Spiritual Warfare Tactics

I’ve brushed over this topic a few times so far in these last few months blogging, but I want to hit it from a new angle today. Thanks to a study my Sunday School class has done in Ephesians, I’ve viewed the ordeal of our spiritual battle in a new light, and it’s put some other verses into a better context in my mind; I hope it does the same for yours after reading this explanation of my revelation.

Spiritual warfare is a complex topic. There’s a lot that needs to be talked about, a lot that needs to be prepared, and a lot that needs to be done. The difficult part is that the subject matter is complex and often rather difficult to discuss in concrete terms simply because spiritual warfare can be incredibly far from concrete in its essence, which is that it rarely appeals to the five senses. It’s more of a metaphysical attack on the heart and mind, and that’s hard to quantify.

On top of the actual attacks themselves being hard to describe, it’s also difficult to tell when you’re being attacked. One of the key things to remember about Satan and his demons is that they are not omnipotent, omniscient, or omnipresent like God is. They are finite, created beings, so they can’t level attacks against you all the time. But even more important than the knowledge that we are not fighting this battle 24/7 is the knowledge of what to do in the downtime to prepare for each fight.

Ephesians chapter 6 gives us a lot to go on regarding spiritual warfare and how to go about doing it. First, from verses 10 and 11, we must acknowledge that we cannot stand against the devil on our own.

“Finally, be strengthened by the Lord and by His vast strength. Put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the tactics of the Devil.”

Only with God’s help can we stand firm against Satan. As we are, we have no protection, but God provides us with armor that is specifically designed to combat the ways of Satan.

Earlier, I said that it’s hard to quantify exactly what our battle is against, and verse 12 explains why. “For our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world powers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavens.”

This verse separates the concrete from the abstract. Our fight is not against other people. It’s more akin to a fight against ideas. Without broaching the political bubble, it’s a lot like wars on common nouns, such as drugs. There’s a general idea of what you’re fighting against, but your enemy is more conceptual than physical.

Our fight is against concepts that invade our minds: things such as, stealing under certain circumstances (from the rich or to provide for yourself when things get rough) is perfectly okay; greed is fine so long as I use some of it to help the poor; lust and adultery are okay so long as I marry the person I have sex with afterward; it’s okay to gossip because I’m asking for somebody to pray about it; or one of the more deadly concepts, that it’s okay to sin whenever we want because God forgives us anyway.

Our fight is against things that we cannot see or hear. It is against ideas that are in direct contrast to the character of God. So, in order to know what it is you’re fighting against, you have to know what is in direct contrast to God’s character, which means you have to know what God’s character actually is, as verse 13 says.

“This is why you must take up the full armor of God, so that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having prepared everything, to take your stand.”

But how do I know what God’s character is? Specifically for newer Christians, it would be difficult to truly know a lot about God’s character, which can be dangerous because the more intimately you know God, the better you can defend yourself, and newer Christians will likely be attacked harshly and often due to being the most vulnerable. Well, Paul kindly gives us a shortcut to what we need to defend against by explaining what our defensive strengths are in verses 14-17.

“Stand, therefore, with truth like a belt around your waist, righteousness like armor on your chest, and your feet sandaled with the gospel of peace. In every situation take the shield of faith, and with it you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is God’s word.”

Our five main characteristics we must be ready to defend with are truth, righteousness, peace, faith, and salvation. The antonyms of these things, the concepts in direct contrast with God’s character, are falsity, wickedness, unrest/conflict, disbelief, and damnation.

Satan will attempt to twist the truth to convince you that you don’t know what is right and what is wrong. He will attempt to pervert this world with wicked deeds, such as murder, rape, and slander. He will attempt to bring about disagreement between people and ignite anger to cause conflict and war. He will attempt to infect your trust in God by bringing about disaster in your life and the lives of those around you. And he will attempt to convince you that nothing can save you, that you are too far gone into the darkness for God to reach.

These attacks will take on many forms. Some of the most prevalent, on a large scale, today are wickedness, like abortion, and conflict, like the one between U.S. government and its people. And the most difficult part of it all is that each attack can vary based on who you are and your weaknesses. For some, Satan may fire dozens of arrows to attack your faith. For others, he may attempt to pierce through your righteousness by causing you to sin. For yet others, he may disrupt your peace with God by causing anxiety and depression. For yet more, he might attempt to convince you that your salvation isn’t legitimate, that God did not speak truth.

And he will attack until your armor is in disrepair and you are too weak to defend. That’s why the next verse is just as important as the armor of God. It describes how to properly care for the armor of God so that it can defend you every time you put it on to do battle.

18 “Pray at all times in the Spirit with every prayer and request, and stay alert in this with all perseverance and intercession for all the saints.” And I’d like to add to this verse since it’s not explicitly mentioned here, but reading your Bible is also something you must do to care for your armor.

Praying to God, speaking to Him, and hearing from Him by reading His Word is like sharpening your sword, banging out the dents in your helmet and breastplate, and reinforcing your shield so that it maintains its integrity. If your armor is in disrepair, it cannot protect you from attacks. A dented shield will lead to concussion. A dented breastplate could cave in your chest if struck. A shield that has taken too many arrows without being replaced is no more than pulp—another arrow would go right through it.

Remember that we are soldiers in this battle. When a soldier has downtime, his first job is to repair his gear so that he can trust it in the battles to come. For us, we do so by refreshing ourselves in the presence of God via prayer and studying the Bible.

But now, I want to take us back to the last part of verse 13, because the setting of the battle is incredibly important. Paul’s words here, “so that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having prepared everything, to take your stand.” These aren’t the words of a man who is insisting we charge at the enemy to wipe them out. These are the words of a man imploring us to stand firm where we are until the fight dies down.

Here’s why: we know that the war is already won from John 16:33, 1 Corinthians 15:57, Colossians 2:15 (which explicitly mentions two of our enemies), and 1 John 4:4, among others.

When Jesus died on that cross, He won the war for us. The end result is guaranteed, so charging at the enemy would only hurt us. All we have to do is survive.

Oftentimes, when war is fought, battles are waged after the peace treaty is signed because news of the war’s end hasn’t reached the entire army yet. Even after Hitler’s death in WWII, Nazi soldiers still fought in an attempt to take a holding from American and Austrian military.

Much like the Nazi soldiers, Satan’s army has already lost, they just don’t know it yet. Meanwhile, we know the plans that God had for the war, we have a defensive location set, and we have the provisions to last through a siege. Our goal is not to win, to wipe out Satan’s army, but to merely survive until word of God’s victory reaches our ears and those of our enemy.

When Motivation's Gone

I’ve come across a number of people recently who have expressed that their “burning passion” for God is deteriorating. Many struggle to find the feelings that they may have had when they felt God close. Some feel like God is distancing Himself from them. Others lack the expressed feelings of joy and happiness that they had when they were on fire for God and feeling the comfort that comes from that emotional high.

And when times like these come, the common question is, “How do I get that fire for God back? How do I get motivated to continue chasing after God?”

And the very simple answer is that you choose to do the hard work that comes with love. When you lack the motivation to read your Bible, choose to read it anyway. When you lack the motivation to pray, choose to pray anyway. When you lack the motivation to attend church, choose to go anyway. When you lack the motivation to fight temptation, choose to fight temptation. Because let me tell you, a feeling is not strong enough to get you through the harsh realities that will try to destroy your love for God. No feeling will ever be strong enough to support love when things go bad. The only action that can support love is choice.

The long answer is this: Let’s take the idea of a relationship, specifically marriage. Now, I’m not married, but nonetheless, I believe that I can provide an accurate representation and breakdown of what is required to make a marriage work using Biblical principles. I’m just going to do it in reverse, so bear with me.

Ephesians affirms that the concept of earthly marriage is meant as a reflection of the church’s relationship with Christ.

Chapter 5 verses 22-29 say that wives should submit to their husbands in the same way that the church should submit to Christ. Husbands are called to love their wives as Christ loves the church. He is to give himself to her. Husbands are also called to love their wives just as much as they love themselves to see her as his own flesh such that he provides and cares for her, just like Christ does for the church. He clothes us in His own righteousness so that we may be seen as righteous like Christ and not the sinners we are because we have been made one with Christ.

I don’t think Paul could have written it any clearer without literally writing, “God made marriage so that you could get a glimpse of what your relationship with Him should be like.”

I’ve been listening to a number of podcasts about marriage recently to prepare myself for when I, hopefully, get married, and one of the most consistently spoken about conflicts is how to handle separation between husband and wife. What do you do when life gets busy and the butterflies disappear? Even generally speaking, you’ll likely hear married couples talk about the disaster that is the ending of the “honeymoon phase.” What do you do when you’re no longer pursuing each other like your relationship is new?

The most spoken answer? Act. Do something about it. When a husband and wife are distant from each other emotionally, things won’t magically fix themselves. One or the other has to step up and begin pursuing their spouse in an effort to love them. When husband and wife get into an argument and neither of them feel like loving the other, the way to resolve that issues is not to wait until the feelings of love return. The way to resolve the issue is for one of them to sacrifice themselves, despite their feelings of shame, embarrassment, anger, whatever, and choose to love through the hard times.

Here’s why you can’t rely on emotions to get you through rough spots in marriage. When the rough spots come, the only emotions you are going to feel are ones that will make it that much harder for you to do what you know is right. You will be angry. You will be sad. You will be distraught. You will be ashamed. And none of those are conducive in motivating you to love. All of those things are conducive in motivating you to hate.

Okay, I know I’ve given some very vague examples. Sorry! When I get married, I’ll revisit this topic and give y’all some very clear situations in which you will have to choose love over emotional motivation, but until then, you’ll have to settle with these and one more passage of scripture that gives the clearest example of how this works as there could ever be.

Matthew 26:38-39 says, “Then He said to them, ‘My soul is swallowed up in sorrow—to the point of death. Remain here and stay awake with Me.’ Going a little farther, He fell facedown and prayed, ‘My Father! If it is possible, let this cup pass from Me. Yet not as I will, but as You will.’”

Do you really understand the deepness of this passage? Jesus is in emotional distress. He knows what is coming. He knows what He should do. Yet He desires another way. His emotions are saying, “I don’t want to do this.” He’s feeling unmotivated. He was so stressed by His feelings that He was literally sweating blood.

But what does He do? He chooses to do what He knows is right, what He knows must be done. And He goes and sacrifices Himself on the cross so that we could be saved. And that is the most perfect example of what you should do when you don’t feel so good about God.

In retrospect, what we sometimes lack the feeling to do is such a minuscule sacrifice when we compare it to what Jesus did. How hard is it, really, to read your Bible every day? Does it really take that long? Does it really take so much out of you to pray in the morning, at night, before meals? Does it cut a huge swath of time from your day to just be with God? I don’t think so.

And you know, the greatest thing about choosing to love God when you don’t feel like loving God is that the feelings come back. You might not notice it at first or it could hit you like a flood. But when you genuinely pursue God, you will find the joy that allowed Paul to live in a nasty dungeon while writing letters to encourage believers all around the known world. You will find the peace that comes with knowing that our all-powerful God has everything under control and is right there beside you at all times.

It may not be easy, but it will be worth it.

Resisting the Devil

This last week has been a week preaching to my heart about resisting temptation. My pastor’s been teaching on it for the last three weeks, and though it wasn’t the focus of my Sunday School lesson last night, it did come up in the verses we covered, and I had a pretty neat revelation that I felt I needed to share (yeah, we’re doing Sunday School on a Tuesday because of Coronavirus, but it’s working quite nicely).

There is a small joke that has been running around the Gen Z-younger Millennial Christian community about being convicted of sin by the Holy Spirit and repenting from it. The joke that follows this line of thought regards being convicted of your “favorite sin,” and not wanting to give it up because it’s comfortable or feels good or whatever.

