You only live once

Man thinking on a train journey. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It’s a bit of a depressing thought, but have you ever had that moment where you think, ‘one day I’m going to [insert dream here],’ only to realise that you’ve had that same thought every year since you can remember, and that your available time is only getting shorter and shorter?

So I’ve never visited the pyramids in Egypt. I’ve wanted to since I was about 10 years old, and always thought as a kid that I’d do it when I grew up. As a student I figured I’d do it once I got a job and could afford it. Once I got a job I figured I’d do it on my next holiday. Then I got married, and got caught up in visiting family and doing husband-wife stuff, and now I’ve got a kid, who sort of restricts the ability to travel a long way.

But I still want to go, and every so often catch myself thinking, ‘I’ll do that one day.’

So I wonder…what do you have that you’ve said you’ll always do but haven’t yet? What’s your excuse?

Good news:

1. Nothing matters except for Jesus; the very best of this earth won’t even be comparable with the very worst of a perfect eternity with him.
2. Christians will have the rest of eternity to do all that stuff we don’t manage to get round to in this life; we won’t spend eternity playing harps on clouds but living on the new, redeemed earth.

Evidences of grace

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Here’s a concerning (but perfectly normal) thought progression that I had the other day. To give a bit of context I’d just read that bit in the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus says that even some who address him as Lord will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Who does he say will make it in? ‘The one who does the will of my Father’. Here’s my train of thought:

I want to make sure that I allow the Bible to change me rather than twisting the words of the Bible, but Jesus simply says that I won’t get into the kingdom unless I do the will of the Father. How, then, do I know I’ve been saved when I’m so aware of the fact that I don’t do his will?

I could use a whole host of Bible verses to make me feel better (like John 3:16 and Romans 10:9 for a start), but that would just leave me feeling that I’d twisted the words of the Bible! Have I actually been saved?

I wrestled with this for quite a while, remembering Bible verses that said ‘by grace you have been saved’, then remembering others that said ‘unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees you will never enter the kingdom of heaven’. I realised that although I knew the gospel in my head, I had temporarily lost that heart knowledge – will Jesus disown me because of my disobedience?

But as I was thinking these things, something ridiculously small and silly happened. I got a free breakfast. If anyone’s been saved by the free gift of scrambled eggs, this was it! In this tiny action I saw a tiny evidence of grace, and almost burst out crying! I was so acutely aware of my sinful nature, so completely convinced of my total depravity, that this tiny evidence of grace was sufficient to prove to me that, yes, his grace is sufficient!

There is absolutely no way that I would receive a free breakfast if my salvation were not secure. If grace to all is true, then grace to the elect must also be true, and true for me because I believe!

I believe!

If you pray one prayer today, let it be Psalm 51:12

Restore to me the joy of your salvation.

Baptism: necessary for salvation?

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Every so often this question comes up: I’m a Christian; do I have to get baptised to be saved? I recently read a good summary of this by Max Lucado:

Would you be comfortable marrying someone who wanted to keep the marriage a secret? Neither does God.

Christianity is a relationship with God, and baptism is the public act stating that you’ve entered that relationship. Why wouldn’t you want to do that?

As far as we know, every single convert in the New Testament church was baptised. With the exception of the thief on the cross, there is no example of an unbaptised believer.

The thief on the cross, however, is a crucial exception. His conversion drives dogmatists crazy. It is no accident that the first one to accept the invitation of the crucified Christ had no creed, confirmation, christening, or catechism…Here is a man who never went to church, never gave an offering, never was baptised, and only said one prayer, but that prayer was enough (Luke 23:33-43).

And here’s the best bit (emphasis added by me):

The thief reminds us that, in the end, it is Jesus who saves. Does the thief’s story negate the importance of baptism? No, it simply puts baptism in proper perspective. Any step taken is a response to a salvation offered, not an effort to earn salvation.

So here’s the deal. Baptism is not an act which is necessary for salvation; Jesus saves whoever he wants to, regardless of what they’ve done or haven’t done. I’m sure some are saved who are not baptised, and I’m sure some are baptised who are not saved.

But baptism is a necessary act. Baptism is evidence that you are saved – Jesus commanded it, so let’s obey him!

The good news is bad news

The good news (gospel) of Christianity is that God fully dealt with our sin through Christ’s substitutionary death and resurrection. The problem is that today’s society doesn’t believe in even the concept of sin. Here’s how Peter Kreeft put it:

In the past, the difficulty in accepting Christianity was its second point, salvation. Everyone in pre-modern societies knew sin was real, but many doubted salvation. Today it is the exact oppositie: everybody is saved, but there is no sin to be saved from. Thus what originally came into the world as “good news” strikes the modern mind as bad news, as guilt-ridden, moralistic and “judgmental”. For the modern mind is no longer “convinced of sin, of righteousness and of judgment” (John 16:8). Yet the bad news is the only part of Christianity that is empirically verifiable, just by reading the newspapers.

Disciples vs. converts

One challenge in the church today is the process of turning converts into disciples, but when you search the Scriptures this becomes confusing. When John Piper was asked about this recently he said simply that the Bible only really talks about disciples, and he’s right.

The problem is that the church has become so focussed on the event of conversion that the very idea of discipleship has become like an optional add-on which serious Christians can go for if they want. But looking at the way the New Testament speaks, it could easily be said that the only true converts are disciples.

Keith J. Matthews wrote a paper, The Transformational Process, and he compared the effects of biblical discipleship to the modern Western ‘salvation experience’. I won’t reproduce it all here but here are the key messages:

• we don’t understand the full historical context of the gospel whereas New Testament disciples were taught from Old Testament Scriptures
• the individual is now more important than community rather than community being the ultimate goal of discipleship
• we don’t want to be submissive to anyone rather than willingly following authoritative teachers
• we create our own interpretations of Scripture rather than being taught
• we prefer quick, simplistic answers over long wrestles with Bible texts
• there’s now widespread biblical illiteracy rather than memorised Scriptures
• we break our lives into work, home, and church rather than living holistic lives
• more women are discipled today whereas the Bible shows that discipling strong men draws in the wider community

The two ideas have ended up being fundamentally opposed to one another. I think we need to rethink our presentation of the gospel to not only include but be integrated with the concept of discipleship, rather than focussing on raised hands to a gospel presentation.

Fame & the gospel

Two big stories in the world of entertainment right now:
1. Tiger Woods (need I say more?)
2. Joe McElderry (need I say more?)

Tiger and Joe are both lovely guys. Any normal person would say that both ‘deserve’ their fame: ‘ooh Joe, no-one deserves this more than you!’ Cheryl Cole last night welcomed Joe into the world of fame and celebrity, where Tiger has lived for a while now. It’s Joe’s dream come true.
But Tiger seems not to think so. He’s richer than almost anyone, has a great house, cars, a beautiful wife, kids, success…and he still needed more. Nothing satisfied enough.
I’m really happy Joe won The X-Factor, what a lovely guy, but I really don’t want him to fall into Satan’s lie that fame is the dream come true – fame is just another evidence of God’s grace that will ultimately disappoint and leave you thirsty for more…without Jesus. Jesus is the living water, and with him you’ll never thirst again.
I pray for Joe McElderry. I pray for Tiger Woods. Neither deserves it, but I don’t deserve Jesus’ sacrifice in my place, so I will pray – join with me!