“I want to share my Faith with my friends/family/coworkers but how do I know if I am doing it right or wrong? The last thing I want to do is turn them off Christ because of something I said. I guess I just want others to feel the love and comfort I get from my Faith”



How do we know whether or not we are telling others about Christ the “right” way? What happens if we tell them the “wrong” way and is it our fault if they don’t become a Christian? And how should we feel if we still think that we’ve done everything we can but we don’t see them become a Christian?



These are questions that plague all who love (and are loved by) Christ. Being at that particular age I will even hazard that they worry the youth to young-adult age groups more than others. Being passionate for Christ is a wonderful thing, but sometimes we get worried that this passion will push others away or overwhelm them and this will do more harm than good. The first thing I want to say is don’t be worried. Yes, there is a right way and a wrong way to share Christ, but it’s not about method or what you say. It is so much deeper than that because it is all about your motives for telling others about Christ. If you tell them out of a sense that you have to do it to “be a good christian” then you will be less effective. Christ tells us to “love one another; as I have loved you” (John 13:34) and that “By this all will know that you are My disciples” (John 13:35). This passage really is crucial to understanding how to “evangelise” (which just means to tell others about Jesus) effectively. In order to be effective in evangelism, it has to come from a place of love. Love is the greatest, most powerful force in all existence, as we see in 1 Corinthians 13. When we act from love, to tell others about Christ we are acting with a force that is more potent, more real and more true than anything else we could say or do.



So, in answer to the first question of ‘how do we know if we are doing it in the right way’ the first thing we need to do is examine why we are telling them about Christ, and to see whether or not it is coming from a place of love. The reason that sharing Christ through love is two-fold. Firstly because Christ is love, and secondly because the love that we have for others is the love of Christ within us. When we talk to others out of love, or indeed are just around others the love of Christ shines out from us. Jesus tells us that ““You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” (Matt 5:14-16) We are the light in this world, but it is because of Christ in us that this is so. When we share that light with others, we are sharing Christ with them in the most effective way possible. To “love one another” is to “let the light shine before men”, and through this “all will know we are His disciples” and they will “glorify our Father in heaven”.



The answer to the second question is to be found in several passages. I am going to start with 1 Corinthians 3:6-15, particularly verses 11-16: ‘For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one’s work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is. If anyone’s work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.’



The foundation of all evangelism, in fact the only foundation possible is Christ. What we “build on that foundation (as in, what is the result of our particular evangelism to someone) will be tested in due time. But the important part to this verse is that whether we add the spiritual “gold, silver, precious stones” or the spiritual equivalent of “wood, hay, straw” we are still building on the foundation of Christ.



The second point to this question is that we are not responsible for what outcome our evangelism has on another. We are responsible for “what we build” or “how we evangelise” to others, not the end result. It is our actions, and the motives behind them that we must be most concerned about. Because it is by focusing on Christ and His love for us, that we share that love with others. What that love results in is shown to us through a parable Christ used and recorded in Mark 4:3-8 ‘Listen! Behold, a sower went out to sow. And it happened, as he sowed, that some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds of the air came and devoured it. Some fell on stony ground, where it did not have much earth; and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of earth. But when the sun was up it was scorched, and because it had no root it withered away. And some seed fell among thorns; and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no crop. But other seed fell on good ground and yielded a crop that sprang up, increased and produced: some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred.’



What Christ is telling us here is explained to the disciples. ‘The sower sows the word. And these are the ones by the wayside where the word is sown. When they hear, Satan comes immediately and takes away the word that was sown in their hearts. These likewise are the ones sown on stony ground who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with gladness; and they have no root in themselves, and so endure only for a time. Afterward, when tribulation or persecution arises for the word’s sake, immediately they stumble. Now these are the ones sown among thorns; they are the ones who hear the word, and the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things entering in choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. But these are the ones sown on good ground, those who hear the word, accept it, and bear fruit: some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred.’
When it comes to sharing Christ with others, our responsibility is the sowing rather than how receptive those to whom we share that love with are. Our responsibility in this respect then, is purely to share Christ from the love He gives us in the most open and honest way we can (Ezekiel 3:1-19).



