Predestined free will?

Christians have been debating for centuries whether predestination or free will decides our destiny. If we believe in predestination only, then why do anything in life? Everything is pre-determined, we might as well just sit back and watch everything unfold before our eyes. On the other hand, if our free will solely determines our life's outcome then that's pretty scary because my track record of choosing right hasn't been stellar--and your's probably hasn't been much better. To wholly believe in predestination pushes us to become extremely passive; to wholly believe in free-will leads us to become control freaks. 

The Bible seems to advocate that the two concepts are not mutually exclusive--that they both have a place.  Perhaps that's why Christians have debated this so much! Life experience confirms both realities. To begin with, our genetic disposition is given to us and we are born into families, countries, and at a time in history that we did not choose. And, in life, we make choices to the best of our knowledge and ability, sometimes we enjoy the fruit of good decisions and other times we find ourselves attributing unfortunate outcomes to 'bad luck' or 'bad timing'. But we know that our decisions and action matter. The fact that our thoughts and actions impact others and ourselves is obvious.  

Exactly how these two concepts hold together may be one of those mysteries that God cannot reveal to us for now.  Our time-bound, linear minds cannot hold the two truths together.    

Why do we want to be perfect?

We can blame the media for only depicting flawless faces and perfect figures for our obsession with beauty. But media and marketing can only entice us by triggering the desire that is already in us to begin with. Not only do we desire perfection in beauty, but also perfect health, homes, cars and products that promise to make our life...perfect. Marketers understand what drives us through our decision making maze - we all want to be perfect looking and live problem-free lives.

Why is this? The Bible tells us that we want perfection because we are made for it. But sin entered our world and since then decay, entropy and disorder have robbed perfection from us in every arena in life.  The good news is that through Jesus God has already accomplished the work that will restore us to the ultimate perfect existence that we were made for. The problem with us is that we want a perfect world without God.  We want the goods but don't want God who is the source of all things good (James 1:17).

Some of us have already discovered that beauty, good health and great products don't completely satisfy the deep longing that drives us to pursue them.  Ultimately, without God the allure of all good things will fade for lack of his sustenance.  There is no perfection without God.

Modern day idolatry

Worshipping carved images of hand-made gods is certainly not something we are prone to do in our society today.  But the essence of idolatry is often embodied in a person or a thing that we pursue.  Basically anything that occupies our attention to the extend that we revolve life around it has become an idol to us.  In this way idolatry is very much alive today.  And God is dead set against anything that has this much power over us.

One form of idolatry that has affected our modern world is this idea of a 'soul mate'.  The feeling of being in love is intoxicating, and it can lead to many false promises in our imagination.  With 'soul mate' idolatry we pin our hope on one person to make us happy and to make us feel complete, not realizing that these deep longings can only be fulfilled by God alone.  We seek from a soul mate what only God can give.

No wonder God portraits himself as husband to Israel in the Old Testament.  And it is in this context that we understand what it means when God says that He is a jealous God (Exodus 20:5).

How do I know I'm not working FOR my salvation?

One thing about Christianity that took me a long time to grapple with is this: I am saved by grace not by works (Ephesians 2:8-9), and yet, I need to prove my faith through my works (James 2:18).  So what does this really look like?

On the outside, it's not easy to tell if someone is doing good work in order to earn their salvation or if they are answering God's call as a result of being saved. As a natural do-er, I felt no need to even decipher the inner motivation for a long time. It felt good to be useful and helpful, and being looked upon positively was pretty cool too.  That is, until I burned out.  And then I got annoyed by others who didn't seem to be working as hard as I was.  Somewhere along the line I had become a legalistic dork who forgot about grace.  I was treating salvation as if it were earned by works rather than given by God.

So, I learnt the difference between a works motivation and a grace motivation the hard way.  Whenever we feel stress and anxiety about the work we do, then start to judge others (remember the story about Mary and Martha in Luke 10:38-42), it is a sure sign that we are working to perform, to earn brownie points from God, from others or from ourselves.  Just as the Israelites during their time as slaves to Egypt in the Old Testament, we work to survive and think we must work to be saved.  

But God did not save us to make us slaves again.  No point returning to Egypt.  He teaches us to work out of faith and obedience to His calling.  We learn to do things motivated by love and gratefulness to him.  We also learn to rest on His divine power that undergirds us whenever he tells us to do anything.  So we feel more free to take risk knowing that success is not dependent on our performance but rather on God's pleasure to deliver.

Sin and identity formation

In most religions, sin is usually defined as an action that breaks a moral law. Simple enough. But in Christianity, Jesus made it much more problematic, saying that even the thought of breaking a moral law is sin (Matthew 5:21-48). Who can withstand this level of scrutiny?!

