Crossing the finish line

At year’s end, it’s a good time to reflect on this truth: it is part of God’s character to complete what he has begun. “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6). As we follow him, we are meant to become like him. We also are meant to complete what we have begun. That is why that little verse at the end of Colossians is so important: “And say to Archippus, ‘See that you complete the ministry that you have received in the Lord’” (Colossians 4:17). There might even be a pun here, for the first four letters of Archippus’ name are similar to the Greek word for “beginning.” Paul is saying to Archippus: are you a beginner, or a finisher? Lots of people start, but not all finish. Many drop out along the way.

What is it that hinders us from finishing what we have begun? What causes us to give up, to turn back, to lose the ground we have gained? Jesus said it would happen. Read the parable of the sower in Matthew 13. Jesus lists four categories of people. The first group don’t even get to first base. The second group receive the seed, but it soon dies. The third group lasts a little longer, but their life is choked out by thorns. For all three groups, what the world offers is more attractive than the cost of a life following Christ. These people hardly make a beginning, let alone cross the finish line.

And let’s stop for a moment to note that Jesus does not allow people to blame problems in the church for their own spiritual failures. People who fall away from the Lord and whose spiritual commitment dries up have only their own sin to blame. Please do not blame your sin on someone else. Churches are imperfect, and God will deal with them, but no one is let off the hook of their own disobedience.

But there is a fourth group in the parable. Jesus describes them as those who hear the word and understand it. In their case, the seed falls on good soil. That’s hopefully us! But even here, some lives produce far more than others -- more than three times, in fact. What happens even in the lives of sincere believers to diminish their effectiveness and reduce the fruit that comes from their lives?

Sometimes people who really want to follow the Lord get tragically derailed by the circumstances of life. Adversity causes them to give up, or falter for a season.

If we could go back in history, we could learn some lessons from the experience of one such person, Mary Magdalene. We find her at Jesus’ tomb (John 20:11-18). The tomb is empty, but as first the angels and then Jesus himself appear to her, she is so overcome by grief that she doesn’t realize what has happened. She is immobilized at the exact moment she should have been launched into orbit. She was about to give up at the exact moment of breakthrough. Every single one of us can relate to Mary. We all have moments where we feel like giving up, and sometimes we make decisions based on disappointment which cost us and cost the kingdom dearly.

What caused Mary nearly to miss her destiny? Let me list three factors, and let me suggest they are the same things which will come against us.

She saw the circumstances as insurmountable. Jesus was dead. Yes, Jesus had raised at least three people from the dead, but who was there who could raise him? All of us can lose hope in the face of impossible situations. Yet Mary had forgotten that nothing is impossible with God (Luke 1:37). Don’t evaluate the promises of God by your circumstances. Evaluate your circumstances by the Word of God.

She was overcome by a disappointment caused by false expectations. Mary’s hopes were crushed because she had based them on false expectations. Along with the disciples and everyone else, she thought the Messiah would inaugurate a revolution which would drive the Romans out, not die on a Roman cross. God will often fail to meet our expectations, but he will never fail to fulfill his promises. Go back to his promises when your expectations are not met.

She lost sight of the power of God. Mary had forgotten things she should not have forgotten. She knew Jesus had taken five loaves and multiplied them into thousands. She knew Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead. She knew Jesus had walked on the water and calmed the seas. She knew he had given sight to the blind and raised the crippled to their feet. She knew he had restored speech to the mute, opened the ears of the deaf and cleansed the lepers. Most of all she knew the miracle of forgiveness -- the day Jesus met her, cast seven demons out of her, set her free from the power of darkness, and gave her eternal life. We may not have seen the things Mary did, but all of us have seen enough. We have all witnessed his faithfulness, his provision, his forgiveness and his love. Even if we may not see how God can move us forward, we should still know that he can.

The walk of faith sometimes seems like its all uphill. But when the circumstances seem impossible, our expectations are not met and we lose sight of God’s power, we need to go back to what God has said. Our words mean nothing, but God’s Word never fails. The fulfillment of God’s word is built into its foundations. For God, speaking is doing. God created the entire universe simply by speaking. How much easier is it for him to fulfill his plan for our lives? To Jeremiah, preparing him for a lifetime of testing and trial, he made this firm promise: “I am watching over my word to perform it” (Jeremiah 1:12). And so God did, for both Jeremiah and Mary Magdalene.

