To Subscribe: Email request to dlw@gracepointcounseling.orgIn The News ARCHIVES
In the News
(2016)
The Grace Perspective identifies troubling issues In the News as an opportunity to teach the message of grace – that man is broken, the world is broken, and experiencing Christ for salvation (justification and sanctification) is the beginning of the solution. It is written, sometimes densely worded and intense, as a follow-up supplement to past and present counselees.
Week 52
Item 1: Notable People Who Died in 2016
- Cliff Barrows, 93
- Antonin Scalia, 79
- Phyllis Schafly, 92
Item 2: CEO resigns after overworked employee commits suicide attempting to survive company performance culture
Consider:
- It is not overwork that kills, but work that is under supported.
Item 3: Church leaders vote to bear arms, protect members from terrorism
Consider:
- An open-door (“Everyone Welcome!”) policy to increase attendance (and funds) may increasingly prove not to be God’s Perfect Plan for church growth.
- An option is for church members to win their families, friends, and neighbors to Christ in their homes, and then bring them to the private gatherings of the church to support their growth in grace.
Item 4: Airline Report: “Therapy Animal” provision increasingly abused
Consider:
- There is no support in Scripture to use animals for therapy (superficial pain relief), but only for work and eating.
- Our experience to be renewed by Christ each day during quiet-time worship increases us in health and happiness and reduces our dependence on superficial supports.
Item 5: Report: Christians shut down Christmas celebration on December 26, say glad it’s over
Consider:
- That’s like celebrating the birth of a child, but only until it is born, or celebrating a wedding, but only until the couple is pronounced married.
- A worldly, pseudo-religious celebration of Christmas will be disappointing.
- Experiencing the Presence of Christ living in our hearts never becomes boring or tiring, but increasingly satisfying.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 16L31
Week 51
Item 1: Report: Rock throwing at cars increases at Christmas
Consider:
- Violence is rooted in anger which is rooted in the pain of unmet needs, especially for experiencing Christ, but including also the inborn human needs of the heart for leadership in the home and Church (to support information, affection, and structure/decision-making).
Item 2: NC Couple creates “blessing boxes” for the needy
Consider:
- The Bible word “bless” means to invest in the healing needs of hurting people. Giving to help mask the pain of brokenness is called “enabling.”
Item 3: Group says conservatives should view torture videos
Consider:
- The heart of Christ living in us, not images of suffering, increases our
- passion for Godly values,
- grief for evil behavior, and
- compassion for a hurting world.
Item 4: Gay couple removed from flight after rage against First Daughter
Consider:
- Wrong is intimidated by the presence of Right because it cannot prevail against Truth.
- The more confident we are that what we believe is Truth, the less intimidated we are about the opinions of others.
Item 5: Religious woman turns against God, throws Bible away after daughter is kidnapped and killed.
Consider:
- (Personal) I would throw my Bible away also if my only understanding of Scripture was performance-based – that God
- is in a power position over us with expectation for us to please him in order to receive anything from him or
- picks and chooses what and to whom he provides based on reasons we can’t know or understand.
Item 6: FBI warns of terrorists’ plot to attack U.S.
Consider:
- God’s calling for members of the Body of Christ (the Church) is to win the lost to Christ in their families and communities, then to bring new converts into the private meetings of the church for support for learning how to increase in their experience of Christ.
- “Everyone Welcome” is a worldly strategy for the work of the Church, so puts members at risk, more so as we near the end of this present age.
Item 7: Millennials seek fix for removing tattoos
Consider:
- Choices rooted in boredom only temporarily reduce the boredom so that the choices themselves soon become boring.
Item 8: World lines up to see Santa Claus who does not exist, rejects Christ who does
Item 9: Christian Churches
Consider:
- God does not call members of the Body of Christ (the Church) to worship Christ as our King but to trust him as our Savior and receive him as our Lord.
- Christ came into the world 2000 years ago, not to be a King, but to die in order to satisfy God’s judgment against mankind because of Adam’s disobedience in the Garden of Eden.
- The Jews received Christ as their King but rejected him as their Savior.
- Christ comes into our spirit when we trust him as our Savior. Christ comes into our hearts/souls when we receive him as our Lord.
- Christ is coming again to fulfill his promise to the Jews to be their King.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 16L24
Week 50
Item 1: “Jobs, jobs, jobs!” Trump Restates Goal for Presidency
Consider:
- Private-sector job opportunities are critical to the welfare of a nation.
- However, Christ alone is the Rock and the only sure Foundation for a nation’s survival (1 Corinthians 3:11).
- Any other foundation is sand and will not endure (Matthew 7-24-27).
- “The rich man withers (spiritually) as he goes about his business” (James 1:11).
Item 2: National Church
Consider:
- New and improved “recovery” programs, accountability groups, intellectualizing, education, guilt/fear-laden preaching suppress/intensify the problem more than help.
- The unmet needs of man’s heart (mind, emotions, and will), especially to experience Christ, is at the root of all brokenness.
- Christ, alone, is man’s hope for healing from his brokenness (Colossians 1:27).
Item 3: Pastor tells children in mall that Santa doesn’t exist, told by parents to shut up
Consider:
- The harm is not so much telling children that a fat man in a red suit with a white beard lives in the North Pole, has elves who make toys, flies all over the world on Christmas Eve in a sleigh led by reindeer, and delivers toys down the chimney to boys and girls who believe in him and are not naughty.
- But not telling children about God’s Gift of his Son has life-long consequences.
- The place to teach children about Christ is at home and church. Performance-driven religious people barking the Gospel at children in public is not an effective substitute.
Item 4: Texas
Consider:
- The religious freedom guaranteed to Christians by the U.S. Constitution also protects other religions.
- God’s Call/Role for the Church is to support believers to be renewed daily in their hearts and homes by their experience of Christ.
- Laws to guarantee religious freedom in public school and civic life will not be enough to preserve Scriptural values in
Item 5: Record-breaking gift giving projected for Christmas 2016
Consider:
- Christmas is our opportunity to celebrate God’s Gift of his Son (Romans 5:11).
- We celebrate Christ, not by giving to him or his Resources (ministries and churches) - except to
- give ourselves – to open our hearts to receive their influence and
- give to others in Jesus’ Name (what Christ would give them) – that is, gifts that are redemptive (heal rather than just make everyone feel better),
- but by receiving from him – his Blood/Death for us and his Resurrecte d Life in us.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 16L17
Week 49
Item 1: Trump Nominees True to Commitment to Make America
Consider:
- A strengthened national defense, infrastructure, business climate, and judicial system will help extend
Item 2: Trump enjoys celebrity status on Victory Tour
Consider:
- Government, business, and religious leaders are celebrated in the kingdoms of this world.
- In stark contrast, during his earthly ministry, Christ served without applause, in humility and obscurity, as should ministry leaders in the Body of Christ.
- During the coming Kingdom Age, and also in Heaven, we will not celebrate Christ in the way worldly leaders are celebrated now on earth (with ovations, parades, etc.), but only in the sense that we honor (receive) him as our Resource to support our living and service to others (Yes, even in Heaven!).
Item 3: Pew Research: Two-thirds Facebook and Twitter users get news from social media
Related Report: Social Media named leading provider of fake news
Consider:
- God communicates Truth by the Holy Spirit during our quiet time to read the Scripture.
- Information learned from our favorite teachers (who learned it from their favorite teachers) perpetuates fake doctrine.
- False doctrine is the core cause of brokenness in homes, churches, and hearts.
Item 4: Urban Council Leaders Oppose Aggressive Law Enforcement
Consider:
- Playing nice with lawbreakers will not reduce tension in the community but increase it. So will failing to hire and train qualified law enforcement officers.
Item 5: Accused goes on trial for Charleston Church
Related: Tennessee
Consider:
- God promises to protect his children who abide in him – that is, who live daily in the place he has called them to live, doing the work he has called them to do, when and how he has called them to do it.
- In conflict with the conditions of that promise is the popular but erroneous notion that God calls the Church to
- open wide their doors to invite the world into their meetings,
- organize an aggressive, ongoing outreach effort into the community to bring the unsaved into the meetings of the Church,
- provide entertaining, seeker-friendly programs, and then
- present an evangelistic message to the unsaved in attendance, calling them to trust Christ for salvation so that they can go to Heaven.
- The mega church movement does this with the results that thousands respond to trust Christ and are born again – for which Heaven rejoices.
- But it is a Plan B which God allows and not the Plan A he commissioned (which would result in infinitely more converts).
- That’s because, God’s Call to the Church is to
- regularly assemble on the first day of the week (and even daily) for the purpose of being supported for learning how to experience Christ (his Likeness) to a fuller measure each day (per Ephesians 3:19; 4:13),
- manifest his Light into the world (per Philippians 1:20), beginning with our families, friends, and neighbors,
- compel the unsaved to trust Christ (his death on the cross for them) so that they can go to Heaven, and then
- bring new converts into the assembly of the Church for the purpose of being supported for learning how to experience the Life of Christ so that they can be made holy/useful to God for redemptive service to others (per Matthew 28:19-20).
- This does not preclude the Church from conducting evangelistic events in the community.
- But private meetings of the Church protect members from exposure/ vulnerability to terrorists strolling in.
- Those who insist on attending an open-door, "Everyone Welcome" church should factor in that,
- as we near the end of this Age, times will become increasingly perilous (2 Timothy 3:1), putting us at increased risk, and
- the promises of God in Psalm 91 to protect us are to those who are under his wings.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 16L10
Week 48
Item 1: Report: 23 million follow Trump on Twitter
Consider:
- Before Twitter or Facebook, God gave the Scripture to communicate Truth to his followers.
Item 2: ‘Hacksaw Ridge’ promotes disarmament
Consider:
- Jesus told his disciples the world would seek to kill them (John 16:2), to “sell your coat and buy a sword” (Luke 22:36).
- The Sixth Commandment “Do not kill” means “do not murder.”
- Refusing to destroy evil or saving the life of a dying enemy is participation in the murder of all they kill.
Item 3: Hampshire College removes U.S.
Consider:
- Compromise to appease law breakers will not resolve their anger but only increase it.
- That’s because:
- Evil in man does not seek or want healing;
- Man’s anger is rooted in what’s missing that helps (information, attention, and structure), not in what’s present that hurts;
- Evil in man is never satisfied; Hell and destruction are never full.
- (Proverbs 27:20; 30:15-16)
Item 4: ‘Shaken’: Tim Tebow’s book tells of his disappointed desire to be great
Consider:
- God calls us to
- allow him to be great in and through us (the Bible meaning of “to glorify God”) – not to be great in the world (The destiny theology teachers have it wrong!);
- go deep into fellowship with him (through quiet-time worship) – not up in the world;
- prepare for ministry to others – not perform to be famous or to become rich;
- (Matthew 10:39; Mark 4:19; Ephesians 3:17-18; Proverbs 23:4)
Item 5: Report: Fidel Castro net worth was $900 million while average income of those he ruled is $20 a month
Consider:
- Christ comes into our lives in order to increase our health and happiness, not in order for us to increase his wealth.
- Christ did not possess nor seek worldly wealth (Matthew 8:20).
