Category Archives: Quotations

The Fruit of the Spirit

Quotations, Insights, Others' stuff

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
– Galatians 5:22-23

I wanted to share today about the Fruit of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. If we allow the Spirit to live in our lives, to live His Life through us, we will become more like Jesus, (2 Cor 3:18 and Romans 12:2), and incidentally we will also become the people we should always have been. (On an individual level, this means you becoming more the person you always wanted to be!) That is, good, decent people who live in the power of the Kingdom on a daily basis, loving God and loving others. In short, we exhibit the Fruit of the Spirit.

So, how do we grow this fruit in our lives? The really interesting thing is that, just like soaring on wings like eagles, it is really effortless. You only need to spend time walking with Jesus in order for this fruit to appear virtually without you noticing it. The really odd thing about this fruit is that it usually takes others to recognise it; we generally do not recognise it in ourselves, unless we one day look back at how far we have come, and how much we have changed. And even then it comes as a surprise.

C. S. Lewis once wrote a similar thing about the quality of ‘humility’ (which does not mean being all mousey and submissive, but instead means having gentleness combined with strength). Here’s what he wrote:

lewis_sm“Do not imagine that if you meet a really humble man he will be what most people call ‘humble’ nowadays: he will not be a sort of greasy, smarmy person, who is always telling you that, of course, he is nobody.

“Probably all you will think about him is that he seemed a cheerful, intelligent chap who took a real interest in what you said to him.

“If you do dislike him it will be because you feel a little envious of anyone who seems to enjoy life so easily. He will not be thinking about humility: he will not be thinking about himself at all.”
– C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

“…he will not be thinking about himself at all.” That’s the key. It’s probably why he doesn’t notice the Fruit in his own life; he’s looking to God and outwards to others, and not at himself at all.

And let me tell you something else: the Fruit of the Spirit is the strongest and most compelling evidence for the work of God’s Grace in the believer’s life. I can think of many people I know, from homeless people ministered to by our Church, to members of my own family, whose lives have been radically infused with the Fruit of the Spirit. They didn’t try for this to happen; they didn’t strive for perfection; they didn’t suddenly decide one day to start following a set of rules or adopt a certain formula. They just walked with Jesus, and the Fruit appeared naturally all of its own accord.

And that’s the way it should be. Walk with Jesus, and you will become the person you always wanted to be, and that you always should have been. And you’ll bear the Fruit of the Spirit.

Which is no bad thing….

High Flight, with FAA Supplement…

Aviation, Quotations, Others' stuff, Humour

In the light of my post of a few days ago, you might like this humorous annotated version of the poem ‘High Flight‘, after the national regulatory authority bureaucrats have got hold of it (For information, the FAA is the US equivalent of the UK’s CAA)

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth(1),
And danced(2) the skies on laughter silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed(3) and joined the tumbling mirth(4)
Of sun-split clouds(5) and done a hundred things(6)
You have not dreamed of — Wheeled and soared and swung(7)
High in the sunlit silence(8). Hov’ring there(9)
I’ve chased the shouting wind(10) along and flung(11)
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious(12), burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights(13) with easy grace,
Where never lark, or even eagle(14) flew;
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space(15),
Put out my hand(16), and touched the face of God.

NOTE:

1. Pilots must insure that all surly bonds have been slipped entirely before aircraft taxi or flight is attempted.
2. During periods of severe sky dancing, crew and passengers must keep seatbelts fastened. Crew should wear shoulderbelts as provided.
3. Sunward climbs must not exceed the maximum permitted aircraft ceiling.
4. Passenger aircraft are prohibited from joining the tumbling mirth.
5. Pilots flying through sun-split clouds under VFR conditions must comply with all applicable minimum clearances.
6. Do not perform these hundred things in front of Federal Aviation Administration inspectors.
7. Wheeling, soaring, and swinging will not be attempted except in aircraft rated for such activities and within utility class weight limits.
8. Be advised that sunlit silence will occur only when a major engine malfunction has occurred.
9. “Hov’ring there” will constitute a highly reliable signal that a flight emergency is imminent.
10. Forecasts of shouting winds are available from the local FSS. Encounters with unexpected shouting winds should be reported by pilots.
11. Pilots flinging eager craft through footless halls of air are reminded that they alone are responsible for maintaining separation from other eager craft.
12. Should any crewmember or passenger experience delirium while in the burning blue, submit an irregularity report upon flight termination.
13. Windswept heights will be topped by a minimum of 1,000 feet to maintain VFR minimum separations.
14. Aircraft engine ingestion of, or impact with, larks or eagles should be reported to the FAA and the appropriate aircraft maintenance facility.
15. Aircraft operating in the high untresspassed sanctity of space must remain in IFR flight regardless of meteorological conditions and visibility.
16. Pilots and passengers are reminded that opening doors or windows in order to touch the face of God may result in loss of cabin pressure.

