What evangelicals get right—and wrong—about our faith

This Wall Street Journal headline caused me to click immediately: “Will There Be a Trump Recession?” The subtitle adds: “Economic signs are mixed, but his willy-nilly tariffs have markets worried.”

Fears of a recession sparked a major sell-off Monday, as the Dow dropped nearly nine hundred points. This after President Trump declined over the weekend to rule out a recession this year (though he stated yesterday that he did not foresee the US going into recession).

After Ontario imposed a 25 percent tariff on electricity sold to the US, Mr. Trump said he would double tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Canada yesterday to 50 percent. The provincial government of Ontario then backed down on its planned surcharges. The Dow careened through the day, rising before finally falling 478 points.

Today, the president imposed a sweeping 25 percent tariff on all steel and aluminum imports to encourage more companies to move their production to the US. The European Union retaliated this morning with new duties on US industrial and farm products.

All this amid worries that American consumers, whose spending is vital to the US economy, may be maxed out. With a shutdown looming if the Senate does not approve the GOP government funding measure passed by the House yesterday, economic uncertainties abound.

Asking your car to fly to Hawaii

As I noted yesterday, we live in a world changed in every aspect by the COVID–19 pandemic. One example: the US economy fell abruptly when the pandemic hit, but has since recovered these losses and ushered in a new era of growth.

However, such growth is no longer tethered to consumer sentiment. The two were largely aligned before 2020; now they are widely divergent. Amid widespread discouragement and pessimism, the US stands today at an all-time low ranking in the World Happiness Report.

Christians should not be surprised.

We know that “he who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income” (Ecclesiastes 5:10). To the contrary, “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils” (1 Timothy 6:10). It is idolatrous folly to expect created things to take the place of the Creator in our lives.

By contrast, we know that the “abundant” life we were created to experience is found only in Christ (John 10:10). Asking for material prosperity to make us happy is like asking your car to fly you to Hawaii. That’s not what it was made to do.

Leaving your baby at the hospital

However, the fact that our secular culture doesn’t understand this is not the fault of our secular culture. People don’t know what they don’t know. I could have cancer right now and be unaware of the fact. Consequently, I am not pursuing treatment for a disease I do not know I have.

But if my doctor knows my condition and doesn’t tell me, who is at fault—him or me?

Here is what evangelical Christians get right: We know that salvation is found only through faith in Christ (cf. John 3:18; 14:6; Acts 4:12). But here’s what many evangelicals get wrong: We lead people to trust in Christ as their Savior, but take them no further.

This is like parents who bring a child into the world and then leave it at the hospital. The “new birth” is only the beginning of the Christian life. Jesus wants us not only to be saved from hell but to experience the transformation only he can make in our lives.

He did not call people to be “believers” but “disciples,” consistently inviting them to “follow me” (Matthew 4:19; 8:22; 9:9; 16:24; 19:21). The Greek means to “walk with me, going where I go.” It describes not just a “decision for Christ” but a lifetime of experiencing him in an intimate, transforming way.

“By this my Father is glorified”

Our Lord was clear: “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples” (John 8:31). To “abide” is to remain, to think and act biblically in all we do. This is the daily, holistic decision to make Christ the Lord of every dimension of our lives, using all we have and are for him. Accordingly, he said, “Any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:33).

When we experience the living Lord Jesus in this way, our lives demonstrate our faith: “By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples” (John 15:8). We love others as we are loved: “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).

We are commissioned to “make disciples of all nations” by “baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19–20, my emphasis).

Imagine the difference if every Christian lived by all that Christ commanded us.

“A disciple is not above his teacher”

Now we have a choice to make. We can disregard the last two sections of this article and seek secular happiness along with the rest of our secular culture. But beware: Such a decision is a deliberate rejection of Jesus’ clear will for us, one made in the misguided belief that we know better than he does.

Our Lord stated, “A disciple is not above his teacher” (Luke 6:40a). We cannot choose our will above his and claim to be his disciple. It’s that simple.

However, Jesus added that “everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher” (v. 40b, my emphasis). When we walk with Jesus, we become like Jesus as his Spirit sanctifies us (2 Thessalonians 2:13) and conforms us to the character of Christ (Romans 8:29).

The result is that we fulfill our name as “Christians”—literally, “followers of Christ.” Not believers—followers. And followers of Jesus always change their world (cf. Acts 17:6).

Alan Redpath was right:

“All of the Lord Jesus Christ is mine at the moment of conversion, but I possess only as much of him as by faith I claim.”

How much of Jesus will you “claim” today?

NOTE: I often write articles for our website during the day on breaking news and current events. I encourage you to visit the website daily for more content from me and our writing team.