And let’s face it. We all have a “favorite” or “pet” sin that we constantly fall prey to. For some of us, it’s lust, for some it’s anger, for others greed, for others jealousy, for many, it’s gossip. Whatever it is, I feel confident in saying we’ve all got one; I’m sure you’ll find yours if you properly examine your thoughts, words, and actions.

I would argue, however, that it is less our “favorite sin” and more our most common, and easily given in to, temptation. It is the one thing that Satan can trick us with that he knows will get us more often than it won’t. Just as much as I guarantee you that you have a “favorite sin” as it were, I guarantee you that you are tempted by far more things than just that one you happen to give in to.

Just take a few moments to go through your day and all the things that happen in it; mark down all the times something that could have led to sin occurs. I’ll give you a typical example of what could happen by describing a potential day I could live through:

I could wake up in the morning and lie in bed until I’m almost late for work—laziness. I could rush out the door, jump into my car, and drive ten over down the road—Failed to be subject to governing authorities. I could get stuck at a stoplight and yell a few choice words—foul language. I could arrive to work late and tell my boss I got stuck in road work—lie. I could see a pretty girl at work and fantasize about her—lust, adultery. I could hear of my coworker getting a raise and bitterly wish he were fired because I was supposedly next in line for promotion—jealousy. I could arrive home and be short with my parents and refuse to do chores—disrespecting my father and mother.

See what I mean? You can be tempted hundreds or thousands of times a day. But you’re not likely to pay most of those temptations any mind thanks to the renewing of your mind by the Holy Spirit as a believer. This also serves to back up the point that temptation isn’t the sin. Even Jesus was tempted, as seen in Matthew 4:1-11. Temptation is something we cannot control; it’s our reaction to it that we have to work on. And that leads me to the verses that prompted this whole article: Ephesians 4:26-27.

“Be angry and do not sin. Don’t let the sun go down on your anger, and don’t give the devil an opportunity.”

First, let’s note that anger is not sin. Anger may lead to sinful behavior, but being rightfully upset by something is not, in and of itself, wrong. Even Jesus was rightfully, and righteously, angry at times—flipping tables in the temple comes to mind. But anger is a temptation to give in to incorrect behavior, just like all the actions I mentioned earlier are temptations to give in to sin.

The important part is not necessarily that you were tempted, but how you react to the temptation, and verse 26 gives us the method. It says to not let the sun go down on your anger. One of the most common things associated with the movement of the sun is the passage of time. So, how do we avoid falling prey to temptation? Deal with it in as short a time as possible. Don’t let it be present in your heart and mind for any longer than it takes you to recognize that it’s temptation. Turn away from the thought, separate yourself mentally from the setting, and turn to Jesus.

There are a number of methods to doing this, though the best is obviously having scripture at hand to quote and remind yourself of the God who can give you all things and provide for you in every way. Whatever works for you, do it. But don’t give Satan time to work, chipping away at your defenses.

If there is one thing the devil is, it’s an opportunist. He’s not omniscient, he’s not omnipresent, and he’s not omnipotent. But he is incredibly sneaky, quick, clever, and dedicated. His only goal is to make sure you suffer with him in Hell. And he’s great at taking advantage of any openings you give him to work at you. While he may not be able to punch a hole in the armor you wear for protection in one hit, give him enough time and he’ll find the hold and slip a blade through.

That’s why verse 27 is so important. To avoid giving the devil an opportunity, you have to make sure you give him as little time as possible to study you while you’re in duress from temptation. If a lustful thought comes across your mind, don’t play around with the idea and flirt with fantasies. Cast it away from you as quickly as you can. The longer you ponder that lust, the more likely you are to give into the temptation and actually commit adultery. (Doing inappropriate things with someone in your head is just as much adultery as doing it physically—Matt. 5:28.)

When your friends start gossiping, either get them to stop or remove yourself from the conversation so that you’re not convinced to join in. Even if your resolve is strong at first, you will break down eventually just to become part of the conversation. For every second you remain, you give Satan an opportunity to get you to sin.

Combat jealousy with encouragement, greed with thankfulness, anger with love and understanding. And do it quickly so that you don’t sit and stew in the feelings and opportunities to do what you know feels good temporarily, what appears to satisfy.

The reason I love verses 26-27 so much is because the whole picture lends itself to this lesson so easily. When you’re really angry at someone, it’s so easy to sit and stew in your emotions and imagine all the mean things you’d say or do to get back at them for how they wronged you. The longer you stew in that anger, the easier it gets for your “justice” to become harsher, and the harder it becomes to show them love and forgiveness as we are called to do.

It’s the exact same with sin and temptation. The longer you play with that temptation, the easier it is to give in to the sin, and the harder it becomes to do what you know is right. So, don’t let time pass in temptation. Hurry and turn to Jesus, rebuking Satan all the while so that you can be protected by the righteous shelter that is Christ.

Approaching the Lord

The first seven verses of Ecclesiastes chapter five express the need to approach God and your relationship with Him with caution. As with any significant relationship, our relationship with God is one that must be intentional and guarded so that we do not cause any undue issues.

And, in fact, this must be stressed more so with God because He is perfect and just and has a standard higher than we can ever reach, unlike our earthly relationships. You can’t afford to be lackadaisical when it comes to being righteous. Even though God forgives when we ask, the damage that it can do to you on Earth is significant.

The first verse opens up with how our relationship with God should look; it should not be something that is done by obligation, but by obedience and desire. It describes a mindset with which we should chase after God. “Guard your step when you go to the house of God. Better to draw near in obedience than to offer the sacrifice as fools do, for they are ignorant and do wrong.”

I’d like to note that my Bible version translates the Hebrew word “shama” differently than most versions, which use “to hear” or “to listen” in place of “obedience” in mine. However, the meaning remains the same. The use of obedience in my translation likely serves to highlight the difference between the “this or that” proposition Solomon was making here.

The two options when you approach God as Solomon presents them are “to hear/listen/be obedient” or “to talk/do/sacrifice.” You can either come to God with a heart of obedience that desires to do what He would have you do, or you can come before Him with a heart that says, “Look, I recognize that you’re God and all, but I’m just going to do what I want.” This is a cautionary statement to not let your own desires be placed higher than God’s calling for your life.

This is quite similar to the introspective actions we should take before partaking in communion, as indicated in 1 Corinthians 11:27-32. We must examine ourselves as we come to God, humbling ourselves before Him and recognizing who He is and who we are in comparison.

Verse 2 and verses 4-6 say, “Do not be hasty to speak, and do not be impulsive to make a speech before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few. When you make a vow to God, don’t delay fulfilling it, because He does not delight in fools. Fulfill what you vow. Better that you do not vow than that you vow and not fulfill it. Do not let your mouth bring guilt on you, and do not say in the presence of the messenger that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry with your words and destroy the work of your hands.”

There are plenty of reasons why it’s important to not make promises to God beyond, but the main reason is that we can’t keep them. If you say, “I will not sin,” you will sin. If you say, “I will pursue you wholeheartedly for my entire life,” you will fail to do so in a moment of weakness. We’re not good enough to live up to our promises like that.

James 5:12 says, “But most of all, my brothers and sisters, never take an oath, by heaven or earth or anything else. Just say a simple yes or no, so that you will not sin and be condemned.”

But another reason is that God knows so much more than we do that it’s not worth trying to claim we will adhere to whatever our fickle minds decide on in this moment. Where our God is unchanging, we are constantly in a state of flux, moving from one desire to the next as fast as a hummingbird’s wings flap.

“God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few,” is pretty clear in meaning: you don’t know enough to make promises about what you will do. Let your words to God be, “Yes, I will do as you say.” You don’t need more than that. He knows your heart, anyway.

One final reason, if the first two don’t satisfy your curiosity, stems from the fact that God is omniscient, all knowing, and sometimes the consequences of your vows to satisfy your own desires don’t turn out for your benefit. A great example comes from Jephthah in Judges 11.

Jephthah, following pagan customs, proposed a bargain with God in order to win a battle against the Ammonites. Why, exactly, he chose to make this bargain when the Spirit of the Lord was with him is unclear to me, but the results of the vow were very clear. The bargain was that the first thing that came out of Jephthah’s house when he returned home from his battle with the Ammonites would be sacrificed to God. Unfortunately for him, the first thing that came running out of his front door was his only child, his only daughter.

Had he remembered who God was and what strength was given to him by the Lord’s divine power, he would not have lost his only daughter because he was too quick to speak to the Lord. (Granted, I’m not saying every time you make a promise to God, something like this will happen, but you should know that our God is a just God, and your words have power, meaning. Failing to go through with a promise is a lie to God, and His punishment must be just. I think I speak for us all when I say that I’m thankful He is also a forgiving God and Jesus is the sacrifice for our sins.)

There are a ton of verses on guarding your mouth, guarding your speech, guarding your tongue, but the one I like most is certainly in verse 6: “Do not let your mouth bring guilt on you.” Don’t let what you say make you guilty before God.

My dad is rather fond of this saying, and we can, and should, all take this to heart a little more: “Better to keep your mouth closed and let everyone think you’re a fool than to open it and prove that you are.” The tongue is a betrayer, it’s lashing at the bit to make you mess up—it cannot be tamed and made to say only what is good. Sometimes, the best thing for us to do is shut up.

Finally, verses 3 and 7 say, “For dreams result from much work and a fool’s voice from many words. For many dreams bring futility, also many words. So, fear God.”

This is fairly simple, yet complicated at the same time, but the essence of the message is that rewards come from effort, not from words. It’s very much like our common phrase “If you’re going to talk the talk, you need to walk the walk.” If you’re going to talk the talk of being obedient to Christ, you must then walk the walk He has set before you. The rewards come from actually doing what He says, not from saying you’re going to do it.

Verse 7 leans its meaning more towards the ideas expressed in verse 2 about God being in Heaven and us on Earth. Humans, especially compared to God, have an incredibly small attention span. It’s so small that I probably lost eighty percent of the people who clicked on this article by now. We are so easily distracted that when we try to decide what we’re going to do instead of listening to God’s plan, we change our minds 300 times in the span of our lives. Why? Because we don’t know what God knows.

We’re like a child who is presented with five of their favorite desserts but is told they can only choose one of them. That child is going to point at the first, then the second, then the third, and so on, over and over and over again without ever actually sticking to a choice. Then, that child will attempt to eat all of them instead of choosing.

We are too fickle to decide what we will do. That’s why, when we approach God, we should approach Him with obedience and our ears open to hear what He has to say to us, then we should endeavor to do as He asks with as much effort as we can give because that’s where the rewards come from.

Success and Companionship

The second part of Ecclesiastes chapter 4 in my personal Bible is titled “The Loneliness of Wealth,” and I don’t know about y’all, but that hits deep.

There’s a song by Brandon Heath titled “It’s No Good to be Alone,” and one of the lines from that song says, “You know it doesn’t matter how high you climb if no one’s there to share the ride when you get there.” (You can listen to this song down below.) To me, this sums up the pursuit of wealth as an ideal, and really, the pursuit of a lot of things on this Earth. Humans have a need for companionship, for socialization. God knew this at the beginning. It’s why he created Eve for Adam.

We were designed to have perfect companionship with God and other people, but sin entered the world and that perfection in companions was lost. Things like jealousy began to intervene as soon as Cain and Abel. It’s interesting to me that Solomon touches on that subject right off the bat when he starts talking about wealth in-depth.

Verse 4 says, “I saw that all labor and all skillful work is due to a man’s jealousy of his friend. This too is futile and a pursuit of the wind.”

Why do you want to be wealthy? I don’t think anyone says they want to be wealthy for a pure, selfless reason, though I admire anyone who can truthfully say that’s the case for them. Likely, the reason you want money is to satisfy your desire for what you’ve seen others have. You want that nice car, the big house, the boat for the lake, a new set of golf clubs, your own personal library, an in-ground swimming pool, a massive yard, the ability to fly to Hawaii for a week-long vacation, or even something as small or simple as your friend’s easy to use and fantastically clever coffee machine.

