Thinking about God, Jesus and The Big Questions

A common misconception is that God has a massively long list of boxes we must tick. He does not. He would much rather we seek him and get to know him personally, through prayer and reading the Bible.  He does not want us to merely go through the motions of attending church, and so on, just to tick the boxes.  This is evident in several parts of the Bible. You can see this from the prophet Hosea, and later, from Jesus himself.  In the book of Hosea, God says: For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. Hosea 6: 6 It is clear from the above that God does not just want us to go through the motions, but rather he wants us to seek him and know him personally. Yet the ten commandments exist, and of course if we truly believe in God, then we truly believe in the ten commandments. So do these commandments then become a set of boxes that we need to tick? The answer is that all of the commandments stem from a love of God, as you...

I am sure I am not the only one that has struggled a lot with worries and negativity (and still do).  I have been reading the devotional of "The Battlefield of the Mind" by Joyce Meyer over the past few weeks. This has helped me a lot. Certainly, reading the Bible is incredibly helpful in a general sense, but I have also felt immensely helped by Joyce Meyer's book for that specific problem of the battlefield of the mind. In that devotional, I learned that it is deceptively easy for us to get tricked by Satan into turning our attention away from God and into the worries of the world. Sometimes this can even happen due to good intentions on our part, e.g. a desire to empathize and be compassionate. However, if we are not careful, we can all too easily become distracted with all of the negative things that are happening around us, without any thought for a) God and Jesus, or b) any of the positive things that are also happening. Now I realize that God never meant for us ...

I mentioned in a previous post how initially as a Christian I was rather grudging about prayer, and considered it more of a duty than anything I would willingly do. But, reading the Bible and praying and getting to know God better definitely had results that completely changed me! One Easter I realized I had changed a lot as a person: I was happy to take a 1-hour shift of prayer at Easter Vigil at the church ( you can read about that here ). This Easter, I'm looking forward again to praying - another reminder that I have changed so much. Some relatives of ours are going on a fun vacation over Easter. In the past, I probably would have felt rather jealous that they are going on vacation while we are not going anywhere. But actually I didn't feel the slightest bit jealous this year. Because I knew that I wanted to pray at Easter Vigil. I feel that Easter is the part of the year where there is a lot of spiritual danger in the world. I wanted to pray, mainly to be thankful and pr...

I was recently reading the fiction novel "The Book of You" by Claire Kendal. Disclaimer: this book has nothing whatsoever to do with Christianity, whether for or against. Its plot is about a woman who is being stalked by a man she has no interest in, and what she does when she realizes that the stalking is escalating. This story made me think about the nature of love. The male villain in the story professed to be in love with the female protagonist. However, his treatment of her (stalking, and worse) was far from what anyone would call love. In reality, love is a two-way street, requiring the permission of both (not just one). You don't tell someone "Surprise! We're getting married today!" You ask, nicely. And you would understand that no means no. Likewise, Jesus wants us to come to him freely, out of choice. God will not inflict himself upon us like a crazy stalker who doesn't want us to have a choice. He gives us the greatest gift of all; the po...

When reading the parable of the lost son, I am always grateful that the younger son returned to his father (Luke 15: 11-32). But sometimes can't help but feel sympathetic to the older son's point of view. The older son had not strayed, and yet no-one celebrated his faithfulness. When he pointed this out to his father when they were celebrating the return of his brother, the father said: “‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’” Luke 15: 31-32 The first words of the father resonated with me: "You are always with me, and everything I have is yours." Wow! That's God speaking to us! This made me feel so much less jealous of others. I realized that God values us equally, whether we stray or not. Sure, the younger brother had a big celebration made for the occasion of his return, but honestly...

Whenever there are times that I don't have the best attitude about life (e.g Monday mornings), I remind myself of the following. Any that have links refer to an experience that you can explore in more detail: I'm alive! I'm on the planet! I'm human, which means I'm one of God's chosen people . Jesus paid the price for my sins already. It's already been paid up. My chains are broken, and I've been set free . Evil has no long-term power over me unless I choose to let it. My chains are broken! I have nothing to lose (except for earthly things which are anyway ephemeral) and I have everything to gain. I need to live accordingly! By the time I've gotten through this checklist of reminders, WOW, I feel like a whole new person all over again. If you found this post interesting, you might also like these related posts on this blog: Straying Blindly Does Reading the Bible and Praying Have Results? Are We Today Those to Whom Much Has Been Given...

I used to be jealous that I wasn't "chosen" by God for things. I used to be jealous of Adam and Eve , of Jesus' disciples and apostles , and of the Jews (God's chosen people). Since I was none of these people, I used to feel like I wasn't chosen by God for anything. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. As members of the human race, all of us are chosen by God to be his people. He even sent his only Son to die for our sins on the cross! His love and his grace and mercy have been given out to us, to humans. It doesn't matter if we do not play a role that is written in Christian history. And frankly, I know that I wouldn't have always been willing to choose to follow God in those roles even if I had had the opportunity to experience them.  So instead of being jealous of how many things I wasn't chosen for, I now am so joyful to be a member of the human race. I'm part of God's chosen people: we all are. He wants a re...

I realized that it is easy to be straying from God without even being aware of it, which is why I have called this post "Straying blindly." This is what happened to me for a while. I think in a way, this is a lot more insidious that when we knowingly stray. When we knowingly stray, we might not be going to church for awhile, and/or not be praying or reading the Bible daily - not making the time to have a relationship with God. Or perhaps we might be involved in unethical activities. Either way, when these situations happen, we often feel guilty and are aware this is happening. Sometimes we even feel trapped. In any case, in these situations, we know we're straying. However, it can also happen that we are straying without really being aware of it. Like the sheep who thinks the flock is nearby, we might wander off a little further each time, never really realizing that we are away from the Shepherd. In a sense, that is more dangerous because we don't know we have st...

A major sticking point for Christians is doubt.  Many Christians ask themselves "How do I know I have truly accepted the salvation offered through Jesus?"  Note: Some people even doubt whether the offer of salvation extends to them (it does; through Jesus' sacrifice, God offers salvation freely to everyone, just as they are - a separate post covers that issue ).  This post deals with the self-doubt of whether someone has truly accepted salvation through Jesus.  Usually, this doubt stems from one of two things: 1. An expectation of what their life should be like after having Jesus in their life, which doesn't match up with what they are currently experiencing, and/or 2.  an expectation that they should have a special feeling or experience at the moment that they believed in Jesus. These expectations are just that - expectations, and you should not doubt whether you have accepted Jesus as your redeemer, just because your l...