Let’s begin with some inspiring stories that made headlines over the weekend.

Sports broadcaster Ernie Johnson has been called the “father of the century” for adopting a three-year-old from Romania who had been abandoned in a park at birth. The child had muscular dystrophy and could not walk or speak. Ernie and his wife Cheryl named him Michael. Friday night, he died at the age of thirty-three.

Johnson, who is a two-time cancer survivor, was motivated by his worldview to adopt Michael. During a televised conversation about the 2016 presidential election, he stated: “I never know from one election to the next who’s gonna be in the Oval Office, but I always know who’s on the throne. And I’m on this earth because God created me, and that’s who I answer to. I’m a Christian. I follow a guy named Jesus.”

In other news, some fathers began patrolling their children’s high school campus after numerous fights last month, and there has not been a single violent incident since. After a young mother collapsed during the Boston Marathon, spectators and fellow runners kept her alive until paramedics arrived. She was taken to an area hospital and is now recovering at home.

When a bus driver experienced a medical emergency, two middle school students used the radio to call for help and then set the emergency brake, flashers, and emergency stop arm. They flagged down a passing pastor, who came on the bus to pray with the panicking students. One of the two later said, “That was a moment of relief, I think, for Miss Julie and for us to know God was on our side.” The school district recognized the students’ bravery at a board meeting last month.

And on this day in 1955, Rosa Parks was jailed for refusing to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man, sparking the Montgomery Bus Boycott organized by Martin Luther King Jr. She later came to be called the “mother of the civil rights movement.”

Choosing between Halloween and All Saints Day

There is something in us that is inspired by stories of heroic service. If someone else can adopt a challenged child, care for those in need, or take a risk for the sake of humanity, we can as well.

Today is All Saints Day on the Christian calendar. In the seventh century, the Catholic church designated the day to honor the saints of Christian history. Over the centuries, it has come to be celebrated by numerous Protestant and Orthodox traditions as well. When we read and hear of godly examples from the past, we are stirred to emulate them.

This day is also known as “All Hallows’ Day” or “Hallowmas.” It follows “All Hallows’ Eve,” or “Halloween.” The juxtaposition of the two offers us an opportunity to choose between two competing worldviews, two ways of living in this culture. This choice is urgent not just today, but for every day of the year.

Halloween is a secular holiday with origins in Celtic pagan traditions. As I noted Friday, it can foster occult practices that are forbidden by the word of God. Even at its most innocent, it is an interesting parable for our secular culture: We dress in ways that project an image other than who we really are. Then, we go door-to-door seeking candy in response to our costumes and entreaties. Whatever your “costume” or “candy,” is this not a picture of self-reliant, image- and performance-centered living?

All Saints Day, by contrast, focuses on “saints.” In Catholic tradition, the term designates a person who lived a “heroically virtuous life” and is now in heaven, as attested by two miracles that have taken place through the intercession of this person. In biblical context, however, a “saint” (from the Greek hagios) is simply a Christian, someone who has made Christ their Lord and experienced salvation and new life by his grace (cf. Acts 9:13; Romans 1:7; 1 Corinthians 1:2; 2 Corinthians 5:17).

In other words, every Christian is a saint. However, not every Christian acts like one. How can we live in ways that honor our holy God and draw others to him?

You’re either going up or down

Our first step is to aspire to be all God intends us to be.

Scripture exhorts us to “cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God” (2 Corinthians 7:1). Peter was adamant: “As he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy’” (1 Peter 1:15–16, my emphasis).

However, if you’re like me, you’re tempted to believe that so long as you are godlier than many, you are as godly as you need to be. It’s human nature to judge ourselves by other humans. The fact that you’re reading this Daily Article makes you part of the spiritual minority in our secular culture. If you attended church services yesterday, you’re among the 17 percent of Americans who joined you.

So long as we don’t commit any obvious or “big” sins, attend worship services, read the Bible, pray, and give something to ministries, we can think that we’re a spiritual “success.” But this is a deception of the evil one. He doesn’t want you to do anything I just listed. But if you insist, he will do all he can to ensure that you do no more.

He knows, for instance, that if we compromise with private, personal sins, we will eventually and inevitably fall in much more public and defaming ways. If we grow complacent in our current spiritual condition, we will soon fall further away from our Lord.

The spiritual life is an ascent up a mountain. You’re either going up and forward or down and backward. You cannot stay where you are for long.

“As small as your controlling desire”

I believe God wants to use the rampant secularism of our culture and its growing animosity toward biblical faith to stir Christians from complacency to holiness. As we will see tomorrow, his Spirit will make us as holy as we wish to be. But we must first wish to be holier than we are.

In As A Man Thinketh, James Allen observed: “You will fall, remain, or rise with your thoughts, your vision, your ideal. You will become as small as your controlling desire, as great as your dominant aspiration.”

What is your “dominant aspiration” today?

NOTE: On multiple occasions, I’ve seen acclaimed stage actor Max McLean perform in his solo stage plays based on C. S. Lewis’ books. His artistry has helped millions experience the life and thoughts of one of the greatest Christian minds of the last century.

So I’m glad to relay that Max is starring as the elder Lewis in a feature-length film opening in a theater near you this Wednesday night, Nov. 3.

I encourage you to see The Most Reluctant Convert: The Untold Story of C. S. Lewis on opening night. Visit CSLewisMovie.com for showtimes. You may also read our early review here.

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 “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope” (Romans 15:13).

