The Hole

What do Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, and Kurt Cobain all have in common? Well, their fame is the most obvious. They were all revolutionary musicians in their time. Most of them had an addiction to one or more type of drugs. Some of you may even note how their names have been listed in order of their date of death, from earliest to most current. Some of you may even know how they all ironically died at the age of 27, forming part of what some refer to as the "27 Club" or "Dead at 27".

They experienced pretty much all of the success that the non-Christian world places the highest importance upon: fame, money, and material possessions. And despite the fact that they all had relationship problems and were mostly lonely and depressed - hence the drug abuse - countless musicians in their wake still aspire to their fame and lifestyles. It's as though they think fame and wealth will make them immune to what befell their idols.

But these non-Christian famous (and not-yet-famous) people have another thing in common that only a Christian in a close walk with God would notice, an all too common and tragic ailment: they all had a hole in their heart. They all achieved most of the worldly plateaus of success, but they were still missing that one thing that would have filled this hole and given them the peace, joy, and satisfaction - the ultimate aims of success - that were eluding them.

Their bank account wasn't able to fill it. Drugs filled it for a time, at the beginning, until they did what all drugs do, which is to drag their users to the brink of death and despair and sometimes into death itself. Not even Yoko Ono could fill the hole in John Lennon's heart, nor Courtney Love in Kurt Cobain's heart. Nor their lavish homes or lifestyles or possessions that so many common people covet.

Their hole was not something that physical or emotional things are designed to fill. Their hole was a spiritual one.

A man whose teachings have had an enormous influence on my Christian walk since it started, Charles Stanley, once remarked that we cannot find our fulfillment in physical things because we were designed as spiritual beings. His point is that we can only find our fulfillment in - have that hole in our hearts filled by - spiritual things.

Now his argument would not have made sense to me when I heard it if my experiences - and those of so many other people - weren't able to back it up. But when I heard this argument around ten years ago, I had just turned my back on a lifestyle that defied and rejected God and coincidentally had left me with no peace, joy, or satisfaction whatsoever. In my old life, I turned to everything that these famous people did to try to fill the hole in my heart and my life was as unfulfilling as theirs were.

My new life, however - which started by getting right with God through asking Jesus Christ to forgive me of my sins and to have Him live His life through me - had already given me peace, joy, and satisfaction that I had never experienced before nor realized that I could ever have through something so simple (and weird sounding!) as placing my life into the hands of this Jesus.

Even after reading this, some people still can't imagine how people with such fame, money, and material possessions could still possibly have unfulfilled lives. But check out the cover stories at your nearest magazine stand: Jen still seems so lost and empty without Brad. Heather has left Paul heartbroken and also ripped a gaping hole into his bank account. Then there's the ongoing saga with Britney and Justin and their dysfunctional kids. And on and on. When they realized that their fame, money, and material possessions didn't fill the hole, they turned to other people - imperfect, flawed, physical beings - to try to fill it. And then the mess that ensues ends up on magazine covers everywhere.

Jesus remarked that "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God" (Matthew 19:24) and "You can't be slaves to both God and money" (Luke 16:13). It's not that the rich and/or famous can't know God or enter His kingdom, it's just that their fame, money, and material possessions make it hard for them to believe they need God even when their self-made attitudes and attempts to find fulfillment end up in a miserable mess.

Knowing God is the only way for the famous person and the regular person to fill the hole that exists in their hearts. How have your attempts to fill this hole apart from God panned out? If they've ended up in a miserable mess, or even just left you unfulfilled, then continuing to reject God is holding you back from the peace, joy, and satisfaction that you're really searching for and that only God promises through Jesus Christ.

Too much church?

When a person reads or hears about the miraculous works and healings in the Bible, particularly in the Gospels and in the book of Acts, there's a misconception that such events are ancient history and that they have no place in this day or age. That God is somehow finished with using miracles to reveal His power in peoples' lives and win them over to belief in His Son, Jesus. Sadly, there are many Christians in the western world who would agree with this point.

But anyone in touch with events in the numerous parts of the world where being a Christian is illegal and/or violently opposed, particularly in Asia, realizes that God is working amazing miracles in these places in ways that make the Bible read as though one is flipping through a current newspaper. (By the way, the body of Christian believers living in these circumstances is said to be part of the "persecuted Church".)

For example, while thumbing through the most recent magazine put out by a Christian organization called Gospel For Asia (GFA), I read of people being freed from the bondage of demonic possession, healed from various illnesses and diseases, liberated from paralysis, and rescued from snake bites. And all of these miracles, according to this magazine, have resulted from GFA native missionaries praying for these people in the name of Jesus.

So why aren't such things happening en masse in the European and North American Church? (And by capital-c Church, I'm referring to the body of believers in Jesus Christ and not a building.) Why aren't we reading of genuine, miraculous healings in the Sunday morning services, Bible study groups, and other gatherings of Christians in the western world?

