Carpet Cleaners or Lifters?

One of my first pastors often would say, “It is easier to sweep things under the carpet than to pull that carpet back and deal with the messy stuff”. And then he would add these scary words: “You must not doubt that anything swept under the carpet goes green and lumpy”.

We humans are good at laying carpets and keeping them hoovered. If God were like this, then certainly Jesus would not have died for our sins. Morality and law keeping actually look OK, but God didn’t want to leave us looking OK. He didn’t not die for us so He could put lipstick on a corpse. He wanted us to be brought back to friendship with Him – a lively friendship.

In the church, we can look OK: we can have music and preaching, a hall and life groups, but that is not enough for God. He pulls back the carpets to reveal our hearts. He is the solution and power to all our sins and the effects of those sins. So often we end up ‘issued’ with other people, because we haven’t kept short accounts with our Lord and God. We have resisted His hands at the edge of our carpets. We sweep our lukewarmness under the carpet of worries, together with prayerlessness (under the carpet of busyness), stingyness (under the carpet of responsibilities), lack of desire (under the carpet of entertainment), and so on.

We also get cross with any human attempt to have our carpets pulled back. We actually know there is a mess under there – just like the uni student who says, “Don’t open THAT cupboard!”, and when you do, you are drowned under a landslide of things. But the cupboard hinges are straining and the carpet is getting harder and harder to walk on.

Jesus Christ died to clean us from the inside out. He rose again so we could be lifted up into the presence of God. He did not do this to make us carpet-hooverers. In our time, here and now, God’s voice is calling, “Adam, where are you?”. He has made a way back for you and me to draw close, through sincere prayer and honest conversation. Sometimes we have to slow down, to find the middle again. Neglecting this call is deadly, because the things that only God can deal with turn toxic without his healing grace. And they don’t stay under the carpet. They spread and jump and trickle into other relationships and areas of our brains. They rob us of peace and a good conscience. And they steal unity and power from the church.

Is God putting His finger on hidden things in your life? Don’t jump away. God disciplines us for His good, that we may share in His holiness and in His Son’s eternal inheritance.

You might just find that judgment begins with His household precisely because God is LOVE – and He is loving us by dealing with the things that otherwise devour us, one day at a time.

Junk Food Junkies no More

"I ATE JUNK TO NUMB THE PAIN". Health column headline of a fellow passenger on Ryanair flight

This would be a great contemporary teaching series for us if only charismatic culture were more honest. I would divide it into shorter talks with titles like (to bring out the positive truth of course!)...

1.    Getting bands on stage without gospel music in the people's hearts is tuneful junk.

2.     Controlling others and monitoring their compliance is autocratic junk. Whether it is trying to control congregants or pastors.

3.    For that matter, operating in any form of secular power and authority is self-defeating junk.

4.    Borrowing ideas and declaring colourful but lifeless values above a living vision of Jesus is echoey junk. 

5.    Coercing people to give time, involvement and treasures is extortional junk.  

6.    Kingship for anyone other than Jesus is idoltarous junk.

7.    Going from foot-washer to Wash-Me is vainglorious junk.

8.    Doing anything in public or in private that will not survive the Refiner's fire is wasteful junk.

9.    Expecting of others what you no longer do in private is pharisaical junk.

10. Cutting ourselves off from the world and losing a love for the godless is missional junk. 

11. Only having time for those who will benefit your cause, life, organization and/or personal future, now or into the future, is ecclesiatical junk. (Why then would anyone dine with prostitutes?)

12. Allowing super-spirituality to overrun meetings for fear of being seen to offend the Spirit is corporate junk.

13. Making meetings boring by timid repetition is mindless junk, and it comes from dryness in private. If we are all invited to participate, then any of us can bring passion and anointing to a meeting of the saints.

14. Allowing confusing and contradictory preaching in the same pulpit in the name of diversity and the honouring of famous people is noisy junk, yet God will resuce his faithful ones from a lifetime in a doctrinal swamp.

15. A diet of prescriptive, directional preaching that divides hearers into robots or rebels, and obliges their obedience without revelation of the pearl of great price, is desecrating junk.

