To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

The world was robbed of a wonderful human being when this man was assasinated, however he was not robbed of life as he is with the Lord.

Failure
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Adam trudged past the gates of Eden, his head low, his feet heavy with remorse and pain.

Then he stopped, spun around and exclaimed, "Wait a minute! You had this all planned! You put that fruit there knowing I would eat from it! This is all a plot!"

There was no reply.

Without failure, Man can never truly reach into the depths of his soul. Only once he has failed, can he return and reach higher and higher without end. Beyond Eden.





A Daily Dose of Wisdom from the Rebbe
-words and condensation by Tzvi Freeman
Tishrei 4, 5768 * September 16, 2007

The quote above comes from www.chabad.org

I am not sure I agree entirely with this, but it did provoke some thought!

Firstly let me say, I am not sure that it is accurate to say that "this is all a plot" - I say this with great caution as we serve an omniscient God who knew all things from the beginning. My objection is merely that this seems to lay the blame for the "fall" at God's feet.

Nevertheless, this is what I do agree with - all of us have experienced failure of one sort or another in our lives. We can let that God can turn our failures around if we let him, and it is through our failures more often than our successes that we grow and progress. That may sound contradictory - progress through failure raher thqan success, but it is true. The thing is, when we fail, it does alter our route, and we may take a bit longer to get to where we headed, but sometimes, when we take a detour, we discover things that we would have missed, if we hadn't taken the detour.

Obviously, we do not fail on purpose, but we must face the fact that at some point we will meet with failure, and in those instances, instead of giving up, we should realise that we have detour to take, and ENJOY he ride.

Please let me know what you think of this.

John

Today is the last day of the Jewish year, or, it is the first day of the New Jewish Year, depending on what time you actually read this.

Rosh Hashana begins at Sunset today.

Rosh hashana means - The Head of the Year.

I am rather tied up and busy at this time, so cannot do my usual essay - but I wish all my Jewish readers, L'shana Tova (A good year.)

I discovered that part of the traditional meal on Rosh Hashana is the head of a fish. I immediately thought - "Um. pass!" If I had to eat the head of a fish, I'd choose to eat a sardine or a kapenta!

Part of the custom at Rosh Hashana is to go near a body of water that contains fish and recite the following:

Who is like You, God, who removes iniquity and overlooks transgression of the remainder of His inheritance. He doesn't remain angry forever because He desires kindness. He will return and He will be merciful to us, and He will conquer our iniquities, and He will cast them into the depths of the seas.
Give truth to Jacob, kindness to Abraham like that you swore to our ancestors from long ago.
From the straits I called upon God, God answered me with expansiveness. God is with me, I will not be afraid, what can man do to me? God is with me to help me, and I will see my foes (annihilated). It is better to take refuge in God than to trust in man. It is better to take refuge in God, that to rely on nobles.

I got this information from: http://www.aish.com/hhrosh/hhroshdefault/ABCs_of_Rosh_Hashana.asp

BREAD

And He afflicted you and let you go hungry, and then fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your forefathers know, so that He would make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but rather by, whatever comes forth from the mouth of the Lord does man live.

These words were read in Synagogues this week all around the world. It was part of their reading from the Torah, and the words quoted above were taken from a Jewish website, http://www.chabad.org/. I mention this, only to point out what drew my attention to these verses, on this occasion.

The New American Standard Bible puts it like this:

"He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD. Deuteronomy 8:3(Source http://www.searchgodsword.org/)

Satan Challenged Jesus
After Jesus was baptised in the River Jordan by his cousin, John, he was lead by the Holy Spirit, into the wilderness. He was there for 40 days. He did not eat during this time, and at a certain time, Satan came to him, and tempted him.

“If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread.” And Jesus answered him saying, “It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word of God.”

Satan went on and twice more tempted Jesus to put his own needs above those of His heavenly Father. Twice more, Jesus rebuffed the temptation, by quoting Scripture; however my focus this time is on the “first temptation.”

Firstly let us think a bit about the nature of that temptation. There was nothing wrong with supernaturally making bread – Jesus did this on two occasions, when he fed the 5000 and the 4000. Jesus’ very first miracle was to turn water into wine, at the wedding in Cana, and so we know that Jesus was most certainly not incapable of turning the stones into bread. Also, Satan was goading Jesus, saying “If you are the Son of God…” in effect, he was saying “Go on, prove it. If you really are the Son of God, prove it by turning these stones into bread.”

Satan wanted Jesus to draw attention to himself, and turning stones into bread would have made an instant celebrity out of Jesus. People would have put him up on a pedestal, and may have even worshipped him as the Messiah, but he knew that that would have interfered with the “plan of action” which was to train twelve disciples, and teach them during a period of three years, and then to die on the cross for our sins. In effect, Satan wanted Jesus to take a shortcut, bypassing Golgotha and the tomb, and proceed straight to the throne.

What shortcuts is Satan tempting you to take?

Jesus’ Answer

“It is written…”
As I said already these words are a direct quote from Scripture. Our Lord, who is Himself, God, chose to respond to temptation by quoting the Bible. We can learn that this strategy is the most effective, when we are tempted to do wrong, or to rely on our own strength when we should be depending on God.

“Man shall not live by bread alone…”
Bread in this context is not literally bread, in the sense of a single type of food. We all know that from the purely physical standpoint, this statement is true too, since we need the “balanced diet” comprising dairy, meat, cereals, fruit & vegetables (5 a day), water, various supplements, etc. However we know that Jesus was not speaking about physical sustenance here, but the feeding of our whole being. In this sense, we need a ‘balanced diet” paying attention not only to our physical needs of food, shelter and warmth, but to our spiritual need to be in relationship with our Almighty, and yet personal friend, the Lord God.

From a completely physical perspective, one can survive without relationships, but it doesn’t take a psychologist to tell you that everybody needs a friend, preferably a number of friends. However, you may be the most popular person in town, but if you do not know God, you are not having a balanced diet – and the effect will at some point, catch up with you.

“But by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”
Speaking of a balanced diet, one can have an unbalanced diet, with regard to hearing or reading God’s word too. How is that? I hear you ask? Surely anything you read of God’s Word is good for you? It is, but you need to read ALL of God’s word and not only stick to your favourite verses. You need to read from both the New and the Old Testament, from the Prophets and the Pentateuch, From the Evangelists and the Epistles.

As with a physical diet, your diet of God’s word is not only about WHAT you eat (read or hear) but how you eat, the when and the how matter. Imagine a person deciding that they are too busy to keep sitting down to eat, and so they decide that at the beginning of the week they will have one major meal that they consume at one sitting. It is such a large meal that they take two to three hours to work through their 7 course meal. It perfectly balanced diet in the sense of having a correct balance of the various nutrients, and taken over a week, it is a reasonable quantity of food. However, any doctor can tell you that this person is in danger of killing themselves. Their bodies would not cope with all that food, and most of it would pass out of their system as waste. Directly after the meal, they would probably say, I could quite happily never look at another meal, but by the next day, their body would be craving more food and by Thursday, they will be listless, lacking energy and probably sick. Yes this is completely ridiculous, and nobody would think of operating in this way, and yet, when it comes to God’s Word, a number of people will try to survive on one or perhaps two meals in the week. How ridiculous is that?

