Black holes are formed when stars die. They become like Dyson vacuums, sucking up all the mass and matter around them, exhibiting a gravitational pull so strong that even light particles cannot escape. A black hole’s existence is dependent upon the consumption of everything around it. Likewise, humanity’s selfish heart sucks up everything God created good in and around it and uses these created goods to sustain its life. But what the heart usually fails to see is that this insatiable hunger is precisely what will kill it.

We see then that the two cities were created by two kinds of love: the earthly city was created by self-love reaching the point of contempt for God, the Heavenly City by the love of God carried as far as contempt of self. In fact, the earthly city glories in itself, the Heavenly City glories in the Lord.1
The past forty years have seen a few writers—from philosopher Charles Taylor to historian Carl Trueman—declaring that people in the Western world answer the question Who am I? in fundamentally distinct ways compared to history past.2 Christians have been caught up in this shift as well, often unwittingly, and have found themselves together with the rest of the West in the midst of an identity crisis.
The claim of Jesus that no one can be his disciple unless he hates his own life (Luke 14:26), and his call to deny oneself, shoulder a cross, and lose one’s life to find it truly (Matt 16:24–25) descend on clogged ears. We hear him, but only as though muffled by our passions, dreams, and desires for this life, which still functionally serve as determinative of our sense of who we are and where we are going. Lulled into lethargy, we would do well to shake ourselves awake to the call of Christ—or find someone who will do it for us.
Created as Stars
The church fathers give good shakings.3 Ignatius’ Letter to the Romans, which is too often dismissed due to his uncomfortable-to-us desire for martyrdom, is typical of how the Fathers thought about true discipleship:4
Neither the ends of the earth nor the kingdoms of this age are any use to me. It is better for me to die for Jesus Christ than to rule over the ends of the earth. Him I seek, who died on our behalf; him I long for, who rose again for our sake. The pains of birth are upon me. Bear with me, brothers and sisters: do not keep me from living; do not desire my death. . . . Let me receive pure light, for when I arrive there I will be a human being. Allow me to be an imitator of the suffering of my God.5
Ignatius sees the call of Jesus in Matthew 16 as turning inside-out the world’s view of life and self. To find our life here is to build our homes in death; true life, rather, comes through death.
The patristic theologians are always trying to get Christians to see that to be truly human—a human being who images God well—is to follow the God-man, Jesus, the true image of the invisible God (Col 1:15), in self-sacrificial death for the love of God and neighbor. God’s design for the human being is to live like a star, lighting and blessing the people and creation around us in representation of the love and glory of God.
The Lord promised to make Abraham’s offspring like the stars in the heavens (Gen 15:3). Jesus called his people to be salt and light, to shine like stars in the world in their obedience to him.6 And throughout the Bible, stars function as symbols of, among other things, earthly rulers and the people of God.7 Humanity is, like the sun and stars, to radiate as patterns of God’s glory and sovereign rule through their loving, beautiful dominion over the earth. But, since the fall in the garden, human beings have become like black holes instead.8
On Black Holes
Black holes are formed when stars die. They become like Dyson vacuums, sucking up all the mass and matter around them, exhibiting a gravitational pull so strong that even light particles cannot escape. A black hole’s existence is dependent upon the consumption of everything around it.
Likewise, humanity’s selfish heart sucks up everything God created good in and around it and uses these created goods to sustain its life. But what the heart usually fails to see is that this insatiable hunger is precisely what will kill it.
Recent quantum research, pioneered by Stephen Hawking, has shown something previously thought to be unlikely—black holes die.9 The prior consensus was that black holes may exist into eternity as they gobble up more mass, but with the progress of quantum physics and its insight into matter and anti-matter particles, the scientific community has changed its mind.
Even the blackness of space is teeming with life. If we could see into the quantum realm, we would see particles popping in and out of existence. These particles come into being as matter/anti-matter pairs (positively and negatively charged, respectively), which then are annihilated instantly as the matter and anti-matter particles cancel each other out.
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As parents, we are called to engage, instruct, and disciple our children for the glory of God. As we continue to watch the darkness spread across our land, we must be gaining resources, tools, and ultimately taking responsibility to educate our children through a proper biblical worldview.

