Category Archives: Faith and Relationships

Basic Principles, Faith and Relationships, Reflections on Life

In God’s image : creativity

My friend Frank MacDougall is the CTO and co-founder of GestureTek, a pioneer in camera-enabled gesture-recognition technology for presentation and entertainment systems.   To develop this new technology he had to be a visionary – he had to be able to imagine something that did not currently exist, that he could not see, feel or touch, and then bring it into being.

I am currently reading Stone of Farewell, a fantasy novel by Tad Williams.   One of the things I love about the book is its vivid descriptions of a world that is entirely imaginary.   To write this series of novels, the author had to conceive a universe that no-one but the readers of his books would ever see, then breathe life into it with his words.

My wife Marion tutors children who have trouble learning.  Part of her task is to help them to see themselves differently.  She has to be able to see potential that they might not see in themselves, convince them that they do indeed have this potential, then motivate them to make it a reality.

Creativity – it’s part of what makes us human, part of what it means to be made in the image of God.  Although animals display varying degrees of intelligence and skill, they do not appear to possess this ability to imagine a complex reality that never existed, and then bring it into being.  Alone on the earth, humans possess this attribute of creativity in abundance.

Of course, there is a basic difference between God’s creativity and ours.  We work with materials and potentialities that are provided to us in the already-created world into which we are born.  God started from nothing.

Another difference between God’s creativity and ours is that our human creative capacities can be used for good or for evil.  Along with great works of art, music, medical breakthroughs, and various other beneficial discoveries, under the influence of the Evil One our race has also spawned computer viruses, concentration camps, and torture chambers.

What God creates, on the other hand, is always good.   It’s true that God’s creation has been marred by sin and suffering – but that was not His original intent or plan.  All manner of misery can be traced back to the malicious thief who has invaded God’s world to steal, kill and destroy what God has made.  But that’s not the end of the story!   The great rebellion set the stage for God’s most creative act.

When my son was a little boy, he would bring me a broken toy and say “Daddy, fix it”.  And this is what our God has done with the gift of creativity that He originally imparted to us.   When our first parents chose independence and went their own way, choosing to resist God’s influence, gradually our creativity became corrupted and all manner of evil began to emerge.   But just when things were at their worst and all hope seemed lost, God sent His Son – the perfect reflection of His goodness and glory – to initiate a new beginning on planet Earth, a new creation.

As a result, those who live under Jesus’ Lordship are promised that one day His image in us will be fully restored and we will be like Him.   I am so grateful that God is able to fix what we have messed up – and not only fix it, but work even our mistakes and sins into His redemptive pattern, so that the end result incorporates what we did and looks even better than it would have if we had never gotten involved.   We see this supremely in the cross – an instrument of the worst kind of evil, yet chosen and used by God for His good purposes and made into the means of our redemption.

The great apostle Paul said it best ( Romans 11:33-36 ) :

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments,
and his paths beyond tracing out!
“Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?”
“Who has ever given to God,
that God should repay him?”
For from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen.

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Basic Principles, Faith and Relationships, Reflections on Life

In God’s image : different gifts

One of the aspects of the way God has created us that can be either frustrating or rewarding is the fact that everyone is different.   You may find some people frustrating to deal with because they don’t respond to situations the way you would.   But this may be just an expression of the way they are “wired”.

In his letter to the Christians in Rome, the Apostle Paul listed different gifts – called motivational gifts by some,  Life Languages  by others – that are built in to the way we are designed by the Creator.    Part of being made in God’s image is that each of us reflects a different facet of God’s character.   This can be frustrating if we let the differences irritate us – but it can be very rewarding if we learn to recognize that the people in our lives all have their own gift to offer.

One of the keys to learning to live in community – for that matter, one of the keys to being happy and having a productive life – is learning to accept the way God has made you and the way He has made others.   There is a reason why we don’t all have the same strengths.   This is not a mistake!  We were not created to be independent of each other – we were created for community (more on this in a future post).

