Who do you want to be like?

Recent headlines have paired Madonna with Alex Rodriguez in late-night romps that have ultimately allegedly ended the slugger’s marriage. I realize that this is just the latest example of how our heroes fall short and live lives that are less than model status. There are countless other examples of other sports heroes past and present who have had stellar careers, but less than stellar personal lives. In the beginning of this reflection, I would like to identify the athletes who have caused the offenses and provide examples.

Beginning with Rodriguez, he has recently been linked to Madonna in extra-marital affairs. Both Madonna and Rodriguez are married. Rodriguez’s wife, incidentally, is allegedly having an affair with Lenny Kravitz. You can read about this more at: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/05/arts/peepsat.php .

Here is my question. How many young kids have Yankees’ number 13 jerseys? How many have Alex Rodriguez posters on their wall? How many collect baseball cards and have stowed his away someplace safe because he is their favorite ball player? At what point do parents step up and say, “Son, based on how this guy lives his life, I am not sure he is one I want you to emulate.”

What about Kobe Bryant? How soon we forget that he raped (although acquitted) an employee in a Colorado hotel four years ago. It apparently was not pursued in trial because another man impregnated Bryant’s accuser before the trial was set to begin. So, Bryant got off the hook and is playing basketball free from worry again. How many wear Lakers’ #24 Jerseys or have posters of him on their walls?

Dare I go here: Michael Jordan might be the best athlete that ever played professional sports. One could argue that there was never nor will ever be anyone better to don a uniform. How much paraphernalia of his do we still have? Posters, books, videos, and cards fill our closets. How much did we worship him when he played? Did we not try to emulate him as a basketball player when we were kids? Did we not plaster our walls with posters of him? Did we not want to be like him? So many of us did that Gatorade made a song about it. Yet, did he not have a severe gambling problem? Maybe he still even does. Did he not try to cover up an extra marital affair? If you read The Jordan Rules, if I remember correctly, his teammates did not have the easiest time getting along with him either.

I could go on for pages upon pages, but the point is clear: those who we idolize fail us because they, like us, are human. We should try to emulate God and His Son, not sports stars, who are mere mortals, like ourselves. They, like us are born radically depraved, hating God (See Psalm 51:5, Genesis 6:5, Genesis 8:21, Jeremiah 17:9). They do not have to be taught how to have immoral, adulterous, covetous desires. They have them naturally and so do we. They are all liars (Psalm 116:11) and no liar can enter heaven (Revelation 21:8). Since they are covetous they cannot enter heaven (1 Corinthians 6:10). They have not put God first (Romans 3:11). They are pretty bad, huh? It might come as a surprise that you and I have all this (and more sinfulness) in common with these and other athletes. The only way their sinfulness can be forgiven is the same way yours and mine can be forgiven.

God has to awaken us to the state of our sinful condition. God the Father has to draw us sinners to His Son (Matthew 11:27, John 6:44), produce Godly sorrow over our sins (2 Corinthians 7:10, Matthew 5:4) that leads us to broken, humble repentance, which is absolutely essential for salvation (Matthew 4:17, Luke 13:3, Acts 17:30-31). When we realize our depraved, damned state, repent of (as if while you were living for your sin you were walking due South; living a life of repentance is walking from this point forward due North) our sins, God will give us a new, clean heart and new desires. (Ezekiel 36:26-27). Over time, we should notice evidences to our new life (1 John, Matthew 5-6). Then we should read our Bible daily and obey it. (Job 23:12). God will never let you down!

This used to be me. I was the one with my walls plastered, collecting the cards, taping the games, collecting a ton of useless artifacts, but God has done a work in me, cleansing me of my idols (Ezekiel 36:25), including sports. An idol is anything you put before God. You can make an idol with your hands or with your mind. I still have most of the stuff from my childhood, but I do not cling to it anymore, as I did then. I now have a fraction of what I used to have. Now, God is in more ways number one in my life. He will not have it any other way. You can try to convince yourself that your idolatry is not that bad today, but your arguments will not work with God.

Look at your life. Have you noticed patterns of idolatry in your own life? Maybe you thought of them as “no big deal,” but now you understand them to be what they are: idolatry. Examine yourself to see if you are in the faith (2 Corinthians 13:5). Does your style of life consistently match up with the standard of Holy Scripture? Or do you trivialize your sins? Does your lifestyle consistently condone what Scripture consistently condemns? Could you be one of those Jesus talked about in Matthew 7:21-23? Please make you calling and election sure today (2 Peter 1:10). You might not have tomorrow.

Andy

John MacArthur on Gay marriage

Here is a video from YouTube with Larry King interviewing Chad Allen and John MacArthur. If you ever saw the movie The End of the Spear, Chad Allen plays the missionary and he's gay in real life. It's called, "John MacArthur explains why sin is sin." It discusses whether or not someone can be born gay.


This one is called, "John MacArthur defines a family." It explains how a homosexual couple can't form a family.


This one is called, "John MacArthur explains why homosexually destroys families." The person who posted it did a typo, but that's what they labeled it if you want to find it on YouTube.


John MacArthur and John Piper discussing ministry and missions. It's called, "A discussion with John Piper and John Macarthur."

