Christmas 2021

"Tears are falling, hearts are breaking

How we need to hear from God
You've been promised, we've been waiting
Welcome Holy Child

Hope that You don't mind our manger

How I wish we could have known
But long-awaited Holy Stranger
Make Yourself at home
Please make Yourself at home

Bring Your peace into our violence
Bid our hungry souls be filled
Word now breaking Heaven's silence
Welcome to our world

Fragile finger sent to heal us
Tender brow prepared for thorn
Tiny heart whose blood will save us
Unto us is born

So wrap our injured flesh around You
Breathe our air and walk our sod
Rob our sins and make us holy
Perfect Son of God

Welcome to our world"

Welcome to Our World, words and music by Chris Rice

This has become one of my favorite Christmas season songs! As I was listening to it today one line stood out to me:

"How I wish that we had known."

Questions come to mind about how God made it known:

• There were Prophecies given, most notably, "a virgin shall be with child."
• but how would that be verified?
• as far as we know, only one virgin ever, in the history of mankind, in the billions of people  conceived and born, claimed no human father had been used in the making of her child (and the only guy who had a vested interest believed her!)
• There was The Star pointing to the uniqueness of this particular child's birth. But what if God had waited until neon signs and billboards had been invented? ("SAVIOR'S BIRTHPLACE FIVE MILES AHEAD...LOOK FOR THE GIANT RED ARROW")
• There were Angels making the birth announcement. (The ultimate gender reveal party!) Yeah, right! We're not even getting all the government's secret files on UFO's yet, how could we possibly be asked to trust a report about extraterrestrials that hasn't been dissected by experts and CNN? 
• There were sheep herders claiming they'd heard from Angels. C'mon man. These were not professional journalists with college degrees and access to 24 hour global news networks. Were they even vetted for their credibility? Do we know anything about their childhood traumas? Did anyone look into their social media accounts to see what their political and religious affiliations were? Where are their psychological evaluation reports?
• There were wise men bearing gifts. Gold, frankincense and myrrh. Seriously? What if Bill Gates (global information access), Elon Musk (universal technology master), Jeff Bezos (global distribution chain), Mark Zuckerberg (global communities), Goldman Sachs (global financial experts), Rupert Murdoch (global media magnate), George Soros (subverter of governments) and such had shown up? Serious media coverage and doors of opportunity would have been flung open to this fledgling savior. Fame and fortune in an instant of time...oh, wait, that was offered to him eventually, wasn't it?

"At just the right time..." so observed the Apostle Paul, who'd been blinded by the glory of the resurrected Jesus. Perhaps we should add "at the right place, to the right people, in the right circumstances." God did His part in just the right way, because it's not hard to imagine how the response to "this day in the city of David, a savior has been born" would have played out in the modern world. It would have made King Herod's attempt to snuff out the competition pale in comparison!

One other line that caught my eye: 

"Bring your peace into our violence."

No matter how sophisticated and advanced technology becomes, no one but a Savior can change the human heart. The same heart that resides in every human being ever to walk this planet. The heart that has proven over millennia of time its capacity for malice, violence and destruction. All of us.

Only Jesus Christ can give us a new heart 

and with it a new life!

"This means that

anyone who belongs to Christ

has become a new person.

The old life is gone;

a new life has begun!"

2 Corinthians 5:17

That's why we celebrate December 25th, the day that marks the greatest gift ever given: 

a Savior who is Christ the Lord!

If you've never received this gift by opening your heart to Him and choosing to follow Him, why not let 2021 be the merriest of Christmases you'll ever know?!

The New Kingdom.6

"Have you ever heard this reading from the scriptures:

“The stone which the builders have rejected has become the honored cornerstone; this is the Lord’s doing, and marvelous in our eyes?”

Behold, the kingdom of God will be taken from you who listen and do nothing and be given to a people working to bring forth fruit in their lives."

--Jesus

The Builders

Who are the "builders" in society? Why would it matter whether they rejected or accepted a thing? The case can be made it is either A: those who insist on maintaining the status quo (like the Pharisees of Jesus' time using legalism to keep people in line.) B: the visionaries who "see" the way society could be shaped through the marketplace or government coercion.

Henry Ford, for example, was a visionary who saw

how the automobile could change the way people lived. By devising a way to mass produce them and make them affordable, he allowed the marketplace to drive societal change.

