Jason Bradley DeFord is known professionally as Jelly Roll. His song “Son of a Sinner” won three Country Music Television awards in 2023. The same year, he won the award for New Artist at the Country Music Association Awards. He has also made news for his weight loss of nearly three hundred pounds and was recently inducted into the Grand Ole Opry.

But his life story is even more striking than his musical talent.

He was baptized at the age of fourteen, but says around that time he began “dabbling” in drugs and stopped attending church. From his teenage years into his twenties, he was arrested numerous times and spent time in jail for felonies. He returned to his faith when he was thirty-nine and his fourteen-year-old daughter expressed an interest in being baptized.

During his recent conversation on Joe Rogan’s podcast, Rogan said to him, “You’re a totally new human being.” He replied, “You know what’s crazy? I don’t want to get super spiritual out of the gate, but I will because I think God wants me to right now because [of] you saying that.”

The singer explained: “There’s a Scripture in the Bible that says in Christ all things are a new creation, which I thought was interesting because it didn’t talk about restoring the old. It says that in God we are a completely new creation. You know what I mean? I was looking at it at first like I’m restoring my heart. But then, when you’re saying that, I’m like, ‘No, I didn’t restore my heart. I got a whole new heart,’” he said. “This is a brand new heart, Joe. You know what I mean? It might be cloaked as the old one, but God touched it. It’s a whole new heart, baby. It’s a different heart.”

Our greatest challenge and greatest hope

When I began teaching apologetics forty years ago, the question was, “Is Christianity true?” I taught my seminary students to defend the faith using evidence for God’s existence, the veracity of Scripture, the deity of Jesus, and so on.

In today’s postmodern, post-truth culture, the question is, “Why should I make your truth my truth?” In a day when user reviews are the currency of commerce, where people want to know if a particular technology or truth worked for those who tried it, the evidence most needed today is changed lives.

Here is where Christianity faces its greatest challenge and offers its greatest hope.

Our challenge is that Christians are supposed to live like Christ. We are intended to manifest his character in our world (Galatians 5:22–23) and his light in our darkness (Matthew 5:14–16), to be holy as he is holy (1 Peter 1:16). When we fail to live up to our truth claims, secular people understandably reject the relevance of our beliefs for their lives.

But this fact also leads to our greatest hope.

As Jelly Roll said, Jesus doesn’t restore your old heart—he gives you a new heart. He takes up residence in your life by his Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:16). As Paul said, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). It is “Christ in you” that is our “hope of glory” (Colossians 1:16).

Other religions try to help us do better—Jesus empowers us to be better.

“Take every thought captive to obey Christ”

Today begins the “seven antiphons of Advent.”

From December 17^th to December 23^rd, Christians around the world will focus on seven proclamations about Jesus as the Messiah. This practice goes back at least to the eighth century and perhaps even earlier than the sixth. These antiphons (short responses sung or recited in church services) are also the basis for the beloved hymn, “O Come, O Come, Emanuel.”

The first, being recited today in worship services, prays in English:

O Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High, reaching from one end to the other, mightily and sweetly ordering all things: Come and teach us the way of prudence.

We are right to seek such Wisdom. Apart from Christ, our finite, fallen minds are “darkened in their understanding” (Ephesians 4:18). We can be taken “captive” by “empty deceit” (Colossians 2:8) and “led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:3).

However, the good news is that you and I have “divine power to destroy strongholds” so that we can “destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). But this “divine power” is not within our human capacity: “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lᴏʀᴅ of hosts” (Zechariah 4:6).

Jesus promised that the Spirit “will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (John 14:26). This is just one way he gives us a “new heart” as we are “transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Romans 12:2).

Four steps to transforming wisdom

How does this work in practical terms?

One: Trust in Christ as your personal Savior and Lord (John 1:12). I never want to assume that people who do religious things such as reading (or writing) articles like this one are therefore “born again” as God’s children. If you’re not sure about your salvation experience, I encourage you to read my article, “Why Jesus?” and speak to a pastor or Christian friend about your relationship with Christ.

Two: Submit your mind and life every day to the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 5:18). This is a conscious decision to surrender your thoughts, motives, and plans to him. Then stay connected with the Spirit as you pray through your day, seeking his wisdom and direction as you walk in his presence.

Three: Name your decision or challenge and seek the Spirit’s guidance. Partner with him by consulting Scripture, speaking with Christian friends, and reading trusted literature. Know that God wants you to know his will even more than you do: “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him” (James 1:5).

Four: Share God’s word with your world (Romans 1:16). One of the best ways to learn is to teach. When we seek and speak biblical truth to the issues of our day, we grow in wisdom as instruments of wisdom.

The Scottish scientist and evangelist Henry Drummond observed:

“Willpower does not change men. Time does not change men. Christ does.”

How will Christ change your heart today?

Quote for the day:

“No mind, no wisdom; temporary mind, temporary wisdom; eternal mind, eternal wisdom.” —Adoniram Judson

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Denison Forum

“Ahmed was driven by his sentiment, conscience, and humanity.” This is how the father of a “hero” who responded to the Hanukkah massacre in Australia explained his son’s actions.

Ahmed al Ahmed’s father told the BBC that his son “saw the victims, the blood, women and children lying on the street, and then acted.” Video shows Ahmed running at the gunman, seizing his weapon, turning the gun around on him, and forcing his retreat. Ahmed was then shot multiple times and has undergone surgery for his wounds.

New South Wales Premiere Chris Minns said of Ahmed, “His incredible bravery no doubt saved countless lives when he disarmed a terrorist at enormous personal risk.” He added, “There is no doubt that more lives would have been lost if not for Ahmed’s selfless courage.” President Trump agreed, calling Ahmed “a very, very brave person” who “saved a lot of lives.”

Ironically, the people saved by Ahmed’s courage will likely go the rest of their lives without knowing it. Unless they could somehow know what the shooter would have done apart from Ahmed’s intervention, they cannot know that they would have been injured or killed if he had not acted with such selfless courage.

By contrast, Larisa Kleytman will go the rest of her life knowing that she was spared by the selfless courage of her husband. Alex Kleytman was a Holocaust survivor. He and his wife of five decades were visiting Sydney’s Bondi Beach to celebrate Hanukkah when the shooting erupted, and he was shot to death as he shielded his wife. “I think he was shot because he raised himself up to protect me,” Larisa said.

A threat that threatens us all

If you’re not Jewish, you may be thinking that such heroism, while obviously commendable, is less than relevant to you personally. The rise of antisemitism in Australia, while horrific and tragic, can feel remote to non-Jews in America.

But know this: to an Islamist, every person who lives in a nation perceived to support Israel is a potential victim of Islamist terrorism.

As I explained in my book Radical Islam: What You Need to Know and on our website, jihadists believe that the West has been attacking Islam since the Crusades and especially by supporting Israel, a nation seen as “stealing” its land from its rightful Palestinian owners. They also believe that because the West is comprised of democracies where the people elect their leaders and support their military, we are all complicit in this “attack” on Islam.

Since the Qur’an requires Muslims to defend Islam (cf. Surah 2:190), jihadists believe they are required to attack those in the West in order to defend the Muslim faith and people. As a result, what happened in Israel on October 7 and in Australia on December 14 could happen where you and I live today.

The year began with jihadist terrorism when an attacker displaying an Islamic State flag rammed his vehicle into a crowd in New Orleans last New Year’s Day, killing at least fifteen people. It is ending on the same tragic theme:

• Three Moroccans, an Egyptian, and a Syrian were detained last Friday over a plan to drive a vehicle into people at a Christmas market in Germany. Authorities suspect an “Islamist motive” behind the plot.
• The shooter who ambushed US and Syrian troops last Saturday, killing two American soldiers and one civilian working as an interpreter, is believed to have been an Islamic State infiltrator working as part of a local security force.
• Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said this morning that the gunmen who perpetrated the Hanukkah massacre were “motivated by “Islamic State ideology.”

This is a threat that threatens us all.

What Christians can do that no one else can

Responding to this burgeoning danger will require courage.

You and I may not be required to attack an attacker to wrest their rifle from them or shield a loved one and die in their place. But we have platforms of influence we can use to condemn the scourge of antisemitism rising in our time. We can support our Jewish friends with our personal encouragement and engagement. We can befriend local Jewish leaders and congregations and encourage our churches and other networks to do the same.

These are all steps anyone can take who has the character and courage to do so.

In addition, however, Christians can respond to this threat as no one else can.

The Apostle Paul described his former life: “I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it” (Galatians 1:13; cf. 1 Corinthians 15:9). Specifically, he was “breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord” when he sought the authority to arrest Christians in Damascus and “bring them bound to Jerusalem” (Acts 9:1–2). In this way, being “exceedingly enraged against them” (Acts 26:11 NKJV), he said, “I persecuted this Way to the death” (Acts 22:4).

But you know what happened to him on the road to Damascus. Now we can pray for our Lord to do the same in the hearts of jihadists around the world. Such intercession is a response no one else can or will make.

The next time we hear about a jihadist attack

What Jesus did to transform Saul of Tarsus, he can do to transform any jihadist terrorist anywhere in the world.

He is already appearing to Muslims around the globe in visions and dreams, sparking a remarkable spiritual awakening in the Islamic world. As the noted author and Middle East expert Joel Rosenberg reports, more Muslims have come to faith in Christ in the last half-century than in the last fourteen centuries combined. My dear friends Tom and JoAnn Doyle have documented this movement and experience it regularly in their miraculous ministry.

So, the next time we hear about an Islamist attack, let’s intercede for the victims, of course. But let’s also stop to pray for the attacker to come to Christ. Let’s pray for Jesus to reveal himself to this person in dreams and through believers. Let’s pray for Christians in the Muslim world to use their influence to demonstrate the “fruit of the Spirit” and otherwise manifest the presence of Christ.

And let’s pray for God to redeem the global crisis of antisemitism and jihadist terrorism by bringing millions to faith in his Son.

If Jesus could come at Christmas, I believe he can come again into any heart and life.

Do you agree?

Quote for the day:

“To have courage for whatever comes in life, everything lies in that.” —St. Teresa of Avila

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Denison Forum

Iconic actor and director Rob Reiner first came to fame for his role as Archie Bunker’s liberal son-in-law “Meathead” in All In the Family. Beginning in the 1980s, he established himself as a director of numerous successful Hollywood films, including This Is Spinal Tap, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally, A Few Good Men, and The American President.

This morning, news began breaking that he and his wife, Michele, had been found dead in their Los Angeles home. The couple was found stabbed to death Sunday in an apparent homicide, according to police.

Now we are learning that their son, Nick Reiner, was arrested Sunday night in connection with the deaths of his parents. He is being held in a jail in Los Angeles County on $4 million bail. At this writing, no information about criminal charges has been made available. However, People magazine is reporting that the Reiners were killed by their son, though police have not confirmed this account.

Nick Reiner, age thirty-two, has spoken openly over the years about his struggles with drug abuse and bouts of homelessness. He and his father worked together on a movie, Being Charlie, which was loosely inspired by his early life. Rob Reiner directed, while his son wrote the screenplay alongside a person he met in rehab.

Why I disagreed with Rob Reiner

My wife and I happened to watch When Harry Met Sally again the other night. Afterwards, we discussed how effectively the movie normalizes sex outside of marriage.

The two characters, played so winsomely by Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan, sleep with any number of people while never marrying any of them (except each other at the end of the movie, of course). Rob Reiner’s film is so humorous and likable that you find yourself glad for the couple when they find happiness in their unbiblical relationship.

I disagreed with Mr. Reiner on numerous cultural and moral issues. He was a well-known advocate for same-sex marriage, for example, among other liberal causes. And many of his movies portrayed sexual immorality in ways that normalized and popularized it.

In addition, he made clear that he didn’t “believe in organized religion,” though he appreciated “a lot of the concepts of Buddhism.” He explained:

I’m not practicing anything, but those things make sense because it’s all about how you find spirituality inside you and how you treat others. It’s all about finding meaning. That’s what life is all about.

At the same time, I am of course horrified by the news of his death and that of his wife. If their son does turn out to be involved in their murder, this will be an even more tragic story.

And I’ve been thinking about my reaction to the news of his death. Upon reflection, I believe there is a factor here that transcends Mr. Reiner and the news of the day, whatever it is.

“Jesus shows his love for us”

Jesus loved the “rich young ruler,” even knowing that the man would reject his invitation to discipleship (Mark 10:17–22). He grieved for Jerusalem, even though (and because) it would reject him as the Messiah (Luke 19:41–44). He loved his disciples “to the end” (John 13:1), even though they would abandon him in the Garden of Gethsemane and (except for John) forsake him at the cross. He loved those who crucified him as he prayed for their forgiveness (Luke 23:34).

