Avoid or Embrace Religious Conflict?
Most people who lived in England when I was a kid considered that they were Christians. Many of us went through the ritual of church and were satisfied that that was enough. Once I had acknowledged that everyone is by nature wretched and mean and not at all ready to go to Heaven, I realized that the opposite was a dangerous assumption. Heaven would be more like Hell if we all arrived with our selfish agendas unchanged by God. At Cambridge I changed. I did not yield everything to Jesus right away but little by little I spent more time recognizing Jesus’ authority in my life and I could trust Him and the Bible more than my opinion or others. My goals were now much more exciting because they involved God.
I prayed frequently for my family. I had a wonderful family. We enjoyed spending time together and we were generally pleasant to each other. It is easy to assume that kind = Christian. Actually Christian= aware of how far from God we are and how only Jesus can forgive and free us from our wretched state. I like truth. Today this is an unfashionable word in an era when relativism is embraced, but in 1981 truth still meant something to me at least. I wanted my family to understand that holding onto church attendance as a substitute for a relationship with Jesus was not enough.
My brother and sister, Vaughan and Clare, are twins and two years younger than me. We were not placid but neither were we like angry dogs, at least not by the time we were 18 and 16!
Angry dog
My comments to them about not having the choice of sitting on the fence, regarding Jesus, were considered inflammatory. I emphasized that you were either fully for Jesus or against him: a bored observer is not a child of God. Vaughan and Clare were annoyed and my remarks threatened the peace that we had been enjoying on our vacation in France.
I have lived in the US for nine years and It seems that some Californians at least, and I am sure some British people too, prefer to keep the peace than explain a truth that can liberate someone from death to life. Without Jesus our spirits are dead and our future is hopeless. Jesus wants to interact with us, to breathe his life into us and for this to happen we must give up our control and our selfish wants. I was basically telling my brother and sister that they had got it wrong. The good news is that Jesus got it right and during that year they started to seek him as well and so did both of my parents. I saw no obvious encouragement during that vacation but God’s work was in motion. Today all of my family is wholeheartedly serving Jesus. Without understanding the challenging news, that we simply can never be good enough to please God, no one will understand the full magnificence of the good news that God came to earth to die in our place if we give our lives to him in faith. This is the only way to receive eternal life.
If you really want to give people what is best, tell them the truth. Avoiding conflict is not an excuse. We must not be guilty of withholding information to appear nice. Lives are at stake and those who discover the full riches of Christ will come back and thank you. Some may turn against you. I did not change Vaughan’s and Clare’s lives, Jesus did and it was Jesus who said : “You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings. And you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” If you are not yet a follower of Jesus, read the Bible and find out about him. If you are, gently but faithfully share the whole truth. This will help set people free.
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While I agree with Sian that I am not fully a true Christian, I struggle with giving up the worldly things, like controlling my daily life. I am new to having a true relationship with Jesus/God, even though I grew up going to church and did my Sunday School lesson every week. I struggle with reading the Bible and praying. I’m not sure how to have a relationship with Jesus. And I am afraid to be ridiculed of being called a religious freak. How do I go about becoming a true Christian?
I am so pleased that you are honest about your struggles. There seems to be so much that we are expected to do and we can feel overwhelmed. I think that the tendency is for us to look at everything from our own perspective: how do I develop self control, give things up etc… Instead Jesus wants us to join him, to respond to his invitation and to allow him to lead us. As we recognize how little we deserve his attention we are more inclined to let him be our Lord, leading us through the world that he created to fulfill the destiny he has for us.
We need to understand who we are, what our problems are and what our lives look like if we do not have him in our lives. We need to see his perspective: Jesus first loved us. Without him we are in a hopeless state. We inherited a predisposition to rebel against God (after Adam and Eve sinned) and on our own there is very little we can do to change. Ephesians 2:1 explains that we were all “dead in (y)our transgressions and sins” and we are all “by nature objects of wrath”: we deserve God’s punishment. God is holy (perfect) and he must establish justice through punishment. When Jesus died he received the full punishment that we deserve, as he hung on the cross. We should be so thankful.
Perhaps we feel that we are entitled to go to Heaven and to be rewarded by God for being relatively nice compared to many. This is not Biblical and if we are serious about being Christians we must look at our perilous position from God’s perspective.
