The post is for those who don’t accept God……for those who don’t care about God…….for those who have serious doubts.

God…..as described in the Bible…….either is real or is not real. This is absolutely binary. There simply is no middle ground. If God is not real, then we will die and that will be the end of it……at least for us. There really isn’t much to say about it. Death is the end. This means that our life is a brief series of chemical reactions in a complex network of nerves. They began with nothing and they will lead to nothing. These chemical reactions are our reality……..our only reality. This means that our life, while it is hopefully fun…..is ultimately meaningless……..a biochemical accident. This is the mindset that allows some of the people around us to commit unspeakable crimes. If your life is meaningless then killing you or raping you is a small inconsequential thing.

In the absence of God……your life……and mine…..has no real significance……….our lives and everything that we do whether great or small are futile. Most of us will not even be remembered 100 years from now.

But…..what if God is real?

This means that death has an entirely new dimension.

God completely redefines death.

Death is no longer the end.

Death becomes merely a transition.

Our life in this temporal world is still extremely brief …..literally the blink of an eye. But, when we die, we will transition into a timeless world that is eternal. This means that this timeless world after death…….is the real world. In comparison, our temporal life is a brief interruption in our real….eternal life.

So……what happens when you die?

Most would say that you are drawn to a source of light……that you will see people whom you have known.

Then, you will meet your creator. You will sense his love for you. You will come to understand many things that were hidden from you during your temporal life. You will get a brief glimpse of paradise.

And then you will be sorted.

This sorting will not be based on how good or bad you were. This is a very common misconception. The sorting will be based on whether or not you have accepted the reality of God and his gift of forgiveness. This is not fair!……..you say. And you are correct. The thing is that fairness is a construct of our temporal world. We use it to try to make this broken temporal world function……and sometimes it works. But, fairness doesn’t have much meaning in paradise. If it did, we would be punished for every single misdeed……..and paradise would not be a pleasant place. In fact, it is more liklely that fairness is a central feature of hell rather than paradise.

When I die……..the last thing that I want…….is to be treated fairly. If you believe that you can withstand a comprehensive and absolutely fair judgement……..you are kidding yourself.

This sorting is binary:

Forgiveness or Justice

Mercy or Fairness

Paradise or Hell

Given the eternal consequences……..this meeting with your creator…….this sorting…….will be either the best or the worst thing that will ever happen to you. Nothing else comes close.

This sorting is the crux of your life…and mine. It is what every single thing that we do……or say……or think is leading up to. We both need to spend a little effort preparing for it.

Your creator…….God…….Abba……will say:

Either

“Well done, good and faithful servant”

Or

“I don’t know you”

If you are not a believer……..if you are in the second category………then your only hope is that God does not exist.

The terrifying truth is that your “best case scenario” is that you will die and the lights will just go out and there will be nothing……dead black nothing.

And that is a good working definition…….of dispair.

So………as it turns out…..this impending “sort” also divides us into the communities of hope and dispair.

It seems to me that hoping for paradise trumps hoping for dead, black……..nothing.

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,”

Jesus, describing the “sorting of souls”, ESV

Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

John, in Revelation describing the “sort”, ESV

If you cooked down life to the greatest single desire of every human being and named it……..it would be happiness. Seems pretty straightforward……..and yet so many of us struggle with happiness. So many people suffer because they are not happy. They spend their resources going down one path or another……only to find that it wasn’t there. I’m almost 70 years old. I’ve seen a lot of happiness and a lot of unhappiness…….and here is what I’ve learned.

Happiness is not an immediate destination. You can’t go there. You can’t will yourself to be happy. You can’t achieve it directly by action or thought. Happiness, it turns out, is a secondary destination. Paradoxically, you become happy by doing something else. Ironically, the only way to reach this particular destination………is by going somewhere else. But where?

You become happy by doing what you were designed to do. You become happy by doing the work that you were created to do. This work is hard wired into your soul…….it is written on your heart. Any attempt to deny it or circumvent it will interfere with your happiness. Your only hope for true lasting happiness……..is to do the work that you were created for.

So…….how do you go about this? Here are some do’s and don’ts………wisdom from a guy who has been around the block.

Don’t spend your time angry. You were not created to be angry. Every minute that you spend angry is a minute subtracted from your life. The number of minutes that you have is finite……every minute spent angry is wasted forever and cannot be retrieved. It is not possible to be angry and happy at the same time. People will say that you are naive…….generally, these people are unhappy.

