My latest thoughts:
When we sinned, we abandoned God, we rejected his love and protection and told Him that we, the human race no longer needed Him and could do things for ourselves. We said we could look after our children without His help.
We were God's children, subject to His love and protection.
We then decided to orphan ourselves.
God allows suffering in this world, because we told Him to.
But...
...God didn't completely do what we wanted. He sent us an invitation to call Him Father again, and be adopted back into His family. To live in His love, to have our identity completed within Him, and to have His protection and authority over evil, as we re-surrender our lives to Him.
That invitation, is in Christ.
25 March 2013
KISS: “Treat others as you would have them treat you.”
Christ said: “Treat others as you would have them treat you.”
... in church, when the older folk treat younger with the same respect they wish to receive themselves, when people who condemn others face church discipline as an adulterer would (1Cor5), when snobbery (going both ways) between the uneducated/educated is corrected, when women stop trying to out-dress each other, when the men stop thinking life is about the things they own, when the older wives stop whallowing in pride over their husbands and when you teach them they were never meant to submit to abuse from their husbands, when you actually have to be committed to obeying Christ to be called a Christian, …then we might think a church is actually a Church.
In my recent experience, non-Christians know the verse, “Do as you would be done by” and they correctly judge the church as not obeying it. I no longer waste my time, and lose my credibility, trying to defend the church; I simply tell people about who Christ was/is and that they don’t need to go to ‘church’ to know him.
... in church, when the older folk treat younger with the same respect they wish to receive themselves, when people who condemn others face church discipline as an adulterer would (1Cor5), when snobbery (going both ways) between the uneducated/educated is corrected, when women stop trying to out-dress each other, when the men stop thinking life is about the things they own, when the older wives stop whallowing in pride over their husbands and when you teach them they were never meant to submit to abuse from their husbands, when you actually have to be committed to obeying Christ to be called a Christian, …then we might think a church is actually a Church.
In my recent experience, non-Christians know the verse, “Do as you would be done by” and they correctly judge the church as not obeying it. I no longer waste my time, and lose my credibility, trying to defend the church; I simply tell people about who Christ was/is and that they don’t need to go to ‘church’ to know him.
29 October 2012
16 August 2012
Why does God allow suffering? Part 2
The first step, I believe, is to consider what the question actually means to the person. The answer, "Because God has given us free-will," whilst correct, is so simplistic/trivial and academic that it's of no use.
So let's consider it:
Person: "Why does God allow suffering?"
By which they mean: "Why does a God of love allow suffering?" (because of course if they believed God was evil the answer would be obvious)
If the person is asking genuinely, this probably actually means:
"If God loved me, why did He allow me to suffer as I did?"
implying that:
"If I had God's power, I wouldn't let innocent people suffer."
and maybe in their case:
"If I had God's power, I would defend the children in this world from abuse."
To be continued... !
So let's consider it:
Person: "Why does God allow suffering?"
By which they mean: "Why does a God of love allow suffering?" (because of course if they believed God was evil the answer would be obvious)
If the person is asking genuinely, this probably actually means:
"If God loved me, why did He allow me to suffer as I did?"
implying that:
"If I had God's power, I wouldn't let innocent people suffer."
and maybe in their case:
"If I had God's power, I would defend the children in this world from abuse."
To be continued... !
16 April 2012
Forgiveness - I don't like that word!
I don't use the word forgiveness at the moment; it reminds me too much of my childhood understanding of it: "I'm sure he didn't mean it", "he'll know better one day", "it was just an accident", just pretend you're OK and carry on the friendship/relationship with the person.
But of course you can't carry on in the same relationship until they repent to you!
My understanding of forgiveness now is 'releasing them from what they morally owe you'. Now they only owe God.
I pray something like this nowadays (very useful I've found for dealing with childhood hurts):
"Lord, what you suffered on the cross is sufficient punishment for what they have done to me; I am satisfied that their sin against me has been paid by you. So, I release them from what they owe me, they now only owe you for what they have done to me."
