Lanya prelude
O Come All Ye Faithful
1.) The Story Told from Scripture
Micah
Isaiah
Luke 1
Luke 2
John 1
2.) The Story Explained in Preaching
A. Wonderful COunselor
B. Mighty God
3.) The STory Celebrated in Song
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
Joy To the World
doles song
candlelighting
Silent Night
Friday, December 23, 2005
Saturday, December 17, 2005
nyt article on business start up
November 14, 2005
Religion
Their Mission: Spreading the Word Through Business
By ANDY NEWMAN
TOM SUDYK is not most people's idea of a missionary.
On paper, he looks like a modern global capitalist, which he is. Mr. Sudyk, an entrepreneur from Michigan, runs, among other things, an outsourcing company in Chennai, India, providing medical transcribers and software engineers to American businesses. In six years, the Indian company - a subsidiary of EC Group International, a larger outsourcing company that Mr. Sudyk founded in Grand Rapids - has grown to 75 employees and is moving into a building triple its present size.
But the Gospel, Mr. Sudyk says, illuminates every aspect of his business, from its ethics to its help to local ministries to the technical support it lends a Christian-run vocational school for polio victims in Chennai. Each afternoon at the Chennai office, there is a 10-minute prayer, and while the prayer is interdenominational, employees who ask to learn more about Jesus Christ - as many have - are gladly accommodated.
"We don't push our religion down their throat," Mr. Sudyk said. "Our philosophy is that you're not going to talk anybody into it. But they clearly know it's a Christian-run company."
Christian-run companies are multiplying in just about every corner of the globe, reshaping overseas mission work. These businesses form a movement known variously as business as mission, kingdom business and great commission companies, after the biblical charge to "make disciples of all the nations."
In Romania, for example, a Californian who runs a Tex-Mex restaurant and catering hall said that he expected to clear $250,000 in profit this year, most of which will be donated to local ministries. And in a Muslim country with a history of hostility to Christianity, a medical-supply importer from the Midwest leverages the trust she earns through her business dealings to quietly spread the word.
Some supporters of business as mission set up microlending banks or fair-trade coffee companies. In countries where there is more hunger for economic development than for missionaries, some of these supporters think that a profit-oriented company centered around Christian values can be a powerful tool for building a Christian society. A job-creating, taxpaying enterprise, they say, will be more legitimate in the eyes of locals, harder for a government to expel and better for the resident economy than one propped up by handouts from back home.
"The real power of the movement is that it's not donor-funded, it's basically globally funded," Mr. Sudyk said. "There's no restraint in the capacity of this system, because you avert the donor and plug into globalization."
Business as mission grew from a 1980's mission movement to reach people in the "resistant belt" across North Africa, the Middle East and Asia where Muslim, Buddhist or antitheistic governments made it hard or impossible for religious workers to get visas. Missionaries with no business experience opened travel agencies, Internet cafes and other small companies, sometimes accused of being little more than fronts for proselytizing.
"That model was about getting missionaries into these countries by whatever means you could, whether it's teaching or business or whatever," said Steven L. Rundle, an associate professor of economics at Biola University in La Mirada, Calif., and an author of a 2003 book, "Great Commission Companies: The Emerging Role of Business in Missions."
Now, Professor Rundle said, evangelical groups are recognizing that mission-minded businesspeople can do things that traditional missionaries cannot. "The future generation of missionary will be the rank-and-file businessman," he said. The wheel, he added, has come full circle: many of the first emissaries of the Gospel were tradesmen, not priests.
One businessman from California, Jeri Little, visited Romania in 1988 on a church trip and was moved by the desperate conditions there. After the fall of the dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in 1989, Mr. Little went to Romania with $100,000 in medicine and supplies.
But Mr. Little, a financial planner who now lives in Romania, wanted to do something beyond a quick fix. "I realized that we needed to not just send them money and create another banana republic dependent on our aid," he said. "We needed people to create business." The question was what kind.
Mr. Little decided to open what he said was the first secondhand clothing store in Iasi (pronounced yahsh), Romania's second-largest city. "Good used clothing from America at good prices," he recalled. "And we introduced a number of new measures, like smiling." Soon there were three stores, and Mr. Little and his wife plowed the profits into local mission projects.
Then, Mr. Little said, God gave him a new assignment: open a restaurant. Why not, Mr. Little, thought, although he knew nothing about it. "The most popular TV show after the revolution was 'Dallas,' " Mr. Little said. "So we said, 'Let's do a Texas theme, make it a Tex-Mex restaurant.' "
The Littles gave the clothing stores to local ministries, and in 1997 opened Little Texas, by all reliable accounts the most popular and authentic, not to mention only, Tex-Mex restaurant in northeastern Romania. As diners in the John Wayne dining room eat their enchiladas and homemade tortillas, they can study a passage on the wall from the 20th Psalm: "Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God."
The couple built a hotel above the restaurant, for Romanian business travelers, with 32 rooms.
Some of the restaurant's profit this year will be put back into expanding the business, but the rest will go to local aid and ministry projects, Mr. Little said. These have included opening a kindergarten and day-care center in one of Iasi's poorest neighborhoods. Soon, Mr. Little and his associates plan to open the first dental clinic in a town in Moldova, several hours from Iasi.
Mr. Little also helped some Romanian friends start a housing company that gives 25 percent of its profit to evangelical ministries. "If I'm going to be involved," he said, "there's going to have to be a significant win for the ministry right off the top."
It is one thing to establish an evangelical presence in a Christian country, another to do it where opening a new Christian church is illegal and evangelizing is frowned upon.
Mary, a 52-year-old from the Midwest who imports medical products into a country she identified only as "98.9 percent Muslim" because she feared hurting her credibility, said that in her four years there she learned to let people come to her.
"I get a call from a doctor working for one of the major drug companies here, a local guy," Mary said a few weeks ago. "He said, 'I haven't seen you in a while, let's get something to drink after work.' " Neither business nor romance was on his mind.
"The real issue is he's empty inside," she said. "And because I've earned the right to speak deeply into his life, I could say, 'God really loves you.' This door that was opened was not opened for any other reason than that I worked with him for a long time on a legitimate project that we both spent hours sweating over.
"There has been this idea that it's not as spiritual to be a businessperson," Mary added. "The truth is totally the opposite because this is genuinely how most people have to live their lives. People who work with me, when they see me lose my temper, or when I have to make a hard business decision, that's authentic Christianity."
Religion
Their Mission: Spreading the Word Through Business
By ANDY NEWMAN
TOM SUDYK is not most people's idea of a missionary.
On paper, he looks like a modern global capitalist, which he is. Mr. Sudyk, an entrepreneur from Michigan, runs, among other things, an outsourcing company in Chennai, India, providing medical transcribers and software engineers to American businesses. In six years, the Indian company - a subsidiary of EC Group International, a larger outsourcing company that Mr. Sudyk founded in Grand Rapids - has grown to 75 employees and is moving into a building triple its present size.
But the Gospel, Mr. Sudyk says, illuminates every aspect of his business, from its ethics to its help to local ministries to the technical support it lends a Christian-run vocational school for polio victims in Chennai. Each afternoon at the Chennai office, there is a 10-minute prayer, and while the prayer is interdenominational, employees who ask to learn more about Jesus Christ - as many have - are gladly accommodated.
"We don't push our religion down their throat," Mr. Sudyk said. "Our philosophy is that you're not going to talk anybody into it. But they clearly know it's a Christian-run company."
Christian-run companies are multiplying in just about every corner of the globe, reshaping overseas mission work. These businesses form a movement known variously as business as mission, kingdom business and great commission companies, after the biblical charge to "make disciples of all the nations."
In Romania, for example, a Californian who runs a Tex-Mex restaurant and catering hall said that he expected to clear $250,000 in profit this year, most of which will be donated to local ministries. And in a Muslim country with a history of hostility to Christianity, a medical-supply importer from the Midwest leverages the trust she earns through her business dealings to quietly spread the word.
Some supporters of business as mission set up microlending banks or fair-trade coffee companies. In countries where there is more hunger for economic development than for missionaries, some of these supporters think that a profit-oriented company centered around Christian values can be a powerful tool for building a Christian society. A job-creating, taxpaying enterprise, they say, will be more legitimate in the eyes of locals, harder for a government to expel and better for the resident economy than one propped up by handouts from back home.
"The real power of the movement is that it's not donor-funded, it's basically globally funded," Mr. Sudyk said. "There's no restraint in the capacity of this system, because you avert the donor and plug into globalization."
Business as mission grew from a 1980's mission movement to reach people in the "resistant belt" across North Africa, the Middle East and Asia where Muslim, Buddhist or antitheistic governments made it hard or impossible for religious workers to get visas. Missionaries with no business experience opened travel agencies, Internet cafes and other small companies, sometimes accused of being little more than fronts for proselytizing.
"That model was about getting missionaries into these countries by whatever means you could, whether it's teaching or business or whatever," said Steven L. Rundle, an associate professor of economics at Biola University in La Mirada, Calif., and an author of a 2003 book, "Great Commission Companies: The Emerging Role of Business in Missions."
Now, Professor Rundle said, evangelical groups are recognizing that mission-minded businesspeople can do things that traditional missionaries cannot. "The future generation of missionary will be the rank-and-file businessman," he said. The wheel, he added, has come full circle: many of the first emissaries of the Gospel were tradesmen, not priests.
One businessman from California, Jeri Little, visited Romania in 1988 on a church trip and was moved by the desperate conditions there. After the fall of the dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in 1989, Mr. Little went to Romania with $100,000 in medicine and supplies.
But Mr. Little, a financial planner who now lives in Romania, wanted to do something beyond a quick fix. "I realized that we needed to not just send them money and create another banana republic dependent on our aid," he said. "We needed people to create business." The question was what kind.
Mr. Little decided to open what he said was the first secondhand clothing store in Iasi (pronounced yahsh), Romania's second-largest city. "Good used clothing from America at good prices," he recalled. "And we introduced a number of new measures, like smiling." Soon there were three stores, and Mr. Little and his wife plowed the profits into local mission projects.
Then, Mr. Little said, God gave him a new assignment: open a restaurant. Why not, Mr. Little, thought, although he knew nothing about it. "The most popular TV show after the revolution was 'Dallas,' " Mr. Little said. "So we said, 'Let's do a Texas theme, make it a Tex-Mex restaurant.' "
The Littles gave the clothing stores to local ministries, and in 1997 opened Little Texas, by all reliable accounts the most popular and authentic, not to mention only, Tex-Mex restaurant in northeastern Romania. As diners in the John Wayne dining room eat their enchiladas and homemade tortillas, they can study a passage on the wall from the 20th Psalm: "Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God."
The couple built a hotel above the restaurant, for Romanian business travelers, with 32 rooms.
Some of the restaurant's profit this year will be put back into expanding the business, but the rest will go to local aid and ministry projects, Mr. Little said. These have included opening a kindergarten and day-care center in one of Iasi's poorest neighborhoods. Soon, Mr. Little and his associates plan to open the first dental clinic in a town in Moldova, several hours from Iasi.
Mr. Little also helped some Romanian friends start a housing company that gives 25 percent of its profit to evangelical ministries. "If I'm going to be involved," he said, "there's going to have to be a significant win for the ministry right off the top."
It is one thing to establish an evangelical presence in a Christian country, another to do it where opening a new Christian church is illegal and evangelizing is frowned upon.
Mary, a 52-year-old from the Midwest who imports medical products into a country she identified only as "98.9 percent Muslim" because she feared hurting her credibility, said that in her four years there she learned to let people come to her.
"I get a call from a doctor working for one of the major drug companies here, a local guy," Mary said a few weeks ago. "He said, 'I haven't seen you in a while, let's get something to drink after work.' " Neither business nor romance was on his mind.
"The real issue is he's empty inside," she said. "And because I've earned the right to speak deeply into his life, I could say, 'God really loves you.' This door that was opened was not opened for any other reason than that I worked with him for a long time on a legitimate project that we both spent hours sweating over.
"There has been this idea that it's not as spiritual to be a businessperson," Mary added. "The truth is totally the opposite because this is genuinely how most people have to live their lives. People who work with me, when they see me lose my temper, or when I have to make a hard business decision, that's authentic Christianity."
Thursday, December 15, 2005
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
john piper didn't think this stuff up
Happiness hunters!
(Cornelius Tyree of the 19th century)
A higher degree of personal piety, will promote
a higher degree of personal happiness.
"Sin and sorrow are bound together by
adamantine chains." Hence man increases
in misery--as he increases in sin. It is upon this
principle that the devil is the most miserable
being in the universe--because he is the most
depraved.
So, on the other hand, there is an inseparable
connection between holiness and happiness. God
is the most happy being in the universe--because
He is the most holy. And the happiness of His
people is just in proportion as they resemble
Him in righteousness and true holiness.
Heaven is a world of supreme happiness,
because it is a world of supreme holiness.
Hell is a world of supreme misery,
because sin is there fully developed.
God has so ordered it, that our comfort and happiness
in this world can only be found in a pious life. For the
last six thousand years mankind have been happiness
hunters. In all ages and lands the eager query has been,
"Who will show us any good?" But every device has been
a failure! The recorded and unrecorded experience of all
has been, "All is vanity and vexation of spirit!" We can
no more expect to find happiness in the pursuits and
objects of this world--than we may expect to find
luscious grapes growing at the icy North Pole.
But in the likeness and service of Christ, is found
a happiness which is pure, elevating, perennial,
inexhaustible--a happiness that will go with us
in all conditions, all lands, and all worlds!
The great cause of all the sadness and depression
in the followers of Christ, is the small degree of their
piety. The only reason why they are disconsolate,
is because they "follow the Lord afar off." One single
uncrucified, unbemoaned sin--will not only destroy
all pious enjoyment--but open the soul to the devil,
with his whole black train of guilt and misery. It
matters not what this sin is. Any one sin habitually
indulged in, whether it is pride, malice, backbiting,
covetousness, filling the mind with unholy images,
or murmuring under adverse providences--will
exclude from the soul all pious enjoyment.
After all, the great secret of being happy, is
to be holy. He who grows in practical piety has
opened a thousand sources of true bliss.
The "golden fruit of happiness" grows only on the
"tree of holiness". If happiness is sought in any
other way than by being holy--it is sought in vain.
(Cornelius Tyree of the 19th century)
A higher degree of personal piety, will promote
a higher degree of personal happiness.
"Sin and sorrow are bound together by
adamantine chains." Hence man increases
in misery--as he increases in sin. It is upon this
principle that the devil is the most miserable
being in the universe--because he is the most
depraved.
So, on the other hand, there is an inseparable
connection between holiness and happiness. God
is the most happy being in the universe--because
He is the most holy. And the happiness of His
people is just in proportion as they resemble
Him in righteousness and true holiness.
Heaven is a world of supreme happiness,
because it is a world of supreme holiness.
Hell is a world of supreme misery,
because sin is there fully developed.
God has so ordered it, that our comfort and happiness
in this world can only be found in a pious life. For the
last six thousand years mankind have been happiness
hunters. In all ages and lands the eager query has been,
"Who will show us any good?" But every device has been
a failure! The recorded and unrecorded experience of all
has been, "All is vanity and vexation of spirit!" We can
no more expect to find happiness in the pursuits and
objects of this world--than we may expect to find
luscious grapes growing at the icy North Pole.
But in the likeness and service of Christ, is found
a happiness which is pure, elevating, perennial,
inexhaustible--a happiness that will go with us
in all conditions, all lands, and all worlds!
The great cause of all the sadness and depression
in the followers of Christ, is the small degree of their
piety. The only reason why they are disconsolate,
is because they "follow the Lord afar off." One single
uncrucified, unbemoaned sin--will not only destroy
all pious enjoyment--but open the soul to the devil,
with his whole black train of guilt and misery. It
matters not what this sin is. Any one sin habitually
indulged in, whether it is pride, malice, backbiting,
covetousness, filling the mind with unholy images,
or murmuring under adverse providences--will
exclude from the soul all pious enjoyment.
