Atheist Michael Martin tries to convince people to reject Christianity by asking, “Who wants to be like them?” (Christians). To him, following Christ means being “punitive, unforgiving, violent, mean-spirited, hypocritical and inconsistent; and... we would tacitly approve of slavery, forsake reason, and have no opinions on the central issues of the day”.
Even Christians can agree with some of those claims. One Christian leader pointed out, “Christians are largely irrelevant… if there’s a life-changing message to present, we’ll make it boring and put it in a context you’re not involved in.”
Okay, hang on a minute. What’s going on? Jesus claimed to be the Way, the Truth, and the Life, so how is it that those people who are supposed to be following his example are presenting a boring, irrelevant, hypocritical message? Has the Bread of Life gone stale?
If you look back a few hundred years, Christianity had it all. We were leaders of the scientific world, the art world, the music world, the theological world… And now we are seen as ‘largely irrelevant’ even by our own admission! What happened?
Leonard Sweet, in his book Out of the Question… Into the Mystery (also the source of the above quotes) claims the problem is that we have lost Jesus as the centre of our lives, and our religion. He argues: “Sometimes it seems as if the Buddha has more authority for Buddhists than Jesus has for Christians… The first Christians didn’t proclaim a creed or a statement of faith; they proclaimed the Resurrection... They proclaimed Jesus. Faith is not vested in creeds, or invested in institutions, but vetted in relationships.”
That means that the mark or a true Christian isn’t the amount of preaching they do, its not the number of church related events they attend during the week, and its not how good a life they lead - it’s how much time they spend on their relationship with God. Sure, all those other things are good, but doing things for God is not the same as spending time with God.
Any human relationship is the same. If a man feels like he is neglecting his wife, and wants to spend time with her, he can do everything for her if he chooses - he can mow the lawns, make the dinner, work hard so he can save money and buy her the best presents in the world - but if he doesn’t actually sit down and spend time with her, talk with her, listen to her, then all the rest is in vain, and won’t help the relationship at all! In fact, during the time he is working so hard to do everything for her, he would be drifting further and further from her, actually hurting their relationship by working so hard for her.
It’s the same with us and God. We can work all day, every day for Him, and yet end up not in as good a relationship with Him as if we had just sat and spent some time listening to Him, or reading His Word.
And, if we did spend more time around Him, He would have more room to work in our lives. Again, human relationships reflect this. If you hang around with a bunch of drug-smoking hippie-wannabes all day, every day, then you are going to start taking on a few of their more charming personalities traits: you’ll start looking like them, talking like them, perhaps even smelling like them, and probably acting like them!
So, if you want to be a good reflection of God, if you want to look like Him, talk like Him, smell like Him and act like Him, then spend time with Him, and He will be reflected in your life! If we were all reflecting God, then there would be a change in the way people see us. Simple arguments such as “Who wants to be like them?” would no longer have the same effect. Instead, like in the 1st century church, we would live in such a way that “those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us.” (Titus 2:8)
If Christians are seen as hypocrites, the answer isn’t by trying to do good, we can never manage to consistently do good on our own. The answer is spending time with God. If you do, he can shine through you.
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Sunday, April 17, 2005
Superheroes
What do you think of when you think of Superheroes?Superpowers? Capes? Underwear on the outside? Courage?How much of this is important in order to make a superhero? What do they need to be a superhero and what can they do without? Batman has no superpowers, but he does have lots of gadgets and a cool belt. Do you need them?
To me, you don’t need a cape to be a superhero, you don’t need to wear your underwear on the outside, and you don’t need superpowers or a gadget belt. All you need is the courage to try your best, even when it seems hopeless.
The Bible is filled with lots of Superheroes: people who heard God’s voice, and obeyed it against all odds. Now that is one thing that is quite interesting. How do you hear God’s voice? What if you don’t hear God’s voice, how do you know what he wants you to do?
In Numbers 13, we meet a normal man, with no superpowers, without a cape, without a utility belt, and who hadn’t heard the voice of God. But he managed to obey God’s voice anyway. Listen to this.
Numbers 13:1-4 The LORD said to Moses, “Send some men to explore the land of Canaan which I am giving to the Israelites. From each ancestral tribe send one of its leaders.” So at the LORD’s command Moses sent them out from the Desert of Paran. All of them were leaders of the Israelites. These are their names: (yada yada etc.)
