God is above but He is not pushed up; He is beneath but He is not pressed down. He is outside but He is not excluded. He is inside but He is not confined. God is above all things presiding beneath all things, sustaining outside all things embracing and inside all things filling. He said that is the imminence of God. God with us. God Most Nigh. Preached at National Community Church. Used by permission. NATIONAL COMMUNITY CHURCH December 2, 2012 Thrill of Hope: O Come O Come Emmanuel Mark Batterson Welcome to everybody at all six of our locations. We are thrilled that you are part of NCC this weekend. Before we dive in, can I encourage you to extend an invitation to a friend? I think this is a season where people are more likely than ever, more open than ever to come to church. So if you have a friend who doesn’t have a church, I encourage them to invite them to come with you and be part of what God is doing here at National Community Church. Just for the record, next weekend, our Pastor of Discipleship, Heather Zempel, will be speaking. Then December 15/16, I’ll be back and have a little gift for you, a little Christmas weekend. Then all of our campus pastors will be teaching live the weekend before Christmas. Turn over to Matthew Chapter 1 and we’ll get there in just a moment. I love Christmas for lots of different reasons. It starts when I go up in our attic because that’s where all of our stuff is. I pull out the ladder and pull out the Christmas tree. We put up the tree. I love the glow of the Christmas tree early in the morning and late at night. I love peppermint mochas, eggnog, lattes and I love listening to Christmas music. I love all of the trappings and traditions but let’s not forget the reason for the season! We are celebrating the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ and what that means. I love the title of this series. It is pulled from one of the songs that we’ll sing together, Thrill of Hope. I think that word ‘hope’ captures it. The truth is, you could probably say joy or love or peace captures it too, but this idea of hope is so central to what Christmas is all about. I think what we are going to do is what Acts 2:26 says we should do, we are going to pitch our tents in the land of hope. I love that little verse. That is the Message translation. How many of you know you can pitch your tent in lots of different places? You can pitch it in the land of fear. You can pitch it in the land of guilt, in the land of anxiety, you can pitch it in the land of negativity if you can find a place, it’s pretty full! You can pitch your tent in the land of bitterness or you can pitch your tent in the land of hope. I think over the next four weeks, we are going to pitch our tent in the land of hope and believe that God is going to meet us in a special way. I always pray that during the Christmas season, God would give me a fresh revelation of who He is and I believe He is going to do that for each one of us. Matthew 1:18 18 This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. 19 Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. 20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” 22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”). God with us. This week, I was waiting in line to make a deposit at our bank and the lady in front of me was taking forever. In fact, she turned around at one point and apologized to me. When she left, one of the tellers said, ‘Hey, do you know who that was?’ I said, ‘No.’ She said, ‘That was the former Secretary of Labor.’ I looked it up and sure enough, that was her. I don’t know, it was like wow, I just bumped into an important person. There is something about that, whether it is an athlete or a politician or someone that has a TV personality. There is something about bumping into someone like that that is cool, right? I am not an autograph seeker or a photo bomber. I’m not that kind of person unless it is Adrian Peterson! My first brush with someone famous, I was 17 years at a golf course in Chicago. I was in the bathroom and in walked Doug Collins, who was the coach at that time, and he parked at the urinal right next to me. We did not shake hands but it was cool. I’m a huge Bulls fan and I was like O my goodness! I just peed next to Doug Collins! Can I say that? It was a highlight of my life at that point! Over the years, I’ve bumped into different people here and there. I remember when I was in seminary in the Chicago area, I bumped into Steve Kerr, who was the shooting guard on the Bulls during some of their championship runs and the funny thing was, he was wearing a Bulls sweatshirt. What was so funny about that was the fact that Jordan and Pippen and everybody would be incognito. But Steve Kerr was the less-than-tall white guy on the team so here he was wearing the sweatshirt and we were pushing our grocery cart and I was like that’s Steve Kerr! When we held services at Union Station, I bumped into people all the time. I remember one Sunday, Anthony Hopkins was shooting a film while we were having service downstairs in the movie theater. One time, Chris Collinsworth was walking through and we took a picture together. John Riggins, the former Redskin, I’m starting to sound like a stalker! I promise you I’m not but Pastor Joel might be! We were in Ethiopia and into our hotel walks actress Natalie Portman. It was weird bumping into someone like that half way around the world. What I loved is that Pastor Joel went up to her and said Hi. In fact, I’ll tell you exactly what he said, ‘My nephew loved you as Queen Amidala.’ It was a lame moment! I can tell you about a number of folks I’ve bumped into but there is something about being in the presence of someone that has a little bit of fame or a little bit of power or a little bit of recognizability. They almost seem like they are more than human or super human. But here’s the deal, take all those instances where you bump into someone or you are in the presence of ‘human greatness’ so to speak, and then you juxtapose that with being in the presence of Almighty God! Shouldn’t we get a little bit excited? When we get into the presence of God, shouldn’t there be like a Wow! I just bumped into the presence of God! That’s what Christmas celebrates. The fact that the God of the universe, the Creator, the Sovereign One became one of us. He moved into the neighborhood. The incarnation. I think what I love about Jesus so much is that when you read the gospels, He is the epitome of holiness but wasn’t holier than thou. In fact, He was so down to earth that you couldn’t keep people away, not prostitutes, not lepers, not little children; Pharisees, yes, but everybody else! He was so touchable, so reachable, and it is at Christmas, at Bethlehem that God Most High became God Most Nigh. I want to talk about this for a few moments. Isaiah 55:8 is kind of my theological ground zero. It says: As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts, declares the Lord. The prophet describes the difference between our thoughts and his thoughts as the distance of the universe. Let me try to put this into perspective. I haven’t done this in a long time so let me give it a shot. Light travels at 186,000 miles per second. That is so fast, everybody snap your fingers. In the time it took to do that, light circumnavigated the globe half a dozen times. Our sun is 93 million miles away. So let’s just say we could drive there, at 65 miles an hour, 24 hours a day, 365 days of years, anybody want to guess how long it would take you to get there? It would take 163 years! That’s a long way! The incredible thing is that our sunlight is only 8 minutes old because it is traveling so fast. Here’s the thing, that’s our closest star in our tiny little galaxy called the Milky Way. Astrophysics discovered galaxies that are 15.5 billion light years away. That distance is virtually incomprehendable. I’m not even going to try to put that in mathematical terms because it is impossible but it is this distance that is unimaginable and God says that is about the distance between your thoughts and my thoughts. So here’s my thought, your best thought on your best day is 15.5 billion light years short of how great and how good God really is. The prophet Jeremiah said no one can fathom his greatness. Ephesians 3 says He is able to immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine according to his power that is at work within us. He is God Most High but He is also God Most Nigh. Let me go all the way back to the book of Genesis and we’ll find out way back to Bethlehem in a bit. In Genesis 1, it says that the Spirit of God was hovering over the chaos. The Hebrew word is one on my favorites that is a two-dimensional word. In regard to time, it refers to the split second right before and the split second right after something happens. It is almost like this idea that it forms a parentheses in time around every single moment. It is a fascinating concept. Thomas Merton captures it this way: The Lord travels in all directions at once and the Lord arrives in all directions at once. Wherever we are, we find that He just departed and wherever we go, we find that He just arrived before us. It is this idea that He is the Alpha and the Omega. God exists outside of our space time dimensions and that it this idea of hovering. God hovers. But there is a second dimension, not just time but in regards to space, this word refers to the place right in front and right in back. I love that! It is like a parentheses in space. What I’m trying to say is that God has you surrounded! He is all around us all the time. And David paints a picture of this in Psalm 129. He says in verse 5: You hem me in behind and before. This idea of hemming in is such a beautiful concept. It says You have laid your hand upon me, such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Then it says where can I go from your Spirit. Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there. If I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me. A.W. Tozer said: God is above but He is not pushed up; He is beneath but He is not pressed down. He is outside but He is not excluded. He is inside but He is not confined. God is above all things presiding beneath all things, sustaining outside all things embracing and inside all things filling. He said that is the imminence of God. God with us. God Most Nigh. John 1:14 says that the Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood. In other words, God put skin on. Hebrews 4:15 says We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses but we have one who was tempted in every way just as we are yet was without sin. That is amazing! So relatable, so touchable, so accessible and we take it for granted. But for thousands of years, it did not work this way. For thousands of years, there was only one person, the high priest, who could gain access to the inner presence of God, the holy of holies and he could only do it once a year. But we have immediate access anytime anyplace. The High Priest invites us into his throne room. Approach the throne of grace with confidence so that we might receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. Here’s what I want you to hear this weekend, we are singing this song O Come O Come Emmanuel, but really it is about this, O Come O Come Mark. God is singing that to me and He is singing that to you. He says Behold I stand at the door and knock, if anyone says come in, I will sup with him and he with Me. It is this idea that at Bethlehem, God became one of us and then invited us to the table, invited us into relationship. He is God with us. He is God for us. I like this idea of God with us and God for us. One of my favorite Christmas stories, a little boy named Benjamin who wanted a baby sister for Christmas and he decided to write God a letter. He sat down and wrote: Dear God, I’ve been a very good boy. Then he stopped writing because he knew it wasn’t true and God wouldn’t believe it. So he started over: Dear God, I’ve been a pretty good boy. Then he stopped again because he didn’t feel like it was very convincing. He threw it away. Then he came up with a little plan. He went into the bathroom and grabbed a towel and walked over to the family nativity scene and grabbed the figurine of Mary and wrapped her in a towel and hid her under his bed then he sat down and rewrote his letter: Dear Jesus, if you ever want to see your mother again! Some of you didn’t feel like you should laugh at that! But it’s funny, we do what Benjamin did. We employ the same tactics in our attempts to get what we want from God. We use bribery and blackmail, don’t we? We say, Dear God, if you do this, I’ll do that. That’s bribery! And then blackmail, God if you don’t do this, I won’t do that. Listen, that is never going to work and you don’t even need to do it because God is for you. And if we would ever understand the heart of our heavenly Father, we would understand that no good will God withhold from those who walk uprightly before Him. Matthew 7:11 says it this way, If you then though you are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him. God with us. God for us. And finally, He is God in us. In John, 16:7, Jesus says something that is kind of confusing. He says, I tell you the truth, it is for your good that I’m going away, unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you, but if I go, I will send Him to you. Well, I thought Jesus said ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’ I thought Jesus said, ‘I am with you always even unto the end of the age.’ So why would He say it’s good for me to go away? It is simple, because God became man. When He moved into the neighborhood and took on flesh, He could only be in one place at one time. He took upon Himself human limitations. So why does He say He has to go away? It is part of God’s master plan. This is the changing of the guard and it happens at Pentecost. When Jesus ascends and those early believers gather in the upper room in Jerusalem and then they get a serious visitation from the Holy Spirit, in that moment, the Spirit of God moves in and takes up residence within us as the followers of Christ. This is a crazy thing to understand. I remember trying to explain it to the kids when they were smaller. One night I was singing a chorus to Parker, Spirit move in your temple. It’s almost an invitation to the Holy Spirit to come and fill us and I asked Parker if he knew what the temple was and he said, ‘The church?’ And I said, ‘No, actually the Bible says that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit, I Corinthians 6.’ When we put our faith in Jesus, his Holy Spirit moves in and lives inside of us. I’ll never forget what Parker said. He said, ‘Cool! So my skin is like fake marble.’ That’s a deep thought. I think he was six or seven years old. I think that’s awesome. We are walking temples. God with us and God for us and God in us. In Him we live and move and have our being. I think we take a lot for granted. With some of the personal challenges I’ve been through, medically, physically over the years, and probably in light of the fact that I have asthma, I am more keenly appreciative of every breath I take. But just stop and think about this for a moment. When was the last time you considered the journey of an oxygen atom? It begins when air passes through your nose or mouth and unwanted dust is filtered out. The average person moves about 440 cubic feet of air per day, some of you hot air! Just making sure you are with me. It travels through the trachea into the lungs. Did you know the surface area of your lungs is 40 times greater than the surface area of your body? Oxygen atoms travel through the entire body via blood vessels. If those blood vessels were laid end to end, they would be approximately 100,000 miles long. That’s long enough to circle the equator four times, in your body, blood vessels. At the end of that journey, oxygen enters individual cells and bonds with the food we eat and releases energy. Biologists call it cellular respiration. I call it a miracle! And it happens approximately 23,000 times a day! I think we owe God 23,000 thank yous. We experience 23,000 miracles. Acts 17 says God gives all men life and breath. Job 34 says If God were to withdraw his breath, we would return to dust. God with us, God for us, God in us. Let me close with this. As we step into this Christmas season, I think it is a time for us to, in a sense, count our blessings, in the business of shopping or parties or travel and everything else that happens, we need to make sure that we remember what this thing is all about and that our hearts are filled with gratitude for Emmanuel, God with us. This week, I drove down to Regent University to defend a dissertation. I had been ABD for more than a decade. I never thought I would finish it. Honestly, the family started growing, the church started growing and it just wasn’t a priority and then I started writing books and they pay me to write books! So the dissertation just became this thing that I never thought I would do. But one thing led to another and on Wednesday of this week, I passed! I’m done! When I drove onto the campus, there were some interesting memories. I would go down there for a week at a time ten years ago, but it is one of those places that trigger a memory for me. In 1998, I was sitting in one of those doctoral classes and I got called out by an administrator who came and found me and said that my wife needed to talk to me. I was concerned because that was very strange. She informed me that she had just gotten a call that her dad had passed away. It was absolute shock. We drove from Virginia Beach back to D.C. and got on an airplane and the next thing we knew, we were meeting the family at a funeral home. It was just a blur. I still don’t get it, prime of life, prime of ministry and had just been to the doctor and the doctor said you could drive a mac truck through his arteries and then he died of a heart attack. So when I drove onto the campus, a profound sense of sadness came over me. You know, you shut it out and you go on with life but, man, I miss him. I miss his presence. A lot of us have lost love ones and there’s probably a wide variety of why you might miss them. My father-in-law was fun to be around. It was a party when he was around. He was so loving and giving. I remember at Christmas, the deal was, almost always there would be tickets to the Chicago Bulls under our Christmas plates. So it wasn’t really a surprise but we acted surprised. It was a fun tradition. What I miss most is just his presence. I think now about my family and the ones I love the most. I love being with my family. I love driving the kids all over the place. Summer is swimming and she had practices at 6:00 a.m. on the absolute other side of the city, so we have some early mornings together, and we don’t talk a lot because she sleeps! But even in those moments, it is hard to explain but I enjoy her presence because I love her! It is the same way for all my children. I think one of the greatest gifts we can give another person is our presence. What I mean by that is not just being there absent-mindedly or just barely listening or not really engaged. I’m talking about being fully present and fully engaged and fully interested and fully available. The gift of your presence to another person is something that is precious. If I had to describe my dad in a phrase, he was there for me. It was his presence that I appreciate. That’s the gift we celebrate. It doesn’t really matter what’s under the tree, right? What we really celebrate is the fact that our heavenly Father gave us the greatest gift imaginable, his own Son. For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. In other words, that is God’s way of saying, ‘I don’t want to just be with you, I want to be with you forever!’ I can’t imagine eternity without you. Let’s pray. Father help us this weekend to personalize and to internalize Emmanuel, God with us. Lord as we sing the words O Come O come Emmanuel, I pray that we would hear You singing over us, singing words to us, O Come O Come Mark. You invite us to come into your presence and we thank You for that precious gift. Lord I pray that no one would walk out this weekend without receiving the gift that You have freely offered. It can’t just be about what happened 2,000 years ago. We have to personally and decisively come to a point in our life where we decide to follow You and we decide to receive You and where we decide to put our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord I pray that many right now in this moment would experience God with them for the very first time. We invite You to come and fill our hearts with your love and fill our temples with your Spirit. O Come O Come Emmanuel. In Jesus’ name, Amen. Ministry Transcription margaretsalyers@gmail.com

What are those things upon which we wage war? There are those completely virtuous and entirely untainted causes that are birthed at those seminal moments when the very foundation of the whole of our existence is suddenly teetering on some precarious precipice. Indeed, in every generation there are those utterly horrifying moments when the foolishly benign and ridiculously petty issues that have so captivated us fall into immediate irrelevance as we now face a foe that threatens to obliterate our existence as we know it. Even though we have ignorantly toyed with morality and recklessly crafted our own ethics as if we were ourselves gods, there come those moments when all of those anemic constructs instantly collapse in the face of the threat that now stands before us, and in the ensuing tumult and subsequent panic we are of necessity thrust back to that which is authentically true and good. In light of pending doom we now embrace these things, both fighting with them and for them. It is at these junctures in history that we are melded together with others in the infinitely greater crusade of saving all that we hold dear. However, the foe falls, the battle eventually ends, and the high calling of the crusade fades. In time, with the threat having passed into the annuals of our foggy memory we once again ignorantly toy with morality and recklessly craft our own ethics. And soon we are fighting petty battles that infuse us with a passionate fervor of some sort, yet we confuse passion with principles, greed with gallantry, and Godly values for our lame constructs. The Real Nature of Our Battles More often than not the battles that we fight are based on self-aligned agendas and selfish motives. The nobler cause is often ourselves, although we have become quite adept at articulating such causes as purposed for the betterment of mankind and hailing them as bold advances when the weaker among us are too fearful for such advances. Or we get caught up in glitzy fads, or cultural trends, or politically-correct agendas that drive us because we fear ridicule, or we’re adverse to alienation, or we simply don’t want to expend the energy it takes to exercise a bit of mental acumen. It may be that we’re too insecure to believe in our ability to reckon things correctly, or we’re far too inadequate to hold up when challenged. Whatever the case, many of our battles are spurious at best and spawned of the herd mentality at worst. The War on Great Things It seems that great things call us to great things. The lofty ideals and robust principles of great things call us up and out to them when they engage us. It is indeed odd that we have an unrelenting and breathless passion for great things until those things call us to greatness. We have yet to understand that great things are simply not to be observed from some safe emotional distance. They are not be viewed through the thick plexiglas of fear gone mad and passion gone to rot that puts adventure as an item on safe display. Rather, great things demand that they engage us and we engage them. The issue in the engagement is that great things will move us in great ways. Simply put, that is their inherent nature. By virtue of their very essence and character, great things move other things to great things simply in their engagement. However, that means change. And that means change that we have not formulated, or orchestrated, or likely even contemplated in our wildest musings. That means that change will lie uncomfortably outside the scope of our vision, it will move leagues beyond our tediously crafted parameters, and it will deliberately remove from us whatever will prevent us from moving in the first place. In order words, greatness is incredible but greatness is radical. Our solution to this fearful conundrum is to shape great things with an eye towards keeping everything fully safe. We purport to want a hearty adventure and we say that we yearn for a journey of the boldest sort. Indeed, we claim that we are cavalier and of the journeying sort. Yet, we rein these journeys in, we cinch them tight, we tame them comatose, and in the process we kill the very adventure that we allege to be on. We want greatness alright, but we want a greatness of our own design. And we have yet to understand that a ‘greatness’ of our own design will never cross the barest periphery of true greatness. The War on Christmas The nature of Christmas is such that it calls us to magnificently great things. Christmas is the greatest, most perfectly complete rescue mission of all time in any time. It is an act of the purest liberation, smashing anything and everything that would dare attempt to shackle us. Christmas will blow out the walls of any prison, it will level the most arduous mountain, it will construct a sure path through the landscape of the impossible, and it claims a place for us in the endless adventure called eternity. The gift of God’s Son to us is a call to radical liberation and an ensuing greatness unparalleled in the entirety of existence. Yes, without reservation Christmas is that bold, that magnificent and that wonderful. And because it is, we cherish it but we often walk in dread fear of it. We want greatness, but we prefer it tamed and on a leash short enough for us to control it, yet long enough to allow it to retain some remote yet diminished flavor of greatness. We want to feel the tug of Christmas and find ourselves elated by the wonder and captivated by the mystery of whatever wonderful destination it might be prompting us toward. Yet, we want to have the leash firmly in hand should the destination that God is calling us to prove too obscure or too frightening or just too much. We want the parts of Christmas that send exciting shivers up our spines, but we don’t want the parts that prick our fears. And so we tame greatness, which is in reality to kill it outright. We attempt to hold the rich essence intact while we disembowel everything else around it. And so to tame Christmas we spin myths to temper the story, we create our own caricatures to speak our own lines into the script, we gift ourselves to enhance an adventure now lagging, and we think we’re on a grand adventure when we’ve completely forgotten what an adventure is. Christmas is God’s invitation to an adventure of the greatest sort. There is no possible means by which we could hope to replicate such an adventure and to tamper with it is to destroy it wholesale. The war on Christmas is in reality a war on a great calling and the rancid deconstruction of a promise of adventure unparalleled. The war on Christmas is waged of weakness and fed by vision blinded. It is a war of intellect blunted to stupidity and calling begging at the feet of cowardice. The war on Christmas holds no victory for the victor, for the cost of victory is the death of the one who has won. And such a victory is tragic beyond words to describe. The War of Reclamation We would wise to wage an entirely different kind of war. We need to draw the battle lines, raise the standard, and fight the war to reclaim Christmas. Christmas is God redeeming mankind from mankind’s notoriously failed efforts to redeem himself. It is the single, sure path to salvation, and it is the promise for an eternity that extends beyond our famished imagination. It is God declaring that not all is lost, that everything can be redeemed, and that hope will never be crushed under the heel of adversity. Christmas is an adventure that we could never comprehend, much less craft. And we are freely granted this greatest of all adventures by the simple act of simply accepting it. This war of reclamation begins with us. The battle lies within our hearts and its battlefields stretch across the landscape of our souls. It is here that we need to lay renewed claim to Christmas, do a radical internal reorientation where we rigorously purge ourselves of anything that would diminish this great gift, and then disseminate that battle to those around us. Let’s fight this most magnificent war for Christmas. Let’s partner with God, suit up and reclaim this most incredible holiday. And let’s do that by starting with us. Here’s wishing you a robust passion for the battle, and the fullness of God’s gift this season and every season. This Week’s Quote: “Christmas is God deciding to become what He never had been, so that we can become what we never could be. And so, God does the most improbable thing imaginable. He orchestrates His own birth.”