Jesus described John and his brother James as “Sons of Thunder” (Mark 3:17), perhaps presaging the time the two were angered by the Samaritan rejection of Jesus and asked, “Do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” (Luke 9:54). On the way to Jerusalem, the brothers’ mother asked Jesus to seat them in places of honor in his kingdom (Matthew 20:20–23). And yet John was his “beloved” disciple (John 21:20).

The Bible teaches, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Jesus’ love for us is so unconditional and absolute that nothing can “separate us” from it (Romans 8:35). The more we reject him, the more we need him. The sicker the patient, the more urgent and necessary the physician.

Here’s my point: Jesus’ followers can experience and manifest this same unconditional love for those who do not agree with our biblical faith. In fact, we should. And we must.

“Christ in you, the hope of glory”

It is not unusual in religious history for gods to appear as human. It was standard in Roman mythology, for example, for various deities to take on human form to interact with us. It was also typical for humans to be deified after their death, as with ancient Egyptian beliefs regarding the pharaohs.

But here is what Christianity surprisingly claims: our God can live in us. Just as Jesus came to live in Mary prior to Christmas, so his Spirit comes to live in every person who makes Christ their Lord (1 Corinthians 3:16). Paul testified, “God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27, my emphasis).

Now add this amazing fact: Not only does Jesus live in Christians, but he also works to make Christians more like Christ. His Spirit manifests his character, including his “love” for all people (Galatians 5:22). Thus, we see Peter and John ministering to a crippled beggar (Acts 3), Philip caring about the hated Samaritans (Acts 8:4–8), and Paul, the former Pharisee, devoting his life to reaching Gentiles (cf. Acts 9:15).

Jesus’ compassion changed the world. Through us, it still can.

“See how they love one another”

One of the best ways we can measure the degree to which we are following Jesus and are submitted to his Spirit is by measuring the degree to which we love people who do not love us. How we treat those we don’t have to treat well is a basic measure of character. But how we love those who reject our love and our Lord is a measure of Christlikeness.

Jesus was clear on this: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:44–45). The more we love those who do not love us, the more we display the family traits of our Father.

And the more we draw others to him.

The early apologist Tertullian (AD 160–240) said of his fellow believers:

We don’t take the gifts and spend them on feasts, drinking-bouts, or fancy restaurants. Instead we use them to support and bury poor people, to supply the needs of boys and girls who have no means and no parents. We support the elderly confined now to their homes. We also help those who have suffered shipwreck. And if there happen to be any in the mines, or banished to the islands, or shut up in the prisons—for nothing but their fidelity to the cause of God’s Church—they then become the nurselings of the confession we hold [as we take them in to help them].

Primarily it is the acts of love that are so noble that lead many to put a brand upon us. “See,” they say, “how they love one another” (Apology, chapter 39).

Who will say the same of you today?

Denison Forum

“America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests.” For better or worse, that principle—typically attributed to Henry Kissinger—epitomizes President Trump’s latest National Security Strategy (NSS): a document outlining his administration’s approach to allies, enemies, and everyone in between.

Every president since Reagan has released at least one NSS to Congress during each term in office. But while the details change, the basic priorities of expanding America’s influence, guarding against foreign threats, and supporting our allies tend to be relatively similar from administration to administration. Trump’s latest policy contains much of the same information, though with one pivotal shift in perspective.

Whereas previous strategies—including Trump’s from 2017—focused mainly on a post-Cold War approach to building security through strength and influence worldwide, the latest NSS is clear that domestic stability is to be the focal point for the current administration. And that starts with redefining what America should expect from our allies and, just as importantly, what our allies can expect from us.

A new approach to Europe

In the introduction of the NSS, the administration states, “The purpose of foreign policy is the protection of core national interests; that is the sole focus of this strategy.” The document goes on to add that previous approaches “allowed allies and partners to offload the cost of their defense onto the American people, and sometimes to suck us into conflicts and controversies central to their interests but peripheral or irrelevant to our own.”

In short, they’ve decided that America’s allies have too often been more of a hindrance to the nation’s prosperity than a help.

The accuracy of that conclusion is certainly debatable, and the NSS’s detractors tend to point to this shift in approach—particularly as it pertains to Europe—as one of their most pressing critiques. At the same time, the Trump administration is not wrong when it points out that “We count among our many allies and partners dozens of wealthy, sophisticated nations that must assume primary responsibility for their regions and contribute far more to our collective defense.”

To their credit, many countries in Europe have endeavored to do just that in recent years. However, the NSS also points to the administration’s belief that changes in Europe’s approach to free speech, immigration, and a host of other societal factors make it “far from obvious whether certain European countries will have economies and militaries strong enough to remain reliable allies.”

This emphasis on the cultural shifts is perhaps the most critical indicator of how Trump sees Europe. They are allies insofar as it benefits America to consider them allies. That said, the NSS also points to an important distinction between countries that are trying to be useful and those that assume they are without actually offering much evidence to support that conclusion.

The Trump administration clearly believes that many European nations have chosen a path that makes them less valuable allies while still expecting to be accorded that status due to a shared history or the claim of shared ideals.

However, the move to minimize our obligations to Europe is not the only significant shift from previous approaches to foreign policy.

A new Monroe Doctrine?

Perhaps the most important element of the NSS is what the administration calls a “‘Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine.” While the title may sound strange, it’s essentially a way of finding historical precedent for claiming dominion over the Western Hemisphere.

The Monroe Doctrine was initially issued in 1823, when President James Monroe told Congress—and, by extension, the rest of the world—that the Americas were off-limits for any further colonization by Europe. In return, he promised that the United States would essentially leave Europe alone as well.

Roughly eighty years later, President Theodore Roosevelt expanded upon the policy with the “Roosevelt Corollary,” essentially declaring that America would function as the regional policeman for Latin America and the Caribbean. The policy has served as justification for US intervention throughout the region ever since. Given the military buildup outside of Venezuela, it’s not hard to see why Trump would appeal to this precedent today.

However, regardless of the policy’s current usage, the administration’s concerns with maintaining dominance in the region are understandable. China and, to a lesser extent, Russia have been making inroads in Latin America and the Caribbean for decades. As such, turning our attention to the countries closer to home is, in many ways, a necessary step in combating China, Russia, and the other adversaries that many were surprised to see get less attention in the NSS.

That said, there is a degree of hypocrisy in telling the rest of the world that the Americas are off limits while, at the same time, outlining all the ways in which the US plans to continue intervening in their parts of the globe. After all, the NSS clearly outlines plans to prevent China from intruding on Taiwan and to pressure European governments to run their countries in accordance with Trump’s view of what’s best.

Neither plan is necessarily wrong, but the contradictory nature of expecting the rest of the world to leave us alone without us leaving them alone highlights a key problem underlying many of our nation’s difficulties over recent decades. Far too often, we struggle to find the balance between who we aspire to be and who we’re actually capable of being.

The new NSS is, in many ways, a step in the right direction, but that war between our aspirations and our capacities remains. And, unfortunately, it’s a struggle most of us know all too well.

Who will you aspire to be?

Throughout the Bible, the Lord is quite clear about what he expects of his people. And while there’s a lot to those expectations, the essence of it can be summed up in Christ’s command to “be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).

As Christians, most of us understand that’s how we should aspire to live. However, I suspect most of us also understand that we’re not really capable of doing so as consistently as we might like. So, how can we bridge that gap?

I think Eugene Peterson’s translation of this verse in The Message may be of some help:

In a word, what I’m saying is, Grow up. You’re kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.

You see, one of the most common reasons we fail to live out our God-created identity is that we often aspire to be something other than who God has called us to be. When that happens, we lose out on the blessing and power of the Holy Spirit in our lives to help bridge the gap between our fallen, sinful selves and the version we’re capable of growing into when we’re guided by his presence.

So, who are you aspiring to be today? If you were to take an honest assessment of what you hope to accomplish and the person you wish to become, how much say did you give God in coming up with those goals?

Or, on the other hand, are there any ways in which you’ve given up on your aspirations? Have you stopped asking the Lord who he wants you to be because you’ve allowed the sins and failures of your past to convince you that you’re unworthy or incapable of becoming anything other than who you are right now?

Neither end of that spectrum will allow us to fulfill Christ’s words from Matthew 5:48. Yet, he wouldn’t set us up to fail by commanding the impossible of us.

The simple truth is that the only way we can be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect is by allowing our heavenly Father to help us do just that.

Let’s start today.

Quote of the day:

“Don’t judge a man by where he is, because you don’t know how far he has come.” —C. S. Lewis

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Denison Forum

Yesterday, the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates for the third time this year. The decision was made in response to slowing job growth and elevated inflation.

The day before, President Trump spoke at a rally in Pennsylvania, telling supporters he has “no higher priority than making America affordable again.” The rally was one of the first salvos in the run-up to the 2026 midterm elections, which are widely expected to be about the economy.

In recent polling, 74 percent of Americans say economic conditions are fair or poor. The partisan divide is striking: 44 percent of Republicans say the economy is excellent or good, while only 20 percent of Democrats agree.

According to White House spokesperson Kush Desai, Mr. Trump inherited the Biden administration’s “inflation and affordability crisis,” but the president’s policies to cut regulations and lower drug prices “have cooled inflation and raised real wages.”

However, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the center-right American Action Forum think tank, suggested that blaming a president’s predecessor only works for “about a year,” after which “you own it, you’re in the White House, good or bad, it happens on your watch. You own it, and they need to recognize that’s how the American people behave, no matter what they say.”

How radio changed everything

There was a time when few Americans saw their president. Unless you made the trek to the White House and secured an appointment with him, you were unlikely to encounter him in person. Presidential candidates seldom campaigned on their own behalf, and the chief way the larger public knew of them was through newspaper coverage.

Then came the advent of radio. While Warren G. Harding was the first president to give a radio address (1922) and Calvin Coolidge also used the medium, Franklin Roosevelt transformed it into his personal platform. His famous “Fireside Chats” connected him directly and conversationally with the American public during the Great Depression, bypassing the press and making his voice and personality known to millions.

From then to today, the candidate most believed to empathize with the public is often the candidate who wins. We elect our leaders in the hope that they will make our lives better. But how can they do this if they don’t understand our challenges or care about our problems?

In this sense, our leaders are our servants. We employ them by voting for them. But if our lives do not improve as a result, we’ll elect others we hope will do better.

Why did Jesus come at Christmas?

Why did Jesus come into the world at Christmas? The obvious answer is so he could die for our sins on Good Friday and be resurrected on Easter Sunday. But if that is all his incarnation needed to accomplish, he could have entered our race as an adult and then been arrested and crucified by the Romans.

Pontius Pilate did not crucify Jesus because of the way he entered the world or what he did in the years prior to his arrest. It is true that the popularity generated by his public ministry threatened the Jewish authorities, leading them to seek his execution by the Romans (cf. John 11:45–53). But the omnipotent God of the universe could have arranged another way for his Son to die for the sins of humanity, one that did not require his birth or earthly life before his death.

Instead, our Savior chose to enter our race in the most humble manner imaginable. He chose to grow up in obscurity and then live in relative poverty, as we noted yesterday. He was tempted by Satan himself (Matthew 4:1–10). He experienced fatigue (John 4:6), thirst (John 19:28), grief (John 11:35), and anguish (Matthew 26:36–37). He suffered horrific torture on the cross, where his friends forsook him and he felt abandoned even by his Father (Matthew 27:46).

As Scripture says, “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15).

And Jesus continues to feel our pain even today. We are in his hand (John 10:28), his Spirit dwells in us (1 Corinthians 3:16), and he is “interceding for us” right now (Romans 8:34; cf. Hebrews 7:25). As a result, he knows all we know and feels all we feel.

The night I shook my fist at God

So, in a very real sense, Jesus is the most empathetic leader in human history. You might therefore expect me to use this fact to appeal for you to “elect” him as your Lord. His omniscience knows the future better than we know the present. His omnipotence can do all his perfect love requires.

Who better to lead our lives and be the “president” of our souls?

Here’s the problem: When we relate to Jesus as to another leader we elect, we feel the liberty to “unelect” him when he disappoints us. We feel justified in blaming him for our problems and then refusing to trust or serve him.

I have known scores of people over the years who were once faithful followers of Jesus but who turned from him when they experienced trials and travails for which they held him responsible. You may be in their number today. If not, you will likely face such a trial in the future.

If God is the supreme being and we are finite, fallen creatures, there will inevitably be times when we do not understand his ways and are disappointed by them (cf. Isaiah 55:9–10). We can then decide to reject him, but this only isolates us from his protection and provision. If a doctor disappoints me and I reject all physicians, I do not harm the medical community so much as I harm myself when I next need medical care.

Instead, we can express our frustration and pain directly to our Father, as Jesus did in Gethsemane and on Calvary. We can ask him for the faith to have faith (Mark 9:24). We can know that he is with us even in “the valley of the shadow of death” (Psalm 23:4) and claim his promise that “when you pass through the waters, I will be with you” (Isaiah 43:2).

