Going Once? Going Twice? Gone!

What price tag would you put on a Chinese vase? It’s only good for holding flowers at best right? What about a postage stamp? Not exactly a staple product. In this day and age, you can live without one. What are you willing to pay for a painting? Art is very tricky but how much would you actually cough up? What do you think you are worth?

‘For you were bought with a price…’ (1 Cor 6:20a)

An auction is a process of buying and selling goods by offering them up for bids and taking bids. The person who values a specific item the most (the highest bidder) receives it. All the participants would have assessed the item on sale and would decide how much they are willing to pay for it beforehand. The man who manages bids coming in is known as the auctioneer. Some interesting auction records include an 18^th Century Chinese vase sold for £53.1 million, a Ten Rupee Mahatma Gandhi postage stamp went for a minor $205 000 and a Picasso was sold for just $106.5 million. Picture the auctioneer, after the final bid comes in, saying ‘Going once? Going twice? Gone! Sold; to the gentleman in the electric pink shirt with lime green poker dots! Congratulations sir.’ 

With every experience in your life; every interaction; every event; you are involved in an auction. The item on sale is your life. Ironically, you are the auctioneer and every participant in your life is bidding after having evaluated how much you are worth. You have the hammer and decide each time who wins the sale. People might tell you that you are not worth much. They might say that you will never do anything significant with your life. Maybe some guy put a price tag written ‘sex’ for a girl. Your boss might have tagged you, ‘slave’. You may have been told you are ugly. Oddly, we accept most tags, slam the hammer and sell ourselves for the cheapest bids.

The highest bidder knows more about you than anyone else. He has carefully assessed your worth. He has already proved you are worth so much that He paid the price before you were born and before you even considered His bid. That bidder is God. He is Jesus Christ. He found you worthy of His life. He put in a bid that makes the ridiculous records above look less than pocket change. He did not have to, but he took your well-earned punishment.

Every day, people compete against His bid. It is up to you to decide who you will listen to in that moment. Will you value yourself as Christ values you or the man/woman with the sweet smile? Will you consider yourself worth the life of the Son of God or drunkard? Is your price tag written ‘Perfectly loved by God’ or ‘Good for nothing’? ‘Sinner saved by grace’ or ‘nobody’. If the former is true, then your only response is to “…Honour God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s” (1 Cor 6:20b). You are not your own. You either belong to people and their perceptions of your value or you are God’s. Remember, when you slam the hammer on yourself, it will be too late. Going once? Going twice?

Tweet, share, email, text, send a smoke signal, do what it takes to get this out there if you conferJ!

Yours in the service of the King,

Yunam

A Little Grace

One of the most powerful gifts and integral parts of Christianity, centered right at the root of the faith is grace. We read of it in the bible, hear sermons on it and are encouraged to practice giving it to others just as the Lord gave and continually gives it to us. The sad thing is that a few of us actually practice it .God saves us regardless of our past sins; regardless of anything that we were before we met Him; and regardless of anything that we might become while in His kingdom. His grace is always offered to us. When I thought of this I was challenged to write this note and to explore how little we practice grace in our Christian community.

We hold on so much to self-growth and our individual relationships with God, never truly getting over the stage where the grace of God stops being only about us as individuals but also becomes about other people, both in the kingdom and out of the kingdom. It is so sad to think that after being set free by God and after such a high debt has been paid on our behalf we in turn cannot find it in us to do the same for our fellow brothers and sisters. We call ourselves Christian and proclaim God’s love and forgiveness through Christ yet we are the first people to speak soul destructing words when a sister falls pregnant, or when a brother starts drinking. We are the first ones to judge when we see a brother going into a club or anything that is a physically visible sin or ‘immoral in society’ so to say. Where is our grace?

The bible teaches, “So watch yourselves, If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him.” Luke 17:3. We have to ask these questions: are we really living up to this mandate? Do we encourage each other to rise up and stand firm in the Gospel after our failures or do we judge one another and condemn each other without grace? How many people actually reach out to a fellow brother or sister once they have fallen to sin? Better yet, when seeing that your fellow brother or sister struggles with a certain sin? Instead we sit alone behind our walls saying that we are praising God. Only concerned about our faith and nothing else. The situation is so bad that people hide themselves, struggling with sin due to fear of being judged, fear of what people at church might say and yet we are given this wonderful gift called grace.

But then Law came in, to expand and increase the trespass. But where sin increased and abounded, grace has surpassed it and increased the more and super abounded Romans 5: 20.

Why is it so hard to find a church or Christian environment where people are free to reveal their struggles, free to express and testify to the power and mercy of God through the struggles they have faced in life and/or free to receive God’s forgiveness in what they are still struggling with in their lives without the ooohs! and the aahs! of judgment, awe and pity? When will we finally embrace one another as the true community of God in understanding each other’s transgressions and helping each other to stay strong in the Lord?

Let us always remember that God gave us grace and continues to give us grace. We are not better than anyone but all sinners who have been cleansed by God through Christ. Let us embrace our identity both inside and outside our communities. This is the only way to help each other from falling: practicing grace. It may not be easy to admit that we lack this discipline, but the Lord is faithful and in prayer and in fully admitting our shortfalls he can help us to do what is right. So begin a new walk today, a walk that embraces the grace we are given in the kingdom. Let us start being a shoulder to lean on, someone to talk to, a praying partner, for both our Christian and non- Christian brothers and /or sisters. Think about the good that it could to, after all what do we have to lose? But believe me we have a lot to gain, freedom and unity in the kingdom and all because of practicing just a little grace.