16. Linking the favor of God firstly to performance and compliance is Jezebel-junk. God bestows honor, authority and reward upon the obedience of faith, but favor upon all who have been placed in Christ through saving faith. 

17. Talking about people (including pastors!) as organisational members before speaking about them as children of God, is gossipy, fearless junk based on false ownership mindsets.

18. Desiring a future for men in the church that links them to the church vision and the fulfilment thereof, rather than to God's call and assigned purposes for each man, is damaging junk.

There seem to be so many junk-food outlets in the church today….no wonder so many of us end up dysfunctional. No wonder so many ministers end up angry, lonely, shrunk, divorced, sinning, disenchanted. People belong to God. So does the church. So do you. Flee from anything that takes you in the wrong direction; that takes you from your own sonship, peace, calling and fruitfulness.  There is a day coming where all our hidden motives will be brought to light. Rather be found out, undone, worked over today. God deals with us in love. And He can place His blazing love in your heart for his people, for this house.


Come Lord Jesus


Nick

Yet, He is not safe.

Come Lord Jesus. 

Our secret words define our public declarations

“What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs.” (Luke 12:3 NIV)

PURPOSE: to highlight and demonstrate that our private worlds and words shape our public relationships, which determine our personal destinies.

MOTIVE: Written out of a deeper fear of the Lord myself, in taking my burdens to God, in dealing biblically with inner and outer conflict; and finally, in being loving to all, with a deep sincerity.

We realize with one reading of the gospels and epistles how much God values unity. Christ died to make us “one”. This is the great mystery of the gospel – that a living, spiritual Body can be formed to represent Christ in real and lively ways - and that such a body can be formed out of angry men made peaceful; out of sinners made holy; out of broken lives made new.

God is never looking for a public show, for pretence or external appearances. He rejects these as tainted offerings. He looks at the heart and inspects the motive, without embarrassment.

He has poured out His Spirit to prepare a perfect, spotless Bride for the Son.

So, when we strip down the meetings and ministries, travel and timetables, what matters to God is the quality of our relationships. He works to knit us together in ways the world can never imitate. Scripture is clear on this: “Above all, love each other deeply” (1 Peter 4:8); “Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart.” (1 Peter 1:22); “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35).

This is an indiscriminate, 360 degree kind of love. To love like this takes Christian faith daily in the great “I AM”. It takes also a firm belief that God is over all, through all and in all. God gives us people to love who are a challenge to love. It is easy to love the loveable and agree with the agreeable!

Without beating around any bush, I want to make this argument in the context of God’s goal of deep unity of the Spirit, purpose and faith – that how we speak of and about others when apart has a direct bearing on the nature and quality of our relationship to such others when together, and also to our Christian progress.

Now, I want to offer rationale – both negative and positive – for this postulation.

1.     When we speak differently of a person (more negatively) than to that same person, the spiritual atmosphere changes. The power of life and death is in the tongue. This scripture from James never adds “when you are present”. In other words, the words uttered in my inner chamber still have the power of life and death. 

2.     When the atmosphere changes, people read atmospheres. Psychologists tell us that 70% of communication is in ‘body language’ - and a chunk more in tone and choice of words. When love fades, things get more formal, starchy, awkward, measured. Things ‘fade’. We are called into a measureless kingdom, yet for some we go from hosepipes to thimbles. You only have to consider your own children to understand how perceptive humans are to the invisible ink written “between the lines”.

3.     When we speak about someone, we are failing to include this person in the process of forming or hardening our perceptions about him/her. This is the demonic power of gossip or slander - we form a view through our own paradigm, hurt or offended pride, then we find blind witnesses to validate our view. These third parties only need to share a common hurt, common agenda or common tryst, to be deceived into gossip. We have all done it. Especially in moments of deep offence. As a small counterbalance, RT Kendall says it is good to have ONE OTHER to share with, but only to get godly and impartial perspective. Impartiality is in desperately short supply in the church today. We must claim it, because it comes with grace…and with honest answers to questions such as: “How much is God overlooking in my life? How big a debt has been cancelled over me?”.

