Category: Faith

Questions I'd Ask Before Following Jesus

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I recently read an article by Gordon MacDonald called “Questions I’d Ask Before Following Jesus” that reminded me of this important issue for someone who is interested in becoming a Christian. Having been a fan of discipleship and Christian growth for three decades, I have seen plenty of people get started in their relationship with Jesus only to give up at some point along the journey. Jesus even told a story that seems to fit well, the parable of the sower and the soils, where the same seed (the Word of God or perhaps the gospel of salvation) is sown freely to four different types of soil. As I talk to people about a relationship with God, I can ask questions that may even turn people away. I sense in the long run, people need to know what they are getting into.

As Jesus chose His disciples, or first followers, I wonder what questions where in their minds when they heard the “follow me” challenge? What issues concerned them? Practical questions? Personal questions? Priority questions? Questions about inadequacy? Anxiety? Compensation? What do we need to know before we leave our beach and join Your movement? 

1. Why do You want me with all my baggage? Jesus knew these guys better than they knew themselves, but Peter was on target when he said, “Go away from me Lord, I am a sinful man.” Since salvation is more than just saying, “yes” to Jesus, our baggage must be dealt with. Our call to discipleship is a call to renunciation. There must be an openness to new disciplines, new thinking, new ways to look at relationships. It’s not overnight, but there must be progress. 

2. What made you invite me? Jesus appears to have started with a bias of the heart rather than with an evaluation of outward performance. These guys were not the respected pillars of society. Jesus was not a talent scout, but a student of the inner person. I believe He sees potential as to what people may become, and He extended the invitation to join Him. 

3. What is the most important attribute of a disciple? When Jesus said, “I will make you fishers of men,” He was making a commitment to the follower, “I will make you…” He would guide the follower who makes the commitment to learning, or to the reshaping of his life. There is an issue of submission and obedience, two concepts that are not easily swallowed in our post-modern western society. I think Jesus is looking for F-A-T followers (Faithful, Available and Teachable). 

4. Where is discipleship likely to take me? Jesus always focuses on the future, seeing the potential in people. Some people think that following Jesus is adhering to old-fashioned teachings in outdated, irrelevant, relic documents. I see a relationship with Christ as the way to become what the Creator intended in the first place. Jesus sent His followers out to accomplish various tasks, like spreading the message to the ends of the earth. Possessing a new mission or sense of purpose cannot be overlooked. 

5. Will I be alone if I follow? No way! Christianity is nothing if it is not a community, which has a way of life, ethics, morality, disciplines and goals. Individualism (figuring this out all on your own) is not encouraged, but interdependence is the key. The disciple must ask, “Am I willing to get along with people who are considerably different from me?” The New Testament uses images of a body, and family and building… all made of various parts to become a whole. 

6. What happens when I fall flat on my face? Will You reject me? The first followers fell quite a bit, so we have the assurance that Jesus will hold on to us as well. People can grow stronger through hard times, discouragement and even failure. The disciple experienced al of these these, but never rejection. 

7. Where will I find the power to be and do what You ask of me? The disciples felt secure and empowered as long as Jesus was with them. He gave the Great Commission and they knew Jesus was not going to be beside them any more. He was sending the Holy Spirit to empower, teach, guide, comfort and remind them of their mission. It was the Spirit that transformed these fearful men of the crucifixion into the courageous leaders of the early church. 

8. What are the risks of following You? I like the story in John 21 where Peter is concerned about the fate of another disciple. Jesus basically tells him, “What is that to you? You follow Me.” The way for Peter would be hard and end in a violent death. But we must ask ourselves, “Do I follow God because it is easy or for what I get out of it (everlasting life) or because it is the right thing to do and He deserves it?”

The Origin of Time and Could God Really Exist?

