The Weapons of Our Warfare
Divine truth is the sword we wield. Countless theories, philosophies, and worldviews have been raised against the knowledge of God. The natural man knows God exists and that he is righteous and good. He also knows he has fallen short of God’s glory. Instead of turning to his creator in light of this knowledge, he runs away and works to suppress the truth he knows (Romans 1:18).
When Jesus walked among us, he did not take arms against his enemies. He did not hire a political strategist or form a coup. His weapons of war were much different, and as believers, so are ours. Though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. Our weapons are spiritual and have divine power to destroy strongholds (2 Corinthians 10:3-4). We have several defenses in our armory but only one offensive weapon: the Word of God (Ephesians 6:10-17).
Divine truth is the sword we wield. Countless theories, philosophies, and worldviews have been raised against the knowledge of God. The natural man knows God exists and that he is righteous and good. He also knows he has fallen short of God’s glory. Instead of turning to his creator in light of this knowledge, he runs away and works to suppress the truth he knows (Romans 1:18).
In suppressing the truth, he builds his fortresses to buttress himself against God’s word. His complex interwoven arguments of naturalism, paganism, and other false religions cannot save him. Instead, they cut him off from the source of life.
In walks a Christian who has been set free from his self-destructive self-delusion by the Holy Spirit, and he is carrying a sword. It is the same sword that the Holy Spirit used to set him free.
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When You are Grieving or Know Someone Who is – You Never Know the Level of Your Thoughtfulness or Impact
Text Messages and Personal Notes. Within a few hours of our day beginning, we started receiving text messages of care and concern from those who love us. Nothing major. One such text, “We are thinking about you all today and sweet Kayla! We love you both and your precious family.” Another, “Praying for you and the family today as you reflect on your sweet girl and look forward to seeing her in heaven. Love you so much and sending big hugs to you.” One more example, “Just prayed for you two for today and wanted you to know. Will continue to pray throughout the day. I love you so much.” These are three examples of many. People reaching out.
This past Tuesday, we passed the dreaded date on the calendar of our daughter’s death back in 1999. Twenty-four years later, we have our memories, a date on the calendar of her birth and death, a grave at the cemetery, and, thankfully, hope in the resurrection. Plus, we have friends who share in our loss, friends who make the burden and memory of the day easier. As you walk with those who are suffering or have gone through grieving, you never know the level of your thoughtfulness or impact on them. In fact, unless you have been through deep suffering yourself, you may not have any idea. However, do not let that keep you from doing something.
How We Were Blessed This Year
Our family was blessed in a variety of ways this year on the anniversary of our daughter’s death. Let me list a few to possibly help you think through your own response to a grieving person. Further, if you are the grieving person, I want to help you as well.
To be honest, after twenty-four years, you do not really expect people to remember. In fact, if no one remembered the specific day or mentioned it, it would be no fault of their own. As parents, it is important to us because she is our daughter. It is our story, our life, and our journey. My children have another sister they never see this side of eternity; we have a daughter no one sees as well. Yet, she lives. Therefore, what we have of her is extremely important, including the two days on a calendar of the day of her birth and the day of her death.
On the other hand, we could never expect others to remember it. Life moves on. Every person lives a full life with their own stories, own dates, and own struggles. For us to take it personally if someone forgets would be tragic for us. We would increase our own pain without a legitimate cause.
Yet, we have been blessed again this year – in the twenty-fourth year of our daughter.Text Messages and Personal Notes. Within a few hours of our day beginning, we started receiving text messages of care and concern from those who love us. Nothing major. One such text, “We are thinking about you all today and sweet Kayla! We love you both and your precious family.” Another, “Praying for you and the family today as you reflect on your sweet girl and look forward to seeing her in heaven. Love you so much and sending big hugs to you.” One more example, “Just prayed for you two for today and wanted you to know. Will continue to pray throughout the day. I love you so much.”
These are three examples of many. People reaching out.
You might say to yourself, “But what if they’re not thinking about it today?” “Will I make their day sad?” To be honest, No. Even if in a moment the individual you reach out to is not thinking about their loss, that person will be encouraged by your thoughtfulness.Delivered Flowers. As you can see in the picture above, someone sent us a beautiful arrangement of flowers. Who, you may be wondering, would do that? We do not know. For years, someone has loved us enough to send a flower arrangement to us on our daughter’s annual day of loss.
We are so blessed by the gesture of love. Again, as I mentioned above, no one has to do this, nor is it expected. This act of kindness is an expression of personal sacrifice and love. Think about it. Someone has to preplan what he or she will do, has to pay for it, and then execute the plan. All of these things take time, resources, and commitment.
