The front page of this morning’s Wall Street Journal has a poignant photo: a woman is holding a newborn baby surrounded by life jackets and chaos on a ship. They are among more than 700 migrants rescued yesterday from seven boats in the Mediterranean Sea and transferred to the Italian coast guard.

CNN reports today on another harrowing escape over the weekend. Southwest Airlines Flight 3472, en route from New Orleans to Orlando, was diverted to Pensacola, Florida, after an engine exploded. “It was thanks to that pilot that we’re all alive,” a passenger said after the plane landed safely.

One more story of resilience: according to CNN, a couple was married yesterday amid the rubble of the deadly earthquake in Italy. They had planned to be married in the town church, but part of the building crumbled in the quake that killed at least 291 people. So they moved their wedding to the village square and made a memory the world is sharing today.

When people demonstrate courage in the face of devastating challenges, the culture takes notice. This is especially true when Christians remain faithful in a faithless day. But it’s sometimes hard to trust God for a future outcome that redeems present suffering. So let’s consider this statement by the Apostle Paul: “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18). Nearly every word of this remarkable sentence repays deeper investigation.

“Consider” translates a Greek word meaning “to study all the evidence and reach a verifiable conclusion.” “Suffering” is a term for all hardships, generic enough to include your challenges today. “This present time” uses a Greek word meaning not this hour or moment but this present age.

Continue reading Denison Forum – NEWBORN BABY RESCUED AT SEA         →

“When you have peace and quiet and you’re not concerned with people trying to get your attention, you’re dramatically more effective and can get important work done.” This is how psychologist Josh Davis describes the advantages of starting your day at 4 a.m. He notes that people booby-trap their offices with distractions: desk clutter, email pop-ups, cellphone, Facebook, other social media. However, “by waking up at 4 a.m., they’ve essentially wiped a lot of those distractions off their plate.”

You may not decide to get up at 4 a.m. tomorrow, but you can still choose to live a less cluttered life. Here’s how.

God’s word teaches us to “take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). One way to do this is to cultivate a soul that listens to God. David testified, “For God alone my soul waits in silence” (Psalm 62:1). As a result, he could say, “Once God has spoken; twice I have heard this: that power belongs to God, and to you, O Lord, belongs steadfast love” (vs. 11–12).

“God said” appears forty-six times in the Bible. We find this statement first in the third verse of the Bible (Genesis 1:3). The next-to-last verse of Scripture also quotes a direct statement of God (Revelation 22:20). Since neither human nor divine nature have changed, does it seem reasonable that the God who spoke so often in the biblical era would be silent today?

Francis Schaeffer noted that “he is there and he is not silent.” Our culture desperately needs Christians to hear from Christ and speak his word to our world.

According to The Atlantic, a major reason more people don’t go to church is that they don’t trust religious institutions. If they knew they would receive a genuine word from God, it seems they would be more interested in attending.

Continue reading Denison Forum – THE MOST POWERFUL WAY TO UNCLUTTER YOUR LIFE →

The Washington Post reports that last night’s 6.2-magnitude earthquake has killed at least thirty-eight people in central Italy. Today’s New York Times has a heartbreaking story on the effects of Zika on the brains of Brazilian babies.

In the midst of all the bad news, I was excited to read some amazingly good news today.

American runner Abbey D’Agostino became famous for helping fellow runner Nikki Hamblin after both were tripped during a race at the Rio Olympics. Abbey was severely injured but finished the race. Now she and Hamblin are the eighteenth and nineteenth recipients of the Pierre de Coubertin medal. It is not awarded at every Olympic Games. Rather, it is reserved for the most exceptional displays of sportsmanship and the Olympic spirit.

Abbey explained her behavior during the race as an expression of her faith, and the world took note. There’s something in us that responds to the God who made us.

I recently reread Alister McGrath’s A Cloud of Witnesses, which profiles some of the greatest theologians in history. His chapter on Martin Luther contains the great reformer’s insight that we should trust God’s promises over our experience. McGrath describes Luther’s conviction: “God promises to be present with us, even in life’s darkest hours—and if experience cannot detect him as being present, then that verdict of experience must be considered unreliable.”

The theologians McGrath surveys all agree on this central principle: Jesus is God, and he is real. He is a Person who is as alive and present in our world by his Spirit as he was in his flesh. He prays for us (Romans 8:34) and welcomes our prayers. He teaches us through the Spirit (John 16:14–15). He protects us on earth (John 10:28–29) while he is preparing our reward in heaven (John 14:2). One day he will come to take us from this fallen planet into God’s perfect paradise (v. 3).

