Thoughts on Scripture

Should Christians Cuss?

~ Heather Davis ~ 2 Comments

As I walked and talked with the Lord one morning, He clarified something for me. I’ve heard several people who identify as Christians use swear words. Years ago, I had a long evening conversation with a pastor on my back porch. During our chat, he defended Christians cussing as a “subculture” issue where the words were nothing more than adjectives. In his eyes and in the eyes of many others, the answer to the question, “Is it OK for Christians to cuss?” is an emphatic yes.

But I would argue that we are asking the wrong question entirely.

In Matthew 12:34, after calling the corrupted religious leaders a “brood of vipers,” Jesus went on to say, ‘For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.”

So really, the question is: if you feel the need to cuss, what is abounding in your heart that cursing is what comes out?

You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil.

Matthew 12:34-35

After delineating the works of the flesh, Paul informed the church in Galatia that “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. . .” (Galatians 5:22-23).

It’s worthy of note that cursing is none of those things. At best, it’s contemptuous; an expression of disgust or contempt for the object or person on the receiving end. At its worst, cussing is an expression of anger. In fact, I can’t think of a swear word that doesn’t come from a place of anger.

So, if your heart is full of anger and contempt, it’s only natural for these to fuel what comes out of your mouth. But if your heart is full of Jesus, different things will come out; the fruit of His Spirit.

Something to think about today.

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Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.

Galatians 5:19-25

Shalom

~ Heather Davis ~ Leave a comment

It sometimes feels odd to me that my heart can break over so many things while never losing hold on an unfaltering sense of peace and contentment. Or perhaps I should say that this shalom – this peace – never loses hold of me.

My son’s frantic drive to secure a sweetheart while the One Whose heart was pierced for him waits on the sidelines. . .

The Covenant School shooting – the senselessness of an adult opening fire on an elementary school. . .

My sister-in-law’s struggles to find justice and fill a void that only her Creator can fill. . .

Bloodthirsty murders and equally bloodthirsty families of the victims. . .

A people poised to spot a slight or insult at every turn. . .

Egregious media overreach and control. . .

Government chicanery and failure. . .

Wars and rumors of wars. . .

Gender confusion. . .

Moral decay. . .

Insanity. . .

But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.

2 Timothy 3:1-5

Yet despite it all – and no small number of physical ailments of my own – I have shalom; an incredible peace that nothing can explain or steal away. It’s the certainty that no matter what happens to my body here, no matter who may wrong or hurt me, no matter what evils may lay in wait for me, ultimate justice WILL be done.

My life is in the hands of the One who breathed it into being, and in Him, I find fullness of joy and eagerly anticipate pleasure forevermore.

Yet I still hurt for those who do not share the certainty. I know that if my son were filling his heart and soul with the Living Water and filling his days glorifying God and enjoying Him, he wouldn’t rush into relationships to soothe an ache no woman can soothe.

I grieve for my sister-in-law who would rest at ease, not seeking to get even but trusting in the One who will one day repay all wrongs – except for those wrongs committed by those who have been washed by the blood of the Lamb.

Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”
To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.”

Romans 12:19-20

So I pray and I wait. I pray to see these and many others I know and love (and some I merely know) to surrender to the Lord Jesus. I ask the Holy Spirit to come to them, to guide them to Himself, to breathe new life into their lungs and give them hope.

And I wait to see what the Lord will do, praying always that He will give me strength to remain faithful and keep my brothers and sisters faithful as well.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:6-7

Missing: Truth

~ Heather Davis ~ 2 Comments

I have a confession. I subscribe to publications from a variety of viewpoints in order to hear from voices on both ends of the spectrum. On social media, I do my best to keep the bars of my personal algorhythmic cage as widely-spaced as possible. And I always assume I’m missing something in every story. We all are. All to often, the missing element is truth.

We live in a world currently run by the one Jesus called “the ruler of this world” and “a liar and the father of lies” (see John 12:31, 14:30, John 8:44). To find the truth, you have to research and think deeply and logically about what you read or watch. You cannot merely consume.

