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Daily devotional

More of Reformed Perspective!

Science - Creation/Evolution

Of baby birds, and death before the Fall

Today we started off the day with a funeral right after breakfast. Bluey Leapey Wieske died during the night. We buried him at the back of the our property, close by where we buried the cow a few months ago. Micah asked me, “Daddy, when I die, can you bury me next to Bluey?”

Micah called him Bluey Leapey because of his eyes. They were a kind of blue, and the flickering of his eyelids made Micah think of the name “Leapey.” Micah found Bluey’s nest fallen to the ground from the towering palm trees by the kitchen complex. Bluey had fallen with the nest, then climbed partway back up the tree where Micah found him, stunned, clinging to the bark.

For two days Micah researched how to care for injured wild baby birds. He did everything he could to nurture and save the little bird. One clear instruction from the many sources consulted Micah completely ignored: “Do not handle the bird too much.” For some reason, Bluey did not seem to like being placed in the remnant of the nest we gathered up. He much preferred to nestle on Micah’s chest, clinging to his shirt. I fully expected the bird to die within minutes, but he lasted two days with Micah feeding him fruit and bread moistened with water.

Micah is seven years old. He is an active, energetic, carefree, very physical child. He is also extremely sensitive. This morning we awoke to hear his wails of lamentation as he discovered Bluey’s lifeless form lying in the carefully prepared nesting box next to his bed. Micah’s weeping continued as we headed out after breakfast and laid Bluey to rest in a small hole dug under a spreading tree in the back field.

Why did Micah cry?

Is his grief a consequence of his innate understanding that death is abnormal, an enemy, a cursed result of sin and the Fall? Or his is grief abnormal, an enemy, a cursed result of sin and the Fall?

Death is good?

There are those who, in an attempt to resolve perceived conflicts between science and faith, propose that the Bible be read in the light of modern scientific research. Since scientists claim that multiple lines of evidence point to animal ancestry for humans, and an evolutionary origin to all of life, some Christian scientists believe that the Bible should be read in such a way that it allows for a world in which animal and human life developed over millions of years. Contrary to atheistic evolutionism, this Christian version understands the process not to be the result of random chance, but rather a beautiful, intricate process created and directed by God Himself for His glory.

There’s a problem: this theory requires that death and suffering exist in this world long before the arrival of Adam and Eve. (In fact, this theory makes it impossible to even hold on to the Biblical Adam and Eve, but that’s a different story.)

The problem is dismissed by Christians who believe that God used evolution to create life on this planet. They argue that when the Bible says that death entered into the world through Man’s sin, this is a reference to the death of humans. It doesn’t refer to the death of non-human creatures. Science has established the presence of catastrophic death and disease well before the arrival of homo sapiens in the history of evolution.

According to evolutionary creationists, that’s OK. Evolution requires millions of years of birth, suffering, and death in order to progress. This can be understood to be “very good,” as God declared of His creation, as long as it doesn’t refer to human death. Since Adam and Eve’s respective “parents” or non-human progenitors were not actually human, but only human-like, it doesn’t matter that they suffered and died before the Fall. This is all part of God’s glorious plan of (evolutionary) creation, which He declared very good (Genesis 1:31). It’s really good and beautiful that foxes eat rabbits. Or that little birds fall out of trees and die. It’s all part of how Creation/Evolution works. Behold, it was very good. And it is very good.

Why is Micah crying then?

According to the thesis that Creation is through Evolution, I guess Micah’s sinful little heart is rebelling against God’s good and perfect creative work. Who is Micah to question what God calls very good? This is the way God has made the world: through suffering and death, Life is perfected. That’s the way it was before the Fall, and that’s the way it continues after the Fall.

Not the way it is supposed to be

However, the Bible teaches something different. The Bible informs the way I comfort and instruct Micah at this important educational moment. We speak together about the very good creation into which our sin introduced death and destruction as results of God’s curse. This is an important instructional opportunity to show Micah that the wages of sin is death: not just death in the sense of a heart stopping or a person not breathing anymore, but death in all of its horrible catastrophically destructive aspects as it affects Man, relationships, animals, and all of creation. This little bird died because Eve took a bite from a fruit that God had told her not to eat. This little bird died because we are sinners. The creation is groaning and is in bondage to decay because of our sin.

But here is the good news. Jesus is making all things new. In the new creation, things are very, very good. There is no more death. In the new heavens and the new earth, Micah will no longer weep over a dead little bird, because Jesus is bringing about the day when the full Life-giving and Life-transforming results of Jesus’ death and resurrection will finally rid the universe of every last vestige of the heart-wrenching sadness and misery that results from our Fall.

Rev. Wieske is pastor at the St. Albert Canadian Reformed Church.

This article first appeared in the July/August 2015 issue of Reformed Perspective under the title "Of baby birds, death, and creation." A Dutch version of this article can be found on a Dutch creationist site here.

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Interview with an artist

Anne deJong is taking a palette knife to the Rockies
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News, Pro-life - Euthanasia

No jail for man who admits to killing his partner

“An Ottawa man who pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the death of his ailing husband has been sentenced to two years less a day of house arrest for ...
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News

Saturday Selections – Feb. 21, 2026

When they weaponize ChatGPT against our kids... (15 min) I normally share shorter videos but made an exception here because this is a must-see for pa...
woman frustrated at work
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Theology

Should a Christian ever be discontent?

She sat across from me, sipping coffee, her forehead wrinkled with unhappiness. She’d struggled for two years in a job that clearly made her miserab...
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Book Reviews, Children’s picture books

The Good Shepherd and the Stubborn Sheep

by Hannah E. Harrison 2025 / 32 pages Rating: Great George wants us to know that he, and the other sheep in his flock, are a rather helpless lot. They have a bad sense of direction (especially Mabel). They're all utterly defenseless, what with the lack of claws, and not even a set of top teeth to bare when they growl (and what sheep growls anyway?). And, when they are big and fluffy, if they get tipped over, they might not even be able to right themselves without help. And "did you know that sheep's wool just keeps growing, and growing, and growing"? That, then, is why sheep need a Shepherd. And, of course, this is why we need One too. I'm not a big fan, generally, of fictionalized retellings of biblical stories. They strike me as shoddy, and more importantly, arrogant, stand-ins for a story that God decided to deliver to us in His own chosen manner. But that's not what's going on here. This isn't a retelling of Psalm 23, even as it is clearly referencing it, and even ends with it. This is an explanation to us – a people without a lot of farm experience – of the sheep metaphor God uses here that would have been very familiar to its original audience. It turns out sheep are dumb. Really dumb. So when God, through David, compares us to sheep in need of a shepherd, when we better understand sheep we'll better understand what God is saying here about our own helpless state. This is a beautiful picture book that would make a great addition to any school or church library – mom and dad will enjoy reading it to each of their children in turn....

