Relevant Reason

Posted By Heather McLain on February 20, 2009

If you’ve been on this planet very long, I’m sure you’ve had at least one person tell you, “I’m not religious, but I believe in God.”  I suppose the reasoning is that they may not follow Jesus (or any organized religion, for that matter), but believing in God at least makes you a little better than the atheists or agnostics.

Does it, though?  Where does simply believing in God really get you where eternity is concerned?  Is belief in God’s existence without obedience to his commands any better than not believing at all?

There is someone who not only believes but KNOWS that God exists.  He’s had personal experiences with God, knows exactly who Jesus is and what he’s done for humanity.  But I certainly wouldn’t consider him a Christian, and he is certainly not a follower of Jesus.

He’s satan.

Do you remember the story in Mark 5 about the man possessed by demons?

¹They went across the lake to the region of the Gerasenes.^{[a] 2}When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an evil^[b] spirit came from the tombs to meet him. ³This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him any more, not even with a chain. ⁴For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him. ⁵Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones.

⁶When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of him. ⁷He shouted at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Swear to God that you won’t torture me!” ⁸For Jesus had said to him, “Come out of this man, you evil spirit!”

⁹Then Jesus asked him, “What is your name?”

“My name is Legion,” he replied, “for we are many.” ¹⁰And he begged Jesus again and again not to send them out of the area.

¹¹A large herd of pigs was feeding on the nearby hillside. ¹²The demons begged Jesus, “Send us among the pigs; allow us to go into them.” ¹³He gave them permission, and the evil spirits came out and went into the pigs. The herd, about two thousand in number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned. (Mark 5:1-13, NIV)

The devil and his angels certainly believe in God. The demons knew exactly who Jesus was, even calling him “Jesus, Son of the Most High God.” Belief is necessary, but on its own it’s not enough to make you any better than the demons. Jesus calls us not only to believe in Him, but to follow Him and to accept him as our Lord and Savior. Demons may believe in God, but they have clearly chosen another master.

Acceptance of Christ is to accept his Lordship over our lives, and to become willing servants. We have been bought and paid for, but we are not like ordinary slaves who are forced to work for our master. He gives us a choice. But if we believe without serving, confessing belief in God’s existence doesn’t hold much more meaning than confessing belief in our own existence.

Category: Christian Spirituality, Discipleship | 1 Comment »
Tags: Belief, Demons, Discipleship, God, Jesus, Satan, Servant

Posted By Heather McLain on February 7, 2009

This is a real letter my mother received from her cable company this week. I don’t know if I really needed to blank out names since it was sent to all their subscribers but I decided to play it safe.

Category: Humor | 1 Comment »
Tags: Acts of God

Posted By Heather McLain on February 6, 2009

I realized today, as I was planning my work for the next couple of weeks, that I tend to make goals based on results rather than action. I think I’ve always been that way; get into this school, get that published, get so-and-so to like me, get x amount of traffic to my blog. Certainly I’ve accomplished some of the things I’ve set out to do, but I’m beginning to realize that isn’t the best way for me to approach things, either in my spiritual or my professional life.

When Jesus gave the Great Commission, “He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.” (Mark 16:15, NIV) He didn’t tell them to go into the world and get 50 converts by Tuesday, he told them to go in the world and PREACH. Do what we are able to do; what happens after is not up to us.

The problem with results-driven goals lies in free will. You can really only control your own actions, not how others respond to them. You can’t even guarantee that a person will respond at all. Knowing and analyzing results is a good way to guide your actions in the future, but the results can’t truly be the goal. Too often what ultimately happens is in another person’s hands. In the same way, I can’t control whether someone will accept what I tell them about Christ, and I can’t control whether an editor thinks my article is worth printing. What I can control is whether I tell them about Christ in the first place, or whether I submit my work to enough publications to have a shot at being published.

God knew that the gospel would not be accepted by everyone. If results are our goal, perhaps we’re setting ourselves up to fail where success was never meant to be. And sometimes results will come when we aren’t around to observe them.

The saying goes, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.” There’s not much difference between horses and people in the analogy; if your goal is to get a particular reaction, you’ll be disappointed more often than not. All you can do is keep taking the dang horse down to the creek, and he’ll drink when he’s ready. Go into the world and DO, and then let go.

