Mar 04 2016
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By Sodwana Bay

Kay Warren. Kay Warren, best-selling author and Bible teacher who co-founded Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, with her husband, Rick, said this week that there is nothing in the Bible supporting the notion that Christians who take their own life will be condemned to Hell. And she wants the family and friends of suicide victims to know that. On April 5, 2013, Warren’s son, Matthew, fatally shot himself at the age of 27, after a long and private struggle with mental illness that was only made public after his death. Despite longstanding views in many Christian circles that suicide consigns its victims to Hell, Warren believes Matthew is now at peace in Heaven. “God’s promised us that Matthew’s salvation was safe and secure. Matthew gave his life to Jesus when he was a little boy. And so, I’m absolutely 100 percent confident based on the work of Jesus that Matthew is in Heaven,” Warren explained in an interview with The Christian Post. “And that’s a certain hope.” She said her hope for her son is more certain now than at any time when he was alive on Earth because she was never certain about anything as Matthew struggled with his illness. “I had a very fragile hope when Matthew was alive. I wanted things that I couldn’t control. I wanted him to be well. I wanted him to be healed. I wanted him to live a normal life like his brother and his sister, and like most people that I see. Like we do. “I wanted so much for Matthew and almost every bit of it was outside my control. And so my hope was fragile. I couldn’t guarantee it. And since Matthew has passed away I’ve had to rebuild hope into something that is more durable and I’m coming to appreciate that certain hope that Rick talks about. He preached on it just this past weekend. “I have a certain hope that God will make all things right and He will rebuild the ruins of our lives. I’m absolutely certain that I will join Matthew in Heaven because Jesus is alive. I’m gonna live. Those are things that are absolutely certain. I don’t have any doubt over them. And so my hope is stronger than it ever has been,” she said. image: http://images.christianpost.com/full/59599/matthew-warren.jpg?w=262 Matthew Warren, son of pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif. Warren, who said she still thinks about her son every day despite more than two- and-a-half years since his passing, noted that while the Church has historically shamed and disowned suicide victims using the Bible, she sees nothing in Scripture to support that culture. “The Church has historically for thousands of years been conflicted about suicide — all the way from publicly shaming the people who did take their own lives, doing terrible things to their bodies in the public square, not allowing them to be buried in the cemetery of the church, being ex-communicated from the fellowship of the church, ostracized, stigmatized, rejected, I mean terrible, terrible things have been done to people who have taken their lives. “And yet, when I look at Scripture, I just can’t see any valid reason for that,” she emphasized. “I see in John 10 where Jesus talks about His sheep and His sheep know His voice and He knows their voice and nothing can pluck His sheep out of His hand. To me, Jesus answers that resoundingly: ‘When you are a believer in me, when your faith is in me as your Savior you can’t even take yourself out of my hands,’” she noted. While acknowledging that suicide is a sin that interrupts God’s divine plan for a life, she said she wanted to assure families like hers, which have suffered the loss of a loved one to suicide, that it’s not an unforgivable sin. “I am completely confident Matthew’s salvation was sure. Is suicide a sin? Yes, suicide is a sin because it short-circuits the plan and the will that God has for us. But Jesus died for all of my sins including that one when He died on the cross,” she said. “Is it unforgivable? No, not from what I can understand. I think about Romans 8 where Paul says there is nothing, life nor death, nor angels, nor principalities, nor demons, nor things above. Nothing can separate us from the love of God through Christ Jesus our Lord. So I have complete confidence in those who have trusted Jesus for their salvation. That’s how they should remain strong and sure and steady,” said Warren. “It doesn’t matter whether I take my own life or whether I die of cancer, or whether I get hit by a car. If my salvation is in Jesus then it’s safe. So I’m really confident and I love to be able to reassure grieving family members who write to me who are very confused or anxious about where their loved one is,” she continued. “I don’t have any doubt at all from those Scriptures that Matthew is in the presence of Jesus and he is running, he is jumping. He is living with the delight that he never was able to on Earth because of the weight of depression that just took him to his knees. And I can’t wait for that day when I meet Jesus and Matthew and I are reunited. I feel so hopeful, with that certain hope that he’s gonna run to meet me whole and healthy and in his right mind,” she added. And just in case anyone feels she just never prayed hard enough or exercised enough faith for her son’s healing, Warren said she is satisfied with the faith journey she traveled with Matthew as he struggled with mental illness. “I don’t think there is anything wrong or lacking in my faith. I know that I prayed with the most audacious faith that God would heal Matthew. I had Scriptures and verses. I had verses that other…

Mar 04 2016
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Rick Warren recalls son’s suicide: ‘He cannot come back to me, but one day I will go to him’