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I read a lecture by Stephen Hawking about Space and Time Warps. It’s not that I had extra time on my hands (no pun intended) but because of a comment on my post regarding Blind Faith or Logical Reasons to Believe God Exists. His comment was that the laws of physics break down prior to the Big Bang, so the state of things prior to the singularity is irrelevant because there is no standard for measuring them. It’s a great observation and shows he is a well-read person.

In another lecture on the origin of the universe, Hawking says,

“The General Theory of Relativity and the discovery of the expansion of the universe shattered the old picture of an ever existing and ever lasting universe. Instead, general relativity predicted that the universe, and time itself, would begin in the big bang.”

In the Space and Time lecture, Hawking addresses time travel, technology, wormholes, warped space, and even what I call “Back to the Future” issues. Hawking says:

We thus have experimental evidence from the bending of light, that space-time is curved, and confirmation from the Casimir effect, that we can warp it in the negative direction. So it might seem possible, that as we advance in science and technology, we might be able to construct a wormhole, or warp space and time in some other way, so as to be able to travel into our past. If this were the case, it would raise a whole host of questions and problems. One of these is, if sometime in the future, we learn to travel in time, why hasn’t someone come back from the future, to tell us how to do it.

As a fan of the Sci-Fi Channel, the lecture was definitely interesting for me, but the quote above caught my attention… Hawking, who is perhaps the greatest scientific mind in our generation, admits we have only “experimental evidence” in what he addresses.

Rather than comment on my previous post, I thought a new post regarding this new topic was in order.

If laws of physics break down prior to “creation” of the universe as we know it, does not the Bible also claim to reveal the same information? Genesis 1:2 says that prior to the creation singularity the earth was formless and void, which many biblical commentators would translate “chaos.” OK, let’s leave the Bible out of this since many people do not see it as an authoritative document.

I find myself looking more at the philosophical side of arguments to “prove” God’s existence. The argument from creation (the cosmological argument) states that since science and philosophy would indicate the universe had a beginning (therefore not eternal), and for the universe to have a beginning it would have to be caused by something outside of the known universe. Since infinite regress is not possible, the universe must have been caused by an uncaused, always existing, eternal Being (which many people call God).

As far as the Big Bang and life on this planet, the logical first question would be, “Where did the elements that caused the Big Bang come from?” Hawking’s lecture on Life in the Universe does not seem to address this concern, rather stating, “The early appearance of life on Earth suggests that there’s a good chance of the spontaneous generation of life, in suitable conditions. Maybe there was some simpler form of organisation, which built up DNA.” To me it takes more faith to believe that something spontaneously comes from nothing, unless God (the first uncaused cause) is part of the equation.

But as I read Hawking’s lecture, I was amazed at the wonder of the universe and how much we cannot even fathom. Then came my next logical question, “Since this universe is so vast and complex, and great thinkers like Hawking can communicate such complex ideas, does this not logically indicate that there must be a Designer of all of this?” For example, a walk along the beach might reveal interesting sand designs caused by the waves. On the other hand, if I notice “Billy loves Suzie” written in the sand, I must assume this information came from a literate person who is capable of loving someone else. There is complexity in the message that assumes there is an intelligent sender of the message.

So, when we see the complexity of this universe, or even of the human body (made up of nerve cells, brain cells, skin cells, bone cells, all different from each other, yet similar) we must assume there was an intelligent Designer (which we may call God). Evolution does not explain how life moves from a simple cell organism to what we see in the complexity of, let’s say, an eye. Can the eye and an optic nerve be the product of time + chance?

The second law of thermodynamics tells us that the amount of usable energy in a closed system (like the universe) is decreasing, which means that everything tends to move from order to disorder, complex to simple, life to death. This is why we have to paint the house every few years, things run down rather than get better over time.

To me, this teleological argument also points to a beginning for the universe. And since the universe has a wonderful and complex order, there must be a Designer that set it in motion at some point in the past. Laws of physics do not need to break down before the Big Bang if we recognize a Creator that not only created matter, but also time and space as well.

