Wednesday, May 26, 2010

The Life Worth Living

"Don't tell me you need a life as well as/in addition to/away from this. This is a life!"

This is what Donovan Coetzee, the South African national leader of the Assembly of God church group, once said about church. I love it.

So often we say we can't serve at a church event or can't commit to a certain role at the church, because it will take up to much time and, "I do have a life too, you know!"

But you don't think it's acceptable to have a life away from your spouse, do you?

So how can it be that we need a life away from the most important relationship we'll ever have and the only relationship that will last into eternity?

This is a life. The only life worth living.

Monday, May 24, 2010

Merely God

"It is at her centre, where her truest children dwell, that each communion is closest to every other in spirit, if not in doctrine. And this suggests that at the centre of each there is a something, or a Someone, who against all divergences of belief, all differences of temperament, all memories of mutual persecution, speaks with the same voice."
- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Thursday, May 20, 2010

No Debate (Part Four) - Just Choice

In giving us free will, God even allows us to choose whether to love Him or not. To return His love or not.

Because He loved us first.


Wow.

(1 John 4:19)

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

A Debate (Part Three) - God or God?

I had some difficulty deciding whether to publish this post or not; I realise it may come across as unsympathetic and offensive to some. So if you're going to read it, please read it through to the end before giving your final verdict.  


On Monday I spoke about Jesus healing a man born blind and how the disciples (and many of us) were blind to the point of the story – which was not the man's blindness, but rather Jesus' healing of him.

Yesterday's post dealt with the question of God's fairness.

Now if you're still not satisfied – if you still think, "Yes, but there are actual Biblical instances of God being unfair," then this post is for you.

"You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments."
-    Exodus 20:4–6

"How is that fair to the poor, innocent children?" you may ask, "Why should they be punished for the sins of their parents?"

Now I would point out that before God put this into action, He warned the people about it. This is, in fact, included in the Ten Commandments given to the Israelites. It was a direct consequence to their sin. If their children ended up cursed, it would be because of their disobedience, not because of God's unfairness. In this way, the parents were accountable for the lives of their children.

Let's also not forget the other side of the coin – the rewards promised to the descendants of the faithful in verse 6.

What else would you suggest God do to encourage obedience, after rescuing the people from slavery in Egypt and then watching them bow down to a golden farm animal? Perhaps God made this law to teach the Israelites about legacy – what had they been leaving for their children. After all, the generations to come would surely be more responsive, having suffered for their parents' sins and not want the same for their children to come.

And perhaps God knew that some, even if it were only a few, would respond because of their children. If they wouldn't do it for themselves, they would it for their children.

And is it not true that most people today, whether they believe in God or not, still believe that parents are and should be responsible for their children?

Thank the Lord that Jesus abolished this law when he died in atonement for our sins.

And with that God turned the whole law on its head – instead of punishing the sinners' children, He sent His only Son to be punished for the sins of every single person ever to have breathed the air of this earth.

If you still have doubts or questions, feel free to ask/comment. I don't have all the answers, but maybe we can figure them out together.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

A Debate (Part Two) - Justice or Fairness?

You may remember that in my last post I mentioned an attempt was made at distinguishing justice from fairness.

Now, when it comes to justice and fairness, I don't believe there is a difference. And there doesn't seem to be a distinction between the two in God's Word: different versions of the Bible translate the same Aramaic word as either "just" or "fair", implying that these words mean the same and are interchangeable. Similarly, the Oxford Thesaurus* list "just" and "fair" as synonyms for each other and the Oxford Dictionary* defines the word "just" as "right or fair; deserved".

Case closed. Yet there is still doubt as to God's true justice.

An example used in our Life Group session to explain God's justice was as follows:

"If you picture God as a parent (which He in fact is, in a supernatural, heavenly sense – something to ponder), at dinnertime He will stand with a big bowl of dessert and dish up equal amounts for each of His children."

Now, while I fully believe that God loves each of us equally, I do not agree with this analogy.

I know that we live in an imperfect world and we are not all going to get the same opportunities, talents or rewards. For that matter, we are not all going to experience the same challenges, setbacks or heartaches either.

But God does promise that we will never get more than we can handle (good – Matthew 25:29 & Luke 12:48 – or bad – 1 Corinthians 10:13).

God also gave us free will for us to make our own decisions and so much of what we experience is due to the choices made by ourselves and others.

God does not micro-manage our lives. He does not tell us where to work, who to be friends with or who to marry.

Going back to the example of earlier, God as a parent at dinnertime will hand the whole bowl of dessert over to His children and say, "Here you go, divide this up amongst yourselves and make sure you all get an equal amount".

