From: "Heidy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Where's The Hope?
What A Mess All over the world people are despairing because there seems to be no hope. People, particularly young people in increasing numbers, are turning to suicide as a way out. One young suicide victim summed it up simply when he wrote, "Where's the hope?" The real problem is sin. It has separated us from the God of hope. Romans 3:23 says, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Sin has made a mess of this world and robbed us of hope. What An Answer Because sin has messed up our world, God's the only one who can help. And He did this when He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for our sins. John 3:16 says, "God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." Do you realize that when you believe what Jesus has done, and invite Him into your heart, you are forever freed of the guilt and penalty of your sin? In John 5:24 Jesus says, "I tell you the truth, whoever hears My word and believes ... has eternal life and will not be condemned." What A Family John 1:12 says that those who receive Jesus Christ as their Savior "become children of God ... born of God." Not only does God promise to forgive our sins and give us eternal life, but once we invite His Son to become our Savior and Lord we become His children, part of His family, never to be alone and without hope again. What To Do You can become a member of God's family today, by asking Him to forgive your sins and give you the peace to face this messed up world with hope instead of despair. Thank Him for being your Savior. Invite Him to be Lord of your life. ======================================== Experiencing God in Day-to-day Life Mike Treneer As I read the Bible, there is a sense in which I feel that I have never experienced God. I have never seen a vision of God the way Isaiah saw him in the Temple, our how Paul saw Christ on the Damascus Road. I have never had God appearing to me, to my senses. But there is another sense in which I experience God constantly. Many people in the West have grown up with the view that God created the universe and then let it run according to the laws which he had created. But when I went to Africa I found that the people there had a sense of God directly intervening throughout all of life. So that caused me to try to find out what was really true about the nature of Creation. The Bible teaches that God actively upholds all things by his word of power. So Paul, preaching in Athens, says that God gives to all men life and breath and everything-God is actively engaged with us all the time. In that sense, I have experienced God for so much of my life, as the Creator and sustainer of my life. I do experience God constantly and daily, even though I might not recognise it at times. I'm experiencing God in and through the sustaining of the world that he has made. I have also experienced God through the love of my family and friends, and through their witness to me of the activity of God in their lives. I've experienced God not only through Creation but in the Bible. These are things I often take for granted as being normal, and therefore I don't think of them as the experience of God. After Jesus rose from the dead he appeared to his followers in a room in Jerusalem. The door was closed and Jesus suddenly was there. Thomas, one of the disciples, was not there are at the time. The other disciples tried to tell him about it but Thomas said, "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were and put my hand into his side I will not believe it." (We need to ask God questions, and not just allow ourselves to be carried along.) Later, Jesus appeared again and spoke to Thomas. "Put your finger here. See my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe." Thomas said to him "My lord and my God." Now this is exactly of the sort of experience I often think I long for - the kind I'm telling you I haven't had. Then Jesus told Thomas, "Because you have seen me you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." I'm one of those people who have not seen and yet who have based their life on knowing Christ and making him known. And Jesus says I'm blessed because of it. It is an issue of expectations. Jesus seems to be implying that the norm is not going to be the Thomases of this world, or the Pauls of this world. He is telling us, his followers, to believe what we hear about him and not necessarily to expect to experience him in the dramatic, supernatural way that the apostles did. In fact, you can almost trace it as a theme through the New Testament that the norm for us as followers of Jesus Christ is that we believe what we have heard that they saw. They were chosen to be eyewitness, and our faith rests on their testimony. There is a danger that we bring our expectations strongly to the subject of experiencing God, and then we start judging God. "God didn't come through for me. God didn't meet my expectations. God is a failure and therefore it's not worth following him or trusting him, or believing in him." Or, "It doesn't work." Perhaps we bring expectations that somebody else has put into our mind. Someone said to me, "These days it is not surprising that you have been asked to speak about experiencing God. A generation ago perhaps you might have been asked to speak about obeying God." A subtle change in society and our desire and hunger for experience can easily become self-centred. We might be better to turn the question around and ask not "How do we experience God, but how does God experience us?" That might be a little less comfortable, but it is still valid question. How has God experienced you in the past few years of your life? What has he observed in your life? What legitimate expectations of experiencing God did Jesus give to those who follow him? Let me highlight five things from John 13 and 14, things that Jesus said about experiencing God the night before he was crucified, when he announces that he is going away: "Where I am going you cannot come." Jesus is teaching his disciples what is going to be like in the new era when he will not be visible