In a recent article published by a well known author and speaker about the Mosque being built at ground zero said “But the construction of the mosque at ground zero is not about tolerance. And it isn't about religious liberty. This is about prudence: the good sense to do what is right. That's one of the four classic, cardinal virtues given to the West.”
Cardinal virtues given to the west, whoever said that following good sense was ever correct? Forgiveness does not seem correct, in the eyes of the world and even enemies, forgiveness does not make sense at all. Loving those who despitefully use you and persecute you is more than just words and is also in the same basket as forgiveness. These qualities do not make sense at all. But it is at the heart of what Jesus taught. Sowing peace in a time of turbulence is something we do not want to hear, but it is something that we should do.
Not only do I believe that the New York City’s Landmark Preservation Commission and Mayor Bloomberg is doing the right thing, I believe it is the hand of God working through our Government as Romans 13:1-8, and 1 Peter 2:12-21 depict. Despite our intolerance towards loving and forgiveness God is showing us the way we should go. If we live by the sword, we will die by the sword. Let us therefore sow peace, even to the example that we should go and help them build the mosque with our time and finances and sow more than just words, sow actions that speak louder than words.
This is an opportunity, shall we just pass it by, shall we just blow it off because of some cardinal virtue given to the west, or should we be an example of Christ for the whole world to see.
~
Showing posts with label mankind. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mankind. Show all posts
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Thursday, July 1, 2010
A Treatise for the Church
We live in a culture that has elevated pride to the status of a virtue. Self-esteem, positive feelings, and personal dignity are what our society encourages people to seek. At the same time, moral responsibility is being replaced by victimism, which teaches people to blame someone else for their personal failures and iniquities. Frankly, the biblical teachings about human depravity, sin, guilt, repentance, and humility are not compatible with any of those ideas.
The church has been far too willing to embrace the fads of worldly opinion—particularly in the area of psychology and self-esteem. Christians often merely echo worldly thinking on the psychology of guilt and the importance of feeling good about oneself. The adverse effect on the life of the church can hardly be underestimated.
Nowhere has the damage registered more than in the way professing Christians deal with their own sin. In speaking to Christians around the country, I have seen a disheartening trend developing for at least two decades.
The church as a whole is growing less concerned with who Jesus Christ is, and more obsessed with self-exoneration and self-esteem. Christians are rapidly losing sight of sin as the root of all human woes. And many Christians are explicitly denying that their own sin can be the cause of their personal anguish. More and more are attempting to explain the human dilemma in wholly unbiblical terms: temperament, addiction, dysfunctional families, the child within, codependency, and a host of other irresponsible escape mechanisms promoted by secular psychology.
The potential impact of such a drift is frightening. Remove the reality of sin, and you take away the possibility of repentance. Abolish the doctrine of human depravity and you void the divine plan of salvation. Erase the notion of personal guilt and you eliminate the need for a Savior. Obliterate the human conscience, and you will raise an amoral and unredeemable generation. The church cannot join hands with the world in such a grossly satanic enterprise. To do so is to overthrow the very gospel we are called to proclaim.
This treatise is not merely a lament about society’s deplorable moral state or the damage we see caused by sin all around us. Nor is it an attempt to stir Christians up to tackle the impossible task of reconstructing society. Awakening the church to the awful reality of sin is not my only point of concern. That alone would have a positive effect on the world. But it is the one who took all our sin and became sin for us so that we can be free from the burden of sin. Are we following Jesus?
God’s purpose in this world—and the church’s only legitimate commission—is the proclamation of the message of sin and salvation to individuals, whom God sovereignly redeems and calls out of the world. God’s purpose is to save those who will repent of their sins and believe the gospel—not to work for external corrections in a morally bankrupt culture.
My prayer is that this will help to prompt Christians to turn again with new appreciation to the biblical doctrines of human depravity, sin, and the role of the conscience, leading to holiness that comes from following Jesus Christ. My prayer also is that it will help stem the tide of spiritual apathy, carelessness, shamelessness, and self-centeredness that worldly thinking has begun to breed among Bible-believing Christians. My most earnest prayer is that individual Christians who read this will be encouraged to reject such worldly values, and instead nurture “love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith” (1 Tim. 1:5).
But we can only do this by lifting Jesus Christ above everything else. He is not a doctrine, but the one whom all of history and the future is waiting for to return. He is the reason why the whole universe and everything in it exists. It has been, it is now and ever will be about Jesus. Jesus loved us first, let us not lose sight of our first love.
