A Bible Answer to the Winter Blues

Winter has a tough time getting over its bad reputation. “The Winter of our Discontent” of literary fame and the lay person’s “winter blues” were bad enough. Now, SAD or “Seasonal Affective Disorder” has been elevated to an official psychologically-based malady. When it’s cold outside, when the snow and ice comes, when the days get so short that we leave the house and come home in the dark, then all our negativity starts to “snowball” (sorry) and we tailspin into depression-like symptoms. For those of us who live in the frozen north, losing three to four months a year to winter represents a major loss to inactivity or doldrums.

Not everyone hates winter. Ski enthusiasts, ice-fishermen, skaters and snowmobilers, sledders and tobogganers, hunters and hikers revel in the blustery months of December, January and February. Most kids squeal with delight at the first sign of snow. And, of course, guys with snowplows on the front of their F-350 diesel-powered pick-ups salivate at more than two inches of the white stuff, not to mention retailers who would love to sell a record number of snowblowers, snowshovels or even bags of rock salt.

Most of us, however, dread winter. We just grit our teeth and grind it out. Our secular friends have all kinds of remedies for the winter blahs, from changing diets, to feel-good pills, to building light boxes, to re-arranging the furniture, to vigorous exercise, and to long trips to Hawaii . Not all of us can or should do it all, like the Hawaiian thing or especially not the drugs, but we can all do more than just sit there and suffer. We can turn our negatives into positives through applying the principle of scripture to the situation.

God made winter. Remember that. “While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.” Genesis 8:22. You may not like everything about winter, but if you accept the fact that it is from God, you will have a better frame of mind to deal with it. When the temperature plummets and the snow flakes pile up, look up into the heavens and breathe a thank you to God. If it were not good for the earth and for us, God would not have built it into the ecosystem. Hatred and annoyance are bad choices that you do not have to make.

What’s good about winter? Outside, good things happen to the ground. Secret processes in the fields prepare the soil for the spring planting, slow melting snow waters the ground in ways that a rain cannot accomplish and the bitter cold kills off many bugs and bacteria that would otherwise overrun us. (When’s the last time you slapped a mosquito in January?) Inside our homes and in the confines of our hearts, winter lets us busy ourselves with activities that summer affords us no time to do.

The Apostle Paul used the term “wintering” in several places. “I will abide, yea, and winter with you, that ye may bring me on my journey.” 1 Corinthians 16:6. And, “Be diligent to come unto me to Nicopolis: for I have determined there to winter.” Titus 3:12. Paul accepted the reality that he could not travel in the winter. Therefore, he set aside the time to do the things that he put off during the summer. Reading, research, praying, meditating, thinking, writing and planning for the spring is more than enough to fill up our dreary, overcast winter days. When you burn the light on the inside, it doesn’t matter what the weather is on the outside.

Whining and complaining about the weather shrinks your brain and shrivels your spirit. It makes a difficult situation a thousand times worse. Praise God for even the cold and the snow. Make it a productive venture. Don’t frown and grimace your life away. Life does not stop in October and re-start in April. The days of winter are just as much a part of your life as the summer. I happen to believe that wintering well will give you a far better spring and summer.

Now, don’t get me wrong. A trip to warm weather in February may be just what the doctor ordered for you! Just don’t make getting away the only solution to your winter survival. Your survival can become a glorious revival!

If It Weren’t for Christmas. . .

Like a tidal wave’s annual visit to the shores of a placid existence, Christmas inundates us all, turning lives upside down, putting normal routines on hold, receding only with the greatest reluctance, and leaving behind debris-strewn houses and worn-out parents. The joyful chaos of Christmas now gathers in the first of December to New Year’s Day in order to celebrate with all the loved ones in the various circles of family, friends and acquaintances. The damages nearly require federal assistance. I’m not complaining. As out-of-breath as the season makes us, we need appreciate it and make it as merry as we can.

If it weren’t for Christmas, we would never get to see some members of our family except at funerals or under traumatic circumstances.

