I was at an event the other day where I met a man with an interesting story. He told me how Jesus had saved his life. I won’t mention any names here or even where I met the man because I wouldn’t want to embarrass him if he reads this.
But here was a young man who was living the kind of life that many young men live. However, things went wrong and he allowed alcohol to take over and run things. His life was a mess and getting worse.
It was then that he decided to go to church and there he encountered Jesus. He has now put his life on track. He has a part time job and has an active role in the church he goes to. He openly acknowledges that it has been Jesus working through the lives of Christians that has literally ‘saved his life’.
Jesus christians, church, Jesus, saved
In a letter on the KansasCity.com web site Billy Graham, the international, and well respected, evangelist explains why he believes Jesus is unique.
You can read what he said here …
This is always something that is hard to get across to people without sounding like we are being arrogant and closed minded, but Christians are left little room to think anything but that Jesus is unique.
Claiming that Jesus is unique should never be a reason to put down other people’s ideas. This isn’t a rallying call it is a simple statement of something that we Christians believe. I think this uniqueness of Christ is a challenge to us all. If Christians are right in saying that Jesus is unique then we have to take what Jesus says very seriously indeed. Jesus isn’t just another good teacher who you can take on board alongside everyone else but instead is someone with a unique message about himself that challenges us to think differently.
Jesus jesus christ
Sorry but I’ve been a way for a while and am just getting back to the work.
Easter is a great time for a break from the normal things of life and a chance to get your head right. It seems that finding time to think about life and what it is all about is getting harder and harder in the modern fast paced world. But I think there are some things that are worth spending time over.
If the events of holy week and Easter are true – and I am convinced they are – then life can never be the same again. Ignoring God and Jesus isn’t really an option when you have grasped the enormous impact of Jesus dieing for you and then raising to life again. This isn’t something that happens every day (or even ever, save this one time). How can life be so focussed on trivial things when something so amazing has happened.
Jesus died and rose again – surely this should change your life forever.
Jesus Easter, Holy Week
Once again a large earthquake has killed many people. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends of those who have lost their lives.
Words always seem inadequate during these times but sometimes words are all we can use to express what we feel.
I know that it can feel odd to talk about a loving God when such terrible things happen. This is not the time to try to rationalise anything and get all philosophical. Such times don’t call for philosophy but for symbols of love.
For me, it is the vision of a suffering and dying Jesus that offers the most comfort when things seem too dark to understand. The willingness of God to suffer in such a terrible way somehow helps me to understand that although there is suffering God still loves me.
Of course, the cross is then followed by resurrection. It is a mistake to think that the suffering of Christ is the failure and the resurrection of Christ the overturning of that terrible mistake, because God achieves his victory both through the suffering and the resurrection. However, the resurrection helps us to see that the suffering has purpose and that in the end there is hope.
My prayers are with the people of Chile.
Jesus suffering, the cross
There is an article on Fox News about an interview in Parade magazine with Elton John. I must commend his efforts of now using his money and talent in a positive way but couldn’t help feel sad when he described his many past relationships.
You can read the article here …
In the interview Elton explains what he believes about Jesus:
“I think Jesus was a compassionate, super-intelligent gay man who understood human problems,” John told the Sunday supplement. “On the cross, he forgave the people who crucified him. Jesus wanted us to be loving and forgiving. I don’t know what makes people so cruel. Try being a gay woman in the Middle East — you’re as good as dead.”
I think in some respects he is correct. Jesus was very forgiving and it is shameful that people are so cruel. Being gay should not be a reason to execute someone. But I think he is wrong about Jesus being gay. We really have no evidence to support this position other than reading between the lines and assuming that because he was single and had some close male friends he must have been gay. During my time at College I had many close male friends and was single but that didn’t mean I was gay.
The reason I mention this story is because I think it is a great illustration of how people create a “Jesus” that is very much like themselves. In the past the quest for the historical Jesus has simply resulted in many different images of Jesus that turn out to be super versions of the historian who does the exploration. This doesn’t mean it’s not possible to discover the real historical Jesus but just that we have to be very careful to let the evidence speak rather than simply making the evidence fit our own preferred image of Jesus Christ.
Elton’s image of Jesus is distorted to end up looking like a super Elton John. It is very important to discover the true nature of Jesus and just making Jesus fit our own image will not do at all.
Jesus
Lent is a time for giving stuff up and in the UK people like to give up lots of stuff. Some people give up chocolate – to lose weight; some people give up smoking – for their health; other people give up drinking – for their livers sake; etc. What strikes me, though, is that I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyway say that they are going to be trying to get closer to Jesus during Lent.
I’ve heard plenty of Christians who are giving stuff up and plenty that will go to special house groups for Lent but I’m sure I’ve never heard anyone say that they are going to be getting closer to Jesus in Lent. Of course this is just what some of the groups are supposed to be doing but I don’t hear anyone ever say it.
I’m sure this is just because I’m not mixing with the right people but it saddens me every year that so many people seem to think that Lent is a time to give stuff up purely for their own health. This isn’t what Lent is about at all.
Christians have been encouraged to fast in Lent as a way to prepare themselves for Easter. The whole idea being that you get yourself right with Jesus during Lent so that when Easter comes you are in a good place to celebrate it.
