Why Americans Hate America

Why do so many Americans absolutely hate and despise America these days? I believe it’s because so many want America to be a utopia and/or believe that it’s supposed to be. In fact, some even believe it is a utopia…except for all the people who don’t believe the way they do : ). A utopia is a perfect society. In other words, it’s heaven on earth. Unfortunately, this is impossible and not even in the realm of reality. Let me illustrate.

When I was a freshman at Concordia College in 1982 and 1983, all incoming freshmen were required to take a Humanities class. It was Monday through Friday with an extra hour of “lab” attached to it on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Furthermore, it was year-long class spread out over three quarters. In one of those quarters, we studied utopias. In fact, we read ten books about utopias (or at least failed attempts at utopias) including Utopia by Thomas More, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy, Plato’s Republic, etc. Like I said, there were TEN BOOKS! Ouch!

One of the things we also did in that class was play a game called SIMSOC which stands for “Simulated Society.” We played this game for at least a week, although it might have been longer. Before we started the game, we were instructed to write out our goals. Most of my classmate’s goals were very altruistic for they wanted to prove that human beings could create a utopia if we really wanted to. I, of course, was not so naïve. In other words, I actually read those books (well, most of ‘em…thank you Cliffsnotes : ). Furthermore, while I might have been a relatively new follower of Jesus, I was “all in” and was reading His Word and believing it. Consequently, I was acutely aware that mankind was not naturally good.

Of course, I’m ornery and wanted to prove this truth to my fellow students and so the goals I wrote down were something like this: “1) “power; 2) wealth; 3) global domination.” After all, it was just a game. Sheesh! And fortune smiled on me for I was selected to be the leader of Judco. That’s right, I was the law! As the leader of Judco I made it my goal to entice the leaders of the various Subsistence agencies to share in the fruits of my diabolical plan (by the way, they weren’t all that hard to recruit).

Unfortunately, I couldn’t persuade one particular “goody two-shoe” which pretty much kept the rest of society functioning and out of the grip of my power. However, myself and the rest of my evil empire did get rich on Simbucks and I cashed them in on a lot of Snickers bars that week at the Simshack. As for the rest of the society, well, they didn’t eat as well as we did. Many of the teachers (who were also not so naïve) were amused, laughed, and even saluted me with “Heil Steinmeyer!” On the flip side, many of my fellow students were quite angry with me (seriously!). Again, it was a game. Sheesh! However, I had proved my point.

So, what did I prove? First of all, I proved that even virtual utopias are impossible because there’s always some self-serving knuckleheads like me to mess things up for everyone else. I also proved that communism and socialism actually do work, of course, not for regular citizens, but for those in power and for which these systems are designed – to entrench their control even more! This is why we Americans should resist the enticement towards communism and socialism at all costs. These forms of government only work in the minds of those who created them and the politicians who advocate for them…and it’s for their benefit, not yours!

So, what am I getting at as we prepare to celebrate our country’s freedom this Sunday on the Fourth of July? It’s this, that it is impossible for America to be perfect because it’s filled with imperfect people. There is only one perfect society and it’s the New Jerusalem, the Kingdom of God. Of course, on this side of eternity we glimpse but a reflection. However, one day, “…God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Revelation 21:3-4).

On the other hand, I do see God’s hand in the forming of our country (and I am so thankful!). Without a doubt our founders were imperfect. However, they came together on a belief that there was something greater than even peace: it was an idea that only God Himself should have absolute power and therefore, citizens should have the freedom to decide for themselves who among them should lead. Our system of government is like no other for it checks and balances (or at least it’s supposed to) the power and control of one another. In other words, it doesn’t assume that people are naturally good, but that they are not. Furthermore, the only people who want to get rid of such controls, want the power all for themselves.

This kind of freedom is worth fighting for and dying for. This kind of freedom has a cost! As Winston Churchill put it so well, “War is horrible, but slavery is worse.” So true. With that said, isn’t it fitting that, rather than to complain about all that’s wrong with our country, we come together and celebrate our freedom instead? After all, it was very expensive. And as we celebrate, isn’t it fitting to be grateful for all those those who died in the effort to both secure and preserve our freedom?

Happy Independence Day!

Mel

Why Can’t Everyone Go to Heaven?

He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children. But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”   Revelation 21:6-8

This is a talk I recently shared (if you’d like to listen, click here) and since doing so I’ve being feeling prompted by the Holy Spirit to share it in my blog so more people can have access to it (please feel free to pass this on). I know it’s not all that vogue to talk about hell these days (though everyone likes the idea of eternal bliss in heaven). However, God talked about it…Jesus talked about it…so we should as well. After all we are all going to die. Shouldn’t we therefore at least consider what happens afterward?

