Now, chew on these no nonsense get-ready predictions from II Peter 2 after chapter one’s consolations/encouragements….

2 Peter 2:1-22 (MSG) 

1. But there were also lying prophets among the people then, just as there will be lying religious teachers among you. They’ll smuggle in destructive divisions, pitting you against each other—biting the hand of the One who gave them a chance to have their lives back! They’ve put themselves on a fast downhill slide to destruction,

2. but not before they recruit a crowd of mixed-up followers who can’t tell right from wrong. They give the way of truth a bad name.

3. They’re only out for themselves. They’ll say anything, anything, that sounds good to exploit you. They won’t, of course, get by with it. They’ll come to a bad end, for God has never just stood by and let that kind of thing go on.

4. God didn’t let the rebel angels off the hook, but jailed them in hell till Judgment Day.

5. Neither did he let the ancient ungodly world off. He wiped it out with a flood, rescuing only eight people—Noah, the sole voice of righteousness, was one of them.

6. God decreed destruction for the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. A mound of ashes was all that was left—grim warning to anyone bent on an ungodly life.

7. But that good man Lot, driven nearly out of his mind by the sexual filth and perversity, was rescued.

8. Surrounded by moral rot day after day after day, that righteous man was in constant torment.

9. So God knows how to rescue the godly from evil trials. And he knows how to hold the feet of the wicked to the fire until Judgment Day.

10. God is especially incensed against these “teachers” who live by lust, addicted to a filthy existence. They despise interference from true authority, preferring to indulge in self-rule. Insolent egotists, they don’t hesitate to speak evil against the most splendid of creatures.

11. Even angels, their superiors in every way, wouldn’t think of throwing their weight around like that, trying to slander others before God.

12. These people are nothing but brute beasts, born in the wild, predators on the prowl. In the very act of bringing down others with their ignorant blasphemies, they themselves will be brought down, losers in the end.

13. Their evil will boomerang on them. They’re so despicable and addicted to pleasure that they indulge in wild parties, carousing in broad daylight.

14. They’re obsessed with adultery, compulsive in sin, seducing every vulnerable soul they come upon. Their specialty is greed, and they’re experts at it. Dead souls!

15. They’ve left the main road and are directionless, having taken the way of Balaam, son of Beor, the prophet who turned profiteer, a connoisseur of evil.

16. But Balaam was stopped in his wayward tracks: A dumb animal spoke in a human voice and prevented the prophet’s craziness.

17. There’s nothing to these people—they’re dried-up fountains, storm-scattered clouds, headed for a black hole in hell.

19. They promise these newcomers freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption, for if they’re addicted to corruption—and they are—they’re enslaved.

20. If they’ve escaped from the slum of sin by experiencing our Master and Savior, Jesus Christ, and then slid back into that same old life again, they’re worse than if they had never left.

21. Better not to have started out on the straight road to God than to start out and then turn back, repudiating the experience and the holy command.

22. They prove the point of the proverbs, “A dog goes back to its own vomit,” and, “A scrubbed-up pig heads for the mud.”

BOTTOM LINE: Anything above sound familiar to you considering our current events? I suggest you continue on into chapter three and then enjoy rereading both I & II Peter every month or so. If I recall, I’ve heard some theologians infer that these two epistles were written expressly for the “suffering church.” I’m thinking perhaps the American remnant may soon qualify. Are we ready?

NEXT UP: You ever hear how the Twelve Disciples transitioned to their eternal rewards? I’m sure you did, but if not, here goes… Blessings on your journey to sainthood… mle 050824

Just notice here how the Apostle Peter so succinctly speaks Life Giving Truths after yesterday’s AmericanMinute barrage of 3000+ words….

2 Peter 1:1-21 (MSG)

  1. I, Simon Peter, am a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ. I write this to you whose experience with God is as life-changing as ours, all due to our God’s straight dealing and the intervention of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ.
  2. Grace and peace to you many times over as you deepen in your experience with God and Jesus, our Master.
  3. Everything that goes into a life of pleasing God has been miraculously given to us by getting to know, personally and intimately, the One who invited us to God. The best invitation we ever received!
  4. We were also given absolutely terrific promises to pass on to you—your tickets to participation in the life of God after you turned your back on a world corrupted by lust.
  5. So don’t lose a minute in building on what you’ve been given, complementing your basic faith with good character, spiritual understanding,
  6. alert discipline, passionate patience, reverent wonder,
  7. warm friendliness, and generous love, each dimension fitting into and developing the others.
  8. With these qualities active and growing in your lives, no grass will grow under your feet, no day will pass without its reward as you mature in your experience of our Master Jesus.
  9. Without these qualities you can’t see what’s right before you, oblivious that your old sinful life has been wiped off the books.
  10. So, friends, confirm God’s invitation to you, his choice of you. Don’t put it off; do it now. Do this, and you’ll have your life on a firm footing,
  11. the streets paved and the way wide open into the eternal kingdom of our Master and Savior, Jesus Christ.
  12. Because the stakes are so high, even though you’re up-to-date on all this truth and practice it inside and out, I’m not going to let up for a minute in calling you to attention before it.
  13. This is the post to which I’ve been assigned—keeping you alert with frequent reminders—and I’m sticking to it as long as I live.
  14. I know that I’m to die soon; the Master has made that quite clear to me.
  15. And so I am especially eager that you have all this down in black and white so that after I die, you’ll have it for ready reference.
  16. We weren’t, you know, just wishing on a star when we laid the facts out before you regarding the powerful return of our Master, Jesus Christ. We were there for the preview! We saw it with our own eyes:
  17. Jesus resplendent with light from God the Father as the voice of Majestic Glory spoke: “This is my Son, marked by my love, focus of all my delight.”
  18. We were there on the holy mountain with him. We heard the voice out of heaven with our very own ears.
  19. We couldn’t be more sure of what we saw and heard—God’s glory, God’s voice. The prophetic Word was confirmed to us. You’ll do well to keep focusing on it. It’s the one light you have in a dark time as you wait for daybreak and the rising of the Morning Star in your hearts.
  20. The main thing to keep in mind here is that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of private opinion.
  21. And why? Because it’s not something concocted in the human heart. Prophecy resulted when the Holy Spirit prompted men and women to speak God’s Word.
    • NEXT UP: Peter takes off his gloves in the next chapter (2) and gives us the bottom line just as he forsees it. Warning: May be offensive to many…. Blessings

There is a controversial new label the mainstream media is using, CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM? What is it? What did it used to be called?

To answer that, there are three points to consider:  
The first is, that nationalism is the opposite of globalism
second, that nationalism is defined by the integrity of that nation; and 
third, that Christian nationalism was formerly called Christian patriotism, and past Presidents, Democrat and Republican, encouraged it.  

1.) Let’s look at the first point: nationalism is the opposite of globalism.   
Did you know there are people called “globalists” who want to do away with nations and set up a one world government, which, of course, they will control. Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum produced an Agenda 2030 video, which had the line: “You will own nothing and be happy.”    This sounds a lot like Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto: “The theory of the communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.”   “Abolition of private property” means “you will own nothing”! How do globalists plan on getting you to give up your property and freedom? –The Great Reset!

Jack Posobiec of Human Events Daily, stated on OAN, November 24, 2022: “The Great Reset is very much like communism … They’ll tell you it is about diversity … equality … climate … But … what they want is … total government.” People will not give up their property and freedom if everything is fine, but if there is a crisis, they will trade freedom for security. (Consider past covid as a trial run, perhaps computer hacking will be next? )  

The Great Reset is an orchestrated global crisis to produce dependency on international government.  Michael Rectemwald wrote in Imprimis “What Is the Great Reset?” December 2021: “Klaus Schwab and Thierry Malleret write that “if the past five centuries in Europe and America have taught us anything … it is that ‘acute crises contribute to boosting the power of the state.’”    Peter Thiel, founder of PayPal, warned in a lecture at Stanford’s Classical Liberalism Institute, November 18, 2022: “The zeitgeist [or mood] on the other side is ‘we are not going to make it for another century on this planet and therefore we need to embrace a one world totalitarian state right now’ …  Whatever the dangers are in the future we need to never underestimate the danger of one world totalitarian state …”    Thiel continued: “First Thessalonians 5:3, the political slogan of the antichrist is ‘peace and safety’ … I want to suggest … we would do well to be a little more scared of the antichrist and a little a less scared of Armageddon.” In other words, don’t be afraid of the world ending, be afraid of the people who promise to save you from the world ending. Henry Mencken wrote in Notebooks, 1956: “The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it.”   