As Halloween approaches this Sunday, I found these facts about Americans to be relevant:

• 70 percent of us will celebrate the upcoming holiday; the figure rises to 91 percent for parents with children in their home.
• 88 percent of parents say they eat their children’s candy.
• 32 percent say there is no age limit for trick-or-treating.
• 46 percent believe ghosts are real.

As to why so many Americans believe in ghosts, the New York Times cites the rise of Americans claiming no religious preference and quotes sociologist Thomas Mowen in response: “People are looking to other things or nontraditional things to answer life’s big questions that don’t necessarily include religion.” Interestingly, Mowen says he is finding that “atheists tend to report higher belief in the paranormal than religious folk.”

In other words, many do not believe in the supernatural when it refers to God, but they do when it does not.

For example, the Washington Post is carrying a feature-length portrait of a “teenage witch” who lives in Austin, Texas. The article reports that the hashtag #witchtok on TikTok has 19.4 billion views. The teenager profiled by the Post says, “I’ve never felt more peace than when I’m with my gods. Reading a prayer or doing a ritual. It’s like the earth is alive, a way of stepping into my power as a person.”

An illusion that illustrates a cultural fact

The “Delboeuf Illusion” is an optical illusion of relative size perception. The best-known version of the illusion is below. The two dark-circled discs are the same size, though the one on the left seems smaller than the one on the right.

The Delboeuf Illusion (Image credit: Public Domain)

This illusion illustrates a cultural fact: the more chaos we see in the world around us, the smaller our individual challenges can seem.

There was a day, for instance, when concerns about witchcraft and the occult in the Harry Potter series were front-page stories. Now the enormous escalation of interest in witchcraft raises few eyebrows. So many people are fascinated with astrology and occult practices that the phenomenon is being called an “occult revival.” In a day dominated by the coronavirus pandemic, political divisions, and natural disasters, this “revival” can seem innocuous. But this is far from true.

My purpose is not to disparage all Halloween activities. We took our boys trick-or-treating in the neighborhood, and they will do the same with their children this Sunday. Halloween can be a fun holiday and even a way of building relational bridges for the gospel with our neighbors and community.

It is estimated that Americans will spend $10.1 billion on Halloween this year, including $3.3 billion on costumes and $3 billion on candy. Such a popular event can be a great opportunity to reach out to those around us with Christian truth and love (Ephesians 4:15).

“Do not turn to mediums or necromancers”

Rather, I’d like to use what the teenage witch said in the Washington Post article to contrast Halloween and the day it precedes. She claimed that communing with her occult “gods” is “a way of a way of stepping into my power as a person.” By contrast, God’s word consistently forbids engagement with the occult:

• “Do not turn to mediums or necromancers; do not seek them out, and so make yourselves unclean by them” (Leviticus 19:31).
• Scripture says of King Manasseh that he “used fortune-telling and omens and sorcery, and dealt with mediums and with necromancers.” As a result, “He did much evil in the sight of the Lᴏʀᴅ, provoking him to anger” (2 Chronicles 33:6).
• “The household gods utter nonsense, and the diviners see lies; they tell false dreams and give empty consolation. Therefore the people wander like sheep; they are afflicted for lack of a shepherd” (Zechariah 10:2).

Satan’s first strategy is always to claim that we will “step into our power as a person” by being our own god (Genesis 3:5). This is because the “will to power,” as Nietzsche described it, is basic to our fallen human nature.

As a result, we don’t have to engage in witchcraft and other occult practices to be tempted by the self-sufficiency our secular culture applauds and reinforces. I can refuse the occult but still write this article in my own ability for my own glory. You can read it in the same way.

If we do, neither of us will experience the omnipotent power available to everyone who refuses self-reliance for Spirit-dependence by yielding our minds and lives to the Holy Spirit.

Why we should “keep in step with the Spirit”

In contrast to Halloween, the following day is All Saints Day. (Halloween is a contraction of “All Hallows’ Eve,” referring to the day it precedes.) The day celebrates all the saints from Christian history.

But know this: all Christians qualify. We are all God’s “saints” (cf. Acts 9:13; 9:32; Romans 1:7; 8:27; 1 Corinthians 1:2; Ephesians 4:12; Philippians 4:21). However, to live out our identity requires power beyond ourselves.

By his Spirit who dwells in every Christian (1 Corinthians 3:16), God will enable us to defeat temptation (1 Corinthians 10:13), guide us into “all the truth” (John 16:13), and empower our global witness and ministry (Acts 1:8). But if we turn to any other source—be it occult, secular, or self-reliant—we forfeit what our omnipotent Father wants to do with and through us.

I’ll close with an illustration: I walked early yesterday morning in our neighborhood in the midst of a windstorm blowing twenty miles per hour, with gusts twice that strong. When I walked against the wind, I had no help from its strength. To the contrary, I had to work much harder than if there were no wind.

But when I went with the wind, its force at my back enabled me to walk with power beyond myself. (For more, see my blog on my personal website, where you’ll find other blogs, videos, and a way to ask me questions about faith and life.)

Jesus likened the Holy Spirit to the “wind [that] blows where it wishes” (John 3:8). Scripture calls us to submit to this “wind” every day (Ephesians 5:18), refusing to quench (1 Thessalonians 5:19) or grieve (Ephesians 4:30) his power through sin.

If we will “keep in step with the Spirit” (Galatians 5:25), we will have his omniscient wisdom to guide us and his omnipotent power to strengthen us.

Would the Spirit say you are “in step” with him today?

If not, why not?

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