Being without a job and a reliable source of income has forced me to cut back spending and dial down costs to as close as possible to zero. But the whole issue of consumerism and buying is something I’ve had an uneasy relationship with for a long time.

I used to be a compulsive spender. From the time I was a kid, as soon as I had money, I’d look for ways to spend it. Money equaled spending power, and spending power equaled those new things that would make me happy and make my life complete. Until more recently than I care to think about, that’s been my default way of looking at income.

Of course becoming an adult has forced me to take a slightly more responsible attitude toward money. I can’t buy everything I want or splash out on an expensive vacation, because I need to pay the rent and buy food. But over and above necessities, the compulsive pull to buy something, anything, to make myself feel better, even if I don’t need it, is what I’m talking about.

All of us know what that feeling is like. The feeling you get when you see something that you know that you need. It’s new, it’s beautiful, it’s shiny, and you’re convinced that buying it will make you happy, make your life complete. The fact that you already have five similar somethings at home, which at one time were going to make you happy and make your life complete, doesn’t really occur to you. The only thing you can think about right here and now is this one that you don’t have. Surely this will be it.

You convince yourself that you need it, you deserve it, it doesn’t hurt, you have enough money. So you spend the money. You take the new thing home. For a while, it provides the “high” a shiny new object is supposed to. Then it gradually fades into the background. It becomes just another possession, kicking around with all the others you have. Something you use, maybe every day, and which may or may not be useful, but which doesn’t mean as much as when it was new and not yours.

Then you see another something. A beautiful, shiny, brand-new something. And it takes hold of your heart. It pulls at you until you can’t resist. You convince yourself you want it, you need it, it will make your life complete. You forget that the last one was going to do that for you, but it hasn’t. So you buy it. And on and on the cycle goes.

For many of us women, these things are makeup, clothes, or jewelry. For men, it may be video games or gadgets. There’s an endless list of “things” on offer that we can be easily persuaded we need to buy, depending on our particular inclinations.

What’s worse, it’s endemic to our culture. We’re surrounded by messages that tell us we need a constant stream of new things—the latest luxuries, the most fashionable clothes—to keep our lives comfortable and convenient and make us content.

The problem with all of this, for the Christian, is that it’s radically at odds with the kind of life Jesus calls us to live.

2000 years ago, when Jesus walked the earth, covetousness—the desire for more and more “stuff”—was already as old as mankind. It didn’t begin with western culture, cheap manufacturing, and the shopping mall. Jesus analyzed this particular spiritual sickness and warned us against it:

“Then he said to them, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." (Luke 12:15)

The Apostle Paul is even stronger in his letter to the Ephesians:

“But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints….For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.” (Ephesians 5:3-5)

Ouch! Covetousness equated with idolatry? Listed with sexual immorality? Covetous (the NIV translates it “greedy”) people aren’t part of God’s kingdom?

Why?

Well, because what is important to us, what we spend our time pursuing, what we think about and devote our energy to, reveals what really holds our heart.

Worship is devotion or service to a particular entity or end, hoping for it to give us the results we crave. If we spend our time, energy, thought and money acquiring new stuff, hoping that it will fulfill us, make us happy, or take away the empty hole inside, we in effect are worshiping it.

We may not bow down to wooden idols. But we are far more in danger of bowing down to Wal-Mart.

The endless pursuit of things—treasure in this world—dulls us to spiritual realities and keeps us on a treadmill of desire and acquisition that distracts and deters us from God’s calling.

There are obvious realities we can face that can help cut the power of this kind of thinking. For one thing, we actually need far less than we think we do. A trip to Africa convinced me of that. I met people from the bush for whom a discarded tin can was a prize possession because it could be used as a water cup.

Another reality is that things can’t make us happy, or fulfill us. If they could, we wouldn’t endlessly need more.

But to truly cut the power of materialism over us, we need a spiritual perspective. We need power from above, we need heaven’s reality, to break the hold of “stuff” and to fix our eyes on what really matters.

One piece of that reality is that this life is temporary and not worth living for. When we endlessly accumulate things, we are acting as if our life in this world is forever. We forget that not only are we going to die, we are going to spend eternity in a kingdom where our once-treasured earthly belongings turned into ashes long ago. Hoarding “stuff” is acting like our existence on this earth is the ultimate reality.

Jesus exposed the futility of that way of thinking when he told the parable of the rich man who plotted to build new barns. That night, God required his soul of him. His beautiful new barns were of no use to him and he went to face God’s judgment where he had to give an account of the resources that had been entrusted to him.

Jesus explained how to prevent this kind of cosmic “uh-oh” moment when he said: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.” (Matthew 6:18-20)

But even more pertinently, we need to ask ourselves why we’re so driven to possess and consume without end. Why do “things” hold such power over us?

The answer, I believe, is that we are trying to fill the void inside us. It may sound cliché, but we all have an inward emptiness that we seek to numb and eradicate with many things, including stuff. I know that’s the case for me. When I’m depressed, I shop. Or I’m convinced that if I buy that new dress, everyone will think I’m beautiful.

What kind of need are you trying to fill with “things”? This is the heart of why we accumulate. Understanding this will cut its power at the source. External solutions are never the way. Jesus is always after our heart.

When you understand the void inside you, there’s only one way to fill it. There’s only one way to satisfy it from the inside, so that the temptation to throw “stuff” into it doesn’t become overwhelming. That void must be filled with God himself, and he’s the only one who can fill it.

One passage from Hebrews became my weapon against “stuff”:

“Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." So we say with confidence, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?’” (Hebrews 13:5-6)

Isn’t that genius?

