It has been brought to my attention that the quote below was incorrectly attributed to C.S. Lewis . I took the quote from what is a reliable source. Please forgive my error. Again, this is not a C.S. Lewis quote.
SATAN: “I will cause anxiety, fear and panic. I will shut down business, schools, places of worship and sports events. I will cause economic turmoil.”
JESUS: “I will bring together neighbors, restore the family unit, I will bring dinner back to the kitchen table. I will help people slow down their lives and appreciate what really matters. I will teach my children to trust me and not the world. I will teach my children to rely on me and not their money and material resources.”
Most of us need a mental and spiritual reset. We think that the government or anarchists or certain political parties or people groups or a virus has turned the world upside down. We think that we are on the verge of collapse. BUT GOD… Throughout the scriptures we see those two words: BUT GOD. Yes, even in 1942 words were spoken that we hear today: Anxiety, Fear, and Panic. BUT GOD… He longs to turn our hearts toward Himself and toward each other. He longs to show us that He, alone, is sufficient.
The other day a friend asked what I was doing because travel is at a stand-still. I said, “Last time I looked, Sin was rampant, Hope was longed for, and everyone wants to be Loved. I am engaged at those levels here and, via technology, everywhere.” Acts 17:6 says, “These men… have turned the world upside down…” I still believe that God has called us to advance, not retreat. He has called us to “turn the world (our world) upside down.”
All throughout the Book of Acts we see The Church making entrance into the hard and hostile places from the town squares, from prisons, from the homes of the prominent, from the places where leaders reside to the places of poverty. Their message was simple: Jesus. Their goal: “turn the world upside down.” The results: Many believed… and many of the messengers were persecuted, imprisoned, killed. There is a cost in “turning the world upside down.” Jesus knew the cost and He welcomes us to journey with him to the cross each day to die. BUT He says that we will find life there (Galatians 2:20). It is a life that will cause others to look and ask, “What must I do to be saved?” (Acts16:30).
So day-to-day I am engaged. Whether it is long conversations with a man I have known for 45 years who is making his way back to Jesus after a long, long time, or it is a long, long walk with a young law student trying to reconcile his world view, law and Jesus, or walking alongside of a man trapped in his sin, I am engaged. Travel has little to do with our ability to be engaged. Our choices have everything to do with being engaged. The first choice is the most difficult: “Am I willing to die today in order to be fully alive so that those I encounter would see that Jesus is worth it. He is enough.” As a result, some might ask: “What must I do to be saved?”
This is where the world is “turned upside down.”
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