Another gospel

1 Cor. 9:22-23

22 When I am with people whose faith is weak, I live as they do to win them. I do everything I can to win everyone I possibly can. 23 I do all this for the good news, because I want to share in its blessings. Col. 2:20-23

20 You died with Christ. Now the forces of the universe don't have any power over you. Why do you live as if you had to obey such rules as, 21 “Don't handle this. Don't taste that. Don't touch this.”? 22 After these things are used, they are no longer good for anything. So why be bothered with the rules that humans have made up? 23 Obeying these rules may seem to be the smart thing to do. They appear to make you love God more and to be very humble and to have control over your body. But they don't really have any power over our desires.

I am someone who easily adapts to different cultures, circumstances and people. For me to be a Jew with the Jew and Greek with the Greek is actually something I enjoy. However, there is a big pitfall there and often I have fallen into it. To be able to adapt is good but one should be careful what one adapts to, and for what purpose. Paul’s focus was Christ and the Gospel of Christ. With that focus in mind he was willing to give up a lot of his personal freedoms and preferences in order to save some. However, we should not adapt to other people’s wishes and preferences simply for the sake of wanting to be liked. Nor should we adapt out of fear of rejection or abandonment.  This is one pitfall I have often fallen into and in the process also compromised my walk with Christ. The word of God warns us not to become unequally yoked with unbelievers. This does not just mean those who are not Christians, but includes those who call themselves Christians but do not live a Christ-like life. It also includes those who follow a different gospel than the gospel of grace and love taught by Christ.  I have realised that in relationships, even within Christian ministry I have often compromised and adapted too much and gotten myself entangled and unequally yoked with people whose gospel consists of ‘don’t do this’, ‘you shouldn’t have done that’, ‘you must do this’, ‘you must be like this....’. Such a gospel may have the appearance of godliness but it is characterised by self-righteous perfectionism, pretending to be better than thou. The followers of such a false gospel condemn or look down upon those who err, magnify the errors of others but hide or down play and even deny their own wrongs. It is a false gospel which sadly can be found in virtually every Christian tradition. Those who live according to the gospel of grace and love, and the gospel of no-condemnation for those who belong to Christ (Rom. 8:1ff) should be careful not to get unequally yoked with them. If we take their heavy yoke upon ourselves rather than the yoke of Christ (which is light) as we adapt to their rules and demands we may end up heavy laden or emulating their judgemental attitude which has more in common with the Pharisees than with Christ who in compassion and grace says, I do not condemn you, but go and sin no more.

Be born again

Being-born again is not a magical process which changes you from an unsaved law-less person to someone who follows a set of religious rules and regulations which befitting a middle or upper-class gentleman or lady. Being truly born-again means that our inner philosophy, the inner conviction we are driven by is changed by the Holy Spirit who fills us with the love of God. This love is poured out by God’s Holy Spirit in our hearts when we surrender our lives to Christ in response to the gospel of God’s love, grace, mercy and forgiveness for us. This love then enables us to live in accordance with the Great Commandment of Jesus Christ. Sadly many self-confessed born again Christians are actually driven by other driving forces/motivations than the love of Christ. They may in truth be driven by idols such as a desire for status, respectability, success, control, influence, power, money, possessions, material security, being liked, being admired, being loved, sex and so on. No-one who is an idolater can be full of God and the love of God, for God is a Holy God and He does not share our hearts with idols.

Do we need revolution?

In a world where government structures are often oppressive many people want to fight the system. However, the more we fight the status quo, the more likely we are to embrace it for by our very fight we validate its existence and affirm its powerful influence. It is the same process that makes it more likely for children of alcoholics becoming alcoholics themselves even after having vowed never to do so. So we see marxists becoming even worse capitalists than the ones they fought and liberation fighters and anarchists becoming worse dicators and setting up more oppressive systems than the ones they fought. Victims become victimisers and so on. Jesus, however, did not start a revolution fighting the system but he provided us with a different way of viewing and living reality from the perspective of the Kingdom of God. It is when we learn to view and approach all things from His perspective we ourselves will be revolutionised and make a constructive impact in the world.

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Gods vision for healthy relationships

Discover God's Vision for healthy Relationships.

