SouldOut

Ravi Zacharias has a great article about the importance of critical thinking in the life of a Christian. In fact, one of the most common complaints against Christianity (after hypocrisy) is that it does not engage the intellect. But this, of course, is not true- Christianity is, in fact, the only world view that gives any coherent answers to the big questions in life dealing with origins, meaning, purpose, morality, hope and destiny. Everyone has these questions and desires answers. But because science, naturalism and materialism offer no answers, they assume there are none and go on with life with a general undercurrent of despair. Many people live like this and the youth of today seem to be at ever greater risk because they have not been exposed to any deep thinking Christians.

If you make any resolutions this year, make one to spend time thinking and studying about the truths of the Christian faith. Not only will you strengthen your own faith as you tackle hard questions, but you will then be in a position to help others and share your faith with a sceptical world. Take a little time each day to read through some of the excellent material by Ravi and other great thinkers like Sproul, Geissler and Craig. One of the best books you can start with is Ravi’s excellent rebuttal to the new radical atheists in “The End of Reason“. The book is very short but contains the best answers to the main questions that sceptics raise in an easy to read format. If you have a friend or family member who does question Christianity along intellectual lines, this would be a great book to get them. A really effective way to help them is to offer to read through the book with them and discuss each section or chapter as you finish reading it.

Make 2009 a year to think and encourage other to do so as well.

Here is a great quote from AW Tozer on the difference between knowledge and Truth. He wrote this in the 50’s and clearly saw the tendency of man to mistake knowledge for truth. In our day, with the internet and instant access to vast amounts of data and knowledge, we are even more at risk. So make this Christmas a time to remember that Truth is a person- the person who made everything that we have knowledge of. Seek to know Him and you seek Truth.

John 1:1-5,14  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. …And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

One of the great religious thinkers of this century has pointed out a strange contradiction in the mental attitude of our times–our eager love of knowledge and our universal neglect of truth.

That men love knowledge is too well demonstrated to need proof, if by knowledge we mean facts, know-how, statistics, technical information, scientific and mechanical skills. Our printing presses are constantly rolling out books crammed with useful information. Our schools are bulging with eager students bent on acquiring all possible knowledge in the shortest possible time. Among the most popular and lucrative radio programs on the air today are those designed to discover how many unrelated bits of information the participants possess. “Who? What? When? Where?” run the endless questions, and the impression is created that the one who can answer the greatest number is in some way a superior person.

It is vitally important that we make a sharp distinction between knowledge and truth–that is, between the knowledge that is but the sum of facts we possess and truth which is a moral and spiritual thing. It is possible to fill the mind with facts and be none the better for it, for facts have no moral or spiritual significance. Facts bear the same relation to truth that a corpse bears to a man. They serve as a medium whereby truth relates itself to outward life and circumstance but must depend for their significance upon the inner essence of truth. (AW Tozer)

One of the scourges of modern evangelical Christianity is the notion that someone can be saved by walking forward in a church service and/or praying a certain prayer like a magical incantation. These things may be present when someone is saved, but they alone don’t have the power to save anyone. Jesus made it clear that you must be born again- that we are born from above and it is a work of the Holy Spirit that has a real life changing effect. AW Tozer says this:

When all is said, it may easily be that the great difference between professing Christians (the important difference in this day) is not between modernists and evangelicals but between those who have reduced Christianity to an intellectual formula and those who believe that the true essence of our faith lies in the supernatural workings of the Spirit in a region of the soul not accessible to mere reason.

Ravi Zacharias makes a similar point in his book “Beyond Opinion” where he says:

The first effects of coming to know Jesus Christ are the new hungers and pursuits that are planted within the human will. I well recall the dramatic change in my own way of thinking. There were new longings, new hopes, new dreams, new fulfillments, but most noticeably a new will to do what was God’s will. This new affection of heart expels all other old seductions and attractions.

…One ought to take time to reflect seriously upon the question, Has God truly wrought a miracle in my life? Is my own heart proof of the supernatural intervention of God? That is the apologist’s first question. In the West we go through these seasons of new-fangled thologies. The whole question of “lordship” plagued our debates for some time as we asked, is there such a thing as a minimalist view of conversion? “We said the prayer: and that’s it.” Yet how can there be a minimalist view of conversion when conversion itself is a maximal work of God’s grace? “Old things are passed away; behold all things are become new” (2 Cor. 5:17 KJV).

In other words, God changes you. You are born again. This doesn’t mean that you are perfect or never struggle with temptation. It does mean that you want what God wants and struggle with the pull of the world toward things that are meaningless, unchristian, and ultimately destructive. The Christian life is a life of growth in grace and it should be evident to the people who know you that God has done something amazing in your life.

I love Tozer… incredible clarity and wisdom. One thing you can always pray for in your church is that they would stay humble and remember that everything we have is a gift that we should be willing to give away.

