Like me, you’re probably wanting to know what’s happening with the Syrian refugees.
These are people. Families. If you’ve seen a picture of a three-year-old Syrian boy dead, you know that something absolutely must be done. We should be ashamed if our hearts were not big enough to help these human beings—these image-bearers of God Himself—in their time of distress.
So then, what are the facts? What’s the right thing to do? Is President Obama’s plan to admit 10,000 Syrian refugees moral?
“Put others first.” “You think too highly of yourself.” “You’re selfish.”
If you hear these ideas enough, they can take over your understanding of morality.
What should our motivation be? Why care about doing the right thing?
I recently interviewed a writer named Lydia Borengasser. We found common ground on the controversial topic of Christian motivation.
Have you ever asked this? I want to share a helpful way of understanding what worship consists of.
We can worship God because he has spoken. That’s where worship in the Bible starts: God speaking. If he had not told us who he is and what pleases him, we would have no way to worship him. It is helpful to understand worship as a sequence: God’s revelation to us, and our response to him. In God’s revealed word he shows how he wants us to respond. He doesn’t leave us guessing how to worship him.
Always have a ready defense for the hope within you, says 1 Peter 3:15. What is that defense?
Some Christians will tell you they believe God’s Word, and he is God, and that settles it. But this kind of argument is no defense. It isn’t even logical. It presupposes the very thing it sets out to defend.
Growing up in a variety of churches, I had the chance to hear diverse perspectives. What is faith? Why should we have faith? Some people told me it was wrong to ask too many questions or to have doubts. Others said questions and doubts were part of the process of taking an idea seriously. It’s not bad to doubt, if you work through that doubt and find the truth.
A. W. Tozer said, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”
Our worship of God comes from our understanding of who He is. And where does our understanding come from? From spending time absorbing what He has told us about Himself: absorbing Scripture. Absorbing—not merely reading. We need God’s Word inside us!