Category: <span>Christianity</span>

Published December 9, 2006 by

Walk in

In order to remind myself and to begin thinking about how well this still works (or should be working) in regard to well… a lot of things. Life for example. This is the mission/vision statement I wrote for myself a little over a year ago:

I will live with integrity and an understanding of where I stand in relation to God. I will make a difference to the individuals around me by actively listening and putting their needs before my own. I will develop and use any means of communication that have been given to me to positively influence and impact others. I will never be content with a bystander attitude or a passive existence. I will allow myself to fail in order that I might grow. I will seek to develop my character and discover my potential but not allow it to control me. I will glorify God in all areas of life: spiritually, physically, emotionally and mentally.

Idealistic perhaps? NB. It is a ‘Vision’ statement, although it’d be nice it doesn’t have to be, and realistically probably can’t be spot on perfect all the time.

I also found this verse the other day,.

It has given me great joy to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as the Father commanded us. And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another. And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.
-2 John 1:4-6 (emphasis mine)

Do you have any verses that have strongly dictated your life: over time? for a short period? Do have a mission/vision type statement? I am curious. Satisfy me.

Christianity General Life

Published December 7, 2006 by

Two Wills and Ways

sheep and goatsLast night saw a good hours discussion around the recent desecration of a Bible by some Islamic students and how we as Christians should respond. We did, admittedly go off on all kinds of tangents about mass Bible productions, the worth of the actual paper and ink/ideas…

Two arguments were put forward as to how the principal of the school responded. One in regard to the individual students and how the expulsion was unnecessary and how deeply affected their lives would be from here on in, how a cycle of acting in favor to the ‘greater’ community does not change people’s attitudes towards the Islamic community and how perhaps they should have ‘yes acknowledged it was an immature act’ but still defended their own (I might have this one slightly wrong, no doubt Tim can step in through a comment and explain) and the alternate: the principal did what he could and acted out of utmost respect for those in and outside the community and in doing so has set quite a good example – no it may not have been in absolute best interests of the kid’s futures (and I hope that they are being counseled or the like) but there were other means of ensuring them being satisfactorily settled in new schools… Both sides carry weight.

Therein was the argument that led toward the acting upon a moral conscience over the political – would it have been dealt with differently if the story was not leaked to the press? Would Christian schools act in the same manner if they found students burning a Koran (yes there are many variables – the Koran is not a Holy Book for Christians, unlike the esteem the Bible is upheld in)?

There is much to be learned here about respect for one other.

I was talking later with Geoff and we determined that perhaps you cannot separate your political decision from the moral one in that kind of situation (or any that dictates a like response). Yes we are called to love, yes we are called to show grace. To the individual? To the masses?

Oddly enough, this morning saw me delving somewhat impatiently into the middle of a chapter on ‘election’ in the John Piper book The Pleasures of God. After my early confusion the other day I’ve worked out that the whole flipping long chapter is about predestination in some way shape or form (some people define the two separately).

I find talking about and reading about this kind of thing frustrating in that a good bit does make sense and there is heaps to Biblically back it up, but at the same time there appears to be gaping holes and room for far too much paradox in the theology for such a, ‘I like things concluded logically’ person.

Why mention this after talking about a news issue that has seemingly zip to do with election?

If I was in the situation of the Islamic principal I would have acted in a like manner. This reflects somewhat on my own view of, ‘for the greater good’ (I think?) and how a public life can effectively show love to others in ‘just’ decision making.
Predestination/Election and the arguments around it seem to point to two wills/ways: divine election (God chosen) and God’s desire for everyone to be saved.

Piper wanders around explaining things (and I haven’t yet read the extended section of it in the appendix) and quotes Robert L. Dabney (Presbyterian minister about 100 years ago) as to how it may work,

“…In other words, God has a real and deep compassion for perishing sinners. His expression of pity and his entreaties have heart in them. There is a genuine inclination in God’s heart to spare those who have committed treason against his kingdom. But his motivation is complex and not every true element in it rises to the level of effective choice. In his great and mysterious heart there are kinds of longings and desires that are real – they tell us something true about his character. Yet not all these longings govern God’s actions. He is governed by the depth of his wisdom through a plan that no ordinary human deliberation would ever conceive (Rom 11:33-36, 1 Cor 2:9). There are holy and just reasons for why the affections of God’s heart have the nature and intensity and proportion that they do.”

I am at no more of a final conclusion around what I believe about predestination than i was before. I can grasp at shards of how it all works together, how election is different from predestination and how being chosen and saved and everything else fits together, but I don’t really get it.

I’m not sure if I have very well explained the parallel that I found between the two issues. There is the individual (the chosen?), there are the rest of us.

I am glad that we can boast in the prowess of the decision making ability of God (which is the only way we can tangibly/humanly explain what we see happening) and that He really knows what he’s doing even when we aren’t confident in the ‘right way’.

Christianity Culture General

Published December 5, 2006 by

Somewhat futile conclusions

woman_alone.jpgA couple of weeks ago during a discussion on a Sunday morning, one of the youth boys concluded that God must have a ‘bit of evil’ in him. We were quick to correct him as best we could and had to messily explain why it couldn’t be so, in response to why God seemingly almost enjoyed ‘killing people off’ in the Old Testament.

