Why Faith?

I had a very interesting discussion with a friend of mine last night whilst we were painting my room. I was standing in the wardrobe – yes in the wardrobe! (I have built in mirrored wardrobes – and we were painting the walls at the back of them!) and she posed a question which got us wondering. Who knows, maybe it was the fumes of the paint (especially in an enclosed space!!!), but it seems like we should have known the answer to this question, and yet neither of us could quite put our finger on it. I think we may be missing a large piece of the jigsaw, which is there somewhere, but for some reason has been temporarily misplaced. Losing the metaphors, I don’t quite get it. I thought I did, but after that question I have realised I obviously don’t. I think there is an answer to this one, and an answer I will probably respond to with an, ‘Oh yeah, that’s what it is!’ type response, so if anyone can offer it, that would be great!!!!

Sorry, no more waffling, here it is the question of the day:

Why is faith required for Salvation?

In my head, the brief (very) history of the redemption plan is this:

• God made a perfect world, humans were in perfect relationship with Him.
• Humans messed up and ruined it – we were separated from God.
• The huge gap between God’s holiness and glory and our sinfulness meant that we could no longer see God fully or be actually with Him in the fullness of His presence because we would simply die. (This is true – right?)
• God still wanted to be in relationship with His people so He chose a nation and set some guidelines for them on how they might be able to still be in relationship with Him - sacrifice, the holy of holies, the tabernacle, the ten commandments and covenant relationship etc etc. Namely the law.
• Skipping a whole load of "stuff" - the law was powerless to remove the sins of the people: "The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. If it could, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins, because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins." Hebrews 10:1-4
• Jesus came to earth, became a man, lived a perfect life, and died for our sins, becoming the perfect sacrifice and therefore the fulfilment of the law.
• Now we are in a transient state. We have forgiveness of sins through Jesus, and can 'gain access' to the Kingdom of Heaven through faith in the son. But what we see now is only partial because the Son has not yet returned in all His glory. So we are still imperfect, and still do not experience the complete fulness of His glory (nor can we till we have been made perfect).

That is my understanding. My question is this:

If God is omnipotent - can do anything - why was he bound by the 'law' in the first place? Why did sin seperate us from Him? Why couldn't he just turn round and say sin can exist with holiness? (or more metaphorically - I choose that darkness and light can now exist together)?

Secondly, even if that is explainable, when Jesus died for our sins, why was that not the end of the story? Jesus sacrifice has enabled us to have a relationship with God again, why now make faith a requirement? Surely Jesus came to do away with requirements?

Basically, why make it so difficult? Not that He is not justified in doing so. I am not angry or frustrated that we have to have this faith, It is totally justifiable. He is God, and besides look at how much he has done for us! How can we even think about questioning some tiny little requirement He has of us? In a sense, I am not questioning it, more questioning why it is necessary.

We are told that God is able to do anything. This is a fundamental belief which I understand and agree with. We are also told that God really deeply desires a close relationship with us. (Something I struggle with a bit more as you know from my previous entries). If both of these are true, then why make it hard? why not make it easy? Why put an obstacle in the way?

John Ortbergs 'God is closer than you think' series talks a lot about how much God desires a relationship with us. How much He loves us. He uses the illustration of the picture in the Sistene chapel of God reaching out His arm, stretching out with His whole body trying to reach us, and all it requires is a little lift of our finger to meet His outstretched arm. Beautiful! BUT He is not bound by anything, He is God, He is not stretching out to His full capacity because that is infinite. He doesn't 'need' us to lift our finger, He could reach us anyway, and if that is what He so desires, then why doesn't He?

I know I have left out free will, but that little lift of our finger is not simply an exercise in free will - 'yes God I do want a relationship with you' - I exercise my free will and say 'yes please'. The 'little lift' often requires huge sacrifice, huge cost. Basically 'huge faith' (Huge is relative - i know its nothing in comparison to what we owe!)

Once again, I am not bitter about the need to have faith, I know it may sound like that but I am not. I am simply trying to work it all through in this logical brain of mine!