The issues surrounding Covid 19 Vaccine is another example of a coercive method to change society

driven by the “experts”(a significant arm of today’s “builders”) . The Mrna technology is a complicated science that seems to hold great promise for healing many human diseases. But, like any complicated technology, for example cell phones, rather than patiently educating the public and allowing the marketplace to drive the acceptance of the change in dealing with disease, Governments are using the power of the state to force people into compliance and dramatic changes in society.

The builders of any era are usually the wealthy and/or credentialed who, of course, consider themselves superior to the common man and, by their worldview, reject any infringement on their goals. Manipulating public opinion is always an important aspect of the work of the builders. While living in Gratiot County Michigan several years ago, we encountered a technique developed for that purpose. It is called “The Delta Technique.” We discovered that our county had made a great effort to develop what they called “The Gratiot Master Plan.” It contained Eight objectives ranging from recreational activities to downtown business development. In essence, it was a Communist style central planning effort for the communities of Gratiot County.

The meeting we attended to introduce the “Master Plan” utilized the Delta Technique to near perfection. A charismatic Moderator introduced The Master Plan to an audience of about 100 citizens. Then the audience was broken down into 8 small groups where a Facilitator armed with a marker, paper sheets and easel guided discussion in the groups. Unbeknownst to the group the facilitator was trained to marginalize ideas that distracted from their objective. The facilitator’s goal was to enthusiastically report to the main audience that their group had freely come up ideas to implement the plan! Ideas the group was unwittingly led to embrace!

Questions the builders of Jesus’ day posed to Jesus usually had to do with His authority to teach and act in the way He did, which most often exposed their own spiritual bankruptcy. Questions such as “why do your disciples not follow the traditions of the elders?”, rather than show their spiritual authority demonstrated an arrogant unwillingness to learn from the Lord of Life.

George MacDonald accurately describes these types of questions as distractions from the essential work of doing what God asks us to do:

“[they] spring from the passion for the fruit of the tree of knowledge, not the fruit of the tree of life.

• Men would understand; they do not care to obey;
• to understand where it is impossible they should understand except by obeying.
• They would search into the work of the Lord instead of doing their part in it—
• thus making it impossible both for the Lord to go on with His work,
• and for themselves to become capable of seeing and understanding what He does.
• Instead of immediately obeying the Lord of Life, 
• the one condition upon which he can help them, 
• and in itself the beginning of their deliverance, 
• they set themselves to question their unenlightened intellects as to His plans for their deliverance…”

It reminds me of a young man on my bus recently who was acting up. I told him to stop what he was doing. He responded with, “Why?” I immediately stopped, got out of my seat and walked to the back of the bus to have a little chat. I reminded him that he will always have people in his life telling him what to do, and for the most part, they want him to make a good go in life. "Rather than question why and deciding for yourself if you’ll do what’s asked, the proper response, and the one that will ensure a lifelong measure of success, is to just do what’s asked and learn to quickly and cheerfully figure the best way to do it!"

After all, it's really an attitude of the heart, isn’t it? Rather than people who chafe at and question everything he tells them to do, why wouldn’t the King of Glory want to populate His kingdom with people of the humble heart, demonstrated by their desire to quickly, cheerfully and completely obey the things that show they trust and love Him! 

It is the only way to know His heart, understand His purposes and help Him build a society truly worth living in! Let us then, always be mindful that every time we do what the Lord asks us to do, or not do what He tells us not to, we are helping Him build a world worthy of Life and Love!

The New Kingdom.5

"Let your children stand before you as your judges; they can settle this dispute, for if your children cast out devils by the breath of God, then the kingdom is indeed come to dwell among you." --Jesus

Casting Out Devils

The ultimate measure of the spiritual health of a culture can be found in the children. If parents have been feckless, indifferent and downright neglectful in protecting the next generation from true Satanic evil in the world, the evidence is in the behavior and attitudes of the children.

Measuring Manners 

In a recent conversation with my father in law about his Amish neighbors (whom he's never had a particularly high opinion of) I asked him to consider the fact that the Amish community still knows how to raise respectful, kind and hard working kids. I said you could make the case they are raising the kind of kids most Americans were like decades ago. "If you doubt me," I said, "walk through the halls of any public school or ride a school bus. You'd be appalled at the language and conversation of today's American children!"

