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Posts Tagged ‘Jesus Christ’

Did You Hear? Pastors Stood for Marriage and Won!

Posted in Biblical manhood & womanhood, Culture Shifts, Faith & Practice, Life issues, Parenting & Education, tagged African-American, African-American pastors, Biblical marriage, children, enlightenment, gay marriage, Illinois, Jesus Christ, media, Obama, Rahm Emanuel, same-sex marriage, the church, truth on July 18, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Redefining marriage to be whatever we want it to be is an idea whose time has come. Those who insist otherwise are a remnant from some unenlightened age. Or so the media appears to believe. Perhaps that’s why there was little if any coverage of a surprising victory in the state of Illinois.

Earlier this summer, the Illinois legislature took up the issue of same-sex “marriage.” A vote in favor of gay “marriage” seemed inevitable considering that Illinois is President Obama’s home state. He and both the governor and Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel endorse the practice. But a remnant from the unenlightened age was busy at work. The state’s African-American pastors were working hard to reach and convict African-American legislators. They were asking them to stand tall for the truth of marriage.

The pastors wanted the legislators to acknowledge marriage as the “institution created by God to bring men and women together for the benefit of children that can only be created through the union of men and women.”

The media informed me that this vote was taking place but then fell strangely silent. I would never have known the outcome even if I would have channel-surfed or picked up the local paper. I guess the media just couldn’t bring itself to report the stunning victory…

… of the African-American pastors. Their faithful truth-telling made a difference. Illinois did not succumb to the “inevitable.” Illinois legislators defeated proponents of same-sex marriage in a hard-left-leaning state.

I believe that significant victories in cultural debates are happening more often than we know in families and neighborhoods across the country. It’s just that the media, with a religious bent of its own, can’t seem to tolerate people who don’t share their convictions. So, rather than report the news, the media seems more intent on shaping minds.

The mantra of the media beats away, but it does not silence the unchanging Word of God. Truth is. Trusting the Truth, the African-American pastors in Illinois refused to be intimidated and went to work. Their voices and actions mattered. It matters that all of God’s people “stand tall for the truth of marriage… ” and the order of God’s creation.

But it’s too easy for the believer to fear. To doubt. To grieve the loss of morality and see only dark days ahead. We are tempted to disengage and succumb to the “inevitable.” Have we forgotten that the Word came to live among us? The Word cannot be overcome. Using that Word, the pastors in Illinois exposed the darkness and held it at bay. If they can do it, so can we.

While we have opportunity, we are compelled to speak what God has given us to say, warn neighbors away from sin, and offer forgiveness and hope to the repentant.

Come to think of it, this is how a remnant of people have pushed back against evil for a long, long time.

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Young Women Speak Up

Posted in Biblical manhood & womanhood, Culture Shifts, Faith & Practice, Identity, Life issues, Parenting & Education, Relationships, Sexy or holy?, Vocation, tagged abstinence education, choice, created order, deception, discontent, faith, feminism, feminist myths, foolish women, Jesus Christ, judgmental, mentoring, model for mentoring, motherhood, postmodern myths, submission on July 2, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Another Titus 2 for Life Retreat has concluded. I am tired, but encouraged. In a culture such as ours, the need for mentoring grows daily. This was affirmed most especially this past weekend by the younger women who attended. Perhaps it will be helpful to share a few quotes from their evaluations.

I wasn’t sure what to expect . . . considering the topics, I thought it might all be too judgmental . . . but it was not. You see, I spent my childhood and good part of my young adult life wishing I was a boy because no one had ever pointed out the joy and biblical blessing of being a woman.

I will be getting married soon and this was a great springboard and encouragement for helping me understand my role in our new family.

It’s o.k. to be a woman! This retreat really laid to rest a lot of the horrible post-modern and feminist myths that were always a part of my life but were causing such pain and discontent. Thank you for being such a real person and addressing the foolish women in all of us with forgiveness.

