The Kingdom

Dear Friend in Christ:

As we move into yet another election cycle, the subject of politics is in the air, and our nation is polarized. Is there a way forward that will yield peace and progress? Yes, there is, if we will seek God; He has already provided a solution. We are steadily proving that there is no other path to peace and progress.

Our nation’s founders understood something long-forgotten by contemporary society: laws alone will not produce a desired result. And today, one “simple” law will contain more provisions and work than our entire Declaration of Independence and Constitution combined. Our government seems desperate to find laws and more laws that will somehow fix our problems, and the tyranny of laws only grows. How long before we awaken to the fact that more human government is not the answer to human problems?

THE POWER OF IDEAS

Our founders came to North America to escape tyranny and establish liberty for the individual. Many, if not most, were believers in the Sovereign God and understood the limitations of human government. They borrowed ideas from men like Adam Smith, John Locke, Algernon Sidney, Montesquieu, and William Blackstone; men who lived under tyranny. These men were Bible scholars and students of the Christian faith. It was their ideas, drawn from Holy Scripture, that found fertile ground in the hearts of Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, and a host of others who thirsted for liberty and the kind of government that would preserve and propagate it.

It is true that grace is free. But beware of any message about grace that does not lead you to true discipleship.

I have learned by hard experience to be thankful for consumer reports about products offered on the Internet. Reading the customer reviews can save a potential buyer a lot of grief and money. Nowadays, because of the usefulness and availability of these reports few people would consider making a purchase of even something as small as a cell phone or an MP3 player without doing some due diligence in the form of research.

In today’s "marketplace" of spiritual messages, how much more careful should a Christian be about the words he or she allows to guide the inner person of the heart? Paul told his spiritual son Timothy, "Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth" (2 Tim. 2:15, NKJV).

The old message of cheap grace is experiencing a resurgence today among newer Christians who are not acquainted with its sad history or its downside and hidden costs. Cheap grace is a message that lowers the standards of God’s laws or casts scorn on the value of divine law as the way God governs His eternal kingdom.