·

The Church Forgot It Was Alive

A Hidden Work of Grace

It’s the typical come-to-Jesus moment. A church service concludes with an altar call, inviting those who don’t yet know Jesus to receive salvation through prayer. As they approach the stage, someone prays with them, and they hold their head in their hands, asking to join the ranks of the body of Christ.

After that, the lights come up, and the congregation is dismissed. From that moment on, those who came forward begin a wobbly, uncertain journey of faith. They wrestle with doubt and confusion, still learning that following Jesus doesn’t erase suffering but gives it meaning. Looking back, unable to recognize growth, they wonder: Did anything really happen? There was no beam of light from heaven or angel descending to mark the moment.

Yet, despite the uncertainty, something profound had indeed taken place. It was invisible, and it was divine. God had breathed new life. Scripture calls it being born again.

A New Life

When someone accepts Jesus as their Savior, recognizing the sin in their life, a new life in Christ begins. The transformation starts within and slowly works its way outward. Early on, good fruit mingles with residue from the old self as an inner battle unfolds. Over time, the Spirit takes the lead, healing the soul and cultivating understanding and grace.

Only the Holy Spirit truly witnesses this transformation. Yet church leaders often lean too heavily on doctrine to discern it, mistaking intellectual confidence for spiritual insight. Revelation, treated as inferior to knowledge, becomes a casualty of pride.

But life has a way of proving what doctrine alone cannot. Given time, the fruit of a believer’s life becomes unmistakable, confirming the promise of Scripture:

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” – 2 Corinthians 5:17

Matters of the unseen demand humility. Knowledge without love breeds pride. Jesus’ ministry modeled something far deeper – love, grace, and mercy lived out in relationship. The early Church grew not through theological systems, but through transformed hearts that reflected His relational way of life.

Who We Are Now vs Who We Were

This rebirth happens everywhere the Gospel is preached – yet in the modern church, especially in America, the mystery of salvation is often dissected rather than revered. When mystery resists measurement, we hide it behind tidy phrases, the meaning of which erodes over time.

A prime example is the familiar confession: “I am a sinner saved by grace.” It sounds humble, even noble – but it subtly misrepresents who we are in Christ.

To understand why, we must ask: “If we are new creations, should we still call ourselves sinners? Hardly. The phrase “I am a sinner” sounds harmless, but the spiritual weight behind those words is immense. When God revealed His name to Moses as “I AM” at the burning bush in the Book of Exodus, he defined himself as the source of all being. When we say “I am,” we are declaring something about our essence. To attach “sinner” to that declaration after salvation is to mix the divine with the profane – a distortion of our new identity.

Before Christ, we were sinners – lost, fumbling toward the one in whom is all love, grace, and mercy, the traffic cop for all the broken world – the street name, Gospel Lane. Corny? After redemption, that identity dies. The redeemed are no longer sinners but children of God – saints, in whom Christ’s righteousness dwells.

“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” – 2 Corinthians 5:21

We are not merely sinners saved by grace; we are saints being transformed by the righteousness of Jesus.

Sinners are defined by their sin, dead in it. Saints wrestle with it – but from a place of power in Christ, not death. Saints seek purity of heart, moral clarity, and love empowered by the Spirit. When we mislabel ourselves as sinners, we obscure our light. The world, desperate for the glow of true sainthood, instead sees a dim reflection of the Kingdom. Pride in doctrine has replaced the humility of love, leaving many believers outwardly polished but inwardly dull.

Growing into Christlikeness

Becoming like Jesus is not a swapping of beliefs – it’s a deep, inside-out transformation. Conversion changes opinion; sanctification changes nature. It’s a process of discovery, unlocking the divine image God placed within humanity before sin entered the world.

The Holy Spirit – not human intellect – directs this journey. Through prayer and surrender, we are strengthened against temptation. Each new depth of abiding in God exposes more of the flesh to die and more of the Spirit to thrive. The process is painful, even infuriating at times, but profoundly real.

