Exhortation – Snapshots

Touched With the Feeling

To say I hate the way western civilization has emasculated men, trying to turn us into women, is an understatement. In struggling with my own confidence, masculinity and identity as a man, Feminism demanding we “get in touch with our emotions” while rejecting our competence and strength hasn’t helped, to say the least.

In pursing healthy masculinity, trying to understand God’s design for men and looking for His perfect standard, I need not look very far at all: the perfect Man, the Prophet-Priest-Warrior-King, lives inside and beckons me onward in my journey.

God has already made me both a king and a priest (Re 5:10), inducting me into an holy, royal priesthood (1Pe 2:5, 9), so Christ’s kingly, priestly qualities are to imbue my manhood.

A central quality of a kingly priest is compassion for those who are ignorant, who have lost their way. (He 5:1-2) Godly masculine love for others should be always looking for how best to encourage and edify them in their connection with God. (2Co 5:18-20) This not only requires me to be closely connected with God myself, but to carefully observe the needs of others and meet them where they’re at.

My example here is Christ Himself, of course, my great High Priest (He 4:14), Who knows me intimately and is always praying for me. (He 7:25) He has not only personally experienced the deepest traumas, temptations and suffering life can offer (He 4:15b), enabling Him to empathize with me, He is Personally touched with the feeling of (my) infirmities. (He 4:15a) This key phrase translates sympatheō, implying a deep, visceral sympathy or co-suffering; it’s not mere pity from afar; it’s an empathetic resonance where He feels the weight of my weaknesses as if they are His own, rooted in shared experience with me.

In other words, Christ is so in touch with His own feelings, so emotionally intelligent and connected, so secure in Himself, that He so fully acknowledges my feelings and connects with them that He invites me in my joy and pain into shared emotional experience with Himself; He allows the feelings of my personal ups and downs into His own heart and lets me touch Him where it’s real, where it matters most.

Father God is not afraid of my pain, of my fears, of my feelings of inadequacy; He knows all there is to know about me. (Ps 139:1-4) In knowing me and loving me, He is inviting me to know myself, and to love myself, to become more like Him, emotionally intelligent and free, not controlled by emotions, but embracing, embodying and mastering them for His glory.

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Searching All the Inward Parts

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In our hectic, turbulent, broken world, many are looking for ways to cope with stress, fear, trauma, depression, anger, loneliness and addictions, chasing after inner-healing through various fads, trends, ancient mystic rituals, or self-help techniques. Yet Scripture reveals a simpler, organic, coherent and integrated path: God’s gift of cleansing breath, a profound, natural rhythm for aligning body, mind, soul, and spirit into authentic wholeness.

God has created our soul and spirit, the parts of our being making us fully human, by breathing into us (Ge 2:7), and it is primarily by breathing that our own soul and spirit sustain our body to keep it alive. As breathing in provides life-sustaining oxygen to our body, and as breathing out removes carbon dioxide and other toxins, we may find a parallel in leveraging our natural breathing for our spiritual healing and cleansing.

The idea is simple, discovered in the following text: “The spirit of man is the candle of Jehovah, searching all the inward parts of the belly.” (Pr 20:27) The word translated spirit here is neshamah (נְשָׁמָה), which more directly means “breath,” “breathing,” or “life-breath” and is closely tied to the act of breathing itself, or the breath of life; it’s the same word used in Creation: “…and breathed into his nostrils the breath [neshamah] of life; and man became a living soul.” (Ge 2:7)

The text says in effect that our spirit-breathing is Jehovah’s candle: a candle provides light in the darkness, enabling Him to see, and the text says He uses it to search, evidently with the intent to explore and discover something. Yet why would God search for anything when He already knows everything? And why would He use a candle to aid His searching when the darkness and the light are both alike to Him? (Ps 139:11-12) And why would He use our breathing, the very life-pulse of our human spirit which He Himself creates, as His candle to achieve this?

