Is this all that there is..?

I noticed a Facebook entry on my news-feed asking for the contact details for a medium to which a number of people had responded with telephone numbers and personal recommendations of the mediums they knew of. Yet if I was to suggest that you could contact the one who is King over the entire heavenly realm and has authority over the principalities and powers that exist in our known world, people tend to turn their nose up at this. In fact, when I look at the number of people that have directly read my blogs about God being in the rescue business, it has received the lowest number of views!

Why is it that when we talk about God being the answer to the problems that we face, we see peoples eye’s glaze over and their interest is lost? I have a good friend who often states that he is ‘jealous’ of my faith in Jesus because he doesn't think he could sustain a belief in one God as a core truth, when the world offers so many other distractions. There is a general apathy in our culture of committing to things that may incur a cost. I don’t know how much a medium costs financially but you pay your money, you take your choice.

Faith in Jesus is characterised by what may appear to those with no faith as ‘giving-up’ our ‘rights’ for those of God, which for some, is too high a price to pay. With God, the choice is still ours to make, but the commitment that he makes to us is eternal. God does all the running - he chooses us! When we are ready to commit to him, we receive the full revelation of God as he fills us with his spirit, and we get to glimpse the person we will become as we spend more time in his presence. We have a supernatural encounter far greater than the best recommendation of any medium or the Derren Browns of this world, whom Wikipedia describe as a trickster, mentalist, hypnotist, painter, writer and sceptic.

One of the interesting areas that Derren Brown would happily profess is his atheism. He came to this conclusion through reading various books on the topics relating to the truth of the authorship of the New Testament and through reading books such as ‘The God Delusion’ written by the leading New Atheist, Richard Dawkins. Indeed, in Derren’s series of investigations into the paranormal, he uses the tools in his extensive repertoire of skills in hypnotism, sleight of hand, and his sociological and psychological understanding to make this point on his website: “Much of my work over the years has been concerned with de-bunking charlatans and investigating paranormal claims.”

I picked Derren Brown as an example of rational atheism because of his amazing television shows and the shear disbelief when you witness what he can get people to do, and to believe. Through the use of his skills, he places suggestion into the minds of the subject, translating his sociological and psychological construct over the reasoning of the subjects own moral and ethical code. When people’s reasoning in suspended in favour of Browns new construct, people perform things they wouldn't normally comprehend.

It is this apparent skill that leads others to conclude that religion in and of itself, is a human construct that encourages a normal rational person to suspend his or her disbelief in the natural order, in favour of a so-called ‘moral code’ established through some dubious evidence for some ‘higher’ being, deity or creator. So if religious belief is indeed a human construct developed before we were enlightened by scientific discovery, then we would not need to accept an overbearing authority that was designed to control the population.

Derren states on his website that on his investigation into the New Testament, he couldn't agree on the authorship of the text to substantiate the claims made within its pages. His assumption being that because he could not authenticate the writing, he would reject it. In so doing, he also rejects the claims of Jesus who is a real person who existed in our space and our time. In rejecting who Jesus was as a figure recorded in the history texts, and through whom the nature of the Roman Empire was significantly transformed, you are then left with the cause and effect argument of Darwinism.  I always look at these views with sadness because they become convenient excuses; we excise God from our core being to absolve any negative emotion we might feel from a life lived indiscriminately.

In cutting God out from the meaning of our existence, we are left with our own rationalism and the integrity we have gleaned from our own understanding of what we want to believe is true. If we choose to accept something as absolute truth, we assimilate that information within our conscious thinking and learn to live by that belief. However rational or irrational it may seem, we would live by this code to preserve our existence by creating favourable conditions in which we could prosper. When our faith in what we believe to be true is challenged, we can react dismissively or we can react more emotionally with rage or even with fear.

As soon as we start to quantify behaviour as beneficial, we are developing a code of conduct that suggests that there are also unhelpful behaviours. New Atheism and humanism would argue that this is a product of the natural order rather than any sense of a deity, because one has to learn how to survive. Sometimes our ‘will-to-succeed’ may encompass behaviours that are not helpful to all, but further our individual needs. God states throughout the Bible that this is indeed correct! We pursue our own will in favour of the will of God because it suits us to.

And yet as people, within our sense of self determination, we still seem to be drawn to a sense of spirituality. We might not call this feeling we have as being ‘spiritual’ but it comes from our association with family and friends and in the sense of belonging that this entails. We also associate ourselves with inanimate objects or experiences in order to enhance our sense of ‘well-being’ and to substitute our longing for something more than life offers. We are all searching for something to complete our experiences of life aren't we? Otherwise the drudgery of the 9 to 5 really is our only existence and it is pretty unsavoury at times…

There are many experiences that we have in life that are life-changing. The day I married, the birth of my children… that holiday vacation, that gadget or piece of technology, that band we listened to and that movie we watched when… These things are the essence of life, but in themselves, they are not life. The case for this is that they are all transient experiences and become only memory and unfortunately memories fade.

The cry for solace from my news-feed on Facebook for a medium was a desperate attempt to try and reclaim the life of a loved one through a paranormal experience… we all tend to blame God for that which we believe had been taken from us. Our rejection of God and therefore his Son Jesus and the Church he instituted, becomes a symbol for the loss of hope in life. You try to tell me to live my life in this way when I don’t want to, so I will reject what you stand for! The way that the Church has dispensed God’s love for his world has been patchy at best, and in so being, is the reason why some might reject a life of faith and even campaign against its existence in public life.

Whether it is fun and excitement, danger or peril, good experiences and good times; we fill our lives ‘stuff’ to medicate us from the disappointments we all feel when life gets us down. ‘I did well at school but I now have this lousy job with a boss I hate… I don’t seem to have enough money from one month to the next when all I can see, is that my peers ‘seemingly’ prosper.’ This may not be you or me, but we each have our own story to tell of how life didn't quite turn out as we wanted.

When life is not all that we thought it would be we can slip into melancholy. Depression comes in many different forms from fear and anxiety to guilt, helplessness and frustration. Prescriptions for antidepressants are at an all-time high and are predicted by the World Health Organisation to be second only to HIV and aids in its effects on society by the end of the decade. People of faith suffer with depression just as much as those who would profess to have no faith, so religious experiences or having a spiritual life could be perceived as having no greater effect in protecting us from these feelings. This is because faith is more than religious observance; it is a realignment of our nature to that of our creator, and this is hard.

So how do we make connections between who we are today, and what we have become? How do we combat the secret thoughts and feelings that we harbour in the loneliness of our minds? We can seek reassurance from our intellect and from our wisdom, or in our sense of purpose and the importance we have in the communities we work in. We may search out an altruistic approach in the welfare of others or seek to educate or illuminate young people’s minds with the possibilities that knowledge unlocks endless opportunities. We may pursue a career in the arts or entertainment so that we can be appreciated for our insight into a literary work or the level of expression we have attained within our art form…

When sufficiently rewarded for our work, we can retire into a sedentary lifestyle, enjoying the fruits of our labours and the direction that our extended families take, waiting for the time that death envelopes us where we return from whence we came, satisfied with a life lived. Unfortunately, life does not take on such an idyllic form… it has highs and lows that distract us from the tranquillity of success and drag us into periods of gloom. We can develop coping strategies, ever the optimist with the glass always half full rather than half empty, but we cannot distance ourselves from the inevitable questions: Is this all that there is? Have I become all that I can be? Isn't there more to this existence than the sum of my experience?