Finally in answer to the third question regarding how we should feel having worked hard to share Christ from a position of love with others when we don’t see results? For the answer to this we must first realise that not everyone who evangelises will see the result of that evangelism. To one it may be to sow the seed, and to another it is to reap that harvest (John 4:35-38). Knowing this we are to rejoice that we were able to share Christ with someone if even only for a little while because we ‘know that all things work together for good to those who love God’ (Romans 8:28).



In conclusion then we are to tell others of Christ from the love that He put within us (which is His love), not overly concerning ourselves with the outcome but rather rejoicing always that God is using us for such a great purpose as to be His light in this world that others may come to see, know and love Christ in their turn.

Autotune, that wonderful little piece of electronic instrumentation that can make even the worst of the boy-band wannabe’s sound like Sinatra. Or at least that is it’s own self-promoting fluff. But has the music industry come too far?
We live now in a time when a career is made or broken on a single imperfection in sound, style or look (particularly for female artists) and that marvel of tone-perfection has brought our pop industry to the point that artists with voices that are uniquely styled (Miley Cyrus), the epitome of pretty (Taylor Swift) and even angelic (Charlotte Church) are reduced to the average mediocrity of pop. It as come to pass that rather than be used as an effective way to mass-produce the rubbish soft-pop that fills the void whilst we await the discovering of that rare spark of genuine talent it has become so normal that the only way for that talent to be heard, recognised and ultimately afford the artists to survive is to reduce themselves to mediocrity with the help of autotune. That be-all and end-all of “pitch perfection” reducing majestic nuances to the blandly computerised muzak of fashion stores.

BEFORE THE BEGINNING


PREAMBLE

This work is based upon the proposition that before there was a creation there was communication amongst the persons of the Godhead and that this communication, or discussion, formed the basis of a plan to create.

The work is fictional and does not seek to present itself as the actual words spoken by the persons themselves. The work is presented in the form of a play and it begins with the eternal self-recognition of the persons of the Godhead and continues with their desire to create as an expression of their mutual love and in so doing, coming to terms with the problems inherent in such an undertaking.


BASIC THESIS: “I AM THAT I AM” (EXODUS 3:14)


FATHER: In the consciousness of my self-existence I cry and you are that cry, eternally begotten of me: I am your Father. You are my substance crying, yet you are another. You are my speech, my word of self love: my beloved Son. As I love you, you love me and the intensity of our self-love, the light of our substance, proceeds as another and you are the eternal Spirit of our community: our Holy Spirit.

SON: We are three personal subsistences of one infinite, holy, self-conscious essence: one love, one light, one substance, yet three persons. You are my Father: I am eternally begotten of you, yet never was there a time when I was not. I am your beloved Son and I love you as you love me: with the infinite intensity of my being. You, 0 Spirit, are the personal subsistence of our love. You proceed from us as another, yet you are one substance with us.


HOLY SPIRIT:
I am the Spirit of your holiness: the eternal emanation of your love, yet never was there a time when I was not. My procession is the infinite intensity of your love and as you love, I love. We three are love and love is the light of our substance: Light which shines with infinite intensity and power.

FATHER, SON, HOLY SPIRIT:
We three persons are one infinite, living essence: our essence is person: self-conscious, self-loving, self-determining mental energy. We are and we are one. We are infinite therefore there can be no other outside of us. We are alone and need no other beside ourselves.

We are complete in our love which is at once infinite affection and friendship in our desire for our oneness and our determination to each glorify the person of the other. We love as one, therefore, in the infinite power of our love and for love’s sake alone let us talk about bringing forth, by our word, a finite creation filled with living beings who will be the expression of our person and glory as their creator.