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Assorted

How to catch Ice Age Man using digital reindeer

What would happen if we assumed ancient man was intelligent? One man did just that, and I haven’t been able to stop talking about it since. Which, incidentally, is a substantial reason to have 10 children, all of whom you homeschool. Captive audience. Professor John O’Shea is an archaeologist with the University of Michigan who likes to read. (It’s a good habit. Highly recommend.) One day, he was reading a book about subarctic reindeer* hunters and the stone structures they use to direct the animals. He was also studying a topographical map of the bottom of Lake Huron. The map included a feature known as Six Fathom Shoal, a continuous underwater ridge connecting southern Ontario to northeast Michigan. During the last days of the Ice Age, that ridge would have been above water, separating Lake Huron into two lakes. As John studied the map and read about the hunters, he realized that the ridge would have been a great place to hunt reindeer thousands of years ago. So he took a team and scanned the lake bottom. It wasn’t easy. The underwater ridge encompasses hundreds of square miles of lakebed, and just reaching the site required a 60-mile trip over unpredictable water. Expectations were low. Often the weather was too dangerous to even think about sailing, but on the rare occasions when they could get out of their port in Alpena, they used side scanning sonar to create a map of the lake bottom. One day, by “dumb luck” they stumbled upon something that maybe only John would have expected or recognized; a line of rocks. Stick with me here. On the leftside, of course You see, reindeer are essentially British. They like queues. Lines. Geometry, one might say, is their love language. To direct reindeer, a hunter can create a line on the ground, usually with stones – sometimes it amounts to a low fence This is called a “drive line.” When the reindeer encounter the line, even though they could easily jump over it, they will often walk alongside it wherever it leads. Not unlike Harold and the Purple Crayon. The line of rocks John O’Shea found on the bottom of the lake looked a lot like a drive lane. Further investigation by a tethered, unmanned underwater robot, and later, divers, revealed it was indeed a man-made drive lane, pointing towards a corral and a blind where the hunters could wait to kill the animals. An incredible, career-changing, history-making discovery. But it gets better. Next, John teamed up with Bob Reynolds from Wayne State University, and together they created a digital topographical map of Six Fathom Shoal during the Ice Age. They simulated rain, and the map filled with rivers, lakes, waterfalls, marshes and creeks. They enlisted botanists to look at the landscape and predict where different plants would have grown. And once the computer world was complete, they did the next sensible thing. They turned an entire herd of AI reindeer loose on the landscape. Initially, the AI reindeer had an annoying habit of walking off cliffs, gliding on stiff, pixelated legs to a swift digital death. The programming took a while to tweak, but as the weeks went on, the AI reindeer took on an increasingly lifelike set of behaviors. The herd was sent from one side of Six Fathom Shoal to the other, and patterns emerged as they learned which routes were best. Then John’ team asked modern reindeer hunters from Alaska and Canada to walk through the virtual landscape on computers, pointing out the best locations for blinds, campsites, and caches. They took intelligent human beings and asked them where they would hunt and then assumed that ancient man would hunt in the same places. Shocking. With this information in hand, they returned to inspect the sea floor. And that’s how they discovered a hunting structure they called “drop site 45.” Right in the location pinpointed as a choke site for the AI reindeer. This hunting site is the most sophisticated of its kind discovered to date. It includes a drive line, blinds, fire pits, and stone rings that indicate places where the hunters may have camped. They also found stone structures identical to those used by modern subarctic hunters to store caches of meat during the freezing winter months. Further investigation revealed stone tools, including one made with obsidian from Oregon. Yep. Oregon. Wagontire, Oregon, to be exact, over 2,000 miles away from the underwater ridge where it was found. Not bad for Ice Age hunters. “None of this matches the models we had about peoples in this region… you have to go back and be like, ‘All right, now we have this new data, what does that mean for what we thought about peoples that were living in the Great Lakes?’ You have to rewrite the story.” – Ashley Lemke, Professor at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Breaking down or evolving up? She’s right, of course. The models she’s talking about are based on the assumption that humans evolved from ape-like creatures, stumbling out of the dull fog of an animal existence to come to a shocking realization: “Fire… hot?” Of course we had never looked for evidence of Ice Age structures at Six Mile Shoal before, because the odds of such a creature building anything were slim. But what could we accomplish if we started with the assumption that man was created intelligent and capable, as the Bible teaches? Adam and Eve, coming straight from the hand of the Creator, had perfect genes. Those genes have only deteriorated a little more with each generation that passes. So those Ice Age hunters could well have been more intelligent than you or I. Computer models and sonar can recreate the Ice Age shorelines along the entire globe. What would happen if we looked at those maps and asked where we would build our cities, ports or villages? In some places, accumulated sediment has probably buried any Ice Age structures, but some remain. At the moment, our preferred method of finding these sites is dumb luck. That’s how we discovered a similar hunting drive line under the Baltic sea. The entire underwater world of Doggerland was also discovered by a series of accidents. What if we trusted the Biblical account enough to use less accidents and more “AI reindeer”? Shannon Skaer is an ancient history aficionado, homeschool mom, science nerd, and beekeeper. She lives in a small logging town in Oregon with her very own hero and their ten children. Her life could best be described as a love affair with beauty – which explains the number of babies – and her greatest joy is to know God, from whom all beauty comes. Find out more about her at www.shannonskaer.com. ***** *Reindeer is the fun name for Caribou. For this article, I refer to them as “reindeer” because I’m not a party pooper, and neither are you....

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News

Saturday Selections – Feb. 14, 2026

Reformed and Dangerous's Mortification of Sin Reformer John Owen returns... with reverb. (And you can get the shirt here.) The mysterious power of male sexuality Tim Challies on how male sexuality – often portrayed as purely problem by the world and even Christians – was originally made good by God, and does indeed have a powerful good purpose. The truth about Tumbler Ridge When a killer murdered 8 people, injured 25 more, and then murdered himself in the small northern BC town of Tumbler Ridge this past week, the media was quick to make points about guns, but not about the elephant in the room – that the killer was a man who claimed to be a woman. We can call it mentally ill, but we shouldn't lose sight of it simply being wicked, and it is a wicked society that reinforces this. As Samuel Sey noted, "A society that encourages trans people to not value the bodies that God gave them shouldn’t expect them to value the bodies that God gave to others." There is something going on here with trans-identifying shooters becoming increasingly common, and again, Samuel Sey says what few others are willing to notice: “A 2022 Quebec study reveals that transgender youth are the most likely group to support violent radicalization. When we encourage people to identify as victims, vengeance and violence are inevitable.” Rev. Jim Witteveen is another who is noticing. He has noticed that the evolution of transvestism from pathology to a lifestyle that must be always honored (even when you've murdered 9) shows "the entire worldview of modern psychiatry is built on shifting sand. There is no stability to it. It has no foundation in reality." The necessary gift of dependence The author writes as someone who is wheelchair bound, struggling with his dependence on others, but realizing that all of us are, always and forever, entirely dependent on God. And we are, even in our dependence, still used by Him to help others. How to guide your children through the Digital Age The algorithm is shaping your kids. You can help them resist by: teaching them to ask "what message is this digital media trying to communicate?" Help them spot the worldview being pushed. reclaiming the silence in your own life and showing them how it can be done. We don't need constant distraction. helping them see through the online identity trap. You are not how many followers you have. Parents need to model it, if we're going to pass it on. Making complementarianism work... This gent offers up quite a good quick overview of headship in marriage. ...