Jesus, fully divine and yet fully human, meets us in our humanity and transforms us from within. Our task is not self-improvement but surrender – to love what we once despised and despise what we once loved. The longer we walk in this tension, the clearer it becomes: holiness is not human achievement but divine craftsmanship.

“We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be brought to nothing.” – Romans 6:6

Where We’re at as a Body of Believers

Despite these truths, modern Christianity mirrors the world’s obsession with self-improvement. Many practice Christianity as a lifestyle brand rather than a living relationship. They chase holiness through productivity – church attendance, reading plans, volunteering – mistaking serving for transformation.

This moral busywork is little more than spiritual self-help. It may look righteous, but it lacks depth. It’s a Band-Aid for the fear of truly dying to self. Hyper-spiritualized media (CBN) and sentimental storytelling (Overcomer, War Room, Courageous) reflect this superficiality – replacing encounter with entertainment.

But God’s kingdom is no shallow concept. It’s the living reality of heaven breaking into earth. The problem isn’t that his kingdom is upside-down – it’s that ours is upside-down. God’s kingdom is right-side up. His spirit restores what sin fractured, quiets chaos, and turns restless hearts into still waters. From those still waters, sainthood begins to emerge – radiant, grounded, and alive.

Through Christ, we regain access to the Tree of Life – the source of all renewal lost in Eden. Every day, the world tempts us to eat again of the Tree of Knowledge, to trade intimacy for information. The fruit looks sweet, but its aftertaste is bitter. Spiritual maturity means learning to discern the fruit we consume – wisdom that nourishes verses knowledge that kills.

Jesus is the Tree of Life. In him, we feed on grace, not pride. We become less doctrinal and more alive – driven by the life of God flowing through us.

Writes Paul:

“Put off your old self… and put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” – Ephesians 4:22-24

Transformation isn’t about earning God’s love but learning to receive it. It’s a lifelong unlearning of self-effort and a rediscovery of rest. As Star Wars once illustrated with the character Yoda through a secular lens: true power comes through “unlearning” what we have learned, or letting go, not striving, which was why Luke failed to lift that X-Wing out of the swamp. Even pop culture occasionally captures the truth.

Ultimately, the only obstacle to becoming like Christ is our resistance to his work within.

Reminds John:

“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves.” – John 1:8

Living Out Our True Identity

Embracing our new identity in Christ requires daily surrender – a shedding of the old self like autumn leaves before winter. It’s kind of funny how our spirituality often parallels the rhythms of nature. God puts physical representations of spiritual rhythms all around us. The process doesn’t feel beautiful, but Jesus, the master craftsman, sees the beauty and delights in the transformation.

From the death of the flesh springs new life – a life lived in the power of the Holy Spirit and the love of the Father.

“But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” – John 1:12

So, with confidence, we can say:

“I was a sinner, but now, I am redeemed. I am righteous in Christ.”

This truth not only magnifies the power of Christ’s sacrifice but also motivates us to live more bravely, more courageously, with the aim in mind to leave this world in better shape than it was when we arrived, because the Church is returning to paradise with each passing decade. We must prepare; we must soldier on. And the only way to press on in the strength of the Lord that never fails to rejuvenate us is to shift our lives from guilt to grace, from striving to surrender, from condemnation to confidence.

To bring it all together, we are not sinners – we are so much more. No new believer should think their path towards Christ is paved by church attendance, reading the Bible, and serving, and no seasoned believer should think of their years in the faith as a badge of honor. Truly mature saints walk the earth as a living dare to the darkness, knowing that no weapon can prevail against the one who walks in divine authority.

·

Why, as a Christian, I Believe in Aliens

Some weird things have happened recently that ten years ago no one would have thought possible: Kamala Harris running for the Oval Office against Trump; the political assassination of Charlie Kirk; and the government officially disclosing top-secret research into UFO technology. Outside mainstream political coverage, not everyone knows, let alone cares, about the release of documentation confirming the existence of recovered space craft.

