The Foreignness of Forgiveness

I often get asked what the hardest thing is about being a Christian. It's a pretty common question and there are no shortage of “typical” answers. Over the years I have been asked this question numerous times and have asked it of others twice as many. I have heard answers relating to doubt and predestination and science and self control and sexuality. I have read selections from the libraries of books on the topics of suffering and love and historicity. I have heard countless sermons on the nature of God and grace. A lot of the time these things are raised by people as the things they wrestle with as Christians. I have a confession, these things are not the top of my list of struggles as a Christian, they are certainly not the hardest part of Christianity for me.

For me the single most challenging thing about walking with Jesus is forgiveness. This is a massive concept that challenges me on multiple fronts. First of all I constantly wrestle with the idea that after everything I have done that I could even be forgiven. I am fully aware of my sin and my unworthiness of such forgiveness. The second area I struggle with is possibly even more challenging, and that is the call to forgive others. I’m not great at this, just ask my friends. I’m prone to being petty and vindictive, I’ve been known to hold grudges and nurse my resentment or frustration until it becomes a torrent of wrath and anger. Obviously this isn’t a particularly good thing.

Let me break this down and address these two things separately because while they have some crossover they have distinct nuances which make the whole topic of forgiveness confusing to discuss as a whole. The ordering is deliberate, it is damn near impossible for a Christian to cultivate a forgiving nature without first comprehending their own forgiveness. The more judged someone feels the more they tend to judge, we all fall into that trap from time to time. We so often respond to judgment with judgement, human nature, it’s funny that way.

Problem the First: Personal Forgiveness.

I am not a good person. I know this, you know this. Don’t get me wrong I don’t think I’m a terrible person, but I’m not great. I don’t need to list all the various and creative ways I have been a jerk or done the wrong thing over the years, we all already know that human beings have a tendency towards immoral or unwise actions. We know what we should do and yet somehow we always seem to prefer to not do what we’re told. 

Now, I fervently hope that after 21 years I would know myself better than anyone reading this post. For me it is this inside knowledge that makes it so difficult to wrap my head around the idea that God would forgive me at all, let alone by dying for me. I’m prone to being my own harshest critic, I look at my life and my history and know what goes on inside my head and I wonder “how could God who is perfect and righteous ever be able to forgive this…?”.

Turns out the idea of grace is also something I struggle with.

What a question to ask though!! I can confidently stand up in a room full of people and declare to them that their sins can be forgiven, just like that, and yet I struggle to comprehend my own forgiveness.

In the end there’s one verse I always come back to and that’s Romans 8:38-39 “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor principalities, nor things impending and threatening nor things to come, nor powers, Nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord”. It reminds me that in spite of all that I am and all that I have done there is absolutely nothing that can separate a Christian from our God, and if nothing can separate us from Him then we can be assured that nothing can separate us from the forgiveness He gave at such great cost either. I know this, I cling to it dearly, and yet my mind is fickle. The words of the song, Come Thou Fount, “Prone to wander, Lord I feel it” often come to mind, these words ring so true for so many of us and so even as my heart stands confident my mind plagues me with doubts. Just as Satan asks Eve in the Garden of Eden “Did God really say…” so too my mind asks my heart “Did God who is good and righteous and perfect really say he would forgive even that?”.

As Christians we are assured that through His death on the cross Jesus Christ paid the penalty for our sins, that when God looks on us on that last day He will see us as holy and blameless, forgiven through Christ. It defies human reason for Him to do so. Lucky for us God isn’t human. Given the price paid to open the doors of Heaven and make forgiveness possible, who are we to presume to tell God that we aren’t forgivable

Honestly though, we all get to that point at some stage don’t we? We all hit a point where we are confronted by our sin and we go to pray and seek forgiveness and our internal monologue starts scoffing at us, laughing at our knowledge that after acting so thoroughly against God we would get any benefit from prayer.

This is a serious problem!! When we are confronted with our sin and the need for forgiveness is when we most need to draw near to our forgiver. When we allow ourselves to believe that God has or could give up on us we open the doors for the deceiver to slip in and chip away at our faith. Left unchecked this attitude destroys faith. Just ask anyone in ministry, they see it happen all the time. I have been caught in this snare several times and it’s not until someone confronts me and blatantly tells me to tell Satan to get out of my head that I even realise how far I’ve allowed myself to drift. This isn’t to say that Satan has the power to take away our faith, he can use our sinfulness to draw us to despair but he cannot in and of himself destroy his faith. The first step in a Christian’s descent to spiritual despair is allowing him to deceive us into thinking that our sinfulness is somehow unforgivable or more deserving of divine punishment than it actually is.

The other challenge I find in accepting that I have been forgiven is simple. Arrogance. I screw up and decide I’m not good worthy of God. As though I somehow have the power, right or authority to tell God who is and isn’t worthy of His forgiveness. Jesus died on the cross for me and here I am telling God “I made a boo boo, Jesus blood can’t cover this, thanks for sending him, you tried, points for effort, better luck making me forgiven next time you send a saviour”. I mean seriously firstly it’s petulant and secondly I am patently not God. This is a good thing! How arrogant and prideful mankind is to presume that our forgiveness or relationship with God is hinged on how we think we’re going. The ENTIRE Old Testament is one long example of God’s persistence and a wonderful illustration that on our own we have absolutely no chance of being “good enough” for God. Somehow in spite of this we still seem to end up thinking that how we feel about ourselves or what we’ve done matters more to God than what He has done.

Problem the Second: Other People

The Bible and therefore God is pretty big on the whole forgiveness thing. Not just forgiveness for us but forgiveness of others by us. Examples of this include Matthew 6:14, Ephesians 4:31-32 and Colossians 13:3 which all speak of the need for Christians to forgive both each other and those outside the faith. Many of the statements on forgiveness are pretty blanket in their application.