Continue reading Denison Forum – AMERICAN EARNS OLYMPIC AWARD ONLY 17 HAVE RECEIVED →

Ben-Hur opened in theaters last Friday. You probably know that the plot involves a chariot race and may wonder why you need to know more. You likely have not heard of any of the actors apart from Morgan Freeman. The film has generally not received positive reviews from critics.

So, why do you need to see the movie?

Let’s begin with some cultural snapshots. Only 35 percent of Americans believe that absolute moral truth even exists. As a result, we’re told that we should tolerate all behaviors that do not harm us personally. Of course, such tolerance does not extend to those who do believe in moral truth.

For instance, this morning’s Wall Street Journal reports that the Zika virus is renewing the debate over late-term abortions. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said earlier this month that he opposed abortion for pregnant women infected with the virus. Pro-abortion advocates rebuked and ridiculed him, calling his position “outrageous.”

Maj. Steve Lewis is an officer at Colorado’s Peterson Air Force Base. He was recently forced to remove an open Bible on his desk after the Military Religious Freedom Foundation protested against his “around-the-clock Christian Bible Shrine.”

In a culture that rejects objective morality, we should not be surprised that our culture is becoming less moral all the time. CNN reports that Huntington, West Virginia has seen twenty-seven heroin overdoses in four hours this morning. Today’s New York Times has a review of Frank Ocean’s latest musical album and recent photography, noting that “sexual fluidity and ambiguity play key parts in the new projects” and that his magazine is filled with nudity.

In a culture which rejects moral truth, we can choose to be silent and let society reap what it sows. We can choose to be belligerent with our witness. Or we can find creative and persuasive ways to share God’s love.

My wife and I saw Ben-Hur Friday and were very impressed with the script, acting, and production. We were not surprised that Roma Downey and Mark Burnett helped produce the film. Having visited the Holy Land more than twenty times, I can tell you that Ben-Hur captures well the topography and culture of the New Testament era.

Here’s why I think critics have generally not been positive, and why it’s important that Christians see the movie: its underlying theme is reconciliation with God and with each other. And our conflicted and deceived culture needs that message more than it knows.

Critics who are callous to the gospel are not likely to welcome another film that presents the good news, even though the movie’s message is both subtle and realistic. As Paul observed, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14).

That’s why it’s so important that believers find every way we can to share the good news effectively with our hopeless world. If they will not come to us, we must go to them. Mark Burnett and Roma Downey used their platform to show how God’s love can heal shattered lives and relationships. Their work is a clarion call for Christians to use our influence to do the same.

Lost people deserve to know the good news of God’s transforming love. “How are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?” (Romans 10:14).

How, indeed?

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Two American Olympic swimmers are on their way home this morning from Rio de Janeiro. The lawyer for a third US swimmer says he will make a $10,800 payment and leave Brazil later in the day. Authorities have determined that Ryan Lochte and the group were not robbed as he had claimed. The US Olympic Committee apologized last night for this “distracting ordeal.”

This is not the only distraction marring the Games. A member of the British team says he was robbed at gunpoint earlier this week. Before the Olympics began, a New Zealand athlete says he was kidnapped by Brazilian police and forced to withdraw $800 from his bank account.

Some 450,000 condoms were allocated for the 10,000 Olympic athletes, more than three times as many as for the 2012 London Games. It seems that Olympic officials expected the athletes to have an average of forty-five sexual encounters during the sixteen days of the Games, or three per day.

In the midst of such bad news, Abbey D’Agostino continues to share good news. The best news, in fact.

D’Agostino made global headlines this week when she fell over New Zealand runner Nikki Hamblin, then helped her finish their 5,000-meter race. It turns out her fall will cost her the chance to run in today’s final. She tore a ligament and the meniscus in her right knee and strained another ligament as well.

How did she have the fortitude to get up and help Hamblin get up so they could finish the race together? She told USA Track & Field, “Although my actions were instinctual at that moment, the only way I can and have rationalized it is that God prepared my heart to respond that way. This whole time here he’s made clear to me that my experience in Rio was going to be about more than my race performance—and as soon as Nikki got up I knew that was it.”

Her testimony is all the more remarkable since she shared it on a secular media platform. She is a terrific example of what James Davison Hunter calls “manifesting faithful presence.” Be salt and light where you are, as you are, and the Holy Spirit will use your influence for Kingdom good.