I was thinking further about it when I was reading about The Painful Joy of Justice in ‘The Pleasures of God’ (John Piper) and came across the following,

“From this I conclude that the death and mystery of the unrepentant is in and of itself no delight to God. God is not a sadist. He is not malicious or bloodthirsty. Instead, when a wicked, unbelieving person is judged, what God delights in is the exaltation of truth and righteousness, and the vindication of his own honor and glory” – (p.73)

Piper has a fair point (and one hard to elaborate on in one post – go read the book). How do you explain this to a 12 year old who hasn’t had the experience of looking at theology and clearly wouldn’t know what a sadist is (speaking only from experience – it’s the kind of thing I have to continually look up)?

We do, as Christians seem to do a lot of trying to understand God. Yet if God could be understood, he would not be as great (?), he would not be as wonderful and incompressible.
I have a question,

We should be striving to know God as best we can, but should we attempt to understand him? Is it the same thing?

Is it enough to simply apprehend who he is in what he is doing and the multitude of other ways that God reveals himself?

We should not and cannot claim to be completely in control of having this life and God in a box.

It’s a wondrous thing to glimpse a little bit more of Him and a frustrating (and false) point to think for a moment that I’ve understood as much as my understanding can allow.

Explaining, showing God and sharing who he is to others is no mean feat. It is difficult, exciting, complicated, terrifying. Who are we afterall, to explain him? And to make others satisfied with a realm of paradox and doubt… what are we getting them in to!

Christianity General Ministry

Published November 29, 2006 by

The Glory of God gone Public

encounter.jpgIt could’ve been the nice day, being outside and sitting comfortably in the hammock, but I was beyond delighted with the chapter from The Pleasures of God – John Piper that I tackled today. It’s odd really, that I’m actually making myself take time to read it this slowly. The chapter was about ‘The Fame of God’ or ‘The Name of God’, however you care to phrase it. Alas to show myself up as a non-genius, I’ll admit that I’ve stolen the post title from page 101 for this. The Glory of God gone public. It’s nice, I wish I’d made it up.

“For the LORD will not cast away his people,
for his great name’s sake,
because it has pleased the LORD
to make you a people for himself.”

1 Sam 12:22

So I lay there after reading through some of this stuff about God making his name known, from creation through the Exodus story and on and on and it just got bigger and more wonderful and exciting but in a daunting kind of way.

When you start looking at how much of life should be about who God is and why, well it blows so much of the ‘this is my life and I’ll do with it what I want to’ out of reasonable living.

I’m not good at the whole typical evangelistic thing. I’m not sure many of us are. Frighteningly enough, sometimes I simply don’t get it enough to even think about bothering. When you start looking at the why – the ‘proclaiming’ just how good and true and awe blinding God is, because he is. The interplay of how life looks like as a Christian just makes a heck of a lot more sense, however you define and go about evangelism.

Why do I want to live a good life? Why do I bother loving someone? Why do go out of my way for…? Why do I want my life and actions to speak loudly? Why do I want to be conformed more and more into His likeness?

Some of it seems extremely simple. I thought I had a good grasp on it. I’ve ploughed through lots around humility and why I should change and how that fits with pride and personal ideals and yet somehow I’d missed something. I know God is as good as it gets, I know he is why I am who and what I am, yet sometimes I think I live as a Christian simply because that’s what I do. I do my best to ‘love’ God (However the heck that works) and I have a deep desire to honor/worship him, but as paradoxical (which I doubt is a word and hey it’s nearly 12:30, so probably used incorrectly even if it was a word) as it seems, I don’t think I stop to consider the why.

If you think about it, and ask the senior Sunday School question, “Why did God make us”… you’re probably best off answering it, ‘To bring glory to who God is’. (Which is an idea I’ve gleaned from somewhere, but for the life of me don’t have any references just at the moment and now that I say it, I realise that I can’t pack what I want to into one very very incomplete sentence, so maybe you should just ignore it a little or hope to guess at some of what you think I’m on about.)

So little is about us.

I thought and I thought some more and the more I thought the greater the realisation about how little really is about who we are, and who we are growing into because it’s the good Christian thing to do. How much of who we are should be in letting go of what we strive for (as good as it may be) and simply be on about glorifying Him whom we were made to glorify. God is so big!

What could be better than living our purpose?

And I’m sure there’s the other part to this, God’s profound interest in our individual lives… and I’m sure God is big enough to somehow cover it all and deeply love us in those small moments (because of who he is) and I’m sure I’ve come across this before, but it’s gold to strike it at a different angle. I also think that this is some of the reason I’ve tentatively gone out before on a limb to say that when it comes down to it, it doesn’t matter so much what career (or other thing) we launch into, the finer ‘application’ details aren’t what it’s really on about – which often creates a bit of controversy, even within myself. These are partial thoughts and there is loads more to learn and to expand on,

but for His names sake hey?

Christianity General Life

Published November 22, 2006 by

Starred October-November

ea2f7c0ce3269fbf577b.jpg

By way of posting something today (as anything overtly interesting has not yet come up) I am going to point out some of the blog posts I’ve ‘Starred’ in Google Reader over the past month or so. So you get a list of stuff that’s made me think. I get a reference point and can clear the space up for more ‘good reads’.

Blogging Christianity General Life