Love Truth Blog

The story of how on July 1, 2015 Cecil the Lion was lured out of his animal sanctuary in Zimbabwe and killed by an American big game hunter Walter Palmer has since sparked international attention by animal conservationists. The lion was a favored resident of Hwange National Park, and described as a national treasure. There are questions about the legality of the hunt, Palmer stands accused of poaching, and he faces possible extradition to stand before his accusers. I think that the killing of Cecil should be something Christians need to grapple. I fail to see how this would be some kind of misguided sense on the sanctity of life, as if concern for the preservation of wildlife takes our eyes of the killing of life in the womb via abortion. Both are legitimate concerns. “Cecil the lion at Hwange National Park (4516560206)” Christians really need to consider the matter of Cecil and the conservation of threatened and endangered species because that is the natural outworking of a r...

Recently I got reacquainted with Watchman Nee, particularly his book Sit, Walk, Stand . I still recall attending Gardena Valle Baptist Church and hearing Pastor Ron believer’s position in Christ and condition in the world, which was something he gleaned from Nee’s Sit, Walk, Stand . It has really been a blessing to revisit some old lessons. Nee’s reflection on Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians is truly profound. The Apostle Paul writes of the Christian being seated in the heavenlies in Christ (Eph. 1-3), walking worthy of the calling which the believer has been called (Eph. 4-5), and standing against the powers of darkness (Eph. 6). Sit, Walk, Stand, the words appear to be out of order, counterintuitive to life, and truly paradoxical. Some of us think about living a good life then going to heaven, but Ephesians 2 indicates the Christian is already seated in heaven (albeit still traversing the earthly sojourn). Nevertheless, this is the unique rhythmic drumbeat of the dance ...

I find a danger for every believer is to cease seeing the world as a Christian, through God’s eyes, and revert to seeing the world as a pagan. This can happen when one buys into some kind of dualism wherein God and Satan are misconstrued as equal but opposing forces. Stories are told of demons possessing God-like powers to levitate objects, change the weather, materialize at will, morph into various forms, bring the dead to life, and even procreate demonic human hybrids. Other stories tell of people getting demonic possessed and become unwilling participants in the committing all sorts of evil. Satan is, however, the chief of all the demons, whose power trumps them all. But this kind of demonology is really pagan as opposed to biblical Christianity, albeit these pagan ideas have crept into the church. God and Satan are never to be considered equal and opposing forces. God is eternal without beginning or end, but Satan is a created being. God is in control of all things, but Satan ...

Revelation 12 is one chapter in the Bible that really grabs the attention. It is an apocalyptic vision of a woman, a child, and a dragon. Each is described with otherworldly features. The woman is clothed with the sun, rests her feet on the moon, and wears a crown of twelve stars. The dragon is colored red, has seven heads, ten horns, seven crowns, a tail that sweeps away stars, and water spewing from its mouth. The child is destined to rule nations with an iron rod. There are angels who battle against the dragon. The earth even helps the woman and child in their distress. This is really fantasy imagery, which sparks the imagination! The vision story of the woman, child and dragon should never be taken in a wooden literal sense. Hank Hanegraaff notes, “The apostle John does not want us to believe that dragons are real, nor does he want us to believe that a dragon’s tail could sweep a third of the stars out of the sky. Instead, he wants to understand the reality of the devil’s ‘cunni...

“You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain” (Exod. 20:4-6). This passage is often cited as some sort of prohibition against speaking some explicative. I suppose that can be an application in a roundabout way from the point Moses thought to make, but that was never the heart of the issue. The third command had to do with verbal representations or better yet misrepresentations of God. In other words, “the people were to exercise the greatest caution when talking about him or invoking his name. They were to say nothing which might detract from a true appreciation of his nature and character” [1]. God revealed His name to the Hebrew people through the prophet Moses (Exod. 3:13-15). The name given was YHWH, which is translated “I AM.” Inasmuch as the giving of one’s name was something deep and personal, God gave the second commandment to warn against saying something that would drag the name of the ...

I was recently thinking about the temptation of Jesus Christ. What an epic battle between cosmic forces—the incarnate Son of God in one corner and Satan the prince of darkness on the other. The three Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) include the account of Jesus Christ’s temptation in the wilderness (Matt. 4:1-11; Mk. 1:12-13; Lk. 4:1-13). What is the significance of this event? Why was Jesus tempted? All three Synoptic Gospels indicate the Holy Spirit led Jesus Christ out into the wilderness, and there the Lord fasted for forty days, being tempted by Satan, i.e. the tempter and the Devil (Matt. 4:1-2; Mk. 1:12-13; Lk. 4:1-2). Craig Keener notes that “it was commonly believed that demons were especially attracted to places like bathhouses, graveyards and deserts. Readers would thus sense the suspense as Jesus battled with Satan on Satan’s own turf” [1].  Still, it was on account of the Spirit’s leading that the Lord would go into the wilderness for a season of fasting ...

