I observe my grandsons and granddaughter as they navigate their inevitable exposure to pop and world culture. Our world has made a turn. We are on a destination path, accentuated during the holiday season.

Cute (and sometimes bizarre), extravagant “floats” glide through New York streets. And as each story is told I notice that the little eyes around me are being treated to strategically placed ads as backdrops for the parade. It is not so much the capitalizing on the advertising op, but the odd configuration of people kissing, dressing, and doing all of those things people used to do without the wall-lessness of Facebook or You Tube.

How can we so systematically remove our Creator from everything we do and turn what is so black and white in the God Story to something so colorless and lifeless in our world view? Stories of gratefulness ring hollow as they are told in grey, emotion-tinged, obligatory tones. Everything appears to be for show. Expected. Choreographed for impact. Sanitized to manage our humanity.

Living in the grey·world appeases the senses but starves the soul.

Consider this excerpt from the God Story, in Acts 17:

“and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, although He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’”

I choose to step out of the grey world into the rivers of light. I choose to sing the ancient song of significance rather than going to such great lengths to cover my nakedness. I ask my Creator to speak softly to the little minds and hearts of my grand kids – even as they sleep.

Hope your day is looking promising. Here are the next two things to read together: Psalm 63 (this reads really well with Psalm 42) Where are the paragraphs? How do they differ in content? Differ in tone? Sit back and read Psalm 63 while you listen to this video – I think you may enjoy it!

Oh – second thing – read the book of Colossians several times. What do you see?

“God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much better than the angels, as He has inherited a more excellent name than they.  – Hebrews 1:1-4

God is big enough to speak – and He HAS spoken. You can learn to hear God’s Voice!

Think about this for a minute. You can learn to hear God’s Voice. I am not talking merely about knowing more about God but discerning His Voice. Nor am I talking about some wild emotional response and speculation of the “spirit.”

Our Creator has poured out His heart in everything that He has made. He has delivered a clear “letter” of Truth through His God Story. He has painfully come face to face with you in the testimony of His Son. He wants to talk to His followers. He wishes to guide you, lead you, and empower you. Through the God Story you have everything you need to hear the Voice of the Lord God Almighty! God is waiting – ready to talk to you! THAT is cool.

I’d like to weigh in on whether or not President Obama is a Christian. But first, I think it is rather ironic that Jesus is so poorly represented in such pop conversation and speculation.

A Christian is a Christ-follower. He or she has abandoned the right to live for self. “He who wishes to find his life must lose it” is very penetrating and clear. Despite the often abysmal history of the “Christian” Church, there is a history recorded in heaven that differentiates spirituality of heart from external observance or religious fervor. There is no such thing as a “name only” Christian.

A Christian is not someone who embraces an ideology, he or she embraces a Person. Doctrines and dogmas are all dim representations of what it means to submit to Jesus Christ’s Lordship over everything and everyone who has ever been created. His reign over all has been promised to Him by His Father. There is nothing – no act or motive – that will prevent “all things being laid bare” before the Master of the earth.

A Christian is someone who “dies daily” to self and bows the knee to Creator. Those who embrace Him voluntarily renounce claim to our own lives. A Christian embraces the way of the cross: the way of humility. The arrogant and proud will not enter His Kingdom. He is opposed to the proud, whatever our political alignment. His true followers choose the way of suffering, content to be aliens and strangers upon the earth, hoping in the world to come.

Any person who puts on and takes off Jesus like a set of clothing will be very disappointed at the end of the age when every soul stands before the Judge of the earth.

Whether a President (or a king) in any seat of earthly power, or the poorest beggar in the most obscure location on planet earth, we will all be deemed acceptable to God not through what we have done, but upon Whom we have believed. Because both the king and the lowliest man go to the same place, and stand before the same Judge.

And that, you can take to the soul bank, my friend!

There was something so dark about the recent slaughter of soldiers at Fort Hood. That any person can be so alienated and misguided as to perform such a horrific act is deeply troubling within itself. And now the “Christmas Bomber.” Willing to sacrifice his very life to take the lives of 300 others – all for the sake of his ideology – his “faith.”

But the true tragedy here is to watch how our leaders are responding in political correctness to something that should not be politicized. This is murder and attempted murder plain and simple. It is religious terrorism that should not be excused or coddled in any way.

To look for anything different here than what obviously IS – is sick in ideology and values. When we can longer identify murder – without looking for the extenuating circumstances to excuse it – we have simply lost our way.

I wrote this year in Curious Journey that I believe “political correctness” will be our downfall as a nation, These kinds of things are what I was referring to. And these gyrations extend well beyond murder to stealing, coveting, lying, and speaking words of double-talk and false-witness. We are becoming lawless because we are rejecting the Law-Giver.

The Living God alone is humanity’s faithful compass. He is our Life-Giver. He is our Redeemer. He is Friend to all of humanity.

I am deeply disturbed about what I am seeing from the other gods.

“And yet here we are, children of the Renaissance run amuck. Emerging from Michelangelo’s hopeful marble – only to discover that our hearts are stone to the core.”

Premise challenged:
That mankind is basically good.

Truth presented in scripture:
That mankind is completely lost apart from divine intervention.

Corruption is all around us. Men oppress men. Women are abused and abuse. Children are violated. Political leaders and rulers confiscate money. Religious zealots kill our soldiers. There is evil in our world.

The Good News itself is based upon violence. For the Father to deliver His own Son to be killed in order to satisfy the requirement of His eternal Law is a sobering act. This is why Jesus said that we are “forcing” our way into the Kingdom (Luke 6:16). The Good News brings us to a place where we cannot go by mere human effort.

Yours and my spiritual awakening has become available through the initiative of God. It would be wonderful if I could trace my goodness back to anything inside of me. But this concept is vacant from scripture.

Try as I might, any human self-reformation will in the end, fall short. To admit my part in the violence done to His Son is the gateway to eternal life. To rest in His finished work is to find a Kingdom heart.

What do YOU think?
Is mankind basically good or completely lost?
How confident are you in human solutions to spiritual problems?
In what ways are you awake spiritually? Asleep?