Money. It's one of those topics that can make even the most faithful among us squirm a little in our seats. We live in a world that constantly tells us to hustle harder, climb higher, and accumulate more. But what if there's a completely different way to approach our finances—one rooted not in independence, but in wisdom, counsel, and ultimately, in God Himself?

There's something deeply embedded in our culture that celebrates the self-made individual. We admire the person who pulls themselves up by their bootstraps, who needs no one, who conquers alone. It's the John Rambo mentality—unafraid, isolated, and fiercely independent.

But here's the uncomfortable truth: that path leads to loneliness.

Proverbs 15:22 cuts right to the heart of this issue: "Without counsel, plans go awry. But in the multitude of counselors, they are established." Think about that for a moment. Even the best-laid plans, when crafted in isolation, have a tendency to fall apart. But when we surround ourselves with wise counsel, those plans have a foundation that can withstand the storms.

The irony is that you might achieve everything you set out to accomplish—the money, the status, the material success—but if you've done it alone, you'll find yourself at the top with no one to share it with. You'll have all the things that matter least and none of the things that matter most: genuine relationships, trust, and connection with both God and others.

When we think of being "rich," our minds immediately jump to dollar signs, bank accounts, and material possessions. But the actual definition of "rich" is far more expansive and beautiful than that. It means "having abundant possessions, high value, or deep fulfilling qualities." Notice it doesn't specifically mention money.

If you're in Christ, you're already abundantly rich. You have the most valuable thing you could ever possess: your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Everything else—the house, the car, the comfortable lifestyle—that's just icing on the cake.

Philippians 4:19 reminds us, "And my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus." Notice it says "according to his riches," not according to our wants or our comparison with others. God is a God of superabundance, yes, but He's not a genie we manipulate through the right formula of prayers and positive thinking.

First Timothy 6:10 is one of the most misquoted verses in Scripture. It doesn't say money is the root of all evil. It says "the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil." That's a crucial distinction.

Money itself is neutral—it's a tool, a representation of value. You can be a trillionaire who loves money and be miserable (and a sinner). You can also be poverty-stricken but love money and be equally miserable (and a sinner). The issue isn't the amount; it's where your heart is.

Here's the powerful part: if you love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and you love your neighbor as yourself, then money becomes a tool to glorify Him. Whether you have much or little, you can rejoice because your security and identity aren't found in your bank account—they're found in Christ.

So how do we actually live this out? How do we move from theory to practice?

First, seek God's counsel before anyone else's. You've been gifted with the Holy Spirit. Pray over every financial decision. Don't make it an afterthought—make it the first step.

Second, establish a Bible verse for each major decision. Can you point to Scripture that supports what you're about to do? You have God's Word in the 66 books of the Bible, listen and obey it. If you can say, "Yes, what I'm deciding to do is biblical, and here's the verse," you're on solid ground.

Third, consult mature believers. Notice the word "mature." Not just any believer, but those who have walked the path, made mistakes, learned lessons, grown in their understanding of scriptures application in their life, proof in their life that is true, and have wisdom to share.

Fourth, understand the difference between needs and wants. This is transformative. When you really sit down and distinguish between what you need versus what you want, you'll discover you're already richer than you thought. You'll find that your needs are actually met, and the wants can wait—or they might come in abundance once you've aligned your priorities correctly.

One of the most beautiful aspects of biblical financial stewardship is that it doesn't end with you. Proverbs speaks of leaving an inheritance to your children's children. But that inheritance isn't just monetary—it's also spiritual, vocational, and relational.

You can pass down faith and values. You can teach skills and trades. You can model what it looks like to work hard, seek wise counsel, and trust God as provider. These are the things that last beyond any dollar amount.

Think about the parent who chooses to make less money because it means being present for their children. That's not financial foolishness—that's wisdom. That's understanding that the greatest investment you can make isn't in a stock portfolio but in the hearts and minds of the next generation.

Perhaps the most liberating truth in all of this is that when you surrender your finances to God, when you stop trying to be the lone wolf who has it all figured out, when you seek wise counsel and align your decisions with Scripture, you experience freedom.

You're free from the anxiety of constantly chasing more. You're free from the comparison trap. You're free from the burden of trying to do it all yourself. You're free to rejoice whether you have much or little, because your joy isn't dependent on your circumstances—it's rooted in Christ.

Colossians 3:23 says, "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters." When your work—including how you manage money—is done for the Lord, it transforms everything. It's no longer about accumulation; it's about stewardship. It's no longer about competition; it's about faithfulness.

Money isn't real in the way we think it is. It's paper, or increasingly, it's just numbers on a screen. But what is real is your relationship with God, your relationships with others, and the legacy you leave behind.

So seek wise counsel. Trust God as your provider. Keep an eternal perspective. And rejoice—not in what you have or don't have, but in the One who gave you everything that truly matters.

In a world that often treats work as a necessary evil—something to endure until the weekend arrives—there's a revolutionary truth that can transform how we approach every single day: work itself is a gift from God, not a punishment.

This isn't just motivational thinking. It's a biblical reality that predates even the fall of humanity. Before sin entered the world, before thorns and thistles, before the sweat of our brow became a struggle, God placed Adam and Eve in the garden with a purpose: to work it and tend it. Work existed in paradise. It was part of the "very good" creation that God designed.

Consider Colossians 3:23, which instructs us: "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters." This single verse has the power to revolutionize Monday mornings, difficult projects, and even the most mundane tasks.

When we shift our perspective from working merely for a paycheck to working as an act of worship, everything changes. The spreadsheet becomes an offering. The customer service call becomes ministry. The late-night project becomes a sacrifice of praise. We're no longer just employees; we become ambassadors of Christ in our workplaces.

Similarly, 1 Corinthians 10:31 reminds us: "Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God." Notice the word "whatever." There are no exceptions, no tasks too small or too mundane to glorify God.

Here's a critical distinction that often gets overlooked: there's a fundamental difference between having a job and doing work.

A job is simply a position, a role, a title. Work, however, is the active engagement of your gifts, talents, time, and thoughts toward a purpose. You can have a job you despise, but when you approach it as work done unto the Lord, it transforms into something sacred.

Russell Simmons once said there's no such thing as a dead-end job. If you're receiving a paycheck and stewarding those resources wisely—investing in your faith, serving others, and growing in your calling—then no position is without value or purpose.

Too many people grow up hearing adults complain about work, treating it as a burden to bear rather than an opportunity to embrace. This negative conditioning creates barriers to success and fulfillment. When you encounter people who genuinely love what they do, who can't stop working because it energizes them, you realize the problem isn't work itself—it's our attitude toward it.

Proverbs 14:23 offers an encouraging promise: "All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty."

Notice the word "all." Not some work. Not only prestigious work. Not just work that pays six figures. All labor leads to profit when done diligently and honestly.

This should give tremendous confidence to anyone starting out, anyone feeling stuck, anyone wondering if their current efforts matter. Whether you're sleeping on a gym couch working two part-time jobs or grinding away in a position that feels beneath your education level, faithful labor produces results.

The challenge for many today, especially recent graduates, is the expectation of immediate high-level compensation. There's a sense of entitlement: "I did my time in college, so where's my six-figure salary?" But that's not how kingdom economics work.

Consider the athletes who become household names. They didn't start getting paid at seven years old when they first became passionate about their sport. They spent decades developing their craft, often without compensation, driven by passion and purpose. The payment came later, after the work had been faithfully done.

Second Thessalonians 3:10-12 addresses a problem that existed even in the early church: "For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: 'The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.' We hear that some among you are idle and disruptive. They are not busy; they are busybodies."

Idle chatter—the constant talk of "I could have," "I should have," "I would have"—leads nowhere. It's the person who talks endlessly about their plans but never takes action. It's the critic who focuses on everyone else's efforts while neglecting their own field.

The antidote? Work in quietness and eat your own bread. Put your hand to the plow and don't look back. Stop being a busybody concerned with everyone else's journey and focus on cultivating your own field.

Here's a profound truth: work is one of God's primary tools for sanctification—for making us more like Christ.

When you work, you will encounter obstacles. You'll face thorns and thistles. You'll experience the sweat of your brow, whether you're working in agriculture or technology. Problems, stress, and friction are guaranteed.

But Romans 8:28 promises that "in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." Even the difficulties you face in your work are opportunities for growth, for character development, for becoming more like Christ.

Every obstacle is a chance for the Holy Spirit to sanctify you. Every challenge is an opportunity to develop perseverance, wisdom, and faith. When you feel like giving up, when you wonder if you should quit, remember that resistance is often a sign you're on the right path.

Luke 12:48 teaches us: "From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded."

If you desire abundance, wealth, and influence, you must ask yourself: What requirements am I placing on myself? Am I asking for responsibility before I ask for a raise? Am I proving myself faithful with little before expecting to be entrusted with much?

The most successful people don't wait to be paid before they prove their worth. They ask for the responsibility, demonstrate their capability, and then receive the reward. This is the biblical pattern: faithful in little, trusted with much.

We overestimate what we can accomplish in a day, a week, or even a month. But we severely underestimate what consistent, diligent, honest work can accomplish over a year, a decade, or a lifetime.

Compounding interest doesn't just apply to money—it applies to effort. Each day of faithful work builds on the previous day. Over time, this creates exponential results that can transform families, communities, and even nations.

The question is: Are you being productive with your Saturdays, or are you waking up at noon wondering why your weekdays aren't improving? Are you taking advantage of the 24 hours you've been given, or are you letting years slip by without intentional effort?

Today is a new day. The Lord has given you this day—not as a burden, but as a gift. You have the same 24 hours as the most successful person you can think of. The difference isn't in the time available; it's in how that time is stewarded.

Work diligently. Work honestly. Serve Christ in your labor. Whether you're remodeling a bathroom, teaching students, running a business, or raising children, do it all as unto the Lord.

And remember: even when the week doesn't go perfectly, even when you fall short of your own expectations, there is redemption in Christ. Tomorrow is another opportunity to glorify God through faithful work.

The sacred gift of work awaits you. How will you unwrap it today?

What does it mean to truly invest? When we hear that word, our minds often jump to stock portfolios, retirement accounts, or real estate ventures. But what if the most important investments we make have nothing to do with our bank balance and everything to do with our eternal legacy in Christ?

The concept of faithful stewardship extends far beyond our financial statements. It encompasses every resource God has entrusted to us—our time, talents, relationships, skills, and yes, our money too. Understanding this broader perspective transforms how we approach not just our finances, but our entire lives.

In Matthew 25:14-30, Jesus tells a story that makes many of us uncomfortable. A master entrusts his servants with different amounts of money—five talents to one, two to another, and one to the last servant. The first two servants immediately put the money to work, doubling what they received. But the third servant, paralyzed by fear, buried his talent in the ground.

When the master returns, he commends the first two servants identically: "Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a few things. I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your Lord." Notice something remarkable here—both servants received the same praise, even though one earned five talents and the other only two. The issue wasn't the amount of return, but rather their faithfulness with what they'd been given.

The third servant's excuse reveals something profound about human nature. He claimed he was being cautious, protecting what belonged to his master. But the master's response cuts through the excuse: "You wicked and lazy servant." Wickedness and laziness, the master suggests, are intimately connected. Each rooted in fear. How often do we disguise our fear as prudence? How frequently do we call our inaction "being careful" when really we're just afraid to step out in faith?

Proverbs 13:22 offers a powerful vision: "A good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children, but the wealth of the sinner is stored up for the righteous." This verse invites us to think generationally, to consider what we're building that will outlast us.

But here's something most people don't consider: inheritance isn't always positive. You can leave behind debt just as easily as wealth. You can pass down dysfunction as readily as wisdom. The question isn't whether we'll leave an inheritance—we all will. The question is what kind of inheritance are we building?

Think about the barber who now cuts hair alongside his son. He's not just running a business; he's transferring skills, work ethic, and a trade that can support his son's family. He's teaching his son how to serve the community, how to build relationships with customers, and perhaps most importantly, how to find dignity and purpose in honest work. That's an inheritance that transcends any dollar amount.

Our culture worships certain types of work while dismissing others. We celebrate the entrepreneur and the executive while overlooking the janitor and the maintenance worker. But kingdom investing looks radically different from worldly success metrics.

Memorial Day weekend brings out countless workers who ensure our celebrations run smoothly—people painting, cleaning, maintaining streets, and preparing facilities. Their work may not be glamorous, but it's essential. And when done unto the Lord, it's sacred.

This perspective liberates us from the exhausting treadmill of trying to impress people or climb ladders that lead nowhere eternal. Colossians 3:23 reminds us: "Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men." When we internalize this truth, a plumber's work becomes as holy as a preacher's, a teacher's labor as valuable as a CEO's.

Many people believe the path to financial security lies in doing more—taking on extra jobs, working longer hours, accumulating more responsibilities. But this approach often stems from fear rather than faith. We're trying to secure ourselves through our own efforts rather than trusting God as our provider.

The parable of the talents isn't encouraging us to be workaholics. It's calling us to be faithful in our lane. The servant with five talents wasn't praised for trying to earn ten while neglecting the five he had. He was commended for faithfully investing what he'd been given.

This principle applies to our modern financial decisions too. If your employer offers a 401(k) match, taking advantage of it isn't about greed—it's about wise stewardship. You're immediately doubling that portion of your income, creating a foundation that can provide for your family or fund kingdom work in the future.

"I was afraid," the third servant admitted, "and went and hid your talent in the ground." His fear led to inaction, and his inaction was judged as wickedness. This challenges our tendency to spiritualize our fear, to dress it up as caution or wisdom.

How many opportunities to serve, to give, to invest in eternal things have we missed because we were afraid? Afraid of rejection, afraid of failure, afraid of looking foolish? The antidote to this fear isn't positive thinking or self-confidence—it's faith in God's character and promises.

When we truly believe that God owns everything, that He's sovereign over outcomes, and that He rewards faithfulness rather than results, we're freed to take risks for His kingdom. We can invest in people, causes, and ventures that might not have guaranteed returns because we're not ultimately depending on those returns for our security.

Here's a mind-bending truth: for the vast majority of your existence, money won't matter. In eternity, in the new heavens and new earth, we won't be sweating to earn our daily bread. We won't be stressed about mortgages or retirement accounts.

This eternal perspective doesn't make our current financial decisions meaningless—it makes them more meaningful. What we do now with our resources has eternal implications, not because we can take money to heaven, but because how we use it reveals and shapes our hearts.

Are we investing in things that will last? Are we using our resources to advance God's kingdom, to serve others in Jesus' name, to leave an inheritance that includes not just money but wisdom, faith, and a love for God?

Remember being nine or ten years old, when money wasn't a consuming concern? Bills, investments, and financial stress weren't part of your daily consciousness. You simply lived, trusting that the adults in your life would provide what you needed.

Faithful investing invites us back to that place—not to irresponsibility, but to trust. When we make wise, ethical investments, when we protect our families with appropriate insurance, when we give generously and save prudently, we create space to simply live. We can wake up and focus on what truly matters because we've been faithful with what God has entrusted to us.

The goal isn't to accumulate wealth for its own sake. The goal is to hear those words: "Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Lord." And that commendation comes not from the size of our portfolio, but from the faithfulness of our hearts.

What are you investing in today that will matter for eternity?

The weight of debt can feel like chains wrapped around your future. Every payment reminder, every interest charge, every anxious glance at your bank account reinforces a painful truth: when you owe money, you're not fully free. But there's a path forward—one that combines biblical wisdom with practical action to transform your financial reality and honor God with the resources He's entrusted to you.

