From: suyento What Aslan of Narnia Teaches Us About God's Dangerous Side by Thomas Williams
"I can't believe in a God who would condemn anyone to Hell or allow an infant child to be taken from its mother. I believe in a God of love who wants people happy." You've heard it as much as I have. People want a tame God - a nice, safe, kind figure who accepts us where we are, and though he wishes we would do better, he sighs, smiles indulgently, and forgives without demanding change. Brace yourself for an altogether different portrait of God. In December, Disney will release the movie, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, based on the first of C.S. Lewis' enormously popular The Chronicles of Narnia. When you first encounter the Lion-god of Narnia, "meek and mild" will never enter your head. In fact, Narnian beavers warn the four human children that the mere sight of Aslan will cause their knees to knock so much they may be unable to stand. "Then he isn't safe?" asks Lucy. "Safe?" replies Mr. Beaver. "Course he isn't safe. But he's good." Not safe but good - a strange description for God. But over and over in these seven stories we learn just what this means. One example occurs in The Silver Chair when the schoolgirl Jill is alone and desperately thirsty in unknown woods. She comes upon a stream, but between her and the water sits the great Lion. Aslan tells her that she can drink, but the terrified girl wants assurance that she will not be eaten. When he refuses to promise, Jill determines to find another stream. But he tells her, "There is no other stream." The Lion of Narnia makes uncomfortable and sometimes extreme demands, and he cannot be manipulated or controlled or bent to anyone's will. "It's not as if he were a tame lion," explains the magician in The Voyage of the 'Dawn Treader.' Yes, God is love, but it's easy to confuse love with kindness. As Lewis pointed out in The Problem of Pain, "Love is something more stern and splendid than mere kindness. ... Kindness, merely as such, cares not whether its object becomes good or bad, provided only that it escapes suffering." Aslan's treatment of Jill explains it all. He wants her to have the life-giving water, but she wants it on her own terms. She wants fulfillment without God. Aslan ignores her desire for safety, insisting that she take the risk of encountering God, who is the ultimate satisfaction of all needs and desires. God wants us happy - ecstatically and deliriously happy - but as Lewis explains elsewhere, "It is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from himself, because it is not there." It would not be loving for God to let us off the hook when our desire for comfort and safety causes us to avoid him. "No, Aslan is neither safe nor tame, but in every instance his severity is ultimately revealed as love." Thomas Williams, author of The Heart of the Chronicles of Narnia No, Aslan is neither safe nor tame, but in every instance his severity is ultimately revealed as love. When he greets the penitent Lucy after her failure to follow him, he kisses her, breathes his sweet breath on her and enfolds her tenderly. Such scenes fill the pages of Narnia, giving us a picture of God so magnetic and appealing that it's no wonder many children (and adults too) fall in love with Jesus after meeting Aslan. Throughout the books, Aslan reflects not only the severe but also the tender side of Jesus, who wept at the tomb of Lazarus, touchingly lamented over Jerusalem, and said to his 12 dear companions at the Last Supper: "As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you ... No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends ..." Wow! We ordinary, bumbling, sin-prone humans can be friends, of all things, with the master of the universe. He cherishes us. He delights in us. He wants to be with us and longs to have us love him in return. As I stress in my new book, The Heart of the Chronicles of Narnia, Aslan shows this love of God up close and personal so that we cannot possibly miss it. The Narnia stories show us a God who allows pain and demands sacrificial choices. But they also show where these choices lead when we allow God into our lives - to a warm and tender relationship with the Lord of all joy. Some people find it difficult to love Jesus deeply, simply because he is no longer among us in physical form. It's easier to love someone you can see, hear, and hug. This is where The Chronicles of Narnia can really help us. Aslan is visible and huggable. When you enter Narnia through the books or the movie, he speaks, loves, kisses, and embraces you through the characters of the story. Aslan's tangible interaction with people like us helps us to see Jesus as a real presence in our own lives. By loving Aslan in Narnia, we learn to love Jesus a little better in our world. Taken from www.pastors.com ================================================= From: suyento Maturity Requires a Wide Variety of Spiritual Experiences by Rick Warren Many churches evaluate spiritual maturity solely on the basis of how well you can identify Bible characters, interpret Bible passages, quote Bible verses, and explain biblical theology. The ability to debate doctrine is considered by some as the ultimate proof of your spirituality. Underlying this approach is the conviction that all anyone really needs to grow spiritually is the Bible. I call churches with this emphasis - "classroom churches." Classroom churches tend to be left-brain oriented