- Peter said to the lame man, “Silver and gold I do not have and what I do have (Christ living in and through me), I give to support you” (Acts 3:6).
- The message of a wealthy pastor will increase the brokenness of your heart and home.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 16L03
Week 47
Item 1: Aloe Vera gel products in leading stores do not contain aloe vera: Test results reveal deception, greed
Consider:
- “The love of money is at the root of all kinds of evil” (1 Timothy 6:10).
- Worse is
- a diet of foodless food,
- Churchanity without experiencing Christ.
Item 2: What!? Confused Pastor Preaches Mixed Message (‘We should vote but God gives us the leaders he wants us to have!’)
Consider:
- It is God’s Plan for every person and nation to be healthy and happy.
- He is always working (his Provisions are always effectual) to accomplish his Plan for us (Romans 8:28).
- But God’s Plan (Will) for our health and happiness is experienced only by those who are vessels (surrendered to him for his use, including at the ballot box) through whom he is accomplishing his Redemptive Plan in the world.
- God indeed does give (raises up) leaders, in the sense he calls, prepares, and sends them, but he does not impose them – which means we have the freedom to receive or reject them.
- This means,
- HOWEVER, because of the hardness of our hearts, God may sometimes intervene to delay sowing and reaping outcomes by communicating Light to the hardened minds of his people to enable them for making wise choices.
Related: Famous Pastor Preaches False Doctrine: (‘Nothing can stop God’s Plan for our Lives’)
Consider:
- God’s Provisions of Grace are effectual (cannot fail) to accomplish the purpose for which he gives them.
- God’s Plan for our redemption (health and happiness) is not imposed nor causative (as we say in seminary); rather, our experience of his Plan is conditioned upon our acceptance of his Provisions of Grace which are effectual to accomplish it.
- That’s why God does not
- produce a harvest in the field of the farmer who has not sown seed or
- give health to those who do not make wise choices for diet, exercise, and lifestyle.
- That explains also why, even though “it is God’s Will that no one should perish” (2 Peter 3:9), more people will be lost than saved (justified) and more saved people will remain broken than will be recovered to health and happiness (sanctified) (Matthew 7:14).
- This means, God’s Purpose and Plan for our well-being is accomplished only in the lives of those who are living geographically in the place he puts them, doing what he calls them to do (Romans 8:28).
Item 3: Liberal strategy: Relocate voters to conservative states to change future election outcomes
Consider:
- If the Body of Christ is radiant (Philippians 1:20), migration of liberals to conservative states should not matter - and should be welcomed.
- That’s because, darkness cannot prevail against the Light (John 1:4-5).
Item 4: ‘Love Trumps Hate’
Consider:
- God’s love (agape) for us does not mean he gives us our carnal, feel-good desires, but is expressed by meeting our redemptive (health) needs.
- Our love (agape) for God is expressed by receiving his Provisions.
- The Bible meaning of God’s hate is not the same as the emotion of disdain and contempt expressed by broken, angry people, but means “rejection” and is his disposition (Mind) toward those who reject his Provisions of Grace - that is, to cut them off (John 15:2), to not nonetheless provide for them, the same as he
- did (past) when he removed Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden and rejected Cain, Esau, and Ishmael,
- does (present) those who reject his Laws (Romans 1:18-32) and especially reject Christ, and
- will do (future) at the coming Judgments (of the Saved, goat and sheep nations, and unsaved).
- Our experience of God’s Mind living in us enables us to have his disposition (of love and hate) in our relationship to others.
- Conclusion: God’s Love in us trumps our hate (disdain) for others, but his Love does not trump his hate for those who reject his Provisions – that is, while God continues to love (value) those he hates (cuts off from the flow of blessings), his love does not circumvent their choices to reject his Provisions so that they nonetheless have the same benefit as those who receive them.
Item 5: High Profile Religious Couples Considering Divorce
Consider:
- Marriages are hurt, not helped, by religion (performance/rule-based Christianity).
- Health and happiness in a marriage is supported only by Christ living his Life in and through a husband and wife, beginning with the husband.
Item 1: ‘Thank You Jesus’ yard signs popping up around the Triad
Consider:
- Saying “thank you” to Jesus is rooted in the perceived notion that we need to express appreciation to God so that he will be happy with us and might hopefully (just maybe) give us a blessing.
- But the word “thanksgiving” means to give self (open the door of our hearts and minds) to God in order to receive his Provisions of Grace which flow faithfully, freely, and fully from him. This means, we give thanks to God for Christ, not by what we say to him, but by receiving him (his Blood/death and Resurrected Life) – the same as we give him thanks for the water he provides by drinking it.
Item 2: The New Republican Party leadership begins to take shape
Consider:
- Conservative government will support the Constitutional freedom of the Church to be the Light of Christ in the world.
- But government is not the True Vine. Only Christ is the True Vine (John 15:1). He alone is the Resource through which God’s Life and Light flow into and through those who are in fellowship (more than just relationship) with him (through quiet-time worship).
Item 3: Losing Democrat presidential candidate may have won popular vote
Consider:
- Framers of the Constitution wisely provided for the Electoral College as a safeguard against mob rule – so that we don’t have government voted in by the youngest, weakest, least moral, and most impulsive and irresponsible.
Item 4: Fox News’ Megan Kelly launches new book, ‘Settle for More’
Consider:
- Insisting on more may promote wealth and success in the kingdom of this world, but it will shut down our experience of health and happiness in this life in the
- The message of the Bible, repeated over and over and over again, is:
- “The rich man withers in the pursuit of his own way” (James 1:10), but
- “All who give themselves up as a vessel to Christ for him to live his Life in and through them will have rest in their hearts” (Matthew 18:28-30).
Item 5: Stephen Hawking warns humanity has only 1,000 years left of sustainable existence on Earth
Consider:
- Does Hawking know? The Bible says that, at the end of Christ’s thousand year reign (which begins at his Second Coming and is seven years after the Rapture of the Church), God will destroy the Earth with fire and replace it with a new Earth!
- Matthew 24:35; 2 Peter 3:7-13; Revelation 21:1; Romans 8:21
Week 45
Item 1: Christian Conservatives Celebrate Trump Election
Consider:
- Conservative government will not heal the brokenness in our nation, but gives the Body of Christ extended opportunity to learn how to experience Christ in order to manifest his Likeness/Light into a dark world.
- The performance (“go and give”) church, too busy for quiet-time to experience Christ, only helps to mask the pain of brokenness in the hearts and homes of its members.
Item 2: Spoiled Losers Throw Temper Tantrum
Consider:
- More troubling than the anger/violence of unhappy youth is the mental and emotional brokenness at its root.
- Grace Parenting (Leadership)
- provides for redemptive needs, not superficial feel-good needs,
- cultivates psychological (mental and emotional) health,
- \sympathizes with disappointments, but
- does not accommodate or appease pouting or temper tantrums.
Item 3: Independence
Consider:
- But Scripture prophesizes an end-time, one world government and religion ruled by a one world leader, the Antichrist.
- The Body of Christ currently has an opportunity to learn how to experience Christ to a fuller measure in order to manifest his Light into the world, influencing the lost to receive him. Either we respond or we lose it.
Item 4: Conservatives Called Hateful, Racists
Consider:
- Love invests in the health needs of broken people - which feels like hate to those who are addicted to superficial pain relief.
- Racism is the belief that God values one race of people more than another.
Item 5: Economists: “Democrat Polices Produce Slow Growth”
Consider:
- Regardless of world affairs, including the economy, it is impossible for born again Christians not to prosper who take time each day to include God’s Provisions into their lives (Romans 5:17; James 1:12; Psalm 1:1-3).
Item 6: Many see Trump as populist, gracious
Consider:
- Trump’s interest in the needs of people has human limitations, but
- Christians know Christ as passionately interested in every detail of our lives, intensely committed to our well-being, and always present, waiting at the door of our hearts offering support for making wise choices.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 16K12
Week 44
Item 1: Religious Purists Reject Trump for President
Consider:
- The President is not a pastor.
- Strong conservative leaders have not always been pure (for example, Winston Churchhill).
- The people who build our houses, sell and service our vehicles, grow the food we eat, etc. are not always pure.
Item 2: Report: Undecided Voters Struggle with Issues
Consider:
- People of faith (conviction) do not struggle with
- individual responsibility and accountability - that man eats by the sweat of his face (Genesis 3:10; 2 Thessalonians 3:10),
- the necessity for the rule of law and law enforcement (Romans 13:1-5),
- peace through strength and right to bear arms (Luke 22:36),
- life begins in the womb (Jeremiah 1:5; Psalm 139:13), and
- the sanctity of marriage (one man, one woman) (Matthew 19:4-6).
Item 3: Veteran Administration removes Bible from clinic, conservatives alarmed
Consider:
- More alarming is the absence of Christ from man’s heart and of Bibles (its grace message) from the home and Church.
Item 4: FBI investigations threaten to impede the work of government
Consider:
- Greater than the need for the work of government is for the Church to live out it’s calling to be God’s Light in the world (Matthew 5:16; Philippians 1:20).
- The role of government is to protect the road to success; it is not to take care of those who refuse to run on it.
Related: Christian conservatives lament end of America
Consider:
- Conservative government leadership is NOT the solution to
Item 5: Tim Tebow Theology: “Live out your dreams”
Consider:
- God does not call us to live out our dreams but to open the door of our hearts for him to live out his Redemptive Plan through us
Consider:
- God faithfully, fully, and freely provides every support need we have for making wise choices - which produce good outcomes according to his law of sowing and reaping (Galatians 6:7; James 1:1-12; Romans 5:17; 8:12-13).
- Pleading with God (called “prayer” by some), even with bitter tears, to provide our needs anyhow is not a substitute for making wise choices (James 1:4,12).
- Pleading with God to circumvent the outcome of our foolish, impulsive choices, or even our ignorant choices, and especially our rebellious choices will have a disappointing outcome – the same as
- pleading with a judge in a court of law to give us a pass on the charges against us or
- expecting a harvest we have not invested for.
- However, we have reason to believe that God sometimes intervenes to save us from certain death or utter ruin.
- With that hope and understanding, and because of the rapid moral decline in our nation, we should plead with God to supernaturally move Christians to go to the polls and to vote consistent with Scriptural values so that our nation is not lost to evil.
Week 43
Item 1: Women voters hurt by Trump’s comments
Consider:
- People hurt because they do not have confidence concerning God’s unconditional value for them. Leaders must be careful what they say, including about women and children, even if the comments are not about them personally.
Item 2: Flags, crosses destroyed by opponents
Consider:
- Evil is hostile to Righteousness.
- Truth does not fear the free expression of error.
- That’s because, Truth will always win, except when it is not heard – the same as light always prevails against darkness except when it is shut out.
Item 3: Popular entertainers campaign for liberals
Consider:
- Entertainers support the policies (abortion, for example) which are supported by those who buy their products. (“The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.” – 1 Timothy 6:10)
- God calls Christians to vote for the policies that fulfill his Redemptive Plan.
