It’s been a long time! I’m still around – just not here.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted on this blog. I apologize if that’s been confusing to anyone. If any of you are looking for new posts similar to these, they can be found at my new devotional blog which has the same web address minus the .wordpress at the end. Check it our here.

Follow the U-haul by clicking here.

I have also begun a third blog site which is more current events focused called “Ask the Dented Knight”. It includes a form where you can ask questions you’d like the Dented Knight to try to answer. The Dented Knight doesn’t claim to know everything, and you could always take it as a challenge to see if you can get him to say “I don’t know.” Check it out here.

Ask the Dented Knight a question here.

Facing Adversity…

Covid-19, race riots, and economic uncertainty seem to be the main events that the media continues to magnify in every headline. It’s not surprising that the most common emotion that I see in the eyes that peer out above the masks of the people I meet seems to be that of fear. We hear the reports of riots and murders, and people dying alone in hospital rooms of Covid-19 and we fear that it may only be a matter of time before some calamity will fall upon us. We feel like a rabbit, frozen in fear by the roar of the lion we are certain will devour us at any minute.

What if I told you it doesn’t have to be that way. What if there was a way that we could be at total peace even in the midst of this perfect storm of craziness. The Apostle Peter wrote his first letter to people experiencing persecution. In most of the first century is was not exactly a popular thing to be known as a Christian. During the darkest times of persecution, many Christians in Rome lived in the catacombs — the underground utility tunnels beneath the city — where they could hide from the emperor’s soldiers who took great delight in executing Christians in the most hideous ways. Being thrown to the lions in a coliseum so that crowds could be entertained as the lions mauled and killed men, women, and children was not unusual.

So when Peter writes to the Christian church of that era the following words, the word picture of the devil prowling about as a roaring lion was likely not lost on them.

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.

1 Peter 5:6–9 (ESV)

There are a number of principles that I believe we can apply to our current Covid situation in this short passage. The first is to remember our place before God. As we accept that which comes to us from his hand with humility, whether it be blessing or adversity, we must remember that “he cares for us” and will carry our anxieties for us, but only if we allow Him to. Therefore, Peter writes, “casting ALL your anxieties on him”.

He also encourages us to be watchful, to take our circumstance seriously. We have a very real adversary that prowls about seeking to destroy us. He is not talking about people that may be seeking to harm us here, he is describing Satan, the spiritual enemy of our souls who seeks not only to destroy our physical bodies, but to claim our eternal soul as well. The apostle Paul also addresses this in Ephesian 6:10-20 where he describes the nature of the spiritual battle in which we are embroiled.

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

Ephesians 6:12

The third principle is that of resistance. The roaring lion that Peter uses in his illustration of the devil is that of an old toothless lion that is no longer able to over power or outrun his prey, because he is essentially a defeated enemy. When Jesus died and rose again to life, he stripped Satan of his authority and handed it back to us — to those who choose to believe in and follow Jesus. As a result Satan is limited to intimidating us with his roaring and posturing in order to deceive us into believing he still has authority over us. The unfortunate truth is that the degree to which we choose to believe that lie is the degree to which he is able to manipulate and intimidate us. What we can discover however, is that when we RESIST in FAITH as Peter instructs us to do, Satan’s deceptive charade loses it’s power.

So how does all this apply to Covid-19 and race riots? The frightening headlines in the media are that “roaring lion” that seeks to intimidate us into believing we have no power to resist, however, as we walk in in obedience to the power of the Holy Spirit of God, we have absolutely nothing to fear. We can look death itself in the face and honestly say, “I’m not afraid of you, because I know to Whom I belong, and He is in absolute control of all this apparent mayhem”. This is the same power that enable the early first century Christians to face martyrdom with confidence and peace. When we truly understand how much we are loved by God, we can say with the apostle Paul,

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:35-39 (ESV)

Friends, covid-19 is a serious disease, but its current fatality rate is less than .1%. That means you are far more likely to die of heart disease, cancer or a car accident than you are of covid — even if you don’t wear a mask. Race riots and people burning down buildings and toppling statues looks frightening and dangerous on television, but I suspect the media has magnified it to look bigger than it is. If your focus is on the virus and riots, it can form a frightening picture. On the other hand, if your focus is on the presence of God and the truth of His word, it enables Spirit of God to melt that fear and embolden your faith to be able to recognize that the “lion” that roars outside our window has no teeth, and you can rest in the peace that passes understanding, knowing that whatever comes your way, your immediate AND eternal future is secure in the loving arms of Jesus.

The Dented Knight is moving.

