Tag: hope

Some inescapable basics

Our desire for authentic answers shows that we are rational thinkers, curious to understand our world and ourselves (and others). We are endowed with a mind which in some undecipherable way works in and through our brain. Our brain is the most complicated thing known to mankind; we all have one, and its performance capacity is amazing. Where did it come from? How is the mind involved in the atomic movements within the brain? These questions are beyond human understanding; they are the very mystery of human life.

Atheistic scientific materialism would have us believe that all our personal thinking is nothing other than the complex movements of the brain – that ultimately, we do not have personal freedom to think and understand truth because we are simply part of the cosmic machine. But we find that explanation unacceptable; it reduces us to robots with no freedom of choice, no real love, and ultimately no meaning either. The philosophy of scientific materialism does not provide any serious authentic answers to our very real hunger for finding truth about ourselves. Such “answers” undermine any hope for truth about our human reality. That is why societies dominated by that philosophy are struggling with mental health issues, because without some acceptable answers our human existence is bound to suffer both individually and in our social sphere. Bereft of wise moral absolutes, without meaning or purpose to their human existence, people don’t know where they are going and have no uplifting hope for their future. 

This is why people are more seriously reconsidering the Christian framework in which our many existential questions do find answers that are both reasonable and fulfilling. There is authentic hope for answers in studying the Bible: if it is the inspired communication of our Creator God, it should provide the answers our hearts long for. Does it? Well, yes, it does! This is what Christians realise, and though Christian believers do not necessarily understand all the answers, their source-book, the Bible, furnishes light enough to lead them out of the darkness of uncertainty and insecurity, into a life – when one believes in Jesus as Lord and Savour – that is the most fulfilling life possible. Jesus said, “I have come that they might have life, and have it abundantly”. He declared “I am the way, the truth, and the life”; and again, “whoever believes in me has eternal life” (John 10.10, 14.6, 3.36). He was so perfect in life that when he was killed, he came back to life. He, of all people who have ever lived, is totally worth following, and untold millions throughout the world have found that he does indeed bring into our lives a spiritual dynamic that makes sense and provides deep joy.

As the scientific materialist worldview has no absolute source of wisdom for moral questions, the typical outcome is to adopt a hedonistic outlook, living for personal pleasure. This is just selfishness by another name, and though it seems promising at first, its promises turn out to be illusions of a happiness that is never fulfilled, always wanting more, and never at peace. It takes the wisdom of the Bible to teach us that true happiness, blessedness, and fulfilment come not by giving free rein to our lusts, but by denying our evil tendencies and committing to follow that which is good. And who defines the true good? Well, only God: he alone is perfectly good, and wants to lead us into the true, deep, and meaningful happiness that comes from the real good life, a life that the Bible calls blessed.

Clive Every-Clayton

0

God is not just a theory

Sometimes believers and apologists for the Christian faith give the impression that you can argue others into having faith. They compare the poor arguments of scientific atheism with their proposing the Christian faith and want to show that the Christian “theory” is more plausible than any other.

While there is truth in this, it may have the result of leading the unbeliever to conclude that Christianity is just another theory, which sooner or later will be shown to fall short of what is required. In other words, the whole discussion remains at the level of argument and speculation. But this is not the way Christianity truly functions, because it is not just a philosophical position, setting forth the theoretical existence of God as its basis. No – Christianity has as its unique basis in the historical life, teachings, death and resurrection of the extraordinary historical person, Jesus, the Christ, i.e. the Messiah, the incarnate Son of God.

The ministry of Jesus was totally unique in the history of the world. The work of “evangelism” that Christians are committed to do consists not of arguing for the truth of the Christian faith but of announcing the historic facts of Jesus’ life and ministry. There is profound truth in the expression: “Christianity is Christ”. The life and teaching of Jesus Christ is a phenomenon of world history which calls for assessment. Everyone should know that his life and ministry occurred – indeed, two thousand years ago exactly his feet were walking on our planet. 

When you examine other religions, you find that they may make reference to historic events, but their teachings are ultimately man-made propositions about God (or the gods) and what the divinity demands. They offer supposed rewards in the next life, particularly for those who obey their moral requirements. They claim that these commandments are specified by their gods, and that those who obey them will enter the equivalent of heaven. That positive final destination is held out to those who faithfully obey the laws laid down by that religion.

It appears there is a sensitivity in the human soul that responds to such hope-giving teaching; so everywhere there are devout people who do their best to follow the path set out, hoping that their recompense will be great beyond death. However, those who made those religious promises did so before they died, and were ultimately as ignorant of the after-life as all the rest of us. Their promises were unfounded.