After all, the great secret of being happy, is
to be holy. He who grows in practical piety has
opened a thousand sources of true bliss.
The "golden fruit of happiness" grows only on the
"tree of holiness". If happiness is sought in any
other way than by being holy--it is sought in vain.
Monday, December 05, 2005
Incarnation thoughts by Octavius Winslow
How could a holy God advance towards me, or I draw near to Him? But He takes my nature that He may descend to me, and He gives me His nature that I may ascend to Him. He stoops, because I could not rise! Oh mystery of grace, wisdom, and love! Shall I doubt it? I go to the manger of Bethlehem, and gaze upon the infant Savior. My faith is staggered, and I exclaim, "Is this the Son of God?" Retiring, I track that infant's steps along its future path. I mark the wisdom that He displayed, and I behold the wonders that He wrought. I mark the revelations that He disclosed, the doctrines that He propounded, the precepts that He taught, the magnanimity that He displayed. I follow Him to Gethsemane, to the judgment-hall, and then to Calvary, and I witness the closing scene of wonder. I return to Bethlehem, and with the evidences which my hesitating faith has thus collected, I exclaim, with the awe-struck and believing centurion, "Truly this is the Son of God!" All the mystery of His lowly incarnation vanishes, and my adoring soul embraces the incarnate God within its arms. We marvel not that, hovering over the spot where this great mystery of godliness transpired, the celestial choir, in the stillness of the night, awoke such strains of music along the plains of Bethlehem as were never heard before. They left the realms of glory to escort the Lord of glory in His advent to our earth. How gladly they trooped around Him, thronging His wondrous way, their benevolent bosoms dilating in sympathy with the grand object of His mission. And this was the angel's message to the astonished shepherds: "Fear not: for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on Earth peace, good will toward men." Shall angels rejoice in the incarnation of the Son of God, and our hearts be cold and unmoved? Forbid it love, forbid it gratitude, forbid it, O my soul!
New Page 1
New Page 1
Sunday, December 04, 2005
kathy keller on CS Lewis
I “learned to know Aslan in my own country” because of Lewis, though I have to admit it was a stretch, at first, to connect the boring Jesus of my Sunday school lessons with the vibrant Aslan.
Name Pending: Reviewing the Reviewers
Name Pending: Reviewing the Reviewers
Friday, December 02, 2005
How CS Lewis’ “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” has helped me know, enjoy, and follow Jesus
notes
#1. Who is the only Hero of our story?
A. Not a tame lion
-Dangerous & Good
B. The Suffering Substitute
C. The Risen Conqueror
D. The Renewer of All Things
#2. What our story is…
War between good and evil
??This Bible forms a subtext for this thread in the story, too, because the story of cosmic conflict organizes the Bible from start to finish. C. S. Lewis himself provides one of the best ways of formulating this aspect of the Christian world view. In a printed debate on the subject of recreation, Lewis claimed that in a Christian view of the world, "there is no neutral ground in the universe: every square inch, every split second, is claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan" (Christian Reflections). For The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, we can substitute the names Aslan and the White Witch.
#3. Where our story is going…
Thirdly, the book provides glimpses of the eschaton—the final end with its accompanying destruction of evil and the triumph of the good. The world of Narnia itself poses something of a mystery or ambiguity here. In many ways, Narnia is an analogue to life on earth. We look at metaphors of the human condition as we travel with the children through Narnia. But at many points in the story, and especially in the last two chapters, we intuitively assimilate the action in the spirit with which we read the biblical book of Revelation, with its pictures of the final end. The turning of the statues back into people, a gigantic and decisive last battle, coronations at a great hall, living "in great joy" and remembering "life in this world . . . only as one remembers a dream"—all of these have an eschatological feel to them.
#1. Who is the only Hero of our story?
A. Not a tame lion
-Dangerous & Good
B. The Suffering Substitute
C. The Risen Conqueror
D. The Renewer of All Things
#2. What our story is…
War between good and evil
??This Bible forms a subtext for this thread in the story, too, because the story of cosmic conflict organizes the Bible from start to finish. C. S. Lewis himself provides one of the best ways of formulating this aspect of the Christian world view. In a printed debate on the subject of recreation, Lewis claimed that in a Christian view of the world, "there is no neutral ground in the universe: every square inch, every split second, is claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan" (Christian Reflections). For The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, we can substitute the names Aslan and the White Witch.
#3. Where our story is going…
Thirdly, the book provides glimpses of the eschaton—the final end with its accompanying destruction of evil and the triumph of the good. The world of Narnia itself poses something of a mystery or ambiguity here. In many ways, Narnia is an analogue to life on earth. We look at metaphors of the human condition as we travel with the children through Narnia. But at many points in the story, and especially in the last two chapters, we intuitively assimilate the action in the spirit with which we read the biblical book of Revelation, with its pictures of the final end. The turning of the statues back into people, a gigantic and decisive last battle, coronations at a great hall, living "in great joy" and remembering "life in this world . . . only as one remembers a dream"—all of these have an eschatological feel to them.
Thursday, December 01, 2005
forgiveness project by Keller
FORGIVENESS PROJECT
Read and mark “!” - for something that helped you
“?” -for something that raised a question
Introduction: In Galatians 4:12-20, Paul’s forgiveness of the Galatians for their betrayal of him is so automatic that we can hardly notice it. It is only because his appeal to them (as strong as it is) is so affectionate and free from resentment that we realize the strength of Paul’s forgiving spirit. Later he cautions the Galatians against a growing spirit of resentment and back-biting (Gal.5:15). The more they lose touch with the gospel, the more resentments and grudges are growing.
Below is a guide to how the gospel helps us reconcile our relationships with a balance of truth and love. (At times you can see that this project has been used in seminars for married couples! But the principles are basic to all relationships.)
A. The Resources for Forgiveness.
1. We need enough humility.
Jesus ties our ability to forgive to our ability to repent. ("Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors" Matt.6:12.) This doesn't mean that God forgives our sins because we forgive others. It means that in general we are as forgiven by God as we are forgiving to others because unforgiving people are unrepentant people. The more we hold grudges the less we see ourselves as having done wrong and needing forgiveness; the more we see ourselves as needing forgiveness, the more likely we are to forgive others. Why? Resentment requires a person to sit in the position of Judge (Rom.12:19-20). We can only hold grudges if we feel superior to the other person. Jesus very directly and bluntly tells us that, if we hold a grudge against another person, we are ignorant of how much we owe God. So the first thing we have to see is our own need for forgiveness. We need enough humility to forgive.
Transition: But this is not enough! Because though pride is one reason that we cannot forgive, emotional insecurity is another. So in addition:
2. We need enough “emotional wealth”.
Why is it that we can forgive some wrongs easily but not others? It is because everyone draws a sense of self-worth (a sense that we are worthy of love and respect) from certain objects. No one can “validate” themselves. We all look to certain ones or things to convince us that we are significant. The more certain we are of this, the more “emotionally wealthy” we are--confident, poised, at peace. What are the things that we look to? Steven Covey calls them “personal centers” and Victor Frankl calls them your “meaning centers”. They may be career, possessions, appearance, romance, peer groups, achievement, good causes, moral character, religion, marriage, children, friendships--or a combination of a several. However, this means that these things are things that we absolutely must have, or we face emotional “bankruptcy” and death. And all our most powerful feelings are connected to them. We respond in deep guilt if we fail to attain them, or in deep anger if someone blocks them from us, or in deep anxiety if they are threatened, or in major drivenness since we must have them, or in despair if we ever lose them completely.
For example: A husband and a wife discovered that a school teacher had been emotionally abusive to their daughter and had fairly ruined her academic year and sent her into counseling. They are both angry at the teacher, but the husband has less trouble “getting past” the anger than the wife. Why? Is the husband a less angry person. No, in general he tends to be more angry temperamentally. Does he love his daughter less? No. The issue is that the wife has tied her own self-image and sense of self-worth to her daughter’s progress and happiness (while the husband does this with his career). As a result, her anger is far deeper, since she is going “bankrupt”. She feels “if my daughter doesn’t turn out well, what good am I?” So her anger toward the teacher is powerful. Sum: Ironically, it is both a sense of superiority or a sense of inferiority that makes it hard for forgive. Paradoxically, the two can often go together. We often deal with our own inferiority and insecurity by taking a superior, judgmental position toward someone else.
B. The Character of Forgiveness.
A definition. What is forgiveness, specifically? When someone has wronged you, it means they owe you, they have a debt with you. Forgiveness is to absorb the cost of the debt yourself. You pay the price yourself, and you refuse to exact the price out of the person in any way. Forgiveness is to a) free the person from penalty for a sin by b) paying the price yourself.
The ultimate example. We are told that our forgiveness must imitate God's forgiveness in Christ. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you (Eph.4:32). a) How did God forgive? We are told that he does not 'remember' them. That cannot mean that God literally forgets what has happened--it means he "sends away" the penalty for them. He does not bring the incidents to mind, and does not let them affect the way he deals with us. b) How did God forgive "in Christ"? We are told that Jesus pays the price for the sins. "It is finished" means "It has been paid in full" (John 19:30). The Father gave up his Son, and the Son gave up his life. God absorbed the cost in himself.
C. Practical Steps for Forgiveness.
1.Distinguish between granting and feeling.
Realize that forgiveness is granted (often for a long time) before it is felt. Forgiveness is granted first, and felt later (Luke 17:3-10). Forgiveness is not primarily a feeling, but a set of actions and disciplines. In summary, forgiveness is a promise not to exact the price of the sin from the person who wronged you. This promise means a repeated set of "payment" in which you relinquish revenge. It is hard and (for a while) constant. If this promise is kept actively, eventually the feeling of anger subsides. It is critical to realize at the outset, then, that forgiveness is not the forcing or denying of feelings, but a promise to make and to keep despite our feelings.
2. Determine to never exact the price, but to pay the price ourselves.
"[Forgiveness] is to deal with our emotions by sending them away--by denying ourselves the dark pleasures of venting them or fondling them in our minds....
"Once upon a time, I was engaged to a young woman who changed her mind. I forgave her...but [only] in small sums over a year...[They were made] whenever I spoke to her and refrained from rehashing the past, whenever I renounced jealousy and self-pity, whenever [I saw her] with another man, whenever I praised her to others when I wanted to slice away at her reputation. Those were the payments--but she never saw them. And her own payment were unseen by me...but I do know that she forgave me....[Forgiveness] is more than a matter of refusing to hate someone. It is also a matter of choosing to demonstrate love and acceptance to the offender...Pain is the consequence of sin; there is no easy way to deal with it. Wood, nails and pain are the currency of forgiveness, the love that heals."
-- Dan Hamilton, Forgiveness
3. Take two inventories: of ways to exact the price; of ways to pay the price.
This quote shows us that there are numerous ways that we can "exact" and take payment from the offender, but each time we refrain, we are absorbing the cost ourselves and "making payments". Below are the ways in which we tend to try to exact payments:
a) In our dealing with the offender:
(1) We can make cutting remarks and drag out the past.
(2) We can be far more demanding and controlling with the person than we are with others, all because "they owe us".
(3) We can punish with self-righteous "mercy" which makes them feel small.
(4) We can avoid them, be cold or to them in overt and/or subtle ways.
(5) We can actively seek and scheme to hurt or harm them, taking from them something valuable to them.
b) In our dealing with others:
(1) We can run them down to others, under the guise of "warning" people about them.
(2) We can run them down to others, under the guise of seeking sympathy and sharing our hurt.
c) In our dealing with ourselves:
(1) We can replay the tapes of what they did to us, to justify our anger and hostility.
(2) We can "root" for their failure or fall or pain.
Forgiveness is a promise, to not "bring the matter up" to the person, others, or even ourselves. At each point when we are tempted to exact payment, we refuse, and though it hurts, that is a payment:
a) With the person
In our dealings with the person we are courteous and warm as possible. If the person is repentant, we seek to restore the relationship as much as possible. Why say "as much as possible?" If the person has done grievous wrong, it may mean the trust can only be restored in degrees. If the person is continuing in a hostile manner, you must not make it easy for them to sin against you. And there are other circumstances. (e.g. If the person is a former "love interest", then to re-create the same relationship may be inappropriate.)
The speed and degree of this restoration entails the re-creation of trust, and that takes time, depending on the nature and severity of the offenses involved. Part of real repentance usually means asking: "what could I do that would make you trust me?" and being willing to accept the answer. Part of real forgiveness means being open to the possibility of lasting change in the offender and being truly unbiased and willing to offer more trust little by little.
b) With others
We must not criticize the offender to others. We should be careful, when seeking support for our "burdens" (Galatians 6:1-6) that we aren't using them as an excuse to get others to justify us by agreeing how horrible the other person is! We must be reasonable. This is not to say you can never say anything that casts a bad light on someone else, but you must watch your motives. If the person stays in a hostile and unrepentant mode, it may be necessary to "warn" someone about him or her, but again, motives must be watched.
c) With yourself
What does it mean to "not bring it up yourself"? It means not to dwell on it in the heart, and not to re-play the "videotapes" of the wrong in your imagination, in order to keep the sense of loss and hurt fresh and real to you. It means, when you are ready to do so, you should pray for the person and yourself, remind yourself of the cross (see below) and turn your mind to other things.
4. “Will the good” of the other, not only for his/her sake but also for yours!
Notice that on the cross Jesus says, "Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing." (Luke 23:34) He doesn't actually say "I forgive you". He does forgive, of course, but by turning to the Father and praying for them, he shows us an important method if forgiveness. He admits that they are sinning (otherwise they would not need forgiveness!) but he sees them as needy and weak (they don't know). He seeks their enlightenment and forgiveness from God. He prays for them.
When we identify "evil" too closely with the "evildoer", we get pulled into the same cycle of hurt pride and revenge and self-absorption and then more hurt pride and more revenge. The secret of overcoming evil is for us to see "evil" as something above and distinct from the evil doer. When we do that, there are two results: 1) The spread of evil is checked toward us. Its hatred and pride does not infect us. Consider this--the only way to truly “beat” the ill-will of the other is to forgive him/her. Why? If you don’t, you are still being controlled by the other. Even if you are reacting against them, you are still being dominated and affected by them. 2) The spread of evil may be checked in the evildoer. He or she may be softened and helped by our love. We don’t know that for certain, but it is almost the only way that can happen. This is, then, an act of the will. We determine to wish them good and will their growth and healing. We determine to pray for them.
Note: It needs to be said here that in general, it is not loving to let another person go about sinning and doing wrong. Forgiveness does not therefore mean you cannot criticize, or oppose, or contend against continued destructive behavior. Forgiveness that turns away from confrontation is not loving at all--it is self-serving. The ordinary approach is to a) stay angry inside (exact payment) and b) say nothing on the outside. That lets evil spread in both your life and the life of the other. Instead, the right thing to do is a) completely forgive inside (make payment) and b) confront lovingly on the outside. That checks the spread of evil all around. Also, it is impossible to speak lovingly and winsomely to a person doing wrong unless you have gotten control of your anger through forgiveness steps. The model for this is Christ, of course, who spoke out enough to get crucified, but who forgave his crucifiers every step of the way. The result of his perfect conformity to this model was the triumph of grace both in his own life and in that of his crucifiers.