2.) The second point is: nationalism is defined by the integrity of that nation. Most nations have an “honor-shame” culture, where an individual’s worth is based on what group they belong to, for example:   – Ancient Egypt’s social classes with the Pharaoh’s family on top;   – India’s caste system has four major castes and many minor ones;   – Imperial China had the Hundred Family Surnames;   – European classes divided royalty from peasantry;   – Islamic communities consider men worth more than women, who are worth more than infidels;   – Communist Party members are worth more than common people;   – Atheistic utilitarianism gives more value to those contributing to “the state.”   The latest rendition of this is “intersectionality,” where a person’s worth is based on how many minority groups they belong to, with “trans” being superior to all others, resulting in those on the left wanting to impose a “transgender-nationalism.” Where nationalism is bad in totalitarian nations as they deny individual rights, in America, nationalism has been preserving a nation where you have worth regardless of what group you belong to.   

President Roosevelt explained, June 14, 1942: “The belief in man, created free, in the image of God — is the crucial difference between ourselves and the enemies we face today.” President Truman said in his Inaugural Address, January 20, 1949: “The American people … believe that all men are created equal because they are created in the image of God.” President Eisenhower said November 9, 1954: “Democracy is nothing in the world but spiritual conviction … that each of us is enormously valuable because of a certain standing before our own God.” Lincoln stated in his Gettysburg Address, 1863: “Our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal …  That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” 

Nationalism is bad in socialist and Islamist nations where governments do not guarantee to individuals inalienable rights, but in America, “nationalism” is supporting a nation whose very purpose is to guarantee to each individual their God-given rights. These rights include freedom of conscience, religion, speech, press, assembly, self-defense, impartial trial, no cruel and unusual punishment — the freedom to determine their own destiny.” Eisenhower said February 20, 1955: “The Founding Fathers … recognizing God as the author of individual rights, declared that the purpose of government is to secure those rights.”   

The third point to consider is: Christian nationalism was formerly called called Christian patriotism. It was as American as football and apple pie. The word “nationalism” was not even in use in America when Noah Webster compiled his 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language, –yet the word “patriotism” was. Webster’s 1828 Dictionary gave the definition: “Patriotism is the characteristic of a good citizen, the noblest passion that animates a man in the character of a citizen …   Love of one’s country; the passion which aims to serve one’s country, either in defending it from invasion, or protecting its rights and maintaining its laws and institutions in vigor and purity.” Past Presidents, Democrat and Republican, encouraged Christian patriotism. George Washington referred to both “Christian” and “patriot” in his order to troops at Valley Forge, May 2, 1778: “To the distinguished character of Patriot, it should be our highest Glory to laud the more distinguished Character of Christian.” Washington wrote, July 9, 1776: “The General hopes and trusts, that every officer and man, will endeavor so to live, and act, as becomes a Christian soldier, defending the dearest rights and liberties of his country.”   

Republican President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation and pushed through the 13th Amendment, freeing four million slaves. He stated in his Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861: “Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him … are still competent to adjust in the best way all our present difficulty.” Lincoln mentioned the words “patriotism” and “Christianity” right next to each other in his Inaugural Address! In the Post-Reconstruction era, Republican President Theodore Roosevelt condemned KKK mobs in Democrat southern states, December 3, 1906: “As Bishop Charles Galloway of Mississippi has said: ‘The mob lynches a Negro … Every Christian patriot in America needs to lift up his voice in loud and eternal protest against the mob spirit.” 

Republican President William Howard Taft had stated in 1908: “No man can study the movement of modern civilization … and not realize that … the spread Christianity [is] the basis of … modern civilization in the growth of popular self-government. The spirit of Christianity is pure democracy. It is equality of man before God — the equality of man before the law.” Democrat President Woodrow Wilson warned in 1923: “We call ours a Christian civilization, a Christian conception of justice … Our civilization … can be saved only by becoming permeated with the spirit of Christ and being made free and happy by the practices which spring out of that spirit.” Democrat President Franklin Roosevelt, an Episcopalian, wrote the prologue of a Gideon’s New Testament and Book of Psalms that was given out to millions of soldiers and sailors during World War II. Roosevelt stated October 6, 1935: “The printing of the first English Bible is an event of great significance … We trace … the widespread dissemination of those moral and spiritual precepts that have so greatly affected the progress of Christian civilization.”   

Roosevelt stated September 1, 1941: “Preservation of these rights is vitally important … to the whole future of Christian civilization.” FDR stated November 1, 1940: “Those forces hate democracy and Christianity as two phases of the same civilization … They oppose democracy because it is Christian. They oppose Christianity because it preaches democracy.” Would today’s mainstream media label Roosevelt a “Christian nationalist”?    

Democrat President Truman said, August 28, 1947: “This is a Christian Nation … As a Christian Nation our earnest desire is to work with men of good will everywhere to banish war.” Truman lit the National Christmas Tree, December 24, 1952, saying: “Through Jesus Christ the world will yet be a better and a fairer place.” Would today’s mainstream media label Truman a “Christian Nationalist”? 

Republican President Dwight Eisenhower said, November 9, 1954: “This relationship between a spiritual faith … and our form of government is … obvious … ‘Man is endowed by his Creator’ …   When you come back to it, there is just one thing … man is worthwhile because he was born in the image of God…   Any group that … awaken[s] all of us to these simple things … is … a dedicated, patriotic group that can well take the Bible in one hand and the Flag in the other, and march ahead.” Democrat President John F. Kennedy wrote to Brazil’s President, January 31, 1961: “To each of us is entrusted the heavy responsibility of guiding the affairs of a democratic nation founded on Christian ideals.” Would today’s mainstream media label Kennedy a “Christian Nationalist”? 

Americans have historically been patriotic and a majority Christian. Patricia U. Bonomi, professor emeritus of New York University, wrote: “The colonists were about 98 percent Protestant.” J. Tobin Grant wrote in Measuring Aggregate Religiosity in the United States, 1952-2005, that in 1965, America’s population was 93 percent Christian, consisting of 69 percent Protestant and 24 percent Catholic, with 3 percent of the population Jewish. Jeffrey M. Jones wrote: “According to an average of all 2021 Gallup polling, about three in four Americans said they identify with a specific religious faith. By far the largest proportion, 69%, identify with a Christian religion, including 35% who are Protestant, 22% Catholic and 12% who identify with another Christian religion or simply as a ‘Christian.’”   

In America, religious tolerance evolved from Pilgrims and Puritans to all Protestant Christians, then to Catholics, Jews, liberal pseudo–Christian groups, then to monotheists and polytheists, then to just about every religion, and finally Islamists, atheists, and satanists. Ironically, the last ones in want to kick the first ones out. They are intolerant of the beliefs that tolerated them. Ronald Reagan stated August 23, 1984:  “The frustrating thing is that those who are attacking religion claim they are doing it in the name of tolerance. Question: Isn’t the real truth that they are intolerant of religion?” Bob Unruh wrote in WND.com, April 1, 2024: “The state … attacks Christians with a so-called ‘non-discrimination’ agenda that actually discriminates against people of faith.” 