And the deeper the darkness, the more we will experience his light.

I was in college when my father died at the age of fifty-five. That night, I went into our backyard, looked up into the sky, and shook my fist at God.

But he did not shake his fist at me.

He never will.

Quote for the day:

“The great mystery is not the cures, but the infinite compassion which is their source.” —Henry J. M. Nouwen

Our latest website resources:

• How can Christians face anxiety without losing faith?
• A review of “2 Chairs: The Secret that Changes Everything”
• What does the Bible say about Santa Claus? How to turn holidays into holy days
• When are kids old enough to have a smartphone?
• Why do we have Christmas trees? How a “pagan symbol” became an integral part of our Christmas traditions

Denison Forum

I need to begin with a warning: If you read the rest of this paragraph, you are likely to ingest a musical “earworm” that will not stop playing in your brain all day. According to a survey conducted by FinanceBuzz, the “most annoying” Christmas song in America is Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” Paradoxically, it is also the most popular Christmas song in America.

If you now can’t get the song out of your mind, don’t blame me—you were warned.

But seen in a theological light, there’s a surprising message here, one that turns the Christmas holidays into holy days that transform our lives all year.

What does Jesus want for Christmas?

Jesus owned only the absolute minimum necessary for life in this world. This was true from the moment of his birth, when he came into the world in a borrowed stable and was laid in a borrowed feed trough. This was true to the moment of his death, when he was crucified on a Roman cross, prepared for burial through the generosity of others, and laid in a borrowed tomb.

During his earthly ministry, he lived in Capernaum at the home of his friend Peter. When he visited Jerusalem, he stayed in Bethany at the home of his friends Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. Regarding home ownership, he said, “the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20).

And yet, not once did he ask anyone for anything except for their good. He asked a Samaritan woman for water so he could lead her to “living water” (John 4:7–14). He invited himself to the home of Zacchaeus so he could bring salvation to his “house” (Luke 19:1–10).

Everything Jesus did, from the moment he entered our world, was intended to bring us to himself:

• If he could be conceived in the womb of a virgin, he can come into any heart and life (cf. John 3:16).
• If impoverished residents of a town so small it’s not mentioned even once in the Old Testament could be Jesus’ family, anyone can be part of his family (cf. 1 Peter 2:9).
• If field hands so ritually unclean that they could not enter a synagogue could join the celebration of his birth, anyone can praise him today (cf. Revelation 7:9–10).
• If Samaritans, Gentiles, demoniacs, tax collectors, and lepers could join his movement, anyone can follow him today.
• If those who forsook him, denied him, and persecuted his followers could be forgiven, anyone can be forgiven.
• If a worshiper exiled on a prison island could experience him personally (Revelation 1:9–20), anyone can experience him in worship today.

I say all of that to ask this: If you were to give Jesus what he wants most for Christmas, what would it be?

“A chamber in the heart of God”

Speaking of Jesus’ mother, Br. Curtis Almquist of the Society of St. John the Evangelist in Boston notes:

We, like Mary, have God’s attention and God’s love. We, like Mary, have something utterly unique about the life God has given us. There is no one like us; never has been; never will be. We are known by God. We are favored by God in an even more unique way than we are to our most precious relationships. There is a chamber in our heart which only God can enter; and there is a chamber in the heart of God into which only we can enter.

How shall we respond to such love?

When Gabriel invited Mary to become the mother of God’s Son, she replied: “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). Br. Almquist similarly advises us: “Keep the verb surrender in the vocabulary of your heart.”

This verb is God’s consistent demand of his followers:

• “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23).
• “Submit yourselves therefore to God” (James 4:7).
• “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God” (1 Peter 5:6).

Why is this? Why does Jesus want us for Christmas? All of us, surrendered fully and unconditionally to him?

Is this because he is a despot bent on the submission of humanity as his subjects?

Or could it be that our Lord’s response to our surrender is his greatest gift to us?

“I will give you a new self instead”

Br. Almquist quotes the nineteenth-century Quaker author Thomas Kelly:

The paradox is that as we surrender and are willing to do God’s bidding, our lives unfold in a way that is much more magnificent than we could ever have humanly orchestrated. Life becomes extremely simple, and oh, so good.

This only makes sense. If we trust our lives to an all-knowing Father who sees the future better than we can see the present, an all-loving and all-powerful Lord who can do all that is best and nothing else, how could the outcome be anything but his best for us?

And even more, as we give our lives to the One who gave his life for us, we experience Jesus himself. His Spirit manifests his personality and character in ours (Romans 8:29). Jesus continues his ministry in the world in and through our lives (1 Corinthians 12:27).

1. S. Lewis gives voice to our Savior’s invitation today:

I don’t want so much of your time, so much of your money, so much of your work: I want you. . . . Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked—the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. I will give you myself.

Could there be a greater gift than this?

Quote for the day:

“Let God have your life; he can do more with it than you can.” —Dwight Moody

Our latest website resources:

• How can Christians face anxiety without losing faith?
• A review of “2 Chairs: The Secret that Changes Everything”
• What does the Bible say about Santa Claus? How to turn holidays into holy days
• When are kids old enough to have a smartphone?
• Why do we have Christmas trees? How a “pagan symbol” became an integral part of our Christmas traditions

Denison Forum

Pantone, a company that calls itself “the global authority for color communication and inspiration,” has announced that Cloud Dancer is its “color of the year” for 2026. I would call its selection “white,” but I’m in no sense a color authority.

However, I was interested in the stated reason for the choice: according to Time, “This year’s pick is meant to represent serenity and tranquility, which Pantone says is ever in need ‘in a frenetic society.’”

“Frenetic” is something I know something about. I suspect you do as well. Glance at these headlines:

• “For Gen Z-ers, work is now more depressing than unemployment”
• “Thailand–Cambodia fighting spreads along border as death toll rises”
• “Drone-damaged Chernobyl facility’s shield can’t confine radiation, nuclear body warns”
• “Japan rattled by 7.5-magnitude earthquake, authorities warn of aftershocks”

Even in our fallen world, however, there is a path to “serenity and tranquility.” The paradox is that recognizing the former is essential to the latter.

How my parents helped me clean my bedroom

A wise mentor once told me, “People don’t do what you expect—they do what you inspect.” I already knew this to be true, however.

Growing up, I was responsible for the cleanliness of my bedroom. My parents scheduled weekly inspections to this end, but they soon discovered that I could (and did) wait until an hour before their examination to do a week’s worth of cleaning. So they began drop-ins as well. These unannounced visits were most unwelcome, but they did have their desired effect with regard to the state of my room.

The fourth-century theologian St. Ephrem the Syrian similarly explained why Jesus said, “You do not know on what day your Lord is coming” (Matthew 24:42):

He has kept those things hidden so that we may keep watch, each of us thinking that he will come in our own day. . . . He promised that he would come but did not say when he would come, and so all generations and ages await him eagerly.

Then Ephrem added this observation I had not considered:

Keep watch; when the body is asleep nature takes control of us, and what is done is not done by our will but by force, by the impulse of nature. When deep listlessness takes possession of the soul, for example, faint-heartedness or melancholy, the enemy overpowers it and makes it do what it does not will. The force of nature, the enemy of the soul, is in control.

When the Lord commanded us to be vigilant, he meant vigilance in both parts of man: in the body, against the tendency to sleep; in the soul, against lethargy and timidity.

“A shadow of what is to come”

The Bible consistently calls us to prepare for eternity today (cf. Titus 2:13; 1 John 2:28; 1 Peter 4:7; Hebrews 10:24–25) As Jesus exhorted us, “You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect” (Matthew 24:44).

Why is such readiness for the final Advent so imperative?

One obvious reason is that we are one day closer to eternity than ever before and have only today to be ready. Jesus could return to the world today (Acts 1:10–11), or we could step through death into eternity today (John 14:3).

But there’s another reason: living in the light of eternity today transforms today.

If you knew Jesus would return next week, what would you change this week? What would you do or stop doing? Whom would you forgive? From whom would you seek forgiveness?

Here’s the point: Living this way is the best way to live every day, even if we have many years before we see Jesus again. There is a “serenity and tranquility” to living in God’s perfect will that is found nowhere else. First15, Denison Ministries’ devotional resource, explains:

Without a real revelation of eternity, this life will be marked by hopelessness and a sense of aimless wandering. Only when our destination comes into view can we rightly see the circumstances strewn along the journey of this life. . . .

When we live seeking satisfaction from the things of the world, we live as if heaven didn’t exist and God didn’t usher in his kingdom through Jesus. The things of this world only have value in the Giver of all good gifts. So our possessions, relationships, and work only have value here because they are a shadow of what is to come when all things are made new.

Five biblical reminders

Being in God’s will every day is the vital commitment that leads to his “abundant” life and our best (John 10:10). So, how can we live in his perfect will every day?

Let’s close with five biblical reminders:

One: Remember the brevity of life every day (Psalm 39:4–5; 90:12). Thomas Ken advised, “Let those who thoughtfully consider the brevity of life remember the length of eternity.”

Two: Submit to the Holy Spirit every day (Ephesians 5:18; Romans 12:1–2). Scripture teaches, “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16). In today’s My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers warned: “Beware of refusing to go to the funeral of your independence.”

Three: Think and live biblically every day (John 8:31–32). John Calvin noted: “Scripture is like a pair of spectacles which dispels the darkness and gives us a clear view of God.”

Four: Seek intimacy with Jesus every day (John 15:5). In the Proslogion, St. Anselm (1033–1109) prayed:

Teach me to seek you, and reveal yourself to me when I seek you, for I cannot seek you unless you teach me, nor find you unless you reveal yourself. Let me seek you in longing, let me long for you in seeking; let me find you by loving you and love you in the act of finding you.

If one of the greatest theological geniuses in Christian history needed to pray this, how much more do we?

Five: Share Christ with the world every day (Acts 1:8). A mentor once asked me, “When you see Jesus again, if he asks you, ‘Whom did you bring me?’, what will you say?”

How would you respond today?

Quote for the day:

“There comes a moment when we all must realize that life is short, and in the end the only thing that really counts is not how others see us, but how God sees us.” —Billy Graham

Our latest website resources:

• What does the Bible say about Santa Claus? How to turn holidays into holy days
• When are kids old enough to have a smartphone?
• Why do we have Christmas trees? How a “pagan symbol” became an integral part of our Christmas traditions
• Ukraine, Hegseth, American work, box office booms & college-football chaos
• Managing holiday loneliness, controversial cloning, and the spiritual revival of Millennials and Gen Z

Denison Forum

Earlier this week, Dr. Jim Denison discussed the ongoing controversy surrounding Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and the accusations that he was responsible for war crimes. But while people continue to debate that question, other questions persist about what President Trump and his administration are preparing to do next about America’s intensifying conflict with Venezuela.

As is often the case, the president has not been shy with his plans.

In addition to parking the largest buildup of America’s naval forces since the Cuban Missile Crisis, with fifteen thousand troops parked just outside of Venezuela’s borders, Trump has also signed off on the CIA’s plans for covert measures inside the country. Moreover, he’s hinted at sending in ground forces, saying, “I don’t rule out anything. We just have to take care of Venezuela.”

And while the situation appears to be escalating quickly, recent reports indicate that the administration began preparing for these attacks as early as January. Emil Bove, who was the acting deputy attorney general at the time, recommended attacking drug boats leaving Venezuela in February, while Secretary of State Marco Rubio has advocated for a more forceful approach to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro since Trump’s first term.

So while the attacks in the Caribbean have sunk twenty-seven suspected drug boats and killed at least eighty-seven people as of this writing, it would appear that the administration’s plans for the region likely extend beyond slowing down the flow of drugs into America.

Is the real goal regime change? 

The Trump administration’s public justification for the conflict in the Caribbean is a war on deadly drugs, often citing fentanyl as the primary target. Fentanyl is indeed a massive problem and directly led to an estimated forty-eight thousand deaths last year (which was actually an improvement over the seventy-six thousand in 2023). As John Yoo points out, those deaths far outpace the number of Americans killed in any war since Vietnam.

However, the primary drug from Venezuela is cocaine, and most of that goes to Europe rather than the US. Consequently, it’s difficult to see how these attacks are truly aimed at halting the flow of drugs across our borders. Trump even stated back in October that “we’re not happy with Venezuela for a lot of reasons, drugs being one of them.”

The more likely scenario is that the attacks on drug boats are a prelude to regime change, and the recent escalation indicates that Maduro’s time in power may be running short. If his recent actions are any indication, the Venezuelan leader knows it too.

