The Bible with Nicky and Pippa Gumbel, Classic Version, 2015Sample

With or Without God

I was eighteen years old when I first encountered Jesus. I remember distinctly a conversation I had with a Christian leader shortly afterwards. I said how glad I was that I had not become a Christian earlier, since I had been able to experience the difference between life with God and life without God. He pointed out the fallacy of this way of thinking and suggested that the sooner we experience life with God, the better.

Looking back on my life now, I see the wisdom of his words. I am so grateful to God that our children can look back on their own lives and say that there has never been a time in their life when they were ‘without God’.

Over the years, I have interviewed hundreds of people who have encountered Jesus on Alpha. A pattern often emerges in their testimonies – the contrast between their life before becoming a Christian compared to their life as a Christian. They contrast their life without God and their life with God. There is always a sense of great joy and relief, and often regret that they did not begin their life with God earlier.

We are created to live in a relationship with God. Without that, life will never really make sense. There is a stark contrast in the Bible between life with God and life without God. In the passages for today we see what is possible with God.

Psalm 60:5-12

1. Trust God in every difficulty

Compared with God’s help, human help is worthless. ‘With God’, he says, ‘we shall gain the victory’ (v.12). He was speaking about physical battles. The apostle Paul writes that our main battles are not physical. They are not ‘against flesh and blood, but … against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms’ (Ephesians 6:12).

David prays, ‘Save us and help us with your right hand, that those you love may be delivered … Give us aid against the enemy, for human help is worthless. With God we shall gain the victory’ (Psalm 60:5,11–12a).

Lord, I look to you to help me in all the battles I am facing. Give me aid, I pray. I need you to go with me. Thank you that with you I can be confident of victory. I trust in you today.

John 8:12-30

2. Always try to please God

Do you realise that you can give God pleasure? Jesus says, ‘I always do what pleases him’ (v.29). This should be our aim in life – to please God.

Jesus models for us a life with God. He says, ‘I am not alone. I stand with the Father, who sent me’ (v.16). He says, ‘The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone’ (v.29a). Throughout this passage, we discover something about Jesus’ perfect relationship with his Father.

Jesus says, ‘I know where I came from and where I am going’ (v.14). So many people struggle in life because they don’t know where they came from or where they are heading. So many struggle with a lack of purpose and direction in their lives. In a close relationship with God, we can know where we came from, and ultimately where we are heading.

Jesus’ relationship with the Father was also the source of his purpose and direction day by day. He says, ‘I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me’ (v.28). He says, ‘The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone’ (v.29a).

This is the model for us. God was with Jesus. Jesus knew he was never alone. There was not a single thing he did without God. At every moment his desire is to please God: ‘I always do what pleases him’ (v.29b). This is what gave his life such power and effectiveness. ‘Even as he spoke, many put their faith in him’ (v.30).

Not only was Jesus with God, he was God. As John puts it at the start of his gospel, ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God’ (1:1).

Twice in today’s passage Jesus says, ‘I am he’ (8:24,28). This is a way God sometimes refers to himself in the Old Testament (see for example Isaiah 43:10). The words translated ‘I am he’ are the same words that are used in the Greek translation of Exodus 3:14–16. There, God revealed himself to Moses as ‘I AM WHO I AM’. This name came to express both the identity of God and the closeness of God to his people.

In today’s passage, Jesus seems to be using this name himself (and he definitely does so later on in the chapter, in v.58). He is telling the people that God has once again come near to them in him. Jesus is Immanuel, God with us.

It is as we look to the cross that Jesus says we have the clearest demonstration of his identity. ‘So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am the one I claim to be.” ’ (v.28).

Jesus had complete confidence in his own identity. We have seen how the key to Jesus’ confidence and identity lay in his relationship with the Father. The same will also be true for us. As you spend time with the Father in prayer, in worship, or in reading the Scriptures, you will find that your sense of identity and confidence in who you are in God will grow. You can know where you have come from and where you are heading.

No matter what people say about you, you can walk confidently with head held high. Your identity is in Christ and what he says about you and the fact that he is with you.

Father, thank you that we are able to say, ‘The one who sent me is with me, he has not left me alone’. Help me, like Jesus, always to do what pleases you and always to speak just what you have taught me.

John 8:12-30

3. Shine God’s light in a dark world

Terrorist attacks, widespread abuse of children, genocide in Darfur, the terrible evil of human trafficking, 29.8 million people in slavery. We live in a dark world. But we are not without hope. Light can drive out darkness.

Israel was in a dark period of its history. The people were called to walk in a close relationship with God. The people were meant to live under the direct rule and reign of God as their king. Had they lived like this they would not have needed a human king.

However, they were now living in the worst possible scenario. They were not living under the kingship of the Lord, and did not even have a human king to keep order and restrain the chaos.

These were bleak days. ‘In those days Israel had no king’ (18:1; 19:1). They turned to idol worship (Chapter 18). Then in Chapter 19 we read a terrible account of the worst excesses of a chaotic society. The appalling rape and abuse and dissection of this woman caused everyone who saw it to say, ‘Such a thing has never been seen or done, not since the day the Israelites came up out of Egypt. Think about it! Consider it! Tell us what to do!’ (19:30). This was a time of utter darkness, of life without God.

Terrible as this atrocity was, it is not unique in the history of the world. We only have to open our newspapers to see the appalling atrocities that can happen when a society rejects God and his laws: it descends into utter chaos.

Lt Gen Romeo Dallaire, who was part of the UN mission to Rwanda and witnessed the genocide, was asked how he could still believe in God. He replied: ‘I know there is a God because in Rwanda I shook hands with the devil. I have seen him, I have smelled him and I have touched him. I know the devil exists, and therefore I know that there is a God.’

Today’s Old Testament passage reminds us about how dark a place the world can be without God. Let us return to the New Testament passage for today – which reminds us that Jesus brings light into this dark world.

In a staggering claim, Jesus naturally puts himself in the place of God, and says that he is ‘the light of the world’ (John 8:12). A world without God is a world of darkness. Yet Jesus said, ‘Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life’ (John 8:12).

When we turn to Jesus we come out of the darkness of life without God into the light of life with him. Not only that, but as we live with God, seeking to please him, we embody together the ‘light of life’ to bring light into our dark world.

You really can make a difference to the world around you. Your life, in Christ, can shine like light in the spiritual darkness in the world around you.

Lord, help us to be a community that brings your light to a dark world. Help us as individuals and as a church to live with you, to please you and to bring the light of life, love and joy to those around us today.

Pippa Adds

Judges 19

I am appalled by the way women were treated in the Old Testament (and still are in some parts of the world today). Thankfully, when Jesus came he restored their dignity and broke the gender barriers of the day.

Notes:

Romeo Dallaire, Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda, (Random House 2003), Preface xviii

Unless otherwise stated, Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version Anglicised, Copyright © 1979, 1984, 2011 Biblica, formerly International Bible Society. Used by permission of Hodder & Stoughton Publishers, an Hachette UK company. All rights reserved. ‘NIV’ is a registered trademark of Biblica. UK trademark number 1448790.

Scripture quotations marked (AMP) taken from the Amplified® Bible, Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org)

Scripture marked (MSG) taken from The Message. Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.