I have to admit that the more God reveals his grace to me, the easier it is for me to see law all around me and in me. There is so much law being preached in the worldwide Church. I work with discipleship training, and I see it over and over again, in students, in staff, in other missionaries, and in myself too.
Law. People have come to know Christ, and he has taken away their sins. Hallelujah! But they start in grace and continue in law. How do you recognize people who live by the law and not in grace? Look at their faces and their fists! Not too happy, very concerned, negative about many things, always quick to point out problems but rarely part of the solution, tired, frustrated at all the others, talking about experiences with God that happened 10 years ago, they suck life out of you, you get tired from spending time with them.....and clenched fists: angry, wanting more people to do more, they respond aggressively and defensively to criticism, they rarely express what they really feel but are often very sneaky with their criticism and judgments, they display I'll show them-attitudes, and they are controlling....oh so controlling! Maybe control is the primary characteristic? Ever since the fall in the Garden of Eden that has been mankind's primary problem: I want to be in control!
So people of the law who belong to the Church (whether they actually know Christ as their Savior is up to God, I have no clue with some of those I've met in my life) stick to control.
If you know grace, you live in freedom. You give people freedom to make choices and make mistakes. You accept that things are not always the way they seem. You understand that you've never seen a motive, only God has! You don't just see problems, but you want to be a part of the solution. You have fresh experiences with God, because you know him and you know he loves you. You can be tired, but you understand that Christ in you is your strength, and it's not a matter of you pulling yourself together.
You are not afraid to let other people run their lives. You understand that you can't control anybody anyway. You understand that you have rebellious tendencies in yourself, so you relinquish your right to be in control over yourself or others to your heavenly Father. You take criticism lightly. You accept that you make mistakes from time to time, and you can take responsibility for your own actions without fearing that people will reject you. You're not afraid, because your identity is in Christ. When you confront you're direct and loving, not sneaky and beating around the bush.
I love it when I encounter grace-filled people. I've only met few compared to all the law-based people I've encountered in the worldwide Church. But when I meet the grace people, I feel my spirit come alive. I'm attracted to them. To their simple and living faith. I see freedom and I long to know God better.
Thank God for the little group of broken, failing, incomplete people who are not afraid to let their Master's light shine through their brokenness!
I owe those of you I've met a lot of gratitude, and I know that you'll just pass it on to your Creator and Friend.
God bless!
Torben - I pray that God will keep me on the road of brokenness. It hurts. It doesn't feel good. My flesh protests. But I know that there is life here. I know that only when I accept the fact that I'm a cracked pot, but God loves me just the way I am can God's life freely flow in me and through me!
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Two wonderful years
What a joy it has been for me to be married to my wonderful wife Jeannette for the past two years! What a blessing she is! We celebrated our second anniversary yesterday, and I can only say that I'm falling more and more in love with her.
As you can read in the rest of these blog entries we learn many new things about who we are in God and how he loves us, and that gives us new freedom in our relationship with each other as well. I'm getting to know the real Jeannette more and more as we share life together. And what a joy that is!
There is freedom in knowing who you truly are. There is freedom in sharing that with your spouse. There is freedom and life in seeking God together and knowing that he's always there for you.
There is freedom in our marriage. A freedom that's growing as we see more of who we are in Christ. Our marriage isn't always perfect, but it's wonderful, challenging, encouraging, full of blessings, fun, and crazy at different times and all at once some times :-)
I guess I just wanted you, dear blog readers, to know how much I love my wife!
Torben
A visit to hell
I can’t even begin to imagine the horror of spending eternity in hell away from God, away from love, kindness, grace and all else that’s good, away from meaningful human contact, and I’m so delighted that I’m not going there because I know Christ and have my life, my salvation and my identity in him!Comparing anything to the horrors of hell may seem futile, but what else can you do when you’re faced with the horrors of the Nazi concentration and extermination camp called Auschwitz-Birkenau an hour’s drive away from the beautiful Polish city, Cracow. This camp, by far the largest camp during World War II, saw more than one million people dying there under horrifying conditions.
