If you believe that God has not forgotten about our continent but instead has great revival plans for our people then check out this blog:
I think God is just waiting till enough people have given up hope for Africa so that HE can show the world what HE can do when all hope seems lost!
Am I living up to the title “follower of Jesus”?
Are you?
Of course we would all say that no-one has ever lived up to that title perfectly and that is why a central part of our faith is based upon God’s grace and not our own ability.
But as the son’s and daughters of God, “born-again”, filled with His Holy Spirit, being conformed into the image of His Son, shouldn’t our lives look a bit more like that of Jesus Christ?
I suppose that is a very difficult and deeply challenging question for each of us. But the danger is that the longer we walk in mediocrity, we learn to find compromised reasons for our watered-down witness, which appease our conscience, but don’t stand up to scripture.
Here are three such excuses we give for not living like Christ:
1. The Sin in our lives
Some will argue that our sin hinders us from living out our witness, and rightly so! We all need a deeper level of repentance in our lives! None of us can argue with that. But wasn’t it the very centre of Jesus mission to come and deal with our sin once and for all! He has broken the power of sin, so it has no legal authority in our lives if we don’t give it any room. The wonderful gift of repentance means that there is no need for sin to hinder us. If it does we are not walking in repentance, but we can’t blame sin when Jesus has covered that area.
2. Our lack of faith
Some will argue that our faith is too weak. That we should well-up more faith within us in order to see more of the miraculous in our lives. But faith is not a force which is employed apart from the actual Word of God, faith is not an end in itself, it must be based upon truth. Yes we need more faith, all of us! But faith is only powerful when its based upon truth, what we really need is more truth! God gives faith freely to us as his children, so we cannot blame it on a lack of faith. What we might find is that there isn’t enough truth in our lives to provide a foundation for more faith.
3. We are not really meant to live like Jesus in this life
Others will argue that we where never meant to be like Christ in this life, its impossible for us to ever attain to the kind of life he lived. It might well be true that none of us will every live a life like His but that does not mean that we are not meant to. Jesus himself said that his followers will do greater miracles than he did, and it is our promise that our Father is making us like him more and more. We might never live a life just like His but judging on how far we are from his standard, I have too believe there is more for us to lay hold-of!
So what is the problem?
My guess is that we don’t really take the Word of God seriously enough and so we don’t really know the full extent of what God has achieved for the saints through the life, death and resurrection of His Son. I believe we simply don’t live the life we have been given becuase we don’t know the full extent of our inheritance in Jesus Christ.
So in the next few weeks I would like to take you on a journey with me as we examine who we REALLY are in Jesus Christ through a study of the book of Ephesians!
Subscribe to my blog so you can follow the posts and join in the discussions.
I have often been guilty of pointing the finger at churches within other cultures where bad cultural practices have been allowed to co-exist with the gospel.
I think its always easier to make a fuss about the speck in someone else’s eye!
But it has become more and more clear to me that there are some serious planks and even logs in the eyes of the “western” church.
By western I am referring to churches within what is generally know as western culture or more specifically the materialistic and humanistic culture of 1st World countries and countries, like South Africa, where the culture is heavily influenced by the developed world.
These serious issues are matters of faith – who or what do we place our trust in. It’s one thing to say that we trust God but it’s another thing altogether to really trust God by the way we live our daily lives.
There are a few areas where this problem is most evident in our western way of living. In this post I will simply outline the first of these areas: Provision – who brings home the bacon?
1. Provision
I believe that the single most pervasive form of idolatry in the western church is the lifestyle of serving the “gods of provision”. One might also calls this serving “Mammon” or money. But it goes beyond simply money itself.
It’s the notion which we live with and which we teach our children: that if you want to get ahead in life and make a success of life you need to use your talents and abilities to their full potential in the act of gathering provisions.
This sort of thinking goes directly against the Biblical teaching that we should use our talents and abilities to their full potential to glorify God who then supplies our need out of his abundance. God says that he is “Yahweh Jireh” – The God who provides. Everything we have and receive comes from him.
People think this sort of notion is only for those desiring full-time service in the pastorate or in the mission field. No wonder pastors struggle to get their congregations on board with a Kingdom vision becuase the pastor has had to deal with trusting God for provision but the majority of the people in the congregation still trust their training, their abilities, their gifts, their investments and their job for their provision.
We live in such a materialistic world that it is very hard for Christians to fully come to grips with the extent of this syncretism in their own lives. Sundays and after hours they will put time aside for God but Monday 8-6 they have to bring home the bacon. Saying it like that even sounds rational becuase we have been so brainwashed by our culture. I am not saying that people should sit on their behind and wait for manna to fall from heaven. Notice the difference: “I will spend my whole life and all my abilities and talents to glorify God in whatever he gives for me to do, at work, home, church, community etc. And God will provide my families needs”.
Its a simple difference in the words but a huge difference in the emphasis of faith. And to make that shift takes a huge step of faith in ones heart becuase if you say that then you open yourself to God for him to change your plans!
Unless the church takes this leap of faith, I fear we cannot go where God is leading us becuase we will be tied up in our allegiance to our “gods of provision”.
It is interesting to note that of the gods whom the Israelites served in their idolatry the Canaanite fertility gods where most prominent. According to Canaanite customs these gods promised to give fertility to you and your crops when you sacrificed to them. Seems like things haven’t changed much!
Your comments please!
Jonah and the big 'fish'
In this discussion that is raging on the web about all things missional I think it is always good to just simply get back to the basics, and that starts by getting back to the WORD.
There is a great deal of talk about being missional! But talk is cheap! What does it actually look like to be missional?
Well that’s a huge question in and of itself. But I believe God makes things pretty simple for us, becuase he knows how frail we are. Take for instance the two greatest commandments; Love God, Love people! All of the scripture is in some way are tied into these two simple commands. Its so simple (not easy, but simple) – Love God with all your heart and Love people as you love yourself!
I think the same principle of simplicity relates to our quest for being missional.
Take our friend, Jonah, for instance. He has really been the object of much abuse from Christians becuase we like to have a straw man, who we think is worse than us, to pummel! But honestly, I don’t think we are any better than Jonah.
Jonah was a reluctant missionary! He eventually did what God commanded after much coercion by means of a storm and a big fish – you know the deal. But he went reluctantly. Eventually when his task was accomplished, instead rejoicing, Jonah was deeply depressed.
Jonah, like most Israelites would have disliked the Ninevites quite strongly. The nation of Assyria (of which Nineveh was a capital city) where their arch enemies. They where the ones that would ultimately destroy the Northern Kingdom and they where know for their savagery and violence. No wonder Jonah didn’t want to go.
But what we overlook is that Jonah had a very good missional theology; (Ch4v2), something we value very highly today.
Pretty impressive; He sounds like a very missional dude to me!
But he lacked one thing: He did not have God’s heart!
God had a heart for the city of Nineveh just as God has a heart for every single person on this earth who is lost. But Jonah cared more for a plant and for the prosperity of his own nation and for himself than he cared for this city.
We use a lot of missional lingo but where is our heart at?
Do we have God’s heart? (that’s a question I ask myself regularly, and the answer is not always very missional)
“for God so loved the world…”
What about us, do we so love the lost that we will really do something about it?
To me, that is the essence of being missional – its simple really – to have the heart of God!
Recent Comments