Jesus wants to get at sin much sooner and deeper in our inner being than we might first realize.  The desire to sin and the conception of sin both happen inside of us (James 1:14-15).  When we think of why we sin, it usually stems from a core belief (however subtle it may be) that says 'I am not enough'.  For example, we might think that we are not worthy unless we are successful or desirable or powerful or popular etc.  And because self-esteem is at stake, we strive to be successful or desirable or whatever at all cost including hurting people that get in the way of our objective.  In order words, we sin or hurt others to get something that fulfills our need for positive self-identity.  

The beauty of Jesus and his salvation lies in this -- that by believing in him, we are made children of God (John 1:12).  It is as though we have been born again, allowing us to rest in this new identity and cease our strivings to be whatever the old self tells us.  The antidote to sin then is in letting our sonship in God sink deeper than the lies that we'd believed in in the old life.  The old identity must be replaced by a better one to lose its power over us in the new life.  What better identity can we have than being sons and daughters of God?  

When I hear the praises start

Song By the late Keith Green
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1GjhqalbYQ&feature=related

Is religion bad for intellectual development?

Oh...it sure can be. Since faith is such a crucial part of Christianity, there is a tendency to tackle difficult questions with more "faith" than thinking.  In order words, when we encounter things that we don't understand, instead of encouraging intellectual curiosity, we stop our thinking process short by saying that this just takes more faith to believe. Sometimes if the questioning persists, then the questioner is labelled a doubter, someone who is faithless.

My own experience is that the desire for an answer is not driven by the lack of faith. Rather it is the very opposite. "I have no doubt that God has an answer and that it will be a good one; I want to know what God thinks!" That is not a bad thing, is it?  In a friendship, we want to know what the other person thinks about this and that; it is just natural curiosity.  And through Jesus, God has befriended us.   

Some will quote Isaiah 55:8-9 to say that God's ways are higher than ours, and his thoughts are higher than ours. That is true, but it doesn't mean we can't access his thoughts. James 1:5 states "If anyone lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously without finding fault, and it will be given to him."  The apostle Paul puts it even more poignantly in 1 Corinthians 2:10-16 by saying that the Spirit of God who dwells in us searches all things, even the deep things of God...we have the mind of Christ!

A heart of flesh instead of a heart of stone

Life circumstances naturally harden our hearts.  As we experience disappointments in life, which invariably result from dealing with other people, over time we can't help but build walls for self-preservation.  The result is that our hearts become callous and hard.

But God said he wants to give us a new heart, a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26).  I take this to mean a soft heart.  One of the implications of having a soft heart is that we begin to feel more and more for others. Romans 12:15 says we are to 'rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn'.

As God becomes a living reality in us, He also becomes our anchor and source of security, freeing us from the need of self-preservation.  Knowing that He is our ultimate protector enables us to reach out to others without any fears.  

Why doesn't God just show up?

Typically we hear one of two answers to the above question: (1) God is so holy and we are so sinful that we would die instantly if he showed up.  (2) God did show up--2000 years ago when he became the man, Jesus, and it is unbelief that keeps us from seeing His divinity.  

Answer (1) implies that God cannot control his power; which has been proven wrong.  The Old Testament records that both Moses and Jacob survived their encounters with God.  Answer (2) is certainly true, but that doesn't satisfy most of us who live so long after Jesus' time on earth.  

And we're often seeking something a bit more precise beneath that question anyway, namely "if God exists, why doesn't he show himself with power and might to prove that he is real?"  

Here are two possible reasons that seem to make sense to me.  

First, God apparently desires to forge relationships with us. That was his original plan in the Garden of Eden. But after Adam's fall, people began to hide from God out of shame (Genesis 3:10).  And if He were to appear with power today we too would likely hide out of fear.  Shame and fear are not exactly positive building blocks for the relationships God is creating.  

Second, God has an agenda to transform humanity.  This work has to take place in our hearts.  Ezekiel 36:26 tells us that He wants to remove our heart of stone and give us a heart of flesh.  Appearing with power doesn't necessarily further God's clear transformational agenda.

What God did do was far more effective for His purposes than just showing up.  By sending His Son Jesus to the cross in an act of love, He removed the barrier of fear and shame between us.  Then Jesus sent His Spirit into the heart of each believer for the transforming work He purposed.  Jesus' work, though less spectacular in one sense, was much more effective for God's purposes--and ironically, far more costly to God--than if he had just shown up with a massive display of power. 