These are the big questions that we push to the back of our minds and try to ignore. These thoughts surface every now and then when there is a conflict between our dreams and our reality; at home or in the workplace; where our character or motive is questioned and our answer to life’s more complicated scenarios unfold like a scene from an Emergency Room. 

How we cope during these times, challenges our understanding of life as we know it, and we look for scapegoats. Either we question those around us and lash-out at those trying to help, or we internalise our thoughts and feelings and pretend to cope.

It all adds up to that gnawing feeling in the back of our minds that life shouldn't be this hard… where is God in all of this turmoil and frustration? Why have I had to experience this pain or suffer this much hurt if God loved me as the church suggests. Richard Dawkins puts a lot of blame of the way we feel about our lives on religion. He argues that religious belief divides populations, gender, and race, while it indoctrinates children into believing in irrational concepts with no basis in truth. So he prefers life as it is then… he would prefer the status quo?

We reject God and the Church because at some point in our association with it, we have experienced condemnation or a sense of disappointment either in ourselves or in the hope that the church itself has dashed in the hearts of those who want to believe. Religion is the creation of man’s design as Dawkins argues in his book ‘The God Delusion’ but where I disagree, is that religion is what God intended. God’s story told in the Old Testament used people who came with all of the things that human nature endowed them with. What stood out to God was their faith in choosing to do the right thing in the midst of their dealings with their culture and not their religious observance.

God uses broken people of faith to demonstrate to us all throughout our history that he honours those who choose to believe. Abraham was promised descendants that would be as many as the stars, yet at his age of over 100, he hadn't a clue how God was going to manage it! Yet after being caught lying and being deceitful and in trying to make things happen from within his own resource rather than Gods; God honours the promise that he made to Abraham, who in turn becomes a Father of a Nation. King David killed the giant Goliath as a small boy yet as an adult, committed adultery with a woman he chanced upon, killed her husband and in so doing, dishonoured the God whom he served. And yet he is described as having a heart after God!

"The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." (1 Samuel 16:7)

Time to refresh the coffee...

No matter whom we are, we will have a tendency to doubt the existence of God when in fact he is right in front of our noses; Jesus’ brothers who had grown up with him, doubted Jesus’ authenticity and challenged him to prove himself (John 7:5). Jesus knew that his message of love had caused tensions in the community because he spoke of the inequality that existed and the negligence of those in authority in protecting the weak in society.

Many people grumbled against Jesus and his teaching because they assumed he had not been trained; he came from the wrong location in Galilee if he was to be the Messiah they all hoped for (although his birth in Bethlehem was hidden), and he was the son of a carpenter. But as Dawkins, humanists, and many of the new atheist protagonists argue… how can religion tell me how to behave or act? What right has it got to do that considering its historical record? Prove that what you are saying is truth!

Jesus’ message to those with the same thoughts is the same: “Those that speak for themselves want glory only for themselves, but a person who seeks to honour the one who sent him speaks truth, not lies.” (John 7:18) Jesus backs up his claim to speak for his father by demonstrating what his father wanted to see happen in the world… the blind see; the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed; the deaf hear; and the scriptures are taught (Luke 7:22).

What is amazing in this story is that the Jewish leaders were plotting to kill Jesus because he did all of these things and they were scared of an up-rising! On one occasion he healed a man on the Jewish Sabbath day, so armed with this broken commandment to do no work on the Sabbath, and the fear of Jesus’ rising fame in Jerusalem and Judea, these leaders plotted to kill Jesus so that they could protect their own integrity.

Jesus uses their own arguments against them to show how the leaders had become misguided in their assumptions and in so doing, had missed the true message of God. I've always been uncomfortable with the Old Testament idea of circumcision as a mark of belonging to God as it is not my culture, but Jesus uses this as an example to explain why he healed a man on the Sabbath.

So what can we learn from Jesus when answering modern day criticism, especially when countering the argument between religious observance and faith. In John 7:22 Jesus states that the tradition of circumcision existed long before the covenant was made with Moses, and it was in fact practised by the patriarchs… In fact we first read about it when God makes a covenant with Abraham to be the Father of Nations (Patriarch); that every male, every servant of a Jewish household, every slave, every immigrant living in the land, and every businessman trading with the Hebrews, was to carry a symbol of that agreement in the form of circumcision (Gen 17.1-14).

Jesus was pointing out that it wasn't the act of circumcision that was important, but the heart of faith behind the act. The act symbolised externally, the pledge of commitment to follow the Law of Moses. The Jewish leaders believed that they could ignore the commandment to keep the Sabbath day holy when a boy reached 8 days old; as this triggered the earlier commandment given to Abraham, to circumcise each male. The Jewish leaders appeared to Jesus to believe that the rules on circumcision superseded the law to keep the Sabbath. The 10 commandments that told the Jews to keep the Sabbath day holy, but the Jews were also given the law: do not kill. Yet the Jewish leaders were happy to plot to kill Jesus, breaking this law, and happy to circumcise on the Sabbath, breaking that law too. Jesus explains:

“I did one miracle on the Sabbath, and you were amazed. But you work on the Sabbath, too, when you obey Moses’ law of circumcision. (Actually, this tradition of circumcision began with the patriarchs, long before the Law of Moses.) For if the correct times for circumcising your son falls on the Sabbath, you go ahead and do it so as not to break the Law of Moses. So why be angry with me for healing a man on the Sabbath? Look beneath the surface so you can judge correctly.” (John 7:21-24)

We must process what we know of God and what we have heard of God with the same logic as displayed in this encounter. Firstly, we should honour God in all circumstances and at all times… that is what the Jews were told to do in the very first part of the 10 commandments: You should have no other God’s before me; do not make any other idols; do not misuse the name of God (Exodus 20: 1-20). As we learn here from Jesus, Moses didn't enshrine circumcision in the Law… Jewish customs had. The Jewish customs or tradition or religious observance, caused them to break one of the laws of Moses, making their arguments against Jesus seem complicit to what Jesus had done, and yet they still plotted to kill him.

Secondly, what Jesus does here is to correct the leaders in their understanding of circumcision; those who were willing to cut away the flesh as a mark of the covenant with God in the name of religion. In the new covenant that Jesus was ushering in, he brings healing by restoring the man back to health. A much deeper meaning is implied in this passage in that man makes judgements on appearance, but yet God looks at the heart.

