The Christian Perspective Archives

When Ignorance is Bliss

Lee Strobel, a court reporter for the Chicago Tribune, was a skeptic, an avowed atheist, convinced belief in God was little more than wishful thinking. He had given Christianity only superficial consideration but had read enough philosophy and history to convince himself the Christian faith was bogus.

And then his wife became a Christian. And rather than become a fanatic and religious prude, Leslie impressed him by the fundamental changes that came to her character, integrity, and outlook on life. Accordingly, then, Strobel decided to check it out.

Typical of his work ethic, Lee scheduled a series of interviews with leading Christian scholars. Evaluating the faith from every conceivable angle, he became convinced of the unthinkable: there was truth to his wife’s newfound faith. And two years later, Lee Strobel became a Christian himself.

So dramatic was the change in Strobel’s life his daughter, five-year-old Alison, is reported to have said, “I want God to do for me what he has done for Daddy.” Had it not been for his wife and his honesty, Lee would have remained an agnostic, convinced the Christian faith is without merit and Jesus a fraud. But he checked it out!

The Gospel record is an eyewitness account written while the protagonists were still living. Far from being reconstructed tradition, the four Gospels were written within thirty years of Jesus’ life. Many of those involved were still living; the facts could be verified.

The Christian faith is open to scrutiny, and the Gospel record available for evaluation. And yet, an amazing number of people who reject the Gospels have never read them. If what the writers tell us is true, however, our eternal well-being is at stake. So why the ignorance?
Two reasons come to mind.

The Gospels represent an account of a supernatural incursion into first-century society. If one rejects that premise out of hand, one cannot accept the Gospels as recorded history. Never before has a man been born of a virgin, walked on water, raised three people from the dead, and predicted His own demise. Clearly, Jesus was whom He said He was, or He was a fraud and a lunatic. You can’t have it any other way.

But the real reason most people reject, or at best, refuse to consult, the record is personal. If what Jesus said is valid, it demands profound changes to our lifestyle, and that is something most people don’t want to even think about. It’s not that people disbelieve; they don’t want to believe. They are satisfied with the way things are, show little fear of death, and are secure in believing this life is all there is. Ignorance, indeed, is bliss … especially when it comes to Jesus and His claims on each of our lives.

We ignore God … only to our peril. To act as if we are going to live forever, to give no thought to our eternal future, to ignore the evidence God has given, seems to be the utmost expression of irresponsibility. But belief, life-changing faith, evidence not subject to doubt, comes only to those who come to God with an open heart.

For more thoughts like these, follow me at indefenseoftruth.net.

ON BEING CONSERVATIVE IN A PROGRESSIVE SOCIETY

I am a conservative, writing and defending my point of view before a progressive society, a message, I suspect, few people want to hear. But I am convinced America is at a crossroads, with the future of our great nation at stake; I must take a stand.

No one can question the moral deterioration that has taken place in America in just the last ten years. The right to life, the authority of God’s Word, and traditional marriage are out. Abortion on demand, co-ed bathrooms, and gender reassignment are in. Meanwhile, progressives are proposing a restructuring of America that will re-chart our future and destroy much of what has made America great.

Our nation is in the hands of a generation of men and women who have come up through our educational system with no idea what the Christian faith is all about. They have been told that truth is relative, evolution is a fact, the cosmos is all there is and all there will ever be. To them, if they give Him any thought, Jesus Christ is a “nice guy” Who lived two thousand years ago and has little relevance to our lives today.

“America is a nation at war.… Our very religious liberties are in question, and they are being chiseled away one chip at a time. In recent years militant special interest groups have made it their goal to co-opt our religious liberties and force industry and government to go beyond tolerance of their views and demand full approval of them. Anyone who believes otherwise is told to shut up. We’ve become a society that obsesses over tolerance and acceptance of everyone—except God” (Todd Starnes, God Less America, Foreword).

But there is a problem in all of this that everyone seems to have missed. Two laws of life, unavoidable and beyond question, are going to have a major impact on our nation in the years to come.

First, there is the law of diminishing returns. Whether it is wealth or power or pleasure, the more you get the more you want. It is not without reason that political aspirants continue to sponsor programs we cannot afford and make promises they cannot keep.

Then there is the law of sowing and reaping. The Bible says, “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption, but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.” We have sown to the wind; we are, sooner or later, going to reap the whirlwind.

We must not abandon the moral foundation on which our nation was established. David Barton, writing in Original Intent, has noted that “prominent Founders saw the Ten Commandments––and religious codes in general––as the foundation of American civil law. The belief was clear that public adherence to religious principles was the greatest source of security for civil government” (p. 173).