What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ. (Philippians 3:8)

Peggy S

Senseless Trust

Once upon a time, an over achieving man wanted to conquer the highest summit in the land. He decided in is heart that he would climb this mountain in record time and that he would push himself to the limit to achieve his goal. For days he climbed until, one day, his ambition pushed him to climb for a longer time than usual and he passed a planned pit stop. Before he knew it, it was dark and he was getting real cold and hanging uncomfortably on a cliff. His concentration slipped for a second and he fell a few metres but managed to use his climbing hammer to hit a rock and hung on. Now scared, he clung to his equipment and sent out a prayer. Out of nowhere, he heard the voice of God calmly saying, ‘Let go.’

‘For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness.’ (1 Cor1:22-23) 

This week, I’ve learned it is not always easy to trust God. Being in control or wanting to know how things work is human nature. I have often tried to understand and make sense of the things of God and came short. I have done things and came to conclusions which I often assume are what God wants; not because God has spoken but because it made sense at the time that that is what God would want. Often, what God is really saying, sounded foolish. It did not make a lot of sense. I know another man who thought as I did. The patriarch of the Jewish faith and our great faith ancestor: Abraham.

God’s promise to Abraham did not make sense. Think about it. At age 75 (his wife being about 65), God calls Abraham and tells him he will have innumerable descendants. He was told to leave all that he knew and go to a place he has not seen. His father must have been like, “Really? You are going to some unknown land that some unseen God will show you and have many kids?Bakuloyilewena!”(Okay, so maybe he did not speak Xhosa but it wasn’t English either so there.) It did not make sense. Abraham did not always trust God either. In Gen 16, he makes a plan with his wife to make his promise happen. He was aging, and what God said to him sounded foolish. This resulted in the birth of Ismael and also animosity not only between Sarah and Hagar, but also, millennia later and even today, the descendants of Ismael and Isaac, all because he did not trust God. 

As our theme scripture shows, God uses what seems foolish in order to shame the thinkers and the religious. The fact that Messiah came as a normal, poor man and not a political king did not make sense to the religious people of those times. Jesus saving those who believed from the wrath of God by dying on the cross and then coming back to life did not make sense to the intellectual Greeks of Paul’s day. This is true even today because many say they will believe when they see a sign or don’t believe because it all sounds stupid. “But to those who called, both religious and intellectual, it is Christ the power and wisdom of God.” (1 Cor 1:24 paraphrased)

The man in our opening story froze overnight. He was later found, hanging just a metre away from the ground. It did not make sense to let go, but God knows what He is doing. He knows what He is doing even in your life. He has been doing for ages and has a perfect track record. Trust Him, even when it does not make sense. Indeed, trust Him especially when it does not make sense.

You know the drill. If you like, share it and follow!

Yours in Christ

Yunam

LA DOLCÉ VITA/THE GOOD LIFE

King Solomon is perhaps one man whom you can say has, ‘been there, done that, bought the t-shirt, lost it, found it, burnt it.’ He had it all. He not only had wisdom, but exceedingly great understanding (1 Kings 4:29a). He was a very compassionate man (1 Kings 4:29b). He ruled an extremely large kingdom (1 Kings 4:21 & 24). He never had to go to war and lived in peace all his life (1 Kings 4:25). He was famous and respected (1 Kings 4:34). People from all over his kingdom paid very high taxes (1 Kings 4:22-23) making him the richest guy to have ever lived. All cups and plates in his crib were made of pure gold (1 Kings 10:21) and the silver in his kingdom is equated to the amount of stones outside (1 Kings 10:27). He had more than his fair share of ‘female companions’ (1 Kings 11:3). Some would say, ‘this is la dolcé vita (the good life)’.

Solomon did not see it that way. He was really depressed. He took a look at all he had and studied life in his kingdom. He studied work (Ecc 1:3-11), human achievement (Ecc 1:12-17), pleasure (Ecc 2:1-17), human wisdom (Ecc 6:10-11:6) and the like. Everything people considered ‘good’. He then compiled his studies in a book in the Bible titled Ecclesiastes. He concluded that every thing he had and all that people lived for is perishable; does not have eternal gain; does not provide permanent profit. He did not say it was not enjoyable. After all, God made everything to be enjoyed in its appropriate time (Ecc 3:11). He said nothing lasted and therefore was not worth building a life around. He did not consider his life as ‘the good life’.

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is man’s all (Ecc 12:13).

To fear God is not akin to fearing heights, small spaces or clowns. It is reverently acknowledging Him and living under His rule without compromise. God is a loving father. All children with a good dad know what it is to fear dad. Fear Him in that sense, never wanting to do anything outside His will. To fear God is to hate evil (Pro 8:13). It is the beginning of all wisdom (Ps 111:10); a treasure (Isa 33:6); a fountain of life (Pro 14:27); and a source of strong confidence (Pro 14:26).

To keep God’s commandments is fundamentally to love God and Love people (Matt 22:37-40). But, let us not only love in word and tongue but in deed (1 John 3:18). Do not live in judgement of non-Christians. Just love them; actively. Do not live in judgement of other Christians (it happens). Love them even if they do things differently. You can have all that King Solomon had; be the best at what you do; the brightest spark in the flame; the most talented musician in the band; and blessed with every spiritual gift possible but without love, it amounts to nothing (1 Cor 13:1-7 paraphrased). This is a good place to start when you want to follow all God commands.

Live a life in fear of God and live a life of love. If we live in this way, we can enjoy everything that God has put on earth for us according to His design. Even if we have all that Solomon had, we can enjoy it knowing that our relationship with God is an eternal one. This is la dolcé vita. This is not a problem free life, but a relationship with an Overcomer (John 16:33b). Not just the good life, but the God life. We cannot fully be satisfied with the creation, without the council of the Creator (Mark Driscoll).

Feel free to follow my blog and to leave your comments. And always remember LOL (Love God; Obey Him; Love People).

With Love

Yunam