Grace

Grace is an amazing thing. It is a simple word that comes up over and over again in Christian circles – hundreds of books, songs, articles, blogs have been written and sermons preached trying to grasp this thing that is grace.

And it seems sometimes like we are trying to pick up a ray of light with our hands to show people – we will never be able to do it with the bodies and understanding that we have now; we will never fully understand it. And sometimes, in trying to explain it, the best thing is instead to turn the ray of light itself onto the person we are talking to so that they can experience it themselves, feel the brightness and the warmth of having grace shone on them.


This is a large part what we are called to do as Christians in Durban – to experience God’s grace and, in turn, to shine it from ourselves onto others so that they too, may experience it. It is, in fact, a matter of pure grace that, when we turn to God and say “What can I do for You? What work do You want me to do?” He says tous “Nothing. Just experience my love and grace for yourself. Then you will know what to do.”


It is not about us. It is not about what we can or can’t do, or how well we do it. It is not about spending our lives scrubbing the sin away as hard as we can. It is not about spending our lives doing the best ‘good works’ we can. It is not about proving ourselves – to anyone.
This is a relief for me because if it was about any of that, I would have dropped out a long time ago. Rather, I would have been drop-kicked out a very long time ago.


So what is it about? This is what we will be chatting about over the next few weeks at church at unit 11. I don’t mind giving the punch line away though – it’s about grace. It’s about what He did for You. It’s all about Jesus and the cross.
Acts 16v30-31:


Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household.”


It’s that simple. Nothing more, nothing less.


Stu

“Yet we are all damaged, it’s sure

And so there is grace” 

David Crowder band, “The veil”

The Glorious Death of a Salesman

Rob Bell's Story

Interesting article by Cameron McAllister on Rob Bell's controversial book: 'Love wins'. 


http://www.rzim.org/resources/read/essays.aspx

Too Far from God Part 1: Jonah - the rebel

Too far from God’s plan?

A series following men and women from the bible who found themselves a little far from God.

Over the next few weeks, we’re going to take a look at a couple of guys from the bible that may have seemed to be “Too far from God”. See if you can find yourself in these guys, I have found it is often not too hard.

Jonah – the rebel

“Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.” But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.” Jonah Ch1

One of the most common wishes people have when struggling to figure out God’s plan for them is this: “Why can’t He just come down to me for five minutes and tell me exactly what it is He wants for me?”. At various stages in my life I have just wished I could step up to God’s throne and hear some audible answers about where He wants me to be. Do you want me to study in Durban or Cape Town? Where do you want me to apply for a job? Who should I marry?
But take a look at Jonah – this guy heard God tell him what His plans were for his life. He literally knew exactly where God wanted him next and why. Wow! Imagine for a moment that was you – imagine you are sitting on your bed praying about what job you should take and God says “Take the job at Roberts and Sons, I have a plan for you in that business.” Boom! Prayer answered, easy as pie. You’d go for it, right? Or would you? Check out Jonah’s response to God’s straightforward command: He rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He deliberately went in the other direction. (literally if you look at a map). Nineveh was about 700km east of his hometown, Gath Heper, and Tarshish is believed to be the town of Tartessus in Southern Spain, over 3000km west of Joppa.
Jonah you idiot! (you may say) Who hears a specific word from God and says “Not for me, I’m heading west instead”? We see a bit of Jonah’s reason for doing so in Chapter 4 after Nineveh repented and God decided not to destroy it. Jonah did not want Nineveh to be saved! The issue of why he did not want this is speculation, it seems to me that Jonah had a religious heart and felt that he deserved (and had perhaps, in his mind, ‘earned’) God’s grace and compassion; whereas the wicked people in Nineveh did not. (This is similar to the attitude of the older brother in the story of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15v25-30).

I guess we can have two responses to Jonah’s actions. The first is to brush it aside, secure in the knowledge that you would never do that. “If God spoke to me and told me specifically what to do, I would totally go for it!” Of course, the Bible is God speaking to us specifically, so in order to have this response you would need to have followed everything God has told you to do in the Bible. Impossible. The second response may be a place of repentance and despair. You know that God called you to a certain destiny and future; and you remember a time when you knew what you had to do to get there. You felt that burn in your heart, and knew God had called you to that purpose. This may have been a certain job or ministry. It may be less obvious than that – like how God called you to purity, and you ran west instead and messed up sexually. Or how he called you to integrity and you ran west and lied on your tax return. Or how he calls us to love our enemies and you ran west by not bothering; choosing to spend time with your friends and ‘grow in love’ with them alone.