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History

Carried

Listen to me, you descendants of Jacob, all the remnant of the people of Israel, you whom I have upheld since your birth, and have carried since you were born. Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you. (Isaiah 46:3-4) Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. (Isaiah 53:4a) ***** Around the year 1000, on a low-lying mountain and near to a trade route, a castle was built. Named Weinsberg Castle, it was situated in what is known today as Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Along the right bank of the Rhine, the area abutted Germany’s largest continuous forest, the Black Forest. It also boasted beautiful valleys and small lakes. Fruit was grown in these valleys and the region had a delightful profusion of vineyards. Weinsberg is, after all, translated as “wine mountain.” The rich, well-drained soil on its sides, plunges roots solidly and deeply downward to seek water. The vines, consequently, produce well-nourished grapes. Truly a wonderful piece of property and a pleasure to visit. The Castle of Weinsberg does not stand on that mountain any longer, although if you were to pass along a nearby road, you could climb up and visit its ruins. There is a story about the importance of power, wealth and fame touching Weinsberg. It is a good story! Feudal feuding In the 1100s, two rival families in Europe were engaged in a feud. The names of these two families, were Welf and Hohenstaufen. Rather like the American Hatfield vs. McCoy disagreement, ongoing power struggles and quarrelling had long taken place in the Weinsberg Castle area. It was not always comfortable or safe to live in the shadow of this beautiful fortress. The Castle of Weinsberg, and its small surrounding town, belonged to the house of Welf, with Welf VI as its head. Conrad III was the head of the Hohenstaufen faction. In 1138, anger came to a head for the two families due to the fact that Conrad III had just been elected the new Holy Roman Emperor, rather than Welf VI. Bloodshed rather than reconciliation loomed on the horizon. It appeared as if Conrad III, who laid siege to Weinsberg Castle in 1140, might triumph. But the small town and its castle stood firm. The house of Welf were an obstinate lot who refused to buckle, much to Conrad’s irritation. Seemingly, relief appeared on the horizon for the Welf family. A relative was marching to their aid with an army at his side. However, the tide turned as this army was crushed by Conrad. The siege of Weinsberg continued and turned out to be a brutal and protracted affair. Conrad III's forces employed a range of tactics to wear down the city's defenses. His army, comprised of heavily armored knights and skilled archers, surrounded the city, totally cutting off the castle’s supply lines, and blocking escape routes. Despite the defenders' valiant efforts, the relentless pressure eventually took its toll, and the once-formidable walls of Weinsberg Castle began to crumble. The Welfs, whose ancestry could be traced back to Charlemagne (747-814), the first Holy Roman Emperor, were a proud family. By all rights, they should have conceded the battle. But they did not. Conrad, angered by their obstinacy, vowed that he would make Castle Weinsberg an example to all his enemies. He sent this ultimatum to them: “Unless you surrender, I am going to demolish the city, burn your houses and put you all to the sword.” A boon granted The citizens were, at this point, filled with terror and despair. Supplies were scarce and starvation hung in the air. The men of Weinsberg, knowing that further fighting was futile, sent a reply to the angry besieger. They asked for a pardon. But Conrad was inflexible at this point. He had been offended by the length of the siege, and it had rubbed him the wrong way. Then he received another message from the castle: “We are not afraid to die and we are ready to continue fighting. We are even prepared to see the castle destroyed and our houses burned; but we are not prepared to see our women die. So, we beg that their lives be spared and that they be allowed to leave the castle.” Conrad granted this request. And, perhaps suddenly struck by some compassion, he permitted an extra boon for the wives as well. Not only would he allow them to leave the castle unmolested, but he would also give them approval to carry out their most precious possession. But he stipulated that this possession had to be carried by them – carried without the help of carts or animals. When Conrad’s message was read out loud in the town square, all the men nodded soberly. They agreed to his conditions and were happy their wives would be spared. The Weinsberg women, including Welf VI’s wife, Uta, had also been listening to the message. Uta, at the time of her marriage to Welf, had been one of the richest heiresses in Germany. A wealthy, respected woman, she left the square solemnly, Conrad’s message ringing in her ears. Then she assembled with all the women of Weinsberg. Together they gravely and rationally conferred with one another, and they came to a decision about what they would carry out – about what their most treasured possession was. Total agreement The next morning, the gates of Weinsberg Castle were thrown wide open for the departure of the duchess and the other women, who would take, so it was thought, money and provisions for the journey ahead to safe territory. But Conrad III, and his army, were taken aback at what came through the gates. The first woman to appear was the Duchess Uta, and, on her shoulders, she bore her husband, Welf VI. Behind her came all the other women. Some of them, like Uta, carried their husbands; others carried parents, children, or sickly relatives on their backs. Disregarding jewelry and personal safety, but counting loyalty and love for their husbands and others as their most precious possessions, the women bore fellow citizens on their shoulders. It was not an easy physical feat and it was one that might have been unacceptable to Conrad. As a matter of fact, Duke Friedrich, Conrad’s brother, commented disapprovingly that such things should not be allowed. The king, however, with a certain amount of admiration, showed favor to the women's cunning, and replied that it would not be fitting to change one’s royal word. He honored his agreement despite the fact that he had not foreseen the result. The siege ended peacefully and the castle was later renamed Schloss Weibertreu, which means “castle of women’s faith,” symbolizing the bravery and loyalty of those women. Another man Although this story warms hearts and illustrates bravery, affection and compassion, there is a story, another story, which is greater and filled with more grace and love for saving family, than even these women were able to give. This other story involves a man who, although he was of princely dynasty, did not have a particularly regal appearance. He was not popular either. The truth is that he was mocked by most. He was neither respected nor wanted. He did not impress his opponents. As a matter of fact, you could go so far as to say that he was despised and rejected by people. Yet, despite his high disapproval rating (even his few friends forsook him), this man walked freely, alone and of his own accord, towards a battlefield. This battlefield was a vineyard and it was called Gethsemane. Filled with dying branches, it was being besieged by the “god of this world,” by the “prince of the power of the air” – by the most hideous and evil host that ever was on earth. Incredibly, the man’s goal was to fight a battle by himself against this horrendous horde. Why? So that he could carry his family to safety away from this murderous throng. In the darkness of the blackest of nights, the besieging army, carrying torches, spears and staves, met the solitary man. And the man, walking boldly towards them, asked this opposing army a question. Twice he asked the same question: “Whom do you seek?” When he was told that he was the one whom they wanted, the man answered by giving these amazing words of creation, redemption, and comfort: “I am he. So, if you seek me, let these men go.” The voice of that man, the voice of Truth, echoes and resounds: “Let these men, let my people, go.” Ecce Homo. What the Man said then, is true today and will be true tomorrow. Jesus knows His people. They are part of His family. They are the branches in His vineyard, and He is the vine. They are a people freed, a people let go and they are His own. And He knows them even though they might be old and have gray hairs. His care extends beyond time and He carries them with love and purpose, even through extremely difficult and besieged times. He bears them in their griefs and He carries them in their sorrows, carries them to a heavenly mansion which He has prepared for them....

