Denial

There is no Love, the mother cried
As she rocked her baby side to side
With lullaby sweet
And melodies soft

There is no Right, the justice penned
As he meted sentence strong
For lawless wrongs
Called sin

There is no Meaning, the author wrote
With words to demonstrate his point
Trusting readers
To understand

There is no God, the hiker said
As he watched the sky wash over red
With hues and radiant beams
Of beauty

I started this poem in 2018 thinking about my dear atheist friend Braden.

Braden was convinced that there was no objective right, wrong, beauty, meaning, true rationality, or God.

And yet he was always so kind and courteous, admiring goodness around him, and reflecting on things far beyond him.

You’ll still have Jesus to reckon with

If you want to be clean from all the disappointment and foolishness and alarmism and resentment in Trump-news, then take a bath in the word of God.

If you don’t have Jesus, then Trump is your highest political leader.

Jesus rules with perfect wisdom and purity and righteousness and compassion and holiness. Anything good from Trump comes from Jesus. And anything bad from Trump will be judged by Jesus. Trump will be gone someday and you’ll still have Jesus to reckon with.

Heaven and Earth will pass away, but the words of Jesus will never pass away.

For Christ and his Church

Countercult parachurch ministry serves the body of Christ when it emphasizes the importance of belonging to, quietly serving at, being invested in, and incubating under a healthy local church with multiple qualified elders and Biblically faithful preaching and discipleship.

We show the broader unity of the real Christian big-C Church by being committed to such local churches as our primary spiritual community.

And we honor Christ in not letting false religion dominate exit-narratives, preaching, apologetics, and gospel conversation. Rather, we let Christ dominate, be Lord of, and reign over all such activity.

“We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:5)

In thousands of years false temples will be in ragged ruins, toppled, forgotten, much like ancient ruins of Greece. But the words of Christ will stand.

Beautiful Things Repossessed

Michael Gungor and Derek Webb and Jennifer Knapp and Jars of Clay — these fallen musicians were squatters and thieves.

They were borrowing God’s glory. They were producing beautiful things that did not come from themselves.

They never owned it. It flows from God.

They benefitted from what they now rebel against.

Why I sometimes still listen to them: What they once enjoyed has been taken away from them and given to me.

By analogy, they forfeited the kingdom-copyright to their own works.

Adopted as literal children of the Most High

Being an adopted child of the Most High is infinitely more dignifying and significant than being a “literal” spirit child of a regional cosmic patriarch and one of his wives.

Luke Wayne replies,

“The children I adopted are literally my children. I am not a figurative or symbolic dad. I am literally their dad. Adoption makes one a literal child.

“What would NOT make me a literal child of God would be to say that I am an eternal, uncreated intelligence which was used as raw material by a pair of highly developed humans to assemble a spirit body and then later allowed me to acquire a physical body that was birthed by a completely different set of human parents who were not yet as advanced as the first. I don’t quite know what THAT would make me, but ‘literal child of God’ is certainly not it.” (Luke Wayne, May 22, 2018)

 

Dawkins vs Kerouac

“The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.” (Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker)

vs.

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved… the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes “Awww!”” (Jack Kerouac, On the Road)

The fellowship of the indwelled is wholly accepted or wholly rejected

“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

John 13:35

Key to understanding this verse is to see the themes of John 13:31-17:26 (The Farewell Discourse):

Receiving God inevitably involves joining the disciples in receiving the entire community of God. One ends up loving whoever God dwells in, whoever he works in, whoever he speaks through, and whoever he sends.

Rejecting God inevitably involves joining the world in rejecting the entire community of God. One ends up hating whoever God dwells in, whoever he works in, whoever he speaks through, and whoever he sends.

The Father sends his Son. The Son gives the Spirit who proceeds from the Father. And the disciples are indwelled by the Father and the Son through the Spirit. The disciples are even in the Father and the Son. And the disciples, in concert with the Father, Son, and Spirit, speak words given to them, by the authority of the one who sent them, and seek to glorify the one who sent them.

Those who hate the Son or his disciples are judged: they are eventually exposed as hating, in concert with the world, the entire mutually-indwelling community of the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit, and the disciples.

Those who love the Son are given a glory, a mission, a home, an indwelling, an enduring peace, a Comforter, a new commandment, and words to speak, in concert with the entire mutually-indwelling community of the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit, and other disciples.

Therefore to be of the disciples, to abide in the true vine, to abide in the words of the Son, to have the Spirit dwelling within you, to have the Father “pruning” you, and making his home in you, and to love other disciples who are undergoing the same renovation and enjoying the mutually-indwelling community, is to provide a witness to the world that forces others to wholly accept or wholly reject both the Father and the Son.

To receive the Son as the one sent by the Father, and as the one dwelling in his sent people.

Or to reject and, eventually, to discover oneself as hating and opposing all of them.

The disciples who love one another are chosen out of the world and hated by the world.

But the disciples love the one who lives in other disciples.

They make their home with those who have their home prepared by Christ.

They make their home with those the Father has made his home with.

They dwell with those whom the Father and the Son dwell in.

They love those whom the Father loves, and the Father loves those who love his Son.

“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:35)

Please read John 13:31-17:26 and test these things.

The indwelling has a direction: it begins with the Father and the Son who was loved by the Father before the foundation of the world. We receive, they give. We give only what we have received. We are only given glory or a mission or an indwelling or a message so that we may glorify the one who sent us.

On Idolatry

Superficial view of idolatry: Worshipping gold.

Substantive view of idolatry: Worshipping a god that can be represented with gold.

Superficial view of idolatry: Since an idol is nothing, participation in idolatry is inconsequential.

Substantive view of idolatry: Participation in idolatry is participation with demons.

“What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons.”

1 Corinthians 10:19-20

The “gods” that are behind “worthless” idols should worship the one true God:

“All worshipers of images are put to shame, who make their boast in worthless idols; worship him, all you gods!”

Psalm 97:9

“The principal crime of the human race, the highest guilt charged upon the world, the whole procuring cause of judgment – is idolatry.”
– Tertullian, A.D. 200

Isaian Logic

In the vein of Isaiah 40-48:

God is unique and incomparable; he cannot be likened to another.
Idols liken a god to something.
Therefore you shouldn’t make an idol to represent him.

God has no origin.
Idols have an origin.
Therefore you shouldn’t make an idol to represent him.

God alone is God.
You can make many idols; there are plenty of them.
Therefore you shouldn’t make an idol to represent him.

God doesn’t get hungry.
Those who make idols get hungry.
Therefore you shouldn’t make an idol to represent him.

God hides himself.
Idols are visible.
Therefore you shouldn’t make an idol to represent him.

There is no Rock or Foundation like God.
Idols are made out of rocks and wood.
Therefore you shouldn’t make an idol to represent him.

God gives breath and life to all.
Idols are “empty wind.”
Therefore you shouldn’t make an idol to represent him.

God alone declares the past and the future.
Idols and the gods they represent don’t know the future.
Therefore you shouldn’t make an idol to represent him.

God was there when he created everything.
Idols and the gods they represent were not.
Therefore you shouldn’t make an idol to represent him.

God’s understanding is unsearchable, he never learned from another, and he never consulted another.
Idols are literally stupid.
Therefore you shouldn’t make an idol to represent him.

God’s word accomplishes all that it intends, and he speaks to his people.
Idols literally can’t talk.
Therefore you shouldn’t make an idol to represent him.

God carries his people from birth to death.
Idols are literally a burden on the beasts that carry them.
Therefore you shouldn’t make an idol to represent him.

God is God over all.
Idols are literally stuck in one location.
Therefore you shouldn’t make an idol to represent him.