A Lifestyle of Peace

Sunday, July 10, 2016

The Struggle of America: Authoritarian Secular Socialism vs. Christian Free Society

The Withdrawal from Dunkirk, 1940 by Charles Cundall

We are the last hope of western civilization. And for America. We are the light of the world. Don't hide your light, but let it shine. Shine brightly because we are the people of the promise. We are the chosen of God in the world. Jesus lives in us. We have the power to shape the world. There is great danger lurking in the darkness, along the quiet streets, and in the noise of the great cities. Wicked forces hatch their schemes, darkness prevails. Yet there is great light, lingering among the people triumphing in their hearts, standing firmly against the dark. The great struggle continues. We are the carriers of the sacred fire. We are the people of the light.

"Cry aloud; do not hold back; lift up your voice like a trumpet; declare to my people their transgression, to the house of Jacob their sins." -Isaiah 58:1

Across the eastern world, across Africa and the middle east Christianity is growing by leaps and bounds. More than half of Africa is believing in Jesus today. The underground church in China is the fastest growing in the world. South Korea is a haven of Christianity, while North Korea is a dark orwellian nightmare society. Russia has enacted anti-evangelizing laws, but the church there is now going under ground, continuing to grow. The gospel is moving steadily through India. Christ is moving through the Muslim world through dreams and visions. It's true.

"All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted." -2 Timothy 3:12

There are those who fight that battle everyday. Many are indigenous missionaries, some are foreign missionaries. It's an exciting prospect. But my concern, my calling is upon the home front. My calling is focused on western civilization, on America and Europe. Because western man, brainwashed, and a bit drunk on modernity, and the technologies and the sciences, moved in arrogance away from God. Such is leading to chaos. Ironic that the 3rd world is turning to Christianity in such a massive way, while at the same time the 1st world is arrogantly embracing a lifeless secularism.

The world is divided along different lines, in conflict between the United States, Israel, and a few allies in Europe facing down China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, and other middle eastern nations. World wars are common in our day and age. We've had two already. Wars are common, though some on the left seem to think humanity has moved past such problems. Remember when President Obama rebuked Putin for invading the Ukraine? He said this is the 21st century, this doesn't happen anymore. But it was happening, right in front of him. Leftist academic types, favor big government and total control because they believe they know best and that humanity is just so good, there is no need for checks and balances any longer. If everyone would just shut up, they'd fix everything with the government. Of course, the facts don't match that analysis. It's a naive worldview that fails to take into account the facts. They think humanity has "evolved" to be so great today. It's not true. Human nature hasn't changed.

The world has relied on America, the good guys, to be around the corner in battles like World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. The world needs good guys, to protect Israel, to protect 3rd world nations, and to stand against evil regimes.

America today is in danger. America is facing an inward socialist insurgency. That's not a conspiracy theory, just a fact of life. They announce it openly. They use alinsky tactics to push it forward. They gathered around socialists like Bernie Sanders; but the goals are the same throughout the whole leftist movement. They seek domination, to transform America into their idea of a government controlled utopia.

I want there to always be an America around the corner to sweep in for the rescue. If America falls into chaos and disrepair, then the world will quickly be at the whim of China and Russia. These are corrupt regimes, set on self interest and total control of their populations. If America fades from strength and international influence, when these corrupt regimes invade countries, quietly taking control of places like the Philippines and Australia, there will be no overpowering force to set things right.

Somehow narcissists and cynics have managed to take control of the United States. They say stupid things like America is no different than the rest of the world. They fail to realize that freedom is rare in Europe. They fail to realize the good of America. They say America is solely to blame for slavery, though dozens of other countries had it before us and after us. They ignore the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of Americans who set the slaves free during the civil war. These cynics are never satisfied, never happy with things. They seek to change things. They seek to enforce equality by taking away freedoms, like freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and freedom of choice. They seek to silence and force Christianity from the public square. They seek to force pastors to do what they say, or else. They are corrupt and power hungry, but they control the media, so they are good at appearing righteous as they steal our freedoms and make war on religious freedom.

The gospel of Jesus Christ made America great. It wasn't us. It was God. He still loves us, the remnant in America. But he wants us to take a stand and fight. The gospel has cost many a great deal. Think of the thousands upon thousands of martyrs that lost their lives for the gospel. We are called to the same. But we've gotten lazy in the United States. We've allowed our enemies to take over. So now is the time to stand. Otherwise we deserve the fate we receive.

Listen to me, very carefully, because this is certainly a fair projection: The ones who tweet to #DisarmHate, and rally to murder cops, and beat up people at anti-Trump rallies, are the kind of people, who in time wouldn't blink at the prospect of jailing or killing "hateful" Christians who refuse their equality orthodoxy. First disarm hate, then kill hate? It seems that way. That's a controversial opinion to some, but to people who understand human nature, it's self evident. These people are stupid, useful idiots, violent authoritarian types, increasingly outraged, and dissatisfied. Thankfully there seems to be a growing counter-culture rejecting the ideological worldview of these equality nazis.