Why does the mainstream media insist on calling Christian patriots “Christian nationalists”? For the same reason they call Pro-Life supporters “anti-abortion.” No Pro-Life group labels itself “anti-abortion.” Yet every mainstream new article that covers the subject labels Pro-Life people “anti-abortion.” Why? Negative word association. They want to malign public opinion against them. What is happening is called psychological projection. Intolerant activists accuse Christians of being intolerant, when in reality, they are the ones who are intolerant of Christians. It is a narcissistic response called blame-shifting, where the attacker blames the victim. They accuse the innocent of what they are guilty of. Little children instinctively do this, saying, “I didn’t start the fight – you did!” A cheating spouse will accuse the faithful spouse of being unfaithful. In the Bible, Potiphar’s wife accused Joseph of lusting after her when she was lusting after him. Nero reportedly set fire to Rome yet blamed it on Christians. Democrat Political advisor David Axelrod said on NPR, April 19, 2010: “In Chicago, there was an old tradition of throwing a brick through your own campaign office window, and then calling a press conference to say that you’ve been attacked.” Nancy Pelosi called it “the wrap up smear.” Harry Reid accused Mitt Romney of not paying his taxes, causing negative press which perhaps cost him the election. TIME magazine fact checked and found Romney actually did pay his taxes. When questioned, Reid responded, “I lied about Romney, but he didn’t win, did he?” 

Left-wing activists use Critical Race Theory, DEI, ESG, to force an irreligious nationalism; an unprecedented satanist theocracy; a transgender-dominionism, to censor and cancel Bible–believing Christians and Pro-Life Catholics. They employ a “fear mongering” technique. The Telegraph’s article, December 12, 2023, exposed a Hollywood producer using fear mongering:   “Rob Reiner is deluded about ‘Christian nationalism’—The God and Country movie trailer presents ordinary religious Americans as nationalist boogeymen”: “Reiner’s … examples of Christian Nationalism … are so broad that even the late Queen Elizabeth had a brush with it … [and] … Billy Graham …   The inescapable conclusion is that average Christian beliefs and average Christian engagement in the public sphere is exactly what Reiner and his abettos [collaborators] hope to target. They want to shame followers of Jesus from taking part in the very same political activities their secular counterparts do.” 

TheGatewayPundit.com reported February 23, 2024:  “Heidi Przybyla, a reporter for Politico, appeared on MSNBC this week and fretted as she explained that Christian Nationalists believe that Americans’ rights are granted by God and not Congress or the Supreme Court …   The rights of Americans DO come from God and not the government, which anyone knows if they have read the country’s founding documents. TheGateway Pundit.com published Mike LaChance’s article, February 29, 2024:  “Last week, a reporter for the liberal outlet Politico … suggested that if you’re an American who believes that your rights come from God and not the government, that you’re a Christian Nationalist … 

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins and Catholic Vote President Brian Burch fired off a letter … to Politico …  demanding an apology … saying …   Politico’s reporter failed to acknowledge ‘that our own Republic was founded on the belief that our rights come from God, not earthly kings or government,’ a revolutionary idea ‘clearly articulated in the Declaration of Independence …   Perkins and Burch called out Przybyla for “an attempt to spread misinformation about Christians.”    Ed Martin of Phyllis Schlafly Eagles, responded, March 1, 2024: “Heidi Przybyla … isn’t railing against ‘Christian Nationalism,’ she’s railing against the American Founding.” 

Mainstream media accuses Christian patriots of wanting to “force” their beliefs on others, but how can you force freedom on people? Instead of “dominionism,” patriots want “freedomism.” Patriots don’t want to force their beliefs on anyone, they just don’t want government forcing its progressive beliefs on them. They want the government to stop legislating immorality. 

So to simply review, what is Christian nationalism? The three points to consider when answering that question are: 

  1. nationalism is the opposite of globalism;
  2. nationalism is defined by the integrity of that nation; and 
  3. Christian nationalism was formerly called Christian patriotism, and past Presidents, Democrat and Republican, encouraged it.

Provided by the American Minute. Contact Bill Federer, www.AmericanMinute.com, for more information.

BOTTOM LINE: As my childhood trusted radio commentator was frequent heard to quip, “and now for the rest of the story,” is sorta how I view this document from a group with whom I possess no history, pro or con, and indeed as the above article depicts, we are now witnessing “the rest of the story.” just as predicted. Considering my Anabaptist moorings, how I now long for conversations with the likes of my EMC profs from the later sixties as they had released their newly birthed Gen Ed series in the science auditorium in September 1968, right on the heels of the two assassinations, (Martin Luther King-April 4, Bobby Kennedy-May 6), the summer riots, etc. I am thinking particularly of then EMC’s two extraordinary contemplative historians: Albert Keim, birthed Amish in Holmes Co. and his Lansdale PA counterpart, John Lapp, for their comments today on the above document and its historical snippets. Little did we know back then during Fall Term ’68 while sitting in our cozy auditorium theater seats safe from the Vietnam atrocities, that the deception birthed in the later 19th century in the US and western Europe was well rooted and even already “flowering,” and that these episodic events of the sixties were not merely random, but an integral piece of their historical strategic march ever gaining diverse allegiances in their wake to culminate in global domination by 2030, citing now from their recent public narratives from the WEF quoted above…

Actually, the rest of the story is continuing to unfold now in plain sight, as declared from the predictive Biblical and ancient manuscripts, offering us opportunity to declare allegiance to His kingdom, OR otherwise. Either way, monumental eternal consequences await each of us…. even as the stringed quartet is playing beautiful music as the deck of the western civilization is slowly listing, reminiscent of the Titanic…

My Utmost for His Highest devotional reading for today, April 21, aptly summarizes our response to the Kingdom allegiance question: “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Phillip?” John 14:9. The readings last two sentences are: “God never guides us at some time in the future, but always here and now. Realize that the Lord is here NOW, and the freedom you receive is immediate.” Indeed a most timely profound reading …

NEXT UP: No idea. You only got this today because its been waiting in the wings since before vacation and I broke my computer screen on the flight. Much to share, dwindling time, eternity awaits, God is not mocked! >>>mle050224

How Come Churches Often Lag Behind the Business World Providing Us Examples Of Unity Like We Read Below?

In Dr. Henry Cloud’s book 2023 book Trust In Life & Business: Knowing When to Give It, When to Withhold It, How to Earn It, and How to Fix It When It Gets Broken, he identifies the five essentials of trust: Understanding, Motive, Ability, Character, and Track Record. In Chapter Five, while exploring the second essential, Motive, he relays this experience with a client corporation.

“One of the most powerful drivers of trust is knowing that someone’s motive is rooted in a higher calling principle or value that transcends their own interests. I recently conducted a retreat for the executive team of a major US company. Their accomplishments were legendary, outpacing their competitors exponentially and returning massive equity growth for their stockholders. The team had just emerged from successfully managing the worst of COVID, and it was time to set the next season’s strategy.

To begin the retreat, I wanted to see how the team of executives grasped the strengths that had driven their success in the previous couple of years and how well they understood what had happened and why. I gave them a simple assignment to begin: Take a few minutes and write down what you think is the greatest strength of this team.”

When they turned in their answers, I was astonished. I have never seen such unity among a group of executives. Unanimously, they said their greatest strength was one thing: “our commitment to our corporate purpose.” Not one person said it was their marketing savvy, their innovation, their creativity, or their research and development. They all said their greatest strength was their unity around the corporate purpose. And here’s the real magic: their corporate purpose is centered around serving others.

The fact that they all served a higher purpose allowed them to behave and to execute in a manner that everyone could trust. There was no silo behavior, no pushing of department agendas, no careerism to be found. They were all devoted to the higher purpose they had come together to achieve.

This resulted in an unprecedented level of collaboration – sharing resources, people, information, power and the like. These people truly worked together. Certainly, they had different opinions at times, but in a way that was always in search of “the best answer” instead of “my best interests.” These were not people who didn’t care about profits or accomplishments; they did. But they weren’t only motivated by profits. Their driving force was serving others and the purpose of the company.

As a result, the employees of this company trusted each other. When someone did something another person might question, the question wasn’t rooted in suspicion. Instead, it came from an attitude of “I wonder why she did that? I know she must have had a good reason.” This kind of trust goes a long way to avoid politics and division.

Trust is a powerful force, and as we’ve seen, it yields powerful results in everything from brain development to marriage to economics. In fact, trust is the fuel for all of life. The takeaway here is that trust increases when we know that someone’s motive is just not about themselves, but rather, about us and about a higher purpose that we all value as well.

