Life Matters - June 25, 2025
God has woven universal laws into the fabric of His creation that govern the affairs of men and of beasts. But while the beast is totally given over to nature, mankind is called out to a higher calling from which we have no escape, nor excuse. This is so because we are “made in the image of God” (Genesis 1) and as such are subject to His moral, ethical, and applicable ceremonial laws. Though fallen away from gaining God’s favor by our own works and faulty will-power, yet He has given us an innate sense of right and wrong. God has given us reasoning powers that we may employ to an understanding of His will or we may mis-employ those reasoning powers to reason our way around His commandments. Then congratulating (however hidden) ourselves on the keeping of commandments we feel like we do quite well with, while shrugging off those we find impossible to keep in any consistent manner.
But God’s commandments still stand and by their very nature (and ours) keep pricking us, even goading us, troubling our conscience until our guilty soul bows at that spiritual cross where Jesus applies His blood for our forgiveness and our liberation from the self-life so natural to all of us. (Romans chapters 7 and 8)
We must allow God to reason with us from His perspective, as in Isaiah 1:18 ‘’Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow, though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.’’ The more we deny God that access, the more we must, of necessity, default to (excuse me) our animal-like instincts. This is not to say that we should deny all of our instinctive feelings. There are many times when our instincts, our gut-feelings, if you will, are right. Over-arching all of those instincts, gut-feelings, or feelings in general, however, is a higher, a superseding Law, that puts all those thoughts, instincts, and feelings into their proper perspective. That superseding Law is the Word of God. That proper perspective can be abbreviated into; Fallen man - Risen Lord.
The spirit of man is in a natural fallen state of unrest, therefore our feelings, while they may be right at times, cannot be trusted to “judge righteous judgement.” Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior gave His life for us on the cross for our forgiveness and rose again for our justification. (Romans 4:25) His rising from the dead by His own power, is infallible proof that He is God. His rest, that He imparts to troubled spirits, is personal proof of His power, that He is one with the Father. His righteousness, that He imputes to us and then enables us to live right (though we may not do so perfectly) by His Holy Spirit, is a constant call to stay close to His heart where He gives comfort, purpose and goals, eternal in their perspective.
When people deny that we have, in the center of our being, a fallen nature in need of redemption through our Lord Jesus Christ, in short, when people default to trusting in themselves and their feelings as ultimate, then all manner of perverted wickedness may be expected. All manner of foolhardiness. This is so because mankind is, and has been since being expelled from the garden of Eden, in a constant state of unrest. Until, and when, he or she finds rest in the forgiveness and acceptance of our Savior, Jesus Christ.
While Islam does profess belief in a creator God and accepts parts of the Old Testament as authentic, their actual belief system basis, for all practical purposes, is humanism. It is a central point in Islam that it was Ishmael, Abraham’s firstborn son of Hagar, the bondwoman, and not Issac, Abraham’s second born son birthed by Sarah, his wife, that Abraham led to Mt. Moriah to offer up to God for a sacrifice. Supposedly God stayed Abraham’s hand from Ishmael, not Issac. Consequently it was Ishmael, not Isaac, who received God’s promise through the blessing of Abraham. Muhammed, according to Islamic tradition, being a descendant of Abraham, was chosen by God to be given the new ‘revelations’ recorded in the Koran. I have not (yet) done an in-depth study of the Koran but understand enough, through witnessing to Muslims, that its basis for righteousness is the supposed inherent goodness of the strict adherents to the pillars of Islam. There is no Redeemer in Islamic beliefs, no Holy Spirit guide and no Comforter. In Islam, the need for a Redeemer has been replaced by self-effort to perform the ‘good works’ of responding to prayer calls as many of the five times a day as one can, fasting (during daylight hours) for the month of Ramadan, professing “our god is one god and Muhammed is his prophet,” professing the Koran to be infallible, and in the more devout sects, the women to be covered in public.
In Islam, emotions run deep and are accepted as the spirit guide of all devout Muslims—hence the loyalty to a system however corrupt, the jihads (‘holy’ wars) the spirits of revenge, the endless killings over disagreements, the relentless honoring of a dead man (Muhammed), the suicide bombings, the desire to be rewarded by 70 virgins in heaven (whatever heaven supposedly is), the Koran-accepted abuse of women through polygamous use and discard, forced subjection, underage brides, etc. There is no Redeemer in Islam and no Holy Spirit. Only trust in the strong emotions of fallen human beings. Those who have been converted to Christ, both those who have escaped its murderous tentacles and those who have not, are truly blessed with faithful Abraham. The devout of Islam will only be governed by one stronger than they. Once they become the ‘stronger’ they come ‘out of the woodwork’ to take over. The only containment Islam understands is the inherent threats of a force stronger than they are. The Romans chapter 13 bombings of nuclear facilities in Iran may do just that. For now. We pray for now to be a very long time.
Life Matters!