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Assorted

The definition of patience

Patience. It’s a word we would never bother looking up in the dictionary because we already understand its meaning. But sometimes a well-known word ...
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News

Saturday Selections – Feb. 7, 2026

Is the Church the true Israel? It's R.C. Sproul vs. John MacArthur in the epic rap battle that they surely must have had at one of those Ligonier con...
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Theology

Proverbs: a different sort of devotional

“Do you have a devotional that you would recommend?” I get asked this question in various forms from time to time, and I think my answer someti...
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Book Reviews, Children’s fiction

Britfield & the Lost Crown

by C.R Stewart 2019 / 383 pages Rating: GOOD Tom is a 12-year-old orphan living in Oliver Twist kind of conditions, though this story is set in m...
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Christian education - Sports, Theology

God and the 2014-15 Seattle Seahawks

All about God’s sovereignty, Man’s free will, and American football ***** When the editor suggested I write a piece about American Football, I was a little taken aback. Firstly, this did seem like an odd subject for a magazine like Reformed Perspective. “But still,” I thought, “I suppose we can hardly claim on the one hand that Christ is Lord over all of life, then on the other hand rule American Football as being off-limits.” The second reason was even more fundamental. I’m a Brit. And not a Brit that has any love, let alone knowledge of American Football. In fact, I’ll put my cards on the table right now: the game has about as much fascination for me as the game of cricket probably has to the average US Football fan – that is to say none whatsoever. So I was relieved as I read through the editor’s request to find that the American Football bit was somewhat incidental, and I was not being asked to spend hours watching old Giants vs. 49ers games on YouTube. Rather, the request was to try and make some sort of sense of comments made by Russell Wilson, the Seattle Seahawks quarterback, after his side’s victory over the Green Bay Packers in January (2015), which sent Seattle to the Superbowl. The most improbable of comebacks For those not familiar with what happened, with less than four minutes left in the game and trailing 19-7, the Seahawks staged a dramatic recovery, tying the game to take it into overtime, before going on to win 28-22. What was especially amazing was that the Seahawks’ quarterback, Russell Wilson, went from playing one of the worst games of his life, throwing four interceptions, to scoring three touchdowns in the game’s final 6 minutes. Wilson then caused a stir with his post-match comments when he was asked to explain how his team has gone from being down and out without any hope to being victorious a few minutes later: "That's God setting it up, to make it so dramatic, so rewarding, so special." Of course, this set the whole Twittersphere afluttering with many ridiculing his claim. It also set off a series of articles on the web with titles like, “Does God play a role in picking the winning team?” What are our options? So what should we make of Wilson’s comments? I think we have to break our answer into two parts, one of which deals with the general question of God’s relationship with His creation, and the other which deals with the more specific question of whether He intervened in this particular instance. The first and more general question is basically a question about the nature of God’s sovereignty, and I think the best way to look at this is to examine all the other possible answers that could have been given as to whether God really did intervene to make the match so dramatic. These positions are: God has nothing to do with Seattle Seahawks games because there is no God. God has nothing to do with Seattle Seahawks games because He does not deal directly with the created order. Although God is sovereign, He has nothing to do with Seattle Seahawks games because He could care less about US Football. God has everything to do with Seattle Seahawks games, foreordaining their results, and so when Wilson threw his interceptions, that was because of God’s direct “interception.” God has everything to do with Seattle Seahawks games, foreordaining their results, yet he does so in such a way that does not involve the kind of direct intervention Wilson suggests We can further categorize these positions as follows: God is in control of nothing because he is not there (Atheistic). God created the universe, winding it up like a watch, and then left it to its own devices (Deistic) God has created the universe, but He is only interested in “spiritual things” (Pietistic) God is sovereign and controls everything that happens, to the extent that no-one has free will (Ultra Sovereignty) God is sovereign and is involved in everything, yet in such a way that man has liberty to act and to make choices (Sovereignty) Narrowing it down I trust that readers of Reformed Perspective can see that both the first two positions are highly illogical, not to mention unbiblical. It is highly illogical to believe that something came from nothing – and by that I really mean nothing: no time, no space, no matter – not to mention also believing that the something was then capable of organizing and sustaining itself into an amazingly complex order. It is also highly irrational to believe that a creator would go to the trouble of creating an amazingly complex order, only to walk away with total disinterest, leaving it to itself. What of position three? It actually turns out to be quite odd, since it refutes the very claim it makes. Those who hold to this position tend to be loud about the “sovereignty of God,” yet they then extend this sovereignty to include about 0.000000001% of the universe that God created. Well, if God is sovereign, He is sovereign over all creation and so the idea that He cares nothing for certain parts of His creation – especially “physical things” – is a denial of His sovereignty. What of positions four and five? They actually share many things in common. Both agree that God is sovereign over all things, including Seattle Seahawks games. Both agree that God foreordains the results of Seahawks games. Both agree that God upholds all the players involved and without this the game could not have been played, let alone played out so dramatically. Yet the difference is that whilst the fourth point understands this to mean that God controls everything, down to the last interception, and so basically micromanages His creation, which seems to me to be closer to Greek fatalism than biblical Christianity, the fifth view understands this in a way that retains God’s sovereignty, but also insists on man’s “free will.” Personally I take the fifth view to be the correct one. Free will?!? I realize that this might spook some readers. “We don’t have free will,” some might say, “as we lost it in the Fall.” My response is as follows. What we lost when Adam sinned was communion with God, righteousness, holiness and spiritual life, so that we need to be saved, and have no free will to choose salvation. We are by nature dead in trespasses and sins – as dead spiritually as Lazarus in the grave was physically – and as you know, dead people can’t bring themselves to life. However, this is not the same as saying that we lost our ability to make choices in all other areas of life, though of course those choices will be dictated by our sinful hearts. So as I sit here typing, did God foreordain it? Yes. Am I doing it out of free will? Yes. This seems impossible and counter-intuitive, but then He is an "impossible and counter-intuitive" God. Here is how chapter three of the Westminster Confession puts it: "God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established." This is a grand and frankly amazing statement. The God it presents is infinitely bigger than our imaginations can grasp. Look at it like this. Can you imagine a God who sets up the world and then gives perfect free will to his creatures so that He doesn’t know what is going to happen next and can’t control it? Yes, I can easily imagine Him. What about a God who unchangeably ordains whatsoever comes to pass, and does so by micro-managing every single detail to the nth degree? Yep, I can get my head around Him too. But what about a God who unchangeably ordains whatsoever comes to pass, yet does so without infringing on the liberty of His creatures to make choices of their own “free will”? I must confess that I am unable to comprehend such a God, or to understand how this is possible, but then again I have no understanding of how a universe can be spoken into existence either, or how the eternal Son of God can become a baby. Such things are too high for me, and I accept them by faith. What I am suggesting is that God is neither a deist God who is uninvolved in His creation, nor a pietistic God who is sovereign over a tiny portion of His creation, nor is He a micromanager who manages every aspect of it in the kind of minute details we understand by micromanaging. Rather, He is in sovereign control, upholds everything by the Word of His mouth, foreordains all things, yet does so in such a way that He is not in the business of micromanaging Russell Wilson’s passes. Conclusion But moving on to the second question, couldn’t He do that if He wanted? Doesn’t God intervene in His creation? Of course He does, and the Bible is full of instances of His interventions in human affairs. But the question is not whether He can intervene, but rather did He intervene in this specific instance? The question here hinges to a large extent on just how much priority God puts on the results of American Football games. Now as someone who upholds the sovereignty of God in everything, and the Lordship of Christ over everything, I understand that God cares about all of His creation and this includes American Football. But is this the same as saying that He cares about it to the extent that He is prepared to intervene to “change the result” and give the watching audience a good time? Emphatically no. Pietists (number three in the positions mentioned above) often want to reduce the things God cares about to “spiritual things” such as salvation, worship, prayer and Bible-reading, with everything else reduced to nought. Then over in the other ditch, there are others who want to flatten everything to make out that God cares for all things equally. This is not so. Just as we hierarchies of importance in our lives, it is fairly clear from the Bible that God has hierarchies of interest and importance. Yes, He is interested in American Football, in that He created the players, gave them the ability to play what is essentially a perfectly okay game (well cricket is better of course), and in that He calls on man to do things with all their might and for the glory of God. However, this is not the same as saying that He is interested enough in it to intervene in a game to make the game more exciting and give everyone a good time (except of course for Green Bay fans). In conclusion, though God cares about His entire creation, and though He ordained the surprising events and the result in the match between the Seahawks and Green Bay Packers, I think Russell Wilson would have a hard time making a Scriptural case that God intervenes directly in such matters. This was originally published in the March 2015 issue under the title "God and the Seahawks."...

