As I watch the ongoing verbal warfare among our political leaders, one area of conflict stands out. It is the trend of men competing in women’s sports. There is a small group of Americans who tell us that our sex is a state of mind. If you feel male…….you are male. If you feel female……..you are female. This small group of leaders has pursued this idea to the point of allowing men to compete in women’s sports. They even allow men to dress and shower in women’s locker rooms.

The vast majority of the electorate does not support this.

The physical evidence against this idea is overwhelming.

This disenfranchises and harms women throughout the sports community. The only people who gain are men who can win a phoney prize by defeating women.

Why does our culture do this?

The science, the physical evidence, our sense of right and wrong, and even our conscience scream that this is wrong. The left, which champions this idea, is taking a beating at the poles over it. And yet they persist.

This is not the only example:

Your sex is merely a state of mind.

There is no difference between men and women.

An unborn child is not a human being with a soul.

Sexual intercourse between two men….or women…….is OK.

Stealing less than $1,000 is not theft.

Insider trading by our leaders is OK.

Joe Biden is “sharp as a tack”.

War is a satisfactory tool for promoting your national interests.

All illegals are bad for America.

Jews are the new Nazis.

Lying to your parents, your boss, your spouse, the IRS…..is justifiable……it is your right.

And the biggest lie of all……..Satan is just another myth……a phoney “boogeyman”.

The list goes on.

Both the left and the right are guilty.

These ideas are absurd. And yet, as crazy as they are, we argue about them every day. By the very active of arguing, we legitimize these ideas.

What is going on here?

These ideas are not the real issue. The real motivation behind these ideas is far more nefarious……..far more deadly for our culture……..far more dangerous for humanity writ large.

What we are really fighting over is the very existence of truth. The attempt to destroy truth is the face of the attempt to eradicate the Holy Spirit.

Truth is important to God. Jesus taught the primacy of absolute truth. The Holy Spirit is the definition of Truth.

And yet, every day, as a culture, we reject the truth. We settle for a lie. The problem is far bigger than a man winning a medal at a swim meet. The problem is that we are becoming comfortable with rejecting the truth. We are glibly incorporating lies into our daily life.

The truth exists……whether we like it or not.

The truth is absolute.

You cannot negotiate with the truth.

You cannot bend the truth to your desires.

You cannot destroy the truth. You only destroy yourself by crashing into it.

The war that our culture is conducting against the truth is the symptom of a much bigger and more deadly conflict. It is the conflict between the Holy Spirit……and Satan. Our culture will not be the first to be destroyed because we abandoned the truth. Our enemy knows this.

Please understand……..our enemy is not Chuck Schumer or Donald Trump. It is not DHS or the rioters in Minnesota. The enemy is Satan.

Satan is real………this is the truth.

You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

Jesus describing Satan, John 8:44, ESV

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

Jesus describing the Holy Spirit, John 16: 13-14, ESV

The Trinity

Three faces…….three aspects of God.

They are one……but they are not the same.

As one, they are God. When we pray to God…….we address all three. The common thread that they share is love. All three hope for and work for our wellbeing. All three seek relationship. All three want our company………in paradise……for eternity.

But, how we respond to each face of the Trinity is unique:

God……the Father

The Father is, in many ways, the archetype for our parents. He is sovereign. His power and authority are absolute. He makes the rules. He expects obedience. He rewards obedience and he punishes rebellion. He created us. He protects us. He provides for us. He loves us. In return, he demands our attention, honor, and respect. He knows that this is the path to a successful, fulfilling life in this temporal world. He created and defines paradise. He has established the criteria for our judgment at the end of our physical life. The Father is not to be trifled with. In addition to paradise…….he has created hell. Hell is not a metaphor. It is a place of burning eternal pain. We ignore, dishonor, or disrespect the Father at our peril. In a word, the Father is the Boss.

God…….the Son

The Son is a kinder, gentler face of God. The Son has enormous authority over the temporal world. But…….even the Son operates under the Father’s sovereignty. The Son is our teacher. He translates God’s desires for us into a practical plan for living. He shows us what a proper relationship with the Father looks like. He shows us what a proper relationship with other people looks like. The Son does not contradict the father. Everthing that the Son teaches amplifies and clarifies the desires of the Father. When we obey the Son…….we are obeying the Father. When we honor the Son……..when we worship the Son…….we honor and worship the Father.

