Right Where We Are Wrong
This blog is designed to give people an inner look at a devotional life. Taking time each day to spend time with the Lord. The hope is if you travel on this journey with Rev. Jacob Shaw, you may be more inclined to spend time with the Lord as well. I encourage the use of a devotional, a scripture reading and prayer, then finally some form of artistic mark to tie it all together.
Today's devotional is taken from: Zacharias, Ravi. The
Logic of God: 52 Christian Essentials for the Heart and Mind. Grand Rapids,
MI: Zondervan, 2019. [E-Book] Chapter 37: Right Where We Are Wrong
Opening Thought: This past Sunday (May 16, 2021) I preach on the topic of truth. I believe that we must be seekers of truth to live a Christian life. During my sermon this last week I referred to another
Christian apologist, Frank Turek, who will often challenge people on their
willingness to seek truth by posing the question, “If Christianity were true, would
you become a Christian?” To the truth seeker the question poses no dilemma, of
course if truth showed us that Christianity were true the logical thing to do would
be to become a Christian. It would be like God sitting upon the throne of
heaven and invited you in to see Him, then asking would you believe in God. Yet, if you
ever watch Frank Turek’s talks online, you will see people will still say “no”.
Even if Christianity were proven to be true, they would not become a believer. How
can this be? Sometimes truth is not we are seeking, often we just seek ourselves.
If we do not seek truth, when God’s truth is presented to us, revealed to us,
we will just look the other way, often so blinded by what we do seek that we
cannot see the gift in front of us.
Something that has been bothering me is the notion of whether a
church or denomination can move to no longer seek truth. I don’t think it
could completely happen, as long as the biblical story is still being shared, the
power of that story will always try to bring people back to center. However, I
was recently apart of a visioning meeting for a Christian denomination, and I found
the conversation puzzling. I know in the age where church is no longer a
mainstream staple in people’s week, it can be tempting for churches to feel
they must become a reflection of today’s day in age, rather than holding true to the biblical template.
What the church was and what the church wants to become may vary from
denomination to denomination, but the impulse seems to be the same. ‘How can
we change to help secure us financially?’
Change can be a good thing, don’t get me wrong, but we must not skew
truth in order to be ‘up-to-date’. Zacharias quote G.K. Chesterton in his writing
for today, “We do not really want a religion that is right where we are
right. What we want is a religion that is right where we are wrong?”[1]
To change well, we must stay critical to what we claim to be truthful and hold
it accountable to the revelation given to us by the greatest truth, God. If what
we claim to be truth, or the focus of truth does not hold us to the life and
works of the truth of God in Christ Jesus then it will not serve truth, and all
our efforts to change and be relevant with be moot.
The devotional begins with: 1 Timothy 4:12,15-16
Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, [b]in spirit, in faith, in purity. Meditate
on these things; give yourself entirely to them, that your progress may be
evident to all. Take heed to yourself and to the doctrine.
Continue in them, for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who
hear you.
Second Thought: I think I first came to be a truth seeker, when a friend of mine
challenge me on the notion evolution. I was a firm believer in evolution, so
much so, as a child I use to design planets, create a simple cellular organism
and evolve it into hundreds of varieties of creatures for different environments.
I was thoroughly in love with evolution. My friend made the claim that without
God, evolution was a statically impossibility (particularly around the ideas of
cosmic and macro evolution). That statement began to make my head itch, so I
started to research, and research, and research. I spent most of my late teen
and young adult life researching the debates of science verses religion,
creation (in it many forms) verses evolution and more. In the end I concluded
that my friend was correct, without God evolution would not have happened. I
also came to realize, what I thought I had believed and what I was actually did believe were two different things, in order words, I didn’t have a true
understanding of what I believed to be true. I thought I believed in an
interactive God, working in His creation, but what I really believed prior to my friend’s statement was more of a deism, where God starts creation
but then stays out of it. The more I studied the origins of the universe: science,
philosophy, metaphysical and theology, the more I came to see a greater truth
in traditional theism.
Continual Work: A good way to know if you’re a truth seeker is to ask yourself
if you would believe a truth that you do not like. Pick a moral or ethical
political debate and give the side of the debate that you disagree with the winner’s
seat for a moment, pretend that it could be proven to you without a shadow of a
doubt that that opinion was correct, would you move to believe and support
truth, or would you stay where you are? This exercise is not about convincing
you of another ideology rather to make you aware and recognize the impulse inside to serve
the self over truth.
What Rev. Jacob is Working On: I am taking some time for some spiritual rest, a calmer
approach to faith this week. I have some major things shifting for my ministry
and personal life in the next while. I feel a time of spiritual healing and
rest in needed.
Prayer for your day: Our Father, who are in heaven, hallowed be Thy
name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us
this day, our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those
who trespassed against us. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.
For Thyne is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.
Artistic Close: If you tell 100 students to paint a picture of a
cat, each painting will look a little different. If you tell 100 students to
tell the truth, what they are say will be different. We each are like an
artistic render of truth, not expression of objective truth will be clear as
its inspiration but they each hold something valuable nonetheless.
[1] Quotes in Dale Ahlquist, G.K. Chesterton: The Apostle of Common
Sense (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2003).
Comments
Post a Comment