She Knows

An Afternoon Walk

Feeling burdened with unspecified, “personal issues,” I headed out for a brisk, springtime afternoon walk. Within the first block I began gazing at the blue sky and wispy clouds while taking in great gulps of Northwest Montana’s pristine, springtime air. And my self-pity began to slip off my back as I began a prayer of gratitude.

Within a few energetic paces, a praise litany of my Father’s love-stained attributes and works started coursing through my mind and spirit, but soon I realized that what I know about him isn’t even a thimbleful out of the ocean of his infinite reality. A feeling of frustration and inadequacy began to overtake me as once again I realized my gross ignorance of the universe’s most hard won knowledge, but what would have soon became a runaway elevator of emotional baggage stopped its plunge and shot straight to the Son.

My Lord Jesus bought me a place before the Throne of Grace, where I will bask, unprotected, in God’s glorious radiance, gazing forever at his infinite light in full knowledge of who he really is. What thrills me the most is I’ll never run short of things to praise him for, my voice will never crack from the singing, and my arms will never wear out from keeping them uplifted before him. It’ll be like an anointed camp meeting to the nth degree and forever.

But wait! There’s more. Not only will I share in the infinite joy of worshiping him among the multitude of the redeemed, but I’ll have personal access to the eternal, self-existent Father and his Word incarnate, Jesus, his glorified Son. I’ll walk with him in the cool, golden radiance of the New Jerusalem, even as the first Adam walked with him in the cool of Eden’s evenings. I will no longer cringe in the shame of his fully knowing my inner darkness because I’ll know better. I’ll completely understand his perfect love, and finally know how he could love and die for me, even with my many imperfections.

I felt like the Apostle Paul’s description of a man “caught up unto the third heaven.” Though my “vision” was certainly not that vivid or out-of-body, the Lord edified me nonetheless.

My cool, Montana afternoon’s walk had become a stroll through paradise with my loving, Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The one thing I deserve least in this world had become the most real experience ever.

Need to Share

While I was bursting with joy and the need to share it, I thought of Nancy, and wished she were still at home so I could hurry back and tell her of my enlightening time in the Lord. But after all these months I began crying anew with her loss. My emotional elevator began plummeting back toward earth like a space capsule near to burning up on reentry.

As the heat of despair threatened to penetrate my emotional shield, another realization arrested my fall quicker than a parachute. And this thought really turned on my emotional faucet.

Nancy loved two things in this world more than all else: Her Savior. And hugs. At this moment, wherever heaven is, Nancy is enjoying a King-size bear hug in her Savior’s arms, and if possible, squeezing the air out of his lungs as well.

I don’t have to tell her about heaven’s wonders. She already knows!

Christian Marriage Today

Knot Untying 101

As I was thinking about all the second marriages, ended marriages and ex-spouses, I lamented the state of “Christian marriages” today. It seems as if they were truly Christian, they’d be centered on him, not on the spouses. Yet, one or both become disillusioned, disappointed, or otherwise discombobulated and they trot off to a divorce lawyer, who in turn makes another gleeful trip to the bank with the legal fees.

Okay, that’s an oversimplification. Too often the grievances are quite real, but it still means at least one of the blissful couple fowled up badly enough for the other to call it quits. Whether the “innocent” party was truly innocent, refused to consider forgiveness and reconciliation, or was just looking for an excuse to split, only God knows for sure. No matter who was at fault for the failed marriage, God hates divorce.

So, why get married?

If God had intended women only for reproduction, he could as easily have created man with asexual reproduction, but he removed the rib and formed it into a unique being. God made man in-complete in order to complete him.

And Jehovah God formed the rib which He had taken from the man into a woman, and brought her to the man.

(Gen 2:22 LITV)

Ecc 4:9-12 LITV

(9) Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labor.

(10) For if they fall, this one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him, the one that falls, and there is not another to lift him up.

(11) Also if two lie together, then they have warmth; but for one, how is he warm?

(12) And if one overthrows him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly torn apart. (The threefold cord includes God as the strongest strand.)

