The foundation of obedience..

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Take off take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy..

(Joshua 5.15)

So Joshua has successfully led the wandering people of God’s promise into the land where they are to settle. He has seen the floods of the Jordan back up to create a dry pathway for their feet, and heard the thunder of returning waters after the last foot left the river bank. He knows from his spies that the people who live in the land – even in the great fortified cities like Jericho – are terrified at the coming of this bunch of nomads, because of the reputation of the God who goes with them.

He could be forgiven for becoming a little presumptuous about the next steps, for assuming that he just had to walk up and challenge the gates of Jericho, to see everyone flee in terror. But it seems he was not – one of the things I love about the stories of Joshua, are the way they reveal an utterly humble and faithful servant heart, I look forward to meeting this hero of God’s story in heaven and hearing all about it!

Joshua went wandering, prowling around the hills near the city, perhaps debating in his mind how God would want him to proceed. He is answered, in a heart-stopping encounter with an armed stranger, who is revealed to be neither an enemy, nor a member of his own army! This is the true commander, come to remind Joshua that God is God, and owes alliegance to no man. It is the work of God which will open the land to his people, not the strength of Joshua’s strategies or soldiers. The question is, where does Joshua’s alliegance lie? Has he become proud – as Saul would later in Israel’s history – and unwilling to wait on God’s leading?

There is no question in Joshua’s mind, as he drops to the ground in reverence, and identifies the stranger as ‘my Lord’, asking what the instructions might be. We should be cheering this faithful servant, rejoicing that God has answered him so directly and convincingly! But we can also learn from him, and the way that God dealt with Joshua – as he dealt also with Moses all those years before in the desert encounter with a burning bush.

Our God is a holy God – that means that anything impure is utterly abhorrent to him and it cannot abide in his sight, but will be consumed as if by fire. Joshua, this mere man, a creature of flesh and weakness even as we are, knew that to be on holy ground was a terrifying thing, fraught with danger. He surely knew as the writer to the Hebrews would later put it that ‘It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.‘(Heb 10.31)

We shrink from the idea of a God who should be feared, preferring to dwell on the wonderful love which is revealed through Christ’s life and death for us. And it is good so to dwell. But the same holy and righteous God is active in the life of Christ. We see him condemning those who reject his kingdom, assuring all who listen that those who continue to shut their ears to God will suffer and know his wrath. This is not easy reading, it should frighten us! Our God is above all one who must be taken seriously – both in his love for us, and also his power and holiness.  Do we? Do I sometimes sit far too casually with my familiar sins, instead of seeing them as my living God does – as the appalling and deadly thing they are? Does my obedience and desire for growing holiness of life really spring from a growing awe at the God who has called me to be His own?

I believe that Joshua served God gladly, with joy and even pride in what God had called him to do. But there was a right spirit about his service that I desire for myself – a spirit of prostrate worship before an utterly holy God; to whom nothing but perfect obedience should be given, because nothing less could be an acceptable expression of his love and devotion.

May God grant us each an ever deepening grasp of his beautiful, terrible holiness, blindingly bright, and irresistibly lovely, so that we might worship and serve Him worthily, through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Wherever?

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Remember your promise to me; it is my only hope.

Your promise revives me; it comforts me in all my troubles.

The proud hold me in utter contempt, but I do not turn away from your instructions.

I meditate on your age-old regulations; O Lord they comfort me.

I become furious with the wicked, because they reject your instructions.

Your decrees have been the theme of my songs wherever I have lived.

I reflect at night on who you are, O Lord; therefore, I obey your instructions.

This is how I spend my life: obeying your commandments.

(Psalm 119. 49-55)

What sweet words I find at the start of this lovely extract from Psalm 119, ” your promise to me”, reminding me where my ultimate security lies in the face of all that life throw at me! In the months ahead, I know that I will find myself in need of that solid reassurance as our family faces the biggest upheaval we have known since our first child arrived and parenthood commenced!

It is likely that in April, in a little church just behind the beach in this picture, my husband will be voted in as the minister of the local parish, and in the summer we will leave the city to learn how to live in a relatively isolated part of Scotland. We have been assured at every step thus far that God is in charge, and his timing is right not only for our family, but also the congregations involved – the one we leave and the one we are called to.