As with our physical body, our spirits/souls need exercise too. If we eat a very balanced diet, but never exercise, or exercise too seldom, we do not burn up the energy that that food puts into our system and we become overweight, and our organs take strain. In order to be fit, we need to eat the right food, at the right time, and exercise too. The more we exercise, the stronger we become. James says “faith, without works, is dead.” (James 2:14) We may know our Bible thoroughly, but if we do not put that knowledge into practice, the knowledge itself is useless, and we remain, spiritually dead. No – we need to apply what we learn through reading or hearing God’s Word in our lives by our conduct. As it says in Philippians, we must work out our Salvation, “with fear and trembling.” (Phil. 2:12.) This does not mean we have to work to be saved – we cannot, but it means that having been saved, we live accordingly.

How balanced is your diet? Are you exercising sufficiently?

Not a major sermon this time, just a thought that came out of a Scripture I read today.

The text: 1 Chronicles 17 + 18

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=14&chapter=17&version=72

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=14&chapter=18&version=72

Asa was a worldly king of Judah. The Bible says that he refused to rely on the Lord, either in battle or in his illness. Instead he relied on dodgy alliances in battle, and physicians in his illness. He died and his son, Jehoshaphat, became king. It seems Jehoshaphat took a different path, because he decided to follow God and not “the practices of Israel” – referring to the rebellious and idolatrous tribes that defected from the kingdom and started their own nation. Jehoshaphat followed God, and God prospered him. We read that he sent officials throughout the land to each town and village and the Levites and the Priests taught the people the Law of God – i.e. God’s word. He actively chose to turn his people back to God so that they could be HIS (God’s) people. Remember that under the 41 year reign of his father, the people had turned to idolatry and false religion, and now, they needed an emergency intervention in order to get them back on track.

In South Africa, where crime is getting out of hand, they speak of the “moral regeneration” that needs to take place. They want people to become good, responsible citizens who seek to be law abiding. This is a laudable objective, but frankly, unless people’s hearts are transformed by the washing of the Word of God” it is a futile task. Even the leaders of the ‘moral regeneration” are being exposed in their immorality. If there is to be true moral regeneration, it will take a sovereign move of God and there needs to be a REVIVAL. When you look at historic revivals that have taken place, the enhancement of moral values has followed as a natural consequence.

Thus far, we can only say to Jehoshaphat – “You did good!” but then we come to Chapter 18 and he blew it. He allied himself to the king of Israel, Ahab at that time, through marriage. He went to visit his new in-laws, and to become better acquainted. Ahab threw a party in Jehoshaphat’s honour.

“Hey, Jehoshaphat, we’ve had such a good time, why not join me and we’ll go and wipe out against those “pesky” guys from Ramoth Gilead. With our combined armies, those lads don’t have a chance.” (Forgive the “poetic licence” of putting words into their mouths.)

Jehoshaphat was in a catch-22. He knew that this was not a good plan, and yet having made an alliance with Ahab, he could not now turn round and say – “No way José”, so instead he said, in effect, “Hang on my friend, you can’t just go into battle at the drop of a hat, you have to follow the right protocol. Have you consulted with the prophets to hear what God has to say? “

So Ahab calls his prophets. A whole stack of them arrived and they all said what Ahab wanted to hear them say – “Go ahead. God’s on your side.” problem was, they were all lying, and Jehoshaphat knew it.

But Jehoshaphat asked, "Is there no longer a prophet of the LORD here whom we can inquire of?" (2 Chron. 18:6)

This is really classic. 400 guys have all just about said the same thing. “Go into battle and you will win.” but Jehoshaphat speaks as if they could not find a prophet. Fact was, they couldn’t or would not. Not one who spoke the truth, anyway.

Eventually Ahab admits there is one prophet who they have not yet consulted, Micaiah. Ahab didn’t want to see this guy. He hated him because Micaiah was no YES-MAN. He told it as it was, and it did not sound good in Ahab’s ears. But reluctantly, he had him brought to the palace. The messenger tried to give Micaiah a heads-up on the situation, and said, “Listen 400 hundred prophets have already told the king that he should go up to fight against Ramoth Gilead. You say the same thing or you going to look mighty stupid, and besides you don’t really want to upset old man.”

Micaiah, goes in and says, “Attack and be victorious for they will be given into your hand.”
Ahab is stunned, and asks, “Are you being serious, did God really say that?
Micaiah was glad to be challenged and said, “No, in fact, the truth is, all 400 of these prophets have been lying to you. The truth is that if you go into battle, you will not come out alive.”

Ahab really got mad and said that he would not take any notice of Micaiah and would go into battle anyway. After all, how could 400 prophets of God be wrong? He ordered that Micaiah be put in prison until they come back from battle. (He had not been listening.) He obviously thought he would come back and then deal with this nuisance. Micaiah reminded him that he was not going to be coming back but Ahab said in his heart, “I have a cunning plan!”

When Micaiah had been dragged away, Ahab persuaded Jehoshaphat to go up in battle with him against Ramoth Gilead, and in effect said, “Take no notice of that man. You’ve heard from 400 prophets that God is going to give us victory. Obviously Micaiah was just being otherwise. But it doesn’t hurt to take some precaution, you go as king, and take charge, I will be there, but disguised as one of the soldiers.”

It turned out that the people from Ramoth Gilead were gunning for Ahab. The king had told his forces to not worry about any of the others nut to be sure that they got Ahab. Seeing the Royal robes on Jehoshaphat the soldiers thought he was their man, but by God’s grace, he managed to prove that he was not the one they were after, and the soldiers, frustrated, decided to return, but one of the soldiers, out of frustration and disappointment, I suppose, let one of his arrows fly, not aiming it at anyone in particular. The arrow lodged itself into, you guessed it, Ahab. By now the fight was on and they fought all day. Ahab, now wounded, watched the battle, and watched as the Gileadites made mincemeat of the Israel forces. As the sun set and what remained of the armies returned to their barracks, Ahab succumbed to his wounds and died.

I suppose that Ahab thought his main problem was with humans, who could be deceived and confused by a mere disguise, but he was up against the living God, who knew exactly where Ahab was, and guided that arrow to exactly the right spot.

Are you tempted to think that you can outsmart God? Go to church, say the right things, be nice, etc, etc? If it is all on the surface, if all it is, is mouthing the right things, it will not help you in the least. Jesus warned the disciples that in the end, many will come to Him saying, “Lord, Lord,” but He will turn round and tell them to go away because he does not know them. Obedience is better than sacrifice. Obedience, regardless of how inconvenient or uncomfortable it is, is better than some over-the-top religious act that has no real substance to it.

Hi,

I promised one more instalment on Samson. That was about two weeks ago. A lot of water has gone under the bridge since then.

Ø My Parents returned from their four month excursion overseas,
Ø I have completed four assignments for my university studies and got them in by due date.
Ø I went on a Church camp – a completely unexpected thing.
Ø We had a party to celebrate my parents’ Golden Wedding.
Now for a short while, I can sit down and write another blog, and it is my intention to write about Samson again.

First, let me summarise what I have said so far.

In the first blog, I wrote how I was surprised that Samson could have got himself into the predicament that he was in. It wasn’t like the signs weren’t there. He couldn’t exactly claim that he was drunk. It makes me think of the movie “Eyes wide shut.” – only because the name suggests what was happening with Samson. Samson was so smitten with Delilah, that he lost perspective on his life’s calling.

