Dec 1, 2019 | Gratitude
Since we’re still in the Thanksgiving state of mind, I thought I’d address something that doesn’t come easily to saved sinners: giving thanks to God when we don’t feel thankful. The reason gratitude is so difficult at times is our benighted interpretation of circumstances. Life is a continuous process of interpretation, and our fallen tendency is to interpret events and situations in our lives by our finite, self-centered assessment. If something (or someone), is difficult, painful, or frustrating, if it keeps us from getting what we want, or think we want, we naturally interpret it as a “problem” (take a look at the many synonyms for that word). It’s easy when obstacles are thrown our way to think something is “wrong.” How could this happen? Why is this happening? Ugh! This response is sinful, and not worthy of a person who claims God in Christ as our Savior, who is the Almighty Sovereign ruler of the universe. Yet we do it all the time. It’s a constant theme of repentance in my own life. (more…)
Nov 28, 2019 | Gratitude
Another national celebration of Thanksgiving is upon us, and I wonder what secular people have to give thanks to. Without an almighty, providential God ordaining all things, how does Thanksgiving make any sense? I understand that human beings can be thankful to other people, and ought to be, but gratitude is most profound when it’s given to the one who “gives all men life and breath and everything else.” That pretty much covers it all! And every blessing in our lives is given to us, and ought to be received gratefully. It obviously doesn’t come naturally to sinners, so that’s one reason we are exhorted over and over in Scripture to give thanks to God! (more…)
Nov 24, 2019 | Culture
I came across an article today FrontPageMAG that revealed Chick-fil-A’s cave to leftist bullies is much worse than I wrote about in my last post. The title and subtitle of the FrontPage piece says it all: “Chick-fil-A Put an Obama and Hillary Supporter in Charge, but Dumped Christians: Money for social justice and Muslim refugees, but not for the Salvation Army.” I’ll put some quotes below, but you’ll want to read the entire piece. I promise, Chick-fil-A will never taste the same. If we knew what was going on, we would not at all been surprised by last Monday’s announcement. (more…)
Nov 21, 2019 | Culture
By now you’ve surely heard that the Chick-fil-A Foundation, the arm of the chicken giant ($10.5 billion in revenue and growing fast) that gives money to various causes, has changed its giving mission. Part of the announcement included the news that they will no longer give money to the Salvation Army, and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. The reason is obvious. These organizations are unapologetically Christian, and support the biblical view of sexual morality (I’ll give the context below). This was disappointing when I first read about it Tuesday morning, but far worse than I first thought. I realized this as I read a piece in PR Week this morning titled, Did Chick-fil-A Make the Right Move? Uh . . . nope. (more…)
Nov 20, 2019 | Parents and Family
It probably won’t be a surprise to anyone that an author of a book on parenting is a big fan of kids, and of families having lots of them, especially Christian families. As we drove up to our church on Sunday, a young family got out of a car in front of us, and they pulled four kids out of that car. Love it! It so happens they sat behind us, and we found out the daughter that stayed in the service was “almost five,” and she was the oldest! There are many families in our church with four kids or more, which to me is the sign of a very healthy church. So when I saw the title, “The Gift of Children” at First Things, I knew I would be writing about it. It bums me out that many Christian couples limit the gifts of God to the culturally acceptable two. There are few things more counter-cultural today than having a big family, and it’s one of many reasons that I always encourage young Christian couples to receive lots of these precious gifts. (more…)
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