Monthly Archives: June 2014

Dehumanised

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DEHUMANISED

“Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.” Romans 1:26-27.

What a sordid picture! What people call love, God calls lust. What’s the difference?

Although lust can have the neutral meaning of desire, in the New Testament, according to its context it is most often used to mean a craving or “strong inordinate desire for sexual relations.” (www.biblestudytools.com/dictionary/lust/).

But lust does not only refer to the action. It begins in the mind with the desire. According to Jesus, “For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come – sexual immorality…All these evils come from inside and defile a person.” Mark 7:21.

James expanded on Jesus’ words. “…Each person is tempted when he is dragged away by his own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.” James 1:14, 15.

The problem with sinful behaviour, and especially that which destroys another person, is that it dehumanises the ones who engage in it. Human beings were created to be like God, to have His nature and His capacity to be in perfect harmony with Himself and with humans. Anything that detracts from that robs those involved of their likeness to God and their true humanity. This is what the Bible calls “corruption” – moral perversion or depravity; putrefaction and decay.

Roman society in Paul’s day was rotten with sexual promiscuity and homosexuality. We should not be surprised because it was also full of idolatry. As Paul traversed the Roman Empire with the good news of Jesus, he encountered idol worship and the effects of it everywhere. Just as he said in his letter, when people refuse to acknowledge God, they have to invent gods for themselves who are to their liking because they accommodate human wickedness. Then their devotees can freely pursue their lusts with their gods’ approval because the gods are just like them.

Every false religion is a form of idolatry because human beings have expelled God from their thinking and set themselves up as the authority, creating gods in their own image. They become their own gods and then replicate themselves in their gods.

Sex is a powerful force in nature and in human beings. In the natural world, creatures need to reproduce to continue the species. They will fight to the death for the right to procreate. But God created humans to reflect Him as the highest order of creation. Contrary to the evolutionist teaching, which is just another attempt to oust God from His place as God and His right to rule His creation, humans have not evolved from animals. Human behaviour is sometimes so gross that even animal behaviour puts humans to shame. At least most of them use sex to do what they are supposed to do, to reproduce the next generation.

Humans, on the other hand, instead of using sex to express and foster unity between a husband and wife in a faithful monogamous union as God intended, as well as to give God godly offspring (Malachi 2:15), deliberately fracture themselves by using sex to satisfy lust in defiance of God’s purpose. When people connect sexually with a multiplicity of men and women, both homosexually and heterosexually with no regard to the spiritual union they create, they unwittingly fragment themselves.

“Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? “The two shall become one flesh.” …Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against his own body.” 1 Corinthians 6:16, 18.

Is it any wonder that such people become desperately unhappy because they have left bits of themselves all over and don’t even know who they are?

And all that because they refuse to acknowledge God and honour Him as God. Sadly, in the name of freedom, the only freedom they have is to destroy themselves, and God allows them to do it because it’s their choice.

Acknowledgement

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

 

 

Exchanged For What?

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 EXCHANGED FOR WHAT?

“Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

“Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshipped and served the created things rather than the Creator – who is forever praised. Amen.” Romans 1:22-25.

What is the next downward step after ingratitude? Idolatry!

What is idolatry? In its most glaring from, it is the worship of man-made gods. Man in his simplicity or ignorance gives created things (or even dead people) the credit for having the power to affect their lives. The problem with this kind of idolatry is that human beings cannot conceive of a god who is any different from themselves. So the gods they create are cruel, unpredictable and downright wicked and are motivated by evil spirits who must be persuaded not to harm their worshippers. Imagine that!

But there is a far more subtle form of idolatry that is rife in the world. We may look down on people who are foolish enough to put their faith in inanimate creatures (anyone in his right mind knows that a block of wood or stone has not power to intervene in a person’s life, even if that object has the shape of a creature), but behind the worship of that idol is the determination to do whatever they want. So who is the real god? They are!

