Thursday, October 14, 2010
Friday, October 8, 2010
Six Month Sabbatical
I have been considering restarting my blog for some time now. I ceased blogging for several reasons.
1.) The state of my existence had become so restrictive in the last few months. The scope of our ministry opportunities shrunk to the point where I feared any blogging would prove too uninspiring for any readership. Since moving to Virginia and assuming the helm of Crosspoint church, it seems as though the blood is returning to my ministry limbs and my imagination and vision is starting to refire.
2. ) The final stages of our green card application involved Federal background checking. Not knowing how extensive the background checking is, I was concerned that my candid conversation on this blog could might trigger some unnecessary questions in our final interview. Hey, call me paranoid, but if I was the FBI I would check out Facebook etc. It will reveal more that a credit check and spy satellites.
3) I am also wrestling with the question, who am I writing to? Initially my perceived blog readership was my family and South Africans from the AOG and Cape Town ministry environments. Now that we have permanent residence in the U.S. I am completely embracing Americans as our ministry constituency. Now I have to redirect my thoughts and reasoning more towards their frames of reference. I feel the six month sabbatical has allowed me to turn the corner on this issue.
Copy and paste the link below to see an article that fortifies and confirms my passion for our mission in America.
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/book-religion-examines-ways-americans-perceive-god/story?id=11825319&page=1
Dunno why it isn't an active link, might because you have to pay to register a link to abc's new feed.
Anyway, the six month sabbatical is over...the blogging journey awaits.
1.) The state of my existence had become so restrictive in the last few months. The scope of our ministry opportunities shrunk to the point where I feared any blogging would prove too uninspiring for any readership. Since moving to Virginia and assuming the helm of Crosspoint church, it seems as though the blood is returning to my ministry limbs and my imagination and vision is starting to refire.
2. ) The final stages of our green card application involved Federal background checking. Not knowing how extensive the background checking is, I was concerned that my candid conversation on this blog could might trigger some unnecessary questions in our final interview. Hey, call me paranoid, but if I was the FBI I would check out Facebook etc. It will reveal more that a credit check and spy satellites.
3) I am also wrestling with the question, who am I writing to? Initially my perceived blog readership was my family and South Africans from the AOG and Cape Town ministry environments. Now that we have permanent residence in the U.S. I am completely embracing Americans as our ministry constituency. Now I have to redirect my thoughts and reasoning more towards their frames of reference. I feel the six month sabbatical has allowed me to turn the corner on this issue.
Copy and paste the link below to see an article that fortifies and confirms my passion for our mission in America.
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/book-religion-examines-ways-americans-perceive-god/story?id=11825319&page=1
Dunno why it isn't an active link, might because you have to pay to register a link to abc's new feed.
Anyway, the six month sabbatical is over...the blogging journey awaits.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Blood on the Soil
I watched the movie "2012" last night. Now begins the inevitable countdown to 21 December 2012 and all the accompanying paranoia that our extinction-obsessed humanity will indulge in. It's gonna be a great 2012 Christmas and 2013 New Year celebration when everybody realizes that the doomsday clock has been reset to the next end-time scenario.
The movie's significance was intensified by the relevance of it's earthquake driven story line. Haiti, Chile, and now Turkey, have dominated international news, creating an awareness of seemingly increasing instability in the earth's crust. The University of Milwaukee have a great page that records seismic activity: www4.uwm.edu/letsci/geosciences/seismic_center/2010_eq/. 2010 has been seismically busy.
It's seems the decline of the influence of Christianity on Western culture has led to a diminished awareness of the biblical end-time scenario. Now Nostradamus or the Mayans are regarded to have the more reliable visions of the future. My exposure to biblical truth directs me to believe that any end-of-the-world scenario is incorrect, because the bible describes the end of this age as the day of the Lord, not the destruction of humanity or the planet. The visible, tangible, sudden return of Jesus as Judge of all mankind will mark the end of this current time in which he is preached as Saviour, and trusted in through faith.
Yes, the bible describes a drastic change in the condition of all creation taking place in the wake of the return of Jesus, but the interruption to our current reality will not be global destruction, but the unexpected return of the King.
In passages like Matthew 24, the bible does describe an escalation of distress and misery in the build up to this appearing of Christ. Earthquakes, famines and wars are all signs of the imminence of the event. When Christians point to these natural or sociopolitical disasters as "sings of the times" there is generally a backlash from those who have reduced God to a benign, largely inactive, plaintiff notion of goodness and benevolence that permeates the universe like a lingering smell.