Don’t worry too much. Ration your time spent worrying. Things will threaten you and your loved ones. It is perfectly appropriate to worry about some of these threats……but not all of them. Worry can lead you to make changes that will improve your world. So…….it is OK to worry about things that you can change for the better. Don’t waste your energy worrying about things that you cannot change.

Don’t concentrate on stuff. No matter how much or how little you have, there are people with half as much who are happy. Stuff isn’t inherently bad…….it just isn’t the path to happiness. Stuff is a distraction. Stuff is a waste of your resources. It is a waste of your limited time.

Build relationships. We were created for relationship……some of us more so than others. There are two primary classes of relationship…….relationship with God and relationship with our fellow man. In its highest form, relationship is expressed as love. It should come as no surprise that the two greatest commands in the Bible are…… love God……love your neighbor. Because……this is what you were created for………in fact……..this is the only thing that you were created for. From a practical perspective…….how do you go about this? Worship the guy who created you, God……and care for your fellow man. Anything that you do that does not directly or indirectly manifest care and love for God or your fellow man is a distraction that will not make you happy.

And there it is…….love God……love and care for your fellow man…….don’t be angry……don’t worry much……especially about stuff.

I have chosen my epitaph:

A man’s wealth is not measured by the things he has accumulated…….but rather…….by the people he has accumulated

Here lies a wealthy man.

Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath!
Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.

David, ESV

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

Jesus, ESV

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”

Jesus, ESV

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.

Paul, ESV

OK, maybe hate is a bit strong.

I profoundly dislike starlings…….profoundly.

They are ugly.
Their song is annoying.
They make a mess.
They nest under my chimney cap.
They have invaded my bird feeder to the detriment of the birds that I like.
And to top it off…….they don’t even belong here. They were introduced.

Starlings are the Brussel sprouts of the bird world.

I’m sitting at my breakfast table watching them gorge themselves at my bird feeder.

If I were in charge here…….they’d be gone……poof.

And that is the entire point of this post.

I am not in charge here.

God is God………and I am not.

The guy who created me……..also created the starlings.

This all seems so obvious…….you must wonder why I bothered with it.

The truth is that the failure to recognize this obvious reality is quite possibly the single greatest failure of mankind………and, considering the eclectic list of our failures, that is a bold statement.

Just about everything that we mess up can be tracked back to our failure to subordinate ourselves to our creator and his rules for living. Can you imagine a world where everyone followed the top 12 of God’s rules all day every day?

Love God
Love your neighbor
Have no other gods
No idols
Honor God’s name
Don’t lie
Don’t steal
Don’t murder
Honor your parents
Sex is for husbands and wives
Don’t covet
Rest on Sunday

But we just won’t do that.

Why?

Because we want to be the boss. We want to make the decisions. We want the power.
Because we hate it when God tells us to do something that we don’t want to do.
Because we hate it when God tells us not to do something that we really enjoy……something that we want.

We constantly critique God’s handiwork.
The notion is that we have a better idea…….that we could do a better job of running things. The evidence, of course, says that we are not very good at running the planet. Fact is…..we have poisoned it. But, that doesn’t matter one bit. We want to be in charge……..we want the power.

Don’t think that you are guilty of this? When was the last time that you complained about the weather?

So, instead of subordinating ourselves to God, we try a “workaround”. There are several popular choices:

Deny God…….there is no creator, we are a giant biochemical accident….and we can do whatever we please.

Ignore God…..intellectually we concede that he’s real; but, we just don’t listen to him……..ever.

Put God in a box……we isolate him and let him out for an hour or two on Sunday morning. This feels good…….pious……..and we still get to do as we please for the rest of the week.

Customize God…….we start with God as his Bible describes him……….then we add the traits that we like and we delete the traits that we dislike. We do this over and over until we have a God who conforms to our appetites……..a god who doesn’t interfere with us. We keep him current by adding and deleting traits as the demands of our culture evolve. In essence, we create God in our own image…….or, perhaps, in the image of our culture. But, you have to wonder……..when you do meet the real God…..your creator…….will the God who created you recognize the God that you have created…….or will he say, “I don’t know you……and I haven’t a clue as to who this god of yours is…….leave”.

Which takes me back to the starlings.

I can exercise my prerogative as the ruler of the cosmos and make all of the starlings dissappear……….poof.

Or

I can subordinate myself to my creator……my God. And that includes living with the starlings……..his starlings.