Of course, one might use this legitimate insight as an excuse for being obnoxious and selfish, claiming “that’s just the way God made me”.   But if you and I are honest with ourselves, we know that’s a cop-out.  We can’t use our created differences as an excuse to rationalize our selfishness, stubbornness, pride, or any of the other forms of sin.   We’re called by God to use our different gifts to serve others – not to justify our own self-interest.   But as someone who genuinely wants to serve God, I have found it very liberating to realize that it is OK to be different from others.  I find that I am much more effective, and my life is much more satisfying, when I stop trying to be like someone else, and learn to make the most of the way God has made me.

That doesn’t mean I can’t acquire new skills or cultivate new strengths.  I’ve grown and changed in many ways during the course of my life and I expect this to continue.  But the basic truth of the way God has made me is still there, and I find it much easier to work with this basic set of gifts rather than trying to change it.   In any team or community, I believe we will find that we function more effectively together if we allow the members of the team to be who they are, and learn to harness each person’s strengths.   This isn’t just common sense – it’s a recognition of the grace of God reflected in the way we are made.

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Apologetics, Basic Principles, Faith and Relationships

In God’s image : made for a purpose

This is one of a series of posts exploring the topic of our human nature.   In this series I want to take a look at the concept that we are made in God’s image, and explore some implications of that belief.  For small group leaders – these topics could be good discussion starters in your small groups.

Today I’d like to think about the fact that we are made for a purpose.

Even people who don’t believe in God desire to find meaning, purpose and order in their lives.  That is an intrinsic part of human nature and is increasingly recognized as a key to mental health.   Some might argue that this desire for order, meaning and purpose just evolved by chance, but I don’t buy that argument.   All around us we see that order, design and purpose are always the result of the application of an intelligent, creative and purposeful will.   How can a random process with no intelligence, design or purpose result in an intelligent, incredibly complex being that is motivated to seek order and purpose?  This is a logical fallacy – even a child can see that it makes no sense.

People desire order, meaning and purpose in their lives because we were made that way by God.   One of the characteristics of God in Scripture is that God has a purpose, He has a redemptive plan.   The pagan nations around Israel saw their gods as arbitrary, capricious and sometimes cruel.   Not having any knowledge of the true God, they created gods as an explanation for the circumstances of life, and since life includes events that are random and unpredictable, they concluded that the gods – or some of them, anyway – must be cruel and not very dependable.  But the God of the Bible is different.   He is not the author of confusion or chaos.  These come from his Enemy who seeks to steal, kill and destroy.   The God of the Bible has a purpose.  That purpose is to redeem the creation which has been marred by sin, to overcome and finally destroy all evil powers, and to make all things new.

Studies consistently show that older people living alone are happier and healthier if they have a pet or even some plants to care for.  Why is this?  There are probably several reasons, but surely one reason is that when we have someone or something to  care for, we feel needed and valued.  All of us have a deep need for significance – to feel that our lives count for something.  In other words, we want to know that our life, and what we are doing, has some lasting value –  that it has some purpose.   That’s because we are made in God’s image.   God assigned a high purpose to our first parents – they were God’s representatives, charged with governing the earth on His behalf, and called to live their lives as God’s friends, in close relationship with Him.   He made each of us for a specific purpose too.   Each of us reflects some aspect of His creative, purposeful nature.

In a future post I’ll talk more about how our various abilities and gifts reflect God’s creative purpose.   For now let me close with a bit of my own testimony.  When I surrendered control of my life to Jesus Christ at age 34, I found a peace I had never known before.   It was good to know that I was forgiven and accepted and loved by God.  But I still wanted to know that God had something significant for me to do!   Was this just pride?  I don’t think so.   No doubt there was some pride mixed into my makeup at that time – I was a mixture of good and bad motives, and getting it all sorted out has been a lifelong process – but fundamentally, the desire to do something significant with our lives is part of the way we are made.  It is part of God’s plan, part of what it means to be made in His image.  That’s why Jesus treated His disciples as partners and entrusted His work to them.   That’s also why U.S. President Barack Obama’s campaign slogan – Yes, we can – held such powerful appeal : because people want to know that they can make a difference.