Scripture speaks directly to this issue with startling clarity: "The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender" (Proverbs 22:7). This isn't just poetic language—it's a description of reality.

When you're in debt, you become a servant. Those student loans? You're serving them. That credit card balance accumulating 20% interest? It's your master. The mortgage you took on without proper insurance or emergency savings? It owns you more than you own it.

This servitude manifests in unexpected ways. Business owners find themselves enslaved to overhead, unable to truly serve their clients because they're desperately chasing the next payment. Employees stay in soul-crushing jobs because they can't afford to lose the income. Dreams get deferred indefinitely because debt demands get priority.

The psychological burden is just as real as the financial one. Instead of asking "How can I serve and glorify God today?" you're asking "How can I make enough to cover what I owe?" The shift from "I get to" to "I have to" drains the joy from work and life.

Consider the ant—that tiny creature with no captain, no overseer, no ruler—yet it "provides her supplies in the summer and gathers her food in the harvest" (Proverbs 6:6-8). The ant doesn't have instant gratification. It doesn't swipe a credit card when it sees something appealing. It works diligently, stores consistently, and prepares faithfully.

The contrast with the grasshopper is stark. While the grasshopper enjoys immediate pleasures, consuming everything in the moment, the ant builds reserves. When winter comes—and winter always comes—the ant survives and thrives while the grasshopper perishes.

This isn't just about money. It's about mindset. Do you want the quick fix or the lasting solution? Are you willing to do the work now, in discipline and diligence, or will you be forced to do even harder work later when crisis hits?

That credit card swipe feels so harmless in the moment. You want something, you don't have cash for it, but you have available credit. Swipe. Done. Instant gratification achieved.

But what about the unseen cost? The interest that compounds month after month. The minimum payments that barely touch the principal. The accumulation of multiple debts until you're drowning in obligations, each one demanding its piece of your paycheck.

One person checked their bank account, saw available funds, and immediately bought a used car—cash—without inspection, without thinking about family needs, without considering future expenses. Just because the money was visible didn't make spending it wise.

This is the poison of our age: the belief that if we can access something now, we should have it now. But true wealth—and true freedom—comes from the opposite approach.

The biblical model is beautifully simple:

Give first. Recognize that everything belongs to God. You're a steward, not an owner. Return the first portion to Him—traditionally 10%—as an act of worship and acknowledgment.

Build emergency savings. Before aggressively attacking debt, establish a small buffer—even just one month of expenses—so that unexpected costs don't force you deeper into debt.

Eliminate debt with intensity. Like a lion attacking its next meal, attack your debt with focus and urgency. Every dollar of interest you pay is money that could have been building your future instead of funding your past.

Continue saving and investing. Once debt is eliminated, redirect those payment amounts toward building three to twelve months of expenses in savings, then toward investments that can compound and grow generational wealth.

The formula some follow is elegant: 10% to God, 10% to savings, 10% to debt elimination or investment, and live on the remaining 70%. This creates margin, flexibility, and the freedom to respond to needs and opportunities in ways that glorify God.

Here's the remarkable truth: breaking generational cycles of financial bondage takes just one person deciding to do things differently.

One waitress, living frugally and saving diligently, became a millionaire.

One single teenage mom, by herself, figured out how to build wealth and now teaches others.

One person saying "no" to happy hour, to unnecessary purchases, to keeping up appearances—that one person can change the trajectory for generations to come.

You don't need excuses in 2026 and beyond. Resources exist. Knowledge is available. What's required is the decision to want something better and the discipline to pursue it consistently.

Imagine living without owing anyone anything. Imagine work being about service and calling rather than survival and obligation. Imagine having the resources to build God's kingdom, to support ministries, to help families in need, to leave an inheritance not just of money but of wisdom and godly stewardship.

That freedom is real, and it's available. But it starts with recognizing that debt is bondage, that God's way offers liberation, and that the small, consistent choices you make today compound into the reality you'll live tomorrow.

The ant knows this. Will you?

In a world obsessed with accumulation, consumption, and instant gratification, the concept of spending wisely might seem almost countercultural. Yet, when we understand that everything we have is a gift from God—and that we're merely stewards, not owners—our entire approach to money transforms from anxiety-producing to purpose-driven.

Before we can truly grasp what it means to spend wisely, we must first settle a fundamental truth: God owns everything. This isn't just theological rhetoric; it's a paradigm shift that changes how we view every dollar that passes through our hands.

When we recognize that we're stewards rather than owners, the pressure lifts. We're no longer desperately clinging to "our" money, defending "our" possessions, or anxiously hoarding "our" resources. Instead, we're managing what belongs to God, asking Him how He wants His resources deployed.

This perspective doesn't just apply to money. It extends to our time, our talents, our skills, and our abilities. Everything we have—the hours in our day, the strengths we possess, the material goods we use—all of it belongs to God and should be stewarded accordingly.

Spending decisions reveal the condition of our hearts. The stories we tell ourselves to justify purchases, the emotional triggers that lead to impulsive buying, the comparisons we make with others—these all originate in our hearts.

Scripture warns us clearly: "Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, 'I will never leave you nor forsake you'" (Hebrews 13:5). Notice the connection between contentment and God's presence. When we're secure in Christ, we don't need to seek fulfillment through consumption.

The love of money—not money itself—is the root of all kinds of evil. When we idolize wealth or become enamored with accumulation for its own sake, we've gone astray. But when we view money as a tool for kingdom purposes, everything changes.

Jesus taught a powerful principle about counting the cost before beginning: "For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it?" (Luke 14:28).

This isn't just about construction projects. It's about approaching life with intentionality and wisdom. Before making major purchases, before taking on debt, before committing to expenses, we need to count the cost—not just the immediate price tag, but the long-term implications.

Medical emergencies represent the number one reason people go into debt. When we've been hasty with our spending—buying things we don't need with money we don't have—we leave ourselves vulnerable when true emergencies arise. But when we've been diligent, saving consistently and spending wisely, we're prepared for life's inevitable storms.

Proverbs 21:5 offers a stark contrast: "The plans of the diligent lead surely to plenty, but those of everyone who is hasty surely to poverty."

In our fast-paced, convenience-driven culture, we've become conditioned to want everything immediately. But wisdom calls us to adopt the mindset of the tortoise rather than the hare—slow, steady, and sustainable.

Diligence means developing habits that become second nature. When money comes in, it's automatically allocated: first to giving, then to saving, then to planned expenses. There's no emotional debate, no justifying unnecessary purchases. It's simply how things are done.

This disciplined approach might seem restrictive, but it actually brings freedom. When you know where every dollar is going and you're living within your means, you're no longer enslaved to creditors or anxious about the future.

A practical expression of spending wisely is the zero-based budget—a tool that ensures every dollar has a purpose before the month begins. This isn't about restriction; it's about intentionality.

The formula is simple: Income minus outflow equals zero. Every dollar that comes in is assigned to a category: giving, saving, or specific expenses. At the end of the month (on paper, at least), you should reach zero, meaning every dollar has been accounted for and purposefully allocated.

This approach prevents waste, enables generosity, and glorifies Christ by demonstrating faithful stewardship. It's planning that honors God rather than chasing worldly desires.

Notice the order: giving comes first, not last. This isn't about paying dues to join some religious club. It's about developing a relationship with God and acknowledging His ownership of everything.

When we give first—typically through tithing to a local church—we're making a statement of faith. We're declaring that God is our provider, not our paycheck. We're investing in the kingdom work that matters eternally, not just the temporal concerns that will pass away.

Giving generously also protects us from the love of money. When we regularly release our grip on resources, we're reminded that our security comes from God, not our bank account.

After giving comes saving. An emergency fund isn't a lack of faith; it's wisdom. Having three to six months of expenses set aside provides stability when vehicles break down, roofs leak, or jobs are lost.

Beyond emergency savings, long-term investing allows us to build wealth that can be passed to future generations. Proverbs 13:22 says, "A good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children." This is thinking generationally, planning beyond our own lifetime.

The wealthy often live on far less than they earn—sometimes as little as 30% of their income. This isn't deprivation; it's wisdom. By living below their means, they create margin for generosity, investment, and weathering financial storms.

The question isn't "How much can I afford?" but rather "What do I actually need?" When we distinguish between needs and wants, guided by contentment in Christ, we find freedom from the endless pursuit of more.

Jesus' parable about building on rock versus sand applies perfectly to financial decisions. When we count the cost, live within our means, give generously, and save diligently, we're building on the solid rock of wisdom. When storms come—and they will—our financial house stands firm.

But when we build on the sand of impulsive decisions, debt, and keeping up with others, we're setting ourselves up for disaster. The question isn't if the storm will come, but when.

Ultimately, spending wisely isn't about restriction—it's about freedom. Freedom from debt slavery. Freedom from financial anxiety. Freedom to be generous. Freedom to respond to God's calling without being hindered by poor financial decisions.

"The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender" (Proverbs 22:7). When we spend wisely, we avoid this slavery and position ourselves to be conduits of God's blessing rather than victims of financial bondage.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. As we steep ourselves in God's Word and allow it to shape our financial decisions, we'll naturally spend wisely—not out of legalistic obligation, but as a joyful expression of faithful stewardship.

Your finances are between you and God. Let His wisdom guide your spending, and watch as He blesses your faithfulness in ways you never imagined possible.

There's a principle woven into the very fabric of creation that many of us struggle to grasp: we must give before we can receive. It's counterintuitive to our natural instincts, especially in a world that constantly tells us to accumulate, protect, and hoard what we have. Yet this ancient truth appears not only in Scripture but echoes through the success stories of both believers and non-believers alike.

Picture a two-year-old child learning to manage three pennies. First, one penny goes into the "give" jar. Then one into the "save" jar. Finally, one into the "spend wisely" jar. This simple ritual, taught early and repeated often, transforms money from a source of anxiety into what it was always meant to be: a tool, not a master.

When children learn this pattern from their earliest days, money becomes normalized. It's not evil. It's not a god to worship. It's simply a resource to be managed with wisdom, gratitude, and intentionality. The question for many of us is: why didn't we learn this lesson earlier? And more importantly, is it too late to start now?

At the core of giving is a profound theological truth: everything we have comes from God. He is the Creator who spoke the universe into existence. He is the Sustainer who holds all things together. He is the Redeemer who sacrificed Himself for your restoration. When we truly grasp this reality, giving becomes not a burden but a natural response of gratitude.

Consider Abraham, who lived before the Mosaic Law was ever given. In Genesis 14, after defeating the kings, Abraham gave a tenth of everything to Melchizedek, priest of God Most High. This wasn't required by any commandment—it was a voluntary act of devotion, a recognition that his victory and his blessings came from God alone.

Jacob made a similar vow at Bethel, promising to give God a tenth of all he received. These patriarchs understood something fundamental: acknowledging God's ownership through giving demonstrates where our true hope lies.

This principle of giving before receiving isn't limited to spiritual matters. It's embedded in the cosmos itself. In fitness, you must give effort before you receive results. In relationships, you must give love, time, and attention before you receive connection and intimacy. Even in business, successful entrepreneurs understand they must invest—give—before they can profit.

Scripture reinforces this throughout. Proverbs 3:9-10 instructs us to "Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops; then your barns will be filled to overflowing." Notice the sequence: first the giving, then the overflow. Not the leftovers after we've satisfied all our wants, but the firstfruits—the best portion, given first.

Perhaps the most direct passage about tithing appears in Malachi, where God accuses Israel of robbing Him by withholding tithes and offerings. Then comes a remarkable challenge: "Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse. Test me in this and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven."

This is one of the few places in Scripture where God actually invites us to test Him. He's so confident in His provision and generosity that He essentially says, "Try me. See if I won't bless you abundantly."

But there's a critical heart component here. Jesus later rebuked the Pharisees who tithed meticulously—even their herbs and spices—but neglected justice, mercy, and faithfulness. They had turned tithing into a mechanical ritual devoid of genuine devotion. Jesus affirmed tithing but emphasized that it must flow from a transformed heart, not dry religious obligation.

For many, especially men, there's an identity wrapped up in being your own savior. Society celebrates the self-made person who pulls themselves up by their bootstraps. But this mindset creates an exhausting burden—the pressure to control everything, to be responsible for every outcome, to essentially play God.

The truth is simpler and more liberating: you are not God. There is one true God, and you're not Him.

When you tithe—when you give that first ten percent—you're making a powerful declaration. You're saying, "God, You are in control of my finances. I trust You with my provision. I acknowledge that without Your breath in my lungs, Your sustaining power, and Your blessings, I would have nothing."

This removes the crushing weight of self-reliance. It shifts your identity from stressed-out controller to grateful steward.

Making this shift isn't easy, especially if you've been taught that religion is a scam or that churches just want your money. Corruption exists, certainly. But the principle remains true regardless of human failings and sin.

The journey often begins with a heart issue that needs confession and repentance. Perhaps you've viewed God as a cosmic slot machine—pull the right levers, and blessings come out. Or maybe you've believed the lie that your blessing is truly yours, earned entirely by your effort.

The transformation happens when you realize every paycheck, every opportunity, every breath is a gift. When that dollar comes in, the immediate response becomes: "Thank You, Lord, for this dollar. Here's a dime given in thanks for the whole dollar." A thousand dollars? "Thank You, Lord. Here's a hundred."

At first, it feels mechanical and difficult. But over time, as faithfulness becomes habit, something remarkable happens. Your heart of faithfulness are filled to overflowing like the barns of Malachi's prophecy. The God of truth, goodness, and beauty, is more faithful than we deserve, and is more giving than than we could ever know.

When you give consistently to your church, something interesting happens: you become invested. You learn to love and forgive each congregant. You learn about the struggles and victories of your church's people and leaders. You connect with the community. Your priorities shift from entertainment and accumulation to spiritual growth and kingdom impact.

You begin to care more about the work of God than the latest celebrity gossip. Your mind shifts toward eternal things rather than temporary distractions.

The cosmos our Triune God created operates on a principle of giving before receiving. It's written in Scripture from Genesis to Revelation. It's demonstrated in the lives of patriarchs, prophets, and apostles. Even secular success stories confirm this truth through God's common grace.

The question isn't whether this principle works—it's whether you'll trust it enough to act on it.

First we give. Then we save. Then we spend wisely. This simple pattern, practiced consistently, can transform your relationship with money, with God, and with yourself. It removes the pressure, increases your faith, and positions you to receive what pleases God to pour into your life.

The journey begins with a choice: Will you continue trying to be your own provider, or will you acknowledge the true Source of all blessing and respond with grateful, joyful giving?

When was the last time you truly considered who owns everything you have? Not in a legal sense, but in an eternal one. The clothes hanging in your closet, the car in your driveway, the money in your bank account—even the very breath you're taking right now. What if none of it actually belongs to you?

This isn't a depressing thought. It's actually the most liberating truth you could embrace when it comes to managing your finances.

Psalm 24:1 declares with stunning simplicity: "The earth is the Lord's and all it contains, the world and those who live in it." Not some of it. Not most of it. All of it.

This single verse has the power to completely transform how we relate to money. When we truly grasp that God owns everything—including us—the pressure begins to lift. The anxiety about having enough starts to fade. The desperate grasping for more begins to loosen.