What was Samson’s calling? Well that was the topic of my second blog – The story of Samson’s mother’s pregnancy and God’s calling on his life, from the very get-go. An angel appeared to Samson’s mother – she was a barren woman at that time and promised that she would indeed conceive and give birth to a boy. The angel told her that he was not to have any alcoholic drink, and not to have contact with any unclean thing (like, for example corpses) and not to cut his hair, and that he was to be a Nazirite from birth, which means he was to be set apart to God, and that he would begin the deliverance of Israel from the hands of the Philistines.

What a wonderful start. I can only imagine that as little Samson grew, his mother would tell him that he had a very special work that God wanted him to do. Being their only son, (At least for a while, as Judges 16:31 says: “Then his (Samson’s) brothers and his father’s whole family went own to get him) he would have been their “pride and joy.” Maybe when he had his Bar mitzvah, they would have told him what the angel had said to them about bringing deliverance to Israel. No doubt, he would have become aware as he grew, that he was not like the other children. For one thing, he was a lot stronger than they were. Clearly by the time he was an adult, he knew full well what his calling was. But a lesson we get from Samson, is, I think, just because a person knows what he or she is called to does not necessarily mean that they will do it. In Samson’s case, he did end up doing what he was called to do, but in the process he brought destruction on his own head too. How might it have been different if Samson had not consorted with the enemy?

Another lesson is that the enemy is not necessarily horrible to look at. Being a teacher, I occasionally set tests. I also have to write tests. One way that we are tested is by the multiple choice type questions, where you have to select the correct answer from a set of “possible answers.” When doing such a test you always have to be careful of the “distracter” – that is the answer that looks like it could be right, but isn’t. Samson, I’m afraid selected the wrong answer when he selected Delilah. It didn’t seem to matter to him at all that she was a Philistine.

I say that, but reading Judges 14 about Samson’s marriage to the Philistine woman (not Delilah) and the whole story about the riddle, it says in verse 4, that “this was from the Lord” referring to his marriage to the Philistine woman. His parents were very unhappy about their son’s choice of a bride (vs. 3), and especially that he was marrying a woman from the very tribe that was dominating and persecuting the Israelites. This was worse than merely marrying a non-Israelite, but actually to marry a Philistine was would have been regarded as treason. I have had this discussion with many a brother and sister in the Lord, about marrying a person of a different ethnicity, and whether the Old Testament injunctions against it should mean that Christians, at least, should not do so. My feeling is that the only injunction in this regard that applies to Christians is the one given in 2 Corinthians 6:14 that says: “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?” This applies to marriage, but I think it also has a wider application, in that I think that Christians should avoid becoming overly involved with non believers, whether in the social context, or in the business context. Also my pastor was preaching on Sunday about the concept of yoking in the context of Matthew 11:29, where Jesus said “take my yoke upon you and learn from me.” In those days, a Rabbi would call certain young men to be their “disciples” – in essence, their apprentices – and they would stay with the rabbi, as Jesus disciples stayed with Him, and it was said that the young men were yoked to the rabbi. This came from the practice of yoking experienced oxen with less experienced oxen in order for the experienced ox to teach the inexperienced one. Perhaps the verse in 2 Corinthians refers to becoming yoked to a non-believing teacher (in addition to the marriage thing.) In other words, we need to be careful who we learn from, and we ought not to accept just any counsel from anyone, but we need to be aware of their fundamental beliefs, realising that by “becoming yoked to them” we are subject to their influence and that might be to our own detriment. In today’s context, we should be careful about the psychologist/psychiatrist that we or our children consult. However I digress. As far as marriage is concerned – I do not believe that God forbids inter-racial marriage, provided the couple have a common outlook in matters regarding faith.

All marriages have stresses and strains, but inter-cultural marriages have the added stress of divergent backgrounds, and sometimes disapproving families. However I know of a number of culturally-mixed (and inter-racial) couples, who are very happily married and have risen above these things to have exemplary relationships. The important thing is that couples are united in terms of their love for one another and their outlook on matters of faith. Although quite often people of differing religious perspectives do get married, more often than not this difference puts a major strain on the relationship.

Let me know what you think.
John

Samson destroys the Temple killing many Philistines in the process.

Picture found at: http://biblia.com/jesusm/samson2.htm

Samson's Purpose

Just as God had a specific purpose for Samson’s life, he has great plans for our lives to and we have been set aside for a specific purpose. (Jer. 29:11)

Samson’s downfall was not sudden, and he didn’t see it coming – even though reading the story now, one wonders how he could not have seen it coming. However let us not be too hard on the guy. Sometimes we behave inappropriately, thinking we have the situation under control and that we “know what we are doing. We disregard the advice of well meaning brothers or sisters in the Lord, and get further and further into trouble and all of a sudden we realise we are not in control, and that this thing has got control of us. Just as the Philistines eventually got control of Samson. I think that Samson began to believe that all this strength was his own, but he forgot it was only be the enabling of the Holy Spirit, that he had the strength he had. However he began to use it in ways that were not godly, and one day, when he needed it most, his strength left him, because God had left him.

We need to be particularly aware of our weaknesses. A weakness in this sense is the area in which we are most susceptible to temptation. The truth is, we all have Achilles’ heels, areas that are more susceptible to temptation. By becoming aware of this area, we can go to other brothers or sisters in Christ and make ourselves accountable to them. This is a difficult step to take, because we like people to believe we have it all together. The reality may be different. I’m not saying bear your soul to the world, but at least talk it through with another Christian and ask him or her to help you in that area.

When temptation comes – GO! Flee, run away (literally if necessary). When Joseph was lured by Mrs. Potiphar, he fled. But Samson, rather enjoyed the attention of beautiful Delilah. The problem was Delilah’s beauty was only skin deep.

It surprised me to read the words “I have been … separated to God..” in Samson’s admission to Delilah – surely they should have rung a bell in his head saying – Hey, I shouldn’t be here with Philistines – I am separated to God! He knew that he had been separated to God, and yet he kept going back to Delilah. It was his undoing, but again, I say let us not be too quick to judge him. We know we are separated to God, and yet, how often do we blow it, and turn our back on Him because something else attracts our attention.

Have you worked out which New Testament person I was talking about?(Two weeks ago) John the Baptist was the man.

Both Samson and John the Baptist:

• were born to women who could not naturally have children (miraculous conceptions)


• were born as Nazirites, with specific purposes. (Both purposes involved starting something that would be finished by another.)


• An angel appeared to a parent of both of them before they were born. (Samson's unnamed mother, John the Baptist's father)


• spent time in prison and died in captivity.


• their fathers offereda sacrifice to the Lord when they heard about the birth of their sons.

I said this was to be a trilogy, but Irealise that there remains one more homily in this story (actually there must be thousands more, but for my puposes I will only give one!) Watch this space next week!

Let us look back at the birth of Samson. Interestingly, his mother was sterile, and a child could not be conceived in her womb. An angel of the Lord appeared to her and said, “You are sterile and childless, but you are going to conceive and have a son, now see to it that you do not drink any wine or fermented drink and that you do not drink anything unclean because you will conceive and give birth to a son. No razor may be used on his head because he is to be a Nazirite, set apart to God since birth, and he will begin the deliverance of Israel from the hands of the Philistines.” (Judges 13:1-5)

There are some interesting parallels between Samson and a certain New Testament person. Do you know who I am thinking of? However, I don’t want to get sidetracked now.