Yes, we can – not all by ourselves, not on our own – but we can make a difference.  We are made in God’s image, made for a purpose, and we can represent God’s purposes on earth.  First we need to come to Jesus for cleansing and forgiveness – we need to let Him put our pride and self-will to death, not once but over and over again – but as He forms His character in us, restores and remakes us, and empowers us to do His works, we can play our part in seeing God’s good purposes fulfilled on the earth.

To think about :

  • What difference does it make to the way you live your life to know that you were made for a purpose, and that God finds delight in you?
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Apologetics, Basic Principles, Faith and Relationships

Made in God’s image

In my next few posts I want to expore the topic of our human nature.   Since people are usually interested in themselves, these topics could be good discussion starters for small groups.

Let’s start with the concept that we are made in God’s image.   This is a basic Biblical principle.  But what does it really mean?

In the ancient world, kings would erect little statues of themselves at the borders of their realm.  The image looked enough like the king that everyone who saw it would recognize it.  It represented the king’s authority and power – it was a way of saying “This territory belongs to the King”.   So when the book of Genesis says that God made humankind in his image, this is very significant.  Genesis goes on to say that God assigned us the task of governing the created world.  This means we are put in charge of the earth on His behalf, and that we represent His rule and authority on earth.

Being made in God’s image also means that we are intended to be like God.   I’ll explore some implications of this idea in my next few posts.  God’s original intent was that we would have unbroken fellowship with Him, and that our lives would reflect His glory and goodness on earth.  We see this only imperfectly because the original couple gave into the snake’s deception and chose independence, turning against God.   If we had never sinned, this likeness would be far more evident and complete.

Even so, there is a nobility in the human spirit that reflects our origins.   St. Augustine, one of the greatest writers and thinkers in all of Christian history, said that human nature is like a ruined palace.  Although it is in ruins, you can still see the outlines of the glory that was originally intended by its creator.  Although human beings have become capable of much evil, we have many capacities that distinguish us from the animal kingdom and reflect our unique place as carriers of God’s image.   We’ll look at some of these in the next few posts.

The image of God in us is also a clue to where we are headed.  The New Testament tells us that tells us that Jesus our Lord is a perfect reflection of God’s glory, and that the destiny of those who belong to Jesus is to be made like Him.

For discussion and reflection :

  • What difference does it make in the way you live your life to know that you were made in God’s image, and are destined to reflect Christ’s glory?
  • What difference does it make in the way you treat others or think about them to realize that they, too, are made in his image, no matter how damaged they may be?
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Apologetics, Faith and Relationships, Intimacy with God, Reflections on Life

Asking the right questions about prayer

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Marion and I are part of a small group that has been doing a study of the latest book by Philip Yancey.  It’s a look at the activity of prayer, and asks the question “Does prayer make any difference?”  I’ve been finding this study both rewarding and frustrating.  Rewarding because at times Yancey raises some very pertinent and challenging points.  Frustrating because I often find that he is asking the wrong question about prayer.

To adapt an old analogy by Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse, asking whether prayer “works” is like asking whether withdrawing funds from a bank “works”.   It works if  the funds are drawn on an account to which you have legitimate access and a big enough line of credit to handle your request!  Cynics would argue that it also works if you successfully practice identity theft – but that’s where the analogy breaks down, because God is smart enough not to get fooled by identity theft in prayer.  With God, you can’t draw on someone else’s account – unless, of course, the account you are drawing on belongs to Jesus.  If you have surrendered your life to Jesus, then his account becomes your account – and his account has an unlimited line of credit!

So if Yancey is asking the wrong question – although admittedly a very common one – what would be the right question?  I’d like to suggest that a better question is not “does prayer work” but “how does it work”.  I won’t try to give a complete answer to that question here, but I’d like to suggest that a large part of our problem with prayer is a problem of perspective.   To be fair, Yancey does address this point in his book, quite helpfully at times, but I still come away feeling that his personal struggles with prayer have injected a heavy dose of skepticism, so that we end up with a very mixed picture.

