Tag Archive for: Christ

What is so sacred about sex? – Part 2

/1 Comment/in , /by

This continues from part 1…..

In part one of this article, we discussed the sexual mood of our present culture and whether or not as human beings, we are the owners of our own bodies and minds. We ended on the note that if it is the case that we have been made or created by someone else for his own purposes, then surely we would have a lot more obligations than we would have if we only belonged to ourselves. But we also noted that, this is a big “IF” because some people do not believe (or at least they live as if they don’t believe) that there is any Being higher than ourselves, to whom we must be responsible. Is it reasonable to believe that an actual Being exists who is responsible for our existence and to whom we might be accountable to, regarding our sexual lives? If there is the possibility for such a Being to exist, why would he be interested in what we do with our bodies sexually?

For starters, let us be brutally honest with ourselves: everything in this world – from ourselves to the flowers to the stars to sea to animals etc – points to the fact that some sort of careful designing has gone into the creation of our world and of ourselves, doesn’t it? We often take it for granted that this physical world of ours is structured the way it is. But mathematically speaking, the probability of this world happening by a mindless random or unordered process is incredibly small. According to Astrophysicist Hugh Ross’ conservative calculation, the chance of a planet like ours existing in the universe is about 1 in a trillion billion billion (i.e. 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 or 1 in 10 raised to the power 30).

 Scientists are discovering that had even a single feature of our universe been just a little bit different, the stars, galaxies and human life would not exist. Let us briefly look at a few amazing scientific discoveries before we go on. The distance from the earth to the sun is just right. Why? Even a small change of around 2% and all life would cease. If the earth was too near the sun, water would evaporate. If it was too far from the sun, its coldness level would not support life. In fact, even the rotation speed of the earth is just right; if it was too slow, the temperature differences between day and night would be too extreme, and if it was too fast the wind speeds would be catastrophic. Furthermore, if the ratio of the electromagnetic and gravitational forces had differed by about one part in ten thousand billion billion billion billion (i.e. 1 part in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000), then stars such as the Sun, which are capable of supporting life, could not exist. Do you see any picture emerging?

The delicate balance of the elements in our universe, to use the illustration of the theoretical physicist Paul Davies, is like the accuracy level that a marksman needs in order to hit a coin twenty billion light years away on the other side of the observable universe. [A light year is the speed travelled by light in one year. And light, by the way, has the fastest travelling speed in our universe]. In fact it has been noted by some researchers that the earth is placed precisely in a part of the universe that is congenial to scientific studies in cosmology, galactic astronomy, stellar astrophysics and geophysics. That is, if our earth had been positioned in a part of the universe with too much starlight, we could not have been able to see into deep space. There are more than 3000 galaxies in the observable universe, each containing millions to trillions of stars – many being bigger than the earth.

Further, Oxford mathematician John Lennox in his book, ‘God’s undertaker: has Science buried God?’, notes that the distinguished mathematician and astronomer, Sir Fred Hoyle, admitted that his atheism was shaken profoundly when he discovered the degree of fine-tuning needed between the nuclear ground state energy levels in order for carbon to be formed either by a combination of three helium nuclei, or by a combination of nuclei of helium and beryllium. (And for the record, life cannot exist on earth without an abundant supply of carbon). Sir Hoyle’s discovery, according to Lennox, led him to remark that, “a superintellect has monkeyed with physics as well as with chemistry and biology,” and that “there are no blind forces in nature worth talking about.” Interesting isn’t it? And let us not forget the issue of the human DNA – the molecule containing coded instructions for the cells in the body. A group of scientists have recently estimated that the adult body contains about 37.2 trillion cells, each containing DNA. Each person’s complete DNA is unique; the exception being identical twins. The instructions are in what is called Genetic language and they are detailed, complex and specific. These instructions include for example, which cells should grow and when, which cells should die and when, which cells should make hair and what colour it should be.  If all this sounds too technical, then let me make it simple: the scientific discoveries are pointing in the direction where it is highly unlikely that an intelligent Being did not plan and execute the creation of this whole skilfully crafted universe, including human beings like us.

