Preaching about God's forgiveness /atheist friendly/

I keep repeating myself a question “why do we need God anyway?“ I know it is a school-based, almost child-like question among christians, but I think that in real application in practical life, the answer remains often just an non-applied value.

Here are some examples. Many students know this time of exam at universities, we can't do anything else than watch through two series of favourite TV series per day and we feel that guilt, we hear “the time was wasted“ and it keeps us from studying, we need to calm down...so we begin with another series. Entirely different story: recently I found out, that when you're hurting people, you feel that guilt, it makes you nervous, you can't sleep and the only thing you can do to relax your mint is to direct your self-hatred to other people and go on in the circle. Last example, quite rare, but I heard it more than once: A teenage almost adult boy likes girls a lot. After several wild nights he feels empty and incomplete, because he acts like a jerk, he feels the guilt, he can't sleep and he can turn it off only with another sex, which will clear his head for next few hours, but in the morning everything starts over.

So... what do all these have in common? The guilt. How to handle it, how to turn if off? We are close to the answer to question “why do we need God?“. To be forgiven! Everything else is just a patch – it will silent the guilt for a while, but it does not cure. And don't act like you have it all worked-out, that you don't have a guilt to get rid of. Few years ago I talked to one of my ex-teachers, he was so nice and so devoted. We got to the topic of forgiveness and he said “some things in my life cannot be forgiven“ and he talked about him self. Non-believer! We may drown the guilt by good deeds, but still – it is just a patch for a wound. When you pure clean water into the dirty water, the result is still dirty water.

I am no doctor, but I feel that when my knee is broken, the patch will not heal me. It will help a little bit, but the real healing is always from within. We feel that healing comes by itself, the body will cure itself, but it won't. When an open wound, first platelets gather around and make a scap (read: a patch) as a temporary substitue for missing part of the body, for example a skin. Notice the word “substitute“. Later, the curement comes, the body tissue must be reproduced – the only way your body does that is that it looks into the manual (read: DNA) to see what are the building blocks. The body will find out from DNA what and when needs to be grown to have all things complete. (experts will forgive mistakes in terms)

Sometimes we are so naive and think we know exactly what is the missing piece of our spiritual tissue and that we know what it should be replaced with, but in real it's still just a patch, a cheap substitute. Sometimes we think the time will heal this, but in real it is like with the broken knee: with time the pain isn't so hard, but everytime you hit something, it hurts like hell. Shortly: you need to find a real cure.

When hurt, you need to be as smart as your well-designed body and look into your manual (read: bible). Your diagnose is clear: “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God“ (Romans 3:23). So now we're getting somewhere. What is a prognosis? “the wages of sin is death“ (Romans 6:23). Read further in your manual – the treatment is simple (but not easy) desinfection: “they are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished-- he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.“ (Romans 6:24-26).

Thereforen not a patch but regular treatment causes complete health. Important information: as you know, one and only use of the cure (read: the sinner's prayer) does NOT cure your future wounds. With each failure Christ is needed in order to use the cure. The cure is still the same, unlimited exporation time: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.“ (Hebrews 13:8). Use regularly.

This is the answer to a basic question. We, christian, should have this all worked out. Yet – for some reason the forgiveness is not enough for us, we don't feel good enough to be forgiven, we forget that it is FOR FREE (Romans 3:23) and NOT DESERVED (Romans 5:8). There are people, who think that Jesus went on the cross for all people in the world except them. Some people are tempted to believe that. Sometimes even author himself. Pray for those people.

Maybe

When I look at my life and at some lives around me, it seems we all somehow write our lives, make life-plans. There is nothing wrong about it at all, of course. You need to be “prepared“. But how much are we willing to consider our plans only as “for now“? It is very common frase, but many of us maybe do not allow Christ to change our lives. Maybe instead of asking God about his will we meet praying formalism and church pragmatism. We do things we consider as racionally correct and obvious. We are seeking for thing which are humanly manageable and maybe that we have our patience only there, where it makes “sense“. Maybe we already passed those “key“ life-tests and in our age we have the right view and do not need any changes.

Of course, I know that previous parragraph was a little bit exagerrated. As nothing is perfect in church, as nothing is imperfect in the church. That is why there is the “maybe“. Of course, we are all ready to change as soon as Christ says. We all realise we cannot do this on our own and we all even in the middle age opened to this God’s grace, which can turn our lives upside down. At least that is what we hear on Sundays. But what about our trained life-order? How willingly are we going to give it up? I understand that church wants to do missions, but it cannot, because money is the problem. But is it really the problem? How long have we been doing this? How long have we been used to certain way and direction?

Few months ago the contribution of one of my friends took my attention.  In the morning, with all his clothes, he stood up at the edge of the swimming pool (with quite cold water), he looked around and said: “When was the last time you did something differently?“ Then he jumped. After he got dried he found out he had left his mobile in the pocket and now the mobile was completely wet and gone.

I am sure that this is not a lie that many people practise the christianity, but do not practise Christ. I am sure that in many churches you can find Ten Commandments and I am sure that we give practical manual on life during the church servies and youths. I heard many times that bible is the life-manual. I love my bible and church, I believe that the bible is the word of God. But I do believe that the Son of Man is the Lord of the church, he is the Lord of the bible, he is the Lord of all plans and instructions and law – and he is even the Lord of the Sabbath! Will Christ find in our “christian principles“ a little hole for his improvisation? When was the last time you did something differently? Are you afraid that your phone will get wet? It’s not yours anyway.

Church is not cool, or what might be wrong

Recently I have been highly disturbed, even unpleased by situation in church/churches. I hear a lot of comments from various christians, taht church is full of hypocrytes, liars and so on.

This process of „suspition of the church“ is going on for a while, however, recently my so called „cup of patience“ overfilled. I watched few videos on youtube, which were testimonies of ex-christians about why they became atheists. I do not do any advertisement, when I tell you I was mostly moved by videos of users KT45, Lee Lemon and others.

After seeing some videos of those users I was not convinced, because their arguments were not convincing. But it was clear what is their problem, where is the thing that caused their leaving of God – it is church. Everyone of those man met at church, family of God, the hypocrisy, judgementfulness, gossip, forcing to something, manipulation, lots of rules and dogmas. I would like to belive, that this is just a problem of a few churches in America, because that would make the problem much easier to solve – because problem beyong the ocean does not have to be solved by us.

Unfortunately, I am afraid we are experiencing such problems here in Czech republic, or at least we are very about to have those problems. In last three months I heard plenty of innuendos at piercing, tatoos, smoking, alcohol, working in „dark“ society; I heard lots of rules about how to treat to thow who ask you for marijuana (the councel is: screw them!) and I also heard great frases like „This is about your priorities. Either God or the other thing.“

Yes, that is how those hypocrytes speak in churches. Forbide, command, judge. Their lives are set to the schemes. They love traditions and conservatism more then Jesus, who is untameable lion Aslan. They,...they...

Friends – we don’t speak german, so why do we say „they“ so often? It’s always THEM. C. S. Lewis in his book Great Divorce describes hell like giant world, where everything bad is caused by THEM; at least people from hell say so: „He did it, he betrayed me. They did not come to help me...“ Those victims of the hell also point how unfair the world was, how they were surrounded by hypocrytes. Maybe they looked after those hypocrytes so much, that they move out of their path.

Or maybe, this is the case, when everyone goes opposite and we say they do it wrong. Now there is need for God’s grace to show us that we are the ones who go opposite. I heard of man who visited over 10 churches a was not pleased anywhere; and he claimed those churched were horrible. If everybody goes opposite you, it is highly probable, that you go opposite and you need to admit this to your self with humble.

I do not want to ignore troubles in churches and wash those hypocrytes, but it is good to show the other side.

We bother that THEY judge smokers, while we judge them for hypocrisy. We bother about rules and commands, while we only move our head when we hear „cool phrase“. We hate traditions and that is why instead of shaking hands we traditionaly tap our fists. We find conservatism old-fashioned, so we spend our evenings in pubs, because „home is boring“.

We hate schemes in our life, while we save cool phrases of David Novák and Mark Driscoll to folder „Favorites“, but not into our hearts. We hide the fear from loneliness by „serving other people“, because they „need“ us. And instead of repentance we say we „search for God“, because repentance is too schematic. We need to proof ourselves that God is not against piercing, tatoos and other stuff, so we share it excited with our friend and we find our they never judged those things in the first place. The problem is only in our head. Is not this „proving to myslef“ some kind of scheme in your life?

Lying to people is weakness. Lying to yourslef is just a joke.

In the end we make Jesus more cool then he really is. We quote only the verses where God is strong. We love the part, when Jesus is angry in the Temple; but those verses, when Jesus humbles himself we hide for „later“, because the lion would seem to tameable after that. Jesus would not be so cool anymore.

Dear hypocrytes: would we love Him, if He wasn’t cool?

About the Winner

Recently, I have met questions about (an)surrances of the salvation. I am confronted with these question in the field of friendship but also in my own heart. How can I be sure that I am saved? It is, indeed, very simple question; many of you might give me a dozen of answers, which would, however, not calm me.

So how can I be sure that I go to heaven? In fact, that question is wrongly asked. Why? Because heaven is not a reason we do this. Most of us wrongly think that the Christianity is about following the Winner. Wrong! The Christianity is about following the Christ, who is “accidentaly“ also the Winner. You need to realise that aspect and think about it. Do you follow Christ because you love him, or because he is the Winner? So the question about the open gate of heaven should not be even asked. If God would not let us to heaven, would we leave him? If Jesus lost, would we leave him? Are we good warriors, who go with their General to the fight, carry theirs and his cross and also die with him? Or are we just the ones who are on the side of the Winner?

Enough to the spirit of the question, now we really need to answer it. We are just people and we need to be sure (or at least have a hope), that our General wins a takes us with him. And now I am not sure – I am not good enough and keep failing. Why would I be saved?

If somebody thinks God would not take him home, becuase he follows him wrongly, what can I say? Well, that’s dissapointing. Really – it is dissapointing, that we were given a sense for reason and yet we believe devil’s lies.

Jesus said, whoever takes his sacrifice and believes in it and also it the meaning it has, will be saved. That’s a promise. God is good and righteous, therefore he cannot change his promise. We can be sure (better would be “have faith“) about the salvation, because He made a promise. If I said it as a fool: By creating this gracing justice, God promises the part of his kingdom, and if we accept this promise, He will not be able to take it from us, even if He wants to.

Of course, some will shout, that we cannot clame with such arrogance, how God will judge. But if we must not have even tried to, we could already keep our bibles closed and “go the hell“.

There is too much “God“ in this

Recently I noticed a problem with deciding at myself. It is going with me for a long time and it hurts me. I cannot say it is behind me, but I think I found out something useful and revolutionary today.

We ask God about His will too much. In this case we much keep God completely out of it! Do not get me wrong, please: God is needed to decision. But we ungently put our responsibility on His shoulders by asking about His will comfortly! I realise I do not do it by faith, but by comfort and it is wrong.

I have a dilema and ask God: “What do you want me to do?“ and he replies: “And what do YOU want?“ I ask God so much like I would be afraid to choose. In the movied Facing the Giants there is a backup coach and he stands in front of not easy task: The main coach is weak and unable to lead his team and the sport’s leadership force the backup coach to use his authority during the voting and put this main coach out of ring (later we find out that God will help this main coach, but nobody know about it yet). What will the main coach do? Beg his assistant not to betray him? Is he holding back not to screw anything? NO! He comes to him and says: “Make a choice! Hasitating will not help anybody.“

It’s the same with me. Do I really ask about God’s will, or is it that I am afraid to choose, because I am so scared of consequences? Thank you, Lord, that you risk so much with me as the main coach did! I even think that the bad choice is better than no choice. I noticed that during my studies.

Do I want to study? No? ... I ask God and hear nothing. Stupid? No. Not getting the answer from God gives us a great advantage: We have a huge freedom in choosing (if it is generaly about good things). You don’t know school to study? And God says nothing? Great, you can make a choice on your own – but a-ha! Consequences. But anyway, it is better to finish the wrong school than not to start with studies at all, right?

Next thing is that God’s will does not prosper here. I asked about it so much, but when God shows it to me, I am lazy to do it. I found that this June at the end of my semester. I was not able to study enough for my oral exam, I had already had a job, so I was not worried about firing me from the school. I told God: “Be Your will. If they fire me, it means you don’t want me here. If I pass, I know, it’s Your will to stay here and study.“ I came there with two another boys, who studied much more harder than me. Those two were fired, I passed. God showed me, He wants me there.

But this was like the end for me. Until I realised that God’s will must never be the end! It is about decision – do we want it too? And if not, it is better to do even bad choice, because hesitating will not help anybody. Either I want to study and I will do maximum for that, or I do not – but in that case I will look for life at different place.

Please, apply this alegory about studies on university to your other personal problems in families, relationships, marriages and so on. There is always choice needed and to go for it.

Last thing about that: priorities. If I decide about something seriously, I need to choose how high priority it is for me. About this choice the best to do is to make a priority-list. And, of course, to obey it. Done? OK, how is it going? Get up in moring and go to the bathroom. Clean your self. OK, hygiene is important. Next? Morning prayers, lunch, studying, some time with your girlfriend at the evening, evening prayers and go to bed. We did not study so hard as we decided to. I ask my self – how much time did I spend on facebook that day? Why is it so important? Because facebook was not on my priority-list! It is not on the list, so it goes to the background – I do mainly the things, which ARE on the list.

You know what? I can visit facebook. You can do it for two hours per day. You can be there even five hours per day. You can easily be there since morning till night and waste your time. Really. You really can and it is not a sin. You can, but only if it’s on your priority-list.

I hope you understand, you need wisdom to make a choice and to arrange your priorities. But the paragraph above is there because of Jesus‘ words: Let be your YES yes and NO no. Make you priorities-list, but do not lie to yourself. They obey it.

Last thing: you will fail for sure. You need God to lead you through this. And because thisi is his perfect plan and he raises us to make choices, that is why he will bless us in this. But we are people and we will fail. I did have problems with one sin and thank God I did deal with it. After some time I fought with other problems and God helped me even with that ones. But then the serious hurt came, when the old sin came up and I surrended it – everything went down like a house from the cards. You blow and it is gone just like that. Just gone. And you can start all over again. And I think I am scared so much especially because of my tries. I don’t want to fail, I do not want to start all over again.

But this is how it works with God, He said: Behold, I make everything new! Are you afraid that now, when you are doing well with God, you are loayal, you fight a good fight, so now, are you scared about failure and losing everything. Let me encourage you – you will really lose it. You will fail, fall and lose everything. But our Lord is loayal, when he will not build the same house you destroyed – he will build a new, much bigger and better house. And that is why I will try eventhough I am scared about my falling and not going well. God is with me in this.

Do not be afraid!

They got it!

So I again began to think during eating the “devil’s salate“. I thought why we even are afraid of talking to unbelievers? By talking I do not mean to talk, but to fight for our faith – be strong about things.

I got to say I did not find the answer. I do not the cause. But I found kids very brave in this. In Sunday school they teach kids to answer each question by words “Lord Jesus“. We, of course, already know that we cannot answer by that everything.

We can.

Kids found out, they got it! I almost saw one US movie (by almost I mean I read about him) and the plot was that kids are born allknowing, knowing all laws of the universe. We, of course, all know it is a non-sense. Only until we find out it is true. I don’t mean the absurdity of kid’s allknowledge, but the knowledge of God’s law which is automatic, we are born with it, before we bite that fruit of snakes and loose our sight forever. Explain...

Friend of my dad has a daughter and when she was just a little girl, they went to the lake. This her daddy went for a walk with her and they met a lady of very beautiful design dressed only to tiny swimming siut. Daddy turn after her and his daugther yelled: “Dad! You’ve got mummy!!!“ Here we se, how strong kids are – it is not because of their parents but by natal God’s law.

We all born as sharp-sighters, although, later all of us will bite the fruit, which will blind us forever and we will not be able to go through our lives without a stick, helping staff, but also the educational whip. In Sunday school they teach kids to answer each question by words “Lord Jesus“. We, of course, already know that we cannot answer by that everything.

We can. Of course, we cannot answer by those words very complicated theological question, but nonbelievers do not ask those complicated theological questions, aren’t they? “Why do you belive“ “I grew up in a christian family...“ WRONG. Jesus! He is why. Family, let us be “blind“ in those interviews a little bit as these kids are.

Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein. (L 18:17)

Do not give up! or About faith

Quite often it happens that I go to the business with huge energy and excitment, decided – but sooner, or even sooner than sooner I am pushed back by something that tells me it is a waste of tries, that I am not good enough for it and so on. Funny (not quite funny) is that we give up sooner than we can even get to the right source of objective facts about the whole situation. How can we know whether to go on in this or not?

Apostle Paul had pretty smart head, which I cannot tell about me. Then, we can look at his life as an example. Acts 14 tell about Paul preaching in Lystrae and healing the cryple by the power of Jesus Christ (Act 14:10). The crowd, later, got upset (the reasons why would take our attention from the topic with no use) and started to stone Paul. They stoned him so hard that they thought Paul was dead (Act 14:19).

Something like that happens even to us, am I right? Sometimes we start with great attitude, good faith and the excitement, at the start we even get luck and everything is going great – but then, suddenly, the failure comes, with the „stoning“. How do we react? Do we find our selves as defeated and „stoned to death“? Do we give up?

Disciples took stoned Paul out of the city, where Paul woke up and came back to the city, where he was stoned at the first place (Act 14:20). Did Paul find himself as defeated, „stoned“? No way! Paul DID NOT give up, he got up and went back – to face it as the man. And the very next day he continued with his previous plan – he went on spreading the gospel (Act 14:21).

I do want to encourage you to not give up untimely. We think the fight is lost but this does not have to be true. They can stone you to death, or even „stone you to death“, but God is faithful and he will not let us be tested beyond our abilities (1 Cor 10:13). OMG, for you can even raise people from the dead! Believe and do not be afraid to stay in our fight. Amen.