For the few readers and followers of the Dented Knight out there who may have begun to wonder whether I fell off the edge of the world since you haven’t seen a new post here in a very long time – a word of explanation:

I have graduated from this free WordPress site (which, all things considered, has served me very well) to my very own https://www.itallennshere.com website.

The posts at the new site will continue to be pushed to the Daily Inspiration Face Book page, my LinkedIn account, and Twitter. So depending on where you where finding them, they should begin to appear again in those locations.

This website will remain available, though I don’t anticipate adding very much to it. I may link back to it occasionally from the new site rather than re-posting something already posted here. I will not promise at this point that I will keep it available forever…(only God is forever) but since I see no benefit to taking it down, and no detriment in leaving it up, I will, for the moment leave it as it is.

Thanks for your faithful participation in my first journey through the Bible. Please do consider making the jump with me as we embark on this new adventure.

COVID-19: Why I still have hope…

It has been interesting…and confusing, and at times a little frightening to me to observe the many reactions of people to the current COVID-19 pandemic. The responses range from folks who are panicking — literally terrified that this is going to kill us all, to those who refuse to take it as a serious threat and insist on going about life as usual. I would suggest right up front, that neither of those extremes is a helpful response. The fact that there is plenty of misinformation available to support either position via the vast array of media sources we have bombarding us daily continues to feed a ravenous spirit of division that was already present in our increasingly global social community. With the onset of the Corona virus pandemic, I believe we have an opportunity to bind the power of that spirit of division and begin to heal as a nation. The alternative is to allow this spirit to continue to use us to destroy each other, and ultimately ourselves.

For those who have followed this blog and read previous posts, you will perhaps understand a little better what I am referring to when I use the term, spirit of division. Alternatively, if you happened upon this blog post because your did a google search looking for how to avoid COVID-19, the connection may not be all that clear. For the sake of those who are new to the idea of a “spiritual battle”, I will attempt to give a little background information.

I am coming at this from the assumption that the Holy Bible is the word of the one and only almighty God who created our universe and all that it contains. The reason God gave us the Bible is primarily to reveal to us who He is and how He works. Furthermore, the more accurately we understand God, the more effectively we will be able to live the life He has given us to live in the exact place and time we find ourselves to be. The Bible reveals to us that there is a spiritual dimension to our existence that directly affects the physical dimension which we are locked into for the duration of our earthly lives. It explains to us that God is a spirit being (John 4:24), that he created other spirit beings we call angels (Hebrews 1:6-7 & 13-14), and that one of those angels named Lucifer led a failed rebellion against God and the rest of the angels that remain loyal to Him (Revelation 12:7-9). Lucifer, sometimes also called Satan, and all the angels that followed him in the rebellion were banned from heaven to roam the earth, where, from the creation of humanity (Genesis 2-3) to the present day, Satan’s one goal and aim is to deceive and destroy God’s beautiful creation (John 10:10).

So, if our lives in the physical realm are affected by what ongoing battle in the spiritual realm around us, it would perhaps be helpful for us to try to understand a little of what is happening there and how God would have us respond to it. In Ephesians 1:15-20 the Apostle Paul explains that when we make the choice to follow Jesus and invite the Holy Spirit of God to direct our choices in life, it places us spiritually “in the heavenly places” which positions us in a place of authority over the spirit world around us.  (see figure 9)

(The Essential Guide to Spiritual Warfare by Neil T. Andersen)

So how does COVID-19 fit into all this? I do not see this as “the punishment of God because of the evil we have committed”. It is rather, ultimately just another way that Satan is employing in his repeated attempts to steal, kill, and destroy, because that is final objective. God could have, and might still, and possibly already has, intervened on our behalf. Could God make it all go away? I believe He could, which invariably begs the question, then why did He allow it in the first place? I could not possibly do justice to that question in this post, but would suffice it to say that it is likely for the same reason He allows any evil to carry on among us. For any readers who desire to go further down that rabbit hole and learn more on the problem of evil and how God can be good yet still allow suffering, there is some excellent material available by Ravi Zacharias here, and more by C.S. Lewis here.

America was already deeply divided prior to the event of COVID-19. The depth of that division has been put on display as the levels of stress have pushed world and community leaders to the brink of exhaustion. The deluge of misinformation provided by media outlets and exacerbated by social media has not exactly been helpful in keeping the general population as well as some of those leaders from reacting in panic.

I believe the root of the problem of the division and deception we are experiencing is not physical (aka the Corona Virus) nor sociopolitical, (aka the fault of politicians and media). The root of the problem is spiritual. If our desire is to see humanity overcome this pandemic with minimal loss of life, we must not only address the physical and sociopolitical issues that we are beginning to address with varying degrees of success, but we need to awaken the church to address the spiritual issue and rise up against the spirit of division.

