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Archive for category: Kingdom Perspective Posts

You are here: Home » The Kingdom Perspective » Kingdom Perspective Posts

Striking at the Root of Evil

July 28, 2016
28 Jul 2016

It was Henry David Thoreau who said, “There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.” What a true and profound observation! Our problem as a human race is deep and serious. It cannot be overcome by a mere resolution to do better for God. No, our problem goes to the root of who we are, our heart. Listen to the prophet Jeremiah: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it” (Jeremiah 17:9)?

Worse yet Jeremiah goes on to say that the Lord searches the heart and tests the mind. In other words, our sick and deceitful hearts cannot be hidden from God. We can’t pull the proverbial wool over God’s eyes, fooling Him as to our real problem. So what are we to do?

Well, if we are the problem and that problem goes to our core, then there is nothing we can do. What we need is intervention. What we need is for the divine surgeon to perform a heart transplant on us. And this is exactly what the prophet suggests. Listen to verse 14: “Heal me, O LORD, and I shall be healed; save me and I will be saved” (Jeremiah 17:14).

God doesn’t just demand that we do better. No, He performs a one-sided rescue. He sends Jesus the savior/surgeon to single-handedly strike at the root of our problem giving us by His grace a new heart. Has He done this for you?

Something to think about from “The Kingdom Perspective.”

“And He was saying, ‘That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man.’”

~ Mark 7: 20-23

in Kingdom Perspective Posts, Sin & Grace Series /by Don Willeman

Fine Line Between Normal and Monster

July 26, 2016
26 Jul 2016

An article that I read recently in The New York Times asked the question, “Where’s the line between ‘normal’ and ‘monster?’” It cited the infamous study that had been done at Stanford University back in 1971 in which researchers simulated a prison, randomly assigning 24 students to be either guards or prisoners for two weeks. Shockingly, “Within days the ‘guards’ had become swaggering and sadistic …placing bags over the prisoners’ heads, forcing them to strip naked” and perform humiliating acts.

Why did this happen? How could these otherwise “normal” people so quickly become such “abnormal” monsters? Maybe the reason is that our normally “acceptable” behavior is generally, only a thin veil of socially-engineered “goodness.” In other words, our behavior is often only as deep as our social setting. Change the setting and the socially acceptable people suddenly become socially deviant. This, of course, means that the line between the good people and the evil people is thinner than we would like to admit.

Interestingly, the article went on to quote Hannah Arendt’s phrase the “banality of evil,” which she used to describe the very averageness of the Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann. You see, it is easy to put ourselves in a different moral category from the worst of the Nazis. If all that separates me from Eichmann is socialization, however, then before God we’re all in the same boat.

Something to think about from “The Kingdom Perspective.”

“The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?”

~ Jeremiah 17:9

in Kingdom Perspective Posts, Sin & Grace Series /by Don Willeman

The Worst Imprisonment

July 21, 2016
21 Jul 2016

The worst thing that God could do to a person in this life is to withdraw His gracious presence and give one over to the corruption of his own heart.

In Romans 1 when St. Paul explains the judgment of God upon those that reject the communication of God in nature, he repeats three times the nature of that judgment. And what is it? Three times the phrase is repeated: God gave them over. And to what did God give them over? To the lust of their own heart, to their own dishonorable passions, and to their own corrupt mind. According to the Bible, God judges us in this life by giving our corrupt desires free reign to run their course and eat us alive.

It was the late, great preacher Jonathan Edwards who said that there is enough “hell” in the human heart to consume a man if only God would cease to restrain it.

If we reject the gracious instruction of God, we are destined to become who we choose to be. We are destined to become those divorced from the beauty and gracious protection of God. We mustn’t think that we are escaping God’s judgment when it appears that we get away with our sin. God may be allowing us to become our own trap. In the haunting words of John Milton: “Thou art become (O worst imprisonment!) the dungeon of thyself.”

Something to think about from “The Kingdom Perspective.”

“Why do You stand afar off, O Lord? Why do You hide Yourself in times of trouble?In pride the wicked hotly pursue the afflicted; let them be caught in the plots which they have devised.For the wicked boasts of his heart’s desire, and the greedy man curses and spurns the Lord.The wicked, in the haughtiness of his countenance, does not seek Him. All his thoughts are, ‘There is no God.’”

~ Psalm 10: 1-4

in Kingdom Perspective Posts, Sin & Grace Series /by Don Willeman

Edwards On Our Thoughts of God

July 19, 2016
19 Jul 2016

In order to restore any relationship we must first identify what is the real problem. So it is with our relationship with God. So let me ask you a question: What would you say is mankind’s basic problem with God? Allow me to state it more directly: What would you say is your basic problem with God? Jonathan Edwards, an American thinker from the 1700’s, suggests the following: “The thing at bottom is, that men have low thoughts of God, and high thoughts of themselves; and therefore it is that they look upon God as having so little right, and they so much.”