Gods vision for relationships is guided by the philosophy of Christ, namely love God first and from your relationship of love with God you love your neighbour as yourself. If we love another person as God loves him or her, our greatest desire is to see that man (or women) conformed to the image of Christ. In order to contribute to this desire being fulfilled we seek to work with the Lord to bring forth qualities in us that reflect His character and gifts that enable us to help others draw closer to God and become more like Him. On our part this requires us to be emotionally disciplined and seek emotional fulfilment in God rather than in the other. We must be willing to trade emotional dependency on people for emotional dependency on God. It also requires us to stop allowing people to make themselves emotionally dependent on us and to encourage them to find the fulfilment of their emotional needs in God. Not everyone will take kindly to this. Some people will respond with clinging behaviour, manipulation, anger and retaliation. However, it is not just in our best interest to do so, it is also in their best interest that we stay strong and do not give in. Also the need to be needed is on our part an emotional need that should be fulfilled by God and not by people who are emotionally dependent on us. To do so is tantamount to idolatry as we seek our ultimate emotional fulfilment in people and not in God and His love. To choose for obedience to God and to discipline ourselves emotionally might make or break a friendship. When we exchange another's best interests for our own neediness, we run the risk of losing the relationship. However, if we continue to maintain or pursue an exclusive emotional involvement with this person, then our desires are in conflict with what the Lord wants. We need to ask ourselves, "Am I working with God or Against Him in the person's life?”.  A healthy godly relationship is characterised by a desire to see the other conformed into the likeness of Christ rather than to see the other conformed to our wishes and desires.

See also:  http://yacrisishotline.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/emotionalinterdependency.pdf

Emotional void

So many people grow up in families where there is abuse or emotional negligence. The typical pattern consists of high demands being made, requiring us to be almost perfect and yet a minimum of emotional reward and affirmation is given. In some families children grow up hearing only criticism and rarely ever do they get praised, affirmed, cuddled and shown genuine unconditional affection.
When such children grow older they seek to fill this void. Sometimes it is by means of substance abuse, sexual addiction in the form of pornography or promiscuity or any other obsession. They may seek to emotionally attach themselves to people in such a way that become engulfed, overwhelmed and loose their freedom and even part of their idenity. It really is a desperate effort to heal their fragmented selves through self-validation and approval seeking. It may appear to be love but really it is a search for inner healing and wholeness. Such people can feel like emotional leeches sucking the life and energy out of us. We must not blame or condemn them, it really isn’t their fault. It is an 'environmental' disease resulting from living in an imperfect world where we grow up with imperfect parents and get hurt by imperfect people. It is up to us to set boundaries and protect ourselves from being swallowed up by their emotional need. The need to be helped to see that the road to wholeness is not to self-medicate with substance abuse or to adapt the behavior of their 'abuser' and begin (ab)using other people. We must help them find wholeness by allowing God to heal their fragmented identity by attaching ourselves to His unconditional love. This is not easy because all of us are contineously exposed to abuse even in society. This may trigger memories of past abuse and cause emotional turmoil. Even our governments often behave like an abusive 'authoritarian parents' who make many demands but when it comes to really taking care of you and your needs you find you are being ignored. They may sometimes give you a few things you act overly grateful for in the hope to get more, but if due to neglect you end up suffering it kicks you and blames you, and until you say "Yes, it was my fault." You can't fight back because the system is too powerful, so you either conform or you will suffer. The danger is that we make others weaker than us scapegoats for our frustration because we cannot fight the real perpetrator. Unfortunately, even our aid organizations and churches at times are abusive environments where we continue to hurt, use and abuse rather them being safe havens, sanctuaries of healing and peace.

A souvereign God of loving kindness

I am amazed by how some believers and unbelievers alike have this concept of the Christian God being a harsh and judgemental Father who goes around in this world choosing some for salvation but assigning most to damnation. It is such a different picture of God the Father from the picture that was portrayed by Jesus in His words and deeds. He portrays God as wanting nobody to perish and as having no joy in the death of the wicked. He is the God who in His love and souvreignity pours out His very own Spirit upon all of humanity convicting them of sin, righteousness and judgement. In so doing He lovingly enables every human being to make the choice to either respond to His gospel invitation of righteousness with faith and obedience, or to choose not to do so and harden their hearts when they hear His voice and continue in disobedience.

God of miracles

My beloved child. I am a God of instant miracles but I am also the God who has been working out His plan for the salvation of humankind and all of creation from eternity past towards eternity future. Be patient my child for I do not work according to the schedules of humankind nor do give my children all they want when they want it, or all they need when they think they need it. I provide at the right time, trust me. Look at nature. When I want to create a mayfly I work fast and its existence is fragile and fleeting. When I want to create an oak I will take my time. The mayfly will in its brief life not encounter many storms or seasons of hardship and adversity but the oak will.  For the oak there is no instant miracle and rapid development. The oak will grow slow and only after a long time of having endured storms and hardship will its final form take shape.  The instant miracle of the mayfly will be long forgotten but the enduring miracle of the magnificent oak will inspire many generations to come.  They will see an unshakable tree, a planting of the Lord, deeply and firmly rooted and fed by underground streams of living water.