I recently wrote about the value of asking ourselves during challenging times the question “What is true about God right now?”

With all that’s going on in our nation these days, perhaps now would be a good time to reflect on that question in the context of current events.

Here are ten things that are true about God no matter what’s going on in the world around us.

#1: He’s Still in Control

Psalm 97:1: “The LORD reigneth; let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of isles be glad thereof.

No matter the outcome of an election, God is still on His throne and will never be voted out or removed from office!

#2: Jesus is Still the Same

Hebrews 13:8: “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.”

We don’t know how long it will be before Jesus returns, but whether He comes today or a hundred years from now—and no matter what happens in the meantime—Jesus is still the same and always will be.

#3: His Word is Still True

John 17:17b: “Thy Word is truth.”

We can still turn to Scripture for help, hope, and wisdom even in the midst of a culture that has lost its way. Our society may not be able to agree on the truth, politicians may stretch the truth, schools might not teach the truth, but we can still find the Truth in the Word of God!

#4: He Still Loves His Children

Romans 8:38-39: “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

If none of those things can separate us from the love of God, I don’t think elections or worldwide pandemic can do it either!

#5: Jesus Still Saves

Romans 10:9: “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”

That was true when Paul wrote it, and it’s true today. God is still at work in the world to bring lost sinners to Christ.

#6: Jesus Has Overcome the World

John 16:33: “These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”

Jesus foretold it two thousand years ago: in the world, we’ll have trouble. But His encouragement can still give hope today: He has overcome the world!

#7: He Still Has a Plan for You

Psalm 37:23: “The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD: and he delighteth in his way.”

In times of upheaval, it’s good to know that God still orders our steps. His plans for us aren’t thrown off track based on the changing circumstances around us.

#8: He’s Still Working All Things Together for Good

Romans 8:28: “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.”

All things? That’s what Paul said! That’s a big promise that I have a hard time getting my head around, but we can believe by faith that it’s true.

#9: He’s Still Working to Sanctify His People

Philippians 1:6: “Being confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ . . .”

Our problems aren’t just “out there” in the world—we still have the problem of our own sin nature right inside us. Thankfully, God is still at work sanctifying His people and conforming us to the image of Christ. That’s great news!

#10: He Will Never Leave Us

Hebrews 13:5b: “for He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.”

God is always with His people. What a promise! In good times and bad, in times of plenty and times of poverty, in times of peace and times of chaos, in times of sickness and times of health, in times of joy and times of sorrow, in times of peace and times of conflict, He is always there. Always.

There may be plenty of things to be concerned about in our world, but let’s not forget that we have hope beyond this world. Take a few moments to reflect on what is true about God today, and let Him encourage and strengthen your heart!

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Written by Rosaria Butterfield

If this were 1999—the year that I was converted and walked away from the woman and lesbian community I loved—instead of 2016, Jen Hatmaker’s words about the holiness of LGBT relationships would have flooded into my world like a balm of Gilead. How amazing it would have been to have someone as radiant, knowledgeable, humble, kind, and funny as Jen saying out loud what my heart was shouting: Yes, I can have Jesus and my girlfriend. Yes, I can flourish both in my tenured academic discipline (queer theory and English literature and culture) and in my church. My emotional vertigo could find normal once again.

Maybe I wouldn’t need to lose everything to have Jesus. Maybe the gospel wouldn’t ruin me while I waited, waited, waited for the Lord to build me back up after he convicted me of my sin, and I suffered the consequences. Maybe it would go differently for me than it did for Paul, Daniel, David, and Jeremiah. Maybe Jesus could save me without afflicting me. Maybe the Lord would give to me respectable crosses (Matt. 16:24). Manageable thorns (2 Cor. 12:7).

Today, I hear Jen’s words—words meant to encourage, not discourage, to build up, not tear down, to defend the marginalized, not broker unearned power—and a thin trickle of sweat creeps down my back. If I were still in the thick of the battle over the indwelling sin of lesbian desire, Jen’s words would have put a millstone around my neck.

Died to a Life I Loved

How I feel does not tell me who I am. Only God can tell me who I am, because he made me and takes care of me. He tells me that we are all born as male and female image bearers with souls that will last forever and gendered bodies that will either suffer eternally in hell or be glorified in the New Jerusalem. Genesis 1:27 tells me that there are ethical consequences and boundaries to being born male and female. When I say this previous sentence on college campuses—even ones that claim to be Christian—the student protesters come out in the dozens. I’m told that declaring the ethical responsibilities of being born male and female is now hate speech.

Calling God’s sexual ethic hate speech does Satan’s bidding. This is Orwellian nonsense or worse. I only know who I really am when the Bible becomes my lens for self-reflection, and when the blood of Christ so powerfully pumps my heart whole that I can deny myself, take up the cross, and follow him.

