How about a small piece of uplifting news? 

When the college cheating scandal broke, I wrote a blog asking, among other things, where were the colleges who weren’t selling their slots. Here’s that paragraph:

Some college admissions bribery is legal: giving millions to your Alma Mater so your kid can be accepted. Who is more guilty? The wealthy parent who gives the bribe donation, or the school who alters its standards to let their kid in? Are there institutions who can stand up and say, “Slots in our school can’t be bought!

Well, there is one! The Wall Street Journal reported on November 7, 2019, that Occidental College in Los Angeles got an email from Rick Singer, the man who admitted to orchestrating the cheating scandal. Mr. Singer was suggesting that Occidental “reconsider an application from the academically challenged daughter of a wealthy family.” He wrote:

Are you kidding? We can create a win-win for both of us.

The Journal reports that Vince Cuseo, Occidental’s admissions official, gave a simple response:

No

The article goes on to say that Occidental isn’t doing as well as other schools in endowments and facilities because they simply don’t have the money. But they have something the other schools don’t have: INTEGRITY. More power to them!

A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, and favor is better than silver or gold. (Proverbs 22.1, ESV)

I posted yesterday a quote from the well-known professor and Bible teacher, the late Dr. Howard Hendricks:

We must be able to discriminate between what cannot change and what must be changed.

Here’s an example. An internationally known preacher, who shall remain nameless, said this about Calvary Chapel, a movement which, in my observation, is still doing a wonderful job welcoming all kinds of people:

In 1967 a bunch of Jesus freak people in the beach areas of Southern California go to Calvary Chapel and for the first time that I know of in history, the church lets the very defined subculture dictate what it will be. Out go the ties, out go the hymns, out go all the normal and formal things…it’s a false form of Christianity.

It’s hard to know where to start. I ran this by two pastor friends from completely different traditions: one said, “He needs to open his Bible!” The other erupted into howls of laughter.

The first time? How about Acts 15 when the church met to discuss precisely the question of whether the Gentiles (“a very defined subculture”) could come into the church without obeying all the Jewish rules. The conclusion that the church leadership reached in Acts 15 was clear:

[James said, ] “It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God.” (Acts 15.19, NIV)

How’s that for accommodation? To paraphrase, “Out goes circumcision, out go the dietary laws, out go all the normal and formal things.” As for adjusting to meet the subculture, Paul could not have been more clear:

For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. (1 Corinthians 9.19 – 22, ESV)

And yet this brother insists that to abandon wearing ties and not sing the old hymns leads to a “false form of Christianity.” Again, to quote Dr Hendricks: “We must be able to discriminate between what can’t change and what must be changed.”

The scariest thing of all, and a warning to us all, is that this preacher is a devout student of scripture. It’s easy to see what he’s missing. What am I missing?

Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. (1 Corinthians 8.1, NIV)

My Internet is down so I’m posting something short by phone. Details to follow on what made me recall this important principle from the late Dr Howard Hendricks:

We must discriminate between things that cannot change and things that must change.

In general, the church does a terrible job of that. The apostle Paul speaks to this throughout the book of Galatians.

For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. (Galatians 5.6)

I just heard about yet another “controversy” with one Christian ministry with a national presence criticizing another, in public. Thankfully, I hadn’t seen anything on it and still have chosen to ignore this latest diatribe. (And I’m not going to post the specifics here!)

The friend who shared it with me made this observation:

Quite frankly I was pretty appalled.  And not just by the content of his remarks, but by his tone and the jovial response his comments received from his audience at that time.

I responded:

It’s the critical, unloving spirit that’s worse than any particular position [the criticizing teacher] might take. And what have I accomplished by putting down someone else’s ministry and making my members feel good about themselves because they don’t listen to the teacher he was criticizing? There are no “points” for NOT listening to a particular teacher for whatever reason. What are you doing? How are you into the Word for yourself? How are you putting it into practice?

