LOTR: The Return of the Rings, Revisited and Revealing

A few months ago, I wandered into aFacebook fan page for the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the films directed by Peter Jackson.

Wow, what a great set of films they were! I had not appreciated how good they were. Indeed, The Return of the King deserved to win the 2004 Academy Award for Best Picture.

It's a really moving series, a powerful fantasy, excellent movie-making. The source material from J.R.R. Tolkien is high-quality stuff to begin with, and the actors and director magnified its beauty, wonder, and wit. There were so many opportunities for the film to fail, to become too schmaltzy or cloistered in a world of petty fandom. Instead, this film resonates on many eternal themes, and showcases that even in great victories there are still failing characteristics which all of us must overcome.

For all of its whimsy, "The Lord of the Rings" movie trilogy speaks to real hearts and real minds, does not insult viewers. The playful antics of the Hobbits, coupled with the raw emotions of human beings and other fairy-like creatures, appeal to all audiences.

I took the time to watch all three movies over the last few weeks (including over the Christmas-New Years break), and I was really impressed with the whole production.

One of my favorite quotes from the trilogy takes place in the midst of the musing fears and comforts between Samwise Gamgee and Frodo Baggins toward the end of "The Two Towers":

I love this quote, and I have been sharing it often.

But now, I want to focus on the final film in the trilogy "Return of the King," and specifically the final scenes.

Frodo Baggins and his fellow Hobbits return to their homes in The Shire. They see all their friends, family, and neighbors whom they have known for years.

When they return to the local pub to drink a pint, however, their is a marked, saddened sobriety in their bearing, in their actions. Life is completely different for them, especially Frodo. They journeyed all over Middle Earth, they fought some of the greatest forces in that world, they defeated the most formidable foe--Sauron--and they overcame some of their own vices and limitations to accomplish those deeds. They received consummate honor for their sacrifices, too.

Who can forget Aragon, the rightly crowned king of Minas Tirith, telling the four Hobbits: "My friends, you bow to no one!" Amazing. After such powerful and moving service to their countrymen and to the world at large, one would think they would be received with greater aplomb.

Yet that does not happen. Instead, all the other Hobbits in Hobbiton go about their little lives, enjoying simple pleasures, not realizing how big, grand, amazing, and even intimidating the world can be, and not understanding not appreciating (or rather, being able to appreciate) the incredible good that Frodo and his Fellowship achieved for them.

Who can go quotidian routines after having done so much unprecedented good?

This revelation really spoke to me, and one of the last lines in the film encapsulated this sentiment for me:

You can see the whole scene here.

Not only do Gandalf, Elrond, and the other creature-heroes of Middle Earth leave for the West, but so does Frodo. There is nothing left for him in Middle Earth, in the Shire. He has changed dramatically so, he has grown, he has seen things about himself, much good and even some not so good, and that revelation has transformed everything for him.

He left the Shire, and he cannot go back to the way things were.

There is one commentary on this scene which casts a particularly negative interpretation on the exchange between Frodo and Samwise:

Tolkien wrote: “We are finite creatures with absolute limitations upon the powers of our soul-body structure in either action or endurance. Moral failure can only be asserted, I think, when a man’s efforts or endurance falls short of his limits, and the blame decreases as that limit is closer approached.”

So no blame is attached to Frodo by any other person except for the blame that he attaches to himself but that is sufficient for Frodo to experience both judgement and punishment.

Tolkien addresses this with wonderful sensitivity in his letter.

The main thrust of this article is that Frodo is leaving Middle Earth to atone for his failure to get rid of the Ring of Power completely on his own. The main argument is that Frodo is not fit for his homeland because in a sense, he failed them.

I do not accept this view.

What I see is a Hobbit, a youth who has matured through great trial, one who sees everything so differently, more profoundly than before, and who can never quite fit in with the surroundings and personalities of his younger days, before he ventured to Mordor to get rid of the Ring.

Now that Frodo has changed, now that he has grown, he has to move on. 

This revelation speaks to me because I have experienced this similar transformation in my life. Over the last few months particularly, I have found myself no longer interested in going to the same haunts, same events with people whom I have known, whom I befriended long ago. We don't share the same values, views, or goals anymore. I have been really growing in grace as I see more of Jesus in God's Word, as I understand more of the abuse and pain I went through when I was younger, and now that I am older and wiser, I can see things more clearly.

How I related to people in the past, and many of the activities and efforts I invested in in the past, no longer matter that much to me. Some friendships I have given up, seeing how those individuals have not grown up, do not see more, have no interest in trying new things or obtaining greater revelation of the truth.

It's painful to part ways with people whom you have known for so long, yet you find that there is little else to know, and you have come to see, understand, perceive, and discern so much more than they have, and more than they care to learn about. Yet there is great peace in understanding that the pain of parting ways with others, with familiar faces and places, is inevitable, and an inevitable good. It means that I am growing, changing for the better, something that I have consistently prayed for in my life.

