The hashtag #ChristisKing is making waves in the online world of social media. Some people who are using it are being called anti-semantic. I have checked some posts, and they might be. But most who are using the hashtag are confessing their faith in the resurrected Jesus as Lord of lords and King of kings.

The controversy mostly centers around Candice Owens and Ben Sharpio. I will let you search it out if you want to know. But my issue is with the devil and his ability to gaslight Christians. From the Garden, God has set life and death before us and given us the keys of the kingdom to choose life. Our adversary, the devil, who likes to co-opt the principles of God and use them for evil, is doing just that in the #ChristisKing controversy.

The devil sets before us death and death, giving us a sense of autonomy, and doesn't care about our choice because they both lead to death—more on this in a future newsletter.

Is Christ King? Well, that depends on who you are and the timing of God. We are celebrating Passion Week this week, and 'Christ is King' was the issue when Jesus took up His cross and died to take away the sins of the world. The governor Pilot didn't want to judge Jesus for the charges that the Jews accused of Him. Jesus was accused of blasphemy for claiming to be God and could rebuild the temple in three days. Pilot answered the Jews to judge him themselves because it wasn't a Roman issue. But the Jews then claimed Jesus said He was a king and was going to overthrow the Roman empire. The Jews started a political controversy that led to a riot that Governor Pilot could not ignore. History always repeats itself, but not in the same way.

Salvation is not about perfecting our doctrine while our heart is of no change. Customer service for businesses, credit card companies, and the like seem to have all their i’s dotted and t’s crossed on how to respond to customers, yet it feels pretentious. The language and response seem right. It is all about presenting your best but not putting the customer first. Doing the right thing without genuine love is manipulation. Jesus quoted the Old Testament: people say the right things, but their heart is far from mine.

I cannot teach doctrine as if it is a discipline of the world that comes to fruition through much study. Jesus is not a science that we gain information to earn a Ph.D. and a relationship. We must believe from the heart and confess from the mouth that God raised Jesus from the grave after paying the penalty for our sins on the cross. If Jesus is our Lord, it must be from a bowed heart before a bowed knee. Because of the fleshes' desire to cleanse its outside to have an appearance of salvation, I come from an abstract position that can be used to judge the hearts and attitudes of those I am speaking to.

You have your p’s and q’s, but do you? Is your mouth speaking from the heart, or is your mouth speaking from a Christian education?

What are you seeking to get out of life? What drives you to get out of bed? What are your heart's desires that you consistently bring before God? You may be mentally searching for the right scripture to respond to this question, but is it the answer of your heart, good or bad?

Let’s walk through scripture and look at what people in bible days sought.

Some people seek power. If their life was to be summed up by their thoughts and actions, it was one of seeking power. Now, I’m talking to people who have changed the trajectory of their lives to follow Christ. People who have decided to go a different direction when they met Jesus. Let me also remind you that Judas, the one who betrayed Jesus, also left his life behind, took up his cross, and followed Jesus all the way short to the end. But what was Judas seeking? Was he seeking the Way, the Truth, and the Life of Jesus? Or was he seeking something else that derailed him before crossing the finish line of grace and truth?

There is much to teach from the Bible, so why am I belaboring Salvation for weeks? Because most people will be lost. Wide is the gate many will walk through to destruction, but narrow is the way, and few will find it. I don't want you or those you love to be lost. Before we start with the Gospel memes, let's look at the brief list of lost people going through the wide gate.

• The atheists who refuse to thank God and are given over to a reprobate mind.
• People who fail to love the truth to be saved.
• Other religions, ideologies, and philosophies that worship idols of their creation.
• The influencers who don't like the terms of Salvation, like the young rich ruler who walked away sorrowfully because he had too much to lay down.
• The called-out ones are no longer available but make excuses and ask to be excused from what God commands, like the servants of the wedding feast and those who wanted to follow Jesus but wanted to do something else first.
• The hearers and not-doers deceive themselves like the crowd banging on the door to be let in, but Jesus doesn't know them as His disciples.
• People who were motivated by everything but love and are nothing but a clanging cymbal.
• The ministers who have a form of holiness conformed to this world but are not transformed by the renewing of their minds to the Word of God. They, too, beat on the door to be let in, but Jesus doesn't know them as His disciples even when they forged His name to do their will and ministry.