Month: June 2021

I Surrender All

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Vain Jangling
I surrender all.

There is a hymn Christians sing, entitled, “I Surrender All.”
It starts with, “All to Jesus I surrender. All to him I freely give.”

We promise to love and trust him, in his presence daily.
We promise to forsake all worldly pleasure.

We ask him to make us wholly his, and to fill us with the Spirit.
That we may know his power, as we surrender all to him.

The vain jangling comes in when the voices sing hollow words, and walk out having surrendered nothing but maybe an hour of their week.

I Identify As

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Vain Jangling
I identify as someone or something I neither am nor can be.

Today’s society is very much concerned with self-identity.
Who am I? What do I aspire to be? How do others see me?

There is discussion about finding oneself, seeking self awareness, being true to oneself. Often these can be discovered and lived out by true self examination, self discipline, and self sacrifice to pursue dreams and hoped for accomplishments.

However, there is a limit to the thought:
“You can be whatever you want to be when you grow up.”

Sometimes the term identify is used to look outside of oneself. One may try to identify with the person they are trying to minister to. One might try to identify with the victim or suspect in a case. This is not to become that person, but rather is meant to try to understand another person or situation. A “put yourself in their shoes” mentality, not in actuality.

Sometimes the term identify can be used by actors and actresses. They will spend time and energy studying a script and the who or what they are to portray. Sometimes the character is real, other times they may be fictional, but in either case, neither the actor nor actress ever truly become the other person, place, or thing. They are merely acting like.

However, today, some wish to identify as—not to understand or to play the part, but rather to become—what they neither are nor can be. Procedures, no matter how minute or extensive, may change the outward appearance, but no amount of medication, surgery, or rhetoric can make someone what they are not. It is merely vain jangling to appease a soul with such unbiblical (and unscientific) ideals, when it is in direct conflict with truth. Especially, when limits are still set—for who can identify as who or what—in this alternate reality.

I Am Tolerant

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Vain Jangling
You are intolerant.

This is a common thread: You are so—or You are just being—intolerant.

We never see ourselves as intolerant. And why should we? We are proudly tolerant of everyone else’s lifestyles, beliefs. They can be who they want to be, love who they want to love, believe what they want to believe, identify how they want to identify. We really do not have a problem with any of it. We support their right—their freedom—to be true to themselves in voice and deed. Who am I to condemn or judge them?

However, when it comes to Christians—those who hold to some antiquated moral code, found in a book they believe is authoritative, which lends them a differing worldview—tolerance seems less absolute, less important, less relevant, less practiced. It is okay to silence them, ridicule them, punish them, even hate them, their words, their views. Truth and morals may be relative within the world, but they must not be inclusive or tolerant of the truth and morals of Christianity.

Tolerance—by definition—is the fair, objective, permissive attitude toward those who have different opinions, beliefs, practices, etc. than oneself. This is not the same as accepting, approving, or making such opinions, beliefs, practices, etc. one’s own. The vain jangling comes in when those who claim tolerance are found to be most intolerant of the Word of God and the message of Jesus Christ. And thus, all who proclaim it.