Yancey suggests that even Jesus had the experience of unanswered prayer.  I beg to differ.  Jesus did pray some prayers that have not yet received their answer in full, but His relationship with the Father was so intimate that He was able to say I know that you always hear me.  That doesn’t sound like unanswered prayer to me.   Jesus understood the Father’s heart and only did what He saw the Father doing.  Even in his most agonizing prayer, when struggling with His upcoming sacrifice, He ended up in a place of surrender and trust.  Not only that, He made it abundantly clear to His disciples that the reason for His struggle was so that they would be able to come to the Father with complete confidence and know that their prayers were always heard.

So although I, too, struggle with prayer at times, I am fully convinced that the problem is on my end, not on God’s.   If we prayed with more of Jesus’ perspective we would find prayer far more consistently satisfying and fruitful.  I know this to be true both from Scripture and from experience – my own experience, and that of countless others who have learned to base their prayer life on Jesus’ relationship with the Father.

So what do I mean by praying with Jesus’ perspective ?   Here are some keys.

  • Jesus was completely confident in His Father’s goodness and assumed that His Father’s will is always good
  • Jesus prayed with confident access to the Father.  The one exception was his cry from the cross – My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? – but the whole point of his undergoing that experience of rejection by God was so that we wouldn’t have to
  • Jesus understood spiritual warfare and knew that there is no neutral ground
  • Jesus consistently listened to the Father’s voice and rejected the Enemy’s enticements – which of course is only possible if you are intimate enough with God and His word to know the difference.
  • Jesus understood that the prayers which consistently get answered are prayers that are aligned with God’s purpose which is to overthrow the Kingdom of Darkness and establish the Father’s Kingdom
  • Jesus’ own will was completely aligned with His Father’s will
  • Jesus understood perseverance and knew that victory comes to those who don’t quit
  • Jesus taught and modelled the unity of believers and the prayer of agreement

You may say “yes, but that was Jesus – surely we can’t be expected to pray like He did?”  Well – that’s not what Jesus said!  He fully expected that we would be able to do His works.   I’ve seen glimpses of this at times – not the full picture, but enough to convince me that His promise is real.  I believe with all my heart that before Jesus returns, there will be a church that prays with all the authority and faith of Jesus and the apostles – and with similar effects.   I want to be a part of that end-time prayer movement that shakes kingdoms and sees the Father’s will established on earth!  How about you?

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Faith and Relationships

Questions about spiritual gifts

I am preparing some notes for a seminar that Marion and I will be offering to the small group leaders at our church.  The seminar is titled Understanding and Releasing Spiritual Gifts.  In preparation for this I have been asking myself some questions about spiritual gifts.  I am going to list some of the questions here.

Some of these questions I have answers for, others I am still pondering, but I am going to resist the temptation to answer the questions here.  I’m just going to list the questions as food for thought.

I’ve been using three passages of Scripture as my main resource for this seminar, so if you are prompted to study, you’ll find answers to the first set of questions in 1 Corinthians 12:1-11, Romans 12:3-8 and Ephesians 4:7-13 (although the answers to some of the questions may not be obvious at first glance).

The second set of questions are the ones that don’t have hard-and-fast Scriptural answers – they’re more subjective, intended to encourage you to examine your own life as I am examining mine.

I may offer my answers to some of these questions in future posts as time allows.   I’d be interested in your answers if you want to share them in a comment.   If you want more than that – come to the seminar!

Questions with clear Biblical answers

  • Why does God give spiritual gifts?  What is their purpose?
  • Which person of the Trinity (Father, Son and Spirit) gives these gifts?
  • Does each person only have one spiritual gift or can you have several gifts at work in your life?
  • Why are they called spiritual gifts?
  • What are motivational gifts and are they different from spiritual gifts?
  • Do you have any part to play in determining whether these gifts are at work in your life, or is it all up to God?