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock somewhere over the last couple of years, you’ve witnessed a drastic increase in the LGBTQA+ agenda in our nation. This agenda is well funded and far more organized than you might want to believe. While the stories of transgender athletes dominating women’s sports is concerning, you must know that this agenda transcends beyond swimming and track & field competitions. It involves a well organized political indoctrination campaign. In short, it’s called—discipleship.
A number of Disney employees are protesting what’s been called Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill. The employees are protesting as Gov. Ron DeSantis plans to sign the “Parental Rights in Education” bill into law in the state of Florida. This controversy has sparked much attention. What’s the issue? The bill will restrict K-3 grade students from being instructed or influenced by gender identity curriculum in the classroom. Once again, it points to the obvious reality that the LGBTQA+ agenda is using the classroom to make disciples, and this decision doesn’t fit within their deconstructive framework.
Ground Zero
The public school system and university campus have become ground zero for LGBTQA+ grooming. It’s called discipleship. Parents, if you don’t make disciples in your home with a biblical worldview, the enemy will gladly provide a worldly substitute. Such substitutes are offered by friendly and often very knowledgeable teachers and professors who engage in grooming activities to lead struggling children or teens into embracing a LGBTQA+ lifestyle.
The grooming starts early with children. For instance, one controversial activity that has become popular in many cities across our nation is “Drag Queen Reading Day.” This is an event sponsored by local libraries where transgender men who are obviously pretending to be women are given a public platform and access to children in a way that seems fun and interactive for children, but it’s extremely powerful.
Children will respond to the drag queen like you might expect them respond to a fun character at Disney World. They enjoy the costume and the fun stories. However, the transgender man is dressed up in a glitter covered costume with loads of makeup and eyelash extensions as an ambassador to deliver a message. The message is about gender fluidity. The goal is to make disciples and allies in local communities in order to normalize transgender and homosexual behavior in the eyes of little children and their parents. Remember the word of the year for 2021 for Dictionary.com? It was allyship.
Prior to their first day of kindergarten, little children are attending these powerful experiences in local libraries and this prepares their mind and heart to receive the more extensive grooming instruction as they enter the local school system.
The Wave of LGBTQA+ Studies
There has been a steady agenda to impact students through curricula within the local school system and university campus for decades. Back in 2008, a lesbian student at a high school in Vallejo, California filed a complaint with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) accusing the school district of discrimination. The settlement involved the introduction of films that were assigned to students as a homework assignment that depicted homosexual families. This assignment was issued as early as elementary school.
The agenda has picked up speed in recent years. An article published by Time Magazine back in 2014 was titled, “It’s Time to Write LGBT History into the Textbooks.” The social justice agenda has dramatically intensified the homosexual agenda in the sphere of education. For instance, back in 2016, California became the first state to add the LGBTQA+ agenda into the public school curriculum.  After the new law passed and the new framework was adopted into the school system, it was highly praised by the California Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tom Torlakson who called it “a big win.” He stated the following:
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Whilst we still sin and thus evidently are still sinners, we are more fundamentally holy and righteous in the sight of God, children adopted into Jesus’ sonship, indwelt and empowered by the Holy Spirit…When we remember and recall that is who we truly are now, I suspect we will be encouraged into living in line with what we are rather than being harangued into avoiding living in line with what we once were.

I wrote the other day (or, rather, re-posted) an article about not being afraid to repeat ourselves. The reason for the need to repeat ourselves—other than that people often haven’t heard us the first time—is that we are so prone to forget. We have been going through Deuteronomy recently and a repeated theme is the need to repeat the covenant because Israel are liable to forget it otherwise. It is a point made again and again—Deuteronomy has no problem repeating itself!
The key to not forgetting is to keep repeating. That is why Israel were told to keep reminding each other of the basic covenant stipulations, particularly the Shema. The most important fact about Israel was that Yahweh was their God and they were his people. This is the truth they were to keep repeating—when they get up and go to bed, in the house and out the house, in the city and out the city, with your family, friends and strangers—remember that you worship Yahweh alone. He is your God and you are his people.
The reason for landing on that so hard, and repeating it ad nauseam, is because Israel will ultimately act in line with what they are. If they remember they belong to God alone and they are his special covenant people, they are more likely to act as though they belong to God and are his covenant people. Knowing who they really are leads to acting like what they really are. Functioning as God’s covenant people was not about trying harder so much as remembering who they already are.
The same principle holds for God’s people today. The key to the Christian life is not trying harder to be better. It is fundamentally about remembering who we are in Christ. We worship God alone and we are his people. We are united to Christ and all that is his now belongs to us by faith.
More often than not, however, people in my tradition—theologically and soteriologically reformed people—land hard on something else. We tend to emphasise that we are sinners. And, of course, we are sinners by nature. The Bible is clear that all people are dead in their trespasses and sins. It is only in and through the person of Jesus Christ we can be forgiven for those sins. When we come to trust in Jesus—as Luther helpfully put it—we are simultaneously justified and yet sinners. Our sin is not eliminated in reality even if it is truly and properly forgiven, making us justified in God’s sight. And so we continue to hear an awful lot about sin.
But as I said, the Christian life is fundamentally about remembering who we are. Whilst we are still sinners, inasmuch as we still sin, when we have put our trust in Jesus that is no longer our core identity. Our fundamental identity is now our righteous standing in Christ. Let’s put it this way: stood before the throne of God, what is going to be the essential assessment of our lives? That we were sinners? Or, that we are united to Christ? Surely the latter. The Father, fundamentally, views us as those who are righteous in Christ, not fundamentally as sinners.

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