Holidays

Discerning What Is Best
with Dr. Rex M. Rogers

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 30 December 2022

Have you ever made New Year’s Resolutions you didn’t keep? Ever know anyone who fulfilled their resolutions? Are resolutions worth making?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #61 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

From time to time, I’ve made New Year’s resolutions, as much for the fun of it as any real commitment or need to make them. A few I fulfilled, maybe most, but the idea of New Year’s resolutions didn’t tend to move me because I was one who set goals periodically throughout the year.

As far as I can tell there’s nothing wrong with making New Year’s Resolutions. Key is whether you really have the desire and thus the follow through to see them across the finish line.

A lot of people make resolutions about dieting, by which they mean losing weight. Just watch the commercials aired in January and you’ll know what I mean. Lots of weight-loss programs.

Funny thing is, the word “diet” means food and drink consumed or a regime of eating and drinking, habitual nourishment. In other words, whether you “go on a diet” or not, everyone is actually “dieting” because it primarily signals that you eat—and everyone eats. The word “diet” is not about losing weight, though in popular parlance “diet” has become synonymous with weight loss.

Many people make resolutions that deal with their health or their desire to improve their health. This is a good thing.

Does it surprise you to know that most common illnesses and ailments that human beings endure trace back to our lifestyle choices. While we certainly experience disease that comes upon us as a result of living in a fallen world, in other words, to no fault of our own. Still, much of what we experience is in some since self-inflicted.

Think about these health challenges, for example:

Obesity
Cardiovascular disease
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or COPD
Type II diabetes
Stroke

Genetics may be involved in some of these, but health experts tell us the root cause of these problems are unhealthy habits we develop in our largely sedentary routines. Meanwhile, we’re told that 80% of cardiovascular disease, heart disease, and strokes are preventable.

Culturally speaking, we don’t exercise, even as much as 150 minutes per week. We eat nutritionally imbalanced meals, i.e., fast food and processed foods loaded with calories, sodium, fat, and “additives,” a scary word for sure.

The first question nurses ask me when I visit a medical facility is “Do you smoke?” Thankfully, I can say, No. Next question is, “Do you drink alcoholic beverages excessively?” Thankfully, I can say, No. The reason these questions are asked is that a Yes response introduces a long list of health-related problems directly linked to the practice of tobacco use and alcohol consumption. If you choose to smoke or drink, then you opt for self-inflicted health problems.

Of course, drug abuse, including marijuana, opioids, and prescription medications all can and generally do introduce negative health side-effects.

So, if you want to make a few New Year’s Resolutions, I suggest adding these goals to your list:

Healthy diet
Exercise
Proper sleep
Stress relief
An active social life

You should also add, if this is not a pattern in your life, regular church attendance. Researchers have repeatedly demonstrated that active participation in the spiritual and social life of a local church fellowship can help reduce stress, lower the risk of depression and suicide, result in better sleep and lower blood pressure, and provide for a more stable, happy, and even sexually satisfying marriages.

Church attendance, or rather actual spiritual engagement with the teachings of the Word of God, can result in longer life expectancy.

Learning and applying the principles God provided us in his Word is not only an act of spiritual obedience but of rational self-interest and preservation. Why do I say this? Because God created reality and told us how the natural world works. He gave us everything we need for life and godliness, meaning he told us who he is, who we are, who you are—your own sense of self, who we are as sinners, loved eternally by Creator God and in need of grace. He told us how to live in a manner that yields not only good morals and good manners but a means of flourishing.

I don’t suppose I have to remind us or need to list the social upheaval in which we now live, the chaos that surrounds us as more and more people give themselves over to false ideology. This means the culture and the individuals that create it are growing weaker and as this happens, government plays a greater and greater role in directing and controlling our lives. Meanwhile, the Church plays a lesser role.

Scripture said, “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools,” (Romans 1:21-22). I call this a celebration of irrationality.

Our culture has long-since begun to “suppress the truth by their wickedness," (Rom. 1:18) so it is now becoming irrational, unrealistic, and dysfunctional. Unfortunately, it can get worse. There's more sophisticated insanity yet to come.

So, in this kind of zeitgeist, our task is to remain faithful, to live not the lies, to not be weary in well-doing.