The God who has led us thus far, into marriage; ministry; parenthood; is a faithful God, one who has called us to know and be loved by Him. We have a God who has graciously invited us to be part of His great work in the world, part of the redemption of a people who will praise Him and enjoy Him for ever. We need no approval from any man, it is nothing to us if others regard our decision as foolish, because only God’s opinion really matters – He asks us to go, and to obey His instruction is our privilege and pleasure.

The psalmist is testifying to the way that God’s words to Him are a constant source of comfort in trouble – and is that not the case for us? We have a communicating God, one who has chosen not to remain anonymous or remote, but to be known, and to share His heart with us. That heart is full of tender, forgiving and transforming love, of compassion for the pain of living in a world which is deeply scarred and troubled. Our God knows that we suffer, and His promise to us is constant presence, we are never alone in the dark. He will keep us safe through all that may come, and His promise is that He is always at work in us to refine us into the likeness of Jesus, so that none of what we endure will be wasted. We have a glorious hope of resurrection life, a current promise of divine strength, and the courage of knowing that we are obeying our Lord’s explicit command – a purpose, an enabling and a future to look forward to.

The songs of God’s people have been a source of strength and comfort to me for as long as I can remember, and the best ones are retelling of great truths, ways of calling to mind and celebrating all that we know of God, His acts and character. Many times, I find a phrase coming to mind and as I trace the rest of the verse and sing it to myself, I am blest and it seems my perspective is brought back into line with God’s ways of thinking and working. It is surely this experience to which the psalmist is referring as he talks of how God’s decrees are the theme of his songs….wherever he has lived.

As I look back along the story of my life – the physical places I have lived, but also the stages of life and experiences I have known – I am reassured, that the God who has been faithful through so much will continue to keep His word to me. I can rely on Him, and actively look for the ways He will remind me of His presence with, purpose for, and delight in me.

All praise be to Him and may my life continue to become more and more pleasing to Him!

The best I can do?

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O God, we meditate on your unfailing love as we worship in your Temple.

Let the people on Mount Zion rejoice. Let all the towns of Judah be glad because of your justice.

Go, inspect the city of Jerusalem. Walk around and count the many towers.

Take note of the fortified walls and tour all the citadels, that you may describe them to future generations. 

For this is what God is like. he is our God forever and ever, and he will guide us until we die.

(Ps 48. 9,11-14)

I used to wonder why the psalmist exhorted his hearers to go and count the towers of Jerusalem, it seemed a pretty weird thing to do as a way of worshipping God! But I now realise that this physical act of walking and counting was a very practical way of directing attention to how God had kept his promises to his servant David, that a temple would be built, and a city established where a king would reign. The city itself was a memorial, a testimony to God’s faithfulness. Yes, it was strong, but it was God’s strength which established and maintained it, and it was His presence which made Mount Zion a place of rejoicing

The Old Testament stories are full of memorials, ways that God appointed to help the people to remember the truth about Himself, so that their faith could be strengthened and passed on to future generations. The twelve stones carried from the bed of the Jordan river to create a pillar at Gilgal when Joshua led the people out of forty years wandering into the Promised land; the Ebeneezer stone raised by Samuel marking the defeat of the Philistines; and the great Passover Feast itself, which recalled the dramatic events leading up to the deliverance from Egypt. These each in their own way prompted the people to recognise that it was God who was at work – rescuing, leading, preparing the land for them – and to celebrate the God who was so powerful on their behalf and crucially to trust that God would continue to be with and for them in the future.

As followers of Jesus, we have one particular memorial, established by him, the night before he died. The Lord’s supper, communion, call it what you like, is a memorial, a physical act which he commands us to carry out for just the same reasons. When we take bread and wine, remembering his death for us, we recognise that God was at work, celebrate His power to achieve what was beyond us, and strengthen our faith in His ongoing presence and work in our lives now.

There is another reason for memorials, hinted at in the psalm – that we might tell future generations about the God whose acts are celebrated.

