Why does sin keep me from being friends with God?

Your eyes are too pure to look on evil, you cannot tolerate wrong 

Habakkuk 1.13

 

God wants to be friends with each of us, but he is so special that he won’t come near anything that’s bad. So our sins make us God’s enemy. The wrong things we do break God’s laws, and they hurt the people God cares about. Since God only does what is right and loving and perfect, he can’t be friends with people who don’t want to be like him. And God, who does no wrong, can’t allow sinful people to come near him. But God does want us to be friends with him. So he planned a way that he could fix the problem we have with sin. That’s why he sent Jesus to Earth to die for our sins. 

 

 

Imagine you were playing outside and your shoes were covered with mud. What might your parents say if you wanted to walk into the house wearing your muddy shoes? 

It might be like this “I can’t let you come into the house with dirty shoes. But I don’t want you to have to stay outside forever. I want you in the house with me. So you have to take off those dirty shoes!”

That is how it is with God. ‘Our sins keep us away from God, but he forgives us. That gets rid of our sins, just like taking off dirty shoes gets rid of the mud. When our sins are gone, we can be near God. We can talk to him whenever we want to because he is right with us.’

What if I don’t feel bad when I do something wrong?

The Law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul. The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy making wise the simple.

By them is your servant warned, in keeping them there is great reward. 

Psalm 19.7 & 11

 

Some cars come with alarm systems. They are supposed to keep people from trying to steal the car or smash it up. But it’s possible to unhook an alarm so it doesn’t go off. That’s what it’s like if you pretend you don’t feel bad when you’ve done something wrong. God created you to have an alarm, to feel bad for doing wrong. He did that to warn you away from sin.

But sometimes you start to feel good when you do bad. You might punch your sister, for example, and smile about it. Or you might take a friend’s biscuit and feel good that you got it for free. Feelings should warn you away from sin, but feelings can also fool you. So God gave you his commands in the Bible. When you learn what the Bible says, you can always be sure about right and wrong. 

 

 

 

How has God’s word helped you learn right from wrong? How has it been a better guide than your feelings have been?

 

 

You could also read 2 Corinthians 7.10 or 1 Peter 3.16

Miracles day 4

 Okay, so if God still does miracles (and He does), how do we get in on that? Is that what prayer is for? Do we pray in order to get God to show us some of His fancy stuff? From the sound of it, that’s how lots of people approach this thing called prayer.

But that kind of praying puts you in a tough spot. If you get what you want, then prayer works. But if you don’t get what you want, then what? Did you get the sequence wrong? You put the change in the slot, pressed the button and nothing came out. Did God just eat your pound?!

Sometimes people quit praying because God didn’t do a miracle for them. Most of us are too religious (or maybe superstitious) to stop praying altogether. We may not be completely convinced that it works every time, but what if it works this time? Maybe it’s every other request or some other intricate pattern. How it works or why it works — who knows? But it’s better to have it close by just in case, like a rabbit’s foot or a four-leaf clover.

One other thing that’s really confusing. Have you ever noticed that God sometimes answers a small prayer and ignores a larger one? Maybe you had a friend who went without a job for a long time. You prayed and prayed and prayed and nothing happened. But your Aunt Edna often asks God to help her find her keys and it always works! Ask God to heal your sick mother and she might get worse. Ask Him to cure AIDS or end world hunger, and nothing happens. But ask Him to help you get a parking spot near the front of the store, lo and behold!

What are we to make of all this? Is there some hidden secret? Is there a requisite level of faith required? Is it about saying the right words in the right way with the right feeling?

You’ve seen those guys on TV in their expensive suits and bad hair, shouting and crying and wiping the sweat from their faces and pounding on big black Bibles. They’re on nearly every night, standing in front of crowds numbering in the thousands, building them into a fever pitch, yelling about faith and what faith does and how if they have enough faith they’ll be wealthy and healthy.

What do you do with the idea that people in wheelchairs are there because they lack the faith to stand up and walk? Jesus said, “You just need faith the size of a mustard seed” (Mt 17:20). That’s not much faith at all, you’d think they could muster up at least a mustard seed’s worth!

One time a guy came to Jesus and said, “If you can do anything, will you help my son?”

Jesus said, “What do you mean, if? Don’t you believe?”

The guy said, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief” (Mk 9:14-29).

That’s where most of us live, on both sides of the semicolon. We do believe; but we don’t believe all that much.

But is that really the key to getting God to do a miracle for us? Do we have to muster up some kind of confidence or bravado before God will give us what we want? That can’t be right, can it?

Here’s a more important question. What if none of this is the point of prayer to begin with? What if prayer isn’t about getting in on God’s miraculous activity? Or what if that’s just one tiny part of prayer? How tragic would it be to spend your entire life thinking that one tiny part of prayer was all there was to it?

