Simul iustus et peccator. Here's my thing, there is nothing I did yesterday that can or will serve to save me, it says even my good works are like dirty towels to God! You need to know that there are no ideas, philosophies, new age thinking or good morals that will set you free from the bondage of just being a sinner. You were one when you were born and while you insist on living your life in rebellion to the God who humbled himself by coming of his throne to serve as a blue collar worker and penniless preacher you will remain on your chosen path to destruction. I can barely take a breath, right a word, think a thought without sinning which is of course why I am entirely dependent on living in Christ, having my identity in him, putting to death the old self for a new self living in communion with Christ and his saints.
What's the point then? The point is to look ahead, see you are work in progress and gaze in awe at the cross. That's where you see the extent of God's love for you. And if you want to learn what on earth I am talking about - Verbum domini manet in aetermum - the word of the Lord endures forever - so get into it.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Friday, June 4, 2010
4 June 2010.
What’s the fascination with examining the mannerisms of offspring? Why do families take such delight in finding familiar features in sons and daughters?
That’s easy: because it’s fun, reassuring and fascinating. It’s remarkable the similarity in looks between Jo and her niece Christine, my cousin Patrick and me, Cornelius and his cousin Richard, or my sister Karen and my Mother Sheila, spooky in some ways. It illustrates how we inherit certain character traits, features, and mindsets from a shared genetic pool. So what does this teach us? Well popular culture will have you believe that this genetic programming is the reason why you can be a little lazy sometimes, that you too often drink more than is really good for you, that you carry a little more weight than is healthy, that you struggle to establish close, loving and intimate relationships with people. That you occasionally throw a punch, when it’s deserved, that you are a firm disciplinarian to the point of scaring your children, that you are physically and verbally overbearing with the woman or man in your life. Or you simply can’t help not being the loving, kind, generous, gracious, thoughtful, compassionate and protective person you’d like to be. Put simply, "you have someone to blame.”
Like all effective lies, this one includes an element of truth. You have indeed inherited these proclivities from your parents; it is in your very nature to behave in this way, it’s why we have policemen and locks on our doors. Without laws it is likely you will find your neighbour not just kicking the cat but burning your car and raping your daughter. Go outside today, say hi to your neighbour and look around - hard to believe isn’t it? Try Rwanda, Bosnia, New Orleans, France; just pick up a history book and see the naive fools we are if we think our neighbour isn’t inclined to take that which is most precious to you.
“Oh, but our Western society is so much more civilized, we have equality and diversity, sexual liberation and Britain’s Got Talent.” Okay, then let’s explain the UK’s serial abuse of women, in all economic classes and neighbourhoods, the consistent neglect of children to make an extra few quid to indulge selfish desires to lay in the sun for a week and the abandonment of the promises and responsibilities by spouses that is so lucrative for divorce lawyers. Let’s explain why in the Gloucester village of Churchdown, where poverty is rare and comfort abounds, the local newsagent has an extensive range of hard-core pornography. Clearly because it’s a lucrative trade and those quiet inoffensive men who buy his stuff are happy to invest in an industry worth billions of dollars that fuels a global sex trade in which young girls and boys and women are serially exploited and suffer appalling abuse. There is nothing I see in the culture, from where you take ideas and philosophies, to cause me to believe that your neighbour is not an ever-present threat. So is change required to make the world, our country, your community a better place?
Here’s the big idea, “you’ve changed”. You are not the person you were yesterday. Yesterday you got out of bed you had a certain set of values, you measured right from wrong, and had a sense of what is permissible and unacceptable. You more or less complied with that set of rules to govern how thoughtful a driver you were, the relationship with your work colleagues, your choice of newspaper, the channel on TV you decided to watch and the websites you decided to surf. Put simply you followed convention. All day long you were bombarded with subliminal messages, which you filtered through a particular worldview to decide if they were true or false.
Beware, these messages have shaped and continue to shape your character. Fifteen or fifty your character and personality are changing, either you are gaining wisdom or absorbing lies - it depends on your filter. If your worldview is one that you have accepted from family, academics, friends, popular media and an atheistic culture that says there are multiple truths and everyone has a right to an opinion then your filter is the same one that causes neighbour to turn on neighbour. It’s the filter that says blood is thicker than water; in evolutionary terms it’s the survival of the fittest through natural selection. Do you sincerely believe that attitude will not cause corruption, decay and lead to a fractured society? Evolutionary scientific theories have not created the stability in society we enjoy but they will cause its devolution. It’s an obstinate filter that says I am who I am, I have my own principles and morals thank you.
Can you make the connection with the illustration I am making and your life yet? Or is the world we live in so far removed from your daily existence that I am making no sense? Your friends think they help, they want to love you, but apart from the truth there are lies and friends who offer you lies are not loving. The trouble is deep down you feel alone. Alone in a cold, empty universe, spiraling towards an ignominious death. The self help books, magazine articles about realizing your true potential, enjoying your success, comparing your pathetic life to those less fortunate still doesn’t really address that grinding sense of abandonment. This is because you are living as a rebel, a free agent, an outlaw. You have cultivated a worldview, values, mindset and approach to life on infertile, rocky, barren soil and no matter how hard you work, no matter how healthy the seeds you sow, you will never produce healthy fruit. Stop being so complacent, it’s ugly.
Pause - My fear is that those who would benefit from thinking through these ideas will not have reached this far down the page; my hope is that those who have endured and reckon that this really is not their thing will at least agree that love, like justice, depends on truth. I know that those who have read thus far, who accept, appreciate, and empathise with my reasoning will take it, improve it, and share it. Let’s keep going:
If you have come this far there remains an important question, “in a world of competing truth claims where do I find this fertile soil?” Can I depend on my own reason, who can I trust? Do I turn to academics, people who have studied philosophy and science? Do I look to those who are popular on TV, healthy living gurus, astrologers, agony aunts, social scientists, doctors or teachers? Do I look to family, to see those who have made something of their lives, those who have struggled, and seek to replicate their approach? Perhaps I you take all of these, blend them together in a soup called experience and use my powers of discernment to navigate my ‘chosen’ path. The trouble with that approach is the recipe has been tried before and all that you end up with is a really bitter, unpleasant soup. You have no memory of what’s in it, you can’t share your recipe and your only hope is to keep adding ingredients to hide its true flavour. The trouble is that those additives have to be powerful to remove the original taste, so ever increasing amounts of alcohol, sugar, sex or comfort cannot remove doubts about the base ingredients. Eventually you will simply run out of the energy. Apathy, acceptance, and complacency will lead you to acquiring a taste for your soup, and its unhealthy properties will gradually overwhelm you. Its bitterness will show as looks fade, mind slows and arteries thicken. Eventually you become resigned to death, escape from nothing but nondescript meaningless soup!
