Politics ISI Still Stands for Timeless Truths Accounts of decline, both of our country and of conservative institutions, fundamentally misunderstand the tradition. Credit: image via Shutterstock I just arrived home from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute’s Summer Honors Program and if anything can give you hope for Western Civilization it is this annual gathering of 50 students from different educational, religious, and conservative backgrounds aimed at immersing themselves in Russell Kirk’s classic The Roots of the American Order (1974). So I was a bit befuddled to come across a recently published lament for the decline of ISI into a polarized and politicized organization. The article is by a former Honors Fellow, who remembers his own experience of study, intellectual exchange, and deep conversations while on the program ten years ago with great fondness. But he believes that in the past decade, ISI has gone the way of all flesh—losing its “its antiquarian, tranquil appreciation of great books” and the liberal arts for an all-consuming obsession with current events and contemporary politics. I was actually a faculty mentor for the Honors Program the author attended, and I have continued mentoring these college students for the past 10 years. I believe one has to even out the narrative of ISI’s “decline” somewhat on both ends. First of all, ISI has never been so apolitical as the author remembers. ISI has always been concerned to help students connect the dots between discussions of the philosophical and theological principles found in Great Books—Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Augustine, Locke, Montesquieu, Lincoln—with questions about the current health of our own social and political regime. Two Jewish college students sitting at a dinner table at a recent ISI seminar addressed this issue rather well. One from Yeshiva University in New York said that this ISI conference was really the most political conference he had ever been to; he himself was really only interested in theological questions. The other, from Stanford, responded that the ISI conference struck him as altogether more philosophical and theological than he had expected; his interests were strictly political.  That exchange struck me as summing up the space that ISI occupies in the world of conservative programming for college students. Too philosophical for some, too political for others—attempting to get political folks to dig down to philosophical principles while getting academics to connect a few dots from their world of ideas to current policy concerns. ISI does not push particular political positions, so much as it tries to model for students how to derive policy from principle with some attempt at integrity. ISI’s president, John Burtka, has published a book on models of statesmanship, which is completely in line with this continued emphasis on combining the life of the mind with the engaged political life. Secondly, ISI has not “sharply shifted” away from Great Books and liberal arts conversation towards politicization, presentism, and activism. The author’s evidence? He notes that Patrick Deneen, a critic of liberalism, or Michael Knowles, a talk-show host, were on the schedule of speakers this year. Notably, the author selects only two of 10 in the line-up of speakers for disparaging comment, but more importantly, perhaps the author was unaware that Deneen addressed competing interpretations of Plato’s Republic and Knowles led us in a deep dive into Dante’s Divine Comedy. Deneen discussed whether Plato has been or should be read as a utopian or anti-utopian thinker; Deneen was not “reading Plato to attack proponents of immigration.” Michael Knowles was discussing Dante’s travels through hell, purgatory, and heaven and the necessity of finding good guides like Virgil and Beatrice, Bernard, and the Virgin for one’s lifelong intellectual quest, not presenting “conspiratorial screeds about how Marxism is controlling America.”  I think our author would actually have been surprised and pleased with the Honors Program. Seeing these names on the roster of speakers, he has constructed straw-men and has raised bugaboos about their effect on the conversation at the program. Anyone who actually attended the conference might have found too much theological discussion—even from the “political provocateur” Michael Knowles who immersed himself in Dante—not only the Divine Comedy, but Convivio, De Monarchia, and De Vulgari Eloquentia! Perhaps ISI is still doing what ISI does best, what our former Honors fellow remembers with such nostalgia, which is luring even users of the fast-paced, click-driven media to sit down for a week-long intellectual conversation about Great Books and long evenings devoted to contemplation of the good, the true, and the beautiful. But the author goes on to make two further and deeper points about ISI’s intellectual trajectory that deserve attention. He is not just concerned with politicization and polarization in the abstract. No, that complaint is a prelude to a more specific ideological concern. He accuses ISI of losing its capacious focus on “high-minded conservative liberalism,” which he defines as “defending the idea of a restrained national government, local democracy, and free markets,” which he says are “three principles general enough to allow people of drastically different political persuasions to coexist harmoniously.” The author issues a warning that ISI is now “fawning over nationalism”—“an ideological orientation inimical to the principles that undergird ISI in the first place.” He warns that ISI is now “indoctrinating” students in a “simplistic narrative” of “the nationalist right” that is opposed to both the pluralism of local customs and the international rights regime of liberal universalism. But ISI has not deep-sixed the capacious framework of Russell Kirk’s Roots of the American Order for some sort of simplistic right-wing narrative. Indeed, the entire Honors Program continues to be organized around the complexity of a Western inheritance rooted in five heritage cities—Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, London, and Philadelphia. Rather than being simplistic, this flexible framework is occasionally unwieldy precisely because of how multi-valenced the inheritance of each of those cities is.  