Christian Living Today

Why ‘Black Friday?’ Why such a name? Why does it work? Is this really all life is about now?

I rarely do this - share a homely based purely on my experience and not upon my devotions. However, I decided to share my experience - my participation in a black Friday sale. Something I will never do again!

No, I didn’t get trampled. No, I did not experience something most would consider bad. Yes I did purchase what I went to purchase. BUT. . .I felt dirty afterwards.

Do not get me wrong. I spend money - sometimes on things which are purely ‘wants’ and definitely not ‘needs’. That was not what made me feel like I’d tromped through the sewer.

No, it was the mentality which prevailed. That should have come as no surprise. After all, anything with a name like that. Anything which turns normally nice people into a trampling crowd. Anything which creates a buying frenzy causing people to spend what they do not have to buy what they do not need — that should have been obvious!

That is really what Black Friday celebrates. Granted there are some good deals, but the really good deals are severly limited. Take, for example, the laptop computer which drew in my relatives. In total, the Walmart store had eleven. ELEVEN! In fact, although they walked out of the store their wallet a couple hundred dollars lighter and a laptop in their cart, they paid more than money for the privilege. They stood in line from 11:30 pm to 5:00 am.

I don’t know about you, but I can think of many things (not the least sleep) which would have been more beneficial use of that 5 ½ hours!

In the end I walked away feeling like the fool. Materialism had ruled for a night. Precious time was thrown to the wind. My ears and mind felt shot through with worldly propaganda and conversation. I could only ask: Is this all life is about? Is this what people really think brings happiness?

If so, what a message of hope and purpose the gospel declares. May we be ever the bolder in sharing with others our glorious hope which encompasses both now and eternity. May we be all the more cautious about how we spend our time, and where. May we be wiser than serpents and not the companion of fools!

Listening to some, looking around at the condition of some churches, and certainly hearing the mainstream media’s viewpoint can leave one wondering at the future of the Christian church in America. Thus it was with interest I read World Magazine’s recent article, “Sixth Wind” by Marvin Olasky.

Noting the liberal media’s plethora of bad news like Newsweek’s recent article, “The Decline and Fall of Christian America,” Mr. Olasky points out the need to always take a second look. He says, “Whenever the conventional wisdom points in a particular direction it’s good practice to ask: What if the opposite is true? What if nominal Christian affiliation is declining but serious biblical belief is actually on the rise? What if Christianity in America is not dying, but instead getting its second wind - or maybe its sixth?”

Taking information from various polls and surveys and from various books by secular authors, Mr. Olasky sets to pointing to some interesting conclusions which suggest that while Christianity is taking a beating (so to speak) on the broad front, at its heart it may, in fact, be growing stronger, deepening its roots, and rebuilding its foundations.

One interesting resource Mr. Olasky used in his article was the book God Is Back: How the Global Revival of Faith is Changing the World by John Micklethwait (editor-in-chief of The Economist - a weekly (non-Christian) skeptic’s magazine) and Adrian Wooldridge (the magazine’s Washington bureau chief). These two self-proclaimed ‘non-involved outsiders’ admit the evident problems within the church. However they also noted, “Christians are the people looking after the homeless, the drug-addicted.” Then they asked a key question, “Where is the atheist homeless shelter?”

In fact, in both the United Kingdom and in America, Micklethwait and Wooldridge’s research has shown a strengthening Church. While some mega-churches continue to face growing difficulties, grass-roots Christianity is going deeper. Granted, many churches may see declining numbers, but is this a bad thing?

As Wooldridge pointed out, “Christianity. . .has survived the acids of modernity. It’s had its reformations, it’s had its competitions, it’s had all of that and it has been strengthened by it. . .” Thus, the generations to follow may look back at this time and see, ultimately, the growth of the Christian church. Certainly the New Testament bears this out. The real church, real Christianity, real faith actually grow and thrive under persecution.

And, lest we think Christianity’s impact is declining on the political or social front, Mr. Olasky’s article (and an interview with Wooldridge and Micklethwait in the same issue of World Magazine) suggest just the opposite. On the political front Wooldridge says, “I see the political influence of religion becoming actually greater in the United States, rather than less. This is true times 10 for the rest of the world.”

On the social front, Mr. Olasky asks a telling question. However, Mr. Micklethwait’s answer is even more enlightening. Mr. Olasky asked, “What do you make of the atheist bestsellers during the past several years?”