Again and again Scripture commands us to forgive, The Lord’s Prayer specifically speaks about not just our forgiveness and need for forgiveness by God but our need to be forgiving of each other. In fact it draws some pretty tight links between the two. We tend to overlook this in our eagerness to hold grudges and find fault but it’s SO important.

For Christians, a driving factor in our forgiveness of wrongs against us is the knowledge and understanding that we have done just as bad if not worse things, that we deserve a worse fate than we are busily wishing on those we feel wronged by and yet are spared and forgiven by God. The more we understand this the easier it is to develop a forgiving nature. The more insecure about our forgiveness the harder it is for us to be forgiving. The more judged we feel the more judging we are.

Forgiveness is hard. Our pride, anger sense of moral superiority and ego all get in the way, as does our tendency to overreact to situations. So many factors make forgiving people hard and yet that’s what God calls us to do. Jesus goes so far as to say in the famous Sermon on the Mount “You have heard it said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, Do not resist the evil man [who injures you]; but if anyone strikes you on the right jaw or cheek, turn to him the other on too. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your undershirt (tunic), let him have your coat also. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two [miles]” (Matthew 5:38-41)

This clearly goes beyond mere grudging acceptance of an apology. Jesus commands us to be gracious and generous to those who wrong us, not to merely forgive but to show them love. This is so important that Jesus commands elsewhere in the New Testament that if someone comes before God to make an offering and has resentment or anger towards a brother they should leave their offering and go seek reconciliation then make their offering. Jesus seems to be saying that being forgiving is more important than the offering.

Rather than responding to ill will or wrong actions against us with resistance and violence jesus commands us to peacefully submit to those who would do us wrong. Why? Because in doing so we show people the reality of the God whose servants would act in such a way. The clearest example of this is Christ himself praying for God’s forgiveness of his crucifiers as they jeer, mock, abuse and kill him on the Cross.

What does this all mean?

It means that as much as we might want to hold a grudge against someone, we are called to surrender our pride, anger and hurt to God. As much as we might want to hold a grudge against ourselves we are called to hand our self pity and arrogance over to God. We are called to forgive those who have wronged us even if they do not ask for it. We are called to accept our own forgiveness even when we feel undeserving.

It’s a hard thing to so. It’s a hard thing for me to do.

It’s the hardest part about being a Christian for me, my biggest struggle.

But...Far out it’s important

Love as you have been loved.

Forgive as you have been forgiven.

“Never return evil for evil or insult for insult (scolding, tongue-lashing, berating), but on the contrary blessing [praying for their welfare, happiness and protection, and truly pitying and loving them]. For know that to this you have been called, that you may yourselves inherit a blessing [from God- that you may obtain a blessing as heirs, bringing welfare and happiness and protection].”
1 Peter 3:9

The Pews are Alive with the Sound of...Indifference?

When talking about worship, it's easy to fall into the trap of seeing singing in church on a Sunday night as “worship”. This is a problematic attitude because when we reduce worship to merely the 15 minutes of singing we do on a Sunday night we give ourselves permission to treat the rest of our week like it isn't time to be spent in worship of God. I could write at length about this point, but frankly it's been pretty thoroughly covered by, well, pretty much everyone else with a Christian blog, and there's another issue with our Sunday singing I want to tackle.

We, in our Sydney churches (singled out because I do not have much experience outside of Sydney), do not in my experience grasp the extent of the power and weightiness of our singing. We tend to sing because, as Christians, that's just what we do. Or because the band is playing music and everyone else is doing it and we feel like that's what is expected of us. We sing because to not sing is to be marked as different in a congregation full of people who are singing. While the enthusiasm seems to vary, the majority of people are singing so we feel obliged to join in.

Now don't get me wrong. I love singing. I can't sing well, but make up for it with volume and enthusiasm. More importantly, I would love to see the significance of praise through music and song recognised, as well as utilised for all it offers in our services. This is not a post in any way opposed to singing in church.

That said, I do think we have two very serious problems when it comes to our congregational singing. The first is that we don't seem to give enough consideration to Whom we are singing, and the second is that we rarely put any thought at all into what exactly we are saying to the Whom we are singing to.

We make some pretty hefty declarations when we sing in church, we make massive promises and some pretty serious requests. I often wonder, particularly at conferences and evangelistic events, how many of those belting out their favourite worship song actually stop to think about what they are saying. Or, more importantly, if they believe what it means. In other words, would we pray the same words we are singing with a sincere and contrite heart? I just wonder how much quieter our Sunday singing might be if the full weight of the words being sung were consciously acknowledged outside the melodies that accompany them.

Really simple example. The song “Ancient of Days”. I love this song, it's easy to get enthusiastic and there's even the opportunity to clap at points which is pretty fun. One day on beach mission I was chatting with a fellow leader who expressed his distaste for the song. I was understandably a little put out that anyone could dislike such a great song and asked him why he opposed it so much. “What is the Ancient of Days?” was his response. This was awkward because I had no idea... I loved this song and sang it regularly, and it turned out this guy actually liked the song too, the problem he had and the problem I am attempting to raise are the same. I didn't know that the term “Ancient of Days” is in fact used to describe God. I was singing “Blessing and honour, glory and power be unto...” without ever stopping to wonder exactly who or what I was ascribing blessing, honour, glory and power to.

Which brings me back to my two concerns.

1. We don't give enough consideration to Whom we are singing.

Do we understand to Whom we are directing our voices when we sing? Do we stop to think that we are singing to God? He breathed the stars into existence. He appeared to Moses through a burning bush. He sent plagues upon Egypt when Pharaoh wouldn't let His people go. He parted the Red Sea. He broke the walls of Jericho. He raised up King David and, after he sinned, He humbled him. He humbled Himself and took on the form of a man, Jesus. He performed miracles, healed the sick, restored the sight of the blind and raised the dead. He died on a cross so that we could be in restored relationship with Him. He defeated death forever. He appeared to and blinded the Apostle Paul on the road to Damascus and turned him from murderer to martyr. He causes the sun to rise and rain to fall. THIS is to whom we are singing brothers and sisters.