What is my point with all this information? It is this: if conditions in this universe, and the nature of our human bodies, are the way they are – so delicately precision-tuned – and if human beings like us posses the kind of intelligence we posses, even to study them, then it is very reasonable to (and unreasonable not to) suppose that a more intelligent Being, (1) is out there, (2) is the cause of our beings and (3) is interested in our lives. Now if we relate this thought to Mr. Lewis’ thoughts about moral duties (discussed in part one of this article), we can say with a fair degree of confidence that the whole of mankind must have a Landlord. Our bodies, strictly speaking, are not ours. Our Landlord is this Intelligent Being who created this world and everything in it. Religious folks simply call him, God. Since this God is the cause of our intricately designed bodies and existence, it is not mind-boggling that any “Dos and Don’ts” on how we use our bodies should come from him.

 

A Curious Worldview

 In his speech to the members of the city council of Athens, Paul the apostle of Christ tried to give them a new view of God, saying, “God, who made the world and everything in it, is Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples made by human hands.” (Acts 17:24 GNB) In a city so used to building alters and shrines for every imaginable god, this news was however unimaginable. But to the people in the city of Corinth (a city well-known for its immorality), who became believers in Jesus Christ, Paul wrote them a letter in which he explained to them the sacredness of their bodies: “…the body is not to be used for sexual immorality, but to serve the Lord, and the Lord provides for the body. God raised the Lord [i.e. Jesus] from death and will also raise us by his power. … Don’t you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and who was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourselves but to God; he bought you for a price. So use your bodies for God’s glory.” (1 Cor. 6: 13,14, 19,20 GNB). Dr Ravi Zacharias, a Christian philosopher, appropriately explains that, “the Christian walks with God, not to God. We no longer go to the temple to worship. Rather we go with our temples to worship.” The body of a believer in Christ, rather than a church building, is the holy dwelling place of God and must be treated as “holy grounds.” Thus what this person wears, or touches, or says, or looks at or reads or listens to must uphold God’s holiness.

So much for the Christian “bodies”! What bearing does this worldview have on those who do not subscribe to it? The non-Christian is a prospective temple of God. God wants to live in this person. The Christian explanation for human existence in general is that God made us and not only that, but also that he made us all for himself (Col. 1:16) and he made us in such a way that only in union with him can our greatest good be had (John 10:10). Sin does not allow this to happen. But God became man in Jesus Christ, lived uprightly among us, identified with our human weaknesses, paid for our sins in his death and rose up and wants to live in us to empower us to live as we ought to. Like C. S. Lewis once observed, God invented us in a certain sense like how a man invents an engine. And when a car is made to run of gasoline, it would not run properly on anything else. In this same sense God made the “human machine,” as Lewis puts it, to run on himself.

The fuel we need in order to function the way he designed us is God himself and the food we need to keep our souls spiritually alive is God himself. We cannot expect to function properly on our own terms. Sexual fulfillment (a major hunger of our generation) with its proper joy, peace and security does not come through the pulling down of God’s boundaries. Without God at the centre of a sexual relationship, our much desired real and secure intimacy which we often believe can be found in sexual intercourse will prove elusive. Any person, Christian or not, who tries to outsmart God on this front will soon find that the last laugh is always God’s, not ours; restlessness, emptiness, meaninglessness, broken trust, guilt and shame will ultimately come resting at our door steps. There is definitely pleasure in sin but it is fleeting. Kenyan Christian Apologist, John Njoroge, insightfully says that, “Trying to meet our real needs without God is like trying to satisfy our thirst with salty water: the more we drink, the thirstier we become.  This is a sure path to various sorts of addictions.”

Even in our limited wisdom, we realize that playing our cherished game of football without any rules does not make it really enjoyable. So we have created rules, in all their imperfections. Even with the rules in place, some people hurt others and get hurt themselves; they offend and get offended during the course of the game. Can you imagine the unbridled chaos that would exist if there were no clear rules? In the same way, we are living in an increasing sexually chaotic culture today because we are desperately throwing off God’s moral restraints: husbands and wives are sleeping with people other than their spouses, young unmarried boys and girls are “training” themselves in the act of sex yet ironically the idea of marriage is appearing uncomfortable to them because of its widely acknowledged moral limitations. God has provided a framework within which sex can be properly enjoyed physically, emotionally and spiritually, and it is not outside marriage.

