Monday, October 31, 2016
520 - 'How Do You Know?'
Spirituality Column No. 520
November 1, 2016
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary
It is Satan’s favorite question.
It is post-modern society’s perpetual challenge.
It is, sneakily, the intellectual antithesis of open-mindedness.
When a believer preaches Godly good, Christian love, Spiritual wholeness and biblical truth; or maybe asserts that “this is right and this is wrong according to God’s word,” the secular world’s default, go-to response of dismissiveness, derision, and, sadly, despair is, “How do you know?”
Doubt is the world’s prevailing response to Godly faith. Why? Because Satan is lord of the world, is God’s enemy and his mission is the removal of faith, hope and love. Satan makes stumbling blocks for humans out of these “image of God” components built into our humanity. That we know, trust and love God, and love each other, honors God. Our doubts amuse Satan because he works against God’s glory and our love.
This is Satan’s game, and he’s skilled at it. Consider the Garden of Eden. Satan insulted God’s sovereignty; tricked mankind into disobedience; set Adam against Eve; shamed both of them before God and each other; and did it by using against Adam and Eve humanity’s best Godly attribute: freedom. Not a bad day’s “worldly” work.
Satan’s game in the Garden was, essentially, “How do you know?”
In our post-modern world broad swaths of society deride the very notion of God as being illusion, folly or a sign of feeble-mindedness. Since God plainly tells mankind throughout the Bible that we will not see or understand much of what He does, Satan has taught us to ridicule faith and demand proof, tickling our doubts with the inadequacy of worldly evidence. By challenging our trust, Satan encourages us to reject God.
“How do you know?” Game and set to Satan.
You may have noticed that open-mindedness is the intellectual coin and relativistic moral true north of the post-modern realm. But open-mindedness that believes the absolute truth of God? Never! What a conundrum. God’s greatest gift to humanity is freedom because only in freedom can we discover the divine love that glorifies God, and glorifying God is the entire point of life. Whatever you may be feeling, if is coerced, self-centered and not free, it is not love. So the world – Satan – declares morality to be relative thus requiring the Christian be open-minded about secular ways when in truth, doubting secularists would be better off being open-minded about God.
I, personally, don’t see any future in being open-minded about Satan.
And the world says: “How do you know?” I’m glad they asked.
Because I don’t doubt Christ.
Game, set and match to God.
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com), who did in fact (long ago) play small college varsity tennis, here marks 10 years – 520 consecutive weeks – publishing this column. His next book, Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary, Volume II, is in the works.
November 1, 2016
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary
How Do You Know?
By Bob WaltersIt is Satan’s favorite question.
It is post-modern society’s perpetual challenge.
It is, sneakily, the intellectual antithesis of open-mindedness.
When a believer preaches Godly good, Christian love, Spiritual wholeness and biblical truth; or maybe asserts that “this is right and this is wrong according to God’s word,” the secular world’s default, go-to response of dismissiveness, derision, and, sadly, despair is, “How do you know?”
Doubt is the world’s prevailing response to Godly faith. Why? Because Satan is lord of the world, is God’s enemy and his mission is the removal of faith, hope and love. Satan makes stumbling blocks for humans out of these “image of God” components built into our humanity. That we know, trust and love God, and love each other, honors God. Our doubts amuse Satan because he works against God’s glory and our love.
This is Satan’s game, and he’s skilled at it. Consider the Garden of Eden. Satan insulted God’s sovereignty; tricked mankind into disobedience; set Adam against Eve; shamed both of them before God and each other; and did it by using against Adam and Eve humanity’s best Godly attribute: freedom. Not a bad day’s “worldly” work.
Satan’s game in the Garden was, essentially, “How do you know?”
In our post-modern world broad swaths of society deride the very notion of God as being illusion, folly or a sign of feeble-mindedness. Since God plainly tells mankind throughout the Bible that we will not see or understand much of what He does, Satan has taught us to ridicule faith and demand proof, tickling our doubts with the inadequacy of worldly evidence. By challenging our trust, Satan encourages us to reject God.
“How do you know?” Game and set to Satan.
You may have noticed that open-mindedness is the intellectual coin and relativistic moral true north of the post-modern realm. But open-mindedness that believes the absolute truth of God? Never! What a conundrum. God’s greatest gift to humanity is freedom because only in freedom can we discover the divine love that glorifies God, and glorifying God is the entire point of life. Whatever you may be feeling, if is coerced, self-centered and not free, it is not love. So the world – Satan – declares morality to be relative thus requiring the Christian be open-minded about secular ways when in truth, doubting secularists would be better off being open-minded about God.
I, personally, don’t see any future in being open-minded about Satan.
And the world says: “How do you know?” I’m glad they asked.
Because I don’t doubt Christ.
Game, set and match to God.
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com), who did in fact (long ago) play small college varsity tennis, here marks 10 years – 520 consecutive weeks – publishing this column. His next book, Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary, Volume II, is in the works.
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