What it means to have faith

Luke 7:40-50 GOD’S WORD Translation (GW)

40 Jesus spoke up, “Simon, I have something to say to you.”

Simon replied, “Teacher, you’re free to speak.”

41 So Jesus said, “Two men owed a moneylender some money. One owed him five hundred silver coins, and the other owed him fifty. 42 When they couldn’t pay it back, he was kind enough to cancel their debts. Now, who do you think will love him the most?”

43 Simon answered, “I suppose the one who had the largest debt canceled.”

Jesus said to him, “You’re right!” 44 Then, turning to the woman, he said to Simon, “You see this woman, don’t you? I came into your house. You didn’t wash my feet. But she has washed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. 45 You didn’t give me a kiss. But ever since I came in, she has not stopped kissing my feet. 46 You didn’t put any olive oil on my head. But she has poured perfume on my feet. 47 That’s why I’m telling you that her many sins have been forgiven. Her great love proves that. But whoever receives little forgiveness loves very little.”

48 Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins have been forgiven.” 49 The other guests thought, “Who is this man who even forgives sins?”

50 Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace!”

Faith is a verdict – an outcome or conclusion. It is what is evident afterwards, not while in process. It is like the receipt of a transaction or the result of an election or an exam – there for all to see, and inviolable. It cannot be changed. It is what it is, happily. Jesus declared that the woman in the above passage of Scripture had faith, but if you asked her, she would have said that she felt grateful and indebted to Jesus for forgiving her her sins. She would have declared her gratitude and perhaps, love for Jesus, but Jesus Himself calls this, faith - the outcome of what had already taken place in the woman's heart.  

So, what is the backstory to faith? How is it arrived at? What must I do to ensure that I have faith? Faith comes by knowing Jesus as the One who loves and accepts me totally, without reservation, and who cares for me with fierce jealousy as only God could. As I know, accept and live in the reality of this truth and take it for granted (i.e. as a given) in my every thought and action (big and small), God calls this faith.

The Father of Lights!

As I was about to fall asleep last night this piece of Scripture flashed through my mind

James 1:16-17
16Do not err, my beloved brethren. 17Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
You may want to read this passage of Scripture in other translations.

When a person is making a statement and he starts out by saying 'Make no mistake about it...', you know that he or she is quite serious about what they are about to say. They want you to believe them and to hold their words as true.

This is exactly what James, Christ's Apostle, does here as he starts out to tell his audience a fundamental truth about God's nature and work among men. You see, every good gift and every perfect gift is from God. Think about these points:

1. God is good - no good exists without Him and His very essence exudes goodness. If He were your Friend, He would be your Best Friend, because each time He visits, or you visit Him, you come away feeling the best you've ever felt in your life. He is good!
2. God is a giver - You always come away from His house with a good gift; and if you stayed with Him long enough, you find out that in fact, it is the perfect gift that you could ever need. Notice, He gives gifts. You don't have to earn them or deserve them. He gives them to you anyway because that's who He is - a great Giver!
3. God's gifts come from above, and they come down. In today's world, human beings are preoccupied with the things around them. We compare ourselves with ourselves. Even worse, we are consumed with what's within us - as if we had all the answers. People are constantly encouraged not to care for what anyone's opinion of them is (good advice) as long as they feel good about what they are doing within themselves (bad advice). No, friends, the answers are not around us, neither are they within us. The answers that we so desperately need and long for are above us. They come down from God, who is only too willing to shower His gifts on us if we just ask Him!
4. God is the Father of lights! Enlightenment, vision, progress, truth originate in Him. He is the FATHER of lights! Any claim of being a purveyor of truth therefore, which does not reference, acknowledge or glorify God, is in fact, darkness. And the way we recognize God's 'lights' is that it does not vary, change or get modified with time or fashion. God says I AM WHO I AM and thus forever defines Himself. No matter when, where or how you meet Him, He is I AM - ever existent, self-sustaining, holy, righteous, loving and just God. Any other 'lights' that do not conform to this are fake and deceitful and evil.

Today, I invite you to meet my God who loves you and gives you good gifts every day. He is the Best Friend that you perhaps have not yet met. He is waiting.

Surviving The Big Squeez

I have been absent from the bogsphere for 8 months! I apologize for my absence, which has somewhat to do with the title of my post today. In the time that I have been away, Barak Obama has made history, becoming the first Black president of the US, Penelope Cruz and Sean Penn have won Oscars and ........ what else? Oh the world has entered the worst financial recession since the end of the 2nd world war! As if anyone could miss that. Which brings me to my blog for today. There is a big financial squeeze going on in the world today. The world's most well-known banking and auto institutions have gone bankrupt and investors have lost billions of dollars. Things are tight. But how do you respond to difficult times? How do you survive when cornered by life?

