Rush Limbaugh died yesterday at the age of seventy. He is being remembered today in ways that align fully with his political and cultural influence. Whether you considered him a vital voice for freedom or a danger to our liberties depended entirely on your perspective. To some he was a hero; to others, a threat.

What no one can question is that he used his influence to advance his vision for our country.

I saw the news of his passing while navigating the power outages that are afflicting the entire state of Texas. My wife and I had three hours of electricity yesterday and have no idea how much power we’ll have today.

I think things are hard until I check the news and find that so many people are dealing with much worse.

Some in our state have had no power since Sunday. Pipes are bursting all over our area, driving people from their homes and apartments. Water shortages are requiring many to boil water; some have no water at all and are using snow.

And the death toll from the storms and outages continues to climb. At least seventeen have died so far, including a grandmother and three children who died in a house fire trying to keep warm in a town near Houston.

I say all of that to say this: perspective changes suffering.

How to “run with endurance” 

Evangelicals in the US are frustrated with the rise of censorship against biblical morality; some ministries worry about the loss of their tax-exempt status and government intrusion into religious freedom. According to a recent Pew Research Center survey, most Americans expect evangelicals to lose influence under the Biden administration.

My friends in Cuba would not understand our complaints as they face prison or worse for their faith. The underground church pastors I met in Beijing would agree, as would Christian converts in the Muslim world who face horrific persecution for following Jesus.

On the one hand, perspective does not change circumstances. Learning of the intense suffering of others in my state does not make the power stay on in my house. Social media platforms and other media are still censoring evangelicals; many are still facing ostracism and worse for their biblical convictions.

On the other hand, perspective changes how we respond to our circumstances. The writer of Hebrews called us to “run with endurance the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1). To encourage us, he stated: “Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted” (v. 3).

When we remember all it cost Jesus to secure our salvation, we are empowered to pay any price to serve him in gratitude for such grace. When we remember the courage of other believers around the world, we are emboldened to stand for our Lord where we live.

A surprising fact I learned in Cuba 

Perspective serves a second purpose: it clarifies our priorities.

During my first visit to Cuba many years ago, I told a pastor that I was praying for persecution to lessen against his people. He asked me to stop. Seeing the surprise on my face, he explained that persecution was purifying the faith of his people. It was separating true believers from those who were not authentic Christians and strengthening their resolve in serving Jesus.

Tertullian was right: the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.

The world’s fastest-growing evangelical movement is not in the US or Europe but in Iran. Despite government oppression, interest in Christianity is escalating. One teacher says his Bible study has seen online attendance grow from forty to more than six hundred. His church has planted twenty-five other Christian groups in twelve cities.

Since the Communist government expelled Christian missionaries from China in 1953, the church there has exploded in growth. The government’s current oppression of Christians is not working: Protestant Christianity is the fastest-growing faith in the country.

There are more Christians in China than in France or Germany. Some estimate that by 2030, there will be more Christians in China than in the US or any other country on earth.

The winter storms in Texas remind us of our finitude and God’s omnipotence. Despite all our technological sophistication and energy resources, our infrastructure has been no match for nature.

The coronavirus pandemic shows us that our medical advances cannot prevent mortality. The economic recession caused by the pandemic shows us that our financial resources cannot prevent financial loss.

When we allow suffering to show us how much we need God, our Father redeems our pain and emboldens our faith.

You are “the Beloved from all eternity” 

What challenges are you facing today? You may not be battling a winter storm and its effects, but you are dealing with something you wish were different. Jesus was bluntly transparent when he told his followers, “In the world you will have tribulation” (John 16:33a). But then he promised us: “But take heart; I have overcome the world” (v. 33b).

Now we have a choice. Difficulties can make us bitter or better. When we are suffering, we can blame our doctor, or we can seek her help. Pain can drive us away from God or closer to him.

Here was Paul’s choice: “We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:3–5).

Henri Nouwen advised us: “You have to keep unmasking the world about you for what it is: manipulative, controlling, power-hungry, and, in the long run, destructive. The world tells you many lies about who you are, and you simply have to be realistic enough to remind yourself of this. Every time you feel hurt, offended, or rejected, you have to dare to say to yourself: ‘These feelings, strong as they may be, are not telling me the truth about myself. The truth, even though I cannot feel it right now, is that I am the chosen child of God, precious in God’s eyes, called the Beloved from all eternity, and held safe in an everlasting embrace.’”

When we live in the truth that we are God’s Beloved, others will want the faith we display. God will use our courage to draw many to Jesus. And we will one day hear our Master say, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:23).

Will you ask Jesus for the strength to trust his promises and the courage to share them today?

Denison Forum

A Nepali Christian named Suroj Shakya faced a life-threatening decision. His mother, Gita, had been diagnosed with a painful, paralyzing spinal growth. Doctors advised a risky, potentially lethal surgery. Her husband, a Buddhist priest, refused to pay his Christian wife’s expenses. Doctors gave Suroj two days to decide whether to let his mother live in terrible pain or risk her death.

