Bjcorbin's Blog

1.      Peace is not the absence of struggle within our lives; it is God’s response to it.  Despite some popular preaching within the church, the scripture clearly tells us that to live for Christ in this fallen world is going to be a battle.  It says that there will be internal struggles (e.g. the flesh wars against the spirit), external struggles (e.g. Jesus told His disciples that because the world hated Him, it would hate those who followed Him as well…) and spiritual struggles (e.g. we wrestle not with flesh and blood, but against principalities, powers and rulers of the darkness of this world and with the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms).  The Lord provides for this battle with armor for protection, with weapons specifically designed to defeat our enemy and with a peace that transcends the struggle.

2.      The Holy Spirit will generally play whatever role we assign Him in our life.  Though the concept of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is foundational to the Christian faith, I’ve found that within the church it is our understanding of the Holy Spirit, and His role within our lives, that most clearly defines our differences.  I believe that if our understanding of Him doesn’t extend beyond what occurred in an upstairs room nearly two thousand years ago, we run the risk of being a people who possess a form of Godliness, but who deny the power thereof.

3.      If you are “mad at God”, you are wrong and you need to stop!  I’ve heard so many people talk about being mad at God, as though that is a perfectly normal and maybe even acceptable emotional response.  While God is certainly merciful enough to deal with this emotion, I’d submit that wisdom (which begins with a “fear of the Lord”) dictates that this is an unacceptable way to live.  If there is disagreement between God and me, I am the one who is not seeing things clearly and am in need of repentance (i.e. a change of mind).

4.      Our mind (i.e. intellect) is just as much a part of our flesh as our emotions, and just as likely to lead us astray.  It is quite common within Christendom to be warned about the power of our emotions and their potential to lead us astray; and while those warnings are warranted to a point, there doesn’t seem to be much acknowledgement of the potential for what we call “rational thought” to do the same.  It seems that the scripture puts much more emphasis on warning us about this latter pitfall, as we are told not to lean on our own understanding, that the wisdom of men is foolishness to God and that there is a way that seems right to a man, but that it leads to death.  My experience is that how we think about something will generally dictate how we feel about it; which means that by the time our emotions are carrying us away, we’ve already lost the battle in our minds.  No doubt this is what Paul was addressing when he encouraged the Corinthians to take every thought captive in order to make it obedient to Christ.

5.      Though God chooses to work through His people, we must remember that we are not equal partners.  Though we as His children need to make ourselves available for His purposes, we must remember that apart from Him we can do “nothing”.  Only He can draw someone to Himself, only He can change a heart and only He can bring the increase.

6.      Our human concept of what is good is just as corrupt in the eyes of God as that which is genuinely evil.  In the garden, Adam and Eve saw the fruit of the forbidden tree as good, even though God had been clear that it was not for them.  This fruit was from the tree of the knowledge of both good and evil, and it seems that our concept of what is good has been perverted ever since.  Jesus challenged the man who addressed Him as “good” teacher; saying that there is only One who is “good”; and there are many today who have based their eternal destiny on the premise that they are a “good” person.  Ultimately it will not be a question of our goodness; it will be whether we have partaken of the fruit of the Tree of Life (i.e. Jesus).

7.      The tests that we go through in this life aren’t meant to be graded by God.  The scripture tells us that before we were in our mothers’ womb, God knew us; that He knows every hair on our head and that all of our days were written in His book before one of them came to pass.  As the trials of this life reveal what is truly in our hearts, we must remember that this revelation isn’t for God’s benefit, it is for ours.  Unless we examine our response to these tests, we are unlikely to understand our need for repentance (i.e. to change our mind or direction) or to undergo genuine transformation.

8.      Someone who tries to make the best of both worlds generally makes nothing of either of them.  It is very much human nature to want to have it both ways.  We want to sit in front of the TV, eating what we want and at the same time to remain healthy and fit; we like the stability of a long term relationship, while maintaining the freedom to pursue temporary pleasures when they present themselves; and we desire the security of knowing that we’re bound for heaven, but are not necessarily sold out to the idea of being crucified with Christ.  Despite our nature, the scripture makes no allowances for this, saying that a double minded man is unstable in all of his ways, that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God and that it is better for you to be hot or cold, than it is to be lukewarm.  Early in my walk with the Lord, I queried Him as to why it was better to be cold than to be lukewarm, and I felt like the Lord said that someone who is cold is not likely to mistake themselves as being hot.

