After Thoughts — How do you decide what’s right & wrong?

You have to make a decision. But you can’t decide what would be a good decision and what would be a bad decision. What do you do?

First you weigh the pros & cons of each side. What’s good for you: what’s not. What’s good for other people— that delivers the greatest good. But what if they’re even? I’d eliminate some of the lesser consequential pros or cons for a start.

Then there are those decisions that don’t have a right or wrong. They involve the heart. You don’t want to make them. But they must be made somewhat soon. Here’s where your intuition factor comes into play. You don’t have enough data to make an adequately informed decision; yet it must be made.

So now we move into the areas of personal track-record, of intuitive intuition, the hunch, the second-guess. Some of us have more of this, some of us, less. Ask a trusted friend to help.

About 10-15 years ago many of the teens in our neighborhood were wearing rubber bracelets that read WWJD. What would Jesus do? Of course, our society quickly transmuted that to We want Jack Daniels. So what else is new? The point was that some people were consulting Jesus, maybe the Bible, to get some help making decisions.

However, there is advice to be found in Proverbs 16:1-3—

To man belong the plans of the heart,

But the answer of the tongue is from the Lord.

All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes,

But the Lord weighs the motives.

Commit your works to the Lord,

And your plans will be established.

This poem conveys an overarching context for making decisions. First establish yourself within the perimeters of wisdom of our God. Then make your decisions.

There is something to be said for founding your life and heart in following the precepts of our Lord that provides a framework for everything else. Not that all decisions will be easy, or have a context for consideration. But if your life is in alignment with our Creator’s precepts for living, then making a decision has walls of protection within which decisions will be undergirded with a history of other wise decisions.

Loving God; loving people… and bringing the two together! ^©

Gary

NEXT— The Shower—Where do you feel safe?

The Whiskey Chronicles 25 – Happy the Way I Am

“Don’t worry…, be happy.” Yada, yada, yada.

In this year, 2023, I actually know people who see being happy as their ONLY life goal. To be happy! I don’t know if it’s because they’re young (thirtysomething) or I’m old (no comment), but this seems like a totally self-absorbed objective.

My life, all/most of it, at least, has been about making a difference in our world. The tagline for my life has been, for a long time, honor God, honor people…, make a difference. So, it somewhat bugs me when some other people just want to be happy.

Really?!?

For me, happiness is a byproduct of making a difference. I have a lot of friends who live to make a difference— every day. They are NOT happy the way they are. They are NOT happy the way you are. Our world is full of too much pain, too much conflict, and too much anger, and way too much desire for retaliation for us to be concerned only with our own happiness.

If you are happy with the way you are, you had better be making a major difference in improving the state of our fellow man/women. If you are only able to give money, can you give more? If you serve as a volunteer in a homeless shelter, have you fallen in love with their guests? If you serve overseas in a medical clinic, are you interested in further training in some medical field?

On the other hand, if you are happy the with the way you are and you are doing little to nothing to make a difference in our world…, how can you be happy?!?

God forgive you…, if you believe in a god, that is. If not, may the people of this world forgive you.

Loving God; loving people… and bringing the two together! ^©
Gary

NEXT— I’m OK— you’re out of your mind

The Whiskey Chronicles 22 – Ships passing in the night

I once gave my wife a greeting card of two ships passing in the night. In reference to our busy lives, the inside simply read We’re like two ships passing in the bathroom. Too true.

Applying this to our interactions with normal people we are much the same. Too many of us are simply oblivious to their need for our Lord. Oh, we know it to be true on a mental level; but that doesn’t often translate to a personal level. We are ships passing in the night.

We spend our lives with people who have increasingly less and less comprehension of the Christian message of salvation, faith, and forgiveness than at any other time in modern history. In a sense we have entered a new Dark Ages for the Christian faith.

It is true that most people reject the Christian faith. But now they reject it out of ignorance more than out of understanding. They do not reject the salvation of Christ out of disagreement; rather, they simply ignore it. We just do not take the time to understand their world enough to explain our faith to them in a format that they can understand and respond to.

It rests on us to do the hard work of giving our message a context. Some of the areas we must consider are— language, reference points, past inaccuracies, trust, prior knowledge, prior misinformation, bad experiences with other believers, sad experience in the church.

Then again, we constantly explain the facts of our faith without couching it in love. This is not the gospel. The offering of our Lord to someone always needs His embracing love as its cradle. Calling a person to repentance must have a framework of forgiveness. Why would anyone repent if there were no offering of forgiveness? Beheading certainly does not encourage one to repent.