Mr. Micklethwait responds, “You do not suddenly wake up in a panic about God being bad or terrible if you think you’ve already won the argument. If you went back 10 or 15 years, the idea that Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens could write a bestseller on the subject would have seemed odd, because — certainly in Europe — most of the educated elites would have assumed that God was disappearing anyway, so what’s the worry?”

As Christians I believe we should take away at least three things from this ongoing discussion:

One - We must not believe everything we hear and read. The mainstream media has a goal in mind. They are no longer neutrally reporting ‘news’ as they find it. They are creating news. They are seeking to shape the future of America. Thus, as Mr. Olasky pointed out, we need to ask some direct questions and look in the opposite direction to avoid being blinded by their smoke-screen.

Two - Whose church is this? If the church is God’s church, the gates of hell will not prevail against it. In other words, if we see our churches being rocked by the winds of change, maybe we should be asking ourselves - what is our church founded upon? If we are founded upon Christ, the rock, we have no reason to fear. God is on our side. If we are not, then we never were part of the true church anyway.

Three - Persecution is not a bad thing, in and of itself. In fact, persecution is often the tool which God uses to purge our hearts and His church. Thus we should realize, there will be a separating of the wheat from the tares. This does not mean we do not pray for (and seeking to restore) those who walk away from the church in these trying times, but we also need to remember the Bible says there are those who will go out from us because they were never really attached to the vine!

Social networking sites are the new rage. Maybe not so new, but certainly they continue to grow in popularity. More and more people are ‘connecting’ on places like Facebook and Twitter and MySpace.

While social sites can have at least one good benefit (which we discussed in another post), they can have numerous negative ones. Some are obvious. Some maybe not so obvious.

More and more Christians are waking to the problems of such sites. What is the answer? For some it might be disconnecting from all social sites. For others, strictly limiting their time or contacts may be the answer. One thing is for sure - all Christians need to carefully evaluate their use and the time they are committing.

Some of the more obvious issues are:

 ”Meeting people” on social sites
 Kids and social sites
 It is all about me
 It is a major time waster

While these are fairly self-explanatory, to avoid potential misunderstandings, I will attempt to delineate what I mean by these four injunctions.

First: One of the first things I learned about Facebook was, ‘the more friends you have the more popular you are’. Call me naive. It honestly never crossed my mind until another Facebook friend said, “You already have more friends than I do!”

My initial reaction was, “So?” My friend went on to explain this meant I was more popular. I quickly clarified my associations were wide-spread and thus, I did not think thia applied. However, our brief conversation stuck with me.

If life is a popularity contest, many godly men and women have failed miserably! Furthermore, there is real danger in using numbers as our standard. Anyone who has television access has heard stories of children sucked into deadly situations by some ‘new friend’.

Second: Most social sites offer our children the opportunity to ‘keep in touch’ with friends. However, in addition to the danger of meeting harmful new friends, many parents know a gathering of youth can degenerate into a flock of fools. Thus many Christian parents have either banned their children from such sites or set strict ground rules.

The potential pitfalls behoove us to make at least one basic requirement - Dad or Mom (or both) are one of their ‘friends’. This, of course, demands we closely follow what our children are sharing with one another, the turns their conversations are taking, and the associations they are developing.

Third: Maybe it is just me, but I have a major problem with the ‘its all about me’ mentality which permeates these sites. Twitter. Facebook. MySpace. LinkedIn. An integral part of each are ‘status updates’. Each one focuses on what? A mini-snapshot of you. I am. . . enjoying, working, relaxing, reading, going to, coming back from, and so forth. I have yet to read, “I am convicted, repenting, praying, seeking God’s face, ashamed, humiliated. . .”

You get the picture. We talk about our success. Our conquests. Our fun. But, we do not talk about what really matters. Besides, nowhere in Scripture are we encouraged to focus upon ourselves. Yet, numerous verses remind us to consider others above ourselves. Not one social networking site works from this principle.

Four: My final concern about social networking sites is they can easily waste our time. Scripture tells us to work diligently, yet how many times have my thoughts been interrupted by a pesky thought. “I wonder who is on Facebook? I wonder what is going on in MySpace? I wonder if John responded to my message on LinkedIn? I wonder what Mary has posted on Twitter?”

Lest you think I am pushing beyond reality, consider this example:

 ”I couldn’t help but wonder what he was thinking as he pulled out his iPhone and took advantage of a new Facebook application — right in the middle of the sermon.
 ”It was then that I realized the narcissistic machine that is Facebook.
 ”Shifting uncomfortably in my chair, I found myself desiring to do the same. I shuddered. . .” (Tim Sweetman from his article “Facebook Faceoff”)

Of course it isn’t just the desire to check someone’s status. Games. Looking for more ‘friends’. Even looking at someone else’s photo albums can turn from an innocent pastime to a dangerous time waster.