We may not be confident in debating the philosophical grounds for belief in God, but we can legitimately share our personal experiences of His power at work in our lives. We can tell the stories of our own private memorials – celebrating times when we saw Him at work; showing people the God who has saved us and come to live with us. We can do what the early disciple Andrew did, when he went to find his brother Peter, in order to bring him to meet Jesus. We can pray for others for God to bless them in the way that the four friends of the paralysed man fought so hard to bring him into Jesus’ presence. We can do as the Samarian woman did after she encountered Jesus at the well in the noonday heat – bringing her neighbours to meet the man who knew all about her.

We cannot in our own power force anyone to accept Christ as their Saviour, but we can and must make every effort to ensure that our lives reflect Him. We may be the only stories about Jesus that a person ever hears, what are we telling them?

It is always good to care for physical needs, to show practical love and care, but the best thing we can do for anyone, is to bring them to Jesus, because ultimately their eternal salvation matters more than anything else. It is God alone who convicts people of their need, who brings faith to life, and we can have confidence in His power to do this. Our job is to say, “Come, we have found the Messiah, we have found God dwelling with us!”

May we have confidence to obey, and wisdom to know how to do it, so that many souls will yet be gathered into the kingdom!

How…?

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You might get all the wrong ideas about me from the way I write… My  life in no way resembles this beautiful garden, where colour and shape are all taken into account in an orderly way to create a satisfying and organised result which pleases the senses! A more accurate picture of my life would include the guddle behind the garden shed where things are dumped as ‘they might come in handy’; the dusty corner of the shed where old packets lie under rusty tools, old curtains and plant pots. Then there is the bit where useful things are kept in an unorganised heap, so that everytime I need the secateurs I have to do a major excavation! Oh dear, no my life picture is not pretty…

Am I the only Christian who has heaps of prayer letters that get moved around and glanced at in a guilty way, but never quite prayed through? What about all those bible study notes that I meant to go over again because they were so interesting? And the books and internet articles which are worth reading, not to mention the online sermons to listen to. Then there are the personal commitments to friends and family, to pray for them… How can I work out a way to do this effectively and regularly?

It seems that I am constantly remembering the things I have forgotten to do, and realising that I seem unable to create a structure within which I can pray, study and grow in my faith as I long to do! As human beings we can only really concentrate on one thing at a time, and so my intercessions all too often get lost behind the weekly shop, the imminent need to tidy up, to organise rotas and be in touch with people to make sure things happen.

I think that my loving Father knows this… He is not surprised by my lack of progress in faith, my intermittent intercessions, and my chronic forgetfulness of all those wise things that have been said and which at the time encouraged me so much!!

But I do get weary of this sense of muddle, of not getting the right priorities in my use of time and as a result being profoundly dissatisfied with myself.. What a relief to remember that it is not my organisational abilities, or the efficiency of my prayer life which is the foundation of my hope for the future! It is all secure in Christ, and while I can aspire to become more like him, I do not need to ‘do’anything in order to receive salvation.

 I don’t know if Paul experienced anything like this. His letters breathe a passionate commitment to his Lord and the proclamation of the gospel, which overrides every consideration of health and comfort. He exorts his readers to pursue their calling, to work out their faith and obey no matter what. The writer to the Hebrews puts it very graphically in the great twelfth chapter:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.

(Hebrews 12.1)

Am I being too ambitious in my desire for a more ordered life, where prayer and bible study can have a higher profile?  Do I need to recognise and remove things that are hindering me – which may be good in themselves, just not the right things for me at this time! There must be a balance to be achieved, a balance which my heavenly Father can see, between my desire for time with him, and my duties to my spouse and family; my friends and community; our church family and events and the hobbies which I believe are part of the way that God nurtures me and gives me joy in living with him every day.

May we all be given wisdom to discern how we may best use the days and strength given to us – not in comparison to anyone else, but according to the leading of God and his will for our lives.

Drop thy still dews of quietness, till all our strivings cease;

Take from our souls the strain and stress, and let our ordered lives confess

The beauty of thy peace.

(John Greenleaf Whittier 1807-82)

Practical, purposeful living

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Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone.

The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus.