In the midst of your battles of faith, go back to what God has said. Don’t walk away from God; dig yourself into God. And don’t ever give up. Remember there is an end to every valley, and your breakthrough is probably right around the corner. He’ll finish what he began in you -- if you allow him to do it!

For to us a child is born

Things were difficult for Israel. But Isaiah prophesies a future victory for God’s suffering people. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light (Isaiah 9:2). This victory will be complete: even the clothes of the oppressing forces will be fuel for the fire (verse 5). The reason for this victory is given in verse 6: “for to us a child is born.” A child is born who will bring deliverance to Israel. To speak of the birth of this child, Isaiah uses the Hebrew prophetic perfect tense: that is, a past tense which speaks of a future event. The significance of this tense is that the future prophecy is so certain of fulfillment he can speak of it as if it had already happened. So seven hundred years before the birth of the prophesied child Isaiah declares the child is already born.

It should not be surprising that the word God speaks can determine the shape of history for centuries to come. After all, God created the world simply by speaking. Genesis describes the creation of the world in these words: “And God said...” And so when God speaks, it is not merely a possibility, a prediction or a forecast: it is his creative word of power which carries within itself its own fulfillment. An acquaintance of mine is a senior metereologist on Canada’s weather network. One of his favourite phrases to avoid blame for the bad weather he forecasts is this: “I’m in prediction, not production!” But for God, prediction is production: “I watch over my word to perform it” (Jeremiah 1:12).

Never underestimate the power of God’s Word. When we appropriate for ourselves the promises of God’s Word, we enter into their power. Our words have no power, but God’s words have all power. Of course, we must line our lives up with his will to receive his promises. He is our Provider -- but have we honoured him in our finances? He is our Protector -- but have we taken foolish risks through failing to obey him? If you line your life up with God’s Word, you will inherit its promises.

The Hebrew tense also emphasizes the fact that the fulfillment of the prophecy -- the birth of the promised child -- will take place at a particular and definite moment in history. God’s promises enter into this world and make his presence manifest in the midst of our darkness and doubt. He intervenes in the flesh and blood existence of our daily lives. You and I today can take hold of the promises of God. God offers us more than a vague philosophy. He brings who he is into this world in order to change it. Hebrews 1:3 states that when Christ came into the world, he came as the exact imprint of God’s substance. The word “imprint” refers to the image on a coin -- the exact likeness of the one pictured. The word “substance” refers to the very essence or reality of who God is. When the child was born, God came into this world -- not a likeness of God, not a shadowy image, not someone who had some of God’s characteristics, not a good man or a moral teacher or a wise philosopher, but God in all his substance and reality. And this is what makes Christianity radically different from any other religious faith or philosophical viewpoint. Neither Buddha nor Muhammad nor Marx came into this world as God. Jesus did. He is not a philosophy. He is a person.

The victory the Jewish people were looking for came in an unexpected way -- so unexpected most of them missed it entirely. The victory came when the child born in a humble stable died hanging naked on a Roman cross. The victory came in such an unusual form both the Old and New Testaments call it a “mystery” (Daniel 2:29-30; Romans 16:25; Revelation 1:20). The Jewish people were expecting a political Messiah who would drive the Romans out. The Messiah did come, but exercised his divine authority over history by dying on that Roman cross. Resurrected and ascended, he now rules from the throne of heaven. And also do we -- if we are prepared to follow in his steps of ruling not by might and power, but by sacrifice and love.

That is the message of Christmas. May it enrich and change your life every time you consider it.

India calls (part 2)

In the first part of this account, I told how I first met John Babu, one of the most amazing men I have ever encountered. And I told something of his incredible but true story. It was 1978 when God spoke to me about India. He did not open the door for me to go until 1996. The delay was not disobedience on my part, just the timing of God. When God gives us a word or promise, our greatest mistake (especially if the promise is a good one) is to assume it will be fulfilled tomorrow. More often, we find ourselves in the good Biblical company of Abraham, who “through faith and patience” inherited the promise (Heb. 5:12). If God has promised you something, don’t give up because it does not immediately fall into your possession. Press into God, wait on him, see what he is doing in your life and submit to it, and allow him to fulfill his word to you. Remember what Paul said about God’s faithfulness to Abraham: “Whatever he has promised, he is able also to perform” (Rom. 4:21).

