Tag Archives: jesus

How I know Jesus is God

Posted on by
Titlepage of the New Testament section of a Ge...

Titlepage of the New Testament section of a German Luther Bible, printed in 1769. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’ve said this before, but it’s well worth repeating: I have absolute faith/certainty (delete as you’d rather, I don’t want to get picked up on semantics) that Christianity is true because I’ve personally met Jesus Christ.

I spoke to him this morning.

He reminded me about one of his characteristics yesterday evening.

He enabled me to do something I’d have never been able to without his help at the weekend.

He’s not just a man who lived in Palestine 2,000 years ago, although he is that. He’s not just a concept of God that’s more logically coherent than other attempts to explain things like a sense of morality, although he’s that too. He’s alive, and I have a genuine, personal relationship with him.

He speaks to me through the Bible and through my circumstances.

He demonstrates his character to me through conversations and reminders of what he did for me when he died as my substitute meaning I can have eternal life. He’s a really nice person.

He walks my life with me by the Holy Spirit, guiding me and empowering me supernaturally.

If none of that were true I’d be a different person today than I am, but I’m not, so it all must be, and so I’m grateful.

I once was lost, but now I’m found; was blind, but now I see.

Related articles

Book Review: Days Like These by Kristian & Rachel Anderson

Posted on by

This is a chronological walk through Kristian’s cancer, in his own words. Blog posts he wrote during his struggle with cancer have been compiled into chapters with a summary section at the end of each written by his wife Rachel. It’s incredibly personal, very personal, and of course very emotional throughout.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a book like this before – written in the middle of the struggle, describing every up and down, no hiding behind cliches or spiritual catchphrases – and it’s pretty powerful. Simply by reading this informal journal we’re taken on a detailed and highly personal journey through cancer – it isn’t pretty, but it’s enlightening. I’ll definitely look at cancer differently having read this.

To be honest, I found the book quite difficult to read; firstly, the obvious subject matter, but also because it’s written as most blogs are, simply a collection of thoughts he’s having on that particular day with very little thought-through holistic storyline. That’s part of the beauty of it but I’m not entirely convinced it lends itself well to book format – it took me a long time to read it, and I read a lot. That said, the personal nature of it did genuinely draw me in to the point that I really felt like I had built a relationship with Kristian – it moved me to tears more than once.

An issue some might have with it is that he uses language every so often that some would consider offensive. I’m not sure whether this is because Australians (like Kristian) approach language differently to Brits (like me), or whether it’s simply a genuine expression of his frustration at that moment, but if that’s the sort of thing that would lose you, you’re probably not going to enjoy it.

Overall I’d certainly recommend this to anyone who is struggling with cancer, knows someone who is, or doesn’t know anything about it. Kristian’s focus invariably returned to Jesus in spite of the bad news that kept coming his way, and that attitude is something pretty much everyone could learn a lesson from.

I got this ebook for free from BookSneeze.com in exchange for an honest review.

Related articles

Book review: Gods at War by Kyle Idleman

Posted on by

This book is based around the simple concept that people are created to worship, and that the question is therefore not, ‘Do we worship?’ but ‘Who/what do we worship?’ All of us are guilty of idol worship, and Kyle Idleman deals with one idol per chapter, looking at things like money, family, job and self to ask whether they are idols in our lives, and how we ought to replace them with Jesus.

I think this book is absolutely outstanding. Kyle Idleman is encouraging, funny, challenging, biblical, Jesus-focused, and a good story teller. Reading each chapter is like savouring a richly-flavoured meal, but instead of tastebuds being hit it’s your soul being exposed for the idol worshipper you are. Each chapter is challenging and intensely practical, asking probing questions which make it easy to apply them.

It’s filled with good stories and links to more detail about them, as well as being packed with references to high quality books so reading this ought to be the start of an adventure rather than a goal in itself. There are also plenty of cheeky footnotes which made me laugh a lot; this is not some academic study in idol worship but a radically challenging and instantly applicable handbook.

If you think you need to read this book, you definitely do; it’s probably the best I’ve seen on replacing our idols with Jesus. And if you think you don’t need to the chances are that you’re in even more need of it because you’re unaware of your own idols!

I got this ebook for free from BookSneeze.com in exchange for an honest review.