Loving God; loving people… and bringing the two together! ^©

Gary

NEXT— no need for religion, or Christ

Web: www.cluelessChristianity.org

The Whiskey Chronicles 21 – Inaccurate, Inappropriate, & Unintelligible

One of the issues I have with our Christian message is that it too often comes across as inaccurate, inappropriate, and unintelligible. The general problem in Europe, Asia, China, South Africa, Canada, and the United States is that our message is being presented in such a manner that it does not relate to the normal peoples of these cultures. We are religious freaks to most normal people. All of us.

And we speak a language that is totally unintelligible to them. We tell them that they are sinners; and that has no point of reference for them. Hitler, maybe; but not us.

And we choose the most inappropriate times to bring up our faith and their lack of faith. [Birthday parties and celebrations are NOT the time.] Seriously, who do we think we are?!? We just don’t get it!

Then our understanding of their life and world is, for the most part, completely out-of-touch. We make assumptions about what non-Christians believe, the way they live, and what they think of us without ever asking them directly. We hold an inaccurate estimation of our pagan brothers & sisters that adds to the rift between us. Thus, my position of the importance of a dram of Single Malt Scotch. [More on that later.]

We need to make more of an effort to walk in their world, in their successes and struggles, than we have been. Without Judgement! God is their Judge. We are not. We are their fellow beggar telling them where we have found bread.

At the very least, we should walk alongside them, in the gutter, in the Board Room, in the prison, in the restaurant, in the supermarket, in our neighborhoods. This is imperative.

Our job is not only to point them to our Lord. It is to be their companion as we travel the road together.

Learn their language. Do not judge it. Listen to their struggles. Do not judge them. Hold their hearts in your hands. Do not crush them. Celebrate like crazy with them wherever we can! Do not hold back.

And invite them into your lives, into your struggles and celebrations. Be REAL with people. Kill the nice Christian façade.

Loving God; loving people… and bringing the two together!

Gary

NEXT— we are like ships passing in the night— our constant mindset

The Whiskey Chronicles 21 – Foreign Concepts

Formerly, most Christian communication was based on common ground. People had a basic comprehension of the Christian faith that we relied upon in presenting our gospel to them. That is no longer the case.

It’s wiser in our era to assume that people, in America and worldwide, have little to NO understanding of the basic tenets of the Christian worldview. We have lost our voice to those around us. We are no longer seen as part of the solution; we are considered part of the problem.

Many of my friends think our world would be better off if all Christians would just go away.

Over the last 50 years western culture has seen the introduction, the invasion, of foreign concepts to the general public. Our universities, once closely tied to our faith, have turned their backs on Christian beliefs. If anything, Christianity is mocked and dismissed in schools of “higher learning.”

Personally, I like having all these foreign concepts welling up from the grass roots. But too many Christians still cling to that ol’ time religion, the way it used to be, semi-annual revival meetings, the simple gospel, etc. If it is true, that 85.33% of our world is considered Developing Nations then the same percentage still needs our Christian message on their level. But for the other 15% of wealthy, dominant countries, our gospel must be couched in a format and language appropriate to their level of society.

For that culture, our culture, we must offer an intelligent, well formulated Christian message that considers the hodgepodge of foreign concepts that our society has been exposed to. The simple gospel communicates little to nothing to this postmodern, postChristian world.

We cannot offer a Third World gospel to a postChristian humanity.

I gave my wife Starr a greeting card with two ships passing in the night on the cover. We didn’t have enough time for each other. The inside of the card simply read— We’re like two ships passing in the bathroom. Far too often we are like two faiths passing in our culture; one Christian, one totally unaware of who we are and what we believe. And in many ways our cocooning has lost any understanding of who they are in their own world as well.

In postChristian America, as elsewhere, our rich faith has also become a foreign concept within our society. WE are the outsiders trying to break through the barriers that surround us.

FINAL THOUGHTS

1. Get to know your healthy pagan neighbors.

2. Go out with the boys (for that drink?) after work.

3. SHUT UP! Listen.

4. Play in their world.

5. Use this Christmas to love on them.

6. YOU throw the New Year’s Eve Party. Provide the Asprin.

7. We need to love the hell out of these people. OK?!?

Christianity has become the foreign voice in modern culture, worldwide. Get used to it. What we formerly designated as pre-Evangelism must now be incorporated into the context of what we are trying to say.

Then again…, has it ever been otherwise?