If it weren’t for Christmas, we would totally lose touch with people from the past who still remember to send us cards and photographs.

If it weren’t for Christmas, our houses would never glow with strands of lights and scented candles and happy faces.

If it weren’t for Christmas, we would never pack the car with gifts and take off to some out-of-the-way little village to see Grandma and Grandpa.

If it weren’t for Christmas, we would never rise at five in the morning to get that special present.

If it weren’t for Christmas, we may never finish that remodeling job to entertain guests for the parties or even rearrange the furniture to make room for a tree or piles of presents.

If it weren’t for Christmas, we would never give or receive expensive, exotic gifts that have little practical value except that they make us squeal with delight.

If it weren’t for Christmas, we would never smell the aroma of freshly baked cookies, sink our teeth into Macadamia Nut fudge or drink chocolate brownie flavored coffee.

If it weren’t for Christmas, we would never visit a nursing facility or a shut-in’s home with a group of well-wishers and sing Christmas carols.

If it weren’t for Christmas, we wouldn’t hear voices of loved ones over the phone lines or air waves whom we talk to so rarely.

If it weren’t for Christmas, we may never feel generous enough to drop dollars into red kettles, write checks for a needy family or spend a little more than we should for a special person.

If it weren’t for Christmas, we may never wear that stupid hat or that obnoxious red and green battery-operated tie with flashing lights and makes everyone giggle or groan.

If it weren’t for Christmas, we would never sit through a play that we’ve seen fifty or sixty times to hear amateur children with wavering voices and forgetful minds stumble through their parts.

If it weren’t for Christmas, we wouldn’t have traditions of eating turkey, ham or lamb trimmed with dressing, accompanied by cheesy potatoes, green-bean casserole with a crispy onion topping, or cheesecake with graham-cracker crust.

If it weren’t for Christmas, we may never dress up and grin big for group pictures, family photos or cute shots of the newest babies making silly faces.

If it weren’t for Christmas, we would have nothing to turn our cold, bleak, overcast December days into festive occasions when everyone has such a great time.

If it weren’t for Christmas, we would never be dazzled by fabulous displays in department store windows or see huge Christmas trees lit up for the community.

If it weren’t for Christmas, we wouldn’t see splashes of color on wrapping paper, creative ways to make bows, or imaginative ways to decorate rooms and inspire hearts.

More importantly, if it weren’t for Christmas, we would be spiritually impoverished without the Christmas story prophesied by Old Testament prophets.

If it weren’t for Christmas, we would never know the One whose name is Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father or the Prince of Peace.

If it weren’t for Christmas, there would be no celestial angel choir, no reverent shepherds bowing before a manger, no guiding star.

If it weren’t for Christmas, we would have no wise men seeking out the Christ child and no gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

If it weren’t for Christmas, there would be no incarnation; if there were no incarnation, there would be no Word made flesh; if there were no sinless flesh, there would be no sacrifice for sins.

If it weren’t for Christmas, there would be no redemption of lost man, “for the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.”

Have We Been Trained NOT to Win Souls?

I recently listened to a fiery preacher tell the congregation that they should win souls and plant churches in cities still unreached by the Apostolic message. During the message, the audience seemed ambivalent at best, unreceptive at worst, to his appeal. Aside from an occasional “amen,” the people looked stunned. As I stood at the altar invitation and took it all in, it occurred to me that they didn’t have a clue how to do what he was telling them to do. You may as well have thrown them into the middle of the lake without the slightest knowledge on how to swim. I was equally stunned, except my astonishment was the slow realization that they were astonished.

Then, it started to make sense. They were exactly what we had made them. These were not people of the world. These are the products of our pulpits. They are people who had been trained for three or four generations to stay away from the world. They are faithful and obedient saints who responded precisely to the teachings of their pastor. Neither they, nor their parents or grandparents were drunks. Their great grandparents may have been godly persons as well. How could they possibly relate to the raw sinners of the world? The people in our congregations dress modestly and godly because they had been taught to dress that way for three or four generations. They are trained to have little or no tolerance for scantily-clad people who dressed according to the fashions of the world. Anybody dressed like that had no business in church. They are not reveling, party animals. None of them have pupils dilated by illegal drugs, breath smelling of liquor, piercings, tattoos, freaky hair styles, halter tops, painted faces and fingernails or other outward signs of blatant worldliness. And yet, we strongly admonish these same people to wade out into the middle of a world that practices all these things and somehow relate to them.

