Why the 286 generation needs to learn how to make their bed

There has been a lot of talk about how the current young generation is going to go out there and win souls for the glory of God. Preachers exhort it from rallies. Personal prophecies are given (those of you who know me will know that I am rolling my eyes when I write this one..), and kids are fired up because they are more passionate about God and want their lives to be transformed and others, as well

Well, before they pack their Psalty Zonderkids and their best of Hillsong CD's (or illegally ripped MP3's) into their J.C Rox my Sox backpack, maybe they do well to heed the words of someone a lot wiser than them, or me, for that matter- the apostle Paul

"Do nothing from rivalry and conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves" - Philipians 2:3 -

You see, I am rather old fashioned. I think today's youth are insolent, rebellious, lacking in all manner of social graces, indolent, prone to backchat and lazy in the intellectual sense. They are also spoilt beyond belief, indulged to the point where the fat of arrogance drips of them. Like battery hens bred for a life of solitary confinement, they open they mouth for what they feel is their divine right to the good life, and their own inalienable rights

Of course, there are exceptions. However, finding one or two is about as easy as finding a fund manager who didn't hit in the financial crisis in 2008. If you find one, let me know. It's akin to stiking the lottery

Thus, it is even more repugnant when they are in church singing away to Jesus and patting themselves on the back for being 'spiritual'. The odiousness of layering a false sense of humility while backstabbing and displaying all the mores of total depravity are made even more sickening by the fake protestations of faith and sanctification. I should know - I used to work with these youth

Rather than being difference makers ( another catchphrase) and being 'in but not of this world', they are in this world, and they LOVE it. They love it with such a passion that they don't want to leave and would happily go on with their merry ways even if Jesus came again. Of course, that won't happen when the King comes, which is why the 'gnashing of teeth and the wailing' never rang so true

So, who is to blame? Their parents? A church seduced by the secular? Chris Tomlin? All of the above, except Chris - he's da man! But levity aside, all play a part, and thus all are guilty of gross mismanagement of these young souls. But they are not blameless either. Their fallen sin nature is partial to this and thus, rather than rebel in a good way to follow the light, the path of darkness looks more attractive

One common lament that the youth make is that they get no respect from the older people. But respect is earned. It is not a right. If I am applying for a job, I need to earn the respect of the interviewer, and I have to respect him or her. Any less than that will have dire consequences for employability at this company. When I see the youth totally absorbed in their own lives, and it's all about them and their needs, why should the older folk care about them? That kind of selfishness eventually comes back to them

The gospel has the power to change lives. Young or old. The famous mathematician and thinker, Blaise Pascal was notoriously selfish and cantenkerous - essentially not a nice person to be around. Intellectuallly brilliant but with a low emotional quotient. However, when he met God, he became a different person. Those who knew him said that the best indicator of change in him was this - he made his own bed. In the past, he left it to his servants but in his later life, a wave of humility swept over him and he humbled himself to make his own bed.

It is my wish that the young generation be different in this sense. When they meet the real risen Christ and their lives are changed, their difference is seen by everyone around them. Their parents, friends, teachers and pastors will notice that there is real transformation - not just glib superficiality

But I'm not holding my breath

Fun is a four letter word - Part 2

When I wrote the earlier post on 'fun' I did not expect it to be a two parter. It was just an off the cuff article. But now after some reflection, I have some additions to make

The notion that making fun is the main aim of everything is more insidious than it appears. Wanting fun in every activity means that you want that shot of endorphin or dopamine in every activity. So, any activity that doesn't give you that is deemed not to be of interest to you. This meas that you short circuit rational though processes and depend only on one feedback qualifier: feelings of fun

Notice how dangerous this can be to your spiritual life. A bible study is 'boring' because you it involves work and processes of thought which at times can bypass those yearnings for emotional stimulation. What happens? You give up and thus, what could have been an important tool for spiritual growth is neglected because you let 'fun' be the dictator of what should be undertaken

I notice this all to much at church. We fear boredom and pain. Why? Sometimes, these two seemingly unwelcome fellows are exactly the teachers that we need

The best story I have heard regarding this comes from Gary Player, the world famous golfer who is up ther with such amazing legends as Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer.

