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Archive for February, 2013

Can A Person Truly Change?

Posted in Commentaries of others, Faith & Practice, Identity, Life issues, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 28, 2013| Leave a Comment »

prison cellIs it possible to change our thinking and behavior?  Leave bad habits behind?  Resist evil and despair?

Yes.

Evidence of change is all around me.  For some, change has come with maturity or wisdom gained from experience.  Some literally kicked and screamed all the way to a new place in their life where change took them by surprise.  Some are being changed through pain and suffering.  Others are changing, but only after falling into the darkness of bitter despair.

Travis is one of them.  Travis had fallen so deeply into the pit that he could never pull himself out.  I believe that Jesus literally reached down into that pit to lift Travis upward.  The circumstances in which Travis finds himself are grave.  He is serving 20 years in a federal penitentiary without parole.  Travis is in a place of shame but, face to face with his Savior, true freedom and dignity are being restored.

What follows is a letter from Travis:

Often, people ask, “Why did you throw everything away to pursue a life on drugs?  You threw away your relationships with good friends.  You threw away your good reputation.  You threw away the respect of your family.  You threw away everything that you ever worked hard for.  Why?”

I have never been able to come up with a rational answer to these questions.  Sin, I’ve figured out, is always irrational.  Sin doesn’t consider the consequences.  It just leads us to say, “I want more.”  In my case, becoming addicted to meth was that sin that gave Satan a strong foothold in my life.

I’ve come to see things a little more clearly today.  In John 10:10, Jesus says, “The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy.”  Satan wants to steal my joy.  He wants to steal my freedom.  He wants to kill and destroy everything that makes my life worth living: my relationships, my peace, my sanity.  He will use any means: deception, lying, and false promises to keep me from enjoy God’s plan for my life.

When I was enslaved to my sin of addiction it was evident that something was wrong with me.  Not everyone noticed, however, because I put on a good mask.  But, my life was full of filthiness.  My thoughts, speech, conduct, and even my house was filthy.  I would find a lewd or filthy element in any situation.

Satan was working to steal my morals, relationships, will, and dignity.  In the end, Satan wanted my life.

Once I started doing meth, I experienced dreams and visions.  While driving on a particular curve into town, I imagined taking my own life.  Perhaps, I thought, it would relieve the pain I was experiencing.

I didn’t like the person I had become.  A couple of girlfriends tried to help get me sober.  One helped me escape to her family’s cabin.  She would help me detox and get sober.  I would sleep, eat, and begin to act normal… only to return to my habit five days later when I got home.  Another girl begged me to get sober.  She wanted my family to help.  I said, “No!”  How could I face the people that had raised me so well?  The last thing I wanted to do was admit I was a failure.  I thought I could do it on my own.”

Travis is suffering the terrible consequences of his addiction and sinful ways.  He is separated from his family and shamed by incarceration.  Although his faith has grown, he is taunted by unbelievers.  He has explained to me that despair comes often to visit, yet the mercies of God really are new every morning.

Those mercies recently came through a fellow prisoner.  Travis was feeling especially low at Christmastime when, unexpectedly, he crossed paths with a man he had met early in his imprisonment.  Travis had befriended that man and encouraged him with words of hope.  The man apparently never forgot Travis and, in a moment of darkness, the man reappeared as a ray of light with reciprocal words of encouragement.  “You made a difference,” the man told him.  “You helped me get through a tough time.”  Travis was reminded that Jesus knows just what we need when we need it most.

Travis is painfully aware that Satan, in partnership with his own sinful nature, is a powerful force.  Alone, Travis cannot defeat the liar and thief.  But, another force is working in Travis’ life.  It is the force of love.  Forgiveness.  Hope and new life.  Satan wants to steal Travis’ soul, but Jesus Christ died for that soul.  He has already won for Travis the victory over sin and death.  Victory is hard to see through the veil of depression and discouragement; even so, I believe that the Holy Spirit has been at work in Travis adjusting his perspective and restoring the dignity of his personhood.

Perhaps prison is the Potter’s wheel where Travis is being carefully shaped as a vessel for noble service.  I really do believe that Travis sees himself a different man than when he stood haughtily before the federal judge.  As a different man, he will find himself at odds with the world.

In that world, Satan will continue to press on Travis.  Satan doesn’t want change.  He wants Travis captive to his sinful nature.  He wants him haughty.  Dependent on self, yet burdened by failure.  But, in Christ, Travis is no longer bound to old sins and failures.  In Christ, Satan holds no lasting power over Travis.

Travis told me,

Addiction never filled me up.  I was never satisfied.  The thief really does come to steal, kill and destroy, but read the rest of the passage!  Jesus says, “I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.”