Propaganda

The Friday after the most recent election, my inbox was filled with the typical sales flyers and political emails. Among them were a selection of Red and Blue propaganda pieces loaded with highlights, bold type, red letters, shrieking capitals, and shameless abuse of the exclamation point.

Propaganda to my left and right both made similar claims:

  • The election results are hanging in the balance!!!!!
  • The stakes are the highest they’ve ever been!!!!!
  • YOUR EMERGENCY CONTRIBUTION IS URGENTLY NEEDED TO FIGHT BACK against the enemy of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness!!!!!!
  • EVERYTHING IS BURNING AND WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!! NOW IS A TIME FOR UNADULTURATED PANIC!!!

Or something.

I have to wonder why the stakes are higher now than, say, when Hitler and Stalin made blood-soaked bids for world domination or when our own fledgling nation tore itself apart at a time when some people wanted to own other people. I thought those stakes were pretty high.

But I also have other questions:

  1. How, precisely, will my donation impact the results of an election that took place three days prior?
  2. Assuming my rushed contribution manages to (alarmingly) sway the counting of votes, how can I be sure all the swaying won’t cause fatal fractures in the whole structure?
  3. If both Red and Blue are threatening to destroy my liberty, who am I supposed to believe will preserve it?

You get the picture. But it isn’t just politics. The American media seems to have won a bloodless coup far more effective than all the concentration camps, purges, and gulags combined.

Just Keep Spinning

In his fine book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman opined that Huxley’s pleasure-dominated society in Brave New World comes closer to today’s America than Orwell’s hate-based domination portrayed 1984.

For the most part, I agree. However, Orwell’s dystopia did absolutely nail humanity’s brief attention span.

To see what I mean, all you have to do is refuse to scarf down the news like fast food fries. Instead, take time to test and discern the flavors. Look for articles with emotionally-charged language or “facts” that seem to contrast with other articles.

A simple example is the media handling of unborn babies. From one perspective, you’ll find pieces in support of a woman’s “right” to terminate a pregnancy. Yet you can also find stories where a mother and her unborn child were both murdered. In the first style of story, there is no body count; just a natural consequence eliminated. In the other, the body count is two. One is a right, the other is murder.

A careful reader of today’s news might note that the answer to the question, “When does life begin?” appears to be, “Whenever it best suits the agenda of the person you are asking.”

Our newsfeeds are full of similar contradictions covering a wide range of topics. All of them prey on a population whose collective memory seems to extend no further than seconds into the past and whose attention span is easily caught by the next shiny scandal. We move from mayhem and murder to enjoying quirky cat videos with a seamlessness rivaled only by the criminally insane.

I would argue that, apart from Christ, criminally insane is precisely what we are.

Lost and Found

But like it or not, there is such thing as truth – even if it seems to be missing in the public square. An incredible Book I’m addicted to reading mentioned as much:

Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands far away; for truth has stumbled in the public squares, and uprightness cannot enter. Truth is lacking, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. The LORD saw it, and it displeased him that there was no justice.

Isaiah 59:14-15

These words were written in the 700s BC. Truth, it seems, has been MIA for a very long time.

Strange though it may seem, all this madness actually encourages me. Such ruminations help me remember that human depravity and sickness of mind are as old as the Fall. It reminds me that there truly is nothing new under the sun.

What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.

Ecclesiastes 1:9

What’s more, I know that while it may appear that Truth is nowhere to be found, it’s actually never been far off. Truth is as close as the wind on your cheek, as real as your heartbeat, as wide as the sky – for all of creation, including your body, contain evidence of the Truth that brought them into being.

Even better, we’ve been given a tangible document, the Word of Truth, as a gift to avoid making careless assumptions. Our feelings often override the evidence of our senses, and the God who made us knows this and gave us His Word as a reminder. Cultural norms will come and go, nations will rise and fall, lies will be tossed around like dodgeballs, but the Word of God will stand forever.

And because of this truth, we can have confidence that one day, the Truth will out.

Can a Corpse Be Pleasing?