Apostolics have been trained to stay away from the worldly crowd, not mingle with it. “Evil communication corrupts good manners.” Why should it be any wonder, then, that they would find it so difficult to enter into the society that revolted them? Their first reaction is to run from the loose, lewd, drinking, smoking, profane people. Some of them do manage to stick around for a while, but they unlimber their bibles and begin to preach against all the sin in range of their eyes, ears and noses, a practice that is not usually appreciated by the audience. This scenario gets enormously complicated when the offending persons are members of the same family. Reunions, Christmas gatherings and birthday parties are events not to attend if everyone wants to avoid WWIII. The aversion of saints to these occasions is a function of good, solid teaching they have received in their churches.

The body of laity we have created has become a vast study in the law of unintended consequences. We have trained a bugle corps and sent them to do an infantryman’s job. We have trained an army of supply clerks and have asked them to jump from airplanes with paratroopers. We have made them line up with “ABC” and then expected them to perform “XYZ.” We never intended for them to become so acclimated to the padded pews that they would shun the streets in search of souls. Regardless of our rhetoric to the contrary, the practical outcome of our sermons, exhortations, admonitions and pastoral counseling sessions have equipped our people to sing in the choir, play in the orchestra, teach Sunday school children, read the Bible and live cleanly and righteously before God and the world. It has not prepared them to tackle the real world of lost souls.

Insulation has turned into isolation. Separation has become segregation. Outreach looks more like inreach. Preaching the word sounds like preaching to the choir. Sharing the gospel consists of joining hands with the person across the aisle to give them a word of cheer or encouragement instead of reaching the lost with truth. Our beacon of light has been confined to sanctuary chandeliers rather than placed in lighthouses along the shore. Our worship seeks for applause from the church when it should be looking for its affect on the unchurched.

Is the gospel so offensive, the Holy Ghost so anemic or the influence of the world so powerful that we cannot venture out to win souls? Is our holiness so shallow, our belief system so weak and our relationship with Christ so tenuous that we cannot interact with unbelievers for fear that they will influence us away from God instead of the other way around? Are the church walls our only source of protection spiritual? Is our timid silence the only way to preserve our doctrinal integrity? Are we so fearful that we will be found out that we refuse to sound off? Do we seek the shadows instead of the sunlight so we will avoid painful and embarrassing confrontations?

Who among us will break out of this straitjacket of Pentecostal paranoia? Who among us will declare that the Apostolic truth deserves a worldwide hearing? Who among us will refuse to leave the witnessing to the door-knocking Jehovah’s Witnesses, or the bicycle-riding missionaries of the Mormons?

Our training to live for God is no excuse to hide from the world. Our dedication to holiness and righteousness is not so fragile that it cannot be put on display for the world. We have a divine presence dwelling within our lives that will always be greater than any external threat. Witnessing, soulwinning, outreach and evangelism cannot be seen as somehow dangerous to the church. They are, in fact, the lifelines of the church. We have no way to fulfill the vision of Christ for the church without a total commitment to reach the lost.

Soulwinning has always been a dirty job. It inconvenienced the Samaritan, forcing him to get his hands and knees soiled with dust and blood and costing him money for medical care. It drove a proper Jew called Simon Peter into a Gentile’s house to preach the gospel against the visible opposition of his Jewish cohorts. It put Paul in the company of thieves, rowdy sailors, demon-possessed people, worshippers of the goddess Diana, snooty philosophers on Mars hill and dank, rat infested prisons. It leads believers to the edge of fire to pull people out, it ends up in the middle of a murderous rabble to touch prospective hearers and it throws chosen vessels bound before kings.

