Materialistic Christianity and Me

This coming February, I have to teach a class about Christian Financial Principles at the seminary. As a result, I am currently reading some books on financial principles. When I first started thinking about the class, I figured I'd talk about budgeting, saving and tithing (which I will do to some degree) but I have started reading a book by Randy Alcorn called "Money, Possessions and Eternity". From the get go, this book has been hard hitting and has made me really think about my ideas of money and prosperity. I've never highlighted a book up as much as this one. Although I'm only a few chapters in, I highly recommend this book.

I just finished a chapter talking about the lies of the health and wealth teaching which teaches that God wants to bless us financially and make us rich. Although, the teaching is clearly contrary to Scripture, it's still amazing how much my materialistic, western world view shapes my Christianity. At the end of the chapter, the author shares 2 stories, one of an American and another of a Chinese man living in mainland China. The stories really struck me and helped me to see how much of my worldview is shaped by materialism rather than Christ. I hope they stir your heart like they did mine.

Here's the 2 stories and the author's commentary:

In America, a sharp-looking businessman stands up at a luncheon to give his testimony: "Before I knew Christ, I had nothing. My business was in bankruptcy, my health was ruined, I'd lost the respect of the community, and I'd almost lost my family. Then I accepted Christ. He took me out of bankruptcy and now my business has tripled its profits. My blood pressure has dropped to normal and I feel better than I've felt in years. Best of all, my wife and children have come back, and we're a family again. God is good - praise the Lord!"

In China, a disheveled former university professor gives his testimony: "Before i met Christ, I had everything. I made a large salary, lived in a nice house, enjoyed good health, was highly respected for my credentials and profession, and had a good marriage and a beautiful son. Then I accepted Christ as my Savior and Lord. As a result, I lost my post at the university, lost my beautiful house and car, and spent five years in prison. Now I work for a subsistence wage at a factory. I live with pain in my neck, which was broken in prison. My wife rejected me because of my conversion. She took my son away and I haven't seen him for 10 years. But God is good, and I praise him for his faithfulness."

Material blessings and restored families are definitely worth being thankful for. The brother in China would be grateful to have them again; indeed he gives heartfelt thanks each day for the little he does have. And while the American brother is certainly right to give thanks, he and the rest of us must be careful to sort out how much of what he has experienced is part of the gospel and how much is not. For any gospel that is more true in America than in China is not the true gospel.

What is Canada/the World coming to?

"Canadian government to pastor: Renounce your faith! The Canadian government has ordered a Christian pastor to renounce his faith and never again express moral opposition to homosexuality, according to a new report.In a decision handed down just days ago in the penalty phase of the quasi-judicial proceedings run by the Alberta Human Rights Tribunal, evangelical pastor Stephen Boisson was banned from expressing his biblical perspective of homosexuality and ordered to pay $5,000 for "damages for pain and suffering" as well as apologize to the activist who complained of being hurt."

Rusty sent me this email. Being Canadian, it is hard to believe that my nation is coming to this. Even more surprising was that this happened in Alberta, which tends to be the most conservative province in Canada. The whole thing just makes you wonder, what is our world coming to? Governments in the West promote freedom of speech and tolerance but they are very intolerant to Christianity. Most people will tolerate almost anything, including other religions, just not Christianity. The Bible talks a lot about suffering and I believe that we as westerners will begin to understand this more and more clearly in the coming years.

Sad Stats

I just started reading the book Planting Churches Cross-Culturally: A Guide to Home and Foreign Missions.
Although I am only a couple chapters in, I can tell that this book will be extremely helpful and is definitely a must read for anyone involved in missions.
One chapter teaches about the priority of teaching churches how to do real mission work. The author (and I agree because of what I have seen in Thailand) says that too many missionaries aren't doing real mission work. He says that only 28% of missionaries are involved in establishing churches, 25% are involved in church support and 47% are assigned to other ministries.
Although the book is over 20 years old, I'm sure the stats haven't changed much or from what I can tell, they have gotten worse. We definitely need more people doing real mission work: establishing churches!

Craziness

What is going on with the world around us? Sometimes the things that are going on are just so crazy that you have to stop and think who is thinking this junk up. Although I am not really a history buff, but ever since prayer was taken out of schools, I have seen society steadily get worse and worse.
The year before last, when we were in America, we couldn't believe the push there was for people to stop saying Merry Christmas. Many businesses were forcing their employees to say Happy Holidays instead. I just couldn't believe it. Yesterday I read on yahoo that businesses want to change Santa's slogan of "Ho! Ho! Ho!" to "Ha! Ha! Ha!" Why you ask? The answer: because they don't want to offend any women. Come on, who is it going to offend. It's Santa! Sometimes when I hear this stuff, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. What is happening to the world around us?

All I can say is that I am so thankful that Jesus called me and I had enough sense to follow Him! He truly is the only hope we have in this decaying world.

I can't do ANYTHING!!

Have you ever come to points in your Christian life where it doesn't matter what you read or who you talk to, it always seems that God is hammering the same message into your head? That's what's been happening to me the past few weeks. The message that God is hitting me over the head with is, you can't do anything apart from me.

I just finished reading the book, The Normal Christian Life by Watchman Nee. This book is what got God working in my heart about this issue. This was my 3rd attempt to read this book. The first 2 times I just couldn't get into the book but now I know why. I needed to be at the right place in my Christian walk in order to understand. I thank God for this book. I thank God for verses like Leviticus 20:7-8 which confirmed this same message.

I'm a normal person and have struggles and my solution to fix them is this... Do better, try harder and the end result is always failure. Mr. Nee says that the key to becoming more like Christ is to draw closer to Christ. The closer we are to Christ, the less we will want to sin and the greater the hatred we will have towards sin. I've known this concept for sometime but it just beginning to become a heart reality rather than knowledge in my head. I cannot be holy on my own efforts, only God can make me holy. Only God can produce the fruit of the Spirit in me. I cannot do anything.

There is one quote in the book that sums this all up and it hit me hard...
"'What do you mean when you say you can do nothing apart from Him?' He answered, 'The Lord has shown me that I can do anything but that He has said, 'Apart from Me ye can do nothing' So it comes to this, that everything I have done and can still do apart from Him is nothing!'"

I don't need to try to do great things for God, God will do great things through me as I grow closer to Him. Praise God!!

Attack of the Killer Exchange Rates

Over the past 7 months or so since we have come back to Thailand, both the Canadian and American dollars have been hit hard with the exchange rate. I don't understand the way figure out the value of a country's currency, that's why i barely made it through economics. From what I understand, Thailand keeps increasing the worth of the Thailand Baht to keep up with the Chinese currency. As a result, the American dollar has gone down about from about 38 to 33.5 baht on every dollar and the Canadian has gone down from 33 to 28 on every dollar. That translates into a loss of about 150 dollars on every $1000 dollars we get from overseas. At least the price of gas has gone down a little, with the new exchange rate is only about $1.10 Canadian per litre. Yippee!!!!