Anyone who has been a Christian for any length of time will have experienced the pain of seeing people who had professed faith stop believing in Jesus. When I was at university, my Christian Union was very encouraged because a first-year student went forward at an evangelistic event and said she had become a Christian. A few weeks later she said she wasn’t a Christian after all. Last year I was preaching at a church and met the ex-wife of a man who had seemed to be wonderfully converted. Having been a committed Christian and church member for several years, he tragically announced that he was no longer a believer and was leaving his wife.
The first thing we should do when our friends fall away is to pray for them and seek to share the gospel with them again, urging them to come back to Christ. They may be suffering a temporary crisis of faith, but even if they turn away for a long time, we should not give up hope for the possibility of their salvation. They may be as bewildered as everyone else is at their decision to renounce their faith, and value some help in unpicking the reasons why they have changed their thinking. But they still need to trust in Jesus as Lord just as much as anyone else who is not professing faith. We should continue to love them and demonstrate to them the truth of the gospel in our own life (see Jude v 22).... continue reading
There is no global shortage of doomsayers. We are being told that we are only decades, years, months, days away from catastrophe by global warming, ecological disaster, viral pandemics, major terrorist atrocities or a meteor strike. The scenario changes, but the end result is the same - the end of the world as we know it. So confident are these pundits that they are correct, it's a surprise that we haven't all stopped paying into our pensions years ago.
But Christians have a far more positive view of the future - one in which justice will be finally done, Jesus revealed for who he is, his persecuted people vindicated, and the re-creation of a glorious new world for those who have been saved by him.
But there remains considerable confusion among Christians about what will happen at the end of the world, and how it will come about. Not to mention the dreaded "when?" question!
We've been embarrassed by Christians claiming to know when Jesus will return. We've been bamboozled by other voices that weave complex scenarios from the Bible about how it will happen. No surprise then, that many Christians think of the end of the world, and those parts of the BIble that talk about it as "no go areas". How do we make sense of all this confusion.
We're delighted to be publishing Questions Christians Ask series. With trademark clarity and care, this little book seeks to help ordinary believers sort out fact from fiction in the end-times scenarios on offer. Author Jeramie Rinne focuses our minds on the big things about the second coming of Christ that all Christians agree on, and helpfully charts a path through the confusing landscape of different views Christians hold about the way the end will arrive.
How will the world end? is part of the Questions Christians Ask series, available to order HERE from your friendly neighbourhood Good Book website.
© Image : Michael Lehenbauer, Flickr, used under the CC license
I hope you will excuse this moment of self-indulgence but today is this little blog editor’s special day. It’s exactly 25 years since the grace of God changed my heart and, forgiven, I began to follow Jesus.
Today, I’ve been looking back over the past quarter of a century – with all its highs and its lows – and have been bowled over by God’s faithfulness, forgiveness and love in ways that I tend to miss on a daily basis. It’s wonderful to take stock every now and then.
So, what has changed over the past 25 years?... continue reading
Found this and thought we'd share.
Something to include in your notices this Sunday perhaps?
I saw an old friend recently, someone who played a big part in encouraging me to consider Christianity when I was younger. I don’t know every detail of her life, but from what I do know, this is what I perceive…
She was full of belief, commitment and conviction throughout school and university, when she started work in the city she had many Christian friends and belonged to a big church with a strong Bible-teaching ministry. She was involved, she went to meetings, she read her Bible, she prayed.
Then she met a young man, they hit it off, they started dating. He wasn’t a believer but she hoped, she prayed, she invited. Gradually he started going along to church with her, he did a course and at some point he professed faith in Jesus. They got engaged, they had a Christian wedding, they settled in a suburb and joined a good local church, they had children.
Once again, she was involved: she attended church on Sundays, the children went to Sunday School, she was at the prayer meeting, she helped out at church events. Her husband came on Sundays, if he wasn’t away with work; and if they couldn’t find a babysitter, he would stay at home to look after the children so that she could go to the prayer meeting or housegroup.
Then they moved away to an area where she didn’t know many people, and where the church situation was a little more ‘complicated’.
Living the good life of the gospel is always a challenge when we live in a wider culture that defines the good life in other ways. It is particularly hard in a culture where newspapers cannot be trusted and politicians are corrupt; a harsh, selfish, racist culture in which there is a fear of crime; a culture where people are reluctant to do manual work, which is therefore left to migrant workers; a culture in which people routinely overeat.
And that was the culture of first-century Crete, where Titus led the church and to whom Paul wrote: “One of Crete’s own prophets has said it: ‘Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons,’” (Titus 1:12). The quote is from a Cretan philosopher, Epimenides. Epimenides was held in high honour by Cretans—so they could not readily ignore or deny his verdict. And yet, of course, this description of first-century Crete could just as easily be a description of twenty-first century western culture. How do we live as Christians in a dishonest, harsh, selfish culture? How can we survive without adopting those attitudes? How can we live the good life in this situation? These are the questions the letter of Titus addresses, and these are the questions we need help with each day as we seek to live a gospel-changed life in a society that seeks change and finds truth in many places, but so rarely in the gospel.... continue reading
Two takes on Acts 2:42-47:
I devoted myself to personal Bible reading and study, to church attendance and private prayer. I was really impressed when I saw the obvious signs of God's work in other people when my home group leader invited people to speak. I gave what was convenient whenever the pastor asked for cash. I sometimes gave to other people if there was a whip-round after the service. I turned up to most meetings and took communion regularly. I had pleasant meals with fellow Christians fairly often, talking about all kinds of safe, interesting topics. I quite liked seeing new people thinking about Christianity every now and then.
Or... continue reading
So, how can those of us who tend towards independence change to the healthily inter-dependent people that God is calling us to be?
Remember - God is generous. He has lavished us with all we need for life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3). So, in calling us to community, he is not asking us to do anything that we aren't equipped to do. It may be scary - especially if we have been hurt in the past - but it is possible. This is part of his good will, he does not make mistakes and he is calling you to a more faithful life not asking you to endure pointless pain. Becoming someone who ever more shares their life with others is something that will make us all more like Jesus.... continue reading
It's an exciting yet, at times, uncomfortable truth: God didn't save us to be a bunch of individuals each following him in the way that seems best to us, he called us to be a community, passionate about sharing our lives with one another.
We are called to:
And we can't do any of those things alone ... We need to know people deeply and love them sincerely by spending quality time with them regularly if these things are to be possible. There's no getting away from it, when we are truly authentic in our walk with the Lord, our lives are healthily enmeshed with our brothers and sisters in Christ.... continue reading
No-one is born with an overwhelming desire for independence. Every new baby, no matter what their personality, has the ability to scream and scream and scream … and to keep on screaming until someone comes to give them the sustenance or comfort they desire. But by the time we reach adulthood, often the barriers have gone up and our lives display very different priorities. So what’s so attractive about independent living?
It’s safer
There’s no point denying it, sometimes life hurts and it has done ever since the fall of Genesis 3. To put it bluntly, sometimes people are real pains! It’s not something I dwell on much – I have better things to do with my time – but, if you pushed me, I could come up with quite a catalogue of ways in which I have been wounded. I’m sure you can too. People hurt us - physically, emotionally, spiritually – and, to state the blindingly obvious, that doesn’t feel good, especially with the added dimension now of arguments spilling over into social media and the world’s uncompassionate eyes. Distancing ourselves from others makes it less likely we will feel pain again. Of course, it makes it less likely we will feel love again too …... continue reading
