Free Will and Monergism

First a warning, this post is long! Its been a long, long time coming this post. For a long time, I've considered whether I should write it at all. Conversation I have on this topic, often end up in heated debate, even argument, it is for this reason I have considered it so much. When speaking to my dad about this post however, like usual, he said something to convince me, he said (paraphrasing) the following:

'If what you are saying causes offence then either it is not truth or the truth is offensive, if it is the latter it is still truth and should still be said' - His point was simple, true and Biblical (John 8:31-46).

One of the most common debates I have with Christians relates to man's part in salvation. The common understanding and held position of most I speak to is one where salvation is a cooperative act between man and God (synergism). The general view is this: God offers salvation to man and then man has the option to accept or reject it. If he accepts, he is saved, if he rejects, he isn't. It should be noted here that the vast majority of people holding this view do not look on this as a once in a lifetime opportunity. Proponents of this view would say that man is given this opportunity many times, but the principal will always remain, God will not 'force' salvation on anyone, he will only give people the option to accept or reject and then it is their free choice.

The view above, to me, is a nice view logically, it removes lots of uncomfortable questions (see later) by putting a dependence on man, it leaves a little bit of goodness in man (the part to choose God of their own free will) and allows us a bit of control... as man, quite simply, we like control. There is little less comfortable than saying 'there is nothing you can do about it' and having to accept that.

The question, for me, is, is the view above Biblical? It is here that I disagree with those holding this view. I was challenged recently to give Biblical evidence that this view was wrong and this is my attempt to meet that challenge, before we dive into the Biblical evidence it is first important for me to explain where exactly I see the above argument going wrong. The process above is something akin to the following

1. Man hears the message of Christianity
2. The Holy Spirit convicts man of their sin
3. God offers salvation to the person through the sacrifice of Jesus paying for their sins
   
4. The person then has a choice to make, of his own free will, to accept or reject salvation
5. The person chooses to accept and is saved or the person chooses to reject and is not saved
6. If the person accepts the Holy Spirit comes and lives inside the person
7. The Holy Spirit then works, with the persons free will, to make the person more Christ like.

So where do I see a problem in the above? Predominantly in step 4, and the free will choice made by man. It is for this reason that the important question for me to tackle here isn't 'Does man accept or reject God?' but more fundamentally 'Does man have free will in terms of salvation?' The first question is a corollary, if we can show man does not have free will in terms of salvation then he certainly cannot make a decision.

The next thing however, is to answer the question on free will, we in fact need to ask another question, namely 'Is man totally depraved?' or put another way 'Is man (post-fall) capable of choosing good?' Then we have the following, if man is not capable of choosing good then they cannot choose good, only bad, so they do not have the free will to choose God (the good choice) and hence their salvation cannot be dependent on their decision accept or reject (for man will always reject)

So our aims are the following:

1. Show Biblically that man is totally depraved
2. Use this and other Biblical evidence to deduce that man cannot have free will in terms of salvation (and hence cannot make a choice to accept salvation of his own free will)
   

Humans are totally depraved:

Firstly total depravity does not suggest that humans cannot do what are outwardly good works, it does not say that humans will not help one another out, give to the poor, look after the sick or do many other things that look good through human eyes. Total depravity says we cannot do anything, of ourselves, that is good in the sight of God. It is important here to remember that God looks not only on the outward action, but the motive behind the action. Incidentally, we should note here that total depravity is a consequence of the fall back in genesis 3, the Bible does give a clear verse on how our righteous acts look before God (Isaiah 64:6)

We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.

So we see in the above verse that even our best works are polluted before God, in other words, of ourselves we are indeed incapable of doing something good before God. This shows that our actions are always polluted, what about our will:

Romans 1:18

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

Romans 3:9-18

⁹What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, ¹⁰as it is written: "None is righteous, no, not one; ¹¹no one understands; no one seeks for God. ¹²All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one." ¹³ "Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive." "The venom of asps is under their lips." ¹⁴ "Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness." ¹⁵ "Their feet are swift to shed blood; ¹⁶in their paths are ruin and misery, ¹⁷and the way of peace they have not known." ¹⁸ "There is no fear of God before their eyes."

Romans 8:7

⁷For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.

All of the above talk of how the will is enslaved to sin, look at the Romans 8:7 above, it says that the mind is hostile to God and it cannot submit to God's laws. The mind does not, will not and cannot submit to God's laws. Romans 3:9-18 reiterates the message given in Isaiah but in fact takes it further, we have that no-one seeks God and Romans 1:18 talks of how we suppress the truth. I hope by now you can see that the Bible clearly teaches the total depravity of man. Contrary to popular opinion and counter to how we like to look at ourselves, man is not good, as Paul declares 'no-one does good, not even one'. Our mind is in bondage to sin, since the fall, humans have a sinful nature, we will not, do not, indeed cannot choose the things of God without divine intervention.

There are many, many more passages relating to total depravity, also take a look, for example at Jeremiah 17:9, Genesis 6:5, Psalm 51:5, Psalm 58:3, 1 Corinthians 2:14, Proverbs 14:12, 1 Corinthians 1:18

Man does not have free will in terms of salvation:

The first thing to get clear here is to be precise, I am only considering here free will in terms of salvation. I am at no point here trying to argue that we have no free will in terms of other things, such as what we want to wear, eat, do etc. I am also not considering the free will of a Christian to reject God's grace. I am here looking only at the idea that for salvation Christians of their own free will must choose to accept salvation. My main reasoning here is to cover one question at a time, looking any further than this, gets into philosophical questions on free will and questions on whether salvation can be lost. Whilst these are interesting questions, they are beyond the scope of this post.

So we have looked at the case above of the total depravity of man, from an idea of total depravity it is difficult to not conclude a problem for proponents of free will in terms of salvation. One possible argument one can use however is to say that God puts us in a state where we have the choice. There are a few problems with this argument as follows:

1) God is still changing the will of man without their will, if only to put them in a state where they can choose good or bad. To do this he must still impose on our free will in the first place, he must come in and change our will, without our permission (due to total depravity meaning we would reject given the opportunity).

2) It is very, very difficult to support this view Biblically, I ask anyone holding this view to please feel free to leave verses supportive of this as comments to this article for me to consider.

