THE RENEWING OF YOUR MIND
(click the pic!) You've likely read or heard on the news that the U.S. Department of Education (or "Indoctrination") might be shut down. Of course, the Executive branch can restructure but can't literally shut down a department that was set up by the Congress over 65 years ago, and since then the federal government has taken increasing control of the educational system.
I'm a pre-baby-boomer, born in 1943. and recall when I was in junior high school that our state's and other states' school systems were splitting at the seams because of all the "baby boom" children born after 1945 that were starting grade school. So the federal government "came to the rescue" and created the U.S. Department of Education, promising it would never interfere with the states setting up curriculum standards. The p.s. in our previous newsletter was "Why did the mouse get trapped? Because it thought the cheese was free." Now we know what has happened: gradually the DOE began placing conditions on the federal grants for education, demanding conformity to a secular, materialist worldview and excluding a traditional Christian, biblical worldview. The cheese wasn't free, after all.
A dear friend in Wisconsin passed into eternity last week from Alzheimer's. We first met when he and his wife were in college. He was quite brilliant: he went on to med school and became a physician. We watched his memorial service online, and after the burial the next day, I wrote to his wife, a public school teacher, the following:
A few days ago, this link came to my inbox: https://www.disabilityscoop.com/2025/02/27/house-vote-tees-up-billions-in-cuts-to-medicaid-disability-services/31321/ - it echoes our culture's assumption that the government is the source of an unlimited supply of money: not a whisper about private charities. As recent political events show, however, the U.S. simply can't continue running up the deficit by issuing more "funny money." And western Europe is waking up to the fact that they must carry more of the defense burden, which means less can go to their generous social welfare systems.
When we were kids, churches and other charitable organizations carried the bulk of the load for caring for the disabled and elderly. But when the government started Medicare and Medicaid, religious non-profits simply couldn't compete with seemingly unlimited federal funds. In essence, the government was acting as a monopoly that drove charities out of business: they can't compete against "free money." Now, most formerly Christian-based hospitals are secularized and get most of their income from government-funded programs.
But it has turned out to be almost worthless "Monopoly money" that's hardly worth the paper it's printed on. A first-class stamp cost 2 cents when I was a kid, now it's 73 cents. Cheryl [my wife] used to cry if we spent over $10 a week on groceries when we were a just-married couple: now we rarely spend less than $100 a week on groceries. It's all because of deficit spending, a hidden tax that's caused by this inflation.
In our online "Daily Prayers" there's a frame at the bottom of the screen that shows James 1:27 and lots of cross-references. The verse number "27" is also a link: try it – it goes to "Living Faith That Works" to show how faith (our prayers) is and must be inextricably linked to good works. Faith without works is dead, so faith that doesn't produce good works is dead faith. My point is that it's high time for the church to take back its duty and calling to combine faith with works, prayer with agape-love for our neighbors. We can no longer look to the government to foot the bill.
If I, without having enough money in our checking account, were to write a check to pay our bills, it would bounce: we call it a "rubber check" ...so I'd quickly get a cash advance on my credit card and put it in the bank. If I were to print several hundred-dollar bills on my printer to cover these bills, it would be counterfieting, a crime. But the government has been doing both of these things for at least the past 65 years, borrowing money by issuing treasury bonds and printing more paper money that's not backed up by our economy's output.
"The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics." – Thomas Sowell, economist
Now the chickens are coming home to roost: just the interest in 2025 on the U.S. deficit – our country's "credit cards" – is $322 billion dollars, outpacing outlays for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and veterans’ benefits and services. The assumption that our government is the cure for all society's ills no longer works. In terms of the worldview being taught in public schools and higher education – both funded by the government – that ideology is bankrupt as well. We need The Renewing of our Mind!
The materialist (or more correctly, the "physicalist") mindset / worldview, which posits that the universe consists of only matter and energy, no longer holds up to scrutiny. Biologists are beginning to realize that blind, random chance can't explain how living organisms develop: there seems to be a design, a logic or goal in view that isn't encoded in the genes. Astrophysicists now acknowledge there's something "out there" that they call "Dark Matter" or "Dark Energy" – they say makes up at least 95% of the universe. It is something we can't measure or perceive with our strongest telescopes, but without this "dark," non-material, something-or-other, they say the universe couldn't exist, it wouldn't hold together.
The caption under the cover image of my book The Good News of Yeshua, the Messiah quotes "In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God and was God” (from John 1:1). Also, Colossians 1:16-17 states – "For by Him [the Logos] were all things created, in the heavens and on the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things have been created through Him, and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things are held together." The living Word, the "Logos" in Greek, is the Logic and the Meaning of the universe!
Without the design and logical structure of God's creation, it would not hold together, it would fall apart. In Hebrews 4:12-13 we read - "For the Word of God is living, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and is able to discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart. There is no creature that is hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and laid open before the eyes of Him with whom we have to do." In Revelation 19:13-15 we read – "His name is called 'the Word of God.' The armies which are in heaven followed Him on white horses, clothed in white, pure, fine linen. Out of His mouth proceeds a sharp, two-edged sword, that with it he should strike the nations." Read also section "1.6 – On the Word and the Son of God: a reasoned proof" in The True Christian Faith, the first systematic theology of the Christian faith. We are approaching the purpose, the goal, of the universe. We need to tune in our minds to the Mind of God. It's almost game-over time, my friends!
You can read the rest of our newsletter at https://agape-restoration-society.org/ARC-News/a-n_2025-03-08.htm, and share it!