Targeting youth has always been the aim of those who want to see generational change. Here are just a few quotes from the dark side of history:

"Give me just one generation of youth and I'll transform the whole world." Vladimir Lenin

"Give me your four year olds and in a generation I will build a socialist state." Lenin

“The whole function of education is to create a Nazi.”
Bernhard Rust, Nazi education minister, February 1938

“We begin with the child when he is three years old. As soon as he begins to think, he gets a little flag put into his hand. Then he follows the school, the Hitler Youth, the SA and military training. We don’t let him go. And then when adolescence is passed, then comes the Arbeitsfront, which takes him again and does not let him go until he dies, whether he likes it or not.”
Robert Ley, Nazi labour chief, 1938

“The children of today are the fighters of tomorrow. Their hardening and preparation is a task as important as that of the armaments industry.”
Schul-Rundkfunk education journal, January 1940

“My teaching is hard. Weakness has to be

knocked out of them. In my Ordensburgen, a youth will grow up before which the world will shrink back. A violently active, dominating, intrepid youth, that is what I am after. Youth must be all those things. It must be indifferent to pain. There must be no tenderness or weakness in it. I want to see once more in its eyes the gleam of pride and independence of the beast of prey. Strong and handsome will my men be… Then I shall have in front of me the pure and noble natural material. With that, I can create the new order.”
Adolf Hitler, quoted by Herman Rauschning, 1940

“Nazi schools are no place for weaklings. All children must, of course, finish primary school before they are ten but after that, the schools are proving grounds for the Party. Those who betray any weakness of body or have not the capacities for absolute obedience and submission must be expelled.”
Gregor Ziemer, American teacher, 1941

“[Hitlerjugend leader] Baldur von Schirach was guilty of far more than war crimes. His was the deadly evil of corrupting the young. He poisoned the minds of an entire German generation. He trained and schooled the SS men, the men of the gas vans, the men of Auschwitz and Majdanek.”
New Central European Observer, 1948

The Holy Spirit revealed to Paul 2,000 years ago that the end of the age would usher in an epidemic of demon-inspired disobedient children! The current influence of the Tic Toc app is a great example of combining an atmosphere of rebellion with a willing audience to achieve destructive ends. My 5th grade granddaughter has reported that the current trend on Tic Toc is to video yourself slapping a teacher! In a conversation with a local high school custodian, I learned that not a week goes by without the police being called in and escorting a student out of the building, often in handcuffs, for doing destructive things, imitating what they saw on Tic Toc and other social media!

Do these anecdotes prove we are in the period of time Paul described in II Timothy 3:1 as "perilous" characterized by, among many things, "disobedient children"? Or are we just living in a time period when technology magnifies the "outliers" creating another illusion that things are far worse than they actually are?

If God assured Elijah that 7,000 had not bowed the knee to Baal, we can be assured that Jesus' work of Righteous Redemption has born fruit in tens of (if not 100's of) millions of people world wide who choose light over darkness. But since darkness seems to be in charge of much of what is projected through media, Satan's message that "resistance is futile" will cause many to succumb to the relentless assault on righteousness as we approach the last of the last days.

As Satan as always done, he continues to target children. It's why, in my opinion, children were such an important focus of Jesus' teachings while on earth. In fact, He went so far as to say that unless you and I become like children we will never see his kingdom!

Settling Disputes

The argument the religious leaders put forward, that essentially deflected away from their own spiritual impotence, was that Jesus' ability to "cast out demons" came from Satan himself. Jesus, of course, exposed the folly of such an argument and demonstrated that it was an emotional attack designed to elicit shock from the public and undermine growing public confidence in Jesus' teachings and power. As He did on many occasions, Jesus used Children to illustrate eternal truth:

-When the disciples got embroiled in a dispute over

"kingdom standing", Jesus took a child to settle the dispute about true greatness.

-When Nicodemus questioned Jesus' authority, Jesus said understanding the work of God's Spirit requires a born again experience, essentially returning to a childlike state of grace and trust.

-He became indignant at any attempt to keep children from receiving His blessing and being near Him.

-He made it clear that receiving a child is indeed receiving His childlike, obedient nature, the truest picture of the Nature of God himself.

-If the childlike character of grace and truth can overcome and "cast out" the lies and deception of Satan, what does it say about the sorry state of religious legalism?

 There is a growing controversy in American culture over what many believe to be Satanically inspired school curriculum and parents who want to protect their own children from wrong influences. The moms and dads showing up at school board meetings to defend truth are the offspring of the baby boomer generation who have failed to protect our culture from the lies and deception of the evil one! May God help these children settle this dispute and restore childlike character to our culture!  