Is change possible?  God says it is.

“Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.  Put away falsehood, speak the truth with your neighbor . . . give no opportunity to the devil . . . Let all bitterness and wrath and anger . . . be put away from you . . .” (Ephesians 4:22-32).

Because change is possible, Travis can live as the beloved son of God in Christ that he is.   He can leave the filthiness and foolish talk and crude joking behind.  He was in darkness, but now he is in the light of the Lord.  He can try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.  Expose deception.  Be filled with the Spirit.  Give thanks. (Ephesians 5:1-21).

Yes, echoes Travis,

Thanks be to God!”

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Will We Respond: “Viva Crista Rey?”

Posted in Citizenship, Faith & Practice, Life issues, Vocation, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 11, 2013| 3 Comments »

viva crista reyWhat do you know of Mexico’s struggle for religious freedom?  Have you ever been told about the Cristero War?  Would you be surprised to learn that Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, supported this war against people of faith?

Here in the U.S., many people of faith are asking: “What is the price of religious liberty?”   During the 1920s, people of faith in Mexico knew the answer: Life itself.

I had never heard about the Cristero War until the movie “For Greater Glory” was released in 2012.  I purchased the DVD and companion book by Ruben Quezada (Ignatius Press) as gifts for my husband.  We have shown this epic film three times to family members and plan to show it again… and again.  How fitting that this movie made its debut the same year that our federally mandated health care made its.

Please.  Rent or, better yet, purchase this DVD.  Host a movie night and invite your Bible study, youth, or parent group.  Hear young people raise their voices as one, proclaiming: “Viva Crista Rey!”  (“Long live Christ the King!”)  Understand that what happened in Mexico was an aggressive war on the Catholic Church which resulted in the death of 200,000 people of faith.  But, recognize that what is happening here in the U.S. is an insidious and, thus, potentially more devastating assault on those who seek to follow the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ rather than man.

Mexico was the original cradle of Christianity in the New World.  Missionaries were dispatched from Mexico to North and South America.  Yet, this deeply Catholic country was repressed by an atheist-socialist regime.  Following the revolution in 1917, the government vowed to free the people from “fanaticism and prejudices.”  President Calles, clever with his language, spoke of defending “Mexican dignity” against “foreign intruders” (the Holy Roman Catholic Church).  Public displays of faith were outlawed.  Churches, seminaries and convents were desecrated.   Catholic schools and newspapers were shut down.  Priests were tortured and killed, many shot while celebrating Mass.  But, so were fathers, mothers, grandparents, and young people.

Cristiada, the name given to the Cristero movement, was a response to the direct attack on the Catholic faith by the Mexican president and his “Calles Law.”  The Cristiada movement was organized by the National League for the Defense of Religious Liberty.  (Does this name bring to mind our own Alliance Defending Freedom or Becket Fund for Religious Freedom?)  Initially, the League advocated peaceful resistance to the Calles Law in the form of boycotting taxes and nonessential goods.  Petitions were signed, but refused by the Mexican Congress.  It soon became evident that Catholics would have to fight back or surrender their religious freedom.  The Cristero War was costly.  Relative peace may have come after the bloody years between 1926 and 1929, but practice of the Catholic faith in a predominately Catholic country has never been the same.

Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, supported the Mexican dictator’s war against Catholic people of faith.  Sanger, writes Maureen Walther and Jennifer Daigle, “praised Calles’ campaign against the Church as a strike against intolerance and a step toward making her work easier: ‘With the yoke of medievalism thus thrown off we can anticipate a splendid development of the government work for birth control already begun in Mexico.’” (www.kofc.org “The Voice for Religious Freedom” 4/26/12)

Sanger was a devout advocate of eugenics and a society of the “most desireable.”    She worked tirelessly to promote birth control, most curiously in Hispanic and African American communities.  We should not be deceived.  Birth control has its roots in the eugenic movement.  Sanger, the mother of eleven living children, was a believer in eugenics or a “race of thoroughbreds.”  Her original organization, the American Birth Control League, was quickly renamed Planned Parenthood Federation of America.  Birth control may be masked as a “woman’s reproductive freedom,” but can you tell me why advocates of eugenics would join forces with those promoting birth control?