The answer to the power of stuff is just this: GOD HIMSELF IS OUR POSSESSION. He’s given himself to us, and he will never leave us or forsake us. With him on our side, and within us, we have everything we need. Who wants things when you have the Almighty God?

He is more than enough to fill us with the love we crave, with the comfort we seek, with the reassurance we need. When the void inside us screams for satisfaction with “stuff” (or any other temptation), turn to him instead. Cast yourself on him for the grace you need to make it through, to feel his peace and joy and love and fatherhood, and to resist another day the spiritual poisons and the idols that beckon you. He’ll do it. If you fall, he’ll forgive and comfort you. He’s that kind of God.

One of the most common objections I hear when presenting the gospel to people is something like the following:

“But what about hell? I just can’t believe in a God who would send people to hell, especially people in remote parts of the world who have never had the chance to hear about him, or children.”

Basically, the picture presented in this argument is this:

God is a capricious, judgmental character who is remote and unknowable, and requires esoteric knowledge available to only a few for salvation. The unlucky majority that isn’t fortunate enough to have this knowledge will be thrown into hell without a chance. Human beings are basically decent characters trying their best who simply don’t deserve such an extreme punishment.

I wouldn’t believe in a God like this either. In fact, I don’t. Here’s why:

1. Every human being has access to the knowledge of God, because God has given it to them

The apostle Paul responded to just such an argument in a letter he wrote to the early church at Rome. The picture he paints is completely different; in fact, he turns this objection on its head:

“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” (Romans 1:18-20)

Paul is saying that far from being a distant, remote Deity whose existence is impossible to prove and who can’t be known except by an elite few who have access to certain facts, God has made his existence and his character blindingly obvious to everyone. All around us, the heavens and the earth are simply SHOUTING his glory! It’s impossible to miss; there is nobody who has not seen and understood it.

Centuries before Paul, a Hebrew songwriter put it more poetically:

The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they display knowledge.
There is no speech or language
where their voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.

(King David, Psalm 19:1-4)

Have you ever looked up at a starry night sky? Watched a sunset? Seen a mountain? A tree? A snowflake? Your own hand? Then you have seen the eternal power, divine nature, and unsurpassable wisdom of God. This includes every human being who has ever been born, whether they had access to a Bible or heard about Jesus. No one can plead ignorance.

2. Everyone has turned away from this knowledge of God

Paul goes on to explain why we are without excuse:

“For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles….They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.” (Romans 1:21-23, 25)

In a mind-bendingly foolish exchange, people choose to ignore the glory of God who has revealed himself through creation, and worship some form of his creation instead. This, of course, is not limited to falling down in front of a carved idol. Anything we live for that is not the Creator, including ourselves, is a form of worship. Anything we depend on for happiness, survival, sustenance, and success except God himself is what we worship. It may be science, our intellect, our looks, our physical fitness, relationships, work, drugs, sex—anything. Every single human being ever born has made this exchange. We’ve denied truth and traded it for a lie that enables us to live independently of God, looking to anything and everything else but him for life.

The results of this foolish tradeoff are chilling. Paul describes them this way:

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another….Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.

Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. (Romans 1:42, 26-32)

The sin that makes both ourselves and others miserable, and society a hostile place, is the consequence of our abandonment of the knowledge of God. We tend to treat sinful behaviour as the problem, something that stands on its own. Paul tells us that it actually stems from the root cause of rejecting God and worshiping his creation instead. That is the problem; sin is the result.

As human beings, we tend to focus on behaviour. We like to think that we are relatively good compared to other people. If we don’t do outrageously bad things, and we try to be nice to others, we think we’re probably ok. However, God’s standard is far different. If we have failed to completely love, obey, and worship him as God from the moment we are conscious, we have failed to live up to the purpose for which he created us.

It’s a far darker picture of human beings than we like to paint of ourselves. Instead of God being the problem, suddenly we realize that we are the problem.

Paul goes further in the next chapter to argue that the Gentiles, who did not have God’s law given to the Jews, nonetheless know the righteous requirements of God. These requirements have been written in their conscience, and they understand them innately:

“Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.” (Romans 2:14-15)

Every human being ever born has an inbuilt sense of what is right and what is wrong, which begins operation very early. To be sure, this sense is imperfect, but nonetheless, when we do what is wrong, we know it. Nobody has ever lived up to even the standards of his or her own conscience; we all have the experience of guilt to tell us when we have crossed the line, even if we try to suppress it.

Paul sums up his dark picture of human failing with this conclusion:

We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.”…Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. (Romans 3:9-11, 19)

We start from the assumption that we are the innocent ones and God the guilty party. When we see things from God’s perspective, we realize that we are the guilty ones, and in fact, we’re all in pretty deep trouble. God would be completely just if he were to send us all to hell, no passing go, no collecting $200.

3. God did something about this, even though he didn’t have to

Fortunately, Paul doesn’t end the argument here. He goes on to tell us that although we are all guilty before God, bar none, God himself has provided the solution: the free gift of righteousness through his Son Jesus Christ, who was given as a blood sacrifice for the sins which were committed against him!

This is utterly mind-boggling. God, who is perfect in righteousness and never committed a single sin, created a human race which to a man rebelled against him and rejected him. In a stunning plot twist, instead of wiping us out, God decided to become one of his creation, lived thirty-three poverty-stricken years on earth, knew rejection, deprivation, and shame, and in the end was scourged and put to death at the hands of his own creation by perhaps the cruellest execution method ever devised, crucifixion. In his death, he took all of the guilt of the sins we committed against him and all of the wrath and separation from God that we rightly deserve—so that God could forgive us without violating his perfect justice, restore us to relationship with himself, and give us eternal life!