Social networking sites are not evil, in and of themselves. However, because they pose some very real dangers, we are wise to set standards upon which we can judge our time spent on these sites.

One: Do I spend as much time seeking to develop my relationship with my God as I do seeking to expand my relationship with my friends?

Two: Are my priorities right? Where do I head, first thing in the morning - to my Bible or to my Facebook page?

Three: What are my goals? Where is my focus? “But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self–control, to self–control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love.” (2 Peter 1:5-7)

It behooves us to remember we will be called upon to give an account (1 Peter 4:5).

Our culture has lead us down a thistle-strewn path telling us how rose-like these thorns smell. Worse yet, we have bought the lie. Think about this:

Where is your focus? How often do you think about heaven? Hell? Eternal rewards? Put it this way: What expends the bulk of your time? What percentage of your time is spent on Bible reading? On prayer? On meditating on and studying God’s word? Jesus could not have made it more clear. He said, “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Mt 6:21)

Gal. 6:7-8 put it this way. “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life.”

Leon Morris comments on this passage, “Paul is reminding the Galatians that they should get their priorities right and give time and energy to that which concerns ultimate issues, and not merely passing things of here and now.”

Satan does not come to us boldly, telling us to put down our Bibles and turn our backs (mentally and physically) on God. Instead he brings things into our lives which seem good. And, in and of themselves, they are not sin. But, if something good becomes more important to us than our relationship with God, that good thing becomes a bad thing which (and will, if left alone) lead us straight to hell.

We buy into our culture’s logic, fully committing ourselves to the wrong path. We are told we can live however we want. Truth is objective. God is whoever we want him (or her) to be. While we may not give full accent to these lies, we nonetheless allow their underlying premise to effect our lives.

Terry L. Johnson put it this way, “If one might identify ‘the big lie’ of all the lies of our popular culture, it is that one can sin with impunity, that there are no consequences for sin. . .life is painless. Sin has no downside. . .If you have an itch, scratch it. If you have a desire, fulfill it. But listen to what God says: Do not be deceived. He is not mocked. We will reap what we sow.”

John Stott worded it like this. “Sow a thought, reap an act. Sow an act, reap a habit. Sow a habit, reap a character. Sow a character, reap a destiny.”

What destiny are you building?

I fear we have spent so much of our lives thinking we will get to heaven if we give God a few minutes on Sunday, an occasional prayer before we eat, and a verse or Psalm or chapter here and there. And, if we attend Sunday evening and Wednesday night services, well, we figure we’re putting some mighty big jewels in our crown.

We are such fools. Do we really think this is storing up treasure in heaven? If we put as much effort into our jobs or our family or our friends, would we have a job? What would our family look like? Would we have any friends?

So often we excuse our lethargy as the tiredness which comes from fulfilling our responsibilities. After all, we reason, I’m not a pastor. That isn’t my calling. If I stay at home and read my Bible I won’t have a job. If I don’t have a job, I can’t eat. And, if I don’t eat, I die. Thus I must work at my job.

You are right!

Furthermore, God gave me the responsibility to provide for and care for my children. If I don’t provide for them I am worse than an unbeliever. I’m sure the Bible says that.

It does.

Besides that, everyone needs friends. That’s how you get along in this world - we all have to work together. After all, friends always love you. Real friends are there for you in the hard times. However, good friendships take time and work.

True. But, I would remind each of us, even a good thing becomes bad if it takes God’s place - the primary seat of affection in our lives. The primary purpose and drive and motivator in our decisions and actions.

So, while these other things are good - and required - they are not excuses we can hold up to God to justify our failure to tend to the things that really matter. God will bless our efforts if we honor Him first. Thus even our work will be better, our family happier, our friendships deeper, if He has the foremost place of priority in our lives.

“Holiness is a harvest. Growth in grace depends on what one sows. . .How can we become Christ-like if we don’t feed on the Bread of Life?” (Terry Johnson)

Is there really a position such as Christians versus atheists? Of course. While modern day Christianity has presented a good Christian as something of a mamby-pamby who opposes no one and seeks to be entirely unoffensive, this is not the Christianity of the Bible.