The vast majority of the people who were murdered were Jews from Hungary, Poland, Greece, Norway, Germany, Holland, etc. But there were also many Polish intellectuals, Gypsies from all over Europe, and Soviet prisoners of war who were all gassed, shot, starved to death or worked until they died which normally took less than three months.
We got to see gas chambers, cells where prisoners were starved to death, a train station platform where a Nazi doctor with a hand motion decided whether the people coming out of the train were ready to work or were sent directly to the gas chambers to die immediately. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auschwitz_concentration_camp tells more about the horrors that happened in Auschwitz-Birkenau.
WHY FORGIVE?
So many impressions, so much horror, so much pain and tears and blood being spilled for no other reason than hatred and dehumanization. And sadly we as the human race haven’t learned a whole lot from the horrors of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Civil wars in Africa, ex-Yugoslavia, horrible wars in Asia and South America all speak about what happens when we dehumanize each other. It’s a lot easier to torture and kill somebody who is not a human to you than somebody who is just like you.
I was doing a little research on some of the famous people who either survived or died in Auschwitz. People like the Dutch diary-girl Anne Frank (who was there for a month before later dying in Bergen-Belsen in Germany), the Italian author Primo Levi, the Romanian-born American novelist Elie Wiesel and the French politician Simone Veil. All had a sad thing in common. Not only did the Nazis manage to steal their lives while they were in the camps, but they also stole their lives afterwards. Anne Frank’s dad, Otto Frank, spent the rest of his life trying to prove to people that her daughter’s diary was original. So in turn he spent the rest of his life thinking about the Nazis, thinking about the people who killed his family, thinking about people who believed Nazi-lies. I doubt that Otto Frank died a free man.
Levi, Wiesel, Veil also fought the fight against Holocaust deniers and were because of that tied to those people the rest of their lives. That’s the universal law of forgiveness we see here. If you are able to forgive the people who have done evil towards you, you set yourself free and you leave punishment to God. If you don’t forgive, you’re tied to the person who did the evil deed towards you, however horrible it may seem.
From a 2007 postmodern perspective, or from a 1945-perspective for that matter, it’s certainly not reasonable to ask people who survived the Nazi concentration camps to forgive the people who killed their entire family and tortured them.
It’s not reasonable either to ask a young woman who was molested as a child to forgive her dad. It doesn’t make sense to ask a father to forgive the murderer of his wife and three children. But only forgiveness will lead to freedom.
If you don’t forgive you can’t experience freedom.
Rudolf Höss, the first commandant of Auschwitz-Birkenau, lived with his wife and five children right outside the extermination camp. He tortured, and murdered thousands of people and was responsible for hundreds of thousands of people dying. Höss was sentenced and hanged in a special made gallow right outside the first gas chamber in Auschwitz on April 16, 1947.
Many people witnessed the hanging of Höss. Some were survivors of the camp. Many probably cheered, rejoiced, sighed with relief and thought “now he got something of what he deserves”, but did Höss’ death mean freedom to the left behind family members of the people he murdered? No. Does any other death sentence mean freedom to the left behind family members? No. Does hating your molester give you freedom? No.
There is only (!!) the road of forgiveness. There is no other way. How ever difficult and unfair it seems and feels. We forgive, because he forgave first!
God bless!
Torben
Meeting Muslims
I've met many Muslims from pretty much all Muslim countries in the world during my traveling in Malaysia, Turkey, Singapore, etc. and during the time in Cambridge, England where I helped out with a summer outreach a few years ago.
Yesterday I met a couple of Muslim guys, Rashid and Tareq from Kuwait, as we were on the train between Krakow, Poland and Kiev, Ukraine. They were from rich families and were traveling around Eastern Europe. Rashid spoke fine English after having spent six years in the United States, and naturally we talked about Kuwait, the Arabic world in general and of course about Islam and Christianity.
I have a special heart for Muslims. So devoted, so serious, so fun-loving and caring and kind people (this is true for approximately 85-90% of all Muslims...all those who don't attract the big headlines in the news...:-(), yet so misguided in what they believe. Yet so bound by laws and regulations. Yet so foreign to freedom, (eternal) security, relationship to God and knowing him as a loving Father!
