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The Masters . . .

6/25/2022

“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” Luke 16:13

For those of you who don’t follow golf, you may not know about the upheaval in the world of men’s professional golf. For those of you who do, you are probably either tired of the whole discussion or anxious about golf’s future.

Brief recap: A Saudi-backed start-up tour (LIV) has been offering certain players multi-millions just to join and then enticing others with huge payouts in a reduced (54 hole vs 72) format with no cut, meaning, everyone “gets a trophy.”

One problem (among many) is that some of these “tournaments” conflict with already existing PGA tournaments of which these players are a member, forcing the PGA’s hand to decide what to do with those who want to have their cake (their millions) and eat it too (continue to enjoy the prestige of the PGA schedule when it suits them.)

Once again, the truth of God’s Word proves accurate. You can’t serve two masters. One of them will take priority over the other and, consequently, at the expense of the other.

Money, in and of itself, is not evil. It is neutral. So much good has been done by those whom God has blessed with wealth. But the pursuit of money, the addictive desire of money is problematic. It is insatiable and ultimately divisive and destructive as we are now seeing play out in the world of professional golf.

However, while what is happening in the elite sporting world might be somewhat “entertaining” for those of us watching from the cheap seats, its parallel is not.

According to multiple sources, money is the number one contributor of marital problems. Other research shows that wealthy kids are more apt to be depressed than poor ones, and seventy percent of lottery winners end up either broke or bankrupt. In addition, winning the lotto didn’t make them happier in every day life and most wound up being more miserable in the long run.

The choice Jesus gives his listeners is an either/or not a bit of this and a tad of that. We are either desiring God, His kingdom, and His desires, or we are following ours and when we are following ours, money is almost always the key ingredient to making those desires happen.

There is nothing wrong with using the money God has given us to enjoy ourselves and better our lives. But we must always ask what choice comes first: God’s kingdom or ours. And surprisingly, or not, we are much happier when we focus on His kingdom.

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The Cause . . . The Result . . . The Cure

6/18/2022

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One of the fundamental tenants of our country is the idea of freedom of religion, a right firmly established in the First Amendment. However, over the years, a second tenant has emerged which many feel supersedes or reinterprets this right, and that is the phrase “separation of church and state.” Ironically, this phrase never appears in the Constitution but rather was penned in a letter from Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association of Connecticut in 1801.

History reveals that the idea of separation of church and state is not to keep religion out of government but to keep the government out of religion, something many of the early pilgrims had experienced in their home countries.

The first amendment reads "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” (emphasis mine)

And in his letter Jefferson emphasized that this separation’s “purpose was to preserve ‘rights of conscience,’ not to strip God from government.” (Lillback)
Unfortunately, this misreading/misinterpretation of history has set up what some call a “wall of separation between church and state” that was never meant to be, and consequently has seen God removed from almost every area of public life.

I have linked two wonderful articles regarding this twisting of meaning and its unfortunate results, all of which we are seeing in abundance today.The first is a Forbes article called “The True Meaning of Separation of Church and State” by Bill Flax, and the second is an opinion piece by Peter Lillback called “Tear Down the Wall of Church and State.”
As mentioned before in two previous blogs, the more God is removed, the more evil ensues. This past week I came across a Reba McIntire song that was first recorded in 2017. While the two articles above discuss the cause and the results, her song reminds us of the cure.

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Service . . .

6/11/2022

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I had the privilege of being in the UK for the celebration of Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee. Seventy years on the thrown. Seventy years of . . . service.

Most often when we think of kings and queens, princes and princesses, we think of wealth and privilege, but the one word that has resonated throughout this celebration was the unending service of this self-sacrificing monarch. A monarch who was never meant to be a monarch; a monarch who had no aspirations for the thrown, but one whom, through a series of unexpected events (abdication of one and death of another), God placed on the throne at a very young age. A monarch who was designed to be a monarch. And one who embraced the role years before she actually ascended to the thrown.

In her speech to the Commonwealth on her 21st birthday, she told her listeners, “I declare before you all that my whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.” It has turned out to be a long life, so it is a promise she has kept for seventy-five plus years with single-minded focus and at all cost to personal desire. It is one kept with a deep faith and a strong reliance on God. And one patterned after Jesus, himself, who said in Luke 22:27, that “I am among you as one who serves.”

Granted, over the past few years, she has had to delegate some of her duties to her son and grandson, but she continues to serve in whatever manner she can.

Throughout the country, pictures, bunting, and flags adorned houses and buildings in tribute to the Queen. But it was the partial verse on the simple sandwich board pictured above (that I saw in a small cafe) that offered the most esteemed honor. A tribute to both her and her faith.

We as Christians have likewise been called to a life of service as we are “ambassadors for Christ,” his representatives, which means if Christ saw himself as a servant then we are to do no less. May we embrace our role with the same single-focused, self-sacrificing willingness as the Queen has shown, setting aside all personal desire and devoting ourselves to a life of Christian service in whatever capacity we can.

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What to Do . . .

6/4/2022

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Little did I ever suspect that when I wrote last week’s blog, that during the week between its writing and its posting, we would once again be asking the question of why? Why a senseless killing of innocent life?

This question was immediately followed by the pointing of fingers, the laying of blame, and the vociferous cries for action. We all have our opinions, stats, and historical evidence to support our cases on what those actions should be. We all have our own ideas of what the government should or should not do. Suffice it to say that none of these will agree.

Perhaps in light of recent events, you have clicked on Pastor Nick Bradley’s sermon--“If God, why Evil?”—that I referenced in last week’s blog. If not, I would encourage you to do so. But in case you haven’t or don’t, I would like to paraphrase (hopefully accurately) what I believe was his most powerful point, and that is that evil is not an entity. It is not something we can weigh, carry in a bag, or collect. Evil, like darkness, is the absence of something. Darkness is the absence of light. Once light is introduced, darkness immediately disappears. The more light, the less darkness. Therefore, the only thing that will truly decrease the presence of evil is the increase of Jesus. The more Jesus in the world, the less evil.

Therefore, (back to me talking) while we and the rest of the country are debating and voting and waiting and arguing about how to counter every form of evil we are encountering, as Christians, let’s at least take the action that is most crucial. Let’s spread God’s love, His message of hope, and His light. Let’s help increase Jesus and decrease evil.

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The Masters . . .

The Cause . . . The Result . . . The Cure

Service . . .

What to Do . . .

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