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There are dragons on every corner… no matter where we are, we are facing them daily. Do you find yourself feeling like we are living in the middle of a crooked and perverse generation? It’s getting worse, and as pro-life leaders, I am sure you feel that immensely.
That you may become blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world.
Philippians 2:15
We don’t have to look too hard to see a generation that struggles with even the most basic questions about right and wrong.
Shouldn’t the answers to these be obvious? But now they get met with a shrug, or worse, with outrage that you’d even ask.
Does that unsettle you?
It should.
when Paul walked into Athens (Acts 17) and found the city full of idols, altars to every god anyone could think of, and then one more, just in case: an altar to an unknown god? Scripture says his spirit was provoked within him as he saw the city full of idols (Acts 17:16).
Not mildly concerned. Provoked.
That’s exactly the word for what should rise up in us when we see people today doing the very same thing. They don’t know who to worship, so they worship everything, anything, hoping they haven’t missed the one that counts. They are desperate. They are seeking the truth, but their eyes are blinded.
Maybe our idols aren’t made of gold anymore. Maybe they’re made of possession, status, and careers. They’re intangible, but they’re still idols. We offer our lives to unloving, uncaring gods we don’t even know, hoping they’ll hand us whatever it is we think we want. And we keep looking for answers we will never find there.
God isn’t hiding from us. We just aren’t seeking the truth.Even when the truth is given, we hide our eyes and close our ears.
Do you relate to what Paul felt? Does something in you draw you to the battle? Are you provoked? If you are, don’t ignore it. God may be using that feeling to move you to open your mouth and share the truth with someone who has never heard it.
Who are you becoming?
But realize this: someone could sit in a church every week, serve, sing, know all the right words, and still become something else entirely. Think about this… Judas did! He walked with Jesus, ate with him, traveled with him, and he still became one with the very thing he should have resisted most. How?
So the question isn’t only who are you worshipping. It’s who are you becoming, not someday, but right now, in the small choices nobody else sees.
Are you becoming more like Jesus, or…
Judas chose the latter.
That should provoke us!
Mary gave Jesus everything she had,
and held nothing back.
John 12:1–8
Think about the night Mary anointed Jesus. She took a jar of perfume, worth more than a year’s wages, and poured it out on his feet.
Judas
He saw a number.
Judas, standing right there, didn’t see worship. He saw a number. How much is this worth? What a waste. He was angry that Mary would waste that kind of money.
Mary
She saw her Savior.
Mary knew exactly what it was worth, and she poured it out anyway, because to her, Jesus was worth all of it, worth more than she had. Worth her very life.
She counted the cost, and Judas counted the cost.
Only one of them thought Jesus wasworth it.
Jesus also counted the cost. Jesus knew what he came to do. He wants to take your sin. That’s why he came, why he died, to carry what we could never carry ourselves.
But he also wants to take your glory. The achievements, the applause, the things that puff us up and whisper look what I did, the idols and false gods… he wants those laid at his feet too, not because they’re worthless, but because he’s worth more.
I want to be like Mary in that moment, knowing full well what it costs andpouring it out anyway.
The world is so good at disguising lies in the language of love.
There are dragons on every corner. The world is so good at disguising lies in the language of love. Words like compassion, empathy, inclusion, and kindness are good words, Christian words even, words that describe exactly how we’re called to treat one another. But words are being weaponized, twisted into tools to push an agenda, to weaken the moral foundations that gave those words their meaning.
Do you see this happening?
Because when truth itself gets redefined, when a word can mean whatever is convenient in the moment, we have to ask where that road ends. Everything that is truly good, every bit of compassion and justice and mercy the world claims to value, finds its source in God, who created us.
If we remove God, what do we base our moral values on?
Those words lose what made them good in the first place, because there isno source of truth.
Does that make you pause? It probably should!
Your identity cannot come from your…
It has to come from your Lord and Savior. It is God who placed you in this exact time, in this exact place, for a purpose only you can fulfill.
God doesn’t make mistakes with timing.
The younger generation is hungry.
As we minister to the younger generation, I know it can feel tempting at times to look at them and grow disheartened, but resist that. There is a deep, aching desperation for wisdom in this generation, whether they understand that or not. They are hungry, even when they don’t know what they’re hungry for.
Pour into them.
Don’t give up on them.
Be the one who hands them something solid when everything around them is like shifting sand.
It can be difficult in the midst of this world. There is so much right now that’s hard, confusing and heartbreaking, and some days it feels like the ground is moving faster than we can stand on it. Don’t grow weary.
There are dragons to slay on every corner:
Confusion
dressed as
Compassion
Lies
dressed as
Kindness
Despair
dressed as
Realism
These are just some of the dragons we face and fight daily.And yet we were given everything we need to stand against them.
Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.
Ephesians 6:11
God didn’t send us into this fight empty-handed,and he didn’t send us alone.
We were placed here, in this exact moment, to shine like lights in a generation that cannot find its own way. So to anyone laboring in this field, doing the hard, quiet, often unthanked work of pointing people back to truth:
Stand firm.
Be bold.
Let your life be the kind of offering Mary gave, poured out without holding anything back, because he is worth it.
Thank you for what you do. Stand in the gap, speaking the truth in love.
KEEP FIGHTING
THE DRAGONS.
~ Sandy