I have studied Islam some and know some of the Arabic terms for the things Muslims believe, and this always helps in conversations with Muslims.
Rashid was telling me how he tries to be a good person all the time, and how he doesn't know if he'll go to heaven. Only Allah knows. I shared how I know that I can't live up to God's demands and that I know that I go to heaven the day I die, because Jesus lived the perfect life and paid the price of sin that God required.
Rashid shared how Muslims emphasize that it doesn't matter how much you pray and how much you think about Allah, if you don't do good deeds. Without good deeds, Allah won't be pleased. I agreed that it's important to do good things that God tells you to do, but that God loves me just the way I am and will love me just the same if I don't do a single good thing the rest of my life.
Rashid shared how he hopes that Allah will be merciful to him on Judgment Day, I shared how I know that God is merciful and that I will share eternity with him.
Rashid explained to me that he thought Allah could force anybody to become believers in him if he wanted to, I thought to myself that I'm delighted that God respects free will and gives us a choice to make.
I explained to Rashid how Jesus came down to save us, where all other religions (humanity, atheism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc.) is about us coming up to God through our good deeds or ourselves being gods. He heard it, but he didn't see the wonder, the joy, the gift.
Sadly Rashid has met many narrowminded, legalistic Christians so me talking about freedom, joy and life sounded strange to him.
I pray that God will let me meet many more Muslims. There is 1.3 billion worldwide. God loves them all. Jesus died for them all.
Don't be afraid of Muslims, don't walk away from them, don't believe the stories the media tell you. Love your neighbor, even if she wears strange clothes and even if he has a funny hat on his head. They are not that different from you anyway.
Torben
Yesterday I met a couple of Muslim guys, Rashid and Tareq from Kuwait, as we were on the train between Krakow, Poland and Kiev, Ukraine. They were from rich families and were traveling around Eastern Europe. Rashid spoke fine English after having spent six years in the United States, and naturally we talked about Kuwait, the Arabic world in general and of course about Islam and Christianity.
I have a special heart for Muslims. So devoted, so serious, so fun-loving and caring and kind people (this is true for approximately 85-90% of all Muslims...all those who don't attract the big headlines in the news...:-(), yet so misguided in what they believe. Yet so bound by laws and regulations. Yet so foreign to freedom, (eternal) security, relationship to God and knowing him as a loving Father!
I have studied Islam some and know some of the Arabic terms for the things Muslims believe, and this always helps in conversations with Muslims.
Rashid was telling me how he tries to be a good person all the time, and how he doesn't know if he'll go to heaven. Only Allah knows. I shared how I know that I can't live up to God's demands and that I know that I go to heaven the day I die, because Jesus lived the perfect life and paid the price of sin that God required.
Rashid shared how Muslims emphasize that it doesn't matter how much you pray and how much you think about Allah, if you don't do good deeds. Without good deeds, Allah won't be pleased. I agreed that it's important to do good things that God tells you to do, but that God loves me just the way I am and will love me just the same if I don't do a single good thing the rest of my life.
Rashid shared how he hopes that Allah will be merciful to him on Judgment Day, I shared how I know that God is merciful and that I will share eternity with him.
Rashid explained to me that he thought Allah could force anybody to become believers in him if he wanted to, I thought to myself that I'm delighted that God respects free will and gives us a choice to make.
I explained to Rashid how Jesus came down to save us, where all other religions (humanity, atheism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc.) is about us coming up to God through our good deeds or ourselves being gods. He heard it, but he didn't see the wonder, the joy, the gift.
Sadly Rashid has met many narrowminded, legalistic Christians so me talking about freedom, joy and life sounded strange to him.
I pray that God will let me meet many more Muslims. There is 1.3 billion worldwide. God loves them all. Jesus died for them all.
Don't be afraid of Muslims, don't walk away from them, don't believe the stories the media tell you. Love your neighbor, even if she wears strange clothes and even if he has a funny hat on his head. They are not that different from you anyway.
Torben
Thursday, August 09, 2007
The one question Jesus will ask?
Brennan Manning, author of Ragamuffin Gospel and Abba's Child, speaks in this short video about God's love. Listen and think about the points he makes!