The nineteen-year-old was alone in Singapore and did not know what to do, so he called out to the Lord in prayer. Then he heard a knock at the door. It was a group of local church members who wanted to pray for his mother. After they prayed for twenty minutes, God gave Gita a miracle.

She stood up. Then she kicked out with her left foot, which she had not been able to move for years. She found that she could move her left arm as well. She began weeping and praising God.

Doctors didn’t believe Gita was the same woman. Her husband did not believe his wife had been healed without surgery until he saw that she had no scars. Then, along with his son, Suman, he became a Christian.

Suroj is now a forty-one-year-old church elder. He tells the Christian Post that such stories happen often in Nepal, which has one of the fastest-growing Christian populations in the world.

“An unstoppable force in the Muslim world” 

God’s omnipotence is not confined to Nepal. My friends, Tom and JoAnn Doyle, recently published Women Who Risk: Secret Agents for Jesus in the Muslim World, a gripping account of New Testament Christianity in one of the most difficult cultures to follow Jesus.

They note that “an astounding number of women from Muslim communities” are risking their lives to make Jesus their Lord. In turn, they write, “these new believers are transforming the Middle East. When Muslim women find Jesus and give their lives to him, they not only enjoy new freedom in Christ but also become an unstoppable force in the Muslim world.”

I encourage you to read their empowering book and then pray for those who are being empowered by Jesus to lead a genuine spiritual revolution in the Muslim world. What finite humans cannot do, our omnipotent Lord can.

I am witnessing another reminder of divine omnipotence and human frailty as I write today’s Daily Article. In Dallas, we are dealing with the worst winter weather in decades. Texas is the leading energy-producing state in the nation, but we are struggling with power. Janet and I had four hours of electricity at our house on Monday and three on Tuesday. We don’t know what to expect today.

“My power is made perfect in weakness” 

Human frailty can be deeply frustrating.

Our local news is covering the anger many feel toward our energy providers who are not providing energy in this weather crisis. Evangelical leaders are continuing to respond with anger and disappointment to reports of Ravi Zacharias‘ horrific sexual abuses.

Each day’s news reminds us that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Paul spoke for us all when he admitted, “Nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out” (Romans 7:18).

But here’s the good news: God can redeem our frailty by using it to lead us to depend on his omnipotence.

Paul told of the time when “a thorn was given me in the flesh” (2 Corinthians 12:7). Theologians have long speculated on the nature of this “thorn,” suggesting that the apostle suffered from migraine headaches, epilepsy, or an eye disease. Paul responded as we would: “Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me” (v. 8).

Here is how God responded: “He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness’” (v. 9a). Through this experience the apostle learned, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (vv. 9b–10).

The power to finish well 

Where we begin the race is not nearly as important as where we finish it. Michael McDowell started last Sunday’s Daytona 500 in seventeenth place, but when the race was over, he had won. It was his first career NASCAR Cup Series win in his fourteenth season.

By contrast, the latest SpaceX test flight went well until the rocket crashed when it returned to earth. The person narrating the flight said, “We’ve just got to work on that landing a little bit.”

To finish your race well, run in the power of Jesus. Admit that you cannot defeat sin and Satan in your strength. If Ravi Zacharias could fall, so can we. If Paul had to say, “When I am weak, I am strong,” so do we. If the greatest missionary, evangelist, and theologian in Christian history needed the power of Jesus “made perfect in weakness,” so do we.

Now name your “thorn in the flesh,” the temptation or trial you are facing today. Give it to Jesus. Ask him to heal it or strengthen you to bear it. Pray for him to redeem it by drawing you into greater dependence on your Lord.

Seek God’s strength for finishing well, and you will finish well.

Eric Liddell’s “full surrender” 

This Sunday marks the seventy-sixth anniversary of the death of Eric Liddell in a Japanese prison camp in China. Liddell was a champion runner who set a world record in the four hundred meters at the 1924 Olympics. His refusal to run on Sunday drew global attention to his faith and became the subject of the Academy Award-winning film, Chariots of Fire.

After the Olympics, Liddell became a missionary in China, where he met and married his wife, Florence. After the Japanese invaded China, he sent his family to safety in Canada, but he remained behind to minister. The Japanese incarcerated him in a concentration camp, where he worked selflessly as a teacher, prisoner representative, and volunteer carrying loads for weaker prisoners. He developed headaches from a massive brain tumor, but he never complained.

Just before he died, Eric Liddell turned to a friend and said, “It’s full surrender.” Then he drifted into a coma from which he never recovered.

He finished well. If we will do what he did, so will we.

What do you need to surrender to Jesus today?

