Things I Think…
1. Instead of asking if this is the end time we should be asking…what if it’s not?
What if Jesus isn’t coming back anytime soon and we have to live with the consequences of our national, corporate, and personal sins?
What if our hope for a better tomorrow rests upon how much we do what He already told us to do?
2. Now that we’re all seeing real “jackboots and brown shirts” in action I hope the difference between these thugs and store clerks enforcing a mask mandate are clearer…
3. We’ll have a special class later on the differences between inconvenience, overreach, and real tyranny…sign up in the hall…
4. In times of crisis, prayer becomes both more needed and more difficult. We do not often see direct results of our intercession, but we have to believe that intercession matters anyway…I believe, Lord, help my unbelief…
5. If you wonder why I’m so against any form of Christian nationalism…look at the relationship between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Putin regime…where the church calls evil good…when the church and state are in bed together, one becomes a whore…
6. At the same time, churches in Ukraine are coming together despite differences in doctrine and tradition to help refugees…doing what the church has always been called to do. Joel Sterling Brown is doing amazing things with our help…you can donate by clicking…
7. “All Christian language about the future is a set of signposts pointing into a mist.” -N. T. Wright
8. I wonder how long it will be before we are teaching school children to duck and cover in case of nuclear attack again…and I really wonder how much more trauma this generation will have to absorb and what the results will be…
9. Just think how we could change the world if we practiced in peacetime what the Ukrainian churches are doing in war…
10. The most valuable among us will be those who help us have reason for hope…
#10 is an amazing statement
Stephen,
I think such is badly needed these days…
https://religionnews.com/2022/02/28/religious-nationalism-and-the-invasion-of-ukraine/
End times? Hmmm
Putin is a madman threatening a nuclear holocaust. And China?
I heard (grapevine) that some Russian soldiers have no stomach for
Putin’s war…..
Will do some pondering on what Michael is thinking today. 😇
God keep
Good link pstrmike
Thank you for 10 great “Things I Think” to think about Michael.
Great insights, Michael.
#5 — appears that conservative Xns over here became what Lenin called “useful idiots.” The article below is about Franklin Graham and the World Council of Families and their shameless toadyiing up to Putin the last few years.
I’ll bet this is just the tip of the iceberg!
“Prominent Christian Leaders And Groups Face Reckoning Over Praise For Putin”
https://julieroys.com/prominent-christian-leaders-groups-face-reckoning-praise-putin/?mc_cid=d26094b5a4&mc_eid=9a50647e9e
pslady…thank you!
bob1,
Thanks…those folks are doing a lot of “explaining” now…
#2 – The difference is not clearer. They are siding with the jackboots!!
Josh,
I’ve seen some of that…trying to let it pass…
I keep getting shocked all over again. Since 2016, it has just been one gut-punch after another. I can’t believe this is where we’ve found ourselves.
Josh,
I hear you…we just have to keep speaking the truth in love and hoping some will hear.
Worth reading…
https://religiondispatches.org/no-patriarch-kirill-of-moscow-is-not-calling-for-peace-in-fact-hes-putins-accomplice/
OOf, that’s disheartening.
Thought 5, history repeats, as it was with Stalin.
Reuben,
Lets hope not…
The only reason for having any ultimate type of hope is Jesus. There just isn’t any other place to go. I think, if we live to a certain age, we find out that too many things/people/institutions can let us down, but not Christ. The pastor of our Spanish congregation just finished a sermon series in 1 Peter, which is what all about persevering in the face of suffering. We don’t know what future Christians face in the United States (real persecution, not imagined because we have to wear a mask), but I think we can learn a lot from the Ukrainians.
Linn,
Well said…
I just read 4 paragraphs of that article bob1, and my blood pressure shot to the moon.
Reuben,
I’m sorry!
I had a strong reaction to Duane’s link to the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church and his toadying comments about
Russia and Ukraine.
I’m just sick to death of Xns cozying up to tyrants and autocrats.
Those who ignore history…
I did a bad thing for my health today, switched on terrestrial radio (which is all far right in Colorado) to see what was being said. There is a conflation afoot that just won’t seem to let go. McCarthyism is alive and well, and McCarthyism was a red herring. The people of Russia are not Communist. Putin is not Communist. I dare say I hear the far right “canceling” an entire nationality based on the same red herring. Maybe my age is catching up with me, but I have a profound sense of empathy when I see Russian soldiers saying on tv with fright in their eyes, “I don’t know who to shoot, they all look and sound just like us.” If that does not jerk a tear, get therapy. But “Communism” became a huge buzz word in Trump’s election, and the far right Christians were verbatim spewing McCarthyism as if it were the last thing that needed to be said. America has no clue what Communism is. I am sad that my political leanings are again becoming the demon that will again require the cancelation of entire cultures for literally no reason at all, at least as far as any American would be concerned. The enemy has to have a name. Terrorist became old, watch Communist become new again.
bob1, not your fault, no apology needed. I have a unique perspective on this that has consumed years of my life. My single largest internal conflict for the better part of 5 years now has been how utterly vile the church is, but I still want to see merit in Jesus. I want to badly. Michael keeps reminding me to keep my eye on the ball, but I’m not going to lie, I hate the church in all it’s forms, and all it’s religions. I hate it because of thought 5, and numerous other thoughts of my own. I want to blame god for all of it. God somehow speaks to me a different picture, a different worldview, a different passion. I honestly don’t know how to reconcile the two. Billy Graham is a stain on humanity in my mind. All anybody wants to say is, “but look at the souls saved, look at the good…” It conflicts me in ways I can not begin to describe.
