purpose, action and acclaim
a generational thing
Every generation throughout human history has faced changes. The scope of these changes may or may not have been spectacular or good or evil necessarily. Suffice it to say that individuals were aware that some things had changed in the natural physical environment, human interaction and their own response to those changes especially as these changes affected them directly.
In this respect, life in America, our society and the world is no different. The Internet has made it possible for anyone with web access through a computer or other device to go, virtually, anywhere in the world to check things for themselves. They can get some idea about the natural physical environment as it flourishes or is ravaged in another part of the world. They can examine for themselves and gain some insight about what makes the human interaction hostile or peaceful between peoples with different beliefs. They can also determine how these things can or will affect them emotionally, psychologically, economically, politically; personally. Often this is the point where these changes become something overwhelming for some people to the point of anxiety, despair or depression. I maintain it is not necessarily that there is more evil, as is often the point of focus, in the world as much as the individual can now far exceed his/her intake of world news beyond what the evening newscast delivers to his/her living room or coffee house. Yet, what difference does it make or why should we care if we are aware of these changes?
change in our world
Why? What change has evolved in our present world which, although people who may not live in an environment in which changes such as these are manifested, can be so affected? Furthermore, every individual can look at himself/herself and see for themselves that they create and produce changes in their lives which affect other people around them, because it is as the English poet noted, no man is an island. Every individual fosters a thought in their mind. Subsequently, they took what had come into their mind and they acted on it. This was true regardless whether it was good or evil. Then, to the degree of their soundness of mind and the worthiness of what they had done it became a matter of acclaim or shame for them or about them. Of course, let’s state the obvious: change is not good or bad, but it bears worth noting that is not always necessary.
It is bad enough when people stumble and perish by the actions of their own doing, but it is far worse when those who profess to know, are purported to know or are expected to know are themselves at a loss to understand and speak to the whirlwind of change.
Make no mistake about it. These who are expected to know and understand include those who lead, teach and preach either from the pulpit to the gathering of the saints in Christ or from the seat of government to the American electorate.
Here are just a few examples of responses from the pulpit and the seat of government to these changes when these same changes have broken the relative, short-term peace since the last break. Some are sound bites or rants, others are familiar quotations.
What difference, at this point, does it make?
We have given them space to destroy.
It doesn’t matter whether you are a boy or a girl, a man or a woman.
Repeal the Affordable Healthcare Act.
the difference it makes
I anticipate the aversion and knee-jerk reaction to want to take one of the above and run with its corresponding political banner and the rhetoric that drives and inflames but which does little or nothing towards helping the saints and the electorate understand what they are being told. What do these four messages share in common? They all began with a purpose; intentionality. All of these purposes were acted upon. All these actions were/are accurately or inaccurately acclaimed. Again, lest anyone fixate on a political or religious message the point here is that these are reflective of what is true in all things. If either the purpose, action or acclamation behind these things are at odds with any of the others it becomes, to understate it, suspect and deservedly subject to scrutiny.
The difference it makes in knowing and understanding what has changed is that with the loss of knowledge and understanding the saints in Christ and the American electorate do not know how, are unable and are unwilling to make decisions and judgments. The loss of is covered under the deception and guise of being loving, free and politically correct. Hence, for example, a call to repeal a health care measure is pushed and driven with never a comprehensive alternative to replace it. A boy lacks the foundation, universal confidence for understanding and accepting his natural masculine gender and responds with an embrace of what he believes is the safe alternative; be a girl. The same is true of a girl concerning her natural feminine gender. The truth is boys as well as girls and men as well as women, often can not bear the pressure of this change whose message is that it is wrong to acknowledge and accept who you are, but you will be accepted (and loved) if you 1) reject your natural gender, and 2) accept your new life as a bi-sexual, transgender or homosexual because anyway . . . what difference does it make?
What difference does it make in the political life of America? The saints in Christ and the American electorate are told to ignore and dismiss the law of the Constitution of the United States in favor of love and acceptance without judgment. This message itself ignores and dismisses completely the differences in some people’s attitude towards the Constitution. The church for her part following those who lead, teach and preach is more and more led to similarly ignore and dismiss the authority of the scriptures all in the name of love and acceptance. This response by the saints in Christ, that is, the church reflects a complete ignorance or disregard for the lessons by the apostle Paul concerning how the church is to respond to immorality in her midst. (see I Corinthians 5)
This same lame, anemic inability to make judgments is see in politicians, Democrat and Republican alike, whose idea of a tactical solution is to re-name actions, events or individuals in such way as to attempt to diminish the gravity of the matter.
all things come to light
The natural thing to do when one can not see something is to bring it into the light or shine some light on it. Things are often subjected to scrutiny for their legal or illegal standing or their moral or immoral standing by church and state alike. Someone may refuse to subject something to the light but that no more declares it right or wrong, moral or immoral any more than such refusal invalidates the universal physical and moral laws and nature of light to expose what darkness and ignorance conceal. Wrong can be made right, but until it is acknowledged, renounced and rejected it remains a piecemeal, patchwork solution to a real problem.
God: what cannot be concealed
No matter what a person’s political or apolitical, religious or irreligious worldview the processes by which he/she lives concerning purpose, action and acclaim can not be concealed. Yes, these processes can and are suppressed by some, but, again, that does not change the universal laws of physics or morality. Similarly, no matter what a person’s political or apolitical, religious or irreligious worldview either to deny or suppress these processes; purpose, action and acclaim, they are what the scriptures reveal concerning 1) the nature of God, 2) Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and 3) the relationship of God towards man as written by the apostle Paul in his letter to the church in the Asian city of Ephesus. What he wrote is a testimony to what cannot be concealed, though it may be denied or suppressed, that is, that the universal axiom of purpose, action and acclaim which as it is true of human beings so too it should also be true of their Creator. The wording may be different, but he reader is able to judge for themselves if these things are not so as they read the passage of chapter one.
What the apostle Paul revealed is that it was not a nondescript intentionality or an impersonal entity but the Father who defined the purpose his will towards man before the foundation of the world. It was not a vague philosophical notion, but the living Son of God, Jesus, who redeemed (action) those who believed in Him according to the Father’s good pleasure. Lastly, it was the Holy Spirit who sealed (acclaimed, affirmed) those who put their faith and trust in Jesus.
There is nothing vague or ambiguous about these things. These things cannot be concealed. They are as natural as the universal laws of physics and morality and as much a part of every human being’s life whether or not they are aware and know about it; whether or not they accept it. The difference it makes as to whether we know this things is whether we purpose, act and acclaim with confidence who are are and what we do, whether as the saints in Christ or the American electorate. peace, amigos.
