Where is God in the midst of tragedy??

Right there in the middle of it, and I can state that absolutely and categorically because He is grieving with those who grieve, and perhaps more so because He can see things from both a worldly AND a spiritual perspective, with the repercussions for a life wrongly lived so much more clear to Him than us.   All of us, no matter how strong we may feel our relationship with God is, suffer from a devastating shock when He appears to have suddenly withdrawn His providence from us and instead has thrust us (like Job) into what we consider to be horrific circumstances we feel He should be protecting us from.   Our initial response stems from our errant prideful attitude that just because we have committed our lives to Him that He somehow then owes US!   And that if we are being “good” we shouldn’t have to suffer in any shape or form.  And that sense of entitlement ironically is often escalated in those who rarely give God a second thought in their life.  Many in the privileged West think they’re doing a great job in how they live their lives – they treat others well, jump in where they see injustices (perceived or real) and give regularly to charity.  How’s that not “good” they ask?   Well, in humanistic terms and even in superficial spiritual terms yes, all those things are indeed good and in fact commanded by scripture for those who do know God and are true Christians.

But what many either don’t know or certainly don’t appreciate  is that while those traits are good in human terms God has categorically stated through His Word that nobody is good – not one of us, as we all regardless of our spiritual state continually sin against Him one way or another in thought especially if not in word or deed.   And this is what sin is at its root – a refusal (directly or indirectly) to give God His rightful place in our lives.  And this is why death entered the world – God told Adam not to eat the fruit of the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden or he’d die but then Eve easily accepted the lie of Satan that they wouldn’t die but rather have their eyes opened to good & evil, and so when she didn’t drop dead the minute she ate the fruit, she persuaded Adam to do so too and that, as they say, was that!!  Not only did death enter the world physically but spiritually as well and mankind has paid the price ever since.

But the story didn’t end there as God told Satan that his day would come for his part in man’s downfall – that One would come who would ultimately destroy him and so it was.  Over 2000 years ago, Jesus gave His sinless life as a sacrifice on the cross as a final means of payment to God for ALL of mankinds crimes against Him, past, present & future.  BUT that gift of a reprieve would only be offered to those willing to acknowledge their sinfulness to start with, then repent (tell God they were truly and deeply sorry for their rebellion) and to acknowledge and accept Jesus as their ONLY Redeemer.  It would take too long here to go into all the aspects of salvation if you’ve not encountered them before.  If you do want to read more – check out my other couple of posts on the topic  So you want to go to heaven? WHY????    and  Every nanosecond counts..   Or if you want even more check in the sidebar for the Categories section & click on the Salvation tag.  The point here is that God more than understands the pain of death – He has created us in His likeness which means He has many of the emotions we feel, and one of the primary is grief.  Many times in scripture He says about how sad we’ve made Him or our actions have grieved Him,   We tend to think of Him sometimes being so high & mighty that He never feels anything let alone feels for us in our suffering.  But even more evidence of this is present in Jesus own walk on this earth – we’re told He wept over Lazarus dying and Jesus is God in human flesh so He understands more than anything the pain we feel on losing a loved one.

Then finally God had to allow Jesus to be born into His own creation, live amongst them not as their Creator and King, but rather as a lowly carpenter and itinerant preacher, before allowing His creation to brutally torture Him and kill Him in one of the most unimaginable ways of its time and to hold back the legions of angels just itching to rescue Him, because this is the price He himself had to pay in order to have creation once again made whole.

I appreciate some of the finer points of redemption can sound strange if you have no interest in such or are searching more analytically than spiritiually, but the main point is to just appreciate that God isn’t what man makes Him out to be sometimes.  DIscover the true God in the pages of scripture and learn more about how He loved you enough to die for you!!

Heading to heaven?? Part 2

Finally getting this up after losing it in the Drafts box for a year or two.  Oops!

Well, perhaps you might then be interested in re-reading the first post I made on this topic first as the two sort of dovetail together.

