Light v Dark (toast & life) rr

I am one  of  those folks who likes my food ever so slightly overcooked.  I like the cheese on my pizza to be golden.. a 'dark' golden, and toast my bagel dark so to contrast with a spread of cream cheese. I  want my bagel to CRUNCH when I  bite into it.  And I like DUSK.. where the sun has  just dropped peacefully below the western horizon but before the  black of night,

Of course choosing dark over light in the tasty matters of food or sunsets is fine, but in matters of the SPIRIT.. always choose the LIGHT.

This Present Darkness is a Christian novel by Frank Paretti published in 1986 showing the reader a view on angels, demons, prayer, and spiritual warfare while demons and angels interact and struggle for control in our lives and communities.  And though this book was  fiction, I  believe this  battle is  real.

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Of course there is obvious DARKNESS in this  world, but I am  surprised by many Churches maintain a Frog in the  Boiling Pot perspective on life where God is fit into societal norms rather than the other way around as  God intends.  The temp is going up, but we the church are too often oblivious... and actually enjoying this Jacuzzi of the soul.

"In God We Trust" may be the official motto (for now) of the United States of America, but in this  world's shadows we move closer to a Godless reality found in Judges 17:6 In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. ​

How else can explain our society where

• Crass is considered clever, and Profane is  Profound
• Greed and Envy is in the heart of man in a world where Hatred, War, and Genocide exist
• The new Democratic Socialist movement espouses Marxism while spewing Anti-American, Anti-Israel, Anti-Police rhetoric, embrace Islamic extremists, and call to defund the Police. 
• Women are degraded and used via Pornography
• The gentle word CHOICE masks the Holocaust of Aborting babies
• LGBTQ etc etc is lauded as normal rather than a sad perversion of God's perfect design.
• Gender is just another 'selection' on the 'enlightened' happy meal of life. No longer can gender be determined by.. a simply look in your pants.​  Boy? Girl? .. no confusion here.
• A barrage of divisive buzzwords high on emotion but light on facts are featured. Words like white guilt/privilege, woke, toxic masculinity, 'white' evangelicals, systemic racism.
• We also now have a growing acceptance of fascist violent anarchist hate groups like Antifa & BLM. These groups incite emotions, fuel riots, burn buildings, destroy historical statues, and attack the police and despise America. 

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All this madness happens and honestly I am not sure the church knows how to handle it. I observe many if not most churches are afraid of secular man and public opinion rather than afraid of disobeying God.

If anyone espouses traditional Christian values we are deemed judgmental, hateful bigots or worse. But what of that? They hated Jesus first for telling loving truth, so why are we afraid to be hated for the Gospel?

This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.  John 3:19-21
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So these very words of Jesus make it clear.. It matters what we believe, our choices matter.  JESUS  WAS NOT TALKIN' TOAST.  We are commanded in loving firm truths to stay in the light by Jesus. He does did mince word and the world hated Him for it.

So I prayer God finds us IN THE LIGHT, living in obedience to His word, loving and truthful in our  words  and deeds with others, and never lingering in this  world's shadows. 

Enjoy this life in the LIGHT.

Blessings

Jeff (dark toast please) Larson

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