Why am I a Christian?

 "Why am I a Christian?" is a question that anyone who goes to church on Sundays or identifies as a Christian should ask themselves. It is the most basic and most complex question all at the same time. I may ruffle a few feathers by saying this (or may downright piss some people off), but if your answer is "so that I can go to heaven", then I would argue that you are actually missing out on what it really means to be a Christian and are likely missing out on experiencing the blessing that the abundant life that God offers brings. The main problem about that answer is that it makes it all about yourself; it is a self serving gospel - you are a Christian because of what you get, not because of who God is or what He's done. It actually misunderstands what salvation really is all about and what Jesus was actually teaching us and what God was doing from the very beginning of the biblical story, culminating in Jesus' death and resurrection, and continuing today. Fleshing out this idea fully would take a series of blog posts and more work than I am able to put in right now, so I will leave that there since that is not what inspired me to write this post today (after not writing for a long time).

So why am I a Christian? Originally it was probably because my parents were; I grew up in the church, so it was quite natural for me to become a Christian, however, if I stayed there I would have probably had an answer like I wrote above as to why I am a Christian, which, ultimately, breaks down quite easily when challenged once you step out of your Christian circles. My Christian walk was quite interesting in some ways because from a young age I always knew that God was real and that He was the one true god - I experienced Him in some incredible ways when I was in my preteen years that never left any doubt in my mind - however I did not live as a Christian for many years of my teen and young adult life. At that point in my life, I was a Christian in name and basic belief only; it wasn't really apparent in my life and I did not cultivate a relationship with God in any real way. That all changed, however, when I finally realized that the way I was living was not sustainable, and not really even that enjoyable when I actually stopped (and was clear-minded enough) to think about it. That was when I started to realize that being a Christian was about more than going to church and not doing anything too bad so that you don't mess up your ticket into heaven. That's when God slowly began to draw me to Himself in a way I had never experienced before.

In my mind, and my heart, I didn't really become a Christian until I laid down my will and finally submitted myself to His will and allowed Him to be the Lord of my life. That doesn't necessarily mean I wasn't "saved" in an eternal sense before then; how do we know what exactly it takes to receive His salvation - is it simply "inviting Him into our heart" or is it more? I had prayed a prayer multiple times and I fully believed He was God, so you could say that yes I was saved, but as I look back I now realize that it was basically the minimum level of salvation and that I was missing out on what salvation really is about. It was only once I realized that God doesn't want to be invited into our hearts or into our lives, but that He wants to be the Lord of our lives and wants to live in covenant relationship with us, that my life was truly transformed and I finally began to live the abundant life that Jesus promised for the very first time. I can't remember when I first "invited Jesus into my heart", but I will always remember when I surrendered and made Him Lord of my life (which continues to deepen to this day and will until the day I die), because that is when my life changed forever and I can easily say that my life has gotten better consistently since then as I have allowed Him to lead me into His blessing instead of trying to bring Him along or into what I was doing.

So why am I a Christian? First, because God has absolutely transformed my life. He never gave up on me, even though others may have, and He kept pursuing me until I finally gave in and put Him first, and I have been living in His blessing ever since. To look at where I am today and consider where I was 15 years ago is astonishing, so much so that I doubt the people I knew back then that I haven't seen for years would recognize me today. Secondly, I am a Christian because as I've studied and learned about the different religions and belief systems that the world has to offer, Christianity and the Christian story makes the most sense of the world and brings the most value to this life and to all of creation than any other. Even when you only look at Abrahamic religions, which have similar basic foundations of who God is (based on the Hebrew Scriptures), Christianity stands apart because in the others (Judaism and Islam), it is mostly based on what we do, whereas in Christianity, God came down to earth as a man to do what we could never do ourselves. He has saved us not because of who we are, but because of who He is! Finally, I am a Christian because of who God is and the relationship that I have with Him. He is a good father who leads me and my family through life in a crazy world and blesses us in ways I never thought He would. He is the creator, the Redeemer, the great I Am, the Alpha and Omega, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The more I get to know Him, the more in awe I am of who He is, what He has done and what He is doing.

There is no other way that I would ever even consider living my life other than submitting myself to Him as Lord, following Him wherever He leads, and obeying His words and decrees. It is the best way to live life that there is, and I know that from experience because I tried many other ways of living, His is by far the greatest!

