What would you consider “Plan A” in God’s plan to build his kingdom and call hearts to faith? That’s an easy one. All of us would look to the great commission, and we would say something like, “Preach the Word,” or “Preach the Gospel.”

What would you consider “Plan B”? Again, that’s an easy one. We would say something like “there is no ‘Plan B’” or “‘Plan B’ is to go back to ‘Plan A.’” Only God’s word can create and sustain faith. Only God’s word can give people life.

But we have all thought of some “Plan B’s” at some time or other, and there are hundreds of them out there to try. If “Plan A” doesn’t seem to be working, it’s awfully tempting to develop a “plan B.” Maybe we could develop more interesting activities and outings to lure them back in. Maybe we could provide them with more opportunities for meaningful service. Maybe we could give them modern music to sing or a gymnasium to play in.

There is certainly nothing wrong with interesting activities, and meaningful service, and modern music, and church gymnasiums. All of these can be a legitimate part of a church’s ministry. But if Jesus was telling the truth when he said, “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead” (Luke 16:31), then we certainly can’t rely on activities, music, or buildings– all far less impressive than a resurrection– to create or sustain their faith. These things have value only if they incorporate “Plan A” and don’t stand alone as a “Plan B.”

Isn’t that what Jesus is saying when he says, “The Spirit gives life, the flesh counts for nothing”? Appeals to the flesh may be attractive, but they don’t give life. Perhaps a clearer way of translating “counts for nothing” would be something like, “it contributes nothing whatsoever,” or “it is of no benefit or help at all.” This is not the sinful flesh, the power of original sin within us. Jesus would hardly have had to say that that has nothing at all to contribute to spiritual life. This is the flesh that makes up our visible, tangible body–the senses and sensations we experience because we are physical beings. However, appeals to the flesh become appeals to the sinful flesh, and they do not create or sustain faith. “Plan B” jeopardizes souls and exposes our lack of trust in God.

“Plan A” isn’t just a command or a method. It’s a promise. The Spirit gives life. The words Jesus has spoken to us are Spirit, and they are life. This is where God has met each one of us and given us life. The Spirit came to us in word connected with water and washed our sins away. The Spirit comes to us in words that promise us forgiveness and mercy and peace and security and new life and eternal life and he sustains the faith he has given us. The older I get, the more I hear or read the bare words of Scripture that tell the same old stories I learned in Sunday school of God delivering his people or Jesus showing mercy, I don’t find them becoming dull or stale. I find them ever more moving and compelling. I find Spirit and life. Why should we assume it will be any different for others who hear those words?

Not everyone will believe. Even Jesus’ audiences turned away from him. Charles Spurgeon once commented on this fact, “I do not hear him (Jesus) say, ‘Run after these people, Peter, and tell them we will have a different style of service tomorrow, something short and attractive with little preaching. We will have a pleasant evening for the people. Tell them they will be sure to enjoy it. Be quick, Peter, we must get the people somehow.’ Jesus pitied sinners, sighed and wept over them, but never sought to amuse them.”

On the other hand, all those who do believe will believe for the same reason. The Spirit gave them life, the Spirit and life that came to them in Jesus’ words. May sharing that word always be our plan.

 

 

 

 

 

Galatians 6:15-16 “Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything. What counts is a new creation. Peace and mercy to all who follow this rule, even to the Israel of God.”

Just what is the Christian life all about? It’s not about my body. That was the mistake of the people Paul was writing against here. It was not about whether you had had a procedure to remove a little skin. Paul had been circumcised, just like his opponents. Most of the members of the congregations in Galatia had not been. Neither way made a bit of difference to God. Neither way made a bit of difference for their salvation. It didn’t mean anything.

It’s not about my body. That’s the world’s way of thinking. It’s not about denying my body in fasting, or beating it to try to make amends for my sins. It’s not about caring for my body with just the right balance of diet and exercise to make it as healthy as could possibly be. You can follow the book “The Jesus Diet,” but that’s not the part of his life Jesus has called you to follow, and even the Jesus diet ends with a dead body, just like every other diet ever invented. It’s not about how you cover the body, so long as you are wearing enough cloth to keep someone else from falling into sin. But it is not about your taste in fashion, or lack thereof, because you can be saved in cut-off shorts and sandals as well as a thousand-dollar business suit with gold cuff links and a silk tie. Clothes may make the man, but they don’t make a Christian. It doesn’t mean anything.