By Sodwana Bay

Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church recalled the painful ordeal of his son’s suicide during the NRB Convention ”Proclaim 16” that was held in Nashville, Tennessee from Feb. 23 to 26, 2016. Warren said even though the early years of his marriage with wife Kay was extremely difficult, nothing could have prepared them for the day when their 27-year-old son decided to take his own life after a lengthy battle with depression and mental illness. Kay and Rick Warren of Saddleback Church. “He came to me one day with tears in his eyes and said, ‘Dad it’s pretty clear the Lord isn’t going to heal me.’ Every day, his brain said, ‘Die,’” Warren said, according to the Gospel Herald. “Your illness is not your identity, and your chemistry is not your character.” It was because of God and the Warren family’s strong support system that they were able to heal after Matthew’s suicide. Warren shared that they received countless letters of support, but the ones that truly touched their hearts were not from “kings and ambassadors and presidents,” but from those whom Matthew led to Jesus Christ. Warren wrote in his journal back then, “In God’s garden of grace, every broken tree bears fruit.” He added that “pain can obscure God’s promises, but it can’t nullify them.” Now, Warren finds comfort in the promise God gave to David when his infant son died. “I can’t bring him back to life,” Warren said of David’s words in 2 Samuel 12:23. “He cannot come back to me, but one day I will go to him.” If his son’s death proved anything, said Warren, it’s the fact that the “greatest ministry comes not out of your strength but your weakness.” “We minister to people out of our weaknesses, not our strengths,” he explained. “Base your ministry not on your talent; base your ministry not on your abilities, not on your cleverness, not on your giftedness. Base your ministry on the promises of God.”

Mar 03 2016
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6 Bible verses on spiritual renewal for Christians

By Sodwana Bay

As we enter a new month, our minds tend to turn to fresh starts. This focus on renewal and new life is especially common in the lead up to spring. By now, our New Year’s resolutions may have all finally fallen by the wayside but the start of a new month can provide us with the impetus we need to try again, make a fresh start and feel renewed. But we don’t have to wait for a new year, new month or even a new day to affect change, experience change in our lives and leave our old ways and bad habits behind. One of the benefits of accepting Jesus as our saviour is the promise of spiritual renewal. Making changes to our lifestyles can be difficult and this is why we put them off for as long as we can, and use the coming of a new calendar period to spur us on. But to truly change we have to be different, we can’t rely on a new calendar period to secure change in our lives. Instead of focusing on how we can improve ourselves if we commit to Jesus we will find that he improves and renews us. Below are some of the verses that touch on what being renewed means for Christians. Psalm 51:10 – Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Romans 12:2 – Do not conform to the parer of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will. 2 Corinthians 5:17 – Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here! Ephesians 4:22-24 – You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Colossians 3:9-10 – Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge the image of its Creator. Titus 3:5-6 – He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Sprit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Saviour.

Mar 03 2016
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Three questions to ask when God seems silent

By Sodwana Bay

Moses heard God’s voice through a burning bush. Elijah heard it as a whisper. The prophet Samuel heard an audible voice, and the disciples heard it as thunder. God is a communicating God and uses a variety of ways to speak to us. But while we may celebrate in times of answered prayer, sooner or later we must face an opposite truth: sometimes God is silent too. For ten years my wife and I tried to start a family. During that time we sought God diligently through prayer. But the dreamt-of child never came. While God has turned that around for good, what was most perplexing was God’s silence on the matter. We heard him speak on other things during that time, but never about our pursuit of a family. Even having God say No to us would’ve been a mercy in the end, saving us much heartache. But all we got was silence. I don’t know why God speaks clearly sometimes and not others. But I have since learnt to ask three questions when he seems silent to us. 1. Am I shouting too loud to hear him? CS Lewis’s raw, vulnerable words in A Grief Observed speak for many on the topic of God’s silence. Writing shortly after losing his wife Joy he said: ‘Meanwhile, where is God? …go to him when your need is desperate, when all other help is in vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence.’ Lewis expresses the frustration of those who seek God but hear nothing. But Lewis’ mood changed as he journeyed through the grief process. Describing his experience as like a drowning man who couldn’t be helped because of his frantic clutching and grabbing, he finally reflected: ‘Perhaps your own reiterated cries deafen you to the voice you hoped to hear.’ Just as the world’s clamour can drown out the voice of God, so can the noise of the heart – the sadness, confusion, angst, anger, and the frantic ‘Answer me!’ shouts of our prayers. As Lewis discovered, sometimes these emotions must be allowed to ebb before we can hear God again. He’s ready to speak, we’re just not ready to listen. 2. Do I want God or only his gifts? Christian scripture is beautifully authentic; it covers both the joys and the frustrations of walking with God, and the problem of divine silence isn’t airbrushed out. We’re told Israel experienced it (1 Samuel 3:1), as did biblical greats like Job and Asaph (Job 23:1-9; Psalm 77:1-9). ‘Do not turn a deaf ear to me,’ David prayed during his own experience of God’s silence (Psalm 28:1). ‘Why do you hide when I am in trouble?’ (Psalm 10:1). When we know that the heroes of the faith wrestle too, we can take some comfort. We can also follow their example. While these saints express in unvarnished terms their dismay at God’s silence, they don’t walk away. They may have tears in their eyes, but they keep looking heavenward. They may rant and rave, but they stay in the room. God’s silence has a way of testing whether we want him or just his gifts. If he doesn’t come through with the guidance, healing, or breakthrough we seek, will we still follow him? A friend of mine is going through one of the worst seasons imaginable. The suicide of one family member was followed by the death of another, then a third member getting critically ill. ‘I’m not hearing from God at all right now,’ he told me, ‘and neither do I feel God’s presence. At the moment I’m living by what I believe to be true of God, not my feelings about him. And despite everything, I still believe he’s good.’ My friend is staying in the room. He wants God, not just God’s gifts. 3. Have I really heard what he’s already said? Jesus was silent once, in a way that baffled everyone. It happened as he was teaching in the Temple one day. Having enthralled the crowd with his words, he had suddenly stopped, stooped down, and begun scribbling on the ground. ‘The law of Moses says to stone her,’ angry voices around him shouted. ‘What do you say?’ (John 8:5). But Jesus had stayed as silent as the shamed and shivering woman standing half-naked before them all. When Jesus finally broke his silence it was brief. ‘All right,’ he’d said, ‘but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!’ (8:7). Then he’d looked back to the ground, wordless once more. Silence, a few words, then silence again. One by one, people drifted away, those few words of Jesus ringing loudly in their ears. What is God doing during his periods of silence? Preparing the answer to our prayers? Maybe. Testing the depth of our devotion? Probably. But Jesus’ encounter with the woman caught in adultery shows us something else about God’s silence: Jesus may not have spoken, but he was there. God’s silence doesn’t mean his absence. And his lengthy pauses were meant to ensure his audience really heard what he’d already said. When God is quiet to us we can ask: what did God last say that I need to remember or act on? God doesn’t stay silent forever. He ultimately spoke to Israel and to Job. The morning finally dawned for Asaph and David. My wife and I may never know why God remained silent to our request for a child, but he’s spoken to us since. And amid all the remaining questions I believe this: Sometimes God is speaking and we just can’t hear him. And sometimes he stays silent so we’ll act on what he’s already said. And every moment of silence asks us if he’s really worth following, even if we don’t get what we ask for. I have so much to learn but still believe the answer to that is Yes.

