A good friend of mine for over 15 years wrote to me recently. I knew him through church. He comforted me and guided me spiritually through the death of my dad in 1999, a very l0ng-distance courtship with my then fiancee (now my wife) when we were apart with me in England and her in South Africa and dozens more things, all guided by the wisdom of Faith and relationship with Christ.

He’s lost his faith. His situation changed and much of what had kept him close to Jesus was stripped away. His family moved to a new town where their new church ostracized them for no reason other than his health. The very people who should have been supporting him and his family pushed them away. His marriage ended in divorce and his health continued to fail.

Society offered him solutions. Grants, medical assistance, psychologists and most of all, unconditional, non-judgemental support for his situation. He was allowed to begin to recover in his own time as he was able to face the issues haunting him supported not by Christians, but by the World.

His rational and well thought through decision has been to turn his back on Christ. He tells me – with great sadness for me to hear – that he no longer believes in Jesus, that Christianity was merely a crutch, one he no longer needs.

How has the church allowed this to happen? This dear friend, at one point closer to me than even my own family, was chased away from Christ by people claiming to be Christian.

I knew another man. He was a boy then, but has matured. Thankfully. He told everyone he could about Jesus. He was a real “you’re all going to hell, directly to hell, do not pass ‘go’ do not collect $200” kind of evangelist in the way he talked to people. In parts of Africa where I now live, there is a real concept of Hell as a literal place. Many people live in a physical and spiritual wilderness and that kind of wake-up call works very effectively. Not so much in the South of England. His growing has made him an effective speaker of the Truth and he reaches people effectively and compassionately. He demonstrates Christ instead of ramming Him down people’s throats. And people are drawn to this.

I met a minister from America a few years ago named Dave Duell. He is the most wonderful, down-to-earth man it’s been my pleasure to meet. It was a privilege to sit with him and chat not just about Jesus directly, but life and living, the reality of hardship and the way God can turn situations around. When we met I didn’t know who he was or what his life had been like to that point. I didn’t find out until the following day that he was the Keynote speaker at the conference! He simply saw a clumsy young man trip over a guide rope for the meeting tent and went to help him up. This same man preached the Gospel to Yasser Arafat. He speaks to world leaders fearlessly about Jesus and he speaks to little children exactly the same.

The best teachers I have ever heard have all said the same thing. The Cross is a crutch. We are broken and need to lean on it. My friend I first mentioned used to remind me of this when I was so broken over losing my dad, my first fiancee and a very good job within the space of five months in 1999. He was failed by the Church.

No.

He was failed by those leaders in the church who should have offered support and guidance the way he had to me. The way we are called by Christ to do. The way he did to me. His help, among others, rebuilt a shattered Christian back into a fierce and passionate Warrior for Christ, and I grieve for a fallen soldier and pray he find his path again.

We are all cripples. The issues I battled with in 1999 are still in my life. I battle them every day and more. My life in 2014 included cancer of not one but two family members, financial struggle and continuing to try to help my wife through a life-threatening illness, currently in remission, but one we know will ultimately claim her physical life. Every day is a battle. Every hour a struggle. Every moment I am reminded I do not have the strength to do this alone.

So I lean on the cross.

We are invited by Jesus to do so. He became like us so we could become like Him.

John Eldridge’s amazing book “Waking the Dead” puts it like this:

“The story of your life is the story of the long and brutal assault on your heart by the one who knows what you could be and fears it.”

My life has been a battlefield since I became a Christian at the age of 13. There has been death, illness, persecution on a physical and mental level – as much as you get in the developed world, anyway. I have suffered rejection and had many, many chances to walk away from Christ. Each of these causes me to cling to Him tighter now, although at first I was tempted to let go as it would be “easier”.

Walk with a crutch. The Crutch of the Cross of Jesus Christ. It will never fail you, never break under the load, and support you in ways you never dreamed possible.

I’m a cripple, and I’m proud of it.

It gives me a chance to show what God can do with a weak and flawed human life.

I’ll keep my crutch, thanks World. It’s all I need.

I recently have read several arguments regarding the importance of orthopraxy – living a behaviourally “right” life – over orthodoxy – living a doctrinally correct life.

Don’t misunderstand me here. Our behaviour is vitally important in our walk with Christ. Faith, James tells us, requires works to demonstrate it. Even Satan believes in God – he has faith God exists.

A morally “good” existence is not enough. To be enough we need to look at the reason for the orthopraxy. What underscores the behaviour? Ghandi lived a morally “good” life. But his actions alone are insufficient. We are all fallen beings, and no matter how much good we try to do in this world we can never overcome the fact we were born into an inheritance of death. Adam’s bloodline was stained with Adam’s sin against God. We were separated from God because of that. Sin is in us all and no amount of good deeds, saving the whales or only eating vegetables will overcome that. Even ensuring an end to conflict and eradicating poverty would be insufficient.

That was the point of Jesus.