I was immediately drawn to this news and absorbed as much information as I could as a science fiction fan. In no time at all, the idea of aliens moving about our airspace and abducting people became more than a fun, sci-fi notion – it felt terrifyingly real, as if I was suddenly living in a real-world version of the sci-fi video game Mass Effect. I felt this urgency to sort out my faith in light of this new world I found myself in, a world in which aliens can – and very well might – exist.

In this age of digital media, especially YouTube and its undeniable power to arrest hours of attention with compelling narratives, I knew that no amount of video footage could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt the existence of aliens. But the next best thing was a close examination of the theological framework I already believed in and how aliens might fit in it logically. A good starting place, of course, was understanding God as Creator.

God as the Creative Entity

As Christians, we believe God created all things, and that such an origin story is detailed in the Book of Genesis, the first book in the Bible. In this story, God is the Creator. But not only does he create, but he acts out his own spirit of creativity in how and what he creates. Genesis is the origin story, not just of creation, but the spirit of creativity, which all artists – those who create value out of anything from a blank page to scrap – embody. It’s innate to creative people, whether they believe in and given credit of their creativity to God or merely look no further than themselves for the outpouring of creativity. In other words, contrary to Hollywood’s message of the enduring human spirit, creativity is a spirit imparted to us by God, residing in the ever-mysterious depths of the human soul. God set the limits on creativity itself, limits that we might not be meant to ever fully understand. Some mysteries God means to keep just so, which leaves him in ultimate control, not us.

Telling stories is in our nature. It’s in our DNA, and outside of seeing ourselves reflected in God’s spirit, we have no hope of better understanding this creative capacity, let alone harnessing it towards full potential. So, with that, God is far more creative than we can imagine. Understanding is not a pre-requisite to appreciating God. Knowing him is another matter. Knowing God as the originator of creativity, framing his capacity for creative expression must be more expansive than we can imagine, which means we can only resign ourselves to a conceptual understanding. And the first wall that must come down is the claim that God only made humanity and angels, nothing else beyond that which Scripture explicitly names.

At this point, it should be obvious where this line of thinking is headed: such a claim is an underestimation of God’s characteristically limitless nature as the Creator.

A Theological Fallacy

Some Christians insist that the Bible’s silence on extraterrestrial beings means that they cannot exist. To them, the little green (or grey) men of government conspiracy stories should be relegated to pure entertainment and atheist frameworks. But the absence of aliens in the Bible is a poor reason to denounce their existence. For existence of aliens to die permanently as an idea at the debate table, the Bible would have to become near-infinitely thicker to account for the infinite record of every single thing God has ever done. Apart from the Book of Life, we all know that’s not possible. Night stands simply aren’t big enough.

A more accurate characterization of the Bible would be that it is a revelation of his plan for spiritual redemption through his son, Jesus Christ. Describing it as anything more – a wholistic template for a comprehensive worldview incorporating all that does and could exist – would be an uneducated misutilization of the text, a misreading that strongly suggests ignorance on part of the uneducated party on the purpose of the text that they are defending.

To insist that “man and angels are all that which God made” is akin to standing before a curated gallery of thousands of paintings, pointing to point at two that you can understand, and declaring: This is all the artist accomplished. The rest I reject because I don’t get them.” That is something other than theology entirely. It’s human-centric at best, out of line with the spirit in which God breathed creation into existence for by the work of his hands, God made creation divinely centric. God is the only focus, not what we can fit into our minds. The belief that God made man and angel exclusively is a verifiable fallacy of logic within theological discussion.

God’s Glory in Creation

Psalm 19:1 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” When David wrote that, he was only describing the night sky as he saw it – stars, moon, and sun. But today, with telescopes and science, we know the heavens are far vaster than David could have imagined: billions of galaxies, countless stars, and endless worlds. So, where would aliens fit into this biblical paradigm and how? If aliens exist, and they belong in the heavens, which “declare the glory of God,” then are these aliens good? Abductions don’t sound friendly, and experimentation doesn’t either. So, are these aliens evil? If they are, they certainly aren’t the only forms of life rebelling against their Creator and abandoning their intended design. We humans are guilty of the same sin, as are angels, some of whom defected long, long ago and now take on evil shapes.