Regardless, the point is that you want something you don’t have. You’re jealous of someone else’s possessions, so you work to get what they have that you don’t. But obviously such a thing is futile because getting what they have won’t satisfy you. Speaking personally, I’ve bought things my friends had because I thought they were cool, and within two weeks I was bored of it completely. After a brief honeymoon period with that item, it just became a waste of money.

Verses 7-8 say, “Again, I saw futility under the sun: There is a person without a companion, without even a son or brother, and though there is no end to all his struggles, his eyes are still not content with his riches. ‘So who am I struggling for,’ he asks, ‘and depriving myself from good?’ This too is futile and a miserable task.”

You’ve probably heard the phrase, “It’s lonely at the top.” And that’s a pretty true standard in the world we live in. It’s cutthroat. To get to the top, you often have to cut others down and climb the mountain of metaphorical bodies to reach higher than those who lost to you. It’s a grim image, I know, but it’s a grim reality. When you strive solely for wealth and career, you have to give up everything else, including making relationships with other people.

As Solomon often does, he recommends a middle-of-the-line approach to this because extreme reactions in this area tend to not work well. Verses 5-6 say, “The fool folds his arms and consumes his own flesh. Better one handful with rest, than two handfuls with effort and pursuit of the wind.”

You should neither be lazy in the pursuit of wealth such that you rely totally on others to take care of you, and you should not pursue wealth so fervently that you do not take time apart from that ambition to spend in other areas.
Rest is important to us. Taking time away from our goals is important. All you achieve when you refuse to take breaks is stress and failure. To put it this way, a guy graduated my high school with a 5.2 GPA and got a full ride to Yale, but by graduation, he had given up hours and hours of sleep, likely a large portion of his social life, and created undue stress for himself to the point his hair was graying as a high school graduate. There’s no satisfaction in pushing yourself so hard that you hurt yourself.

A lot of this chapter actually leans towards a saying many of us have heard often: “It’s about the journey, not the destination.”

Verses 9-12 say, “Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their efforts. For if either falls, his companion can lift him up; but pity the one who falls without another to lift him up. Also, if two lie down together, they can keep warm; but how can one person alone keep warm? And if somebody overpowers one person, two can resist him. A cord of three strands is not easily broken.”

It’s about how you achieve your goals. How you overcome your struggles. How you lean on God and your companions. This is why you need others by your side in this life. We’re not capable of doing this life on our own. We’re just not. There will be times when we are unable to stand under our own power, but by sharing our burdens with our friends, we can lift the weight pressing down on us. But if you don’t have anyone there when you’re being crushed by a burden, you’ll be saddled with that weight for good.

The cord example Solomon provides is actually such a great illustration even today. Let’s expand on it:

Now, I’m not the most knowledgeable when it comes to ropes and cords, but I do know that, essentially, the more strands a rope has, the stronger it is. That’s because, to break a cord made of three intertwined strands of rope, you have to create a force greater than the strength of all 3 strands combined, rather than just the individual strength of one strand because the strands compensate for each other and share the burden of weight. So, if one rope can hold ten pounds, then a cord with three strands that rope can hold 30 pounds, basically.

This works because of the distribution of force and tensile strength. I won’t get into a detailed explanation, but I’ll try to express the essence of it. A rope fails at a point that gets stretched too far for it to hold onto itself any longer. This weak point, however, can be negated, in a cord with multiple strands of rope. The multiple strands of rope work to distribute the force better such that the tensile strength of each individual strand increases. That weak point on each strand gets stronger because when one strand takes up too much force, it can pass some of that force on to the second and third strand.

So, bringing that back around to the comparison: where you would snap under the load, intertwining yourself with a companion or two will help you hold strong under weight you wouldn’t be able to carry alone. Now that I’ve beaten that horse six feet under, let’s move on.

One of the more important functions of companionship is the ability to have a somewhat objective view on decision making. Your friends serve as people whom you can and should be accountable to and who can help you see things from perspectives that you wouldn’t consider. This idea is all over the New Testament and within the Christian community, so I don’t need to touch on it too much, but Solomon mentions it here in verse 13, “Better is a poor but wise youth than an old but foolish king who no longer pays attention to warnings.”

It’s better to be have good friends who can advise you than it is to be wealthy and think the advice of others is beneath you. To broaden it a bit, it’s better to avoid thinking wealthier or more influential people are superior to others because of their lot in life. A poor man can be just as wise as a rich man. A mildly successful friend is just as good as a wildly successful friend.

But even more so, Solomon stresses the idea that recognition does not come from wealth. Verses 14-16 say, “For he came from prison to be king, even though he was born poor in his kingdom. I saw all the living who move about under the sun follow a second youth who succeeds him. There is no limit to all the people who were before them, yet those who come later will not rejoice in him. This too is futile and a pursuit of the wind.”

Even the most heroic stories of prevailing against unfortunate circumstances won’t get you true companionship by its own merits. As soon as one successful person is gone, another will rise up in their place and the people will jump on that bandwagon. That’s why good, loyal companions are more valuable than wealth. People who will never abandon you are a rock on which you can find strength, even if they aren’t the rock on which your foundation should be built. Wealth can be lost in a moment, but a good companion will stick by you through rich and poor.

Listen to It's No Good To Be Alone on Spotify. Brandon Heath · Song · 2011.

Body of Christ

To me, one of the most frustrating things about certain groups of Christians is their insistence on the importance of denomination. I grew up a Baptist, and I still attend a Baptist church, but it’s not like I hold any kind of pride towards being a Baptist over being a child of God.

But that’s something that far too many Christians do. We act like our denomination is of singular importance, as if we owe allegiance to it. Some denominations do it worse than others, but almost all of us are doing it completely wrong. We’re buying into a division that God didn’t put in place. We’re separating the Body of Christ because we can’t fight our own sin nature and Satan’s meddling to split us up and weaken us. We have so much infighting over doctrine that doesn’t really matter that we’re not being as capable of bringing the Kingdom of God to Earth as we should be.

Doctrinally, at least seven of the major Christian denominations: Anglican/Episcopal, the Assembly of God, Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Roman Catholic all hold to almost the same fundamental beliefs. All express the same view of the Trinity as one God in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. All believe Jesus was fully God and fully man on Earth and that he died to redeem us and save us from our sins.** And while there are some discrepancies between things after that, the important stuff we all believe.

What does it take to be a Christian? Let’s analyze that before we go any farther. A Christian is a follower of Christ. A Christian is one who believes the following:

That God is the only true God who created the Heavens and the Earth and all life on Earth. He formed mankind out of clay and breathed life into us, making us in His image. In the Garden of Eden, mankind sinned against God and brought death into the world through disobedience. Yet, God graciously sent His own son who was fully man and God, born of a virgin, to live a perfect life on Earth, die and suffer God’s wrath for our sins, and resurrect three days later, fully alive. Upon His return to Heaven to be with the Father, He left us His Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, to reside in and with us. In His sacrifice on the cross, He provided eternal payment for the sins of anyone who chooses to accept the gracious gift of salvation such that they may have eternal life. It is not by any person’s own merits that they might be saved, but fully by faith in the God who provided the sacrifice.

That’s it. I know it’s kind of a long paragraph, but that one paragraph is literally all there is to it.

Let me point you to a verse real quick that Paul wrote concerning the church in Corinth: in 2 Corinthians 11:3, he says, “But I fear that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your minds may be corrupted from a complete and pure devotion to Christ.” Contextually, Paul is referring to false teachers here, but I want to just leave the hint that, perhaps, the denominations are the false teachers, the deception that is keeping us from the pure and complete devotion to Christ. And if you hold devotion to your denomination over Christ, you can be assured that you are resting your salvation in your denomination and not Jesus.

Now, listen, I’m not writing this to vilify any denominations of Christianity. There are some differences in them that are somewhat important to how you live your life, and if you want to be a Baptist because you prefer how they interpret verses regarding drinking and women as pastors and deacons in the church, go ahead. If you want to be Pentecostal because you believe speaking in tongues is perfectly normal, go ahead. But never make your loyalty to your denomination such that you make it an idol and despise Christians from other denominations because of it.

Because anything besides the tenets of salvation are extraneous beliefs. They serve to supplement the faith that we have in God such that we can do better work for Him. Believing it’s okay or not okay to drink doesn’t change your salvation. Believing it’s okay or not okay for women to be pastors doesn’t change your salvation. I like what Paul says about these kinds of things in 1 Corinthians 8:7-9.

“However, not everyone has this knowledge. In fact, some have been so used to idolatry up until now, that when they eat food offered to an idol, their conscience, being weak, is defiled. Food will not make us acceptable to God. We are not inferior if we don’t eat, and we are not better if we do eat. But be careful that this right of yours in no way becomes a stumbling block to the weak.”

And then let me give you a few verses before that in 1-3: “About food offered to idols: We know that ‘we all have knowledge.’ Knowledge inflates with pride, but love builds up. If anyone thinks he knows anything, he does not yet know it as he ought to know it. But if anyone loves God, he is known by Him.

Okay, now do me a favor and let me have a little bit of a creative expression teaching moment here. Let’s substitute the phrases that have to do with idolatry and food with denominations. Read it like so:

About denominations: we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge inflates with pride, but love builds up. If anyone thinks he knows anything, he does not yet know it as he ought to know it. But if anyone loves God, he is known by Him … However, not everyone has this knowledge. In fact, some have been so used to denominations up until now, that when they devote themselves to their denomination, their conscience, being weak, is defiled. Denominations will not make us acceptable to God. We are not inferior if we join one denomination over another. But be careful that this right of yours to join a denomination in no way becomes a stumbling block to the weak.

We all know about the unsaved that, when they are judged by Christ at the judgment seat, that they will be told, “I never knew you; depart from me.” So, keep that in mind as you go back and read 1 Cor. 8:3. “But if anyone loves God, he is known by Him.” Those known by Him are those who will reside with Him in Heaven.

It never says, “Well, because you’re Baptist and not Catholic, I don’t know you, go away!” or “Well, you’re a Presbyterian and not an Assembly of God believer, so I’m afraid you don’t get into Heaven.”

If you love God, you are known by God, regardless of anything else.

Satan loves to twist the Word of God. And even more than that, he loves tripping us up in doing so. He tried tripping up Jesus in this way, as seen in Matthew 11. What makes you think he’s not doing it to us? What makes you think he’s not trying his absolute hardest to split up the Body of Christ so that we are less successful in showing lost souls the only way to Heaven.

We are all one body: the Body of Christ. There is no Lutheran Body or Anglican Body. No Catholic Body or Orthodox Body. There’s just the Body of Christ. The churches Peter started are no better than the churches Paul started. The churches James led are no better than the ones Timothy led.

I’ll leave with this: 1 Corinthians 12:12-13 says, “For as the body is one and has many parts, and all the parts of that body, though many, are one body—so also is Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.”

** My source for the denominational beliefs: https://www.learnreligions.com/comparing-christian-denominations-beliefs-part-1-700537

God Works Differently

Have you heard the phrase, “God answers prayers in three ways: yes, no, and not yet?” It’s fairly accurate and a good way to comfort those who feel like they aren’t hearing from God at a time when they feel lost or are asking something of Him.

But sometimes God doesn’t answer our prayers the way we expect. Sometimes, His yes looks different than our own. Occasionally, He points our lives in directions we never even considered to go. Often, when we expect giant miracles, we overlook the small, but equally useful, ones God provides. And when that happens, we can respond one of two ways: we can accept His direction and receive the blessings that come, or we can rebel against it because it’s not what we thought he was going to do.

This is the situation that a man, Naaman, in 2 Kings found himself in when he went to the prophet Elisha to be cured of a skin disease. Naaman’s story is a classic example of how we often find ourselves dealing with God.

When Naaman heard of a way to have his skin disease healed, he immediately took off to find Elisha and receive that healing, but when he got there, Elisha told him something he didn’t expect.