In Ephesians 6:10-20, the Apostle Paul describes the battle in which we as believers are all involved — whether we know it and acknowledge it or not. In verse 12 he writes,

“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”

While I admit I do not always succeed in doing this, I do find it helpful to remind myself of this particularly when engaging in discussions on social media. There are people out there who are seriously stressed and afraid that the world they are familiar with will never be the same. For those who have lost family and friends to COVID-19 this will already be a reality. As people whose hope is not in the things of this world, but in our relationship with God whose love and grace we have experienced, let us be agents of faith, hope and love…and most of all love to those around us who are fearful.

National Treasure…

A few days ago I had the opportunity to visit the Nation’s Capitol. As I stood in front of that grand stairway, I was awestruck by the beauty of the architecture against the almost clear blue sky. I turned around to see the Washington Monument at the far end of the mall, and between where I stood and the obelisk in the distance I saw people from all over the world. It would be a long hike back to that far end of the mall and then back down to the wharf district where I would ride a water taxi back to the hotel at which we were staying.

My feet were sore by the time I got back. Apparently I am not used to that kind of walking. As I reflect on the experience and flip through the pictures on my phone,

At first I was annoyed that I could not get a clear picture of the Capitol Building without the scaffolding getting in the way. I am not certain exactly what it was they were working on, I assumed they were cleaning and sealing the exterior, or perhaps making some minor repairs. As I reflect on this now, it may perhaps serve as an analogy to what is hopefully going on inside those walls. Regardless of which side of the isle you find yourself on, I suspect there is one thing we can all agree on — this being that America’s political system is in need of some deep cleaning, and major repair. Exactly how that cleaning and repair should be carried out will vary greatly depending on which side it is you are observing from, so I will not venture to postulate further on that subject.

What I would suggest as something we can all do, again, regardless of which side we find ourselves aligning, is to heed an exhortation given to the people of God in the Old Testament.

“if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”  (2 Chronicles 7:14 ESV)

Notice that this is not directed at unbelievers. This is not about the nation repenting, it is about the church repenting. The Lord says, “if MY people…” will humble themselves. Is it possible that we live in a time when those who call themselves the people of God have become arrogant?  To be clear, this would, by my definition and for the purpose of this blog post, include all Christians in America who consider themselves “God’s people”. If this is you, then this is for you.

If our prayer is for God to heal our government, we must first seek God to repent of our own pride and wickedness. If the healing of this nation is to take place, I believe it must begin with the followers of Jesus. It is only as we choose to humble ourselves and turn from our sin that God will begin to move the nation to follow. Please understand this is not about the USA becoming a theocracy. It has never been that, nor should it become such. It is about us finding our way back into relationship with the God who made us and loves us, not so that we can be blessed above all other nations, but that God can use us to be a blessing to all other nations.

Who are these Violent Ones?

Context: Matthew 11:7-19

The world in which we live tends to become what we make it. It is, in places brutally violent and dangerous. There are also places and times where people live in peace and tranquillity marveling at the awesome beauty of the world around them. I would propose to you that the place that you find yourself in this world has the potential to be either one of these extremes, and that how you react to that which you encounter is to a large degree, the determining factor.
I have at times heard people use this verse;

“From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force.” (Matt. 11:12)

for the purpose of justifying the use of human tactics and strategies to “forcefully” advance the work of God’s Kingdom on the earth. I believe this is most unfortunate, and typically becomes counter productive.
When understood within the context of the entire chapter, and even more so within greater context of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we can identify more accurately these “violent ones” to whom Jesus is referring are not the “soldiers of Christ” but our spiritual enemy who deceives those who opposes us.
The back story behind this teaching of Jesus is the arrest and incarceration of Jesus’ friend and first cousin, John the Baptist. John was eventually violently executed by King Herod at the request of Salome, or more accurately, at the request of Herodias,  Salome’s mother. If you want the whole story it can be found in Matthew 14.
When we look at verses 18-19 of chapter 11 the picture becomes a little clearer for us.

“For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.” (Matt. 11:18-19)

I believe this is a description of how those who choose to follow Jesus can expect to be treated by those who choose not to follow Jesus. In other words, if we decline to party with the world around us they will accuse us of acting like we are snobs, and if we agree to party with them, they will accuse us of being hypocrites. Either way, they will attempt to use our behavior to justify their ongoing rejection of Christ. Perhaps the most important phrase for us to remember in the passage is the last sentence: “Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.” A reminder to us that what the world says or thinks of us is ultimately immaterial.
Our world can be at peace, and our spirits can experience tranquillity despite the world’s raging at us as long as we know we are walking in step with Jesus.

