Category Archives: Religion and Politics

September 6, 2020

COVID thoughts

By Michael Yates

I speak from deep concern.

COVID-19 is an absolutely real disease that absolutely affects real people in our counties, states, country, and world every single day. It was not invented for the US Election. Its effects on the human body have generally not been exaggerated for the sake of impacting an election.

The cure (secluding ourselves and wearing masks for now) is unequivocally not worse than the disease. The disease kills between 1 and 3% of those who bear it. Do not dare to say “only.” These 1-3% are 874,369 image bearers of God worldwide, 78% of which are not in the United States. The people from these countries mostly do not care who gets elected in the US and whether your high school is playing sports or whether you have to wear a mask inside the gas station.

If you live in a county that has has less than one case per month, I completely understand how you feel that the reaction to the global pandemic is ruining your everyday life. This is why I am a strong proponent of government being conducted at the most local level possible. This leads to the feeling that the suffering of wearing masks and canceling events is worse than the disease. Please do not ignore what is happening outside your local community. My own county has watched 120 of its citizens die of this particular illness since April.

There are 17,717,266 people who have survived the disease. Many may never be bothered by it again. However, many will experience complications (blood clots, weakness, shortness of breath) for an unforeseen time period to come.

COVID-19 will more deeply affect communities that are more physically close together and have a higher rate of prior medical conditions. This leads to more cases in blue states than red states, mostly due to population density. It is generally true that Democrats expect the government to do more to stop the spread and Republicans expect government to stop intervening so much (in this issue). This combined effect of blue states being harder-hit and more likely to intervene may lead to the sharper contrast with the red states that have fewer cases per capita and are less likely to restrict activity. It further explains the outrage when red states that are badly affected (Mississippi) under-react. https://bit.ly/3i2Ylq5

I pray for a cure. Could our government “make the vaccine available now?” Yes. It could let us all take whatever drugs we wanted to if they so-chose. I bet there are a lot of people who would let themselves be a test subject for these “vaccines.” There would also be side effects and unexpected impacts of these drugs. There is a testing and approval process for these things which is rocketing forward at great speed. When there is a good vaccine available, it will be made available. The timing of the US election be damned. I fear there is a vocal portion of the population that is clamoring for a vaccine to be made available in the next month that would not take it in the next month if it were made available in the next month.

The disease is not political. The response is political. We have turned an illness that does not care what our opinions may be into another reason to be divided and hateful. This particular tragedy, a tragedy of hatred, has eternal consequence.

What do I want? I want reason to return. Divorce yourself from your favorite politician. Look at data. Look at the biblical love for life and health. Let your decisions come from a place of love, of protecting and caring for widows and orphans, a place of wisdom. If your favorite politician is a fool, do not support them. If your second-, or least-, favorite politician is a fool, do not support them.

Fast and pray.

https://coronavirus.1point3acres.com/en

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June 14, 2020

Change the World

By Michael Yates

I apologize for any amount of plagiarism that may show up here. None of these thoughts is original, but they have been floating around in my mind of late.

We will never be able to vote the world into a better state than we find our own heart.

We cannot expect more righteousness from the world than we are willing to live ourselves.

We cannot expect peace in the world until we have peace in our own hearts.

If we believe in the Holy Spirit, then we believe in prayer because we know he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. Therefore, prayer is action.

We will never find reconciliation unless we are firstly able to forgive everyone who has wronged us and secondly able to forgive everyone who has wronged people like us.

Let us be thankful for our enemies as they are more willing to speak the truth about us than our friends are.

If we can make it through an entire day without condemning someone in our hearts, we are probably saints (worthy of a holiday), and we probably won’t even notice it happened.

It is impossible to love God and hate those made in his image.

 

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July 22, 2018

Jesus On Money

By Michael Yates

A systematic study on an idea in Scripture, or in a part of Scripture, can help to develop one’s theology accurately on that idea. We make assumptions about truth on our own, often based in things we were taught while we were young. Seeing what the Bible actually says typically gives these outcomes:

  1. The Bible teaches something I didn’t realize that it taught.
  2. The Bible never says something that I thought it said.
  3. Or, the Bible says exactly what I thought it did, (this one is exceptionally rare).

With this in mind, I studies Jesus’ teachings on money and watched for themes. He says more on this one topic than almost any other one subject he speaks on. Here were my conclusions and supports.

  1. Wealth (in itself, as something to seek and hold) is unimportant.
  • [Mat 6:19-21, 24 NIV] 19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. … 24 “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
  • [Luk 12:33-34 NIV] 33 Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. 34 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Our earthly wealth will disappear and is unreliable. By contrast, there is a heavenly wealth that is only loosely defined. Eternal life, godly love, and grace are in store for us. Giving these gifts to others should be our highest priority.

Money is not good by itself (intrinsically). It is only good if we use it to serve God. The desire for money can corrupt, yet money can be used for good. When one compares this with my prior post, they will see that I am saying to attribute value to those things that are eternal. Our service to God, in which we may use wealth wisely, is what has true importance.