Our God is living and active. We believe this — why else would we pray? He hears our prayers and petitions. He answers. When we consider this in the context of our singing this should terrify us! When we sing empty words, halfhearted praises and meaningless promises He hears us.

Our songs to Him are a form of prayer. They are words we speak to God, they may not start with “Our Father in Heaven” and we may not end with “Amen” but they nevertheless constitute communication with the God who formed our lips and our hearts. When we sing songs of praise, we aren't just singing songs about how good things are, we are praising Him—for who He is and what He has done. We are praising God, the King of the universe. How hypocritical, therefore, for us to sing such songs insincerely. How appalling it should be to stand up and loudly sing “How great thou art” or “Our God is an Awesome God” in skepticism or indifference. How empty our words when we sing of “Amazing Grace” in unbelief. How dare we! We would be better to remain silent.

We don't think about what we are saying.

When we consider to Whom we are singing, the actual words we sing suddenly become a whole lot more important. When we ask God to “Take it all” we are literally asking God to take everything we are and everything we have and to use it for His glory. If you want to know what that looks like, read the book of Job—that's what you are asking God to do. When we sing that “There is no other name” we are declaring the belief that there is no other way to be saved except through Jesus Christ. When we sing “Lead me to the Cross” we are asking God to humble us before the foot of the cross, to bring us to our knees in humble recognition of the cost of our salvation, we are asking Him once again to take us and use us however He pleases. We are declaring our confidence in His will, in His plan. We are asking the God of the universe to humble and challenge and use us to declare His gospel. When we sing we are declaring ourselves God's, we are promising Him that we will bow to Him alone, acknowledging that His will is of utmost importance to us, and we are willing to cop whatever comes at us in doing so.

This is huge! It flows far beyond our 15 or so minutes of singing on Sunday. God doesn't only act on our words during Church. I wonder how often we sing those words expecting God to act. I wonder how many of us would be comfortable singing those words if we were confident that He would do as we asked.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German evangelist, pastor and martyr at the beginning of the 20th Century. He dedicated an entire book to the Psalms—the song book of The Bible. He was convinced that the Psalms had value beyond merely helping us understand that the Israelites sang to God and that they could sing to God about the realities of their situation whatever it was at the time of writing. Bonhoeffer saw the Psalms as having value beyond even showing us examples of repentance and trusting in God and relying on God when things go bad. Bonhoeffer believed that there was immense value in Christians taking these songs and praying them. Not merely reflecting on them but taking the songbook of the Bible and making it the prayerbook as well.

The challenge for us as Christians is this: Would you pray the words you sing in church on a Sunday? If not, why are you singing at all? Are our pews alive with the sound of sincere praise, petition and humility before God or are they alive with the dead sounds of our echoing hypocrisy, insincerity and closed hearts?

Counting the cost of Ministry

“He said, Look, I’m not asking you to spend an hour with me

A quick salvation sandwich and a cup of sanctity,

The cost is you, not half of you, but every single bit,

Now tell me, will you follow me? I said Amen — I quit.”

-When I Became a Christian, Adrian Plass

That quote is taken from what is quite possibly my favourite pieces of poetry... ever. It is a fictional dialogue between the author and God as seen from the perspective of the author. It resonates greatly with me for its unique way of expressing the emotions and the confusion that I felt at my own conversion to Christianity. I personally find the quote above to be the most poignant part of the whole thing.

The challenge God lays down to Adrian and to us is this: Following God is more than a mere pit-stop at salvation then skipping off into the heavenly sunset.

This resonates not just with me but also with so many other Christians for whom life as a Christian has been no easy walk in the park. It reminds us that there is much more to being a Christian than just believing in Jesus died for our sins, fundamental though that is. I think that it also highlights a problem so many Christians face: we love the prize of Christianity but are vastly less keen on the cost. We love the hope of Heaven and the eternal joy there where Revelation 21:4 tells us there will be “no more weeping or mourning or crying or pain”. We love the family that we get to have in Christ, we love the unity and the singing and the confidence that God is in control. But when we are confronted with the cost of the journey, when we discover the road to heaven isn't a quick ride through this fallen world in the first class carriage of the heavenly bullet train, well it's easy to find ourselves disappointed and hurt isn't it? Unfortunately the Christian life has much more in common with the long and difficult trek to Mordor of JRR Tolkien's Lord of The Rings trilogy, complete with the ups and downs along the way than we would like... albeit the destination of our journey is much nicer.

Walking with God is a lot like marriage, which would be really profound of me to write about if it wasn't so unoriginal that the Bible itself uses the simile, calling Jesus the "Bridegroom" and the church the "Bride". I hear couples at weddings vow to endure together “for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, cherish and obey until death” and can't help but be reminded that God calls us to make that exact vow to Him. This is not the vow of someone expecting a nice easy life, and like the protagonist of the poem we so often find ourselves quitting or at the very least capitulating to the siren call of a road we perceive to be easier.

Salvation may be freely offered but it was very costly to God, Father, Son and Spirit. And in that costliness He has set us the example we are expected to follow. We aren't called to be faithful examples of idyllic Christian living but rather to demonstrate what it looks like to joyfully count the cost of following Christ. More so even, much like Job in the Old Testament as he praises God (“The Lord gives and The Lord has taken away. The name of the Lord be praised” Job 1:21), we too are called to praise God even as we take up our heavy wooden cross each day.

