“Everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil men and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of.” (2 Timothy 3:12–14, NIV 1984).
My Musings – “Evil men [and women] and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.” It might sound a bit trite, but “I never believed I’d see the day,” when this phrase would describe the leadership of my own country. But in the last twenty-years or so we have definitely seen things “go from bad to worse.”
This is no longer the country that a revolution was fought to establish or that a civil war was fought to preserve and purify. For years now, the morning after party conventions and general elections I wake to the thought, “is this the best we could do?” And yet every two to four years “we the people” continue to send many of the same people back to “deceiving and being deceived.” What foreign adversaries have been unsuccessful in doing to us, we continue down the path of doing to ourselves.
The freedoms that the blood of patriots and soldiers died to preserve are being taken away by our own leaders. The courts legislate from the bench, and the executive legislates through executive orders and mandates. All while the legislators fight each other rather than fighting to make this country a “more perfect union.” All branches as well as both parties are culpable, as they continue to fiddle away while “Rome” burns.
I said all that (way more political than I like to be in my musings) to say all this. As citizens of another Kingdom, those of us who belong to the universal Church must “continue in what [we] have learned and have become convinced of.” To continue “to live a godly life in Christ Jesus.” It will become increasingly unpopular and eventually illegal. The “new world” originally populated by people fleeing religious persecution, will experience what our ancestors fled to escape. In fact, “a time is coming when anyone who kills [us] will think he is offering a service to God. They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me. I have told you this, so that when the time comes you will remember that I warned you.” (John 16:2–4, NIV 1984).
My Advice – While we mourn the imminent loss of this worldly kingdom, once guided by heavenly Kingdom principles, we must “stand firm.” For we “know whom [we] have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what [we] have entrusted to him for that day.” (2 Timothy 1:12, NIV 1984). In the meantime, “do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.” (1 Peter 4:12–14, NIV 1984). Blessings my friends. The King is coming, maybe soon.
The Brew Is A Musing 
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