Death the final destination

 Jesus said, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die.’ John 11:25 – 26.

Death like heaven and hell is not usually a subject discussed in Western society if at all possible. Yet as J John says the most undeniable of all statistics is that life is 100% fatal.

However despite its certainty, most people will go to any lengths to not just avoid talking about it but also to avoid the event as well. When it becomes inevitable people will usually be overcome by fear based on uncertainty.

The one group of people for whom this should not be the case are Christians. Thanks to Jesus we can have full assurance that the grave is not our final destination – heaven is.

However it is amazing how far people will go to try to ignore God in their beliefs.   Many today confidently assert that there is nothing after death. Not only does life end, so does existence. The problem with nothing after death is that when the believer of this hypothesis dies, it will be too late to find out they were wrong. If there is indeed life after death, their eternal destination is settled and it may not be the choice of their dreams.

Someone told me the other day all about the aura or incandescence lingering around a dead body for three days after death. What is the evidence for this?

The evidence for heaven or hell however is great. The Bible frequently talks about death and the afterlife in both the Old and New Testaments. Jesus very clearly explained that heaven is the eternal destination for those who believe and trust in him.

In addition there are many many people who have had ‘out of body’ or ‘near death’ experiences. All of these seem to back up the Bible’s version of life after death. No one talks about their aura hanging around the body for three days and no one says everything just went black and I ceased to exist. 

However visions of heaven, Jesus, family members who have already died and yes even hell have been told by far too many people to be ignored. It might be nice to think they are all wrong especially if you are determined to ignore God but the evidence is pretty overwhelming.

The comfort that comes both to the dying and those remaining that heaven is not just a reality but also their own destination is too good to ignore. Anyone who believes that Christians are deluded should read the Scriptures and any of the many books about ‘out of body’ experiences. The details these people include are too compelling to be dismissed.

Heaven is too marvellous a place to take a chance on getting there. Hoping that our good works will open the door is a risky strategy as is ignoring death and hoping for the best. Assurance is what we all long for and as Christians we have that assurance.

Unfortunately many Christians are not only shaky about going to heaven but very shaky about what it will be like. I believe as we read the Bible and other books on the subject by authors grounded in the Scriptures we can start to get revelation on just how truly amazing heaven is.

Not only is it far better than our wildest imaginations – it is also too wonderful a place not to talk about to others. Everyone needs to know not just the reality of the wonders of heaven but also how to get there. As Christians that is both our responsibility and our joy. 

Heaven or hell

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.  John 3: 17 – 18.

Hell is not a word much in evidence these days except perhaps as a euphemism for a hard time; I had a hell of a day or it was hell.  However no one mentions hell as a place, a destination. It is considered at best politically incorrect or at worst downright rude to talk about hell.

Yet the reality is that hell is the eternal destination for most people because they have not chosen the alternative. Everyone will go to hell unless they receive God’s gift of eternity spent with him in the wonders of heaven. This gift comes free because Jesus paid for it completely.

No one wants to believe hell exists which is hardly surprising but if it does exist then people hope it will be a place of partying and doing everything ‘miserable sinners’ love to do together. Unfortunately nothing could be further from the truth.

The Bible makes it abundantly clear that hell is a place of eternal punishment and torment. The worst thing is that this will be away from God and everyone else. There is no partying in hell – partying is in heaven with Jesus, the angels and all the other believers. 

The tragedy is that no one needs go to hell. Everyone can go to heaven but only if they accept Jesus’ gift.  Most people hope to get to heaven by their good works but the truth is that no one can ever do enough to satisfy a perfect God – only Jesus did that.

As Randy Alcorn recounts in his book Edge of Eternity: I (Jesus) loved you as you were but I loved you too much to let you stay that way. Rather than give up on you, I gave myself up for you. I chose to go to hell for you rather than go to heaven without you. The gift I extended to you is free but not cheap. It costs you nothing. It cost me everything.