Think about it: if you're living in this world, and God owns all of it, then you are stewarding His resources, not your own. You're managing what belongs to Him. This shifts everything.

Life has a way of pressing in on us. The bills pile up. Unexpected expenses hit. You need diapers, or therapy for a child with special needs, or a belt to avoid getting a demerit at school. In these moments, remembering that "none of it's mine anyway" becomes more than theology—it becomes survival wisdom.

When you realize you're not the ultimate owner, you can humble yourself. You can make that phone call to a friend and say, "I'm in a jam." You can go to the lost and found. You can ask for help without shame because you understand that God provides through community, through unexpected sources, through means you hadn't considered.

This is where marriages grow stronger. This is where families are built. Not on the illusion of self-sufficiency, but on the humble recognition that we're all dependent on God's provision, working through various channels.

First Chronicles 29 contains David's powerful prayer as he prepares to build the temple. In verses 11-13, he declares: "Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all. Both riches and honor come from you, and you rule over all."

Both riches and honor come from God. Not from your degree. Not from your employer. Not from your spouse or your social media following. From God alone.

We've been programmed to believe otherwise. We think riches come from education, from hard work, from networking, from being in the right place at the right time. And while God may use all these means, the source is still Him.

When you seek validation from human sources—from a paycheck, a title, a relationship status—you're setting yourself up for crushing disappointment. People will let you down. Systems will fail. Markets will crash. But God remains constant, and His provision continues.

Jesus told a story about a master who entrusted different amounts of money to three servants before leaving on a journey. To one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one—each according to their ability.

The first two servants immediately went to work, investing and doubling what they'd been given. When the master returned, he commended them: "Well done, good and faithful servant. You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things."

But the third servant, gripped by fear, buried his talent in the ground. His excuse? "I knew you to be a hard man, so I was afraid." The master's response was harsh: "You worthless, lazy slave... throw him into the outer darkness."

This parable reveals a stunning truth: God expects us to do something with what He's given us. Passivity isn't humility—it's disobedience. Hiding our resources out of fear isn't faithfulness—it's faithlessness.

Here's something we often miss: this parable isn't just about money. It's about all the gifts God has distributed—skills, abilities, time, relationships, opportunities.

Consider the plumber who keeps an entire school running while highly educated administrators stand helpless during a flood. His talent made room for him. His skill proved invaluable. God distributes different gifts to different people, and we need to appreciate them all.

You're not more valuable to God because you have a master's degree instead of a GED. You're not less important because you work with your hands instead of a computer. God has positioned each person strategically, giving them specific talents to steward for His glory.

The quarterback and the second-string player both matter. When your number is called, you need to be ready.

So what does this look like practically? Start by taking inventory. Write down everything God has blessed you with—and I mean everything. The 24 hours you have today (the same amount Elon Musk has, the same amount anyone has). Your relationships. Your skills. Your material possessions. Your financial resources, whether abundant or scarce.

Then ask God: "How can I use these blessings You've given me to glorify You?"

This question transforms stewardship from burden to privilege. You're not trying to earn God's love through perfect money management. You're responding to His love by faithfully managing what He's entrusted to you.

When you truly grasp that God owns it all, you experience a paradox: you're simultaneously freed from the burden of ownership and given the responsibility of stewardship. You don't carry the weight of making it all work on your own, but you do carry the joy of worshiping the Lord with what He has given you.

This is where comparison dies. You stop measuring your five talents against someone else's ten. You stop despising your one talent because it's not five. You simply ask: "What has God given me, and how can I faithfully steward it for His glory?"

The truth will set you free. And the truth is this: you own nothing, but you've been entrusted with everything you need to fulfill God's purposes for your life. That's not a limitation—it's liberation.

In a world that constantly bombards us with quick fixes and instant gratification, we find ourselves trapped in an endless cycle of chasing empty promises. We scroll through social media looking for validation, binge-watch series seeking entertainment, and pursue business metrics hoping they'll finally make us feel complete. Yet despite achieving many of our goals, we often find ourselves asking: "Is this all there is?"

Consider this powerful analogy: We all know that junk food isn't good for our bodies. We can consume sleeves upon sleeves of cookies without ever feeling truly satisfied. We might enjoy the taste momentarily, but we're left feeling empty, craving more, and never quite full. Meanwhile, a nutrient-dense meal of quality protein and vegetables fills us up completely. We can't overeat it because our bodies recognize the nourishment and signal satisfaction.

The same principle applies to how we spend our time and energy. There are activities that give us quick dopamine hits—scrolling social media, endless entertainment consumption, gossip, or mindlessly pursuing metrics—but leave us feeling hollow afterward. Then there are activities that require effort and resistance but provide deep, lasting satisfaction: meaningful conversations with loved ones, time in nature, physical challenges, prayer, and reading Scripture.

The difference? One type of dopamine must be earned. It comes with friction in front of it. It requires us to overcome resistance. And that's precisely what makes it valuable.

Jesus taught His disciples to pray, "Give us this day our daily bread" (Matthew 6:11). This wasn't just about physical sustenance. It was about recognizing our need for daily dependence on God, daily submission to His authority, and daily renewal of our commitment to put Him first.

This principle of daily commitment applies across every area of life. Whether it's the discipline of cold plunge therapy, maintaining physical fitness, reading Scripture, or investing in our marriages—consistency matters. It's not about perfection; it's about showing up day after day, even when we don't feel like it.

The struggle is real. Imagine standing for fifteen minutes looking at a cold tub, knowing how good you'll feel afterward, yet still wrestling with the resistance. Your mind offers every excuse: "You've done this enough. One day won't hurt. You don't need to prove anything." But it's in overcoming that friction, that daily resistance, where transformation happens.

Balance is often touted as the key to a successful life, but perhaps we've been thinking about it wrong. It's not about balance—it's about priorities. When we try to balance everything equally, we end up prioritizing nothing effectively.

Consider this hierarchy: God first, then family (spouse, then children), then extended family and friends, and only then professional pursuits and personal fitness. Everything below God and family should add value to the kingdom and to our relationships, not detract from them.

This isn't to say we can't be successful in business or achieve physical fitness. Rather, it's about ensuring these pursuits serve our higher priorities rather than competing with them. When we start justifying the sacrifice of our relationship with God or our family in pursuit of business success or physical achievement, we've crossed into dangerous territory. We've made an idol out of something that was meant to be a tool.

Our culture constantly whispers that the next achievement will finally satisfy us. If we just reach that follower count, that income level, that physique, that position—then we'll have arrived. But Scripture warns us clearly: "What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?" (Mark 8:36).

The truth is, every good thing comes from God. Intimacy, beauty, connection, purpose—these are all reflections of His nature. When we try to find cheap versions of these things apart from Him, we're left perpetually unsatisfied. We're trying to fill an infinite need with finite solutions.

As we gain more influence—whether through social media, business success, or community standing—we face increasing temptation to compromise our values for growth. We might think, "If I just tone down my faith for a while, I'll reach more people. Then once I have a larger platform, I'll share about God."

But this is backwards thinking. If we remove Christ to gain followers, we've lost the very reason for our existence. Our identity cannot be rooted in our achievements, our following, or our success. It must be anchored in who we are in Christ, regardless of external circumstances.

James 1:2-4 reminds us: "Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."

This is a hard teaching to embrace. How can we find joy in trials? The answer lies in understanding that God uses these difficulties to refine us, to develop the fruits of the Spirit in us, and to free us from dependence on anything other than Him.

Here's a sobering reality: time is the one resource we cannot renew. We can learn principles about money and make more of it. We can improve our health. We can develop new skills. But we cannot manufacture more time.

If your time is worth $100 per hour and you waste just two hours per day on cheap dopamine hits, you're effectively wasting over $70,000 per year in value. But more importantly, you're wasting irreplaceable moments that could have been invested in your relationship with God, meaningful connection with your spouse, or building memories with your children.

We don't know how long we have on this earth. The promise of "tomorrow" is not guaranteed. When we tell ourselves we'll pursue our spouse, invest in our children, or deepen our faith "once this project is done" or "after we reach this goal," we're believing a lie. Tomorrow is not your savior. Today is the day of salvation (2 Corinthians 6:2).

The best time to have started prioritizing what truly matters was twenty years ago. The next best time is right now. Not tomorrow. Not after you achieve the next milestone. Now.

This requires building an operating system for your life—rhythms and routines that protect your priorities. It means creating guardrails so you're not relying solely on willpower or motivation. It involves accountability with your spouse and trusted friends who can help you audit whether you're truly living according to your stated values.

Most importantly, it means recognizing that everything we pursue in this life, if elevated above God, cannot possibly give us what we want from it. Only He can provide the fulfillment, purpose, and peace we desperately seek.

The invitation is clear: Stop chasing cheap dopamine. Start earning the deep satisfaction that comes from overcoming resistance and investing in what truly matters. Put first things first. And discover that in losing your life for Christ's sake, you actually find it (Matthew 10:39).

There's a question that haunts humanity in our most vulnerable moments: How can we believe in a good God when suffering seems so senseless?

It's the question whispered in hospital waiting rooms, shouted at the sky during sleepless nights, and pondered in the aftermath of tragedy. And while easy answers may satisfy our minds temporarily, true wisdom requires us to dig deeper—to confront both the philosophical foundations of our faith and the raw reality of human pain.

Before we can address suffering, we must first establish what we know to be true. The existence of God isn't merely a comforting belief—it's a philosophical necessity. Consider this: objective morality cannot exist without a transcendent lawgiver. The very concepts of "should" and "ought"—the sense that some things are genuinely right and others genuinely wrong—require a personal, sovereign, unchanging God who has revealed His standards to us.

This isn't just abstract philosophy. Every time someone declares an action unjust, every time we feel genuine moral outrage at evil, we're acknowledging a standard that transcends human opinion. We're pointing to something—or Someone—beyond ourselves.

The same applies to truth itself. When someone claims "there are no absolutes," they've just made an absolute truth claim. The very act of arguing against objective truth depends on the existence of objective truth. It's inescapable. And this transcendent standard of truth, goodness, and even beauty finds its source only in the God of Scripture.

Understanding God's existence intellectually, however, doesn't insulate us from the crushing weight of suffering. Chronic illness, the kind that steals years from families and replaces joy with relentless pain, doesn't care about philosophical arguments. When seizures rack a child's body night after night, when a father watches helplessly as disease ravages his daughters, when prayers seem to echo into silence—that's when faith faces its fiercest test.

The book of Job stands as Scripture's most profound meditation on undeserved suffering. Job lost everything—his wealth, his children, his health. His body covered in painful sores, he sat in ashes while even his closest friends accused him of hidden sin. Job wanted answers. He demanded to know why.

And God's response? Not an explanation, but a revelation of His majesty. "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation?" God asked. The message wasn't dismissive—it was humbling. God is God, and we are not. There are mysteries beyond our comprehension, designs beyond our sight.

Job's response? He put his hand over his mouth. He recognized that demanding answers from the Almighty was itself a form of arrogance. Sometimes faith means apprehending what we cannot fully comprehend.

Yet Scripture doesn't leave us only with mystery. It also reveals purpose in our pain. Our trials function as a refiner's fire, burning away impurities and drawing us closer to God. This is why James could write about counting it "all joy" when we face trials—not because pain itself is good, but because of what God accomplishes through it.

The apostle Paul spoke of our "momentary light affliction" storing up for us "an eternal weight of glory." This isn't minimizing real suffering—Paul himself endured beatings, shipwrecks, imprisonment, and eventually martyrdom. Rather, it's placing our temporal pain in the context of eternal reality. What we endure here, as terrible as it may be, is preparing us for a glory so magnificent we cannot yet imagine it.

Suffering also redirects our gaze. When earthly comforts are stripped away, we're forced to look beyond them. Pain has a way of clarifying what truly matters, of turning our hearts toward heaven and our dependence toward God.

Perhaps most importantly, the God who ordained a world containing suffering didn't absent Himself from it. The doctrine of the Incarnation means that God entered into human suffering in the most intimate way possible. Jesus Christ experienced betrayal, injustice, physical agony, and death itself. The cross stands as proof that our God is not distant or detached from our pain.

This changes everything. We don't serve a deity who callously watches from afar. We serve a Savior who wept, who suffered, who died—and who rose again, demonstrating His ultimate victory over every form of evil and suffering.

Our suffering exists not only in the physical realm but also in the spiritual. The reality of demonic opposition isn't medieval superstition—it's biblical truth. Spiritual warfare is real, though often invisible to our physical eyes.

Yet we're not powerless. The name of Jesus Christ carries authority over every spiritual force. When we pray in His name, we're not reciting a magic formula—we're invoking the power of the One who has already won the decisive victory over darkness.

So where does this leave us? We live in tension—acknowledging both the goodness of God and the reality of suffering, holding fast to truth we cannot fully comprehend, trusting a plan we cannot fully see.

We're called to be, in a sense, like clams, where our Triune God is entering into our suffering to make a pearl of inestimable price. Not in every respect—we're human beings made in God's image, loved by Him, capable of reason and relationship. But regarding our insight into God's secret counsel, we know so very little. And that's okay. We don't need to understand everything to trust the One who does.

The Christian life isn't about having all the answers. It's about knowing the One who is the Answer. It's about remaining faithful even when circumstances seem to contradict God's goodness. It's about loving Him not because we've figured everything out, but because He first loved us.

In our suffering, we can know this: God is good. God is sovereign. God is present. And one day, every tear will be wiped away, every wrong made right, every question answered in the blazing light of His glory.

Until then, we walk by faith, not by sight—trusting that the God who spoke the universe into existence, who numbers every hair on our heads, who sent His Son to die for us, is worthy of our trust even in the darkest valley.

I used to fill in a Memento Mori Chart–as seen below–that showed how many days, weeks, and years I had left in my life. If I were to live to eighty, the memento mori chart was a great reminder of just how little time I had on this earth, and to make each day count. I stopped using it for two reasons. The first reason was because only God knows when I am going to die, so it seemed too assumptive of me to track toward an eventual outcome that I have zero clue as to when it is going to happen. The second reason was because I have had too many friends that died in their teens and twenties, which was yet another reminder that I don’t know, so is it proper for me to assume a countdown as if I did know? However, the value of counting our time left on earth came rushing back when I was reading Knowing Christ by Mark Jones. In reference to Psalm 90, specifically verse 12, he points out that Jesus Christ “numbered his days as he contemplated the fleeting character of his earthly life, and he made every day count.” (Jones, p. 87) When our days have been numbered by the God who gives and takes away, we realize how frail we are (Psalm 39:4). How should we spend our moments? How should we understand time, and God’s relation to time? This is an effort that works toward articulating what the Trinitarian holiness has created, by establishing time for His image bearers out of His eternal communion and attributes.


Creation Ex Nihilo

“In the beginning, ‘I am’ God”…Before the creation of the cosmos, including time, “I am.” At the burning bush, “I am” (Ex. 3:14). To Isaiah, “I am.” “Jesus states, ‘truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am’”(Jn 8:58).  In our Triune God’s self-existence, eternally, and infinitely, He is, or if it were stated by God,“I am.” The youngest member of the Westminster Assembly was George Gillespie, and he prayed, “God, thou art Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in your being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth,” and shortly after, this became the answer to question 4 of the shorter catechism and question 7 of the Larger Catechism (George paraphrased). Whether you are young or old, learned or slow, slave or free, jew or gentile, living Before Christ’s Common Era or in the Year of Our Lord’s Common Era, our Triune God is the Great I AM. He is the Alpha, existing before creation.