“Religious persecution,” writes Carl Anderson of the Knights of Columbus, “rarely begins with blood.  It begins with redefinition – redefinition of the religion’s role in personal lives, in ministers, in churches, in society and in government.  In Mexico’s case, the clergy were the state’s first target.  It began with a simple statement: all priests must register with the state.  The problem was that by this law, the state gave itself the authority to determine who was a minister and who was not.  A state that can decide ministers can also decide what doctrines it will permit to be preached. Priests and [the] religious were forbidden from criticizing the government.”  (“For Greater Glory,” p. 95)

President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton remind us that we, in the U.S., enjoy “freedom of worship.”  But, this is deception.  It is a redefinition.  This is not what was guaranteed in the Bill of Rights.  Correctly stated, American citizens enjoy “freedom of religion.”  Freedom of religion means more than just being able to “go to church.”  It means being able to speak and live the faith; to set up schools, hospitals, and agencies of servanthood in the name of Jesus Christ.

Oh fellow frogs in the boiling pot!   Know your history!  Learn from our neighboring people of faith in Mexico while we have opportunity.  Resist evil.  Guard liberty.  Teach the faith.

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A Culture of Lying

Posted in Biblical manhood & womanhood, Commentaries of others, Culture Shifts, Life issues, tagged , , , , , , on February 3, 2013| Leave a Comment »

robert knightThe following is excerpted from “The Allure of the Lie” by Robert Knight.  It’s worthy of your read.

We are hip-deep in a culture of lying. It’s the coin of the realm for liberal politicians, the “mainstream” media and Hollywood, all of whom cover for each other. Since an accusation of lying amounts to fighting words, journalists reporting the lies tend to use softer terms, such as prevarication, dissembling, not forthcoming, not fully disclosed, misleading, redirecting, etc.

Lying often is accomplished with euphemisms. Government spending is “investment.” Raising taxes is “revenue reform.” Torture is sanitized as “enhanced interrogation techniques.” Global warming is morphing into “climate change” to accommodate obvious departures from the warming scenario. Gambling is “gaming.” Defense of religious freedom is a “war on women.” There’s a slew of terms invented to validate sexual immorality. The sin of sodomy became homosexuality and then merely gay. Adultery became “finding oneself,” “open marriage” or “swinging.” Prostitutes are “commercial sex workers.” Two men – with no bride – are considered “married.” Pornography became “erotica.” And abortion – the killing of unborn children – is “choice.”

The culture of lying has become so entrenched in American political culture that any deviation is swiftly punished. People who question any part of the theory of man-caused global warming, for instance, are branded “deniers.”  End of discussion. Question the junk science behind the “born gay” myth and you’re a “hater.” If you believe God created marriage as the union of a man and a woman, you’re not only a hater but a bigot. If you favor photo ID laws to thwart fraud, you want to “suppress the minority vote.” If you question the morality or wisdom of putting women into combat, you’re against “equality.”

Often, liberal policies are sustained by repeated citations of a single study or studies, however flawed.  The granddaddy of those is Alfred C. Kinsey’s fraudulaent sex studies . . . .

One of the biggest lies in recent years is that there are no real biological differences between men and women – that masculinity and femininity are artificial social constructs. The latest fallout from this departure from reality is the Pentagon’s opening the military to homosexuality and putting women into combat. We’re told that everyone in the armed forces thinks this is wonderful. Sure they do. It would be a career-ender in this culture of lying to say otherwise.

The culture of lying depends heavily on cooked studies, weasel words and a compliant media that parrots them without examination. It’s a house of cards that’s waiting for a gentle breeze of truth to blow it over.

As G.K. Chesterton observed, “Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.”

Robert Knight is a Senior Fellow for the American Civil Rights Union
and contributor to The Washington Times.
He wrote this article following Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s
testimony before Congress.
I encourage you to read the complete article here

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Bearers and Defenders of Life: Conclusion

Posted in Biblical manhood & womanhood, Faith & Practice, Life issues, Vocation, tagged , , , , , , , on February 2, 2013| 1 Comment »

woman soldier with gunDeborah was a judge and prophetess.  To this, many of my gender quickly add, “Deborah was also a courageous military leader in battle.”  But, what does God’s Word tell us?

Let’s Think About It

Q: Deborah was a prophetess.  A prophet or prophetess speaks on behalf of another but, as far as I can determine, not as a public speaker for God during a congregational gathering.  A prophetess might give counsel, settle disputes, or offer thankfulness and praise to God.  Deborah was also a judge.  What was the condition of Israel in the years prior to her leadership (Judges 2:13, 16-17; 3:7, 13; 4:1-4)?

A: Martin Luther took note of the service of Deborah and other women as rulers.  He said that they “have been very good at management.”  He suggested that women’s leadership in other areas of life might motivate men to properly fulfill their responsibility.  It is important to note that Deborah became a judge after the people of Israel repeatedly “did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.”  Evil, in every way, opposes God’s created order for men, women, and the benefit of a thriving society.

Q: We may think that Deborah was sent by God into combat against Israel’s enemy.  But, is this the case? 

