December 19, 2025
Welcome to Richard’s Cornerstone. My name is Richard Beatty. I am almost 83 years old and have been with my wonderful wife, Christine, for 49 years. We are members of New Life Church, Denton, TX, where I serve as an elder.
So, what is Richard’s Cornerstone? First, a cornerstone is the first stone set in the construction of a masonry foundation. It must be perfectly level and plumb so that when all further construction lines up with that cornerstone, the entire structure is level and plumb. In other words, the cornerstone determines the final position and integrity of the whole structure. My cornerstone is my faith and trust in Almighty God and His Son the Lord Jesus Christ. My guide to truth is the Bible because it is the only true authoritative inerrant Word of God. Therefore, when my life or my actions do not line up with what the Bible says, it is me that needs to bend to God’s will & Word, not the other way around.
I am writing as a Christ follower to my brothers and sisters in the Lord and to anyone who is concerned about the moral direction our country is heading. I am not writing as a member of any political party. My primary goal is to put faith into action. Before anyone interprets that statement as something it is not, let me be perfectly clear. I do not advocate violence of any sort. Jesus said: “The thief comes only to steal, and kill, and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” (John 10:10-11) The abundant life Jesus spoke of was not based on a set of hard-and-fast rules, i.e., the Old Testament Law, but on two foundational principles: Love God and Love others. When asked about the greatest commandment, Jesus answered: “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:29-31) Also, before His death, Jesus left the disciples with one final commandment: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35)
So, what do I mean by putting faith into action? And what do I mean by the term faith? When I think about faith, two Bible verses come to mind. The first is Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” And the second is James 2:17: ”So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” Therefore, based on these verses, I define Christian faith this way:
Faith is the firm conviction that Jesus Christ is Almighty God’s only begotten Son and that Jesus is the only way to God the Father. It is belief in Jesus, making Him Lord and King of our life that saves us from the penalty of our sins. Jesus becomes Lord and King when we adhere to His teaching as found in the Holy Bible. Our faith becomes real when others can observe it by how we live our day-to-day life.
In other words, since I say I have faith that the Bible is the authoritative written word of God, I have an obligation to obey what it teaches. Since it teaches me to forgive as I have been forgiven, I cannot have unforgiveness in my heart toward anyone. Also, since it teaches me to serve others, I cannot demand my own way from others.
For far too long, the church, the Big C Church, has been weak, inactive, and self-focused. Today, the message that is commonly preached in many churches is a perversion of Jesus’s Gospel message. It has been said that “more is caught than taught.” People flocked to Jesus because they saw the way He lived out what He taught. Repeatedly when He called His disciples/apostles, Jesus simply said, “Follow Me.” And that involved going with Him anywhere and everywhere He decided to go. They went from town to town and region to region with the message of the Good News, which was to love each other as He loved them—sacrificially. The greatest demonstration of that love was when He laid down His life for them. His message was one of relationship, not rules or law. Yet He did not relax or do away with the Old Testament law. In Matthew 5:18 He said: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”
Too many of the messages coming from the pulpits today lack the concepts of righteousness, holiness, and truth. These have been relegated to the archives while our ears are being tickled with fine-sounding, easy-to-digest words that make us feel good but have no spiritual nutritional value. This results in leaving Christ’s body (the church) unable to fight the infection of the world and the flesh, which comes from the pit of Hell. Colossians 2:6-8 reminds us to: “Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.”
Our country is sliding down a slippery slope of compromise into a dark pit of confusion, moral decay, self-indulgence, and outright insanity. In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville said:
Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.
Can you imagine what he would say today? When educated people deny biology and claim there are more than two genders and permit medical procedures to be performed on school children without parental permission, and then they allow pornographic books in elementary schools that cannot even be read aloud in a school board meeting, yet ban the Bible as too controversial, I think we have wandered into the world of insanity.