The Age To Come

Why do we worship God, or why does He require worship? Is He insecure, requiring affirmation from His creation? Or could it be an ego trip? Or do we worship just to remain in His ‘good books’? I do not wish to be offensive, but these are questions that are out there and require an answer.

The truth is, none of those answers to the question of “why worship?” come close to the mark. What is worship, but the attribution of worth? The English word “worship” comes from two Old English words: weorth, which means “worth,” and scipe or ship, which means something like shape or “quality.”

Consider the sunrise below. Is it not beautiful and praise-worthy? How much more so then is God!

The point being, that praise is intrinsic to the object.

How often do we wrestle with understanding in situations where there are only half answers, at best? Perhaps the reason that God does not always give us understanding on demand is so that we can choose Him by faith rather than resting and relying on our own understanding in our own strength.

Seeking to question something is a valid activity, and sometimes answers are granted to us, but the question is where ultimately do we put our faith? Do we put our faith and trust in God whether we understand or not? Or is our faith in our own understanding?

The problem with the latter is that it is not a reliable place to stand – we see only as if through a glass, and that dimly. So I perceive that God sometimes (you may say often) does not answer the questions so that our trust may reside, often through struggle, in a place that will never be shaken.

Recently I was reading Hebrews 11, the great chapter that talks about faith, and got to pondering how often we misunderstand the nature of faith.

The rather wry comment has been made that “faith is believing something that isn’t true”. How many of us carry something of that around with us, that we have to try really hard to believe something that is somewhat improbable at best.

If that is our definition of faith, then I would suggest that we are believing a lie. Let me give you a better definition: faith is about trust and relationship.

I would observe that those who dismiss or deride ‘faith’ as though the one holding the faith was somehow mentally retarded, are blind to their own reality. For, it is almost certain that they themselves hold faith in one or more things. It is difficult, for example, to be married without faith. It is a requirement for a stable relationship to be able to trust that your spouse will not be cheating on you when your back is turned. Do you know this? No, but hopefully you have faith that it is so, based on experience.

Perhaps this is what we lack, in our fallen state – the experience of the loving goodness of our Father God. Having turned from Him, having not known Him or His ways, it is hard to trust or have faith in Him. That’s why faith in our living God is sometimes described as a leap, or as Philip Yancey put it: “Faith means believing in advance what will only make sense in reverse”.

If you do not know God as a loving Father, and if you do not know the salvation of Jesus, and if you do not know the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, then I strongly encourage you to make that leap of faith today. This is a faith that leads to life, and life in all of its fullness.

Tonight, I find myself somewhat at a loss for words. Earlier, I read this article, chronicling the true outcome of gay marriage. Rather than it being about granting equal rights, allowing for tolerance / diversity etc, the true face is much darker; precious little tolerance or diversity can be found for those who would object to their children being indoctrinated contrary to their beliefs. I quote you a little:

By the following year it was in elementary school curricula. Kindergartners were given picture books telling them that same-sex couples are just another kind of family, like their own parents. In 2005, when David Parker of Lexington, MA – a parent of a kindergartner – strongly insisted on being notified when teachers were discussing homosexuality or transgenderism with his son, the school had him arrested and put in jail overnight.

Second graders at the same school were read a book, “King and King”, about two men who have a romance and marry each other, with a picture of them kissing. When parents Rob and Robin Wirthlin complained, they were told that the school had no obligation to notify them or allow them to opt-out their child.

In 2006 the Parkers and Wirthlins filed a federal Civil Rights lawsuit to force the schools to notify parents and allow them to opt-out their elementary-school children when homosexual-related subjects were taught. The federal judges dismissed the case. The judges ruled that because same-sex marriage is legal in Massachusetts, the school actually had a duty to normalize homosexual relationships to children, and that schools have no obligation to notify parents or let them opt-out their children! Acceptance of homosexuality had become a matter of good citizenship!

Think about that: Because same-sex marriage is “legal”, a federal judge has ruled that the schools now have a duty to portray homosexual relationships as normal to children, despite what parents think or believe!

Then, the following news from the UK:

WESTMINSTER, October 22, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – U.K. pro-life campaigners were deeply saddened at tonight’s vote on the Labour government’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. MPs voted 355 to 129 to pass the bill that allows human/animal embryos to be created by cloning and used in experiments.

The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) condemned the vote, saying, “Future generations would regard the bill as devaluing human life.” SPUC said they will raise the issue during the next general election.

Besides allowing the creation of cloned human/animal embryos for experimentation, the bill will enshrine in law all the individual permissions given in the last 16 years by the UK’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. It will allow homosexual partners to have children created for them in IVF labs after it abolishes the requirement that doctors consider the “need for a father” in artificial procreation treatments. It allows the creation of children, called “saviour siblings,” to be used as tissue donors for siblings, and permits the genetic manipulation of embryos for eugenic purposes. Earlier this week, it was also revealed that the government plans to use the bill to allow the creation of human clones from tissues taken from mentally incapacitated patients who cannot give consent.

There is a darkness and evil abroad in our land, and with its increasing ascendancy, its true nature is revealed. So many are malleable, having no strong beliefs of their own, they are easily swayed by the appeal for tolerance, as well as the increasing pressure to conform to the newthink. Therefore, it is easy for those who have grabbed the reigns of power to run roughshod over a vestigial societal unease and enforce a new morality.

In all this, my heart goes out to the children, who are being used as the pawns – fit for indoctrination over the objections of their parents, fit to be experimented on – socially and medically, fit to be born as a donor for a sibling, fit to have their essence melded with an animal for increasingly macabre experimentation. I ask, have we all gone mad? Perhaps this is the natural state of man, having rejected God we become lower than beasts, rivaling devils in the pursuit of evil.

I have been, on and off for years, pleading that the Lord in the midst of His justice would remember mercy. Today, I find myself an an impasse. How can I pray for mercy, that such things may continue? They are manifestations of a dark, wicked evil, the tentacles of demonic oppression covering the land. Can I pray for mercy on a society that cradles and cherishes such things? I do not know any longer how to pray.

Perhaps it may just be “Lord, thy will be done, thy kingdom come, on Earth as it is in Heaven”.