HIV/AIDS

HIV/AIDS is one of the greatest problems being faced in this century. When it was apparent that it could reach epidemic proportions in the UK we had a massive TV programme to educate the population. At this time it was thought of as a disease created by promiscuous homosexuals through their activities. We even had a Chief Constable publicising his personal attitude towards sufferers. He knew very little about how the virus could be caught and jumped on the bandwagon of those who believed it was a curse for bad behaviour by homosexuals. He very soon showed himself to be a religious bigot and lost much credibility as a result.

A great champion of those unlucky enough to be sufferers was the late Princess Diana. She showed the bigots that no one could catch the virus by simple human contact. She was seen on TV shaking hands with AIDS sufferers. One day, I had to go out to the home of a man with AIDS to assess his eligibility for Disabled Rate Relief. He told me a great deal about what it was like to live with the time bomb. He made me a drink of tea and I accepted it. I was not really keen to have a drink but I was keen to let him know I had no hang ups about his illness.

It is great, of course, to see how much progress has been made in finding drugs to fight the illness. Much work is needed before we can make it history but I salute the progress made to date.

Today I attended a meeting in which we welcomed a speaker from Kyrgyzstan, a small country of 5 million people where there are very significant efforts being supported by Christian Aid to educate people on the subject. There the problem seems to have begun with cheap drugs becoming available to many young people and through sharing needles they have fallen ill with the virus. In a Muslim country it is all too easy to keep quiet about the disease because of the stigma of this type of illness.

As World AIDS day (1st December) approaches let us remember those who have suffered and died from this dreadful virus. Let us also support all efforts to educate people - in particular, young people - about its dangers. The old attitudes that treated sufferers as social pariahs are largely finished, but where they exist let us stamp them out through better education. Let us pray for all who work with sufferers and make their lives fuller. Let us pray too that science will discover a total cure and people no longer die from this awful disease.

What is God like?

Perhaps I should begin by dealing with what God is not like. When I was a child the minister of my church told us that God was not an old man with a beard and he was not like a policeman, ready to pounce when we did wrong.

Although the Old Testament abounds with God declaring what punishments he will bring down on people I do not believe he is a vengeful God either. I was introduced at an early age to the expression "God fearing" and I can say that I do not fear God. One day when Sunday School was ended I went into a sweets shop in Manchester Road, Nelson, Lancashire and bought some sweets. As I emerged from the shop an old lady told me that God would not love me if I bought sweets on a Sunday. Well, in today's Sunday shopping culture, very many people would find that God did not love them.

I grew up during an age in which we were often told that a Christian did not do this and that. It was always about what a Christian did NOT do. Nothing was said about what a Christian SHOULD do. I remember, at that time, thinking that I never heard a list that told me what a Christian should do.

Now that I have closed the book on the past when we thought of God in a very different way, let me deal with the positive news. God is a father to us. If you wish to find evidence to show what God is like then you need only read the stories of Jesus. I say this because there is real evidence of what God is like when you listen to Jesus. In Matthew's gospel, Chapter 7 we hear Jesus saying "Would any of you offer his son a stone when he asks for bread, or a snake when he asks for fish? If you, bad as you are, know how to give good things to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him!" So here we have a picture of God as our heavenly Father. If he is a fatherly figure then we know how to speak to him. If there is something we need we would go to our father first to ask him for advice on how to get it. Our father would then give us the benefit of his knowledge and advice.

So this suggests he is a loving God because he has our best interests at heart. To be loved like that is often something not seen today in public. Yet, within our families, we have the model for how God loves us. The story of the Prodigal Son tells us this in detail. Jesus told many parables to explain what God is like. Read them and you will get a clearer picture of what God is like.

A story is told of a clergyman who had recently lost his wife. He had decided to take passage to America to start a new life there with his young daughter. Whilst sailing on the great liner he had been asked by the captain to preach at the Sunday service on board. In so doing he had chosen to preach on the love of God. After the service he was leaning on the ship's rail and looking out across the vast ocean with his daughter at his side. She turned to him and asked, "Daddy, does God love us as much as we loved mummy?" He spoke quietly to the little girl, "Look out over that ocean. Think how deep the water is. Look up at the sky. God's love is wider than the sea and deeper than the sea. It is also higher than all that sky." The girl thought for a few seconds and then suddenly exclaimed, "How wonderful! We are right in the middle of it!"

We live our lives in the middle of chaos - in a world where humankind is anything but kind. Stories abound of earthquakes, erupting volcanoes, giant mudslides, massive tidal waves and so on. Yet, we human beings are equipped by God to deal with disasters and catastrophies on a grand scale. I remember hearing the news, three weeks after we were married, that a whole mountainside had moved and swallowed a school in the Welsh village of Aberfan. Many children and their teacher died. Almost an entire generation was eliminated that morning. Yet stories were told of men working tirelessly, day after day, to see if any children might be found alive. The local minister could not go to the temporary mortuary to identify his daughter because he had no one to take care of his other child. Someone volunteered to baby sit for him so that he could carry out that sad task. The volunteer was her Majesty the Queen who was visiting Aberfan that day. Others had equally dreadful tasks to perform and God gave them the strength to do it.

When we have to do things that we have dreaded for many years we are given strength by a loving, caring God. This does not mean it becomes easy. It means we get the super human strength that such an event calls for. If you wish to see the goodness of God just look at what people have found themselves capable of doing as they respond to humanitarian disasters. All of us can find the strength to carry on in difficult times by calling on God for his help.

