Medicated Morality?

I recently heard a well-known researcher, Julian Savulescu, suggest that we should use drugs or genetic modification to make us better people. Researchers have found that drugs can make people cooperate better and less prejudiced among other things.

But can drugs make us better? Drugs interact with our brains and alter chemical reactions, but when God created man in His own image, He gave us something beyond our mere chemical makeup. He gave us a mind. If altering our chemical composition to make us "better" would truly work, God would have done that from the start. He didn't because He created us to have free will, not to be robots.

A drug to make people cooperate won't make a better world. We have a very short memory if we think cooperation is always a good thing. One psycopath plus a bunch of cooperative people equals Nazi Germany and the holocaust.

It really would be better if we tried morality God's way.

Breaking Wind

Have you ever put your heart and soul into working at something... only to have it come to nothing? Maybe a gourmet meal where you added too much salt right at the end? Perhaps you repainted a room, only to have the paint peel, or to decide that you hated the new colour? Or perhaps you scorched a hole in a treasured craft with an iron?

Most of us have experienced it sometime - a totally wasted effort. Discouraging, isn't it? In reality, all our physical efforts will eventually come to nothing. One day, we'll die and then rot in the ground and all our physical accomplishments will rot or collapse or fade with us. Perhaps not right away, but eventually. So what is it all for?

In Isaiah 26 in the Bible, God compares all our efforts to better the world to a woman having "birth pangs" and then, instead of giving birth to a baby... breaking wind. Just imagine thinking you're pregnant for nine months, and then, after a long and difficult labour, letting forth nothing but a massive fart. What a horrible disappointment!

Even the Vatican has suggested a solution to the world's financial woes. Governments, charity organizations, social reformers - you name it - are scrambling to fix everything from wage disputes to climate change. Their efforts are huge, but the end result will be no more than a really bad smell.

There is a simple (but very unpopular) cure to this kind of flatulence. It's doing things God's way. But, as the Bible predicts, it's going to take the total collapse of all that we hold dear before humanity will accept God's way of doing things.

We have the chance to do something that will have a lasting effect - if we invest in something beyond the physical. Will we choose to leave behind something more than a bad smell?

To hear more about how current events relate to prophecy and how we should be living, check out the new Beyond Today Daily.

The World Is Falling Apart...

Have you read in the news that Italy is now being governed by technocrats? That means people who were not elected. Europe is changing rapidly. The governments of Greece and Italy have already collapsed. More big changes are in the wind with France and Spain in financial trouble.

Europe is falling apart. At some point it will be put back together, but it will look very different to the Europe my generation have grown up with. I know this because the Bible says so. Don't believe it? Try reading the books of Daniel and Revelation.

When It's All So Broken

Where do you turn when everything in life seems to go wrong?

When life seems to have turned into a trail of destruction and tragedy, how do you cope?

Any number of politicians and spiritual leaders have thought that they have the answers for a broken world. Many speeches have been made about the perfect formula for peace and prosperity for everyone.

There have been countless campaigns to end poverty and disease. Over 20 years ago a LiveAid concert was held to raise money for people dying of starvation. People are still dying of starvation. Despite the money raised at 46664 concerts since 2003, millions continue to contract and die of AIDS. Make Poverty History still hasn't made poverty history, six years after it started. GM crops were meant to be the solution to world hunger, but since the widespread growing of GM rice started, the world has suffered from a widespread rice shortage.

What hope is there for a broken world that politicians, spiritual leaders and charity organizations have completely failed to fix? Maybe occasionally someone succeeds a little bit - but then another (often bigger) problem springs up somewhere else.

The real reason the world is so broken is that we continue to resist the only real solution to every problem we have ever had.

Sometime - maybe soon - a bunch of leaders will come up with a solution to the world's brokenness that seems to really work - an alliance of powerful nations. In the end, though, it will lead to disaster and destruction greater than this world has ever known. Only after that can the real healing happen when Christ Himself takes over the world.

The question is - which side will we be on?

To read about Bible prophecies that explain the future and God's plan, have a look at the free booklet, You Can Understand Bible Prophecy.

I also recommend watching the Beyond Today episode: Calling Good Evil.

Hope For All Humanity

I love this time of year!

We've just observed the Day of Trumpets and the Day of Atonement. In a few days we will be joining friends in our faith to observe the Feast of Tabernacles and the Last Great Day (or Eighth Day). These days (outlined in Leviticus 23, among other places in the Bible) celebrate, not what Jesus Christ has done for us, but the future hope for all humanity!

Earlier in the year we observed the Biblical days depicting Jesus Christ's death and resurrection, the removal of sin from our lives and the gift of the Holy Spirit (Passover, Days of Unleavened Bread, and Pentecost).

What a joy it is to now (impatiently!) look forward to a time when "the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea" (Habakuk 2:14)! We don't know when that will be, but we see the signs, like the fig tree putting forth leaves (Matthew 24:32).

Observing these days reminds us that God truly will offer everyone an opportunity for salvation - that no one is forgotten or left out. What an incredible promise!

Unlike the pagan holidays, Christmas and Easter, God's Holy Days are a reminder of His whole plan.

And that's why I love this time of year.

I Can't Fix It

I used to think (but never would have admitted it) that I could "fix" my kids' human nature just by being a really, really good Mum. I thought (without really thinking it) if I just gave them enough attention, enough "love", good food, etc, etc then they wouldn't need to lie or be sneaky. I thought they would grow up to be kind and thoughtful and good just from my hard work.

Then the bubble burst.

I can't fix me, so of course I can't fix my kids. The only remedy for human nature comes from God and we have to first see that and then accept it in order to be healed from our brokenness. Kids can't - not yet.

No matter how "good" I am at being a Mum (and I can't really be that good at it because I still have my own human nature to contend with), there is no short-cut to "goodness" for my kids - no bypassing the need at the very core of their being for God to rebuild them from the inside out.

God has given my husband and I the job of teaching our kids right from wrong, based on the Bible. He expects us to do our very best. It is not our job to fix them. If we try, we put ourselves in the place of God - we become our own idols.

It's hard to let go of that. I have to remind myself. Every. Single. Day. I am not God. I cannot fix it. Let God fix it. In His time. In His way. It won't just be OK - it will be better than I can even imagine.

My great hope is that my kids will choose as they grow up to let God fix them. My hope is that we will share eternity together.

If you have found this post encouraging, try listening to the fantastic sermon, Are You Playing Church?

By This Shall All Men Know

During our Passover service earlier this year, I was really struck by Jesus' statement "by this shall all men know that you are My disciples, if you love one another".

Really? That's how the world will recognise the disciples of Jesus? Not by speaking in tongues, or miraculous healing, or charismatic preaching?

More recently I heard a minister explain it this way: the proof of God's Spirit working in us is in the fruit (found in Galatians 5:22) we bear, not in the gifts (listed in I Corinths 12:1-11) we receive.

Love (which is explained in I Corinthians 13) is the very first fruit of the Spirit mentioned in Galatians 5:22. Healing and speaking in tongues are gifts of the Spirit found in I Corinthians 12.

The love talked about by the Apostle Paul in I Corinthians 13 is far beyond a warm and fuzzy feeling. In fact, he told us that we could even "give our body to be burned", and yet NOT have true Godly love.

Real, Godly love

"suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; ⁵ does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; ⁶ does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; ⁷ bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
⁸ Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part. ¹⁰ But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away."

Jesus Christ never said anything that He didn't mean. Read the words above carefully - real love is hard. The question is, are we willing to make the sacrifice to become Jesus' followers? Are we willing to really love one another?