3) There are lots of passages that rule out such a possibility and point strongly towards this not being the case:

Perhaps the two biggest chapters in the Bible against this are Ephesians 2 and Romans 9. Lets look at an extract from Ephesians 2:

¹And you were dead in the trespasses and sins ² in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— ³among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. ⁴But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, ⁵even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved— ⁶and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, ⁷so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. ⁸For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, ⁹ not a result of works, so that no one may boast. ¹⁰For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

The parts I particularly want to focus on here are verses 1, 5 and 8-9. Verse 1 and 5 tell us that we were dead in trespasses and sins, note that isn't dorment, nearly dead, badly wounded, injured, that is dead and we are made alive by Christ. I ask as a simple logical question, can a dead man ask to be brought back to life? When Lazarus was raised from the dead, did Jesus ask him if he could raise him? No, Jesus, simply raised him back to life. The biggest problem however for the view of man's needing to accept however is perhaps verses 8-9. If God offers salvation and I accept it and someone else doesn't as an act of my own choice then I can conclude that I did in fact make a very good decision and they didn't. Put another way, I made a better decision than someone who chose to reject. Suddenly, I do have a reason to boast for I was clever enough to make the right choice. Further one can perhaps also conclude that I am at least in part, saved by works -contrary to what the verse above says- for my work was to make the correct decision, it might be a very small work, but it is still a dependence on me, still something I have to do.

Election is another important concept (Romans 9, briefly mentioned above is a big chapter for this). I am not going to go into election in great detail here but the Bible has numerous passages talking of an elect. Christians in general seem united on the idea of an elect however there view on the elect varies. Those holding the above views on salvation generally view election in relation to foreknowledge. They say that because God is omniscient, he knows who will choose him, when they are given the opportunity and it is to these the elect refers to. I see two main problems with this:

1) It does not remove the idea of God choosing only brings it backwards to when we were created, it leaves the problem that God created, or allowed us to be created in such a way that when the offer came the person would reject. This again leaves many of the problems synergism tries to avoid, such as God choosing some people and not others.

2) The view above is a logical one that again is not Biblically supportable. For a start we have Ephesians 1:4:

even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love

This doesn't say God knew what our choice would be, it says the he chose us. Jesus also says in John 15:16 that the disciples did not choose him but he chose them. Is it possible that God chose us based on that he knew we'd choose him?

So we know that God chose us, but was his choice based on his knowing what we'd choose? Biblically the answer to this is no. There is not one place in the Bible that teaches that God's choice of who to save is based on anything at all to do with us - even knowledge of our acceptance. Instead, there is Biblical evidence telling us that we are predestined, according to his will (Ephesians 1:5, Ephesians 1:11) and pleasure (Ephesians 1:5). We are also told outright that it does not depend on mans desire (Romans 9:15-16).

So we have shown many Biblical problems with the idea that salvation is based on the free will of man, most notably, we are totally depraved so will always choose evil over good. The idea of God putting us in a state where we are capable of choosing him and then giving us the free choice is problematic. The reasons for this is it gives us a reason to boast and that Biblically those who are saved are chosen by God. Finally there is no evidence whatsoever (in fact there is evidence to the contrary) that this choice is based on God knowing what choices we will make.

Some Final Thoughts:

I have tried to be careful throughout here to repeatedly say man making a choice totally of his own free will is wrong, I mean this in the sense that God must change their will as an act of God. I should state here that perhaps this should be worded slightly differently for clarity throughout, perhaps if I think carefully I'll come up with a better way of wording it, but for now let me make the following clear:

God does not drag people in to heaven kicking and screaming, no, God changes people's wills so that they desire the things of God, those who believe do so entirely willingly, for prior to their belief their will has already been changed.

If one sits down and thinks there is at least one situation where we did not have free will yet we do not complain, before a knee jerk reaction to the above it is worth thinking about the fact that you were born without your consent, you did not choose it, why then do you believe that you must choose to be born again?

This article is introductory, I aim to next look at the consequences of the above. I plan to look on what affect this has on evangelism and sanctification in particular.

I should note that I have particularly used gotquestions.org in putting this together and recommend checking out their website for lots of questions (Although I am of course not saying I definitely agree with 100% of what they say).

Please do feel free to leave comments, questions etc!

Let Go, Let God

Before you read on, I should warn you, this post is written whilst I'm feeling inspired, so it may lack even more clarity than usual. It is written based on my thoughts after doing something I don't usually do. I went outside to a nice spot tonight and just sat there with some music. While I was there, this post came into my mind and I felt the need to write it. I was pretty sure my next post was going to be on conscience, that is no longer the case. It features quite a lot of information from various different sources, some from a very long time ago and some more recent... here goes.

A very long time ago (by very long I mean a few months) I heard a comment on my scrupe forum that struck me. It struck me so much that it became a quote on my facebook page, that quote is the title of this post 'Let go, let God'. I thought it was a beautiful quote, something that would be a really good idea to do not only for scrupers but for people in general. I didn't think much more of this quote at the time and it seemed to pass from my memory.

Lets fast forward to just a few days ago, a close friend of mine said something along the lines of 'don't chase, wait for God', what she was referring to isn't important, the important point here is, I made a bit of a joke of this at the time and the thought passed from my mind fairly quickly.

Now lets get to today. If you ask my housemates they'll say I've acted strange today, I suspect I may get some questions on it at some point. I've been for a walk on my own and I've been to sit somewhere I haven't been despite living here for over 6 months. I can understand their questions, I would likely ask questions too. I can assure them however, if they read this, there is no problem! So what happened today, well I was sat outside just looking at the nice view and thinking and back into my mind came 'Let go, Let God'. This time however it came back as more than a nice saying, it came back with real meaning, back to my mind came the comment my friend made to me and this time it made complete sense. Further, to my mind came a song I've been listening to a lot recently by a group I highly recommend called Rush of Fools. The song in question is called Fame and some of the lyrics are:

I have tried to follow, I have tried to lead
I have failed at everything
I have been the culprit to my selfish needs, made everything but You my King

I couldn't be any less worthy
To spend one day much less forever with You

I lift my hands just as I am, I'm letting go of false control
I lift my voice, I have no choice
My life is Yours, use me for Your fame, Your fame

Letting go, as you can see was suddenly upon me from every angle, I now know clearly the situation. I know the song made sense, my friends comment was spot on, the quote from all those months back was important. As I sat there and looked around me I was reminded that my God is the creator God. That letting go to my God was letting go to the God who made all that was around me, the God that spoke the world into existence, the God that flung the stars into space. Letting go to God isn't putting my life into the hands of anybody, its putting my life into the safest place possible. Its putting my life where it should have been all along.