Category: Christian Spirituality, Evangelism, Witnessing | 1 Comment »
Tags: Evangelism, Goal-setting, Goals, Great Commission, Motivation, Witnessing

Posted By Heather McLain on February 6, 2009

Just a quick note to let you know that I am aware that Google Ads has been posting some ads that my readers might find offensive (I know I do). I am actively blocking these ads; I won’t say what they’re for solely because I don’t want to bait them with more related keywords. Let’s just say I wrote a post opposing something, therefore I’m getting ads in favor of it.

If you see anything that is inconsistent with the message of this site, please leave a comment below or shoot me an e-mail with the URL listed in the ad so I can block it. I would like to be able to keep the ad units up because without a little bit of revenue I couldn’t justify spending this much time blogging, but I certainly don’t want anything popping up that is offensive to my readers (and most likely to me as well). Thanks.

Category: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
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Posted By Heather McLain on February 6, 2009

I had my first encounter with Snarky Jesus last night, and I’m a little delighted by it. I was in small group reading a passage from the book of John:

45 Philip went to look for Nathanael and told him, “We have found the very person Moses[o] and the prophets wrote about! His name is Jesus, the son of Joseph from Nazareth.”

46 “Nazareth!” exclaimed Nathanael. “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”

“Come and see for yourself,” Philip replied.

47 As they approached, Jesus said, “Now here is a genuine son of Israel—a man of complete integrity.”

48 “How do you know about me?” Nathanael asked.

Jesus replied, “I could see you under the fig tree before Philip found you.”

49 Then Nathanael exclaimed, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God—the King of Israel!”

50 Jesus asked him, “Do you believe this just because I told you I had seen you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than this.” 51 Then he said, “I tell you the truth, you will all see heaven open and the angels of God going up and down on the Son of Man, the one who is the stairway between heaven and earth.[p]” (John 1:45-51, NLT)

I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around this. Jesus gives this man he’s just seen for the first time a huge compliment that also implies personal knowledge of his character, so naturally Nathanael asks how Jesus knows him and Jesus responds, “Well I just saw you under the fig tree over there.” Sort of an odd response to begin with, but then when Nathanael declares him to be the Son of God, Jesus basically says, “And you came to this conclusion based on my awesome peripheral vision? I can do WAY better than that.”

Of course Nathanael wasn’t really referring to that, he was acknowledging that there must be something divine going on for Jesus to make such a confident declaration of his character based on a first impression. I was curious what the commentaries had to say on this particular passage, and found that they were pretty much silent. They addressed verse 51, seeing “heaven open and the angel of God going up and down on the Son of Man,” but basically ignored Jesus’ statements to Nathanael. They probably weren’t quite sure what to make of it either.

My opinion? Perhaps this is a small picture of Jesus’ humanity. I actually have a harder time believing Jesus’ every waking word was divine and profound than I do believing that he made at least one slightly snarky comment at some point in his 33 years. After all, God created humor, so it would follow that at least has a sense of humor himself. It wasn’t mean or malicious sarcasm, I sort of imagine him looking at Nathanael and saying with a glint in his eye and a corner of his mouth turned up, “Kay, if you’re impressed by something that trivial, the stuff you’ll see if you hang around with me for long is REALLY gonna knock your sandals off.” I sort of took pause when reading it and said “Huh…that’s actually sort of funny.”

Who knows, maybe I’m completely misinterpreting and am in for some loud “Heresy!” finger-pointing in my comments section. I’d like to see what the Greek says, but to be honest I barely passed one semester of it. Anyone else have thoughts to offer on this passage?

Category: Bible, Exegesis, Humor | 5 Comments »
Tags: Book of John, Christian Humor, Jesus, Nathanael

Posted By Heather McLain on February 4, 2009

Open Doors released its 2008 World Watch List today, with North Korea at the top of its list of the 10 worst countries for Christian persecution for the seventh year in a row.

Of the countries in the top 10, seven are predominantly Muslim, two have communist governments, and one is dictatorial. The full article at Mission Network News outlines the scope of human rights violations against Christians that routinely occur in these countries.

Read the Article: “The worst place On Earth to be a Christian”

Please pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ in North Korea today, as well as for ministries like Open Doors which provide support for Christians living in countries where access to Bibles and Pastoral leadership training are limited.

Category: Persecuted Church | No Comments »
Tags: North Korea, Open Doors, Persecuted Church, Persecution