Christians used to be happy to talk about hell but I think it usually came liberally laced with condemnation, judgement and hypocrisy. No one wanted to listen to that.

People need to know how much God loves them and has a wonderful plan and purpose for their lives. They do not need or want to be told they are sinners – they know that. What they need to know is that there is a Saviour who came to rescue them from their sin and its consequence.

Christians who know the love of God and live in it are a powerful witness to those still struggling to make sense of life. They can talk about the terrors of hell and the wonders of heaven with Godly conviction and love.

Christians have been intimidated and become embarrassed to speak about hell for fear of offending people. The thing is though that thousands are going to hell daily because we have been frightened into not talking about it.

Today I believe as Christians we need to learn afresh how to speak about heaven and hell in love and grace and talk about the wonderful gift  of eternal life in heaven that Jesus holds out to all who come to him.

I believe the Holy Spirit will help us if we trust him to be our teacher and guide. Let’s not be put off from declaring the truth but with great grace let’s promote truth about eternity as God gives us opportunity. 

Every good and perfect gift

We have nothing to give that didn't first come from your hand,

We have nothing to offer you which you did not provide

Every good, perfect gift comes from your kind and gracious heart

And all we do is give back to you what always has been yours.

Who has given to you that it should be paid back to him?

Who has given to you as if you needed anything?

To you and from you comes all things O Lord

And all we do is give back to you what always has been yours.     Matt Redman

We do truly come into the world with nothing and we leave taking nothing with us.  We arrive as naked babies and we depart leaving all we have accumulated over the years behind us.

In this materialistic world we place huge value on things, our possessions and who has got what. We admire the rich and their lifestyle and despise the poor. Yet as Christians we must get hold of the truth that everything we have comes from God’s kind and gracious heart.

‘The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it’ the Psalmist declares in Psalm 24:1. God and God alone is the Creator and whilst his creation may be very pleased with their efforts at creating things including wealth from what he has provided, the reality is that even these abilities come from him (Deuteronomy 8: 18).

When God gave Moses the instructions for building the tabernacle and all its furnishings, he anointed Bezalel ‘with skill, ability and knowledge in all kinds of crafts – to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut stones, to work in wood and to engage in all kinds of craftsmanship (Exodus 31: 3 – 5). Moreover God appointed Oholiab to help him. Their skills came from God.

It can be rather galling to think we are not as brilliant as we thought and that everything we have has not come from our own efforts. However actually getting hold of this truth that it all comes from God is very liberating. 

God has given us gifts and abilities because he wants us to use them both for our enjoyment and to bless others. If we let God use us, our abilities become liberated from what we can do to what God can do through us. I am sure Bezalel was amazed at what God enabled him to create.

Even in the area of wealth creation, God will use us to be a great blessing to all around us. We all know ‘it is more blessed to give than to receive’ (Acts 20:35) and it is indeed a great joy to give gifts or money. Our world desperately needs people who can handle wealth correctly and the first step in that is acknowledging it didn't come from us and our own labours in the first place. When we realise everything comes from God, it is so much easier to pass it on to others, knowing that God will always pour in where we have poured out.

The Bible is full of assurances that God will satisfy our desires as we trust him (Psalm 37: 4 and 145: 19 as examples). We never need fear being generous.

We have nothing to offer God that didn't come from him in the first place. Our very breath is a gift from God.  God wants to bless us with so much more but the key is to realise it all came from him and with thankful hearts try to become a giver with a heart like God’s because he is the ultimate Giver. 

Inheritance versus heritage

People will spend a lot of time and effort making sure they leave an inheritance for their children and family. They will work hard to leave their house, money, jewellery and possessions to those who will remain when they die.

However what is even more important is to not just leave an inheritance for our children but to leave a heritage. Heritage is something that is handed down to our ancestors and often it is non material. Family stories, practices, ways of doing things and faith. As Christians passing on our Christian faith is the best possible heritage we can leave our children and family.