I don't really know why I felt compelled to write this post after not writing anything for so long, and I have no idea who will read this, but it just came to mind and I felt I needed to write it and share it. I will say that it is not the most nuanced or thought out thing I have written; it really was written in one draft from my heart with very little editing, so it may not be perfect and I am willing to take some push-back on what I've written - I am always willing to discuss matters of faith with whoever is willing to have a thought out and respectful dialogue. I hope that it helps or blesses even just one person; I know that thinking through it a little and writing it already was a blessing to me.

A prayer for the brave, but should it be?

For the last month I have been saying the same prayer almost every day. It is a prayer that I heard when I was meeting with our house church via Zoom from a person that I don't really know, but is connected with the rest of our house church. When I heard it, my heart leapt because it was a prayer that really struck at the heart of what I desire in my walk with God. This is the text of the prayer with it's intro and epilogue:

"Here is a prophetic prayer for the brave. I will meditate on this before praying it.

 

If you would like, as a believer in Jesus Christ, to know the Holy Fear of the Lord, I recommend you pray as follows:

'Lord Jesus, I ask you to shine your light into every dark and hidden corner of my soul, deep into every locked door of my unwillingness, every false cover of my un-surrendered motives, and Lord, as you do this the time will come when I ask you to stop, and when that time comes I ask that you honor this prayer, not the prayer of my distress at that time.'

Before you pray like that, please be aware that this is not some religious formula. You will need to be determined to accept what follows. It will be a challenging experience."

There are so many things that I love in this prayer. It is a prayer that asks God to bring His refining light into your life and to not stop until He is finished, no matter what the cost. However, there are a couple of things I have taken issue with in it.

First, after a week of praying it, I made a change to it. I didn't like that it essentially prescribes that I will be resistant to the change God was bringing and I would ask Him to stop. So I altered it from saying "the time will come... and when that time comes..." to "the time may come... and if that time comes..." 

It is a small change, but it is a significant change. I don't want to assume that I am going to resist God's refining light in my life. I may end up doing that, and if I do, then I want God to honour my first prayer rather than the prayer of my distress, but I did not want to go into it assuming that I would resist and not embrace His pruning and shaping. I very much believe in the power of words, and I did not want to speak those words over my life (even though I can understand the original author's intent and heart in them).

The thing is, even though God's refining of us often is a painful experience as we die to self in various ways and degrees over time, and it has been painful at times in my life, I don't believe it has to be that way. I can say with honesty and confidence that I have experienced it to be a joyful thing as well. 

I believe that the pain that comes from His refining fire comes not from the process of Him working in our lives - He brings life, not pain - but that it comes resistance to His refining due to our misunderstanding of who He is, of what sinful practices really do to us, of how good His love and comfort is, and how it is much better than the false comforts that we tend to take respite in. When God wants to prune something from our lives, then pain doesn't really come from His pruning, it comes from us holding on to those things too tightly. 

I am not saying that it is easy to have this kind of disposition towards God's pruning - it definitely does not come naturally - but I have seen in my life that the more He prunes, and the more I allow Him to do so - or even seek for Him to do so - the easier it gets, and the more desirable His pruning becomes. It hasn't come easy for me - I was very stubborn and walked contrary to Him for many years before I allowed Him to really be my God above all - but I want to encourage those who struggle with it that it gets better and that His pruning and His ways are far greater than anything the world has to offer; believe me, I tried a lot of it and it all fell short.

Second, there is still something that doesn't sit right with me with the description of this prayer, the fact that it is called a prayer for the brave. Although it may take bravery to go before God and ask Him to bring His light into all of your darkness in you, by saying that it is a prayer for the brave, it implies that this type of prayer is optional and is only for those who are brave enough. I don't believe that this prayer is only for the brave, but that this prayer is actually the type of prayer should be at the core of what it means to be Christians and followers of God, and that our Christian walk should not, perhaps even cannot, be devoid of a prayer like this. 

When I read the Bible I do not see anything that tells me that a disposition towards God like this is optional for those who truly want to be called by His name (Christians means little Christs, so we truly are called by His name). As I read Paul and his talk of dying with Christ, or his call to live lives worthy of our calling, or his challenge to be imitators of Christ, it does not seem like this is something only for a select few or for the brave. This is what it means to really be a Christian. In the book The Kingdom Life, Keith Meyer speaks about Paul's call to be imitators of Christ:

"When you ask most believers if they can say this along with Paul, they balk and say they would have to be perfect. Somewhere along the way we have lost the view of salvation as a life we could actually imitate and live. Paul's letters challenge us to be living examples of Christ's life. He not only thought it possible, he saw it as the only way for salvation to be passed on." (The Kingdom Life, ed. Alan Andrews, pg. 177)

Biblically, the Christian life isn't about going to heaven when we die, and doesn't consider salvation as the end, but as the beginning. We step from death into life when we give our lives to God and start a process of sanctification that enables us to experience His abundant life and salvation in this life. Too often the gospel that is preached is a self serving gospel of not going to hell rather than a gospel of being a disciple of Christ. Discipleship takes effort and requires a heart that says "not my will, but yours be done." 

