Category Archives: Autobiographical

Autobiographical, General Principles, good news

Different View Points

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The role of the Holy Spirit

Grasping God’s Word Assignment 12-1

John 3:16

“For 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.”

John 3:16 (NIV)

A learned intellectual interprets John 3:16

A man with 2 Ph.Ds specialising in NT studies who has not believed and encountered God in the Spirit would have a cognitive understanding of the passage.  He might discuss it in this way:

“The passage says that “God” loved the world so much that he gave his “son” for it.  According to this passage by John the mechanism for living for eternity is to believe in “the son”, i.e. the man Jesus.  I would say that it is true that anyone who has the Christian faith can be deluded into thinking they will live forever and that that is not a bad thing.  For most people, having the hope that they will live forever should keep them happy through difficult times.  It is noticeable that the Christian gospel has a great effect in poor countries where the consolations of this life are far less and the hope for an eternal life of happiness most required.

Jesus was a man, an extraordinary man, but simply believing in him could not make someone live forever and, obviously, doesn’t since all people die.  Though I can see how people who do believe in him must be consoled in difficulty, I cannot see how doing so could possibly make people live forever.

Anyway the idea that God, if he exists in the form described in the NT, would have a son is foolishness and the whole idea expressed in this passage is also foolishness if interpreted in a literal sense.  But the message in this passage is one of the best means there is for pacifying and comforting people in trouble with no other hope, as so many are in this world,.”

A mature believer interprets John 3:16

This is how a mature believer (like me) might interpret it:

“When I met God on the back of a bus travelling from Mullingar to Galway on May 7th 1980, one of the first things He did was convict me of the truth of all the Scriptures including this one.  I believe that God is and that He is good.  I believe He has a Son, Jesus Christ my Lord and Saviour, whom He sent to earth, who came of His own volition and who died a horrible death so that my sins might be taken out of the way and so I can have eternal life.

The life to come is not an extension of the time frame of this present body I am in but a new life in a new eternal body which is maintained by the Spirit of God Himself.

I continue to believe and act accordingly since I have the Spirit of God in me leading me into all truth.

I continually remember Jesus’ death and resurrection and continue to believe and receive eternal life, the deposit of which starts in this life with the Holy Spirit within me.  I don’t just have a cognitive understanding of this passage but a fully engaged, continuing life experience with the author of it.”

A 9 year old child interprets John 3:16 having just given her life to Jesus

“Daddy, Jesus died for me!”

Autobiographical, Creation

Dream – Lessons in Creativity from the Creator

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Knock, knock, knock!  I had heard that sharp sound before in middle of the night, and it had woken me up before, on at least two occasions.  The last two times I initially thought it was someone knocking on the door downstairs but then realised it had just been a dream, turned over and went back to sleep.  But a bit like the young Samuel in the bible, this third time I realised that this was actually God trying to get my attention.

“Here I am!  I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him and he with me.” (Rev. 3:20).

So I went to open the door and there Jesus was, all white and shining and making the inside of my head house look positively disgraceful.  I stood awkwardly at the door, saying that the place wasn’t tidy and, actually, it was quite dirty in places and I didn’t think it was ready for him to come in.

1078-reclaimed-wood-dining-table-1

But he countered by saying that he was friends with sinners and quite used to that kind of condition and could he come in anyway?

He came in and sat down on the other side of the rough wooden table that seemed to be the main piece of furniture in my head room.  It was no great shakes, in fact all the artefacts that I had in the room looked rough and unfinished.

I had “stumbled upon” a site on creativity before I went to bed.  In it Scott Berkun makes the profound observation that “an idea is a combination of other ideas”.

Jesus sat at the table and I talked to him about that.  He said to make him a meal, it seemed that he had a cake in mind in particular.  I went to my cupboards and started looking for ingredients.  I was quite happy because I seemed to have some really good ingredients in the cupboards.

And then the dream stopped or I woke up or something.

By “God-incidence” my daughter was making a cake the next morning.

Now a cake is not an intuitive thing.  Mixing a combination of raw eggs, sugar, flour and butter together in a bowl (in the right order) and then putting it into an oven for a certain time at the right temperature is not something that is easy to think up.  It is hard to imagine that those ingredients put together would make something that, in combination, is so different from its constituent parts.

But of course that is what God does all the time.  He is the only original thinker.  He came up with the basic building blocks and put them together in different combinations so that we would get the idea.  A soft metal (sodium) combined in the right way with a poisonous gas (chloride) give us a flavour enhancer and preserver (common table salt).  Two gases combined together in the right way give us water.  And so it goes on.  God has about 90 ingredients that he combines in the most creative ways imaginable.  His favourite ingredient is carbon and his favourite combination is water.   Its another study altogether to look into why that might be so.