Christians and Judging

A few weeks ago I got into a conversation about whether it was right to speak out on a certain topic to other Christians. I won't give the full content here as that isn't important but suffice to say the situation involved various Christians acting in a way that was unbiblical, unacceptable and causing problems. At the time I suggested to the person that quite simply someone needed to tell them that what they were doing was unacceptable, now in this situation I was probably wrong for reasons I will explain later. The argument I was confronted with however was that to bring it up was to be judgemental and that Christians were not supposed to be judgemental. The main verse cited at the time was Matthew 7:1-5:

1 "Judge not, that you be not judged. 2 For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. 3Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when there is the log in your own eye? 5You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

Now, the verse above clearly states that we shouldn't judge, however, like we see frequently, to take only one passage of the Bible does not give us a complete picture. We could read this to mean that we should never say anything to a fellow Christian who is doing something wrong unless we are perfect. Doing so would then be judging them after all wouldn't it? To hold this view completely would be to say we can never say or arguably even think anything about another Christians behaviour. Whilst most wouldn't go this far, taking the extreme example, if a Christian commits murder or child abuse for example should we ignore it so as to not be judgemental? I am sure people can see the problem here, but interpreting as described above actually necessitates such a conclusion.

Is this really what the Bible means by judging, does God really want us to never tell anyone what they are doing is wrong? Lets take a look at another few verses, firstly from Matthew 18

15 "If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. 16But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. 18Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. 19Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. 20For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them."

Now this is interesting, just a few chapters later we are given the advice that if your brother sins against you, to go and tell him. We are given instructions here for the process of escalation we should follow in these situations, but that is a different topic. My point here is that we as Christians are not told just to keep quiet in these situations, so the question here is, how is this situation different? In what cases are we right to tell people when they have sinned and in what cases are we wrong?

Looking at the case in Matthew 18, we see that the brother has sinned against you. It seems from this verse at least that in the case where the sin is against you, you are allowed to bring it up. The next part of this is important however, 'if he listens to you, you have gained your brother' Now to me, this seems to give some guidance on when we should bring things up, it sounds like it should be brought up in serious cases. The implication here is that the sin against you is strong enough that, for it not to be brought up, means a breakdown in the relationship between you and the other Christian.

Is then this the only guidance we have biblically on the topic? Is it only right for us to speak out against sin when it is directly against us and enough to cause a breakdown between us and the other Christian? Well, lets look further, there are numerous references in the Bible to this topic, a few of them are:

John 7:24 - Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.

Luke 17:1-4 - And he said to his disciples, "Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come! 2 It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin. 3Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, 4and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, 'I repent,' you must forgive him."

Galatians 6:1 - 1Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.

Proverbs 7:25 - Better is open rebuke than hidden love.

2 Timothy 4:2 - preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.

As we can see, there seems to certainly be biblical instruction that we aren't always to keep silent. We see in the above several things however, what is described here is a world different to simply telling people they're wrong. Judging is telling people they are wrong for your benefit, it is belittling other people. Christians should not do this. What Christians should do is correct others with gentleness. We should tell others when they are doing something sinful when it is for their benefit. We should be correcting them to restore them. The over-riding rule in Christianity is to love. Before you correct the person ensure that you are acting in love.

I said at the start of this that in my situation I may have been wrong. I say this as my concern in the situation was perhaps impure, I was angry with the situation and whilst the situation was wrong, it was perhaps not my place to get involved. My intent would have been to simply angrily tell the people they were wrong, not lovingly and gently attempting to correct. The balance here is not easy and had I gone shouting my mouth off I would have been wrong. My being incorrect on this occasion however, in no way changes the biblical instruction, we should correct our fellow Christians, and doing so should be an act of love.

Wrong impressions

Every so often you speak to someone who makes quite an impression. Ordinarily for me, that person says something that rings with truth. Well that happened today, I was having a chat with someone I don't know very well and they were by their own admission rather blunt. I quite appreciate bluntness, I understand it, its too the point, there is no confusion with it, its not always nice but its something you can do something with.

So the person said to me (and I paraphrase slightly) to' be careful with the impression I give to girls by speaking to them'. I often speak to girls, one of my best friends is a girl and its probably fair to say that I can seem over friendly with girls to the point where it gives the impression that I am attracted to them. This isn't so much of an issue if its a girl you'd actually like to date, at least then you can't be giving them the wrong impression, they might not be interested but you're not leading them on in any way. The problem is when it is with someone you're not interested in. This is something that I've thought about myself over the last couple of weeks. I have even discussed it with a few people, however this was the first time it has been brought up by someone who didn't know me very well, I am quite impressed with them for doing so and the consequences of the small discussion is continued thought into the matter by me and this article.

So where is my thinking on the matter? Well, the first thing I know is that I'm more likely to give someone I'm not interested in the wrong impression than someone I am interested in the right impression. There is simple reasoning for this, one situation I am the one at risk of getting hurt, the other one I'm not and its nice to have someone like you.

This however, is not a nice attitude at all, in fact, its an awful attitude and it is this attitude that is the root cause of my problem. My focus is wrong, completely opposite to the attitude God would want me to have. It is another example of the old man winning the battle in me, the natural inclination of me is to look out for number 1. To focus on my own happiness, my own needs, my own desires. This is a polar opposite to the attitude of Christ, and opposite to the attitude of the new man in me. I'm selfish, God wants me to be selfless. There is a constant battle in the life of any Christian between the new and the old, between the sin that is so attractive to the flesh and the holiness which is so attractive to the Holy Spirit living in them.

The person who said this to me has done me a favour by doing so, her comments can be used by God to make me more and more Christ like. I'll never be perfect in this life but with God's help with taking advice on board when it is given, even when it is difficult, I can be better than I am now. For my imperfections I will rely on the grace of God to help me through. This is only the very beginning of this and there is much more for me to still accept with this - its difficult - its going against my natural impulses. I have overcome challenges in the past and this is just the next and I don't intend to fail.

I Want That Faith!

So, its been a few days since my last post and I am no longer in a waiting period, unfortunately the decision this time didn't go the way I'd have liked it to but it is a good opportunity for me to trust God in the situation. Anyway on to the topic, last night after church I got into a lengthy discussion with a guy I hadn't met before, we predominantly discussed two things, the first which I may write an article on later was to do with whether certain activities should be taken part in by Christians and the second was faith and exactly what that is, it is that I want to look at here.