Herein lies the problem. Being in ministry doesn't make us any less human than anyone else. We in ministry tend to be about as happy and content counting the cost as anyone else. Sacrifices are hard to make irrespective of what you do, especially when we really want something we know we can't or shouldn't have. It's not all gloom, what we have now and what we will have in the future are incalculably more valuable and wonderful than we can imagine. It's just often hard to put that value into perspective when the things we want but can't have are right in front of us, tempting us.

Ministry isn't a job. It's not a hobby. It's a calling. One that has a habit of getting in the way of what we want. We can't just do things our way. Why? Firstly because as part of a team we cannot be exclusively autonomous, the needs of the team must come before our own desires. God commands us to consider the needs of others a higher priority than what we want in Philippians 2:3 where we are commanded “Do nothing out of rivalry or conceit, but in humility consider others more important than yourselves”. To strike out alone is to abandon the family that God has raised up as our ministry team. It is to selfishly put ourselves before those we serve and those we serve with. It is to go against God as creator and ruler of everything, it is to take His authority in our lives and give it to ourselves. This is sin in a nutshell isn’t it? Telling God to take the back seat so we can do what we want even though we know what His will is.

Secondly, we cannot act our own way because God calls for integrity in leaders above and beyond all others. We are to be more aware of our own sinfulness, more self controlled and more accountable. Indeed, James instructs in Chapter 3 of his letter, “not many [of you] should become teachers (self-constituted censors and reprovers of others), my brethren, for you know that we [teachers] will be judged by a higher standard and with greater severity [than other people; thus we assume the greater accountability and the more condemnation].” Not big on pulling punches, is he?

Why does it even matter what those in ministry do? It matters because as leaders of God's people we are called to care for God’s people. . When leaders fail, we are guilty of creating a barrier between someone and God, and our task is to help engage them with God, not disconnect them further.. To create such a barrier  is to push people away from God, to do the very opposite of what we’re called to do, the consequence of which is a heavy burden indeed. With that in mind it is no wonder we have such high standards to abide by.

This means that whilst all Christians are  is still called to make sacrifices and to take up their cross and follow Jesus, those who serve  in ministry whether as children's workers, SRE volunteers or paid church staff can and should expect to be held to a higher and stricter standard. They are called to give up more to meet that standard, not because they are better, holier or more worthy but because as shepherds of God’s beloved people, He calls those who lead them to account for their life and doctrine. . Ultimately,they will also reap the reward in Heaven for obeying God’s call and leading and serving well. Unfortunately, that high standard doesn't come with an easier life. Christ himself was called to the highest standard (to be utterly sinless) yet he still faced trial, temptation, pain, suffering and ultimately the cross, and it is Christ that we follow. It is Christ that we serve.

Those marriage vows I mentioned earlier? They don't say “for as long as it's convenient” or “for as long as things are going in my favour”. They say “for richer or poorer, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health until death”.

I think that this is perfectly captures in the final part of the Adrian Plass poem.

“Are you man enough to see the need, and man enough to go,

Man enough to care for those whom no one wants to know,

Man enough to say the thing that people hate to hear,

To battle through Gethsemane in loneliness and fear.

And listen! Are you man enough to stand it at the end,

The moment of betrayal by the kisses of a friend,

Are you man enough to hold your tongue, and man enough to cry?

When nails break your body-are you man enough to die?

Man enough to take the pain, and wear it like a crown,

Man enough to love the world and turn it upside down,

Are you man enough to follow me, I ask you once again?

I said, Oh Lord, I’m frightened, but I also said Amen.

Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen; Amen, Amen, Amen,

I said, Oh Lord, I’m frightened, but I also said, Amen.”

This is what we as Christian leaders are called to. This is the cost. Is it worth it? Absolutely! Is it easy? No. But we have God, we have a personal relationship with the dude who made the universe, we have His Holy Spirit to strengthen us for the good works He prepared for us in advance, we have His armour against the attacks of the evil one and we have the promise of that day when the old order will pass away and Heaven will break through to earth and on that day, no one who counted the cost will say that they didn't think it was worth it. And they will receive their reward in full.

Evangelism, we're doing it wrong

It’s awkward to think about, evangelism is supposed to be one of our focuses as Christians if we are to truly honour the Matthew 28 command to “Go and make disciples…”. But truly we seem to have dropped the ball when it comes to evangelism. At some point between the days of the New Testament Church and the church of today we have surrendered that primary mission goal and indeed one of our primary callings as Christians, we have wandered away from true evangelism in the interest of pursuing another big Christian word...Apologetics.

I don’t know why, maybe we haven’t yet made the transition to the Post-Christian Modern Era that the rest of our culture seems to have embraced. Maybe we’ve just gotten mad defensive as the world becomes less visibly Christian. Maybe we have a generation of people passionate and on fire for Christian morality. Maybe it’s something else.

Regardless, we seem to have lost our focus.

We are commanded in the oft quoted Romans 10:9 to “Believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord and confess with your mouth that God raised him from the dead”. That in one sentence summarises our calling as Christians.

If we call ourselves Christian then we are accepting God’s twofold commands of mission and love. 

We accept that by virtue of our faith we are called to proclaim Christ, who died in our place and in doing so accepted the punishment for our sin upon himself and who was three days later resurrected in victory over Satan, sin and death for the salvation of all. We are commanded to be witnesses of this in "Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the Earth" (Acts 1:8).

That’s mission.

Love is both broader and more specific, it is both the message we proclaim and how we proclaim it. Christ himself tells us that there are two commandments that are most important "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"(Luke 10:27). If we are Christians we are called to love, we cannot mission well if we do not love those to whom we are sharing and we mission by showing our love for each other and those around us.

Where then did this huge focus on apologetics some from? Apologetics is defined as “the discipline of defending a position (often religious) through the systematic use of information”. Which sounds like an awesome and important thing for Christians to do. But what happens when we measure our apologetics against our calling to love and mission?