Blind Faith? It’s a leap of faith, and without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6), but when one chooses to believe in God after proper research, it is anything but blind.

Blind Faith or Logical Reasons to Believe God Exists?

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The drought in Atlanta brought out people of faith to the capital steps to pray for rain. Across the street, the Freethought Society protested. I remembered from school, America stood for freedom of religion, but today it is being reinterpreted to mean freedom from religion, like religious expression should never be in the public arena. It appears that you can have “free thought,” but if your free thought leads you to believe in God, you’re parallel to a mindless devotee bowing down before a wooden idol.

 

With the rise of atheism in the media, many conclude that Christians believe in God as a crutch or an escape from reality. For some needy reason they choose to believe in an imaginary concept of God based on blind faith. But there really are solid logical arguments that would indicate it takes more faith to be an atheist. Take this one for example:

The cosmological argument simply states that the universe is limited in that it had a beginning and that its beginning was caused by something beyond the universe:

  1. The universe had a beginning.
  2. Anything that has a beginning must have been caused by something else.
  3. Therefore, the universe was caused by something else, and this cause was God.

Scientific evidence strongly supports the idea that the universe had a beginning. The view usually held by those who claim that the universe is eternal, called the steady state theory, leads some to believe that the universe is constantly producing hydrogen atoms from nothing. It would be simpler to believe that God created the universe from nothing. Also, the consensus of scientists studying the origin of the universe is that it came into being in a sudden and cataclysmic way (the Big Bang). The main evidence for the universe having a beginning is the second law of thermodynamics, which says the universe is running out of usable energy. But if it is running down, then it could not be eternal. What is winding down must have been wound up.

 

But beyond the scientific evidence that shows the universe began, there is a philosophical reason to believe that the world had a starting point. This argument shows that time cannot go back into the past forever. It is impossible to pass through an infinite series of moments. It is like moving your finger across an endless number of books in a library. You would never get to the last book. Even if you thought you had found the last book, there could always be one more added, then another. You can never finish an infinite series of real things.

 

The same goes toward “the beginning of time.” Infinite regress is impossible because there is always one more book on the shelf. So, time must have begun at a particular point in the past, and today has come at a definite time since then. Therefore, the world is a finite event after all and it needs a cause for its beginning. **

 

Norman Geisler puts it this way:

  1. Finite, changing things exist. For example, me. I would have to exist to deny that I exist; so either way, I must really exist.
  2. Every finite, changing thing must be caused by something else. If it is limited and it changes, then it cannot be something that exists independently. If it existed independently, or necessarily, then it would have always existed without any kind of change.
  3. There cannot be an infinite regress of these causes. In other words, you can’t go on explaining how this finite thing causes this finite thing, which causes this other finite thing, and on and on, because that really just puts off the explanation indefinitely.
  4. Therefore, there must be a first uncaused cause of every finite, changing thing that exists. 

Since the universe very plainly had a beginning, it must have been caused or started by something uncaused, which is God. But why do people reject God so strongly? I believe that if we recognize the existence of God, it means that we are accountable to something higher than ourselves. This is not acceptable to anyone who bows to no One.

 

** From Norman Geisler’s When Skeptics Ask.

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A Golden Compass for Atheism

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If we are to believe the media, atheism appears to be taking the offensive. “We’re good people, we’re just not God people.” Sounds like positive PR. According to the Barna Group, over 81 percent of Americans claim to pray at least weekly, which means to me that for people to pray, they must pray to or believe in some sort of Deity; either Christian or otherwise.  

 

There is movie coming out December 7, The Golden Compass, which is directed toward children; but it’s sort of like anti-Narnia. It will get a lot of publicity because it stars Nicole Kidman. What concerns me is this movie is based on the first of a trilogy of books for children called His Dark Materials written by award winning author, Philip Pullman of England. He’s an outspoken atheist and apparently his objective is to bash Christianity and promote atheism. Pullman said, “I don’t profess any religion; I don’t think it’s possible that there is a God.”

