Friday, November 28, 2008

Can I be a Christian without being religious?

Religion isn't making it any easier for people of faith. With terrorist attacks in the name of God and narrow minded propaganda in the name of truth at an all time zenith, the sincere believer gets lumped in with the barbarians.

Late night TV comedy and the internet continue to push hard to expel religion, which many see as toxic, from modern life. They reason that a world without religion would be a peaceful place where all could live up to their potential. A place where logic and reason rule, causing superstition to disappear.

Talk about being delusional.

A quick glance at history turns up Stalin's atheistic experiment that murdered millions and Hitler's racist Reich that had no use for Christian principles - "Christianity is an invention of sick brains" as he once famously said.


So civilization's problem isn't religion, but evil hiding behind the veneer of religious practice. Evil that creeps into the folds of religion and infects it with human selfishness and pride.

I tend to oversimplify, but it seems that all valuables have a corresponding counterfeit. One's true relationship with the Supreme Being should be the goal of religion. But religion has become an end unto itself, like a gigantic government that once began in order to benefit the public, but now merely protects its own existence.

Therefore, we have toxic religion. So, what is this toxic religion? What distinguishes it from true faith?

It's summed up in Jesus' statement, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." (Mark 2:27 NIV). The Pharisees' hard hearts and slavish attention to man made religious details caused them to forget compassion for people.

Religious ideals should lead people to a healthier relationship with God and with fellow human beings. Religion that leads in the opposite direction is toxic.

It's this toxic form of religion that's now the butt of jokes and draws the ire of thinking people worldwide.

So how can one be a Christian without being religious (in the toxic sense)? By focusing on one's relationship to the Father. And by serving others in love (See James 1:26-27).

Both of these objectives demand prayer. And they demand that our churches become "houses of prayer" and loving harbors for shipwrecked people. We can't continue to ignore the great Biblical themes of love, compassion and spiritual formation without paying the price of becoming toxic.

It's time to drop the religious pretense and be authentic. Authentic believers in a risen Lord who cares about all humanity. Authentic believers who are willing to risk it all to serve Him and the people He created.

"Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him... Dear friends, since God so loved us, we ought to love one another." (1 John 4:8-11 NIV).

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

What does faith say on Thanksgiving Day?

Giving thanks isn't just a wimpish "counting your blessings" and trying to pretend that reality isn't so harsh after all.

Giving thanks takes maturity. It demands a spiritual sophistication that understands the connection between faith and thanksgiving.

One can't truly thank God without having faith. That's because faith gives voice to what it believes:

"But the righteousness that is by faith says... That if you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord'... it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved... for, 'Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.'" (Romans 10:6-13 NIV).

Notice that faith does a lot of verbalizing. And one thing faith verbalizes is thanks for what God has done... and will do.

A muscular faith will always find ways to thank God for what He is doing.

Note this video and enjoy a great Thanksgiving!

www.biblesociety.ca

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Ever heard of Black Friday?

Ever heard of Black Friday? It's the Friday right after Thanksgiving when all the stores run sales to get a head start on the Christmas shopping season.

Although black Friday isn't an official holiday, many workers take that day off, adding to the huge crowds. This gave rise to the title "black Friday" which supposedly originated in Philadelphia, PA due to the heavy traffic that day.

This year's black Friday (November 28th) promises to be interesting, due to the economic problems this year. Despite all the sales and coupons, will the day be as big as usual, or will people hold off on spending until later?

But here's a bigger question... will the war and our economic woes nudge us toward a deeper spiritual walk with God? Will these conditions make us downplay black Friday for something greater, like bright Sunday?

Maybe we should. Maybe our whole nation, our whole world, has been so caught up in greed and materialism that we couldn't think straight. While we've been partying at the Materialism Ball, our spiritual lives have been scattered all over the map. We've seen the growth of cults and paganism, along with an incessant attack on Christians from skeptics bent on replacing Biblical beliefs with secular-anity (a religion in itself).

While they have every right to do so under our legal system, Christians should know that we are under attack. The rules have changed. We get no special respect, no quarter because we're trying to do the right thing.

We must stand up for what we believe - or even better, stand up for what the Bible teaches. And we must develop Christians with steel backbones, like the persecuted believers in much of the world today. It may be our turn next.

How can we stand up for what's right without a serious spiritual life, one strong enough to back up such bold action? You can't be a Daniel, a David or a Paul without the framework of hours of dedicated prayer.

That's why the Spirit says, "Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes... and pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests." (Ephesians 6:10-18 NIV).


Thursday, November 13, 2008

The hairy side of prayer

I used to think that prayer was only for the weak.

You know, for those people who couldn't cope with life, so they leaned on the crutch of thinking that there's some divine entity who actually cares about their meaningless little lives.