So these twelve men go into the land of Caanan, and spend 40 days looking around at it. They find out it is a land filled with giants, but it also is a land of plenty. Two of them manage to get this cluster of grapes which is so big they have to carry it between them on a pole. Then they come back to Moses and the others.
25-29 They came back to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israelite community at Kadesh in the Desert of Paran. There they reported to them and to the whole assembly and showed them the fruit of the land. They gave Moses this account: “We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit. But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak [a giant] there. The Amalekites live in the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Caananites live near the sea and along the Jordan.”
Now the hero of the story enters the scene. Caleb is one of the spies. He had seen the same giants in the land, and the same war-tribes of people, and the same fortified cities. But instead of being scared…
30-33 Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.” But the men who had gone up with him said, “We can’t attack those people, they are stronger than we are.” And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”
So, we have this group of people facing off against unsurmountable odds, not chance of victory according to what the other spies have said, but Caleb is yelling “Give me a sword, let me at them.” Why would he do this? What made him so confident that he knew he could win the battle against the tribes and the giants and the cities?
The answer is right at the start of the story.
1-2 The LORD said to Moses, “Send some men to explore the land of Caanan which I am giving to the Israelites.”
God had promised victory, but the other spies were too afraid to understand it. Only Caleb, and later Joshua, were brave enough to say “We can do it, let us at them!” Eventually what happened here is that the 10 other spies convinced the people not to enter Caanan, and so they all wandered around in the desert for another 40 years, until everyone who was afraid of entering the land had died. And get this. After 40 years, when Caleb and Joshua were the oldest two men in the whole of Israel still alive, they led the next generation of Israelites into Caanan and won, against the giants, the tribes, and the cities. No one could stop them, because God had promised them the land. The way Caleb knew what God had said was by listening to Moses, by finding out what God had already promised. We can do the same today. Even if God isn’t speaking to us directly, we can read the bible, and see what he has already asked us to do, and what he has already promised.
In 2001, in Pakistan (which is a mostly Muslim country) a young man was riding his motorbike down the road, when a car swerved out and hit him, breaking his leg. As he lay in the street, a woman he had never met came out of the crowd, put her hand on his leg, and prayed to Jesus to heal it. This was a hugely risky thing to do. Muslim people don’t pray to Jesus, they pray to Allah, and often if you pray to Jesus you can get in a lot of trouble. But just as the man was thinking this, and getting really angry, God healed his leg, and the woman left. The only other time he saw her was when she came up to him again and handed him a bible.
That woman risked her life to pray for the man, and God might not have done anything. Obviously, she heard God’s voice calling her to pray for him, and she obeyed. She was definitely a superhero then.
And the man, who is known as ‘Asif’ became a hero for God too. You can read the rest of his story in the book 'Jesus Freaks II' starting on page 29.People keep trying to kill him, and he has been kicked out of his home for his faith, but Asif knows that God has called him, and keeps preaching God's Word.
A superhero is willing to face any obstacle for the cause. They know that evil needs defeating and that they are called to defeat it. So, if you want to be a superhero, listen to God, find out what he wants you to do, and get to it.
Up, up and away!
To me, you don’t need a cape to be a superhero, you don’t need to wear your underwear on the outside, and you don’t need superpowers or a gadget belt. All you need is the courage to try your best, even when it seems hopeless.
The Bible is filled with lots of Superheroes: people who heard God’s voice, and obeyed it against all odds. Now that is one thing that is quite interesting. How do you hear God’s voice? What if you don’t hear God’s voice, how do you know what he wants you to do?
In Numbers 13, we meet a normal man, with no superpowers, without a cape, without a utility belt, and who hadn’t heard the voice of God. But he managed to obey God’s voice anyway. Listen to this.
Numbers 13:1-4 The LORD said to Moses, “Send some men to explore the land of Canaan which I am giving to the Israelites. From each ancestral tribe send one of its leaders.” So at the LORD’s command Moses sent them out from the Desert of Paran. All of them were leaders of the Israelites. These are their names: (yada yada etc.)
So these twelve men go into the land of Caanan, and spend 40 days looking around at it. They find out it is a land filled with giants, but it also is a land of plenty. Two of them manage to get this cluster of grapes which is so big they have to carry it between them on a pole. Then they come back to Moses and the others.
25-29 They came back to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israelite community at Kadesh in the Desert of Paran. There they reported to them and to the whole assembly and showed them the fruit of the land. They gave Moses this account: “We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit. But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak [a giant] there. The Amalekites live in the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Caananites live near the sea and along the Jordan.”