It seems that Thanksgiving; at least the meaning of it all is being lost somewhere. In many respects we’ve traded it wholesale for football, turkey, an insane variety of foodstuffs and an excuse for a four day weekend. In a lot of ways it’s become more the starting gun to Christmas; a brief celebration with a built-in justification to gorge ourselves the day before we run helter-skelter to the malls, throw up the tree and string lights for another holiday whose purpose has likewise grown dim. It’s amazing how much negative stuff a thankful orientation can override. Let’s be frank, being thankful doesn’t change the reality of what we’re facing, it simply places the emphasis on what we have verses what we don’t have. It focuses us on the possibilities, not the liabilities. It’s not about making anything different. It’s about seeing things different. When we see things differently, we engage those things differently. And that kind of change can be utterly life-changing. It seems that our view of life is often tainted by some of the attitudes that we carry around with us. As the Thanksgiving holiday draws near we might want to readjust some of these basic attitudes in order to more fully embrace a profound and potentially life-altering sense of thanksgiving: A Sense of Entitlement Being thankful is entirely contrary to a sense of entitlement. The two don’t do well together. In some ways we’ve been groomed and grown to believe that life owes us. That’s typically not some blatantly outward belief that we carry around, but it’s down there inside of us somewhere. If I’m entitled, there is no need to be thankful . . . why would I be? If I’m owed something and it’s legitimately mine, why should I have to be thankful for it? Much less, if it’s mine to begin with why would the thought of thankfulness even cross my mind in the first place? When we live with a degree of comfort and wealth, a sense of entitlement kind of grows. Comfort and wealth is no longer viewed as the result or by-product of exhaustingly hard work, or undeserved blessing, or costly sacrifice, or unrelenting commitment to a goal or dream. It’s often not seen as something delivered to us by the work of our own hands or the gift of something or someone. It just is. It becomes not the product of anything that produced it. It is a product of our entitlement. This being the case, it should simply be; and if it should be, and in the being it should be ours, why the need for thankfulness? Our Lost Sense of Privilege In abundance, we tend to assume abundance. “Life is just this way,” we think. It’s natural. It just is. What is in actuality profound blessing is seen as the norm; even the mundane. Food should always be in abundance on the shelves in the grocery. An endless array of products should adorn the aisles of every store we enter. Water and electricity should be there at our beck and call; never failing to respond to a turn of the tap or a flip of the switch regardless of the time of day. Whatever our needs (as complex and multiple as they are) the resources for those needs should be within easy reach or at least easily attainable. This is all the stuff of privilege. Two-thirds of the world has no idea what it is to live with these privileges. Every day the blow dryer turns on, the toaster toasts, the television provide us an endless variety of blurring images; lights brighten our path, computers connect us to friends next door as well as half a world away and the refrigerator provides us numerous options for every appetite. These things and a million more are things of privilege; rich often undeserved privilege. In regaining our sense of privilege, we regain our sense of thankfulness. Our Sense of Speed It’s always about the next thing . . . whether it’s our relentless attempts to achieve the next thing or our dread fear that the “next thing” will never happen. Whatever the case might be, we live in a culture that’s programmed for extreme fast-forward. We move so insanely fast that we often forget where we’ve been and we have trouble keeping track of how far we are from where we want to go. There is no time for reflection or to put down roots. Most of our lives move in a wild fury of crazed momentum, flinging and flailing forward, or in some direction. We don’t have time to be thankful. In the blur of it all, we most often can’t even remember the things or the people or the events that flew by us that we should be thankful for. Worse yet, we move in such a whirling fury that we can’t even see the things around us that are always there in order to be thankful for them. Slow down, for the riches in life are not seen and cannot be savored at light speed. If we can’t see these riches, we’re not likely to be thankful for them. Our Lost Sense of Wonder We have opted to see life as that which we control and manage, rather than that which moves in mysterious and unexpected ways. We no longer marvel, rather we manipulate. As children, we looked wide-eyed at a world brimming with wonders. Now we analyze, dissect and create action-plans to control it all; sterilizing life into a wondrous oblivion. In the end we control just enough to give us an illusion that we control it all, or most of it anyway. In reality, we don’t. So we lose the miraculous because we only pay attention to it to the degree that we can control it. The truly astounding flows right by us because it’s not something that we made or can control so it doesn’t hit our radar. The world is brimming with phenomenal wonders that leave plenty of room for a sense of thankfulness if we simply allow the miraculous to be the miraculous. The Adjustments We need to adjust a bit. Relinquish a sense of entitlement. Regain a sense of privilege. Recalibrate the speed at which you’re living your life. Recapture a sense of wonder and awe. Blend these together vigorously and a sense of genuine thankfulness will begin to permeate every season of the year. www.craiglpc.com .