4.     When we speak about someone falsely or differently, we lose the favor of God. God is truth, and never a lie. God is honest. God is forthright. God is never duplicitous. So, when we fume or plot or distort things, when we plan an attack or scheme on “how to handle someone”, we lose the power of grace and the personal involvement of the Holy Spirit. God is holy. And in losing His fellowship, we lose wisdom all the more. And as this happens, we more easily convince ourselves our path is right, our life is noble, our brother is a fool. This is the “spiral of justification” the enemy hooks believers into, if we allow him to.

5.     When we muddy the waters of offence through private speculation and gossip amongst friends, we lose the Biblical opportunity for true reconciliation. Where the sin is real and the offence unmissable, even here Jesus’ counsel is straightforward: “If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.” (Matthew 18:15–16). There is an immediacy about going to your brother that precludes a few weeks or months of debate within your inner circle. One of my wonderful pastors in my early Christian walk used to say, “God has not even granted you the right to debate it with your spouse. All too often,” he would add, “the husband gets healed but the wife stays stuck in her husband’s old offences”.

6.     When we speak two languages in different circumstances, we become modern day Pharisees. The Pharisees were missional, evangelical, charismatic and evangelistic. They would travel over land and sea to win a single convert. They tithed on their spices. They read and prayed. The only thing keeping many of us from becoming Pharisees is sincerity. It is keeping an integrity – a “oneness” and sameness in every sphere of our lives. There is no point in being zealous only in church meetings. There is little point to only worshipping when your band is on stage. There is utter futility in doing things publicly so men can notice and applaud…and so too, it is hypocritical to the point of pointlessness to speak life over one’s brother in his presence, and death over him in his absence.

7.     In planning attacks and defences, in pulling others down to raise ourselves up, we lose the power of God’s advocacy and vindication in our own lives. I used to tell new brides at the altar, “Submission is learning how to duck so God can hit your husband”. It’s true, actually. Too often, we are bobbing and weaving, jabbing and circling so much that we interfere in God’s righteous dealings with the other party. Jesus loves to defend the underdog; He loves to protect the adulteress from religious hypocrisy and accurate but unloving accusation. Do you want God to deal with your enemy? Scripture tells you straight how to do that – “Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Romans 12:17–21). Another alarming little scripture is found in Proverbs 24:17-18: “Do not gloat when your enemy falls; when he stumbles, do not let your heart rejoice, or the LORD will see and disapprove and turn his wrath away from him.” I am still not quite sure how to apply that!

8.     In ganging up against a brother who rubs you up the wrong way, we lose a potential friend or disciple. In the gospel, sworn enemies become dear friends. Jews and Greeks, slaves and free, male and female, young and old – they can become one, as Christ and the Father are one. The Holy Spirit is a uniting spirit. This is not a culture club or a middle class friendship agency. My son once saw an advert for a dating agency which claimed to match “personality profiles, likes and interests”. He commented, “So much for enjoying diversity”. The church should be like a modern day Naioth (1 Samuel 19), the city where angry King Saul took off his war clothes and began to prophesy. Someone has to help angry men find peace. Someone has to be the shock-absorber. Church becomes an astringent, unpleasant environment with radars up for offence and indiscretion. Finally, we could all do well by asking ourselves the question, “Has repaying like for like and kind for kind, hurt for hurt and word for word, matured me and made me a friend of sinners?”.

9.     In speaking well of our brothers, in believing the best and overlooking offence, we gain favor with God and men. All men ache to find a brother who deliberately turns a blind eye to their glaring weaknesses. “Maturity is not so much how much we observe, but how much we choose to overlook”. And all the while, our heavenly credibility grows. All the while we become promotable in the Kingdom of Mercy and Forgiveness.

10.  So, learning to live with difficult people means we are being qualified for higher assignments. I don’t want to spend my remaining years just dealing with middle class angst and awareness. I want to access the lost and broken. This is where Jesus ministered. He loves us middle class, but we are low on faith. I truly believe that being faith-full in these little battles like brotherly offence qualifies us to being used for assignments requiring more faith, and thus greater rewards. We cannot shrink our way to greatness. There is a whole world dying in the valley of decision. It is time to win these minor skirmishes!