This is the story of the gospel as presented in the Bible. Anybody who accuses God of injustice has not comprehended the massive humility and injustice God suffered, in order to redeem those who hate him and by themselves would never move a step toward him. Not only that, it is a free gift offered to anyone and everyone who will believe. Debt wiped out; slate clean; gone free.

This is deep mercy. This is incomprehensible love. Anybody who truly understands this will not only accept it in a moment, but will spend eternity worshiping and glorifying God for it.

4. This argument fails to understand the heart of God

God is not an immovable, distant, angry, capricious Deity bent on sweeping all those who fail to escape by a technicality into Hell. Such an idea massively misunderstands the heart of God.

God is pictured in Scripture as a tender Shepherd who leaves ninety-nine sheep to go off into the wilderness and fetch the one lost and throws a party when he finds it; a woman who carefully searches for her one lost coin and throws a party when she finds it; a loving Father who runs to meet the returning son who left him and squandered his inheritance, and throws a party (Luke 15). Jesus summed up his mission this way: “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.” (Luke 19:10)

Listen to God’s heart in sending Jesus:

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” (John 3:16-17)

Listen to God’s heart for mankind:

“The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9)

“[God] wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.” 1 Timothy 2:4

“[J]udgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment!” (James 2:13)

God is perfectly just, and to those who persist in rejecting him, he will show his perfect justice. However, he’d far rather show mercy! God is not a sadist who delights in sending people to eternal punishment. God’s desire is that everyone will turn to him. Jesus was a divine mission sent from God in order to bring mankind back to himself. Jesus’ death and resurrection was God’s trump card, overturning sin, death, and hell in one fell swoop to clear the way for us to live forever with our Father.

5. This objection presents God in man’s debt, when the fact is, we are in God’s

Who are you, O man, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” (Romans 9:20)

At the heart of this objection to the gospel is the idea that God “owes” us something. He owes us, at the least, eternal life. If he can’t guarantee this to everyone, it’s better not to believe in his existence.

We’ve already discussed this, so we won’t go into it in detail, but the reality is in fact the opposite. It’s we who owe God thankfulness, love, worship, and obedience, and we have radically failed to discharge this debt.

Picture this: you meet someone with whom you fall deeply in love. In time you marry, and because of your love, you decide to have a child. You are model parents: you provide everything your child needs, from physical care to unconditional love and fair discipline. Yet from the time that child is old enough, he revolts against you. Instead of loving you, he takes every opportunity to demonstrate his hatred. Instead of enjoying his relationship with you, he ignores and rejects you and prefers to spend all his time in the company of others or out by himself. Instead of being grateful for your kindness as a parent, he takes what you give him but does not say thank you. He spurns you when you demonstrate your love for him, disobeys you at every opportunity, curses you, destroys your property, and is physically violent. He does not do anything you ask or help around the house and as soon as he’s old enough, he runs away to live on his own and never speaks to you again, pretending you are not his family.

Any parent would be heartbroken at such a treatment. Yet this is an accurate picture of how we have reacted to God.

We were created to love God. We were created to worship, obey, and live in relationship with him. Yet every one of us, from the time we were conscious, have failed to do so and instead have chosen other gods and other allegiances.

This is deeply humbling. We are used to thinking of ourselves as the centre of the universe, and God in our debt. God is very unapologetically at the centre of the universe, and we are his creation who were made for his glory and his pleasure. We exist for him, not the other way round.

6. This objection can be refined to “Well then, if faith in Jesus is necessary for salvation, what about people who have never heard of Jesus?”

This is a more difficult question. I do not claim to know all of the ins and outs of how God will judge the world; if I did, I would be God and not human. I know some facts that frame my thinking about this issue, and the rest I leave to God.

1) God is perfectly just

God’s character is total justice. God is not going to judge anyone unfairly. At the last day when everyone stands before him, no one is going to be able to charge him with unfairness or imperfect knowledge. No one is going to be able to say that God judged wrongly. No one is going to be able to present facts that he didn’t know in order to overturn his case.

God does not judge based on what people do not know about him. God judges based on what they do know, and what they have done with that knowledge. Jesus said, “To whom much has been given, much will be required.” The greater someone’s knowledge of God, the greater their punishment will be for rejecting it. One who has less knowledge will be judged less severely.

2) God is merciful

As we discussed before, God’s heart is mercy. Although he is just, mercy trumps justice for him. His desire is to show mercy.

3) We don’t deserve eternal life; we deserve God’s judgment

We all deserve banishment from God’s presence. That’s what hell is, and that’s what we’ve chosen on earth. God does not “owe” us anything; if he was to send every single one of us to hell, he would be perfectly righteous in doing so.

4) God is sovereign, and he is perfectly capable of revealing himself to anyone who seeks him

Again, listen to God’s heart:

“Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the LORD. (Jeremiah 29:12-14)

God reveals himself to those who are not even looking for him:

“I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me;
I was found by those who did not seek me.
To a nation that did not call on my name,
I said, ‘Here am I, here am I.’” (Isaiah 65:1)

God controls the destinies of every man so they will have opportunity to find him:

“From one man he [God] made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.” (Acts 17:26-27)

There are many stories from the Muslim world of Muslims who are turning to Jesus because of dreams and visions they have had of him. In many cases, these people have never talked to a Christian or seen a Bible. I personally have met a Sudanese Arabic man who became a Christian as a result of hearing John 3:16 repeated in an audible voice three nights in a row. God can and will reveal himself to those whom he chooses, in whatever way he chooses. He is God, after all! He is looking for people more than people are looking for him.