Thankfully, the criticized teacher responded with something like, “I’m responsible and accountable to my call from Jesus Christ.  I don’t serve you, I serve Christ.  You do not have to receive my ministry if you choose not to.”

My friend concluded:

The church could stand to “err” a little more on the side of love and compassion instead of legalism and judgment.

Amen. As I’ve quoted here often:

So tend to your knitting. You’ve got your hands full just taking care of your own life before God. (Romans 14.12, MSG)

One of our Air Force Academy cadets was visiting for his 30th class reunion (where does the time go?), and he was distressed about the changes he saw at the Academy. Mainly, it appeared softer to him, with less discipline, and many traditions he saw as useful for training were gone.

As a retired officer myself, not an Academy grad, I tend to agree that the loss of some traditions and lack of discipline can be problems. However, these verses from Isaiah may give us another perspective:

Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look at the earth beneath; for the heavens vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment, and they who dwell in it will die in like manner; but my salvation will be forever, and my righteousness will never be dismayed….My righteousness will be forever, and my salvation to all generations.” (Isaiah 51.6, 8)

Things don’t last. Not only will the earth not last, but many of our cherished traditions don’t last. But God’s salvation and his righteousness will be forever. We have a guarantee of nothing else. 

If the heavens and the earth won’t last, what else won’t last?

• My life in its present form: I am getting older…
• The U.S. with economic freedom, reward for hard and smart work, working infrastructure…
• Any local church: the pastor will change, the people will change.
• Traditions in any institution like the military in general or the Air Force Academy in particular.
• Organizations like The Navigators. We can only pray that it lasts as long as it needs to, as long as it’s making a contribution.

Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. (Mark 13.31, ESV)

I have trouble keeping up with the general characteristics of Gen-X and Millennials and don’t really like labels anyway since people are different. However, my son Matthew, born in 1977, explained that he is neither Gen-X nor Millennial. He’s in-between, and they don’t have a good name for them. According to this article by Anna Garvey, written back in 2015, the “Oregon Trail Generation,” as she calls them, “…came of age just as the very essence of communication was experiencing a seismic shift, and it’s given us a unique perspective that’s half analog old school and half digital new school.”

Here’s what I found interesting: she decries the evils of today’s social media, which are just asides in this article. Here’s her first observation:

Those born in the late 70s and early 80s were the last group to have a childhood devoid of all the technology that makes childhood and adolescence today pretty much the worst thing imaginable.  We were the last gasp of a time before sexting, Facebook shaming, and constant communication. (Emphasis mine)

Later on, she writes:

The importance of going through some of life’s toughest years without the toxic intrusion of social media really can’t be overstated.  Myspace was born in 2003 and Facebook became available to all college students in 2004.  So if you were born in 1981-1982, for example, you were literally the last graduating class to finish college without social media being part of the experience. When we get together with our fellow Oregon Trail Generation friends, we frequently discuss how insanely glad we are that we escaped the middle school, high school and college years before social media took over and made an already challenging life stage exponentially more hellish. (Emphasis mine)

I’ve written before about the need for what author Cal Newport calls “digital minimalism.” But Anna Garvey’s remarks go beyond not needlessly cluttering up our lives: social media can be harmful, especially to our kids and grandkids.

Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. (Ephesians 5.18, ESV)

I’m finding the exile metaphor I wrote about yesterday helpful. Not everything about life is what we would want, and we should expect that. Years ago, a single Air Force officer friend of mine talked about living with unbelievers in the barracks. “Of course they don’t live the way I would be comfortable with! Why would I expect otherwise? They’re unbelievers.” A good perspective. If I were exiled to England, for example, it would do me little good to complain that “They talk funny and drive on the wrong side of the road!”