This powerful revelation really shook me, and I am so grateful to have rewatched not just the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, but to appreciate the final goodbyes of Frodo Baggins in that final scene.

Why Abused Children Hate Themselves, Not Their Parents

 From "The School of Life":

Why Abused Children End Up Hating Themselves

There is almost nothing sadder in the universe than the abuse of a child by its own parents. That a being should be put on earth in an entirely helpless state, then maltreated by those to whom it automatically turns for protection and education, constitutes a particular abomination.

What I am starting to learn more and more every day is that abuse in the household is more common than I realized. It's really sad, but it seems that family dynamics are more riddled with tragedy that joy. I don't want to accept this fallen aspect of our fallen world, but unfortunately, the stain of sin has ruined everything, including family relationships.

God wants all families to prosper and be in health, but these families need to receive the revealing favor of the Savior!

One of the people who can best help us to understand the way a child typically responds to abuse is a little known and too often underestimated Scottish 20th century psychoanalyst, Ronald Fairbairn. Fairbairn was touchingly honest about what had brought him to psychoanalysis: he was not well. He had a bad relationship with his mother; he had a cold marriage, he had a range of anxieties and phobias. But as he put it himself: ‘It is difficult to see what inducements to seek psycho-analytical treatment there could be for an adult with a relatively mature, strong and unmodified ego.’ In other words, only fairly disturbed people are ever likely to get interested in psychoanalysis, let alone submit themselves to a training. And that is fine - and no argument against anything.

Ronald Fairbairn

Fairbairn came to his views about how the victims of parental abuse interpret what has happened to them as a result of working as a doctor at the University of Edinburgh’s Psychological Clinic for Children in the late 1930s. In his post, he came into contact with many children who had been extremely badly treated in their homes of origins. What he found - and what profoundly struck him - was how little these children appeared to hold the abuse against their parents. Some had been appallingly mocked, others badly beaten, others sexually abused. One might have expected that the children would, in the safety of a doctor’s consulting room, voice grave misgivings and rage against those who had treated them so unfairly. But Fairbairn found no such thing. 

Contrary to all expectations, the children he spoke to had only positive things to report about those who had - to a substantial degree - ruined their lives. A violent father would be described as strong and decisive: a cold and contemptuous mother would be re-interpreted as kind and intelligent. And correspondingly, a child would pour all the negativity that one might have assumed belonged elsewhere onto their own shoulders: they were the bad one, they had clearly been naughty, there was something intolerably wrong with them - and that is why they had been punished.

Children have no one else to look up to besides their parents, when they are children. If they do not have their parents to look up to, whom do they look up to? The identity crisis, the emotional trauma is too great without that sense of core identity. People will tolerate abuse over anxiety every time, and for children that is all the more the case.

What Fairbairn beautifully and poignantly understood was that the abused child has no option to think of themselves in decent terms. The truth is quite literally unbearable and must be twisted. One could not continue to live, as a defenceless child, if one fully took on board the evil that has been visited upon one. And therefore the mind alters the facts in the name of psychic survival.

In perhaps his most brilliant, paper, The Repression and the Return of Bad Objects first published in 1941, Fairbairn tried to show the reader the perverse but highly understandable logic operating in the abused child’s mind.

‘If a mature individual loses an object,  however important, he still has some objects remaining. His eggs are not all in one basket… The infant, on the other hand, has no choice. He has no alternative but to accept or reject his object - an alternative which is liable to present itself to him as a choice between life and death.’

There are no other parents that the child in an abusive family are able to run to: he has no other mother or father, the neglectful and harmful people in the vicinity are the only figures he has to cling to. Lose faith in them and one is done for. No wonder if one opts to reinvent who they might be.

At this point, Fairbairn is wrong. Everyone of us can run to the perfect loving FATHER! We received sonship before Him through Christ Jesus. AMEN!

Fairbairn famously called this manoeuvre of the mind ‘the moral defence,’ an attempt to exonerate the abuser and chastise oneself for one’s own abuse. In the words of one of Fairbairn’s most sensitive later interpreters, the American therapist and writer David Celani: ‘The moral defence is a source of comfort, as it reassures the child that he is being appropriately corrected by loving objects… the illusion that the child is securely attached to good objects prolongs his hope that his unmet developmental needs have a chance of being satisfied and that the feeling of abandonment will be avoided.’

