Author: Paul Nordman

Categories
Uncategorized

To Live in Upward Focus

Discern one word for guidance throughout the coming year. This is our annual January challenge in the Wednesday morning men’s Bible study I attend. I engage in this exercise with some reservation, for our call as believers is to offer ourselves entirely to the Spirit, who speaks in real-time, each word vital in the moment. But looking back at my words for the past three years — “listen,” “trust,” and “go,” — I must admit they coalesce nicely into a cohesive summary of the Christian walk. So, I have chosen my word for 2025, and that word is . . .

“Focus.”

Which immediately begs the question: Focus on what? Personally, I feel called to focus on our heavenly destination, which consumes increasingly more of our field of vision as we continually stride toward it. Paul writes to the Colossians, “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.”1 Then as we near our final destiny, that which is important becomes clearer, and that which is not becomes clutter. Sense the passion of the Hebrews epistolarian as he exhorts us: “Let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith . . .”2 Can you feel his intensity, his laser focus on what eternally matters?

Then what does it mean to live in upward focus? Continuing his letter to the Colossian church, Paul explains what it means “to set our hearts and minds on things above.” It means putting on compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. It means forgiving each other, as the Lord has forgiven us. It means putting on love, which bears the fruit of harmony. It means letting the peace of Christ rule in our hearts, and to be thankful.3 Would you agree?

Then let’s pray for ourselves and each other as Paul prayed for the church.4 Father, fill us with the knowledge of Your will through all the wisdom and understanding that Your Spirit gives, so that we may live a life worthy of You and please You in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of You, being strengthened with all power according to Your glorious might so that we may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to You, who have qualified us to share in the inheritance of Your holy people in the kingdom of light. In Christ we pray. Amen.

1 Colossians 3:1-3 NIV
2 Hebrews 12:1-2 ESV
3 Colossians 3:12-15
4 Colossians 1:10-12 NIV

Categories
Uncategorized

Government under God

Seated around our dinner table last Thanksgiving afternoon were 18 people from eight different countries: Burkina Faso, China, Ghana, Nepal, Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda, and the US, of course. Peggy and I just shook our heads and smiled. Who would have predicted that our house would become a small-scale gathering of the nations? Yet such is life as International Friendships (IFI) volunteers.1 Sitting down to the feast before us, I offered a prayer of thanksgiving and asked God to strengthen and guide the leaders of our respective countries. It dawned on me, as we prayed, that these governments — their philosophies, structures, and priorities — were so different from each other, and that the attitudes around the table toward these governments probably varied more greatly still. Who rules us matters.

Last Fall, we in the US chose not only new leaders, but a new direction. The 119th Congress was sworn in on January 3, and the presidential inauguration is slated for next Monday. Our transition, then, will be seismic, dreaded by some and welcomed by more. So, what does God’s Word teach us about these incoming leaders? Answer: the same thing His Word teaches us about our outgoing leaders. Paul writes, “the authorities that exist have been established by God,”2 and “the one in authority is God’s servant for [our] good.”3 What constitutes “our good” — whether blessing, correction, or punishment — is God’s alone to determine. It is He who “deposes kings and raises up others.”4

Then if God for His own purposes establishes and deposes leaders, how must we regard them? What must we do? Scripture speaks . . .

Place our ultimate trust and hope where it belongs. “Do not put your trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save. . . Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God.”5

Pray. Intercede with thanksgiving for “kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.”6

Then do what doesn’t always come easily to us. Paul writes, “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.”7 Peter invokes our inspiration for submission: “Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him . . .”8

These we can all do. For the Lord’s sake, we must.

“Fear God. Honor the emperor.” — 1 Peter 2:17 ESV

Father, You “raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.”9 In You we trust. In You we live. Amen.

1 Learn more about IFI by visiting its website: https://www.ifiusa.org/
2 Romans 13:1 NIV
3 Romans 13:4 NIV
4 Daniel 2:21 NIV
5 Psalm 146:3, 5 NIV
6 1 Timothy 2:1-2 NIV
7 Romans 13:1 NIV
8 1 Peter 2:13 ESV
9 Ephesians 1:20-21 NIV

Categories
Uncategorized

Whose Rules: Mine or Thine?

Are you familiar with Calvinball? It was the brainchild of Bill Patterson, the cartoonist who brought us the classic newspaper comic, Calvin and Hobbes. Among the mischievous antics of a six year old boy (Calvin) and his friend (Hobbes) — a stuffed tiger, though very much alive to Calvin — was the game in which each made up self-serving rules as they played along: Calvinball. The only rule was that one could not use the same rule twice. It was hilarious. And relatable.

For the playwright George Bernard Shaw once opined, “No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means.” The atheist’s hyperbole exposes his cynicism certainly — his use of “ever” and “always” is harsh — yet I think there is for us at times a temptation to “make up new rules,” misconstruing God’s Word to suit our liking. We are capable of bending the Bible toward our way of thinking, rather than to submit our way of thinking to the authority of the Word. “Spiritual Calvinball,” in a sense.

What might this look like? “Religious syncretism,” for one. (Think “cafeteria religion.”) It is the blending of two or more belief systems into a new one, or allowing one belief system to compromise another. Take King Solomon, for instance, and his 700 wives. “When Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father.”1 A little rationalization here, a little marginalization there, “broad-mindedness” devolves into dull-mindedness, and truth is compromised for comfort.

Or consider the misappropriation of grace, condoning sin because Jesus has borne its penalty. A pastor friend once said of a particular sexual sin, “I’m not so sure that’s a sin any more under the new covenant in Christ.” (Would we say the same about murder?) His was one voice articulating a troubling trend among believers today: the notion that Jesus’ love tolerates sin (it doesn’t) as if to make sin OK (it isn’t). Paul castigates such thinking: “How can we who died to sin still live in it?”2 God’s law is not supplanted by “new rules,” rather He has, as promised, put His Spirit in us to cause us to walk in His statutes and be careful to obey His rules.3 For His Spirit will never lead us away from His good and right ways.

So let us resolve here and now not to bend God’s truth to our worldly inclinations, but to submit our will entirely to His Word and always for His glory.

Father, “Make us holy by Your truth; teach us Your word, which is truth.”4 In Christ we pray.Amen.

1 1 Kings 11:4 ESV
2 Romans 6:2 ESV
3 Ezekiel 36:27 ESV
4 John 17:17-19