If that is the place you are at; if that hits some deep heart issues there; I have some awesome news for you. You are never too far from God’s plan. Jonah deliberately turned his back on God’s specific plan for him. Did God turn his back on him? Absolutely not. No. Negative. He went after him and pulled him back on track. (sometimes he has to use a large fish in our lives to do this too). Let me explain why God does this. He explains it very clearly for us in 2 Timothy 2 verse 13:

“If we are faithless, He will remain faithful, for He cannot disown Himself.”

God’s personality and character is such that, no matter what we do to run away from Him, He HAS to pursue us and ensure that His promises to us are fulfilled. He cannot disown himself – what an awesome fact. I’ve heard it put in this way by a pastor: “God’s grip on us is way bigger than our grip on Him”.

The excuse that we cannot continue in God’s plan because we have drifted too far from Him is null and void with this truth in our artillery. Sure, the devil will be chatting to you now, convincing you that your circumstance is different; that your particular form of ‘running west’ was too much and too far for God to bring you back. This is rubbish. Follow Jesus example and combat these temptations and thoughts with scripture. Phillipians 1 v 6 is a good place to start:

“And I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Christ Jesus”.

Dogged by Cynicism

A shameless rejection of conventional manners and a  decision to live on the streets... 

Do you have it in you? Do you have what it takes to be called a dog? Have you ever been called one? As far as my experience tells me, the word 'dog' is a pretty derogatory term, often used as an insult: 'She's a dog', or for guys it's a twisted sort of affirmation, 'So you took her home last night? You dog, you!' 

Anyway, enough of that. Are you cynical? Well then you may want to consider yourself part of the canine brethren. In ancient Greece and surrounds, there used to be a school of philosophers known as the Cynics. Their philosophy was that the purpose of life was to live in virtue and agreement with nature by rejecting all conventional desires for wealth, power, health and fame and living a simply, free from all possessions. It all sounds very admirable. Isn't that what being a Christian is about? Wait, maybe not.

The name Cynic derives from the Greek word κυνικός, 

kynikos, which means "dog-like".

There are four reasons why the Cynics are so named:

INDIFFERENCE

...they had an indifference of their way of life and made a cult of indifference and like dogs, ate and made love in public, went barefoot and slept in tubs and at crossroads. Sounds just marvelous! No shame in that, for cynics of course.  

SHAMELESSNESS

...the dog is a shameless animal. Cynics made a cult of shamelessness, not as being beneath modesty, but as superior to it.

ON GUARD!

...the dog is a good guard. Cynics guarded their philosophy with a dog-like tenacity. As long as they were pretending to be big dogs and not pesky chihuahuas, I'm happy with this point. 

DISCRIMINATING

...the dog is a discriminating animal which can distinguish between its friends and enemies. Cynics recognized as friends those who were suited to their philosophy, and received them kindly, while those unfitted they drove away, like dogs, by barking at them. Not so friendly.

Some might be tempted to draw a few parallels between Jesus' teaching and that of the cynics'. The cynics were often seen as a threat to morality and order and just like them, Jesus was also often at odds with the authorities. Along with his disciples he was an itinerant preacher to ordinary people and asked followers to renounce family ties and material possessions. He was not a cynic, however. When the cynics' movement largely died out at around 100BC and mid 1st Century AD, Jesus' movement never did. That's because it was not just a movement. The cynics, unlike Jesus, were not good at casting out demons and healing people. Barking at people also doesn't earn you a great deal of followers either. Besides this, nothing in their teaching corresponds with the central message of God's Kingdom that Jesus brought. Where the Cynics focused on a life philosophy, Jesus called men and women to believe, repent and turn around their entire life in favour of a far richer one. Jesus may have been a threat to an acceptable order, but he was anything besides a threat to morality.