 In God’s scheme of things, according to Christian teachings, you do not need to be experienced in sex before marriage. This is because you have the whole of your married life to get to know your spouse’s body (God’s gift to you) as your bodies lock and your spirits mesh in sexual intercourse before God. With each encounter you get to know the body of your spouse even better to the glory of God. And here is the rich wisdom of the Christian faith (which may seem foolish on the face of it): Any person who genuinely relies on Jesus Christ before his marriage and also during his marriage will be given the grace and spiritual strength to stay the course of marriage should he find out that he has ended up with a sexually defective spouse. Tough to take in, I know, but I cannot make this truth any more appealing than it sounds right now in a time like ours. Marriage is not a selfish enterprise, where if you are not having a sexually exciting life everything else must come crushing down for everyone in it. Rather it is essentially a self-giving worship of God as you commit yourself exclusively to that one person, to love, to cherish and to seek the good of this person always.

 The Christian scriptures teach that all who trust in God will not be disappointed, ultimately. But break God’s precepts on sex (or on any other issue of life) and you can be sure that you will not only separate yourself from God and into a dark loneliness of the soul but you will also hurt yourself and others. Let us be clear: the idea that God is an unloving and unfeeling Judge up there who is simply watching down to see who has gone even slightly wrong so that he may swiftly punish him, is wrong. God wants to reconcile us back to himself. This is the Christian message to the world. God’s precepts in the Bible are intended to facilitate our happiness and not to stifle it. A parent sternly warns her child to steer clear of fire not because she wants to make the child miserable but because she wants to prevent the child from getting hurt or even dying. How can a child enjoy life when he is hurt or dead? If we separate ourselves spiritually from God (a spiritual death), through sin, how can we expect to receive God’s best? God knows the limits within which our best can be had. Stolen waters are not as sweet as we want to believe. Many people may look happy on the outside but on the inside they may be empty, restless, bitter and troubled because they have violated God in this area of sex.

Conclusion

We were made for God and if we spend ourselves in illegitimate pleasures, we will only come away broken and impoverished in our souls (and perhaps with physical scars too). No one enriches his soul by being sexually immoral. Rather we bankrupt ourselves spiritually; we feel the emptiness, restlessness of the soul, the guilt and shame of sin because we have divorced ourselves from God, who is our ultimate good. A more serious side to sexual immorality is that in the end, we must give account of our lives to the God. Some people realize this quicker than others but the important thing is that we are willing to take the necessary steps back to God through the path he has provided – faith in his Son, Jesus Christ. And to be clear, faith in Jesus Christ is not mere intellectual belief in Jesus as Lord but includes a willful commitment to live the whole of one’s life in reverence of him and his teachings. Christ offers forgiveness and rebirth even to the one who has wrecked himself or herself sexually yet is willing to repent. Are you a mess, sexually? Jesus gives hope and strength to those seeking to please God in their sexual lives.

The really hard questions of life…

/in , /by

A brother recently shared this with me: He said, “The hardest questions about life (for Christians) are not the Theological ones (and they can be very difficult) but the existential ones.”

I’m sure by now many of us have seen the video of the Ugandan househelp brutalising the little child left in her care. I’m not yet a parent, but I can tell that any parent in their right mind will not hesitate to rain down fire and brimstone on any person who did 10% of what that househelp did.

This video was the subject of discussion I was having with my friend when he made the point about the hardest questions Christians ask.

When he saw the video, his mind went to his nine month child and he said to me “I told myself there would be no place that girl would go to keep her safe from me”. Of course I’m paraphrasing, but you get the picture. It evokes a strong sense of the need to bring retribution and the worst form of punishment upon this househelp.

