Category Archives: Christian Life

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WHY ARE YOU A CHRISTIAN?

Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31 But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. John 20:30-31

The answer to this question will affect the way you live out your Christian life. There are two possible answers.

You could answer it this way: “I am a Christian because my sins have been forgiven and I am going to heaven when I die.” Salvation (the forgiveness of your sins and asking Jesus to be your Saviour) is your passport to heaven. You have lost your guilt; you are assured of God’s help and you have escaped hell. Now you can live in the knowledge that your eternal destiny is secure and help in trouble is only a prayer away.

Is this the way the Bible explains why Jesus came to earth?

Heaven and earth are at war. Satan challenged God for the position of highest authority over His creation. He has already won humanity through deceit and stamped on us his rebellious nature. Jesus took up the challenge by coming to earth as a human being to live our life of perfect obedience to the Father. He was the only one capable of rescuing us from the devil’s clutches and giving us another chance to come back under God’s authority. If Satan could get Him to break His oneness with the Father, the contest would have been over and Satan would have won. God would have been dethroned and we would be under an eternal regime of cruelty and slavery.

But Jesus won, exposed Satan as a liar and a usurper, and stripped him of his authority. By dying as a sinless substitute, He paid the penalty for our rebellion, and rescued us from Satan’s clutches. God reinstated Him as the lawful King over all creation.

So now the issue is: Whom will you worship? On the day of Pentecost, preaching to Jews and proselytes, Peter put it like this:

“Therefore, let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.” (Acts 2:36 NIV).

Through the resurrection of Jesus, God proved that Satan’s last weapon, death, could not hold Him. Jesus was the winner. Now He offers us, by believing in Him, a share in His Kingdom

He leaves the choice to us. God has put His rightful king back on the throne. We must choose who will reign over our lives. If we do nothing, we remain under the dominion of Satan and will take everything that’s coming to him as the one Jesus whipped. If we choose Jesus as King, the Holy Spirit, God’s representative on earth, makes us alive, and comes to live and rule over us as His temples. We enjoy all the benefits of sonship because we have been adopted into His family as His own children.

So why are you a Christian? Are you a Christian because you want a free ticket to heaven or are you a Christian because Jesus is the rightful ruler over your life? Your reason for believing in Him will make all the difference!

WHO DO YOU SAY THAT I AM?

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WHO DO YOU SAY THAT I AM?

13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”
14 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
15 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Matthew 16:13-16

Caesarea Philippi, Israel’s “red light” district – the centre of Pan-worship, the goat-god whose devotees practised public sexual orgies with goats, and the temple built by Herod the Great to Caesar Augustus – was a place of terrible human wickedness to which no self-respecting rabbi would ever take his disciples…but Jesus did!

Against this backdrop, He asked His disciples, “Who do you say I am?” Peter responded, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”, and we think, “Yeah, Peter! Good answer.” Jesus applauded him for his insight but, in the next breath, rebuked him for his utter misunderstanding of who this Christ, Son of the living God, really was. Peter got the confession right but the content of that confession dead wrong.

The disciples were continually squabbling about who would be the greatest in this kingdom Jesus had come to establish. It seems that they were expecting Him to drive out the Roman oppressors and restore the glory of the ancient kingdom of David. Moments before He ascended to the Father, they were still asking, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6). They were still desperately clinging to the hope that He would set up David’s kingdom and rule over Israel.

When Jesus began to introduce them to the coming ordeal He was to suffer at the hands of the religious rulers, and the miracle of His resurrection, Peter pounced on Him with a vehement rebuke. How could He talk like that when He was destined to be king of the Jews? It is Peter’s rebuke (according to Matthew 16:22), “Never, Lord! This shall never happen to you,” that gives us a clue to his misunderstanding of his confession. He thought that Messiahship meant political rule over a restored Israel where Jesus meant establishing His kingdom in the hearts of people through His death and resurrection.

In the verses that follow, Jesus gave them a clear picture of what He meant by His kingdom, not the glorious kingdom over which David ruled, but an inward kingdom of allegiance to Jesus as Lord, following Him, imitating Him, living a life of submission and loyalty to Him, and denying self in order to serve others. This is the heart of who Jesus is and what He came to do on earth.

But His disciples just didn’t get it. Time and again Jesus caught them arguing over the same issue – who would get the prime minister’s position in His government. James and John were even bold enough to ask Jesus Himself for the highest positions, much to the annoyance of the other disciples.

And what of us today? If Jesus were to ask you and me, “Who do you say I am?” would we be able to answer with the sincerity of full understanding, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”?

WHERE IS GOD?

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WHERE IS GOD?

Guess who is not around anymore, according to the world! Apparently, God!

“How can you say that?”

He was sidelined in our constitution. We are now a ‘secular’ state. He is no longer allowed in our schools (and there’s plenty of evidence for that!). Our young people’s behavior is hard on the heels of their American counterparts who kicked God out decades ago. Criminal behaviour in the schools is on the increase, including rape and murder.

He is not in the mass media. Read a fashion magazine or a ‘scandal rag’. People take the gifts and talents He gives and the resources He pours into their lives and use them to magnify themselves.

God is absent from most of our TV programs. His name is only mentioned as a swear word, His holy standards are ignored, and wickedness is paraded on our TV screens in the name of ‘entertainment.’

Did He leave because we shut Him out of our constitution, because we shut Him out of our schools, courts, and public life? Not according to the Scriptures. The government may reject Him, the media ignore Him and the world sideline Him, but He did not leave. God is still God and He is universally present.

The first man on the moon realised that God was there!

David’s contemplation of God led to him to this conclusion…

Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you. Psalms 139:7-12

We have the promise of Jesus that He will never leave us. He lives in His church. He has elected to make us His dwelling place. The church may be ailing but it’s not dead. The world may act as though God does not exist, but Jesus is alive and at work in His church.