Does it matter if the whole world understands the ins and outs of every minor point of our beliefs vis-a-vis morality, doctrine, law and politics? Is our calling to witness to the world the glory of Christ and the salvation He brings or are we called to witness Christian morality?

So often the Bible is dismissed as merely a set of rules, with God as the fun police. Which is a fair assumption if you aren’t a Christian and all you hear is Christians constantly talking about all the ways you are a sinner and how unless you repent you’re going to hell. If all that is proclaimed in “evangelism” is our apologetics we end up creating a quasi Christian religion where morality is the centre and God is nothing more than a sideline. See it doesn’t really matter if the person sitting next to me knows what I think about abortion, euthanasia, same sex marriage, the state of affairs in the Middle East or the environment. These things are extremely important, but not the most important. What matters most to the person sitting next to me on an eternal scale is whether or not they know Christ. How can they be expected to know Christ if i as a Christian am more interested in educating them on my worldview than introducing them to Him? We like slogans and one liners in Australia. My church has a great one, “Introducing Jesus, Changing lives” Someone in my church got it! They realised that our job as Christians, our primary care, call and responsibility is to introduce people to Jesus. Yes it’s inevitable that they will have questions that you can answer, but the focus needs to stay on showing them Christ. That's it. Not to have intense moral debates about the wearing of Burqas, not to proclaim condemnation of homosexuality, but to introduce people to Jesus.

Sure, we can talk about our stance on the hot topics, but that stance, in fact our whole worldview is supposed to be shaped by our faith in Christ—who He is, what He said and what He did. 

If we want to see “a world that knows Jesus” to steal from another slogan, we need to be introducing people to Him. And guess what? If we want to see a world that reflects Christian values. If we want to see a legal system that legislates in accordance with Christian morality. If we want a culture where Christian morals are upheld and exemplified...We need to get off our butts, get out there and get evangelising. We need to get on fire for loving people and introducing them to Christ and let our lives be living epistles to the glory of God. In doing so we become vessels by which the Holy spirit can do the heart surgery that fundamentally changes how people see the world.

We need to STOP fighting a culture war of morals and ethics

We need to STOP trying to convert people to our values and doctrines. 

These do not save us. God isn't going to let us into heaven based on our results in some heavenly admissions test. In fact these things can count against us if in our zeal to fight for a Christian world we become stumbling blocks or barriers to others.

We need to START bringing the focus back to Jesus, to His life, His death, His resurrection and the free gift of salvation that He so readily offers. We need to be getting alongside our culture and engaging in it. We need to not flee from counter-christian cultures, lifestyles and worldviews and start engaging with them. not so that we may become like them but so that they may have people who can show them Christ. We are called to be a city on a hill blazing with light, a lamp on a lampstand lighting a room. How can we do that if we concentrate our light in some areas but not others? How can we light up the whole world when we are so focused on only small sections of it?

It should hardly be surprising that Christ himself is a prime example of this. In John 4 he comes across a Samaritan woman at a well, he strikes up conversation with her and almost immediately offers her "living water" which brings eternal life. He offers her salvation then and there. Soon after this we find out that she has had 5 husbands and is carnally engaged with a 6th man who is not her husband.

But take note, don't miss this, Jesus offers this woman salvation before even getting to her sinfulness. And even when he does he only does so to demonstrate to this woman who He is. Jesus does not pile hot coals of condemnation on her head, he does not lecture her on monogamy and the sanctity of marriage even though we know he was keen on these things. Jesus' priority at the well is to offer the woman salvation from her sin. Not to condemn her for it.

See the thing is, living like a Christian, following the rules and morals, knowing dense theology and doctrine, these are all good things. But on their own they show nothing about our heart. If we do not know Jesus, if we haven't met him and accepted him as Lord and Saviour, they are worthless. These good things cannot save us nor can they cleanse us of our sin.

Please, let us abandon this fruitless focus on "big topics" and "Christian living" and "morality" in our public evangelism and turn back to focusing on introducing people to Jesus Christ, the Saviour and Redeemer of the world.

Leave the morality for the pulpit and the bible studies and the youth groups, all of which the Holy Spirit use to transform us into the likeness of Christ. Let us get on with our mission: to proclaim Christ's victory to the ends of the earth.

The problem with telling children “Jesus died to take away sin”

It’s a foundational teaching in Sunday schools that Jesus Christ, God’s son came to earth and died on the cross to take away sin. My issue is not with the teaching surrounding Jesus’ death on the cross, my issue is with the wording specifically as it relates to teaching children about Jesus.

Just to be clear, I believe that the man Jesus, God incarnate, came to earth to live the life we couldn't live and die the death we deserve. I am not debating that point. Nor am I debating the concepts of imputed righteousness, justification, sanctification or the doctrines regarding the Holy Spirit. What I am debating is whether the use of the verb “take away” is appropriate when talking to children about Jesus.

Why is this even a thing? Surely this is just you being pedantic? Yes it’s pedantic, but with just cause. In my experience of children’s ministry and from chatting with teachers and ministers it has become clear to me that children, particularly of primary school age or below think almost entirely literally. As a result they don't do abstract concepts well. So when we tell kids that Jesus’ death on the cross was to take away our sins they think literally. In the minds of most kids, heck even most adults, the idea of taking away is synonymous to the idea of removal. And this is where the problem arises, because if Jesus totally removed our sin at the cross, we shouldn’t sin… ever.

What does this mean for kids? For many kids who grow up in church this can actually become a massive problem for a number of reasons.

It gives kids an unrealistic expectation of what Christians should be like and what living as a Christian is like. It also can get confusing when people start talking to them about the need to strive for godliness and fight temptation. How can they be tempted if sin is not present? This can cause kids to question their faith. If they sin are they really Christian? And if they are and sin is still there then did Jesus not cover their sins?

