God: CANCELLED

There is an old saying: ‘God loves birds and created trees, man loved birds and created cages.’ Perhaps that’s a simple expression of difference between the heart of God and the heart of unredeemed man.

Tomorrow’s world seems to be moving into: say my opinion, disregard the facts. New York Senator Patrick Moynihan once said, ‘Everyone is entitled to his own opinion but not to his own facts.’ Many are mastering their own truth, tearing down known truths at truth’s expense. Scientists have replaced priests, entertainers have replaced philosophers, and truth has been replaced with what we want truth to be, expressed as what’s ‘right in our eyes.’ Proverbs 21:2 says: “Every way of a man is right in his own eyes: but the LORD ponders the hearts.” And in Proverbs 14:12 the Bible says: “There is a way that seems right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” Seems the wisdom of yesterday gets thrown out with the misfortune of yesterday. Today, we preach saving ourselves by self improvement, having confidence in changing our lives by our own human ability to do so. For the most part, the idea of spiritual change gets thrown ‘out the window’. More and more the angelic message, ‘Love of God toward men’, is banished. We talk environmental talk about how much wildlife has lost its environment and how critical that is to their eventual survival. Maybe we should look at the environment man is losing and reflect on their eventual survival as well.

Jesus said: I am the Way, I am the Truth and I am the Life. (John14:16) We need to pause after each one of those expressions is read. Taken literally, The Way represents Jesus as the highway and the method of proceeding. The Truth reflects that Jesus was the appearing of reality, revealed Truth. And, The Life speaks to Jesus is the breath of Life, the very opposite of death. Each one of those characteristics attributed to Christ must be taken seriously and soberly. C. S. Lewis states in his book Mere Christianity: “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

Life can refer to life from man all the way down to the lowest cell-forms of bio life. Life as the Father would have it for you, Life that Jesus secured and invited you to experience, is a gift from God through Christ, and Him alone. Scripturally, life is referenced using two completely different Greek words. One, for existence (bio) and another (Zoe) for Life as the Father would have it for you. Accordingly, God is the ‘Living One’ and nothing exists apart from Him. (Col. 1:16) In Him, we live and move and have our being. (Acts 17:28) While existence is common to all living things, only Jesus Christ can manifest Life (Zoe). Without Him their existence is simply all there is. John 1:4 says that, “In Him was Life, and the Life was the Light of men.”

Life as the Father would have it for you is eternal–everlasting. It is a gift from God for those in Christ. (Rom. 6:23) You can exist (bio) without it; however, you will not experience the everlasting unless you choose it. Jesus gave a clue about eternal Life in Mathew 18, Luke 18 and Mark 10. In response to the disciples rebuking the children who were following him, Jesus scolded his disciples ordering to let those children come. Jesus emphasizing that entering into Life as the Father would have it for you is done in such a manner as those children displayed. What manner was that? As children (at least until they or we as their parents destroy the family experience) trusted their parent, believed their parent, ran and jumped in their parents’ lap as an embrace and when scared, ran into our parents’ arms for comfort. That’s what Jesus said entering into eternal Life is like. Understanding is not our problem. Trusting in Who God is and believing what He says about us in the New Testament is the problem. Just as in the beginning, when Adam and Eve became suspicious of the heart of God, abandoning the Love of God, that separation was by their choosing, not His. Each generation gets the opportunity to trust and believe or to reject that Father. We are in the same position to do that today.

Sadly, we’ve been Evolutionized! With evolution, we, and the kids, have been taught that everything that changes is always better than the past thing. It’s automatic; progress always produces good things, right? The motto is: it’s upward and onward! In science and government, if it’s new and not the old- ‘boom’ it’s greater! Throw out the old and march in the new. With evolutionary wisdom, new is always preferred and anointed. We can even explain how all our ancestors crawled out of the sea and easily affirm how species with wings changed those wings into arms. Just trust, gills into lungs work. I know we don’t have any real examples to show you, but we can imagine how that happened. Given enough time we can even make original disorder of the world emerge into order. (I suggest a book, Evolution Impossible, by Dr. John Ashton on this subject) Just believe! Have a little faith. Over time, Evolution has begun to resemble religion more than science; it’s a hypothesis that requires a lot of faith and belief.

A really nice set up if you’re the new. If you can get people to believe it’s simply progress that created the world, just accident after accident built this world of today, go for it! God: canceled! The past few years, new has won by default. Jesus – that’s old stuff, Christianity – a crutch, and Love – you mean lust don’t you? Unity has become when you give the elite their way. You know, let’s come together and do this thing. I know you don’t think it’s a good idea, but let’s be unified and do it anyway. We’re not supposed to question it. Just remember, new ideas are always better than old ideas, period. Your opinion– old school, outdated. The ‘magician-like sleight of hand’ here is that many times the marketed new ideas are actually older than the old ones. A country where citizens are dominated by leaders and an elite political class, that’s pretty old; however, today that’s what we’re being told is the new freedom and our new bill of rights. Let’s see, while we’re at it, let’s get rid of these very bad fellows : Mr. Potato Head, Dr. Seuss, Mark Twain, Washington Redskins, and throw out the historical Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson statues for good measure.

Let’s see, Jesus was cancelled physically 2000 years ago, and the new idea is to cancel him, take him out of people’s hearts today, and do it now. In many ways, the world is living in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John again, ‘crucify him!’ is the shout being repeated today! Look, we can progress on our own just fine. Just look at the progress that has been made from the original one cell organisms to the evolution of human lives we see today. That suggestion by today’s elite is as old as the serpent’s suggestion in the Garden of Eden whisper! You can be like God! Bye-bye, God; we got this.