I could try to describe myself as a Christian version of Indiana Jones, but I don’t think I could get away with it. The truth is I was quite apprehensive about traveling to India, and so I enlisted the help of my friend Andy Gower, an English businessman I knew who travelled extensively and would be able to hold my hand in case of unknown third-world terrors. Just as well, for when we landed in Mumbai, even though it was midnight we were immediately disgorged into a seething and uncontrolled mass of humanity. Amidst the chaotic order that is India, Andy hailed a taxi to take us to the domestic terminal for our internal flight to Hyderabad. The domestic terminal was a long ways removed from the western airports I was used to. I recall thinking, “Oh my goodness, this is like the third world!” and then realizing it was the third world (Indian airports have greatly improved since).

We arrived at Hyderabad and received a warm greeting from John’s sons. As a matter of fact, we had garlands of flowers placed around us. Was this Honolulu? Well not quite, but it was a great welcome. John and his family lived in a compound right next to a Hindu temple dedicated to the goddess of traffic accidents. It seems people often fell into a coma and were killed in accidents as they drove by the place. John’s sons later informed me they had regular visitations from demonic spirits from next door angry that the kingdom of God was invading their space and ruining their party. This was all a very faith-building experience as you couldn’t get in or out of the compound at all without driving by this temple.

Lots and lots of amazing things happened during our visit, but let me tell this one story. The church had started many outreaches in the sprawling city of Hyderabad. One night, John said I was to speak at one of these, located in a slum area. I overheard John telling his son under no circumstances to leave Andy and I alone. More faith-building! We drove and drove. Finally we left the car and continued the journey by foot as the road gave out. We left the hubbub behind and proceeded by footpath through darkened areas. We were warned to look out for cobras. Through all this I naturally maintained perfect peace of mind! Finally we arrived at a small concrete hut and in we went.

Let me tell the story of the family who lived there. Just a few weeks before, one of this couple’s six children was diagnosed with meningitis. They had no money to pay for medical treatment and the child became critically ill. They heard that the Christians who held meetings in a small meeting place nearby had a god who could heal the sick. The dad carried his dying son into the meeting. He was prayed for and instantly and completely healed. The entire family became Christians.

When I entered their tiny concrete hut, I saw the shelf where only weeks before their idols had sat. In their place was a picture of Jesus not unlike what used to be on the wall of my Sunday school classroom growing up! Not an idol however, simply their way of honoring the living God. About forty people were crammed into the twelve-foot square room that was home to this family of eight. Under the dim light of one 25-watt bulb, I could barely read my Bible, let alone see who was sitting at the back. I was asked to preach on the work of the Holy Spirit. Never have I felt so helpless, trying to convey my sophisticated western thoughts through translation to a group of people so utterly foreign to me I didn’t know how to communicate with them even though I desperately wanted to.

I finished. I prayed for some folk. I felt I had failed. But after we left, the pastor told me four Hindu folk had given their lives to Christ that night as a result of what I had said. That was truly the Holy Spirit, not me.

I remember many things about that visit. The night the cobra visited right outside my window and was killed while I slept through the excitement. The mosquito bites I had that turned out to be bed bugs. The amazing young men and women at the Bible school at which I taught and their sacrificial abandonment to the cause of Christ. And my dear friends Prem and Neelima. Prem was John’s youngest son and Neelima had just become pregnant. The doctors told her she had only a small chance of carrying the baby. I prayed over her, told her the baby was a boy and would be born without any issues. Abishek is now a young man almost twenty years old!

As I drove off on my way to the airport in an old Jeep with an exploding tire, John sat on his porch and waved good-bye to me. That was the last time I ever saw him. He passed into the Lord’s presence not long after. He was a father in God. I look forward to seeing him again.

India calls

Here is the latest instalment in my Chronicles of Faith series.  The story starts a long time ago and involves a lot of miracles. If you’re interested, read on! I went to England in 1977 to do a PhD in New Testament studies at Durham University. One of the first friends I made there was a guy called Richard Peach. Richard and I used to have heated theological arguments. They often infuriated me because even though he was a school teacher, not a theologian, he was often right and I was wrong. Richard had an unbending sense of call to India. When he finished his studies, he was hired as a teacher at a school for missionary children in a place called Ootacamund in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. One of the last things I recall him saying was this: “God has called me to India. I don’t care if I ever see England again.” The fact is, he never did. One day Richard took a group of children from the school out swimming and in the process he was caught up in the river current and tragically drowned. When the news reached Durham, many of us grieved. Why would God take such a young life so full of commitment and promise? But God encountered me in the midst of it with a word, and the word was this: one day I also would go to India and do what Richard wanted so badly to do -- to share Christ with the Indian people.

