Monthly Archives: December 2024

Living in community

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Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. The commandments… are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbour as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbour. Therefore love is the fulfilment of the law.

(Rom 13.8-10)

Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

(Heb 10.19-25)

As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

(Eph 4.1-6)

No family is perfect, because it is made up of human beings, who are not perfect.  We may be tempted to think that it would be easy to be perfectly patient, generous and forgiving, if only we had  different people around us! But the truth is that it is in our reactions to one another that our true nature is revealed… and when we join God’s family, the same things will happen. We will disagree, irritate and hurt one another, and find reasons to put distance between ourselves and others. We are saved, forgiven and destined for glory.. but we still mess up.

In spite of this, the bible knows nothing of solitary believers, it is always the community, the body of Christ and its corporate life which is being commended to us. Our life as part of the body is our life; even though we are unique individuals, we exist in relation to and for others.  Deliberate withdrawal from our christian family deprives others of our love and service, as well as their opportunity to serve us. Refusal to submit to our community’s loving watchfulness exposes us to the risks of indulging wrong-teaching, laziness and apathy – we become ripe for attack by the enemy of our souls, even as a straying sheep is targeted by the wolves. In love, we listen to older and wiser saints, respecting and treasuring them and through them receiving God’s help for each day. In love, we bring our disagreements into the open, willing to live with difference and humbly recognising our own limitations.

We have confidence that the Spirit lives in us, enabling us more and more to live in love – Christ-like. His Spirit spurs us on to emulate Christ’s love and good works, but also to lovingly spur on one another – not in some judgemental or competitive way, but through encouragement, and in love. We answer to Christ, not to the standards of a world which does not know him, so we are free to love generously, to rejoice and to boast in our Saviour and to make his service our delight. And it is in loving his family that this begins.

As I recall times when God has used me all unexpectedly to bless total strangers, and to be blessed by them, I remember that the church is both a local body, but also the people of God around the world, and I never know where I will encounter them. I have confidence that the Spirit is working in and through me, and so I can expect that God can use me to love in his name in unexpected ways and situations, as well as in the normal pattern of my days. What a joyous and exciting prospect!

Heavenly Father, thank you that your people around the world are one family. Thank you that you bring us across one another’s paths to bless, guide, protect and inspire us – working through your human children to minister your love to us. 

Let us be inspired afresh to love in Jesus’ name, and by his Spirit to stir one another up to love and good works, sensitive to your leading in our conversations, and always ready to meet a new brother or sister along the way! In the name of our great elder brother and Lord, Jesus Christ we pray, Amen.

He has come… He will come again!

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Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, like servants waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him.. You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him..

(Lk 12.35,36&40)

On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples….. On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the shroud that covers all nations; he will swallow up death for ever. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth. The Lord has spoken.

(Isa 25.6-8)

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn and provide for those who grieve in Zion – to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.

(Isa 61.1-3)

I saw heaven open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and wages war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns.. and his name is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following him.. He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS

(Rev 19.11-16)

The now and the not yet… the here and the hereafter.. the promise and its fulfilment.. as we learn the deep rhythms of the biblical narrative, we find this pattern of waiting recurs again and again. God speaks, and calls his people to trust his word will be fulfilled, to model their lives on that basis and live by its truth. As we celebrate the birth of the Messiah, the fulfilment of age-old expectations and prophecies, we also look forward to the second coming of that Messiah, to wind up the story and to exercise his role as judge, having already fulfilled his calling as sacrifice.

He came as a helpless infant to demonstrate God’s love to a broken world, to woo all and any who would respond in faith, and to welcome them into the loving embrace of the Father. He will come again and then it will not be as the wooer, but as the executioner of justice, and those who reject his love, will meet the implacable wrath which human rebellion and pride has brought upon itself.

Jesus warned his disciples against speculation about his return, instead urging them to be about their Father’s business in a spirit of glad service, and hopeful anticipation. We are not to disengage ourselves from living in order to wait, but rather to fill up our days by using all that we are given (the gift of our days, our resources and opportunities), for His glory and for the building up of the kingdom. We need not fear his return, since we are confident that judgement will not fall upon us, who are covered by the sacrifice of the Lamb. We can look forward for ourselves with joy and hope – but many others do not have that hope or confidence, and what faces them is eternal separation from God.

We are tasked by the Lord to keep on offering the gospel to them, lovingly copying His example of servanthood, and pointing them to Jesus.  He has given us so much to do – to enjoy the good gifts which are poured out upon us daily, and by our thankfulness to point others to the Giver; to delight in the Lord who has saved us and in the love which we now know; to serve our fellow believers with steady and patient commitment; to learn what love looks like in each and every situation, and to do it.

Sovereign Lord, let us your servants be renewed in our confident expectation of your return. May that expectation produce in us not mere endurance, but a glad and active embrace of the work to which you have called us. 

