Category: Christian Doctrine

When The Focus Is So Narrow That You Lose Sight

DebbieLynne Kespert1 Comment

18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law. 19 Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, 21 envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. ~~Galatians 5:18-24 (NASB95)

I don’t know why Twitter has been putting her posts in my feed for the past few months. She isn’t someone I have the slightest desire to follow. All my interactions with her have been fruitless attempts to show her why her position goes well beyond Scripture, and weeks ago I decided to stop trying to inject any reason into the conversation. But her Tweets keep littering my feed, all pounding out the same monotonous message that she’s been tweeting for goodness knows how long.

Even if her message didn’t transcend the boundaries of God’s Word, her fixation on one little area of theology troubles me. I have to wonder whether or not she’s made some sort of idol out of her pet doctrine. Her presentations show little grace toward those who question her perspective, and even less interest in the Lord she claims to represent. I could be wrong, but it certainly appears to me that this woman focuses so intensely on her crusade that she’s become blind to anything outside her small realm.

I’m deliberately not mentioning her favored topic in this post because I don’t want to distract from my main point. It really doesn’t matter what personal drum someone beats; if that drum is the only thing someone plays, we should have serious concerns about her spiritual health.

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With Grief And Joy

DebbieLynne Kespert12 Comments

This is not the report I want to write today, especially knowing that some of you have been praying for a miracle. This afternoon, I’ll be going to the hospital to take my beloved husband off of life support. Yesterday he showed no signs of consciousness, and the doctor said it was futile to keep his body on machines. I agree. I believe it would be cruel, both to John and to those of us who love him, to maintain his body and cling to false hope. Both our pastor and the pastor who is John’s health care proxy agree with my decision. 

John came to faith in Jesus Christ somewhere around the age of 15. He acknowledged that, apart from the shed blood of Jesus as the acceptable sacrifice for his sin, he was a wretch. It was incredibly important to him that people know this fact about him when he died. He didn’t want anyone thinking that he had any goodness in and of himself. Don’t misunderstand me: John was a wonderful, godly man who taught me much about living the Christian life, and I admire his humble submission to Christ. He modeled what it means to be a godly man. But he didn’t want us to idolize him — he wanted us to know that the goodness we saw in him came only from Christ. 

He will be going to the Lord based on his trust that Jesus paid for his sins on the cross. We rightfully rejoice that John is going to be free from wheelchairs, ventilators and all the struggles of his disability. But John always looked forward to freedom from his struggles with sin and to seeing Jesus face-to-face. He would not want any of us imagining him as a guardian angel looking down on me, but instead would want us to know that he is enjoying His Lord without distraction. He will have perfect joy throughout eternity as he worships his wonderful Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. 

I am heartbroken for myself. Marriage to John was wonderfully easy, and the past 20+ years were the happiest of my life. God blessed me with the man I’d dreamed of since I was a little girl, and part of me wishes I didn’t have to let him go. But I praise the Lord that John will finally be with Jesus. Please join me in rejoicing for him. 

Flashback Friday: Who Determines What We Need?

DebbieLynne KespertLeave a comment

Hi ladies, John went to the emergency room Wednesday, and was transferred to a hospital in Boston that evening. He’s improving, but of course the separation is hard on both of us since he’s my primary caregiver. The Lord’s grace has been phenomenal, and I praise Him for His care. But I came across this post that I wrote April 20, 2020 and thought it fit our present situation perfectly. I pray that He will use it to minister to some of you.

Spring Tree

Yesterday our pastor preached the second sermon in a three-part series on the Lord’s Prayer. As he expounded on the clause, “Give us this day our daily bread,” he made the distinction between needs and wants that most preachers make when preaching on this clause.  I expected no less from him.

I got more than I expected, however.

He commented that God, because He is sovereign, gets to determine what our actual needs are.

Did you catch that?

We might think we know our needs, but the Lord knows what we really need in order to better conform to His image. Health might enable someone to go on the mission field, for instance, but sickness might enable someone else to proclaim the Gospel to medical personnel and caregivers. A new car might enable someone to give people rides to church, while an old car with problems might teach someone else patience and dependence on the Lord. Only God knows what each person truly needs to glorify Him.

Such thinking goes against the entitlement mentality that permeates Western society so deeply that even Christians fall into it. So often, we convince ourselves that we deserve certain blessings. And when the Lord denies us those blessings, we convince ourselves that we He is cheating us. We usually don’t admit to feeling cheated, of course, but we do feel that way.

And we allow those feelings to fester until we’re angry.