What I really wanted to focus on in this post is the chronic disease of assumption that has hit so many in the world today.  If you were to ask a large group of individuals with any vague notion of scripture, and the Christian God etc they would pretty much all say they “hope” to go to heaven without any concept of what it is other than what they’re reading in the secular press, the latest fictional book or some film that makes heaven look like a continuation of life here just for longer & more peaceful!!  Most have the idea that those who’ve gone before them are all up there and moreover watching everything they do and “rooting for them” down here.  And of course there’s also a slew of modern day “I went to heaven & came back” novels avidly read by all and many times foolishly accepted as the real truth.  Heaven forbid (pardon the Pun) that anyone should ever read the reality about our final destination in the Bible – that would be too boring!!

The point is – everyone thinks they’re going to heaven but Jesus says:

“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it.  Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.”  Matt 7:13-14

What He’s really saying is that when it comes to finding the way to heaven, it’s not going to be the easy one that just somehow “is” or “happens” or is a given in any sense, and that if you stop to think about it sensibly, if EVERYONE could ultimately go to heaven bar a tiny TINY minority (since many don’t even count murder a bad enough sin to prevent access) then what would be the point of life here.??  Or indeed what would be the point of death?  And especially what would have been the point of Jesus being the ONLY PERFECT MAN to walk this earth to die and be resurrected (proven fact) from the dead, saying that the purpose was to provide teaching on God’s Love for His people and how they could get to heaven to be with him.

Jesus also said definitively – “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life – nobody can get to the Father but by Me“!  John 14:6  There was no arrogance in that statement – just pure fact.  If you are by any chance interested in knowing more on that score -then check out some of my other posts:

Weak religions trying to appear strong, ,  Are you a New Age Christian? and Every nanosecond counts.

So, if perhaps you’re one of those who’s been guilty of meandering through this life without really giving the next one any great deal of thought, know this – Jesus really IS the Son of God, He really did live and die for a particular people and purpose, and He really IS going to return any day soon and once He does (or if you die before that day comes) then it will be too late to suddenly determine that you were wrong for not accepting your need of Him as Saviour.  God says we are all sinners and not one of us is good in His eyes, because He is a righteous and perfect God and thus when we die He will judge us as our Creator and find us guilty unless we have someone in that heavenly courtroom able to mediate on our behalf and be our defence.  And that’s where Jesus comes in – because He’s not only perfect but also because He alone has lived a perfect human life and submitted to God’s Will perfectly to die as a sacrifice to pay that ultimate price on our behalf.  And I know that’s where many struggle – some think that God’s into human sacrifice – He’s not – but from the outset He stated that there had to be a price for sinning that was high enough to show the huge crime of it in His eyes and thus blood sacrifices were instituted.  It’s a much larger topic than I can cover here but

