“Care for the flock of God entrusted to you. Watch over it willingly, not grudgingly—not for what you will get out of it, but because you are eager to serve God. Don’t lord it over the people assigned to your care, but lead them by your good example.”¹

People who are theologically rigid are the very opposite of what God’s Word encourages leaders to be. They see themselves as being very spiritual and good Christians. The Pharisees of Jesus’ day saw themselves in the same light.

The fact is that people who are theologically rigid are not spiritual at all. They are theologically rigid because they are emotionally rigid. And they are emotionally rigid because they are living in denial—denying their insecurities and inner unresolved painful issues. Some are very angry. Others are control freaks. Some are both.

Furthermore, theologically rigid people who become leaders in the church (or in politics or any other area) do great damage to people both psychologically and spiritually. They keep people immature, over-dependent, and in denial just as they themselves are. They, like the Pharisees, love their rules more than they love people. They use people to fulfill their own manipulative purposes. They are legalists who demand that others conform to their unrealistic expectations and, if they refuse to do so, they will be rejected—in some religious and political environments they can be totally ostracized and/or even killed.

God’s word describes people who fall back into legalism as being bewitched.² Remember though; they only control us if we allow them to. In some extreme cultures one may be forced to be controlled outwardly or be killed but it is important that, with God’s help, one keeps control of his or her mind and beliefs.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please deliver me from the trap and curse of theological rigidity and legalism and give me the insight to recognize it whenever it appears. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. 1 Peter 5:2-3 (NLT).
2. Galatians 3:1.

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“Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked. For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless.”¹

Dr. J.B. Gambrel tells an amusing story from General Stonewall Jackson’s famous valley campaign. Jackson’s army found itself on one side of a river when it needed to be on the other side. After telling his engineers to plan and build a bridge so the army could cross, he called his wagon master in to tell him that it was urgent the wagon train cross the river as soon as possible. The wagon master started gathering all the logs, rocks and fence rails he could find and built a bridge. Long before daylight the wagon master told General Jackson that all the wagons and artillery had crossed the river. General Jackson asked where the engineers were and what were they doing. The wagon master’s only reply was that they were in their tent drawing up plans.”²

It has been said that there are three kinds of people: those who make things happen; those who watch things happen; and those who don’t know that anything is happening!

With God’s help, I want to be a doer and among those who make things happen. In college days, I was attending a college-age youth group in a church. The group was struggling and I was asked by the leaders what I thought was wrong. I said that I didn’t feel I had a right to criticize unless I was willing to do something about the problems. Guess what? I got actively involved as a doer. These were some of my best college days.

Let’s not be critical unless we are willing to be involved. To be a doer, start doing something of eternal value, realizing that we serve God by serving people.

Suggested prayer, “Dear God, please help me to invest my life by being actively involved as a doer in the work of your Kingdom—no matter how small and menial the tasks I do may appear to be. And help me every day to be “as Christ” to all who cross my path. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Psalm 84:10–11 (NIV).
2. Pulpit Helps, May, 1991.

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Jesus said, “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”¹

On November 11, 1918, “World War I ended when Germany, bereft of manpower, supplies and food, signed an armistice agreement. The war’s tolls were at least 10 million dead, 6 million of them civilians, and 21 million wounded.”

How tragic and insane war is. The carnage, the killing, the maiming for life, the emotional trauma and scars, the grief of loved ones all because one man or a few men have an insatiable thirst for power with the grandiose dream of conquering and ruling the world or a significant part of it.

But thank God that when such men rise to power, that our young men and women rise up to defend the rest of us and are willing to sacrifice their life in order to save ours.

Today we remember all service men and women with much thanksgiving and grateful hearts. Where would so many of us be today had it not been for these dedicated young men and women?

As another has said so well:

“It is the soldier, not the reporter,
Who has given us freedom of the press.
It is the soldier, not the poet,
Who has given us freedom of speech.
It is the soldier, not the campus organizer,
Who has given us the freedom to demonstrate.
It is the soldier,
Who salutes the flag,
Who serves beneath the flag,
And whose coffin is draped by the flag,
Who allows the protestor to burn the flag.”