If you want to know what God is like take a good look at those who are doing his work!

Practical Christianity in 2007

It is not often that we get an opportunity to help another who is suffering. It is even less likely that we shall be able to help such a person when he is a stranger whom we have never met. Yet the fact is that a large group of Christians has found a way to help a struggling hill farmer avoid bankruptcy.

A fellow preacher in my area advised people attending some local churches that he knew of a man who was really suffering. The man was a hill farmer who had recently lost his father and was suffering the effects of government restrictions following outbreaks of foot and mouth and blue tongue over 200 miles from his farm. For some time now farmers have struggled financially following the outbreak, nationally, of foot and mouth disease. The many restrictions that have been in place have steadily reduced their income. On top of this they have been seen as indirect sufferers of the diseases which have arisen and so not qualified for financial help.

Today, to be a small farmer is not recommended as a career. It is a line of work that has been hit hard in recent years. Yet, in this case, a scheme whereby the farmer can receive direct help from individuals has been devised. In my church letters were sent out to the people who worship there, telling them of the particular hardship case and offering whole and half lambs at good prices.

The result has been surprising as in 3 days I have received orders for over 16 lambs in whole or half form. They will be butchered into large or small joints and supplied from the farm on an agreed date. A number of people are now reducing the stock in their freezers in readiness for the delivery of their order. My problem now is whether I have access to a sufficiently large vehicle to transport the meat from this isolated farm!

It is a problem I can deal with because God is leading us to help someone who is suffering. It is a privilege to be able to save a man from bankruptcy by motivating other Christians in my area. It is certainly a unique venture and one I shall remember for a long time. Praise God that he encourages and motivates people in this way. Never forget in this era of exodus from the churches - GOD IS STILL SPEAKING!!!!!!!

Why do we Worship God?

Back in the Old Testament times people sang the praises of God to say thank you for all that God had done for them. Not all that long after the Children of Israel had crossed the Red Sea with the Egyptian Army drowning as they tried to bring them back to Pharaoh, the Israelites began to complain bitterly. Once they had broken free of slavery and started to follow wherever God led they began to get very comfortable. So, when things didn't go right, they started to whinge and moan about it all. You see, when people receive gifts they start to expect more and more. When I worked in a small company who, with help from European funding, used to provide free business advice and assistance, the boss talked about them adopting a dependence on grants. He called it the grant mentality. He was right about this. There were many small companies who began to expect more and more free help because of our intervention.

This was how the Israelites were. So when things went wrong they decided God was useless and asked for an idol to worship. Just because Moses seemed to be away too long they began to think God was not the one to thank for all their good fortune. By now they had decided they needed a local god or idol to whom they could pray. Moses came back from his time up the mountain with God to find them worshipping a Golden Calf. He was so enraged that he smashed the two tablets of stone on which were engraved the Ten Commandments.

So from this point he had to remind them how good to them God had been. If you read the Old Testament Book of Deuteronomy you find it is a long sermon by Moses, telling the people to remember the goodness of God in rescuing them from Egypt. It goes on a long time, telling them how much they ought to worship God for his kindness to them.

Later in the Old Testament we find the Book of Psalms which is really a collection of beautiful hymns sung to praise God for his protection and love. This is another type of worship. Later on the prophets exhorted the people to turn from their idolatrous ways to worship the one and only Yahweh (their word for God). The prophets warned them of dire consequences if they did not heed this warning. The people had to worship God, not only in the synagogue, but throughout their lives. Living out their lives according to God's law would be seen, the prophets told the people, as worship and thanks for all God had done for them.

In those days they believed that if a man was rich then God had blessed him and it meant he was a good religious person. So when Job was seen to have wall to wall wealth in terms of family and flocks he was considered to be a leading worshipper of God. So he was tested by the removal of all his riches to the point where people couldn't stand being near him so badly did he smell.

Even in New Testament days the people believed that a rich man was the best man. The disciples were "gobsmacked" when Jesus required the rich young man to give away all his wealth in order to have eternal life. Even they had to learn this lesson. They understood that God was great and good but thought he showed his love by giving people great wealth.

Going back to the point where Mary was told that she was to become the mother of the saviour of the world we hear her song of worship to God for his goodness to her. That song is referred to as the Magnificat. It praises God for being so good to young Mary, and it contains a warning of the new rules which would apply once he arrived in the guise of Jesus, Son of God.

The song starts by saying: "My soul tells out the greatness of the Lord....." Later we read this: "he has routed the proud and all their schemes.....he has brought down monarchs from their thrones.....he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty." From now on the rules will change. No longer will the wealthy be the best but the poor man who begs at the side of the road. No longer will kings be the best but their subjects will reign in their place.

This amazing message was enhanced by all that Jesus did and said as he went about Palestine with his disciples teaching the people. Now the news was that the poor counted equal to the rich. It said that you were in no better position as a rich man than the beggar on the road. It said that God loved all people equally. Now, here were grounds for worshipping God. Even if you were struck down in abject poverty you stood equal with everyone else. God loved you just because you were there! This was news indeed. It was also grounds for constant worship of God to give thanks for all one had.

That position has continued to this day. Oddly enough, there are still occasional people who think that successful business people have been favoured by God. But they are simply wrong. All of us count equally in God's sight. He is proud of us because he has made us. Recognising that everything we have we owe to God, we need to worship him to give thanks. He is our father and like all fathers he is proud of his children and gives us much in order that we might prosper. It can be best described as being Christmas every day! That is why we worship God.