Firstly what I want briefly look at is what I think is often a common misinterpretation of faith by many Christians, particularly in my generation, then I want to again briefly look at some reasons as to why these misinterpretations might be occuring and whether it matters. Finally I will look at what faith is and the sort of faith that I think we should be striving for.

The Misinterpreted Faith

There are of course lots of misinterpretations of faith, in this case I'm focusing only on one, that being one that mixes faith and feelings. A common thing I hear these days is about 'feeling God's presence'. Before I go on I should state that I am in no way stating here that people do not feel God's presence or that doing so is a bad thing. My point here is that feeling God's presence is not a sign of strong faith. Put another way, not feeling God's presence is in no way a sign of a lack of faith.

Why The Confusion?

So where has this idea that feelings and faith are somehow intertwined come from? Why do we have this notion that if we're not feeling God our faith is somehow deficient? I think the simplest explanation here is the most likely, that being, we're taught it. It is common in many of our churches these days for people to be taught based on feelings, that God will 'make them happy', that they should be 'feeling God's presence' churches are often intentionally or unintentionally, giving people the impression that unless they are feeling God's presence something is wrong. The implication to those not feeling God's presence is then that there is a problem with them, a problem with their faith. If all these people around me can feel God, why can't I?!

Does this really matter?

I began to touch on this in the previous paragraph, the problem with this is that it leads people to a misunderstanding of one of the most important parts of Christianity, it leads people to despair about the lack of feelings they are experiencing and in the end they either believe they have no faith and blame themselves, or they blame God. The consequences of this can indeed be very serious.

Real Faith and the Faith I Want

Now as I've said that faith is not a feeling, what then is it?

Well, the Bible gives us a definition, Hebrews 11:1 says:

'Now Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen'

Faith is simply put trusting in God and when is it most difficult to trust? Is it when you have an overwhelming presence of God? No it isn't. The hardest time to trust God is when things are going wrong, when you look around you and all you can see is darkness but still you trust God, still you give thanks to God.

Real faith is like this, where no matter what the situation we still have faith, that even if we are in the most desperate of situations, where all of our strength had gone, we still turn to God. That even in the times where we can't feel God at all, the times where it feels like God has abandoned us, the times when we doubt whether God even exists, it is at those times that when we still turn to God that we'll be demonstrating true faith and that is the faith i'm aiming for.

Waiting on God and Self Focus.

This is a rare post for me, as ordinarily I post at the end of an experience. When I've been through a situation to its conclusion and can look back and assess is when most often I can describe what I've learnt. This time, I'm posting somewhere in the middle.

A few days ago I was told something that was hard to hear, what it was does not matter for the purposes of this but trust me it was important, perhaps harder, I knew and was told that I just had to wait. I don't like waiting. In fact I positively despise waiting. Maybe its my OCD, maybe its just me, its probably a bit of both, either way I knew this was going to be tough.

Its funny how despite knowing what you need to do sometimes its really difficult to put it into practice. As usual and rather unsuprisingly... I couldn't wait it out, I set off and tried to look for a solution despite knowing I couldn't really find one. I spoke to anyone who would listen (I have some incredibly patient friends), I ran it around in my head, I considered all the options, I asked advice of everyone and one of them said (and I forget the exact wording):

'It seems that everything here points to you just having to let it go'

Letting go is something I am NOT good at, letting go means waiting, letting go means it being taken out of my control, letting go stops me being in charge. Oh no, I do not like that idea! I'm far too self-involved for that! However, when my friend said this to me, I knew she was right.

You'd think that since I now knew for sure what I had to do... I'd get on and try to do it right? You'd think I'd leave it in the hands of God, especially since I believe that God is all-powerful, all-knowing and always right.... did I do that?... No. You see really it went something like this 'God, you are all-powerful, all-knowing, much better at dealing with this than I am and will get it right... but I better deal with it!' That, is nothing short of complete arrogance, its turning to God and saying 'I know better'. Its also completely dumb.

So where did my dumbness get me? Well, it got me into a complete state, it left me with a focus only on my problems, no solutions, it left me in a mess and worse still, it probably made it more difficult for the situation to actually be resolved as it meant I discussed it with someone involved, rather than just giving them the space they needed.

The reality of this situation was I wasn't trying to sort this problem out as that was what was best... I was trying to get this sorted out as that was what was best for me. Back we are to that self-focused, selfish attitude of mine again.

One of the things I love about God is that whenever I have a situation that is difficult I seem to learn something from it. Its a double for me this time, first I've learnt just how self-focused and selfish I still am and how much I still need to work on drowning that part of the old man in me each day and secondly on waiting.

I said towards the start of this post that I positively despise waiting, whilst I still don't like waiting one thing I now realise is that sometimes all we can do is wait and sometimes all God wants us to do is wait. It is at the point where I began to truly give this situation to God and just wait that I began to get some peace. It is at the point where I began to wait that I began to live by faith and it is at that point where the situation was put in the safest hands it could be. May God help me to continue to wait in this situation and to learn where I should wait in others.

Focus and John the Baptist

One of the advantages of going to two different churches is that each week there are two sermons, which is twice as many as usual to remember something from. A few days ago I wrote about a sermon at my evening church, this time the one I remember is my morning church. My morning church is a very traditional church with a set plan for each week and a common order of service that is followed. It is the advent season and this week in the year is the week when the church remembers John the Baptist.

Now, I've heard quite a few talks on John the Baptist, I've heard he was the forerunner for Jesus, that he lived in the desert, baptised people, baptised Jesus, lived on locusts and honey and was beheaded. All of this is important stuff but wasn't the focus of this sermon, the passage used for the sermon comes from John 1:19-28, its not too long so here it is:

19And this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, "Who are you?" 20 He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, "I am not the Christ." 21And they asked him, "What then? Are you Elijah?" He said, "I am not." "Are you the Prophet?" And he answered, "No." 22So they said to him, "Who are you? We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?" 23He said, "I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, 'Make straight the way of the Lord,' as the prophet Isaiah said."

24(Now they had been sent from the Pharisees.) 25They asked him, "Then why are you baptizing, if you are neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?" 26John answered them, "I baptize with water, but among you stands one you do not know, 27even he who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie." 28These things took place in Bethany across the Jordan, where John was baptizing.

The part the preacher focused on predominantly was how John responded to the questions, first of all John is asked '"Who are you?"', his response is completely out of the ordinary, one would expect him to respond with, his name (and given the time perhaps 'Son of Zechariah'), something that describes himself, what he does or is doing there but he doesn't, he responds with:

'"I am not the Christ"' - immediately John is turning the focus away from himself, he is immediately saying, I'm not important.