Sorry is just a word

When my nephews were just four and five years old, they would love each other to pieces one moment and then fight like cats and dogs the next. The older one habitually played tricks on his brother for fun, and the younger one, who was less adept at such trickery retaliated with action. One day I had to be their peace-maker, and asked the older boy to apologize for his mischief.  But before he even had a chance to respond, my youngest nephew, with tears in his eyes, protested to me and said "But sorry is just a word!"

Words can definitely become empty and meaningless if they are not followed by some change or other tangible action. We are so prone to say things we don't mean. We even train our children to say an automatic 'sorry' before first dealing with their hearts.  Gone are the days of verbal contracts, precisely because words without paper trail cannot be trusted. The apostle James concludes that no one can be found faultless in what he says, we all fail at being true to our word at some level. (James 3:2)

But Jesus isn't like that.  He lived out what he preached and thus qualified to call himself 'the Truth' (John 14:6).  His word and his deed were then and still are, one and the same.  And on this basis, we can put our trust in His words and live by them. 

Having Hebrew Heritage

Christianity was birthed from a Jewish womb.  Jesus himself was fully Jewish, not only by birth but also by practice. He said in Matthew 5:17 "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law and the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them".  This is crucial for Christians, who rely upon Jesus' complete fulfillment of the Law in order to inherit the covenantal promises--of blessing in our earthly lives and eternal life with God--which God himself gave to Abraham in Genesis 15.  In a sense, a Christian gains access, through Jesus, to a Hebrew heritage.  And without this Hebrew root, there would be no Christianity.  

In this light--the connection between Old and New Testaments, Jews and Jesus, I find myself needing to retract something I wrote in a previous blog when I deemed Judaism a graceless religion.  Judaism springs from the Old Testament, where God made promises on account of his mercy: Abraham, Moses, Joseph, David etc...were all saved by mercy and not by their works.  In fact, the concept of mercy and grace in Christianity originates from God's interaction with his people in the Old Testament.

By the same token, since Jesus was the only one who perfectly fulfilled the Law - without Jesus, there would be no fulfillment of God's Old Testament promise.  As the apostle Peter puts it, the prophets of old were looking forward to the arrival of Christ and his fulfillment of their prophecy (1 Peter 1:10).

Christians do well to delve into the Old Testament and read the Bible as a whole in order to understand the context from which Jesus and the apostles established our faith and to grow us in it.  

Facing trials as pure joy, why?

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." (James 1:2-4)

Anyone who has been through deep waters in life knows the challenge of this verse. But as incomprehensible as it sounds, there are good reasons to consider facing life's trails as joy.  From studying the book of Job, I can see three reasons.  

First, trials in life indicate the depth of our relationship with God.  See how God describes Job in Chapter 1, verse 8 - 'Have you considered my servant Job?  There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.'  Job was not only known to God, but was also held in high esteem by God himself.  It was because the Lord took pride in Job that Satan focused on him (Job 2:3).  All believers in Jesus delight God when we abide by and obey His Son.  Therefore, as we walk with Jesus we ready ourselves for Satan's attack.

Second, God watches over the tried unceasingly.  Satan had to seek permission from God to attack Job (Job 1:12).  No matter how dire and dreadful our trials may seem to us, we can be sure that God remains sovereign and is in control of all situations.  Circumstances will never get out of hand for those who trust in Him.  

Third, the trial will end and God will exonerate his beloved.  In Job's example, we see that God blessed him in the end more than in the first part of his life.  And James tells us too that we will become more mature and complete and not lacking anything.  This is a great promise in time of trial.

Your love broke through

Another song by Keith Green
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h89-3_kIRDA

Like a foolish dreamer, trying to build a highway to the sky
All my hopes would come tumbling down, 
  and I never knew just why
Until today, when you pulled away the clouds 
  that hung like curtains on my eyes
Well I've been blind all these wasted years 
  and I thought I was so wise
But then you took me by surprise

Like waking up from the longest dream, how real it seemed
Until your love broke through
I've been lost in a fantasy, that blinded me
Until your love broke through

All my life I've been searching for that crazy missing part
And with one touch, 
  you just rolled away the stone that held my heart
And now I see that the answer was as easy, 
  as just asking you in
And I am so sure I could never doubt your gentle touch again
It's like the power of the wind

Like waking up from the longest dream, how real it seemed
Until your love broke through
I've been lost in a fantasy, that blinded me
Until your love, until your love, broke through

To obey is better than sacrifice

Lyrics by Keith Green
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzWyZxlwGKI&feature=related

To obey is better than sacrifice
I don't need your money, I want your life
And I hear you say that I'm coming back soon
But you act like I'll never return

Well you speak of grace and My love so sweet
How you thrive on milk, but reject My meat
And I can't help weeping of how it will be
If you keep on ignoring My words
Well you pray to prosper and succeed
But your flesh is something I just can't feed

To obey is better than sacrifice
I want more than Sunday and Wednesday nights
Cause if you can't come to Me every day
Then don't bother coming at all

To obey is better than sacrifice
I want hearts of fire, not your prayers of ice
And I'm coming quickly to give back to you
According to what you have done
According to what you have done
According to what you have done 

The problem of pain and suffering

I have heard of numerous stories of miraculous healing and divine deliverance for believers in dire circumstances; those are great stories that we like to share.  We even tell these stories with a hint of undue pride -- see, now the world will know that our religion is good.  But the truth is for every miraculous healing we hear about, there are hundreds of unhealed and heart breaking situations that aren't told. 