It’s about the faith God gave me. “What counts is a new creation,” the one on the inside. The “new” about the Christian is his faith. The good news about Christ communicates such grace, such love, such promise, such hope, that it changes us and makes us entirely new and different sort of people. It changes us from God’s skeptics and doubters, his critics and deniers, his opponents and accusers, into people who trust his every word, who accept his every decision, who appreciate even the strange twists and painful disappointments he allows into our lives. A new creation doesn’t torture itself with great questions like “Why does God let bad things happen to good people?” “Why does God allow evil and suffering?” “Why does God save some and not others?” A new creation marvels at just one question: “Why did God have mercy on a sinner like me, and sacrifice the only Son he had to make me his own?”  Only one thing can change us like that and create a new me: the preaching of Christ’s cross that gives us faith.

Living as Christians is about our gifts as God’s new creations. Paul concludes, “Peace and mercy to all who follow this rule, even to the Israel of God.” A new creation, a new me who trusts God, has peace. It is the normal condition of the person who knows that the Lord does not have anything against us. He cherishes us like a son or daughter, and not because we have stopped sinning, but because he keeps on forgiving. If that is the case, then what could possibly be wrong or go wrong?

A new creation is confident of God’s mercy. Sparing us from sin and relieving us in our misery isn’t just a duty our Lord performs so that he can check it off his task list. It’s not an incidental part of the “Higher Power” job description. He forgives us and he delivers us because he genuinely cares. It’s not our worthiness, but our misery and helplessness, that receives such mercy. We are confident because the mercy isn’t produced by us. It lives in him.

“Creations,” whether new or old, don’t produce themselves. They are made. Thank God for his grace that went to work and produced the new creation in you and me.

 

 

 

 

Galatians 6:14 “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”

What makes a restaurant like McDonalds, McDonalds? It’s not the ambiance of their dining room, or the quality of their straws or napkins. It’s the taste of their food: the Big Mac, the fries, the chicken nuggets. And you see that in their advertising. That’s what their commercials boast about. What makes a luxury car like a Lexus, a Lexus? It’s not the emergency jack in the trunk, or the owner’s manual in the glove compartment. It’s the features of the vehicle itself: the power of the engine, the comfort of the passenger cabin, the styling of the vehicle’s body. That, again, is what their commercials boast about.

What makes the Christian faith the Christian faith? It’s not a superior set of rules to follow or more stimulating and entertaining worship to attend. It is the central message of our faith, the chief thing that distinguishes it from all others: the saving death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is the message of the cross. There may be many other things that are true about Christianity and Christians. But there is really only one thing to boast about: the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

That was Paul’s message to the Galatians who were being led to think that Christianity was about something else. Paul’s own faith had been on a different track at one point in his life. As a Pharisee who opposed Jesus and persecuted his people, he was building a religious career for himself that promised him prestige, power, and plenty of money. Now he had discovered the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that other world had been crucified to him.

There are many forms that the world can take in our own lives, and many of them are hard to recognize. We, too, can pervert religion from being God’s means to save us, and a sincere matter of faith, and turn it instead into a way to give me what I want here and now. We can turn church into an entertainment venue, a place we go to get our grins. That’s worldly, not spiritual. It is a wonderful thing for friends to invite friends to church to introduce them to Jesus. It is a worldly thing to choose a house of worship for the chance to be popular with certain people, because it makes me look good, because it means I will be accepted by my peers, or because it puts me in contact with potential customers for my business. There is no “love God” or “love your neighbor” in that, certainly not a single-minded focus on the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. All of this is also a kind of worldliness, a sinful focus on tickling my fancies and getting my heaven on earth, in addition to the more traditional descriptions of worldliness like materialistic greed, sexual indulgences, and the pursuit of personal power.

Now, Paul says, due to the cross of Christ, that world has been crucified to me. It hasn’t just been assigned a lower place in my life, a demotion in which it gives up part of the time and attention it used to demand. The world and I did not merely come to a mutual recognition that this relationship wasn’t working out very well, and so we politely broke up and went in different directions. The world has been crucified to me. It met a violent, painful death by execution. It is the evil criminal in my life that had to die before it took my life instead.

