You would be amazed at how often things we have prayed into, that we can see the answer to those prayers in the paper.

Recently I read an Article by John Stonestreet in which he explains how German theologian Karl Barth used to advise his students to “Take your Bible and your Newspaper, and read both.” “But interpret the Newspaper through your bible”.

I think this is an awesome quote and it reveals so much of the Christian walk in it as well.

We interpret the world through the revelation of the authoritative word of God; it informs all that we do as Christians and how we pray. And from there we engage in the world with prayerful action.

Stonestreet explained that where many Eastern religions encourage its adherents to remove themselves from society (Monastic traditions as well), Christ prayed that his followers would not be taken from the world but protected from the evil one.

Matthew 5:15 “Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.”

Christ did not come to remove himself from the world, he came because “God so loved the world”.  He removed himself to get aside and pray to discern the will of the Father we read in scripture. From being in that place of prayer he prayerfully engaged. The Bible and the Newspaper is a great way to hear Gods voice directing in prayer and maybe showing you the fathers heart for various situations as well.

Even on the Peace Tower at the centre of our Parliament, are the inscribed scriptures, which simply points to an era when the government recognized that the majority of Canadians held to at least some Christian principles.

What a different time period it must have been.

Since then it seems that the Church has abandoned some of its role in these areas of society. Today we may occupy ourselves more with critiquing state run programs while all the while we are trying to convince culture that we are still cool and relative.

“If only people could come to our service and hear the hip music and hear the captivating speaking, then they would believe.”

It’s a bit of shock to read through a recent poll through the Ottawa Citizen, which states that half of all Canadians believe that religion does more harm than good.

Could it be that the Church has pulled back so far that we have successfully removed ourselves from the culture and that our worth is no longer recognized in society?

My generation is very good at locating and lobbying for change in all aspects of society. Look at the occupy movement, or the many different young people lobbyist groups calling for new legislation or even the simple act of buying free trade coffee – because it’s the right thing to do.

While we are good at recognizing wrongs and using every possible technology to shine a light on them, we often fall short on actually putting our own hands to the plough.

Christians have done an excellent job of educating who to contact and who to write and where to blog etc. for the purposes of motivating our government to take notice and address different social concerns.

The only thing is that it places so much of the solution in the hands of government. We need to remember that politics and government are downstream from culture. As people are raised up to transform a situation in society our government reflects that change in its leadership and governmental policies. It was Ghandi who said, “You must be the change you want to see in the world.”

What if George Müller seeing all the homeless children and orphans in Bristol, had rallied the government to the need and was preoccupied in organizing the local church to care for the problem rather than recognizing the call of the Lord on his life to take the lead in addressing the great need himself? It was because he stepped out himself that that Lord, through Mr. Mueller, raised nearly 11 thousand orphans, established 117 schools which offered Christian education to over 120,000 children, many of them being orphans.

Its this kind of gospel worldview that has lead Christians historically to lay hold of the plough and “be the change that is needed in society” enabling once more for the Church to be that recognizable institution in society. Proposing a different kingdom and not imposing the kingdom, but living the alternative kingdom of God will distinguish once more the Church in society.

Now, get ready for this:

Right in the middle of His ministry, Jesus looks at His disciples and He says:

“you are the light of the world”

 What is He saying? He is saying that you and I are meant to bring a revelation of God into the world!!

We are to let the light of Jesus shine through our changed lives as a witness to the ‘true light that gives light to every man’.

How am I supposed to do that?

We are to testify concerning the Love of God and then be seen as loving our God with all of our hearts, our minds and our strength.

Secondly, We are to demonstrate that love, by loving our neighbours as ourselves.

That’s the reason we traditionally give gifts at Christmas, we are demonstrating how God has loved us by giving the gift of his Son, and therefore we are giving a gift to demonstrate our love for God and our love for our neighbour.

Let’s view this Christmas as a reminder to continually let the light of Christ shine through our lives for the world to see Him.

So we appropriately use lights as a symbol of the light of God coming in the person of Jesus. But, also, light is often used metaphorically in Scripture

John’s account says that the true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. Another verse that can help us is 2 Corinthians 4:6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. Light is being explained as ‘knowledge’ (like the light bulb went on), or we also could say: ‘revelation’.

For example, Genesis 1:2 says: “In the beginning let there be light”, or could be translated “In the beginning God said; Let there be a revelation of myself”.

Isaiah prophesied; “the people walking in darkness have seen a great a light”.  Or we could say: “The people walking in ignorance of God have received a great revelation of who God is.”

In John 8:12, Jesus proclaimed that he is the light, or, that he himself is the culmination or fulfillment of all revelation concerning God.

So when we see the lights of Christmas, let’s be reminded Christmas is the celebration of the revelation Jesus Christ.

“Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me….
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now, I see.”

What’s their message? – Well things are broken, our economy, the environment, society, government, it’s a long list really.

There is little by ways of solutions offered other then abandoning life as we know it and embracing a new way of life altogether.

Human history especially the 20^th century is a great example of people trying different ideas in which to live by. For example WWII is not the story of Adolf Hitler, it’s the history of a society embracing an idea.

Democracy while not perfect is the best system we’ve got. No system can make amends for the fundamental problem, the sinfulness of man.

I would like to offer that it’s not the system that’s broke, but rather the people inside that need help. Our problem is moral not economical, unless we address the underlying moral and ethical shortfall in society we are doomed to repeat.

Where was the conscience of some of these Wall Street executives, lenders and borrowers that has lead to this economic down turn?

And who informs the conscience?  Well The Church is called to be the moral compass in society.

Or as Graham Cook say’s “When you enter a dark room its no good to shout at the darkness, you turn on the light”.