They then ask John if he is Elijah, he says he isn't and if he is a prophet, he says no. John is clearly not looking to make himself a big deal. John is not looking on and saying 'Ok, I'm doing this for God but a little credit here and there is nice isn't it? I deserve some praise!'

The priests and Levites still press John for an answer on who he is, they have done what is so easy for us to do, they've missed who John is trying to point them to and got completely and utterly caught up in the man in front of them. Stop and think about this for a minute, do you do this? For one I know I get caught up in situations like this all to often, think about a great speaker you hear, someone you respect a lot, is it not the case that a lot of the time we know (and want to know) more about the people telling us about God than the God they're telling us about? Is it not also the case that we often spend more time talking about the people who talk about God than talking about God himself? - Certainly much of this is for various different reasons but I suspect it isn't only me and the priests and Levites above who sometimes become focused on the man rather than the God.

John's response is to quote the book of Isaiah, again his focus points towards the Lord, he says I am just the preparing the way for the Lord. Still the priests and Levites do not focus on God, still they focus on John with another question about him, they question his authority to baptise, John's response again points away from himself and to the Lord this time in an even stronger way.

"I baptize with water, but among you stands one you do not know, 27even he who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie."

Now, the statement above doesn't mean as much nowadays as then, sure it is obvious that John is saying the one to come after him (Jesus) is more important than him but he is in fact saying this in much stronger terms, the priests and Levites would have known that not even servants were expected to untie the strap of a sandal, John was using a statement that they would understand clearly, John was saying, 'I'm not even worthy of doing what you wouldn't even expect a servant to do', John wasn't just saying Jesus was more important than him, he was saying that compared to Jesus, he was nothing.

There is the second thing about John that is an eye opener, I will profess that Jesus is all important and I'm nothing, I know this is true, but do I live it? do I practice that? There is still that old man in me that looks on myself as very important, in fact that side of me probably looks on me as the most important. How often will we sulk and moan when things don't go exactly as we want them? How often will we have our plan and our dreams and if we're really honest, a lot of the time we think we know best and what we want, we deserve. John's response above isn't like that, John is really saying I am nothing - even when he has the opportunity to say he's important.

Getting to that position I actually think is a scary prospect, it is really tough to consider a situation where you're in the position where you're saying, it truly is all about Jesus and he is all that matters not me. The old man in us does not like the idea of God being in control, the old man wants us in control, only through God and his Holy Spirit will we ever be able to get anywhere in having a focus that is on God and not ourselves and I pray that regardless of whether its scary or not God would guide me to be who he wants me to be.

Just a bit more...

So its been a long time since I last blogged. A little over 7 months in fact, as you can probably tell I'm not very good at regular articles. Every now and then however I feel the urge to write something. Today is one of those days.

I've considered writing a couple of times recently but haven't quite had the topic. Finally I have one, it is my thoughts on a part of a sermon I heard on Sunday evening, a very good one in fact. Those who read this who were at that service may know what I'm talking about from the title but for those who weren't there, weren't listening properly (sometimes a problem for me) or just don't remember (another common problem for me!) the vicar said something along the lines of this (I take creative license here as my wording is likely very wrong):

'We're always searching for a bit more to be happy, if only I got a promotion I'd be happy, if we get a promotion if only I was a manager I'd be happy or if only I was in a relationship I'd be happy, if we are in a relationship, if only I was engaged, or married. If we are married, if only I had kids....'

Every so often there are things that make you sit up and take notice, it was this statement for me, as I sat there and thought 'wait a minute... that's me', I've had an interesting time of things recently, a few things have happened. I won't go into details here but things just haven't quite been right in what has been going on with my relationship with God. I found I was having some issues. I wondered why and at that moment in church I realised why, I realised that during these issues I was saying to myself 'I'd be O.K if I just had....', I was giving myself this get out clause so to speak. In other words I was saying to God in a different way, you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours...

Oddly I knew I was doing it all along but it wasn't until the vicar said the above that I fully comprehended it. Suddenly I knew where I was and that I needed to get properly back on track and stop making excuses for myself.

It is at a moment like this where I realise how amazing God is, what I have been doing is wrong, in fact further what I have been doing is turning my back on God, some would put what I was doing in stronger terms... I am one of them but I won't write how I'd describe it here. If I was God, I would be fuming if this self-loving person was basically saying, 'this is my terms', 'I know better', 'You'll get over it, you'll forgive me' . In fact I reckon I'd turn around when it came back to bite him and say 'There you go, now thats what you deserve, deal with it'... in fact I'd probably sit there smuggly thinking, there you go, told you so.

Not my God. No my God turns around and says 'I love you, I do forgive you, now lets help you out'.

Since then, I have been trying with God's help to count my blessings for what I have. I try now not to focus on those things 'that I'd only be happy if I had' and instead focus on all the great things God has given me. For these and his help with a new outlook I am thankful to God.

How sinful?

I was recently walking to campus, listening to music, when some lyrics stuck out to me. Oddly enough I cannot remember what those lyrics, or the song was, but only that it got me thinking about the depths of sin within our lives.

Ordinarily I do not particularly like focusing on law but instead spend the majority of my time focusing on grace and the gospel. In the sunday school I teach I always try ensure that no matter what passage we are focusing on, we always look to Christ and that our focus is Christ. This, I believe, is how it should be (1 Corinthians 1:22-24) after all Christ is the centre of the Christian message. Perhaps even further, Christ is the Christian message. Having said this however, it is through the law that we know what sin is and hence know our need for Christ (Romans 7:7). To neglect the law is, in fact, to remove much of what Jesus has done. In fact neglecting the law will inevitably lead to us have less to be thankful to God for and will cause us to love both God and others less (Luke 7:47).

For this now, let us take a look at the story of Jesus crucifixion, focusing on particular people:

• Pilate
• Those calling for his crucifixion
• Those mocking him whilst he was on the cross
• The person or people who whipped him
• Those who twisted and placed the crown of thorns on to His head
• Those who nailed him to the cross

So the question to ask then is what would we have done in these situations. Can we look at Pilate and say 'I would never have done that'? What about the crowd of people shouting 'free Barabbas!' could we say that we would have stood up and called for Jesus' release? When He was on that cross, battered and broken, seemingly helpless would we not have hurled the insults at him like the others did. Are we really in a position to say that if it were our job to twist that crown of thorns, whip him or place and pierce his hands and feet with those nails we wouldn't have done it?

