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.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
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.
A Debate (Part Two) coming tomorrow.
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:
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.
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.
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
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Make The Studio Bigger
You guys hear what happened in Ventersdorp the day the court case started?
Apparently the cops had to separate everyone with barbed wire - all the whites were singing Die Stem, all the blacks were singing Kill the Boer … and the 6 coloureds there were in the middle singing Make the Circle Beega!!
Don't know who came up with this joke, but they deserve an award!
The Twitter Crusade
One thing that's a little creepy and sucks much is when you seem to be the only person on Twitter - IN THE WORLD!!!
I'm having one of these moments this morning. For the past 10 (ten) minutes, my updates are the ONLY ones showing in my news feed - even though i'm following 210 people!!
Where is everyone?
The lame thing about this predicament is that i end up feeling like a total random babbler.
One of those people who just NEVER stop talking and they ramble on and on without even pausing to take a breath and nobody else ever has a the slightest chance of getting something in even edge-ways and they end up being a loser with no friends.
So what am i going to do about it?
i am going to start a Twitter Crusade (#TwitterCrusade ftw!).
Over the next few days everyone on Twitter must Tweet me the name of ONE person they are going to recruit to Twitter. And when that person joins, i will PERSONALLY send a shoutout of their username and YOU, the person who recruited them, getting them (and you) a GAZILLION followers. Well, i'll try. In the words of Shayne Ward: no promises. Just remember, keeping the followers is up to you and your Tweets.
I'm having one of these moments this morning. For the past 10 (ten) minutes, my updates are the ONLY ones showing in my news feed - even though i'm following 210 people!!
Where is everyone?
The lame thing about this predicament is that i end up feeling like a total random babbler.
One of those people who just NEVER stop talking and they ramble on and on without even pausing to take a breath and nobody else ever has a the slightest chance of getting something in even edge-ways and they end up being a loser with no friends.
So what am i going to do about it?
i am going to start a Twitter Crusade (#TwitterCrusade ftw!).
Over the next few days everyone on Twitter must Tweet me the name of ONE person they are going to recruit to Twitter. And when that person joins, i will PERSONALLY send a shoutout of their username and YOU, the person who recruited them, getting them (and you) a GAZILLION followers. Well, i'll try. In the words of Shayne Ward: no promises. Just remember, keeping the followers is up to you and your Tweets.
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