Look at Jesus. Did He spend his time trying to make people feel comfortable? Certainly not. While we are commanded to love, we are also commanded to be zealous for the truth. And, what truth is more important than the reality of God, than salvation through Christ’s death, than the devastating fact of our sinful nature?

A sick church has helped contribute to the rising number of atheists. While the majority still believe in the existence of God, or at least a supreme being, a growing number of people believe it is impossible to prove or disprove God’s existence.

In reality, however, it is not proof the atheist lacks. Atheism, in reality, exists because sinful humanity does not want to be accountable to a holy God. Think about it, while humans have explored vast regions and expanded our knowledge far beyond that of our forefathers, scientists are the first to admit we have yet to really scratch the surface of the known universe.

As a result, any rational mind recognizes how ridiculous it is to say, unequivocally, ‘God does not exist’. Certainly we may debate the nature of God, and sinful humanity is adapt at creating a ‘god’ which fits a mold of our own making. Nonetheless, the atheist goes beyond, far beyond, creating a god in his own image. The atheist claims there is NO god.

While a painting proves somewhere, at some point in time, a painter existed, and a building proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt there was a builder, the atheist claims to believe all of creation does nothing to prove the existence of a Creator. Of course Romans 1:20 points out the absurdity of such a claim. “For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made . . .”

Take the human eye. With 40,000 nerve endings and 137,000,000 light sensitive cells, even Charles Darwin, the father of evolution, admitted suggesting the eye ‘evolved’ seemed absurd.

Thus atheism really cannot stand the creation proof test. Only someone clinging desperately to a need to not be accountable to anyone would deny the logical. It is not possible for something to come from nothing. Thus, regardless of what you call that ‘something’, it had to come from somewhere. And, of course, that presupposes a creator.

The atheist’s premise ‘there is no God’ is based on two statements which on inspection obviously require much more faith than to believe in a Holy God who not only created everything which exists but will also hold mankind accountable for everything he says and does while living upon this world He created.

We have looked at the argument that if anything exists its very existence proves somewhere at some time a supreme being existed who started the process which resulted in our universe as we know it. Whether you believe in evolution of creation, neither works in a vacuum.

The second premise upon which atheism is based is the belief their is no God. However, this is an absolute statement. An absolute statement requires absolute knowledge. Ray Comfort from Way Of The Master explains it this way:

If I say there is no gold in China, I am saying I have been in every location, looked under every square foot of ground, searched the darkest corners and recesses of every building, and, for that matter, looked into the mouth of every person in China. In other words, to say there is no gold in China, I have to have absolute proof. On the other hand to say there is gold in China, I only have to find a single gold ring, a single gold filling, a single fleck of gold.

This argument makes the absurdity of the atheist’s unequivocal statement there is no God clear. Obviously, humanity has barely begun to explore the known universe. No one would suggest we have a clue what exists in space. We can’t say we know everything in our own backyard. As Thomas Edison said, “We do not know one millionth of one percent about anything.”

Even if we were able to say with confidence we knew 5% of all the knowledge in the universe, this still leaves us 95% in the dark.

As self-proclaimed atheists continue to increase in number, it behooves us, as Christians, to understand the shaky basis upon which their belief system is based. Next time we will look at how to talk to an atheist in a way which helps them to see the faith their belief system requires as well as the fallacy of the premises.

Everywhere we turn we find people who believe in evolution. Why is this ‘theory’ so prevelantly accepted? Why is evolution accepted as fact when scientific evidence has done more to disprove than prove the theory? The following statement sheds some important light on the issue.

 ”The real issue in the creation / evolution debate is not the existence of God. The real issue is the NATURE of God. To think of evolution as basically atheistic is to misunderstand the uniqueness of evolution. Evolution was not designed as a general attack against theism. It was designed as a specific attack against the God of the Bible, and the God of the Bible is clearly revealed through the doctrine of creation. Obviously, if a person is an atheist, it would be normal for him to also be an evolutionist. But evolution is as comfortable with theism as it is with atheism. An evolutionist is perfectly free to choose any god he wishes, as long as it is not the God of the Bible. The gods allowed by evolution are private, subjective, and artificial. They bother no one and make no absolute ethical demands. However, the God of the Bible is the Creator, Sustainer, Savior, and Judge. All are responsible to Him. He has an agenda that conflicts with that of sinful humans. For man to be created in the image of God is very awesome. For God to be created in the image of man is very comfortable.” ~ Judge Marvin L. Lubenow in “Bones of Contention: A Creationists Assessment of Human Fossils”