What Is Happening?
These days I feel overwhelmed most of the time. Do you?
We all have the normal “stressors” of life but now we add on all the COVID restrictions and precautions, which change on a daily basis. The target is forever moving leaving our lives not only changed but also uncertain and chaotic not to mention devoid of loving community. Our kids can’t go to most of their summer activities, summer travel is not a thing, parents are trying to work and take care of small kids who normally go to daycare, jobs and the dreams of many hard-working Americans are being lost because no one knows what rule they will break by actually going to a restaurant or a store.
You are judged if you wear a mask and judged if you don’t.
Then of course we have racial tension. Are we a racist country or not? Am I racist? Are you racist? The call to judge and turn against one another is loud. The rioters are LOUD, violent, destructive and irrational.
Our freedom and our history are on the line. The police force that we have all depended on for our ENTIRE lives is now potentially being defunded.
What do we do? Where do we even start? How did we get here? What the heck is going on? It is so overwhelming that it is easy to give up hope or to at least think someone else, someone smarter and more powerful than us will fix the situation. In the past we have been able to do that, kind of anyways. I buried my head in the sand, pressed forward with everything I had to do, and things stayed in control.
This is no longer an option and I, for one, cannot sit back anymore. I have to do something to get us back on track one little step at a time.
Today’s step? We must all go back to the very foundation of everything, the Creator of all things, the only source of Truth.
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.” Proverbs 1:7
The Bible
I know most people do not read the Bible anymore nor do they believe it is true or try to submit to what God asks of them. I know as soon as I put the word Bible in this writing, some of you have turned away and scoffed. You think I am crazy at best, stupid at worst. That is fine. I pray you will somehow come to know God, but God also tells us that not everyone will. My job is only to continually remind people of who God is, his saving grace and where to find truth. You get to take it or leave it. You get to consider it or not.
The root of the problem in America is that we were once unified by Christian principles, and now we are not.
Light shines brightest in the darkest night and I hope many of you will come to see the light of Jesus during this time. Indeed, that is always God’s purpose, to call everyone to repentance and faith in Him. I also hope that those who profess his name already, will become ever more vigilant in their pursuit of His glory, myself included.
So, if you haven’t been reading your Bible or a Bible, I encourage you to pick it up today, not because you “should”, but because you can feel the tug of truth, the prodding of a Spirit you have been ignoring. You are looking for someone, something to make sense, to be true, to teach you, to comfort you, to lead you.
I know your parents did not raise you reading it. I know it can be confusing. I know the premise of Jesus dying and coming back to life is hard to imagine. I know you are smart and competent and self-reliant But what is any of that if you miss the whole reason you were put on this earth?
The scrolling of facebook and google and twitter will leave you angry, deceived, and wondering if there is any truth, whereas “Every word of God proves true; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.” Proverbs 30:5
Are you looking for truth? Are you wondering why no one can agree anymore? It is because we have all decided that we are the smart one, the exception, the one who gets to decide what is true and good. Indeed we have made ourselves into little gods all with our own self-righteous idea of what should or should not happen, what is good, acceptable and moral or not.
We can’t all be right.
There is no unity in everyone seeking their “own truth” their own idea of righteousness. We are unified in our faith and by adherence to what God wants regardless of how we feel or what makes us “happy.”
We are not God and we need to take ourselves off of our little pedestals and seek the one who is God.
“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.” 2nd Timothy 3:16-17
Don’t you wonder why so few people especially politicians do not seem moral anymore? Scripture is God breathed and profitable for training in righteousness. Our society is “smart” in many ways but we are unwise and unrighteous and this is leading us down a very bad path.
What is Happening?
Good news, bad news. The Bible tells us what is going on today.
2nd Timothy 3 starts out with this alarm.
“But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God – having a form of godliness but denying its power.”
Weird, seems like God, the creator of the universe knew all of this might happen.
2nd Timothy goes on to tell us “For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.”
Have you seen people distorting the truth to get it to say what their itching ears or in our current lingo, their agenda, wants to hear? Do you see people believing it even when it is a myth? The definition of myth is “a widely held but false belief or idea” aka, a lie.
I sure see this.
I am only skimming the surface. Again, there is so much to write about the Bible and the Lord and what we see happening in the culture right now.
My admonition to everyone today is to root yourself in God’s word every day. With everything else going on, this is not the easiest task, but there is no other task as important.
The word of the Lord is alive and active. It works on our hearts and minds in ways we do not understand, but that lead us to repentance, faith, and ultimately salvation.
God sent his son Jesus into the world to reconcile us to him self. We are not sinless or perfect and we never will be but Jesus was and his death was the atonement for our sins so that at the end of time or when we die, we may live with Him forever.
This is the saving gospel message. It all starts here.
Action Step: If you don’t know where to start in your Bible or perhaps you don’t even have one, here are some suggestions. You can download a Bible app right now. Usually you can pick a version. The NIV version is fairly easy to understand and I use it most of the time so perhaps start with it. Then pick a book to start in and start reading a chapter a day. All the books of the Bible are good, but some places to start might be Genesis (the first book teaching about creation), Proverbs (in the middle teaching about wisdom), John (towards the back half chronicling Jesus’ life and death and message), or Ephesians (teaching about the theology of Christ, but also how we are to live in light of the Gospel message.)