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RP is looking for a Managing Editor!

Are you looking for a meaningful and long-term career where you can devote your time to equipping Christians to think, speak, and act like Christ? With thankfulness to God, the Reformed Perspective Foundation is looking to expand our team and mission with a significant new role: MANAGING EDITOR (FULL TIME) This new role will serve as the operational backbone of the team. He or she will keep all of RP’s content moving seamlessly from start to finish. A key function will be to ensure content is published in a timely way and blesses as many people as possible through a variety of mediums. Depending on qualifications and experience, we also welcome assistance with creating content (e.g. journalism or video production). The goal for the successful candidate is to work towards serving as the “integrator” for the RP team, as modeled in the Entrepreneur Operating System (EOS). He or she will help enable RP to achieve our long-term goal of expanding our reach to the USA, Australia, and the broader Christian community in Canada. We are looking for someone who is: Excited about devoting their life to advance our core purpose (helping Christians to think, speak, and act in Christ); Is fully committed to furthering our core values: Biblical: faithful to God’s Word and the Reformed confessions; Inspiring: a catalyst for action and a connecting to hearts Real: applying God’s Word to the nitty gritty of life Celebratory: Christ is LORD and has already won! Very organized and efficient; Excellent with utilizing technology; Comfortable with managing the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS); A great communicator, including with people who work remotely; Friendly and kind while being able to ensure things get done; Self-motivated; Humble; Looking to serve long-term (ideally a minimum of 5 years). The position will report to the Executive Editor, Mark Penninga. Duties will include: Work towards managing the RP team processes/systems, including running meetings and ensuring goals are being tracked and met; Ensure content submissions are received, thanked, and followed-up; Schedule content deadlines; Assigns tasks and deadlines to writers, editors, designers, and fact-checkers and ensure they are kept; Develops creative ways to make content go further through new technology and other mediums (electronic, audio, video, etc.); Oversee roll-out of contests/presentations/conferences (to fit with organizational schedule); Tracks analytics of all content; As much as possible, proactively guard the organization from censorship and similar challenges; Depending on qualifications, assist with content production (writing, podcasting, video production, etc.). Salary/wage: Open to negotiation and in-keeping with industry standards. Location: Our office in Smithers, BC. Deadline for applications: August 15 (We will keep the position open till it is filled. We reserve the right to not fill the position or to extend the deadline). Requirements: Must be a member in good standing of a confessional Reformed church in Canada or the US (a church that upholds the Three Forms of Unity or Westminster Standards). Six month trial period required. Interested? To apply, please send an application to RP’s Executive Director Mark Penninga ([email protected]). Please include a resume, at least two references (including an elder or pastor), and a letter introducing yourself and explaining your qualifications for the position....