Once, while Gary Player was at the driving range hitting balls, someone came up to him and said:

" I wish I could hit the ball like you"

Gary then thought about it and told the man:

" Sure, you can. Just get up at the crack of dawn. Hit a thousand balls until your fingers bleed. Wash the blood off. Then go hit a thousand more. Then, you'll hit the ball like me"

Gary said that the man then left looking sad. And this was his final comment:

" The man wanted to hit like me but he didn't want to do the hard word. Nor suffer the pain. It doesn't work that way - you have to go through all of that"

Likewise, recently when some of the youth asked me about how to deepen their spirituality, they didn't like the answers I gave. Hard bible study doesn't sound like fun. Disciplined prayer sounds even less. But that's what you need to grow into mature christians. And like that man, they will probably look for more 'fun' ways of becoming more mature or not bother. That is up to them

I have taken a stance like Gary. You want to know how to grow, I'll tell you with the limited knowledge I have. But I won't cajol or make you hit the balls. Nor will I call you at the crack of dawn to get to the driving range. You will have to dig deep and find the motivation to do so. Champions are driven from within, not from the outside.

So too with saints of God

Why Billy is not Joel, but he still can't start the fire

I like Bill Hybels. I really do. He gets a lot of bad press for being seeker-friendly but frank admission here, I am Bill Hybels friendly, ever since I got his book "Too busy to pray" (Highly recommended). In Australia, on the sometimes questionable so-called Christian cable channel with such whack jobs as T.D Jakes, Joyce Meyer and assorted tele-con-vangelists with bouffant hair - he's a paragon of biblical solidity. Well, almost anyway..

He's no Joel Osteen. I rue the day I got that book for my dad and then spent countless wasted hours debating why it was rubbish. Why the Holy Spirit never led me to buy a J.I Packer, John Stott or John Piper book for him, I'll never know

Joel "See how my teeth shine" Osteen is a horrible waste of sermon space. His stuff isn't bad...if you like your God nothing like the God of the Bible. Yes, I know, he quotes lots of scripture but so does Hallmark cards in their pseudo-religious section. And nothing on Jesus coming to save. Apart from that, it's the gospel according to Oprah and Dr Phil..with a slightly Paulo Coelho kind of 'god'

But Bill, he tries to tell people about Jesus...but in a nice way. Yes, a gentle way. Through drama, great songs and stage sets: it's a wonder he hasn't won a Tony award now. His approach is to coax you gently into the Kingdom of God, with a few folksy jokes, a slap on the back and do pick up a decaf Latte on the way in please

Unfortunately, much as I prefer him over the perfectly coiffured one with the teeth, he still falls short of a standard which I believe must be upheld. It is this:

The Gospel must be preached unreservedly

Therefore, no soft selling, cajolling, playful nudges and unclear messages. No relegating Christ and his work on the cross to some footnote while the pastor cracks jokes downloaded from the internet and goes on about the singles 12 step recovery mininstry for weeks on end.

When you preach this, or another kind of similar message, Paul says:

"..the offence of the cross has been removed" (Galatians 5:11: ESV)

The cross offends because you are offensive to God. Therefore, it needs the unimaginable work of the son of God becoming man to die on the cross as an atonement to propitiate God's wrath and at the same time, exact his loving grace and mercy to you, a reprobrate sinner deserving of nothing but hell

If that above passage sounds foreign to you, then you have been listening to a different gospel. Or a false on

Put it this way, on the pulpit, you sometimes only have one chance to say something. What are you going to say? You can tell the congregation that they are decent people, maybe even pat them on the back and give them a pep talk like a football coach

But woe to you should one of them leave the church without understanding the gospel.

"Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel" (1 Corinthians 9:16: ESV)


If he or she dies that night without knowing God - part of that responsibility lies on your seeker friendly head. Think about it

Fun is a four letter word

If I could ban one word from church, it would have to be "fun".