7. What about children?

Again, my answer is two-fold: God is perfectly just, and God is merciful. The Bible simply doesn’t talk about what happens to children who may not be old enough to understand. Some theologians talk about an “age of accountability”, before which children are exempt from judgment. I think this may well be true, though I would not be dogmatic about it. In the end, I would say that I trust God’s mercy. It’s not possible for us as humans to be more merciful or more just than he is.

In conclusion, I would ask anyone presenting such an objection to read through the gospels in the Bible about the life of Jesus. God’s heart shines through again and again: the great story of the good news that God loves sinful human beings, desires reconciliation and relationship with them, and has done everything possible to make this happen. The Bible does not focus on hell, or on God’s judgment. It makes it clear that we deserve God’s wrath, but focuses its spotlight instead on the beauty and the glory of God’s plan to save us from it. That’s where the Story begins, but not where it ends. If you choose to step into it, you’ll spend all eternity celebrating it.

Many of my Christian friends (generally the more conservative ones) were and are very concerned about the election of Barack Obama, and appalled that I and others voted for him. I didn’t jump into that debate, and I don’t really want to now, but I feel a need to address some of the comments a few people have made to me (and move on, hopefully).

My attitude toward politics in general tends to be apathy shading toward mild interest. I generally keep abreast of major happenings, but don’t get into it in depth. The reasons for this are twofold: one, as a person I’m not particularly politically inclined; and two, more significantly, I believe the kingdom of God is the hope for the world, not politics. I believe the church is called to preach the gospel; that the Lordship of Jesus Christ and the transforming power of the Holy Spirit are the only “change” that is going to effect righteousness and justice in the nations.

However, I do recognize that human government is necessary and important and established by God; think Christians should vote; and most importantly, believe we should pray for our leaders, as Scripture commands.

With that preamble, I voted for Barack Obama and am happy to see him elected. That fact disturbs many of my good conservative Christian friends, mainly Americans, who see a vote for Barack Obama as a vote against God. As best I can make out, they believe this because a) he is for abortion; and b) he is for gay rights/same-sex marriage. As far as I can tell, these are the sole two issues they consider when voting for a candidate. (Anybody who holds this view is invited to correct my perspective if I’m wrong).

My purpose is not to try to convince those people that they should have voted for Obama, or criticize their vote. If you voted for someone else, more power to you; that’s your constitutional and democratic right. I would simply like to humbly clarify why I voted for him, and why I disagree with many of my friends’ reasons for not doing so.

1. Abortion and gay rights are not the only issues on the agenda

Contrary to what many Christians believe, these are not the only two issues that are at stake when voting for a candidate. There are things like the war in Iraq, international relations, the economy, health care, education, and a host of other issues that need to be considered.

2. Americans just had eight years of an “anti-abortion” president and abortion is still alive and well.

As politically ignorant as I am, I’m aware that legislation has to go through a process before it is passed. The President is only one part of that process, and he doesn’t have carte blanche to do whatever he wants. Roe vs. Wade was passed in 1973 and it is extremely unlikely that it will be reversed. Even if it is, illegal and potentially dangerous abortions will be performed, as they are in countries where abortion is illegal, and as they were in America before abortion was legalized.

That does not mean I am for abortion. I am not. I believe it is wrong. But a vote for a pro-abortion candidate is not de facto a vote for abortion, nor is a vote for an anti-abortion candidate any sort of guarantee that said candidate will either make abortion a priority or make any headway against it if he does. George Bush is “anti-abortion”. As far as I am aware, abortion laws are no different at the end of his eight years in office than before. Please correct me if I am wrong.

If you are truly anti-abortion, do something about it. Volunteer at a crisis pregnancy centre. Offer to adopt a baby who otherwise would be aborted, instead of having another one of your own. Seek change on the level where you have influence, instead of relying on an elected official.

3. This may shock many Christians, but I am not interested in legislating against same-sex marriage/gay rights.

As I said before, I believe the kingdom of God/the gospel of Jesus Christ is the only hope for change for the human heart. You cannot legislate morality. Even if you had a society where you outlawed everything immoral, you are not changing people’s hearts. The behaviours will go on underground. The gay community has a well-deserved beef with the Christian church for the amount of un-love it has experienced from us. Let’s be more concerned with sharing the love of Jesus Christ and the hope of transformation with them, than trying to legislate what they can and can’t do. Stop looking at them as the “enemy” and start seeing them as they are, broken, hurting people looking for love in all the wrong places. Start talking to them and befriending them instead of shouting slogans across a fence. Maybe then they, and the world, will sit up and realize that the church has something they want.

4. There are far more issues of righteousness and justice than abortion and gay rights

The Bible has an awful lot to say about how the poor are treated. Millions of Americans are without access to health care. (I know, having been one of them for the 2+ years I lived back in the States). It has an awful lot to say about how foreigners are treated. What does God think of poor Mexicans coming into a wealthy country seeking a better life for themselves and their families? It has a lot to say about murder. How can we claim righteousness when the life of an unborn American baby means more to us than the lives of thousands of unknown Iraqi civilians? They are God’s creation and God’s offspring just as much as “we” are. The fact that they are brown and speak Arabic and were born on the other side of the world does not make them one whit less valuable in his eyes than an American baby. God has a lot to say about justice. How does that square with suspected terrorists languishing in American military prisons indefinitely with no access to trial and subject to torture by power-hungry guards?