I think this is what God means when He tells us to forgive people.
But of course you can't carry on in the same relationship until they repent to you!
My understanding of forgiveness now is 'releasing them from what they morally owe you'. Now they only owe God.
I pray something like this nowadays (very useful I've found for dealing with childhood hurts):
"Lord, what you suffered on the cross is sufficient punishment for what they have done to me; I am satisfied that their sin against me has been paid by you. So, I release them from what they owe me, they now only owe you for what they have done to me."
I think this is what God means when He tells us to forgive people.
06 March 2012
Why Does God Allow Suffering? Pt 1 (of a life-long pursuit of better answers)
Had a sudden thought during my last Dance meditation group:
"Jesus still regarded God as being a God of love even when He was being tortured to death by flogging and the cross."
I was thinking about when a child gets hit, for whatever reason, it can produce a feeling of rejection; "This pain means I'm not loved."
God does allow suffering. (Obviously, we've all suffered.) But does this mean God isn't Love? Christ was the person who trusted God and knew God closer than anyone in history. He still believed God was a God of love even when suffering the cross.
(I don't mean we should now feel condemned and rubbish because we're not like Him. It's just another place to start from when trying to answer this question to ourselves.)
"Jesus still regarded God as being a God of love even when He was being tortured to death by flogging and the cross."
I was thinking about when a child gets hit, for whatever reason, it can produce a feeling of rejection; "This pain means I'm not loved."
God does allow suffering. (Obviously, we've all suffered.) But does this mean God isn't Love? Christ was the person who trusted God and knew God closer than anyone in history. He still believed God was a God of love even when suffering the cross.
(I don't mean we should now feel condemned and rubbish because we're not like Him. It's just another place to start from when trying to answer this question to ourselves.)
09 February 2012
Don't say "Go away!", instead walk yourself away
The harder you try to let go of something, the more bound you become to it.
"Go away, go away, grrr really GO AWAY..."
To let go of something, just walk away from it. Let it be what it is, without trying to change or destroy it, and just walk away from it. (Don't go back to see how it's getting on.)
Rather than commanding the 'thing' to go away, as if you have some authority over it. Exercise the authority you actually have, i.e. the authority you have to remove yourself from the thing.
(won't work it cases where the thing can follow you of couse - perseverance and/or authority required for that.)
"Go away, go away, grrr really GO AWAY..."
To let go of something, just walk away from it. Let it be what it is, without trying to change or destroy it, and just walk away from it. (Don't go back to see how it's getting on.)
Rather than commanding the 'thing' to go away, as if you have some authority over it. Exercise the authority you actually have, i.e. the authority you have to remove yourself from the thing.
(won't work it cases where the thing can follow you of couse - perseverance and/or authority required for that.)
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God only forgave us when we repented.
(I do not believe in universalism, people must repent before they can be forgiven and know God!!)
So, in the same way, for someone to receive our forgiveness, they must first repent to us and then we can give them our forgiveness and decide to what degree the relationship can be restored.
So, I think we must be careful by what we mean by forgiveness. Do we mean preparing ourselves to forgive if they repent (as God is ready to forgive any sinner who repents), or do we mean the final restoration of relationship when they do finally repent.
Giving someone our forgiveness before they repent can lead to:
1. offending them because you are saying they have sinned against you, when perhaps they don't think they have.
2. carrying on in relationship with them, still trusting them, when they have every intention of continuing to sin against you (e.g. the battered Christian wife thinking forgiveness means not prosecuting her husband and letting him freely carry on abusing her.)
3. the non-Christian, who just sinned against you (stole, bullied, cheated), thinking that Christianity just means weak people turning a blind eye to sin (and so him thinking we obviously don't really believe in God and end judgement).
Perhaps a reason we have such a problem with 'forgiving' people is because in trying to do so we are actually trying to excuse what they did (which God will not support us in).
Release people to God and don't seek revenge; but don't pretend there isn't still an issue that they must repent of - God will not forgive them for what they did to you if they don't repent of it.