There is no good will between the cross and the unconverted person. The cross is ruthless. To take up your cross means that you are going to die. As A. W. Tozer has said, to carry a cross means you are walking away, and you are never coming back. The cross symbolizes what it means to die to self. We die so that we can be born again in and through Jesus, by repenting of our sin (even the unchosen ones) and putting our faith in Jesus, the author and finisher of our salvation. The supernatural power that comes with being born again means that where I once had a single desire—one that says if it feels good, it must be who I really am—I now have twin desires that war within me: “For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do” (Gal. 5:17). And this war doesn’t end until Glory.

Victory over sin means we have Christ’s company in the battle, not that we are lobotomized. My choice sins know my name and address. And the same is true for you.

The Cross Never Makes an Ally with Sin

A few years ago, I was speaking at a large church. An older woman waited until the end of the evening and approached me. She told me that she was 75 years old, that she had been married to a woman for 50 years, and that she and her partner had children and grandchildren. Then she said something chilling. In a hushed voice, she whispered, “I have heard the gospel, and I understand that I may lose everything. Why didn’t anyone tell me this before? Why did people I love not tell me that I would one day have to choose like this?” That’s a good question. Why did not one person tell this dear image bearer that she could not have illicit love and gospel peace at the same time? Why didn’t anyone—throughout all of these decades—tell this woman that sin and Christ cannot abide together, for the cross never makes itself an ally with the sin it must crush, because Christ took our sin upon himself and paid the ransom for its dreadful cost?

We have all failed miserably at loving fellow image bearers who identify as part of the LGBT community—fellow image bearers who are deceived by sin and deceived by a hateful world that applies the category mistake of sexual orientation identity like a noose. And we all continue to fail miserably. On the biblical side, we often have failed to offer loving relationships and open doors to our homes and hearts, openness so unhindered that we are as strong in loving relationship as we are in the words we wield. We also have failed to discern the true nature of the Christian doctrine of sin. For when we advocate for laws and policies that bless the relationships that God calls sin, we are acting as though we think ourselves more merciful than God is.

May God have mercy on us all.

This article was originally posted on The Gospel Coalition blog.

Written by Dr. Frank Turek

How do we fix a world filled with murder, rape, betrayal, adultery, fraud, theft, sexual exploitation, pornography, bullying, abortion, terrorism, cheating, lying, child abuse, racism, assault, drugs, robbery, and countless other evils?

There will be no solutions unless we are honest about their underlying causes.  Although we don’t want to admit it, the truth is that every one of those problems can be traced back to a problem with the human heart.

No one knows that better than an honest cop.  My friend Jim Wallace is a cold-case homicide detective in California.  He’s been featured four times on Dateline for solving crimes that are decades old.  He’s noticed that every crime he has ever solved can be traced back to one or more of these three motives:  financial greed, relational lust, or the pursuit of power (money, sex and power).  We want these things so much that we are willing to use immoral means to get them.

In other words, the sick condition of our world is preceded and caused by the sick condition of our hearts.  That’s why we won’t improve the external world until we first improve our internal worlds.

You might think that this doesn’t really apply to you.  After all, you may be congratulating yourself because youhaven’t committed any of the crimes listed at the top of this column.

“Well, not most of them anyway,” you say.  “Who hasn’t lied or stolen something?   But I’m better than most people!”

Maybe so.  But your act of self-justification proves the point—instead of admitting our faults, our natural inclination is to minimize them or cover them up while claiming moral superiority.

We don’t want to admit this because it hurts our pride, which is also a heart issue.  “Don’t tell me I’m wrong!  You’re offending me!  You’re hurting my feelings!”

It’s no wonder free speech is under attack in the culture and on campus.  To tip a hat to Jack Nicholson, we “can’t handle the truth” because the truth exposes the fact that we are not really as good as we claim we are.  We can’t bear the fact that we are broken, narcissistic creatures who find it much easier and more natural to be selfish rather than selfless.

This affects even people who deny real right and wrong.  For example, leading atheist Richard Dawkins has declared, “The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is at the bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good. Nothing but blind pitiless indifference. . . . DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is, and we dance to its music.”

But Dawkins doesn’t act like he actually believes that. He recently insisted that a woman has the right to choose an abortion and asserted that it would be “immoral” to give birth to a baby with Down syndrome.  According to Dawkins, the “right to choose” is a good thing and giving birth to Down syndrome children is a bad thing.

Well, which is it?  Is there really good and evil, or are we just moist robots dancing to the music of our DNA?  If there is no objective morality, then there is no “right” to anything, whether it is abortion or the right to life.

And if there is no objective morality, then why does everyone, including atheists, try to justify their own immoral behavior?  As C.S. Lewis observed, “If we do not believe in decent behavior, why should we be so anxious to make excuses for not having behaved decently? The truth is, we believe in decency so much—we feel the Rule or Law pressing on us so— that we cannot bear to face the fact that we are breaking it, and consequently we try to shift the responsibility.”