Here, Jesus is in a class by himself, for after his death by crucifixion, he rose from the dead and continued to teach for another forty days before returning to heaven where he had come from. Jesus is also unique in his teaching that he had come from God in heaven in the first place. And on two occasions, the Gospels relate, God spoke out audibly from heaven affirming: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him” (Matthew 3.17, 17.5).

Clive Every-Clayton

0

What is this new Life in Christ?

The Bible says we are to welcome those who are not yet strong in the faith, and as a mature believer I would welcome you if you are starting out as a Jesus-follower. New believers require help in reorienting their lives, both to understand what it’s all about, and to discover the steps towards spiritual growth. 

A new believer, returning into her habitual milieu, was asked after a while, “What’s happened to you?” She didn’t need to say she had turned to Jesus, but it became evident to her friends by a certain joy and peace that now characterised her life. But how would she – or you – answer that question: what’s happened to you? 

Well, the first thing that I trust has happened to you is that You have heard the good news of Jesus.

Whether you heard it on the internet, in a local meeting, or read it in a book, you have come to understand that “Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1.15). This is the essence of the Good News (which is what the word “Gospel” means). It is good news because we are all to some extent sinners and therefore we all need to be “saved”.

When Jesus’ mother Mary was still a virgin, Jesus’ arrival by a miraculous birth was announced to Mary by an angel. Joseph, Mary’s fiancé, was stunned and confused by the news, until he too had an angelic visitation.  An angel appeared to him in a dream, explaining that it was God’s miraculous work that had made Mary pregnant: “she will give birth to a son,” said the angel of God, “and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1.20-21).

Jesus came, therefore, to save people from their sins. When you heard this message, you began to understand  that in God’s sight you were in the category of “sinner”. Probably this was quite a humbling experience – no-one likes to be called a sinner; but the Bible is clear: “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3.23). None of us is perfect as we should be; we all have a bad conscience and know we have done wrong. 

Not only that, but you were made to realise that you were in a serious predicament before a holy and just God. You needed his forgiveness. Then you heard the Good News, the essence of what the apostles preached: “Christ died for our sins… and was raised from the dead” (1 Corinthians 15:1-4). Though our sins deserved God’s just punishment, Jesus stood in for us and bore that penalty by dying “for our sins” on the cross. This is the message that Jesus wants diffused throughout the world: “preach the Good News to all creation”, he said, adding, “Whoever believes and is baptised will be saved” (Mark 16.15-16).

As you heard this message, you were encouraged to turn to the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. You opened your heart to him in prayer and faith, calling on him to save you. You put your trust in Jesus and he welcomed you as one of his followers, his “disciples”; this essentially means a learner, an apprentice in the art of good living. Your new life had begun, developing into a process of spiritual growth.

At Jesus’ school there is a lot to learn: spiritual growth, like physical growth, takes time; the important thing for you today is to say to yourself, the process has begun.

Clive Every-Clayton

0

Blog new orientation

Up until now on authentichopeforanswers.com I have sought to enlighten those in the darkness of secular materialistic thinking, to save them from their incipient hopelessness by pointing to the only True Source of valid, true, fulfilling answers – the One and only true living God, revealed in Jesus Christ. I thank those who have been following me and I hope you have found my writing helpful.

I have become aware of what seems to be a cultural movement away from empty atheistic answers; thinkers these days want something more serious and solid on which they can build their lives. I hope my posts add a small contribution to this fresh hunger for Truth to satisfy the heart as well as the mind. 

Glen Scrivener comments on this new openness to the Christian worldview, that people are more open to wanting to check out the Bible, find out more about Jesus, and some have started attending church. A friend locally has typified that movement from discontent with superficial answers to grasping the life-giving truth of the biblical Story, and it makes me think and hope that out there in the blog-reading world there may be others who, having found the Christian answer more satisfying, desire to become followers of Jesus.

I want for some time to come to reorient this blog therefore, so as to help such new believers who may or may not have much background knowledge of biblical things. Having turned to pray to Jesus for light and salvation, these believers have set out on a new path; but for many it is unknown territory. There is a lot to learn as a new believer, and it takes time to assimilate all the blessing we receive through faith in Christ and what exactly is the life that Jesus calls us to when we trust in him.

As I give thought to the forthcoming posts, I envisage maintaining the orientation of giving authentic answers, but no longer so much addressing those still in the mists of vain relativistic ideas and scientific materialism; rather I will seek to deal with the questions of those who set out on the new path of faith in Jesus. I will seek to answer the key question a new believer might ask: “What exactly is the new life in Christ?” I will share advice that helped me as a young believer, and some essential truths revealed in the Bible that will help the Jesus-follower to grow both in faith and in living as a child of God. 

