Category Archives: Apologetics

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – WHEN YOU PRAY, SAY…

Apologetics, ,

WHEN YOU PRAY, SAY…

Then He said to them, “When you pray, say, ‘Father, hallowed be your name; your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation.'” Luke 11:2-4.

I wonder how well the disciples understood what Jesus was teaching them about prayer. Did they grasp the underlying truth of God as their Father?

Unlike Matthew 6, there is no preamble to this version of the prayer. Although Jesus taught them that prayer is not about words, words are used to express the thoughts and emotions of the heart. What a world of meaning is wrapped up in the word ‘Father’! There is no prayer outside of this relationship which was made possible through Jesus.

“Yet to all who received Him, to all who believed in His name, He gave the right to be called children of God…” John 1:12.

Prayer is the way sons communicate with their heavenly Father. Prayer is the conscious turning of the attention away from self to the One who is our source and sustainer, changing the focus of our attention from self and our issues to God and His attributes. Whatever words it might take to do this, they are only the vehicle through which this change of awareness happens. Therefore, when a son focuses his attention on Father God, he is praying.

This Father with whom human beings are privileged to have a relationship because of Jesus, is not outside our realm of existence and experience. Heaven is not a place up there or out there but a dimension that completely saturates the physical realm as air saturates the earth. God is everywhere and He is therefore as near to us as our breath.

Prayer is therefore, firstly, a change from my environment to the environment of God, of His presence and nearness. Secondly, it is an awareness of who He is. To hallow His name is to concentrate on His glory, “the sum of His magnificent attributes and the eternal fame of His mysterious works”.  Where my attention was taken up by the issues of my life, I deliberately change my focus to the greatness of the God with whom I am engaging in love and trust as a son.

To engage with Him in this way is to put my personal concerns into the context of the bigger picture of His kingdom and will. It is also to put my failures into the context of His mercy. Since He has dealt with my load of guilt and the barrier of sin that separated me from Him, I dare not hang onto the offences that separate me from my fellow man.

Just as I am dependent upon Him for every crumb that passes my lips as a little child, I too, I depend on Him for the “bread” of heaven that nourishes my soul. And, knowing how tainted I am with the self-centred greed that has infiltrated my soul from birth, I look to Him to save me from my self-destructive ways that would ensnare and destroy me without the grace of His Spirit who is constantly at work in me.

This simple pattern prayer teaches me the essence of the attitude and disposition of a son to the Father, submitting to Him and being involved in the things that are on His heart. This is not about putting God first. This is about putting Him in the centre of my thinking and living.

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – SELECTIVE DEAFNESS

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SELECTIVE DEAFNESS

“John spoke up, ‘Master, we saw a man using your name to expel demons and we stopped Him because he wasn’t of our group.’  Jesus said, ‘Don’t stop him. If he’s not an enemy, he’s an ally.’

“When it came close to the time for His Ascension, He gathered up His courage and steeled Himself for the journey to Jerusalem. He sent messengers on ahead. They came to a Samaritan village to make arrangements for His hospitality. But when the Samaritans learned that His destination was Jerusalem, they refused hospitality.

“When the disciples James and John learned of it, they said, ‘Master, do you want us to call a bolt of lightning down out of the sky and incinerate them?’ Jesus turned on them: ‘Of course not!’ And they travelled on to another village.”  Luke 9:49-55.

Talk about selective hearing! James and John’s attitude was proof that they had not taken in a word Jesus had said about true greatness.

What had these men learned from their association with Jesus? From non-religious guys who were part of the “out” group as far as their religious leaders were concerned, they had developed the idea that they were now part of a new “in” group!

They were very protective of their status as followers of Jesus – disciples of the newest and most popular rabbi in Israel. Although He had many followers on the fringe, Jesus had not invited anyone else to be part of the “in” group and they wanted to be sure that no one gate-crashed their party.

Anyone of the “them” group who happened to “get” what Jesus had been teaching and act on it was frowned on, not encouraged, because he was not one of “us”. They proudly announced to Jesus that they had put a stop to a man’s enthusiastic participation in doing the “kingdom stuff” by casting out demons, thinking that He would applaud them for their loyalty to Him. They were not anticipating the surprising rebuke they received for their trouble! ‘Don’t stop him,’ Jesus said. ‘If he’s not an enemy, then he’s a friend.’

