June 09, 2014
Dark Days
With all the turmoil in the world today it often
feels like there is little we can do as individuals except pray for the Lord to
come quickly. However, it dawned on me that
the more society degrades and the darker it becomes, the brighter we shine.
Even the faintest flickering believer, one who feels ill-equipped on the
religious landscape, is capable of casting a beacon of light in the darkness. “Your
eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are good, your whole body also is
full of light. But when they are bad, your body also is full of darkness. See to it, then, that the light within you is not
darkness” (Lk 11:34-35 NIV).
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2 comments:
Gail;
-----If it were only that easy. Jesus left us briefly to a world which hates Him. And He told us that since it hates Him, it hates us. History shows this reality. Christians lived through almost three centuries of persecution from both Jews and Romans before they began persecuting each other. And if that weren’t enough, Muhammad pops out of a sixth century cave bearing a book of hatred towards Jews, Christians, and Romans alike.
-----It’s bizarre how the human effort to reach the pinnacle of good always squares him right up with evil’s heart. The more loving they strive to get, the more hostile they become. The mindset is simple. Most everybody develops a moral philosophy. But nobody has unlimited knowledge or mental prowess. Therefore, much variation exists between moral philosophies. Yet, almost every moral philosophy holds one thing in common with the rest: it’s own correctness means the others’ incorrectness, otherwise who would hold it?
-----There are a certain number of people who can not sleep well unless they are in control and everything around them is happening according to their ideas. The most part of the world’s politicians and kings and intellectual elites are this kind. Solomon laments in passing, “…man lords it over man to his hurt.” (Eccl 8:9) What really empowers these types are the “get-along-go-along” people. They may not give up their moral philosophy for another’s, but they are willing to keep it in the closet to at least avoid hurt by feigning someone else‘s. And that's good enough for the bullies. From this type of pretender through the myriads of lemmings willing to actually become whatever it takes to keep in step with the crowd to the other bullies willing to change their viewpoints for a share of the wealth and power cultivated by the control of a population, a common, complicit mentality grows. Generation after generation of uncorrected error bends this path of public mentality further and further into deceit and treachery. Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, and these familiar names are exemplary. Obama is becoming.
-----This is the kind of darkness in which we must shine. A woman in Sudan is to die for marrying a Christian. A baker in Boulder drops wedding cakes from his line of products after being bullied into serving what he does not believe. This darkness is full of sharp toothed little terrors biting and slashing at whoever holds to whatever they don’t. And what they’re requiring to be held is getting more and more vile. It is this atmosphere which produces persecution and atrocities.
-----Like you said, though, “…the darker it becomes…even the faintest flickering believer…is capable of casting a beacon of light…” Like lighthouses in the moonless, starless black of night, they’re a beaming guide for ships with cargos of marauding raiders and murderers. At this endpoint of evil’s age, the brightest message of the believers’ light is in the sacrifice paid for shining. “Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. And I heard a voice from heaven saying, ‘Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord henceforth.’ ‘Blessed indeed,’ says the Spirit, ‘that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them…‘ So he who sat upon the cloud swung his sickle on the earth, and the earth was reaped.” (Rev 14:12-13, 16)
Love you all,
Steve Corey
PS
I just heard on Glenn Beck's program that Argentina has created a new governmental post: Strategic Secretary of National Thought. OoooKay.
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