To live in harmonious relationship with God, as I have often mentioned in previous blogs, is the real purpose of our existence. To find this is to enter into the fulfilling life that God envisaged for us in his love when he created us. While the mass of humankind drifts far away from such a relationship, those who hear Jesus’ call, “Follow me” and respond with repentance and trust in the Saviour, start out on a life where at last they begin to find and fulfil the meaning and purpose of our lives.

St Augustine said it well long ago in a prayer in his “Confessions”: “Lord, You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find rest in You”. Jesus invites everyone to come to him and learn of him, promising that rest of soul (Matthew 11.28-30). Through his saving work, and through faith in him, believers experience that rest of soul; they will enjoy it and develop it as they learn to walk with Jesus day by day.

Clive Every-Clayton

0

The implications of atheism

Atheism is a futile and failing faith, and the sooner society realises that, the better it will be for us all. Yes, atheism is a faith-system, a negative faith perhaps, but a belief which carries serious implications with it. It is failing, because it cannot bear the weight of expectation placed upon it to provide a meaningful and hopeful worldview. So it is futile to trust in such a baseless ideology.

In another blog post I brought out the implications of God being our Creator; now I want to think through some of the implications of atheism.

Atheism denies the Creator; what is left in his place? Chance and necessity. All that exists is the outcome of chance – from the Big Explosion onwards. Guided by no divine mind or wisdom, everything that exists is the result of the hazardous movement of matter and energy.

What then are we? Humans are merely the accumulation of accidental collocations of atoms, thrown up by pure chance. No intelligence guided the process of our evolution; no value can be put on our personal reality – rather we are either sophisticated beasts or impersonal machinery. Our human value is zero, despite our seemingly great capacities.

What is our purpose? Chance can create no purposes. Purposes are the fruit of an intelligent creative mind, such as God’s; but without such a Creator of humankind, there can be no purpose in our existence, no meaning to our lives. This is the deep cause of the rising existential crisis in societies where atheism’s bleak philosophy exerts a predominant influence. Here is the reason for the increasing mental health difficulties experienced by those without any wiser guidelines to show the way. They are psychologically lost.

What use is our intelligence? Can we think or reason our way forward? Impersonal matter – which must be what we are if there is no personal and infinite Creator – has no intellectual capacity at all. The brain merely reacts to impulses; it doesn’t think any more than computers do. But since we do think, the atheistic basis proves unsatisfactory. We can think our way out of atheism, to seek how the Creator has made himself known.

What about moral values? If there is no absolute divine holy and good Creator, there is no objective source for discerning right from wrong. We are simply left with the relativism where each decides for himself; and to prevent the moral chaos that would ensue, authoritarian governments impose what they think is good – the politically correct. And this is often far from the wisest guidance, leading to profound discontent and bitter argument.  

What about truth? The good old definition of truth was, “reality as seen by God”. Now if there’s no God, it becomes just what you or your opponent may “see” as true. So we enter the “post truth” era – the minefield of “your truth” and “my truth”; because there is no absolute truth if God cannot be the grounds for it. And “your truth” or “my truth” may well be merely falsehood or error in disguise.

What about freedom? In the atheist’s materialistic universe there can be no freedom, which is why some thinkers turn to determinism, saying that while we may think we are free, our actions are merely the result of hazardous impacts made on our impersonal brain cells. 

What about suicide? An atheist’s life, thus considered, seems not worth living. This means not that life really is meaningless, but that atheism is hopeless and unliveable. 

Our Creator God, conversely, gives meaning, value, truth, freedom, and purpose to our existence.

Clive Every-Clayton

0

A blessing out of hopelessness?

Post-modernity enshrouds us in a depressing cloud of despair: despair of finding any ultimate meaning, despair of knowing any absolute truth, despair of ever truly understanding who we are and what is the meaning and value of our human existence.

All this is profoundly disturbing, but in the midst of our confusion, hopelessness and despair, there is at least one glimmer of light, one saving grace that can enlighten our darkness.

The unexpected blessing is this: we may learn, first, that the quest for valid answers to our existential questions has totally and abysmally failed because our proud expectation was incorrect that we could find them by our own reasoning powers.  This is a humbling but salutary lesson – that man’s reason is unable to ground truth on anything ultimately valid. The efforts made down the centuries by thinkers starting out merely from their own unaided intellectual powers have now been shown to offer only relative answers, human opinions, futile and partial, not really absolute truths. The wise among us can see that Descartes set us off on the wrong track with his “I think, therefore I am”. This started us off thinking only out from ourselves – and it has led to the present end of hope for getting final truth. 