God…….the Spirit

At Pentecost, Jesus…….the Son…….left our temporal world in physical form. He gave us…….as his representative…….the Spirit. The Spirit is a non-physical manifestation of the Son…….just as the Son is a physical manifestation of the Father. The Spirit is a gift from the Son to his followers. It is his reward to those who choose to obey, honor, and respect him…….and in the process to honor, obey, and respect the Father. The Spirit indwells in all believers. Non-believers do not have the Spirit in their hearts. That is why they behave the way they do.

So……here is the key to life…….to paradise…….to eternity.

The criteria for spending eternity in paradise is to obey, honor, and respect God…….all three of him. The hallmark of this relationship is the presence of the Spirit……..inside of your heart. Given the eternal consequences……..there is nothing more important in your life. Examine yourself for the presence of the spirit.

Paradise is not promised to those who:

are good people

watch their carbon footprint

identify as Christians

tithe

are generous

go to church every Sunday……and sometimes on Wednesday

pray the rosary

Paradise is promised to those who obey, honor, and respect God.Those who obey, honor, and respect God live their lives with the Spirit in their heart.

Do you possess the Spirit?

Nothing else matters.

“If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me. “These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.

Jesus explaining the Father, Son, and Spirit, John 14: 23-27, ESV

I have spent a lot of time studying Christianity. Most of this study involves reading the Bible……..the owners manual. There are three general areas of Christianity that I have tried to understand:

God…..the Father

God is the creator of everything, the physical world, the spiritual world (including heaven and hell). God is the pinnacle of everything. I can understand a little bit about God. But, much of God’s nature, perhaps most of it, is beyond my capacity to know. I will learn more after I die. But, I doubt that I will ever fully understand God. Even the Bible reveals very little about God. He has expectations. He rewards obedience. He punishes disobedience. But, he intentionally creates a certain distance between himself and us. We can like him…..or not. We can accept his reality……or not. But, he is in charge and we don’t get to negotiate. Even Jesus didn’t fully know what God was and is up to. Both the Old Testament and the New Testament give us glimpses of God’s nature.

Jesus…….the son

Jesus is a manifestation of God. He is a reflection of God’s character. Jesus serves God. Jesus is the clearest image of God’s nature that we have. He is fully God. He is fully human. Because Jesus is human, he speaks a language and lives a life that we can understand. Most of what we do as Christians centers around our relationship with Jesus. The Old Testament gives us a few veiled references to Jesus. The New Testament fleshes this out……literally. We focus on Jesus because we can understand him. We like Jesus because he is one of us………in addition to being one with God.

The Holy Spirit……..the “helper”

At least for me…….this is where the wheels start to come off. The spirit is non-tangible. Our mind is designed to operate in a physical world. We just can’t get a grip on a being who is completely non-physical. But, as hard as the spirit is to understand, the spirit is at the core of life in a “post Jesus” world. Please don’t misunderstand. Jesus was and is and will be. Jesus teaches us how to live. Jesus invites us into an ongoing relationship. Jesus requires us to accept him as God incarnate in the same way that we accept God……as God…….non-incarnate. But, at Pentecost, things changed. Jesus ascended into heaven. He left the physical world. He is, no doubt, still active in our world…..but, for the most part, in a non-physical form. When he left, he sent a non-physical replacement…….the Holy Spirit. The best way that I can understand the spirit is as a non-physical manifestation of both God, the father, and Jesus, the son. The Holy Spirit informs our minds. He guides our decision-making. He teaches us right and wrong. The right and wrong that he teaches are absolute. There is no negotiation. The spirit is often at odds…….at war……with our appetites. The spirit arrives in us when we accept God and Jesus.

There is a corollary:

Those who reject God and Jesus do not receive the spirit.

Those who reject the father and the son are ruled by…….are at the mercy of…….their appetites. They do not hear the Holy Spirit. This goes a long way toward explaining the behaviour of about half of our society.

Furthermore, it is entirely possible to identify as a Christian, receive the spirit, and yet completely ignore the spirit. This explains the large number of nominal Christians who allow their appetites to govern their actions. They straddle the gap between spirit led Christianity and appetite led secular humanism. I worry that they are like the guy with one foot on the dock…….and one foot in the boat.