I have still not answered the question about how to find fertile soil: CS Lewis had the right idea when he pointed out that if you want to get somewhere and you are on the wrong path the quickest way is usually to turn around and go back to where you started. Now if you have an atheistic belief that explains the intelligent evolved from the unintelligent, then you have a particularly powerful faith that is unlikely to be dented by reason. This is a popular faith, followed by millions around the globe, it’s attractive and provides all the answers (we took a vote and decided something came from nothing so it must be true!) John Lennon’s Imagine is one of it’s most popular ‘praise songs’. Tune in with some cosmic karma, be peaceful man imagine all the people living life as one.
However, I urge you to test your idea or philosophy, be it from Lennon, Buddha, Marx, Mohammed, Mum, Dad or a favourite uncle. Test your belief by looking for the scars of sacrifice. Examine feet and hands for evidence of nails, look on the back for evidence of lacerations where hooks made of metal or bone tore into flesh, note marks from deep tissue injuries around the head, and look for where a sword was thrust deep into the flesh just below the ribcage. When you don’t find the evidence turn back, go visit the tomb of the innocent man who has the marks of your punishment, and an excruciatingly painful death. And when you reach the tomb you’ll find no memorial or shrine because you don’t build monuments to the living but you go out and tell people incredible news.
Here’s the start of your new journey, with your creator God, who came into human history as a man, to take the punishment you deserve and demonstrate His power by conquering sin, death and hell. On this path you will learn your unique purpose, appreciate why there is suffering and love the people who are burdened with stress, frustration, exploitation, abuse, divorce and suicide. You will never be abandoned or never forsaken. It is a narrow path on which you will have doubts and questions. You’ll definitely be mocked, possibly bullied and likely ignored. You will realize how much easier it is to follow the herd, how embarrassing it can feel to step aside from popular culture and how friends, family and loved ones react when you tell them that without truth there is no love. The journey starts by simply believing and results in transformation. Not just same old gradual absorption of ideas that, despite your best efforts, drags you deeper into despair but radical change with a new heart, new thoughts, different mindset and worldview that transforms lives and relationships. Do you want to see how it looks? Of course you do, thanks for asking, your welcome:
The old self liked the old music, familiar radio channels and favourite authors; the new lives for praise music, new folk artists and lots of great books about life and living.
The old self treated the dusty Bible as a moral handrail to be opened at weddings, Christenings and funerals; the new loves to compare the NIV, King James and ESV with good Bible commentaries for receiving good teaching and learning about the character and nature of God.
The old self knew about multiple perspectives and believed everyone had a right to an opinion but now sees that this attitude was an excuse to be a bad husband and poor father.
The old self couldn’t even weep at his mother’s funeral, the new weeps at movies, the news, visions of a broken and corrupted world and when praying for his family, friends and enemies.
The old self wanted to earn more to get more; the new is grateful for what he has and tries to steward it better.
The old self used nihilism, wrapped in vague spirituality, while vaguely referencing a god to justify an immoral view of sexuality; the new understands that sex is a gift from God to be enjoyed in a monogamous marriage between a man and a woman.
The old self argued that pornography was a legitimate art form freely entered into which we should be at liberty to enjoy, the new self humbly asks for forgiveness for participating in this cruel lie.
The old wanted enough money to pay for someone to serve him, he now has a desire to serve.
The old self wanted to be in authority not under authority but the new finds obedience, humility, deference and service worthy pursuits.
The old self became a church warden, put on a blazer, led his family to church and falsely claimed the title of Christian; the new doesn’t have to go to church anymore. The new wants to go to church and loves his family, friends and community in a way he never thought possible.
The old self thought that science, philosophy and our along the evolutionary scale had surpassed the supernatural religion of his great grandparents but has repented of what CS Lewis called chronological snobbery.
The old self tuned in to current affairs and politics, he just couldn’t get enough Question Time, the Today Programme, the World at One, PM and the World Tonight, the new tunes in to community, neighbour and great Bible teaching from Ed Stetzer, Matt Chandler, Tim Keller, John Piper and Jonathan Perkins.
The old self wanted the company of people who liked the stuff he liked, people like him; the new loves the company of every culture, nation, class, and ethnicity.
The old self treated the existence of heaven, hell, the devil and a spiritual realm as nonsense but has now repented of the pride and arrogance that led him to believe that he could in any way know God apart from Jesus Christ.
The old self thought equality and diversity, tolerance and different paths through different religions could lead to one god of love the new understands there is only one God, there can be only be one truth amongst many lies and that Jesus Christ is who he said he was:
“I am the way, and the truth and the life, nobody comes to the Father except through me” (John 16.6).
That’s easy: because it’s fun, reassuring and fascinating. It’s remarkable the similarity in looks between Jo and her niece Christine, my cousin Patrick and me, Cornelius and his cousin Richard, or my sister Karen and my Mother Sheila, spooky in some ways. It illustrates how we inherit certain character traits, features, and mindsets from a shared genetic pool. So what does this teach us? Well popular culture will have you believe that this genetic programming is the reason why you can be a little lazy sometimes, that you too often drink more than is really good for you, that you carry a little more weight than is healthy, that you struggle to establish close, loving and intimate relationships with people. That you occasionally throw a punch, when it’s deserved, that you are a firm disciplinarian to the point of scaring your children, that you are physically and verbally overbearing with the woman or man in your life. Or you simply can’t help not being the loving, kind, generous, gracious, thoughtful, compassionate and protective person you’d like to be. Put simply, "you have someone to blame.”
Like all effective lies, this one includes an element of truth. You have indeed inherited these proclivities from your parents; it is in your very nature to behave in this way, it’s why we have policemen and locks on our doors. Without laws it is likely you will find your neighbour not just kicking the cat but burning your car and raping your daughter. Go outside today, say hi to your neighbour and look around - hard to believe isn’t it? Try Rwanda, Bosnia, New Orleans, France; just pick up a history book and see the naive fools we are if we think our neighbour isn’t inclined to take that which is most precious to you.