9.      When our works are tested by fire, only those things rooted in faith, hope and love will remain.  Hope is the thing that brings love and faith together; because love “always hopes” and faith is the “substance of things hoped for”.  The scripture tells us that without faith it is “impossible” to please God and that despite all the good things we might try to do for God, if we have not love, we have “nothing”.  Paul says that the “only thing that counts is faith expressing itself as love” and that in the end only three things shall remain – faith, hope and love.

10.  Prayer is not just us talking to God, it is God talking to us.  Behold I stand at the door and knock, if anyone “hears my voice” and opens the door, I will come in…; when you “hear My voice”, harden not your heart; My sheep “know My voice”, they listen and they follow…; He who belongs to God, “hears” what God says…  The scripture is not vague on this point; God is speaking and His children absolutely need to hear what He’s saying.

5 Inevitable Outcomes of Relative Truth

Statistics indicate that somewhere between two-thirds and three-fourths of adults in America believe that the truth is relative (i.e. that each person defines what truth is for themselves).  Though this philosophy goes by many names (e.g. enlightenment, secular humanism, post modernism, moral relativism…), they all hinge on the idea that truth is more a perception than an absolute (e.g. what I view as truth, may not necessarily be truth to you).  While on a superficial level this point of view might seem graciously tolerant, a deeper inspection reveals profound implications for a society that adopts such a philosophy.  In light of that, I offer these thoughts on what I believe are the very natural consequences of embracing this paradigm.

1.      Self-Centeredness:  A belief that the truth is absolute will generally cause us to search for it outside of ourselves and to view truth as transcendent to our own experience.  It tends to make us more willing to embrace concepts that are beyond our understanding (e.g. a higher purpose or a higher power).  A belief that the truth is relative will generally cause us to turn inward in our quest for truth and to limit it to whatever we can conceive of.  This tends to cause us to live on a more instinctual level, driven largely by how we feel at any given moment.

2.      Broken promises / vows:  Detractors of absolute truth tend to view its immovable nature as oppressive, while seeing the transient nature of relative truth as attractive.  But for those on the receiving end of promises and/or vows, the dynamic nature of relative truth is a legitimate cause for concern; as those who no longer wish to be bound by the limits of their vows can simply redefine their parameters for truth, thereby voiding any previous agreements.  In such cases, the perpetrator will generally rationalize that their mistake wasn’t in breaking the vow, but in making the vow in the first place.

3.      Disunity:  For a society, a community or even a family to be truly functional there must be a willingness on the part of the individuals to forfeit some amount of their personal autonomy for the greater well-being of the group.  The incentive for such sacrifice normally lies within a shared value system or maybe even a commonality of purpose.  Generally, during a nation’s formative stage, a document is forged, which ultimately reflects the commonly held values or goals under which the people choose to unite.  Our own constitution, which has been one of the most successful documents of its kind, hangs all of its lofty principles upon the relatively simple phrase, “we hold these truths to be self evident”.  At the point that each man adopts their own concept of truth, that statement ceases to be accurate; which ultimately renders the words that follow – meaningless. While relative truth would seem to be very liberating on an individual basis, it is highly destructive to the concept of national unity. 

4.      Lawlessness: The concept of a law is that a society agrees to set a limit, boundary or constraint on what is acceptable within that society.  The agreement on where that limit should be set hinges on some common standard by which to measure acceptable behavior.  In a society that embraces the idea that every man is allowed to define truth for themselves, every law becomes susceptible to the charge that it is an obstacle to personal liberty.  If our goal is to elevate individual freedom to that level, than there is no standard that could ever truly be enforced; which by definition creates a state of lawlessness.

5.      Godlessness:  The concept of fearing God is rooted in the idea that He is powerful, that there is good and evil, and that we will ultimately give some sort of accounting for our lives one day.  But if the truth is genuinely relative, then a just God would have no basis to judge anyone.  We would all simply be acquitted of any perceived indiscretion by the fact that we lived in accordance with the truth as we defined it.  In such a reality, even the concept of good and evil becomes abstract, as what I define as evil another may define as good (e.g. flying a plane into the World Trade Center).  If God has no means by which to hold us accountable, His role is reduced to that of a cosmic bystander.  We can invoke His name and claim to believe in Him, but ultimately it becomes of no consequence.