“Your bodies are circumcised, but your hearts are unchanged” (Jeremiah 9.25-26)

People observing this encounter between Jesus and the Jewish leaders, sensed the tension which John in this Gospel describes: 

“Isn't this the man they are trying to kill? But here he is, speaking in public, and they say nothing to him. Could our leaders possibly believe that he is the Messiah? But how could he be? For we know where this man comes form. When the Messiah comes, he will simply appear; no one will know where he comes from.” (John 7:26-27)

Even with Jesus standing in front of them as they watched him perform miracles, they did not believe the evidence of what they heard and what they saw. Humanists and atheists today state that none of this Jesus ‘stuff’ can be true; where is the evidence? The people in this situation were also confused between what they saw and the reasoning they used to help them understand what they had witnessed. Jesus’ answer is quite cryptic:

“Yes you know me and you know where I come from. But I'm not here on my own. The one who sent me is true, and you don’t know him. But I know him because I come from him, and he sent me to you.” (John 7:28-29)

Jesus was telling the Jewish leaders as they were the ones with the perception to understand the meaning behind these events: You do not understand the Law of Moses, nor do you have a full grasp of the narrative of the scriptures; and you substitute God’s law in favour of your own perception of the law. In fact Jesus challenges the leaders by suggesting they were willing to break the law in order to meet their own objectives rather than God’s, thereby deviating from the truth set out in the law.

This is how the church has become corrupted over the centuries from Jesus’ central message of love – when men are involved, we get things wrong because we make assumptions – we can lose sight of our moral values in the pursuit of our own goals. In Jerusalem, the people began to question the Jewish leaders resolve in dealing with Jesus; the Jewish leaders also began to fear Jesus’ popularity through his ministry and in particular feared the judgement of the crowd towards their indecision over what to do with him (John 7:26-27). It doesn't by default make the message wrong. It’s quite the opposite in fact. Jesus exposes those who have corrupted the truth.

The combination of Jesus’ teaching and the miracles he performed in full view of the people gathered there, was enough for some to believe but still others rejected him because they had preconceived ideas of what the Messiah would look like. Jesus calls out to those still in doubt:

“Anyone who is thirsty may come to me! Anyone who believes in me may come and drink! For the scriptures declare, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from his heart.’” (John 7:38)

This is a scripture that reaches out from the page to all of us who are dissatisfied with life and are searching for something more… what is this water of life? It is a continuation of the theme that Jesus has developed since meeting with the Samaritan woman at the well. She was overjoyed at the prospect of meeting Jesus and the spring of living water that would quench her thirst.

“Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.” (John 4:13-14)

Jesus was further pressuring the Jewish leadership and the people listening to him that he was the source of the Holy Spirit: You sent your good Spirit to instruct them, and you did not stop giving them manna from heaven or water for their thirst. (Nehemiah 9:20)  What Jesus is doing here is absolutely astonishing. To understand how astonishing this is, we need to remember why Jesus is in the temple: 

But soon it was time for the Jewish Festival of Shelters (John 17:2)… “I am not going to this festival because my time has not yet come.”(John 17:8)… But after his brothers left for the festival, Jesus also went, though secretly, staying out of public view (John 17:10).

The Festival of Shelters or the Feast of Tabernacles, as it was also known, was a celebration of the wilderness journeys made by the people of Israel. A story of how God provided for their every need with water and food, and through the instructions given to Moses, of how the Hebrew people should worship Yahweh. So here was Jesus standing publicly in the temple stating ‘come to me and I will give you a drink from the living water…’ Jesus is saying to all who could hear him look, what you are celebrating today, you can find in me.

I will stand before you (Moses) on the rock at Mount Sinai. Strike the rock, and water will come gushing out. Then the people will be able to drink.” So Moses struck the rock as he was told, and water gushed out as the elders looked on.’ (Exodus 17:6)

Just as Moses cracked the rock in the wilderness to give the people fresh water to prove that he was God’s servant, Jesus was effectively saying ‘come to me’, ‘I am God’s servant; I will give you the same water that Moses offered, but only mine is without end’.

Moses used the power of the spirit within his staff to break the rock, but Jesus was implying that he was the source of the living water and he too would be broken. On the cross, the Roman soldiers found Jesus to be dead. To make certain he was dead, they pierced Jesus’ heart with a spear, out of which John in his Gospel describes flowed blood and water (pericardial effusion), a further symbol of the living water and a sure sign that Jesus was dead.

So Jesus stands before us to invite us to believe in him because he represents his father. Jesus’ holiness shines brightly into our lives and reveals them to be empty… to be missing a certain something; perhaps not that tangible or rational even, but we know we are unsettled with what this world can offer us:

Jesus spoke to the people once more and said, “I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won’t have to walk in darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life.” (John 8:12)

We are in the spotlight so to speak… I think it’s why so many reject God. We don’t like being the focus of attention but when that attention is from Jesus, we feel undone. Jesus can do that… the Jewish leadership murdered him because of it! We recognise that we have lived such empty lives without his presence dwelling in us that, to use the metaphor Jesus uses, we have walked in darkness. This is a reference to our individualism and our self-centredness; our confidence in what we have become and our deluded rationalism - I have decided that the Bible isn't true; I don’t need no church to tell me how to behave; why should I be made to feel guilty… no - I won’t take that on board, that is religious stuff and it has nothing to do with me! This is the darkness we live in.

Jesus is very clear that if you do not know who he is, or you reject the truth even of his existence in history, then you also do not understand God. There are many who reject Jesus and try to reject God also. Without Jesus, you cannot understand who God is. If you were to read the Bible as a law book, you will find only that which you seek… but the Bible is much more than a law book. If we only read the Bible as a law book as the Jewish leaders had demonstrated in their misunderstanding of scripture, we become a slave to the law and in so doing, recognise that we are unable to meet its standard. This is why we become so disenfranchised and apathetic towards life.

Often we tell ourselves that we do not need religion and we certainly do not need the church to tell us how to live. We have found increasingly sophisticated ways to ignore the truth contained within the pages of the Bible and begin to make up our own rationale for living. This is why life comes up short! We are living by the wrong standards and because of this we will reject the truth of who Jesus is:

“So when I tell you the truth, you just naturally don’t believe me! Which of you can truthfully accuse me of sin? And since I am telling you the truth, why don’t you believe me? Anyone who belongs to God listens to the words of God. But you don’t listen because you don’t belong to God.” (John 7:45-47)

So how can we be content with who we are and what we have become? We learn to trust in the one who gives us a sense of purpose and the one who cares about what we were made to be. If we become a slave to the darkness within our souls or become a slave to what Christians call our sinful nature, we can feel trapped in our actions and the consequences can become destructive. Jesus knows this.

