Everyday let us hold fast our confidence in Christ, be always tenacious, never timid in our confession, and let us encourage each other to talk the talk and walk the walk of those who, in Christ, own the future.

One major mark of authentic personal faith in Christ is tenacity in following after Him.

Welcome to the pulpit today our new Director of Career, College, and Student Minstries!

Stand on a street corner or take in a big game, attend a concert or take a cruise, run to the mountains or rush out to the coast, watch people on self-improvement trips, attending marriage seminars, or taking self-improvement classes, or alternatively, protesting in the streets any of 10,000 grievances, or visit a mall, an art gallery, or better, fly to New York, walk down Fifth Avenue, see all the people scurrying about like ants, this way and that, hear the interminable honking of busy cabs, and just ask yourself: What do many of these people have in common, be they rich or poor, male or female, young or old, red, yellow, black or white or candy stripe?

In one way or another, all these scenes and many others like them are classic snapshots of our desperate human race doing what we do incessantly: inventing every way imaginable every day to escape our innate fear of being overtaken by death in one or all of its forms.

For those in Christ, that pathetic plight is over. We can drink up life without the hangover. We can tackle its challenges without the fear of being taken down by it. That is because the fear of death neither taunts nor haunts us. For in Christ we have found true and abundant life, even when shadows come calling.

This week the producers of the Oxford Dictionary announced the word of the year (2016)-post-truth. It refers to an environment or circumstance where feelings trump (no pun intended) facts in determining what to believe. As I have been warning you and this confirms it, there is where we have arrived intellectually. In this post-modern climate, for many in this culture, truth is now dethroned; feelings call the shots. Fortunately, God is sovereign, not feelings. Where He intends for the truth to stick, it will stick, despite the obstacles. That's why we keep hammering with the Word of God. It is compelling where the Spirit of God intends.

Man proposes, but the Lord God disposes. We elect our leaders, but God selects them. "Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God." (Romans 13:1) Leaders may be good or bad or a mix or a mess, but in every case, for His own hidden purposes, God calls the shots. Let us not rebel and put ourselves in the line of fire. Better to pray for them than pay for them.

In a fast and frenetic world where at times everything seems on the verge of falling apart, here's a piece of advice for the frustrated: focus on what matters!

Never forget: It is easier to die for Christ at a specific point in time than to live for Christ, no matter what, all the time. No one will ever die for Him who is not first surrendered to Him.

There are many who believe what the Church today lacks most is great vision. My own view has always been that what it most needs is radical revision. That starts with our walk.

In our unstable world full of unreliable persons and broken promises, the one thing we can depend on is the reliability of God's Word.