As I approach motherhood, I wanted to attend this retreat again . . . I love how you share with us God’s purpose and esteem for women and womanly traits . . . there is no indignity in God’s design of the woman as ‘helper’ . . . it helps to remember that Christ was submissive and that the Holy Spirit is a helper.

Many of my friends are unhappy, kind of restless and certainly discontent. They hear so many voices of the world which seem in conflict with their own heart. This retreat was like ten years of godly mentoring in just a few hours!

I was afraid this retreat might be hours of anti-abortion rhetoric. Instead, it affirmed my value to God, reminded me that my Christian upbringing is not a lie, and why my faith makes me so weird to the world . . . I am still trying to wrap my head around the fact that God made women not to compete with men but complete them. I’m very competitive . . . high school girls need to know about biblical womanhood.

The discussion on sex education and our mistaken identity was so important . . . I have had abstinence education for years but, no different from the culture, it was a constant focus on sex.

And what do I say to these young women?

Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity” (1 Timothy 4:12).

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Want to Make a Difference? View Children the Way God Does

Posted in Biblical manhood & womanhood, Faith & Practice, Identity, Life issues, Parenting & Education, Relationships, Sexy or holy?, tagged baptism, behavior, campus life, choices, education, expectations, grandparents, Jesus Christ, life's purpose, mentoring, parents, school, sexuality, sin, spiritual, teenagers, wisdom on June 22, 2013| 2 Comments »

I will never forget the mom and professional church worker who told me she hoped her sons and daughters would practice safe sex. We were serving together on a life task force and, during lunch break, she confided, “I raised them to be chaste . . . I want them to wait for marriage. But, once they started college, I encouraged them to use protection because, after all, they’re sexual, too, and I’m scared to death they’re going to be like everyone else.”

I remember the grandma who toured our local pregnancy center. She thought the best thing parents could do for their daughters was to get them on The Pill so they wouldn’t need a pregnancy test.

Then there was the single father who raised his daughter to believe in Jesus, but made sure she had the Gardasil shot and was using birth control. “I know what I was like at her age and I know she’s just going to sleep around so I have to look out for her.”

And there was the pastor who told me that he’s taken some girls from his congregation for abortions because “their parents wouldn’t be supportive of an unplanned pregnancy.” These girls are “just going to do it,” he explained. “They can’t help it . . . so I need to be there for them.”

Can’t help it? What does this say about the way adults view children?

Children are sinful human beings born into a love-to-sin-world. Do we say, “My child is a sinner. It’s just who he is, so I’m going to help him lie, cheat, and steal with the least amount of damage.” Is this how God sees children? Is this how He helps them?

When we don’t see children the way God does, then our mentoring role in their lives is compromised.

Yes, children are sinful… just like their parents and grandparents. But baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, God sees us as His adopted sons and daughters in Christ. Jesus won for God’s children the privilege of becoming heirs of the heavenly kingdom. This not only bestows value but defines purpose.

Identity matters! Our sons and daughters are not “sexual from birth” as Planned Parenthood sees them. They are not captive to instincts and desires. They are persons created more in the image of God than the image of wolves and rabbits. To see children as God does is to realize they are more than flesh and blood but spirit and, because they are spirit, every choice they make will take them either closer to — or farther from — God.

It is the children who suffer when we fail to see them as God does. Expectations for their purpose and behavior are lowered. Their future appears grim.

Identity matters. And, because it does, my grandchildren need me to remind them of what happened at the baptismal font. Their baptism “is an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to Him” (1 Peter 3:21-22). I can literally tell my grandchildren that their Lord and Savior rules! This means that someday, when they are teenagers, they won’t have to be subject to raging hormones or made foolish by lack of judgment. In remembering who they are, they will know the source of their wisdom and strength. This will affect their choices and behavior. But that’s not all.

When boys and girls see themselves the way God does, the way they view each other will improve. Relationships will take on new meaning. Think about it. If boys see themselves in light of their baptism as sons of God and girls see themselves as daughters of God, then all baptized people become brothers and sisters in Christ.

Can you imagine? I mean, really! Can you imagine the impact this would have on high school and college campuses… at the beach… in the workplace… around the neighborhood… and for society as a whole?

