What do you believe?

 

What are you praying for right now? A need or a want? For you or for someone else? Do you believe that  God is listening and will respond in His own way and in His time? How sure and certain are you of this?

It was an accident ... honest!

 

You know how it was. It all happened suddenly. Almost an accident you would say. A sort of big bang and then it all happened. Perhaps some planets collided together. Or something collided with something else. I don't know ... but as a result of that collision it all happened. It all started and planets were created, and they somehow moved around each other and spinned round as well; as they circled the sun.

And that's how life on earth started. A slimy jelly like creature slithered out of a pool of mud somewhere and somehow it was alive and it evolved ... that's right ... it evolved ... it turned into something else, then something else again, and eventually it became man. It became you and me. Although it may have been a monkey before that ... I don't know. But that's how it happened. Scientists tell us so.

Or it could be a different way. Maybe Someone made it all. Some person or some being made it all happen. He'd have to be really clever and powerful to make it all happen. You know ... the planets spinning round and moving about. Life on earth. People, plants, animals and all that. 

Let us stop for a moment and take a deep breath. Let's consider the science.

Let us look at a tree nearby. What do you see? A trunk, branches and leaves ... perhaps some flowers or even fruit.

Let us look a little closer, much closer. Did you know that on every leaf there is a multitude of small magnesium atoms? So small you can't see them ... not even with your bifocals. Did you know that as photons from the sunlight hits the electrons in these magnesium atoms that's how photosynthesis starts? That's the process by which green plants and certain other organisms transform light energy into chemical energy. During photosynthesis in green plants, light energy is captured and used to convert water, carbon dioxide, and minerals into oxygen and energy-rich organic compounds. And that's how the plant grows, and bears fruit and food for us to eat.

Let's look at something else. The human brain ... yeeak!!! Did you know that the human brain has many many connectors. These are like switches or connection boxes that relay, (receive and send), information to various parts of the brain and body. Did you know that the human brain has more connectors than all the connectors in all the computers in the world? Fantastic don't you think?

Yet, despite all these brain connectors we still manage to breed idiotic morons in the world. But that's another debate for another day.

Concentrate now ... pay attention. Let us look at something else. Have you ever wondered about the reproduction system? How a man and a woman get together and somehow they create a new life? How marvellous and un-believable the whole system is. How it happens and how it works. 

Yet we take it all for granted. We have done it billions and trillions of times and we no longer think about it. Not me of course ... I haven't done it trillions of times, or else I'd be a little tired. But people in general. They don't think any more about the marvellousness of it all. 

Let us look at something else. A long treadmill with washing machines coming off a production line. Or it could be microwave ovens, or television sets, or cars. You imagine what you want coming off the production line. I'm not going to do it all for you.

Now think ... whatever is coming off the production line must have been designed by somebody. Plans written and diagrams drawn. Someone collected together all the components needed ... metals, plastics, glass. wires and so on ... Then someone else put all the components together. Welded them, stuck them, screwed them together or whatever. And hey presto ... we have a washing machine ... or whatever it is you are imagining. I'm not in your head you know!

Now isn't it odd that the washing machine did not just happen to be from a slimy jelly like thing that slithered out of a pool of mud and onto the conveyor belt?

Someone made the washing machine. We have the instruction manual to prove it. Here it is. Written in several languages. Which is a waste of time since I cannot read several languages. Only English.

Maybe ... maybe ... Someone made us all. Maybe He made the planets, the universe and all that is in it. We have the instruction manual to prove it. It's called the Bible. Mine is written in English. Maybe God is English!

Where Are You?

What you see above is a graph. A mathematician would describe it as a bell curve. The term bell curve is used to describe a graphical depiction of a normal probability distribution, whose underlying standard deviations from the median create the curved bell shape.

I am not a mathematician so I won't describe it as above because I don't understand what it means anyway.

All I would say, looking at the shape of the graph, is that there are a few on the left, rising to quite a lot at the top of the graph and then getting fewer and fewer towards the end.

Apparently, according to mathematicians and statisticians and other clever people, this is a normal distribution of anything you care to count. Whenever we count something, or some event statistically, apparently the curve in the graph is roughly the same - bell shaped. A few at either side and the majority in the middle.

