Might makes right or right makes right?
Maybe another way of asking this question would be: Who’s right (as in moral right or wrong) makes a right (as in a freedom recognized by our country)?

What caused me to think about this question were two things. First, the Truth Project. In it Dell Tackett has had us wrestling with ultimate questions of ethics, morality and their relationship to civil law. Secondly, an editorial I read about the new law in Texas that bans abortion after a heartbeat.

In a Washington Post editorial, David Von Drehle argues that the Texas law is a classic case of Might makes Right politics. He argues that the mighty Christian conservatives in Texas are leveling their big guns at the weak and disenfranchised women of Texas who are being bludgeoned into submission and having to carry their babies full term and deliver them alive rather than having the right to terminate those inconvenient little ones while still in the womb.

I’m sorry, unless I missed the memo, I think his argument is ludicrous at best and intentionally deceptive at worst.
Who is the one person in this picture that is in reality defenseless unless we as a society come to his/her defense? I’d say the unborn child.
Not that women who have made some poor choices in the men they run with don’t need extra support from us as a people. Not that the men who fathered these children don’t need to be spanked for not taking seriously the procreative realities of the birds and the bees.

Society, and specifically the church has failed miserably at training young people in sexual morality and ethics. We say “if it feels good do it” and then we wonder why we have such a sick society on our hands. We do need to step up and help these that we have lied to as a people.

However, we must be unswerving in our commitment to those who are truly without defense- the unborn. Let us be a people that unrelentingly stands up for the unborn child.
They have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Because of grace,
Tim

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“Prayer is either the steering wheel of your life or your spare tire.”
– Corrie Ten Boom

Corrie Ten Boom, the author of the Hiding Place, suffered much at the hands of Nazi thugs. Imprisoned in the brutal SS concentration camps she lost her sister Betsy, and the rest of her family. Her Christian faith dictated that she be willing to sacrifice her life for the Jewish people, so she and her family were part of the network that sought to give a “Hiding place” to God’s covenant people. When discovered, they were punished and sent to the brutal camps.

After the war, rather than sulking in obscurity licking her wounds and nursing resentments; Corrie turned instead to traveling the war ravaged nations with a message of God’s forgiveness and grace. Even some of her former captors came to faith and found the forgiveness that only Christ can offer. In Corrie’s case it is obvious that what some meant for evil against her, God turned too good to bring about much salvation.

Corrie’s simple homespun manner connected with people, and her simple message born out of deep personal suffering resonated as truth. God’ used her in a mighty way.

This reminds me, as Corrie once said: “There is no pit so deep that He is not deeper still.” No matter how deep the pit may feel that you have fallen into- God’s grace is there with you in it and has strength to take you through it- Look to Him- Our Rock and our Redeemer!

Because of grace,
Tim

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Where did I come from?
Why am I here?
Where am I going?

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
Genesis 1:1

Human beings are not beavers.
Beavers build dams. They are amazing engineers with an unbelievable work ethic. But they are of a completely different “kind” than we humans.
Beavers build the same dams today they did 4,000 years ago, men don’t.

Beavers don’t sit on the bank of the stream or the edge their hut chewing away on the bark of a willow limb asking themselves “where they came from, why they are here, and where they are going.” On the other hand, every human does. Humans instinctively wrestle with ultimate questions.

Another one of these questions is: “Where did evil come from?”
We look at the world with all its pain, sin, death and brokenness and we instinctively know it wasn’t intended to be this way. And so we wonder: “Why?”

The book of Genesis gives us the “why.” It is like the key that unlocks the mystery of our life. Without it we are like the existential philosopher who opined: “Man is adrift on a vast ocean in a raft, without a compass, without a map and without an oar.”
Without a map to show us where we need to get, a compass to orient our direction so we can find our way and an oar to propel us to get there; we truly are left hopeless. So God in His great love for us gave a sure and steadfast Word to give us this hope.

As we prepare to study the book of Romans, first we want to orient our minds to help prepare us in our quest for ultimate answers to ultimate questions.
Because of grace,
Tim

Listen to the related message below.

This week’s message included a video by Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis which you can view HERE

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