Gospel churches which mostly begin with the lowly are usually not content till they attain some degree of wealth and social acceptance. Then they gradually fall into classes, determined largely by the wealth and education of the members. The individuals that comprise the top layer of these various classes go on to become pillars of the religious society and are soon entrenched in places of leadership and influence. It is then that their great temptation comes upon them, the temptation to cater to their own class and to neglect the poor and the ignorant that make up the swarming population around them. They soon become hardened to every appeal of the Holy Spirit toward meekness and humility. Their homes are spotless, their clothes the most expensive, their friends the most exclusive. Apart from some tremendous moral upheaval, they are beyond help. And yet they may be among the most vocal exponents of Bible Christianity and heavy givers to the cause of the church.

Let us not become indignant at this blunt portrayal of facts. Let us rather humble ourselves to serve God’s poor. Let us seek to be like Jesus in our devotion to the forgotten of the earth who have nothing to recommend them but their poverty and their heart-hunger and their tears.

In my small group at church last night we were discussing the steps we need to take personally and corporately in order to worship God in Spirit and in Truth. One of those steps is repentance. It is hard, if not impossible to enter into true worship if your mind and heart are not aligned with God. Repentance is one of the necessary steps, I believe, to true worship. That is probably why there is so little true worship in our churches today. Certainly we have great music and talented leaders in our churches, but I don’t think it is possible to really worship God when you don’t agree with Him about the state and attitude of your heart and life. In one sense, you give mental assent to God being God but your heart is still far from Him. I think we are all guilty of this and the contemporary church exacerbates the problem since so much of the service is scripted and choreographed. Many churches use their Sunday morning services as seeker sensitive tools to reach the lost and unchurched- nothing wrong with being seeker sensitive, but the cry of the human heart is not “entertain me” it is “fix me and change me”. If we seek less than this in our worship services, we are nothing more than Christian MTV. True worship changes us. Entertainment amuses us.

So I think one of the critical aspects of a true corporate worship service is a time of repentance where we lay our souls bare before God and say to Him in the wise words of AW Tozer “”I am ignorant,”… “and am willing to be taught. I am wrong and am willing to be corrected.”" While we may think we can “practice” ourselves into better and true worship, I suspect we are just playing games and trying to avoid dealing with the true issue of pride.

We often hear the axiom “Practice makes perfect.” The fact is that practice, far from making perfect, actually confirms us in our faults unless it is carried on in a humble, self-critical spirit. The whole philosophy of instruction rests upon the idea that the learner is wrong and is seeking to be made right. No teacher can correct his pupil unless the pupil comes to him in humility. The only proper attitude for the learner is one of humble self-distrust. “I am ignorant,” he says, “and am willing to be taught. I am wrong and am willing to be corrected.” In this childlike spirit, the mind is made capable of improvement.  (AW Tozer)

Desiring God did a short video based on James 3. No explanation necessary.

James 3:1-10  Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.  2 For we all stumble in many ways, and if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body.  3 If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well.  4 Look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs.  5 So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire!  6 And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell.  7 For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind,  8 but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.  9 With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God.  10 From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.

Al Mohler has a good blog post that explains the basic problem with naturalistic, evolutionary theory. Most people don’t think along these lines, but it would help if we did so that we really can have an answer for those who ask about our hope in Christ. (1 Peter 3:15-  always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.)

The evolutionist is locked into an intellectual box from which there is no rescue.  Evolutionary theory is naturalistic by necessity — everything must be explained in purely naturalistic terms.  Only nature can explain nature, and there is no other source of meaning or truth.  Thus, in the end the theory of evolution — and the theory of evolution alone — must explain everything about humanity.

…Steve Jones offered a public lecture at University College London, but he also offers a larger lesson on the inherent limitations of the evolutionary worldview.  Darwinism has to explain everything — even why some people accept evolutionary theory and others do not.

Evolutionary theory cannot possibly explain the totality of human experience, much less the reality of human origins.  Evolutionists — if consistent — believe that every human experience, every emotion, every physical attribute, every hope, and every fear is simply a feature developed by means of natural selection.

One of my favorite quotes on this topic is from CS Lewis and it is brilliant in it’s simplicity-

If the solar system was brought about by an accidental collision, then the appearance of organic life on this planet was also an accident, and the whole evolution of Man is an accident too. If so, then all our present thoughts are mere accidents — the accidental by-product of the movement of atoms. And this holds for the thoughts of the materialists and astronomers as well as for anyone else’s. But if their thoughts — i.e. of materialism and astronomy — are merely accidental by-products, why should we believe them to be true? I see no reason for believing that one accident should be able give me a correct account of all the other accidents. It’s like expecting that the accidental shape taken by the splash when you upset a milkjug should give you a correct account of how the jug was made and why it was upset.

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The older I get the more obvious this becomes to me.

From AW Tozer-

One of the heaviest thoughts that can visit the human heart is the insignificance of the average man. Seen against the long procession of the ages and the countless multitudes of people who have inhabited the earth, we are each one no more than a grain of sand on the wide seashore.

