Filed under: Bible, RUCU | Tags: appearance, God, houseparty, humanity, Isaiah, Jesus, Romans, suffer
One of many differences between humans and God struck me over the weekend, while on the RUCU houseparty. The Bible talks were from Isaiah chapters 53-55, and in my personal devotions I was reading Romans chapter 5. Just a few hours apart I read both the following passages:
He has no form or comeliness;
And when we see Him,
There is no beauty that we should desire Him.
He is despised and rejected by men,
A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him;
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.Isaiah 53:2-3
When we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 5:6-8
Spot the difference? We looked on an unattractive Christ and, by nature, reject Him. God, on the other hand, looks upon an unattractive humanity and loves it. God comes and dies for sinful humanity. What is the result?
I will divide Him a portion with the great,
And He shall divide the spoil with the strong,
Because He poured out His soul unto death,
And He was numbered with the transgressors,
And He bore the sin of many,
And made intercession for the transgressors.Isaiah 52:12
Jesus, God the Son, is honoured by God the Father because He bore our sin. A just God punishes all wrong things, and Jesus took that punishment for us. What amazing love! No wonder Jesus is honoured!
Filed under: Culture, Personal life | Tags: Elland Road, football, internet, Leeds, LUFC, stadium
I’m a Leeds United fan, albeit not a particularly dedicated one, so I was pleased to hear the announcement that Leeds’ first round FA cup match (against Oldham Athletic) would be broadcast live on the internet by the FA, with no charge whatsoever. For me, the biggest obstacle to watching Leeds matches has always been the cost. The only time I’ve ever watched a game at Elland Road was when a friend won a pair of free tickets. Much as I’d love to go regularly, it’s never been financially realistic. The match took place, and sadly I was working through most of it, but I did watch the end of the game. Viewing figures have just been released, and the video of the game was played a massive 176,000 times!
To put this in perspective, Elland Road seats just over 40,000 people (incidentally this makes it the 240th largest football stadium in the world by seated capacity). The new Wembley stadium seats 90,000. The largest football stadium in the world is the Rungrado May Day Stadium in Pyongyang, North Korea, which seats 150,000. Obviously there were not 176,000 separate people watching Leeds vs. Oldham, but it’s an impressive viewing figure nonetheless (and makes it one of the 5 largest free-to-view online sporting broadcasts in the UK so far)!
The next match to be freely streamed is the 2nd round match between Norwich City and either Carlisle United or Morecambe on Saturday 28 November. I’ll be interested to see how many people watch that one.
Filed under: Christian, Quotes, RUCU | Tags: D. L. Moody, God, IFES, prayer
Every great movement of God can be traced to a kneeling figure.
D. L. Moody
Today, Friday the 6th of November, marks the IFES World Student Day, a 48 hour period of solid prayer around the globe for the work of Christian students as they aim to live for God in their universities. RUCU’s termly prayer week is this coming week, the 9th to the 13th of November, after which we head off for a weekend of fellowship and teaching at our houseparty. Some of my (few) readers are Reading students, some are not, but if you are a Christian why not join us in prayer this week? We will be praying for salvation on Reading campus and for God to make great movements in the lives of individuals, and through them great movements which impact throughout the whole world. Be part of it. Pray to God.
Filed under: Christian, Other blogs, Personal life, Quotes | Tags: Christians, evangelism, friendship, JC Ryle
A lot of Christians do, in my limited experience, tend to find that their closest friends are other Christians. This is only natural, as they are connected by the close bond of unity and fellowship which comes from being in the body of Christ, the global church. It is also actively encouraged much of the time, as it is rightly pointed out that the negative influence non-Christians tend to have on a Christian is greater than the positive influence of the Christian. In the words of JC Ryle,
The good go down to the bad, and the bad do not come up to the good.
Is this why so many Christians struggle to be living out the experience which the apostle Paul spoke of in 1 Thessalonians 2:8, sharing not only the gospel with the people around them, but also inviting them into their lives? I realise this is a broad brush stroke, but do Christians struggle to share the gospel in a personal and meaningful way because they are afraid of making close friendships with unbelievers? I would suggest some do.
I can testify that at university I have found it far easier to make Christian friends, even when I have naturally got on better with a non-Christian. It is a source of constant pain to me that I have so few close friendships outside of my various holy huddles. Having said this, God is gracious, and He is pleased to bless me with a number of friends who do not know the gospel, and He is strengthening my friendships with them. It is my prayer that I will grow in my love for God so that I may be able to love them more, sharing not only the gospel but my life.