It is at this point that the old, familiar fears erupt. What? Am I suggesting that we abandon our holiness? Are we to shed our godly appearances in order to effectively traffic in the corrupt haunts of lost humanity? Absolutely not. Does a surgeon contract cancer to be more adept at excising a tumor? Does a policeman take a few drinks before breaking up a barroom fight? Does a counselor destroy his own marriage so he can repair the marriages of others? All of these interventionists know they must keep themselves free from the troubles of their patient/clients in order to help them. Soul winners must depend on the Holy Spirit to protect them as they conduct search and rescue missions into hazardous situations.

Let us refocus. Let us abandon our sterile ways of non-soulwinning and take up the messy mission of real life outreach. Let us learn how to mingle with the sinner without being influenced by his sin. Let us study how to kneel in the dust beside a beaten man whose blood oozes from open wounds instead of kneeling only in the air-conditioned comfort of a carpeted prayer room. Let us practice our trust in the keeping power of the Holy Spirit instead of fearfully hiding out in a church sanctuary where nobody threatens us. Let us follow the example of our Chief Shepherd who ate dinner in the house of sinners, who permitted a woman of ill repute to anoint his feet and wipe them with her hair, and who hung between two thieves as he departed from this world.

The gospel is rugged. The worst thing that can happen to it is to remain unused, archived and kept from the volatility of a tumultuous world. It will work if we will let it.

Defending Yourself against Telemarketers

They call during your dinner hour, wake you up in the middle of your Sunday afternoon nap and even in the morning when you are gulping down your coffee and trying to get out the door. Their phony niceties and polite conversation set you up for hard sells. They won’t take no for an answer. Every response you give only leads to another question. How do they get you to cooperate with them? Easy. You have a natural curiosity about who is calling you. You fear missing an important call or an emergency. You have been trained to be cordial to every caller. They know that and they take advantage of it. Sometimes you buy from them just to get them off the phone. The FREE RIDE needs to be OVER for the telemarketers!

Many people just let their answering machines screen all calls. Others depend on caller ID to determine whether or not they will answer a call. The problem with these tactics is that they are not foolproof. There are some calls you need to take, even though you don’t recognize the name or number. If you do, read on.

First, do not kid yourself about the innocence of telemarketers. They have been thoroughly trained to know how to deal with you. They have response sheets in front of them to know how to respond to any answer you give. While you are answering in good faith, they see you as a challenge, not as a nice person to chat with on the phone. They are under so much pressure to meet quotas that they don’t really listen to your protests for rejecting their offer. They are only scrambling to find an effective way to get you to accept. If you naïvely answer the phone thinking that you are going to have a pleasant conversation with an old friend, get ready to be exploited.

Second, do not feel guilty about being evasive, non-committal or even rude (if necessary) to sales callers. After all, if you meet a street salesman hawking his wares, you say, “No, thank you,” and keep walking. If an unwanted door-to-door salesman comes to your house, you don’t feel embarrassed about saying you’re not interested and shutting the door in his face. Why, then, should you feel any differently about telemarketers? They have no special privileges. They have no right to be on your phone. You are under no obligation to treat them with more courtesy than you would a salesman in any other venue. The RULES have CHANGED!

Third, tape a response sheet (like they do) to a place convenient to your phone and read it slowly and deliberately. Answer none of their questions. NONE! (Unless, in the unlikely event that you are truly interested.) Tell them that you do not accept sales calls for any reason. They will say something like, “Are you interested in saving hundreds or thousands of dollars?” Let an awkward pause follow. This is where you need to decide if you need to get firm or if you should stay passive. Your answer? “I do not accept sales calls for any reason.” If you are creative with words, you can say a lot of things, ask them questions, and make them feel that they are truly inconveniencing you. You don’t have to do this, but you can if you want. If you don’t, you can hang up. Yes. You really can hang up. It’s like walking away from a street hawker. It’s like shutting the door in the face of a door-to-door salesman. It’s not wrong. Again, the rules have changed.