John 12:32
32 But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself."
(NIV)
The church has been far too willing to embrace the fads of worldly opinion—particularly in the area of psychology and self-esteem. Christians often merely echo worldly thinking on the psychology of guilt and the importance of feeling good about oneself. The adverse effect on the life of the church can hardly be underestimated.
Nowhere has the damage registered more than in the way professing Christians deal with their own sin. In speaking to Christians around the country, I have seen a disheartening trend developing for at least two decades.
The church as a whole is growing less concerned with who Jesus Christ is, and more obsessed with self-exoneration and self-esteem. Christians are rapidly losing sight of sin as the root of all human woes. And many Christians are explicitly denying that their own sin can be the cause of their personal anguish. More and more are attempting to explain the human dilemma in wholly unbiblical terms: temperament, addiction, dysfunctional families, the child within, codependency, and a host of other irresponsible escape mechanisms promoted by secular psychology.
The potential impact of such a drift is frightening. Remove the reality of sin, and you take away the possibility of repentance. Abolish the doctrine of human depravity and you void the divine plan of salvation. Erase the notion of personal guilt and you eliminate the need for a Savior. Obliterate the human conscience, and you will raise an amoral and unredeemable generation. The church cannot join hands with the world in such a grossly satanic enterprise. To do so is to overthrow the very gospel we are called to proclaim.
This treatise is not merely a lament about society’s deplorable moral state or the damage we see caused by sin all around us. Nor is it an attempt to stir Christians up to tackle the impossible task of reconstructing society. Awakening the church to the awful reality of sin is not my only point of concern. That alone would have a positive effect on the world. But it is the one who took all our sin and became sin for us so that we can be free from the burden of sin. Are we following Jesus?
God’s purpose in this world—and the church’s only legitimate commission—is the proclamation of the message of sin and salvation to individuals, whom God sovereignly redeems and calls out of the world. God’s purpose is to save those who will repent of their sins and believe the gospel—not to work for external corrections in a morally bankrupt culture.
My prayer is that this will help to prompt Christians to turn again with new appreciation to the biblical doctrines of human depravity, sin, and the role of the conscience, leading to holiness that comes from following Jesus Christ. My prayer also is that it will help stem the tide of spiritual apathy, carelessness, shamelessness, and self-centeredness that worldly thinking has begun to breed among Bible-believing Christians. My most earnest prayer is that individual Christians who read this will be encouraged to reject such worldly values, and instead nurture “love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith” (1 Tim. 1:5).
But we can only do this by lifting Jesus Christ above everything else. He is not a doctrine, but the one whom all of history and the future is waiting for to return. He is the reason why the whole universe and everything in it exists. It has been, it is now and ever will be about Jesus. Jesus loved us first, let us not lose sight of our first love.
John 12:32
32 But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself."
(NIV)
Monday, May 31, 2010
Remembrance of Memorial Day: No Greater Love hath any Man
On Memorial Day we are reminded of what our forefathers, friends, relatives have done in laying down their lives so that we may be free. Jesus who paid the ultimate price said in John 15:13 “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” (NIV) Jesus died so that we may be free of the tyranny that sin had brought down on Mankind.
Also reminded of the Gettysburg Address that was delivered by Lincoln during the American Civil War, on the afternoon of Thursday, November 19, 1863, at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, four and a half months after the Union armies defeated those of the Confederacy at the decisive Battle of Gettysburg. Here is a portion of that address:
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—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.
There is unfinished work that this country has before us and are we willing to give the full measure of devotion and not let the past die in vain. And so on Memorial Day, we pause to remember the lives and contributions made by those we have loved and still do. It's not so much about the grave as the person. "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints" (Psalm 116:15).
by Jeremiah Williamson
Also reminded of the Gettysburg Address that was delivered by Lincoln during the American Civil War, on the afternoon of Thursday, November 19, 1863, at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, four and a half months after the Union armies defeated those of the Confederacy at the decisive Battle of Gettysburg. Here is a portion of that address:
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—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.
There is unfinished work that this country has before us and are we willing to give the full measure of devotion and not let the past die in vain. And so on Memorial Day, we pause to remember the lives and contributions made by those we have loved and still do. It's not so much about the grave as the person. "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints" (Psalm 116:15).
by Jeremiah Williamson
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