One Generation to Another

He is risen!

Yes, Easter was celebrated two weeks ago, or for the Orthodox Church one week ago, but He is risen every single day. When Jesus hung on the cross on that awful day so long ago, He uttered the most important words for all of us…It is finished. Three days later, to the shock and utter wonder of His friends, He rose again, having defeated death itself. Although the dates that we celebrate this most holy occasion have come and gone for this year, the great power of Jesus’ death and resurrection is still working in our hearts and all throughout the world more than we truly understand, each and every day. Let’s spend a few minutes thinking about this momentous truth.

I also want to take the opportunity to thank those of you who have been reading this blog for such a very long time. It began in August 2018, which seems so remarkable to me since it feels like just the other day, yet has already been nearly 8 years ago. So much has happened in my life and and yours in that amount of time, and I’m just very grateful for an opportunity to be even a tiny part of your life and your walk with God.

The name I chose for the blog in is One Generation to Another, and that comes out of Psalm 145 where it says,

Great is the LORD and most worthy of praise;
His greatness no one can fathom.
One generation commends Your works to another;
they tell of your mighty acts.
They speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty--
and I will meditate on Your wonderful works.
They tell of the power of Your awesome works--
and I will proclaim Your great deeds.
They celebrate Your abundant goodness
and joyfully sing of Your righteousness.

​I​ think there’s something so invaluable about the older generations passing along their faith and wisdom to others. Not just those vitally important things, but also their memories, stories, and experiences. It is so healthy and helpful to hear how life was for our parents and grandparents, and the way we learn about those things is through connections and face-to-face interaction—not just once or twice, but often and with repetition. Think family holiday get-togethers where the same stories are told again and again, adding new memories all the time. The youngest and newest among us need to hear those stories as the generations age and expand.

There is so much happening right now, and it threatens to make me a bit disheartened that anyone could think that these things are just the way things have always been, or that they are normal and acceptable. We have the unusual situation in our nation of being what folks call ”post-Christian,” a sad term meant to communicate something to the effect that we might have been a Christian people once, but we’re beyond that now.

Not so fast!

This might have some validity if you’re talking about the public or political arena only, but I want to encourage us all to take another look. God has not fallen off of His throne, nor has He forgotten us who believe Him here in our beloved country, or anywhere else for that matter. But His purposes and plan are so much bigger than we know how to think or imagine—God so loves THE WORLD and gave His Son for whomever will believe…and that number grows each and every year!

Just 100 years ago, there were roughly 2 billion people on the planet, now there are 8 billion and rising. What a lot of unique and beautiful lives God has in mind to create and love! The fact is that not much more than 100 years ago, both the life expectancy and infant mortality rates were pretty atrocious, even in our own country. We actually live in a day and age and place where we can all learn to read, to learn, and to study up on anything we please, regardless of where we are from or whether we are old or young, male or female, rich or not. We can create amazing art, literature, music, and products to enhance life for those around us, and add beauty and peace to push back the chaos. It truly is an amazing time to be alive.

When I was a teenager in the 1980s, so many of us watched a brand-new thing called MTV on the brand new thing called cable television as a certain pop singer sang day and night that we were material people living in a material world. This was never true, but the repetition of the lie had great effect on that generation. A lot of people entered adulthood believing that anything spiritual was a relic of a superstitious past.

Thank God that lie has passed its expiration date—more and more people all the time are waking up to the fact that the world is quite spiritual after all and that we had better think about such things. The sad part to this is that the material world lie left too many people both without a relationship with God and also searching for meaning and power without knowing how deadly and dangerous so many spiritual things are. Young people today are being lured back into the thrall of deadly, ancient things that never went away. Ephesians 6:12 reminds us "we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places."

On the other hand, there is the wonderful and positive development that calling yourself a Christian just because you were born here is now a thing of the past. It is back to the way it ought to be—each person must count the cost and choose to believe God is who He says He is and that He is as good as He says He is. For too long, too few people were ever faced with that most important decision. It was too easy to just coast along in a society so influenced by "church culture" without ever bowing their hearts to Jesus. The time of going to church because you would be fined or ridiculed or because it was the socially acceptable thing to do is firmly in the past—there are so few people left sitting in any Christian gathering who do not truly believe in the Most High God and His beloved Son, Jesus Christ.

​And you never hear this on the news, but the Lord is moving around the globe, and the vision of people from every tribe, tongue, and nation being together in heaven someday no longer sounds like a pipe dream. Yes, there are many hearts yet to hear the Good News of Jesus, but there are so many who have heard the news and have BELIEVED!

I was visiting a church gathering in another city recently to see the beautiful sight of several of the children of some long-time friends being baptized. Our faith which is more precious than gold has been passed on to another generation in that family, and I will never tire of witnessing that. While there, I heard a great sermon on Jesus’ Parable of the Sower. He brought His Kingdom here to earth with Him when He came the first time—the beautiful Kingdom of God is still coming, but it really is already here. Jesus personally sowed the first seeds and showed a bunch of others how to do the same, and from that time to this the Kingdom of God and the life, beauty, wholeness, and peace that it brings have been growing and spreading thirty, sixty, and one hundred fold. Yes, sometimes it gets met with all kinds of different reactions—hostility, ambivalence, and doubt to name a few—but sometimes it lands in a ready heart. And then it takes off and can spread like wildfire, in this day and across the generations.

Yes, we are in a huge cosmic battle that we little understand. Yes, we must all do our part by believing God and trusting and obeying Him in every way. But I would remind us all that we are fighting in a war that has already been won by our great King, who waits patiently for us to share and for all the world to hear the Good News of His victory. We are not holding the fort—we are storming the castle of the terrible imposter's kingdom of death.

The Maker of Heaven and Earth is not wringing His hands in heaven, wishing all of us would go back to some particular point in the past where folks somehow got things exactly right. As many wonderful pieces that God's Kingdom has injected into the world, that perfect era has not yet existed in the fullest sense of what God hopes and dreams for His beautiful world and His beloved children. There is more, and it is ahead—the best is yet to come! He is always doing and making something new, and that is exactly what He is doing now. God’s beautiful Kingdom of life and peace and beauty is growing and spreading, and Jesus Himself said that the sorry gates of hell will not be able to withstand it. The kingdom of death that we are all born into was served its eviction notice when Jesus defeated death, and its reign of terror will end forever when He returns. 

So today, from one generation to another, let me encourage you to not be discouraged by the 24/7 message of chaos and death that you hear and see. In fact, I will once again encourage you to turn off that phone or computer or television and talk to your family about wonderful, hopeful things instead. Or invite some friends or neighbors for dinner to share the goodness of God together. Or spend some time just talking to God and hearing His heart. The Lord is doing amazing things in hearts and lives everywhere—let’s be a part of that!  

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Today is an exciting day! I am launching a YouTube channel to accompany this blog. Please come spend some time with me there, as I hope to share thoughts like this, books I've written, things I'm learning or reading, and so much more to encourage you more often. The link below will take you there...

One Generation to Another YouTube