God bless!
Torben
The poor in spirit
I keep feeling inspired to write these days...so here we go again: Jesus said "Blessed are the poor in spirit", but what does it mean to be poor in spirit or to be humble? I just read this wonderful piece by Brennan Manning in his book "Reflections for Ragamuffins":
- "The awareness of our innate (*something we're born with*) poverty, that we were created from the clay of the earth and the kiss of God's mouth, that we came from dust and shall return to dust, pulls away the mask of prestige, of knowledge, of social class, or of strength - whatever it is we use to command attention and respect.
Poverty of spirit breaks through our human pretenses, freeing us from the shabby sense of spiritual superiority and the need to stand well with persons of importance. Poverty brings us to the awareness of the sovereignty of God and our absolute insufficiency. We simply cannot do anything alone.
Any growth or progress in the spiritual life cannot be traced to our paltry (*small*) efforts. All is the work of grace. We cannot even acknowledge that Jesus is Lord except through the gift of the Holy Spirit. Life is lagniappe (*something given as a free gift*). We are faced with the possibility of genuine humility. I am convinced that without a gut-level experience of our profound spiritual emptiness, it is not possible to encounter the living God" -
Amen, brother! Well written!
Torben
- "The awareness of our innate (*something we're born with*) poverty, that we were created from the clay of the earth and the kiss of God's mouth, that we came from dust and shall return to dust, pulls away the mask of prestige, of knowledge, of social class, or of strength - whatever it is we use to command attention and respect.
Poverty of spirit breaks through our human pretenses, freeing us from the shabby sense of spiritual superiority and the need to stand well with persons of importance. Poverty brings us to the awareness of the sovereignty of God and our absolute insufficiency. We simply cannot do anything alone.
Any growth or progress in the spiritual life cannot be traced to our paltry (*small*) efforts. All is the work of grace. We cannot even acknowledge that Jesus is Lord except through the gift of the Holy Spirit. Life is lagniappe (*something given as a free gift*). We are faced with the possibility of genuine humility. I am convinced that without a gut-level experience of our profound spiritual emptiness, it is not possible to encounter the living God" -
Amen, brother! Well written!
Torben
How you get to know God's love for you...part II
"I'm not sure I truly believe that God loves me, if I have to be quite honest. In glimpses maybe but not continuously. I don't know ... Others I've met find it very easily to grasp but I just find it very, very, very difficult. It seems to me that you've gone through a process where you really embraced God's love... Was there anything in particular that made you realize that God really loves you? Anything you heard, learnt ... or was it just a long process?"
Still the same question. Here comes the more personal touch on that question.
Why do I know God's love better now than I did a few years ago? Wow...what a question! God only knows for real, but I do have some thoughts about it. I believe it's because I've asked God to show me his love for me. In some ways that's all I've done. I've asked him: "take me to a place where I know your love, and where you're enough for me". A brave prayer, and one you shouldn't pray if you're not ready to walk the road of brokenness with Christ. There is no other way to really experience God's love for YOU than the road David, Joseph, Peter, Paul, Jesus himself and countless others have walked: the road of humility and brokenness.
Churches and missions organizations talk a lot about humility and brokenness these years, but often they mean something else than the Bible does. Often humility and brokenness is just something you do. It's an add-on to your Christian life. You serve some homeless people once a week and that proves that you're humble. You admit that you sometimes lose your temper, and that proves that you're extremely broken. These comments are not actual quotes, but they are in essence, what I've heard from many Christians, when I've talked about these two words!
Look at Jesus who walked the road of humility. Humiliated, ridiculed, mocked, beaten, accused of being a drunkard and a party animal, accused of breaking the law, lying, blaspheming, finally convicted in an unfair trial, hung a cross, mocked even while dying and dead.....Yet Jesus was close to his Father in heaven! He knew God's love for him and for the world. "Father if there is another way, can we go that? Yet not my will, but your will be done", "Forgive them for they know what they do"
Joseph...dreamer, proud young man. Learned about humility through being sold by his own brothers as a slave, was thrown in prison though he was innocent, suffered many kinds of agony, but learned to trust God despite his circumstances and was, after many years, ready to forgive his family and save many from certain death because of hunger.
