“God wants to use your weaknesses, not just your strengths. If all people see are your strengths, they get discouraged and think, “Well, good for her, but I’ll never be able to do that.” But when they see God using you in spite of your weaknesses, it encourages them to think, “Maybe God can use me!” Our strengths create competition, but our weaknesses create community.
At some point in your life you must decide whether you want to impress people or influence people.You can impress people from a distance, but you must get close to influence them, and when you do that, they will be able to see your flaws. That’s okay. The most essential quality for leadership is not perfection, but credibility. People must be able to trust you, or they won’t follow you. How do you build credibility? Not by pretending to be perfect, but by being honest…
Paul said, “I am going to boast only about how weak I am and how great God is to use such weakness for his glory” [2 Corinthians 12:5b LB]. Instead of posing as self-confident and invincible, see yourself as a trophy of grace.”
There’s nothing like a person’s life to draw you to Christ. Or a group of people. When you think about them, you realise they have something you want. And that exposes the fact that what you have is not as good as what you could have, as what is available to you. The question is, will you take it?
Well, I’ve finally done it. I now feel like I belong because I’ve signed up to Twitter! My handle is NilsvonKalm. I wanted to use SoulThoughts but it wasn’t available. Bummer. Anyway, my tweets will appear in the sidebar on this blog, and my blog posts will automatically be tweeted.
Look forward to being part of the Twitterverse with you!
One of the many great paradoxes of Christian faith is he fact that we simultaneously live in the ‘now and the not yet.’ In Jesus, God’s future world has come into the present. Through his life, death and resurrection, and through the continuing acts of faith lived out throughout history, preparation for the final act of a totally transformed existence has begun.
Explaining this in terms that are understandable to the layperson however is not easy. The best analogies I can think of have come from C.S. Lewis’ Narnia Chronicles. But I recently came across another excellent description of it in the December 2012 edition of the Uniting Church’s Crosslight magazine. In this issue, Chris Mostert, recently retired Professor of Systematic Theology in the MCD University of Divinity, wrote a reflection about Advent. He says Christianity is fundamentally an eschatological faith: we ultimately live with the great hope of Revelation 21:1-5, the complete renewal of all relationships in the universe. I was so impressed by Mostert’s article that I want to quote all of it here, but I will stick to the most salient parts.
Christian philosopher Jeff Cook, in his book Seven, uses an illustration originally made by C.S. Lewis on how ridiculous our obsession with lust is in our society. Here’s how Cook describes what Lewis said:
“CS Lewis invites us to imagine that we have visited an alien world where scores of people have assembled to watch a striptease. Imagine, however, that instead of a woman, a small, covered platter is brought out—and with all eyes wide, someone slowly removes the lid, revealing a steaming hamburger. We think the striptease is a joke, but all around us, people begin howling. Others snicker, elbowing their friends. Some just sit quivering in their seats. If such a world did exist, we would not think this display merely odd. We would think something inside the audience was broken. A healthy appetite for food is good, but when appetites turn into manic behavior, something is in a state of disrepair.”
This morning I preached my God is a materialist sermon at my church (North Ringwood Uniting). Click here to listen to it. The audio has a few minor changes to the original transcript, which is in 3 parts and can be found here, here and here.
I’ve shared at different times about the insanity of how rushed we are in December each year in the lead-up to Christmas. It’s sadly ironic that the time of Advent – which covers most of December – is designed to be a time of reflection when we have turned it into the most stressful time of the year.
Having time to sit and reflect is good for our emotional and mental health, as well as our spiritual health. We are more rounded, whole people when we spend time doing these things. And we are invariably happier as well. The fact in Australis is though that, as a nation, we spent $8billion on Christmas and $14billion on post-Christmas sales.
Here is a list of wonderful articles/devotions mostly related to Christmas. Some very interesting reading over this season:
Richard Rohr – We Prepare for the Messiah
I receive Richard Rohr’s daily emails and they are generally brilliant. The quote that really hit me from this one is “We are all crowded on one limited planet and must somehow learn to live together while also maintaining the common earth beneath our six billion pairs of feet.” Makes me realise again how learning to live in peace is just plain sense.
