Doctrinal Music

That's what came to mind when I read how St. Paul qualifies teaching that 'conforms to the glorious gospel of the blessed God'. I've always had, and still have, difficulties with adjectives, such as 'sound' in 'sound doctrine'. Doctrine is neutral in its own context but as soon as you start messing with adjectives it gets complicated. Yet, we do need them to qualify, or put substance, to 'sound'. What sound? Who's making it? Why do we need it? What are the objective qualifiers that determine the 'soundness' or 'soundlessness' of ‘sound’?

I’m glad Paul helps me out. He says that stuff that conforms tot the glorious gospel of the blessed Lord’ is okay music. Stuff that doesn’t conform is still music, but it sucks and doesn’t bring glory to God.

Now, I made a decision that I want to bring glory to God. That means I need to produce the right music.
You know what? It’s not the music that I like, or feel good about but it is music that originates from ‘the gospel of the blessed God’.
To be ‘sound’ in my life means I need to dig the music up form the gospel. There is no other way.

Even then, there is still a lot we find ourselves interpreting. Getting to the core, studying the words of God doesn’t result in a straightforward solution. We find ourselves tuning, tweaking, and shaping those words into the sound that God originally intended. Can it be done? If I say yes, you’ll call me a dreamer, or an idealist. If I say no, you’ll tell me that I should never give in to defeat and encourage me to keep on producing sound.

I believe God’s sound is the sound of love. He gave us His word, His sound. His sound flows out of His love. And that’s where the answer lies: sound without love is sound that judges people, condemns them. Sound with love is always right. Take out the love and sound becomes a sledgehammer, a merciless sword. But with love, sound is the sweetest fragrance that brings healing, restoration, forgiveness, acceptance, firmness, loveliness…

Let’s make sound!

Brauhaus

Last week I was in Germany for (business)meetings with a bunch of people. Most of these people have become friends over the years. Some of them I would even consider very good friends; we've established a level of trust and respect that enables us to share our innermost struggles, fears, joys, doubts, victories, temptations, questions and even... answers.

When business is done the "Brauhaus" is our hangout. A local pub that brews their own brand of beer. "Brauhaus times" are the highlight of the meetings. Because of what happens in the Brauhaus we are able to face the next full day of business meetings. The knitting together of hearts and minds sets the attitude for business talk.

I believe the Western Church lacks "Brauhauses" where Gods people, in a very natural way, learn and grow together. Smart and polished programmes and schedules attempt to replace Brauhaus times, but they cannot. People shy away from these.

Reality check:

Do I have time for a "Brauhaus"? Nearly every evening we have a "programme", whether a business or comittee meeting, prayer..... But no, I do not have enough time to do more Brauhaus.

So, if I do believe in Brauhaus I will have to look at my priorities and beliefs. Because my live will reflect what I truly hold dear. It's not easy as a churchleader.
What I would like to see happen is that most of our meetings, whether business, comittee, or prayer becomes a Brauhaus experience. I believe it can be done.

Prayer can be fun and real the same time but we've got to cut through the traditions, distance and lack of engagement. Touch my heart and my heart will respond. Touch my mind and my mind will respond. The mind needs to follow the heart and that what's Brauhaus does.

Choose today: More Brauhaus

What really matters

Is their anything in this life and world that I believe is worth dying for? I really don't know. I believe one of my biggest enemies in the season of life I am in today is indifference. And this bothers me big time. I want to care more and better. It bothers me that quite often I don't care or, if I do care, it's more an a rational level.
"So, you're going through a depression"? "Wow, I am very sorry for you (and am sort of glad that I'm doing sort of okay)". "Man, I really feel (rationally) for you". The fact of the matter is that I would like to have an emotional response but it's just not there. So, am I sick? Do I need help?
"Look, there's another 200 Iraqi's blown into eternity", "O boy, wasn't that plaincrash spectacular".

I think it has to do with the lack of relationships. 1500 people in my personal database. A mile wide, but only inch deep relationships (if that's what they are).