– From Great Aviation Quotes

stock-footage-winter-high-altitude-ice-clouds-low-light-cloudscapes-these-are-real-organic-clouds-shot-from-a

High Flight

Aviation, Quotations, Others' stuff

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air. . . .

Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

– John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

magee

 

During the desperate days of the Battle of Britain, hundreds of Americans crossed the border into Canada to enlist with the Royal Canadian Air Force. Knowingly breaking the law, but with the tacit approval of the then still officially neutral United States Government, they volunteered to fight the Nazis.

John Gillespie Magee, Jr., was one such American. Born in Shanghai, China, in 1922 to an English mother and a Scottish-Irish-American father, Magee was 18 years old when he entered flight training. Within the year, he was sent to England and posted to the newly formed No 412 Fighter Squadron, RCAF, which was activated at Digby, England, on 30 June 1941. He was qualified on and flew the Supermarine Spitfire.

Flying fighter sweeps over France and air defense over England against the German Luftwaffe, he rose to the rank of Pilot Officer.

On 3 September 1941, Magee flew a high altitude (30,000 feet) test flight in a newer model of the Spitfire V. As he orbited and climbed upward, he was struck with the inspiration of a poem — “To touch the face of God.”

Once back on the ground, he wrote a letter to his parents. In it he commented, “I am enclosing a verse I wrote the other day. It started at 30,000 feet, and was finished soon after I landed.” On the back of the letter, he jotted down his poem, ‘High Flight.’

Just three months later, on 11 December 1941 (and only three days after the US entered the war), Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee, Jr., was killed. The Spitfire V he was flying, VZ-H, collided with an Oxford Trainer from Cranwell Airfield. The mid-air happened over the village of Roxholm which lies between RAF Cranwell and RAF Digby, in the county of Lincolnshire at about 400 feet AGL at 11:30. John was descending in the clouds. At the enquiry a farmer testified that he saw the Spitfire pilot struggle to push back the canopy. The pilot, he said, finally stood up to jump from the plane. John, however, was too close to the ground for his parachute to open and he was killed instantly. He was 19 years old.

– Quoted from ‘Great Aviation Quotes‘

This poem has been the inspiration for countless pilots in the just over 100 years that powered flight has been in existence. Its verses beautifully capture the limitless joy of dancing your aeroplane among the clouds; indeed, I personally have ‘done a hundred things You have not dreamed of ‘ up there in the sky. I know what this feels like; that poem could have been written from my own heart (except that I don’t ‘do’ poetry!)

Which leads me to another great paragraph that sums up flying and a pilot’s responsibility:

The ultimate  responsibility of the pilot is to fulfill the dreams of
the countless millions of earthbound ancestors who could only stare skyward
and  wish.

-Anon

Anyway, I’m going flying right now. See ya!

IMG_0148‘Up, up the long, delirious burning blue…’ (Photo taken at 6,000 feet over Cornwall, 26th August 2013 by my daughter, with myself as Pilot in Command)

Epilogue: Pictures and videos from today’s flight

How the Church Should Treat Gay People

Quotations, Insights, Others' stuff, Sexuality/LGBTQI

In the book I’m reading at the moment, ‘Disarming Scripture’ by Derek Flood, the author asserts that the correct way to read Scripture is to focus on the loving interpretation. If your interpretation of a passage results in doing harm rather than good, the chances are you’re not interpreting it as God intended. Essentially this is a way of interpreting ‘By their fruits you shall know them’ – (Matthew 7:16 – “You can identify them by their fruit, that is, by the way they act” (NLT))

In few areas today is this more important than that of how the Church treat homosexual people and other folks with ‘different’ sexualities. I’ve previously posted on this matter here. And in this post I keep it simple by referring to people in the LGBTQ ‘community’ as ‘gay’. I know this is incorrect, but it’s simpler for me. My apologies.