It is easy for us to look at those people in this story with an attitude that we are different, that they were especially bad, especially evil. No, if we are to take a good hard look at ourselves, we could be any of them. To say otherwise is to just deny how sinful we really are. It is to look on ourselves with the 'Yes, I'm not perfect, but him over there, he is a lot worse than me' attitude. It is an attitude in itself that is sinful, it is one quite simply puffed up with pride. It leaves us with being forgiven little and hence loving little.

The beauty of the cross is not seen in what is good about us but what is bad. The Christian message is not at its most powerful in our good actions but in the forgiveness we receive thanks to Christ and his sacrifice on the cross. I pray that we will be able, like the Apostle Paul, to acknowledge ourselves as 'the chief of sinners' (1 Timothy 1:15) for then, and only then can we see in all its glory what Christ did for us on that cross at Calvary.

Faith and Works?

After a fairly eventful debate with some friends I said I would write a post relating to how faith cannot be an action, i.e. something we do. The passage given against my argument comes from the book of James, using the ESV translation:

Faith Without Works Is Dead

14What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith^(S) but does not have works? Can that faith save him? 15^(T) If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, 16^(U) and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and filled," without giving them the things needed for the body, what good^[b] is that? 17So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

18But someone will say, "You have faith and I have works." Show me your faith^(V) apart from your works, and I will show you my faith^(W) by my works. 19^(X) You believe that God is one; you do well. Even^(Y) the demons believe—and shudder! 20Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? 21^(Z) Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? 22You see that^(AA) faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed^(AB) by his works; 23and the Scripture was fulfilled that says,^(AC) "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness"—and he was called a^(AD) friend of God. 24You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. 25And in the same way was not also^(AE) Rahab the prostitute justified by works^(AF) when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? 26For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.

An initial reading of this seems to suggest a necessity for works both for salvation and that faith in itself is a work, but it is important that we put the Bible together as a whole, picking out one passage seperate from any other is unwise, lets look at this by an example from Luke 24:

26^(A) "If anyone comes to me and^(B) does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters,^(C) yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.

If one were to simply read this verse and not take the Bible as a whole initial reading suggests that one is to hate father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters and their own life! Is this really what Jesus meant? Well no, He was using hyperbole to express his point and if we take the whole of scripture into consideration it is easy to see this, for we are told in the sermon on the mount (Matthew 5) that to hate is to murder and we are told in the ten commandments (Exodus 20), thou shalt not murder.... thus the above passage taken on its own could cause us to draw the wrong conclusion. That being that Jesus is encouraging us to sin.

Similarly with the passage from James it is necessary for us to look on it in the light of other scripture, lets take a look at the concept of faith alone in the Bible. We have the following verses:

Romans 3:28 (ESV)
For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the
law.

Galatians 2:16 (ESV)
yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but
through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ
Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works
of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.

Galatians 3:2 (ESV)
Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the
law or by hearing with faith?

Galatians 3:5 (ESV)
Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you
do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith—

Galatians 3:10 (ESV)
For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is
written, "Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written
in the Book of the Law, and do them."


John 3:16-18 (ESV)
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever
believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17For God
did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in
order that the world might be saved through him. 18Whoever believes
in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned
already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of
God.

Ephes. 2:8-10 (ESV)
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your
own doing; it is the gift of God, 9not a result of works, so that no
one may boast. 10For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus
for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in
them.

Romans 4:1-10 (ESV)
What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather
according to the flesh? 2For if Abraham was justified by works, he
has something to boast about, but not before God. 3For what does the
Scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as
righteousness." 4Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted
as a gift but as his due. 5And to the one who does not work but
trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as
righteousness, 6just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one
to whom God counts righteousness apart from works:

7"Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven,
and whose sins are covered;
8blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin."

9Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the
uncircumcised? We say that faith was counted to Abraham as
righteousness. 10How then was it counted to him? Was it before or
after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was
circumcised.

So where am I going with this, well it seems that we have a contradiction. The Bible clearly teaches in the above that works are not necessary for salvation but in James it seems to teach that they are necessary! So which is it? Lets go back to the passage in James:

18But someone will say, "You have faith and I have works." Show me your faith^(V) apart from your works, and I will show you my faith^(W) by my works. 19^(X) You believe that God is one; you do well. Even^(Y) the demons believe—and shudder! 20Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? 21^(Z) Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? 22You see that^(AA) faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed^(AB) by his works; 23and the Scripture was fulfilled that says,^(AC) "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness"—and he was called a^(AD) friend of God. 24You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. 25And in the same way was not also^(AE) Rahab the prostitute justified by works^(AF) when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? 26For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.

The first thing to note is that James is a book not about justification but sanctification, to put differently Paul is talking about how we are saved, James is talking about after we are saved. Paul talks of justification, James of sanctification. Both justification and sanctification are Biblical concepts, God brings us to salvation and then by the work of the Holy Spirit in us he sanctifies us, i.e. he makes us more Christ like. What James is speaking of in the above is the sanctification process, he is saying something like this 'Woah guys, you say you've been justified but I don't see no santification going on, if you had been justified then fruit (works) would come from it. You can say whatever you like but if you believe there will be fruit!'

If we turn to the opening part of James statement we see that verses 14-17 provide a sort of outline for what follows, in verses 18-20 we see what he is arguing against:

18But someone will say, "You have faith and I have works." Show me your faith^(V) apart from your works, and I will show you my faith^(W) by my works. 19^(X) You believe that God is one; you do well. Even^(Y) the demons believe—and shudder! 20Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless?

We see here that he is arguing against people who profess to have faith but no works come of it. True faith causes good works. A rejection of sanctification is to reject faith. We must keep in mind what James is arguing against as we proceed as this provides the context for what follows.

Now, lets take a brief look at Abraham and Rahab, beginning with Abraham, the story talked about by James is the (near) sacrifice of Isaac from Genesis 22, lets take a look at the first three verses:

1After these things^(A) God tested Abraham and said to him, "Abraham!" And he said, "Here am I." 2He said, "Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to^(B) the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you."

Look at the very first verse, it says God tested Abraham. Justification in the sense Paul talks of isn't tested for there is nothing to test, a person without faith will not show faith! In Abrahams case he has faith and God is testing his faith. Putting another way the sacrifice (the work) is a consequence of a faith that Abraham has - not faith itself. If one wishes they can read the rest of the story to see that Isaac is not in the end sacrificed, God provides a ram to be sacrificed in his place.