Peter....boastful, proud, strong, always the first disciple to talk whenever Jesus asked them a question. Convinced that he would ALWAYS be there for Jesus, but his own strength and courage failed him. He learned to be humble, he learned that in his own strength he can do nothing, but in Christ's strength, the strengt of humility and brokenness he can do anything. And humble and broken Peter was the first great Church leader.
Paul....powerful evangelist after his extreme conversion experience. On fire for God. Ready to do anything. But...he had a thorn in his flesh (2. Corinthians 12). We don't know what the problem was. Only God knows. But it helped Paul be humble and not trust in his own strength.
WHY HUMILITY?
Was God trying to punish Jesus, Joseph, Peter and Paul? Is he mean-spirited when he puts them and us in circumstances we don't enjoy? Yes, some Christians say and feel that! Because they don't trust God to be who he says he is. But God putting the mentioned great ones and ourselves through difficult circumstances is God's way of loving us and taking us to a place where he is all we have.
He has to strip of all the things that we hold on to (reputation, abilities, ministry, spiritual gifts, sense of humor, work, family, friends, achievements, good looks, etc. etc. etc.) to give us our sense of worth. So that he can become all for us and in us.
My own road of humility started (at least this stage of it! God has been at work in me for many years) almost two years ago. I had just gotten married, and we were headed back to a YWAM base in the United Kingdom where I was convinced that we needed to go. I had big plans and dreams for our time there. I saw myself as the next great leader to come out of that base, I was gonna pioneer this school and that ministry...big plans! And the people there, like all other people I had met previously in my life, had never-ending faith in me and my abilities. All was good. But God didn't agree! It's a long story, but through various circumstances that I don't mind sharing about, but it takes too long right here, God took Jeannette and I away from my dream place in the UK and here to Kiev where things have been more difficult. Again, it's a long story, but God has, in his mercy, taken away many of the things that I built my life around (my performance, my reputation, my admiration, etc.) to replace it with him. He took me to a place where I was willing to admit: "I don't know what to do, but I'm looking to you (only to you) for help" (2. Chr. 20: 12b).
I continue to learn more about humility, brokenness and trust. Sometimes it's a lonely path, but it's also a good path, because I know God is here with me. Psalm 23 speaks about life with God better than I can express:
The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
3 he restores my soul.
He guides me in paths of righteousness
for his name's sake.
4 Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death, [a]
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.
5 You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
6 Surely goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
forever.
Jesus has taken me through difficult times and fun times, but he is the Shepherd, I'm the follower. Jesus says it very clearly in John chapter 10 where he talks about himself as the Good Shepherd. I am his sheep. I hear his voice. I recognize his voice. I follow him. And it's in this context that he promises us the ABUNDANT LIFE in him. It's all about Jesus. I allow God to be God and me to be me, and I experience intimacy with him! But it all goes through the road of brokenness and me realizing that I don't have it all together, that God is more than an add-on to my own efforts, that truly I'm dead and Christ now lives his life through me.
Hmmm...did this reply help anybody? It's a difficult question to answer, because without trusting God it's a terrible thought that he would lead me through the "valley of death". And my journey to God and with God is not your journey. It's personal and intimate and hard to explain and express..!
But it all starts with a simple prayer: "God I want to know you and I want to know your love for me. Take me to a place where you will be all I have and where I can experience intimacy and life in you. I give you permission to take away everything that you see hinders me from truly knowing your love for me. Teach me to trust you more and more and throw myself in your arms and know that you're my good, loving Father" and then the adventure begins:-)
God bless!
Torben
Still the same question. Here comes the more personal touch on that question.
Why do I know God's love better now than I did a few years ago? Wow...what a question! God only knows for real, but I do have some thoughts about it. I believe it's because I've asked God to show me his love for me. In some ways that's all I've done. I've asked him: "take me to a place where I know your love, and where you're enough for me". A brave prayer, and one you shouldn't pray if you're not ready to walk the road of brokenness with Christ. There is no other way to really experience God's love for YOU than the road David, Joseph, Peter, Paul, Jesus himself and countless others have walked: the road of humility and brokenness.