Another bit of background before going over to Flood’s piece: Flood asserts that when modern discoveries find evidence for certain effects, such as the terrible effects of treating homosexual people badly, we should not be concerned that we are challenging the Bible. When the Bible was written, humanity simply did not have the same knowledge we have these days. To claim that the Bible holds all the answers is simply incorrect; it is simply not big enough! We need to interpret the Bible not only through the ‘lens of Love’, but also in the light of modern discoveries, both scientific and sociological. To do otherwise is to remain stuck in an unchanging past, much as many Christians accuse Islam of doing.

Right. Over to Derek Flood:

“I would argue that it would be more important to observe the effects that same-sex relationships have in life today, than it would be to ask what the respective views of past cultures may have been. Do we find evidence that same-sex relationships lead to harm or that they lead to flourishing? The overwhelming majority of social scientists and mental health practitioners today would maintain that there is simply no evidence that same-sex relationships are destructive or harmful in and of themselves.

“Conversely, what we can observe, as far as harm is concerned, is that statistically the LGBT community has a higher rate of drug abuse, mental illness, and suicide than the larger population—alarmingly higher in fact. The reason is quite clear: the rejection they experience.

“Being kicked out of their homes, hiding who they are, being threatened and hated, etc. can easily make a person sick, depressed, broken, and even drive them to suicide. As their voices have begun to be heard, we have seen story after story of how gay and transgender kids have felt hated, at times even hating themselves.

“That really should be a wakeup call for us. While there is no evidence that same-sex relationships are themselves harmful, there is a considerable amount of evidence that the condemnation and rejection the LGBT community faces is profoundly harmful.

“Regardless of whether we believe homosexuality is right or wrong, none of that matters much when people are dying. If we truly care about people, then the practical question straight Christians need to be asking is: Are we helping or hurting with the way we are responding to gays? Are we promoting grace or promoting harm? If it turns out that a moral stance in opposition to homosexuality is having the unintended affect of fueling this kind of rejection, leading to self-hatred and even suicide among gays, then we need to seriously re-think our priorities and focus.

“We can of course argue over what the Bible says about homosexuality, but one thing is utterly clear: Jesus teaches us to love people, not to hate them, not to make them feel hated, and not to stand by while that is happening. From the perspective of the New Testament there simply is no room for doubt on this. We know exactly where Jesus stands in this regard. He stands on the side of the least, the condemned, the vulnerable.

“Looking at Jesus, we can clearly observe in the Gospels that his priority was on caring for the welfare of people, in contrast to the Pharisees who instead prioritized the maintenance of their moral standards. We need to get our priorities straight and prioritize compassion in our witness towards gays—even if that means, like Jesus, having the reputation among the Pharisees of today of being a ‘friend of sinners.’

“Again, as stated above, if we recognize that our particular interpretation and application of Scripture is leading to observable harm, this necessarily means that we need to stop and reassess our course. Scripture, as Jesus read it, needs to lead us to love God, others, and ourselves. If we find that it is leading instead to causing harm then we are getting it wrong.”

—

And I would also add that surely the requirement to ‘do as you would be done by’ (Matthew 7:12 – “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets” (NIV)) must occur to some. Would you, if you were convinced of the rightness of your cause, appreciate it if someone came along and told you how ‘wrong’ or ‘sinful’ you were? Certainly this is no way to open a dialogue that will bear any useful fruit! But it is a dialogue that must be opened; Christians need to discuss this rationally and with a non-confrontational mindset. And do it soon. (Thanks to Rob, one of my Men of Honour, for discussing that with me this evening!)

And for those who would say, ‘Ah, but isn’t it more loving to try to correct gay people in their error?’, firstly I would say that it is by no means certain that the Bible actually condemns homosexuality, or, indeed, any form of ‘non-standard’ sexuality. Therefore we should default to ‘Love’ while we get our interpretations sorted out (see this post). Secondly, unless you are in an already existing, good relationship with that person, you should not attempt to correct them at all. See my post, ‘confrontation’, for more thoughts on this important matter.

How to treat gay people? It’s really simple: you treat them like you would anyone else. They’re normal people. We shouldn’t even have to be talking about this, but I’m writing this piece because for some Christians this is a really huge issue. Take a step back and look at yourself, study the contexts, read opinions and scholarly articles….there is reasonable doubt that Christians have been wrong all this time! God has given you a mind – use it!

