@cdnrefusenik Amen. It's all just theater. If only more would open their eyes and see what's actually going.
People need to turn off the tv, get in the Word, and seek after God with every ounce of their being. It's the only way.
Charlie Kirk Is Dead. Now My Family Won’t Speak to Each Other.
The casserole was still warm.
Aunt June’s phone was still open to the news about Charlie. No one asked. No one answered. But the fellowship felt fractured before we ever bowed to pray.
Eyes darted. Forks hesitated. Somewhere between the blessing and the banana pudding, someone asked, “Did you see what he posted?”
And there it was.
The line.
Drawn here, between the people who used to speak freely at dinner.. One saw martyrdom. Another saw politics. One felt the tremble of the enemy tightening the noose. Another just wanted to keep things light.
This is what Romans 12 was written for.
This isn’t theology for a classroom. This is survival for the Christian who just got blocked by their own child.
A Living Sacrifice in a Tearing World
Paul doesn’t begin this chapter with rage. He doesn’t sharpen his words like arrows and fire them into the other camp. He begins with mercy. Doctrine that has just come roaring through eleven chapters of blood, wrath, covenant, and resurrection.
That hill outside Jerusalem didn’t just hold a cross. It held the collision of judgment and grace. And if you heard it, if it struck your chest and left you standing in the rubble of yourself, Paul says you only have one reasonable response: lay your life down.
You bow low. You hand it all over. Like Isaac. Like the widow. Like the Lamb who stayed quiet when they crowned Him in thorns.
He doesn’t say, give your opinion.
He says, give your body.
He doesn’t say, make your position known.
He says, make your self expendable.
He says it right there: “Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.” Reasonable. Not because it makes sense to the world. Reasonable because we have seen the mercy.
The Pattern Breakers
Then Paul throws a grenade in the room: “Do not be conformed to this world.”
The Greek word is pressing language. Mold language. It’s what the world does to your spine and your speech and your dinner table. It molds you, squeezes you into itself, like clay into a cheap toy press.
But the cross doesn’t fit that mold. And neither do you.
To follow Christ is to have your mind re-wired. Transformed. Not patched up or polished, but reprogrammed to chase the will of God instead of the will of man. It means saying things that make no sense to your cousin who thinks you’re brainwashed. It means holding your tongue when everything in you wants to lash back. It means giving yourself not to commentary, but to consecration.
And the first place it shows up is not on a social media post, but in the way you treat your church.
What No One Wants to Say Out Loud
We must speak tenderly here.
There are families right now who feel burned. Not by strangers on the internet, but by sons and daughters. Mothers and fathers. Uncles and wives. One shares a post and another doesn’t come to Thanksgiving. One says, “He was a man of God,” and another hurls, “You’re a fascist.”
So many believers are sitting in the ashes of what used to be a family table. They didn’t mean to light the match. They thought they were defending what was good, or grieving what was lost. And now, they’re watching love feel like treason.
Romans 12 is not a lecture for them. It’s a lifeline.
The Church as Testimony
We talk about “the body of Christ” like it’s a metaphor. Paul treats it like it has ligaments.
Your elbow matters. Your gift matters. But not for you. For the body.
Paul says the first mark of a consecrated Christian is not fire in the belly, but humility in the pew. You don’t think too highly of yourself. You don’t belittle the roles that look boring. You don’t chase spotlight gifts while neglecting the mercies of leadership, giving, or encouragement. You get in place. You serve. You sacrifice.
You join a church and bleed for it.
You don’t drift from livestream to podcast to Bible app in search of a perfect echo of your preferences. You find a fellowship of sinners, and you say, “God placed me here. So here, I serve.”
Because that’s what consecrated people do.
But Paul doesn’t stop at service. He turns inward. To the soul. To the tongue.
Loving People Who Think You’re the Problem
Then Paul pulls back the curtain. This is how Christians live when the world feels like it’s on fire:
- Love must be real, not plastic.
- Hate evil. Like, really hate it. With teeth.
- Cling to good like a bride to her groom.
- Outdo each other in showing honor.
- Stay aglow in the Spirit when your soul feels like a snuffed wick.
- Rejoice in hope.
- Be patient when your husband calls you crazy.
- Pray when your child won’t speak to you.
- Open your home even when you’re misunderstood.
And then he says something that lands like a punch: “Bless those who persecute you.”
There it is. The line again. There are plenty of lines right now. But the only one that matters is the one between sacrifice and self.