5. I am not looking for a kingdom on this earth, nor do I believe Barack Obama or any other politician is the hope for righteousness.

The writer to the Hebrews reminds us, “For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.” (Hebrews 13:14) Peter tells us we are “aliens and strangers in the world.” (1 Peter 2:11) John says that “the whole world is under the control of the evil one” (1 John 5:19) I am not under the delusion that a kingdom of righteousness and peace will be established on this earth, by political means.

Jesus spoke of his kingdom this way:

“The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, ‘Here it is’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17:20-21)

“The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8)

“My kingdom is not of this world.” (John 18:36)

The New Testament, remarkably, has nothing to say about political activism. We’re told to obey government (Romans 13:1-7) and to pray for it (1 Timothy 2:1-3), and that’s it. The band of 12 and those who formed around their testimony believed that the message of the Gospel, preached in the power of the Holy Spirit, was what would change the world. Their passion, their lives, and ultimately, their deaths, were given in this all-consuming goal.

This is a sinful, God-hating world. A government made up of (mostly) unregenerate men and women are simply not going to establish a perfectly righteous and godly rule of law. That’s not to say we shouldn’t strive for righteousness, vote for it, and campaign for it if we can. It’s simply to say our hope is not in this world, nor is it in a government of this world. It’s in a heavenly kingdom to come, one we have imperfectly now and will have in fullness when its King (Jesus) returns.

5. Of course, some Christians are called to politics and have had success in bringing reform. Notable is William Wilberforce who was instrumental in outlawing British slavery. If that is someone’s calling, God bless him/her. It is a difficult and challenging path and one I know I’m not called to. However, Christians exist in all spheres of life and more power to them when they’re able to be influential politically.

However, for the church at large, I believe we are called to preach the gospel, to live as salt and as light, and to shine like stars in the midst of a dark and evil world. When that happens, the world will be drawn to the church. When that happens, the world will be drawn to Jesus. When that happens, we will be persecuted for his sake, but the church will grow. When that happens, the world will see us not as a bastion of conservative politics, but as an outpost of a heavenly city. When that happens, a kingdom of peace, righteousness, and justice will be hastened in, not through politics, but through the everlasting reign of God.

Hmm. When that happens, we might start looking like the church Jesus wants.

(Please keep any comments on this post civil and loving, even if you disagree with it. I may or may not respond to comments, mostly because, as I said, I’m not looking for a debate).

My recent job situation has got me thinking a lot about topics like justice, grace, mercy, and law. Don't ask me why, because it would take too long, and I won't go into it here.

But today I was thinking about justice and mercy. Specifically, I was thinking about those things in terms of God.

What I was thinking was this: what if God was the kind of God who kept track of all of your faults? What if he made a record of them, brought them up to your face when you tried to approach him, and refused to forgive you? What if he forced you to live with all the consequences, both in this life and eternally?

I'd be screwed, that's what. In the face of God's perfect justice, we'd all be screwed.

One of the Psalmists knew this fact thousands of years ago:

"If you, O LORD, kept a record of sins,
O Lord, who could stand?" (Psalm 130:3)

The answer is: no one. No one could stand.

Much later, quoting another Psalm, the apostle Paul wrote, "there is no one who does good, not even one." (Romans 3:12)

Not only that, there's no escaping God's justice:

"Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows." (Galatians 6:7)

So what then? I'm really, really glad that the flipside is that God is not only a God of justice, he's a God who delights in mercy. That Psalmist went on to say:

"But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared." (Psalm 130:4)

God has the right to condemn everyone to hell. He'd have the right if he wanted right now to send the whole world up in flames—whoosh—like a sort of cosmic pyrotechnics show. But he doesn't. Why?

Because he'd rather show mercy.

The whole giant, great, grand, good news of the gospel, which I am so grateful for because without it I would be screwed, is that God chooses to show mercy. To people who don't deserve it. To people who scorn, mock, and reject it. To people like us.

Probably the best-known verse in the Bible is this: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him." (John 3:16-17)

That's it. Case closed. We can pack up and go home. That's everything, in a nutshell.

Why? Why did God do it?

If you've been a Christian for a long time, and/or grown up in a Christian home, it's really easy to take it for granted. To view it as a sort of divine obligation, a kind of religious of-course. Well yes, we're sinners, and we deserve hell, but God sent his Son and he died on the cross and...

It's mind-bendingly astonishing that the God of the universe chose to send his only Son as a man to live among us, suffer, and finally die bearing the full penalty for the things we'd done wrong against HIM, things we fully deserved to die for. All so we could be reconciled back to God and have relationship with him and live with him eternally.

Another sort of nutshell verse puts it like this:

"God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." (2 Corinthians 5:21)

There's nothing more astonishing than that. There's nothing more gratitude-inducing, more praise-inspiring, more worship-worthy, more give-your-life-worthy, than that. We'll spend all of eternity praising and worshiping God for it.

That justice thing? You can still have it. If you want it. All you have to do is to refuse God's mercy. All you have to do is not believe it. All you have to do is walk away from it and refuse to accept it. You'll get his justice.

But he'd rather you had his mercy.

Peter says,

"The Lord....is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance." (2 Peter 3:9)

In the face of his mercy, all we can do is humbly accept. All we can do is drink it in like rain. All we can do is admit our inability to get it right ourselves, and accept his forgiveness.

This verse hit me really strongly today:

"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9)

That's a shining light to walk by.

