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The pull of the world and Misconceptions about Christianity

The pull of the world and clearing up the misconceptions

The world can offer you fulfillment, it can offer to satisfy your desires needs and wants. Sex, drugs, consumption, media, excitement, and adrenalin it is all there. What more could a person want when their flesh can be stimulated by the world on demand. Who needs to consider a God when living your own way is just more fun, more adventurous and more exciting?

This week I was talking to Tarma a good friend from uni, who realized the deception of the world more than anyone I have encountered. He spoke to me of the drastic measures he has had to take in order to not succumb to the temptation of the world. How he had to restrain himself from countless hours of television, move a computer out of his room, and carefully select which movies he watches. It was inspirational, to see how aware of reality he is, how desiring God came first over the world. One can so easily be waylaid by the so called pleasures of this world, and get trapped into thinking that they will bring happiness and contentment. The world is ephemeral; any happiness it brings will not last, for it is outcome based. Worldly logic: “This happens I am happy and content therefore I need to keep doing this to stay happy”. I don’t know if I need to go to such lengths as my friend has, yet his motivation to shun the world and desire God with all his heart, mind and soul was encouraging.

I like every other Christian am in direct conflict with what my body and what rational decision making incorporating God tells me to do. I have lived a life which has allowed the world to wrap its arms around me and deceive me into thinking I am satisfied. Occasionally I have been satisfied with the world, with nights out drinking with mates, with girls who were willing to go anywhere and do anything, with coarse conversations and shunning responsibilities because I wanted to do my own thing… It’s so easy to slip back into that lifestyle, to let go and not care. But does it lead to contentment or long lasting happiness? No, only God and my relationship with him can provide that.

The tighter the worlds grip on you the harder it is to free yourself from it. A lot of aspects of the world are analogous to smoking, if you never start, you will never crave. Whether fortunately or unfortunately I have been left craving the world, while knowing what God wants me to do. I feel its pull every day and desperately want what it offers, all the while knowing that whatever satisfaction it will bring will be temporary and drag me away from God. The mind has a fantastic way of rationalizing sin. There are some sins which while the bible tells me are sins, I find it hard to rationalize why they are sinful and I am easily “tempted” so to speak, because I cannot understand Gods reasoning for things. However this rationalization and justification of sin sucks because it makes me look hypocritical and a bad witness to Christ.

I have spent many hours questioning who I am and what I believe, both pre and post Christianity. I admit I have not taken all my knowledge from God or the bible and this presents difficulties, because I am always tempted to share my own intellectual struggles and subjective paradoxes, with willing and empathetic non Christian ears. However I should not turn to the world for comfort in the face of sin. I should not boost my ego by presenting fancifully fabricated arguments that justify the way I live and bask in the heart felt nods and affirmations from the non-christian community.

I felt the weight of this tonight, when I was plunged into an evangelistic conversation with work colleagues over dinner. I find issues of sexuality, lust and drinking difficult to talk about because I have struggled so much with these issues and so easily empathize with people who engage in practices which are considered sinful. I thank God However that these issues led to discussion about Christianity. Its awesome to be able to share with my workmates the gospel message, especially people who while disagreeing with it are eager to hear it. People are often drawn in by the gospel message and it is a stark contrast to what the world has to offer. When people see that you are living for something beyond this world, while they may believe it to be foolish and at times even living a lie, they are usually intrigued about your belief system. They are eager to hear how you came to the conclusions you have done while going through the same experience of existence in the same world that they are in.

I find with a lot of conversations, people always have prejudgments about what I believe and think as a Christian. I often find that the vast majority of evangelism is clearing up misconceptions. People usually know the gospel message but have many misconceptions about what true Christianity are. We Christians aren’t really the underground society we sometimes like to think we are, there are lots of us and we come in many different flavours to, from Hillsong to Anglicans. You can’t talk to someone in Sydney without them having a preconceived notion of what Christianity means and why they don’t believe it.