Bottom Line: So why then are our “fragmented” friendships, relationships, marriages, families, churches, communities, states, and nations, so lacking in their “Unity of Purpose?” Especially since God wired us biologically to trust from infancy, learning that trust followed by satisfaction builds more trust, that we by placing our trust in God and other persons makes every system about us develop and ultimately thrive, and that for us to trust is human… and when we can’t trust, we handicap much of our future potential for His rich and rewarding human experiences….

My first thought after reading this account, was just how could a congregation ever begin to exhibit this level of unity in their purpose? And that was followed rapidly by the second thought to me personally, how can I contribute to such a unity being lovingly exhibited “in & around, out & about” as we live & build His Kingdom Today? Perhaps after being Unshakable in ’24, 2025 will focus on TRUST as being our fuel for all of life.

Next Up: We’re planning to be in Panama for two weeks finalizing our visas so we’ll see what else transpires, written or otherwise. Blessings…

Radio psychiatrist Frazier Crane (from the TV show Frasier) has had a long, rough day. Finally, when a man steals his waited-for seat at the local coffee shop, Frasier has had enough. Grabbing the man by the collar, he runs him out of the shop, shouting, “What you need is an etiquette lesson!”

Later Frasier chastises himself for allowing his more animal nature to momentarily rule. He prefers, he says, to settle his disagreements like an adult, with words and reason. But the newspaper hails him as a sort of folk hero. And to his dismay, people begin to follow his example, giving little etiquette lessons of their own. A caller, who used a leaf blower a seven AM, brags about smashing the leaf blower into a tree. Another shoves a pound of rotten shrimp into a rival’s air conditioner.

After dozens of callers describe their vigilante exploits, Frasier exclaims that they’ve gone too far. “I displayed a minor bit of force to just make a point. I didn’t go around smashing windows or torching lawns! Where does this end?” His caller replies, “Are you saying that what I did was wrong?” “Of course I am!” shouts Frasier. And the caller responds, “But what you did was ok?” This stops Frasier in his tracks. And then – and this is one of the reasons I really love this show – Frasier realizes what the right thing to do is, and does it. “Come to think of it, what I did was just wrong. I mean, who am I to draw the line at the acceptable level of force?”

Frasier realizes in that moment what God has provided for all along: righteousness must be complete to be worth anything at all. Any sin, whether more or less socially acceptable, is evidence of a root problem. Anger and murder come from the same place. It is only God who can draw the line, and it is only God who can toe it.

Today, remember that you’re worse than you think you are. But remember also, that God’s gift of righteousness to you is greater than you could ever imagine.

UP NEXT: In his Dr. Henry Cloud’s book 2023 book Trust In Life & Business: Knowing When to Give It, When to Withhold It, How to Earn It, and How to Fix It When It Gets Broken, identifies the five essentials of trust: Understanding, Motive, Ability, Character, and Track Record. In Chapter Five, while exploring the second essential, Motive, he relays this experience with a client corporation excelling in their UNITY OF PURPOSE…

A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship In An Instant Society. A Christian who stays put is no better than a statue, waiting to be pulled down when the tides changed..

by Eugene Peterson …   Psalm 132 explained.

I was recently introduced to the author Eugene Peterson by my friend Chuck so I ordered the four books he suggested but have only completed three so far savoring them like quality ice cream after an tasty meal (actually ice cream is welcome here anytime) .  And to think I had been incorrectly assuming all along, he had only written The Message! No longer! I find it noteworthy and indicative of the wordsmith he was, that Peterson once commandeered a key word phrase associated with atheist philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche – that the only way to live life is to find a standard and stick to it – and repurposed it to be about following Jesus nonetheless! Peterson literally stole the nonbeliever’s catchphrase, “a long obedience in the same direction,” and made it the name of his own best-selling Christian book first released in 1980. What makes Peterson’s message so unique today is he exudes the bedrock transformation offered only by Jesus Christ, whereas many believers today tend to view the Nietzsche and Marxist deception as smoke and mirrors leading to death. Take note for The Message, his paraphrase of the Bible, has transformed the dusty, ancient Christian scriptures into imaginative literature for contemporary readers seeking truth.

While I was reading this chapter 14 (which I’ve summarized below – now with the Preface (verbatim) over 2300 words long; perhaps you can read it in installments while rationing out your ice cream) when I just laughed out loud thoroughly enjoying the lead off hospital incident. The truths of his Kelly parable and the pollster’s definitive “frivolous” report resonates with me as I too at times can mistake a sore throat for a descent into hell.(“Peterson, pray for me!”) Perhaps the best possible antidote is when we can combine an accurate memory of God’s ways with a lively hope in his promises, the essence of Psalm 132.

20th– Anniversary Preface.. verbatim, not summarized.

As I sat down to revise A Long Obedience In The Same Direction I was prepared to do a lot of changing. I have hardly done any. It turns out there are some things that just don’t change. God doesn’t change: He seeks and He saves. And our response to God as He reveals himself in Jesus doesn’t change: we listen and we follow. Or we don’t. When we are dealing with the basics – God and our need for God – we are at bedrock. We start each day at the beginning with no frills.

So the book comes out in this new edition substantially as I first wrote it. I added an epilogue to reaffirm the ways in which Scripture and prayer fuse to provide energy and direction to those of us who set out to follow Jesus. A few celebrity names have been replaced by new ones (celebrities change pretty rapidly!), and I have changed a few references to current affairs. But that’s about it. It is reassuring to realize once again that we don’t have to anxiously study the world around us in order to keep up with God and his ways with us.

The most conspicuous change has been the use of a fresh translation of the Holy Scriptures, The Message, that I have been working on continuously since the publication of A Long Obedience. In fact, the fifteen Songs of Ascents (Psalms 120-134) that provide the text here for developing “discipleship in an instant society” provided the impetus for embarking on the new translation. All I had in mind at first was translating the Psalms into idiomatic North American language that I heard people using on the streets and in the shopping malls and at football games. I knew that following Jesus could never develop into a “long obedience” without a deepening prayer life and that the Psalms had always been the primary means by which Christians learned to pray everything they lived, and live everything they prayed over the long haul (No wonder I missed the boat spiritually so long. Only recently did I begin to read the Psalms).

But the people I was around didn’t pray the Psalms. That puzzled me; Christians have always prayed the Psalms; and why didn’t my friends and neighbors? Then I realized it was because the language, cadenced and beautiful and harmonious, seemed remote from their jerky and messy and discordant everyday lives. I wanted to translate these fifteen Psalms from their Hebrew original and convey the raw, rough and robust energy that is so characteristic of these prayers. I wanted people to start praying them again, not just admiring them from a distance, and thereby learn to pray everything they experienced and felt and thought as they followed Jesus, not just what they thought was proper to pray in church.

And so it happened that the unintended consequence of the writing of A Long Obedience in the Same Direction was this new translation of the Song of the Ascents, and then all the Psalms and then the NT and eventually the whole Bible. The inclusion of that translation in this new edition completes the book in a way I could not have anticipated twenty years ago.

Chapter 14. Obedience: How He Promised God

 “True knowledge of God is born out of obedience.” John Calvin

An incident took place a few years ago that has acquired the force of a parable for me. I had a minor operation on my nose and was in my hospital room recovering. Even though the surgery was minor, the pain was great and I was full of misery. Late in the afternoon a man was assigned to the other bed in my room. He was to have a tonsillectomy the next day. He was young, about twenty-two years old, good looking and friendly. He came over to me, put out his hand and said, “ Hi, my name is Kelly. What happened to you?”

I was no mood for friendly conversation, did not return the handshake,  grunted my name and said that I had gotten my nose broken. He got the message that I did not want to talk, pulled the curtain between our beds and let me alone. Later in the evening his friends were visiting, and I heard him say, “There’s a man in the next bed who is a prizefighter; He got his nose broken in a championship fight.” He went on to embellish the story for the benefit of his friends.

Later in the evening, as I was feeling better, I said, “Kelly, you misunderstood what I said. I’m not a prizefighter. The nose was broken years ago in a basketball game, and I am just now getting it fixed.”

“Well, what do you do then?”

“I’m a pastor.”

“Oh.” he said and turned away; I was no longer an interesting subject.

