Born in '64

Now I am happy for my life's world to get smaller,
as long as my small life does not get worldlier.

I am more comfortable to be a coach to future preachers of truth,
but more desperate than before never to preach as one who coaches truth.

I am at peace that my ambitions were so self-engrossed,
But, mark my words, my ambitions will never be peaceful.

I have more rest now in the One who preserves my rewards,
but still find no joy in preservation.

I know more now how frail I am,
But seek far higher knowledge than my frailties.

I have boxed with men and won some rounds,
But now well know bare-knuckle fighters lose the match in the end.

I seek deeper love now beyond deeper meaning,
but see more clearly just how meaningful love is.

I am beyond the violence of sexual insanity,
but am not so insane or insensible to think I cannot be violated by sex.

I have made my peace with past failures and family members,
but now want much more than the mere blank slates of forgetfulness.

I can still worry, and worry much, in atheistic moments,
But live less in dread and more in the moment.

I still think quickly but more so to bless,
yet now I realize why the tortoise beat the hare.

I think more than ever of my fragile mortality,
but also of my spirit's immortality.

I am less smoke and mirrors, bluff and bluster,
But still too regarding of men's sins and distemper.

And finally I realize, my wife's more right and wise than I at first could see,
And it's okay to be weak and wrong and blind sometimes.
I am less strong but more free.
Less eager but more willing.
Less ambitious but more desiring.
Less proud and more caring.
Less gifted than I thought, but more able.
Less likely to be famous, but more confident about the Glory.

I would love to think I have unending years,
but the hourglass was upended the moment I was born.
I cannot stop the sands of time, but I can build upon the Rock.

Now more than ever. I can build upon this Rock. I will and I am willing. And so too I see more clearly just how willing God is. This is my chief achievement, that is seeing what Christ has achieved and perceiving His passion for me to receive His achievement. With peace and power. I am more thrilled with this perception than everything else I have written in this prose.

Glamorous UnGlamorous

“How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!””

I picked up a tin of “matt clay” hair product, for “that choppy look”. That’s funny, seeing as my hair loss entropy continues unabated. Thoughts flashed through my mind – not anti-glamour and all the primping and preening of the modern age, but pro-unGlamour somehow.
I began to see names in my mind…Abram in his tents; David in a cave; Jeremiah in that cistern; Nehemiah on the rubble; Jonah trudging to Nineveh…

The world is quite rotten, once you are willing to stare away from the intense light of headline-grabbing fineries. It is quite possible that most middle class couples in quiet desperation give scarce a thought to rubbish dump kids or entire families of beggars in the third world. Moments of wistfulness arise as we remote control our way past Al Jazeera, but solace can be found amongst Sports and Movie channels. It’s far more palatable to see pathos in fantasy than in reality.

For us western churchgoers, with electricity and running water, the glamour/unglamour choice can be just as cryptic. Suffering might just have boiled down to not being able to holiday abroad or not having the money for take-outs. Someone flashed his lights at me in the traffic yesterday, and it wasn’t even my fault…. In this bubble of suffering, church is also tough - “worship” might only be possible with great bands and halls and sound equipment. Commitment might be at its apex when we join a home group and give towards a building fund.

I too want to be a history maker in my time.

The phrase does not quite fit my theology, because God presides over the future that is history in the making. Be that as it may, the sentiment is real. No-one really wants to be an also-ran. The challenge for us is to move beyond our ETCB’s (elastically tough culture bubbles) into the terrain of real faith.

Not that little things don’t matter to God. I love His tenderness. He does love to bless us, even with hardships. But He also desires to bless Nineveh, Philistia, Somalia and Iran. Sounds Billy Joel-ish. Nota Bena: there is no calling to compulsive suffering and self-flagellation, but it might be profitable to put a question mark over what “success” is, in God’s view. The only view that counts, to be sure.

We are not so crude as to believe that God defines success by the amount of creature-comforts we accrue. He who dies with the most toys does not win anything postmortem. We know from preachers’ cautions that size does not matter – God is not impressed with crowds. Faith, yes, faith pleases God. Not faith for God but faith in God. Faith with disappearing boundaries. “Un-compartmentalized faith”….some have faith for healing but not for suffering; faith for meetings but not for drudgy living; faith for family but not for enemies; faith to live well but not to live badly - or die well; faith to receive but not so much to give away; faith for promotion but not for scorn. You get the picture.

The trouble comes when we hit pieces like Hebrews 11. What becomes clear is that we need a faith IN God. That means we need to get to know God, not merely certain attributes that bless or empower us. RT Kendall said it best.. “there are some attributes of God that I don’t like, but I must accept them because He is the only God I will ever have”! The God who tousles my matt clay hair, is the God who tousles up tsunamis and typhoons too.

Faith in God delivers us from the sin-possibility of the rich young ruler, who could not sell all to follow Jesus. He had a bulkhead that kept the flesh afloat. Faith in God means we are empowered to deal with the “fencelines of disobedience” – those areas that God cannot fully be God without us disobeying (although He is always fully God). Faith in God exposes and exterminates idols – even the little ones we can tuck away in our saddlebags like Rachel.
And, relating to this essay, faith in God means He can send us anywhere and speak anything through us.