2 Kings 5: 10-12 says, “Then Elisha sent him a messenger, who said, ‘Go wash seven times in the Jordan and your flesh will be restored and you will be clean.’ But Naaman got angry and left, saying, ‘I was telling myself: He will surely come out, stand and call on the name of Yahweh his God, and will wave his hand over the spot and cure the skin disease. Aren’t Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?’ So he turned and left in a rage.”

Naaman’s expectation was that of a showy miracle the likes of which Elijah had performed when he called down fire in the challenge against the prophets of Baal. As the Bible says, he was expecting Elisha to make a big show of things to heal him. He was expecting something different, out of the ordinary. But what he got instead was, essentially, “go take a bath.” It would have been considered a ritualistic bath, but it was a bath nonetheless. And, contextually, the river Jordan might not have been the cleanest river to go bathe in, anyway.

So, because Naaman didn’t get what he expected, he basically stormed off in a rage. For a lot of people, the story would end here. Many of us would likely have a prayer answered in a way we didn’t like and we’d ignore the answer, missing out on all the blessings that would have come from it. Thankfully for Naaman, he had some very good servants.

Verse 13 says, “But his servants approached and said to him, ‘My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more should you do it when he tells you, ‘Wash and be clean?’’”

They basically called him out on his idea of what a miracle should look like. The weird thing about all this is that if Elisha had asked him to do something ridiculous to be healed, like, for example, to catch and kill 37 chickens and cut off one toe from each foot, slather them in oil, pin them together and wear them as a headdress for three years, Naaman would likely have done it without hesitation. But because it was something so simple as “go take a bath,” he thought it wouldn’t do anything and wasn’t worth his time.

But his servants convinced him, and verse 14 says he went, dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, and was healed of his skin disease.

But it’s not just one person, or even just a few people, who do this. When Jesus, the son of God was born and walked the Earth, people refused to believe he was who he said he was, not because he didn’t perform miracles, but because they expected God to grant them a warrior king who would slaughter Israel’s enemies and bring about the restoration of the Israelite nation. But because they got the Jesus who wanted to save and not the Jesus who wanted to destroy, they refused to acknowledge his claim as the son of God.

I’ve said similar before, but as believers, we are far too willing to lean on God working miracles in the fashion of deus ex machina, wherein He does these massive miracles that are grandiose and spectacular in every way when, really, God works intricately for the good of those who live Him. We expect God to step in and fix all the bad things that go on in the world like he didn’t place millions of tiny miracles, His people, on Earth to do it for Him.

We are all too ready to ignore the small things because they don’t necessarily look like what we expect God to do for us. And we are all so reluctant to do small things because they don’t seem grandiose enough. But what if we didn’t? What if we stepped up when we were called? What if we stopped looking for what we want God to do and start looking for what He is actually doing?

If you change your mindset about how God works, you’ll find that you’re far more blessed than you think you are. You’ll see God doing so much that you never would have noticed. He’s always working; you just need to be looking in the right place.

As a final note, take a listen to the song attached below. Strive to change your mindset to think of life this way, to realize that you are one of God’s miracle workers who is here to do the good He has called you to do. Do something with that.

Listen to Do Something on Spotify. Matthew West · Song · 2012.

The Appropriate Time

Ecclesiastes chapter three expands upon the latter statements in chapter two, wherein Solomon indicates that it is a gift of God to enjoy the things of this Earth. But, chapter three also provides some context in an important caveat to remind us that, even though many things are appropriate for enjoyment, they are only appropriate in the right time.

When we study the Bible, we know that context is absolutely key to understanding what is written and ensuring we don’t misunderstand what was being written for us. Of course, this is true for any teaching, as many sentences on any single subject can be misconstrued if removed from their appropriate setting. But context is especially important with Ecclesiastes—I’d even argue that it is the book of context in that each chapter builds off itself to show us a narrative of Christian behavior and thought processes we should adhere to.

That being said, on to the verses! The first eight verses talk about “an occasion for everything, and a time for every activity under heaven.” Notice a change in word choice here. When talking about activities we partake of in this life in the first two chapters, Solomon continuously referred to them as being “under the sun.” Now, however, we’re talking about activities “under heaven.” This distinction is important.

I don’t think there’s any clear, definitive separation between “under the sun” and “under heaven,” but contextually, there is a separation of drastic importance. Culturally, there are many parallels between the style of Egyptian literature and the style of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, both of which were written by Solomon, who would have had a view and understanding of Egyptian culture due to marrying Pharaoh’s daughter. Egyptians worshiped Ra, the sun god, as their most important, most powerful deity; therefore, “under the sun” could have referred to the pagan religion of the Egyptians. This would lead “under heaven” to mean “under God.”

But, even within the book of Ecclesiastes itself, there is a contextual difference between the two. “Under the sun” invokes things that are sinful in nature, while “under heaven” invokes things that are of God. You’ll likely notice that each time “under the sun” is mentioned, it is in a negative tone to refer to sinful actions that do not satisfy us. The first verse of chapter three is set in direct context to that as a tone shift.

So, with the background set, chapter three is meant to contextualize and clarify some of the final statements in chapter two, mainly the idea that it’s okay to enjoy some of the things we have to experience in this life. It does this by first separating things that are inherently under the sun—evil—and under heaven—good.

The things that are inherently evil are not listed in chapter three, but it’s pretty simple to determine what those things are. Merely take those things that God commands us not to do and understand those are evil and there is no time or place for them. The good, however, are those things which God has gifted to us: friendships, marriage, sex, money, knowledge, entertainment, food, happiness, etc.

All these things, which are not inherently sinful, have their place. Sure, overindulgence or an idolization of these things can lead to sin, but they are not sin in and of themselves. That’s what Ecclesiastes means by things being appropriate in their time. If you were to have sex outside of marriage, that is sin. If you have sex in its time in marriage, it’s not sin. See where I’m going with this?

There are also double and triple layers to the information provided here. There are three important separations within the listed activities: one group is a list of actions where one must happen before the other; the second is one that requires understanding of one to truly understand the other; and the third are antonyms—direct opposites.

An example of one leading into another is verse two, “A time to give birth and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to uproot.” You can’t die before you are born, and you can’t pull up a plant that hasn’t been planted. In other words, some things are only able and appropriate to occur after something else has, so trying to do them out of order makes them inappropriate, i.e., marriage and sex.

The second group involves things like in verse 4, “A time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance.” We’re doubling down on context here: you can’t fully understand the extent of happiness until you have experienced sadness. For you to know the full measure of one, you must know the other.

And the third is as in verse 8, “A time to love and a time to hate; a time for war and a time for peace.” Yes, there are appropriate times and things to hate and war against. Love and hate are complete polar opposites, but they each have their place. Even God loves and hates things. He loves us but hates our sin. These are to let us know that there are times even for actions that we don’t necessarily like.

The appropriate context of actions is stressed so heavily in Ecclesiastes to, once again, remind us of the limitations of our life here. As Solomon says in verse 11, “He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also put eternity into their hearts, but man cannot discover the work God has done from beginning to end.”

I’ll point your attention mostly to “He has also put eternity into their hearts, but man cannot discover the work God has done.” As I’ve said time and time again, our problem with these actions comes about when we try to use them to fill what only God can fill. We try to take these contextualized things and fit them into eternity because we know we need something for eternity, but we cannot understand the vastness of what God has done. So, in its time, the things we do are appropriate. Just don’t take them out of their place and put them in the place of God because there is no adding to or taking from God.

Value of Wisdom

A lot of people, even a number of Christians, try to find satisfaction in life through the things they do or own: work, partying, sex, money, houses, cars, pets, a spouse, kids, etc. Last week, I wrote about Solomon’s experience trying all of these things to achieve that satisfaction and realizing exactly how unfulfilling they are.

The way Solomon makes it sound in Ecclesiastes is as if living life and achieving things here have no meaning, then, but that’s not the case either. At the end of my last article on Ecclesiastes, I left you with this:

See, as Christians, we can have happiness in the things we do here because we have the joy of Christ in knowing that, once we’re done here, there is everlasting joy to look forward to. We can enjoy the things of this world because we are already satisfied by Christ. We will never be satisfied by the things of this world, but we can have a little fun doing the things that are not sinful. There’s nothing wrong with pursuing some of these empty things if you’re already full.

Solomon tackled the why behind this in verses 13-17, but specifically, I want to point your attention to verse 14. “The wise man has eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness.”

See, we’re all, prior to Christ, walking around on the road of life. None of us know where we’re going or how to get there. It’s like we’re stumbling around, trying to feel the road with our feet, or grasping for a guardrail that lays alongside it. That’s the fool walking in darkness. The worst part: the fool even has the ability to see. The fool has eyes, but either does not know how to open them or willfully refuses to do so.

The wise, on the other hand, have had our eyes opened by God. We see clearly the road that lies ahead of us and know exactly where to put our feet. We have no need to feel the road with our feet or grab onto the guide rope or a guardrail to go in the right direction. God is above us shining brightly on the entire road so that we can always see to follow it.

But the rest of verse 14 says that the same thing happens to us all: “Yet I also knew that one fate comes to them both.” But at the end of it all, whether you can see the road you travel or not, every person will eventually come to the end of their life on this Earth and find an eternal existence. There is an end to the road of life.

Think of it this way: the road of life isn’t a very nice road. There are portions of the path that are overgrown with vines and trees and thorned plants. Some parts have giant holes with a thin beam of wood stretching across it. Some portions of the road are guarded by wild animals. But just as much as it has bad parts, the road has good parts, too.

At one section of the road, there’s a quaint restaurant giving away refreshing drinks and food. At another, the road changes from hard asphalt to a nice, soft grass so you can take your shoes off and walk barefooted. At one point, you even get to take a ride in an air conditioned limousine. And if you make it to the end? You walk off the edge and fall to your death. But afterwards, you are resurrected to live eternally with God.

But some people walk along this road and, because they cannot see, they stumble into the nasty traps laid out on it. Some may get past a few obstacles, but if their eyes remain closed, they will eventually succumb to one of the traps and die. Instead of finding eternal life in Heaven, they are condemned to an eternal existence of suffering in Hell.

But all of that isn’t the real point of this section of Ecclesiastes. The real point is made to those of us who had our eyes opened to see the road. Some of us who are blessed with wisdom take it far too seriously.

When we come to the restaurant handing out drinks and food, we walk by it without partaking because we’re suspicious it’s poisoned. When we reach the soft, grassy section, we keep our shoes on and step gingerly, afraid of potential spikes hiding in the soft grass that could pierce our feet. When we get to the limousine, we ignore the chauffeur telling us to get in out of fear that it would turn off the road into disaster.

When I say we take it too seriously, I mean it. There are some believers out there who don’t allow themselves to have fun with anything, and that’s just not it. Yes, our absolute, primary goal is to turn people to Christ, but what good is it to walk this life on Earth just to die without enjoying some of the pleasures that God has put here for us to experience?

Solomon realized that, as he says in verses 15-16. “So I said to myself, ‘What happens to the fool will also happen to me. Why then have I been overly wise?’ And I said to myself that this is also futile. For, just like the fool, there is no lasting remembrance of the wise man, since in the days to come both will be forgotten. How is it that the wise man dies just like the fool?”

See, there’s no special reward for ignoring the restaurant, the grass, and the limousine. You don’t get an extra commendation from God because you forsake the pleasures He provided for us on the path we walk. Not everything that exists on this Earth is a lie from the pit of Hell meant to distract you from Christ. You can build up some things on this Earth without it being sinful.

The important thing about each of these enjoyable parts of the road of life is the perspective of the one experiencing them. For the believer, we know that it is just a blessing on the road to our final destination: Heaven. We know that there’s no point in putting our stock in those enjoyable activities. We partake and continue on, preparing for our eternal life.

Wisdom, sight, is valuable not because it is the be all end all but because it can give you perspective for each situation. It allows you to determine that the pits and thorns are surpassable. It shows you that the restaurant, soft grass, and the limousine are not the end of the line.