I follow a group on Facebook called “Kissing Fish”. It is a page advocating “Progressive” Christian concepts. I disagree philosophically with many of the arguments put forward there, but there is wisdom included in the writing that cannot be ignored. While recently the page featured an article about a question fundamentalists cannot answer – that being “Why would God care more about what we believe about God than how we live for God?” I felt compelled as – for want of a better term to describe myself, and I am open to suggestions – a “fundamentalist” Christian offer an answer.
I won’t repeat everything I wrote here – the page is open to view on facebook – but basically it boils down to this: the argument offered was that right actions are more important than right beliefs. I have to disagree.

Right actions in God’s work through us are born from right beliefs. Every change in the Bible from Old Testament including David’s repentance over murder through the salvation of Zaccheus and Paul’s experience on the Damascus Road involved a fundamental change in the belief – the orthodoxy – of the individual which then led to repentance in it’s fullest form and a total change of behaviour.

Our actions, like our speech, comes from the fullness of our heart. If we ask in the Holy Spirit and allow Him to fill our heart then our actions will be the resulting Godly action – although admittedly it’s a lot harder than it sounds. I ask God in but still harbour ill feeling towards my next-door neighbour for his intolerance of aspects of my situation, namely my dogs barking. It seems small, and it is petty, but it gets in the way of being full of God and being able to reach out to him in a Christ-like manner. On a bigger scale the abuser of a friend’s child goes on trial in a few weeks and my anger toward the individual for their actions burns fiercely. So fiercely I don’t know if it’s anger with the man – ungodly anger – or over the action. God’s anger against the abuse of an innocent child cannot be denied – His anger at the action that is. Yet He will still offer forgiveness and acceptance if this perpetrator truly repents and accepts Jesus. The question is whether we are able to. It’s a very personal question for me, and one I struggle to answer. Right now I find I cannot forgive the action and I am unable to separate the sin from the sinner in my heart. That action, although internal, separates me from God in that area and allows a foothold for our enemy in my life.

My belief that I need to extend forgiveness to those who have wronged me and the people I love comes from the Christ Paradigm that entered my heart when I accepted Jesus nearly 30 years ago. My ability to live this paradigm fluctuates. And it fluctuates in huge waves.

Oddly, I find it easier (usually) to forgive those who have wronged me directly than those who have betrayed and hurt the people I love. My paradigm is still one that seeks to exact revenge on the wrongdoer rather than forgive and let God handle it. It’s a stronghold in my heart that needs to change.

As a writer who is not afraid to speak out against false religion like Islam I sympathise with the victims of the Charlie Hebdo killings in France. I will not be silenced, but neither will I declare “Je Suis Charlie” because I am not. I don’t seek to make fun of another person’s religion, simply to try to demonstrate through my words and actions that they are mistaken in their beliefs. To this end I will use satire, humour, sarcasm and even self-deprecation to get the message of the Gospel across. There is no more important role that Jesus has given us than to be ambassadors of His Name.

How we go about changing the world begins with a change in ourselves. I’ve talked a bit about me in this article, my struggles, my beliefs and my paradigms. Some of them match the orthodoxy beliefs I want to live by. Some are a work in progress. But in any area, before we can demonstrate orthorpraxy, our orthodoxy, the core of what we believe that fuels our actions, needs to be correct.

Faith without works is dead.

Works without Faith is pointless.

Check your paradigm – and do it regularly.

 Then the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. [Mark 15:38 NKJV]

At the moment of Christ’s death, God Himself entered the Temple and ripped the curtain separating the Holy of Holies from the people. It was torn as recorded in all the gospels from top to bottom, indicating this was not the work of conspiracy which would tear from bottom to top because of the nature of the curtain.

God rent the curtain and at that moment declared a New Covenant.

So why are we so determined to repair the curtain? Many ministers I’ve heard declare God to be a Holy God – which He is. They declare Him to be omnipotent – which He is.

They declare Him to be unapproachable. They missed something in that declaration.

“ No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you” [John 15:15 NKJV]

All things made known to us. Initially in person of Jesus Himself, then through the Holy Spirit. Christ came to us in a form where we could relate to Him as a human being and develop the kind of relationship with Him we were supposed, no designed to have with Him through Adam.

God, through Jesus and the Holy Spirit, speaks to us. He enters our hearts as far as we will let Him in and He meets us where we are. The Holy of Holies is now the human heart. Anyone prepared to open themselves to Him becomes the Temple itself and God moves in with as much luggage as we allow Him to. The big difference is His luggage consists entirely of gifts for us.

Think about God’s primary motivation. Everyone knows John 3:16, but how many of us look beyond into the next few verses?

“For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.” [John 3:17-21 NKJV]

We spend so much time on the sixteenth verse we miss the power of the context. Not to condemn us – something too many churches do. An invitation to leave darkness and enter into His Light. It is clear that the condemnation we feel is not from God. God convicts us of righteousness. Satan is the accuser who will make us condemn ourselves.

We believe the lie that we can’t return home. We’re not deserving of forgiveness. Every agreement in that vein begins to stitch up the curtain and separate us from Jesus and His Love.