Kirk himself is incredibly ambitious in his attempt to sum up briefly the inheritance of represented by “Jerusalem”—the Law and the Prophets, the history of the Jewish people, and the striking transformation from a strictly linear or monotonously cyclical sense of time and history make up his brief 20-page chapter on “Jerusalem.” If you devote one day to discussing Kirk’s text along with several primary sources to accompany it and invite two speakers to try to flesh out what Kirk gives us and what Kirk might have left out, one still has only scratched the surface, ripped the band-aid of unwitting ignorance off, and tried to launch students into a program of lifelong learning. What are we to do with an “Athens” chapter that treats Solon and Thucydides, Plato and Aristotle, but makes no mention of Homer, Herodotus, or the great tragedians? Two chapters on Rome—Rome classical and Rome Christian—only reveal the tip of the iceberg regarding the relationship between republic and empire or the effect of Augustine’s Two Cities on thinking about church and state relations. What can one say about London—medieval London, Protestant London, Enlightenment London, and Imperial London—in a single day of discussion and speakers?  The author is very much mistaken if he thinks the upshot of the ISI Honors program week is simplistic indoctrination or chest-thumping nationalism. Any child of the twentieth-century rightly abhors nationalism, but one must distinguish between nationalism and healthy patriotic concern for the regime under which one currently lives. An ISI Honors program week is the very opposite of simplistic nationalism. ISI provides a wild and whirling tour of intellectual questions and provocations to further study—concerned with the local, the national, the civilizational, and the global contours of a just, well-ordered, flourishing, free society. Finally, and most importantly our author thinks that ISI has fundamentally caved into right-wing nationalist political activism because it has capitulated to cultural despair and given up on political hope. This is a grave and legitimate concern in our current political moment, and I do not wish to treat it lightly. At first the author asserts that “ISI has always been remarkably good at cleaving to the brightest parts of Western Civilization.” The “decline of ISI,” he tells us began with a recent turn towards cultural pessimism in the past decade. Presently however, author abandons his own narrative of the former health and current decline of ISI and seems to intimate that in his eyes—appreciative former Honors fellow or not—ISI’s program was vitiated from the beginning: “The American conservative movement was founded on a narrative of decline,” he writes, “For all of its many virtues, ISI bought into the 20th-century conservative narrative of decline lock, stock, and barrel. This began with its founding.”  “Ultimately ISI’s emphasis on decline could only ever end in indoctrination, nationalism, and tragedy,” he declares. I would challenge this interpretation of ISI’s institutional DNA and narrative of inevitable decline, by once again directing attention to Russell Kirk’s Roots of the American Order as the classic work that gives a framework to the conversation ISI promotes. Kirk pits the idea of progress and the idea of decline against each other and does not easily sacrifice one on the altar of the other. Anyone who has read both Robert Nisbet’s History of the Idea of Progress and Arthur Herman’s The Idea of Decline in Western History knows that neither conservatives nor liberals have a monopoly on cultural hope or cultural despair. The entire thrust of Kirk’s Roots is that with a civilizational heritage so deep and so rich, we have no right to despair of finding the bright threads of tradition, the living stream of culture, in our Judeo-Christian, Greco-Roman past.  Only presentist amnesia and ignorance of the rich tapestry of our own complex past can issue in violent, radical despair. Kirk’s entire historical project is a project of cultural hope—an argument that there is something worth “conserving.” As Chesterton said, a patriot does not fight because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him. Far from being despairing, Kirk has even been occasionally accused of naïve optimism in the possibility of finding a coherent tradition on which to graft our cultural hope. The thrust of Kirk’s history is civilizational and the patriotism he promotes is capacious.  The Intercollegiate Studies Institute continues doing what it does best—rectifying our ignorance of the richness of the history of Western Civilization and thus inspiring hope and patriotism for the continuance of genuine liberty. The post ISI Still Stands for Timeless Truths appeared first on The American Conservative.

