Author: John Page 147 of 168

I Chronicles 16:8 “Give thanks unto the LORD, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the people.”

Before I was saved, I came across a perspective at my first gospel preaching church that I did not originally understand.  After a particularly good music solo, I would do my best to track down the soloist and express my appreciation for the beautiful music.  The soloist’s response was often the same, but confusing to me at that stage of my life.  The soloist would respond with something like “Praise God!”  In my attempt to praise them, they would deflect the praise to the Lord.  In my unsaved mind, I didn’t understand why they wouldn’t accept the compliment I intended for them.

They understood something important that I did not, that God was the source of all the good that came out of their lives.  With that in mind, it would be selfish and dishonest from them to accept my praise when it rightfully belonged to Him.  Furthermore, they recognized that deflecting praise gave them an opportunity to praise and worship God and to provide a witness to His greatness.  They were making known His deeds among the people.  In my specific case, they were making known His deeds to a person who badly needed to hear it.

PLEASE PRAY THAT AMERICAN CHRISTIANS WOULD DEFLECT ALL TYPES OF PRAISE TO THE LORD.  We must let others know who it is that rightfully deserves such praise, and it isn’t us.

Matthew 10:32-33 “Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.  But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.”

Though I don’t watch the Academy Awards, I heard something about this year’s event that caught my attention.  While I don’t know much about his testimony, Matthew McConaughey started his acceptance speech by rightfully thanking God.  He went on to say “He’s graced my life with opportunities that I know are not of my hand or any other human hand.”  What makes these words so surprising is their rarity.

In the last 30 years, there have been 750 Academy Award acceptance speeches.  In only 14 of those has someone expressed thanks to the Lord.  In fact, in the last decade at the Academy Awards more people have thanked Meryl Streep than have thanked God.  Of course, we shouldn’t expect the unsaved in an event like this to thank the Lord, but how are we as American Christians doing at explicitly thanking the Lord for the blessings in our lives?  If the world doesn’t hear such a confession from us, then they won’t hear it from anywhere.

PLEASE PRAY THAT AMERICAN CHRISTIANS WOULD WILLINGLY EXPRESS APPRECIATION FOR OUR MANY GOD-GIVEN OPPORTUNITIES.  Indeed, the opportunities in our lives are gracefully given not by human hand.  We need to boldly confess that truth to ourselves and to others.

Psalm 81:11-12 “But my people would not hearken to my voice; and Israel would none of me.  So I gave them up unto their own hearts’ lust:  and they walked in their own counsels.”

James 4:8 “Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you.”

Newton’s Law of Gravitation: “Every particle of matter in the universe attracts every other particle with a force that is directly proportional to the product of the masses of the particles and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.” (aka F=GmM/R²)

Psalm 81 and James 4 illustrate two sides of the same gravitational coin.  Psalm 81 is the case that I would call the vicious cycle.  When our faithfulness decreases, our distance from the Lord increases.  As a result, we become less attracted to Him and our distance continues to grow at an accelerating rate.  In fact, the increasing distance apart from the Lord causes His restraining force to diminish quickly to the point that we begin to walk in our own counsels completely apart from Him.  In many ways, America has reached this point where we have willfully escaped from the Lord’s influence on our nation and He has given us up.  It is at this point of escape velocity that the national perils are numerous.

James 4 is the case that I would call the virtuous cycle.  When our faithfulness increases and we draw nigh to God, then we decrease the distance between us and the Lord.  As a result, we become more attracted to Him and our distance continues to shrink at an accelerating rate.  While the vicious cycle gives us a reason to despair, the ability to rapidly increase God’s force on our nation by taking a single step towards Him should give us a reason for hopefulness.  This is the power of a virtuous cycle.

PLEASE PRAY THAT AMERICAN CHRISTIANS WOULD HARNESS THE HOPEFULNESS OF THE VIRTUOUS CYCLE TO REGAIN GOD’S INFLUENTIAL FORCE ON OUR NATION.  A small national step towards him, prompted by the faithfulness of Christian citizens, may remedy the decades of deviating distance from our deity.

100^th POST

Hebrews 10:23-24 “Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;)  And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works”

Newton’s 3^rd Law of Motion: “To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction; or, the mutual actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal, and directed to contrary parts.”

Newton describes two objects, the one to be acted upon and the one doing the acting.  So does Hebrews 10:23-24.  For each of these objects, the physics or the doctrine are the same but the implications are slightly different.

As Christians in a world that is increasingly hostile to our stance, we are bombarded with forces that act upon us with the intent of moving us from our Biblical positions.  Our best defense is to hold fast to the profession of our faith without wavering.  Doing so would allow us sufficient momentum such that the forces attempting to redirect us would have minimal effect.  When a ping pong ball strikes a basketball, the basketball’s motion in undeterred.  So should we be by holding fast in faithfulness to the faithful One.

As Christians in a world that is increasingly resistant to our message, we have become ineffective at acting upon our world in a way that alters its direction.  Instead of bombarding the world with our message, in an attempt to dislodge it from its current secularism, we have become passive towards others when we should be provoking others.  We are failing to use the momentum, given to us by our forefathers, to prompt a change in the prevailing direction of our nation.  We must fully engage the society within which we live if we ever hope to impart God-given forces to produce a reaction towards Him.

PLEASE PRAY THAT AMERICAN CHRISTIANS WOULD CREATE OUR OWN MOMENTUM THROUGH FAITHFULNESS AND STEDFASTNESS. Otherwise, other forces will continue to act upon us and the reaction will move us yet further from the Lord’s intent.

Hebrews 12:1 “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.”

Newton’s 2^nd Law of Motion: “The acceleration produced by a particular force acting on a body is directly proportional to the magnitude of the force and inversely proportional to the mass of the body.” (aka a=F/m or F=ma)

Christianity in America is far better characterized by stagnancy rather than acceleration.  Yet, the Lord desires that Christianity would be characterized by acceleration, gaining speed for His glory.  We should be accelerating in our faith; we should be accelerating in our witness; we should be accelerating in our personal growth; we should be accelerating in our numerical growth; we should be accelerating in our fervency; we should be accelerating in our impact on the culture around us; we should be accelerating in our prayer life.  Yet, we are not.

Newton’s 2^nd Law of Motion offers two ways to accelerate.  The first way is an increased external force.  This could come in the form of the Lord’s displeasure and wrath at our stagnant state, causing a crisis that would prompt us to change from the status quo.  The Lord used such force several times to change the direction of the nation of Israel when they had become stagnant in their faithfulness.  For them, it was never a pleasant experience.

The second way to accelerate would be far less painful, and is described eloquently in Hebrews 12:1.  We need to lay aside the weights that are hindering our progress.  In this way, we would decrease our mass and allow the less-impactful forces of the Lord to accelerate our nation’s Christianity.  We need to relinquish the influence of secular culture upon us; we need to shed the baggage of sinfulness; we need to jettison our excessive concerns about popularity; we need to drop the activities that crowd out spiritually significant pursuits; we need to release the idols of wealth and power that divert our attention from the Lord.  Only then, can we accelerate without necessitating an onerous external force.

PLEASE PRAY THAT AMERICAN CHRISTIANITY WOULD ACCELERATE DUE TO OUR WILLINGNESS TO LAY ASIDE THE WEIGHTS IN OUR LIVES.  Our movement forward for the Lord is inversely proportional to the wieldy weights that increasingly characterize our lives.