Loving God; loving people… and bringing the two together! ^©

Gary

NEXT— inaccurate, inappropriate, or unintelligible information

Brrr…

  In training Christians to get in touch with our faith I often ask How does your faith feel? Too many of us have lost the emotional aspect of believing: it has become too cerebral, too focused on what is Truth and worried about how we are going to explain it.
   For a long time, I wondered if we had lost the heart of our faith to the mind of our faith. I’m still not sure we haven’t.
   In the early to mid-twentieth century, the liberal/evangelical dichotomy threatened to annihilate the whole gospel of Christ. Then the Pentecostal/Conservative split threatened to divide the emotive faith from the declarative faith. This, in turned, doubted our mystical faith as questionable, at best.
    It seems that any form or expression of faith that isn’t precisely in line with ours is to be held in suspicion. Brrrrr. Have we grown that cold and solidified in our faith as to prescribe the Holy Spirit’s work through history and across geography as to nail Him to the cross as well? Is our faith as temporally and geographically constrained that our God cannot do a new thing?!?
   Read any of C.S. Lewis Science Fiction trilogy? Is salvation for this earth alone?!? Imagine your faith in the grand dance of the miraculous cosmos. Kind of wild, huh!
   So now we arrive at a juncture where tight defining of faith is critical. Too many nuances have replaced traditional Biblical theology with doubt and distrust.
   We have gone too far. Whether liberal or conservative we have lost the heart of our faith to the right or to the left. The Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is not a political rallying point. It is the way out of all our divisions and political positionings.
   Jesus Christ ALONE stands as the focal point of history. He is not a tool of any personal or political position. Stop playing with fire.
“And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” [Acts 4:12]
   So let’s try this— youtube.com/watch?v=H2tOgCDohQk
Honor God, honor people…, make a difference,

Gary

Dr. Gary Davis, President

The Gospel for People Who Know Nothing – pt.2

What we are facing is the new blank mind of people around the world losing their ability to imaging our gospel. It is not good news to them. It is the memory of European and American oppression. Throughout history Christian aggression and suppression have been the purveyors of our Christian faith.

In America, the decline of Christian influence can be followed through the founding deists, separatist Puritans, our own Civil War, and two World Wars. Interspliced with seasons of revival meetings and a deeper divide between what we profess and how we live.

How did we come to this?

Scripture speaks of people who have a form of godliness but deny its power. [2 Timothy 3:5] Since the close of the American Revolution (Colonial Revolt) our evolving country has given credence to a deity and its influence over land. But it has been more a matter of lip-service than reliance or acclaim. God is a convenient Deity. To counter this casual reference schools of higher learning were established to teach a more indepth understanding of God and His Word: Princeton, Harvard, Yale, and Dartmouth, to name a few.

Overtime, they lost their cutting edge regarding our basic faith. Other “schools of higher learning” also shed their Christian moorings and limited their focus to the sciences, arts, and more practical concerns. It is not yet clear whether our nations colleges and universities will again respect the role and substance that Christianity provided for their foundations. But at this point they are primarily turning out well educated students with sparce knowledge of the Christian faith. A blank-mind. They know little, nothing, of our faith.

What can be done about this?

First, let’s admit that Christians have lost the culture wars, at least in America and Europe. Then we need to move on to construct wise courses offered alongside university courses, hopefully for credit, to educate genuine followers of Christ along side of any who want to learn the truth about our faith. Parachurch groups (IVCF, Cru, & Navs, etc.) have made some inroads; but now they are being challenged by antiChristian administrations across this country.

Next, we need to uPgrade our Sunday schoolsand adult education in churches to address these objections to the claims of Christ. No more sweet bible stories or flannelgraphs about Jesus.

Finally, and probably not really finally, we should enter into conscious service and love to those around us. Truly caring for their sorrows and hurts. Not as a ploy for the gospel, but as the gospel itself. Our job is to be salt and light, not condemnation, doom & gloom. It is God who will give them life: not us.

We just need to walk in their midst and be light. Clear representatives of what genuine Christianity is all about.

Loving God, loving people…, & bringing the two together

Gary

Dr. Gary Davis, President

NEXT— the Gospel in context

PHASES- #1, an Introduction to the Christian life

Welcome to the Christian life!