In the meantime, Love. That’s Jesus’s number one commandment.

On the Interpretation of Scripture

Quotations, Insights, Others' stuff

I’ve recently been reading an excellent book on reading the Bible the way that Jesus would have done in His time with the Hebrew Scriptures – more or less what we now know as the Old Testament. It’s called ‘Disarming Scripture’, by Derek Flood. There’s a link to a review and a summary of the book here. You can also click the image below to be taken to the Amazon page for the book in all its versions (Kindle, hardback etc.)

disarming_scripture

When studying the Bible, there are several factors which most studious readers consider.

There’s the context, in which the passage is considered in its setting within the book it is part of. So, a passage from, say, one of Paul’s letters, must be read a) remembering that this is a letter to real people, and b) taking into account the surrounding verses.

Then there’s hermeneutics and exegesis, which are related terms concerning the philosphy,  interpretation and drawing out the meaning of the text.

It can get quite complex, actually. How do I know that I’m getting the ‘meaning’ I’m supposed to be getting from the Bible passage I’m reading? What if I’m reading this and getting the ‘wrong’ meaning?

I know people who have a simple faith. They don’t need deep study; they know Jesus intimately, they read their Bibles and they live their lives for him and bear fruit. They don’t need hermeneutics or anything like that; they do very well just reading their Bibles just ‘lightly’, if you see what I mean. No deep meaning, no years at Bible college. It’s simple. It’s called ‘common plain meaning’, or ‘plain reading’. You simply take in what the English (or whatever language you have) words mean as written in your copy of the Bible, and God speaks to you.

This is perfectly ok for personal faith and personal study. Simply let the Holy Spirit let you know what He wants you to get from a passage. Jesus says in John 16:13 that, “when the Spirit of truth comes, he will lead you into all truth.” And, in John 14:26 He says, “But … the Holy Spirit …  will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you”. You know that burning sensation you get in your chest when the Spirit is speaking to you? Or maybe you feel Him differently; either way, you know that feeling you get when He’s speaking, and then the things He says to you come to pass…anyway if you get that feeling when reading a particular passage, then that’s a good sign that He’s telling you something. Listen. Take in what He’s saying. No problem.

As long as what you believe from the Bible affects only you, internally and spiritually, that’s fine. When it impacts on others, though – the minute your Scripture reading affects the way you relate to others, the way you treat others – that’s when you need to be absolutely sure that you know what that Scripture means.

So, when you formulate doctrine, or use the Bible to set rules (not that you should), customs, standards of behaviour, then that’s where the second level of interpretation comes in. That’s when you really need the hermeneutics and all the other fancy words. So many Christians take what God has spoken to them and assume He means it for all – but that’s not always the case; in fact, the things that God speaks to you in your personal time with Him are almost always for you and you alone. And remember that the Scripture was never intended to be a book of rules…the times when the Bible was written were very different from the time in which we live. It did not fall from the sky as a timeless document of rules that should apply at all times and to all people everywhere and everywhen!

To try to apply the Bible as a moral map today is therefore inviting disaster if the original passages are not properly understood, taking into account the original language, the hermeneutics, exegesis and cultural and historical context, and even then we should hesitate to formulate rules or behavioural standards from it, and try to apply them to the people under our care…and especially not to the people who are not under our care.

The way to apply the Bible in a moral sense today is to take its trajectory – that is, the way it points us; its general direction – and apply the sense of it and not the letter of the law as we see it. In fact, the Bible, and especially the Old Testament, is written in such a way that the Law is in constant tension with God’s Mercy. It is actually assumed that we are supposed to wrestle with the things of God; we are supposed to grab hold of the difficult questions and thrash them out until we get God’s take on them. This is why the Bible is so full of anger and violence, and yet also of love and mercy. This is why the Bible appears to contradict itself. And, because it was written by real humans who had a different yet particular views of God, and were trying to make sense of everything they saw around them in those primitive times of violence and tribal warfare.

Over the centuries, so many atrocities have been done in God’s name precisely because what it says in English is applied as authoritative, and ignoring the hermeneutics of the passage in question. We need to apply what is called ‘faithful questioning’. Feel free to wrestle with God’s word with a clear conscience!

We must also always read Scripture through the lens of God’s love. If you feel the Bible is suggesting a particular course of action that is not also loving, then chances are it’s not what God wants. It is the responsibility of every reader of the Bible to weigh the passage in a moral sense. That way lies proper balance; that way is the way of peace – the way of Jesus.

