Seeking the Kingdom of God for 21 days

Last week I posted on how it only takes 21 days to make a habit. 

And yesterday I posted on how I / we need to stop worrying about all the things around us and focus on the One who holds everything in place - Jesus.

So, in lieu of all the new years resolutions already broken, let's make a 21 day commitment.   A small one. 

What do you think of reading 21 verses of the Bible a day for 21 days? And we'll do it together. 

The first chapter of Peter's second letter has 21 (coincidentally) verses and I was hoping to memorize it recently. But then I thought of including you, my readers. And when I say memorize, I don't mean for you to be able to spew out every word, by heart, verbatim, at the drop of a dime. 21 days may not be enough. But, as you read it everyday for the next 21 days, you'll be surprised how familiar you are with the passage, even being about to recite parts of it!

The writer of Hebrews says, "For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart (4:12). 

And Paul tells Timothy, "All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work" (2 Timothy 3:16).

Even in the very chapter that we will commit to our minds, Peter says, "no prophecy was ever made by an act if human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God" (2 Peter 1:21).

One way that we can seek the Kingdom of God is to soak in what He has told us in His Word. 

And I'll help you out from time to time. Every few days I'll be posting, providing some insight into a word or phrase in the chapter, pointing you to other places in the Bible that Peter is referring to or explain the Greek word that Peter uses (remember, they didn't write the Bible in English!). 

And, of course, I'll also be posting about Italy. The main purpose of this blog is to get you closer to God while informing you on how to get the people of Turin closer to God as well.

Here's the passage for the next 21 days. Read it at least once a day, but try to hear it once a day as well. Read it aloud or have someone read it to you as well as reading it on your own. And stick to the same version for best results.

21

I've heard it said that it takes 21 days to make a habit. 

Yesterday marked 21 days from the start of the famous "new year's resolutions." And yesterday, I went to the gym. All commitments are like going to the gym.

You start off excited about your plan of action. You exercise / eat well / read your Bible / don't pick up that one ____ (cigarette, glass, scoop and cone) and feel good about it. You start determined, it's satisfying and once you finish (or the craving is gone), you feel great. Excited to do it again the next day.

But, like after exercising hard the first day, you are sore the next. You muscles ache. Your cravings stronger. Your desire to stay committed a little less. But you can't give up after the first day! So day 2 comes and goes and maybe you didn't exercise as hard (like me today), eat as many veggies, read as much or as long, or maybe you gave in just a little bit - but it's not like you're giving up! Oh, no!

But come day 4, or, if you're strong enough, day 14, keeping this up is quite a chore.

You're out of breath, with no more time to exercise. You don't hold those muscles as long or go up as high. The grains and green taste gross and you move things around in your plate. The Bible is a bore and you find yourself thinking of other things, or skipping around to find something more interesting. The drag of smoke / sip of beer / lick of ice cream shushes every complain in the world. It tastes good in your mouth. Goes down just right and fills you oh so nicely. 

And by day 21, it's over. 

Three weeks, less then a month, 21 days. They go by so fast. But when you are trying to do something better for yourself, something that pushes your limits, they drag on like the 40 days and nights of storming rain that poured and crashed over the earth. And that's kind of how it feels.

So now, day twenty-whenever-you're-reading-this, any resolutions you made are gone out the window.

I even failed to post most of the Mondays and Thursdays I said I would. 

My excuse? I couldn't think of anything interesting to say. Now I'll try to write them in advance. Some will be better than others, but my life one so unlike so many others my age, and yet, so the same and regular, mundane as all the others. 

Shall we try something? A 21 day something? Let's start on Monday. I'll be here.

The Atheist Bus Campain - Part 2

[Disclaimer: This is hugely condensed, so please do not consider this the whole argument. If you would like to discuss further, let me know.]

In my last post, I wrote about an atheist ad campaign which was motivated by the Christian belief that non-Christians "will be condemned to everlasting separation from God and then you spend all eternily in torment in hell... Jesus spoke about this as a lake of fire prepared for the devil". They call this belief "irrational."

And so I posed the question: Do you know why hell exists and why it is completely in line with Jesus' character?

And now I shall attempt to answer it, begining, not with hell, but with God, for everything starts with Him (Col 1:15-18).

God's Justice

The common response to a person's exclamation, "well that's not fair!" is "well life's not fair!" And, I propose, that God, by the common definition, isn't fair either. But He is just. 

So what's the difference between being fair and being just? Fairness, in this sense, is often "In comparision to him, I deserve just as much/more!" The kid in the playground who gets two chocolate bars and you just get one. The car in front of you who didn't get a ticket for going 18 mph over the speed limi, but you did, for just going 10 over. A good child who dies young, while the wicked grow old. And you might agree, that's not fair!

But it might be just. The kid with two chocolate bars bought it with his own allowance money for getting all his chores done, and you didn't make your bed twice, so could only afford one. It's not even handed, but it is just. No, you weren't going as fast as the other guy, but you were breaking the law, and receiving a ticket for speed is just regardless. And as for the child and the old, while it may not be fair, who are we to tell God what is and is not just?

Moses says of God: "He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he." The psalmist says of God, "Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne" (Ps. 89:14). The verses on God's justice abound in the Scriptures. But beyond that, God is just, because He is the measure of Justice. He declares of Himself: "I, the Lord, speak the truth, I declare what is right." 

Imagine existance without creation. The only thing left, is actually, no thing, but God. Before creation, before anything was created, only the non-created, eternal being existed, and He is God. There was no beauty, besides Him. No glory, besides His. No love, besides the love between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. No justice, save the Trinity's own righteousness. No sin at all, because He is perfection and sin is all that falls short of Him and what He declares "good".

