Is Christianity the only true way?

How can we be so presumptuous to say that we are right and all else is wrong? Are we actually saying that all those sincere well-meaning people of other faiths have no hope? Is God fair? After all, we all know a good and sincere person who is not a Christian? Can we really accept that he or she will go to hell? That seems so offensive. Many struggle with questions of faith such as these, offended at the exclusivity of the Christian claims. How can such exclusive claims sit compatibly with a loving God?

The starting premise in dealing with a thorny issue like this must be an objective and impartial search for the truth. We must recognise that truth may at times be hard to accept and even offensive. Telling someone he is dying is may be difficult but if it is the truth, to say anything else would be lie. To water down truth so that it becomes easier to swallow is to contaminate and pervert our search for truth. Consensus or social acceptability can never be a requirement for truth. We cannot reject truth simply because it does not sit with our preferences. That will only put us on the slippery slope to self-deception.

Secondly, any search for truth must be premised on the fact that truth is objective, that there is only one truth and that truth is similarly applicable to everyone. Two contradictory state of affairs cannot both be true at the same time. Something cannot be true for me but not necessarily true for you. For example, a pen in my hand exists for me. It cannot exist for me and not exist for you at the same time. We must recognise that there is only ONE TRUTH and anything that contradicts that one truth is untruth. If the pen exists, it exists for everyone. Looking at all the religions in the world, we observe that they each make different and contradictory statements about God and existence and salvation. Christianity speaks of salvation by grace because salvation by a moral does not work. Islam and Buddhism and other religions speak of salvation by obedience to a moral code. Either Christianity is right and Islam and Buddhism is wrong on this point, or Islam and Buddhism is right and Christianity is wrong. Christianity and Islam speak of one supreme God. Buddhism speaks of no God, but that reality is an illusion. Either Christianity and Islam are right or Buddhism is right. Both cannot be right. Christianity says that God created the world but is not part of it. Hinduism says that God is part of this world for all is God and God is all. Either Christianity is right or Hinduism is right. Both cannott be right. From the examples I have shown above, it is clear that only the ignorant would dare to assert that all religions are the same. Their inherent differences make them inherently contradictory. We are forced therefore to decide which is the truth to the necessary exclusion of the others. We cannot have our cake and eat it as well.

The question then becomes not whether the truth of the Christian assertions of exclusivity are socially acceptable or easy to swallow. The question becomes IS IT TRUE? That is something each of us must make a decision and choice on. We cannot abdicate or run away from choice. Each of us is forced either to accept or reject this choice. To not accept Christianity is to reject it. And either way, if this is the truth, then accepting or rejecting it brings with it consequences. If this is the truth, then our choice will determine our issue of heaven or hell. When we stand before God on the day of judgment, the fact that the truth was difficult to swallow and therefore we rejected it is not a defence that we can raise.

Of truth and lies

In every case I see in court, we have two completely different versions of the same event. This means that somebody, having sworn on the bible or given oath, is lying through his teeth. Makes me wonder how a person can get to that stage where he can lie with a straight face without any feeling of guilt or conscience. Is it the progressive suppression of conscience overtime? Is it the rationalising away of the guilt by convincing oneself that there is a good justification to lie? Or is it selective memory that causes us to want to believe something so badly that we rehearse ourselves into thinking it is the truth? Truth is such a precious thing yet such a scarce commodity in our world today. We have so much information, yet so little truth. The media and the press twist and turn truth to sell a story or promote a product. Politicans spin truth through manipulation of statistics and calculated press statements to win votes. Family members lie to each other to avoid conflict. Witnesses lie in court even in matters of life and death. Even in church, preachers twist the scriptures to their own end. At the end of the day, how can we discern what is really true? Who do can really believe? Given the potential for self-deception within ourselves, can we even trust ourselves?

(added at 6.39pm...)
I am only now beginning to appreciate the magnitude of what Christ meant when he said he is "the way, the truth and the life". In a world where the multitude of religions and philosophies compete for truth in the raging sea of ideas, my soul finds an anchor in Christ alone. His words, his way, his worldview, his salvation. In the midst of confusion and deception and chaos, I know His words will never pass away. For even if I cant trust myself, I can trust him.

Lord it's OK if you dont want to...

(Theology of powerlessness Part 3)

"Lord I pray for my friend to be healed from his cancer. But it is OK if you dont want to heal cos it is not your will. I can understand if you want my friend and his entire family to go through a period of testing so that their character can be built through their perseverance and brokenness. "

"Lord I pray that you will send revival to our church. But it is OK if you dont want to. I understand if you want to test and purify the church to build believers who will trust in you even though you are silent and don't answer prayers and even though we labour for years without fruit."