Ironically, when we try to shift the responsibility for our immoral actions, we often appeal to other moral principles to justify ourselves:

• I used my expense account for personal items because I work harder than what they pay me, and it’s unjust that my boss makes so much more than me.
• I ran off with my assistant because she really loves me, unlike my wife who doesn’t give me the attention I deserve.
• I don’t have time for my kids because I’m too busy working hard to provide for their future.
• I had an abortion because it’s immoral to give birth to a Down syndrome child.

Even our excuses show that we really, deep down, believe in objective morality.  We often deceive ourselves into believing that something immoral is really moral (like abortion), but, as Thomas Jefferson famously declared, certain universal moral truths are “self evident.”  All rational people know this. Unfortunately, our tendency for moral self-deception is also universal. We know what’s right, but we make excuses for doing wrong by trying to appeal to what is right!

Where does all this leave us?

There is hope. Regardless of what you believe about the Bible, what can’t be denied is that the Bible nails the truth about human nature and our deceptive human hearts.  The book of Genesis admits that “every intent of the thoughts of [mankind’s] heart was only evil continually.”  Jeremiah wrote, “The heart is deceitful and wicked, who can know it?” Jesus declared, that people “love darkness rather than light.” And Paul observed that we “suppress the truth in unrighteousness” in order to continue in our sins.

But the Bible doesn’t just accurately state the problem; it also reveals the only possible solution.  Because of our moral failings, God’s infinite love compelled Him to add humanity over his Deity and come to earth in the person of Jesus that first Christmas.  The incarnation was necessary because an infinitely just Being cannot allow sin to go unpunished.  Instead of punishing us, God found in Jesus an innocent human substitute to voluntarily take the punishment for us.

Our pride tells us that we can rescue ourselves, but we can’t. No matter how much we try to justify ourselves or pledge to do better in the future, we can’t escape the fact that we’re guilty for what we’ve already done.

So it’s important to ask this Christmas season, “Have you accepted the pardon Jesus came to offer you?  And have you asked Him into your life to help heal your self-centered heart?”  If not, why not?  He’s the only true solution to the world’s evils and the heart problem that afflicts each one of us.

This article was originally posted at AFA.net.

So, what is missing in the political campaign of 2012?  I would suggest truth and integrity are most notable by their absence.  It is little wonder that Americans are jaded and cynical about politicians. Regardless of what they promise before elected, once in office many officials appear to serve themselves rather than the public.  How is it that having formed a union “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” we find ourselves feeling so much “us vs. them” when it should be just “us?”  Why don’t we trust those we have elected?  The answer may not be that difficult to figure out. 

We were wooed by the siren sounds of the Left decades ago as they lectured us that ethics are determined by the “situation” rather than principle.  We bought their argument that there is no “Truth,” and that real freedom is about “doing your own thing.”  Even the Supreme Court has joined the hallucinations by ruling in the 1992 Planned Parenthood vs. Casey and again in the 2003 Lawrence vs. Texas that we each have the “right” to determine our own “reality!” 

Such thinking is not only ludicrous, it is consequential.  Witness our on-going inability to get the truth out of candidates.  And, worse yet is the brazen admiration shown to those who equivocate.  When Bill Clinton was going through troubles during his presidency, a friend noted that he “is an exceptionally good liar, and I mean that as a compliment!” 

It is inexcusable, on the part of the electorate, to tolerate a lack of character from our elected officials.  It is not just that we get scoundrels for leaders, it educates the populace that dishonesty rewards well, and integrity has little benefit!  If integrity brings only liabilities, why would we expect it from anyone?  It often costs so much!  

Is it not ironic, however, that those who claim truth to be subjective still demand it from others?  Why are those on the left, who have championed moral relativity, and have made a living off of lies complain when their opponents follow suit? 

The answer, of course, is obvious:  Morals and truth are not subjectively determined any more than reality itself is.  And, we all know It!  A person only claims that there is no truth because he intends to lie and thinks the rest of us can be bamboozled into accepting his lies!  But woe to you should you lie to him!  It’s justice for you; mercy for him! 

So, do we have any allies in determining the truth about political candidates?  Most of those in the Media have publically acknowledged their leftward leanings, and repeated discoveries of lying, “fabricated” stories and deception from so-called “reputable” news organizations reveals they have bought into the moral relativity of the Left.  They cannot be trusted.  

What are we to do? 

It may be time for Americans to come down off our collective high horse, kneel before our Creator and humbly acknowledge our rebellious and dangerous departure from His principles. 

That would be a good start!  And it may help us clear up the muddy waters of the political landscape.  

Do all politicians lie?  Not likely, but until we accept an objective standard of truth, how are we to know?