One of the more striking features of Fairbairn was that he remained throughout his life a religious person, as so few of the great figures of psychoanalysis have been. Far from a distraction, this theological background gave Fairbairn a way of conceptualising a child’s response to abuse in terms of a form of faith. In a memorable aphorism, he wrote: ‘It is better to be a sinner in a world ruled by God than to live in a world ruled by the Devil.’ By this Fairbairn meant that the child prefers to think of themselves as still inhabiting an essentially ethical responsible realm, one in which they have transgressed and must be punished - but where the authority figures remain pillars of decency. As he went on to explain: ‘A sinner in a world ruled by God may be bad; but there is always a certain sense of security to be derived from the fact that the world around is good… there is always a hope of redemption.’ One shudders at the pain that makes this kind of mental gymnastics necessary.

We have to receive a larger revelation. The world is bad, our parents may have been bad, but God is GOOD! The Lord is GOOD and His mercy endures forever! Every one of us needs to receive this revelation. We need to be transformed from glory to glory by seeing more of Christ Jesus, and the Holy Spirit changes us! Our minds are renewed to the truth that though we were harmed as children, it was not our fault, and our parents were wrong, believed wrong, did wrong, or they chose to do wrong -- but none of that makes us wrong.

Fairbairn’s view of what psychoanalysis can do for an abused child who has fallen for ‘the moral defence’ is contained in one especially gnomic sentence: ‘The psychotherapist is the true successor to the exorcist,’ he wrote, because ‘he is concerned, not only with ‘the forgiveness of sins’, but also with ‘the casting out of devils.’

What did Fairbairn mean? The answer takes us into the heart of Fairbairn’s innovations in what psychoanalysis calls object relations. For Fairbairn, the bad external object (the abused parent) is quite literally internalised by the child and thereby turns the child into a bad object in their own eyes. All the violence of which they, the child, have been subject ends up in them and then colours their internal world. How they feel about themselves becomes a mirror of how others felt about them. Their sense of self, made up as it is of the introjections of parental messages, becomes a panoply of darkness and masochism.

Fairbairn proposed - counter to a lot of psychoanalytic thinking at the time - that the primary instrument by which ‘the devils’ inside the ill patient’s mind were to be exorcised was through a clinically much-neglected quality: kindness. By registering the analyst’s unusual kindness and empathy, the patient might be induced to loosen their hold on the moral defence and cease to think of their parents as so good, and themselves as so bad. They might - through love - come to be a little more on their own side and a little less on the side of their abusers - and thereby save their lives.

I have another word for kindess: GRACE!

Fairbairn described a patient of his called Annabel who had developed a phobia about driving. Every time she was at the wheel, she became terrified that she might inadvertently hit someone and leave a trail of corpses behind; the terror forced her to pull up and walk home. In her sessions with Fairbairn, Annabel came to see that her phobia was the result of a suppressed rage against her father, an outwardly respectable and highly successful man, who had in early childhood behaved incestuously towards her. Consciously, Annabel had only positive feelings towards her father. Unconsciously, it was far more complicated. Annabel had come to be frightened of herself at the wheel (and in other areas too; her self-suspicion was vast) in lieu of properly appreciating how unfair and depraved her own father had been towards her. Fairbairn noted that many of his patients were suffering from symptoms essentially caused by incestuous wishes of their fathers which they had been unable to understand or address, and that had morphed into self-hatred and paranoia. Fairbairn gives us a penetrating analysis of paranoia: the entire world will grow filled with dangers when we cannot repatriate the violence and nastiness of which we have been unknowing victims.

People hate their parents for the wrong that they did to them, but at the same time, there is this incredible guilt about being angry with one's parents. We need to see the Grace of God filling in all that hurtful places in our lives, setting us free from the wrong believing. 

We need to receive more of the LOVE OF THE FATHER!

We hear a lot about entitled people; people who take more than their due, who are unfair to the world and deserve to be taken down a peg. What we hear less about are people whose sufferings stem from an opposite problem: they lack the courage to fight back against those who do them wrong and cannot imagine that someone else might be a perpetrator of injustice. Sometimes, to cast out the devils inside us, we may need some help in spotting the devils - or, more appropriately, the extremely ill figures - in our own families. For this, Fairbairn is a supreme guide and mentor.

Escape to Reality: Doers of the Law Will be Justified?

 

Doers of the Law Will be Justified?

What does Romans 2:13 mean?

Posted on May 19, 2022 by Paul Ellis // 3 Comments

Was the Apostle Paul confused when he wrote Romans 2:13? Because this verse doesn’t seem to belong in the Bible:

For it is not the hearers of the law who are just before God, but the doers of the Law will be justified. (Romans 2:13)

Doers of the law will be justified?!

Was Paul having a senior moment? Did he forget to insert the word NOT?

There is an easy explanation for this strange verse, which we’ll get to in a minute. But first, let’s be clear: we are justified by faith alone and NOT by keeping the law.

Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 5:1)

Justification by faith is one of the great themes of Paul’s writing. Again and again, he reminds us that we are justified or made right with God through faith in his Son (Rom. 3:28, Gal. 3:24).

Since we are justified by faith, and the law is not of faith (Gal. 3:12), no one can ever be justified by keeping the law.

By the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in his sight. (Romans 3:20)

And one more time for emphasis:

We know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. (Galatians 2:16)

Paul could not be any clearer. We’re justified by faith not law. Try to impress God with your law-keeping, and you’ll fall from grace and cut yourself off from Christ:

You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace. (Galatians 5:4)

So with such a clear message (faith, not law), why does Paul say doers of the law will be justified?

Doers of the law

Paul was not saying, “Try and keep the law and you will justify yourself before God,” for that would contradict what he says elsewhere about being justified by faith.

He was saying, “hearing the law is not enough, you have to keep it – and none of you can!”

In context, Paul was speaking to people who knew the law (Rom. 7:1). Like many believers, they had been raised on a diet of rules. They thought if they heard the rules, studied the rules, and hung them on their walls, God would be impressed.

Nope.

Going to church and hearing the rules is not enough.

Teaching the rules and condemning those who break them is not enough.

Lobbying for God’s law to be hung on courthouses is not enough.

You have to keep all the rules and no one can.

It is impossible for imperfect man to deliver a lifetime of perfect performance. Paul is not calling us to attempt the impossible; he’s trying to get us to admit defeat.

Doers of the law will be justified, but you are not and never can be a doer of the law.

There was only one Doer of the law who was made right with God and that Doer offers you his righteousness as a free gift.

So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. (Galatians 3:24)

To be justified means God has judged you righteous and not guilty of sin. To be justified is to be made right with God.

You cannot earn the gift of righteousness and you cannot justify yourself before God. The only thing you can do is receive his righteousness by faith.

Want to get right with God?

Start by thanking him for Jesus who was made sin so that you might be justified and made righteous (2 Cor. 5:21).

You are not justified or made right with God because of anything you do, but because of everything he has done.

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Want to learn more about justification, righteousness, and the law? Check out our ever-expanding Grace Glossary.

Read more articles and these frequently-asked questions about the law.

Easter Statement from the American Family Association

 

Dear Arthur, Several years ago, I heard a very popular Christian speaker talk to a large audience for an hour. He said nothing heretical. He said nothing controversial. He just focused on the “unconditional” love of God. Again, nothing wrong with what he did say, but it is what he did not say that bothered me. He said nothing about repentance of sin. There is a reason Jesus said what he said in the above bible verse. And there is a reason John the Baptist introduced Jesus to the world with the exact same proclamation in Matthew 3:2: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” There is a popular trend going on in the American Christian church. The trend is to talk of the love of God without talking about the justice of God. But if you read the Bible, it is clear, there exists both the grace of God and the wrath of God, and Jesus Christ spoke of both. Many Christians around the world have been celebrating Holy Week this week culminating today with Easter Sunday or what some churches call Resurrection Sunday. It is to commemorate the victory of Jesus over Satan, sin, death and hell. This is good news! And “good news” is the meaning of the word “gospel.” It is true that God’s love for mankind is “unconditional.” However, in order for man to be in right relationship with God, man must conform his life to match with God’s requirement of man. And God does not force this decision on man. God draws a person to himself, but it is the free will of the individual to decide if he or she will obey God’s requirements for a right relationship or not. Jesus called this experience being “born again.” In other words, a person (every human) must understand that he or she has violated God’s laws and is forever separated from God spiritually unless he or she repents of their sin and trust in the shed blood of Jesus on the cross for forgiveness of that sin in order to be counted among those who have been redeemed. Redeemed from the consequences of unrepentant sin which is death and hell. What I am writing here in not popular in modern day America and where we want to live our own life without interference from God. It’s our natural tendency to live for ourselves instead of obey the commands of God. That is the eternal struggle between flesh and the spirit. In order to prove our love for Christ, he says we must deny ourselves, pick up our cross daily, and follow him. Our “cross” is a challenge to wake up daily and try our best to live like Jesus. The way we learn to live like Jesus is to study the Bible, take time to pray and fellowship with other believers (followers) which we call “church.” God knows we will fail at this precisely because we are human. Sometimes we are tempted by sin and we give in to it. But the Bible also says that if we are willing to confess our sins to God, He is willing to forgive us. That also is great news! No one is compelled to believe this. You may read this and call it foolishness. That is your right. But if that is your view, I at least encourage you to read one book in the Bible, the gospel of John, and consider the claims of the Bible and Christ before you dismiss Christianity. To my fellow Christians, I say, “He is Risen!” Tim Wildmon, President American Family Association

The Modern Grace Message is the Gospel from the Beginning (By Pastor Paul Ellis)

What is the Modern Grace Message? by Paul Ellis

This month marks the eight anniversary of the release of my book The Hyper-Grace Gospel. To celebrate the occasion, here is an extract. Enjoy!