FATHER: While I rejoice in the anticipation of planning our creation together, I recognize that there is a problem inherent in finiteness. Anything bounded by space and time must necessarily be subject to change.

SON: This is so and the type of change that will occur is disturbing because there can be no progression from the beginning of anything so bounded: only regression.

FATHER: That is true! If what we create is “very good” at its beginning there can only be regression because something perfect and complete has nowhere to progress.

SON: And if we were to create something imperfect and incomplete its imperfections would only multiply and this would make any sort of progression impossible.

FATHER: We cannot create something imperfect and incomplete. Such a thing would be a denial of our own self. It could never reflect our person or our glory.

SON: We could add something that would maintain its original state and prevent regression.

FATHER: That would only work for a short period of time because the probability factor of change in a finite creation makes even the regression of the thing we add to prevent it certain.

SON: The certainty is that if we make a finite creation that rises in our image and likeness to reflect our personality, it will not only change materially, it will change spiritually too. Such a creation would have a moral dimension that would, at some point in time, certainly change and that which begins being “very good” would become “evil”.

FATHER: And if we add the afore mentioned “something” to maintain the creation’s original state it will work materially, especially if we uphold it and slow its regression, but it will have no effect in the moral dimension. All that will happen there is that evil will go on forever.

SON: There is a solution! We are infinite in our being and not subject to change, therefore, change could be prevented by taking our finite image, and thus the whole creation, into union with ourselves.

FATHER: Suppose we give our proposed finite image and likeness a name. Suppose we call it man. If all things in the creation were to be connected to man and you and man unite as my son in the one person, your solution would work. You could take the flesh of the first child born to man into this union, but that would not prevent moral change occurring in the parents.

SON: I could take the flesh of the first man into union with myself.

FATHER: Then there would be no true creation. It would be an incarnation of a dream reality with which your union would itself be a dream, or if you like, a dream within a dream. No, the creation must necessarily be external to our essence and truly finite. There is however, a sense in which you could be in union with the first man, but only if we take his genetic material before the change occurs.

SON: If we make man male and female and make the female of the male, we can take some of the male’s genetic material and preserve it untainted for a time. Then we can combine it with the genetic material of a virgin female at a time of our choosing. At the time of conception I could then join in a personal union with the child.

FATHER: You would then be the second perfect man and yet still be of the same flesh as the first and of all his descendants. And in the same way as the first will represent all in the fall into regression, so will you represent all in overcoming it and its effects upon the whole creation.

SON: In that case change must occur and moral regression is unpreventable in the short term but can be overcome eventually. If we choose to create, there will be a moral fall from perfection which will cause universal regression. We cannot prevent it, but it can be controlled.

FATHER: If we bring something finite into being it will regress, but we can control the change. The creation will have both a spiritual and a material dimension. By combining the commandment that forms the moral dimension in the material creation with a temptation from a being from the spiritual creation who has already regressed, we can cause the change to occur with the first male and female.

SON: The change in man must occur at the beginning. If it is left until later man will become unredeemable as some will fall while others will remain in an unfallen state yet with an equal possibility of falling themselves as will happen in the spiritual creation.

FATHER: At the beginning, we will subject all things to the rule of man, including the spiritual creation and as the purpose of the living spirits will be to serve man, the unfallen ones will participate in the benefits of your union with man and so be preserved from change in you.

SON: Our first act will have to be the writing of a book to give form to the algorithms which make up the source codes of all things. There will also have to be a book of life which will contain the genetic codes and spiritual personae of the first man and all who come from him. Man will begin his journey in a perfect state with the female and all their descendants being “very good” in him.

FATHER: Being finite, man will be of the same substance as the rest of the material creation, but the spirituality of man will be greater than that of the spiritual creation. Man will be, like us, a personal being. Man’s mental energy will be self-conscious; self determining, with an intrinsic ability to rule. There will also be an inbuilt consciousness of our presence making known our eternal power and Godhead to him, and he will have the basic propositions of the moral law written in his mind.

