Tag Archives: Luke 12

Where is my security?

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The name of the Lord is a fortified tower; the righteous run to it and are safe.

The wealth of the rich is their fortified city; they imagine it a wall too high to scale.

Before a downfall the heart is haughty, but humility comes before honour.

(Prov 18.10-12)

A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold.

(Prov 22.1)

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothes.. Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?… For the pagan world runs after all such things and your Father knows that you need them. But seek his kingdom and these things will be given to you as well.

(Lk 12.22&23,25&26, 30&31)

I remember singing a children’s song – with actions – based on this verse in Proverbs about the name of the Lord being a strong tower. It was very popular, and our faces would be filled with glee as we waved enthusiastically from our imagined tower, signifying total security and peace. As an adult in a peaceful, law-abiding and prosperous land, reading these words makes me think how readily we behave more like the proverbial rich man, who considers his wealth as a strong and effective barrier to all trouble and grief. Our culture, grounded in an innate confidence in human abilities and a rejection of the possibility of our being entirely in the hands of God, simply throws money at problems in order to make them go away. Wealthy people spend to ensure privacy, peace, security, health and longevity, beauty and … more wealth.

If I were transplanted from my comfortable home, prosperity, health and freedom from physical threat to a land undergoing war.. where then would my security lie? All of a sudden the physical health which I prize so highly, is shown to be as fragile as eggshells, death is an ever present threat – where then is my security? In the end, no human ingenuity can protect us from death – although many would like to think it could. And that is the ultimate threat against which we seek security.

These verses are a strong corrective lesson to me when I have been carried away by the latest diet and exercise advice on prolonging life and delaying ageing; or when I am being tempted to imagine that a top-quality pension plan will ensure a long, happy and healthy retirement. NOTHING that we do as human beings can stand in the way of God’s will for us – and if I am to live till 99, then the Lord in his goodness will provide for me. If I am to die like my father at 69, then again, will I not be humble enough to accept that He knows best and that in his will alone I am secure? Worrying about it will not make a bit of difference to whether I am to live for another 9 or 39 years!

No, my focus and trust need to be continually brought back to God my Father; to his promises and his kingdom. If I am in any way wealthy, let me use the resources of money, time, health and opportunity in serving the kingdom and leave the business of ordaining my life’s future path to the One who alone knows what is best.

Almighty and merciful Father, thank you that you know how frail your creatures are, and that you know how readily we presume upon the riches of your gifts to us – be they health, wealth, peace or any other good thing. Forgive us when we elevate the gifts above the giver, and in doing so place our trust and hope in them. We may lose all these gifts so quickly, and yet never lose your love, your promises, and our place in your family and your kingdom.

Let us hold our riches on open hands, yielding them to you to be used as you desire and not clutching them to our hearts for dear life. Have mercy on those who are poor in this world’s good things – health, wealth, peace and security – and may we in our wealth be part of your merciful provision for them. Make us generous and cheerful givers, and deliver us from the fruitlessness of worrying about ourselves! For Jesus’ sake 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

to honour by trusting..

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To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul; in you I trust, O my God…my eyes are ever on the Lord, for only he will release my feet from the snare.

(Ps 25.1&15)

Then Jehoshaphat stood up in the assembly..at the temple of the Lord and said: ” O Lord, God of our fathers, are you not the God who is in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. Power and might are in your hand, and no-one can withstand you…If calamity comes upon us…we will stand in your presence before this temple that bears your Name and will cry out to you in our distress….We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you.

(2 Chron 20.5,6,9&12)2

Then Jesus said to his disciples: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear…Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest? Consider how the lilies grow. They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field..how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith!….But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well….Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom…Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

(Luke 12.22,25&32: Matt.6.33&34)

As a follower of Jesus, I am called to honour and glorify God in everything I do – that is, to make his name great, to give him his rightful place and encourage others to acknowledge his worth and greatness. God has not promised his children that they will have an easy path through life in order to glorify and testify to his power, rather he makes it clear that we are to worship and lift him high in the midst of the trials of life, mundane though they often are, and extreme as they can be. How do we do this? Surely one of the ways most clearly commanded to us – explicitly by the words of Jesus quoted above, and implicitly in many other places – is by our trust in God.