Before I go on, I wish to briefly address the perception of some in the western Church that healings do in fact regularly take place there. These are typically and pretty much exclusively believed to take place whenever a "healing crusade" or some event with "healing" in the title is held. In other words, where some self-proclaimed healer comes supposedly in the name of Jesus to some huge church, perhaps stadium, and with certain words and gestures causes the paralyzed to rise up out of their wheelchairs and the like.

If anything, these spectacles are a major reason why people mock the God of the Bible in western culture. Unbelievers, and fortunately most believers, have grown wary of these yahoos parading around as if they're God's gift to everyone and everything, accusing the handicapped, crippled, and diseased people in attendance to believe that if they don't get healed then they "don't have enough faith". So never mind the inability of the supposed healer; the true problem is the believer who lacks faith, in their eyes. Many have turned away from God and from the saving power of Jesus when they leave a healing crusade because they witnessed the staged healings (not realizing they weren't for real) and are devastated and angry at God because they themselves weren't healed. If you're a Christian and you believe that healings at these mass events are for real, then you should contact ministries like the Christian Research Institute (CRI) and start to learn about the shady characters behind these sorts of teachings who claim the name of Christ.

In the persecuted Church, none of the claimed healings occur because a time and place was arranged for them to occur. They happen as a missionary comes across a situation where a person is in crisis and then asks God for His intervention. As God chooses in each situation, He either heals or he does not heal. And if these events are rare, then why are there constant reports of such things being reported by the numerous ministries operating in these areas, and with witnesses - believing and non - to back most of them up?

So again - and finally - back to before: why aren't we reading of genuine, miraculous healings in the gatherings of Christians in the western world? Quite simply, I believe it all has to do with how we in the western Church think we need to relate to God.

In the Christian world, there is a wonderful and very accurate phrase that goes something like, 'Christianity is a relationship, not a religion'. In other words, the people with the deepest knowledge and reverence of and relationship with God across the globe are not those who regularly do all the things they think they need to do to please God. These are not the people who think that regular church attendance, regular taking of communion, regular giving of money, etc will draw them closer to God and vice-versa.

Rather, the people who know God best have included Him as a part of their everyday lives. They aren't trying to score 'brownie points'. They aren't putting on an image or a front of spirituality. They aren't doing nice things then making sure everybody else knows about them. They're regularly trusting in and communing with God by praying to Him and thinking about Him (meditating in its intended sense), reading and studying about Him in the Bible, and looking for ways to serve others and not just themselves.

Now what I've discovered to this point in my Christian walk is that the "religious" Christian makes church attendance and the like the focus of their faith. They're so consumed with ritual and putting God in a box that they miss out on what God really wants from them and for them: they miss the opportunities to give of themselves and serve others, plus to be open to new and fresh things that God wants them to learn and experience. They see God as ordered and structured instead of the dynamic, exciting, radical God He actually is. As a result, theirs is often the stale, boring, ritualistic faith so common in the western Church that turns off multitudes of people from realizing who God truly is and causes them to end up lost for eternity.

The "relationship" Christian, on the other hand, makes church a minor part of their overall faith. As I mentioned in another post, church to them is like the icing on the cake of their weekly walk with God and not the cake itself, as in the case of the religious Christian. Church is more a chance to catch up with other believers, and to encourage and practically serve those in attendance who have needs (like praying for them, inviting them over for lunch, helping them with yard work, cooking them a meal, etc). During the rest of the week, they are not the "Sunday Christian" like their religious counterparts. Instead, as mentioned before, their week is consumed with seeking then doing what God wants them to do, and this can only result from being in constant communion (i.e. communication, fellowship) with Him.

In parts of the world where Christians endure hardship much greater than us spoiled Christians in the West could ever imagine, a genuine, real, relational faith in God is much more common than the religious faith that dominates and corrupts the western Church. In these places, the "relationship" Christian seems to predominate, and they have given Jesus the freedom to work through their lives to produce all the miracles that the outside world has a hard time believing. Whenever I've heard of genuine healing occurring in our western culture, it is from relationship Christians praying for others on a one-on-one basis, as needs arise and without the hype of a formalized healing event.

I believe that if western Christians would only get away from the notion that church attendance and formal, pre-arranged church activity is the main way to know and commune with God, then our culture would see the dynamic power of Jesus in peoples' lives that non-believers are currently seeing through the persecuted Church. Instead, once again, all western culture sees for the most part in the western Church is stale, boring, religious ritual.

So am I proposing that us Christians in the western Church decide to stop attending the four-walled building we call "church" and forget about all the activities we do there? I am instead proposing that we not make Sunday mornings the central time of our faith, the overarching focal point or crux of our Christian walk. We need to pray, read our Bibles, get together with other believers, and serve the needs of Christians and non-believers throughout the week and not just during a formal, pre-arranged time and place.

As more Christians in our spiritually messed-up western culture realize these things and put them into practice, I believe that reports of genuine healing and other miracles from God - not the wiles of people - will no longer be stories from ancient history or things that only occur in other parts of the world.