The Most Heinous Slavery Ever Known To Man

The most heinous slavery ever known to man is not the human trafficking of young girls, the enslavement of Christians by Muslims, the enslavement of Africans by Westerners, the enslavement of American Indians by those of other tribes, or any of a number of other periods when one peoples enslaved another people.  Read on and you will find out the enslavement that underlies all others and thus is the most heinous unknown to most men.

Perhaps you have notice that people will sacrifice much in order to achieve freedom and stability.  It may be in some kind of transaction, it might be in relationships, it could be in some emotional issue, it might be in a health issue, it could be in any of a number of other venues in life that people seek freedom and stability.  Some have even referred to it as closure.  This is such an important issue that many will even suffer the loss of materials goods, physical capability, position, etc. in order to find the peace of freedom and stability.

The reason may well be found in the word tension.  In fluid and changing situations there is a loss of control and an attendant loss of freedom and stability.  That need for stability creates a certain tension and often that tension is found to be difficult if not intolerable.   Of course knowing that to be so, there are those who for some pathological reason or another, go about seeking to disrupt and control others by creating and fostering tensions in the various relationships venues of their lives.

Yet there can be a solution to the instability and tension and it is all found in two questions or conditions.  First is the question of the trustworthiness of the person with whom one is in relationship.  The second is in the type of relationship one has with that person.  Of course the most trustworthy relationship is a genuine relationship and such a relationship can be no more genuine than when it is with Jesus Christ as Lord.  Be aware that there are a number of facsimiles but only one genuine.

Then assuming it is a genuine relationship, the question then is what is the quality of that relationship?  For it to work properly, the relationship must be one of implicit trust. 

The epitome of a trust relationship is to give another complete control of one’s life, material goods, relationships, and even the internal faculties, to include beliefs, attitudes, and thought processes. 

 The only place that such a relationship can be found to be completely and totally trustworthy is in one’s relationship with Jesus Christ.  It is as the one who comes to Him humbles himself, surrenders to Him as Lord.  The actual word is for Lord in the Scriptures means master or one who has supreme or ultimate authority.  Now to name Jesus Christ as Master means to acknowledge Him as an owner and, well you guessed it that makes the genuine, real deal, follower of Jesus that which He owns.  Said another way the follower becomes His slave—the slave that He bought with the sacrifice of His own life.  Thus we have the reason for His sacrificial death on the Cross.

Is this a mystery or what?  Just to think that Jesus, who is described as God living among us in our humanity, gave His life in order to buy us back from our own enslavement to sinfulness and evil.  Such is beyond our comprehension.  Some would argue what me enslaved?  Yes, for our measure is against a culture that is enslaved and thus it is normal and therefore other than the condition is unknown to us.

So here is the genuine pathway through instability and tension.  It comes when we do not own ourselves but are owned by the benevolent Master—the one who cared so very much for each of us  with a genuine love--a selfless love that He left His place of royalty and came to earth, became a man, lived among people like us, and then gave His life to pay for our sins and failures.  In doing that He redeemed (bought back from slavery to sin) each who would name Him as Slave Master and commit to be His slave.

So what is the most heinous slavery?  It is the slavery that underlies all that is evil, all that we see that is wrong with culture, religion, relationships, etc.  This enslavement to sinfulness is indeed unknown to most for man is so surrounded by sinfulness that it is the norm, not the exception.  It is the slavery that enslaves those who have not found the freedom that is available to the one who has become a slave of Jesus Christ.

Go Ahead Disparage Christianity and the Church but first...

Go Ahead Disparage Christianity and the Church but first would you mind listing for me what organization or movement has accomplished...the freeing of slaves?  Even today there are people who at the threat of their own personal safety are doing what they can to stop human trafficking.

Maybe you know of and can list organizations or movements that have elevated women.  How many Muslim countries have women heads of state, in fact how many non-Christian countries have women heads of state?  One maybe two from time to time, but not many!  Or here is one, how many places other than in countries with Christian histories do we find women leading major corporations?

Oh, do not forget about the elevating of women in the family and in the society.  Does any other major religion require of the adhering husband to love and honor their wives?  Can you think of one?  How about Islam, does it demand of its children that they honor and obey their parents--no, no, no, not just young girls, no you male children that includes you obeying the mother.  Any takers on that one?