Let me leave you with a quotation from ‘Disarming Scripture’:

“The true beauty of the Hebrew Bible is that it welcomes and makes room for diversity, and for the marginal voices to be heard. We honor this by entering ourselves into an ethical reading and critical engagement with the text.

“This involves our questioning and challenging the Bible, but it equally involves allowing ourselves to be challenged and stretched by it as well. It demonstrates that truth is found in the struggle together – that questioning is the mark of a healthy faith, and the reflection of a robust character. To honour this in Scripture, we need to learn to approach the Bible not as passive readers, but as morally engaged and thinking readers. That is the hermeneutic of faithful questioning.”

 

 

“I thought my job was to stop people’s sin”

Quotations, Insights

I once read in someone else’s blog, “I thought my job was to stop people’s sin.”

Actually this is much of the problem right here. Because deciding what is sin and what is not depends almost entirely upon judging. Judging others and judging their actions, their proclivities and inclinations; in fact, by inference, judging their hearts. Which of course only God can do. This is key; I’d even say it’s actually the nub of the problem.

We need to be careful, though, of judging those who judge. In the same way as we are railing against, their actions too are subject only to the judgement of God, because only He knows their hearts.

In that blog, a responder said ‘I pray our hearts join to bind up the brokenhearted and restore their hope in the Body of Christ as a place of healing, refuge, strength and joy!’ and on the back of this, I would also say that those who judge are also in need of being healed and restored. They too need to be released into the “glorious freedom of the Children of God”. (Romans 8:21)

But we certainly should not judge them – else we are just as guilty. Instead, ‘Pray for those who persecute you’.

Just as an addendum, to those who would say ‘sin is sin, and that’s all there is to it’, I would say that very often what appears right to some people might appear wrong to others. It’s not our job to decide what is sin for others, only for ourselves; indeed Scripture is (I think deliberately) not all that clear in terms of specifics – there are no real ‘lists’ of what is ‘sin’. Granted, there are lists of ‘fruits of the sinful nature’, but  that’s not the same thing; the essential right/wrong decisions are based on letting the Peace of Christ rule in our hearts. And who are we to judge someone else’s faith? We are only answerable to the Master in that regard. (Romans 14:4)

Indeed, I believe that in fact it takes a stronger faith to be openly a ‘different’ Christian – a Christian who does not necessarily agree with what everyone else believes – than it does to just go along with the masses. Because then you are really standing up for what you believe in, in the face of social and religious rejection.

Just like Jesus did.

The Call to Love

Quotations, Insights, Others' stuff, Sexuality/LGBTQI

I’ve just read on another blog this excellent quote:

“It doesn’t bother me what [a well-known Christian speaker] or [another well-known Christian speaker] thinks, because I am 100% sure that after I die, no one is going to ask me why I didn’t hate more people.”

Let me tell you this: that posting was on a forum where lesbian, gay, transgender, bisexual and/or ‘queer/questioning’ (LGBTQ) people are affirmed.

I appreciate that many Christians feel it is their place, for a variety of reasons, to point out that being an LGBTQ person, or living an LGBTQ lifestyle, is wrong/sinful/whatever.

Actually, the Bible does not condemn homosexuality or any of these ‘different’ sexualities. There are many learned, Bible-believing, Spirit-filled scholars who consider that the ‘clobber-passages’ – the six main Bible passages used to ‘prove’ that homosexuality (etc.) is ‘wrong’ – are actually misunderstood both in their contexts and in their translation. (Click here for links to some excellent examples of such scholarliness) This means that there is realistic doubt that in fact the Bible means what we thought it meant in this regard. And surely, if there is any doubt whatsoever, we should give these people, many of whom are believers themselves, the benefit of that doubt. Default to the ‘Love’ setting; do not judge, do not condemn. We have no right even to judge others, never mind to condemn them!

You know, Jesus said that the Law boils down to only two commandments: Love God, and love your neighbour. (Lk 10:27 and Mk 12:30-31).

Most, if not all the time, people’s attempts to put LGBTQ people ‘right’, is manifested as hatred, intolerance, bigotry and downright nastiness. And I’m not just talking about Christians now (but really they should know better), but about all kinds of people in all walks of life.

Now is the time that God is calling us, the Church, to show that we are radically different from the World. We like to think we are different; now’s the time to prove it!

