By Jesse Jost

The tricky thing about freedom is that the exercise of one man’s freedom almost always entails limiting another’s freedom. My freedom to play my music loud in the room limits everyone’s else’s freedom to have quiet or to enjoy their music.

This creates dilemmas for society: which freedoms should be protected by law and which freedoms should be limited? Should women be free to abort their babies? Should we be free to smoke pot?

The New Testament, while instilling love for liberty, does not call us to unlimited freedom. In fact, believers are often called slaves of God. We are to pursue liberty, but our freedom is to be limited by love. Gal 5:15-17

We are commanded to have the mind of Christ, who though He had the ultimate freedom as God, unhindered by any other power, voluntarily limited his freedom and took on the form of a slave, one who had no rights and freedoms. Jesus limited his freedoms instead of fighting for his rights, so that he could make us free. Phil 2:5-9

To the question of which freedoms should be honoured and which freedoms should be limited, the biblical answer is: We should be free to love and obey God in all He commands us, and we should be free to love our fellowman and be able to meet their needs.

However, the Bible does not give us full freedom of conscience. The Bible takes a dim view of our conscience in that it can become seared and be deceitful, and acknowledges that we have a tendency to justify and rationalize just about anything.

By Jesse Jost

If God stepped into your room and offered you a pill that was guaranteed to boost your happiness level, would you take it?

God made our brains for joy and peace and pleasure. In His presence there is fullness of joy. (Psalm 16:11)

Jesus said that He came that we might have life more abundantly. (John 10:10) “That your joy may be full,” were some of His final words to his disciples (John 15:11). Paul urges us to “rejoice in the Lord always.” (Phil 4:4)

But on this broken planet, we rarely enjoy God’s presence. Our minds are weighted with anxiety, resentment, discontentment, and guilt.

How did we get stuck in misery and how do we get unstuck?

Happiness Booster #1: Replace Regrets of the Past with Gratitude

The past can be tormenting… mistakes, missed opportunities, and the criticisms and abuse heaped on us. Toxic reflections like these create a yearning to rewrite events gone by.

But the past can’t be changed. It can, however, be reframed or reinterpreted.

By Jesse Jost

We have a deep psychological and emotional need to understand what is really going on. We are driven to figure out how events and actions are connected,

so we can predict what is coming. This need to know the story is connected to our desire to know the future.

The story we believe we are in informs our view of what the problem is, and what solution is needed. It tells us who the enemy is and what we must do to counter him/it.

We feel adrift and aimless if we don’t have a clear understanding of what story we are in. But a compelling story can light a fire of motivation, making us willing to sacrifice everything for that story.

The story we believe gives us a compelling vision of what needs to be done, and what can be accomplished if the stories ends are achieved. It determines what we are willing to sacrifice to achieve the stories’ goals. It is the root of humanity’s greatest accomplishments and most horrendous atrocities.

Socialism, the most deadly idea of the 20^th century, was a captivating story about the world’s primary problem and what could be done to fix it.

By Jesse Jost

A look around at the present trends we are seeing in North America does not give a Christian much reason for optimism. In the past year we have seen numerous freedoms disappear. Churches are facing draconian restrictions and fines for trying to obey our biblical mandates. Censorship of conservative ideas is becoming widespread.

Society as a whole seems to be embracing ideas that run contrary to sacred core biblical values. It feels like faithfully preaching biblical Christianity is becoming cultural suicide.

I have seen alarming parallels between what is happening now to what happened in other nations as they slid into dictatorships and police states. Is history bound to repeat itself? Have the restrictions and freedoms lost in the name of this pandemic shoved us down the slippery slope toward a totalitarian dystopia?

The idea of a slippery slope, or the idea that if we grant one thing it will inevitably lead to another thing, is a powerful rhetorical device. “If we let government dictate masks for the church, then we will also allow the government to stop our preaching the whole Bible.” “If we relinquish one freedom, where will it end?”

By Jesse Jost

This morning before church, I got sucked into a debate with a very close friend on the effectiveness of PCR tests in diagnosing Covid.

Neither of us has any medical training, and I doubt if either of us knew what a PCR test was a year ago. In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find two people less qualified to debate the topic.