Is it possible to see betrayal coming? Some red flags are not as obvious as others. For example, if you discover that your man gets drunk with his mother and parties with his last girlfriend, or if your bride just got out of jail for prostitution and has to breathe into a breathalyzer to start her car, well, those example seem like obvious red flags. Are there clear, though less obvious, red flags to warn us (although the above red flags are missed by many!)? When we spot the red flags, what should we do? And once we learn of betrayal (in a marriage or in any committed relationship), what should our next step be? I have a flat rock on my bathroom counter that says, “Relax.” It really helps me to relax! But it doesn’t give me much wisdom about such matters, and that’s what I want to give you now. In my counseling office, discussing these real world situations with people who love God is not uncommon. You may even need to know about Glue Heads and Gibbers! Those who would be unfaithful are experts at “gibbing.” Have you ever heard of gibbing? This is what gibbing is: Let’s say I’m working in my office and then a brick flies threw the window, barely missing my head. I rush outside to try to catch the offender. What do you know! There’s a young man leaning against the outside wall of my office, and he’s standing next to a pile of bricks. I ask the boy, “Did you throw that brick through my window?” He responds, “I’m just standing here.” Well, I guess he’s telling the truth, right? But he didn’t answer my question! No one could doubt that he’s the most likely culprit. Yet his words tell a different story – the boy tells only half a story. And we all know that a half truth is a whole lie. The boy denies that he’s lying, but “he’s gibbing.” Sound familiar to some of you? I bet! I have some therapist friends who kid me because I’m often the last to spot a person who has a Borderline Personality Disorder. Someone with BPD is often charming, but has few friends, can have wild mood swings, may swing from extreme happiness (or spending or a sex spree) to suicidality, can put someone on a pedestal and then put them under the pedestal, and blames others for everything, among other characteristics. I don’t think that’s true anymore, that I can’t spot them, but this much I know. I’m usually the first to spot someone who is gibbing! Gibbing is sort of like when the wife asks the husband what he liked best about his trip to France, and he says, “I’m exhausted from many hours on the plane” (from Asia). Other gibbing situations: What were you doing to six in the AM? “I got home at five -thirty!” “What were you doing with your friends all night?” “But we got to Magic’s house by midnight!” But let me tell you about the man who was almost poisoned to death and whose wife had sexual relationships with minors in other countries. This wife went on several business trips a year. Money wasn’t a concern. Sticker prices on her prey were low. And as the months went by, the sicker the husband became, the less of a concern many things became. Somehow the husband found a receipt from a city in Asia that didn’t make sense, as his faithful one was supposed to be in Paris. As he kept close track of many more receipts, the pieces of the puzzle began to fit neatly together. More serious than being stumped by a word jumble, the wife simply was often somewhere other than where she said she was! As he called many telephone numbers, he finally discovered some “middle men” who hook adults up with teenage boys and girls for sex. When the wife returned from a trip to Asia – with visions of frolicking with underage Asians dancing in her head – he confronted his wife… who became irate, of course. “How could you think such a thing!” “I thought I KNEW you when I married you!” “It’s always the other person’s fault, right?” “When was the last time we had sex?” “What have you been telling the children?” Sound familiar? None of the questions are getting answered. Sound like gibbing? Believe it or not, I’ve counseled adult couples who have married before deciding that neither of them could stay out drunk with their friends till 6 AM. Nothing is harder than counseling that couple: The wife, for example, is upset that the husband plays pool, stays drunk all night with his guy “friends,” and often doesn’t get home till after the sun is coming up. But his activity was the same before the marriage. Also, she didn’t even mind that there was a stripper at the bachelor party. After all, she thought, “Boys will be boys.” In such a case, neither partner had a set of criteria for what kind of person they would like to marry, or else they viewed marriage as simply an extended childhood that would somehow help them to mature and have fulfilling lives. Surely the partner would turn into the parent they never had, right?!! But let’s assume that you are a high functioning person whose thoughts rule over your emotions. You’re one of those people who have criteria, or positive expectations – even values! Let’s assume that your five friends are also high functioning folks. Well, hanging out with them increases your perceptive abilities. Do you want to spot these red flag fakers or not? Well, if you want to spot them, your confidence will build as you have fun spotting them! For example, what can be more fun than spotting liars without them knowing that they’re already dead relationship meat? Discuss this with your friends, and then make it a matter of prayer between you and God alone. You already know that God doesn’t want to see you thrown under the bus, right? When you’re dealing with someone who lies to you and betrays you, sometimes even as he betroths you, lies eventually surface. That is simply a factoid. Don’t you love factoids? They are solid ground! Back in 1596, a character of Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice” said, “The truth will out.” And then even back three thousand years, King Solomon who wrote 3,000 proverbs (which are sayings of wisdom) said, “A fool exposes his folly.” That’s an eternal truth that you can depend on. It’s an actual factoid!Here’s a great illustration of that truth. Only a few decades ago, a housing complex was completed. Ten years later, tires started to pop out of the ground. Now why was that? As it turns out, the development was constructed on a landfill, which was full of tires. We didn’t know it at the time, but you can’t bury tires. They’ll always pop right out of the ground, propelled by the gradual push and pull of the movement of the earth. That’s why we see so many tires stacked above the ground. It’s also why here in Arizona, we’re going to start burying tires in deserted mines. Just as tires pop out of the ground, lies always come to the surface. So if your husband is flying to an Asian city for his kicks, somehow “the truth will out.” I’ve heard of many different ways that people find out about the affairs of their partners: one woman overheard at the hair salon that her husband was seeing another woman. Another found a motel receipt from the “wrong” city, if you know what I mean. Another got a phone call from a “wrong” number, but the person seemed to think she was leaving a romantic message for her partner that fit the description of the spouse! Sometimes the faithful partner has the password to certain online accounts that can reveal extra-marital conversations. May I say, “etc., etc.!” I’ve counseled endless clients who believed their spouse was cheating. But only a few of them wanted to spend the money to purchase the services of people with the technology to find proof of the betrayal. I’ve always disagreed with this approach. Of course, no one listens to me, right? I mean, who wants to hear what their therapist of several years has to say? And I must admit that one friend of mine who hired someone to install a tracking monitor on her husband’s car, as well as flying the undercover person around the country with a video camera, actually did catch the spouse in the act. I won’t say in the act of what. But my personal belief is that there’s a better way: “A fool exposes his folly,” says King Solomon. If you suspect your loved one of being unfaithful, it will eventually be revealed to you. God will expose the folly or the “fool” will expose his/her own folly. I have a strong belief that no one gets away with anything in this life. Ancient literature states that the consequences of some folly follow closely behind some people while that of others follows far behind. But the folly follows! So why waste your money to find “the folly” when it will eventually “out” itself, anyway? Well, some people just want to know right now, and I can’t fault them for it. In their shoes, I may feel the same way and do the same thing. Now let’s get back to our husband with the unfaithful, underage teenage Asian obsessed wife. With all the receipts and recordings of telephone conversations, he had his snakelike wife dead to rights. By the time he was able to call Animal Control and have her taken away, he found poison that had been well hidden. He had no idea what its use was, but funny thing: Weeks after the wife was captured and moved into her best “friend’s” basement, he felt like his old self with LOTS of energy! Hm-m-m-m-m….He smelled a rat, knew who the rat was, and never saw her again. Then he came to one of my divorce recovery groups and told us all about it! Someone said that if you look around a poker table and don’t see a chump, YOU’RE IT! Well, that’s our heart broken husband in this case. Or let’s change the “he” to a “she.” Now…she joined a support group and learned how to not be cheated on…or poisoned. She hired a lawyer and received a just settlement, and to her friend’s great joy, she’s actually STILL ALIVE! God is good!!! But what were her red flags? Well, on their first date, he picked her up in a newly waxed car….equipped with a breathalyzer (did you think I was kidding about the breathalyzer?). Due to a conviction for drunken driving, he had to breathe into the gizmo before the car would start. On several subsequent dates, his car seemed to mysteriously break down about one hour before the date. He called her and asked if SHE could pick him up that night. She didn’t mind on the first time, of course. But she thought it was odd that this seemed to happen a lot. I never did find out what the deal was with that. Maybe he couldn’t pass the breathalyzer test, but I think he was just broke and couldn’t buy gas. He spent all his money on expensive forms of entertainment. She didn’t know what kinds of entertainment. All she knew was that he had unaccounted for gaps of time, and she didn’t believe in alien abductions. Then she noticed that the pain meds that she took for her lower back pain (since her laminectomy) seemed to disappear a little too fast. Hm-m-m…maybe her nephew had taken some of them. He was such a sneaky little guy and such a trouble maker! When she offered the real sneak a cookie, he’d usually eat the entire package; when he needed to borrow $50, she never saw any change; when she wanted to watch the old “Leave It to Beaver” episodes, he wanted to watch “Repo Man,” etc., etc. Also, drug and alcohol abuse sometimes goes with this profile. And where there’s abuse, there’s manipulation, right? That makes sense, doesn’t it? Anyway, on the first date, she smelled glue in the car, the abuse of which is even worse than that of drugs or alcohol. She had a bonafide Glue Head on her hands! And believe me, the Glue Heads are very sticky. If you stick with them for long, and if you take a whiff now and then yourself, your positive neural pathways will eventually stop transmitting electricity and neurotransmitters, and you’ll be an official Glue Head, too. You think I jest? More on these folks in another chapter! Oh, one more red flag: After the second date, he told her that he loved her. So be on the lookout! And whether he tells you he loves you after only two weeks, or whether he tells you that in two weeks, he’ll love you, either one is a really bad sign. Take my advice: Run and run fast!!! Okay, here are a few quick tips: If he wants to teach you the Asian Macarena, quickly set off a cockroach bomb in the room and lock him in. If he starts storing rat poisoning in the garage and you’ve never seen a rat on your property, buy some rats, let them loose around the house, and thank him for the foresight to buy the poison. When you find that the VISA receipt locations don’t match the cities that he says he’s been visiting, hire a teenager to throw bricks through his work window. Okay, enough fun. Here are some more serious tips that apply to the more generic liar and unfaithful partner (and are less likely to land you in jail for the night): ALWAYS LEARN THEIR DATING AND MARRIAGE HISTORY In premarital counseling, this is the norm, as it should be for any newly formed (or forming) relationship. How did these relationships end? How much time elapsed between relationships? (This is a tipoff: Does someone always have to have a partner or can that person be happy without a partner?) If you’re already married, tell him/her that you’d like to ask the nearest pastor to renew your wedding vows as soon as possible. You’d like to invite at least 50 friends (half of whom know that he’s unfaithful – tell him who you’re going to invite, including his work buddies that know what he’s up to), AND you’d also like to invite some of the people from the cities he/she’s visited in France (that he’/she’s never been near and has no friends in). If he/she resists that last idea, then arbitrarily suggest that he/she invite people from Asia, as you have a few Asian Facebook friends. If you’re not married, talk to his last girlfriend/boyfriend. I’ve talked to several women in counseling who made such a call. Some of these women were glad they did! Ask your friends what they think of him/her, and make sure you tell them ALL the information that has caused you to be suspect. Ask what he/she does with their free time and ask if you can participate in some of these activities. Decide against sleeping with him/her and see if he can go with this indefinitely. Ask him/her how many sexual partners he/she has had. Tell him that you’re having computer problems and can you use his to do some Internet research on how to best write a resume (of course, he’s been to many sites that he won’t want you to know about). Never tell yourself, “It ain’t nothin’ but a thang.” In other words, when you see questionable behavior, don’t say to yourself, “Oh, well,” Whatever,” or “So what?” What character qualities and behaviors do you see in friends that you know to be faithful? Is the other person interested in having a discussion about these qualities (and about those same qualities in you, too, of course) and considering how to change and become a better person? Ask them to make a “behavioral contract” with you to change any negative qualities in measurable ways. QUESTIONS TO HELP US BE WISE Have you forgiven the last man or woman who betrayed you? Have you forgiven any relatives who may have abused or betrayed you? (If you haven’t forgiven you’re more likely to want to punish those people by getting involved with a dysfunctional person so you can blame him/her.) Have you grieved sufficiently for life’s cruelties and betrayals? Should you date or marry someone who is emotionally unstable? Should you date or marry someone with low morals?