God’s command is simply to Love. Not to judge, not to ‘correct’, not to hate, but to Love. Love as you have been loved. Love as God loves you. Show others the Love He has given you by being like that to those around you.

Jesus came to rescue the downtrodden, the weak and helpless, the rejects of society. Today this equates to the homeless, the poor, and those whom society rejects…. including and especially LGBTQ people.

Remember, God does not call us to hate, no matter how much we feel it’s justified.

He calls us to Love.

“I am 100% sure that after I die, no one is going to ask me why I didn’t hate more people”.

True words indeed. Love them. Love them as you love yourself. That’s the commandment.

 

 

The definition of Sin??

Quotations, Insights

Much of the definition of sin in the modern Church revolves around the passage in Romans 14:23*, “…. and whatsoever is not of faith is sin”. Most people entrenched in Conservative church finger-pointing and condemnational philosophy will point out that this means that unless you can ‘justify’ as coming from faith, usually to the satisfaction of the questioner, a particular action, habit, pastime, orientation or whatever, then it’s sin.

It’s SIN, do you hear me?!!

But that’s not what that passage in Romans is all about. It’s actually about freedom from rules and regulations. The verse does not define sin; it simply says that if a person does something [effectively] against his own conscience, then that’s the sin. It doesn’t mean that everything has to be from faith, else it’s a sin. Read in its context, and with the presumptions of a ‘nice’ God who wants us to live life in its fulness, that’s what it means. There is a certain irony in that this passage, which is meant to encourage freedom, has been hijacked by the legalism brigade and used to create yet more bondage! I’ve written about this freedom in some depth elsewhere in my blog here.

On a blog I frequent, a contributor wrote, “…men invented some interpretations of things they didn’t like and called it evil”.  And I agree. This is exactly what happens when people’s good feelings are perceived by them to be under threat by something they don’t like, be it rock music, dancing, smoking or some ‘false’ doctrine. The Christian musician, Don Francisco, once wrote this lyric, “I know that you don’t like it but just listen my friend | just ‘cuz you don’t like it doesn’t mean it’s a sin”.

Evil itself is obvious when it happens. The behaviour of ISIS, cancer, toothache 😉 I could go on. There’s certainly no need for religious people to invent more of it! 😀

So I really suspect that actually much of the modern definition of ‘sin’ is just that certain people don’t like something, so proclaim it a SIN so they get their own way about what’s allowed and what isn’t – and all backed up by an angry, almighty God etc. etc. It’s almost laughable, isn’t it?

——-

*Interestingly, I Googled that verse to find out the exact reference. And the fact that I only had to type in the words ‘whatsoever is’ before Google realised what I was trying to find, speaks volumes to me in that it must be searched for by lots of people, for that to happen! Hmm, I wonder why? People focusing on sin (usually others’ sin) instead of salvation, perhaps?

Life after Death – A Contentious Post on Decision Points

Quotations, Insights

This is going to be a contentious post, and you should be warned that a lot of sacred cows are in danger of their lives 😉

It’s about who will be saved; who will be in Heaven. Life after death. Just a fairly superficial look at a very deep subject, but paradoxically, one that’s probably much simpler than we humans expect – we do love to complicate simple things! Let me say up front that this is not a Universalist perspective – where everyone gets ‘saved’ no matter what – but, well, you can of course form your own opinions on what I am saying, ok? 🙂

Firstly, let me set out my premises. Jesus said in John 14:6, “I am the Way, I am the Truth, I am the Life. No-one comes to the Father except through Me”. Acts 4:12 says, ” Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name [Jesus] under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”

So far, so good. We establish that Jesus is the Way to the Father; the Way to Heaven.

Now, let’s look at Romans 10:13 where it says, “Everyone who calls on the Name of the Lord will be saved”. There appears to me to be no other condition for salvation…. and remember we need to take into account the passages above which set out that Jesus, and only Jesus is the Way to salvation.

You may have noticed that the Bible does not contain a formula or prayer that makes someone suddenly ‘saved’ where they weren’t before. So often, for example in Mark 5:36, Jesus Himself said ‘Only believe’. He mentions being ‘born again’ (John 3:3ff) but it does not really explain in the Bible how this happens, except that in the same passage Jesus says we must be ‘born of the Spirit’. The Bible also talks in Galatians 6:15  about being a ‘new creation’.