When I was a fairly young Christian, I had the idea in my mind, however subconsciously, that being a Christian meant that God was obligated to protect me from suffering. If he didn't, either he didn't love me, or I had failed him somehow. When I went through suffering, I quickly and easily questioned my faith and my relationship with God. I withdrew from him and grew angry and bitter. Sometimes I cursed him.

I don't think I'm alone in that. I believe my experience is common to many Christians, as well as unbelievers. The biggest reason many people give for not believing in God is suffering in the world. People are slow to thank God for their blessings, quick to blame him for their agonies. God could have prevented this, they cry. If he is good, why would he allow this to happen?

Those are difficult questions. I know, because I've asked them myself. I don't pretend there's an easy answer. I believe there is an answer, but not the one most people want to hear.

The reality of the Christian life is not triumphalism: protection from all suffering, failure and pain. The reality of the Christian life is grace in the midst of suffering.

God did not spare his own Son from pain. Jesus was called "a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering" (Isaiah 53:3). The man whom many consider the greatest Christian who ever lived, the Apostle Paul, lived closely with suffering throughout his career (2 Corinthians 11:23-29). Jesus and Paul both warned us that suffering would be a normal part of the Christian life.

Paul was tormented by a "thorn in his flesh", from which he cried out that God would deliver him. God's response, however, was: "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." (2 Corinthians 12:9)

A good summary of the Christian life: God's power in human frailty.

A striking apparent contradiction hit me when I was reading Luke recently. Jesus is warning his disciples about coming persecution:

But before all this, they will lay hands on you and persecute you....You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers, relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death. All men will hate you because of me. But not a hair of your head will perish. (Luke 21:12, 16-18, emphasis added)

Some of you will be put to death? Not a hair of your head will perish?

The thing is, God's idea of deliverance looks very different to ours.

Our idea of deliverance is cessation of the trial, the temptation, the persecution.

God's idea of deliverance is his strength given to us to enable us to endure and to overcome. God's idea of deliverance is his grace, peace, and comfort in the middle of trial. God's idea of deliverance is standing fast, holding firm, remaining faithful to him despite the temptation to deny or abandon him. God's idea of deliverance is resisting sin and turning to him for the grace to obey instead.

Paul summed up this paradox well:

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. (2 Corinthians 4:7-10)

Especially in charismatic circles, we love teaching about grace. We love teaching about the Father's love. We love hearing that God loves us no matter what, and that he will forgive us no matter what. We often hear that there is nothing we can do to make God love us less, and nothing we can do to make him love us more.

All of this is true. But it is impossible to truly behold God, and to remain the same. As we gaze at his beautiful face, we are transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, by the Lord who is the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:18).

When we see God, we no longer want sin. When we look upon his beauty, we no longer desire anything else. It is impossible to truly see him, and still want to hold onto sin and the world.

Our God is a consuming fire (Hebrews 12:29). He is both more loving and more holy than we can possibly imagine. It is impossible for him to tolerate sin. Even in his beloved children, his purpose is to purge it away with the fire of his holiness until we begin to resemble his likeness.

He does this so we can live in his presence. Nothing sinful or evil can live with him. We are purified so that we can be ready to hold more of his presence inside us, to carry that presence to the world around us, and eventually, to see him face to face. In heaven there will be no sin. In this life, we are on a journey toward that destination. As we grow closer and closer to him, he will cleanse away everything that does not resemble his holiness and righteousness.

This process is sometimes more difficult and painful than we can imagine. But once we have drunk of the waters of bitterness, he will give us the waters of his peace and his joy. We will rejoice in what the trials accomplish, for even when we cannot see his purpose, he is guiding us with his loving hand into and through them. When we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, he is with us. His hand holds ours the entire way.

I have known more of his presence, more of his joy, and heard his voice most often and most clearly, when I have gone through the deepest suffering.

Coincidence? I think not. And truly, in the end, it makes it all worth it. I wouldn't trade what I have gone through with God, what I have learned of him, and the closeness I've gained to him, for freedom from the suffering and pain. Even if sometimes in the middle of it, I've prayed for it to be taken away. He knows better, and he sees the end from the beginning.

This paradox is captured perfectly by Peter:

"In this [salvation] you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed." (1 Peter 1:6-7)

"Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it." (Hebrews 12:7-11)

This is an incredibly important and comforting passage, one that I return to again and again. (Actually, I'd recommend all of verses 1-13). It sheds light on the purpose for our suffering: it is not because God hates us or we are rejected by him, but rather the opposite: we are his chosen and dearly loved sons, and he is committed to doing whatever he can to deal with the sin in our lives and bring about his righteousness and holiness.

Just a quick list of some of the results of God's discipline:

• To deal with sin in our lives
• To make us more like Jesus
• To cause us to rely on him more
• To cause us to know him more

However, this doesn't have to happen. The difficulties in a non-believer's life don't have these results, and they don't have to in our lives either. The key factor is our response to God's discipline.

How do we respond to suffering in order to produce godly results?