James and John were such fiery characters that they had earned the nickname, “sons of thunder”. To protect their inner circle they were prepared to use their new-found authority to incinerate people who dared to oppose them, especially the hated Samaritans! Thinking that Jesus would applaud their outrage for the snub they had received, they wanted His approval for their plan to wipe out the village.

What did Jesus think of these goings-on from His disciples? For all their response to His teaching and demonstrating His yoke, they were still thinking and acting in exactly the same way as they did before they met Him. It seems that everything He taught them bounced off them like a ball off a wall. In fact, an “outsider” had caught on to what they, the “insiders” had missed. To cast out demons “in His name” meant that the unknown man, who was not a disciple, was doing what their rabbi did, in the disposition of their rabbi.

How sad that many of Jesus’ self-proclaimed “followers” today have just as much of a “we – they” mentality as the disciples had. Being a Christian is being part of an exclusive “club” and to be a Christian minister is to have an elevated position in this club.

To get the real picture, let’s go back to Jesus’ visual aid on greatness. He insisted that to be truly great, one must use one’s position to elevate others, not to put them down or lord it over them. Get down to the level of the lowest and treat them with dignity and respect.

Jesus was the greatest and truest model of what He taught, “Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to His own advantage; rather, He made Himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to death – even death on a cross!” Philippians 2:6-8 (NIV).

Are you as selectively deaf as the disciples were?

THE BOOK OF ACTS – JOINED TO CHRIST

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JOINED TO CHRIST

“Putting out from the harbour at Troas, we made a straight run for Samothrace. The next day we tied up at New City and walked from there to Philippi, the main city in that part of Macedonia and, even more importantly, a Roman colony. We lingered there several days.

“On the Sabbath we left the city and went along the river where we had heard there was to be a prayer meeting. We took our place with the women who had gathered there and talked with them. One woman, Lydia, was from Thyatira and a dealer in expensive textiles, known to be a God-fearing woman. As she listened with intensity to what was being said, the Master gave her a trusting heart — and she believed.” Acts 16:11-14 (The Message).

These were the moments that made it worthwhile — all the persecution, all the suffering, all the weariness and hardship were irrelevant when it came to the joy of leading a soul to Jesus. Lydia was their first convert on European soil. Unlike Jewish women who were by-and-large nonentities, Lydia was wealthy and influential, a successful business woman and also a thinking person.

She had turned from the irrational worship of Roman gods to the God of the Jews, one of those in the category of “God-fearers”, attached to, but not part of the Jewish religion. She had come to realise that the Jewish faith had something that attracted and satisfied her much more than the pantheon of gods that pandered to human wickedness.

It’s no wonder, then, that she was ripe for the picking when Paul and Silas sat down with the women to bring them the full revelation of God in His Son Jesus. All she needed to complete her faith was the good news of what the God of the Jews had done to rescue mankind from its plight through rebellion and sin. It all made sense to her and, without hesitation, she put her faith in the One of whom Paul and Silas spoke.

“After she was baptized, along with everyone in her household, she said, in a surge of hospitality, ‘If you’re confident that I’m in this with you, and believe in the Master truly, come home with me and be my guests.’ We hesitated but she wouldn’t take no for an answer.” Acts 16:15 (The Message).

For the good news of Jesus to be authentic, it must produce something more than intellectual assent. You have to put your money where your mouth is. For Paul it meant burying old prejudices and setting aside old taboos. Both Paul and Silas, proud Jewish men, had to drop their attitude to women, and a Gentile woman at that. Lydia wanted to express her gratitude and generosity by opening her home to them.

These are the realities of the new life that Jesus offers to those who put their faith in Him. It’s not only about recognising that He is who He says He is, the One who has power and authority above all others, but it’s also about entrusting ourselves to Him so that He produces life changes in us so radical that we begin, more and more, to think and act like He does.

These are the fruit of His life and the evidence of our change of allegiance, from self to God, a paradigm shift so powerful that it actually alters the entire core and direction of our lives. No religion can do that. All religion can do is entrench more deeply what is already in us — every kind of self-driven effort, accomplishment and indulgence that cut us off from God’s grace.

Lydia was joined to Christ and, for her, a new life had begun.

Did You Know (13)?