It sounds extreme but I get these questions from kids often, actually I also get them from teenagers!! Why? Because as they age and start questioning their beliefs, themselves, their lives teenagers start thinking properly about their faith and about taking it seriously. Ordinarily this is easily explained and no harm is done, but when you have hammered home a concept to someone since they were four years old, it’s hard to get past that or correct it.
At no point is our proclivity towards sin taken away, we are empowered to resist it but it remains nonetheless. 

Paul actually talks about this in Romans 7: 15-20
“I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.”

This is I think a perfect illustration of the battle between the old sinful self and the new spiritual self that we receive when we become Christian. It is a battle, and some days the sinful self gets the victories, and sometimes it doesn't, but regardless the sinful self is still there. It has not gone away.
When explaining the cross to kids, Jesus died because of our sins, for our sins, to make us right with God.

So…we’re not sinless? We sin, we came to the foot of the cross as broken sinners seeking forgiveness, we give our lives to God and accept the Holy Spirit into our lives... But we still sin.

So what did Jesus do on the cross? On the cross Jesus died in our place, he took the judgement and punishment we deserve for our sin. He did this so that we can come before God on the last day pure and holy in His sight. On that final day, when Jesus returns and sets up the New Kingdom, we will be presented holy and blameless (i.e. sinless) before God. Until then I think we need to look at sin like a degenerative disease, while we may have been cured of sin, its effects linger and we have to live with them until we are made perfect on the last day. Jesus dealt with our sins on the cross; he paid the price for it, and he made the way for us to be restored. And yes ultimately he takes sin away… but not yet. It’s part of that confusing “now, but not yet” theology, which is awesome, but entirely abstract.

How would you have us teach children then? Simple, substitute “takes away” for “deals with”. The concept is almost identical but when interpreted literally it doesn't have the same connotations and is far easier to explain to kids. Obviously there are a lot of other factors at play, should we consider ourselves sinful? What about imputed righteousness? The fact of the matter is that they are both true. And while these are good questions, but I wish you luck trying to explain the doctrine of imputed righteousness to a 7 year old, heck even explaining the concept of righteousness is hard enough. Maybe I'm being pedantic but this whole post has arisen from my experiences in children’s ministry and I think it’s something we should address.

When explaining the cross to kids, Jesus died because of our sins, for our sins, to make us right with God.

"Ex-gay Ministry...Satan in Christian Clothing

“Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of Heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’”

Matthew 7:21-23

Jesus makes inescapably clear the uncomfortable truth that not everyone who claims to do ministry in God's name is serving Him or doing His will, even if they appear to be successful in their ministry. He goes as far as to label those who minister in his name without doing God's will "evildoers". We can see examples of this in "ministries" such as those weird quasi Christian cults that sometimes grace current affairs shows on a slow night, we see in in ministers (particularly in America) who get on their TV shows to express and promote racism, anti-Semitism or bigotry, we see it in the Prosperity teachings of the likes of Joel Osteen or the infamous actions of the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas. But sometimes these "evildoers" are more insidious, slipping through the cracks, and worse sometimes mainstream Christianity is fooled into endorsing or supporting their ministry.

But what makes a ministry "evil"?

There are some pretty basic things we can use to judge if a ministry is not good. If God is not glorified, if His people are not built up, if Jesus is not the focus and the centre it is not good. If it does harm or is not consistent with the example of Christ's life on earth then it is not good. I would go so far as to say that if it pushes people away from Christianity then it is not good, certainly the gospel divides and even lovingly proclaiming the gospel can push people away in some respects however there is a difference between someone walking out knowing they need to do something and not being willing to do it and a ministry which leaves people's faith in such a state that they want nothing to do with Christianity...which I guess isn't pushing them away from faith so much as tearing it apart.

I contest that a ministry that is focused on the individual, is not Bible based or drives people from the church goes beyond merely being "bad". The Enemy seeks to tear down God's church and drive out His people, which makes any ministry that does these things satanic...they are doing Satan's work not God's.

Satanic!?!?!

Now I obviously don't mean Satanic in the sense of the pentacle loving, occult ritualist, Latin speaking Goths that Hollywood is so fond of. Rather I think that those who do ministries such as these do not even realise that they are serving the one they call "enemy". Those running the ministries may think that they're serving God but in fact they seem to be actively going against his Biblical commands. Which I guess is why we call Satan "The Deceiver" and the "Father of Lies".

Getting to the point...

In my experience of pastoral care as well as chatting with both Christians and non-Christians of varied beliefs and backgrounds, one sure-fire inevitability is that the topic of homosexuality will come up. It's a pretty common topic of conversation at the moment and when Christianity and homosexuality comes up in conversation it's usually not long before someone asks about ex-gay ministries. Just in case the title was vague I classify ex-gay ministry under the heading of "satanic “and "evil", hence at points the use of quotation marks around the word "ministry".

Over the remainder of this post I intend to systematically and clearly demonstrate why I believe this.

First however. What the blazes is "Ex-gay Ministry?

Colloquially and somewhat crassly referred to as "pray the gay away” ministry, ex-gay ministry is an umbrella term for ministries which are focused on helping people eliminate homosexual desires and develop heterosexual attraction. The ultimate goal is to help people transition from same-sex attraction to opposite-sex relationships. These ministries offer anything from simple prayer to support groups to counselling/psychological intervention and rely heavily on people who formerly identified as same-sex attracted who claim to have eliminated that attraction and testify to the success of the ministry. These people are usually one of the weakest points of the ministry, numerous news stories of these spokespeople being found engaged in "compromising activities" can be found online, some of these stories have literally caused the end of the program the person caught out was endorsing.

So...Those Objections...

1.     It doesn't work.

This is pretty self-explanatory based off the heading but I want to explain and back up the statement. Let me be abundantly clear right from the offset, I do not deny the possibility that someone could experience a change in their sexual orientation or attractions, all things are possible with God after all. I believe that human sexuality has a degree of fluidity that allows for change and that God can and does use that.