Sounds familiar? Some of us have even convinced ourselves that these are mature prayers of faith. Can we really kid ourselves that God is pleased with such prayers? We are so afraid to prayer for anything, giving God so many ways out for him not to answer so that we won't be disappointed if he doesn't. We weigh our prayers with so many qualifiers that our prayers hardly get off the ground on our tattered wings of faith before it crashes into the ditch of unbelief. Imagine the leper in Matthew chapter 8 saying to Jesus, "Lord if you are willing, You can make me clean...But it's OK if you dont want to. It's OK if you think I am scum and decide not to give me the time of day so that I can be forced to glorify you despite my pathetic existence." Do you think Jesus would have honoured such prayers? There is a reason why James wrote "But let him ask in faith, with no doubting for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord (1:6,7). There is a reason why Jesus said "assuredly I say to you if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain 'Move from here to there,' and it will move (Mat 17:20). When we pray prayers giving God a way out not to answer, these prayers do not glorify God. Here is where the lie is finally exposed... Many of us use theology as a cover up for our lack of faith. We have convinced ourselves that it is the will of God for us to suffer, to experience hardship and poverty and sickness and persecution and even bondage...simply because we are afraid that if we lack the faith to prayer for deliverance and fear that if we are disappointed, our faith will crumble. The irony is, there is nothing to crumble cos there is no faith to begin with! When faced with the option of healing and sickness, we are automatically trained to think God will chose sickness for us. When faced with the options of prosperity or poverty, we automatically think God will choose poverty for us. We lambast churches for having a 'prosperity' gospel but do not realise that we preach a 'poverty gospel'.

God loves us and wants to bless us and wants to give us freedom from the curse of sin, disease and poverty. Christ died to become a curse for us so that the blessings of Abraham may come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus (Gal 3:13,14) We make a mockery of his death by presuming that he still wants us to live under curses. It is true sometimes he does allow us to suffer for a time to build character but this is the exception rather than the norm. To assume we have to suffer all the time belies lack of faith and lack of understanding of grace. Enough is enough. It is time for the people of God to rise up and claim our inheritance in Christ. It is time for us to stop allowing the devil to rob us of our blessings by false theologies. For I am in Christ. Everything that is His he has given to me. And I am not going to let anyone take it away from me...

Where have all the miracles gone?

I once heard the story of a pastor who took a cab and when the cabbie found out that he was a pastor, said smugly, "my god can make me win 4D numbers, what can your God do?" Wherein the pastor inspiredly replied, "my God can take an evil person and make him into a good person." Reluctantly, the cabbie conceded, "that's quite impressive..." Do we really believe God can do that, ie. can change an evil person into a good person, can set a person free from bondage to addiction, whether drugs, lust, pornography, violence, alcohol? Why do we treat Christianity as just another moral code, leaving man to change himself with the bible as but a guide? Where have all the miracles gone? Has the power really dried up? Have all the wondrous supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit like healing and miracles ceased? This is the theology of powerlessness PART 2...

I have come increasingly to realise that the church is trying to minister to a lost and hurting world with a watering can, sputtering and dripping in its effectiveness. Our fruit is so meagre, our efforts so unfruitful. I think it saddens God's heart when he sees us struggle like that. Defeated Christians trying to preach a defeated message to an even more defeated world. Instead of the pathetic watering can, we need to open our eyes to the His 'fire hose' of power. We need a God who is much bigger than the absent and powerless God of our theology of powerlessness. The problem with many churches is that we have come to believe that any talk of miracles, any talk of supernatural healing is of a bygone era. Some have erroneously taught that once the revelation of scripture was complete, the miracles and healings dried up. Such teachings borders on blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. Lets get our theology straight. Jesus himself promised that we will do greater things than he did. Reason number one for my extravagant belief - the same Holy Spirit in Jesus' day is the same Holy Spirit today. And He hasn't stopped working. Reason number two for my extravagant belief - the power of the Cross. You see, when Christ died, we died. When he rose, we rose to become a new creation. With every flesh tearing whip, with every excruciating nail, with every drop of blood shed, God took our shame, our addictions, our bondages, our cancer, our heart disease, our depression, our suicidal thoughts and KILLED it on the Cross. All our unworthiness, all our unloveliness, all our ugliness, He bore it as the wrath of the Father was poured out on him. That we might be the accepted and beloved of God. Dont you dare diminish his work, dont you dare downplay the effectiveness of what he has done. You see it has been done. We are free. To those who will only believe, who the humble in heart who will accept by simple faith, they will find the true salvation power of God. Please don't preach a Christianity that is nothing more than moral way of life. Cos that isn't Christianity. The Christianity I know is a Christianity of power, of a real and present salvation, of a God who HAS saved us from our sins and all its effects. Can your God really miraculously change an evil person to a good person? If he can't, then maybe you need another religion.


