Category: reflection

Guarding Against Prejudice

One of the greatest challenges the church faces is prejudice. We think that because we are Christians, saved by the blood of Christ that we no longer suffer from prejudging people. The truth is, whether we grew up in the church or not, our society teaches us to be prejudice. However, this is not what God desires! Henri Nouwen has an interesting reflection on guarding ourselves against prejudice.

“One of the hardest spiritual tasks is to live without prejudices. Sometimes we aren’t even aware how deeply rooted our prejudices are. We may think that we relate to people who are different from us in colour, religion, sexual orientation, or lifestyle as equals, but in concrete circumstances our spontaneous thoughts, uncensored words, and knee-jerk reactions often reveal that our prejudices are still there.

“Strangers, people different than we are, stir up fear, discomfort, suspicion, and hostility. They make us lose our sense of security just by being ‘other.’ Only when we fully claim that God loves us in an unconditional way and look at ‘those other persons’ as equally loved can we begin to discover that the great variety in being human is an expression of the immense richness of God’s heart. Then the need to prejudge people can gradually disappear.”

God wants us to be free of prejudice because it keeps us from seeing people as God sees them. Let us make a concerted effort to avoid prejudging others and ask the Holy Spirit to constantly remind us of Christ’s love for all of humanity, despite their differences.

Here is another reflection from Henri Nouwen: “We spend an enormous amount of energy making up our minds about other people. Not a day goes by without somebody doing or saying something that evokes in us the need to form an opinion about him or her. We hear a lot, see a lot, and know a lot. The feeling that we have to sort it all out in our minds and make judgments about it can be quite oppressive.

“The desert fathers said that judging others is a heavy burden, while being judged by others is a light one. Once we can let go of our need to judge others, we will experience an immense inner freedom. Once we are free from judging, we will be also free for mercy. Let’s remember Jesus’ words: ‘Do not judge, and you will not be judged’ (Matthew 7:1).”

Love: Our Motivation for Giving

How many people do you know who give to the poor but honestly do not care much for them? How often do we give to good causes without being emotionally involved? Is it possible that we give to the church and to the Lord out of mere obligation instead of  love?

Amy Carmichael, an Irish missionary to India once wrote that “You can give without loving, but you cannot love without giving.”

In our churches, we do not need to teach giving, nor should we teach our obligation to give. We should preach God and his love! If we truly knew God and understood His love, we would be truly transformed by His love.

Once we are touched by the love of God, giving will be our natural response! We will no longer give alms to the poor because of social virtue nor to the church because we know we should. We will love and give because God loves and gives. In our sacrificial giving, we will become like Christ (Ephesians 5:1).

Reflecting God’s Perfect Love

God’s love for us is everlasting. That means that God’s love for us existed before we were born and will exist after we have died. It is an eternal love in which we are embraced. Living a spiritual life calls us to claim that eternal love for ourselves so that we can live our temporal loves – for parents, brothers, sisters, teachers, friends, spouses, and all people who become part of our lives – as reflections or refractions of God’s eternal love. No fathers or mothers can love their children perfectly. No husbands or wives can love each other with unlimited love. There is no human love that is not broken somewhere.

When our broken love is the only love we can have, we are easily thrown into despair, but when we can live our broken love as a partial reflection of God’s perfect, unconditional love, we can forgive one another our limitations and enjoy together the love we have to offer.

Henri Nouwen.

Confession & the Cross of Christ

“Without the cross the Discipline of confession would be only psychologically therapeutic. But it is so much more. It involves an objective change in our relationship with God and a subjective change in us. It is a means of healing and transforming the inner spirit.”

“Confession is a difficult Discipline for us because we all too often view the believing community as a fellowship of saints before we see it as a fellowship of sinners.”

“The Discipline of confession brings an end to pretense. God is calling into being a Church that can openly confess its frail humanity and know the forgiving and empowering graces of Christ. Honesty leads to confession, and confession leads to change. May God give grace to the Church once again to recover the Discipline of confession.” Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline.

 

“Anybody who lives beneath the Cross and who has discerned in the Cross of Jesus the utter wickedness of all men and of his own heart will find there is no sin that can ever be alien to him. Anybody who has once been horrified by the dreadfulness of his own sin that nailed Jesus to the Cross will no longer be horrified by the even the rankest sins of a brother.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together.

 

Friends as Signposts

We need friends. Friends guide us, care for us, confront us in love, console us in times of pain. Although we speak of “making friends,” friends cannot be made. Friends are free gifts from God. But God gives us the friends we need when we need them if we fully trust in God’s love.

Friends cannot replace God. They have limitations and weaknesses like we have. Their love is never faultless, never complete. But in their limitations they can be signposts on our journey toward the unlimited and unconditional love of God. Let’s enjoy the friends God has sent on our way.

Henri Nouwen.

Parlez-vous le français?

I wish the more supernatural gifts were still around! If you know me, you know which one most interests me! That’s right – speaking in tongues! Every since I was little kid, I remember being fascinated by foreign languages!