It’s a common theme in other religions. My wife’s best friend is a muslim and in order for him to be able to pray he has to use a special cloth to wash himself in a specific order to be able to present himself before Allah to worship and pray so he is worthy.

I pray in the bath because it’s comfortable and nobody disturbs me. I don’t have to bow to the east to pray. Whilst I’d love to visit Jerusalem, Galilee, Nazareth and the Holy Land in general I won’t get a better spot in Heaven if I do.

The major denominations in general – there are individual churches within them who don’t do this – tend to be curtain repair men. I grew up in an Anglican church where I served first as a chorister then when my voice broke I became a “server”, the equivalent of an altar-boy I guess. I remember being drilled repeatedly week after week for lighting the altar candles in the wrong order. I didn’t get it. Under my alb I was usually in shorts in the summer, jeans in the winter. I got corrected if the knot on my belt was wrong. It had to sit in a certain position. When I became Crucifer, the individual who carried the heavy brass cross in the ritual I would have to be certain the cross was perfectly straight and at the right height relative to my size. The rules and regulations I realise now some 30 years later were busy repairing the curtain. I was permitted to cross into the area behind the altar-rail, something nobody who wasn’t the “right” person was allowed to do.

Curtain repairs.

Those examples seem negative, but my spiritual foundation was laid there, and much of what I write is a direct result of what I learned about God from the years I spent at that church as my faith grew. I didn’t agree with some of it, and wasn’t afraid at the age of 14 to challenge the minister over matters of theology. I respected John very much and I learned a great deal from him about what Jesus was about. It was an intellectual foundation that has allowed me to build a heart-based faith with a rock solid foundation under it that has helped me through more crises in the last 30 years than I can begin to express.

But I was still a curtain repair man.

Moving away from home and joining charismatic churches gave me a very different experience. The notion of intimate relationship became important. The orthodox teaching I had sat under allowed me to recognise the essential nature of the outward focus while my personal time focussed – and still does – of developing a relationship both emotional and intellectual with my Friend, Jesus. It allows me to sit alone and have a conversational style prayer with Him. Aloud if I’m completely alone. My work has isolated me from many of my friends, and my personal life outside work involves a lot of time consuming work to help my family with assorted illnesses recently so church on a Sunday has fallen away. I get fellowship where I can find it, and God always brings exactly the right person at precisely the moment I need across my path to keep me accountable.

It stops me repairing the curtain.

Don’t get me wrong. God is a Holy God. We need to respect that, but He’s our Daddy too. Watching children play and just hurl themselves into their daddy’s arms knowing he’ll catch them is beautiful God wants that for us. An intimacy of trust.

So quit repairing your curtain. Let the light in and wash the shadows away.

What’s to lose? Let Him in so you can receive healing in every area.

Your heart is now the Holy of Holies. Guard it with His Spirit.

Back to basics for this, the 200th post on this blog.

Faith. Trusting in God to give us what we need.

The Complete Jewish Bible (CJB) puts Hebrews 11:1-2 as follows:

“Trusting<sup class="footnote" data-fn="#fen-CJB-30187a" data-link="[a]”> is being confident of what we hope for, convinced about things we do not see. It was for this that Scripture attested the merit of the people of old.”

The word Faith used in the majority of translations is here translated “Trusting”. It draws a parralel with Habakkuk 2:4 “Look at the proud: he is inwardly not upright; but the righteous will attain life through trusting faithfulness.” (emphasis added)

We all recognise Faith is essential in our walk with God. We believe the right doctrine (orthodoxy) and try to live it out (orthopraxy) but too often in our own strength. The “progressive” movement places a high emphasis on orthopraxy as being more important, but the two are inextricably linked. As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13:3 “And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned,<sup class="footnote" data-fn="#fen-NKJV-28669a" data-link="[a]”> but have not love, it profits me nothing.” Actions without the love that comes through orthodox beliefs and Love – agape love – are worthless.

Once a year while I was at secondary school our headmaster would drone on about agape love in assembly. And I mean drone on. And on. And on.

It was painful, largely because he didn’t really practice what he spoke of, it was merely lip-service to the word.

I’ve been in churches that emphasise doing good works as being the most important thing, and “working out” our salvation through them. Now in some cases this was a genuine set of suggestions, but in others it was a question of we had to do the works because God did his bit, now we have to make up the shortfall.

Look at the thief on the cross next to Jesus. He didn’t live long enough to become a missionary or convert anyone else. He had no time to act on his faith. All he had a chance to do was believe and accept what Jesus had done.

Trusting Faithfulness.

Faith and nothing else saw him rewarded with eternity in Paradise with Jesus.

Somewhere we missed the point. We’ve become obsessed with orthoprax behaviours at the expense of belief being the motivator. Orthodox beliefs will inevitably lead to right behaviour. The beliefs in the correct way of Jesus and His sacrifice, when allowed to seep into the soul, cannot cause anything other than the orthopraxy so beloved by some churches now.