The forces arrayed against us are many. Perhaps the greatest difficulty is those who pose to be us, but are not us. Think of Westboro Baptist Church and their horrible witness. Think of the endless stream of false teachers on cable television turning off millions to the true living gospel. Think of the RINOs and Neo-cons in the Republican party, in GOP leadership constantly surrendering to the socialist left, enabling the socialist left, and apologizing to the leftist media complex. Think of the traitorous self-serving leadership of the GOP who attack conservatives more than democrats. Think of how the leadership of the GOP constantly hike up spending, throwing away the future of our nation. Think of the corruption, the insider trading, and the crony-capitalism. It's reviling.

The leftists, well, they are terrible. But the immediate problem is the enablers in our own ranks that shoot us in the back as we try to storm the battlements of our ideological enemies. They are the real trouble.

Perhaps our ancestors, the greatest generation, that fought World War II offered up a greater sacrifice than we could ever know. Perhaps on the world stage, before the throne of God, they offered up themselves to save the free world from the horror of the Nazi Socialist party. Yet with so many of them dead, who was left in the United States? Perhaps, too much evil was left over and not enough good remained. And perhaps our academic institutions, Columbia University, and others were too open to the "new ideas" of the Frankfurt School fleeing the Nazis. Perhaps they should've been less accommodating to the bizarre ideas of these communists. It's wonderful to be open, but when one apprehends truth, the whole idea is to close the mind around it, and reject that which is inherently destructive. The greatest generation is an example to us of true heroism, of doing the right thing for the sake of doing the right thing. So, there is great reason for hope.

"The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?" -Psalm 27:1

This is a war, a spiritual war. The kingdom of Satan has taken many hits across the centuries. The kingdom of God is moving out in all directions. We are on the frontlines today. We must continue the struggle against our enemy, the evil spiritual enemy of God.

"The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds." -2 Corinthians 10:4

Jesus Christ is alive. He resurrected from the dead to give us victory over our true enemy, the king of this world, the evil one who presides over all evil. Satan is our enemy. Satan presides over the human trafficking industry, he presides over genocides, he presides over the millions of abortions every year, and he presides over atheistic socialist regimes that have nearly toppled western society time and again. We have to take them on. We have to fight. And we can.

I see the beginnings of hope forming today. I see a movement of Christians rising up to stand for hope in America. I see a movement of conservatives set on restoring the Constitution. I see a generation of young people who realize they've been lied to and betrayed by the socialist left, who will become the front line warriors of a new great awakening.

This movement will not be televised, unless to be attacked by the fascist media complex. This movement will exist within churches, within political action groups, within student groups, and within the hearts and minds of everyday Americans. It is my hope that this fire of freedom and faith will spread into Europe through the interwebs to inflame the hearts of Europeans and Russians with the flames of liberty and the unmatched zeal of Christ. God willing, the truth will spread like wildfire, like brushfires in the hearts of men, to stand against this big government atheistic socialist agenda across Europe and the Americas; to stand for freedom, liberty, limited government, free markets, and most importantly of all: the living gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

“I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim?

I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival. But I take up my task with buoyancy and hope. I feel sure that our cause will not be suffered to fail among men. At this time I feel entitled to claim the aid of all, and I say, “come then, let us go forward together with our united strength.” -Winston Churchill, 1st speech as Prime Minister, May 13th 1940, to the House of Commons.

"Take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in this evil day, and having done all, to stand firm." -Ephesians 6:13

George Washington crossing the Delaware

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Saturday, July 9, 2016

25 Pictures to Share on Social Media

I love sharing the truth on social media. It's fun. I relish it. You should too. You should share everyday, become a mobile one man ministry. Or one woman ministry. Be a powerhouse Christian soldier. That's what we need today. Take a stand.

Young people interact on the internet. Young people are the future. So target young people by blasting out the truth on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and all over the place. Use these pictures. I don't own any of them, but I share them freely. Thanks and God bless you.

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Monday, July 4, 2016

10 Fascinating Prager U Animated Video Shorts

Source: PragerU

Have you ever heard of Prager University? They make animated video shorts and post them on Youtube. View their channel here. They are also available on the PragerU website. I've learned a lot watching these videos. They are fun, entertaining and informative. These are ten of my favorites. Enjoy!

1. What is Crony Capitalism?

2. Does Science Argue for or against God?

3. The Most Important Question about Abortion

4. Climate Change: What Do Scientists Say?

5. The Least Free Place in America

6. Game of Loans

7. Government: Is it Ever Big Enough?

8. Religious Tolerance: Made in America

9. The War on Boys

10. The World's Most Persecuted Minority: Christians

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Saturday, July 2, 2016

A Junkie Shares about Addiction, Jesus, and the Salvation Army

There is philosophy, the realm of ideas and then there is life in the real world. Probably the hardest part of Christianity, the gospel and the Bible is translating those teachings into the real world.

