Preemptive surrender has never really been what you’d call a winning strategy. [Insert French army joke here.]
Yet that’s exactly what Christians in America have been conditioned to do for a very long time now. For many generations we’ve become increasingly sold on the notion that everything here on earth is destined for darkness. It’s all doomed. It’s all lost. So why bother polishing brass or rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic? (See: Encouragement from Satan.)
For all of my life, American “Christianity” has been largely defined through an “it’s all going to hell anyway” understanding of things. From wildly popular Hal Lindsey books and Omen movies in the ’70s to Left Behind film reboots of just last year, American Christianity has been captured and fundamentally compromised by the enemy through prophetic/”end times” views that were utterly foreign to the Pilgrims and Puritans who risked everything to plant the seeds of America because they actually believed in the life- and culture-resurrecting power of the Gospel-fueled Great Commission.
Where modern American “Christianity” concedes art, law, civil government, economics, and pretty much everything else to the uncontested rule and inherent corruption of unbelievers, the worldview and work of the Pilgrims and Puritans made no such concession. (See: The True Gospel Conquers Everything; The Modern American “Gospel”…Not So Much.)
It’s as though those Pilgrims and Puritans, flawed though they certainly were, still were inspired by the grace of God to actually believe in the Great Commission. It’s as though they actually believed what they were told by their Lord to pray:
“And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then like this:
“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven. . . “
~ Matthew 6:7-10 (emphasis added)
May God grace His people here and now with the faith to not only pray these words, but to believe them…and act accordingly…all by His grace, all for His glory, and all to our eternal benefit.
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What are you, some kind of [insert label here] or something?!
What’s with that shark-fishie graphic thing?
Intro to Fire: The Power and Purpose of the Common Believer
When the Bible gets hairy. (Or: Is it right for men to have long hair?)
And especially this one: Never forget that apart from God’s grace you and I are complete morons.
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The phrase “in earth” is not found in the NIV, Why I wonder? Is it because the NIV does not give glory and honor and power to Jesus Christ?
(Matthew 12:40) For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
(Matthew 6:9-10) After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. {10} Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
Jesus has power on earth, in earth and in heaven. (Matthew 28:18) And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.
Jesus Christ has power over death, hell and the grave to say “on earth” takes that power away from the only begotten Son of God.
It is a spiritual battle (Ephesians 6:12) For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
(2 Thessalonians 2:11) And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: The NIV, ASV, NKJV, et al.
At the saddest sacred grove of all, the merry marchers gazed aghast upon the Fortune Tellers. One by one, each Fortune Teller scanned his tarot cards, or gazed into his crystal ball, and descried the future. “The game is rigged,” they cried out with joy. “The fight is fixed! The Master hath already deigned to take a dive! Come, join with us, come learn of us, of the coming Great Puppet Master, of his Puissant Golem, and of the steps of their foredoomed march through nations! Come, for the Sacred Popcorn hath been popped! Come, for the Special Kool-Aid hath been blended! Come, for the show is upon us! And we are called to watch, and watch and watch yet more!” Then, to their horror, the brave marchers saw the Sacred Book dragged into the oracular circle. The seers did slice the Sacred Book into choice parts to use as tarot cards, dispensing with the rest. And the Book did smoke, and groan in agony, and rattle the chains that enslaved it to an evil task, a forbidden task, a task against its nature. And the smoke of its torment did cause a strange frenzy to more hotly enflame the Fortune Tellers, who rose higher and higher upon an ever-growing heap of envisioned futures that never happened. And a quiet Voice at his elbow said, “Samuel, do you really think I will tolerate this much longer? Come, give my people hope.”
ON EARTH… I was never one for the 'fly away' doctrine… I have always believed I was here for the fight.