Practical Predestination

A. There are verses in the Bible that indicate that it is God who chooses us, that only the 'elect' are saved, it appears to not be up to us.
B. There are verses which indicate that we have a choice on how to live. That "anyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved" and that we are responsible for obeying God's commands.

A. Everytime you thank God for saving you, you are saying it was His choice; you don't deserve any credit for finding faith in Him. So, every time we do this we are practically believing in some form of predestination.
B. Everytime I repent of my sin, I'm saying it was my choice and not down to God, so I'm practically believing in free-will.

I think that this is something we humans are incapable of fully understanding. The expanations we come up with never totally cover everything.

So, what I do practically is:

1. Accept and thank God that He chose me and others (the elect). Rejoice in the confidence that this gives me that His acceptance of me as I am right now, full of sin and hurt, is therefore not dependant on my performance. And in evangelism, I'm not responsible for saving others as if it were down to my persuasive abilities. (The practical results of a predestination belief.)

2. Live as if I am responsible for everything I do. Take the attitude that all who call on Him will be saved and so never allow predestination ideas to stop me telling others about Christ. Never assume that what has happened is just God's will - it might be down to my failure or someone else's - fight injustice. (As if it were all free-will).

In others words, we can't get a middle ground understanding that explains everything. I think God did this intentionally so that we have to stay dependant on Him. We can't get our theology all exactly correct and go off and do Christian life by ourselves.

So, in our minds we hold these two extremes in tension, and so have to look to God Himself afresh in each thing that comes up in our lives.

Tithing - Masking the amazing thing God actually wanted to do with church finances

Modern tithing:  the principle where every earner pays 10% of their income to the church group that they belong to and this pays for the up-keep of the building, the ministers' wages, admin costs and maybe church ministries. Sounds good in principle: 10 earners in your church and you get an income equivalent to one average wage.

However, it gets taught as if this were the same thing as the Old Testament (OT) system of tithing.  In the OT there are cases of people tithing (giving 10%) to priests (e.g. Abraham tithing to Melchizedek) and of course the whole system of tithing to the OT temple, the Levites (the priests who ran the temple) and the poor.  Thus, a Jewish man would be giving 3 tithes of his income away (plus whatever the king then taxed him on).

When Christ died on the cross and rose again, the whole OT order of things finished; no more priests or temple.  The book of Hebrews tells us that Jesus is now the equivalent of the High Priest Melchizedek.  So, it is now impossible to tithe in these new-covenant times. (Call it what you want, it isn't technically a Biblical tithe!)

In fact if you do a word search in the NT there is no mention of tithing in the early church.  The only time it's talked about is when Jesus is telling people about still following the OT law before he had died, and hence when they were still in OT times.

So, tithing does not apply in NT times and should not be part of our churches.

The NT tells us we should give sacrificially and in a planned way.  Of course, pastors need to be paid, church organisations need to be administered and lots of church groups have buildings to look after.

So, why not just be honest about what these costs are, tell people roughly how much they need to be giving for the church group to run and make adjustments along the way.

All this Bible bashing about tithing in unbiblical.  But most importantly, because it's not actually God's will, it must therefore be masking the truth of what God wants us to be doing with our finances in church.

The Western church is not living in God's will for giving and receiving money because it has settled for the pseudo-religious cop-out of a OT-style tithe.  It's easier to bash people over the head and condemn them into paying your pastoring salary than it is to trust God to move in people's hearts and let them give as He directs.

Seeing Things Correctly

Psalm 73:16,17

When I tried to make sense of this,

it was troubling to me.

Then I entered the precincts of God’s temple,

and understood the destiny of the wicked. (NET)

The writer of this Psalm talks of his jealousy of the arrogant and wicked (why do evil people prosper, and the good suffer?), but then the understanding and peace that came when he got in touch with God again.

The only viewpoint from which we can see the truth of a situation is from God's sanctuary; before we can see correctly we must first get back into fellowship with God.

Wolves in Sheep's Clothing

One of the problems with 'wolves in sheep's clothing' is that, 

When they are shown a mirror

All they see is a sheep.

