Seeing God

This afternoon I will engage in a conversation with a seventy year old man. He says he's not a believer (define believer...) and what keeps him from believing is... seeing.
He's not upset with God, nor blames Him for the death of his wife and (soon) his son (due to a progressive illness). It's just that because he hasn't seen God, he will not and cannot believe.
How do I approach this?
I have been in similar conversations and I remember that I once asked a young man what difference it would really make; would he really change his mind about believing or not after a physical visit from God?
After contemplating this for a minute or so he admitted that it probably wouldn't make that much of a difference.
After dealing with this smokescreen, we were able to talk about the more real issues. "If God would honor you with a visit, what would you feel and how would you express those feelings? Would you feel happiness, anger, indifference, madness, joy?
What stuff would you like to talk about with God? What questions would you aks?"

There's many smokescreens today that people use as an excuse not to think about the stuff that's bigger than life.
Here in the Netherlands, Christians have found a new toy to throw at people: the yes or not literal six day creation. Well: WHO CARES! I literally get mad about this total waste of energy, attention and resources thrown into this totally useless discussion. There's a world around us going to hell and we get more excited about pretending to be Gods lawyer. Newsflash: God is a big boy and is perfectly capable of defending himself.
So, again we're not talking about the real issues. The Christians develop their own smokescreens to keep people away from seriously think about life and God. It is a disgrace!
It almost seems that as long as we can keep Jesus out of the periphery, and with sharpened swords fight about all the secondary stuff, all parties involved seem to be rather happy.
All but one. God the Father is waiting at the roadside for anyone who is tired of fighting to come to Him and engage in a full on life giving relationship.

Kick Butt

"Well, honey, this miscarriage must be the Lord's doing since you got pregnant without being married".
"Church, we're going to put sister A and B under discipline, because apparently they are into the Romans 1:26 thing" (this was based on a rumour and done without even investigating any of the stories).

Just two examples of stories I heard from victims about how well the church deals with people and how "loving" we can be to wanderers, strugglers and searchers. Is it any wonder that so many are fed up with church? Who ever came up with the notion of "tough love" should be put on bread and water for 1000 years! Tough love has become an excuse to discipline and dismiss children and people who are not behaving the way we think they should.
Is it tough love that makes Christians go to war?

Maybe "tough love" is a close cousin of St. Augustine's "Just War". Followers of Jesus only new one law: The Law of Love. St. Augustine's "Just War" theory legimated violence under certain conditions and Chritians started going to war!
I don't go there. Although I quite often have violent thoughts. Especially when the "Tough Lovers" kick into gear and feel they have to play God for a fellow man.

Last night I watched Brother Andrew (Founder of Open Doors) being interviewed. He is eighty years old but really kicks butt. He dines with Hezbollah, Hamas, Taliban and other extremist groups leaders. Why? To obey Jesus command to Go and Preach the Gospel of the Kingdom. And he gives them Jesus. He loves them. And they want more of it.

Personally my biggest challenge is to Love God first and my fellow man as myself. I know and have learned that where we are changed into lovers of people we really start to kick butt! For the Kingdom. And it's sweet.

Religion can't be that bad

God doesn't want religion, he wants relationship. I've heard it said thousands of times and I've said it at least 776 times! But, as you can tell from my counting, I'm almost done saying it.
Could it be that Gods wants both?
In a good, healthy relationship both parties do and seek what's best for both. In my relationship with God there's a funny element. Since He is and has the best, there's nothing I can give Him that would make Him happier than He already is. It's not like He's moderately happy with me and is eagerly waiting for me to bring Him some unexpected surprise to move Him from moderately happy to exceedingly happy!
So, since His needs are met, in my relationship with Him I can (and He too) totally focus on my needs! I think it's a great plan.

I've been reading and thinking about religion. I used to condemn it. Publicly and Privately. If it is true that I am to love God with all my heart, soul and mind it is about more than a relationship. He wants it all.
Religion is not as bad as it sounds. The origins of Latin "religio" are not to clear. In general it is believed to derive from ligare "bind, connect"; likely from a prefixed re-ligare, i.e. re (again) + ligare or "to reconnect."

If religion means to 're-align' with God, I want it!

The negative connotation is the result of centuries of systematizing the Biblical beliefs and an almost complete disconnecting it from the heart.
This re-alignment involves the heart. But it also involves the soul and the mind. Religion isn't that bad after all.
The become whole as a person means that we need to add religion to our relationship.
Or am a missing something? If that would be the case, let me know before I will turn religious.

God cheaper than an umbrella

"As it is raining cats and dogs and we want to have our fun afternoon, let's pray that God will stop the rain and give us a nice afternoon". Ever heard (or prayed) these kind of prayers? Maybe later that day, we hear testimonies of how God stopped the rain and thus allowed us to have our fun games.
This never seemed to bother me in my early years as a believer. Now, whenever I hear those kind of prayers, I feel sad and even angry. It is so inconsiderate of others and so absolutely self-centered.
The farmer next door is pleading with God. First he thanks and blesses God for this wonderfull rain and he prays that the rain will continue. This rain will determine whether or not he will still have a farm after the harvest.
Which of the two prayers will God answer. Some, with abundant faith, will say that God wants, and is able to answer both prayers.
Or will God answer the prayer of the one who prayed first, or the prayer that demonstrated a higher level of faith?