Before creation, when there was not one thing. No time. No space. No matter. God is. And He existed in perfect, holy communion, establishing and experiencing being, justice, goodness, truth, wisdom, power, and love. Then in the course of six days, He spoke the cosmos into being, intimately, orderly, and wonderfully. The cool of the morning was good. The look of the Garden of Eden was good. The walk with Adam was good. It was all very good. Time was good–very good, but time just like creation was not necessary.
Time was a condescension of God’s holy, holy, holy trinitarian perfection for His image-bearer Adam, and Adam’s wife, Eve, an image-bearer of God’s Holiness. Now, there is matter, space, and time to tell a story in the same way a dad sits at the edge of his children’s bed, and creates a character, plot, and setting that weaves a word-picture to bring meaning and value into the life of his child. The dad is not stuck in the chronology of his web, but is in fact eternal to it, painting truth, goodness, and beauty with strokes of courage, evil, and challenge through his oratory pleasure. The Father is intimately involved in His cosmos as well, while holding it all together in His transcendent glory–The Word.

“Therefore you spoke and they were made, and by your word you made them (Ps. 32:9, 6) “But how did you speak? Surely not in the way a voice came out of the cloud saying, ‘This is my beloved Son’ (Matt. 17:5). That voice is past and done with; it began and is ended. The syllables sounded and have passed away, the second after the first, the third after the second, and so on in order until, after all the others, the last one came, and after the last silence followed. Therefore it is clear and evident that the utterance came through the movement of some created thing, serving your eternal will but itself temporal. And these your words, made for temporal succession were reported by the external ear to the judicious mind whose internal ear is disposed to hear your eternal word. But that mind would compare these words, sounding in time, with your eternal word in silence, and say: ‘It is very different, the difference is enormous. The sounds are far inferior to me, and have no being, because they are fleeting and transient. But the word of my God is superior to me and abides for ever’ (Isa 40:8). (Augustine, Confessions, p. 225)

God the Father, and the Word, and Holy Spirit is the author of Adam’s life, naming, and offspring, yet Adam is breathing, taking dominion, and filling the earth by his personal will. Adam is perfectly submitted to God in the greatest glory, and Eve’s union with Adam, makes it even more glorious. With God’s creation, we see time as another one of God’s created constraints, purposing Adam and Eve the joy of establishing God’s image into the created order that God is singing in place. “Who hath wrought and done it, Calling the generations from the beginning? I the Lord, the first, And with the last; I am he.”  (Is. 41:4) God establishes the first and the last, and so is the first and the last, intimately being the causal presence of being and the preserving power of being, yet is transcendent, unchanging and eternally holy, holy, holy.

Death Invocation

For if, out of a former normal state of non-existence, they were called into being by the Presence and loving-kindness of the Word, it followed naturally that when men were bereft of the knowledge of God and were turned back to what was not (for what is evil is not, but what is good is), they should, since they derive their being from God who IS, be everlastingly bereft even of being; in other words, that they should be disintegrated and abide in death and corruption. (Athanasius, p. 23)

And then the son of God, the head of man, made a choice, in time, to glorify his wife over God. The mother of all mankind chose, in time, to glorify a lie, over her husband and God. The flaming serpent, the deceiver chose, in time, to deceive the woman, destroy the Adam, and try to usurp God’s eternal, unchanging order on earth. All because of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life–Death was invoked, and the covenantal cursings filled time and space. Things have changed drastically for all of mankind, and the very good created order that the Word spoke into existence and sustains existence, has the baggage of turmoil, death, pain, and sweat. But God rested in His complete knowledge, perfect purposes, and eternal glory. This is just the beginning. He is Alpha before the fall.
For God has not only made us out of nothing; but He gave us freely, by the Grace of the Word, a life in correspondence with God. But men, having rejected things eternal, and, by counsel of the devil, turned to the things of corruption, became the cause of their own corruption in death, being, as I said before, by nature corruptible, but destined, by the grace following from partaking of the Word, to have escaped their natural state, had they remained good. (Athanasius, p. 24)

Death is invoked by Adam, Eve, and Satan, but with this death invocation by the fallen elohim and mankind, death is also invoked by God’s Word, proclaiming a seed with a bruised heel and a serpent with a crushed head. We humans often have problems with this death-filled formula, forgetting we serve an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving, all-just, all-good, and eternal God, which has set forth time in His creation to allow His eternal glory to play out in the fullest and most wondrous way. We put human constraints on God in time, and bid Him to fix it, forgetting to ponder His ways being higher than our ways (Is. 55:8-9). Eternality is a God-only perspective, and when we attempt to establish it, we fail miserably. Job and his wise counsel is a great example of our futility and finite problem. We try to establish truths and knowledge in time that are meant to be transcendent. Meanwhile, in our story, death’s invocation plays out in the Adamic lineage through rehearsals that point to the curse of sin and death that kinked the good and corrupted the heart, and also, point to the live-giving death of our conquering King of kings.

Death Rehearsals

Cain crushes his brother’s life, as pride crept in, but then Seth brings Noah, who is saved in Christ, the ark, pointing toward a future cleansed from sin and death by the flood waters of baptism. Joseph is brought toward his death in a pit by his brothers, falsely accused, imprisoned, and then in faith spoke God’s truth in order to be seated at the right hand of Pharoah,  reconciling Israel through forgiveness. Moses crushes the head of his enemy prematurely, slaves to sin wrongfully accuse him, cast him out, and then he encounters the “I AM” to free the slaves, and kill the deceiver Pharoah with his army. David is the lowest of his family, anointed by Samuel, and kills the scale-wearing blasphemer Goliath, only to be wrongfully persecuted by Saul–who chased him and tried to usurp David’s blessing and his own cursing, until he perished by his own sword. Israel divides from Judah, and establishes kings that betray their eternal God, and given to their sin, they are conquered by Assyria 722 years Before Christ (BC). Judah, with 8 good kings peppered throughout its reign, ultimately reaping the harvest of their allegiance to sin and death with Babylonian exile in the 586th year Before Christ. Throughout this time there are multiple prophets proclaiming what will happen to them specifically, and what will happen to the nations of the world ultimately in Christ Jesus (Messianic King who is God with us).  He is the Alpha before all the types pointing to Christ.

Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.  Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men.  For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.  Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep: in the morning they are like grass which groweth up.  In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth. For we are consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled. Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance. For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told. (Psalm 90:1-9)

Death In Christ

All of the types of Christ in the Old Testament create an unbearable weight to the God who is stuck in time. 351 prophecies fulfilled in Jesus Christ is uncalculably impossible–for a God that is bound by the time that He created. If we take just 8 prophecies from the Old Testament, the probability of this coming true is very conservatively 1 in 1017.

Let us try to visualize this chance. If you mark one of ten tickets, and place all of the tickets in a hat, and thoroughly stir them, and then ask a blindfolded man to draw one, his chance of getting the right ticket is one in ten. Suppose that we take 1017 silver dollars and lay them on the face of Texas. They will cover all of the state two feet deep. Now mark one of these silver dollars and stir the whole mass thoroughly, all over the state. Blindfold a man and tell him that he can travel as far as he wishes, but he must pick up one silver dollar and say that this is the right one. What chance would he have of getting the right one? Just the same chance that the prophets would have had of writing these eight prophecies and having them all come true in any one man, from their day to the present time, providing they wrote using their own wisdom. (Stoner, para. 38)

Yet, the Holy Trinity asserts His dominance over time and creation by establishing 351 prophecies from the Old Testament books. All 351 prophecies Jesus Christ fulfilled in a short 33 year span of time. God’s eternal glory is played out in real time, to redeem us from our curse of sin and death in real time, albeit chronologically later.  He is the Alpha and the Omega in His death, burial and resurrection.

Because sin and death enters into time, it is also bound by time, yet somehow, Jesus Christ, before, during, and after His time on the cross is able to take upon Himself the sins of every person in Christ past, present and future. This is yet another impossibility if God is bound in time. He didn’t take on my sins metaphorically or symbolically, He took my sin of lying to my mother after Kindergarten at age 5, and your sin of stealing, and your sister’s sin of blasphemy, and your brother’s sin of lusting after pornographic material, and your mother’s sin of emotional manipulation, and your father’s sin of authoritarianism, and your daughter’s sin of rebellion, and your son’s sin of fearing man. Each sin of the Old Testament was atoned for in time by the sacrificial system which was established to point to Christ’s ultimate sacrifice. Somehow the bondage of time and sin is broken by Christ on the cross, which was a particular moment bound in time.

Jesus Christ is truly man in his suffering, death, and resurrected glory. Jesus Christ is also truly God, “the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made” (Nicene Creed, excerpt). Being the second Adam, He established a new headship, in the lineage of Adam, Noah, Joseph, Moses, and David, bringing the curse to its completion in His death, all while fulfilling the types that were cast in God’s story of redemption. Eternally, God did not change one iota from when He created all things from nothing. God was not changed as His image-bearers changed their life to one with death. God was not changed as His chosen people crushed the heads of serpents while limping their way forward in time and rebellion. God still remains immutable as He then establishes perfection in the fulfillment of the covenant law, psalms, and prophets, establishing the healing of heaven on earth and the removal of the original sin cursings, only to be given a bruised heel in His betrayal, suffering, and crucifixion. He still has not changed as His will is done on earth as it is in Heaven. The creator of time, uses time to bring death to death with death–His ultimate death, which leads to resurrection in Him, “and the life of the world to come.”

Life In Christ

Jesus Christ is the first fruits of glorified, which is to say heavenified, creation and time (1 Cor. 15, Mt. 6, Heb. 5). Jesus Christ is not recognized by his own friends and disciples, and He is also not bound by the same time and space prerequisites that we are accustomed to in our natural state (Luke 24). In the midst of the greatest messianic let down, suddenly his disciples and the women that knew him and followed him, had their sorrow turned to joy. Even in the face of persecution from the Jewish elite and Roman Empire, the followers clung to the very Word of God, and grew in the face of friction and death. They were slaves under Rome and the Law in time, but free in Christ in time and eternally. Christ has ascended and is sitting at the right hand of the Father, and He has sent His helper, the Holy Spirit, to indwell each Christian, for our regeneration and sanctification. He is the Alpha and the Omega in His setting the captives free, His resurrection, His ascension, and His sitting at the right hand of the Father.

 “We aren’t saved from time but in time” (Garner, p. vi). Because we are still in time, we have a Christian duty of life in Christ. “Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: For our God is a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:28-29).  Christ the King of kings and Lord of lords, the one with authority over heaven and earth, has sealed us in baptism with His covenant sign, and we move by faith through grace in His time, with His eternal promises as our foundation. “...Jesus is the Lord of history. He is Lord of time itself. All of creation–even the seasons and the passing years–points to the lordship of Jesus over all things” (Garner, p. i).  By God’s grace, in faith, by the promises of the Holy Scriptures, through Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, what we do in time matters. These thoughts, words, and actions in time are incarnate life rehearsals of His eternal and infinite attributes.  

Life Rehearsals

The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.  Who knoweth the power of thine anger? even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath.   So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.   Return, O Lord, how long? and let it repent thee concerning thy servants.  O satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.  Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us, and the years wherein we have seen evil.  Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children.  And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it. (Psalm 90:10-17)

Marking time with His signs, sacraments, covenantal truths, and Word, is to establish deep into our bones and being, where we came from, to whom we belong, and where we are going.

God has committed a number of days to each of us. He expects us to be faithful stewards of those days. In light of the fleeting nature of our lives, the fact that we are like grass that shoots up and gets cut down, Moses prays, ‘teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom’ (Psalm 90:12). The faithful ought to care about time, to mark time, so that we can redeem time. Because time is precious, we must plan our time and not waste it. Moses prays, ‘satisfy us early with Your mercy, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days’ (v. 14), and ‘establish the work of our hands for us; yes, establish the work of our hands’ (v. 17). Here we see that time is redeemed in two ways: first, in rejoicing–in worship, in celebration, in festivity, and feasting–and second, in work–work to provide food for our houses, work to educate and train our children, work to provide for others. (Garner, p. iv-v)
We pray in the same obedience that Jesus Christ submitted to God the Father. We pray knowing that God is the author of creation from outside of it, just as He is the author of time from outside of it. Time is not the same for God, as it is for us, but He does work in time, just as He works in our hearts and minds. So, we pray for Him to teach us to count our days, bring your grace to us and our children early, and establish the work of our hands. In time, we pray this while we get the joy of proclaiming His promises and His good news through our worship in time for a certain amount of predetermined days, serving no one else but the Lord–Creator of heaven and earth. In time, we get to hear His Word as we sing it, proclaim it, teach it, are taught by it, and read it. In time, we get to gather together on the Lord’s day and establish covenant renewal with Him, and be nourished by Him in the Marriage Feast of the Lord’s Supper. He is the Omega in His Marriage of the bride, His washing of His bride by the water of the word, and His marriage feast.

Numbering days and doing these things do not gain for us, our eternal joy, they come from our eternal joy in Christ. We are saved to good works and for good works, not by good works. The Christian cannot help but stumble his way forward in the goodness of the glory of God. We are often mistaken and filled with error, and God in His eternal kindness and grace, condescends in time to discipline us in love, and grows His Kingdom through Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. Gloriously and finitely, we trip into sync and lisp into rhythm with the Lord, and what an awe-inspiring moment that is, only to find ourselves being pulled from our drowning doom, because our eyes once again lost sight of His eternal glory. Do we scoff? By no means, but we revel in His lovingkindness, and laugh at the deceivers outside of His truth, and tremble at His glorious wrath.

Life Invocation

And if they be human, let him scoff; but if they are not human, but of God, let him recognize it, and not laugh at what is no matter for scoffing; but rather let him marvel that by so ordinary a means things divine have been manifested to us, and that by death immortality has reached to all, and that by the Word becoming man, the universal Providence has been known, and its Giver and Artificer, the very Word of God. (Athanasius, p. 178)

Time is not the same for God, and His ways are hilariously higher than our ways, so how do we honor the self-sufficient Spirit that has created all things and authors all things that come to pass. We worship in spirit and in truth–glorifying the only One who is worthy of worship.  Just because He is not bound by time, does not mean that time is not valuable. In the same way that just because God is not a human, does not mean humans are not valuable. (I understand that the person of Jesus Christ is two natures: God and glorified man, but that is not saying God is man) Because time is valuable, we ought to value time to the glory of God.
 
 Just as the chosen people of God in the Old Testament, built practices around His signs and seasons to signify the value of the time that God gifted them with and was in charge over.  “These men, because they had been very near to spiritual things–for even in the temporal and carnal offerings and types, though they did not clearly apprehend their spiritual meaning, they had learnt to adore the One Eternal God–were filled with such a measure of the Holy Spirit that they sold all their goods, and laid their price at the apostles’ feet to be distributed among the needy, and consecrated themselves wholly to God as a new temple, of which the old temple they were serving was but the earthly type” (Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, p. 67). Christians, because we worship in the new temple, because of the new covenant in Christ, and because we are His bride–the new Israel–the catholic church, we established and continue to celebrate days and feasts to memorialize His heavenly truths, ways, and life on earth through seasons, and in time.  “...our calendar tells us the story of the gospel. Through re-enacting the grand drama of the seasons and the feast days, we show the world that we believe the gospel. Jesus’ people have been and ought still be known for deep, unshakable, irrepressible joy” (Garner, p. xv) The glorious truth is that we were dead in Adam, but now we are alive in Christ, we rehearse this message of life and we invoke this message of life every day in faith. His promises must not be muted by our sullen, “have to” attitudes, but they must ring with joy, by our colorful and joyful celebrations and feasts that lovingly long toward His mountain, which was formed from a rock hewn by no human hand, and has broken the reign of tyrants and deceivers, and is to fill the whole of the earth (Daniel 2). We are the church triumphant, established in Christ who is ushering in the Kingdom that shall have no end, and we declare the marriage of the Son of God to His bride the church, and we long for the consummation of this marriage.