D. Pre-conditions for Forgiveness.
1. Getting Humility.
The Bible is explicit in telling us to forgive as God in Christ forgave you (Eph.4:32). There is no better way to get the humility necessary for forgiveness than to accept what the gospel says about us. It tells us that we were made by God and owe him therefore everything--we owe it to him to put him first in our life. Even religious people ordinarily only relate to God when we need him in times of trouble. None of us love him as we owe--”with all our heart, soul, strength and mind”. Jesus himself shows us vividly how to do this in Matthew 18:21-35. When Peter asks about forgiveness, Jesus tells the parable of a servant who is forgiven a debt of an infinite sum (10,000 talents--roughly equivalent to about $300,000,000 dollars) but who then refuses to forgive a debt to him of a few dollars. Jesus calls the servant "wicked" and says, in effect, to him, "shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you?"(18:33) This is a challenge to us. We must compare our debt to God with people's debts to us AND we are to compare his Christ's payment for our forgiveness to our payment for their forgiveness. We are to say, "Lord, you did not exact payment for my debts from me, but Jesus paid for them with his life. Now what right to I have to exact payments for their debts to me? And for me to forgive would not take a payment anything like Christ's payment!"
Paul in Romans 12 shows us another way to think of resentment and forgiveness. He says, "Leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written: 'vengeance is mine...says the Lord" v.19. What we are being reminded is that all resentment and vengeance is taking on God's role as judge. It is playing God. But (1) only God is qualified to be judge (we are imperfect and deserve judgment ourselves) and (2) only God knows enough to be judge (we don't know all about the offender, what he/she has faced and deserves) and (3) Jesus took the judgment of God. So Paul is saying: "Think this! Either these persons you are angry at will repent some day and Jesus will take their judgment, or they will not and God will deal with it. But in either process, you are not involved." "Pride won't allow forgiveness; forgiveness won't allow pride". If you cannot forgive, it is because you are sure that you are not as sinful as the person you are mad at.
2. Getting “emotional wealth”.
Anger is the result of love. It is energy for defense of something you love when it is threatened. If you don't love something at all, you are not angry when it is threatened. If you love something a little, you get a little angry when it is threatened. If something you love is an "ultimate concern", if it is something that gives you meaning in life, then when it is threatened you will get uncontrollably angry.
When anything in life is an absolute requirement for your happiness and self--worth, it is essentially an “idol”, something you are actually worshipping. When such a thing is threatened, your anger is absolute. Your anger is actually the way the idol keeps you in its service, in its chains. Therefore, if you find that, despite all the efforts to forgive (using 0.-4. above), your anger and bitterness cannot subside, you may need to look deeper and ask, "what am I defending? what is so important that I cannot live without?" It may be that, until some inordinate desire is identified and confronted, you will not be able to master your anger.
Here is a real example. A woman in her late 30’s had never married. Her family and her part of the country believed that there was something radically wrong with any woman of that age that was still single. She wrestled greatly with shame and unworthiness, and she also had tremendous unresolved anger against a man she had dated for many years but who had not married her. She went to a counselor. The therapist rightly told her that she had taken her to heart her family’s approach to personal value and worth. They taught that a woman had to include a husband and children if she was to have any value or worth. She was bitter against this man only because he had come between her and the thing she felt she needed to have to have value. The counselor then proposed that she throw off such an unenlightened view and throw herself into a career.
About this time she was going to a church where she was clearly hearing the gospel for the first time. She heard that the gospel is not that we live a worthy life and then give it to God and then he owes us, but that in Jesus Christ he has already lived a worthy life (he lived the life we should have lived and died the death we should have died) and that when we believe, he gives it to us. Then we are completely accepted and loved by the only One in the universe who counts. This gives us the ultimate “emotional wealth”, a sense of being loved so deep that we can afford to forgive anyone. She realized that the well-meaning counselor was asking her to throw off a politically incorrect system of works-righteousness for a politically correct one! She said, “why should I leave the ranks of the many women who make ‘family’ their worth and value to join the ranks of the many men who make ‘career’ the same thing? Would I not be as devastated then by career setbacks as I have been by romantic ones? No. I will receive the righteousness of Christ, and learn to rejoice in it. Then I can look at males or career and say, ‘what makes me beautiful to God is Jesus, not these things.’ Only then will I have power and freedom. And power to forgive” She found the “pre-conditions” for forgiveness.
Note: It will become clear that one of the most typical “idols” we can have is our spouse! We may need his or her approval and respect in idolatrous ways--we may look to the other person to be a “savior”, the source of our self-worth. No human being can bear that pressure however. Your spouse is a finite human being with limitations. He or she cannot love you consistently. And if you try to get from your spouse what only the Lord can give, you will be locked in a vicious cycle. Your will not be able to forgive your spouse for his/her failures unless you find a Spouse whose love is perfect and whose forgiveness is perfect too.
E. Steps for Repentance.
Why wait until now to talk about repentance? And why give it so little space? Repentance and forgiveness are really different ways of looking at the same thing. We could just as easily spent the lion’s share of this essay on repentance, and then added this note on forgiveness. Both are the same in all of these ways: 1) The pre-conditions are identical. (Both are blocked by pride and emotional bankruptcy. Both require humility and emotional wealth.) 2) The character is identical. (Both are just ways of saying, “I am willing to absorb the payment for what I have done.”) 3) Even the steps are nearly the same. See below.
1. An honest admission of just your part of the wrong. Maybe in the disagreement you are only 10% wrong, or 30% or 80%. You just confess your part without any blame-shifting or excuses. Even if the other person believes you are more guilty than you think you are, admit the truth. Only offer to analyze and describe the part of the mess that you are responsible.
2. Make no excuses. Do not explain it away as blame-shifting. Treat other “triggering” factors as occasions not causes. Your own selfishness or insensitivity etc. was the real cause, and what other people did to you only released those things out into the expressions that you did. If you don’t do this, your repentance can actually be a way to not repent at all.
3. Be willing to listen to a realistic account of what your wrong cost the other. It is possible to use repentance to say “shut up” to another person. How? a) If your repentance is very over-dramatic and emotional, you are saying, “look how bad I feel--don’t tell me anything more about how I made you feel” or even “look how bad I feel--don’t you want to take back what you said? “ b) If your repentance is very quick and analytical, it may make the other person feel that she or he cannot share what he/she was feeling. It can be a way to say, “I’m not interested in hearing how you feel at all.”
4. Provide “fruits” of repentance, rather than just an expression of sorrow. a. Offer to make changes that would restore or remunerate is some way for the damage done. b. Offer to make changes in behavior that would make it very unlikely for the incident at issue to happen again. If you can’t do this, your partner has the right to think you haven’t repented.
If competent repentance and competent forgiveness coincide, the experience is almost a joyful revival of your relationship each time. It is a bit like a conversion experience, with the reality and sweetness of your relationship appreciated in new ways. You see the marriage as a gift, and you find new emotional wealth, since the love of the other person actually points you to the forgiving Lord himself. But if your spouse is not repenting, you a) should still forgive, since it is the only way to keep evil from spreading in you both (see above) and you b) can still forgive if you meet the pre-conditions (see above).
Read and mark “!” - for something that helped you
“?” -for something that raised a question
Introduction: In Galatians 4:12-20, Paul’s forgiveness of the Galatians for their betrayal of him is so automatic that we can hardly notice it. It is only because his appeal to them (as strong as it is) is so affectionate and free from resentment that we realize the strength of Paul’s forgiving spirit. Later he cautions the Galatians against a growing spirit of resentment and back-biting (Gal.5:15). The more they lose touch with the gospel, the more resentments and grudges are growing.
Below is a guide to how the gospel helps us reconcile our relationships with a balance of truth and love. (At times you can see that this project has been used in seminars for married couples! But the principles are basic to all relationships.)
A. The Resources for Forgiveness.
1. We need enough humility.
Jesus ties our ability to forgive to our ability to repent. ("Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors" Matt.6:12.) This doesn't mean that God forgives our sins because we forgive others. It means that in general we are as forgiven by God as we are forgiving to others because unforgiving people are unrepentant people. The more we hold grudges the less we see ourselves as having done wrong and needing forgiveness; the more we see ourselves as needing forgiveness, the more likely we are to forgive others. Why? Resentment requires a person to sit in the position of Judge (Rom.12:19-20). We can only hold grudges if we feel superior to the other person. Jesus very directly and bluntly tells us that, if we hold a grudge against another person, we are ignorant of how much we owe God. So the first thing we have to see is our own need for forgiveness. We need enough humility to forgive.
Transition: But this is not enough! Because though pride is one reason that we cannot forgive, emotional insecurity is another. So in addition:
2. We need enough “emotional wealth”.
Why is it that we can forgive some wrongs easily but not others? It is because everyone draws a sense of self-worth (a sense that we are worthy of love and respect) from certain objects. No one can “validate” themselves. We all look to certain ones or things to convince us that we are significant. The more certain we are of this, the more “emotionally wealthy” we are--confident, poised, at peace. What are the things that we look to? Steven Covey calls them “personal centers” and Victor Frankl calls them your “meaning centers”. They may be career, possessions, appearance, romance, peer groups, achievement, good causes, moral character, religion, marriage, children, friendships--or a combination of a several. However, this means that these things are things that we absolutely must have, or we face emotional “bankruptcy” and death. And all our most powerful feelings are connected to them. We respond in deep guilt if we fail to attain them, or in deep anger if someone blocks them from us, or in deep anxiety if they are threatened, or in major drivenness since we must have them, or in despair if we ever lose them completely.
For example: A husband and a wife discovered that a school teacher had been emotionally abusive to their daughter and had fairly ruined her academic year and sent her into counseling. They are both angry at the teacher, but the husband has less trouble “getting past” the anger than the wife. Why? Is the husband a less angry person. No, in general he tends to be more angry temperamentally. Does he love his daughter less? No. The issue is that the wife has tied her own self-image and sense of self-worth to her daughter’s progress and happiness (while the husband does this with his career). As a result, her anger is far deeper, since she is going “bankrupt”. She feels “if my daughter doesn’t turn out well, what good am I?” So her anger toward the teacher is powerful. Sum: Ironically, it is both a sense of superiority or a sense of inferiority that makes it hard for forgive. Paradoxically, the two can often go together. We often deal with our own inferiority and insecurity by taking a superior, judgmental position toward someone else.
B. The Character of Forgiveness.
A definition. What is forgiveness, specifically? When someone has wronged you, it means they owe you, they have a debt with you. Forgiveness is to absorb the cost of the debt yourself. You pay the price yourself, and you refuse to exact the price out of the person in any way. Forgiveness is to a) free the person from penalty for a sin by b) paying the price yourself.
The ultimate example. We are told that our forgiveness must imitate God's forgiveness in Christ. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you (Eph.4:32). a) How did God forgive? We are told that he does not 'remember' them. That cannot mean that God literally forgets what has happened--it means he "sends away" the penalty for them. He does not bring the incidents to mind, and does not let them affect the way he deals with us. b) How did God forgive "in Christ"? We are told that Jesus pays the price for the sins. "It is finished" means "It has been paid in full" (John 19:30). The Father gave up his Son, and the Son gave up his life. God absorbed the cost in himself.
C. Practical Steps for Forgiveness.
1.Distinguish between granting and feeling.
Realize that forgiveness is granted (often for a long time) before it is felt. Forgiveness is granted first, and felt later (Luke 17:3-10). Forgiveness is not primarily a feeling, but a set of actions and disciplines. In summary, forgiveness is a promise not to exact the price of the sin from the person who wronged you. This promise means a repeated set of "payment" in which you relinquish revenge. It is hard and (for a while) constant. If this promise is kept actively, eventually the feeling of anger subsides. It is critical to realize at the outset, then, that forgiveness is not the forcing or denying of feelings, but a promise to make and to keep despite our feelings.
2. Determine to never exact the price, but to pay the price ourselves.
"[Forgiveness] is to deal with our emotions by sending them away--by denying ourselves the dark pleasures of venting them or fondling them in our minds....
"Once upon a time, I was engaged to a young woman who changed her mind. I forgave her...but [only] in small sums over a year...[They were made] whenever I spoke to her and refrained from rehashing the past, whenever I renounced jealousy and self-pity, whenever [I saw her] with another man, whenever I praised her to others when I wanted to slice away at her reputation. Those were the payments--but she never saw them. And her own payment were unseen by me...but I do know that she forgave me....[Forgiveness] is more than a matter of refusing to hate someone. It is also a matter of choosing to demonstrate love and acceptance to the offender...Pain is the consequence of sin; there is no easy way to deal with it. Wood, nails and pain are the currency of forgiveness, the love that heals."
-- Dan Hamilton, Forgiveness
3. Take two inventories: of ways to exact the price; of ways to pay the price.
This quote shows us that there are numerous ways that we can "exact" and take payment from the offender, but each time we refrain, we are absorbing the cost ourselves and "making payments". Below are the ways in which we tend to try to exact payments:
a) In our dealing with the offender:
(1) We can make cutting remarks and drag out the past.
(2) We can be far more demanding and controlling with the person than we are with others, all because "they owe us".
(3) We can punish with self-righteous "mercy" which makes them feel small.
(4) We can avoid them, be cold or to them in overt and/or subtle ways.
(5) We can actively seek and scheme to hurt or harm them, taking from them something valuable to them.
b) In our dealing with others:
(1) We can run them down to others, under the guise of "warning" people about them.
(2) We can run them down to others, under the guise of seeking sympathy and sharing our hurt.
c) In our dealing with ourselves:
(1) We can replay the tapes of what they did to us, to justify our anger and hostility.
(2) We can "root" for their failure or fall or pain.
Forgiveness is a promise, to not "bring the matter up" to the person, others, or even ourselves. At each point when we are tempted to exact payment, we refuse, and though it hurts, that is a payment:
a) With the person
In our dealings with the person we are courteous and warm as possible. If the person is repentant, we seek to restore the relationship as much as possible. Why say "as much as possible?" If the person has done grievous wrong, it may mean the trust can only be restored in degrees. If the person is continuing in a hostile manner, you must not make it easy for them to sin against you. And there are other circumstances. (e.g. If the person is a former "love interest", then to re-create the same relationship may be inappropriate.)
The speed and degree of this restoration entails the re-creation of trust, and that takes time, depending on the nature and severity of the offenses involved. Part of real repentance usually means asking: "what could I do that would make you trust me?" and being willing to accept the answer. Part of real forgiveness means being open to the possibility of lasting change in the offender and being truly unbiased and willing to offer more trust little by little.
b) With others
We must not criticize the offender to others. We should be careful, when seeking support for our "burdens" (Galatians 6:1-6) that we aren't using them as an excuse to get others to justify us by agreeing how horrible the other person is! We must be reasonable. This is not to say you can never say anything that casts a bad light on someone else, but you must watch your motives. If the person stays in a hostile and unrepentant mode, it may be necessary to "warn" someone about him or her, but again, motives must be watched.
c) With yourself
What does it mean to "not bring it up yourself"? It means not to dwell on it in the heart, and not to re-play the "videotapes" of the wrong in your imagination, in order to keep the sense of loss and hurt fresh and real to you. It means, when you are ready to do so, you should pray for the person and yourself, remind yourself of the cross (see below) and turn your mind to other things.
4. “Will the good” of the other, not only for his/her sake but also for yours!
Notice that on the cross Jesus says, "Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing." (Luke 23:34) He doesn't actually say "I forgive you". He does forgive, of course, but by turning to the Father and praying for them, he shows us an important method if forgiveness. He admits that they are sinning (otherwise they would not need forgiveness!) but he sees them as needy and weak (they don't know). He seeks their enlightenment and forgiveness from God. He prays for them.
When we identify "evil" too closely with the "evildoer", we get pulled into the same cycle of hurt pride and revenge and self-absorption and then more hurt pride and more revenge. The secret of overcoming evil is for us to see "evil" as something above and distinct from the evil doer. When we do that, there are two results: 1) The spread of evil is checked toward us. Its hatred and pride does not infect us. Consider this--the only way to truly “beat” the ill-will of the other is to forgive him/her. Why? If you don’t, you are still being controlled by the other. Even if you are reacting against them, you are still being dominated and affected by them. 2) The spread of evil may be checked in the evildoer. He or she may be softened and helped by our love. We don’t know that for certain, but it is almost the only way that can happen. This is, then, an act of the will. We determine to wish them good and will their growth and healing. We determine to pray for them.