11.  Forgiving a person in private, before they apologize for or even notice a real offence, keeps you in the flow of the Father’s forgiveness. And with forgiveness, the fount of blessing flows unceasingly! “Unforgiveness is the only unforgiveable sin”, said Michael Eaton. “Forgive, that you might be forgiven”, said Jesus. And nowhere in scripture does it say the offending brother must grovel and squirm before you release forgiveness (and never does it commend us to say, “I’ll forgive, but I won’t forget”). What if God treated you like you treat the offender? Have you not offended God daily, sometimes by the minute? Keep the fountain of forgiveness flowing, and don’t be stupid like the unforgiving servant of Matthew 18.

Paul was so adamant that we win this battle against self-righteous deception and hypocrisy, that he blurted out to the squabbling Corinthians, “Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated?”! (1 Corinthians 6:7). He equated “the devil’s schemes” to sowing disunity amongst believers through unforgiveness (2 Cor 2:11), for the devil also knows that “a house divided against itself will fall” (Luke 11:17b). He also observes what the Trinity observed at the tower of Babel, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.” (Genesis 11:6). The only difference now is it is God’s temple that is going up!

Without this kind of integrity, church becomes a political sphere and a cloak for the Darwinian maxim of “survival of the fittest”. We are all only made fit by grace and unspeakable mercy, so… “go and do ye likewise”.

Finally, may God grant us grace upon grace to believe the best and to speak life over one another – in public and in private.

Nick

We will not be Pathetic

 “No king is saved by the size of his army; no warrior escapes by his great strength. A horse is a vain hope for deliverance; despite all its great strength it cannot save. But the eyes of the LORD are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love, to deliver them from death and keep them alive in famine.” 

Psalms 33:16–19
Armies, warriors and horses – all intimidating, yet useless in the long run. So why has God left us in such a dangerous world, with such useless deliverers? He is not playing games with us – He does it so we will learnt to cry out to Him, trust in Him, look to Him for deliverance!...

• The Red Army was the pride of Russia, but now the USSR is a chapter in the history books. The mighty Goliath is now ashes. If you dig long enough, you might just find a Roman Centurion’s belt buckle in the ground somewhere. And every week outstanding soldiers are being killed by IEDs in Afghanistan.

• My daughter loves animals, and especially horses. At her first show-jumping competition, she was given a great big beast. He was all muscle, an outstanding example of equine strength. But yet, what use is a horse in the day of disaster? “There was a great famine in the city; the siege lasted so long that a donkey’s head sold for eighty shekels of silver” (2 Kings 6:25).

On the brink of seeing Babylonian systems crumble and fail, now is a fine time to “come out of her” and grow our child-like faith in the Almighty arm of God – the Arm that is never too short to save. God is never intimated, never alarmed, never in a quandary. God scoffs at the mightiest army and ignores the most perilous threat. He is the Awesome God, enthroned on High, from whom all power and authority flows.

And Jesus, our Man in Glory, has entered the heavens and sat down at the right hand of the Almighty! Because God hears Him and answers all His prayers, our prayers in His name are powerful and effective.

• May we as saints develop healthy gossip vines of the goodness and grace of God in our everyday lives, as we seek His intervention – and expect it. And why shouldn’t we?!

• May we as witnesses in the world not share in the same fears and terrified conversations as our worldly neighbors and friends. How will that help the cause of Christ?!

• May we as members of the same church encourage one another daily, while it is called today, and all the more as we see the Day approaching. Will we really say on our deathbeds, “I wish I had saved more money on my texting bill”?!
  

In these three things, we will find the extra oil that makes a virgin wise, not foolish.

Finally, what of those who pastor and preach? What is the watchword at this hour? I believe we should rather err on the side of risk than right doctrine; of laying hold of the promises rather than laying down church protocols; and of trusting Jesus through the storms rather than teaching others how to sail well. In so doing, we shall inspire others to faith, and do them much good. For we must not be so foolish as to think that we church-folk are immune from being tempted to trust in lesser deliverers – in the size of the church-army, in the potency of her warrior-ministers; or in the great strength of the gift-horses. All these are useless without simple faith that puts its trust first and last in the promises and power of Creator God.

Even so, even within our fears and frailties, come Lord Jesus.