The New Kingdom.4

"One cannot be liberated from the kingdom of the evil one without first binding his power. If I cast out devils and perform signs and wonders as an ally of the devil, as some of you accuse me, then by what power do your children do the same?"

--Jesus

Klashing Kingdoms


Kingdom (definition):

• sovereignty,
  
• dominion,
• royal power;
• the territory or people over whom a king rules;
• the sphere of a King's rule;
• the sphere in which, at any given time, His rule is acknowledged."

"Jesus is a King because his business is to bear witness to the truth. What truth? All truth; all verity of relation throughout the universe--first of all, that his father is Good, perfectly good; and that the crown and joy of life is to desire and do the will of the eternal source of will, and of all life." -MacDonald

With a nod to comedian Flip Wilson, 

"The Devil made him do it!"

is always an easy way for accusers of the righteous to try to grab the moral high ground against their perceived enemies. The Chosen, a tv series on the life of Christ and the Twelve disciples, does a terrific job of depicting the egregious hostility by the religious overlords of the day toward the Son of God, often accusing him of being in collaboration with the devil!

What gets lost in the ensuing debate is that the devil is actually quite capable of enormous destruction in the lives of people. Matthew describes an especially violent encounter with two demoniacs in 8:28:

"And when he was come to the other side into the country of the Gergesenes, there met him two possessed with devils, coming out of the tombs, exceeding fierce, so that no man might pass by that way.."

Pastor/author Rick Renner explains that the Greek word used to describe the demoniacs as "exceeding fierce" is chalepos and means danger, risk, hurt, hazard, and potential wounding, like wild, vicious, and uncontrollable animals. They were unpredictable and dangerous. In fact, they were potentially treacherous and hurtful to anyone who tried to pass by that way. As a result of their well-known, dangerous behaviors, people found this situation emotionally hard to bear. This is what the word chalepos conveys: harsh, harmful, cruel, ruthless, cutting and wounding that is unpredictable, dangerous and emotionally difficult.

Before Jesus liberated the demoniacs, they'd made a habit of charging out of the caves along the road that ran along the eastern side of the sea of Galilee, terrifying people who tried to pass by on the seaside road near their dwellings in the caves and tombs. These men presented a real danger which caused the people in that region to avoid this area and keep a distance between themselves and those demoniacs, aware that they were walking into a hazardous situation.

But, as was His practice, rather than avoid the area, Jesus met the danger head on! The result was liberation and peace not only for the demoniacs but the people of the area and travelers on the sea side road!

And yet, the overlords found reason to criticize...

What is the greater danger: exceedingly fierce demon possession or spiritual pride-induced blindness? If I recall correctly, it was the spiritually blind who eventually contrived to put Jesus to death. Perhaps the lesson to be learned is this: the demon possessed can be set free through the liberating power of the Holy Spirit; the demon-deceived are the ones who cause the real problems for the righteous!

Exceedingly fierce times are coming when all Hell will break loose on the earth! In fact, every measure points to the fact that we are the ones chosen to live in the perilous times Paul describes in II Timothy 3:1, where he uses the same Greek word, chalepos, to describe this time period--"when time has sailed to its last port and no more time remains for the journey." Like the demoniacs Jesus liberated, the time will be "exceeding fierce" characterized by harsh, harmful, cruel, ruthless, cutting and wounding that is emotionally difficult to bear.

Victors Not Victims

Jesus is our Example. What terrified others called Him to action. The same should be true of his Followers in today's volatile climate.

 

Others would have turned around, gotten back into their boat, and sailed away to get out of the area. But Jesus was called to that place at that time to bring deliverance to the demoniacs in the country of the Gadarenes. Had He run away from that Divine assignment, He would have missed the opportunity to set an entire region free. As "perilous" and "exceedingly fierce" as those demoniacs were, Jesus pressed forward in the power of the Spirit and with the weapons of God, and He transformed that dire situation with the glory of God!

Likewise, in these last days, we need to hear God's Spirit beckoning us to step forward with the authority of Jesus Christ to bring deliverance, freedom, and peace to people and places where the devil has tried [and will keep on escalating his attempts] to bring chaos, hazard, and hurt. People need us, and that makes this our greatest hour!

