Soul Thoughts

Faith and relevance in the 21st century

Category: Grace (Page 4 of 5)

Invading grace – saving us from ourselves

August 17, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Here is a beautiful piece on grace and its saving impact on our lives:

Forever The world, invaded by death, was in a new state of chaos. Instead of people’s lives being organized by love for God, they were driven by the constant pursuit of here-and-now pleasure. Death had invaded. The world had gone mad. But the story was not over, because God would not sit and watch the demise of his plan.

So God, in his grace, invaded our here-and-now madness in the person of his Son. Jesus did not transgress God’s boundaries. He did not live for his own pleasure. He refused to ignore eternity. He lived a life that was perfect in his Father’s eyes.

But he did more; he willingly took the penalty of our selfishness on himself. On the cross he took our punishment and purchased our forgiveness… Because of [his] forgiveness and righteousness, we are accepted into God’s family forever. The crisis of the human existence is not that we are horizontally unfulfilled, but that we are vertically cut off.

Grace connects us once again to God, and in so doing to the one place where our hearts can find rest and where we can be given back our senses. Grace not only connects us to God, but delivers us from ourselves and from the madness of our propensity to make life about little more than us in the here and now.

Grace gives forever back to us. We see that the promise of the cruel cross and the empty tomb is profoundly bigger than a happy life in the here and now. The promise of the empty tomb is that we will live with God forever. And in this way we are given back our humanity. Grace guarantees to all who place their faith in Jesus that forever is in their future.

And what kind of forever? A forever that is not only free of punishment, but free of the madness of self-centered, pleasure-oriented here-and-now-ism, and the double death that goes with it.

–Forever: Why You Can’t Live Without It, by Paul David Tripp

This is the essence of life.  In a world where we are told by the media and our political leaders that life is all about you, grace gives something better – salvation from ourselves. Martin Luther King said once that the end of life is not to be happy but to do the will of God. And N.T. Wright has said that because we have been shown grace, we can show grace to others.

What if there were no consequences?

May 1, 2011 / / 1 Comment

If there were no consequences whatsoever for any destructive behaviour you engaged in, would you want to engage in it? Someone asked me that question once, and its profundity has caused me to think long and hard. If there were no consequences for cheating on my wife, for stealing what wasn’t mine, for taking credit when I didn’t deserve it, would I do it?

The issue here is, where is my heart at? How captive am I to that which enslaves me? Many years ago Gil Cann said in a sermon that when we think of our inner life, the heart of the matter is the matter of the heart. At the end of the day, what we all need is a heart transformation. As U2 sang even more years ago, “a new heart is what I need. Oh God, make it bleed!”

Where is my heart at? Do I want what is right simply because it is right? With God’s help, yes I do. But as Alexander Solzhenitsyn said, there is a line that divides the good and evil in every human heart. In our heart of hearts there is a desire to do good which sits alongside a desire to get whatever we can for ourselves. A heart that is being redeemed by grace is one which wants to become more like Christ, that just wants to do the right thing. It is a heart that is sick of its own selfishness and deception, a heart that confesses it is in need of grace, a heart that cries out for renewal.

The human heart needs transformation, and it can only be done by the Holy Spirit. Social justice can’t do it, simply reading the Bible can’t do it, and listening to your favourite preacher or reading your favourite Christian books won’t do it. Only a heart open to the conviction of the Holy Spirit of God is one that will change.

Part of the way the world is set up is that there are consequences for our actions. There are good consequences or there are destructive consequences. We reap what we sow. It cannot be any other way. There are some things we just need to accept in life, and this is one of them.

But not only is this the way life works, it is the wonderful truth of the Christian message. There are consequences that go beyond what we experience in this life, but at the same time those consequences are utterly dependent on our actions in this life. The kingdom of God has broken into history and will one day be fully consummated. Things will one day be finally put to rights. There will be a day when the first will be last and the last will be first, when those who constantly suffer now because of injustice will at last get to see justice, when those who are downtrodden will be downtrodden no more. All the suffering that goes on in the world today is not meaningless; it is in fact redemptive. It will be used for good and it drives us toward hope, the sure hope that one day everything will be put to rights and suffering will be no more.