Theory vs Practice - Truth vs Grace

Last Friday I attended a churches together event, (which was great – I am always challenged about tunnelled vision at events like that – but that is worthy of another post one day!). The speaker for the evening was Joel Edwards – the head of the evangelical alliance. He spoke really well about the need for a balance between grace and truth, particularly in reference to evangelism. I will give the basics of what he said.

The two concepts, grace and truth, are both massively important elements of the Christian faith, and both should be emphasised and adopted in the living out of our faith. However, it is so easy for us to let these get out of balance. Many Christians would often find themselves very passionate about presenting ‘truth’ to the world, and when truth is being questioned or ignored would take that as an invitation to fight. Others would recognise that people need love and care, and would keep their focus on the people and their feelings rather than on imposing rules and regulations.

What is the right way? To grab people by the throat forcing them to listen to the gospel until they accept Jesus as their personal Saviour, or to accept that they have a right to choose their own lifestyle and belief system and never challenge that, possibly at the risk of them never hearing the truth? Truth vs. grace.

As a Salvationist I have to say that in theory, my inclination is towards truth. I am very passionate about my beliefs, and about presenting the truth to a world that seems to me to be spinning out of control. I often find myself in church, or in my quiet times, or even just in general living, wanting to beg and plead with people to listen to the gospel and am so desperate (inside) for people to grasp how vital and important this is. I also feel very passionate about our Christian responsibility to fight for social justice, to heal the broken hearted, to feed the hungry, help the poor, care for the alcoholic and the drug addict, love the prostitute and visit the imprisoned. I am also anxious that none of that is worth anything unless we are also praying for their souls and pleading with them to accept Jesus as their Saviour. As I write this, I can feel the burden inside me welling up. I want this so badly, sometimes it makes me want to cry.

And yet what a hypocrite I am. What do I do in my life that displays any of this passion or commitment to fighting for the truth? It plainly and simply isn’t there for public display, meaning that I am not actually doing any of that stuff. Can I even want it as badly as I think I do if I am not showing any of that desire in the way that I live?

When I questioned why these two, (theory and practice), do not tally I came to the conclusion that it is because 1) I am too scared, and 2) I live in a society where acceptance is the key. Everyone is fine with everyone else’s choice of belief system as long as nobody pushes anyone else to believe the same thing. People don’t tend to react well these days to forms of attack on their lifestyle choices, and so we have to work within these boundaries. I hate confrontation, and I hate anyone thinking badly of me, so I tend to err on the side of keeping my beliefs and lifestyle choices as my own, and never questioning others about theirs.

In a sense, both of these characteristics are good in themselves in some way, but Joel Edwards pointed out that there has to be a balance. Truth and grace come as a pair, we cannot separate them. If we do, the impact they will have is massively reduced. So how do we do it? How do we balance truth and grace?

Joel emphasised the fact that Jesus was the perfect role model in terms of keeping this balance right. He was passionate about the truth, and showed it, whilst also being gentle and kind and loving. He didn’t let people get away with living badly, (don’t the Pharisees know it), but he also loved them into changing. Joel used the example of the woman caught in adultery by saying that Jesus challenged the woman’s behaviour, but in a way that was not accusatory or caused her to be defensive. On the contrary, his dealings with her caused her to change her lifestyle.

So how can we follow his lead? This is where I get stuck. We were encouraged to live ‘curious’ lives. To live in such a way that causes people to ask questions. Great! But how do we do that? What does that mean practically for the way I live? I am so desperate for people to understand how much more to life there is than what is in front of them, but how can I help them to see that without pushing the gospel down their throats and causing them to run a mile in the opposite direction? How can I be gentle and caring with people without missing an opportunity to speak truth into their hearts? I don’t know how to be curious! Plus, how can we know when we have the balance right? Do we only have it right when we see results, because if so, then I have it so badly wrong!

Scepticism

Ok guys - the introvert lets go for a moment and opens up to the world. Here goes...

I have recently become very concerned about how easy it is as a Christian, surrounded by other Christians, to never think about what my faith looks like to a non-believer. I do not mean, "how good a Christian am I?" or, "do my actions show that my faith is genuine?" I mean it more in terms of actually what do people think of me when they hear that I believe in God, and that I have "given my life to following Him"?