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History

Our heroes have feet of clay

You find them everywhere. They’re the people we look up to. They sing, they dance, they play hockey, they win battles and they found nations. They’re our heroes. You know the people: George Washington, Wayne Gretzky, Winston Churchill, or Ginger Rogers. They’re larger than life figures that do larger than life things flawlessly. We want to be like them. Unless you’re Canadian. When an Internet poll asked Canadians who their heroes were some of the results were predictable, like Terry Fox, but there were also a few less likely individuals. Don’t misunderstand: these people did some incredible things and were certainly larger than life. However, they were also hopelessly flawed. John A. One man who topped the list was Canada’s first prime minister, Sir John A Macdonald. It is to Sir John A. that much of the credit goes for the founding of the Dominion of Canada in 1867. He helped pull together a disparate bunch of English Canadian Reformers and Tories and united them with French Canadian Bleus. Then he got the British to bully Nova Scotia and New Brunswick into a grand confederation of colonies that formed the nucleus of the present day Canada. While that’s impressive, Canadians know Sir John A. in a more intimate way than that. You see, as most Canadians are aware, Sir John was bounced from office in 1873 for the Pacific Railway Scandal that involved suggestions of bribes, patronage, and all kinds of corruption. Additionally, the prime minister was a habitual drunkard. It was no secret for he bragged about his drinking, yet Canadians forgave him, returning him and his party to office in 1878. There are other unusual Canadians as well. William Lyon Mackenzie King made the list of heroes for his impressive job of shepherding Canada through the Second World War. If that doesn’t sound impressive, keep in mind that when Prime Minister Borden tried to guide the country during the previous world war, he succeeded in alienating French speaking Quebec, and much of the farming population, as well as accidentally splitting the opposition Liberal party in two. King kept peace and tranquillity, while Borden created a political crisis that threatened to undo Canada. Though a master politician, Canadians were aware of King’s oddities, including consulting with mediums, and talking to his dead dog – stuffed and sitting on the mantle. Rebel Riel Louis Riel was also on the list of heroes. While the man who initiated the only rebellions Canada has ever had may seem an odd choice as a hero, to many Western Canadians Riel is exactly that. With his rebellions at Red River and then in the North West Territories, Riel was probably the first Westerner that ever made “the East” sit up and take notice, and to perpetually alienated Westerners, that makes Riel a hero. However, Riel was a religious fanatic, believing himself a prophet and in communication with God. He had spent time in a mental asylum, and at the time of the 1885 Rebellion may have actually been mentally unbalanced. E is for equal rights...and also eugenics In its heroes, Canada is an equal opportunity employer. One of the most significant women to make the list was Emily Murphy. A successful writer under the pen name Janey Canuck, a Member of the Canadian Parliament, the first female police magistrate in the British Empire, and a participant in the landmark “Persons Case” that gave Canadian women legal status as people, Murphy has had her reputation tarnished in recent years. The United Farmers government of the province of Alberta enacted the Sexual Sterilization Act in 1928 that allowed for the sterilization of the mentally incompetent and others unfit to parent. This version of eugenics, repugnant to most modern Canadians, was strongly backed by the otherwise progressive and reform-minded Murphy. Conclusion Canadians choices for heroes have been odd. The less savory facts behind the lives of most of Canada’s heroes are well known and thoroughly documented, but Canadians picked these people anyway. Someone once told me that you can’t tell an American something bad about their heroes. They don’t want to know about George Washington’s dismal military record as a British lieutenant, and they won’t listen if you tell them that Thomas Jefferson had slaves on his plantation. They certainly don’t want to hear any suggestions that Martin Luther King cheated on his wife, or may have plagiarized his dissertation. But Canadians are different. They know the weaknesses of their heroes and accept them for that. The Bible also contains some unusual heroes, “heroes of faith” like Noah, Abraham, and Rahab. Noah got drunk, Abraham denied that Sarah was actually his wife, and Rahab was a prostitute. These were flawed people, but by God’s strength, they were allowed incredible moments and even years to do deeds that we still remember today. We look back at them, and we look up to them for those deeds. Heroes are not flawless people. They make mistakes, but that doesn’t negate the good that they’ve been allowed to do. That doesn’t mean we can’t look up to them, but it does mean we can’t idolize them. It’s healthy to know that even great women and men have feet of clay, for it reminds us who is ultimately in control.  James Dykstra is both a student and teacher of Canadian history. This article was first published in June 2017....

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News

Court rules that Emergencies Act against “Freedom Convoy” was unlawful

Four years ago, in February 2022, Canada’s federal government invoked the Emergencies Act for the first time since it was enacted back in 1988, granting itself extraordinary power to break up the truckers’ convoy that assembled in Ottawa and elsewhere to protest Covid policies. By invoking the Act, the government received the power to prohibit citizens from assembling, as well as freeze bank accounts of those involved in the protests, and even ban and freeze crowdfunding, among other measures. In January of this year, the country’s Federal Court of Appeal made a unanimous decision, agreeing with the lower court ruling from 2024, that the government had not been legally justified to making use of the Emergencies Act. The court ruled that the protests “fell well short of a threat to national security.” The court also found there simply wasn’t sufficient evidence to back up the government’s claim that the convoy posed a threat of serious violence. “When all these legal and factual considerations are taken into account, we fail to see how the could ‘reasonably believe’ that a threat to national security existed at the time the decision to invoke the Act was made.” This decision is a good example of why civil governments need checks and balances on themselves, given our sinful human condition, and particularly a check on the age-old thirst for more power. The legislative and executive branches require the accountability and safeguards that are supposed to come from the Constitution, through the oversight of the judicial branch. For Christians, obeying the Romans 13 command to “be subject to the governing authorities” isn’t as simple as submitting to whatever the Prime Minister or Governor General orders in a given moment. In this case, it was the Prime Minister and Governor General that were acting illegally, and not the private citizens – the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the Canadian Constitution Foundation, among others – who successfully challenged them in court....

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News

Saturday Selections – Jan. 31, 2026

Reformed and Dangerous's Christ is King A little harder rocking than some of us might be used to, but the fire in the music is a match for the power ...
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Entertainment

You might relate to Mary Bennet, but you’re not supposed to imitate her
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Christian education

Where has all the creativity gone?

Education needs to be about great books and great ideas... **** "Is This the Worst-Ever Era of American Pop Culture?" That was the question asked by...
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Family, Movie Reviews

The InBESTigators

Children's show / TV 2019-2020 / 15 minutes x 40 episodes RATING: 9/10 Ava, Maudie, Ezra, and Kyle are four fifth graders with a knack for solvin...
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News

Saturday Selections – Jan. 24, 2026

Why does Denmark own Greenland? (3 min) Lots of talk going on about Greenland as of late. Here's a quick primer on how Greenland came to be Danish... Samuel Sey: Is my "interracial" marriage against God's design? Some are trying to find truth by reacting off liars on the Left. So, for example, when the woke Left says headship is a wrong that must be righted, the response from some is, not to go to God's Word, but to fall off the other side of the horse committing an equal and opposite sin – they become domineering husbands who pretend their wives are children. And this interracial question seems to be a weird response to the Left's elevation of blacks as victims who must always be deferred to. In reaction, some are turning into whites-only racists, and worse yet, doing so while calling themselves Christians. The lesson, then, is to go to God, rather than react. And anyone who went to God's Word would find that there is no such thing as different races. We are all children of the same parents, Adam and Eve. So "interracial" marriage isn't wrong because it isn't even possible. Does Tylenol cause autism? Trump made that claim some months back and while some seem to think the surest source of truth is simply to run with the very opposite of what the US president has tweeted, no one is that reliably wrong. But a new study does conclude he was indeed wrong this time. Court rules Trudeau was wrong to use the Emergency Measures Act against the truckers  This is the second legal loss in a row for the former PM. Canada's killing-as-care regime finally got this mother's son A young man who was previously saved from his approved euthanasia plans 4 years ago wasn't as fortunate this time. An abortionist who will kill adults too put him to death in December... legally it seems, even before Parliament has approved killing the mentally ill. If murder is medicine, then what argument can be had for withholding this medicine?  The only counter to such thinking is telling the Christian truth that our lives are not our own. No other hedge or restriction or speed bump will work. We need the full Gospel truth delivered to people who are dying for want of it. Choice42 with a brutal reality we've all forgotten WARNING: This is animated, so some of the brutality is muted. But the sheer horror of what it recounts might be too much for some, so viewers beware... and don't watch this with your younger kids around. In the lead up to the March for Life, the Trump administration announced they'd stop using the remains of aborted children for medical research. Many vaccines have been developed using the remains of fetuses, so this is a welcome move. But is it really all that problematic if we use vaccines so developed? Many of the remains used were from children murdered decades ago, as this video below highlights. So should we still be concerned? There are medical procedures in use today that were developed via torturous Nazi experimentation but does the unethical means by which they were discovered mean we can't use them? One example is treatments for hypothermia, derived by Nazis deliberately freezing their victims before testing out various ways of treating them. Can we today not use the best means of treating hypothermia just because a Nazi discovered it via immoral means? Many and maybe most would say, yes we can still make use of the Nazi research, even with how wickedly it was produced. But the difference between using vaccines derived from butchered unborn children and using research derived from Nazi torture is that no one today is trying to justify further Nazi torture. No one is saying, "The Nazi research methods worked, so we should do more of it." But medical experimentation on embryos is ongoing, and used as a means of appeasing parents who would otherwise have to go to the expense of freezing their "extra" embryos or the guilt of "disposing" of them. Instead they can "donate" them to scientific research. The Nazi Holocaust is over and recognized for the evil it was. The unborn holocaust continues, and medical research on the unborn is just one more justification for it. So how do we address the moral dilemma parents face when it comes time to vaccinate our children? I don't have a great answer. I can share the unsatisfactory approach we used – we sought out vaccines that weren't derived from fetal remains. And when that wasn't possible – there isn't much demand, so there isn't much supply – we did use the tainted vaccines, but then also sought to advance the production of fetal-free vaccines by making a donation to a group doing that work. ...

