Becoming a Secure Christian
PART 3 : Personal Security (Theory & Practice)
Chapter 17: Secure in God’s World
For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving (1 Tim 4:4)
17.1 Celebrating Life
Looking Back
Once I became a Christian, I found myself in the evangelical fold of the church, and later the charismatic-evangelical fold. I am grateful for those early years that majored on the word of God and the means of salvation through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Nothing I say in this chapter detracts from that, yet when I look back on those early years, I realise that at that time (and I believe much has changed in many quarters) the faith we had, had a legalistic edge to it which I now realise made me very defensive in the face of the world.
I remember, as a young Christian, going on a week’s training course for my job at that time, and being very insular. While others we’re helping the Bar profits each evening and, in the case of some, building illicit late-night relationships, I stood afar off, maintaining my purity – and utterly failing to be salt and light!
The fold I found myself in was in the way of ‘no drinking, no dancing, etc.’. Our lives were full of prayer, Bible Study, evangelism, meetings! Without realising it we were a subculture in our world that was as divorced from reality as you can be and, as I’ve said, we were defensive in the face of the world. Indeed, it may be that that is where you are today and you wonder why I’m speaking as I am in what may appear to you as a derogatory manner about this form of evangelicalism.
Please read on. Give the chapter a fair read. It’s a chapter about creating or recreating awareness of the wonder of God’s provision of this world, so that we can enjoy it wisely and without guilt, and be a thankful people.
Where the World is
The apostle Paul was quite specific about certain behaviours, for example:
Eph 5:3,4 among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. 4Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking
Eph 5:18 Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery.
Yes, this is where the world is and Western TV totally disregards the three verses above. So it is right that we as Christians DO abide by these verses!
God’s Creation Abused
We’ll consider God’s creation more fully in a moment, but have you ever considered what Sin actually is? Yes, the Bible describes it as lawlessness (1 Jn 3:4) which is really a casting off all restraint or, if you like, taking what God has provided and using it more than it was designed for. Consider the following:
God provides for us: food, drink (including alcohol), drugs, sex, and material things.
What do we do with each of these?
Gluttony leading to obesity
Drunkenness leading to alcoholism and bad health
Drug addiction and crime
Immorality, adultery & perversion leading to sexual illnesses
Greed, covetousness, leading to theft, corruption etc. etc.
Please notice in passing, the things that God provides are GOOD things in themselves, good when used in moderation. Food and drink are for our health AND for our pleasure (see later), drugs are to restore health, sex is for procreation AND enjoyment (see later), and material things are to help us live AND enjoy living in God’s world (see later).
So what does the world do? It casts off all restraint in the name of freedom and creates a terrible world, instead of the world which God designed to be wonderful! In the part of the twentieth century that I grew up in as a Christian, much of our thinking had an ancient Greek flavour to it that separated spirit from flesh, so we saw spirit as good and flesh as evil.
A Need to take hold of the truth
But that view is not the Biblical, Hebrew view. All good gifts are from heaven above (Jas 1:17) but the world abuses and misuses them and harm ensues. So much of our defensiveness in the past has been because we have not appreciated the full Biblical view of God’s creation. So often we have reacted against the world’s abuses and failed to provide a good alternative, one that is worth emulating.
So often we have been timid in the face of the world and have not declared the truth. When Paul was instructing Timothy about being courageous in speaking out the Gospel, he said:
2 Tim 1:7 For God did not give us a spirit of timidity but a spirit of power, of love and of self discipline.
But this also applies to any area of the truth. We are not to be timid, which has tones of fearfulness about it. We are instead to be clear in our thinking and our understanding and not afraid to speak out the wonder of the truths that the Bible brings us. In this case the truth in question is that this is God’s world, designed by Him for our pleasure (see below) and when we use it wisely and in relation to Him, then it is for our blessing and for the blessing of the world.
There is so much provision on this planet that we could easily feed the entire world’s population, but instead, because of Sin, we have millions dying of hunger. If the entire world took on board the Old & New Testament teaching of “love your neighbour”, we would have a very, very different world. (Yet we have to say that a well-fed world will not be sinless this side of heaven – but that is not an excuse to not care for the rest of the world!)
To recap, this world is God’s world and He designed it and gave it to us for our enjoyment. A number of years ago at a leadership Retreat, the Lord gave me a picture. In this picture, we leaders were in a theatre and were up on the stage, performing. The rest of the Christians were in the body of the theatre looking on. Suddenly there was a shaking and all the scenery on the stage started falling down. Suddenly, everyone was on the stage. And then the walls fell outwards (there was obviously no ceiling or roof falling down) and the people all spilled out into the surrounding area, and the Lord spoke to me and said, “I am taking down the walls between my church and my world, for this is my world and I’m coming to take it back through my church.”
Now don’t misunderstand that. The church is still to be distinctive, holy, righteous etc. but God’s intention is that His people be in His world to be salt and light as Jesus told them to be (Mt 5:13-16), revealing an alternative culture, one of which is worth being part, which gains the favour of the people (that’s a radical thought!) as was seen in the revival of the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:47). Yes, the enemy may rise up in reactive persecution, but God’s blessing on God’s people, brought favour!
Personal Testimony: An Art Gallery
I believe it’s very easy to be blind to the truth of Scripture, even when we’re Christians, sometimes because of the wrong teaching we’ve received previously, and sometimes because we over-react to the abuses we spoke of above.
Some years ago I had an experience that I can only attribute to the Lord – judge for yourself. I was on one of my earliest trips to Los Angeles and was there for several weeks. While I was there, my host provided opportunities for me to go out and about to see the sights. One of those was a visit to the Paul Getty Museum, a wonderful new building. I didn’t particularly wanted to go, but didn’t want to offend my host, so I allowed him to send me out for the day to this Museum, with some of the young lads from his church as guides.
When I was a lot younger, in fact before I was a Christian, I had lived and worked in London and had ‘done’ the two main art galleries at that time, the Tate and the National. I had vaguely enjoyed the experiences but could not say that art was something that thrilled me.
Now, many years later, I am being taken to this art gallery. We walked through the sculptures and I nodded appreciation but when we went into the rooms full of paintings, something strange happened. I found myself standing in front of one masterpiece muttering to myself, “Wow, that is incredible, that is amazing, wow!” I couldn’t move away from it. The lads with me were showing signs of wanting to move, so I moved to the next painting, and the same thing happened. I was seeing these paintings with an appreciation that I’d never had before. But more than that, after a half an hour I was feeling drunk – simply from looking at paintings. How could these men paint like that?????
Personal Testimony: The South of England
Six months after my trip to America we were visiting relatives in the south of England and had been taken for a walk over the rolling hills above Eastbourne. The sun was shining and there was a gentle breeze. Suddenly I was aware of the same thing happening to me. As I walked I found myself thinking, “This is amazing, this in beautiful, this is incredible, wow!” and again I had that feeling of being drunk. The materialists among us may be saying, “Oh it was just the fresh air!” but you would be missing the point; it was the staggering appreciation of the wonder of the beauty of God’s creation.
Mind enhancing
On both occasions it was as if my mind was enhanced – and no, there were no drugs involved! Have you ever noticed how different the world looks when the sun comes out? On a grey, cloudy, dull day, there are colours but watch what happens as the sun comes out – brightness, contrast, immense beauty. I wonder if it is like this in the way we perceive God’s world. Sometimes everything seems very ordinary and then something happens and it’s as if we see with new eyes. Sometimes it needs a life threatening disaster – major sickness, major accident, or whatever – for us to realise the wonder of ‘life’!
Becoming a Secure Christian 