Item 4: Popular Minister calls Church to “come against” evil in the “Name of Jesus”
Consider:
- “In the Name of Jesus” means “according to, consistent with, empowered by” his Life working in and through us.
- Vocally speaking the name “Jesus” has no more power than speaking any other name.
- But we can take time each day to be filled to a fuller measure of Christ (per Ephesians 3:18; 4:13) in order for his Light to shine in and through us into the world to dispel the darkness.
Item 5: “Call me Three!” Universities double down on gender specific expressions
Consider:
- He, she, man, woman are out in a gender neutral world.
- But what about boyfriend and girlfriend, son and daughter, brother and sister, father and mother?
- Are rooster and hen, jack and jenny, buck and doe, bull and cow, stallion and mare, boar and sow, ram and ewe next?
- What about names? (“My sibling had another baby named Three.”)
- Does Mr. Johnson’s name (from son of John) become Johnperson?
- “Where there is no revelation (Truth) from God, the people behave insanely” (Proverbs 29:18).
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 16J29
Week 42
Item 1: Hillary: “Both faith and works are necessary for salvation”
Consider:
- Works (accumulation of wise choices) are necessary for health (in order to “reign in life” – James 1:12), but not for going to Heaven (“God saved us, not because of works of righteousness which we have done, but by his mercy - when we trusted in Christ’s Provision of his death on the cross for us.” -Titus 3:5-7; Ephesians 2:8-9).
Item 2: Ministry group promotes new plan to church leaders for leaving a legacy
Consider:
- God does not call us to build a legacy but to experience him (John 4:23; 15:1-8).
- The person who tries hardest to build a ministry legacy is at risk to be a branch that withers (John 15:6) – because his efforts are performance-based, motivated by pride, and not enabled by Christ, who alone is our Foundation (1 Corinthians 3:11-12) and Rock (Matthew 7:24-27). Without him “we can do nothing (of eternal value)” (John 15:5).
Item 3: Trump Campaign Office in NC Firebombed
Related: Report: Flying the American flag at home invites harm
Consider:
- Violence is rooted in the anger of unmet needs which is the result of wrong choices (sin).
- Conservative principles support wise choices that help establish us in long-term health; liberal/socialist dogma promises quick-fix programs that can only mask the pain of foolish choices, but leaves broken people hurting and in anger.
Item 4: Runner attacked by Sam
Consider:
- Sam is a dog; he is currently in recovery from a swift kick to his groin. (Sam should have been kept on a leash. His “daddy” was warned.)
- Remember when dogs were called Bullet, O Yellar, Spot, or Blackie. In these changing times, they have been given names that elevate them to human status.
- But Sam is not a human, does not have a spirit, cannot be born again, and will not be going to Heaven when he dies.
- But unborn babies are human and go to Heaven when they are aborted.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 16J22
Week 41
Item 1: Pathway to Trump Win Narrows
Consider:
- God’s Redemptive Plan often runs through loss, not wins.
- Losses call us to dependence on Christ while wins often call us away from Christ, to independence from him.
- Losses shake our world so that all that remains is what cannot be shaken (It’s coming, folks – as certain as the Bible is true!).
Related: Famous pastor says only a miracle will save America
Consider:
- God will not “miraculously” intervene to fix/circumvent the adverse outcomes of our foolish choices - so that we can have fun again, but allows sadness and brokenness into our lives in order to call us into intimacy with him so that we can experience joy (not the same as fun).
Item 2: Report: If only women voted, conservative candidates would never win an election
Consider:
- The problem is not that women vote but that men do not have more influence with women.
Item 3: “Purists” claim Trump not pure enough
Consider:
- No one is pure (Romans 3:10), and some are more impure than others.
- Pastors should be the purest among men (1 Timothy 3:2-7).
- The Scripture calls us to beware of Satan’s schemes (2 Corinthians 2:11; Ephesians 6:11) – including to irrationally hold men who lead in government affairs to the same standards as Church leaders.
Item 4: Liberals call for end of negative campaigning
Consider:
- Conservatives call for an end to name calling but not to an end of identifying the failures of liberalism (socialism).
- “Can’t we just all get along/play nice” is a ploy of evil.
- God does not call us to live in the gray but to live in the Light (which dispels darkness).
- Wrong, after its losses, always calls righteousness to cease fire/disarm, giving it time to secretly rearm.
- Doing right, no matter how perfectly, will not stop the assault of Satan, the Accuser and Father of Lies;
- Strength promotes peace; weakness incites violence.
Item 5: Trump promises to Make America
Consider:
- The question is: Are there enough unemployed voters who want to work to elect a government that promotes (instead of hinders) job growth?
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 16J15
Week 40
Item 1: Christian Conservatives Saddened by Trump Comments
Consider:
- Every man is broken at his core, capable of every possible sinful thought or behavior (Romans 3:10-19; 23). (Denial of that fact will keep him in bondage to his brokenness; confession will be the beginning of his healing.)
- Sinful man thinks sinful because of what he is (He is sinful!).
- “For as a man thinks in his heart, so is he” (Proverbs 23:7).
- Sinful man talks sinful because of what he thinks (his thought are sinful).
- “The words that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart” (Matthew 15:18; James 3:11).
- Sinful man does not have full control over his thoughts – that’s because, they flow up naturally from his sinful core; they also come as “flaming missiles from Satan” (Ephesians 6:16).
- But he can have control over what he says, and
- with the exception of addiction (lust – James 1:14-15), he can have control over what he does.
- This means, while a man may sometimes say what he is thinking in his heart, the best of well-behaved men don’t do what they are thinking.
- Man’s problem begins with his heart – it is desperately wicked (“The heart of man is desperately wicked – beyond what he realizes or confesses.” - Jeremiah 17:9)
- Man’s experience of Christ increasingly transforms his heart (mind, emotions, and will) so that his thoughts, desires, and actions become increasingly Christlike. This is the message of grace (Colossians 1:27).
Item 2: Republican lawmakers push for Trump to drop out
Consider:
- “Sometimes God can use a crooked stick to draw a straight line” (someone said).
- Beware hypo-critical, self-proclaimed purist who may be looking for an excuse to vote their secret desires.
- Trump is not running for pastor of a church but to lead the government of a nation.
Item 3: Pence: “It’s time to pray!”
Consider:
- Praying in the sense that it is commonly understood (that is, to plead with God to
- intervene to change 1) man’s hearts or 2) the outcomes of his foolish, impulsive choices or to
- provide our needs (called “blessings” by some)
will accomplish nothing (not even with fasting food or recruiting millions to join the effort). That’s because, God's Provisions have been flowing faithfully, fully, and freely from him since before the beginning of time.
- The meaning of the word “prayer” is “a place of exchange.”
- “Praying” means to open the door of our minds to receive the flow of God’s Provisions into our hearts, beginning with Christ (Revelation 3:20; Romans 5:17).
Item 4: Gingrich calls for pastors to run for political office
Consider:
- Far greater than the need for pastors to be involved in the political process (Plan B) is their need to experience Christ to a fuller measure each day and to support their churches for learning how to do the same (Plan A).
Item 5: God, not forecasters, controls path of Hurricane Matthew
Consider:
- God normatively allows the laws of nature, including the law of “sowing and reaping” (Galatians 6:7), to govern his creation. But he sometimes, when it serves to accomplish his Redemptive Plan, intervenes to control the weather, behavior of wildlife, circuit of the earth, spread of disease, and Satan/demonic powers (Job 1:11-12, Jonah 1:17; Acts 28:5; Psalm 91).
- Normatively, God does not intervene in our lives to circumvent the outcome of our disobedient choices.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 16J08
Week 39
Item 1: Ace pitcher ignores advice of friends, killed while boating at night
Consider:
- “God is always working to accomplish his redemptive plan (health and happiness) in the lives of those who are responding to his call to include in their lives his Provisions of Grace (beginning with Christ) to support them for making wise choices which produce good outcomes” is the message of Romans 8:28
Item 2: Grief Ahead: Broken America
Consider:
- The renewal of the Body of Christ (the Church) to experience Christ is the only hope for
Item 3: Never Trumpers insist candidate is unfit for leadership
Consider:
- God uses people with hearts open to him (2 Chronicles 16:9), not with perfect records of behavior (there are none), to accomplish his purpose.
- Insisting on a pure candidate may be rooted in the desperate need of man’s religious conscience for permission (an excuse) to vote for policies that support the secret desires of his fallen heart.
Item 4: Religious pundit says election will be determined by the Providence
Consider:
- The Providence of God is not the arbitrary imposition of God’s Will at any given time to intervene in the affairs of man, but is his Provisions of Grace which have been flowing freely, fully, and faithfully from his riches in Heaven since before the beginning of time and especially immediately after the fall of Adam to support us for making wise decisions.
- Elections are determined by the choices of voters.
Item 5: Leading pastor tells nation “God has departed from America
Consider:
- God is as attentive and committed to
Item 6: Voter qualifications abandoned; rights sought for illegals to vote
Consider:
- Voting rights, first given historically to the most responsible citizens, are being increasingly given to the least responsible – with the result of a “take care of me, give me a pass on my bad behavior” government.
- God’s Plan for godly leadership in the home and Church to influence outcomes in elections cannot be improved upon (“Give double honor to the elders who provide grace leadership” - 1 Timothy 5:17 paraphrased).
Item 7: Trend: Pets are People, too!
Consider:
- We can expect civil rights in the future to be increasingly expanded to give pets access to all places open to people, including retail stores, restaurants, malls, hospitals, and churches (disguised as therapy).
- (Will freedom from ownership to once again roam the streets be next?)
- People/Pet codependency (two broken parties dependent on each other for superficial pain relief) may momentarily relieve our tension but only our experience of Christ will heal our brokenness.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 16J01
Week 38
Item 1: Giant Church
Consider:
- The goal of church growth conferences is to teach pastors how to increase attendance and offerings in church meetings, not how to support members for learning how to be increased to a fuller measure of Christ in their hearts.
Item 2: “I Surrender to You, Lord!”: Church announces new teaching series
Consider:
- Scriptural surrender to God means to open the door of our hearts to receive the flow of his Provisions into our lives.
- We are called to surrender to God, but not in the sense of sacrificing our health; rather, it is only in the sense of taking time each day for receiving support from him so that we can be a resource to others out of our abundance.
Item 3: Broken Fuel Line Shuts Down Supply to Southeast States
Consider:
- This event provided a simple example of the need for resources to provide support and the pain caused when they are dysfunctional.
Item 4: Love Trumps Hate
Consider:
- Love does not mean to superficially relieve the pain of broken people, but to invest in their redemptive (healing) needs - which, at first, may feel painful to them.
- Investment to support health needs may feel like hate to broken people.
Item 5: Pro athletes asked to comment on social and political problems
Consider:
- Youth struggling to find answers for their own lives are not the best source for learning solutions to the problems of the world.
- “Give double honor to the elders, especially those who preach and teach God’s Word” (1 Timothy 5:17).
Item 6: National evangelist says prayer is only answer to America
Consider:
- Pleading with God (called “prayer” by some) to solve problems will do no more good than pleading with food to satisfy our hunger.
