How shall we survive the shaking?

September 11th ended an half century of apparent immunity from widespread disaster in the a centre of Western power. However, our foundations had been shaking for years. The ethical consensus based on Christian memory had been eroding for years. Have we abandoned the values on which two world wars were fought? The demise of colonialism and the politics of counter-racism was progress, but the price we paid for economic and technological progress was great indeed.

It was not that technology was bad in itself. We just took our focus off the essentials, and “good” things became idols. Absolutes were replaced by relativism. We cannot speak or live the the truth in love if we doubt the very existence of truth, or don’t know its contents. And what meaning has love, if we cannot have any firm meanings for the word? The idea that all religions are equal is popular in our multi-cultural and “politically correct” society, but it can only be held by people who do not believe in absolute truth. In the Bible all people have “religion”. Their religion is either true or false. Either we trust God (in Christ), or we have faith in idols. God is in charge, and to get our attention he is doing a shaking in the world. The forces of evil are also at work, but God hijacks the evil that Satan and malevolent people do, in order to produce a good unshakeable result.

To survive we need to reassess our allegiance. Do we want the Father to hallow (honour) his name? We need to turn around and surrender our lives back to him. If we do not, then we shall be separated for ever in “outer darkness”, and this is no joke!

We need to let God alter our life-style commitments. The eternally- lasting Christian life commences with a decision to trust Christ with our lives and to turn around from self-centred goodness. When this happens God the Holy Spirit bathes us in the very love of God that led Jesus Christ the Innocent to die in the place of us the guilty.We begin to love him because he first loved us. Will we not want to go into a life-long process of letting all our relationships and activities take on the colour of God’s word?

Let God transform our inner thoughts, our words and our actions! Decide to read the Bible regularly and ask the Holy Spirit to keep changing our minds and hearts to agree with God and live for him? (See John 3: 1-36; John 14 and 15; Romans 8:26-39; Romans 12: 1- 2)

Lindsay Johnstone

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