Is God in the business of dishing out earthquakes as either punishment for iniquity or to mark out the tick-tock of His end time clock?
I want to suggest that our environmentalist friends and their pantheistic personification of nature (most recently popularized by the movie "Avatar") are a little closer to the truth that we realise. The bible does seem to identify the earth and even rocks and plants as (albeit small) living, role-playing characters on the stage of the redemption story.
Moses is told to speak to a rock, Jesus curses a fig tree and cautions that rocks will do the work of worship if people, made in God's image, go on strike.
In a passage that is pivotal to my point, in Genesis 4:10 God informs the murderer Cain that the blood of his brother and victim, Abel is crying out to Him from the soil. As a result Cain, previously a produce farmer, is cut off from the land. This principle of sin leading to expulsion from the land (the source of life and anchor of identity), repeats itself through scripture. Leviticus 18 and 20 describes how the land inhabited by wicked people becomes defiled and eventually vomits them out to cleanse itself. The original inhabitants of the Promised land were vomited out when the Israelites invaded. Likewise, Israel was vomited out of the promised land into exile in Assyria and Babylon after years of backsliding.
In Old Testament times sinfulness was regionalised by restrictions in travel and communication. This allowed judgment to fall on Sodom and Gomorrah and allowed other cities to survive. However, the corrupting influence of a global village has allowed darkness to spread to every culture on the plant. A pornographic act in California can be viewed by someone in Siberia if they have online access. Narcotics from a poppy plant grown in Afghanistan can enter the veins of someone in Cape Town through the medium of travel. As a result, Romans 8:18-22 describes how all Creation is distressed like a woman in childbirth.
The agony of the labour pain typifies sin and how it makes us long for the one true just King to appear and rule. The labour pain and groans precede the joyous event of the revelation of the Son of Man and his devoted ones.
If this stands to reason, then the instability of our planet is more our doing than God's. No, I'm not talking about greenhouse gases, but I am talking about pollution. The pollution of corruption, injustice, pride and wickedness that causes the land to writhe in pain and eventually vomit us out.
Romans 2:5 But because you are stubborn and refuse to turn from your sin, you are storing up terrible punishment for yourself. For a day of anger is coming, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.
The movie's significance was intensified by the relevance of it's earthquake driven story line. Haiti, Chile, and now Turkey, have dominated international news, creating an awareness of seemingly increasing instability in the earth's crust. The University of Milwaukee have a great page that records seismic activity: www4.uwm.edu/letsci/geosciences/seismic_center/2010_eq/. 2010 has been seismically busy.
It's seems the decline of the influence of Christianity on Western culture has led to a diminished awareness of the biblical end-time scenario. Now Nostradamus or the Mayans are regarded to have the more reliable visions of the future. My exposure to biblical truth directs me to believe that any end-of-the-world scenario is incorrect, because the bible describes the end of this age as the day of the Lord, not the destruction of humanity or the planet. The visible, tangible, sudden return of Jesus as Judge of all mankind will mark the end of this current time in which he is preached as Saviour, and trusted in through faith.
Yes, the bible describes a drastic change in the condition of all creation taking place in the wake of the return of Jesus, but the interruption to our current reality will not be global destruction, but the unexpected return of the King.
In passages like Matthew 24, the bible does describe an escalation of distress and misery in the build up to this appearing of Christ. Earthquakes, famines and wars are all signs of the imminence of the event. When Christians point to these natural or sociopolitical disasters as "sings of the times" there is generally a backlash from those who have reduced God to a benign, largely inactive, plaintiff notion of goodness and benevolence that permeates the universe like a lingering smell.
Is God in the business of dishing out earthquakes as either punishment for iniquity or to mark out the tick-tock of His end time clock?
I want to suggest that our environmentalist friends and their pantheistic personification of nature (most recently popularized by the movie "Avatar") are a little closer to the truth that we realise. The bible does seem to identify the earth and even rocks and plants as (albeit small) living, role-playing characters on the stage of the redemption story.
Moses is told to speak to a rock, Jesus curses a fig tree and cautions that rocks will do the work of worship if people, made in God's image, go on strike.