I’m finding that lots of people have never really considered God to be relational and therefore see God as purely an all powerful, all knowing being, who occasionally does stuff for his people when we pray to him. A relationship with God is the foundation from which we work from, we need God because we broke our relationship with him. We need Jesus because he reconciled us back to God. We can re-enter into a perfect relationship with God in heaven because we have become Holy in Gods eyes, and therefore can enter his presence without him having to reject us out of justice to himself and his perfection. Relationships are at the heart of God, not some distant creator who occasionally comes down to help his people when they pray to him. Without a relationship with God, we are nothing, the cross means nothing. The cross is actually illogical if we don’t have a relational/personal God. One man dies as a sacrifice for our sins, yet he comes back? But he’s back??? where is the sacrifice??? what happened?? I’m not actually sure what happened in those three days, but I know that God used this event to reconcile us back to him, and from reading Pauls letters and knowing the effects that, that event has caused on the humanity, I know something truly great happened on the cross. To truly appreciate that greatness one has to have an understanding of God as a personal God who wants to enter into a relationship with you. Something which most people have not realized nor understood the implications of after proclaiming they understand everything there is to know about Christianity

I seem to keep needing to refer to Mark 2:17, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” How many times will people ask me “do you think you are better than me?”. My own mother has asked me this question on many occasions. I am no better than the non-believer and no Christian should ever think of themselves as any better nor any more special than the non-believer. They should love them as themselves, be willing to serve them like they would a Christian brother or sister and be patient with them even if they never do turn to Christ. That is not a decision for the Christian to force upon them but God if he so chooses. We as Christians are all too quick to judge, we are quick to give our opinions on how we don’t advocate homosexuality, abortion or any number of the hot topics. We leave people embittered about what the Christian community feels, and leave them viewing us as hypocritical. I personally don’t think we need to be so forceful with our views. We cannot put sin into a hierarchy and make those who are living lifestyles which are counter-Christian feel uncomfortable around us. There are far more pressing truths that we need to explain and share with non Christians before we dive into conversations about sexuality, laws and the range of sins that exist and we shun.

Sin to a non-Christian is meaningless, why should we tell them something is sinful when we know full well they will just laugh at us because they do not accept Jesus anyway? We should be pushing the message of hope and salvation into the public eye, and be known as people who believe in a personal and relational God, not those who abhor sexuality before marriage and homosexuality because we think its wrong. I’m sick of being branded judgmental just because I’m Christian and needing to clear up these misconceptions that should have never arisen in the first place.

There is one bible. This is a hard concept for most people to get their heads around… Yes Catholics include the apocrypha and yes there are many translations, but there is one bible. It is hard to express this point succinctly, especially when you could do an entire presentation on why the bible can be trusted as a source of truth, be that the ESV, NIV or any number of the trustworthy translations out there. I find this is a misconception that needs regularly clearing up as people are skeptical about a book that has been translated so many times and has needed to go through a canonical process.

Lastly I find that people regularly hit the big theological hot topics. It is hard to present succinct arguments for these, as I myself don’t have the answers and sometimes the answers are not to be had. I question, is it better to divert the question or point them towards resources that might help? When someone brings up the question of a God that’s all loving and allows suffering, it is hard to know what to do. There are books of hundreds of pages which deal with the issue yet the person sitting in front of you needs an answer, one to two minutes long. Toughness. Though I guess all we can do is trust God and hope for the best even though these issues may make us look foolish and as though we buy into an argument which has flawed logic.

Please pray for Carmen, Richard and Jeremy. This email is the result of the conversation I had with them. I get frustrated because I am still doubtful of whether I actually do anything, peoples hearts always seem to hard for any of the gospel message to penetrate. All we can do is throw seeds, it is up to God to determine how they land and whether they will blossom one day into something more. Goodnight guys, God bless J

P.S thanks for reading this if you made it this far

posted by Douganator @ 1:57 AM