The first time I entertained the idea of aliens was in a discuss with my dad, who more than entertained the notion – he stood by it on a mathematical basis of probability. I remember his reasoning. Growing up, I heard him question why God would make such an expansive universe, filled with unimaginable diversity, only to leave it barren except for Earth? “The number of planets sustainable for sentient life is astronomical,” he’d say, while eating a bowl of Reese’s Puffs. Scrambling for a proper theological rebuttal, I was at a loss for words. For years after that, I held onto the belief that aliens don’t exist. They’re good for my favorite genre, science fiction, but as a serious notion in theological musings, it was not, I thought.

But due to an outbreak of new information – recent government disclosures, testimonies, and theological reframing by credible Christian thinker and modern Indiana Jones Timothy Alberino – I can’t say that aliens as members of God’s cosmic family is not in line with God’s creative nature. It’s in line, logically. Within God’s infinitely creative hemisphere, the existence of other sentient life is undeniably a serious possibility.

The Limits We Set vs. The Limits of God

Christians often fear that there’s an undermining of human uniqueness in the entertaining of the idea of aliens. But the idea that aliens might exist has no negative bearing on our uniqueness as image bearers of God. The gift of salvation is uniquely ours to claim by faith. Christ died on the cross for the redemption of humanity through his sinless blood sacrifice. Aliens, with whatever nature they possess, would be equally unique apart from us, and their relationship with God, their Creator, would be a story adjacent to ours, not one that’s overlapping ours. So, whether or not life exists elsewhere, Christ’s work remains central to our story.

If God wanted to fill the universe with endless varieties of life whether we were ever meant to meet them or not – that does not diminish his plan for us. What’s more, who at the foundation of the universe had the authority, let alone power, to prevent God from carrying out his desire, the creation of endless varieties of life and plotting them within one reality – this universe – or infinite ones? Certainly not anyone made of flesh and blood. Even if, by some cosmic joke, we were given such authority, we’d be doing so purely for the sake of preserving limited, fragile, theological doctrines not of the same value as the power to create life. That would be a gross misuse of divine authority, and that’s one thing we really have to be conscious of and keep in check, the desire of our human ego to box God within paradigms that suit our comforts.

Ultimately, the belief in aliens not only magnifies his glory as Almighty Creator in our hearts but it sets a new high bar for discernment as we navigate this reality in which we journey towards the fabled Eden of paradise lost, forces of cosmic power ready to apprehend us from claiming our God-given birthright.

Conclusion

So, why do I believe in aliens? It’s certainly not because I’ve seen them. I simply believe in a God whose creativity is beyond measure, and the catalyst for this reframing of believe is indeed the outbreak of UFO reports and sightings, as well as government disclosures and solid theological reframing that asks nothing of scripture in the way of re-interpretation. A shrewd grasp on the Holy Scriptures actually leads to a radical narrative that leaves a comfortable amount of room for valid speculation on the existence and role of aliens in our universe.

·

Naked in This Economy

These days, the economy is on everyone’s lips. Uncertain times. The job market is stiff. Job hunting is like a bad fishing day. But this writing isn’t about tough economic times.

I’m writing about an economy of a different sort, something more than unemployment or inflation. The economy I’m writing about is harder to pin, difficult to put your finger on, but, in a way, more important than the monetary kind. I’m writing about an economy of ideas. Like money, ideas circulate, transact, and evolve. To the untrained mind, we see nothing but a normal day, anything but extraordinary, and yet, ideas have and operate in an economy.

Though talked about all the time, including politics, entertainment, culture, education, and yes, even religion, this economy of ideas is invisible to many. These domains of our earthly existence organize and compartmentalize us. They group and arrange us in where we eat, what we watch, how we vote, how we learn, and even what we believe, without us ever being aware. We “dress” in outward forms for each of these domains: a suit for business, a uniform for politics, a certain tone or style for religion. They become compartments for daily life, each with its own outfit for success. By not adhering to the dress code, we feel naked and, maybe, bound for less-than-favorable results.

