Government from God

A lovely alliteration to start a discussion:

As I posted on Saturday, I began, and have wondered for a while, what we can say when the verses from Romans say God has placed all government where it is, when so many countries are being led by men who should be in psychiatric facilities. Hitler, one of the greatest leaders and speakers of the 20th century, misled thousands, if not millions, of people into a dictatorship costing millions of lives. According to Paul in Romans 13, God put him there.

The current world status of Libya, Egypt, and other Arab nations begs the same question: did God really put these people in power? Surely the devil has more to do with this (I write as a Christian, not a philosopher).

We must remember, however, Paul was not living in a world with a perfect government seen as a gift from God. In 2 Corinthians he informs us of his beatings, floggings, stonings, humiliations; all done by local authorities. He wasn’t a man separated from dealings with these forces. Yet he still writes “For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval…”

There are a few points to bring from this:
1. Government is more important than anarchy; i.e. Authority is a good thing.
2. Local government should benefit us; i.e. There should be amenities provided by those you pay tax to.
3. Tyrants should be appropriately challenged or confronted, just as Paul called for an audience with Caesar. i.e. The government will be wrong.
4. The kingdom of God overlaps and invades all of life, including governmental powers. i.e. Separating faith from state denies the biblical principle that God placed the rulers where they are.

What else do you think could be said in the current events?

 

Breath of Life

It struck me the other day how amazing the story of creation is. I don’t like the debates. I don’t know if they’re as important as they seem to be. But I love the phrase: …then the LORD God…breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. (Genesis 2:7)

The distinguishing feature of man against the rest of all creation is the breath of God; the breath of life. Without it, man is not a living creature; merely a creature.

No one can live without the breath of God.

Now there are 2 alternatives that I can see:
1. That only Christians have the life of God through His breath which is His Spirit.
2. That all humans have the life of God and cannot live unless God permits them.

If the first is true, then the understanding of being born again is important to get to the real reason for becoming a Christian. We can only live if God breaths His Spirit into us. This would also mean that when Adam sinned and was kicked out of the garden the breath of life was removed from him. This in turn would mean, as animals don’t have this breath, when anyone or thing without the breath of life dies that is it. There is no eternal dimension to their being.

Now, we know that God alone has immortality and gives to whom He chooses. However, those well read will not agree to the idea of only Christians experiencing eternity. Only the other day I posted a comment on the new Rob Bell publication which twists the idea of the various eternal conclusions to life into one simple end, like taking all the strands of rope, leaving nothing but the weak and feeble string of which it is constructed.

If we follow the other trajectory — that all humans have the breath of God and cannot live their life, physical or other, without God’s permission — this makes both the stories following creation more followable, and gives dignity to human life.

What do you think?

 

Simultaneous Contemplation & Practice

The Christian faith has been described as contemplation and practice simultaneously. There is a line drawn when we get over 2 misrepresentations of Christianity. Christians are disciples. Anyone that tells you otherwise is probably selling something. And disciples are the one following Jesus.

At our Well Group on Tuesday the word disciple came up. What is a disciple? Are you one? Why/why not?

The term “disciple” was seen as the hardcore, sackcloth and ashes, humble, prayer machine. So focused on Jesus the wake they leave gives those around them the shivers. But if we watch the disciples in the gospels from when they first begin to when they open up the worldwide ministry of the Church, the contrasts are vast. All hinges on the Holy Spirit. And yet, the contrast is the growing into the faith. You don’t arrive at preaching and seeing 3000 saved. You grow into the miraculous ministry. All Christians are disciples.

So Christians are not the well behaved model citizens, ticking the boxes and keeping out of hell. And being a Christian is not ticking the single ‘faith’ box to get into heaven. A Christian is a disciple. Contemplation and practice simultaneously. The contemplation is the working out of salvation through prayer, scriptural study, community involvement of praying and encouraging one another in the discover of God and His character; and practice of faith. Raw, real, behavioural change of a life that is committed to bring the Lordship of Jesus to the fore.

Ministry is more than learned progression, it is acts of mercy, being a citizen of heaven on earth. Truly loving and caring for the lost and downtrodden.

Contemplation and practice faith make the essence of discipleship. Being and doing Christianity.

 

Nostalgia Exposed

Do you ever dream of a time in the past when you were particularly happy with your state of mind and well-being? Whenever I find myself thinking I preferred my life I realise it’s ridiculous to think like that. If you want to go back to a time when you were younger you discount all the maturing and growing that is making who you are. If you are more mature those past times can be improved upon.

Of course we can reminisce, there are wonderful times past that were character shaping for all of us. As we play through our lives we seem to slow down over these beautiful memories of times when the complications of life faded into the background. And what it would be to have a complication free life. But now, and I’m much younger than most, but older than I once was, complications that were first an awful throbbing limb of a problem, have begun to gain the diminishing drug of perspective injected into their prominence.

Perspective, if we apply it, should show up the joys of yesteryear as warped realities that our foolishness meant we couldn’t see with our eyes half shut, blinkers on and headphones in, playing a movie-like soundtrack to the ever changing drama we called youth.

Some have had it tough. The reality that they have had it a lot tougher than others is rarely known to the majority of us, who had sheltered existence. But the journey we are on is always forwards. Progress. Growth.

Stubbornness, however, steps in. We, in our little world of our own, have everything revolving around us. Whether it is our problems or our victories, these planets change our gravitational capabilities to actually orbit the correct sun; the True celestial being that will allow life to finally form on our barren lands.

I have had a realigning in my life. Coming to terms with truths from my past has changed the crooked relationship I had with God, into something to build on. What difference alignment has made to my own life. Seeking first His Kingdom; wanting the Lordship of Jesus to be the purpose of all my actions has been so fruitful. Forgiveness, restoration, a life of faith. It’s all in Him.

Then your growth won’t be stunted. The cost of discipleship is a small price to pay for the reward that is on offer in this life and the next. As Jesus said: (Mark 10:29-30) “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.”

 

Spiritual?

Who on earth started the idea that religion is a social aspect for controlling communities and spirituality is the real way to finding comfort or peace?

It makes me sad the amount of people who are primarily convinced that they aren’t religious but they are ‘spiritual’. They seemingly have no idea what it means to say that, and though it is true we are all spiritual, the life choices made by these ‘non-religious-spiritual’ groups are far from spiritual. In fact these practices of regular drinking, partying, and losing all sense of reality is a religion of itself. It is a self salvation that no more adds to a persons spirituality than lighting a candle in a dimly lit church.

How many of these ‘spiritual’ people act in a way that can be compared to the ethereal experience we all aspire to. As far as I can tell, the aspiration is to an unattainable high that is experienced by connecting into drugs or other intoxications, dulling the true senses, and creating a false experience.

I ask for a continuing and increase in the gracious presence of the One True God, who can lift out of the chaos those who aren’t trying to hide from their own reality, but trying to be permanently rid of it.