Sticking to the Word- Part 2

I believe, people who think works are more important than the teaching of God’s word are wrong. Not just that but today’s younger generation slips comfortably into this wrong idea like a warm pair of slippers. It fits nicely into this culture. How much easier is it to tell your friends that all you really know about your religion is that it says you’re supposed to love one another.
Our young men and women love avoiding animosity and have forgotten Jude’s command to “contend for the faith that was once and for all entrusted to the saints” (Jude 1:3) How does one contend for that which he knows nothing about? Understanding they know little about what they believe they seek to avoid conversations about their faith by just calling it a good way of life rather than actually learning about it.
What about Jesus being our sole saviour and mediator who usher’s us clean into the presence of our Father? What about providing a lost and fallen world with real in-your-face truth? We cannot stop discipling simply because it would attract more youth. A Church who forsakes the teaching of truth (the Word of God) and faith for obedience and works is wrong and completely contradicts the teachings of Jesus.
Can we and should we forsake Biblical teaching in the pursuit of avoiding hostility and resentment? What if people don’t need another religion catered to their preferences? What if they need truth even if it makes them uneasy and challenges all they’ve ever known?

Sticking to the Word-Part 1

For some time now I’ve noticed, within the church, in North America, an emerging emphasis on the importance of doing good works. Too long now have the old fogies of the church sat in the pews trying to learn more about Jesus so they can fill there already overloaded heads with more scripture they plan to do nothing with. Think about all those Christians who are at church every Sunday, but not living out what they believe. They know enough truth; pastors don’t need to feed them anymore. It’s time they started changing the world with the biblical knowledge they already have. This purpose driven mentality is the heart behind Rick Warren’s ministry. The Irresistible Revolution, by Shain Claiborne is every young Christian’s favourite book. The list of popular Christian literature founded in this ideology goes on.
Churches are packed with young people standing in protest to the intolerant Christians who just want to love their God and are forgetting their neighbours. After all Jesus said, serve my sheep. Right? Or was it “feed my sheep”? (John 21:16) It was feed, but this minor error would be overlooked by a church that is focused on doing good works instead of teaching God’s word. I’m aware Jesus commanded us to love God and our neighbours, but doesn’t loving people naturally flow from knowledge of God? For this reason I think God and his truth are of highest importance. But that also means what is being taught in our churches and embraced by our youth is...wrong.
Clearly love of God and people are intimately connected (1 John 4:20) Good works are important but do we have our priorities scrambled? Your thoughts?

Soldiers of Hope

Greek thinkers throughout history have pondered hope. Pascal wrote:
“We are never satisfied with the present... We scarcely ever think of the present; if we do it is only to obtain light the wherewith to organize future. The present is never our goal; the past and present are our means; the future alone is our objective. Thus we never live, but only hope to live; and as we are forever preparing to be happy, we shall assuredly never be so.”
Pope observed:
“Hope springs eternally in the human breast; man never is, but always will be blest”
I wonder if it is time we give up on hope? Maybe hope is just a mockery of those deep desires that will never amount to reality. Why not be pessimistic about the future?
Because we can’t afford to lose such a valuable virtue,
Today is Remembrance Day; a day where we remember young men and women who had hope, who gave their lives for our freedom, for our safety, and for our futures. Clines wrote that:
“One of the distinguishing features of hope, indeed what is claimed to be its most important characteristic, psychologically speaking, is that it is realistic: it seeks, directs itself to, strives for, imagines, and finds real. This is what distinguishes it from mere desire, wishing and fantasy.”
Hope is powerful because it looks into the unwritten future and anticipates what could be. It beckons humanity forward. Those who live toward the fulfillment of promise are not seized by a ‘passion for the possible’ as Kierkegaard said, but by a passion for the impossible. Our ancestors were seized by this ‘passion for the impossible.’ Their hope was not irrational, like looking forward to winning the lottery, but rather was rooted in the promise long written down by our founding fathers in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms:
“Canada is founded upon the principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law and the promise that everyone has the fundamental freedom of (a) conscience and religion, (b) the freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other means of communication, (c) the freedom of peaceful assembly; and (d) the freedom of association.”
For this they fought and died.
Should you and I be reserved and content with the assurance our lives are set in fate and cast aside our dreams? Absolutely not! We must not; for every blessing and opportunity we have received is due to the sacrifice of our fathers who had hope, a hope which transcended wishful thinking and was revealed in their assurance of what was unseen as they laid down their lives for our freedom.
Our ancestors had faith in God and declared what kind of nation Canada would be and today is. Thank God for heroes past who hoped in this declaration, even to the grave.
(Moment of Silence)
Final Thought: If through faith in the promise of our forefathers (who trusted God) our nation remains free; How much greater can our influence be on the earth through faith in the promises of our Lord Jesus Christ?