Maduro has recently taken to changing where he sleeps and showing up unannounced whenever he appears in public. Moreover, fearing that the people around him may eventually find the $50 million bounty that the United States has placed on his head too tempting to pass up, he has expanded the use of Cuban bodyguards in his personal security and among his counterintelligence officers as well.

Back in October, Maduro attempted to buy Trump’s favor by offering the United States a significant stake in Venezuela’s oil fields, along with other economic opportunities, in exchange for allowing him to remain in power. However, US officials refused, and the prevailing thought is that any resolution that does not include a change in leadership is a nonstarter.

Should the US eventually push for regime change, it doesn’t seem like most of the world would mind. More than a quarter of Venezuela’s population has left since he took office—a driving force in the rise of illegal immigration in America across recent years—and his approval rating among those who stayed is around 20 percent. And María Corina Machado—the leader of the resistance movement within Venezuela—won the Nobel Prize this year for her efforts to oppose him.

As such, there’s little doubt that the world would be a safer place without Maduro in power. However, the question remains whether the steps Trump is taking to ostensibly accomplish that end are legal.

Are Trump’s actions legal?

Earlier this year, President Trump designated Latin American drug cartels as terrorist organizations. He has since used that designation to justify deportations and military intervention, both inside and outside of America’s borders. Now, Trump has made claims that link Maduro to at least two of these cartels—Tren de Aragua and Cartel de los Soles—foundational to the increased pressure his administration has applied in Venezuela.

Still, bombing drug boats is a massive departure from the manner in which America has traditionally dealt with these groups. But even if you think the former approach of using the Coast Guard and DEA to intercept these shipments was not good enough (I tend to agree), that doesn’t mean Trump has the legal authority to go to war with them, much less to go to war with Venezuela.

Any such aggression—including when used against terrorist organizations—should require congressional approval. Even those who find Trump’s legal arguments persuasive tend to agree that the established legal precedent requires him to bring the matter before Congress. Unfortunately, the administration appears to have little interest in taking that step.

Trump would hardly be the first president to bypass Congress and launch attacks without the legal backing to do so. American leaders have been abusing the statutes put in place in the wake of 9/11 for the better part of two decades now. However, just because previous presidents did it—including Trump during his first term—doesn’t make these actions any more legal today.

It’s understandable if you look at the influx of drugs across our borders, the plague that both Maduro and the cartels have been on the people of Venezuela, and the precedent established by other recent presidents and conclude that Trump’s actions in the Caribbean are justified. In many ways, they are. However, justified doesn’t mean legal, and we don’t get to ignore the means simply because we like the end results they bring about.

And that truth is relevant to far more than the situation in Venezuela.

Two crucial questions

As Christians, we’re not permitted to take an “ends justify the means” approach to anything in life because God cares about both the ends and the means. Sin is still sin, even when done for noble or righteous reasons.

Throughout his ministry, Jesus emphasized the importance of paying attention to our motivations and to the state of our hearts because he understood how every word, thought, and action impacts our walk with the Lord. After all, he’d seen the failure to do so drive a wedge between God and his people for generations.

By the first century, religious leaders had instituted hundreds of additional laws intended to prevent the Jews from transgressing the really important ones in the Torah. And their reasoning for doing so was both sound and justified. They were intent on making sure that Israel never fell into the kind of sins and idolatry that had caused the Lord to exile their ancestors.

Yet, along the way, they became so focused on the end goal of not angering the Lord that they lost sight of the true purpose of those laws: to help God’s people spend each day walking in close communion with him.

So, how can we make sure we avoid that mistake today?

George MacDonald—a nineteenth-century Scottish author, poet, and minister—once noted that “God never gave a man a thing to do, concerning which it were irreverent to ponder how the Son of God would have done it.”

And if you ever find yourself wondering how Jesus would accomplish something, just take a moment to ask him. Then, once you get your answer, do what he says.

A great deal of the sin in our lives could be avoided if we simply took the time to ask God for his help in knowing not only what he wants us to do, but how he wants us to do it.

Will you ask both questions today?

Quote of the day:

“Let no man turn aside, even so slightly, from the broad path of honor, on the plausible pretense that he is justified by the goodness of his end. All good ends can be worked out by good means. Those that cannot, are bad; and may be counted so at once, and left alone.” —Charles Dickens

Our latest website resources:

• When are kids old enough to have a smartphone?
• What is the second-most “sinful city” in America?
• Ukraine, Hegseth, American work, box office booms & College-football chaos | Ep. 47
• Managing holiday loneliness, controversial cloning, and the spiritual revival of Millennials and Gen Z
• Why did Cloudflare and Amazon Web Services fail?

Denison Forum

New study finds smartphones linked with depression, obesity, and poor sleep in kids under 12 years of age

I’m deeply grateful for my smartphone-free childhood. I remember when a middle school friend received their first iPhone. My friends and I were in awe at the responsive touchscreen, app games, and agile texting. How could you not be jealous of this technological miracle in his pocket?

My parents gave me a simple phone when I was around 15, but I didn’t get a smartphone until I was 17. I wouldn’t change that experience. With no neighborhood kids to play with in our isolated suburb, I still thrived in church, playing in the woods, getting lost in books, and hanging out with my siblings.

This is why I’m so passionate about this topic. I wonder how different, and worse, my teen years would have been without this independence, freedom, and real-world socializing.

Social media, Smartphones, and teens

I’ve written extensively about social media and teen mental health. According to Pew Research, 95 percent of teens report having, or having access to, a smartphone. Nearly half of teens say they are online “almost constantly.” Only a quarter of teens said this a decade ago. Most of this time is spent on social media like TikTok, SnapChat, YouTube, and Instagram.

Last year, the US Surgeon General wanted to put warning labels, like the ones on alcohol and cigarettes, on social media, specifically cautioning children and teens. Australia announced it would ban social media for users under 16 this week. Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation is a great place to start for parents and educators.

As I wrote, even kids wish they didn’t have social media: “It seems that around half of teens would prefer a world without social media but feel trapped because they would be socially outcast without it.”

What about even younger than teens? By the age of eleven, over half (53%) of kids have a smartphone. Twelve is the average time when kids receive a phone, but some have reported getting one as early as 4 years old.

There’s a high bar to establish definitive causality between social media and mental health issues, but study after study tends toward this direction.

Some studies focus on the effects of smartphones in classrooms. Even college students did better when their phones were physically removed during class: “Results indicated that students whose smartphones were physically removed during class had higher levels of course comprehension, lower levels of anxiety, and higher levels of mindfulness than the control group.” If this is the effect for college-age kids, how much greater is the impact for younger kids?

Younger than twelve: Depression, obesity, and bad sleep

A new study shows a connection between smartphone ownership in kids under twelve and health risks. With data from more than 10,000 children, the study’s findings were robust, though not surprising.

They conclude, “Smartphone ownership was associated with depression, obesity, and insufficient sleep in early adolescence. Findings provide critical and timely insights that should inform caregivers regarding adolescent smartphone use and, ideally, the development of public policy that protects youth.”

Dr. Barzilay, lead author on the study, talked to the NY Times: “The takeaway, [Dr. Barzilay] said, is that age matters. ‘A kid at age 12 is very, very different than a kid at age 16,’ he said. ‘It’s not like an adult at age 42 versus 46.’”

The years from 10 to 25 are crucial for psychological development, particularly in establishing a sense of self, developing social skills, and achieving independence. This study isn’t saying that twelve is a good time to get a smartphone, but rather pointing to how the risks associated with that decision only increase the younger a child is.

Another expert, Dr. Jacqueline Nesi, cautioned, it is difficult to prove that phones are causing these risks. However, she says this study should “nudge” parents to wait for longer than they would’ve first thought, and to make sure the deciding factor isn’t just what everyone else is doing.

As the article goes on to decsribe, parents should “feel empowered to trust their gut . . . and to hold off on giving their child a smartphone until everyone is ready—including parents, who have to do the very hard work of putting protections and limits in place.”

If you’re interested in ways to get involved, as well as what some of those protections and limits might look like, check out the Anxious Generation website. Here are the four core tenets Dr. Haidt argues for:

1. No smartphones before high school
2. No social media before 16
3. Phone-free schools, from bell to bell
4. More independence, free play, and responsibility in the real world

The site offers other resources to get parents, schools, kids, and policymakers engaged.

What does the Bible say about parenting smartphones? 

God does not control us like a puppeteer, but as a good father, he disciplines his people. He is compassionate, loving, caring, and lays down clear guidance. We are good parents insofar as we emulate God’s character in these ways.

Proverbs says we should discipline children so they aren’t spoiled—and that this is done from love (Proverbs 13:24). Several passages talk about respecting and obeying parents. “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right” (Ephesians 6:1).

But it’s a two-way street. “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4). Or, as it says in Colossians, “Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged” (3:21).

How can we emulate God’s parental love?

• Give clear guidance.
• Keep firm to boundaries.
• Give independence when they earn trust.
• Set them up to handle screens when they leave your house.

As God says to Isaiah, “come now, let us reason together.” (Isaiah 1:18) Give reasons, when possible, for your decision. Listen to your children as God listens to us.

Earthly parents are flawed. We can never be 100 percent certain about tricky issues like phone use, where studies are sometimes confusing or contradictory. We can only do our best.

But we can pray for wisdom, grow in character, and take our responsibility as parents seriously—don’t be passive. The voices on social media will almost always draw them away from Christ. Silicon Valley does not have your children’s best interests at heart.

Examine your own heart. Do you idolize your phone and the quasi-social connections on social media? What does your screentime say about your heart? How can you model better habits for your children?

If you’ve never asked God these questions—or if it’s been a while since you last did—let’s start there. After all, your heavenly Father loves your kids and wants what’s best for them just as much as you do. Be sure to include him in the conversation.

Denison Forum

If you live in Las Vegas, you might not expect a visit from Santa this year. You’re likely not surprised that “Sin City” has been ranked the “most sinful city” in America again this year.

But you might be surprised that Houston came in second, Atlanta ranked number five, and Dallas came in at number eight. In addition to making the top ten in America’s most sinful cities, here’s what else the three cities have in common: I have lived in each of them.

Does this mean I’m the common denominator?

In a very real sense, the answer is yes.

But you’re not off the hook.

“What is wrong with the world?”

Scan this morning’s headlines and you’ll find abundant evidence that sin is not confined to my city or yours:

• “Putin says Russia will take all of Ukraine’s Donbas region militarily or otherwise”
• “Israel identifies body of returned hostage, remains of Israeli officer still in Gaza”
• “Doctor sentenced to 30 months over Matthew Perry’s death from ketamine”
• “Fatal shooting rocks luxury MGM casino as police hunt for gunman”

And yet, since human nature doesn’t change, our sin problem is as recurrent as the sunrise and as prevalent as air. To claim we are the exception to sin is to sin.

To illustrate, I have seen this anecdote repeated often over the years:

In answer to a newspaper’s question, “What is Wrong With the World?” G. K. Chesterton wrote in with a simple answer: “Dear Sirs, I am.”

However, this is not what the great British philosopher and journalist actually wrote. In a 1905 letter to the editor, Chesterton observed:

Political or economic reform will not make us good and happy, but until this odd period nobody ever expected that they would. Now, I know there is a feeling that Government can do anything. But if Government could do anything, nothing would exist except Government. Men have found the need of other forces.

Religion, for instance, existed in order to do what law cannot do—to track crime to its primary sin, and the man to his back bedroom. The Church endeavored to institute a machinery of pardon; the State has only a machinery of punishment. The State can only free society from the criminal; the Church sought to free the criminal from the crime.

Abolish religion if you like. Throw everything on secular government if you like. But do not be surprised if a machinery that was never meant to do anything but secure external decency and order fails to secure internal honesty and peace. . . .

In one sense, and that the eternal sense, the thing is plain. The answer to the question “What is Wrong?’ is, or should be, “I am wrong.” Until a man can give that answer, his idealism is only a hobby.

“The thing that makes a difference in people”

We are several days into the annual season called Advent, from the Latin adventus, meaning “arrival” or “coming.” While most of the attention is on Jesus’ first coming at Christmas, early forms of the observance focused not only on our Savior’s birth but also on his return, an event usually termed the “Second Coming of Christ.”

But this is chronologically incorrect.

Without question, Jesus came into our world at the event we call Christmas. I can point you to numerous first-century Roman and Jewish historians who documented the fact of our Lord’s earthly existence. And without question, he will come into our world again at the end of history: “Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him” (Revelation 1:7; cf. Matthew 24:42–44; Acts 1:11; Hebrews 9:28; 2 Peter 3:10).

But in between the two, Jesus “comes” into our world every time he comes into a human heart. Every time someone asks him to forgive their sins and become their Savior and Lord, he takes up residence in their life by his indwelling Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:16). In this very real sense, we become the “body of Christ” as he continues his earthly ministry in and through us (1 Corinthians 12:27).

And this “second coming” changes everything.

