Peter Witkowski Apologetics

What Do We Tell Our Kids After The Election?

flag-1Are you ready for tomorrow?  The hours of yucky campaign commercials, snarky Facebook posts, and embarrassing debates will be at an end! Hallelujah! On November 9, 2016, the United States of America will have a new president elect. But once all the dust settles, we will have to face a new question, “What do we do now?” How do we help our kids (who must certainly have heard us discuss politics over the last few days) process the electoral votes and the state of the nation?

America Is Not Our Hope

Many evangelical Christian including yours truly have been rightly dismayed and discouraged by this election. Not only have we lost the power or the moral majority, we have lost the power to significant influence the primary process. Today’s politicians do not even have to pretend to be devoutly religious. They can get away with their lack of zeal because America is no longer a Christian nation. According to a new study by George Barna, only 36% of Americans attended a church service this week and just 2% read their Bibles. And the projections do not have those numbers going up anytime soon. We cannot expect our neighbors to support our Christian worldview or to vote according to our values. Most Americans do not even know what we Christians believe. The Americang government will not be our main agent of change. But then again it was never meant to be. We are called to be ambassadors on earth. We belong to the heavenly kingdom and appeal to the king who changes hearts.

At the end of the day, we are not supposed to boast about America. We are to boast in the goodness of our God who redeems and sanctifies the lost. As Psalm 20:7 says, “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.” Its good and proper to thank God for our nation. But it is even better to thank God for being God. Tomorrow morning, remind your kids that God is your hope. Remind them that life is ok because our boast, our hope, our comfort is the Lord of heaven. America is not our hope.

 

We Will Stand For Truth

Regardless of who you voted for and who wins the presidency, Christians will need to have a prophetic voice. We must continue to speak for the unborn, to champion justice for all, and to protect the innocent and weak. We must show our kids that more money in our bank account does mean when can ignore discrimination and innocent children being murdered. Where the gospel speaks to social and political issues, we must speak to them even if that will put us sideways from our candidate of choice. We cannot condone sin because our politic parties calls evil good (Isa. 5:20).  If we want our kids to value our Biblical values, we must remain consistent. We must avoid the temptation to be a hypocrite for political gain. We speak boldly for the gospel at all times.

 And I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God, but the one who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God. – Luke 12:8

We must stand for the truth of the Bible regardless of the earthly cost.

 

We Trust God

Regardless who gets the most votes tomorrow, God picked them. God in his sovereign plan, appointed our next president. We may not like him or her. We may have grave reservations about their platform. But we know God reigns. And we know that only the presidents, kings, and dictators God picks come to power. And even more importantly, we know, “that all things work together for good to them that love God” (Rom. 8:28).

Regardless what are next president does, it will be good for God’s people. I am not saying that bad economic policies that lead to poverty or rash decisions that lead to world war are a good thing. They most certainly are not. But whatever happens over the next four years, God will be working to grow our faith and his church.
And if we are trusting God, we have no votereason to attack our opponents. Those who voted for Hillary, Trump, or that wonderful third party candidate are not the devil. We do not need to tear down, lambast, or cascate our brothers and sisters in Christ for contributing to an outcome that we disapprove of. If we trust God, we can handle both defeat and victory knowing that God rules and directs heart. Our anger over the vote totals do not reflect a concern, they reflect pride. We thought we knew what outcome is best and we are mad that God did not give it to us. So instead of trusting God, we lash out at our oppoents. Avoid this pitfall. Speak well of your brothers and sisters in Christ.

If we trust God, we will come to 2020 with an even closer relationship with Jesus. Brothers and Sisters, let’s not cry in front of our kids or predict doom because of this year’s election results. Let’s point our hearts and the hearts of our kids to the God who is worthy of our trust. Let’s boast in the fact that God reigns and will one-day return and rule the world.  As Jesus said in Matthew 10:28, “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” Do not fret over President Trump or President Hillary. They cannot do lasting harm to our souls. Rather pray for them, asking God to use them in such a way that his church grows (I Timothy 2:2). Trust God!

 

Ok, now its your turn. What will you tell your kids tomorrow?

Peter Witkowski Parenting

Medications Can’t Fix Our Kids

medications-blogMedicine cannot fix our kids. Yes, it can help. When my kids are sick, they are much more likely to sin without medicine than with medicine. And they are not alone. They come from their Daddy and Mommy who a both more prone to get upset, angry, and annoyed when they feel bad. Our bodies and souls and interracially tied together. The one effects the other. And  when Medicine relieves us from physical pain, it is a beautiful thing. As physical problems diminish the amount of stress laid upon our souls often diminishes. I am very pro-medicine. Without it, my kids, my beautiful bride, and I would not be alive and our quality of life would be much less than it is now.