I can. And it renews my hope.

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Scouting Too Close to the Cliff (Part 2)

Posted in Biblical manhood & womanhood, Citizenship, Faith & Practice, Identity, Parenting & Education, tagged boyhood, children, dangerous behavior, family, freedom, God and country, heterosexual, homosexual, ideology, idolatry, Jesus Christ, Kinsey, lifestyle, manhood, marriage, mentoring, morality, parents, pedophilia, sexual identity on June 13, 2013| Leave a Comment »

A Boy Scout learns how to survive in the wilderness. Trained correctly, he can sense danger and steer himself and others clear. But when faulty ideologies reconfigure the training ground, a young man’s moral sense is compromised.

Adults who should know better can boast, “Look at what we’ve done! We broke new trail for young men!” But this trail most definitely leads off the edge of a cliff.

Why would anyone want to tamper with moral behavior and remove boundaries put in place for the human good? Jesus said, “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea” (Mark 9:42).

There is little that influences society more than mentoring a boy to be a man. Dennis Prager writes,

Wise cultures have learned that happiness is attained only when we conquer our nature . . . Historically, societies and parents have always known it’s a good thing to teach boys to control aspects of their male nature – their sexual desires and their predilection for violence. Decent men were taught from youth to touch a woman sexually only with her permission and to channel physical aggression into sports or into helping fight evil by joining the police force or military. Men who didn’t learn to control these aspects of male nature not only became bad men, but unhappy men.” (“Wanted by women: A few good old-fashioned men,” The Washington Times 6/30/08)

When a scout questions his male nature, how will his troop leader respond? Will he help the young man practice self-control? Will he remind the scout of his pledge to “do my duty to God . . .”? And, if so, what god will he be pledging to? Here he faces the most dangerous cliff of all.

Defined as a “sexual being,” a boy may be tempted to give himself freedoms that God does not; to trust his own reason and desires; to, in fact, worship and serve self rather than God (Romans 1:24-25). In time, sexual identity can influence everything… even the way a boy sees God. When society redefines morality, identity and even the character of a Boy Scout, then it redefines God. It will not just be young men who are in danger. It will be all the others who fall into idolatry with them.

I’d like to believe that many young men, in doing their “duty to God,” have been encouraged to see themselves as God does. God does not call a boy “gay” or “straight.” He calls him “holy.” Even in the midst of conflicting desires, God equips a boy to rise above self to Him and through Him resist dangerous attitudes and behaviors. God says, you “will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work” (2 Tim. 2:21). Identified this way, a young man can blaze a trail for himself and others away from danger.

What god does a boy pledge to — the Creator who made woman a “good fit” for man in the faithfulness of marriage, or the god who declares sexuality not a moral issue but a civil rights issue? It matters. It matters a lot because a god in our own image is no god at all. Such a god cannot help any boy navigate the wilderness of life.

Foolishness is tampering with marriage. Now it threatens another institution. God did not establish the Boy Scouts, to be sure, but He did establish the boundaries of morality and character. He does not give us license to do as we please. He does not make square pegs to fit in round holes. He does not delight in a boy’s frustration and misery. But He does offer wisdom and strength to change… or practice self-restraint. Only the God of all creation enters the chaos of this world to bring order and goodness to life.

New trail for scouting may have been broken, but it leads off the cliff. Rather than sinning against God and all that is holy, the most courageous thing a boy might do is to turn away to a trail less traveled. Separate from the pack. Together with dad, grandpa, and men of faith, set safer course.

P.S. Looking for a collection of outdoor adventures and character building supplies? I highly recommend Vision Forum.

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Sobered by Oklahoma’s Loss

Posted in Faith & Practice, Identity, Life issues, Parenting & Education, tagged children, death, devastation, faith, heaven, Jesus Christ, Moore OK, salvation, Savior, tornado, tragedy, weather on May 21, 2013| Leave a Comment »

All is not well. The earth knows… and groans.