The Nazirite vow, was a vow was for any person who wanted for specific period to “separate themselves” to the Lord. There were some special requirements for this vow.
No alcohol or grapes in any form. Not even raisins.
No haircut. A razor was now to come near the head.
No contact with corpses. (I’m not sure if this is referring to any type of corpse – in which case Samson blew it long before he met Delilah – remember the famous riddle? – or whether it was only human corpses)
Now, bear in mind that for most this was a voluntary action undertaken by Jews who chose to separate themselves to God for a specific period. But in the case of Samson, and our mystery New Testament person, they were Nazirites from birth – no conception.

For those Christians who view the developing embryo as merely a piece of tissue, in the mother, that can be disposed of if it becomes an inconvenience, this verse (Judges 13:4) should give pause for thought. Also, for expectant mothers who consume alcohol or smoke during the pregnancy, here is biblical proof that what a person consumes when she is pregnant can affect the babies development. Samson was to have no contact with wine or grape, even from BEFORE his birth.

The point was that Samson was set apart to God. These things, no alcohol, no razors, no corpses, were merely the things that marked out the Nazirite. But the key was that they were set apart to God.

People use different expression to describe becoming a Christian. The most common and widely known is “born-again” but another expression that people use is “I have committed my life to Christ.” Well, it is debatable as to how literally we mean that, but the point is, that becoming a Christian is in some sense similar to taking the Nazirite vow. We are separating ourselves to God for rest of our lives. Thankfully we can still enjoy a glass of wine (provided we don’t enjoy too many) and the occasional trip to the barber (or hair-stylist!!) for a trim, or a short-back and sides, is quite in order, and though it is something I would prefer to avoid, coming in contact with a corpse will not cancel my Christianity. But there are things that mark us out as separate from the world. No we do not have to enter a monastery (or convent). On the contrary we are called to go into ALL the world and preach the Gospel. When non-Christians look at us, they should be able to say to themselves, “There’s something different about that fellow or that lady.”

This month, I have written a trilogy. I have written it in one sitting, but realizing that as is usual style I have written way too much. To spare your eyes and also make sure you read it all, I have broken it into three sections, which I will post once every Saturday until it is all there.

“No razor has ever been used on my head, because I have been a Nazirite set apart to God since birth…”

Pop quiz – who said that? Did you say Samson, well done. (I sound like “school of the air”) Yes, Samson uttered these fateful words when he betrayed himself to the object of his desires, Delilah.

Reading the story this evening, I had to ask myself what is with this guy? He is attracted to this beauty, Delilah. Well, who can blame the guy. She was evidently very attractive. But her behaviour, wasn’t exactly on the level. She wants to know the secret of his great strength, and well, the first time, he was bright enough to spin her a yarn about being tied up. She buys it, and spills the beans to the philistines who waste no time in filling the order for fresh thongs that have not been dried. He’s woken by Delilah announcing the the Philistines have got him, and lo and behold, he’s bound by the very thing that he confided in Delilah that would sap his strength. Now, in typical fashion he snapped those cords like they were cotton thread and proceeded to deal with the Philistines.

Surely, Samson would have put two and two together. Well if he did, he got the answer three. Instead of clearing out of Delilah’s pad pronto, we see Delilah having another go. Well he gives her a story about new ropes. Then he wove a story about putting seven braids of his hair on a loom. (Boy that guy must have been a sound sleeper – or maybe he had no feeling in his head!) Notice how each lie came closer and closer to the truth.

Delilah’s persistence paid off and Samson cut to the truth. After explaining that he had never been to a barber, he explained that if he did have a trim, it would weaken him, and this time Delilah realised that this was the real deal, and so that night she arranged for the local barber to crop his locks (give him a haircut).

Waking up, the Bible tells us Samson thought, “Here we go again,” thinking that he’d duff up those thugs and send them packing again, only this time, he somehow couldn’t muster the usual strength. And so began the downfall of Samson. You can read what they did to Samson and how everything came crashing in on Samson’s head (including a few rather surprised Philistines.)
Was Samson’s strength directly related to the length of his hair? I have always thought so, but in reading this, this evening, I see two clues that suggest to me, that it wasn’t about his hair.

The first thing, Samson said, “I have been a Nazirite, set apart to God since birth.”

Secondly, when he is attacked for the FOURTH TIME, he jumped up, and thought, “I’ll go out as before and shake myself free.” BUT HE DID NOT KNOW THAT THE LORD HAD LEFT HIM.

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Congratulations to my parents on the occasion of their Golden Wedding! I love you both, and am very proud of you.

It is her birthday today. She turned 4. But she did not spend it with her mummy and daddy and little brother and sister, because 9 days ago someone stole her from her bedroom, while they were holidaying in Portugal. Somehow, "Happy Birthday" does not seem appropriate. The poor child, if she is alive, and we must believe that she is, must be so petrified.

I am joining the millions of others who have heard about this little girl, in praying for Madeleine's family

Tomorrow is Mother's Day, but for poor Kate McCann it must be like a double blow. They said that were going to celebrate her birthday, but how difficult it must have been for them to celebrate when the birthday-girl was not there to blow out the candles on her cake. I note that Gerry and Kate make frequent visits to the church in Praia da Luz, which suggests that they do have faith. I pray that through this ordeal, they may be sustained and comforted by the Lord.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me, your rod and your staff, they comfort me. (Psalm 23).

I don't wish to make this blog full of platitudes. To be absolutely frank, I have no answers, and don't understand why things like this happen. I cannot begin to understand the agony those who are nearest and dearest to this sweet little girl, but with millions of others, I continue to pray that she will be brought home.

“CRUCIFIXION DOCTRINE ‘REPULSIVE’ – Top UK cleric”

This headline caught my eye this morning. If I might précis the article published in The Witness of today, April 5, 2007, basically the Very Reverend Jeffrey John, Dean of St. Albans in southern England, dismisses the doctrine of Salvation through the death of Jesus. The dean aired his opinions on a BBC radio programme. In his opinion, the doctrine makes God sound like a psychopath. He made the point that he has held this opinion since he was a 10 year old boy. The concluding paragraph of the report notes that although he was nominated for the post of Bishop of Reading but rejected the post amid controversy over his homosexuality.

The doctrine he is referring to is, the central doctrine of Christianity, if there is a central doctrine, that is. The Scriptures teach that Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, and second person of the Trinity, set aside His exalted position in the Heavenlies, became incarnate and lived on earth for a period of 33 years. His death, by the cruel Roman method of execution, crucifixion, devastated his followers, but it was not an accident, or a mistake. It was very much intended. Jesus own words can testify to this.

The Son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many. (Mt. 20:28, Mk 10:45)

I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me – just as the Father - and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life – only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father. (John 10:14-18)

“I will not eat it (The Passover) again until it finds its fulfillment in the Kingdom of God.” … And he took the bread, gave thanks, and broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after the supper, he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the New Covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.” (Luke 22: 16, 19-20)

These are just a few verses, in the Bible that can show us, that Jesus willingly
gave His life, in His words, as a ransom for us. Brutal, cruel, illogical, insane, monstrous, psychopathic, repulsive - these are the adjectives that the Very Rev. John would ascribe to the God’s greatest act of love. I’d sooner believe God. The most well known and widely quoted verse in the Bible says “For God so loved the world, He gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes on Him, shall not perish, but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

The fact is, if having been killed, Jesus remained dead, maybe the Very Rev. John could be right, but the crucifixion, which was brutal, was not the end of the story. Easter Sunday, celebrates the fact that Jesus did not remain dead, but on the third day, early in the morning, he set aside the shroud in which he had been buried and rose from the dead. I’d like to conclude by quoting the Apostle Paul from two texts, that I think put this doctrine in a nutshell, if such a thing is possible.

