Forthcoming
The God You Actually Serve
A biblical exploration of faith, allegiance, covenant, and idolatry that asks not merely what we believe, but whom we trust, obey, and serve.
No Neutral Ground began as a rebuttal to the voices of deconstruction that are attacking the faith of millions today. For the author, it is personal. Those voices have been heard by family members who had no defense against the arguments they encountered.
The book examines a question more fundamental than religious affiliation, doctrinal agreement, or intellectual belief: Whom will you serve? Scripture does not present humanity as standing at a safe distance from competing claims, free to remain uninvolved. Every life is shaped by trust, loyalty, obedience, and worship. The question is not whether we will serve, but who or what will receive our allegiance.
Beginning with the biblical categories of covenant, faithfulness, marriage, idolatry, and return, the book challenges the modern tendency to reduce faith to an opinion held in the mind. Throughout Scripture, faith is expressed through relationship: hearing the Creator’s voice, trusting Him, walking in His ways, and remaining faithful to the covenant. Idolatry, therefore, is not merely believing the wrong thing. It is the transfer of love, trust, and loyalty from the Creator to a rival.
From the ancient gods of the biblical world to the ambitions, institutions, desires, and fears that govern modern life, No Neutral Ground traces the continuing struggle for the human heart. It invites readers to reconsider the questions they have been taught to ask and to confront the invitation that echoes throughout Scripture: return to the God who called you, become the people He intended you to be, and choose this day whom you will serve.
The book begins by examining the questions that often dominate religious discussion: What must I believe? Which doctrines must I accept? How can I be certain? These questions are not meaningless, but they can prevent us from seeing the deeper question Scripture repeatedly places before us—not merely what we believe, but whom we trust, follow, and serve.
The second movement returns to the categories Scripture itself emphasizes: covenant, faithfulness, allegiance, obedience, service, and relationship. Rather than treating faith as mere intellectual agreement, the biblical writers describe a life of hearing, trusting, walking, serving, and remaining faithful to the God who has called a people to Himself.
Scripture frequently describes the covenant between God and His people through the language of marriage. Within that relationship, idolatry is not merely an incorrect religious opinion; it is betrayal, adultery, and the giving of covenant loyalty to another. This movement explores both the seriousness of that betrayal and the persistent invitation to return.
The gods confronted in Scripture were not merely statues or imaginary characters. They represented competing powers, loyalties, desires, economies, and ways of life. This movement examines how rival gods functioned in the ancient world and why the biblical demand to choose whom we will serve was concrete, costly, and unavoidable.
The fifth movement returns to the words of Jesus and Paul within the scriptural world they inhabited. Rather than reading them as teachers who set aside Moses and the Prophets, it examines how their message continues the biblical themes of covenant, Kingdom, faithfulness, obedience, and return. Their words are reconsidered within Israel’s story, where the Messiah calls people back to the Creator and Paul proclaims Jesus from the Torah and the Prophets.
The final movement brings the biblical challenge into the present. Modern idols may have different names and appearances, but they still compete for our trust, obedience, attention, and love. The question that confronted Israel remains before us today: Who governs our lives, whose voice do we obey, and whom will we serve?
Shame discourages approach to God, while biblical repentance calls the person to turn and come home.
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