Very few people are fully aware of the evil they do, they are mainly following their feelings and programming.  The first person they deceive is themselves.

When a Pharisee (arrogant, judgemental religious leader) approached Christ in humility, He reasoned with them and taught them the error of their ways.  Otherwise, he just confronted them as one would an attacking wolf ("you hypocrites, brood of vipers", etc.).

I used to try to help everyone, thinking I could reason with all people, no matter how manipulative or bitter they were.  This is not the example Christ showed us.

Now I think, help people if they come for it; but only help them as you judge best, not necessarily as they want.  Otherwise, leave 'fools in their own foolishness'; unless they are harming others, in which case prepare to confront them head on.  This may not seem 'nice', but this is what Christ did; this is therefore love.

East from the West

“As far as the East is from the West, so far has He removed our sins from us.”

Psalm 103:12

Great verse to meditate on. Imagine God sending your sin and guilt an infinite distance away from you.  Picture it in your mind and let the feelings of guilt disappear into infinite space.

Of course, make sure you are thinking about this as the Jews would have originally understood it.  Nobody would use this analogy nowadays - east and west meet round the other side of a spherical world!

It is a fantastic verse, one my favourite on the subject of forgiveness.  It also shows that God communicates with us according to the current understanding that we have.  They (2500 – 3000 years ago) of course believed the world was flat. No one would use this analogy now.

Faith & Earning Relationship with God

People want to know God and so look for the faith they need.  But faith is not a thing in itself.  Faith is objective, i.e. it has an object that it relates to, that its existence depends on.  Look for God and he will proof himself to you (Jn 14:21).  That is, he will then give you faith in him.  This faith is a supernatural gift from God that convinces you of his existence and of the sort of person he is.

But rather than look for God himself, people look for faith.  Thus, they avoid having to look directly at him, with all the fear of conviction of sin, exposure of guilt, fear of rejection that brings.  Looking for faith in itself, faith so that we can know God, means that if we find it then credit for our faith will belong to us.  It will be something we have earned, something we have achieved.

Our search for faith is yet another attempt at earning a relationship with God.  Instead of accepting his grace, in this case his free gift of faith.

“I don't need God to give me faith, I can find it for myself.” !!!

“I don't need God to reveal himself to me, I can find him for myself.”

There is a sadness to this, the unloved trying to win his or her father's approval.

There is also an evil to this, “I don't need God's grace and mercy, I am like God myself, I can do this without him.”  Idolatrous, arrogant, and, ... ironic, “I don't need you to love me, I can get this intimate, loving friendship with you by my own effort, without your help.”  It makes no sense!  “I'll so impress my dad that he won't be able to stop himself loving me”; Er! no, if you defeated such an unloving parent, you wouldn't get approval from them, all you would earn will be their grudging admittance of defeat.

If God gave in to our attempts at earning his favour, He wouldn't be a God worth getting to know in the first place.  He would be a pathetic friend that we had successfully manipulated.

We waste our time and effort trying to earn things from God; approval, love, hearing His voice, gifts of the spirit, a ministry, something to do with our lives.  But if He were a being that we could earn something from, then we wouldn't find what we wanted in Him anyway.

"Abraham my friend" - Isaiah 41:8

God doesn't seem particularly interested in me being his slave or servant.  He seems to be only interested in me being his friend.  And it seems that even if this means I do very little for him, he'd still rather have me as a friend, than someone who strives to do lots of things for him.

He refuses to allow me to earn his love or acceptance. Which is a good thing, because I think now that even if I did one day do something in his kingdom so amazing that I finally won his approval (!), I would just resent it anyway.  A Father should love his kids regardless.  Earning your father's love seems impossible anyway, but if just suppose you did manage it ("Wow, that's so amazing son, now I accept you and affirm you as my son"), you would just resent it, because if it's not free, if you had to earn it, then it's worthless.  You're not being loved for who you are, but for what you've achieved.

A love that has to be earnt, isn't worth a thing.

(So, why do I still resist receiving God's love before I feel I've earnt it?)