From Glory to Glory Toward Consummation

There is glory in my justification, and regeneration. There is another glory in my sanctification, which is to say my tripping and lisping finite folly, just as Job portrayed, when trying to understand the things of God. The blessed Trinity holds it all in His perfectly capable hands, and I can have a peace which surpasses all understanding in that hope by faith. “But a curse is pronounced on him who places his hope in man. Neither ought any one to have joy in himself, if you look at the matter clearly, because no one ought to love even himself for his own sake, but for the sake of Him who is the true object of enjoyment” (Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, p. 15). His eternal being is a glory beyond understanding, but we can see the blessed condescension of time as a way to apprehend His glorious presence in our life now and in the end.. He is Omega in bringing us from one glory to another glory, until His return and the marriage is consummated.

In our daily prayers, worship, scripture reading, work, and recreation, we proclaim this glory. In our church attendance, church’s liturgy, and church fellowship, we proclaim this glory. In our yearly seasons and cycles and celebrations we proclaim this glory. “The cycle of celebrations (in reference to Christian Church Calendar celebrations) reminds us, no, you are going somewhere, and the church is going somewhere, and everything is moving and improving and reforming in ways you cannot see because you don’t have God’s perspective on time.” This too is glorious. We are in the year of our Lord–Annus Domini (AD)–and that means something for both the Christian and the non-Christian. Christ is making His enemies His footstool, and such were us. This is all the more reason for us to joyfully, go make disciples of nations. “ And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.  Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:  Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.” (Mt. 28:18-20)

Conclusion
Our lives are fleeting, and our life here on earth is vapor, disappearing quickly (James 4:14, Eccl 1). Without God the Father, the Son (our Lord Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit, that fleetingly small amount of time that we think we own, becomes completely insignificant, chasing after pleasures of the world, pleasures of the flesh, and deceptions of the evil one, only to be bonded to eternal corruption. However, in Christ, “a good man leaves an inheritance to their children’s children” (Prov 13:22). This inheritance will be much more challenging if your schedule is in chaos (not counting your days), and you are rushing toward each goal with hare-like intensity–excited one day and forgotten the next day. We must plod like the tortoise, steadily winning the race inside of God’s condescending and glorious time, with consistency and endurance (1 Cor 9:24). These efforts to glorify God by leaving an inheritance–spiritual, educational, physical, and financial–are obviously manifested in time, which is a plague to the rebellious and a gift to those submitted to Christ in God. Whether we choose Christ or chaos, we often think about the value of immediate time, by planning and acting within hours, days, and weeks. Instead, I encourage you to adjust your perspective in terms of years, decades, generations, and ultimately–eternity. Not to devalue the present or the immediate needs, God sees the importance of a single act in a short moment, yet expresses His steadfast love and promises to a thousand generations (Exod 20:6, Deut 7:9, Psalm 105:8). The fact that He is represented in terms of infinite, eternal, and unchanging, ought to indict our often frantic tactical skirmishes, that look much more like the hare, than the purposeful and steadfast tortoise.

Do not overestimate or underestimate your worship in time. Be as wise as a tower-builder or a king encountering war, counting the cost before you dedicate the moment with what you know to be true and show to be true. We tend to overestimate what we can get done in an hour, a day, a week, and a month, and we tend to underestimate what we can accomplish in a year, a decade, and a lifetime. If a man’s life is spent worshiping the business of building homes, he would probably get really good at building them. He would most likely learn all the efficiency tricks, quality skills, best materials, and beautiful styles that create the best homes to live in and enjoy. However, there is a huge disconnect in this framework of worshiping a created good–God did not create man to worship homes or the building of homes or any of the created cosmos, including time. God created us to worship Him. God alone is worthy of our worship.  Now, imagine the same home-builder, but instead of worshiping his work or the money he makes or the accolades he hears or the homes he builds, this man builds homes to glorify and worship the Triune God, committing his work as unto the Lord (Col 3:23, I Cor 10:31). His hours, days, weeks, years, and decades are committed to the Lord, worshiping God with the meditation of his mind, the work of his hands, and desires of his heart. Because of the right relationship of worshipper to the one worthy of worship, the man is able to consecrate these high quality, efficient, effective, and beautiful homes to the Lord. More importantly, the man has redeemed time to the glory and enjoyment of God.

This anecdotal story of the homebuilder showcases the difference between a believer and a non-believer. There is deep contentment in the time the man in Christ will spend because his time is spent on the eternal and transcendent God. Therefore, God’s truth, goodness, and beauty will be seen in all of the believers' efforts, and in every moment of time that he is gifted with from God. Whereas the person that is worshiping the things of his flesh or the world or even worse, the fallen spiritual beings created by God, will always be trying to get more, do more, or have more, because they have been deceived or have deceived themselves into the belief that the things of God are worthy of worship, including time. We see that play out in doom scrolling with no end, the seeming necessity for more money, the lustful manipulation of sex for sale (pornography, prostitution, only fans, etc.), and the need for more convenience (or time) to the point of killing God’s created beings (in abortion, fatherly neglect, abuse of children, human trafficking). All of which is sinful corruption of what is true, good, and beautiful.  Instead, our justification in Christ, gives us a right-relationship with God and His creation and His time. It is God alone that is worthy of worship (our service and allegiance), and out of that right-relationship with Him, we can experience His true, good, and beautiful created order.

When we order our time, we establish a right view of God and the time He created and the time He is in charge of. When we order our time, we are ordering both quantity and quality. We aren’t going to get very deep in our schedules, if we think God gets this bit of time and I get all the rest. Instead, we ought to see that in all things, especially in time, we are to worship Him (1 Cor 10:31). When we order our time, we are asking the Triune God of heaven and earth to teach us to number our days. Whether you use a memento Mori chart or not is up to you, but know that God does have your days numbered, and you are either worshiping Him with those days or you are not.

Bibliography
Athanasius of Alexandria. On The Incarnation (Bilingual English-Greek edition). Translation by Archibald Robertson. Troutdale, OR. 2025.
Augustine. Confessions: A New Translation by Henry Chadwick. Oxford World’s Classics. Oxford University Press, 2008.
Augustine of Hippo, et al. City of God. London, Penguin, 2003.
Augustine of Hippo, St. On Christian Doctrine. Translated by Prof. James J. Shaw (1845-1910). Printed by Createspace, North Charleston, SC, USA.
Garner, Duane. For Signs and Seasons-A Primer on the Church Calendar. Athanasius Press, 2024.
George Gillespie. The Westminster Standards. Retrieved on June 12, 2025 at https://thewestminsterstandards.com/george-gillespie/
Jones, Mark. Knowing Christ. Edinburgh Scotland ; Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Banner Of Truth Trust, 2015.
Monaco, Alex. “Download a Free Memento Mori Chart, and Your Life Will Change!” Pinterest, Sept. 2023, www.pinterest.com/pin/download-a-free-memento-mori-chart--408631366203358553/. Accessed 25 Feb. 2025.
Stoner, Peter W. PhD. Science Speaks. Retrieved from https://sciencespeaks.dstoner.net/Christ_of_Prophecy.html#c9 on Jun 14, 2025.
Westminster Shorter Catechism (WSC-4). Question 4 - What is God? Retrieved on June 12, 2025 at https://thewestminsterstandards.com/q4-what-is-god/

Notes and Quotes
“Further up and further in by CS Lewis, evokes, moving from one glory to the next and the only way to live to the glory of God and enjoy him. Hierarchy is the damning and glorifying aspect of God‘s general revelation. too often. too often we shoot for something in God‘s hierarchical structure and end up worshiping it because it’s so good and so true and so beautiful and yet knowingly, we missed the mark because we didn’t actually go further up and further in, which is what His time and His creation beckons from us in all its glory.” -my musings on a drive and then witnessing a deer witness me

KJV
Psalm 90:12 So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.
Psalm 39:4 Lord, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is: that I may know how frail I am.

Times and Seasons
Genesis 1:14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
Ecclesiastes 3:1 To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.
Daniel 2:21 And he changeth the times and the seasons: he removeth kings and setteth up kings: He giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding.
Acts 1:7 And He said unto them, “It is not for you to know the times of the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own powers.
1st Thessalonians 5:1 But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you.
Ecclesiastes 3:11 He hath made everything beautiful in His time: also He hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.

Alpha and Omega
Revelation 1:8 I am alpha and omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is and which was, and which is to come, The Almighty.
Revelation 1:11 Saying, I am alpha and omega, the first and the last:and, what thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea.
Revelation 21:6 And he said unto me, it is done. I am alpha and omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of life freely.
Revelation 22:13 I am alpha and omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.
Isaiah 41:4 Who hath wrought and done it, calling the generations from the beginning? I the Lord, the first, and with the last, I AM He.
Romans 11:36 For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things: to whom be the glory forever, amen.
Ephesians 1:10 - 11 10 That in the dispensation of the fullness of times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth: even in Him. 11 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will: That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ.
Isaiah 44:6-7 Thus saith the Lord the King of Israel, And his redeemer the Lord of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; And beside me there is no God. 7 And who, as I, shall call, And shall declare it, and set it in order for me, Since I appointed the ancient people? And the things that are coming, and shall come, let them shew unto them. 8 Fear ye not, neither be afraid: Have not I told thee from that time, And have declared it? Ye are even my witnesses. Is there a God beside me? Yea, there is no God; I know not any.
Col 1:15–20 15 Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: 16 For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: 17 And who is before all things, and by him all things consist. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. 19 For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell; 20 And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.

Eternal
Psalm 90:1-2 1 Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. 2 Before the mountains were brought forth, Or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.
Jude 7 (death) Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them, in like manner giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
Titus 1:2 (life) In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began; But hath in due times manifested his word through preaching, which is committed unto me according to the commandment of God our saviour;
2 Corinthians 5:1 (life) For we know that if your earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
Romans 6:23 (death and life) For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Ephesians 3:11 (eternal purpose) According to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord:
Hebrews 9:14 (death to life) How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
Romans 1:20 (creation) For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
Isaiah 57:15 For thus saith the high and lofty One That inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, With him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, To revive the spirit of the humble, And to revive the heart of the contrite ones.

God is Spirit
John 4:23-24 23 But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. 24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
Time is Not the Same for God
Psalm 90:4 For a thousand years in thy sight Are but as yesterday when it is past, And as a watch in the night.
2 Peter 3:8 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
2 Peter 3:10-12 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with the fervent heart?

His ways are higher than our ways
Deuteronomy 29:29 The secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.
Isaiah 55:8-9 8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Job 42:1-6 1 Then Job answered the Lord, and said, 2 I know that thou canst do every thing, and that no thought can be withholden from thee. 3 Who is he that hideth counsel without knowledge? therefore have I uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not. 4 Hear, I beseech thee, and I will speak: I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me. 5 I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. 6 Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.


Life Span of person in the US  average   77.43 years     28,262 days  678,737 hours

On the Incarnation By Athanasius
Pg 23 “For if, out of a former normal state of non-existence, they were called into being by the Presence and loving-kindness of the Word, it followed naturally that when men were bereft of the knowledge of God and were turned back to what was not (for what is evil is not, but what is good is), they should, since they derive their being from God who IS, be everlastingly bereft even of being; in other words, that they should be disintegrated and abide in death and corruption.”
Pg 24 “For God has not only made us out of nothing; but He gave us freely, by the Grace of the Word, a life in correspondence with God. But men, having rejected things eternal, and, by counsel of the devil, turned to the things of corruption, became the cause of their own corruption in death, being, as I said before, by nature corruptible, but destined, by the grace following from partaking of the Word, to have escaped their natural state, had they remained good.”
Pg 25 “For because of the Word dwelling with them, even their natural corruption did not come near them, as Wisdom also says: God made man for incorruption, and as an image of His own eternity; but by the envy of the devil death came into the world. But when this had come to pass, men began to die, while corruption thence forward prevailed against them, gaining even more that its natural power over the whole race, inasmuch as it had, owing to the transgression of the commandment, the threat of the Deity as a further advantage against them.”
Pg 178 And if they be human, let him scoff; but if they are not human, but of God, let him recognize it, and not laugh at what is no matter for scoffing; but rather let him marvel that by so ordinary a means things divine have been manifested to us, and that by death immortality has reached to all, and that by the Word becoming man, the universal Providence has been known, and it Giver and Artificer the very Word of God.

Garner, Duane. For Signs and Seasons-A Primer on the Church Calendar. Athanasius Press, 2024.
Pg. i “...Jesus is the Lord of history. He is Lord of time itself. All of creation–even the seasons and the passing years–points to the lordship of Jesus over all things.”
Pg ii “Because we are His people, we care about history, and therefore we care about time.”
Pg ii “In Psalm 90, Moses meditates on the passage of time and the brevity of our lives, contrasted with the eternal steadfastness of Yahweh. He prays that we might be faithful to carefully steward the few days we have, numbering them in a way that is pleasing to God in order that we might learn wisdom.”
Pg. iv “When Moses sings, ‘A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night,’ he is not proposing that time does not matter to God, but that God has a perspective on time that we cannot begin to fathom.”
Pg. iv “...Peter picked up this theme to comfort the churches by encouraging them to be patient and endure suffering because “with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 peter 3:8). This is not a mathematical formula. This is a declaration that God does not share our perspective about time.”
Pg. iv-v “God has committed a number of days to each of us. He expects us to be faithful stewards of those days. In light of the fleeting nature of our lives, the fact that we are like grass that shoots up and gets cut down, Moses prays, ‘teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom’ (Psalm 90:12). The faithful ought to care about time, to mark time, so that we can redeem time. Because time is precious, we must plan our time and not waste it. Moses prays, ‘satisfy us early with Your mercy, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days’ (v. 14), and ‘establish the work of our hands for us; yes, establish the work of our hands’ (v. 17). Here we see that time is redeemed in two ways: first, in rejoicing–in worship, in celebration, in festivity, and feasting–and second, in work–work to provide food for our houses, work to educate and train our children, work to provide for others.”
Pg. vi “We aren’t saved from time but in time.”
Pg. x “Death reigned over the whole world, but then here came jesus, the Daystar, and He fought back against the darkness.”
Pg. xiv “The cycle of celebrations (in reference to Christian Church Calendar celebrations) reminds us, no, you are going somewhere, and the church is going somewhere, and everything is moving and improving and reforming in ways you cannot see because you don’t have God’s perspective on time.”
Pg. xv “...our calendar (the church calendar) tells us the story of the gospel. Through re-enacting the grand drama of the seasons and the feast days, we show the world that we believe the gospel. Jesus’ people have been and ought still be known for deep, unshakable, irrepressible joy.”
Pg. 61 “through songs, readings, prayers and sermons we reinforce the foundational Christian teaching that the God of creation has eternally existed in a covenant of three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”

Augustine. Confessions: A New Translation by Henry Chadwick. Oxford World’s Classics. Oxford University Press, 2008.
Pg. 225 “Therefore you spoke and they were made, and by your word you made them (Ps. 32:9, 6)  “But how did you speak? Surely not in the way a voice came out of the cloud saying, ‘This is my beloved Son’ (Matt. 17:5). That voice is past and done with; it began and is ended. The syllables sounded and have passed away, the second after the first, the third after the second, and so on in order until, after all the others, the last one came, and after the last silence followed. Therefore it is clear and evident that the utterance came through the movement of some created thing, serving your eternal will but itself temporal. And these your words, made for temporal succession were reported by the external ear to the judicious mind whose internal ear is disposed to hear your eternal word. But that mind would compare these words, sounding in time, with your eternal word in silence, and say: ‘It is very different, the difference is enormous. The sounds are far inferior to me, and have no being, because they are fleeting and transient. But the word of my God is superior to me and abides for ever’ (Isa 40:8).”
Pg. 226 “A thing dies and comes into being inasmuch as it is not what it was and becomes what it was not. No element of your word yields place or succeeds to something else, since it is truly immortal and eternal. And so by the Word coeternal with yourself, you say all that you say in simultaneity and eternity, and whatever you say will come about does come about. You do not cause it to exist other than by speaking. Yet not all that you cause to exist by speaking is made in simultaneity and eternity.”