God is God……..and I am not.

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Paul talking about Jesus, ESV

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

Jesus, talking about subordinating yourself to God, ESV

Before I develop this, let me say that I don’t know the answer……..for you. But, I worry about the possibility that some people who identify as Christians may be worshipping an idol.

I’m not saying that you have a golden calf stashed in your attic.

I’m not claiming that the things that you value highly have become idols……..like your Avon bottle collection.

What I’m getting at is a bit more nefarious.

A great many Christians pick through the Bible……they accept parts of it and reject other parts. If you peel off the layers, what it comes down to is this:

They reject those parts of the Bible that they do not approve of. In essence they give themselves a line item veto on the written word of God.

The most obvious example is sexual intercourse between two men or two women. The Old testament repeatedly says that this is wrong. The new testament does not refute this. Yet, many Christians condone it.

We kill 3,000 children every day on the altar of women’s rights……….and many Christians condone it.

We tell children in grade school that they can change their sex…….and many Christians condone it.

Let me be clear that this post is not about homosexuality, abortion, or transgender issues.

What I’m getting at is that when you veto a part of the Bible, you change the character of the God whom you worship. I doubt that small changes matter……. does he have a beard?……..what color is his skin?……..is he even a he? But, in an extreme case , is it possible that you have redefined God so much ……..in order to make him meet with your approval …….in order to bring him into compliance with your appetites………that you have fundamentally changed his identity…….his character? Is it possible that you have redefined your God to the point where the God of the Bible wouldn’t recognize himself?

I think that this would take a lot adding and subtracting from the Bible. But; clearly, if you add and subtract until you wind up with a red guy with horns who demands child sacrifice, then you have created and you are worshipping an idol. But where is the line? I worry that this is a slippery slope. Every year that goes by, we add new ideas to our culture in the name of tolerance. Many of these new……woke……ideas don’t line up well with the Bible. Many of these new ideas require us to reject just a little more of the Bible. Many of these new ideas require us to redefine God just a little more than we already have.

Are we Christians slowly building an idol…….worshipping an idol………that we have constructed to meet our approval……..to satisfy our appetites?

Are you worshipping the God who created you……..or are you worshipping a God that you have created?

And worshipping a God that you have created………is a good working definition……of an idol.

Would the God of the Bible…….our creator………recognize the God we are worshipping?

“You shall have no other gods before me. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God”.

God, ESV

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus, ESV

Faith vs. Works

I have struggled with this for a long time. Clearly the Bible teaches that THE requirement for entering paradise is to accept God’s grace….that is, to accept Christ as your saviour. But, the example of “good works” is everywhere, especially in James. How do you reconcile this?

Or

Can somebody who has accepted Christ but has no “good works” be saved?

To begin with…….what do I mean by good works?

Good works are practical everyday acts of love for our fellow man…….they typically involve sacrifice:

Financially supporting the church.
Praying for friends……..and strangers.
Feeding and clothing the poor.
Visiting those in the hospital…….and prison.
Helping the elderly and the ill.
Any small act of kindness to a stranger.

The Boy Scouts include this in their code: “Do a Good Turn Daily”

On the face of it, faith vs. works is tough. First off…..there are Christians who, because of their situation and resources, can’t perform much in the way of “good works”. Let me be clear…..I’m not talking about them. I believe that God can sort this out.

I’m talking about the Christian who has accepted Christ as his saviour but doesn’t help his fellow man, doesn’t support the church financially, doesn’t attend services, and routinely disregards Christ’s teaching. This is the Christian who occasionally “talks the talk”, usually for an hour on Sunday morning but for the rest of the week doesn’t “walk the walk”. This is the person, whom, if you encounter him on Wednesday afternoon, you might not recognise him as a Christian. This is the person with a fish sticker on his trunk who cuts you off in traffic and then gives you the finger. What about him?

I think that the key question here is sincerity. Your faith must be sincere. Your acceptance of Christ as your saviour MUST be sincere. Your acceptance of Christ’s gift of salvation can’t be some kind of cosmic slight of hand………a trick you plan to use to sneak into paradise while nobody is looking. If your faith is sincere, you can’t help but do the good works that are within your power. That may mean building a billion dollar mission ministry. It may mean sitting in your wheelchair and praying for somebody else.