An overlooked teaching of Scripture is that God’s people will reign with him in eternity. Jesus promised, “The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne” (Revelation 3:21; see 5:10; 20:6). In his classic work, Biblical Basis of Missions, Avery Willis comments: “If we are to reign with Christ in the coming kingdom, we must serve during its rise to power.” Then he suggests: “Make a list of the things that you feel you should be doing during the remaining time God has allotted you on earth.”

What is on your list?

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Legendary football coach Vince Lombardi noted, “It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get up.”

When New Zealand runner Nikki Hamblin fell in the women’s 5,000-meter run Tuesday morning, American runner Abbey D’Agostino tripped over her and fell to the ground as well. Hamblin lay on the ground until she felt D’Agostino’s hand on her shoulder. “Get up, get up! We have to finish!” Agostino said to her. “This is the Olympic Games. We have to finish this.”

The two finished last and next to last, but both will advance to Friday’s final because they were tripped. Hamblin told reporters, “I am so grateful to Abbey for helping me. That girl was the Olympic spirit right there. I am so impressed and inspired by that.”

Christians need more of the “Olympic spirit” these days.

The Washington Post reports that abortion advocates are becoming more proactive than ever. As Planned Parenthood’s president Cecile Richards says, “We need to challenge or repeal every single restriction that’s out there.”

Meanwhile, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is expected to finalize regulations next month that would allow people to stay in homeless shelters based on their identified gender. The move pits LGBT groups against religious organizations that operate many of these shelters.

It also raises the question of security for shelter guests. John Ashmen, president of the Association of Gospel Rescue Missions, notes: “One of the guests at a rescue mission overheard someone on the street saying, ‘Dude, if you go down to the rescue mission and tell them you’re transgender, you can sleep in the women’s dorm and even shower with them.'”

Here’s a metaphor for our times: a fascinating article in The New York Times Magazine reports that Michelangelo’s David has cracks in his ankles. If the statue is tilted even fifteen degrees, perhaps by an earthquake, it will likely collapse. Since there were 250 earthquakes in the Florence countryside just in December 2014, this is a very real danger.

Continue reading Denison Forum – ‘WE HAVE TO FINISH! THIS IS THE OLYMPIC GAMES’ →

Yu Jie grew up in China, where his father was an engineer and Communist Party member. Yu’s wife became a Christian in 2001 and was baptized. She then began a small Bible study in their home. Two years later, Yu came to faith in Christ and was baptized on Christmas Eve.

On December 10, 2010, he was kidnapped by the secret police and taken to the outskirts of Beijing. There he was beaten and tortured for hours. His fingers were broken one by one. For days his wife was under house arrest and did not know if he was alive or dead. God spared his life because he had greater plans for him.

On January 11, 2012, Yu and his family were led out of China to Washington, DC, where he writes on behalf of the oppressed Chinese people. He is now the best-selling author of more than thirty books and has been awarded the Civil Courage Prize by the Train Foundation. He was the first Chinese person to win the award.

Writing for the latest edition of First Things, Yu explains the astounding rise of Christianity in China. When the Community Party came to power in 1949, Chinese Christians numbered half a million. Now they are estimated conservatively to number more than sixty million. If current trends continue, by 2030 China will be the largest Christian nation in the world.

What explains this remarkable growth?

According to Yu, the Cultural Revolution that began in 1966 and the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989 led to the deaths of countless innocent people. As a result, “The people’s belief in Marxism-Leninism and Maoism was destroyed.” In Yu’s estimation, “These events opened up a great spiritual void, and the Chinese began searching for a new faith.”

Continue reading Denison Forum – ‘LORD, IF YOU TAKE ME, MAKE ME A MARTYR’ →

Ryan Lochte and three other US Olympic swimmers were robbed at gunpoint yesterday morning. The criminals posed as police officers, pulled them over in their taxi, pointed their guns at them, and stole their wallets, cell phones, and Olympic credentials.

Meanwhile, a man in Bowling Green, Kentucky, is charged with stabbing his father during Sunday worship services. We don’t yet know the father’s status or why he was attacked.

But we know this: misused freedom is a daily reality on this fallen planet. From Adam and Eve to today’s headlines, humans abuse the freedom God intends us to use to love him and each other (Matthew 22:37–39). And innocent people usually pay the price.