The New Kingdom.3

"Every kingdom that is divided against itself is doomed; and every city or house divided against itself will eventually fall. Likewise, if the evil one is fighting evil, he is divided against himself, and his kingdom will not last." -Jesus

How to keep your house united in two easy steps:

1. Love good

2. Hate evil.

Talking with a friend recently, we reflected on the TV
shows we grew up with in the 50's and 60's. Shows like "Donna Reed", "My Three Sons", "Bonanza", "Leave It To Beaver" and others. These dramatizations and the people who produced them reflected a deep cultural commitment to goodness. The focus of the stories was on individual character and the lessons one can glean from life to become a better person: more mature, respectful, a better leader, worker, parent, person. By focusing on the responsibility of the individual to grow and become a better member of society, society itself benefited.

Contrast that with modern sitcoms, music videos and

storylines, shows like Modern Family, Married...with Children, The Simpsons or All In The Family where the focus is most often on the ills of society and who is to blame for them. Characters are often rude, sarcastic, loud and vulgar. Men, in particular, are portrayed as belching-sexual pariahs, emasculated and irrelevant.

The advent of graphic media has provided rich opportunity to influence masses of people of which kings and tyrants throughout history could only have dreamed. Bypassing the natural filters of reason and truth, aiming at the emotional center, modern society has been led to accept increasingly more noxious ideas, behaviors and practices.

Walk through the halls of today's schools and see if you think the media hasn't had an impact on the attitudes, language, behavior and conversation of our youth. If you grew up on 50’s and 60’s tv ---and have been living under a rock-- prepare to be shocked!

Goodness builds. Evil destroys. 

There are two primary ways of looking at the world, the human race:

People who view the world through the lens of the Right (Right for Righteousness) tend to try to make the world a better place by being better people, i.e., kind, fair, forgiving, reasonable, generous, God-fearing and freedom-loving. 

People of the Modern (i.e., Marxist) Left try to circumvent the natural demand of ideals by demanding what people ought to believe and how to think and act. These influencers tend to be impertinent, bossy, unreasoning, unforgiving, unrealistic, and unholy.

In that sense, the world has always been divided. But Human beings are created for Oneness. First, with our Creator. Then with one another.

Here is a profound thought from friend George MacDonald: 

"There is more love in the world than anything else...but the best love and the individual in whom love is supreme are the rarest of all things." 

As humans, especially humans living in society together, we make many claims upon the attitudes and actions of others. These claims show themselves in a variety of ways including, but not limited to, family relations, community efforts, commercial advertising, social interaction, and governmental rules.

What is the strongest claim we have as humans upon those who invent, innovate, enervate, and usher in the future; whose skill level, job description, election or simple interest position them to best influence society? Is not our claim for them to put forward our highest and best ideals and behavior?

Unfortunately, the loudest and strongest demands of the present day (and, to be fair, most any day in human history) are not for the best of what we are capable of but rather the “common-ness, narrowest, low-levelled satisfaction of the age”. Today’s mantra: If it feels good it must be right, if its right it must be true,” (or as the late Charles Colson observed, “People would rather feel good than be good”) describes the governing philosophy that makes it possible for poor and ignoble ideas to gain a foothold and flourish.

If you were to “grade” humanity (at least from a higher perspective), it might look like this:

• Grade A - Exceptional: the childlike in faith, righteousness, humility, sincerity, lovingkindness and grace.
• Grade B - Acceptable: the reasonably mature, responsible and altruistic
• Grade C - Passable: the coarse and careless sprinkled with enough personality to make them harmless and friendly.
• Grade D - Deplorable: the immature, brash, arrogant, impertinent, greedy.
• Grade E - Incorrigible: malevolent, malicious, criminal
• Grade F - Abominable: the beastly vile.

Thus there is a "natural" division between the becoming righteous and the unrighteous. This division was first revealed at the moment Cain rose up to murder his brother Abel. 