And then my friend said his wife sent him a follow up on the video that the househelp was so badly beaten by the child’s father that she was in a wheelchair and had to be fed through a tube. (Now I’m not sure that part of the story is true). But upon hearing it, my friend did say that he felt a sense of calm and peace and some small joy because the right thing had been done. The father had gotten some justice for his helpless child.

And then my friend said he felt this question screaming itself at him, “WHAT WOULD JESUS DO?”

These are the hard questions we ask. The existential ones.

The househelp made in the image of God. A person for whom Christ died. Someone Christ loves and yet, someone whom I, – who likes to call himself a living breathing Christian, filled with the Holy Ghost, – wants to see beaten, punished as brutally as humanely possible (and I would have done it if I was close to her… I would have cast the first stone and proudly done so…) and all this with zero love and compassion in my heart for her.

This is the love and compassion I demand (beg) of Christ when I sin against Him. When I confess my sins. This is the love and compassion I have spoken about when I have taught countless numbers of people about forgiving others as Christ has forgiven us.

After all, all sin is ultimately against God and so her sin is first and foremost against God. And if God, the offended party seeks to bring her to a place of repentance so He bestows her with her forgiveness, using us (Christians) as vessels… then…

But yet, I still want to hit her. Do something to make her hurt as much as she hurt the little child. She sinned against the child, and the family of the child, and me and all of the social media universe. We are all angry!!!

And for many Christians, we are too angry to ask, “What would Jesus do?”.

Jesus wrote on the floor (in the sand) and asked the Pharisees, “Let Him who is without sin cast the first stone”. When they (the raging angry crowd) had all left , He said to her, the adulterous woman, “Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.”

The hardest questions we ask are the existential ones. How do we establish Christ’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven as he has so demanded of us?

What would Jesus do? What would He do in this particular case?

I’m sure He (Jesus) would forgive. I’m sure He would forget. I’m sure He would lead the househelp to the knowledge of her sin and to her need for salvation. He’d introduce her to Himself, the living Saviour and give her a hope that would give her everlasting life.

Beyond that, He would come and dwell in her heart and make her a new creation. One whose life would be so devoted to Him it would be a marvel for the world.

He most certainly would not hurt this househelp. NO! He’d reach out to her with His love. He’s always doing this.

“But Jesus isn’t the father of the baby”, I argued with myself. No He isn’t. But can the father of the baby love his child more than Jesus does?

These are the hard questions we ask. The existential ones.

Now I’m not saying that she should not be punished for her deed. I’m not saying that she should be hugged and given warm glass of milk. No. Not at all.

There are laws that govern our society. These laws have punitive measures that enforce some order in our society. Without the laws and their punishments our society will descend into anarchy.

But these laws and their punitive detractors are careful to treat the worst of offenders (criminals) with a dignity and a respect for their humanity they do not provide their victims.

So if the laws of every “civil” society reaches out to protect the humanity of the worst criminal offenders, then how much more the Christian?

The existential questions are hard…

But as hard as our existential questions may be, Jesus models the answers for us in his person and character and this is the character and person we are to emulate, after all, why are we called Christians?

 

Preaching Christ Is Still Needed, Urgently!

/0 Comments/in /by

“God is pursuing with omnipotent passion a worldwide purpose of gathering joyful worshippers for Himself from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. He has an inexhaustible enthusiasm for the supremacy of His name among the nations. Therefore, let us bring our affections into line with His, and, for the sake of His name, let us renounce the quest for worldly comforts and join His global purpose.” – John Piper[i]

“We know what it means to fear the Lord and so we try to persuade others”, declares the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:11. If you consider yourself a member of the body of Christ yet you know you cannot confidently say, even to yourself, that, “I know what it means to fear the Lord so I try to persuade others”, then, please take the time to seriously review your life to see where you have gone wrong. The fear of God is something that will not allow you to sit comfortably as you watch people perish in their sins. Indeed there has never been a better time for us to be witnesses for Christ than it is today. We live in a day where,

  • Occult practices are spreading fast in our society,
  • Men boast about how many bottles of alcohol they can drink before getting drunk and how many girls or women they have slept with,
  • Immorality is celebrated everywhere – on television, on streets, in magazines, etc.
  • Indecency is now something to be proud of instead of something to be ashamed of. The sense of shame is being lost. Both young and adult women see clothes not as things to use for covering their nakedness, but instead as things to be used to attractively expose those parts of their bodies that they are so proud of, thereby playing on the sexual sensitivities of men.