Jesus, whenever he SAW the crowds, His heart filled with compassion. He engaged! That was his His secret. Even God needs to overcome the distance in order to feel!

If I really want to change and cause a change in other people's life I need to decide to go deep. To really engage. I can't see any other way.
What really matters are relationships.

Epicurus (341–270 B.C), a Greek philisopher who supposedly lived for pleasure and giving in to carnal cravings, and got heaviliy critisised for it, says that matter doesn't mean a thing if you don't have friends: "it is of greater importance whom you eat and drink with than what you want to eat and drink. Because without a friend our life is feeding a lion or a wolf".

Patience and Pride

Of all topics I'd like to speak on, Patience would be on the bottom of the list. But, they got me to speak on the subject anyway. A high school in St. Catharines (Ontario, Canada) gave me this very topic to speak on as part of a series on character traits.

The best thing is always to start digging in the word and to my great surprise I found something that was quite revealing to me. In Eccl. 7:8 it reads "patience is better than pride". Patience with Pride as its antithesis.

So you start asking questions Why not impatience? What has pride to do with patience? How do they relate to each other.
Patience in scripture has always to do with waiting on God. It's not about doing stuff with a calm serenity, or just doing them slow.
It has to do with trust in God. Believing that He knows best, does best and is the best. Despite the many questions one might have relying on Him for the outcome. That is patience and when one comes to a point where one is able to let go and to "just trust" one will see that trust reflected in the normal day to day stuff.

Pride is abut self-reliance. Thinking and believing one knows better than God and being irritated with God about stuff that one feels should not have happened, or should have happened differently. You won't find pride and arrogance, self-reliance and stubbornness on any list of virtues or character traits one is encouraged to pursue.
It's stuff one needs to get rid of.

So how am I doing when it comes to patience? While studying I came to realize that I've learned a few things about patience. I am able to let go and allow God to be God. I don't want to dictate God how He should rule my life or how I want Him to be. He just is. And that feels good.

Time is Crap

A friend of mine responded to my last blog (did Jesus evangelise). He wrote:

“For Jesus sharing the love of His Father with lost people - up to His death on the cross - was the ultimate reason to come to earth as a man.
I agree therefore that Jesus did not "switch on" and "switch off" evangelism, but he did deliberately CHOOSE at times to walk away from the crowd and spend quality time with His Father - even for Him this seemed to be a condition for continuous effective outreach. This is the other side of the same coin.
Shouldn't we follow His example?”

If we don’t choose in life, we will do what comes natural and for many people that would be wasting time.

If we don’t choose and /or prioritize, how we spend our time reflects our true values. Some typical western values related to “waste”? By the way, isn’t it an appropriate term “wasting time”? Waste is garbage. It’s obsolete or unnecessary stuff that you throw out. I think you'd agree with me that time is the most valuable resource we have but still many treat time like crap!

• Sleeping heaps longer that our body needs. Six-Eight hours is enough for our bodies (okay there’s probably a few exceptions). Sleeping ten hours means that you have wasted at least two valuable hours. That’s a quarter book, exercise and prayer! Yes, that’s what I did while you were sleeping. It’s a choice. Time is valuable.
  The bible has some radical stuff to say. In Proverbs 6:9-11 we read: How long will you lie there, you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest- and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man.
  
• It’s all about me and myself. Individualism is good in one sense. God has made me unique and is interested in me; wants me to walk with Him, interact with Him, get to know Him better and better. Yet life is more than just about me. It’s about God through me, blessing others. Blessed to be a blessing. Spending time with others, learning and living in community is a Kingdom value. Our houses are Gods houses, our tables are His tables, our time is His time. Spending to much time (who’s going to define “to much”) alone, is not good for us.
  
• Because I live in the kingdom of the World I tend to spend a lot of time on and in worldly things. Unless and until the Kingdom of God becomes real for me. If I am to “flesh out” the kingdom of God in this World. I need First of all to understand how the Kingdom of God operates and when this becomes real to me it will affect the way I spend my time and I will find myself choosing to spend time alone with the Father

Anyway, it’s a bit of a funny blog. It hardly makes sense. But I wanted to write it because I don’t do the Jesus stuff naturally. I need to spend time with Him first. And that’s how I get excited about doing life the way He did it. Then, I don’t spend time with the Father because it’s the right thing to do but because I realize that my whole life and everything I do and the way I do it depends on that very decision.

