written by Stephan Joubert
“We just need to pray more. Then it will go better with the country.” That’s what someone said the other day. Everyone agreed immediately. “How do you know that?” someone asked out of the blue. While everyone just sat there with the mouths full of crowned teeth, one answered: “The Bible says so.” “Yes,” the rest agreed. “Where in the Bible do you read that prayer’s primary function is to ensure safer life circumstances for everyone?” this person continued. Again there was silence. Someone said: “It’s written somewhere that you should ‘pray and you shall receive.’” “Yes, but does that mean that everything in our country will suddenly be better if we send larger volumes of prayer heavenwards?” the questioner wanted to know. “Do you really think that there’s a prayer-meter that measures how long each of us prays and how many people pray for a particular matter and then these matters get a higher priority from God?”
He carried on: “Prayer is not a quick fix. It is primarily about God and his glory. If there is someone who needs to be changed by prayer, then it is primarily the one who prays himself.” About then everyone started talking at the same time. Some agreed, some not. I walked away with some new perspectives on prayer.
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written by Stephan Joubert
Looks like the day someone has your postal address, cellphone number, or email address, you are a permanent target. Everyone from marketing organizations to individuals mean they have the right to come and put up camp in your life without invitation. Believers shouldn’t dare mimic these games. Only on invitation may we become part and stay part of other people’s living spaces, be that virtual, electronic, or actual. The secret of good relationships is found in maintaining an open but reverential distance between us and other people. The onus is always on them to invite us closer. Respect for the privacy of others is the right seedbed for new relationships, the kind in which God’s goodness grows.
written by Stephan Joubert
I’m sold out to Philip Yancey’s definition of grace. He says that there is nothing we can do to make God love us less, and there is nothing we can do to make God love us more. He loves us regardless. God loves us on Christ’s behalf. He loves us despite ourselves and not because of who we are. God’s unmentionable love is never performance-driven, but always relationship-driven. Listen again… He doesn’t look at who does the most for Him and then loves those people more. Even less does He love us more for obedience and less when we fail.
God is our Father. That’s why his love for us happens without that performance clause that’s flourishing everywhere in the business world. Grace is nothing different than God’s free caring for us. Grace is a godly verb. It tells us that Jesus is on our heels with a handful of goodness. That’s why grace is a rest-word for you and me. Now then, stop running. Go rest in God’s arms.
written by Stephan Joubert
In The Orthodox Heretic, Peter Rollins tells the imaginary tale of someone who heard Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. When Jesus taught that they should walk a second mile for the enemies, he started doing that. Instead of carrying the weapons of a Roman soldier only one mile, he once offered to carry it two miles. Later this person again encountered Jesus and told Him that he practically applied this new law. Jesus answered him: “Wait, you misunderstood me. It’s actually three miles!” The point is that Jesus didn’t teach a bunch of new laws that we need to obey slavishly. For Him it’s about relationships that is love-driven. Ones that no longer keep book of good or evil.
written by Stephan Joubert
“You made my day,” the petrol attendant told me the other day. A wide smile spanned his face. I was stunned. “What did I do?” I asked very surprised. “You called me sir!” he answered. Then he told me how many people treated him with disrespect and even shouted at him. He wanted to know why I called him “sir”. All that I could think of was that God’s Word teaches me to treat other people with respect, and that I tried to live exactly like that. And then I told him that.
When driving away from that filling station, I realized anew how easy it really is to do small things in the name of the Lord… like treating others with respect. How sad that I don’t succeed in constantly walking the extra mile for everyone who crosses my path. Just as sad that when I shared this story somewhere, someone immediately told me that I surely don’t live in the true South Africa. “Beggars, petrol attendants, and the unemployed are only interested in stealing and plundering,” he added. Then he concluded with: “Actually everyone does that these days.”
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written by Stephan Joubert
Have you noticed that Jesus preferred not to use any form of transport while he was amongst us? Apart from the times when He crossed the Sea of Galilee on a boat, He always walked to wherever he wanted to go. That day when Jesus entered Jerusalem at the beginning of Passover on the back of a donkey, He used it as a symbolic means to illustrate his own humility and the true nature of God’s kingdom, not as a form of transport. The rest of the time Jesus used his own two feet to get wherever he wanted to go.