So now I’m going to bring out my ingredients and ask God for a recipe that pleases him.

Autobiographical

Notes from a Cardiac Unit

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So I went to the doctor with a pulled muscle, got an ECG and ended up in the cardiac unit of Naas Hospital.  I have atrial fibrillation which, although a bit unusual at my age, is not particularly life threatening.  Thinking back I’ve probably had it for months.  They will thin my blood over the next six weeks to remove any clots and then restart my heart.  Just like computers, restarting seems to solve a lot of problems.  It should go back to a normal rhythm then, if not well they will have to try some more drugs.

During the middle of last night I got up to go to the loo and began to feel very weak.  Of course this has happened before but now I knew it was my heart it changed my perception of what was happening.  I really thought that perhaps I could die and was not particularly happy about that.  My youngest is nine and I think she would find it hard, as indeed so would the others.  There was also a level of fear and no sense of the Lord’s presence.  So it was a challenge to pull my mind around to the idea that I had to face that portal some day anyway and if today was the day…  I’m not sure I passed that test very well.  The next time though I should be better prepared.  I learnt how much I depend on feelings.  It is a clear and lovely thing to depend on the truth alone and to press on through the feelings.

The cardiac unit is a place where death is ever possible probably more intensely so than in many other parts of the hospital.  Death can be sudden though none of the people here have yet suffered a heart attack in the time I have been here.  A. from Newbridge suffered a heart attack at the weekend.  It was a life changing experience for him and he wants to change his life henceforth, stop wasting time.  It was great to be able to give him the Purpose Driven Life to read.  He knows others in Open Arms and will come along on a Sunday he says.  Perhaps he is the main reason I am here.  He is only 46.

Ellen has dementia, she is in a room on her own off the main ward.  She makes everyone wonder what they would be like if their brain was affected that way.  Her most common phrase is:  “I want a cup of tea. Are you deaf?” To which the very patient nurses reply either “How are you Ellen?” or “I gave you a cup of tea already but you did not drink it.”  She normally replies with unprintable expletives.  She can also scream at the top of her voice if they come near her to change her or bathe her.  This is a bit disconcerting.  There is probably nothing more challenging than brain disease since it can change your personality so much and it is not clear why.  It strikes at the heart of our identity as people.  Whenever I indulge in thoughts I shouldn’t (and that happens) I remind myself that these could embed and show up at some later stage of dementia or Alzheimer’s should I get that.  Somehow the idea that everything will be shouted from the housetops in heaven is not as much of a deterrent as the possibility of me doing that myself to all and sundry in my old age.

The other two inmates are older.  I don’t think I want to end up in here in my old age.  Old age…. remember your Creator while you are young….before the days come when you say I have no pleasure in them.

As I said to a bunch of medical students on the first day I was here:  “We are all going to die, it’s just a question of timing.”  Unless the Lord comes for us before then of course.

Autobiographical, church, Family, General Principles

The difference between tolerance and support

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Our children go to a Church of Ireland based school.  Most of the schools in Ireland are run on religious lines and the ethos of the school very much depends on the religion that is sponsoring it.  Unfortunately there are very few if any evangelical run schools in Ireland and none near us.  So schools run by Protestant denominations are probably the closest in ethos to what we would believe.  Of course that doesn’t stop them being taught about other religions even to the point of making clay buddhas in school.  In general I have no issue with this, its not as if they are asking my children to worship the buddha or anything. 

Well, usually not. 

Being the 14th means he will probably die like his predecessors

The 14th Dalai Lama is coming to Ireland next week and visiting our home county of Kildare.  Apparently he has a particular interest in Brigid a Roman Catholic saint of doubtful pedigree.  In preparation our children have learnt a particularly suspect song directed to Brigid – who if she was a real human is now dead and so – according to the ethos of the school – should not be sung to.  But you know we’ll put up with that.  Our children have been educated enough to know these things (not by the school though unfortunately) and we don’t want to make a fuss about relatively minor matters.  There are more serious issues in children’s lives than that kind of thing.

No one is really sure if she was a real person or just a christianised pagan deity

And sure, haven’t we been taught to be tolerant?  Isn’t that the message of the Dalai Lama?  What could be wrong with that?

Jesus said:  “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.  No one comes to the Father except through Me.” John 14:6.

My 10 year old daughter quoted that to me recently when I asked her what she thought about the Dalai Lama.  You see she has a living relationship with Jesus and she has it, she knows, because He suffered a very cruel death so she could. 

If the Dalai Lama is right, the answer of God the Father to Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane to his question: “If this cup can be taken away from Me..” should have been: “It can”.  Because if the Dalai Lama is right there is another way to the Father, in fact more than one.  That makes the Father’s insistence on making His Son go to the cross for our sins the act of either a mad God or a bad one.