Jesus never evangelised, or did He?

I sat in the pew. On my right side a lady who read from her Hebrew-Dutch bible and on my left my youngest daughter with two of her friends. The, what people call "worship time", went on and on and, as usual my mind was drifting somewhere outside the building, boldly exploring places and spaces where no one has ever gone before (that's what I want to believe but usually someone has been there before I get there). I usually switch off after ten minutes and start thinking about the "after church service coffee" or go through my notes one more time before being given the pulpit where I usually forget about my notes altogether (why bother bringing notes?).

Anyway, a thought hit me. Did Jesus ever evangelise? And the answer also hit me: "No, He never did evangelise". Before I started giving my speech I asked the church how they would answer this question. The whole church believed that Jesus actually did evangelise. No one raised his or her hand when I asked "whom of you says that Jesus never evangelised"? I was the only one with my hand raised high in the sky (with great zeal and a sense of urgency and fresh revelation). I couldn't care less that I was the only one believing that Jesus never evangelised. The fact that no one believed it with me underlines the sad reality of what went wrong somewhere in our church history.

Let me explain: The "evangelion" was just fine until we changed it into a verb and turned it into an activity. It's not something you switch on and, after you're done evangelising, switch off. Yet, that is exactly what many people do!
Jesus never had to make a deliberate choice to put "two hours of evangelism" in and then, after those two hours everything would turn back to normal.
No! Jesus was so full of the presence of the father that He could not not speak about it. He breathed life wherever He came. He never had to overcome emotional, theological, personal or whatever obstacles before changing into the evangelism mode. He was the mode. He was, and still is the GOOD NEWS!

I want the church to return to being and living the Good News. Is it that we need activities because without these our lives and churches don’t stand out enough to make a real difference? Why is it that we have to tell people that we actually are different? Maybe because otherwise they would never see it, or notice it?

Jesus says, “You are the light of the world” and “You are the Salt of the Earth”. If He says so, there is only one appropriate response to this error of needing activities to “show” the world and that is repentance and begging God for a new and fresh baptism of His spirit that will radically change me into the person Jesus says I already am.

The Peevish Aura

Three people said three things to me last Sunday and they made me think a little bit about my non-verbal communication skills, or lack thereof. I walked into the room where we as a group of local followers of Christ meet on Sundays (some call it "worship-centre", other "the sanctuary", again others find other fancy names to refer to the place that I am referring to. One church in Bloomington, Ill., will not allow wedding feasts to be held in "the sanctuary". Just imagine that the floor will get dirty because somebody laughs so loud that she (probably) spills some punch, or apple-cider on the worship-centre-carpet...).

Anyway, a dear brother sees me, walks up to me and says: "you look unhappy today, what is wrong". I tell him nothing is wrong and think to myself, "yes, what's wrong with me"? After the service a young woman comes running to me (she always speeds her way through crowds and life in general) and says: "You look tired, what's wrong with you". I tell her nothing is wrong and the same time think to myself, "Yes, what is wrong with me". With doubt welling up from deep within I look at my wife for support and comfort. She just shrugs; not much help from the support side of my life this morning! Then, another dear sister, decides to casually mention that when looking at me during the service (which is a bad thing, she should have been looking at and/or to Jesus instead) that she noticed this "big, ugly, peevish aura" around me. With other words, I look terribly grumpy and I realise that all three of time were right. I knew it, I felt it, I showed it (my wife tells me that I am completely incapable to hide my true emotions and that my body language speaks volumes).
I had no excuse. I got caught. I felt and was grumpy and people noticed
Why?
I don't know. And that's the honest truth. I had enough sleep. My wife still loved me. We walked to church (which is a 70 minute hike) so I didn't really contribute to the pollution in general (although I must admit that I did breath a little and, thus, did pollute a little, but I think there's not much you can do about that type of pollution which makes me think that in general one could say: "Being Pollutes" (take that as a thought for the day)).
Some people call it a bad hair day. I looked but found nothing wrong with my hair except the graying process.
So I said to myself, "Jan, you are grumpy, admit it. You have no idea why and that's okay. God loves you anyhow and invites you to be grumpy in His presence. Maybe it goes away, maybe not."