I remember a time when I was in high school and before I became a follower of Jesus, hearing my cousin say something like this, “…only born again Christians could even stand heaven…”  What!?!?  What was he talking about?  In fact, what’s a born again Christian?  I was so confused…and scared. Was my cousin right? I believe he was and here’s why…

Here’s the deal about heaven and hell and why they even exist… It’s about holiness. God is holy and we are not. God is holy because He’s perfect. His love is perfect. God can’t love you more because His love is already maxed out.  It’s perfect.  His justice is perfect. He knows all the details, sees all sides, and always arrives at the correct conclusion. God never changes. Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8) because He’s perfect.

Human beings on the other hand are always changing. We change our minds. Our love ebbs and flows for both God and others. We constantly misjudge. We are imperfect because we are…not God…but also because we have this horrible disease called sin which has perverted us and made us so imperfect and unholy so much so that we are hopelessly separated from perfection, God Himself. In fact, that’s what the word holy means, “to be set apart.”  In fact, God is so set apart from us that we can’t get to Him unless He makes a way.

Here’s the way Hebrews states it: “…without holiness, no one will see the Lord…” (Hebrews 12:14). Furthermore, in that same chapter, the Word of God (the Bible) says this: “…our God is a consuming fire…” (Hebrews 12:29). Our sun is twenty-seven million degrees at the core and ten million degrees at the surface. Now that’s hot! That’s consuming! You touch, you die! Here’s what I’m getting at: God created the sun! He is a consuming fire because of His holiness. This means I can’t even be in His presence, unless He makes a way. In other words, holiness and unholiness can’t be in the same room together or we would be consumed, unless He makes a way. Are you getting scared yet?

Jesus when referring to hell most often called it “Gehenna “ (or “Geenna”) which was a real place in the valley of Hinnom south of Jerusalem. Gehenna was the garbage dump where “…the worms [maggots] that eat them [dead bodies] and the fire is not quenched [a fire to burn what could be burned to keep disease from being spread] (Jesus, Mark 9:48, brackets mine). So why do we need garbage dumps? Duh! So we can live in the city without death and disease. Hell is the garbage dump for death and disease so God and His children (those who follow Jesus) can live in the same city.

I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.   Revelation 21:22-23

Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.   Revelation 21:27

So why can’t anything “impure” enter heaven?  Because “The LORD is there” (Ezekiel 48:35). In fact, that’s what makes heaven (and the new earth, see Revelation 21-22) so AWESOME! Because God is there! In other words, heaven is awesome not because of what is there, but WHO is there. Jesus is there!

By the way, that’s what makes hell so terrible. God isn’t there…nor is anything that finds its source in God like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control. In hell there won’t be satisfaction or pleasure (which in its unperverted and undiluted form comes from God). There will be nothing to numb the pain of the loss and the separation from God. There will be no friendship, or companionship, or sex (because that too comes from God…it was His idea).   It will be no party and there will be no respite.

In hell, people won’t ever get better, only worse and worse. You know how diseases like cancer, Alzheimer’s, dementia, AIDS transform a person until you don’t even recognize them? Well, sin is exponentially worse! It leads to death because it’s a killer. By the way, like cancer I can deny I have it, but it will still kill me without impunity. And sin is even worse because we’re not talking about life on this earth, but eternity.

But why would a loving God even create such a place? Because when God makes something really special (like angels and especially mankind, read Psalm 8), He makes us to last forever. 

My friend, He made you to last forever because He wanted you to spend eternity with Him. He also gave you the precious gift of freedom (because without freedom, there is no love), and He wants you to love Him of your own free will.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. John 3:16-19

If you use your freedom to choose hell instead of him…if you use your freedom to choose sin over God…if you use your freedom to choose yourself or another human being and elevate you or them to the place God belongs…then God will allow hell to be the final dignity of your human freedom.

There’s only one way to get into heaven and that’s by being holy.   So how do we become holy?   There’s only one way and it’s GREAT NEWS:

…we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Hebrews 10:10

 It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.    1 Corinthians 1:30

So who is made holy?  Scripture is clear and final: “If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9).

My friend, you must believe and confess Jesus as “YOUR” Lord. If you do, He will make his home in your heart right now and you will be born anew (i.e., “born again”) by the Spirit of God.  And with this new birth by the Spirit, the only cure for sin, Jesus, will begin to flow through your veins, healing you, transforming you, and making you holy and acceptable before God.

Think of it like getting your flu shot but it lasts for eternity. : )

Mel

P.S. By the way, there’s one thing better than heaven and that’s bringing someone with you…why not pass this on to someone you care about or inviting them to your church?

I Stand Near the Door

I know…it’s been a long time.  To be honest, I haven’t felt the urgency to write anything.  However, something is really stirring in my heart right now and I feel the need to share it publicly…maybe to help you like it’s helping me.

