Thanks for your favorable responses to this past Sunday’s sermon.  The antichrist is an interesting subject, and I want to share a few more thoughts on what I think it means to acknowledge the presence of the antichrist in our world. There are three basic beliefs about God in the world:  antitheism, deism, and theism.

1.  ANTITHEISM – This belief holds there is no God and that the material universe just happens to exist.  There is no explanation for it.  There is no purpose for it.  It started nowhere.  It’s going nowhere.  It has no creator and does not need to be understood except as something that is material and exists.  This outlook finds the idea of the Christ and antichrist equally unnecessary.  Evil is a behavioral problem.  There are no spiritual problems.
2.  DEISM – There is a God (or gods).  He or they probably made the universe.  He has no personal involvement in its management or preservation, and he does not enjoy it because he is uninvolved with it.  The enemies of the Gospel whom John is confronting in his letters (called Gnostics) were a lot like these deists.  They believed God existed but was uninvolved, distant, and knowable only as we speculated, argued, and disagreed.  Even then we could not be certain.  This outlook also finds no place for antichrist.  Everything here plays out at a behavioral level.  Prayer and the Spirit of God are an illusion.
3.  THEISM – There is a God.  He created, manages, and loves the universe, the world, and all that is in it.  He is personal in nature.  He reveals Himself to people in many ways and is interested in us and how we’re doing.  He not only pays attention to us, but He helps us and intervenes.

             The doctrine of the antichrist reminds me that the material world is governed spiritually and is headed for a spiritual destination.  The problems that come my way are not just a result of the need to reengineer the material world.  There is also a need for me to deal with the spirit of the antichrist in this world of ours.  Other than this being interesting, why should this idea be important to you?

Over the past week, I’ve posted 5 practical helps to anchor your life in Christ.  As a reminder, only a personal, born-again relationship with Christ will ultimately anchor us, but there are some practical steps we can take to compliment our relationship with the Lord.

Here are the first four followed by the final and 5th help.

Anchor 1: A well broken-in Bible

Anchor 2: Calloused Knees

Anchor 3: Worn out Shoes

Anchor 4: Worn out church clothes

Anchor 5:

A CHRIST-CENTERED DATEBOOK OR CHECKBOOK (or on-line account) – I was told early on that what you love you will spend time and money for.  What do your datebook and checkbook say about your love for the Lord?  Pay attention to this when you balance your checkbook.  Could either or both of these books be used as evidence to convict you of being a Christian? 

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            The Lord be with you as you enhance your sense of connection to God.  It is His greatest gift to us, and He means for us to experience it and enjoy it.

In my first post, I talked about the first of five helps to anchor your life in Christ.  As a reminder, these steps don’t do the anchoring; only a relationship the Lord Jesus Christ can.  However, practicing these 5 things great greatly influence the level of anchordness (is this a word?) that you feel.

Step 1 – a Broken-In Bible

Step 2 - CALLOUSED KNEES 

 Talking is relating and relating requires talking.  Prayer is talking to God and is absolutely essential to a relationship with Him.  At my college roommate’s funeral, I had the privilege of talking with Pat Conroy.  He related that several times a year his grandpa, Pete, would stay at their home for a month at a time.  When he did, he always slept in the bottom bunk and Pat in the top.  He said every night his grandpa would review his day with the Lord.  “Lord, you know that today I tried to talk with that woman at the store about You and …” I think sometimes we try too hard to be profound when we pray when all we need to do is talk with God.  Do you?  How often?  About what? 

Next Post: Worn Out Shoes

Every Christian is meant to experience God.  The book of 1 John speaks to ways we experience Him.  In my last two blogs, we saw that one way we experience Him is that we have a new relationship with sin.  In chapter two we see we achieve stability as a ship at anchor is stabilized.  John doesn’t use the term “anchor” in 1 John 2, but the Christian life is certainly described here as anchored.

             Notice all the affirmative statements in 2:12-14.  “Your sins are forgiven.”  “You know Him.”  “You have already overcome the evil one.”  “You are strong.”  “The Word of God abides in you.”  Anchored, solid, and stable.  What a contrast to the hyper spirituality of the heresy of Gnosticism which said you need to know more and more and be more and more pure but could never tell them how much more of either.  For them the carrot of God’s love and approval was always within reach but never in the mule’s mouth.  For the Christian, God in His grace hands the carrot to His people.

             The promise of stability is a wonderful promise in a world as unstable as ours.  I hope you are growing in being anchored, but I warn you.  Unless you get anchored rightly, when things in your world get better, the anchor of Christ can start to feel like a ball and chain.  Remember, rightly anchored doesn’t mean just staying in the same place all the time.  It means you are willingly connected to Christ by faith and surrender and are being drawn to Him by the work of the Holy Spirit.  If this is not the nature of your anchoring, it may not feel like a blessing to you the way it should.

 Anchored Rightly…and NOT

             The worst possible way to be anchored is when you are rowing like crazy in another direction.  When we are dishonest, immoral, or drugged, yet we have honestly accepted Christ as our Savior, His Spirit, Word, and church are annoyances to us.  They’re more like a dog barking when we’re trying to sleep.  The problem for you is God is always right.  If you ever get right with God, you’ll be glad He didn’t say, “Oh, it’s ok.  You go ahead.  I understand.” 

             Another unhelpful way to be anchored is when Christ is like a heavy weight on the bottom that keeps you from going anywhere.  This keeps you from harm but also keeps you from growing and having any Christian dynamic about your life.  This, unfortunately, is what too often passes for Biblical Christianity.  It feels stable to us but looks stuck to others and to God.  The old song, “I Will Not Be Moved” meant I will not be shifting constantly.  It did not mean I will not change as God leads me.

             Christ, our anchor, functions in our lives like the ancient anchor post.  These were found at the ends of piers in the ancient world.  A rope passing through the anchor post was fastened to a ship so that it both kept the ship from danger and thereby made it stable but also drew it home, changing its position.  Our lives are designed to be both stable and changing.  What a reassuring and excitingly dynamic relationship with the Lord this proves to be.  In the next blog please look for anchors that are available to us that produce both stability and dynamic.