The years went past. I returned to Canada from England. Every time I heard someone talking about India, my ears pricked up. But nothing happened. Until the day a friend in Canada told me he had an Indian leader coming to visit his church, and would I be interested in having him to speak. He casually dropped into the conversation that he had been to India to visit this man and they had visited a small town in south India called.... Ootacamund. Of all the hundreds of thousands of towns and villages in India, this was the one he mentioned. Immediately I knew this was my doorway to India.

And so John Babu, the great apostolic leader of Andhra Pradesh, walked into my life. I use “apostolic” in its simple Biblical form, as function, not title. John extended the boundaries of the kingdom into the regions beyond and the regions unknown, and he did so by the love of God, and by undeniable signs and wonders. Let me tell his story as he told it to me.

John Babu was one of a small group of national security advisors to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. His self-description as a policeman was a gracious understatement. John was a non-practicising Hindu. He drank a lot. He beat his wife up most days. He was not a great dad to his eight children. But he was good at his job. One day his doctor told him he had damaged his liver so badly he had only four months to live.  Distraught, John visited a nearby Hindu temple to plead with the gods. Once inside, he heard an audible voice saying these words, “I am the god you are looking for. My name is Jesus Christ.” The voice instructed him to leave the temple immediately. Stunned and trembling, he sat down on a bench outside. The voice continued to address him. He heard that if he died, his fate would be to be thrown into a lake of fire. He saw the lake in front of his eyes and was terrified. But, the voice continued, if he put his trust in the one who was speaking to him, he would be saved. John immediately surrendered his life to a god he did not know. The Holy Spirit took hold of him. Immediately, he went home to tell his family what had happened. His oldest son later told me it was the first time his dad had not come home and beat somebody up. He was a visibly changed man. As he shared what had happened, his wife Anna and all eight children put their trust in Christ. The next time he visited his doctor, he was told he was completely healed.

But this was only the beginning of the story. A few months later, Jesus spoke again to John. He was to leave the police, move to a town called Armoor and start a church. John obeyed the Lord. He left all his earthly security, his position which gave him many advantages in the city and state, and his government salary and pension. Armoor was the place he had previously gone to arrest Hindu militants, and John was not popular there. He was sold a plot of land with a tin shack in the middle of it. John, Anna and their eight kids took up residence in the middle of what turned out to be a cobra-infested swamp. The militants who sold him the land expected him and his family to perish. But instead, they prayed the cobras out. The locals expected the entire family to die and were perplexed when nothing happened to them (read Acts 28:1-6 for a similar story!).  Before long, a thriving church existed.... with no fewer than two thousand people converted to Christ. John began to travel from town to town and village to village, eventually establishing several hundred congregations throughout the state of Andhra Pradesh.

In his life, John saw six people raised from the dead. I don’t know if the following incident counted as one of the six, as John was not physically present when it happened. Let me tell you a story that would be unbelievable if it were not demonstrably true as it was witnessed by hundreds of people. As the churches grew, outreaches were established not only in the larger towns but also the smaller villages. Andhra Pradesh had a population of over eighty million people and had thousands of towns and villages as well as larger cities such as Hyderabad. A high-caste (Brahmin) Hindu lady died in a village a small group had been started in. The omens were consulted and the cremation was set for the time determined to be the most auspicious for the best hope of a higher form of reincarnation. As the funeral pyre was about to be set alight, the Hindu priest halted the proceedings. In a mocking voice, he said Christians had come to the area and claimed to have a god who could raise the dead. He ordered the small group leader to be brought to the ceremony. “Now we will see,” he declared to the man in front of the assembled crowd, “what your god can do.” Trembling with fear, this ordinary believer held out his hands over the pyre and called out to the Lord for help. The woman lying dead on the pyre was physically resurrected. And no, she was not in a coma, nor had the doctor made a mistake. She had been dead for many hours, and her body was decomposing in the Indian heat. As she rose from the dead, panic spread throughout the crowd of hundreds who eye-witnessed the event. The small group leader began to preach Christ. Half the crowd became Christians, the other half fled in terror.

