KINGDOM INTERSECTION

  "The conscious water saw its Master and blushed."   Alexander Pope   A friend recently asked me about miracles. He asked if as a Christian, “do I find myself trying to logically dissect and/or comprehend miracles? “Well of course my answer was, “no…. I understand everything God does, and every facet of the supernatural workings of miracles…….” OK, enough frivolity :-). The truth is, while on this side of glorification, finding oneself intelligibly questioning the metaphysical realities of the Christian faith is commonplace, what’s more, it is even healthy. Why? It signals the active engaging of the head with the heart. This is not to say that those who find miracles less intellectually provoking and accept without question, are without thought; or equally that those with more questions are diminished or diminishing in wonder concerning God and the miraculous. Quite simply, it speaks to our individual uniqueness as Christians: some of us are questioners; some of us

A pastor I admired very much once said to me that he "felt naked if not in a suit" whilst behind the pulpit. He continued his soliloquy by adding "a suit to a pastor is the equivalent to the white coat of a doctor; it’s our uniform", he concluded. “Quite poetic” I thought, a bit much, but I could understand his position. I guess when you’re in the business of preaching the life giving gospel of Christ, a comparison to a physician is apropos. With that said, I have a confession to make; "I have a love of fashion." For many of you close to me this is no confession at all. I’m considered, by a very small number of you, to be quite fashionable, which I credit to, if nothing else, my mother (I have to say that) and my avid perusal of GQ Magazine. In addition to my GQ subscription I also watch things on fashion, not everything, for as you can imagine, there are more things that are of the “not beneficial” fold. But I did very much enjoy this documentary on the

  For all our days pass away under your wrath; we bring our years to an end like a sigh. 10 The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away. 11 Who considers the power of your anger, and your wrath according to the fear of you? 12 So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. 13 Return, O Lord ! How long? Have pity on your servants! 14 Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. 15 Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil. (Psalms 90:9-15)   Another year has come and gone, and we are all one year older; just thought I'd remind you. And now that the nostalgia from all the celebration, champagne, kisses, and well wishes to mark the end of another 12 months has dissipated; if you’re

"Philosophically, you can believe anything, so long as you do not claim it to be true. Morally, you can practice anything, so long as you do not claim that it is a "better" way. Religiously, you can hold to anything, so long as you do not bring Jesus Christ into it. If a spiritual idea is eastern, it is granted critical immunity; if western, it is criticized. Thus, a journalist can walk into a church and mock its carryings on, but he or she dare not do the same if the ceremony is from the eastern fold. Such is the mood at the end of the twentieth century. A mood can be a dangerous state of mind, because it can crush reason under the weight of feeling. But that is precisely what I believe postmodernism best represents-a mood." ( Ravi Zacharias: Jesus Among Other Gods) If you're Christian, living, working, raising children in this world, you should be all too familiar with this mode of thinking and the debilitating effect it has on one trying to live an open