- God has already provided every solution for meeting every need and brought them to the door of our hearts for us to receive.
- “Asking” God for support he has already provided is the same as asking him to provide a Redeemer so that we can go to Heaven.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 16I24
Week 37
Item 1: Trump listening to voters for solutions
Related Trend: Parents look to children for advice
Consider:
- Grace Leadership Resources (especially parents and pastors) listen carefully to identify and understand our pain, but we look to Grace Leadership Resources for solutions.
- This means, grace leadership in the home and Church does not seek solutions from those they serve but provides solutions.
Item 2: Trump promises to help make America
Consider:
- A safe and prosperous
- Government does not produce health, but holiness in the Church will elect/promote government which reflects the future righteous reign of Christ over the earth for a thousand years.
- Jesus asked, “What is a man profited if he gains the whole world but loses his soul - both in this present age (to brokenness) and for eternity?”
Item 3: Report: High Number of Voters Conflicted
Consider:
- This means, after looking at the different party platforms, some voters, living in a nation founded on Judeo-Christian values, are still conflicted about
- protecting the life of the unborn,
- preserving the sanctity of marriage (one man - one woman),
- how to deal with terrorism (evil),
- support for the military and local law enforcement,
- securing our borders, and
- the appointment of conservative judges to the Supreme Court.
- Our experience of Christ living his Life in us transforms our values to be like his.
Item 4: Report: Women voters decide elections
Consider:
- It is God’s Plan for women to have the support of godly men for decision making.
- In the absence of godly men to support them, women tend to make emotional, fear-based decisions – with the result of a “take care of me” government.
Item 5: Donations to Wealthy Foundations Reach New High
Consider:
- While donations continue to flow to wealthy organizations to superficially help ease pain in the world, donations to ministries for meeting redemptive needs (that heal) remain very low or non-existent.
- Pain-Relief Giving (to meet superficial pain relief needs) and Feel-Good Giving (to win God’s favor and/or to feel good about self) are not the same as Redemptive Giving (to meet the healing needs of others).
- Still, according to God’s promise (2 Corinthians 9:8; Matthew 6:33), ministries for meeting redemptive needs are supported - not for organizational growth or shameless excesses, but sufficient to teach hurting people how to experience Christ for health and holiness.
- Little is much when God is in it.
Related: Wealthy Pastor calls for Church to give sacrificially
Consider:
- We are not called by God to give sacrificially to our resources, but to receive support from them in order to give out of our abundance to others to help meet their redemptive needs.
Item 6: Pets are becoming replacement children for Millennials
Related: Millennials Picking Pets over People
Consider:
- This means, pets are continually being elevated to human status – while at the same time, children, it seems, are being demoted to the care of their electronic devices.
- Animals that once had caretakers now have caregivers - same as people.
- According to Scripture, the end of this age will be marked by lost values and unnatural affections.
- As we experience Christ to a fuller measure each day, we are increased in our care for the redemptive needs of hurting people (not the same as their superficial pain relief needs).
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 16I17
Week 36
Item 1: Free teaching DVD loaded with pitches to buy books and materials
Consider:
- Giving away free items as a set up for making money on the back end is a common and accepted marketing / merchandising strategy for doing business in the world.
- Churches and “Christian” ministries do the same when they “welcome” everyone, and then go after their money.
- But it is not the model Christ gave for grace ministry. He came into the world to serve, not to be served, and was supported, as promised, by his wealthy Father (Matthew 6:33; 2 Corinthians 9:8).
Item 2: Trump rips media for mocking Christians
Consider:
- The brand of Christianity mocked by the media is the Christian tv, wildfire, hocus-pocus, name-it-claim-it, performance-based, charlatan variety; it is not the Christianity represented by the early Church in the book of Acts - which is opposed (when it can be found) by government and by organized religion, not by the media.
Item 3: Missouri
Consider:
- Children suffer more from the absence of Christ-filled parents in their homes and Christ-filled pastors in their churches than the absence of religion in their schools.
Related: Political group laments the decline of conservative values in America
Consider:
- A conservative government is only a Band Aid solution to the brokenness in
- Groups give weight to government programs because they under appreciate God’s purpose for his Provisions.
- The long list of "things gone wrong" in
Item 4: Mother Theresa given sainthood by Catholic Church
Consider:
- SAINT, SANCTIFICATION, and HOLINESS mean essentially the same. Sainthood is the experience of every born again person who takes time each day for reading the Scripture, confession of need, and quiet-time worship in order to experience Christ.
- Every member of the Body of Christ (the Church) is given sainthood by God – that is, we are sanctified/made holy by our experience of Christ (his Resurrected Life) renewed in us daily.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 16I10
Week 35
Item 1: Conservative group warns, “Vote or lose your country!”
Consider:
- More important than
- (Paraphrasing a quote made many years ago by a famous visitor to
Related: Ministers group says America
Consider:
- The whole world is under God’s judgment, not because of its “sins,” but because of Adam’s transgression (Genesis 3; Romans 5:12-19).
Item 2: Welfare mom planning another baby, says husband wants a new car
Consider:
- The real loser may be the child.
Item 3: “Christian” movie promotes total disarmament
Consider:
- God calls the Church to minister to broken, wayward people, but calls government to destroy evil (Romans 1:18-32; 13:1-5).
Item 4: Trump Pledge: “I will put unemployed welfare recipients to work”
Consider:
- This will be good news for most; but will make others mad.
- Rioting awaits when
- government takes away freebies (payments made for votes),
- financial assistance is considered a “right.”
Item 5: Johns Hopkins University
According to a 143-page report by two distinguished scholars at Johns Hopkins University
Consider:
- Gays and gay activists have promoted the gay gene theory to win support for their lifestyle. They have succeeded despite mounting evidence against that theory.
- There is a connection between sexual abuse as a child and same-gender attraction.
- Everyone is who they are until Christ makes them like who he is – which he does when we take time each day for reading the Scripture, confession of need, and quiet-time worship.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 16I03
Week 34
Item 1: Leading pastor calls for women to submit to dysfunctional husbands
Consider:
- God does not call us to be the loser in our relationship to anyone, especially our resources. This means, if we are in a dead-end relationship – that is, if we are not being supported for health but, instead, the life is being sucked out of us, we should disconnect.
- The reason sometimes church members and wives stay in a harmful relationship is because of addiction and codependency needs - the same as addicts holds on to their drugs and alcohol.
Item 2: Bible College
Consider:
- Any message God gives, the Holy Spirit will need to give understanding to the reader/hearer or else its meaning (Truth) will be missed.
- The ministry of the Holy Spirit to reveal Truth is not needed for understanding preaching / teaching that is given to entertain or to teach performance theology – because our carnal nature already has “ears” to understand and enjoy it.
Item 3: Report: Trump and Clinton
Consider:
- Among Trump supporters: Franklin Graham, Dr. James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Jr, Lou Holtz, Bobby Knight, Mike Ditka, Jack Nicklaus, Curt Schilling, Tim Tebow, Tom Brady, George Brett, Dr. Ben Carson, Phyllis Schafly, Pat Buchanan, Rudy Giuliani, Herman Cain, Steve Forbes, Newt Gingrich, NC Governor Pat McCrory, Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson and Willie Robertson, Loretta Lynn, Kenny Rogers, Ted Nugent, Chuck Norris, Clint Eastwood, Jerry Lewis, NRA, Tea Party, Conservative Women organizations, and rural America;
- Among Clinton supporters: President Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Hollywood celebrities, pop music industry, workers’ unions, major mainstream media, Public Broadcasting (taxpayer supported), Pro-Choice America, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, anti traditional marriage organizations (LGBTQ), and urban America.
Item 4: Report: Many Trump supporters are not college graduates
Consider:
- That’s why they are Trump supporters.
- Government/Public education is a conduit for liberal indoctrination.
- This is a priorities/values issue.
- The heart of Christ renewed in us daily transforms us to value first and foremost
- God’s Provisions of Grace,
- Our personal health,
- The well-being of others, beginning with our families.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 16H27
Week 33
Item 1: Abused 4-year-old Arkansas
Consider:
- The most essential need of every child is to know they are unconditionally loved (valued) by someone (most importantly God but including also their parents).
Item 2: Medical Report: ‘Drink Water Only When Thirsty’
Consider:
- We put our health at risk when we wait until we are thirsty and hungry to eat and drink. That’s because, no system of our bodies functions properly without sufficient food and water.
- Leading advocates of natural solutions to support good health (who don’t make their living selling traditional medical care to sick people) recommend
- not waiting until we are thirsty to drink water or until we are hungry to eat food,
- scheduling each day to eat 3-4 moderate meals, and
- drinking water each day to total in ounces one-half our weight in pounds.
- When we delay to drink the Living Water and eat the Living Bread (our experience of Christ during quiet-time worship), we make ourselves vulnerable to our brokenness and also to the adversity of Satan (his “flaming missiles”).
Item 3: Report: Tea Party influence in decline
Consider:
- The influence of the Tea Party movement has greatly diminished because charlatan groups have bilked trusting supporters out of $millions in donations, diverting it to personal gain.
- Pseudo churches and ministries do the same.
- During his ministry on earth, Jesus lived humbly, did not charge for his services.
Related: Leading Pastor calls for members to “sacrifice”; tells members they are “seed”
Consider:
- God does not call his children to sacrifice but to receive his Provisions of Grace to a fuller measure each day.
- We do not sacrifice for our resources but receive from them support which we invest in our own health and then in the health of those we are called to serve, beginning with our family.
- We are not Seed. Christ is the Life Seed without which nothing exists or is sustained (John 1:1-5; Colossians 1:17). The Seed Christ sows into us is himself and the Seed we sow into others is Christ.
Item 4: Liberal media to Never Trump voters: “Vote Democrat or stay at home”
Consider:
- If conservative voters stay at home, there will be enough voters who don’t want to work to elect a socialist, and who don’t value the unborn or God’s Plan for marriage to elect a progressive (one who rejects Scriptural absolutes).
Week 32
Item 1: Trending: Inattention to Getting it Right
Consider:
- Inattention to communicate correctly/properly became the new “cool” years ago in speaking, writing, and art forms, and continues to be trendy.
- But it is structure and compliance to rules and schedule that establish us in strength and health and that shut the door to depression and unhappiness.
Item 2: Police: Kansas
Consider:
- Children seeking relief from boredom through extreme experiences are at risk for injury or worse.
- Boredom is a symptom of unmet temperament needs (for information, affection, and structure (schedule)/support for decision making).
Item 3: Woman at top of party ticket
Consider:
- Women often fill the role of leadership in government and business, but in the home and Church, it is God’s Plan (Plan A) for men to provide leadership.
- Words have gender; for example, in the Bible, the following terms are masculine: head, husband, farmer/gardener, apostle, pastor, teacher, ruler, power, authority, and arm of the Lord.
Item 4: Trump says he is a businessman
Consider:
- Business people are essentially salespeople.
- Salespeople provide products and services in order to either
- meet needs, make a fair profit, and earn a living wage (in which case they tend to be honest and truthful and can be trusted), or
- make money to become wealthy and powerful (in which case they may compromise their products and services, say what they need to say, and are not to be trusted).