“Oh, but our Western society is so much more civilized, we have equality and diversity, sexual liberation and Britain’s Got Talent.” Okay, then let’s explain the UK’s serial abuse of women, in all economic classes and neighbourhoods, the consistent neglect of children to make an extra few quid to indulge selfish desires to lay in the sun for a week and the abandonment of the promises and responsibilities by spouses that is so lucrative for divorce lawyers. Let’s explain why in the Gloucester village of Churchdown, where poverty is rare and comfort abounds, the local newsagent has an extensive range of hard-core pornography. Clearly because it’s a lucrative trade and those quiet inoffensive men who buy his stuff are happy to invest in an industry worth billions of dollars that fuels a global sex trade in which young girls and boys and women are serially exploited and suffer appalling abuse. There is nothing I see in the culture, from where you take ideas and philosophies, to cause me to believe that your neighbour is not an ever-present threat. So is change required to make the world, our country, your community a better place?
Here’s the big idea, “you’ve changed”. You are not the person you were yesterday. Yesterday you got out of bed you had a certain set of values, you measured right from wrong, and had a sense of what is permissible and unacceptable. You more or less complied with that set of rules to govern how thoughtful a driver you were, the relationship with your work colleagues, your choice of newspaper, the channel on TV you decided to watch and the websites you decided to surf. Put simply you followed convention. All day long you were bombarded with subliminal messages, which you filtered through a particular worldview to decide if they were true or false.
Beware, these messages have shaped and continue to shape your character. Fifteen or fifty your character and personality are changing, either you are gaining wisdom or absorbing lies - it depends on your filter. If your worldview is one that you have accepted from family, academics, friends, popular media and an atheistic culture that says there are multiple truths and everyone has a right to an opinion then your filter is the same one that causes neighbour to turn on neighbour. It’s the filter that says blood is thicker than water; in evolutionary terms it’s the survival of the fittest through natural selection. Do you sincerely believe that attitude will not cause corruption, decay and lead to a fractured society? Evolutionary scientific theories have not created the stability in society we enjoy but they will cause its devolution. It’s an obstinate filter that says I am who I am, I have my own principles and morals thank you.
Can you make the connection with the illustration I am making and your life yet? Or is the world we live in so far removed from your daily existence that I am making no sense? Your friends think they help, they want to love you, but apart from the truth there are lies and friends who offer you lies are not loving. The trouble is deep down you feel alone. Alone in a cold, empty universe, spiraling towards an ignominious death. The self help books, magazine articles about realizing your true potential, enjoying your success, comparing your pathetic life to those less fortunate still doesn’t really address that grinding sense of abandonment. This is because you are living as a rebel, a free agent, an outlaw. You have cultivated a worldview, values, mindset and approach to life on infertile, rocky, barren soil and no matter how hard you work, no matter how healthy the seeds you sow, you will never produce healthy fruit. Stop being so complacent, it’s ugly.
Pause - My fear is that those who would benefit from thinking through these ideas will not have reached this far down the page; my hope is that those who have endured and reckon that this really is not their thing will at least agree that love, like justice, depends on truth. I know that those who have read thus far, who accept, appreciate, and empathise with my reasoning will take it, improve it, and share it. Let’s keep going:
If you have come this far there remains an important question, “in a world of competing truth claims where do I find this fertile soil?” Can I depend on my own reason, who can I trust? Do I turn to academics, people who have studied philosophy and science? Do I look to those who are popular on TV, healthy living gurus, astrologers, agony aunts, social scientists, doctors or teachers? Do I look to family, to see those who have made something of their lives, those who have struggled, and seek to replicate their approach? Perhaps I you take all of these, blend them together in a soup called experience and use my powers of discernment to navigate my ‘chosen’ path. The trouble with that approach is the recipe has been tried before and all that you end up with is a really bitter, unpleasant soup. You have no memory of what’s in it, you can’t share your recipe and your only hope is to keep adding ingredients to hide its true flavour. The trouble is that those additives have to be powerful to remove the original taste, so ever increasing amounts of alcohol, sugar, sex or comfort cannot remove doubts about the base ingredients. Eventually you will simply run out of the energy. Apathy, acceptance, and complacency will lead you to acquiring a taste for your soup, and its unhealthy properties will gradually overwhelm you. Its bitterness will show as looks fade, mind slows and arteries thicken. Eventually you become resigned to death, escape from nothing but nondescript meaningless soup!
I have still not answered the question about how to find fertile soil: CS Lewis had the right idea when he pointed out that if you want to get somewhere and you are on the wrong path the quickest way is usually to turn around and go back to where you started. Now if you have an atheistic belief that explains the intelligent evolved from the unintelligent, then you have a particularly powerful faith that is unlikely to be dented by reason. This is a popular faith, followed by millions around the globe, it’s attractive and provides all the answers (we took a vote and decided something came from nothing so it must be true!) John Lennon’s Imagine is one of it’s most popular ‘praise songs’. Tune in with some cosmic karma, be peaceful man imagine all the people living life as one.
However, I urge you to test your idea or philosophy, be it from Lennon, Buddha, Marx, Mohammed, Mum, Dad or a favourite uncle. Test your belief by looking for the scars of sacrifice. Examine feet and hands for evidence of nails, look on the back for evidence of lacerations where hooks made of metal or bone tore into flesh, note marks from deep tissue injuries around the head, and look for where a sword was thrust deep into the flesh just below the ribcage. When you don’t find the evidence turn back, go visit the tomb of the innocent man who has the marks of your punishment, and an excruciatingly painful death. And when you reach the tomb you’ll find no memorial or shrine because you don’t build monuments to the living but you go out and tell people incredible news.
Here’s the start of your new journey, with your creator God, who came into human history as a man, to take the punishment you deserve and demonstrate His power by conquering sin, death and hell. On this path you will learn your unique purpose, appreciate why there is suffering and love the people who are burdened with stress, frustration, exploitation, abuse, divorce and suicide. You will never be abandoned or never forsaken. It is a narrow path on which you will have doubts and questions. You’ll definitely be mocked, possibly bullied and likely ignored. You will realize how much easier it is to follow the herd, how embarrassing it can feel to step aside from popular culture and how friends, family and loved ones react when you tell them that without truth there is no love. The journey starts by simply believing and results in transformation. Not just same old gradual absorption of ideas that, despite your best efforts, drags you deeper into despair but radical change with a new heart, new thoughts, different mindset and worldview that transforms lives and relationships. Do you want to see how it looks? Of course you do, thanks for asking, your welcome:
The old self liked the old music, familiar radio channels and favourite authors; the new lives for praise music, new folk artists and lots of great books about life and living.
The old self treated the dusty Bible as a moral handrail to be opened at weddings, Christenings and funerals; the new loves to compare the NIV, King James and ESV with good Bible commentaries for receiving good teaching and learning about the character and nature of God.
