“This is one of the best days of my life. I feel like I might be dreaming or something. I thought my life was over. I will remember this day for a long time. You don’t know how much I appreciate this . . . you really don’t know.” This is how a one-hundred-year-old veteran thanked a stranger named Isaiah Garza for taking him to Disneyland.

A now-viral video posted to TikTok shows Garza approaching the elderly man (after coordinating with the man’s caregiver) to say, “I’m sorry to bother you, but I’ve had a really rough day. Do you want to go to Disneyland with me today?” The man was shocked but delighted. Garza told a reporter later, “First we went on the tea cups and it was his first ride in like fifty years and then It’s a Small World and sang it together like fifty times it was so cute.”

Garza captioned part of the video: “Became best friends for the day.”

“The nicest place on the internet”

Unsurprisingly, Harvard University reports that “loneliness appears to have increased substantially since the outbreak of the global pandemic.” More than half of all US adults are considered to be lonely; young adults are twice as likely to be lonely than seniors.

In response, a website calling itself “the nicest place on the internet” will give you a virtual hug. Social media offers unprecedented virtual community. But we need community that is more than virtual.

What God said of Adam is true of us all: “It is not good that the man should be alone” (Genesis 2:18). You and I were made in the image and likeness of the God (Genesis 1:27) of triune community (2 Corinthians 13:14) who created us to love him and to love each other (Matthew 22:37–39).

As we close our weeklong focus on our status as the children of God, let’s focus on this fact: if you are a child of God, you are part of the family of God. The community he offers you and offers the world through you is a gift no one else in the world can give. It is a gift we were created to need. It is a gift that makes the church uniquely relevant to our fractured culture.

It is a gift you are invited to embrace and to share for an especially urgent reason today.

“The source of order in man and society”

Gnosticism (from the Greek word for knowledge) was a second-century heresy that believed humans can save themselves from this evil material world through a special type of knowledge of the divine mysteries. However, this knowledge was reserved only for an elite group who claimed to understand what others did not.

Eric Voegelin was a German-American political philosopher. In The New Science of Politics: An Introduction, he used this ancient concept to describe the rising secularism of Western culture: “The more fervently all human energies are thrown into the great enterprise of salvation through world-immanent action, the farther the human beings who engage in this enterprise move away from the life of the spirit. And since the life of the spirit is the source of order in man and society, the very success of a Gnostic civilization is the cause of its decline.”

Let me recast his crucial insight in a current context: Like the ancient Gnostics, a group of cultural elites is convinced they can bring about the “salvation” of society through secular progressivism. However, “the life of the spirit” stands in the way of their secular utopia. As a result, they employ LGBTQ ideology, abortion activism, and other unbiblical causes to expose and condemn the “discrimination” inherent in Christian orthodoxy and thus free society for radical individual “authenticity.”

Here’s their problem: as Voegelin notes, the “life of the spirit is the source of order in man and society.” Consequently, the disintegration of our social unity, escalation of crime, and epidemic of sexual immorality we are witnessing today are inevitable results of their secularist agenda.

“The final word in reality”

Voegelin’s thesis explains why it can be difficult for evangelical Christians to reach cultural “Gnostics” and those they represent: they are foundationally convinced that they understand what we do not. They are certain either that the Bible is wrong on the cultural issues of our day or that we are wrongly interpreting it. Either way, they have no interest in rational dialogue or personal engagement with people they consider dangerous to society.

How, then, are we to reach them and those they influence with God’s word and grace?

Here is where today’s focus on community is so relevant. Every person who has ever lived was created for authentic, life-giving relationship with others. However, from Cain and Abel to yesterday’s shooting in Raleigh, North Carolina, that left five people dead, sin disrupts and corrupts these relationships. Secularism has no solution for sin; it can try to legislate against its symptoms, but it cannot reach their source.

As the Christian psychiatrist and author Curt Thompson notes: We have to change our lives if we want our lives to change.

You and I are called to “have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind” (1 Peter 3:8). Then, we are to extend this community to our critics: “Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called” (v. 9). When we experience such grace with each other and offer it to the world, the “God-shaped emptiness” in every soul is drawn to the Source of our love.

On this day in 1964, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. won the Nobel Peace Prize. In his acceptance speech, he proclaimed: “I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.”

Let’s speak that word into reality today, to the glory of God.