SON: Then, having made the male, we will make the female from his substance, using his own genetic material: she will be his glory as the male is our image and glory. We will bring them together and as one flesh they will have a type of their future union with us in themselves. The man will thus be the head of the woman and they will reproduce and fill the earth. The male will be the head of the human race. We will give him the moral commandment and the responsibility of teaching the female and their progeny to obey it.

FATHER: He will first have the responsibility of teaching the female what the commandment is, but in their finiteness regression will soon start and the woman will be imperfectly taught and this will underlie her yielding to temptation. Her misunderstanding of the commandment will not be a moral fall but it will lay a foundation for it. Inevitably, she will yield and tempt the male to join her. This he will do, believing that the knowledge of good and evil will make him a god, but all that will happen is that he will fall from his perfection. Correspondingly, all who descend from him will fall in him because he will be both their seminal and representative head, causing sin to be laid to their account in law and to be passed on as a genetic virus in nature. Thus man will be responsible for his fall and all of its results. In this state they will all be repugnant to us and must suffer eternal punishment for their crimes. Dying they shall die because whoever has sinned against me I will blot out of my book. (Ex.32:33).

SON: All will sin and come short of our glory (Rom.3:23), therefore all will be blotted out. The creation will end because it will all be linked to man.

FATHER: Man and the creation can be saved from eternal destruction but the price of that salvation will be horrible. Love will be the power of creation, but the creation will regress because of its finiteness and become morally depraved by the regressive choice of man. We will create out of love and will not be able to deny the love of our creation, but we can express neither love nor mercy at the expense of justice. As you have said you can take the flesh of finite man and so unite him with us: the finite with the infinite, but in doing this you must also assume their moral debt and pay the penalty due for their sin. If you will agree to do this thing, because of your obedience, I will raise you from the dead, accept your sacrifice as full payment of their penalty, and forgive the sins of all who believe in you, counting your righteousness as their own. Their faith will be both the substance of their salvation and their evidence that they have been saved.

SON: But they will all be sinners, imperfect, incomplete, spiritually dead and because of the multiplication of sin, they will be rendered incapable of faith even though I be raised from the dead.

FATHER: I will make this covenant with you: if you will agree to take human flesh into union with yourself and be born of a woman into the creation, both assume and pay the debt for sin, I will agree to raise you from the dead and, as man, exalt you to my own right hand. I will also agree to choose a people for myself in you and with you as their head, adopt them as my sons and give them new life by sending forth our Spirit into their hearts. In this their finiteness will be united with, and obliterated by, our infinitude and I will not blot them out of my book of life because they will be justified by their faith. I will count their faith for righteousness and they will be guiltless before me.

SON: By sovereign regeneration they will be persuaded in heart and mind that I am their reality and that gracious persuasion will unite them with me by the Holy Spirit who will renew them and uphold them by dwelling within them. Therefore, for love’s sake only I will agree to the terms of this covenant that man and the creation may be saved. Man’s mortality will be swallowed up in life and the creation though finite will no longer be subject to regression. All that you give me will live forever in union with us by the power of our Spirit and the resurrection from the dead.

FATHER: We are agreed then! Our eternal purpose is to bring a finite creation into being which we will save from regressive change by bringing it into union with ourselves by incarnation and substitutionary sacrifice and the sovereign power of love.



John H Lovell

Imagine pure water. Absolute 100% H2O. Not a single atom that doesn’t make up the water mollecules. Now, if you add a single impurity to it it is no longer pure water. It is water with something else. Even if that something else is a single atom, it is still no longer “pure” water.

Now imagine you have a jug of pure water. It’s either a very large jug or it has a never-ending amount of water in it, whichever you would prefer. We’ll take a very large jug but it doesn’t really matter.

