Week of Chaos -makes me think

Another week of chaos has just flown by, a week that leaves us reeling from the thoughts of natural disasters and manmade horror. A tornado in Oklahoma and a gruesome murder in Woolwich. Some of the other things that took place in the news leave me gasping at how to express my thoughts. 

The man-made things I guess bother me more and more as we lose the moorings of a ‘once Christian culture’ and religion becomes the way of thinking for those that have such. I keep coming back to Biblical verses Religious as terms and I see religion letting us down left, right and centre. I have a fair bit more reading to do before I speak my heart and understanding but for now will re-emphasise that I believe the Bible is the revelation from God. Sadly there are those that deny such while in just the breath before claim that they uphold a similar view of scripture to mine. 

But then you have a man in Woolwich, where more and more a lone wolf idea is being shoved aside as more and more arrests are made, that used religion as a reason to murder a man in broad daylight on a busy street. It is garbage like this that remind me that religion is not the answer to our problems in life. Whilst the proclamation is a religion of peace there is no peace.

The bizarre part is that in Christianity we are faced with dilemmas of conscience that can leave us struggling to define what it means to ‘live soberly, righteously and godly in this present age’ (Titus 2:12) while scripture is clear. My take is that biblical living should change our lives, we truly should live lives of peace and love, while at the same time saying sin is sin. Yet always mindful of the thought that while we are no longer to participate in the behaviour that is wrong, we are to be a redeemed people that don’t forget what we are redeemed from. Pauls says it this way: ‘and such were some of you.’

So this dilemma of how to respond to things like the killing of Lee Rigby strikes deep into my Texas heart as my reaction is one that screams out for vengeance and revenge on his behalf. Yet my Christian side reminds me that I am to act in love and kindness toward those that are in need of something more than religion. My humanity at times like this make me want to lash out and my Christian side then says ‘no, speak of the love of Christ’. Sadly it would take way more space than this forum provides to sort this out, but at least you get the gist of my dilemma and I suspect many of yours as well.

So I shall leave us with James (2:25+27) definition of true religion: ‘But whoever looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed... Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the world. ‘ The actions of too many religious people doesn't match that by a long shot.

Growing in Grace,

Rev. Jon Bergen

Relationships Still More

So still building on the basic theme of relationships from the past couple of weeks. One thing that can define relationship is being a friend and I am reminded of the words of Jesus, where He said: “Greater love has no man then this that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13) But love is often hard to define and sort out in our lives. We often talk about falling in love, falling out of love. Yet the great commandment according to Jesus is twofold: Love God with all you are and Love your neighbour as yourself. (paraphrase according to Jon)

So that gets me to thinking perhaps love in a relationship is not an accident, it is not something we fall in or out of at a whim. Rather I think it is a choice, it is something we decide to do. We make friends based on our likes and dislikes and from there our relationship grows or falls apart based on the in common things. Sadly where I started a couple of weeks back is that of ‘Vines that Choke the Life Out’ of relationships and how easy it is for little things to grow into bigger things and suddenly best friends are fighting with each other.

Well I think perhaps marriage should be the foundational basis of society and yet we have lost our way with what it is about or how it should function in our world. But sadly for too many marriage is now a thing of the past and there is much confusion about it.

The way it is presented these days is that it is something two people do if they love each other. But this was not the origin of the way it worked or how it should work. Yes, love is a factor, or should be at some point since the command in Ephesians is; “Husbands love your wives, even as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for it...” So we see again a command to love, a choice that has to or should be made. But if love is the basis and people don’t choose to love then small wonder marriage is in such trouble. The reality is we are to be doing marriage to picture what Christ did when He died as a sacrifice for us. If we did marriage as a 100% commitment, a 100% sacrifice, it changes everything. Relationship then matters in a way much different than our normal starting point.

The thing is, marriage is hard, relationship is hard, but there are answers out there. But as I am learning it takes time to learn the lessons and sometimes, well too many times, we wait till it is too late to get help or to find a way forward. That is where I don’t have all the answers but I know the Guy who does and with a wee bit of ‘want to’ on our part, He can help us build relationship right.

Things are looking up,

Rev. Jon Bergen