One of the greatest blessings for a parent is to see their children and grandchildren living out a personal relationship with Jesus Christ for themselves not based on parental wishes or peer pressure but out of personal conviction. This is the heritage we would most like to pass on.

However the Christian faith is a choice and whilst we can do all we possibly can to pass it on; prayer, church, Bible teaching, lifestyle and so on, at the end of the day it is a personal decision for every individual. One of the greatest heartaches for parents is to see their children turn their back on the faith they were raised in.

Sometimes this may be for obvious reasons; family divorce or breakdown, parents whose faith is far removed from their lives, problems with other Christians or the shortcomings of the church. At other times it may just be the lure of the world and the pleasures that the world appears to hold.

I believe that what we do for the child not walking with God is the same as the one walking with the Lord; pray, bless and maintain good relationships. One of the saddest things is parents who fall out with their children because they have turned their backs on their faith.

God spoke powerfully to me from the title of a Joseph Garlington book Right or Reconciled. So often being right becomes the most important thing. However I believe maintaining relationship through reconciliation is far more important. We will never reach out to the lost whether in or out of our family by maintaining the moral and spiritual high ground that I am right and you are wrong.

If we have brought our children up in the faith, our grown up children know what is right and wrong. They do not need parents going on about their life style choices. They need parents who love and accept them whom they can talk to.

I am not referring to teenagers who still need a firm but loving hand and help with their choices till they have developed a mature judgement. Teenagers who yell at their parents ‘you don’t trust me’ are quite right. We should not trust our youngsters to make mature decisions at this point in their lives. It takes time and maturity to develop good judgement.

However even as adults our children may do things we do not consider appropriate such as living with partners or having sex outside marriage. Our children know this. What they need is our acceptance based on the fact that they and we both know what we think their choice.

In time these children of ours will return to their faith if we are diligent in prayer and loving in attitude. Even if we never see it ourselves, I firmly believe that we can all not only leave an inheritance of material possessions but also a heritage of Christian faith for our family members.

Fullness of joy

You will show me the path of life;
In Your presence is fullness of joy;
At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore. Psalm 16: 11 NKJ

Can you imagine what fullness of joy is like? Can you imagine overflowing with joy, so wonderful, so amazing that it feels like you’re going to burst?

Joy like that is found in God’s presence because God is a joyous God. He is not as Dallas Willard says, ‘a morose and miserable monarch, a frustrated and petty parent or a policeman on the prowl.’  Instead ‘he is the most joyous being in the universe. The abundance of his love and generosity is inseparable from his infinite joy.’

Eagle Nebula - 6 trillion miles top to bottom

There can be times when we gaze at something in nature – a beautiful bird or exotic fish, a breathtaking mountain or seascape and we are filled with wonder and joy. God continuously looks on these things and much else besides. He sees the extent of the universe he created, those incredible images of nebula, pulsars, stars and planets. He hears the music of the stars and he sees us and takes joy in our stumbling steps of faith, wonder and adoration of the indescribable Creator of the unimaginable creation. No wonder God is a joyous being.

If anyone ever gets a glimpse of heaven the one thing they all talk about is the love and joy they experienced. It was so marvellous they didn’t want to return and the reason it was so marvellous was because of the manifest presence of God – all loving and full of joy.

God wants us to abide in his love which brings great joy. There are too many Christians who are miserable. However the world does not need Christians who walk in a superficial temporary happiness but those who abide in the deep joy that comes from spending time in his presence.

God our wonderful provider

‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?  Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

‘And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you – you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, “What shall we eat?” or “What shall we drink?” or “What shall we wear?” For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Matthew 6: 25 – 33

When our sons were younger, they used to burst in through the front door after school and cry, ‘Feed me!’ They then rushed to the fridge and cupboard to rootle around till they found what they wanted to eat and drink.

There was no hanging back cautiously to see if it was alright to come into the house or to raid the fridge. They didn't beg or plead with me. This was their home, I was their mother and therefore it was perfectly acceptable to expect to be fed without any begging or argument. 