But there’s a lot more unanswered questions as well, in addition to these. For instance, what happens to those who have not heard the Gospel? What happens if someone kind-of ‘believes’, but isn’t sure? What about those who would have loved Jesus, if only they’d been given a proper representation of Him, but the Church people were not showing Christ’s love? Can you make the choice after death, or must you make the choice while you’re still on Earth? Is it too late once you’re dead? The Bible is silent on most if not all of these questions; I would also hazard that many of the currently popular answers to these questions have been made up by well-meaning people in order to propagate a certain doctrine or another. And I suppose in writing this piece, I am doing the same!

So, what do I think? Well, I’d need to write a book….and in a similar way to how I sometimes feel that the doctrine of Hell is not necessarily founded in Scripture – I have read some very interesting interpretations of the Bible’s ‘teaching’ on Hell – I also have some issues with finding evidence or answers in the Bible for having a ‘time limit’ on receiving Christ. And for the other questions above too.

I am Aspergic so please bear with me; my lines of thought are sometimes hard to follow 🙂

So here goes. Let’s use an illustration first. Ok, as an ex-College tutor I have issues with the academic assessment of students. I don’t believe in exams or qualifications (despite having loads of them) because they do not reflect either the way in which knowledge is absorbed or used. It’s the same with a quiz show – a player may know the answer but unless it is given before the answer is revealed by the quizmaster, it does not count. If the answer is given by the quizmaster, and the player says ‘But I knew that answer’, he would not get the prize because he did not prove that he knew the answer before it was revealed. So the assessment, or the quiz, is more to do with regurgitating the answer on demand, and at the actual time, rather than actually knowing it internally despite not being able to recall on demand.

It’s difficult to explain how this relates to life after death but as an Aspie I am making a non-logical transition…..please bear with me.

So, a second or so after a person dies (but what is time in the Eternal Realm? Another reason for my doubts on this matter!) – anyway in that second or so, the person can see God right there (whether it’s Judgement Day or whether he sleeps and then wakes up in Heaven, whatever) but basically the person can now see things as they really are. So, like in the quiz, just because the answer is now plainly obvious, does not mean that the person cannot say ‘Oh yes! I understand now!’ and ‘qualify’ for Heaven based on Jesus’s already-done, all-encompassing sacrifice. He died for everyone!

Then there’s C.S. Lewis’s ‘Chronicles of Narnia’ which you may be familiar with. In ‘The Last Battle’, remember how there’s a Judgement: “But as they came right up to Aslan one or other of two things happened to each of them. They all looked straight in his face, I don’t think they had any choice about that. And when some looked, the expression of their faces changed terribly – it was fear and hatred: except that, on the faces of Talking Bears, the fear and hatred lasted only for a fraction of a second. You could see that they suddenly ceased to the Talking Beasts. They were just ordinary animals. And all the creatures who looked at Aslan in that way swerved to their right, his left, and disappeared into his huge black shadow, which (as you have heard) streamed away to the left of the doorway. The children never saw them again. I don’t know what became of them. But the others looked in the face of Aslan and loved him, though some of them were very frightened at the same time. And all these came in at the Door, in on Aslan’s right.”

I think that this is more or less what it will look like. There will be people who, all along, have loved Jesus without having met Him. Or, at least, they would have done, had they met Him. And when they do see Him, they will love Him. The answer to the quiz is right there and they will either already know the answer, or they will not. But the timing has nothing to do with it.

These people have been denied the chance to see Him as He really is – either because, as we have seen, they are perhaps newborns, those from far away or whatever – or simply those who have never had Jesus presented to them realistically and given the chance to respond.. I am Jesus to my colleagues at work, and yes I ‘witness’ to what God is doing in my life. But I am not challenging them – or at least I don’t think I am (and, of course, under the rules of the old ‘religion’ I used to have, I would have been condemned for that, for not being a pushy Witness!) but at the end of the day, Jesus is being presented. The challenge – the conviction, if you like – is up to Holy Spirit. That’s not my job. And neither is their response.

What happens to those who don’t love Him? We don’t know for sure. Personally I don’t believe that God would inflict eternal suffering; I think it is a device made up by the Mediaeval Church to keep people under their control. You couldn’t even commit suicide to evade the Church’s repression because they made that a ‘cardinal sin’ – to me that’s a dead giveaway! It’s a control thing. That’s what I believe at the moment, anyway.