Theology of powerlessness

It really pains me to hear some of the theology that is being preached in some churches today. Looking back at my life, I have come to realise that some of these destructive theologies have insidiously found their way into my life, robbing me of much of the joy and power and reality of Christianity. These are theological ideas that I would label 'theology of powerlessness.' Three of the three most damaging ideas are as follows, (1) mature Christians should not seek for spiritual experiences but rely only on the word of God for our faith; (2) mature Christians should not seek the gifts and power of the Holy Spirit as, like spiritual experiences, they are signs and we should not rely on signs for our faith; (3) mature Christians should come to accept suffering and poverty as an essential part of the Christian life and blessings and joy are for the immature. Surprised? Well chances are you've been had too. And the only person that isnt surprise is the devil cos these thoughts are exactly what he will have you believe. Those of you who have heard me teach will remember me constantly saying that the devil cannot take away what God has given you, he can only make you believe you dont have it. That is his aim, by introducing into our churches theologies of powerlessness. The problem with these theologies of powerlessness is that, like most lies, they sound right and holy. Let's call their bluff...

"Mature Christians should not seek for spiritual experiences but rely only on the word of God for our faith". Those who preach this often have a strong aversion and suspicion about the spiritual or the supernatural. They think that this is Christian but do not realise that such actually finds its roots in the anti-God, ultra-rationalistic society that we live in, one which exalts only what we can see and trashes anything supernatural as superstition. Yet the bible strongly affirms the existence of the supernatural dimension. God is spirit and those who worship him do so in spirit and in truth (Jn 4:24). The Holy Spirit testifies with our spirits that we are children of God (Rom 8:16). God reveals himself to us through his Spirit and not to our eyes or our minds (1 Cor 2:9,10). Here's the deal. Essentially any communication or interaction between our 'spirit man' and God who is Spirit takes place in the spiritual or supernatural dimension. To deny the existence or legitimacy of spiritual experiences is akin to denying the existence or legitimacy of sight. Without this medium of communication, we simply cannot 'see' God. Throughout the process of my own Christian growth, I have come to realise that there is a need for both the Word and the experience in the Christian life. Without the Word, we easily fall into error and folly. But without the spiritual experience, there is no reality or relationship in our Christianity. After all how do you relate with a God if he is only an idea and does not speak to us? I have had to battle my own super-rationalism demons, to realise that I had to stop trying to box and control God by getting him to conform to the boundaries of my mind and my sight. Until I came to the point of humble realisation that there are many things about God that are simply above me, only then was I in a position to enter His world and experience His reality. You see my friend, Christianity without spiritual reality is dead Christianity, of those having a 'form of godliness but denying its power' (2 Tim 3:5) Then we wonder why so many young people in our churches who have grown up in Christianity eventually conclude that Christianity and God isnt real and fall away from church. I have come to experience the kingdom of God that is not just in word but in power (1 Cor 4:20). Maybe it is time we all find that out for ourselves.

More on the other two theologies tomorrow...

What do we get from going to church?

What do we get from going to church? This seems an almost sacrilegious question to ask. After all don't we go to church to worship God? Somehow I feel that is only partly true for many of us. Most of us start with this question - what is in it for me? Is there something I will get back or something I will benefit from from going to church? The truth is many view church like a kind of 'service provider'. (After all the call it a church 'service' dont they?) We decide on whether to go because of the quality of the service the church provides to us, whether the worship is of the style we like, whether the sermons are to our taste, whether the people make us feel at home etc. Our offering is the 'service charge' we pay. So when we feel one church provides us better service than another, we up and go. After all why stay in a church where the 'service' is bad?

This is a complex question that needs to be broken down so that a satisfactory answer can be provided to those to venture to ask. What is the purpose of church? Ephesians tells us that the purpose of the church is to so that believers can help each other attain (1) unity in the faith and (2) the knowledge of God (Eph 4:12,13). The 'service' of the church is therefore to help the believers grow in faith and knowledge of God. It must therefore permissible for us to ask the difficult question - is my church helping me grow in faith and knowledge of God? Do I feel my faith increasing everytime I go to church? Do I enter into a deeper revelation and relationship with God after each service? This I feel is the 'gold' standard to which all of us who venture to run a church or youth ministry or small group must answer. If the answer is 'No', can we blame our congregation or youths from going elsewhere?