Nick

Life is Chaos without Faith

Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the LORD! (Psalm 31:24)

This must surely be one of the most defining verses of the Bible. In it we have the intersection between heaven and earth. In heaven, is the Lord. In heaven is all power, glory, goodness, provision, purity, fullness, peace and joy. On earth there is chaos amongst men. On earth there is an overflow of cruelty, fickleness, poverty, misery, worry and sadness.

What is the intersection point? Who can deliver us from the storms in the world and in our own hearts?

In a word – JESUS. Jesus, the One who took on human form, who walked among us, who suffered and died. Jesus, who takes away our sins. Jesus, who brings us back to the Father. Jesus, who intercedes for us. Jesus, who baptizes us in power. Jesus, who provides for us. Jesus, who ever intercedes for us Jesus, our high tower. Jesus, in whom every promise of God is “YES”. Jesus, our Man in Glory.

Jesus IS "the Rock that is higher than I". On Christ the solid rock I stand; all other ground is sinking sand.

And how do we come to Jesus? How do we approach Him? By faith. By believing he exists, and that he rewards us with all we need as we ask and seek and knock. Too many Christians now leave the asking and seeking to their pastors or the “zealots”. To this, Jesus has spoken and said to each one of us, “Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving Me”. It is the Lord you are serving! Your life belongs to him, is wrapped up in him. Do you not know this? This is spiritual milk, that you no longer live but Christ lives in you. You have been seated in Christ at the Father’s right hand. Why do we forget? Because we do not think on these things. Why? Because we have become busy with other things, worldly affairs, temporary matters – stuff that is inconsequential compared to the Glory of God in Christ.

“We have lost the aura of glory, the mood of joy, the air of expectation”…D Salochi

Can you get it back? Of course. Of course you can. Of course.

“You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely? But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:  “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.” (James 4:4–10)

Strong words. But strong medicine is needed in the face of all the…chaos, cruelty, poverty, misery, worries and sadness. And in their place, the Holy Spirit can and will raise up in you, through your humility, what is already overflowing from heaven – power, glory, goodness, provision, purity, fullness, peace and joy. Believe it! Only believe.

Nick

7 Differences between Students of Religion and Disciples of Christ

“As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.”At once they left their nets and followed him.” (Mark 1:16–18)

To paraphrase David Bosch, the disciples of Jesus - called as firstfruits to us all - stand in stark difference to the disciples of the Pharisees and Teachers of the Law

1. THE CHOICE.............The religious student chose his own teacher; but Jesus chose his disciples. We have not enrolled, but been enrolled. This is not a career move but the Call of God.
2. THE FOCUS...............The religious student enrolled to study the Torah – the law of God; Christ’s disciples are enrolled to study Him. He is the Word of God, the radiance of the Father.
3. THE RELATIONSHIP....The religious student was only a student; Christ’s disciples are his servants too. They serve with Christ, even as He serves the Father’s will. Students become lecturers, servants become friends.
4. THE MOTIVE..............The religious student enrolled to be trained, so he could get a chief seat; Christ’s disciples always remain his students, and being discipled by God is their destiny. Only Christ enjoys elevation.
5. THE HALLMARK.........The religious student can boast in his teacher; Christ’s disciples boast in the Lord. We also learn from Christ through community; we are not “of Paul, Cephas, Apollos”. No man hallmarks us.
6. THE PURPOSE............The religious student learns the Law to be able to teach others and preserve Judaism and her ethos; Christ disciples learn from Him to enjoy God and proclaim his kingdom to the world.
7. THE TIME FRAME.......The religious student learns from the past and preserves this knowledge in the present; Christ’s disciples learn from Him and lean into the future. The knowledge of God will keep increasing until His appearing.
   