And what about people from other faiths? Not only people who perhaps have never heard of Jesus the Son of God (as opposed to Isa the Prophet or whatever), but also those whose birth faith precludes ever having ‘correct’ knowledge of Him?

Well, again, for me Christ died for all. So this is my starting point. No-one comes to the Father except through Him. But this does not necessarily mean that it’s only Christians who can come to the Father. It means to me that even those of other faiths only get to come to God because of what Jesus did. Either before or after He came – which caters nicely for those who died before He arrived. Incidentally, the Old Testament saints were convinced that they were going to be with God. How? Interesting….Jesus must have had something to do with that!

Anyway, because of this, I think there are going to be many surprised Muslims in Heaven. They’ll be surprised partially because their religion has told them that they will never be good enough. And there will equally be a number of very, very surprised Jehovah’s Witnesses in Heaven, where all along they thought they’d only make Paradise Earth…. You see, I believe God looks on the heart. The story of Emeth in C. S. Lewis’s ‘The Last Battle’ is absolutely brilliant, “But the Glorious One bent down his golden head and touched my forehead with his tongue and said, Son, thou art welcome. But I said, Alas, Lord, I am no son of thine but the servant of Tash. He answered, Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me”. I am in tears just reading that once again…. I love Emeth and I am looking forward to meeting those like him in Heaven.

So, when it comes to the few seconds immediately after death, a person may find that they have loved Jesus for ages without having ever actually realised it.

And I believe that this is the basis for entry to Heaven. Your love for Jesus – the Real Jesus. The Jesus you always hoped He’d be like. It still fits with the Scriptural framework – Jesus is the Only Way – but it’s not necessarily what mainstream Christianity teaches, and certainly not what Fundamentalism teaches.

A wise friend of mine said, when asked the same question,

“I think there *might* be a possibility for people to come to faith in Christ after death. I would say this more than a possibility for children who died before they could understand the gospel, for mentally ill, and for those who have never heard the gospel. Similarly, there are countless people who have lived through horrible “religion” and so rejected the Gospel as a result. Are they to blame for rejecting God? I am not so sure.

“I do know this: God is loving and just. He will do what is right. From my perspective, what is “right” is to give people a real chance to believe in Him, a chance that this life does not always afford. But then, that is just my human perspective”.

And that opinion, too dovetails nicely with mine. You see, even in the Christian faith, or should I say especially in the Christian faith, there is room for discussion and differing opinions, even on the deepest and most eternal of matters.

Of course, none of this takes away from the absolute assurance that those who believe here and now have for their salvation. If you believe in Jesus for your salvation, in whichever way makes sense to you, you are saved, and that’s all there is to it. You can rejoice in that simple fact. You will be in Heaven. Your sins are forgiven. So why, then, should we become Christians in the here and now, with all the sacrifice that entails, if after death we’ll possibly make it to Heaven anyway? What benefit is there? That’s another whole issue, involving the reality of God in today’s life, assurance of salvation here and now, and the presence of the Kingdom of God. But more on that later. [in fact it’s here.]

Just a small peek into the Power of the Cross!

Quotations, Insights, Others' stuff

Another one from Don Francisco’s page on Facebook:

Roman crucifixion was an invention that demonstrated openly the darkest part of the soul of humanity. Yes, it was inevitable that Jesus died there, but it was only the means to an end– our adoption into the family of God. Until Jesus came, we were separated by a vast gulf from a God we constantly feared and misunderstood. Then God actually became one of us, and suddenly we were able to look at Him face to face.

The problem was, we couldn’t stand the sight: What shone so clearly in Him was incompatible with what we saw inside ourselves. It was that part of us that needed to die, but instead of realizing that, we killed Him. What we never imagined He’d do, though, was to take all that was in us into Himself and die with it.

And while enduring the worst of our sin, hatred and ugliness on the Cross, He prayed the most amazing prayer: “Father, forgive them. They have no idea what they’re doing.” Of course, the Father heard Him, and forgave us. But as the God of eternity, He already had. He sent Jesus because it had always been the Plan to bury our old, sinful nature and raise up a New Human. It had always been the Plan to share the eternal life and joy of the Father, Son and Spirit “by bringing many sons and daughters to glory”, by bringing us all into the circle in the Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus. You’re with/in Him now– He didn’t fail in His mission. He’s done it! Hallelujah!

– Posted by Don Francisco on Thursday, 2 April 2015