But there is a further complexity to the question and the answer of the business of church. Earlier in verses 11 & 12, Paul writes that different roles have been given to each member of the church to minister to others so that the church can grow. The cutting reality is that all of us, not just those running the church, are responsible for contributing to making the church or youth ministry or small group a place where we can grow in faith and the knowledge of God. It just isn't the responsibility of the pastor, the youth small group leader or the sunday school teacher. It is our responsibility. So where does that leave us? It is right for us to judge our church and ask the question, is it helping me grow in the faith and in relationship with God? If the answer to that is 'No', the solution is not to up and go to another church. The next step is to ask ourselves, are we contributing our gifts and fulfilling our role to help each other grow in faith and relationship with God? You see, there is no perfect church. As someone once said, if you find a perfect church, don't go to it cos you will spoil it. Church isn't perfect. It is run is imperfect people who will stumble and fall and sometimes will let us down. But if we have to faith to give our five small loaves and two fishes, then maybe we will see some miracles happen...

Managing anger

Listening to the news on the way to work today, I was was inundated by reports of violence in the world. What particularly struck me was a report of a woman in Kenya who knocked her husband's teeth out and then bit his *** off (ouch!) cos she suspected him of having an affair. (that image will haunt me for the rest of the day). This made me think about why we get angry so easily. Sometimes a seemingly small thing like someone cutting into our lane on the road triggers such uncontrollable rage that we fantasize of driving our fist through the person's idoitic face. We see such cases in court all the time. Looking around, I have come to notice that there are alot of bitter people in the world. People who feel as if the world has been unjust to them and will take the first opportunity to be mean to others. The worst is if they are our superiors or BMT instructors. (I suspect many a taxi driver also fall into this category given the way they drive... ) Closer to home, we often find ourselves getting angry at the people closest to us. A simple word can set us fuming. For some, the cycle of anger and hurt does not ever seem to end.

I am beginning to see that there is a direct link between the intensity and ease of our anger, and the level of our perceived injustice. The most injustice we feel, the more easily and more intensely we are likely to get angry. This feeling of injustice builds like stream in a pressure cooker and overtime, triggers rage at the slightest of provocations. Teenagers who feel that they have constantly misunderstood by their parents are prone to react in anger and rebellion. Spouses who feel unfairly treated by their partners easily become offensive and defensive when faced with any sort of accusation. Some of us are just generally angry at God, at the world, at life as a whole because we perceive life has dealt us a raw deal. These people walk around pissed off all the time.

I think the first step to managing anger is to identify the perceived injustice. What is that wrong we have suffered? Who do we perceive has caused it? Where the injustice is related to some person or persons, then step two is that we must then humanise them. You see, often we grow in bitterness and anger against someone who has wronged us because we progressively demonise the person. The more we think of the person, the more our minds build a worst and more evil picture of the person until we place him or her on par with the devil. We need to humanise them again, to see that they are just humans trying to survive. They are not perfect, but neither are we. Step three - we need to then release them in forgiveness. Unforgiveness is an extremely destructive bondage. In a perverse way, we enjoy relishing in it. But overtime, the bitterness just grows and grows, and correspondingly anger titters on the brink of overflow. Sometimes our anger is directed at God. After all He is responsible for everything isnt He? This is even more serious cos we then need to rethink our perception of God, His love and His justice. This is a really tough one. We need to realise that we have become victims of the devil's lies that have encrusted like a cancerous stronghold in our spirits. In such cases, repentance is the only path to deliverance.

Is God really happy when we are happy?

Sometimes we have difficulty believing that God is really happy when we are happy. We somehow believe that God is only happy when we are undergoing some painful character building process in our lives, struggling to keep our faith above water, barely making it through the day. If we are honest with ourselves, we believe that His primary approach towards us is to make our lives difficult so that we will be forced to trust in Him. After all, it is for "our own good" isn't it. Talk of happiness, blessing and prosperity have become "bad words" in the Christian vocabulary. We believe only weak and immature Christians would seek after them. For the 'true' Christian, there is only the stoic, teeth-gritting peserverence through the 'expected' pain and injustice of life. That is what we have come to expect of life, and expect of God. That is so sad.

My little daughter is 3 months old now. Every morning when I wake, I go over to her room to check if she is awake. Having that cute little face coo and smile back at me is one of the most precious of life's moments. As her father, I love her to bits. Seeing her happy brings a kind of happiness little else can compare with. Seeing her smile warms my heart with joy. Then I think about God. If I who am human can take so much delight in the happiness of my daughter, have I somehow wronged God to believe that His love is so much less that He doesnt do the same. It soon began to dawn on me the realization that when we smile, God smiles too. He loves seeing us happy. That is His heart, the perfect Father heart of love. When we cry, He cries with us. He may discipline us for a moment, but because He loves us so much, it delights His heart to see us happy. What is your view of God today? When you close your eyes, do you see a vengeful, unreasonable God, or a God who is smiling at you? Maybe we need to rethink our view of God.