It seems all too common to have encounters and conversations with Christians more than willing to worship fully, pray deeply, and exhort boldly in Christ on Sunday morning at church and Wednesday evening at Bible study, only to go about their daily lives in accordance to the world, seemingly slave to sin.

I have confessed this very thing in our family time, as we prayed together. Our prayers consist of adoration, and then confessing our sins, and then giving God thanks for His many blessings in our life, and lastly asking for His supplication in our life. My confession was, "Why am I walking out even just a part of my life in accordance with the deception of the deceiver, the metrics of the world, and enslavement to sin?" This fleshly part of my life rears its ugly head, when I am not submitting all of me and all of my life to Christ. My fallen nature so easily meanders off of the Lord's narrow path.

"Do I have to submit everything to Christ?"

Short answer, "yes."

This is the problem of total depravity in sin, and a life of sin prior to Christ's salvation. We often convince ourselves that we are submitting everything to Christ, only to find our minds and hearts coveting a neighbors (fill-in-the-blank), or being tempted by the images of a corrupted and hyper-sexualized and hyper-materialistic world.

Christ transforms your covetousness to consecrated celebration and joy-filled love of our neighbors, bringing them to the glory of God and the joy that is experience in the glory.

Christ transforms your temptation into strength to stand against the sex-traffickers and evil people behind the hyper-sexualization of our world and children.

Christ transforms your mental manipulation giving only when you have an income increase, into offering what you have now in total trust of what only God can know and do in His provision.

None of these transformations occur if we are still in slavery to our sin. Our peace and contentment and joy is wholly contingent upon Christ and Him ruling over our entire life--body, mind, spirit, strength, desires, hopes, and dreams. If the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, has authority over heaven and earth, it would seem to be a simple task, and yet, we find ourselves continually tripping on our selfish desires and old fleshly rebellious ways.

Let those selfish thoughts and old fleshly rebellious ways, be the reminder that you are Christ's bondservant, and then kneel and submit in obedience to Christ Jesus our Lord in confession and repentance.

From Slaves of Sin to Slaves of God

Romans 6:15-19 (NKJV)

15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not! 16 Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? 17 But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. 18 And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. 19 I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness.

Too often we dwell on the dark moments of our lives. We are told this is just an autonomic response that takes place for our survival.

In accordance with the naturalism model, it seems odd that we have re-categorized threats that will not take our life, as threats worthy of the freeze, flight, and fight threats. Rapid heart rate, paralyzing moments, and reactionary fighting, driven by fear, fill many of our lives so much that we look to pharma and psychotherapy for the answers. Given that most of us are hardly ever in a true freeze, flight, and fight state of being, because we have our basic needs met, it is mind-boggling that we are saying we have actual threats to our existence, when they are merely stressful and challenging obstacles in our lives.

It seems we ought to be thankful to God for our lives, even if we are confronted daily with death through starvation, plagues, predators, and exposure.

Why?

This was a reality for the early church, our frontier cousins of the 19th century, and even most people on the planet today.

A life of thanksgiving should pour from our existence.

Especially if we have food, clothes, a roof over our head, and indoor plumbing, and we merely encounter friction on our way to and from work and home, and in the relationships in both places.

And yet we find ourselves filled with fear, and negativity, possibly even more than our ancestors that harvested from the wild-lands of yesteryear.

Is it odd to you?

It seems odd to me.

Even Christians succumb to their fallen nature of fearing the world and man instead of God. Even the Christian praises God, and then turns the corner, and is deceived again by the evil one, brought to despair in the midst of so much good fortune.

We have a roof over our head, running water (don't even get me started on the incredible blessing of indoor plumbing), vehicles to travel around the globe in the smallest spans of time, technology that can give us news of our friends and foes at the blink of an eye, and closets filled with clothes that we could drown in before the elements ever left us exposed.

It seems that both our sin nature and the deceiver's false narratives are harmonizing a tune that carry us away into chaos and confusion, losing sight of God’s gifts and glory that provide wisdom, truth, a way, and a life that ought to be filled with thanksgiving.

In this lost state, most of humanity begins to build narratives and stories that try to solidify the mire of deception and the sin that is quicksand. Stories that pile myth upon myth so high that it tries to tower above the hopelessness of the pit, only to find it has fallen once again into the wind and waves of every new teaching–a teaching that is only new on its face, yet strangely familiar to the story weaved by a snake in a garden about knowledge of good and evil and being like God. None of which is True, and all of which will only rebuild itself again and again, while simultaneously being swallowed up in itself because there is no foundation from which it can stand.

This is a life without Thanksgiving.

A life without the Lordship of Christ.

A life without hope, joy, and love.

This is not to say bad things don't exist, and we shouldn't be shrewd.

It is often that our shrewdness and discerning of the times, is really just a shroud of darkness, covering the sin of misplaced fear.

Instead, we ought to spend a majority of our waking moments thanking and praising the Triune God. The God that gives us gifts for which we can all be thankful for, and in this thankfulness, we will be constantly reminded of His presence and glory.

A life of Thanksgiving, will prove that even in the midst of the darkness there is a light. The light is not us, but Him. He provides a foundation. He provides Truth. He eliminates confusion.

In Him we are found, and the scales do not come back found wanting, but overflowing. He is worthy of worship, and the only way to eliminate our fears, sin nature, and the deceptions from the evil one.

Is it any wonder that Christian marriages suffer the same plight that secular marriages suffer? If the Christian man and woman are not looking to glorify God through their life and union, then what standard of union would a marriage hold? It seems to me that the cultural milieu would dictate the values. Each man and woman would make their choices and spend their energy on the values that the society has told them to uphold.

We do not live in a vacuum, and once God is pulled down from the greater purpose of our existence, we seem to step into the surrounding values of our peers, communities, and what the media portrays as necessary and important. As humanity is frail, fickle, and fraught with selfishness, it does not surprise me that we find ourselves in a self-driven value system that has been deceiving us since the beginning of creation. This value system has been the downfall of humanity and the downfall of marital union, and the downfall of our union with the one true God, that gave us life, sustains us in being, and has redeemed us from these very deceptions.

To arrest our fall, too often we look to our world for answers. We have put on harnesses, strap these harnesses to fall lines, and tie the fall lines off to seemingly solid advice of our surroundings. Only to realize, the harnesses are choking our very lives from us, the lines are tangled in webs of deception, and the world wasn’t as solid as it looked–constantly shifting with every wind and wave of new teaching. Too often, without even thinking twice, we reaffirm our approach with a new harness, a new line, and a new tie-off point that is just as worldly, just as deceptive, and just as choking. “But it is new!” “But it is different!” Only to suffer the same fate, again and again in new ways.

God created you. God sustains you. God redeems you. God has stated that you are to become one. And so it seems that we should be looking to Him to build our marriage upon a solid rock, pursuing His glory, which is the only thing worthy of worship. What does this look like? I will state that it won’t look very much like what the world has told us it should look like. It won’t be fair, or 50/50, or bliss. It will look like Jesus Christ dying a sinner's death on the cross for His Church. It will look like submission. It will look like sacrifice. It will look like leading and all the responsibilities that come with leading.

 1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. 2 And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. 3 But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. 4 Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. 5 For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. 6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. 7 Therefore do not become partners with them; 8 for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light 9 (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), 10 and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. 11 Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. 12 For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. 13 But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, 14 for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” 15 Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. 17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. 18 And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, 19 addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, 20 giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 21 submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. 25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Discipled in Christ is a Social Media and eLearning platform to allow individuals and partner churches to foster community and daily discipleship within their local congregation and across the internet. Unlike typical social media experiences, everyone using Discipled in Christ technology can connect face to face with other users. That’s because the only users they will encounter are other members of their local church. Discipled in Christ does not replace relationships, it enhances them through regular connection, shared experiences, and mutual love for one another. The social features are amazing, but are not the ultimate purpose behind

The integrated eLearning system, social features, and included content are designed to create a lifestyle of daily discipleship and fellowship. The Discipled in Christ software delivers social media functionality such as following/friending other users, private direct messaging between users, group participation and discussions, and open or closed forum discussions.

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First, I believe this will ultimately be the case (my irrational optimism is undeniable as a result of my post-millenial and calvinistic convictions). Second, I am vividly aware of how far off we are, due to the corrupted cosmos we find ourselves in...my own sin nature reminds me of this too often.

But for just a moment think about the eradication of confusion, chaos, and relative truth claims. Harmony and order and goodness and beauty and truth would be the themes of every day and all of life.

It seems to me, that parents and leaders are content with mere reaction to absurdities, chaos, relativity, and subjective illogical platitudes, instead of casting a strong vision of hope through consistency in laying out what is true, good, beautiful, orderly, and harmonious in and through God.

This is what is slowly growing from something small like a mustard seed into something with branches that birds can perch on. God's Kingdom, which is a Kingdom filled completely with truth, goodness, and beauty, is the yeast that is slowly permeating the loaf that is the people on earth and the earth itself. Jesus spoke this parable to not only give hope, but to recognize the slow-filling of the gospel in all the world.

"“You saw, O king, and behold, a great image. This image, mighty and of exceeding brightness, stood before you, and its appearance was frightening. The head of this image was of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its middle and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. As you looked, a stone was cut out by no human hand, and it struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold, all together were broken in pieces, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, so that not a trace of them could be found. But the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth."

Daniel 2:31-35

We cannot keep using the cultural and worldly language, mathematics, logic, and metrics, and expect to understand God's truth, goodness, and beauty. We must use the language, math, logic, and measurements of God, to see clearly what was once dark to us. Let not your sin and fallen nature control you, but submit it to Christ in His death and resurrection, so you too may live eternally with Christ as His adopted sons and daughters.

For two year now, I have been studying the early church fathers and early church history. I know that I don't know very much. But since, reading the early church fathers, the scholastics, and the reformers, my knowledge and understanding become exponentially smaller.

Historically, most of the theological, intellectual, and philosophical battles that we find ourselves in, have been fought a thousand times over in our rich Christian heritage.

For instance, reading through Augustine's, City of God, is almost as if I am reading a newspaper, except the Roman gods would be replaced with today's gods of intersectionality--and intersectionality's random grasps at relative truth for each section of race, gender, economic power, and social power. The absurdity of both, play on and on, ad nauseaum, until one tires of the many gods for each aspect of life that is forced upon us with fear-mongering tactics and mob-like intensity. The truth of the gospel cuts through the absurdity in the same way a hot knife slips to the bottom of a butter cube with no effort.

So before I make a case against anything or for anything, the case I am making, is that we have much work to do in regards to understanding the gospel and its Kingdom-building principles that have been playing out in history for that last TWO THOUSAND YEARS. I emphasize the number, because we Christians have done such a poor job of gleaning from our past, that it is appalling to see us struggle so sorrowfully in less frictional and problematic times than our forefathers of grace and faith.

It would behoove us to stop complaining and shouting opinions and start studying our own history. The signal of perseverance and providence in the noise of our current and past calamities, would be deafening. A few years ago, I felt as if I had finally established some headway in regard to theology and philosophy, only to find myself at a stopping point.  I realized I must re-establish some grounded truths that built many of the flourishing and free societies of our past (i.e. medieval christendom or even Athens, Sparta, Israel, and Rome).

Our Church fathers and Church history are far too rich in their insights and truth and practical application of our Christian faith to ignore. Yet somehow, we think we got it all figured out. Looking around our Christian landscape today, demonstrates that we do not have it figured out. We have been pretending the richest mines in our historical books are tapped out. Yet, we haven't even entered the mine. For if we had, we would see the richest ores of knowledge, truth, faith, and grace that was applied so well, or was mistakenly walked out. Of course, God's Word is primary. But acting like the church fathers and our church history doesn't have anything to say about God's word in our lives and what was successful versus what brought failure, is to have wise counselors and never speak with them. May we all pick up the books, and bring the Church forward in God's grace, through our faith, and see His yeast permeate the whole loaf.

Take some time to study the past, so that we may learn from it, and forge a Church resting on the promises of our sovereign triune God through our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ and the work of His Holy Spirit through the lives of the communion of His saints.

13 Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. 14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. 15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

Romans 7:13-25

It seems to me that any believer in Christ our Lord and savior has experienced this struggle. The struggle to not sin, by submitting entirely to the Lordship of Christ in all areas of their lives, including their mind and heart, and yet finding themselves sinning--again. It really isn't that strange when I think about it. Even in my thoughts, sin can happen so fast, it makes my head spin. I am constantly surprised at how weak I am in the flesh, and how much I need Christ in all areas of my life, in every moment.

There are moments that I am disgusted at myself, because I seem to desire what is wrong, and I know that it is Jesus Christ alone that saves me from death in sin. It is God's grace alone that brings me to the submission of my life to the Lordship of Christ, and discipleship in Him. And yet, I still experience moments where the total depravity of my fallen self, rears its ugly head. In those moments I feel lost, and abandon, and I would remain so if it wasn't for confession and repentance. And out of the Holy Spirit's conviction, I confess to the Lord, thanking Him for His death, burial, and resurrection for the forgiveness of sins. I then submit all of my life to Christ--again, even and especially the areas of sin and doubt and my fallen nature...and so what about the habits of sin and the habit of submission?

It seems that God works in our heart and in our mind with what Charles Duhigg was referring to in his book, "The Power of Habit." Considering so much of our lives are lived automatically, why would our slow sanctification and the transformation by the renewing of our mind be exactly what is referred to in understanding habits?

If it is my habit to fall every morning to a habit of laziness and procrastination, how might our understanding of habit help me see my sin, confess, and repent toward a habit of productivity, contentment, and punctuality, which would glorify God and enjoy Him? Is this not walking by faith in His promises?

Renewing our mind through daily discipleship is a choice we make, when we have counted the cost of discipleship and choose all of Christ for all of our life. This is God's grace in your regenerated heart, which is why we believed in Jesus Christ our Lord and savior and pursue Him in faith. Considering how much of our lives are filled with habits (not all of them bad, but many of them in need of adjusting or even complete overhaul), it is no wonder that we ought to start at the beginning of our day in creating a habit of submission over the habit of sin.