In the morning he awoke me: “Peterson, Peterson – wake up.” I groggily came awake and asked what he wanted. “I want you to pray for me; I’m scared.” And so, before he was taken to surgery, I went to his bedside and prayed for him.

When he was brought back a couple of hours later, a nurse came and said, “Kelly, I am going to give you an injection that should take care of any pain you might have.”

In twenty minutes or so he began to groan, “I hurt. I can’t stand it. I’m going to die.”

I rang for the nurse and, when she came, said “Nurse, I don’t think that shot did any good; why don’t you give him another one?” She didn’t acknowledge my credentials for making such a suggestion, told me curtly that she would oversee the medical care of the patient, turned on her heel and, a little too abruptly I thought, left. Meanwhile Kelly continued to vent his agony.

After another half hour he began to hallucinate, and having lost touch with reality, began to shout, “Peterson, pray for me; can’t you see I’m dying! Peterson, pray for me!” His shouts brought the nurses, doctors, and orderlies running. They held him down and quieted him with the injection I had prescribed earlier.

The parabolic force of the incident is this: when the man was scared he wanted me to pray for him, and when the man was crazy he wanted me to pray for him, but in between, during the hours of so-called normalcy, he didn’t want anything to do with a pastor. What Kelly betrayed in extremis is all many people today know of religion: 1.) religion is to help them with their fears but that is forgotten when the fears are taken care of; 2.) religion is made of moments of craziness but those are remote and shadowy in the clear light of the sun and routines of every day. In fact, I believe the most religious places in the world are not churches but battlefields and mental hospitals. You are much more likely to find passionate prayer in a foxhole than in a church pew, and you will certainly find more otherworldly visions and supernatural voices in a mental hospital than you will in church.

Stable, Not Petrified

Nevertheless we Christians don’t go to either place to nurture our faith. We don’t deliberately put ourselves in places of fearful danger, and we don’t put ourselves in psychiatric wards so we can be around those who clearly see visions of heaven and hell and distinctly hear the voice of God. What most Christians do is come to church, a place that is fairly safe and moderately predictable. For we have an instinct for health and sanity in our faith. We don’t seek our death-defying situations, and we avoid mentally unstable teachers. But in doing that we don’t get what some people want very much, a religion that makes us safe at all costs, certifying us as inoffensive to our neighbors and guaranteeing us as good risks to the banks. We want a Christian faith that has stability but is not petrified, that has vision but is not hallucinatory. How do we get both a sense of stability and a spirit of adventure, the ballast of good health and the zest of true sanity? How do we get the adult maturity to keep our feet on the ground and retain the childlike innocence to make the leap of faith?

What would you think of a pollster who issued a definitive report on how the American people felt about a new television special, if we discovered later that he had interviewed only one person who had seen only ten minutes of the program? We would dismiss the conclusions as frivolous. Yet that is exactly the kind of evidence that too many Christians accept as the final truth about many much more important matters-matters such as answered prayer, God’s judgment, Christ’s forgiveness, eternal salvation. The only person they consult is themselves, and the only experience they evaluate is their most recent ten minutes. But we need other experiences, particularly the community of experience of brothers and sisters in the Church and our local congregation, as well as the centuries of experience provided by our biblical ancestors. A Christian who has David in his bones, Jeremiah in his bloodstream, Paul in his fingertips and Christ in his heart will know how much and how little value to put on his own momentary feelings and the experiences of the past week. (clearly a choice definitive sentence! merlin)

A Christian with a defective memory has to start everything from scratch and spends far too much of his or her time backtracking, repairing, perhaps even starting over. A Christian with a good memory avoids repeating old sins, knows the easiest way through complex situations and instead of starting over each day continues what was begun in Adam.

You ever notice for all its interest in history the Bible never refers to the past as “the good old days.” The past is not, for the person of faith, a restored historical site that we tour when we are on vacation; it is a field we plow, disc, harrow and plant, fertilize, lovingly work to insure a bountiful harvest.

Christians who master Psalm 132 will be protected from one danger, at least, that is always a threat to our obedience: the danger that we should reduce our Christian existence to ritually obeying a few commandments that are congenial to our temperament and convenient to our standard of living. It gives us, instead, a vision into the future so that we can see what is right before us. If we define the nature of our lives by our mistake of the moment, or the defeat of the hour, or the boredom of the day, we will define it wrongly. We need roots in the past to give our obedience ballast and breadth just as we need a vision of the future to give our obedience both direction and goal.

If we never learn to do this – to extend the boundaries of our lives beyond the dates merely enclosed by our birth and death, and actually acquire an understanding and appreciation of God’s way as something larger and more complete than those anecdotes in our private diaries – we will forever be missing the point of things, by making headlines out of something that ought to be tucked away on page 97 in section C of the newspaper, or putting into the classified ads something that should be getting a full page color advertisement – perhaps mistaking a sore throat for a descent into hell! (“Peterson, pray for me!”) For Christian faith is a full revelation of a vast creation and a grandly consummated redemption. I prefer to define my faith, or your faith, by witnessing our obedient actions in the same direction, as led by the Holy Spirit

Christian living demands that we keep our feet on the ground, but it also asks us to make a leap of faith. A Christian who stays put is no better than a statue, waiting to be pulled down when the tides change. A person who leaps about constantly is under suspicion of being not a man but a jumping jack or worse. Our obedience requires we possess the strength to stand as well as a willingness to leap, and the good sense to know when to do which. Which is exactly what we get when our accurate memory of God’s ways are combined with a lively hope in his promises.         

So what if we do possess “A Long Obedience in the Same Direction” if the big “O” (obedience) is predominately “cultural” and has not been “visibly transformational” for a century or two and just perhaps there are persons within and without, that tell us we’ve lost our way? One thing is certain though. if strife and chaos either emerges or invades, unknown leaders will be born as the flames rise and the love of Christ will be witnessed by the masses before the ashes cool. And some leaders may well die for their obedient actions. And some of His witnesses among the masses may be sacrificed. But rejoice that the exiting witnesses will directly enter Glory! But do pray for the millions of the masses who know not God and are ignorant of His Ways.

The blood of the martyrs has always built the Church. Martyrdom has been happening around the world for centuries. Our communities may no longer be exempt. Believers may even become endangered species. Prepare your heart, your mind, and your soul for the battle of your life. And rejoice abundantly in the event our country and the world is granted a reprieve from the imminent strife and chaos all about us; simply more time for believers to prepare and be a witness to the lost masses of the Hope that lies within us.

Peace does not mean to be merely in a place where there is no noise, trouble, or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart, which is only possible by centering on Christ’s love for you.

Leaders don’t force people to follow. They merely invite them to join them on their journey to Glory.

Think about this. A true leader does not lead with the intent to only create followers, BUT with the intent to create an abundance of more Leaders!

Leaders become great leaders not because of THEIR power, BUT because of their ability to spiritually EMPOWER others!

Next Up: YouTube of Pastor Carl’s Sermon Sunday past On Being Blessed… And Oh, Are We Ever!! Start at 32:00 minutes for the reading of the text…

Putting An End To The Blame Game & Saying Goodbye To Entitlement Mentality!

Last week I listened to nationally syndicated radio host and columnist Michael Brown’s handbook “Saving A Sick America,” (SASA) a biblically-based moral and cultural renaissance, revealing that the key for the inspiration and guidance necessary for a moral and cultural revolution for recapturing America’s greatness consists in returning to our spiritual and moral roots.

And yes indeed, at first blush, this book too appears to be just one more of the thousands continually appearing for decades now. But from my perhaps yet immature perspective as a blogger, I’ve already realized effective sustainable life change do not occur easily without significant reorientation of our perspectives and desires. And I particularly found Chapter Twelve in SASA titled “Putting An End To The Blame Game & Saying Goodbye To The Entitlement Mentality,” as a key document for exploration. But may I remind us as readers, since we are all to encourage and mentor others in various capacities every day, perhaps this has a wider application than I originally considered, therefore I am sharing it with you. Even though I spent considerable time attempting to condense this eleven page chapter, this document is still nearly 3000 words long. Make no mistake! This document remains a chapter. Pace your reading accordingly!