Foolishness, blindness, however, blocks the perspective of those who come across the obstacles and pleasant experiences on the road. While a believer might eat a meal at the restaurant and move on, the nonbeliever will sit at the restaurant for days, stuffing himself with food believing that the death that comes from overeating is the fulfillment of the road.

Whereas she with sight might see the grass and feel the softness of it on her feet until she crosses to the next section of the road, she who is blind might frolic in the grass until she dies of starvation thinking that the ultimate joy of life is to experience the softness of it on her feet.

While the wise man might ride in the limousine to the stop, exit, and thank the driver for the ride, he who is foolish might ride in the air-conditioned limousine long after he was supposed to get out, reveling in the coolness of the air and the comfort of the leather seat until it careens off the edge and takes him to his death.

And that’s what Solomon is saying in verse 13, “And I realized that there is an advantage to wisdom over folly, like the advantage of light over darkness.”

See, on the road of life, we all get to experience some hardship and some happiness. The advantage believers have is that we know that neither the hardships nor the happiness are the end of the line, but that the end of the road is us being smothered in absolute, never-ending joy as we experience an eternity of worshiping Christ.

Wisdom and Commission

Wisdom, and the knowledge of faith, are somewhat undervalued in today’s Christianity. With that, I also believe that we undervalue living life separate from the world and how that impacts the people in our lives, and even those who are not part of our lives.

Many Christians today live far too much like the culture we find ourselves in. With the exception of some standouts, so many of us live as a part of the world five or six days a week and only turn to God on Sundays and Wednesdays. But people talk about that all the time. I’m just going to give you an example of what happens when you don’t.

If you’ve ever read 1 or 2 Kings, you’d know the current king of Israel had a huge impact on whether or not his people followed God or turned to idolatry. Solomon was no different. In 1 Kings 10, a foreign queen appeared in Solomon’s court after hearing about his fame and wisdom in connection with God. When she arrived, she tested him with numerous, difficult questions about his faith, and she found answers to all the questions she had. It was so different and amazing that the Bible says it took her breath away.

In our faith, we do not get to specialize. We cannot allow ourselves to only be consistent and good at one part of our walk with Christ. You have to be able to walk separate from the world just as well as you can speak about the gospel. You have to be able to defend against questions just as easily as you can recite John 3:16 from memory. Why? For situations such as the one Solomon found himself in. It’s an integral part of the Great Commission.

1 Kings 10:1 says, “The queen of Sheba heard about Solomon’s fame connected with the name of the Lord and came to test him with difficult questions.”

Here’s the first part of the equation to having a well-rounded walk with Christ. Solomon was doing something so different that a queen who lived roughly 3,000 KM away from him heard about his wisdom and kingdom and its connection to God and traveled the entire distance with a massive retinue just to speak with him. Even by camel, it would’ve taken her roughly 75 days just to travel that distance as the crow flies—it might have been longer depending on travel routes.

Verse 2 says, “So Solomon answered all her questions; nothing was too difficult for the king to explain to her.”

This is pretty impressive. The last part of verse 2 says that the queen asked Solomon about everything that was on her mind. Solomon could’ve been answering questions as complicated as space travel, how God exists outside of time and the connection of that to free will, quantum physics, or more. Okay, some of those could be a little exaggerated, but the point is that no matter what she asked about, Solomon had a satisfactory answer.

Now, you’re not expected to know everything about every subject; none of us come close to the wisdom of Solomon. But you are expected to know as much as possible about the Bible. We are supposed to read, understand, know, and use the knowledge and Wisdom God gives to us. Not just the NT or the OT. Not just the gospels or Paul’s letters. ALL of it.

2 Timothy 3:16-17 says, “All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”

It even says why: so you may be equipped for every good work. So you can be prepared for any situation God presents you with. If you follow step 1 and live your life separate from the world, at some point, you will have to defend your faith, so make sure you’re prepared to do so.

Step 3 is to provide for those whom you lead. Our faith is not one that can be lived and practiced in isolation. Where it exists in you, it must also flow out to others.

Verses 8-9 say, “How happy are your men. How happy are these servants of yours, who always stand in your presence hearing your wisdom. May the Lord your God be praised! He delighted in you and put you on the throne of Israel, because of the Lord’s eternal love for Israel. He has made you king to carry out justice and righteousness.” Verses and 4 and 5 also touch on Solomon’s care for the kingdom of Israel.

See, by virtue of Solomon’s faith and life lived for God extending beyond himself, it became evident that this wasn’t something that only Solomon could have. Solomon had the wisdom, but he was not the only one who had the love and providence of God. And because all the people of Israel had the love, joy, and providence of God, the queen of Sheba recognized this was something she could have as well.

Now whether the queen converted or not, the Bible is not fully clear. The verses seem to indicate that she could have, but we know for sure that she recognized God as a divine power because of Solomon’s life, wisdom, and actions towards the people of Israel.

The Great Commission says to go and make disciples, so go and make disciples. But how much more effective could you be in spreading the kingdom if, in addition to going to make disciples, you lived a life so clearly for God that you made people come to you just to see how you do it?

Israel is located near the town Gaza, while the queen of Sheba’s country is labeled “Saba.”)

Life is Empty

Ecclesiastes chapter 2 expands upon the pointlessness of earthly pleasures, going so far as to call everything achieved in this life emptiness. My personal Bible has subheadings for parts of the chapters, and three of them in this chapter are titled “The Emptiness of Pleasure,” “The Emptiness of Possessions,” and “The Emptiness of Work.”

It’s really interesting how Solomon hits on the three main things that we consider the largest vices in today’s times: pleasure: sex, partying, and the like; possessions: money, a house, nice cars, etc.; and work: a solid career, things built by your own two hands, and more. These three things are the trifecta of unfulfilling tragedy.

Let’s start examining the emptiness of these with pleasure. Verses 1-3 say, “I said to myself, ‘Go ahead, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy what is good.’ But it turned out to be futile. I said about laughter, ‘It is madness,’ and about pleasure, ‘What does this accomplish?” I explored with my mind how to let my body enjoy life with wine and how to grasp folly—my mind still guiding me with wisdom—until I could see what is good for people to do under heaven during the few days of their lives.”

Sounds dreary, doesn’t it? It might even sound untrue to many. Because, surely, laughter can’t be madness! It’s happiness in a sound. It’s contentment. It’s joy. And pleasure absolutely accomplishes something! It gives happiness, comfort, and contentment. But do these things really do that? I say no, and here’s why.

Look at laughing from an outside perspective: how long does it last? When you laugh, you may go on for as many as few minutes, but when you’re done laughing, the effect is gone. Your eyes uncrinkle, your lips settle back into a relaxed position, and the sound of merriment is snuffed out. As soon as the moment has passed, so too has laughter. So too, has any benefit. It’s fleeting.

And what about pleasure? Parties, alcohol, foolishness. It all feels great temporarily, but what happens when you leave the party? When you sober up? When you face the consequences of your foolishness? All of what you experienced in the midst of these actions is gone. You break free of the monotony for a few moments, and then it comes right back.

Next is possessions. Verses 3-10 described all that Solomon gained in his life. He had houses, vineyards, gardens, parks, every kind of fruit tree, a whole irrigation system to water his trees, tons of servants, more cattle and sheep than he knew what to do with, silver, gold, and all kinds of treasures, his own private musicians, more than 700 wives and 300 concubines. As he says in verse 10, “All that my eyes desired, I did not deny them. I did not refuse myself any pleasure, for I took pleasure in all my struggles. This was my reward for all my struggles.”

So, if there was any person to ever exist who could have found joy in things he owned, it was Solomon. Yet, he didn’t. Verse 11 says, “When I considered all that I had accomplished and what I had labored to achieve, I found everything to be futile and a pursuit of the wind. There was nothing to be gained under the sun.”

Even though he worked hard to get all those things, they weren’t worth it. I find that this part of Ecclesiastes fits really well with Mark 8:46, “For what does it benefit a man to gain the whole world yet lose his life?” Clearly, it benefited Solomon in no way. As we know from the book of 1 Kings, he had the kingdom he presided over taken away from him and given to David for the things he owned and did.

And finally, we get to the emptiness of work. In verses 18-19, 23, it says, “I hated all my work that I labored at under the sun because I must leave it to the man who comes after me. And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will take over all my work that I labored at skillfully under the sun. (23) For all his days are filled with grief, and his occupation is sorrowful; even at night, his mind does not rest. This too is futile.”

Man, talk about dreary, yet again, with Ecclesiastes. But really, take some time to think about this. Personally, I’ve had those moments where I’ve thought deeply about my life on this Earth, having to wake up early in the morning, drive to work, work all day, drive home, work at home, and then sleep, just to do it again the next day. If I think too hard about it, I nearly have an existential crisis worrying about how meaningless those actions are. Just thinking about the monotony of it could drive me insane, and I doubt I’m the only one who has considered this.

Don’t you spend some nights wherein you consider just giving up going to work because you’re not accomplishing anything, anyway? That’s what Solomon’s talking about here. Solomon was wise and skilled at many things, and he dreaded the idea of passing on the achievements of his work to someone who would not do it as well as him. He dreaded it to the point that he dreaded doing the work, and he realized that there’s no point to it all.

Here’s the conclusion: Everything about this Earth and life on it is empty. Your happiness is empty because it cannot hold you up. Your possessions are empty because they are worth nothing in the grand scheme of things. Your work is worth nothing because after you’re gone, someone else will come along and ruin it. Not to mention that there’s nothing satisfying about the monotony of 50 years of a career.

As I’ve mentioned before about Ecclesiastes, its whole job is to drill it deep into your heart and mind that the things on this Earth cannot and will not satisfy you or bring you joy because its goal is to point you to the only one who can: God.

Let me tell you that I did not write all this down and post it online to disenfranchise you about life to the point you decide to do nothing with yours, and neither did Solomon write Ecclesiastes for this reason. In fact, now that I’ve made the point that you can’t find joy and satisfaction in these things, I’m going to tell you to go out and do those things anyway. Because while you can’t find joy and satisfaction in them, you can find happiness.

This is about perspective. In the long term, yes, this life means very little. But in the here and now, God has given us time here to do these things. I think Solomon says it best in verses 24-26:

“There is nothing better for man than to eat, drink, and enjoy his work. I have seen that even this is from God’s hand, because who can eat and who can enjoy life apart from Him? For to the man who is pleasing in His sight, He gives wisdom, knowledge, and joy, but to the sinner He gives the task of gathering and accumulating in order to give to the one who is pleasing in God’s sight. This too is futile and a pursuit of the wind.”

See, as Christians, we can have happiness in the things we do here because we have the joy of Christ in knowing that, once we’re done here, there is everlasting joy to look forward to. We can enjoy the things of this world because we are already satisfied by Christ. We will never be satisfied by the things of this world, but we can have a little fun doing the things that are not sinful. There’s nothing wrong with pursuing some of these empty things if you’re already full.

Bring Your Best

Many times, God calls us Christians to give Him our best in all that we do for Him because He doesn’t want anything less.

A couple examples: the difference between a good sacrifice and a bad sacrifice for Cain and Abel wasn’t meat versus plants, but it was the spirit in which it was given. Abel gave the best of his flock, whereas Cain gave only some of his produce.

The woman who gave two copper coins for her offering was considered as giving the better offering because she gave all that she had. It didn’t have anything to do with her offering being less valuable and the offerings of the wealthy being more valuable monetarily. It had everything to do with the position she was in.

I think we often get it in our head that what we give to God has to be equal to what other give, that our lives and abilities for the kingdom must be compared with others. I’ve already touched on this in another article, but it bears mentioning again. The life of a Christian is not meant to be one of synonymous walks with Christ. It’s meant to be one of uniqueness. Your walk, and your best, is different than every other person’s.