This may look different for each person, but my guess is that you are renewing your mind in some worldly way in the morning, and it ought to be renewed in Christ through worship, scripture, prayer, journalling, exercise, and love. When we trade a habit for a habit, it works much better when you stack it on a good habit that you have maintained for years, like, brushing your teeth or drinking coffee or taking a shower. These small habit stacking processes can grow into robust God-honoring practices that not only trade a bad habit of phone scrolling or listening to the news or looking at your emails into singing along with a Psalm, reading a chapter of scripture, praying through the Lord's prayer format, and then writing down your thoughts about the aforementioned engagements with the Lord. This has a powerful way of transforming us by the renewing of our mind, literally changing our worldview into what God has intended in our creation, right down to the synapses of thought in our brain.

Will you fail?

Sure, some days you will miss, and other days you will feel like it is a rote, box-checking-protocol with no life, but rest-assured your original worship of the news, or the phone, or looking at your emails was just as worldview changing and had just as many (if not more) rote, box-checking experiences. At the end of the day, and more importantly at the end of the year, you will have collected 365 faith-filled, God-honoring practices that have submitted your life to God, worshipping the only One worthy of our worship, and that alone is a transformational act.

However, the change that you will experience in your self, your home, your community, and your church may be the most shocking part of trading our habits of sin (missing the mark), with a habit of submission to the Lord of all of heaven and of earth and of life and of death. Does He not bless His children? Does He not clothe us? What do you have to lose?

Only your soul. Let us daily confess our sins readily and quickly, repent (by turning to the Lord), believe in Jesus Christ our Lord and savior, and then go, therefore, and make disciples of nations (by counting the cost and becoming daily disciples of Christ), baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey all of His commands. For He is with us to the end of the age. (paraphrase Matthew 28:18-20)

Just because we are in a fleshly body that is prone to sin and death, does not mean we cannot continually and daily make a habit of submission to the Lord. There will be struggles between old sin nature and sinful habits, but there is hope and life in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and His work on the cross. Embrace His sacrificial love all the more, and do not embrace the condemnation that will come from the evil one, but embrace the love and forgiveness of Christ. Confess and repent of your sin, and set up habits that submit those areas to the Lordship of Christ. Think like a wise, warring King, and set yourself up for success by learning your old, sinful habits, so that you may trade them for habits of submission to Christ.

Why do we ask these nagging questions that seem to echo in our bones and divide our minds?

Questions like, where did I come from? Why am I here? What is my purpose? Where are we going (ultimately)? What happens when we die?

Not that I am going to give you the answer that will stop all of that bone echoing or bring peace and unity to our minds, but I am going to venture down a path that is worth pondering (at least I think so).

Ontologically, we hold value and worth in our existence, at least as an existing essence or being. I am, therefore, I have worth in the value of the present. If I did not exist, there would be no observer or observation from this person/perspective. That being (me) holds intrinsic value and worth, but we cannot measure it without knowing it regarding the reason for its existence (my existence). We cannot measure it without knowing why there is an observation of me, by me, and by all the existing observations around me.

These questions are philosophically unparalleled, until or unless something is observed as having greater value. Oftentimes, idealized personas, grandiose objects, romanticized stories, well-articulated pathways, or more complex systems are attractive because they seem to give greater value to something or someone than you were giving to yourself. However, it seems that an ultimate being, creator, source of everything is already answering the questions in a greater story that we have found ourselves in. And the more we seek it, the more we see that this is true.

And then there are the deceptions and worthless pathways, that seem so beautiful, phantasmic, terrific, and over time they pull the person into greater darkness, chaos, despair, anxiety, depression, and desolation. These are the stories of fame, fortune, pleasure, and self-worship, that seem to lead each person that follows these paths to an early grave or at least isolation, depravity, and/or the zombie-like addiction to drugs, sex, and greed.

If a story is true, in that it helps align the most robust and real version of you with all it is that you have observed and beyond, without losing the true bearing that its origin began with, do you cast your entirety into it? Is that worth submitting to, or should we hold out for something better? Should we look for another story? It seems the most authentic and resonating story is the one that affects us most effectively. One can plunge the depth, breadth, length, and height of it, only to find that it cannot be measured, and yet must be adhered to.

This is the story of the canonical scriptures, and the Triune author behind the passages. This is the good news and truth in love that the Lord in His grace has blessed me with, as I ventured into many worldviews, belief systems, and caught in the deceptive stories of fame, fortune, pleasure, and self-worship--desiring to know what is the way, the truth, and the life.  It seems appropriate that I was searching for whats and hows and whys, when it was a who the entire time. May the Lord Jesus Christ save you from death and deliver you into eternal life in Him through the hearing of His Word.

Piling wood on a blob of hardening concrete doesn’t make a house.

There are metrics to measure, plumblines to plumb, and plans to follow.

Making arbitrary steps toward a conclusion can’t exist when the steps are set in a mire of subjective feelings and truths.

Subjective truths and feelings create cacophonies of chaos and confusion.

Often it is stated that if the voices of subjective truths and feelings harmonize, than it can be an established feeling and truth used to set an objective standard, but that is as laughable as shouting louder to make it more true, or just repeating it more often until it becomes true.
Standards or objective truths aren’t felt or popularized into place, they just are true, and if you don’t believe that, you may want to study Galileo. He was considered a heretic for believing the absurd truth that the earth revolved around the sun.

Maybe it evolved over time?

When evolution goes toward its origin, it is devolving. Saying it evolved is basing objective moral standards and standards of truth on chaos and chance, and a HUGE helping of improbability.

Isn’t that the opposite of a standard?

You see, we humans find ourselves building skyscrapers on sand, and then wonder why it fell and killed so many people, oppressed so many people, enslaved so many people, abused so many people, and the list of atrocities go on and on.

Could it be, we are chasing after the wrong standards? Could it be that the foundations upon which our institutions, progress, morals, ethics, and truth rest are wrong?

So I ask you again, by what standard?

My proposal is setting up a standard that has stood the test of time, even the beginning of time. Before matter and time existed, this standard existed.

The standard is God, in His Holy trinity, by which morality and Truth is derived.
We can know the standard, and learn the standard, and apply the standard as we read His Holy Word—from Genesis to Revelation.

In an age of swipe-right romance and “situationships,” the word “love” has never been more ubiquitous—or more diluted. Popular culture equates love with intense feeling, sexual chemistry, or mutual utility. Christianity, by contrast, defines love as a costly, self-sacrificial choice rooted in the very character of God (1 John 4:8). The Greek language of the New Testament preserves this distinction with surgical precision: eros (erotic, desire-based love), philia (friendship love), storge (familial affection), and agape (unconditional, divine, self-giving love). Modern secular culture has largely collapsed everything into eros and a sentimentalized philia, stripping love of its transcendent anchor. The results are measurable—and sobering.

A 2023 longitudinal study published in the Journal of Marriage and Family followed 2,034 married couples for up to 15 years. Couples who reported “sacrificial love” (defined as willingness to bear costs for the spouse’s well-being without immediate reciprocation) had a divorce risk 61% lower than couples who scored low on sacrificial love, even after controlling for initial passion, income, and sexual satisfaction. The authors explicitly religious subsample (mostly evangelical Christians) scored highest on sacrificial love and lowest on divorce (4.8% vs. 23% for the non-religious subsample).

Secular love, by contrast, is overwhelmingly contingent. The 2022 General Social Survey found that among Americans under 35 who are cohabiting or dating, 68% say they would end a relationship if their partner “no longer made them happy,” while only 12% of married Christians in the same age bracket gave the same answer. The Bible anticipated this fragility 2,000 years ago: “Love (agape) never fails” (1 Cor. 13:8), precisely because it is not tethered to fluctuating emotions or personal fulfillment.

Neuroimaging studies reveal a stark neurological contrast. Romantic eros activates the brain’s reward circuitry (ventral tegmental area and caudate nucleus) in a way almost identical to cocaine addiction—intense, euphoric, but short-lived. A seminal 2005 fMRI study by Helen Fisher showed that passionate love typically lasts 12–18 months before dopamine levels normalize. Long-term couples who stay together past this “honeymoon” phase show activation in entirely different regions: the ventral pallidum and raphe nucleus, areas associated with attachment and calm rather than craving.

Christian agape, however, recruits yet another system. A 2021 study from Baylor University scanned the brains of individuals who had practiced daily “kenotic” (self-emptying) prayer and service for at least five years. These subjects displayed unusually high baseline activity in the posterior superior parietal lobe (linked to self-transcendence) and markedly lower reactivity in the amygdala (fear and self-protection center) when shown images of suffering strangers. In plain terms: the more someone practices costly, Christlike love, the less their brain defaults to self-preservation and the more it rewires for self-donation.

Scripture insists that genuine love is impossible apart from death—to self. “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). “Husbands are commanded to love their wives “as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Eph. 5:25)—a love that embraces the cross before it enjoys the crown.

Secular culture, steeped in what philosopher Charles Taylor calls “expressive individualism,” reverses the order. The self is the starting point, and relationships exist to facilitate its flourishing. A 2024 Pew survey found that 76% of Americans now believe the most important goal of marriage is “personal happiness and fulfillment,” up from 20% in 1970. The biblical goal—mutual sanctification and imaging the covenant love between Christ and the church—has been almost entirely eclipsed.

Jesus said we would know truth by its fruit (Matt. 7:16–20). The fruit of secular love is plain: record loneliness, plunging marriage rates, and a mental-health crisis among the young. The CDC reports that 57% of American girls aged 12–17 now report persistent sadness or hopelessness—the highest rate ever recorded. Boys are not far behind. When love is redefined as “feeling good together,” the moment suffering enters (illness, infertility, aging, financial hardship), love evaporates.

Christian marriages, while far from perfect, continue to outperform. The 2023 National Survey of Family Growth showed that women in actively religious marriages report the highest levels of sexual satisfaction, emotional intimacy, and overall marital happiness—even though they have sex less frequently on average than their secular counterparts. Why? Because agape creates safety: when I know my spouse is covenantally committed to my good regardless of my performance, vulnerability becomes possible, and vulnerability is the soil in which true intimacy grows.

Secular love promises ecstasy but delivers a dopamine spike followed by withdrawal. Christian love offers no such shortcut; it begins in Gethsemane and ends in resurrection. One is rooted in the transient neurochemistry of desire; the other is rooted in the eternal being of a God who is love (1 John 4:16).

The world’s love says, “I will love you as long as you make me happy.” Christ’s love says, “I will love you—period—because you bear My image, and I have set My love upon you before the foundation of the world.”

The studies merely confirm what the Scriptures have always declared: only a love that is willing to die can rise again. Everything less is, in the end, meaningless.

I heard a pastor say that love is the mortar that binds the great cathedrals of our church together, and I agree with that statement, only to be astonished at the immediacy in which a congregant started chanting about loving someone in an enabling way and throwing the power of truth into the dark recesses of our minds to rot and fester.

If you pile up mortar, you do not get a building, a wall, a room, a home, or a great cathedral. You just get a pile of mortar. Without truth, love means nothing. Without love, truth is despotic.

Enter 1 Corinthians 13. Even if you can speak every language of man, and even languages of angels in heaven, without love, you will be a banging gong or clashing cymbal...a cacophony that is not understood. It is not that the languages that you speak mean nothing, it is that the love communicated in the truth of that language means more than just spouting off words for words sake. The truth and love must be married in the same way Christ is married to the church, and in the same way a man is to marry a woman, reflecting God's ultimate glory, just as Christ and the church reflects God's glory.

We must have language, and it would be even better if we knew all languages to speak to each other, but do not remove love, for if you do, you are removing the very creator and reason for our languages. "So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him." 1 John 4:16
In Matthew 17:20, "He (Jesus) said to them, 'Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.'” And Paul reiterates this, showcasing the importance of faith, and yet, even faith without love, means you are nothing. Meaning faith is important, and Jesus would back that, delivering healing and supernatural works to many who showed great faith. The truth is in the faith, and yet it must have love, in order to be something.

We often confuse niceness, enabling, allowance, and radical tolerance with love. Our modern working definition of love is often the aforementioned platitudes, but those are masquerading deceptions of love that provide momentary harmony, and devolve into long-term pain and evil consequences. Think about just a few acts of love in the form of niceness, enabling, allowance, and tolerance that have turned into a destroying fire of lies and evil: genital mutilation of a gender-confused generation; small, hard-working communities burned to the ground for equity of outcome; demonization of white men merely for having been born white and male; and the murder of 65 million defenseless babies because of the lie of their inconvenience--just to name a few. At the origin of these deceptions that turned into actual harm in the long term, was a tolerant, nice, enabling, and allowing person, "acting out of love." This is not loving in the least of its form, and it seems we have removed the Truth from love.

Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the Lord your God disciplines you. Deuteronomy 8:5

Is rightly pursued fatherhood unloving? Of course not. Rightly pursued fatherhood is a Godly pursuit of love, and here in the outset, God is declaring that the loving thing for Him to do to His people is to discipline them. Love is discipline. To discipline yourself, your marriage, your children, your household is loving. Discipline is more than punishment for wrongdoing, it is training with consistency. Just as a dentist drills the rot out of your tooth to keep you from further damage, the Lord disciplines those that He loves, to show us love and to help us live in Him through Christ Jesus. Jesus's cross experience looks unloving from our modern definition of love, but is in fact, the most loving act in all of history.

13 He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 14 I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men, 15 but my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. 2 Samuel 7:13-15

4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
Deuteronomy 6:4-9

Often the modern secular person allows divergence and distraction to rule their heart and mind, especially in their worship. One moment they are throwing themselves into the hobby of music and art collection, and the next they are headlong into understanding every aspect of football and their fantasy team, and then they are majoring in the different aspects of entrepreneurial pursuits. None of these things are wrong, when glorifying God, but let's be honest with where our hearts are in these diverging specializations. Our lives often take on the same aspects of YouTube rabbit holes, or endless Instagram scrolls. Are we loving the Lord our God with all of our heart, all of our soul, and all of our might? It does not take much meditation to realize our heart, soul, and might have been pursuing too many other things to love God. And then we can know that the follow-on verses will be an impossibility. If I am diverging my pursuits and distracted with the world:

• How can I have His commands on my heart?
• How can I teach them diligently to my children?
• How can I talk about them when I am going to and fro, waking up, lying down, and in the home?
• Are they in places that constantly remind you of who you love, and how you are to love Our Lord?

Love is consistency and commitment with all of your heart, all of your soul, all of your mind, all of your strength.

1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned,[a] but have not love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;[b] 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians 13

12 When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you? 13 You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. 14 If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. 15 For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. 16 Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. 17 If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.

John 13:12-17

16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. 20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. 21 But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”

John 3:16-21

Love is given its power by Truth. The Truth is the Standard, and the standard is from God, and the standard is God. Jesus said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Light. No one can come to the Father, except through me." God sets the standard by His own nature and being, it is not a standard outside of God, in which we can measure God to make sure He is actually loving. God is Love, and to know God is to know truth, and to know truth is to know love. Love doesn't do a happy dance on the things we think and feel and do, to make them meaningful. Love is established in the truth that is God. Before the foundations of the world was our Triune God, and God is truth and love.