Quote for the day:

“Till sin be bitter, Christ will not be sweet.” —Thomas Watson (1620–86)

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Denison Forum

“We’re living in the branch of history it created”

Five years ago today, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic.

Just reading that sentence brings back horrible memories for me, as I’m sure it does for you. Images of portable morgues, patients dying alone in isolation wards, people masking out of fear of everyone they meet. It seemed nearly everything was shut down, from restaurants and businesses to schools and churches. No one knew when a vaccine would arrive, assuming one could be developed.

More than seven million people are confirmed to have died from the virus, though some estimates suggest the pandemic has actually caused between nineteen and thirty-six million deaths worldwide.

But these numbers, as horrific as they are, don’t begin to tell the whole story.

 “It shattered our cities and disordered society”

According to New York Times columnist David Wallace-Wells, we’re living in the “branch of history” the pandemic created, one whose “contours are only now coming into view.” He writes: “We tell ourselves we’ve moved on and hardly talk about the disease or all the people who died or the way the trauma and tumult have transformed us. But Covid changed everything around us.”

Among the changes he lists, I found these especially relevant for today’s article:

• “It turned us into hyperindividualists” in response to a tragedy so unthinkable and massive, we learned to process it through the lens of personal experience—and still do.
• “It inaugurated a new age of social Darwinism” as the survivors credit themselves and blame others for the crisis.
• “It broke our faith in public health” as debates erupted (and continue) over vaccines, masking, and the credibility of health officials.
• “It shattered our cities and disordered society”—homicides jumped nearly 30 percent in just a single year, homelessness surged, and drinking problems escalated, as did drug overdoses and traffic accident deaths. Many of these effects were temporary, but the politics of crime and disorder persist.

Wallace-Wells concludes: “Perhaps the biggest shock was realizing we still live in history—and at the mercy of biology.” Foreign Policy agrees, warning that “the status quo won’t save us from the next pandemic” and urging immediate steps to construct a global system for responding more effectively to future pandemic threats.

Saying more prayers is not the answer

While political leaders and public health officials will be on the front lines of the next pandemic, you and I are on the front lines of culture now. There is only one answer to our hyperindividualism, social Darwinism, broken faith in leaders, and shattered and disordered society.

It is not a revival of religion, though Wallace-Wells notes that the pandemic “may have halted the years-long decline of Christianity in America.” The cultural Christianity that passes for religion in our secularized society is no match for biology and the disasters it produces in our fallen world.

You may be surprised to hear me say this, but being more religious—going to more church services, reading more Bible texts, and saying more prayers—is not the answer in itself. Nor will the anodyne and customized “spirituality” of our day meet the moment.

Instead, we need what humans have always needed.

“Why do you seek the living among the dead?”

Luke 24 tells us that a group of women went to Jesus’ tomb “on the first day of the week,” where they were shocked to find it empty (vv. 1–3). Then two angels met them, asking: “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” (v. 5).

This is such a powerful question still today.

We “seek the living among the dead” whenever we treat Jesus as anything or anyone other than our living Lord. When he is an idea, a theology, a model, or a movement, he is as dead as if he were Buddha or Muhammad. When we seek and encounter him as a living person, only then do we experience the strength, wisdom, and peace he alone can give us amid the crises we face.

The problem is that it’s hard in our materialistic culture to seek that which must be known through faith rather than through experience. We understand cemeteries, not resurrections. We’re comfortable with theology, less with Theo.

But when we meet the living Lord for ourselves, as two men did later that first Easter Sunday, we hear his word to us (v. 27). We experience his presence in prayer and worship (v. 30). Then our eyes are “opened” and our “hearts burn within us” (vv. 31–32). And we are compelled to tell others what we have experienced (vv. 33–35), so they can experience him as well (vv. 36–49).

And a religion about Jesus becomes a transforming relationship with him.

God is “able to make all grace abound to you”

This is a day to remember the millions who died from the pandemic and the multiplied millions who still grieve their loss. It is a day to pray for our leaders and public health officials in the assumption that more pandemics are in our future.

And it is a day to seek a deeper, more intimate relationship with the living Lord Jesus than we have ever known. Why?

• He is “able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20).
• He is “able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work” (2 Corinthians 9:8).
• He is “able to help those who are being tempted” (Hebrews 2:18).
• He is “able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25).
• He is “able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy” (Jude 24).

In short, as Paul testified, “he is able” (2 Timothy 1:12).

Where would you say you are on your faith journey with him today?

NOTE: I frequently write articles for our website on breaking news and current events. I invite you to visit our website daily for more content from me and our writing team.

Quote for today:

“How wonderful to know that Christianity is more than a padded pew or a dim cathedral, but that it is a real, living, daily experience which goes on from grace to grace.” —Jim Elliot

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Denison Forum