It is wrong to think that religion is simply a reflection of culture it’s the reverse. What you believe will be reflected in the way you live within society. “Cult” is the root word of culture; cult in its simplest form is a system of religious worship.

To illustrate this Charles Colson writes; Oysters make their own shells, so if the shell is badly formed, the problem is not in the shell but in the oyster. Likewise when a culture deforms and decays, don’t ask what went wrong with the culture; ask what went wrong with the cult. Or as Russell Kirk say’s; “The material order rests on the spiritual.”

The light of the presence of Jesus shapes lives and transforms culture in turn. The hope of today’s world rests solely on the transformative message of the gospel. A renewed and vibrant Christianity living as the true Church always leaves a renewed culture in its wake. Its time to live out the gospel in all its fullness, and offer a real hope in a world of fading dreams that is ready to grasp a hold of anything.

There is something so healthy and “human” in a passage like this.  We reason with friends and family in conversation and gatherings,  especially if what we believe we feel is important and life changing, its a natural part of life. I remember listening to a man at the public rec center in the sauna telling everyone the merits of his financial institution and why we should all join. At the time I just wanted to relax, but the fact is the man believed what he was saying and for all I know it may well have been a good financial move, it’s just the human instinct to campaign for your beliefs.

Can you imagine a world without free discourse?  Where if something we believed was limited in what we could share if it differed from another’s belief and had the potential to offend.  It was offensive for the slave traders to hear that their belief in the inequality of human beings was wrong, but it was debated freely, truth was found and we are better for it.

In a day where relativism is the norm and tolerance is king, we are losing what it is to reason with one another in a common search for truth and purpose. Any truth claim is immediately met with opposition, because if it is indeed “truth”, it therefore has implications for everyone. So it’s just easier to make everyone an island with the only knowable truth being “there is no truth” (which in itself is a truth claim).

This is what the men in Acts 17 were eager to know, “what is this truth you claim to know Paul?” Even the Jews living there searched the scriptures to see if what Paul was saying was true.

The great thing about it was there was free open discourse, Paul never ended up at a human rights tribunal for offending someone’s fragile personal bubble (not in Athens anyway).

If as a society we begin to limit ones ability to act on their convictions to present truth in the public square we legislate against being human, our drive to know truth and to search out the deepest desire of our heart – to know God.

This Oct 12^th the Supreme Court of Canada is going to hear a case that deals with religious freedoms. The Court will be asked to decide whether it is permissible in Canada to express religious convictions that others find offensive. Can we enter the public square with our beliefs in biblical truth or will we be restricted in the name of protecting freedom? Where’s my freedom? Do we really have religious freedom to belief and act according to these beliefs, or are we in danger of a reality where these beliefs will be enforced by law to remain private?

To read more about this case check out the EFC page. Please pray for the members of the EFC as they will be presenting the Supreme Court with a case for freedom of religion. I find it interesting that my last post was about persecution, we have as Christians been blessed with relative freedom in Canada free from persecution. Lets us pray for the judges and all lawyers involved, that they will be given wisdom and God would give grace to our nation that religious freedoms will be protected in Canada.

That hit closer to home then hearing about some far away land.

Think about it for a minute. How often do we as Christians avoid conversations or giving an opinion counter to that of the prevailing cultural opinion simply because we are afraid of a potential backlash.  Persecution does not have to be physical, (however, for many it sadly is) it can mean being ostrasized for our beliefs, outcast from social groups and being the brunt of cruel mockery.

The thing that really convicted me was that this is as Sadarker put it, “a spiritual measuring line for where you are at in your own walk with Christ”. If your not encountering any persecution, chances are you are not stepping out in the call to bring the gospel to all the world.  Suffering for the name of Jesus is what it means to be persecuted. We all have regular trials and tribulations of life that we encounter everyday, maybe sickness, a rude person in the checkout line or impatient work colleagues.  That’s just life. Persecution occurs when we, because of the name of Jesus, are singled out for persecution.

Standing up for what is right will automatically put us into conflict. Jesus warned his disciples that they would be persecuted. In Luke 9:22-23 Jesus says that to follow him we must “deny ourselves and daily pick up our cross”. The Christian passover is often the “daily” portion of this passage.  To daily choose the way of the cross – Self denial, serving the needs of Christ and putting him before our own desires.

I have often wondered how Paul and Silas, there in the prison cell in the book of Acts were able to sing praises and hymns to God in spite of being brutally beaten. They knew in their hearts what James tells us in his first chapter, “Consider it pure joy when you face trails of many kinds”, they were rejoicing because they were suffering for Christ and because the gospel message was going out into the world.

1Tim 3:12 “In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted”. The Christian life and walk of the believer fully sold out to the things of the kingdom will be persecuted. But we should be able to know that we are suffering of the highest cause and ultimately our hope is found in the greatest hope of all Jesus Christ.

According to Romans 13:4 one intent of government is a restraining influence on evil and to bring punishment to the wrongdoer.

We know that Government is not a remedy for sin but has a restraining effect against it.  The church is meant to bring the remedy for sin into a society, faith in Jesus Christ.

So what does this restraining effect look like?

It looks like laws in our land that our police and even military apply that protect the rights and freedoms of every citizen in Canada.

Without government society would become a place of chaos and anarchy, but by restraining evil government provides safety and order where we are enabled to live peaceful and quiet lives according to 1 Timothy Chapter 2.

Because God cares for every person in any nation, he hates to see people treated unjustly and therefore expects government to protect the people.

Once we know that this is one of God’s original intentions for government, it is also a great way to know how to pray for our leaders according to God’s will.

So, lets remember to pray for those that serve our government by enforcing and applying laws within our land thereby praying God’s original intent for government.

Below is a trailer for the event.