The good news is that when innocent Christians suffer faithfully, God uses our witness in ways we cannot imagine this side of glory. For instance, as Stephen was being stoned to death, “the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul” (Acts 7:58). This “young man” was Saul of Tarsus, better known as Paul the Apostle.

Why did Luke, the writer of Acts, insert Paul into the narrative? Luke was Paul’s personal physician. It seems likely that he knew Paul had participated in Stephen’s martyrdom because Paul told him. And it seems likely that Luke included this fact in the story because of the impression it made on Paul.

For the young Pharisee to watch Stephen die so courageously and graciously, praying that God would forgive the very people who were murdering him (v. 60), must have been dramatically powerful. Stephen’s witness was so impactful that it’s been said, “No Stephen, no Paul.”

Continue reading Denison Forum – RYAN LOCHTE, 3 OTHER SWIMMERS ROBBED IN RIO →

It was an amazing day for the US at the Rio Olympics. Michael Phelps won his fourth gold medal, his twenty-second in his career. Simone Biles won the all-around gold in women’s gymnastics. And Simone Manuel became the first African-American swimmer to win gold.

We can always use some good news. That’s why I’ve just published a new booklet, Half-full or Hopeful? Five reasons for optimism in a pessimistic day, which I hope you’ll order from our website.

But this morning I must tell you about a story that seems too appalling to be true, but it is. According to USA Today, a mother in New Mexico gave her son up for adoption when he was a baby. He is now nineteen years old. They found each other on Facebook last year and began a sexual relationship.

They have been arrested for incest and now want to bring attention to something called “Genetic Sexual Attraction,” defined as “intense sexual desire that can arise between genetically related people who are united in Adulthood, after having been denied the opportunity to form proper emotional bonds.” Advocates want to “eliminate the irresponsible stigma associated with such relationships.”

You and I live in a culture which no longer has the tools necessary to determine right from wrong. We read stories daily about increasing acceptance of same-sex marriage, abortion, euthanasia, pornography, and cohabitation. Across the moral spectrum it seems America is becoming less biblical than ever before.

That’s why, more than ever before, it is critical that the church be the church. Before we can counter unbiblical cultural trends, we must first recognize that they are unbiblical. Then we must decide that the Bible is right, no matter how unpopular its teachings might be today.

Continue reading Denison Forum – THE MOST ASTONISHING STORY I’VE SEEN LATELY →

California State Senator Ricardo Lara proposed a bill earlier this summer that would threaten the religious liberty of all religious schools in the state that are not seminaries. It would require that such schools not “discriminate” against LGBT students or lose federal funding. As Biola University warned, the bill “functionally eliminates the religious liberty of all California faith-based colleges and universities who integrate spiritual life with the entire campus educational experience.”

Religious schools across the state flooded the senate committee with complaints. Christianity Today notes that the bill could have barred standards of belief and conduct for faculty and could have prevented colleges from giving preferential admission to students in its denomination or faith.

The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission called the legislation “its own form of discrimination by stigmatizing and coercively punishing religious beliefs.” The National Association of Evangelicals stated that protecting one minority community does not require the alienation of others. The senate committee noted that “the probability of litigation against the state appears fairly high.”

Yesterday, Sen. Lara announced that he was amending his controversial bill to keep religious exemptions in place. His bill would still require schools to “disclose if they have an exemption and report to the state when students are expelled for violating morality codes.” But it does not threaten federal funding for religious schools or require them to amend their morality standards.

This is good news. But there’s bad news on the religious liberty front as well.

Continue reading Denison Forum – BILL THREATENING RELIGIOUS LIBERTY HAS BEEN DROPPED →

To say that Simone Biles is a gymnast is like saying Michael Jordan played basketball. Gymnastics legend Mary Lou Retton says she is “as dominant as Michael Jordan was when he was on the top of his game.” A commentator this morning calls her “the most dominating gymnast the sport has ever seen.”

Simone is a three-time world all-around champion, four-time US national all-around champion, three-time world floor champion, and two-time world balance beam champion. Yesterday she was part of the US team that won gold in the women’s all-around competition at the Rio Olympics.

Simone has been in the news for more than her stupendous gymnastic achievements, however. Earlier this week, NBC announcer Al Trautwig referred to her adoptive parents as her “grandparents.” An adoption advocate reached out to correct Trautwig, but he stood firm: “They may be mom and dad but they are NOT her parents.” Her coach then tweeted the announcer, “Actually they are her parents.” Trautwig finally admitted his mistake and agreed that “Ron and Nellie are Simone’s parents.”