So I’m challenging every Christian to not give up Jesus for Lent. Don’t give up anything other than those things that get in the way of your relationship with Christ.
Jesus lent
This one comes in 2 parts (no I’m not cheating). Part 1 is the parable and part 2 is Jesus’ explanation. You can find the real parable in Mark’s gospel Chapter 4 verses 1- 20
The parable
Farmer sows seeds on different soils: hard = birds eat seed, rocky = plants wither, thorny = plants choked, good = fantastic results
The explanation
Soils = Jesus’ message: Hard = message snatched away, rocky = short lived response, thorny = other concerns choke interest, good = success!
Jesus
Living with hope is much better than living without it. I know, I’ve tried both. The sad thing is that many people are trying to live with a worldview where there isn’t any hope. Now, whether you like the word or not we all (even those of us who never think about it) live by a worldview. That is we have certain basic beliefs that we live by.
I don’t think many people would actually want to describe themselves as atheists, in fact the statistics suggest that most people believe in God, but the majority of people seem to live by an atheistic view of the world. Whilst they might say they believe in God they don’t believe that God has any part to play in their life.
Just recently I read a heated debate on a blog about the difference between a Christian funeral and a humanist funeral. The discussions nearly exclusively seemed to be focussed on the content of the services. Some argued that humanist funerals are too full of soppy sentiments and easy listening songs whilst others argued that Christian services are all the same and lack the personal touch.
To my mind there was something missing in the discussions and that was the Christian hope. Christians have a pretty unique idea of what life after death means. A life lived with God in a paradise created for us to live in. A place where we will meet people who have died previously and where pain and suffering are overcome by the love and forgiveness of God.
You won’t find this hope in a humanist funeral. Regardless of the songs sung or the words used it is the hope that Jesus offers that makes all the difference.
But what about life before death? Well Jesus was pretty keen on life at all times – not just after death. Jesus wants us to find love, joy and fulfillment in this life as well as in the life to come. So the Christian hope applies to this life as well as the next.
Jesus tells us not to despair because there is always hope. And this isn’t a patronising fluffy pink kind of hope, but a deep real kind of hope that is worth believing in. A hope based on God who tells us that whatever happens he will always love us. The kind of hope that a theif can find whilst nailed to a cross when Jesus says to him: “today you will be with me in paradise”.
I’ve got a few things left in mind for this life yet but in Jesus I have hope for today and for tomorrow.
Jesus
Christians always get excited when they hear Jesus’ name mentioned in a pop song. Robbie Williams (I understand he was raised a Roman Catholic) gives Jesus the treatment in another of his songs. However, as is often the case, the thinking about God in the song is not really from a Christian viewpoint.
Here is one of the verses from his song
God gave me the sunshine,
Then showed me my lifeline,
I was told it was all mine,
Then I got laid on a ley line,
What a day, what a day,
And your Jesus really died for me,
Then Jesus really tried for me
The last two lines of this verse are fine but it’s the rest of the song that confuses things.
I guess this just reflects common thinking on religion where you pic n’ mix from them all. My own thinking is that we should listen to different perspectives but not assume that somehow the best answer is going to be to try and mix them together. I like ketchup and I like Golden Syrup. One day I tried mixing them together in a sandwich – it didn’t come out well. Not all things are better mixed up.
All religions claim to hold the truth but they can’t all do so at the same time. Jesus says some pretty distinctive things about himself and God that just don’t fit with any other religion. I advocate respect and the right to choose but we don’t find the truth in a mixing bowl of religions.
Jesus jesus christ, robbie williams
Death is always a tricky subject, most of us don’t like to think about it until we are forced to. When you are forced to think about death it can be pretty hard. As a minister of a church I had to think about death on pretty much a daily basis, people die and there is no way of getting around this.
Some people have wanted to discredit Christianity on the basis that part of what it says is that there is a life after death. Christians are accused of making up the story of Jesus so that they have a way of avoiding the finality of death.
Well just because something is desirable doesn’t mean that is can’t therefore exist. I think the nonsense of this argument is pretty clear really. I might desire to have a great big bar of chocolate but that doesn’t mean that the great big bar of chocolate therefore does not exist.
I want to go back to Jesus again. Jesus doesn’t make all the questions about life and death go away but he does provide some answers to the hardest questions. Jesus died on the cross – nearly every serious historian believes this. The evidence for this event is overwhelming.
Then Jesus rose from the dead. Most historians accept that the disciples believed that Jesus had risen from the dead. Now we could argue about whether the disciples were deluded but I think the evidence is pretty good that they weren’t and even in the ancient world people understood that when someone died they stayed dead. Something remarkable happened.
There isn’t time to explore the meaning of the resurrection in detail in a blog but let’s say that the resurrection of Jesus says something very important about death.
It tells us that there is something after death. Jesus described this something as pretty amazing and wonderful. We could spend a long time exploring that as well.
I think you should bother with Jesus because he tells us something very important about death – that it is not the end.
Jesus death, suffering
I was at an event the other day where I met a man with an interesting story. He told me how Jesus had saved his life. I won’t mention any names here or even where I met the man because I wouldn’t want to embarrass him if he reads this.