So, religion today would include:

• being in charge more than responding to God (control).
• being a student of the Bible more than one who studies God (knowledge)
• being a learner but not a servant (obedience)
• being a means to an end, not making Christ the Worthy End (worship)
• being known as disciples of a system or teacher, more than disciples of Christ (sonship)
• preserving Christianity more than propagating it. (purpose)
• being a conservative in the present day rather than a progressive for the future kingdom (relevance)
  

Nick

Eros vs Agape

Religion’s First Resound:

I insure myself, I'm mediated
I excuse myself, I'm exonerated
I explain myself, I'm validated
I extol myself, I'm vindicated
I empower myself, I'm celebrated

I evade myself, I'm devastated

Redemption’s First Refrain:

Christ is my Rock, He mediates
Christ is my Rewarder, He exonerates
Christ is my Reason, He validates
Christ is my Redeemer, He vindicates
Christ is Risen, I celebrate

Religion’s Second Resound:

I explore myself, I'm activated
I enhance myself, I'm educated
I enlist myself, I'm integrated
I exert myself, I'm remunerated
I enforce myself, I'm elevated

I evade myself, I'm devastated

Redemption’s Second Refrain:

The Spirit inhabits, I'm activated
The Spirit illuminates, I'm educated
The Spirit ingrafts, I'm integrated
The Spirit imbues, I'm remunerated
The Spirit intensifies, I'm elevated

Nick D

No Scar? A poem by Amy Carmichael

Hast thou no scar?
No hidden scar on foot, or side, or hand?
I hear thee sung as mighty in the land;
I hear them hail thy bright, ascendant star.
Hast thou no scar?

Hast thou no wound?
Yet I was wounded by the archers; spent,
Leaned Me against a tree to die; and rent
By ravening beasts that compassed Me, I swooned.
Hast thou no wound?

No wound? No scar?
Yet, as the Master shall the servant be,
And piercèd are the feet that follow Me;
But thine are whole: can he have followed far
Who hast no wound or scar?

Lord, let us not pick at the scabs

Are you wounded, are you scarred? People who have suffered the violent loss of loved ones will tell you that such memories never seem to fade into the long term memory banks - they remain forever lodged in short term recall. So, the slightest trigger brings to mind the violence and the loss, as though it were happenening all over again, today. 


Is this our lot? How did the ancient martyrs' families cope? How did church society manage in the midst of the ten awful persecutions under the Roman Emperors? Women lost their husbands, sons their fathers, parents their children. The manners of deaths were vulgar, unspeakable. John Foxe chronicled but a few of these in 1544. My own heart gets raw just READING of my forebear's sufferings. These are the heroes of antiquity, upon whose broken shoulders we now stand, here in the supersonic technobeat of 2011.


How did they cope, move on, remain witnesses? How shall we? Are we "more than conquerors"? Do we know whom we believe? Is there hope beyond suffering and inconvenience and death? In Christ there is! Having just read Robert Hughes "Culture of Complaint" (a polemic against the grumbling new age which turns us against each other, and ultimately against ourselves), I am all the more resolved not to magnify my scratches into massive flesh wounds.


And so, I am equally determined not to revisit past disciplines and dealings of God. Oh how vital it is to remember that our worst experiences and enemies are nothing other than tools in the Carptenter's hands! Revisitation and regurgitation...that's just picking at scars and scabs. "Don't scratch that scab!", is not just the command of our earthly parents - it is also the call of God. Forgetting what is behind, let's strain towards what is to come, knowing that even the bad stuff is only that Woodworker getting us ready for heaven's mantlepiece.... And armed with such confidence, living in between the times, could we be those madmen who burn their ships in the harbor and traverse the dark scree with daring and vigor again?


I listened to the Choral Evensong service at St Pancras Church in London. The prayer of the Rev A Pitts resonated a loud "Amen!" in me, when I think upon what I DO HAVE, not what I might have lost or suffered....

"We thank you God, for the gift of faith, for our Lord Jesus Christ, our risen and ascended Lamb: through whom our humanity is lifted into the heart of God;  through whom we receive the gift of the Divine Love. Christ our life, you are alive throughout the beauty of the earth, in the rhythm of the seasons, in the mystery of time and space. Christ our life, you are alive in the tenderness of touch, in the heartbeat of intimacy, in the insights of solitude. Christ our life, you are alive to offer re-creation to every unhealed hurt, to every deadened place, to every damaged heart. You set before us a great choice, therefore we choose life. The dance of resurrection soars and surges through the whole Creation. It sets gifts of bread and wine upon our tables. This is grace. Dying we live, so let us live."

Nick

To What Purpose are the Powers of Observation Given?

When I afford myself the luxury of mere observation, I afford myself the sin of criticism.