And what exactly is God searching through? What is He exploring? The verse tells us; it is: “All the inward parts of the belly” — the deepest places of our spiritual, mental and emotional framework, and all of the mysterious metaphysical interconnections between our metaphysical and physical bodies. God actually possesses (is intimately connected with) our reins (literally, kidneys, the most hidden places of our being, Ps 139:13); He is evidently keenly interested in and leverages these intricate relationships as He sanctifies and cleanses us.

God evidently searches through and explores these deep places within us through and within our breathing, directed by our spirit, as He works within our wills both to will and to do according to His good pleasure (Php 2:13), inspecting our entire, integrated spirit-soul-mind-body along with us, searching for anything which is misaligned with His living Word (He 4:12), exposing any darkness which needs to be cleaned up, rooted out, and realigning every part of us with Himself. As we breathe deliberately and focus prayerfully, God invites us to become co-laborers together with Himself (1Co 3:9), inspecting ourselves in God and with God, as He guides us to sanctify and cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. (2Co 7:1)

To put this into practice and benefit from God’s design, we may define any kind of breathing technique which fits this general pattern and relies solely on our personal interconnection with the living God. We might sit or lie, quietly resting (Ps 46:10), and inhale — conscious of symbolically drawing in the divine life of the Spirit of Christ (Jn 20:22), hold our breath while asking God to probe along with us for anomalies, and exhale — symbolically relieving stress, lies, worries and thanking God for forgiveness, freedom and deliverance. (Ga 1:4)

And rather than meditating on nothing (as many evidently do, emptying our minds 1Pe 1:13) to let the enemy in like a flood 2Co 2:11), or using our mental focus to meticulously count and measure our breathing itself, we should actively and intentionally use our minds to integrate scripture meditation into our breathwork (Ps 119:97), wielding the sword of the Spirit as we engage (Ep 6:17), focusing on God’s nature and His truth, noting anything within us stirring contrary to Him in the slightest way. (Ps 139:23-24)

Praying in the Spirit through breathing sessions (Ju 20-21, Job 27:3), saturated with the Word of God (Co 3:16), always studying our emotional and physical responses, relying on the Spirit to guide us into all truth (Jn 16:13), what should we expect as a result? Deeper discipline, better mental, spiritual and physical health, freedom from hidden soul-wounds, and grounded, unshakable alignment with God’s design.

Whenever we pursue healing—whether from trauma, stress, or sin—wisdom approaches it holistically: true restoration touches body (temple of the Holy Spirit), mind (renewed thoughts), soul (emotions and will), and spirit (connection to God), bringing all into harmonious alignment. (1Th 5:23)

Paul embodies and exemplifies how he leverages this spirit-body connection in his own pursuit of discipline, wholeness and holiness: “But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.” (1Co 9:27) His “keeping under” is a purposeful training, like an athlete building strength through voluntary, self-imposed, well-placed challenges. Focused, prayerful breathing exercises offer us another tool, a natural, biblical way to practice this spiritual subjugation of the physical body. By introducing mild, intermittent breath holds—creating a controlled cycle of alternating oxygen saturation and deficit—we train the body to relax under stress, improve metabolic efficiency, and submit to the soul’s God-directed will.

This mirrors God’s pattern of faithful, measured trials. (1Co 10:13). In focused breathing, the gentle tribulation of a breath hold builds a type of bodily, neurological patience and hope through repeating, rhythmic patterns of stress and relief, similar to how God strengths us through trial. (Ro 5:3-5) With each breathing cycle, the body relearns trust, the mind stays present, and the soul rests in God’s deliverance.

Even God’s chastening follows the same, wise pattern: “Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.” (He 12:11) These breathing techniques “exercise” us gently—never overdone, always with discernment—yielding peaceable fruit. As we mature, repeated experiences of God’s faithfulness transcend suffering, teaching us self-control on the deepest levels, producing wholeness where body relaxes, mind renews, soul restores, and our spirits abide in Him. (1Jn 2:28)

And as one begins to engage in this design, a powerful benefit unfolds during the breath hold: a natural body scan. We can focus intently on our body and how it is responding, especially during the stillness of the breath hold, sensing our heartbeat, our energy, our peace. Traumas may have lodged in specific areas of our body: envy rotting the bones (Pr 14:30), guilt, grief and anxiety burdening our bowels and agitating our bones (Ps 38:3-8), deceit infecting our heart (Je 17:9), hardening and weakening our emotional core, making it callous and insensitive. (Mk 3:5) This isn’t perfect peace, indicating mistrust of God, being out of sync with God. (Is 26:3) As sensations arise—tightness in the chest, knots in the gut, tension in the shoulders—our breath, entwined with our spirit, is God‘s candle, illuminating hidden disconnects between mind, body, soul and spirit.