A lot of us Christians feel uncomfortable living in these times, and rightly so because many of the things going on today do not glorify God but like the Apostle Paul notes “… where sin increased, God’s grace increased much more.” Romans 5:20. These are the times to which God has called us as Christians. Christians who have ever lived in history were always called to one central task: Preaching the Good News about Jesus Christ.

In recent years, there has been a lot of talk about the deadly disease, HIV/AIDS. Some well-meaning people in an attempt to prevent the youth from being immoral tend to talk of this disease as if it is the ultimate tragedy in life. The youth, however, have been quick to realize that they can have sexual pleasure and still escape HIV/AIDS through the use of condoms. And so we see more youth having sex today than ever. The point to note here is that, the ultimate tragedy in life is not in sickness or in dying young. The ultimate tragedy is in living a long healthy life without using it for God’s glory. This realization should drive every believer in Jesus Christ into action. We must at all times be ready and willing to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with people around us; we must be looking for opportunities to talk to people about the Saviour.

In 1 Peter 3:15-16, the Apostle Peter exhorts us saying, “But have reverence for Christ in your hearts, and honour Him as Lord. Be ready at all times to answer anyone who asks you to explain the hope you have in you, but do it with gentleness and respect.” Please note two things about this verse. Firstly, Peter assumes that our lives would be lived in such a way that people will ask us about the hope that lies within us.  If we are going to be effective witnesses for Christ, then our lives must be in line with the word of God. It was D. De Haanwho said, “The best translation of God’s Word we will ever read is found in the servants of the Lord who live that Word in deed.” This is so true! Some people may never open a Bible to read. Some do not even know how to read at all! For such people our lives and our words as believers may be the only Bible they will ever read.

Secondly, Peter reminds us of the hope that Christians have. As believers in Christ we have a hope – the hope of going to Heaven after death and being with Christ forever. Apostle Paul also says that “If our hope in Christ is good for this life only and no more, then we deserve more pity than anyone else in all the world.”[ii] Just as Heaven is real, hell is also real. Hell is a place prepared for the Devil and his angels and also all who rebel against God.[iii]

The revivalist, Leonard Ravenhill in his book Why Revival Tarries, tells the story of a man by the name Charlie Peace who was sentenced to death in England for a capital offence. Minutes before his execution, a reverend minister was reading the Bible to him. Charlie Peace asked him a very simple yet relevant question, “Do you believe in Hell?” The Minister replied, “Yes”. To this, Charlie Peace responded with a profound statement which ought to engage every believers’ attention: “If I believed what you and the Church of God say that you believe, even if England were covered with broken glass from coast to coast, I would walk over it, if need be, on hands and knees and think it worthwhile living just to save one soul from an eternal hell like that.”[iv] Does this not make you want to stop and think? If what we believe about Heaven and Hell is true, then ought we not to be more active in sharing Jesus Christ with people? 