When God created the earth and every living thing, He designed an earth in harmony with those who dwell upon it. Sin changed everything. The tornado that stole away precious lives in Oklahoma was evidence of a sin-altered world.

I pray that we all mourn the loss of lives for whom Christ died. More importantly, I pray that parents everywhere prepare their children for eternity. In a blink of an eye, any one of us or our children or grandchildren might draw our last breath. After death, where will we be?

The arms of Jesus are open for all who call upon His name. May we parents and grandparents teach our children by word and example that Jesus is the only Savior. He is the only way to perfect life… literally out of this world.

May we help children know their identity as God’s sons and daughters in Christ. Why? So that they grow in Wisdom… and, whenever their last day on this earth might come, we’ll know where we’ll see them again.

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Gosnell, Abortion and Identity

Posted in Biblical manhood & womanhood, Faith & Practice, Identity, Life issues, Parenting & Education, Sexy or holy?, tagged children, choice, Jesus Christ, Kinsey, Planned Parenthood, self, sex, sexuality, spirituality, the lie on May 14, 2013| 1 Comment »

There are no words to describe what abortionist Gosnell did. I won’t try to come up with any. What he did in his little shop of horrors is no different than what goes on every day in abortion clinics across this country. Gosnell is guilty of murder. So is Planned Parenthood.

Abortion is the greatest child abuse. But it is also abuse of women. Abortion ends the life of a child God calls by name, but it forever changes the mother of that child. Babies carried into an abortion chamber by their mothers never exit. Mothers may exit, but they are physically, psychologically and spiritually altered. The way they see themselves and life itself is never the same.

What happens in abortion clinics will continue to happen until we all begin to see ourselves the way God sees us. Women will continue to seek abortions, men will pay for them, and churches will defend them until we stop identifying ourselves the wrong way.

Never – ever, has God identified boys and girls as “sexual from birth.” Before Alfred Kinsey, no one ever labeled children in such a way. But, for the last 60+ years, children have been told beginning as early as kindergarten that they are “sexual from birth.” Can we be so surprised that abortion was legalized some twenty years after men and women took on this new identity? If we’re told from childhood that we are “sexual,” then it can’t be helped. It is, after all, who God made us to be. Abstain? It would go against nature, wouldn’t it, to abstain from what is natural.

There is this one thing. Behavior is shaped by identity. However we see ourselves and others determines how we treat ourselves and others. Gosnell looked at the women and children who entered his clinic as less than human. He saw the women as sexual beings and the babies were products of that sexuality. Gosnell failed to see them all as God sees them. When we mis-identify our children as “sexual from birth” (which is taught in every sex education class) then we are failing, too. We are failing to see women, men and children as spiritual beings. Sexuality may have something to do with our bodies and minds, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with our spirits. Our spirits will live forever, you see, either with God or apart from Him.

Abortion, I’m afraid, is a sinful choice that will continue for as long as we sinful people inhabit this earth. However, people who love the lives that God creates could remove many of the excuses for abortion if only we would stop telling our children: You are “sexual from birth.” It’s just not true.

Repeat a lie often enough and many will believe it. They will act upon it. But, I’d like to be one of the different people God calls followers of Jesus to be. The kind of people who resist being labeled by the world and who call other people by their rightful identity.

To do so will make a difference, one man, one woman, one child at a time.

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Millennials for Marriage

Posted in Biblical manhood & womanhood, Culture Shifts, Faith & Practice, Relationships, tagged Biblical marriage, children, courage, family, foundation of society, God, institution of marriage, Jesus Christ, nation, procreation, unity on April 10, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Refreshing. Hopeful. Faithful to the God who created us… and marriage.

That is is the Marriage Generation. I just signed on as one of them and applaud their courage. Below, you will find their statement and five core principles.

Perhaps you’ll want to become one of the “marriage generation,” too!

We are millennials who understand that marriage is a lasting promise between one woman and one man. It is the unique human relationship where bodily, emotional and spiritual differences converge to form something new, often leading to the creation of life itself.