Here, awareness becomes a window into prayerful healing. As disturbances surface, we explore: “Why am I feeling nervous, panic, anxiety, tension, resentment, bitterness, anger?” (Ps 77:3) Then we look for the embedded lies and renounce them: “Casting down imaginations… bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (2Co 10:4-5). We find repentance to replace darkness with light, deceit with truth, and deliver ourselves from the snare of the enemy. (2Ti 2:25-26) We invite Jehovah Father God to heal us, to restore our soul and lead us in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake, one sanctifying step at a time. (Ps 23:3)

This isn’t about redeeming corrupt Eastern practices, which fragment the human experience into isolated energy centers (e.g. chakras), or mindlessly chanting mantras to connect with an impersonal spirit of the universe. This is reality itself: the Spirit of the living God quickening our mortal body in real time (Ro 8:11), cleansing and sanctifying us with the washing of water by the Word (Ep 5:26-27), shedding light and love abroad and within us to realign every fragmented, disconnected, broken part of our being. (Ro 5:3) It’s reclaiming precious facets of Jehovah God’s original blueprint for us, where His own life-giving breath infuses and nourishes every part of us. From the very beginning, breath bridges the physical (dust/body) and the spiritual (living soul), and He continues this creative work within us today. (Job 33:4)

This is natural, biblical wholeness—body, mind, soul, and spirit unified in Christ. Breathe in the breath of God, inhaling and exhaling with purpose and intention (Eze 37:5), leveraging it to train ourselves in trust, grateful for each new breath as if it were our first, the free gift of God, ever mindful of how our entire being is lovingly and intricately interconnected with Him (Ac 17:28), and step into all the fullness Father God has intended for us from the beginning. (Ep 3:19)

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Husbands, Love

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Biblical teaching on marriage is straightforward and clear: wives submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord (Ep 5:22); husbands love your wives, as Christ loves the Church. (25)

Seems simple enough, on the surface anyway, but as most anyone who’s been married for any length of time will confess, it ain’t so easy. Men and women are VERY different in how we communicate and how our minds and hearts work. This definitely complicates matters significantly, but it’s actually by design, and it’s a very good one. (Ge 2:18)

Though the biblical pattern always addresses the wife’s role first, this doesn’t imply her role is more important, or that the husband’s duty is secondary. We know from experience everything rises and falls on leadership; the home is no exception.

So, beyond the obvious … being kind, gentle, patient, humble, thoughtful, respectful, considerate, selfless (1Co 13:4-7), honest, hard-working and a man of my word, how do I actually love my wife in an effective and meaningful way? I’ve found I can be a veritable paragon of virtue and still fail miserably. In spite of all of the instruction I’ve had, and the tons of scripture I’ve memorized, I’ve evidently been missing something very basic that might make all the difference.

It’s embedded in the very word husband or husbandman, which actually refers to a farmer, one who cares for animals and crops for a living. (Ge 9:20, Ze 13:5, Jn 15:1, Ja 5:7) How do successful farmers actually do this?

They pay attention to their animals and crops, constantly monitoring their health and safety, with an informed knowledge of what they need, when they need it, and what makes them thrive. Farmers do this because plants and animals don’t advertise; they don’t cry out when they’re in trouble. The husbandman must carefully and diligently and proactively and systematically inspect everything under his care to preemptively discover issues and take care of them before they fester and get out of hand. (Pr 27:23) It is a full-time job: there are many variables … and many adversaries.

