With ten minutes remaining until the New Year, I turned to the Word of God. I dwelled in a couple of vintage favorites from 2004: Psalm 100 and 139. In the last minutes, I settled in with Psalm 37, my beloved passage in Scripture where I first sensed God speaking directly to me sometime around '01 or '02.

The clocked ticked to zero as I read these verses...

Mark the blameless and behold the upright,
for there is a future for the man of peace.
But transgressors shall be altogether destroyed;
the future of the wicked shall be cut off.

The salvation of the righteous is from the Lord;
he is their stronghold in the time of trouble.
The Lord helps them and delivers them;
he delivers them from the wicked and saves them,
because they take refuge in him.

Psalm 37:37-40

...Happy New Year!

Twenty years ago on another New Year's Eve, it was a celebration. You see, on that night during the college years prior, there were just a string of forgettable college experiences. How empty was that life; how unfulfilling was that lie!

I did not know what is like to love God relationally. Oh, I had an archive of head knowledge—well, from a debilitating Arminian construct; but throw me into any Bible trivia night and I could come off the bench, coach! At 19, I even wore a WWJD necklace to my college classes.

Was I close to God?

What I had known was little more than a desire for the things of God, not a passion for my Beloved.

Was I saved?

One can go to church for many years, sing the songs, volunteer time and...well, all I really know is that experientially, I never knew God like I did at a Christian coffeehouse in the aftermath of Fall 2000 through 2001's transition. I moved from a corporate practice clutching fire insurance to a daily time at a rickety table with a bottomless mug of coffee for $1. Until then, I never knew what it was like to shed a tear out of my love for God.

I wrote more extensively about it here: My Conversion Story, but the above is the gist of it.

Twenty years ago, instead of being like the world, I chose to join a small circle of believers who prayed in the New Year of 2002. This wasn't the typical quick tagline before dinner, either, but involved 3 or 4 smaller groups composed of 4 at a table, as we cycled individually. It went on for 1-2 hours...and it was stunning. How it contrasted from the broken world I had known, a world that is driven by self! In those college years, it was about the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and the pride of life. And there I was, a part of something wholly different.

2002 proved to be a financially frugal year while spiritually rich. In all of these years since, I have not experienced a year with as much spiritual abundance. Of course, there were letdowns; it's expected in that post-college time that there are storylines that zig instead of zag. However, I spent a lot of my time growing in God's truth. I only wish I had not railed that March weekend against the Doctrines of Grace down at that discipleship ranch in Denton, Texas! Ah, but we always seem to adopt that theology kicking and screaming from our fallen nature!

While I look to the future, I hope 2022 will share in the same zeal as 2002—it's the core thrust of my resolutions. How is that done? Spending time in the Bible...prayer...meditating on God...dwelling on the Way, the Truth, and the Life. It's far beyond head knowledge. One can know stuff and be far away from God, distracted and disabled. It's like striving a life that is consistent with Jesus' tips on prayer:

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.

Matthew 6:9-13

My thoughts for 2022 are being shaped by this passage from Jude:

Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day— just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.

Jude 1:5-7

This passage serves to show that Jesus is NOT our culture's Anything Goes Jesus; I've heard people talk about THAT guy—who wants to follow a guy whose foundation is built on shifting sands? Can I trust my salvation to someone who changes? May it never be! Jesus NEVER taught a libertine gospel. It was an apostasy in the 1st century church and it continues in the 21st. Jesus actually spoke more about Hell than anybody else in the Bible. And maybe that's the dissonance between hearing what other people say about Jesus versus what He actually said.

"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

Matthew 7:21-23

"Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going.” Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

John 14:1-7

And while I vehemently reject that doing what is right in our own eyes is OK, or even worse, something to CELEBRATE, as our culture parades around sin—even devoting months for immorality—when I consider my own actions, these passages are a sobering reminder for me to not trample on the love of God. It breaks my heart when I look back over my life at the times I did just that! I did not pursue the things of God, but chased what the world values...it's not even a soteriology thing for me—it's relational: sin screws up my connection with God. I know I'm not going to Hell, but it's a joyless existence and I'll have nothing to show for this laying up on Earth (Mt 6:19-21).

May I never again be like the world, a system that gives glory to the things that should not be done. Perhaps if we as believers are not mindful and hear the repetition of the chants, we might find ourselves applauding them in like manner—oh, may 2022 and all my years remaining, may I "do not imitate evil but imitate good" (3 John 1:11)!

And yet, I'm also reminded of the warning by Paul in 1 Cor. 10:12: "Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall." I've got to approach life with humility for the moment I think, "I got this" is the moment I lose focus on my need for Jesus. If I could do it, I would have never needed Him...that's basically the gospel.

Jesus is...

...the way...

...the truth...

...and the life.

If I believe this, how might I respond? How would it shape my life? What should I be learning? Which way should I go?

Hours ago, I was this close to pulling the trigger on a Facebook return. I had it all planned out: I even had a resolution in place for a year-long commitment to the platform. I picked out a beloved friend to shoot out the first request and...pulled back.

I'm not ready; I'm not strong enough to weather the innate divisiveness across Facebook. No, I suppose long has it been since I've hung out with the South Pole Elves, so I don't rage-post online (but its consumption sucks my soul).

No, instead, I don't want to become that which I hate: I don't want my mind dulled by the shallow waters of placating, self-aggrandizing placidity, that is, I don't want to be, "it's all cool, bruh, everybody is gonna go to heaven, so in the meantime, check out my Napoleonic 'nunchaku skills, bow hunting skills, (and) computer hacking skills.'" This combination of relativism and chest pounding is something I find revolting. "For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things." (Philippians 3:18-19). It's just repulsive: I HATE relativism and all the pride therein. It's a LOT of bravado coming out of a clay pot that's destined for destruction (Romans 9). And it breaks my heart...how I wish that their eyes might be opened by the Spirit (Ephesians 1:17-21).

At the core, how do I approach my faith? Love God and love my neighbor. Simple? Yes! Complex? VERY! Like Jesus said in Matthew 22, "On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets." Even that which makes up sin in 1 John 2, namely, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, are basically just antitheses of these two commandments.

I say that because I do not know if I am strong enough to fully realize on Facebook the two greatest commandments. It's not the social media way! What would it look like to be on Facebook and to love God...

...with all of my heart...

...with all of my soul...

...and with all of my mind.

How CHALLENGING it is to find so many people who are indignant of the One I love! It is so very painful. And yet, I recognize that my own sins are a rebellion and are an affront to Him. And like in Romans 7, it is not I that do them, but sin living in me.

I yearn for greater faith and thus, I'm making 2022 a place of an extensive hearing of the Word of God (Romans 10:17). That's not what the world is about and the world tends to drown out everything else. That's the thing, isn't it? When I jump aboard a social media site, I find it spiritually draining. It gets to a point, they might as well just play the Grass Roots' Let's Live For Today.

In the meantime, I'm off Facebook and play this instead:

YouTube Link