Politics ‘Evangelicals for Harris’ Is Astroturf The usual suspects are behind a push to peel evangelicals away from the Republican Party. When most people imagine how Washington, DC works, they think of the two political parties and scads of lobbyists controlling our country. What they don’t see are the legions of well-heeled, well-organized activists who wield outsize influence in the Democratic Party and, through it, the country. You know a few of them—the ACLU, AFL-CIO, or Planned Parenthood—but the complete list could fill an encyclopedia. (As the folks at InfluenceWatch have already done, as a matter of fact.) In order to simulate grassroots efforts, though, these organizations inflate countless more pop-up websites that give the impression of a widespread, organic movement by the American people rather than what they are: cynical D.C. politics at its worst. Case in point: Evangelicals for Harris, which claims to represent America’s 100 million Evangelical Christians while urging them to vote for a militant secularist, abortion hard-liner, pro-crime prosecutor, and transgender cultist. “No political party or leader can ever hold our full devotion. That belongs to Jesus alone,” the group writes on its website. That said, “In this election, the choice is clear: Kamala Harris.” What the group doesn’t make clear is who’s running it.  Evangelicals for Harris’s official founder is Jim Ball, well known to conservatives as the political con artist behind an Obama-era campaign to “green” the churches with Sierra Club–style global warming nuttiness.  Ball headed the Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN), perhaps the top proponent behind “creation care,” or repackaged eco-fundamentalism with an “I heart Jesus” sticker. The group’s Declaration on the Care of Creation recommended this druidic prayer for pastors: “We repent of the way we have polluted, distorted, or destroyed so much of the Creator’s work.” Here’s Ball way back in 2009 (emphasis added): The biggest barrier preventing Christians from more fully embracing creation care, including addressing global warming, is not understanding that to do so is an important part of being a disciple of Jesus Christ today, of doing the Lord’s will. Yet Ball and EEN’s policy recommendations are virtually indistinguishable from those of the radical, secular greens; their real objective, so far from cultivating Christian virtue, was always to break off Evangelicals from the Republican Party. In 2015, the liberal think tank New America—itself heavily funded by George Soros and the Ford Foundation—published an “autopsy report” called “Spreading the Gospel of Climate Change,” authored by Lydia Bean, a failed Democrat politician and founder of Faith in Texas, a Democratic get-out-the-vote group, and Steve Teles, an advisor to the Soros-funded Niskanen Center. The report advised leftists on using climate change to form a “solid beachhead” within conservative Evangelical churches and drive them away from the Republican Party with a “rent-an-Evangelical” campaign. From an online panel held shortly after the report’s publication (emphases added): You can put your resources into a 20-year campaign to change public opinion, and what both Lydia [Bean] and Jerry [Taylor, president of the Niskanen Center] are saying is that ultimately that doesn’t really matter. You can rely on the traditional bipartisan coalition-building method which entails getting the great and the good together and then doing a sort of “rent-an-Evangelical”—as we used to call it on the national security side, “rent-a-general”—model. Or you can pursue a purely partisan [model]: we’re going to pick a side, we’re going to decide Republicans are never going to be serious about climate change, and we’re going to fund the heck out of Democrats until, you know, they take back the House [of Representatives], which might be a 40- or 50-year project. And then there’s the transpartisan [model]: We’re going to collect strange bedfellows, we’re going to sort of sneakily break down both coalitions from inside. It didn’t really take off then besides earning a few platitudes from squishy “Big Eva” leaders. But even that crusade was in fact the 2.0 model of creation care, which began in the 1990s with a different strategy: redefine “pro-life” to mean opposing coal power plants, fighting income inequality, and demanding tax hikes and socialized healthcare—really anything but opposition to abortion.  