Missing the Forest for the Trees

 I don’t understand this type of thinking at all.

Listen, I am not a supporter of President Trump. As I have said before, policy wise he has been a pretty typical president. He has done some good things and he has done many bad things.

To see President Trump and his supporters as uniquely evil seems bizarre to me. What makes President Trump and the support he has received different?

Rather than being something new, I think what Donald Trump and his presidency revealed is the divided loyalty many American Christians have. The loyalty that we have is often split between Jesus (and his church) and Nation (and political party). 

I believe one of the big questions the American Church, in all of its different flavors, needs to wrestle with coming out of COVID and the 2020 election cycle is: "Where does your loyalty reside?"

“Trumpism” isn’t any more dangerous than all the other ways our loyalty gets divided, and to act like it is means we downplay the more seductive and subtle ways Christians loose their first love.

I know for me, as a libertarian, one of the things I need to be on guard against is the idol of personal liberty and individual rights. It is easy for me twist those ideas with what it looks like to follow Jesus. 

We need to heed the warning of Revelation, to come out of Babylon, and remain loyal to Jesus.

Don’t miss the forest for the trees. 

American Christians have a loyalty problem, and those of us who serve in leadership in various ways in different Christian communities need to continually call people back to their first love as we continue to resist the urge give our loyalty away to lesser causes.

War for Truth

 I recently saw the following on Facebook:

"We're losing the war for truth. There's no bigger crisis for media, politics and society than the growing number of people who don't believe facts and verifiable figures. If we don't collectively solve this, we are all screwed."

Truth is important. 

People, and I think Christians especially, should strive to be on the side of truth.

Yet, that goal is not always as easy as we make it out to be. I believe we need to think about how we come to know truth. 

Ask yourself the question: “How do I know my beliefs are true?”

For most of us, what we believe to be true we have received second hand, from a source that we trust. The problem really isn’t a “war for truth,” but a disagreement on what sources can be trusted. 

Let me also say I dislike the use of the word “war.” We tend to use this word to show there are two distinct sides that are at conflict with one another. So we have things like the drug war, the war on poverty, the war on Christmas, and the war on Terror. On the one side you have the “good guys” and on the other side you have the “bad guys.” 

Do you see the problem with this belief?

Consider this tweet:

No seriously, when you think you need to “deprogram” friends and neighbors because they don’t think like you, you have lost the chance to have a civil conversation. 

You can’t take the moral high ground if you want to cast other people (people who are often friends and family) as your enemy. No meaningful conversation is going to come from that.

After all, who gets to decide what is true and what is not true? Why should I accept your version of truth?

Everyone believes they know what the truth is, but their versions of truth differ because they have chosen to trust different sources for the information that makes up that truth.

Again, this is the key issue: “What sources can I trust to provide me with true information?”

While you may trust what is printed in the newspaper or is on the evening news, not everyone does.There is a significant percentage of people in the United States who believe they cannot trust what comes out of the corporate press. 

Last month Michael Malice tweeted:

If you don’t understand that the corporate press, the source of information many Americans trust, has lost the trust of many other Americans, then you are going to see this as a “war for truth.” 

It is not. 

Therefore, rather than treating it like a war, we need to have a discussion about why we trust the sources of information that we do.

Why would some Americans not trust the information offered by the government and the corporate press?

Thaddeus Russell tweeted this:

This is just one example of why many people don’t trust the same sources of information that you do.

The problem isn’t that there are Americans who are ignoring “facts and verifiable figures,” rather the issue is that they don’t think those facts and figures can be trusted. In other words, it is less about the information, and more about the source of that information.

So Michael Malice’s question is a good one: “What can the corporate press do to regain the trust of the public?”

Rather than starting a war, maybe you should ask that simple question first.

Christmas Devotional: One Night in Bethlehem

Several years ago I wrote a short devotional for Christmas. 14 devotions leading up to Christmas Day.

Here is a link to download a PDF of it: One Night in Bethlehem.

 

Our Responsibility

Followers of Jesus are called to be be ambassadors and missionaries to the world. We are to represent God in this world.

As much as we would like to, we cannot escape from that responsibility. It is woven into the fabric of what it means to be a Christian. 

It is a huge and important calling to be sure and most of the time, if we are honest with ourselves, we feel inadequate for the task. We lack the resources, the talents, and the opportunities we think are necessary to bring God's message of hope and love to the world.

We feel inadequate, not only for the things we lack, but also for what we have: sin. 

Sin makes it impossible for me to properly represent God. That is one of the things the Apostle Paul was getting at when he wrote: "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 2:23; ESV). 

The presence of sin my life makes me inadequate because sin distorts the image of God in my life. 

This is compounded by our lack of knowledge about the world, the Bible, and the circumstances of other people's lives. 

So let us pause at this point and confess that we are inadequate for the task for making disciples.

To this reality of being inadequate, let me add two important truths.

The first truth is that citizenship into God's Kingdom begins with being "poor in Spirit." Jesus started the Sermon on the Mount with this line; "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:3; ESV). 

 To be a follower of Jesus requires the realization that we don't have what it takes to truly represent God and demonstrate His character in this world. We need to depend on God to provide us with everything that we need; from our daily bread, to patience for helping difficult people, to the words to say to those who are searching for truth.


The second truth is to be true to who God created us to be. The Apostle Paul wrote:

3 For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. 4 For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, 5 so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. 6 Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; 7 if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; 8 the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness. (Romans 12:3-8, ESV)

We need to come to terms with how God created us, to be grateful for the talents and abilities that we have, and then use those skills in building for God's kingdom. It is by using our unique set of talents for God's Kingdom empowers us to make a difference in this world.

Remembering these things is important because the only person we have control over is ourselves.

While God has given us the responsibility to take His message of love and hope into the world and make disciples; He has not given us responsibility to change the hearts of other people. 

That responsibility lies with God Himself.

Therefore we do not need to worry about how people will respond to our message and service, we just need to focus on the best and most effective ways to use our talents to make disciples. 

This reality should give us a sense of relief. It isn't about the number of disciple we made, but it is about our faithfulness to God's calling.