Note: It needs to be said here that in general, it is not loving to let another person go about sinning and doing wrong. Forgiveness does not therefore mean you cannot criticize, or oppose, or contend against continued destructive behavior. Forgiveness that turns away from confrontation is not loving at all--it is self-serving. The ordinary approach is to a) stay angry inside (exact payment) and b) say nothing on the outside. That lets evil spread in both your life and the life of the other. Instead, the right thing to do is a) completely forgive inside (make payment) and b) confront lovingly on the outside. That checks the spread of evil all around. Also, it is impossible to speak lovingly and winsomely to a person doing wrong unless you have gotten control of your anger through forgiveness steps. The model for this is Christ, of course, who spoke out enough to get crucified, but who forgave his crucifiers every step of the way. The result of his perfect conformity to this model was the triumph of grace both in his own life and in that of his crucifiers.
D. Pre-conditions for Forgiveness.
1. Getting Humility.
The Bible is explicit in telling us to forgive as God in Christ forgave you (Eph.4:32). There is no better way to get the humility necessary for forgiveness than to accept what the gospel says about us. It tells us that we were made by God and owe him therefore everything--we owe it to him to put him first in our life. Even religious people ordinarily only relate to God when we need him in times of trouble. None of us love him as we owe--”with all our heart, soul, strength and mind”. Jesus himself shows us vividly how to do this in Matthew 18:21-35. When Peter asks about forgiveness, Jesus tells the parable of a servant who is forgiven a debt of an infinite sum (10,000 talents--roughly equivalent to about $300,000,000 dollars) but who then refuses to forgive a debt to him of a few dollars. Jesus calls the servant "wicked" and says, in effect, to him, "shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you?"(18:33) This is a challenge to us. We must compare our debt to God with people's debts to us AND we are to compare his Christ's payment for our forgiveness to our payment for their forgiveness. We are to say, "Lord, you did not exact payment for my debts from me, but Jesus paid for them with his life. Now what right to I have to exact payments for their debts to me? And for me to forgive would not take a payment anything like Christ's payment!"
Paul in Romans 12 shows us another way to think of resentment and forgiveness. He says, "Leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written: 'vengeance is mine...says the Lord" v.19. What we are being reminded is that all resentment and vengeance is taking on God's role as judge. It is playing God. But (1) only God is qualified to be judge (we are imperfect and deserve judgment ourselves) and (2) only God knows enough to be judge (we don't know all about the offender, what he/she has faced and deserves) and (3) Jesus took the judgment of God. So Paul is saying: "Think this! Either these persons you are angry at will repent some day and Jesus will take their judgment, or they will not and God will deal with it. But in either process, you are not involved." "Pride won't allow forgiveness; forgiveness won't allow pride". If you cannot forgive, it is because you are sure that you are not as sinful as the person you are mad at.
2. Getting “emotional wealth”.
Anger is the result of love. It is energy for defense of something you love when it is threatened. If you don't love something at all, you are not angry when it is threatened. If you love something a little, you get a little angry when it is threatened. If something you love is an "ultimate concern", if it is something that gives you meaning in life, then when it is threatened you will get uncontrollably angry.
When anything in life is an absolute requirement for your happiness and self--worth, it is essentially an “idol”, something you are actually worshipping. When such a thing is threatened, your anger is absolute. Your anger is actually the way the idol keeps you in its service, in its chains. Therefore, if you find that, despite all the efforts to forgive (using 0.-4. above), your anger and bitterness cannot subside, you may need to look deeper and ask, "what am I defending? what is so important that I cannot live without?" It may be that, until some inordinate desire is identified and confronted, you will not be able to master your anger.
Here is a real example. A woman in her late 30’s had never married. Her family and her part of the country believed that there was something radically wrong with any woman of that age that was still single. She wrestled greatly with shame and unworthiness, and she also had tremendous unresolved anger against a man she had dated for many years but who had not married her. She went to a counselor. The therapist rightly told her that she had taken her to heart her family’s approach to personal value and worth. They taught that a woman had to include a husband and children if she was to have any value or worth. She was bitter against this man only because he had come between her and the thing she felt she needed to have to have value. The counselor then proposed that she throw off such an unenlightened view and throw herself into a career.
About this time she was going to a church where she was clearly hearing the gospel for the first time. She heard that the gospel is not that we live a worthy life and then give it to God and then he owes us, but that in Jesus Christ he has already lived a worthy life (he lived the life we should have lived and died the death we should have died) and that when we believe, he gives it to us. Then we are completely accepted and loved by the only One in the universe who counts. This gives us the ultimate “emotional wealth”, a sense of being loved so deep that we can afford to forgive anyone. She realized that the well-meaning counselor was asking her to throw off a politically incorrect system of works-righteousness for a politically correct one! She said, “why should I leave the ranks of the many women who make ‘family’ their worth and value to join the ranks of the many men who make ‘career’ the same thing? Would I not be as devastated then by career setbacks as I have been by romantic ones? No. I will receive the righteousness of Christ, and learn to rejoice in it. Then I can look at males or career and say, ‘what makes me beautiful to God is Jesus, not these things.’ Only then will I have power and freedom. And power to forgive” She found the “pre-conditions” for forgiveness.
Note: It will become clear that one of the most typical “idols” we can have is our spouse! We may need his or her approval and respect in idolatrous ways--we may look to the other person to be a “savior”, the source of our self-worth. No human being can bear that pressure however. Your spouse is a finite human being with limitations. He or she cannot love you consistently. And if you try to get from your spouse what only the Lord can give, you will be locked in a vicious cycle. Your will not be able to forgive your spouse for his/her failures unless you find a Spouse whose love is perfect and whose forgiveness is perfect too.
E. Steps for Repentance.
Why wait until now to talk about repentance? And why give it so little space? Repentance and forgiveness are really different ways of looking at the same thing. We could just as easily spent the lion’s share of this essay on repentance, and then added this note on forgiveness. Both are the same in all of these ways: 1) The pre-conditions are identical. (Both are blocked by pride and emotional bankruptcy. Both require humility and emotional wealth.) 2) The character is identical. (Both are just ways of saying, “I am willing to absorb the payment for what I have done.”) 3) Even the steps are nearly the same. See below.
1. An honest admission of just your part of the wrong. Maybe in the disagreement you are only 10% wrong, or 30% or 80%. You just confess your part without any blame-shifting or excuses. Even if the other person believes you are more guilty than you think you are, admit the truth. Only offer to analyze and describe the part of the mess that you are responsible.
2. Make no excuses. Do not explain it away as blame-shifting. Treat other “triggering” factors as occasions not causes. Your own selfishness or insensitivity etc. was the real cause, and what other people did to you only released those things out into the expressions that you did. If you don’t do this, your repentance can actually be a way to not repent at all.
3. Be willing to listen to a realistic account of what your wrong cost the other. It is possible to use repentance to say “shut up” to another person. How? a) If your repentance is very over-dramatic and emotional, you are saying, “look how bad I feel--don’t tell me anything more about how I made you feel” or even “look how bad I feel--don’t you want to take back what you said? “ b) If your repentance is very quick and analytical, it may make the other person feel that she or he cannot share what he/she was feeling. It can be a way to say, “I’m not interested in hearing how you feel at all.”
4. Provide “fruits” of repentance, rather than just an expression of sorrow. a. Offer to make changes that would restore or remunerate is some way for the damage done. b. Offer to make changes in behavior that would make it very unlikely for the incident at issue to happen again. If you can’t do this, your partner has the right to think you haven’t repented.
If competent repentance and competent forgiveness coincide, the experience is almost a joyful revival of your relationship each time. It is a bit like a conversion experience, with the reality and sweetness of your relationship appreciated in new ways. You see the marriage as a gift, and you find new emotional wealth, since the love of the other person actually points you to the forgiving Lord himself. But if your spouse is not repenting, you a) should still forgive, since it is the only way to keep evil from spreading in you both (see above) and you b) can still forgive if you meet the pre-conditions (see above).
Monday, November 14, 2005
Friday, November 11, 2005
what Acts 16 teaches about the leading of the Holy Spirit
How did the Holy Spirit dissuade them? It is important to look back at how the
very varied ways that the Holy Spirit guides in the book of Acts. Sometimes, he
speaks through a revelation to an individual (Acts 11:28) other times he works
through the very mundane and unremarkable process of debate and study and
group consensus building (Acts 15; cf.15:28). One time the Spirit seemed to
lead the group to a conclusion not through group debate but through group
prayer (Acts 13:1-3). Therefore, we cannot be sure what means the Holy Spirit
used to keep the missionaries from preaching. It could have been a) through
an outward circumstance such as an illness or a legal ban (which Luke
attributes to the providential plan of the Spirit), or b) through an inward
circumstance such as thinking and analysis or conviction in prayer, or c)
through a corporate circumstance such as a lack of agreement within the
group to embark on a local mission, or d) through a miraculous circumstance
such as a prophecy or dream or vision. All of these methods are used by the
Holy Spirit in other parts of the book of Acts. However, it is reasonable to
conclude, since the particular circumstance is not mentioned, that the Holy
Spirit’s guidance was ordinary, not extraordinary. Usually, when there was a
miracle or vision, Luke notes and describes it.
What does this teach us?
First, we learn that God may guide us for a long time sending us only “no’s”
without any “yes’s” at all. When we are in the midst of all these “closed doors”,
we can feel like God has abandoned us, but when we look at the big picture, we
can see that a “no” is as much an act of guidance as a “yes”. If this team had
stopped at any of these provinces, there might never have been the books of I
and II Thessalonians, I and II Corinthians, or Ephesians! Also, the pronoun
change (from “they” to “we”) indicates that they picked up Luke at Troas. Luke
was highly aware that if they had followed their plan, he would never have
joined up with them. Sum: God’s guidance is negative as well as positive--it
consists of closed doors as well as open ones.
Second, guidance is never passively received--it always entails wrestlling with
the evidence and using your mind and making a choice. Notice that, even after
the dream, the team had to “conclude” that God had called them to preach in
Macedonia. This is the Greek word symbibazo which means to literally “put the
pieces of a puzzle together”. These verses show us, probably, some guidance
that was very ordinary and one piece (the dream) that was very extraordinary.
But it still involved thinking, analyzing, and decision making together. Sum:
God’s guidance is rational as well as circumstantial. It is not a matter of
“guessing” God’s will, but of making a wise decision.
Third, guidance is corporate. In every case, the verbs are plural. “The Holy
Spirit would not let them in”, and “we concluded that God was calling us”. We
are not to seek God’s will in isolation from the counsel of others.
Fourth, guidance is gradual. It is possible to go a very long time without
seeing where you are going! When Paul and his companions finally arrived at
Troas, at the “Dardanelles”, the gateway to Greece, they had come an
extremely long way by an extremely circuitous route. They had traveled the
entire length of Asia Minor without anything to show for their effort! They had
planted no churches and had made no converts. Imagine their perplexity.
Surely we can relate to this. There are times in our lives where it looks like we
are getting nothing done, or where it looks like our time and efforts are being
completely wasted. But guidance is gradual. It is like a mountainous road, on
which you often labor hard, doubling back and seeming to get nowhere, until
you come to some vantage point where you can see the “big” picture and see
how much progress you’ve made and where you are going. --tim keller
very varied ways that the Holy Spirit guides in the book of Acts. Sometimes, he
speaks through a revelation to an individual (Acts 11:28) other times he works
through the very mundane and unremarkable process of debate and study and
group consensus building (Acts 15; cf.15:28). One time the Spirit seemed to
lead the group to a conclusion not through group debate but through group
prayer (Acts 13:1-3). Therefore, we cannot be sure what means the Holy Spirit
used to keep the missionaries from preaching. It could have been a) through
an outward circumstance such as an illness or a legal ban (which Luke
attributes to the providential plan of the Spirit), or b) through an inward
circumstance such as thinking and analysis or conviction in prayer, or c)
through a corporate circumstance such as a lack of agreement within the
group to embark on a local mission, or d) through a miraculous circumstance
such as a prophecy or dream or vision. All of these methods are used by the
Holy Spirit in other parts of the book of Acts. However, it is reasonable to
conclude, since the particular circumstance is not mentioned, that the Holy
Spirit’s guidance was ordinary, not extraordinary. Usually, when there was a
miracle or vision, Luke notes and describes it.
What does this teach us?
First, we learn that God may guide us for a long time sending us only “no’s”
without any “yes’s” at all. When we are in the midst of all these “closed doors”,
we can feel like God has abandoned us, but when we look at the big picture, we
can see that a “no” is as much an act of guidance as a “yes”. If this team had
stopped at any of these provinces, there might never have been the books of I
and II Thessalonians, I and II Corinthians, or Ephesians! Also, the pronoun
change (from “they” to “we”) indicates that they picked up Luke at Troas. Luke
was highly aware that if they had followed their plan, he would never have
joined up with them. Sum: God’s guidance is negative as well as positive--it
consists of closed doors as well as open ones.
Second, guidance is never passively received--it always entails wrestlling with
the evidence and using your mind and making a choice. Notice that, even after
the dream, the team had to “conclude” that God had called them to preach in
Macedonia. This is the Greek word symbibazo which means to literally “put the
pieces of a puzzle together”. These verses show us, probably, some guidance
that was very ordinary and one piece (the dream) that was very extraordinary.
But it still involved thinking, analyzing, and decision making together. Sum:
God’s guidance is rational as well as circumstantial. It is not a matter of
“guessing” God’s will, but of making a wise decision.
Third, guidance is corporate. In every case, the verbs are plural. “The Holy
Spirit would not let them in”, and “we concluded that God was calling us”. We
are not to seek God’s will in isolation from the counsel of others.
Fourth, guidance is gradual. It is possible to go a very long time without
seeing where you are going! When Paul and his companions finally arrived at
Troas, at the “Dardanelles”, the gateway to Greece, they had come an
extremely long way by an extremely circuitous route. They had traveled the
entire length of Asia Minor without anything to show for their effort! They had
planted no churches and had made no converts. Imagine their perplexity.
Surely we can relate to this. There are times in our lives where it looks like we
are getting nothing done, or where it looks like our time and efforts are being
completely wasted. But guidance is gradual. It is like a mountainous road, on
which you often labor hard, doubling back and seeming to get nowhere, until
you come to some vantage point where you can see the “big” picture and see
how much progress you’ve made and where you are going. --tim keller
Sunday, November 06, 2005
sydney's "children of God" email
november 4th
friday
yesterday my friend nicki and i ventured to a little corner of the world called 'hanahasif,' where we spent our evening with dozens of beautiful tanzanian girls and boys who call themselves 'watoto wa Mungu.'
'children of God.'
it was late afternoon when we pulled off the main road and onto a narrow dirt road lined on either side with steep, cement channels of trash and inches-deep dirty water. we made our way back into this neighborhood tucked away in the city of dar, a neighborhood which mutembei informed us was 'from the most extreme poverty to the better-off very poor.'
i can't even describe to you how i felt driving in and through this place. it was just…there. there and real and wrenching. the face of urban poverty in a developing country.
it's that reality that completely chokes your heart, on one hand, and on the other hand reminds you that wherever you find this fragile and remarkable gift of life, there you will also find as many awesome joys as their are adorable, wide-eyed, runny-nosed kids; and as much strength and resilience as there are broken lives, abandoned kids, untimely deaths. no degree of poverty can diminish the inherent value in the former, the immaterial - joy is joy, faith is faith, etc....and stretches over both oceans in miles and oceans in suffering.
but there it was, brutal and beautiful: life as it is in an incredibly impoverished neighborhood in the city of dar es salaam, TZ, east africa…
we walked past the walls of the lutheran church, the umbrella under which this orphanage center resides. each of the 30+ kids have different stories- they range from wee four yr-olds to kids in their late teens- but they've all found themselves together, here at 'hananasif,' leaning over a hot coal-fire as they prepare their meals together; leaning over their school books as they study together; leaning over their own-made wobbly wooden benches, elbows on their knees, bright-eyed at the two american girls who had come to say hello and ask if they could stay a little while.
we visited with the director, hezekia, as the kids trickled in in handfuls from their respective school, shooting us bright smiles and curious eyes as we talked with hezekia. 'the children do not sleep here at night, but this is where they eat every meal and spend all their time when they're not at school. we have found families to take them in to sleep until we can expand our facility and make a place for them to stay. there is a list of over a hundred kids that we are waiting to make space for. the kids come here in the mornings for breakfast, for lunch during school, and for after-school hours where they cook and study and play together; by around 8:30pm, they each go to their respective homes where they will help with chores and then stay for the night.