The pastor and author Paul Powell noted: “The thing that makes a difference in people is not the centuries nor even our cultures. It is Christ. He alone is able to break through all the pressures and patterns and make us new people.” He then quoted 2 Corinthians 5:17, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation,” and added:

When people commit their lives to Christ, they are changed. When enough people are changed, our world will be changed.

“There is only one relationship that matters”

To this end, let’s close with a paragraph from last Sunday’s reading in Oswald Chambers’s My Utmost for His Highest. It is my favorite entry in his classic devotional; I seem to quote it in a Daily Article every year:

There is only one relationship that matters, and that is your personal relationship to a personal redeemer and Lord. Let everything else go, but maintain that at all costs, and God will fulfill his purpose through your life. One individual life may be of priceless value to God’s purpose, and yours may be that life.

Will God “fulfill his purpose through your life” today?

Quote for the day:

“The same Jesus who turned water into wine can transform your home, your life, your family, and your future. He is still in the miracle-working business, and his business is the business of transformation.” —Adrian Rogers

Our latest website resources:

• Ukraine, Hegseth, American work, box office booms & college-football chaos
• Managing holiday loneliness, controversial cloning, and the spiritual revival of Millennials and Gen Z
• Navigating faith and political discussions with Gen Z
• What does the Bible say about suicide?
• Why are so many young people struggling to find hope—and how can we help?

Denison Forum

The Oxford 2025 Word of the Year is rage bait, defined as “online content deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage by being frustrating, provocative, or offensive.” Could this be what we are seeing with regard to growing war crimes claims against Secretary of War Pete Hegseth? Or did Mr. Hegseth commit a genuine violation of the US code regarding military actions?

Were the survivors legitimate targets?

At the center of the controversy is a Washington Post story about a September 2 attack staged by US forces on a boat believed by officials to be ferrying drugs. The article reports that Mr. Hegseth gave a spoken directive: “The order was to kill everybody,” according to a person with direct knowledge of the operation. A US missile then struck the vessel, igniting it in a blaze from bow to stern. When the smoke cleared, a live drone feed showed two survivors clinging to the smoldering wreck.

According to the Post article citing “two people familiar with the matter,” the Special Operations commander overseeing the attack ordered a second strike to comply with Mr. Hegseth’s instructions. The two survivors were then blown apart in the water.

Lawmakers from both parties are now raising the term war crime in response. They point to “18 US Code § 2441 – War crimes,” which states that such a crime occurs when someone “intentionally kills . . . one or more persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including those placed out of combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause.”

Some experts argue that those who survived the first strike would fall under this description. If so, Mr. Hegseth could be held legally culpable.

However, the commander overseeing the operation, Adm. Frank M. “Mitch” Bradley, stated that the survivors were legitimate targets because they could theoretically call other traffickers to retrieve them and their cargo. He reportedly ordered the second strike to fulfill Mr. Hegseth’s directive that everyone be killed.

Speaking at a cabinet meeting yesterday, Mr. Hegseth told reporters that he had authorized the operation but that he left the room ahead of the second attack for another meeting. However, he added that the admiral had “the complete authority” to order the strike and “eliminate the threat.”

There is much more to this unfolding story, but media reports are overlooking an aspect that transcends the political, legal, and military issues making headlines these days.

My greatest personal regret

I was born in Hermann Hospital in Houston, Texas, to an electronics salesman and his wife. I grew up primarily in an apartment complex in southwest Houston. We had enough but not more than enough. Our family was not only not famous—we didn’t know anyone who was.

Because of my father’s horrific experiences in World War II, we never went to church or even discussed spiritual things in our home. My father had his first heart attack when I was two years old and lived nineteen years on what the doctors called “borrowed time” before a second heart attack took his life when I was in college.

While my parents were wonderful to my brother and me, if I could have chosen the circumstances of my early life, I might have wanted them to be famous and wealthy. I might have chosen to be born into privilege and prosperity, with a father and mother who were deeply involved in God’s work and raised me to know and love our Lord.

I might have wanted my father to be healthy and live to old age. The greatest personal regret of my life is that my father never met my sons or their families.

If you could, I would imagine you might have made changes to your family and early life as well.

How insignificant was Jesus’ hometown?

It therefore bears remembering that Jesus was the only baby in human history to choose his parents, the place of his birth, and the persons who would attend his birth.

He could have been born in a Jerusalem palace to parents of cultural prestige and still come as the Jewish Messiah. He could have grown up in the Holy City and displayed his divine capacities to a national audience.

Instead, he chose a mother and adoptive father so impoverished that their offering at his birth was the one specified for the poor (Luke 2:24). He chose to be born in a cave where animals were kept and where his infant body would be laid in a stone feed trough. For his attendants, he chose field hands so ritually unclean that they could not enter a synagogue or the Temple. He grew up in a town so insignificant that it is not mentioned even once in the Old Testament and was a joke in its day (John 1:46).

He called followers who were not Pharisees and Sadducees but fishermen and tax collectors. He touched leprous limbs and dead bodies, befriended Samaritan sinners and Gentile demoniacs, and welcomed all who welcomed him.

“Christ’s wounds are your healings”

Accordingly, if the Christ of Christmas was commenting on the missile strike with which I led today, I suspect that he would focus less on legalities and military strategy and more on the immortal souls of those who perished.

Jesus would not minimize the crimes they are alleged to have committed or the urgency of protecting our nation from the influx of deadly drugs. His word makes clear the priority of lawful order and self-defense (cf. Romans 13:1).

But he would remind us that we are each sinners in our own way, that we have each done things worthy of the reprobation of society and the judgment of God (cf. Romans 3:23; 5:12; Jeremiah 17:9). And he would remind us that he chose before the foundation of the world to die for those on that boat and for the rest of us as well (Revelation 13:8 NIV).

Matthew Henry invited us:

“Come, and see the victories of the cross. Christ’s wounds are your healings, his agonies your repose, his conflicts your conquests, his groans your songs, his pains your ease, his shame your glory, his death your life, his sufferings your salvation.”

How will his invitation change your Christmas?

Quote for the day:

“There is no death of sin without the death of Christ.” —John Owen (1616–83)

Our latest website resources:

• Managing holiday loneliness, controversial cloning, and the spiritual revival of Millennials and Gen Z
• Navigating faith and political discussions with Gen Z
• What does the Bible say about suicide?
• Why did Cloudflare and Amazon Web Services fail? What the outages can teach us about the spiritual realm
• Why are so many young people struggling to find hope—and how can we help?

Denison Forum

The legendary actor and comedian Dick Van Dyke turns one hundred on December 13. What explains his longevity? He recently told People magazine, “I’ve always thought that anger is one thing that eats up a person’s insides—and hate. And I never really was able to work up a feeling of hate. I think that is one of the chief things that kept me going.”

However, he knows that “the end of my life is so much closer.” What happens then? “When you expire, you expire,” he said. “I don’t have any fear of death for some reason. I can’t explain that but I don’t. I’ve had such a wonderfully full and exciting life that I can’t complain.”

He added, “What I left in the way of children’s entertainment and children’s music—that’s my legacy.” As long as children are singing the words or songs he made famous, he said, “the most important part of me will always be alive.”

“I don’t believe in Australia”

I have long been amazed by the assumption of so many people that their subjective beliefs about the afterlife will unquestionably correspond to what actually happens to them when they die. I remember a woman who confidently told me, “I don’t believe in hell,” as if hell must therefore not exist. This seems to me like saying “I don’t believe in Australia” and therefore assuming there is no such thing as Australia.

We don’t make such claims about any other reality that lies beyond our capacity.

Imagine assuming that a hotel will have a vacancy when we arrive and therefore choosing not to make a reservation. Or presuming that we will have a job for which we did not apply or a place on a team for which we did not attempt to qualify. Or believing that the road we choose will take us home upon no evidence except that we chose it.

And yet Dick Van Dyke can confidently assert, “When you expire, you expire,” and claim that “the most important part of me will always be alive” through the children’s music he made. He is convinced that his subjective opinion regarding his eternity must be true, even though he has no objective basis for it.

He is by no means alone in this.

According to a new Cultural Research Center survey, 25 percent of those who do not identify as Christians are certain they will “cease to exist in any form or place” when they die. Another 20 percent believe they will “join with the universe,” while 14 percent say they will “return to earth as another life form.”

Only 3 percent say they will “experience torment and punishment.” With regard to eternity, the others apparently believe that their unbelief is all they need to believe.

Proving I would be a good husband

At this point, we could have an apologetics discussion regarding the logical basis for the Christian faith. We could consider compelling rational arguments for God’s existence, overwhelming evidence for the veracity of Scripture, and remarkable historical confirmation for the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

But when you die (assuming the Lord tarries that long), these arguments will no longer be operative for you. When you cease to live, you will obviously have no capacity by which to decide or affect what happens to you next. By definition, your life after death will be entirely dependent on a Power that transcends death.

To have personal confidence that Jesus will bring us into life beyond this life (John 14:3), we can do what we do with all relational realities: we examine the evidence, then we step beyond it into an experience that becomes self-validating.

If I had been required to prove to Janet that I would be a good husband before we married, we would never have been married. Instead, she considered what she knew about me, then she took a step beyond such knowledge into a marital relationship with me. (Some would say this “step” was a very large leap, and I would not dispute them.) Over our forty-five years of marriage, I hope that her decision has (at least on my good days) been self-affirming.

We do the same with Jesus: We examine the evidence for his life, death, resurrection, and divine character. Then we step beyond it into a saving relationship with him by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8–9). When we do, he promises that we are in his omnipotent hand forever (John 10:28), declaring that “everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die” (John 11:26).

And he offers us assurance that is based on biblical truth but becomes intuitively personal as well.

This is where Christmas comes in.

“If the presence of God is in the church”

As I noted yesterday, the fact that the omnipotent God of the universe could reduce himself to become a fetus and be born as a baby is among his most staggering miracles. Here’s my point: If he could live in his body, he can live in yours and mine by his indwelling Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:16). We can become the “body of Christ” as Jesus continues his earthly ministry in and through our lives (1 Corinthians 12:27).

And our experience of the living Lord Jesus in this life assures us that we will experience him in the next.

On the days I walk closely with Jesus, I sense his presence, peace, and joy in such transcendent and transforming ways that the question of my eternity with him never seems to come up. I am already experiencing the eternal life that becomes ours in the moment we trust him as Savior and Lord (John 3:16). And I can say with Paul, “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21).

On the days I drift from intimacy with Jesus, in those hours and moments when I allow temptation, distraction, or deception to turn my heart from his, my relationship with him becomes more transactional and less transformational. I work for Jesus more than I walk with Jesus. And the joy of my eternal life begins to dim.

What Charles Finney said about the church is true of our hearts as well:

“If the presence of God is in the church, the church will draw the world in. If the presence of God is not in the church, the world will draw the church out.”

Which will be true for you today?

Quote for the day:

“The Christian life is to live all of your life in the presence of God.” —R. C. Sproul

Our latest website resources:

• Navigating faith and political discussions with Gen Z
• What does the Bible say about suicide?
• Why did Cloudflare and Amazon Web Services fail? What the outages can teach us about the spiritual realm
• Why are so many young people struggling to find hope—and how can we help?
• Epstein files, MAGA infighting, peace deals & Tom Cruise

Denison Forum

As soon as Thanksgiving is over, Christmas decorating begins at my house. My wife is the expert; I am the hired help. You can know this by examining our nativity scenes.

One is simpler, featuring the baby Jesus surrounded by adoring parents and a worshiping angel. The other is more complex, with animals, shepherds, and three Magi. I have pointed out over the years that the Wise Men were not present at the first Christmas, but since my theological observations have fallen annually on deaf ears, I have learned to keep my objections to myself.

However, here’s a nativity set I must protest: a Cape Cod artist has created what Axios calls “New England’s newest unlikely holiday sensation: the Lobster nativity scene.” Jesus is depicted as a baby lobster in a bed of seaweed inside a crab shell cradle. The stable is a lobster trap. The other figures are various versions of lobsters as well.

When I read the story, I was viscerally bothered by the crass commercialization of Christmas. Is there nothing someone won’t do to sell something in the season we celebrate our Savior’s birth?

But then I remembered C. S. Lewis’s poignant description of the Christmas miracle:

The Second Person in God, the Son, became human himself: was born into the world as an actual man—a real man of a particular height, with hair of a particular color, speaking a particular language, weighing so many stone. The Eternal Being, who knows everything and who created the whole universe, became not only a man but (before that) a baby, and before that a fetus inside a woman’s body.

If you want to get the hang of it, think how you would like to become a slug or a crab.

Or a lobster.