Your personal tranquility must be valued and preserved. You have no reason to allow yourself to be victimized or upset by someone who is paid to call you. Either you value their feelings when they don’t value yours, or you take steps to defend yourself against telemarketers.

The Unity Concept

Maybe I shouldn’t, but when unity platitudes start floating around a group of Christians, a little squeamishness begins to roll around in my borderline nauseous stomach. Often, the well-intentioned proponent subtly denigrates the practice of differentiating between beliefs as small-minded and spiritually immature, even if it is to preserve clear doctrinal truths and scriptural commands. If only we were big enough, so the argument goes, we would value love and unity above and beyond our parochial hang-ups. Some unity enthusiasts have no convictions that they wouldn’t readily sacrifice on the altar of compromise if they thought it would gain them the approval of the masses. Their concessions cheapen true unity.

Real unity is anything but cheap. It costs us our pride, our traditions, and our self-centeredness. We have to let go of individual egos, long-held notions and personal preferences. Nevertheless, we must aspire for unity in the church. We can pay the price without compromising one iota of truth. True unity is worth whatever it takes to get it. Deep down, I think everyone understands this. The problem, however, lies in the substitutes for unity. We are apt to stop our quest at a place that looks a lot like, but lacks the real essence of, true unity. At least five levels of unity emerge from the chaos to name themselves for us. We must press on through the first four to arrive at the fifth.

Coalition . In the first gulf war, President George Bush (forty-one) put together a group of thirty-five nations to liberate Kuwait from Iraq . The odd collection of nations included not just our friends from Canada and the United Kingdom , but also Egypt , Syria and Saudi Arabia . We cooperated with one another for one purpose only, defeating Saddam Hussein. But the church cannot be satisfied with this kind of unity. A coalition only suspends hostilities long enough to get one thing done. After that, it’s back to belligerence.

Consonance . In the music world, sounds which seem “stable” to the ear are said to be in consonance. They are not necessarily breathtaking combinations of tones or notes, but at least they don’t seem to be fighting with each other as they would be if they were dissonant sounds. The most important thing one can say about consonance is that it eliminates tension. That’s good, but the church must be more than a collection of passive individuals who simply prefer to co-exist without conflict.

Unison . Again, from the music world, when everyone in the room sings the exact same note, they are said to be singing in unison. This sometimes helps when learning a new song, or to vary a choir number, but unison gets boring in a hurry. Besides, every voice can’t reach every note. In the church, unity that forces everyone into an identical mold is an unrealistic and unworkable expectation. While we all abide by the same spiritual principles, we all bring something unique to the table.

Harmony . This may seem like the best way to achieve true unity. What can be more pleasing than complementary sounds blended together in beautiful orchestration? Soprano, tenor, alto and bass in harmony with each other do represent a fullness of sound, but they fall short of the unity ideal. Even in harmony, voices can vary in quality to the point that the song fails to please the ears of the audience. Harmony may be a necessary part of unity, but true unity needs something more.

Oneness . When a church achieves oneness, it soars above all the intermediate levels of unity and becomes a force in the community. Oneness means “one for all and all for one.” Oneness means sharing in goals, ideals and principles. Oneness voices no preferences for who does what, who succeeds where or how evenly the glory gets distributed. Oneness says “I win when you win.” Oneness overrides holdouts, dissension, bruised feelings or petty differences in order to succeed. Oneness senses a need to resolve—not tolerate, hang on to, or ignore— all its conflicts for the sake of victory.

The Tower of Babel would have succeeded without divine intervention. “Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do” (Genesis 11:6). On the day of Pentecost, the people were in one mind and one accord just before a mighty outpouring of the Holy Spirit. In his high-priestly prayer, Jesus prayed “that they all may be one.” How many teams have lost games or championships, how many armies have lost battles or wars, how many corporations have suffered humiliating bankruptcy because one or more members refused to be team conscious?

Without exception, every single team member must sacrifice something in order for the whole team to succeed. Unity will not succeed under any other circumstances. It’s not only when you contribute something, but it is also when you sacrifice something, that you eliminate obstacles to victory. Only then can we answer Christ’s prayer for unity.