Where did the notion of hospice houses that led to hospitals and hostiles originate.  It was the tradition of Christians to take the aged, in-firmed, sick, mentally disturbed, other outcasts of society (including female babies who were left to die of the elements), and wayfaring travelers into their own homes and treat them and care for them as if they were family.  This care they provided even to pagans who opposed the Christian faith!  Then in 325 AD at the Council of Nicea the Pope required that every city that had a Cathedral also have a hospice for the reasons already listed.

How about education?  It was Christians who though persecuted for doing so educated the factory children of largely pagan Europe.  Oh and where did the Great Enlightenment (an oxymoron to be sure) begin?  On the foundations of those educated in Cathedral Schools and Universities which were originated to train men for Christian service.  World wide compare the number of people educated because of Christianity with the number educated by or for any other religion.  It is not uncommon to find people today who can recite the Qur'an but not read it.  It is not common today to find that to be so with the Bible.

Oh and then there are those who say such outlandish, even slanderous things such as, more people have died because of faith in general and Christianity in particular than for any other reason (they conveniently look past the USSR, China, and other communist countries that have slaughtered millions of people).  Or here is another, Northern Ireland Christians and Catholics.  How many died?  Now compare that to the number who died because Muslims cannot get along with their brother Muslims.

Go ahead tout the superiority of Buddhism, Shinto, Taoism, Hinduism, and the currently sacred, do not disparage Muslim religion. Go ahead and believe that all roads lead to god--they do but problem is it is not the god you think nor the God who is!  Go ahead and look past that last 2,000 years of Christian history and what responsible Christians and responsible groups of Christians have accomplished for one reason alone.  Certainly do not consider that many hundreds of thousands if not millions have left home and security and have gone and in going suffered greatly at the hands of these other faith groups and other godless people.  Don't forget to disparage those who packed all of their worldly goods in their casket and then sailed for foreign lands knowing that they would never to return to their homeland and even be buried on foreign shores.  Call them misguided since they went not because they were trying to earn their way into paradise--eternal bliss or believed in some kind of Karma experience.  No, not at all, not in a million years! They did not do these things because they feared the wrathful vengeance of a vengeful God (sorry Muslims).  They did these things because they wanted to obey the Holy Scriptures and in doing so please only one person--their Lord and Master, Jesus Christ.  Problem is that if you are not in the same relationship with Him you will never understand them nor will you understand Him.

Even many of those who went on the Crusades, though mistaken in what they did, did so for no other reason than to seek to please their Lord, Jesus Christ.  So while you are busy being critical of Christianity and its adherents, seeking to dig up dirt on them, just remember that you would not be enjoying the blessings you do if it was not for them and the sacrifices they made to lay the groundwork that they did.

You remember that the next time you have a sick kid in the ER, or you help in your child's classroom, or you stop at a hotel in your travels, or you give blood at the Red Cross, or someone you know benefits from going to AA, or...

Spiritual Renewal--Stemming the Descent into the Abyss of Chaos

Ever wonder why life can become increasing chaotic and characterized by statements such as, “Things just are not going all that well,” or maybe some variation of same.  The simple yet profound answer is that without Someone to stem our descent, we all will descend into the abyss of chaos.  Descend deep enough and the chances for escape are slim at best.

As discussed in previous postings, man left alone to his own ends without something to stop this descent will continue ever downward.  It may not be obvious to the outsider but deep within it will be so and eventually that which is deep within will become the obvious on the outside.  It is so because that which floods the heart will eventually be reflected in and if not stopped then flood the life.

Said another way when man is left devoid of the that which comes from a saving faith in Jesus Christ, Christian fellowship, prayer, studying and living out the Christian Scriptures, and the practice other Christian disciplines, one's life will unravel as it travels the descending road toward deeper chaos.  The problem is that most may avoid facing this descent because of the busyness of life.  However, in the quiet moments before slipping into the oblivion of sleep, God gives to us those fleeting moments in which we come face to face with our true selves and understand such to be so.

How does one respond?  If the physical descent into chaos caused physical pain, we most often will seek some kind of relief.  If it interferes with some physical function or another we seek therapeutic intervention of some kind.  The same would be true of mental confusion, emotional upset, relational challenges, and other symptoms of this descent not just toward but deeper into chaos—the abyss of chaos.