We worship with the shepherds, with Mary and Joseph, at the side of the infant Son of God, and we also await with eager expectation his return in glory and might, to finally put an end to all his opponents, and to make all things new. Come, Lord, come soon! Amen

It’s not a performance, it’s a gift…

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Still the night, holy the night! Sleeps the world; hid from sight, Mary and Joseph in stable bare watch o’er the child beloved and fair, sleeping in heavenly rest…..

Still the night, holy the night! Shepherds first saw the light, heard resounding clear and long, far and near, the angel-song, ‘Christ the Redeemer is here!’….

Still the night, holy the night! Son of God, O how bright love is smiling from thy face! Strikes for us now the hour of grace, Saviour since thou art born!’

( Mohr, 1792-1848, translated by S.A. Brooke, 1832-1916)

But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

(Rom 6.22-23)

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved… For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no-one can boast. 

(2Cor 2.4,5,8&9)

As a Jesus-believer, I look forward to celebrating his birth into our world, remembering with awe and thankfulness the magnitude of that step from unimagineable glory, to the tiny compass, and total helplessness of a human infant. I am grateful that our culture provides time to focus on the story, pondering what it meant, and means, for all humanity that God became one who lived and lives among us.

BUT…. I am aware that for many believers, there is an expectation, a pressure that every year they should achieve a state of heightened spiritual awareness, a transcendent calm and detachment from the busy-ness and daily uncertainties which comprise our lives. Perhaps some people do manage, every year, to reach this condition of super-spirituality, and to pass the season in serene contemplation and worship. Personally, I do not.. and I believe it can be a dangerous expectation to entertain, a foothold by which the enemy of our souls will undermine and condemn us as lacking true faith and spirituality, when we just plod on with the challenges of each day, not feeling very joyful, or serene.

Did God say that we must achieve this super-spiritual state every Christmas and Easter season? Does it say anywhere in our scriptures that we are to generate a particular group of feelings? No! The glorious and grounding reality is not in any way related to our feelings, but is based in facts, in truths which are as immutable as God himself, and as different from human fallibility and fickleness as can be imagined! If we let ourselves believe the lie that somehow every real Christian ‘gets’ Christmas in some transcendent ways, then we are letting ourselves in for serious trouble – as lies usually do. But it is not necessary to screw ourselves up to some heightened emotions in order to properly give thanks, to worship and sit for a little in awed silence before Mary’s infant son.

If our lives in any given advent season do lend themselves to giving extra time to meditating on the truth, soaking up the music and letting God speak to our hearts in an unhurried way, that’s marvellous! But it is also quite acceptable for believers to sincerely celebrate and worship without that luxury, to experience no particularly intense joys, and yet still be blessed and nourished as they share when they can in singing and retelling the story. We are not being judged on our ‘performance’ as believers in that sense, and our best response to the gift of God in Jesus is humble, quiet and relieved acceptance. We can add nothing to what he has done for us, and the grace poured out in Christ by God covers all our needs.

Father, loving and tender-hearted refuge of my aching soul, hear your daughter this night. She is weary, shot through with bitter griefs and the beauty of Christmas music brings floods of tears. She is not serene, or calm but often sad and uncertain. Thank you that her salvation is still secure because it is not dependent on her feeling the right sensations, or striving to enter a particular state of mental tranquility!

The hour of grace has struck for her, for all the weary ones for whom the season brings such mixed feelings of gladness and sadness, hope and grief. Grace is ours now because Christ is born, and there is our true peace, one which lies deep beneath the stormy waves and cannot be taken from us. Thank you..

The power of words(and music!)

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Let earth and heaven combine, angels and men agree, to praise in songs divine, the incarnate deity, our God contracted to a span, incomprehensibly made man.

He laid his glory by, took form in mortal clay; unseen by human eye, the hidden Godhead lay; infant of days He here became, and bore the mild Immanuel’s name.

He deigns in flesh to appear, widest extremes to join; to bring our vileness near, and make us all divine; and we the life of God shall know, for God is manifest below.

Made perfect by his love, and sanctified by grace, we shall from earth remove, and see His glorious face; then shall His love be fully showed, and we shall be complete in God.

(C Wesley 1707-88)

But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid Mary, you have found favour with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the son of the Most High… The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. so the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God..”

(Lk 1.30,31&35)

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created; things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church, he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fulness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross.

(Col 1.15-20)

Like many others, the music associated with this season of Advent and the celebration of Jesus’ birth is very precious to me. There are hymns which I have sung all my life, and cherish dearly; there are choral pieces which move me deeply, and there are the seasonal pop songs which have accompanied the festive season for most of my adult life.. Music speaks to us on such a deep level, and yet it is worth pondering the words that go along with the tunes (perhaps not so much for the pop songs though!).