Before the cries of 'calvanist meanie!' go up. Let me explain, then after that, you can get the dunking chair out on me :-)

In the modern church, that word has become the yardstick generally of whether a program, camp, sermon or activity has been effective. And notice the main tenet of using this as a benchmark: It's need for an immediate response

Fun is an instantateous reaction to a stimuli. There is no such thing as waiting for a while and thinking about whether what just happened was fun - it either is or isn't. This is dangerous because this predisposes the church into judging everything on a straight emotional response and one that can be thoroughly misleading

The effectiveness of the Christian faith can usually only be seen through a long period of walking with the Lord in obedience and discipleship. At times, many of those moments are full of hardship and discomfort - definitely not fun. But it is necessary to build that kind of intimacy with God, if you are serious

Which I think is the crux of the issue here. It's usually a way of skirting the harder issues about where our own individual faith is taking us. Rather than think about that, we rather play with it superficially. Keep it light, keep it fun

The last time I checked, being fun was not really one of God's attributes. And even if you can find some way from your exegesis to argue so, I would contend that it certaintly isn't one of his major ones

Soli Deo Gloria

The face of evil

A few days ago, over Chinese New Year, I got a phone call from someone in my family. Every family has it's skeletons in the cupboard. Mine is no different. It probably has a whole graveyard full of 'em. Most of them are bones of contention over family related hurts and rejection; perceived or otherwise. In any case, this relative gave me 15 minutes worth of cursing and damning of other family members; including my parents. Not an easy thing to stomach, mind you

When another relative, a milder uncle asked me if it bothered me. I said "Not really, seen and heard worse when I was involved in deliverance ministry" (Yes, I was - back in those bad ol' Mike the charismatic days :-) )

While I severely doubt the veracity of demon posession and related demo-mania; I do believe in the existence of evil. That something is 'tak betul' with the human race- both individually and collectively. I heard a bit of it over the phone. I see a bit of it each day. It's in two kids fighting for a plastic pail in a playground. And it's in an Israeli and a Palestinian drawing guns on each other.

I don't see horned halloween devil like creatures behind each individual, pulling the strings of human behaviour. I'll leave that to my..shall we say...more psychically bent brethren of the Pentecostal faith. But what I observe is that in the bones, sinews, emotions, soul and spirit of each human is the capacity and rapacity to want to do evil.

It's about this point that everyone usually waves their hands and says : "Not me! I'm a good person. What about Mother Theresa then". The main difference here is that Mother Theresa knows that she had the inclination to evil just as much as every person in the world - she was just a little better at relying on God's grace than you or me, that's all.

Jesus was really good as pointing this out to those with myopia with regards to evil. To the self-inflated lawyer who demanded to know who his neighbour was - he exposed his racism and pride. To the man who wanted to know how the inheritence was going to be divided, Jesus lectured on the futility of storing up wealth, thus exposing the evil of covetousness

Which is why,sad to say - they crucified him. No one likes their dirty insides exposed. But the irony is that by doing so, it released a Spirit who is perfect as exposing every sin, lie and evil and cleansing it. Out of an act of evil, the death warrant for evil was signed, sentenced and passed. The irony of it all

I can't say I am totally without this inclination to want to sin. Each day passes and I marvel at my capacity for frailty and even more incredible delusion at excusing that. In other words, like most of my other 6 billion brethen on this earth - I try to say that my evil is justifiable

Thus, if some guy scratches my car, I must be justified in doing one to his door. If I get fired from my job, no one will blame me if I take a few pens and a stapler, right? My cry is for justice. For fairness in an unfair world. If no one will protect me, especially God, well, I gotta look out for number one, correct?

In a world of an eye for an eye, there are going to be a lot of one eyed and blind people around

One act of evil is a pebble in a pool, The ripples resonate. Who knows where they will stop. One act of goodness does the same to the pool. When they clash, it looks ugly. Consider this image if you will. Increase the number of good ripples. Increase them to infinity.

After a while, the whole rippled filled pond will look....calm

But underneath, there is activity. Lots of good activity

That, my friends, is the image of a true Christlike world. And in that pond or world, evil doesn't fit in

Only one does the knocking..and it ain't you

There's a beautiful story in the modern church which goes like this: God is a gentleman. He'll never force you to do something you don't want. They preface this with that picture of Jesus knocking on the door and stressing the point that the lock is on the inside; so you have to open it to let him in.

Bollocks.