The old self knew about multiple perspectives and believed everyone had a right to an opinion but now sees that this attitude was an excuse to be a bad husband and poor father.
The old self couldn’t even weep at his mother’s funeral, the new weeps at movies, the news, visions of a broken and corrupted world and when praying for his family, friends and enemies.
The old self wanted to earn more to get more; the new is grateful for what he has and tries to steward it better.
The old self used nihilism, wrapped in vague spirituality, while vaguely referencing a god to justify an immoral view of sexuality; the new understands that sex is a gift from God to be enjoyed in a monogamous marriage between a man and a woman.
The old self argued that pornography was a legitimate art form freely entered into which we should be at liberty to enjoy, the new self humbly asks for forgiveness for participating in this cruel lie.
The old wanted enough money to pay for someone to serve him, he now has a desire to serve.
The old self wanted to be in authority not under authority but the new finds obedience, humility, deference and service worthy pursuits.
The old self became a church warden, put on a blazer, led his family to church and falsely claimed the title of Christian; the new doesn’t have to go to church anymore. The new wants to go to church and loves his family, friends and community in a way he never thought possible.
The old self thought that science, philosophy and our along the evolutionary scale had surpassed the supernatural religion of his great grandparents but has repented of what CS Lewis called chronological snobbery.
The old self tuned in to current affairs and politics, he just couldn’t get enough Question Time, the Today Programme, the World at One, PM and the World Tonight, the new tunes in to community, neighbour and great Bible teaching from Ed Stetzer, Matt Chandler, Tim Keller, John Piper and Jonathan Perkins.
The old self wanted the company of people who liked the stuff he liked, people like him; the new loves the company of every culture, nation, class, and ethnicity.
The old self treated the existence of heaven, hell, the devil and a spiritual realm as nonsense but has now repented of the pride and arrogance that led him to believe that he could in any way know God apart from Jesus Christ.
The old self thought equality and diversity, tolerance and different paths through different religions could lead to one god of love the new understands there is only one God, there can be only be one truth amongst many lies and that Jesus Christ is who he said he was:
“I am the way, and the truth and the life, nobody comes to the Father except through me” (John 16.6).
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Being characterised as having a 'belief system' is tiresome. I am sure there is no mallice intended but you need to know that you are simply regurgitating politically correct nonsense. You see the thing is that the term was coined in the 60s/70s/80s by a radically athiestic education programme designed to eject Christ from the classroom. All well and good say those who don't believe Christ was who he said he was but the trouble is when you don't have Christ you have a vacuum and the laws of physics say that it must be filled.
As we know Christ, who was taught to my father's generation, has been replaced by the educated elites rational. They can explain why the generations of their fathers, grandfathers and forefathers believed all this religious nonsense. Clearly they were less evolved wingnuts, fruit cakes and lunatics. We, the enlightened genetic mutations of turbo charged chimps have modernity. We say, " there, there Adrian, if it makes you happy, well done, your belief system must be very nice for you but we don't need it so please keep it away from our children." "We have higher truths to teach them like feminism, environmentalism, democracy (as long as we remain in charge) secularism and equality and diversity." There is only one Bible verse these people share with their followers, that's you by the way of the cap fits, and that's, "thou shalt not judge".
So little Johnny isn't wicked, he just has attention deficit disorder. Give him a state provided educational pyschiatrist and we’ll be fine. The drunken daugher with an STD isn't bad for giving her body away cheaply, it's her body and she'll do what she wants with it, noone has the right to judge her. Your irresponsible idle boy, who shows little respect for anyone or anything and has no sense of duty or purpose beyond the goal of his selfish satisfaction is good at heart, he's just going through a difficult phase. These attitudes stink. They are uncaring, selfish, timid and unloving. When our children started to walk we grabbed them if they were running into danger and told them the truth. There was no reason given, obedience was expected and demanded. That's because we loved, cared and provided for them. So love comes with truth. If you just grab them without love it's cruel and if you love them without grabbing them, they'll run under a truck.
Put another way if you fill their heads with ideas, philosophies, facts, figures and qualifications without love, they'll be crushed and if you shower them with love without truth and learning they'll be lost. The trouble is as parents you don't know what to believe. You hear all these conflicting claims, great ideas, and beguiling stories and it's just confusing. You have heard that religion is the cause of wars, you have seen the oppression of ideologies like communism and you have been taught by Marxists (cunningly disguised as liberals (my apologies to the true liberals out there)), that truth claims are power plays. And then to cap it all you have been taught that you have your own ideas, make your own mind up, you are independant person, nobody can judge you!
I just came by to tell you that someone can judge you and you will be judged. The charges against you will be turning your back on the one person who loved you so much that he was willing to die for you. You will be judged for putting your trust in worldly things that are corrupted and decaying. You will be judged for looking at the cross and seeing the limp, bloodied, torn, dehydrated, stinking corpse of Jesus Christ and scorning it like the paid religious professionals who hung him there. You will be judged for choosing a broad, comfortable, non confrontational easy going path that leads to darkness, lonliness and death instead of the narrow, tough and difficult path that is in the light and leads to life. The historical truth of the Cross is not a power claim, as Marx so rightly says most truth claims are, but a true story of humility, sacrifice and love. It is the most liberating, inspiring, hope giving story ever told and it's all true. Add that to your list of equality and diversity lectures.
So please don’t characterise as someone who has a ‘belief system’. If you had the cure for cancer you wouldn’t keep it a secret, likewise if you have the truth that leads to life it would be unloving and completely lacking in compassion not to share it. I understand that if, like me, you wanted to reject Jesus Christ’s truth claim in preference for your own. You do however, put your faith in something. Something atttracts your time, treasure and talents, gives you purpose and hope and maybe provides you contentment and satisfaction. Given that’s the case I would strongly encourage you to test your truth claim against mine. It’s a short life and there’s a gift of truth with a new life of purpose, meaing and love greater than you ever imagined avaibable to you, you just have to face up and accept it.
As we know Christ, who was taught to my father's generation, has been replaced by the educated elites rational. They can explain why the generations of their fathers, grandfathers and forefathers believed all this religious nonsense. Clearly they were less evolved wingnuts, fruit cakes and lunatics. We, the enlightened genetic mutations of turbo charged chimps have modernity. We say, " there, there Adrian, if it makes you happy, well done, your belief system must be very nice for you but we don't need it so please keep it away from our children." "We have higher truths to teach them like feminism, environmentalism, democracy (as long as we remain in charge) secularism and equality and diversity." There is only one Bible verse these people share with their followers, that's you by the way of the cap fits, and that's, "thou shalt not judge".