Together, these passages point out that people—especially male and female-type people—need each other. God did not create men and women to live in monasteries and convents, but to complement and help one another. In the fallen world, with our current self-centered expectations, only a very few couples are sufficiently compatible to remain together for life. But in a marriage centered on Jesus, though the spouses will experience much of the same misunderstanding, disillusionment and disappointment, Godly love will overcome all human weaknesses.

Heaven Is For Lovers

And Only For Lovers

Now, don’t get your shorts all in a bind. How would you like to arrive on Heaven’s track number nine, climb down to the station cloud, and find folks bickering and name-calling ‘cause their bags didn’t arrive as advertized?

Then you walk over to the baggage cart and look at the troublemaker who’s painting the air blue, and he stabs you with his red eyes and loudly challenges, “You got a problem?”

You step back quickly and dig into your ticket, check the destination, and it says clear as the eternal light, “HEAVEN.” You mumble, “Must be some mistake. This couldn’t be heaven.”

The conductor, whom you suddenly realize is standing at your elbow, says, “Well? What did you expect? Perfection?”

In a flash, the truth nearly decks you: “I’m facing an eternity filled with people just like me!”

From the Creator’s Mouth

If you claim to be a Christian, you already believe that Jesus is the only way to the Father; that’s a given. If you’re not a Christian, all bets are off, and you’re gambling on your own “wisdom” over God’s word. Good luck.

To Christ’s followers, God’s word says a lot about love, both about what His brand of love is, and how essential it is to practice it His way if we really want to spend eternity with Him in heaven. Considering the alternative, that seems like the best idea ever.

First, what is God’s love, and is it essential?

1 Corinthians 13(NLT) If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. 3 If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.
4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. 7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

That’s the kind of love everybody wants, but few are willing to give. Problem is … well, God says it best through Jesus words, recorded by His Apostle John.

John 13:34(NLT) So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other.

How much does Jesus love us? That’s not just us, but you, and me, one-on-one, personally.

John 15:13-14(NLT) There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command.

Think about that for a minute.

Time’s up. Every Sunday school kid knows Jesus died for our sins. Roman’s Road and all that stuff. Done deal, right?

Well, sorta. But if we stop to consider what Jesus, God’s eternal Word who thought the universe into existence, gave up to spend thirty-three years as a man among corrupt men on this corrupted planet, “Done deal” takes on a bit more significance. That alone took more love than we puny earthlings can even imagine.

But, what about the dying part? When I read in the Bible what Jesus endured just to get to his death, and I take an objective look at my selfish motives, self-righteous works and self-centered attitudes, all I can do is hang my head and weep.

So, what’s next? Weeping is a great start when we get a glimpse of God’s depth of love, but if we fail to take corrective action, we’re looking at an eternity of weeping. “Corrective action” is just a fancy way of saying, repent! We must turn away from our selfish attitudes and sorry excuse for love, and toward the kind of selfless love Jesus demonstrated once for all through his passion, death, and resurrection that guarantees each obedient Christ-follower the eternal life he created us for.

Think You’re Good Enough Now?

Take a good look at Christ’s character. He’s good enough, so what about you? If, perchance, you’re not that good, repentance is still in order, and praise the loving, eternal God for his merciful grace in Christ Jesus.

Unreal

While watching a delightful episode of Bones, I got to see a tub full of lye and organic material representing a human body. What a treat!
The point is I was able to watch it because I knew it was nothing but special effects, or “FX,” as they say in the business. If it had been real, it would have upset me terribly.
We’re used to seeing depictions awful things in the movies and TV, so we’ve become desensitized to such scenes. Fights, murders, rapes, all flash before us with little effect because we know they’re unreal.