Related articles

How can I get close to God?

Posted on by
Yes, I'm a happy child.

Yes, I’m a happy child. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A question that comes up a lot for Christians is: How can I get closer to God? At times he can feel distant, silent and difficult to understand. I think the answer might be easier than it seems.

I’ve been a Daddy for almost one full year now and the times that I’ve felt best as a Dad have been when (a) my little boy is upset and I make him happy, and (b) when he’s having a good time and I make him laugh.

As a Christian I’ve been adopted into God’s family; he’s my Daddy, and I don’t think anything makes him happier than when (a) I’m upset and go to him so he can make me happy, or (b) I’m happy and go to him to be grateful and increase my joy.

This might be too simplistic but asking ‘How can I get close to God?’ is a bit of a non-question; we don’t need to get close to him because he is close to us. And he loves us to turn toward him; it isn’t a case of ticking the right boxes, working harder, reading the Bible more, praying more…it’s just about looking to him.

Related articles

Book review: Draw the Circle by Mark Batterson

Posted on by

Leading on from Mark Batterson’s book The Circle Maker, this is a 40-day devotional-style book. In each of the 40 chapters there’s a Bible verse or passage, a true inspiring story of someone who prayed, and an application point for the day. The chapters are short and readable, and are well-suited to the design of the book.

There were things that I liked about this book – its incredibly well-written, and each chapter is clearly thought through. The application points from each chapter are challenging and Bible-based.

But, unfortunately, I wanted to love this book a bit more than I did. I haven’t read The Circle Maker so don’t know if it’s explained in there, but even after having read this I still have no idea what Batterson means by ‘circling’. In the book it seems like at times it means taking a pen and drawing a ring around a particular Bible verse (e.g. ‘circling 2 Corinthians 7:14′), at others it means praying over a particular location while walking around it (e.g. ‘circling the living room’), and at others just praying about something (e.g. ‘circling a job interview’). Apart from being confusing this means that it lost its meaning, like when the author took Jesus’ command to ‘keep asking, keep seeking, keep knocking,’ and added ‘keep circling’ – what does that even mean?!

Something else that frustrated me was that the overall tone of the book made it seem like this guy just had everything in his life sorted now that he’d got ‘circling’ sorted out. There was quite a lot of things like ‘when I hit trouble I just circle it in prayer, trust in God, and continue in life with a smile on my face’ – not something I find useful.

The referencing also got on my nerves – some stories weren’t referenced at all (I’d never heard of Honi until this book talked about him in passing and I had to research him to understand it!), and the others had footnotes in really odd places, which for me broke up some excellent quotes unnecessarily.

Finally, although the book starts by saying that the purpose of circling stuff in prayer is more to learn God’s will rather than to get what we want, there was a bit too much talk about ‘you can get your dream through prayer’ which, again, I didn’t find useful.

Now, although this book did end up annoying me I still want to recommend it – the action points for each day are genuinely good, and if reading it is going to increase the amount of regular prayer (I can’t see why it wouldn’t), that can’t be a bad thing.

I got this book for free from booksneeze.com in exchange for an honest review.

Related articles

What we mean when we say ‘Christ’

Posted on by

Each Wednesday I’m looking at what I posted exactly one year ago. On 6 March 2012 I had a look at Jesus’ title ‘Christ’.

—

English: Resurrection of Christ

English: Resurrection of Christ (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When we say ‘Jesus Christ’, we know exactly who we mean: Jesus of Nazareth, the carpenter’s son. But do we actually realise how significant that title is?

Obviously ‘Jesus Christ’ wasn’t Jesus’ actual name; most Christians know that ‘Christ’ is the Greek version of the Hebrew title ‘Messiah’, and that it means ‘Anointed One’, and that Jesus fulfilled all the messianic prophecies, blah blah blah, but – just think about it…

21st Century Jews are still waiting for Messiah to come, in a similar way to the Jews in the 1st Century. Back then they’d been waiting for a couple of thousand years too. Then this ugly, homeless guy born to a single teenage girl showed up, and literally within one generation thousands and thousands of people claimed that that guy from Nazareth was the Messiah.

If you’re not too sure, just imagine something with me. In Acts 2, 3,000 Jews are recorded as having believed in Jesus as Messiah, all in one day – and all at a time thousands of years before trains, telephones, or Twitter.

