Two terms that were new to me were in the weekend news. Each is a window into our cultural soul.

The first is “sleep tourism,” which is trending since sleep deprivation is such a problem for so many Americans. For example, hotels in New York City and London now feature rooms with sleep-enhancing amenities and soundproofing. One hotel offers a sleep-inducing meditation recording, a pillow menu with options that cater to guests who prefer to sleep on their side or back, the option of a weighted blanket, a special bedtime tea, and a scented pillow mist.

And no wonder: In a recent study, 40 percent of participants reported a reduction in their sleep quality since the start of the pandemic.

The second is “hang-xiety,” which the New York Times describes as “the emotional plunge [people] feel after drinking that doesn’t quite constitute a proper hangover.” The article notes that one effect of drinking alcohol is sleep disruption due to elevated blood sugar and excess glutamate.

So, it turns out, the second term exacerbates the first.

Amazon accused of selling suicide kits to teenagers

Human technology is advancing by the day, but human nature is not.

After an explosion Saturday on a bridge linking Russia with Crimea, Russia apparently sought revenge by striking major Ukrainian cities this morning. A series of blasts rocked Kyiv, with some strikes landing in the heart of the Ukrainian capital’s downtown during rush hour. At least five people were killed and at least a dozen were injured, according to the Kyiv police department.

The previous day, a Russian missile attack struck an apartment building, according to Ukrainian officials. At least thirteen people were killed and eighty-seven others were injured. According to the Associated Press, Ukrainian officials further allege that the Russian invasion of their nation is “being accompanied by the destruction and pillaging of historical sites and treasures on an industrial scale.” And North Korea fired two ballistic missiles yesterday, the latest in a recent barrage of weapons tests.

Closer to home, a parents’ lawsuit accuses Amazon of selling suicide kits to teenagers. The lawsuit is being brought by the families of two teenagers who bought a deadly chemical on the company’s website and later used it to take their own lives. And the mayor of Fort Wayne, Indiana, is apologizing after he was arrested Saturday evening for allegedly driving while intoxicated and causing an accident.

However, one more news story illustrates the hope we can claim today: A bargain hunter went to an estate sale in Maine, where he found a framed document with elaborate Latin script on sale for seventy-five dollars. He bought it, then discovered it was used about seven hundred years ago in Roman Catholic worship and could be worth as much as ten thousand dollars.

What no Jew had done before

The best single piece of advice I’ve ever received is one I’ve shared often: My high school youth minister told me, “Always remember the source of your personal worth.” You possess a value far transcending what our secularized culture may have assigned to you. In fact, your true worth is beyond all human estimation.

Let’s discover your worth by remembering a familiar story with an astounding element.

When Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River, Matthew reports: “Immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him” (3:16). This was visual evidence of Jesus’ calling to be Messiah (Isaiah 42:1), an office which was familiar to the Jews and a deliverer for whom they had prayed for centuries.

But then something happened that was truly unprecedented: “And behold, a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased’” (Matthew 3:17). God has a “Son”! This was a radical thought to the Jews, whose focus on the oneness and singularity of God was central to their faith (cf. Deuteronomy 6:4).

If God has a Son, this Son must be as divine as his Father. And so he was and is.

The Jewish people thought of God as the “Father” of the nation, but none had ever dared claim him as their personal father. Not only did the Son of God frequently make this assertion, he also called him “Abba,” Aramaic for “Daddy” (cf. Mark 14:36). As German theologian Joachim Jeremias noted in The Prayers of Jesus, “There is not a single example of the use of Abba . . . as an address to God in the whole of Jewish literature.”

Not, that is, until Jesus.

Claiming the truth about yourself

Here’s my point: Because Jesus is the Son of God, you can be the child of God: “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are” (1 John 3:1; cf. John 1:12; 2 Corinthians 6:18; Galatians 3:26). In the moment you make Christ your Savior and Lord, you are “born again” into a new family—the family of God (John 3:3).

What does this mean in practical terms?

You can love and serve people whether they love and serve you or not because you are already loved absolutely and unconditionally by your Father. And you can pay any price in this world to glorify God because this world is no longer your home and your inheritance with your eternal family is secure (John 14:1–3).

In Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World, Henri Nouwen makes this point better than I can: “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 belief.’”

Will you remember today the source of your personal worth?

NOTE: Has America left God? Or is he being patient with us? I answer that question and more in the updated edition of How Does God See America? And as we’re heading into another politically charged voting cycle, we’re also including an ebook edition of Respectfully, I Disagree for your donation of $50 or more. Please request the “Let’s be civil” book bundle today.

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A former police officer killed thirty-six people, including twenty-four children, during a rampage at a day care center in Thailand yesterday. Most of the children, aged between two and five years, were stabbed to death, police said.