Here’s the rest of her story.

Simone and her three siblings were born to drug-addicted parents who struggled to care for them. Her father abandoned her mother and was never present in Simone’s life. She bounced back and forth between state and foster care. When she was six years old, her grandparents officially adopted her and her sister.

They introduced her to gymnastics and to their Christian faith. She attends mass with her family every Sunday, prays regularly, and carries a rosary her mother gave her. Now she is poised to make history.

In an eternal sense, however, she already has.

Continue reading Denison Forum – SIMONE BILES IS THE MICHAEL JORDAN OF GYMNASTICS →

Martha Stewart is the bestselling author of more than eighty-five books and an Emmy-winning television show host. She reaches 100 million consumers each month across her media and merchandising platforms as well as her branded products. Snoop Dogg recently released his fourteenth album. He is active in music, film, television, and his YouTube channel.

The two just announced that they will host “Martha and Snoop’s Dinner Party” on VH1 this fall. According to Yahoo!, they will “invite celebrity friends over for a half-baked evening of cocktails, cooking, conversation, and fun where nothing is off limits.”

Their collaboration is an odd pairing, and not just because they’re three decades apart in age.

In 2004, Martha Stewart was convicted of felony charges for insider trading and served five months in a federal prison. She then served five months in home confinement as part of a two-year term of supervised release.

Snoop Dogg, born Cordozar Calvin Broadus, Jr., was arrested after high school for possession of cocaine. He has had numerous drug arrests in the years since. He has also been arrested several times for illegal possession of handguns and other weapons. He was banned from Australia in 2007 and Norway in 2012. Last year he was arrested in Sweden for illegal drug use.

My point is not that the two should not be able to host a television show together. It’s actually the opposite: there’s something in human nature that applauds redemption. When athletes overcome grave challenges to compete in the Olympics, we cheer especially hard for them. When politicians come back from defeat to achieve success, we often admire them. When celebrities are released from prison, many become even more popular.

Consider Suicide Squad, a movie in which supervillains save the world in exchange for more lenient prison sentences. Critics panned the film, but audiences have made it the highest-grossing August movie release in history. Will Smith, one of the actors in the film, explained its success: “There’s something about bad guys being given an opportunity at redemption that people can really respond to. . . . All of our characters have this slight tether back to our humanity.”

Continue reading Denison Forum – MARTHA STEWART AND SNOOP DOGG TO HOST TV SHOW →

As of this morning, six US athletes have won gold medals at the Rio Olympics. Two won for individual events; four won in a swimming relay. They will be called Olympic champions for the rest of their lives. This is appropriate, since they have dedicated their lives to the success they achieved.

So far, the US women’s gymnastics team is in first place as well. A typical athlete competing on this team began her gymnastics training when she was two or three years old and had a coach by the age of five. She devoted between twenty and thirty hours a week to the sport as a child and has been focused on this year’s Olympics since the last Olympics ended.

It’s hard for the rest of us to imagine the sacrifices needed to become an Olympic athlete. There are 554 Americans competing in Rio, comprising 0.00017 percent of the US population. To win Olympic gold would be the highest goal most athletes could aspire to achieve.

And yet there are some in Rio who know better. Christianity Today profiles twenty-four athletes competing at the 2016 Olympics who believe there’s a greater reward in life than Olympic fame.

Gabby Douglas may be America’s best-known female Olympian. Winner of the gold medal in the 2012 all-around gymnastics competition, she explains how her faith relates to her athletic career: “I always pray at every competition, when the judge’s hand goes up I am praying, and there are little Scriptures I like to quote.” She cites Philippians 4:13 among others.

Continue reading Denison Forum – GABBY DOUGLAS, OTHER OLYMPIANS PUT GOD BEFORE GOLD →

The Opening Ceremony of the 2016 Summer Olympic Games is tonight. I can’t remember an Olympics more troubled than this one.

Problems began with a Zika outbreak in Brazil that led 150 health officials to recommend moving the games out of Rio de Janeiro, the host city. Spectators will be greeted with demonstrations, violent crime, poverty, and infrastructure failures. According to ABC News, the event could cost Brazil as much as $15 billion in losses.

Last week, a foot and other body parts washed up on a shore where Olympians will be playing volleyball. Nearly 60,000 people were murdered in Brazil in 2014; the country has been called “the deadliest place in the world outside Syria.” Assaults on beaches or in parks after dark are common. Drug gangs run the streets of many Brazilian cities.