There was a man who lived in the village of Midian. In the first forty years of his life, he had been a prominent person in Egypt. It was a luxurious life..but he had to move. No matter, for the next forty, he married, had kids and a comfortable life tending sheep. Great life, eh? Just about ready to retire and then...

God appears to him

Note that he didn't pray for an 'word' or enter into a nice conversation with God. Heck, he probably wasn't praying at all - and he got the 'WORD' himself. That is one scary thought. I think of all those people shouting and praying "God! show me more of you!" or "Let me see your face!" in church. And all I can think of is: "Uh-uh. Nope. I don't want to see God face to face. If I did - I'd soil my pants pretty darn quick".

Look, I would get nervous enough seeing Cate Blanchett face to face (Hot tamale!)...let alone the King of Heaven.

So anyway, he gets into this weird conversation with God. And it involves all sorts of weird stuff happening. He obviously doesn't want the job but at about the point where God turns his hand leprous; he kinda thinks that maybe it would be better to zip his lip for a while as some other appendage might turn leprous.

Point Number two: Saying 'No' to God really isn't an option (Hi, Jonah!)

His whole life turns upside down from that point. His son gets circumcised by his wife Zipporah to save him from getting fried by God. All I know is, that a Freudian psychiatrist would have a field day with this scene..

He then has to contend with the might of the Egyptian army, plagues, complaining ungrateful hordes of his people, going up mountains, making decisions...and all this at a time when he should have been retired or dead. His only wish is to see the promised land. Just one small desire - not to much to ask when he's done all this, right?

Nope. One moment of indiscretion puts him out.

Haven't we all been there? If only I never said that to her, if only I never walked into that place, if only i had studied harder..if only, if only.

And all he can do is watch through his feeble eyes, the others entering into the land of Milk and Honey, while he waits to die. In a land where he has spent the last forty years wandering; only to be so close yet so far. This is the story of Moses

I cringe when I see those self proclaimed 'prophets' in large churches. You want to be a prophet, really? Consider Ezekiel. God tells him that his wife may die...and get this: he is not to mourn for her. Now, this was no nasty wife that he was glad to be rid of. This was the 'delight of his eyes' (Ezekiel 24:16). And he was not even allowed to cry for her. "..yet you shall not mourn or weep. nor shall your tears run down"

You still want to be a prophet now?

What did the verse I use in my first post for the year say? Everything belongs to God. Even you. Even your wife. Your little kids are his. Don't ever say Jesus sold you a false story about the cost of discipleship in the gospels. He was brutally honest about saying that you have to carry a cross.

I honestly have to say that if I knew how much of a cross this was, I seriously may not have opted to carry it. You can call this heresy or blasphemy if you wish. It doesn't matter. You can 'willingly' accept it - if you think it's your will doing it. Or you can walk away. Like Jonah, and see how far you go

"For the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof" - 1 Corinthians 10:26

" Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honoured use and another for dishonourable use?" - Romans 9:21 -

The deafening silence of God

Nothing speaks more of the impassability of God then the deafening silence of unanswered prayer. The decline of Christianity in the West is sometimes attributed to the years after World War One where many millions of young Christian men died in the horrible hellish nighthmare of trench warfare. Yes, it could be argued that in those millions were thousands of potential missionaries, pastors and workers for Christ. We will never know. But I have another theory

For virtually every christian family that sent a christian son off to war and saw him come back in a coffin; there lay the seed of a growing bitterness towards God. A cold rage towards him for not answering those prayers of protection and safety from danger and death. A body was buried, but that was not all. The faith of a family and subsequent generations got buried as well on that cold day - where God failed to answer their prayers

Of course, God answers prayers, people say. Just not always in the way you want it to be.

As 2009 begins, already the tsunamis of life (note the plural) have already hit and devasted the beaches of my life. Before I can even get one prayer of help out, another hits; and another. Before long, you even wonder whether you should just forget saving the boat (what boats are left to save?) and just run to higher ground until the waves subside - or will they?

Oddly, I have no platitudes for you today. I can't say whether you will keep your faith or lose it. I know many good people who have. What do you say to a father who has lost a child? What do you say to the mother? I have no idea

I guess if I was to answer honestly, I would grab a handful of earth, and throw it into the grave. Where a body lies. And maybe a faith and the faith of fathers