Now the hero of the story enters the scene. Caleb is one of the spies. He had seen the same giants in the land, and the same war-tribes of people, and the same fortified cities. But instead of being scared…
30-33 Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.” But the men who had gone up with him said, “We can’t attack those people, they are stronger than we are.” And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”
So, we have this group of people facing off against unsurmountable odds, not chance of victory according to what the other spies have said, but Caleb is yelling “Give me a sword, let me at them.” Why would he do this? What made him so confident that he knew he could win the battle against the tribes and the giants and the cities?
The answer is right at the start of the story.
1-2 The LORD said to Moses, “Send some men to explore the land of Caanan which I am giving to the Israelites.”
God had promised victory, but the other spies were too afraid to understand it. Only Caleb, and later Joshua, were brave enough to say “We can do it, let us at them!” Eventually what happened here is that the 10 other spies convinced the people not to enter Caanan, and so they all wandered around in the desert for another 40 years, until everyone who was afraid of entering the land had died. And get this. After 40 years, when Caleb and Joshua were the oldest two men in the whole of Israel still alive, they led the next generation of Israelites into Caanan and won, against the giants, the tribes, and the cities. No one could stop them, because God had promised them the land. The way Caleb knew what God had said was by listening to Moses, by finding out what God had already promised. We can do the same today. Even if God isn’t speaking to us directly, we can read the bible, and see what he has already asked us to do, and what he has already promised.
In 2001, in Pakistan (which is a mostly Muslim country) a young man was riding his motorbike down the road, when a car swerved out and hit him, breaking his leg. As he lay in the street, a woman he had never met came out of the crowd, put her hand on his leg, and prayed to Jesus to heal it. This was a hugely risky thing to do. Muslim people don’t pray to Jesus, they pray to Allah, and often if you pray to Jesus you can get in a lot of trouble. But just as the man was thinking this, and getting really angry, God healed his leg, and the woman left. The only other time he saw her was when she came up to him again and handed him a bible.
That woman risked her life to pray for the man, and God might not have done anything. Obviously, she heard God’s voice calling her to pray for him, and she obeyed. She was definitely a superhero then.
And the man, who is known as ‘Asif’ became a hero for God too. You can read the rest of his story in the book 'Jesus Freaks II' starting on page 29.People keep trying to kill him, and he has been kicked out of his home for his faith, but Asif knows that God has called him, and keeps preaching God's Word.
A superhero is willing to face any obstacle for the cause. They know that evil needs defeating and that they are called to defeat it. So, if you want to be a superhero, listen to God, find out what he wants you to do, and get to it.
Up, up and away!
Saturday, April 16, 2005
Virus Detected
As I sit here to write this, I can't help but notice the 'virus detected' notice in the corner of my screen.
It's kind of disturbing really...
I guess that going online at all is always going to be risky, as viruses and other such stuff can get into your computer, but the thing thats really disturbing about this virus is that even though the anti-virus on our computer has found it, it seems unable to do anything about it.
What I mean by this is that if I click on 'Heal', 'Delete File' or 'Move to Vault', the three options available for dealing with these little evil programs, I get a message pop up stating 'Requested Action is not available for this object!' What does this mean???!!! How will I get rid of this evil invader?!!!!!
However, this virus does present an analogy for me to do with Christianity. Just as being on the Internet opens you to the risk of viruses, there are things we do in our lives that open us up to the potential of sin.
When a sin enters into your system, we find that most of the time our 'Anti-Sin' can pick it up, and deal with it.
The problem is that eventually, if you keep exposing yourself to sin for long enough, you have the possibility of catching a sin that your Anti-Sin just can't deal with! Once that happens, you are stuck with it.
The only thing you can do in a time like this is to rely on help from 'Tech Support', the one who knows more about dealing with sins than your own little anti-sin filter. That Tech-Support is God.
So, if you have an issue in your life at present with a sin-virus having attached itself to you, just call on God to help you with it.
His number is toll-free, open 24/7, and you don't even need a phone to use it.
Just call out to him, and he will answer.
It's kind of disturbing really...
I guess that going online at all is always going to be risky, as viruses and other such stuff can get into your computer, but the thing thats really disturbing about this virus is that even though the anti-virus on our computer has found it, it seems unable to do anything about it.
What I mean by this is that if I click on 'Heal', 'Delete File' or 'Move to Vault', the three options available for dealing with these little evil programs, I get a message pop up stating 'Requested Action is not available for this object!' What does this mean???!!! How will I get rid of this evil invader?!!!!!