Health experts are warning athletes competing in ocean events not to put their heads underwater. Raw human sewage teeming with dangerous viruses and bacteria has contaminated the water, especially where the rowing and sailing races will take place. Viral levels are up to 1.7 million times what would be considered unhealthy in the US. Ingesting three teaspoons of the water is likely to make an athlete sick.

And yet 10,500 athletes from 206 nations will be competing in twenty-eight different sports, hoping to win one or more of the 4,924 medals that will be awarded. Some 500,000 foreign travelers are purchasing 7.5 million tickets to attend.

The rest of us will be watching more than 6,000 hours of television coverage. There will be $5.4 billion lost in productivity from employees watching the Olympics while at work. Seventy-two percent of business professionals plan to watch the Games; 3.6 billion people will tune in worldwide.

Why? Because we all want to make history, and if we can’t make it, we want to watch it.

Continue reading Denison Forum – IS THIS THE MOST DANGEROUS OLYMPICS EVER? →

Humayun Khan was killed during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2004. His father, Khizr Khan, spoke to the Democratic National Convention last week, criticizing Donald Trump for seeking to ban Muslim immigrants from the US. After Trump responded, a media firestorm resulted. Chris Christie is making headlines this morning as he joins other Republicans who have disagreed publicly with Trump’s remarks.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton continues to generate controversy over her emails. She told “Fox News Sunday” that FBI Director Comey called her answers on the issue “truthful.” The Washington Post found her statement so untruthful that it gave her its maximum “Four Pinocchios.” In addition, parents of servicemen killed in Benghazi continue to claim that she misled them as Secretary of State.

Despite these controversies, each candidate’s core supporters are still their core supporters. Why?

One: Each side is passionately opposed to the other.

In the latest CNN/ORC Poll, 42 percent of Clinton’s supporters say they will vote for her primarily to prevent Trump from being elected. Fifty percent of Trump’s backers say the same regarding Clinton. What their candidate does or says has little influence on those who are voting less for them than against the other option.

Two: Each side believes in its candidate.

Continue reading Denison Forum – 3 REASONS WHY PEOPLE STILL SUPPORT TRUMP AND CLINTON →

Col. Rob Maness was at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001 when terrorists flew an airplane into the building. He was helping survivors when a chaplain called him over to an injured man. “He was in really bad shape—it didn’t look like he was going to make it,” Maness said later. “I was told to stand there and hold his IV because it was leaking.” He kept talking to the injured man until paramedics took him to a hospital.

For fifteen years he prayed for the man and wondered what happened to him. Fast-forward to the recent Republican National Convention. Maness is running for the US Senate from Louisiana. Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry introduced him to another man who was in the Pentagon that day, Texas State Senator Brian Birdwell. It turned out that Birdwell was the man Maness helped save. Both are strong Christians; each is now giving thanks to the Lord for what the other means to him.

On a very different subject: After School Satan Clubs could be coming to an elementary school near you. The Satanic Temple is petitioning school officials around the country to include them in their after-school programming. This is in response to Good News Clubs, a Christian outreach program made legal by a 2001 Supreme Court ruling that after-school programs cannot be excluded on the basis of their sponsors’ religious views. If Christians can do it, Satanists can as well, or so they claim.

There’s a principle at work here: we seldom see the future consequences of present decisions. That’s a fact Satan uses against us, but one the Lord uses for us.

Satan hates us so much that he cannot tempt us to do anything for which the gain outweighs the pain. However, as the “father of lies” (John 8:44) he wants to convince us that the opposite is true. Because we want what Satan offers, we find a way to justify choosing it. We see the consequences of temptation only after we fall to it: “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death” (Proverbs 14:12).

Conversely, our Father loves us so much that he cannot lead us to do anything for which the pain outweighs the gain. He loves us as much as he loves his own Son (John 17:23). He always and only wants what is best for us. However, in the moment of obedience we often cannot see its benefits. We see the consequences of faithfulness only after we choose to be faithful. Then we can say with Paul, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18).

As a result, the time to prepare for spiritual challenges is before we face them. In the moment, we cannot trust what seems best to us. We must decide now that we will be faithful when the temptation or opportunity comes. Good students study for a test before they take it.

When you face challenges to your faith today, remember two images: Satan as a roaring lion seeking to devour you (1 Peter 5:8) and Jesus dying on the cross for you. Then choose wisely.

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