million French soldiers surrendered, most without firing a shot.  History says the country, and especially the army, was divided, depressed and defeated long before the blitzkrieg across the Maginot line.  I sometimes worry that Christians look at themselves, and then at the world, and surrender, thinking it is too difficult to fight to live for God and even more difficult to fight against the evil, injustice, pain and hurt of the world we live in.  This the church and the Christian can never do.   As Jesus said, God sent Him into the world, and He has chosen to send the church into the world.  This is you and me, engaging and interacting with the world around us in the context of biblical truth, the power of the Holy Spirit and the good news of Jesus Christ.  The Christian can’t lose!

If you have a life centered in God, you will be at war with a world that is multi-cultural, pantheistic, syncretistic and agonist.  The set of rules that you follow will be at odds with the rules of the world.  Tension will set in between you and the world.  The temptations you deal with and the decisions you will have to make every day need to be filtered through a biblical world view.  Just as God works in this tension, a Holy tension, between his followers and the world, so God also works in this tension between the church and the world.  A church that gives, love and serves but also stands for a biblical way of life will be at war with the world.  But this same tension will call the world to the Christ that gives it.  When Jesus came to the world, many followed, but many did not.  But as time went on, that initial war of the good news engaging the world changed that world.

In this different kind of war, everyone must make a decision:

• God does or does not exist;
• God does or does not care;
• God is or is not involved;
• The culture is Lord or Jesus Christ is Lord.

In a biblical worldview, we believe that God is, and we are accountable to this amazing being responsible for our existence.  We are convinced God cares for us, that in the coming of Jesus Christ we know that God so loved the world.  We have no doubt that God is personally present among us, involved in the world, the church and even in our lives in ways defined by His love, His wisdom and His power, all far greater than our own.  We are committed to the truth that we are not to be in abeyance to wherever the changing culture is at a given time, but we are to bend the knee to Jesus Christ to whom “all knees will bow and all tongues confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the Glory of God the father.”

Which worldview do we choose?