I realise that what other people think of me is not important, and in all honesty, I don't really care if they think I am strange because I believe. I am going to believe anyway, stuff them. It is more that I hate the idea that they would pity me. I hate the thought that some people might look at me and think, "poor girl, she has been taken in. Why can't she see that she is believing in something so illogical". I guess it stems from the fact that I have been educated in very scientific and exact subjects. There is always an answer, and the world makes logical sense. Everything has a pattern and an order and just fits in place. And for me, I need to know that I have the right answer. I need to know that what I do is "right"; that the formula I used is the most logical one, and that it gives me as accurate an answer as possible. To be honest faith is not like that. Believing in God doesn't always make logical sense.

I guess there are some who would fight against that point, and in some ways I would too. I mean, when you look at the vastness of the world - the moon and stars; when you hear a storm, or experience extreme weather in some way; when you see a newborn baby, or the beauty of nature; when you look at how the human baody was formed so perfectly to allow us to live and move and breathe and communicate; how can you not think that the world had a creator; someone who thought all this through. Surely this is a much more logical explanation than...there was a big bang and it was all suddenly there!.

But, it is more the experiencial side of faith that concerns me. The trouble is, nobody can prove or disprove anothers experience. Expereince can be explained away very easily, and is often doubted and met with scepticism. For instance, if I met someone who told me they had just had a conversation with an alien I would look at them as if it was them who was from another planet! I simply would not believe them. I think some of my previous posts look at this idea in greater detail, (Chance or Not?) but what if some of the things that we Christans say we have experienced are actually just in our heads as some non-believers would suggest. What if answers to prayer are in fact products of coincidence.

I have this problem mainly when it comes to the idea of hearing God's voice. Its easy to talk about calling. Its easy to say, God has told me to do this, that or the other, but what convinces us that is actually God? Are we positive we are not deluding ourselves? What if it is all in our heads, just like it is with the people who see UFO's etc? The trouble is, these people who believe they have seen all these weird and wonderful things like UFO's, totally believe that they have. They don't doubt it at all. What if we are just falling into the same trap?

A friend of emailed me a link to this article:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,564-2428935,00.html

Have a read, if you get a chance. It describes my questions much more eloquently, (but much more like fact than questions). The article is quite long so if you don't want to read it, here's a flavour:

Individuals in asylums think they are Napoleon or Charlie Chaplin, or that the entire world is conspiring against them, or that they can broadcast their thoughts into other people’s heads. We humour them but don’t take their internally revealed beliefs seriously, mostly because not many people share them.

Religious experiences are different only in that the people who claim them are numerous. Sam Harris was not being overly cynical when he wrote, in The End of Faith: “We have names for people who have many beliefs for which there is no rational justification. When their beliefs are extremely common we call them ‘religious’; otherwise, they are likely to be called ‘mad’, ‘psychotic’ or ‘ delusional’... Clearly there is sanity in numbers. And yet, it is merely an accident of history that it is considered normal in our society to believe that the Creator of the universe can hear your thoughts, while it is demonstrative of mental illness to believe that he is communicating with you by having the rain tap in Morse code on your bedroom window. And so, while religious people are not generally mad, their core beliefs absolutely are.”

I want to just stop scaring you all for a moment. I do not doubt the existence of God. I still absolutely believe in, and love God with all my heart. I guess I am just questioning why I do, mainly from the perspective of how I can convince others that I am not delusional. How can I convince them that there is universal truth and God is it? Also, from a personal perspective, how can I know when I am hearing God's voice and know it is not just my mind playing tricks on me.