So, in one sense, the question of whether or not my behaviour would change if there were no consequences is a moot one. The fact is there are consequences and we can’t do anything to avoid the fact. It is a bit like asking what life would be like if there were no gravity on the earth. Our existence just isn’t like that.

Yet on the other hand the question is highly relevant, because it is a question that quite literally speaks to our ultimate motivations for doing the things we do in life. It is a question that asks where our hearts are at. Are we altruistic because it makes us look good and holy in front of our Christian brothers and sisters? Or are we altruistic because we really want to glorify God and see his kingdom of love and transformation come on earth as it is in heaven? Truth be told, we spend most of our lives hovering between both. I know I do. As I continue on this journey of life though, I am also more convinced that living a life daily surrendered to the God of Jesus Christ is the only way to find the sense of home that our restless hearts yearn for.

When we think of the secret thoughts that we have, or even the secret actions that we might engage in, what do we think of the consequences? What do you do with those secret thoughts you have that you are too ashamed to admit? For us men it is said that all of us are faced with the temptation at some point in our lives to run away from everything. Women may have similar dark thoughts. The problem is not so much that we have them, but how we deal with them. This is where it is crucial to have a person or people in our lives with whom we can share our darkest thoughts without shame, with the knowledge that we will still be accepted for who we are, and to know that such thoughts and desires can be redeemed.

My heart needs redeeming every day. It needs desperately to be brought in line with the heart of God. I am sometimes tempted to live like there are no consequences to my actions. But when I am deceived by such thoughts, it is then that I need to be reminded of the transforming love of God in Jesus to change me from the inside out, to create in me a clean heart and renew within me a right spirit. God help me to live such a surrendered life.

The line that runs through us all

February 21, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Not long ago I believed that the root of our problems in life stem partly from the fact that we don’t really believe we’re loved, that if we had a sense of who we are as people loved by the Creator of the universe, it would revolutionise our hearts. And I still believe that. Love does indeed revolutionise our hearts. Martin Luther King was right. Love is the most powerful force in the universe, and only love can drive out the self-loathing in our hearts.

When you know you are loved you want to do good – most of the time. But having said the above, I also see now the reality of human sinfulness. Listening to U2’s The First Time recently, I realised (for the first time!) how much I can relate to it. Years ago, having tasted that the Lord is good, I then went off and did things my own way again. I “left by the back door and threw away the key” as the song goes. I used to struggle with how anyone could know the love of God so deeply and then reject it. But of course it’s possible. How could I be so naive to be so surprised that it happens?

There are deep reasons in the human psyche as to why we make certain decisions in life. There are reasons of hurt and deep abuse in many people that cause them to be unable to trust at depth, even when shown the greatest love. When shown such great love, they believe it is too good to be true. Like St Peter of old when Jesus gave him and his mates a bountiful catch of fish, the great apostle – confronted by the unbelievable generosity of a God who gives without conditions – cannot face the good news that God would choose even him. Doesn’t he know how sinful I am? In Peter’s broken mind it is too good to be true. At that moment he coudn’t believe that He was loved that much, that he was thought of that highly.

But as much as we are victims we are also agents. Having made the courageous decision to follow Jesus and come to know a life and love beyond his wildest comprehension, he then deserts his Master at the hour of his greatest need. Peter is a man I can relate to. He showed the potential for the greatest devotion and yet also showed the greatest act of cowardice. How could this be so in one man? I think Alexander Solzhenitsyn nails it better than anyone I know of:

“the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart, and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. Even within hearts overwhlemed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained; and even in the best of all hearts, there remains a small corner of evil.”

How I can relate to that. Deep in my heart there is the propensity for both the greatest evil and the greatest good. For me, this highlights even more the importance of maintaining a spiritual life of closeness to Jesus, of passion to be Christlike. I have seen the consequences of destructive choices I have made and I don’t want to go there again. Yet at the same time, those same things still tempt me.