My story today draws lessons from how King David escaped uscathed from a tight situation. And although the details of the story are different from walking a financial tightrope, the principles are applicable none the less.

Like David, when in a tight place, we can survive by doing the following three things:

1. Forget past achievements. 

In fact, the memory of past achievements and the sense of entitlement, depression or bravado that it may bring can be downright dangerous. In the above reference it was precisely because Achish's men mentioned David's past heroics that his life was in danger. Resting on our laurels will only let us down in times like these.

2. Act crazy

As the cliche goes, desperate times call for desperate measures. In a desperate measure in our story, David begins to act crazy.  The emphasis is on the word act. We must do things we would not ordinarily do when times are hard; like eating out, or giving away money. My point is that we need to act counterintuitively, think on our feet and be innovative. Do something unexpected. This throws the opposition and gives you a window of opportunity to move up to the next level.

3. See value in the opposition. 

Here, I use the word opposition in a broad sense to denote whatever situation or odds that you are up against. Once again, referring to our text, we see the opposition reminding David as it were, that he had something special in him. "Isn't this David, the king of the land?" they asked. And although their words were designed to put David in jeopardy, they also formed the basis of the way of escape that David found. David realised in that split second that he was, after all, a king. He had the anointing of God Almighty on him. There was no situation too difficult for him to survive, and there was nothing he could not do. I am speculating now, but I think that this realisation produced in David the inspiration to do the unusual (act crazy). The text tells us as much. "David took these words to heart ...... so he pretended to be insane....." 

What is your tight place in which you find yourself today? What are the words you keep hearing over and over again in your mind that brings you discouragement and desperation? Turn the tables against the odds. You are of very high value as an individual and you are capable of far more than you give yourself credit for. Find inspiration in your squeeze. Out of the deepest mines come the purest diamonds. You will survive this one also.

Be blessed today.

The duel

There are days like today that show up now and again. Days that hit you in the face like a determined sparring partner. Days when money is low and morale is even lower. I know those days and have faced off with a few in my time. So I've learned to deal with them well. These days come, not to kill you but to make you stronger. I deliberately use the metaphor of a sparring partner to describe a day like this.

It enters into the ring with you, intent on showing up your weaknesses because it already knows your strengths. You maneuver a little to the left, your senses razor sharp, expecting the stinger because you know that it will come. Your face is the script of past encounters with this unrelenting fighter. You were pretty once...... Wham! Your dropped jaw and aching ear tell you that once again, you've been hit in this perpetual duel. Except that you are still on your feet. In days gone by, you were on your back already by now, moaning and muttering, hovering between green meadows and red earth, wondering what happened.

'I'm getting better at this', I say to myself. I smile, and dance around a bit more. 'Is that the best you've got?', I taunt this Day, and beckon with my boxing gloves, Muhammad Ali-style. The growl on this friend's face tells me that I've found his weakness too. This challenge is more in the heart than in the heave of a fist. The more I learn to dance in my opponent's face, the longer I last in this fight. So I do another jig. One-two, one-one-two. I skip about like a happy gazelle.

I don't know how long this will last, but now I am happy again. I'll stay on my feet and land a few punches of my own, following the directions of my Coach, who seems to be playing a familiar tune for me to dance to. I laugh. This is no boxing match. It is a victory dance. I am refreshed now. I know the song that's playing. It's called: Bigger than all my worries. God is bigger than any mountain I can or cannot see.

What is truth?

A very powerful regent once asked the question, What is truth? The regent of Judea was asking Jesus this question, to which he did not await a reply. Or was he afraid of what the answer might be? Lest he be exposed for having built his whole career on mere opinions and not on solid truth.

All around us, there is no shortage of opinions, all competing for our mind, our money and our morals. But at the crucial times in our lives, we would rather have the truth than 10,000 opinions. Consider these scenarios: You feel a sharp pain in the chest. Is it indigestion, or a heart attack? A child fails to arrive from school on time. Is she with friends, or is she lost? A particular stock has begun to dip. Is it in free fall or just suffering a temporary blip?

We make hundreds of decisions everyday based on what we believe the 'truth' to be, in our particular circumstances. On the face of it, not every decision that we make is as important as the next one, yet from life experience we know that relatively insignificant decisions have on occasion turned out to be spectacularly significant. History is full of these so-called happenstances. Friends, every decision we make is potentially life-changing. It is therefore crucial that every decision we make be based on truth.

