Author: James

Posted in Christian Faith

You Are Either With Him or You Are Against Him. There is No Middle Ground

Posted on by James

The idea that a person can be neutral in regards to religion in general and Christianity in particular is wrong. Jesus taught you were either for him or against him (Matthew 12:30). It is a lie from the pit of Hell to believe you can be neutral toward Jesus. C.S. Lewis understood this point.

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” 

― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity 

There are no shades of meaning there.  As well, there is no common ground the Christian and the secularist can agree on about Jesus without one being fully for Him or fully against him. 

I have friend who officiated at a secular wedding a few years ago and, as he usually does, he worked as much of the Gospel into the ceremony as he could.  At the reception a guest he had never met before came up to him and said that he appreciated what he stood for and even offered to donate money to the ministry he ran. But he could not fully accept the whole Jesus thing, it wasn’t, he said, for him. 

I have heard this “just enough Jesus to be respectable but not so much as to be offensive, intolerant, or exclusive” a lot and it has always given me pause. 

Like the “I’m a Christian but…” video that was making its rounds online a few years ago. 

On the surface it sounds nice to say that you are a Christian but not the objectionable kind that no one likes.  But Jesus did not give us that option. 

“Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.” 

                -Matthew 12:30 

“Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.” 

-Luke 11:23

Either you follow Him, do what He says, and let your life be reordered by his teachings OR you are against him. Period.  Full Stop. 

The wedding guest, who was probably a nice person in most respects, might have sincerely believed he appreciated someone standing for Jesus.  But the reality is that he stood firmly against Jesus even if he was not overtly hostile toward Him. 

This same principal applies to all moral and social/political issues where people take a stand.

Either you are for homosexuality or you are against it. 

Either you are for transgenderism or against it. 

Either you are for abortion or against it. 

You can try to qualify your position to make it seem less rigid and more conciliatory, nuanced, or understanding but, like it or not, you are still taking a stand.  Take the libertarian “I personally don’t agree with homosexuality but I have no issues with gay people in general” position.  Sounds fine, in a worldly sense, but IT IS AN ENDORSEMNT of what God clearly calls sin.  And you cannot be for something God hates and be with God at the same time. Christians need to wake up. 

Same things goes for the all too common a “Christian case” for (insert anti-biblical teaching here) thing I see all the time. If you entertain ideas, teachings, or concepts that directly contradict what Scripture declares then you are not making a Christian case for something Christians should rightly consider, you are distorting the Truth of God and you need to pause, examine your heart, and try to figure out if you have a genuine saving faith at all or if you have just enough Jesus for “polite society” not to consider you a hater.

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.  On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’  And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’” 

-Matthew 7:21-23

Posted in Christian Faith, Fitness

How often do you take a day off from your workout routine, only to spend the day saddled with guilt?

Posted on by James

It’s that time of year when almost everyone talks about or at least thinks about New Year’s Resolutions so…

…I guess I could start my “talking about” New Year’s Resolutions by answering the question in the title of this post.

I have taken the day off from my workout routine every single day since March of 2020 and I have not been saddled with guilt even once.

I mean, I’ve wondered how I went from going to the gym 3-5 times a week nearly religiously for better than 15 years to nothing in literally the blink of an eye. But guilt? Nah, not really.

Although I am getting too old to work out at the intensity I did a few years ago, I do need to get back to doing something.

But, exercise aside, what I really want to do is this.

Dear Lord,

Throughout the coming year I pray that I will thank you unceasingly for your precious gift of time. I pray that I will fully appreciate each of the over 31 million seconds 2023 has to offer and that I will not squander even one.

I pray, father, that every one of my goals, actions, words, and thoughts this coming year will line up with your perfect word and your divine will.

Lord, show me what you want from me in 2023 so I don’t begin yet another year with a collection of obligatory and insincere resolutions to simply do more of what’s good, less of what’s bad, or to improve myself in some earthly and eternally insignificant way.

Lord, instead of my own resolutions, I pray that you make me a humble servant who intentionally and deliberately seeks your will in everything I do and with every plan I make.

In Jesus name,

Amen!

Word for word, that is exactly the same prayer I have said I would continually pray all year long every year since at least 2015. And, here’s the thing, I haven’t done it and that does cause me quite a bit of guilt.

Do I thank God unceasingly for His precious gift of time? No.

Do I not squander even one second? There is a little bit of hyperbole in that part of the prayer because it would be impossible to not squander even a second. But I squander hours a day sometimes, I know when I am doing it, and I continue to do it anyway. Yeah, I’m busy with work, school, and life but, often, I am not quite as busy as I pretend to be.

Do every one of my goals, actions, words, and thoughts line up with God’s perfect word and will? Some do, of course, but not all, not even close.

Do I make insincere resolutions to do more of what’s good and less of what’s bad? Not counting it as a win, necessarily, but no, not really, because I know I won’t follow through, I never have.

I guess what I am trying to say here is that my Christian faith has consisted, mostly, of believing the right things and having good intentions but falling woefully short when it comes to doing the work. Or, to put it a better way since the Christian faith is not based on works, I have lived my life, to a large extent, like someone who looks at himself in the mirror and immediately walks away and forgets what he looks like (James 1:24).

So my resolutions this year are to get back to the gym and the same prayer I have prayed since 2015. And this time I mean it.