God's Justice and Us

We all sin, do we not? We lie, get unnecessarily angry, we covet and make excuses for not answering God's call. God's righteousness demands that we get what we deserve. And sin deserves punishment. Therefore, we will all stand before God and be judged (2 Timothy 4:1; Matthew 25:31-33). Though life may not have been "fair," God will serve justice. He is bound by His character.  

At this point I would like to pause and give you an example of when God was "not fair," from Jesus' own parables (Matthew 20:1-15):

For the Kingdowm of Heaven is like the landowner who went out early one morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay the normal daily wage and sent them out to work.

At nine o'clock in the morning he was passing through the marketplace and saw some people standing around doing nothing. So he hired them, telling them he would pay them whaever was right at the end of the day. So they went to work in the vineyard. At noon and again at three o'clock he did the same thing.

At five o'clock that afternoon he was in town again and saw some more people standing around. He asked them 'Why haven't you been working today?'

They  replied, 'Because no one hired us.'

The landowner told them, 'Then go out and join the others in my vineyard.'

That evening he told the foreman to call the workers in and pay them, beginning with the last workers first. When those hired at five o'clock were paid, each received a full day's wage. When those fired first came to get their pay, they assumed they would receive more. But they, too, were paid a day's wage. When they received their pay, they protested to the owner, 'Those people worked only one hour, and yet you've paid them just as much as you paid us who worked all day in the scorching heat.'

He answered them, 'Friend, I haven't been unfair! Didn't you agree to work all day for the usual wage? Take you money and go. I wanted to pay this last worker the same as you. Is it against the law for me to do what I want with my money? Should you be jealous because I am kind to others?'

The workers thought that they deserved more than those who worked late, and sure, those who worked less, deserved less. But those who worked longer did not deserve more because they agreed to the pay ahead of time. They got what they deserved. It was the latecomers who didn't get what they deserved, but more!

And finally, to hell

And so it is with us. We all deserve hell. This is true because

1. We all sinned (Psalm 53:3; Romans 3:23; your own conscience).
2. The just payment of sin is death (Romans 6:23), punishment with everlasting destruction and banishment from God's presence (2 Thessalonians 1:9) (among other things).

Like what was cited above: "There is no one who does good, not even one" (Ps. 53:3). And God cannot let sin go unpunished. He is a just God, and let us thank Him for it! Imagine if we had an unjust God - then life would truly be unfair! An unjust God, even if He were "good" by our definitions (which is good most of the time, like a "good" person), would let evil run rampant! How many times have you thought someone was good because they let you get away with something? Is that the god you want? What about the reverse: how many times have you thought someone was evil because they let someone get away with something you thought they shouldn't have? But, thanks be to Him! He is just.

Even better is that, God, like the master of the vineyard, gives more than deserved to some. John 1:12 says, "But to all who did receive [Jesus] who believed in [Jesus'] name, he gave the right to become children of God." That is to say, not everyone is God's child, as is a popular belief. Jesus Himself says, "I am the way the truth and the life. No one come to the Father except through me" (John 14:6). That means that not all get to the Father. Those that do, only come through Jesus, as the above verses (and others) state. Though we all deserve separation from God, death and hell, God has graciously provided, through the Son's substitutionary death on the cross, that some may enter into His glory. 

So can good people who don't believe in Jesus go to heaven? Let's see what the Bible says:

John 3:16

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.

John 14:6

 "I [, Jesus,] am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

Acts 4:12

And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

God is just by punishing sin. But He is even better than that by having given His Son to die for us (remember we just celebrated Christmas and the reason why He came), so that in His death, those who believe in Him may live, though we definately don't deserve it!

The Atheist Bus Campaign - Part I

It's true. You can read about it here.  

There is an atheist organization in London that has raised £135,000 (that's US $362,844) to run ads on buses, in train stations, and on the streets on LCD screens.  

And what is it exactly? 

According to the article: 

... 800 buses – instead of the 30 we were initially aiming for – are now rolling out across the UK with the slogan, "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life", in locations all over England, Scotland and Wales, including Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow, York, Cardiff, Devon, Leeds, Bristol and Aberdeen.

My biggest question is why does the atheist care? If (s)he believes there is no afterlife, what's it to him/her that someone else believes in one? Well, this is what they said:

... the campaign was originally started as a positive counter-response to the Jesus Said ads running on London buses in June 2008. These ads displayed the URL of a website which stated that non-Christians "will be condemned to everlasting separation from God and then you spend all eternity in torment in hell … Jesus spoke about this as a lake of fire prepared for the devil".[*] Our rational slogan will hopefully reassure anyone who has been scared by this kind of evangelism.

[*] Notice that they didn't give the URL for the Jesus Said ads, which is jesussaid.org. 

The ads are also on buses in Spain and Washington, DC. They suggest these ads "brighten" bleek January days. Apparently the founder of the Atheist Bus Campaign skipped all the good and found what she was looking for: an accusation. If she really read what Jesus said, if she really understood the power of an almighty God, and not thought of God as an impersonal, unfeeling, just-less force, then maybe she would have understood.

So who's keeping it a secret? Do you believe in a real place called hell? Do you know why it's there and how it is completely in line with Jesus' character? 

I'll answer this next time. In the meantime, you think about it. What would you think if you saw atheist ads all over public transportation? What do you think when you see Christian ads? If Jesus said you have to believe in him to be saved (and He said so much more than that!) and died to open heaven to those who believe and yet you also believe that good people will go to heaven - did Jesus die for nothing?