He wants to free you from the slavery of your human nature… you know, when you don’t do the things you ought to do, yet you do the things you shouldn't; when you indulge your sexual fantasies through an LCD screen because you have reduced a fellow human being to one of a sexual object; when you indulge your addictive behaviour causing harm to yourself and sometimes to others; when you lose all sense of being civil, in order to pursue your own agenda… This is a Godless place to be:

They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshipped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen. (Romans 1:25)

Many sceptics and atheists will argue that there is no moral law and that it is religion that has created a climate for human beings to make judgements on the conduct of others. They would argue that our moral compass is a transcendent truth that has been passed within a social genome. As we sift through all of the data that has been collected through the decision making processes we display, we adapt a best-fit that allows us to evolve our collective consciousness without the need for religion. However, this is clearly not working: man’s inhumanity to man is a constant refrain heard that is heard through the millennia from Robert Burns, the famous Scottish poet in his poem ‘A Dirge’ of 1784, to present day commentators such as President Obama of the United States of America:

"For most of this country’s history, we in the African-American community have been at the receiving end of man’s inhumanity to man. And all of us understand intimately the insidious role that race still sometimes plays – on the job, in the schools, in our health care system, and in our criminal justice system." 

(The Great Need of the Hour, 2008)

This is what Jesus says about those who have become slaves to sin:

"I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. A slave is not a permanent member of a family, but a son is part of the family forever. So if the son sets you free, you are truly free.” (John 8:34-36)

It’s time to stop trying to rationalise Jesus out of existence. Many will argue that truth in God is unfounded and that the Bible is an unreliable source on which to base one’s life. However, the world that we live in doesn't exist simply through a pattern of cause and effect; leading to a selection of the most worthy attributes for inclusion into some kind of social meme contained within an act of procreation. If this was so, surely our bodies would have eliminated the faulty genes that cause cancer and heart disease wouldn't be on the increase due to the filtering out of these defective elements within natural selection

God is in fact the source of our self-determination and our free will. In relationship with the one who created us, we have purpose and direction. God isn't a neurotic parent, desperate to gain our attention and wanting to control us from some kind of irrational fear. Neither is God some kind of punitive judge waiting to catch us out. We know this because he sent his son Jesus to reveal Gods true nature. God created us because he wanted to… in fact he loved the idea of creating us and saw us as being very good.

Only when we understand these truths, will we truly understand who we are in God: God loves us even though we continue to do wrong; he hates the wrong in us but has created a way of reconciling us to himself through his son; in Jesus we find that repentance and grace, which leads to faith, are happy bedfellows in the rebirth of a new life in him.

God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, Jesus Christ, to be a sacrifice for sin, so that whoever believes on him, will not perish, but gain an eternal life.  For God did not send the Son into the world in order to judge (to condemn, to pass sentence on) the world, but that the world might find salvation and be made safe and sound through Him. (Amplified Bible; John 3:16-17)

I urge you to suspend your disbelief in the Bible, no matter what form that this may take, and focus on the words that Jesus spoke, contained within the four Gospels. In those words you will find a man who is God; he didn't come to judge the world but to save it… to save you… and to save me. If you have never given your life to Jesus before, or if you once knew him and have drifted away, then I urge you to consider Jesus… You will not regret it.

Crumbs under the table

What draws you to Jesus? It may have been that in reading the account of Jesus’ life in the gospel stories, you find Jesus’s words and actions appeals to your life experience and you find in him what it is you were searching for. Or you may have not have encountered Jesus at first… perhaps you were in a place of confusion or distress, or in need of support and guidance and chanced upon Jesus through the course of life. However you met Jesus, the person he is enables us to relate to God, and in so doing, we are able to read through the four Gospel stories to discover the nature of God and his ambition for humanity.

When we come before Jesus, our understanding of who he is and who our father is, is brought into focus. Sometimes when the lens of our lives is refocused, our perceptions of who Jesus is can be altered but the truth remains. Our perceptions change because our understanding of who Jesus is grows deeper, and we are able to make connections between what we know to be true of Jesus and true of ourselves.

Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!

Your workmanship is marvellous—how well I know it.

(NLT Psalm 139:14)

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

(NIV Psalm 139:14)

As you can see from the reference, these two verses are of the same Hebrew text but translated by two different groups of scholars. They both give the same message, but use different interpretations to the meaning of each word in English from the original Hebrew script. Just as the scholars who interpreted this verse focused their lens on their understanding of the text from their own context, similarly there are areas of our own lives that we need to change or re-imagine  as we become true to ourselves and true to our belief in the one who rescues us from our sin.

Jesus isn't like some kind of International Rescue organisation or the Red Cross, being air-lifted into dangerous situations so that we can be rescued from imminent danger… “Until the next time folks!” Jesus is a constant companion that goes with us on the journey, sharing our experiences in both the good times and the bad times, until journeys end where we will find rest from our wandering.

Jesus doesn't rescue us ‘out’ of these situations so that we are protected, but rescues us ‘from’ these situations so that we might learn to trust in his guidance. Every day I wake up with sin in my thoughts and in the carelessness of my imagining. We are all troubled with this type of secret sin, where the enemy stokes the embers of the sin we have not lain-out before Jesus at the cross. It is always tempting in the loneliness of our minds to harbour secret sins that are a residual pattern of our former selves… it is the enemies best, but not only weapon.

As you have come to expect in these blogs, I am nothing if not candid. I have always sought to do what I have asked others to do, and only ask others to do things I know are achievable. In John 13: 1-17 we read about Jesus’ final actions towards the 12 disciples prior to sharing his final Passover meal and the events that led to his death. Within the intimacy of this story, Jesus strips off to his under-clothes and puts a towel around his waist. Knowing that it was the custom of hospitality and generosity to wash the feet of his guest’s, Jesus set’s about washing each disciple’s feet in turn.

There is much confusion amongst the disciples as they try to re-focus their lens of understanding on what their teacher and master, was now doing:

And since I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash each other’s feet. I have given you an example to follow. Do as I have done to you.

(John 13:14-15)

I wouldn't be writing about the need to become more righteous in our thoughts and words and deeds if I hadn't seen what Jesus taught his disciple’s to do. So taking this as my lead, I again revisit my secret sin as it is worked out in the various forms that I express it, as a result of the way the world and my own mind has shaped my understanding of it. I always look for a source for my secret battles. One lens that Jesus has illuminated in my understanding of the sin that is ever present in my life, reoccurs quite frequently in the Old Testament. This sin is termed as: the sins of the father.

This pattern of sin is described as generational sin, which is passed through the family using the philosophical perspective known as federal headship. Federal headship is a term that can be used to describe a group of independent states over which a central government is formed, as in a family where a man or father, is seen as the head of the household. Just as the President of the United States is the elected ‘head’ of America and is held responsible for its actions, and the captain of a ship is responsible in making sure that all of the passengers and crew get off a sinking ship before they do, we are responsible for acknowledging our sinful nature as descendants of Adam.

There are many references to this in: Exodus 20:5; Deuteronomy 5:9; Exodus 34:6-7. You may feel it unfair that we are held accountable for the wrongdoing of our father, but we do operate under his direction. It is for us to make a choice to turn from our sinful nature when we recognise it as present in our lives or to ignore, continue along that same pathway which we know leads to behaviours that are not pleasing to God. We all have a sense of moral law in knowing what is right and what is wrong. I know that there is a history of sin in my family line of which I can only testify to in my own struggles, yet I also know that I AM RESPONSIBLE for my own sin.