“The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church”–Tertullian

In the first few centuries, Christianity grew quickly. By AD100, it had become mostly Gentile and had begun to break from its Jewish origins. By 200, the faith had permeated most regions of the Roman Empire, though Christians were mostly in the larger urban areas (Gaul, Lyons, Carthage, Rome). By 325, an estimated 7 million were Christians with as many as 2 million killed for the faith.”http://www3.dbu.edu/mitchell/anceint_christian_martyrdom.htm

The Martyrdom of Stephen, (only 36 at the time of his death) spurred many “Christ Followers” to deeper understanding of the cost of their salvation. Is this what you’ve sighed up for?

Throughout these next few months I will set forth the various Phases of the Christian life, as I see them. Granted, there are many more, or fewer; this is only one early 21^st Century writers perspective. Enjoy.

Here is my list of the Phases of the Christian life we will explore.

1. Deliverence	6. Discouragement
2. Delight	7. Decisions
3. Discipleship	8. Dedication
4. Distraction	9. Deliverence (again)
5. Disillusion	10. Delight

For now, let’s start with the admission that if everything in your life of faith is static, solid, and unchanging, you are not growing in your newfound faith. You are pretending or hiding or deceiving yourself. The Christian life is not a static, once-for-all-time thing. It is a fluid work of art in constant flux.

Get used to it.

Much love,

Gary

Still sleeping…but half awake

Many genuine Christians in this postChristian era still do not comprehend the extent to which the influence of the Christian message has lost its hearing in Western Culture. The mighty dollar is the new God of choice. Power is the new religion; whatever it takes to stay alive or succeed is the practice of faith.

Christianity has lost sway over people’s lives, government decisions, and general morality. What genuine Christianity is flourishing here is doing so outside the mainstream cultural inclinations. But we are not at odds with our culture; we have been subsumed within its values so fully that we are barely noticeable; unless, of course, one of us tries some lame-brained stunt to get noticed in the name of Jesus. Thus do we verify our culture’s judgment that we are irrelevant to anything that matters.

We are still sleeping when it comes to understanding what normal people genuinely think of us; if they think of us at all. To be fair, though, some of us are waking up to the reality that we are in the minority; at least in American culture (referring to the US). Most Christians in the USA still need to come to grips with the realities of the cultural changes and blurring-of-the-lines that has taken place. Do you want to know what people think of us?!? Ask them. Take time to build rich relationships with people around you who never, EVER go to church. Do you want the truth, or do you want to stay asleep…, in a permanent daze?

Let’s wake up and get involved in the lives of those who sit just on the fringes of our lives, who need Jesus.

Honor God, honor people.., make a difference,

Gary

Beyond Words: Take 4 – A Personality Specific Faith

Larson personality In this edition of Beyond Words let’s look at how your personality filters your faith.

My wife is sitting across from me just opening a medium-size bag of M&Ms. Different colors on the outside and consistently the same within. Very much like our world’s Christ-followers. Sometimes, even with a few nuts thrown in for variety.

Not all Christians are alike. Not all expressions of our faith are alike. Not all people are alike. Kind of like stating the obvious, isn’t it.

Yet within the decreasing influence of Western Christendom we try to maintain a boring sameness in our faith as is impossible. The reality of divergent races, cultures, and personalities should be obvious. We are all not one. We are a complex multiplicity of beings with a common commitment to Jesus Christ.

Thankfully, we live in an era where some really smart people have done some deep research on the different kinds of people we are. Isabel Briggs Myers and Katherine Cook Myers began their research in 1917, which culminated in the Myers-Briggs (Personality) Type Indicator Test in 1956 (MBTI). You can take a simplified FREE version of the Test here—

https://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test

The observable reality that we each have a distinct personality is a great gift from God. For Christians, it means that the gospel can take on different shapes and nuances across a broad spectrum of races, cultures, and divergent personalities. We don’t all have to be the same. Even better, none of you have to be likeme. [Phew!]

You see, when God created us He intentionally built into us divergent dispositions to reflect the majesty of His glory. Thus, we are NOT all the same; nor should we be. If we were, it would be an admission that people are unilaterally boring and that the Lord God Creator of the universe is, in fact, not all that creative.

The myriad of different cultures and human personality traits is proof of exactly the opposite. Therefore we should also expect a plethora of different kinds of Christians— quiet, contemplative, sensitive, exuberant, and nuts. This must be so because the majesty and diversity of the Trinity imprints upon us, not in a manner to rob us of who God has made us, but to empower us within our specific personality design. What a gift!

So, get used to being you, trying to offend as few as possible. You have been designed the way you are for a reason; find out what it is.

For what it’s worth,

Gary

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