The Bible says, “Everything in the world — the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.”

Listen up, America. Think before you act. Your future is at stake.

THE PERSONIFICATION OF EVIL

He was a young man with a future. As the only man left in the family, he was fortunate to have a dedicated mother who took in washing to put her ambitious son through Seminary. She was hoping for a priest; what she got was a monster.

The Tbilisi Georgian Orthodox Seminary was no place for a young Joseph Stalin. Impressed by the writings of Karl Marx, he gave up on God to pursue a career dedicated to social change and personal power. He failed to make the priesthood, but as a self-serving insurrectionist, he was a smashing success.
After Lenin died in 1924, Stalin set out to destroy the old party leadership, executing potential rivals, and assuming the position as leader of the Soviet Union. Although he transformed the Soviet state from a peasant society into an industrial and military superpower, he is best remembered for the death of as many as twenty million of his own people, executed to perpetuate his hold on power.

At some point in the process Joseph Stalin had to face up to life’s most important question: What will you do with God? We have each inevitably had to deal with that question and where we came out, what we decided, was a determining factor in the person we have become.

What if there is no God? What if Jesus was a fraud and Christianity a bogus faith?

If there is no God, there is no coherent meaning to life. Without God you lose the sacred essence of human existence. What meaning do you attach to life? Your presence on earth is an accident, your journey through life, survival of the fittest, and your death, a meaningless end.

And if there is no God, there is no life after death, and this is the only heaven you will ever know; this is as good as it gets! Your dreams and drives end at the grave; there is no tomorrow. And for Joseph Stalin or Mother Teresa, it’s all the same.

If there is no God.

But that is the question, isn’t it? And God has given us an answer in the life, message and resurrection of His Son. “Anyone who has seen me,” Jesus said, “has seen the Father.” Our access to God, what we can know of Him, what our finite minds are capable of understanding, comes through and only through Jesus Christ.

The Apostle John had it right. “In Him was life,” he wrote, “and that life was the light of men.” If you are to find meaning to your existence, purpose to your journey, and the peace of mind that comes from knowing eternal life awaits, you have only one alternative: Jesus must be the Lord of your life. And what you do with Him is going to make all the difference in your world.
For more thoughts like these, follow me at indefenseoftruth.net.

An Ode to Charlotte

One moment little Miss Coache was here, and then she was gone. On Sunday afternoon, Jan. 17, her mother, aware that the sleep monitor attached to her bed wasn’t responding, went to check on her and found her without a heart-beat. Some would call it a crib death, but to her family and this great-grandfather, it’s called a disaster.

The vivacious sweetheart was on loan to Justin and Lyndsay for 14 months. “Let the little children come to me,” Jesus said, “for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” Sunday, January 17, will always be etched in our minds as the day Charlotte heard that call. It has broken our hearts, but heaven cheered. Another of God’s special creations had come home.

It took only a moment for Charlotte to discover a new state of being, the reality of which we can only speculate. One can imagine that by now she has met Jesus up close and personal, joined with God’s people in worship and song, and basked in the glories of a heavenly realm that could only be conceived by the mind of God. She now knows what the Apostle Paul meant when he wrote, “The imperishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’ … Thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!”

And it’s because of Jesus, and our rest in the providence of God, that we are comforted. In the words of Horatio Spafford, who had just lost his wife and four daughters to an accident on the high seas,

When peace like a river, attendeth my way,

When sorrows like sea billows roll;

Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,

It is well, it is well, with my soul.

There are those who will tell you our belief in an eternal state is nothing more than a figment of our religious imagination. They will tell you there is no God, no heaven, no morning sunrise after death. And for them, that is true. This life is as good as it gets; this is the only heaven they are ever going to know.

But to those for whom Jesus is Lord, there is substance to our faith. The Apostle Paul, who had himself gone from being a religious fanatic to becoming a follower of Jesus Christ, wrote, “The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.” The change that has come to each of our lives has given us an assurance, a peace of mind that can be found only in Him. Life after death is no longer a threat but, indeed, a change of state we look forward to with excited anticipation. “In my Father’s house are many mansions,” Jesus said, “I go to prepare a place for you … that where I am, there you may be also.”

That about which we can only dream is now, for little Charlotte, a glorious reality. The battle’s over, sweetheart. Welcome home!

The Other Side of Christianity

Maggie Gobran, sometimes known as the “Mother Teresa of Egypt,” was invited to speak at the 2011 internationally televised Global Leadership Summit, sponsored by the Willow Creek Community Church, Chicago, IL. I was able to sit in on the broadcast.