Denison Forum

Former Hawaii Representative and 2020 presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard is leaving the Democratic Party, which she denounced as an “elitist cabal of warmongers.” Her announcement reminds us of Ronald Reagan’s famous statement, “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party. The party left me.”

As the leader of a nonpartisan ministry, my intention today is not to criticize the Democratic Party. To the contrary, politicians leaving the Republican Party would make the same point I wish to emphasize: in the eyes of the world, we are what we do. George Eliot was right: “Just as we define our actions, our actions define us.”

What politicians and political parties do over time defines them far more effectively than platforms adopted at conventions or speeches made at rallies. The same principle applies to the rest of us, as Michael J. Fox noted: “Our challenges don’t define us, our actions do.”

This fact was reinforced for me when I saw the tragic news that American Idol Season 19 runner-up Willie Spence died Tuesday in a car accident at the age of twenty-three. Just hours before the fatal crash, he posted a video of himself singing a worship song.

When I read the story, this question came to mind: Would you do what you are about to do if you knew it would be the last thing you would do?

Do Christians only care about stopping abortions?

You may have seen ads created by the “He Gets Us” campaign, a $100 million effort to bridge the gap between the story of Jesus and the public perception of his followers. The campaign is based on market research showing that while many Americans like Jesus, they are skeptical of his followers.

The research split Americans into four categories: non-Christians (16 percent of the sample), people who are “spiritually open” (20 percent), “Jesus followers” (34 percent), and “engaged Christians” (30 percent). It revealed a large gap between the first three groups and the last.

For example, more than two-thirds of those in the first three categories agreed when asked: “Followers of Jesus say one thing, but do not follow those things in practice.” Only 5 percent of the “engaged Christians” agreed. Most in the first three categories also agreed that Christians only care about stopping abortions rather than caring for moms and their children; only 6 percent of the “engaged Christians” agreed.

Mayor helps family escape before train hits vehicle

We have focused this week on our status as the children of God and its implications for our lives and faith. Today, let’s consider this fact: people judge our Father by his children. When we are loving, kind, and compassionate, they are more likely to think the same of our Lord. When we are hateful and condemning, they are likely to see our Lord in the same way.

God’s word is clear: “Whoever says he abides in [Christ] ought to walk in the same way in which he walked” (1 John 2:6). Jesus taught us: “By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples” (John 15:8).

This is because we were “created in Christ Jesus for good works” (Ephesians 2:10). As a result, we are instructed, “Let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth” (1 John 3:18). Paul warned of those who “profess to know God, but they deny him by their works” (Titus 1:16). Conversely, Scripture admonishes us, “Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves” (James 1:22).

Let’s consider an example.

Eddie Daniels is the mayor of Vienna, Georgia, a town of four thousand residents. He was on his way to work Saturday morning when he saw an SUV stalled on railroad tracks with a train fast approaching.

“I couldn’t let those babies sit there and get slaughtered by a train,” he told reporters later. He helped the mom out of the vehicle, then rescued a three-year-old and a one-year-old from the back seat. He was helping a six-year-old when the train hit the vehicle.

He managed to get the child out, but Daniels has a broken ankle and eight stitches in his head as a result. “I’m out here just doing God’s work,” he said. “That’s what we’re supposed to do. And they told me I was a hero. I said I don’t feel like a hero, just feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to do, what the people elected me to do.”

Would you predict he’ll be elected again?

“You are my hiding place”

The British explorer Freya Stark observed, “There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do.” She was right, not only about us but about those we influence as well.

As the children of God, our every word and action reflect on our Father for good or for ill. Jesus told his followers, “You will be my witnesses” (Acts 1:8); some of us are effective witnesses, some of us are not, but each of us is called to the stand every day.

A postmodern culture that measures truth by relevance will measure the truth of our faith by the relevance of our lives. So I’ll ask again, for God’s glory and the advancement of his kingdom: Would you do what you are about to do if you knew it would be the last thing you would do?

I suspect Willie Spence’s answer on Tuesday would have been yes. Here are the lyrics he sang for the world before he left it for his home in heaven:

You are my hiding place
You always fill my heart
With songs of deliverance
Whenever I am afraid.

I will trust in You
I will trust in You
Let the weak say I am strong
In the strength of the Lord
I will trust in You.

What song will you sing for God’s glory today?

Denison Forum

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called courage “the power of the mind to overcome fear.” Courage by definition requires adversity. Where there are no challenges, there is no need for courage.