The simple farming metaphor suggests a marriage is much like a farm which must be tenderly and wisely cared for and nourished; but the reality is that a wife is obviously not so simple to take care of. Farmers struggle in their marriages just like the rest of us. (1Co 7:28)

The fact of the matter is that Woman is a bewilderingly complex creature, defying ultimate description. She’s more like an exotic, extravagant military grade radar/sonar device, extremely fine-tuned to pick up subtle cues, processing, filtering and distilling millions of signals from her universe.

She’s designed to do so, under the safe, loving, stable protection of her husband. When something moves her, and many things will, she may not immediately understand what it is, why it moves her, or what to do about it, any more than a radar can interpret all of the signals it receives on its own.

She needs to process what she’s thinking and feeling; she needs for her husband to explore, discover, ask, probe and listen with genuine interest and concern: she, in all of her beauty and complexity, is his to husband. This is primarily how he loves her.

And as with any farm, the husband can’t indiscriminately check out and neglect his duty any more than a farmer can take off for a season and expect everything to take care of itself, or military intelligence officials may disregard the constant flow of radar signals and keep their country safe. The husband must check in regularly with his wife and monitor her spiritual, emotional and physical state, listening, observing, studying, noticing and genuinely caring.

This seems to be what the Bible means when it calls husbands to dwell with their wives according to knowledge. (1Pe 3:7) This evidently isn’t merely a general knowledge of the wife’s history and general character, which is clearly important, but an active awareness of her present condition: a compassionate and intentional understanding of her current spiritual, emotional and physical state. This is an essential prerequisite to effectively leading and caring for our wives; it is intrinsic to cleaving to them (Ge 2:24), natural to being one flesh with them. We husbands cannot properly love our wives apart from this.

There is, as we should come to expect from Father’s brilliant design in Creation, an exquisite synergy within this intricate dynamic. The husband’s logical, methodical, compartmentalizing, problem-solving mindset often misses the big picture, oblivious to intangible threats and callous to the sensitivities of the young and vulnerable. The wife, synthesizing the familial and societal chaos around them within her emotional framework, is thus the husband’s eyes and ears in an unseen world, alerting him to imbalances and pathological trends he might never notice. When they harmonize together, they’re a formidable force in an unforgiving world, accomplishing what neither one of them ever could on their own. And this mysterious, powerful, mystical union is grounded in agape: selfless love.

There are many ways to express love in a marriage; we each have one or more love languages, ways we more easily receive and experience love (Quality Time, Acts of Service, Gifts, Words of Affirmation, (Non-sexual) Physical Touch, etc.), but if a husband does not care, if he’s not actively trying to understand his wife, consistently noting where she’s at, how she’s doing and what she’s feeling, asking her questions about herself and listening to her, engaging with her about herself, other expressions of his love will likely be diminished in their effectiveness. Obviously, this depends on the circumstances, the wife’s general frame and disposition, their history together, and many other variables, but active listening seems to be fundamental to it all.

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Restore the Joy

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Depression afflicts millions of souls around the world and it’s a growing problem. Medication, therapy, busy-ness and distractions … it doesn’t really set us free. Very few find ultimate, sustainable victory. What exactly is depression? What causes it? How do we overcome?

We can define depression as a season of joylessness, ingratitude, heaviness, hopelessness, despair, being cast down and despondent. Depression can incapacitate us, rendering us socially awkward and unproductive, alienating us from the life of God, from our families and community. It sounds like the work of the enemy, the thief who steals, kills and destroys (Jn 10:10a), because it is. Depression isn’t God’s will for us, not even for a moment. (10b)

To say depression is a sin may be a stretch, and a cruel one at that; we’re all sinners, and shaming one who’s already depressed isn’t the least bit helpful. A better way to think of it is a state of spiritual captivity resulting from an incomplete, inaccurate perspective. (Jn 8:32) Prisoners of war need to be rescued, not lectured and reprimanded.

