The orientation to live a Christ -centred life

Our vision at Christian Life Camps Bay is to be a church of healing, inclusion and growth, summed up as ‘Be Changed, Be Nice, Be Used’.

Here are some of the main areas of healing, inclusion and growth that we believe God has called us into as a local church. 

Firstly, there's our Vision of Healing (summed up as 'Be Changed')

We are thinking primarily, about how our orientation gets changed and healed-up so that we become people who live to glorify and enjoy Christ forever.

The greatest and most magnificent change of all is to be transformed from living a self-centred to a Christ centred life. This is a healed-up life made whole in Christ. This is a life lived to glorify and enjoy Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour forever.

In Philippians 1:20-23, the Apostle Paul, in prison, wrote about how he lived this way, saying; ‘It is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honoured in my body, whether by life or by death. 21 For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. 22 If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labour for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. 23 I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.’ (ESV)

In verse 20 the word 'honoured' translates the Greek word, 'μεγαλύνω  (megalynō), which means to make, or declare great, or to magnify. This life that is orientated around honouring Christ is like being a magnifying glass, and no matter what happens to us, people looking at us will see big and magnificent Jesus is!

On another occasion, during a terrible, life-threatening storm on a ship in the Mediterranean, Paul spoke about ‘the God to whom I belong and whom I worship’ (Acts 27:23). That is how we want to live, as those who belong to, and worship, God.

That's what is means to 'be changed'.

In the next blog, I will share how this life orientation happens through experiencing salvation

What to do when things fall apart?

With many feeling fearful and considering emigration to a ‘safer place’, “what can the righteous do?” (Psalm 11:3). 

In a wicked world, in which the foundations are shaken, and lies and oppression are rife, the believer has four assurances in God (from Psalm 11 & 12): 

1- The Lord is our Refuge 

Psalms 11:1 (ESV) ‘In the Lord I take refuge; how can you say to my soul, “Flee like a bird to your mountain.’

Rather than always trying to run to a safer place, I choose to find my security in God. This world is a dangerous place. In a way, there is no totally safe place in this world which is under judgment. It’s ‘as if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him, or went into the house and leaned his hand against the wall, and a serpent bit him’ (Amos 5:19).

2- The Lord Reigns 

Psalms 11:4 (ESV) ‘The Lord is in his holy temple; the Lord's throne is in heaven;

his eyes see, his eyelids test the children of man.’

The Lord is King and in Jesus and the Holy Spirit, God has already, decisively asserted his kingly authority to get his will done on earth as it is in heaven (Matthew 12:22-29).

But God’s kingly authority has not yet fully conquered the world. There are still enemies of God’s will all over the place (1 Corinthians 15:25-26).

Pessimism sees only the ‘not yet’ of the kingdom. Triumphalism imagines that the kingdom has already full won (1 Corinthians 4:8-13). Realism believes in the already and the not yet of God’s invading reign.

3- The Lord is Righteous 

Psalms 11:7 (ESV) For the Lord is righteous; he loves righteous deeds; the upright shall behold his face.

In a wicked, evil world, we take heart that God is good.‘The Lord is righteous; he loves righteous deeds.’ The day will come when all wickedness and evil will have lost and God and his righteousness will have won! (Psalms 11:5-7).

4-  The Lord’s word is Refined and perfectly reliable 

Psalms 12:6 (ESV) The words of the Lord are pure words, like silver refined in a furnace on the ground, purified seven times.

A big part of the problem in this fallen world, is who do we believe? It seems that ‘everyone utters lies’ (Psalms 12:2) and ‘vileness is exalted among the children of men’ (Psalms 12:8).

Thank God that he a God of truth (Psalms 31:5) who does not lie (Numbers 23:19). God’s word is the truth (John 17:17). In a world of deception, deceit and falsehood we can rely on the refined, pure, perfectly reliable word of our God (Psalms 19:7).

How to Pray? Adoration

Getting back to the Lord’s Prayer, we find that the second aspect of prayer is adoration, as we say ‘hallowed by your name’. This aspect of prayer has to do with God’s Name, which must be treated at Holy.

God’s ‘name’ is everything God is and does (1 Samuel 25:25). Psalms 150:2 says; ‘Praise him for his mighty deeds; praise him according to his excellent greatness!’ (ESV). That sums up God's name - All he does (his mighty deeds), and all he is (his excellent greatness). 

And all this can be encapsulated in one word, ‘HOLY’! God is holy. In heaven the angels perpetually worship him as ‘holy, holy, holy’ (Isaiah 6:3; Revelation 4:8). Both Hebrew and Greek words translated ‘holy’ can mean ‘sacred’. Repeating holy three times, indicates a perfection of holiness. 

Holy means set apart. God is holy because there is none like him. He is the only One who is God. Nehemiah 9:5-6 says; ‘Blessed be your glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise. 6 “You are the Lord, you alone’.

God is unique. There is only One God. In Mark 12:29 we read of how Jesus affirmed the teaching of Deuteronomy 6:4 about the oneness of God, saying; 'Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.’ (ESV)

However, in Mark 12:36-37, Jesus also affirms the plurality of Persons within the Godhead. In this passage, Jesus spoke of how ‘David himself, in the Holy Spirit, declared, "'The Lord (κύριος) said to my Lord (κύρiw)’. Then Jesus asked, ‘David himself calls him Lord. So how is he his son?’ (ESV)

Mark 12:36-37 uses the same Greek titles for the ‘Lord’ Father and for the ‘Lord’ Jesus. ‘Son’, in this passage, obviously does not mean that Jesus is inferior to the Father. It defines his function, not his nature.

Then in 2 Cor. 3:17, we are told that ‘the Lord (κύριος) is the Spirit’. So, within the One Essential Being of the Lord God there are Three distinct ‘Lords’ or Persons; the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19).

To clarify what the Trinity is, it’s helpful to remember what it’s not:

• It is not Thi-Theism – Not three Separate Gods.

• It is not Modalism - God appearing in different forms at different times.

• It is not Arianism – An ancient heresy that taught that Jesus and the Spirit are less God than the Father.

In the next Blog, I will think about how the holiness, uniqueness, or oneness of God calls for our undivided loyalty.