Apologetics, , ,

DID YOU KNOW (13)

…That the theory of evolution is a lie?

If evolution, and not the Bible is the truth, there are many implications for the human race and many unanswered questions. I cannot raise them all here and I cannot raise them in sequence but let’s get going.

  1. Why is there death in the world? From where did death come?

Without the record in the book of Genesis, of man’s fall from fellowship with his Creator to estrangement and separation ending in physical death, we have no way of knowing why everything on earth is subject to death and decay.

  1. Why do humans have a free will and are responsible for their behaviour when the apes from which we are supposed to have evolved are not morally responsible?

We do law enforcers not arrest and try animals that prey on other animals and yet people are held accountable for killing people but not for killing animals. How did this transition happen if man evolved from apes?

  1. Why is the human race inherently selfish and greedy?

If humans became better than apes through evolution, why did they not become better than animals morally? We do not condemn animals when they behave in what we consider to be selfish or cruel ways because they function by instinct. Why do people not function by instinct alone?

  1. From where does our conscience come? Why do we feel guilty when we have done wrong according to our conscience?

Without the Biblical explanation for the origin and nature of man – that God created man in His own image, to resemble Him and to have fellowship with Him, we have no authoritative way of knowing who we really are and what is right and wrong. God wrote His law on our hearts whether we like it or not. Our conscience alerts us when we transgress God’s standards of right and wrong.

  1. Why do people feel empty and restless until they have reconnected with God through His Son and realise that He is both their Creator and Father?
  2. Tied to the above question is the next: why are we here and where are we going?

Life has no meaning, no anchor, and no hope until we understand that we were created by God, that He gives meaning to our lives, that He made us to have fellowship with Him, and that our destiny is to be with Him forever. Death is not the end but the beginning and completion of our journey. Until we reconnect with God, we are lost and we will never find the way to the Father without Jesus.

What are the implications of believing in evolution and denying the existence of a Creator?

  1. We make God and the Bible out to be liars.
  2. If the Bible is wrong about God being the Creator of the universe, then it must be wrong about everything else He said and did.
  3. If there is no God, no Bible, and no truth, then we have no hope.
  4. If there is no God, there can be no moral absolutes. Everyone is free to make his own rules and do as he pleases. There can be no justice because justice is based on what is universally accepted objective standards.
  5. Without objective standards, there can be no such thing as a crime if everyone is free to make his own rules.
  6. We have no reason to complain if people behave worse than animals, since they evolved from animals, and if the world is in chaos because there is no one to fix it.
  7. Evolution disproves itself because evolution claims that everything is evolving upwards when our observation tells us that the world is running down. If everything is evolving into something better, why does every living thing eventually die? Why do our gardens, left to themselves, become overrun with weeds?

And we can go on. Belief in evolution rather than in a Designer and Creator raises more questions than answers.

There is only one solution to the chaotic mess we have made of the world over the last few thousand years – Jesus.

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come (2 Cor. 5:17).

He dealt with sin on the cross, unmasked the devil for the liar he is and promised to make everything new.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and He will live with them. They will be His people and God Himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain for the old order of things has passed away (Rev. 21:1-4).

Scripture is taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Have you read my first book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

ISBN: Softcover – 978-1-4828-0512-3,                                                                              eBook 978-4828-0511-6

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or Kindle version, on www.takealot.com  or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

Do you like this post? Then buy your own copy of my book, Learning to be a Disciple, which is also available from www.amazon.com or www.takealot.com in South Africa. You can also order a copy directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com

My latest book, The Heartbeat of Holiness, is now available on www.amazon.com or www.takealot.com or from me at luella@efc.org.za at R130,00 including p and p.

 

 

Did You Know (12)

Apologetics, , ,

DID YOU KNOW (12)

…That the theory of evolution is one of the biggest lies the devil has ever perpetrated on the human race?

Now that will get some of your heckles up!

The theory of evolution fits perfectly into Satan’s modus operandi to drive a wedge between God and His children by creating suspicion and destroying trust. Satan’s success story began in the Garden of Eden when he persuaded Adam and Eve to mistrust God by defaming God’s character, and they believed Him. His accusation that God’s word was not to be trusted was actually an exposure of his own false nature. (Strange, isn’t it that the accusations we level at others are often a revelation of our own hearts)!