We know today that as descendants of Adam we have all sinned and haven fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). We are in a covenant relationship with Jesus and need to choose to follow him. At the Passover meal, just after Jesus washed the disciple’s feet, Jesus broke bread and shared a cup of wine as the symbols of a new covenant where Jesus states that, 'whoever eats the bread and drinks from the cup, shall live in him and he in them' (John 6: 56). Our sin breaks this covenant and we are punished under the law when we step outside of this covenant relationship.

Remember too that at that Passover meal, Jesus knew that amongst the twelve, those who knew and understood Jesus intimately through their journey together, that there was one who would betray him. Jesus knew that in the heart of this one man, despite all that they had witnessed, and all that they had heard, this one man would reject God’s truth and betray Jesus’ trust: AND YET – Jesus, knowing this to be true, went along with the events that unfolded because it was his fathers will to do so and Jesus did what he saw his father doing.

I am convinced that Jesus knows all about this secret stuff that we do, no matter how we might want to internalise it or even rationalise it as part of our nature. Perhaps it is a reminder of our fallen nature so that we remain true to the one who rescues us? That we may learn to rely on the one we can trust to be faithful and just, until the time when Jesus returns to complete the work he has started within us. At that time we will receive new bodies and an eternal life where all that binds us here on earth is gloriously exonerated.

In the new covenant with Jesus, we enter into a relationship that is not dependent on the state that our heart is in, but is all about the one who saves. The Israelites in the wilderness were fed by Manna from heaven; sometimes called the bread of heaven (Exodus 16). This bread was daily and was not to be stored up, but gladly picked each day and the glory of it given back to God. If people got greedy and tried to store the manna, it would evaporate from the ground in the sun or soon grow maggots in the pots it was stored in.

In Jesus we find him referring back to this time in Exodus and turning it on its head: Jesus replied, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. (John 6:35) The people who heard this were following Jesus because of the miraculous things he was doing in healing the sick and standing up for the righteousness of the outcast against the backdrop of the Pharisees teaching. Jesus had previously fed these people on the mountain side, 5000 of them to be precise, with five loaves of bread and two fish. Yet when Jesus declares that he was the bread of life, these same people began to murmur, just as the Israelites murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.

Their murmuring came about because of the focus of the peoples ‘life-lens’ or world view evident in verses 14 and 15: When the people saw him do this miraculous sign (feeding 5000 people), they exclaimed, “Surely, he is the Prophet we have been expecting!” When Jesus saw that they were ready to force him to be their king, he slipped away into the hills by himself. The people who had gathered to Jesus were following what they thought the Messiah would look like; they viewed Jesus through their interpretation of what the Pharisees taught them. 

Many believed the Pharisee’s teaching that the Messiah would come as a King to liberate the people from their Roman occupation, but when they were challenged by Jesus to demonstrate their faith by revealing his true purpose, the people stumble… “Isn't this Jesus, the son of Joseph? We know his father and mother. How can he say, ‘I came down from heaven’?”(v42).

The disciple’s faith in Jesus is also tested. First in feeding the 5000 people, Philip the disciple states that it would take months to earn enough money to feed them all! (v7) But Andrew… he had seen enough of the miracles that Jesus has performed to know that he could do something special with the five loaves and two fish. Later as the disciples are in the boat on the lake, after rowing to the middle, a ‘sudden’ storm erupted. Jesus walks out to them on the water in the midst of the storm and tells them not to be afraid; they gladly let Jesus into the boat and immediately they arrive at their destination! (v20)

So who is this man, the man from Nazareth whose parents they all knew, who could feed 5000 people and walk on water? Is he the real deal? Is he to be believed? At the point that Jesus states that he was the bread of life, many of the people rejected his testimony in spite of what they had seen and the food they had tasted. Later in John 6, even the disciples turn away from him. The trigger for this being what Jesus says in verse 47:

“I tell you the truth; anyone who believes has eternal life. Yes, I am the bread of life! Your ancestors ate manna in the wilderness, but they all died. Anyone who eats the bread from heaven, however, will never die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever; and this bread, which I will offer so the world may live, is my flesh.”

(John 6: 47-51)

The test here is one of truth: Was this man, Jesus of Nazareth, the coming Messiah, or a prophet or a fraud? Was it too much for the people and even Jesus’ own disciples to accept that Jesus was who he says he is? The people got caught in their rationalisation of who Jesus was: he was the son of a carpenter – how on earth could eating his flesh bring us eternal life? – What a ridiculous idea – this is too hard for me to accept.

The people and some of Jesus’ disciples were unwilling to accept firstly that Jesus was the Son of Man with authority to forgive sin and grant eternal life, and secondly, they were unwilling to move beyond their limited rational thinking of what they knew in themselves to be true, to a wider faith based understanding of the truth of scripture. These truths were being fulfilled right before their very eyes, being illuminated by Jesus’ teaching and his actions, yet their lens was still out-of-focus.

In John 6:60 the disciples state that: “This is very hard to understand. How can anyone accept it?” To which there is only one answer – faith. We are not saved by what we have seen or experienced (witnessing the feeding of 5000 people or seeing Jesus walk on water), but in our understanding of who Jesus is and in our assurance of the truth. Our faith is demonstrated by what we choose to believe, and in our understanding of what Jesus had to do in order to redeem mankind. We do not just blindly accept this truth because we have been programmed to accept it, rather we enter into a deeper understanding of the purposes of God through our recognition of who Jesus is.

If we do not grasp who Jesus is, we will never understand his teaching, particularly when he speaks cryptically as in the following verses (62-65). Remember the disciples had not yet had it revealed to them that Jesus would be crucified on a cross as a curse (Galatians 3:13), and that he would become a ransom for the salvation of the world (Mark 10:45). Jesus demonstrates through his words and his action that he is more than qualified for the task.

The disciples are given a choice: Did they accept that the father works through Jesus and Jesus through the father? If you believe in this truth, are you prepared to move beyond the natural (Jesus born in Nazareth as a carpenter) to a position of acceptance in the promises of God (Jesus is the Son of God), evident in the life of Jesus, his death, and his resurrection?

God knows the condition of our hearts and the secrets that we hide away. How we respond to God when he shines his light into these parts of our lives to expose the darkness, is how we demonstrate our faith in what we know to be true. Jesus directly asks the closest of his disciples, the 12 whom he called, whether they believed in what he told them… Then Jesus turned to the Twelve and asked, “Are you also going to leave?” (v67). One of them, Simon Peter, speaks for all of them by confirming their faith in Jesus: “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life. We believe, and we know you are the Holy One of God.” (v68)

Do we truly believe…really? Even amongst the 12, Jesus knew that one of them harboured doubt: “I chose the twelve of you, but one is a devil.” (v70) As we each move closer to Jesus, more of our sin and doubt is exposed. We need to be assured of the truth of who Jesus truly is in order to endure the refining of our hearts through his grace. Can we as with Simon Peter say: "We believe, and we know you are the Holy One of God.” We believe (faith) and we know (truth).