~ Heather Davis ~ Leave a comment

I have a crazy question for you: has a corpse every done anything you find pleasing?

Humor me for a minute. I’ve been thinking about how the Scriptures teach that we are dead in sin. Romans 6:23 tells us the wages of sin is death – literally, we earn death by sinning – but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Other Scriptures talk about it too – Ephesians 2 starts off by telling us we were dead in our trespasses and sins and Romans 8 contrasts walking by the Spirit of God and walking in the death of sin, and so on.

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins. . .

Ephesians 2:1

For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. . . But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

Romans 8:6, 10

We are spiritual corpses without Christ; the literal walking dead. So that’s been on my mind; then on Sunday, our pastor was preaching from John 3 and talked about Nicodemus, the Pharisee and ruler. This man probably knew the Tanakh (Scriptures of the time) about as well as he knew his name.

As Jay said, Nicodemus grew up understanding that if he memorized all these Scriptures, did all the right things, and followed all the rules, God would be pleased with him.

It hit me funny: how can God be pleased with a corpse? Who’s ever pleased with a corpse?

If a corpse could do anything at all, it could only do rotten things. Dead things. It just reminds me of how Jesus said in John 15 that apart from Him, we can do nothing.

Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

John 15:4-5

Think about that today. God loved you so much when you were a corpse that He sent His only Son to bring you to life.

That’s how loved you are. Go in that love today.

85 Second Devotional | December 12

~ Heather Davis ~ 2 Comments

Welcome to my goofy attempts to have Advent devotionals with my busy college students who now live in 3 different cities.

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given. . . and his name shall be called. . . Prince of Peace.

Isaiah 9:6

Peace is something that seems elusive to most of us in the modern world. After all, we can hardly escape the constant barrage of information, and most of us are now so accustomed to the incessant yammering of the media that we don’t even pay attention.

Another scandal involving high-ranking officials? Of course.

Government corruption exposed yet no one serves jail time. Naturally.

We’ve come to expect chaos, even embrace it. But the expectation comes at a cost. The US consistently ranks #1 or #2 for anxiety, depression, and substance abuse despite being the most affluent nation in the world. Money, it seems, does not buy us peace.

Sadly, as a nation we’ve rejected the Prince of Peace. Fewer Americans each year identify as Christian and of those who do, even fewer actually read the Bible or follow the teachings of the Christ they claim to serve. A 2019 Lifeway research study found evangelicals are far more likely to use social media daily than read their Bibles.

Yet in chapter 26, Isaiah writes, “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD GOD is an everlasting rock” (Isaiah 26:3-4).

We lack peace because we no longer truly trust in the Prince of Peace. But we can choose to change this. Will you?

60 Second Devotional | December 10

~ Heather Davis ~ Leave a comment

Welcome to my goofy attempts to have Advent devotionals with my busy college students who now live in 3 different cities…

. . .and his name shall be called. . . Mighty God, Everlasting Father. . .

Isaiah 9:6

In Isaiah 9:6, the Messiah is also called, “Mighty God, Everlasting Father.” It’s interesting that many skeptics today claim Jesus never pretended to be God. And they’re right – He didn’t pretend. He knew it, He stated it, and He proved it.

In John 8, Jesus is teaching at the temple, and His teachings about being slaves to sin rubs some people wrong. They push back, calling Him a Samaritan (which would have been insulting to a Jewish man) and accusing Him of having a demon. In a bizarre refutation that they’ve ever been slaves, they invoke Abraham as their father.

To this, Jesus replies that Abraham saw His day come and was glad. This brings on jeers, and Jesus makes the bold claim, “Before Abraham was, I am.”

Jeers turned to rage as the crowd attempted to stone Him. They knew He was referring to Exodus 3:14 and making a claim to Divinity.

Another time, Jesus is at the Feast of Dedication being questioned at the temple by a crowd demanding to know if He is the promised Messiah. He tells them, “I and the Father are one,” but they are also discontent with His answer (see John 10:22-33).

But Jesus not only claimed divinity, He proved it. He lay down His life down but also took it up again, precisely as He promised He would do in John 10:18.