God’s desire is for us to possess a thankful, rejoicing heart. To some, such a goal seems like an unscalable mountain, yet this is exactly what the Lord desires to give us. Our problem is that we are focused on our problems. We enter our day with our countenance darkened by the gloom of unbelief. We wonder why the non-Christians don’t run to give their lives to Christ. Perhaps the obstacle is not what exists in their hearts, but what is in our own. Yes, we accepted Christ as Savior and gave Him our sins, but have truly given Him our lives? Our gloom belies our trust in God the Lord desires to rescue us from gloomy, unbelieving attitudes. He wants us to cancel our plans to be miserable and submit ourselves into His loving, wonderful hands. This is why I’m fighting for the best life you could possibly have. I’m fighting powers of darkness, so you experience the fullness of joy. Why So Sad? Even in a world where spiritual darkness is increasing, the Lord plans something different for us. In fact, He orders us, “Arise, shine; for your light has come.” He tells us that His literal glory, which is now abiding within us, will “appear upon” us. The result? “Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising” (Isaiah 60:1-3). What does it mean? What we see of God’s glory is the outraying manifestation of His presence. But His radiance is actually the unveiling of His goodness. Consider: when Moses asked to see the Lord’s glory, the Lord responded, “I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you . . . I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion” (Ex. 33:18-19). So, God’s glory is His unfathomable goodness. When Scripture says, “the glory of the LORD will rise upon you,” it is actually saying the GOODNESS of the Lord will be seen upon you. In other words, in contrast to the uncared for world under judgment, you will be seen as one chosen to reveal how good God is! God’s goodness, like a morning dawn rising at the end of a night, is increasingly going to be manifest upon us at the end of this age. With all my heart I believe we are entering days where both the visible radiance of God’s glory and the overwhelming effect of His goodness will manifest in the true church. We’ll see more of the good things of God: more of His healings, more of His miracles, more of His provisions and more of the power of His love. These won’t be isolated elements or events, but a stream of wonders that will cause the world to marvel at the Lord’s goodness upon His people. So Rejoice! Paul wrote, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!” Why should we rejoice? For “the Lord is near.” (Phil 4:4-5). He’s not talking about the second coming; the Lord is near now in our spirits. He’s saying that you’re not isolated from God. Rather, God is at hand. He goes on with the very familiar recipe for gaining God’s peace: “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God (listen to this), which surpasses all comprehension, shall guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil 4:6-7). Paul describes the peace of God as surpassing all comprehension. Then the apostle writes in Eph. 3:19 that “the love of Christ surpasses knowledge.” Do you understand that? The enveloping presence of God surpasses your mind’s analytical powers to figure out the world around you. See, it doesn’t really matter if you don’t have the all the answers if you truly have God and can trust Him! The peace and love of God transcend and surpass the realm of the mind. People may ask, “Why are you so happy especially given your difficult circumstances?” You respond: “I can’t tell you why, I just know, in spite of my battle, I’m fully loved by God. He’s in charge of me and my future.” 1 Pet. 1:8 says, “…you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible…” Add it up and see how much we have: peace beyond comprehension, love beyond knowledge and joy beyond our ability to express and articulate. There is a spiritual realm of joy, peace and love we can abide in that’s far more wonderful and expansive than the tiny realm of our analytical thought life. Probably ninety percent of our battles exist in our minds. I am not saying we shouldn’t think or consider things, but if we are not simultaneously living in the spiritual realm of joy, love and peace, our fight is filled with futility. God wants to coax us out of these tiny realms and bring us into the realm of His full presence where His joy, love and peace abound. Cursed or Christlike? God had many blessings planned for Israel, but He also warned that curses awaited them if they embraced sinful attitudes of life. In the summary thought of Deuteronomy 28, the Lord explains, “So all these curses shall come on you . . . because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and a glad heart, for the abundance of all things; therefore you shall serve your enemies” (Deut. 28:45-48). Listen carefully: They weren’t cursed only because they disobeyed God, but also because they did not serve God with joy and a glad heart. If I ask my kids to do something and, though they do it, they murmur and complain, it is offensive. You see, obeying with a complaining attitude is not obeying, its complaining. We must make the choice to rejoice. Too many of us are cynics. Cynicism, contrary to popular opinion, is not a gift of the Holy Spirit. A cynic is a habitual doubter. He is nearly always negative, expecting the worst, and probing for the worst when there is nothing negative is visible on the surface. Ultimately, a cynic will always discover something that confirms their expectations. I am saying that God is good, and even when things are not good, He works them for our good. If you believe this is true, your faith in God will relieve you from a host of dark and dangerous attitudes. God is Who He says He is. Even if we don’t know all the details along the way, we trust that He is good. He Who is perfect can make something wonderful come out of what was just average or even misguided. That’s where my peace comes from: God’s abilities and His goodness. This is where the peace beyond comprehension comes from; here is the source of the love that surpasses knowledge. God Himself is the reason for my inexpressible joy! “. . .all things have been created by Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together (Col 1:16-17). Not only is Christ the agency of creation, but in Him “all things hold together.” Now listen: Just as the Lord holds creation together, so He can hold our lives together as well. Maybe you don’t know what to do next. How are the bills going to be paid? What will the future look like? Maybe your emotions are stretched and strained, and you don’t know what to do next. You can’t hold it together, but God can. Trust Him. He’ll hold it together. He’ll keep you right in the center of His love. I Will Rejoice! Paul is in a jail when he writes the church in Phillippi. The prison he was in was horrific, and he had done nothing to warrant being there. Yet, when he writes he uses the words “joy, rejoicing or glad” over a dozen times. Consider: he has every reason to be miserable, yet he makes the choice to rejoice. He says, “. . . Christ is proclaimed; and in this I rejoice, yes, and I will rejoice” (Phil 1:18). My heart tells me that Paul’s declaration wasn’t directed to the readers as much as to those forces of darkness that had stolen his freedom, his comforts – everything, but his heart for God. It was as though he were telling them, “Look, you took much, but you are not going to get my joy!” If the enemy can take your joy, he’ll also take your strength. Soon, you’ll find yourself struggling with sin, not because you were evil, but because when you lost your joy, you lost your ability to resist the enemy. “For the joy of the Lord is your strength” (Neh 8:10). Paul couldn’t have know his letter would become part of the Bible. He’s just writing to fellow Christians. But when you trust God, focus on God, and magnify the greatness of God, then even your time in jail can be sanctified and used to glorify the Almighty.

We often trade what we’ve decided and what we know is most important for a bowl of stew. What’s true of Esau is true of you. You have no idea what God wants to accomplish through your life. You have no idea what God wants to accomplish in your church, ministry, community. And nobody is going to be standing beside you to help you re-frame the temptation. But God knows and you are going to want to be there. So re-frame and then refrain. But whatever you do, don’t trade your future for a bowl of stew.