The key really is faith. Here are some thoughts:

• Remember the Father's love. Remember Romans 8:28. Remember that he loves us deeply and that he has PROMISED to work everything out for our good, including this trial. His heart does not change when we go through suffering. Nothing can separate us from his love.
• Refuse to give in to the temptation to grow bitter and to blame God or grow angry at him. Trust his heart. Thank him, as much as you can, even for this trial. Worship him, as much as you can. Worship is a powerful force against the enemy. This doesn't mean denying the pain, it just means telling him you still believe he is good in spite of it. You can be honest with him about how you feel, and about how it doesn't seem to make sense. He is your Father.
• Don't give in to the temptation to believe that your suffering is random and/or meaningless. You are a child of the living God. Your trial has been ordained by his sovereign hand, for your good. It is not random, it is not meaningless, it is not purposeless. He knows the end and the beginning.
• Don't give in to the temptation to think "what if" or fantasize about how things could have been. Accept it as it is. Face it realistically, and don't attempt to numb the pain (an ungodly response). Grieve if you have to.
• Submit to God and resist the devil (James 4:7) Wait with patience for the trial to be over.
• Remember that it WILL have good results. Remember that no matter how painful it is now, the pain will pass and you will look back, understand it better, and thank God for it. Remember that the end result, should you choose to trust God and obey him through it, will be "a harvest of righteousness and peace".

"We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead." (The Apostle Paul, 2 Corinthians 1:8-9)

Abraham is called in Scripture "the father of all who believe" (Romans 4:11-12). What kind of faith did Abraham have?

He had faith that God would raise the dead. First of all, he believed that God would bring life from his and Sarah's dead and barren bodies, to give them the son that God had promised (Romans 4:19-21). Later, after that son had miraculously been born, he faced an even greater test when God demanded that he sacrifice him. Still, he didn't waver in his faith but believed that if necessary, God would raise Isaac from the dead (Hebrews 11:19).

God tells us that this is the faith that saves us. When we believe that God raised Jesus from the dead, he credits us his righteousness and our sins are forgiven (Romans 4:24, 10:9).

However, this faith goes far beyond salvation, as the example of the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 1 tells us.

Many times as Christians we are faced with situations in our lives that seem like death. In fact, they are death: the death of our hopes, our dreams, our desires, our loves, our flesh. Many times they can seem excruciatingly painful, "far beyond our ability to endure," as Paul put it.

There is a Christian aphorism that goes like this, "God will never give you anything that you can't handle."

I don't believe that is true.

I believe that very often, God can and does allow things in our lives that we cannot handle, that are "far beyond our ability to endure," that could easily crush us to death.

And why?

He does it so, as Paul says, "that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead."

When you are faced with a situation that you simply cannot handle, that is impossible for you, that in your strength cannot be moved, this happens so that in your manifest weakness you would cry out to God, who is your only hope. It happens so that when you have put your hope in him, confessed to him that he alone is your refuge and your salvation, and that if he does not raise this thing from the dead there will be no life, you will see his deliverance.

Paul went on to say,

"He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers." (2 Corinthians 1:10-11)

Are you faced with a situation that is impossible? Does it seem like there is no hope, no end in sight, no deliverance that you can see? Your hope is in the God who raises the dead. Your salvation is in the God who does the impossible. Turn to him, trust in him, so you can see his salvation.

I believe that is why James can tell us, "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds." Though the trials themselves are not joyful, there is joy in the opportunity to cast yourself on the God who raises the dead and see what he will do. There is joy in the opportunity to grow in your knowledge and trust of him, and to prove yourself faithful through the testing rather than abandon God.

He will be faithful to us.

Last night, I was sitting outside knitting. I was waiting until a specified time when I was supposed to meet someone at their apartment, so, having arrived early I did what I always do when I have a knitting project on the go and a bit of spare time: pulled it out and started working.

Suddenly I heard, "That is the cutest thing I have ever seen!"

I looked up, confused. An extremely good-looking Chinese guy was standing there smiling at me. Tall, well built, very cute.

"What, knitting?" I laughed.

"Knitting in front of an apartment building. What are you doing here?"

We started chatting and exchanging flirtatious banter. I have to admit it was a bit flattering: it's been a long time since a cute guy flirted with me.

"So, tell me something about yourself," he invited.

"Well, I knit."

"I know that! Tell me something I don't know."

I paused for a moment. I had a choice. Do I tell him the most important thing about myself, something guaranteed to stop the flirting and frighten him away, or do I give in to the flattery and say something lighthearted and inconsequential?

"I'm a Christian," I said.

His smile froze. He went silent. He looked at me warily.

"I thought I'd tell you the most scary thing about me," I said, trying to lighten the atmosphere.

"That is scary," he said. "Are you, like, a hardcore Christian? I've had a lot of conversations with hardcore Christians, because I'm a Buddhist."

"Oh yeah?" I asked him a few questions about his Buddhism, and he asked me about my Christianity. I told him what it meant to me to be a Christian. I left him with a card from my church with my phone number on it.

Somehow, I don't think I'll be hearing from him. But hopefully, the conversation meant something more than a random flirt. Hopefully, God's on his case and tracking him down. I don't know. I prayed for him.

Sometimes being a Christian is harder than others. Like, scaring away the first cute guy in ages to flirt with you by talking with him about Jesus. It hardly qualifies as suffering for the gospel. Nonetheless, I have to admit that there was a little twinge of regret. Ah well. Maybe I can start up a ministry: street evangelism to cute guys. With knitting.

Recently I read a book by Bill Johnson entitled Face to Face With God: The ultimate quest to experience his presence. It's an excellent book, and I recommend it.

One statement impacted me more than any other in the book:

"God's love for people is beyond comprehension and imagination. He is for us, not against us. God is good 100 percent of the time." (p. 3, emphasis added)

"[I]f I had to pick one word to describe the nature of God revealed in Christ, it is that He is good. I never realized how controversial the subject of the nature of God could be until I began teaching week after week that God is good, always." (p. 103)

This simple premise shocked me, not only because it is profound, but because I realized I don't really believe it. Most of the time, even if I'm not outright angry at God and convinced that he is out to get me, the suspicion lurks strongly in my mind that mixed up in God's "good" motives are motives to punish, hurt, or damage me. If I really give myself over to him, I can't trust that the results will be in my favour.