Miracles are never meant to be ends in and of themselves. Miracles are meant to point beyond themselves to the Miracle Worker. What makes a real difference in our lives is not how much miraculous activity we experience. What makes a real difference is how well we know the One to whom these miracles point.

That makes all the difference in the world.

 

Prayer

 

God of grace and glory, in Christ You have welcomed me into the profound intimacy of the “You in me and I in You” relationship. I want to want You more than anything else, and I realise that I can never really know You apart from spending time in Your presence and welcoming You into each of the facets of my life. May I come to see the reading of Your Word and prayer as profound vehicles for real communication with You. May I never resort to using prayer in an attempt to get You to do what I want. Instead, I desire to see prayer as a means to intimacy with You and of learning how to align myself with Your will for my life. May I learn to listen to Your voice and to be responsive to the subtle prompting of Your Holy Spirit so that I will live in the fullness of Your presence.

In Jesus’s name, Amen

Why do we need rules?

Your word is a lamp for my feet and a light for my path. I’ve promised it once and I’ll promise again I will obey your wonderful laws. 

Psalm 119.105-106

 

Roller-coaster lovers are smart enough to climb inside the roller-coaster cars, not step in front of them. Baseball fans know that bats are for pounding balls, not people. Football players aim for the other team’s goal, not their own. Get it? Even when we do the things we love to do, there are all sorts of rules to help us make the most of our fun. 

God’s commands work the same way. God never makes rules to give us trouble. Jesus, in fact, told us his real goal, “My purpose,” he said, “is to give life in all its fullness.”(John 10.10) God loves you so much that he gives you his clear commands to show you the very best way to enjoy life. 

 

 

Think about some rules you have a tough time following. Write down these rules, and with others (parents, friends or brother/sisters), brainstorm three good reasons why that rule exists. How can obeying those rules help you find the “life in all its fullness” that God plans for you?

Miracles day3

 In your opinion, what is the greatest miracle in the Bible?

Is it Creation? God speaking everything into existence? One second there was nothing; the next second there was everything. Pretty great, but that doesn’t get my vote.

What about the Incarnation? The Creator of the universe coming to earth as a tiny, helpless baby? Again, it’s astonishing, but it doesn’t get my vote.

The Resurrection? It’s certainly the pivotal event of human history. The Resurrection of Jesus is the single event that makes sense of all the other events of His life and ours. If there’s no Resurrection, it’s every man for himself. Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die — and after that there’s nothing. The Resurrection certainly is an amazing miracle. And yet. 

None of the miracles above get my vote because we wouldn’t know about any of them without the Bible. Maybe the greatest miracle of all time isn’t in the Bible, maybe the greatest miracle of all time is the Bible.

Approximately 40 different authors, writing in three different languages over the span of about 1,400 years worked with God to create, in 66 books, one Story.

There was a group of people who lived during Jesus’ lifetime called the Sadducees. They didn’t believe in any kind of resurrection. As far as the Sadducees were concerned, when you died, you were dead and that was that. They didn’t believe in angels or spirits or anything that sounded supernatural.

If you took off a Sadducee’s robe, put him in a tailored suit, gave him a laptop in exchange for his scrolls, took him out of the Temple and put him into an office building, you’d have a pretty typical white-collar Englishman — a good, solid, tax-paying, church-attending guy.

But Jesus had a question for Sadducees, both old and new: “Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God?” (Mk 12:24). In other words, the reason people don’t believe in supernatural activity is because they are ignorant of the Bible. Lots of people claim to believe in God, but the god they believe in is not the God found in the pages of the Bible. They never expect God to do anything in their lives.

Jesus goes on to say that the God of the Bible is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Mk 12:26). If we want to know what He’s like, we should look at how He dealt with those three patriarchs.

Abraham worshiped idols until God intervened, calling him to leave everything behind and go to a new land. When God says He’s the God of Abraham, He means that He intervenes in our lives to call us to follow Him.

As a young man, Isaac’s father bound him to an altar on Mount Moriah. He was about to be sacrificed when God intervened to save him by providing a substitute. Isaac was released and an animal was offered in his place. When God says He’s the God of Isaac, He means that He intervenes in our lives to save us from death.

Jacob lived a twisted life filled with lies and deceit. He ran from his family and he ran from God. But God never gave up on him. One night, the angel of the Lord appeared to Jacob and wrestled with him. The struggle changed Jacob forever, moving him from a posture of resistance to a posture of dependence. When God says He’s the God of Jacob, He means that He is the God who is willing to fight for His people.

The God of the Bible — the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob — is the God who calls and saves and fights for us. He is the God who intervenes to change things. Once you know this God of the Bible, miracles aren’t so hard to believe.

