Sharing Our Faith

1 July, 2009

Mick Christianity , , , , , 4 Comments

This morning, Matt and I went to Panera Bread while awaiting the North American Christian Convention to kick off for the day.  As I sat there with my mug of coffee and started to read through Philippians, I was amazed at Paul’s disposition while in prison.
Philippians 1:14 shows Paul explaining how “most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.”  Paul not only went to prison, he not only praised God during the whole experience, but he also brought people who shared in his imprisonment to a saving relationship with Jesus.  How awesome is that!?
I wish that I would have done the same thing while working at Blockbuster or Starbucks.  God could have done great things at those place if only I had let Him.
How then, do we share our faith?
I think, for starters, it could be done in a similar fashion to how we share our hobbies and family with people.  If we are truly committed to the Gospel, if we are continually building significant community with other Christ-followers, then it should be both natural and easy to talk to others about our faith.  (Notice I said our faith, not the faith)
We need to get excited about our faith so that we can then share that excitement with other people.  If we are not excited about ourselves, how can we ever hope to win people to Christ?

Testing God

10 March, 2009

Mick Christianity , , , , , 3 Comments

Why is it okay for God to test us, but not for us to test God?  Before I address this issue in full, I would like to look at several  verses throughout Scripture.

 Matthew 4:1-1 talks about when Jesus is in the desert being tempted by Satan.  Jesus always refutes Satan with Scripture.  On one of the three occasions, Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6:16:

“Do not test the Lord your God.”

Obviously God does not want us to test him.  Both Jesus and the law of Moses the command exists.  The wording cannot be more clear.  “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”

 Maybe mankinds’ character  can reveal some incite to this issue.  If we look at the creation account in Genesis 1:26, we find God saying:

“Let us make man in our image, in our likeness.”

Does this mean we look like He does?  Maybe.  I believe this is talking of the character of the Trinity; love, joy, creativity, communication.  So we are, in other words, created in the image of God’s character.

Furthermore, 1 Peter 1:16 (which is a quote from Leviticus 11:44) states that we need to be holy (or set apart) because He is.

“Be holy, because I am holy.”

In other words, we are commanded to be like Him.

 

The last verse I want to look at is John 6:1-14 where Jesus feeds 5000 hungry people.  Here we see that many of Jesus’ followers were hungry and needed to be fed.  Now something seems a little off here.  Did Jesus, who is God, just test someone in verse 6?  Yes he did.

Now it is undeniable that Jesus does not want us to test God. So why, then, can He test us? 

The reason behind this command is what we need to examine.  God doesn’t just hand out pointless rules for us to follow.  That would not make sense and could drive people mad.  If every law and command has a purpose, then what is the purpose behind this particular command?

Why did Jesus test Philip?  It would be safe to say that Jesus wasn’t trying to get something from him, nor was he trying to find out if Philip was good enough.  I think the reason behind Jesus’ test was to actually push Philip to be greater than he already was.  In other words, Philip was being stretched in his faith and understanding of who Jesus was.

When we are testing God to do something, it is not because we want to make him better.  How can we make perfect better?  We do so because we want to see if he’ll do what we want or not.  There is a completely different intent than described above.  We are not doing it for the other persons sake, but for ours.

God tests us to make us stronger, we test God because of our lack of faith.

God’s Love

19 August, 2008

Mick My Thoughts , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Last week, our commuity group had some interesting discussion.  A question had been asked to one of the parents, “If God loves everyone, does he love Satan?”  Not knowing a good response, I decided to contact Matt, the lead minister at Crossroads.  He is well versed in matters such as these, especially considering he has a Master’s degree in Theology.

Come to find out, the Bible never states that God loves everyone.  It is a myth.  In fact, we can read that God does not love everyone in verses such as Psalm 47:5.  The wicked are his enemies, and He will deal with them justly.

God is love.  1 John 4:16states that very clearly.  This, however, is only one of His many characteristics.  Ignoring other characteristics could be considered idol worship.  By purposefully being ignorant, one can be in danger of creating a god you want to serve and not serving the one, true God.

God is wrathful.  God is just.  God is infinite.  God is merciful.  God is gracious.  The list can go on, but I am not 100% sure on all of the details.  You would think having a degree from a Bible college would help, but not always.

Because of my lack of knowledge concerning the character of God, I am prompted to do research on the subject.  I plan to start by reading a couple books that address the issue.  Jack Cottrell’s The Faith Once For All will be a well thought out, scholarly reading.  The other is Vintage Jesus by Mark Driscoll.  This is more of a light reading, but good material none-the-less (though I do not necessarily agree with his reformed theology).

I am excited to see where God takes me on this new study.  Hopefully, in the end (if there ever is an end) I will be able to better articulate the attributes of God the Creator.