and cognitive-focused. They stress teaching Bible content and doctrine, but they give little - if any - emphasis to believers' emotional, experiential, and relational development. If you have "doctrine in your frontal lobe" - as one well-known classroom church says - that's all you need to be spiritually mature. The truth is that it takes a variety of experiences with God to produce true spiritual maturity. In addition to Bible study, it takes worship experiences, ministry experiences, fellowship experiences, and evangelism experiences. In other words, spiritual growth occurs by participating in all five purposes of the church. Mature Christians do more than study the Christian life - they experience it. Because cults and emotional extremists often place more value and trust in spiritual experiences than in God's inerrant Word, many evangelical churches have downplayed the role of experience in spiritual growth. They have over-reacted to other groups' glorification of experience by removing any emphasis on experience. Every experience is to be viewed with suspicion, especially if it moves the emotion. Sadly, this denies the fact that God created human beings with emotions, not just a mind. God has given us feelings for a purpose. If you remove all experience from the Christian growth process, you'll have nothing left but a sterile, intellectual creed that can be studied but not enjoyed nor practiced. "Genuine spiritual maturity includes having a heart that worships and praises God, building and enjoying loving relationships, using your gifts and talents in service to others, and sharing your faith with lost people." Rick Warren Deuteronomy 11:2 says, "Remember what you have learned about the Lord through your experiences with him." (TEV) Experience is a great teacher. In fact, I believe there are some lessons we can learn only by experience. I love the paraphrase of Proverbs 20:30 (TEV) - "Sometimes it takes a painful experience to make us change our ways." Genuine spiritual maturity includes having a heart that worships and praises God, building and enjoying loving relationships, using your gifts and talents in service to others, and sharing your faith with lost people. Any church strategy to bring people to maturity must include all of these experiences: worship, fellowship, Bible study, evangelism, and ministry. So many Christians are fooling themselves by thinking that all they need to do to grow is attend Bible studies and take notes. Evidently, this myth has been around since the first century. James had to warn those first Christians - "Do not deceive yourselves by just listening to his word; instead put it into practice!" (James 1:22 TEV) God expects us to be "doers of the Word." I once heard the well-known Bible teacher Gene Getz say, "Bible study by itself will not produce spirituality. In fact, it will produce carnality if it isn't applied and practiced." I have found this to be true. Study without service produces Christians with judgmental attitudes and spiritual pride. If Christianity was simply a philosophy, then our primary activity might be studying. But Christianity is not a philosophy, nor is it a religion. It is a relationship (John 14:20-21) and it is a life (John 10:10). Jesus didn't say, "I have come that you might study." In fact, the word "study" only appears a couple of times in the New Testament. The words that are used most often to describe the Christian life are love, give, and serve. Yet the schedule of most churches indicates that they believe the sole duty of a Christian is to study. Honestly, the last thing some believers need is another Bible study. They already know far more than they are putting into practice. What they need are ministry and evangelism experiences where they can apply what they already know, relational experiences (like a small group) where they can be held accountable for what they know, and meaningful worship experiences where they can express appreciation to God for what they know. The old illustration of the pond that becomes stagnant because it takes in water but doesn't give any out is appropriate here. When any Christian's schedule consists completely of receiving biblical input but has no outflow of ministry or evangelism, his spiritual growth will stagnate. Impression without expression leads to depression. I honestly believe we do our members a great disservice when we keep people so busy going to the next Bible study that they don't have time to apply what they learned at the last one they attended. Lessons are quickly filed and forgotten before they can be internalized and put into practice. All the while people are thinking they are growing because their notebooks are getting fatter. This is foolishness. I don't want you to misunderstand and think that I don't value Bible study. Actually the opposite is true. I wrote a textbook on the subject, Personal Bible Study Methods, which is printed in six languages. We must "continue in the Word" to be Christ's disciples. All I'm saying is that it is a mistake to assume that study alone will produce maturity. It won't. It is only one component of the maturity process. People need experiences - in addition to study - in order to grow. That is why you need to think through a balanced strategy for developing disciples. Taken from www.pastors.com [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Get fast access to your favorite Yahoo! Groups. 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