I have found that the more I surrender my will to God, the more I become the person I really want to be. If I don’t surrender, I will hover between the good and the evil, and I will find myself tormented by that eternal question, ‘who am I?’ Am I the person who is friendly and genuinely wants to do good, or am I the person who secretly wants to use people and take what I can get regardless of the consequences? The closer I stay to God, the more I am spared the torture of that hellish question. Thankfully, the lyrics of The First Time hold true:

I have a brother
When I’m a brother in need
I spend my whole time running
He spends his running after me

This is the prodigal God. We spend our lives running from Him, and he pursues us, the Hound of Heaven in hot pursuit. And little by little we can surrender and say we’ve had enough. We run up the white flag and submit to the One who gives us life. Little by little, if we are willing, He reveals our defects to us, and little by precious little we hand it over for Him to do with it as He wills. Jesus said “come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28). God how I need that. God how I want that today. I pray that tomorrow I will as well.

Responses to Terry Jones

September 15, 2010 / / 0 Comments

Amidst the outcry over the initial decision then reversal by Pastor Terry Jones to burn the Koran, come some mature and gracious responses by Christian leaders who have actually taken the time to talk to him. The first response is by Geoff Tunnicliffe, CEO and secretary general of the World Evangelical Alliance, and the second comes from activist Shane Claiborne. I’m not sure I agree with Claiborne that Jones called off the burning out of repentance but the fact is that he called it off and that is of course a good thing (and as one commenter to Claiborne’s piece pointed out, his article is more about us than Jones).

The subsequent burning of Bibles by some Muslim groups in response to Jones’ threat is only to be expected when someone says they are going to perform such a provocative act as Jones did, especially knowing the tension that already exists between Christians and Muslims in some parts of the world. Martin Luther King rightly said that hate begets hate and violence begets violence. The gracious response of Tunnicliffe and Claiborne, and the subsequent grace of some Muslims in response, needs to be highlighted. Sadly though, such grace is not newsworthy, and so most of the world will only ever see the hatred that is fanned by such irresponsible acts as that initially proposed by Terry Jones.

Outbursts of grace such as that shown by Tunnicliffe and Claiborne need to be reported far and wide. In all of this sorry saga, we would all do well to remember what Bono used to say sometimes during U2 concerts, “Jesus, Jew, Mohammed; it’s true – all sons of Abraham”.

Out of the mouths of babes come the simple things

June 16, 2010 / / 0 Comments

Jesus said that we must become like little children if we are to enter the Kingdom of God. I went on a church camp last weekend and I was given this lesson a number of times by the little children who were there. Their sense of play and trust and sheer joy at what we ‘grown-ups’ call the simple things, was something to behold. As we were leaving, one little 4 year old girl looked around at us and said in all seriousness, “Drive safely”. It was beautiful.

Sometimes we just need to hear the simple things. Amidst all our talk about how faith relates to culture and how Jesus is relevant to a postmodern society, sometimes we just need to hear the words, “God loves you”. The great Swiss theologian, Karl Barth, when once asked what the greatest observation he had made over his career was, simply quoted the words of the old children’s hymn, “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so”. Sometimes that’s all we need to hear. And sometimes all we need is someone to be there and listen and empathise when the going gets tough for us, and then suddenly life becomes a little bit easier to deal with again. I thank God for the friends in my life, the ones who care, the ones who will call just to ask how I’m going.

In a dog-eat-dog world where we’re constantly given the message that what goes around comes around – the message of karma – Jesus offers a different way. He offers the way of grace, where we get what we don’t deserve and we don’t get what we do deserve. Among Jesus’ first words to the woman caught in adultery were “neither do I condemn you” (John 8:11); and when Peter was struck by the compassion and grace of Jesus after their amazing catch of fish, all he could think of was how this man could be so gracious to him who saw himself as such a sinner (Luke 5:1-11). But Jesus said ‘no, now you are going to catch people’.

We don’t need to get all our problems sorted out before we follow Jesus. He calls us to come on the journey just where we are. At what is commonly called the Great Commission, it says that some of them worshiped him but others doubted (Matthew 28:17). But he didn’t say to those who doubted, ‘sorry, go and get your life sorted out and then you will be qualified to go to all nations and make disciples’. No, he sent them all out anyway.

