Skip to main content

Be Aware

             For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you. (Acts 17:23)

Sigh, this may be a rant as much as it is anything else. My hometown’s government has declared that June is “Immigrant Heritage Month.” Of course, it’s also LGBTQ+ Awareness Month. And mid-month, we’ll celebrate Juneteenth. If you do a little searching online, you'll find that the whole month and every day are filled with social agendas, many of which promote certain groups that some government official or organization has decided to promote to appear woke and in line with the times. We are supposed to spontaneously combust with curiosity and go find out about this group and worship, while those who established the day do nothing but pat themselves on the back. After all, they took a minute to make and post (or 30 seconds to share a post) to call for us to be aware of the group or cause. They’ve built digital altars and established holy days/weeks/months. Like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, Daniel, and Mordecai, if we refuse to bow or obey, we will be punished.

For all the supposed advances of society, we’re Ephesus – religious (with this collective or that as our gods), but ignorant of the very thing we’re supposed to worship. I suspect the ignorance is intentional and strategic, because if we bothered to look at what we’re supposed to be worshipping in any detail, we’d be less than impressed. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The List

              Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,   through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;   perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)           Think about it. We have been justified. At least, we could be justified if we stopped insisting that our justification be based on our merits. We have peace with God, or could have peace if we stopped throwing temper tantrums. We have gained access into grace i...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Way, The Truth, and The Life

              Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me . (John 14:6)           If “I am the gate of the sheep…I am the good shepherd” from chapter 10 is a double whammy, this verse is a triple whammy. And its first victim is the notion that any other so-called god was acceptable or the same as Jesus. He, and He alone is the way, the truth, and the life, and the only way to get to the Father. There is no other Savior, or Redeemer, according to Jesus. Now, to be fair, other religions will claim that their religion or god(s) are the only way. That is the nature of gods and of religions. If this and that are equally good and agree on what’s necessary, then this and that are the same thing, so there’s no need to from the other to one. If that’s the case, then why speak against the other or promote the one? There’s a song I’ve been listening to i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Prayer Lists

                 Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good. (I Peter 2:2-3)   In connection with what I wrote yesterday about the possibility that I’m wrong, I’m feeling the need to go back to basics - craving spiritual milk because somehow, I missed something. It’s a little embarrassing, craving milk like a newborn, but the truth probably is that we are newborns many times in many ways in our lives. From God’s perspective, we may never be anything more than newborns, forever needing that milk. On the other hand, being a newborn can also be exciting because so much is new. My mind is playing pinball - ricocheting from one idea to the next and through six more before it happens to hit the third again. The main topic is prayer. I have at least seven organizing structures all somewhat influenced by the movie War Room , which I’v...
Post a Comment
Read more