“We hold these truths to be sacred”

Over the weekend, I read famed historian Walter Isaacson’s new book, The Greatest Sentence Ever Written. It is a word-by-word analysis of the Declaration of Independence’s central assertion:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

The book tells the fascinating story of the Declaration’s evolution from Thomas Jefferson’s initial draft to the document’s final version. For example, we learn that Mr. Jefferson, despite his deistic misgivings regarding the supernatural, originally wrote, “We hold these truths to be sacred . . .” However, Isaacson reports that Benjamin Franklin crossed out “sacred” and wrote “self-evident” in its place.

This is unsurprising, given Franklin’s worldview.

As Isaacson notes, the famous Founder spent more than a month in late 1771 with the famous Scottish philosopher David Hume. Here, he learned Hume’s maxim that self-evident truths are “discoverable by the mere operation of thought” rather than upon empirical observation. As a result of Franklin’s edit, our threefold right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” is a “truth” in the sense that we assent logically and rationally to it.

The famed triad’s nature is defined in the same manner: the Founders created a secular republic and therefore offered no biblical or spiritual definitions for life or liberty. In his comment on the third phrase, Isaacson writes that the pursuit of happiness is also “your right—and your opportunity—to seek fulfillment, meaning, and well-being however you personally see fit.”

Christmas is proof that Jesus disagrees.

The only baby who chose to be born

The observable universe is currently estimated to be about ninety-two billion light-years across. Traveling at 186,232 miles per second, it would take you that long to travel from one edge to the other. If your mind can grasp such expansive immensity, it is more capable than mine.

And yet the Creator measures all of that “between his thumb and little finger” (Isaiah 40:12, MSG). Furthermore, it was by Jesus that “all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible” (Colossians 1:16). It is also in him that “all things hold together” (v. 17).

When Jesus unveiled even a glimpse of his heavenly divinity to his best friend John on Patmos, the apostle “fell at his feet as though dead” (Revelation 1:17). Christ is so majestic that when he returns, “on his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords” (Revelation 19:16).

And yet he voluntarily “emptied himself” of his indescribable immensity (Philippians 2:7) to become a fertilized egg the size of a pinhead in the womb of a peasant teenage girl. He grew as a fetus and was born as a helpless baby who was then laid in a stone feed trough and worshiped by dirty field hands. He was the only baby in human history to choose to be born and to choose the manner of his birth—and this is what he chose.

Three decades later, he made another fateful choice, again humbling himself “by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (v. 8). He could have been executed by stoning at the hands of a Jewish mob (John 8:59), but he chose to die for our sins by Roman crucifixion, the most painful, tortured manner of execution ever devised.

If your friend became a lobster

In short, our Savior chose to sacrifice his “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” for us. Nothing about his decision was “self-evident” in Hume’s sense of rational operation. Finite human minds cannot comprehend such divine reasoning (cf. Isaiah 55:8–9).

But let’s try.

Imagine that it would somehow benefit you for a friend to come back to life as a lobster, a slug, or a crab. This is a fair analogy for the incarnation of Jesus, since the biological distance between humans and such creatures is infinitesimal compared with the infinite distance between God and us.

Here’s my question: If your friend were to make this decision, then die in your place so you could live eternally, would you ever again doubt their love for you?

Quote for the day:

“Because of his boundless love, Jesus became what we are that he might make us to be what he is.” —St. Irenaeus

Our latest website resources:

• Navigating faith and political discussions with Gen Z
• What does the Bible say about suicide?
• Why did Cloudflare and Amazon Web Services fail? What the outages can teach us about the spiritual realm
• Why are so many young people struggling to find hope—and how can we help?
• Epstein files, MAGA infighting, peace deals & Tom Cruise

Denison Forum

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reportedly wants to meet President Trump “as soon as possible,” possibly over Thanksgiving, to finalize a joint US–Ukrainian peace agreement. The primary gap to be bridged is apparently over territory: the current twenty-eight-point US proposal concedes additional land to Russia beyond what it already controls.

The US argument is that the current trajectory of the war suggests Ukraine would eventually lose the territory anyway. White House officials stress that Mr. Trump’s primary goal is to end the war, no matter what the peace deal ultimately looks like.

Such an approach is often termed Realpolitik, a German word meaning “politics of reality.” Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was a foremost proponent, urging the US to engage with other powerful nations in a practical manner rather than on the basis of political doctrine or ethics. He famously stated, “America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests.”

In this view, advancing these interests is the job of a nation’s leaders, whatever ethical compromises must be made along the way. As the political philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah noted, “A value is like a fax machine. It’s not much use if you’re the only one who has one.”

Aren’t you glad God doesn’t feel the same way?

Reflecting on a staggering reality

The psalmist declared, “Give thanks to the Lᴏʀᴅ, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever” (Psalm 136:1). He did not claim that God “does” good but that he “is” good. His “steadfast love” (translating the Hebrew hesed, meaning “unconditional and unchanging kindness”) “endures forever,” meaning that it will eternally be what it is right now.

This is because “God is love” (1 John 4:8) and God does not change (Malachi 3:6). If the Supreme Being did, he would be less than Supreme and thus less than God.

Paul similarly reminds us that “God is for us” (Romans 8:31). Max Lucado comments:

Not may be, not has been, not was, but God is! He is for you. Today. At this hour. At this minute. As you [read] this, he is with you. God is for you (his emphasis).

Take a moment to reflect on the staggering reality that the King of the universe, the Creator of all the cosmos, the Lord of time and eternity “is for you” right now.

“A good that is forever giving”

No wonder the Bible commands us to continually “give thanks to the Lᴏʀᴅ,” to “offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving” (Psalm 50:14), to “magnify him with thanksgiving” (Psalm 69:30), and to give thanks “always and for everything to God” (Ephesians 5:20, my emphasis). No wonder those in heaven will spend eternity giving thanks to the Lord we worship (Revelation 4:9; 7:11–12; 11:17).

And no wonder we are called to “give thanks in all circumstances” on earth as well (1 Thessalonians 5:18; cf. Hebrews 13:15).

The Bible teaches that “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). In response, St. Augustine asked:

What do we love? A good that words cannot describe, a good that is forever giving, a good that is the Creator of all good. Delight in him from whom you have received everything that delights you. But in that I do not include sin, for sin is the one thing that you do not receive from him. With that one exception, everything you have comes from him.

How will you respond tomorrow to those who prepare your Thanksgiving meal? What will you say to those who give you gifts this Christmas? Is thanking those who are kind to us not instinctive?

How much more should we instinctively live a lifestyle of thanksgiving with an attitude of gratitude toward our Father?

If we don’t, why don’t we?

Why I thank someone for something

I cannot speak for you, but I can be honest about my own heart.

When I thank someone for something, I am acting in response to their benevolence. I am admitting that they have offered me grace (defined theologically as “unmerited favor”). They have given me something I did not have but am glad to receive.

In that moment, they were in a sense my superior and I was their inferior. Consequently, I want to express my gratitude as a way of paying my debt and thus leveling the scales of merit.

Here’s the problem: My fallen “will to power” does not want to live in perpetual debt to anyone, even (and sometimes especially) to God. I want to be my own god (Genesis 3:5), the king of my own kingdom. I am happy to give to others and be thanked, but I am less happy to receive as a pauper before a prince, a beggar at the gate of the king.

But this is the reality of my status before an omnipotent God. The good news is, it is also just the posture required to experience his best.

“Keep your eyes open to your mercies”

Jesus paradoxically asserted, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3). This is the first Beatitude, the first foundation stone for the Sermon on the Mount and the Christian life it teaches. Our Lord’s words can be paraphrased, “Blessed are those who are spiritually destitute and starving in their souls, for they make God their king and experience life in his kingdom.”

As a fallen human, I submit to God to the degree that I recognize my need for what he alone can provide. But the fact is, I need his best in every dimension of my life, every day. I need his wisdom for every decision, his strength for every trial, his joy for every moment.

So, if I live a lifestyle of thanksgiving with a posture of gratitude to God, I position myself to receive all that my loving Father wants for me. And my changed life will glorify him and lead others to him.

In this sense, Robert Louis Stevenson was more right than he may have known when he advised,

“Keep your eyes open to your mercies. The man who forgets to be thankful has fallen asleep in life.”

How awake is your soul today?

Quote for the day:

“A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all the other virtues.” —Cicero

Our latest website resources:

• Navigating faith and political discussions with Gen Z
• What does the Bible say about suicide?
• Why did Cloudflare and Amazon Web Services fail? What the outages can teach us about the spiritual realm
• Why are so many young people struggling to find hope—and how can we help?
• Epstein files, MAGA infighting, peace deals & Tom Cruise

Denison Forum

“Signs of a true revival have been piling up lately”

As we focus on gratitude this Thanksgiving week, let’s consider a recent article in the Atlantic that offers surprising encouragement about evangelical Christianity. Spencer Kornhaber reports:

Signs of a true revival have been piling up lately. After years of decline, church attendance has leveled and might even be climbing. TikTok brims with “Christiancore” aesthetics and tradwives. An administration whose Millennial vice president converted to Catholicism just six years ago is pushing explicitly theological policy crusades. And the musical middle has gone megachurchy, filling the Billboard Hot 100 with country-tinged redemption tales and actual worship songs.

The rest of the article focuses on a new album by Rosalía, a singer Kornhaber describes as a “Catalan superstar.” In the album, she “adopts the sound and ambitions of a classical oratorio to mirror the modern quest for salvation, in all its thrilling and frustrating contours.”

Kornhaber writes: “The question of what we believe about our souls and what that belief demands is more serious than lifestyle fads or partisan politics allow for.” I completely agree. However, he then concludes: “Embracing that search, Rosalía preaches, can be as significant as having an answer” (my emphasis).

This is an assertion we need to discuss today, for reasons that far transcend the article that asserts it.

Science documents positive effects of religion

In Why We Believe: Finding Meaning in Uncertain Times, Oxford theologian Alister McGrath cites evidence that the “act of believing” confers significant benefits such as “giving structure to life, providing reassurance, reducing anxiety, and facilitating social integration.”

This is good news, since we are believers by nature. The Notre Dame sociologist Christian Smith writes:

All human beings are believers, not knowers who know with certitude. Everything we know is grounded on presupposed beliefs that cannot be verified with more fundamental proof or certainty that provides us assurance that they are true. This is just as true for atheists as for religious adherents. . . . There is no universal, rational foundation upon which indubitably certain knowledge can be built. All human knowing is built on believing. That is the human condition.

However, when we practice our beliefs through religious activities such as prayer, Bible study, worship, and other spiritual disciplines, we seem to experience especially noteworthy benefits. For years, scientific research has documented the positive effects of religious observance. From mental health and social stability to charitable giving, civic engagement, and overall wellness, the pattern is clear: engaging in religious practices is good for us.

So we can be thankful for the increase in religiosity Spencer Kornhaber and many others are reporting these days. As he notes, “Embracing [the] search” for spiritual meaning produces significant benefits.

But can these benefits be “as significant as having an answer”?

Drenched on my morning walk

I went for my early morning walk yesterday, ninety minutes before rain was predicted to begin in our area. Ten minutes later, it started to rain; by the time I made it back home, I was drenched.

The thought occurred to me: Humans are better at predicting and controlling what we create than what we do not. Mechanics can predict the performance of cars more effectively than meteorologists can predict the weather because people make cars but God makes nature. Doctors can do much to treat the diseases of bodies made by our Creator, but medical science ultimately cannot prevent death—only God can.

There are clear benefits to the practice of religion, just as there are benefits to walking in nature or visiting an art gallery. Similarly, an attitude of gratitude lowers the stress hormone cortisol and increases “feel-good” hormones like dopamine and serotonin.

But the greatest benefit of thanksgiving, like the greatest benefit of religious practice, comes not from the act but from its object.

When we can “do all things”

Paul assured us, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17, my emphasis). Notice that the apostle did not say “in the church” or “in Bible study.” His Greek phrase, translated “in Christ,” means “located within or connected directly to Christ.”

The Bible is a sacred book (2 Peter 1:21), but it is a means to the end of knowing its Author personally (John 20:30–31). Worship is transforming to the degree that we focus our hearts on an Audience of One and are awed by him (cf. Isaiah 6:1–8).

As we noted yesterday, our ultimate purpose in life is becoming like Christ (cf. Romans 8:29). However, the power to know him in a transforming way is found not in us but in him. He alone has the ability to defeat our temptations, pardon our sins, heal our deepest hurts, and empower our faithful service.

When we seek to know the living Lord Jesus intimately, he makes us like himself and continues his ministry in the world through us. As Paul testified, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13 NKJV, my emphasis).

But only then.

Warren Buffett’s farewell advice

The famed investor Warren Buffett is retiring at year’s end and recently wrote his farewell letter to shareholders. In it he advised:

“Decide what you would like your obituary to say and live the life to deserve it.”

I want mine to say, “He lived to know Christ and make him known.”

What do you want yours to say?

