This is the first 3 in 3 that we are sending out in 2024. With this blessing comes the responsibility to remind our readers that in EVERYTHING we do, including how we respond to the news that inundates us every day, we are to glorify God (1 Corinthians 10:31). To help grasp the seriousness of this point, I shall call on one of my favorite puritans, Thomas Manton:
“This life is not to be valued but as it yields opportunities to glorify God. We were not sent into the world to live for ourselves, but for God. If we could make ourselves, then we could live for ourselves. If we could be our own first cause, then we might be our own end. But God made us for himself, and sent us into the world for himself. It is not our duty to glorify God in heaven only, but also here on earth in the midst of difficulties and temptations. No one is sent into the world to be idle, or to bring forth fruit to themselves, but God’s glory must be our chief work and aim while we are here upon earth… Every morning we should revive the sense of this upon our hearts. This day I am going to live with God. When a Christian leaves home in the morning, he must remember he is at Christ’s disposal; he is not to do as he pleases, but to be guided by rule, and for God’s glory—not only in his duties or immediate conversation with God, but in his sports, business, and recreation. What is it to do things in the name of Christ, but to do them according to Christ’s will and command? In discharge of this work, we must do it all for God’s glory. We can do nothing without him. If we have anything to do for God, we must do it in his own strength, in every word and every deed.”
Throughout this year, whether you listen to Bill Johnson narrate these Decency Minutes or you choose to read the scripts we send out here, we urge you to think Biblically about their content, respond in godliness and charity, and, in all things, give glory and praise to God. It’s our duty as image bearers of our Creator and particularly so if we are Christians.
A Degree in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
In 2021, the Heritage Foundation released a study of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion offices at state universities nationwide. Though it sounds positive, DEI ideology is disunifying, hateful, and based on Marxist principles.
The Heritage study concluded that, “Promoting DEI has become a primary function of higher education.” And the biggest offender? The new college football national champions, our very own University of Michigan.
In 2021, U of M had 163 paid personnel to promote this ideology; today they have 241, with their salaries taking up over $30 million, or about 9% of the state of Michigan’s contributions to them.
Meanwhile, Michigan’s Democrat governor Gretchen Whitmer is spending millions of state dollars to increase the percentage of graduates from these institutions whose main purpose is to promote Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. DEI sounds so nice, but its results have been riots, ended careers, and division among Americans.
Don’t send your kids to these factories of disunity.
* Chris Johnson wrote an article on this topic earlier in the week which can be found on our website here.
TikTok, time’s running out – for the health and safety of your children, that is.
According to Pew Research Center, after YouTube, TikTok is the most used social media app, with sixty-seven percent of thirteen to seventeen year-old American teens using it.
TikTok is a weapon targeted at America’s youth, featuring violent, sexual, and suicidal content that targets children as young as 12 years old.
One study showed that when US thirteen-year-old teens set up a new account with TikTok, they were shown suicide content within 2.6 minutes and eating disorder content within eight minutes. The Chinese version limits children to only 40 minutes a day and their content is of educational value.
The company Claims Hero says parents whose children have been hurt by TikTok can join the fight by joining 46 out of 50 state Attorneys General in taking action against them. Go to www.claimshero.io.
* Steve Huston wrote an article on this topic which can be found on our website here.
When God bids us, “come out and be ye separate,” we’re called to draw near to Him, dedicating our whole being to His service and sacrifice.
Puritan Thomas Brooks pulls no punches as he speaks of dedication and love to God:
“He that does not dedicate himself really to God, wholly to God, only to God, and always to God on earth shall never come to a vision of God in heaven…Ah Lord! There are some that give you their lips, but I give you my heart… had I as many hearts in my body as I have hairs on my head, I would give them all to you; for you are worthy – you only are worthy! … ‘I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship’ (Romans:12:1).”
Thomas Manton shares that God’s glory is not only to be the object of our lives, but it’s to be the object of our prayers as well. Our prayers are often limited in scope to our temporal needs or the temporal needs of others. I urge you to prayerfully and with self-examination read Manton’s words on this matter.
“O how little do we aim at the glory of God and regard it in our prayers! We should seek it not only above the profits and pleasures of this life, but even above life itself. But alas, since the fall, we re corrupt and wholly poisoned with self-love, that we prefer every base interest and trifle before God. Some are more affected with their own honour, and their own loss and reproach, than with God’s dishonour or God’s glory. If their own reputation is hazarded a little, O, how it stings them to the heart. But if someone is faulty towards God, they can pass it over without trouble. A word of disgrace, a little contempt cast upon our persons fills us with rage; but we can hear God’s name dishonoured, and not be moved about it. When they pray for outward blessings, it is for their lusts, and not for God… The best of us, when we come to pray, what a deep sense we have of our own needs, and no desire of the glory of God. How necessary it is that the Lord should have his glory. The world serves no other purpose; it was made and continues for God’s glory (Rom. 11:36). God did not make us for ourselves, but for his own glory.”
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