The Holy spirit comes from God, the father. It descended on Jesus at his baptism. Jesus passed it on to his followers at Pentecost. If you are a Christian, the Holy spirit has been passed on to you. The Holy Spirit is the manifestation of God’s plan for your life. It is the manifestation of God’s authority………God’s sovereignty…..over your life……..every corner of it.

So far, so good. But, there is the problem of free will. Just before his crucifixion, as he prayed in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed “not my will…..but your will be done”. Jesus had free will too. He could have walked away from the crucifixion. But, he didn’t. I believe that he listened to the guidance of the holy spirit. He submitted to the sovereignty of God, the father.

And that is our daily walk.

Thousands of times every day we make a choice:

We submit to the demands of our appetites.

Or

We submit to the sovereignty of God.

The Holy spirit is the being…….who lives inside of us…….who guides us in our choice:

The sovereignty of God

Or

The dictatorship of our appetites.

Jesus chose wisely……..we should too.

But if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

Jesus explaining the holy spirit, John 16: 7-13. ESV

I know a young woman. She is dabbling with the occult, probably Satanism. She says that Christianity is a “cult”. She says that she rejects “religion”. She has been exposed to both ideas. She knows about Christianity because her family has shared it with her. I suspect that her exposure to Satan and the occult is through her friends.

Two diametrically different approaches to life. These two approaches are mutually exclusive. They cannot both be right. They cannot both be true. She is at a decision point. This is the most important decision that she will make in her life. It is important because the ramifications of her decision are eternal.

Christianity promises her an eternity surrounded by love…….an eternity in the presence of the God who created her. This is God’s offer to her…….if she accepts it. If she rejects God’s offer, Christianity also carries the threat of hell…….a place that is separated from God’s love…….a place that redefines pain.

Satanism/occultism promises her fun……right now. It is strangely silent on what kind of eternity awaits her. That alone is a red flag. Curiously, the people promoting the occult……..the people calling Christianity a “cult”…..never call Satanism a “cult”. This is another red flag. Satan never tells us that he loves us. He wants power and control……..but he never offers love.

I once stood at this same decision point. Jesus was either a supernatural being…..God……or he was one of the two greatest con-men of history (the other being Mohammed). God, heaven, hell, and Satan were either true……or a myth. Here is the chain of logic that I followed.

Jesus is an historical figure. He lived, preached, died by crucifixion and was entombed. This is documented in both religious and secular accounts. Jesus endorsed the Old Testament. His disciples endorsed the New Testament.

It all comes down to one question:

“Is the Bible true?”

Notice that the question is not, “do I approve of the Bible”.

When push comes to shove, the validity of the Bible hinges in one thing:

Did the resurrection of Jesus really happen? After all, I think we can agree that resurrection is impossible. If Jesus returned to life after being dead for three days, then he has done something impossible. If the resurrection really happened…….then Jesus is not limited by what is possible……..by the laws of science…..he is supernatural……a good working definition of God.

Jesus, God, the creator says that the Bible is true.

So……did the resurrection actually happen?

This is the most important decision that we will ever make. It is a black and white, yes or no, decision. There is no “in between”. You must answer yes or no. And ignoring the question is a tacit no.

Here is the evidence:

Jesus died…..a Roman soldier speared him with an 18″ iron spear that would have penetrated both lungs and the heart. He received no medical care. This is not a survivable injury. He was entombed.

Three days later he had dinner with his disciples. All but one of them testified to this. All of them died gruesome deaths rather than recant. I cannot believe that 12 grown men would die gruesome deaths to promote what they knew was a lie. I cannot believe that 12 men would accept horrible torture and death to promote a “con” knowing that the author of the con was dead.

Days later, he appeared to 400 eyewitnesses.

That is good enough for me.

Resurrection is impossible.
Jesus did something impossible.
Jesus is supernatural.
Jesus is devine.
Jesus endorses the Bible, heaven, hell, and eternal life.
What I believe……what I approve of…..what I like…..what is fun……is irrelevant.

I have lived 30 years following Jesus. I can promise you that it works.

The Ouija board……..not so much.

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”

Jesus claiming divinity, John 10: 27-30, ESV

Today’s post is a real stretch for me. I am trying to understand a realm that, intellectually, is outside of my grasp. This is the spiritual realm. Imagine a blind water snake trying to understand a blue sky.