or audible to their senses. The very first thing Jesus says is: "A new command I give you, that you love one another. . . by this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." Our experience of the living Christ comes from our relationships with one another. My primary reason for being a follower of Jesus Christ is because of my relationship with others who loved and followed him, and because I experienced his love through them. Our love for one another is at the heart of our experiencing God. For example, my parents loved me even when I give them a hard time as a teenager, when I had little respect for my father, an Anglican minister. Their love was miraculous. As an aside, I have to say that I struggle with God because he hides himself so much. Why doesn't he come out and make himself more obvious? Two passages help me as I wrestle with this. The first is Isaiah 40 in which the prophet describes the power of God in creating the stars and the heavens and calling them by name like pets. Then he talks about us, God's people, saying, "My way is hidden from the Lord; my cause is disregarded by my God"- where is God in all my life? But the prophet says, "He gives strength to the weary and increases of the power of the weak. . . those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. . ." God shows his power in the world, not with firework displays, but by giving strength to weak, ordinary people like you, to love as he loves, to give as he gives, to serve as he serves. He has chosen to show his power by loving others through people like us. I don't fully understand why he does that, but he didn't ask my permission to be like that, and he isn't about to change because I have questions about it. Another vivid and helpful passage is the resurrection passage. To whom did Jesus appear? The chief priests? Pilate? The crowds in the centre of Jerusalem? Caesar in Rome? The ruler of China? He appears to none of these, but he appears to Mary Magdalene in the garden. Why Mary? Who would believe her? I think it was because she loved him and trusted him. She was the last to leave the cross and the first at the tomb. I think God responds to love and trust. He isn't interested in convincing people like Pilate. The next people he appeared to were the women who were going to the sepulchre with spices. The next group were two disciples who were leaving Jerusalem because they were so discouraged. This is the God about whom we are talking about experiencing. That is what he is like. Back in our passage in John 13,14 the next thing Jesus does (John 14:1) is to tell his followers to trust him, to trust him in the pain and the bewildering events that were about to take place. This theme trust is important in Jesus teaching. He constantly warns of a long period waiting and warnings about uncertainty and persecution occur over and over again in Jesus' teaching. We read in Luke 18:8, ". . . when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?" It is going to be difficult to keep on believing. In another place he says the love of most men will grow cold during this long period of waiting. We are in this long period of waiting and these things are true. But we can give people false impressions about experiencing God because of our own, false expectations. Somehow or other we must expect to be trusting him. Part of being a follower of Jesus is a stubborn commitment to stand by him no matter how dark it is, even when things aren't going well, and it isn't easy and we don 't feel that he is there, but we're doing it because it is right and we believe that what we have been told about him is true, that he really is who he said he is, and that he is going to come back, and this isn't going to go on for ever. Let's now consider faith, action and prayer from John 14:12. There is an expectation here that Jesus leads us to have concerning experiencing him and being in touch with him through faith, action and prayer. "I tell you the truth. anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name and I will do it." In these statements we see faith-believing in an active God who is going to reveal himself as we get involved with his agenda. He doesn't say, "Have faith and me and do anything you fancy." There is a particular kind of activity here that Jesus is committing us to: ". . . do what I have been doing." And in the context of being active in Christ's agenda we ask in faith, we pray and we experience the living God. I promise you on the authority of Jesus that if you were really give yourself to trying to follow Jesus' agenda and be active in accomplishing his work with faith, you will see the activity and the power of God in all kinds of ways, answering your prayers and helping and sustaining and supporting you. The next thing Jesus says in this passage (John 14:15-26) leads his disciples to expect to experience him, when he is no longer visible to their senses, through his word and his Spirit. "I will not leave you as orphans" Jesus told the disciples. "Before long the world will not see me but you will see me," he said. We can expect to experience Jesus, for him to show himself to us, but not to the world at large. And it happens somehow through his indwelling presence, through his Spirit and through his teaching. This has been real in my experience. From the very first night that I came to faith in Christ the Holy Spirit has made the teaching of Jesus come alive for me. Just as Jesus promised to those who trust him, his Spirit is in me causing my spirit to respond to his word. In summary, the main ways by which I experience God are the main ways in which Jesus leads me to expect that I would experience him-that is, by being patient and trusting him through the long haul of difficulties and disappointments. Through the love of committed friends who are also followers of Jesus. Through committing myself with faith and prayer to the activity of pursuing his purposes in the world and through experiencing the Holy Spirit making the Bible live for me. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar. Now with Pop-Up Blocker. 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