The irony is that the world is crucified to me by means of another crucifixion, but this one is a crucifixion that makes me boast. That is a striking concept. The cross was an instrument of shame and humiliation. It is not something one would boast about. No one wants a relationship with a criminal, especially one on death row. It’s an embarrassment. It’s the kind of thing that families keep secrets about–the old uncle that no one ever talked about because he lived his life behind bars, or ended it prematurely in an electric chair.

But this criminal and this cross are my pride and joy, because the crimes for which he dies are mine. The cross of our Lord Jesus Christ is the only thing that has real value because it is the only thing that can free me from the penalty for my sins. The cross of our Lord Jesus Christ is the one thing in which I boast because it is the one way I am sure my poor life is not going to end in shame and failure in this world, but will find eternal joy and fulfillment in God’s presence in heaven. Wonder of all wonders, the cross, an instrument of death and punishment, does what I could never do: it removes all sin from my record, reconciles me to God in heaven, and gives me a life that will last forever and ever. Compared to that everything the world offers is just so much stinking garbage that I should be happy to carry to the curb. I should hurry to get it out of my house and out of my life before its stink has time to corrupt the real treasure I have in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. That’s our only boast. And what that cross has done for me crucifies the world to me.

“So I will always remind you of these things, even though you know them and are firmly established in the truth you now have. I think it is right to refresh your memory as long as I live in the tent of this body, because I know that I will soon put it aside, as our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me. And I will make every effort to see that after my departure you will always be able to remember these things” (2 Peter 1:12-15).

As you listen to sermons and Bible classes, does it seem like the preaching and teaching is out of touch with the reality of everyday life? Does it seem as though the same issues are harped on too much? What are moral failings and false beliefs that most threaten God’s people today?

According to a Gallup Poll in May, over 70 percent of Americans see no moral issues with divorce, almost 70 percent see no moral issues with premarital sex, over 60 percent think it is just fine to have a baby even if you aren’t married, and nearly 60 percent accept doctor-assisted suicide.

Here are some other statistics: Over 50 percent of Christians now believe that Christians, Jews and Muslims worship the same God. According to pollster George Barna, more than half of all adults in this country believe that if a person is generally good, he or she will earn a place in heaven. Over half of all Americans and about one third of conservative Christians believe that Jesus was a sinner. More than 50% of born again Christians do not believe the Holy Spirit really exists or that the devil really exists.

What’s the point? God’s people need constant reinforcement of the fundamentals of their faith! Of course, God wants his people to become familiar with everything that he has to say to them. He wants them to find in him the answer to their deepest individual needs.

But we can never take the core truths of the Christian faith for granted. The statistics above reveal that unbiblical views on what is right and what is wrong are espoused by a large percentage of the population. The Biblical view of morality seems to be losing ground in the hearts and minds of Americans. We would be foolish to assume that Christians, even conservative Lutheran ones, are immune to the forces of popular opinion and current trends.

The real danger is not that Christians will sometimes be guilty of various illicit sexual behaviors, broken marriages, or other selfish practices. We know they will. The real danger is that they will stop calling it sin, stop repenting of it, and start considering it acceptable.

If that happens, can a proper understanding of who God is and what he came to do for us long survive? The less we can see our sin and feel its guilt, the less we feel the need for a perfect Savior. The more the God of Christianity will look like the gods of all the other religions who expect their people to try hard and be nice. The more we will think that we deserve a place in heaven because we are nice people.

The Apostle Peter knew that he could never spend too much time talking about who Jesus is and what he has done to save us. He was convinced that there was nothing more important for people to know. He preached a God who was unique, a God who became man and lived with us, a God who did everything for our salvation. He was convinced that constant review of these things was the right thing to do.

God grant that we not only remember what the Bible says. God grant that we believe it, see its daily value, and gladly promote it against the current of popular opinion.

“Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses” (Proverbs 27:6).

Who is truly your friend?

We all look to our friends to support us when we are down, to back us up when we are in trouble, to understand us when no one else does. We want our friends to express their care and concern and build us up with their kind words.