The newspapers are full of bad news. The church is full of good news. I heard recently in a sermon that many of the Olympic athletes who took part in the recent Beijing Olympics are believers. The Kenyan marathon gold medalist gave his life to Jesus after winning the gold medal. Several of the swimmers are believers. There are 70 Jewish rabbis in New York who have turned to the Lord. The most influential rabbi in the United States who died at the age of 105, confessed that Jesus Christ is the Messiah in a letter he left to be read one year after his death. The son of the leader of Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist organization, is a believer and is preaching the gospel.

Where is Jesus? He has never left us. He is in us by His Spirit and He is building His church. He is perfecting His bride for His coming and He is revealing Himself to the world through you and me. Despite the hostility we encounter, let us take heart. He may not be welcome in our country but no-on can shut Him out of our hearts!

WHAT HINDERS YOUR PRAYERS?

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WHAT HINDERS YOUR PRAYERS?

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God, and the peace of God which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6, 7 NIV).

There are many things that hinder prayer; doubt, unbelief, sin, wrong motives etc, but there is one hindrance that often goes unnoticed, hinted at in the Apostle Paul’s exhortation to pray, as quoted in the verses above. He refers to anxiety, an emotion that is often very much part of our lives. There are many reasons why we become anxious but, according to the Apostle John: “There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear…” (1 John 4:18, NIV). Fear and anxiety are symptoms of our mistrust of God’s love for us. Mistrust is unbelief and unbelief is sin. In fact, any emotion that is not perfect peace will hinder our prayers because God always responds to faith.

Paul explains the process by which we can enter the peace of God that doesn’t make sense. Step one: Get rid of the anxiety. How? Since anxiety and the mistrust that underlies it, are sin, they need to be treated as sin by being brought into the light through honest confession and repentance. Our needs and concerns are not our problem. Our unbelief in the faithfulness of our heavenly Father is the problem that causes the anxiety, fear or whatever emotion underlies the mistrust in our hearts against God.

The next step in this process is worship. Paul said, “…By prayer and petition.” According to Strong’s Analytical Concordance, the Greek word translated “prayer” is the word for worship. Worship turns us away from ourselves to acknowledge and honour who God is, to focus on Him, and to open our hearts to Him in adoration and praise. Worship helps us to recognise that God is our Father, faithful, loving, and trustworthy, that He knows our needs before we ask Him and that, in every situation, He is working for our good and His glory. Worship and thanksgiving are the way we express our trust in God’s love and faithfulness.

The final step is petition, placing our requests in God’s hands. Petition should never be our first recourse in prayer, but rather the expression of our confidence in God’s love, entrusting to Him the situations for which we have no answer once we have dealt with our fears and anxieties.

Prayer is the expression of a loving and trusting relationship with our heavenly Father, who knows us intimately, who knows our needs and whose love for us always guarantees a favourable outcome not\ matter what our situation may be. God desires that our prayers should flow out of a heart at peace with Him. He allows circumstances into our lives that bring to the surface those attitudes and emotions which expose our mistrust of Him so that we can experience His peace.

God’s peace is the referee that blows the whistle when our beliefs are in error, or holds us steady as we keep trusting God in every situation.

THE THREE PHASES OF LIFE

Christian Life, ,

THE THREE PHASES OF LIFE

Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be. Psalms 139:16

Every human being lives life in three phases; nine months in the safety of a mother’s womb, a lifespan of years from birth to death, and an eternity of experiencing what started in phase one and two.

Phase one is a passive phase which begins the process of fulfilling God’s dream for every person born into the world. No-one chooses his parents or who he will be. He simply grows, in a protected environment, from a single cell to a complex human being with all the potential of adulthood packed into a tiny human form. The process of birth catapults us into the greatest challenge of all, living and learning from birth to death.

Phase two is the all-important time when we grow, learn, and choose the values that will shape us as we journey through life. We are not passengers in this phase; rather, we are apprentices, learning, practising, and preparing for the greatest adventure of all – the unknown hereafter when we will become what we are now learning to be.

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:10

For those of us who have believed God’s Word and dared to entrust ourselves to Jesus, phase three is the promise of a life of perfection and peace in the presence of God, where we will live and reign with Him forever.

The second phase is all-important because what we do and become in our lifetime on earth will determine our role in eternity. Jesus gave us one simple instruction to help us to live wisely and serve our apprenticeship well; “Follow me.”

Firstly, He was a Son and He has given us the honour of becoming sons of God. “Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father.’” (Galatians 4:6, NIV). As a Son, Jesus lived in intimacy and perfect obedience to His Father. So must we.

Secondly, He was a servant, and we are also called to be servants. “Whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave – just as the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve…” (Matthew 20:28, NIV).

Thirdly, Jesus came to reveal the Father and so must we. ”Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” (John 14:9b, NIV). Therefore, the Apostle Paul could say, “Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children, and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us…” (Ephesians 5:1, 2, NIV).

Another qualification Jesus gave us is one we would not expect – how we steward our possessions. “If you are not trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own?” (Luke 16:11, NIV).

The question we must ask ourselves during this second phase of our existence is, “Am I on track in my preparation for stage three?“ The way we manage what God has entrusted to us now will be the measure of our trustworthiness in the life to come. Our faithfulness to the tasks in hand will govern our position in the live to come

For the rest, who ignore this crucial phase of their existence and live it up as they choose, Jesus said they are destined for the eternal trash heap where the fire never goes out.

“…hell, 48 where
“‘the worms that eat them do not die,
and the fire is not quenched.’ Mark 9:47-48

Makes you think, doesn’t it?

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