We’ve all seen angry rants on Facebook by people who deem their circumstances unfair and think their lives should be easier. Sadly, some of these rants come from professing Christians. Perhaps they’ve even come from you! And we allow ourselves to think that God tolerates our rants because our adverse circumstances offend Him as much as they offend us.

The truth is, dear ladies, those circumstances that we fancy as offending Him are probably circumstances that He designed to glorify Himself in our lives.

65 You have dealt well with your servant,
    O Lord, according to your word.
66 Teach me good judgment and knowledge,
    for I believe in your commandments.
67 Before I was afflicted I went astray,
    but now I keep your word.
68 You are good and do good;
    teach me your statutes.
69 The insolent smear me with lies,
    but with my whole heart I keep your precepts;
70 their heart is unfeeling like fat,
    but I delight in your law.
71 It is good for me that I was afflicted,
    that I might learn your statutes.
72 The law of your mouth is better to me
    than thousands of gold and silver pieces. ~~Psalm 119:65-72 (ESV)

That’s decidedly not a “best life now” passage, but it demonstrates a deep faith in God’s good purposes as He brings us through trials that we want to avoid. The psalmist doesn’t shake an angry fist at His adversity. On the contrary, he praises God for bringing him to repentance through them and affirms that affliction has brought him closer to God.

Our needs, you see, go far deeper than our temporal well-being. More than anything else. we need those things that draw us closer to the Lord and enable us to glorify Him. He alone knows what those needs really are.

Easter: The Same Ol’ Same Ol’

DebbieLynne KespertLeave a comment

As we approach another Resurrection Sunday, some of us may feel a little tired of hearing the same accounts of Christ’s death, burial and resurrection. We may be genuine Christians who honestly love the Lord. We may cherish what Jesus did on the cross and we may embrace the hope of His resurrection. But, truth be told, at this time of year sometimes talking about those great events can feel forced and contrived. Precisely because talking about them is expected at Easter, we shy away from the subject.

I know I experience an awkwardness as I anticipate blogging during Holy Week. And I’m sure most pastors experience the same awkwardness. Maybe it’s wrong to feel as if we must present the Gospel in a new and fresh way each year, but perhaps it’s right to humble ourselves and admit it! We still love the Gospel — we just don’t appreciate the sense of obligation to write about it on this particular week.

And that’s a shame!

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The Unpopular Thing That Older Women Must Teach Younger Women

DebbieLynne Kespert1 Comment

We all cringe at the idea of wives submitting to husbands, don’t we? Even those of us who know what the Bible says and wholeheartedly believe that the Holy Spirit inspired it to be written should honestly admit that we wish He had not included that instruction. It doesn’t do any good to pretend that we’re always delighted to let our husbands have the final say in making decisions. God knows our hearts, so He’s well aware that there are times when we’d rather have our husbands submit to us.

Yet Paul told Titus to have the older women encourage younger women to submit to their own husbands.

3 Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, 4 so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, 5 to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored. ~~Titus 2:3-5 (NASB95)

Rather than write an article detailing the mechanics of wifely submission today, I think I want to circle back to the responsibility older women have to encourage this attitude in younger women. Future articles may address the topic of submission itself. Indeed, as an older woman, I must deal with the matter, and deal with it more than once. But it occurs to me that the mandate to teach and encourage younger women to submit to their husbands poses a threat to older women. Teaching submission goes against so many aspects of our culture that most of us simply don’t want to do it!

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It’s Apparently Disability Awareness Month, And I Really Don’t Care

DebbieLynne KespertLeave a comment

I’ve been aware of disability all my life. Not only do I live with my own disability and the disability of my husband, but I spent my entire childhood attending school, Saturday recreation programs and summer camps with children who had a variety of physical and intellectual disabilities. In my early 40s, I spent two years in a nursing home for disabled adults. So I’m quite aware of disability, thank you very much.

I guess I could devote this month’s worth of blog posts to writing disability themed articles. Such articles usually attract lots of readers, and my ego would certainly love that boost in numbers. Maybe able bodied people would actually learn a few things.

But I’ve always felt a little uncomfortable about disabled people who form their careers or ministries around disability. God uses them, I admit. Often. they open doors for other disabled people, greatly improving their lives. Yet it bothers me a little to see them focus so narrowly on their disabilities that few of them seem to have an identity that transcends disability. I don’t mean to be judgmental, but I’d rather raise myself above my disability in order to take my place in the able bodied world. Not that I want to pretend that my Cerebral Palsy doesn’t exist — I just don’t want it to define me.