The one who shares an article with tears in their eyes is not always trying to start a fight. Sometimes, they’re trying to tell the truth. Other times, they’re trying to keep from snapping. And sometimes they need reminded: vengeance is not your job.
You don’t shame the darkness with snark.
You shame it with kindness.
You heap burning coals on its head by feeding the enemy, not owning him.
You overcome evil with good.
You don’t win by dominating the thread.
You win by dying to self.
The Real Divide
The real divide is not left and right.
The real divide is between those who live sacrificed and those who live safe.
Between those who cling to what is good and those who conform to what is easy.
Romans 12 is a battlefield map.
The weapons are spiritual. The fight is holy. The enemy is not your brother who sees things differently. The enemy is the sin inside you that wants to be right more than it wants to be Christlike.
When the news tightens around your throat, when your friends bicker in group texts, when your children look at you sideways because you shared something that sounded political but felt like pain…go back to Romans 12.
Ask yourself:
Am I giving my body to Christ today? Or just my opinions?
Am I glued to what is good? Or glued to my group?
Am I blessing my persecutors, or just blocking them? (I’m still wrestling with this myself.)
Am I serving my church, or analyzing it?
Am I the living sacrifice I claimed to be when mercy first found me?
Because that’s what will shine.
Not the online applause.
But the quiet, blood-soaked faithfulness of men and women who have seen mercy and who now live crucified, resurrected, and unashamed.
That’s how you hold a table together.
That’s how you heal what the world can only divide.
That’s how you overcome evil.
Not with sharper words.
But with better worship.
And perhaps, one day, with the table set again, not just with casseroles, but with understanding.
And with the Father at the head.
@mrsunshinebaby It's all theatre, my friend. Spend more time in the Word and you'll find the peace you long for, and it'll be so much better than you could've hoped. God bless 🙏
@PierrePoilievre Good observation there bud. You must be referring to the crime wave that when viewed on a graph matches perfectly with third world immigration, correct?
Ephesians 6: We Dressed for War and Never Fought
The devil isn’t losing sleep over your devotional habits.
He’s not trembling because you listen to Christian podcasts, wear cross necklaces, or fill pews on Sunday.
But if you ever opened your mouth and spoke the name of Jesus to a soul still trapped in the dark…that would rattle the gates of hell.
And yet, that’s the very thing so many of us never do.
I was 42 the first time I truly heard the gospel.
Not because I hadn’t been to church before. I had. I’d heard about Jesus here and there. But no one had ever sat me down and explained it…the cross, the rescue, the urgency.
No one invited me that day. I wasn’t following a friend or pressured by a preacher. I just showed up on my own to a church because I was searching. Tired. Empty. Unsure of what I believed.
I came looking for answers.
And there, sitting in the back of a quiet sanctuary, I heard it. The truth. The message I should have heard a hundred times before.
Jesus wasn’t just a religious idea. He was the Savior I needed. He died for me. He was calling me.
But sometimes I still wonder, why did it take so long?
Why didn’t anyone ever tell me?
Why was the greatest news in the world kept quiet?
Maybe I wouldn’t have believed earlier. Maybe I would’ve. But someone should have told me.
That thought still gets to me.
Because there are millions out there, just like I was wandering through life with no idea that the gospel is not good advice. It’s rescue.
But they’ll never know if we never speak.
We’ve misunderstood Ephesians 6.
We’ve treated it like a spiritual fashion show.
Before we get to what’s missing, we have to see what’s already there.
Ephesians 6 doesn’t offer a buffet of armor…it presents a complete set. A gift from God Himself. Every piece has a purpose. The belt of truth. The breastplate of righteousness. The gospel of peace for your feet. The shield of faith. The helmet of salvation.
It’s all there to protect you. Not from discomfort. Not from criticism. But from the Evil One.
This armor is heaven-forged and blood-bought. And it’s enough. If you wear it all.
But it’s only complete when the sword is drawn.
We’ve misunderstood Ephesians 6.
We’ve admired the helmet, the breastplate, the shield as if Paul were dressing up a mannequin for Vacation Bible School.
But Paul wasn’t playing dress-up. He was chained to a soldier.
A real one. One with scars and orders and blood on his sandals.
And as Paul wrote about the armor of God, he wasn’t calling Christians to safety.
He was begging them to fight.
The American church has grown expert at defense.