- Sometimes, we can need and highly rate a product and service without liking or approving everything about the salesperson.
Item 5: 70 Leading Republicans defect Trump candidacy, say cannot tolerate Trump’s antics
Consider:
- The test for the sincerity of their conservatism is: Will they be able to tolerate
- Pretend conservatives are
- closet liberals,
- open to/look for opportunities to reject Scriptural values.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 16H13
Week 31
Item 1: “In God We Trust” 60 years old
Consider:
- “In God We Trust,” our nation’s motto, can be just a nice sounding platitude or a call for us to trust in (receive) God’s Provisions of Grace, beginning with Christ (his Blood and his Life), with the guaranteed result of health and happiness.
- Our trust in a political party will be woefully disappointing.
Item 2: Leading ministry reports continued growth, calls for members to “not slow down”
Consider:
- Wealthy ministries are
- funded by worn-out members, often impoverished, with broken health and homes,
- held together by codependency need to provide community pain relief programs (“You make me feel better when I make you feel better”).
Item 3: Church organizations call Christians to “Pray for America
Consider:
- Praying, when understood as pleading with God to circumvent the outcome of our foolish choices, will result in no benefit to
Item 4: Billy Graham tv calls for the unsaved to be sorry for their sins
Consider:
- The lost are saved (justified) by turning from trusting in their good works to trusting (receiving) God’s Provision of Christ’s Blood/death on the cross as the only payment he will accept to satisfy his judgment against the human race because of Adam’s disobedience.
- The saved are recovered from their brokenness and made holy for redemptive service to others (sanctified) by turning from trusting in their performance to “go and give” in order to please God to trusting (receiving) God’s Provision of Christ’s Life during quiet-time worship.
Item 5: Woman wanders away from carehome, killed by alligator
Consider:
- God has a plan for us to be safe: It is to be where we need to be, doing what we need to do, when we need to do it (Psalm 91).
- Impulsive, high-risk behavior to manage our pain and high boredom levels disregards God’s plan to keep us safe.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 16H06
Week 30
Item 1: Level of Bashing High at Party Conventions
Consider:
- Verbal attacks feed our broken nature’s desire to condemn.
- We tend to pass on to others our experience of being bashed/condemned and also our experience of being supported/forgiven.
Item 2: Hillary polls reveal low likeability ratings
Consider:
- Likeability will not be the leading factor in this year’s Presidential election: Voters will support the candidate who supports their values.
- Our values are either redemptive (for healing) or secondary/shallow (for superficial pain relief).
Item 3: Virginia Police Officer refused service at Alexandria Restaurant
Consider:
- Cops in uniform are at risk to broken, angry people, so should
- take care who prepares their meals,
- be glad for the “heads up” warning (“If I serve you, I’m going to mess with your lunch!”).
- Yard signs and bumper stickers supporting Trump/Pence may invite reaction (vandalism or even violence).
Item 4: Primary presidential candidates fail to honor pledge to support party nominee
Consider:
- Pouty boy does not like sitting on the bench; he would rather play in the game than for his team to win.
Item 5: Report: Most college graduates favor liberal/progressive/socialist policies
Consider:
- So do most college administrators and professors.
- Blue collar workers and small business owners favor conservative policies.
- Public education is a conduit for liberalism.
- Grace parenting supports children for learning a trade.
- College loans are a socialistic trap.
- God does not need our credit to support our needs.
Item 6: Google voice search not cooperating
Consider:
- Google voice search for Trump/Pence produces “drunk pants.”
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 16G30
Week 29
Item 1: Cruz refuses to endorse party’s nominee, says he was offended during primary
Consider:
- Refusing to forgive offenses is not professional principle but personal pettiness.
Item 2: Political Parties Warn: ‘If our candidate does not win, our nation is in trouble’
Consider:
- Government has its place in God’s Redemptive Plan for us, but it is not a substitute for God’s purpose in the world for the work of the Church (the Body of Christ);
- Christ alone, his Life/Light manifesting into the world through his Church (which is the Scriptural meaning of “to glorify God”), is a nation’s only hope for peace and prosperity.
Item 3: Offended Republicans Tell Voters to Stay Home
Consider:
- If pious losers do not vote, there are enough voters who
- don’t want to work and
- reject moral standards
to elect a socialist.
Item 4: Convention Speech: Trump Promises Prosperity
Consider:
- Both Republicans and Democrats promise prosperity, but disagree how it happens – that
- “man shall eat by the sweat of his brow” (Genesis 3:19), and that
- “if a man will not work (is idle), he shall not eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10-11).
Item 5: Hundreds die as terrorists continue attacks against most vulnerable
Consider:
- We are most vulnerable to evil when we walk in the dark.
- God has promised protection to those who abide in him (Psalm 91).
- Christians are safe who are where they need to be, when they need to be there, doing what God calls them to do.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 16G23
Week 28
Item 1: Police: Dallas
Consider:
- Satan acts in a vacuum, through vessels open to him.
Item 2: Former Miss Alabama says Dallas
- Our values are influenced by
- our sinful human nature,
- education,
- mentors,
- the world’s culture/system,
- religion,
- Satan, or
- Christ.
Item 3: Report: Both GOP and DEMS Policies Fail to Promote Peace
Consider:
- Both conservative and liberal politics disregard the need of every person to be born again and the need of the Church to experience Christ - without whom peace is not possible.
Item 4: Praying Church Celebrates God’s ‘Choice’ to Heal Pastor
Consider:
- God chose in the beginning to heal (spiritually, psychologically, and physically) everyone (pastors and perverts alike, without consideration of their worth) who receive his Provisions of Grace.
- We do not have provisions from God for our healing that we “plead and beg for,” but that we take time to receive.
Item 5: Charity foundations required by law to give 5% of donations yearly
Consider:
- Giving to charities (also sometimes churches) increases their wealth but does little to help those for whom the donations were given.
- Giving money in order to feel good or to please God will accomplish no eternal value.
Item 6: ‘Dog Dad’: Popular New Bumper Sticker
Question:
- If a man can be a dog’s dad can he be a son of a dog?
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 16G16
Week 27
Item 1: Sniper shoots 12 cops in Dallas
Consider:
- Cops put their lives at risk to lawbreakers because they are cops more than lawbreakers do to cops because of their race.
- Hurting people respond to appropriate law enforcement (service and protection).
- Police service to support citizens for making wise choices promotes peace in the community.
- Negligent cops invite a reaction against them by hurting/angry people -
- but so do a placating police force and justice system.
- Evil (Satan/demonic powers)
- enters man through the brokenness of his unmet needs,
- doesn’t need a reason to do evil, and
- thrives when placated.
- The solution to violence is strength. (Knock the hell out of an aggressive bully or animal and it won’t bother you again.)
- The solution to brokenness (and deterrent to evil) is
- Education (Information)
- Explanation,
- Example (consistent modeling of the message),
- Expectation (Rules),
- Enforcement (not pounding on broken behavior, but giving opportunity to experience the outcome of wrong choices), and especially
- pastoral support for Experiencing Christ.
Item 2: Former Presidential Hopeful ‘Praying and Fasting’ for Trump Presidency
Consider:
- Praying and fasting
- does not move God to provide anything different than he already has,
- has benefit for outcomes in elections only as it results in individuals being personally filled with Christ in order to manifest his Life (the meaning of “to glorify God’) into the world in order to dispel the darkness in which voters stumble (make unwise choices at the ballot box).
Item 3: Powerful Republicans Reject Trump Presidency
Consider:
- The intent of
- Trump is not a professional politician, but a threat to their power.
Item 4: FBI Director to Congress: Hillary not truthful in public statements about her emails
Consider:
- Truthfulness and integrity won’t matter to dependent, non-contributing voters who rely on government assistance to circumvent their poor choices.
Item 5: Church changes name to hide doctrine
Consider:
- Jesus said, “Whoever lives by the Truth comes into the Light so that it may be plainly seen that what he does is from God” (John 3:21).
- Beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing. Jesus said, “Those who attempt to sneak their way into our lives are thieves and robbers” (John 10:9-10).
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 16G09
Week 26
Item 1: Church Groups Gather to Pray for Trump Win
Consider:
- God raises up leaders and gives outcomes in the same way he raises up a harvest – that is, he
- provides the soil, seed, and atmosphere (the meaning of “according to the riches of God’s grace”),
- supports/enables us to cultivate the ground and to sow and water the seed, and
- gives the increase according to his Law of Sowing and Reaping – Galatians 6:7).
- Pleading and begging God to give us an outcome (not the same as expressing to him our hopes and desires), even joined by millions/billions of people, will not move him to provide for us in a way differently than he already has.
- “We sow and water, but God makes things grow” (from 1 Corinthians 3:6-7).
- Prayer is our opportunity to be filled with Christ to a fuller measure and to manifest/radiate him (God’s Light) into the world (the meaning of “to glorify God”) so that the darkness (in which people stumble/make unwise choices) is dispelled (Philippians 1:20).
Item 2: Pope to youth: Happiness can't be downloaded like a cellphone app
Consider:
- God does not download happiness, but
- he does download
- eternal life into man’s spirit (when he trusts in/receives Christ’s Blood/death on the cross for us and
- the Resurrected Life of Christ (“wisdom, holiness, righteousness, and healing” - 1 Corinthians 1:18), and the fruits of the Spirit (“love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, meekness, faith, meekness, and temperance” - Galatians 5:22-23) into our hearts (the soul: mind, emotions, and will) when we trust in/receive Christ’s Resurrected Life (from his residence within our spirit) during quiet-time worship (Romans 5:10 -
which is the foundation of/leads to
1. health,
2. competence in redemptive service to others,
3. contentment, and
4. happiness
Related: Group of teenagers get opportunity to confess sins to Pope Francis
Consider:
- Only God can forgive (remove) the penalty of judgment against us (eternal separation from him) - which he does (justification) when we trust in the Blood of Christ (Romans 8:3; Ephesians 1:7; 1 Peter 1:18-19).
- Also, only God can forgive (heal) our broken condition (sinful nature) - which he does (sanctification) by the Resurrected Life of Christ when we take time to receive him into our hearts during quiet-time worship (John 15:5-6; Romans 5:17; 8:9-11; Revelation 3:20).
- The notion that a pope can forgive sin is based on a misunderstanding of the words of Christ to the Disciples, that “Whatever you forgive on Earth will be forgiven in Heaven” (John 20:23) - which properly means that “The strength/ability we have to forgive others (as Christ forgave us) comes from God.”
- “God will enable you to forgive others as Christ also forgave you” is included/understood in the meaning of Ephesians 4:32.
Item 3: President speaks softly about terrorism
Consider:
- Terrorists are hate-filled and angry and express through violence against the most vulnerable.
- Private citizens who don’t live in a fort with a large arsenal do well not to confront/incite/engage evil.
- It is the role of governments, however, to intimidate and smash evil wherever it exists, not to play nice with it.
- Whatever reasons the President may have for speaking softly about terrorists, some citizens are left wondering about his commitment to destroy them.