"For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as one abnormally born. … When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: Death has been swallowed up in victory.
“Where O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin and the power of death is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Cor. 15:3-8, 54-57)

“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him a name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:5-11)

As it was prophesied by Isaiah, “but he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.” “The wages of sin is death”. We deserve those wages, but God, in the person of Jesus Christ, took those wages for us, and so the remained of the verse says, “but the gift of God is eternal life.” Rom 3:23

How a person who can describe the most beautiful doctrine of Salvation as “repulsive” can be ordained as minister in a Christian church, let alone rise to the significant position of dean, and even be nominated to become a bishop, eludes me. Surely he cannot call himself a Christian, if he believes that what is clearly taught in Scripture is reprehensible.

Pesach - Passover

PASSOVER

Hi,

I have not met a nice Jewish girl who I am trying to impress or anything like that, so don’t worry (or get too excited), but this goy is going to write yet another blog on a Jewish theme. You see, hot on the heels of Purim, comes the Jewish celebration of Pesach (Passover.) There is a close link for Christians to this particular celebration.

Passover celebrates the liberation of the Children of Israel (as they were known at that time) from slavery in Egypt. The tenth plague was more than the tenth plague, but the beginning of the release of the Children of Israel from Egypt. It was, as far as I can see, the only plague where God told the Children of Israel to be prepared. They were to take a year old sheep without blemish, slaughter it, and paint the blood onto the doorposts and the lintels of the door, so that when the angel of Death passed over the land of Egypt he would not touch the firstborn sons of the houses that had the blood on the doorposts.

While the Egyptians were still mourning their terrible loss, the Children of Israel picked up their belongings and took the gap, heading for the border - well, not really the border. In those days there were no customs and excise, or immigration officers waiting to stamp the passports. If there were, it is doubtful that Rameses would have sanctioned the issuance of such passports to the “workforce.” After almost 400 years in Egypt they didn’t really know the way back to Canaan. God appeared to them as a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night. Now when you look at a map of Egypt, you note that there is a little isthmus (a small piece of land that links two larger landmasses) at the top, by which presumably, Joseph, and later his brothers and his father came into the land. This is not where the clouds lead the Children of Israel. Instead, they were lead to the edge of the Yam Suph (Red Sea). Somewhere in the region of two million Israelites were milling around. (In the Bible we are told there were about 600,000 men. The women and children were not counted, so we can guess there were about two million Israelites in all.) The average Israelite, at this point was feeling rather confused and somewhat anxious as they became aware that they were being pursued by the Egyptian army. People really got uptight with Moses and were calling into question his sanity. “Were there not enough graves in Egypt that you have brought us into the desert to die?"

Moses spoke to God, God spoke to Moses and then Moses addressed the people – “Fear not, The Egyptians you see today, you will not see again. Stand and see what God will do. The Lord will fight for you, you need only to be silent.”

On God’s command, Moses held out his staff over the waters as a tour guide might hold out his umbrella indicating to his party the general direction in which they must move. And, in a sense, that was what he was doing. As he pointed his staff, there was an unbelievable gale, and the waters of Red Sea divided and formed two walls of water, between which there was a corridor of dry land. The children of Israel passed through and every one of them made it to the other side, but when the Egyptian troops started pursuing them along the same corridor, God let the walls of water collapse and the Egyptian troops were all drowned.

Subsequent to this the celebration of Pesach was instituted as an annual commemoration and celebration of those events. Please note that this celebration wasn’t some Israelites idea for a reason for a party, it was COMMANDED by the Lord. God organized the whole thing, and for a very important reason. The whole Pesach Seder (Order of events at a Passover meal), is designed to teach the children about what God had done. I note, as an educator, that God employs the techniques of repetition, modeling and involvement. Firstly repetition, every year of a child’s life, he/she hears how God saved His children from the slavery of Egypt and how He meted out justice to the Egyptians, particularly the Pharaoh, for their cruelty. The modeling – each element and food item included in the Passover meal has specific relevance and symbolism and these symbols are explained to the children each time. I shall not describe now the whole meal, as frankly I don’t know as much as I would like to about that, but suffice it to say there is significance. The involvement of the children in the seder is an integral part of the celebration. Though one could say it’s scripted, it is the responsibility of a child to ask “Why is this night different from all the others?” giving the father the chance to tell the family the marvelous story of the Exodus. From this too I learn the significant role of FATHERS in the spiritual nurture of their children. I am not suggesting that only fathers should take this responsibility, but I do feel that in many cases fathers are missing out on this aspect altogether. What message does this send to children (particularly boys) about the things of God?

Roughly 1400 years later, in Jerusalem, Jesus was gathered together with his disciples in an upper room, and they were celebrating the Passover. At some point during the meal, Jesus got up, picked up the bowl for the washing of the guests’ feet, and he started washing the disciples’ feet. This caused some confusion, and Peter objected. This was not what Jesus, His master should have been doing, he thought, but Jesus insisted. He then made His point. He told them, “If I, Your Lord and Master wash your feet, you should also wash the feet of your brothers and sisters.”

During the meal, Jesus took a piece of the unleavened bread, (Matzos) and having given thanks for it, He broke it and said, “Eat this, all of you, for this is my body, broken for you. Do this, as often as you eat it, in rememberance of me.” Later, He took the cup, and after having given thanks for it, he said, “Drink this, all of you, for this is my blood in the New Covenant, given for you. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” Thus was the beginning of the Christian Communion Service. Very simple – involves two elements – Bread representing Jesus' body, and Wine, representing Jesus’ blood. These things remind us that Jesus gave himself for our Salvation. His death on the cross that would take place before the end of that day (remember the Jewish day ran, as it does now. from Sunset, to sunset)

After what has become known as The Last Supper, Jesus was betrayed by Judas with a kiss, arrested, tried not once but at least four times (two illegal trials before Jewish leaders, one before Herod Antipas, and one before Pontius Pilate), given over to be lashed with a cat-o-nine-tails, and then ultimately crucified on a wooden cross between two criminals. But that was not the end of the story. After Jesus had died, the Roman officer presiding over the crucifixion pierced his side to ensure that he was dead; his body was removed and placed into a borrowed tomb. On the third day, a group of women went down to where he was buried to perform the normal rites relating to death. But instead of finding His body, they found an open tomb, and an angel appeared, who said to them “Why do you look for the Living amongst the Dead, He is not here, He is alive”. And so the events of the resurrection unfolded until all of the disciples and many others saw Jesus alive again. Christians commemorate this day on what is called Easter Sunday. That, like Pesach, is an annual celebration of our liberation, by means of Jesus and His Resurrection. But most Christians celebrate Communion a lot more frequently than just once a year.

