A Christian Perspective #2

When I was a youngster I grew up in a very different New Zealand. I know I have mentioned before that it was a place virtually without crime where people left the keys in the car and the door of the home open when they went out. The wallet on the front seat of the car and the windows open on the main street of town.

 

A time where people loved to talk to people not mull over cell phones in personal contemplation. When children got together and a whole street would go to the park, or a vacant lot, to play together. Every child walked or biked to school. A neighbour would call in and if you weren’t at home would leave a little offering of garden produce on the kitchen table. Mum or Dad would know who it was from the composition of the gift and would give them a call to thank them and apologise for missing their call.

 

You know most of these people were not overtly Christian. If you spoke of religion to them they would probably have said that they had their own beliefs or felt you should keep you religious views to yourself. They would most likely have gone to Church occasionally or kept the major festivals like Easter and Christmas. Yet they had strong Christian morals and values and it made a huge difference to society at that time.

 

They were godly people and these were lovely times. Every adult was an uncle or aunt and would step in and discipline a child if necessary. Mum or Dad would have a quite chat with any youngster and offer sage advice where required. Everyone cared for everyone else.

 

As a rule they lived by the last six commandments encompassed by “Love your neighbour as you love yourself.” However most would have had no problem with the first four commandments under the great commandment “Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, all of your soul, with all of you mind and all of your strength” By this I mean many of these dear folk believed in God even if they didn’t attend a church regularly.

 

Today we live in a secular world where moral compromise is often mistaken for love and tolerance. Just because a person seeks to get close to an erupting volcano to understand more about volcanism doesn’t mean that we should allow them to do so. No matter how upsetting they find it if we deny them the opportunity to get close to the volcano it is our moral responsibility to protect them. We are being loving and tolerant by implementing restraint in not consenting to allow them to enter a dangerous situation no matter how emotionally damaged they may feel they are by that decision. So it is in regard to LGBTQ rights or euthanasia or, for that matter abortion. The moral responsibility out weighs emotional consequences to the person involved.

 

So it was that when we had a Christian moral majority we had laws in society that prevented immoral practices. Today however, that majority has been eroded and many Christians have surrendered their devotion to the Word of God and the moral precepts found therein. Secular values have supplanted Christian values throughout society. We live in a time of shadow and where as described in the book of Matthew there is a Great Turning Away. But do not despair there will be a time of testing but Jesus Christ is coming soon.

 

Take heart for as the apostle John said “God is love.” As I shared with you earlier in this piece I grew up with folk who held sound morals and values and behaved in a Godly manner. They believed in giving good advice to the young and living good lives by example. They weren’t particularly judgemental and possibly weren’t overly religious but lived a form of practical Christianity that I believe is a good model for those who are lost in this era. My advice is to follow that model. To seek to share Christ Jesus with those who will listen. Without being excessively overzealous or filled with judgement and condemnation. Rather being loving and helpful, giving wise counsel from God’s word and in the power of the Holy Spirit. To be gentle and compassionate, a light yoke and breath of fresh air. Behaving as the Savior Himself.

 

I heard recently that in China that Christians standout as being much more hard working and honest and trustworthy as well as having relationships that last and children who get into less trouble with the authorities. Apparently the state knows this all to well but are unwilling to acknowledge it because it would make Communism seem somehow less effective. It would also give credit to Christianity which is something no atheist would do.

 

My final point is that as Christians in New Zealand we want to standout for the right reasons. Complaining about secularism and atheism has its place but a far more efficient way of garnering attention to the value of Christianity is to let Christ Jesus shine in our daily lives. Be as the Chinese Christians are and stick to hard working, honest and trustworthy Christian values based in love, joy and peace combined with compassion and understanding that underpinned our parents lives and were staples of that generation.

 

Food for thought?

A Christian Perspective #1

You would be forgiven for feeling that a Christian perspective is the last thing that most Kiwi’s in our day and age would relate too. Particularly if you follow news media shows like TVNZ’s Breakfast TV where an entirely secular narrative is produced that seems to counteract bible based Christian values with equal entirety.