Item 4: Report: Christian Faith and Community Values Continue Fall
Consider:
- The leading “turn off” to Christianity by seekers is the wildfire antics and performance/destiny-based, “name it-claim it” teachings of teletheologians on “Christian” tv and in their churches.
Week 25
Item 1: Britain
Consider:
- Broken human nature will give up freedom for promise of financial support.
Item 2: Transgender Voter Claims Christianity at Clinton
Consider:
- Transgenders can be born again so that they go to Heaven (justification), but a transgender is not (by definition) “a Christian” – that is, Christ-like (sanctification).
Item 3: Famous minister asks, “Why does God sometimes ignore us in our time of need?”
Consider:
- The answer is, “He doesn’t!”
- God is right now faithfully and freely providing for every redemptive need of every person without consideration of their worth, bringing it to the door of their hearts (James 1:5; Revelation 3:20).
- The question is, “Why do thirsty people not drink the Water (both H20 and the Living Water)?”
- “On the last and most important day of the religious event, Jesus called out in a loud voice to the crowd, ‘Anyone who is still thirsty, let him come to me and drink’” – John 7:37
Item 4: Denomination Announces Largest and Fastest Growing Churches
Consider:
1. God’s call and commission to the Church is to
- experience the Light/Life of Christ to a fuller measure each day,
- manifest him into a dark world (the meaning of “to glorify God”),
- evangelize the community, and
- support new converts for doing the same (Matthew 28:18-20).
2. Attendance numbers at church meetings are
- outcomes (fruit) which God gives (1 Corinthians 3:6-7),
- not performance goals to be achieved and celebrated.
Item 5: Report: Mega Church
Consider:
- Christ called broken people to “come and receive” (Matthew 18:28-30), but called only those he renewed to “go and give.”
- The performance message (“go and give”) is alive and well in the Church, but man’s religious heart is closed to the message of Christ to experience him for renewal per John 15:4-5.
- Jesus forewarned (Matthew 24:12; Luke 18:8) that the waning of love (for Truth) and faith (conviction of Truth) would be evidence that the Age of Grace/the Church Age (this present age) was nearing its end.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 16F25
Week 24
Item 1: Polls show Trump losing election
Consider:
- Trump, imperfections and all, may be our last chance to put the brakes on cultural decay and socialism.
- Government is not the root of a nation’s health, but the fruit. If the fruit on which a nation feeds is poison, it will die.
- Today is a good time to begin learning how to read the Scripture in order to hear God in order to experience Christ in quiet-time worship in order to manifest his Light into the darkness.
Item 2: Political Conservatives Insist Radical Religious Ideology is the Blame for Gun Violence, Not the NRA
Consider:
- Evil in the hearts of fallen man is at the root of gun violence.
- The manufacturing and selling of high-powered guns for private use should not be motivated by financial greed.
- Our Constitutional freedom to bear arms is intended for law-abiding citizens for the purpose of protecting ourselves from evil (included in the meaning of “God sets believers free for freedom’s sake” - Galatians 5:1); it is not intended to arm evil.
- Laws appropriate to a nation of godly people will not be adequate for a nation filled with broken, angry people.
- We cannot have it both ways: A nation filled with darkness will lose its freedom to bear arms, lest it destroy itself.
Item 3: Christianity blamed for Orlando
Consider:
- God’s love (“agape”) values (provides for) every person unconditionally.
- At the root of terrorism is hate-filled religious ideology (including the religious expression of Christianity) that does not have an experience of a Living Savior which enables us to love as Christ does.
- Homosexual behavior is grievous, but hate-filled condemnation and violence is worse and will not help.
- We are called to “be angry and sin not” (Ephesians 4:26). But godly anger and hate means to reject behavior that is not redemptive; it is not the anger and hate expressed by sinful man.
- A dimwatted Body of Christ in
- Violence and hatred are rooted in
- anger,
- the pain of unmet needs (especially to experience Christ),
- sin (the condition and behavior), and
- Satan.
Item 4: Spoiled 'Millennials' Sensitive to Suffering, Tout More Sympathy as Solution to Terrorism
Consider:
- Stroking the emotions of violent people will not reduce their pain, anger, and violence long-term. But investing in the inborn psychological temperament needs of children (for information, affection, and structure), and especially their spiritual need (to experience Christ) will help establish them in health and happiness.
Week 23
Item 1: 276 Dogs Rescued from NJ Home
Consider:
- God’s Purpose/Plan for the Home is to support/nurture the redemptive needs of children.
Item 2: Mega church growth conference calls pastors to “get out of the boat”
Consider:
- God calls leaders to get out of the boat (their comfort zone) only for preparation, but to stay in the boat (within their strength) for performance – for example,
- athletes make measured/interval demands of themselves beyond their strength during training but, in order to avoid injury, they stay within their accumulated strength stores during the performance of the event.
Item 3: Church denomination leaders voice support for socialist candidates
- Church leaders, the same as businesses (including entertainment) and politicians, tend to support policies that are supported by those who pay their salaries, buy their products and services, and keep them in office;
- redemptive churches and businesses tend to support conservative candidates.
Item 4: Conservative leaders join Purist “Never Trump” Movement
Consider:
- Extreme purism can be
- rooted in a high need to always be right and have one’s own way and
- a pious phony reason to not vote for Trump;
- Only Christ is the perfect resource through which God accomplishes his purpose; all others are imperfect.
Item 5: Parents accused of sending teen to a 'pray away the gay' camp
Consider:
- Anti-gay programs may change behavior but only experiencing Christ can change people.
- Heartlight is a Christian program. It is not anti-gay as accused; its website says its program exists to provide a "safe haven" to create "an arena of change for teens and parents lost in a broken world."
Item 6: Prosperity Gospel Leader and TBN co-founder Jan Crouch dies at 78
Question:
- How could Crouch, who taught/insisted that Christians can “speak out loud” their claim on health and wealth, have passed away four years before the average female life expectancy in the
Consider:
- It is absolutely God’s Will for everyone to be healthy and happy, but it is not by positive thinking (naming and claiming it), a pseudo faith; it is by taking time each day to connect to his Resources in
- Creation (elements in the soil and atmosphere),
- Community (leadership the home and Church), and especially
- Christ (his Blood/death for us and his Resurrected Life in us)
through which his Provisions of Grace flow into our lives to produce health and happiness according to the Law of Cause and Effect.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 16F11
Week 22
Item 1: Road Rage Incidents Increase
Consider:
- The sequence leading to man’s violent behavior is
- inherited brokenness/unmet needs (the result of Adam's disobedience),
- sin (choices that disregard God’s Provisions for meeting our needs),
- pain, compounded unmet needs,
- anger, and
- violence.
Item 2: Christian owned businesses fight for right to refuse services to LGBT community
Consider:
- God calls Christian business people (the same as the Church) to:
- Provide products and services that meet the redemptive (healing) needs of every person without respect of persons.
- If the business is not redemptive (does not support good health), it is not from God, so does not need to exist.
- Selling sugar cakes (for example) is not redemptive;
- Obey the law, work/vote to change the law, or disobey it and suffer the consequences.
Item 3: University president slams 'self-absorbed' student
A chapel sermon left an Oklahoma university student feeling “offended” and “victimized.” The university president rebuked the student, essentially to “get over it!” (FoxNews.com)
Consider:
- Hurting people don’t “just get over” their brokenness. Either they are supported redemptively for healing (not the same as superficial pain relief) or they continue to suffer.
- The problem is not the words broken people hear that hurt but the words they don’t hear (“God loves [values] you unconditionally”) that heal.
Item 4: Disobedient Child Falls
Consider:
- God’s purpose for laws is to protect broken people from themselves.
- (That’s why the Law will not be needed in Heaven.)
- As a nation’s culture becomes more broken, stronger laws are needed.
- Current barriers (as in a zoo) may be outdated/inadequate to protect/restrain disobedient (hurting) children.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 16F04
Week 21
Item 1: President Visits Hiroshima, Expresses Regrets
Consider:
- War is always regrettable, but necessary when it is waged against aggressors.
- War ignites hostile backlash when it is driven by hate and greed.
Item 2: Changing trend: Best student no longer recognized at some schools
Consider:
- Students not given the opportunity to be first may become satisfied to not be their best.
- Generic graduation will follow.
Related: Polls: Millennials Support Socialist Sanders
Consider:
- Government accommodating the impulsive pain relief demands of youth promotes the economic failure of a nation, which
- Millennials will discover in time.
Related: Socialism Touts “Bringing People Up”
Consider:
- Socialism brings non working people up by limiting the productivity of working people – by lowering the ceiling.
- Scripturally “bringing people up” means to invest in their redemptive needs, which sometimes may hurt at first.
Item 3: Angry Women decry War on Women
Consider:
- Women feel attacked because of unmet needs – needs for which God has made provisions, including through functional resources (dads and husbands) in the home.
Consider:
- Cops and fireman are on the same team.
- So are members of the Body of Christ (Romans 12:5; 1 Corinthians 12).
- Tension erupts among service providers when their service is motivated by their need
- to be a hero more than to be a help,
- to compete more than to accomplish.
Item 5: Presidential Candidates’ Past Failures Probed
Consider:
- A candidate’s past or present morals won’t matter to voters who are addicted to public assistance.
- It is the role of the Church to be Salt to disinfect/heal the culture, Light to dispel the darkness.
- Healthy voters would elect a different President than unhealthy voters.
Item 6: Evangelical leaders to quiz Trump on faith and values
Consider:
- A religious or church-going president or even a born again president has potential to be an excellent leader - but not necessarily (as history attests).
- The most important quality for a president – whether or not he is born again or church going - is a living commitment to the values set forth in the U.S. Constitution.
Week 20
Item 1: Report: “66 Souls Lost in Downed Flight”
Consider:
- Bodies are lost in death, but souls remain forever, either with God or separated from him.
Item 2: Political Group Calls America
Consider:
- The road to productivity and prosperity begins with investment, not in commerce, but redemptively in self, then others.
Item 3: “Enough is Enough” organizations address civil disorder, call for harsh punishment
Consider:
- On the conservative right, the solution to law breaking is severe punishment (the “rod” to “beat some sense into” law breakers).
- On the liberal left, the solution is to ease pain and adversity.
- But the redemptive (grace) solution includes both
- appropriate punishment and
- faithful discipline (training/support aimed at recovery and growth) – that is,
- tracing the behavior to its root (the brokenness of unmet redemptive needs - physically, psychologically, and spiritually), and
- providing functional resources (especially in the home and Church) to support meeting those needs.
Item 4: Christian group calls for voters to write in God’s name on ballot, says it will please God and earn his blessings
Consider:
- God calls us to invest wisely for good outcomes according to his Law of Sowing and Reaping.
- Writing in God’s name on a ballot to win an election is the same as sowing a Bible in the ground to produce food.
Item 5: Famous Evangelist: “God is angry at America
Consider:
- God’s Provisions for healing flow to everyone without consideration of their worth.
- We miss having from God only what
- he does not provide (is not redemptive) or
- we do not take time to receive (in the order he gives them, beginning with his Provision of Christ’s Blood/death and Resurrected Life).
