Here's The Word: November 2013

Wednesday 27 November 2013

Falling Away

Some months ago I read an article by Ed Stetzer. His article was in response to a report which said that the number of people who described themselves as Christian has fallen dramatically in the United States. More people than ever were now saying they had no religion. In his article, Mr. Stetzer pointed out the most important fact that most Christians do not talk about when wringing their hands at such statistics which they say point to a decline in Christianity in America and the West. The fact that going to church doesn’t really make you a Christian. What makes you a Christian is confessing Christ as your Lord and personal Saviour. Going to a church building, every week for 50 years does not confer honorary Christian status on you. You don’t become a fellow or an associate in Christianity by the number of years you attend church or the number of churches you attend. You must accept Jesus. That is the starting point. Then you have to live as he would have you live as revealed in his Word, not as your conscience dictates.

I must confess that I am mostly amused when a celebrity comes out and tells us how he or she is no longer a Christian and has found a new faith, either Islam or some new faddish new Eastern cult. Some talk about how they rejected Christianity and became atheists. And so they spend their lives fighting and trying to kill a God they say doesn’t exist in the first place. But when you look at their stories, you realise they were never Christians in the first place. They were just going to some church, marking time and thinking that made them Christians. When I was a young Christian, I used to ask myself, how could Jesus say there were only a few who would find and walk the path of salvation? How could he say that when they were billion of “Christians” the world over. As I have grown in the faith, I have realised the answer to that. Not everyone that goes to church knows who Jesus is. Our churches might be full but not everyone knows why they’re there.

Today I saw two Hare Krishna members. They passed me in a bus. I looked at them and it got me thinking. I didn’t know anything about them but there were some assumptions I made. I don’t think they were born into the religion, they were of a certain age which made me doubt their parents were of that religion. Which means that they converted. I made another assumption that they probably thought of themselves as “Christians” before they converted. As so I asked myself, why did they convert? What was promised to them, either about this life or the next? What were they looking for that they couldn’t or didn’t find in church? The book of James said we are drawn away from the faith by our lusts. Were they looking for “power” Or did someone promise them it was a way to escape poverty?

I didn’t speak to them but a thought came to my mind. Maybe they didn’t leave because they were looking for something. Maybe they thought they had found something. Maybe something called to them. They’re not celebrities who didn’t like the truth because it shone a too bright light on their deeds. Maybe they just found something that made them feel like they were something, part of a great plan. One could argue that maybe they if they had truly engaged with Jesus they wouldn’t have converted but I don’t somehow buy that. Unless of course they weren’t going to church.

I understand that for every leader and congregation, there will be a Judas. I also understand that the greater the congregation, the higher the number of Judases to be found. But the interesting thing is that the Judases stay in church and the ones who could be Peter get caught up in the lure presented by some other religion. But the question that I feel we need to ask is, are we doing enough to give people a sense of purpose? Is the church doing enough to help people feel connected to God? Why are people coming to church and not being touched? Are we presenting God accurately? The answers to that might help us show people a more perfect way.

JC Cruz is the author of DECEPTIO published by WestBowPress, a division of Thomas Nelson publishers.http://bookstore.westbowpress.com/Products/SKU000194087/Deceptio.aspx and LOST, BUT FOUND available at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DPLLEUQ/. You can follow him on Twitter @Cruz_JCReal

Monday 25 November 2013

The Government

God is awesome.

I was recently thinking about how great God is. And how caring he is. In spite of how great and awesome he is, he still cares about the small details of our lives. Here is God, he creates this great world, he creates birds, cattle, the waters, plants, everything. And then he puts us, the zenith of creation into an already created world. We don’t have to worry about anything because everything we need is already provided for.

Even after the fall of Adam and his presence has gone far away, he still looks for a way to get close to us. He looks for a way to get us to look to him for all we need. He couldn’t find anyone capable enough to send to point us back to him. So he came himself in the form of a man. He came and instituted a government where he set himself up as king and based on his work on the cross, we became his heirs to the vast riches of his kingdom. Even though our old enemy has set up a parallel kingdom that sets out to deceive us parading as the truth, causing us grief and pain, the king assures us that if we trust in him and hold on to him to the end, we win. He assures us that there is nothing we can do or so that could make him love us more or less. He tells us that we don’t have to work to earn salvation. In fact, we can’t earn it. We can never deserve it but he has freely given it to us as a gift. He tells us that we shouldn’t work to be saved but we work because we are saved. He then tells us to get moving and go out into the world and bring other people into this kingdom.

Isn’t he awesome?

Friday 15 November 2013

He’s Waiting for You

John 4:4 And he must needs go through Samaria

At the beginning of chapter 4 of the book of John, we are told that Jesus is on his way to Jericho and that he needed to go through Samaria. On getting to Samaria, he sits at a well tired while he sends his disciples off to get food for them to eat. He’s seating there at the well and along comes a Samaritan woman to draw water from the well for her household. Jesus breaks the conversational ice by asking the woman for a drink of water. She expresses her surprise that Jesus as a Jew does not mind speaking to her, a Samaritan. A conversation then ensues between them with Jesus revealing the intimate details of her life, including the ones that were not so salubrious.

