The FBI “took down” 700 drones during World Cup events

Smoke filled the streets Monday morning outside the Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan after an explosive device was set off in front of a New York immigration court. The FBI has arrested a suspect whom one official described as “an anti-American, anti-government extremist.”

The news came after FBI Director Kash Patel told Fox News Digital that his agency “took down” over seven hundred suspicious drones as part of its protection of various World Cup events staged in the US over recent weeks. I’m grateful for the five thousand FBI personnel who worked to secure the tournament, but the director’s announcement raises a question for me as well.

During George W. Bush’s administration, a good friend who worked at the highest levels of threat analysis told me the government had shifted its approach to public notifications in the age of terrorism. Previously, they told us whenever they prevented a threat. Now, they’ve realized that such news can frighten us in a way that contributes to the terrorists’ purpose.

As a result, when we do learn of threats that are prevented, I wonder what we don’t know about threats we can’t see.

“There is salvation in no one else”

Yesterday we focused on the fact that our mortality is the necessary gateway to our immortality, that we step through temporal death into eternal life because of the resurrection of Jesus.

There’s a downside to this upside, however, one that we neglect to the peril of humanity.

It is conventional wisdom today that the various religions of the world are just different roads up the same mountain. To insist on the necessity of faith in Christ is to be intolerant, the cardinal sin of our “post-truth” culture. Everyone goes to heaven when they die, or so we think. At the very least, if we believe in hell at all, we’re confident that it is reserved for the Hitlers of history, not for us or anyone we know.

If you’re an evangelical Christian, you’re objecting right now and asserting your belief that Jesus is “the way, and the truth, and the life” and that no one comes to the Father except through him (John 14:6). You agree with Peter’s declaration that “there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

So, let me ask you (and myself): Would your lost friends and family agree with your evangelistic affirmation? What would the people you know who do not know Jesus say about your outreach to them?

I know it’s hard to tell lost people that they’re lost. We wouldn’t be pleased with a Muslim or Buddhist who said the same to us. It’s easier to avoid thinking about this subject, something you may be wishing I would do at this moment.

I understand the sentiment. But there’s good news about sharing the good news today.

“He gives the Spirit without measure”

Jesus promised his followers that after his return to heaven, the Holy Spirit “will bear witness about me” and that “you also will bear witness” as a result (John 15:26–27). And this is just what happened:

• Before Peter shared the gospel with the crowds at Pentecost, he was “filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:4).
• Before he preached to the authorities who arranged Jesus’ crucifixion, he was “filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 4:8).
• Before Paul began preaching the gospel in Damascus following his dramatic conversion, he was “filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 9:17).
• Before preaching his first recorded message in Acts, he was “filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 13:9).

This correlation makes sense, for three biblical reasons.

1. We cannot convict a single sinner of a single sin, but the Holy Spirit can and does (John 16:8).
2. We do not know the minds and hearts of the lost or the best way to lead them to Jesus, but the Spirit does (cf. John 16:13; Romans 8:27).
3. We are afraid of offending people or of sharing the gospel ineffectively, but the Spirit can empower us to defeat our fears by faith (Romans 8:15; cf. 2 Timothy 1:7).

The ministry of Jesus is Exhibit A. The Spirit was the source of his power (Luke 4:14; 11:20; John 5:19; Acts 1:1–2). John explained Jesus’ ministry this way: “He whom God has sent utters the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure” (John 3:34).

Now, when we submit our lives to the Spirit, he does through us what he did through Jesus (Ephesians 5:18).

“Living Christs here and now”

If you want to serve and share Jesus with authenticity, joy, and courage, you have a simple decision to make.

Henri Nouwen wrote, “Without Pentecost, the Christ-event—the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus—remains imprisoned in history as something to remember, think about, and reflect on.” It seems to me that this is how many Christians experience Jesus, as a story we are obligated to share with people who may not want to hear it.

After Pentecost, by contrast, Nouwen added:

“The Spirit of Jesus comes to dwell with us, so that we can become living Christs here and now.”

On which side of Pentecost will you live today?

Quote for the day:

“Those in whom the Spirit comes to live are God’s new Temple. They are, individually and corporately, places where heaven and earth meet.” —N. T. Wright

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