Author: scribeofthevikings

coffeeman777:

Daigle & DeGeneres

By now, I’m sure most of you have read or heard about Lauren Daigle going on the Ellen show. I keep seeing it pop up on my social media. It’s highlighting an on going issue in the Church, and I’d like to say something about it.

I read an article earlier today that got into the divide among Christians about Lauren Daigle’s appearance on Ellen. Some Christians are irritated by the event, given who Ellen is, and how she’s dealt with Christian guests in the past who were outspoken about the Biblical perspective on homosexuality; they see it as a concession of some sort, a compromising with sin. The author of the article I read called those Christians out for their seemingly self-righteous attitude. After all, Jesus taught us to love, right? Where do they get the right to be so angry about a Christian like Daigle promoting Jesus on Ellen’s show?

As I see it, there are two errors at work here. On the one hand, the author of the article is right; the Christians that voiced their opinions to him about the whole situation are off base in their “us vs. them” attitude. As Christians, we can’t separate ourselves from the unbelieving world. Yes, the world is dark, and getting darker all the time; but that doesn’t mean we should retreat. On the contrary, it means we should press in. Work harder. We are supposed to be salt and light to this dying world; how can we do that if we have nothing to do with them? In what way are we faithfully keeping the Lord’s command to go into all the world make disciples if all we do is hang out with other Christians?

On the other hand, there’s an element of truth is the complaints of the Christian dissenters here. They are concerned with compromise, and rightly so. I don’t know Lauren Daigle beyond her music (which I love, btw), and I don’t know what was said between her and Ellen. I can’t know whether Daigle compromised her faith for the experience (and I want to believe the best of her). But generally speaking, compromise is a serious problem among Christians today. We see it all the time, and it’s becoming more and more of an issue. Christians openly embracing and defending sin; Christians practicing sin for the sake of “evangelism”; Christians refusing to take a stand with respect to holiness, choosing instead to focus on an ill-defined version of love. I cannot condone the negative and un-christlike comments made by some Christians about Daigle’s appearance on Ellen, but this particular concern is valid.

It’s very common to hear a Christian rebuke other Christians for being unloving. “Jesus taught us to love,” they say. “God is love!” is like an all purpose response to any counter-argument. They are ready and willing to sacrifice all for the sake of this declaration, but they never clearly define what they mean by “love,” and they certainly never attempt to explain the Biblical idea behind the statements. It’s just assumed that by “love,” the writers of Scripture simply mean for us to be super nice to everybody, and always be gentle, and never rock the boat, and never ever say or do anything that might come across as offensive. But is that what the Bible is really telling us to do?

There are several different Greek words translated as “love” in our English Bibles. The kind of love that God has for us, and that we must have for the lost, is the word “agape” in the Greek.

Agape denotes an undefeatable benevolence and unconquerable goodwill, that always seeks the highest of the other, no matter what he or she does. It is the self-giving love that gives freely without asking anything in return, and does not consider the worth of its object. Agape is a love by choice; it refers to the will rather than the emotion. With this in mind, is the popular assumption about what it means to love others correct? I think not.

Certainly, loving others in the Biblical sense can include being compassionate and gentle, merciful and kind. Absolutely. We as Christians should embody these traits. But loving others also means telling them the truth. It means warning them of danger. It means telling others things that will be very difficult for them to hear, and potentially very awkward and embarrassing for us to say. We cannot escape this. Just reading the Scriptures, we see where Jesus did this kind of thing all the time. Jesus loved everyone He encountered more than we ever will, and yet He told them that they must eat His flesh and drink His blood (John 6:53), a very difficult teaching, but an absolutely necessary one, while knowing full well it would offend many of the people following Him at that time. Jesus also challenged the woman at the well by calling her out on her sins (John 4:18). Jesus taught very plainly about sin, without regard for the comfort of His hearers (Matthew 5, 6, & 7). Jesus warned those He healed to “sin no more.” (John 5:1-15, 8:3-11). Jesus’ primary message as He traveled around was “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!” (Matthew 3:2, 4:17). Jesus Himself said in Matthew 10:34-36 that He didn’t come to bring peace, but a sword (Jesus did come to make peace between God and man, and in that sense He is the Prince of Peace, but the process to bring that peace would also cause divisions and unrest between those who follow Him, and those who do not). The Lord came to cast fire on the earth (Luke 12:49), and so He did, because that was what real love required. And Jesus commanded us to go and teach what He taught. Must we love others? Absolutely. But we must do it the way Jesus did it.

If we limit ourselves to this popular idea of what love means with respect to our witnessing, we will be useless for the Kingdom. If we’re super nice to all the unbelievers we meet (not a bad thing at all), but we refuse to tell them the truth of the Gospel for fear of offending them, we’re wasting our time, and theirs. If our idea of witnessing is being really friendly and practically helpful, agreeable and conciliatory, but we never mention the hard parts the Gospel (that Hell is real, that we are all sinners in need of salvation, that sin is never ok in God’s sight, that salvation is by grace through faith, and that a lifestyle of repentance and ever-increasing holiness proves the work of grace in the heart), then we will end up with lots of lost friends who benefit from our relationship with Jesus not one bit. All we will accomplish is making them happier on their way to Judgement.

So, yes, Jesus taught us to love. We must go to the lost. We must be among them to be effective. But we must also love the unbelievers sincerely, in the way that the Bible actually says we should. We have to do the uncomfortable parts. We have to tell them the truth at our own expense. If Lauren Daigle was a real witness on the Ellen show, and she did the difficult evangelism that the Lord Jesus commanded, then she was absolutely right to be on the show, and it should be seen as a victory for the Church. How amazing would it be if Ellen came to Christ and sincerely repented? Can you imagine the positive impact she could have for the Kingdom of God? On the other hand, if Lauren Daigle compromised the faith in some way, well, that’s definitely something to lament.