But since genuine love always seeks our good, not necessarily our happiness, sometimes true friends also have to perform the unenviable task of telling us the truth–at least to the best of their ability to tell it. That means that some of the things they say will hurt.

Someone who is less concerned about our welfare but more interested in how we can be used isn’t so concerned to tell us the truth. Such people butter us up with nothing but good things to say. And you know why we slather things with butter—it’s only to improve the flavor before we sink our teeth in.

Living with the truth of Proverbs 27:6 requires a loving atmosphere in which we learn to accept such friendly wounds as well as inflict them. In order for such wounds to be truly friendly, they must also be limited to times when we genuinely have someone else’s welfare at heart. Wise King Solomon did not mean to open the door to arbitrary meanness. Other proverbs warn against spouting off every stray thought that happens to come to mind.

This is a practical lesson for life in a Christian congregation. There are likely to be more opinions than people, opinions that are passionately held. We do well to check ourselves as we respond to each other. Every viewpoint is welcome, but not every rebuttal we are tempted to make is suited for a public forum.

And not every contradictory viewpoint, no matter how strongly expressed, should be taken as a personal attack. We are friends, teammates, working toward a common goal. If a friend perceives some weakness in our thinking, his wound can be trusted, even if we still don’t share his point of view.

As Christians, we have already learned how to adopt this way of looking at the deepest wounds that come from our dearest friend—our God and Savior. His points of view are always correct, but they don’t always coincide with our own. God’s law has some painful things to say to me.

But he never says them just to hurt us. His wounds ultimately aim to heal. They cut less like a “stab in the back” and more like the skilled surgeon carefully removing the cancer.

And our God is no enemy when he multiplies his kisses. His words of love spoken in the form of forgiveness are always sincere, always friendly, and always spoken with our best interest in mind.

Isaiah 42:3 “A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.”

We live in a throw-away society, people say. We drink from disposable cups, shave with disposable razors, dress our children in disposable diapers, even purchase things we don’t need with our disposable income.

This “throw-away” mindset also affects the way we treat things which were never intended to be disposable. If your toaster stops working, do you bring it in for repair? Or do you throw it out and get a new one? When I lived with my grandmother, she still “darned” the holes in my socks. Most of our children probably know that word only as a mild expletive.

Does our “throw-away” attitude also affect the way in which we treat human beings? I am not here thinking chiefly about the great societal problems of our day, though the thought certainly has application to neglect of the starving, murder of the unborn, or the extermination of the suffering and terminally ill. Many people are willing to dispose of human life as easily as a bag of Doritos. “Munch all you want…we’ll make more.”

But what about our concern for the spiritual care of the spiritually bruised and broken? Across America, almost six out of ten church members are absent on Sunday morning. Some will be back next week, but how many are nursing some sort of spiritual wound? How many are languishing at home while the heartbeat of faith steadily declines towards total heart failure?

Are such people as disposable as used plastic silverware–they served their purpose once, but there is a big box full of new ones which don’t require so much work to make them useful again? Or do we, like Jesus, take seriously the work of spiritual repair?

Jesus described his own ministry as coming to “seek and to save what was lost” (Luke 19:10). While he sent his disciples to find them throughout the world, he himself spent the majority of his time working among the “lost sheep of Israel,” the people who, at least in name, were already “God’s people.”

The prophet Isaiah described Jesus’ approach to ministry this way: “a bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out” (Isaiah 42:3, see Matthew 12:20). Jesus didn’t cut off the penitent tax collector or prostitute. He didn’t tolerate or overlook their sins, either. He steadily applied the strong medicine of law and gospel to heal their spiritual wounds. He persistently preached sin and grace to fan faith into flame again.

When our faith is at a low ebb, Jesus does not dispose of us as so much broken junk. “Whoever comes to me, I will never drive away,” he promises (John 6:37). He is in this with us for the long haul. His word is full of the fuel that will light our fire again.

But that word needs to be applied to work. If our own fires are burning brightly, let’s share some of the warmth and light with the smoldering wicks the Lord has placed within our reach.

Matthew 13:33 “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough.”

Sometimes things don’t look good for the Christian Church today.