Do we actually realise how significant this is? Imagine if tomorrow’s newspapers reported 3,000 Jews in one town all at once saying that they were remaining orthodox Jews but that God had been born a man and had fulfilled all the messianic prophecies.

Jesus was far more extraordinary than we give him credit for.

You can read the original post here.

Related articles

How we can learn from the Scottish Cardinal

Posted on by
Cardinal Keith O'Brien

Cardinal Keith O’Brien (Photo credit: Catholic Church (England and Wales))

In case you missed it, the Roman Catholic Church is in a bit of a pickle. After all of the stories involving the words Vatican, child, sex, abuse and cover-up had been and gone, I’m sure we all thought that this was an unpleasant chapter we could say goodbye to after a brief yet thorough investigation, but that was not to be.

Three priests plus an ex-priest then just had to claim that there had been more goings-on with the most senior member of the RC church in the UK, to be joined by another after the fact. That’s right, Cardinal O’Brien, the guy who was so vocal at speaking out against homosexuality that he won Stonewall’s prize of ‘Bigot of the Year’ (and they think that everyone’s bigoted, so that says something).

He was planning on retiring anyway, but after having taken advice from the Pope (at the time) he stepped down immediately to allow the world to not be distracted by him, and denied everything.

And it now turns out that, actually, he shouldn’t have denied everything, because the claims were true.

Bad news for Roman Catholicism. Again.

And probably the most confusing part of all of this is the double life he’s lived: publicly condemning homosexuality, while privately being tempted by it; he’s certainly not the first.

Of course, people like Stonewall are screaming about it because that’s what they do, but how about we take the opportunity to examine ourselves? Who can genuinely say that their lives have been lives of integrity in public and in private to the point that we’ve never done something we’d have disapproved of publicly?

To put it in Jesus’ words: ‘Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.’ (John 8:7) The answer is that none of us are without sin, even when we judge sin by our own judgments and not God’s.

Let’s not use this story to judge Keith o’Brien, or the Roman Catholic Church, or homosexuality, or religion in general. Let’s use it to remind ourselves that we are condemned based on the courthouse in our heads, let alone the heavenly courthouse judged by the perfect, infinite, holy and powerful King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And let’s remember that we can be confident that we are judged not guilty in Christ alone by grace alone.

Related articles

What’s so important about the springs?

Posted on by
Negev Desert Acacia Trees

Negev Desert Acacia Trees (Photo credit: Stellas mom)

I’m currently reading the Bible through from cover to cover. One fun thing about that is discovering random bits which are easy to miss out otherwise. Take Joshua 15 for example.

We’re in the middle of a long description of what geographic area each tribe of Israel was allocated, when this happens:

…Caleb said, “Whoever strikes Kiriath-sepher and captures it, to him will I give Achsah my daughter as wife.” And Othniel the son of Kenaz, the brother of Caleb, captured it. And he gave him Achsah his daughter as wife. When she came to him, she urged him to ask her father for a field. And she got off her donkey, and Caleb said to her, “What do you want?” She said to him, “Give me a blessing. Since you have given me the land of the Negeb, give me also springs of water.” And he gave her the upper springs and the lower springs. (Joshua 15:16-19)

…then it goes straight back into the land allocation. As it’s so easy and convenient to do so, I asked my good friend Matthew Henry what he thought about it:

From this story we learn, 1. That it is no breach of the tenth commandment moderately to desire those comforts and conveniences of this life which we see attainable in a fair and regular way. 2. That husbands and wives should mutually advise, and jointly agree, about that which is for the common good of their family and much more should they concur in asking of their heavenly Father the best blessings, those of the upper springs. 3. That parents must never think that lost which is bestowed upon their children for their real advantage, but must be free in giving them portions as well as maintenance, especially when they are dutiful. Caleb had sons (1 Chronicles 4:15), and yet gave thus liberally to his daughter. Those parents forget themselves and their relation who grudge their children what is convenient for them when they can conveniently part with it.

I’d probably add something else to his wisdom. God gives grace upon grace to us. I’ll first break down the story into chunks, then show how I’d apply it:

  1. Caleb offers a reward for completing a task.
  2. Othniel completes the task, gets the reward, yet ultimately asks for more (apparently Kiriath-sepher was in a really dry place).
  3. Caleb goes further than requested, and gives more than requested.