The good news of the Gospel is that you are loved. The Gospel is all about Jesus. He is the sunshine in the darkness. The more we walk with Jesus on the journey and receive his love for us, the more we find ourselves able to deal with the vagaries that life throws at us. We become more resilient and able to deal with life on life’s terms, rather than quietly demand that life treat us on our terms.

God teaches us to get up again when we fall. We are not condemned to stay down in the mud wallowing in our own self-pity. This is what repentance is all about. God’s call to repent is not a fear-based ‘change or else!’ demand that is placed upon us. It is a quiet wooing, much as a lover woos the beloved. It is a beckoning to come to where the grass is greener, to “come and see”, as the Lord told two disciples (John 1:39). Australian Christian teacher Fuzz Kitto, says that this is a ‘repenting to’ rather than a ‘repenting from’. It is seeing something better in Jesus than what we have been doing with our lives.

Jesus came for the lost, sick, world-weary people like you and me. ‘Just as I am’ – as the old hymn puts it – is the way we are to come to him. Just as I am, in all my doubt, all my shame, all my pain, and all my sense of unworthiness. We are not shoved out of the way; we are instead embraced, and though like Peter before us, we will probably at first be unable to cope with such love, yet he bids us come and follow and find the life that you have always been searching for.

Finding inspiration in the old hymns

April 30, 2010 / / 0 Comments

In our Christian culture, with its emphasis on glitz and noise, it is important to look back at times on some of the great hymns that have come to us down through the ages. Some of the greatest hymns of history were written in the most unlikely of circumstances. Consider the most famous of all, Amazing Grace. Its author, John Newton, would later be a mentor to William Wilberforce in his fight against the evil of slavery. But in 1779, when this hymn was written, Newton was a slave trader and wrote Amazing Grace while waiting in a port for a shipment of slaves. 

Another famous hymn, Abide with Me, was written by H.F. Lyte when he was suffering from severe ill-health. Mark Sayers recounts the story of the writing of this hymn in his recent book, The Vertical Self. Sayers says,

on September 4, 1847, the Reverend H.F. Lyte preached his last sermon. Suffering from ill-health, he would be dead before the year was out. He left his chapel, which was filled mostly with fishermen, went back to his home, and wrote the classic hymn, Abide with Me…When you consider that ministers like Reverend Lyte feared that the intellectual foundations of their faith were collapsing around them, the hymn takes on a different tone. It is a plea for God to stay with humanity, because religion seemed to be leaving Western culture.

Probably the most inspirational story of a hymn being written in unlikely circumstances is that of Horatio Spafford when he wrote It is Well with My Soul. Spafford wrote this hymn in the context of losing almost everything he owned in a fire, followed by his 4 year old son to Scarlet fever, and then shortly after, his 4 daughters in a tragedy at sea. The clip below tells the story in moving detail of Spafford’s extraordinary faith in a God who is close to the broken hearted and who provides hope for those who have none.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3lgJrLhb5Y]

Next time you sing these hymns, remember the stories behind them. They are not just boring old songs of a bygone era. They tell a rich history of the work of a God of grace and restoration in the lives of ordinary people like you and me.

The God who dies

March 27, 2010 /

‘Died he for me who caused his pain, for me who him to death pursued. Amazing love how can it be, that thou my God shouldst die for me?’ – Charles Wesley, ‘And Can It Be?’, 1738

As we celebrate another Easter, I have been thinking about Jesus’ death on the cross and what it really means. The view I was always taught was that Jesus is the substitutional atonement for our sins and that he took our place and became sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21). Therefore God the Father turned his back on Jesus because he couldn’t look on sin. Jesus took the punishment we deserve. I have a problem with that last sentence. For a start, it is not biblical. Let me explain why.

Firstly, it goes against the fact that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself (2 Cor. 5:19). This was God himself up on that cross. Later in the New Testament, the letter to the Hebrews tells us that God will never leave us or forsake us, so it hardly follows that he would forsake his own son. This is a God who dies; this is indeed, as Juergen Moltmann has said, the crucified God. His death is the great sacrifice that God himself has made to reconcile the world to himself.

