Jerusalem’s Pride

By: Chris Johnson

Next week kicks off pride month, the annual, month long celebration of America’s sexually perverse population. Every year it seems to amp up, as corporation after corporation changes social media profile pictures, crosses old boundaries in new commercials, and places rainbow themed merchandise nobody buys in prominent locations.

In the book of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego famously refuse to comply with the king’s edict to bow before his statue when the music plays. Similarly for us,  every year seems to inch closer to “celebrate when the rainbow flag waves or it’s into the furnace with you.”

The fact is there are already Americans who have lived that experience. Baker Jack Phillips and florist Baronelle Stuttsman have suffered much at the hands of their government for their refusal to honor the false god of humanity created in our own image.

But the LGBTQ aren’t the only ones with a pride problem. The American culture is filled with the language of “self-made men” “pulling themselves up.” That’s the American dream, after all. Look what I made myself into.

In a sense, that’s the same message being presented by June’s Pride Parades with all their ugly garishness and exaggerated self-promotion. “Look what we have declared ourselves to be!” they say, “isn’t this wonderful?” To which, like the little boy speaking to the naked emperor, those who have not swallowed the lie say, “ummm, no.”

Amos 6:8 said of Israel a century before sending Assyria to conquer them, “The Lord GOD has sworn by himself, declares the LORD, the God of hosts: ‘I abhor the pride of Jacob and hate his strongholds and I will deliver up the city and all that is in it.’” 

Why would God hate a “stronghold?” Because the Psalms say HE is our stronghold, and the Lord our God is a jealous God. Their faith was in the strength of their city. They counted themselves safe behind its thick walls. An earlier verse in Amos says, “Woe to those who lie on beds of ivory and stretch themselves out on their couches…” Life was luxurious for them, but not at their day of judgment!

In Jesus’ parable of the rich landowner in Luke 12, the man similarly puts his faith in his prosperity, “I will say to my soul,’ Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ 

But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?”

This parable follows the same pattern. When we credit ourselves with our prosperity, our technological advances, our comforts, rather than receiving them as a gift from God and asking how He would like us to use them, He reminds us where they came from in the first place.

Roman’s 11:36 makes it clear in that what we have, including our bodies, minds and souls – comes from God! “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever.”

Take the opportunity given by this “Pride Month” to examine yourselves. Count your blessings, and remember to count your mental acuity, your physical strength, and  the fortunate opportunities that God has given you that have allowed you to be where you are today.

 

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