But medicine cannot heal all of our problems. Medicine cannot make our kids nicer or fix their personality problems. Medicine cannot get our kids closer to Jesus. No amount of drugs can fix anger, disobedience, and foolishness.  

Here’s why. Our attitude problems are heart problems. They are sin problems.

In Mark 7:14-23, Jesus directly and clearly tells his disciples that nothing that enters a child from “the outside can defile him since it enters not his heart but his stomach and is expelled” (v.18-19). We are not evil people because we have chemical imbalances in our brain. Nothing we eat, drink, or inject into our bodies or our kids’ bodies makes us evil, mean, and cranky. There is great relief in this truth. We don’t have to worry about losing our relationship to God because of a pill bottle or because of that shrimp on our plates. Nothing we ingest can reach our soul.

But this truth is also hard for us to swallow because Jesus is saying that our most noticeable and prevailing problem extends beyond our control. If our main problem is food or our environment we could change those things. We could eat this and avoid that and happily earn our salvation. But our ultimate problem is our hearts. Notice what Jesus says in Mark 7:21-23

For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.

Our sin, our kids’ sin, and the anger, the lies, the slander, and the sexual immorality that we encounter on a regular basis is not the fault of the medical community. One more pill, or just a slightly better therapy will not fix our kids or us. We are evil and we do bad things because we have bad hearts. Our very natures our corrupt beyond repair. We need divine intervention. As the Pastor and Biblical Counselor Heath Lambert wrote,

The only way God’s broken image can by fully restored in sinful people is through Jesus Christ, the perfect image bearer who came to conform us, by grace to resemble God as closely as he does.

So what does this mean for us?

 When our kids our sick, we need to point them to medicine. When our kids our overcome by sin, we need to point them to Christ. No combination of pills can change our kids hearts and make them love us, their siblings, and their teachers more. No medicine can cause a kid to repent of their angry heart.

To be a faithful parent, we cannot simply medicate our kids’ sin away. We must go after their hearts, calling them to repent. And we must plead with God to save and sanctify them. Trouble comes from within. And to help our kids change within we inject them with the gospel. Only God through his word is able to bring real change. Are we ready to deal with this divine reality? Are we ready to admit that our children’s biggest issue is their heart?

Peter Witkowski Book Reviews, Evangelism

5 Great Quotes on Evangelism From: “Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God”

evangelism-and-the-soveriengty-of-god-quotes

When discussing evangelism within the doors of evangelical church, there two people always present. The first is passion, who has a desire to see the world transformed by saving grace. The second is fear, who sees that passion’s efforts are failing miserably. Together they hunt about the pews trying to find someone or something to affix the blame. And after a few hours of coffee and conversation, these two friends decide to blame the doctrine of God’s sovereignty.

It is at this moment that J.I. Packer enters into the conversation with his great little book, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God, showing that evangelism is first and foremost a work of God. It’s a wonderful essay that is worthy of the read. Take a look at the quotes below and then make plans to grab your copy!

Quotes:

“If you are a Christian, you pray; and the recognition of God’s sovereignty is the basis of your prayers. In prayer, you ask for things and give thanks for things. Why? Because you recognize that God is the author and the source of all the good that you have had already, and all the good that you hope for in the future.” –p.15

“And if we forget that only God can give faith, we shall start to think that the making of converts depends, in the last analysis not on God, but on us, and that the decisive factor is the way in which we evangelize. And this line of thought, consistently followed through will lead us far astray.” – p. 32

“In the Bible, divine sovereignty and human responsibility are not enemies. They are not uneasy neighbors; they are not in an endless state of cold war with each other. They are friends, and they work together.” – p.40.

evangelism-and-the-soverienty-of-god-4-p-45

“The things that God is pleased to keep to himself (the number and identity of the elect, for instance, and when and how he purposes to convert whom) have no bearing on any man’s duty. They are not relevant in any way for interpreting any part of God’s law.” – p.95

“It [evangelism] is a work in which quick results are not promised; it is a work, therefore, in which the non-appearance of quick results is no sign of failure; but it is a work in which we cannot hope for success unless we are prepared to persevere with people.” – p.117