This solemn discovery can prove to be a blessing for the seeking soul.

How? Well, in the light of this discovery, we may learn, secondly, that we need light from a Source that is wiser than mere mortal man. If the human brain is the most complex thing in the universe, wouldn’t the Maker of such a brain be endowed with mind-boggling wisdom? He knows very well the limits of our human thinking to come up with absolute truth, so he has provided a better way by which we may get the answers we crave.

So as we despair of our own intellectual efforts, consider the potential blessing: trust in our reason has led us to realise the limits of our reason, so the next logical step that will renew our hope for authentic answers is to trust the infinitely wise Creator who shares his knowledge with us. He knew all along that we needed his input; right from the creation of the first couple he told them in words some vital things they needed to know.

We should be thankful to God for teaching us this humbling lesson: recognising that we are unable to find many key truths unaided, we are led to acknowledge our need of God’s revelation of truth. And the first element of his truth is that he exists: it is another human folly to imagine we can do without listening to him or by dismissing him completely. It is “the fool” who “says in his heart, ‘There is no God’” (Psalm 14.1). The “beginning of wisdom”, according to God’s word, is to “fear the Lord” (Psalm 111.10) – which means taking on board the fact that he is there, that he is wise, and good and loving, well capable of teaching us the way of true human fulfilment as we yield to him his rightful place as the Lord of our lives.

Turn then from vain human thinking and study the words of God! That is the ultimate blessing from which we humans can benefit, once we abandon our proud attitude of expecting to find the answers by ourselves without his revelation.

Intellectual pride will actually blind you to God’s truth: be humble, be teachable as you turn to study the Bible!

Clive Every-Clayton

0

Hope of heaven

The deep reason why we all apprehend death is that we fear some kind of judgment in the next life. People of various religious or philosophical persuasions do all sorts of difficult things to try and free themselves from that fear. Both the anxiety and the religious or mental effort we expend on this issue testify to two essential truths.

First, we understand in our conscience that evil ought to be punished. This intuition comes – whether we realise it or not – from the fact that we humans were originally made in the likeness of a good and holy God. He endowed us with an understanding of good and its opposite, making us conscious that we are responsible to him for our behaviour.

The second essential fact that this fear communicates is the realisation that we have done reprehensible things. Our conscience is not clean; this should instruct us that we need forgiveness, and only God can forgive.

God did not create us with the total freedom to potentially commit all kinds of misdeeds without ever facing any kind of divine assessment with some corresponding sanction. This is built in to who we are: we are God’s creation, answerable to him for our lives. We are not chance by-products of a haphazard impersonal explosion of material substances; that kind of philosophy leads logically to moral chaos and is unliveable. Fortunately, God himself has told us, by sending his Son, Jesus, that “the Creator, at the beginning, made man and woman” (Matthew 19.4). The same Jesus informed us also that there would be a day of reckoning.

Now it is of the utmost importance to be ready for that Day of Judgment, because it determines our destiny for ever and ever. It will either be bliss or horror. There is no half-way house. The invention of “purgatory” was an erroneous idea of some early Christian thinkers, but it has no basis in the sacred Scriptures. On the contrary, Jesus taught that at the last Day, when all will be gathered for the final judgment, there will be only two camps – the saved who are “blessed” to enter into God’s glorious kingdom, and the lost who Jesus said “go away into eternal punishment”, describing it as “the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matthew 25.46, 41). 

Those who receive the Lord Jesus Christ as their Saviour, in a decision of repentance and faith-commitment to follow him, may legitimately nourish the hope of “eternal life” because Jesus made that formal promise in the Gospels. Listen to his words and pause to take them in: “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life” (John 5.24). Did you get that? No judgment – that is, no punishment, no hell. Passed from death to eternal life. Wow! That’s worth having! How? By faith in Jesus and in the Father who sent him to be our Saviour.

Jesus says again, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3.16). That’s how to be sure of not perishing in eternal punishment – by entrusting yourself to Christ as Lord and Saviour, to believe in him, to follow him, and obey his teaching. Jesus added, that “whoever believes in him is not condemned” – there is that assurance again – no hell. Instead, “the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6.23).

Clive Every-Clayton

0

Is there any hope?

Hope is the confidence that a positive outcome will occur. The reason many are hopeless today is that they see no reason to expect a good outcome in the world in which we live. I’m not going to list all the horrors that we may fear – I think we know them all too well. The question is rather, how can we have any hope that things in the future will be better than the present?