However, this virus does present an analogy for me to do with Christianity. Just as being on the Internet opens you to the risk of viruses, there are things we do in our lives that open us up to the potential of sin.
When a sin enters into your system, we find that most of the time our 'Anti-Sin' can pick it up, and deal with it.
The problem is that eventually, if you keep exposing yourself to sin for long enough, you have the possibility of catching a sin that your Anti-Sin just can't deal with! Once that happens, you are stuck with it.
The only thing you can do in a time like this is to rely on help from 'Tech Support', the one who knows more about dealing with sins than your own little anti-sin filter. That Tech-Support is God.
So, if you have an issue in your life at present with a sin-virus having attached itself to you, just call on God to help you with it.
His number is toll-free, open 24/7, and you don't even need a phone to use it.
Just call out to him, and he will answer.
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Blaming God for Our Mistakes
Well, here I am, back at my computer, writing a post for my blog.
Has it really been two months since my last one?
Wow.
I've been through an interesting patch with God, a few ups and downs, but he has still been doing amazing things. I guess I just haven't been making the time to write them down. Instead, I've been working on all kinds of other things, and creating blog-novels with one of my friends (very random, beware!!! Read them here).
Organising myself to do things has actually been the hardest part of my life lately. I don't know why.
God keeps providing me with opportunities both to serve him and to do something worthwhile in my life, but I tend to overlook them, or forget to do them until its too late.
Why is this happening?
Because I am choosing to not make the time, to decide what is important and do it.
The funny things about people is that it is so hard to admit that. It has taken me a long time to get to that point, to be able to say that I am at fault. Instead, we try to blame other people, or God, even if we don't believe in Him.
Strangely, thats what I have been doing.
God presents me with an opportunity (lets say, a chance to have a song recorded) and has a timeframe to accomplish it in. I sit around for the two weeks (or more) I have to complete this, all the time thinking to myself "Yes, I have to do this," and then try and accomplish it in the last possible minute, when there is really too little time to make a good job of anything.
So I fail. And then, somehow, I find some way to blame God!
'God, why didn't you give me enough time?!' (well, actually, he gave me two or more weeks)
'God, why didn't you give me the equipment?!' (He did, but I didn't take the time to make sure it was working)
'God, how could you let me fail?!' (Who let me fail? I did)
But isn't that the way we so often are? 'God, why don't you do this for me? How can you be so uncaring? Why haven't I had my way?' We try to get the good stuff out of opportunities, without putting in the work necessary, and then blame God when we fail.
God loves us, and wants the best for us in our lives. Why do we blame Him when we make a mess of things?
Just something to think about.
Has it really been two months since my last one?
Wow.
I've been through an interesting patch with God, a few ups and downs, but he has still been doing amazing things. I guess I just haven't been making the time to write them down. Instead, I've been working on all kinds of other things, and creating blog-novels with one of my friends (very random, beware!!! Read them here).
Organising myself to do things has actually been the hardest part of my life lately. I don't know why.
God keeps providing me with opportunities both to serve him and to do something worthwhile in my life, but I tend to overlook them, or forget to do them until its too late.
Why is this happening?
Because I am choosing to not make the time, to decide what is important and do it.
The funny things about people is that it is so hard to admit that. It has taken me a long time to get to that point, to be able to say that I am at fault. Instead, we try to blame other people, or God, even if we don't believe in Him.
Strangely, thats what I have been doing.
God presents me with an opportunity (lets say, a chance to have a song recorded) and has a timeframe to accomplish it in. I sit around for the two weeks (or more) I have to complete this, all the time thinking to myself "Yes, I have to do this," and then try and accomplish it in the last possible minute, when there is really too little time to make a good job of anything.
So I fail. And then, somehow, I find some way to blame God!
'God, why didn't you give me enough time?!' (well, actually, he gave me two or more weeks)
'God, why didn't you give me the equipment?!' (He did, but I didn't take the time to make sure it was working)
'God, how could you let me fail?!' (Who let me fail? I did)
But isn't that the way we so often are? 'God, why don't you do this for me? How can you be so uncaring? Why haven't I had my way?' We try to get the good stuff out of opportunities, without putting in the work necessary, and then blame God when we fail.
God loves us, and wants the best for us in our lives. Why do we blame Him when we make a mess of things?
Just something to think about.
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