Preserved by God
God sustains us that we are able to endure faithfully to the end. By His loving hand, He blesses us with discipline. By His kindness, He leads us to repentance, and by His sacrifice, He has conquered the Enemy and defeated death. For this reason, we will endure because we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.
Winston Churchill is often quoted as saying, “Sure I am of this, that you have only to endure to conquer. You have only to persevere to save yourselves.” Considering what he accomplished in his life, such a statement is certainly appropriate. Churchill‘s victories demonstrated his ability to persevere to the end. He overcame great odds, and his self-sustained fortitude enabled him to endure the hardships and complexities of political life during the Second World War.
While Churchill’s assertion is accurate, it is only accurate insofar as it pertains to our natural human capability. Churchill’s call to persevere to save ourselves is by all means applicable to soldiers in wartime. It is a stern charge to fight to the end in order to overcome the enemy. And, indeed, it conveys a similar exhortation found in Scripture. In Hebrews, we are called to run the race that is set before us (12:1). The apostle Paul likewise exhorts us to endure so that we might reign with Christ (2 Tim. 2:12), and, while teaching His disciples about persecution, Jesus said, “the one who endures to the end will be saved” (Matt. 10:22).
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Americans’ Values Are Changing
Christians, connected to the true Vine, can show the better way, loving our neighbors (even when we are hated) and loving truth. In a world starving for the right values, God gives our lives true value. The world is valuable because God created it and Christ died to save it. May God grant us the courage to live like this is true.
A recent survey conducted by The Wall Street Journal and The University of Chicago found that Americans are, in huge numbers, pulling back from the values that once defined them. Over the last 25 years, the percentage of Americans who described “Patriotism” as either “important” or “very important” fell from 70% to 38%. Those who valued “Religion” fell from 62% to 39%, “Having Children” from 59% to 30%, and “Community Involvement” from 47% to 27%. Even the percentage of Americans valuing “Tolerance for Others” dropped from 80% to just 58%. Only one value out of ten listed increased: “Money,” from 31% to 43%.
Bill McInturff is an expert involved with previous iterations of this survey. He told The Wall Street Journal, “Perhaps the toll of our political division, Covid and the lowest economic confidence in decades is having a startling effect on our core values.’’ While economic affairs affect what people consider to be important, this is reversing the proverbial cart and horse. Corrupt societies can be prosperous, but only for a time. Eventually, low trust, rampant injustice, and civic division have consequences. Throughout history, economic crisis has not created a moral vacuum: It reveals it.
If there is no moral design to reality, or for humanity in particular, what people value is inconsequential. In such a world, there is nothing to be pursued outside of individual expression, which is assumed to lead to happiness and human flourishing. Who cares if people do not value communities, countries, or tolerance? It is the inherent determination of individuals, the pursuit of what they want the most, that will inevitably guide them. We can only follow our own impulses and desires.
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Choosing the Narrow Way
Jesus said that “few” find it. Most people never discover or enjoy what God has made abundantly available for them, which is tragic. Many Christians have found the path to salvation, but they have not found the gate to joy, or fruitfulness in ministry, or victory over certain sins. We should not assume we can merely follow the crowds and still enter the narrow gate. The right path for us will probably not be the one that appears most attractive. It may seem difficult and uninviting. People may even criticize us for following it. In those moments, we’ll have to decide just how much we want what’s behind that door.
One of America’s favorite game shows for many years was The Price is Right. A favorite feature was when contestants chose between what was behind doors number one, two, or three. Behind one of those doors was a fabulous prize. Behind the other two were items of much less value. It was always a tense moment as people made their choice.
When they picked the right door, the place went wild and the lucky winner celebrated enthusiastically. When contestants chose incorrectly, the host tried to console them by assuring them that what they had just won was better than a kick in the head. Viewers who watched the events on television often wondered which door they would choose if they were ever fortunate enough to get on that show.
Jesus claimed that every person must make a more important choice with a far more fabulous prize at stake. Jesus declared, “Enter through the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who go through it. How narrow is the gate and difficult the road that leads to life, and few find it” (Matt. 7:13-14). This passage has rightly been understood as addressing salvation. Even though everyone desires to obtain eternal life, only a minority of people actually secure it.
But this passage can be applied to other areas of life as well. These verses address the ways of God. How God handles something as important as our eternal salvation provides a compelling clue as to how he will deal with less critical matters. People want many things from God: a better job, a more fruitful ministry, robust health, a vibrant marriage and family. I contend that to obtain those things, we must undergo a similar process to obtaining salvation.