HOWEVER!!!

There is no empirical or statistical evidence that these ministries have any significant success in achieving their goal of changing an individual's sexual orientation. This is best supported by a statement by the National Association of Social Workers (USA) that "No data demonstrates that reparative or conversion therapies are effective, and in fact they may be harmful”*. Many who claim to experience change as a result of ex-gay ministry have found themselves backsliding which is pretty brutal for them and can shatter any family they have built in the interim. The internet is full of stories of people who have not maintained the change they have claimed to experience, there is a whole section of the Wikipedia page on ex-gay ministry which talks about these people. The best example to support this claim is the former CEO of well-known ex-gay ministry Exodus International, Alan Chambers, who has publically admitted that though he loves and is devoted to his wife he still feels an attraction to men.

While all things are possible with God, ex-gay ministry fails to substantiate its claims and sadly there is an overwhelming amount of evidence that it is not a successful vehicle for bringing about change in sexuality.

*Just the Facts about Sexual Orientation and Youth: A Primer for Principals, Educators and School Personnel.

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Published by the American Psychological Association

2.     It Rejects the Sovereignty of God

All ministries make promises. The problem with ex-gay ministry is that the promises they make do not align with God’s, because the promises they make are either supplementary to God’s promises (as if His were insufficient, and lacking in assurance in this one area) or completely replace God’s promises (neglecting the sufficiency of all of God’s promises which are a triumphant “Yes!” in Jesus Christ).

Now, if a promise made by a ministry either supplements or replaces God’s promises, the result therein is that that same ministry also rejects the sovereignty of God and tries to replace it with their own.

Please do not get me wrong: it is good for us to pray to God and to ask Him for things, and we know He hears our prayers and He loves us. However, it is evident that ex-gay ministry promises that through them (i.e. through the ex-gay ministry) God will change someone’s sexual orientation. This is not a promise that they can make. Just as much as I cannot promise that through my praying for you, you will come out of bankruptcy, be free from anxiety, marry that boy or girl, or no longer have to live on the streets. It is simply not my call to make – it is His.

Our prayer should always be "Thy will be done not mine".

Here is what God does promise to change. He says “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26).

This promise is not specific to sexual attraction, but rather about how God will (because HE promises to) take our sinful heart that is hardened to Him and rejects Him and replace it with a heart that loves him.

And sure, it is total possible that sexual attraction can change, I’ve already said it above and the evidence of Paul’s letter to the Christians in Corinth attests to the fact that change has happened in certain people in that church. But it is not a promise that explicitly is made in the Bible and therefore is not a promise we can nor should be making on God’s behalf, nor holding God accountable to.

The comfort in that is this: God is ultimately in control. And that is a beautiful thing because He is trustworthy and good, regardless of whether one’s sexuality changes or not. Heck, I know people who are same-sex attracted who consider their sexuality to be a way in which God glorifies Himself through them, their life and their choices. Not because of their sexuality but because it gives them a witness to the people around them that Jesus is far more important, and He has the call on their identity and their entire lives. To me, that is trusting in the sovereignty of God.

3.     It can turn faith into religion*

"God wants the best for his people. If you're Christian, if you truly love God then He will change you. If you pray enough, if you truly have the Spirit, if you fast enough or memorise enough passages of scripture, if you just believe enough then God will give you what you want” Sound familiar? It's pretty much the Prosperity Heresy that is preached in some churches where money is God and God is your servant.

It's unbiblical and goes against so much of what Christ says to the religious leaders in the Gospels. It's about doing things to get things. That paragraph looks like a massive digression hey? But many ex-gay ministries do the same thing, it becomes about doing their therapy, their prayer support group, their program, their ministry and by doing these things you will get the outcome you want. It's all about doing. This isn't how Christianity works!! We can be in relationship with God because of what Jesus did on the cross. He did the doing! We can't do anything to match that and in doing so save ourselves, we can't earn that freely given gift, it's a gift and we have done nothing to deserve it. There is no ritual that can make God love us, no prayer that can fix the damage that The Fall did to our relationship with God, no words or actions that can magically make things right with God. If there was then there would be no need for Jesus.

To promise that doing something will make God change someone's attractions undermines the message of the cross and ignores the price of our salvation. If God does change someone's sexual attraction then we can give God glory for an undeserved blessing and give that was entirely undeserved.

*There are some ministries which do focus on grace and how grace transforms. This blog post is too general to address the flaws and positives of individual ministries.

4.     It takes advantage of desperation

The majority of people who go through the therapies and programs offered by ex-gay ministries come from Christian saturated environments. Christian homes, Christian schools, Christian communities or churches. Because of their desires or attractions they are often ostracised, bullied, harassed, abandoned and in some cases even disowned because they don't fit in. They are desperate to be "normal" and to be just like everyone else. They know that God's will for creation and their lives isn't synced up with their own desires and actions and consequently the offer of change that ex-gay ministries gives is attractive. For many people the programs are a last ditch effort to become the person their society is telling them they need to be, some are motivated by the belief that this is their last hope for avoiding eternal damnation.

While these ministries grow out of good intentions, as I have shown above and will show below, they are taking advantage of the desperation and despair of those who use them. It may not be deliberate, as I've said many of these people honestly think they are serving God, but to go on ignoring the damage that these ministries do and the lack of evidence that they work is to go from sinning through ignorance to sinning wilfully.