Mar 03 2016
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The War Room

By Sodwana Bay

    Have you seen this amazing movie. A story that will change the way you look at your relationship forever. A must see. If you have a straining relationship with your partner this is the movie for you. An amazing story to teach you how to let God fight your battles for you. A must see.

Mar 03 2016
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Noah’s Ark: After the storm, why did God use a rainbow as a sign?

By Sodwana Bay

A rainbow is seen after an air strike by forces loyal to Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad on the main field hospital in the town of Douma, eastern Ghouta in Damascus October 29, 2015. The story of Noah’s Ark is one of the best-known in the Old Testament. We teach it to children in Sunday School and they love the idea of the animals going two by two into the ark. We don’t major on what happens to the rest of the world when we teach the story to children, which is fair enough (though we ought to face up to it when we preach it to adults). One part of the story that adults and children alike respond to, though, is the story of the rainbow. In Genesis 9:12-17, after the floods have gone down, God says he will make a covenant with human beings and that the rainbow will be a sign of it: “I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between man and the earth… Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life.” But why should it be a rainbow? One reason is that there’s a sort of poetic appropriateness about it. Rainbows appear after storms as the light from the sun hits the water droplets in the air and breaks into the different colours we don’t normally see. A light rain may still be falling, but generally speaking you know when you see the rainbow that, no matter how fierce the storm may have been, it’s over. You don’t have to worry about rain never stopping. But the other reason is this. The Hebrew word isn’t “rainbow”, it’s just “bow”, as in “bow and arrow”. It is a war bow, a deadly weapon. There has been terrible destruction on the earth, and God has done it. He has rained down floods that have exterminated every living thing apart from what’s in the ark. We are to imagine him taking aim at the world from heaven. And the point about the bow that he “sets in the clouds” is that it’s pointing the wrong way. It cannot be used as a weapon to threaten the world any more. The sign is an enduring mark of God’s loving care for the world he has made. In the context of the story, it means that he will not sweep the pieces from the board when the game isn’t going his way; human beings will disappoint and betray him endlessly, but he will work with them patiently and lovingly to bring the world to good. But the rainbow has a personal meaning for us as well. George Matheson was a famous Scottish scholar and hymn writer. He had a hard life in many ways. It’s probably not true, as is sometimes said, that his fiancée broke off their engagement because of his blindness (he was almost completely blind by the time he was 20), but he had trials enough. One of his hymns, O love that wilt not let me go, contains the verse: O Joy that seekest me through pain, I cannot close my heart to thee; I trace the rainbow through the rain And feel the promise is not vain That morn shall tearless be. God’s war bow is turned away from all of us. No matter how low we may feel and whatever sins we may be guilty of, he will not cast us aside. He will always work for our good; we always have a future.