Why I Am A Religious Conservative

The culture in which we live insists on using labels as a shorthand way of communicating ideas. Since labels have become such powerful factors in shaping opinions and attitudes in society, we need to locate ourselves on the spectrum of conservative and liberal terms.

Conservatives believe in keeping up existing institutions and customs. These beliefs usually lead them to oppose any radical changes. They hold their ideas and values with deep conviction, and fiercely guard against any attempt to change them. Today’s liberal establishment, however, not only advocates openness to change, it actively seeks it. Their quest often translates into a destructive, anti-religious mindset. Indeed, the liberal view now dominates our society. Even the thesaurus of the word processor I am using to write this article refers to synonyms for conservative with mostly negative words: cautious, unprogressive, traditional, unchanging, conventional, inflexible, obstinate, right-wing. Other terms used for conservatives are: old-fashioned, obsolete, out-of-touch and closed-minded.

I reject such negative terms as they are used for conservatives. Conservative Christians can be just as educated, effective, in-touch and influential in the modern setting as liberals. They know how to use state-of-the-art equipment, employ up-to-date methods, and preach a relevant gospel in today’s world. But the most important factor in the Christian conservative position remains the immutable, eternal Word of God. The Bible is forever settled in heaven. It cannot change.

Yet, conservatism need not be a purely visceral reaction to change. While the reactions of some may fit this description, many conservatives deliberately choose to remain or become conservative for well-founded reasons. After examining the evidence from both scriptural and cultural standpoints, they believe that conservatism is the best way to think and live. Here are some of the reasons why I choose to be a conservative.

I believe in absolute truth . The liberal view holds that truth is relative, and that a fact can be either true or false, depending upon the situation. But Jesus said, “I am the … truth.”

I believe in a God who does not change. Most liberals believe that God, if he exists at all, evolves with human culture. As we have changed, they think, so has our definition of God. I cannot reconcile this with the statement of God himself, “I am the Lord, I change not.”

I believe in the infallibility of the Bible. The Bible is verbally inspired, written by men who were unctionized by the Holy Spirit. The Bible forms the basis of civilization.

I believe that compromising convictions is dangerous. Liberals are willing to change anything that appears too restrictive or discriminatory. But tampering with the foundations compromises the integrity of the structure. Trends, whims, opinions and the vacillating wills of people provide poor criteria upon which to engineer a shift of convictions.

I believe that the church is under constant attack. I am not paranoid, but I do believe the scripture which says, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.” (I Peter 5:8) Anything that weakens the church raises a red flag to me.

I believe that we owe a debt to pioneers and forefathers. The brave and hardy souls who led the first wave of the Apostolic movement paid for our heritage with blood, sacrifice and, in some cases, total loss. We owe it to them to maintain the victories that they won and to show great appreciation for the legacy they gave to us.

I believe that rebellion often comes disguised as progressiveness. The world may teach us to do things better, but it will never teach us better things. If a subtle resentment and rebellion against truth underlies a push for change, the result will be disastrous.

I believe that methods may change but the message may not. We have a rock-solid message of doctrinal and spiritual truth to preach. Any method that will improve my mission without altering the message may be acceptable, but some methods can destroy the message. In any case, the message must win out.

Yes, I am a religious conservative. The label of conservative, however, means something only to today’s world. In Apostolic days, we would have just been called Christians.

Subtracting Distracting Abstractions

We have names for it and them: head in the clouds, spaced-out, zoned-out, out-to-lunch, in a fog, unrealistic, lost, dreamy and living in a fantasyland. You know the type. They see complexity before they see simplicity. They zone out on the minute detail that nobody else pays attention to instead of considering the main object. They can look right at you without seeing you. They can hear you speak without knowing a word you’ve said. They are more apt to contemplate some obscure paragraph they read yesterday than zero in on what is happening at the present moment. They ponder the psychological and emotional reasons which would cause someone to stand there and aim a gun at them before they realize that the trigger has been pulled and a bullet is heading in their direction. Their mind is a million miles away. They don’t know how it got so far out and they don’t know how to get it back.