We are confined in a spatial and temporal world. Our world is governed by the laws of science. Every year we learn and understand more. But, there are limits to our reach. We cannot change the past. We cannot forsee the future. We cannot even see the distant reaches of the universe. We cannot conceive anything beyond our spatial/temporal world. We never will. We are all blind water snakes.

What follows is one blind water snake trying to explain a blue sky to another blind water snake.

So……here goes.

God is a spiritual intelligence operating in a spiritual world. He is not restrained by space and time. As such, God is and was and always will be. He is just as present in the past and in the future as he is in the now. God had no beginning. God will have no end. God is constant based on our limited understanding of time. But, God is also constant in his nature…….his character. God’s character is defined by love, justice, mercy, and his desire for relationship. Our relationship with God is based on his absolute sovereignty. What we are supposed to become is dictated by his sovereignty. What God wants more than anything else is for us to be with him……..not as equals……but in a sovereign, parent/child relationship. God operates both in his spiritual realm and our spatial/temporal realm. There is probably much more to God. But, this is what we have been told. This is the limit of our understanding of God. We will probably someday know more. But, I do not believe that we will ever fully understand God.

Satan is a created intelligence. He had a beginning and he will have an end. He, too, is constrained by God’s sovereignty. Satan has a degree of sovereignty; but, his sovereignty is delegated by God and restricted by God. Satan has freedom to operate across space and time. But, this too is restricted by God. Satan’s character is far less constant than God’s. It changes with his appetites. Because of this, it is harder to pin down. Satan’s character is defined by jealousy, vengeance, anger, frustration, and the desire for power. In a word, Satan wants to be in charge. Satan, more than anything else, wants to be God. He knows that this cannot be and he takes his frustration out on mankind.

And then, there is man. Like Satan, we are created beings. We, too, are restricted. We are tightly hemmed in by space and time. We each have a beginning, birth. Our end is far more complicated. Our physical being is limited to the spatial/temporal world that we know. Spatially, we are limited to a tiny blue planet, one of trillions, so far. Temporally, we have about 80 years to work with. Given a potentially infinite cosmos and infinite time frame, our physical being is so tiny as to be almost inconsequential. That’s the bad news. The good news is that we are also spiritual beings. Our spiritual side is eternal. At our physical death, it will return to the spiritual realm. But, what about our character? Our character is all over the place. We have free will. This was not given to us by God. It was taken……stolen…..by man. Free will has a profound effect on our character and on our relationship with God…….and with Satan, for that matter.

With free will, our character can be anything that we want it to be. Ultimately, each of us chooses our own character. We choose, either by considered thought, or by happenstance. In practice, how we choose our character is governed by either God’s sovereignty or by our own appetites.

God’s appetites/sovereignty vs. Our appetites/sovereignty.

Enter the problem……..of distance.

From a spiritual perspective, God is constant. Satan, man, and everything else change from minute to minute. God is the center of the spiritual universe. Satan is the periphery. Satan extends as far from God as is possible. This is his “happy place”. But he also has a presence closer to God. This is the spiritual realm of man. Both Satan and God operate in the spiritual realm of man. We see this every day. Both Satan and God desire man. We drift around in the spiritual “Grey zone” between God and Satan. We spend time close to God. We spend time close to Satan……..all of us.

The most defining feature of humanity is our distance from God in mankind’s part of the spiritual realm. Because Satan is all over the periphery, anything that increases our distance from God draws us closer to Satan. In our exercise of our free will we act. These acts will either increase or decrease our distance from God. This is the key to human life.

Why is this so important? This distance is the most important metric in our life for one reason.

When we die……..the distance becomes fixed……..for eternity. Wherever we are in our relationship with God when we die is where we will stay……forever. And forever…….is a long time.

I am not privy to the details. But, being close to my creator is where I am meant to be. This is the best place in the spiritual realm. It will be warm and sunny. It will be defined by love and joy.

The periphery, Satan’s realm, will be cold and dark. It will be defined by anger, hate, vengeance, jealousy, and pain. It will be defined by distance………from love…….from joy…….from God.

The sole object of human life is to daily draw closer to God so that when we die………our distance from God…….our distance from love…..our distance from joy…….is as short as is humanly possible.

All of the teaching of Christianity leads to that goal.