We get depressed when we believe lies about God in the midst of our suffering, then we get our focus on the wrong thing and it blows up all out of proportion, and then we literally get in our own way, opposing ourselves. This is how the devil ensnares us and takes us prisoner. (2Ti 2:25-26)

Overcoming depression is simply a matter of re-focusing, getting our perspective more aligned with God’s. (Ps 42:5) It’s a journey, and easier said than done, of course; we can’t do this all on our own. God must give us repentance to the acknowledging of the truth, a fundamental change in our thinking, to set us free. (2Ti 2:25)

Medication and counseling may indeed help give us an edge to jump-start the healing process; spiritual problems can be inseparably intertwined with our physiological and emotional states. We should treat depression holistically, without dismissing its spiritual roots.

Similarly, proper rest, diet and exercise are all part of a healthy mind, soul and spirit. (3Jn 2) We can’t function as we’re designed while we habitually neglect and abuse ourselves; self-hatred isn’t Love — it displeases God because He is Love. (1Jn 4:8)

Yet such external remedies are ultimately superficial, band aids for broken bones, dealing with symptoms rather than the deeper core issues: the root cause of depression is a corruption in our relationship with God. At the root is the lie that God is not good, that He cannot be trusted, that there is no hope in Him. One who is in love with God, who knows the goodness, power and love of God experientially (Ep 3:19), who implicitly trusts God in all their suffering and calamity (Ps 119:75), knowing all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose (Ro 8:28), who are continually abounding in thanksgiving to God (Co 2:7), praising God for His lovingkindness and tender mercies (Ps 63:3), who are delighting in the nature and character of God (Php 4:4, Ps 104:34), who are feeding in the majesty and strength of God (Mi 5:2), who are meditating in the treasures of His Word night and day (Ps 119:97), who are rejoicing in eternal salvation and in the heavenly glory that awaits them (1Pe 1:4-6) … no, they are not depressed: they cannot be.

So, what should we do when we find ourselves trapped in a season of depression?

First thing is we stop lying to ourselves: we admit we’re depressed and angry and bitter and resentful and despondent and that we have lost all hope. We confess we don’t like the way God is treating us and that we feel like we’re suffering unjustly and that God has left us. We pour out our hearts before Him (Ps 62:8); He can handle it; He already knows. (Mt 6:8) But it’s good for us to admit where we’re at: to cry out to God and admit our weakness, our inability to help ourselves, and confess our infirmity. (Ps 77:10)

Once we get real with our own hearts we can begin to heal, to identify the lies behind every one of these beliefs, attitudes and feelings. We go to God’s Word, the living Sword of the Spirit, and let it pierce down into the deepest places of our heart (He 13:8), and lay ourselves out bare and naked before God. (He 13:9)

We identify a wound, a hurt, a bitterness, a disappointment, and ask God to show us the lie underpinning it, the deception holding us captive in depression. (Ps 139:23-24) Then we ask Him to show us what parts of His Word to focus on to correct this lie. (Mt 4:4) Then we hide these texts in our heart, memorizing them, meditating on them and praying over them, asking God to quicken us and help us believe (Mk 9:24), until the lie is broken and we’re set free in that area. (Ps 119:11)

One by one we cast down these imaginations, these broken perceptions, these twisted beliefs which exalt themselves against the knowledge of God, and bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. (2Co 10:5) We are rooting out and pulling down the enemy’s strongholds in the battlefield of our hearts, neutralizing them one at a time by the power of God. (2Co 10:4)

We know we are getting free as we experience more joy in God (Ps 51:12), more gratitude, more peace, more trust, more satisfaction in Him. (Is 26:3)

This isn’t a quick fix, certainly, but it actually works, and in the end, I think it’s the only one that does.

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Casting Down Imaginations

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In our daily battles with sin, if we’re not intentional we can find ourselves continually playing defense, reacting to our own sins after the fact, trying to recover and undo the damage.

Yet how can we ever win a battle if we’re always on defense? How do we go on the offensive in striving against our sin?