Moral Callouses

A common occurrence in high-crime cities is violence against men, women and children taking place in full view of neighbors and onlookers with no one getting involved, or even reporting it to the police. While fear plays a huge part in that callousness, desensitization by depictions of violence in the entertainment media also plays a significant role in it.
Both of those phenomena also effect our view of the Bible, where we read right over true accounts of horrendous or miraculous events without reaction. By immersing ourselves in the media’s mock violence and FX, God’s truth tends to lose its impact on us.
The entertainment, and even the news media, also take their toll on our worldview*. Christ-followers today are becoming more worldly, materialistic and relativistic, than those of past centuries. Back then, such gross carnality characterized only nominal Christians, who, arguably, weren’t authentic believers at all. Now, you often can’t distinguish church members from non-believers, whether by appearance or by behavior.

Exceptions, Please

After all that moralizing, I’d love to say I shield myself from worldly entertainments, but I can’t. Am I a hypocrite? I’ll leave that for God to judge. Does it have an influence on me? Yes, but mostly not a negative one. The thing is, after all these years of immersing myself in Bible teaching and critically observing the world around me, I’ve developed a fairly solid, Biblical worldview. When I see the world’s lies they stand out like a flagman waving a caution or stop sign, but the same can’t be said for the young or otherwise impressionable.

A Solution

Tragically, we can’t completely shield our children from worldly influences. We can, however, expose the world’s lies while helping them to develop critical thinking through a gradual, consistent, teaching process. At first, they won’t like it a bit, as you’ll spoil their fun by interrupting carefully selected programs with your teaching. And for the not-so carefully selected programs, you will exemplify your judgment by consistently shutting off the boob tube, switching channels, or ending the rotten games and movies. Example is, after all, the most effective teaching.
Bottom line? To develop new believers, and especially our children, into mature Christ-followers, we need to reinforce the real while exposing the unreal, so anyone on whom we have influence will learn the difference.



*Worldview, for the uninformed, is like wearing glasses that filter everything you see. Those with a Biblical worldview have a well developed lie detector achieved through extensive discipling by mature Christ-followers. Other religious worldviews may produce similar standards, but the Bible is God’s only true revelation. End of story.

No Worries

My retail dealings with the public for a number of years gave me a virtual, “Window on Main Street,” for insight into many kinds of people and subcultures. One phrase that often surfaced, and seemed like music to my ears, was, “No Worries,” expressed when an issue might have been disputable, but the customer simply let it pass. In fact, I became so fond of the phrase that I adopted it as my own.

Its application to life, however, covers far more than the simple issues retailers and customers encounter. God’s word* repeatedly tells us that anxiety, care and concern for our circumstances are inappropriate for Christ-followers, as such worries demonstrate our failure to trust his sovereign love for us.

Doctor James Dobson once illustrated simple, childlike trust by recounting the time his small son Ryan tried to exit the rear of a parked moving-van and found himself dangling over what, to him, felt like an abyss. In panic, Ryan began calling, “Help the boy,” in the most plaintive voice imaginable. As the loving daddy, Dr. Dobson ran over to Ryan and found the boy’s toes swinging only an inch above the pavement. It took some coaxing, but finally the little guy let himself down to the pavement without injury, and learned an important lesson about trusting the One who loves you perfectly. (Luke 11:11-13)

Worry and anxiety are so naturally human that our heavenly Father provided the remedy for that and all other sins this fallen race commits. His Son Jesus, the eternal, self-existent Word incarnate, freely offered to take God’s just punishment for our sin-guilt upon his frail, human body, while leaving us sinners fully justified before himself. In view of that unfathomable love, how can we presume to worry about our paltry, temporary needs? (Romans 8:26-28) Practice saying, and believing, “No worries,” when life’s cares overtake you.

*For further study, click the following links:
Hebrews 11; Psalms 119:9-11; Romans 10:8-10; Ephesians 2:4-10; Acts 10:43; John 14; John 11:25-26; and many more.

Ya Gotta Love Language

According to Webster’s 1828 Dictionary, Conversation is defined as follows:
Conversation
CONVERSATION, n.

1. General course of manners; behavior; deportment; especially as it respects morals.

Let your conversation be as becometh the gospel. Phil 1.

Be ye holy in all manner of conversation. 1 Pet 1.