Ecclesiastes 1: 9–10 Tells us there is nothing new under the sun. The problems and challenges we face today, although packaged differently than in past centuries, are the same problems and challenges experienced by previous generations. We have the same fears, desires, lusts, loves, hopes, and dreams, whether we live in the 21st -century A.D. or the 21st – century BC. This is another reason God‘s word is so amazingly relevant: Our Maker knows us better than we know ourselves, and the sins and the shortcomings and the weaknesses of our forefathers, going all the way back to the garden of Eden – are our sins and shortcomings and weaknesses today. In many ways, we are just like Adam and Eve.

Let’s go back then, to the beginning, to an earthly paradise called the garden of Eden. We know the story all too well. Eve was deceived by the serpent, and she ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, giving the fruit to her husband Adam, who also ate of it. This is what is known as the fall of man.

Immediately, Adam and Eve were conscious of their nakedness. Before that they had the innocence of little children and were one unaware they were unclothed. Now they had to cover up. For the first time they also experienced guilt and fear. They hid from the presence of the Lord, whose commandments they had violated. They also learned to make excuses and pass the buck. The narrative in Genesis 3 is remarkable:

Then the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

He replied, “I heard you walking in the garden, so I hid. I was afraid because I was naked.“

“Who told you that you were naked? “asked the Lord God. “Have you eaten from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat?“

The man replied, “It was the woman you gave me who gave me the fruit, and I ate it.“

Then the Lord God asked the woman, “What have you done?“

“The serpent deceived me, “she replied. “That’s why I ate it.” (v. 9–13 NLT)

This sounds just like you and me: “Lord, it’s not my fault! Someone else is to blame!“

When God confronted Adam, the man in essence replied, “It is not my fault! It was that woman that you gave me. She is guilty. And for the record, I never asked you for a companion. That was all your idea. You are the one who put her in the garden with me, so in reality, you’re the one responsible for what I did.”

When God confronted Eve she replied, “It is not my fault! The snake tricked me! And just for the record, although I’m not actually saying it out loud, you were the one who put that deceiver in the garden with me. Otherwise, I would never thought of disobeying you. Not in a million years. So, if there’s anyone to blame here, it’s you for putting that arch deceiver right in my own backyard.”

How did God respond? First, he pronounced a curse on the snake, then on the woman, then on the man (Genesis 3:14-19). Everyone is responsible before the Lord, and excuses evaporate in his presence. The blame game doesn’t work before an all-seeing God. To paraphrase the old joke, you can’t kill your parents and then plead for leniency from the court because you’re an orphan. Not in God’s court!

The Lord calls us to take responsibility for our actions, refusing to entertain her fragile excuses. This is something you find throughout the Gospels, where Jesus, who was so full of compassion and long-suffering and kindness and tenderness, showed no tolerance for excuses. He cut through them like a knife cuts through butter. He exposes them for what they were: empty words used to cover up the lack of willingness. That’s why, when Jesus was on the earth, he didn’t trust himself to people, “because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man” (John  2:24–25). He also knew that there was nothing new under the sun when it came to the human race.

When, in response to Jesus command to “follow me, “the man said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father,“ Jesus replied, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as  for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God“ (Luke 9:59-60).

The fact is that Jesus was sensitive, and he was committed to honoring one’s parents (see especially Mark 7:1-13). But he saw through this man’s excuse, recognizing that the man was procrastinating. Today Jesus might seem harsh and uncaring. He is hardly like the Jesus we hear preached from our pulpits these days. The contemporary Jesus would never hurt any one’s feelings like this. But that, of course, is one of the big differences between the real Jesus – the Jesus of the Scriptures who is the same yesterday, today, and forever, (Heb 13:8) – and the modern, fairy tale version of Jesus.

It is absolutely true that we are saved by grace, not by works, and that eternal life is a gift. But Paul also made clear that with grace came responsibility, writing, “I therefore a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called” (Ephesian 4:1). And “Therefore I exhort you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a sacrifice – alive, holy, and pleasing to God – which is your reasonable service. Do not be conformed to this present world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may test and approve what is the will of God – what is good and well pleasing and perfect” (Romans 12:1-2).

Paul also had no places for empty excuses, telling the believers in Rome that “each of us will give an account of himself to God” and explaining to the believers in Corinth that “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil” Rom. 14:12; II Corinthians 5:10).

These are sobering words. As children of God, we will give account to our Father one day, not to determine if we are saved or lost but to determine our future rewards.

It is true that he is for us, not against us; that he desires to bless, not curse; that there is no condemnation for those who are in Messiah Jesus; that Christ himself is our advocate, which means he is pleading our cause. Therefore we submit to the Lord out of love rather than cower before him in servile fear. This means we will take responsibility for our sins, which is something else we don’t hear about too often these days. As a Christian apologist Jeremiah Johnson observed, instead of repentance we hear “a lot of talk about brokenness and negativity, as if Christ humbled Himself to the point of death to cure depression and fix bad attitudes. The modern church has largely done away with the biblical language of sin and salvation, replacing it with gooey postmodern verbiage that appeals to a generation raised on psychobabble and self-help seminars.“

Johnson then quoted Pastor John MacArthur:

That kind of thinking has all but driven words like sin, repentance, contrition, atonement, restitution, and redemption out of public discourse. If no one is supposed to feel guilty, how could anyone be a sinner? Modern culture has the answer: people are victims. Victims are not responsible for what they do; they are casualties of what happens to them. So every human failing must be described in terms of how the perpetrator has been victimized. We are all supposed to be “sensitive“ and “compassionate“ enough to see that the very behaviors we used to label “sin“ are  actually evidence of victimization.

Victimization has gained so much influence that as far as society is concerned, there is practically no such thing as sin anymore. Anyone can escape responsibility for his or her wrongdoing simply by claiming the status of a victim. It has radically changed the way our society looks at human behavior.

We are not sinners anymore; we are morally challenged. We don’t break God‘s commandments; we have a disease. We are not wicked; we are weak. And above all, we’re not guilty, since guilt implies responsibility and God knows we are not responsible. Someone else is to blame!

The bottom line is this: if you want to grow spiritually, if you want to become mature, if you want to fulfill your God-given destiny, then adopt a no-excuses policy for your life.

You alone are responsible for your success or failure, and the quicker you learn to embrace this way of thinking, the quicker you will make progress – real, discernible progress. No one will be able to stop you from living a productive, meaningful life, and every stumbling block will become a steppingstone. His grace will empower you as you give yourself to him.

It is true that people often hurt us and that circumstances are often against us, and many times we do suffer because of other people‘s sins and negligence and misdeeds. But making excuses will make things worse, not better, while shifting the blame will not provide you with the single constructive solution.

But there is one more step to take if you really want to swim against the tide in today’s society, and so I encourage you to embrace this attitude as well: nobody owes me anything, and I’m not “entitled“ to a wonderful life. Unfortunately, many Americans hold the exact opposite of this belief, and this crippling entitlement mentality dominates much of our nation today. It is the mindset that says, “Society owes me a better life.“

Conservapedia.com defines entitlement mentality as a “a state of mind in which an individual comes to believe that privileges are instead rights, and they are to be expected as a matter of course.“ In the words of Alethea Luna, “a sense of entitlement is established upheld by the belief that we are the center of the universe, and if the universe doesn’t meet our needs and desires, all hell will break loose.“

According to Conservapedia.com, entitlement mentality is characterized by:

1.) A lack of appreciation for the sacrifices of others

2.)Lack of personal responsibility 

3.)An inability to accept that actions carry consequences

4.) Increased dependency on the Nanny state big government intervention, and expectation that the government will intervene to solve personal problems. Upon losing a job, for instance, someone with an entitlement mentality is likely to turn to the government for unemployment handouts rather than immediately seeking another job.

5.) Ignorance of the Bill of Rights. Those within entitlement mentality frequently imagine so-called rights that are in no way guaranteed – for instance, the “right to employment,“ or the “right to not be offended” or “the “right to healthcare.” Moreover, they misinterpret the Declaration of Independence’s affirmation of their right to pursue happiness as a Constitutional guarantee of happiness.