By the end of the conversation, Jesus reveals to her that he is the Messiah, the one sent by God to save the world from their sins. In the end, having been set free from her past, she runs into the city as a missionary declaring the Messiah to the men of a city. There is a belief that if you get a man to believe, you have also got his family to believe. In the end, the entire city was saved. By the time his disciples got back, Jesus was no longer hungry or tired. I do not believe that Jesus met the woman by chance. Jesus made it clear that he never did anything arbitrarily. The Bible tells us that he was the one who needed to pass through Samaria. We also know that he sent his disciples away while he sat and waited. He waited patiently for the woman he knew was going to be the first person at the well. He waited because of what he wanted to achieve in and through her life. In spite of the things that potentially disqualified her, Jesus knew what she was capable of achieving.

God told Jeremiah that before he was formed in his mother’s womb, God had known him and ordained him a prophet to the nations. Isn’t it wonderful to know that there is a Saviour who knows us and what we are capable of, even when we look down on ourselves? Isn’t it great to know that there’s a loving God who even in depths of our sins or despair, is looking on lovingly as he waits patiently for us? He waits patiently for us even as we go about surfeiting and carousing even as he knows that he has so much better in store for us. All he’s asking is that we honestly seek for his help to be able to come through the things that are holding us back from being all he has called us to be.

Monday 11 November 2013

The Internet and Us

Hebrews 11:3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

The “world” referred to is not the Greek word kosmos which refers to the order or arrangement of things or more literally translated to mean the earth. The word “world” there is the Greek word aion which means an age or a period of time. This tells us that the different ages, times and dispensations are all created by the word of God. That tells me that the different times, dispensations and ages and the things we see in these different ages; the internet or the plane for example, were all created or brought into existence by the Word. I believe that God allows those things to exist in the time he wants them to exist.

On August 19, Anne Marie-Miller posted an article on her blog titled “Three Things You Don’t Know About Your Children And Sex (Here’s the link http://www.annemariemiller.com/2013/08/19/three-things-you-dont-know-about-your-children-and-sex/. Forgive me, I’m not that techie to shorten the link. Hope to learn though). One thing that occurred to me was the danger that the internet posed to children and the Christian faith. Children are going to the internet to find out about things they learnt from their peers which they are too afraid to ask their parents. And Google or the internet does not discriminate. It doesn’t ask whether you’re supposed to be Christian or not. Typing an innocent word like “sex” into the search engine and Google will lead you down paths you never intended to walk. If you start young enough, by the time you’re an adult, it will be a struggle to leave those paths. I know a lot about that. Even when you’re on the straight and narrow, there’s something about the crooked path that calls out to you. There’s a lure about the path that we know we shouldn’t be on.

The internet on its own is like most things in the world, it doesn’t take sides. It’s passive. Forgive the analogy but the internet is like a gun. Michael Moore, the well known and award winning film and documentary maker recently said “Guns don’t kill people, Americans do.” He was referencing the fact that most violent crimes committed with guns leading to someone’s death are committed in America. I agree with Mr. Moore. Guns kill people. But the fact is that someone needs to hold that gun for it to be effective. Therefore I believe that more should be done to stop guns from getting into the hands of those who would use them to commit violent crimes. And the people who say they don’t want to use the guns to commit violent crimes should also be ready to suffer some inconvenience to ensure that it’s hard for the violent ones to lay hold of the guns and not just say it’s their right to bear arms.

I therefore believe that there is a responsibility on every person of the Christian faith to be conversant with the internet and social media to be able to engage with them in a responsible manner. I believe that not only should we engage with them but make use of them and post things on them that are relevant to our faith, especially on the internet. If our children go to the internet on a subject, wouldn’t we feel more comfortable to know that they were going to find something edifying rather than something that would lead to an unwholesome addiction? Addictions do not show on the surface. They simmer underground for years until they show up at the most inopportune times and destroy lives and relationships.

Someone recently pointed out that a lot of Bible verses are short enough to tweet. There’s nothing wrong with posting a chapter of the Bible on our Facebook pages. We are not of this world but we do live in it. I believe we have a responsibility not to run from the bad but to drop our own little bit of goodness and love into the oceans around us for the benefit of those we love.

Friday 8 November 2013

Come Let Us Praise God

Psalm 150:6 "Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord."

The above verse of Scripture which is the last verse of the last book of the Psalms admonishes us to praise God. The scripture enjoins us with something of a sense of urgency to offer praise to God and not to allow anything stop that praise. Interestingly unlike what a lot of people think, the verse of Scripture only gives one criteria for praising God. It has nothing to do with you and being happy or sad. It has nothing to with what God has done for us or what we perceive that he hasn't done. It has nothing do with what people think of God or not. The only criteria for praising God the Bible tells us is that of having breath in our lungs. Therefore it's not about how much money we have or what health issues we are facing that should determine whether we praise God or not. The only thing needed is to be alive. As long as we are alive and we have breath, we should praise God.