As a Christian it’s hard not to become deeply depressed by the continuous anti-christian diatribe. One despairs that that New Zealand society in 2019 seems to have become completely irreligious and in the words of Jesus Christ as it was in the days of Noah.

As a Christian who is prone to be somewhat infuriated by the blatantly evil practices that are accepted as being absolutely normal in this day. Abortion, the gender debate and euthanasia to name just a few of the hot issues of our time. One feels it is becoming increasingly dangerous to make a stand against the secular humanist agenda and that persecution is now a distinct possibility.

When I look at other conservative commentators in New Zealand like Family First or the New Conservative Party. I notice they are radiating the same sense of frustration that I am feeling. There is a not particularly attractive underlying animosity toward perceived irritants and miscreants. Sadly with increasing numbers of New Zealanders who consider themselves to be atheistic or irreligious. A commentary from Christianity that seems distant and somewhat sanctimonious  is not really helping the conservative cause.

I was listening to a morning media show recently and one of the presenters repeatedly made the claim that in the New Zealand of the future the nation will no longer be able to support the elderly. The current generation of baby boomers will have consumed all of the resources necessary to provide for subsequent generations. I found this to be an interesting assertion.

Surely a people has a responsibility to take care of its elderly. The fifth commandment reads “Honor your father and mother.” So at least at a family level we have a burden to care for our parents if nowhere else in society. We live in a time when capitalism completely controls the distribution of wealth amongst many of the nations in our time. There are a select few who can direct virtually unlimited wealth in whichever direction they choose. Believe me these people can easily create the money required to take care of the elderly in the nations of this world and not effect the World’s economy in any significant way.

The point I making here is that in a righteous society ordered by God we need to protect the unborn, take care of the elderly, educate the children, provide food and infrastructure for the people and give sound moral guidance to all. We need a society based on God’s law and God’s love in Jesus Christ. In God’s way society and the people can be blessed and a virtual utopia is distinctly possible.

What we are instead rapidly moving toward is a society founded in unrighteousness. Where the unborn have no rights to life. Where we contemplate euthanasia for the suffering but can’t help but surmise that this doesn’t bode well for the obsolete. Where we are discussing not having a responsibility to care for our parents on the pretext that resources are too scarce but we really just don’t want to be responsible for them. Where our young people are being misinformed about their gender and encouraged toward paganism. Where inner enlightenment is put forward as self elevation toward perceived personal Godhead.

It may seem that we are heading into an enlightened society and a coming World Government that will last for a thousand years but God will not tolerate this unrighteousness. The bible warns in the book of Daniel and the book of Revelation of judgement at the end of the age. The society we are constructing is doomed because it is based on false values. We are straying into the mistakes that the people made in the days of Noah where the every intent of the hearts of men was only to evil continually. Final judgement came then and sadly if we do not turn away from our wickedness in this time we also will experience the consequences of our sins in the form of God’s judgement once more.

So what can we do as Christians then in this difficult time. Well we need to be as Jesus to the people of this time. Rather than spewing judgement and condemnation we need to be a breath of fresh air. Helping those who have need. Bringing wise counsel to those who are struggling with the challenges of daily life. Giving the Gospel of Jesus Christ to those who are seeking true Salvation. That is, that those who believe that Jesus bore their sins on the Cross shall not perish but will inherit eternal life. John 3:16

God is love and he loves you...

1John 4: 7-8 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

 

God loves you my friends and he wants to have a relationship with you so that he can reveal to you and in you the plan that he has for you. So you can live a rich and fulfilled life and be the person that he intended you to be from the beginning. 

 

Jeremiah 1:5 Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

 

Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.

 

So you see that as God said to Jeremiah that he knew him before he was born and as he said of the people of Israel that he had a plan for them to give a future and hope. So we can say he has always known us and has a plan for us to fulfill our lives in him.

 

Now I know you’re going to say that God is judgemental and Christian’s like myself aren’t very nice. You may have a point but so does God. Sin is sickness and we of humanity are infected with it. It is so destructive that God won’t allow us to live with it. Sin must be dealt with and the only way to do that is to trust Christ Jesus who bore the sins of the World upon him on the Cross at Calvary.