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A man once asked me a question: “I want to show my friends that the gospel of grace is not the latest fad. Can you direct me to some early church teachings on grace?”

I replied, “How about the New Testament? Much of what I know about grace comes straight from the life of Jesus and the teachings of the apostles.”

Those opposed to the gospel of grace often dismiss it as the modern grace message. They say it is a passing fad.

It is anything but.

A modern grace message?

What is the modern grace message? It is the ancient and eternal gospel of grace (Rev. 14:6). The only thing modern about it is we are rediscovering what was lost. After wandering in the wilderness of works, we are returning to our New Testament roots.

The hypergrace gospel is no new revelation but an old revelation that has been buried under manmade traditions, religious rituals, and unholy packaging.

Hypergrace preachers aren’t preaching a new and modern grace message, but an old and timeless one.

Is hypergrace Biblical? You better believe it.

In The Hyper-Grace Gospel, I quote from more than 40 hypergrace preachers all preaching essentially the same gospel. It’s the same message from different messengers, which is a sign to make you wonder.

How is it that Evangelicals and Charismatics, Catholic priests and Anglican vicars, rock stars and soldiers, theologians and poets, are all preaching the same message of grace? The reason is we have unearthed the same Treasure.

How is it that pilgrims, all starting from different locations and traveling different paths, have ended up at the same place? We all followed the same star that led us to Jesus. Our baggage may be different, and some of us have more than others, but we have all arrived at the same Destination.

It doesn’t matter where you start. What matters is where you finish.

If you’re digging through religious rubble, keep digging. And if you’re walking through a wilderness of works, keep walking. Don’t stop until you find that Treasure and arrive at that Destination called Jesus.

He is your final port of call. Jesus is your resting place.

Exposing the dangers of hypergrace

The hypergrace gospel is no new message; it is a 2,000-year-old revelation. If you have met Jesus then you have heard the hypergrace gospel.

So what is the danger? What is the error or problem?

The problem is you may have heard some other stuff as well – additional material that was never part of the original message.

If you’re a believer, you don’t need to hear the hypergrace gospel as much as you need to un-hear all the extra stuff that obscures the good news of God’s superabundant grace.

Don't confuse the dirt with the gold.

The grace of God is like nothing on earth. Anything we add to the grace of God only detracts from its sublime perfections.

Extracted and adapted from The Hyper-Grace Gospel.

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My thanks to everyone who signed up on Patreon last week. I hope you enjoy the world's most popular sermon.

If you are looking for something to read with your family this weekend, I recommend my article "Good Friday Timeline" or this Jesus Script.

Happy Easter!

What is Grace? Jesus!

 

From Pastor Paul Ellis:

As C.S. Lewis famously observed, grace is the one thing that makes Christianity unique. Grace is what makes the new covenant new and the good news good news. But what is grace?

Do you know what it means?

I read a lot of grace books and I have found that very few define grace. They tell you what grace isn’t. Grace isn’t works. Grace isn’t law. Grace isn’t religion. But they don’t tell you what grace is.

Don’t you find it strange that we who have been apprehended by the grace of God don’t have good definitions of grace? It’s like being French and not being able to explain what it means to be French.

What is grace? What does grace mean to me?

What is the grace of God?

It is common to hear grace defined as the kindness of God, or his undeserved mercy or unmerited favor. These are fine definitions, but brief. Max Lucado said “Grace is God’s best idea.” Of all his works, it is his magnum opus. And a magnum opus deserves a magnum definition.

Since I have been writing about grace for some time, I thought it might be fun to put all my grace definitions in one place.

I am not claiming to have a handle on God’s amazing grace. Far from it. All I want to do is start a conversation. I hope you will weigh in with your own thoughts about God’s grace.

A biblical definition of grace

What is grace? Grace captures the goodwill, lovingkindness, and favor of God that is freely given to us so that we may partake in his divine life. Grace is God’s divine aid that supernaturally empowers you to be who he made you to be.

The Biblical noun for grace (charis) means favor or kindness, and is related to a word (chairo) which means to rejoice, be cheerful and well off. The grace of God leaves us cheerful and rejoicing. It leaves us better than it found us.

Grace is…

Grace is what the unconditional love of God looks like from our side. God is love and love that stoops is called grace. Grace is the love of God reaching down and gathering you in his arms.

Grace is God’s loving-kindness towards you. Grace is God blessing you with himself for no other reason than it pleases Him to do so.

Grace is the confident assurance that with God on your side, you can’t lose. Grace is his strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.

Grace is freedom from sin, guilt, and condemnation. Grace is freedom from the need to prove yourself. Grace is divine permission to be who God made you to be.