In pondering these things know that there is another area—a deeper area that underlies all others.  Though it is deeper it may present symptoms that manifest in the previously mentioned areas and thus be glossed over.  It is the descent of one's spirit into spiritual chaos and eventually spiritual hopelessness.  We without saving faith are spiritually broken and too boot, we live in a world of spiritually broken people.  So to excuse one’s self because I am no worse than my neighbor is to suggest that it is okay for me to have some physical malady, say cancer because it is not unlike or maybe even less severe than my neighbors.

Said another way, what most people do is to view their chaotic condition by comparing with others who are in the same condition.  Per chance they do recognize a problem their tendency is to check their descent by seeking answers from among others who are just as spiritually broken and descending into the same abyss of chaos. 
About now some are “shouting” that there must be a better way and there is!  It came 2,000 years ago the God-man Jesus came and lived among the chaos of this world among a people who rejected him (see you are not alone) in order to show that there was a way of healing and health--spiritual health.   The only known way to “check” the descent is spiritual renewal and that is only as a repentance based faith in Jesus Christ is established and made a priority in one’s life.

Yet mankind in general and most people in particular continue to suffer the ravages of sin.  No matter how the sin issue is explained away or avoided, it still remains an issue that requires a genuine spiritual answer.  You cannot drug it out, shop it away, avoid it with obsessive-compulsive behavior, drowned it out with activity, overshadow it with church, or satisfy the need with some kind of pseudo-spiritual activity (e.g. eastern religion, yoga, etc.).

What is the answer?  What is required to stem this descent into chaos, spiritual and otherwise?  It is as already noted, found in establishing and maintaining a growing relationship with Him who is able to put all things right--even those things internal to the individual.  When one comes to faith in Jesus Christ, it is incumbent upon that person to set aside time and dedicating that time to Jesus Christ, removing the distractions of life, quiet one's heart to hear the Lord, choosing to be humble and gentle in those moments, and listening intently for the voice of the Lord in the Scriptures and in the deeper places of the heart.

In the course of doing those things we can hear from God, sense conviction for our sinful attitudes which have led then to sinful behaviors, confess those things to the One who knows all, seek His forgiveness through the cross of the Lord, Jesus Christ and in doing so push gently but ever deeper into relationship with the One who gave his all that we might have His all.

Please join with me in this Lenten Season and pursue a deeper walk with the Lord.  Remember when we draw near to the Lord, it is not He who moves but we who move our lives ever closer to that which lights our way to Him.

Genuine Service? Oh Really!

Man's needs provide the opportunity for service and care.  The question arises then on what level do we provide that care? 

Prominent in the arena of social problems such as poverty, discrimination, fractured families, substance abuse, community problems, crime, and so many others are those who seek to provide answers.  Some through some government program or another.  There are those who believe their political party can "fix" these issues.  Some invest their hope and trust in a politician.  Oh, do not forget the community activists who think by marshaling people to some cause or another they can create change--generally they tend to produce more rebellion than results.

Time is the test of change and I am willing to wager that if you study the history of the above mentioned movements over the long-haul not much is different.  However, there is a much more successful "program."  It has been termed variously over the years--renewal, revival, repentance, etc.  It is so because it goes to the central core of the issues listed above, man's heart.

Any of a number of faith based change agents could be cited.  One example is the Teen Challenge Drug Program. Another is the Catholic Charity Hospitals.  How about those with Christians beginnings that though wandering still do lasting work in the lives of those they serve.  The Young Mens Christian Association (YMCA) and the Red Cross are but two of the many.

The point is that it is coming to a personal faith that changes one on the inside is the kind of change that makes a person different, such changes his family, such changes the neighborhood, such changes the community.  Go ahead and seek change--maybe you will succeed but if you leave God out of change, it will not long endure not will it change people in such a way so that the change remains over the long term.

As one goes about serving others in the various venues of life, unless one goes beyond simply meeting the symptoms which are the manifestation of the basic needs, there is no end to the meeting of the symptoms.  One must come a point at which one deals with the deeper issues that caused the symptoms.  As they say, to do otherwise is to “…put Band-Aids on cancer….”

One must have at least a moral framework for change but that is not enough.  If such change does not alter the religious-ethical framework of others, such change will be temporary.  The problem is that without such change on the part of the caregiver, there is little from which to lastingly serve others.  To have change other than mentioned is to do less than serve others.  