5.     It is damaging

These actually apply to both those experiencing same-sex attraction and their supporters. The impacts of ex-gay ministry obviously hit chiefly on the people undergoing the programs but the people who love them and are supporting, financing, praying and encouraging them through the whole process are understandably also affected.

a)     To Faith.
If someone made a bunch of promises to you about what God wanted to do and in fact certainly would do, and then those promises weren't fulfilled would you follow their God? When promises are made on God's behalf and those aren't fulfilled people are left questioning whether God exists, and if He does how he could possibly be loving and caring if His promises are lies that He doesn't keep. If he wants them to change and He wants to change then then why is He leaving them in their current circumstances? Does He hate them? These questions, coupled with the failure of the religious actions discussed in point 3 to have any apparent affect unsurprisingly don't do good things for the life expectancy of one's faith.

b)     To trust.

i.          Of the individuals in the programs.
Those who go through the programs offered by ex-gay ministry generally have their trust broken. Their trust in God is damaged by His apparent refusal or inability to keep His promises. But so too is their trust in ministers, Christians and church hierarchy, really anyone seen to be endorsing the ministry they've been involved with. If the program used counsellors, psychologists or therapists then their trust in those professions can also be broken. The worst damage however is the hardest and most personal, if the parents or wider family supported or encouraged them to go through the program the trust of the whole family unit can fall apart. Likewise the above damage to trust can affect the friends, family and supporters of the individual going through the program.

ii.          Of the wider Christian community.
As has been touched on above, the trust of the friends, family and supporters of people who go through ex-gay programs can be damaged by these ministries. Imagine you're a parent; you support your child as they go through a program promising that God will make them heterosexual. You financially support them through the process. You do this because you love them and want what’s best for them. It fails. In much the same way as the same-sex attracted individual, a parent's trust in God, church and Christian leaders can be damaged. What if you've financially supported an ex-gay ministry? Would not the inability of that ministry to deliver its promised results damage your trust too? I wouldn't be financially supporting any ministries at all for a good while if I'd been burned like that and if I was to ever consider giving money to anything remotely ministry related I'd be doing a lot of digging and research before I gave them a cent.

c)     To Mental Health. Given what has been discussed so far I'm sure it comes as a complete shock that there is a strong potential for negative consequences with regards to mental health. The American Psychiatric Association has formally stated that undergoing ex-gay ministry can result in depression, anxiety and self-destructive behaviour. Often people are told as part of the program that "homosexuals are lonely, unhappy individuals who never achieve acceptance or satisfaction".* Sounds like a recipe for mental wellbeing right? (this is sarcasm just in case anyone thought that sentence was serious)

*Just the Facts about Sexual Orientation and Youth: A Primer for Principals, Educators and School Personnel.
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Published by the American Psychological Association

6.     Pretty much all respected psychological associations in Western nations oppose it.

I have referenced a paper several times already in this post that was published by the American Psychological Association. The paper deals specifically with sexual orientation and youth and has a section on "conversion therapy" which includes a list of American institutions opposed to ex-gay ministry, quoting formal statements by the institutions. Now obviously these institutions have bias right? Of course they do! They are secular associations made up of literally hundreds of people in the fields of psychology, psychiatry, social work, counselling etc. However before we dismiss their statements as a simple lack of Christian faith I think it's important to think about why they are opposed to this ministry specifically. They obviously don't hold Christian views on sexuality but reading the reasoning behind the opposition given in their formal statements it is clear that their objections aren't grounded in a secular dislike for religion but rather in the lack of evidence and the damage that is done. These institutions are not necessarily pro Christianity but they are not anti-Christian either. The sheer amount and range of opposition to ex-gay ministry is a pretty good indication that it's not psychologically safe for those who are participants.

What would Jesus do?
This really is the most important scale by which we should judge all ministries. I think Jesus would weep. We can see from Jesus' public ministry that he not only associated with people whose lives didn't match with God's will (prostitutes, thieves, tax collectors) but he loved them and went as far as to rebuke the Pharisees for their treatment of such people. Jesus shows us God's loving and missional heart for the deviants and the outcasts; he loves them in spite of their sinfulness and actively seeks them out. Does this mean he doesn't want them to repent and change their ways? NO! Of course he wants them to repent, he tells the woman caught in adultery in John 8 "Go, and sin no more" (John 8:11).

We were in the same category as that woman, as the other sinners that Jesus ministers to in the Gospels, those who aren't Christians but who are reading this still are. For us who are Christian, we have experienced change since meeting Jesus, predominantly through no work of our own. We need to trust God to work things out for His glory in His timing. God seeks out the poor, the crippled, the blind, the lame, the broken and the needy. The Parable of the Great Banquet in Luke 14(v15-24) shows us God's heart for those who we would and do look down our noses at or reject. Notice something from Jesus' life and the parable as well friends, God brings people into the Kingdom of Heaven not by demanding immediate overnight change (although that sometimes happens) but rather by loving them and accepting their genuine offerings of faith.

What's the practical application of this all for us?
We need to be loving and supporting our same-sex attracted brothers and sisters. We know that God can, has and will continue to change people to be more like Jesus and we need to trust that if they're Christian then wherever they're at right now is merely part of a journey that's final destination is Heaven. If change comes then we can give praise and glory to God for his blessings, if it doesn't then we can praise God that He is good and faithful and that we can have confidence that as hard as it is now there is a day coming when everything will be made right. We need to support our same-sex attracted brothers and sisters by encouraging them, loving them and praying for and with them. We need to let God do His powerful work.

All of these things we can and should be doing without putting them through ex-gay ministries.

In Conclusion.

The outcomes of ex-gay ministry, the impact that it has and the damage that it does to faith, mental health and trust is totally unacceptable. There is no biblical basis for such a ministry which does far more harm than good and where the good elements of the programs themselves would be best done within the relational context of individual church ministry. It is my hope that the points expressed in this post have illustrated that I am not a nutjob extremist who sees Satan in every shadow but rather a concerned Christian who cannot sit by and watch a ministry do so much harm in God's name. It may look Christian, it may call itself Christian, it may profess Christ but I believe that it well and truly falls under the label of "evildoers" given by Christ in Matthew 7 for those who claim to work in God's name but don't do His will.