Discussion about recent highschool pregnancies

This blog was originally posted on June 19th our family website http://thebeshorefamily.blogspot.com .

As a Massachusetts high school has just released for summer vacation, seventeen high school students are pregnant. None of the students are older than sixteen years old. Apparently some of these girls had entered into an informal competition with each other reacting to the news of the upcoming baby with “high fives and plans for baby showers,” feeling “so excited to have someone to love them unconditionally.”

How should Christians react to news such as this? Unfortunately this is just the latest in a long list of catastrophes that has befallen a country that has forsaken the God of the Bible and His commands. Contemporary Christians will say things like, “let’s love on them and give them the help that they need.” In effect, they would try to put a band aid on a cut jugular vein, thinking that will help these teens. Adults who help these children are “proud to help the mothers stay in school,” when Biblically, these girls need to be taught they are fornicators and cannot inherit the kingdom of God as such (1 Corinthians 6:9). These girls need to be shown that they are walking on a very thin line that could snap and send them to hell in an instant. They need to know that “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness (including fornication and all the rest of the lawlessness that abounds this day and age) and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (Romans 1:18).

I find it interesting that so many “Christians” will try to hide these Biblical truths from offenders thinking that they are doing them a favor when in fact they “suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (Romans 1:18). Notice that suppression of truth is explicitly identified as the act of unrighteousness. If we call ourselves Christians and willfully decide to hide Biblical correction from those who are in desperate need of it, we are acting unrighteous, continuously walking in darkness. According to the apostle John, “If we say we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.(1 John 1:6)” Only “if we walk in the light as He is in the light, … the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin.(1 John 1:7)” If we continue to suppress God’s truth by trying to hide trivialize sin and fail to regard it as “exceedingly sinful” (Romans 7:13), our hearts become hard. When we let our hearts become hard by failing to recognize the seriousness of our sins, “you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render each according to his deeds” (Romans 2:5-6). If we are obedient to God’s truth, we are rendered “eternal life who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality.” (Romans 2:7)

I am trying to restore God’s glory and honor by writing this. Someone has to stick up for what is right in a society that has largely forsaken God. Back to what Paul says: “but to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth (italics mine), but obey unrighteousness (by willfully ignoring what God commands) - indignation and wrath, tribulation an anguish, on every soul who does evil,…” (Romans 2:9). This is how God will react to those who continue to willfully disobey his will. Is this not scary? It should be frightening, alarming, paralyzing! God should be feared! Professing Christians will say the opposite. The Bible, which so many professing Christians refuse to believe, repeatedly tells us that a Biblical fear of God is healthy (See Psalm 19:9, Matthew 10:28, Psalm 111:10, 2 Corinthians 5:11, Proverbs 3:7 for just a few).
Some readers may say I seem angry. I am! There is nothing wrong with righteous indignation! Jesus showed that to be true (Matthew 21:12-13).

So many professing Christians out there no doubt will disagree with me. I am not surprised in the least. It shows that they were false converts all along, which Jesus repeatedly taught would be separated on the Day of Judgment. They might hide their hypocrisy from the rest of the world, but will not be able to hide it from God (Matthew 7:21-23).

Back to the original text, adults in these girls’ lives are content to condone this behavior. The school nurse “administered some 150 pregnancy tests” at the school clinic and “began to advocate prescribing contraceptives.” The article concludes by saying that the school wants to provide contraceptives and that “no one’s offered them a better option.” Here’s a radical idea: Try telling the girls that if they died in their sins without realizing that God’s wrath abides upon them (John 3:36), they would be “without excuse” (Romans 1:20) because they have the law (which prohibits fornication -1 Corinthians 6:9) “written on their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness” (Romans 2:15). They know it is wrong. This extreme case only briefly describes the depth and breadth of their sinfulness (and yours and mine). They (like you and me) are on a collision course for hell. God has to show them their current, evil (Matthew 8:11 in the context of verses 7-11; ), defiled (Matthew 15:19-20, Romans 1:29-32) state like only He can (Matthew 11:25, 27).

They, like so many others need to repent (Acts 17:30, 31, Mathew 4:17, Luke 13:3). Repentance does not end in marrying the person with whom they slept to produce this baby. Repentance is a work wrought totally by God, primarily through the preaching of the Gospel (Romans 1:16). They need to see their sin for what it is: “exceedingly sinful” (Romans 7:13). That verse also says that sin is that way because it came “by the Commandment.” Fornication is a sub-command from the Seventh Commandment, which says, “You shall not commit adultery” (Exodus 20:14). They need to confess and forsake their sins (1 John 1:9) and place their faith in Jesus Christ alone in His finished work on the cross (Ephesians 2:8-9). Only then can they be saved, not by repeating a prayer and asking Jesus to come into their heart. Then they must read their Bible daily and obey it. It is the obedience, which is the result of the saving faith (Ezekiel 36:26-27) not the mere association by name with Christ, that will save them, that will show their love for Christ (John 14:21, John 21:15-19-emphasis on Peter’s obedience to Christ’s commands). If you read this and are not sure yourself of your salvation, please “examine yourself (2 Corinthians 13:5). Please do not be one of those Jesus described in Matthew 7:21-23 or that Paul described in Romans 1:24-32. Thank you for reading this.