The claim that modernization leads to secularization fails. The US is not an exception so much as Europe is exceptional in being an instance of this claim. Modernity has its avatars … each conflicted within and without.
The rest of the world apart from Europe is a counterexample to this…
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Man is either religious or vicariously religious…
You can be physically alone and not be lonely. You can be surrounded by a 1,000 ppl, and experience a profound loneliness.
You can be with ppl, and they not be with you.
It seems that while Jesus was often with the disciples, they were often not with Him. And in the end they abandoned Him.
Medusa – one morning I looked in the mirror and realized that I was a Medusa.
The Bible is a mirror that shows us for the Medusa’s that we are.
What is the good life?
God!
Yes. God is the good life, and yet the good life is not God.
You go to a place.
Eventually the place comes to you.
(Of course, sometimes it never does. Then what do you do? I suppose you leave.)
One reason why you avoid others may be because you hate them.
One reason why you avoid others may be because you hate yourself.
On the one hand we deserve nothing …
On the other hand, everything is a privilege.
I think I mentioned this previously -
1. When a person comes to Christ, on the surface it just looks like some guy saying some words, but … behind the scenes, it is incredibly dramatic, as he has moved from darkness to light, and the angels are rejoicing in Heaven!
2. When the weather is nice, we look and marvel at the beauty of the creation… and indeed it is beautiful. Yet – it is still true that the Creation is fallen and that it is a groaning creation (Romans). Compared to what it ought to be… it is the pits. (And lets not forget, the roaches, the weeds, the rusting of iron, yada yada yada).
3. On the surface, some people seem to be kind and good. “Yoichi is such a good person”. Yet, all people are as a matter of fact, sinners with a sinful nature. (The goodness is relative. We tend to compare people to people, but not to God).
4. On the surface, we lead, ho hum… hum drum boring, ordinary powerless lives. On the other hand, the Bible talks about God’s unsurpassing power for us.
5. On the one hand, people seem alive to us. Their hearts after all beat, and they have pulses. That is what we see and observe with our eyes. On the other hand, the Bible tells us that they are “dead in their trespasses.” Dead!
6. On the one hand, trials and troubles seem to happen one after another. We sit and reason that this thing led to that, and then that happened. Cause and effect is what we see.
“Oops! I should have given the signal before turning left on that road.”
“#~&*^#@*+!!! – That goonda stole my wallet!”
“Good grief, look at how many people the floods killed.”
“Did that chaloo really say that? I knew you couldn’t trust him. Chor #1.”
On the other hand, the Bible also tells us that we do not battle flesh and blood, but powers and principalities. Appearance vs. Spiritual Reality.
7. When Jesus walked the earth – “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him” – He looked ordinary yet, He rocked the earth. He overwhelmed Satan’s kingdom.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Anyway…
The Bible tells us that God’s thoughts are higher than ours. In addition though, what God sees is so dramatically different than what we see. He sees the spiritual reality.
“When the angel of the LORD appeared to Gideon, he said, ‘The LORD is with you, mighty warrior.’” ~Judges 6:12
Mighty what??? Gideon was a dumb weak schmuck … a nobody.
But God “calls things that are not as though they were.” ~Romans 4:17
Ok… need to get back to my reading… but the thought is that… we cannot be fooled by the ordinary. This especially if we are praying people. Don’t be fooled by your eyes. There is a supernatural reality at work. People are not good. People are dead. The world is fallen. The world is enslaved to powers and principalities, not just flesh and blood.
To see reality for what it really is, we need faith.
It is no wonder that Hebrews tells us that faith is being certain of what we do not see.
However …
God with His unsurpassing power is for us, backing us up. The Creator of the Universe is in us. We are bearers of the Spirit. So, we must wage war with our mouths and speak the Gospel into peoples lives, and bring them from darkness to light.
