We are all born in sin.  Our sin is ultimately what we sow and the wages of sin is death.  That is sowing and reaping, that is karma.  The only thing that changes that is grace.  Through grace we find the actions of Jesus that lead to our salvation.  Grace said that even though we deserved death and hell, Jesus would make the ultimate sacrifice and halt the effects of karma.  Thus, grace gives eternal life. 

So, what does this mean as to how we interact with the world?  Simply we have to find a better way to respond to crisis in the world around us.  It is not enough for us to respond to violence with violence.  We cannot respond to judgment with judgment.  We cannot respond to anger with anger.  We, as children of the most high God, have to break the chain of sowing and reaping.  We have to meet violence with nonviolence.  We have to meet judgment with understanding.  We have to meet anger with love.  We have to lead others the way Jesus lead. 

One of the most amazing things about the life of Jesus is how he responded to those around him.  When he met the women caught in adultery he did not condemn her.  He did not tell her she was evil.  He did not judge her sin.  And he did not excuse it. 

Instead, Jesus told her that as no one was there to condemn her neither would he condemn her.  He did not reinforce the nature of her sin.  Instead, he told her to leave and stop sinning.  He made it plain that she needed to live a better life, but he did it with love and support. 

Where are the followers of Jesus who can respond so well?  I want to be one.

            As Christians we are called to be liberals.  To do that we have to understand what it really means.  You see there is a simple difference between political and spiritual liberalism.  Political liberals believe in helping others using the money of others.  They also believe in helping others and, at the same time, creating a dependence that feeds the problem rather than changing their lives so they can become productive people—reuniting with their family and their culture.

            Spiritual liberals believe that we should invest ourselves and our money to help others.  Spiritual liberals, something we are all called to be, means using our money and our time to feed the hungry, help the helpless, and any number of other good deeds such as made up the life of Jesus.

            Jesus did so much good that his leaders killed him for it.  Are you on anyone’s death list?  If not, maybe you are not liberal enough—spiritually speaking of course.

             The country is beautiful; the people are friendly and open.  One of the most unusual things about this trip for me is that we are staying in the same hotel every night.  In Europe we are always in four or five cities and move from hotel to hotel; often a new hotel every night.   When we arrived at the bed and breakfast where we are staying we found the doors locked.  We rang the bell and no one answered.  After about two or three minutes a man popped his head through the curtain that covered the locked metal gate that provides security.

             We identified ourselves and he found our name on the registry.  “I am a guest here, too.”  Come around and I will let you in.  We followed him in and waited on the owner to arrive.  As we talked to this man we learned that, like us, he had chosen this hotel at “random.”  We sat out on the patio, under a thatched hut and spent the next hour talking with him.

             We followed that up with breakfast the next morning.  During breakfast we learned that our new friend, Enock, was a young Christian from Zimbabwe.  He is working on developing a foundation to help young people learn the value of getting an education and working hard.

             By the time breakfast was over I felt like I had known Enock my whole life.  He gave us a tour of the neighborhood where we are staying.  The Lord used us to encourage him in matters of developing your vision into a viable business or ministry.

             Over the next few days we spent more and more time with Enock.  Talking about ministry and how to develop a foundation to help young people in Africa get more involved in the daily life of their country.  His concern was how to motivate young people to take control of their own lives, gain a vision for the future, and even get involved in the political process by voting and working to influence policy at the local level.

             Enock really helped us get into the local culture; we went for a ride using the Soweto taxi system.  This taxi system is a series of vans with five rows of seats in them.  You flag down the taxi with a series of hand signals that let the driver know where you are going.  If it is the right taxi he pulls over and you get in.  The cost is about a dollar.  Through a series of transfers we made it to Nelson Mandela Square where there is a huge statute of Mandela overseeing the entrance to a brand new upscale shopping mall in the most exclusive section of Johannesburg.  Near the Mandela statute is a serious of eight foot soccer balls set up to honor the World Cup and other championships of World Football.

             From there it was off to another series of Soweto taxis so that we could go to the Rosebank African Market.  Stall after stall of native Africa crafts.  A huge sign hung from the roof.  “This is Africa—We bargain.”  And the games began. The crafts were awesome; the prices were fluid.  David was enjoying himself, I was a little nervous because I am not big on the bargaining.

             The next day we headed out to meet the Ultimate Goal Committee so that I could give them legal advice on outreach during the World Cup.  Here was a room full of brothers and sisters from South Africa and around the world.  They were working together with one common goal—how to turn the World Cup Soccer Tournament into a valuable outreach for the Kingdom and the Church.

             I have worked with some of these folks since the Olympic Games in Athens, Greece in 2004.  They are becoming old friends.  They always inspire me as they are working hard to finish strong.  They are giving up their homes to come to a foreign land and see the Kingdom built.  What a great calling!