We shield ourselves with doctrinal statements, hermeneutical precision, and moral outrage. We know how to hunker down, circle the wagons, and wait for the rapture.
But Ephesians 6 doesn’t end with a shield. It ends with a sword.
And swords aren’t for blocking.
They’re for driving forward.
They’re for the front lines.
They’re for enemy territory.
And Paul, chained, bruised, under guard, writes that the sword is the Word of God. Not the silent belief in it. Not a quiet respect for it. Not a leather-bound reverence that stays tucked under your arm.
It must be spoken.
It must be declared.
Because the sword doesn’t cut unless it moves.
We are losing ground in America.
Not because we lack armor, but because we lack nerve.
We are over-resourced and under-engaged. We have more tools than Paul ever dreamed of. Print, video, radio, podcasts, pulpits, platforms.
But the harvest rots on the vine.
Because we do not speak.
We invite. We smile. We hope someone else says something. And we count ourselves obedient.
But the soldier who never swings the sword is not in the fight.
There’s a grave near the back of a church’s cemetery. Weatherworn stone. No family name. Just a carving: “Known to God.”
The story goes that he was a Civil War soldier, found half-alive in the woods. He never spoke a word before he died. But he had worn the uniform.
I wonder how many Christians will be buried in uniforms they never used.
How many pews are full of spiritual cadets who trained, read, prayed, and suited up but never entered the battle.
Hell has no fear of silent saints.
It has no fear of shiny armor.
But the spoken Word of God…that shakes kingdoms.
That’s the missing piece.
Ephesians 6 doesn’t end with defensive posture. It ends with Paul asking for prayer, not for comfort, not for escape, but for boldness. For words. For gospel.
“That words may be given to me… that I may declare it boldly.”
He asks the Ephesians to pray that he will speak.
Because he knows the sword is drawn with the tongue.
We’ve taught our churches how to be safe.
We must now teach them how to be dangerous.
Because a church that only wears armor but never wields the sword is a bunker, not a battalion.
The kingdom was never meant to retreat.
The gospel is not a shield we hide behind. It’s a fire we carry into the cold.
And someone’s eternity depends on whether or not we open our mouths.
This is what I know:
The Christian life is not safe.
It is not tidy.
It is not a curated collection of beliefs arranged on a shelf.
It is war.
It is a daily decision to pick up truth, to wear righteousness, to remember the peace we have with God, to hold firm in faith, to set our hope on the coming glory.
But if we stop there, we fail.
Because the gospel must be spoken.
Hell is not shaken by your theological alignment.
Hell is not afraid of your study Bible.
Hell fears the trembling voice of a believer, whispering Christ to a neighbor.
Hell fears the parent who speaks truth to their child.
Hell fears the man at work who opens his mouth and shares his testimony.
Hell fears the woman who refuses to let fear silence her.
Hell fears the Word of God spoken out loud, in real time, to real people.
Because it breaks chains.
And it never returns void.
This is the armor we never wear.
Not the helmet. Not the shield.
But the sword.
And until we take it up, not just in belief, but in speech, we will never advance.
So speak.
Not with slick lines or memorized scripts, but with the truth you know. The gospel you believe. The Christ you follow.
Speak like someone who’s been rescued.
Speak like someone who knows the battlefield is real.
Speak like someone who would rather offend a friend than abandon a soul.
Speak.
Because armor alone won’t win the war.
Only the sword will.
Hulk Hogan’s Last Stand
Rich BittermanJuly 24, 2025
A few days ago, I wrote about Ozzy Osbourne’s death.
The article went viral…read by hundreds of thousands, reposted, debated, cursed, and praised. Some accused me of hijacking a man’s death to make a theological point. Others thanked me for writing what they’d never dared say out loud.
But now, another man has died. And this one was baptized a few months ago.
Terry Gene Bollea, better known as Hulk Hogan, died this morning. And if my words about Ozzy felt like a warning shot, then these words…about Hogan…ought to feel like a bell tower ringing in the fog.
Because the water doesn’t save, but it tells the story of the One who does.
The Wrestler Who Couldn’t Wrestle Time
When I was a teenager, I believed Hulk Hogan could stop time. I watched him tear his shirt down the middle like the Red Sea and hurl giants to the mat with a body slam like it was a declaration: I can’t be broken.
He seemed immortal. A yellow-and-red supernova of muscles and sweat and Americana.
