Category: Events

2015. Who’d have thought? And it seems to have arrived so quickly. I don’t mean to sound cliché, but time really does seem to be flying by. Someone suggested to me a while ago that when you’re ten years old, a year is one-tenth of your life. But when you’re much older, a year is proportionately much less of your life, and for that reason, seems to fly past much more quickly.

And maybe there’s something to that. I think it has something to do with being busy. When life is busy, there isn’t time to mull over the passing of time. You wake up one day and it has been and gone.

With each new year, there’s the temptation to make new year’s resolutions. I’m not given to making too many of them, but this year I’ll probably make a couple—one of them being to exercise more. There’s no reason for not doing it. It has something to do with prioritizing. And if you can’t make exercise a priority, it’s probably time to look at the big picture and make some changes.

New year’s resolutions can be productive. Lose weight. Exercise. (I picked a common one). Drink less alcohol, or none at all. Eat better. Keep in touch with so-and-so. Pray more.

But new year’s resolutions have a happy knack of lasting until about January 5, and then becoming a candidate for next year’s new year’s resolutions.

What about spiritual new year’s resolutions? I’ll pray more. Memorize more Scripture. Get more involved at church. Be a better person. Lose my temper less. Well, that’s all well and good. But in all likelihood, it doesn’t stand a great chance at success.

People often make God promises, but few people have a very good track record of keeping promises made to God. In the wilderness, the Israelites proclaimed, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do.” (Exodus 19:8)

A few short weeks later they were worshipping a golden calf. So much for their promise! Peter told Jesus with as much sincerity as he could muster, “Though I should die with you, yet will I not deny you.” (Matthew 26:35)

And he meant it! The problem is, mere hours later, he forgot his promise to God and denied Jesus with as much vigor as he had earlier promised to serve Him.

Have you ever done that? Made promises to God that you later couldn’t keep? The answer is undoubtedly “yes.” I want to encourage you to make fewer promises to God. Or better yet, to make no promises to God. God doesn’t even want us to make promises to Him. Instead, simply believe the promises that He has made to you.

We’re told that through His promises, we can be partakers of the divine nature. (2 Peter 1:4) We all want that, but the how of it is the tricky part. We can be made like Jesus, but not through promising Him good behavior. Instead, the key is to believe His promises to us. Philippians 2:13 says, “It is God who works in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.”

Not even Jesus pleased God through His own efforts. Although He cooperated with the working of His Father, he said, “The Father who dwells in me, He does the works.” (John 14:10)

God promises to work in our lives. When we accept that promise, claim that promise and believe that He will do what He says He will do, we can expect to see God do great things.

You won’t need to make another promise to God, ever. He doesn’t even want you to. His promises are enough. Believe them, and you’ll have a new year like you’ve never had before.

A true story.

A certain pilot—we’ll call him Dave—had been flying commercial airliners for almost 20 years. In that time, he had seen just about everything. On this particular flight, the plane he was piloting was delayed, the weather was bad, and although the crew members were experienced, they’d never worked together before, which slowed things down a bit.

While at 35,000 or so feet, Dave was given word that a passenger on his plane was gravely ill. He’d had a severe heart attack, and although a doctor on board was helping, it was obvious the man needed urgent medical care. The pilot radioed the tower at a nearby airport seeking permission to land, but due to the bad weather, permission was denied.

So what should Dave do? If they stayed flying, the passenger would almost certainly die. While it was true the weather was a problem, Dave believed he could land the plane safely in spite of it. He’d been flying for years, not just for the airlines but in the military as well.

On the other hand, he didn’t feel like he should risk the lives of his crew and passengers by trying to land. While he deliberated, news came again—the passenger was failing. And although not everyone on board the plane knew what was happening, those who did were unanimous: Dave should land the plane and try to save the man’s life. Now, Dave had a dilemma—defy the control tower, risk everyone’s safety and likely save a man’s life, or follow instructions and let the man die.

A dilemma. What would you do? Every person in the world faces a very real dilemma—and it’s far more serious than that faced by our pilot.

But first, what is a dilemma? Having to choose between vanilla and strawberry isn’t a dilemma. That’s a choice. Running out of gas isn’t a dilemma; it’s a problem (although it could introduce a dilemma).

A dilemma is this: “A problem offering two solutions or possibilities, of which neither is acceptable.” The two options are often described as the horns of a dilemma, neither of which is comfortable.

In Romans 7, Paul describes the dilemma faced by every sinner. And it is a dilemma. He describes his experience in wanting to do what he knows he shouldn’t, and not wanting to do that which he should.

His options—the horns of the dilemma—are these: One, he yields to his fallen nature and simply allows it to govern his life, and he’ll be lost (which we would surely agree would not be good), or option two. Option two is to accept Jesus and let Him be the Lord of Paul’s life. And therein lies the dilemma.

To surrender fully to Jesus is to die. It is to die the death to self, and let Jesus govern our lives just as if we had died and were reborn. So why is that an uncomfortable choice?