God says the weapons of our warfare are mighty through Him to pull down strongholds (2Co 10:4), enabling us to cast down our imaginations and every high thing within us that exalts itself contrary to the knowledge of God (5a), so we may bring all our thoughts under control to the obedience of Christ (5b) This war is not focused on changing the world: it’s about delivering ourselves from being slaves to sin. (Ro 6:16)

Once we become aware of a weakness in our spiritual defenses, a sin that’s getting the best of us (He 12:1), or any pattern of behavior which is un-Christlike (1Pe 2:21), where we are missing the mark (Ja 4:17), we can go on the offensive by engaging our imagination with the power of Christ and the sword of the Spirit: God’s Word. (Ep 6:17)

Reimagine the scenario in which we failed, replaying it in our mind while consciously inviting Father God into the experience. (Ep 4:6) Invite Him to show us the lies driving our behavior (Ps 139:23-24), empowering the stronghold holding us captive (Jn 8:32), and the related scriptures from His living Word which expose and address these lies. (He 4:12)

Then we speak the truth of God’s living Word along with Him into ourselves and ask Him to give us repentance to receive and acknowledge the truth in the very deepest places of our mind and heart. (2Ti 2:26) In this way we receive with meekness the engrafted Word which is able to deliver (save) our souls. (Ja 1:21) We cast down the imagination itself, by putting it under and making it subject to the Word of God until it has no more hold on us, and then ask God to bring that part of our spirit, heart, mind and soul into obedience and set us free. (Ro 7:24-25a)

Once we overcome a particular sin pattern like this, we can bookmark it and periodically check to ensure we’re still free by replaying related scenarios in our mind as part of an entire series where we’ve experienced failure and have been set free, noting in each one that we’re still responding as Jesus would. If we’ve lapsed at all, we can cleanse ourselves again with the washing of water by the Word in the same fashion to regain and maintain our freedom. (Ep 5:26) This is how we add virtue — moral excellence — to our Faith (2Pe 1:5), overcome the world and live in victory. (1Jn 5:4)

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His Heart Fretteth

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When we make unwise decisions and it doesn’t go our way, we may find ourselves blaming God for our suffering. (Pr 19:3) It’s as if we think God is obligated to serve us and arrange His universe for our convenience. We may resent the fact that He allows us to experience the consequences of our own foolishness.

But God doesn’t cause us to make unwise choices; we make them on our own. He isn’t responsible for them; we are.

In fact, God tells us to expect this. He even has a Law about it — the Law of Sowing and Reaping (Ga 6:7-8): we reap what we sow; we reap more than we sow, and we reap later than we sow. God is not unjust in this; it’s how all reality is designed.

Even when others make foolish choices which impact us, God isn’t responsible for these either. God is not obligated to protect us from the harm others would cause us, any more than He’s obligated to protect us from ourselves. God really doesn’t owe us anything. We have no right to be resentful in our suffering, to murmur against God. (1Co 10:10)

It’s actually an incredible mercy that God intervenes in our calamity at all (Ps 103:11), watching over us and protecting us in all the chaos of this broken world. (La 3:22) He does this frequently, more than we can ever really know. (Ps 103:4) Even so, we ought not to demand or expect it; we should be very grateful for His lovingkindness and protection. (Ps 107:21)

God’s promise to work everything out for out for good to those who love Him, for those whom He’s called according to His purpose (Ro 8:28), is so undeserved! His infinite benevolence should fill us with joy and hope regardless what He allows. We should give Him thanks in (1Th 5:18) and for all things (Ep 5:20), for He has a glorious purpose in it all. (Ep 1:11)

Living as if God is supremely victorious in every circumstance of life is how we glorify Him in this world. It’s all about Him, not about us. (Ro 11:36)

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Neither Murmur

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To murmur is to complain and grumble, resentfully and subversively, under our breath, in a rebellious, discontented manner. Murmuring against God is a serious sin; we should take a lesson from Israel on this one (1Co 10:10), avoid this wickedness and root it out of our lives.

Discontentment and resentment come from thinking we deserve better, so murmuring against God is accusing Him of treating us inappropriately.