These idiots make McCarthyism look tame!
One of these days one of them will rediscover…the wheel!
Linn @2:36pm….. AMEN ! ! !
Reuben, the body of Christ is not confined to a church OR a religion…
Have you never met a born again, God fearing child of God? They are humble, good folk headed for an Eternity willingly under the King, Jesus the Christ
Em,
Met thousands of them. Preached to them all too. I have barely found a handful I respect. That’s the truth. Whoever made the statement, “God, save me from your people” is 100% representative of my sentiments.
bob1, Real Christians don’t cozy up to the world system
Said the person who argued for Trump for years.
Josh, you don’t know what you THINK you know. 😘
Would Trump serve us better than Biden? YES! ! ! IMHO
But cozy up to Trump? Awe come on kid – 😒
Real Christians don’t cozy up to the world system
Not sure what that really means. Very simplistic. It’s a nice sentiment, however.
God apparently doesn’t shield His people from deception.
He expects us to be discerning.
Let’s leave Trump off this site.
THANK YOU MICHAEL!!
Em, you’ve made excuses for everything Trump has done for 6 years. But the point is that we DO cozy up to world systems. We don’t recognize we’re doing it, but from the outside,it looks awful.
Discernment is a by product of wisdom which begins with a healthy fear/respect for God
Sorry, Michael, but ?Josh mentioned him first. 😇
👉 👉 👉 👉
Sorry Michael – I shouldn’t have gone there.
My point was that all of us are susceptible to this evil.
Dan,
You’re welcome. 🙂
Josh,
It’s a good point…and true.
We just know where it will end up…
regarding prayer–I hold that many “pray” fervently that God would sanction their wishes & beliefs, then go about their business as though the prayers were enough to indicate the will of God. They prayed with a predetermined outcome and method that green-lighted their desires. It is a self-righteous, God-less exercise in religion.
I hold that prayer is yielding one’s will to the will of God. It is beseeching Him for mercy & grace and reckoning with a broken heart, mind, will, and perception. It is open-handedly giving Him permission to do as He pleases with your plans, hopes, and designs. It is waiting patiently and expectantly that He will accomplish His purposes despite our weaknesses and failures. Above all, prayer places Him above all.
Seven and nine were alone worth the price of admission.
Great words, fil…thank you…
Great “things,” Michael.
#9 & 10 are gold.
Thanks, CK…
I can vouch for the stuff Joel and his wife are doing in Ukraine.
Some mutual friends are now staying with them at their refugee center.
I’m grateful for them all being safe for now.
London,
Joel is the real deal.
🙏🏼
G-man,
You got that right.
#1 and #10 are heavy on my mind these days
Joel,
We’re all praying for you and you are a witness to all of us.
Thank you.
I have been watching these Facebook videos from Joel. This is true humanitarian work. Work I believe god would want his people to be doing. The drums were set aside for beds, the sound systems moved aside for microwaves to prepare food and washers/driers so people can clean their clothes. This is what I ALWAYS viewed to be real “ministry”. I just flat out don’t like Christianity, the Church, damned near all it’s people, but I see this effort, and I see what a truly loving god would want. Joel, if you read this, I have a very very short list of Christians I actually respect, damn hundreds of years of theologians, pastors, churches, sound systems and conferences and satellite campuses, ministry to humanity is what you are doing now.
An amazing young man from a foreign nation who just joined our church has been such a blessing.
His latest, after talking to a guy whose obsessed with discernment ministries:
“Discernment isn’t DOING RESEARCH!”
“The most valuable among us will be those who help us have reason for hope…”
This touched me. This is true. This made me cry.
#1- “If I knew the world would end tomorrow I would plant an apple tree.” Or something like it seems to be a legend attributed to Martin Luther but is supposedly not found in his writings. I really don’t care who said or if it is a myth because to me it is resonates as something true and very instructive.
There is always an apocalypse on the horizon. All throughout church history many well meaning people caught the “end is near” fever. I remember reading about Jan Van Leyden in Munster as the year 1000 encroached. The fever swallowed reason and pure fanaticism followed. Usually does.
So today my wife and I went into one of our struggling fledgling orchards and pruned two Nectarines, four Asain Pears, two Plums, three Apples, one Peach, and one Almond tree ( that probably won’t make it). I also planted Peas today. Tomorrow Lord willing we will do the same. Over the next weeks we will start seeds, plant greens, probably buy a few plants, and continue working on our garden and orchards. If the Lord returns we lost nothing in doing so. If he does not we are mitigating the inflation that is pinching our pockets. Also who knows whether or not the Lord will have us help others if things become dire. For this we hope and pray for abundance.
Shawn…great stuff.
I’m jealous of your orchard!
Thanks Michael! A quick correction Jan Van Leyden was an Anabaptist and therefore essentially was a contemporary of the Reformers.