Have you noticed how sexual promiscuity or perversion is associated with idol worship? It was very much so in Paul’s day. Many of the so-called gods were conceived in lust and were worshipped in sexual orgies, temple prostitution and even worse, publicly having intercourse with animals. Take the “red light” district of Caesarea Philippi in northern Israel where the goat-god Pan was worshipped in orgies involving goats.

Why is there such a focus on illicit sex as a form of worship? Paul gives us the answer. God! God created man in His own image. Marriage was the first human institution after creation. Why? Because the permanent union between a man and a woman in a loving relationship is the best reflection of God’s nature. God is three-in-one, three Persons in a union of love and oneness in their nature and purpose.

God made Adam male and fashioned the female from a part of his body. He separated the woman from Adam and then brought her back to him to be united with him in a sexual union that mirrored the oneness they were to express in their lives together; one man and one woman for life. They were to satisfy each other’s needs through their mutual submission and the intimacy of their lives together. Paul said that this was God’s way of showing the world what Christ’s union with His church should look like.

Where do we see, in the sexual “freedom” that is destroying the world, the picture of God’s nature that marriage was intended to reflect? Satan, in his desire to get the attention and to be worshipped, has distorted one of God’s most beautiful gifts to man and, in the process, brought destruction and chaos into the life of every person who lives that way.

But why did this happen? Paul said it was an exchange. We can’t have God’s way and our way. So, because people want their way, they threw God out and replaced Him with themselves, creating gods like themselves, so that they could do what they wanted in the name of religion. Religion is a cover-up for whatever people want to do.

Some people thirst for power, so they subscribe to a religion which gives them the power to force others, even family members, to do it their way or face persecution or death. Others have perverted sexual appetites which they satisfy in the name of “worship”, but behind it all, is God who, by giving them what they lust for, is actually bringing judgment on them.

Have you ever thought about that? God is so just that He allows people to do exactly what they want, and in the doing, they bring the consequences of their actions down on themselves. Now that’s fair, isn’t it? God has not written His warnings in small print. He always tells the whole truth. Satan is the one who hides the consequences of his hideous suggestions until it’s too late to go back. Then he packs on the guilt and shame!

So why do people make the exchange? Jesus told us why? “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.” John 3:19, 20.

What better way to hide evil behaviour? In the religion!

Acknowledgement

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

 

 

It Begins With Ingratitude

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IT BEGINS WITH INGRATITUDE

“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities — His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.” Romans 1:18-21.

Well, at least Paul was not afraid to call a spade a spade!

If he wrote this letter to explain to the Roman believers the righteousness of God in providing salvation, why did he start by painting such a bleak picture of human behaviour? Who is He talking about?

Paul spent half of chapter one, the whole of chapter two and half of chapter three taking pains to show his readers that everyone, Jew and Gentile alike, is guilty before God. There is not a single righteous person who can escape God’s wrath against sin because of their good behaviour.

What did Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit have to say?

First of all, there is a whole group of people who ignore or deny the clear evidence of a Creator, which is written on every leaf and blade of grass and on every star in the sky. They choose to live as though He does not exist; they never give Him the time of the day let alone acknowledge His goodness by thanking Him for the very breath they breathe.

The road to ruin begins with ingratitude. Anyone who fails to acknowledge God by being thankful for what they are and have is in danger of taking the road to perverted values and a perverse lifestyle. Ingratitude makes God angry. Ungrateful people are self-centred and discontented. Ingratitude kept the children of Israel who were delivered from slavery in Egypt, out of the Promised Land.

Ingratitude is the first step towards muddle-headed thinking and mental “darkness”. What is darkness? Darkness is the absence of light, and in this case, the light of understanding. When people throw God out of their lives by refusing to acknowledge Him or His goodness, they lose their ability to think straight.

The light of understanding has only one source – God. David knew that, and he wrote about it in the Psalms.

“For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light.” Psalm 36:9

“Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.” Psalm 119:105

“The unfolding of your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple.” Psalm 119:130.

