What are people experiencing in a world without a Christ-centered perspective? Confusion? Despair? anxiety? Apathy?
Tucker Carlson recently made the observation, to the effect of, that Christians are the only people who understand what is happening in the world and are not surprised.
I wouldn’t disagree with what Tucker said but I would qualify the use of the term Christian as someone who has placed their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and have faith, an evidenced based faith. What the Bible prophecies has a very strong correlation to what is developing in this era as the world becomes smaller and smaller through technology and geo-socio-political influence. Moreover, even in the face of man’s free-will and the appearances of strengthening evil, a Christian trusts in God’s sovereignty, providence, and ultimate justice.
What the Christian receives the greatest peace from I will explain later in the article.
When the world leads to not presupposes one limits his or her perspectives to what the “world” offers and, so I suggest we need to consider the “world” consisting of such things as materialism, human philosophy, physical life, and to a large extent, human developed religion, without regard for the supernatural relationship between humanity and the one true God discovered in the Bible.
Man’s way of thinking vs God’s way of thinking
Proverbs 14:12 states: There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.
Proverbs16:2 All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the spirit.
Proverbs14, v 26-26 teaches a repeated theme that stresses reliance on “fear of God” and reliance in His wisdom:
In the fear of the Lord one has strong confidence, and his children will have a refuge.
27 The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, that one may turn away from the snares of death.
The reasons for such proclamations are related to our origins.
In Genesis 1:26 God states: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.“
Some people consider the first chapters of Genesis poetry. Some give it credit for historical relevance. After studying the Bible as a whole, I can read Genesis 1:26 and it simply makes sense. The Bible supports the claims that humans are made in God’s image and involved at conception.
From a Psalm of David, “For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made [set apart]” – Psalm 139: 13-14
Therefore, when we go through life without regards for the Creator, it’s as if we go through life without regards for our Father, the one who knows you better than anyone one else could possibly know you.
God’s fundamental characteristic is good and He intimately knows about suffering, including your suffering. In case you were afraid to approach such a Creator being.
God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners – Romans 5:8
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. – James 1:17
As long as you continue to give more of your “faith”, “respect” and “worship” to the things of the world more than to God, you will not find the fullness of God’s grace.
There is such a thing as “Common Grace” those blessings which fall on the just and unjust. Without common grace, everyone’s life would suffer, and it is not inconceivable that life could end immediately. You can imagine that everything we take for granted, including God’s ability to hold celestial objects in their orbits and God’s patience with our self-righteousness and idolatry, would fall under common grace.
We should be quick to realize, however, that justice demands judgment, deep in our beings, having been made in the image of God, we have a deep set expectation that evil must be judged and punished – how futile life would be if that were not the case. Caution is advised since we have a tendency to grossly over estimate our standards of what good is. Our behavior and our thought patterns, do not come anywhere close to the moral excellence of God.
Reminder note: Idolatry is believing in an imaginary, non-Scriptural version of a God, or a God of your own making, particularly creating one that condones the sins you refuse to repent from.
Jesus said to [Phillip His disciple], “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? – John 14:9
It is through the Bible where we can read of God’s revelations of who He is and what He is like. the Bible includes the supernatural prophecies foretelling the life of Christ and the historical narratives of Jesus’s ministry that provides us the fullest picture of who God is. Jesus confirmed the importance of the Old Testament and that He was a fulfillment of God’s promise of providing the way to defeat sin and death.
If you choose to believe in a power that contradicts the one revealed in the Bible, you ought to at the very least be cognizant of the evidence supporting your belief. The Bible is full of evidence of who God and who Christ is. The evidences that Christ lived an unparalleled life, spoke truth, and predictively rose from the dead in bodily form appearing to many are deserving of your attention. In other words, you ought not to rely merely on wishful or hopeful thinking only to realize when it is too late that what you believe is actually a parachute without a harness.
What does it mean then, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”? – John 3:16
This is truly an astonishing statement of Truth, that God so loved the “world”. While God did create the earth and all things in it and called them “good” (Genesis 1), and then created Man and Woman in God’s image, looking at everything, declared it all very good. Then the Fall of Man occurred and evil erupted and permeated throughout what is then commonly referred to as “the world”. I cannot say offhand that every reference to the “world” is not good but it is clear: That which is of the world is at enmity with God. The world includes all that is contained within our self-righteousness, self-pride, and all the downright evil machinations that most of us acknowledge deserves judgment and of which we are all capable of without restraint.
Yet an amazing truth stands out through the Bible’s message of Salvation by Grace: God so loved us, while we were all yet His enemies, He sent His only Son to live, suffer and die for us, the only righteous One who could possibly act as a propitiation for our sins (because He was without sin) to restore the right relationship between us and God. God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us – Romans 5:8
Our Creator knows us better than we can know ourselves. He knows we cannot achieve righteousness without His help. Seek to understand the Gospel message of salvation, it comes undergirded by His with wisdom, kindness, mercy, love and compassion.
God is able to speak to you through all people, saved by God or unsaved by God, through circumstances, and nature, attempting to appeal to your senses, your rational, and your conscience.
Christians, having received God’s gift should always be making efforts study God’s word through the Bible, to help others, and to spread the Gospel message, while living a life of turning away from sin.
It is also true that what we see in our experiences in this world a mixture of good, beauty, and truth, we even see these qualities within ourselves, but we need to understand that the evil which we are all capable of, that which is terribly easy for us to see in others, that propensity for evil starts from within each of us. To deny the reality of our sinful nature results in self-righteousness and remains a barrier to many who are unable to be contrite about their sins against a holy, righteous, and just Creator.
God knows us so well that if He left the security of our salvation up to us, we would royally screw it up. Therefore, in His wisdom and mercy, He provides us His own security as Jesus taught: 15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you – John 14:15-17
“…to be with you forever“, Jesus taught that. He didn’t say, “forever, UNLESS [this or that, or some worldly condition that would make the Lord of Creation sound like a minor bureaucrat). The Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God said once He has you, it is forever. That means forever.
Also note in this passage “…even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him“. So it’s just no surprise that non-believers don’t get it… until they get it… if they get it.
It gets very personal: “You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.” As part of being Justified (saved by faith in God’s grace) God provides those born again with the Helper (God in the form of the Holy Spirit), sort of like a spiritual driver for the bus headed to the Promised Land, you will not be lost despite the world’s constant efforts to derail you.
Love never ends. – 1 Corinthians 13:8
Have you discovered the goodness of God? Are you ready for the saving Grace of God through Jesus Christ?
For a detailed explanation of who Jesus Christ is from the Bible’s perspective go to the video in this website , “Who is Jesus Christ?”
For a one minute explanation of the Gospel, watch this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCP9UcC7BzE
For a review of the Ten Commandments: https://www.challenyee.com/the-ten-commandments/
CKY
P.S. Typos and all, I do not use AI.
Sunset photo in Hawaii (Maui) is from my personal stock.