Bill Johnson admits the difficulty of this teaching:

"While most believers hold the belief [that God is good] as a theological value...they struggle in light of the difficulties all around us. Many have abandoned the idea altogether, thinking it doesn't have any practical application. The hardest part is saying that He's always good. Some will say He is mysteriously good, which is about the same as saying He's good, but not as we think of goodness." (p.103)

The more I have thought about it, the more convinced I have become that central to a quest for the presence of God, central to giving up everything to follow Jesus, is a basic and settled conviction in our hearts that God is good. Not just good, but 100% good, 100% of the time.

How can we abandon ourselves to him, how can we completely believe and obey him, unless we believe that?

One of Satan's very first temptations in the garden of Eden, the doubt he sowed into Eve's mind to convince her to disobey God, was the idea that God was not good:

The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.' "

"You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." (Genesis 3:2-5)

The ugly but plausible lie behind what the serpent was saying was this: God is holding out on you. He knows that this will be good for you, and that's why he's forbidding it. If you take things into your own hands, if you go your own way, forgetting what God says, you will experience what is truly good, what God doesn't want you to have and what you'll miss out on if you obey him.

Eve fell for it. And ever since, generations down the line, every single human being has fallen for it too.

What Jesus Christ came to reveal, and what reconciliation to God is all about, is that God is actually good. That following him reaps ultimate rewards, both in this lifetime and the next.

And yet, we struggle to believe that. Someone far from God doesn't believe it at all: a basic hatred and mistrust of God keeps them shaking their fists from a distance, even if unconsciously. But many Christians probably feel the same way I do: a deep and stubborn suspicion that the love of God is a happy lie, that a benevolent Father can't possibly be true, that ditching the treasures of this life in favour of treasure in heaven won't ultimately pay off.

We follow Jesus because we feel we have no choice. We know he's the truth. But disappointments, unhappy circumstances, far-off things that are starting to look less like promises and more like cruel bait, keep us in a miserable state of depression, discouragement, fear, and fruitlessness. We turn to things we know we shouldn't in an effort to stem the demanding tide of pain.

If God is good, why? Why this circumstance in my life? Why this thing that I want so badly and can't have? Why this stuff that doesn't make any sense?

There's no easy answer to that. I can't promise that a belief in the goodness of God will reap quick and easy solutions to the disappointments and hurts of life. I still struggle with questions about things that are currently ongoing in my life, and I don't have any guarantee that I will have an answer soon, or indeed, any answer in this lifetime.

But key to overcoming the hurt, disappointment, fear, and fruitlessness is a little thing called faith.

We have a choice when confronted with our thoughts, our feelings, our circumstances, and the enemy's lies:

Do we believe God?

God has said, "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." (Romans 8:28, emphasis added)

As believers, that's a shining light of truth, a promise God has given us that encompasses all circumstances in our life, both "good" and "bad".

The belief that God is out to harm us or to hold out on us is a lie.

We know the heart and the character of God as revealed in Jesus. We have the promises of God. What do we turn to when hurt or disappointment threatens to overwhelm us? We will be overwhelmed, unless we believe in the promises of God.

I'm not saying that bad things won't happen to us. Promises that we will suffer are sown through the whole New Testament. Following God definitely does not guarantee that we will get what we want in this life, or that it will be easy. There are no guarantees.

Except for the presence, the power, and the love of God. And somehow, that's enough to make us "more than conquerors", as Paul says (Romans 8:37).

Paul knew what he was talking about. He had suffered and lost more than any of us probably ever will. And yet, he could triumphantly state his all-conquering belief in the goodness and the love of God.

Don't sell yourself short. Disappointments will happen. Hurts will happen. God tells us he uses them to make us mature and complete and shape us into the image of Jesus (James 1:2-4; Hebrews 12:1-13). The question is, will we believe him?

I have gone through many hurts in my life. Sometimes I've felt that God wanted to make me into a test case for suffering! (Which, of course, is not true). Looking back at my major disappointments, I can trace God's hand and see how he has used each one to draw me into new stages in my relationship with him and deal with sin issues. What I thought would destroy me has ended up turning out for my good. Even if, and when, those things were not good in themselves!

With that experience, and with God's promises, I can look at the current hurts and disappointments in my life and say, "God, I don't understand this. I don't like this. This hurts. I don't know why you've allowed it. I wish it could be another way. But I know with total certainty that you will work this out for my good, no matter how it ends up. Therefore, I can walk forward with faith and confidence and continue trusting you and doing what you have called me to do."

Faith in God's goodness does not mean denying, ignoring, or minimizing the pain. It doesn't mean saying that everything that happens to us is good. We live in a sinful, fallen, evil world. Bad stuff can and does happen. People sin, and they sin against us.

But faith in God does mean a settled conviction that, in the life of a believer, God both can and will turn out everything, including the bad, the sinful, the ugly, the painful, for our good, because he's promised. It means a conviction that our perspective is limited and faulty, and God's is eternal and perfect. What from our time-bound, human viewpoint looks only like destruction, from God's heavenly vantage point looks like an opportunity to display his grace and his goodness. It means believing what we cannot yet see, which, after all, is the very definition of faith (Hebrews 11:1).

With faith like that, nothing can shake us.

God help me, and all of us, to believe.