"here, we do not call the children orphans. we do not reinforce that they have either lost their parents or have been abandoned for one reason or another. we teach them that god is their father; that god is taking care of them. they have now a place to sleep at night, food when there wasn't food for them before; they are learning and going to school and getting their education. they have each other. you see? they can have hope. they can have a future. they do have a father, and he is taking care."
the director emphasized that there was more to a child than food and an education – he wanted so desperately to instill into these kids that they were valuable, capable, promising children. he told us the story of the young boy of no more than six years that sat closely next to me as we listened, hands in his lap. "when he came to us, we were told that something was wrong with him, mentally. he didn't speak a word. sydney, he was just starving. he needed food and care. within weeks he was fine, still very shy, but growing so much."
he pointed to another young boy named omari – he was abandoned by both of his parents after they divorced and went their own ways.
the kids warmed to us quickly as they came near and sat down around us. we exchanged greetings in both swahili and english – the director laughed as he told the children: "i promised you your opportunity to speak english would come. you didn't believe me. well? here it is!" as he pointed at us, as though we were miracles.
they all smiled widely, and after our greetings and plenty of giggles and shyness, they wanted to sing for us! we were so excited. the girls even lined up and danced in rhythm as they all sang in swahili, "God is our father, we are his children; the streets are not our parents; the streets are not our names; we are the children of God; yes, God is our father, he gives us our names."
these kids were so precious. and the director was warm and genuine and so encouraging about our expressed desire to offer what we could to these kids during the remainder of our stay in tz. he stressed several times that we could and would have so much to learn from each other. "you will have to be creative – our resources are limited. if you can teach them a talent, that is great. they need skills like speaking english or even sewing or art - things they can learn that might help them in the future. but also, if you can just come and sit with them, encourage them, give them hope, show them they have value – that is so important as well."
at one point during the evening, nicki and i caught each others eyes and just nodded, exchanging an unspoken "yep. this is it. this is what we were looking for." it wasn't some stiff, well-staffed, well-funded foreign establishment. it was grassroots. it was indigenous. it was literally tucked away in one of the most impoverished neighborhoods in the city.
we left just after night fall, warmed by the visit and encouraged by the welcome, as all their smiling faces and waves saw us off down the dirt road and back to the university campus.
…
zai and i woke up just after seven am this morning (friday morning) - both a little sleepy, and me disbelieving i'd even get out of bed before another hour passed. but zai put the water on, and soon we were both sitting at her desk sharing cereal and chai together. shortly thereafter, we caught a bus to her uncle's house, just before the rains began.
today is "eid," the muslim celebration of the end of ramadhan, the breaking of the fast. there would be families together and much feasting, as it is celebrated here as a public holiday.
on our way through mwenge this morning to catch the second bus, light showers began to fall. "the rain has come!" zaina said. "it shows blessings from God." and that sounded beautiful to me.
we arrived at her uncle's house, and for the next several hours, we sat outside beneath a leaky tin roof in the outdoor kitchen area, and prepared the meal we would share for lunch with her uncles (the rest of her family is in the north). we made pilau (a special rice dish with zanzibar spices and meat) and kachumbari (a vegetable salad)– and it was fantastic. zai's sister, mwanaidi, even came to help us cook! we laughed so much and had buckets of fun (did i just say 'buckets of fun?'). i asked her to teach me to sew (she's an excellent tailor) – she, in exchange, wants to learn english. i say, do we ever have a deal.
and what's more – and i know i just said this – she's a tailor. a tailor. a sweet, bubbly twenty-something girl who knows how to sew, and was willing to teach…
two and two…
i asked her if i could hire her to come to the orphanage on saturdays and teach the kids to sew. she said it would be impossible without a sewing machine there.
"but if there were a sewing machine, you would come?"
she gave me an easy yes.
"how much is a sewing machine?"
"80,000 tsh," she said.
this is about $75 USD.
i told her that i would get back to her.
OK, so this is my idea. i think i can swing most of it to purchase a sewing machine. i'm sure some of the other international students would chip in. however, i really want to extend the invitation. are any of you…
1. interested in contributing any $ to buy a few sewing machines?
2. interested in donating to HANANASIF, the orphanage center in dar es salaam?
my mom's address:
nancy schaef
6061 Ashford Lane #502
Naples , FL 34110
so if you'd like, send a check and it will be deposited ( to: nancy schaef; specificy for: sewing machine or to hananasif!), transferred to my account, and i will withdraw the money and coordinate with Hezekia for appropriate allocation of any funds not specified for sewing machines/materials/expenses. (don't send after dec 16th, as my return flight plans are still up in the air.)
how does that sound?
i am most grateful for those of you who feel inspired to give.
i know this isn't the way official donation-stuff is usually run, but hey – you do what you gotta do. it has to be worth a try, doesn't it?
if you could only see their faces…you would say a thousand yeses.
and just know that even $5-10 bucks here would stretch in ways you wouldn't believe.
...
haya. that's all i have for now. i was just anxious to share with you about that place and the children and the opportunity to be connected there...
more soon, i'm sure.
...
to power outages and 6-day water cuts!
to rainy days and God's blessings and families taking whole days off together.
…and to beautiful african children who call themselves, not orphans, but 'watoto wa Mungu.'
amani.
sydney
friday
yesterday my friend nicki and i ventured to a little corner of the world called 'hanahasif,' where we spent our evening with dozens of beautiful tanzanian girls and boys who call themselves 'watoto wa Mungu.'
'children of God.'
it was late afternoon when we pulled off the main road and onto a narrow dirt road lined on either side with steep, cement channels of trash and inches-deep dirty water. we made our way back into this neighborhood tucked away in the city of dar, a neighborhood which mutembei informed us was 'from the most extreme poverty to the better-off very poor.'
i can't even describe to you how i felt driving in and through this place. it was just…there. there and real and wrenching. the face of urban poverty in a developing country.
it's that reality that completely chokes your heart, on one hand, and on the other hand reminds you that wherever you find this fragile and remarkable gift of life, there you will also find as many awesome joys as their are adorable, wide-eyed, runny-nosed kids; and as much strength and resilience as there are broken lives, abandoned kids, untimely deaths. no degree of poverty can diminish the inherent value in the former, the immaterial - joy is joy, faith is faith, etc....and stretches over both oceans in miles and oceans in suffering.
but there it was, brutal and beautiful: life as it is in an incredibly impoverished neighborhood in the city of dar es salaam, TZ, east africa…
we walked past the walls of the lutheran church, the umbrella under which this orphanage center resides. each of the 30+ kids have different stories- they range from wee four yr-olds to kids in their late teens- but they've all found themselves together, here at 'hananasif,' leaning over a hot coal-fire as they prepare their meals together; leaning over their school books as they study together; leaning over their own-made wobbly wooden benches, elbows on their knees, bright-eyed at the two american girls who had come to say hello and ask if they could stay a little while.
we visited with the director, hezekia, as the kids trickled in in handfuls from their respective school, shooting us bright smiles and curious eyes as we talked with hezekia. 'the children do not sleep here at night, but this is where they eat every meal and spend all their time when they're not at school. we have found families to take them in to sleep until we can expand our facility and make a place for them to stay. there is a list of over a hundred kids that we are waiting to make space for. the kids come here in the mornings for breakfast, for lunch during school, and for after-school hours where they cook and study and play together; by around 8:30pm, they each go to their respective homes where they will help with chores and then stay for the night.
"here, we do not call the children orphans. we do not reinforce that they have either lost their parents or have been abandoned for one reason or another. we teach them that god is their father; that god is taking care of them. they have now a place to sleep at night, food when there wasn't food for them before; they are learning and going to school and getting their education. they have each other. you see? they can have hope. they can have a future. they do have a father, and he is taking care."
the director emphasized that there was more to a child than food and an education – he wanted so desperately to instill into these kids that they were valuable, capable, promising children. he told us the story of the young boy of no more than six years that sat closely next to me as we listened, hands in his lap. "when he came to us, we were told that something was wrong with him, mentally. he didn't speak a word. sydney, he was just starving. he needed food and care. within weeks he was fine, still very shy, but growing so much."
he pointed to another young boy named omari – he was abandoned by both of his parents after they divorced and went their own ways.
the kids warmed to us quickly as they came near and sat down around us. we exchanged greetings in both swahili and english – the director laughed as he told the children: "i promised you your opportunity to speak english would come. you didn't believe me. well? here it is!" as he pointed at us, as though we were miracles.
they all smiled widely, and after our greetings and plenty of giggles and shyness, they wanted to sing for us! we were so excited. the girls even lined up and danced in rhythm as they all sang in swahili, "God is our father, we are his children; the streets are not our parents; the streets are not our names; we are the children of God; yes, God is our father, he gives us our names."
these kids were so precious. and the director was warm and genuine and so encouraging about our expressed desire to offer what we could to these kids during the remainder of our stay in tz. he stressed several times that we could and would have so much to learn from each other. "you will have to be creative – our resources are limited. if you can teach them a talent, that is great. they need skills like speaking english or even sewing or art - things they can learn that might help them in the future. but also, if you can just come and sit with them, encourage them, give them hope, show them they have value – that is so important as well."
at one point during the evening, nicki and i caught each others eyes and just nodded, exchanging an unspoken "yep. this is it. this is what we were looking for." it wasn't some stiff, well-staffed, well-funded foreign establishment. it was grassroots. it was indigenous. it was literally tucked away in one of the most impoverished neighborhoods in the city.
we left just after night fall, warmed by the visit and encouraged by the welcome, as all their smiling faces and waves saw us off down the dirt road and back to the university campus.
…
zai and i woke up just after seven am this morning (friday morning) - both a little sleepy, and me disbelieving i'd even get out of bed before another hour passed. but zai put the water on, and soon we were both sitting at her desk sharing cereal and chai together. shortly thereafter, we caught a bus to her uncle's house, just before the rains began.
today is "eid," the muslim celebration of the end of ramadhan, the breaking of the fast. there would be families together and much feasting, as it is celebrated here as a public holiday.
on our way through mwenge this morning to catch the second bus, light showers began to fall. "the rain has come!" zaina said. "it shows blessings from God." and that sounded beautiful to me.
we arrived at her uncle's house, and for the next several hours, we sat outside beneath a leaky tin roof in the outdoor kitchen area, and prepared the meal we would share for lunch with her uncles (the rest of her family is in the north). we made pilau (a special rice dish with zanzibar spices and meat) and kachumbari (a vegetable salad)– and it was fantastic. zai's sister, mwanaidi, even came to help us cook! we laughed so much and had buckets of fun (did i just say 'buckets of fun?'). i asked her to teach me to sew (she's an excellent tailor) – she, in exchange, wants to learn english. i say, do we ever have a deal.
and what's more – and i know i just said this – she's a tailor. a tailor. a sweet, bubbly twenty-something girl who knows how to sew, and was willing to teach…
two and two…
i asked her if i could hire her to come to the orphanage on saturdays and teach the kids to sew. she said it would be impossible without a sewing machine there.
"but if there were a sewing machine, you would come?"
she gave me an easy yes.
"how much is a sewing machine?"
"80,000 tsh," she said.
this is about $75 USD.
i told her that i would get back to her.
OK, so this is my idea. i think i can swing most of it to purchase a sewing machine. i'm sure some of the other international students would chip in. however, i really want to extend the invitation. are any of you…
1. interested in contributing any $ to buy a few sewing machines?
2. interested in donating to HANANASIF, the orphanage center in dar es salaam?
my mom's address:
nancy schaef
6061 Ashford Lane #502
Naples , FL 34110
so if you'd like, send a check and it will be deposited ( to: nancy schaef; specificy for: sewing machine or to hananasif!), transferred to my account, and i will withdraw the money and coordinate with Hezekia for appropriate allocation of any funds not specified for sewing machines/materials/expenses. (don't send after dec 16th, as my return flight plans are still up in the air.)
how does that sound?
i am most grateful for those of you who feel inspired to give.
i know this isn't the way official donation-stuff is usually run, but hey – you do what you gotta do. it has to be worth a try, doesn't it?
if you could only see their faces…you would say a thousand yeses.
and just know that even $5-10 bucks here would stretch in ways you wouldn't believe.
...
haya. that's all i have for now. i was just anxious to share with you about that place and the children and the opportunity to be connected there...
more soon, i'm sure.
...
to power outages and 6-day water cuts!
to rainy days and God's blessings and families taking whole days off together.
…and to beautiful african children who call themselves, not orphans, but 'watoto wa Mungu.'
amani.
sydney
Thursday, October 20, 2005
entire article
NEW ORLEANS, La., and NICEVILLE, Fla. -- When 16-year-old Kerry Matthews stepped onto the trim football field at St. Martin's Episcopal School just west of New Orleans, the starting quarterback was near the end of a long day of firsts: It was the first day his team—the Desire Street Academy Lions—played a game in a league. It was the first day that he officially donned his No. 3 black and burgundy uniform. And it was the first day that the 11th-grader and his teammates had been back to New Orleans since the Lower Ninth Ward neighborhood they grew up in was all but destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.
Like the rest of the Lions, Mr. Matthews wanted badly to win the team's opening game on Oct. 10 against Crescent City Baptist School, but early in the evening he said losing everything to Katrina had taught him what he should want most: "To get closer to God, and to help out the other kids at the school, especially the younger ones . . . to be a role model."
Desire Street Academy (DSA) had just begun its fourth year when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. For the low-income Christian school enrolling 7th- to 12th-grade boys, the storm "scattered to the four winds" the school's 190 students and 40 staff members, said Mo Leverett, a Presbyterian minister, former football coach, and founder of Desire Street Ministries (DSM). The next two weeks were filled with frantic attempts to track them down (see "Katrina: the sequel," Sept. 17). Within a month DSA had located all of its staff and 145 of its students, and is hoping to hear from the remaining 45 students as well.
While searching out students in shelters and temporary housing situations across the country, Mr. Leverett also was searching for a way to keep the school open. "I didn't want to lose a whole year with the boys," he said. After scouting locations across the South, Mr. Leverett found Camp Timpoochee, a 4-H camp in Niceville, Fla., and quickly came to an agreement with the camp leadership: DSA would lease Camp Timpoochee as a boarding school.
Then staff began a "mass transportation effort," said Mr. Leverett, arranging pickup points for students in major cities across the South. Faculty delivered the boys to the Florida panhandle in "buses, cars, vans, you name it," said Mr. Leverett. By Oct. 2, 75 students filled the small camp on the Gulf Coast, and DSA held its second first day of school Oct. 3.
Textbook companies provided new books at reduced rates. Donors provided school supplies for all the students. Members of local churches "adopted" individual students, committing to doing their laundry for the year. Local volunteers also fix meals.
All school staff except for three teachers moved to Florida, and more students called to say they want to come to Niceville as well.
After nearly a month of no school, things went "OK" the first week, according to dean of students Heather Holdsworth. "We've definitely got our challenges. . . . The school part is easy. It's when you add the boarding school part that things get complicated."
Handling complications falls to Al Jones, the academy's principal and chief disciplinarian. "I'm a problem solver," says the 6-foot-4-inch former Tulane University football player. "It's what I love to do." Mr. Jones, 47, enjoyed a successful career as a teacher (he was named New Orleans Public School Teacher of the Year in 1993), a coach, and an assistant principal before joining the DSA staff just 3 1/2 weeks before Katrina hit.