I don’t fit.  I don’t fit in one of these new cookie-cutter churches…which look a lot alike but are also very effective at reaching the millennial generation.  For that reason, I applaud you, am thankful for you, and pray for you.  However, I also don’t feel totally comfortable squeezing myself in to that setting.  On the other hand, I don’t fit inside of a traditional church either.  I hate religion.  I know…“it’s not religion, it’s tradition.”  But it sure looks and feels a lot like religion to me.  And religion sucks the life out of a person.

I don’t fit in the typical pentecostal church either (some of those people scare me, amen?)…but, then again, I don’t entirely fit out of it either.  I believe the Holy Spirit offers power for living and boldness to witness to all those who will receive Him…like you receive Jesus…humbly, as servant to Lord.  I also believe that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are as much for today as they ever were…though they don’t have to be weird.  I guess I’m somewhere in the middle.  For my whole life I’ve been dancing to the beat of a different drummer.  I think I finally have figured out “why.”

A friend of mine was praying for me last week and as he prayed aloud for me, he said something that brought such clarity and understanding.  He said that I live ‘in the tension that comes from standing near the door; I live at the nexus between wanting to be in the presence of God myself but also so badly wanting to bring someone with me.’  I never thought of that being a place of tension, but my friend nailed it.  In fact, I would even go so far as to say I believe God was speaking something through him that I needed to hear (and I know my friend would agree with that).  I believe God was telling me that He likes me how I am and that He was giving me permission to be comfortable in my own skin.  In fact, that I could be of use to Him the way I am.

Check out this poem by Sam Shoemaker.  I believe he’s the one who started the whole A.A. thing.  Now I think I understand “why.”  It’s called “So I Stay Near the Door”:

I stay near the door.
I neither go too far in, nor stay too far out,
The door is the most important door in the world—
It is the door through which men walk when they find God.
There’s no use my going way inside, and staying there,
When so many are still outside, and they, as much as I,
Crave to know where the door is.

And all that so many ever find
Is only the wall where a door ought to be.
They creep along the wall like blind men.
With outstretched, groping hands,
Feeling for a door, knowing there must be a door,
Yet they never find it . . .
So I stay near the door.

The most tremendous thing in the world
Is for men to find that door—the door to God.
The most important thing any man can do
Is to take hold of one of those blind, groping hands,
And put it on the latch—the latch that only clicks
And opens to the man’s own touch.

Men die outside that door, as starving beggars die
On cold nights in cruel cities in the dead of winter—
Die for want of what is within their grasp.
They live, on the other side of it—live because they have found it.
Nothing else matters compared to helping them find it,
And open it, and walk in, and find Him . . .
So I stay near the door.

Go in, great saints, go all the way in—
Go way down into the cavernous cellars,
And way up into the spacious attics—
In a vast, roomy house, this house where God is.
Go into the deepest of hidden casements,
Of withdrawal, of silence, of sainthood.

Some must inhabit those inner rooms,
And know the depths and heights of God,
And call outside to the rest of us how wonderful it is.
Sometimes I take a deeper look in,
Sometimes venture a little farther;
But my place seems closer to the opening . . .
So I stay near the door.

The people too far in do not see how near these are
To leaving—preoccupied with the wonder of it all.
Somebody must watch for those who have entered the door,
But would like to run away. So for them, too,
I stay near the door.

I admire the people who go way in.
But I wish they would not forget how it was
Before they got in. Then they would be able to help
The people who have not even found the door,
Or the people who want to run away again from God.
You can go in too deeply, and stay in too long,
And forget the people outside the door.

As for me, I shall take my old accustomed place,
Near enough to God to hear Him, and know He is there,
But not so far from men as not to hear them,
And remember they are there too.
Where? Outside the door—
Thousands of them, millions of them.

But—more important for me—
One of them, two of them, ten of them,
Whose hands I am intended to put on the latch,
So I shall stay by the door and wait
For those who seek it.
‘I had rather be a door-keeper . . .’
So I stay near the door.

I read this poem to the people of Gateway Church this past Sunday and as I got to “One of them, two of them, ten of them,” I got severely choked up (okay, okay…I started to cry).  As I revisited that moment this morning as I drove into work I was praying and I questioned God, “Lord, I didn’t think I cared ‘that’ much?”  I was just trying to be honest, after all, He knows my heart anyway.  Then I believe I heard His response, “I care ‘that’ much and you are simply a conduit of my love.”

That’s what being a Christian is all about…not trying to do my best for Jesus, but Jesus just being Jesus through me.  I am so humbled.

By the way, I think this might also explain why I like the name “Gateway” so much, after all, isn’t is just a doorway?  If it appeals to you, I’m always on the lookout for people who would like to stand near the door with me.

Keeping it simple to find and follow Jesus.

Mel