But what could it mean if we are compartmentalizing according to these domains? We’re compartmentalizing ourselves – and each other – by this economy of ideas. Business and politics, though different, sometimes intermingle in ways that benefit both – though not always for the good of the public. In the political domain, democrats and republicans stand on opposite sides of the fence, each loyal to their values and policies, with little room for crossover – public servants and voters alike. Liberals mostly protest. Conservatives mostly rally. Republicans are overly stiff. Democrats are overly loose. A family divided by politics at the dinner table runs downstream from the deeply seeded arguments between politicians reported on by the legacy media circuit. In business, profit margins are precious and pried open with crowbars. If government can help, businesses are happy to reciprocate. Meanwhile, religion and entertainment often overlap more freely, but even there, boundaries of morality and ethics remain. In entertainment, money and sex and violence, by and large, make up the sparkling cocktail, generating revenue for studios and the “artists” who treat such ingredients of the cocktail as their bottom-line definition of what makes the human condition or simply as a means to wealth and opulent lifestyle. Religion, the most active and leaned upon domain of this economy of ideas, is as rich, diverse, and flavorful as 31 Flavors. Each holds a unique doctrine and a laundry list of rituals and practices that the believer must act out to mature in faith. Assuming the most passive role in this economy of ideas is education, where teachers are underpaid and underappreciated, where financial literacy is a foreign language, the teaching methods enforced are as updated as a Windows 98 laptop, and the environment for learning is as freeing for the student and technologically advanced as someone in an orange jumpsuit, handcuffed, and led to prison by a gated network of pathways to the desired career paths. In culture, all the aforementioned flow freely, circulating, transacting, and evolving according to both proven patterns and the cracking, thunderous upswing of phenomena.

Eventually, in this economy of ideas, we all feel a certain hunger. Some chase fulfillment by doubling down on politics, others through career and culture. But countless millions turn to religion, seeking something deeper: an encounter with the divine. A whisper, a nudge, a tap on the shoulder, a chance encounter – any sign that life may be more than a constant migration through this economy of ideas.

Yet here’s where we stumble: we treat the divine like another domain in our economy, applying to God the same finite rules by which we organize society. But through silence, God does not bend to human management or systematization. We only interpret his silence as a sign of no protest as we cook up doctrine for organized religion. We need to organize as a collective, but up to this point, it’s been on our terms, not his. He lives and breathes outside this economy of ideas.

We know it. We sense, deep down, that our game of religious “dress up,” while useful, is not enough. The satisfaction we crave – the fullness we’re starving for – comes only when we strip down those layers. When we stand naked before God, unadorned by the ideas that superficially integrate us – socially, economically, politically, culturally – but fail to touch our depths, then – and only then – do we discover God, and in the reflection of his eyes, our true selves.

God is not bound by ideas. Doctrine may articulate the definition of God by compiling scripture from the Bible, but God is far from contained within theology. God cannot be dressed in garments of doctrine any more than we, as adults, can still fit into our baby clothes. God dwells in the infinite, the vast dark unknown of his own presence. And in that space, our intellect – scrambling to return to the comfortable finite of ideas – becomes as put-together as a sand wall against the rising tide.

We were made for more than the rigidity of ideas and the economy that manifests from their interplay. Picture standing on the beach. The sand represents familiar structures of belief, trade, interaction, play, and infrastructure, where we feel the most stable and sure. But just a few yards away, the sand shifts and fades beneath the crashing waves as the depth rises to the shoulders and the dark depths of the ocean reside beneath your feet. Suddenly, the domains of the economy of ideas, the fabric of human society, fade and lose shape like colored dye in a glass of water. Here, the mind is gone, and the heart only feels, but the soul is wide open to hear the voice and love of God. Time and space don’t matter. Shapes and sounds are the grappling hooks.