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, from those of us who have the wonderful privilege of living in a free country, we thank you for the multiplied thousands of service men and woman who put their lives on the line and for those who gave their lives in order to save ours. And we thank you for the wonderful freedom that we have as a result. May we never take these blessings and privileges for granted. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. John 15:13.

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“The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”¹

In addressing the challenges the world is facing today caused by radical Muslims, we continue yesterday’s message by the unknown author who reminds us that: “It is the fanatics who march. It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa. It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honor kill. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. The hard quantifiable fact is that the ‘peaceful majority’ the ‘silent majority’ is cowed and extraneous.

“Communist Russia comprised Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant.

“China’s huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people.

“The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a warmongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the Systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel and bayonet.

“And, who can forget Rwanda, which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were ‘peace loving’?

“History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points: Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence.

“Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don’t speak up, because like my friend from Germany, they will awake one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.

“Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up, take action, until it was too late.

“As for us who watch it all unfold; we must pay attention to the only group that counts; the fanatics who threaten our way of life.

“Lastly, at the risk of offending, anyone who doubts that the issue is serious and just deletes this email without sending it on, can contribute to the passiveness that allows the problems to expand.

“So, please extend yourself and send this article on and on and on! Let us hope that thousands [even millions]—world wide—will read this message, think about it, and send it on. Actions speak!”²

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, as Jesus instructed us, help us to love our enemies and even those who want to kill us. But also help us to be very much aware of their evil devices and be prepared and ‘arm’ ourselves appropriately. Give us the wisdom to know what we need to do and the courage to do it. And help us to reach every Muslim and every non-Christian worldwide with your saving gospel message, and grant that multitudes will turn from darkness to the glorious light of your truth. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus’ name, amen.”

For a comparison grid between what Christians and Muslims believe go to:
http://www.carm.org/islam/grid.htm

1. 2 Corinthians 4:4 (NIV).
2. Author unknown. Submitted by Frank Feracco.

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“Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”¹

Mark Early, president of Prison Fellowship, wrote in BreakPoint, “The history of the last fifty [plus] years has richly validated Friedrich Nietzsche’s argument that man’s desire to control his own destiny and to impose his will on others is the most basic human motivation. Nietzsche’s prophecy that the ‘will to power’ would fill the twentieth-century’s vacuum of values has been fulfilled through Hitler, Mao, Stalin, to name only the worst tyrants.”² To this list could be added the will to power of radical Muslims whose aim is to rule and control the world—or a very large part of it—without any qualms whatsoever on how to fulfill this goal.

The German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel said, “What experience and history teach is this—that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it;” Churchill paraphrased it by saying, “The only thing we learn from history is that we never learn from history.” And as another has said, “What we don’t learn from history we are doomed to repeat.” Tragically, with the ever increasing resurgence of radical Islam, history is again repeating itself.

Preceding World Ward II Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister of England, “fought” for appeasement with Hitler whose life was dominated by his will to power. Chamberlain meant well but he failed because there is no such thing as appeasement with the Hitlers and terrorists of the world. You give in to all their demands or they kill you. We in the West need to wake up and learn from history. To claim that most Muslims want peace will not protect or save. Radical Muslim’s have a will to ultimate power and will stop at nothing to achieve that power and control.

Reality defies the description that Islam is a religion of peace. I don’t know who the author of the following article is but it exemplifies the fact that the claim of peaceful, non-radical Muslims is irrelevant at this point of time. For example:

“A man whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II owned a number of large industries and estates. When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude toward fanaticism. ‘Very few people were true Nazis,’ he said, ‘but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of our world had come. My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories.’

“We are told again and again by ‘experts’ and ‘talking heads’ that Islam is a religion of peace, and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace.

“Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the specter of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam. The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history.”

To be continued …

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help every Christian never to be ignorant of Satan’s devices and always be cognizant of the fact that Satan’s goal is to deceive and destroy all who believe in you. Help us always to trust in you and so live that people seeing our good works will glorify you,³ and that seeing Jesus in us will want him in their life as well. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus’ name, amen.”

For a comparison grid between what Christians and Muslims believe go to:
http://www.carm.org/islam/grid.htm

1. 1 Peter 5:8 (NIV).
2. Mark Earley, BreakPoint, June 7, 2007,
www.breakpoint.org
3. See Matthew 5:16.

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