Boy, was I wrong! Prayer, when you use it to tackle real life, is like the trek up Mt Everest. Or like a safari into the wild with danger at every turn.

Or like bull-rider Ed Rowell's comment about the first time he ever preached a sermon - he had found a replacement for the adrenalin rush he got each time he was nearly killed in the rodeo (see Preaching With Spiritual Passion).

"Prayer" seems like such a tame word for such a hair-raising, heart-pounding, life-altering experience. It's like a pro football player saying he "bumps into people" on Sunday. No, he crashes into people!

So, maybe we should rename "prayer". Call it cosmic combat. Call it warfare in the spirit world. Call it encountering El Shaddai face to face. Call it venturing into demonic territory and destroying strongholds with mere words - words pulsing with faith.

Whatever you call it, true prayer is a draining, sometimes scary, spirit-twisting, world-changing combat operation that can alter the course of history, even Divine history.

The championship prayer warriors of Scripture knew that.

Daniel did some combat praying for three weeks while an angel, who was sent to answer his prayer, mounted an assault on Satan's territory and engaged the enemy in hand-to-hand combat in the invisible spirit world (Daniel 10:12-21).

While angels fought, Daniel prayed. And he didn't give up. He wouldn't quit, even when his answer didn't show up the first day. He understood that combat praying sets in motion overwhelming cosmic forces - like the President giving his OK to start the D-Day invasion of World War II. Once you engage the enemy, you can't waver.

And Daniel wasn't the only one. Paul praised Epaphras, the preacher at Colossae, because "He is always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured." (Colossians 4:12 NIV). This amazing preacher knew how to go to war in prayer for his flock.

And even Jesus won his greatest battle on earth by using prayer as his weapon against Satan - "During the days of Jesus' life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission." (Hebrews 5:7 NIV).

Are you one of those? One of those who can hold on and pray despite hell's attack? I've know people like that. And I've seen them get results.

But more than that, I've seen them touch the face of God through their unwavering courage in prayer.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

What if there is no God?

When you write about prayer, you work from this fundamental assumption - God, an actual, real Presence to whom we pray, exists.

But we're almost overwhelmed today with skeptics who deny that same assumption.

Many of them find work as successful, professional mockers hiding behind a pseudo-intellectual mask while railing at religion in general, Christianity in specific and the very idea of God.

While such people might be irritating to the believer, we still should face the question... what if they're right? What if there is no God?

Then several things must be relatively obvious. If there is no God...

1. Mankind is the most advanced life form we know. He stands at the top of the animal kingdom with no being above him. Note how man has devised ways to master his environment and manipulate it to his advantage. Despite the protests of environmentalists, just look at man's dominance over the animal kingdom around him.

2. Therefore, man has no "umpire" to buffer his actions. If man is supreme, he can make the rules, enforce them as arbitrarily as he pleases, and change them to suit the "values" in vogue at the time. "Justice" gets defined only by the whim of the times.

3. Individual human beings mean little. They have no real existence nor any special intrinsic value unless they can serve the ends of the tribe. The individual is a brief candle, burning for a while and then being extinguished by time's winds and passing into oblivion.

4. Cognition of any objective reality outside the self is a hoax. One's thoughts are merely electrochemical events signifying nothing special. The individual life is meaningless.

5. Villains, victims and heroes are only defined in the eye of the beholder. One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. There is no objective truth, so each fights for his own version of "truth".

6. All human aspiration becomes pointless. One can try to leave a legacy behind for future generations, but the individual will never see those aspirations come true. No one lives long enough to see any transcendent desires come to fruition.

7. Violence becomes a legitimate tool to get one's way. Although we protest it and decry it... in the Godless world, violence still works and has no lasting, meaningful consequences to the perpetrator (even the death penalty is merely a relatively painless shove into oblivion for the one who kills).

8. If there is no God to reveal a higher life to us, Hitler is no worse than Jesus. Stalin (and all the other secularist dictators who murdered millions) merely did what any other cunning super-animal would do - destroy the competition.

Depressing, isn't it?

Which leads to another question? Why, despite all the problems and contradictions in religion, do people still hope there is a God, and a better way?

Solomon, the wise Jewish king, explained it this way: "He (God) has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men..." (Ecclesiates 3:11 NIV).

We crave a better way because we have an antenna planted in us that responds to the eternal, the supernatural.

Like a man trying to check the temperature with a crescent wrench, the secularist wrongly assumes he can understand the supernatural with human capabilities. The supernatural doesn't come by investigation but by revelation. And that revelation comes primarily through God's Spirit as He uses the Bible to reveal God to man.

"The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually discerned... But we have the mind of Christ." -1 Corinthians 2:14-16 NIV.