This response I found very useful, and totally agreed with:

"There is more than enough evidence around to prove whether God exists or not in creation. But what about feelings such as love? Or, how does the human brain store so such vast quantities of knowledge? Gods ways turn human logic upside down. It is impossible to understand him without the spirit within. And to get that, you need to invite Jesus into your life and Christians cannot do that for you. Obviously you can only do that if you believe He exists in the first place, otherwise you won't recognise the answer when it comes. Skepticism will see to that. We all know the scripture "Behold, I stand at the door and knock" etc, so don't just take our word for it, ask Him yourself. Answer the door. You will be pleasantly surprised and wonder why you wrote such a diatribe against the one person who loves you more than any human could ever do." David Hunt, Bristol, England

I know I am not deluded for believing. I know I believe in a God that exists and is present and active in our world. I cannot be moved from that. I know that both because I choose to and because my eperience tells me so. I guess I just need to learn to trust my own experience and not listen to others when they question that and tell me that I am mad or delusional. Sometimes, or rather always, I am just so thankful that I am on God's side of these arguments. I don't understand or know how to answer all these questions. But he knows all things and one day "at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Philippians 2:10-11

Just before I sign off for today, I would like to mention two things.
1) Glyn's latest blog entry is very related to this one - thanks Glyn for the inspiration!
2) Look at how consistent my blogging is - three per month! Couldn't have planned it better if I had tried!

Thanks for reading. I will revert back to introvert-ism soon I promise!

Diving In

On Sunday we had the next in the series of sermons regarding God being closer than we think. This third part relates to living with God today. The sermon, I have to say, was very inspiring and the message clear, but I came away with one puzzling question; "What does it mean to 'dive in'?"

Let me give the context: Richard started by reminding us of all the things we knew so far; God wants to be close to us, and can be with us in each thought, each activity and each moment of our day. Sometimes though, we have days where God seems far away, or where we deliberately push God away, or where we have got a bit stuck in routine and may have 'spiritually habituated'. When that happens, how do we react to it? How do we go about re-discovering God's closeness?

Richard mentioned a few of the things we may try to do: Adding extra disciplines to our routine, trying harder to ensure we get a quiet time, and maybe making it longer, or changing its structure, reading more books, etc. Eventually, we can end up simply trying too hard. (There are many other things that Richard mentioned that people may do in this situation, but I have forgotten them so will update this when I find my sermon notes!). Often we find that whatever we try to do, just simply isn't working.

What if we could find God right now, live with God right now, today, in this moment? Maybe we need to stop trying so hard and just, "dive into the river of the Spirit of God".

He said it much more eloquently than this of course, and it really was powerful. The question is, how do you simply 'dive in'? I have asked a number of people about this and had some interesting answers. For example, its about recognising that we can feel and sense God's presence even just when we are doing the mundane things of life, and in having fun etc.

Someone else said that it was more than this, and mentioned something about a character change, and said it was different for different people. But he didn't really have time to qualify what he meant by that.

Surely 'diving in' requires activity. To dive is a verb - a doing word. But what is it? What do we do? How do we dive in.

A friend of mine (you know who you are) would probably say something about it involving 'resting' in God. (and no I am not implying laziness!), but how do you do that? And is it really about resting? I am not convinced of this either. Plus, I try to rest in God by making sure I spend time being still and trying to imagine God with me. But 1) should I really need to imagine, and 2) surely I am back to trying hard. (Oops, this is getting personal again!)

Someone else (again, you know who you are) would tell me its about making a choice - but I really don't want to get into that here. (Refusing to go personal!)

Am I just confusing the issue? Is there even an answer, or do I just have to wait and see what 'diving in' means for me?

Rainbow Moments

Reading blogs has become one of my favourite pass times. I love reading peoples reflections on things that go on in their lives, whether those reflections are light-hearted or on the deeper side. I simply just love hearing people's stories. I mentioned to someone recently that I am aware that some of my posts on this blog are becoming more personal, and that I am keen to get it back to being more generic, but I am questioning that decision. I have noticed - particularly recently - that I am actually a very private person. Not about all things as I do tell people what's going on in my life, but I don't really like sharing my deepest concerns and feelings. Maybe nobody does, and maybe its just because I have had more of those recently than ever before, but at the end of the day I am, no doubt about it, an introvert. As I said, I love reading about other peoples thoughts and feelings, so was beginning to question whether I should be more prepared to share mine, but I don't think it is wrong to be introverted. My decision therefore is that I will keep most of my feelings out of this blog, but will share the occasional personal story, if I feel it is worth sharing. I have had one of those today, so here goes:

As you are already aware, we have been going through the "God is closer than you think" series at Romford recently. The latest things we have considered is how God is active in our world, and how we can have different types of days according to how much we see God. John Ortberg refers to some of these days as "rainbow days"; days where God seems to be right there in front of you, so close to you. I haven't had many of these days lately, but last night and this morning I had two stunning "rainbow moments".