Not only so but provision was assured. Apart from the odd day when I may not have been shopping, it was expected that food would be on hand.  Children expect their parents to feed them as well as protect and shelter them.

Why then as Christians do we have so much trouble relying on God to be our heavenly provider?  He is our Father and wants to look after us just as we want to look after our children. Most parents would be horrified if their children spurned their provision and went off to the shops to buy their own things. It is one of the joys of parenthood to provide for your children.

God does not want us worrying about money, food, clothes, jobs, homes and so on. We can expect God to provide these. That is his privilege as our Father and it is our privilege to receive them as his children with thankful hearts.

The key to this provision is to seek first God’s Kingdom and his righteousness; to put God, his ways, his lifestyle above all else. At the start of a new year let’s resolve to seek God in all we do and to stop worrying about life and let God be the provider he longs to be. 

God of the miraculous

One of the advantages of taking a topic when reading the Bible rather than reading through a Gospel or another book is that incredible themes start to lift off the pages.

One thing I have been reminded of recently is that God is the God of truly outstanding, amazing miracles. Not just that but when God is about to do something significant, it is always accompanied by the miraculous.

 Noah built an ark in the desert for 120 years and God brought the water to float it. Abraham and Sarah were not just old but ‘as good as dead’ (Hebrews 11: 12) yet their one son (born to Sarah aged 90) birthed the whole of the Jewish race

. 

Moses, an 80 year old no-hoper, was so insecure that he argued with God 5 times about his inability to fulfil his calling. Yet he ended up leading a motley group of slaves out from one of the most powerful military nations in the world at that time. In the process he performed outstanding miracles including the parting of the Red Sea which led to the complete overthrow of the military might of Egypt. God miraculously provided water from a rock for approx 2 million people and fed these people morning and evening for 40 years.

They entered their Promised Land when God again parted the waters, this time of the swollen, flooded River Jordan. The Israelites then took the first fortified city they came across – not by military might – but by walking round the walls every day for 7 days and the walls collapsed.

And so it goes on; curses turned into blessings (Numbers 24: 10 - 11), shepherd boys becoming kings (Psalm 78: 70 - 71), mighty armies overthrown by the power of praise (II Chronicles 20: 22) and many more until we come to most incredible miracle of all; God himself giving up all his glory, majesty and power to become a tiny baby born of a virgin. This happened in an insignificant town, not in a palace and not even in a home but outside with the animals.

The Christmas story is full of miracles – miracle babies born to elderly parents like Zechariah and Elizabeth, a virgin birth, the glorious heavenly host revealed to humble shepherds and Gentile magi travelling miles to follow a star to worship a king that his own people did not even acknowledge.

He continually reveals himself today as a miracle working God.

Sometimes I think our God is just too small. We struggle to believe that the God who parted the Red Sea will come in and make a way for us where there appears to be no way. We battle to realise that the God who fed two million people every day for 40 years will provide for us and that the man who raised Jairus’ daughter and Dorcas (to name just two) will breathe life into our hopeless looking, dead situations.

Or that the same God who inspired 5000 people to be saved in one day can save our family and friends.  Or that the God who forgave Zacchaeus and the woman caught in adultery will forgive our sins. Or that the God who healed Naaman the leper will heal our eczema and so on.

Our faith is so small and yet our God is so big.

Let’s ask God to forgive us for our unbelief and help us stir up again the gift of faith that he has given each one of us so that we can come to our miracle working God and be amazed at the things he wants to do in and through our lives.  

Succeeding through failure

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Philippians 3: 12

Have you ever watched a baby when they are learning to walk? Their first attempts are always unsuccessful. They may take one step which the proud parents are thrilled about but immediately they fall and land usually on their bottom.

Undeterred they get up and have another go. They may need help to get to their feet but they don’t give up. Gradually they take more steps until they can walk across the room. Then they start to run. At this point they probably will fall but not onto the safety of a well padded bottom but flat on their face. It hurts and they will need comfort before being put back on their feet to try again.