Looking at the Jewish words that are translated into praise in the Bible like halal, tehilah, barack, shabach and others, I have recently become convinced that it is more the norm to praise God with shouting, singing and dancing than it is to praise him silently. I personally begun to believe that we can't effectively praise God without some outward expression of the praise we are offering up to him. Even when the praise is rising from unmoving lips, the praise coming from our hearts will cause us to lift our hands in adoration. There must be some sort of response in us and from us in praise to God which manifests outwardly in a song, a dance or the raising up of hands. We cannot effectively praise God without an outward expression manifesting itself. Therefore when praising God, someone looking at us shouldn't have to ask what we are doing. It should be obvious. That in itself tells me something. It tells me that when we praise, the fact that we are going through trying times or terrible circumstances should not be obvious. Whether or not things are fine and dandy, our praise should not reflect our position but should reflect the goodness and glory of God and our love for him.

Monday 4 November 2013

Saint Know Thyself

3 John 1:1 The elder unto the wellbeloved Gaius, who I love in truth

At first reading, a man calling himself “the elder” seems quite pretentious. However, when I continued to look at this scripture it occurred to me that the words were not those of an ego driven man but those of a man who knew who he was, his position in the scheme of things and the responsibility that came with that position. At the point he wrote the letter, he was probably old and nearer the end of his life than near the beginning of his ministry. He could have called himself an apostle, the one whom Jesus loved the most when he was alive, anything. However he chose to refer to himself as an elder. This doesn’t even begin to describe who he was to the church and what he had done. By this time he and Peter had healed the lame man at the Beautiful Gate. He had done many things by this time although he had not received the revelations detailed in the book of Revelations. He had seen many things, he had experience. He knew the power there is in the name of Jesus.

A man came to Israel and said he was the Son of God. He impacted the life of a dozen men, eleven of whom went on to do great works in his name. People were impacted by the lives of these eleven men such that men in exponential amounts began to follow the Jesus that these men preached. These men made such an impact on the world that in one of the places where they went to, they were described as the people who were turning the world upside down. These were men who were beaten, went to jail, suffered all kinds of deprivation yet they never lost sight of what they were, men and women who had been privileged enough to be called and chosen by God for his purpose. Nothing was too much for them to suffer to bring glory and honour to God. Some of them were killed for the sake of the message they proclaimed.

In today’s era of social media and being concerned about what people think of us, the question I ask of myself is: what am I ready to give up to serve and honour Jesus? What do I think is too much to do for God? What am I ready to suffer for Christ? The apostles of old were totally aware of whom they were in Christ. Paul understood that his identity was to be found not in any thing he had achieved but his identity was to be found in a God who loved him enough to send Christ to die for him. I believe the there was a direct proportional relationship between the revelation these man had of God to the understanding of who they were in him which was directly proportional to the exploits they did in his name.

Every day, I have to keep reminding myself that it’s not really about me, it’s about him and his purpose. Until I let go and stop struggling to find relevance for myself and realise that it’s about what he wants me to become, I will never truly find myself in him. I will continually struggle to live this life that he has given me. But like Paul, every day I press on that I may be found in him. Every day, I hope to grow in the knowledge in of God that I might truly fulfil the reason for the call on my life knowing that he who loves me and called me is cheering me on.

Friday 1 November 2013

In His Presence

A few hours ago, I was listening to the song “I Am”, a song by Nicole Nordeman from her album, Woven & Spun. A part of the song talks about dying, leaving this world and going home to heaven. We have all heard it before. When a child or parent dies, the person left behind is told that the person who has died has gone to home to heaven. If we were to speak to most Christians, one would discover that most Christians think of heaven as home. That however is only partially right.

When one talks of home, one thinks of a place where one stays with family and loved ones on a permanent basis. One of the tenets of the Christian faith is the belief that Christ will return one day for a church without spot or blemish. A ready church. The book of Revelation tells us that Christ will come again for us and we will be with him where he is. But a careful reading of the book of Revelation however shows that heaven is not our permanent home. Heaven is for God. The White Throne judgment will take place in heaven after which those whose names are found in the Book of Life come back to earth with Christ. We understand that there will be a new heaven and a new earth and that instead of the moon and sun, Christ’s face, his presence will be our sun and our moon. The Apostle Paul said that to be absent from the body to be present with God. That tells me that heaven is something of a place where those that leave this world go to stay before Christ returns.

All that got me thinking. Why do we like thinking that heaven is home? Simple. Because that’s where God is. We all want to be where God is. While listening to the song, it occurred to me that the thing we most long for (but at times we don’t know it) is the presence of God. While we long for God’s presence and the knowledge that he is with us, our bodies and the circumstances we go through in the flesh living on this earth do not let us realise or know that God is with us. We go through troubles and we ask ourselves, “Where is God in all these things I’m going through?”

But Jesus told us that God would send the Holy Spirit to be with us and we know that the Holy Spirit was sent at Pentecost. We know that God has given us the Holy Spirit as a gift, just as he gave us Christ as a gift. The Apostle Paul tells us that it’s a mystery, God being with us and living in us. We don’t therefore need to die and go to heaven to be in God’s presence. He is already with us, living in us. That is what we need to understand and believe right now. God loves us and his presence is with us. Jesus promised, “I will be with you, till the end of the age.” Take him at his word.

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