Breakthrough series 8: I can see clearly now

Breakthrough series 7: Believe it or not

Leaving the desert part 3 - Sounds of Silence

Prayer 8: God is not a man that He should lie or repent

Practical Christianity 9: Tame the tongue - rather find your spiritual identity

There is none like you

Who are you?

Oh sin, wherefore art thou?

The general misconception of sin in our world, saddens me. Legalism and religion reduced it to a red mark on your copy book and not much more.

That trivialized the issues, into a petty religious invention of do’s and don’ts.

Catholicism tried to get creative with the cardinal sins, which graded sin and solved nothing.

Orthodox Jewry added a raft of regulations to the laws of God, which made compliance un-achievable but kept the coffers full.

The way it works

The socio-political model of biblical Israel, passed through two main phases. There was a time when judges intervened, although they didn’t rule per se, and another time when kings ruled.

Undoubtedly, the latter was worse. Even at their best, the kings were imperfect and they ultimately led the nation to ruin and exile. God warned it would be so.

The upshot of the king model was that it rejected God.

The righteous state

Through the years I often heard somewhat naïve statements about how the world would only be a better place if it had a Christian government. That is unrealistic. In time yes, not now.

It led me to a controversial question: “Could our world or our society carry on indefinitely, if it functioned righteously?” 

No, I am not saying, “if it was Christian”. Our lessons of Jewish and church history disqualify the viability of a theocratic state, per se. Frankly the church needs to get its own house in order.

Thus to argue that only a Christian state is workable is as wrong as saying that any theocratic state would work and endure, which history invalidates. Besides, theocratic states, as in say the Sharia model, tend to be intolerant and repressive, rarely righteous. However, the secular state of Islamic Turkey has historically proven to a moral beacon in our world.

Rise again and live

Like most believers, I have longed to see the authority of the church restored. I always felt that signs and wonders should flow from the cross.

Last night I was hit by a comparison I had never seen before. Elijah and Jesus were synonymous with incredible signs, which shook a nation. Then they both went up a hill, not to the top, but halfway up: the former to Carmel, the latter to Moriah.

Immortal invisible god only wise

One of the hardest things for most Christians is the tussle between the literal account of scripture and the reality of God. It challenges us theologically, as in the creation story, and personally, as in the dissonance between what the bible says and what we experience. 

Many feel that anything less than a literal take on creation diminishes God and deducts from His power. I disagree.

Did Jesus call on ten thousands of angels to help Him at Calvary or marshal a massive show of force? No. Because, as Ephesians 2 confirms, He revealed His WISDOM to principalities and powers. Victory lay in the subtle march to the cross its outworking.

That my will may be done ...

Psalm 139: 5 says, "You hem me in behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me." Its a familiar feeling for many who have times of contradiction and frustration in their lives.

The real dragon to beat in a dragon boat race, is the challenge of working together

I once watched the Oxford-Cambridge boat race. I have never seen athletes as exhausted by a race. They were absolutely broken by the sheer demands of the challenge, aggravated by the fact that for the entire course it was impossible for any one member to goof off or even lose rhythm - it was an all or nothing race, the price paid to even qualify for participation in the greatest eights' race in the world.

Well today I discovered why they were so tired. I, along with a number of my fellow church members, competed in a dragon boat race. It has pagan roots I suppose, but we just entered for the fun and fellowship. It was a relatively short course, yet the impact on arms and shoulders was amazing. Thanks to its resistence, it is very physically demanding to pull an oar through water, although I sense that the stroke used on a Dragon Boat is less natural than for a rowing eight. 

Oh there probably were other factors that influenced the outcome of the race, such as the relative efficiency of each boat, tactics and the draw, which is something of a wild card that influences the effort and outcome of each race. However, time and again, coaches said that by far the greatest success factor in a dragon boat race, and it is true of all boat racing, is the ability of a team to work together.

Time only time, if we only had time, only time

Have you ever mixed up your dates so badly that you arrived a day late for a meeting? I did today and yes I know it could only happen to me.

It is supposed to be the 19th today and maybe it still is, somewhere on the planet, or maybe it still was when I headed off, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, for an important meeting - only to arrive at the security window and find that today ... is the 20th. Look I did what I could to correct them, but it was tough to persuade several hundred workers to reset their calendars, so I had to capitulate and realign my own system.

You would think, in this day and age, that we could all standardise, but alas it is just not to be. Yet, when it suits them, people still want us to adopt their standards. I had the same problem when I was in the army - my mom always noticed that I could keep the pace, whilst the rest of my battalion remained out of step. It reminds me of a time when she phoned my dad to tell him that some idiot was driving the wrong way down a highway, to which he aptly replied, "All the idiots on this highway are doing it".

What we stop feeding, be it the lowest sin or highest faith .... will die

A facebook correspondent, Penny Pina, hit the motherlode today when she made the above statement. Interestingly, her surname, Pina, equates to a Hebrew word for substance as used in the Galileean town of Rosh Pina, which means, rock of substance or cornerstone. It was so named by Romanian refugees who started farming there in the mid-19th century. They established a Moshava and called their village Rosh Pina. Later Baron de Rothschild planted a garden in the village, which sits in the foothills of the Golan heights overlooking the sea of Galilee. 

A great African preacher said, "we need to move our faith a little bit down (from the head) and a little to the left (the heart)". It is the heart that feeds our faith, for it the essential common ground where we commune with God. Ours is not an intellectual faith. Although it is intellectually robust, it is a faith of the heart. It has to be felt not seen. But if it does not move the heart or fill our being with a revelation of God, whatever is conceived within us will be still-born and die. We feed our faith through the heart, just as we feed our bodies through the stomach or our intellect through the mind. Thus the same preacher said, "In our hearts are two dogs - a black and white dog. It is the one we feed most that thrives."

I felt it kick

In my own trials I have come across countless others who are also struggling. Today I met an old friend who is in a dark place, but as I prayed for him I felt something like what Elizabeth must have felt. It was a kind of kick within my "spiritual womb", telling me that I was a witness to the birth of something new and special.

Do we get a thrill when we see God doing wonderful things in others? I fear that in most cases we resent it. We are far too individualistic, one of the most offensive attributes of kingdom life. Man, God also has great things in store for you and me, but even then its never about the individual. Its all about God's advancing kingdom. When one of us advances, the kingdom advances and when one stumbles we all suffer, for if one part of a body is in pain does not the whole body bear the consequence - as Paul said in Ephesians?

A despotic sultan who was blind in one eye invited three artists to paint his picture. “If you do a bad portrait, I will punish you,” he warned, “ but if you do a good one I will reward you. Now start!”

The first artist produced a picture that showed the sultan as he was: blind in one eye.The sultan had him executed for showing disrespect to his monarch.

The second artist showed him with both eyes intact.The sultan had him flogged for trying to flatter him.

The third artist drew him in profile, showing only his good eye. The sultan, pleased, rewarded him with gold and honours.

The bible said "do not bear false witness", not "do not lie". Telling your wife she is fat can carry a worse punishment than the Sultan handed out, but finding a tactful way to avoid or say the truth can make a big difference. There are ways to present the truth, but I think the bible does it very well - it is honest without ever being brutal and is rarely damning.