Yesterday night we were at worship band practice, and we were singing a song, the words of which I love, and it was just one of those "wow" moments. The words to the second verse and chorus are:

Who has told every lightening bolt where it sould go,
Or seen heavenly store houses ladened with snow?
Who imagined the sun and gives source to its light,
Yet conceals it to bring us the coolness of night?
None can fathom.

Indescribable, uncontainable,
You placed the stars in the sky and you know them by name.
You are amazing God.
All powerful, untameable,
Awestruck we fall to our knees as we humbly proclaim,
You are amazing God.

Then we sang, "How great is our God". Need I say more!

Then this morning I was on my way to work, and all of a sudden I saw a flash. I thought it was a camera at first, but then realised that was unlikely as I was stuck in traffic driving at 10 miles an hour. In fact, it was lightening, and suddenly I was driving through the most torrential storm. I love storms - it was kind of scary as I couldn't even see the car in front thanks to the rain, but I was so struck by the power and glory of God. Then, as it calmed down, and the sun was beginning to show its very orange face I wondered if there was a rainbow, and sure enough, to my right was that unmistakable sight. The promise of God that He is always with us. It was slightly hidden by the clouds, but it was there, no doubt. In that moment, I was just really overcome with joy, and felt so close to God. I guess you could say I was overwhelmed by His majesty. It was just so fitting that we had been singing those words the night before. It was almost like God was saying, I am going to show you that what you are singing about is true. So I sat in the car by myself - no music playing and just sang that song back to God in true heart-felt worship.

I feel a bit funny having shared that, its like I am giving something of me away. But I hope it is encouraging to someone. God truly is closer than I often think.

The Sovereignty of God

I have always said I believe in the sovereignty of God. I have never had a problem with the concept of God being sovereign, and I still don’t. I still totally believe it. However, I truly don’t get it. Its such a massive subject with so so so many different debates to be had and questions to be asked. I am not attempting here to provide an argument for or against the sovereignty of God, this is simply a few questions that have crossed my mind recently.

Let me start with a quote from John Piper’s book, “Desiring God”, as it was whilst reading this that many of these questions were brought to my attention:

“The chief end of God is to glorify God and enjoy himself forever. The reason this may sound strange is that we are more accustomed to think about our duty than God’s design. And when we do ask about God’s design we are too prone to describe it with ourselves at the centre of God’s affections. We may say, for example, His design is to redeem the world. Or to save sinners. Or to restore creation. Or the like. But God’s saving designs are penultimate, not ultimate. Redemption, salvation and restoration are not God’s ultimate goal. These He performs for the sake of something greater; namely the enjoyment He has in glorifying Himself.”

This, by the way, is the first paragraph of the first chapter! It totally blew my mind! What is this saying? Surely God’s ultimate aim is not to glorify Himself. Wouldn’t that make him arrogant and proud? The Bible surely teaches us to do the complete opposite of this. I have to say, that by reading on in the chapter, this concept now sits a lot more comfortably with me than when I first read that paragraph, and lots of those initial questions were answered. I will not go into this right now, but you can always read the book if you want to look deeper at this. However, it has raised a number of other questions which, whilst not directly related to the above, do stem from it. I am going to focus mainly on one big topic here, and may write more about my other questions in a future post.

Gods Plan

In my experience, Christians are reminded regularly that God has a plan for them. The Bible does also say this (Jeremiah 29:11 – though this message was actually for the exiles of Judah, but lets not get into that!). My question is, “Is God’s plan for us limited to that which will help to fulfil his plan for mankind, and therefore ultimately to that which glorifies Him?” In other words, if I get to a hypothetical crossroads in my life, where I have a decision to make, has God definitely already planned which way I go? Is this true even if the decision will in no way affect His Kingdom, or His “Salvation plan”. As Rachel and I say, does God care whether I choose a tuna sandwich for lunch today as opposed to some other delicious filling? Plus, if all this is already in God’s plan, and as John Piper says, God’s plan can not be frustrated, (He is sovereign after all!) then how can I possibly do the wrong thing?