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 16E21
Week 19
Item 1: Whistleblower: “Facebook staff suppressed conservative news”
Consider:
- Conservative views
- are based in thought, not emotions, and
- always win in the arena of ideas except when they are censored so that they are not heard.
Item 2: LGBT’s Restroom Demands Disregard Civil Rights of Women Who Want Privacy
Consider:
- For safety, women should use single-seat restrooms with door locks.
- The Church, filled with Christ, is God’s Light to dispel the darkness, the Salt of the Earth to retard cultural decay (Matthew 5:13-16).
Item 3: Federal court rules against North Carolina
Consider:
- If a man can say he is a woman and expect others to agree, then he can reject any other standard, rule, or traditional value.
- Sinful man calls wrong right and wright rong (Isaiah 5:20; 2 Timothy 3).
Item 4: Conservative Government Seen as Hope for America
Consider:
- God works to accomplish his Redemptive Plan through Christ (Colossians 1:27), then through leadership resources -
o first, in the home,
o second, in the Church, and only
o third, through a nation’s government.
- Human wisdom reverses this divine order.
Item 5: Tv celebrity brings newborn home to pet, says family dog is baby’s “big sister”
Related: Teenage celebrity asks: “Can I just date my dog?”
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 16E14
Week 18
Item 1: National Church
Consider:
- Church growth experts teach the latest strategies for increasing church attendance, but the most missed need in the Body of Christ is for ministry support for learning how to experience Christ to a fuller measure each day for sanctification (growth in grace).
Item 2: Community Groups Seek Solutions to Gang Violence
Consider:
- Hurting youth
- seek relief through
- alcohol and drugs,
- entertainment and recreation, and
- relationships in gangs (to win acceptance and approval),
- become angry when relief fails, then
- turn to violence against themselves and others to vent pain.
- Leadership support in the home and Church for meeting the redemptive needs of children (for information, affection, and structure) is the beginning of the solution to gang violence.
Item 3: Bruce Jenner rejected by Houston
Consider:
- Membership in the Body of Christ is open to all who trust God’s Provision of Christ’s Blood for their justification (salvation from judgment) and reconciliation to him.
- Membership in a local New Testament church is open to all born again, baptized believers who enter through their acceptance of the Church Covenant.
- Attendance to a New Testament Church is open to all who seek to learn about God’s Redemptive Plan for their lives (for justification and sanctification).
Item 4: Candidate’s wife: “We don’t try to change each other”
Consider:
- Husbands or wives attempting to change their spouses’ behavior is control.
- God calls
- the husband to support his wife for making choices that help establish her in health and happiness and
- the wife to submit (evaluate and give opportunity for his influence).
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 16E07
Week 17
Item 1: Tennessee
Consider:
- GracePoint Counseling welcomes the opportunity to provide Redemptive Counseling to anyone, including LGBTs.
- Redemptive Counseling (the only counseling GracePoint provides) supports counselees for making choices that help establish them in health and happiness, beginning with experiencing Christ daily during quiet-time worship.
- Other types of counseling are available in the community to support LGBTs for learning how to manage the challenges of their lives/lifestyle without Christ.
Item 2: Christian Conservatives Rally in Raleigh
Consider:
- The Body of Christ must hold to its Christian values so that we do not lose them.
- More troublesome than the behavior of broken people is the angry spirit of those who condemn them. Religious judgment never healed anyone.
Item 3: Theologians debate: “Can Gays Be Christian?”
Consider:
- Gays can be Christians – that is, they can be born again and go to Heaven (justification), but Gays are not Christian - that is, like Christ (sanctification).
Item 4: Polls: Democrat Party favored by Women, Republican Party by Men
Consider:
- The Democrat Party has trouble getting men to vote for it.
- If men were competent, supported by their experience of Christ, to live out God’s calling for their leadership roles in the home and Church,
- women would have increased confidence in their leadership,
- give them increased opportunity for influence, and
- we’d never have another Democrat president.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 16D30
Item 1: Large Companies, Entertainment and Sports Organizations Side with LGBT Agenda
Consider:
- When profits more than redemptive values drive business, companies and organizations cater to the values of its clientele/customer base.
Item 2: Report: Public pain at an all-time high, heightens demand for political correctness
Consider:
- Unmet temperament needs (for information, affection, and structure [support for decision making], and especially to experience Christ), is at the root of brokenness, pain, and unhappiness – manifesting in increased
- anger,
- intolerance to standards, expectations, and correction (perceived as condemnation and unkindness), and
- demand for politeness, political correctness, and pain relief.
Item 3: Church groups rally to promote Christian candidates
Consider:
1. The Millennial Reign of Christ will be a theocracy.
2. Old Testament Israel was a theocracy, its rulers were
- appointed by God (beginning with Moses and including King David), and
- announced to the people by Prophets. There was no election or voting.
3. America
- its leaders are elected by the people and
- reflect/manifest God’s Will only when the people are filled with (enlightened and enabled by) the Holy Spirit for making wise choices.
4. America needs political leaders who are true to the values expressed and protected by our Constitution.
5. But mostly, America needs churches led by pastors who have learned to experience Christ to a fuller measure each day and can support the Body of Christ for doing the same.
Item 4: Recovering Prince tweeted hours before dying, “Wait a few days before you waste any prayers”
Consider:
- God has
- supplied every provision to meet every redemptive need we have and
- brought them fully, freely, and faithfully to the door of our hearts for us to receive.
- Praying, when understood as “petitioning God” for support he has already given, is the same as asking for food or water that has already been set before us.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 16D23
Week 15
Item 1: Police say woman sets fire to sleeping husband
Consider:
- An unhappy wife has the option to 1) make wise choices for her personal life in order to be supported in health or 2) leave the relationship if her husband has been abusive or unfaithful to his marriage covenant, but not 3) to set him on fire.
Item 2: Report: Millennials (17-24 Age Group) Most Pained Generation
Consider:
- Generation X suffered the unmet need from their Boomer parents for praise (to feel valuable), so as parents, they tend to lavish praise on their children (Millennials) for doing a “good job” – sometimes, it seems, just for getting out of bed!
- But feeling valuable is not the greatest need of children; rather, it is the need for confidence that they are valued. There is a difference! The one is conditional (based on their behavior), so can never be satisfied; the other is unconditional (supported by the heart of Christ within us) and promotes health.
Item 3: “Doesn’t bother me a bit!” Candidate’s wife says she’s not offended by criticism
Consider:
- Beware denial. Denying that we are hurt by an offense may accommodate our sinful mind’s reluctance/inability to forgive.
- Forgiveness of others begins with confession of our own brokenness and pain.
- We can more believe someone is not offended, prejudiced, a liar, prideful, or lustful who confesses s/he IS than someone who insists s/he is NOT.
Item 4: Religious groups announce commitment to Pray for America
Consider:
- “Prayer” when defined as “petitioning” God for deliverance from adversity or for a special intervention “blessing”vwill not result in the outcome hoped for.
- God does not give outcomes; rather, he gives Provisions of Grace for us to receive which produce redemptive outcomes (Romans 5:17).
Item 5: Holding on to Power, Prestige, and Prominence: Conservatives express concern about hidden agenda of establishment politicians
Consider:
- The duty of leaders at home, in the Church, and in government is to
first, make wise choices to support their own health (so that they are competent to),
secondly, provide support to those they serve (for also making wise choices which help establish them in health);
- It is not the role or call of leaders to control, insist on having their own way, or fight and scheme to stay in power in order to have their carnal needs met.
- Jesus did not come into the world to have his carnal needs met (he didn’t have any) but to meet the redemptive needs of a broken, hurting world: “He came not to be served, but to serve” (Matthew 20:28).
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 16D16
Week 14
Item 1: Christian athlete testifies to faith, says team will win championship if God wills it
Consider:
- Normatively, outcomes are the result of the investments made which produce them according to the law of sowing and reaping (Galatians 6:7).
- God’s Perfect Will is to accomplish his Redemptive Plan in the world, especially for the justification/reconciliation/regeneration of the lost and the sanctification of the saved.
- “God is always working to accomplish his redemptive plan for everyone who responds to his call to receive his Provisions of Grace” is the meaning of Romans 8:28.
- God’s Permissive Will allows for adversity to his redemptive work in the world, but only in controlled measures so that it does not destroy his children who remain connected to him.
Item 2: Counselors’ Conference Cites Communication Skills as Main Solution for a Successful Marriage
Consider:
- Learning communication skills may help relieve some of the tension in a marriage, but it is not the most essential need for a happy relationship; rather, it is
- a husband’s confession of his brokenness and need for Christ to enable him to care for his wife - instead of condemning her “failure” to meet his pouty expectations and
- a wife’s commitment to
- make wise choices for her life each day which help establish her in physical, psychological, and spiritual health and
- connect only to resources which are competent to support her for making those choices.
Item 3: Entertainment watch group questions motives of movie/tv industry: Why are Christian values disrespected?
Consider:
- We should not be disappointed by the movie/tv industry’s disrespect for conservative, Christian values. It produces fare for a broken world’s consumption, to feed its desire “for impurity and ever increasing wickedness” (Romans 6:19), and is not intended for the Body of Christ.
Item 4: Universities commit to appease unhappy students
Consider:
- Attempts to superficially meet the pain relief needs of broken people may momentarily ease their pain, but without meeting their leadership need for information, affection, and structure/schedule (decision-making), the end result will be disappointing.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 16D09
Week 13
Item 1: Polls: Terrorism seen as top threat to America
Consider:
From the grace perspective, the top 4 threats to America are (in descending order)
4. Religious Terrorism (Radical Islam/ISIS)
3. Socialism/Communism
2. Cultural rot
1. A spiritually anemic, performance/entertainment-based Church/Body of Christ
Item 2: Report: Aristocracy Welcomed by a Welfare Society
Consider:
- As people become dependent on government support for housing and food, the more they acclimate to a dependent class status, to be taken care of (“sell their souls to the devil”).
- God’s Plan is: “If a man does not work, don’t feed him” (2 Thessalonians 3:10).
- The work of the Church is to
- call unbelievers to trust Christ (Matthew 28:19),
- teach believers how to receive God’s provisions for support to make wise choices (Matthew 28:20), and
- take care of those who cannot work, especially women and children (widows and orphans) (James 1:27).
- The work of government is to protect the freedom of the Church to do its work.
Item 3: Trump: “I trust no one.”
Consider:
- All men by their human nature are
- liars (Romans 3:4),
- more desperately wicked than they confess (Jeremiah 17:9),
- truthful only as it is convenient, and
- not to be trusted.
- Only God is Truth and cannot lie (Romans 3:4; Titus 1:2).
- Our only hope to be like him is by our daily experience of Christ increasingly living his Resurrected Life in us (John 15:1-8; Galatians 5:22-23).
Item 4: LA Prosecutor alleges dad shot and killed his son because he was gay (Associated Press)
Consider:
- Men and women are born with varying propensity (some higher, some lower) for harmful lifestyle behavior/choices.
- God has provided Resources (parents in the home and pastoral leadership in the Church and especially Christ) to help establish children to be like Christ.
