Can we be a moral people without God?

    




                                                              Moral without God?


              I know that I said that my next blog would be about my trip to Massachusetts but I feel that I must postpone that for now and write about something with much more immediate impact. This blog will answer a question that I have been pondering these last couple of days. Can a person be moral without God? The way I am answering this question may confuse some people but I am prepared to explain and defend my answer. I believe that a person can be moral without being a Christian but I believe it is impossible to be moral without God. To some this might seem like a contradiction but it is not. When you consider the use of bibles in courtrooms or the "golden rule" that we quote to our children all of the time we see that many of the teachings in scriptures play a role in our society. If we consider our constitution and the founding fathers who penned it, we know from history that not all of these men were Christians but they still believed in upholding the teachings of scripture because they knew that it was the best foundation for a moral nation. John Adams said "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."


              There are some people who feel that preachers should not deliver sermons about sin and repentance. The argument they use is that everyone knows what is right and wrong and we don't need God. I disagree with this position. If God is the root of our understanding of morality, it's like citing a source in a research paper and not giving the one who wrote it credit. We have to have an anchor for our moral stance. If morality is relative which some people believe, then we will have a chaotic society. What if our government decided that we should throw out the constitution and apply Sharia Law instead? What if we applied the Maori or Native American understanding of moral justice? What if we had forced abortions like China? Our nation decided to have it's foundation on the bible and the truths in it. We gained our independence from Britain but we prayed every step of the way. We put God in front of what we did and we succeeded. The French wanted to follow our example but they decided to get rid of God from their society. They crushed the reformation and they decided to rely on Reason instead of God. The French Revolution was "godless" and "bloody." They lost their grounding for morality. The Russians did the same when they embraced atheism as the state religion. America has stood because of it's biblical foundation but as we see the government constantly trying to suppress biblical values, we see our society deteriorating before our eyes. Former President Ronald Reagan said, " if we ever forget that we are one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under."

            Let's close out with a few scriptures. "All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away." This scripture is from Isaiah 64:6. This scripture says to me that even our best understanding of right and wrong is not enough and we must rely on what the word of God says. Another scripture says "When there is moral rot within a nation, its government topples easily. But wise and knowledgeable leaders bring stability." This scripture is from Proverbs 28:2 and I think it shows what is going on in our nation today, we are becoming like France did during the Revolution and our government will be toppled if we do not follow the truth that we built our nation on. But the promise is if our leaders follow God, we will be blessed. This is the answer. A person can be moral without being a Christian but they can not be moral without God. If we reject God from our society, our nation will go the way that France did and maybe even worse. You can have all the morals in the world... but what's your anchor?

The Unexpected

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. Isaiah 55:8


I am reminded that God's ways are not always our ways and that his will is not always our will. Life would be pretty boring if we knew everything before it happened. Sometimes God uses the unexpected to get our attention. If you don't believe me, take a good look at Jonah. Jonah spent three days in the belly of a whale because he refused to preach God's message to the people of Nineveh.

If you want a historical example, take a good look at Henry VIII. King Henry went around trying to find a woman to give him a son. Finally after divorcing his first wife and butchering his second, wife number three gave him the son he always wanted... Edward VI. Who the heck remembers Edward? The only thing I remember about Edward is that he died young and that he named his cousin Lady Jane Grey as his successor. I doubt he knew that she would be executed nine days later!

Henry VIII never had another legitimate male heir to the throne but he was the father to two of England's most famous monarchs. His eldest daughter by his first wife Catherine of Aragon became "Bloody Mary" and it was she who took a final stand for Catholicism in England. Henry's other daughter Elizabeth became England's most praised monarch. It was Elizabeth I who defeated the Armada and it was Elizabeth I who vested an interest in the New World. But... Henry probably did not see this when he had Anne Boleyn's head chopped off. Ironically, Elizabeth I became a much more famous monarch in English history than Henry himself. It was thanks to Elizabeth that James I became the next ruler in England and it was thanks to James I that the bible was translated. If it was not for James I persecution of Christians, America would not have the legacy of Christianity it has today. Henry did not see any of this!

Think of Samuel the prophet of God who anointed David king of Israel, did he not believe that the King would be one of David's more "qualified" older brothers? But it was God's will and God used David to take down the Philistine Goliath.

Sometimes God uses the unexpected to get people's attention. The only question is... What does he have to do to get your attention?

God found us in New Zealand

                       
    *I am not good at grammar but I hope that I can share what the Lord is doing in my life with others!


                   DOWN UNDER AND UPSIDE DOWN

                   Prior to 9/11 , my  family did a krazy thing! We sold our  beautiful home in Phoenixville, PA and hightailed it to New Zealand...

        I will never forget that evening when we were all in the family spa and my dad announced that we were moving. I was angry enough to explode! I was only seven.  Move??? Why would we want to do that? But it was no use... my parents were set on the idea. We sold our house and pretty much everything we held dear. Even after  all of these years my parents  occasionally ask about things we sold and lament the fact that we sold them. Our extended  family   thought we had lost our minds but we still moved...

        The first year in New Zealand was agony! The way people lived was definitely not AMERICAN and the attitude was so different, not bad BUT very different. New Zealanders are very chilled out people.  We spent all of this first year  trying to find a place to live. We even spent our first Christmas in a rental home.

 During the following year  we  came to a little area known as Cheviot. Cheviot is located in North Canterbury, New Zealand. Cheviot is also an hour and a half north of Christchurch.

 We found a beautiful piece of land near Cheviot  and we decided to build a Mediterranean home. This was an arduous task and it quickly gave people the wrong  impression that we were RICH AMERICANS. I was attending a small rural school  at the time of about 200 students. I liked the teachers a lot. You do not get a lecture from teachers in New Zealand for reading a bible and sharing about it during  Read and Share time. Some of the children were very nice but others picked on me because I was American.

I came home one day after school and saw my parents. Something had happened and I could feel it inside. My dad told me that we had left God out of everything and that we had moved for purely selfish reasons. This was the start of something beautiful. GOD FOUND US IN NEW ZEALAND. I had always believed in God but it was not until New Zealand that he really came alive for me personally. I was baptized in New Zealand in the Public School pool and I shared my faith with my friends. But the greatest work was still to come.

We came back to America in 2005 to adopt Jeremiah. We thought that the process of adoption would take 4-6 months, it took two years! I wondered if I would ever see New Zealand again. During this time we experienced different church cultures and made a ton of friends. Revival swept our family but some of them thought we were religious bible nuts. Jeremiah and I were home schooled but we both agree that these two years back in America were the best years of our lives. We met so many fantastic and wonderful people. But we went back to New Zealand one more time.

When we went back to New Zealand, nothing had really changed in two years. We attended that small rural school and we were once again labeled as JESUS FREAK AMERICANS. But the opportunities to witness were unbelievable. I gave a speech on John the Revelator in front of the whole community and I got to share my testimony in my Social Science class. I took first place on the speech cup which is now in the Cheviot Museum.  But God was calling us back to America. Our time in New Zealand was done and over. But I will never forget because  GOD FOUND US IN NEW ZEALAND.

WE ARE TAKING A WEEK LONG TRIP TO MASSACHUSETTS, I WILL WRITE MY NEXT BLOG ABOUT THAT!

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." ROMANS 8:28