Both campaigns thankfully failed. But the insider back-scratching doesn’t stop there. Evangelicals for Harris is a front for Faith Voters for Good, a Northern Virginia–based advocacy group established in January. The Great Falls address points to a PO box shared by Public Democracy, a data firm that boasts about working with leftist Stacey Abrams’s get-out-the-vote group, Fair Fight, as well as Faith Voters and Black Lives Matter, to “successfully combat voter intimidation and misinformation” in elections and Covid-19 “vaccine hesitancy” among black Americans. Public Democracy is run by Eric Sapp, a board member for Public Democracy America, a nonprofit in charge of a network of left-wing groups that collectively advance environmentalism and critical race theory. Its executive director is a former get-out-the-vote strategist for the Democratic National Committee and Al Gore’s presidential campaign. Public Democracy America’s board president is Rachel Johnson, the name on Faith Voters’ incorporation documents from January. Johnson is the former communications director for New York City’s ultraliberal Riverside Church, which strongly supports “social justice.” The church is aligned with the so-called Poor People’s Campaign, which “address[es] interconnected injustices such as racism, poverty, militarism, ecological devastation, and distorted religious nationalism.” Riverside Church is involved with a mass get-out-the-minority-vote campaign with Reclaim Our Vote, which boasts of “contact[ing] 14 million voters of color” in the 2020 election and lobbies for far-left election “reforms” designed to establish a permanent Democratic majority in Congress. As for Faith Voters for Good, FEC filings report that the group spent $151,000 in digital advertising and other expenses in support of Joe Biden on the 2020 campaign trail. $60,000 of that pro-Democrat spending went to Eleison Group, a DC-based “leading faith and values consulting firm” headed by—surprise—Eric Sapp and Rachel Johnson. Faith Voters says Donald Trump’s “words and actions [are] inconsistent with Christ’s teachings and biblical values” while endorsing Kamala Harris. Yet Harris’s relations to organized Christianity are fraught at best. As the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate, Harris sponsored an LGBT bill that would’ve smashed Christians’ First Amendment rights of conscience. Believing physicians, for instance, could be forced to perform abortions or transgender surgeries, whatever their moral qualms, while Christian schools could be made to fill classrooms with “married” gay teachers. In San Francisco, Kamala’s pastor was Amos Brown, whom she considers “an inspiration to me always.” In the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks, Brown quickly blamed Americans, preaching at a memorial service: “America, is there anything you did to set up this climate?” Those remarks were outrageous enough to drive the Democratic Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein from the crowd. Even Nancy Pelosi was embarrassed enough to apologize publicly for Brown’s remarks. In 2008, Brown wrote an op-ed defending Obama’s pastor, Jeremiah Wright, for his anti-Semitic comments, later inviting Wright to preach at his church.  Today, Brown is a loud voice for multi-trillion-dollar slavery reparations in California—a state where slavery was never legal—while labeling opponents of critical race theory “oppressors.” Of gay marriage, Brown says “there should be no restrictions on persons on how they express their sexuality.”  Brown was also a close friend of San Francisco’s Mayor Willie Brown (no relation), who appointed him to the San Francisco board of supervisors in 1996. Willie, of course, is well known for his years-long affair with Kamala Harris, which launched her political career in Democratic politics. The Evangelicals for Harris group gets one thing right, though—more Christians need to vote, but vote biblically. Politics doesn’t save; Jesus does. No real Christians dispute that. But we can also learn something from the faithful men and women who forged this nation in 1776 with an oft-forgotten battle-cry: No King but Jesus. God willing, Christians today will have the courage to forge our nation anew at the ballot box in November. The post ‘Evangelicals for Harris’ Is Astroturf appeared first on The American Conservative.