And this behaviour has its limits in these churches. Any church practising the behaviour of the first and second century Christians is labelled a cult these days, yet observations by ancient historians and apologists such as that of Aristides of Athens in the second century, where he states “… if there is among them any that is poor and needy, and if they have no spare food, they fast two or three days in order to supply to the needy their lack of food. They observe the precepts of their Messiah with much care, living justly and soberly as the Lord their God commanded them. Every morning and every hour they give thanks and praise to God for His loving-kindnesses toward them…”, a demonstration of a true community as practiced by the Church led by Peter in Jerusalem that led to a mass of people selling all they had to ensure everyone in the church, slave and free, had enough for their families – not because it would “earn” their salvation, but because their salvation was so complete they could not do anything else and accept they were Christians.

Somewhere along the line we introduced the concept of the tithe – not a bad concept in itself, just not what Jesus talked of. Jesus said to the rich young ruler to sell all he had and follow Him. The young man left sadly because he loved his material possessions, not because the orthoprax behaviour was impossible, but because it required him to surrender his idol – money.

James writes:

“ I can already hear one of you agreeing by saying, “Sounds good. You take care of the faith department, I’ll handle the works department.” Not so fast. You can no more show me your works apart from your faith than I can show you my faith apart from my works. Faith and works, works and faith, fit together hand in glove.” [James 2:18 The Message]

The modern idiom is to do the works and the faith will follow. Tell that to a diabetic who stops his medication to cause his faith for healing to grow. The man will die by inches (I am a diagnosed diabetic but my faith for healing is not yet complete so I take my medication until it is). Or a heart disease patient. Or any sick person who is convinced by wrong teaching that actions produce faith.

Faith without works is dead, but similarly, works alone are pointless. The two are inseparable. Without faith it is impossible to please God. We cannot “earn” His Love as it is freely given to us. Our own children don’t have to earn the love of their parents, they are simply loved. Why do we ascribe a different standard to God?

Faith gives us vitality. It allows us to move into works. It brings life and a point to our existence. It allows our works to have meaning and for us to be more than an empty vessel making a noise.

The Pharisees had works. They “obeyed” their interpretation of the Law of Moses. Paul himself wrote he was blameless in the sight of the pharisaic interpretation of the Law. He had kept the Law, their interpretation of it, perfectly. But it was not enough. His actions were perfected by Faith. Trusting instead in the completion of the Law by Jesus and His actions, Paul was freed to move into real action, God’s works for his life. As a result he travelled the Roman Empire in the Middle East planting churches and teaching the risen Christ to anyone and everyone who would listen. He gave us over half the New Testament books in the form of the letters he wrote, and most of our modern understanding of orthodox belief is based on those letters.

Faith is the power-house that provides movement to the body of Christ, or it should be. If we truly Love God, that is if we truly have a complete trusting faithfulness in His goodness and faithfulness, then we will see the mountains around us thrown into the sea. It is not our beliefs or actions that cause the change, but our trust that produces God’s actions to manifest in our lives.

First the belief, the vitality of true unwavering faith. Orthodox beliefs.

Actions will follow naturally. Orthoprax actions – the right actions – flow from faith.

And that Faith revitalises us.

In July 2014 I wrote about the Gospel being a Gospel of Absolutes, for it is.

No more so than on the first Good Friday, the day Jesus surrendered His life with the Lion’s Roar “It is finished”. The full passage in the New King James reads:

“After this, Jesus, knowing<sup class="footnote" data-fn="#fen-NKJV-26854e" data-link="[e]”> that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, “I thirst!” Now a vessel full of sour wine was sitting there; and they filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on hyssop, and put it to His mouth. So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!” And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit.” (John 19:28-30)

There can be no doubt left by the statement John makes in the Gospel. It’s a final declaration of triumph by Jesus.

He knows He has completed the prophecies – there is just one remaining, the drinking of vinegar on the Cross. He knows what is to come. He will become Sin so we may be freed from it’s grasp.

“It is finished”.

There is no ambiguity in His words. He does not say “My part is finished, now look for Mohammed”.

Finished.

Complete.

Finalised.

Some things are just naturally completed. We look for completion in what we read and watch. When a series or movie ends in ambiguity we despair and wait for the sequel.

Maximus kills the evil Commodus then dies. It’s an ending we can get behind. Darth Vader finds redemption by killing the Sith Lord Sidious. And we cheer (although what is about to happen in the movies may well make us groan).

But ambiguity makes us tense. We long for finality. I watched “Stargate SG1” on TV and was horrified when the series wasn’t renewed because the enemy was left in the middle of a storyline. The makers were obviously aware of this and commissioned a TV movie to round it off. When the second “Matrix” movie ended we were on the edge of our seats – Neo unconscious, no completion. No destruction of evil. “The Empire Strikes Back” was just as bad for us.

And that’s the crux. We as humans have an inherent need to see evil defeated. Even before Adam fell we had the need to see evil cast down. Part of the temptation was to be able to tell good from evil. It’s why it was such an effective ruse.