So little Johnny isn't wicked, he just has attention deficit disorder. Give him a state provided educational pyschiatrist and we’ll be fine. The drunken daugher with an STD isn't bad for giving her body away cheaply, it's her body and she'll do what she wants with it, noone has the right to judge her. Your irresponsible idle boy, who shows little respect for anyone or anything and has no sense of duty or purpose beyond the goal of his selfish satisfaction is good at heart, he's just going through a difficult phase. These attitudes stink. They are uncaring, selfish, timid and unloving. When our children started to walk we grabbed them if they were running into danger and told them the truth. There was no reason given, obedience was expected and demanded. That's because we loved, cared and provided for them. So love comes with truth. If you just grab them without love it's cruel and if you love them without grabbing them, they'll run under a truck.
Put another way if you fill their heads with ideas, philosophies, facts, figures and qualifications without love, they'll be crushed and if you shower them with love without truth and learning they'll be lost. The trouble is as parents you don't know what to believe. You hear all these conflicting claims, great ideas, and beguiling stories and it's just confusing. You have heard that religion is the cause of wars, you have seen the oppression of ideologies like communism and you have been taught by Marxists (cunningly disguised as liberals (my apologies to the true liberals out there)), that truth claims are power plays. And then to cap it all you have been taught that you have your own ideas, make your own mind up, you are independant person, nobody can judge you!
I just came by to tell you that someone can judge you and you will be judged. The charges against you will be turning your back on the one person who loved you so much that he was willing to die for you. You will be judged for putting your trust in worldly things that are corrupted and decaying. You will be judged for looking at the cross and seeing the limp, bloodied, torn, dehydrated, stinking corpse of Jesus Christ and scorning it like the paid religious professionals who hung him there. You will be judged for choosing a broad, comfortable, non confrontational easy going path that leads to darkness, lonliness and death instead of the narrow, tough and difficult path that is in the light and leads to life. The historical truth of the Cross is not a power claim, as Marx so rightly says most truth claims are, but a true story of humility, sacrifice and love. It is the most liberating, inspiring, hope giving story ever told and it's all true. Add that to your list of equality and diversity lectures.
So please don’t characterise as someone who has a ‘belief system’. If you had the cure for cancer you wouldn’t keep it a secret, likewise if you have the truth that leads to life it would be unloving and completely lacking in compassion not to share it. I understand that if, like me, you wanted to reject Jesus Christ’s truth claim in preference for your own. You do however, put your faith in something. Something atttracts your time, treasure and talents, gives you purpose and hope and maybe provides you contentment and satisfaction. Given that’s the case I would strongly encourage you to test your truth claim against mine. It’s a short life and there’s a gift of truth with a new life of purpose, meaing and love greater than you ever imagined avaibable to you, you just have to face up and accept it.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Remember
I remember a time when you could only buy ready salted, salt and vinegar or cheese and onion crisps (chips for the American audience). The introduction of beef flavuor was a wonderful thing. Now we have salsa flavour amongst hedgehog and probably pea soup.
I remember when the boxy shaped Ford Transit was brought out and my father bought one. Wow, you'd struggle to exagerate how cool I thought this was. I deeply admired the cab and the size and the newness. It fuelled a great desire for commercial transportation a passion that has dwindled.
I remember when the M27 was turned from woodland to road. I walked about 4 or 5 miles to watch the construction equipment in action. There's only one thing more exciting than a new Ford Transit and that's the site of a mechanical digger, I believe excavator is the right term, loading a one of those earth moving trucks with big wheels. Hours of fun watching the heavy machinery at work.
Don't get me started in tractors. The Ford County, what a magnificent beast. This was the first I knew of tractors with all four wheels the same size. I remain particularly fond of John Deere, big fords and of course my favourite Massey Ferguson. On the lead up to my sixteenth birthday I carefully planned and nurtured dreams of having a tractor, I really did. I honestly thought this was a feasible aspiration. Knowing that you could drive a tractor on the public road at 16 this was my ticket to freedom. Needless to say I was disappointed.
Then I remember dreams of high yeald vegtable growing. My father very kindly rented a large maching for rotating the earth and I transformed a plot of land from waste to production. From my large pile of rotted rabbit manure I fertilzed the ground and produced a bumper crop of broad beans. I had great farming plans. From the library I got books out about sillage making and cattle husbandry and made mental plans. Hours and hours of mental plans involving farm machinery, sillage, a large farmhouse and a life in the country. I kid you not this was the mind of the foureteen year old Adrian.
I remember when the boxy shaped Ford Transit was brought out and my father bought one. Wow, you'd struggle to exagerate how cool I thought this was. I deeply admired the cab and the size and the newness. It fuelled a great desire for commercial transportation a passion that has dwindled.
I remember when the M27 was turned from woodland to road. I walked about 4 or 5 miles to watch the construction equipment in action. There's only one thing more exciting than a new Ford Transit and that's the site of a mechanical digger, I believe excavator is the right term, loading a one of those earth moving trucks with big wheels. Hours of fun watching the heavy machinery at work.
Don't get me started in tractors. The Ford County, what a magnificent beast. This was the first I knew of tractors with all four wheels the same size. I remain particularly fond of John Deere, big fords and of course my favourite Massey Ferguson. On the lead up to my sixteenth birthday I carefully planned and nurtured dreams of having a tractor, I really did. I honestly thought this was a feasible aspiration. Knowing that you could drive a tractor on the public road at 16 this was my ticket to freedom. Needless to say I was disappointed.
Then I remember dreams of high yeald vegtable growing. My father very kindly rented a large maching for rotating the earth and I transformed a plot of land from waste to production. From my large pile of rotted rabbit manure I fertilzed the ground and produced a bumper crop of broad beans. I had great farming plans. From the library I got books out about sillage making and cattle husbandry and made mental plans. Hours and hours of mental plans involving farm machinery, sillage, a large farmhouse and a life in the country. I kid you not this was the mind of the foureteen year old Adrian.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Stuff
I submit to you that much of your "knowledge, beliefs and convictions" are in fact an amalgam of the stuff that you have been absorbing all your life. That it is time you considered that the lens in which you view the world is corrupted and you are therefore not seeing things as they really are! Now that, if true, is a powerful statement that should give you cause for concern. Let’s discuss:
Would you admit to adopting the views, habits and opinions that most attract you? I was a particularly strange youth who took to listening to current affairs programming on the radio from an early age. I loved the liberal libertarian mindset that said you could be all you want to be, argue over morality and the person with the convincing argument gets the most votes and wins the day! Of course this allowed me to shape the world to suit my proclivities which of course unfettered were sex, drugs and rock and roll. I didn’t have to look far for the company of those who shared my passions. Did we have a good time? Yes and often. With our energy, enthusiasm, stamina, sense of sporting passion and testosterone of course we had a great time. Singing rugby songs with gusto, playing bar games with abandon, seeking to entertain and have a grand old time.