In 2020, 9,152 children between the ages of one and fourteen died in the US, which works out to twenty-five a day. Like the children massacred in Thailand, each of these deaths is an unspeakable tragedy. I cannot imagine the pain parents and families must feel at the loss of a child.

By contrast, 629,898 babies were aborted in the US in 2019, the last year for which the CDC reported a yearly national total. This averages to 1,725 babies aborted every day in America.

In other words, sixty-nine times more children die each day in the US from abortion than children ages one to fourteen die from all other causes combined.

How Disney and Google are promoting abortion

The subject of abortion is back in the news after the Biden administration unveiled new measures this week intended to protect abortion rights. The president also called on Americans to pressure Congress to pass legislation that would ensure abortion is legal across the country.

The Health and Human Services Department has already declared that doctors and hospitals must provide an abortion under federal law when a doctor deems it necessary for a pregnant woman in an emergency medical condition to be stabilized. The federal government has also instructed (PDF) pharmacists not to deny patients access to abortion medications.

In related news, Disney and Google are supporting a program that will award film students a $25,000 grant toward creating movies that promote abortion rights. Sheryl Sandberg, the former chief operating officer for Meta Platforms, has donated $3 million to the ACLU to support abortion rights.

And Planned Parenthood is planning a mobile abortion clinic that will travel close to the borders of states that have banned abortion, making it easier for women in these states to abort their children.

The preeminent right of our day

Two centuries before Christ, the Jewish Mishnah forbade abortion except to save the life of the mother. The Didache, the earliest theological treatise after the Bible, likewise states, “You shall not procure [an] abortion, nor destroy a newborn child.” From then to now, the sanctity of life from birth to natural death has been a central tenet of orthodox Christian faith. Millions of Americans—including 47 percent of Catholics and 63 percent of evangelical Protestants—object to abortion as a consequence of their religious beliefs.

But the “right to life” today runs headlong into what is euphemistically called the “right to choose.” (This “right” does not extend to the unborn baby, of course.) And the “right to choose,” whatever the subject, is the preeminent right of our day.

I noted recently that many people dismiss biblical truth on LGBTQ issues, not because they identify as LGBTQ, but because they want to dismiss such truth when it pertains to sexual sins they do want to commit (such as premarital sex and adultery). The same logic pertains here. A woman’s “right to choose” to end the life of her unborn child is commensurate with the right to choose one’s spouse (whatever their gender or number), the right to choose one’s manner and timing of death, and a host of other personal “rights.”

In this view, so long as your “right to choose” does not impinge on my “right to choose,” you are as free to make your choices as I am to make mine.

Satan’s one strategy

Four biblical conclusions follow.

One: Christians should expect to face increasing attacks on our First Amendment religious freedoms from abortion advocates just as we do from LGBTQ advocates.

In the former case, it will be Christian health care providers on the front lines, as in the latter it is currently Christian wedding service providers. In both cases, we are seen as discriminatory and hateful toward minorities and thus undeserving of the protections of civil society. This is just one way Jesus’ warning is coming to pass: “If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you” (John 15:20).

Two: On this and other “culture war” issues, we should decide today what stance we are willing to defend tomorrow.

When opposition comes, we will need to know what we believe and why we believe it. For example, I recently consulted with a Christian hospital executive who has decided that if his hospital system begins performing elective abortions, he will resign. He has thought and prayed about his response and is ready if it is needed. All Christians in all dimensions of our secularized culture need to follow his example as we “count the cost” before we must pay it (Luke 14:28).

Three: We must beware the lure of the “right to choose” in our own lives and souls.

You may be as adamantly pro-life as I am, but the “right to choose” is nonetheless tempting for us in other areas. Any thought, word, or deed that conflicts with God’s word is sin. Satan has only one strategy—“you will be like god” (Genesis 3:5)—because this strategy is all he needs. Every temptation is a variation on this theme. Surrendering every day to the lordship of Christ (Romans 10:9) and the authority and power of the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18) is thus vital.

Four: We must earn the right to help others choose God’s will for their lives.

From women considering abortion to patients considering euthanasia and everyone in between, every person you meet today needs to experience the love of God found in the community of faith. Jesus assures us that he stands in such solidarity with those in need that “as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me” (Matthew 25:40).

How will you serve Jesus today?

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In 2018, a pro-Kremlin journalist asked Russian President Vladimir Putin in what scenario Russia would use nuclear weapons. He replied: “If someone decides to destroy Russia, then we have a legal right to respond.” He admitted that “for humanity it will be a global catastrophe” but added perilously: “Still, as a citizen of Russia and the head of the Russian state, then I want to ask myself the question: ‘Why do we need such a world if there is no Russia there?’”

Putin claimed that Russia would launch a nuclear weapon only if it detected the launch of missiles headed for Russia, but he did not clarify if Russia would respond only in the case of nuclear warheads or non-nuclear missiles in general.