In a passage that is pivotal to my point, in Genesis 4:10 God informs the murderer Cain that the blood of his brother and victim, Abel is crying out to Him from the soil. As a result Cain, previously a produce farmer, is cut off from the land. This principle of sin leading to expulsion from the land (the source of life and anchor of identity), repeats itself through scripture. Leviticus 18 and 20 describes how the land inhabited by wicked people becomes defiled and eventually vomits them out to cleanse itself. The original inhabitants of the Promised land were vomited out when the Israelites invaded. Likewise, Israel was vomited out of the promised land into exile in Assyria and Babylon after years of backsliding.
In Old Testament times sinfulness was regionalised by restrictions in travel and communication. This allowed judgment to fall on Sodom and Gomorrah and allowed other cities to survive. However, the corrupting influence of a global village has allowed darkness to spread to every culture on the plant. A pornographic act in California can be viewed by someone in Siberia if they have online access. Narcotics from a poppy plant grown in Afghanistan can enter the veins of someone in Cape Town through the medium of travel. As a result, Romans 8:18-22 describes how all Creation is distressed like a woman in childbirth.
The agony of the labour pain typifies sin and how it makes us long for the one true just King to appear and rule. The labour pain and groans precede the joyous event of the revelation of the Son of Man and his devoted ones.
If this stands to reason, then the instability of our planet is more our doing than God's. No, I'm not talking about greenhouse gases, but I am talking about pollution. The pollution of corruption, injustice, pride and wickedness that causes the land to writhe in pain and eventually vomit us out.
Romans 2:5 But because you are stubborn and refuse to turn from your sin, you are storing up terrible punishment for yourself. For a day of anger is coming, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.
Monday, January 25, 2010
The Smell of Coffee
I'm sure you know this, but coffee smells better than it tastes. OK, calm down, I'm still an advocate of drinking the stuff. However, there is no doubt that a huge part of the enjoyment of the bean beverage is the aroma. Walking past a coffee house and smelling the freshly ground blend presents a promise of enjoyment that the liquid barely, and often doesn't, deliver on.
However, I am rarely resentful when I taste a disappointing cup of coffee. I understand that I was already consuming the enjoyment while percolating in the scent-drenched coffee shop as I waited for my order.
I have come to understand that much of the joy of life is found in the anticipation of things. Does Christmas day really live up to the giddy thrill that the sentiments of the Christmas season cultivates in our soul as we count down the advent calender? Does driving a brand new car fully fulfill the enticing, anxious excitement of exploring the endless possibilities while searching the local auto mile for your next mechanical alter-ego?
The intangibly evident smell of coffee is a metaphor for finding the true quality of the good life. Tangible materials leave a void in the human heart. The intangible raises us into a tension of expectation and anticipation that could be called hope and faith.....and it keeps us wanting to stay alive.
I have often wondered why God takes so long to answer prayers.
When we pray and believe, we are exercising faith. The bible says faith pleases God (Heb. 11:6), and that it is required for us to live by faith (Hab. 2:4), as opposed to having short occasional bursts of faith. When God answers our prayers, we take delivery of our answer and the dimension of faith ceases. That's why God waits until the last moment to answer, because it extends the exercise of our faith, in which He finds so much delight, to the maximum.
Like coffee, the anticipation of things longed for is almost sweeter than the realisation.
However, I am rarely resentful when I taste a disappointing cup of coffee. I understand that I was already consuming the enjoyment while percolating in the scent-drenched coffee shop as I waited for my order.
I have come to understand that much of the joy of life is found in the anticipation of things. Does Christmas day really live up to the giddy thrill that the sentiments of the Christmas season cultivates in our soul as we count down the advent calender? Does driving a brand new car fully fulfill the enticing, anxious excitement of exploring the endless possibilities while searching the local auto mile for your next mechanical alter-ego?
The intangibly evident smell of coffee is a metaphor for finding the true quality of the good life. Tangible materials leave a void in the human heart. The intangible raises us into a tension of expectation and anticipation that could be called hope and faith.....and it keeps us wanting to stay alive.
I have often wondered why God takes so long to answer prayers.
When we pray and believe, we are exercising faith. The bible says faith pleases God (Heb. 11:6), and that it is required for us to live by faith (Hab. 2:4), as opposed to having short occasional bursts of faith. When God answers our prayers, we take delivery of our answer and the dimension of faith ceases. That's why God waits until the last moment to answer, because it extends the exercise of our faith, in which He finds so much delight, to the maximum.
Like coffee, the anticipation of things longed for is almost sweeter than the realisation.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