Say you are planning a party and you don’t know how many people are coming, the only pre-requesite for this experiment is that with each new person that shows up, you fill their glass/jug from the previous one filled.

So, you have 2 people turn up to your party, and you have your jug of pure water and you have all these purfectly clean glasses. When each guest leaves they put their glass in a sealed container that can’t get anything else into it. You want to put all the water back into the original jug at the end (we are imagining a very weird party, but it’s an analogy so run with it).

These glasses are also very large, and you fill them right up. However your two guests aren’t very clean eaters and both drop a crumb or a single molecule, or even a single atom of something else into their glasses. Neither notice because it’s such a small amount and it doesn’t really affect the water because it’s such a small amount. In fact lets say that they drop a molecule in every 5 minutes for the rest of the party

An hour later 4 more guests arive, are given the perfectly clean glasses, and they are filled from the previous glasses. Some of these manage to get almost pure water that is tainted from only 1 or 2 of the other molecules. Others get water that is absolutely full of these taints. Now these people also drop in a molcule of non-water every 5 minutes.

Then an hour later more guests arive, and their water is even dirties than the previous guests. And so on and so forth.

At such a slow rate of being tainted, it would take quite a while before it got to the stage where the water is undrinkable. However it would eventually get to that stage.

Each time there is a new “generation” of glasses, they start off a bit more tainted than the last. And when each guest leaves, their glass is more tainted then when they arrived. Because of the original tainting it is impossible to have an untainted glass of water. No matter how careful you are, you will start off with an impure substance unless you are one of the first 2.

Now, eventually there are no more glasses to hand out, all the paty goers leave because their water is so foul. You go to the sealed glasses and take them all out, wanting to put them back into the original jug. But you can’t because they would taint that water. The only thing you can do is throw the water out and start again.

This is the same when it comes to “sin” and Gods Law of the OT.

Now we add a bit more to the scenario:

You have realised that no matter what somewhere along the line you will get someone who will make their water impure. And you don’t think it’s very fair that some people have the opportunity to keep a pure glass of water, while everyone else will get theirs thrown out. So what you do is you make a filter. Something that is garunteed to purify the water when it is passed through. You originally plan to filter everyones water at the end of the party, however you realise that isn’t fair on those people who either try to keep their water clean, nor on those who come later. Because if everyone’s water gets filtered at the end, then they’ll just mess it up all the time and not care about those people who are comng to the party after them. That will ruin your party because less people will come if the water is really bad really quickly.

So what do you do? You provide the option for people to use the filter at any time. This is great because some people will stay there for as long as you can, while those who don’t care will go home earlier.

Then you recognise a futher problem, the glasses of those who filter their water will still be dirty with impurity, and what if they dirty it again after they’ve filtered it? They will spend all night waiting to use the filter and no-one will have any fun.

So what you do is you put up a sign to everyone who enters that promises that if they choose to use the filter at any time you will garuntee that their water will be filtered at the end of the party and put back with the original water in the jug. You make this filter easily accessible and it all goes without a hitch.

Some people use the filter then go on to fill their cups with dirt. Some people constantly return to the filter all the time “just to be sure”. A fewof the people think your party is stupid any way and don’t want their water goes back in the jug. In fact they even claim the water in the jug isn’t pure anyway, and they’re not going to believe it untill they’ve conducted every possible test on it. Then there’s the vast majority that just don’t care one way or another and go through the party with the water they got, and that’s fine by them. Besides they’re sure you’re a nice person and will filter their water anyway.

That’s a basic (and brief) analogy of the entire Christian Faith. And it works just that way. People are impure, they fill the life given us by God with impurities. So God provided us a way to “filter” those impurities, and promised us that if we do so once, we are garunteed to return to His presence forever. The Law is there to show us that we need that filtering.

To what have you sold your soul?