Filed under: Christian, Culture, Quotes | Tags: invisible, TED talk, meaning, purpose, why, Trinity
I’ve recently been watching some of the TED videos, many of which are fascinating. One I watched tonight was an inventory of invisible things, which was a delightfully baffling look at life. Towards the end of the talk (9:20 in if you want to check for yourself) the speaker, John Lloyd, concludes
There are only two questions really worth asking:
‘Why are we here?’
and
‘What shall we do about it while we are?’
What excellent questions! Fortunately we have answers to both of of them: we are here because God created us as an overflow of His Trinitarian love, enabling Him to love us and us to love Him. While we are here we should enter a personal relationship with God and live our lives for His glory. This isn’t the answer that John Lloyd gives, but he does offer a quote from poet W. H. Auden:
We are here, on earth, to help others. What the others are here for I’ve no idea.
(N.B. According to wikiquote, the quote is actually by John Foster Hall.)
Remembering Christ, will transform us into His likeness. Our thoughts are the builders, which rear the temple of our character. If we think of unclean things–our lives will become unclean. If we think of earthly things–we will grow earthly. If we think of Christ, if thoughts of Him are in our mind and heart continually, we will be changed, moment by moment, into His beauty!
J. R. Miller, “The life of Jesus”
This is a constant challenge, and one which I would do well to remember. It is surely when we are beset by evil thoughts and desires of sin, that we are most able to grow in Christ by fixing our eyes on Him and trusting Him to carry us through!
Filed under: Bible, Personal life, University | Tags: 1 Samuel, David, God, Psalm, work
Yesterday was a depressing day. I had hoped to spend about 5 hours spread throughout the day working on one assignment, a report into “the architectures of humanoid robot systems”. I didn’t spend all that time working, but I did use most of it. By the time I went to bed, however, I hadn’t made any significant progress towards writing the report. I was already behind my schedule for work on that assignment, and the situation certainly wasn’t improved by a few hours of apparently finding nothing useful in my research. My feelings were quite nicely summed up by what a friend posted on facebook that evening (albeit for very different reasons to me):
“I didn’t get anywhere near the amount of work done I wanted to do today and I really can’t be bothered to do anymore now!”
It felt so unjust that I should spend to much time working, yet produce no useful output. That single assignment has frustrated me incredibly, and it is set by a lecturer who set a piece of work last year that I was forced to accept a mark of zero for because I was completely unable to do it. I felt miserable and didn’t know where to turn for help.
This morning in my daily Bible reading I came across 1 Samuel 30:6. David, not yet king of Israel, had been away from home fighting and returned home to discover the whole town had been burnt down, and all the women and children had been taken captive. As his troops rounded on him and threatened to stone him, we read
“David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and his daughters. But David strengthened himself in the LORD his God.”
Is this not an immense privilege that Christians have? Regardless of circumstances, we have a God who is the almighty Lord of everything! We come to Him united with Christ and can be sure He will never turn us away. An email I was sent within the last week contained Psalm 55:22, which reads
“Cast your burden on the LORD, and He shall sustain you; He shall never permit the righteous to be moved.”
Once again I have the privilege of testifying this to be true, as the Lord did graciously strengthen me to renew my fellowship with Him. Why did I worry about my work? The Lord has control of all things, and I am His child.
Filed under: Other blogs | Tags: BNP, free speech, Nick Griffin, politics, Question Time
A friend of mine who I met on a UBM team over the summer holiday has just started a blog, and has put up some interesting thoughts about the BNP and the recent Question Time debate with Nick Griffin. As a free speech advocate, the BNP always produce a discussion which interests me greatly, and this one is no different. If you’re interested, the below links are to his blog.
BNP on Question Time – written before Question Time was broadcast
Did Nazi Nick win Question Time? – written after the broadcast
Filed under: Bible, Christian, Other blogs, RUCU | Tags: 1 Samuel, Bridges hall, Dave Bish, event, Richard Cunningham
One month ago, to the day, I had a tedious job to do at work which required very little thought. I wanted to make good use of the time, so I listened to a talk by Richard Cunningham which I found through Bish’s blog. At the time I thought it was a good talk, and made a note to blog about it, but I never got round to writing that post. Yesterday I read the same passage in my quiet time. The passage is the first half of 1 Samuel 14 and in it Jonathan, the son of King Saul, attacks an army with only one ally and one weapon between them. They have faith in God, and decide to take a massive risk, aware that God is able to use even the smallest and weakest things to bring salvation, and they say “Perhaps the LORD will act” (NIV).
I was aware as I read the passage that there was an event put on by the CU small group at Bridges hall in the evening, aimed at international students, but it had been arranged within two days. I wasn’t hopeful of it being very good. The gospel content was supposed to be in a talk, but I didn’t think the event lent itself to having a talk. We couldn’t get any follow up forms for people to fill in. Only four Christians could be there. There was next to no advertising. It was shaping up to be an all time low in the history of CU small group events.