We need to see the enemy conquered. The bad guys need to lose in a way they can’t come back from. It’s built into us. A part of us that is connected with a Holy God in a way that can only be developed in a Holy Relationship – and that was the point Jesus strove to make in His teachings and through His death and Resurrection. It was the point Paul and the other New Testament writers laboured for years to make apparent to their friends, families, enemies and even to us 2000 years later.

We can be Holy again.

King David was an adulterer, a murderer. He had blood on his hands from countless battles. He fell into sin time and time again. Yet he was described as a man after God’s own heart. It wasn’t from his sin that this came, but rather from his desire for relationship with God.

Abraham believed God.

“What then shall we say that Abraham our father has found according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt.” (Romans 4:1-4 NKJV)

Not “Abraham believed in God”. Belief that God exists, even belief oin His almighty power to save us is not enough. An intellectual acknowledgement  of the Truth will not suffice. We must believe God. Trust Him. Accept Him.

Not try to earn His acceptance. That’s folly. The Cross was final.

The Law is completed in Christ, so by trusting Christ was enough for us and believing Him we can confidently ask God for our needs to be given to us and expect to receive them.

This is where false religions get their power. As much as we have a need for finality through our knowledge that God desires us, we have a second need that came with the fall – that we should save ourselves. Cain killed Abel because Abel offered a life for his own – God’s work – where Cain offered grain he had sweated to produce – his own work – and it was not enough. His jealousy led to the first murder.

So it is that we have a desire to earn our way into heaven. Whether it’s by reclaiming the Holy Land like the knights a thousand years ago did, slaughtering thousands in a futile effort to win God’s favour, or the actions of a modern jihadist doing the same thing with the weapons of the 21st Century makes no difference.

Even feeding the poor, clothing the naked and healing the sick are worthless actions if performed simply to say to God “look what I’ve done”.

God simply wants us to look and say:

“Look what Jesus did”.

He gave up Heaven.

He died on a Cross.

All so He could have our company.

I enjoy talking to atheists. It’s fun watching them scrabble for answers to the truly deep philosophical questions of life. Questions like “How can we know what is morally good” generally confound them. I like challenging a scientist to take all the exact chemicals used to make an acorn and get them mixed in such a way that an oak tree will grow from it.

It amuses me to see the bewilderment in their faces as they realise science can’t answer these questions. Science can’t explain life. No robot will ever be truly self-aware in the way a human being is, no matter how well it’s programmed. “Terminator” is unlikely to happen for real.

These confounding questions are a thorn in the side of atheists. They simply have no answer. Try asking one what caused the Big Bang. Or to prove the theory of evolution. Scientifically it actually can’t be done. It’s a theory. They can show an apparent progression, but there are many links in the chain missing. It requires a deeper “faith” to believe we evolved by chance than it does to believe we were created – by whatever means that creation took place, be it natural evolution or God’s hand at work – which I find infinitely more likely.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not so far down the fundamentalist road that I think the Earth is only 6000 years old, but I have what I believe is a healthy level of skepticism about carbon-dating accuracy.

Perhaps the answers to some of the “mysteries” of the world are in scripture. Maybe the pyramids were the great store-houses built by Joseph and the Pharoah of the day (possibly Akhenaten who was known to have converted to monotheism of the Aten or Sun-God in the fifth year of his reign) to store seven years of harvest and nothing more. Nobody would paint inside a barn today, so why would then be any different? The suggestion was made in what is considered a work of fiction, Thomas Mann’s “Joseph and His Brothers”, but as with much fiction perhaps there is a certain amount of fact mixed in?

I can’t prove it one way or another, and science seems to not be interested in exploring the possibility as far as my research can tell (although I stand to be corrected).

But the biggest thing I hear is the problem of the world itself. Atheists seem to think Christians in particular – especially fundamentalists – believe this world is as God created it and that He is in complete control. This makes Him out to be a monster. Genocide in the Bible and modern times are all His doing and His will.

They can’t seem to grasp the concept of Free Will.

Free Will, given to mankind represented by Adam in Genesis, was responsible for the murder and mayhem in the world today, not God’s Freewill, but humankind’s. When you say this an atheist will usually ask why God doesn’t correct it. They can’t seem to grasp the thought that God desires us to follow Him willingly, not as automatons like a terminator.

Freewill is the fly in the ointment. The spanner in the works.

If Man has freewill, then the state of the world is mankind’s creation and not God’s. The purpose of Christ , then, becomes exactly what He claimed it to be – a restorative and redemptive relationship-building exercise leading to the eventual vanquishing of evil from humankind in general and the recreation of the Heavens and Earth. If, however, mankind is simply another mammal then we are in deep trouble. Moral decay becomes inevitable and the destruction of this world a mere formality. We have already got the weaponry and mindset to destroy the planet many times over – it is simply a matter of time.