"In the course of time Cain brought to the LORD an offering of the fruit of the ground, 4 and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and his offering, 5 but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell. 6 The LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? 7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it." 8 Cain spoke to Abel his brother. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him." Genesis 4:3-8

 

"By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks." Hebrews 11:4

"We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous." 1 John 3:12

Dr. Jordan Petersen makes the case on the core motive of Cain's antagonism:

“The account of Cain and Abel is remarkable for its unique combination of brevity and depth. In a few short sentences, it outlines two diametrically opposed modes of being—both responses to the emergence of self-consciousness and the knowledge of good and evil detailed in the story of Adam and Eve. Cain’s mode of being – resentful, arrogant and murderous – arises because his sacrifices are rejected by God. This means that his attempts to give up something valuable in the present to ensure prosperity in the future are insufficient. He fails, in consequence, to thrive, as he believes he should, and becomes bitter, resentful and murderous. Abel’s mode of being is characterized, by contrast, by proper sacrifice – by the establishment of balance between present action and future benefit. This ensures his personal and social success, accruing over time. Unfortunately, it also makes him the target of Cain’s malevolence.”

-Jordan Petersen, Genesis lectures."

There is a natural antagonism between those who answer the redemptive call to a higher, rarer, truer humanity and those for whom "vulgarity, vile contentment, self-admiration and unbelief" give volume and cover to a more articulate and peremptory attack on the “common good uncommonly developed.”

The demand of the age is to accept that 

1. Some people are superior to others. (It is the "credentialed" vs the "common" man.)
2. No ideas are Superior to other ideas. (Except what the credentialed deem superior, thus Christianity, for example, is no better or worse as a lifestyle than Islam. But Global Climate Change places a demand on everyone's lifestyle.)

Is the gap widening between the Becoming Righteous and the Antagonists of Righteousness? Surely it must. But my theory is that since the days of Noah, when it literally grieved God that he had made man on the earth because "all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth," righteousness has been advancing in the race. From only one man's family found righteousness enough to preserve the race from the physical cleansing of humanity, to "7,000 who have not bowed the knee to Baal", to the sending of His only begotten son to cleanse the world of sin, to millions today who by faith in Jesus are fighting to preserve the ideals of the American experiment in faith and freedom, the human race is proving it is capable of choosing righteousness eternally! 

And as long as the kingdom of the evil one continues to devour itself through infighting and exposure of its lawlessness, we, the "becoming Righteous" can rest in hope for the return of the King and the glorious final chapter in Overcoming!

(adapted from a portion of George MacDonald's Donal Grant)

The New Kingdom.2

"The kingdom of heaven can be likened to a farmer’s wheat field, planted with good seed. One night, while the farmer slept, his enemy came and sowed darnel weeds among the wheat. When the first blades of wheat finally pushed up through the earth, weeds appeared alongside. 

Seeing this, the servants rushed to the farmer, and with distressed voices wept: “Sir, did not we sow good seed in your field? Why then are there so many darnel weeds?”

The farmer answered: “An enemy has done this.”

“Shall we try to remove them?” the servants asked.

“No,” the farmer replied. “If you pull up the weeds, you will uproot the wheat as well. Let them both grow together until the harvest time; and at the time of the harvest I will instruct the reapers: ‘Gather first the weeds, and bind them into bundles for burning. Then gather the wheat into my storehouse.’”

Here is the lesson: he that sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world. The good seed represents the children of the kingdom, while the seeds represent those deceived by the wicked one. The enemy that planted the weeds is the evil one. The harvest is the end of the world, and the reapers are the angels. Just as the darnel weeds were gathered and burned in the fire, so will it be at the end of this age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather everything that has caused humankind to stumble, and those who live lawlessly outside of the kingdom, and will exile them to a place of weeping and regret. Then the righteous will shine as bright as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. If you have ears to hear, then hear these words."

--Jesus

I've written in times past about our attempts at gardening. One thing I've learned is that

the definition of a "weed" is any plant that is growing where you don't want it to!

To help with our ongoing efforts to create and enjoy the beauty of growing things, I downloaded a new app this year during the growing season called "Picture This". Take a picture of a plant you're curious about and, Wallah!, instant information about origins, ease of care, susceptibility to disease, and even whether or not it is considered an "invasive species", i.e., any plant that could quickly proliferate and overwhelm your well ordered, beautiful garden!  

According to Wikipedia, Darnel, Lolium temulentum, usually grows in the same production zones as wheat and was a serious weed of cultivation until modern sorting machinery enabled darnel seeds to be separated efficiently from seed wheat.The similarity between these two byplants is so great that in some regions, darnel is referred to as "false wheat".It bears a close resemblance to wheat until the ear appears.

Jesus considered those represented by the "darnel weeds" as "invasive species"; people He obviously did NOT WANT POPULATING HIS KINGDOM!

The operative prerogative for Kingdom living is:

  Righteousness.