Perhaps we’ve made some poor decisions and we’re now suffering for it. Is that God’s fault? It’s true He could have stopped us, but He didn’t. Was that unfair? Is God obligated to restrain us from our own foolishness? Is it right to be resentful? (Pr 19:3)

Or maybe someone sinned against us and we’re now suffering as a consequence. Is that God’s fault? It’s true He could have stopped them, but He didn’t. Was that unfair? Is God obligated to restrain others from their malice or negligence? Is it right to be resentful? (Ro 11:36)

Or we might be sick or in pain and we’re now suffering in the midst of it. Is that God’s fault? It’s true He could heal us and stop the pain, but He hasn’t, and we don’t see any rhyme or reason in it. Is that unfair? Is it unloving? Is God obligated to make our lives pain-free and easy? Does He need to explain everything to us? Is it right to be resentful? (1Pe 1:6-7)

If we harbor resentment toward God, if we aren’t giving thanks to Him in our circumstances (Ep 5:20), if we lose hope (1Co 13:7), we’re accusing Him of being unjust; we’re denying His goodness, fainting in the day of adversity. (Pr 24:10)

The remedy here is to humble ourselves; murmuring can only be grounded in pride, thinking we deserve better. If we’ve been foolish, let’s own it and seek wisdom. (Ja 1:5) If we’re suffering otherwise, let’s trust God’s plan for good in it (Ro 8:28), hope in Him (Ro 8:24) and wait on Him. (Ps 27:14) We can glorify God in all His ways. (Re 15:4)

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Righteousness Exalts

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When given a voice, a social platform or a vote, to influence a community or culture, should we promote a strictly biblical worldview, or should we soften it to accommodate diversity? In other words, should we fully promote what we think is true or neglect to point others toward what we believe is correct for fear of offending them?

Firstly, we should inform our choice here based not on how our fellow-citizens might react, but on whether our choice pleases God or not. In the end, our peers will not be our judges; God Himself will reward us all according to our deeds. (Ro 2:5-6) We ought to please God rather than Man. (Ga 1:10)

Secondly, we should acknowledge Torah as God’s universal standard of righteousness for all Mankind (Ro 3:19); it is not merely Jewish law. (De 4:8) Breaking it is the definition of sin, independent of race or nationality. (1Jn 3:4)

We should also recognize that righteousness exalts a nation, and that sin is a reproach to any people. (Pr 14:34) The more closely our nation’s laws and general civil order align with Torah, the better off all of us will be.

And we should not find it charitable to deviate from the Law of Love in the name of compassion and tolerance. All of Torah hangs on, depends on and is upheld by the Law of Love. (Mt 22:37-40) Denying the Law of Love is not love; this is fear.

Finally, we should observe that when Christ returns, He will rule the nations with a rod of iron (Re 2:25), enforcing Torah with justice, precision and rigor. (Mi 4:2) Freedom of religion is not on His radar.

We should be prepared to humbly yet unapologetically defend God and His laws in the face of those who presumptuously make up moral law as they go; we should not be ashamed of anything in Torah. (Lk 9:26)

Yet we should be careful to promote Torah itself, not man-made additions to it, and anticipate those who might legalistically abuse Torah to create a burden or twist it to impose injustice. This is especially true when our judges are fallible, when society itself is composed largely of unbelievers. Torah was originally imposed in just such a context, ancient Israel, and is perfectly designed for it.

So, we should pray for and encourage the enactment of laws which reflect both the letter and spirit of Torah, which focus on well-defined and achievable behaviors, and which are easily interpreted and supported with impartial, enforceable penalties.

We should also remember that God’s kingdom is not of this world, and that He is working all things out according to His own will and plan. We should expect to be in the small minority in our entire world view and glad for opportunities to engage others to understand and appreciate it as well as we can.

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Behold a Beam

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Christ warns us about judging others (Mt 7:1); we’ll be judged in the same way we judge. (2) This doesn’t mean we’re forbidden from observing and acknowledging sin in others (1Co 5:11); it evidently means we’re not to sit as judges and decide what penalty someone else deserves because of their sin: we’re to leave that to God. (Ro 12:19)

The cure for this mindset is humility: esteeming others better than ourselves. (Php 2:3) So Christ asks us, as we sit in judgment of another, looking at the spec in their eye, why we aren’t focusing on the beam in our own eye, the problem lurking within which is much worse. (Mt 7:3)

This evidently implies that if we’re judging others, deciding what they deserve, looking down on them or disvaluing them in any way, we’re exalting ourselves rather than dealing with our own sin, those carnal patterns embedded within, of which we ought to be aware, which are more diabolical than anything we can observe in others.