2. A keeping company; familiar intercourse; intimate fellowship or association; commerce in social life. Knowledge of men and manners is best acquired by conversation with the best company.

3. Intimate and familiar acquaintance; as a conversation with books, or other object.

4. Familiar discourse; general intercourse of sentiments; chat; unrestrained talk; opposed to a formal conference.

What I mentioned in conversation was not a new thought.

[This is now the most general use of the word.]

Apparently, where language is concerned, I’m a classicist, in that I am comfortable with many of the traditional English definitions. For example, conversation, defined by Webster’s 1828 Dictionary, receives four variant definitions. The first of which is obviously obsolete, while the second through the fourth remain as useful definitions.

The problem with a fluid language is during a word’s transition to a different use, we risk significant misunderstanding by using it without attaching disclaimers or caveats.

By Webster’s definitions, Conversation, as an activity, implied no superficiality, but conveyed honest, even probing communication intended to further one’s knowledge of another person’s character, preferences and values. Parties to such conversation must mutually understand the trust-factor required and either agree to it or set clear limits on it. Setting such limits, however, introduces the question of why they need to be in place, as friendship infers no such constraints.

How, then, does Webster’s 1828 Dictionary define friend? Glad you asked.

Friend
FRIEND, n. frend.

1. One who is attached to another by affection; one who entertains for another sentiments of esteem, respect and affection, which lead him to desire his company, and to seek to promote his happiness and prosperity; opposed to foe or enemy.

A friend loveth at all times. Prov 17.

2. One not hostile; opposed to an enemy in war.

3. One reconciled after enmity. Let us be friends again.

4. An attendant; a companion.

5. A favorer; one who is propitious; as a friend to commerce; a friend to poetry; a friend to charitable institution.

6. A favorite. Hushai was David's friend.

7. A term of salutation; a familiar compellation.

Friend, how camest thou in hither? Mat 22.

So Christ calls Judas his friend, though a traitor.

Mat 26.

8. Formerly, a paramour.

9. A friend at court, one who has sufficient interest to serve another.

FRIEND, v.t. frend. To favor; to countenance; to befriend; to support or aid. [But we now use befriend.]

This week, the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance is introducing Stuart Brannon's Final Shot Center Point Pub; Lrg edition (March 2012) by Stephen Bly

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Stephen Bly (August 17, 1944 – June 9, 2011) authored 106 books and hundreds of articles and short stories. His book, The Long Trail Home (Broadman & Holman), won the prestigious 2002 Christy Award for excellence in Christian fiction in the category western novel. Three other books, Picture Rock (Crossway Books), The Outlaw’s Twin Sister (Crossway Books), and Last of the Texas Camp (Broadman & Holman), were Christy Award finalists. He spoke at colleges, churches, camps and conferences across the U.S. and Canada. He was the pastor of Winchester Community Church, and served as mayor of Winchester, Idaho (2000-2007). He spoke on numerous television and radio programs, including Dr. James Dobson’s Focus on the Family. He was an Active Member of the Western Writers of America. Steve graduated summa cum laude in Philosophy from Fresno State University and received a M.Div from Fuller Theological Seminary. The Blys have three sons: Russell (married to Lois) and father of Zachary and Miranda (married to Chris Ross) and mother of Alayah; Michael (married to Michelle); and Aaron (married to Rina Joye) and father of Keaton and Deckard. A third generation westerner, Steve spent his early years working on California farms owned by his father and an uncle.

Janet Chester Bly received a B.S. degree in Literature & Languages and Fine & Performing Arts from Lewis-Clark State College, Lewiston, Idaho. She speaks at women’s luncheons and retreats and does writers’ workshops. She is a member of Winchester Community Church where she serves as music director. She has authored eleven nonfiction and fiction books and co-authored twenty others, as well as contributed to five books. Janet’s hobbies include decorating her home in “country clutter,” reading almost all genres of fiction and mall walking. She lives in Winchester, Idaho–elevation 4,000 feet, population 300– situated on the Nez Perce Indian Reservation.