Like most Christians, I prefer to look at the glass as half full. We may be in the final days, but freewill prevents us from destroying everything we have created and everything God left here for us to enjoy while we are here. Long life in this world is listed in the Old Testament as a Blessing for Obedience – although an argument could be made in some cases that God simply doesn’t want those people yet as He wants to give them a chance to repent.

Whatever our personal view, the fly remains in the ointment. Freewill will always be here. Humans and self-awareness go hand in hand, and we all – atheists and deists alike, seek a reason for our being here at all.

Personally I believe it’s a practice for the awesome Relationship we will enjoy in His presence for Eternity.

The title says it all. The three things we need to live in a state of Victory despite our circumstances.

Vision:

Vision gives us hope. It allows us to see beyond our current circumstances whether it be poverty, ill health, homelessness, divorce, debt or any other adversity that plagues us as believers. It allows us to search for and find refuge from the storms of this world and the attacks of the enemy.

Vision allows us to see, as God says through Jeremiah in chapter 29:11, a hope. A plan. Prosperity not harm. A future.

Vision allows us to see beyond our circumstances.

Those who know me personally know my circumstances. I’ll share some with you all here as it is a part of my testimony. Six years ago in 2009 my life was finally coming together. My wife and I were working hard to build a business which was succeeding to the extent we were able to own our own home, give away to the less fortunate without thinking about it and plan for a baby despite our advancing years.

All that changed 1st April 2010. Routine surgery went horribly wrong for my wife. Infection set in and she became sick to the point of being only days from death when we finally sought a second opinion. The doctor we went to and his team quite literally saved her physical life, but the psychological damage was done, as was the financial. Due to her failing health we had to give away our business – it was incurring debt we could not service and the prayerful decision was to give it over to someone we could trust to offer the same level of care we had offered to our patients. By March 2011 we had some answers. The infection was exacerbated by secondary incurable infections which modern medicine can hold at bay but not yet cure. Weakened, she could not work. As a foreigner in South Africa, a white, male, tertiary qualified and business experienced foreigner I was unemployable at that level of the business world. I took a job in a call center so we had some income, and God provided the balance we needed from most unexpected and unlikely sources.

People we knew to be wealthy beyond our dreams accused us of “temerity” when we asked for assistance. People we could never have imagined could assist us gave out of their lack into our hands and bought us time for my wife to begin to recover.

In time, a vision emerged. A new business which is now growing. But the time was not without cost. We sold our home, our car and everything not nailed down to minimise the strain on us and our benefactors. Tragedy struck in the form of cancer in our family to not one, but two members being struck down within months of each other. It seemed our hopes were in vain, but the Vision remained.

More than that, the vision grew. What began as a medical practice has grown into a medical center with other practitioners operating and cross-referrals going on daily. We all benefit and the vision continues to grow.

So we reach humility:

Humility is the ability to receive guidance and gifts given in Love. Humility is acknowledging our strengths and weaknesses equally bluntly and allowing God to step in and build us in our weakness, provide for us financially and keep a roof over our heads.

He has been faithful in that. We have never been without a home where we have been welcomed and loved, and there is the possibility of more to come if we will humble ourselves to receive it.

Receiving a blessing from others is hard when you’ve always been the conduit in the other direction. Humility gets twisted into humiliation by the accuser. This is simply not the case. To receive from someone giving out of God’s command to them is to Bless that person. It requires the Godly Humility to recognise we cannot do this alone and we need to have help in this world. God moves through people to help us. His Blessings – especially financial ones – come through other people. A place of Refuge is often provided by the most unlikely, or at least unexpected sources. Accepting it is to give a Blessing in return to the giver.

It’s a gift we must learn to walk in to draw close to God.

Finally we have Courage.

Courage is the hardest step. It is the determination to move forwards in the direction the Vision has shown and the Humility has provided guidance for.

But we are often comfortable in our situation. It’s familiar. When Peter walked on the water to Jesus in the storm he acted out of courage. He had the vision that trusting Jesus was the right first step. He had the humility to cry out to Him for help because he could not save himself. He had the courage to step over the side of the boat onto the water.

The other 11 disciples were comfortable in peril. They clung to the boat despite knowing it was sinking. The knew in the raging storm they would die if they didn’t do something extraordinary, yet Peter was the only one with the courage to act on the Faith of God inside him, and as a result he walked on water to Jesus. Even when he began to sink he cried out to Jesus, not to the men in to boat to throw him a line.

Courage despite the circumstances.

Three small concepts at first glance.

Three exceptional steps to getting from drowning in problems to walking on water.

And the best part? Jesus is right there waiting to take our hands and lead us over the troubles to safety.

I love the overtly descriptive way the Amplified Bible tells the descriptions in the story of Dives and Lazarus.