Sadly, the marriage culture our generation inherited was eroding long before we were born. Marriage in America has become increasingly associated with the fulfillment of sexual desire, and the self-actualization of adults, rather than the fulfillment of a lifelong commitment and the well being of children.

It should come as no surprise then that our generation is so ambivalent about marriage. There has never been a generation of Americans so starved for marriages to emulate or so confused about what marriage actually is. Competing claims that marriage is both an obstacle and a key to our happiness has led an increasing number of young Americans to declare marriage obsolete, delay or forgo marriage, or embrace calls to redefine marriage altogether.

Marriage remains indispensable to society, and we need marriage, rightly understood, to make a comeback.

We’re millennials who remain committed to the meaning and enduring value of marriage. Neither court rulings, nor elections, nor cultural pressures will dissuade us. Our passion is to revive a marriage culture, and to shape the way our generation thinks and talks about marriage.

Our Five Principles

1. Virtually every civilization throughout human history has recognized and upheld marriage as the permanent, exclusive and comprehensive union of one man and one woman.

2. Marriage uniquely provides for both the creation and nurturing of children.

3. The State has a compelling interest in upholding the meaning and purpose of marriage because marriage is the beginning of family, and family is the foundation of society.

4. Affirming the meaning and purpose of marriage through the law is an important and necessary step, but an insufficient one. As a society, we must redouble efforts to promote a culture of marriage and family, for the common good of all current and future citizens.

5. Recognizing the dignity of every human being and ensuring they receive the full protection of the law can and must be accomplished without redefining the meaning and purpose of marriage.

We aren’t indifferent. We aren’t giving up.

We are the Marriage Generation.

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What Is Truth?

Posted in Faith & Practice, Life issues, Relationships, tagged ethics, family, Good Friday, Jesus Christ, marriage, Pilate, sancitty of life, Supreme Court, truth on March 29, 2013| 1 Comment »

It is Good Friday. I am thinking about courts of law… and truth.

I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

Pilate asked,

What is truth?”

There are Pilates everywhere. They say that truth is “whatever you want it to be.” There is “my truth” and “your truth.”

So, on this Good Friday I have the answer to Pilate’s question. It is the only answer that will serve the good of self and others. It is the answer for ethics, relationships, and courts of law. What is truth?

Jesus Christ is Truth.

A truth by any other name is shifting sand.

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What Makes Us Human?

Posted in Faith & Practice, Identity, Life issues, tagged alzheimers, brain tumor, Jesus Christ, memory loss, personhood, worldview on March 13, 2013| 4 Comments »

It has been said that we are the sum total of all that we’ve experienced. But, if we have no memory, are we less human?

What makes me “me” and you “you?” Is it how we look? What we do? What we say? But, what if we are not beautiful in the eyes of the beholder? What if we can’t do anything? What if we can’t speak? Are we, then, less human?

Gary is my friend. He is married to Dena, the love of his life, but theirs has become a journey of bitter terror, cureless medicines, and lost conversations. Over 30 years ago, radiation was used to remove a tumor from Dena’s optic nerve. Her brain compensated… for a while; then gradually Dena settled into a child-like dependence on her husband. Gary explains that with darkness comes anxious wakefulness. “If she sleeps, what more will she forget?”

Memories once shared are replaced with excruciating embarrassment. Has all that made my friend’s wife “human” been snatched away?

There are those who think so. For some, losing their memory is the death of personhood.

I do not agree. Dena’s personhood – her very identity – is not her memory. Nor is it her appearance, her health or, for that matter, her sexuality.

Dena’s identity is this: She is a creation of God and a treasure of Jesus Christ. Dena’s identity never changes, no matter the circumstances of her life.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter if we remember who we are. What matters is Whose we are. The Creator and Redeemer of our lives will never forget His own.

Nor does He forget those who are faithful in caring for His own.

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Can A Person Truly Change?

Posted in Commentaries of others, Faith & Practice, Identity, Life issues, tagged consequences of sin, depression, despair, drug abuse, hope, human dignity, Jesus Christ, liar, new life, prison, satan, sin, thief on February 28, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Is 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,