We don't always have to analyse why we feel the way we feel. It is important to know that the presence of God is consistent. My awareness of it changes with moods, circumstances etc.. but I cannot undo His presence.
And that's so comforting and exciting that there's the danger that my grumpiness disappears just thinking about this reality....

"May the LORD our God be with us as he was with our fathers; may he never leave us nor forsake us". (1 Kings 8:57)

I am a beauty...

Rob Bell says the church is a big, beautiful, ugly thing. Well, I am beautiful so you, the reader, must be the one making it ugly....
Just kidding.
But Rob has a good point. We look at the chruch as insiders and are aware of her shortcomings, wounds, abuse, and all other stuff that underlines her humanity.
Only God sort of idealises His church. If I understand my Bible correct, He seems to love His church, brags about her, sees her as clean, holy and absolutely gorgeous.
How does He do that? Since He knows everything, he is supposed to know the real truth about her.
Well, that's the whole issue. He does know her secret and that secret is Jesus. God looks at the church through a veil. That veil is the reality of the blood of Jesus. God sees what, in Christ, the church is becoming and it looks amazingly beautifull.
You know what, He does the same to me. He's not telling me what a bad boy I am and that I'd better give up trying because I will never work my way up to His standards.
God thinks I am beautiful...
If He only knew....
Well, He knows and He has choosen to see me through the blood of Jesus. That blood is so powerfull that it cleanses me completely.

I just needed to get this of my chest.

Have a great life. Believe the blood! He did it!

The First Painless Church

The lady laid hands on the other lady who was ill. De first words she spoke/prayed were: "We know that God does not allow pain in His body". Amens floated about the roam, but I wanted to scream. Or, maybe I shouldn't. Maybe this little church in Mpumalanga, South Africa, was the first painless church on this planet. And, to be honest, without having shared this with anyone, not even my wife, I have been quietly looking for the First Painless Church (FPL). I once considered planting one but I decided not to because if the church planter himself is in pain, planting the FPL would be a big joke. Unless... of course, I don't have to tell people that I am in pain and just communicate that in our church there is no pain since God doesn't allow pain in His body.
If there were such a thing as a painless church, the people in it would be living in utter denial. If the preacher says there is no pain and backs it up with a scripture or two I will live my live as if there was no pain. And when I would feel pain I would tell myself it's just an illusion, deny that it's there.

Why do so many Christians ly about their true battles and struggles? Because we are being told that we have the victory. If that is true how come so many live defeated lives?
Not facing the realities of your inner battles is one of the biggest sins and one cannot be healed from these sins untill these are acknowledged and confessed.

If I deny that I have financial problems I need to pretend that I am doing well and have no needs.

If I deny that my back is sore, I will have to pretend that I am physically fit and will keep my back straight (despite the extra pain that causes).

If I deny that my marriage is not working, I am not communicating with my children, I have to do a lot of explaining (lying to myself and others) to pretend that everything is well.

Bottom line: Face you pain. Acknowlegde it. Confess it. And, God willing, maybe receive healing.

Get real or take a hike

If I have to choose

I work part-time with a local church. The other part of my working hours I work with an organisation that is determined to take the most important message, that people need to hear, to the very ends of the earth. A couple of weeks ago I joined a team that went into North Africa.

Bliss

That sums up the time I travelled with the team.

Is the local church less bliss? It shouldn't be but in my experience it is.

Why is that? Are the people in the church boring? No. Not at all. Many are very inspiring (some are not).

If you weigh the ins and outs of churchlife against the focussed, radical, unified efforts of a group of people to reach the lost it starts to make sense why working with a church is less bliss.
Weigh it and you'll understand.