Today, in the north of Romania people are praying, begging, that God will take the water away. The flood took family members away and destroyed crops and houses. How will they survive the winter and deal with their losses.
In central Africa thousands of chilren will die today because of no water, or if there is water, it is contaminated with wathever viruses and diseases.

To find and live with God in rain or drought is one of life's biggest challenges. My prayer is that God will help me not to give in to petty prayers that are about my comfort, about me having fun. By the way, I believe that a lot of prayers are petty prayers and that many believers consider God to be their spiritual butler.
By the way (2), I believe fun is great. I am a fun lover. With and without rain.

What have we turned this into..

This past Sunday I sort of snapped. As usual in many services nowadays the church was in competition with the wall of sound coming from the front. We were summoned to stand (one who truly loves the Lord stands when he/she sings) and to sing along (bringing our worship to God).
So I sat and shut up and got really sad.

The organ and the combo's have left the church. Enter the professional worship coordinator + band.
They all look, sound and move alike and sing the same songs. It is called worship.
Today the worship-leader is a pay-roll position. Paid to make us feel good and 'bring us into God's presence'.

Today's singing makes me drift away from God's presence. I can't help it. It's quite possible that I do have a problem and need professional help.

A world is going to hell.
Let's all stand and sing; entering the presence of the Lord.
I wonder.
Which Lord.

I will not apologise for anything I wrote in this blog.

Next Level Holiness?

This weekend I was teaching my Life Direction, or "BE" seminar. Some of the questions that participants ask are like old friends that come to visit me. I usually see them coming and welcome them wholeheartedly. I would be disappointed if those questions are not asked since that would mean to me that either the participants are not paying attention or that I am not communicating.
One of the studies in the seminar is on the gifts of the Spirit. One of the statements I make is that there is no conditional correlation between the gifts and the fruit of the spirit. With other words, one can lead a miserable, or even immoral life and yet be used by God through the manifestation of His gifts.

And then I wait.

But I don't have to wait too long. After a few seconds of silence, one, and usually more participants will react (forget the niceties and Christian affirmation). People will be indignant and in disagreement. They know I am right but it doesn’t feel right, it feels more like injustice and it is hard to reconcile. We all know the stories of highly influential and effective preachers used by God to bring many into the Kingdom yet, they’re moral failures. Abusers of spouses and children, money and power, promiscuous and perverts. Yet, we all agree that the gift of God on their ministry was genuinely from God.

If the gifts of God would depend on the level of spiritual fruit in our lives, the effective use of Gods gifts through our lives would be like the New York Stock Exchange: up-down, taken a beating and in recovery.
If the gifts of God would depend on the level of spiritual fruit in our, lives, who is the one that will decide where and when we would cross the border of non-giftedness to giftedness. What is on the one side and what would be on the other side? Would an unloving remark suddenly disqualify us? Would God have to withdraw His spirit? We’d probably have to agree that unloving remarks do not disqualify us because if that were to be so, there would not be to much of Gods gifts present in and among us (occasional unloving remarks are quite acceptable, aren’t they). Killing somebody would make us cross the line? Yes or No? What about not killing that person, but quietly hating him/her with a passion? On which side of the line does this belong.

I think I made my point. That is not to say that a tragedy is taking place right as we write, read and speak. The church is full with people that live inconsistent lives. Their lives don’t live up to the level of Grace that God has poured out. A stubborn refusal to live in the light, to live a life of confession and transparency where we are encouraged and freed to bring the darkest secrets of our lives to the table. No, we keep them were they are; in the darkest corners of our hearts.
If it wasn’t for the grace of God, none of us would qualify to receive anything from His HOLY Spirit.
Our responsibility is to remain in Him. A fresh revelation of His Holiness and Grace might help to commit ourselves afresh to living a life of holiness.

Thanks to Mirja for reminding me that I haven’t been ‘updating’ this blog for a while

Six days.

I read Klaus Westermann's "Creation" the other day. I expected it to be one of those modern approaches to creation whereby I am supposed to believe that the days are actual 24 hour days and that all of creation took place in exactly 6 days. I also expected to read that if I don't believe that, it will affect the way I view salvation.
But Westermann takes you by surprise and hardly even touches that part of the discussion. His proposition is that we need to read it as it is: a narrative of our genesis. It is very freeing to do so because is allows you to focus on the issues that really matter: relationships, community, progress and the faithfulness of God.
Anyway, I shared some of my findings with some fellow believers and casually mentioned that, when one looks at the style in writing, it could well be that Genesis 1-11 has a different author than the other chapters.

This wasn't my main point but I might as well have cursed in the church in broad daylight and all the believers present, because suddenly I found all my brothers all over me as if I uttered the most blasphemous statement of the week.
Too bad that we don't allow ourselves to look at what we think we know from a different angle. There is so much we don't know. Why not admit it and leave things be. Things we don't know, that don't really matter, that don't affect our salvation.
Anyway, it took away some of the fun I find in exploring the many possible exegetical and hermeneutical avenues.
By the way, have you ever considered the numerous question that will pop up from the first chapters of Genesis if the world indeed was created in exactly six days?
You know, I don't really care. It's not that important.
But I do bet that there's people out there that are ready to start a war over it. In a sense that's what it comes to
The path of disobedience that man choose now enables us to undo in a few seconds what God took six days (or maybe longer) to make.
Now this is something that should grab our attention and get us into gear.