 

Critics of Pullman’s books point to strong anti-religion and anti-God themes, and although literary works are subject to a variety of interpretations, Pullman left little doubt about his intentions when he said in a 2003 interview with The Sydney Morning Herald that “my books are about killing God.” Here is a summary of the novel, the controversy, and an interesting book called Shedding Light on His Dark Materials. For parents wanting to make a more informed decision about seeing the film, visit Plugged in Online.

 

I’ve read that this movie is a watered down version of the first book, which is the least offensive of the three books. The second book of the trilogy is The Subtle Knife and the third book is The Amber Spyglass. Each book gets worse and worse regarding Pullman’s hatred of God. In the trilogy, a young streetwise girl travels through multiple worlds populated by witches, armor-plated bears, and sinister ecclesiastical assassins to defeat the oppressive forces of a senile God. Another character, an ex-nun, describes Christianity as “a very powerful and convincing mistake.”  

 

Bottom line: let’s not see this movie. Rather, if you’re into spiritual fantasy, let’s wait for the release of Prince Caspian in May 2008.

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And The Survey Says…

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Results of a LifeWay survey of 2000 adults — “Top 10 Issues Facing Today’s Family”

Click on the first phrase to read the desired article.

 

10. Materialism:  “Placing high regard to ownership and consumption as a priority.”
9. Balance of Work and Family: “Pressure to invest energy in work at the expense of family.”
8. Negative Media Influence: “Influx of destructive images and messages into the home.”
7. Lack of Communication: “increasing abbreviation of meaningful family interaction.”
6. Financial Pressures: “Chronic misuse of debt and/or mismanagement of resources.”
5. Lack of Discipline: “The death of respectful behavior as a norm.”
4. Lack of a Father Figure: “The absence of a father in the home or lack of participation.”
3. Busyness: “The participation in numerous activities crowding out quality family fellowship.”
2. Divorce: “The wave of broken marriages and families both within the church and without.”
1. Anti-Christian Culture: “The stripping away of Christian heritage and traditional values.”

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Disappointment With God

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Philip Yancey has written a thought-provoking book (about 20 years ago) called Disappointment With God that asked the questions: Is God unfair? Is God silent? Is God hidden?  

 

I suppose that disappointment in anything comes to us when there is a gap between our expectations and reality. If we have the expectation that God should act in a certain fashion (like we read about in the Bible), we can become disappointed with Him when He does not. I suppose atheists don’t feel disappointed in God since they expect nothing and receive nothing. But as believers, perhaps we begin to think that God is toying with us. Why doesn’t He quit fooling around and show himself? Many might say, “If He would just speak aloud one time so that everyone could hear, then I would believe.” Probably the whole world would. So why doesn’t He? 

 

Yancey makes a great observation… the book of Exodus describes this kind of world. It showed God stepping into human history almost daily. 

 

Is God unfair? Why doesn’t he punish evil and reward good people? Why do bad things happen to people good and bad, with no discernable pattern? Imagine a world designed so that we experience a mild jolt of pain with every sin, and a tickle of pleasure with every act of virtue. This would be an elaborate system (or covenant) of rewards and punishments. Since the old covenant served as an object lesson, demonstrating that human beings were incapable of fulfilling a contract (covenant) with God, He needed to bring a new one. 

 

Is God silent? If He is so concerned about our doing His will, why doesn’t He just reveal it more plainly? A lot of people claim to hear a word from God but how do we know they have really heard from God? God simplified matters of guidance in the exodus: should we pack up and leave or remain here for a while? Simply look at the cloud over the tent. He set up other ways, like casting lots and some 613 laws that covered most anything else. Did a clear word from God increase the likelihood of obedience?  

 

Now for the philosophical question: why pursue God if he has already made himself known so clearly? Why step out in faith when God has already guaranteed the results? Why wrestle with the problem of choices when God already resolved the dilemma? In short, why should the Israelites act like adults when they could act like children? This method might help get a just-freed mob of slaves across the desert, but it doesn’t encourage spiritual development in human beings.  