We are all familiar with statistics that tell us society is becoming more and more ungodly–no need to repeat the litany of gloom here. Christian denominations are declining in membership. Cults and false religions of various kinds grow like weeds.

Are we losing the battle? Sometimes we may think so. But Jesus’ parable of the yeast assures us that that is not the case.

God’s kingdom works like yeast. Years ago our family received a bread maker as a gift. For a time, fresh home-made bread was a regular part of our diet.

Yeast was not the largest ingredient that went into the machine before we made our bread. In fact, it is one of the smallest ingredients. Yet, without it, our bread-maker would have been a brick-maker.

Even a little yeast has the ability to influence and change much larger amounts of flour, water and oil that surround it. It spreads and infiltrates and permeates until everything has been changed. The dough rises, the bread is soft, and we enjoy a nourishing treat.

Jesus says that God’s kingdom works like that yeast. As it works in this world, it may not be the biggest “ingredient.” There have always been more unbelievers than believers. Outwardly the Christian Church may look rather small and weak.

But our Savior’s kingdom is always at work. Its influence is always being felt. The Gospel message spreads that kingdom throughout the world. Its promise of God’s love and forgiveness captures one heart after another. It changes those same hearts. It moves them to spread the message along to others.

Hearts captured by the gospel make the presence of God’s Kingdom known in other ways. They love the people around them. They love each other. They show kindness to their neighbors. They do what they can to ease the suffering of others. They defend, protect, and support those less fortunate than themselves. In love they may do so even for those more fortunate than themselves.

Not everyone touched by such love will listen to the gospel and be saved. But even in such cases, God’s Kingdom has made its presence known. Like the yeast which spreads throughout the whole lump of dough, God’s kingdom has changed things. And where the Gospel has been at work, we trust that at least some will be joining God’s Kingdom, too.

Jesus does not intend this “kingdom of heaven” to bring about a heaven on earth. Sometimes churches give up the message of forgiveness which leads to the real heaven and eternal life. In its place they substitute a mission which merely seeks to make people happier. Then the yeast-like power of God’s kingdom to bring lasting spiritual change is lost.

But wherever the Gospel is being shared, the “kingdom of heaven” is coming to the hearts of people, and the kingdom of heaven always makes a difference. Things don’t look so bad for the Church after all.

Psalm 139:7-10 “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?  If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.  If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.”

You don’t have to be all by yourself to feel alone. If you have ever been at a party or other social event at which you didn’t know one other person, you know you can feel alone even surrounded by people. If you have ever had to take an unpopular position because it was the right thing to do, and it seemed as though everyone else was against you, you know what it is to feel alone. Joseph, Elijah, the Apostle Paul, Martin Luther — all of them knew what it was like to feel alone. Faithful confessors of God’s word often feel alone still today.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said, “He who is alone with his sin is utterly alone.” When we cover up our sins, when we try to carry our guilt by ourselves, that is a lonely and miserable place to be. Hell is going to be a crowded place,  Jesus tells us.  In spite of the many souls there, every one of them will feel very much alone. Misery may love company, but no one experiencing that misery will be able to enjoy the company of those who share their fate. Thank God Jesus spared us from that loneliness when he endured it in our place. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” he cried out from the cross. He suffered the separation our sin created (Isaiah 59:2) so that all we might know is God’s presence.

King David knew all kinds of loneliness throughout his life. He lived life alone on the run from King Saul. He made the lonely stand for what was right when his own men urged him to kill Saul. He lived as a lonely stranger in a foreign land among the Philistines. He lived long, lonely months with the burden of his guilt for committing adultery with Bathsheba and killing Uriah the Hittite.

But David also came to know that the believer is never truly alone. Even if, in our guilt, we tried to get away from God, like Adam and Eve hiding behind the trees in the garden of Eden, there is no place that we can escape from his presence. David takes us every direction in Psalm 139. From the edge of the universe above us to the deepest trenches at the bottom of the ocean, from the points of the compass where the sun rises in the east or sets on the far side of the Mediterranean Sea in the west, God is there.

