A while ago a friend of mine was invited to speak at a meeting in a certain church on the topic of marriage. A few days later a lady from that church phoned him back to inquire about his “testimony” regarding his own marriage.

“Did you ever have a bad patch in your marriage where you just wanted to get out of it all?” “Have you ever felt physically attracted to another person during the past years, but you resisted the temptation?” she asked bluntly.

“No and no,” he replied instantly. “But why do you want to know?”

“We want to know if you have a testimony of God’s special work in your marriage. However, it seems to me that you don’t because your can’t really tell of any miraculous interventions from God’s side in your marriage. Unfortunately, we’ll have to cancel the invitation then and ask somebody else who would be able to testify how God turned their marriage around,” the lady replied.

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In an ever changing world you need to remember a few important things:

• The more things change, the more they remain the same. Even though Amazon.com listed 118,240 titles with the word “change” on 19 October 2011, many things remain the same. As futurist John Naisbitt (Mindset, 2009) explains most changes do not involve what we do, but how we do it. That’s why many of the things surrounding us more or less stayed unchanged for the past few years.
• Use your common sense. Think for yourself. Never become the sum total of other people’s opinions. Oscar Wilde once said: “Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” God didn’t just claim our hearts for Himself but also our minds. Faith occurs north of our hearts also. Therefore we need open minds.

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We live in a world of information overload. In 2001, David Shenk (Data Smog) referred to it as “data smog.” People are bombarded with more than 70 billion pieces of junk mail annually, while millions of tweets, blog posts, emails and text messages travel through cyber space daily. No wonder people around the globe literally get lost in information. “Already in 1990 Richard Wurman, in his book with the same title, said that people suffer from “information anxiety.” The psychologist David Lewis calls it “Information Fatigue Syndrome.” Wurman tells us that information overload takes place when a person:

• Doesn’t understand the information
• Feels overwhelmed by the volume of information which has to be processed
• Does not know whether certain information exists
• Does not know where to get information from
• Knows where to get information but not how to unlock it.”

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To bring the house down… or the roof — these are well-known expressions in our day. Well, one day it literally happened in Capernaum. Some guys broke down a roof to get their lame friend close to Jesus. It was Peter’s house actually… or that of his mother in law. In any case, four friends realized Jesus was in town and busy teaching inside. So many people were present that they couldn’t get their friend in through the door. Then they came up with another plan. They climbed on the roof of the house that was probably built of asphalt stones and started to chip away the mortar, reeds and tiles to open up a hole big enough for their lame friend to be lowered down.

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I love satire. It offers a critique of society in the guise of humor. I especially loved the following piece that Coen Slabber sent to me a few weeks ago. It offers a satirical look at theologians who perform postmortems on biblical texts. I am not sure who wrote it, but, hey, it is so good that anyone who has been exposed to sterile theology at its best/worst will appreciate it:

Bultmann Reads Mother Goose, by Jack Lundquist

I-B: The cat and the fiddle,

II–A: The cow jumped over the moon,

II–B: The little dog laughed to see such sport,

III–: And the dish ran away with the spoon.

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They say there is always another side to any story. Usually we like our side the most. Everything just sounds so much better from our perspective. Of course we have all the right facts and we know what really happened. However, our side is, well… just our side. We experience life from within our own skin. We see things through our own eyes. Of course, the very next question must be — is there any other way? Is it really possible to experience life separate from our own subjective feelings, emotions, thoughts and ideas? I think so. I even think followers of Jesus are obliged to think, hear, sense and feel the Other Side of the story.

Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 10 that we have to take our thoughts captive and submit them to Christ. We cannot give our thoughts free reign. Our opinions are not exclusively ours to form and cherish. We need the mind of Christ as the apostle also tells us in Philippians 2:5. In order for this to happen we need to see the world and others through the eyes of Jesus. We need to buy the right eye salve from him as he instructs us in Revelation 3. We also need a new heart in our chest, one that beats with love for God and compassion for others. And we need new hands and feet that will constantly transport us in the direction of those who are different from us — the lowly, the outcasts and the downtrodden. Only then will we be able to cross the unbridgeable gap between ourselves and God and towards the right side of the story. Only Christ can teach us the correct perspective. Only he can open our eyes to see.

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The Concise Oxford English Dictionary recently added 400 new words to their 12th edition of the English language. Over against the 20 volume Oxford Dictionary (in hard copy format), the Conscise Oxford Dictionary focuses mainly on contemporary English. It seems as if the world of computers and social networking have a huge influence on the development of the English language, with the introduction of terms such as badware, social graph, and network neutrality into this new “word-Bible.” Other new words that immediately caught people’s attention included terms such as retweet (with the explanation: forward, or repost, a tweet [on Twitter]); cyberbullying (= online bullying); textspeak (= language characteristic of text messaging), and woot/w00t (= expression of elation or triumph equivalent of hurrah).