The difficulty is that human nature does not essentially change. We will always be that mixture of good and evil. If good people prevail in government, peace and prosperity might come; if evil people rule, we may suffer the opposite. And when you study history, you may well conclude that there is little hope that life will be peaceful and things will go better.

Some trust in the advances of science, and we must be thankful for every progress in the field of medicine, in particular, that will improve our well-being. But still we will all face death. Others look to Artificial intelligence (AI) with great expectations, while many fear what such “intelligence” may do. It all depends on who wields and guides that AI – for good or for evil. And as the very notions of good and evil are disputed and twisted, the future still looks bleak.  

These blog posts deal with “authentic hope”: how can hope be authentic? When we wonder who can tell what the future holds, the answer is – only one person: God. He is not bound by time, as we are: he is eternal. He sees the end already. He knows where everything is headed, and indeed, he has the almighty power necessary to ensure that his ultimate good purposes will be fulfilled. As he is Lord over all creation, he alone can give us authentic hope for the future (as well as true hope for answers to our existential questions). He, and he alone, knows the future. In fact he holds the future in his hands. 

The Bible speaks a lot about hope. There’s a text in the Bible that speaks of people “without hope and without God in the world” (Ephesians 2.12). If God alone can hold out hope for our future, then those without God are without any solidly grounded hope.

Not many people realise that God has unveiled the future of our human existence. The greatest element in the biblical hope is that the world will end with the return of the Lord Jesus Christ in power and glory. “He will come to judge the living and the dead”: that phrase of the Christian creed sums up what lies ultimately ahead of us all. No evil-doer can escape the final judgment of God. If there was no ultimate reckoning, then all justice is meaningless. But God has inscribed the presentiment of just judgment in the conscience of every human being. This serves to prevent many horrible crimes and atrocities, but those who bypass the restraints of conscience should realise that they will nevertheless face ultimate judgment.

Now this, of course, for all of us, is not exactly joyous hope! We would not like a God of absolute holiness to examine the details of our lives and administer justice according to our misdeeds. While that is not “good news”, there is wonderful good news in the message of the Gospel of Christ. Through faith in our Lord and Saviour, we may be absolutely delivered from the condemnation due to us on that judgment day. This good news gives real hope, as I will share further. 

Clive Every-Clayton

0

Cancer and death: why?

Last week, August 4th, 2023, I went for a check-up in the hospital where, seven months ago my much loved wife died. For the second time in my life, a surgeon who examined me told me I had cancer. I had come through the first with radiotherapy, chemotherapy and an operation, some 14 years ago. Now the verdict has fallen again.

What does a Christian do in times like these? Having thanked God through my tears for giving me such a wonderful wife and the mother of our children, though the grief was uniquely overpowering at times, as I now face another ordeal, I remain thankful that whatever this cancer may involve for me, the God who loves me will be beside me day by day as my ever-present helper.

What a blessing to be a believer in Jesus in times like these, when suffering pain, experiencing loss and facing the shadow of death! What wondrous peace to know, on the basis of Jesus’ words which I fully believe to be trustworthy, that there is an eternal life of glory awaiting me where I shall see both my beloved Saviour and my dear wife!

I do not know what treatment, what pain, what distresses may lie before me, but I know that the God who loves me has promised never to leave me nor forsake me. I wish for all my readers the same confidence whatever you may be going through. God’s truth, his love and his wisdom may be fully trusted. This is the way to know peace in the midst of whatever trial you may have to undergo.

In God’s heaven, he promises, “there will be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain” (Revelation 21.4). The most important of our existential questions is – how can we be prepared for death and the life beyond? For many years I have known the answer and sought to share it with others: as I face the probable reality, the answer holds true. 

Why, then, does God allow such suffering? The full answer is long, but here are some elements. God uses our trials as a way of getting through to us, reminding us of our weakness and our need of him, encouraging us to turn to him with a better attitude, to find comfort and help in him. Sadly, many don’t have the right attitude. Each of us should reflect on how we should react. To rebel is unhelpful; to trust is better.

As for me, God is granting me an opportunity to show him that I will faithfully love him and follow Jesus whatever suffering may be involved. A trial tests the reality of one’s faith. It is a way through which I can prove my commitment to him whatever the cost. The biblical principle can be found in Deuteronomy 8.2: “You shall remember the whole way the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you, to know what is in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not”. 

As I look back, I see how God has helped me; as I look forward, I trust he will help me still.

Clive Every-Clayton

0

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