Jesus’ accurately diagnosed the devil as a liar and the father of lies. He is the source of every lie that has even been told. According to Jesus, lies are his mother tongue (John 8:44).

He has two effective ways of turning people against God.

  1. He lies about God to us. He discredits God by casting doubt on His character and His word. Either God does not exist and any idea of God is just a figment of human imaginations, or God is not to be trusted.

“Look at the mess the world is in and God does nothing about it. Why does He not protect little children from suffering; why does He allow criminals to get away with their crimes; why didn’t He heal my mother, father, brother or sister when I prayed? Why did He let my child die?” The list goes on and on.

The conclusion we come to is that God is not to be trusted, Why should we believe the Bible? We might as well throw the idea of God out of the window and believe the scientists who tell us that the universe just “happened”.

  1. He lies to us about ourselves. Since God doesn’t exist, we might as well live as we like because there are no moral absolutes. He degrades human beings by luring them into sin and then accusing them of being worthless by drowning them in guilt and shame.

One thing God-haters and God-blamers are ignorant of, forget, or choose to ignore is that we made the mess in the world. He never withdrew the freedom of choice from the first pair, and He still honours that freedom, even if we make the wrong choices. When a young girl sleeps around and faces an unwanted pregnancy, she cannot hold God responsible for what she did. It was her choice and she must accept the consequences, not blame God for letting it happen!

Despite our erroneous conclusion that there is no God or, if there is, He doesn’t care about us, we cannot stop the consequences or silence our conscience when we have transgressed His law which He has written on our hearts. Of course, we instinctively know when we have done wrong. From where does that come?

Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them (Rom. 2:14-15).

David wrote a psalm from his observation of the natural world. Instead of concluding that everything just happened by chance, he penned these words:

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? You have made them a little lower than God (Elohim in Hebrew) and crowned them with glory and honour. You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet: all flocks and herds and the animals of the wild, the birds in the sky and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the sea (Psa. 8:3-8)

Evolutionists insist that human beings evolved upwards from animals; in other words, humans are just a little higher than animals. The Bible declares that God made us a little lower than Himself. We become what we choose to believe.

Now David did not say that God created little gods. What he did say perfectly harmonises with the Genesis account of creation. God designed and fashioned man from the elements of the earth and blew His own breath into his nostrils. Hidden in the original Hebrew account of creation is His reason for creating the human race. God made mankind to resemble Himself so that He could have fellowship with people and so that they would manage the earth and its creatures for Him.

Within the circle of the love of Father, Son and Holy Spirit for each other, God intended that we live and share in that love and work as a team with God to care for the earth. What a destiny!

“Oh,” but you might say, “of course, you will defend the Bible if you believe it is true.” I would respond by saying, “Bring me the proof, not the theory, that everything just happened by chance, and I will believe you.”

Is it possible that, without intelligence and design, the entire universe functions as a unit by chance; that animals, birds, reptiles and insects just happen to be perfectly suited for their habitat and diet? How can a creature evolve into something else by choice? What if one individual in a species decided this and another that?

What do you make of this verse?

Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life (Matt. 6:25).

How do they survive in the interim when their bodies are evolving? How can cells function perfectly if even an element is missing or “changing”?

Has any human made something without a pattern or design? What if aircraft engineers decided to put a mass of aircraft components together randomly without a design? Will it fly? Would a book be readable if the author strung together all the words in the dictionary without a plot and without constructing grammatically correct sentences?

As ludicrous as this all sounds, is there any logical reason for thinking people to believe that, at some point in the past (billions of years ago, and who created time?), a burst of energy (from where did the energy come?) produced a fully functional universe.

The implications of accepting this unproven theory of evolution as fact are huge. We’ll chat about it tomorrow.

Scripture is taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Have you read my first book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

ISBN: Softcover – 978-1-4828-0512-3,                                                                              eBook 978-4828-0511-6

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or Kindle version, on www.takealot.com  or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

Do you like this post? Then buy your own copy of my book, Learning to be a Disciple, which is also available from www.amazon.com or www.takealot.com in South Africa. You can also order a copy directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com

My latest book, The Heartbeat of Holiness, is now available on www.amazon.com or www.takealot.com or from me at luella@efc.org.za at R130,00 including p and p.