In concluding her remarks, Mama Gobran as she is affectionally known, made this comment:

“Silence your words that you may listen to your thoughts; silence your thoughts that you may listen to your heart; silence your heart that you may listen to God.”

And then, resplendent in her all-white habit, she said, “I would like to end my presentation by thanking God and blessing you.” And then, kneeling to the carpet, face in her hands against the floor, Mama Gobran spent the next five minutes in silent prayer. There was not a dry eye in the house as several hundred Pastors and Church Leaders watched in awe, profoundly moved as the benevolent “Mother of Cairo” prayed for us. It was a moment I will never forget.

Mama Gobran is an apt example of what I’m writing about. She was raised in wealth and already successful in the business world when a personal visit to the garbage slums servicing the city of Cairo touched her heart. She soon sold all she owned, and together with an army of men and women who shared her vision, founded Steven’s Children and blessed over 30,000 families with God’s love.

A manufacturing center that gave many of her kids a marketable skill soon followed, along with primary and elementary schools, medical clinics, and a home for boys and one for girls who had been abandoned by their families. A new world was opened to children who had no hope, and they were able to break free from the poverty, disease, and hopelessness in which they had been trapped.

I make a point of this, for America has sometimes accused the evangelical church of being intolerant, homophobic, anti-abortion, arrogant, and out of step with this modern age. Here we have the other side of Christianity. Indeed, we have much to say about moral and social issues that violate principles given us in God’s Word, but we are also out there, wherever there is a need, lending a helping hand.

And, yes, Maggie, we heard you! We have silenced our words, quieted our hearts, and listened to God. And we have accepted your challenge. Franklin Graham’s Samaritan’s Purse, the Salvation Army, World Vision, and many others have joined you on the front-lines of suffering, working one-on-one with the most disadvantaged, and showing by our actions that God loves you and so do we. “By this,” Jesus said, “will everyone know you are my disciples, if you have love.” Indeed!

For more thoughts like these, follow me at indefenseoftruth.net.

The Tale of Two Thieves

Two thieves were executed with Jesus, a metaphor for your death and mine. They felt themselves alone and abandoned, and they were. And yet, they were not. For we, too, were there, symbolically represented by the two men. And their moment with Jesus speaks to a question we must each answer: what will you do with Jesus Christ?

First, you have the self-serving, petulant, angry thief. He is guilty, but unrepentant, and something about Jesus triggers his mouth; he turns on Jesus with inexplicable rage. Mark tells us he “hurled insults at him.” There is no sympathy here. “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” He surely knows Jesus is innocent, but all he wants is to be released from the consequences of his wretched, ungodly life.

And then you have the other man, well aware he was there by his own hand. He was a thief, and he knew it. “We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve.” He had lived as he pleased, sacrificed his integrity to subsidize his pleasures, and now there would be hell to pay.

Except that this man had the foresight to look to Jesus, even in the final moments of his life. He was not a follower of Jesus; he had no claim to Jesus’ favor. If he had the opportunity in his earlier life to meet Jesus, he had ignored Him; self-will and freedom to do as he pleased allowed no place for God. He was a self-made man; and he self-destructed. Sin is an awesome taskmaster and for him, it was almost too late to recover.

Almost! He may have been a thief, but he learned from his mistakes. “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” He admitted to his sin, he turned to Jesus for forgiveness, and he was promised, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” He had lived a wretched life, he had defrauded others, he had embarrassed his family, he left a legacy no one wanted to follow. He had, however, met the Master, and that changed everything.

It is the tale of two thieves, but it’s also the story of your life and mine.

There are those of you who have lived your life in the fast lane. But you’ve won the respect of your peers and have every reason to be proud of your record. God, however, has had no place in your thinking, and you seem to have done well without Him. It isn’t that you don’t believe in God; He simply has not been an active force in your life.

And then there are those of us who have acknowledged our sin and turned to Jesus for forgiveness. We were honest enough to recognize we all deserve “death by crucifixion.” But a merciful God gave us a chance to welcome Jesus as the Lord of our lives, and we took Him up on the offer. And although still far from perfect, we are making progress, and now live in anticipation of the day God calls us home. Paradise awaits!

Which brings us to the most important question you will ever face. It is not, “Have you lived a good life? Have you been respectable and responsible?” If so, you are to be admired, but that is still not the question. THE question is, “What have you done with Jesus Christ?”

You want to talk about it? Hit me up at [email protected]