Nobody asked “what person do you suppose will emerge as a result of this behaviour and mindset?” “What effect would you like to have on the world around you, what sort of legacy do you hope to show, how so you intend to lean into the future?” Nobody saying “I tell you the truth, I speak from love, I care about you”. Not pious questions but big questions from the heart. I did have ideas of character, morality and legacy but these were cultivated in a culture that celebrated young men behaving like idiots, encouraged excess and couldn’t care less about the outcome. Where was my father during this time, my friends’ fathers, the fathers of the women I hoped would carelessly give away their bodies; where were the uncles, godfathers, where were the patriarchs? I’ll tell you. They were emasculated by an overbearing liberal led feminist ideology that had somehow convinced them that the wisdom that had lasted for millennia, about the roles of man and women was
nonsense and that equality and diversity was the new religion. There is no truth, we can all formulate our own truth and morality and it is the height of arrogance to suppose you have any right to tell me what to do. We took a vote and you lost! Well check out the streets people, see the prison population, see the incident of domestic violence and the divorce courts and see just how profoundly you have lost?
Just stay with me a little longer and suppose, hypothesize just for a moment that there is a Creator God that exists above time and beyond this material universe. Just use your imagination to suppose that something cannot come from nothing and before there was anything God existed for eternity, living in perfect relationship as an outpouring of love between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Have you got that image of love? Good. Now think; all you have to do is believe and you will be gifted His righteousness. You do nothing else, no chants, no praying five times a day. Just accept that he loves you, he willingly died for you. He knew you before time began and has power over all creative forces which was ultimately illustrated in the historically recorded event of being resurrected from the dead!
Now that changes everything. The course of your life, the purpose you have each time you go out to party, the meaning of spending time amongst people and serving them, loving them. Be you a nurse, checkout girl, soldier, banker or baker you have a soul and a purpose. Now get out and party hard, dance hard, crank up the volume, have a great time but do it knowing that it has a purpose and that’s to enjoy your Father’s love.
Would you admit to adopting the views, habits and opinions that most attract you? I was a particularly strange youth who took to listening to current affairs programming on the radio from an early age. I loved the liberal libertarian mindset that said you could be all you want to be, argue over morality and the person with the convincing argument gets the most votes and wins the day! Of course this allowed me to shape the world to suit my proclivities which of course unfettered were sex, drugs and rock and roll. I didn’t have to look far for the company of those who shared my passions. Did we have a good time? Yes and often. With our energy, enthusiasm, stamina, sense of sporting passion and testosterone of course we had a great time. Singing rugby songs with gusto, playing bar games with abandon, seeking to entertain and have a grand old time.
Nobody asked “what person do you suppose will emerge as a result of this behaviour and mindset?” “What effect would you like to have on the world around you, what sort of legacy do you hope to show, how so you intend to lean into the future?” Nobody saying “I tell you the truth, I speak from love, I care about you”. Not pious questions but big questions from the heart. I did have ideas of character, morality and legacy but these were cultivated in a culture that celebrated young men behaving like idiots, encouraged excess and couldn’t care less about the outcome. Where was my father during this time, my friends’ fathers, the fathers of the women I hoped would carelessly give away their bodies; where were the uncles, godfathers, where were the patriarchs? I’ll tell you. They were emasculated by an overbearing liberal led feminist ideology that had somehow convinced them that the wisdom that had lasted for millennia, about the roles of man and women was
nonsense and that equality and diversity was the new religion. There is no truth, we can all formulate our own truth and morality and it is the height of arrogance to suppose you have any right to tell me what to do. We took a vote and you lost! Well check out the streets people, see the prison population, see the incident of domestic violence and the divorce courts and see just how profoundly you have lost?
Just stay with me a little longer and suppose, hypothesize just for a moment that there is a Creator God that exists above time and beyond this material universe. Just use your imagination to suppose that something cannot come from nothing and before there was anything God existed for eternity, living in perfect relationship as an outpouring of love between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Have you got that image of love? Good. Now think; all you have to do is believe and you will be gifted His righteousness. You do nothing else, no chants, no praying five times a day. Just accept that he loves you, he willingly died for you. He knew you before time began and has power over all creative forces which was ultimately illustrated in the historically recorded event of being resurrected from the dead!
Now that changes everything. The course of your life, the purpose you have each time you go out to party, the meaning of spending time amongst people and serving them, loving them. Be you a nurse, checkout girl, soldier, banker or baker you have a soul and a purpose. Now get out and party hard, dance hard, crank up the volume, have a great time but do it knowing that it has a purpose and that’s to enjoy your Father’s love.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
अल इ वांट फ़ो मदर'स डे इस अन अफ्फैर All I want for Mother’s Day is… an affair?
All I want for Mother’s Day is… an affair? According to an article on cheating and Mother’s Day that I read today on MomLogic.com, thousands of women evidently think they do. Here is the first half of the article:
AshleyMadison.com, the dating website for married people, tells momlogic exclusively that Mother’s Day is the second-busiest day of the year for female member signups.
On a typical Monday, between 2,500 and 3,000 women join AshleyMadison.com. But on the day after Mother’s Day last year, AshleyMadison.com saw close to 24,000 new signups. They anticipate that 30,000 women will join this year on May 10 — the day after Mother’s Day.
This “day after” trend is nothing new to AshleyMadison.com: Their biggest day of the year for female signups is the day after Valentine’s Day, and their third-biggest day is the day after New Year’s.
Why are holidays like these such turning points for women? Noel Biderman, president and founder of AshleyMadison.com, says, “Because they have expectations — expectations that their partnership will be celebrated and even romanticized — but that is often not what transpires ….”
Biderman (a married father of two) believes there are several reasons why women turn to AshleyMadison.com after Mother’s Day in particular:
On Mother’s Day, women in general expect to be celebrated by their partners. However, for many already suffering from a lack of appreciation, this day represents a continuation of neglect and disappointment.
Women have affairs for different reasons than men. Whereas men are usually looking for sex, women tend to seek attention that they’re not getting at home. This lack of attention often makes them feel undesirable — and feeds their need for validation.
While I have a few thoughts about Mr. Biderman and his website, I can’t argue with his logical explanation about what women need from their husbands. We need to be celebrated, appreciated, desired, and validated. He’s right on.