CaptureOur heavenly treasures will never disappear. God protects them from any harm. Our money should not be the most important thing in our lives. You can’t take anything with you when you die.

2. A focus on wealth can destroy what is important.

  • [Luk 6:24-26 NIV] 24 “But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort. 25 Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep. 26 Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.

Earthly riches can ultimately cause harm. A focus on them can prevent us from caring for others. Do we look at our spending and see were the extra money goes when we have it. Do we spend more on ourselves or look for ways to give to others?

  • [Mat 19:21-24 NIV] 21 Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” 22 When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth. 23 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
  • [Mark 10:21-22 NIV] 21 Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” 22 At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.

The rich are accustomed to getting what they want. It is difficult for them to give up on money if it is an impediment to their salvation. When money becomes more important to us than God is, then we are no longer serving God.

3. Wealth is used best when it is given away.

  • [Luk 16:9-10 NIV] 9 I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. 10 “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.

Capture

Use your money to serve God’s purposes. Using money to serve yourself will only bring you into eternal ruin. You put your money where you attribute value. Relationships are the only thing on this earth that are eternal. Use your income to build connections that will last.

You cannot serve both money and God. Money must serve you as you serve God.

  • [Luk 21:1-4 NIV] 1 As Jesus looked up, he saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. 2 He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. 3 “Truly I tell you,” he said, “this poor widow has put in more than all the others. 4 All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”

Giving all you have is more important than giving a large quantity. How do we know if we are giving enough? C.S. Lewis – I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare…If our charities [the money we give] do not at all pinch or hamper us [slow us down],… they are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charitable expenditures excludes them.

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July 14, 2018

What is money?

By Michael Yates

What is money at its core? Money is wealth, and it is earned by the perceived creation of wealth.

Let that soak in. When I am paid, it is because I have done, created, organized, or developed something in such away that another person identified it as valuable.

When I teach or tutor, I am reorganizing information or presenting new information in such a way that someone else is finally able to understand it. For that, they pay my employer money. My employer then uses some funding to keep up it’s software and servers (as I tutor online) and then provides some of that income to me directly for my work. I continue to work for them, rather than merely tutoring in person for cash only, because of the stability, safety, anonymity, and flexibility that online tutoring provides. Therefore, I am willing to give up a portion of the possible wealth for the minimized risk.

Risk is worth money. Inversely, it is worth paying someone money who can minimize your risk.

Thus, my primary gig as an insurance claims representative serves to minimize risk. You pay for insurance so that you do not have to bear the financial risk of the loss or of the liability you create for yourself. Rather than waiting until I’ve saved up $300,000 and put it into savings before I drive for the first time, I can take out an insurance policy for a much smaller monthly rate, and still have $300,000 in liability protection (and whatever other 1st party coverages I select). In the end, everyone pays more than if we just sat on cash until we had an accident, because on the average, most people don’t make claims on their insurance. When you pay for insurance, you pay for your future claims and for the people that service them. (About 70-85% of auto premiums actually go to payment of claims.)

Can you imagine directly arguing with an injured person how much money they deserve for the injury you caused them? To most of us, it is worth paying a monthly fee to outsource that sort of conflict to a knowledgeable third party. (Who has two thumbs and is a knowledgeable third party? This guy!)

My wife is a bank teller. Oddly, it is the same job I have. She holds your money to keep it safe until you need it. For that, she gets some of your money (which comes from interest paid on lending).

We create wealth and we don’t even manufacture objects. We reorganize information, sit on piles of money, and provide it to customers when the rules (that the customer signs off on) dictate that they are allowed access to it. For that service, the customer pays us a fee, which allows us to feed our family and pay interest on our debt so that some other banker can also earn an income.

When I was in retail sales, customers were paying, not only for the product, but for my ability to point it out to them. They were also paying me for my availability, in other words, for the time when no customers were in the store, just so that I would be there when they wanted to shop. This is why online shopping is so much cheaper on the average, as we do not need as many humans to keep the inventory secure and to answer our questions.

When people are sad about the existence of self-checkout lines, they see the cashier as providing a service of value to them. When they like the self-checkout line, they don’t see the actions of the cashier as worth the effort of waiting in line and paying slightly more (on average) for their services. (I notice that the people who are sad about self-checkout lines did not use valet parking when they arrived at the store; nor are they using full-service gas pumps.)

Money is a perception of wealth, and we give it to those who are perceived as creating value.

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October 8, 2017

God’s action in an evil world

By Michael Yates

I had the privilege of worshiping the Lord in music and in thought this morning. After an important message on the psychology and spiritual background to the evil actions of mankind from Dr. Ryan Darrow, I had the opportunity to participate in a panel discussion that dealt with the following:

  1. What is evil?
  2. Where does evil come from?
  3. Can we be rescued from evil?
  4. Where is God when evil happens?
  5. What is God doing in this calamitous season?

View the service here: https://venue.streamspot.com/video/f99d9d4618

Please comment below with any questions you wish we would have addressed or any responses of your own. I’d love to sort through these questions together here.

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