Now lets turn to Rahab, the story of Rahab is in Joshua 2. To cut a fairly long story short, she hides some spies and hence saves their life. Lets pick out verses 8 and 9, they say the following:

8 Before the men [2] lay down, she came up to them on the roof 9 and said to the men, “I know that the Lord has given you the land, and that the fear of you has fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt away before you.

So what do we see here? We see that Rahab is already talking of the Lord... in other words she already has faith! Her actions are again a consequence of her faith not a part of it.

It is possible (as we see in the world) for people to have works without faith however, it is not possible to have faith without works, for when we have faith God sanctifies us. This is the point James is trying to make and why he is not in contradiction with Paul. In Pauls case he is using justificiation in terms of our salvation. James is using it in terms of our sanctification.

Does this make faith a work?

Back in some senses to the original question, am I suggesting then that faith is a work? No, for we see the beauty of the cross inEphesians 2:8-10:

Ephes. 2:8-10 (ESV)
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your
own doing; it is the gift of God, 9not a result of works, so that no
one may boast. 10For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus
for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in
them.

If faith is a work and we are saved by faith then the above is contradicted, there is a dependence on us. We have a reason to boast (I did well for I had faith). If we look at this passage in Ephesians it shows the process, we are saved by grace, through faith. It is a working of God and NOT a work of us so we have no reason to boast (Thats justification)... but we are created in Christ Jesus for good works and we should walk in them (That'd be sanctification.)

Final Thought:

It is important to note that our salvation by grace through faith and aside from works is not a reason for us to blindly sin and not do God's will (this is in fact what James is arguing against!) in fact doing so would simply constitute unbelief. The above belief does not change that a Christian should do good works but gives a different motivation for doing them, that being one of gratitude for what God has done rather than necessities for our salvation. Jesus sacrifice was completely sufficient (see my post on the blessing of scrupulosity)

References/ Further Reading:

http://www.middletownbiblechurch.org/doctrine/GES17.htm
http://www.rabdavis.org/james.htm
http://www.biblegateway.com/

P.S. Apologies for any typos etc, comments of course welcome!

Beauty in Silence

It has been a very long time since I could appreciate silence, for a long time its been a fearful time one where there was always a risk of being overtaken by my (ocd) thoughts. I preferred to keep active, keep busy have music, tv, anything on in the background so that there was some distraction. However I was lying on my bed this afternoon (yes I realise I probably should of been working) and decided that silence was really quite beautiful. Lying there without that distraction in the background held no fear, infact it was fantastic! This might seem like a tiny thing but no this is real progress, this is being comfortable with myself, this is huge.

Having said that, I thought I'd discuss three situations of silence that being 'silent treatment', praying in silence and silence in friendships. I'm not aiming to offer solutions or advice for the most part just thoughts.

Silent Treatment

I have to confess that silent treatment is something I normally cannot stand. To me there is nothing at all worse, when I can see that something is wrong (or even if I can't) I find it extremely uncomfortable and extremely difficult if someone is silent with me. I have always been of the position that not explaining what was wrong leaves both parties in difficulty, the silent one focussing solely on the problem and the one recieving the silent treatment frustrated and confused. Screaming, shouting, arguing, talking etc I can deal with, silence on the other hand destroys me to quote someone called Leroy Brownlow "There are times when silence has the loudest voice" I certainly feel like this in this situation. I wonder perhaps whether the problem here is me, perhaps that silence is beneficial, perhaps it allows things to be resolved without conflict, perhaps it is for the best, or perhaps its not, who knows?

Silent Prayer

This is something that ties in fairly nicely with my opening to this, there is beauty in silence and there is beauty in silent prayer. In fact Biblically speaking it is strongly encouraged to pray in private and so why not silently, first to quote Mother Teresa:

“We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature - trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence... We need silence to be able to touch souls.”

Then to look Biblically we see: Matthew 6:1-6 "Be careful not to parade your uprightness in public to attract attention; otherwise you will lose all reward from your Father in heaven. ... And when you pray, do not imitate the hypocrites; they love to say their prayers standing up in the synagogues and at the street corners for people to see them. In truth I tell you, they have had their reward. But when you pray, go to your private room, shut yourself in, and so pray to your Father who is in that secret place, and your Father who sees all that is done in secret will reward you."

To add to this we know that God knows our thoughts, see Psalm 139:23 for this and combining we can see that silent prayer can be very effective. Further to this it gives us the opportunity to rest in God's presence and allow him to direct our thoughts rather than us speaking all the time. Sitting in God's presence silently, not even making requests, just putting the time aside I think is a beautiful prayer in itself.

Silence In Friendships

I have to say that the best of friends are probably not those who always have something to say to each other but in fact are those who can comfortably be together silently, I'm hoping that my new found comfort in silence will spread through my friendships too, maybe it'll make them even stronger, who knows.

The Blessing of Scrupulosity

An Intro

Scrupulosity in the form I am discussing here is the form of OCD that relates to intrusive thoughts about religion, commonly taking the form of having blasphemous thoughts towards the Holy Spirit, Jesus or the Father and fear of committing the unforgivable sin. Other possibilities are a hyper sensitivity towards whether something is or isn't a sin and a need to confess endlessly. My purpose here is not to discuss in great deal these but to discuss something quite differently, that is my experience with OCD and despite it being perhaps the most difficult thing I've ever had to deal with (and still do have to deal with) how God has used it in the most beautiful of ways.

My Experience

Scrupulosity is the most difficult form of OCD I have ever had to deal with. My thoughts began with me beginning to obsess over whether particular things were sinful, now this was not ordinary healthy concern over not wanting to offend God. This was not is it sinful to have sex outside marriage or more sensible concerns like those, this was concerns over whether ANYTHING that wasn't directly Christian was sinful. That is, was watching TV sinful, how about doing my degree? Seeing my girlfriend (at the time)? Listening to music that wasn't directly christian, talking about things that weren't directly Christian and playing sports and many other things I did enjoy were also up for extreme scrutiny. Obviously the questioning made those enjoyable things of life considerably less enjoyable and also gave me a view of God that He simply wanted me to be miserable all the time. Doing actual Christian activities would be a forced ritual done out of terror rather than love. Done in my own strength rather than thanks to God and the Holy Spirit, it was about what I did and do and not about what Jesus had done for me. Suicide at times seemed like a nice way out, but then again that would be a sin and force me into eternal damnation. I was trapped.