So, with that said, what does it mean to give your best? I have two parts of scripture to discuss to get at that answer. The first is Malachi 1:8. “‘When you present a blind animal for sacrifice, is it not wrong? And when you present a lame or sick animal, is it not wrong? Bring it to your governor! Would he be pleased with you or show you favor?’ asks the Lord of Hosts.”

The important thing to learn here is that your best requires a sacrifice on your part. Giving something to God doesn’t hold any meaning if it’s something you didn’t want in the first place. See, sacrifices must be something of value, and what value is an animal that is blind, lame, or sick? These animals were not valuable. They could not serve as good breeding stock, nor could they take care of themselves. They only used up resources the farmers could use for other purposes, so giving them up wasn’t a sacrifice at all.

Similarly, we must give our best to God. The best of our time; the best of our energy; the best of our skills. If you only give time to God when you have it spare, what good is it as a sacrifice to God? It isn’t any good because you didn’t have to give up anything. It was useless to you, and thus it is a useless sacrifice to God. This is part of the reason why we’re encouraged to give the first part of our morning to God because, for many people, it’s far more of a sacrifice to wake up 10 minutes early than to stay up 10 minutes later.

Your skills and energy are the same way, too. God doesn’t want you to say, “I’ll serve you in this way, but I’ll keep my career to myself.” Your career is part of your best, and thus, it’s part of giving yourself up to God.

But why should you give your best? Because you made a promise that you would when you accepted the gift of salvation and gave your life to Christ. Malachi 1:14 tells this to the priests who were accepting bad sacrifices, but this isn’t just an Old Testament thing. When you pronounced Jesus as Lord of your life, you gave a vow that He could use you as He wished to accomplish God’s will.

It says, “The deceiver is cursed who has an acceptable male in his flock and makes a vow but sacrifices a defective animal to the Lord.” Even now, you are hurting yourself by giving a valueless part of your life as a sacrifice to God. You’re holding yourself back from potential blessings, and you’re breaking the promise you made to God.

Here’s the final note about bringing your best and your relationship with Christ. For this, I’m taking you to Revelation 3: 15-16, “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I am going to vomit you out of My mouth.” This actually says that you are better off being unsaved than being a “lukewarm Christian.” See, being a “lukewarm Christian” means that you’re deceiving yourself into believing you’re a follower of Christ and will be receiving the rewards that follow that when you’re actually not.

There is no such thing as a “lukewarm Christian.” You’re either with God or not with God. You’re either filled with God’s righteousness, with the Holy Spirit, or you’re stuck in your sin nature. You have the gift of salvation or you don’t. There’s no in-between. You can’t choose to accept salvation and then give up nothing.

So, you have to bring your best because doing anything less is indicative of a life lived as an unsaved individual. It sounds harsh, but there is always the reminder that bringing your best is not something you can succeed at all the time. God’s grace allows for us to fail at that. While there is no in-between saved and unsaved, there is an allowance for our imperfectness, thankfully. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be giving God your everything, though. That’s how you become a “lukewarm Christian.”

Building Godly Character

We have an extremely clear process we are to follow to grow in our faith and build Godly character. Peter was kind enough to write it down in the first chapter of his second letter in a step-by-step list of character traits you should have. This list provides us with the process to grow closer to God and the necessary characteristics we need to be encouraging in other believers.

Firstly, Peter affirms that we have been given everything we need. It’s the spiritual equivalent of the promise God made to satisfy our physical needs. He has done this by granting us His own righteousness and nature so that we can escape the grasp of sin.

2 Peter 1: 3-5 says, “His divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness through knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness. By these He had given us very great and precious promises, so that through them you may share in the divine nature, escaping the corruption that is in the world because of evil desires.”

Notice that verse three says God has provided us everything that is required for two things: life and godliness. Not only has He given us the key to escaping sin and pursuing Him and His character, He has also granted us all we will need to get through this life on Earth.

2 Peter 1: 5-7 says, “For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with goodness, goodness with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with godliness, godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.”

That’s the process. It all begins with faith in Jesus Christ’s death, resurrection, and the salvation of sinners who accept the free gift. But, we must build on our faith, first with goodness. Let the faith that you have in Christ manifest itself in your actions so that you do genuinely good things. The first step is to be good like God is good.

The second step is to supplement that goodness with knowledge. You must know why you are to be good. To know why you are to be good, you must know why God is good. And to know why God is good, you must understand God’s character. This knowledge, then, should spur you on to greater acts of good for the kingdom of God. Those greater acts of good will add to your faith in Christ as you see what good He does in you and through you.

The third step is self-control. This is both control of your own actions and words, and the control needed to hand over control to God to handle our lives. It’s a step that goes against our very nature, which is one wherein we desire to choose for ourselves what we do. So, let your self-control supplement your knowledge of God by choosing to hand over control to Him because you know you can’t do it on your own.

The fourth step is endurance. The race we run is one of endurance, not of speed. Especially when it comes to self-control, it’s not a one and done thing. You must consistently hand over control of your life to God. To do this requires the will and the strength to continually make decisions that are against the sin nature that is prevalent all around us.

The fifth step is godliness. Endurance is useless if you put your will towards the wrong beliefs, thoughts, and behaviors. You must endure consistently against trials that seek to turn you away from God. The only way you can do that is to be filled with godliness through the character and righteousness of Christ.

The sixth step is brotherly affection, and this is less of a build-up on the first five steps and more of a manifestation of the character that should be filling you at this point in the process, though it does still supplement godliness. Brotherly affection is the love you have for your family in Christ. It builds upon godliness as a manifestation of Christ’s character. To exemplify godliness, you must love your brothers and sisters in Christ, and to love your brothers and sisters in Christ as God loves us, you must have His character.

The seventh step is the culmination of all the steps. It is the most important of all. Out of faith, hope, and love, the greatest is love. The greatest commandment is to love. We are only capable of love because Christ first loved us. So, we must have the first six qualities to love fully as we should. And in addition, we are better able to love others through our faith, goodness, knowledge, self-control, endurance, godliness, and brotherly affection as we love like Christ. Love is the last step because God is love.

The most important thing, though, Peter emphasizes after listing these qualities in verse 8. “For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they will keep you from being useless or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Note that Peter doesn’t say that moving from step one to step two means you no longer have to work on step 1. In fact, once you have these qualities, you must ensure they are always increasing. To do otherwise would be to fall away from God.

In verse 9, Peter says, “The person who lacks these things is blind and shortsighted and has forgotten the cleansing from his past sins.”

The best way to explain this verse is to compare it to the parable of the sower. Those who lack these qualities are like the seed on rocky soil. It bursts up quickly but dies out just as quickly because it doesn’t have the right nutrients to grow.

Verse 10 says, “Therefore, brothers, make every effort to confirm your calling and election, because if you do these things you will never stumble.” I feel it’s prudent to mention here that no one will ever achieve the perfection of Godly character required to not stumble in your walk with Christ. Though, if you could avoid stumbling perfectly, this would be the process by which to reach that point in your relationship with God.

In verse 11, which says, “For in this way, entry into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be richly supplied to you,” Peter confirms that this is a checking process for salvation. We know that we can only be gifted salvation through the grace of God, so verse 11 isn’t saying that you’ll get into Heaven by loving others or following this guide. It’s saying that this is a way we Christians can check ourselves for our own salvation, to make sure our hearts are in the right place.

I’m sure a number of us have worried about whether our salvation is real, and this checklist can answer that question for you by presenting you with, and then answering, this question: Have you chosen to follow God and give up your life to Him by chasing after His character?

So, if you’re chasing after God because you want a relationship with the one who saved you, then you’re on the right track. This list just shows you where the track is.

Wisdom is Sorrow

This is part two of the study I’m writing for Ecclesiastes. It is the remainder of chapter 1—verses 13-18—so if you haven’t read that one yet, please check it out under the article titled “Earth is Pointless.”

I like to group people into three standard categories of understanding when it comes to Ecclesiastes chapter 1. There are the ignorant, the knowledgeable, and the wise. This grouping comes from Ecclesiastes 1:15, “What is crooked cannot be straightened; what is lacking cannot be counted,” and verse 18, “For with much wisdom is sorrow; as knowledge increases, grief increases.”

In the first part of my study of Ecclesiastes, I talked about how we’re all searching for a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment for our lives. But, while you and I and many other Christians can put a finger on exactly what it is we’re searching for, a number of people can’t. Verse 15 refers to this. Every fully cognizant human knows we’re missing something. There’s a hole in our lives that we just can’t understand or fill no matter how hard we try.

The first grouping is the ignorant. These people are blissful because they don’t know about the hole they’re trying to fill yet. Most of the people in this group are children because their brains simply aren’t developed enough to understand, and better yet for those who already have faith in Jesus because their ignorance is blessed on top of being blissful.

The second grouping is the knowledgeable. They are those who know there is a hole, there is something missing, and they know they can find things that will temporarily cover the bottom of that hole, but have yet to find a solution to the feeling of missing something. Generally speaking, these are the nonbelievers. They’re the ones doing the pointless, useless, futile things like hoarding money, having sex, or any other number of things while looking for a solution.

And finally, the third grouping is the wise. These are the people who have come to the realization that Earth’s “satisfaction” is pointless and have found the one and only thing that can fill the hole in their lives. Generally speaking, these are the believers who know that Jesus is the only one who can satisfy and fulfill us and provide us with joy. They have seen past the knowledge of the world and have applied wisdom, which can only be found through God.

Let’s make this a metaphor, shall we. Picture a painting inside a frame hanging on a wall that is just ever-so-slightly tilted off level. Not a huge amount, but just enough that, were you to look at it, you’d raise one eyebrow and say, “that looks a little off,” to yourself.

In this metaphor, the ignorant group looks at the painting and just sees the pretty colors held within the frame. They don’t notice or care that the frame is slightly crooked. The picture looks nice, and that’s all that concerns them.

The knowledgeable group sees the frame and immediately makes that quizzical face, saying, “That’s a bit off.” Then, they reach up, grab the frame, and tilt it back towards level. However, they tilt it just a little too far, and now it’s off-kilter the other way. They step back, notice it’s crooked again, and reach up to tilt it once more. And they continue to do so in an infinite loop because they never get it quite right.

The wise group sees the frame and has the same initial reaction as the knowledgeable group. But instead of reaching up and trying to fix the frame, they go find a level, set it on top of the frame, and tilt it until it’s perfectly level. Then, they admire the painting for a few moments and move on.

Ecclesiastes describes the second group perfectly in verses 13-14, “I applied my mind to seek and explore through wisdom all that is done under heaven. God has given people this miserable task to keep them occupied. I have seen all the things that are done under the sun and have found everything to be futile, a pursuit of the wind.” Attempting to level that frame by hand is a miserable task. You’ll only get more frustrated the longer you try and fail to fix it.

Solomon says it’s like pursuing the wind. Have you ever tried to chase the wind? First of all, it’s ridiculously fast, but that doesn’t even matter. Why? Because even if you could run faster than the wind, you can’t even capture it! It’ll slip right through your fingers every time you grab at it.

Now, this is all great, but why, then, is wisdom sorrow, as Ecclesiastes 1:18 says: “For with much wisdom is sorrow; as knowledge increases, grief increases.” That’s actually pretty simple, in essence, because the sorrow doesn’t refer to yourself. Sorrow is something that can be felt for others just as much as yourself.

Remember the wise group in the metaphor that admired their paintings for a few moments and moved on? Well, that group now has the distinct displeasure of walking by every person in the knowledgeable group and watching them fiddle and fidget with their frames. That’s where the sorrow is. It’s sorrow for those who know they have a problem but can’t fix it. It’s sorrow for the grief those people experience as they tilt that frame back and forth and back and forth and back and forth.

Strong’s Concordance has the word for grief in verse 18 as “makob” meaning “pain” or “suffering.” In other words, as the group with knowledge becomes more knowledgeable, tilting that frame back and forth, filling that hole, becomes more and more painful with each repetition. Each failure increases their suffering.