This article leaves me with one thought for all of the husbands reading this:
“Husbands love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself up for it” - Ephesians 5:25
AshleyMadison.com, the dating website for married people, tells momlogic exclusively that Mother’s Day is the second-busiest day of the year for female member signups.
On a typical Monday, between 2,500 and 3,000 women join AshleyMadison.com. But on the day after Mother’s Day last year, AshleyMadison.com saw close to 24,000 new signups. They anticipate that 30,000 women will join this year on May 10 — the day after Mother’s Day.
This “day after” trend is nothing new to AshleyMadison.com: Their biggest day of the year for female signups is the day after Valentine’s Day, and their third-biggest day is the day after New Year’s.
Why are holidays like these such turning points for women? Noel Biderman, president and founder of AshleyMadison.com, says, “Because they have expectations — expectations that their partnership will be celebrated and even romanticized — but that is often not what transpires ….”
Biderman (a married father of two) believes there are several reasons why women turn to AshleyMadison.com after Mother’s Day in particular:
On Mother’s Day, women in general expect to be celebrated by their partners. However, for many already suffering from a lack of appreciation, this day represents a continuation of neglect and disappointment.
Women have affairs for different reasons than men. Whereas men are usually looking for sex, women tend to seek attention that they’re not getting at home. This lack of attention often makes them feel undesirable — and feeds their need for validation.
While I have a few thoughts about Mr. Biderman and his website, I can’t argue with his logical explanation about what women need from their husbands. We need to be celebrated, appreciated, desired, and validated. He’s right on.
This article leaves me with one thought for all of the husbands reading this:
“Husbands love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself up for it” - Ephesians 5:25
Thursday, May 6, 2010
लेट'स पार्टी हार्ड लिखे आईटी'स 1999
I just had a conversation with a fine loyal soldier who has served before the colours for 30 years. A man who was an RSM of the Coldstream Guards and today serves as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army Air Corps. Anyway he was interested to learn what imbued meant as I had spoken about the way in which we are imbued with nonsense from popular culture. I explained - " To inspire or influence thoroughly; pervade: work imbued with the revolutionary spirit." The translates into us inadvertently being influenced, learning, absorbing, accepting received wisdom (often wrongly called common sense), all the nonsense the world would have us believe. The medium is the media, TV, talk shows, current affairs, political rhetoric and urban myth that is shared in bars, restaurants and cafes.
I submit to you that much of your "knowledge, beliefs and convictions" are in fact an amalgam of the stuff that you have been absorbing all your life. That it is time you considered that the lens in which you view the world is corrupted and in fact how you are seeing things is corrupted and you are therefore not seeing things as they really are! Now that, if true, is a powerful statement that should give you cause for concern. Let’s discuss:
Would you admit to adopting the views, habits and opinions that most attract you? I was a particularly strange youth who took to listening to current affairs programming on the radio from an early age. I loved the liberal libertarian mindset that said you could be all you want to be, argue over morality and the person with the convincing argument gets the most votes and wins the day! Of course this allowed me to shape the world to suit my proclivities which of course unfettered were sex, drugs and rock and roll. I didn’t have to look far for the company of those who shared my passions. I chose the sailing, rugby and horse riding crowd, all the debauchery you want with a touch of supposed class. Did we have a good time? Yes and often. With our energy, enthusiasm, stamina, sense of sporting passion and testosterone of course we had a great time. Singing rugby songs with gusto, playing bar games with abandon, seeking to entertain and have a grand old time.
However, and this is the big however, there was no sense of boundary, no sense of purpose, no sense of what’s it all for. Philosophers call it hedonism, having a good time for good a times sake. The result is energy and passions being consumed in a selfish way that could have been used to love and serve people. Men being encouraged to be sexual predators instead of recognising their role to love, serve and honour the weaker sex and respect and defer to those who are older and wiser. I’ll tell you how long ago this was. I remember a couple of fellas in their mid thirties occasionally joining in with our revelry and being impressed that these older men were still getting stuck in with the younger crowd.
What I missed was good counsel, honest guidance and truth from men around me. Yes there were opinions expressed, there was occasional disapproval if one couldn’t function well due to the effects of alcohol but nobody to say these are the ultimate consequences of your action. Nobody asking what character are you seeking to nurture, what person do you suppose will emerge as a result of this behaviour and mindset? What effect would you like to have on the world around you, what sort of legacy do you hope to show, how so you intend to lean into the future? Nobody saying “I tell you the truth, I speak from love, I care about you”. Don’t dismiss these questions. I did have ideas of character, morality and legacy but these were cultivated in a culture that celebrated young men behaving like idiots, encouraged excess and couldn’t care less about the outcome. Where was my father during this time, my friends’ fathers, the fathers of the women whose bodies I was hoping would carelessly give away their bodies, where were the uncles, godfathers, where were the patriarchs? I’ll tell you. They were emasculated by an overbearing liberal led feminist ideology that had somehow convinced them that the wisdom that had lasted for millennia about the roles of man and women was all nonsense and that equality and diversity was the new religion. There is no truth, we can all formulate our own truth and morality and it is the height of arrogance to suppose you have any right to tell me what to do. We took a vote and you lost! Well check out the streets people, see the prison population, see the incident of domestic violence and the divorce courts and see just how profoundly you have lost?
Why did men lose the vote? Because a three hundred year enlightenment experiment, two world wars, twentieth century conflict and a raft of convincing existential philosophers knocked all the conviction and belief out of people. People leading ordinary lives, without the time to examine the circumstances, left the reigns of power to the liberal intelligentsia bent on social engineering drawn from Marxist theories about religious power plays. And women tired of macho wars, chauvinism and weak men spotted their chance, like their mother Eve, to have control and grabbed it. You are left with the masses being free to choose the life so beautifully captured in Trainspotting. Is that not uber ironic. This iconic movie of the 80s that illustrates, in all the gory details, the consequences of a social framework that breeds dependency on the state, while telling us we are all individuals with rights to die in our addictions and take our offspring down with us. It’s no wonder radical Islam, with its controlling legalistic religion wants to see western society and all it represents wiped off the earth; let’s face it, it’s not very attractive?