Suppose for a moment one could actually dangle a person over hell fire and brimstone. The body secured with just a thin chord, which could easily be severed, sending the poor soul into the unquenchable flames. Would that put the fear of God in anyone? No way. I doubt God would use any kind of scare tactic just to bring a person into relationship with Him. This is never to say hell is irrelevant or even non-existent, but scaring someone would never work, at least for the person who sincerely wants to be changed and rearranged to be fit for heavenly life. The scoundrel in the midst of a raging battle may call out to God for deliverance inside the foxhole; however, once the danger has passed, he simply carries without giving thought to the Creator and how his very life rests in His hands. No, scaring in never enough to bring wayward souls into the temple of the Lord to learn at the feet of the Messiah. What God does is He sends the Son into this world to be incarnated as a man, ...

Jesus Christ’s cleansing of the temple has been on my mind of late. Matthew informs us that “ Jesus entered the temple and drove out all those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves. And He said to them, “It is written, ‘ My house shall be called a house of prayer ’; but you are making it a robbers ’ den ” (Matt. 21:12-13). Mark adds that Christ “would not permit anyone to carry merchandise through the temple” (Mark. 11:16). John informs us that the Jesus “made a scourge of cords, and drove them all out of the temple” (John 2:15), and said, “Take these things away; stop making My Father’s house a place of business” (John 2:16). The disciples who witnessed this incident “remembered that it was written, ‘ Zeal for Your House will consume me ’ ” (John 2:17). [1] This incident would have occurred in the Temple’s Court of the Gentiles. In that place, there were money changers offering pure...

divine omnipresence də-ˈvīn   äm-ni-ˈpre-zən (t)s Someone once asked me, “If God cannot be in the presence of sin, why does Satan can have access to heaven? The idea is that Satan enters into heaven to accuse the righteous in the books of Job (Job 1:11, 2:5) and Zechariah (Zech. 3:1-5). The problem comes when reading about final glory in the Book of Revelation, wherein there is a picture of the New Jerusalem coming down as a bride adorned for her husband, and John the Revelator says, “nothing unclean, and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life” (Rev. 21:27). How can this be? Some might parse out the semantics in Job and Zechariah in such a way to contend that “the Satan” in these Old Testament prophets is someone other than the Devil. So the problem is simply a case of mistaken identity. I’m not bought and sold on that one. So how it is that Satan can accuse the brethren ...

I truly sense there is an unsettling fundamentalism circulating that robs the soul of a capacity to read and understand obvious metaphors. This becomes all too clear when it comes to the resurrection of Jesus. Jesus continually reminded the disciples that He would die and rise again after “three days and three nights” (Matt. 12:40; Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:34; John 2:19). He made many statements about dying and resurrecting on the “third day” (Matt. 16:21; 17:23; Luke 9:22; 18:33; 24:7, 21, and 46). The Scriptures also indicate that Christ burial took place prior to the start of the Sabbath (Mark 15:42-47; Luke 23:50-56; John 19:31-42), and that the empty tomb was discovered after the Sabbath ended (Matt. 28:1; Mark 16:1) on the first day of the week (Matt. 28:1; Mark. 16:2, 9; Luke 24:1). Here comes then Mr. Fundamentalism on the Left. He will tell me, “Well, there you have it. “Three days and three nights” just does not work, since you never really get 72 hours from Friday evening to...

I looking again at the parable at the talents and one of the things that strikes me is the refrain: “You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things” (Matt. 25:21, 23). The point is straightforward, just as the earthly master gave talents to each servant (one talent being about 15 years wages for the average laborer at the time) with the expectation that each servant would return a profit, God lavishes us with spiritual blessings and those whom God has blessed are to be faithful with what they have received. Conversely, the servant who failed to be faithful to what he had been entrusted with from the master was condemned, in the same way, those who despise the blessings of God are rightly condemned. This is really an important principle that recapitulates throughout the Scriptures. I think of Rahab, a prostitute living in the Canaanite city of Jericho. In spite of being deeply immersed in paganism, she somehow came to the realization that “the Lord Go...

Coming to Grips with Newtown Deadly Shooting. December 14, 2012 is a day very few would forget. The senseless violent murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, 26 victims, 20 of them children, how do we come to grips with that? We must certainly never forget the names all those in Newtown we lost—Charlotte Bacon; Daniel Barden; Rachel Davino; Olivia Engel; Josephine Gay; Dylan Hockley; Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung; Madeleine F. Hsu; Catherine V. Hubbard; Chase Kowalski; Nancy Lanza; Jesse Lewis; Ana Marquez-Greene; James Mattioli; Grace McDonnell; Anne Marie Murphy; Emilie Parker; Jack Pinto; Noah Pozner; Caroline Previdi; Jessica Rekos; Avielle Richman; Lauren Rousseau; Mary Sherlach; Victoria Soto; Benjamin Wheeler; Allison N. Wyatt. May our memories of them never fade! When I got news of the initial reports of the incident, I was speechless. One might invent words to describe great injustices and tragedies, like “genocide,” but they never really come clo...