As the Apostle Paul reminded us, “in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord,” (Rom. 8:37-39).

So, if you make New Year’s Resolutions, think about some that reinforce a lifestyle that improves your health and glorifies God, and then make a few that recognize your confidence in the Hope we have in Christ.

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com.

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 24 December 2022

Have you ever noticed how the tone and tenor of television content and even interaction with locals immediately switches right after Christmas in the week prior to New Years?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #60 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

One of the things I have always found disconcerting each year is how fast the focus or, for want of a better word, the messaging changes immediately after Christmas during the week before New Year’s Day. It’s not just noticeable; it’s dramatic.

During the run-up to Christmas there’s season’s greetings, Merry Christmas, love, babe-in-a-manger, carols, peace, hope, and general good feelings.

The next day after Christmas, when some folks inexplicably for me take down their tree and decorations, there’s a shift, especially on TV and in media. Now the messaging is louder; it’s about partying, drinking, rock bands, all-nighters, clubs, and maybe New Year’s resolutions.

Now I know this is not neat and clean, a sharp divide wherein no partying and consumer materialism took place prior to Christmas and no peace and good feelings remain for New Years. But the contrast is still evident.

I’ve always thought it was a switch from bits and pieces of a Christian worldview and the Christmas story sort of borrowed by the world for a time, because people hunger for what this story provides and want peace and good will toward men, to a kind of secular or worldly worldview that celebrates the now and the individual—each of us as “me,” prosperity over peace, and hedonism.

If this seems overstated, I encourage you to watch the late-night Christmas programs on Christmas Eve, then watch the late-night programs on New Year’s Eve. If you haven’t noticed the contrast yet, you will now.

Others can have the New Year’s riotous engagements. I much prefer the message of the angels, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests” (Luke 2:14).

In the Christmas story found in Luke 2, the Scripture tells of the Savior’s humble birth, the angels appearing to the shepherds in the field by their flocks, and the shepherds’ immediate departure to see the baby in the manger. Then Scripture notes that Mary, likely just a teenager and the mother of Jesus, along with others who heard the shepherds, being “amazed” and that Mary treasured up these things and “pondered” them in her heart.

Amazed and pondered. To me, these verbs summarize well how we should and can respond to the Christmas story today.

We can be amazed, to wonder at the striking aesthetics of Christmas decorations and celebrations, to enjoy how different people decorate their homes or how various public displays are presented. We can be amazed at church and family Christmas traditions, Christmas carols, bright colored lights, and Christmas trees. We can be amazed at the way different cultures around the world invest themselves in infinite varieties of Christmas traditions. It’s not wrong, in fact it is OK, to embrace and appreciate the beauty of Christmas and the season, to be amazed.

Then it is important for us to ponder, to think about the meaning of the Christmas story, the Christ child, his sinless life and work, the cross, and the resurrection through which God the Father shares his love with the world. We can ponder the Good News, the Gospel of salvation by grace through faith in Christ. We can ponder the startling and humbling fact that the Sovereign God loves you and me. We should do as the shepherds did, glorify and praise God for all the things that we have heard and seen in the Christmas story. With Mary, we should ponder.

I use the word “story” not to imply myth or fiction but to communicate written history or “his story.” The Christmas account is fact of history past with a far-reaching impact into eternity like no other. This, too, can cause us to be amazed and to ponder.

Charles Dickens ends his 1843 classic “A Christmas Carol,” saying of Ebenezer Scrooge, “It was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!”

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 21 November 2022

Have you gotten caught up in what’s called identity politics, wondering if your race, sex, social background makes you good enough, makes you matter, gives meaning to your life?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #55 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

As we approach Thanksgiving Day, after a year of trial and turmoil, I am thankful we live in a country that enjoys religious liberty.

Just last year, 2021, we commemorated the 400^th Anniversary of the first Thanksgiving celebrated by the Plymouth Colony Pilgrims, a group that had fled tyranny in quest of religious freedom, braving the Atlantic in the 110-foot wooden Mayflower.

In 1863 during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the first national Thanksgiving Day, encouraging citizens to exercise their religious liberty through prayers for peace, harmony, tranquility, unity—grace we certainly still need today.