But the most amazing part of the story is this. When later they asked the lady what had happened to her, this is what she said. She recalled experiencing darkness, but into the darkness stepped a man. The man was dressed in clothes so white they were blinding. As he held out his hands over her, she noticed he had bleeding wounds in both wrists. Then she woke up. But a strange thing occurred. There was another man standing in exactly the same position as the first man. His hands also were stretched out over her in exactly the same way. But his clothes were ordinary and there were no wounds in his wrist. That man was the small group leader.

The militant high-caste Hindus put out the equivalent of a contract on the lady. Her response? “I’m not afraid of death. I’ve already died once!” Many many hundreds of people came to Christ because of her testimony.

How often do we realize that we stand in the place of Christ? That ordinary man represented Christ in a way even he had no concept of. Christ, in one sense, is made flesh in us. An army of theologians trying to explain how Christ is made real in his many-membered body, the church, could not have come up with anything so closely approaching the truth as is illustrated in the experience of this humble, (to us) nameless, and probably illiterate Indian brother.

Have I got your attention? Then read the next instalment!

The real meaning of discipleship

What did Jesus mean when he talked about discipleship?  That was a question the "discipleship movement" of the 1970s sought to answer. In general, the body of Christ, at least on the North American continent, moved on without listening much. But in the New Testament, the word "disciple" is used about 250 times, and mostly in connection with following Jesus, so it's obviously a very important concept. My suggestion is we can't really understand what it means to follow Jesus without understanding more about discipleship than we often do. It was a common practice for educated and well-connected Jewish men to become disciples of leading Rabbis, which in turn would lead to them assuming the same role toward others. They would take in his teaching and pass it on to others. Such a position would be financially and socially rewarding. So when Jesus appeared on the scene, the most natural way people had of understanding him was as a Rabbi, and those following him would become his disciples.

But from the beginning, Jesus changed the entire meaning of discipleship. A fundamental characteristic of New Testament discipleship is that Jesus called the disciples to himself, whereas in Judaism a disciple decided which teacher he was going to follow. Neither were there any particular qualifications (social or educational) needed, other than the willingness to follow Jesus. That is why Jesus called tax gatherers and sinners to be his disciples, and scandalized the religious establishment in the process. And as to earthly benefits, there were certainly few of them involved in following Jesus! The commitment of his followers was to the person of Jesus, whereas in Judaism it was to the teaching of the Rabbi. With Jesus, a person follows his teaching only because he has encountered his person.

People tried to understand Jesus' teaching, but without understanding  who he was or being willing to follow him. That's why even learned teachers could not get what Jesus was saying -- look at the Pharisees or even Nicodemus. In Christian discipleship, the Word of God becomes powerful in someone's life only to the extent that they are willing to follow Jesus in personal commitment. If you try to follow Jesus' teaching without knowing him personally, you will wind up either in utter failure or in legalistic hypocrisy. In Judaism, the relationship of disciple to teacher was determined by the teaching, so that someone would follow a particular Rabbi in order to get his teaching or interpretation of the Bible more than a heart knowledge of God. But without a heart knowledge of God, even the most learned theologian will never understand the Bible or the God who inspired it. And this led directly to the Pharisaical legalism that nailed Jesus to the cross. But the people who followed Jesus did so simply because they were committed to him as a person and to whom they understood him to be.

Discipleship is not about knowledge of doctrine, but about faith in a person. Doctrine (a right understanding of the Bible) is important, but it is birthed in an encounter with Jesus and a revelation from God as to who Jesus is. In Judaism, a disciple's obedience was limited to agreement with the Rabbi's teaching. By contrast, Jesus' disciples are called to obey him in every part of their lives. There is nothing in the life of a disciple independent of Jesus. Everything we have and are is drawn into fellowship with him. But the way of Jesus leads to the cross, and so we also are drawn into the path of sacrifice and suffering with him. Maybe that's why the discipleship movement didn't gain many converts!

The bottom line is this: the reason we often fail to reproduce New Testament Christianity in our culture has something to do with the fact we equally fail to understand the meaning of New Testament discipleship. It's a thought to ponder.