Could I offer an alternative suggestion, which is likely to be completely wrong, and maybe even heretical! Please leave a comment to say why this is wrong if you do have an opinion, because in truth I don’t really believe it, but don’t know why as it seems to make a lot more logical sense: Could it be that God has a plan. One plan which is for the whole of mankind. Wherever we are required in order to fulfil a certain part of that plan, (which may be very regularly and may even include seemingly small details of our lives, such as what friends we have or where we work, and also, could include different things for different people), there God plans for us. In that sense, He cannot be frustrated. Those things will happen as God wants them to. This would mean that God has planned for us, but only to the point where that satisfies his ultimate plan for mankind. The smaller, more mundane parts of our lives are ours to decide what to do with. Me choosing tuna over cheese, would not affect God’s plan for Salvation, and ultimately to glorify Himself, therefore He really doesn’t mind. In this sense, God hasn't planned each detail of my life, rather He has a plan, and I often fit into it and therefore much of my life is indirectly planned out for me. If this is not true, then what is the point in praying for anything? I know it shows our dependence on him, but could we not just tell Him that we know we are and stop praying for the things that we want to happen? If God's plans every tiny detail of our lives, and cannot be frustrated, then why bother desiring anything? We might as well just wait and see what we get.

Also, whilst on the subject of plans, if God is out of time, then how can he plan? Surely by definition a plan is produced in order to achieve a future goal. Why would you plan an outcome you can already see? It doesn’t make sense!

See my confusion?!?!?! And thats just the start!

Its a good job God knows what He's doing isn't it!

I realise that this has many connections to a previous post of mine, (God, an individual relationship), particularly the part that says, "Does God care about the things of "life", that I really care about unless these are the very things that themselves have an impact on His Kingdom." I will retrack, and read the comments that were left for me back then, but I did just want to bring this up again because I think it is really important.

Cell Reflections (2)

God is closer than you think. That’s as may be but what about God being closer than you want? Is it not true that sometimes we may actually want to block God from being close to us?

It seems quite clear that if we are purposely going against God’s will, if we are consciously disobeying, and letting sin reign in our lives, then we would want to keep God at arms length, because we don’t want Him to see it. However, God can see our whole lives anyway. We can’t control that. The point is though, that we can, to an extent, control how much we let ourselves feel God’s closeness. Sometimes it is easier to push God away than it is to change the things in our lives that He will ask us to. It’s almost like saying, “If I don’t let God come close to me, if I refuse to lift my finger to meet his outstretched hand, then I won’t feel so guilty about not doing His will, and I can even convince myself that it’s not that big a deal and God doesn’t care that much about it anyway.

Also, sometimes if God has asked us to do something huge for Him, and we are obedient, it is so easy to push Him away afterwards. Why do we do this? Is it because of resentment or bitterness? Maybe fear of having to do something else that hurts that much. Maybe it could even be a determination to control our own lives; we obeyed and now we want to regain control. It’s almost like telling God that He came too close, and now it’s time for Him to back off for a bit – a need for some breathing space now that He has made us deal with this hurt and pain.

Maybe we sometimes think it is easier to go though the desert of feeling far away from God, than it is to go through the pain of sacrificing our will to follow His, or to acknowledge that pain and hurt after the sacrifice is complete. Therefore, hearing that God is closer than you think is not always the comforting message it ought to be. It is in fact a bulldozer that shatters an otherwise quite comfortable view of God being distant and un-involved in our individual lives.

Having written this post, I am beginning to feel that it is a bit random; a kind of statement stuck in the middle of a huge bundle of questions. I wrote it mainly as an accompanying part to the previous post, as I felt I wanted to make sure that these were more than passing thoughts in one discussion at cell group. I think it is important to acknowledge that it is not always a matter of teaching people that God is closer than they think. It may sometimes require the acknowledgement that, in truth, God is closer than we want.