Taking that badass hard rock further. The post The band Joe Perry thought took the best of Aerosmith: “Made it their own” first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

Site has no Description

by Stefan Stanford, All News Pipeline: In 2019, Kamala Harris, a hardcore California leftist running for president, received a questionnaire from the ACLU about her political views. CNN’s KFILE dug up her responses to that questionnaire, and they are so extreme that even CNN’s Erin Burnett, herself a hardcore leftist, was shocked. This is a […]

September 13, 2024 God's Unchanging PlansKAREN WINGATE Lee en español "Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and he will establish your plans." Proverbs 16:3 (NIV) My day was perfectly planned, starting with an hour of desk work followed by a haircut. My husband and I would meet with our tax preparer at 11 a.m., then enjoy lunch together before I met a colleague to work on a project for the rest of the afternoon. My schedule was as neatly arranged as the entries in my day planner. Then things got messy. Our tax appointment took four hours instead of one, making it necessary to cancel the afternoon project. During the appointment, I juggled multiple texts, which yielded three unexpected events for the next day. I thrive on the reliability of routine. But some days I feel like I'm in a constant state of flux as my plans intersect with life situations over which I have no control. My neatly organized planner becomes messy with crossed-out items and new plans squeezed into the margins. My daughter says her branch of the military has a term for that - "flexicute," meaning to execute with flexibility. But flexicuting gets wearisome, and I'm tempted to shout at the world, "Can we please do things according to my outline for the next hour? Did I say ‘please'?" I'm grateful for Hebrews 13:8, which reminds us "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever" (NIV). When everything and everyone else (OK, me, too) is in flex mode, God never changes. His character remains the same. He won't pay lip service to promises and then alter them. Still, I may not know the details of His plan; it's my role to discover what unfolds and trust Him for what remains concealed. But the sun will come up tomorrow, plants will grow, and the mountains will still stand. He will provide for my needs, and He has unfailing love for me, even when my mood and mind change in reaction to my messed-up plans. Perhaps that's the message of my blotchy day planner. Each time I deal with the unreliability of my schedule, I can look toward heaven and thank God for His dependability in weaving in and working out the plans of my heart, all for His glory and my best interest. Because He is so trustworthy, I can find confidence to do what Proverbs 16:3 instructs: "Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and he will establish your plans." Whenever my plans go off course, I can lean back and trust that God and I simply made a right turn so we could head in the new direction He intends for us to go. Has your day just started and your schedule already altered from what you anticipated? Breathe deeply and surrender your activities and intentions to the Lord. Let Him direct your steps toward what He has planned for you today. Lord, right now, I relinquish the hours of my day to You. I'll make my plans, but I'll hold them loosely, looking to You to direct me and change course as You think best. In Jesus' Name, Amen. OUR FAVORITE THINGS What if God has more in store for you than you've given Him credit for? Unmet milestones and unfulfilled dreams can make you feel like you've already missed out on the life you were "supposed" to have ... But what if it’s possible to build a life you love without having everything you want? Listen to a recent podcast episode - "You Are Not Behind" with Meghan Ryan Asbury - on this topic right here! Viewing our daily schedules from God's perspective challenges us to take a fresh look at how we usually see things. Let Karen Wingate's book, With Fresh Eyes: 60 Insights into the Miraculously Ordinary from a Woman Born Blind, guide you in seeing life in fresh ways. Order your copy here. ENGAGE You can also find Karen on Facebook and Instagram. FOR DEEPER STUDY Matthew 5:1-2, "Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them" (NIV). Crowds often seemed to interrupt Jesus' workflow during His years of ministry, but He used those moments in powerful ways. When crowds followed Him seeking physical healing in Matthew 5, He took time to teach them what we call the Sermon on the Mount. Another time, He demonstrated His power by feeding a crowd of 5,000 with one boy-sized lunch (John 6:5-13). How has God used a shift in your schedule for His greater glory? Tell us about it in the comments. © 2024 by Karen Wingate. All rights reserved. Proverbs 31 MinistriesP.O. Box 3189 Matthews, NC 28106 www.Proverbs31.org The post God’s Unchanging Plans –  Encouragement for Today – September 13, 2024 appeared first on GodUpdates.