60 Second Devo | December 4

~ Heather Davis ~ Leave a comment

The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.

Exodus 12:13

Genesis 22 records the time God told Abraham to do something shocking – to sacrifice Isaac, the son of the promise that he had waiting for for so long, and the one through whom all those blessings would come. And yet, Abraham was willing.

We also see Isaac was willing. Genesis 22 tells us that Isaac carried the wood, and if he was strong enough to carry the wood, he

Knock, Knock: Introducing Myself

~ Heather Davis ~ 4 Comments

An Open Letter

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Heather Davis, I live in the USA, and I am a Christian.

I know the Christian church has a poor reputation these days. She hasn’t always behaved as she should; a fact which breaks my heart. For my part, I am deeply sorry for it, and I hope and pray you have never suffered genuine hurt at her hands. I have, and so have many of my family members, so I can relate if you’ve been wronged at or by the church.

By now, I’ve walked with the Lord for two decades, and one thing He has taught me is that the people of His church are flawed. This includes me. I have deep flaws and have been guilty of not treating others as I want to be treated, along with a list of other crimes.

If we are honest, I believe we are all guilty of wrongdoing. Yet despite our guilt, God loves us. But because He is both holy and just, He cannot let crime go unpunished, nor should He.

His Word tells us what we earn by our rebellion against Him is death. There is also good news in this Book: death is the wage Jesus accepted on my behalf and on behalf of all who will put their trust in Him and let God once more be in charge. This is how He designed us to live.

One thing I’ve learned is that although the church is flawed and full of failings just as I am, it is important – nay, imperative – to judge Christianity by the Christ and not by the Christian.

The church is nothing more than a group of people Jesus has redeemed who are all in various stages of learning to love Him, obey Him, and deny themselves their selfish tendencies. Some are near pros, others are novices. Some are even fakes.

Although I have been hurt, I have also learned to love the church despite her flaws just as Jesus loves me despite mine.

And so, reader, as one restored by Christ to a right relationship with my Creator, I apologize for any and every actual wrong His church may have done to you. I also offer my time to discuss the amazing ways I’ve seen God at work in my life over the years. Many of these are recorded in the archives of this blog.

I invite you to share in my life and ask your hard questions about God. I don’t have all the answers, but I believe in being a safe place to talk about them. You see, if Christianity is true (as I firmly believe it is), it’s literally a matter of life and death, not just a preference or a coping mechanism.

That is both my conviction and my assurance, and I love to share it with others.

In the love of Jesus,
Heather

Like Trees Walking

~ Heather Davis ~ 2 Comments

And [Jesus] took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village, and when He had spit on His eyes and laid His hands on him, He asked him, “Do you see anything?” And he looked up and said, “I see people, but they look like trees, walking.”

Mark 8:23-24, ESV

Healing the Blind

I love the Gospel accounts of Yeshua (Jesus) healing the blind because I know He’s in the same business today. For any who are willing, my Lord still heals spiritual blindness – a blindness far more profound than the mere absence of sight. Of all the blind men He healed, the one that resonates most with me is the healing recorded in Mark 8:22-25.

Distorted Vision

Mark’s account is singular in that Yeshua’s healing did not seem to “take” at first. This unnamed fellow’s sight did not immediately return. Instead, he began to see in stages, and his first glimpse of the world offered a distorted image of reality.

I can relate because I also began to see in stages after the Lord first touched me. He did not heal the abysmal spiritual darkness in me all at once. Instead, my first glimpses of the real world remained distorted by the lens of secular humanism I first embraced as a teenager.

The humanist worldview led me to view life as a silly option and death as the more logical choice. The more I saw through this murky lens, the darker life grew until blackness reigned unchallenged.

Worldview Breakdown

Secular humanism provides insufficient answers to questions of mankind’s purpose and meaning. Their efforts to touch these concepts lead in circles, much like Pooh and Piglet following their own tracks in the snow.