Churches and missions organizations talk a lot about humility and brokenness these years, but often they mean something else than the Bible does. Often humility and brokenness is just something you do. It's an add-on to your Christian life. You serve some homeless people once a week and that proves that you're humble. You admit that you sometimes lose your temper, and that proves that you're extremely broken. These comments are not actual quotes, but they are in essence, what I've heard from many Christians, when I've talked about these two words!
Look at Jesus who walked the road of humility. Humiliated, ridiculed, mocked, beaten, accused of being a drunkard and a party animal, accused of breaking the law, lying, blaspheming, finally convicted in an unfair trial, hung a cross, mocked even while dying and dead.....Yet Jesus was close to his Father in heaven! He knew God's love for him and for the world. "Father if there is another way, can we go that? Yet not my will, but your will be done", "Forgive them for they know what they do"
Joseph...dreamer, proud young man. Learned about humility through being sold by his own brothers as a slave, was thrown in prison though he was innocent, suffered many kinds of agony, but learned to trust God despite his circumstances and was, after many years, ready to forgive his family and save many from certain death because of hunger.
Peter....boastful, proud, strong, always the first disciple to talk whenever Jesus asked them a question. Convinced that he would ALWAYS be there for Jesus, but his own strength and courage failed him. He learned to be humble, he learned that in his own strength he can do nothing, but in Christ's strength, the strengt of humility and brokenness he can do anything. And humble and broken Peter was the first great Church leader.
Paul....powerful evangelist after his extreme conversion experience. On fire for God. Ready to do anything. But...he had a thorn in his flesh (2. Corinthians 12). We don't know what the problem was. Only God knows. But it helped Paul be humble and not trust in his own strength.
WHY HUMILITY?
Was God trying to punish Jesus, Joseph, Peter and Paul? Is he mean-spirited when he puts them and us in circumstances we don't enjoy? Yes, some Christians say and feel that! Because they don't trust God to be who he says he is. But God putting the mentioned great ones and ourselves through difficult circumstances is God's way of loving us and taking us to a place where he is all we have.
He has to strip of all the things that we hold on to (reputation, abilities, ministry, spiritual gifts, sense of humor, work, family, friends, achievements, good looks, etc. etc. etc.) to give us our sense of worth. So that he can become all for us and in us.
My own road of humility started (at least this stage of it! God has been at work in me for many years) almost two years ago. I had just gotten married, and we were headed back to a YWAM base in the United Kingdom where I was convinced that we needed to go. I had big plans and dreams for our time there. I saw myself as the next great leader to come out of that base, I was gonna pioneer this school and that ministry...big plans! And the people there, like all other people I had met previously in my life, had never-ending faith in me and my abilities. All was good. But God didn't agree! It's a long story, but through various circumstances that I don't mind sharing about, but it takes too long right here, God took Jeannette and I away from my dream place in the UK and here to Kiev where things have been more difficult. Again, it's a long story, but God has, in his mercy, taken away many of the things that I built my life around (my performance, my reputation, my admiration, etc.) to replace it with him. He took me to a place where I was willing to admit: "I don't know what to do, but I'm looking to you (only to you) for help" (2. Chr. 20: 12b).
I continue to learn more about humility, brokenness and trust. Sometimes it's a lonely path, but it's also a good path, because I know God is here with me. Psalm 23 speaks about life with God better than I can express:
The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
3 he restores my soul.
He guides me in paths of righteousness
for his name's sake.
4 Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death, [a]
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.
5 You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
6 Surely goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
forever.
Jesus has taken me through difficult times and fun times, but he is the Shepherd, I'm the follower. Jesus says it very clearly in John chapter 10 where he talks about himself as the Good Shepherd. I am his sheep. I hear his voice. I recognize his voice. I follow him. And it's in this context that he promises us the ABUNDANT LIFE in him. It's all about Jesus. I allow God to be God and me to be me, and I experience intimacy with him! But it all goes through the road of brokenness and me realizing that I don't have it all together, that God is more than an add-on to my own efforts, that truly I'm dead and Christ now lives his life through me.
