SOLD OUT FOR THE LORD

 

 

 

The Apostles had been forbidden to speak of Jesus. At their hearing at the Sanhedrin, following their arrest, Peter boldly proclaimed:

 

·       let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing before you well. This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:10–12)

 

Once again, they were brought before the Sanhedrin and warned to not speak of Jesus, but:

 

·       …Peter and John answered them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.” (Acts 4:19–20)

 

We too cannot speak otherwise, especially those of us who are leaders. If we choose to be faithful to our Lord, we cannot put any consideration above His will. While pleasing people can be virtuous when it coincides with the will of our Lord, it can also be adulterous:

 

·       You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. (James 4:4; 1 John 2:15)

 

We cannot conform ourselves to our society and its perverted beliefs:

 

·       Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:2)

 

Our minds must be renewed according to the Words of our Lord. However, today the pressures to conform are enormous. We are being forced to speak the approved words and to even believe and vote in the correct manner. If we fail to do so, we can be denied employment and other benefits. Even our churches are now in jeopardy. Our freedoms to hire and fire and to preach within prescribed guidelines are being threatened.

 

However, the people of God have always faced these threats. King Nebuchadnezzar had made a gold statue of himself, which the people of Babylonia were required to worship. He might have even had a good reason for doing so, perhaps to unite his great and diverse empire under one religion. However, there were some Israelites who refused to worship the statue. When discovered, they were reported to the king:

 

·       You, O king, have made a decree, that every man who hears the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music, shall fall down and worship the golden image. And whoever does not fall down and worship shall be cast into a burning fiery furnace. There are certain Jews whom you have appointed over the affairs of the province of Babylon: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. These men, O king, pay no attention to you; they do not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.” (Daniel 3:10–12)

 

The king had every reason to be angry. He had elevated these three Jews, and they had refused to show gratitude by worshipping along with the rest of the king’s subjects. The king even gave them a second change. However, they continued to refuse:

 

·       Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.” (Daniel 3:16–18)

 

Compromise would have been easy, as it is for use. The Hebrew young men owed the king a great debt. He had elevated them far above other Jews to positions of power and authority. It was likely that a  part of their “job description” was to honor their king and guardian. How could they betray their protector and even put the rest of the Jews in Babylon in jeopardy! Besides, they would no longer be in a position of influence to intervene on their behalf if they are threatened. The three young men had much to lose and little to gain but their own self-esteem. Surely, they could secretly pray to their God as they bowed before the king’s statue. Nothing wrong with that, at least not according to a pragmatic cost/benefit analysis! And our Lord wants us to be pragmatic, right?

 

Compromise is comfortable; faithfulness stands against the storm. As second in the Persian Empire, Haman required all to bow before him. The Jew Mordecai refused. Even though this placed all the Jews in peril for their lives, Mordecai would not repent. For him, faithfulness to His God came before all other considerations. Instead, he would trust in Him to deliver His people. He would stand against all the dismal cost/benefit calculations and not take the comfortable path of compromise the way that many Christian institutions are doing today.

 

Our leaders assure themselves that compromise is expedience. It will preserve their Christian institutions. However, unfaithfulness does not know where to stop. It is the slippery slope towards apostasy. History even demonstrates that a little like in the dam will eventually cause its collapse.

 

Compromise also communicates that prudence and wisdom requires us to be pragmatic. However, compromise is also beckons those under our leadership to do the same, to the destruction of their conscience (1 Corinthians 8:10-13). No wonder our leaders are held to a greater standard.

 

Faithfulness tries the heart. God tried Abraham’s heart, asking him to sacrifice his child of the promise, Isaac. Would he be faithful? After following his God for more than 40 years, he had learned to trust in God above all else, even if it cost him his marriage, the child of the promise, and the respect of his entire household.

 

Jesus is the Pearl of exceeding value who has guaranteed us eternal life. God had delivered the Apostles, the three Hebrews, Mordecai, and Abraham. However, He also warned that the price of faithfulness might include martyrdom. However, this is a small price to pay when compared with the gift of eternal life with our Lord. May He grant us to remain faithful!

SELF-HELP AND ITS LIMITATIONS

 

 

 

I am convinced that self-help can only address relatively superficial concerns – behavioral issues – like learning how to treat others with respect instead of derision, to forgive rather than to seek revenge, or to do good rather than evil.

 

In contrast, I think that we do not have the capacity to change our deeper issues. Therefore, I write Christ-centered essays arguing that we must be changed from Above. It doesn’t matter how strong we are, we cannot lift ourselves off the ground by pulling on our legs. Instead, we need Another to lift us out of our malaise, as Christ has done for me after decades of depression.