What is truth? Some will say that truth depends on what you are talking about, whom you are talking to and what the aim is that you want to achieve. Very quickly though, we come to realize that shifting, chopping and changing truth cannot be truth at all. In each of the scenarios that I gave above, truth cannot afford to be equivocal. The diagnosis is either indigestion or else a heart attack; the child is ether lost or safe and the stocks are either safe to buy or not. As human beings we need certainty. Truth offers that certainty, which has been eroded by the relativistic world that we now live in, where there is no black and white; everything is in shades of gray.

Truth offers certainty, and related to it, in fact because of it, truth requires that we choose sides and decide whether we will act or fail to act on what we perceive to be truth. Jesus said "Everyone on the side of truth listens to me". Are you listening? Be blessed today.

Father of Lights! [2]

I got an insight into a verse of scripture during worship last Sunday. It is in James chapter 1 verses 16-17. The Amplified version of the passage says

16. Do not be misled, my beloved brethren.

17. Every good gift and every perfect (free, large, full) gift is from above; it comes down from the Father of all [that gives] light, in [the shining of] Whom there can be no variation [rising or setting] or shadow cast by His turning [as in an eclipse].

Let us note the following from these verses.

a) The Holy Spirit through James speaks to us as those whom he cares deeply about - beloved brethren. He warns us not to be deceived, to miss the mark, to go wrong in our thinking, as will happen if we think differently from what he is about to say.

b) All good things come from God. Peace, joy, a good wife/husband and family, wealth and much more. If it is good and beneficial to you, it came from God.

c) God is the Father (or Source) of all light - physical and spiritual. Thus, insight, knowledge, revelation and truth originate in God. James then tells us the things that DON'T originate in God.

d) Variation, doubt, inconsistencies, unreliability - these cannot be found in him. Everything else will cast a shadow. God will not, because He is Light itself. We must therefore view all things that happen to us, all news on the radio and TV, all our concerns for the future in the Light of Him. They are but shadows. He is Light. Amen!

This encourages me a lot, my friends because we are in times of economic, financial and political uncertainty in South Africa, where I live, and the world today. The verse encourages me because I know that if I keep holding on to God and trusting in him, not being swayed by the fear and near panic in the SA atmosphere, God will keep the good things that he has given me constant, and he will keep adding more, because He cannot do otherwise. He is the Father of lights!

Another verse says "His compassions.....are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness. The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him." Lamentations 3:22-24 (Never thought such good news would be found in a book called Lamentations!

So friend, what is your soul saying today? Let it say "God is good and with him, I and my household are blessed". Keep well.

Xenophobia!

The last few weeks have seen a spate of ugly, malicious and unwarranted attacks by South Africans living in "informal settlements" against black African non-South Africans, within the same settlements. The dismay that these attacks raise from sane people worldwide arises from their sheer viciousness and barbarism, more so because communities of different nationalities have co-existed for decades without rancor. Apparently, something evil was unleashed in South Africa this month and the government of South Africa, the UN and other humanitarian organizations are still scrambling to contain the aftermath, which have now seem to have dissipated.

But while these uprisings may have waned, the feelings that flamed them have not. Local impoverished people blame foreigners living in their midst, erroneously in my view, for their lack of access to quality jobs, health care and affordable housing, among their other grievances. If disempowered South Africans need someone to blame for their gloomy plight, I suggest today, that they look elsewhere. In fact, we must all look within us to identify the cause of our dissatisfaction in life.

The cause, I suggest is a lack of submission to, or more starkly, a rebellion against God in our lives. I take you back thousands of years ago, to the Tower of Babel. If people in the the world don't understand each others' languages today, it all started when human beings decided to "build [themselves] a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that [they] may make a name for [themselves] and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth." So what was wrong with their intention, you might ask. Everything.

Human beings wanted a "name for themselves". They wanted fame, recognition, power and relevance - apart from God. They wanted autonomy. Human beings were not made to be independent of God. Independence from God leads to ruin. For in [God] we live and move and have our being.

Secondly, they wanted to guard against being "scattered" all over the earth. It is my opinion, that they were aware of the existence of God, and of his commandment at creation for human beings to "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it." This was rebellion against God. As with all legitimate authority, God was obliged to end this rebellion, and he did so by introducing a multiplicity of languages. Human beings instantly stopped understanding each other and their rebellion could not stand. That was probably the beginning of xenophobia because human beings were indeed scattered across the earth as they migrated (in fear?) away from those that they could not understand.

So if we have xenophobia today or any other conflict in our personal lives or in our world, the root cause is the fact that we don't want God to tell us how to lead our lives and what to do. Yet, we can't survive apart from him. Ask God to be involved in all that you do today, and you will be blessed.