Hmmm...did this reply help anybody? It's a difficult question to answer, because without trusting God it's a terrible thought that he would lead me through the "valley of death". And my journey to God and with God is not your journey. It's personal and intimate and hard to explain and express..!
But it all starts with a simple prayer: "God I want to know you and I want to know your love for me. Take me to a place where you will be all I have and where I can experience intimacy and life in you. I give you permission to take away everything that you see hinders me from truly knowing your love for me. Teach me to trust you more and more and throw myself in your arms and know that you're my good, loving Father" and then the adventure begins:-)
God bless!
Torben
How you get to know God's love for you...part I
"I'm not sure I truly believe that God loves me, if I have to be quite honest. In glimpses maybe but not continuously. I don't know ... Others I've met find it very easily to grasp but I just find it very, very, very difficult. It seems to me that you've gone through a process where you really embraced God's love... Was there anything in particular that made you realize that God really loves you? Anything you heard, learnt ... or was it just a long process?" was a comment under my entry "What You Truly Believe".
What a great, honest question! Many things could be said, but since my dear sister, www.ingenkommentarer.blogspot.com, claims that my blog entries are too long, I'll try to make my answer as short as possible, or maybe write a few entries about the same question.
First, I have also met many Christians who claim that they know God loves them. They talk about God's love. Maybe they even preach and teach and blog about God's love. But still they feel abandoned, unlovable, confused, angry, disappointed when the door is closed and they are all alone with their thoughts. So just because they say that they know God's love doesn't mean that's necessarily the truth. Look at the fruit in their lives, look at their world view - do they look at what's happening in the world and in their own life from the perspective "God loves me, and even though this seems difficult, I know his character, and I know he's up to something great"? Or do they, like the world that doesn't know a God who is love complain and say: "there is no hope for them or for me and all is terrible and will never get any better". A Christian who knows God's love never loses hope. Because he knows that God is the God of the hopeless people (like himself!) and the God of the hopeless situations.
On the other hand I've met just a few, very few in fact, where I just know that God's love is what compels them to do and be everything they do/are. My spirit connects with these people. They are rarely the people who get the most publicity. They are rarely the most popular ones. They are often misunderstood. Many Christians look at them as weird and not-connected-enough-to-this world. They are the ones who embrace their brokenness. They know they're beyond repair, and they can only do one thing: put their brokenness, their faults, their weaknesses into the hands of a God who loves them just the way they are! And that's where they get their confidence, that's where they get their life, strength, joy. In Christ. In Christ in them. "Christ in you, the hope of glory", Paul talks about. And that's true. If we want to give God glory, and if we want to experience a glorious, abundant life there is only the way of Christ. To accept and agree with the fact that I'm dead (Galatians 2:20), and that Christ now lives in me and through me.
I believe this was enough for part I - part II will follow shortly:-)
God bless!
Torben
What a great, honest question! Many things could be said, but since my dear sister, www.ingenkommentarer.blogspot.com, claims that my blog entries are too long, I'll try to make my answer as short as possible, or maybe write a few entries about the same question.
First, I have also met many Christians who claim that they know God loves them. They talk about God's love. Maybe they even preach and teach and blog about God's love. But still they feel abandoned, unlovable, confused, angry, disappointed when the door is closed and they are all alone with their thoughts. So just because they say that they know God's love doesn't mean that's necessarily the truth. Look at the fruit in their lives, look at their world view - do they look at what's happening in the world and in their own life from the perspective "God loves me, and even though this seems difficult, I know his character, and I know he's up to something great"? Or do they, like the world that doesn't know a God who is love complain and say: "there is no hope for them or for me and all is terrible and will never get any better". A Christian who knows God's love never loses hope. Because he knows that God is the God of the hopeless people (like himself!) and the God of the hopeless situations.