We end with a more difficult part to this text. Jesus proclaims that God calls us to himself: “For no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them to me…” (v44) - A kind of predestination. I mentioned earlier about Jesus talking cryptically in John 6:65; Then he said, “That is why I said that people can’t come to me unless the Father gives them to me.” I have always been a little uncomfortable with verses in scripture like this one. They seem to speak of some being chosen by God who accept the forgiveness of sin through his Son Jesus, and some that do not because God hadn't ordained it.

Our hearts have the capacity to show grace and mercy towards other people, while at the same time, it is capable of showing much malice and deceit. Similarly, we are each capable of accepting grace and mercy and equally capable of rejecting it. When we are challenged to choose life in Jesus, or accept the consequences of rejecting that new life in Jesus as shown in John 6, we each have to choose for ourselves what we want to believe. So where God calls us to his Son Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit, we can still determine whether we are willing to accept that call or reject it – free will. We know the truth of Jesus but cannot accept it when it is right in front of our noses -Judas.

We cannot hide in the crowd as Judas did until the end, we have to be certain of the truth we have within us and be able to give an account like Simon Peter, of the hope that we have found in him. When Jesus asks you whether you choose to believe, what should be our response? The father who pleaded with Jesus to deliver his son from an evil spirit cried: “I do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24).

Sometimes I am like the boy’s father praying prayers like: “Lord take pity on me, if you can, take this sin from me.” - A prayer where it seems that I doubt what Jesus is even capable of or willing to deliver on... I have allowed my sin to rob me of the truth of my salvation and once again to re-examine my faith. Jesus seems exasperated in this expression: “You unbelieving generation” (v19), as though all that he has taught and all that he has shown through signs and wonders and ultimately, his death on the cross, were meaningless in revealing the authority of God over sin.

Will our unbelief in the one who saves us from our sin be like the seed that falls on stony ground where we have shallow roots and are overwhelmed in times of trouble, or will we be like the seed in the fertile soil? (Matthew 13:20-22)

When King David recognised his sin, as indeed with many of those who sought after God in the Old Testament, he would ‘rend’ or tear-off his clothes and pour on himself the dust from the earth as a symbol of the state at which he entered this world. He would seek the father’s heart trusting in his justice and laying prostrate before him in his remorse and grief.

So how do we approach Jesus? I know what I ought to do.

It's not fair, I really shouldn't say...

I was reading an article on a Christian apologetics website this week that got me a little annoyed. The contents suggested that there are different types of sin, and that some sin is worse than others. I really struggle with the idea that people make decisions about degrees of righteousness because it suggests a type of ‘pecking-order’ that I do not read in scripture.

In my blog two weeks ago titled 'Moving forward in faith', I revisited the topic of sexual sin where one could argue that it isn't the action that is to be challenged but the mind-set. If one is so consumed by graphic images and forms of sexual activity that are not Godly and in which you have placed considerable attention, then it becomes a sin due to the attention you give to it, rather than to God. Essentially, if our attention is drawn to anything more than that which God intended sex for… after all, he did create it; then we would have created an idol out of sex.

 

It is obvious in terms of how we punish people in law that murder is of a far greater consequence than speeding in a restricted zone. The reason why you can be fined for speeding is because of the danger to others that is created as a result of your actions. There is the potential to commit manslaughter each time you get in your car and fail to give it your full attention. The difference between the two is the level of intention that the person displays in their conduct.

 

 

Just this week I sat in a line of traffic that had to give priority to people travelling from our right-hand-side at a roundabout. The driver who was being given priority at the roundabout wasn't moving, and so the motorists in my lane were being cautious and a little hesitant as they pulled away from the junction. When it was my turn to go, I could clearly see the man had his mobile phone up to his ear. He could not pilot the car around the roundabout because he had only one hand free to operate the manual gearbox and steer the car in the direction of travel. So he sat there, putting each other driver in jeopardy whilst he finished his conversation.

Now was this a little sin or could it have been more serious? For the driver, the immediacy of the phone call was far greater than the safety of others. I was turning right across the flow of traffic so the traffic in the opposite carriageway, equally distracted by the man’s actions, could have become frustrated and may not have noticed my own manoeuvre, resulting in a side impact. This man’s actions added a layer of risk and stress on all the other drivers for that moment in time… no wonder we have road rage incidents.

For this simple reason, I believe we cannot have levels of sin. Doing something we shouldn't do is clearly wrong, despite the consequences and not because of the consequences. However we each determine how much of the ‘grey area’ we are prepared to accept. We punish people who do not live up to these standards by administering a level of justice that is consummate with the deed done. Murder is a custodial sentence that is generally in the UK approximately 30 years. A fine for not having vehicle insurance is £250 and 8 –penalty points on your drivers licence in the UK, far cheaper than the cost of insurance. Some people calculate the risk of getting caught against the fine they are given, and are willing to take the risk with avoiding insurance due to the cost of quotations for young people being approximately £1800.

The idea of different punishments for different levels of crime and disorder stems in the UK from historical influences. We learn from Jewish practices regarding ritual cleansing for the preparation of worship and our responsibility towards each other within civilised society. England adopted our current practices as the country emerged from a primitive pagan culture that was first ravaged by Viking raids and through the bureaucracy of the occupation by the Roman Empire.

With the conversion of the Emperor Constantine to Christianity, and the moral guidance of St Augustine’s missionary trip to bring the Gospel to the Island nation, we adopted in the law of the land, many of the laws that honoured God, through the developments of the heraldic monarchy and social change. In the UK, Many secular commentators now question the role of the church within government and campaign to separate the church from the state.

In the Old Testament, Moses sat in judgement over all of the people, interpreting God’s law so that people would deal fairly with each other and show God in their dealings with one another. Perhaps as a result of what Moses was advised to organise by his father-in-law Jethro, that today there are so many laws and clauses that determine the way that we interrelate with each other that we use the phrase ‘drowning in a sea of red tape!’

 

The next day, Moses took his seat to hear the people’s disputes against each other. They waited before him from morning till evening. When Moses’ father-in-law saw all that Moses was doing for the people, he asked, “What are you really accomplishing here? Why are you trying to do all this alone while everyone stands around you from morning till evening?” Moses replied, “Because the people come to me to get a ruling from God. When a dispute arises, they come to me, and I am the one who settles the case between the quarrelling parties. I inform the people of God’s decrees and give them his instructions.” “This is not good!” Moses’ father-in-law exclaimed. “You’re going to wear yourself out—and the people, too. This job is too heavy a burden for you to handle all by yourself.

 

Now listen to me, and let me give you a word of advice, and may God be with you. You should continue to be the people’s representative before God, bringing their disputes to him. Teach them God’s decrees, and give them his instructions. Show them how to conduct their lives. But select from all the people some capable, honest men who fear God and hate bribes. Appoint them as leaders over groups of one thousand, one hundred, fifty, and ten. They should always be available to solve the people’s common disputes, but have them bring the major cases to you. Let the leaders decide the smaller matters themselves. They will help you carry the load, making the task easier for you. If you follow this advice, and if God commands you to do so, then you will be able to endure the pressures, and all these people will go home in peace.”

