Fellow believers, it is high time that you take your swords out and get them nice and sharp, because you will need them more than ever in the coming days. We most certainly are in a war.
Now before you ask me, “What about our guns?” let me make it perfectly clear that I’m not talking about physical swords or a physical war.
I’m talking about ideological swords – swords of truth; swords that defend the faith; swords that destroy false arguments; swords that cut through the lies; swords of irrefutable reason.
And I’m talking about an ideological war – a war of moral values, of societal standards, of the very meaning and purpose of life.
Tragically, while this war has been raging for years, many Christians are late coming to the battle, and when they do engage, they are often ill-equipped, thinking that a cute little slogan will turn the tide or that quoting one verse from the Scriptures will overwhelm their ideological foes.
Well, here’s a breaking news alert: Our halfhearted, content-lacking approach is losing badly, which is one reason so many are defecting from the faith. (Yes, it is true that many others are coming to real faith in the living God, but too many others are being picked off.)
It might bless our socks off to say, “God says it, I believe it, and that settles it,” but that’s not going to do much to convince our skeptical neighbor, nor will it help our college-age kids during their first serious crisis of faith.
We might think that quoting Leviticus 18:22 in all caps and, of course, from the King James Version (as in, “THOU SHALT NOT LIE WITH MANKIND, AS WITH WOMANKIND: IT IS ABOMINATION”) will settle the issue, but the moment someone says, “But do you eat pork?” our only answer is to quote it again and say, “The devil has blinded you!”
Surely we can do better than this. No, we must do better than this.
Personally, I’m 100 percent sure that the Bible is God’s Word and that, rightly understood and applied, it is binding on our lives as believers.
And I live my own life with that old-time philosophy of “God says it, I believe it, and that settles it,” explicitly trusting the faithfulness of my heavenly Father and the truth of his Word.
And I am convinced that homosexual practice is sinful in God’s sight, along with many other behaviors, attitudes and practices, and I believe that Jesus died to save us from our sins and give us a brand new life.
He did that for me almost 4 years ago, delivering me almost overnight from partying, drinking, rebellion, immorality and pride.
I can preach “Jesus saves” with the best of them. On the one hand, my life had been so wonderfully transformed that I could not be turned away from what I believed. But I needed answers, and I was committed to following God and his truth wherever that led – meaning, away from Jesus as Messiah or even deeper into Jesus as Messiah – and the more I studied, the more answers I found, all of them confirming the truth of the gospel.
I say all that to encourage you that there is an intellectual side to our faith along with a spiritual side (actually, the spiritual and the intellectual overlap when our minds are renewed) and when we’re dealing with an increasingly non-believing society, especially one that is hostile to our moral values and angrily rejects the idea of an absolute moral Judge, we had better have our gospel swords sharp and ready. Otherwise, we will lose the battle before we start.
That being said, here are a few helpful pointers.
•Don’t be a hypocrite. If you practice what you preach, you’ll gain respect.
•Don’t stop praying and citing Scripture – prayer and the Word are our ultimate spiritual weapons – but be ready to back what you say.
•Be nice. Nasty Christians on the Internet are a terrible plague, doing real damage to the faith.
•Focus on an area that interests you and take advantage of the many apologetics tools that exist online. Become an armchair expert.
•Be determined to put 1 Peter 3:15 into practice, having solid answers for those who ask you about your faith.
Our Lord deserves nothing less than this.
Regards, Admin
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