We should all be asking ourselves every day, “Am I really standing up for the Kingdom? Do I love the lost enough to tell them the truth?” Let’s pray for God’s help and encourage each other to do what we must.

topwarpspeed:

happy-thought:

lesliecrusher:

“I got a fan letter from a young lady. It was a suicide note.

So I called her, and I said, “Hey, this is Jimmy Doohan. Scotty, from Star Trek.” I said, “I’m doing a convention in Indianapolis. I wanna see you there.”

I saw her — boy, I’m telling you, I couldn’t believe what I saw. It was definitely suicide. Somebody had to help her, somehow. And obviously she wasn’t going to the right people.

I said to her, “I’m doing a convention two weeks from now in St. Louis.” And two weeks from then, in somewhere else, you know? She also came to New York – she was able to afford to got to these places. That went on for two or three years, maybe eighteen times. And all I did was talk positive things to her.

And then all of the sudden — nothing. I didn’t hear anything. I had no idea what had happened to her because I never really saved her address.

Eight years later, I get a letter saying, “I do want to thank you so much for what you did for me, because I just got my Master’s degree in electronic engineering.”

That’s…to me, the best thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

Something worth sharing

Source: lesliecrusher

YOU SAID NOTHING!

doitez96:

sgt-rock53:

A letter to CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, NYT, Wash Post, USA Today:

   1. You said nothing when Obama used drone strikes to execute people abroad.

2. You said nothing about Russia for 25 years until Trump was inaugurated. 

3. You said nothing about Hillary’s campaign manager’s brother being paid $175,000 to lift U.S. sanctions on Russia.

4. You said nothing, when Obama engaged in military interventionism in Libya without Congressional approval.

5. You said nothing when Obama greatly expanded presidential power through the use of Executive Orders.

6. You said nothing when Obama filled his White House with lobbyists after he said he wouldn’t.

7. You said nothing when Obama gave 47 of his fundraisers Administration jobs.

8. You said nothing about the murders and rapes at the hands of illegal immigrants.

9.
You said nothing when Hillary’s net worth rose over $100 million as
Secretary of State, in part, because her husband took money from foreign
governments.

10. You said nothing after Obama’s net worth rose over $10 million as President.

11. You said nothing when Obama’s Justice Dept. wiretapped/surveilled reporters such as James Rosen and the AP.

12 You said nothing when Obama restricted immigration 6 times with Executive Orders.

13. You said nothing when Obama set a record for deportations.

14. You said nothing when Bill Clinton met Loretta Lynch on the airport tarmac during the Clinton investigation.

15. You said nothing when Hillary was fed debate questions.

16. You said nothing when Obama and Hillary lied about a video and Benghazi when 4 American diplomats were slaughtered by Libyan  riots.

17. You said nothing when Obama’s IRS abused the rights of taxpayers.

18.
You said nothing when Obama’s White House held meetings with lobbyists
in coffee shops near White House to avoid disclosure requirements

19. You said nothing when Eric Holder sold the guns, you hate, to criminals and some were used to kill Americans.

20. You said nothing when the Clintons’ took White House property.

21. You said nothing when Hillary laughed off defending a child-rapist.

22. You said nothing when Hillary lied about her private use of a private email server as Secretary of State.

23. You said nothing when Janet Reno, under Bill Clinton, used a tank to kill the Branch Davidians.

24.
You said nothing when, on May 13, 1985, a bomb was dropped on a row
house in Philadelphia to uproot the black liberation group known as
Move, resulting in a fire that eventually burned down 61 houses, killed
11 people (including five children) and injured dozens.

25. You said nothing when child Eliah Gonzales was forcibly deported, using guns to Cuba.

26. You said nothing when George Soros paid protesters to burn parts of Ferguson.

27. You said nothing about states’ rights until Trump’s Executive orders on immigration.

28. You said nothing about Obama’s smoking.

29. You said nothing about the record numbers of people on government assistance.

30. You said nothing about the number of part time and low paying jobs under the Obama recovery.

31.
You said nothing when Obama had SWAT teams raid a Gibson guitar factory
and seize property, on the purported basis that Gibson had broken
India’s environmental laws – but no charges were filed.

32. You said nothing when Obama claimed that the Fort Hood shooting was “workplace violence” rather than terrorism.

33. You said nothing when Obama ended some terror asylum restrictions, by allowing asylum for people, who provided only “insignificant” or “limited” material support of terrorists.

34. You said nothing when the national debt doubled under Obama.

35. You said nothing when 9 times the Supreme Court unanimously overturned Obama’s expansive use of Executive Power.

36. You said nothing when Obama dismissed charges, filed by the Bush Administration against New Black Panther Party members, who were videotaped, intimidating voters at a Philadelphia polling station during the 2008 election.

37. You said nothing when Obama released Guantanamo detainees, who then went back to kill Americans.

38. You said nothing when Obama unilaterally changed Congressional law by Executive Order.

39. You said nothing when Obama fired an inspector general after investigating an $850,000 AmeriCorps grant, received by a nonprofit, run by former NBA star and Obama supporter Kevin Johnson.

40. You said nothing about the 36 Obama’s executive office staffers that owed $833,970 in back taxes

41. You said nothing when Obama Killed four Americans overseas in counter-terrorism operations without a judicial process.

42. You said nothing when Obama sent millions in cash in ransom to Iran

So NOW, you are voicing your objections about 12 months of Trump, I’m sorry… we can’t hear you, because you said NOTHING before!!!

Amen