Puzzled?

Ok, consider how you would go about creating a puzzle. Would you first cut one-thousand little pieces of cardboard into odd random shapes and then individually paint each piece, assuming that upon completion each piece would fit together and form one single coherent picture? Of course not, you would begin by painting a picture on one single large sheet of cardboard. You would draw lines all over your painting, forming the puzzle pieces, and then cut along those lines so that each individual piece will fit back into place with the others when the puzzle is reconstructed. In the same way a belief system must in and of itself have all of its ideas and truths cohere with one another. Each individual puzzle piece or belief must fit perfectly into place with its larger painting or its foundational system of beliefs. Contradictions or inconsistencies within a belief system would deny it of any credibility and from there we would watch it crumble.

What’s my point in all this?

That some people are redefining passages of the Bible to fit their friend’s (or sometimes complete stranger’s) very flawed belief systems. They’re deconstructing the Christian puzzle, cutting off those important connecting appendages that hold the whole picture together and throwing pieces away! All this because they aren’t comfortable with the image people will see once they’ve put our puzzle together.

We all know, nothing ticks people off more than starting a puzzle and finding they’re are missing pieces, in fact I would never try to do that puzzle again. The same is true of people who are introduced to a religion and all they find are contradictions, inconsistencies, and holes because someone isn’t giving them all the pieces.

If your finished puzzle shows you anything other than a complete picture of Christ being your one and only hope for redemption, salvation and eternal life, try a different puzzle.

Making Havoc of our Ambitions

We live to cast anchors into the relentless river of life hoping to attain a name for ourselves. In that effort we destroy ourselves, each other and our planet. God’s dominion mandate is not a domination mandate, yet that is how we treat it. Authoritarianism mingles with environmental degradation like a married couple. Like those in Babel, we attempt salvation through economic gains. From feudalism to Marxism human wickedness and greed will always prevail as long as we are sinners. We try to ignore our condition; we are like the man who stands in front of a mirror trying to ignore his own reflection. Ravi Zacharias commented on mans ignorance,
“He is attempting to build civilizations when he doesn’t know what it means to be civilized, he is trying to be the philosopher when he does not know who the master philosophizer is, he’s portraying his artistic perceptions when he does not know the master artist, he moralizes on life but he does not know the moral law giver, and this same man tries to build his utopias and bring about his dreams and his optimism only to find time and time again they come crashing in disaster as once again he his making havoc of all of his ambitions.”
Ravi is talking about you and I; we all do this, we try to bring God’s kingdom on earth without God and his truth. I don’t think it can be done. I think God’s kingdom will only come when He brings it. What do you think?

Grace: Part 2 Choose wisely!

Immersed in wickedness my heart explodes with joy at the revelation of a grace that cleans me of this disease. Bono, lead singer of U2, wrote a song entitled Grace, “What once was hurt, what once was friction, what once left a mark no longer stings because grace makes beauty out of ugly things.” That grace, is the grace of Jesus Christ who frees us from sin, makes us beautiful, and calls us as new creations. His grace has one condition, that we receive it. Christ takes the oppression, the pain, the wounds, and the punishment we deserve onto him so that we can have life free from the bondage of sin. Bruce Milne put it simply, “The extension of our story beyond our fallenness is wholly due to the miracle of God’s grace.” Without Jesus we would be forever lost in our incompetence. “He saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.” (Titus 3:5) How sweet those words ring in our ears. There is a way to be free of sin. Sadly many will never find that way. Most people, like Judas, would trade God for a few gold coins. Never could a more foolish choice be made. If only humanity would realize, that receiving God’s grace and turning back to him is the only way a world wishing for world peace will ever gain it.
The choice to receive it or leave it is a life and death decision. Have you chosen?

Grace: Part 1

Ever entertain the idea of what you would wish for if you were given one wish from God? I love dreaming of the endless possibilities. Would you, like Solomon, choose wisdom, or have you always wanted the Scrooge Mcduck vault with a diving board into a mound of gold coins? I’m a Simpsons fan and immediately Lisa’s answer comes to mind. She would wish for world peace. Think that through for a second. We would all live in a utopia free of any corruption. To do anything wrong at all would disrupt the peace. There would be no need for contracts, only promises; you would never purchase a bolt for a door would suffice. Police would not be needed, only law. There wouldn’t even be a need for movie tickets; a person would just pay the fare and walk into the movie. Envisioning a world like this, I began to realize just how fallen our current world truly is. Evil is the framework all societies are built around. Every law and every security measure is in place because it must be. This evil is in us all. There is something twisted, almost demonic, within the very heart of man. Thank God for a grace that restores.

What would you wish for?