The most important thing though is that they do try again. Suppose the first time a baby fell, they never got up again! They just sat there, prepared to stay there forever. The world would be full of helpless babies, unable to walk and certainly unable to run.

Unfortunately too often this is exactly what happens to Christians. They step out in faith to help others, to pray for the sick, to witness, to prophesy and maybe they do not succeed. Their efforts are rebuffed and so they sit down and don’t try that again.

Worse comes when having succeeded in walking in some of the ways of God, they try to run into fresh levels of faith and fall. Their pride may be dented, relationships may be hurt and they may be embarrassed but the worse thing is to give up and not try again.

Steve Backlund says:  Many subconsciously believe that success is not failing at anything, but the truth is that those who succeed most will also seem to fail the most. Any time we choose to leave our safety and comfort, and determine to “walk” at a higher level in Christ, we will most likely fall down many times. Those who are the most successful in life will attempt to do multiple things (with its inherent risks), and ultimately will have a greater list of “failures” for those staying in safety to criticize. (Ouch!)

There have been times when I have given a prophetic word and it has just been ignored. I know it was from God and would have blessed both the person and the church. It is easy in circumstances like that to give up.

Failure is part of the Christian life and it is there to help us learn to persevere, trust God and grow in our faith.  It helps develop our character and deal with pride and offense.

Let’s put off our past failures, rise up and try again; let’s not give up but persevere to success. Jesus is urging us on so we may finish our race strong in him.

A man after God's own heart

After removing Saul, he made David their king. God testified concerning him: “I have found David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.” Acts 13:22

When God told Samuel to go to Bethlehem and anoint a new king, one of Jesse’s sons, his first thought when he saw Eliab, the first born, was that this must be the one (I Samuel 16: 6). Samuel was looking for a king as the people had, a king like all the other nations had, a king like Saul, tall and handsome.

God told Samuel not to look at the outward appearance because God does not look at these things, he looks at the heart. God was looking for a king who would have his heart and do the things God wanted him to do.

How true it is that man looks at the outward appearance. So often we look at men’s success or failings from the outside – we do not see what God sees – a man’s heart. Today when we hear of Christian leaders, who have fallen into moral or financial sin, it is shocking how quickly churches and individual Christians jump in to criticise and distance themselves from these people.

Whilst I understand that people may feel disappointed that those they admired or whose teaching or ministry has blessed them in the past have fallen, criticising and judging them is not the answer.  I wonder what the reaction of these people would have been to King David’s adultery with Bathsheba and his subsequent actions to have her husband Uriah the Hittite killed? There is much to criticise in David’s actions but as he himself said:

My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise. Psalm 51: 17.

David was truly sorry and repentant:

Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

Psalm 51: 10 – 12

So often people look at the outward appearance – they do not know the heart of other people – only God knows that. It is not for us to criticise other people’s actions and whilst we also cannot condone sin, it is not our place to judge them – only God can do that.

We are all sinners saved by grace and unless we have walked the path that others have walked and faced the temptations they have faced, we are in no position to comment on their moral failure. So often the price they have paid for their sin is heavy, David lost his baby son. Many will have lost their marriage, family, home, ministry and income.

God and God alone knows their heart.  God not only restored David, he used his moral failure as a stepping stone to his plans and purposes to build an everlasting kingdom through David’s line. It was from this line that God’s Messiah, Jesus Christ was born.

We must pray for our fallen leaders and let God’s amazing grace ‘create in them a pure heart and restore to them their joy of their salvation’.

The preparation years

But David said to Saul,’ … your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine.’ I Samuel 17: 36 - 37

The preparation time can so often be trying, tedious, difficult yet it is so essential, whether it be preparing food, training for a sports event, revising for an exam or being faithful to our calling when nothing appears to be happening.