I think you know where this is going. It’s all about Jesus:

  1. God offers the free gift of eternal life to all who put their faith in Jesus Christ.
  2. Even after having received the ‘reward’ of salvation by grace, we still go back to God in prayer, asking him to give us more gifts (apparently some people find the Christian life a bit hard – I suppose that makes sense, seeing as Jesus promised we would).
  3. God blesses us in more ways than we can ever realise.
Related articles

A different church sermon by Rowan Atkinson

Posted on by

I’m not sure whether this is absolute genius or just blasphemy, but I enjoyed (most of) Rowan Atkinson’ alternative reading of the Gospel of John (start at 0:45ish):

Of course, I couldn’t get away with just this on its own, so a couple of thoughts off the back of it:

  • I think his presentation of this guys in the kitchen is probably the most historically accurate retelling of this story I’ve ever heard.
  • The idea of Jerusalem being the biggest stage of them all is a bit weird – Jesus went there because of Old Testament prophecies rather than to get his message out there, otherwise he’d surely have gone to Rome.
  • Laughing at the final line (‘they absolutely crucified him’) is a bit weird really. I know it’s part of a comedy evening so when you’re in that mood it’d be hard not to, but that’s pretty much as funny as the sick jokes about the Holocaust, Diana’s death and 9/11. I have a feeling that a similar sketch of a Muslim cleric making jokes about Muhammad’s 9 year-old wife wouldn’t be allowed in that situation.
Related articles

When people become a commodity

Posted on by
Children gathering potatoes on a large farm, v...

Children gathering potatoes on a large farm, vicinity of Caribou, Aroostook County, Me. Schools do not open until the potatoes are harvested. (LOC) (Photo credit: The Library of Congress)

Not too much to say today, but I read this article a couple of weeks back which definitely got me thinking. Do go and read it, but here’s the main points extracted for your skimming pleasure:

It has often been observed that many of those campaigning most strongly for “gay rights” (not least in the area of adoption) are also those who are campaigning for “reproductive rights”, i.e. the right to abort. It seems to me there’s a basic disconnect here: on the one hand the push for adoption is couched in the language of providing loving parents for unwanted children; on the other hand the push for abortion is all about the disposal of unwanted children.

A good point, and a good question to think about: what should we do with unwanted children? Allow them to be adopted into a loving, stable environment (whether by gay or straight parents), or kill them before they’re born?

I suspect, therefore, there’s a more basic common motivation that influences the push towards both abortion and gay adoption—that of the increasing perception of children as commodity. When the children are ‘wanted’ then who dare stand in the way of a prospective parent, homosexual or otherwise? When the children are ‘unwanted’ then who dare stand in the way of the soon-to-be-non-parent? Either way, it is the desire of the adult that is the driving motivation to which we are told we must conform, not the needs of the child.

That’s hit the nail right on the head. At the root of a desire to make abortion easily accessible and allow what’s known as ‘gay rights’ is not the caring push for human rights it’s so often presented as. It’s a way of saying ‘I deserve to have everything my way, regardless of who gets hurt in the meantime.’

Thankfully, the article doesn’t finish there.

Into this calamity Jesus still walks, the one who came to serve, not to be served. He laid down his life for others, not least for his own bride. He bade little children come unto him when others pushed them away as being less important. He affirmed that “in the beginning God made them male and female”—indeed Jesus made them male and female in the first place. And, of course, he went to those of his own day who had messed this all up so much with their own sin and who suffered from others’ sin—prostitutes, a socially outcast woman at a well, sinners—and offered them mercy.

And here’s the challenge to Christians:

Let’s not give up on this issue of marriage and children. Keep speaking, thinking, praying, engaging out of love for the nations we live in, because we want the very best for the people around us who cannot tell their right hand from their left. Let’s not give up on speaking the gospel rather than mere moralism. As we do so, we’ll be pushing our culture towards not only recognizing and diagnosing the problems we face (problems far more profound than who we allow to marry), but also holding out the solution—the forgiveness and fresh start that Jesus brings.

I’d recommend the whole thing.

 

Related articles