“There was a certain rich man who [habitually] clothed himself in purple and fine linen and reveled and feasted and made merry in splendor every day. And at his gate there was [carelessly] dropped down and left a certain utterly destitute man named Lazarus, [reduced to begging alms and] covered with [ulcerated] sores. He [eagerly] desired to be satisfied with what fell from the rich man’s table; moreover, the dogs even came and licked his sores.” (Luke 16 19-21 AMP)

“And it occurred that the man [reduced to] begging died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. And in Hades (the realm of the dead), being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far away, and Lazarus in his bosom.” (Luke 16:22-23 AMP)

 “And he cried out and said, Father Abraham, have pity and mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame. But Abraham said, Child, remember that you in your lifetime fully received [what is due you in] comforts and delights, and Lazarus in like manner the discomforts and distresses; but now he is comforted here and you are in anguish. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who want to pass from this [place] to you may not be able, and no one may pass from there to us.” (Luke 16:24-26 AMP)

“And [the man] said, Then, father, I beseech you to send him to my father’s house — For I have five brothers — so that he may give [solemn] testimony and warn them, lest they too come into this place of torment. But Abraham said, They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear and listen to them. But he answered, No, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent (change their minds for the better and heartily amend their ways, with abhorrence of their past sins). He said to him, If they do not hear and listen to Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded and convinced and believe [even] if someone should rise from the dead.” (Luke 16:27-31 AMP)

One of the most disturbing ideas in the church today is that of capitulation. For 2000 years we have stuck to orthodox teaching and beliefs. These orthodox beliefs, however they were delivered, resulted in manifestations such as the Welsh Revival, Asuza Street and many others by not compromising an uncomfortable message to make it more palatable to the “normal” receiver. John Wesley didn’t compromise. Billy Graham’s messages in his crusades were unflinching from the Truth. A myriad of ministers far greater than most in their understanding stood fast 0n the Word without compromise.

Some were ostracized.

Some were martyred.

Some were listened to – eventually.

Most disheartening is the constant bullying from groups – minorities who don’t represent the majority but are far more vocal – regarding the issue of the moment. Right now, sexuality, specifically LGBT, is the headline issue, so it becomes the center of the discussion.

I generally use sexuality as an example as it is the most visible issue right now. A few years ago I would have used self-centered attitudes or financial greed and the worship of materialism as the example, but the movement of the moment is one that the media provokes through the news, the fictional dramas – both secular and Christian publications and productions – which not only don’t accurately address the issue of sin, but advocate that the sin of the moment is somehow different now we are more “enlightened”. The references in scripture we have clung to as a church regarding sexual immorality, greed, selfishness and many other issues have been shredded and new “interpretations” placed to make the watered down gospel acceptable to the masses.

It’s still self-centered behaviour. All sin ultimately is about Self. We can pay lip service to the sin and condemn it, then go home and live as though it has no effect on us. This in itself is shocking. Why are we not reaching out to these people in a way that draws them into the church the way Jesus did? He used unflinching Truth.

What do we do today?

Compromise.

We lower our standards from the ones Jesus set. Unconditional Love extended to all people with change coming as a result of that relationship, not a pathway to it.

Jesus could have come teaching about a liberal “god” who declares he is simply one path to god but there are many.

He could have said “go for it” or “anything goes between consenting adults” when asked about sexuality. He could have taken the woman caught in adultery and executed her. He could have, but He didn’t.  Any of these actions would make a point, and the different actions would make different points. But Jesus takes the eyes off the woman and onto himself. He draws in the sand. Once everyone has their eyes on Him, she is able to cover herself, restoring her modesty. He confronts them by not throwing the stone. He doesn’t ask “Where is the one she was with?” He doesn’t even ask if it was a man or a woman she was with. He will not compromise His stand, and we need to learn from that. His stand is Love, not Judgement. And He refuses to compromise the message to the point of the Cross for us.

Compromise kills the Gospel. It undermines the foundation of what we believe. It forces us to consider a plethora of alternatives that make God’s head spin with despair for us instead of focussing on Him as the solution to all our woes.

We sit with choices. You can’t click on a website without being invited to join a dating service (I met my wife online, so they’re not all bad), but often these sites have links to other sites, and before you’ve clicked a dozen times you’re caught up in a “pornado”. A far cry from the “Over 30’s and single” site you started at. And quite terrifying.

We must be ever vigilant to the attacks of the enemy, but the strongest defence behaviour is to have a strong offensive plan. The way to repel is to soak in the word. If you’re not in a local bible-centred church then find one, or form one with other like-minded bibliocentric individuals with Christ at the center and accountability to one another in the Eldership. Be fully accountable to each other – brutally honest in confessions and non-judgemental in offering support, exactly how Jesus was. Remember He told the Samaritan woman at the well her own life story. Seven husbands and shacking up with number 8 – a man who wouldn’t even give her his name.

Maybe we’re like that. My wife kept her maiden name when we married – mostly. She’s a medical doctor, so it fitted well because she was established in the area, but I long for the covenant to be complete and the change to come, but I don’t force the issue. I compromise. She maintains her original name professionally and I don’t complain. In our personal life it’s more complex as she sometimes uses mine and sometimes hers. It gets confusing.

Compromise in that kind of thing is seemingly insignificant, and ultimately easily overcome.