Our God is an awesome God; he reigns from heaven above with wisdom, love and power, our God is an awesome God. Do I believe it? Do I live as if I were the apple of his eye, the one for whom he guides all things together for my blessing and his glory? Do I give God credit for all his promises, and even more, for all the things he has done which prove his faithfulness? Too often, the answer has to be that I do not; that my actions – my addiction to worry and anxiety, to controlling and manipulating circumstances – all speak of a heart which does not trust God to do as he has promised – to deliver me and keep me safe. If a jury of my neighbours and friends were to consider the evidence for my dependence upon God, my reliance on him to do all things well, what would be their verdict upon me? I fear they would declare the case ‘not proven’, in face of my fretful and discontented thoughts and words; my self-centred actions and attitudes.

May I be forgiven for dishonouring my Lord in this way; for disbelieving his word, and dismissing his historic faithfulness, and living as though no one was looking out for me, but myself.

May I learn to be more like the godly king Jehoshaphat, who in time of great national danger came publicly to claim the help and protection of God – boldly reminding God of all that had been promised, and leaving the matter entirely in his hands. This is what it looks like to seek God’s kingdom before our own needs – to come and say, “Lord, I don’t know what to do, but I am looking to you, not to anyone else and certainly not to myself, for your good will to be done.”

In every circumstance, may this be my experience, to turn towards and not away from God; to run to his word, his promises, his character and find there my grounds for peace, for hope and for the security of all that I entrust to him. May I learn, as the flowers and birds have never forgotten, that I am called to live and thrive for as long as my Lord shall decree, and to honour him by my absolute trust that he knows and does all things well.

Just say “Thank you”…

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Then Jesus said to his disciples: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes…..Consider how the lilies grow. They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith!

(Luke 12. 22,23,27,28)

Spring in Scotland can involve every kind of weather – sometimes all in the same day – so we cherish the sunny and warm days when we get them. This April has been  particularly spectacular, and I am full of thankfulness for the season. There has been an explosion of colour, with bulbs flowering and primroses opening carpets of yellow faces to the sunshine. This part of my city is full of great trees, putting forth new leaves like a green lace, each one a different shade as the sunlight pours through their delicate transparency. There are streets and parks where cherry trees are weighed down under great handfuls of pink and white blossom, which turns into drifts of colour along the pavements as the wind carries it off. So much beauty, there for the seeing, for the savouring. One of the things I deeply appreciate about knowing Jesus as my Saviour, is knowing also to whom I can offer thanks for so much beauty poured out day after day for my blessing. And the very act of thanksgiving increases my pleasure, deepens the sense of being nourished deep in my soul by this gift of beauty. It is like storing up light against times of darkness, investing in warmth against the coming chill.

I know that in this world I will have troubles – although at the moment I am humbly aware of how blest I am to live in health and peace under a democratic government, where freedom and life are valued and my children can grow to their full potential. Only a few days ago, our brothers and sisters in Nepal were visited by the destructive power of an earthquake, and so many lives have been destroyed and disrupted – I know nothing of such grief, loss and fear. I am not proud to have been spared, but rather humbled, and challenged, to think what I can do out of the riches which I have, to meet even a few of the needs of those who are suffering so much. This is another result of thanking God for all I have and receive – it reminds me that none of it is mine in the first place, but only ever a gift to be held in readiness, to share with those who need. I have nothing by right, but all by gift, and I have it that I might serve God, love his children and share his glory with the world that needs to see it so badly.

In the passage I quoted above, Jesus is encouraging and teaching his disciples to have the right priorities in their lives as they await his return in glory. The incredible extravagance with which God creates and sustains beauty and fruitfulness all around us is given as an illustration of his power and care for his creation – even the most short-lived and ephemeral parts of it, like the wild flowers. Since our God is like this, should we not trust him to know what we need – we whom the psalmist describes as being made ” a little lower than the angels and crowned with glory and honour?” (Ps 8.5)

Jesus goes on to exhort us, his followers, to “seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.” (Luke 12.31). God is not in the business of withholding good things from his children, but rather desires our ultimate and greatest good – that we might live and rejoice with him in his kindgom for ever. We may not understand why our idea of good things is not the same as his, nor why at times we receive good through suffering, pain, frustration and dreadful difficulties. But we have the example of Jesus, who trusted his Father would provide for him, and focused all his energies on obedience and proclaiming the coming of the kingdom. Now he is seated in glory, king over all, reigning and coming again to claim all his own to share in his joy.

As I walk through pleasant places, and pray for those in deep darkness and sorrow, may I be trusting the God who gives good gifts to his children, and thanking him for being faithful. May the beauty around me be a constant reminder that I need not worry about myself, but commit myself to God for his purposes and his glory, saying with the psalmist:

O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

(PS 8.9)