Quote for the day:

“Study to know Christ more and more, for the more you know, the more you will love him.” —George Whitefield

Our latest website resources:

• What does the Bible say about suicide?
• Why did Cloudflare and Amazon Web Services fail? What the outages can teach us about the spiritual realm
• Why are so many young people struggling to find hope—and how can we help?
• Epstein files, MAGA infighting, peace deals & Tom Cruise
• Two federal judges use AI to draft judicial decisions: Why accountability is our first responsibility

Denison Forum

What do these surprising political headlines from the weekend have in common?

• “Trump ally Marjorie Taylor Greene to quit Congress after Epstein files feud”
• “Trump pivots from bashing Mamdani, predicting he will ‘do a great job’ as mayor”
• “Supreme Court, for now, keeps in place Texas Republican-friendly congressional map”
• “Orthodox Church pews are overflowing with converts”

In each case, you have to be grateful for what is being reported to experience the news as good news. If you’re not a fan of Mr. Trump or Ms. Greene, if you don’t find New York City or Texas state politics relevant, or if you’re not interested in the cultural narrative illustrated by the Orthodox Church’s rising popularity, you won’t click on the links.

Here’s why this theme matters this Thanksgiving week and every week.

How God treated my migraine in Cuba

Gratitude is the pathway to flourishing. It’s not enough to have the resources necessary for happiness—we must be grateful for these resources to experience their full benefit.

Consider a mundane illustration: My wife sent me to our bank the other day to draw out some cash from the ATM. The machine asked how much I wanted. I asked the screen what the maximum amount was. It told me $800, so I asked for that amount. It then canceled my transaction. When I went inside the bank to see what had gone wrong, I was informed that $500 is the maximum amount you can withdraw, a fact lost on the ATM’s messaging system.

I was frustrated by this technological snafu, but I had been contemplating today’s theme for a few days and remembered it in that moment. I therefore made myself express gratitude for a bank that holds our money, ATM technology that dispenses it, and enough money to be able to withdraw what we needed.

My friends in Cuba would not share my frustration. A recent article in the Economist profiles the ongoing crisis gripping their island nation: electricity usually does not work, and water is often unavailable for drinking, cooking, washing, or even flushing a toilet. According to one study, 89 percent of Cuban families live in extreme poverty; only 3 percent can get the medicine they need at pharmacies.

Over my many preaching trips to the island, however, I have seen Cuban Christians adapt to their challenges. Without electricity, they open the windows of their worship centers and praise God by sunlight and candlelight. Without government support, they grow their own food and share it with each other. Without medicines, they pray for healing.

During one of my trips, I developed a migraine headache one evening. There was no aspirin or other medicine to be found, so the pastor brought an elderly member of his church to see me in my hotel room. “Brother Ben” anointed my forehead with oil and prayed for me, and my headache vanished.

Our Cuban sisters and brothers have taken to heart the biblical command, “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thessalonians 5:18). Their gratitude helps them identify God’s blessings and then enables them to experience his gifts personally.

Displacing bad behavior with good behavior

This principle is rooted in basic human nature.

Many years ago, an article by the New York Times columnist David Brooks explained our theme. According to Brooks, “There’s a trove of research suggesting that it’s best to tackle negative behaviors obliquely, by redirecting attention toward different, positive ones.” He added, “Don’t try to bludgeon bad behavior. Change the underlying context. Change the behavior triggers. Displace bad behavior with different good behavior.”

In other words, when we are frustrated, disappointed, or otherwise challenged, choose to “give thanks in all circumstances.” Look for a reason to be grateful even in the midst of disappointment or pain.

You may be in the hospital, but you can be grateful that hospitals exist and that you are receiving medical care. You might be grieving the end of your marriage, but you can look for whatever good came from your relationship and be thankful for it. You could be facing your first Thanksgiving without a loved one, but you can remember wonderful times together and focus on the fact that every day is Thanksgiving for those who dwell in God’s glorious paradise.

When we do this, we experience more than the pleasurable emotions resulting from the dopamine and serotonin released in our brains by gratitude: we position ourselves to experience personally the blessings we remember.

“Changed” or “exchanged”?

This principle applies most of all to our ultimate purpose in life. Oswald Chambers observed, “The miracle of redemption is that God turns me, the unholy one, into the standard of himself, the Holy One, by putting into me a new disposition, the disposition of Jesus Christ.”

Being “born again” is therefore not just metaphorical but real (John 3:3). Jesus remakes us as God’s children (John 1:12) and infuses us with his Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:16). When we mentally replace our fallen nature with his perfection, seeking to manifest his character and continue his earthly ministry, his Spirit does something mystical and even miraculous in us.

Watchman Nee was right: “We think of the Christian life as a ‘changed life,’ but it is not that. What God offers us is an ‘exchanged life,’ a ‘substituted life,’ and Christ is our Substitute within.”

Remember the impact Jesus made in his incarnation. Now imagine his impact through yours.

Our omnipotent Lord cannot be Lord of our lives without changing our lives (cf. Acts 4:13). However, as Tim Keller noted,

“If God is not at the center of your life, something else is.”

Would those who know you say God is at the “center of your life” today?

If not, why not?

Quote for the day:

“Outside Christ, I am empty. In Christ, I am full.” —Watchman Nee

Our latest website resources:

• Why did Cloudflare and Amazon Web Services fail? What the outages can teach us about the spiritual realm
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• Two federal judges use AI to draft judicial decisions: Why accountability is our first responsibility
• What can we learn from Africa’s growing church amid trial and persecution?

Denison Forum

When news broke that President Trump was preparing to present Ukraine and Russia with a plan for peace, many were wary of what the proposal might entail. As details began to leak last night, it appears that at least some of those concerns were warranted. However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appears open to discussion, even if many of the nation’s European allies are not.

Axios reported the complete list, but some of the most important points are:

• Ukraine would not be allowed to join NATO now or in the future, and NATO would not be allowed to station troops in Ukraine. Ukraine would, however, be eligible to join the EU and would receive short-term preferential access to the European market.
• Ukraine would receive what one US official described as “an explicit security guarantee” from the US, although the details of what that guarantee would entail are still unclear. The current plan marks the first time Trump has been willing to offer such a guarantee officially.
• The eastern Donbas region would be officially recognized as Russian territory, while the 14 percent currently controlled by Ukraine would become a demilitarized buffer zone between the two nations.
• $100 billion in frozen Russian assets will be used to help rebuild Ukraine, while the proposal also calls for Europe to invest $100 billion in the reconstruction.
• All prisoners and civilians currently held captive by either side—including the children taken by Russia—will be returned, while “a family reunification program” will be implemented as well.

Overall, the plan appears to clearly favor Russia over Ukraine, though the circumstances of the war meant that this scenario was always the most likely. The question now is whether the plan provides enough room for both sides to agree.

Ceding the land currently controlled by Russia—much less giving up territory still controlled by Ukraine—has long been the most difficult aspect of any negotiations for peace. Doing so is technically illegal under Ukraine’s constitution, and many in Europe are wary of any end to the war that makes it seem as though Russia won.

So, what changed? Why does Zelensky seem more open to this kind of agreement now than he has been in the past?

Why Zelensky may be more motivated for peace

When Zelensky was first elected president of Ukraine, he ran on a promise to clean up the government and crack down on those who abused their positions of power for personal gain. And while he has made some progress in that regard, a series of scandals has begun to rock his hold on the government.

Earlier this summer, he was forced to quickly backtrack after attempting to limit the organizations responsible for investigating corruption. Now he faces renewed pressure after two top officials were caught embezzling $100 million from the nation’s energy sector through kickbacks.

While the two officials have since resigned and Zelensky has not been accused of taking part in the crime, his political opponents are calling for more. Namely, they want him to force out his longtime chief of staff and political “gatekeeper,” Andrii Yermak, arguing that it’s difficult to see how corruption on that scale could have escaped his notice.

Yermak has played a key role in managing Ukraine’s relationships with its western allies and in negotiating a potential end to the war. Losing him would be a blow to Zelensky without any guarantees that it would restore the trust lost with his people.

As such, it seems as though he might be more willing to consider conditions of peace that were off the table in the past over fears that his position—both militarily and politically—is only going to get worse from here.

So, while it’s unlikely that every part of Trump’s proposed ceasefire will be enacted, something akin to this deal may be the best offer that Ukraine gets. The question now is whether Zelensky and his allies can accept that reality.

However, they are far from the only ones who struggle with such decisions.

Redeeming our fallen reality

Jonah Goldberg once noted that “Self-awareness is indispensable to seeing the lines between what you want to be true and what is actually true.” Unfortunately, self-awareness tends to be a quality that many of us struggle to consistently live out. And the results are often catastrophic.

If it helps, though, humanity has been fighting against false self-perceptions of our abilities and limitations from the start.

In many ways, Satan’s temptation to Adam and Eve in the Garden was rooted in the idea that they were not only capable of being equals with God but that they deserved to be as well (Genesis 3:5–6). Israel’s issues with God in the wilderness and their refusal to worship him alone in the centuries leading up to the Exile stemmed from much the same place. And the call to submit our sense of need and entitlement to the Lord in order to find peace with him and with each other is one of the most frequent themes throughout Paul’s letters.

When we refuse to accept the reality of our situation and of our own limitations, it makes accepting God’s will for our lives extremely difficult. And when we evaluate his will through the lens of what we feel entitled to or from the perspective of our own selfish desires, it will often seem lacking.

The truth is that God loves us enough to disappoint us when he knows doing so is in our best interests (Matthew 7:9–11). In those moments, learning to offer Christ’s prayer from the garden that “not as I will, but as you will” is crucial to walking in step with the Lord (Matthew 26:39).

So, where are you struggling with self-awareness today? Are there any areas of your life where you’re finding it difficult to accept God’s will because it conflicts with your own?

This side of heaven, all of us will face moments where it’s difficult to accept the reality of our lives and where our choices have brought us. However, your situation isn’t going to improve by simply wishing things were different or—even worse—trying to live as though it already is. The sooner we accept that fact, the quicker we can join God in his plans to redeem our fallen reality in ways that only he can.

Are you willing to make that choice today?

Quote of the day:

“Faith is acting like God is telling the truth.” —Tony Evans

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• Tom Cruise receives his first Oscar

Denison Forum

Two very disparate stories are headlining the news this morning.

First, President Trump stated on social media last night that he has signed the bill that directs the Department of Justice (DOJ) to publicly release all its Jeffrey Epstein-related files. Senators from both parties said the DOJ must now release the files within thirty days.

Second, the Associated Press is reporting that “the House voted overwhelmingly yesterday to repeal part of a new law that gives senators the ability to sue the federal government for millions of dollars if their personal or office data is accessed without their knowledge.”

The Senate included such a provision in the funding bill that ended the recent government shutdown. This was in response to reports that the FBI analyzed phone records of as many as ten senators in 2023 as part of an investigation into President Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. The House was “blindsided” by the provision and has voted to overturn it. Now the Senate must decide how to respond.

 “The definition and axioms of free society”

I have the greatest admiration for Abraham Lincoln. I have visited his birthplace in Kentucky, stood near where he stood at Gettysburg, and been in the theater where he was shot and the home where he died.

I have enormous respect for Thomas Jefferson as well. While I grieve his failures and hypocrisy concerning slavery, I am grateful for his brilliant intellect and revelatory wisdom so foundational to America’s birth. I have visited his Virginia home and burial site and stood in awe beside the room in Philadelphia where he wrote the Declaration of Independence.

However, I must audaciously disagree with something Mr. Lincoln said about Mr. Jefferson.

In Jon Meacham’s magisterial biography, And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle, we find a statement in which Mr. Lincoln praises Mr. Jefferson: “The principles of Jefferson are the definition and axioms of free society.” Meacham adds that “chief among [them] was that all men were created equal.”

Mr. Lincoln elaborated:

All honor to Jefferson—to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there that today, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling block to the very harbingers of re-appearing tyranny and oppression.

If only it were true.

Why are there 49,000 federal laws?

In the partisan political furor over the Epstein files, with each side looking for ways to attack the other, the victims of Epstein’s sexual abuse and sex trafficking are all too easily overlooked. Even senators, occupying one of the highest echelons of political power in the land, can reportedly be victimized by the government they lead.

From Cain and Abel to crimes generating headlines today, fallen humans have consistently and often emphatically rejected Thomas Jefferson’s assertion that “all men are created equal.” Pornography objectifies people made in the image of God; sex trafficking commercializes souls for whom Jesus died; crime victimizes people loved infinitely by their Creator.

The beating heart of our fallen nature is the will to power: our quest to be our own god (Genesis 3:5) at the expense of everyone else. All the while, they are doing the same at our expense. Is it any wonder that the US has enacted over forty-nine thousand federal laws across our history? Or that they consistently fail to restrict our behavior or reform our character?