             We left these two days of meetings with a mandate for preparing information for the Committee—something I am doing now that we are back.

             The greatest news of all, however, is what happened after these meetings.  David and I were spending a few more days before heading home.  On Thursday we were resting at the guesthouse when the owner told us that we had a couple of friends here to see us.

             Earlier in the week David had shared the Gospel with an African man named Josiah.  He left the first meeting telling us that he wanted to talk more about God and asking if he could come back on Thursday.  In the excitement we had forgotten.

             Here was Josiah, with his cousin Tich, looking to hear more about the Gospel message.  David sat down with them while I showered.  I was locked in our room as David took the key with him promising to return in fifteen minutes.  Over an hour later I was in a panic, not knowing if something had happened to David. 

             When I finally got out of the room by calling the owner on his cell, using my computer, I found David circled up under our thatch hut, holding hands with these two African men as he prayed for their salvation.

             Josiah told us that after he prayed he “felt like ice cream!”

             That was a fitting end to our time in South Africa.  Now we are preparing to make sure that all the missionaries and evangelists who show up for the World Cup are protected as they share their faith with others like Josiah and Tich.

             Thank you for your prayers and your support of our work!

            Since the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta we have been providing religious freedom legal help at many of the major sporting events around the world.  This year we are personally working with ministry leaders and FIFA officials to make sure that the free speech and religious freedom rights of the missionaries who will come from around the world are respected by local and tournament officials.

            At the same time, I am working, even now, to establish meetings with other ministry leaders in South Africa and local Christian attorneys.  These meetings will allow us to have an even greater effect during our time in South Africa.

            There is a lot of preparation that goes into these meetings.  We have to do all the normal travel arrangements, determine where is the most strategic location to set up as our camp in Johannesburg.  We have to prepare legal documents and then we have to get those legal documents to the key mission people and the key people with FIFA and the local law enforcement.  We have to make sure they understand their rights and this involves some training before and during the tournament.

            Our job is to make sure everyone understands the protected speech rights.  Our job is to make sure that police officials do not overstep their bounds during the tournament.  Our job is to make sure the missionaries do not get too aggressive on their part as well.

            So, we are preparing to leave in just over two weeks for our first on the ground meetings in Johannesburg, South Africa.  Please continue to pray for our team.  We have a lot of work in the next few months, and a lot of travel as well.

            The biggest change we have experienced is a loss of our moral center.  Our founding fathers understood the moral center that comes from a biblical world view—even the founding fathers who were not Christians understood this value.  Our grandparents and our parents understood the value of the Ten Commandments.

            Benjamin Franklin summed it up when he said, “I believe in one God, creator of the universe; that He governs it by his providence, that He ought to be worshipped,…As to Jesus of Nazareth,…[I] have some doubts regarding Jesus’ divinity.”

            My point is this; Christianity was so prominent in our founding that even those who did not believe felt that there was a great value in the system of Christianity that allowed the governance through democracy in a republic form of government.

            We no longer have that moral center.  Now, we find ourselves in a culture that not only does not believe, but actually mocks belief in one God.  We have gone from the place where it is okay to make fun of belief in God in limited cases, like a Hollywood movie or a book.  At the same time, it was not okay to make fun of the core beliefs that surrounded the belief in God.

            Now we do not have the mockery limited to Hollywood, it is the core of how our average citizen thinks.  We cannot offer any type of spiritual help to struggling youth because we have no place for God in our schools.  We have nothing to base our moral core on because we suddenly do not believe in moral absolutes.

            Then we wonder out loud why it seems that evil is so much more present in our society.  Why is there a problem with drugs?  Why do we have an increase in out of wedlock pregnancy?  Why are we in a seeming downward spiral?

            I believe it is all tied into the fact that we no longer value the things that God values because we no longer really believe in God.  He was good for our ancestors.  He was okay for children, but we are enlightened and have no need for God.

            Where once we started with the understanding that Christian morals were valuable in the here and now because they were principles that permitted us to get along in society, we now believe that no man or deity has the right to set absolute standards that govern this world.

            Without the eternal value of life that Christianity embraces we find ourselves giving our moral core to meaningless things.  We are more concerned with protecting animals than we are with protecting human live.  We give our life to living “green” and ignore the devaluing of human life at every turn.

            What is the solution?  We, those who still believe in the value of God and His system of morals, must take a greater stand for the issues that matter here and now and the matters that are important for eternity. 

            We must be the leaders in cultural change.  We must be the ones who value individual rights.  It is the Christian who must fight for the right of the nonbeliever to not belief.  After all, who are we to condemn a right that God gave to us.  He has chosen to let us decide for ourselves—I will do no less.

            The church has to regain its moral center and return to doing His work, His way.  We have to be the standard bearers.  It is easy to point out sin.  The challenge is to offer real life solutions to the world’s real life problems—that is what we must be doing.