Dear Roger, The chaos in our government is breaking my heart. I wonder if any politician is righteous and honest. It seems like no one tells the truth any more. Hardly anyone will stand up and say, “I was wrong. I did it.” Or, “I don’t know. What do you think?” Our present culture reminds me of Aaron’s behavior when Moses rebuked him for making the golden calf. Aaron backtracked by saying, “Don’t blame me. All I did was throw some gold in the fire and out jumped this calf!” So what happens to a nation when their government leaders lie and can’t be trusted? Sincerely, Ray Dear Ray, You’ve heard about politicians “putting a spin” on things. But why don’t we call it what it really is: “propaganda.” Propaganda is when someone takes facts and twists them for their own best interests. To illustrate, I’m going to use Paul Joseph Goebbels as an example. He used propaganda as a weapon. Goebbels was a German politician and the Reich Minister of Propaganda for Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. With his propaganda-spin, he convinced millions of Germans that the Aryan race was superior to all others. He deluded millions into believing that Jews and gypsies were inferior and ought to be exterminated. And six million Jews died in the Holocaust. PLEASE DON’T MISUNDERSTAND ME! I AM NOT SAYING AN AMERICAN POLITICIAN COMES CLOSE TO THE DASTARDLY GOEBBELS. Nevertheless, he represents better than anyone else the ultimate power of spinning the facts for his own purposes. However, the citizens of a country do not necessarily understand when they are believing a lie. Here are some compelling statistics from the The Witness Project: “November 7th is Victims of Communism Memorial Day.” If ever a day was needed to remember great loss, it is this day. Humanity easily forgets. According to recent polls: – 53% of Russians believe Vladimir Lenin’s roll was largely positive in Russian history. – 70% of Russians believe the same of Joseph Stalin. – 85% of Chinese citizens say the merits of Mao Zedong outweigh his mistakes, and 90% feel a sense of reverence or respect for him. – Kim Jong Un has a 55.7% approval rating among North Koreans. Why these percentages aren’t closer to zero is a testament to the power of government propaganda. These are men who are responsible for regimes that killed roughly 80 million of their own people.” The Congressional approval rating is hovering in the teens. One survey shows that 60% of Americans no longer believe that politicians are truthful about most issues. You’ve heard the term “fake news”? Propaganda is not new. We might say that every government—especially autocratic dictators—engage in the process to one degree or another. Some of the earliest recorded propaganda was exercised by autocratic Egyptian rulers who date back to 3000 BC. When A Government Is Just, Honest And Truthful, Its Citizens Are Safe, Secure And Prosper. God has a lot to say about Kings and Rulers, their behavior, their integrity and their resulting impact on the people they rule. He gives clear wisdom regarding how governments should rule—and the pitfalls they should avoid. Reading the Bible and employing its guidelines would result in a stable, healthy nation. The people would love their government.[BW1] “The king should delight in righteous lips, and he should love someone who speaks what is right.” Proverbs 16:13 CJB “Keep evil advisers away from the king and his government will be known for its justice.” Proverbs 25:5 GNT When A Government Is Unjust, Dishonest And Tells Lies, Its Citizens Are Insecure, Afraid, Neglected and Suffering. A government that is “wicked” or dishonest may ultimately lead to rebellion and anarchy. God says that government should be just and fair for all of its constituents. No group should get special advantages over another group. Think about our income tax appropriations. We hear of people who are rich enough to utilize loopholes to end up paying little or no taxes at all. That is not fair. “Do you rulers indeed speak justly? Do you judge people with equity? No, in your heart you devise injustice, And your hands mete out violence on the earth.” (Psalm 58:1-2) Our Founding Fathers designed our Constitution with a system of checks and balances in place to keep any one individual, or small group of people, from taking control of the government. I’ve been in many countries where rulers put their picture on every wall and billboard in sight to remind the people who is really in charge. These governmental leaders get rich and powerful at the expense of the people. “Like a roaring lion or a charging bear is a wicked ruler over a helpless people.” (Proverbs 28:15) One sign of a failing government is rebellion. All wise leaders use wisdom and integrity to meet the needs of its people. Much rebellion occurs when people think that they’ve been unjustly treated. “When a country is rebellious, it has many rulers, but a ruler with discernment and knowledge maintains order.” (Proverbs 28:2) “Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. For the one in authority is God’s servant.” (Romans 13:1-4) “By justice a king gives a country stability.” (Proverbs 29:4) A nation’s citizens also feel cheated when special interest groups and lobbyists use money to get what they want. It’s not fair. “But one who is greedy for bribes tears it down.” (Proverbs 29:4) Religious freedom is the ultimate blessing. “The king that faithfully judges the poor, his throne shall be established forever.” (Proverbs 29:14) But our government fails often too. We’ve got to be on our toes, holding our leaders accountable to the truth. Here’s what God has to say about lying leaders: “It is an abomination for kings to commit wickedness: for the throne is established by righteousness.” (Proverbs 16:12) "If a ruler listens to lies, all his officials become wicked.” (Proverbs 29:12) “Mercy and truth preserve the king.” (Proverbs 20:28) “Endow the king with your justice, O God, the royal son with your righteousness. May he judge your people in righteousness, your afflicted ones with justice. ‘The king that faithfully judges the poor, his throne shall be established forever.’” (Proverbs 29:14) I used to think that America would be attacked and defeated from the outside. God would judge the United States through other nations. But I know better now. God’s judgment is at work even today, coming from the inside. God’s judgment is that our nation will rot from within (Romans 1:18-32). What Now? Can We Do Anything to Change Our Nation? It is time we return to our roots. The Lord God Jehovah alone who can bring truth, mercy, justice and peace to our country. It’s time to pray, to pursue integrity in our own lives, and to stand strong for what we believe. When the Supreme Court removed the Ten Commandments from our schools, they failed to put anything in its place. So basic issues of values and morality are no longer taught in our schools. We are seeing the results in misguided ethics and the loss of values of absolute truth … in the ways we create divisions and harm each other. “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. The eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love.” (Psalm 33:12) Many years ago, I remember a news broadcast where a reporter was describing a scene of people lined up waiting to buy gasoline generators at a hardware store in case their power went out. It was obvious that there were more people were in line than there were generators available. Suddenly a man from the back of the line walked to the front and pushed a man out of line and took his place. A fight broke out. I thought to myself, “This is America. We are supposed to hold together in times of emergency. We don’t fight each other.” The fight escalated into a riot. Police were called in to restore order. I reminded myself that in times of need, many people will do whatever it takes to survive—even Americans. We no longer serve each other … we look out for number one. This violent scene is more common today. We expect selfishness, not sacrifice. My prayer is that one day, our beloved country will repent and return to Christ. Then we will have one Ruler, a righteous King. Thank God that the King is coming soon. D.E Sheridan wrote: “The difference between golf and bad government is that in golf you can’t improve your lie.” Sincerely, Roger

Does Nephilim mean “Giants”? The beginning of the sixth chapter of Genesis, where the word  Nephilim  comes from, is one of the most baffling passages of the Bible:   4  The  Nephilim  w ere on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the  sons of God  went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown. [1] Remarkably, some translations have here the word ‘giants’, instead of ‘Nephilim’: 4  There were  giants  in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. [2] As if to make this story even more complicated, scripture also mentions Nephilim after the flood: in the well-known story in Numbers 13 , where Moses sent twelve spies to scout out the land, and all the spies, except Caleb and Joshua, brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched, saying:   We saw the  Nephilim  there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them. [3]   Once again,   King James Versio n translates the word “ Nephilim ” here as “ giants ”: 33  And there we saw  the giants, the sons of Anak,  which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight. [4] For centuries,  people have debated whether the “sons of God” expression refers to angels or to men, and just who these Nephilim/giants were. As in the case of Melchizedek, this story also gains much more clarity when read in Hebrew. PARDES However, before we delve into our story and use some Hebrew, I would like to introduce here four different levels of Biblical interpretation in Judaism:  PARDES.  The term PaRDeS is an acronym formed from the initials of these four levels, which are: Peshat   “plain”, “straight” – the direct, literal meaning of Scripture; Remez  “hint” – the deeper, symbolic meaning, beyond the literal sense; Derash   “to inquire”, “to seek” – the comparative meaning: a deeper meaning obtained from a passage by comparing its words and content to similar passages; Sod  “secret,” “mystery” – the deeper meaning, revealed only through inspiration or revelation. Thus,  Peshat  means the literal interpretation;  Remez  is the non-literal, or allegorical meaning;  Derash  refers to the expanded comparative meaning;  Sod  represents the hidden, secret meaning of the text. There is something I should add here: This word  pardes  that was chosen by our sages to symbolize the different levels of  interpretation of  scripture, means “garden” or “orchard” in Hebrew, and comes from the Song of Solomon: Your plants are an orchard ( pardes )   of pomegranates With pleasant fruits, Fragrant henna with spikenard  [5] An orchard might be filled with the most fragrant scents and the most delectable tastes, but one has to walk through it and sample the fruit of the trees in order to appreciate the tastes and smells. Yes, even from outside you can peek in , even from outside, you can  try to recognize which trees grow there – however, it is only when you go inside, when you walk through the garden, when you really see and taste the fruits, that the garden also becomes  for you  an orchard, or pardes.  SONS OF GOD Now we have all the necessary tools to delve into our story. First of all, let us try to understand who “the sons of God” were. The Hebrew words translated “the sons of God” are b’nai ha Elohim. Does the Torah mean angels, or just “the sons of rulers”, or “the sons of the nobles”, as some Jewish translations translate b’nai ha Elohim here? We have “the sons of the princes” in Targumim, and “the sons of the Judges” in Midrashim[7] – in fact, the “angelic interpretation” (that they were angels, or some kind of divine beings) is almost non-existent in Judaism. Many of you probably know that the noun (Elohim) is in a plural form, and it can be read not only as “God”, but also as ‘gods” or even “lords, rulers”, and this is exactly how the Jewish commentaries choose to read this word in this particular verse. However, if we study the use of this expression in Tanach, we will see a completely different picture. There is no better commentary to the Bible than the Bible itself, and for that reason, we will use the “derash” technique to compare our passage with other similar passages. The expression “sons of God” doesn’t occur many times in Tanach. The next time we encounter this expression is in Job 1:6 Now there was a day when  the sons of God  came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them.  We have the same expression again i n  Job 2:1 Again there was a day when  the sons of God  came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the LORD.   