(2 Peter 1.5-9)

I think we all like to believe that our lives can be of benefit to someone, that we are making a positive difference by being here – it gives us a sense of value, of purpose in our daily routine. In fact, the bible tells us that we are designed for a purpose – to know and be known by God, to enjoy the world he has made for us and to share with one another the love he shows us.

Although that original purpose has been frustrated in part by the rebellion of humanity against God’s authority, still as followers of Jesus, with his life quickening our spirits, we are called to live to share the gospel, by word and deed, and to declare God’s glory until Christ comes again.

Peter’s words in the passage at the top of this blog are a challenging piece of instruction for early believers in how they might become more and more equipped to fulfill God’s purpose in their lives – and they apply equally to me today.

It is all very well to be transported through music and meditation into a state of rapture as I worship God, but if my faith only ever produces private pleasures, then it is not something to be proud of. I may be comforted in times of weariness and loss by the knowledge of Jesus love for me, but if that same love is never shared by me with others, then I am being utterly selfish and un-Christlike in my response to His grace.

Yes, indeed, God has been pleased to call me His own, to grant me faith, to forgive and restore me to His family. But the story is so much bigger than that! I am a tiny little part of a great Redemption narrative that includes all of creation and all time, and in which I have a role to play in the lives of many other people. My personal salvation is NOT the end of the story, but only a little sub-paragraph, which should see me joining in with a great multitude of God’s people to fulfill His purposes and ultimately to fall in worship before Him.

I am saved for a purpose; to be – in whatever situation He chooses to place me – the person He calls me to be. I am to accept that what might feel like very hard situations for me personally, will ultimately be for the blessing of others – and I am especially to accept that I may never know how God chooses to use me in those situations.

I am not God, I cannot see all the implications of every situation, and so I cannot possibly see how He is working all things together for His purposes – but I can choose to trust His word when He promises that He is doing that very thing.

And so I come back to the list which Peter wrote, of qualities of Christian character which can be deliberately cultivated, and which will help me to be productive for Jesus – in whatever ways He chooses to use me. I need all of these, need to grow in cheerful perseverance, in knowledge of God and His word, so that I might serve Him faithfully and steadily.

I thank God that it is by His power at work in me, that these qualities are developed – although I certainly need to play my part. I thank God that He sees my desire to be more like Christ, and forgives my frequent failures to do so! I pray for the steadiness of spirit which will allow me to travel on, a pilgrim on a quiet path, trusting Him to be with me and for me at every step of the way. May John Bunyan’s beautiful words be more and more true for each of us in the days ahead:

Who would true valour see? Let him come hither;

One here will constant be, come wind, come weather;

There’s no discouragement shall make him once relent

His first avowed intent to be a pilgrim.

(John Bunyan 1628-88)

Time only goes one way!

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I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: forgetting the past and looking to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.

(Philippians 3.12-14)

One of the greatest benefits of the new life which we have as followers of Jesus Christ, is the awareness that our sins and failures, our falling-short of God’s goodness, is completely dealt with. Each new day, is a new start, and we do not carry any baggage with us from the past. There may be consequences, but there is no guilt, no more isolation from God, no threat of judgement to come, to shadow our lives.

We are in a wonderful sense, set free from our past, and rightly we rejoice in that freedom. Paul encourages us to embrace that freedom, to refuse to allow inappropriate guilt to hold us back from fresh commitments to obedience and service of our God. He did not dwell on his early opposition to and persecution of the church, did not allow that to prevent him from becoming not only a great theologian, but also a pioneering evangelist and church-planter. He trusted that God could deal with those who doubted him because of his history, since it did not prevent God from calling him to serve.

How easy do I find it to allow my past failures to prevent my present obedience? I set limits on what I am willing to attempt for God, because I am afraid of failing again. What does that say about how I believe God is transforming me, is giving me his power to achieve the tasks which are appointed to me? Yes, I will go on sinning, until death ushers me out of this mortal frame, but God has not made my usefulness to him dependent on my perfection! I can and should embrace each new task with a joyful confidence in his enabling, and a humble thankfulness that  my failures will not prevent that work from being carried out.