I think it is safe to say, that for the Jew, Pesach is the “high holy day” of their year; the most important event on their annual calendar. In the same way, for Christians, Resurrection Day, (or if you like, Easter) is the most important event on our calendar. It is not important that we become hung up on ritual and rigmoral, but just as it is important for Jewish children to understand why “this night is different to all the other nights of the year”, so it is very important that Christian children understand that the holiday is not about the “Easter Bunny and Easter eggs” but what the day is really all about.

I had wanted to explore a question that was provoked from an article I read this morning about how, regardless of the current circumstances Jewish people are experiencing, every year, they celebrate Pesach. As we know, and as I alluded to in my last blog, Jewish people have been subjected to awful cruelties and difficulties over the centuries, like the exiles in Babylon and Assyria, the attempt at their annihilation during the Third Reich, to name just a few, but like Hannah in the concentration camp, they celebrated Pesach regardless. (I refer you to my previous blog “Genocide” for this story.)

Some might wonder why God had to COMMAND the celebration. Why make it a matter of law. Surely the jubilant Israelites having seen God move so mightily would want, of their own accord to celebrate this wonderful day, and tell the future generations too. Well, considering that they wondered in the wilderness for 40 years after that, I wonder if they would have still been celebrating by the time they got to Canaan? And then when other difficulties, occurred, it may have been quite easy for the Jewish leaders to declare, “In view of our current circumstances, this year there will be no Passover.” Once you let it slide once, it is easier to let it slide again. Once we miss church one Sunday, it is easier to give it a miss the next time, and so on. Many people have not left the Church, but have simply drifted off. But God COMMANDED that every year on the specific date, Pesach should be celebrated. No riders, no conditions. And so, thankfully, even today, the Passover is celebrated. In the same way, Jesus COMMANDED us to remember Him in the Bread and the wine. It is not an optional extra. It is integral to being a Christian. Just as children participate in the Pesach, I believe that Children should be allowed to participate in the Communion Service. The custom in my church is that a couple will lead the service in the Lord’s Table, and quite a number of those couples are parents, and they will involve their children, in the distribution of the elements (the bread and the wine.) I remember watching with wonderment as one little boy carried out his duty of carrying the basket with pieces of bread to the people with an earnestness and seriousness that made me humble. I have found that when we give children a responsibility, and they understand that this is a very important thing that you have asked them to do, they more often than not rise to the occasion, and bless us with the way they put so much effort into that responsibility.

How and why?

How could they say we are free, when they were in the midst of such terrible circumstances? This reminds me of the psalm that inspired the Boney M song, “By the rivers of Babylon” – The psalm is Psalm 137. “How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?”

Sometimes it is hard to sing when everything around us seems disastrous, but instead of becoming despondent, it is in times like these that Jews need to remember Jerusalem – and remember that they have been liberated. Christian need to remember the Resurrection. Regardless of the prevailing circumstances, there is no opt out on Pesach. Christians, even in the midst of persecution and difficulty, we must continue to remember that Jesus IS alive, and we ARE saved.

This is cause for rejoicing. Habakkuk 3:17 – 19 says:

“Though the fig tree does not blossom, and there is no fruit on the vines, the produce of the olive fails and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord. God the Lord is my strength. He makes my feet like the deer’s. He makes me tread on my high places.”

When we look around and see things falling apart, we can still rejoice, because our security is not in the circumstances but in our relationship with the Lord. We know that the Lord will see us through and that ultimately we will spend all eternity with him. As we look back at our liberation, the death and resurrection of Jesus, and look forward to the consummation of that liberation when Jesus returns. Just as, having passed through the Red Sea, the Israelites looked back and saw the waters cover over and destroy their enemies, so we, when Jesus comes back, will see how God will deal with those who refused to bow the knee to Jesus.

If you’re feeling down today, start singing, and rejoicing and celebrating your victory. It’s not a case of wishful thinking, and it is not a case of “being positive”, but having faith in our God to accomplish that which we are not capable of. Another verse that springs to mind, and I will end off with this, was written by Jesus half-brother, James, in his letter to the church in Chapter 1, verses 2 . “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of many kinds”

Genocide

Genocide

 

I watched a movie the other day, unfortunately I cannot remember its name, but it was a fictional story based on the true events of the holocaust. A young lady in our present day falls unconscious at a party and then is taken back to 1940’s Germany. The Jewish community she finds herself in is celebrating a wedding. While the wedding ceremony is in progress, a large contingent of German Soldiers arrive and the commandant orders everyone onto the trucks as they are to be “relocated”. They are taken first by truck and then by train (as if they were cattle) to Poland, where they are placed in concentration camps and made to wear yellow Star-of-David patches. At nights they are herded into longhouses, which were very crowded, and which were very unhygienic, and during the day they had to work, work, work. If anyone became too ill to work, they would be killed. There were to be no children under 10 as they could not work and were in the eyes of the German authorities, a waste of resources. One of the Jewish women were pregnant at the time. They managed to hide the pregnancy from the Germans but of course when the baby was born, word got out and the authorities came looking. They were going to take the baby away, but the mother refused to let go of the child. So she, the baby, and another women who protested too much got dragged off and executed. A very touching moment of the show was where Hannah, our heroine, decides that they must have a Seder to celebrate Pesach (Passover), there were many things missing from the seder (This speaks of the order of events at a Passover celebration) because of their circumstances, but there was a group of Jewish ladies celebrating what has to be their most holy celebration, in this awful situation. The irony of Jewish people celebrating their liberation from slavery in Egypt, by the hand of G-d, when all around them is evidence that the Germans sought to wipe them off the face of the earth. Towards the end of the celebration, when it is customary for someone to “Open the door” for Elijah” it was decided who would do this important task. They opened the door of the long house, and standing outside was not Elijah, but a geman guard, armed with a gun. “What are you doing?” asked the guard. The Jewish woman answered, “We needed some fresh air!” “But you are not supposed to open the door” he responded. “Oh, We’re sorry.” Not long after this Seder, they were out digging in the grounds of the camp when we overheard a senior German officer state that he was not satisfied with the numbers of Jews who were being “exterminated.” Hannah’s friend was very ill, coughing badly. Hannah could see that her friend would be discovered and so she told her to try and control her coughing, also, she said, give me your scarf, that the friend was wearing on her head, she put it on her own head, and started to cough louder. The guard took Hannah off, and we see them being herded into the gas ovens. When the gas finally overwhelmed them, we are taken back to the modern times and there lies Hannah on a bed and she recovers. She relates to her aunt what she experienced, and her Aunt recognises that it was she whose life was saved by Hannah. Though the story was fiction, the background was factual, and as such was very moving. The German’s eventually wiped out 6 million Jews, but they did not succeed in eradicating them altogether (Hitler’s ultimate objective).

 

He was not the first either. This weekend is Purim. The celebration of how the Jews were saved from being annihilated in one day. Purim means lots, that is the casting of lots, because Haman cast lots to determine the day on which he planned to eradicate the Jewish nation, but I am getting ahead of myself. You can read the whole story in the Book of Esther, in the Bible.

 

I’ve been reading a lot on this celebration on the Internet. I have learnt so much from www.askmoses.com and http://www.aish.com/purimbasics/purimbasicsdefault/Lively_Megillah_Overview.asp. Very interesting stuff. I do not wish to re-invent the wheel, but I just wanted to reflect on one or two of the customs associated with Purim that I found interesting.