Christians who read the Bible should not be surprised by suffering; we're told to expect trials of pain in life and we're told why this is so.  In the New Testament various apostles tell believers they will go through crucible experiences that will refine their faith and character.  The apostle James goes so far to say that we should consider it pure joy when we face trials of many kinds (James 1:2).

For the faithful, the ultimate goal isn't happiness in this life.  There is greater joy to come and that joy will be permanent.  In the meantime we trust our God--who has the power to change our situation in a blink--to do what He deems best to accomplish his plan.  

Accepting suffering isn't a case of expecting too little from God, we still pray for relief no matter what.  But if God doesn't answer the way we envision, we can be sure that we have asked of Him too little, that He is in fact giving us an answer that is much beyond what we can imagine.  (John 14:13; Matthew 7:9)

The judgment of God - what will that be like?

This is how one man imagined it will be:

"God sits on a throne with a great curtain behind Him and, one by one, we come before Him. Then God makes a sign with His right hand, and from behind the curtain come beings each more beautiful than the other; so splendid that we cannot bear to look at them. Each of these beings stands before one of those to be judged. We who are accused ask, 'Who is this beautiful being with me?' God answered, "That is you, as you would have been if you had obeyed Me.' And then comes, for the disobedient, the eternal hell of remorse." from the book In God's Underground by Richard Wurmbrand

The feeling of regret is not unfamiliar to us.  It is actually a fear--the fear of loss.  And we all have this innate fear of loss built in.  In fact, avoiding the pain of loss is known to be a powerful motivator in business negotiation strategy. 

Such feeling may arise from lost opportunity, loss of love or the loss of anything precious to us, as a result of our own decision and action or the lack thereof.  It is excruciating.  But in this life, we still have the chance to "make up for the loss", to learn from our mistake or to redeem those bad decisions somehow.  We also look to a variety of distractions to numb ourselves from the pain of loss.  

At the final judgment we will not have such diversions; we will face eternally what could have been for us.  The Bible often describes Hell to be a place of 'weeping and gnashing of teeth' a state of mind filled with profound regret (Matthew 13:41-42).  How dreadful it will be for those of us who have not relied on Jesus to regain what we have lost!

How can a loving God condone judgment and Hell?

This is actually a class-based question, likely asked by those of us living in the safe confines of the West.  

Not long ago, we were in rural South Africa interviewing Christians who had converted from animistic/black magic religion. We asked this amongst many other questions: "What is your favourite verse in the Bible?"  One answer stands out in my mind to this day.  It came from a muscular, intimidating man, who carried intensity with his every word.  In a less friendly circumstance, I would have been afraid of him.  But get this, his favourite Bible verse was "Thou shall not kill".

For those trapped in the cyclical environment of revenge and violence, the God who says in Deuteronomy 32:35 "Vengeance is mine" offers a way out.  Recognizing ultimate justice exists and that it will be carried out by an all-powerful God, gives both hope and reason to restrain oneself from the natural impulse of getting even.    

To the oppressed, the relevant question is not: "How can God condone judgment and Hell?" It is: "How can a loving God NOT be about judgment and Hell?"  

And our response should be that of Paul the Apostle in Romans 12:19 "Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written, 'It is mine to avenge; I will repay.' says the Lord".  

Are Heaven and Hell only states of mind?

From the book The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis, we find these incredibly insightful words.

"Hell is a state of mind ... And every state of mind, left to itself, every shutting up of the creature within the dungeon of its own mind--is, in the end, Hell.  But Heaven is not a state of mind.  Heaven is reality itself.  All that is fully real is Heavenly. For all that can be shaken will be shaken and only the unshakeable remains."

By this definition, I have experienced Hell plenty here and now.  Every self-absorbed thought I ever indulged and lingered in eventually led to a state of isolation so dark and confined that there seemed to be no way out.  

There is no friendship in Hell.  Others are there, yes, but not friendship, because in Hell everyone's mind is preoccupied purely on himself--leaving no room to embrace others.