Many in the church have lost it. As one dear friend put it yesterday when he commented om my message of a couple of weeks ago titled "why we are to spread the Good News": "I don't appreciate people telling me what it is that I have to do. Paul was commisioned to take the Good News to the world but that doesn't necessarily mean that I have to do the same".

Milling this over, sadness fills my heart. Fear, Individuality and my right to express this the way I feel comfortable with, cocooning with my friends, making sure never to upset anyone and more bla, bla is not going to do the trick.

If I ever have to choose, I will choose the lost.
What will you choose?

I am Pro

Christians have a reputation of being somewhat re-active. We tend to negatively respond to developments in society we do not agree with. We are anti-abortion, anti-pedofiles, anti-arabs, anti-you name it. And the rare occasiuon that we are pro, it usually implies that we are against the counterpart. Pro-Israel usually impleis anti -Hammas, Pro-Life means should Anti-Death but the usual connotation is Anti-Abortion and/or Anti Euthanasia.
I do have strong convictions about all of these but I have difficulty responding negatively. I don't want to be known as the guy who is usually against something but want to be known as a guy who is strongly promoting real life.
The bible tells me that I have one obligation, or debt, and that is to love my fellow man. That's what I choose to do. I'm a lover of people. Hammas is people, the Arabs are people, women that have their unborn children "taken care of" are individuals that need to be loved.
In a sense it's okay to be anti something as long as I want to be part of the solution but if I'm just "anti", I miss the point.
What speaks to me that Jesus himself never was "Anti-Roman" but notoriously "Pro-God-The-Father". The thing he was against was religion and He spoke up whenever needed and appropriate. And, He never became violent. Even though thousands of potential worshippers walked out of His life, He never stopped loving them.
This world needs a revolution of love and the Christians are the ones to start it.
I am pro. Who is pro with me.

Big, bigger, biggest

The city. In our church we're talking, preaching and thinking about it. We're praying for her and attempting to get involved (corporately that is; many individual church members already are involved on different levels).
Sometimes I go to interdenominational prayer meetings where, again, we pray for our city. Some will prophecy over her, other will proclaim whatever over her and, again others just claim (big things, very big things). It is good to see believers pray. It is not so good that, despite all our claiming, proclaiming and prophesying, we, as believers and children of the most high God, were not able to infiltrate in the realm of crime. Maybe we were ignorant, or took for granted that, with all the big words we spoke, the crime would automatically decrease, or even disappear.

Yes, Rotterdam won a price! We’re the most criminal town in the Netherlands!

Isn’t that sobering! Some believe that our words cause life or death. Despite the words of life we speak, the result is death. In our society, in our families. We seem to be drifting farther and farther away from the desired outcome. Our children don’t seem to desire personal holiness. It’s our children that don’t think twice about premarital sex, co-habitation or an occasional marihuana filled cigarette. And yet, it’s the same children that will tell you that they love Jesus. The apostle John would say: they haven’t seen Him and they don’t know Him (1 John 3:6).

And us, the praying, prophesying, proclaiming parents? We are as guilty. Guilty of ignorance, guilty of compromising, guilty of prophesying without a deep, overwhelming conviction of sin and acts of repentance.

Moving away from the group I might and up hiding behind; what is my role?

I will answer that with a prayer:

Lord! God! Forgive me for I have sinned.

I am guilty of thinking and speaking in terms of “us” and “them”