(Exodus 18:14-23)

 

One of my bug-bears is cycling on the pavement. I was brought up in the 70’s and 80’s when cycling on the pavement was forbidden. As a young cyclist I have lost count of the amount of times that I was cautioned by police for cycling on the pavement or along a footpath. The irony being that these footpaths are now cycle lanes in our towns! I am not talking about the obvious transport routes in out towns but the built up areas where adults who should know better, cycle into shopping areas and bash into pedestrians, or expect you to move out of their way for them  to pass by, where they are clearly breaking the law.

I can remember one incident in the City of York where I was stopped by a policeman when I made a right turn close to the Minster. I knew that motorised vehicles were prohibited from making a right turn at the junction, but there was a little blue sign that stated ‘Except for Bicycle’s’. The policeman who stopped me had never seen this sign as I pointed it out to him, which put us both in an awkward position as he didn't know whether to apologise, and I was uncertain whether I could carry on.

 

Today, it seems that in the UK you can cycle on any pavemen because the law is now so unworkable and the law it isn't enforced; until something happens as recently, an older resident was knocked over by a cyclist close to Southend Pier, dislocating her hip. Now local politicians are calling for a ban on riding on the pavement in these crowded areas, when in fact they should enforce the law that already exists.

 

I think it is this kind of reasoning that people use regarding the sins we see committed in both Christians and non-Christians, and where some argue that some sin is greater than others. We seem to have a need to see justice being met out in the actions and behaviours of others. Like eating a great banquet where we have different courses requiring a wide range of cutlery, we learn to eat starting with the outer cutlery, and moving to the inner… we used to call it etiquette. The ability of those with social standing to understand the protocols needed to eating these meals in the correct sequence without making mistakes, compared to the working class person, is a topic of many movies and comedy sketches.

 

So when we see a Christian doing something that breaks the rules, we can become irritated by their apparent ignorance of what they have done. This is particularly so if you have had to deal with that particular sin in your life too, or if you have been challenged to reform your behaviour. We can wear this bitterness like a badge of honour, believing we have a cause-to-live-for and drawing like-minded people in. At worst we can turn into petty minded gossips that delight in another person’s failure as though they are second class Christians and we are somewhat superior… RUBBISH!

 

 

Some feel that our sin is like the complexity of life as described by SHREK; that he saw himself as being like an onion… being many layered – peel back the outer layers to find multiple layers that need unravelling to get to the true person inside. Christians can give an impression that we deal with the outer layers when we give our lives to Jesus, as this is the more obvious sin, and that this is evidence of our change of heart. As disciples, we learn that buried within our layers, we have hidden sin that emerges as Jesus shines his light into the dark corners of our hearts. We then learn that this process is not a one-shot activity, but one of continual renewal.

 

We learn to live a lifetime of surrendering our will to his glorious light. So if we have sin that is greater than others, does it mean that that the one who has been saved from this greater sin has been forgiven more? This would be a ludicrous proposal… ‘Yeah, I didn't need as much grace to be saved because I was already pretty good.’ Jesus talks about the woman who anoints him extravagantly with an expensive fragrant oil in Luke 7:41 "I tell you, her sins-and they are many-have been forgiven, so she has shown me much love. But a person who is forgiven little shows only little love."

It is foolish to think that we have been forgiven a little bit! We have ALL been forgiven much and continue to fall short again and again. Jesus saw the sin of the people and dealt with it there where they stood… the Samaritan woman at the well; Jesus gently reminds her that she had had a number of husbands and even the man she was now with was not her husband… AND YET he offers her the ‘living water of life’ as she stood in front of him – standing in her sin (John 4).

 

I used to struggle with my understanding of forgiveness because I hadn't intentionally gone out and committed what I might have perceived to be a ‘big’ sin. For years, I used to feel that I didn't know how to receive God’s love because I felt that I hadn't been forgiven for so much… that my heart wasn't broken like those of others whom God appeared to generously bless. I felt that had I known how it felt to be forgiven, that I would experience the fullness of God. In reality, I felt I was being short-changed by God. I was so desperate for the experience of God that I lost sight of the basic truth… In my weakness, then he will be strong. Just as the woman at the well, recognised her need for a saviour, I needed to recognise once again that I am a sinner and put my trust in an awesome God who forgives me IN SPITE of the depths that my sin takes me.

I need to be transformed by the renewal of my body, mind and my spirit; to be born again into his glorious light. As I am now a disciple of Jesus and now involved in a process of transformation, I need to guard my body, mind and spirit against the human nature that Jesus has redeemed. We are in a spiritual battle and the devil is very keen to prevent us from following where God leads us. If we have not changed through the influence of the Holy Spirit in our lives, then we are rarely going to be troubled by the devil’s schemes.

 

However those of us, who want to walk the narrow way of the pilgrim, will encounter many trials along the way. I read John Bunyan’s ‘Pilgrims Progress’ when I was about 14, where the story a man reading the Bible is convicted of his sin and embarks on a journey through his life with God. The story was written in 1678, yet the characters in it are as real today as those in the works of Shakespeare’s plays.

 

The pilgrim encounters all sorts of distraction on his journey, which you can read for yourself, but the one thing that he keeps returning to is the clothing he is wearing and a scroll on which is written his name – his invitation as an heir to the kingdom of God. As the pilgrim in the story, we also need to hold onto the promises that God has given to us; so that we remain anchored into his love and grace. As soon as we think we are worthy to live our lives in the confidence of our own achievement, we are on very shaky ground.

We need to be careful therefore of the impression we give to an increasingly secular society, about the role we think we ought to have in determining the moral focus for the culture we are in. In the past we have assumed the moral high ground due to the association between the church and the state, sitting in a position of authority over others we deem not understand their own nature. Unfortunately, we have all sat in meetings where we have heard judgemental statements being made on the nature of humanity and the degree of sin the church finds the world to have slipped into. We tend to start our arguments for change for the betterment of society from the wrong tack, believing that because we are contrary to society, we are doing Gods will.

‘Don't copy the behaviour and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.’

 (Romans 12:2)

 

Paul is encouraging his fellow Romans in this verse to emulate God rather than the pagan Roman Society they were immersed in. What he isn't saying is ‘Thou Shalt Not’ but rather, ‘let God transform you.’ Yes Paul outlines behaviours throughout his letters that are ungodly, but his purpose was to encourage the early Christians to respond to God’s grace at work in their lives. God’s Spirit illuminates their old lives and the sin contained within it, creating further opportunities for them to demonstrate their love of God by surrendering to his will.

 

It is God’s love for us that unlocks our potential to live selfless lives, and not a legalistic set of behaviours or code of conduct that are imposed from those seemingly more righteous than ourselves. From this type of background we will always find evidence of the ‘older brother’ syndrome from the prodigal son story. I was that older brother for a very long time. Jesus captured my heart when I was 11 years old and in so doing, I was protected from the excesses of life. I felt that I had lived a righteous life by honouring God through my quiet time, my worship, my service in the church and my endurance in withstanding sin.