And this leads me to a point not detailed in chapter 1, but that I feel led to write down anyway. This is exactly why we are called to go out and make disciples of all nations, to show them to Christ. You, as someone with wisdom, are supposed to stop by each knowledgeable person you pass as they tilt their frame and introduce them to the level, to wisdom, to Christ. You should feel so much sorrow for them that you can’t help but stand by and show them how to end their suffering and find the satisfaction of fixing that frame and admiring that painting. Don’t let people suffer.

Log vs. Speck

One of the great things about studying the Bible is that we get a chance to see the same verses from different perspectives as we grow in our faith and our lives progress into different times and situations. Some verses that I’ve been seeing a little different lately are Matthew 7:3-5.

“Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye but don’t notice the log in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and look, there’s a log in your eye? 5 Hypocrite! First take the log out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”

Every time I’ve heard someone mention this verse, they use it to tell people to stop judging others. And that is 100% the way it was intended. The context says it’s so. But, I want to take this slightly out of context to talk about it not as judging, but as helping out a brother or sister in Christ.

Think about how weird it is to not notice a giant log in your eye, obscuring your vision, and yet, despite that log, you can somehow see a tiny speck of dirt in someone else’s eyes. How do you see that speck? Well, first of all, you have to be close to that person to see something so small in their eye. And second, you can’t be looking through the eye that has a log in it. You have to be looking from a different perspective.

Different perspectives are important because they allow us to see different things. Especially in humans, it allows us to cover blind spots in our vision. Did you know that you actually have blind spots in your eyes? They’re infinitesimally small at a close distance, but the farther away you look, the larger that spot gets. The cool thing about how God made us is that the right eye is just far enough away from the left eye to cover the left eye’s blind spot. And the perspective of the left eye is just different enough to cover the right eye’s blind spot.

Now Matthew 7:3 talks about our enormous spiritual blind spot: our own sins. Our perspective of ourselves prevents us from easily seeing the things we do wrong. Our behavior is so close to us that we find it difficult to point out those things we do that are unbiblical behavior.

Think about it. How many times has someone mentioned how easily you get angry or jealous or do any other sinful behavior? And how often do you say, “I don’t do that,” right afterward? Yet, if you took the time to really analyze your own behavior from the perspective of someone else, you’d find that you do actually do those things.

That’s because, for them, it’s easy to see. They’re not blinded by the fact it’s their own behavior. And now we get to my alternate view of this verse. While we are not supposed to judge others for their sinful behavior, what we are supposed to do is spot it and point it out to our brothers and sisters. There are a ton of verses about helping other believers be accountable to Christ, including: Matthew 18:15-18, James 5:19-20, 2 Thessalonians 3:14-15, and Hebrews 3:13.

In these ways, when we see other believers acting in persistent sin, we are called to let them know and help them correct their behavior. That’s one of the reasons we have fellowship with one another. That’s why many Christians urge you to have one, or more, accountability partner(s). Someone you trust who will be the one to point out the speck in your eye you can’t see.

Now, I want to talk briefly about verse 6: “Don’t give what is holy to dogs or toss your pearls before pigs, or they will trample them with their feet, turn, and tear you to pieces.” This verse is incredibly important to the context I’m looking at here because it’s a warning to be careful with how you handle accountability.

Accountability is incredibly important, but just as important as the act is the person you choose to help you stay accountable to Christ. Accountability is a good, God-given thing for believers to stay strong in the faith. It’s like an incredibly valuable string of pearls. But it only works if you give that string of pearls to someone who is capable of appraising it properly.

If you allow a nonbeliever or someone who isn’t yet strong enough in the faith to hold your faith accountable, it will turn into judgment and tear down your walk with Christ. It’s like, as verse 6 says, handing pearls to pigs. They won’t know what to do with it.

But if you find someone who is close enough to you to see the speck in your eye, the flaws in your walk with Christ, and strong enough in the faith to know how to handle correction with love and care, then you become like iron sharpening iron. Together, you will only grow stronger in your walk with Christ. There won’t be judgment involved, just believers working together to raise their value.

So, find someone who can see your speck and speaks in love and correction, and you will find a good thing. Your walk with Christ will be better than before because of it.

Good is Intentional

You can’t make things good by accident. It’s not possible. No good thing that occurs happened by mere association with goodness. Goodness is not contagious. It is a choice, and it is a process. On the flip-side of that coin, bad is contagious. It occurs by accident. It occurs when one is not careful. It is the natural order of this fallen world. Bad things can and do occur from mere association with badness.

I’ll start you off with a common example and then we’ll move onto the Bible verses that prompted this article. Let’s talk about bread. Bread starts out as a bunch of inedible pieces that are put through a process to become edible. You take your yeast, flour, sugar, and salt, mix them together, cook them, and then you’ve turned a bunch of parts into something good. The baker has to do this intentionally. He can’t just put the ingredients next to each other, walk away, and come back to a good loaf of bread.

Now let’s talk about the enemy of bread—no, not carbs—mold. It’s the killer of all nice bread products left to sit for too long. I guarantee you: let that bread sit around long enough and mold will start growing on it making it bad to ingest. Making it useless for its intended purpose. It’s the inevitable result of something good being left to rot. And mold starts small, too, just a few spots here and there that got the worst exposure to air and moisture. But it spreads like a disease, and soon enough, it has taken over all the good, delectable bread, turning it bad.

That’s how good and bad works. You have to work to be good, while badness is innate in us all. By mere tangential association, you can be changed from good to bad if you don’t work quickly to catch it and remove it.

So, on to the Bible verses. Haggai 2: 12-13 says:

“‘If a man is carrying consecrated meat in the fold of his garment, and with his fold touches bread, stew, wine, oil, or any other food, does it become holy?’

The priests answered, ‘No.’

Then Haggai asked, ‘If someone defiled by contact with a corpse touches any of these, does it become defiled?’

The priests answered, ‘It becomes defiled.’”

I don’t know all the technicalities about purifying objects to make them holy, but I can assure you of this: there was certainly a process that each thing must go through to be made holy. Just like the bread before, there is a process to take something that is not good and make it good. You can’t sit touch something bad with something good and make it good, too. Just like you can’t place a loaf of bread next to flour and expect a second loaf of bread.

But as with mold, no such process exists to make something bad. You only need to touch something bad to defile yourself and anything you touch afterwards. You don’t have to do a ritual or intend to defile something. It just happens.

That’s how doing good and bad things work. Bad things happen by the laws of a sinful world. It is innate, born into our character as sinful human beings. You don’t have to try hard to do something bad to someone. You don’t have to scheme. Sometimes, you just do things that are bad because it’s all around us.

Have you ever heard the saying, “Garbage in, garbage out?” It means that whatever you intake in your life, you will output into your own life and the lives of others. In our case, the garbage is all around us. It’s like the oxygen we breathe to live in that we don’t consciously choose to breathe or to touch evil. It’s just there.

But good is intentional. It’s a process. It is, literally, sanctification, which is the process of being made holy. You can’t do good by accident; you most certainly can’t do good when you’re only associating with the bad. You have to be cleansed, purged of the mold that is suffocating you all the time, and purposefully go through the process God has lined out in the Bible to strive for righteousness.

You have to choose good all day, every day, in order to do good. You have to choose to cut away the mold and be what you were intended to be: good. You have to step out and make the good things happen for others and point them to the process of sanctification, of belief in Christ, so that they, too, can become good. Merely associating with them is not enough. It will only infect you with the mold once more. You have to choose to be good.

Stay on Guard

Here’s a fact that a lot of Christians have likely lived through: You are attacked most often by the enemy when you are at a high or low point in your walk with Christ. And I would argue that you’re attacked more often at the mountain tops than the valleys. Here’s why and how to combat these attacks.

We’re going back to the tried and true teaching method: the metaphor. We’re soldiers fighting in a war against sin. However you feel about that, that’s how it is. We are constantly waging war and fighting battles against an enemy that attacks us in numerous ways. Sometimes he’s sneaky; sometimes he overwhelms us with brute force. But he never attacks us with what we’re prepared to handle and alert to guarding.

It’s a war, and you never directly attack a position with alert soldiers with more strength than you. And let me be fully clear here: with God on our side, we have far more strength than Satan could ever muster. So, Satan does not attack us head on when we’re prepared because he knows that assault will fail to breach our defenses.

So, I’ve pointed out two main ways the enemy attacks us: with brute force and with stealth. The first occurs when we’re at the lowest point of the valleys. You’re worn out and weary. You feel all alone. You feel separate from God. So Satan attempts to overrun you with numbers. That saying, “Don’t kick a man when he’s down?” The enemy loves kicking us when we’re down, and then he’s going to try and beat us like a dead horse. It’s those times in your life when horrible thing after horrible thing comes at you.

I don’t want to get too specific because I risk ruining the comparison for some, but it’s like you get sick, and then you maybe lose your job, and then someone close to you passes away, and it just feels like you’ll never get up. (There’s actually a song that pretty much nails the description of this feeling that I’ve linked below this article. It’s not a strictly Christian song, but it pretty effectively nails the principle.)

How do you beat this? Well, as the song describes: you just keep moving. That’s a tough thing to do. You’re not going to have the strength to do it on your own, which is precisely why you’re being attacked in that manner. Satan knows that if you try and fight alone, you’ll be overwhelmed. That’s why we’re given two basic directives when being overrun in a battle:

The first is to lean on the strength of God. I like Psalm 18:39 for this, though there are many verses that share the same sentiment. “You have clothed me with strength for battle; you subdue my adversaries beneath me.” (Matthew West’s “Strong Enough” is a wonderful song about this subject.) The second is to lean on your Christian brothers and sisters, and share each other’s burdens, as Paul wrote in Galatians 6:2a “Carry one another’s burdens.” (Tenth Avenue North’s “No Man is an Island” is a good expression of the need to lean on others.)

On the other end of the spectrum is when we’re at the highest mountains in our walk with Christ. This is when the enemy employs sneak attacks to catch us off guard. Taking it back to our war metaphor, this is just after you’ve won a great victory and you’re celebrating. You take your gear off and lay down your weapon. Then, boom! Out of nowhere, a sniper takes you out, or a knife gets you in the back.

It’s here when you’re more vulnerable than even the lowest valleys. At least in the valleys you’re mentally prepared, even if you’re exhausted. But when you are without the armor of God, and the enemy comes around, you are woefully unready to defend yourself. At the mountaintops, we experience this intense euphoria that comes from growing closer to God, from achieving a victory over sin, and in that euphoria, we relax our minds and take off our armor. We stop thinking; we stop being ready.

In the climb to the top of that mountain, we’re in peak condition as we strive for the Lord. Our focus and awareness is so strong that no one could catch us off guard, but when we reach that peak, we drop that focus thinking we’ve won. Well, guess what? This isn’t a battle you win.

In the overall, yes, Christ has already won this war we fight against sin, but while we’re on this Earth as imperfect human beings, we’re just surviving. We don’t win until we go to be with Christ.

So when you reach that mountaintop, don’t lose your mental alertness. Don’t take off the armor of God. As 1 Corinthians 16:13 says, “Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith, be courageous; be strong.” Don’t ever give up. When you’ve reached the top of the mountain you’re climbing right now, get right up and head up the next one. Until the day you go home to be with the Lord, keep fighting the good fight.

And here’s a last little bit of hope for you that also goes along with one of the songs I’ve added below: The devil, unlike our God, is not omniscient, omnipresent, or omnipotent. He doesn’t know everything, he’s not everywhere, and he’s not invincibly powerful. He’s noticeable and beatable. If you’re on your guard and finding your joy and satisfaction in Christ, there is absolutely nothing he can do to defeat you and the God who stands beside you.

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We and our partners use cookies to personalize your experience, to show you ads based on your interests, and for measurement and analytics purposes. By using our website and our services, you agree to our use of cookies as described in our Cookie Policy.

