Jonathan Manafo

Our Sunday teaching series at CLC has progressed through out the summer. Mark and I have shared the teaching load. It’s been lots of fun. Recently Mark dealt with walking in light, truth and love.

This past Sunday I had a blast talking about, ‘what not to love’. We looked at 1 John 2:15-17.

“15 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. 17 The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.”

I had a dilema. How do I talk about this without coming across legalistic and or rigid? I’m so not that way and hope to always show more grace and love than rules and order. It took me a while to see that John is all about relationship with and love for God. His conern was that things got in the way of the early christian’s love for God…the love of the world (not the earth, or phisical world we see, but the ways of the world) and love for God can’t compete. It brought be back to Jesus words in Matthew’s gospel where he says that we can’t serve two masters…it’s God and that’s it. We all have different competition, but if we desire full life with God, He better be the only leader in our heart.

Not sure what’s in your way. You fill in the blank from Jesus words…”I can’t serve both God and ______”.

I’ll leave you with this. Christianity is not about do’s and don’ts. It really is about what Jesus has already done. But the reality of a changed life in Christ is that when Jesus effects who we are, there are certain things we do and certain things we don’t. That has more to do with character and heart than gray issues of faith, but somehow we have to figure out what the ways of the world are and move towards the ways of Christ.

Walk On!

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Just saw the new Superman movie.  I really liked the movie…great effects, good story line (although both superman and clark didn’t have many lines) and Kevin Spacy was a great Lex Luther.

The need expressed for a saviour to help society was cool to see.  One line from superman to Lois was, “I hear everything and everyone, and people are crying for a saviour”.

I have one knock at some evangelicals who are quick to say, ‘use this for evangelistic purposes’.  I realize the similarities to the Christian message, but in some ways it’s more gnostic and DaVinci code than  Orthodox.  Superman was born of his father and didn’t always exist (like Jesus did); he wasn’t born of a virgin; and (this may ruin it for you but…) he has a child with Lois Lane.  If you’re looking for Orthodox Christianity, it’s not their, however, if you’re looking to see how society is in desperate need of help from an out of world god figure, then this movie is great.

My faviourite line has got to be when the editor of the daily planet says, ‘people only want to read about 3 things, tragedy, sex and superman’.  This makes a lot of sense.  People are curious to know how bad things are, humans are always interested in sex and I truly believe that people are looking for some superperson to help them through the problems that the first items bring. 

Jesus is obviously the best choice for help.

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