I think Edwards is right. I have noticed that in any relational rift the first effect on our minds is to lower the value of the other person and thus become incredibly confused as to who we are and what we deserve. How true this is in our relationship with God! We become so confused that we actually put ourselves in God’s place, demanding to determine the rules for the world that He has made. For example, we tend to insist that
He has no right to judge, or if He has a right to judge it must be on our terms, by the standard that seems right to us. By such demands we assume ourselves to be the owner of the universe and God our employee. Imagine that! Us telling God what He must do! If the matter were not so serious, it would be absolutely comical.

Something to think about from “The Kingdom Perspective.”

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.”

~ Proverbs 1: 7

in Kingdom Perspective Posts, Sin & Grace Series /by Don Willeman

Positioning the Lamp of Light

July 14, 2016
14 Jul 2016

Are you an active listener? One time, while explaining the importance of internalizing his message, Jesus said: “No one after lighting a lamp covers it over with a container, or puts it under a bed; but he puts it on a lampstand, in order that those who come in may see the light” (Luke 8:16). A little later he says: “Therefore, take care how you listen; for whoever has, to him shall more be given and whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has shall be taken away” (Luke 8:18).

So what’s Jesus’ point in this somewhat familiar but perhaps puzzling passage of Scripture? Well, in the context the lamp or light is the message of Jesus. And the one positioning that lamp is the hearer of that message. As with any message, the one hearing it is responding in some way, shape, or form. He is either actively listening, passively dismissing, or actively rejecting the message. The very sobering thing that Jesus teaches here is that those that do not actively listen will eventually be denied the message completely. In keeping with the word picture the lights will go completely dark. Why? Well, as the saying goes, “Truth received brings light, truth refused brings night.”

What about you – are you actively listening? Are you internalizing the message of Jesus and letting it illuminate the nooks and crannies of your life?

Something to think about from “The Kingdom Perspective.”

“‘Now no one after lighting a lamp covers it over with a container, or puts it under a bed; but he puts it on a lampstand, so that those who come in may see the light. For nothing is hidden that will not become evident, nor anything secret that will not be known and come to light. So take care how you listen; for whoever has, to him more shall be given; and whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has shall be taken away from him.’”

~ Luke 8: 16-18

in Kingdom Perspective Posts, Sin & Grace Series /by Don Willeman

Augustine’s Definition of Sin

July 12, 2016
12 Jul 2016

I find that there is much confusion and ignorance about sin nowadays. When we speak the word “sin” into our culture, we cannot assume that everyone hearing will reference a biblical notion of it in their heads. So what is the nature of sin? I think that perhaps the simplest and most helpful definition for our pleasure-indulged generation is one offered by the ancient theologian Augustine. Listen to what he says: “My sin was this: That I looked for beauty, pleasure and truth, not in Him, but in myself and in His other creatures.”

Augustine is saying that the essence of sin is seeking to find your ultimate pleasure in the things that God has made as opposed to in God Himself. In his letter to the Romans, St. Paul calls this maneuver, “worshipping and serving the creature rather than the Creator” (Romans 1:25). Nothing could be more foolish, and nothing could deserve greater judgment: Using the very things that God has given us to enjoy as a means by which to snub God personally. Augustine testifies that doing this only leads to misery. Listen to his words: it led “me…to pain, confusion and error.” Sure it did. We were made for the eternal, infinite pleasure of God. Settling for anything less is not only dangerous but dumb.

Something to think about from “The Kingdom Perspective.”

“For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.”

~ Romans 1: 20-23

in Kingdom Perspective Posts, Sin & Grace Series /by Don Willeman

Peter Berger and Transcendant Beauty

July 7, 2016
07 Jul 2016

Nothing provides us with greater meaning in our lives than relationship with others. This is infinitely true as it relates to our relationship with God. We were made to find our ultimate pleasure, our ultimate satisfaction, our ultimate meaning in the very Person of God. But our sin causes us to pridefully rebel, saying, “I can make my life work without Him.”

As Peter Berger points out, all beautiful things are to be “signals of transcendence;” that is, they are to point us to God. But instead we take the beautiful things and make them our god. The problem is that they can’t bear the weight of our God-given desires. Eventually the structures of meaning, pleasure, and happiness that we have constructed, and we ourselves, crumble to the ground. And there we sit in our pile of rubble, still stubbornly resistant to turn to the source of true pleasure, meaning, and happiness.