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Confronting Death: Does Everyone Rest in Peace?
An unbeliever’s suffering doesn’t end with their physical death. A worse fate awaits them in the afterlife. What a tragedy! The unbelieving dead don’t rest in peace. Insisting that they do sounds humane and kind, but it’s seriously misaligned with what God teaches in the Bible. “God will say to those on his left ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matthew 25:41; John 8:24).
I thought I had taught and grasped the Bible enough to be prepared for death. But when I lost my dad in 2011 the pain, grief, and emptiness was devastating. Death created a void. Bereavement felt like being made mute, becoming unable to speak. It’s a troubling and difficult thought that one day you and I will be no more. We will all die.
These last two years of the COVID-19 pandemic were terrible. Countless people died daily, all around us. We’ve all witnessed enormous fear, suffering, grief, and loss. Emotions ran wild. The pandemic had everyone searching for comfort, for hope. And similar to most of human history and almost every culture, the idea that the dead are now in a better place could be heard everywhere. These words slip effortlessly from our mouths. But they are hollow comfort.
Do Deceased Loved Ones Rest in Peace?
The thought that you may never see a loved one again is unbearable. So we’re always looking for consolations to help us escape, denying the terrifying possibility. For many years we’ve turned to various phrases:“They’re resting in peace”
“She’s watching over us now”
“You can still make your late father proud”
“He’s in a better place now.”I understand why these are attractive. More so, I can relate to wanting them to be true. They are ways to ease grief and pain, to lessen loss. But despite our wishes, the dead are gone and their fate is already determined. This is a gut-wrenching reality. For who would readily affirm that their departed loved ones could actually be in a worse place than their earthly toil? Christians shouldn’t turn to these expressions for comfort. Instead we must ask what the Bible says about deceased unbelievers.
What Does God Say?
I’m sympathetic to all those who’ve lost loved ones. It was a tragic day all those years ago, when my dad died in my hands. So I’m familiar with the feelings of hopelessness that accompany the death of a breadwinner, a father, and pillar of the home.
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The Divine Timetable: Learning to Wait on God
I do not know about you, but I pray daily that the Lord would return quickly. Yet sometimes I wonder if he ever will return – at least in my lifetime. I just really want to see this evil world come to a conclusion.
Some Musings on the Difference between My Clock and God’s Clock
We are very impatient people here in the West. We want instant everything. We want everything and we want it now. Christians are not immune to this way of doing things. They too can demand that everything happens immediately. For example, they can expect instant Christian maturity or they can demand instant answers to their prayers.
But God is on his own timetable, not ours. He does things when they need to be done, not when we think they should be done. So we have need for some patience here, among other things. That means not always rushing around, but actually letting God set the timetable and not us.
And we need to learn how to wait on God – the gist of which is just that: waiting. Some famous passages come to mind here about this:
Wait for the Lord;be strong, and let your heart take courage;wait for the Lord!Psalm 27:14
I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry.Psalm 40:1
But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.Isaiah 40:31
The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.Lamentations 3:25
Consider the issue of prayer and what seems like unanswered prayer, or a long delay in getting some sort of answer. I do not know about you, but I pray daily that the Lord would return quickly. Yet sometimes I wonder if he ever will return – at least in my lifetime. I just really want to see this evil world come to a conclusion.
I guess I am rather like those talked about in 2 Peter 3. There Peter discusses scoffers, and he says this in verses 4-10:
They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief…
I hate to say it, but sometimes I sorta think and feel the same way as the scoffers do: “All things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” It seems the evil and suffering and misery and pain just keep on coming – relentlessly. I just want it all to come to an end and I wish God would hurry things up a bit!
But plenty of prayers that we offer up to God may seem to be getting nowhere fast in terms of some kind of answer. Often we have to wait quite a while before we see God acting on our behalf. One passage which speaks to this and is rather mysterious (I will need to write a separate article on it one day), is what we find in Daniel 10:10-14:
And behold, a hand touched me and set me trembling on my hands and knees. And he said to me, “O Daniel, man greatly loved, understand the words that I speak to you, and stand upright, for now I have been sent to you.” And when he had spoken this word to me, I stood up trembling. Then he said to me, “Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and humbled yourself before your God, your words have been heard, and I have come because of your words. The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days, but Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I was left there with the kings of Persia, and came to make you understand what is to happen to your people in the latter days. For the vision is for days yet to come.”
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