In the days after the hurricane, Mr. Jones and his wife agreed that he would go wherever the school relocated. His wife remains in Baton Rouge with their teenage son. "The separation is tough," he said, "but my wife and I made a commitment to the school, and we want to keep it."
Mr. Jones says the biggest challenge right now is homesickness: "Some of the boys cried and cried for days." But students are adjusting, and the staff is helping them cope with their losses, even while dealing with their own.
Part of coping is coming back to New Orleans, said Mr. Jones. When faculty, students, and the football team made the five-hour trip to New Orleans for the team's first game, they also took a tour of the Ninth Ward and the DSM campus: "As painful it was, we wanted them to see that there's really no New Orleans to go back to. . . . I hope it will give them some closure and ease their pain of being away from home," said Mr. Jones.
A tour through the Lower Ninth Ward is sobering these days. At the corner of Abundance and Piety streets, the sanctuary of Macedonia Church of God in Christ lies crumpled and mildewing beneath its small, crushed roof. The church sign still stands out front and reads: "We Believe in Miracles." Six weeks after broken levees poured 12 feet of water into most houses here, restoring the neighborhood will take a miracle.
Though the floodwaters are gone and the streets are dry, what remains of the Ninth Ward is an eerie wasteland: A thin layer of ashy dust covers deserted streets inhabited only by starving dogs. Blocks of ruined homes sit crumbling and rotting in the hot sun, their doors and windows stripped away, some sliding off their foundations. Personal possessions litter the streets, dislocated by floodwaters: mattresses, small appliances, baby furniture, and photo albums.
New Orleans officials are grappling with how to confront the Lower Ninth Ward's devastation, and while Mayor Ray Nagin says there is no "ulterior plan" to demolish the area, some say demolition might be the only safe solution for scores of homes supported by severely damaged structures and caked with filthy sludge. U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson has questioned the wisdom of rebuilding in an area so prone to flooding, noting that hurricanes have brought significant floods to the area three times in the last 40 years.
The Lower Ninth has long been a cauldron of hardship, with more than a third of its 14,000-plus residents living in poverty, and drug and crime rates high. Still, multigenerational families and deep-rooted neighborhood camaraderie have formed a culture of tight-knit community to which many hope to return.
Situated among some of the neighborhood's worst damage, the campus of DSM stands—surprisingly—structurally intact. Its steel-framed multipurpose building, home to the academy, a church, and a recreational complex dedicated to a gospel-based discipleship and urban renewal program for children and teenagers, withstood major exterior damage with only a few broken windows and a missing door.
Inside, however, floodwaters left severe damage: Floors suffocate under a thick layer of dried, cracked muck; once-white walls are smeared with mud, mildew, and corrosion; computer monitors and overturned desks lie scattered in puddles down a dark, dingy hall. Mr. Leverett says the building will have to be gutted, but "the structure is salvageable." But with most homes for miles around ruined, the question is, salvageable to what end?
Deangelo Peterson, a 10th-grader at the academy and a wide receiver, says going back to the Ninth Ward "was tough . . . I didn't want to see that."
Deangelo's family remains in Texas where they evacuated after the storm, and he says he misses his mother: "I talk to her every day." (Deangelo's heroism may have saved his mother's life. As the floodwaters rose in their home, he helped his mother and two nieces swim to safety: "I'm the only one in my family who can swim.")
Deangelo says that though he misses home, he likes the boarding school and finds comfort in football. "It helps them when they can still play football," said assistant coach Mickey Joseph before the team's first game, "and achieve goals they set before the storm."
On this night, however, the team wouldn't achieve its goal of winning, instead suffering a disappointing 50-14 loss. Beneath the goal post after the game, Mr. Leverett told the dejected players to drop bad attitudes and persevere: "In times of adversity you don't give up. You put your hand to the plow and you keep going."
Also encouraging the young players from the sidelines was Danny Wuerffel, 1996 Florida Gators champion, Heisman Trophy winner, and former NFL pro. Mr. Wuerffel retired from the NFL last year to take a full-time position as DSM director of development and has brought national attention to the ministry's plight in the days since Hurricane Katrina.
By the next afternoon, the players seemed to have shaken off their losses, helped by sleeping in and eating a hearty lunch back at Camp Timpoochee. In a lounge over the dining hall, the boys can watch television and play Ping-Pong or foosball after completing chores on assigned work crews. On weekends, staff take the boys on outings around town and hold church in the dining hall.
Next to the dining hall, a row of log cabins faces the ocean. Ten boys sleep in bunk beds in each cabin, sharing two showers and two sinks. "Dorm dads" stay with the boys at night, while most teachers stay in hotel rooms or rented houses in town.
Two large buildings on either side of the camp house eight small classrooms, and a cabin near the shore serves as the science building, where teacher Daniel Ballard has started a unit on marine biology. On a sunny afternoon he takes his ninth-graders down to the shore where the students rush into the water with nets and goggles, eager to catch crabs or fish. Mr. Ballard then helps identify each creature and its parts.
"Learning is about where you are, and being here is all the better for learning about biology," he says. "Books are a good tool, but it's great for boys to be able to get out here, dig around, and discover what God has created."
At the end of each class, the principal rings the "bell," an air horn he blows from the middle of the camp. During second period, Mr. Jones sits on a bench outside a cabin, wiping sweat from his forehead and talking with a boy who wants to go home.
"I can't take this anymore," says 13-year-old Brandon. "I want to go home. . . . I need to see my mama." Mr. Jones tells Brandon he'll work on arranging a visit with his mother, and in the meantime, he tells Brandon, who has had discipline problems, "If you miss your mama, act like it. . . . Do what you know she'd want you to do even though she's not here."
Mr. Jones says maintaining discipline in a chaotic setting has been a challenge, but "we're going to get there again." And despite the challenges, he is enthusiastic about the boarding school setting: "Here's an opportunity to educate them 24/7 . . . to truly educate and disciple the whole person."
Copyright © 2005 WORLD Magazine
October 22, 2005, Vol. 20, No. 41
Like the rest of the Lions, Mr. Matthews wanted badly to win the team's opening game on Oct. 10 against Crescent City Baptist School, but early in the evening he said losing everything to Katrina had taught him what he should want most: "To get closer to God, and to help out the other kids at the school, especially the younger ones . . . to be a role model."
Desire Street Academy (DSA) had just begun its fourth year when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. For the low-income Christian school enrolling 7th- to 12th-grade boys, the storm "scattered to the four winds" the school's 190 students and 40 staff members, said Mo Leverett, a Presbyterian minister, former football coach, and founder of Desire Street Ministries (DSM). The next two weeks were filled with frantic attempts to track them down (see "Katrina: the sequel," Sept. 17). Within a month DSA had located all of its staff and 145 of its students, and is hoping to hear from the remaining 45 students as well.
While searching out students in shelters and temporary housing situations across the country, Mr. Leverett also was searching for a way to keep the school open. "I didn't want to lose a whole year with the boys," he said. After scouting locations across the South, Mr. Leverett found Camp Timpoochee, a 4-H camp in Niceville, Fla., and quickly came to an agreement with the camp leadership: DSA would lease Camp Timpoochee as a boarding school.
Then staff began a "mass transportation effort," said Mr. Leverett, arranging pickup points for students in major cities across the South. Faculty delivered the boys to the Florida panhandle in "buses, cars, vans, you name it," said Mr. Leverett. By Oct. 2, 75 students filled the small camp on the Gulf Coast, and DSA held its second first day of school Oct. 3.
Textbook companies provided new books at reduced rates. Donors provided school supplies for all the students. Members of local churches "adopted" individual students, committing to doing their laundry for the year. Local volunteers also fix meals.
All school staff except for three teachers moved to Florida, and more students called to say they want to come to Niceville as well.
After nearly a month of no school, things went "OK" the first week, according to dean of students Heather Holdsworth. "We've definitely got our challenges. . . . The school part is easy. It's when you add the boarding school part that things get complicated."
Handling complications falls to Al Jones, the academy's principal and chief disciplinarian. "I'm a problem solver," says the 6-foot-4-inch former Tulane University football player. "It's what I love to do." Mr. Jones, 47, enjoyed a successful career as a teacher (he was named New Orleans Public School Teacher of the Year in 1993), a coach, and an assistant principal before joining the DSA staff just 3 1/2 weeks before Katrina hit.
In the days after the hurricane, Mr. Jones and his wife agreed that he would go wherever the school relocated. His wife remains in Baton Rouge with their teenage son. "The separation is tough," he said, "but my wife and I made a commitment to the school, and we want to keep it."
Mr. Jones says the biggest challenge right now is homesickness: "Some of the boys cried and cried for days." But students are adjusting, and the staff is helping them cope with their losses, even while dealing with their own.
Part of coping is coming back to New Orleans, said Mr. Jones. When faculty, students, and the football team made the five-hour trip to New Orleans for the team's first game, they also took a tour of the Ninth Ward and the DSM campus: "As painful it was, we wanted them to see that there's really no New Orleans to go back to. . . . I hope it will give them some closure and ease their pain of being away from home," said Mr. Jones.
A tour through the Lower Ninth Ward is sobering these days. At the corner of Abundance and Piety streets, the sanctuary of Macedonia Church of God in Christ lies crumpled and mildewing beneath its small, crushed roof. The church sign still stands out front and reads: "We Believe in Miracles." Six weeks after broken levees poured 12 feet of water into most houses here, restoring the neighborhood will take a miracle.
Though the floodwaters are gone and the streets are dry, what remains of the Ninth Ward is an eerie wasteland: A thin layer of ashy dust covers deserted streets inhabited only by starving dogs. Blocks of ruined homes sit crumbling and rotting in the hot sun, their doors and windows stripped away, some sliding off their foundations. Personal possessions litter the streets, dislocated by floodwaters: mattresses, small appliances, baby furniture, and photo albums.
New Orleans officials are grappling with how to confront the Lower Ninth Ward's devastation, and while Mayor Ray Nagin says there is no "ulterior plan" to demolish the area, some say demolition might be the only safe solution for scores of homes supported by severely damaged structures and caked with filthy sludge. U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson has questioned the wisdom of rebuilding in an area so prone to flooding, noting that hurricanes have brought significant floods to the area three times in the last 40 years.
The Lower Ninth has long been a cauldron of hardship, with more than a third of its 14,000-plus residents living in poverty, and drug and crime rates high. Still, multigenerational families and deep-rooted neighborhood camaraderie have formed a culture of tight-knit community to which many hope to return.
Situated among some of the neighborhood's worst damage, the campus of DSM stands—surprisingly—structurally intact. Its steel-framed multipurpose building, home to the academy, a church, and a recreational complex dedicated to a gospel-based discipleship and urban renewal program for children and teenagers, withstood major exterior damage with only a few broken windows and a missing door.
Inside, however, floodwaters left severe damage: Floors suffocate under a thick layer of dried, cracked muck; once-white walls are smeared with mud, mildew, and corrosion; computer monitors and overturned desks lie scattered in puddles down a dark, dingy hall. Mr. Leverett says the building will have to be gutted, but "the structure is salvageable." But with most homes for miles around ruined, the question is, salvageable to what end?
Deangelo Peterson, a 10th-grader at the academy and a wide receiver, says going back to the Ninth Ward "was tough . . . I didn't want to see that."
Deangelo's family remains in Texas where they evacuated after the storm, and he says he misses his mother: "I talk to her every day." (Deangelo's heroism may have saved his mother's life. As the floodwaters rose in their home, he helped his mother and two nieces swim to safety: "I'm the only one in my family who can swim.")
Deangelo says that though he misses home, he likes the boarding school and finds comfort in football. "It helps them when they can still play football," said assistant coach Mickey Joseph before the team's first game, "and achieve goals they set before the storm."
On this night, however, the team wouldn't achieve its goal of winning, instead suffering a disappointing 50-14 loss. Beneath the goal post after the game, Mr. Leverett told the dejected players to drop bad attitudes and persevere: "In times of adversity you don't give up. You put your hand to the plow and you keep going."
Also encouraging the young players from the sidelines was Danny Wuerffel, 1996 Florida Gators champion, Heisman Trophy winner, and former NFL pro. Mr. Wuerffel retired from the NFL last year to take a full-time position as DSM director of development and has brought national attention to the ministry's plight in the days since Hurricane Katrina.
By the next afternoon, the players seemed to have shaken off their losses, helped by sleeping in and eating a hearty lunch back at Camp Timpoochee. In a lounge over the dining hall, the boys can watch television and play Ping-Pong or foosball after completing chores on assigned work crews. On weekends, staff take the boys on outings around town and hold church in the dining hall.
Next to the dining hall, a row of log cabins faces the ocean. Ten boys sleep in bunk beds in each cabin, sharing two showers and two sinks. "Dorm dads" stay with the boys at night, while most teachers stay in hotel rooms or rented houses in town.
Two large buildings on either side of the camp house eight small classrooms, and a cabin near the shore serves as the science building, where teacher Daniel Ballard has started a unit on marine biology. On a sunny afternoon he takes his ninth-graders down to the shore where the students rush into the water with nets and goggles, eager to catch crabs or fish. Mr. Ballard then helps identify each creature and its parts.
"Learning is about where you are, and being here is all the better for learning about biology," he says. "Books are a good tool, but it's great for boys to be able to get out here, dig around, and discover what God has created."
At the end of each class, the principal rings the "bell," an air horn he blows from the middle of the camp. During second period, Mr. Jones sits on a bench outside a cabin, wiping sweat from his forehead and talking with a boy who wants to go home.
"I can't take this anymore," says 13-year-old Brandon. "I want to go home. . . . I need to see my mama." Mr. Jones tells Brandon he'll work on arranging a visit with his mother, and in the meantime, he tells Brandon, who has had discipline problems, "If you miss your mama, act like it. . . . Do what you know she'd want you to do even though she's not here."
Mr. Jones says maintaining discipline in a chaotic setting has been a challenge, but "we're going to get there again." And despite the challenges, he is enthusiastic about the boarding school setting: "Here's an opportunity to educate them 24/7 . . . to truly educate and disciple the whole person."
Copyright © 2005 WORLD Magazine
October 22, 2005, Vol. 20, No. 41
Friday, October 14, 2005
The ability to create is a gift of God
Art lost its basic creative drive the moment it was separated from worship. It severed an umbilical cord and now lives its own sterile life, generating and degenerating itself. In former days, the artist remained unknown and his work was to the glory of God. He lived and died without being more or less important than other artisans: eternal values, immortality and masterpiece were terms not applicable in his case. The ability to create was a gift. In such a world flourished vulnerable and natural humility.
--Ingmar Bergman
Dick Staub
--Ingmar Bergman
Dick Staub
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
How Deep the Father's Love
How deep the Father's love for us
How vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure
How great the pain of searing loss
The Father turns His face away
As wounds which mar the Chosen One
Bring many sons to glory
Behold the man upon a cross
My sin upon His shoulders
Ashamed I hear my mocking voice
Call out among the scoffers
It was my sin that held Him there
Until it was accomplished
His dying breath has brought me life
I know that it is finished
I will nost boast in anything
No gifts, no power, no wisdom
But I will boast in Jesus Christ
His death and resurrection
Why should I gain from His reward
I cannot give an answer
But this I know with all my heart
His wounds have paid my ransom
--words by stuart townend
Friday, September 09, 2005
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Saturday, August 06, 2005
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
Salty Dogma
Salty dogma
Bono gives an explicit confession of being saved by Grace, not Karma | by Gene Edward Veith
Is Bono, the lead singer and songwriter for the rock group U2, a Christian? He says he is and writes about Christianity in his lyrics. Yet many people question whether Bono is "really" a Christian, due to his notoriously bad language, liberal politics, and rock star antics (though he has been faithfully married for 23 years). But in a new book of interviews, Bono in Conversation by Michka Assayas, Bono, though using some salty language, makes an explicit confession of faith.