It takes some reflection to make this appear to our minds as it really is. The human ego may be counted upon to accent our individual worth and to give a false permanence to what is anything but permanent. A man in his pride may feel himself to be so important that it is hard for him to visualize the world as continuing to endure after he is removed from the scene; but all we need to do is to wait. Time will grind him to dust and toss him to the winds; his friends will disappear one by one from their old familiar haunts, and there will be no one left to remember him. The passing generations will sift over him layer upon layer of forgetfulness, and he will no longer have any earthly meaning. He will cease to be a name and will become merely a statistic.

This consideration, if no other, should dispose us to embrace the message of Christ. That message is so full and so comprehensive that it is never possible to state in one paragraph or one page or one volume all that it is. It is doubtful, in fact, whether all the world could contain the books if the whole wonder of the gospel were to be written. But not the least among the benefits of the Cross is its dignification of the individual.

When I was younger, I was sure I would be rich, famous and rule the world- or at least my part of it. But time has a way of getting us in touch with reality and as I watch the turmoil in the world, I really don’t want that responsibility. I’m pretty sure Bush asks himself daily why he wanted to be President. But God has a plan that we all fit in somewhere and there is peace in knowing that. We are all or can be significant to those close to us- family, church, friends- and the key is to find you fulfillment and joy in those responsibilities and relationships while remaining open to new responsibilities that God may bring you way.

I saw this over at Desiring God and thought it worth passing on. Considering the pace and tone of contemporary life, this is good advice.

10 Resolutions for Mental Health
By: John Piper

On October 22, 1976, Clyde Kilby, who is now with Christ in Heaven, gave an unforgettable lecture. I went to hear him that night because I loved him. He had been one of my professors in English Literature at Wheaton College. He opened my eyes to more of life than I knew could be seen. O, what eyes he had! He was like his hero, C. S. Lewis, in this regard. When he spoke of the tree he saw on the way to class this morning, you wondered why you had been so blind all your life. Since those days in classes with Clyde Kilby, Psalm 19:1 has been central to my life: “The sky is telling the glory of God.”

That night Dr. Kilby had a pastoral heart and a poet’s eye. He pled with us to stop seeking mental health in the mirror of self-analysis, but instead to drink in the remedies of God in nature. He was not naïve. He knew of sin. He knew of the necessity of redemption in Christ. But he would have said that Christ purchased new eyes for us as well as new hearts. His plea was that we stop being unamazed by the strange glory of ordinary things. He ended that lecture in 1976 with a list of resolutions. As a tribute to my teacher and a blessing to your soul, I offer them for your joy.

1. At least once every day I shall look steadily up at the sky and remember that I, a consciousness with a conscience, am on a planet traveling in space with wonderfully mysterious things above and about me.

2. Instead of the accustomed idea of a mindless and endless evolutionary change to which we can neither add nor subtract, I shall suppose the universe guided by an Intelligence which, as Aristotle said of Greek drama, requires a beginning, a middle, and an end. I think this will save me from the cynicism expressed by Bertrand Russell before his death when he said: “There is darkness without, and when I die there will be darkness within. There is no splendor, no vastness anywhere, only triviality for a moment, and then nothing.”

3. I shall not fall into the falsehood that this day, or any day, is merely another ambiguous and plodding twenty-four hours, but rather a unique event, filled, if I so wish, with worthy potentialities. I shall not be fool enough to suppose that trouble and pain are wholly evil parentheses in my existence, but just as likely ladders to be climbed toward moral and spiritual manhood.

4. I shall not turn my life into a thin, straight line which prefers abstractions to reality. I shall know what I am doing when I abstract, which of course I shall often have to do.

5. I shall not demean my own uniqueness by envy of others. I shall stop boring into myself to discover what psychological or social categories I might belong to. Mostly I shall simply forget about myself and do my work.

6. I shall open my eyes and ears. Once every day I shall simply stare at a tree, a flower, a cloud, or a person. I shall not then be concerned at all to ask what they are but simply be glad that they are. I shall joyfully allow them the mystery of what Lewis calls their “divine, magical, terrifying and ecstatic” existence.

7. I shall sometimes look back at the freshness of vision I had in childhood and try, at least for a little while, to be, in the words of Lewis Carroll, the “child of the pure unclouded brow, and dreaming eyes of wonder.”

8. I shall follow Darwin’s advice and turn frequently to imaginative things such as good literature and good music, preferably, as Lewis suggests, an old book and timeless music.

9. I shall not allow the devilish onrush of this century to usurp all my energies but will instead, as Charles Williams suggested, “fulfill the moment as the moment.” I shall try to live well just now because the only time that exists is now.

10. Even if I turn out to be wrong, I shall bet my life on the assumption that this world is not idiotic, neither run by an absentee landlord, but that today, this very day, some stroke is being added to the cosmic canvas that in due course I shall understand with joy as a stroke made by the architect who calls himself Alpha and Omega.