 

That is why Jesus preached a gospel of repentance during his three years of ministry. We’re all sinners each and every human one of us and as the bible says there is none righteous not even one. But that makes me as guilty as you or anyone else. I am no better or worse than you and sin is sin. We must each ask Christ Jesus to forgive our sins and to come into our hearts that we might have forgiveness of our sins and eternal life. 

 

God loves us friends. So much that he gave his only son because he loved us. Jesus who so loved us that he laid down his life for us. Who sent the helper to reveal his nature within us and to empower us to share the faith. God loves you my friends and God is love.

Godly Design, Science and Creation

When I was a child I was saved early but influenced greatly by socialism and scientific atheism through an avid fascination with science fiction. I was touched within by Jesus and the Gospels but at the same time moved greatly by Stratemeyer Syndicate’s Tom Swift series and the works of Arthur C Clarke, Asimov and Bradbury to name a few of the authors of that time.

 

“Woe!” I hear you say. Interestingly the gospels appeal to the works of the Holy Spirit within one. While scientific atheism appeals to the flesh. Thus the things of God bring forth the works of God and the things of man play to the rebellious heart of the flesh. Those days were more than a little conflicted and made clear to me that the flesh will always seek to flee from God and to follow the deception of the Serpent in Garden of Eden in Genesis three. “You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Hence man continually seeks to remove God from his world view and to be his own God. 

 

So it was for me also. I loved the idea of mankind being one of the ruling races in our galaxy and even in the universe. Imagine visiting a deserted Earth millennia in the future and visiting the Great Hall of Leave-taking where mankind departed the Earth one final time for the stars. Consider man garnering the technology to create planets and solar systems of his own. The great wars that might one day be fought for the good of the universe and to defeat evil. All very romantic but in reality not very probable.

 

You see before mankind could consider fighting righteous wars on behalf of the universe. We would need to acknowledge the existing almighty creator of the universe Jehovah and the pre-existing Sin problem that we all share in courtesy of the Devil who deceives us and led our first parents to disobey God and fall into sinful ruin. Would a loving God allow a sin ridden humanity to inflict itself on a righteous universe.

 

Sadly we live in world immersed in the very blend of science, atheism and secular humanism that I read about as a child. I don’t think that this is by chance because the ideals that underpin this philosophy have been developed by the enemy ever since the fall of man and are purposed to divert the human heart from the things of God toward the things of man. If you combine these ideals with a busy life then people become so distracted by the lives they are leading and concerns of the day that they completely miss the message that God created them for a higher purpose much less the wisdom of the Bible or the message of the gospel.

 

In fact in our day every new science fact is taken as reason to disbelieve the bible. In secular humanism our Christian ideals are viewed as archaic in the first instance and then considered uncompromising and intolerant. Gradually they are being portrayed as dangerous and irrelevant. Soon as the Western World plunges toward Communism those same Christian ideals will be railed against as being disruptive to society and an abuse of peoples human rights. Christians will be persecuted again as evil once more rises from the shadows.

 

We live in a time when those who don’t know Jehovah are deceived into believing that that in disobeying God they are being enlightened and fulfilled. That they are growing and evolving into new and fully awakened beings that are closer to being Gods themselves as their new wisdom shines from within them. Unfortunately the sage words of the apostle Paul in Romans chapter one are clearly more accurate than the vain speculations of the darkened hearts of these sadly deluded folk.

 

When I was a child I was saved early but influenced greatly by socialism and scientific atheism through an avid fascination with science fiction. I was touched within by Jesus and the Gospels but at the same time moved greatly by Stratemeyer Syndicate’s Tom Swift series and the works of Arthur C Clarke, Asimov and Bradbury to name a few of the authors of that time.

 

“Woe!” I hear you say. Interestingly the gospels appeal to the works of the Holy Spirit within one. While scientific atheism appeals to the flesh. Thus the things of God bring forth the works of God and the things of man play to the rebellious heart of the flesh. Those days were more than a little conflicted and made clear to me that the flesh will always seek to flee from God and to follow the deception of the Serpent in Garden of Eden in Genesis three. “You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Hence man continually seeks to remove God from his world view and to be his own God. 