The interviewer, Mr. Assayas, begins by asking Bono, Doesn't he think "appalling things" happen when people become religious? Bono counters, "It's a mind-blowing concept that the God who created the Universe might be looking for company, a real relationship with people, but the thing that keeps me on my knees is the difference between Grace and Karma."
The interviewer asks, What's that? "At the center of all religions is the idea of Karma. You know, what you put out comes back to you: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or in physics—in physical laws—every action is met by an equal or an opposite one," explains Bono. "And yet, along comes this idea called Grace to upend all that. . . . Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I've done a lot of stupid stuff."
The interviewer asks, Like what? "That's between me and God. But I'd be in big trouble if Karma was going to finally be my judge," says Bono. "It doesn't excuse my mistakes, but I'm holding out for Grace. I'm holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the Cross, because I know who I am, and I hope I don't have to depend on my own religiosity."
Then the interviewer marvels, "The Son of God who takes away the sins of the world. I wish I could believe in that."
"The point of the death of Christ is that Christ took on the sins of the world, so that what we put out did not come back to us, and that our sinful nature does not reap the obvious death," replies Bono. "It's not our own good works that get us through the gates of Heaven."
The interviewer marvels some more: "That's a great idea, no denying it. Such great hope is wonderful, even though it's close to lunacy, in my view. Christ has His rank among the world's great thinkers. But Son of God, isn't that farfetched?"
Bono comes back, "Look, the secular response to the Christ story always goes like this: He was a great prophet, obviously a very interesting guy, had a lot to say along the lines of other great prophets, be they Elijah, Muhammad, Buddha, or Confucius. But actually Christ doesn't allow you that. He doesn't let you off that hook. Christ says, No. I'm not saying I'm a teacher, don't call me teacher. I'm not saying I'm a prophet. I'm saying: 'I'm the Messiah.' I'm saying: 'I am God incarnate.' . . . So what you're left with is either Christ was who He said He was—the Messiah—or a complete nutcase. . . . The idea that the entire course of civilization for over half of the globe could have its fate changed and turned upside-down by a nutcase, for me that's farfetched."
What is most interesting in this exchange is the reaction of the interviewer, to whom Bono is, in effect, witnessing. This hip rock journalist starts by scorning what he thinks is Christianity. But it is as if he had never heard of grace, the atonement, the deity of Christ, the gospel. And he probably hadn't. But when he hears what Christianity is actually all about, he is amazed.
•
Copyright � 2005 WORLD Magazine
August 6, 2005, Vol. 20, No. 30 World Magazine - Weekly News | Christian Views
Bono gives an explicit confession of being saved by Grace, not Karma | by Gene Edward Veith
Is Bono, the lead singer and songwriter for the rock group U2, a Christian? He says he is and writes about Christianity in his lyrics. Yet many people question whether Bono is "really" a Christian, due to his notoriously bad language, liberal politics, and rock star antics (though he has been faithfully married for 23 years). But in a new book of interviews, Bono in Conversation by Michka Assayas, Bono, though using some salty language, makes an explicit confession of faith.
The interviewer, Mr. Assayas, begins by asking Bono, Doesn't he think "appalling things" happen when people become religious? Bono counters, "It's a mind-blowing concept that the God who created the Universe might be looking for company, a real relationship with people, but the thing that keeps me on my knees is the difference between Grace and Karma."
The interviewer asks, What's that? "At the center of all religions is the idea of Karma. You know, what you put out comes back to you: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or in physics—in physical laws—every action is met by an equal or an opposite one," explains Bono. "And yet, along comes this idea called Grace to upend all that. . . . Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I've done a lot of stupid stuff."
The interviewer asks, Like what? "That's between me and God. But I'd be in big trouble if Karma was going to finally be my judge," says Bono. "It doesn't excuse my mistakes, but I'm holding out for Grace. I'm holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the Cross, because I know who I am, and I hope I don't have to depend on my own religiosity."
Then the interviewer marvels, "The Son of God who takes away the sins of the world. I wish I could believe in that."
"The point of the death of Christ is that Christ took on the sins of the world, so that what we put out did not come back to us, and that our sinful nature does not reap the obvious death," replies Bono. "It's not our own good works that get us through the gates of Heaven."
The interviewer marvels some more: "That's a great idea, no denying it. Such great hope is wonderful, even though it's close to lunacy, in my view. Christ has His rank among the world's great thinkers. But Son of God, isn't that farfetched?"
Bono comes back, "Look, the secular response to the Christ story always goes like this: He was a great prophet, obviously a very interesting guy, had a lot to say along the lines of other great prophets, be they Elijah, Muhammad, Buddha, or Confucius. But actually Christ doesn't allow you that. He doesn't let you off that hook. Christ says, No. I'm not saying I'm a teacher, don't call me teacher. I'm not saying I'm a prophet. I'm saying: 'I'm the Messiah.' I'm saying: 'I am God incarnate.' . . . So what you're left with is either Christ was who He said He was—the Messiah—or a complete nutcase. . . . The idea that the entire course of civilization for over half of the globe could have its fate changed and turned upside-down by a nutcase, for me that's farfetched."
What is most interesting in this exchange is the reaction of the interviewer, to whom Bono is, in effect, witnessing. This hip rock journalist starts by scorning what he thinks is Christianity. But it is as if he had never heard of grace, the atonement, the deity of Christ, the gospel. And he probably hadn't. But when he hears what Christianity is actually all about, he is amazed.
•
Copyright � 2005 WORLD Magazine
August 6, 2005, Vol. 20, No. 30 World Magazine - Weekly News | Christian Views
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
I Love to Tell the Story
I Love to Tell the Story: "I love to tell the story, for those who know it best
Seem hungering and thirsting to hear it like the rest."
Seem hungering and thirsting to hear it like the rest."
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Sunday, June 05, 2005
Friday, May 06, 2005
Thursday, April 07, 2005
Tongues Today?
I don't post this to pick a fight or be defensive. I post this for the young Christian who:
~~wants everything God has for him
~~desires to be thoroughly biblical
Tongues Today? by O. Palmer Robertson helped me tremendously when i was first walking through my understanding of what it means to experience the fullness of the Holy Spirit. This article is one of those rare pieces that i can still visualize where i was when i read it for the 1st time. Hope it helps.
~~wants everything God has for him
~~desires to be thoroughly biblical
Tongues Today? by O. Palmer Robertson helped me tremendously when i was first walking through my understanding of what it means to experience the fullness of the Holy Spirit. This article is one of those rare pieces that i can still visualize where i was when i read it for the 1st time. Hope it helps.
Understanding the "Weird" Stuff in Acts
The New Testament itself divides the last days (which began at Pentecost Joel 2, cf. Acts 2) into apostolic and post-apostolic dimensions or periods. There is a foundation-laying period, marked by the ministry of the apostles and prophets, and there is a post-foundational, post-apostolic period in view (as Ephesians 2:20 implies). It should not surprise us that phenomena occur in the former period which are not designed to continue beyond it, any more than the miracles of Moses, Elijah, or Elijah continued to be performed by their gifted successors. --Sinclair Ferguson
Saturday, April 02, 2005
THE GOSPEL AND THE “SEEKER”
THE GOSPEL AND THE “SEEKER”
In I Corinthians 14:24 Paul describes a person who comes to a worship service
“who does not understand”--literally a “seeker”. We have seen Cornelius is a
“seeker” who God acknowledges and sincere (Acts 10:1-4). Though they may be
very good persons, they still need to be brought to “repentance unto life” (Acts
11:14). How can we help a person who is “on the verge”--who seems to want to
come to Christ. Here are some helps on helping such persons:
Principles for applying the gospel to seekers
The following is a paraphrase of a lecture in an out of print book by a
Presbyterian minister of the early 19th century. William Sprague, Lectures on
Revival, Lecture 6
1. Determine the amount of knowledge and the amount of feeling.
--if he is long on feeling and short on knowledge, your course of action is fairly
simple. He may be ripe for conversion. Present the truths of the gospel in a
balanced, full way. You may be bold to press for a commitment. If he will not,
discover at what point he has trouble. Review the outline briefly, asking, "Do
you understand and agree that first,___________, and second,_________..."
--if he is long on knowledge and short on feeling, you may need to elaborate the
gospel presentation with vivid illustrations and pointed applications.. Show
him that Christianity is not an academic matter, not a matter of weaving a
web of intricate thought-forms. Say, as Whitefield, "It is one thing to assent
with your mouth, and another thing to believe from the heart. If you have really
done that, a truth affects you mind, will, and emotions. Have you ever been
saddened by your sins? Have you cried out to God that you need a savior? Has
the mercy of God in Christ seemed precious to you?" [Caution: Keep in mind the
words of Thomas Watson - "But wouldest thou know when thou hast been
humbled enough for sin? When thou are willing to let go thy sins. The gold
has lain long enough in the furnace when the dross is purged out; so, when the
love of sin is purged out, a soul is humbled enough, what needs more? If a
needle has let out the abscess, what needs a lance? Be no more cruel to thyself
than God would have thee." --from A Body of Divinity, p. 451
2. Impress on the awakened sinner the need to come to God on gospel
terms immediately.
--God owns you. Every day you rule your own life you become more and more
guilty.
--The concern you have now is the gracious influence of the spirit of God. If you
decide to come to God at your own convenience, you are mocking God. He is too
great for you to snap your fingers when you are ready. Who is King around
here? You are in great danger of losing the openness of heart you have now. Doyou think you can repent any time you wish? No! Repentance is a gift from
God, which he is offering you now. You must take it or risk becoming too hard
to care. Then you will be lost forever. Don't delay. Even a passing conversation
with a friend can drive away your convictions. Act now.
3. Beware of a spirit of self-righteousness.
--When a man is first awakened to his need, he usually sets out on a furious
effort to please God through his efforts (church attendance, prayer, obeying
the law). Warn him of this.
--Say, "Don't stop striving to please God, but do it in the spirit of the new
covenant, not the covenant of works. There is no actual saving value in your
strivings, only gratitude value (saying "thank you" for a full salvation). Until
you accept this and fall down helpless at the feet of Christ's mercy and are
willing to accept the free gift of eternal life, you cannot be saved."
--Warn him that he can assent to justification by faith in the abstract and still
try to catch God's eye with his efforts, so he must examine his heart.
4. Beware of making comfort your ultimate end instead of giving God
his due.
--If you see yourself as a sufferer looking for relief primarily, you will never
find peace. God is no sugar daddy to be used by you to secure your own
happiness. Say to him: "Blessed are they which hunger and thirst after--what?
Blessedness? No! Righteousness! Happy are they which don't seek happiness,
but rather to give God his due. Happiness never comes to those who seek it
directly. You are a sinner, in need of pardon. Give God what you owe:
repentance, faith, obedience. Your troubles will take care of themselves. Until
you have grasped this in your heart, you’ll not have peace."
5. If, after sharing the gospel, the person is not ready to repent and
believe, yet is still awakened, advise this:
--Spend a lot of time reading good books, the Bible, and in prayer. Coming to
church meetings and so on is good, but no substitute. It is too easy to derive
your spirituality from the environment. Also, many well-meaning counselors
may be confusing. Talk often with one or two spiritual advisors and with the
Lord
--Read the intriguing sermon by Lloyd-Jones on Mark 8:22,26- "Men as Trees,
Walking" in Spiritual Depression: Causes and Cures. He tells about people who
are in a similar condition to the blind man. They seemed to have been touched
by Jesus--they see things they couldn't see before, yet things are still not in
focus. What did the blind man do? He was honest. He did not say, "I see fine!"
He admitted his condition and Jesus touched him again. So tell Jesus what
you see and what you don't see. Ask him to touch you some more until you see
clearly.
--But above all, stress that these means of study and prayer are only means to
the end. They cannot merit anything from God. They are only ways to enable
God to work in you.
Common objections or problems posed by seekers
1. "I just can't believe" What you are describing is simply the settled
distaste every natural heart has to God. Don't make an excuse for it. In
yourself, you are unable to believe, but the Holy Spirit has already come to
your aid. If you see what you have to do and wish that you could do it, then
that is evidence of the Holy Spirit's work. (You give yourself too much credit!
You couldn't see all these things unless the Spirit was already at work! Don't
despair.) Now, as long as this divine aid is offered to you, you must act. Don't
wait for some kind of psychological sense of certainty; faith is acting on what
you know to be true.
Paul says: "We walk by faith, not by sight". See? He doesn't pit faith against
reason, he pits faith against feelings and appearances. Do you see what you
must do? Then repent, trust, obey Christ. How can you stand on this plea of
inability? That is an abstract question, and it is a sinful refusal.
2. "I've tried all you've said to do, but it hasn't worked" [Evaluate:
Either he hasn't `tried' properly, or he has a false understanding of what
`worked' means.] What do you mean by `worked'? Did you expect a certain
feeling? Did you expect your problems to go away. Faith is acting on what you
know to be true, despite how things feel or appear ("We walk by faith, not by
sight".) Imagine that a doctor tells you, "You are dying because of all the fat
and starch you are eating; if you stop eating steak and potatoes, your body will
begin to strengthen". The first time someone beside you eats a big steak
dinner, won't it smell great? It doesn't smell dangerous and deadly. Now if you
exercise faith, you follow what you know to be true (this food is poison to me), or
you can follow your appetites, senses, and feelings. What if you exercise faith?
Will it immediately feel wonderful? NO! Your stomach will growl and you will
feel unsatisfied. It is only as you practice faith over time that the healing and
health (that is, the good feeling and visible effects) will come. So it is with
saving faith. You may not at first experience anything remarkable. Nor will all
your problems be solved. But your standing with God is changed, and
eventually, the effects will flow out into your whole life. Phil. 2:12-14 tells us
that the strength and life of God comes as you obey him. He works as we work.
How have you been trying? Perhaps you have been striving in a spirit of selfrighteousness
(see above). Perhaps you have been striving in a spirit of
bargaining with God, instead of approaching him as a sovereign king (see
above). ("I'll do this and that if God will do this and that". Instead say, "I owe
God everything, and he owes me nothing; I'll gladly do whatever he bids me
WITHOUT CONDITIONS". If you have put conditions on your seeking him,
he will not meet you.) [Bottom line.] I'm sorry you have been frustrated in your
seeking God, and I cannot know your heart or God's heart enough to tell you
why you haven't felt that you've connected with him. But I do know this. You
haven't got the option of giving up. His disciples said to Jesus, "Lord, to whom
shall we go? You [alone] have the words of eternal life" (John 6:68). What is
your alternative? You have none. If you keep seeking, Jesus says that no one
who comes to him will he cast out (John 6:37). On the other hand, if you stop
seeking him, you will certainly perish.
3. "I just don't have any sorrow for sin or desire for God" [He may be the
victim of having heard long, lurid testimonies which convinced him that he too
must have an extended period of self-loathing and weeping over his sin.] It is
not Biblical to require everyone to have equally long, vivid, and horrible
sorrow over sin. Look at Matthew, Zaccheus, the Phillipian jailer, and Lydia
(Luke 19:9; Acts 16:14, etc.). There is no indication that they spent time in
terror and horror. They were called abruptly and they came. Look at Jesus
invitation to the Laodiceans (Rev. 3:15-20). He invites the lukewarm, selfdeluded
people to open to him so he can fellowship with him. They were not put
through some long time of conviction.
Listen! If your house had caught on fire, how alarmed would you have
to feel about it in order to be saved? Just enough to get out! It doesn't matter
whether you leave crying `Oh! My house, my house’ or not. It doesn't matter if
you are in a panic or just a bit upset. THE ONLY GOOD YOUR EMOTIONS
AND FEAR ARE IS TO GET YOU TO LEAVE. The only good conviction of
sin is to get you to repent and humble yourself under the mighty hand of your
king. So submit! Don't wait to feel a certain way. [Ultimately, anyone who is
concerned about lack of sorrow and feeling is caught in a self-righteous spirit.