So…….what about “works”? Can you be saved without good works? Sure. Otherwise heaven would be inaccessible to many people who, because of physical/mental/emotional limitations, can’t perform “good works”. For most of us, however, works are a critical indicator of salvation. If you have no good works, you have to question whether your acceptance of Christ was sincere. If your salvation has not led you to do good works, then it is quite possible that you have lied to both yourself and to Christ. We humans are very good at this.

The presence or absence of “good works”, then, is an internal barometer of the sincerity of your faith. If you lack “good works”, then you need to re-examine your faith. You need to ask yourself, “Am I just paying lip service to God………or is my faith real?”

This, by the way, does not work the other way. Works are not an external measure of faith. We are not to judge our neighbor’s faith by counting up and cataloging his works. Especially, we are not to compare our works with our neighbors works in order to judge who is going to get a front row seat in paradise.

Faith is what gets you into paradise…………Works are simply your personal barometer for measuring the sincerity of your faith.

BTW

Have you ever wondered………..what was the greatest example of “good works”?

The crucifixion of Christ.

How’s that for a benchmark to compare your “good works” to?

Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

James, NIV

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Paul, NIV

Years ago I joined a small group at my church. One of the things that we did was to pray for one another……for strength, for healing, for our friends, and for people we don’t even know.

In order to keep up, I learned to keep a “prayer list”. I think that most of the members of the group did this. Mine is on my cell phone. It has grown to several pages even though I prune it back every now and then. My goal is to pray these prayers every day……..after my Bible reading. You’ve probably already figured out that I don’t always follow through.

Praying for myself and my family is a piece of cake. Praying for the people I know is a little harder. Praying for strangers is harder yet. I have come to think of this part of my morning routine as “the heavy lifting”…….and it is. It is hard work and some days……..I just never get around to it.

Prayers of thanks are joyful…….but prayers of petition can be hard. Praying can be hard work.

Why is it so hard to ask God for a long list of things?

Why does it feel like I’m giving God……….a “to do list”?

I don’t think that it is the time, or the concentration, or the physical effort.

I think it is because, in my heart, I know that I am on a different plane from God. I am small and weak and he is big and powerful. I see myself as Dickens’s orphan asking for more gruel……..a tiny inconsequential blip on God’s enormous radar screen.

Like Wayne in “Wayne’s World”……….”I’m unworthy”.

And that part is true……..I am unworthy.

But……fortunately…….that is only half of the story.

The other half of the story is this:

God loves me……..just as I love my son…….only more so.

I am the son……..of a King……….a King who wants me to succeed in all of the ways that really matter………a King who wants me to experience true joy………eternal joy…….a King who rewards me when I excell……..a King who disciplines me when I fall short………..but a King who loves me wholly and endlessly………no matter how I perform.

If I focus on humility……..on my weakness, I grow the distance between me and God. If I focus on God’s love for me…… on my “sonship”, I diminish that distance.

There is a balance here…..a “sweet spot” between humility and “sonship”. I think that one of the great keys to “right living” is to operate in that “sweet spot”. Prayers of thanksgiving teach us humility. Prayers of petition remind us of our “sonship”.

Both are essential.

In the “sweet spot”……….the “heavy lifting” gets a lot easier.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

Paul, NIV

This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.

John, NIV

“truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them .”

Jesus, NIV

God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

Paul, NIV

The old testament is loaded with rules…..laws. I think that we pretty much accept that the law of the old testament has been superceded, at least in part, by the law of the new testament.

Love God
Love your neighbor

I believe that much of the old testament law still holds……for example, the ten commandments. Other parts of the old testament law…….not so much.

Don’t boil a baby goat in its mother’s milk.

Today I want to focus on the old testament law……. prior to the birth of Jesus.

Specifically, how did God feel about all of those rules……. before Jesus…….before the new covenant?

Before love God…..love your neighbor.

Needless to say……. I’m on thin ice here. So you should take what follows with a grain of salt.

I believe that the old testament law was important because God spends a lot of ink telling the Jewish people what they can and cannot do. This includes a very long list of crimes that call for a singularly brutal form of capital punishment…….stoning…….and that list is much longer than our modern list of capital crimes.

So, how serious was God about this list of laws…… especially the death penalty laws?

I believe that God intended for there to be some flexibility in the enforcement of the old testament law. I believe that he intended for there to be some room for mercy. This is clearly true after the arrival of Jesus……in the episode of the adulteress, whom he saved from stoning. Jesus was the epitome of mercy..

But what about before Jesus?

God clearly required flexibility…..mercy in the enforcement of the law BEFORE Jesus.

