Christine and I belong to a choir. We have just held a number of Christmas concerts and we sang this carol among others. It starts with typical words about Christmas bells and “Peace on earth”. The carol goes on to say:
“Tell the nations that love has won”
But then suddenly comes this verse:
And in despair I bowed my head
“There is no peace on earth”, I said,
“for hate is strong and mocks the song
of peace on earth, goodwill to men”.
As we live in an imperfect society we need some rules and laws to combat the worst forms of evil. Religion has its own sets of rules, but Jesus showed us that if we follow his way, love transcends rules. He was born into a Jewish society which had built up a complex set of rules to moderate and control how people lived their everyday lives. We will see in this article how Jesus broke many of the rules and traditions that religion imposed. Continue reading “Jesus breaks religious rules”
Faith is like a window. We can think of a window in many ways. We could concentrate on the construction, the design, the curtains, the glass but fail to realise that the purpose of a window is to actually look out and enjoy the view. A window brings the outside in and exposes the inside to the outside.
Faith is a window which enables us to see God clearly and enables us to have a direct relationship with him. God can also see us clearly and yet because of his great love for us does not look upon our imperfections.
Religion, on the other hand, can prevent us from really seeing God. We argue about the window style, and say that unless our window conforms in construction or rituals it is inferior or even not a window at all. Religion puts obstacles in the way of seeing God. It makes rules and regulations and says that unless we conform we cannot know God. Continue reading “Faith: a window to God”
When I was a child I attended Christian churches, which, although they preached the good news of the Gospel, nevertheless taught that we had to strive all of our lives to please God and conform to certain rules. So I was taught not to drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes, visit the cinema or to dance. We had turned Jesus into a religion.
Now we can drink as long as we don’t get drunk, and we can even dance in church. However there is still a risk of encouraging religion by expecting people to conform to our standards and rules.
For two thousand years, we have turned the good news into a religion. The process started with the early church when some were told they needed to be circumcised to really be saved. Others were told that they mustn’t eat meat which had been used as an offering to other religions. Others were side-lined into worshipping angels. Some tried to reconcile the Old Testament law with their new-found faith. Continue reading “What is wrong with Religion?”
The word “grace” has many meanings such as a prayer before a meal, courteousness, or the elegance of a dancer. But the word takes on a totally new meaning when we talk about grace in the context of God’s relationship with humanity. I respectfully submit my definition:
“Grace is the unconditional love of God extended to all men and women. Grace forgives us for the wrongs we commit towards our creator, his creation and one another. Grace includes us in the love relationship which God the Father shares with Jesus Christ his son.”
God is love: and the fact that he loves us is truly amazing, fantastic, mind-blowing, and whatever superlative you can think of. Continue reading “Amazing Grace”
For thousands of years humans of all cultures and all races have acknowledged the inevitability of physical death but have refused to accept that this event is the end of personal existence. Almost all religions and tribal mythologies have some concept of an afterlife. Only recently have atheists and humanists rejected the idea that there is any other form of existence for us. I suspect that the hardest problem with accepting an atheistic world view is giving up the hope of resurrection.
There is an old saying, “Nothing is certain but death and taxes”. In the natural world, life and death are fundamental to existence. Jesus said,
“I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds”.
Our physical bodies consist of about 7*1027 atoms (that’s a 7 followed by 27 zeros!) or seven billion billion billion atoms. These atoms do not really belong to us, they are constantly being replenished and eventually have to be given up to the ground, and then to produce other life.
But we are not just flesh and blood. The real you, and the real me, is the breath that God breathed into us; what we call our spirits. The hope and the certainty of resurrection is that even though our bodies die, our spirit can live on for ever. Death, mankind’s oldest enemy, was defeated when Jesus as the Son of God, died a terrible death on the cross but three days later was resurrected, bringing hope to us all. The Spirit of God, alive in Jesus, made it impossible for him to stay dead. That same Spirit of God, alive in us, means that we too have the hope of resurrection (see Romans 8:11). Continue reading “Resurrection”
This morning, at the meeting of our church, we sang an old hymn. “What’s so strange about that?” you may ask. Well, we normally sing more modern worship songs, and rarely sing what would normally be described as a hymn.
We sang these words in response to a moving account from one of our people about difficulties he had to face this past week. But through it all he had a conviction that God is faithful. Continue reading “Great is your faithfulness”
What does it mean to be a follower of Jesus in the 21st century? Is there a difference between being a Christian and a follower of Jesus? Do we have to reach a particular standard before we can be a disciple? How can we literally follow him when we can’t actually see him? Continue reading “Following Jesus in the 21st Century”
Compassion and Justice 