To be clear, I am not saying that we are saved by our works - we are saved by grace through faith - but, as James said, real faith includes works. Dallas Willard puts it quite well, "God is not opposed to effort, but to earning" (Dallas Willard's Study Guide to the Divine Conspiracy, pg. 107). Being a Christian is not a passive thing where we say a prayer and hope we say sorry enough and are nice enough that we get to go to heaven. It is about being God's ambassadors in this world, which requires His pruning and His grace to empower us, bringing restoration and life to all of His creation. 

This is not a prayer for the brave, it is a prayer for all believers who truly want to see His kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven, because it is possible, but only as believers wake up to the calling they have been called to and accepted when they gave their lives in service to God. There is no other way.

Allowing Him to be the Author

It's been a long time since my last post.

When I wrote my last post I was excited and was eager to write a series of posts about the revelation that God's been giving me, but then a funny thing happened.....life happened.

It's amazing how easy it is to allow life to stop us in our tracks. The funny thing is that it wasn't that I was sitting around doing nothing or that I was running around too busy to do anything, I just got distracted from what I had hoped to do.

For the most part it was good things that distracted me, Grace and I were moving back to NZ and starting out on our own for the first time as a married couple, and we obviously had a lot to learn about how to do that. Plus I took on a new role at our base in Oxford (which I've stepped down from after 3 difficult months because I finally accepted the fact that it wasn't what God wanted me to do and instead was what I thought I should be doing - BIG difference), and I had a lot to learn about what it means to be Matt and Grace in Oxford instead of just Matt (very different).

Distractions. They can come in many different forms and can so easily and often seem like something God is giving to you, but the thing is, even if something is a ministry thing or a real life thing that needs to be done, if it's not done in God's timing and God's way, then it very easily becomes a distraction. Even things that God has given you to do can become distractions if they're not done His way.

The things that have been distracting me and taking my time and thoughts and energy were, for the most part, all things that God had brought me - He brought me a wife and sent us back into YWAM - I just didn't always connect with Him and get my orders and priorities from Him and instead went with my own "wisdom" instead.

To be quite honest, I don't know what this blog is completely about, I just knew that I needed to write something, so I just started writing and allowed God to give me what to write.

I guess that could possibly be the point, allowing God to write our minutes and hours and days, etc, and trusting that He will walk us through them instead of sitting and figuring it out on our own in our own so called wisdom.

One thing that this last few months has taught/reminded me is that He needs to be the author of my day first and foremost. I have so many things that I can keep myself busy with, but if I am allowing Him to be the author of my day then I won't get bogged down by them or swallowed up by them, instead I will be subjecting them to His authority and allowing Him to dictate their importance.

I am so thankful that God has used this last season to remind me of the importance of connection with Him and of doing only what He wants me to do. It has been an amazing reminder and I am so thankful that He was so gentle in how He reminded me.

Always remember, He cares about EVERY aspect of your life and your day and He is more than happy to help you order your life. Spend time with Him and allow Him to author your day instead of just inviting Him into it occasionally (which is so easy to do). I'm sure this is something that He'll be reminding me of many many times throughout this next season and for the rest of my life, but I love His reminders and He has amazing incomprehensible grace for me.

He is so so good.

How Good is the Good News? Pt 1

How good is the Good News?

That's what the word Gospel literally means, Good News. It comes from the Greek word evangelion and it's meaning is "a reward for good tidings". It's an interesting translation, especially when you consider how we always use it today. Just the word Gospel indicates a reward, and a good one at that, but how good is it?

What is our reward?

What are we being rewarded for?

These are all questions that when I quickly think about it, I think we all should be able to answer them very quickly and easily, but when I think a little deeper and dig a little deeper, I wonder, can we really?

How many of us really know the reward we have in Christ?

How many of us actually have looked to see what exactly the Bible tells us that reward is?

How many of us have just accepted what we've been told the Good News is, and have been content with that?