Questions that are more personal

  • Do you know what your gifts are and are you using them? Why or why not?
  • What hinders you from using your gifts more than you do?
  • What enables or encourages you to use your gifts?
  • In your church or small group, is it easy or difficult for you to utilize your gifts?  Why?
  • Are you motivated to grow in understanding and releasing your gifts?  Why or why not?
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Faith and Relationships, Reflections on Life

Let your conscience be your guide ?

We had an interesting discussion last night at our small group meeting.  We digressed from our topic of prayer and got into the issue of whether Eastern meditation, yoga, etc.,  are neutral, beneficial, or inherently wrong and to be avoided by Christ-followers.   Some in the group said that such practices are intended as worship to pagan gods and that as Christ followers they would not participate in such practices.  Others said no, there’s nothing wrong with being involved in these practices – as long as your own devotion is to the true God, you can’t be harmed by pagan religious practices.

Rather than addressing this issue directly, I want to reflect on one of the statements that one often hears in such discussions.   Because our culture is rapidly moving away from the idea that there is any such thing as absolute truth, many Christ-followers, in an attempt to be tolerant, will say that we have to let our conscience be our guide.  But is this true?  Is our conscience a reliable guide in determining what to avoid and what to embrace?

Conscience is a wonderful gift from God but it is not infallible.  To take an extreme example, Hitler’s conscience allowed him to arrange for the murder of 6 million Jews.  Our conscience is a reflection of our belief system and our experiences.  It can be defiled or seared (hardened) even though we are Christian believers.  If you are used to a certain way of thinking or behaving your conscience may not recognize it as sin, especially if you have not worked through the implications of your Christian faith.  A Biblical example of this is found in 1 Corinthians 5 where the Apostle Paul had to rebuke the Corinthian Christians for practising incest.  Even though these people had become Christians, their belief system still heavily reflected the sexualized culture of Corinth in which they had been immersed since childhood, and they were actually proud of what they saw as their maturity in Christ which allowed a man to have a sexual relationship with his father’s wife.  This may seem to be an extreme example but it is proof that your conscience is not an infallible guide to right and wrong, and it’s an example that is actually very pertinent to our situation where Christians live in a culture whose predominant value system is rapidly moving farther and farther away from the beliefs and values of Christianity.

So, should you let your conscience be your guide?  Yes, if your conscience has been properly shaped and guided, it can be a reliable guide to behaviour, but an uninstructed, hardened or dulled conscience can also lead you astray.   For these reasons I find it more helpful to say that as Christ-followers we need to make our decisions with a mind that has been instructed by the Word of God, a will that has learned to surrender to God, and a spirit that has learned to listen to the promptings of the Holy Spirit.

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Faith and Relationships

Seeing your small group as a TEAM

The Wikipedia definition of a Team :

A team comprises a group of people or animals linked in a common purpose. Teams are especially appropriate for conducting tasks that are high in complexity and have many interdependent subtasks.

A group in itself does not necessarily constitute a team. Teams normally have members with complementary skills and generate synergy through a coordinated effort which allows each member to maximize his or her strengths and minimize his or her weaknesses.

If you leave out the part about the animals, that’s a great definition of a small group!  A healthy small group is not just a collection of people, it has a vision and a purpose!  The purpose of every healthy small group will in some way be related to the Great Commission and the two Great Commandments, but the details will differ from group to group.  And, because God has designed the Body of Christ so that we all need each other, a small group can only fulfil its purpose as each person plays his or her part.

For small group leaders – here are some really good questions to ask your small group :

  • What is our vision and purpose?
  • Are we a team?
  • If we aren’t currently functioning as a team, what can we do about it?
  • If we are already functioning as a team to some extent, how can we improve?
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Faith and Relationships

Gift-based ministry

Are you good at everything?  I’m not.   Like everyone, I have strengths and weaknesses.