- Whatever is true about our children, parents should
- consider their complicity,
- judge themselves instead of their children.
Week 12
Item 1: Study: While some people may grow to understand only one great idea, the most gifted may understand several (PBS Documentary).
Consider:
- Paul wrote the Church (Ephesians 1:17-19; 3:18-19), “I want to support you for understanding and experiencing how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ (his Provisions), that it surpasses all knowledge.”
Item 2: Report: World’s richest pastors, some in poorest nations,
Consider:
- Christ
- came into the world to give, not to receive (Matthew 20:28),
- did not own a place to rest and sleep (Matthew 8:20),
- walked (almost the distance equal to around the earth at the equator, according to one estimate), and
- sent his disciples into the world with only essentials for their immediate needs (Acts 3:6; 2 Corinthians 6:10).
- It is not possible for ministries true to their calling to be first or to have wealth as the world considers it (Matthew 19:30; 20:16; Revelation 3:17-18).
Item 3: Women’s group mocks Trump, Cruz for defending wives against attacks
Consider:
- Women who have no experience of men living out their role as the Vine in the relationship tend to resist depending on them for support.
Item 4: New North Carolina law overrides Charlotte
Consider:
- “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.” – 1 Timothy 6:10
Item 5: Mainline church attendance highest on Easter Sunday while annual percentage continues 40 year decline
Consider:
- The performance-based misrepresentation of Christianity in churches results in disillusionment, disappointment, and burnout and is at the root of the decline in church attendance.
- Attending church services on Easter Sunday (or on any other day for any reason) has no merit for our redemption (reconciliation to God/going to Heaven). Our only hope for salvation is
- confession of brokenness, separation from God, and powerless to save ourselves and
- trust alone in God’s Provision of Christ’s Blood/death for us and resurrected Life imparted to us (the new birth).
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 16C26
Week 11
Item 1: Gun packing grandma stops robbery, says she lives by the Bible and by the gun
Consider:
- The Bible is a rule book providing guidelines for us to learn and follow.
- But mostly, the Bible is God’s ordained instrument through which he
- speaks/communicates to us his love and faithfulness and
- calls us to open the door of our hearts to him in order to experience Christ for enablement to make wise choices.
Item 2: Transgender man to sue barber refusing to provide haircut
Consider:
- There is much Scriptural support for the right of providers to refuse anyone products and services that celebrate or promote a behavior or lifestyle that conflicts with their faith (including Romans 16:17; 2 John 1:10).
- But there is no Scriptural basis for providers to refuse anyone products and services that help meet their redemptive needs.
“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” – John 3:17
- Religious legalists condemn to Hell people different than they.
Item 3: Hillary named by leading liberal sources as worst Democratic candidate of all times
Consider:
- A candidate’s legal and moral problems will not matter to voters addicted to government welfare.
Item 4: Movie and tv industry hype Easter story
Consider:
- God reveals Truth to us by the Holy Spirit through the Scripture. Theater and tv movies dilute and distort Truth and are not where anyone should go who wants to know about the death and resurrection of Christ.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 16C19
Week 10
Item 1: Fist fight breaks out on flight over music
Consider:
- The presence of irritating music is not the problem, because we cannot always control adverse circumstance. The problem is the absence of the strength God cultivates in us through our experience of Christ (the 9 Fruits of the Spirit – Galatians 5:22-23) which sustains us regardless of the adversity.
Item 2: Trump supporter sucker punches protester at rally
Consider:
- Executing judgment against those who offend us does not result in their healing.
- Christ calls and enables us to forgive others as he forgave us – that is, to
- withhold the penalty (punishment) and
- minister to the brokenness (unmet needs) at the root of the behavior.
Item 3: Wounded Warrior funds misspent, executives fired
Consider:
- Charlatans, by definition, are aggressive to raise funds to support their lavish lifestyles.
- Christ came into the world, not to be served but to serve, and in this way he lived modestly and modeled ministry for servant leadership (pastors) in the Church.
Item 4: Nancy Reagan honored as resource for husband’s support
Consider:
- While at times a wife may have opportunities to provide needed support to her husband, it is not her role to be a support resource for his health and happiness or success.
- God’s calling for a wife is to care for her home and to be a mother to her children.
- God’s calling for a husband is to be a support resource for his wife, the same as a vine is the support resource for the branch (John 15:1-8).
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 16C12
Week 9
Item 1: Kelly returns after historic year in space, says he was ready for change
Astronaut Scott Kelly says a year in space was a dream opportunity, but that after a year, anyone would be ready for a change.
Consider:
- In Heaven we will experience God to increasing measure, incrementally and continually throughout eternity, never attaining to or exhausting his Glory, and without ever wanting to change/leave.
Item 2: Religious Leaders Call for Election of Christian Candidates
Consider:
- Old Testament
- We choose government leaders, not because of their Scriptural beliefs, but because of their commitment to the U.S. Constitution and to the freedoms and values it protects (in the same way we would choose an auto mechanic based, not on his Christian beliefs, but on his honesty and competency).
-
Item 3: Romney Hopes to Save the Republican Party
Consider:
- Our greatest need is not to save the Republican Party but to save our nation.
Item 4: Trump and Hillary Promise to Make America
Consider:
- The Scripture forewarns that, in the last days, although the Church has opportunity to experience brief periods of renewal, its experience of Christ (his Life) will ultimately diminish leaving the world in darkness (spiritual and moral decline).
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 16C05
Week 8
Item 1: Hillary: “We need to be careful what we say and how we say it” (commenting on candidates’ unkind exchanges in Republican debates)
Consider:
- We must also take care to speak the Truth.
- We take care about what we say (Truth) and how we say it (in love), not to hide truth or gain political advantage, but because of the heart of Christ within us for meeting the redemptive needs of others.
Item 2: Charlotte
Consider:
- This law permits Bruce Jenner to use the ladies’ room.
- The purpose of Judeo-Christian law (the basis of U.S. Constitutional law) is to protect (not put at risk) health and safety – of individuals and society.
- Warning: Attempts to pacify the demands of man’s sinful nature will not reduce tensions in the culture, but increase it.
Item 3: Autonomy: The Advanced Goal for Robots
A recent Nova (PBS-tv) documentary examines the pursuit of technology to build robots with autonomous abilities.
Consider:
- Robots may have ability to sense environment, but do not have conscience, so must rely on human support for making right choices.
- Christians have conscience, but apart from our experience of Christ (through the new birth and quiet-time worship), we do not have Wisdom for making wise choices that produce health and happiness (1 Corinthians 1:24, 30).
Related: Robots applauded at DARPA competition
Consider:
- Robots have no ability to appreciate human approval.
- Robots are vessels/tools dependent on human support, the same as a shovel.
- Ministers who communicate the Gospel (speakers, writers, singers) are made competent and useful by God. Applauding their performance is inappropriate and may be idolatry.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 16B27
Week 7
Item 1: Cruz: “The outcome of the South Carolina
Consider:
- More accurately, the outcome of the
Item 2: Pope: “Building walls” is not Christian
Consider:
- Religionists who attempt to adhere to Christian principles may identify themselves as “Christian” (members of the “Christian” religion). But a born again Christian says “I am a Christian” – meaning to say, “Christ lives in me!”
- The assurance of our going to Heaven is our new birth (John 3:3-7), not the inclusion or exclusion of good deeds in our lives.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 16B20
Week 2
Item 1: President calls for unity in State of the Union speech
Consider:
Righteousness calls error to Truth through confession and conversion (acceptance). Error calls Truth to unity through compromise.
Item 2: Franklin Graham Promotes Hope for America
Consider:
- Broadly identifying Jesus Christ as the hope for
- The hope for
- God’s Provisions are effectual to all who receive them - in the same way water is the hope for hydration to all who drink it (not just identify its power).
Item 3: Ticket holders in three states win record $1.5 billion jackpot lottery
Consider:
- According to mathematicians, the odds of winning the lottery jackpot (when it was $800 million) are the same as flipping a coin that lands on “heads” 28 consecutive times.
- But the chances are 100% that
- saying I DO to receive God’s Provisions of Christ Blood/death on the cross will result in going to Heaven (justification) and
- taking time each day to experience Christ during quiet-time worship will result in sanctification/holiness (Romans 5:17, 21).
- The schemes of the world require millions to invest in order for one to receive, but God’s redemptive plan is always for one to invest in order that millions receive. Christ died once for all so that all could be saved (Romans 5:15; 6:10).
- Potential exists for the lottery to be won by terrorists. (Purchasing gas and oil may also support terrorism, but we are not forced to purchase lottery tickets.)
- The lottery is one of the world’s many attempts to superficially ease the pain of brokenness (along with entertainment, recreation, promiscuity, drugs and alcohol, and feel-good purchases/possessions). Without the lure of the world’s deceitful schemes, hurting people would more tend to seek Christ.
- Winning the lottery does not have power to heal our pride, anger, hate, discontentment, lust, condemnation, etc. (If it did, I would be the first to support it!), but only to allow us to choose the place to suffer/manage our brokenness. We already have in Christ, effectually and powerfully, the most essential support we need for health, happiness, holiness, and Heaven (Matthew 6:33; 2 Corinthians 9:8; Philippians 4:19; Romans 6:22).
Item 4: Cruz: “If my daughter lies to me, I will spank her”
Consider:
- If a child lies to his/her parents, the parents should look first at their parenting for the reason.
- Children lie to their parents because they do not feel safe (unconditionally valued) enough to tell the truth.
- Grace parenting does not pound on broken behavior but ministers to the unmet needs at its root.
Item 5: “Hero” rushes into burning building to save strangers
Consider:
- First responders are sworn by law to protect/save others - regardless of personal risk. But otherwise, anyone understanding grace leadership does not rush into a burning building to save strangers, items, or pets at the risk of robbing/denying those they serve of the resources they need. Their duty and calling to be a husband, parent, or pastor surpasses their desire to be a hero.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 16A16
Week 1
Item 1: President insists Islam is Religion of Peace
Consider:
- Religious “peace” is not the same as the Peace of God experienced by Christians: The one is suppressed brokenness and pain and imposed submission; the other is supported health and happiness and freedom.
Item 2: Powerball jackpot climbs to over $800 million
Consider:
- God does not use gambling to meet our needs.
- Gambling is
- driven by greed, disbelief, and fear,
- unnecessary to meet our needs because of God’s promises and faithfulness to provide (Matthew 6:33; Romans 5:17; 2 Corinthians 9:8; Philippians 4:19, et al), and
- sin because it is a choice which disrespects/disregards God’s Plan for our needs to be met.
Item 3: Presidential Hopefuls Subject to Accusations of Immorality
Consider:
- A candidate’s broken values and morals will not matter to voters who
- are addicted to government programs or
- make their fortunes selling products and services to the addicted (the entertainment industry, for example).
Item 4: Open carry law goes into effect in Texas
Consider:
- We arm because of our understanding that police cannot be everywhere and may be slow to arrive when needed, but mostly
- we trust God (do not live in fear) because of our faith that he is everywhere present to watch over us, especially his sanctified vessels (“the called” in Romans 8:28), and is faithful to intervene when we need him.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 16A09