 

I survived like this within my own strength for far too long and it ruined my love for Jesus and turned me into a legalistic Christian with narrow views on the life choices that people make. I was joyless and trapped in my arrogance and hidden pride in my ability to live independently of the broken home context from which God had rescued me. When I got to university, I encountered for the very first time, worship music. The year was 1989 and I was desperately searching for fulfilment in my faith life and in my personal life. I lacked having any form of intimacy and any real sense of relational connection with my peers because I hadn’t got the toolbox to relate to life outside of the cocoon of the parallel institutions of education and the church.

 

One Sunday evening I visited a church called St Michael le Belfry in the shadow of York Minster. I went with some college friends who had visited before me, and gave it a great review. Simply known as the 8pm service, I was immersed into the life of the Holy Spirit through the songs we sang that night. Here we were sat in 16^th Century box-pews, worshipping my God who never changes... it was only me who had moved. It took many months of worship and prayer and the gradual peeling back of my ‘onion’ layers by my heavenly father who just ran out to me and hugged me.

 

Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?

(Romans 12:2)

 

Paul highlights here that it is Jesus who transforms his mind so that he does not sin; yet his body is still sinful and so he is in a tussle between his faithful obedience to God and his nature. So we return to my opening statement about my annoyance with our Christian culture that assumes some sin is in need of a greater punishment or greater desire for forgiveness or restoration. One such verse used is the conversation that Jesus has with Pontius Pilate in John 19:11

 

Then Jesus said, "You would have no power over me at all unless it was given to you from above; so the one who handed me over to you has the greater sin."

 

What Jesus is saying to Pilate here is that it was God who commissioned his death. Indeed the Father, Son and the Spirit together, set up the events leading to this confrontation. Jesus was accused by the temple priests, the Sanhedrin, of committing blasphemy and heresy but both King Herod who represented the civil government of the occupied Jewish nation and the Roman law represented by Pilate could find no fault with him. Jesus is pointing out that a higher judgement is at work here, more powerful than the Roman emperor whose authority Pilate represented and higher than the law contained with the temple. The implication being that the very people who had offered Jesus up for sentencing and punishment had committed a bigger crime than the one performing the sentencing.

I do not see in this text a hierarchy of sin, but only one sin. Namely that in our self-righteousness and pride in what we believe we know of God, we have missed the very heart of God at work in this world. We are so un-deserving of God’s grace and so blinded by our own arrogance that it is no wonder that those who listen to church leaders telling them how they should be living their lives, do not hear the greatest command that Jesus gives his followers, to love one another:

 

So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”

(John 13:34-35)

In love, when someone in faced with their sin, may-be for the first time, they know that it has always been there, yet had somehow been able to ignore it. We can struggle to let go of the things that bind us into our lifestyle, and we can struggle against God as he purifies us. If we were to wait until we had sorted out all of this stuff before we became useful in the body of Christ, we would never sign-up. It has never been about us – always about Jesus. When we stubbornly refuse to surrender our will to his, then we are then in danger of returning to the place that God has already cleaned up.

 

“When an evil spirit leaves a person, it goes into the desert, seeking rest but finding none. Then it says, ‘I will return to the person I came from.’ So it returns and finds its former home empty, swept, and in order. Then the spirit finds seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they all enter the person and live there. And so that person is worse off than before. That will be the experience of this evil generation.”

(Matthew 12:43-45)

This quotation of Jesus deals with evil spirits that have been cast out directly from people as described throughout the Gospel stories, but it can also be read-into with regard to our sin. Sin is man’s rebellion from God. We were designed to honour God with our bodies, our minds, our creativity, and in our interactions with the world. We have an understanding of right and wrong whether we choose to believe it to be God given or not.

 

Some rules of conduct are reinforced through our up-bringing and through our involvement with civil life, and ultimately we could come face-to-face with the full force of the law through the courts. We have acquired such a sense of justice that when we see sentencing for crimes, we voice our opinions over the severity of the punishment and the leniency of the sentence. So why not then, might there be a source for this natural law?

 

I am always asked what I think about the day of judgement; the time where we will meet with God face to face and account for our lives. I always tend to answer the question in this way: ‘Do you believe that God is love? Do you believe that his Son Jesus’ death was an expression of that love in order that we might be saved? Do you think that God ration’s his grace and some may not have opportunity to repent?’ Then I always point to the cross. On it, Jesus was asked by a man who had been judged by human law to have sinned, whether he would honour a very simple and honest request.

 

The man could see that Jesus should not have been hanging on that cross; especially so when he compared his own life with the reputation of the man he saw hung next to him. In that moment of surrender where the man could not escape the consequences of his life, he turned to the one who could… ‘Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ Jesus’ glorious response is simple and clear: ‘Today, you will be with me in paradise.’

One of the criminals hanging beside him scoffed, “So you’re the Messiah, are you? Prove it by saving yourself—and us, too, while you’re at it!” But the other criminal protested, “Don’t you fear God even when you have been sentenced to die? We deserve to die for our crimes, but this man hasn't done anything wrong.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.” And Jesus replied, “I assure you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

(Luke 23:39-43)

 

This gift is offered freely to everyone when we recognise the risen Jesus; it sends a shiver of joy down my spine as I remember what God has saved me from and I echo Paul’s sentiment in Ephesians as I write this. That God in his great mercy would save a man such as me:

 

All of us used to live that way, following the passionate desires and inclinations of our sinful nature. By our very nature we were subject to God’s anger, just like everyone else. But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!)

(Ephesians 2:3-5)

  

There is only one warning about sin that stands out to me from those that try to rank sin in terms of good and bad, and that is the sin of those who BELIEVE. When you look at all of the texts used to suggest that sin isn't equal, they are aimed purely at the Christian who becomes lukewarm in their faith. Having an awareness that we are sinners and then continuing to repeat that pattern of sin, is considered worse than those who are ignorant of their sin. Making a choice to ignore sin in our lives is to repeatedly put Christ back on the cross and deny his redeeming work fulfilled on it:

 

When people escape from the wickedness of the world by knowing our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and then get tangled up and enslaved by sin again, they are worse off than before. It would be better if they had never known the way to righteousness than to know it and then reject the command they were given to live a holy life.

(2 Peter 2:20-21)

 

As the church we need to re-connect with the society we seek to save through revealing the love of Jesus, rather than pointing out their sins and heaping damnation on them for not repenting. The Jesus I know is gentle in his discipline and gives me space to accept my failings within a ministry of love and empowerment. He wants to loose me from the shackles of my habitual sin that is swayed by the culture we live in as well as being governed by the state of my emotion, so that I may be effective in serving him. No one wants to be told off and be bullied into the Kingdom for fear of death, although it does work for some… as human beings we don’t like to be told this stuff! But in Jesus, like the thief on the cross, I can see God, who dissolves my arrogant pretensions to being any good, because I see the love poured out so freely through his shed blood.

 

Let us together find a fresh way to reach people with the love of God that leads to repentance and faith; and in so doing, disciple them in the teachings of Christ so that they may never doubt the truth of their salvation again.