God is the source of light, truth and understanding. Without Him, we are left to make sense of our lives on our own and, unfortunately for us, we cannot make sense of anything because we have thrown out the “glue” that holds it all together. All we can do is think up nonsense which has not connection with reality. How pathetic we are to think that if we believe what we made up, that makes it true!

There is a terrible downward path to destruction for people who choose to disregard God and go their own way. Unfortunately for them, they do not know that it is not God who chooses their end; they do because their empty and futile lives are only fit for one thing — the rubbish dump. God did not plan their lives to be useless and worthless, and it makes Him angry to see wasted potential when He had so many good things in store for them.

The problem with denying God’s existence is that we have to replace Him with someone or something because we all feel incomplete in ourselves. We all need someone bigger than ourselves on which to depend. When God is no longer there, and we have muddled brains, who or what are we going to put in His place?

Acknowledgement

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

 

Our Generous God

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OUR GENEROUS GOD

“I do not want you to be unaware, brother and sisters, that I planned many times to come to you (but have been prevented from doing so until now) in order that I might have a harvest among you, just as I have had among the other Gentiles. I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and foolish. That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are in Rome.

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed — a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.” Romans 1:13-17.

Paul’s desire — God’s intention, but not yet, Paul. Why was Paul prevented from going to Rome as an apostle and evangelist? Did the devil hinder him? It may have seemed like it to him at the time. What was wrong with a desire like that? After all, did he not receive a commission to take the gospel to the Gentiles? And what better place than Rome, centre of the empire! Yes, he would go to Rome, but as a prisoner in God’s time.

But as much as Paul wanted to go to Rome, he was also submitted to Jesus as his Lord. The Holy Spirit had directed his way up to that point and Paul could trust Him to lead him in the future. But there was nothing to hinder Paul from writing a letter to the church, and that was definitely God’s way for him because we have his letter preserved in God’s Word as a divinely inspired presentation of God’s plan of salvation.

In whatever way he could, Paul wanted to discharge his obligation. Why was it an obligation for him to preach the gospel to the whole world, both Jew and Gentile? Because of God’s nature! What do I mean? Because of God’s mercy to him, Paul, who did not deserve God’s grace because he was guilty of sin and worthy of death, he had an inescapable obligation to share that mercy with the world.

As much as it is right for us to share God’s love with others because we love Him and because of what He has done for us, it is equally a duty and an obligation. We may think that duty is cold and mercenary, a sort-of pay-back to God because of what He has done for us, but that is not God’s way. Sharing the good news with others is not paying God for our salvation. It is our way of displaying God’s nature by being generous towards others with what God has given us. Not to do so is to deny the divine nature that He has given to us (2 Peter 1:3).

In one short paragraph and in four words, Paul encapsulated the good news he was so eager to share: power — salvation — righteousness — faith; God and man brought together, reconnected by what God has done; and man’s response to God’s intervention. Did God have an obligation to rescue us from the disaster that was of our own making? No way! He did the right thing because of who He is, not because our need.

It’s always about Him. How many times has the question been asked, “What have I done to deserve God’s mercy?” Absolutely nothing! God’s mercy towards undeserving sinners has nothing to do with who we are and everything to do with who He is. If there is any obligation, God is obliged to Himself. Not to do anything to rescue human beings from our plight would be to deny Himself and God cannot do that.

It’s no wonder that Paul took pride in his calling and message. His obligation was also his delight. Would it not be a delight for a prison warder to walk down a row of prison cells and open each door announcing, “You are free to go!” There would be no greater joy than to see the look of surprise and excitement on the prisoners’ faces when they realised that they are no longer caged behind bars.

Would that warder not have an obligation to unlock the prison doors if he had been instructed to do so? If the prisoner refused to leave because he did not believe the warder’s story would be his choice, as long as the warder had done his duty.

 

So it was with Paul — and so it is with us. We are obliged to tell the people of the world that Jesus has unlocked their prison doors and they are free to leave and to follow Him, since He is the way to the Father. The message Paul had to deliver then is the same  message now, of Jesus who has the power to make broken people whole again; not to tell people how bad they are but to tell them how good God is.