We went ahead, of course, hoping God would do something useful. It didn’t go too well. We had two people come and chat to us awkwardly, which was nice, but not brilliant. One left to go to her room when she was getting cold. We’d been there for quite a long time. Certainly it was over an hour, and our two contacts were polite enough and friendly enough, but neither seemed overly interested. Then two more people came. I’d been hoping to get away and go to bed by this point, but I had to stay and chat. Again it was awkward, with no natural conversationalists at the event and a language barrier to overcome. It was getting really late when another international student walked into the room and joined us.
We were all getting tired and it was time for us to go. We started packing away, and said goodbye to our contacts. Just the last student remained. I turned away from packing up food, and saw he was chatting to a group of Christians, including two from other small groups who had come to be supportive (thank you both!). I chatted to a guy who was on the Bridges JCR committee, but the conversation never really got onto spiritual matters. I played a game of pool with a friend. Still the conversation was ongoing. I thought it was reasonable for me to intrude so I stood in the circle and listened. The conversation was about spiritual matters, but not the gospel itself. It didn’t seem to be getting any closer to the gospel either. Eventually I asked the student about the reason behind his own moral beliefs. He thought it was good to do good things, but not because we want to get into heaven.
Brilliant!
What an opportunity to explain we’re not doing good things to get into heaven, but because we’re loved by God and already booked into heaven! That conversation lasted a long time, finishing at 1am, and having survived moving to a different room and numerous interruptions from uninterested parties. The JCR member I’d previously spoken to listened silently the whole time, offering no opinions but hearing the gospel explained in no uncertain times.
I got home at 1:40am, thankful to God for showing me once again that His strength is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9). In no way could it be claimed that the small group members were responsible for a very successful event. The gospel was heard by at least half a dozen people. Free gospels were given away, along with invitations to further events. Several people gave us their contact details. We got permission for a further event in the hall, after some confusion over email resulting in us being denied permission. Greatest of all, of course, we got to share the gospel as clearly as it could be shared.
I had prayed beforehand that every Christian would get to explain the gospel to someone, so we could grow in our confidence and desire to evangelise. I hadn’t expected all of us to explain it to the same person, but we did, and even the most shy among us contributed. Let us be thankful to God as we end the work of telling the gospel (for one day), and begin the work of praying for the people we met. I certainly hope to meet them again and carry on the discussion.
In other news, we can be grateful for 29 freshers who have contacted RUCU in one way or another before freshers’ week even begins!
Filed under: Christian, Current affairs, Quotes | Tags: death, film, immortality, Is Anybody There?, Jesus, Michael Caine
In today’s Metro newspaper there is a brief interview with Sir Michael Caine, who is currently promoting his latest film, ‘Is Anybody There?’. I’ve not seen the film, but what really grabbed my attention was Michael’s answer to the interviewer’s pertinent question about death.
Do sombre films about dying make you think about your own mortality?
I never think about my own mortality. No, no, you must never do that. I always have so many plans for what I’m doing. I’ve behaved my entire life as if I’m immortal.
Clearly Michael Caine doesn’t like to think about death, but it is the only certain thing in his life. Whether or not he will win an oscar for his performance is unknown. Whether or not he will be in the next batman film is unknown. That he will die is known. It saddens me that he deliberately and consciously chooses not to ponder or prepare for this eventuality.
It’s not an uncommon way of living. In day to day life, I suspect most of us behave as if we’re immortal. Death is not something we like to think about, so we simply don’t think about it. Maybe this is because people want to avoid the unpleasant. Maybe many think there is nothing we can do about death, so there is no point wasting time thinking about it. Neither are good reasons to not think about one’s own death.
We should never avoid the unpleasant simply because it is unpleasant. Many things which are beneficial to us are unpleasant. The child who refuses to eat vegetables will end up with a vitamin deficiency. The person who refuses to exercise finds themselves unable to run for a bus. While there is obviously no point in looking for unpleasantness for its own sake, avoiding it for its own sake is equally foolish.
Poor as the first reason is, the second is much worse. There is something we can do about death. But first we must consider what death is. Death is the absence of life. No surprises there. But what is life? Jesus said life was more than having a heartbeat, more than filling and emptying our lungs with a multiplicity of gases. He taught that life is knowing God. If He was right, then death is not knowing God, and its nature changes radically. It doesn’t take a genius to see that we don’t inherently know what God is like, let alone know Him personally (just look at the many and varied gods people have worshipped over the years). Rather than knowing we will die, we find out we are already dead! But Jesus said more than that. He said He could give people eternal life – an eternity of knowing God. Indeed, this is the very reason Jesus was born and died, and the means by which we are enabled to know God’s love.
You can read the full interview online. ‘Is Anybody There?’ can be bought for about £10.