I spent many of my years in ministry trying to fulfil a role for which I was not really all that well-suited.  I was like a square peg in a round hole.  There are many reasons for this, but one reason is that there was no-one to help me recognize my true calling and learn to function in it.   That’s why I am so excited about the opportunity to work with small group leaders on how to identify and cultivate the natural and spiritual gifts of the people in their small groups.

As a leader, it’s easy to make the mistake of thinking that what comes naturally to you should come naturally to everyone.   When you are flowing in your gifts, ministry is a pleasure, but when you are trying to imitate what someone else is good at, and operating in their gifts instead of your own, you have a recipe for frustration.  Of course, there’s a learning process in developing your natural gifts, and a somewhat different sort of learning process in learning to cultivate the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit.  In both cases, a certain amount of trial and error is inevitable.  But when you are learning to develop your gifts, along with the trial and error there is the joy of discovery.   By contrast, when you’re trying to do something that you just aren’t “wired” for, it can be very discouraging.

We all want our small groups to succeed.  Usually you will have a mix of people in your group with a variety of gifts.  Some of those gifts will be latent, undeveloped and perhaps even unrecognized.  Others will be in various stages of development.  My dream is to see small groups that have an appropriately challenging vision, faith for that vision, and a team that is functioning well together, where each member has something to contribute and is operating in his or her gifts.  Can we get there?  I believe we can, or at least take steps in that direction.  I’m excited about the possibilities!

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Faith and Relationships

What is the #1 goal of small groups?

Why do we do small groups in church?   There are many reasons, but most often people will say that small groups are important to meet the need for fellowship.

I both agree and disagree with this statement.

I agree because it is so obviously important to focus on building strong relational connections.  I love the weekly Sunday service at my church, with its dynamic worship, powerful and relevant preaching, and top-quality children’s ministry.   But over the years too many people have attended for a few weeks or even a number of years, and then drifted away.  While people leave churches for many reasons, I am convinced that most will only stay if they form strong relational connections with at least a few people.   Besides, didn’t Jesus command us to love one another?  It’s hard to love people that you barely know!   It’s no accident that most of the churches in the New Testament met primarily in homes.   As small group life spreads, and we place more emphasis on building loving relationships, our church is gradually becoming a little more like the church of the New Testament, which was a household of faith, not just a collection of people who met in a building once a week to sing songs and listen to a message.

But in spite of all these compelling arguments for the importance of building relational connections, I can’t really agree that fellowship is the primary purpose of small groups.  I believe that the healhiest small groups will be those that focus on making disciples – in other words, helping one another follow Jesus.  Small groups that focus on fellowship as their highest goal are likely to end up being self-centred and shallow.  Groups that focus on  making disciples have the potential to be exciting, dynamic and always challenging as well as supportive.

The biggest single weakness of the North American church is that there are many attenders but very few disciples.  Disciples are people who are learning to trust and obey God in their daily lives, people who are choosing – as best they are able, with God’s help – to pattern their lives after Jesus.  We all need help with this, and a small group that sees its goal as making disciples is a great place to get support.  There you will be loved and accepted but also challenged to grow into the image of Christ.

A small group that is focussed on making disciples will also reach out to others to bring them into God’s family – because that’s what disciples do!  It will engage with the Word and apply the Word to daily life – because that’s what disciples do!  It will spend time in prayer and worship – because that’s what disciples do!   It will focus on serving – because that’s what disciples do!  It will help its members discover their spiritual gifts and apply them – because that’s what disciples do!

A group with this kind of atmosphere is lots of fun and leads to awesome fellowship.   In a healthy small group, people feel included, they feel they belong, they feel they have something to contribute and that they are making a difference, they feel that they are growing in their faith – because they are!  Great fellowship is like the matrix – the atmosphere in which disciples can be made.  You can’t become like Christ on your own.  It’ s not possible, because the Christian life is meant to be lived in community.  But if you make fellowship the primary goal, your group will be shallow.  If you aim at helping one another in the journey of discipleship, you get everything else as a bonus.  In small group life as well as finances, it really is true that if we seek God’s kingdom first, we get everything else thrown in!

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