Before David became king, when he was in exile, he was still seeking to live in God’s presence. And this is precisely what God promised the exiles in Jeremiah 29: “I’ll show up and take care of you…when you call on me,…I’ll listen…when you come looking for me, you’ll find me…” David wrote:

Here’s the one thing I crave from God, the one thing I seek above all else: I want the privilege of living with him every moment in his house, finding the sweet loveliness of his face, filled with awe, delighting in his glory and grace. I want to live my life so close to him that he takes pleasure in my every prayer. (Psalm 27.4, Passion Translation)

I was meditating on a familiar passage from Jeremiah:

This is GOD’s Word on the subject: “As soon as Babylon’s seventy years are up and not a day before, I’ll show up and take care of you as I promised and bring you back home. I know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for. “When you call on me, when you come and pray to me, I’ll listen. “When you come looking for me, you’ll find me. “Yes, when you get serious about finding me and want it more than anything else, I’ll make sure you won’t be disappointed.” GOD’s Decree. “I’ll turn things around for you. I’ll bring you back from all the countries into which I drove you”—GOD’s Decree—”bring you home to the place from which I sent you off into exile. You can count on it. (Jeremiah 29.10 – 14, MSG)

It’s about the exile of the Jews to Babylon and the fact that they will be there 70 years. One common application is a personal, tempory exile: I’m going through a rough period right now, but God will be with me, and eventually, I’ll get through it.

This is a good application, but as I read it, I’m thinking, “You know, things are going pretty good for me right now. I don’t feel in exile.” Then I remembered: I’m not really home. I don’t often think about our eternal condition on the new earth, but I should. As C.S. Lewis wrote:

If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.

Right now, I’m on earth where evil sometimes has its way. I’m getting older, and I have way fewer years to be around than I’ve already been around. Maybe it’s time to change my focus to my permanent residence.

I’m in exile, but it is here that God will take care of me. It is here that he’ll listen when I pray. It is here that he’ll be found when I search. And he will bring me home.

This is a bit weird: having a focus on being exiled from my true home yet making my home here with God. I’m not waiting until eternity to be in his presence. I’m in his presence now. He cares for me now. He’s close to me now. 

Our Father, you’re in heaven, where I will join you soon. But in the meantime, may your name be honored here, may your Kingdom come here, and may your will be done here as it is there. 

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. (Colossians 3.1 – 4, ESV)

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. (1 Peter 2.9 – 11, ESV)

I wrote back in June that the St Louis Blues hockey team won their first Stanley Cup Championship after being worst in the league with nearly half a season gone. (They won only 15 of their first 37 games, 40.5%.) It’s deja vu all over again with the Washington Nationals winning their first World Series after starting the season winning only 19 of their first 50 games (38%). 

Proving, once again, it’s not how you start, but how you finish.

Moreover, the Nationals had to win five elimination games, counting the one-game wild-card playoff. In each of those games, they were behind at some point in the game, usually late in the game. 

It’s the first time in any sport that all the games in a 7-game series were won by the visiting team. 

As Winston Churchill said: 

Never give up.

As the Nationals’ sweatshirts read:

Finish the Fight

At times we don’t know what to do, but quitting is not an option. (2 Corinthians 4.8, Passion Translation)

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. (2 Timothy 4.7, ESV)

My son Mark is a nationally ranked stair climber. These are the people who run up skyscrapers. Mark is one of four men in the world to have run up the Seattle Space Needle in under five minutes and one of three to have done it twice. He has won the Mile High Stadium race in Denver five years in a row (in a stadium race, they run up and down).

One of the reasons Mark is doing so well is that he trains. He has a schedule and sticks to it. For example, at least once/week he runs the Manitou Incline, a grueling one mile up railroad ties with a 2,000-foot elevation gain. Yesterday was his day to run it, and it was 15 degrees and snowing. Hence this post on FaceBook:

Many people would have changed their training schedule on a day like that! I would have. What excuses do we make for not doing what we have planned to do, whether it’s a spiritual or physical discipline or creating a holy moment?

…train yourself to be godly (1 Timothy 4.7, NIV)

If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them. (James 4.17, NIV)