We are experiencing problems with
our website hosting and the website is not viewable or editable in Uganda
because of security issues; it seems the host sees it best to block access to
their sites in Uganda and that this will be a permanent situation. We are safe
and there is no threat towards us. For now you can see our communications
online at: https://missionafricajk.blogspot.ug/. Thanks for your patience and as always we need and
appreciate your prayers!
Friends: Our Updates are sent to
instruct, encourage, edify and act as a help in prayer. We appreciate your
receiving them, your replies, comments and prayer requests.
We will share this Update format
once a month as God allows.
We enjoyed the Lord with friends in
Kibitto, Bunyangabu District in Pastor Training and Bible and Literature
Distribution this week. Gabriel Magezi arranged this ministry appointment with
Pastor Wilberforce Byaruhanga of Kayembe Christian Revival Church. Please pray
for God’s grace, blessing, wisdom and good to come to the people from the time
together there. (See photos below.) This week Jim will be in Mbarara for Bible and Literature
Distribution, please pray for God’s grace through this ministry too.
In the Savior’s love and mercy, your
friends, Jim and Kappy Robinette
Mission Africa with CTEN
“But when the
kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared,not by works of
righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us,
through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He
poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been
justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal
life.” Titus 3:4-7 NKJV
The prophet Isaiah spoke of people whom God had to address
as those who ‘draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me,
but have removed their heart from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the
precept of men’. It was a spirit which the prophets preached against again and
again. But is not that the type of Christianity we have described in the last
section? We could call it bourgeois. It is true that it is found at all times
in history, the spirit of a Christianity which has lost the true faith and does
not really trust its Lord. But in the form in which it appears around us it is
really a manifestation of the bourgeois. It is interesting to note that it came
into being virtually at the same time as the growth of the influence of the Enlightenment.
As we have suggested already, it might even have been one of the sources of the
Age of Reason.
What was
the bourgeois spirit? ‘Well, you know, we Christians are very nice, decent
people. Please don’t keep on at us with all this talk about sin in the Bible.
We are much more civilized now than people were then. And anyway, it’s what
Christ said in the Sermon on the Mount which really matters (He didn’t talk about sin, did He?).
That’s the spirit we want to live in—love and kindness and so on...’ They never
said so, but what they meant was: ‘Please don’t remind us of the hard facts of
life, don’t open our eyes to them, as then it would be impossible for us to
live in peace and unity with the establishment of today. You cannot expect us
to be haggard prophets, that sort of thing isn’t really done. We are too good
and moral and righteous...’
The
bourgeois were people who looked for certainty and security. With their lips
they might have honoured God, but in their hearts they looked for a more ‘tangible’
kind of foundation. They found it in money, in a career, in status, in their
moral uprightness. And so morality became moralism and insurance often took the
place of assurance that God does not forsake man. They wanted their lives to be
moral, true and normal, but they had no foundation for it, for true
Christianity was rejected and turned into liberalism.”
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