It seems as if most languages are playing catchup amidst the hectic pace of development in the world of our day. Therefore I find it quite astonishing that the letter of 2 Peter used 57 unique terms not found elsewhere in the New Testament within the brief space of only three chapters. Clearly, 2 Peter wanted to convey the gospel of Christ in relevant, lively terms within the world of his day. The language used in the philosophic and religious surroundings of his day was given a fresh new expression in his beautiful verbal descriptions of the nature of the Christian life.

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In a fascinating article: Does Religion Influence Epidemics? Elizabeth Pennisi refers to a paper read at at conference in Europe on 22 August by the American evolutionary biologist David Hughes. He and his colleagues claim that some of the major world religions emerged at the same time as widespread diseases, and that the two helped shape each other. These religions (Islam, Christianity, etc) had a different take on measles, smallpox, polio, etc. Instead of fleeing from the disease, their followers were often motivated to stay and take care of the sick. Hughes also points out that this value of caring for the sick amongst Christians is now shaping the general landscape of Malawi. His colleague, Jenny Trinitapoli, surveyed three thousand people in a thousand villages across Malawi and asked questions regarding religion and AIDS. She found that in this country, where one in fourteen adults die of AIDS, about 30% of Christians regularly visit the sick, while only 7% of the Muslims do the same. This led to a large growth in churches in Malawi. People know that Christians will not stigmatize them and also take care of them.

The good news is that the ABC of the gospel is put into daily practice by many Christians right across the globe. This usually happens under the radar screen of the media. We all know that it has become too easy to find fault with the church. Or to be angry at religion. Or to name, blame and shame certain leaders in the church. But, somewhere out there in the real world many believers are doing it right. They are taking care of the needy, the sick, the old and the lost. Join them, won’t you?!

The questions you ask determine the answers you expect. Certain questions nearly always presuppose failure. I realized this when I recently came across a list of accountability questions of one particular ministry: “What sin plagued your walk with God this week? Is your thought life pure? Did you look at a woman in the wrong way? Are you walking in total obedience to God? Have you lied about any of the previous questions?” If you dare say that you don’t struggle with issues such as these, you would surely be branded as spiritually arrogant. Failure is thus inherent.

Similar types of questions keep many people in church trapped in feelings of guilt and spiritual mediocrity: “How can we get more younger/older people involved in our ministry? How do we get more money to fund our church projects? Where do we find a competent pastor or church leaders? Why do we experience so few miracles in our church? Why is there no revival? How can we get more life into our congregation?”

We may ask questions like these from time to time. The problem, however, is that these questions are often the only ones that get recycled in church. They presume predictable answers. In other words, we just need the right spiritual programs/prayers/pastors/leaders/small groups/Bible studies to fix the problems that gave rise to these questions! However, when these mechanical solutions don’t fix existing problems, which is the case most of the time, the same old questions will be asked all over again. Same old, same old!

The solution is to ask entirely different questions. We need fresh new questions that don’t cripple us or enhance constant feelings of failure or cause us to play that never ending game of blame shifting. We need questions such as the following: “What commitment does it ask of you to be a full-time follower of Jesus? What do you sacrifice in terms of personal time, energy, money to be an active member of your community of faith? What are you presently doing to address what you think is wrong with church? What spiritual gifts do you bring to your church and to others around you? What new stories of Christ’s involvement in your life do you share with others? What relationships are you currently growing with unchurched people? For which persons are you praying by name? In whose lives are you involved to help and bless them financially?”

New questions that focus on our personal involvement in the kingdom of God are urgently needed.

Is whatever part of the vocabulary of Jesus? Mmm, I think so. Time and time again he looked at the religious leaders of his day who were so busy obeying strict religious laws and rules that they didn’t have any time left to serve others and love them all the way back to God. Then he sighed and said: whatever!

Jesus observed how the religious professionals harshly judged sinners, outcasts and marginalized individuals who didn’t obey their laws to the last letter. Then he shook his head in dismay and said: whatever!

Jesus saw how the religious people rigorously obeyed harsh Sabbath laws without caring a hoot for the sick or the poor on that day. Then he shook his head in amazement and said: whatever!

In Jerusalem Jesus observed how people brought sacrifices to the temple to win God’s favor. Then he sighed and angrily said: whatever!

Jesus knows that religiosity doesn’t bring people one single inch closer to God. Yes, religious activities and rituals make them more religious. No doubt about that! It turns them into self-appointed saints. It sets them apart from those unholy crowds. It creates saints versus sinners. That’s why Jesus said: whatever! and turned his attention to sinners and outcasts.

Religious people don’t like to mix with the non-religious types. Their attitude is: “If only those people could change and become nice, religious people like us, we would gladly accept them into our midst.” Jesus weeps at this type of organized religion and says: whatever! Fortunately he does more than this. He invites people like you and me to join him in his undiluted love for sinners, unholy people, slumdogs, failures, poor people, outcasts… you name them. He will love them all the way back to life.