I am as guilty as any other person in my city

Open my eyes so I can cry

Open my heart so I can give

Open my mind so I can see

Open my life so I can give

Lord, I will stop feeling better, bigger and more

I am as guilty as any other

Help me not to pray bigger things than my heart is willing to see and believe

Help me to stand in the gap and beg for your mercy an behalf of me and my city

God, poor out your spirit of conviction so I may repent and receive your love

Lord, this is so inconvenient

Last Sunday I was in church. A very "hip" and "spiffy" church. Slick worship, great music. The worship leader felt prompted by the spirit (must have been the spirit because he told us that he hadn't planned on saying what he was about to say) to share about a dialogue he'd had with God three days earlier.
"I came home from work and I didn't feel well. 'O, no', I said to myself, 'I'm getting a cold'. In the middle of the night I woke up and, you know how it feels when you have a cold, my head thick and full, and nose and stuff... I decided to talk about this with God. I said to Him, 'You know I am supposed to lead worship this coming Sunday and a cold is going to be so inconvenient, I can't use this and I really want to stand there and lead the people in worship, so if you please...'. And guess what. I woke up the next morning and my head was clear. The Lord healed me". I was expecting that at this point the whole congregation would give God a big clap but either they are so used to these type of miracles or they were embarrassed. I hope it was the latter.
My wife left her seat to go powder her nose. Later she told me she was so disgusted that she had to walk out of this, and catch her breath.
My mind drifted of and I saw a seven year old African girl, almost starved to death. Just like many of her thousands and thousands of starving contemporaries. She walked to the pulpit and started to share her testimony, "A couple of days ago I was tired after a day of trying to find some food. I hadn't had any food for days and I was really sad. But I know what to do so I prayed to God and said: 'Lord, you know how hungry I am and you also know that starving is very inconvenient. Lord, I want to say to you that I can't really use this. If I may be so blunt as to ask you to fix this thing for me (In Jesus name, of course). I cried myself to sleep and woke up a couple of hours later and to my big surprise I smelled freshly baked bread. I looked and I saw this huge picnic basket full of the most delicious food".
I can say only one thing: Lord forgive me, forgive us in the Western world where you've become a Santa Claus whose job it is to meet my needs and deal with all my inconveniences.

I am ashamed and embarrased. Again I pray: Forgive me.

Humble or what...

I am reading a book. Nothing new. I’m always reading books. Sometimes a title stands out. The last couple of weeks two books really stood, and stand out. Gregory Boyds’ ‘God of the possible’ and right now Alain de Botton’s ‘Status Anxiety’. It is an amazing book that really helps me better to understand where I’m coming from and how much I take for granted. Whether I like it or not, I am a product of Western Civilisation. And, while reading this book I am more and more ashamed and embarrassed. I want to apologise to the world: I am ignorant, I am a snob, I am arrogant and I have a big and a loud mouth. I thought I was different (slightly better than the other, not as Western as the other; I’m a Christian, remember….) but I have to repent. I am no different. Yet, I want to be different. So, how do I change.
“Ignorance is bliss”, the saying goes. It’s much better not to know stuff; avoid confrontation with reality and truth. For a healthy, reasonably intelligent western person this ‘blame it on my ignorance’ is an extremely lame excuse. Most people revel in their ignorance; living in their artificial bubbles and cocoons, with a preference for watching “Fear Factor” and “Big Brother”. The media helps us a lot in shutting ourselves off for our own “demons”. Perpetual entertainment numbs the reality.
Change Step One: WAKE UP. There is no excuse.

Change Step Two: LOWER YOURSELF.
The bible calls it “humbling yourself”. Stop comparing. Stop elevating your self. Stop pointing your finger at others. Stop criticising. Esteem others, especially those that you think are “less worthy” of you attention. People of other religion, the poor, the addicts, the HIV-positives. From the absolute lowest point everybody else is higher, more worthy. That’s what Jesus did. He humbled himself and gave himself for me while I was kicking Him in the face and cursed him. God, forgive me for feeling better that Jesus when I refuse to give to the poor, when I claim my right to “my well deserved time off”.
Help me to, just like you, just LOVE people. Not just a few, but ALL people. In Jesus name.