Thanks to some brilliant support people and medication I have managed to learn to understand these thoughts and the problems with them. I have had other forms of Scrupulosity such as the need to confess things to people when it is unneccessary but the purpose of this post isn't for that and the information here should suffice.

The Blessing?!

If you've read up to this point you may be wondering how I can call the most painful experience of my life, one in which suicide seemed like a nice option a blessing. The famous phrase 'The Lord works in mysterious ways' comes to mind. So why do I call it a blessing? I would firstly say this, I thank God for my Scrupulosity, not because I feel like some sort of special person for being a Christian and having it or because I have a difficulty that I manage to deal with reasonably well. No, I thank God because my Scrupulosity corrected my views and opinions of God, it corrected many misconceptions I had, through the pain came Jesus. Through the pain came the cross.

So what exactly did I learn, well thanks to God primarily through the teaching of Pastor Bob Waters and others over at The Scrupe Group I was first directed to Colossians 2, this passage immediately showed me that I could still have fun, that I could go out and do things, that God didn't want me to be miserable. This was a vital first step but was only the beginning, this gave me a foothold against the OCD and some valuable insight but only put me in the position I was before these concerns had crossed my mind.

The most valuable lessons I have ever learnt would be the very core of Christian belief, predominantly to have a view outside of myself a view that looks towards Jesus and not to myself. A view that puts all the emphasis on Jesus and what he does and does not put the emphasis on me and what I do. That when Jesus said 'It is finished' - See John 19:30 - He meant it, that is to say I was saved about 2000 years ago by my God being crucified for me. Did I deserve it? No. Did I do anything to deserve it? No. Did I do anything to receive it? Again no. Stop and think about that for a minute, think about the beauty of this message, that is I did nothing, I do nothing, I deserved nothing (or actually I deserved eternal punishment) but still God came to save me.

Now, the above is not something I hadn't heard before, however it is something I'd never been taught in this way before. Many times people in churches and elsewhere hear that one is saved by Jesus or put another way by Grace alone, through Faith Alone, in Christ alone but are in the next breath told what they must do to receive this grace. We are given analogies such as God holding out his hand just waiting for us to take hold of him, we are asked to pray a 'sinner's prayer' or to 'accept Jesus into our hearts'. One must conclude from this teaching that we are infact saved not by Jesus but by Jesus and our decision. That is to say that somebody who is dead can still make a decision - Ephesians 2:1 and further to say that when Jesus said it is finished he really meant, it is finished...sort of.

So why is this important? What difference does it really make in the mind of a Christian. To me the distinction is vital and the most beautiful thing God taught me through my scrupulosity. My focus now isn't what I do (even in as small a thing as making a decision, as a scrupulous person however this small 'requirement' can easily escalate, if it wasn't ACTUALLY finished when Jesus said it is, why believe now that it is finished when I make a decision aswell?) but is what God has done for me. One of my favourite sayings that Pastor Bob Waters said to me once when I was very confused was this 'It's not about you, It's about Jesus!'

So now my focus is different and this change of focus changed my life, now its not about how strong my belief is but that God's promises are true, I can now have my doubts but simply cling to the promises. I can have my troubles and my problems but remember that what Jesus did was sufficient. Fully sufficient.

That isn't to say that I have free license to go about doing as I please and sinning without care, that would simply constitute unbelief. No the work of the Holy Spirit in me to cause faith in me so that I can be saved by grace thanks to the sacrifice of Jesus causes not a fearful need to do certain 'christian' behaviour but a desire to please God, to serve not out of fear but out of love.

My focus is no longer lealistic, my faith is not predominantly about having good morals (although doing what God wants is consequential) the primary aspect of my faith is now Jesus and his sacrifice. My question is no longer What Would Jesus Do? The emphasis is not predominantly his moral teaching and trying to do the right thing. This is honourable and correct but the world and other religions teach good morals. I'm not saying we don't attempt to be Christ-Like, I'm not suggesting we shun the moral teaching for it is clearly important. What I am saying is it is NOT the primary focus of Christianity, no the primary focus is What Did Jesus Do? The primary focus is Christ and the cross and that is what the world and other religions cannot offer.

Why do I call my Scrupulosity a blessing? Through my scrupulosity I found the perfect sacrifice, I can now be thankful to the God who saves. I can now act out of love thanks to His work. I can now rely not on myself but on Him. Through my scrupulosity I found Christ.

OCD: The Pop-Up Book

While seeing my psychologist about my OCD, she made a statement that stuck with me and I thought I'd post on it, her statement was something along the lines of:

"OCD is just so sneaky and has the habit of when one aspect of it goes down another one pops up...."

That got me thinking to what OCD was like for me and that was exactly right and so I think a good analogy for OCD is that of a pop-up book! Unfortunately its not a nice pop-up book like the ones available in the shops full of nice pictures and stories or perhaps even the pop-up cards that are becoming popular in shops also. This is a pop-up book of negatives.

Perhaps the analogy could be taken a little further, perhaps its similar to giving a pop-up horror book to a child, or a pop-up book filled with a particular phobia that a person has. Probably the last of these is the closest match.

Unfortunately with a book one can simply close it, throw it out, give it away, shred it or even burn it if one was in an extreme mood! With OCD, the book is in your head and you don't choose when to open or close the book or even when the page will be turned. Further you spend an awfully long time on each page and infact the page will only turn when one has overcome that particular page. In other words, one can only stop obsessing about a certain thing when that obsession is no longer a threat.

It is clear that there are two possible ways in which one MAY be able to go about this.

1) Show that the worry or fear is irrational and hence not a problem, this is an excellent way of overcoming a phobia but has little to no effect on OCD thoughts. People with OCD are often fully aware that the fear is irrational.

2) Learn to live with the fear. How is the question that one must then ask, the only known way is to let the anxiety caused by the obsessive thought to build and build and build and to then to learn that in time the anxiety will begin to decrease. This is exactly the aim and process of Exposure and Response Prevention.

A word of encouragment:

For those struggling with OCD thoughts and beginning ERP, please take heart in the fact that the Pop-Up effect you may be experiencing is totally normal and to be expected. Yes your thoughts will change topic but the techniques you learnt in dealing with that very first thought are effective for each and every form of OCD you encounter, if you've beaten one, you can beat them all.

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