The  hymn with which I began today is not commonly sung at carol services, and you probably won’t hear it on the radio during this month. It has no catchy chorus, or soaring descant and there are no animals, shepherds or wise men – Mary and Joseph make no appearance. BUT it is absolutely all about the incarnation, and the revolutionary mission of our Lord. The writer, Charles Wesley has gifted the church many great hymns, and like them, this  text of this one is incredibly rich. One website lists 32 scripture references across the six verses of this hymn. I am reminded that we can help ourselves so much to learn, understand and grow in faith by singing and meditating on the words of songs and hymns: words which are themselves the product of long pondering by saints – long ago and today. Together, these old and new songs speak nourishing truth, writing the realities of faith across our memories and minds in melodic ink, so that it stays there!

This particular hymn points to the many aspects of the work and glory of Christ; to the marvellous mystery of his mission and his victorious achievement; and to the  fulfilment of God’s plans for redemption. It reminds us of the many passages throughout scripture which reflect truths about God’s Messiah, and which leave us slightly reeling, and aware that we haven’t begun to comprehend the breadth, depth and height of the love of our God!

I am looking forward to singing the Christmas songs again, to listening to the choirs and letting the beauty and power of their art lift my spirit in praise and thanks to the Author of all good things, and above all the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the architect of the great plan of salvation. I hope that as I sing, I will let the words fall fresh on my heart and mind, so that they bless me as they have done before and I am brought to worship before the incarnate infititude, the tiny enormity of God, contracted to a span.. incomprehensibly made man.

Remember, remember.. and give thanks

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Lord, for the years your love has kept and guided; urged and inspired us, cheered us on our way; sought us and saved us, pardoned and provided; Lord of the years, we bring our thanks today.

Lord, for our world, when we disown and doubt him, loveless in strength and comfortless in pain; hungry and helpless, lost indeed without him; Lord of the world, we pray that Christ may reign.

Lord, for ourselves, in living power remake us – self on the cross and Christ upon the throne, past put behind us, for the future take us, Lord of our lives, to live for Christ alone.

(T. Dudley-Smith, 1926-)

O Lord, hear my prayer, listen to my cry for mercy; in your faithfulness and righteousness come to my relief… I remember the days of long ago; I meditate on all your works and consider what your hands have done. I spread out my hands to you; my soul thirsts for you like a parched land.. Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul. Rescue me from my enemies, O Lord, for I hide myself in you. Teach me to do your will, for you are my God; may your good Spirit lead me on level ground. 

(Ps 143.1,5&6,8-10)

At the end of November 2023, my husband and I set off to travel to Lausanne, Switzerland, where he would be taking care of the (then vacant) Church of Scotland congregation during December. It was three months since we had left Gairloch, we had both been ill with COVID, and the autumn had been long and wet. We had no idea whether there was a long-term future for us in ministry, but meantime, we had five weeks in a comfortable flat in a beautiful city and the freedom to explore a new country. God was holding us, giving us grace not to look to the future (not too often anyway), and to appreciate the gifts which came each day.

As I look back to that time from this vantage point, 12 months later, I am quite simply brought to my knees in worship and thanksgiving. Our faithful, loving and wise Father kept us, enriched and blessed us until we were ready to hear from another congregation; until my husband’s weariness had been at least partly refreshed, and his sense of call to ministry reaffirmed by those weeks of serving in Switzerland.

We had watched the sun rise over Europe from the deck of the ferry, wondering what lay beyond that horizon; what lay beyond this brief season of caretaker ministry? I don’t think I doubted that God would provide for us, but how I struggled with waiting, with ignorance, with not being in control! And now as I remember, I give thanks for the daily provision of patience, beauty, and ultimately God’s good timing and the events which have brought us to ministry in Inverness.

God has provided good works for us to do for him here; He has given us a church family to belong to and a community to serve; He has given us fresh opportunities to use who we are and what He has given us all to His glory. How can we not be filled with gladness and gratitude?!

And so, as this year draws to a close and we face 2025 with all the pain, uncertainty and darkness which is abroad in the world, and which impacts our lives in so many ways, I have a choice. Will I remember how faithfully God has kept his promises, has provided, guided and inspired? Will I trust more fully this time, as He asks me to step into an unknown future? Can I sing with the hymn writer, and pray with the psalmist – leaving the past behind, and committing myself in childlike trust to a future path which God chooses and into which his Spirit will guide me?

Father, when she remembers your faithfulness, your child is ashamed of her lack of trust, and her fretfulness. You are trustworthy, you are good, you are patient and careful, and do all things well. Your world needs to hear about Jesus, and you have appointed your children to share the work of proclaiming his saving work; we who know him and can testify to his love and the transforming power of your spirit at work. May I, together with all your people, remember your faithfulness to your promises and be renewed in hope, in love and in faith. May we live with quiet confidence in you, and commit ourselves fully to Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray, Amen.