In other areas though, it can be hard to let go of the past, to accept that precious days, sweet relationships will not come again. When a parent sees a beloved child step into independence – or begin to do so – there is a bereavement, because something beautiful has come to an end. It is a natural and right ending, but nonetheless, those days, that intimacy will never come again. The season for those things is past.

I was blessed to grow up in a particularly strong and loving church, and there are aspects of that life which I miss very much, and would dearly love to recreate. But time only moves one way, I am not in that place anymore, and much has changed. Those days will not come again. So what do I do? Is it right to allow past blessings to prevent me from appreciating what God is providing for me now? Surely not, nor to argue that I can only receive blessing in that particular way!

The apostle James wrote that, “Whatever is good and perfect comes down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow.” (James 1.17)

God is the source of all good things, and His purpose and character never change. So if He chose to bless me in one way in the past, He may choose another way today but his purpose remains my transformation into the likeness of Christ, and ultimate enjoyment with him of glory. All the good gifts are for a purpose, for my growth in faith and understanding, in trust and obedience. Let me recognise and give thanks for past blessings, but also discern the new things God may be planning to use for my good.

My God is too great and wonderful to be limited in His actions by my understanding, to be restricted to doing things in the same way over and over again! May I learn to trust that He is always good, and always loving, and look for the ways He is choosing to bless me now, so that I may – like Paul – forget what is past, let it go, and face the future with confidence in my great loving provider.

The only constant…

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For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.

(Philippians 1.21)

 

It was on a night like this three years ago that my mother died. Soft, heavy snow fell steadily, drowning sound and creating a stark, eerily beautiful landscape, every branch bearing its weightless load.

We had known it was coming, and were thankful to be prepared, as ready as one can ever be to become an orphan. She was so ready to go home, and her saviour’s name was almost the last word on her lips.

God knows that death is too much for us, that we are made for eternity; that change and bereavement cause us to stagger, losing our bearings and succumbing to fear. Death is the ultimate insult to God’s creation of humanity in his image, the great scar which resulted from sin entering our hearts and breaking our fellowship with Him. It was never meant to be this way, and I take great comfort in knowing that my anger and grief in the face of death are a small reflection of God’s anger against this corruption of his perfect creation.

But I have learnt things through the deaths of my parents which would otherwise have remained merely theoretical. I have come to understand and rely on the Father heart of God for me, his beloved daughter; to trust in and take comfort from the Mother heart of God as I am cherished, and always understood. Perhaps it is only when precious things pass away that we learn to seek their essence in God – all the goodness and beauty of this world is a mere shadow of the truth and glory which are in Him.

It is a lesson which I need to keep learning. As my children have grown and become more independent, I am not ‘needed’ in the same way, and that role – which was so big that it became almost my entire life – is gone. I must not look to that relationship as my security and source of satisfaction in life. Nor should I depend on my status as ‘wife’, since that relationship too must someday come to an end. No, the only constant is that God, the creator and sustainer of life has chosen to reveal Himself to me, to make me his child, and to call me home to share in the glorious future planned for His people in the new creation.

It is His constancy which is my only security, everything else will pass away.

It is His arms which must be my refuge, since there are ultimately no other safe places.

It is His grace which is my only hope, since my own efforts and all the approval of others cannot make me worthy to belong in His kingdom.

It is in His beauty that I find the source of the glory which I only glimpse in the colours, seasons, sights and sensations of this amazing world. They dazzle me; how shall I bear being in the presence of the One and only, the great original?!

It is in His love that I find all my human loves purified, transformed and made perfect, so that I am finally at rest and fully myself.

May we be given daily grace to grow in dependence on Him, and to hold this world and all its riches with an open hand and yielding heart. For “our citizenship is in heaven. and we eagerly await a Saviour from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to being everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body!” (Philippians 3.20&21)

Dying to live..

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Then he said to them all:

“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. 

For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.

What good is it for a man to gain the whole world and yet lose or forfeit his very self?

(Luke 9. 24&25)

Some people would have us believe that the christian life should be a happy, smooth and fulfilling one, and that if we do not have that experience, then we are somehow failing to grasp our inheritance as God’s beloved children.