Another thing for which I am profoundly thankful is my identity. Now this may surprise you, or maybe it does not, given the intense focus upon identity in American culture.

In recent years, we’ve been inundated with something called “identity politics,”

the idea that one’s sex or gender, race, religion, social background or social class, nationality or ethnicity, not only influences but in the view of some, determines a person’s potential, political agenda, and, well, value.

“Identity politics is deeply connected with the idea that some groups in society are oppressed and begins with analysis of that oppression.”

These ideas have morphed into a neo-Marxist philosophy called critical race theory, which is now dominating discussions in American education—kindergarten to graduate school—corporations, entertainment, even sports and religion.

It is not too difficult for me to understand that these highly divisive, fragmenting philosophies have developed at a time when the existence of God, absolute truth, moral certainty, natural law, and Creation have all been jettisoned in favor of supposedly more enlightened understanding.

Think about it. If there is no God, or at least no God who cares or is involved with humanity, no truth, no certainty, then it makes sense that human beings would begin to search for meaning in particulars, in myriad breakouts, and consequent breakdowns, of society.

If there is no God, no centripetal force, if you will, that acts like moral gravity to hold everything together (see Col 1:17: “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”), then there are only infinite centrifugal forces spinning out of control, going off in all directions.

This is American culture today. It no longer has a center, no social glue, only a pell-mell rush to proclaim individual significance even as culture falls apart.

Now I am not saying that all identifying attributes are somehow ipso facto bad or wrong or inconsequential. I am saying they are not ultimate, not our end-all, be-all, not what defines us, not what determines us or our destiny. They are attributes, gifts from God, not fatal forces.

Regarding my own identity, I mean that I am thankful I for Christian parents who took me to church from before I was born and faithfully thereafter, introducing me to Christ and Christianity both through how they lived their lives and, in time, Bible teaching and theology.

Dad is with the Lord now and Mom turns 91 on Thanksgiving Day. Their love has been constant, so unlike many unfortunate boys and girls, I never doubted I mattered, I belonged. My sense of self, my identity, was enormously secure because of this.

Beyond this, I came to understand two important principles of my Christian faith:

As with all other human beings, I am a unique human being created in the image of God, temporally and eternally significant (Gen. 1:26). As Os Guinness puts it, “Each human being has a measureless worth.”

Once I became a Christian at age 6, I became a born-again believer, a follower of and disciple of Christ, a child of God born of his Spirit.

As the Scripture says, “Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,” (John 1:12).

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Cor. 5:17).

So, my identity is not rooted in what I see in the mirror, not my sex, race, ethnicity, nationality. It is not rooted in my citizenship, politics, bank account, professional position, possessions, talent, things, or even my religion.

My identity is rooted in the Sovereign God who created me, and my identity is in Christ through whom I am a child of God.

And there’s more, “Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ,” (Rom. 8:17). “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession,” (2 Pet. 2:9).

So, my identity is both an exalted and a rock-solid secure one. No matter my failing or sin or doubts, my identity in Christ will never be insecure.

Unlike the Pharisees of Jesus’ day, or the celebrities of our day, we do not have to work to attain or maintain our position.

It saddens me to watch this happen virtually every day. For example, musicians or actors once lauded for their artistic contributions and now seemingly past their creative prime, work hard to maintain social media relevance. Often, particularly if they are women, this means posting Instagram pictures of themselves in various stages of undress. They do this because in their view, this is all they have left, the only way they can make news.

We’re back to thanking God this Thanksgiving weekend for religious liberty, for in this profound truth and condition we find room for learning our true identity.

In Os Guiness’s words, “Freedom of religion and conscience affirms the dignity, worth, and agency of every human person by freeing us to align ‘who we understand ourselves to be’ with ‘what we believe ultimately is’ and then to think, live, speak, and act in line with those convictions.”“What is at stake with freedom of religion and conscience is nothing less than human dignity, human self-determination, and human responsibility.”

If we seek the meaning of our existence in something other than the Sovereign God, including identity politics, we will be disappointed.

I am thankful for the religious liberty in this country that allowed me to come to understand truth. I am thankful for Christian parents who lived and pointed me to truth. I am thankful for God’s revelation telling me I am made in his image. I am thankful that by grace through faith in Christ I am a child of God.