Don't get me wrong, I don't want it to sound like I'm bashing people who haven't studied the Bible for themselves, not a lot of people get the gift of being able to set aside a large amount of time to study the Word in depth, I just think that this is something that we don't ever look closely enough at and just sit back and accept what we're told about it. I know I did for many years. But an amazing thing happened when I started to look a little closer. I realized that I didn't have it all figured out (who woulda thought eh? lol), and I realized that I may have missed a huge part of what the Gospel really is.

So what is the Gospel? Most would probably say that it is the Truth that Jesus came down from heaven and became a man and died for our sins so that we could go to heaven when we die. That's probably what I would have said in the past, it's a pretty basic belief that most Christians have. The problem is, that's not the full Gospel. That's just what we've been using to tell people why they should believe in Jesus, so that they can go to heaven instead of hell. Essentially, fire insurance for when we die. But that's not the real point. If that's the whole point and we're saved by grace through believing that Jesus died for our sins, then what is the point of our entire lives?

If it's all about getting out of here and getting to heaven, then why do we have to spend so many years here?

We know that we don't earn our salvation, so if our salvation is just about going and being in heaven, then why can't we just drop dead once we start to believe? It'd be a lot easier and a lot less painful.

Some may say our purpose is so that we can convince others to believe too so that they can escape with us, but is that all there is? Can't God just save them all without us? There's gotta be more to life than just that or else we're just God's mere workers getting him more workers so that He can fill up His house, and that doesn't sound like abundant life to me.

I don't want this post to go too long, since I actually want people to want to read this, so I'll just end here and leave you with this "primer" I guess we could call it.

I must say, I don't want anybody to think that I have it all figured out, because even I don't think that, and I don't want you to think that I'm trying to take anything away from the Gospel, because that's the opposite of what I'm doing. I just want to spend some time looking at what the Gospel is, according to the Bible, not according to what I've been told growing up. It's something that I've been wrestling with for the last couple years, and I'm hoping that by reading my posts you'll spend some time wrestling with it too. Sometimes we need to step back, forget what we think we know, and look at the Word with fresh eyes, the eyes of a child, so that we can really see what it says rather than only seeing what we think it says.

So please, bear with me. I don't know how many posts this will comprise of, or how long it will take, but I hope and pray that you will journey with me and I hope that it will challenge you and encourage you and excite you, because I know that that is what's been happening to me as I've journeyed through this so far.

Blessings

Welcome to Kingdom Thinking

Write a blog post....

I don't want to

Write a blog post....

I don't know what to write

Write a blog post....

What if nobody likes it

Write a blog post....

FINE.

This is a glimpse of what has been going on in my head for the last little while. I've been thinking of writing blog posts and have even felt God give me some good things to write, but haven't actually stepped out and written one. I guess it feels like one thing to write about what's happening in my life and a completely different thing to write about what's going on in my head and/or in my heart. Part of me is excited to share some of my thoughts and revelations, but the other part of me is dreading it and wishing I didn't say that I was going to repurpose this blog and had just let it die. But I guess that's one of the reasons why I made that last post, so that it would force me to finally start sharing some of my thoughts rather than just updating people on what's going on in my life.

The idea of starting a blog to share about what God had been speaking to me came to me even before I decided to leave Canada and join YWAM. I still remember sitting in my car driving home from my job in Woodstock, having a great time just hanging out with God and reflecting on things with him, when I got the idea of creating a blog to share some of these reflections with others. At first I thought it was an awesome idea; what a great way to share with people some of the things God is teaching me, who knows, it may end up helping or encouraging some people, but after I thought about it for a while I let my cynical side kick in and started thinking, who's gonna care what you think? what kind of great things are you really going to be able to share with people? and things like that. So I quickly threw away that idea and decided that because I don't think I'm a very good writer and I tend to struggle getting my thoughts down on paper (or computer in this case), that it would be a stupid idea to try and share them with others. What do I know anyways?

Now, I've realized that as a son of God and someone who He's decided to use as a teacher of His Word, He has given me some good things to share with others. Anytime we spend time walking with Him, He brings revelation to us, and although sometimes that revelation is only meaningful for us, other times that revelation could be exactly what someone needed to hear. So I've decided that I'm done listening to the lies that the devil has been whispering into my ear and instead I'll listen to the Truth that Father has been speaking clearly to me for some time, but that I've just been too afraid and self conscious to listen to.