He hopes to please God with his pious feelings. Don't allow this. Confront him.]
4. "I'm too bad/depressed" Look how far Jesus came to save sinners! Are
you worse than Paul? (I Tim. 1:15) Jesus loves to save sinners; he delights to
do it. (Luke 15:7; Is. 53:11; Zeph.3:16-17). The Bible says God is "mighty to
save"; are you saying that He is not strong enough to deal with your sins? Are
you mightier than God? [Again, remember that this complaint is often a subtle
form of self-righteousness. The man thinks he is unworthy. Then he is
assuming his worthiness is the necessary basis for coming to Christ.]
In I Corinthians 14:24 Paul describes a person who comes to a worship service
“who does not understand”--literally a “seeker”. We have seen Cornelius is a
“seeker” who God acknowledges and sincere (Acts 10:1-4). Though they may be
very good persons, they still need to be brought to “repentance unto life” (Acts
11:14). How can we help a person who is “on the verge”--who seems to want to
come to Christ. Here are some helps on helping such persons:
Principles for applying the gospel to seekers
The following is a paraphrase of a lecture in an out of print book by a
Presbyterian minister of the early 19th century. William Sprague, Lectures on
Revival, Lecture 6
1. Determine the amount of knowledge and the amount of feeling.
--if he is long on feeling and short on knowledge, your course of action is fairly
simple. He may be ripe for conversion. Present the truths of the gospel in a
balanced, full way. You may be bold to press for a commitment. If he will not,
discover at what point he has trouble. Review the outline briefly, asking, "Do
you understand and agree that first,___________, and second,_________..."
--if he is long on knowledge and short on feeling, you may need to elaborate the
gospel presentation with vivid illustrations and pointed applications.. Show
him that Christianity is not an academic matter, not a matter of weaving a
web of intricate thought-forms. Say, as Whitefield, "It is one thing to assent
with your mouth, and another thing to believe from the heart. If you have really
done that, a truth affects you mind, will, and emotions. Have you ever been
saddened by your sins? Have you cried out to God that you need a savior? Has
the mercy of God in Christ seemed precious to you?" [Caution: Keep in mind the
words of Thomas Watson - "But wouldest thou know when thou hast been
humbled enough for sin? When thou are willing to let go thy sins. The gold
has lain long enough in the furnace when the dross is purged out; so, when the
love of sin is purged out, a soul is humbled enough, what needs more? If a
needle has let out the abscess, what needs a lance? Be no more cruel to thyself
than God would have thee." --from A Body of Divinity, p. 451
2. Impress on the awakened sinner the need to come to God on gospel
terms immediately.
--God owns you. Every day you rule your own life you become more and more
guilty.
--The concern you have now is the gracious influence of the spirit of God. If you
decide to come to God at your own convenience, you are mocking God. He is too
great for you to snap your fingers when you are ready. Who is King around
here? You are in great danger of losing the openness of heart you have now. Doyou think you can repent any time you wish? No! Repentance is a gift from
God, which he is offering you now. You must take it or risk becoming too hard
to care. Then you will be lost forever. Don't delay. Even a passing conversation
with a friend can drive away your convictions. Act now.
3. Beware of a spirit of self-righteousness.
--When a man is first awakened to his need, he usually sets out on a furious
effort to please God through his efforts (church attendance, prayer, obeying
the law). Warn him of this.
--Say, "Don't stop striving to please God, but do it in the spirit of the new
covenant, not the covenant of works. There is no actual saving value in your
strivings, only gratitude value (saying "thank you" for a full salvation). Until
you accept this and fall down helpless at the feet of Christ's mercy and are
willing to accept the free gift of eternal life, you cannot be saved."
--Warn him that he can assent to justification by faith in the abstract and still
try to catch God's eye with his efforts, so he must examine his heart.
4. Beware of making comfort your ultimate end instead of giving God
his due.
--If you see yourself as a sufferer looking for relief primarily, you will never
find peace. God is no sugar daddy to be used by you to secure your own
happiness. Say to him: "Blessed are they which hunger and thirst after--what?
Blessedness? No! Righteousness! Happy are they which don't seek happiness,
but rather to give God his due. Happiness never comes to those who seek it
directly. You are a sinner, in need of pardon. Give God what you owe:
repentance, faith, obedience. Your troubles will take care of themselves. Until
you have grasped this in your heart, you’ll not have peace."
5. If, after sharing the gospel, the person is not ready to repent and
believe, yet is still awakened, advise this:
--Spend a lot of time reading good books, the Bible, and in prayer. Coming to
church meetings and so on is good, but no substitute. It is too easy to derive
your spirituality from the environment. Also, many well-meaning counselors
may be confusing. Talk often with one or two spiritual advisors and with the
Lord
--Read the intriguing sermon by Lloyd-Jones on Mark 8:22,26- "Men as Trees,
Walking" in Spiritual Depression: Causes and Cures. He tells about people who
are in a similar condition to the blind man. They seemed to have been touched
by Jesus--they see things they couldn't see before, yet things are still not in
focus. What did the blind man do? He was honest. He did not say, "I see fine!"
He admitted his condition and Jesus touched him again. So tell Jesus what
you see and what you don't see. Ask him to touch you some more until you see
clearly.
--But above all, stress that these means of study and prayer are only means to
the end. They cannot merit anything from God. They are only ways to enable
God to work in you.
Common objections or problems posed by seekers
1. "I just can't believe" What you are describing is simply the settled
distaste every natural heart has to God. Don't make an excuse for it. In
yourself, you are unable to believe, but the Holy Spirit has already come to
your aid. If you see what you have to do and wish that you could do it, then
that is evidence of the Holy Spirit's work. (You give yourself too much credit!
You couldn't see all these things unless the Spirit was already at work! Don't
despair.) Now, as long as this divine aid is offered to you, you must act. Don't
wait for some kind of psychological sense of certainty; faith is acting on what
you know to be true.
Paul says: "We walk by faith, not by sight". See? He doesn't pit faith against
reason, he pits faith against feelings and appearances. Do you see what you
must do? Then repent, trust, obey Christ. How can you stand on this plea of
inability? That is an abstract question, and it is a sinful refusal.
2. "I've tried all you've said to do, but it hasn't worked" [Evaluate:
Either he hasn't `tried' properly, or he has a false understanding of what
`worked' means.] What do you mean by `worked'? Did you expect a certain
feeling? Did you expect your problems to go away. Faith is acting on what you
know to be true, despite how things feel or appear ("We walk by faith, not by
sight".) Imagine that a doctor tells you, "You are dying because of all the fat
and starch you are eating; if you stop eating steak and potatoes, your body will
begin to strengthen". The first time someone beside you eats a big steak
dinner, won't it smell great? It doesn't smell dangerous and deadly. Now if you
exercise faith, you follow what you know to be true (this food is poison to me), or
you can follow your appetites, senses, and feelings. What if you exercise faith?
Will it immediately feel wonderful? NO! Your stomach will growl and you will
feel unsatisfied. It is only as you practice faith over time that the healing and
health (that is, the good feeling and visible effects) will come. So it is with
saving faith. You may not at first experience anything remarkable. Nor will all
your problems be solved. But your standing with God is changed, and
eventually, the effects will flow out into your whole life. Phil. 2:12-14 tells us
that the strength and life of God comes as you obey him. He works as we work.
How have you been trying? Perhaps you have been striving in a spirit of selfrighteousness
(see above). Perhaps you have been striving in a spirit of
bargaining with God, instead of approaching him as a sovereign king (see
above). ("I'll do this and that if God will do this and that". Instead say, "I owe
God everything, and he owes me nothing; I'll gladly do whatever he bids me
WITHOUT CONDITIONS". If you have put conditions on your seeking him,
he will not meet you.) [Bottom line.] I'm sorry you have been frustrated in your
seeking God, and I cannot know your heart or God's heart enough to tell you
why you haven't felt that you've connected with him. But I do know this. You
haven't got the option of giving up. His disciples said to Jesus, "Lord, to whom
shall we go? You [alone] have the words of eternal life" (John 6:68). What is
your alternative? You have none. If you keep seeking, Jesus says that no one
who comes to him will he cast out (John 6:37). On the other hand, if you stop
seeking him, you will certainly perish.
3. "I just don't have any sorrow for sin or desire for God" [He may be the
victim of having heard long, lurid testimonies which convinced him that he too
must have an extended period of self-loathing and weeping over his sin.] It is
not Biblical to require everyone to have equally long, vivid, and horrible
sorrow over sin. Look at Matthew, Zaccheus, the Phillipian jailer, and Lydia
(Luke 19:9; Acts 16:14, etc.). There is no indication that they spent time in
terror and horror. They were called abruptly and they came. Look at Jesus
invitation to the Laodiceans (Rev. 3:15-20). He invites the lukewarm, selfdeluded
people to open to him so he can fellowship with him. They were not put
through some long time of conviction.
Listen! If your house had caught on fire, how alarmed would you have
to feel about it in order to be saved? Just enough to get out! It doesn't matter
whether you leave crying `Oh! My house, my house’ or not. It doesn't matter if
you are in a panic or just a bit upset. THE ONLY GOOD YOUR EMOTIONS
AND FEAR ARE IS TO GET YOU TO LEAVE. The only good conviction of
sin is to get you to repent and humble yourself under the mighty hand of your
king. So submit! Don't wait to feel a certain way. [Ultimately, anyone who is
concerned about lack of sorrow and feeling is caught in a self-righteous spirit.
He hopes to please God with his pious feelings. Don't allow this. Confront him.]
4. "I'm too bad/depressed" Look how far Jesus came to save sinners! Are
you worse than Paul? (I Tim. 1:15) Jesus loves to save sinners; he delights to
do it. (Luke 15:7; Is. 53:11; Zeph.3:16-17). The Bible says God is "mighty to
save"; are you saying that He is not strong enough to deal with your sins? Are
you mightier than God? [Again, remember that this complaint is often a subtle
form of self-righteousness. The man thinks he is unworthy. Then he is
assuming his worthiness is the necessary basis for coming to Christ.]
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
Atheism, Eastern mysticism, Occult, then Jesus
testimony of our March 20 sunday evening presenter: Ron was raised in a religious Jewish home in Philadelphia, PA. His family regularly attended Synagogue and maintained Jewish traditions in their home.
While a teenager, Ron began to consider the reality of God. For a short time, he became an atheist and then he was attracted to occult teachings and Eastern mysticism. He traveled to India to study Yoga and Hinduism, became an astrologer, and experimented with drugs and New Age philosophies. He found that none of these spiritual pursuits satisfied his heart's desire to know the meaning of life and to have peace with God.
He moved to northern California to live in an alternative rural community. While there, he became convicted by the Holy Spirit of his sins. Ron began to learn about the Gospel of Jesus through the witness of many individuals. A gospel tract that was left on his car window had a great impact on him. God was faithful to keep bringing Christians across his path.
But, because of his strong Jewish background, he didn't accept the Gospel as a mean to forgiveness, but followed a more traditional Jewish method of atonement...good deeds. He organized a community help organization which became funded through state funds. Later, he coauthor an employment training program for low income people through Sonoma State University (CA). This program was funded by the CA state government.
In spite of developing these successful help programs, Ron did not satisfy his need to know God and to be free of the guilt he felt from his sins.
He read a book called "Autobiography of a Yoga" which taught that Jesus was one of the great masters who had come to earth to instruct us how to return to God. This made him more open to learn about Jesus. He rejected the Christian assertions that Jesus was the only way to God. Jesus said "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." But, Ron did become attracted to Jesus and his moral teachings. This was the crack in the armor around Ron's heart that God used to penetrate his soul with the saving knowledge of Jesus. Through the witness of many people over many years, God drew Ron to faith in the Jewish Messiah.
However, there were two main obstacles to believing the Good News. The first was his Jewish background.The more his interest in Jesus grew, the more guilt he felt. Because of the persecution that happened over centuries against Jewish people in the name of Jesus, by people who called themselves Christians, the Jewish community considers those who believe in Jesus to be traitors. Click here to understand this issue more fully.
The second obstacle was pridefulness. Ron believed he could win God's acceptance through good deeds. However, after he set up the community organizations which helped thousands of people he was no closer to achieving peace with God. He still felt like he was in a spiritual wasteland.
At the age of 31, convinced of the truthfulness of the Gospel, Ron bowed his knees to the Lord and asked to be saved. Immediately, he experienced the burden of his sins being lifted from his soul and his spirit was brought into the newness of life promised in 2 Corinthians 5:17; Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" A true refreshment that only God can give, brought joy and fulfillment to Ron.
While a teenager, Ron began to consider the reality of God. For a short time, he became an atheist and then he was attracted to occult teachings and Eastern mysticism. He traveled to India to study Yoga and Hinduism, became an astrologer, and experimented with drugs and New Age philosophies. He found that none of these spiritual pursuits satisfied his heart's desire to know the meaning of life and to have peace with God.
He moved to northern California to live in an alternative rural community. While there, he became convicted by the Holy Spirit of his sins. Ron began to learn about the Gospel of Jesus through the witness of many individuals. A gospel tract that was left on his car window had a great impact on him. God was faithful to keep bringing Christians across his path.
But, because of his strong Jewish background, he didn't accept the Gospel as a mean to forgiveness, but followed a more traditional Jewish method of atonement...good deeds. He organized a community help organization which became funded through state funds. Later, he coauthor an employment training program for low income people through Sonoma State University (CA). This program was funded by the CA state government.
In spite of developing these successful help programs, Ron did not satisfy his need to know God and to be free of the guilt he felt from his sins.
He read a book called "Autobiography of a Yoga" which taught that Jesus was one of the great masters who had come to earth to instruct us how to return to God. This made him more open to learn about Jesus. He rejected the Christian assertions that Jesus was the only way to God. Jesus said "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." But, Ron did become attracted to Jesus and his moral teachings. This was the crack in the armor around Ron's heart that God used to penetrate his soul with the saving knowledge of Jesus. Through the witness of many people over many years, God drew Ron to faith in the Jewish Messiah.
However, there were two main obstacles to believing the Good News. The first was his Jewish background.The more his interest in Jesus grew, the more guilt he felt. Because of the persecution that happened over centuries against Jewish people in the name of Jesus, by people who called themselves Christians, the Jewish community considers those who believe in Jesus to be traitors. Click here to understand this issue more fully.
The second obstacle was pridefulness. Ron believed he could win God's acceptance through good deeds. However, after he set up the community organizations which helped thousands of people he was no closer to achieving peace with God. He still felt like he was in a spiritual wasteland.
At the age of 31, convinced of the truthfulness of the Gospel, Ron bowed his knees to the Lord and asked to be saved. Immediately, he experienced the burden of his sins being lifted from his soul and his spirit was brought into the newness of life promised in 2 Corinthians 5:17; Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" A true refreshment that only God can give, brought joy and fulfillment to Ron.
Saturday, March 05, 2005
Bible Discrepancies?
"In Galatians 1 Paul describes in some detail the events which took place immediately after his conversion, and there are at first glance some discrepancies with Luke's account. Again, a number of critics cite Galatians 1 and Acts 9 as containing irresolvable contradictions in the chronology of events, supposedly evidence of errors in Scripture. But, as is the case with most of these supposed contradictions, they are not contradictory at all, but are instead quite easily resolvable and the sequence of events in the two accounts can be very simply reconstructed. When we put the two accounts together, we can conclude that First, according to the first 19 verses of Acts 9, Paul is converted while on his way to Damascus. Second, as Luke recounts in verses 19-22, immediately after regaining his strength, Saul began preaching in the Synagogues of Damascus that Jesus was the Christ. Next, according to Galatians 1:17, Saul went to Arabia for three years and only later returned to Damascus as recounted in Acts 9:23-25. Last, as we will see in Acts 9:26-30, Saul eventually returned to Jerusalem, to introduce himself to the apostles and to further confirm his calling to preach the gospel" ---kim riddlebarger
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