Seen in this light, we have many opportunities for courage in today’s news.

We could focus on the economy: The Dow Jones closed yesterday up thirty-six points but down nearly twenty percent for the year. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon is predicting that the US economy will fall into a recession in the next six to nine months. The World Bank is warning of the threat of a global recession next year. There’s even bad news in the good news: Online holiday discounts could reach record highs, but inflation will cut into spending.

We could talk about geopolitics: North Korea confirmed that its recent barrage of missile launches was the simulated use of nuclear weapons to “hit and wipe out” potential South Korean and US targets. As Russia continued missile strikes against Ukrainian civilians, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky renewed his plea for increased military assistance yesterday at an emergency meeting of the Group of Seven leading industrial nations.

This comes after pro-Russian hackers attacked the websites of several major airports in the US this week, another reminder that cybersecurity threats are an urgent security issue for our nation and the world.

And yesterday was National Coming Out Day, which was launched in 1988 as part of a strategy to normalize LGBTQ activity so it could be legalized, opponents could be stigmatized, and opposition could ultimately be criminalized.

Teacher fired for raising concerns over a book

As we noted yesterday, this strategy is working well in Australia, where a CEO was forced to resign after one day because of his membership in a church that affirms biblical sexuality. Closer to home, a substitute teacher in Georgia was fired from her job after she expressed her concern as a parent over the content of a book in the school library.

The book depicts same-sex couples taking their children to school and two lesbian mothers, one of whom is pregnant. The mother spoke with her six-year-old son’s teacher and asked that he not be part of the story time where the book was to be read. The teacher said that would not be a problem.

The next day, she expressed her concerns over the book with the school’s principal, explaining that she and her husband would like to be the ones to talk with their children about issues such as same-sex marriage, rather than the school. She made clear that she was not asking for the book to be removed, only that her children not be exposed to its content. The principal agreed.

Soon thereafter, the teacher learned that she would no longer be allowed to teach in the school district, as the principal was concerned about her bias “against same-sex couples.” Even though she explained that she expressed her concerns as a mother, not as an employee of the school district, her employment was terminated.

“The stronger the emphasis, the fewer the Christians”

We have focused this week on positive factors inherent in our status as the children of God. Today we need to consider the other side: Those who oppose our Father will oppose his children. Anyone who rejects God’s word will reject those who embrace God’s word.

Jesus warned us: “If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you” (John 15:20). Scripture is clear: “All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Timothy 3:12, my emphasis).

The cost of following Jesus has always made it hard for the masses to follow Jesus.

The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard observed: “The imitation of Christ is really the point at which the human race shrinks. The main difficulty lies here; here is where it is really decided whether or not one is willing to accept Christianity. If there is emphasis on this point, the stronger the emphasis, the fewer the Christians. If there is scaling down at this point (so that Christianity becomes, intellectually, a doctrine), more people enter into Christianity.

“If it is abolished completely (so that Christianity becomes, existentially, as easy as mythology and poetry and imitation an exaggeration, a ludicrous exaggeration), then Christianity spreads to such a degree that Christendom and the world are almost indistinguishable; or all become Christians; Christianity has complete conquered—that is, it is abolished!”

“By the power of the Spirit of God”

The good news is that the Holy Spirit who resides in every true child of God will give us the courage and perseverance we need to imitate Jesus as a true disciple of our Lord. He will empower us to be witnesses for our Lord where we live and around the world (Acts 1:8). We will be able to say with Paul, “by the power of the Spirit of God . . . I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ” (Romans 15:19).

In fact, if we are not living “abundantly” (John 10:10) as “more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37), we should ask why.

Oswald Chambers warned us: “We can remain powerless forever . . . by trying to do God’s work without concentrating on his power, and by following instead the ideas that we draw from our own nature. We actually slander and dishonor God by our very eagerness to serve him without knowing him.”

Asked negatively: Is something keeping you from experiencing his supernatural power? A temptation or sin with which you are struggling? A person you need to forgive or someone from whom you need to seek forgiveness? A difficult next step of obedience?

Asked positively: Are you serving Jesus “with all his energy that he powerfully works” in you (Colossians 1:29)? As a result, are you sharing your faith confidently and courageously? Do others know that you know Jesus?

When the Sanhedrin “saw the boldness of Peter and John . . . they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13).

Let’s astonish our lost culture today, to the glory of God.

Denison Forum