Faith & Life (Part 4)

One of the major challenges of life has always been, in my opinion, attaching & connecting 'faith or spirituality' to our everyday, real life experience. Unless we live our life with 'intention' it is very easy to let worship become 'empty' even while we continue practicing our religious traditions & ordinances. Writes Tony Robbins, "But to me the notion that spirituality is separate from the rest of life does not allow for a practical approach to living a life that has extraordinary quality." For example, this Sunday, being Easter Sunday, church attendance will be up in many churches. Unfortunately, there will be many who will not be able to connect the relevancy of Easter Sunday to Monday morning or the rest of the week! Of course if Easter Sunday is nothing more than the arrival of the Easter Bunny, colourful plastic eggs and chocolates then I can understand why there wouldn't be any connection! But the reality is that Easter Sunday is a day that has left the world forever changed! The simple fact that there are people who don't believe the spiritual significance of the events that occurred on that day doesn't change reality - the world forever was changed and so has the lives of millions of people around the world who have discovered the reality that Jesus has indeed risen from the dead and lives today! (My belief that a 'tree' is a 'human' does not change the fact that the 'tree' is still a 'tree' regardless what I may believe about it!) Writes a 28 year old single father who attends Hillside and will be baptized this Easter Sunday: "Believing in the existence of God was easy for me but discovering that faith that would powerfully change my life was hard! I didn't grow up in a strong Christian environment but one day when I was 15 years of age I had my first encounter with God. Unfortunately peer pressure wore me down and I soon found myself making choices & decisions that took me away from God. Alcohol began controlling my life. The easiest way to describe my life during those years was that 'evil' was in control of my life. My only moments of happiness was when I was doing the things which I now find so disgusting! I lived with so much shame & guilt. I slowly slipped into a state where I became depressed! I had so much unhappiness & felt so much despair. I'd wake up feeling terrible and wouldn't know why! Now that I have returned to my Heavenly Father, the battle continues but I now know how loving, merciful & forgiving my Heavenly Father is! I know He actually listens & understands my personal struggles & cares for me as a person. I know that it is His Spirit within me that empowers me to make choices & decisions that lead to life & not destruction! I'm learning to live life one day at a time - letting go and letting God be more in control!" For this young man, it wasn't the Easter Bunny that changed him! Jesus Christ continues to be in the business of changing & transforming life!Writes Philip Schaff, "Jesus of Nazareth, without money and arms, conquered more millions than Alexander the Great, Caesar, Mohammed, and Napoleon; without science and learning, he shed more light on things human and divine than all philosophers and scholars combined; without the eloquence of school, he spoke such words of life as were never spoken before or since, and produced effects which lie beyond the reach of orator or poet; without writing a single line, he set more pens in motion, and furnished themes for more sermons, orations, discussions, learned volumes, works of art, and songs of praise than the whole army of great men of ancient and modern times." H.G. Wells writes: "I am an historian, I am not a believer, but I must confess as a historian that this penniless preacher from Nazareth is irrevocably the very center of history. Jesus Christ is easily the most dominant figure in all history." The historian Kenneth Scott Latourette writes, "As the centuries pass, the evidence is accumulating that, measured by His effect on history, Jesus is the most influential life ever lived on this planet."

After an appraisal of recent scholarship on the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, Professor William Craig contends that "the resurrection appearances, the empty tomb, and the origin of the Christian faith - all point unavoidably to one conclusion: the resurrection of Jesus". (Source: "Contemporary Scholarship and the Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ," Truth 1 (1985): 89-95.) "Man," writes Loren Eisley, "is the Cosmic Orphan." He is the only creature in the universe who asks, Why? Other animals have instincts to guide them, but man has learned to ask questions. "Who am I?" he asks. "Why am I here? Where am I going?"

Ever since the 17^th & 18^th Century, when modern man threw off what he perceived to be the shackles of religion, he has tried to answer these questions without reference to God. But the answers that came back were not encouraging, but dark and terrible. "You are an accidental by-product of nature, the result of matter plus time plus chance. There is no reason for your existence. All you face is death. Your life is but a spark in the infinite darkness, a spark that appears, flickers, and dies forever."

Modern man thought that in divesting himself of God, he had freed himself from all that stifled and repressed him. Instead, he discovered that in killing God, he had also killed himself.

Against this background of the modern predicament, the traditional Christian hope of the resurrection takes on an even greater brightness and significance. It tells man that he is no orphan after all, but the personal image of the Creator God of the universe; nor is his life doomed in death, for the possibility exists that he may live in the presence of God forever.

This is a wonderful hope. But, of course, hope that is not founded in fact is not hope, but mere illusion. Why should the Christian hope of living forever in the presence of God appear to modern man as anything more than mere wishful thinking? The answer lies in the Christian conviction that a man has been raised by God from the dead as the forerunner of our own resurrection. That man was Jesus of Nazareth, and his historical resurrection from the dead constitutes the factual foundation upon which the Christian hope is based. Your life can be transformed by letting the Risen Lord into your life!

Martha answered, "I know he (Lazarus) will rise again in the resurrection at the last day." Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" "Yes, Lord" she told Him, "I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world."
John 11:24-27 NIV

"I (Jesus) have come that they may have life, and have it to the full."
John 10:10b NIV

Continued in Part 5