Thinkaloud | on getting hands dirty

stop talking, start doing

Our society seems to have blossomed with self-appointed experts whose main task in life seems to be telling everyone else how to do the job, but never actually doing anything themselves. Such experts - often known as consultants - sell an image of omnicompetence and omniscience, along with boundless energy and more ideas than you could shake a stick at. Their favoured clients are inter-governmental agencies, corporations who follow the suggestion that trendiness is next to profitability, and religious organizations, churches in particular.

There is nothing wrong in giving advice, and rare is the person who has not, at one time or another, suggested to someone else the “better way” to accomplish a task. Such advice is accepted readily when it comes from a person who has practical experience, and who is willing to pitch in and help. Concern arises in people-oriented organizations such as The Salvation Army when there appear to be more advisors than workers. How much of the Army’s budget, particularly in these difficult times, is spent in hiring people to tell us how to do what is already tucked away in dusty manuals that we never read?

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Thinkaloud | in times like these

We have an eternal hope

Many people are afraid these days. Apprehension furrows many brows and grips hearts. The young, the old and the middle-aged live with a sense of diffused anxiety that hangs around like a cloud. Even at times of great happiness the dark shadow of “What does the future hold?” comes to many as a deadening spirit of foreboding. How true is the biblical analysis of the times in which we live, “… men’s hearts failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth…” (Luke 21: 26).

Does anyone know what is coming on the earth? Is there a prophet who can spell out in detail what the future holds? There are prophets who say they have detailed timetables of what are called “the end times”. According to the Word of God they are false prophets. God has ensured that no one can predict the future with total accuracy. Such knowledge is His alone, and He has chosen not to share it.

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Tears over the city

… the enacted parable of Palm Sunday

Is there room for Jesus in the cities of the world? Is the One who made all things, and who holds the universe together by His power, welcomed in the huge, sprawling human beehives that pulsate with life? Do the people who live and love, who eat and drink and die in a megalopolis know anything about the One whose tears over a city revealed God’s warm and interested love for those who live hemmed in and frantic lives?

When the Lord and Master of life entered the city of Jerusalem, riding on a donkey and accompanied by the excited and happy shouts of His disciples and pilgrims who were crowding the capital for a religious festival, He mingled His tears with their songs of joy. He knew that those who were shouting His praises would soon be among those who would shout for His blood. He knew that human nature was fickle and that, regardless of how many people He healed, how many hungry bellies He filled, and how many blind eyes He made to see, the satanically inspired leaders of the people would have their way and see Him hung on a cross.

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Thinkaloud | who is responsible?

What are you doing with your life?

There has never been a time when adults did not think that the younger generation was on a fast track to hell. Ancient writers on the failures and foibles of the young seem uncannily up-to-date, which has led some pundits to say that things are no worse now than in earlier times.

I believe, to the contrary, that things indeed are worse than they ever have been. In fact, I think young people today are living in, and are affected by, an environment of unprecedented moral and spiritual danger. There are elements in today’s precarious world that sucks so many - young and older - into oblivion.

Foremost among these forces is the loss of moral sense. The difference between right and wrong is now blurred. Concepts such as justice, fair play, truth, honour and helping the weak are in short supply. For hundreds of years there have been concerted attacks on the Christian faith by those who have discarded Christian values. We are reaping the results of such abandonment.

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Thinkaloud | God laughs

… they shout, write and advertise to no avail

At times our senses betray us. We live as if only those things or persons we can see, hear and touch really exist. Of course we know intellectually that ideas exist, as do concepts such as truth, justice, beauty and goodness. But on a day-to-day level we seem to need the visible and the tangible. “Seeing is believing” and “the proof of the pudding is in the eating” are but two familiar sayings that attest to such practicalities of life. Ideas, we think, are of little value when the body must be fed and rested.

Such a this-worldly approach to daily living often leads us to ignore the spiritual realities that alone make life worthwhile. “Because God cannot be seen, then He doesn’t exist” is the crude mantra of such militant atheists as Richard Dawkins, who live only on an earthly level. Living by and captive to their senses, such unreflective people are often shaken by questions that, for them, have no answers. They prefer not to think about the meaning of life but simply want to live as long as possible with as much energy as they can muster.

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Thinkaloud | leaping on bandwagons

Beware of solutions to save the planet that ignore the central problem

Christians should beware of embracing any plans and great schemes to save the planet, which do not have their roots in biblical faith. Much earnest prayer for spiritual discernment needs to be made before believers in Jesus Christ as Lord jump on environmental bandwagons. This is not to say that concern at the assaults on our increasingly fragile world should not be taken seriously. Rather, it is to assert that there is the possibility of great spiritual deception through many questionable ideas that have become attached to the noble and worthwhile cause of making this world a better place.

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Thinkaloud | victimized Christians

Defense of the faith

Increasingly Christians and Christian ideas are under attack in our society. Comedians, newspaper columnists and others in the public eye often refer to Christianity and those who hold biblically-based beliefs in terms that would not be tolerated if they were applied to a visible minority or a religion other than Christianity.There would be accusations of prejudice, racism and discrimination, yet attacks on Christians continue with no public voice of protest.

Why is it that those who believe and practice a biblical faith are so caricatured? Why do so many members of the media simply resort to inaccurate stereotypes instead of doing their homework? Such sloppy research and reporting would not be tolerated in coverage of any other area of life, yet it seems that standards of journalistic excellence do not apply when it comes to reporting about Christians and their faith.

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Thinkaloud | active holiness

Does the lost world care about theological nuance?

If, as Salvationist historians tell us, holiness preaching and practice was the strength of The Salvation Army during its formative and most expansionist years, then one wonders whether in these days the Army’s organizational genius has become its strength. The world-circling Salvation Army is known and respected everywhere, and its capacity to mobilize people and money to meet urgent and long-term need is widely recognized. We have become a “do everything” Army, and this has earned the applause of grateful governments a well as the gratitude of those who receive the Army’s ministrations.

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ThinkAloud | the cost

Putting our false prophets behind us

While God’s grace is free, it certainly is not cheap. It cost Jesus Christ His life; it will cost you everything, yet it will be the best bargain you’ve ever made.

There was no hope, no sparkling, iridescent and fully glorious hope in the world before Jesus split human history in two. The grey, heart-tugging fear of sin’s burden haunted every person who ever lived before Jesus came. Spirit-numbing despair had this sin-stained world in its tenacious grasp. Yet how the world flamed with holy brilliance when the splendour of the infinite God dwelt with trembling perfection in the person of Jesus Christ. The true, eternal and health-giving Light now shone in unrestrained glory upon every person.

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Thinkaloud | a place for you

God’s place for us…

This generation, perhaps more than any other, suffers from being rootless. There are many names for the malady, but the symptoms are part of us: anxiety, restlessness, and a sense of being lost. Many people feel they do not belong anywhere.

This rootlessness expresses itself in a number of ways, but primarily in the frantic search for security that grips the heart. The tragedy is that so many look for security in the wrong place. They are doomed to frustration and disillusionment. The direction of their life will not lead to lasting joy, not even to more than momentary satisfaction.

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