Reading Ravi Zacharias’s “Slice of Infinity” today was truly inspiring.  Ravi has a way of summarizing and nailing the essence of what it means to be a Christian in ways I marvel at all the time.  In today’s Slice, Ravi speaks of the hunger we all have for God.  Even people who never experienced God, have within their hearts a God-sized hole that only God can fill.  Whether it is in the darkest hour for us and the deepest pain we can experience, or in the times when we think we have achieved the ultimate pleasure, we seek God.  As Ravi said, we seek God in pain for an answer and a reason for our suffering, and we seek God in our pleasure for a purpose.  I encourage everyone to read this Slice of Infinity. 

The link is:  http://www.rzim.org/resources/read/asliceofinfinity/todaysslice.aspx?aid=11105

 I was watching, this morning, a debate that took place last April at Notre Dame University between Dr. William Lane Craig and Sam Harris.  The topic for the debate was, “Is the Foundation of Morality Natural or Supernatural?”.  Dr. Craig laid out a compelling case that, if God exists, there are strong foundations for objective moral values and duties.  Secondly, he affirmed that if God does not exist then there are no foundations upon which objective moral values and duties could exist.  I encourage anyone to view the debate on www.reasonablefaith.org .  Part of Sam Harris’s argument, which was more a lesson in semantics than in logic and philosophy, was that the purpose of the Christian life is to avoid hell and make it to heaven for a pleasurable eternal existence.  Although I would agree that going to heaven is better than going to hell, I do not think that this is the goal or purpose Jesus had in mind for his followers.  Heaven is not a reward for our actions here on earth.  Eternity with our Creator is a gift freely given to us by God and paid for through the cross.  In order for us to achieve righteousness and justification in God’s eyes we must accept the gift of Christ’s sacrifice for us.  Actions here on this earth, although not insignificant, are not what earn us the eternal pleasure of communion with God. 

However, I do think that our life here on earth is significant and does have meaning and purpose for God.  It is indeed through Him that we discover this purpose.  C.S. Lewis stated, “To have faith in Christ means, of course, trying to do all that He says.  There would be no sense in saying you trusted a person if you would not take his advice.  Thus if you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him, but trying in a new way, a less worried way.  Not doing these things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save you already.  Not hoping to get to Heaven as a reward for your actions, but inevitably wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside you.”

Think about it.  When someone comes to Christ and He becomes the center of their life, a transformation begins.  Paul talks about it in Romans 12:2 when he says, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”  This renewing of the mind is the essence of followership of Jesus.  As I referred to in my last posting about Ravi’s talk at Trinity, the foundations of our life are what are important and those are what change in this transformation.  We see things differently and I think we see things more clearly.  We develop an answer for the fundamental questions of  existence.  What is our origin, where does morality come from, what is our purpose, and where are we going?  Without the Christian worldview, the answers to these questions are incoherent and in conflict with reality.  That is why we hunger for an answer.  Unfortunately, many look for the answer in all the wrong places.

Ravi and Os at Trinity

I had the honor and distinct pleasure to go see and hear Ravi Zacharias speak at the Trinity International University this week.  Ravi is an alumni and honorary professor at large for the school.  Trinity is partnering with Ravi’s ministry, RZIM, to train young apologists to defend the truth of the Christian faith.  Trinity is one of the first theological institutions to offer a course in apologetics.  The message is getting across that apologetics is a useful tool in the arsenal for defending the faith.

Ravi spoke for about an hour and he was as compelling as usual.  He spoke about foundations.  He said he was at a university recently that had just opened this new building for the arts.  It was a state of the art facility that had no particular purpose in mind when it was built.  There are stairways that go nowhere and oddly shaped rooms that seem to serve no purpose.  The man showing Ravi the building was somewhat proud of the accomplishment, as it was to be the first post-modern building.  Ravi said he had just one question for him.  Is the building built on a foundation?  For without a foundation, and a good one at that, the building will crumble and fall down.

The same thing is true in our lives.  We need a strong foundation for what we believe and how we view reality.  Ravi stated there are four foundations that we personally should build upon.  If these are destroyed, then we are in a sad and difficult position.

The first of these is the dimension of eternity.  Build your life on eternal principles with an eternal perspective.  Ravi spoke of the time the astronauts were going to orbit the moon.  They were going to go around the dark side of the moon and lose all contact with earth.  No one was really sure what was going to happen as they came back into view.  Where they to lose the gravitational pull and float out into deep space never to be seen or heard from again?  But as we know, the astronauts did come back into view, and communication with earth and the control center in Houston.  As these men came around the moon, they saw the earth rise in front of them, this beautiful blue and white ball floating against the backdrop of black space.  The very first words out of the astronauts’ mouths as they came into contact with earth, was, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”.  The sight was so magnificent and awe inspiring that the only thing appropriate to say was to refer to the eternal creator of the universe.

When you understand eternity, you define reality.  Dr. William Lane Craig points out that life is meaningless without God and immortality.  The basic questions of life cannot be answered without each of them.  Why are we here?  What is our purpose?  Where are we going?  According to the naturalistic view, this is all there is and it all came into being through a combination of time and random activity.  Are we really just a random collocation of atoms?  Is this life all there is?  Without God and, for me, Christianity, life has no meaning, no purpose, and certainly no future.

The second foundation is morality.  Without God there is no moral law upon which to base one’s life.  The Ten Commandments are sacred, and they tell us that life is sacred, our work is sacred, our time is sacred, and our relationships are sacred.  It the moral law that provides the framework within which we can function as individuals and as part of a society.

The third foundation Ravi stated is accountability or conscience.  As Paul said in Romans, no one is without sin.  Everyone is broken and needs forgiveness.  We must take the responsibility and seek Jesus as the answer.  We must never forget the cross and the sacrifice made for us.  Why did Jesus go through such a horrific and humiliating death, to be some sort of self-styled charlatan?  He suffered for you and for me, and we can never end a defense of the faith without talking about the cross.

It is also imperative, in today’s world, that people begin to take responsibility for themselves.  We all have a choice to make.  As C.S. Lewis so clearly said, “There are two types of people in this world; those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done’, and those to whom God says, ‘Thy will be done’.

The fourth foundation is charity.  We all must demonstrate in our lives the love of Christ.  The act of follower-ship of Christ is demanding.  It requires that we show love to one another in ways that are not always comfortable or easy.  From an evangelical point of view, we can only influence people for Christ by showing the love of Christ to them.  As a friend of mine once so appropriately said, ‘You may be the only bible someone ever reads’. 

The day was climaxed by a talk by Os Guinness in the afternoon.  Os talked about the “fast life”; living in today’s fast-paced world of instant communication and information against the backdrop of Christianity.  It was an interesting talk.  We are all caught up in a world that is changing so fast.  Yet truth doesn’t change.  Truth is absolute and true for all persons, in all times, and in all places.  So no matter how fast we live, we must keep it all in perspective and under control.  I asked Os a question during the question and answer time after his talk, and I stated that when I was growing up, you had to wait a few seconds for the ‘tv’ to warm up before you could see the picture.  Our house had only one telephone.  You had to actually get up to answer the phone, or to change the channel on the ‘tv’.  Technology races on, but we can and must stay firmly grounded in the truth of our faith.

It was truly a wonderful day for my wife, Susan, and I.  We are blessed in so many ways, and we truly enjoyed the experience.