In Canada we have a Charter of Rights and Freedoms which is meant to ensure that individual’s rights cannot be trampled by those in power or others in society. It is interesting, though, that those rights can be interpreted differently as society changes and so rights can shift or in effect be removed. It would seem as though, with the secularization of our society, that any legislation upholding moral matters is seen to be unconstitutional. Let’s rise up and pray for our governments that they would govern with integrity and in truth, and that the direction our society seems to be going in would radically change.

We believe that the Bible is the Word of God. Not only does it contain truth but it IS truth. Being the Word of the everlasting, unchanging God, His truth does not change. As Christ followers, we want to maintain a relationship with Him which means that communication and getting to know Him are very important, just as it is with our human relationships. Reading and studying the Bible then becomes imperative (Acts 17:11 and 2 Timothy 3:16) because that is how God communicates with us. When we believe that God is speaking to us in prayer – it must lineup with God’s Word or we are listening to an imposter. With the proliferation of media communication, society has a lot of influence, even in the church. Society has adopted the concept that what most people think defines what truth is. The more we as Christ followers consider what our society thinks, and the less diligent we are about studying God’s Word as the final authority or unchanging truth, the farther we grow from Christ. In this regard, I really appreciated the quote by John Stackhouse from the October 2013 issue of the MB Herald: “Once we give up on serious Bible study and resort instead to ‘the basic thrust’ of the Bible, or ‘the main message of the gospel’, or some other convenient generalization, we have no place to stand against that tide, and nothing to offer our society that our society is not already saying to itself.”

I have been reading a book entitled 'Angry Conversations with God' and in one of the chapters I was pleased to hear that this author does not agree with the statement 'I am spiritual but not religious'. I think we use statements like that as an excuse not to engage in truly walking with God.