A few short years ago a young man, me, went from all out junkie, serious, near death junkie, to all out sold out for Jesus Christ. In that moment of justification, in that moment of the shattering of the chains of addiction Jesus Christ did all the translating.

A realm of ideas that I knew very little about, a realm of spirituality, of religion and theology went from theoretical ideas, from foggy conjecture and pithy remarks, to reality. There were tangible consequences to the reality of Jesus. It became real to me by the reaction of Christ to a call for help, from me, in 2012. On a literal date, there was a response. Not in words, but in a transformation in my life.

It's been approximately three years and eight months since I was loaded up to my eyeballs. The realm of being on drugs, being messed up almost constantly had continued form age 16 when my parents divorced and I was expelled from school shortly after, until age 27. It had been constant. There had been jail, probation, chaotic moments, hospitalizations, detoxes, and rehabs. Suddenly in 2012 all of that changed.

This is my testimony. It's real. It's factual. And it demonstrates a fundamental shifting of my life, from one road to another. There had been numerous attempts to try for a better direction, sincere attempts, but they had failed. I don't mean token attempts, but real battles to attempt to get clear of addiction. Every time I would slide back in.

After that moment, everything in my life changed. I began attending a church community, a medium sized church being run out of a high school auditorium. That would've never happened before, I couldn't want to go to church. I couldn't care enough to go to church. It just didn't matter to me. It never could. It was as far as New York to Tokyo. There was nothing there for me, my mindset had been in direct opposition to even the suggestion!

I began reading the Bible everyday. I found myself hungry for it. Again, I didn't read books really. Not unless it was something trendy, to seem cool to my liberal friends. I didn't read anything but Hunter Thompson and Henry Miller back then. Nasty junk, really. The Bible seemed to jump off the page. I'd read it before, but it had never impacted me in that way in the past.

I began attending recovery groups. I began dealing with my underlying issues. I began reading tons of books. I read C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, A.W. Tozer, Ravi Zacharias, John R.W. Stott, and anything to do with Christian counseling concepts of healing from past struggles.

I put down the benzos and left em behind. I flushed the clonapin and lorazepam. I ended my love affair with amphetamines and ambien, all from the doctor of course. I left behind the weed. And no more alcohol, wow, alcohol had been everyday. And the biggest drug, the true killer of Justin Steckbauer, yes, I finally finally put down the dextromethorphan hydro-bromide. I set aside the awful love affair with the tripper drug, the triple C. Finally a real nightmare had ended. These things had seemed so appealing at one point. By 2012 I had come to HATE every one of those drugs and the awful control they had over me. I despised the endless highs and lows. I hated it and I hated myself for what I'd become.

Hope had been left behind two years prior. Jesus changed it all. Who can truly explain why? It's hard to explain. The best way I can put it is that there were suddenly powers within me, powers to resist, powers to stand firm, powers to want something better. Let me say that again, powers to want something better. Because the biggest obstacle for a true addict is wanting to want sobriety. It's always a struggle between half of you wanting to quit and the other half very firmly wanting to stay loaded. Deadlock. Jesus gave me new desires. He fired up a revolution in my soul.

Six months later I was baptized before a group of my peers, in water, and I stood before them and told my story. It was my first sermon, I suppose. My first message of hope.

Almost instantly I knew I was called to full time ministry. I was called to give my whole life to serving God. It's hard to explain. You just know. Plus the trail behind me had been such a perplexing question: What do you want to be when you grow up? If you recall Ferris Bueller's day off, Sloan and Cameron are talking and Sloan asks him,"What do you want to be?" He replies, "I don't know." And she asks, "Well what are you interested in?" And he turns and looks at her and smiles and says,"Nothing." Same thing with me. Nothing, yet, everything. I loved to write. I loved to read poetry at open mics. I loved to learn. And I loved philosophy. Sure enough, theology was in my future.

Now at this moment I was riding high on a wave of hope and revolution in my life. But there is this verse in the Bible, a mysterious verse that challenges all would-be Christians. It says: "count the cost." (Luke 14:25-34). Despite all the modern theos of the free gift, and the love of God, and yes those things are true, but there is also another side to the saga. There is the side of suffering, of trials, and of painstaking troubles inherent in the Christian life.

I don't know if I counted the cost. Though I think I did. I offered my life to God without reservation. I don't think I fully understood what the road ahead would be like though.

I became part of a church plant, and I began serving on several ministries at my church. I kept getting more involved. It was good, very good. I was sick and tired a great deal, but I was getting stronger everyday. I worked the 12 steps and experienced the fullness of a spiritual awakening. And a real one. I gathered up my 40 or so credits from the university of Wisconsin that I had left behind and applied to attend Liberty University, the largest Christian college in the world. Shockingly, I was accepted. God thing.