“Jesus only, Jesus ever, Jesus all in all we sing. Savior, sanctifier and healer, glorious Lord and coming King.” (A. B. Simpson hymn – Jesus Only)

Gossip & Lies…

It has been more than ten years now since I became involved with social media, and I don’t think I am imagining that the way people interact with each other has taken a turn for the worse. My newsfeed is increasingly clogged up with ads for stuff I don’t want and certainly don’t need. The things my “friends are posting seem to be primarily angry political posts that have little, if any, factual content. In other words, much of what I encounter as I peruse through my newsfeed is essentially gossip, slander and lies…interspersed with the occasional meme that is actually pithy and/or humorous.

In the proverb for the day, Solomon writes,

Wrongdoers eagerly listen to gossip;
liars pay close attention to slander.

Proverbs 17:4

According to this, it would appear that unless I want to place myself in the category of “wrongdoers” I should not pay much attention to what I find there. That being said, I continue to believe that social media holds a certain amount of value for me, as I sort through the fake news and angry slander looking for pictures that my family and friends post. This is to some extent how I stay in touch with actual real friends from my past who now live far away.

I am also holding out on the hope that perhaps if attempt to communicate with truth and grace on social media, even when people who don’t agree with me try to troll me into using fighting words, perhaps I can be an encouragement to others who use it to follow my example. I don’t expect it to be a noticeable difference at first, but the nature of social media is that when something catches on and “goes viral” it can have some fairly far reaching effects. Perhaps if enough of us would season our social media words with grace and truth instead of passing along those juicy little morsels of slanderous gossip, it might once again restore a semblance of credibility to social media as a source of information and communication.

Testing, Testing…

I have never liked tests much, however, I believe tests can have value when used in the appropriate context. The purpose of a test is to confirm that the person or thing being tested meets a certain minimum standard of knowledge, strength or consistency etc. Teachers will test students to confirm that the students are retaining (or at least can

Roles…

I hear a lot of negativity about America in the news currently—about how the evil rich take advantage of the helpless poor, how privileged white men founded this nation in a manner that was designed to keep that power firmly in their grip. What I no longer hear is how privileged all citizens of America are to live in a nation where “the American Dream” is, at least theoretically, still within the reach of anyone willing to honestly pursue it.

In many other parts of the world people are more or less confined to whatever role they happen to be “born into”. Perhaps this is also why millions of people from these other parts of the world continue to try to find ways to make America their home? As I reflect on this I am once again overcome with gratitude that, by God’s grace, I have the privilege of calling America my home. In today’s proverb Solomon observes that in the culture of his day, a wise servant would often be elevated to rule when his master’s son proved to be unable or unwilling to do so.

² A wise servant will rule over the master’s disgraceful son and will share the inheritance of the master’s children.

Proverbs 17:2

 

In that ancient culture slavery was common, and social roles rarely changed. If you were born a stone mason or a fisherman, it was pretty much expected that you carry on the family business. In current American culture those social pressures are not entirely removed, but there tend to me more options for people who are willing to put the effort in to pursue them.

One thing that I have observed to be consistent in nearly every culture I have studied, is that those who control more wealth tend to have more power, and those who have more power are not typically eager to let that power slip into the hands of anyone outside of their circle of influence. The most recent example of this tendency is the 2016 election, in which Donald J. Trump, who was not on the inside of the circle of political power, upset the Washington apple cart by becoming elected as President. For the last two years he has been opposed with a kind of political vitriol that has been unprecedented in previous administrations. President Trump is not like the presidents America has been accustomed to. His character flaws are much more visible than most presidents of the past, nor is he a polished orator seeking to placate those who oppose him with convincing words. When Trump speaks, he does not mince words, which to Washington elites seems offensive and crude. I suspect that if he succeeds in his mission of overturning the halls of power in Washington the nation may see a renewed season of prosperity and freedom until the purveyors of socialism and anarchy can regroup and organize their next assault.

In the midst of all this political upheaval, the role of those of us who seek to live as a follower of Jesus remains the same. Regardless of our high or low role in society, and regardless of our left or right leaning political views, it is our calling to demonstrate the love of God to those He brings across our path as we fulfill the role He has called us to accomplish.

Conflict…

Our house has often been filled with family, friends and food. I have noticed over the years that the one thing that can spoil a normally happy time together is when there is serious conflict between family members. Interestingly it typically affects everyone present, not just the people directly involved in the conflict. In the proverb for today, we are reminded of the