Let us not start with ourselves when we are moved to love. Let us start with God. Understanding who God is, and then step out in love, without arbitrarily throwing away the truth that binds meaning to love. When God's grace plucks us from our own sin and death, and Christ imputes our sin onto Himself and His righteousness onto us, let us not ignore the truth that is in that love. We are His image-bearers, and that means loving in truth, and speaking truth in love. Acting like we can pile either one of those up, without the other, and make something God-glorifying, is to remove God in the act. God is truth and God is love. You cannot have one without the other.

Why are you going all the way to Northern California to pick up a piano?

God, wife, children, church, community, nation...in that order.

Currently, our nation is on life support. If you think our families and country will be revived without God, you haven’t been paying attention.

Most people probably think I went to pick up this 472 pound out of sentimentality and romantic pleasure…this played a role…however that role was small. (never underestimate the power of sentiment and romance)

First and foremost, our family worships the only One who is worthy of worship—Our Triune God. We do this daily with Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs, as well as scripture, prayer, catechisms, and good conversations. Learning how to sing a note of praise can be helped tremendously by hearing that note played, a piano works great. Without proper worship, we will worship something else, and if it is material, self, or a human, we will watch our peoples shrivel up and die just as any finite material or human does.

Second, my wife grew up with this piano, and if I am to love my wife the way Christ loves the church, than I need to continually die to my own selfish desires. Like the selfish desire to not drive 14 hours each way, hoist this thing up into my truck, and move this big, heavy, awkward object into our living space. Not to mention wanting to selfishly spend time, energy, and money on other things that I think are cooler, like guns, ammo, fitness equipment, and outdoor projects.

Third, my children will inevitably learn another language (music) to worship the Lord, to express their emotions, and enrich their lives. This will help them determine truth, understand story, express love, and bring that truth and love into our fallen world and nation.

Fourth, the local church is what communities should look to when we need truth, love, morality, and righteousness, which is to say Christ. The church will flourish when there is an intelligent, hard-working, Lord-worshiping congregation in fellowship every Lord’s Day. We know that our church can help our community through worshiping the Lord together and honoring His Word through prayer, reading of scripture, and singing joyfully to the Lord, and some of those moments have happened and will happen right here in front of this piano.

Fifth and finally, our nation needs families spending intentional time together glorifying God and enjoying Him forever if we are to make it through these tumultuous times. Without God as our anchor grounding truth, love, morality, and value, we will spin out into relative truths and morality that say “up is down” and “down is up.” Without Christ we are lost in our own depravity, pretending to have knowledge and wisdom, which digs shallow graves for ourselves and our children.

You don’t have to move a piano across half the country, but we do need to wake up to the reality that we are drowning, and there is only one savior. His name is Jesus Christ, and the proper worship of Him, establishes right relationship in marriages, families, churches, communities, and ultimately our nation.

First, it holds the parents accountable to establish a loving, honest, fruitful home, instead of relying on the government, screens, and kids programs to do it for them (we have tried that and it is failing miserably).

Second, it gives the child, adolescent, or dependent adult something worthwhile and true, to work toward, earn, accomplish, and be proud of, as they step into the next phase of their life within a family.

Third, it raises the level of expectations for entire families, because let's face it, we have more opportunity, information, and leverage then we have ever had before, yet we are less intelligent, more distracted, and more lost then we have ever been.

Finally, no child is raised in a vacuum, and we must instill right thinking about what is true, good, and beautiful before it is too late.

Discipled in Christ has created a course to help parents either follow a Rite of Passage process or use it to make their own Rites of Passage.

Leaders of Leaders Rites of Passage Course

A Course to Help Parents Faithfully Lead Their Children from Childhood into Adolescence and From Adolescence Into Adulthood

Each child, upon becoming an adult will be equipped with the spiritual, emotional, and physical understanding and excellence to be incredible contributors and leaders in our society and world. This means they have great understanding of theological, philosophical, logical, methodological, mathematical, experimental, and experiential doctrine and/or theory to hold valid and sound truth-claims and beliefs. Each child will go through a proving process and then be ceremoniously granted acceptance in the next stage of their development.

12 Year Old Rite of Passage to Earn Adolescence
A 5 day trial/act and then ceremony to prove that you are physically, mentally, and spiritually mature enough to become an adolescent and to train and ready yourself for the adult rites of passage.

16 Year Old Rite of Passage to Earn Guided Adulthood
A 10 Day crucible to prove you have earned adulthood, which will be guided and mentored until 18 or moving out of the parent-led household.

18 Year Old Rite of Passage to Deliver the Guided Adult into Independent and Responsible Adulthood
A two-year journey that is guided and mentored by parents and community teachers and leaders.

Memorial Day Speech, May 26, 2025

By: Aaron Guyett

It was 1998, when my desire to join the Marine Corps turned into certainty. There was a commercial that showed a young man entering an arena, crawling through obstacles, climbing a crazy steel contraption, pulling a sword from the top, slaying a fire dragon (or a lava monster from hell…whichever way you wanted to see it), and then miraculously turning this young man into a Marine in his dress blues.

I graduated from Post Falls High School in 1999, and found myself on the Marine Corps Recruit Depot’s infamous yellow footprints, getting yelled at by men trying to give those fire dragons and lava monsters a run for their money–drill instructors.

I mean look at me in this dress blue uniform…obviously, I was duped.

But in all seriousness, I didn’t think I was going to fight an actual dragon, but I knew evil existed. And I was pretty certain that the Marine Corps was a fast-track to that fight against evil.

The Marine Corps has this penchant for sapping the joy out of most things. So there is nothing like joining the Marine Corps to have them remove your personal liberty and love, which actually helped me understand its palpable reality as a young and slightly careless young man before the Corps.

They took a boy that was raised in the ever-expanding freedom of these North Idaho mountains, and then sent me to boot camp, locking down every action I produced with a countdown (you’ve got 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…you should be..and we all screamed, “done, sir!”).
Next was Infantry training, and afterward they stuck me in the desert of 29 Palms to hurry-up-and-wait my way through rucking, running, humvee training, and infantry training in 120 degree heat that will make even the strongest men melt.

I don’t know about you, but when I tell stories about training, it is always told with glory (or laughter…or both), but honestly, most of it was just plain hard and often miserable.

Something that gets forgotten by most of us “old-timers” is that a lot of our military training is just waiting and waiting and waiting (even combat was 95% sitting around, waiting for the 5% to happen)…but there was a day that made sense of all the hardship and waiting and training.
I was a twenty-year-old lance corporal, living in the barracks when I watched a plane crash into the towers in New York City, and then I went to chow, and watched another plane crash into the other tower. I knew that the United States of America was attacked, and the liberty and love we all took for granted, was infringed.

I personally ended up in Iraq pursuing the fight for freedom and liberty, but really, I was there for my brothers-in-arms.

But Memorial Day isn’t about those that fought and came home to tell stories about it. It is about those that fought and gave their lives.

Men like Air Force Captain, David I. Lyon, a man from Sandpoint, ID, who died at the hands of a vehicle-born improvised explosive device in Kabul, Afghanistan on December 27, 2013. He and his wife and family knew full-well the risks involved in his service, and yet, he was willing to make and then made the ultimate sacrifice to demonstrate great love, and give freedom to his fellow troops and an entire nation.

 Do you ever wonder why we cherish freedom and love so much?

I have. A lot.

Obviously, we face obstacles to liberty and love in the form of deception, manipulation, greed, envy, lust, and the fear of men.

But the reason we cherish it so much is because it is how we are made. We cannot escape this reality. Our Triune God created us this way.

I believe it was said better by the founding fathers of our nation… “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Fighting dragons and evil men to establish, protect and provide liberty to our fellow man, woman, and child is intrinsic to our story, and it is because we are part of His great story. And God’s great story has a climactic middle, and it is this: We can have freedom in Jesus Christ, because he died on the cross to defeat The dragon, and win The bride–His church. It is THE greatest story ever told.

And this story of sacrificial love and freedom is not only good, it is beautiful, and even greater…it is true. It is the great hinge on which the story of the cosmos turns. Believe this story of Jesus Christ, repent of your sins, confess He is Lord, and be saved.

Memorial day gives us a moment to see this great salvific act, imaged by those that we have known, are related to, and have lived in our lifetimes.

Sandpoint, Bonner county, Idaho, and these United States of America are filled with ordinary men that displayed extraordinary courage, making the ultimate sacrifice to give us life, liberty, and the opportunity to pursue happiness. Men like Captain David Lyon, and SSgt William B. Hunt.

SSgt Hunt (Now MSgt Hunt) was a Sandpoint man who after joining the Army did multiple tours in Vietnam.

(By the way…my family had the great opportunity to place the U.S. flag next to his headstone on Saturday, when you look out, you will see United States of America flags next to headstones, honoring our Military veterans posthumously.)

While on Hunt’s third tour of duty, he made his helo returning from R&R, divert into a hot zone to help his fellow warriors (he wasn’t even in his combat gear). Then leaving the helicopter he flew in on, knowing the danger and risk of plunging himself headlong into enemy fire on November 4th, 1966 in South Vietnam. He made this sacrifice, to give his fellow soldiers a chance at life. He was last seen suffering from grievous injuries, providing protective fire for the men he came to save.



And men like Michael Probst, a Marine brother of mine who was a part of my first unit in the Marine Corps, 1st Tank Battalion, TOW Platoon, an anti-tank infantry unit. He and his section responded to an IED attack in Fallujah, Iraq. He went outside of the forward observation base, to provide protection and security, not because doing so was safe and easy, but because they were his brothers in arms and he would die to protect them. In the midst of him providing his fellow Marines security, another IED exploded, and ultimately took his life on February 14, 2006.

And men like Corporal Charles Leon Gilliland, who was the youngest military member to receive the Medal of Honor posthumously. He was 17 years old when he was killed in action in the Korean War on April 25th, 1951. Gilliland was awarded the Medal of Honor for his courageous actions when his unit was overwhelmed by Chinese communist forces, volunteering to stay and fight so his unit could withdraw.
 
If there is no sacrificial love, there is no freedom.  “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” John 8:36. Winning the War for Independence didn't just separate us from Great Britain, it gave us liberty. The demonstration of sacrificial love that these aforementioned men and the other heroes that gave their life for you and me, was an act freely chosen by them to Give us freedom. Or as G.K. Chesterton puts it, "The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him."
But don’t be fooled, evil is still prowling around, trying to devour whom it may. Whether external or internal, evils like deception, manipulation, violence, abuse, coercion, greed, envy, lust, and the fear of men seem to be more popular today than ever, but this Memorial Day we can see it with different eyes. We can view it with the courage of those we are choosing to memorialize. We can defeat the dragons, lava monsters, and enemy. We may not magically change into a dress blue uniform like this, but you will preserve life and liberty.

This is why today, right here in Pinecrest Memorial Park and Lakeview Cemetery, we choose to remember and memorialize the warriors that stood and fought, even in the face of great fear. May we go beyond just remembering these men in this ceremony, but every day, may their action, spur us to the same action, that we lay down our lives for those we love. Just as the Apostle John records Jesus’s words in John 15:12-13, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”

Thank you.

May God Bless you, Sandpoint, Idaho, and the United States of America.

Happy Memorial Day!

To be a disciple of Jesus is not merely to admire Him from a distance but to become like Him—to have His heart, mind, and priorities reshape every corner of your life--He is Lord over all, including you. Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). This daily discipleship is cultivated through deliberate, Spirit-empowered habits. Six of the most powerful individual disciplines are worship, Scripture reading, prayer, journaling, exercise, and love. When practiced together, they form a holistic rhythm that conforms us to the image of Christ (Romans 8:29).

1. Worship: Reordering Our Affections
Worship is the act of declaring God’s worth with our whole being—heart, mind, soul, and strength (Mark 12:30). It is not confined to Sunday singing; it is a lifestyle of ascribing ultimate value to God above every rival.

“Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow… and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:9-11).

Daily worship—whether through silence, creation, work, play, or sacrifice of praise (Hebrews 13:15)—reorients our loves. As we behold the beauty of the Lord (Psalm 27:4), lesser beauties lose their grip, and we become what we worship (Psalm 115:8-9). A disciple is first and foremost a worshiper.

2. Scripture: Renewing Our Minds
Jesus prayed, “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17). The written Word is the primary means by which the Holy Spirit reshapes our thinking to match Christ’s.

“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

A disciple does not treat the Bible as a reference book but as daily bread (Matthew 4:4). Through reading, meditation, memorization, and study, we allow the Word to dwell in us richly (Colossians 3:16), exposing lies, igniting faith, and guiding decisions. The Psalmist declared, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Psalm 119:105). No disciple grows without this light.

3. Prayer: Abiding in Christ
Prayer is the lifeline of dependence. Jesus Himself lived in constant communion with the Father (Mark 1:35; Luke 6:12). He taught, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

Paul instructs us to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17) and to bring everything to God in prayer with thanksgiving (Philippians 4:6-7). A disciple learns to talk to God about everything—confession, petition, intercession, and simple friendship—because discipleship is friendship with Jesus (John 15:15). Prayer is where self-sufficiency dies and Christ-sufficiency is born.

4. Journaling: Examining and Remembering
The Bible is filled with commands and examples to remember what God has done (Deuteronomy 8:2; Psalm 103:2; Revelation 2:5). Journaling is a modern discipline that serves ancient purposes: slowing us down, forcing clarity, and creating a trail of God’s faithfulness.

“Write this as a memorial in a book…” (Exodus 17:14). Habakkuk was told, “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets” (Habakkuk 2:2). When we record answered prayer, lessons from Scripture, confessions of sin, and evidences of grace, we train our souls to see God’s hand and fight forgetfulness. Over years, a journal becomes a personal “Ebenezer”—a stone of help testifying, “Thus far the Lord has helped us” (1 Samuel 7:12).

5. Exercise: Stewarding the Temple
Paul reminds us, “Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit… You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

While legalism about fitness must be avoided, intentional physical discipline is part of discipleship. Regular exercise strengthens self-control (a fruit of the Spirit, Galatians 5:23), improves mental clarity for prayer and study, combats depression and anxiety (which hinder faith), and equips us to serve longer. Jesus walked miles daily, endured the cross, and rose bodily—His ministry was embodied. Caring for our bodies is not vanity; it is stewardship so that we can “run with endurance the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1).

6. Love: The Mark of True Discipleship
All disciplines find their goal here. “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another” (John 13:34). Love is not sentiment; it is costly, cross-shaped action (1 John 3:16). A disciple learns to forgive as Christ forgave (Colossians 3:13), serve without recognition (Mark 10:45), speak truth in kindness (Ephesians 4:15), and lay down preferences for the sake of others. Every other discipline either fuels this love or is hollow.

The Beautiful Interconnection
These six practices are not a checklist but a braided cord:

- Worship fuels love.
- Scripture shapes love.
- Prayer sustains love.
- Journaling records love.
- Exercise strengthens us to keep loving when we are weary.
- And love, in turn, makes every other discipline authentic rather than mechanical.

A Final Exhortation
Jesus does not call us to try harder but to train faithfully (1 Timothy 4:7-8). Begin small and consistent rather than large and sporadic. Pick one neglected area this week and offer it to Him. Over time, these habits do not merely improve us—they transform us into people who naturally do what Jesus would do because we are with Jesus (Mark 3:14).

“Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness… It holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come” (1 Timothy 4:7-8).

Press on, beloved disciple. The Master is making you like Himself, one worshipful, Scripture-soaked, prayerful, examined, healthy, loving step at a time. And He who began this good work in you will bring it to completion on the day of Christ Jesus (Philippians 1:6).