Thirsty? Come!

Most of us can relate to the feelings of thirst.  Of course the solution to thirst is to take in generous amounts of water--pure water.

Sometime ago as I watched a television piece on “mud” Marines in a war zone.  It was a very warm, if not hot place.  Their Gunny in no uncertain terms told his Marines to “hydrate!”  If he understood one thing it was that to get the most out of his Marines they had to have plenty of water on board. 

Then there was the story that took place in the days of sail--that time when "Iron men sailed wooden ships."  Such ship was in straitened circumstances in the doldrums near the Equator.  She had no wind in her sails and soon she had no water in her stores.  This went on for a time until the winds returned and she was able to get underway.  The sailors were struggling with thirst.  As they sailed another ship happened by and using semaphore the message went across between the ships, “We need water, can you assist?”

In the same manner the answer came back, “Let down your buckets you are surrounded by fresh water.”  What the ship's captain did not know was that just out of sight over the horizon there was a river that poured so many millions of gallons of fresh water into the ocean they were surrounded by it.  Now to be sure I do not know how true the story was or is but there is a principle present in both of these stories.

When we are thirsty—spiritually thirsty and we realize that we are so, what we may not realize is that we are surrounded by that which satisfies the thirst.  Jesus Christ said, "Let him who thirsty come to Me and drink."  So we know that there is a standing invitation to "Come" and to "Drink."  Although sometimes we tend to place a divide between genuine faith and technology, now like never before this is available to us sources of spiritual fresh water.

However, man being man there are choices to make.  First, we need to decide whether we are going to ignore and even avoid the feelings by getting involved in avoidance behaviors such as drugs, alcohol, gambling, promiscuity, or even noble endeavors and thus seek to obviate the feelings.  However, understand that those feelings are the call of God and such activities will never satisfy the feelings involved.  The other things to know is that although God's call does not change, with a continued refusal to hear, eventually one loses the capacity to hear God's call.

The second option is to acknowledge the feelings--that call to "Come" and to "Drink" and respond to them.  Here again we have a choice to make.  Are we going to respond in our way or God’s way?  If we respond in our own way it will be much like the previous point.  Such a response tends to mold God into our image of what He should be rather than molder our view into His image of who is this God.  Thus, much busyness and activity but little fulfillment and sense of connection with God.

Then there is the third way of response.  It is the way of humility which allows one to hydrate in prayer, the Word of the Lord, and genuine Christian teaching.  We are blessed with much opportunity for same in that we are surrounded by Christian radio, Christian television, and the Internet.  All one has tot do is to let down one's bucket as we are surrounded by those who rightly divide and then teach the Word of the Lord.  Historically the Church has called these and other things such as fasting, spiritual retreats, pondering the Word of God and other things, Spiritual Disciplines. 

For those who have a deeper yet thirst for the things of God, there are many Bible training courses available on the internet.  Some are from major “right on target” Christian ministries who provide such as a free service.  Then too, there are small group Bible studies, Church Sunday Schools classes, and much, much more.

So I say, “Let down your bucket, you are surrounded by those things that can deeply satisfy your spiritual thirst.”  Such activity will then lead to a life of fulfilled service.

"Disquieting Truth"

C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity observes,

“If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end:  if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth—only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and, in the end, despair.”

If you were to sum it up, then I suppose you would have to call genuine Christian truth, disquieting.  How can it be other when one seriously and honestly considers one’s life and then compares it to the genuine truths of the Divine?  Indeed, one cannot help but be disquieted.  For one to be otherwise is to be naïve or deluded.

Even to the one who thinks it possible to explain away much of the Scriptures, there still will remain much which challenges one’s life and thinking.  Two current examples will testify to and illustrate the point.

I know of a person who often refers to Jesus words, “Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more.”  My suspicion is that the focus is upon the former part of the statement and not the second part, the command portion. 

How could one possibly “soft soap” a command not to sin anymore?  In that day and time the weight of the Old Testament Law rested upon the shoulders of all who would follow God.  Jesus’ words that He came to fulfill, not to abolish the Law apply here.  How impossible the task to not sin.  Of course then as now there were those who either redefined sin or look past the inconvenient truths of the Bible.  In doing those things they presume to make it possible to conform one’s life to the same.