It is worth it when the beautiful meal or cake comes out of the oven, the race or match won, the exam is passed or when a suddenly breakthrough comes to our life. In many ways the benefits of the preparation time can be obvious but in our spiritual walk, the preparation years can seem not just fruitless but also pointless.

David must have experienced this when he was suddenly called from the fields to be anointed king by Samuel and then – he goes back to the sheep. What a disappointment!  Joseph had these amazing dreams of future leadership and he ends up in a pit and worse still in prison. 

Where was being king out with the sheep? Where was great leadership serving in Potiphar’s house then being falsely accused and thrown into prison? Both of these times though were vital for what was to come.

It was whilst David was out with the sheep that he developed and deepened his love and trust in the Lord. I think we may not have had some of those wonderful psalms if David had not spent years with the sheep. Leading sheep and leading people have some great similarities and learning to kill the lion and the bear to protect the sheep meant David could face and kill Goliath with Godly confidence when the time came.

Joseph learned all about servant leadership in Potiphar’s house and then in prison. He learned to deal with being maligned, being forgotten yet being faithful and when the call came, he was ready. He went from prison to throne room to being second to Pharaoh in all Egypt in one day. Without the preparation years, he just would not have been able to do it.

Even after he won great fame killing Goliath, David still had years of being faithful to God and trusting him to make him king at the proper time. He resisted the temptation to take the throne and because of his years with the sheep, he was not a king like Saul – one like all the other nations had – he was a king after God’s own heart.

It can be so hard to spend days or even years beavering away being faithful, wondering if we are making any difference, wondering if God has forgotten us. Sometimes we may not even realise these are the preparation years. One day though the call will come and all those things that we had placed little importance on will suddenly make sense. All the things we have learned and experienced, both the good and the bad, will become the platform for the future.

Let’s make the most of the preparation time trusting that God is investing in us all that will be necessary for the next step so when the door opens, we will find we have everything we need to fulfil God’s calling on our lives.  

Needing God's wisdom

Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house upon the rock. Matthew 7: 24

I was struck today by the thought that without God it is so hard to make good life decisions. When we do not ask for the wisdom of God to guide us, it is so easy to make really poor choices. So often you hear of people who for apparently very good reasons moved house, country, job and then they are miserably unhappy and wish they had never moved.

Someone we know whose eye sight is failing decided recently to move into a home for partially sighted people. Their decision was made in consultation with both his wife who has moved with him and their son. For excellent reasons they decided to go but they are already deeply regretting the move and want to go back to where they were.

With God’s help we can make what Steve Backlund calls rock (not sand) decisions by which he means we make choices that will enable our lives to be built upon Christ our rock and not the sinking sands of our own ideas and plans.

Making good choices for the big decisions of life comes from two ways. Firstly we need to do things God’s way concerning the key areas of life. We will build on the rock when we purpose to live in honesty, maintain sexual purity, walk in generosity, serve others and put God first in our lives. This “rock living” will protect us from much heartache and will leave an inheritance of blessing for our descendants.

Secondly we need to learn to hear the voice of God for our day to day living. God wants to train us to do his will in the small decisions of life, being kind to those we meet, showing generosity, having time for people. As we learn to hear and respond to his voice in the smaller things of life, it is so much easier to hear him for the bigger decisions.

I am so thankful to have God to help my family and I make good decisions but the best news though is that even when we make ‘sand’ decisions which we may deeply regret, God can redeem and turn around even the most hopeless of circumstances.

A few years ago, another friend of ours moved house and job away from family and friends believing it was God’s will for their lives. It was not a good move and the expected promotion never materialised. The man’s wife was unhappy away from the family and the area they used to live. Some years later, the wife rather sadly said to me that they could never go back to which I replied, ‘Why not?’

That little conversation triggered a chain of events which led to them returning to the former area and their family. When we saw them last they were so much happier and as Addison Bevere says, ‘God is an expert at redeeming time. He can take years of waste and turn them into a springboard for purpose and promise.’