Helpful Tips for Effective Witnessing about Jesus Christ

  • Know the scriptures and stay true to the right interpretation of it. Do not twist scripture under any circumstance for your convenience. Try and get the right scripture that suits the situation. This therefore requires careful study of the bible.
  • Always make Christ the focal point of your witness. He is the reason why we witness.
  • Be Prayerful. Cultivate the habit of having a heart to heart talk with your father in heaven as many times in a day as possible. Talk to him in your own words. This way you know what you are saying. Speak honestly and with respect, reverence and thanksgiving in your heart.  Communicating with God helps to know the direction he wants us to take. Talk to him when things are going well and continue doing the same when things are not going well. Keep as close to Him as possible and He will make you an effective witness to the world.
  • Your speech must be interesting. I do not mean go around telling jokes even when you need to be serious. You can crack a clean joke if it will help your cause. In Colossians 4:5-6 Paul advises, “Be wise in the way you act toward those who are not believers, making good use of every opportunity you have. Your speech should always be pleasant and interesting, and you should know how to give the right answer to everyone.” Also, you must be sensitive to the questions of the person you are witnessing to. The Gospel is offensive to most people so do not worsen the situation by being arrogant and uninteresting. If the person has questions, listen to him attentively and answer appropriately. Let him know you are interested in him as a person and not just interested in preaching your message.
  • Be adaptive yet uncompromising. There is no one-size-fits-all kind of evangelism. People are different and they receive the gospel in different ways. Be sensitive to the individual, his beliefs, culture etc but do not compromise any part of the gospel message either in your words or deeds.
  • Avoid the habit of using undefined Christian jargon, clichés or biblical terms which a non-Christian  may not understand. Make your witnessing simple and easy to understand by defining these terms. Try using everyday language to explain biblical terms and expressions; this will help make the gospel relevant to those you talk to. But of course you can only do this if you understand the terms and expressions yourself. So make sure you understand them.
  • Stay true to yourself. Do not fake a smile or any other emotion. When you are genuine, it shows even in your eyes and your whole countenance. People sense it when you are pretending and they will not like to be around you.
  • John Stott gives a helpful advice when he tells us to try to achieve a balance in the use of words like, “We”, “I” and “You”. “We” and “I” are usually appropriate in speaking as a fellow man. “You” is often most appropriate in speaking as God’s spokesperson. Christian theologian, John Stott, advises us to “Speak both as a fellow-learner/sinner and as a prophet. Somehow, you should communicate that you have much to learn and a long way to go in your own walk with God. This helps people to identify with you and is a way of communicating God’s grace. But having done this, you also need to boldly proclaim God’s Word and call on people (as God’s mouthpiece) to respond to it.”[v]
  • Do not hesitate to talk about your own journey to Christ. Testimonies are powerful witnessing tools. Be careful not to exaggerate it or fake it. God knows how to use even your ‘small’ testimonies to affect people’s lives. Do not make promises God has not asked you to make.
  • Show compassion but do not patronize. Allow the individual to talk and try to understand his struggles. Make him aware that God knows his struggles and wants to help. Jesus said in Matthew11:28, “Come to me, all of you who are tired from carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest.”
  • Emphasize repentance. There is no salvation without repentance.
  • Be Confident (not arrogant) and determined and know that God is at work in you as a believer. Do not be ashamed to show your passion for the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
  • Be abreast with trends in the culture of the community. Read newspapers, observe the lyrics of the latest popular music, fashion, language etc to find ways of making the gospel relevant yet not compromising it.
  • Do not force conversion. Yours may be sowing a seed for someone else to harvest. Most Christians want to see instant conversion all the time and when it is not happening they want to force it. No! Conversion is the work of the Holy Spirit – he is the one who works on a person’s heart and mind.
  • Talk about the cost of rejecting Christ – Hell forever; and the benefits of accepting Christ – Heaven forever.  Note: Do not hide the cost of following Christ, speak clearly about it. It is a great disservice to cover up the cost of following Christ. Jesus himself encouraged people to count the cost before following him.

It is worth noting that the Christian life is not a life without struggle. When Jesus calls you he bids you to come and die to yourself and that is not easy at all. We are trying to surrender our will to God and it is not comfortable letting go of our selfishness and autonomy. Christianity is not a fairy tale where one ‘lives happily ever after.’ Of course there is happiness but it is not the kind that the world gives. We struggle, physically and spiritually, but we are not alone; we have the Holy Spirit who strengthens us and gives us peace and joy even in difficult times.

[i] Visit Southern Nazarene University website at http://home.snu.edu/~hculbert/slogans.htm

[ii] 1 Corinthians 15:19

[iii] Matthew 25:41

[iv] Leonard Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries, (Minneapolis, Minn.: Bethany Fellowship 1959) p. 19, quoted in Just Thinking – the triannual communiqué of RZIM, Winter 2003 edition. P. 4-5

[v] Ibid

The Human Condition: Are We Good by Nature?