Heading to heaven??? Part 1

I can’t tell you how many people I hear say that they are a “Christian” yet when asked about any particular tenets of the faith or indeed of their own Christian walk, are left speechless and unable to answer because they are little more than what I term “cultural Christians” – those who believe they have a right to the title because of where they live,  I vividly remember a conversation I had with a Roman Catholic lady in a staunchly Republican are of West Belfast.  We were all attending a meeting with a shared interest in a medical condition we each suffered from, so at least had that in common.  Somehow the conversation turned to religion – a dangerous topic at any time in our Province but definitely a no-go one in the heart of IRA Belfast for a Protestant at any rate.  Yet I stood my ground.  It went something like this…. Me “I’m a Christian”, “Her “Sure, isn’t everyone?”  Me “How so”  Her “Well, if we’re not Christians, then what else are we?” Me “But Christianity isn’t a right, nor a hereditary faith” Her “Well, I’m not a Muslim, not a Hindu, not a Protestant, nor any other religion, so I’m a Christian.  I live in a “Christian” country so I’m a Christian!!”.  After another 10 minutes bouncing the topic around by the end of which she was starting to get just a shade more antsy than I wanted given I was there to talk about my role as chair of a medical charity, I had to just let her have her view and hope that what little I did manage to say about “true” Christianity might be used to turn her around at some later point.   But sadly in this little part of the world, religion has come to be more than a hot button topic given how many lives have been affected by the actions of those insisting on using it as a weapon complete with actual weapons to back their views up.  But before I finish this little portion, let me just be very clear on one thing – the “war” here has never been about religion.  Sure, it’s been used to whip up sentiments and attitudes etc but the Troubles were always primarily about power, control & eventually money – on both sides.  Left to themselves, here as elsewhere, Protestants & Catholics can live happily together and often forge lifelong friendships (one of my very best friends currently is an RC girl who connected with me through my charity work.  In the very early stages of our developing friendship we started discussing our differing views on faith, and discovered we had polar opposite views on many important topics from abortion and sexual attitudes etc, to who the Black Pope was etc, yet never once did it impact our friendship to any degree.  If anything I think it’s strengthened it – we don’t discuss faith matters as much these days purely because of circumstances but are very comfortable doing so nonetheless).

Belfast itself has more churches and chapels per square mile than probably even the Bible Belt in the US and is only now beginning to see an odd one being taken over for demolition.  Yet during the “Troubles” it was still interesting to see how the Protestant paramilitaries (more than the IRA) insisted their part in the war was for “God and Ulster” somehow totally missing the 6th Commandment as if God would somehow be pleased with them for continually breaking it.  But while the IRA never openly put God anywhere in their statements much, they were many times equally tied in to religion in some sense usually through priests who had no problem burying “volunteers” having a firing “squad” sendoff or Chapels providing safe haven for others etc.  But aside from all of that, most of those involved on both sides saw themselves as “Christian” “good Catholics”, or at the very least likely to make it to heaven.  Even murderers often think they have a right to heaven!!

If you’re not a Christian in any sense of the word let alone a “true” one, think on this.   If everyone could just die & go to heaven, what would be the point of living here?  After all, if there is a heaven to start with, then obviously there is a God Who created it and logically also the universe, earth & everything therein, and He could have obviously just not bothered creating us to live on a decaying planet in decaying bodies etc.  He could have just kept us in heaven to start with and save all this hassle.  But He desired more from us than initially mankind (aka Adam & Eve who by the way were real people!!  I’ll write up something on why you can believe that soon) wanted to provide Him – love and a reciprocal relationship.  Should have been easy don’t you think, but sadly there was a fly in the ointment aka Satan, who told the first lie to Eve, who determined she then knew better than her Creator and His “rules”, and the rest is history.

So ponder on all those things and if you find you then maybe are intrigued enough to return for Part 2 I’ll outline a bit better on the dangers of assumption of your eternal future and guide you on how best to ensure you DO end up in the most desired final destination.

“But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.” Philippians 3:20-21

A truly remarkable relationship…

There is one thing that Christianity offers over every other single religion on the planet – well, more than one, but aside from a risen Saviour and forgiveness of sins and a multitude of other vital requirements, our God is the only One with whom we can actually have a relationship!   Unlike the Muslims or the Hindus, Buddhists etc who worship unknown gods and can never be sure if their prayers are even being heard let alone answered, we have a God who actually resides within us through His Holy Spirit and with whom we thus have continual commune.   We have a God who desires to hear His people talk to Him and tell them what He already knows.   And we have a God who absolutely works to help us to hear Him speak to us in a multitude of ways, but especially through our conscience.   How many times you will hear of a Christian who says that they were about to undertake some action, but something stopped them, or they knew instinctively to do something would be wrong.   And I’m not talking the obvious sins here, but more the subtle ones that Paul spoke about when he said that if someone thinks something is wrong, then it is sin for him to do that thing, even if for another person it may not be e.g. eating pork.