In answer to this question most people would say “nothing.” Many others would clarify with a comment such as “If I even have a soul I certainly haven’t struck a bargain with an entity that probably doesn’t exist to be in a position to buy it”. And I’d hazard a guess that this answer comes about from the idea that in order to sell your soul you need to strike up a contract or bargain with something or someone. However I propose that there is an alternative to this traditional view of the sale of ones soul.

If we put aside the questions as to the existence of an immortal part of a human being and allow ourselves to discuss the idea of a “soul” as a metaphysical awareness of self and the wider environment. An example could be ones faith in humanity, or belief in the benefits of emotional experience. The “soul” in this example is what benefits from those moments of pure joy and peace and love. Really, this works however you want to define your “soul” as being but I am trying to be general enough to include everyone.

Now I want you to think about what you place in value above those things that you have assigned to be your “soul”. Have you forgone deep emotional experiences in order to gain wealth, or fame? Do you place so much value on reasoning and rationally living every moment of your life that you ignore all else. Is there something that you have placed so much emphasis on in your life that it has been at the expense of what you have defined your “soul” to be? If so then this is a kind of sale, or a trade if you will. Where your “soul” has been traded for something else.

The greatest man who ever lived said “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” So what do you treasure the most? And what have you traded to pursue them?

To what have you sold your soul?

If I were a butterfly, I’d thank you Lord for giving me wings
If I were a robin in a tree, I’d thank you Lord that I could sing
If I were a fish in the sea, I’d wiggle my tail and I’d giggle with glee
But I just thank you father for making me, me

For you gave me a heart and you gave me a smile
You gave me Jesus and you made me your child
And I just thank you Father for making me, me

If I were an elephant, I’d thank you Lord by raising my trunk
If I were a kangaroo, You know I’d hop right up to you
If I were an octopus, I’d thank you Lord for my fine looks
But I just thank you Father for making me, me

For you gave me a heart and you gave me a smile
You gave me Jesus and you made me your child
And I just thank you Father for making me, me

If I were a wiggly worm, I’d thank you Lord that I could squirm
If I were a fuzzy wuzzy bear, I’d thank you Lord for my fuzzy, wuzzy hair
If I were a crocodile, I’d thank you Lord for my great smile
But I just thank you Father for making me, me

For you gave me a heart and you gave me a smile
You gave me Jesus and you made me your child
And I just thank you Father for making me, me

I just absolutely love the imagery in this song. I haven’t sung it since I was a pre-teen but today on my way to work I had it in my head and just thought; “you know, that is so true! Thank you for making me just how I am.” The beauty, wonder and thrilling joy of this world that God has given us should never be taken for granted. So Thank you. Thank you so much!

Who was Ceasar without his legions?

This is a question that has often got me thinking about the state of human society. Who was Ceasar without his legions, Napoleon without his army, McArthur without his GIs? Who is Barak Obama without his crowds of loyal supporters? So why is it that as a society we worship these individuals who, to be truthful, have achieved nothing without the hard work and worship of their followers?  You see this phenomena everywhere, from the villiagers who lay down on hot coals for their cheif to walk over them to teens who hang around for hours in freezing rain to catch a glimpse of some movie or rock star. What is it that drives us to worship the individual over the masses that those individuals control?

I, of course, have an answer to these questions. The short answer is that we are made that way.  We have been created to seek friendship and love with and from those who appear to be “above” us. The person who can shape and controll others has a power greater than any weapon of war, and those who are malleable crave a connection with that power, and so the leader both feeds and feeds off the followers in a two-way exchange of phsycological gratification. In practical terms, those that lead need followers and those that follow need a leader.

This is the way we were created, our lives intended to crave the leadership of God and God in turn craving our fellowship. Through our fall and indwelling sin we have substituted falliable and corrupt mankind for the infalliable and all-loving God as the leadership of our lives, and so as we worship the celebrity and the scientists so we should be worshipping Christ, the head of our spiritual body.