A Prayer to Be an Authentic Christian in the World Full of InfluencersBy Chelsey DeMatteis Bible Reading“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” – Matthew 5:8 My parents came home from a dinner date and couldn’t believe what they saw happening just one table behind them. Sadly, I wasn’t surprised, but my heart was so broken for where we’ve found ourselves in the midst of a world full of “influencing.” A mom was sitting across the table from her daughter trying to get the perfect “selfie” shot. As she continued to take the photos of herself, the waiter kindly came up and asked if she’d like a picture of herself and her daughter. She looked at the waiter as if they had offended her and she reluctantly said “sure”. Once the waiter walked away, the mother went back to taking selfies as she ignored her daughter sitting right across the table. How did we get here? (And, I must be the first to say we’ve all been guilty of something like this. Maybe not to this extent, but we’ve all chosen the phone in our hands over the people God has so kindly placed in front of us.) We traded a world of choosing to love those right in front of us for a world that chooses to love oneself above all things. As Christians, we all can agree we’re held to a higher standard as we journey through life on earth, but we have to get honest with ourselves and ask the question, have we too started to want to put ourselves above others? Have we gotten caught up in the trap of wanting to “influence” people by boasting about our accomplishments, our children’s accomplishments, and our possessions? Have we found more comfort in sharing about ourselves rather than asking how someone else is doing? Once we answer these questions, I think we’ll better know how to move forward and rightly in the way God would desire for us. Not one time in scripture do we ever find Jesus boasting about Himself or sharing news to make others feel less than. The posture of His heart was always pure, and that is one of the key character traits I want in my life. I want a pure heart. One filled with pure intentions and seeing others the way Jesus sees them. Jesus teaches us how to live here in this world. We can find exactly how to live by spending time in Jesus’ famous speech at the Sermon on the Mount. “Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. "Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” – Matthew 5:1-12 Living in this world full of influencers and imposter syndrome can easily leave us feeling cynical and defeated. But, God calls us to more. He calls us, as His chosen children, to be lights in the world. To live rightly for Him and to share the gift of the gospel. We have the opportunity to be authentic in a world that elevates being ingenuine to get ahead or to make others feel less than. Today we have an opportunity to love people well, be authentic where God has us, and choose to be influenced by the saving grace of God.  Let’s pray: Lord, thank you for the gift of your Word and its ability to penetrate our hearts. Help me desire to be authentic in a world that elevates anything but that. Convict me when I’m choosing to put myself above others or am making choice that lead to others feeling left out. I pray for a pure heart, which leads to a life of pure intentions. I want to be marked by your love and your grace.In Jesus’ name, amen. Photo Credit: ©iStock/Getty Images Plus/iiievgeniy Chelsey is the voice behind the Living with Less Podcast and author of the 52-week devotional More of Him, Less of Me: Living a Christ-centered Life in a Me-centered World. She writes devotions for Lifeway Women’s Journey Magazine, Crosswalk.com, and iBelieve.com. She also writes Bible reading plans for the YouVersion Bible App. Chelsey lives in Ohio with her husband and two children. You can connect with her on Instagram @chelseydematteis and at her website ChelseyDeMatteis.com. Related Resource: Remember God’s Enduring Love for You in this Guided Meditation on Psalm 100! This guided Christian meditation from Psalm 100 will help you experience and praise God for his unending love for you. Become aware of God's presence with you, and praise God for his loyal and enduring love from the beginning of time and into the future. Listen to every episode of the So Much More Podcast on LifeAudio.com, or subscribe on Apple or Spotify so you never miss an episode! Now that you’ve prayed, are you in need of someone to pray for YOU? Click the button below! Visit iBelieve.com for more inspiring prayer content. The post A Prayer to Be an Authentic Christian in a World Full of Influencers – Your Daily Prayer – September 13 appeared first on GodUpdates.