6.) Support for wholesale expansion of Welfare state social programs as a cure all for perceived “injustice.”

Now, if we go back to the garden, back to Adam and Eve, we can see that the entitlement mentality is the flip side of the blame shifting mentality. Blame-shifting says I’m not responsible for my failure; someone else is,“ while entitlement says, “I’m not responsible for improving my situation; someone else is.” Either way, someone else is to blame for my current situation, and if I don’t find myself where I want to be today, it’s someone else’s fault.

This dangerous attitude is crippling a whole generation, but once again, this attitude is nothing new. It is just greatly on the rise in our day. As expressed by Kate S Rourke, “Children in the most recent generation of adults born between 1982 and 1995, known as ‘Generation Y,’ were raised to believe that it is their right to have everything given to them more than any other previous generation.” This mind-set has been here before; it has just become much worse.

Once again, God‘s word has a major word of correction and redirection for us today. Entitlement mentality is destroying our culture and hurting a whole generation. The Bible’s directive to take full responsibility for our lives and quit making excuses is just what we need.

Notice the admonition in the Ephesians 4:28, “Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.” And now since the former thief is also a follower of Jesus, he is working not only to make a living, but he is working to have extra money to help those in need. This is the complete crucifixion of the entitlement mentality. Others are not responsible for me; I am responsible for others.

I believe the entitlement mentality is one of the greatest strongholds in our society today. It undercuts initiative, encourages apathy, and discourages visionary sacrifice. Worst of all, it is so deeply in bedded that we’re not even conscious of it, making it harder to resist and overcome. But resist it and overcome it we must. Otherwise, we’ll be stuck on a merry-go-round of blame shifting and victim hood, getting angry, pointing our fingers, making accusations, and going nowhere.

Jesus gives us three practical principles in Luke 16:

1.) “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much“ (v.10). You will not be trusted with much until you prove yourself trustworthy with very little. In my early days of radio broadcasting when I was on the few smaller stations, I said to the Lord, “If you will give me a million listeners a day, I’ll make this the best radio show possible.” No sooner did I say the words that I knew what his answer would be: “Make this the best show possible, and I will give you a million listeners.”. 

2.) If you’re not faithful with money (what Jesus calls “the unrighteous wealth“), you won’t be faithful with true riches. (v.11). Many of us want to be spiritual heroes, but our earthly lives are a wreck due to our own irresponsibility, particularly when it comes to handling money. Of course, God doesn’t expect all of us to be financial wizards, but he does require us to be good financial stewards, and that means paying our bills on time, being generous, and being wise.

3.) “And if you’ve not been faithful in that which is another’s, who will give you that which is your own?“ The principal again is simple: If you are irresponsible with the things that don’t belong to you, caring for them as if they were your own, then you’ll never be entrusted with things that are your own. If you don’t care take care of your parent’s car when they loan it to you, you’re not ready for a car of your own.

In summary, the bigger the stakes, the more our good habits (and bad habits) will be magnified. So, faithful with a little, faithful with much; faithful with earthy riches, faithful with spiritual riches; faithful with that which belongs to someone else, faithful with that which belongs to you.

None of this is rocket science but once again, that’s what is so wonderful about God‘s Word. It is as practical as it is profound and as pragmatic as it is penetrating. The Word of God is wise, and we do well to live by the wisdom of the Word. And the word of God destroys the entitlement mentality, giving us something far better in its place.

Dr. John Townsend wrote,

“There is a solution to entitlement, which I called the Hard Way. The Hard Way is the entitlement cure. It is a path of behaviors and attitudes that undo the negative effects of entitlement whether in ourselves or others.” This was his definition of the Hard Way: “The habit of doing what is best, rather than what is comfortable, to achieve a worthwhile outcome.“

It is the hard way that pays long-term dividends, the hard way that produces long-term fruit, the hard way that yields long-term gratification. So quit passing the buck and shirking responsibility; don’t blame others for where you find yourself today; and determine, with God’s help, to be a giver not a taker, a producer and not a drainer, one who lifts others up rather than drags them down. To quote Paul once again, “Do everything without complaining and arguing, so that no one can criticize you. Live clean, innocent lives as children of God shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people” (Phil. 2:14-15 NLT).

That’s our calling, that’s who we are, and that’s who our nation needs us to be. So, let’s wake up from our slumber. It’s a literally time to rise and shine.

Next Up Sun 4/14: Snippets from Saturday Nights Live Bill Maher’s comments via Brad Jersak’s book “A More Christlike God, A More Beautiful Gospel.”

As promised, this post is heavy stuff! “The devil is the satanic adversary of God in the rule of man and Satan is his representative. One of the most cunning travesties is to represent Satan as the instigator of external sins. The satanically-managed man is often moral, upright, and proud …; he is absolutely self-governed and has no need for God.”Paragraph Two.

Given here for your contemplation from Oswald Chambers first book, “Our Ultimate Refuge: Job and the Problem of Suffering,” presented God as not only the ultimate refuge, but our only refuge, adding that “we know nothing about redemption or forgiveness until we actually crave for it.”

Last Ten Paragraphs from Ch. One: The Unseen Universe

Man is not God but hath God’s end to serve,

A master to obey, a course to take,

Somewhat to cast off, somewhat to become,

Grant this, then man must pass from old to new,

From vain to real, from mistake to fact,

From what seemed good, to what now proves best.

Robert Browning

“There is a difference between Satan and the devil which the Bible student should note. According to the Bible, man is responsible for the introduction of Satan: Satan is the result of a communication set up between man and the devil. (see Genesis 3:1-5). When Jesus Christ came face to face with Satan, He dealt with him as representing the attitude man takes up in organizing his life apart from any consideration of God. In the wilderness temptation the devil is seen in his undisguised character; only once did our Lord address the devil as “Satan” – “Then said Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan…” (Matthew 4:10). On another occasion Jesus said that self-pity was satanic – “But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan…” (Matthew 16:23).

The devil is the satanic adversary of God in the rule of man and Satan is his representative. Because a thing is satanic does not necessarily mean that it is abdominal and immoral; our Lord said that “that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God” Luke 16:15). Satan rules the world under the inspiration of the devil and men are peaceful, “when a strong man armed keeps his palace, his goods are in peace” (Luke 11:21), there is no breaking out into sin and wrong doing. One of the most cunning travesties is to represent Satan as the instigator of external sins. The satanically- managed man is often moral, upright, proud, and individual; he is absolutely self-governed and has no need of God.

Satan counterfeits the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit represents the working of God in a human life when it is at one with God through redemption; in other words, “Holy Spirit” is the heredity brought into human nature at regeneration. When a man is born from above, he has granted to him the disposition of Jesus, Holy Spirit, and if he obeys that disposition he will develop into the new manhood in Christ Jesus. If by deliberate refusal a man is not born again, he is liable to find himself developing more and more into the satanic, which will ultimately head up int the devil.

“Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought?” (Job 1:9). Verses 9-12 might be paraphrased in this way: Satan is represented as saying to God, “You are infatuated with the idea that man loves You for Your own sake; he never has and never will. Job for instance, simply loves you because You bless and prosper him, but touch any one of his blessings and he will curse You to Your face and prove that no man on Earth loves You to Your face and prove that no man on earth loves You for Your own sake.”

It must be remembered what Job’s creed was. Job believed that God prospered and blessed the upright man who trusted in Him, and that the man who was not upright was not prospered. Then came calamity after calamity, everything Job believed about God was contradicted and his creed went to the winds. Satan’s sneer is the counterpart of the devil’s sneer in Genesis 3; there, the devil’s object is to sneer about man to God, here, Satan’s object is to sneer about man to God, he is the “accuser of our brethren” (Revelation12:10).

Today there is in our midst a crop of juvenile skeptics, (Merlin adding that “today both men and women are being deceived and kidnapped by these cultural wars, both in the church and the world, by unknowingly surrendering their identities in Christ to the wiles of Satan destroying both their witness & peace, their transformation & empowerment …”) men who up to the time of war had no tension in their lives, and as soon as turmoil embroiled them, they flung over their faith and became cheap and easy skeptics. The man who knows that there are problems and difficulties in life are not so easily discouraged. Most of us get touchy with God and desert Him when He does not back up our creed (see John 6:60, 66). Many a man through this war (WWI), has lost his form of belief in God and imagines that he has thereby lost God, when in reality, he is in the throes of a conflict which ought to give birth to a realization of God more fundamental than any statement of belief.