I have been a long time coming to this admission. I live way too much in the abstract. God has been a fascinating subject to ponder; eternity has occupied the machinations of my mind; the concepts of virtuosity have drawn me ever farther into nebulous realms where each thought births a hundred more thoughts, and each one trails off in a hundred more trajectories. Without boundaries, without real-time constraints, without flesh and blood demands, this cerebral journey pays no obeisance to measurable and quantifiable results.

Abstraction distractions are easier now than ever before. Computers and CAD (Computer Aided Design) programs have brought the abstract into vibrant view. Home owners can now walk through their homes, paint the walls, see carpet on the floor and arrange the furniture even before the footers have been dug. Car designers and engineers can view their concept cars from every imaginable aspect before the tool and die makers ever start production. Video gamers can put on a set of goggles and play tennis, go bowling or shoot decoys from the comfort and safety of their family rooms. Keyboard synthesizers can duplicate sounds of nearly every musical instrument or noise maker under the sun. We can see things that aren’t there, hear sounds from sources that don’t exist and interact with totally imaginary, computer-generated beings.

Jesus was an intellectual giant who, at twelve years of age, enraptured doctors of the law for hours. And this was only the tip of the iceberg for him. I marvel as much at the restraint he placed on his knowledge and wisdom as any attribute he possessed. Think about it. He could have blown away the scribes and legal experts. He could have engaged contemporary scientists and professors, inventors and innovators, doctors and engineers, researchers and technicians—the list is endless—in countless hours of discussion. He could have befuddled Socrates, stumped Plato, spun DeCartes in circles and sent Sartre up a wall. Had he unleashed another fraction of his brain power, he could have started the industrial revolution and sparked the superhighway of information centuries before they became realities. Omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence are the closest humans can come to describe his awesomeness.

But something fueled the passions of Christ beyond ingenious inventions . Something existed in his mind that surpassed any possible technological advances that may have come along centuries sooner than they did in human history. Jesus focused on a commodity whose value has no price. He came to seek and to save that which was lost. The gripping prophecies of the Old Testament, the marvel of the incarnation, the agony of Gethsemane, the ignominy of the cross and the glory of the resurrection all converged on this one vision—to purchase his bride for the ceaseless ages. Of all the vast array of divine tools at his disposal, he most certainly could have opted for a virtual Calvary, a display of mental calisthenics that would have accomplished the goals of redemption. He did no such thing.

No one was more capable than Jesus to live in the abstract. He is the God of the Logos. He chose, instead, to enter into the real world that he had created. He transformed the abstract into the actual. If the abstract was just as valuable and powerful as the actual, why would he have left it to enter the actual? Evidently, the conceptual, the theoretical, the hypothetical and the imagined must lack the fundamental quality of real experience. It is in the real world—restricted by time, vulnerable to pain, sensitive to loss and exposed to thousands of rogue forces and influences that external controls cannot insulate against—where we discover real truth. Mind games would not suffice when a baby had to be born in Bethlehem. When five thousand had to be fed, when Lazarus had to be raised, when moneychanger’s tables had to be upset, when a cat-o-nine-tails had to draw blood from a back, when a lonely figure had to be lifted up on a cross, the exhilarating ventures into abstract thinking would not work.

We stand around debating concepts and posing hypotheticals far too much. If there were no crises hanging over our heads, perhaps we could indulge in such leisurely activities. But, if the world needs to be saved, how much more do we really need to think about it? In every business, there comes a time in which the theorists need to turn over their ideas to the strategists. Then there comes a time when the strategists need to turn their plans over to the producers. Heap all the acclaim you want on the thinkers, but nothing substantial happens until the man on the backhoe, the guy with the trowel, the machinist leaning over his lathe or the nurse with her assortment of dressing bandages starts to work.