Of course it’s not attractive but it’s no less attractive than the alternative Islam offers of Hijabs and Sharia Law. The point is that non of us are perfect or attractive to a perfect and beautiful God. We have all sinned and fallen short of His glory of God and the good news is, well you know the good news already, but do you really know it? Do you really know that He absorbed the wrath that you deserve, He who knew no sin became sin so that I could have his righteousness? Just stay with me a little longer and suppose, hypothesise just for a moment that there is a Creator God that exists beyond time and this material universe. Just use your imagination to suppose that something cannot come from nothing and before there was anything God existed for eternity, living in perfect relationship as an outpouring of love between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Have you got that image of love? Good. Now think; all you have to do is believe and you have His righteousness. You do nothing else, no chants, no praying five times a day, just recognise that he loves you, he willingly died for you. He knew you before time began and has power over all the creative forces ultimately illustrated in the historically recorded event of being resurrected from the dead!
Now that changes everything. The course of your life, the purpose you have each time you go out to party, the meaning of spending time amongst people and serving them, loving them. Be you a nurse, checkout girl, soldier, banker or baker you have a soul and a purpose. Now get out and party hard, dance hard, crank up the volume, have a great time but do it knowing that it has a purpose and that’s to enjoy your Father’s love. So stay in control, practice moderation be in a position to help people who need help when they fall victim to addiction, emptiness, drunkenness and sadness. Even if your earthly father failed you that’s okay. People will continue to fail you, we’re just people but knowing that we are loved beyond measure no matter what this corrupted and degenerating temporary world throws at you is awesome news. Let’s party like its 1999!
I submit to you that much of your "knowledge, beliefs and convictions" are in fact an amalgam of the stuff that you have been absorbing all your life. That it is time you considered that the lens in which you view the world is corrupted and in fact how you are seeing things is corrupted and you are therefore not seeing things as they really are! Now that, if true, is a powerful statement that should give you cause for concern. Let’s discuss:
Would you admit to adopting the views, habits and opinions that most attract you? I was a particularly strange youth who took to listening to current affairs programming on the radio from an early age. I loved the liberal libertarian mindset that said you could be all you want to be, argue over morality and the person with the convincing argument gets the most votes and wins the day! Of course this allowed me to shape the world to suit my proclivities which of course unfettered were sex, drugs and rock and roll. I didn’t have to look far for the company of those who shared my passions. I chose the sailing, rugby and horse riding crowd, all the debauchery you want with a touch of supposed class. Did we have a good time? Yes and often. With our energy, enthusiasm, stamina, sense of sporting passion and testosterone of course we had a great time. Singing rugby songs with gusto, playing bar games with abandon, seeking to entertain and have a grand old time.
However, and this is the big however, there was no sense of boundary, no sense of purpose, no sense of what’s it all for. Philosophers call it hedonism, having a good time for good a times sake. The result is energy and passions being consumed in a selfish way that could have been used to love and serve people. Men being encouraged to be sexual predators instead of recognising their role to love, serve and honour the weaker sex and respect and defer to those who are older and wiser. I’ll tell you how long ago this was. I remember a couple of fellas in their mid thirties occasionally joining in with our revelry and being impressed that these older men were still getting stuck in with the younger crowd.
What I missed was good counsel, honest guidance and truth from men around me. Yes there were opinions expressed, there was occasional disapproval if one couldn’t function well due to the effects of alcohol but nobody to say these are the ultimate consequences of your action. Nobody asking what character are you seeking to nurture, what person do you suppose will emerge as a result of this behaviour and mindset? What effect would you like to have on the world around you, what sort of legacy do you hope to show, how so you intend to lean into the future? Nobody saying “I tell you the truth, I speak from love, I care about you”. Don’t dismiss these questions. I did have ideas of character, morality and legacy but these were cultivated in a culture that celebrated young men behaving like idiots, encouraged excess and couldn’t care less about the outcome. Where was my father during this time, my friends’ fathers, the fathers of the women whose bodies I was hoping would carelessly give away their bodies, where were the uncles, godfathers, where were the patriarchs? I’ll tell you. They were emasculated by an overbearing liberal led feminist ideology that had somehow convinced them that the wisdom that had lasted for millennia about the roles of man and women was all nonsense and that equality and diversity was the new religion. There is no truth, we can all formulate our own truth and morality and it is the height of arrogance to suppose you have any right to tell me what to do. We took a vote and you lost! Well check out the streets people, see the prison population, see the incident of domestic violence and the divorce courts and see just how profoundly you have lost?
Why did men lose the vote? Because a three hundred year enlightenment experiment, two world wars, twentieth century conflict and a raft of convincing existential philosophers knocked all the conviction and belief out of people. People leading ordinary lives, without the time to examine the circumstances, left the reigns of power to the liberal intelligentsia bent on social engineering drawn from Marxist theories about religious power plays. And women tired of macho wars, chauvinism and weak men spotted their chance, like their mother Eve, to have control and grabbed it. You are left with the masses being free to choose the life so beautifully captured in Trainspotting. Is that not uber ironic. This iconic movie of the 80s that illustrates, in all the gory details, the consequences of a social framework that breeds dependency on the state, while telling us we are all individuals with rights to die in our addictions and take our offspring down with us. It’s no wonder radical Islam, with its controlling legalistic religion wants to see western society and all it represents wiped off the earth; let’s face it, it’s not very attractive?
Of course it’s not attractive but it’s no less attractive than the alternative Islam offers of Hijabs and Sharia Law. The point is that non of us are perfect or attractive to a perfect and beautiful God. We have all sinned and fallen short of His glory of God and the good news is, well you know the good news already, but do you really know it? Do you really know that He absorbed the wrath that you deserve, He who knew no sin became sin so that I could have his righteousness? Just stay with me a little longer and suppose, hypothesise just for a moment that there is a Creator God that exists beyond time and this material universe. Just use your imagination to suppose that something cannot come from nothing and before there was anything God existed for eternity, living in perfect relationship as an outpouring of love between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Have you got that image of love? Good. Now think; all you have to do is believe and you have His righteousness. You do nothing else, no chants, no praying five times a day, just recognise that he loves you, he willingly died for you. He knew you before time began and has power over all the creative forces ultimately illustrated in the historically recorded event of being resurrected from the dead!
Now that changes everything. The course of your life, the purpose you have each time you go out to party, the meaning of spending time amongst people and serving them, loving them. Be you a nurse, checkout girl, soldier, banker or baker you have a soul and a purpose. Now get out and party hard, dance hard, crank up the volume, have a great time but do it knowing that it has a purpose and that’s to enjoy your Father’s love. So stay in control, practice moderation be in a position to help people who need help when they fall victim to addiction, emptiness, drunkenness and sadness. Even if your earthly father failed you that’s okay. People will continue to fail you, we’re just people but knowing that we are loved beyond measure no matter what this corrupted and degenerating temporary world throws at you is awesome news. Let’s party like its 1999!
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