There are things in our heavenly Father’s dealings with us which have no immediate explanation. There are inexplicable providences which test us to the limit, and prove that rationalism is a mere mental pose. The Bible and our common sense agree that the basis of human life is tragic, not rational, and the whole problem is focused for us in this book of Job. Job 13:15 is the utterance of a man who has lost his explicit (fully and clearly expressed, leaving nothing implied) hold on God, but not his implicit (entangled, should be understood, though not directly expressed) hold, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.” That is the last reach of the faith of a man. Job’s creed is gone; all he believed about God has been disproved by his own experiences, and his friends when they come, say in effect, “You are a hypocrite, Job, we can prove it from your own creed.” But Job sticks to it, “I am not a hypocrite, I do not know what accounts for all that has happened, but I will hold to it that God is just and that I shall see Him vindicated in it all.”

God never makes His way clear to Job. Job struggles with problem after problem, and providence brings more problems all the time, and in the end Job says, “… now mine eye sees thee” (Job 42:5): all he had hung on to in the darkness was true, and that God was all he had believed Him to be, loving and just, and honorable. The explanation of the whole thing lies in the fact that God and Satan had made a battleground of Job’s soul without Job’s permission. Without any warning, Job’s life is suddenly turned in desperate havoc and God keeps out of sight and never gives any sign whatever to Job that He is. The odds are desperately against God and it looks as if the sneer of Satan will prove to be true; but God wins in the end, and Job comes out triumphant in his faith in God, and Satan is completely vanquished.

 Bottom Line: Will I trust the revelation of God by Jesus Christ when everything in my personal experience today flatly contradicts it? (merlin now: Perhaps, rather than once considered as possibilities, now these probable future losses will devastate Christ Followers far beyond those experienced by Job with his friends & family, wealth and health, encroaching now upon the benchmarks and foundations of our nation’s prior stability, of Constitutional Rights and inherent privilege afforded by a once functioning system of jurisprudence, etc., all couched in the cushy American all-inclusive phrase I first heard of during the sixties, that being “entitlements,” literally sweeping into and degrading all aspects of our culture, and perhaps being the most damming evidence of our descent from God’s intricate design, to rather, the best plans that man with his fact checking science can corral in his leaky cisterns being no better than sieves (Jeremiah 2:13), as we witness the biblical revelation end time texts unfold before our eyes. Such was confirmed again during the recent eclipse, by our misdirected worship of Creation, rather than of the Creator. As Ozzie stated in paragraph seven, “these are the times which ought to give birth to a realization of God more fundamental than any statement of belief.”

Next Up: Summary of Ch 11 in Michael Brown’s book, “Saving a Sick America: Saying Good-bye to Entitlement Mentality” I listened to this book 2 years ago and and just re-discovered the doc… A timely find & more relevant than ever. A packed quick easy read.

“While trust often begins with a feeling, it can’t only be based on a feeling, an emotion, or some kind of sense. It has to be rooted in more solid, observable, essential qualities.” Henry Cloud. Chapter One “The morning was tense. I was accustomed to tense situations in my line of work, but I was not prepared for what happened next…

I had been called in to facilitate a crisis meeting. The board of directors for a global entity had convened in a last-ditch effort to save the company. A yearlong battle between the CEO and the board chair had reached a breaking point, and they had called an emergency board retreat to try to prevent what seemed inevitable – that one of the two executives would leave the company. The departure of either one would make global headlines. Hundreds of thousands would be affected, and a great deal of money would be put at risk.

We began our day by putting all the issues on the table, ensuring we were all starting with the same set of facts. The hope was to resolve the conflict between the two leaders so that the company could continue to thrive. As best I could tell, based on my pre-meeting interviews, half of the board sided with the chair, and the other half with the CEO. And it was crystal clear that the two of them did not side with each other.

As each person shared their perspective, the tension was palpable, yet somewhat cordial. But soon, in a moment, it all turned dark. The CEO interrupted the chair to make a comment, and not in a polite or measured way. Then, it happened.

The board chair, with all eyes on him, gently closed his portfolio. After looking down for a few seconds, he looked around the table and said to the group, “I am done. You all can take it from here, but I am done. Good luck.”

With that, he got up and began walking toward the door. The room went silent with shock. I don’t think anyone knew what to do, but they all knew this was bad. The chairman was obviously resigning. He was walking out in the middle of the retreat intended to save the company.

I didn’t know what to do, but I quickly ran across the room and placed myself between the chairman and the door. Then, I sat down on the floor and blocked his exit.

“Okay, wait,” I said. “You can leave here, but if you walk out this door, you will set in motion a chain of events that cannot be undone. It will effect hundreds of thousands of lives. Before you do that, I ask you this one thing, Please, sit down for a moment. Right here, with me.”

There are times when people might think you are so crazy that they simply do what you ask them to do, and I think this was one of them. The chairman sat down on the floor, and I asked him, “What does it feel like when he does what he just did to you?”

He stared at me for a long moment and then began to speak. “I … I… just don’t know…” And his lower jaw began to quiver as he tried to speak. This powerful man, an acclaimed attorney and industry leader, could not get the words out. “He … he makes me feel like… There is no way … I can …”

Pain and emotion so saturated this man’s words that he could no longer speak.

Within minutes, movement across the room caught my attention. The CEO was walking toward us. He sat down besides us, looked at the chairman, and said, “I never knew I made you feel that way. I am so, so sorry.”

The chairman looked up and stared at the CEO for a moment. Then he turned to me, appearing as though he did not know what to say or think next.

I looked at the group and said, “Give me the room. I’ll call you back when we’re ready.”  

Over the next 90 minutes, the three of us simply talked. And listened, and talked some more. Finally, I invited the board to return and said, “Time to go to work.”

For the remainder of the retreat, the board listened to the two executives talk about their disconnection and, more importantly, about how they would move forward. To say the least, things ended much better than they had been just a couple of hours earlier. Disaster averted.

The problem we have is this: we often don’t how trust like theirs went awry, nor do we know the mechanism involved to back to a good place in the way they did. The goal of this book is to understand both: how it gets broken, and how to repair it when it does.

TRUST: Knowing When to Give It, When to Withhold It, How to Earn It,

& How to Fix It When It Gets Broken by Dr Henry Cloud,

Author, psychologist, and leadership expert to equip us to understand and manage trust, the fuel for all life and business. We are wired biologically, emotionally, spiritually, psychologically to trust. Trust is the currency that drives every relationship, beginning with the foundational bond between infants and their mothers, extending to the trust networks that under-gird every human endeavor – art, science, business-binding together ever relationship we have ever had or ever will have. Nothing in our world works without trust.

But we all have our stories about misplaced trust. We either missed clear or subtle warning signs, or there just were not any warning signs to see. And sometimes we struggle to earn and keep the trust of those around us when trust bonds fail to form or are broken. When trust breaks down, so does our ability to move forward. Repairing trust is difficult.

Today while experiencing our current cultural deficiency of trust, Dr. Cloud, author of the multi-million copy bestseller Boundaries, explores the imperative five foundational aspects of trust that must be present in any relationship and helps us understand how to implement them. He also guides us through the difficult process of repairing trust when it has been violated and broken.

Rich with wisdom drawn from decades of experience in clinical practice, business consulting and research, TRUST is the ultimate resource for managing this most complex and fundamental of human bonds, allowing us to experience more fruitful and rewarding relationships in every area of our lives.

NEXT UP: will be ten paragraphs from Oswald Chambers first book, on Job, nonetheless, now titled “Our Ultimate Refuge.” in which he states “there is a difference between Satan and the devil which the Bible student should note.” After numerous references recently of Wiersbe’s book “The Strategy of Satan,” I thought perhaps Ozzie would provide additional valid fodder for you truth seekers in these unique days.