In adulthood, questions began to buffet me in the thick darkness of my chosen worldview:

  • If the end justifies the means, then why does my conscience prick me when I cause someone pain? 
  • If mankind sets the standard for right and wrong, what man gets to set it?
  • When others use me and I feel wronged, am I right or are they?
  • When social standards change, does right and wrong change, too?
  • Is life built on such an unstable foundation as all this?
  • If man is the measure of all things, then what’s the point?
  • Why bother with life at all?

Years spent groping in this philosophical darkness brought no peace but only multiplied my confusion. And quite frankly, the longer I groped in this darkness, the less sense the humanist worldview made.

As I rode the fluctuating and unstable tide of humanistic morality, I knew deep inside there must be a true right and a true wrong. Without a changeless absolute truth, life was purposeless, chaotic, and ultimately meaningless.

The moral question became one of life or death for me.

Beginning to See

This is where Yeshua found me.

He began to heal my spiritual blindness, but at first I saw neither Him nor His truth clearly. Instead, I saw a distorted version of reality blurred by drab layers of humanistic philosophy. At the Lord’s first touch, I saw enough to know He was there although I saw Him only dimly.

It took several applications of the Word of Truth before I saw clearly. And what I discovered was the world, seen through the crystal-clear truth of the Maker of all things, =made a startling, stark sense.

What About You?

I don’t know where you stand, friend. I don’t know if you see Yeshua through His Word or if you see an obscure shadow of Him; a man like a tree walking around. But I pray He will heal you fully so you may see the beauty of the Light of the World and all He illuminates.

Let’s Talk About S–

~ Heather Davis ~ 2 Comments

Sin. I want to talk about sin. Get your mind out of the gutter, ya perv.

Seriously, though, we really don’t talk much about sin anymore, and I think I know why.

As humans, we have an innate understanding of right and wrong. Over time, this understanding becomes twisted by our pride, distorted by repeated suppression, and is subject to a myriad of other deformations. Yet somewhere deep inside, we all know certain things are wrong – even if we only recognize them as a wrong when done to us.

They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them

Romans 2:15

The general term for this understanding is conscience. And like any other human part, it can become scarred-over and calloused until there’s no feeling left.

Which brings us to today.

Instead of sin, we talk about things like lifestyle, my truth, or even illness. Much air is expended discussing our battles or our challenges. When confronted with wrongdoing, Christian influencers may confess their struggles. . . but not their sin.

It’s true we do go to battle against our sinful inclinations; we must struggle against temptation to sin. And yet, more often than not, the words are not used in this way but rather as a clever dodge to avoid responsibility. A struggle or a lifestyle is much more palatable than a willful crime.

What we’re missing in this subtle semantic waltz is the gravity of sin.

Sin is a killer. Period.

Sin is ugly. It is rebellion against the Maker; treason against the King; a refusal of the creation to perform its function as it was designed.

Sin lies. It cheats us of true life. It steals joy and covers it up in an endless, wretched pursuit of meager happiness and fleeting pleasure.

And no matter what name we give to make it sweeter to say, sin leads to death. In fact, death is what the sinner earns – as surely as you earn your paycheck from your employer.

For the wages of sin is death. . .

“But I’m not dead,” you may say, and perhaps you’re right. I wonder, though: can you honestly tell me you have a single relationship that hasn’t suffered a kind of death? Was any type of harm ever done to you by another person? Have you ever harmed another, even mildly?

Death of trust, death of respect, death of joy, of reputation, commitment, communication. Death everywhere we look, if we look with honesty. Even the cooling of affections is a kind of death.

Friends, this horror covers only one kind of death. The rot of sin goes far deeper than this.

. . . but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

(Romans 6:23)

The good news is, we don’t have to accept death. We can talk about our sin; confess it, repent of it, and be set free in Christ. Expose the canker of sin to the fresh air of truth.

It may hurt, it may be embarrassing, but I can tell you from experience there is no cleaner pain. Like debriding an infected wound, the momentary torment is nothing compared to the relief of healing.

Let’s confess our sin to God our Healer and turn away in true repentance, trusting in the work of the Son of God to break the chains of sin and make us really free.

But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.

Romans 6:22