So I've decided to fully embrace this idea of blogging and if I lose all my followers and nobody wants to read what I have to say and think, then that's fine, I'm not gonna do this for all of you, I'm gonna do this for me and for my Father who wants to hear what I have to say and wants me to share it with whoever wants to read it. That is why I've decided to rebrand my blog under a different name and new look and to use it to share what I believe is on Father's heart. I'm not sure how often I will post, but I'm gonna try and do it regularly, and I plan on posting my first real post in the next week or so.

Thanks for following my blog, and I hope you enjoy the shift of focus. If you don't, you can always go to my and Grace's blog at wokandpan.wordpress.com.

Blessings

Changes

Well in case you don't know, I've moved into a very new chapter in my life of being a married man, and as we all know, when you get married, things change. Like a lot. Big time. lol. Thankfully, they are good changes and although some of them can be tough, they've been amazing and a blessing and I am so thankful to God for bringing those changes into my life.

One of these changes is that I am now changing how I blog from now on. Grace and I have created a new blog at wokandpan.wordpress.com (notice the east meets west kinda vibe there....we're clever), which is where we'll be posting short updates on what we're doing and how we're doing and such. Rather than be redundant and post updates on both this blog and our new one, I've decided that I would repurpose this blog to focus more on things that I'm learning or things that God's been showing me or just random things that I think about when I'm lying in bed and can't sleep and am trying not to wake up my wife. lol

So ya, go on over to our new website (again it's wokandpan.wordpress.com) and sign up to follow our blog via email, but still keep an eye on this blog if you want to get a glimpse of what's going on inside of my head.....if you dare....haha.

Hope you're all doing well. Grace and I are doing great. Just got back to Malaysia 2 weeks ago, and if ya want to hear more, then head over to our new blog.

Bless you!

A brief update from my hotel room in Thailand

Kata Noi - One of the beaches near where we are staying.

Well it has been quite some time since I have posted anything on here, and quite a lot has happened since then.

For those of you who haven't heard from or about me for a while, I am sorry (yet again). It has been a very eventful start to the year to say the least. I have gone from my home in Oxford, NZ to spend time in Queenstown, NZ, then to finally meet back up with Grace in Melbourne, Australia for a few weeks before we travelled to Malaysia and then Singapore while doing everything we could to try and get Grace's Canadian visa settled before we flew out. Unfortunately we weren't able to so I had to fly to Canada without her (but with her father), but thankfully God came through in the nick of time (as we knew He would) and got her over to Canada with a week to spare before our wedding. We then spent 2 months in Ontario visiting family and friends before flying back to Malaysia for a few days and then on to Thailand for 3 weeks.

And that is where you catch up with me now as I sit in my hotel room in Phuket, Thailand looking out at the Andaman Sea. It has been quite a journey for Grace and I these last 5-6 months (not to mention the previous 11 months, of which we were separated for 9), but it has been an amazing time of discovering each other and what it means to be together as well as discovering more about God and His faithfulness to us and of His plan for us.

We originally came to Thailand a little over 2 weeks ago and spent 9 days in Chiang Mai in the northern part of the country to attend the call2all congress and the YWAM Asia Pacific gathering. This time was an amazing gift from God and He really refined more of our vision for the future as well as giving us things to think about for the present and for when we return to Oxford in September. I feel very privileged to have been able to attend these gatherings and to be able to hear about what God is doing in Asia and beyond to reach the unreached as well as to use those who know Him. I've come away from this week just amazed at how good God is and amazed at how He wants to use me and Grace (and everybody really) to make His name known to all nations and to show people how loving and caring and awesome their true Father is. God is so good and as I think over these last couple weeks here and over the last year or two or three even, my heart just continues to overflow with love and joy and appreciation for the amazing Father that I have in Him.

So now we are down in Phuket relaxing and having a great time being on our own (we had been staying with my parents for the 2 months in Canada and will stay with Grace's parents for the next 3 months) and enjoying God's beautiful creation; continually being amazed with how good He is to us to give us this time to relax and recharge before another busy time planning for another wedding celebration as well as planning for a teaching that I will be doing in August, which will be the first time I've been invited to speak at a base other than my own.

We have been very blessed in these last few months and we know that God will continue to bless us and grow us as we prepare to start our new life in New Zealand. I will try to be more diligent in my communication in the future (with the help of my darling wife, who is WAY more organized and better at these things with me), and we will be sending out our first combined newsletter as the new Mr and Mrs Matt and Grace Stelpstra soon.

Blessings to all of you.