Finding your ideal partner

It has been on my mind lately as to how we know that someone is right for us, that this person is the one God intends that we spend the rest of our lives with. Dealing with divorce cases yesterday again triggered further thoughts on the issue. Couples who must have at one time been so happy together now were arguing about how to separate their property. Could this have been avoided? Did they chose the wrong person? Is someone to blame?

Looking at the whole concept of dating and marriage, I began to see that there several issues that needed to be thought through and settled to set the foundation for an enriching and blessed relationship. Here several checks ensue:
(1) Is there a sense of rightness and peace about my decision to commit myself to this person? It is here that the inner witness of the Spirit becomes key. (Those of you know now me by now know that I am quite hot about this inner prompting subjective experience thing.) This I have found to be a practical way to gauge if we are within the will of God.
(2) Is there a mutual commitment on the part of both:
(i) to communicate, ie. open up and share oneself and be vulnerable to the other;
(ii) to love, ie. to place the other person above ourselves; and
(iii) to work out problems, ie. to talk about and work through inevitable problems that will come your way?

The commitment to communicate, to love and to work through problems seems so basic but is sadly missing in many relationships. Relationships dont just break down over night. How our relationship will be in 10 years is a cummulation of the daily choices we make. Everyday we can choose to communicate or to close up. We can choose to put our partner's interest over our own or we can choose to act selfishly. We can choose to work through problems or become defensive and fight for our rights. The choices we make daily will determine whether we grow to love our partner more and more or end up in court disputing over custody and property.

How in the world do I build faith?

Many of us struggle with faith. We want to have more faith but simply cannot. We try to love God more but we have problems trusting him. We want to surrender but we somehow fear we will get hurt. We struggle to overcome sin, negative emotions etc. only to fail time and again, and with each failure, our faith diminishes even more. We look around us at the evil and pain around us, the injustice and the suffering and we wonder even more how we can trust God.

I have begun to realise that trying to build faith by willing ourselves or by looking for supporting reasons in the world around to build our faith on simply DOES NOT WORK. Faith is most effectively built internally through a relational experience with God and his word. Rom 10:17 says "Faith comes from hearing and hearing from the word (Greek: "rhema") of God." It is the Holy Spirit that builds our faith through the operation of the Word. How then is this done? Many presume that this process of faith bulding is intellectual, that the more we read the bible and convince our minds of what it says, the more faith will grow. This is only half true. I am becoming more covinced that true faith can only come from the supernatural conviction of the Holy Spirit when we hear or read the Word of God. This the 'rhema', the voice of God that speaks directly to our inner man for "God reveals himself to us through His Spirit." It is here that we enter into the realm of the subjective. The inner conviction, the still small voice, the sense of prompting, the unexplainable word of knowledge or word of wisdom that drops into our hearts, all bringing with it a heightened sense of faith. It is in this way that our faith in Him is built. We must therefore learn to discern the voice of God during our meditation of scripture. Overtime, we will become more familiar with his voice, experience him more and grow deeper in a faith relationship with him.

My thoughts about God's existence

I think the main problem causing us doubts about the existence of God is the fact that for the most part, we cant see him, hear him or touch him. We cant verify his existence the way we can verify the existence of most other things. It is like standing in a dark room...we cant see if there is someone there or not.

Yet there are many things we take by faith though we cant really confirm with our senses. Like how do we know what we are experiencing in our wake time is real and what we experienced in our dreams is not? How do we know that everything we see and hear and touch isnt a dream? Like in the Matrix. How do we know the neurons or whatever that connect our eyes to our brain accurately transmits the correct info such that what we think we see is actually there? Frankly we dont. We just have to take it by faith in reality itself. So faith isn't such a bad word after all cos most of life is lived this way.


Is it really real?

The questions facing many who have grown up in church since young is whether the whole God thing is really real or whether it is simply self-generated mass psychosis and immagination forged over time. Can we really believe that God is real and that He offers any form of real power and relationship? I close my eyes in prayer. Is there anyone out there? I try to have faith in something I cannot see. Is it really real or but the substance of my immagination? Is faith anything more than positive thinking, making myself see something when there really isn't anything? If there is really power, why dont I feel it or experience it? Somehow, my deepest fear is that I am just faking it, yet I am to scared to face that possibility, lest my hope and faith crumble into dust.