            While doing that I will also demand more of myself and those around me. I will demand more from a moral standpoint and more for the betterment of the world.

            It is a disgrace that those who have no faith offer more to the betterment of this world than those of us who know the key to understanding and living in eternity.

            If they merely were uncomfortable it would not make sense to insist that parents do not have the right to control the education of their children to the point of moving from a position of discrimination to a position of persecution against these parents and their children.

            I do not use the word persecution lightly and I know that there are many who will take exception to its use here.  When parents face heavy fines it is discrimination in my book.  When parents are in court defending their right to control the education of their children it is discrimination to me.

            When, however, parents are serving short sentences in the local jails without the benefit of a hearing and without legal appeal it becomes persecution in my book.  When those same parents have their children taken into state custody just because they are home schooling their children it goes from discrimination to persecution.

            That is what is happening in Germany.

            The Germans gave us the Reformation.  They have long been on the forefront of cultural changes in a positive way.  There are many things we must be grateful to the Germans for, including their incredible engineering skills and their scientific work that lead to some of the greatest breakthroughs in technology and medicine that we have ever seen.

            Something has happened though.  I have a couple of photos that sum up the confusion I am experiencing much better than words ever could.

            The first photo is one I personally took during the 2009 Octoberfest in Munich, Germany.  I was there just a few days after I had experienced a moving meal with the Schimidt family in nearby Otting, Germany.  Just before we ate they offered a family prayer to bless the food and our time.

Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany

Schmidt family praying before lunch

            The confusion comes from the fact that one of these activities is highly acceptable in modern Germany.  The other has begun to lead to many problems for families in Germany—particularly those families who are trying to control the education of their children.

            Maybe the problem is that God is okay as long as we do not take Him too seriously.  That is a problem in American as well as Germany.

I cannot believe how much the logic of the arguments for evolution has become a part of the mainstream thought process.  Stick with me here.  Evolutionary logic goes like this:

            “The rocks are four billion years old.”

            “How do you know their age?”

            “Well, there are dinosaur bones in the rocks and we know those bones are four billion years old—so the rocks have to be four billion years old.”

            “How do we know the age of the bones?”

            “The archeologists have told us how old they are.”

            Then we talk to the archeologists:

            “The bones of the dinosaurs are four billion years old.”

            “How do we know their age?”

            “Well, the bones are in the rocks and the rocks are four billion years old—so the bones have to be four billion years old.”

            “How do we know the age of the rocks?”

            “The geologists have told us how old they are.”

That is the circular logic that is used to prove at least part of the argument for evolution.  Remember, we have to believe in evolution if we are going to lay the proper foundation for the death of God, or His nonexistence.

By now you are wondering what this has to do with the State of the Union.  It is simple.  Obama used the same thought processes in his speech.

            “Everything I say is true.”

            “Do you have anything to back up your statements?”

            “I do not have to back them up, they are true.”

            “How do we know they are true?”

            “They are true because I said them and I tell the truth.”

            “How do we know these things are the truth?”

            “Because I said them, are you not listening?”

And thus, here we are with a scattering of information from a variety of topics that beg for us to ignore logic and simply believe.

The trouble is that evolutionary thinking is based on the fact that there is no God and if there is no God we are supposed to live by logic not faith.

Now we have an evolutionary thinker asking us to defy logic and live by faith.

That is twisted!

            No, wait, he was all for killing to achieve your ends and evidently, like that bastion of freedom Fidel Castro, he believed in killing to keep your power once you had achieved your ends.  And look what they did—together they built that island paradise, Cuba.  Wait, no, since the fall of the Soviets there is no one rushing to Cuba to enjoy the freedom of the new world.

            It is time we demanded results before we give our worship.  Look at the life of these petty dictators and let them speak for themselves.  And remember the words of our first black Secretary of State, Colin Powell—America fought in World War II and all the land we ask for was enough to bury our dead.  That is the testimony of freedom that our founding fathers envisioned when they risked everything to give us the great American experiment.

            Back to Che, like Fidel he was a murderous man consumed with himself.  Of course, in this time when America is stepping back in time to pre-revolutionary times, like before we fought to avoid answering to a king, Che looks like a hero to many.  Why is it that only rich Hollywood types want us to copy dictators in the running of the country?

            Have we elected a king instead of a President?  School children are compelled to sing songs praising the president—I do not remember that being a part of the America I grew up in, of course that was a long time ago, maybe I am just old and outdated.  We are a long way from the reign of the last golden boy of the left who was at least decent enough to tell us to ask not what our country could do for us, but to ask what we could do for our country.  Now, we just need to figure out how to serve the king—long live the king!  It just rings from the lips of every American, doesn’t it.

            Let us remember, many have given everything that we should be free.  Shouldn’t we at least give a little to remain free—rather than rolling over without a fight.  Long live freedom, the king has three more years and then he can travel the world acting like a rock star.