Matt W Cook

In a forest island surrounded by a deep river was a massive pile of ashes. There was nothing very special about the ashes. You couldn’t tell by looking what the ashes had been back when it had been anything at all. You would not have been able to tell there was a Jedi named Shan (pronounced Shane) who wielded a light-katana and had crazy adventures. You would not have been able to see any of his adventures because his makers had decided to burn him and his friends away, never to be seen again.

But years went by and the authors stopped checking the pile of ash. They stopped wondering if it would ever be rebuilt. Of course nothing could come from the ashes, the reasoned. But they were, all of them, deceived.

The pile heaved and shook. Groans deeper than the earth whispered from the pile. Slowly it took shape. The tiny pieces of ash joined together and were changed at the sub-atomic level. Burnt leather became skin tissue. Charred cloth morphed into hair follicles. Dead batteries changed into eyes – deep green eyes like the wood after a rain. A form stood, clothed in a simple vest and green trousers. He stretched like a man awaking from a long sleep. He looked around at his surroundings, satisfied and pleased to be alive and no longer an inanimate pile of ash. Life was just about to begin.

I came across a website the other day that caught my interest. 20 Reasons to Abandon Christianity. I read through them and decided that they should not remain unanswered. So here’s my answer to the pamphlet’s first supposed reason to abandon Christianity.

1) Christianity is based on fear.
I don’t think the main motivator used in the Bible is fear. It seems to me that God uses positive encouragement more than negative. That is, he encourages us to obey by offering reward more than he does by threatening punishment. I did a quick search and found that hell is mentioned 13 times in the Bible and punishment 23 while reward is mentioned 55. Although I understand that my reading of the Bible is biased, I honestly think that joy and pleasure is used more often to prod us to doing good than a fear of hell. Here’s some examples off the top of my head:

…in your presence is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. (Ps. 16:11)
…your Father who sees in secret will reward you. (Matt. 6:4, 6, 18)
…that your joy may be full. (John 15:11, 16:24)

I could go on, but I don’t think I need to. I contend that the chief motivator used by Christ and the Apostles is not fear, but joy. We speak of the Joy set before us, not the hell we flee behind us. It is true that many times, however, God uses threats to convince us to follow him. I don’t see how this is a bad thing, though. I use threats with Joseph, too. Sometimes I know that a promise of reward won’t motivate him properly. A threat is not a bad thing, so long as threats are not my only means of getting obedience. Love is a much better motivator and God uses that most, as far as I can tell. Many preachers, it’s true, only use fear to keep their congregations in line. But I think it is unfair to use them as the standard for judging the faith of Christ.

I think one of the unique things about Biblical Christianity is that the primary motivation for obedience is union with God. Not a fear of hell or a promise of carnal pleasures in a man-centered heaven, but walking with God. God is the chief attraction and the main motivator. Christianity is not based on fear. As I see it Christianity is based on love and joy.

I was wandering around iTunes the other day and I came across iTunes U. It seems that certain Universities post audio and video of their lectures and you can download them for free! I was especially interested in the History of Christianity I found from Reformed Theological Seminary. I downloaded three courses from them. Check it out.

The fam in 2008

Awake, O sleeper,
and arise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.

Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts.

I came across this verse in Corinthians this morning. Paul had just devoted an entire chapter to a love in a Christian’s life. Before that he wrote four verses on spiritual gifts. And then he concludes with this verse. Pursue love. Desire spiritual gifts.

Gifts are not something that can be pursued. You cannot work hard to be a prophet. God just gives that. You cannot study up to speak in tongues. You cannot read your Bible a lot and hope to become a worker of miracles as a result. Spiritual gifts just come to you, and all you can do is desire them.

But love is different. It is true that love is a fruit of the Spirit’s indwelling, and as such it is a gift from Him. But it is something more, as well. It is also the result of an individual’s effort. You need not merely desire love; you can pursue it.

Love is a tricky subject; the word means so many different things to different people. It is hard to define and I don’t think I’ll even try to do it in this post. But I think we all have a general idea about what love is and I’m sure that there are some ways we can all, as believers, pursue a spiritual, pure love.

First we need to realize that love is the chief defining characteristic in a healthy spiritual life. It is the first of the fruit of the Spirit. It is the greatest of the three things that abide in a Christian (faith, hope and love). It is the mark that Jesus says will set us apart as his disciples. And it is the core of the first and second commandment. If we do not realize how very important it is that we love, I think it will be difficult to pursue it.

Secondly, we need to look to Christ for help. Apart from him we cannot do anything. And Paul reminds the Thessalonians that it was God himself who taught them how to love one another (1 Thess. 4:9). I do not think we can base our love on anything in any man because any man, no matter how good, will let us down. We will always find unlovable characteristics in anyone we try to love. In very nice people these unlovely things may seem small enough for us to forget them, but what about in the people who are abrasive and cruel or socially inept? How can we love them if we base our love on them? But if we are taught by God how to love, then we will see his love for a screwed-up mankind and realize that our neighbor’s problems are not all that big after all. There is also an element of the supernatural that we should pursue in our love. It is not just the knowledge of God’s love that will cause us to love like him, but an experience of it in our lives that will thaw our frozen hearts to be warm toward God and men. So we run to Christ through the spiritual disciplines of prayer, meditation, service, etc.

And I think we also should take steps toward achieving the best for our fellow-man. I think many Christians do not like getting involved in social benefits. We leave that to the humanitarians. But who should be more humanitarian than someone who claims to follow a Man who died for humanity? I think we all need to get involved in something that feeds and clothes and helps the least of these. I am not just talking about giving money; that’s easy. I am suggesting that each of us get involved in some sort of work that meets the basic needs of the poorest of the poor. It is a sick thing for a Christian to walk by a person in need and (at best) give him a tract and a ‘God bless you’ or (at worst) scoff and say that the bum should get a job because God helps those who help themselves.

God does not help those who help themselves. God helps the helpless. We should do the same because otherwise all our preaching and teaching and fasting and praying is useless and profits nothing.

Just wanted to let you know that Ruth was recently diagnosed with a medical condition that is very common over here in Pakistan. We didn’t get her checked out at the doctor’s for a while, but we recently did and it seems that it will run its course by May and Ruth will be back to normal. But for now she’s gaining weight, eating strange things peeing every half-hour on the dot.

So that’s our Christmas news. I have photos that I’ll try to post of this little life-form later. But for now please pray, okay?

Merry Christmas!!

Here ya go:

Need a caption…