 

Every choice would be a matter of obedience and not faith. Moses met with God, which was no secret, and God’s directness seemed to produce the opposite desired effect. The Israelites did not respond with worship and love, but fear and open rebellion. God’s visible presence did nothing to improve lasting faith. A burst of miracles would not nourish faith today, at least not the kind of faith God is interested in. The Israelites gave proof that signs from God only attract people to signs, not to God.

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The Purpose of Prayer

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When I taught at Hargrave Military Academy, one of my students in the Bible class brought to my attention a site he found that mocked prayer and the existence of God by appealing to the readers as educated and intelligent people who, if they were honest, must come to the same conclusion as him, that God is imaginary and prayer is an illusion. The site’s point was that prayer does not work, after all, just notice all the starving children around the world or the lack of world peace, or some other prayer request we feel has gone unanswered.  

 

We cannot discount the man’s questions, but he comes to the wrong conclusion based on his preconceived belief that God is imaginary. His anti-God bias affects his conclusion. God’s apparent silence is not as it seems. We cannot forget that we live in a fallen world. 

 

The best of all possible worlds is a place where there is no sin yet we still have free will (to do good and to love God because we choose to). To me, this sounds like the Garden of Eden before the Fall and eventually heaven. This is opposed to exercising our free will by sinning or perhaps loving God with no free will; like a robot programmed to recite a recording of its “love” for God. But in order to get to this “best of all possible worlds” we have to allow those who choose to sin or use their freedom to not love God, the option of not going to heaven. They are weeded out, so to speak. This present world, I believe, is the best way to the best of all possible worlds! 

 

Before I go on a tangent about all the solid and rational evidence that God exists, let me conclude with these two quotes from Oswald Chambers regarding the point of prayer and the purpose of prayer: 

The point of prayer is not to get answers from God, but to have perfect and complete oneness with Him. If we pray only because we want answers, we will become irritated and angry with God. We receive an answer every time we pray, but it does not always come in the way we expect, and our spiritual irritation shows our refusal to identify ourselves truly with our Lord in prayer. We are not here to prove that God answers prayer, but to be living trophies of God’s grace. 

 

Prayer is not a normal part of the life of the natural man. We hear it said that a person’s life will suffer if he doesn’t pray, but I question that. What will suffer is the life of the Son of God in him, which is nourished not by food, but by prayer. When a person is born again from above, the life of the Son of God is born in him, and he can either starve or nourish that life. Prayer is the way that the life of God in us is nourished. Our common ideas regarding prayer are not found in the New Testament. We look upon prayer simply as a means of getting things for ourselves, but the biblical purpose of prayer is that we may get to know God Himself. 

If our understanding of prayer is faulty, no wonder this guy comes to the conclusion that God is imaginary and prayer is an illusion… he does not know what prayer is. He is like a child praying to God for candy, and when it does not miraculously show up, the child concludes that God must not exist.

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Why Bother With Discipleship?

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I recently read a great article by Dallas Willard regarding the issue of discipleship. He challenges the modern idea that we can be “vampire Christians” like saying to Jesus… I’d like a little of Your blood, please, for salvation, but I do not care to be your student or to develop Your character. In fact, just let me live my life and I’ll see you in heaven. Willard quotes A. W. Tozer, that salvation apart from obedience is unknown in the sacred Scriptures.

He stresses the importance of becoming an apprentice of Jesus, mainly to avoid the practice of sin, and that it is by spiritual transformation that the “cup becomes clean on the inside” and the “tree will bear good fruit.” This is far from assenting to a list of propositions regarding the Christian faith. Walking with Jesus in discipleship is the only way to exercise a power that is beyond us in dealing with problems and evils that afflict our earthly existence.