Walking out of the ocean, the beach is never the same again. For the first time, being naked feels like a strength in this economy. It’s armor that never fails. It’s armor that is light and easy to wear. Underneath is who we truly are in God, and now, in this economy of ideas, we’re like Neo, able to read the current of society in all its facets and complexity, because God, who made it all possible, is our constant.

Finally, instead of us moving, it’s the economy of ideas moving around us. We’re still. It’s not. That’s the nakedness that Adam and Eve knew, and through Jesus, the Christ, we can go swimming.

·

The Eternal Moon, My Magnum Opus

For my birthday, I want to share something special–a new draft of the summary for my science fiction series, The Eternal Moon. This saga spans twelve books and has been years in the making. For the longest time, I doubted I’d ever finish it–let alone see it published. Only recently have I found real hope that those dreams might actually come true.

This morning, as I cracked open my laptop, many potential topics for today’s post flickered through my mind. But with today being a milestone, I knew I had to return to my Magnum Opus–the sci-fi epic that has tested every ounce of my imagination, persistence, and resolve.

So, here it is:

THE ETERNAL MOON

In history’s final days, the battle between good and evil reaches its fever pitch. Evil makes its last, desperate move – a single gambit that could lock Earth under its rule for eternity. The year is 2965, and the fate of all creation hangs in the balance.

In the sleepless steel labyrinth of Metropolis – Earth’s sprawling capital – orphans Jordan and Jesse scrape by on wit, grit, and sheer will. Survival and friendship have bonded them for life, or so they think. Their lives take an unexpected turn when fate reunites them with their birth families… but rescue isn’t always salvation. Jordan is swept into the opulence and intrigue of the Rushes, a wealthy tech dynasty whose power stretches across the globe, while Jesse returns to the crushing poverty of his working-class parents, where survival demands hard choices. But they quickly discover that both their paths lead to one terrible truth–an ancient, eternal gambit crafted by evil forces as old as time itself–making these days in which they live the last days of human history. As political intrigue closes in and blood ties threaten friendship, their worlds pull them in opposite directions, straining their once seemingly unbreakable bond. In a time when the difference between personal gain and eternal fate is blurred, that which is sacred is now weaponized.

·

Copper: The Poor Man’s Silver

One man’s trash

Copper isn’t just another shiny metal – it’s heavy, valuable, and everywhere. At $4-5 per pound, it’s surprisingly easy to find in discarded items people overlook. Anything with a power cord, once unscrewed and cracked open, can become an investment: microwaves, televisions, lighting fixtures – you name it.

But the appeal of copper runs deeper than it’s luster or weight. I call it the poor man’s silver. Silver, the aluminum-like cousin of gold, currently trades around $37 an ounce (as of this writing, $38) – a bargain compared to gold, but a meaningful amount, especially in this recession, still out of reach for many. When you’ve got only $50 left – the bills are paid, the tank is full, and the groceries are done – investing in precious metals rarely tops the list. A night out or a new gadget feels more tempting and is only one click away on Amazon.

Here’s the thing: after an hour of scrapping for copper, that $50 is still sitting in the account, ready for allocation elsewhere. The investment came not from dipping into savings, but from reclaiming value that others tossed out. To many, “time is money” a mantra to live by; so, nothing is truly free. But if DIY brings you joy, don’t let someone else’s definition of time well spent get in the way. Except mine, of course.

Copper is near “bottom of the barrel” compared to gold or silver, but it’s also the next best deal, and it’s outside the formal market. Scrap copper – especially from power cords and other clean sources – often retains high purity, without the Everest-steep, criminally high premiums that come with bullion. Bullion copper is poured, stamped, and sold at inflated prices, with premiums ranging from 100% to 600% over melt value. A copper round might sell for over a dollar while its melt value is under 50 cents.

Another man’s treasure

As an investment, bullion copper doesn’t make sense. As a collectible? Absolutely. As scrap? Even better! Copper is everywhere, and the market is full of opportunities for those willing to seize them.