If we aren’t being observant, and remain unaware of the wicked potential within our own hearts, perhaps we haven’t been striving against sin (He 12:4), perfecting holiness (2Co 7:1); maybe we’re content in lukewarmness. (Re 3:16)

Humility freely admits that, were it not for the grace of God, I might very well be the most evil person who has ever lived. (1Ti 1:15) It has practical experience in the arena (Ro 7:18), battling the carnal mind. (Ro 8:7) Evidently, the only reason I’m not sinning worse than everyone else is God’s gracious restraint.

When we’re looking up at others in a moral context, figuring our neighbor’s likely on higher ground in spite of the sin they’re committing, it’s much easier to acknowledge the fact of their sin without concerning ourselves with what they deserve, knowing we’d deserve worse if God left us to ourselves.

If we can find this perspective, we’ll be pleased when God takes pleasure in being merciful to others, and truly wish them the best, rather than becoming resentful and bitter. (Jon 3:10-4:1) Rather than exalting ourselves, we’ll pity those who haven’t found the freedom to walk in the light, as He is in the light, in fellowship with Him (1Jn 1:7), and pray for them. (Mt 7:44)

How can we help others trapped in sin while we’re still enslaved ourselves? (Mt 7:4) Once we’ve discovered God’s deliverance from sin, and are experiencing more and more freedom, we can help others find the way (5), if they’re truly looking for it. (6)

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Flee From the Wrath

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The Bible says God is very angry with all who aren’t believing on Christ (Jn 3:36), and that Christ Himself is angry with all who aren’t worshipping Him. (Ps 2:12). How do we flee from the wrath of God and of His Son? (Lk 3:7)

Whether one believes in God or not, the possibility God might exist and that He might be angry ought to be sobering. (Ac 17:30) If God might exist it is rational to act as if He might, and if He might be angry then acting accordingly is likewise rational.

This follows from Pacal’s Wager: given the remotest prospect (any non-zero probability) of suffering the infinite fury of an angry God, the expected loss of neglecting to avoid it is infinite. (2Co 5:11) What does this look like in practical terms?

We might try to flee from God, but how does one flee Omnipresence? Presuming there’s a place where God is not is foolish at best. (Ac 17:28)

The only rational response is to order our lives to please God as well as we can (i.e. repent) (Lk 3:8-9) and search for a way to be reconciled with Him. No other path is acceptable. (Ro 1:18-19)

Once we start looking in earnest for evidence of God and of His ways, it’s not so difficult to find. Irreducible Complexity in Nature becomes sufficient proof of God’s existence, power and wisdom: only those blindly presuming Philosophical Materialism as a faith-axiom can miss this. (Ro 1:20)

Acting as if God exists also implies giving Him the benefit of the doubt regarding His nature: acting as if God is good – that He’s both loving and just. For if God is not good there’s no rational way to minimize our expected loss (i.e. all bets are off). Presuming God is good is rational since this minimizes the likelihood of offending Him.

Following this reasoning, seeking reconciliation with God is also straightforward: only Christianity portrays God as both just and loving; all other religions both downplay the potential of human sinfulness and offer reconciliation with divinity apart from justice, as if repentance and personal merit can somehow atone for eternal sin — all the while rejecting this concept in all of our civil institutions: no one really believes proper order can exist in the universe without justice.

And no other religion addresses how any sin against an infinitely good and holy God can be less than infinite … or justly atoned for without paying an infinite penalty. Christianity offers us both.

As we earnestly seek, we find we’re all guilty before God: He is justly angry with us for our sin and will punish us eternally unless we flee to His Son as our propitiation (1Jn 2:2), God Himself suffering the infinite penalty for our sin (1Jn 3:16), and hide ourselves in Him. (Ps 119:114) This is the only way to flee from the wrath to come.

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