Nobody questions the meaning of “the sons of God” here: We all know that these verses describe the Divine Council – a meeting in Heaven – therefore, the “sons of God” here are obviously not humans, but angels, who are meeting with God.  Notice that the words in Hebrew translated as “the sons of God” here, are exactly the same as in  Genesis 6:2 –  b’nai ha Elohim. The next (and the last, at least in Hebrew [8] ) reference to “the sons of God” in Tanach is again in the book of Job, in chapter 38. Speaking about the creation of the universe, God is saying : I laid the foundations of the earth… When the morning stars sang together, and all  the sons of God  shouted for joy. [9] From this verse[10], we can see that the sons of God existed even before the earth itself was created. This indicates that every use of the term: b’nai ha Elohim or b’nai Elohim in the Old Testament, is, in fact, a reference to angelic beings. Thus, we can conclude that “the sons of God” in Genesis 6 also refers to angels. Now, that we’ve established that “the sons of God” were angels, we can try to understand the story of Nephilim. [1] Gen. 6:4, NIV [2] Gen. 6:4, KJV [3] Num 13:33, NIV [4] Num 13:33, KJV [5] Song of Solomon 4:13 “The fallen angels” view – the one that I advocated – is one of the most prevalent interpretations of this story. In the previous article, we used the Derash technique and saw that this view stemmed from angels being called “sons of God”, or interpreted as such in Job 1:6, 2:1, and 38:7. I already mentioned that this “angelic interpretation” (the idea that the “sons of God” were angels, or some kind of divine beings) is almost non-existent in modern Judaism. It’s important to note, though, that for a long time, “the angel view” had been predominant in many extra-biblical Jewish writings (the book of Enoch for example: 1 Enoch 6-11, usually dated c. 200 B.C, clearly identifies the “sons of God” as angels). However, later Jewish commentators choose to read the noun (Elohim) as a plural form, and therefore b’nai ha Elohim here became “the sons of the rulers”, “the sons of the nobles”, “the sons of the princes” or “the sons of the Judges”. We might note here that, if they were simply the sons of the rulers, or of the nobles, who took simple girls as their wives, their parents, the nobles and the rulers, might not have been happy with these unions – but why God? God doesn’t care about social differences and different statuses. As Dorothy Healy wrote in her comment here: “One thing does seem clear from the text: that ‘the sons of god’ are differentiated from ‘the daughters of men’ i.e. they came from a different sphere, and their procreation was certainly not according to the will of God”. Let us think logically: if “the sons of God” are opposed to “the daughters of men” – doesn’t that mean that they were not ‘sons of men’ and therefore not human: they were “angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode“. WHO DID THE SPIES SEE? In order to understand the nature of the Nephilim, let us turn again to our Derash technique and seek a comparative meaning – a deeper meaning obtained from a passage by comparing its words and content to similar passages elsewhere. We already know that the Torah also mentions Nephilim after the flood, in Numbers 13, when Moses sent twelve spies to scout out the land. All the spies, except Caleb and Joshua, brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched. They were absolutely frightened by what (or whom) they had seen. Who did they see, then? “ We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them. ” The words in the brackets are very interesting: what does it mean that the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim? Once again, we will need some Hebrew here. The original text says: -bnei Anak min-haNephilim. The Hebrew word “Anak”– simply transliterated as “Anak” in the English text – means “giant”. So, our Hebrew text literally says: “We saw giants from the Nephilim”. The response that Joshua and Caleb gave to the congregation of Israel is even more interesting: “… do not rebel against the LORD. And do not be afraid of the people of the land, because we will devour them. Their protection is gone, but the LORD is with us. Do not be afraid of them” First of all, it is quite remarkable that, even though several parts of the ”bad report” were challenged by Joshua and Caleb, they did not challenge the information about giants. They didn’t say: ‘what are you talking about? There were no giants there, we haven’t seen any giants!’ It seems that these “giants from the Nephilim” were indeed in the Land, if Joshua and Caleb didn’t dispute the fact. But there is some additional, absolutely intriguing information that we discover in their answer in Hebrew. In English, we have this convenient, “normal” text: Their protection is gone, – but you wouldn’t believe what the original Hebrew text is saying here. Joshua and Caleb are saying about the people of the land: ?”Their shadow is gone!” The Hebrew text doesn’t speak of any protection, it speaks of shadow only: Their shadow is gone, and the Lord is with us! Are you surprised by this expression? Trust me, I was also infinitely surprised when I made this discovery. And I am not claiming anything – I am just letting you know that the literal meaning (Peshat) of these words refers to Nephilim’s shadow: ‘their shadow is gone!” Definitely, we can still understand it at Remez (allegorical) level, as an implied meaning of “protection” – and to read it as “protection”, of course, would be much more convenient and traditional; we have to remember, though, that one of the main rules of the Jewish hermeneutic states that all the higher levels (starting from Remez/Allegory) should not contradict Peshat: As a general rule, the extended meaning never contradicts the base meaning. This expression: ‘their shadow is gone!” – occurs only once in the whole Torah, only here, and I think you will agree that it is very peculiar remark. I don’t know about you, but it gives me chills. As Michael Heiser wrote in his wonderful book, “seeing the Bible through the eyes of an ancient reader requires shedding the filters of our traditions and presumptions”. MORE ABOUT THE SHADOW Once again, I would turn to my favorite technique, PARDES, in order to examine the meaning of the verse from the book of Numbers: Only rebel not ye against the LORD, neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for us : their defense (origin. shadow) is departed from them , and the LORD is with us: fear them not.[1] PESHAT: According to the Jewish tradition, the Peshat is the keystone to understanding scripture: If we discard the Peshat “the text loses its historical significance and meaning and becomes an empty cup to be filled with whatever the teacher/interpreter wants”.[2] It is also true that within the Peshat, a passage can be figurative. However, there are certain rules to determine if a verse should be understood literally or figuratively. For example, when the expression cannot be understood literally – i.e. when an inanimate object describes a living thing or, vice versa, life and action are attributed to an inanimate object – then the statement is obviously figurative (for example, in our verse, the expression “they are bread for us” should be understood figuratively). The opposite is also true: when a verse can be understood literally, it should be understood that way, and our verse can definitely be understood literally. As weird, uncomfortable and inconvenient as it may sound, the plain, simple meaning of these words refers to the Nephilim’s shadow: “their shadow is gone!”. As Dr. Michael Heiser writes, “if it’s weird, it’s important”[3]. REMEZ (“hint”), we will recall, “is the meaning at which the texts hint, although it is not stated obviously”.[4] Most translations render the word “shadow” here as “protection”, or “defense” thus ascribing the implied meaning of protection. However, we can also read this text differently at Remez level – not as “protection”, but as an “image” (tzelem) of God. Since the Hebrew words tzelem(image) and tzel (shadow) are connected, it might refer to the idea that, unlike men, the Nephilim don’t have the image (shadow) of God within them: the image (shadow) of God is gone! Interestingly, this reading is also supported by the fact, that in these words: the word, “their shadow” (tzel with plural suffix) – is spelled exactly the same as the word “image” in Gen 1:26-27 . I also believe that there is an actual connection between these two levels: between the implied profound thought that the image of God is gone from the Nephilim, and a traditional belief held by many cultures that creatures that don’t cast shadow are not human. The DERASH method, may I remind you, “examines not only the main text that is being studied or expounded but also any other sacred texts that are associated with the main text”.[5] In fact, we arrived at our current text from Numbers, because we used DERASH while studying the verses from Genesis 6. If we compare these two scriptures (Genesis 6 and Numbers 13-14), we discover that they actually support one another – the verses from Numbers validate non-human heritage. I absolutely admire the faith of Joshua and Caleb, but I can also understand my people there in the wilderness – not only were the people of the Land giants, but if they didn’t cast a shadow, great courage and a very strong faith would have been required to fight these people! MEN OF RENOWN? The next step in our research will be connected to the word “ish”– “man”. Genesis 6:4 tells us that Nephilim were “men of the name”, or “men of renown”. The Hebrew word “anashim” here is a plural form of the word “ish”. The meaning of this word is: “man”, “person”, “husband”. An objection can be raised, therefore, based on the meaning of this word: if they are called “anashim” – men – doesn’t that mean that they were regular humans? Once again, we will use Derash here. Of course, we have many places in Torah where the word “ish” is applied to a regular man – starting from Genesis 2:23 where this word occurs for the first time. Yet, surprisingly, we also find this word used in some special cases, referring to angels or some kind of divine beings. Let us look at examples: Gen 18:22 the men (anashim) …went toward Sodom. Gen 32:24 – a man (ish ) wrestled with Jacob. Gen 37:15 file://localhost/libronixdls/keylink%7Cref=%5Ben%5Dbible/Gen37.15%7Cres=LLS/ESV– a man (ish) found Joseph wandering in the field. We know that in all these cases the persons that the word anashim/ish refers to were not just men – they were divine beings. Therefore, we can conclude that in our case the word anashim doesn’t necessarily define them as humans either. THE FALLEN ONES By now, we know that the Nephilim were giants and not humans. But these giants were also evil. How do we know that? Let us use some Hebrew again. The word Nephilim comes from the word fall; a suffix ‘im’ simply adds plurality, hence they were “fallen ones”. Having been born of corrupted, fallen, satanic angels, Nephilim went on to fill the Earth with violence and wickedness and also to reproduce ‘after their own kind’. I love the books of C.S. Lewis. For a while the only book I read, besides the Bible, were the Chronicles of Narnia. I find it absolutely incredible how Lewis was able to reveal profound spiritual truth in these children’s fairytales. However, there was one thing I couldn’t understand at that point: why would he use all these “mythological” elements in his stories – for example, why make the White Witch very tall and explain it by her non-human origin? I didn’t understand it then, but I can see now, that even in this small detail, Lewis was still reflecting spiritual truths. Next time, we are going to talk about the Story of the Flood: why God had to go to such extreme measures as a global flood to solve the problem. I have shown you the use of Peshat, and Remez and Derash, and all these levels are wonderful and very helpful, but it’s only when we move to the Sod – Secret/Mystery – that we will really have all the answers and be able to fully comprehend this story. The same is true about our story, so let us trust Him to reveal His secrets in the due time. [1] Num. 14:9 [2] Hidden Treasures, Joseph Shulam, Netivyah Bible Instruction Ministry, 2008, p. 24 [3] The Unseen Realm, Michael Heiser, Lexham Press, 2015 [4] I Hidden Treasures, Joseph Shulam, Netivyah Bible Instruction Ministry, 2008, p. 24 [5] Ibid., p.22 www.eteacherbiblical.com . Used by permission.

According a University of Massachusetts study, 60% people cannot have a 10-min conversation without lying.We lie to impress, avoid conflict, get away w/something, shift blame, or to be nice. Satan, the Father of Lies, is to get you to lie, to lie to yourself, to live a lie. The healing and forgiveness comes when we confess to God and others our sin of lying. Preached at www.lifechurch.tv. Used by permission.