Grace is heaven’s cure for the world’s woes. Grace is the power of God that turns sinners into saints, haters into lovers, and orphans into sons.

Grace is being adopted into the family of God. Grace is realizing you are a dearly-loved child, the apple of your Father’s eye, and a co-heir with Christ.

Grace is God honoring us with his presence. Grace is God with us. Grace is the adventure of life shared with Christ.

Flavors of grace

Grace is favor, freedom, forgiveness and a million other blessings besides. Grace is God’s divine acceptance, his salvation and sanctification.

Grace is power, healing and prosperity. (What do you think the word blessing means?)

Grace is God blessing you for no other reason than he loves you. Grace is divine power to live abundantly in union with the One who loves you and calls you by name.

What does God's grace really mean?

Grace isn’t a doctrine, or bunch of rules for you to keep, and grace is not God’s lubricant for greasing the cogs of self-effort. Grace is a Person living his life through you. Living under grace is like being married, only more so.

In a word, grace is Jesus. Grace is not one of God’s blessings but all of them wrapped up together in the One who is full of grace. Grace is the Gift of all gifts from the Giver of all givers.

Those are some of my thoughts. I would love to hear yours. What does the grace of God mean to you? In the comments below, complete this statement: “Grace is…”

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I have given you my definitions of grace. In the Bonus Content that accompanies this article, I look at some outstanding definitions of grace provided by notable authors past and present.

Evangelism is About Revelation, not Reason

                                          

Last night, while I was visiting the Del Amo mall, a young man walked up to me.

His name was Anthony.

He started talking to me about Jesus Christ. He wanted to share the Gospel with me. I had no problem with him talking to me, since I had announced at the outset that I believe in Jesus, that He is my Savior, and I am so grateful for all the blessings which He has--and is--lavishing on me.

He began rattling off a number of Scriptures, including key passages in the Book of Revelation. He showed me passages about the Spirit and the Bride, and how they both invite us to draw from the Water o Life:

"And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." (Revelation 22:17)

He then asked me "What does the water of life represent?"

I said "The Holy Spirit." and I referenced this verse in the Gospel of John:

"37In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. 38He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. 39(But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)" (John 7:37-39)

He then mentioned the account of Jesus with the woman at the well in John chapter. I agreed.

He then asked me whether I had the Holy Spirit or not. I shared with him: "Yes, I do."

He then asked me: "How do you get the Holy Spirit?"

I told him that because I believed in Jesus, I have received the Holy Spirit.

He seemed perturbed somewhat, that I had answers to many of his questions. It really showed how disrespectful he was, that he refused to listen to me at the outset, that I had said that I am a Christian, and that I believe in Jesus Christ.

At that point, I asked him which church he belonged to. I was starting to wonder if he was a Seventh Day Adventist or a Mormon, or a member of the so-called United Church of Christ, which denies the full deity and pre-eminence of Jesus Christ.

The discussion then veered to how people need to keep the law of the New Covenant. He pointed to the passage in which Jesus took the cup of blessing at the Last Supper, and He declared "This is my blood of the new and everlasting covenant."

I was really disturbed when he said "Law" in relation to the New Covenant. I began to interrupt him, but gently. "We are no longer under law. We are under grace. You can find this in Romans."

He would not let me finish. He then stood up, said to me "You are a lawbreaker," and he walked away. A simple rush of peace came over me. I did not lose my temper, I did not raise my voice. Before he walked away though, I chided him, "Why will you not let me speak. I have allowed you to speak, haven't I?"

At that point, he called me a "lawbreaker," and he left. He did not get the answers that he was hoping for, I suppose. He had probably been trained that he would force me into an intellectual corner and cause me to acknowledge that I am a sinner or something else. He was hoping to win me over with a clear decision for Jesus.

What was really striking about his evangelism, if one can call it that, is that he did not mention the name of Jesus even once. He did not give the impression that he even knew how Jesus is!

While that dialogue between Anthony and me had been taking place, there was another gentleman, an older man, who was watching. When Anothony walked away, he laughed and asked me "What was that all about?" I told him how he was trying to share the Gospel with me--although the reality is that he had no good news to share, since he wanted to bring me back under law, and did not mention grace once.

He then remarked: "Wow! That's so sad. He was upset that you are religious, even though he was trying to make you religious. One would think that he would be happy for you!"

He was not interested in helping me. He was interested in "winning a convert," or at the very least winning an argument. That is not true evangelism.

I must admit, however, that I waded into this similar fight for pre-eminence with the older gentleman who started speaking with me afterwards. He told me that he is not religious, and he believes that there are too many inconsistencies with belief, plus all the complexities in the world, for him to believe that there is a God.