A: A careful read of Judges 4:4-15 reveals that God did not ask Deborah to carry the sword in combat.  He asked Barak through Deborah.  Victory was promised to Barak if only he would obey, but he chose not to.  Barak said he would do the Lord’s bidding only if Deborah went with him into battle.  Deborah told Barak that the glory in battle would not be his because the enemy Sisera would be delivered “into the hand of a woman” (v. 9).  The woman Deborah refers to in this verse is not herself, but Jael.  Dr. Vogel explains: “Deborah accompanied Barak to Mount Tabor, but no further.  Consistent with Deuteronomy, she donned no battle gear nor engaged in the conflict.   Barak (unaccompanied by Deborah) led 10,000 men into the valley to a resounding victory. The rebuke for Barak’s recalcitrance was rendered when a heroic woman, Jael, was given the opportunity to slay the fleeing enemy commander, Sisera.  She did this in her own tent, with household equipment [a tent peg], not as a warrior on a battlefield.”  (“Women in Combat: Two Views,” The Lutheran Witness, May 2003, p. 16-20)

Q: Deborah served as a judge and prophetess.  She counseled Barak as the leader of Israel’s troops.  Yet, how did she sum up her role in Judges 5:7?

A:  Deborah was praised for her leadership, yet she does not sing about being raised up as a warrior.  She sings of being a “mother in Israel.”  Though no biological children of Deborah are mentioned, she is an encourager and helper for her people.  Scripture, like much of human culture, consistently distinguishes the roles of men and women.

Q: Specialist Hollie Vallence, quoted in Part 1 of this series, was asked by her country to sacrifice home and family.  In doing so, she explained that she had to build an “ice wall around her heart.”  Is this consistent with God’s design?  What are the consequences for women, men, and children if a mother hardens her heart?

A: Luther noted that a woman is merciful by nature because she is born to show mercy and to cherish just as a man is born to protect.  This is why, Luther says, no living creature has more mercy than a woman, particularly in respect for her infant.  Men are known to focus on one project, putting all others aside, until it is finished.  In times of war, this allows them to leave their home and family for periods of time in order to “do their duty.”  It is not that they always feel brave and fearless, but perhaps their vocation of steward and protector allows them to do what they need to do for wives, sons and daughters; indeed, for future generations.  They are free to accomplish what is necessary, knowing that their children are in the capable and loving care of mothers.  Here, then, is the woman partnering with her husband and serving her country by guarding hearth and home while he is doing battle with the enemy of that home.  In war, as in work, men understand other men.  When a country is serious about winning victory over its enemy, it brings well-trained men together, with no distractions, to focus on the job at hand.  These men may return home “changed,” but most can resume life as usual.  Mothers, as explained by Hollie Vallence, are not programmed to put distance between themselves and young children.  Dr. Vogel offers wisdom: “If God is indifferent to the woman-warrior concept and a woman chooses to serve in a noncombatant role, God is not offended.  If, however, God is not indifferent to the woman warrior concept, and a woman seeks service as a combatant, does she not become a victim of her own will and disobedient to that of God?”  Is there a problem with women in the military?  No, but as in any workplace, there will certainly be a changed environment and cautions to heed.

Q: Will God bless a people or a nation whose men send women to the front lines of battle?  Will He bless the men (defenders of life) who send women (bearers of life) to meet the enemy?  To be shot at, brutalized, or sacrificed in the name of “equality” or “rights?”

A: God was not pleased with the man who used Deborah as a kind of “human shield.”  That is because the Groom of the Church does not stand behind his Bride.  He stands in front of her.  Small tribes and great countries who honor the human rule of chivalry understand that great sacrifice may be necessary in order to protect mothers of children for they are a people’s future.

Conclusion

It is not that God wants men to die, but that He entrusts to them the noble role of protector and defender.  As the Man of Sacrifice, Jesus led the way into battle.  He did not send others.  Jesus faced the greatest weapon of mass destruction – the anger of God upon sinful people.  He did not stand behind “human shields,” letting you and me die so that He might avoid pain and death.  In the battle for the life of His Bride, Jesus “took the bullet.”  He died so that we might live.

Jesus is both a model and Savior for men and women.  He wants us to follow Him and imitate His behavior.  Sinful as we are, we will want to test the boundaries.  We will put ourselves in God’s place, but such pride can put others at risk.  Is all hopeless?  No!  The One who faced our enemy – and won the eternal victory – reaches to us with nail-pierced hands, saying: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.  I came that you may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).  I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life” (14:6).

“Bearers and Defenders of Life” is Lesson 11 of
Men, Women, and Relationships, first published in 1999 and revised in 2004.
(Lutherans For Life, Concordia Publishing House)

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