Fast-forward to the present. Putin signed the final papers yesterday to illegally annex four regions of eastern Ukraine as Russian territory. Ukraine is continuing its offensive in some of these areas, forcing widespread Russian retreats. Ukrainian guided missiles supplied by the US and the UK have been instrumental in changing the course of the war against Russia.

Will Putin now see such missile strikes against his forces in annexed Ukrainian regions as missile launches against Russia?

A Cold War historian explains the current crisis

This scenario is just one reason Cold War historian Michael Dobbs, author of a definitive account of the Cuban Missile Crisis, is warning that the conflict in Ukraine “presents perils of at least equal magnitude” to that confrontation.

There are other reasons for grave concern as well: Dobbs points to the possibility that “a stray shell from either side could cause an accident at a nuclear power plant, spewing radioactive fallout over much of Europe.” Russia could bungle an attempt to interdict Western military supplies to Ukraine, slipping over into NATO countries like Poland and triggering an automatic US response. Or a Russian decision to use tactical nuclear weapons against Ukrainian troops could escalate into a full nuclear exchange with the West.

Dobbs adds that in 1962, US President John Kennedy and his Kremlin counterpart Nikita Khrushchev possessed “an intuitive understanding of the peril confronting not just their own countries but the entire world if the crisis was allowed to escalate.” This was because both had experienced the horrors of World War II and knew nuclear war would be many times more destructive.

In light of Putin’s question, “Why do we need such a world if there is no Russia there?” we are left to wonder if he shares their understanding of the peril facing the globe today.

A new “Scooby-Doo” movie character is a lesbian

In other news, a new “Scooby-Doo” movie portrays the lead character as a lesbian. A senior member of the British parliament says the Church of England must embrace same-sex marriage or face mounting pressure from the government.

Samford University, a Baptist school in Alabama, is facing protests and criticism for affirming its commitment to biblical sexuality and marriage. And a New York trial judge has ruled that polyamorous relationships are entitled to the same legal protections given to two-person relationships.

Here’s what these stories have in common with Vladimir Putin’s Russia-centric nuclear threat: they each illustrate the conviction that I have a right to what I want, no matter the consequences for those who disagree.

In this view, if Russia believes its territory (legitimate or not) is under attack, it can respond however it chooses. LGBTQ ideology must be embraced by every segment of society even at the cost of First Amendment religious freedoms. If you disagree, you are dangerous to society and undeserving of legal or cultural protections.

Unfortunately, this is familiar ground, a growing attack on conservative Christians I have documented often in the past (for a larger discussion in historical and biblical context, see my book, The Coming Tsunami). Today, I’d like to make a point on this urgent issue I’ve not made before, one that applies as fully to me as to anyone who opposes my biblical worldview.

“My claim to my right to myself”

For nearly thirty years, I have read Oswald Chambers’ classic, My Utmost for His Highest, as part of my morning devotional time. Yesterday I read again his definition of sin as “my claim to my right to myself.” This time, his explanation struck me as it had not before.

Chambers observed: “The disposition of sin is not immorality and wrong-doing, but the disposition of self-realization—I am my own god. This disposition may work out in decorous morality or in indecorous immorality, but it has the one basis, my claim to my right to myself.”

This claim is at the foundation of everything that is wrong with our culture. But it is prevalent in “moral” people as well, as Chambers notes: “When our Lord faced men with all the forces of evil in them, and men who were clean living and moral and upright, he did not pay any attention to the moral degradation of the one or to the moral attainment of the other; he looked at something we do not see, viz., the disposition.”

In other words, those of us who uphold biblical morality and religious freedom can be as sinful as those who reject it if our motives are “my claim to my right to myself.” This is a binary choice: I can love and serve my Lord and my neighbor (Matthew 22:37–39), or I can love and serve myself. I can make God my god, or I can make myself my god (Genesis 3:5).

But I cannot do both. Neither can you.

A life-changing paragraph

Inside the Bible I used as a pastor, I taped a paragraph where I could see it each Sunday before I preached. Its words from Watchman Nee’s The Normal Christian Life stirred my soul again when I read them today:

“A day must come in our lives, as definite as the day of our conversion, when we give up all right to ourselves and submit to the absolute lordship of Jesus Christ. There must be a day when, without reservation, we surrender everything to him—ourselves, our families, our possessions, our business, and our time. All we are and have becomes his, to be held henceforth entirely at his disposal. From that day we are no longer our own masters, but only stewards.

“Not until the lordship of Jesus Christ is a settled thing in our hearts can the Holy Spirit really operate effectively in us. He cannot direct our lives effectively until all control of them is committed to him. If we do not give him absolute authority in our lives, he can be present, but he cannot be powerful. The power of the Spirit is stayed.”

Will the Spirit be “powerful” or “stayed” in your life today?

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