 

I submit my essays to various self-help Facebook groups. Most reject them. One woman respectfully replied that they do not post submissions of a religious nature. I responded that her self-help group was also religious in nature. It is based on the belief that we have the answers and resources within us. As such, it is a God-substitute. Instead of relying upon God, modern secularism’s hidden assumption is that “I’ve got what it takes.” However, this is rarely seen as a religion but as an unassailable “truth” that has become so much a part of our secular culture that it is barely recognized.

 

However, we do not have what it takes. This is why we continue to be plagued with depression, self-harm, and a wide variety of other afflictions, despite our many self-help resources. Also, there are many indications that self-help’s help is very limited, even when self-help’s goals are very basic, like learning relaxation techniques. However, even this modest goal yields mixed results:

 

·       Relaxation-induced anxiety has been acknowledged by the psychological community since the 1980s, but an actual cause for the condition has never been agreed upon. https://www.studyfinds.org/relaxation-techniques-cause-many-with-anxiety-to-feel-worse/

 

This research team discovered that participants diagnosed with anxiety were not amenable to relaxation techniques, which sometimes even caused more anxiety:

 

·       This observed sensitivity was linked to anxious feelings during the relaxation sessions. It is worth noting that similar results were found among participants dealing with depression, but the effect was not as strong. (Ibid.)

 

The psychological community is still groping to find an explanation for this puzzling phenomenon. However, they might have overlooked the simplest and most direct explanation – Self-help interventions place our attention back upon the self and its intractable problems.

 

Besides, when we think our self-help attempts have failed, we sink into deeper despair. When we are convinced that they have worked, we tend to become arrogant and conclude, “It’s worked for me. Since it hasn’t worked for you, it means that you lack the motivation or the inner strength to change.”

 

This also pertains to meditation. If you are just looking for relaxation, I would recommend a walk in the woods or even along a quiet urban street. However, self-focus upon our inner states is the last thing that many of us need. Instead, we need deliverance from the self and its crying psychological needs.

 

This is exactly what I have found in Jesus, the One who loves me and had died for my sins, the One who has promised to take care of me. Because I am convinced that He is taking care of me, I no longer need to obsess upon myself. He has promised:

·       If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:31-32)

 

Continually, I must remind myself of this fact, especially when the worries of life take hold. I have never found anything that can substitute for my Savior.

 

Admittedly, the picture is more nuanced since the Lord also promised that His children would have to suffer. Why? Because He is refining us to reign along with Him (Hebrew 12:5-11; 1 Peter 4:17; 2 Corinthians 4:10-11). This verse best catches the parallel realities of our present condition:

·       Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all. (Psalm 34:19)

 

We suffer but then we experience His deliverance. This has been my experience, and it serve as a potent reminder.

Are Humans Animals

 

What makes us animals? Commonalities? We do share a lot with many animals – two eyes, nose, mouth, arms and legs, and cells. However, chairs have four legs, but this doesn’t make them cows or pigs. What if we share more commonalities than differences with chimps? Does this make us a chimp? What if our cells more closely resemble the amoeba’s cells? Would this make us amoebas? In a NYT article, “Humans Are Animals. Let’s Get Over It,” Philosopher Crispin Sartwell assumes that we are animals:

 

·       One difficult thing to face about our animality is that it entails our deaths; being an animal is associated throughout philosophy with dying purposelessly, and so with living meaninglessly. It is rationality that gives us dignity, that makes a claim to moral respect that no mere animal can deserve. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/23/opinion/humans-animals-philosophy.html

 

At first glance, it does seem that our intelligence gives us more dignity than those “other members of the animal kingdom,” but perhaps “dignity” is just a concept humans invented to give us a sense of value and superiority?

 

Besides, if we apply this concept consistently, it will force us to conclude that some of us humans have more dignity than others, like those who have achieved PHDs or run a hedge funds. Do they deserve more respect? Hardly!

If we want to retain the idea of human dignity or primacy over the animal kingdom, we don’t want to go there, but where do we go? They is only one place – to the God who gave us this dignity and sees His likeness in the humans he created (Genesis 1:26-27) and never calls us “animals.”

 

Nevertheless, Sartwell is committed to the idea that we are animals:

 

·       But maybe we’ve been too focused on the differences for too long. Maybe we should emphasize what all us animals have in common.

 

However, if we do emphasize what we have in common, we should regard and treat our fellow human beings as animals. Is this the brave new world Sartwell seeks, where dogs eat dogs and where only the fittest survive?