This led me to think ... because my brain works this way. I bet if we were to go out in the streets and ask everyone in the whole world a question the graph would look a bit like this:

We will find a certain number of people who believe in God; even though their belief may range from ardent to lukewarm. And also there will be a number of people who do not believe in God at all, in fact they are so sure of it that they make it their mission in life to convince everyone to believe the same. And the rest, most of them, will be people in the middle who quite frankly don't care.

The ones in the middle, the rest, may call themselves believers, but in name only. They think they believe in something or Someone but cannot quite describe or explain what they believe. They're too busy living life to bother about such minutiae as God. They think He exists but they perceive Him in totally different ways - an energy, nature, or whatever.

Then my train of thoughts led me to ask: Where do you think the devil is hardest at work? Who is he trying to convince that they are wrong?

And then I thought about us Christians. Where exactly are we on this graph. Individually. Each one of us. And what are we doing to teach those known as "the rest" about the existence of a living Creator God? A loving Father. 

Individually. Each one of us. Or as a church.

You know ... the time will come when each one of us, individually, will meet God face to face.

Some of us will have spent our lives praying and truly believing, "Thy Will Be Done".

To the others, God will say, "OK ... Thy Will Be Done. Now go to hell."

(With apologies to C S Lewis for misquoting him).

What do we learn from the Lazarus episode?

The story of the death of Lazarus and his bringing back to life by Jesus is strange indeed. It is not like any other story of Christ's miracles. There are at least two important lessons for us to learn here.

Let's recap quickly (John Chapter 11).

Jesus was in a town not far from Bethany when He receives a message from Martha and Mary that their brother Lazarus is ill. Jesus does not hurry to heal Lazarus but He stays put. He tells His disciples that this illness will not result in Lazarus' death. The disciples, as ever, do not understand. They think that Lazarus has fallen asleep because of his illness. Jesus spells it out "Lazarus is dead!" and then decides to go to him.

When He arrives at Bethany, followed by His disciples, Jesus is met by Martha.

She is full of grief at her brother's death. She sent a message to Jesus two days earlier and now He comes. When it's too late. She says to Jesus "If you had been here, Lord, my brother would not have died!"

She reprimands Jesus. In her grief, she does not know what to say.

Then she adds, "But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask him for". She still believes that God can do anything through Jesus.

LESSON 1

When we are in great grief, or despair, we sometimes lash out at God. We blame Him for what has happened. This is only natural. It is our human nature speaking.

God knows that and He can take our anger. After all, He took all our anger and hatred when He hung there from the Cross.

Like in Martha's case, God forgives. We should in return hold on to our Faith and believe that everything is possible to God.

Mary joins her sister to meet Jesus and she too says "If you had been here Lazarus would not have died". The crowd murmur that Jesus healed many sick people why did He not come earlier to save Lazarus.

Jesus asks for the tomb to be opened. Martha tells Him that there will be a bad smell. Lazarus has been buried for four days. In a hot climate the body would have began to smell badly.

The tomb is opened and Jesus raises Lazarus.

LESSON 2

Why did Jesus take so long to visit Lazarus? Why wait four days after his death and burial to turn up?

In the past, Jesus raised many people from the dead. So why did He wait so long this time?

In previous miracles, many sceptics and cynics would have said that the individual was probably not dead. He may have been in a deep sleep, or in a coma. Not much of a miracle.

This time Jesus waited for four days after death and burial to turn up and raise Lazarus. He wanted there to be no doubt that Lazarus is dead and that he has been raised back to life. No doubt that God's glory, through Him, will be seen by everyone.

He predicted from the very start, when He heard that Lazarus was ill, that he would not end up dead. The disciples did not understand, but Jesus explained that Lazarus was indeed dead; but will not end up dead.

His words "The final result of this illness will not be the death of Lazarus; this has happened in order to bring glory to God, and it will be the means by which the son of God will receive glory."

Our lesson is to learn that when things go wrong ... very ... very wrong; we need only believe that the end result will be that God is glorified, as is His will.