The other example to consider is the use of the word “love.”  Over and over one hears that we must love one another.  To be sure one can find comfort in the notion of being loved.  Yet, if one takes time to read and ponder the Scripture’s description of love, and then put that description into practice it become quite another matter.

Thus I go back to say that true and genuine Christianity is disquieting as it should be for in the spiritual disciplines of life we are brought into contact with the One who is described as Truth and genuine truth is always disquieting to our fleshly nature and its insatiable demands. 

Those things that we read in the Scriptures, what we discover as we ponder the words of Scripture, what the Holy Spirit reveals to us in prayer, and what we hear from the pulpit should be disquieting.  Why?  C.S. Lewis points out that unless we believe we are sick we do not receive the advice of the physician.  If we do not see ourselves as not measuring up to Great Physician, we simply do not see ourselves as spiritually diseased and disquieted and thus heed the commands of the One who became flesh and who lived among us.  This is the great lie which has deceived man in general and many who claim Christ in particular.

The truth of the matter when compared to the eternal and immutable truths of the Bible, is that I am not okay, You are not okay!  The beauty of it all is that when the Christian knows this he is afforded the opportunity to take action but not just any action.  It is the action in which Christ's provision of strength to live according to His Words--Words of Truth is afforded to the believer.  And in those areas of which one is not aware?  This is where God's grace enters into the life of the beliver.

"Journeying Onward to Change by Faith or Sight"

Attempting to live out our faith in the strength of our own resources has the disadvantage of blocking our view of the spiritual.  How easy we find it to walk by sight (understanding, our own human enlightenment) and not by faith and yet Paul under the direction of the Holy Spirit challenges that notion when he writes the following.

2 Corinthians 5:7 for we walk by faith, not by sight --NASU

 Most certainly this is but a small part of a greater thought.  However, as with many things in Christian faith, the small and simple are profound and broad in impact.  The point is that we, like those believers of that day  in the Church(s) in the City of Corinth along with Paul were challenged by God to walk not in their human understanding of this thing we call Christianity but by faith.

In comparison to faith, how easy it is to walk through life moving here and there based upon feelings.  In comparison to faith, and though more difficult than feelings, how easy it is to walk through life based upon what we know.  Or, again compared to faith, how difficult it is to live out life in the strength of one's will.  The degree to which we live out our lives based upon these things, is the degree to which living out lives out in faith pays the price.

In other words, when called upon to follow some course of action or another which makes no sense, and if we rely upon our understanding, our feelings, or our will to take action, it very often is at the expense of a decision made out of faith.  Walking by faith in the uncertainties of life is God's design for the one who would follow Him.

However, that is not God's plan for the Christian.  Remember that,

Hebrews 11:1 "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."

Though often quite difficult, it still remains the task of the Christian to step out in faith.  It seems then that the hope and conviction to which this verse refers is a much deeper hope and conviction than something one's conjures up out of one's will, belief, or feeling.  These are spirit level activities that come only as the Holy Spirit of God move within the human spirit and create these things in the face of what seems possible.

Finally, all live by faith of some sort.  The question to consider at this juncture is just what is worthy of your faith.  In particular one does well to not place his faith in those things that are temporary--things that will pass away.  For example, there are those who place their faith in governments, yet one does not look far to see that governmental power corrupts (e.g. the disparity between the benefits that the Congress has voted for themselves and what they have voted for the military, other government workers, etc.).

Then too consider the governments one finds across the world where corruption and graft are a way of life.  How deep the disappointment must be for those who place their trust in government.  However, there will come a day that there will be only one government--that presided over by the Lord, Jesus Christ.  Indeed His rule will be fair and just.

We also find people place their faith in movements such a the climate movement, environmental-green movement, equal rights movements, etc.  Though some of have produced change, such change is neither genuine nor is it deep.  There is one exception that is found throughout the history of the world.  It is spiritual revival.  Over and over, culture to culture, and people to people when the social movement is occasioned by spiritual revival (e.g. Billy Sunday, D.L Moody, Charles Spurgeon, etc) there is genuine deep and lasting changes.

Again it all comes back to the question of where I place my faith.  A faith that comes from hearing and that hearing which comes is in conformity to what God's Word says (Romans 10:17)