Planted by Water

We had the first session of our new Alpha course last night. We had 9 visitors with us and I had a great time talking about Jesus and who he claimed to be. The discussion after that ranged fairly widely! I am aware that some people who visit this blog from time to time are not Christians and have some genuine questions about the Christian faith. So I want to do an occasional posting for such, under the category heading ‘For the Honest Sceptic’ and encourage you to keep dropping in. I believe that there is a kind of sceptic or cynic who is really what the Bible calls a ‘mocker’ who just wants to criticise and dismiss our faith, and not really try to honestly find out the answers about the meaning of life. There’s not much I can do for them - I can only pray that God would get through to them. But there are others who have genuine questions and are genuinely wanting to know the Christian response to them.

We touched on one last night. Is the idea of a perfect ‘world’ - the new heaven and the new earth as the Bible calls it - believable or even desirable? Do we not need some suffering and bad stuff in order to achieve some kind of ‘balance.’ This is actually a common idea in some Eastern religions and is what that whole yin/yang thing is about.  I believe that in our fallen, imperfect world, it is not possible for us to fully imagine with our fallen moral sense and our imperfect imaginations, what utter goodness is really about. We often end up with something weak and soppy - which is why all the baddies and villains in films and plays are more interesting characters than the good heroes! But God, through Jesus, gives us some insight into what true goodness and purity is about. It is not something weak and sappy. It is strong, bold, vigorous and brilliant. With God, goodness is not just the absence of evil. It isn’t defined negatively. It is a positive virtue which finds its definition in the very nature of God himself. God is good. Goodness is God-likeness. And the wonderful hope that God offers to us is the opportunity to share in his nature and to live together eternally with him in a world that it totally good! We shouldn’t let our inevitable failure of imagination prevent us from experiencing that!