Jesus compares this experience to crucifixion. And that’s not pretty. You can tell it isn’t pretty because so few people experience it and so many resist it. There’s nothing acceptable about death, but that’s what Jesus is calling us to. So often we find ourselves in that Romans 7 situation—we know what is right, we want to do right, but before we know it, we’re back into that sin.

And we don’t want to die the death to self because we’ve grown to love the sin more than we like the thought of Jesus removing it from our life. So there’s the dilemma.

Two choices—carry on in the old life and bear the inevitable consequences, or let Jesus make the old life new. The old life leads to death, because the wages of sin is death. To get to the new life means death also. And that option is so unattractive that most people choose against it.

Only one thing can free a person to live a true Christian experience: choosing Jesus as the Lord of one’s whole life. If self lives, we must die. If self dies, then we can live—forever.

The choice is obvious and clear. There’s only one way worth going. All it requires is a choice to subordinate one’s desires to the will of God. Continually.

Are you willing to make that decision?

The remarks allegedly made by Los Angeles Clippers Owner Donald Sterling were…actually, I’m not even sure what word (or words) to use. “Sickening” according to Michael Jordan. “Incredibly offensive” said President Barack Obama. Basketball heavyweights have said there’s no place for Sterling in their sport. And the NBA responded by banning Sterling for life, and fining him $2.5 million.

This matter forced the National Basketball Association to confront serious issues, and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver decided the offensive remarks were indeed made by Sterling. Silver acted swiftly and firmly, sending a strong message to Sterling, the NBA and those associated with it, and the world.

I found the recording extremely difficult to listen to. I would not have chosen to listen to it, but happened to be in a place where it was sort of “sprung” on me and I had little choice but to hear the revolting rant. I listened with my forehead in my hand wishing it would end—quickly—only to discover that there was much more to be heard in addition to the initial release.

The sad fact is that as long as there is sin in the world, there will always be racism, but this was…this was different somehow. These weren’t remarks made in anger, or spewed in the heat of the moment, or fueled by drugs or alcohol. Even if they were, the remarks wouldn’t have been any more acceptable, but there would have been a context that enabled people to at least say, “Here we go again,” or “Well, what can you expect?” This was well thought out, calculated and carefully elucidated. This couldn’t be explained away somehow, using inflamed human emotion as some kind of excuse. This was…hideous.

Yet as grotesque as Sterling’s comments were, there’s an additional twist in this affair that isn’t generating a lot of discussion. And that is, the remarks attributed to Donald Sterling were made to his girlfriend—not his wife of nearly 60 years, but his mistress. While it seems certain that Sterling is racist—based on the ruling by the National Basketball Association—he is also certainly immoral. And nobody seems to mind.

Sterling’s paramour is more than 55 years his junior. There’s controversy surrounding this relationship: lawsuits and accusations and money—and plenty of it. Evidently, in this age where racism is appropriately not tolerated, immorality is accepted as a part of everyday life.

In certain circles, immorality is celebrated. It’s a conquest—an achievement—and whereas tawdry behavior was once the domain of men, our equal-opportunity world has seen to it that women are welcome to be every bit as morally bankrupt as men.

One 27-year-old actress recently acknowledged that she has had 36 “partners” over the years. While she admits to being embarrassed that the list of her conquests has been made public, there’s nothing attached to the story of her immorality that suggests she actually did anything wrong.

The point of this post isn’t to criticize the immoral, but instead, the fascinating relativism that exists with sin. I noticed (unfortunately) that one It Is Written Twitter follower professes faith in Jesus while adorning her Twitter page with soft-core pornography. Certain sins fade in and out of style, while many can become somewhat fashionable.

Oddly, 150 years ago, Sterling would have likely been criticized for his immorality, while racism would have been given a free pass. Times change, as does the human proclivity for defending the indefensible.

When God heard the phone conversation between Donald Sterling and his mistress, He was appalled by more than racism. But thankfully, racists, the immoral—in fact sinners of all shapes and persuasions—can find forgiveness and renewal in Jesus.

See, there’s one more thing nobody is talking about with Donald Sterling, and that’s redemption. Yet, isn’t that the ultimate hope in the case of any sinner? Condemning a man for his misdeeds is the easy, almost satisfying part. Praying him on to a change of heart is another.

Jesus could easily say, “The man’s guilty. Throw your rocks!” But He is far more interested in saying, “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.”

Were Sterling to be the biggest bigot on the fruited plain, he would still be a bigot for whom Christ died. And while one hopes earnestly that a racist would see the error of his or her ways and repent, one also hopes that a racist would find Jesus, and redemption from all sin.

As ghastly as the recorded racism was, the Bible reminds us that “where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.” (Romans 5:20) There’s plenty of sin in this world to go around, and there’s a little of Donald Sterling in all of us. None of us is blameless; all of us are flawed and fault-ridden. God sees it all, and wants to save us just the same.