I insisted on asking him some questions. He clearly was not prepared to articulate his views on the issue. He wanted to defend evolution, and I asked him the usual questions which set such thinking to naught, such as "where is the evidence?" I also asked him "Where in the fossil record does one find the transitioning species?"

I felt the Lord telling me "This is not the right time to share with this man. This is not the approach to sharing the Gospel with him." Still, I pressed him a few more times on a couple of questions about the origins of the uinverse, how everything came about if not by intelligent design. Then, it seemed as though he had to take a call, and I took that motion as my cue to walk away.

As I walked away toward the center of the mall, I realized a number of things. I used to be an agressive evangelist like Anthony. I had a set of questions that I would press on someone, and then I could turn the whole situation around on them to say "You are a sinner, and you need a Savior. Would you like to believe in Jesus Christ and let Him be Lord of your life?"

Back then, I was so interested in winning arguments based on intellect. Today, I realize that Jesus is not just real, and real to my experience, but that He is more than a nice thought or a sentimental result of our reasoning.

Jesus is alive! He is a person! And evangelism should be all about sharing a great revelation of how great He is in our lives. We should be talking about Jesus the same way that we talk about a loving friends, relative, spouse, i.e. someone whom we know intimately, and whom we want others to know intimately, too!

Evangelism is about sharing the Good News, and that Good News is summed up perfectly in Acts 13:

"38Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: 39And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses." (Acts 13:38-39)

We receive forgiveness of sins--all our sins. We are justified from all things, that we cannot receive by the law of Moses.

I did not understand the Gospel in this fullness at all. I had understood the Gospel as something so work-centered, so "I" centered. How sad it is, yet so true. No wonder I was not much of a witness in years past!

Today, I understand fully God's unmerited favor, which I receive through Christ Jesus. Today, I know that He is my life, my Savior. I am connected to a real Person, not just some figment of my imagination, or a set of principles or verses. 

"Herein is love perfected among us, that we may have boldness in the day of judgement: because as He is, so are we in this world." (1 John 4:17)

It has taken me a long time to understand how fully real Jesus is to me. It's never been about me or about my self-efforts. It was never about having the right thoughts or doing the right things to ensure that Jesus would always be with me, that His Spirit would always be at work in me.

Today, I am learning so much about how to let that River of Life flow through me uninterrupted, unhampered by my efforts. I am learning that to share the Gospel is as simple as declaring: "Jesus Christ has died for all your sins. You can receive full freedom from condemnation and receive His life!"

True Conservative Influencer: Porn Destroyed My Life, Jesus Set Me Free

Kangmin Lee has been establishing a true, conservative, most importantly CHRISTIAN profile on social media.

He has been open about his faith, unashamed of the Gospel:

"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek." (Romans 1:16)

He started denouncing the spread and promotion of pornography to youth. Recently, he criticized TPUSA for allowing a "conservative" porn start to attend one of their events in Florida.

He wanted to make it very clear that he was not standing on some throne of sanctimonious self-righteousness when he condemned this porn star's appearance at an event with kids.

Check out what he shared below. This is the kind of conservative influencing we need to see in our culture today:

I am not speaking out against pornography as if I’m some righteous Pharisaical paradigm of purity.

I was addicted to pornography for 10 years. God radically delivered me from it last year.

It is destructive, dehumanizing, and degrading.

— Kangmin Lee 🇰🇷✝️🇺🇸 (@thekangminlee) July 19, 2021

It takes a great deal of courage for someone to come out about such a struggle. For someone like this young man to talk about the great pains, dangers, and losses which follow from pornography is truly inspiring. These are the young men and women whom we should cherish and support. We need to encourage more young people to realize that they are not alone in this world, but that in Christ, they have everything that they need. 

The Answer to "They Will Say Mean Things About Me": Righteousness

I get that people are afraid of being put to shame. I understand that people do not want other people maligning them on social media or saying bad things about them so that they lose their jobs.

I get all that.

However, at some point we need to start trusting the grace of God, and we need to start taking God at His promises rather than running away from the premises of the truth.

Consider this glorious promise which God gives to His righteous saints:

"No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their righteousness is of me, saith the LORD." (Isaiah 54:17)

The question I have to pose to many people in the Body of Christ, and activists around the country, around the world: Do you believe this promise? Do you believe that the LORD will ensure that every evil word people raise against you will fall flat, will come to nothing? Do you believe that you will stand firm while the hateful whiles of the Enemy and his minions fall to nothing?

Sadly, I have encountered so many activists who remain quite scared of being maligned, of people saying meaning things about them om social media or in private places. It's really quite a shame.

Then again, it's not good enough for me to shame people for ... being ashamed and fearing the reproach of men. What is needed is more of the ministry of righteousness!