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Theology

#3 - The unknown Commandment

“You shall not take the Name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His Name in vain.” – Exodus 20:7 ***** It takes just a quick flip through the TV channels to find someone using God’s name in vain. CLICK! An old Friends rerun, and there’s Phoebe using it as a synonym for “okay!” CLICK! A few channels further one of Doctor Who's companions is using God’s name instead of exclaiming “oh no!” CLICK! On the sports channel a commentator decides that “Wow!” just doesn’t suffice. Yes, it’s easy to find people using God’s name in vain, but it’s hard to figure out why they do it. It doesn’t make sense. While TV writers and producers regularly offend viewers, they rarely do so without reason. In a show like Game of Thrones, for example, the producers show a steady diet of sex and violence, knowing it will offend some viewers. But even as Christians are turning off the program, countless others are tuning in for the sex and sleaze. So TV producers are willing to offend, as long as it get them more viewers than it loses. That’s why it’s hard to understand why anyone swears on TV. Using God’s name in vain is sure to offend some viewers, but it’s doubtful anyone out there really watches a show for the swearing. So why do they do it? The same question could be asked in a number of other settings as well. Why is God’s name misused in newspapers, at the office, and in casual conversations? In many of these same settings the dialogue will be remarkably free from crudities – the f-word and others are strictly off limits. But God’s name is still open to abuse. Why? Ignorance isn’t bliss I’m convinced the answer is ignorance. God’s name is abused because Christians don’t object, and because we don’t object, TV scriptwriters, newspaper columnists and even our friends don’t realize that using God’s name in vain is offensive. They’re totally clueless. How clueless? Some years back, when I screwed up the courage to ask a teammate on my rec-league basketball team to stop swearing he was quite willing to oblige. So the next time he missed a shot, instead of stringing God’s name together with the word d--n (as was his usual habit) he restricted himself to just misusing God’s name. He knew d--n was a swear, so he stopped using it, but he continued using God’s name in vain because no one had ever told him it was offensive. Not everyone is this clueless, but it is surprising how many are. It is even more surprising how willing people are to accommodate a request not to swear. When our basketball team’s manager called an impromptu meeting about swearing everyone agreed to try and curtail it. (One player noted that a similar request had been made when he played college ball. Interestingly enough, on that team it wasn’t a Christian who had made the request, but a Mormon.) The non-Christians even had a bunch of questions about which words were more and less offensive. Many of them still swore afterwards, but it was a habit they were trying to break. And all we had to do was ask. How do you ask? The toughest part is the asking. How do you bring it up without sounding holier than thou? The manager on our basketball team took the straightforward approach. He announced that since there were a number of Christians on the team, we would appreciate it if people didn’t swear using God’s name. He said it, everyone agreed, and it was done with. He made it look so very simple. And it should be simple. Not easy, mind you; as simple as it looked, he was the only Christian on the team to actually get up and say what needed to be said. It still takes courage. One of my aunts uses a rather different technique. When someone misuses God’s name while talking with her, she interrupts and asks, “Are you praying?” This generally prompts a very puzzled reply, something to the effect of, “What? Why would you think I was praying?” “Because you just mentioned God’s name, and since we weren’t talking about God, well, why else would you be mentioning God? Or were you just using God’s name for emphasis? Maybe you don’t know, but using God’s name like that is very offensive to Christians, and to God Himself. Please don’t do that.” A friend has written to a popular newspaper columnist who blasphemed. He alerted her to the offensive part of her column and then continued: …many people don't know this, but the way you used God's name there would actually be a violation of the third commandment - You shall not take the Name of the Lord your God in vain. Obviously it would be fine to use God's name if you actually were addressing Him, but in this instance you used it more like an expletive, or as a way to emphasize your point. I know that columnists don't seek to offend without purpose (sometimes they do so with purpose, but that is part of the job) so I thought I would make you aware of this, and ask you to please be careful about it in the future. Thank-you. The columnist never replied but, in the days and weeks that followed, did not abuse God's name again. Conclusion Not everyone is going to honor a request to stop swearing. Some will swear just to tick us off. But our friends and neighbors will care. Employees will listen, if only to cozy up to the boss. Waiters will want nice tips. TV scriptwriters want us to watch their shows. All these people have reasons to listen to what we like and don’t like. We don’t like it when they use God’s name in vain, so let’s let them know. This article was first published in July 2018....

