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Should Republicans scrap the filibuster to end the shutdown? · The Daily Article

• 0:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the Monday, November the 3rd, 2025 edition of Denison Forum's Daily Article Podcast.
• 0:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm Chris Elkins, giving voice to today's Daily Article Podcast written by Cultural Theologian Dr. Jim Denison.
• 0:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: quote, it's scary because I'm a cancer survivor.
• 0:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm in remission.
• 0:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: My doctor has not released me to go back to work yet, so I'm on disability and I really need the extra for food because by the time I pay all the bills, there's really nothing left.
• 0:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: In quote, this is how one person described her plight as she faced the cut off of the
• 0:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Over 41 million Americans benefit from the federal program, one of many that have been suspended during the ongoing government shutdown, which entered its second month Saturday.
• 0:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: One solution is for Republicans to end the filibuster in the Senate.
• 0:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: which would allow them to in the government shut down and pass legislation with a simple majority.
• 1:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, many Republican senators are vocally defending the 60 vote requirement.
• 1:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Without it, when Democrats retake the Senate some day, House Speaker Mike Johnson warns that they would pack the Supreme Court and make Puerto Rico and DC states.
• 1:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Whatever your view of the shutdown and its causes or solutions, this ongoing controversy highlights a fact of life.
• 1:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Present decisions can have future costs that outweigh their present benefits.
• 1:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: This principle is vital not only to our democratic governance, but also to our souls.
• 1:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Sin offers immediate payoffs with delayed costs.
• 1:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: The thief owns what he steals today.
• 1:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: His possible arrest is in the future.
• 1:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: People who commit adultery, view pornography, abuse alcohol, are useless at drugs, each experiences what their sin offers now while paying the price later.
• 2:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Why does God permit this calculus?
• 2:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Our Creator honors the free will with which we are created in his image, established in Genesis 1 verse 27.
• 2:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: He must therefore allow us to misuse our freedom by falling to temptation when ignoring the fact that they always cost more than they pay.
• 2:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: By contrast, biblical obedience pays more than it costs.
• 2:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: To follow God's call in Hebrews 11, verse 8, Abraham left his family and homeland as he went out not knowing where he was going, but he eventually became the father of a great nation according to Genesis 12, verse 2.
• 2:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Moses traveled for 40 years in the wilderness before seeing the promise land, but he gave the law to the world and changed human history.
• 2:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: When he fixed verse 39 led to the horrors of good Friday, but the victory of Easter Sunday and the salvation of billions over the centuries.
• 3:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: From learning a language to gaining professional expertise to investing in the stock market, to traveling to a remote destination, we must pay a price in the present if we are to experience its benefit in the future.
• 3:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is especially true for the faith required for us
• 3:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: At this point, you probably expect me to encourage you to take such a step of faith.
• 3:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Whatever its present cost, in the assurance that you will be grateful one day you did.
• 3:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: After all, we make such transactional decisions in nearly every dimension of our lives every day, for example.
• 3:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: My wife and I stayed up much later than usual Saturday night to watch the Los Angeles Dodgers win the World Series.
• 3:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: She's from LA and we both wanted Clayton Kershaw to win another title before he retires.
• 3:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: We were a bit groggy at church yesterday morning but glad for the late night experience.
• 3:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: If the Dodgers had lost, however, we would have felt differently about the lost sleep.
• 4:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is how life works in a consumption-based economy where you get what you pay for, and it is how our religion works for most of us as well, serve God today, so he'll bless us tomorrow.
• 4:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, it's not the essence of true biblical faith.
• 4:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: In fact, it can be the greatest nemesis to our relationship with the Lord.
• 4:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: In Matthew 22 verse 37, Jesus' command was to love God, not to serve Him.
• 4:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: The benefits of serving God are to be the consequence of our obedience, not its purpose or goal.
• 4:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: When we serve our Father so He will serve us, we make ourselves His equal in a business partnership or even His superior and Him our servant.
• 4:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is especially true with regard to evil and suffering.
• 4:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: When God does it seem to keep up his end of the quote-unquote bargain, we can feel justified in rejecting his demands on our lives.
• 4:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: And when we serve him so he will serve us, it is often hard to refuse the immediate reward of sin and the cost of obedience.
• 5:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: We can always repent later, we tell ourselves, and the future benefit of present faithfulness seems murky and ethereal in the face of present temptations.
• 5:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, if we make it our life purpose simply to love the Lord fully and passionately, everything changes.
• 5:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: We obey him because we love him, not so he will bless our obedience.
• 5:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: We pay any price to serve him because the price of service is irrelevant to love.
• 5:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: We then experience the joy of a transformational relationship rather than the drudgery of a transactional religion.
• 5:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: And in a consumption driven culture where we never have enough and and people are means to our ends, our joy becomes contagious.
• 5:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: So here's the question that changes our lives and our world.
• 5:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: How do we love God more fully today?
• 5:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: One, choose to make loving God our first and greatest commandment and purpose, eating Matthew 22 verse 38.
• 6:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Two, submit to the Spirit each day as taught in Ephesians 5 verse 18, asking Him to produce the fruit of love for God in our lives,
• 6:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Take time every day to reflect on His love for us, proven at the cross, and every time He forgives our sin, meets our needs, and bless us our lives.
• 6:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: First John 419 says it clearly.
• 6:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: We love because He first loved us.
• 6:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is also important, if we fall to temptation, identify the source of our sin as a failure to love our Lord.
• 6:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Jesus assured us, in John 14, verse 15, if you love me, you will keep my commandments.
• 6:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: The next time you're tempted,
• 6:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Remember that this sin will grieve your Lord referencing Genesis 6 verse 6 and Ephesians 4 verse 30, who loves you passionately and unconditionally, according to Romans 5 verse 8.
• 7:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you are dealing with an ongoing pattern of sin in your life, ask the Spirit to help you love your Father more than you love your sin.
• 7:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: In the 12th century, Bernard of Clarevo noted,
• 7:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: The true measure of loving God is to love Him without measure.
• 7:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: How truly will you love God today?