On the other hand I've met just a few, very few in fact, where I just know that God's love is what compels them to do and be everything they do/are. My spirit connects with these people. They are rarely the people who get the most publicity. They are rarely the most popular ones. They are often misunderstood. Many Christians look at them as weird and not-connected-enough-to-this world. They are the ones who embrace their brokenness. They know they're beyond repair, and they can only do one thing: put their brokenness, their faults, their weaknesses into the hands of a God who loves them just the way they are! And that's where they get their confidence, that's where they get their life, strength, joy. In Christ. In Christ in them. "Christ in you, the hope of glory", Paul talks about. And that's true. If we want to give God glory, and if we want to experience a glorious, abundant life there is only the way of Christ. To accept and agree with the fact that I'm dead (Galatians 2:20), and that Christ now lives in me and through me.
I believe this was enough for part I - part II will follow shortly:-)
God bless!
Torben
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Marcus Allbäck's goal!
Phew...F.C.København were close to disaster, but the good, old Swede, Marcus Allbäck, as usual saved F.C.København with his extra time goal that gave F.C.København the aggregate victory against Beitar Jerusalem. Now they have to play Benfica from Portugal to see if they again this year can qualify for Champions League.
I saw the game on the internet, and I'm afraid I woke up our neighbors, when Allbäck scored....!;-)
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
The two biggest problems
A Christian counselor, the late David Seamands, said these wise words:
"Many years ago I was driven to the conclusion that the two major causes of most emotional problems among evangelical Christians are these: the failure to understand, receive and live out God's unconditional grace and forgiveness; and the failure to give out that unconditional love, forgiveness, and grace to other people...We read, we hear, we believe a good theology of grace. But that's not the way we live. The good news of the Gospel of grace has not penetrated the level of our emotions."
(quoted from the wonderful Philip Yancey book "What's So Amazing About Grace")
I believe he's absolutely right. Four years in Christian ministry has showed me that countless Christians (including many missionaries and leaders!!) talk about grace and believe grace in theory, but have very little understanding that they're loved, and they have very little love and grace to give to anybody else. Because unless the truths of God's free grace and love penetrate your life, it'll remain nice theories that don't have the power to change anything or anybody. The power of grace (see other entries about this topic on this blog!) is incredible, but unless you truly believe that you are loved just the way you are grace hasn't won you over, and you have no, or very little, love and grace to offer to other people.
"We love, because God loved us first" the apostle John (who refers to himself as "the disciple Jesus loved"!) tells us, but if you don't know that you're loved by God, how can you love other people? In my flesh I only really have love for one person: Torben! Not even for Jeannette or anybody else....according to my flesh, it's ALL about me! But praise to God that he lives in me and loves people through me. As Fyodor Dostoevsky put it: "To love a person means to see him the way God intended him to be" - without God's grace flowing freely through me, I simply can't do that!
God bless!
Torben
"Many years ago I was driven to the conclusion that the two major causes of most emotional problems among evangelical Christians are these: the failure to understand, receive and live out God's unconditional grace and forgiveness; and the failure to give out that unconditional love, forgiveness, and grace to other people...We read, we hear, we believe a good theology of grace. But that's not the way we live. The good news of the Gospel of grace has not penetrated the level of our emotions."
(quoted from the wonderful Philip Yancey book "What's So Amazing About Grace")
I believe he's absolutely right. Four years in Christian ministry has showed me that countless Christians (including many missionaries and leaders!!) talk about grace and believe grace in theory, but have very little understanding that they're loved, and they have very little love and grace to give to anybody else. Because unless the truths of God's free grace and love penetrate your life, it'll remain nice theories that don't have the power to change anything or anybody. The power of grace (see other entries about this topic on this blog!) is incredible, but unless you truly believe that you are loved just the way you are grace hasn't won you over, and you have no, or very little, love and grace to offer to other people.
"We love, because God loved us first" the apostle John (who refers to himself as "the disciple Jesus loved"!) tells us, but if you don't know that you're loved by God, how can you love other people? In my flesh I only really have love for one person: Torben! Not even for Jeannette or anybody else....according to my flesh, it's ALL about me! But praise to God that he lives in me and loves people through me. As Fyodor Dostoevsky put it: "To love a person means to see him the way God intended him to be" - without God's grace flowing freely through me, I simply can't do that!
God bless!
Torben
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