Be a superhero!

¹³ ‘You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.¹⁴ ‘You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. ¹⁵ Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. ¹⁶ In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. Matthew 5: 13 - 16

Jonathan Martin of Renovatus Church tells the story of how he wasted two hours trying to buy a chocolate chip cookie and ending up with chocolate turn over (I think that’s an American chocolate sandwich!). He says that as Christians we too can waste hours doing unprofitable things and then settle for something far less than what we set out for.

Billy Graham wrote: Columbus was called mad because he decided to sail the uncharted ocean. . . . Martin Luther was called mad because he presumed to defy the entrenched religious hierarchy of his time. We have become too sophisticated and respectable to be called mad in our generation. Christianity has become so respectable and so conventional that it is now insipid. The salt has lost its flavour. . . . Would to God that the world found us Christians dangerous enough to call us mad, in these days when materialism and secularism are sweeping over the world. 

Angus Buchan tells the story of going to a rodeo in Australia, full of people dressed in fancy clothes with bells and buckles and looking the part but quite unable to ride the horses. Then a young man came simply dressed, quietly waited for his turn and then rode the horse like a champion.  He took his prize money and left. He was not just someone who talked or looked the part, he was the real thing.  Angus asks if as Christians we too are the real thing.

Finally Joyce Meyer says, ‘What would happen in the world if everyone who claims to be a Christian would actually go out and act like one.’

All these stories came in a 24 hour period and I am sure God is saying something to me about whether I am salt and light in my world.  I am challenged by these stories.  Am I radical enough, mad enough, different enough in my actions, words and attitudes to be seen as a Christian and to show God’s love to those around me.

I may not be one of these ‘famous’ Christians but I can have just as much impact in what God has called me to if I live my life completely sold out for him. I don’t want to waste my time on fruitless activities, looking the part but unable to come up with the goods, insipid and inactive. I want to be the real thing.

As one of my friends said on Facebook this morning: Do one thing today for one person, one animal, one cause. Today you can be a superhero.  Go on, I believe in you. Make a change in someone’s world. 

Freedom not punishment

Therefore, my friends, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. Through him everyone who believes is set free from every sin, a justification you were not able to obtain under the law of Moses. Acts 13: 38 – 39

There is no fear in love.  But perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears in not made perfect in love. I John 4: 18

When Jesus died on the cross, he took all of our sin past, present and future and the guilt and the shame upon himself as the perfect sacrifice.  He took all the punishment that was due to us for our sin.  Our sin incurred the death penalty. As it says in Romans 6:23 ‘for the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life.’ Jesus took the death penalty for our sin and in a divine exchange, gave us the free gift of eternal life.  It was a complete, finished work.

However, as Christians, when we do wrong our mind set can still be that God is angry with us and wants to punish us. We need to get hold of this divine truth that God does not want to punish us for anything.  Jesus took ALL the punishment due to us for every sin when he died on the cross.  God does not want to punish us when we do wrong but to set us free from sin and its consequences.

If we look at God’s Word in the light of God’s desire to free us from sin, it takes us from a vengeful God ready to pounce on every wrongdoing to a God that longs for his people to be liberated from the burden of their mistakes. 

This amazing thought can free us from fear; fear of failure, fear of sinning, fear of punishment, fear of judgment, fear of disappointing God.  We cannot disappoint God because he knows what we will do before we do it. Disappointment comes when things do not work out as expected.  If God knows what is going to happen, he cannot be disappointed. 

When we sin or when God shows us our shortcomings, our proud thoughts and bad attitudes, we must resist every temptation to think that God is angry or disappointed in us. We must take hold of the truth that God is liberating us from these shortcomings.

God hates sin because it separates us from his unconditional love.  God has dealt with sin in sinful man through Jesus’ death on the cross (Romans 8: 3 – 4).  Let us live in the joy of being forgiven children of God who need have no fear of their loving heavenly Father and let us walk in that wonderful freedom.