Understanding the Trinity

The Trinity is something that we disagree on more than we should. Some groups believe it’s a thing, and some don’t. This is another one of those big God things that we humans with our infinitesimally small brain power struggle to comprehend because it is, in and of itself, a paradox on the same level as “Can God make a rock so large he can’t lift it?”

But I think if we frame the Trinity in a way to make it not a paradox, it becomes easier to understand. So, I’m going to do it with a metaphor representing God as light. When my old youth pastor explained how Jesus could be God and man at the same time, he used paint, and that works, too, but I am irrationally delighted by the idea that I’m using God to represent God—since God is light, and I’m using light as the comparison in the metaphor (Okay, I’m probably the only one who cares about that, but anyway…).

To start, let’s get a light breakdown. First of all, light is the only reason we can see color. Without the radiation bouncing off of objects and into our eyes, we would be blind. Second, there are 7 main wavelengths of light that make up the visible spectrum. You may recognize them: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet—rainbow colors! Third, any wavelength of light can be seen separately from the others. And fourth, they can all be seen together.

Now, I’m no color scientist, so that’s as deep as I’m going to go on this, but just keep the last two statements in mind as we move on to the real metaphor. I’m simplifying the light spectrum down to something that we humans have developed and use pretty much every day: The RGB color model. This model is used to display images on pretty much all of your electronic devices. It’s made up of three basic wavelengths of light: Red, Green, and Blue. These three wavelengths of light work together to display pretty much any color you could ever want, up to 16,777,216 colors, which is awesome!

But the amount of colors it can display isn’t what I want to talk about. The great thing about color, and the great thing about light, is that while white light is light, the parts that make white light: red, green, and blue, are still light as well. The wavelength of light that makes the color red is still red when it’s with green and blue to make white. They don’t form together to create a super wavelength. It’s like doing a math equation where you add 100 + 100 + 100, but you get 100.

Let’s really get into this metaphor, then. Let’s say that God the Father is Red light, God the Son is Green light, and God the Holy Spirit is Blue light. If you take Red light away from Blue and Green light, that Red light is still light, right? As in, you wouldn’t see red light and say “well, that isn’t light because it’s not white,” right? Or, you don’t say, “Well, that’s less light because it’s blue light,” right? Of course not. A red spotlight is just as much light as a white spotlight. The same for Blue and Green. Separately from each other, they’re still light.

When you put them together, though, they don’t become more light, right? Nope! Red, Green, and Blue light together are just light. It’s not mega-light. It’s not super-light. It’s still just light.

And another thing about that, too, those colors of light still exist separately to the light you’re seeing when they’re together. That’s how seeing color works with natural light. When you see a red object, what’s really happening is that the object you’re seeing has absorbed all the other individual wavelengths of light and has reflected the red wavelength back to your eyes. If the red wavelength disappeared to make light happen, then no objects would be red. Things could literally only be white—lit up—or black—not lit up.

So, taking this back to God. God the Father exists separately from the Son and the Holy Spirit, but He is still God. Just like Red light is still Red light when not with Blue and Green. God the Son is still God when He is separate from the Father and the Spirit, and the Spirit is still God when He is separate from the other two persons of the Trinity. Yet, when you put them together, their definition doesn’t change. They’re still God just like light is still light when you put it together or take it apart.

God is still God whether He’s with the other persons of Himself or not. He’s not a fraction where 1/3 + 1/3 +1/3 = 1 God. He’s light, so He’s light when He’s only a certain wavelength of light, and He’s light when He’s all of light. He doesn’t become less light, and He can’t become more light. He’s just light.

Earth is Pointless

Ecclesiastes is my favorite book of the Bible because it has an absurd amount of experiential wisdom. It’s the troubleshooting guide for life, at its essence, because it cuts past all the clutter of living and gets straight to the point. It’s the book wherein Solomon says, “Look, I’ve tried to find satisfaction in literally every way you could possibly attempt. There is not a single thing on this planet that can satisfy you.”

Consider the things we believe will satisfy us: money, relationships, a career, aggrandizement, knowledge, pleasure, happiness, etc. Solomon tried all of that, and best of all, he wrote about how pointless it was so we wouldn’t waste our lives trying them, too.

Verse 2 says, “‘Absolute futility,’ says the Teacher. ‘Absolute futility. Everything is futile.’”

The ESV and KJV have “vanity” in place of futility here, but Strong’s Hebrew Concordance says that the word can be translated as emptiness, vanity, transitory, or unsatisfactory, and futility fits that definition just as clearly as vanity can. Futility means useless, pointless, and ineffective.

So, Solomon says that everything is pointless, and then he asks a question. Verse 3, “What does a man gain for all his efforts that he labors at under the sun?”

Take a moment to think about that, and don’t try to be optimistic about it. Solomon wasn’t being optimistic here. What do you really get for waking up early in the morning and working hard all day? You get some money, but what’s that worth? You’re just going to spend it. No, you don’t get money. You get to wake up and do it again the next day just to survive. It’s pointless. Even if your goal is to set up your children for their own life, it’s pointless. Why?

Verse 4, “A generation goes and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever.” Even if you set up your children for a little better life on Earth, they’re going to do the same thing you did: wake up every morning and work all day, then go to sleep and do it again the next day. And their children will do it, and their children’s children will do it.

This is the bleak reality of this world. What you’re doing is going to repeat ceaselessly because what is here is the same forever. It’s an unbreakable cycle because there is nothing to add and nothing to take away. You can apply that to almost everything you do: help someone? Sure, you’ll feel good about it, but there are always more people to help, and that good feeling goes away, soon. It’s depressing, it really is, but that’s the point!

Solomon breaks this down with a few metaphors in verses 5-7, “The sun rises and the sun sets; panting, it returns to its place where it rises. Gusting to the south, turning to the north, turning, turning, goes the wind, and the wind returns in its cycles. All the streams flow to the sea, yet the sea is never full. The streams are flowing to the place, and they flow there again.”

Verse 5 refers back to verse 3. You work hard, like the sun, to do your daily routine, then you return home to rise and do it again.

Verse 6 is another reference to the repetition and pointlessness of everything. If you know anything about weather patterns, you’ll know that wind has its cycles and seasons. There are occasional variations, just like our lives occasionally have some energy injected into them via unscripted, irregular events, but in the end, they always go straight back to where they came from. That’s the thing about spheres: no matter which way you go around it, you’ll always end up right back where you started.

The point that Solomon makes with verse 7 is simple, in essence, and it’s that nothing that you do in this life will fill you up. If you’re the ocean in this metaphor, then the things you pour out into—the money, the friends, the career—are pouring back into you. But, as with the oceans and rivers of Earth, you don’t become more full as those things you’ve emptied yourself into pour back into you because you empty into them at the same rate they give their return. It’s a net gain of zero.

It’s a wearisome prospect, as Solomon says in verse 8. “The eye is not satisfied by seeing or the ear filled with hearing.” Think about that for a second. Your eyes and ears were literally designed to see and hear, and yet they’re not satisfied by doing their job. Neither are you. But as 8a describes, “All things are wearisome; man is unable to speak.” This problem we have can’t even be put into words. I think the closest we get is when we get fed up with it all and say “I’m tired.”

Verses 9-11 are Solomon affirming what I mentioned at the beginning of this article. “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun. Can one say about anything, ‘Look, this is new,’ It has already existed in the ages before us. There is no remembrance of those who came before; and of those who will come after there will also be no remembrance by those who follow them.”

Take a moment to think about a circle: it’s one continuous line bent around to meet itself. It has no definable starting or ending point. In fact, it’s pointless. Now think of a sphere: what is a sphere except an innumerable amount of circles put together to create a 3-D object? That’s us and Earth. We’re in a cycle on this sphere where everything on it and in it has been tried before, but just as we finish going around in our lives, another generation will follow and do the same thing.

Every generation of the human race has tried and tries the same things available to us on Earth to achieve satisfaction, not knowing that it’s all been done before, and it has never worked and never will. The sins and behaviors that plague us today are the same ones that plagued the people in Biblical times because we’re all walking in circles looking for pointless things because we’re missing the point.

I said earlier that Ecclesiastes is the troubleshooting guide for us because it has all the attempted fixes in it. But the final step of the guide is a finger pointing to the rest of the Bible, to Christ, because He is the only one who can satisfy us. So skip to the back page of the guide, don’t try all the things of this Earth. You won’t find satisfaction here. Skip straight to Christ.

Our Free Will

Have you heard the song “Already There” by Casting Crowns? If not, there’s a link to it at the bottom of this article, so go give it a listen.

This song tackles the omniscience of God and how He sees His plans for us compared to how we do, but I think many of us Christians understand this well enough to use it as a skipping point to a much more complicated subject that’s hinted at in this song, too, and that’s God’s presence existing outside of time and how we are to rationalize that with the concept of our ability to decide what we do.

We know God existed before time, in the beginning of time, in the past, the present, the future, and He also exists currently outside of time. It’s hard to wrap our heads around a God who can play with time like we do Play-doh, stretching it out and squishing it together. I know I struggle with it a lot, but I had to at least come up with some way to think about it because I had to tackle the topic of free will to answer a query presented to me by someone struggling with the concept.

Take the lyrics for the chorus of “Already There”: “To You my future is a memory / Cause You're already there.” It’s a little weird to think about God knowing what we’ll do before we do it. I think to some it sounds like He knows what we’re going to do because he’s destined us to do it, and there are a few Bible verses taken out of context that can make it sound like we’re destined to believe or not believe in God, to be saved or not be saved.

Of the verses I’ve seen taken out of context in this manner, here are just a few: Jeremiah 1:5, Ephesians 1:5, and Colossians 3:12. But those verses don’t necessarily mean that God made all humans, picked, for example, 50% of them and said, “these people will be the ones I choose to be saved.” To believe in such an idea changes the very character and nature of God. But what those verses do mean is that God knows something we don’t.

The simplest way I used to rationalize God’s omniscience with my little-iscience, my limited, fallible brain power, was that whether God knows you’re going to say yes to His gift of salvation, He still chooses to offer it to you.

And that’s an important conclusion, but it only addresses a small part of the question: how does free will work? So, let’s apply this to a much larger scale—the scale of one lifetime. You see, the thing that was bothering the girl who got me to consider this in a deeper way was concerned with how to live her life and fulfill her desires when she knew that God wants us to fulfill His desires over our own.

And we could get into the whole discussion about how our desires work in relation to God’s desires for us, but that’s a topic for another day and another article. So, the way to really think about this is to take a look at how God’s omniscience works and then try to compare it to something a little easier to think about.

See, if we’re doing this relationship with God right, then part of what we have is the deepest friendship we could ever have with someone. It’s one where our friend knows us so well He can tell what we’re thinking. That friends knows us so well that He could see us presented with any situation and know exactly what we’d do every single time.

For example, you’re presented with a choice of three flavors of ice cream: chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. Your friend is with you as you’re given the chance to choose which one you want, and right before you reach out and take your preferred flavor, chocolate, your friend leans over and says “I bet you’re going to pick chocolate.” So, you reach out and grab the chocolate ice cream and eat to your heart’s content.

Does the fact that your friend told you that you would pick chocolate change that you would have picked chocolate anyway? Did it suddenly eliminate the other two options? Did it change how much you enjoyed the ice cream? Of course not. You picked chocolate because you like chocolate more than vanilla and strawberry, and you enjoyed it because you like it. It’s actually pretty simple, all things considered.

Someone else knowing that you’re going to choose a certain way doesn’t automatically make the other options disappear, and it doesn’t mean that you’re going to like the option you chose any less than if they didn’t know.

It’s the same thing with God. Just because He knows you’re going to choose career Y over career Z doesn’t mean you didn’t get to choose career Y. Just because He knows you’re going to choose to serve in a certain way doesn’t mean the option wasn’t there for you to serve in another way. Don’t let your fallible mind’s inhibitions keep you from doing what God wants you to do. You might end up pulling a Jonah and Nineveh situation, and that’s just not as pleasant as doing what you would find the most joy in anyway.

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