Where does Jesus call us to such a life? Not here, not in these words, which are recorded in all four gospels, indicating their centrality to our understanding of his teaching. Jesus calls us to die for him, no more, no less. For many, it is a call to physical death – whether by martyrdom, or by being exposed to unusual risks by virtue of the work we do in his name. For all of us, it is a call to die to ourselves, to the ways of thinking and acting which put our needs, welfare and personal fulfillment first.

Am I the only christian who needs regularly to be reminded that my Lord calls me to this radical discipleship? To have it drummed into my heart and thinking again and again that my own happiness is not the goal of my life, in spite of the bewitching messages with which contemporary culture tries to persuade me. When I get my eyes fixed back onto this vision of the life to which I am called, for which I was saved by my Lord, then it is like finally seeing past a smokescreen, to a clear sky and a straight road. But oh, how hard it can be to look up, to shake myself clear of the smoke and see properly!

Jesus does not give me options on obedience, I am not in a position to qualify the extent to which I will do as God commands according to my circumstances and feelings! If I once allow my feelings to become the driving force behind my willingness to obey, then I will become utterly bogged down in self-obsessed inaction. God has given me a will to act, a mind to understand, and has shown me what to do. How I feel must follow, not dictate, my obedience to those commands.

Did it not cost Jesus more than we can begin to imagine to obey God’s will in his life on earth? He wept and toiled, and embraced suffering and death because He knew that this was God’s will for him. What am I saying when I protest against the cost of obedience in my life, that I am not willing to suffer in turn? That my immediate comfort and temporary self-fulfilment are more precious than eternal life and union with Christ? That his love for me is not worth very much if it must be paid out of my own ease?

I have been reminded again of the words penned by martyred missionary Jim Elliott, who wrote :-“he is no fool, who gives what he cannot keep, to gain that which he cannot lose!”

God forgive me that I protest so bitterly against the small crosses which he asks me to bear, against the small sacrifices which he asks me to make in his name. Should I not rather rejoice that I may suffer through obedience? My Lord sees the pain I experience, and commends me as I seek to obey in spite of it. That same pain causes me to lean ever harder on His arm, to listen closer for his loving voice, to sit ever more lightly to this world and hope more gladly for the next. Is this not reason for giving thanks in my struggles? God give me courage to obey, understanding to see what I must do, and fuller knowledge of his love that my desire for him might continue to grow.

All to Jesus I surrender; all to Him I freely give;

I will ever love and trust Him, in His presence daily live.

I surrender all, I surrender all; all to Thee my blessed Saviour, 

I surrender all

(Judson W. Van De Venter 1896)

Just kidding myself….

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Joyful are people of integrity, who follow the instructions of the Lord.

Joyful are those who obey his laws and search for him with all their hearts.

They do not compromise with evil, and they walk only in his paths.

You have charged us to keep your commandments carefully.

Oh that my actions would consistently reflect your decrees!

Then I will not be ashamed when I compare my life with your commands.

As I learn your righteous regulations, I will thank you by living as I should!

I will obey your decrees….Please don’t give up on me!

(Ps 119.1-8, NLT) 

As I read these words this morning, I had to laugh. Such a perfect articulation of my thoughts this week and written, well, how long ago?! It is marvellous to receive God’s word so directly, to hear one’s own thoughts turned into prayers by a poet/musician who wrote in a completely different culture, and yet voiced the experience of God’s people down across the centuries.

We know that it is not our ability to keep God’s decrees which dictates our acceptance by him. It is all his grace, and what a relief that is! But obedience is our response to that grace, as the psalmist says – “I will thank you by living as I should!”As I go on following Jesus, my life should increasingly reflect his character, so that my thoughts, words and deeds are all in accord, so that I am a person of integrity.