Perhaps there is nothing that causes people to stumble more than the counterfeits to righteousness.

Counterfeits to righteousness are the coin of the realm in the world's moral morass. Even though the basic assumption of righteousness, namely, fair play to your neighbor, is the same goal for the masses of humanity, the way to achieve those ends is often diametrically opposed to God's ways. Here are some examples of counterfeit righteousness:

Imposed Righteousness

Today's mantra (born out of the CCP pandemic): "wear a mask, save a life" resonates with the masses, for who doesn't want to save lives? But it illustrates the fickleness of trying to impose right behavior on people. For if you in anyway oppose the efficacy of mask wearing because 

• 1. the mask wearing rules keep changing, 
• 2. you don't believe people who aren't sick should be treated as if they were; 
• 3. it seems absurd to guard against spreading a disease through "droplets" when you are handling merchandise and money handled by dozens of people around you; 
• 4. you don't believe the lethality of the disease warrants the extreme measures taken to "protect" you,
• 5. You do believe in Nature's God, natural law and self-evident truth, the foundation of freedom and don't want to be part of a giant social science experiment that violates the principles of liberty

then you are branded an insubordinate rebel and reminded you are not an "expert" so your opinion is of little consequence. 

And in case you missed the message: A close friend, refusing to wear a mask in a local grocery store, was escorted out of the store by police! My workplace is threatening write ups and suspensions for improper mask wearing! The consequence of not complying with imposed righteousness is often severe and/or deadly.

Inflated Righteousness

We live in a world where Harvard Law graduate and proven pathological liar, congressman Adam Schiff, rather than being scorned and ridiculed off the national stage, is esteemed and afforded preferential media treatment over his counterpart, Devin Nunes, farmer, congressman and common sense truth teller, when it comes to describing events that expose the deep corruption at the highest levels of government.  The "credentialed", those who deem themselves morally, intellectually, financially and spiritually superior to the common man, due to their wealth, titles and status, not only are given preferential media treatment but live impervious to the law itself, rarely ever being held accountable for the outright brazen hypocrisy of their behavior.

Imputed Righteousness

I encountered one such counterfeit in a facebook exchange with friends.

Friend 1: "I would seriously question if someone is truly saved if they are ok with killing a baby."

Me: "What we believe about Jesus, or even "doctrines", isn't what makes us a Christian. It's our obedience to Him that makes us his followers. A man's faith is demonstrated in what he does not in what he thinks he believes. Obedience isn't perfection in believing correctly about theology, it's about trying to do what He tells you. If we can't trust him to help us get things right, what kind of faith is that?"

Friend 2: "Just be careful that you don't base your, or someone else's, salvation on works and performance and outward "obedience", because being a Christian truly IS about what we believe, not what we do. It's "calling on the name of the Lord and you will be saved". The thief on the cross had no time to obey nor do good works nor to get all of his doctrine right. He only had time to recognize his own sin, to recognize that Jesus was the perfect Son of God who could save him, to repent and to call upon Jesus to remember him when Jesus comes into His kingdom. And Jesus said "today you will be with me in paradise" because he saw the man's faith and trust in Him as his Savior and heard the confession of faith from his mouth. But of course the RESULT of our repentance and faith in Jesus as our Savior should produce obedience and love and all kinds of good works. We just can't take it to the level of judging others and examining their works and obedience and deciding whether they are Christian or not."

Me: "thank you, friend. Paul and James wrestled with both sides of this coin. I think it comes to this: Obedience IS faith. "The one great heresy of the church is that it is always substituting anything but obedience as faith in Christ." George MacDonald. The example you used bolsters my point: wasn't "calling on the name of the Lord" by the penitent thief an act of the purest obedience? Do you think he didn't struggle inwardly with his thoughts like any human being caught in the Holy Spirit's convicting power ("they'll think I'm silly", "who am I to think he'd care?", etc) until his will submitted to the living will of his Creator God and burst out in his soulful, obedient heartcry: 'Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom!'

So rather than focusing on questions like "what do you believe about (fill in the blank_______ abortion, resurrection, atonement, virgin birth, etc) to try to "judge" whether a person is a "true" "Christian"; shouldn't we rather ask this of us all: "what one thing have I done today because Jesus said "do it", or not done because Jesus said, "don't do it"? That is a far better case for "proving" your allegiance, trust and faith than any doctrinal or theological position!"