But time cannot be suplexed. And death is not impressed by how many pay-per-view titles you’ve won.
This morning, the world’s strongest man became the world’s smallest headline.
Hulk Hogan is dead.
Hulk Was Baptized
Let’s pause there. Let’s say it again slowly: Hulk Hogan was baptized.
This isn’t hearsay or rumor. Not long ago, footage surfaced of Terry Bollea being baptized in clear water.
He emerged from the pool slowly, hands raised, tears behind those sunglasses, a heavy man moving like a child newly born.
He didn’t cut a promo. He didn’t say, “Brother.” He just looked upward.
I don’t know everything that led to that moment. I don’t know what he said in the quiet before or after. But I know what the water means. And I know what kind of God meets a man beneath it.
Not a Celebrity Conversion
Don’t confuse this with those headlines you scroll past: “So-and-so finds faith.” This isn’t about public image.
Baptism is not an aesthetic. It is a funeral.
It is the burial of a past and the beginning of a future that death cannot cancel. It is a man saying: Not my name. Not my story. Not my strength anymore.
It’s a man surrendering.
It’s Terry Bollea, who once stood in front of 90,000 screaming fans, kneeling in front of the only throne that matters.
And that throne doesn’t ask for fame. It demands repentance.
Two Deaths, Two Men, One Christ
Ozzy once called himself the Prince of Darkness. But now, he stands before the true King. Whether he ever bowed, only God knows.
But Hogan’s death? It’s something else.
It’s a reminder that mercy is real.
That the water still holds.
That Jesus still saves men with broken bodies, flawed pasts, and names too big to hide.
Ozzy made a living crying out into darkness. I pray he found the Light before the end.
Hogan, near the end, whispered into eternity.
What Happens When a Giant Dies?
When a man dies, something happens. Not figuratively. Not emotionally. Something happens.
His soul is torn from his body. He does not drift into unconscious stardust. He does not become a memory.
He stands. Awake. Aware. Known.
The Bible says it like this: “It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment.”
The appointment is kept. The judgment is real. And for the one who has gone through the water and clung to Christ, there is no condemnation left.
Not because he performed well.
But because Christ did.
The Illusion of Strength
Hulk Hogan made a living flexing in front of mirrors and cameras. But mirrors lie. They show you biceps. They hide your soul.
And if you spend your whole life flexing, the first moment of real weakness will feel like drowning.
But if you’ve already died in the water…if you’ve already laid it all down…then death has nothing left to threaten you with.
You’ve already lost everything that doesn’t last.
And you’ve gained everything that can’t be taken.
There Is No Tag Team at the Judgment Seat
You die alone.
Not in spirit, but in accountability.
There will be no ring announcer. No walkout music. No partner to slap into the fight.
Just you.
Just God.
Just the record.
Every secret thought. Every false smile. Every whispered sin. Every word spoken when you thought no one was listening.
And for those who are in Christ, the books will open and every line will read: Paid. In. Full.
Because Jesus didn’t just die for your sins.
He died with your name in mind.
The Man Behind the Muscles
This is what haunts me: we’ve built a world that worships images.
Ozzy became a symbol. Hogan became a costume.
And beneath it all, they were men. Dust and soul. Born. Buried. Breath-takers.
No different than me.
No different than you.
But now, the stage lights are off. The band has packed up. The crowd has gone home.
And both men have stepped into something terrifyingly real.
For one, we don’t know if repentance ever came.
For the other, we saw the water.
And I pray we saw a new birth.
But What About You?
Let’s forget Ozzy.
Let’s forget Hogan.
Let’s talk about you.
Yes, you…the one scrolling this with numb fingers and tired eyes, wondering if it’s too late or if you’re too far.
You’re not.
If breath fills your lungs, mercy still stands open. You don’t need fame. You don’t need clarity. You don’t need a church full of people cheering for your comeback.
You need Christ.
You need to die before you die.
To bow before the throne instead of pretending you are one.
To walk into the water with your pride buried in your fist and come up with His name on your lips.
You don’t need to become religious.
You need to become His.
One More Ring Entrance
I picture Hogan walking into heaven like a man limping from the last match of his life. The crowd he lived for is silent now.
But there’s a new crowd. One that doesn’t cheer flesh.
They bow before a Lamb.
And Hogan, in that final entrance, doesn’t rip his shirt or point to the sky.
He falls to his knees.
Not because he lost.
But because he finally knows what winning really means.