I started studying Spanish in the 11th grade. My last year of Spanish I did not go to class. My teacher graciously taught me more accelerated classes after school four days a week. Once I arrived at Oklahoma Christian my freshman year I took Spanish. My sophomore year I began studying Brazilian Portuguese. It was my senior year that my love-hate relationship with the French language began.

Ever since I was a young child, I wanted to speak French! My goal, for many years, was to be fluent in French because I wanted to work for the U.S. State Department or the U.N. I thought I was good at imitating a French accent until I began studying French in college. It seemed as when I got in front of my professor, my accent suddenly went missing and I would begin to speak French with a Latin American accent. My French professor even told me one day, “Vous parlez le français comme un Vénézuélien.” I was a little insulted by the thought that I spoke French like a Venezuela, but I decided to take it as a compliment. Since then, I have bought a number of French CD’s and text books in order to keep learning. I even watch TV Monde, French television every now and then.

I really needed to speak French this last Saturday. Luis Gómez invited the young people from church to go to the Plaza Altamira, also known as the French Plaza to tell people about Jesus. I’ll have to admit I am a little timid and I prefer other types of evangelism, but they we were! I told my partner that we should buy some ice cream from a vendor and that we could talk to her for a while. I quickly realized that our new friend did not speak Spanish very well at all! She spoke French! Our friend Nicole was from Haiti.

She lived in a dangerous barrio in West Caracas and sells ice cream in one of Caracas’ favorite plazas. I used whatever French I could remember . . . I introduced myself, got her name, asked her about her family and where she lived . . . and that was about it! I could not remember any more French! I got so mad at myself!

Did you know that Caracas has a large Haitian community? There are more than 7,500 Haitians in Venezuela, principally in Caracas in the barrios La Vega and Antímano. A great majority of them come to Venezuela looking for better political and economic conditions. There is even a Christian bookstore that sells Bibles in French at a discount to the Haitian community.

What are we doing to help the Haitians in Caracas? How many members from the Lord’s church are praying for and helping these needy families? Who is telling them about God’s unfailing love? In missiology we talked about unreached people groups. For what I know, the Haitians in Caracas are an unreached group!

Who will go and preach to them?

Share the Story

Many missiologists (academics who study Christian missionary work) make a distinction between “reached” and “unreached people.” For example, a missiologist would say that the American people are a “reached people” because there is a general knowledge of the person of Jesus and wide access to the Gospel. The people of Caracas would also be considered a “reached people” because of the general cultural awareness of Jesus Christ and the number of “believers” in the city.

Nevertheless, I have a hard time seeing this distinction as something Jesus Himself or even the Apostle Paul would approve of. I believe it is fair to make a distinction between cultures that have a large Christian influence and others that have none whatsoever. However, I believe to call a people group “reached” as opposed to “unreached” in a way minimizes the real need for mission work within that group.

One of the greatest joys in mission work is sharing the Story. The Good News of Jesus Christ is the greatest story ever told. Despite Venezuela’s rich religious history, there are many who do not truly know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

Just this last week I had the opportunity to share the Story for the first time! It was not my first time telling the Story, but my friend here in Caracas had never heard the Story of Jesus! We began reading in the first chapter of Genesis about the creation, how God created the heavens and the earth and it was good. We talked about how we are created in God’s image. We also talked about the fall of man and the serious problem of sin. Then I shared with him about God’s great love, how He loves us so much that before the creation of the world, God made a plan to save us from our sins.

While we read these sacred texts together, my good friend kept saying, “wow! I didn’t know that!” I must admit, even I was a little bit surprised by his reaction to the Story! My friend grew up in a Catholic home and in a culture with many Christian values. But truthfully, his reaction is not very surprising! The truth is there are millions of caraqueños who do not know the Story!

Have you ever had the pleasure of sharing the Story for the first time? You do not need to go to a remote village in Africa or to the Ye’kuana people in the Venezuelan Amazon to share the Story for the first time! Look around you! Make a list of your friends who are not Christians! It is very likely that many of them do not know who Jesus truly is! Pray about it and make a serious effort to share with them the greatest Story ever told! Try it out! Remember, it’s one of the greatest joys of mission work!

I love to tell the story
Of unseen things above,
Of Jesus and His glory,
Of Jesus and His love;
I love to tell the Story
Because I know ‘tis true;
It satisfied my longings
As nothing else can do.

I love to tell the story:
‘Tis pleasant to repeat
What seems, each time I tell it,
More wonderfully sweet;
I love to tell the story,
For some have never heard
The message of salvation
From God’s own holy Word.

I love to tell the story,
For those who know it best
Seem hungering and thirsting
To hear it like the rest;
And when, in scenes of glory,
I sing the new, new song,
‘Twill be the old, old story
That I have loved so long.

I love to tell the Story!
‘Twill be my theme in glory
To tell the old, old story
Of Jesus and His love.

Catherine Hankey, 1866.