BUT FIRST, A WORD FROM OUR BLOGGER:
The Oregon coast was a rough place as the Twentieth Century dawned, regardless how hard the social elite and business proprietors tried to make it seem otherwise. And when Stuart Brannon, the real life action-hero from scores of dime novels, rides his spirited horse—more like panicked horse—out of the train's baggage car and into the crowded, noisy streets of the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition in Portland, their wake of destruction fails to endear them to the affair's administrators and policemen. So much for easing into the background for a nice, peaceful investigation.

Steven Bly wove his last novel into a rich, subtle tapestry of intrigue and action that crosses genres with a satisfying blend of old west action and modern sophistication.

ABOUT THE BOOK

In 1905, at 58 years old, legendary lawman Stuart Brannon - now a rancher and widower - had no intention of leaving his beloved Arizona Territory to attend the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition in Portland, Oregon, nor to participate in the celebrity golf tournament for the Willamette Orphan Farm. Even an emotional appeal for his longtime friend didn’t persuade him. His life no longer consisted of bloodthirsty men to track down . . . people trying to kill him . . . lawless gangs preying on the innocent.

Then the telegram came: Stuart, I need you in Portland. Tim Wiseman is missing. I think there’s a cover-up going on. Tell folks you’re going to the Exposition. Nose around. Find out how a U.S. Marshal can disappear and no one knows why. I’ll contact you there. T.R.

How could he refuse a request from the President of the United States?

If you would like to read the first chapter of Stuart Brannon's Final Shot, go HERE.

Artificially Sweetened

Saccharin, aspartame, acesulfame-K, sucralose, mannitol—what’s a body to do? Aren't artificial sweeteners all “equal?” Please pardon the sour pun.

As chemically different as they are from each other, none of them qualify as sugar, despite their sweet taste. One of them leaves an off aftertaste, another tastes slightly bitter if used to excess, still another breaks down under heat, making it ineffective in cooking. Mannitol and sorbitol make a great-tasting candy, if you’re looking for a laxative-effect. Despite the differences, however, their one common purpose is to fool your taste buds, and some of them do so quite well.

King David wrote a song that attributed a kind of flavor to the eternal, self-existent God of Israel. He lyricised, “O taste and see that the LORD is good,” and he should know, as the Bible says he was a man after God’s own heart.

It also says that same eternal God dwells within all Christ-followers. Like sweetened food, regardless what form we take, we’re all characterized by the “taste” of one common Ingredient, the “sweetness” of God’s Holy Spirit.

Like our taste buds, however, our spiritual discernment can be fooled by people who display a form of godliness, or “artificial sweetness,” but don’t contain the authentic Ingredient that only the eternal, self-existent God provides.

I should know; at one time I was one of those spiritually fake sweets. In fact, I contained so much artificial, spiritual fruit that someone said I had, “a sweet spirit” about me. The pity was, I believed her. As they say in show-biz, “It’s truly pathetic when an actor believes his own billing.”

That was then, but this is now. Profound, yes? In a way, however, it is a profound insight, but I can’t claim it as my own. My Master is the changer of people, and after a lifetime of following a maze of misdirection—much of it self-inflicted—he brought me into his perfect Way. Please, don’t misunderstand my meaning; His Way is perfect, while I am anything but!

So, here’s where my carefully-constructed metaphor breaks down. My artificially-sweetened, spiritual fruit rotted. For years I smelled something off about myself, even while I had everyone else fooled. As my old dad used to say, “A fox smells his own den first.” Of course, he didn’t use the word “den.”

Was I saved during all that time? Absolutely sorta! If I had expired, I would have spent eternity with my Master. But then, even if I hadn’t been in Christ, I still would have gone to eternity with my master. Wrong master. The only reason my self-deception and hypocrisy didn’t condemn me to perdition was God’s grace, his wonderful, inexhaustible, eternal grace.