That’s why we’ve spent so much time and energy writing this book. We believe that once you come to value God’s Story and embed yourself in it, you’ll be able to see God’s hand at work all around you.

 

Prayer 

 

God, where would I be if You did not reveal Yourself in Your Word? My knowledge of You would be limited to inferences I draw from the natural world, and I could never have known that You love me and have gone to unfathomable lengths to draw me to Yourself. Your revelation of Your works and ways in Scripture is the foundational authority for truth in my life, and it bristles with implications for how I should order my steps from day to day. Grant that I will seek more diligently to expose myself to its teachings and counsel, and that I would meditate on and memorise truths from the Bible. As I read and reflect on the Scriptures, I gain a wisdom and perspective I could never attain otherwise, and my soul is nourished with great thoughts about who You are and what You have done.

In Jesus’s name, Amen

 

What’s the Holy Spirit? Is he a ghost?

I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper to be with you forever, the Spirit of truth. 

John 14.16-17

 

It might seem hard to understand what the Holy Spirit is like, but here’s the big fact to remember, the Holy Spirit is God, along with God the Father and God the Son. Even though some Bibles call the Holy Spirit the ‘Holy Ghost,’ he isn’t a ghost like you see in a cartoon or spooky movie. He’s real and he’s alive. He just doesn’t have a body, so we can’t see him. We say the Spirit of God is holy because he is perfect and pure, just like the Father and the Son. 

 

 

God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit has always been around. At creation, “the Spirit of God was hovering over” the formless Earth.(Gen 1.2) The Holy Spirit is present throughout the Old Testament. He is at the baptism of Jesus.(Lk 3.22) Jesus said the Spirit would come to be with his disciples after he returned to the Father,(Jn 14.15-17) a promise that was fulfilled at Pentecost.(Ac2.1-4)

Miracles day 2

 “Do you believe in miracles?” Al Michaels provided the world with this famous sound bite when he called the 1980 U.S. Olympic Men’s hockey team’s improbable victory over the Soviet Union. As the final 10 seconds ticked away, he asked this rhetorical question and answered it at the buzzer: “Yes!”

Do you believe in miracles?

Yes!

But was it really a miracle in 1980? Was it a miracle when the 2004 Boston Red Sox finally broke the Curse of the Bambino and won their first World Series in 86 years? What about that Christmas when it was so cold outside and you prayed for a parking space near the front of the supermarket and one opened up just as you turned the corner? Was that a miracle? Or the time that guy at work found out he had cancer, and then everyone was praying, and when he went back the doctors said the cancer was totally gone, was that a miracle?

Sometimes people say that a miracle is when God intervenes in the world. But this assumes that God isn’t active in the world on a regular basis. Others say we can make our own miracles by looking within ourselves and calling upon the hidden resources of our own mysterious humanity.

For the sake of accuracy, one might say that a miracle occurs when God — who is always at work in our world — deviates from His usual pattern and does something extraordinary. The more extraordinary it is, the more confidently we can say, “That’s a miracle!”

The 1980 U.S. Olympic Men’s hockey team outplayed their Soviet opponents. The 2004 Red Sox made some good trades, stayed healthy and played well down the stretch. People eventually leave the store, relinquishing choice parking spots.

Cancer, that’s closer to what we’re talking about when we discuss miracles.

Healing the sick, walking on water, raising the dead, feeding thousands with five loaves of bread and two fish, these are miracles for sure.

If you believe in miracles.

That’s the question we’ve got to start with: Do you believe in miracles? Not coincidences. Not random events. Real. Bona-fide. Miracles.

Do you believe in miracles?

If you do, seeing miracles happen is just a matter of refining your definition, knowing what to look for and understanding the purposes of God’s miraculous activity. But if you don’t, no amount of experience or evidence will be enough to suffice. There were witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus who lied about it and never put their faith in Him (Mt 28:11-15).

Those of us who do believe in miracles are wise to remember that God’s purpose is not merely to help people. God has a purpose far deeper than that. He means for us to look beyond the miracle — to the Miracle Worker Himself.

 

Prayer 

 

Lord God, I live in a time when skepticism, naturalism and secularisation have gripped my culture as never before. More than any other ideology, Christianity has become the target of media, entertainment and our educational system. But rather than wring my hands over these things, I gladly acknowledge that this comes as no surprise to You, and that the real issue is one of the heart and the will. You have provided enough evidence to satisfy the minds of those who make You the source of their trust, but You have also allowed enough ambiguity so that unbelievers can rationalise their disbelief. You have given us the dignity of choice, and those who choose to humble themselves under Your mighty hand recognise that You can and have intervened in miraculous ways in human history. I thank You that You have displayed Your greatness and beauty most clearly in the person of Your Son.

In Jesus’s name, Amen