Columns

President Obama made a series of statements in Ohio this week that we agree with one hundred percent: “I have never believed that government can or should try to solve every problem we’ve got. I believe that the free market is the greatest force for economic progress in human history. I believe that everybody has personal responsibility for their own lives. Everybody’s got to work hard. Nothing is going to be handed to us...”

In an attempt to justify their ever-expanding socialist agenda in America and the free world, the secular progressives will misrepresent biblical truth. Isn’t it amazing how often anti-God, anti-Christian people use the Word of the God they reject in an attempt to legitimize their illegitimate goals? Of course Satan used this tactic in the Garden of Eden to deceive Adam and Eve (see Genesis 3).

This weekend millions of people around the world will acknowledge and most of them will actually celebrate the historical fact that Christ arose from the grave. I am grateful for every occasion that reminds people in any way of God’s love freely shared through the sacrificial death of His only Son. Betty and I pray that many who attend various services honoring our Lord will come to personally respond to the invitation God offers by receiving Jesus as Lord and Savior.

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God created us in His image. We were made for relationship, fellowship, stewardship and productive fruitfulness. The first relationship which profoundly affects all other relationships begins with our commitment to faith in and fellowship with Father God. It is on this meaningful relationship all others are to be built. We are to love God first and foremost and love our neighbors with the same legitimate concern we have for our own well-being.

We will never run out of energy as long as freedom-loving people are led and energized by the God of all creation. Human beings created in the image of God are gifted to be co-creators with our Father. There is no need that cannot be met by those who truly love God and others. Americans do not have an energy crisis; we have a knowledge-of-truth crisis. “My people perish for lack of knowledge.” Knowledge of what? Of liberating truth! We do not face one crisis that people committed to God cannot overcome.

There is no question we are living in the end times. It is very important however to keep in mind that the disciples of Jesus, the apostles (including Paul), and all New Testament believers were also convinced they were living in the last days. I am deeply concerned about what I see as foolish, fatalistic apathy that is the result of an inappropriate view of our responsibilities prior to the return of Christ.

Whatever happened to the “shining city on a hill,” as President Reagan and other leaders once used to describe America? The description, of course, originated with Jesus Christ. Yet our nation, once a shining flame of freedom, is well on its way to becoming a flickering ember of debt, despair, dissension, and defeat. It does not have to continue.