The world looks on in shock at the shooting sprees and murders that occur in suburban neighborhoods. Surely violence could not happen in your neighborhood! How do you help when tragedy hits? Christians have a unique opportunity in times of tragedy to reflect the love and compassion of Jesus. What are the stressors for homicide survivors? The notification process causes a lot of stress. Sometimes the families receive fragmented information lacking detail. Initial details are often disclosed by acquaintances who heard it from the media. Murder affects other life transitions and problems. It intensifies problems such as divorce, illness, or financial difficulties. Unforeseen demands are made on the family members such as identifying the body, making funeral arrangements, handling medical bills, and notifying other family members and friends. Role changes are necessary after a death in a family. The wife may have to become the breadwinner, or the husband will have to be the primary caregiver. Financial burdens are added due to death. Most couples are dual-career families. They make it financially because of both being able to work. The reaction of church members is not always positive. Many churches do not offer help to survivors of this type of trauma. Some people do not perceive murder as an acceptable manner of death. They try to blame the victim as an illusion that this will never happen to them. POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER IN VICTIMS If proper care is to be given to homicide survivors, the caretakers need to understand PTSD symptoms. If the family witnessed the crime, they will relive the memory in many ways. They will have recurrent distressing dreams, hallucinations that the event is actually recurring again, and anniversaries or triggers to the event will re-open wounds. Usually the victims will avoid people, places and things related to the murder-anything that would remind them of the trauma. Sometimes they can’t recall aspects of the event (psychogenic amnesia). They may feel estranged from others and can’t experience positive feelings like love and compassion. Insomnia, outbursts of anger, difficulty concentrating, hypervigilance, exaggerated startle response and physical symptoms like shaking and sweating will occur when in a room that resembles the place of the traumatic event. PASTORAL AND CHURCH FAMILY RESPONSE The Christian community and specifically pastors and counselors have a unique opportunity to reach out to the victims. Here are nine methods of helping the suffering families of a tragic event. Do not explain. As much as the person cries out “Why?” they know that there is no rational reason. Their “why” is a longing for God to hold them in His arms of love and care. Answers do not work. Simply stand by them as they experience various emotional reactions. Do not take away the reality. The pain cannot be taken away by any person. Do not try to minimize or deny the reality of what has happened. Often the person giving care wants to take away the pain because it is too uncomfortable for them. But the caregiver must respect the feelings of the griever, and allow them to feel the whole gamut of emotions without condemnation and rebuke. Realize that they will not always be in such chronic pain. Time will heal if they are able to express all of their emotions. Help them deal with forgiveness with integrity. Forgiveness is a difficult issue for these grievers. The injustice of the crime makes it that much harder to forgive. Do not push them to forgive without integrity. Understand that forgiveness must be given at the deepest level of one’s soul. Understand that they will forgive as God gives them strength, and as they move through the emotions of grief. Stay close. Stay in close contact with the griever, but understand that they will need some time to be by themselves. Continue to remind them of your availability. Remember them for a long time. The loss will always be a part of that person. They may still talk about the loss for years. When others have left, always be a listening ear for them. Remember together the lost loved one. Do not be frightened of the anger . An angry person is not nice to be around. But, allow them to feel this emotion without feeling threatened or taken personally. God understands their emotion. Listen to their doubts. Allow them also to express their doubt. There will be the temptation to immediately try to replace the doubt with Scripture that expresses the contrary. Understand that in order for this person’s faith to be deepened they must be able to express their doubts to God. Their faith will be stronger if they are given room to doubt. Be patient. Their progress will not always be steady. They will sometimes slip back and experience the same emotions, and express the same doubts again. Continue to be a person of understanding and care, not condemnation and judgment. Remind them that the pain they are experiencing is not all there is to life. Remind them through word and action that God is there walking through the pain alongside them. God is not a formula, but someone who sticks with them “through the valley of the shadow of death.” (Psalm 23:4) Step up and stand beside the wounded. They need you to be Jesus’ arms of love at this time. Kie-Vining, John. When Home is Where the Hurt Is, pp. 384-393. Used by permission.

Is there a surefire way your marriage can be protected from adultery? Dr. Russell Moore gives us his opinion: “Whenever one sees a marriage fall apart due to adultery, one of the first things one hears is, “And I thought they were so happy!” Often, we tend to assume that couples torn asunder by an affair must be secretly in felt turmoil for years. More importantly, we assume that those of us who are happily married are then protected from the same crisis. In a provocative new article, a marriage therapist argues against these assumptions. She argues that a happy relationship is no guarantee against vow-breaking. I think she might be on to something. In the October issue of The Atlantic, Esther Perel looks back on the scope of her counseling encounters with marriages in crisis over infidelity and notes how rarely she sees adulterous people who cheat out of a desire to flee a bad relationship. Often, she writes, it’s just the opposite. She encounters people who want to keep their marriage, the way that it is, and who don’t actually want to leave it for the other relationship. In certain ways, Perel’s argument is completely wrong. Most importantly, she sees adultery in almost exclusively therapeutic rather than moral terms. That aside, her larger point tends to line up exactly with what I have seen in thousands of cases of pastoral intervention with marriages in crisis over adultery. The affairs are usually not about a lack of happiness or a lack of sex. There’s something else afoot. Perel notes that many of the “other partners” chosen by adulterous mates are not at all the sort of person the cheating spouse would ever want in a life companion, noting the example of a straight-laced woman who recognizes the cliché of her affair with a tattooed motorcyclist. What’s at work is not a quest for a better lover or a better spouse but for “the unexplored self.” An affair is not about sexual excitement, she contends, but about nostalgia. The person who cheats is often looking to reconnect with the person he or she once was, before the daily responsibility of working a job or maintaining a household. This is especially true in the era of social media where, so often, affairs begin by “checking in” on someone from high school or college or a previous workplace. The issue is not so much that the person is pining for this old connection as much as the person is pining to be the person, again, that the old connection once knew. The question is: “Am I still the person I was back then?” Here, I think, she is exactly right. A common theme I have found in adulterous affairs is that the one cheating is almost always seeking to recapture the feeling of adolescence or young adulthood. For a short period of time, the person is swept up in the drama of “I love you; do you love me” romance, without all the burdens of who is picking up Chloe from school or what day to put the recycling bin out at the curb or how to budget for the mortgage. The secret lover seems to make the married person feel young or “alive” again, until everything comes crashing down. The person is usually not looking for a sexual experience but for an alternative universe, one in which he or she made different choices. She is also quite right that often our ideas and expectations of what makes a marriage “happy” contribute to the adultery. We are told to expect “the One” to meet every need of self-fulfillment. We restrict ourselves from having sex with others, she notes, not out of a sense of moral duty but because we have found the one who will make us happy. Happiness, though, in our imaginations is not how what happiness actually is. “We have conjured up a new Olympus where love will remain unconditional, intimacy enthralling, and sex oh so exciting, with one person, for the long haul,” she writes. “And the haul keeps getting longer.” The best, most secure and stable marriages I know are not typically those that seem “happy” in the sense of self-actualization. They are instead those marriages in which, often through deep suffering, the husband and wife model self-sacrifice and care for the other. Like Christ and the church, their one-flesh union is forged not through demands for the other to meet needs but through a sense of common purpose. In those healthy marriages, one spouse does not look to the other to provide identity. Instead, both spouses find an identity in Christ. My life is not imperiled by comparison with other marriages or with my idealized younger life because my life is hidden in Christ. This gives the freedom to love. And, over the long run, this gives the sort of freedom in which there is the ability to take joy in the wife (or husband) of one’s youth. A couple, even a Christian couple, should not assume they are immune to infidelity because they love each other, because they are happy, or because their sexual acrobatics are frenzied. The devil knows the way to take one down is not through a deficient spouse but through a deficient self. “Sometimes when we seek the gaze of another, it’s not our partner we are turning away from, but the person we have become,” Patel writes. “We are not looking for another love so much as another version of ourselves.” That’s why the Scripture calls us to beware our own vulnerability. That’s why the Scripture tells husbands and wives to maintain sexual union with one another. It’s not because sex is an appetite that must be filled but because sex can connect us to one another, reminding us who it is that we are called to love and to serve. That requires, though, that one sees oneself crucified with Christ, alive in him. It requires that one sees an accountability to something, Someone, greater than even one’s marriage vows. And it requires that love is not a means of making oneself great but a means of pouring oneself out for another. It means that one must see that the arena of marriage is not a mirror but a cross.” www.russellmoore.com .

The thirst for knowledge and power has seduced the naïve and undiscerning since the dawn of history. More people have their palms and tea leaves read or read the astrological column in the paper than read the Bible. People want to know the future for various reasons, but the shrewd ones know that knowledge is power. Just imagine the power you would have if you had “precognition” – if you knew events before they happened. You could become a billionaire just by betting at the racetrack or become politically powerful by accurately predicting future events. In order to accurately predict future events, you would need the power and means to arrange them. God can do that because He is omnipotent and omniscient, which is why the predictions of true prophets are always fulfilled. Satan has a limited capacity to arrange the future by manipulating people who pay attention to his deceiving spirits. Everything he does is a counterfeit of Christianity. Precognition is a counterfeit of prophecy. Clairvoyance, which is the power to see what the normal five senses cannot see, is a counterfeit of divine revelation. Telepathy, which is the ability to communicate from one mind to another by extrasensory means, is a counterfeit of prayer. Psychokinesis, which is the manipulation of physical matter without the use of physical means, is a counterfeit of God’s miracles. Spirit guides, or deceiving spirits, are counterfeits of divine guidance. Why would people want a spirit guide if they could have the Holy Spirit as their guide? These finite longings for the infinite can only be fulfilled by the knowledge and power that come from an intimate relationship with God. Satan tries to pass off his counterfeits as the real thing. He will gain a foothold in our lives if he can lure us into the deceptive world of psychic knowledge and power. Moses’ words of warning in Deuteronomy 18:9-12 are as viable today as they were for the Israelites under his leadership: “When you enter the land the LORD your God is giving you, do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations there. Let no one be found among you who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord.” We live in a contemporary Canaan in which it is socially acceptable to consult spiritists, mediums, palm readers, psychic counselors and horoscopes for guidance and esoteric knowledge. Because Satan has the capacity to deceive the whole world, it is possible for him to arrange future events – but never perfectly. Only God can prophesy something and guarantee that it will come true. This is one way that we can know whether a prophet is true or false. “If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the LORD does not take place or come true, that is a message the LORD has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously” (Deuteronomy 18:22). All the false prophets, psychic counselors and spiritual mediums have superhuman knowledge, but they are getting it from a counterfeiter. However, because they seem to know more than what is humanly possible, a gullible public pays attention to them and is deceived. John 16:13: “But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.” NIV ficm.org . Used by permission.