President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump each won enough delegates last night to become the presumptive nominees of their parties. A vote is scheduled today in Congress that could lead to a US ban of TikTok. And the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Special Counsel Robert Hur’s testimony before lawmakers yesterday “accomplished a rare feat: Angering all sides of the political world.”

Meanwhile, I’d like to go a different direction this morning by asking: If you could tell the universe one thing about humanity, what would you share?

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“A poem of Europa”

NASA is preparing its Europa Clipper spaceship for an October launch. Six years from now, after a 1.6-billion mile journey, it will begin orbiting Jupiter, making forty-nine close flybys of Europa to determine if the moon has conditions that could support life.

The craft will include a triangular metal plate on which is inscribed what one NASA official calls “the best humanity has to offer across the universe—science, technology, education, art, and math.” Biblical truth is apparently not included, which says something about what the agency considers humanity’s “best” knowledge.

However, an engraving of US Poet Laureate Ada Limón’s handwritten “In Praise of Mystery: A Poem of Europa” will make the flight. Her poem includes these lines:

We are creatures of constant awe,
curious at beauty, at leaf and blossom,
at grief and pleasure, sun and shadow. . . .

O second moon, we too, are made
of water, of vast and beckoning seas.

We, too, are made of wonders, of great
and ordinary loves, of small invisible worlds,
of a need to call out through the dark.

Limón is right: our “constant awe” shows that you and I are intended for more than the mundane. In fact, we were made to seek the One who made us. The good news is that when we “call out through the dark,” we can experience the Light.

The urgent news is that we have no other path to the purpose that gives our lives transcendent meaning.

“Continually improved means to carelessly examined ends”

The French philosopher Jacques Ellul wrote a book seventy years ago that could have been published yesterday. Titled The Technological Society, it is considered one of the most important works of the second half of the twentieth century. In it, Ellul explains how our technologically obsessed civilization has become, as the foreword states, “committed to the quest for continually improved means to carelessly examined ends.”

As Ellul argues so compellingly, modern society has commodified not just things but people. Everything—and everyone—is now a means to our personal ends. Even now, you’re tempted to read this article in hopes of profiting personally from it. I’m tempted to write it to profit personally from the fact that you’re reading it.

Here’s my point: our transactional culture tempts us to do the same with the living Lord Jesus.

Oswald Chambers warned: “Beware of an abandonment which has the commercial spirit in it. . . . We have got so commercialized that we only go to God for something from him, and not for himself.”

Instead, he urges us to choose “personal sovereign preference for Jesus Christ himself.”

When “holiness becomes attractive”

Yesterday, we noted that when we know Christ personally, we are compelled to share him publicly. Today, let’s add that this is because knowing the risen Lord of the universe personally must change us personally. The pattern is clear:

• The Gadarene demoniac threatened the people of his community (Mark 5:1–4), but after he encountered Jesus, he shared his new faith with them (v. 20).
• The Samaritan woman was shunned by her neighbors, but after she encountered Jesus, she shared her new faith with them (John 4:29).
• Peter denied knowing Christ, but after he met his risen Lord, he risked his life to share his new faith with the very people who ordered Jesus’ crucifixion.
• All of Jesus’ disciples except John abandoned him at the cross, but after they met their risen Lord, they sacrificed their lives to be his witnesses.
• Saul of Tarsus sought to kill Christians, but after he met the risen Christ, he joined his fellow believers in sharing Christ with the world.

Theologian D. A. Carson wrote:

When you are converted, you want to do what you didn’t want to do before, and you don’t want to do what you wanted to do before. There’s a change in the heart; there’s a cleaning up, a change in orientation.

With this result:

“Holiness becomes attractive, instead of something you have to put up with to figure out what you can get away with.”

Is holiness attractive to you today?

If not, why not?

Wednesday news to know:

• Haiti’s leader to resign as gangs overrun the country
• FAA audit of Boeing’s 737 Max production found dozens of issues
• Inflation picks up to 3.2%, slightly hotter than expected
• Happiness is a habit: New psychology research finds continuous practice is key
• On this day in 1881: Czar Alexander II assassinated in St. Petersburg

Quote for the day:

“Holiness is doing God’s will with a smile.” —Mother Teresa

Denison Forum

Kate Middleton has been in the center of a media firestorm since abdominal surgery on January 16 removed her from the public eye, leading to rampant speculation regarding the severity of her condition. A photo of her with her children posted on Sunday was intended to calm the waters, but media outlets discovered that it had been edited and removed it from their sites, which only fanned the flames. She admitted yesterday that she edited the photo personally and apologized for the confusion.