A dead spirit (Ephesians 2:1) (which is our spiritual state if we do not follow Christ)i s not capable of reaching out to God. Instead, Jesus came to Earth to save us, taking the initiative. Paul explains this in Romans 5: 6-8 “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this:while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” He demonstrated such incredible love and it hurt him so much and we did not deserve any of it.
From this Biblical position we should be able to see how Jesus offers us forgiveness and the opportunity to be rescued from the eternal punishment that we deserve. We are spiritually dead, sinful and powerless yet Jesus calls us to receive his gift of life. This is about the opportunity to go to Heaven but it is also about living a life of fulfillment now. We are invited to repent, to believe, to follow, and to live for and with Jesus in faith. We are not told to take the initiative but to receive God’s gift.
Think about what Christ offers us compared to what we deserve. If you were offered the greatest treasure would you not exchange the contents of your purse for this? Christ is offering himself to you, his riches, his kingdom, his peace, his forgiveness. Jesus is inviting you to be his obedient, submissive “bride”, calling you to step away from all that preoccupies you and to put him first. I want to encourage you to receive this gift , acknowledging that you are a sinner and that you deserve nothing. Receive it in faith and ask Jesus to fill you with himself, the Holy Spirit as you let go and repent of what you used to worship or value more than him. He must be Lord of all (or not at all) otherwise we become another pseudo Christian…! As Christians we must listen to and respond to his word, the Bible, we must follow and obey, reaching out to our neighbors in love. Daily we must ask God to put to death our old sinful nature because temptations to reverse back to our old sinful self will continue until we go to Heaven. Many Christians give up but that is crazy. The journey will be challenging as Satan wants to stop us reaching out to others, but Jesus has already defeated him at the cross. We are offered God’s power and strength, if we focus on him and do not let our sin separate us from him. Let others call you a religious freak, but if you let Jesus transform you some of “them” will be wanting the truth and the peace and love that you will receive. You will be persecuted but that is nothing compared to the joy of serving and living with Jesus and trusting him with your life. I would hate to regain control of my life. Jesus has lead me along a much better path than I would have chosen and the Bible really is like a bright lamp to direct me.
My challenge to you is to write a prayer to Jesus : confessing your sins (including unbelief), thanking him for what he has done for you and dedicating your life to him. When you have done this this tell someone.
May Jesus bless you, Sian
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Hi Sian, Darcy and anyone else out there! Thank you Sian for all your wise words, it’s great to read them and others comments and to be able to share in the discussions across the miles! To introduce myself, I’ve known Sian since university days, so I can vouch for the truth of her stories! Like her I grew up in a church going family but only entered into a relationship with God for myself when I was at university. The difference is though that I’m still living in England, so it’s great to be able to explore the Christian journey with women across ‘the pond’! I hope too that I can encourage others as they try to know God better and apply their faith to their everyday lives.
On the whole subject of how do you live as Christian in the world today, Darcy, we had a great sermon on Sunday, which we will be exploring further tonight in our house group, on the parable of the talents in Luke 19–do read it! The question raised was–what will we do in heaven? If we believe our time on earth is tiny compared with eternity it’s really something to think about–but I admit I never really had. Sit around listening to harp music?? No, the Bible teaches that we will rule as kings and queens, over kingdoms, nations etc. That’s quite a thought! And in this life we are given a chance to practise this, in how we handle our money, our possessions, our relationships etc, and these are all things that if we don’t rule them, they will rule us. So whatever we have is a trust not ours to keep and this life is a time to show that we put Jesus first above all other things. It’s not easy and I would encourage you to pray as Sian suggested, and then to get a group of Christians to support you, read the Bible with you, pray with you and generally spur you on as we are so much stronger together than on our own.
God bless you lots
Caroline
Thanks Caroline for your helpful contribution. It is great to be reminded of the long term picture of Heaven and eternity. We need to submit to Jesus so that we can be prepared for this amazing future.
At times the lessons we learn throughout our lives are painful but it will all be worth it. The lives of some people, who could not care less about Jesus, sometimes look easy as they don’t care what they do and they do not feel guilty. However, whether they realize it or not they are guilty and their behavior does matter because one day they, like us, will be judged by God. Our faith and allegiance to Him will allow us to enter a wonderful eternity . He paid our penalty with his life. In contrast, those who have turned their back on Jesus will be punished for their sin and will be separated from him eternally. Let’s keep an eternal perspective and hand over our lives to Jesus now, before it’s too late. We need his forgiveness.