There are several practical takeaways from this passage:
First, God has amazing blessings for people if they are willing to seek them. God could have simply handed each person salvation without any effort on the part of the recipient. But these verses indicate that we must follow a path and enter a gate to receive what God has for us. I believe this sequence is true of any endeavor God places before us. Why do some people experience amazing spiritual victories while others do not? Why do some people regularly experience answered prayer and others don’t? Why do some people traverse the deep places of God and others linger near the surface? A journey is typically required to claim God’s promises. Some people are simply unwilling to invest the necessary effort to receive the prize.
Second, broad and easy is the way that leads to destruction. The reason so many people choose this path is because it requires the least effort or investment. Marketers know that people are eager to find the easiest road possible to their desired destination. When it comes to the things of God, following the crowd will often lead you off track. Jesus warned that few people take the path that leads to life. It’s not out of reach, but it is not a popular path.
Third, Jesus said the road that leads to life is difficult. Wouldn’t a loving God make the road to life broad and gentle, with tall fruit trees lining the way to provide shade and sustenance to its travelers? Perhaps. But Scripture cautions us that God’s ways are not our ways (Is. 55:8-9). God is not motivated by numbers. He wants people to exhibit proper attitudes. He understands that great rewards are best achieved with great effort.
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When Steve Wants to be Called Sue
There is a time coming very soon that any Christian not willing to lie about gender, and not willing to perpetuate this lie against transgender individuals, is going to be fired for their stand. That’s both a shame and an opportunity. If God’s people are stuck in companies that hate God and promote homosexuality, transgenderism, abortion, feminism, and more, how freeing it will be, and how much louder we will be, when we’re cut loose from these companies!
It had seemed a regular Monday morning before co-worker Steve arrived. Now his outfit had everyone buzzing: instead of his standard slacks/dress shirt combo, he’d paired black pumps with a floral print dress. In the morning staff meeting, the supervisor informed everyone that Steve was now “Sue” and we should start calling him her.
It’s a scene playing out in offices across the West, and for Christians in these companies, it can seem like our choice is between compromising on God’s Truth (Gen. 1:27) by going along with the transgender lie, or compromising on our winsomeness (Col. 4:5-6) by confronting the lie.
So what’s a Christian to do?
I think a middle road of sorts can be charted, one that doesn’t compromise on God’s Truth, but which also shows a willingness to try to get along in as far as we are able. It involves using a person’s chosen new name, while avoiding any use of pronouns for them. So, in the case of Steve/Sue, even as it is odd to call him by a girlish name, we all know names that have gone from being boys’ names to girls’ names and vice versa. It doesn’t need to be our place to designate a name too girlish for a boy to have it. We can show our willingness to get along by agreeing to call our coworker by his new name of Sue.
But if that were all we were to do, that approach might lead to confusion about where God stands on the issue of gender. If we, as Christians, call transgender folk by names that align with their adopted, but not actual, gender, then we would be sowing the seeds of confusion if that was all we were to do. The reason we can go along with using “Sue” is because we’re doing so as part of a package treatment: we’ll explain that we will also be trying to avoid any mention of Sue’s pronouns. It is one thing to call a man by what would be an odd first name for a man, but it is something else to call a him her.
Though it might not be perceived as such, we would explain that this is us doing our best to get along. Sue would see any use of male pronouns for him as offensive. We would understand it to be a denial of God’s revealed truth about gender to use female pronouns for him. Therefore to minimize offense, and yet not lie, we will agree to speak of “Sue” and “Sue’s presentation” and how “Sue did a good job.” It’ll be “Sue this” and “Sue that” but never she or her.
It would be good to make this clear at the start, rather than have it be discovered by coworkers wondering why we seem to be using Sue’s name to excess. Getting ahead of it makes sure that our Christian witness is clear.
Will that satisfy our employers? Perhaps. But whether it does or does not, it shows our willingness to do what we can. In extending ourselves as far as we can go, we speak the Truth as winsomely as it is in our power to so speak it. This approach may or may not please Man, but it does glorify God.
1. Words Have Power
A strange form of encouragement for this approach can be found in the words of those we oppose.
In a recent position statement proposing “chestfeeding” as a possible alternative to “breastfeeding,” the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine (ABM) began by stating, “We affirm that language has power.” They want to adopt “chestfeeding” to be sensitive to new mothers who don’t identify as being women and who, therefore, might not like to be reminded of their breasts, as those are exclusively female body parts. Language has power, so the ABM’s fix for a woman who doesn’t want to be a woman is to stop reminding her that she is a woman.
Now, as people of the Book, and followers of the Word made Flesh, we agree that “language has power.” Where we differ with the ABM is on how that power should be used.
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