If the people of Nazareth had rigidly followed the bible………had rigidly enforced the law regarding adultery, they would have hauled Mary out to the local dump and stoned her.

God’s long range plan…….his plan to save us…..clearly required the local authorities of Nazareth to set aside the old testament law regarding adultery. Jesus often railed against legalism. He placed the law of love above all other laws. I think that this reflects God’s heart prior to Jesus as well.

So…….how do we apply this?

I think that we need to be careful when we take someone to task over a rule violation. Don’t get me wrong……the ten commandments stand. But we must be sure that we deal with people who break these rules from a posture of love. After all, God deals with me from a posture of love.

If we get angry with someone because they have an abortion, or have extramarital sex, or steal, or lie, or murder………or even invade the Ukraine……..we may very well be guilty of a greater sin than theirs. We may be guilty of violating rule number two……..love your neighbor.

In the end………..we cannot control them. We can only control how we respond to them.

We are not going to win someone over by beating them up over a broken rule.

And after all……..after loving God and each other…….isn’t that what we’re here for?

Now for the hardest part…………

Perhaps we need to pray for Putin……….

The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

“No one, sir,” she said.

“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

Jesus, (breaking the law in an act of mercy), NIV

What is the most important thing in your life?

What is the thing that would cause you the most pain if you lost it?

I suspect that it isn’t a thing at all.

It is probably a relationship…….your spouse, child, parent, “significant other”.

Considering the list of necessities: food, shelter, clothing, it is amazing that a relationship would be what you prize the most. Yet, if we each look deep inside, that is likely the truth.

Would you rather go hungry, or lose your spouse?

Would you rather be homeless, or lose your child?

Would you rather wear used and donated clothing or lose your parent?

How can this be?
Darwin must be rolling over in his grave.

I believe that the most important truths in our lives are “written on our heart”. They are hard wired into our being. They were put there………by our creator.

Furthermore, I believe that these “most important” truths are a direct reflection of the heart of God………because we were made in his image.

The amazing truth is………that we instinctively know God’s heart.

The love of a parent for his/her child.
The understanding of right and wrong.
Joy
Justice
Mercy
Love
Generosity

Unfortunately, we have also learned some bad things along the way. This calls for some discernment. But it really isn’t too hard to sort out the good and the evil sides of our nature. It really isn’t too hard to spot “the dark side of the force”. This evil does not come from God.

So……if relationship is so important to us…….if the need for it is written on our hearts……….if that need is a reflection of the heart of God……..then relationship must be important to God.

Then relationship with you……. individually…….. must be important to God…….so important that he would suffer crucifixion in order to salvage it.

In a word, God wants relationship. He wants to be close to you…….. closer than any human relationship you have ever experienced. That is the purpose of creation……your personal creation.

God created you for one reason only………to be his friend.

GOD CREATED YOU……..TO BE HIS FRIEND.

You were created to love God and to be loved by him…….and then to love your fellow man. If you feel that your life lacks purpose, then you need to revisit this fundamental truth……..because your only true purpose is to love and be loved by God. The rest is just window dressing.

Paradise is the fulfillment of that love, that friendship. Hell is the total absence of that friendship.

God has three faces: father, son, and spirit. Father and spirit and hard to get a grip on. So when I am struggling, I focus on the Son…….Jesus. I focus on his desire for relationship…….with me personally. I focus on his love for me………..and I try to be worthy of it.

Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.

James, NIV

“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.”

Jesus, NIV

In a recent post, I spent some time on the soul and how having a soul separates us from other animals and from things…….how having a soul makes man unique on this planet……..and quite possibly in the universe.

But what is your soul? What are its characteristics?

Here are a few of its features:

It is permanent………eternal. You can ignore it……but you cannot get rid of your soul…….and, perhaps more importantly, you cannot get rid of mine. You cannot define away somebody else’s soul. This was tried in the antebellum South…….and, to an extent, still goes on today in the abortion debate. Because it is eternal, you cannot destroy it. Even your death will not destroy it. As near as I can tell, even God does not destroy souls.

Your soul existed before you did…….it existed before you were conceived. This is why abortion is a problem for Christians. This is why abortion is a problem for everyone. In a way, your body is a temporary vessel that contains your soul.

It is precious………the most valuable thing that you posses. In fact because your soul is so valuable……..you too are valuable……..but, so is everybody else. No matter how low on the totem pole somebody is……..no matter how offensive their behavior………they too are valuable. This may be why even God does not destroy souls. Your soul is more valuable……..more important……..than your body.