How many more ways can we explain Calvary? How many more versions of the Bible can we compose? How many more seminars and conferences and retreats can we have? At what point do the thinkers suck up so much of the oxygen that the workers fall in the streets? When abstractions become distractions we need some subtractions. How many xyz’s does it take to change a light bulb? Guess what? Just one. You. Go get the bulb, find the ladder, climb up and get it done while everyone else is still trying to figure out why the old light went out.

Therapeutic Nonsense

Contemporary society torments itself with misguided theories about people who commit crimes and why they do it. Judges, whether motivated by false compassion, self-deprecating theories about societal responsibility, or simple fear of reprisal, hand down lenient sentences to the country’s criminals. These kinds of non-sentences toss the safety of the general population out the window while handling vicious and unrepentant criminals with kid gloves. We deplore murder, but pet the murderer. We decry rape, but sympathize with the rapist. Well-intentioned therapeutic strategies seek reform, but seldom, if ever, work.

“In Salt Lake City, when Glade James, distraught over a pending divorce, robbed at knife point a Little Caesar’s Pizza, a motel, and a Sinclair gas station, his attorney said it was a ‘cry for help,’ and he walked, sentenced to probation and therapy. In Boulder , CO , a schoolboy who sexually molested a younger girl student was sentenced to two years probation and therapy. In Fort Worth , TX , four drug offenders were sentenced to undergo acupuncture as experimental drug-abuse therapy. In Salt Lake City , again, Gregory Matthews robbed seven businesses at gunpoint and was sentenced to six months house arrest and therapy. In Ringwood , NJ , Jeffrey Van Dunk, now 16, was found guilty of raping a 15-year-old relative as she was baby sitting. He was sentenced to three years probation, 100 hours of community service and, of course, therapy.” ( Richard Grenier, The Washington Times, (6/19/98).

George Neumayr, in America ‘s Culture of Suicidal Softness, Human Events, 5/8/2006 , said, “’I love America . Nobody is responsible for what they do,’ says a Russian thug in the 2001 movie Fifteen Minutes. That comes to mind as I read about the verdict in the Moussaoui trial. America ‘s culture of suicidal softness and therapeutic nonsense — the same culture that made America so porous and lax before 9/11 — has saved one of al Qaeda’s co-conspirators from the death penalty.”

Despite these debacles, I still believe therapy can do much good. But therapy only works after a person’s heart changes, not before. Judges, counselors, social workers, therapists can exhaust all their theories, but nothing will appreciably alter a person’s life until he or she becomes subjected to the powerful, life-changing blood, Spirit and name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Gushy drivel about humanity’s natural goodness, self-esteem and “getting in touch with one’s feelings,” will never lead to true conversion. The born-again experience, alone, will do that.

Repentance opens the door to conversion. A person must grasp at least three things, however, in order to repent: 1) knowledge of right and wrong, 2) guilt, 3) self-responsibility. Without this understanding, he will never repent.

Knowledge of right and wrong. We’re not talking about being productive or non-productive. Not good, better and best. Not acceptable or unacceptable behavior. We’re talking absolutes. Wrong is evil, sinful and morally corrupt. Wrong violates God’s laws, transgresses God’s commands and must be acknowledged.

Guilt. Any lawbreaker must feel badly that he committed wrongdoing. Guilt means that one doesn’t laugh at his sin and show no regard toward those who suffer pain and loss as a result of his actions.

Self-responsibility. Circumstances must never shoulder the blame or responsibility for sin. Neither must the wrongdoing of others excuse anyone from sinful behavior. The guilty person must look himself in the eye and accept full responsibility for wrong actions.

The truly repentant person says, “I know the difference between right and wrong. I am guilty for my sin and no one but me can be blamed.” From that point, he can ask God for forgiveness and enjoy the complete new birth experience. Any therapy that seeks to bypass the crucial process of repentance builds on a false premise.

Grenier concludes his piece by saying, “My own long-held feeling that all this [therapy] is the result of a decline in religious faith, the erosion of belief in the guidance of a higher authority leaving us now with only the untrammeled self…The real issue is not really the harm that misguided educational or criminal-justice policies can do to society but, rather, the harm that society does to itself by holding up no higher standard of behavior than the uninhibited self.”