Compromising our Faith, however, is more fundamental. We need to bear in mind that we have to project an image of Christ as He did. To represent the Whole of God to the people who are seeking Him. It’s a daunting task, like asking a small candle to light a theatre, but if that one candle recruits another and so on, the theatre will be filled with light.

So it is with us. No compromise. Be it greed, lust, gender roles, LGBT issues or whatever is the flavour of the moment. We need to look to history.

The Christian musician Carman once said “when the time comes that people would rather come out of the closet than clean it, it’s the sign the Judgement of God is about to Fall” (“The Standard” Album). We need to push the Gospel agenda.

Not “pro-life” or “Pro-choice” Not some liberal wishy-washy claptrap about everyone can find their own path – and this from ministers. Not demure sunday schools who can’t find it in themselves to teach the children the hard part of Christ in a soft way.

The agenda of the Gospel is No Compromise.

Don’t back down, even if it costs your life. If it takes everything you have, don’t back down. Don’t capitulate. Hold to the promise you were first given when you came to Faith, that Jesus Christ is the same Yesterday, today and for ever. If He’s unchanging, then we need to be unflinching in our resolve.

It’s what all the Martyrs for the Faith in History have done.

So stand your ground when you know it’s God calling you to act a certain way. Invite an unsaved neighbour to church. Perhaps someone invited you. Someone invited Billy Graham. Someone invited DL Moody. Someone invited William Booth, John Wesley and all the other great leaders of history. Our invitation might just be the one that sparks a revival of unprecedented proportions. But take them somewhere the Gospel is taught in it’s fullness. No holds barred. There is a Hell. There is a Heaven. Jesus is returning. And when He does, He will judge us.

Ouch.

He will return ready for a final battle, and whether it’s in our physical lifetime or not, this is the last generation we can personally affect. Use the influence you have wisely, dear friends. Don’t get sidetracked by minutia of irrelevancies and live, breathe and demonstrate the Full Gospel every day.

Without compromise.

A couple of decades ago – yikes – I went to my first Christian Conference, an event called Greenbelt in the UK. The keynote speaker was Dr Tony Campolo, of whom I had never heard but since have come to respect enormously – even if I disagree with some of what he’s said, I still find his teaching provoking and inspiring.

One thing he said back then was that as a lecturer he would be challenged by his students from time to time as to how he could believe in God under the circumstances of the World in its current condition. Pain, suffering, injustice.

He said he would ask those who professed to be atheists a simple question: “describe for me the god you have rejected”.

Almost invariably their answer would effectively describe a leader of the ruling majority government of the day. A truly terrifying thought. The possibility in South Africa that God could in any way resemble Jacob Zuma scares the life out of me. Tony Blair or David Cameron in the UK are no better. For all his wisdom, even the Pope falls short.

But the answer reveals something. It reveals that the person has certain pre-existing notions of right and wrong. It shows that there is a glimpse of what ought to be as opposed to what is.

Stephen Fry, an intellectual man and renowned atheist, whom I also respect for his ability as an actor, his quick wit and his intelligence described in a recent interview the god he rejects. “Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God who creates a world that is so full of injustice and pain. That’s what I would say.” was his answer.

Capricious. Mean minded. Injustice. Pain.

He attributes these qualities to the god he rejects. And well he should. John 10:10 answers the source of this pain: “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy.” and His answer to it: “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”

I reject the notion of a capricious, mean spirited, unjust god. Actually, I accept there is a being that fits the description.

Satan.

But at the moment, Stephen Fry can’t see that. The enemy has done a first-class job in Western Society of convincing the confused of his non-existence. If he doesn’t exist, then all suffering on earth has to have been created as some grand design by the one who did create it.

Oddly, these often highly intelligent people like Stephen Fry and Richard Dawkins, seem incapable of spotting the flaw in their own argument.

If a man has no concept of what a straight line is, how can he declare the line he sees to be crooked [paraphrasing CS Lewis]. They fail to realise that they cry out against injustice from their ivory towers, blaming someone they don’t know or understand an iota of in the form of God, and attributing all the pain and suffering caused by the sin of man through Satan to God. He describes continuous praise and worship as a form of hell in the interview – much as the parody Dudley Moore and Peter Cook film “Bedazzled” (1967) shows it where Cook, playing the devil, has Moore dance around singing praises until he’s bored silly and says “can’t we swap places”. It seems Stephen Fry has this as the image of what heaven will be like – meaning if he has read the Bible, he’s completely missed the point. God’s perfection is designed to complete our self will, not destroy it.

Restoring Creation, the New Heaven and New Earth spoken of in Revelation, is the result of Judgement on Satan and the Love expressed through the Cross. Why would God force anyone who chose to reject that Love to spend eternity living in it? That would be unjust. So He will do what only a Just God can do. He will deny entrance to all who reject Jesus and His Sacrifice.

But I am close to digressing the point.

The description Mr Fry gives of the god he rejects, and the description I give of the work of Satan are almost word-for-word identical.

Perhaps he is closer to meeting Jesus than he realises.