"9For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory. 10For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth." (2 Corinthians 3:9-10)

When we are established in righteousness, God's righteousness, the gift of righteousness (Romans 5:17), the new and glorious identity of righteousness in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:21). we reign in life and we overcome the wiles, hatred, and abject reproach of evil men. This is the way to overcome, this is the way to live life, and this is the way to fight back against evil in all sorts of places.

Consider the victorious disregard of the Apostles when they were first arrested for preaching the Good News:

"And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name." (Acts 5:41)

They actually celebrated that they could suffer for the name of Jesus!

Paul adds in his Second Letter to the Corinthians:

"Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong." (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)

The Body of Christ, men and women of faith need a growing revelation of God's love, grace, and protection in their lives. To receive this, they need to understand their perfect standing of righteousness in Christ before God the Father. When we know that we have the favor of our Heavenly Father, then we stop carring whether people will say mean things about us.

There But For the Grace of God Go All of Us: Drug Addicted Porn Star

A few days ago, a friend of mine shared with me a video posted on YouTube which featured a porn star meth addict.

This featured video from National Geographic focused on the spread of the methamphetanie crisis throughout the state of California.

This woman, pictured above, is a porn star. She does her own movies in her home in the Hollywood Hills area. The segment above opens up with the porn actress gettingh ready for her shoot. But before she can "perform", she needs to smoke meth. She has to get high so that she can debase her body before a camera without suffering too much.

She has to "feel good" in the shoot, so to speak.

The next segment of the video records the comments focused on the drug dealer. He is preparing the  meth for his client, the porn actress. He can sell a few grams of this poison for thousands of dollars, but he gives the porn star a discount: $400.

She finally gets her drugs, gets high, gets ready for her porn shoot, and then the narrative pans over to San Francisco. There, drug use is at an all time high (no pun intended), especially in the gay sections of the city. The statistics are particularly shocking: 1 in 9 homosexuals have used meth.

Unbelievable.

Here's what stood out for me, though, when I was watching this segment.

I felt sorry for this woman, and I saw her as a lost, decrepit woman. She is a drug fiend. She is dependent on a chemical just to function through the day. She gives away her body in front of a camera. She is a sex fiend, a sex addict. She sells herself to debase herself, and then she sells herself yet again.

It's a cycle of defeat, of shame, of loss, of more defeat, then shame yet again.

But then something else hit me: Am I really any better? Can I say that I am any better?

If anyone were to pry open my flesh, my mind, my feelings, they would see that I am addicted to things. They would see sexual perversions percolating throughout.

Paul was unsparing in how fallen our flesh is:

"For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not." (Romans 7:18)

I remember a comforting word which Pastor Joseph Prince had shared with a congregant in his church some time ago. This man had served time in prison, and before that he was placed in a foster home for at-risk youth. He had failed, fallen, sinned in so many terrible ways. Because of all the sins he had committed, he felt that he could not really come to God, and that he was in a worse-off position than the pastor.

Pastor Prince responded: "You think that I am better than you? The only difference between you and me is that the sin in you came out. The only difference is that the sin in me (i.e. in his flesh) had not come out."

And that just about says it all.

Everyone of us born into this world is a great sinner. We are all dead in Adam.

We can become alive in Christ, set free from sin, reckoning ourselves dead to sin, and alive in the Son!

"11Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

12Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof." (Romans 6:11-12)

If the world could see what was running through my mind, through my flesh, they would see far worse than what that porn star was doing!

There but for the grace of God go I. 

This revelation has become even more powerful and moving because I now understand fully what Abraham, what David, and what Paul the Apostle of grace shared with the Romans:

"1What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? 2For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God. 3For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. 4Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. 5But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.

6Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works,

7Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered.

8Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin." (Romans 4: 1-8)

I am made the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus because of what Jesus did. It has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with me. When I understand that this gift has been given, and that I am invited to receive--and keep receiving!--this gift, His life is able to flow through me.

There is no longer any desire to sin, since under grace "Sin shall not have dominion over you." (Romans 6:14)

When I realized that inside, in my flesh, I am no better than the drug addicted porn star, I had such peace. When I realize that I was great sinner, dead to sin, I could receive His Life, His Righteousness. No more pretenses, no more pretending.

Such freedom! Amen!

I was addicted to many things. Most recently, I shared that I was addicted to diet soda, and that nearly killed me. But God is very good. He works with us even when we are still struggling with sins in our minds and bodies.

He guides us by His grace, and His Spirit continues to transform us from glory to glory (2 Corinthians 3:17-18).

If we are all honest with ourselves, any one of us would stumble into the same sins. If we rely on our own goodness, if we think that we are "better than", we would fall into the same perversions, as well.

There but for the grace of God go all of us. Anyone one of us could become porn stars, drug addicts, lost in a sea of sin and shame, if not for all that Jesus accomplished for us at the Cross.