 

Children on the feast of Purim dress in disguise. Fun for children to play “dress up” but there is more to it than just dressing up. The reason they do that is that G-d is working in the background. The reason, according to Ask Moses is that there are two types of Miracle – the patent obvious miracle, for which there is no other explanation (The Red sea Crossing, the axe head floating, Naaman being healed of leprosy in the Jordan, to pick a few Old Testament examples) and then where circumstances work to cause a favourable outcome – what some might say was a “co-incidence.) The unique thing about the Book of Esther in the Bible is it is the only book where G-d’s name is not mentioned at all. However, clearly He was clearly at work in this desperate situation. Though G-d may be incognito at times, he is not being deceptive, which is what disguise suggests to me, but He uses everything at His disposal for His purposes. This includes the hearts of leaders. King Ahasuerus may have thought that his extending the scepter to Esther was his decision to make, but it was G-d who caused the decision to go His way. Haman may have thought that the 13^th day of Adar was merely due to the rolling of the dice. As you know, the meaning of the word Purim is “lots” as in the casting of lots. But G-d controlled the fall of those dice, or however the lots were cast, as much as He moved to get Esther into her position of influence, and He caused Mordechai to hear the plotting of the men to assassinate Ahasuerus. In a local magazine a reader wrote saying that she had recently been attacked by muggers and felt “abandoned by G-d,” She briefly related what happened, and it turns out that just as the attack was starting a car turned into the avenue where it was taking place. The presence of the car frightened the attackers away. The counsellor pointed out that that car didn’t just happen to turn into the street.

 

Another custom, and this one took me surprise, is that people celebrating Purim are expected to get drunk. Apparently this has to do with the party that the King had at which Vashti was deposed and executed. Of course, they are not too insistent on this dictum these days.

 

Nowadays a highpoint in the Purim celebrations is the Purim Shpiel which is a play akin to the Christian Nativity play, in that the story of Esther is acted out. Part of the tradition is that the audience cheers for Esther and Mordechai and boo at Haman.

 

One last thing before I wish all my Jewish friends a very happy (not to say merry) Purim. There is a book that has been put out called One Night with the King – It follows a film of the same name, all about the  story of Esther. I intend to buy it when I get some money.

 

G-d Bless.

 

John

 

Well, I’m a bit late for Purim, but I hope you enjoy reading it.

 

 

 

 

 

Citizenship

Not wanting the grass to grow beneath my feet this time, I have decided to quickly post another post before too long.

Citizenship – the last of the six pillars of character that are taught by the Character Counts Foundation.

Today is Australia Day – and apparently 30,000 became citizens of Australia – or as my friend Kerry said “True Blue Aussies.” The same type of ceremony takes place in many countries where immigrants are accepted as citizens, whether USA or Canada, or the United Kingdom to mention a few. Becoming a citizen of a country other than your birth is not an easy thing. They want to ensure that if you become a citizen, you are the kind of person who would be an asset to their society, and not a liability. They will look at your employment prospects and they would want to ensure that you have no criminal record in any country you have stayed for any significant period. They would want to establish that you are financially able to keep yourself and your dependants without needing to call on the state to bail you out. Reasonable requirements when you think about it.

However there is another citizenship that does not include these criteria, in fact, to gain this citizenship you do not need to fill in a single form, you do not have to show any personal wealth – actually you have to be willing to give up all personal wealth because you can’t take it with you. You do not have to prove qualification or employability prospects at all, but you do need to be willing and available to do the bidding of the Leader. You do not have to produce a police clearance and you can gain citizenship regardless of whether or not you have a police record. However, on application you are required to admit to all wrongdoing (whether you have a record or not) and undertake to stop doing them, and where feasible make restitution. If you have not worked it out already, the citizenship I am speaking about isn’t citizenship of a country, but it is the citizenship of Heaven. (Phil 3:20, Eph 2:19)

The Bible says, speaking of Christians, that we are citizens of Heaven. And just as on earth if you are a citizen of one country you are an alien in others. Yes, there are countries that permit dual citizenship, but a Christian, on becoming a citizen of Heaven by second birth, renounce citizenship of the world by their first birth. 1 Peter 2: 9-12 says

“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Dear friends, I urge you as aliens and strangers of this world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.”

We are a people BELONGING to God. – That speaks of citizenship to me.

- We belong to our country. Some people may object to this, saying that they are free agents, belonging to no-one. They own themselves and nobody can tell them what they can or cannot do. They may object and say belonging implies ownership and slavery was abolished many years ago. “I don’t belong to …” – in fact, they might add, “it’s the other way round – my country belongs to me – I have a share in it, like one has shares in a public company.” Sounds good on paper, doesn’t it? But is it really the case? The fact is, everybody starts out as a slave to sin. We are born in sin and thus we are slaves to sin. If it were not for Jesus Christ dying on the cross, that situation would have persisted and we would have all been doomed to eternal slavery, but Jesus dying on the Cross, bought our Salvation and set us free from the law of sin and death. But having been bought, we belong, now to God, and not our former slave master, the Devil. That is why that verse speaks about being “called out of darkness into His marvelous light.”

- Being aliens and strangers in the world – As I mentioned above, citizenship of Heaven implies being an Alien in the world. Nobody likes to be regarded as an alien or a stranger. They want to be accepted, welcomed, and made to feel “at home”. In the musical “Oliver” they sing the song, “Consider yourself at home, consider yourself, one of the family.” Think of the different ways the term alien is used, and all of them have negative connotations. Aliens from out of space – regarded with suspicion and hostility. Alien Invaders – plants growing in places and causing havoc to the environment. In South Africa, there are plants such as bugweed, that you are required by law to remove and destroy if you it growing in your garden – they don’t belong in South Africa. People who have permanent residence status in a country, but are not citizens, may have the term “Alien” stamped on their identity document. When crime escalates, it is often the “foreign nationals” – read “aliens” who are blamed. Xenophobia – the fear of strangers – is rife in our world today, so who wants to be an alien and a stranger? Thinking again about that song from Oliver! Young Oliver is taken into Fagin’s home – he’s invited join his band of pickpockets and thieves. He has a very different reception to the one he was used to in the orphanage and when he was sold into slavery to the other family (I’m sorry, I’m relating this from memory and so it’s a bit sketchy in parts). He is told what a wonderful life he will have, how much fun he will have. After all he is loved and accepted and …all he has to do… is “pick a pocket or two”! Yes this kind of love came with a price tag. Oliver was still enslaved, only he had a new master! He might have thought he was free, but that was an illusion. Charles Dickens was writing through the novel a comment about lives of children in his day and age, and though His book was fiction, those things really did happen.

- It’s one thing to be an alien in a friendly country, it is entirely a different matter if you happen to be an alien in a country that is at war with the country of your citizenship. Then you are not only an alien, you’re an enemy. Even if you don’t agree with the reason for the war, you are still treated with suspicion and may find yourself imprisoned or even have your life threatened by the people of that country. This was the lot of many Japanese nationals living in the USA after Pearl Harbor happened. Well, as I have stated already, we are Citizens of Heaven, and we are strangers and aliens in the world, and we affectively in enemy territory, in a hostile environment. Our enemy, the devil, wants to imprison us in sin and chain us up with chains of addiction and guilt. We, however as citizens of Heaven, have a higher code to live by, and so Peter implored us to “live such good lives among the pagans, that though you may accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds…” They may not admit it, in other words, but they know that you are better than they are, and they will want to be like you. However, don’t expect a friendly reception. More than likely you will find yourselves falsely accused, and persecuted in this land. Don’t become disheartened or discouraged, the Lord is with you, and He will strengthen you and give you the endurance that you need.