We never really know the depths of a man’s heart – we judge by external appearances. Do we really know good from evil, just by observing the actions and appearances? Who is more righteous, Neil Armstrong or Morgan Freeman? Margaret Thatcher or Rowan Williams? Nelson Mandela or Pastor Fred? Barack Obama or Ellen Johnson Sirleaf? Let’s face it, the 24 hour news channels play a big roile in shaping our definition of righteous and wickedness....and of giving us over to quickfire judgments with an uncanny sense of our own accuracy.

But I have come to realize how inaccurate we can be, and often. Like all of us, having experienced situations where my actions are assessed before my intentions, I am softened to the idea that only God knows the heart and motive, and thus only God is the one who does not play judge.

But what if the Spirit within also allowed us to see within another? Under what circumstances would He do this? Would He give us such wisdom without purity? Would He grant us such insight to fuel our competitive advantage? Can God be inconsistent within His own nature? The answer is self-evident.

I well remember a great pastor in my life, whose greatness was in his love and meekness. He preached fervently, but in love. When Jimmy Swaggart fell in 1988 and the knives were sharpened, my pastor preached on love believing the best and love never criticizing nor tearing, even when the worst is proved. He smashed into the right to gossip. He tore at our claim to righteousness apart from grace. He asked the question with a face full of pathos, “Did Jimmy have one good friend? Could he be honest? Do you? Can you?”.

What am I saying with regard to the Spirit revealing men’s hearts to me? Simply this – that he does it when we are moving in agape love towards others. If you have not love, you gain nothing - including wisdom. You are left to your own devices, opinions and powers of observation. And that is terrifying, for at least three reasons

• You will be wrong most of the time
• Even when you are right, you will be wrong, because a lack of love leads to a lack of action or good intention. If you find out that your worst enemy’s wife has had an affair, does it motivate you to grieve and pray or to gloat and party inside your head?
• You are found to be a hypocrite. Do you want people to believe the best or the worst of you? Do you want semi-blind friends or forensic associates? Do you like your actions being reverse-engineered to your motive, or your motives being assumed as good?

The transforming power of love is amazing! It is way more than a feel-good moment on a Helen Steiner Rice floral card. When you meet someone you don’t like, but there is love, it holds huge transforming power for the disliked person. “At last! Someone who loves me”. And the strange thing is the cranky behaviour dies down. You see, the vicious circle is complete when a man gives up on himself because of outer hostility or frigidity, and believes the worst of his OWN motives. Then he caves in to the anger he has nursed, as a fruit of injustice and self-righteousness (fruits we all carry the seeds of). He realizes somewhere that the world is a cruel place, and learns not to tolerate himself too. And so, without the power of love, he gives way to sinfulness. And thus can his enemies and observers note finally, “You see, we were right – he is a bad man”.

Am I saying there are no bad men? Should we entrust our children to any stranger? Of course not. But I am saying what Jesus said, “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”. And we might just find other scriptures coming true in our lives…ones such as: “When a man’s ways are pleasing to the Lord, he makes even his enemies live at peace with him.” (Proverbs 16:7).

In conclusion, as Christians we can take the easy route of loving and greeting those who love and greet us. We can join with the world in rolling out judgments and observations about anyone and everyone who flashes across our TV screens. Or we could reclaim the sanctity of love and the power of heaven’s fellowship by meditating again on one of the most powerful verses in all the Bible: “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8).

The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. And love of God’s type requires faith to receive it and faith to love loveless people who won’t thank you for it in the short term. But people notice everything. We have such a knack of determining who is for us and who is against us…and who is just plain neutral. We judge others for being insecure and over-sensitive, but the truth is it is barefaced hypocrisy (and we are filled with a “hypersensitive Spirit”, according to the Christian author RT Kendall).

Even better than being sensitive towards ourselves however, is developing a new level of sensitivity for others. Mercy triumphs over judgment, so the way to defeat judgmentalism in your mind is to have mercy flooding your heart once more.

I close with two profound revelations God dropped into my heart a few years ago – if only I could keep observing it – “Love is viewing others relative to God, not relative to yourself”. And the second is similar: “Maturity is not about how much we observe, but how much we choose to overlook”.

Love

Nick