And yet, despite all our failed attempts to legislate morality, we persist in the effort. In large part, this is because abandoning the effort obviously would lead to anarchy and chaos. But also, this quest for a just society reveals something transcendent about our souls.

“The echo of a tune we have not heard”

This week, we have been focusing on the transforming power of intimacy with Jesus. Today, let’s add a very different dimension to the conversation.

In “The Weight of Glory,” C. S. Lewis identifies “a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience.” He speaks of books or music, for example, in which we experience beauty but never quite attain the deeper beauty to which they point. As he notes, “They are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.”

I myself have had this experience many times. Sitting on my favorite bench beside my favorite lake; watching the sun rise or set over the ocean; hiking in the woods amid blossoming dogwoods and azaleas on a glorious spring morning. I have been privileged to visit places that will remain fixed in my memory to the end of my life—the sunrise over the Sea of Galilee, the hushed beauty of the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem, the majesty of the Acropolis in Athens, and the wonder of the Pantheon in Rome spring to mind.

But each and every time, without exception, there was a nagging sense in the back of my soul that this is not “it.” There is something more, something beyond this, something more perfect of which this is a beautiful but ethereal imitation. Plato was right in calling this world a “shadow” of the ideal. We legislate against our immorality and strive for beauty and joy with all our hearts, but we never actually attain what we seek. Even when it seems we do, the moment passes and the shadows envelop us once more.

Lewis had the explanation to which I am pointing us today:

If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.

“When I am weak, then I am strong”

If nothing in this fallen world can satisfy our souls, let’s use the temporal to experience the eternal, the material to unite with the spiritual, the mundane to seek the transcendent. Aristotle corrected Plato by claiming that the ideal is found in the material, and in a sense he was right.

If God is truly omnipresent, we can meet him in every moment and place. If he is truly omnibenevolent, we can experience his love even in the most loveless moments. If he is truly omniscient, we can find his wisdom and follow his guidance even in the darkest valleys. If he is truly omnipotent, we can experience his transforming strength even in our greatest weakness.

In fact, it is likely that it is in just such moments that such revelations will come. When Paul trusted his “thorn in the flesh” to God’s providence, he discovered that he could say, “When I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10).

What is your “thorn” today? Where are you most disappointed or frustrated with life? Conversely, if your circumstances happen to be joyful this morning, are they enough for your soul?

The Bible assures us, “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you” (James 4:8). In just the moment where you find yourself today, can I invite you to seek “with all your heart” the Father who is seeking you (Jeremiah 29:13)?

Quote for the day:

“You can’t truly rest until every area of your life rests in God.” —A. W. Tozer

Our latest website resources:

• Epstein files, MAGA infighting, peace deals & Tom Cruise
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• What can we learn from Africa’s growing church amid trial and persecution?

Denison Forum

A chatbot is a “program or application that users can converse with using voice or text.” The bots simulate human conversation by using natural language processing to understand users and respond to their questions.

I suppose it was inevitable that chatbots would come not only to customer service, e-commerce, entertainment, and media but also to the church. Here are some examples:

• One Day Confession uses AI to “simulate the experience of confessing to a Catholic priest, providing thoughtful responses based on biblical teachings and principles.”
• Confession–Catholic also allows the user to “enter the content to ask for forgiveness” and then “receive forgiveness” from the app.
• EpiscoBot.com allows users to ask questions and receive answers reflecting “the teachings and policies of the Episcopal Church.”
• A pastor named Ron Carpenter has created an AI app that allows you to ask questions and receive answers drawn from his sermon archive.

And there’s even Text With Jesus, an AI-powered chatbot billed as “a divine connection in your pocket.” It invites you to “embark on a spiritual journey and engage in enlightening conversations with Jesus Christ, the apostles, and a multitude of other revered figures from the Bible.”

Of course, chatbots creating the illusion that we are talking directly with Jesus are just that—illusions. However, many of us who would never use an app to talk to Christ nonetheless have a “chatbot” relationship with the real Jesus.

I know. For many years, I was one of them.

God with a massive set of scales

As I have often recounted, I grew up in a family that never attended church services. I believed there was a God but had no concept of a personal relationship with him.

In my theological worldview, he was a divine judge with a massive set of scales, balancing the good I did on one side against the bad on the other. Whichever way the scale tipped determined where I went when I died. Since I thought I was basically a good person, I assumed I had all of God I needed in my life.

As a teenager, I was invited to attend a local Baptist church, where I heard the gospel and eventually made a commitment to trust in Christ as my Savior and Lord. I then began practicing what I understood the Christian life to be—praying, reading the Bible, attending church services, serving others, and sharing my faith. Over time, I sensed a call into vocational ministry (another story for another day). Theological degrees followed, as did service on a seminary faculty and pastoral ministry in three churches.

Then came a day that changed everything.

“Trying to prove to yourself that you are loved”

I was pastoring a church in Atlanta, Georgia, when our staff participated in a silent retreat at Ignatius House, a Jesuit retreat center on the Chattahoochee River. During the retreat, we were given an essay by the writer Mike Yaconelli in which he recounted a remarkable experience at a spiritual retreat of his own. He testified:

God had been trying to shout over the noisiness of my life, and I couldn’t hear him. But in the stillness and solitude, his whispers shouted from my soul, “Michael, I am here. I have been calling you. I have been loving you, but you haven’t been listening. Can you hear me, Michael? I love you. I have always loved you. And I have been waiting for you to hear me say that to you. But you have been so busy trying to prove to yourself that you are loved that you have not heard me.”

What God said to Mike, he said to me. In those days, my Father showed me that he wants a personal, intimate relationship with me above all else. He wants to be as real, alive, and active in my life as any other living person. More so, in fact, since he and I can commune directly any time, any place.

By contrast, I was relating to him as transactionally as I would to a chatbot: asking questions and deriving answers and advice. I prayed when I needed forgiveness or guidance, read his word to prepare sermons and Bible studies, and worshiped as part of my pastoral responsibilities. But I could not remember the last time I spent an hour with Jesus just to be with Jesus. I could not remember the last time I read the Bible for no reason except to hear his voice.

And this broke my heart: I could not remember the last time I told Jesus from my heart that I loved him.

“So shall your God rejoice over you”

Yesterday, we focused on life-changing intimacy with God. The day before, we discussed the private sins that imperil such intimacy. Today, let’s add one more fact: sins no one else sees are just as effective in blocking the Holy Spirit as those that are obvious. Such sins are even more nefarious in a way, since we think we can commit them, confess them, and face no consequences for them.

In truth, they are bricks in a wall separating us from the personal, transforming presence of Jesus.

By contrast, seeking true intimacy with Jesus is the path to experiencing his best and reflecting his transforming character to a broken culture. Our Lord says of his people, “As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you” (Isaiah 62:5). He is already “living among you” as your “mighty savior” (Zephaniah 3:17a NLT). As a result, “He will take delight in you with gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs” (v. 17b NLT).

If you want to experience his delight, gladness, love, calm, and joy, ask his Spirit to lead you into greater intimacy with Jesus than you have ever known, then follow his lead. There will be things to do and stop doing, steps to take as you journey further into his transforming presence. He promises: “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13).

Dr. Duane Brooks noted in a recent devotional,

“We cannot go with God and stay where we are.”

Will you “go with God” today?

Quote for the day:

“To fall in love with God is the greatest romance; to seek him the greatest adventure; to find him the greatest achievement.” —St. Augustine

Our latest website resources:

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• A Veterans Day reflection on a debt we can never repay
• If spreading the gospel was as easy as ‘67’

Denison Forum

Late last night, President Trump wrote on social media that House Republicans should vote to release all files in the Jeffrey Epstein case. His statement comes ahead of an expected House vote this week, after the House Oversight Committee released more than twenty thousand pages of documents related to Epstein last week. They include communications between the convicted sex offender and numerous high-profile people in politics, media, Hollywood, and foreign affairs.

The issue has come to dominate headlines and popular culture in recent days. Saturday Night Live, for example, made numerous jokes about it too vulgar for me to repeat or reference. My purpose today is not to sort through the entire story, but to speak to an issue it illustrates that directly affects you and me every day.

Divorcing character from leadership

Ours is largely a two-party political system. Since the creation of the modern-day Republican and Democratic parties in the nineteenth century, no third-party candidate has been elected to the presidency.

As a result, voters are typically obligated to choose the candidate they believe will best lead the country, whether they have significant issues with that candidate’s personal character or not. In this scenario, some choose not to vote, or they vote for a third party or write-in candidate. Others respond that this approach renders the person’s vote null and takes a vote from the major party candidate they would have otherwise supported, essentially helping elect the other candidate. This is a debate for another time.

Here’s my point: Whatever our partisan political views, we must not divorce character from leadership.

Some believe that so long as a person does the job they’re elected to do, their personal character issues are less relevant. Many will therefore view whatever comes of the Epstein files through the same partisan lens they view all other news.

I recognize that we elect a president, governor, mayor, and so on, not a pastor or Sunday school teacher. We don’t typically care much about the personal morality of a CEO whose company’s products we buy.

But we should.

And we should not view elected leaders merely as corporate CEOs and ourselves as the consumers of their “products.”

Three reasons character matters

Let me explain why.

One: Personal character matters to the person.

According to Heraclitus, “A man’s character is his fate.” This is more true than the ancient philosopher knew.

The Bible states, “It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). This is true for believers as well: “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil” (2 Corinthians 5:10). It is therefore vital that we pray for the spiritual health of our leaders, for their sake (1 Timothy 2:1–2).

Two: Personal character matters to the public.

King Manasseh “did what was evil in the sight of the Lᴏʀᴅ” and “led Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem astray, to do more evil than the nations whom the Lᴏʀᴅ destroyed before the people of Israel” (2 Chronicles 33:2, 9). As a result, God judged the nation and it fell into captivity (v. 11).

It is often said that we get the government we deserve, but we need leaders who appeal to the “better angels of our nature” and inspire us to the consensual morality upon which our democracy depends.

Three: Personal character matters to God.

Personal sin keeps Christians from experiencing the abundant life of Christ. We manifest the horrific “works of the flesh” rather than the life-giving “fruit of the Spirit” (Galatians 5:19–23). And our so-called “private” sin keeps the Holy Spirit from using us fully.

As Oswald Chambers noted in today’s My Utmost for His Highest reading, “God’s revelation of himself to me is determined by my character, not by God’s character.”

We can confess our sins and be forgiven (1 John 1:9), but their consequences persist. We remain spiritually stunted and miss the joy of the Lord that is our strength (Nehemiah 8:10) and our most compelling witness to a joyless world.

A word to Christian leaders

I’ll close today with a word to those of us who are privileged to be in spiritual leadership.

Satan wants us to believe (though we would never put this into words) that because of our calling, we are above the normal temptations of life. Of course this is tragically untrue, as the ongoing clergy abuse scandals show. The devil also wants us to think that we are somehow less susceptible to his wiles than others, hoping to draw us into a conversation over an issue that soon turns into a temptation and then into sin (cf. Genesis 3:1–7; James 1:14–15).

Our enemy does this because he knows that character failures by Christian leaders are especially devastating to the cause of Christ. Our sins can cause greater harm to more people. And our secularized culture will quickly seize on our faults as proof that our message is irrelevant or even dangerous, and that joining the Christian movement is dangerous as well.

So, Christians urgently need to reject the bifurcation of character and leadership so prevalent today. To this end, if you’re a Christian leader, let me urge you to take a moment for a spiritual inventory. Ask the Spirit to identify any area of your life that displeases God, then confess all that comes to your thoughts. Do this regularly. Make it your ambition to honor your Lord in “spirit and soul and body” (1 Thessalonians 5:23) today.

If you’re not in Christian leadership, let me urge you to pray daily for those who are. Intercede for your pastor, Bible teachers, and other leaders by name. Ask God to protect them from the enemy and empower their faithfulness to his glory.

And whatever your role in the body of Christ, I invite you to submit to the Spirit right now (Ephesians 5:18), asking him to empower you against temptation and produce his holiness in your heart. You and I cannot sanctify ourselves, but the Spirit of Jesus will make anyone more like our Lord, if only we are willing.

Andrew Murray assured us,

“God is ready to assume full responsibility for the life wholly yielded to him.”

Are you “wholly yielded to him” today?

Quote for the day:

“The destined end of man is not happiness, nor health, but holiness. God’s one aim is the production of saints.” —Oswald Chambers

Our latest website resources:

• Two federal judges use AI to draft judicial decisions: Why accountability is our first responsibility
• Shutdown ends, Democrats’ identity crisis, Pelosi update, MLB pitchers indicted & Nico Harrison fired
• What can we learn from Africa’s growing church amid trial and persecution?
• A Veterans Day reflection on a debt we can never repay
• If spreading the gospel was as easy as ‘67’

Denison Forum