Coming back to the theme of citizenship, one of the marks of good citizenship is that you are a “law-abiding” citizen. Even if you are not in the country of your citizenship you are required to abide by the laws of the country you are in. In effect you have to satisfy the requirements of both the country of your citizenship and the country where you reside at any particular moment. So, being strangers in the world, does not give you a licence to be rebellious and break the laws. It has been said, “You don’t break laws, they break you.” – Ultimately I think that is true. No as Strangers in this World we have to satisfy the requirements of the Heavenly laws, which we find in the Holy Bible, and we have live according to the statutes and laws of the countries we live in, in so far as these do not conflict with the Heavenly laws – i.e do not require us to stop worshipping God and praying. Our example in this case may be Daniel, the Prophet who was constrained by law not to pray to anyone other than the Emperor. In this case, Daniel, went right ahead and prayed openly to His God, and not at all to the emperor. He did not do this secretly, but openly prayed to God. What was the result? He was thrown into a den of lions. That may have been the end of the story, except, God closed the mouths of the lions, and Daniel was released from the den unscathed. But in other respects Daniel submitted to the laws of Babylon and Assyria and he rose through the ranks to become an important advisor to the emperor.

Actually, in 2 Corinthians 5:20 we are described as Christ’s ambassadors. Ambassadors are held to a higher standard of ethics than a general citizen, since he represents his country in the country that he is working. Are you Christ’s ambassador in the community that you live? Are the people in your community aware of this? You may not be a pastor, an elder or hold any “office” in a church, but that does not stop you from being an ambassador.

Till next time then, be good ambassadors!

John

It’s been a while since I last posted, but this article has been sitting on my PC all this time and if I don’t post it now, it will not make much sense to post it at all, so here goes. So far we have looked at the Biblical call to care, we have looked at just a few old testament examples of Carers and I shared a skit about the Good Samaritan, In this post, I intended to highlight the kinds of excuses that people for not helping.

“I do care, but…”

1. It’s dangerous. If we consider the Samaritan, one might argue that he was putting himself at risk of attack by helping the man. The thieves might have been waiting for someone to stop to attack him too. The man lying there might have been a trap. Sad to say, many modern Good Samaritans have fallen prey to this ploy. While I would always advise us to be cautious when we see someone in danger, such as a person drowning, there are times when you will be stirred to take drastic action to help a fellow human being, at great personal risk. If you really care, you will not shrug your shoulders and pretend you can do nothing, but will do what you can to help.
   
   
2. It’s their own fault. Let’s face it; most predicaments that we find ourselves in are due to our own fault. We have been negligent or taken unnecessary risks. We were driving too fast, or we were overly tired, or we had had one too many, before embarking on our journey. We did not check our tyres had enough tread, etc. People who use this excuse conveniently forget that they too have done things that they’ve regretted later. The fact is, it’s not our place, to analyse why the situation exists but to help the affected people to the best of our ability.
   
   I was thinking about prison ministries: a less deserving group of people, one can hardly think of - unless one remembers that in many countries there are prisoners of conscience, as well as people who have been wrongfully convicted and people awaiting trial. But whether they are there because justice has been served, or because of an injustice, these people are in prison. I don’t believe it is our place to judge these people. Jesus spoke in the parable of the Sheep and the Goats (Matt. 25) and said to those who he designated sheep, “You saw I was in prison and you visited me.” We will not be able to reach out and help these people unless we are willing to get beyond our prejudices and see that they are people too. The law does not say, Love your neighbour, unless he’s in prison. I could say the same thing about prejudice and misconception with regard to people suffering with HIV/AIDS.
   Compassion does not say, “See, I told you so!” or “It’s your own fault, you should have been more careful.”
   It says, “I’m sorry you’re having a bad time. Is there anything I can do to help?”
   
   I didn’t know.
   If this were the case every time, then, I would not be able to argue against this, but many choose not to know. They either pretend that they don’t know, or deliberately avoid looking. We use the idiom, to turn a blind eye, meaning we deliberately choose to overlook something that is wrong. With the murders of the five prostitutes in Suffolk, the police investigating the murders received many calls giving them information. One of the girls, was found within feet of a roadside. A few days after they found her body, a caller phoned in to say that he had seen the body a few days before but had thought it was a discarded manikin. This astounded me: The person should have realised that it was a strange thing to be discarded by the roadside, and on closer examination, would have realised that it was not a manikin, but a woman. I do believe that by the time he saw the “manikin,” there were public announcements about woman having gone missing in the area, and that should have made him think again. I may be wrong, but it seems to me that that person chose to turn a blind eye (and explain away what he saw) because he did not want to get involved. I wonder what difference it would have made had he called the police on the day he saw “the manikin”?
   
   There is an advert on TV that I find very provoking: It features a single mother with two children. In the background, they play the song, “She works hard for her money.” They show this woman sending her children off to school, and then boarding a bus. You realise she is blind. She gets off the bus, stands on a corner and pulls a sign out of her bag that reads “Help. Mother of two children” She is begging on the street corner. Then a statement put on the screen about how many blind people cannot find work and the last statement is what hits home. It says, “… because YOU are blind.” Disabled people can be productive and useful people to have on the staff, but it means that employers need to give them a chance. It means that they may have to spend some money in setting up the necessary supports, to make employment of a disabled person. It may affect the bottom line in the short run, but I believe, that it will not be a permanent situation, and every dollar or rand spent will be worth it. It is time we stopped looking at disabled people and seeing what they cannot do, but let us see that they too are people and there is a lot that they CAN do, if given the chance. There are of course jobs that their disability would disqualify them from, but, the probability is that they would not apply for such jobs. People with disabilities need to prove that they are qualified to the work just as any other person applying for work has to do, but the reality is that many of them have to prove a lot more before they are even considered. As Christians, we need to see beyond the disability and see the person.
   
   You can’t help them all??
   
   This must be one of the most inane and irritating excuses. Of course you can’t help them all, but you can help someone. There is a well known modern day parable about child throwing starfish into the water at the seaside. Another person comes along and asks the child what he/she is doing. When the child explains that these starfish will die because they are stranded on the beach, the person says, but there are so many, you’d never be able to help them all. The child bends over picks up another starfish and throwing it into the water, says, “I just helped that one!”
   
   There will always be people who are better off or worse of than we are. See who you can help today.
   
   In conclusion
   
   Through writing this blog on caring, I have realised that there are so many areas in which we can care for other people. We need to stop looking for cop-outs and be ready to touch the lives of the people around us. I’d like to conclude with a quote from a devotional by J.C. Ryle:
   
   “What are we doing, each in his own sphere, to prove that this mighty parable is one of the rules of our daily lives? What are we doing for the heathen at home and abroad? What are we doing to help those who are troubled in mind, body and estate? There are many such in our world all around us. What are we doing for them? Anything or nothing at all?”[i]
   
   
   [i] Ryle J. C. (Compiled by Sheehan R. J.) Daily Readings from all four Gospels: For Morning and Evening, 1998, Evangelical Press, Darlington, UK. (Taken from the reading for 4 August – Morning.