He ends the article with this quote:

But, someone will say, can I not be saved–get into heaven when I die–without any of this? Perhaps you can. God’s goodness is so great, I am sure, that He will let you in if He can find any basis at all to do so. But you might wish to think about what your life amounts to before you die, about what kind of person you are becoming, and whether you really would be comfortable for eternity in the presence of one whose company you have not found especially desirable for the few hours and days of earthly existence. And he is, after all, One who says to you now, “Follow me!”

Missions and Worship

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I was reminded of a fascinating book by John Piper called, Let the Nations Be Glad: The Supremacy of God in Missions. He begins this intriguing book discussing the relationship between missions and worship, two topics very dear to my heart.  

 

Piper says, “Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever. Worship, therefore, is the fuel and goal in missions.” 

He goes on to say that it’s the goal of missions because in missions we simply aim to bring the nations into the enjoyment of God’s glory. The goal of missions is the gladness of the peoples in the greatness of God. (Psalm 67:3-4). 

“But worship is also the fuel of missions. Passion for God in worship precedes the offer of God in preaching. You can’t commend what you don’t cherish. (Psalm 104:34; 9:2). Missions begins and ends in worship.”  

Piper concludes his chapter one introduction with, “Where passion for God is weak, zeal for missions will be weak. Churches that are not centered on the exaltation of the majesty and beauty of God will scarcely kindle a fervent desire to ‘declare his glory among the nations’ (Psalm 96:3). Even outsiders feel the disparity between the boldness of our claim upon the nations and the blandness of our engagement with God.”  

 

I understand his point, but I suppose it is also possible to have little zeal for God in worship and still be a congregation focused on missions, perhaps as a substitute for a dynamic relationship with Jesus. This type of missions may be more helping the less-fortunate than it is bringing the nations and our neighbors to Christ. 

 

In corporate worship, how do we encounter God (how do we even encounter God on a personal level)? Can it be that the modern church in America has settled for a worship service over an authentic worship experience, whereby the congregation is connected with God at the deepest level? When was the last time that you saw God’s people gathered for worship where they were passionate about experiencing God (as opposed to being excited about fellowship with others, love for the music, praise for the preacher, etc.)? If God is truly the audience of our worship, what sort of performance did we put on last Sunday? Was He pleased?

Your Personal Mission Statement

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National best-selling author, Laurie Beth Jones, in her book, The Path: creating your mission statement for work and for life, wrote about an incident in WWII where an unidentified soldier suddenly appeared in the dark and could not state his mission… he was automatically shot without question. She wonders what would happen if we reinforce that policy today. 

 

I suppose being confronted with life and death would force us to reexamine who we are and what we are really about. People leading unfulfilled lives would burst forth with possibility and power. Our mission statement is in essence our written-down reason for existing. This is the key to finding your path in life and identifying the mission you choose to follow.  

 

Jesus had a mission statement. “I have come that they might have life, and have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10) or perhaps, “I have come to seek and to save those who are lost.” (Luke 19:10). So, every activity he understood was a result of that mission statement.  

 

Laurie Beth goes on to give three guidelines in developing a personal mission statement:

  1. It should be no more than a single sentence in length
  2. It must be easily understood by a twelve year old
  3. You should be able to recite it by memory at gunpoint

 

Abraham Lincoln’s mission was to preserve the Union; FDR’s mission was to end the Depression; Nelson Mandela’s mission was to end apartheid; Mother Teresa’s mission was to show mercy and compassion to the dying; Joan of Arc’s mission was to save France; Nehemiah’s mission was to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. Forgetting one’s mission leads to getting tangled up in details that will take you completely off your path. 

 

My mission statement? To know Christ and make Him known. It’s not an astounding treatise or even original. But I get my mission statement from Mark 3:14, where Jesus called His disciples to first be with Him, and then He sent them out to preach the gospel.  My challenge to you is to seriously consider why you exist on this planet, or where you live at this time in history. How will you impact eternity for those around you? Focus on your mission so you do not get distracted.