Have you ever considered that the fact that you can’t make your life work the way you want, far from being evidence of the judgment of God is actually evidence of His mercy? That He is actually wooing you to Himself, to a place where your desires will no longer be disappointed?

Something to think about from “The Kingdom Perspective.”

“Then I looked again at vanity under the sun. There was a certain man without a dependent, having neither a son nor a brother, yet there was no end to all his labor. Indeed, his eyes were not satisfied with riches and he never asked, ‘And for whom am I laboring and depriving myself of pleasure?’ This too is vanity and it is a grievous task.”

~ Ecclesiastes 4: 7-8

in Kingdom Perspective Posts, Sin & Grace Series /by Don Willeman

The Human Race Has a Past

July 5, 2016
05 Jul 2016

What is the origin of evil? What explanation do you give for the front page of the morning news? The Bible teaches that as humans we have collectively rebelled against the God who made us. This means that there is a crime that we all share, that because of our human ancestry we don’t come into the world as neutral arbiters between good and evil or innocence and guilt but as those who are already guilty and corrupt. As John Henry Newman put it, human experience seems to force the conclusion that mankind was implicated in some “primordial catastrophe.” As a race we have a shared past. The theologians call this “original sin,” for it explains the origins of our joint corruption.

The apostle Paul in Romans 5 puts it this way: “Through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.”

Listen to author Gary Wills: “We are hostages to each other in a deadly interrelatedness. There is no ‘clean slate’ of nature unsubscribbled on by…one’s forebears…. At one time a woman of unsavory…experience was delicately but cruelly referred to as ‘having a past.’ The doctrine of original sin states that humankind, in exactly that sense, ‘has a past.’”

Something to think about from “The Kingdom Perspective.”

“Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.”

~ Romans 5:12

in Kingdom Perspective Posts, Sin & Grace Series /by Don Willeman

Ludwig Wittgenstein and the Reality of Judgement

June 30, 2016
30 Jun 2016

Some wanting to soften the more unseemly edges of Christianity have sought to downplay the reality of final judgment.  These folks argue that the notion that we will be held accountable, as the Bible plainly teaches, for every thought, word and deed, is an impossible road block for people seeking to come to faith in Christ.

However, I would beg to differ.  Not only is downplaying the reality of final judgment a distortion of the teaching of Jesus Himself—Jesus spoke of the reality of final judgment more than anyone else in the Bible; and not only is it patently unfaithful to the teaching of the apostles—Paul, for example, preached that God has “set a day in which he will judge the world with justice” (Acts 17:31).  All these things are true and are reason enough to reject the notion of downplaying the reality of judgment.  However, perhaps most interestingly such a soft-peddled message is ultimately dehumanizing. It leaves its hearers with the notion that in the end their lives really don’t matter—that their choices and actions account for nothing at all.  Listen to the words of the non-Christian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein:   “If what we do now is to make no difference in the end, then all the seriousness of life is done away with.”  Do you think your thoughts, beliefs, words and actions are going to count in the end?  Then, it makes all the difference how you live now.

Something to think about from “The Kingdom Perspective”.

“The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person.
For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil.”

~Ecclesiastes 12:13-14

in Kingdom Perspective Posts, Sin & Grace Series /by CRC

The Necessity of Man’s Spiritual Being

June 28, 2016
28 Jun 2016

Let me ask you a question: Are you happy? What would make you happy? Maybe a deeper question would get more to the heart of the matter: What do you think you were made for? It seems to me that everything about us as human beings screams that we were made for something more than just material existence—something more than the mere accumulation of things and more things—for something more than the pleasures of this life.

Listen to Russian writer and thinker Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as he critiques our American culture and the politics of plenty: “If humanism were right in declaring that man is born to be happy, he would not be born to die. Since his body is doomed to die, his task on earth evidently must be of a more spiritual nature. It cannot [be] unrestrained enjoyment of everyday life. It cannot be the search for the best ways to obtain material goods and then cheerfully get the most out of them. It has to be the fulfillment of a permanent, earnest duty…. It is not possible that assessment of the President’s performance be reduced to the question of how much money one makes or of unlimited availability of gasoline. Only voluntary…self-restraint can raise man above the world stream of materialism.”

Things and more things, creature comforts and more creature comforts, cannot satisfy you because you were made for something much greater than temporal pleasures. You were made for God.

Something to think about from “The Kingdom Perspective.”

“All a man’s labor is for his mouth and yet the appetite is not satisfied.”

~ Ecclesiastes 6:7

in Kingdom Perspective Posts, Sin & Grace Series /by Don Willeman
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