Was I on dangerous ground? Absolutely! If this speaks to something within you, dear reader, I beg you to fall on your face before the Creator of the Universe, but do not plead your case to him. Ask him to convict your heart of any falseness. Don’t let your artificially sweetened, fake fruit rot before finding the Real Thing in Him.

Style at All Cost

A small nation’s space program needed an astronaut to pilot their new, advanced space plane on its maiden flight to establish a military base on the moon. General Whinsap had spent a year pouring over the Air Command’s personnel records, and had finally narrowed the field of applicants down to three crackerjack fighter aces whom he’d ordered to fly in for the final interviews.

General Whinsap stood on the flight control tower’s observation deck when a black spot appeared on the horizon. Within seconds the black spot became visible as an airplane streaking over the landscape, and the general barely had time to plug his ears before a massive sonic boom shattered all the control tower’s windows, showering the general and his aids with glass shards.

Soon, Captain Smithers, the general’s orderly, stood back up next to him and the General shouted at him, “Strike that pilot from the list! He’ll never fly in my space plane!”

Captain Smithers crisply answered, “Most certainly, General.”

A few minutes later a second black spot appeared on the horizon, eventually materializing the wings and tail of a fighter jet. General Whinsap watched the lethal weapons platform veer toward the flight control tower, and just before it would fly across in front of the officers the pilot punched his afterburners, pulled the stick back and shot straight up like a ballistic missile.

Searing exhaust gasses enveloped the men, blowing off their hats and singing all their hair. Again, when Captain Smithers regained his position next to him, General Whinsap shouted, “Have that man brought before a court-martial!”

Captain Smithers’ shaky voice responded, “Indeed, sir.”

Shortly afterward, a third black spot appeared on the horizon, approaching for a perfect landing, spot on at the runway’s end. But Captain Smithers panicked when the aircraft drew close. “General sir, wave him off! He hasn’t lowered his landing gear!”

Seconds later the fighter jet touched down in a shower of sparks and flame, and the pilot shot out of the cockpit on a plume of white-hot gasses from his ejection seat rocket engine. High over the wreckage a parachute opened, the seat fell away, and the pilot floated gently to the ground.

Captain Smithers volunteered, “General Whinsap, sir, I’ll have that man arrested the moment he walks in to ...”

The general glared at the captain with disdain, “You will do nothing of the kind, Smithers! That man has passed my test with flying colors.”

Smithers almost couldn’t respond for his stuttering, “But General, sir, he’s just completely destroyed a cutting-edge war machine worth millions.”

“As I said, Smithers, you’ll not lay a hand on that man.” General Whinsap gazed down with pride at the charred and battered pilot limping crisply away from his parachute. “That man has style! Didn’t you see his smart salute as he shot skyward through the flames?”

Out of the Ashes

We flawed human beings put a lot of stock in style. Even in God’s church, we admire those saints who soar off above the wreckage of their sin-ravaged lives, firmly in control of their ejection seats.

Sin takes an awful toll on families, friendships, and especially leadership within God’s called-out ones. We behave almost as though sin doesn’t really matter in the Grand Scheme of things sacred. After all, sin is of the flesh, and we’re all about eternity, so the occasional oops seems comparatively trivial … so long as we don’t get caught.

And so what if we do get caught with our hand in the cookie jar. As long as we don’t make a practice of it, isn’t that what Grace is for?

The Master’s Apostle Paul had something relevant to say about that: God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? (Rom 6:2 KJV) As literally as the King James translators usually rendered the original Greek in which Paul wrote, they didn’t have a direct translation adequate to the Apostle’s forceful language. So “May it not be,” became “God forbid,” the ultimate expression that polite English would allow. We may safely infer that such an answer to the question asked in Romans 6:1 effectively disallows cheap grace.

Bible scholars have made careers of duking out the thorny issues of Wesleyan-Arminian holiness versus Calvinistic predestination. Overly simplified, one side claims believers must live like believers to be believers, and—wait a minute! So does the other side, only they get there by different theological gymnastics.