David had also come to appreciate God’s promise to be there. Far from a frightening thing, David describes God’s promise to be with us as a tender and comforting truth. “Even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.” I can’t help but think of Don Matzat’s comparison of the Christian life to the relationship between a little boy and his father sitting in the waiting room while the car is being repaired. In order to get his little boy to behave, the father could give him a list of rules to keep, and then scold him when he breaks them. Or he could say to his son, “Sit right next to me here and hold my hand.” As long as the little boy is holding his father’s hand, he is staying out of trouble. And as long as he is holding his father’s hand, he gets to enjoy an intimate relationship with his father. Christian sanctification is more like the second scenario. As long as we stay close to our heavenly Father in faith, he is holding our hand and enabling us to keep out of trouble.

Likewise, in his promise to be with us, there is our heavenly Father, holding our hand and keeping us safe. He isn’t somewhere far across the room keeping an eye on us while we fend for ourselves. He has taken a place right beside us. His right hand, his strong hand, has taken ours in a grip that won’t let go. That ever-present hand guides us through trouble. It carries us when we are tired. It pulls us to safety when we are in danger. It constantly assures us our Father cares about us and wants to be close to us. As long as God is with us and holding us with his hands, we can be sure that we are safe.

Our Lord’s “omnipresence” is not abstract theology. It is part of God’s warm and living relationship with his people. Sometimes we may feel lonely, even in a crowd. But we are never alone. God is with us, holding us with his hands, and letting us know that we are always safe with him.

Daniel 6:7, 10 “The king should issue an edict and enforce the decree that anyone who prays to any god or human being during the next thirty days, except to you, Your Majesty, shall be thrown into the lion’s den… Now when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem. Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to God, just as he had done before.”

“The numbers don’t lie.”

Many people in our highly technical and mathematical world trust the numbers. Before they believe something, they want to see how it “all adds up.” They prefer careers in accounting or computer science or engineering because they don’t have to deal with gray areas or ever-changing human beings. “The numbers don’t lie.”

It is true that 10 is always 10, and 6 is always 6, and Π is always Π (though the decimal point may run on forever). There is something reassuring about knowing that such numbers or “integers” don’t lead a double life, with a secret identity or hidden set of alternate values waiting to surprise us.

If only people were the same! Our word to describe such “number-like” people who are always the same, whether in public or in private, whether with family and close friends or people they have never met, comes from the word “integer.” We call it “integrity.”

Integrity also happens to be a Christian virtue. God desires that we live our lives with a certain sameness. Language which is inappropriate to use around church is inappropriate at home, work, or play. Behaviors which are unacceptable if someone else is watching are unacceptable even if I am the only person in the room.

We all fall short of true integrity. All of us lead something of a double life because of the struggle between the Christian spirit and the sinful nature within us. The world in which we live places constant pressure upon us to give up our integrity–to confess one thing on Sunday and live something else the rest of the week.

No one in the Bible knew this better than Daniel. Daniel had not achieved perfect Christian integrity, but his life was a model of integrity to those around whom he lived. He didn’t try to live by two sets of standards–following one set for his home and worship life, and another set for his career in the halls of governmental power. Even in the presence of pagans, the standards by which Daniel lived remained the same.

Such integrity does not always win one friends, however. “They could find no corruption in him, because he was trustworthy and neither corrupt nor negligent. Finally these men said, ‘We will never find any basis for charges against Daniel unless it has something to do with the law of his God’” (Daniel 6:4-5).

You remember how the story continues. Daniel’s jealous co-workers convinced the king to pass a law. For one month no one was to pray to any God except to King Darius himself. But Daniel was a man of integrity, and law or no law, “Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before” (Daniel 6:10).

For his integrity Daniel received a free night’s accommodations in the lions’ den. It was a small token to show how much our world appreciates Christian integrity.

The point here is not to discourage us from striving for integrity. Remember, God vindicated Daniel by rescuing him from the lions.

The point is to remind us that striving for such life will always require a stiff, stout battle. Often it becomes a test of our faith.

But faith in the God who delivers his people not only from the mouths of lions, but also from the wages of sin and the jaws of hell is the sure way to win this battle. He gave his one and only Son to forgive our divided hearts, our two-faced behaviors, our duplicitous lives. He gives us his Spirit to replace our sinful actions and attractions with “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control” (Galatians 5:22-23). “I can do all things through him who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:13).

And we can trust that, like the numbers, our God doesn’t lie.