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Adult fiction, Book Reviews

Sincerely, Stoneheart

by Emily Wilson Hussem 2025 / 240 pages Rating: GOOD/Great/Gift I can’t find my car keys! Can you relate to this panicked searching? If you don’t find your keys, you’ll be late for your appointment. Your kids are screaming at the door and you feel your self-control slipping as you flip pockets inside out and tear cushions off the couch. All the while, your keys are in your back pocket. In her book, Sincerely, Stoneheart, Emily Wilson Hussem relates this missing key experience to how many Christian women live: frantically searching for their identity, forgetting that God calls them his beloved. Hussem writes in the same flavour as CS Lewis’ Screwtape Letters – letters written fictitiously from a senior demon, named Stoneheart, to his apprentice Belphegora (a demon of sloth, distraction and false promises of wealth). The letters are about how best to lure a female subject living in today’s world away from the Enemy. Reading from this angle takes some mental alertness. For believers, “the Enemy” is their Heavenly Father. This and other positive vocabulary need to be flipped, as the believing reader digests the temptations communicated by the demon. However, this mental exercise helps one examine one’s heart. These letters illuminate where you may be giving the Devil a foothold. As the book’s subtitle reads, Sincerely, Stoneheart helps readers “unmask the enemy’s lies,” and, “find the truth that sets you free.” Hussem covers over 40 topics including: appearances, possessions, accomplishments and titles. One I found convicting was her noting that a woman scrolling through social media on her phone was in a remarkably similar posture to a child of God praying. How many times have I turned to my phone to answer a question or fill a heart longing, instead of sincerely praying to my Creator with folded hands? The topics covered best relate to an educated Christian wife and mother of young children but would apply in part to Christian women at large. The author’s heart is for women to embrace God’s unique gift of femininity and to have hearts at rest in their identity of being God’s beloved. By abiding in this relationship with God, through prayer and scripture reading, women can find healing for their past hurts, live abundantly in the present, and entrust their future to Him. This book is easy to read in small chunks and even out of order, making it approachable to moms familiar with interruptions. A study guide is also available. It could be used for personal reflection or a group study. It would also be helpful to husbands, fathers, pastors and elders who desire to understand the spiritual warfare many young woman face. Use this book to help you pray Ezekiel 36:26: “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”...

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Assorted

In Christ

The antidote to works righteousness and the anxiety, exhaustion, and resentment that comes with it. ***** I used to enjoy rock climbing. At least, I thought I did. If you’ve tried it, you know what it feels like to be 50 feet up a cliff, clutching any hold thicker than the edge of a loonie. I would normally “top-rope,” which involved my brother belaying from the bottom and the rope running through a carabiner at the top and back down to my harness. If I fell, my brother ensured that I wouldn’t fall far. But there were occasions when we couldn’t get a rope to the top and would have to “lead climb.” The climber would take the rope up as he climbed, and, using carabiners and a sling, secure it to bolts that were drilled into the cliff, usually about every 10 feet. So, if you climbed 10 feet past a bolt and were almost at the next one, you knew that a fall at that point would send you, not just to the next bolt, but 10 feet beyond it. Even if the belayer was holding the rope firmly, he couldn’t stop you from falling 20 feet! You were on your own. Even if my mind was willing, it was when I needed the most stability and strength that my body would sometimes rebel and stiffen or shake uncontrollably. It wasn’t enough to be determined. My body didn’t cooperate with my mind. And then my mind would soon lose faith. As much as I wanted it, there was no way I could simply will myself into being able to do this – there was going to be no summit. And if I insisted on trying, there may have even been a painful fall. Lead-climbing life In many ways, the same has been true of my effort to live as a Christian. Perhaps you can identify. From our youth we are urged to “become like Christ.” WWJD or “What would Jesus do?” is ringing in many ears. Perhaps it is a Bible passage like “I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me” (Phil. 3:14) or maybe a doctrine we were instructed in, such as our calling to be a prophet, priest, and king (Lord’s Day 12, Heidelberg Catechism). The underlying message we hear from many pulpits, classrooms, and dinner tables is “you confess to being a Christian, now act like it!” Throughout my life, I have been trying to make progress towards the LORD. One foot hold at a time, I have been striving to overcome fear and failure and make it to the summit. But like my twitching body on the cliff, I have been humbled time and again. As much as I willed to make progress, my body was weak. “Step it up, Mark!” I told myself time and again. As I shared in a previous article on anxiety, eventually I burnt out. I got to the point where I felt like I could barely move, let alone summit anything. It is a horrible feeling to be a father, husband, and leader, and yet incapable of basic functioning. That was about 8 years ago. My journey with understanding anxiety and stress has been ongoing, and I have been blessed with many helpful resources. But beneath it all I have discovered a spiritual root – I was trying to earn God’s favor, to measure up, to prove my status as His child. Yes, I understand what grace means, and I’m convinced that I can be justified only by faith alone, in Christ alone. I’ve clipped my rope into these spiritual truths again and again, and then tried to keep climbing up, towards the summit. But it doesn’t take long before I’m weary, restless, or anxious again. Then I’m left shaking on the side of the cliff. It has taken me too long to realize the answer has been close at hand all my life. It is captured in many places in Scripture, including: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Rom. 8:1) “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” (Gal. 2:20) “...to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” (Eph. 4:22-24) “For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” (Gal. 3:26-27) The theme of being “in Christ” is immersed throughout the New Testament. When Paul refers to himself, he doesn’t call himself a Christian. Rather, he calls himself a “man in Christ” (2 Cor. 12:2). Christ himself draws this out in John 15 when He describes how He is the true vine and we are branches. “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” (John 15:4). The branch doesn’t grow itself and then find a vine or branch to attach itself to and form a partnership with. We find our life wholly in Christ. He initiates the growth, He sustains with His life-giving water, and He carries us through the winds and storms of life. “Jesus does not call us to mimic him but to manifest Him,” explains Steve Cuss, in his book Managing Leadership Anxiety. In my leadership and writing, as well as my parenting, I have constantly gotten this wrong. And the challenges I see in the Christian community suggest that I’m the norm, not the exception. “Becoming like Christ is what God does in us, not what we do. God is the active agent; we are the recipients,” explains Cuss (emphasis added). But isn’t there something we need to do? Cuss points to Scripture and explains that our first task is something we aren’t usually that keen to do: to die to our old self (Rom. 6:6, Eph. 4:22-24, Col. 3:5-10). That includes the age-old propensity to purse these false needs: Control Perfection Always having the answer Being there for everyone in need Approval The truth is that these are attributes of God, not us. He is in control. He is perfect. He knows everything. He is there for everyone. And He give us our approval. As Steve Cuss explains, “anytime a human being tries to take on a God-sized job, we get reactive.” Feeling stressed lately? Perhaps, like me, you are trying to become like God rather than living in Christ. Like many other Christians, I have spent much of my life trying to be faithful, while not experiencing the peace that Christ promises us when we abide in Him. Reformed Perspective’s core purpose Every healthy organization should have a clearly-articulated reason for being. At our December board meeting, the board of Reformed Perspective settled on this core purpose: Helping you think, speak, and act in Christ. This flows from our mission statement of “equipping and encouraging Christians to think, speak, and act in a manner consistent with their confession.” But hopefully you can also distinguish the nuance of the last two words. Instead of encouraging Christians to “step it up” by living in line with what we confess, the new focus is on thinking, speaking, and acting in Christ. We think, speak, and act not to become like Christ. Rather, like a branch that produces fruit, our good works happen because we are connected to the Vine. We already are in Christ. We already are accepted. We already are loved. I don’t have to climb toward God’s favor. I don’t have to fear my next slip and fall. Christ has already summitted for me and is holding me firmly while I complete my journey. We humbly invite you, our readers and listeners, to hold us accountable to our stated purpose, as we seek to assist you in thinking, speaking, and acting in Christ....

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