 

If we, and they, believe the message and trust the Son of God who came to show and tell us just how good God is, even to the extent that He paid our unpayable debt, they’ll be out of jail and on the way to a life of wholeness, imitating God by being generous with His mercy as He has been generous towards us.

 

Acknowledgement

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

 

 

Paul’s Desire – God’s Intention

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PAUL’S DESIRE — GOD’S INTENTION

“First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world. God, whom I serve in my spirit in preaching the gospel of His Son, is my witness how constantly I remember you in my prayers at all times; and I pray that now at last, by God’s will the way may be opened for me to come to you. I long to see you so that I may impart some spiritual gift to make you strong — that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith.” Romans 1:8-12.

Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, took his job seriously. He has been commissioned by his Lord to take the good news to the world. That did not necessarily mean that it was his personal responsibility to preach to every Gentile in the world. That would have been impossible then, even if he had all the technology and all the facilities we have today.

Paul relied on God’s amazing strategy of multiplication. It was God’s plan that the church grow by multiplication, the same strategy that works in nature. In spite of the slow modes of transport then, people moved around from place to place, believers as well, and wherever they went, they spread the story of Jesus.

Some new churches began through the work of faithful men, for example, men like Epaphras, who started the church at Colossae. Other churches sprang up as ordinary believers witnessed to their faith in Jesus as they moved around. No one knows how the church at Rome began but nevertheless Paul felt responsible to visit the believers in Rome, to ensure that they were on the right track and to strengthen them in the face of persecution.

The city of Rome was the hub of the Roman Empire. Paul knew how influential the church there was and it was his task to ensure that they understood and believed the truth of the gospel.  Already the news of their faith had spread to the whole world. Paul would not exaggerate lest he be thought a liar. He rejoiced in their faith but he also prayed faithfully for them. They were in the firing line for both persecution and error.

Life for believers anywhere in the empire was an uphill battle. They were the targets of hostility from both Jews and Gentiles and the pernicious false teachings of self-proclaimed “apostles” who twisted the truth or added to it to make it more palatable. Part of Paul’s commission as an apostle was to interpret the events of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection and to teach the infant believers the truth that would steer them through the morass of false teachings.

This responsibility included the churches he did not personally found. The letter to the Roman church was born in his heart as he battled the Judaisers, Jewish “believers” who insisted that Gentiles first be circumcised before they could embrace Jesus as their Lord. Paul was enraged by any teaching that subtracted from the sufficiency of Jesus for salvation by adding rules and ritual to faith in Him.

The church in the province of Galatia, possibly more than one church group, was hounded by these false teachers and had been taken in by them. Paul wrote a heated and emotional letter to them, pleading with them not to throw away their salvation by adding the law to their faith in Christ. Even submitting to circumcision would disqualify them from receiving God’s grace in Christ.

Paul’s letter to the Romans is like Mount Everest in the mountain range of New Testament letters. Through it he paved the way for his intended visit to them by giving them a detailed explanation of justification by faith in Christ alone, no doubt flowing out of his hot defence of the gospel to the Galatian believers. He wanted to see them face-to-face, to connect with them, to fellowship with them and to share his heart with them in person. A letter was good but a personal visit was better.

He was submitted to the will of God, no matter how much he longed to go to Rome. Little did he know, when he penned his letter, that his visit to Rome would be sponsored by the Roman government and his accommodation provided at Rome’s expense right in Caesar’s palace, albeit as a prisoner chained to a Roman soldier! All the better because his witness would spread throughout the palace guard and infiltrate Rome from the very top.

Talk about a master plan! Paul may not have thought it up, but he certainly recognised it when it happened.

“Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel. As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. And because of my chains, most of the brothers and sisters have become confident in the Lord and dare all the more to proclaim the gospel without fear.” Philippians 1:12-14.

Acknowledgement

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