My identity is in Christ.

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Does The Bible Say That We Should Evaluate Popular Teachings And Trends?

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I recently shared a post on Facebook that a friend of mine wrote. He wrote about some current evangelical movements, commenting that such things capture the attention of people who prefer emotionalism and experiences to studying the Bible. He stated flat out that most people jump on these bandwagons because, whether they admit it or not, they don’t truly believe that Scripture is sufficient.

Predictably, several of my friends, rather than engaging with the matter of Scripture’s sufficiency, began defending the most prominent of the three examples he mentioned, accusing critics of that particular example of fearing an actual move of the Holy Spirit. Never mind that neither my friend nor I definitely condemned that specific movement. We questioned it, certainly, and said it should be evaluated against Scripture. And my friend did say that he believes people are more attracted to these things than they are to the hard work of Bible Study. But his Facebook post was not about that singular issue. Our critics completely overlooked the primary message in favor of defending a popular trend.

Additionally, the majority of our critics equated questioning popular trends with judging the hearts of people caught up in those trends. A few pointedly demanded to know where Scripture gives us the right to question anything that might be the work of the Holy Spirit.

That demand is fair. Maybe a bit ironic, given their resistance (and sometimes outright indignation) toward the idea of evaluating what they see as God’s activity — but fair. We should give Biblical reasons for holding popular trends up to the measuring rod of God’s Word.

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And Forgive Us Our Debts As We Forgive Our Debtors

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Most of us have recited The Lord’s Prayer since childhood. We’ve memorized it, aided perhaps by its poetic cadences and by reciting it Sunday after Sunday in church and as part of our bedtime prayers. Matthew quotes Jesus as He teaches this model for prayer during the Sermon on the Mount:

9 “Pray, then, in this way:

‘Our Father who is in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
10 ‘Your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.
11 ‘Give us this day our daily bread.
12 ‘And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 ‘And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. [For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.’] ~~Matthew 6:9-13 (NASB95)

For all the times you’ve prayed this beloved prayer, do you remember what Jesus said immediately afterwards?

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Purity Isn’t Only About Sexual Attitudes

DebbieLynne KespertLeave a comment

The first thing we think about when we hear the word “purity” is sexual impurity. Maybe that results from our sex saturated culture. Or maybe it exposes the depth of our own preoccupation with sex. Either way, it is the first thing that comes to our minds, isn’t it?

Perhaps we do need to begin with that connection when the subject of purity comes up, precisely because sex permeates so much of our consciousness. Sexual purity has fallen out of favor even among evangelicals. For the first time in history, evangelicals openly live together outside of marriage and see nothing wrong with that practice. Obviously, fewer and fewer professing Christians believe that sexual behavior should be confined to marriage between one man and one woman until death. In this regard, I agree that purity in sexual conduct can’t be emphasized too often or too strongly.

Was the apostle Paul thinking about sexual purity when he told Titus how older women should mentor younger women?

3 Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, 4 so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, 5 to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored. ~~Titus 2:3-5 (NASB95)

Certainly, teaching women the importance of modesty and chastity would have been a key reason for women to teach other women. It would have caused incredible temptation for a man to counsel a woman on such intimate matters. Women can (and sadly do) fall into sexual sin just as easily as men do, making it necessary and crucial to address this type of impurity. Therefore, we cannot and must not neglect this area of instruction.

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Self-Love — Does Scripture Really Endorse It?

DebbieLynne Kespert1 Comment

No.

That’s right. I answered the question in my title immediately, and with only one word. By doing so, I probably killed any incentive you had to read a full blog post on this topic. But please stay with me. There’s a reason we need to look at this issue.

This question once again popped up on Twitter last week, making me heave a sigh of exasperation as people twist Scripture to accommodate the idea that Jesus advocated self-love as the prerequisite for loving others. (Mark 12:31 quotes Jesus as saying, “Love your neighbor as yourself”). The logic goes that we can’t properly love other people until we’ve learned to love ourselves. Therefore, we must first cultivate self-love. That cultivation, the logic continues, gives us the ability to love others. The argument concludes with the confident assertion that Jesus taught us to love ourselves.

There’s a modicum of truth to the premise that, to care for someone’s physical needs, you must first attend to your own. If my Personal Care Attendant neglects her health so that she can’t come to work due to illness, I’m stuck in bed until we can find an available backup. Obviously, I need her to take care of herself in order for her to take care of’ me.

But the concept of self-love goes well beyond the practicality of making sure you’re physically able to help others. Look at this opening paragraph from an article in Good Therapy:

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