A Prayer to Be an Authentic Christian in the World Full of InfluencersBy Chelsey DeMatteis Bible Reading“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” – Matthew 5:8 My parents came home from a dinner date and couldn’t believe what they saw happening just one table behind them. Sadly, I wasn’t surprised, but my heart was so broken for where we’ve found ourselves in the midst of a world full of “influencing.” A mom was sitting across the table from her daughter trying to get the perfect “selfie” shot. As she continued to take the photos of herself, the waiter kindly came up and asked if she’d like a picture of herself and her daughter. She looked at the waiter as if they had offended her and she reluctantly said “sure”. Once the waiter walked away, the mother went back to taking selfies as she ignored her daughter sitting right across the table. How did we get here? (And, I must be the first to say we’ve all been guilty of something like this. Maybe not to this extent, but we’ve all chosen the phone in our hands over the people God has so kindly placed in front of us.) We traded a world of choosing to love those right in front of us for a world that chooses to love oneself above all things. As Christians, we all can agree we’re held to a higher standard as we journey through life on earth, but we have to get honest with ourselves and ask the question, have we too started to want to put ourselves above others? Have we gotten caught up in the trap of wanting to “influence” people by boasting about our accomplishments, our children’s accomplishments, and our possessions? Have we found more comfort in sharing about ourselves rather than asking how someone else is doing? Once we answer these questions, I think we’ll better know how to move forward and rightly in the way God would desire for us. Not one time in scripture do we ever find Jesus boasting about Himself or sharing news to make others feel less than. The posture of His heart was always pure, and that is one of the key character traits I want in my life. I want a pure heart. One filled with pure intentions and seeing others the way Jesus sees them. Jesus teaches us how to live here in this world. We can find exactly how to live by spending time in Jesus’ famous speech at the Sermon on the Mount. “Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. "Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” – Matthew 5:1-12 Living in this world full of influencers and imposter syndrome can easily leave us feeling cynical and defeated. But, God calls us to more. He calls us, as His chosen children, to be lights in the world. To live rightly for Him and to share the gift of the gospel. We have the opportunity to be authentic in a world that elevates being ingenuine to get ahead or to make others feel less than. Today we have an opportunity to love people well, be authentic where God has us, and choose to be influenced by the saving grace of God.  Let’s pray: Lord, thank you for the gift of your Word and its ability to penetrate our hearts. Help me desire to be authentic in a world that elevates anything but that. Convict me when I’m choosing to put myself above others or am making choice that lead to others feeling left out. I pray for a pure heart, which leads to a life of pure intentions. I want to be marked by your love and your grace.In Jesus’ name, amen. Photo Credit: ©iStock/Getty Images Plus/iiievgeniy Chelsey is the voice behind the Living with Less Podcast and author of the 52-week devotional More of Him, Less of Me: Living a Christ-centered Life in a Me-centered World. She writes devotions for Lifeway Women’s Journey Magazine, Crosswalk.com, and iBelieve.com. She also writes Bible reading plans for the YouVersion Bible App. Chelsey lives in Ohio with her husband and two children. You can connect with her on Instagram @chelseydematteis and at her website ChelseyDeMatteis.com. Related Resource: Remember God’s Enduring Love for You in this Guided Meditation on Psalm 100! This guided Christian meditation from Psalm 100 will help you experience and praise God for his unending love for you. Become aware of God's presence with you, and praise God for his loyal and enduring love from the beginning of time and into the future. Listen to every episode of the So Much More Podcast on LifeAudio.com, or subscribe on Apple or Spotify so you never miss an episode! Now that you’ve prayed, are you in need of someone to pray for YOU? Click the button below! Visit iBelieve.com for more inspiring prayer content. The post A Prayer to Be an Authentic Christian in a World Full of Influencers – Your Daily Prayer – September 13 appeared first on GodUpdates.