It is only God himself who could do this. This is what evokes such gratitude in me at Easter, that God himself comes down and says ‘I’ll take the hit for you’. What love! What grace for creatures as undeserving as us. This is not cosmic child abuse. This is God himself taking the abuse.

Greater love has no one than to lay down their life for their friends. And then, on the third day, he actually defeats this scourge of death and is raised from the dead. The job is done, it is over. It is indeed finished, as Jesus said on the cross. And in the resurrection we have him leading the way for the new creation, the renewal of the cosmos which he so loved (John 3:16), the coming together of heaven and earth. We look forward to the day when there will be no more tears and no more pain…and no more death. And it is all because of that first Easter 2,000 years ago.

For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross (Col 1:19-20).

Jesus said ‘I and the Father are one’ (Jn 10:30). In the mystery of the Trinity, we have a God who dies. God the Father didn’t turn his back on Jesus. God himself was on that cross, taking my sin and the sin of the whole world on his broken shoulders. Amazing love, how can it be, that thou my God shouldst die for me?

The community of the forgiven

February 19, 2010 /

I love the idea of the church being a community of the forgiven. The truth which is bandied about – and which I used to see on bumper stickers – of Christians being ‘not perfect, just forgiven’ makes me cringe because it is so often seen as an excuse for our own hypocrisy. At the same time however, there is a freedom and attractiveness about the fact that we can be part of a community that genuinely cares. Larry Crabb calls it the safest place on earth and that’s exactly what the church is called to be.

This is the ideal vision of people of faith – a place where you can be yourself, warts and all, and you are still accepted for who you are because if you have done some bad stuff in your life, then we have too, and chances are it is worse.

A community of care is a place of forgiveness, and forgiveness is healing. I am reminded of U2’s White as Snow in which Bono sings,

‘Once I knew there was a love divine. Then came a time I thought it knew me not. Who can forgive forgiveness when forgiveness is not? Only the lamb, as white as snow’

As individuals, purity is our ultimate destiny, and we will never be satisfied until we’re there. I don’t mean purity just in the sense of sexual behaviour, although that is a crucial part of purity. By purity, I mean a Christlikeness, having the mind of Christ within us day by day. While we’ll never reach that state this side of death, He still came that we might have life and have it to the full. That life has already begun. When we surrender our lives to Christ, asking that His will be done and not our own, it is then that we become a part of, as distinct from ‘apart from’, and we can hopefully experience, in a loving community, a little bit more of what it is to be part of the community of the forgiven.

The Robinsons' affair

January 13, 2010 /

Is it just me or is it true that, in light of the recent revelations of the affair of the wife of Northern Ireland’s First Minister, the radio has been playing more of the Paul Simon classic Mrs Robinson? There’s nothing like a good sex scandal to get the media going, especially when it involves politicians.

I’m glad I’ve been hearing this song recently. I just hope that Mrs Robinson herself hears it too. And I hope that it rings true for her. The simple but profound words, “here’s to you Mrs Robinson, Jesus loves you more than you will know” remind me of the woman caught in the act of adultery in John 8:1-11. Jesus’ words to her were “neither do I condemn you”. While the prevailing (religious) culture want to have her stoned to make a public example of her, Jesus’ way was the way of grace. God bless you please Mrs Robinson…Jesus loves you more than you will know.

Some thoughts from Rowland Croucher

July 23, 2009 /

Someone told me once how, in our culture, we don’t seem to seek out the older generation to mentor us. Rowland Croucher is one such elder statesman who has been a mentor to many a burnt out pastor over so many years. Our society needs more people like him to turn to for their wisdom that only comes with the experience of life and a maturity that comes from long days and nights spent in meditation, prayer and contemplation on the vagaries of this life. Here are a few examples of such wisdom:

“Enemies and close friends are the only two groups who will tell you the truth about yourself.”

“Walter Brueggeman said in answer to the question ‘What’s the Old Testament about?: ‘It’s about a God of grace who often breaks the rules God has set for God’s creatures.'”

“Success will feed your ego, but never your soul”

More can be found on his website.

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