 

So it was for me also. I loved the idea of mankind being one of the ruling races in our galaxy and even in the universe. Imagine visiting a deserted Earth millennia in the future and visiting the Great Hall of Leave-taking where mankind departed the Earth one final time for the stars. Consider man garnering the technology to create planets and solar systems of his own. The great wars that might one day be fought for the good of the universe and to defeat evil. All very romantic but in reality not very probable.

 

You see before mankind could consider fighting righteous wars on behalf of the universe. We would need to acknowledge the existing almighty creator of the universe Jehovah and the pre-existing Sin problem that we all share in courtesy of the Devil who deceives us and led our first parents to disobey God and fall into sinful ruin. Would a loving God allow a sin ridden humanity to inflict itself on a righteous universe.

 

Sadly we live in world immersed in the very blend of science, atheism and secular humanism that I read about as a child. I don’t think that this is by chance because the ideals that underpin this philosophy have been developed by the enemy ever since the fall of man and are purposed to divert the human heart from the things of God toward the things of man. If you combine these ideals with a busy life then people become so distracted by the lives they are leading and concerns of the day that they completely miss the message that God created them for a higher purpose much less the wisdom of the Bible or the message of the gospel.

 

In fact in our day every new science fact is taken as reason to disbelieve the bible. In secular humanism our Christian ideals are viewed as archaic in the first instance and then considered uncompromising and intolerant. Gradually they are being portrayed as dangerous and irrelevant. Soon as the Western World plunges toward Communism those same Christian ideals will be railed against as being disruptive to society and an abuse of peoples human rights. Christians will be persecuted again as evil once more rises from the shadows. 

 

We live in a time when those who don’t know Jehovah are deceived into believing that that in disobeying God they are being enlightened and fulfilled. That they are growing and evolving into new and fully awakened beings that are closer to being Gods themselves as their new wisdom shines from within them. Unfortunately the sage words of the apostle Paul in Romans chapter one are clearly more accurate than the vain speculations of the darkened hearts of these sadly deluded folk.

 

Romans 1: 21-25 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. KJV

 

So nothing has changed. The lie that Satan told Eve in the Garden of Eden is the same lie he’s spinning to you and everyone else in human history. Essentially he’s saying “Jehovah is lying to you.” “Once you understand good from evil you are as God yourself.” “Seek inner wisdom and enlightenment and be ye as Gods.” The fact that you can’t trust the devil and his intention is to enlist the most powerful men on Earth to control the governments and to build the greatest armies ever seen to rule over humanity. This should tell you that you are in grave danger with him as he seeks to eventually rid the world of mankind and to keep it for himself. 

 

It may not seem so if you listen to Satan. But Jehovah loves you and seeks only the best for you. If you choose the only begotten Son of God who bore your sins on the cross. You will have eternal life and become the new creature that God has always intended you to be as you are fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Or you can reject God and believe Satan seeking to become a God in your own right but in the process becoming enslaved and eventually disenfranchised as the devil betrays you for his own gain. Is it to be eternal life in Christ Jesus or the eternal second death in the serpent that old dragon who has deceived man from the beginning. Your choice...

 

So nothing has changed. The lie that Satan told Eve in the Garden of Eden is the same lie he’s spinning to you and everyone else in human history. Essentially he’s saying “Jehovah is lying to you.” “Once you understand good from evil you are as God yourself.” “Seek inner wisdom and enlightenment and be ye as Gods.” The fact that you can’t trust the devil and his intention is to enlist the most powerful men on Earth to control the governments and to build the greatest armies ever seen to rule over humanity. This should tell you that you are in grave danger with him as he seeks to eventually rid the world of mankind and to keep it for himself. 

 

It may not seem so if you listen to Satan. But Jehovah loves you and seeks only the best for you. If you choose the only begotten Son of God who bore your sins on the cross. You will have eternal life and become the new creature that God has always intended you to be as you are fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Or you can reject God and believe Satan seeking to become a God in your own right but in the process becoming enslaved and eventually disenfranchised as the devil betrays you for his own gain. Is it to be eternal life in Christ Jesus or the eternal second death in the serpent that old dragon who has deceived man from the beginning. Your choice...