Personally? Any action of mine that cheapens anything about God, or his Son the eternal Word, is reprehensible to me. In the not-too distant past I felt that if I buried my sinful attitudes and actions deeply enough and hid them well enough, Divine grace would get me through to my eternal reward. I praise my Savior I didn’t get myself killed while in that error. Not only was I guilty of the horrible sin of presuming on Christ’s holy blood, but I was a hypocrite to boot.

Am I saying that one itsy-bitsy sin gets my name rubbed out of the Lambs Book of Life?

HARDLY! (Is that enough emphasis to get the idea across?)

The difference is between ignorant or inadvertent sin, and deliberate presumption. Point is, I knew better, and I preferred risking my Savior’s disgrace, to truly repenting.

As the TV pitch-men say, “But that’s not all …”

Even if the eternal security-people are right and I couldn’t loose my salvation because of my stiff-necked attitude, practicing that kind of marginal Christianity effectively kept me spiritually infantile! So while everyone thought I was “running the race,” I was actually just crawling along, trying to get to my colorful toys, and content with it. Or maybe I should say, complacent with it. I just pray that God will bear with all my brethren who still think they can get by with similar, less-than-best intentions until they get wise and begin honoring our Savior inside, as well as out.

Don’t count on rocketing clear of your spiritual wreckage. Religious style may get us the approval of our brethren, but it won’t hack it with our Commander-In-Chief.

A Wrinkle In Time Movie Review

Eye candy. That’s what it is. A Wrinkle in Time is a joy to watch, but presents a challenge discerning its world view. I pegged it as a fun, kid’s movie until “It” came into the picture, and then I had to start thinking. What was It supposed to represent?

Every form of creative expression means something, if only blood—or sexual—lust. Okay, that may be a stretch for the words, “creative expression,” but even in porn, somebody has to yell, “Action,” and, “Cut.”

Disclaimer: If you haven’t seen the movie and intend to watch it, stop here! You may want to draw your own conclusions.

The first red-flag was the phrase, “It was, It is, It will be,” an obvious reference to the living, eternal One, who introduced himself to Moses as, “I Am that I Am,” and identified himself to John the Revelator with the words, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the Ending, says the Lord, the One who is, and who was, and who is coming, the Almighty. (Revelation 1:8 LITV) As a kid movie, however, the Biblical reference to It will likely be lost on its target audience.

Hey, You! The guy who hasn’t watched the movie yet. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Wrinkle surprised me with several Biblical quotations from the “Witches” who weren’t really that. One of the trio was a shape-shifting, dead star, a nod to C. S. Lewis’ The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. The other two were beneficent women of some super-human race in another galaxy.

Any story is distinguished by the scale of its stakes, and in Wrinkle, they were as high as the universe’s very survival. A thick, smog-like cloud, invisible to mere mortals, spread across the universe and clutched planet Earth with its Darkness. Of course, its obvious analogy was sin in all its guises. And the master of the darkness? It!

If Steven King’s It! was evil, this nearly omnipotent being was evil to the n^th degree. The ultimate antagonist, It appeared to be a humongous, writhing brain that controlled its enforcers, and through them, the home-planet’s population. In one scene, a teenage boy committed the crime of dribbling his basketball instead of bouncing it in cadence with all other Play Hour activities. Any demonstration of individuality was rewarded with “Remediation.” Not an enviable consequence.

Throughout what seemed to be the planet’s only city, a P.A. system blared such propaganda as, “Relax, It is in controll,” “It will take care of your needs,” “Give over to It,” and, “It was, It is, It will be.” This schtick sounded awfully religious, and I took it as a parody of conventional religious endoctrination. The whole system suggested to me a pseudo-theocracy. Am I too touchy about religious parodies? Maybe, but it seemed quite possible that young people or adults who are clueless about Christ’s Way, might generalize Wrinkle’s dark regime to represent all faith-based institutions.

Though It propagated the god-like image of an eternal being, it turned out to be nothing but a usurper. And the power it supplanted? The true eternal Power: Love. And what was its only vulnerability? The pure love of a big sister for her kid brother.

My question is, which message will prevail in impressionable minds?