We've got it quite wrong if we think God is not interested in us becoming truly righteous like Jesus. A common interpretation of 2 Corinthians 5:21 "For he hath made him [to be] sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him", is that in confessing Jesus as Lord and praying to "receive Him into our heart", we lose our own individuality and God only sees Jesus' "righteousness" plastered on our being. Or as MacDonald points out: "That is, that, by a sort of legal fiction, Jesus was treated as what he was not, in order that we might be treated as what we are not."

That's what Friend 2 considers "believing" in Jesus.

The best antidote to the counterfeits of righteousness is:

Indelible, Intrinsic Righteousness

Let's let friend George MacDonald instruct us on the richness of the righteousness that comes to us by faith in Jesus:

"Be sure that the thing that God gives, the righteousness that is of God, is a real thing, and not a contemptible legalism. Pray God I have no righteousness imputed to me. Let me be regarded as the sinner I am; for nothing will serve my need but to be made a righteous man, one that will no more sin.  

What, then, is the righteousness which is of God by faith? It is simply the thing that God wants every man to be, wrought out in him by constant contact with God himself. It is not an attribute either of God or man, but a fact of character in God and in man. It is God's righteousness wrought out in us, so that as he is righteous we too are righteous. It does not consist in obeying this or that law; not even the keeping of every law, so that no hair's-breath did we run counter to none of them, would be righteousness. 

To be righteous is to be such a heart, soul, mind, and will, as, without regard to law, would recoil with horror from the lightest possible breach of any law. It is to be so in love with what is fair and right as to make it impossible for a man to do anything that is less than absolutely righteous. It is not the love of righteousness in the abstract that makes anyone righteous, but such a love of fair play toward everyone with whom we come into contact, that anything less than the fulfilling, with a clear joy, of our divine relation to him or her, is impossible. 

For the righteousness of God goes far beyond mere deeds, and requires of us love and helping mercy as our highest obligation and justice to our fellow men--those of them too who have done nothing for us, those even who have done us wrong. 

Our relations with others, God first and then our neighbor in order and degree, must one day become, as in true nature they are, the gladness of our being; and nothing then will ever appear good for us, that is not in harmony with those blessed relations."

-George MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons III, Righteousness. (emphasis added)

That's what I want to be, where I want to live and among those I live with...for eternity! 

The New Kingdom.1

"Since the time of John the Baptiser until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and great is the number that eagerly, and in desperation, have seized hold of its truth."

--Jesus

Forcefully advancing.

Like a CEO detailing his company's place in the market, Jesus gives his assessment of the Kingdom of Heaven Enterprise launched at his baptism by John. And as he reflects on the great number of people freed of various diseases, demons exposed and evicted, emotional/spiritual wounds healed and sin eradicated, he sums up their efforts as "forceful advancement." In the clash of light vs darkness, light is winning!

Each victory over the devil's devices serves a dual purpose: to bring heaven's wholeness to individuals and reveal heaven's purposes to His team.

If you haven't had the chance to watch the TV series, The Chosen, I highly recommend it. Dallas Jenkins, son of Jerry Jenkins co-author of the Left Behind series, has done a convincing job, within the limitations of a camera lens, of creating the turbulent world of humanity into which the Son of Man entered. Rich characters such as rascally Simon Peter, on the precipice of disaster over tax problems, Matthew tax collector, a germophobe with slightly autistic characteristics, Thomas, ever the fretful doubter, Nicodemus wrestling with the

deeper truths of God while trying to maintain his vaunted position as "Israel's teacher of the Law." Roman occupation, political intrigue, demonic possession, family spats, debilitating diseases, theological disputes, racism and all the things humans struggle with daily. In the midst of the milieu: 

miracles, freedom, peace, hope, joy, laughter, friendship, love and light and truth.

Who wouldn't clamor for, in eagerness and desperation, seize hold of that truth?

"The human race groans for deliverance: how much does the race know that its redemption lies in becoming one with the Father, and partaking of His glory?" -George MacDonald

In today's equally swirling milieu of political intrigue, demonic possession, massive deception, family spats, debilitating diseases, racism and all the things humans continue to struggle with on a daily basis let us remember that we still serve the King who's Kingdom will continue to forcefully advance the things humans still clamor for and in desperation will seize hold of. As for us, our part in this advancement is fairly simple according to brother Peter: "But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect."

--1 Peter 3:15 (ESV)