So when one of my children is asked to sing to Brigid and to the Dalai Lama I’m going to back him up in his own desire not to be made to go and write a letter to the principal of the school explaining why not.  

Tolerance of other religions is fine but I will not support them. 

The Christian gospel still has some absolutes.

Autobiographical, Open Arms, Worship & Song

Format the same, experience different

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I believe it is a sign that the church is being led by the Holy Spirit that I can be in worship one Sunday and be in a march across the county and the next Sunday in a love-in holding hands with angels (ok my imagination, indulge me) and knowing intimacy with the Holy Spirit as a dove (Psalm 68:13).  Yet nothing in the format of the meeting changed – same band, similar songs, mostly same congregation.  God having His way with His people.

I believe God showed me the way He sees things in a measure.  Whereas we hear the sounds and see the sights, He sees the relationships between the people.  No matter how professional the production, if  there is back biting and gossip, discord and anger God sees that.  What is pleasing to Him is the love being shared throughout the congregation.

Autobiographical, Open Arms, Prophetic?, Worship & Song

Visions during Worship

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Corporate worship where God is moving in the Spirit is amazing.  I am sure all sorts of things are happening while we worship that we are probably only dimly aware of.  For sure there is more going on than most of us realise.

This morning during worship I had a series of visions – or perhaps imaginings, maybe still valid for all that.   Hopefully the imaginings or visions are of the kind spoken of in Acts 2:17.  So here they are, judge for yourselves:

During the first part of the worship I found myself in the Spirit accompanying the Lord’s army going around Kildare from pagan high place to well taking them for the Lord.  There were not too many and the battles were not fierce though real enough for all that.  We raised some from the dead during that phase.

Afterwards I was shown another vision, this time of the religious strongholds throughout the county.  These were far more numerous and far more effective in keeping people bound in darkness.  They were like a grid upon the county, like a lattice keeping people in their graves. 

Then we got ready for battle and passed through the county breaking down the religious strongholds and releasing people out of their graves, raising them from the dead.  These battles were fierce and difficult.  Sometimes we had to fell the towers, putting a sledgehammer to the bases of them.

In the final phase there was a victory ride through the county following Our Lord on horse back, He of course on a white one.

Autobiographical, Book Reviews, His Story

Books and the Bible: The Shack

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I’ve spent the last many years not reading books except the Bible and those connected to work with few exceptions (The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbons being one notable one).  However this year instead of my normal reading of the bible in a year (like for the last 30 years) I’m listening to it for most of the 2 hours every working day I spend travelling to and from work in my car.  The version I listen to is the excellent Word of Promise dramatised NKJV version which I would highly recommend.  The MP3 version is compact and great value.  I reckon I’ll have listened to the New Testament three times and the Old Testament twice at least before the end of the year. 

Another reason I haven’t been reading books is that I’ve found since children entered the equation I’ve wanted to prioritise my time.  Reading can be a rather solitary and selfish pastime if indulged in as much as I like to.  But with the time in the car freeing up reading time I have time to read some other books.

I believe God put The Shack my way for this time.  It’s been in the house for some months.  I started to read it over last weekend and found it hard to put it down and finished it on Monday evening.  I reckon I’ll read it again at least once which for me is the strongest recommendation I could give any book since I never do that except for the Bible of course :-). 

It is hard to explain why a book with so many so obvious heresies – some might say blasphemies – (God the Father being portrayed as a black African American woman being one of the more obvious ones) should be so witnessed to by the Holy Spirit when I’m reading it.  I guess He isn’t quite as defensive as we might be.  Maybe He feels He doesn’t have to be defensive.  I also believe God the Father can appear in any form He wants to to anyone, as obviously the authors of The Shack do too.

The section that stands out most for me and, on the surface at least, blessed me the most is the part where Mack is interviewed by Sophia, the personification of wisdom.  I won’t spoil it for those who haven’t read it.

The Shack in combination with other events in my life at this time has left me with a deeper sense of God’s grace than I can remember experiencing before.  I feel more loved than ever.  It was definitely the right book at the right time.  I confess that had it come at an earlier time in my walk I may have been tempted to condemn it.  By earlier I mean last year…..

My apologies to anyone who has felt judged by me in the past.  Perhaps the biggest legacy The Shack has left with me is a realisation of just how much I’ve done that, how much it was a part of my approach to life and how wrong it is.

30 years since I was born again.. so what?, read the bible every year..pooey, listen to it for up to 2 hours a day… phoney.  All useless unless infused by love and grace.

Never mind, we’ll get there, won’t we Jesus?  Yes, He believes in me.