If you’re like most of us, this is a “tempest in a teapot.” You likely follow news about the Princess of Wales and her family with some degree of interest. But knowing about the royal family and knowing them personally are two very different things.

Satan does everything he can to confine our relationship with Jesus to the former. Choosing the latter is the single most important decision in all of time and eternity. It changes our lives and, through us, our world.

We are not radical enough

The transformation of America must begin with the transformation of America’s Christians. We must prove that biblical morality is relevant today by demonstrating its relevance in our personal lives. We then become our best argument for persuading others to join us. And we are empowered to share biblical truth with bold, courageous compassion as we display the “fruit of the Spirit” to the world (Galatians 5:22–23).

Consequently, you and I need to seek nothing less than a daily, intimate personal experience with the risen Christ.

Substituting a religion about Jesus for a transforming relationship with him is a deception of Satan himself. When we fall for this trap:

• We don’t seek to know Christ more fully (Jeremiah 29:13).
• Rather, we seek to be our own God (Genesis 3:5), in control of our own lives.
• We are inoculated spiritually with just enough of a relationship with God to keep us from experiencing the real thing.
• Our witness is enervated since the world sees no difference between our lives and theirs.

In this way, religion is dangerous, but not for the reasons post-Christian progressives think. It’s not that we are too radical, but that we are not radical enough:

• We should oppose abortion, despite the accusation that we are part of a “war on women,” but we must also love women considering abortion and the children we encourage them to bring into the world.
• We should oppose same-sex marriage, despite the claim that we are “homophobic,” but we must also model biblical marriage by rejecting pornography and adultery while loving all people as Christ loves us.
• We should oppose euthanasia, despite the claim that we oppose “death with dignity,” but we must also care for the infirm and honor the elderly.
• We should bemoan the divisiveness of our politicized culture, but we must also “love [our] neighbor as ourselves” (Matthew 22:39) whatever their political positions.

Why I love to talk about my grandkids

Here’s why today’s conversation is so crucial for our broken culture: when you and I experience the risen Christ in a daily, intimate, transforming way, we must tell the world. Just as Jesus “had” to pass through Samaria (John 4:4), not because this was a geographical necessity but because he was compelled by his love for Samaritans, so the Samaritan woman he led to himself had to tell her fellow villagers about him (vv. 28–30, 39–42).

She was not alone:

• The demoniac healed by Jesus had to tell his fellow residents in the Decapolis “how much Jesus had done for him” (Mark 5:20).
• The disciples on the road to Emmaus, when they had a transforming encounter with the risen Christ, had to tell the apostles “what had happened on the road” (Luke 24:35).
• Early Christians, when they were “filled with the Spirit,” had to share the gospel with the Pentecost crowds (Acts 2:4–41).
• When Peter was “filled with the Spirit,” he had to testify for Christ before the Sanhedrin at the risk of his life (Acts 4:8–12).
• When Paul met the risen Christ on the road to Damascus, he had to proclaim Christ in the synagogues there (Acts 9:20).
• When John met the risen Christ on the prison island of Patmos, he had to give the Revelation to the world.

We often see evangelism as a duty and even a chore. But in fact, when we truly experience the risen Christ, we must share him. We cannot help it—we want everyone we know to know the One whose love has changed our lives.

Jesus promised the same: “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water’” (John 7:38). Like the waters of an artesian well forced by underground pressure to pour up from the ground, so our love for Jesus will flow into our words and actions as we naturally fulfill his commission to “be my witnesses” (Acts 1:8).

Because I love my family, I love talking about them. And, like a typical grandparent, I am always ready to convince you that my grandchildren are perfect (with pictures as evidence). Because I love them, I want you to love them.

So, here’s the question:

Do you want to share Jesus with someone today?

If not, why not?

Tuesday news to know:

• Biden attends urgent meeting with Caribbean leaders as Haiti’s violent crisis grows
• US responds to Russia–China plan to put nuclear reactor on moon
• How the AI that drives ChatGPT will move into the physical world
• Indonesian flight veered off course after both pilots allegedly fell asleep in the cockpit
• On this day in 1933: FDR broadcasts first “fireside chat” during the Great Depression

Quote for the day:

“Jesus did not say that the whole world should go to church, but he did say that the whole church should go to the world.” —Greg Laurie

Denison Forum