The church plant fell apart sadly, poor leadership, and just at that time I was looking for work. I hadn't worked in years and it was about time I stop mooching off family. So I applied at a Salvation Army transitional living center. In fact my dad had worked at a nearby building for more than twenty-five years.

The thirteen months I worked at the homeless shelter would be the hardest time of my life. I attended college full time, and at the same time worked full time hours at the shelter, then had a mental breakdown and cut back to part time hours. The struggles I went through at the shelter were immense. The battles were constant. It seemed like I was constantly struggling with emotions, depression anxiety, sleep problems, anger, and inner turmoil.

But I was on fire for the Lord! Wow! I was on fire. I told everyone I could about Jesus. I handed out Bibles. I prayed. And I held recovery groups. I talked constantly with homeless folks about Jesus and recovery. Nobody was really listening much, but I was still telling them! That year was filled with prayer, and dark prayer, prayers that were filled with angst and tears.

I worked rotating shifts, weekends and holidays, and the hours I was assigned included Sundays. So I wasn't able to attend my baptist church anymore. But the officers there and the social services director said that I could attend the Salvation Army services at the corps on Sundays. The shelter closed during those hours anyway. So I started doing that.

Now, I had in mind something much easier than what God was putting before me. I hadn't begun working at Salvation Army with the idea of getting involved with the army. In fact I still didn't even know the Salvation Army was a church until I applied for the job and began reading about them online. Even then, no interest. I wanted to be a Christian apologist or an itinerant evangelist. It was just a job or so I thought.

Somehow I ended up getting involved in the Salvation Army. I can't really explain it actually. I started attending Salvation Army conferences. I started learning Salvation Army theology. I started reading about the Salvation Army. And pretty soon I was shocked to find myself at Salvation Army conferences, and they held a "call to officership" and I was amazed, finding myself jumping up out of my seat and moving toward officership. I don't know what I was thinking. It must've been temporary insanity. Or cult-like brainwashing. Who knows! But three different times God gave me a shove out of my seat, to the officership corner of the room. And I hobbled over there in a frodo-like daze to pray with a DYS or a cadet or an officer, or whoever. So as I affectionately refer to it, I was kidnapped by the Salvation Army, aided and abetted by God almighty.

That fall, after leaving the homeless shelter (thank goodness) and I loved the people, but man was it stressful. Probably over 30 different times I had to call an ambulance, the police department, and even the fire department (twice). Yes, that crazy. But then things really got out of control, because I found myself moving from home in central Wisconsin to a quaint little sea-side village in upper Michigan. You really can't make this stuff up. Upper Michigan? Does God have a sense of humor? Yes he does.

So I must've been in a trance, obviously, residuals from previous drug addiction, and I woke up upper Michigan working as an intern for the Salvation Army. "Explain that pinhead!" -Bill O'reilly. Junkie goes in, intern comes out, can't explain that. And that's where I'm writing this from right now. From upper Michigan. It's really gotten crazy. This has been the toughest few years of my life, though nothing is tougher than to live addicted without hope.

I committed my life to Jesus Christ, because he swept into my disaster and rescued me from the rising waters. He saved me, brushed me off, cleaned me up, set me right, set me free, and set me upon the mission I had always been meant to champion. My whole life I had been looking for the righteous cause to champion, and finally, finally, finally I had found it. But more so it, and it being He, found me. Today it's hard man, it's really hard. I'm single, I don't have many friends, I work long hours, I have to deal with snotty coworkers and difficult situations. And I have to fight my own inner demons, my own depression, my own bitterness and brokenness and my own tendency toward selfishness and self pity. But the war is winnable now.

Count the cost. Jesus Christ calls us to do something bigger and greater than we can possibly imagine. It seems impossible, and it is impossible. Why does God do it that way? Because if it was doable in our own power we might be tempted to think it was all about us. When it's officership in the Salvation Army, it's too much, too much for Justin alone. But in Christ anything is possible. It's gritty and awful, and crying and weeping and living and loving and victory after victory and chaos and order and all manner of new, scary situations, social anxiety, panic attacks, preaching Spirit filled sermons, working long and hard, and feeling darn good about it, standing firm, studying hard, and finding in myself new spiritual muscles, new maturity, and new abilities that I never had before. Christ is building me into a superhero for his cause. And a beautiful cause it is, the cause of the gospel, for which Christ died for me to set me free, not from addiction, but from sin. Behind addiction is selfishness, behind selfishness, sin, evil, and darkness. Christ set me free from all of it. And more, he called me to serve him with my whole life. So I'm doing it. It's insanely tough, but equally amazing, rewarding and wonderful. What is He calling you to do?