I am thankful that I matter eternally not due to my demographic identity but because God made me so.

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 24 December 2020

Pax et Bonum, “Peace and all Good.”

May the world come to rest this silent night, holy night.

May peace be known; may good be shown.

“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” Luke 2:14

*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 24 November 2020

A Thanksgiving reminder…

If you’ve about had it, turn off the chattering classes,

who “speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, (and are) only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.”

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”

126848941 10221380620739120 7870442878349819105 n

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 27 December 2011

Wow, there are some things I’d just like to walk away from, leave them behind in 2011 when the New Year dawns.

During the last week of the year it’s become something of a tradition, at least for me, to ponder what I’d like to jettison for good. I mean, think about it, wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could ditch certain troublesome, annoying, hurtful, or unpleasant things? Frankly, it’d be wonderful to ditch certain people, too, but no doubt others could say the same for me.

I know it’s a fantasy, but it’s a fun fantasy. Here’s my list of things I’d leave behind in 2011, if I could:

EU (and I’m afraid some US) Citizens Who Want Others To Pay For Their Lifestyle. Who, really, do the Greeks, Spaniards, Italians, or others want to pay for their very early retirement, extensive benefits, and upside down economics? There ain’t no free lunch, and eventually, you have to pay the piper.

GOP Presidential Candidates Focusing On Each Other. If any given Republican presidential candidate wants to win the White House, he or she should forget the rest and focus like a laser on the national debt and budget deficit, jobs, and the economy. For once I agree with James Carville, “It’s the economy, stupid.”

Middle East Dictatorships. Historically, Arab world dictators only leave office in a box. Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak broke the mold, even if reluctantly. Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi reverted to type and paid for it with his life. At this writing several other leaders are so far imitating Gaddafi. Here’s hoping they’ll catch a different vision.

Look-At-Me Pro Athletes. The NFL is the worst, and I like professional football best of all major sports. It’s happening in a lot of professional sports in different ways. But for me, I’m big-time weary of self-indulgent, immature athletes delaying games, dashing into the camera after plays, and doing signature moves to call attention to themselves. Hey, give it a rest. You’re being paid millions to perform well, so perform, and let that be your statement.

Earthquakes, Tsumanis, Tornadoes. Need I say more? But I will, add to the list Nuclear Crisis and continue to pray for the people of Japan and Joplin, Missouri.

Charlie Sheen—Duh, Winning? I don’t think so. I’m not making fun of him. The man’s an addict, his own worst enemy. He needs help. But that doesn’t mean we need to put up with his public meltdowns.

Disappointing Leaders. Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, former Ohio State University football coach Jim Tressel, former GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain. What do they have in common? Perceived cover-up and “former.”

Love Wins. Sorry, I can’t support this book or Rev. Rob Bell's theological perspective expressed within it. I think this is one of the more spiritually threatening things to come from within the evangelical community in some time, for it confuses and undermines the deity of Christ and the Way of salvation. This point of view says what liberals have always believed and want to hear, which is why the book enjoyed so much play in mainstream media. But the view herein leads people down the broad road, not the narrow one.

Tebow Haters. Tim Tebow, football’s Denver Broncos quarterback may not ultimately make it as a starter in the NFL. But the level of vitriol aimed at this guy, at least in part because he’s confident in his Christian faith, is way overdone. I’d rather root for a guy with character than some of the gifted athletes who otherwise behave like thugs—can you say, Ndamukong Suh?

Osama bin Laden. Well, I guess we are leaving him behind in 2011, and justly so. I invite other political conservatives to join me in giving credit to President Barack Obama where it’s due. The Man got his man, and for the sake of those who lost their lives in 9/11, for the sake of their families and friends, and for the sake of the soldiers lost or wounded in resultant conflicts, and their families, I’m glad we’re leaving bin Laden behind. And I’m more than happy to salute the President and the Navy Seals for a necessary job well done.

*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact Rex or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com or follow him at www.twitter.com/RexMRogers.

Page 2 of 6

New Year's Reflections

Christmas Reflections

Thanksgiving, Religious Liberty, Identity

Pax et Bonum, "Peace and All Good"

A Thanksgiving Reminder

Things I'd Like To Leave Behind In 2011