/1 Comment/in , /by

“Man is essentially good but it is society that corrupts him.” This idea for many is inarguable but still for many others it evokes irony, confusion and doubt. We look around and see so much evil – from little lies to murders – yet there is also no denying that men at one time or another do acts of goodness to their fellows. But are these good deeds enough to warrant our thinking that we are good people through and through? In the ninth stanza of Steve Turner’s satirical poem, Creed,  concerning the modern mindset in the West, he says this:

 We believe that man is essentially good.

It’s only his behaviour that lets him down.

This is the fault of society.

Society is the fault of conditions.

Conditions are the fault of society.

Question: Who makes up society? Man. Who proposes those evil ideas of ethnic cleansing, lying about company profits, racial superiority and suchlike? Man. And I am immediately called to attention by the following profound statement which has been attributed to a research done many years ago by the Minnesota Crime Commission:

“Every child starts life as a little savage. He is completely selfish and self-centred. He wants what he wants when he wants it – his feeding bottle, his mother’s attention, his playmate’s toy, his uncle’s watch. Deny him these once and he seethes with rage and aggressiveness which would be murderous were he not so helpless. He is in fact dirty. He has no morals, no knowledge, no skills. Every child then is born delinquent. And if permitted to continue in this self-centred world of his infancy, given free reign over his impulsive actions, every child then would grow up a criminal; a thief, a rapist or a killer.”

The Christian scripture is even more to the point when it says that the human heart is wicked and only God can understand it (Jeremiah 17:9). One author, describing his visit to the Nazi death camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau in Poland, where Adolf Hitler sought to exterminate the Jews, recalls seeing Hitler’s words that hung on a wall saying: “I freed Germany from the stupid and degrading fallacies of conscience and morality … We will train young people before whom the world will tremble. I want young people capable of violence – imperious, relentless and cruel.” Quite ruthless!

Admittedly for many of us, Hitler is an exceptionally evil man. But we are also reminded of the tragedies in Kosovo and Rwanda, Sierra Leone (where even babies’ arms were chopped off) and Liberia; in these places the world witnessed unimaginable human cruelty – mass killings mingled with rape cases. But let us come home to Ghana and to less gruesome pictures of evil, albeit still symptoms of human depravity. Recent atmosphere in the political arena has given most Ghanaians reason to protest against the coarse verbiage that politicians use against each other. Most of these politicians are educated and they also know our culture’s sense of right and wrong but this has not stopped them from being insulting to each other. Further, let us look at some of the things which we consider normal in our society today: In business circles, a promise is not enough we need a contract. (We may argue that this is necessary because of forgetfulness but it is also often the case that we want to insure against any sneaky behaviour from the other party). We build houses and make doors but they are not enough, we need to lock and bolt them, and sometimes even employ security men in addition. When travelling on long journey buses and aeroplanes, we buy tickets but this is not enough, the tickets must be inspected and collected before we board. Making laws is not enough, we need the police to enforce them (and in some cases even the police need to be policed). All these things, although so familiar to us, are due to our sinful nature. We cannot trust each other. We need protection from one another. So going back to my initial observation that society consist of man, the following question becomes vital: if man makes up society and society corrupts man then where are we getting this idea that man is by nature good?

There is sometimes the idea that, “Oh if only we educate people and give them employable skills and also educate them in ethics and moral values, our social vices will be curbed.” But this misses the point! D. L. Moody, the famed American preacher (1837 – 1899) is credited with the humorous observation that if a man is stealing nuts and bolts from a railway track and you send him to school for formal education, at the end of his education he will steal the whole railway track. The point is this: man’s fundamental problem is not a lack of information or education on how to be ethical or moral. The problem is that our hearts are diseased, if not twisted. Thus, giving a man the best education that money can buy while his sick heart, with all its twisted desires, has not been healed is at best a joke. Fundamentally, we lack the power to do what we know to be right and to do this consistently.