The apostle Paul told his readers in the Roman church that this transformation comes about through our minds – it is by no means accidental or unwilled.:- “Don’t copy the behaviour and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.“(Romans 12.2)

I have a responsibility as a professing Christian, to be actively growing in my knowledge of God, through his word, through prayerful living and sharing with my fellow believers. If I choose to sit back and drift, then I will not find myself growing in holiness, or humility, or self-control. The human default setting is still towards selfishness, laziness, and dependence on self rather than reliance on God. I find in myself a lack of discipline, a mental laziness when it comes to studying the bible, a casual attitude to intercession, and so many ready excuses for not being what I could be…

I have to tread carefully here, since the devil would love to cast me into a pit of despair over my failures, and bind me with a sense of futility about my efforts to change. That is not God’s will for me, and I reject such an attitude. I rejoice in the forgiveness which I have in Christ, in the fresh start which is given to me daily, and the many personal tokens of God’s love which I receive . But the grief of my failure to live up to the  love which is so lavishly bestowed upon me is real, and I will acknowledge it. Indeed, I think I can even be glad that I feel it, because it is a sign that my spirit is still desiring God, longing to know him better, to live more closely with him. If I did not care about my heavenly Father’s heart, I wouldn’t mind falling short of his perfect ways.

So here is the challenge.. to allow my sense of my shortcomings to be strong enough to drive me to seek God’s help in changing habits and thoughts, re-arranging my days if necessary to do so, while not falling into a trap of despair when the inevitable failures happen!

God is not fooled by my efforts to justify myself, and he is not deceived as others may be by my public behaviour. I am known, through and through, by the only one whose opinion really matters. I have a long way to go, but praise God, the work is still in progress, and the divine craftsman is not for giving up!

May God, the source of hope, fill us completely with joy and peace because we trust in him. Then we shall overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.(from Romans 15.13) Amen Lord, so let it be!

And now …what?

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Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace.

For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.

(Luke 2.29-32)

If you were reading these words for the first time, you might think they were spoken by one of Jesus’ disciples, after the resurrection, when everything was becoming clearer and his life on earth was at an end.

In fact, the speaker was a man named Simeon, a man who had been waiting many years for God to fulfill a special personal promise to him. Simeon knew that he would not die until his eyes had seen the promised Messiah, the Christ, who would save his people and usher in the new Kingdom. And this speech was not made as Simeon stood looking into an empty tomb, or even at  a darkened, bloodstained cross. He was holding an eight-day old baby boy, whose parents had brought him to the temple in Jerusalem to fulfill the law and present the child to God. There was nothing to make anyone else look twice at the child, but Simeon knew, and what joy must have filled his faithful heart as he cradled the answer to God’s promise!

He could not see into the days and years ahead, to the massacre of innocent children in Bethlehem; or the return of the grown man to declare his divinity and challenge the temple leaders; to proclaim the coming of God’s kingdom and to lay down his life in sacrifice, the perfect lamb of God. Simeon knew nothing of the disciples who would one day be scattered from Jerusalem to take the gospel into all the world, revealing God’s love to the Gentiles and proclaiming forever that there was no difference in God’s eye between Jew and Gentile, that all are one people, God’s beloved and redeemed children.

He knew God, and so he trusted… His personal promise had been fulfilled, he held in his arms the beginning of the final chapter of God’s great plan for the world, and he was content to know no more.

Simeon’s faith is a challenge to me in my waiting, in my living by faith and in hope. Do I share his confidence that because I know the beginning of the story, I can trust in God’s will and power to achieve the end He has promised? I know so much more than Simeon ever did about this baby. I see the grown man in his agony for me; I see his wrestling with evil and enduring utter separation from God – for me. And still I doubt that God is able or willing to achieve good for and through me, or to fulfill all his just and right will for this world.

Oh Lord, strengthen my faith, and help me to trust you in the face of the darkness which grows upon our world.

In my waiting – let me not be passive, but active in rejoicing in my saviour and making him known to any who will listen:

In my waiting – let me not despair over the power of evil in the world and men’s hearts, but rather recognise the death throes of a beaten foe:

In my waiting – let me see beauty, life, and joy, your good gifts to your world so that we might taste of you and hunger to be satisfied:

In my waiting – let me live in that divine hope which fuels perseverance and which alone will enable me to walk peacefully through a troubled world:

In my waiting – let me be content, like Simeon, with what you have chosen to reveal to me, accepting that which I cannot understand and trusting that you know best what is good for me. Amen