Whether we listen to Him and share equally is up to us.

*Oxford University Press. 2007. Oxford Paperback Dictionary & Thesaurus. Oxford, Great Britain. 331, 502.

Monday, May 17, 2010

A Debate (Part One) - Blind or Blind?

So here's that post on the phenomenal Life Group discussion* I mentioned in my last post.


We started out with John 9:1-5, the account of Jesus healing a man who'd been born blind. The focus was supposed to be on the difference between the disciples' reaction to meeting the blind man and Jesus' reaction.


The disciples immediately assumed that the blind man was being punished for sin - his parents or his own - but Jesus, who for obvious reasons had a better understanding of God's true nature, said that "this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life".


At this point we all got side-tracked with a debate over the fairness of God. How can God be fair if He made this blind just so that His glory could be revealed?


(An assertion was made that there is a difference between fairness and justice – so that God could be just, but not fair, which is a whole other discussion about one's understanding of language and one's definition of "fairness" and "justice".)


But I believe that the crux of this debate boils down to a misinterpretation of Scripture:


After Jesus said that this had happened so that God's glory could be revealed, he began speaking about his own role, and the disciples' roles (indeed our roles, if we are followers of Christ), in doing what they'd been called to do.


This would suggest that when Jesus said, "this happened so that God's glory might be displayed," the "this" he was referring to was not, in fact, the man's blindness, but Jesus' actual encounter with the man.


The man was not made blind so that he could be healed and so reveal God's glory.


Jesus meeting and healing the blind man happened so that God's glory might be displayed.


The man being blind was merely a result of living in a fallen world that is imperfect and flawed. How many other blind people have there been on this earth that never got healed? Does that mean that God "made" them blind for nothing? Of all the blind people in this world, Jesus met this man and healed him. It was not his blindness that glorified God, but his healing.


*On a side note: using Twitter and Facebook gets you so addicted to certain things. I find myself wanting to "Like" or "ReTweet" every comment I see on the Web, and I totally wanted to #hashtag the #phenomenalLifeGroupDiscussion!


A Debate (Part Two) coming tomorrow.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Fill Up

I went to Life Group for the first time in AGES on Tuesday night. Very unspiritual of me, I know. And after Tuesday's session I just wanted to kick myself. I'd forgotten how much I was missing out on!


On the drive home, I ended up apologising profusely – and unexpectedly – to God. Out of nowhere this instinctive remorse came flooding out, "I'm sorry, Lord, for skipping Life Group! I'm so, so sorry, because I know that I would never gotten up to all that rubbish that I did if I had been filling myself up with You more often!"


And only once the words had left my mouth did I realise how true they were.


James Murray, a youth pastor from C3 Church in Australia, was the guest speaker at our church conference recently. I remember him saying in one of the sessions that sometimes we attempt giving God our lives, but we hold on to certain areas that we either don't want to give up or that we don't trust God to handle it as well as we might (we can really be dim sometimes). We wonder why particular areas of our lives are continually hampered by sin that we can't seem to shake off.


What really stood out to me – now listen carefully – is what he said next:


"Sin will have no way of filling your life if it's already filled with God. That's why it is so important to be filling yourself constantly through prayer, church, reading God's Word and meeting up with other Christians."


Okay, that is slightly paraphrased, but the gist is spot on.


And I can tell you from first-hand experience how true it is. There will be no room for sin in your life if all the space is taken up by the things of God. I can also now tell how true the opposite is: how quickly sin pervades your life when you stop seeking the right things.


Believe me, the struggle and the guilt and the heartache of having to overcome that (all over again), is not worth a few days' worth of rebellion.


Draw near to God – every day – and He will draw near to you.


That's a promise. From Him in James 4:8. And unlike us, He always keeps His promises.


I had meant to tell you about our discussion in that phenomenal Life Group session and here this post has turned out totally different. Guess I'll have to right another one. Watch this space.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

What Happened To Our Souls?

"Does it ever give thee pause that men used to have a soul – not by hearsay alone, or as a figure of speech; but as a truth they knew, and acted upon! Verily it was another world then … but yet it is a pity we have lost the tidings of our souls … we shall have to go in search of them again, or worse in all ways shall befall us."
- Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present; cited by Mary Ann Shaffer in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Monday, May 10, 2010

Sorry

Have you ever said or done something to someone that you wholeheartedly apologised for? But all they'll say in return is, "Sorry's not good enough". And because you're so hard on yourself, you mostly agree with them. What can you ever do to make up for it?


Well, guess what, folks:


Your sorry is good enough for God.


"If we freely admit that we have sinned and confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
- 1 John 1:9