September 13, 2024 God's Unchanging PlansKAREN WINGATE Lee en español "Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and he will establish your plans." Proverbs 16:3 (NIV) My day was perfectly planned, starting with an hour of desk work followed by a haircut. My husband and I would meet with our tax preparer at 11 a.m., then enjoy lunch together before I met a colleague to work on a project for the rest of the afternoon. My schedule was as neatly arranged as the entries in my day planner. Then things got messy. Our tax appointment took four hours instead of one, making it necessary to cancel the afternoon project. During the appointment, I juggled multiple texts, which yielded three unexpected events for the next day. I thrive on the reliability of routine. But some days I feel like I'm in a constant state of flux as my plans intersect with life situations over which I have no control. My neatly organized planner becomes messy with crossed-out items and new plans squeezed into the margins. My daughter says her branch of the military has a term for that - "flexicute," meaning to execute with flexibility. But flexicuting gets wearisome, and I'm tempted to shout at the world, "Can we please do things according to my outline for the next hour? Did I say ‘please'?" I'm grateful for Hebrews 13:8, which reminds us "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever" (NIV). When everything and everyone else (OK, me, too) is in flex mode, God never changes. His character remains the same. He won't pay lip service to promises and then alter them. Still, I may not know the details of His plan; it's my role to discover what unfolds and trust Him for what remains concealed. But the sun will come up tomorrow, plants will grow, and the mountains will still stand. He will provide for my needs, and He has unfailing love for me, even when my mood and mind change in reaction to my messed-up plans. Perhaps that's the message of my blotchy day planner. Each time I deal with the unreliability of my schedule, I can look toward heaven and thank God for His dependability in weaving in and working out the plans of my heart, all for His glory and my best interest. Because He is so trustworthy, I can find confidence to do what Proverbs 16:3 instructs: "Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and he will establish your plans." Whenever my plans go off course, I can lean back and trust that God and I simply made a right turn so we could head in the new direction He intends for us to go. Has your day just started and your schedule already altered from what you anticipated? Breathe deeply and surrender your activities and intentions to the Lord. Let Him direct your steps toward what He has planned for you today. Lord, right now, I relinquish the hours of my day to You. I'll make my plans, but I'll hold them loosely, looking to You to direct me and change course as You think best. In Jesus' Name, Amen. OUR FAVORITE THINGS What if God has more in store for you than you've given Him credit for? Unmet milestones and unfulfilled dreams can make you feel like you've already missed out on the life you were "supposed" to have ... But what if it’s possible to build a life you love without having everything you want? Listen to a recent podcast episode - "You Are Not Behind" with Meghan Ryan Asbury - on this topic right here! Viewing our daily schedules from God's perspective challenges us to take a fresh look at how we usually see things. Let Karen Wingate's book, With Fresh Eyes: 60 Insights into the Miraculously Ordinary from a Woman Born Blind, guide you in seeing life in fresh ways. Order your copy here. ENGAGE You can also find Karen on Facebook and Instagram. FOR DEEPER STUDY Matthew 5:1-2, "Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them" (NIV). Crowds often seemed to interrupt Jesus' workflow during His years of ministry, but He used those moments in powerful ways. When crowds followed Him seeking physical healing in Matthew 5, He took time to teach them what we call the Sermon on the Mount. Another time, He demonstrated His power by feeding a crowd of 5,000 with one boy-sized lunch (John 6:5-13). How has God used a shift in your schedule for His greater glory? Tell us about it in the comments. © 2024 by Karen Wingate. All rights reserved. Proverbs 31 MinistriesP.O. Box 3189 Matthews, NC 28106 www.Proverbs31.org The post God’s Unchanging Plans –  Encouragement for Today – September 13, 2024 appeared first on GodUpdates.