A Romans Six Day

That's what I call a day where I stubbornly refuse to crucify the old self. Some would call it a bad hair day but I don't think it's fair to blame it on your hair. Nowadays we've got sprays, gels, combs and brushes so there's absolutely no need for people in the Western World to have bad hair days. Call it what it is: admit it, you're just depressed and or grumpy. Life sucks and so do others.
And that's the problem. Life can't help being what it is. Others can't help being "other". They just "are". But I can help and change being me. And the way to do so is through death.
But: I DON'T WANT TO DIE!!!!
So here we have it: I just want to live. And yesterday was one of those days that I ended up fooling around with my time. And time is extremely valuable so I don't want it to just leak away. In my discpelship group we were studying the story of Jesus washing the feet of His disciples as a demonstration of endless love. My hair "went bad" when I realised that I don't have any problem with others sacrificing for me but that I find it rather difficult when I have to sacrifice something for others (unless I expect something in return).
So... I had to take it to the cross. To kill it. I know I will have to revisit the cross again and again and again. To die. In order to gain life. And that's exactly what I want: LIFE.

How little we know, and do

I am a believer. People will refer to me as an evangelical. Evangelicals oversimplify life. Life is easy because the answer to everything is Jesus. And, when things get tough, well, Jesus is somewhere in that, too. Not that I understand it but that's okay, as long as he understands and sort of knows what he is doing.
Ask an evangelical a tough question and I bet that Jesus will be somewhere in the answer. That's how we are conditioned. So that's why evangelicals are poor people. Not all evangelicals, but many.

"The sundayschool teacher says: 'listen up children. I'm gonna describe something to you and when you think you know what it is that I am describing just raise your hand'. 'It's rather small with paws and has a very soft fur. It loves to eat carrots and...' Little John interrupts the teacher when he raises his hand in great excitement and anticipation. 'Go ahead, Johnny', the teacher says. 'Well', Johnny says, 'it sort of reminds me of a rabbit but I bet it's Jesus'".

Capice?

So, we, evangelicals have a problem. Most of us don't have answers to the world's big issues. Poverty, (civil)war, famine, aids, environmental issues....
Bear with me, I'm just generalising and that's why it's important to realise that some of the most pro-actively involved thinkers and doers alive today are evangelicals (by the way, evangelicals claim to "just believe the bible"); Os Guinness, Ravi Zacharias, Bono, Jimmy Carter, Charles Colson...

Because we've oversimplified live we also tend to stick our heads in the sand (enjoy the view..) and end up living our lives just like any other consumer and continue to exploit the resources God made us stewards of.
I am ashamed and embarrased. I don't want to be an evangelical, if this description of an evangelical is true. I'd rather follow Jesus. But that's what evangelicals claim to do. So, I'm probably saying that I'm not much different. That's probably right.
But I choose to be different. The only problem is that there's so much to do and now I'm frustrated adn annoyed because quite often I just don't know what to do.
This week I saw a documentary on women (most of them from Eastern European countries) that are forced into prostitution. They think they are going to Europe to make money in some legit. business but become modern slaves. It is devestating. I get so mad. I want to get a machette and start chopping of dicks of all those (male) perverts and sex-adddicts. But the next day it's already alomost forgotten.
I applaud those that take action on my behalf. They get my support.

Anyway, I am an evangelical.

Not Fair

Yesterday a friend died. Today I cried. I grieve and I mourn.
Death is never fair. Death has never been part of the plan. Death is a consequence of something we did.
I never believe people who tell me that life and death is an endless cycle. But, jeeves, who wants to die and come back to this silly planet anyway?
I don't believe those who tell me to embrace the reality of death. I'd rather embrace life. The embrace to soften the pain they feel inside. They fool themselves believing they came from nowhere and they're going nowhere.
I do believe those who tell me that death isn't fair; doesn't make sense.
It doesn't make sense if the plan is perfect.
It does make sense if the plan is not perfect.
It does make sense if the plan is perfect but I am not.
That's why I love Jesus. I used to spit on him , kick him in the face, cursed him and eventually killed him.
Yet He loved me. And still does. He has done something to death. He conquered it, broke through its boundaries and claims and I believe in Him. I belive Him. He pulled me through and now I'm alive and will live forever with Him. I will be given a new body, new and perfect friends, a new earth, a new heaven. The only thing death will do is take my body. I don't mind that. Death can have my injured knee, my weak back, my headaches and migraines, my eyes. I'm gonna get new stuff and with this new stuff I will glorify my Lord and God forever and ever and ever.....