It was created by God. In a manner of speaking, it belongs to him………..and he can do with it as he pleases.

It has a destiny……..in fact it has one of two destinies…….paradise and hell.

Your soul guides you in your behaviour……but it does not dictate your behaviour. It is very easy to override the guidance that your soul provides. The first time you do this it is vaguely uncomfortable. Unfortunately, the more often you ignore your soul or override it, the easier it gets. Of the person who listens to his soul and hurts when he overrides it…….we say he has a conscience. Of the person who habitually ignores it…….we say “he has no soul”………but of course he does have a soul, he just keeps it locked away where it cannot interfere with his appetites.

You and your soul are inseparable. God created your soul. But, you manage it……every day……and you are responsible for how you manage it. You are solely responsible for its destiny. Because what happens to your soul affects you, the fate, the destiny of your soul represents your future.

You need to safeguard your soul.

By safeguarding your soul, you safeguard its destiny…….you safeguard your destiny.

whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?

Jesus (explaining the value of your soul), NIV

“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.

“The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’

“But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’

“He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’

“Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’

“‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’

“He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

Jesus (describing souls in heaven and hell), NIV

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart;

God (explaining Jeremiah’s soul to him), NIV

The world is stuffed full of living things……from our child to the mold we continually scour out of the shower.

But, we know with absolute certainty that we……mankind…..are somehow different from all other living things………not to mention non-living things. And we act that way……..all day…….every day.

But…….if you are a true secular humanist, there is no fundamental difference between man and all other living things. There is no fundamental difference between me and the bacteria in my colon. Both are biochemical accidents, both grow, both reproduce, both adapt to their environment, both come from the same ultimate original primitive life form. In a word……..I am a very distant cousin of the bacteria in my colon.

To the true secular humanist, all living things are on the same plane. This is the realm where the idea of animal rights flourishes. I recently heard an interview where the interviewer told a vegetarian that some plants were “sentient”….capable of sensing and reacting to their environment. This caused a crisis………she couldn’t kill and eat a sentient animal………but now plants might be sentient too?!?

A true secular humanist limits their understanding to those things that can be explained by physical science. But, physical science offers no clear distinguishing characteristic to separate man from other life forms. I have even heard theories that blur the line between living and non-living things. The prion, the virus, even the computer virus…….these all have some of the features of life. One author concluded that computer viruses are alive. So…….if animals have rights……..does a computer virus have rights?………..how about the covid-19 virus?

Sentience is about as close as secular humanism comes to a dividing line that can distinguish between man and everything else……….and this is a slippery slope. In practice, the dividing line of sentience is where ever you need it to be. Sentient beings are like us and therefore require special treatment…….rights. For the carnivor…..a cow is not sentient enough. For the vegetarian, plants are not sentient enough. For someone who is planning to starve, all living things are sentient. For the pro-choice voter, a human fetus is not sentient enough.

After all, according to science……..according to secular humanism, even viruses and bacteria can sense their environment, learn from it, and change in response to it………just like us. To a degree they are all sentient.

If you are living as a secular humanist, there is no intellectually honest difference between man and all other living things.

But man is different. And the hard truth is that Secular Humanism…….science……has no answer to this crucial question:

WHAT MAKES MAN DIFFERENT?

But, Christianity has an answer.

The answer is the human soul………and along with the soul, the source of the soul, the creator……..God.

The thing that makes man different is his soul. The failure of secular humanism is that, because science cannot detect……because science cannot measure the human soul, it denies the existence of the soul…….and therefore, its creator…….God.

The problem is this: it turns out, that it is very difficult to function in a “soulless” world. Because secular humanism gives us no clear dividing line between man and other living things, we have to create arbitrary divisions. We generally put these divisions wherever we need them to be……..in order to get what we want. It’s OK to kill a cow or a chicken, so it’s OK to kill a deer, but it’s not OK to kill your wife, but it is OK to kill your unborn child.

This is dishonest.

Secular humanism is dishonest.

If you are a secular humanist……..and if you are honest……you must act as though you have a soul. You must treat me as though I have a soul. Even worse……you must treat the guy who cut you off in traffic as though he had a soul.

To function in society, you must act as though you have a soul.

Maybe this is telling you something.

and the dust returns to the ground it came from,
and the spirit returns to God who gave it.

Solomon, NIV

For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.

David, NIV

God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

Moses, ASV