Denison Forum

Bestselling author and pastor Tim Keller recently shared an update on his battle with pancreatic cancer. As a result of the prayers of many and his chemotherapy treatments, he has seen a “significant decrease in [the] size and number of tumors.” He stated, “I still have cancer, but this is excellent news,” and added, “What the future holds I do not know, but we will continue to trust his plan and allow him to shepherd us along his chosen path.”

Keller especially learned to trust God in hard places when he was battling thyroid cancer a few years ago. He explained, “It was both an intellectual and emotional experience: You’re facing death, you’re not sure you’re going to get over the cancer. And the rigorous intellectual process of going through all the alternative explanations for how the Christian Church started. Except the resurrection, none of them are even tenable. It was quite an experience.”

That experience inspired his bestseller, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism, enabling millions of people to profit from his pain and make his hope their own.

Beware “contempt for misfortune” 

We can learn from the pain of others, or we can ignore it to our loss.

Following former President Trump’s impeachment by the House and acquittal by the Senate, 58 percent of Americans say he should have been convicted. This number reflects the sharp partisan divide in our nation: 88 percent of Democrats agreed, as did only 14 percent of Republicans.

People in other countries probably watched news of the proceedings with the same detachment Americans watch the political travails of other countries. Brexit, for instance, was of passing interest to me but compellingly urgent to the British. By contrast, the below-zero temperatures we are battling in Texas are undoubtedly more urgent for me than for those in the UK.

It is human nature to care less about problems that don’t affect us than those that do. In reading through the book of Job, I recently found this remarkable observation: “In the thought of one who is at ease there is contempt for misfortune” (Job 12:5a). This is true of us all.

A lesson for every church and ministry 

However, if we fail to learn from the challenges of others, we are far more likely to fail when we meet similar challenges ourselves. The verse we just cited continues to warn us that misfortune “is ready for those whose feet slip” (v. 5b). No exceptions or qualifications are noted.

This fact is especially relevant in light of the unfolding scandal involving Ravi Zacharias and the ministry he founded. Yesterday, we identified three ways we should respond personally to disclosures that the world-famous apologist engaged in horrific acts of sexual abuse.

Today, let’s focus on a key lesson we need to learn for the sake of our churches, ministries, and cultural influence: we must respond immediately and objectively to claims of impropriety. 

David French’s article on Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM) and its response to allegations against their founder is heartbreaking. It describes a pattern of denial on the part of the board and other ministry leaders. At times, those who sought to investigate charges against Zacharias were reportedly ostracized and marginalized.

Tragically, such a response is unsurprising. Zacharias had built an international reputation for brilliance and integrity. Those who felt they knew him best deceived themselves into believing that they knew him better than those who brought allegations against him. We have seen the same pattern repeated in churches and ministries across denominational lines and around the world.

How Jesus taught us to handle conflict 

This is why Jesus’ four-stage prescription for resolving conflict is so vital.

First, “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone” (Matthew 18:15). We are not permitted to speak about people before we speak to them. When we become aware of an issue, we are to go directly to the person. (In instances of abuse, a person may not feel safe confronting their abuser. If you have suffered abuse, please report it to a counselor or other trusted professional.)

Second, “If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses” (v. 16). This step requires investigation by objective parties and must be thorough.

Third, “If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church” (v. 17a). This step requires public exposure of the issue and a call for repentance and resolution.

Fourth, “If he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector” (v. 17b). This step requires excluding the person from the church or ministry.

Practical questions we must answer now 

Let’s apply Jesus’ prescription by asking some practical questions:

• Does your church or ministry have a system whereby employees and others can safely report allegations of abuse or other improprieties?
• Are the electronic devices of your leaders and employees open to screening at any time? (This was a major problem with RZIM.) I recommend Covenant Eyesfor technology accountability; it is important that your church or ministry utilizes a system for transparency.
• What commitments to personal integrity do you require of your leaders? For example, are they permitted to be alone with a person who is not their spouse or family? Are their calendars accountable to others?
• Is someone in your church or ministry holding leaders accountable for personal integrity? As the great Howard Hendricks warned, sin thrives in isolation. Mark Turman, our senior fellow for leadership, recommends giving the leaders of your church permission to interview the pastor’s spouse two to three times a year regarding the pastor’s health. These and other regular steps are vital for leaders and those they lead.
• Are your leaders accountable and transparent with regard to their use of ministry funds? Travel? Personal finances?
• Are your church or ministry members praying regularly for the spiritual health of their leaders?

I often note that God redeems all he allows. One way he wants to redeem the Ravi Zacharias scandal is by using it to lead churches and ministries around the world to greater accountability and integrity.

But the time to act is now. Once a scandal erupts, it will be too late to prevent it.

Let’s close with this declaration by the psalmist to the king of his day: “You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions” (Psalm 45:7).

May Christians everywhere be able to say the same of their leaders, to the glory of God.

Denison Forum