Another typically confronting, in-your-face piece from this environmental journalist/campaigner. In this article he shows how disastrous is our absolute obsession with stuff. The article’s tagline is “Pathological consumption has become so normalised that we scarcely notice it.” Says it all (but still read the article. You will be challenged).
This relates to my Christmas reflection I posted earlier today in which I bemoaned the fact that a wonderful Christmas show I attended at a major church in Melbourne last week didn’t even mention Mary’s song. This article is a good reminder of how we either over-spiritualise the Bible or selectively omit pieces that don’t fit with our way of thinking.
An insightful piece on the importance of Christmas for our society, no matter what your spirituality or lack of.
The Age – An Abundant Life
Barney Zwartz writes on what an abundant life actually is. Jesus’ statement in John 10:10 has been used and misused over many years to mean a number of things. Zwartz writes in his typically accessible way to show us what all the research and experiences of people’s lives tell us about abundance.
A fantastic piece from the equally fantastic Reasons for God site. This one is not so much about Christmas, but it definitely relates to it. It looks at the way Jesus responds to tragedy in the light of the Newtown shootings. God came to earth to save us from this.
“…they said there’ll be peace on earth.” – Greg Lake
I’ve been thinking recently about writing a reflection on how Christmas, and the Christmas spirit, brings alot of peace and goodwill at this time of year. I was going to write about how people are generally nicer to each other and look out for each other a bit more in the weeks leading up to this time of year. John Smith said many years ago that if it wasn’t for Christmas, the violence and suffering in our society would be even greater.
That may have been true back then, but it doesn’t quite ring true after the unimaginable horror of Newtown, Connecticut. The truth about Christmas for most of us is that it is actually a time of great paradox. It is a time when emotions are heightened, both in a positive and negative sense. As Greg Lake sang in his profound I Believe in Father Christmas almost forty years ago, “they said there’ll be snow at Christmas, they said there’ll be peace on earth.” But there is no peace in Newtown this Christmas in the families of those grieving the loss of their innocent children; there is no peace in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine, and we find no peace in the families of those for whom Christmas is a time when loneliness and poverty are heightened.
When we sanitise the Christmas story, we not only do not do it justice, we not only leave out part of the Gospel, but we also distance it that much more from the realities of our own lives. In other words, we bring across the impression that the Gospel of Jesus is not as relevant as it really is. The story they were telling last weekend did not contain as much good news as it would have had they told the whole story. The truth is much more powerful when told within the context in which it happens.
Christmas is not a nice story with fluffy animals and a little smiling baby Jesus who ‘no crying he makes.’ The Christmas story is scandalous. It is both uncomfortable and comforting at the same time. And for these reasons it is incredibly good news for all of creation. Like the rest of the Gospel, it comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable.
This Christmas sees much tragedy in the world. That’s why we need to remember the birth of the world’s Saviour more than ever. As John Mellencamp sang in the ’90’s, “Now more than ever, the world needs love; not just a slogan, but the world needs love.”
The Christmas story, with its almost ‘too-good-to-be-believable’ hope, is just what the doctor ordered in a world in which our children are slaughtered in broad daylight, and in which selfishness so often rules the human heart. The Son of God was born into just such a world in the 1st century. The hope he brought then is just what the world needs now. Christmas is more relevant than ever in 2012. Come Lord Jesus. We need you.
And to the people of Newtown, and all others for whom this Christmas will not be as merry as you had hoped, may the truth of the Christmas story, the hope coming out of the horror, soothe your aching souls. Meditate on them as you take in also the words of Greg Lake again, this time sung by Bono (see below for the whole song):
I wish you a hopeful Christmas
I wish you a brave New Year
All anguish pain and sadness
Leave your heart and let your road be clear
A couple of months back, Zondervan’s blog had an excerpt from a book by Christine Caine calledUndaunted: Daring to do what God Calls You to Do. The excerpt contained steps to overcoming disappointment. They were profound, as they focussed on finding God in the midst of our disappointment rather than trying to feel better. The most profound statement for me talked about the power of worship and praise, and mentioned how filling it is to “remember his mercies more than my hurt.”
From Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life:
