How To Avoid Becoming A Christian!

So you would rather not become a Christian. Well then I have some very important advice to give you. If the rest of the world is anything to go by you will need some very good advice in resisting the power of God. I suppose that is the very place to begin- at the back of all my advice I would say the place to begin is to deny, as strongly as you can the very existence of God-that way he is stripped of all his power and authority. But that is very difficult for a couple of reasons: we live in a God believing, if not God-fearing, society and its hard to swim against the flow the logic and the evidence seems to be too strong- how can you blame God for things if he doesn’t exist in the first place I think we need to be more pragmatic that that- lets begin accepting that some kind of God does exist and loom for ways to ignore him- here are three broad principles: 1. Lesson one is to BECOME VERY RELIGIOUS That may seem an odd way to ignore him but Jesus Christ told the religious leaders of his day that they had never see God, heard God or allowed His word to dwell in their hearts even though they had him before their very eyes- he told the that even though they had all the benefits of being the people of God they had missed him altogether.. I think the best thing is for you to become as religious as is possible- go to all the meetings under the sun Carry out all your religious duties- without much thought and always remember that what is important is that you do what is required- never miss church or reading the bible, stay away from those people who are not religious. Leave your friends and family firmly I second place- or even third. Stick rigidly to the letter of the law and never mind the reason for that law, never mind the spirit of the law. Get to know the slightest minutiae of the law- know all 600 rules about the Sabbath but forget about the importance of people. 2. Lesson two is Don’t even try to understand the bible properly Always take it at face value- forget about the context of the verses in the promise box or on the pictures on your walls-that will only require you to think for yourself. Forget all that and those so-called paradoxes that Christians speak of will confuse you and frustrate you that you will want to give up and go back to your old life. Don’t concern yourself about how all the verses fit in with the rest of the Bible- e.g. The NT says- Love your enemy and the OT says An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. It would also be good to forget about what the Bible really is- it is God’s way of pointing to Jesus Christ Heb 1:2 “…in these last days God has spoken to us by His son…” and John 5:40 “these are the scriptures which testify to me”…. If you could get to the place where you begin to worship the Bible- see the actual words as the word of God it will help. Begin to see that there is only one translation that would also be good. Keeping your eyes on the wood will mean you fail to see the trees-anything to confuse you. 3. Third lesson is to keep looking at other people and NOT JESUS. Let’s face it- it is pretty safe to look to and compare yourself with other people- they are sinners just like you and looking at them means you can blame them for not listing to God. How often have you heard it said of someone – I could never be a Christian if they are all like old Jones down the road? There are many reasons for rejecting Christ if we only ever look at the Christians: There is Mr. A who never tells the truth on the Income Tax form- or so we believe Mrs. B who is among the greatest of gossips in town Mr. X who is plain mean Mr. Y who beats up his wife on Saturday and then goes to church-to be forgiven on Sunday morning. And was it not the Christians who persecuted the Jews and attacked the Muslims in the Crusades? And what about all those pedophile priests? That’s the way to look at God- through the filter of His people- that will keep him at a safe distance. It is fatal to look at Jesus Christ- take a serious look at him and you are well on your way to faith- to giving in to His power. Forget that Mr. C has really changed since he gave way to God and became one of his people. Forget that the local fellowship of believers down the road are helping the poor and the down cast and empowering the people of the community- that is negative thinking and leads to a negative step-BE WARNED. Listen very carefully- 5:36 “…I have a greater witness [than john] – my teaching and my miracles. They have been assigned to me by the Father…” BE WARNED 4. Lesson four is to IGNORE THAT INNER VOICE We call that the voice of conscience and Christians say it is the voice of God. You can’t afford the luxury of listening- it will lead to doubts- so keep busy and never think. If you allow yourself the time to listen and think about it he will draw you to his side and that would be fatal to the person wishing to remain independent of God. You can accept that he exists but that doesn’t mean you have to follow him. Spend your time with the religious people, if you have to- they will leave you alone to your own devices. You see they are only concerned with the things of today- those things which are here and now- they have no time for this voice of God. Jesus says in v44 If you do all this then you should be safe On the other hand if you want to know God for yourself it will involve every part of you. Jesus says that faith includes: 1. Seeing God 2. Hearing God 3. Allowing His word to dwell in your heart. Jesus did not need any human witnesses but because he wanted them to be saved the destruction of sin he did appeal to both John the Baptist and Moses. In arguing the Hebrew way he was giving them three witnesses and they rejected all three. They thought of themselves as a privileged people who had the scriptures and spent their lives on studying them but they missed the point- they were so busy looking at the jot and titles of the law that they missed the spirit of the law and the whole point- the whole point was that they pointed, like signposts, to Jesus Christ, God’s messiah. Paul had the same background as they had yet he came to faith- Phil 3:5 “If anyone thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh I have more: circumcised on the 8th day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legal righteousness, faultless.” Presbyterians have a great spiritual heritage also- with the right commitment to the Bible but we do not worship the bible, we allow it to point us to Jesus. Its too bad when people reject what they think is the truth when, in fact, it is a parody of the truth- they reject Christianity because they think it is the same as religion when it is nothing of the kind- religion is all about rules and regulations, Christianity is about a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Jesus tells these religious leaders that it was his relationship with his father which empowered his work and that is the key for us also. Knowing Jesus Christ is the key and that is more interesting and more fulfilling than any religious practice. If you want to be left alone: Stay away from Christ Stay away from the Bible Stay away from the still small voice Jesus Himself says- “Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest”

Human Beings-who needs them??

Human Beings? Who needs them?

955 dead; 2,436 injured; 56,885 houses destroyed!

It all happened as the result of a couple of air raids by Hitler’s Luftwaffe in 1941. Crumlin road Presbyterian Church http://presbyterianireland.org/congregations/crumlinroad.htmlwas one of a number of building destroyed in North Belfast. At a time when the collective memory is taken back to VE and VJ Day we are reminded of the pain caused by National Socialism but carried out by ordinary men and women just like us.

On the other hand this time of extreme violence was a time for heroes and community spirit. There was the story of Lance Corporal Gordon Cowell of the 5th Royal West Kent Regiment. On the 5th August 1941 he, along with Sergeant William Chick rescued the pilot of a spitfire which had crash landed in minefield.
Without any regard for themselves they headed towards the minefield. People were standing by the railings, shouting, 'Don't go in there, you'll get blown up,' but the only thought they had was to reach the stricken pilot and get him out. They reached the smouldering plane, and after a struggle with the pilot's straps, got him out of the cockpit. The soldiers could see his leg was badly injured. They carried him back over the minefield and when they got back to the railings, the Spitfire blew up. Each one of us is capable of being heroes one day and villains the next

In a recent edition of the London Times Dr Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi in the UK, said that

“God does not want us to cease to be human, for if He did, He would not have created us”

Jesus is the complete man, the second Adam who was at peace with His heavenly father and with men. Becoming a better human being means becoming more like Jesus.

Human beings? Who needs them? We do, when they are like Christ. After all Jesus was a man. Hitler destroyed our church and all our records and he butchered many millions of people but he did not, he could not, destroy the work of Jesus Christ.

“Just as one person did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with sin, another person did it right and got us out of it”

So you want to be healed??

Picture a courtroom scene P. On the prosecution we have the Pharisees and the Sadducees P. On the defence we have the Apostle John P representing Jesus Christ. The charge P is that Jesus is claiming to be the Son of God. John 5:16 tells us that he was being persecuted by the Jews. On the one hand there is no argument with this “charge” after all Jesus IS the Son of God but what they didn’t accept that he was , only that he CLAIMED to be him and what they were really worried about was that men and women would follow him. They want the people to follow their way but many were showing signs of following this Jesus instead. John’s desire is “that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” John says that this Jesus has invaded the earth and lived among men and women for three years. In that time he showed the way to God and it was a different way to that of the religious powers. By way of evidence he presents John the Baptist who says that this Jesus, who came after him in history, was more important than he was - even though he came after him he was “before him” He calls him the “lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” He also introduces the reader to the P disciples who lived with Jesus for three years and whose conclusion was that he was exactly who he claimed to be. Then we are introduced to P Nicodemus and the P Samaritan woman and the whole of the P Samaritan community. By the start of chapter 5 we are given a very interesting contrast between Jesus and his accusers, the religious leaders. In defence John calls to mind the work of healing and forgiveness and contrasts it with the pettifogging doctrinaire approach of the church leadership who care nothing for the man only for the strictest interpretation of the Law. He cleverly uses leaders to undermine their case and make the case of the defence for them. As the story who are you attracted to and who are you repulsed by? Jesus was the one who talked to the man. P HE SPENT TIME WITH THE MAN Time and time again we see that Jesus is the one who takes the initiative with people- P HE ALWAYS HAS TIME FOR PEOPLE < HE IS PEOPLE MINDED- he refuses to sit back and wait for people to come to him- he takes up every opportunity to reach out to people in need. His desire is “to preach good news to the poor….to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and the recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour” This is the manifesto of Jesus. This is what he did when he spoke to the Samaritan woman and with the official in Galilee and now he does it for this man. He had been on his way to the temple to celebrate one of the Jewish festivals whenever he came across this very sorry individual- this man had been an invalid for most, if not all of his life and had being coming to this place which was supposed to have healing qualities but only at the time when the angel disturbed the waters- he had to wait for a window of opportunity but unfortunately for him other people kept bunking the cue and getting in before him When Jesus saw him he spoke to him and asked him “Do you want to be healed?” May seem a strange question. Perhaps there was an implication behind the question or perhaps he just wanted to know if the man really wanted healed as some people find dependence of others a pleasant experience. Sometimes people fail to take opportunities to help themselves because they are quite comfortable as they are but this man was not- did he shout at Jesus or did he reply quietly and just explain the situation? As we look at this story we need to realise that the way we live our lives, the lifestyle we have adopted, will say more about us than any amount of words. In the post modern society in which we live this is absolutely clear “Christians proclaim the gospel through their lives, manners and morals in an instant fashion.” [Roger Johnston] In this age of MTV the camera follows your every move- if the message is good enough to attract people on the evening news certainly it will be good enough to attract people on the streets and sidewalks of our neighbourhoods.” This gives us a great opportunity to proclaim, to persuade and to argue the case for Christ in the public square. This is not the time to silence the gospel, it’s a time to enter the public square with confidence. Look at Jesus and look at the religious leaders and tell me which one you believe- if you were on the jury would you go with the prosecution or with the defence? We see Jesus TALKING TO THE MAN HE IS PEOPLE MINDED and his church is to be PEOPLE MINDED In contrast the Pharisees had nothing to say to him about being healed- after 38 years he is up and able to walk and all the church leaders were worried about was that this was the Sabbath. Notice that Jesus did not give the man a lecture about being superstiticious! He just told him what to do to be healed and he did it and was healed Every year thousands of people travel to the south of France to get to Lourdes- in our days in the Kildare and Monaghan there was an annual pilgrimage to the place recognised by the Roman Catholic Church as a place of healing- in the 19th century a young girl called Bernadette saw the Virgin Mary. She came to tell the people to repent and came back several times – the result was the creation of a lake with healing properties. Now we may have something to say about this but there are many Protestants people who have their own superstitions. What Jesus’ message is, is that waiting upon him is the way to go.. Instead of waiting by the pool for this disturbance he should have been waiting for Jesus. One of the callings of the church is to be a model of the reign of God- remember Jesus’ prayer where he said “thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” we should be bringing the sick and depressed to the throne of God that we may all find the shalom of God. We should be seeking the health, the peace and the welfare of the city. This man had been coming to this place for some time and no one had helped him- it was every man for himself- the way of the jungle- and no from the local congregation was helping him. We should be: P praying for the city- take part one way or another in the prayer shield each first Tuesday of the month 10-11am- in the church or at home. P Concerned for justice- we need to be involved in social justice and that is not a matter of negotiation, it’s a divine imperative- if we are to be the people of God we will be found doing what God does. Justice is like charity, it begins at home but does not stay there- for many people within north and west Belfast this is a real issue and a real barrier to Jesus Christ- we can accept the need for justice for our own people and even for people like the McCartney sisters but when it comes to justice for the Finucanes or for Bloody Sunday- we need to make sure there is justice for ALL the people. P Taking every opportunity to speak to the community in the public square in the language that they understand and not in our ecclesiastical language. The case is put for the defence and it continues to be put and Jesus contrasts with the religious leaders of the day- did they do anything to help the man? No Did they rejoice that he was able to walk again? No All they were worried about was that it was on the Sabbath.. Which of the sides are the most appealing and attractive and which are the most off putting? I think I know, do you? Who would you want to be like? Which one do you think you want our church to be like? I finish with a quote from Rev Tim Keller who is minister of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York in the centre of the city: P “We live in a time when public esteem of the church is plummeting. For many inquirers, the deeds of the church will be far more important than the words in gaining plausibility. The leaders of most towns see “word-onl” churches as costs to their community, not a value. Effective churches will be so involved in deeds of mercy and justice that outsiders will say, “we cannot do without churches like this.” Mercy deeds give the gospel words plausibility. Therefore, evangelistic worship services should highlight offerings for deed ministry and should celebrate what is being done.”