Admittedly we sometimes do good deeds and also find others doing good in our society. Thus there is the question: how is this possible if we indeed are not good people by nature? Since man is the creature of an infinitely good and holy God, there are times when his ways and culture may mirror the beautiful and good attributes of God – such as mercy, charity, honesty, unity etc. But because man is fallen (resulting from the sin in the garden of Eden), all of our ways are tainted with sin. The Bible tells us that man was created in God’s image. Think of man’s condition as a mirror that has fallen and been cracked all over. The image you would see of yourself in such a mirror will be a distorted one. God’s image in man‘s current state is a distorted one . So yes, men do good deeds but this is not because they are naturally pure at heart.  We are like clocks that do not work. Yet even a clock that is not working will show the correct time twice a day, won’t it? But this does not mean it is keeping time. Thus our doing good deeds is not evidence that we are good (i.e. our clocks are functioning well). Rather we are dead spiritually. In theological verbiage, we are fallen – we are separated from God. It is often the case that even what seems like a pure gesture of goodness has some selfish goals – self validation, or emotional satisfaction – rather than for the sake of pure goodness. We often lack that sense of transcendent goodness (the goodness from God’s own person and character) – that something is good, whether or not I or those around me approve of it.

Paul, an Apostle of Jesus Christ, who described to himself as the chief of sinners (1 Timothy 1:15) also explained our human struggle of knowing what is good and yet not being able to do it in these words:

“I know that good does not live in me – that is in my human nature. For even though the desire to do good is in me, I am not able to do it. I don’t do the good I want to do; instead, I do the evil that I do not want to do. … My inner being delights in the law of God. But I see a different law at work in my body – a law that fights against the law which my mind approves of. It makes me a prisoner to the law of sin which is at work in my body. What an unhappy man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is taking me to death? Thanks be to God who does this through our Lord Jesus Christ!” Romans 7: 18-19, 22-25

In a day when the prevailing mindset says that man is good at heart but society is to blame for his flaws, the words of Jesus Christ come echoing through the centuries in sharp contrast: “… from your heart”, says Jesus Christ, “come the evil ideas which lead you to kill, commit adultery, and do other immoral things; to rob, lie, and slander others…” Matthew 15:19. But Jesus comes to us not just with wise teachings and profound observations about human nature; he also gives us new hearts – hearts that beat after God’s own heart –  a new view of God, the world and ourselves and also through his Holy Spirit he gives us the enabling power to do what we know to be right. This is where Jesus Christ stands unrivalled among the founders of all the world religions. Rather than only pointing you to some enlightening teachings and deep truths, He, by his power transforms selfish lives into selfless ones. This is what Christians call the new birth (i.e. born again) – our natural desires and inclinations begin on a journey of transformation: Our desire for power turns into a love for humility and service. We begin to exalt commitment over feelings, forgiveness over anger, patience over shortcuts, confession over cover-up and sacrifice over comfort. And a powerful example is given us in the life of the one who called himself ‘the chief of sinners’; he once persecuted Jesus’ followers, but after having bowed to the Lordship of Jesus, Paul declares to the Church in Philipi that, “All I want is to know Christ and to experience the power of his resurrection, to share in his sufferings and become like him in his death, in the hope that I myself will be raised from death to life.” Philippians 3:10-11. Not only did he confess it, he lived it and it ultimately led to his execution.

In the Christian worldview being good or doing all the good things is not what will earn you a place in God’s eternal Kingdom. It is your acting faith in the finished work of Jesus on the Cross – that his death pays for your sins and where your life into the future manifests this belief. Indeed, when a Jew once came to Jesus saying “Good Teacher, what must I do to receive eternal life?” Jesus responds saying, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone” – Mark 10:17-18. So, if no one is good except God and the situation is such that only good people will be going to heaven then who really is qualified for heaven? No one! But thanks be to God who makes entry into heaven possible for us by means of our faith in Jesus Christ . This is why all the religions and belief systems where one has to do good things to earn a place in heaven miss the real issue. Man cannot be transcendently good on his own to please God. At best a man may be able to abide by his own definitions of goodness (and ofcourse these definitions often change to suit him) but this is not the goodness God seems interested in. Without Jesus Christ, there is really no hope for mankind in having our hearts changed and in pleasing God.

** All Bible quotations have been taken from the Good News Bible – Second edition © 1994.