Yet, that didn’t stop me from letting this agitate me and temporarily get in between us. I sat down in my pew and struggled to let go and enter worship.

Then God whispered to my soul and I said three words to myself that flooded my soul with peace: “I don’t know.” It felt so good to admit I didn’t know the whole truth about PCR tests, and therefore it wasn’t my job to try to change someone’s mind to agree with me!

As I reflected on this later, I realized that resting in agnosticism about the issues isn’t enough. To not know anything for sure is to lack conviction and decisive action.

On the other hand, to wrestle someone else to the mat on every issue makes you a divisive and lonely jerk. But to not have confidence in anything leaves you adrift!

Unprepared for Battle

By Jesse Jost

Recently we had a friend over who was discussing the holocaust. She said there were three groups of people during that horrific time. Those who perpetrated the crimes against the Jews, those who did all they could to oppose the evil men, and those who did nothing. Her questions haunted me. Which group am I in with the evil that is taking place today?

During the craziness of 2020, I’ve written blog and Facebook posts aimed to call people to prayer, bible memorization and meditation, and a deeper walk with God. I have also urged caution about embracing conspiracy theories and being careful about what we believe.

Almost every time I have posted, I get responses interpreting my advice as “not standing up for truth” or failing to be the watchman. That I’m somehow urging people to bury their heads in the sands of personal piety, and ignore the pleas of the oppressed.

I always cringe when I get one of these responses because that is not at all what I intend to communicate.

I believe there is a real spiritual and cultural battle raging right now. I believe God calls His Church to be soldiers in this battle. My concern is that we as soldiers of the King be prepared for battle.

As we have seen throughout history, sending soldiers into battle who are not equipped for the fight has been catastrophic both for the soldiers and the country they are defending.

By Jesse Jost

I’m studying emotional intelligence, and am fascinated by how our rational mind (the frontal lobe) and emotional mind (the amygdala) work.

The data from our senses passes through the emotional part of our brain before it hits the rational part. Consequently, we have feelings about things even before we have thoughts about things.

The lightning-fast emotional response enables us to recognize danger and react by reflex when needed. If you see a rope being thrown at you, the data gathered by your senses will trigger fear because your amygdala senses that the object could be a snake, and will cause you to react by jumping out of the way before you have time to decide if it’s a rope or a snake. The emotional response needs to be fast, because if the object is a snake, time wasted evaluating the object may be fatal.

Our instantaneous emotional response to life can be life-saving; it can also be a liability. The “eyes” of our emotional brain see life in a simplified way, devoid of the complexity and nuance afforded by the more careful deliberation of our rational mind. This simplicity allows the emotional mind to make quick judgments and produce instant emotions.

Emotions are a gift that make the experience of life so rich, as well as a source of wisdom that can help our rational mind make wise decisions informed by empathy and awareness of emotional consequences.

However, the way emotions are formed by snap judgments can make strong emotions a liability if they are not questioned by our rational mind.

By Jesse Jost

The feedback from my latest forays into social media seems to imply that what some people have been hearing in my posts is this: don’t worry about the encroaching threats to our freedom. Don’t fight for our freedoms. The corruption in government and big pharma is all just conspiracy theory. We can safely ignore it and just spread positivity.

That is not what I am saying at all! My passion is two-fold:

1. What can I do practically to make a difference in staving off the very real threats to our medical and religious freedoms?

We’ve heard it many times: all it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing. That thought chills me and motivates me to action. But I want to do something that is making a real difference.

Social media provides a paradox: it’s easy to share and raise awareness, but it can also lessen the steps people take in the real world to make a difference.  I’m using social media right now to participate in a conversation, but I must fight the temptation to think that because I wrote that post or shared the article, my work is done. That’s my first concern.

• Is what I’m advocating truly biblical? Is it in line with God’s word?

I am always asking:  What does God’s word say about this? It’s easy to adopt ideas and trends that make sense to us or sound good, but they can directly contradict God’s instructions to New Testament Christ-followers.

In light of these two concerns, let’s look at just of the few possibilities that believers are sounding the alarm bell about and how we should respond.

“Government is inflating covid deaths to make the threat more scary and control us.”