Viewing entries tagged
truth
The Fyre Festival, the Tinder Swindler, and Anna Delvey, the Sinfluencer of Soho, have all put the spotlight on people’s capacity to perpetrate fraud and lie if it’s to their advantage. Could that be how Christianity’s claims of miracles and a Messiah were first spread? Did Jesus and His disciples set up a Ponzi scheme and lie their way to religious prominence? There was a time when I would have thought so, but Watergate convinced me otherwise.
The late Nelson Mandela once said, “It is never my custom to use words lightly. If 27 years in prison have done anything to us, it was to use the silence of solitude to make us understand how precious words are and how real speech is in its impact on the way people live and die.” Although we’ve all experienced more solitude and isolation over the last two years, we haven’t necessarily grown in our respect for the impact of our words and how we use them.
Last week, we considered Jesus’ amazing claim that the disciples were actually better off that He was leaving them because it meant that they would receive the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is just what we need but misunderstanding about what He actually does in a person’s life can cause confusion and frustration. There are at least four things that the Holy Spirit does in a person’s life.
Last week, I attended the regional conference of The Fellowship. Sam Allberry, of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, spoke in four sessions on, “Jesus, Sexuality and The Good News of the Gospel.” About the same time that he began to investigate Jesus and the Bible, Sam began to realize that he was attracted to men. He ended up trusting Jesus and developed deeply held biblical convictions that led him to a life of celibacy. Now an Oxford-trained pastor and author of “Is God Anti-Gay?” he is often invited to speak at conferences and universities on issues related to Christian sexuality. Regularly speaking in front of people from the LGBT community, Sam has learned to not only articulate Scripture, but to do so with love, compassion and sensitivity. Let me share some of what I learned.
When relationships break down and conflict erupts, how do we get ourselves out of it? How can we find peace where there is no peace? In Matthew 5:9, Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God,” but how do we become a peacemaker? James 3:18 promises that “a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace,” but how do we make peace? We’ve all seen people we respected and admired for being able to bring peace where there was conflict. At our last association meeting, I had an opportunity to learn from one. Let me share what I learned.