Jesus brought the kingdom of God into our world at walking speed. At a ‘staggering’ two miles per hour He transported God’s amazing grace into grace-less territory. Jesus never hurried to where He was going. He always had time on hand. As a matter of fact, He waited nearly thirty years before he even officially opened his mouth to proclaim the good news. Jesus quietly spent his childhood years in the small Galilean town of Nazareth. There He helped his father and four brothers in their carpentry shop. Perhaps He even traveled with his father, Joseph, to work in Sepphoris, a new city that was built at that time a few miles to the north of Nazareth.
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written by Stephan Joubert
There’s nothing wrong with ambition, progress, technology and the creation of wealth as such, but when personal ambition is pursued at the expense of others, it’s very wrong – end of story! It happens far too often. South Africa is a country where the First World and the Third World meet (and clash!) every day; a country where you have two parallel universes living in tension (and harmony!) next to each other. I realize how important it is to sensitize people to the circumstances of those who suffer extreme poverty. For too many people, daily life is a struggle just to survive. To them survival is definitely not a reality program watched by millions of others in the luxury and comfort of their living rooms. The winner in the real African struggle of survival does not walk away with the first prize of a million rand. No, these ‘winners’ merely live on to ‘play’ the survival game one more day.
A few years ago I read a shocking report on the state of poverty in South Africa. One story in this report that still haunts me was that of a single, jobless mother with a house full of children. One day she couldn’t stand the never-ending struggle for survival any longer. She decided to buy poison to put an end to her family’s misery. But when she got to the shop to buy the poison, she couldn’t afford it! She didn’t have enough money even for poison. What a tragic irony! This poor woman couldn’t afford to live, but neither could she afford to die. What a sad world we live in. Many of the rich just keep on getting richer and more selfish by the day, while the poor keep on getting poorer.
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written by Stephan Joubert
King Hezekiah got a second chance. When the prophet Isaiah gave him the bad news that he would soon die (Isaiah 38), he fell down and begged with God for mercy. God heard his cry for help. Right there, the king got a handful of extra life at the end of his life — a full 15 years. Instead of allowing God’s mercy to make him humble, he later openly bragged about his riches and power to a foreign delegation. He even took this delegation on a sight-seeing tour, showing off his weapons and the riches of his palace to make them understand just how large and glorious his kingdom was.
Hezekiah’s arrogant behavior upset the Lord to the extent that He announced that his rule would come to an end, and that his sons would not rule in his place. Then followed Hezekiah’s shocking reaction: “As long as it doesn’t happen in my lifetime.” Talk about selfishness! When others are suffering, then it’s their problem, just as long as I can live in the sunshine! Please don’t be like Hezekiah. Make more than sufficient room for others, even for the generation that follows you. Don’t always want the best part for yourself. Don’t live arrogantly. Everything you have and everything you are is finally a gift of grace from the hand of the Living God. Give Him alone the honor for this, and live humbly.
written by Dries Lombaard
We’ve just passed Valentine’s Day. Me and my wife never really take notice of Valentine’s Day. This year, we actually thought about going away for the day, but in the end just being home and having a quiet Sunday won hands down.
A couple of days later, my eldest — about to turn thirteen — out of the blue asked us when we sat together before dinner: “Are you guys still in love?”
True to her female side, my wife immediately replied: “Of course yes!”
True to my male side, I replied: “Of course not.”
Oops. The stares burned holes through my being.
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written by Stephan Joubert
There is a wall around every marriage. For some, it is a prison wall that sentences the victims inside to life imprisonment. No wonder that many people try climb over the walls of their marriages through adulterous relationships, pornography, and the like. The Lord’s type of wall around a marriage is a castle wall. It keeps safety and warmth in. It keeps marriage partners close to each other. It keeps them safe. God created marriage as a glimpse of paradise here on earth. Marriage should be that one relationship where joy abounds and the cup of happiness overflows. Marriage partners are havens to one another. They are each other’s life-long soul partners, friends and lovers. That’s why I rejoice daily to the Lord about my wife. Do you do the same about your spouse?
