Random thought on Christianity.

There is enough light for those who desire to see, and enough darkness for those of a contrary disposition.’ Blaise Pascal ~ Pensees

I've been thinking about this for some time in my own disorganized way & it's still bugging me so bear with me or not as the whim takes you.

The greatest fault of the organised church as I see it is that they have misunderstood a basic tenet of the faith. They have taken the premise known as *The Great Commission* to go into all the world & make disciples as permission to convert the heathen. The arrogance, the sheer audacity, of the assumption boggles my mind for one simple reason. Scripture does not say to convert the heathen. It says to make disciples.

Jesus had disciples. They walked, ate, slept with him. They sat at his feet & listened while he taught. They saw him perform miracles. Under his guidance they had a shot at one or two miracles themselves. They argued with him. Peter was particularly prone to that; I have rather a soft spot for Peter. In Jesus they found something they desperately wanted & they hung around, even when it started to get dangerous. The surprising thing is not that Peter betrayed Jesus but that he even followed him so far! Come on people! Judea was a subjugated nation living under military rule. Walking into that courtyard was courting disaster.

Tradition has it that Peter was crucified upside down because he did not deem himself worthy to be crucified as his Lord & Saviour was, so what happened? What changed the man whose nerve gave out on that first Good Friday? He met the resurrected Christ. And this is where the church in general & Christ's people in particular, have failed.

It is so much simpler to say, ' Well, you need Christ or you're going to hell', or 'Just pray the sinner's pray & you are saved.' It's not that those things are necessarily wrong in themselves but they don't go far enough. You can tell about; that is easy. Really introducing someone to Christ is a much much harder thing. Firstly it requires that I am living my life in such a way that I can invite someone into my life & have them examine it without fear. Oh my! That means putting away all my little pet sins that no~one knows about except me. That means living what I preach. That means having an answer for the hope that is in me for anyone who asks ~ which means I have to examine my faith & understand what I believe. See Christianity is not for wooses. It requires commitment. It requires endurance & perseverance. It requires time.

The church has boxed religion up into neat compartments ~ Sunday worship, Wednesday prayer meeting, Saturday youth group & I don't think it was ever meant to be like that. It was meant to be life. When people asked Jesus he didn't say, " Come along to Sunday worship & all will be revealed.' He said, " Come & see' & took them into his own home. Hands on teacher! :)

Christianity is not a philosophy. It is not a moral guide. It is not a legal system. It is a relationship. If you do not have relationship you have nothing. Your hands & your heart are empty & it is for this reason I take umbrage with the evangelical movement. They are good at telling people about Christ ~ who he is , what he has done for us, what we need to do to come into relationship with him, but all to often that's where it begins & ends & that is just not good enough. We are meant to disciple people so that they learn from us how to be in relationship, how one holds oneself constantly in the presence of Christ, constantly in prayer while going about one's daily life with joy.

I know we all like to sing 'And they will know we are brothers by our love' [ouch!] but what I have noticed marking my life more & more is not love per se, not happiness, but joy, the joy of the Lord & it is this joy I wish I could express better, this joy I wish I could share because it is not mine, it is a gift & it is born of knowing Christ.

I have such a fellow feeling for Peter. He wanted to stay on the mountain top with the visions & the ecstasy; me too. Christ sent Peter back down into the valleys of life, to the everyday trials & tribulations, the failures & frustrations; me too. But, & this is the thing, having sent me back He came with me. So when my brother, Mark, died, yes I grieved but I had Christ's joy as well. At my centre there is a place that nothing in this life can disturb. Here the well of living water springs forth.

I am blessed. I have experienced the reality of Christ in deeply profound ways. I have no doubt of the reality of God. Living out that reality is much harder. I don't suffer fools gladly. I get frustrated with glibness. I'm opinionated & stubborn & bone lazy. I want to spin in my cosy little world with well behaved children, a good book & plenty of coffee & chocolate. I don't want to be getting my hands dirty in other people's messy little lives & that is exactly what I am called to do ~ with love & patience & infinite kindness when I am not loving or patient or kind; & I'm to do it joyfully! Uh~huh.

What I have learnt as people have passed through our lives is that while lots of people want what we have as a family very, very few are actually willing to pay the price. They want to be blessed with no strings attached. They want to be saved without repentance. Many are deeply cynical because they have been damaged by a flawed church system. It's not that they haven't heard the good news; it's that they haven't met the one the good news is all about.

So how do you share the Good News in such a way people meet Jesus? I don't know. I know Jesus found me, not the other way round, & having experienced His presence I long desperately for that day when I will no longer *see through a glass darkly but face to face.* I have met the one who undergirded people like Kolbe & ten Boom, Peter & Paul & scores of others all down the centuries since Christ rose from the dead & sent His Spirit out into the world to seal those who are His unto the day of Redemption. We do the world a disservice when we only tell people about Christ without introducing them to our Hope but I still struggle each & every time to convey the reality I know to people who are not even sure God exists, let alone if they have a soul worth saving & a life worth living after death.