I am not firstly thinking relocating home, but relocating heart. Gospel revelation needs to get to the poor, to the ignorant, to the unparented. This is also not a vote for notching up gospel scalps or telling others how much we did this week for Jesus, but truly becoming willing and available channels of love, or truth, of meekness and of care – anytime and anywhere.

At this time, I have an outburst – we are NOT in revival because gifts are flowing and people are swooning in our meetings. We are in revival when the gospel so penetrates our hearts, that we order our private lives and thoughts and finances around it (the preacher’s life is his legacy, because it is the lance of his message). And thus, the salt is salty. And "saying my prayers" is a bad joke.

Glenda and I are called to Europe, not to become post-modern Christian incognitos, but to become more besotted with Christ and more effective and available to God for noble purposes in the decades ahead. Only He can bring the increase – not just in church size, but in private power.

Finally, would you read these compelling verses? "Memoirs to a few amazing ancestors"...

Gen. 12:1 The LORD had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.

Ex. 3:10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”

Gen. 45:5 And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you.

1Sam. 27:7 David lived in Philistine territory a year and four months.

Jer. 1:7-8 But the LORD said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a child.’ You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the LORD.

Jonah 1:2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”

Acts 14:19 Then some Jews came from Antioch and Iconium and won the crowd over. They stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city, thinking he was dead.

Heb. 11:38-39 the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised.

Rev. 2:10 Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for ten days. Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life.

Phil. 2:7-8 (Christ Jesus) made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!

“Therefore God exalted Him…”. May God give you and I grace today to live humble and obedient faith-lives, that He too might exalt us on the last Day. This is the “resurrection” that Paul strived for! This is the consummation all the heroes of the faith desired! What counts is faith in the God Who Is.

N

Uncountably Accountable

Is it truly possible to control a man's heart by controlling his behavior, his office or his geography? Is this what "accountability" has boiled down to? That if a we be part of a church, team, home group or denomination, we are safely “accountable”? Joab, Lot, Judas, Demas were not accountable. Controlled maybe. They were all "in team".

A man's heart is what guides him. Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. No-one else can guard it. Only God’s Spirit and sentry in me. The heart is either soft or stone, good or bad, becoming better or worse. It is either Spirit-controlled or under compulsions. An offended man is like a walled city - polite, but indifferent. An ambitious man knows exactly how to tow the line and coo with the doves. A passive man knows how to look holy. A yes man always looks good to a driven leader. A sinful man knows how to give away the smaller sins. An impressionist knows exactly how to turn the facts into something more palatable. An unteachable man always has a fine-sounding argument. A grumpy man will still laugh when everyone else does. A weak-willed man will go with the flow and not cause a ripple. And what of "loners"? A loner on team is a subversive. A loner off team is a secessionist. A loner in point position is a benign savage. A loner in retirement is sour...

"What's your point??". Mmm, the point is that only intimacy, mutual love and respect can create the bridges for covenant "accountability". I am not speaking here of "warning the divisive man", or "handing the grievous sinner over to Satan", but the realities of invited counsel, the pains of disclosed shame, the heights of vision and the depths of despair. Stuff that makes for great bands, bound and binding themselves to one another in love.

Either one Tuning Fork is raising up a symphony, or many instruments are playing a few careful and cautious notes together, to avoid a cacophony.

Laws of compulsion introduce sterility, cowardice and imitation, and pillage our entrepreneurship, courage and blazing adventure. In one, we wear masks until our dying day. In the other, we peel off the veneers and find God in each other through the shock of seeing the "warts and all".

Under legislated accountability, people are either heroes or zeroes. Under covenant love, we all have strengths and weaknesses; we can accept all men, even sinners, and enjoy their strengths while covering over much nakedness.

What of the "hero" with brilliant theology in all but one glaring area - where he serves a fine feast along with a single slice of dark mud? Under compulsion, we swallow down the food, mud and all. Without masks, we can find ourselves in a place of humility and teachableness, where we no longer are more passionate about being proved right than we are about learning from others....where correction and rejection are more lovingly distinct than ever before....where knowledge and doctrine are no longer weapons, but prizes and tools in our mutual quest for God.

“Better is open rebuke than hidden love”

“You know we never used flattery, nor did we put on a mask to cover up greed—God is our witness. We were not looking for praise from men, not from you or anyone else”

Worldly Wisdom

1 Cor 1:26-27 “Brothers, think about your own calling. Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is nonsense in the world to make the wise feel ashamed. God chose what is weak in the world to make the strong feel ashamed. “

Whenever I live and speak by the world’s wisdom, I lose God’s strength and wisdom. And WHAT IS THE WORLD’S WISDOM?

1. “But wisdom is proved right by her action.” Wisdom that does not match life with words. Where deeds don’t match the seeds sown. This is theoretical wisdom; this is wisdom that draws crowds but grows nothing. So often worldly wisdom has a measure of power to change my “now” – but lacks a long term horizon and benefits. In the case of covenantal living, true wisdom always draws the receiver more into a life of love, forgiveness and compassion. These fruits are the kind of “action” Jesus loves.

2. “Watch out for the false prophets….they come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inside they are ravenous wolves”. Wisdom that is a cover for wicked desires - hidden reefs, suppressed appetites. When our guards are down, when the pressure is on, when the opportunity presents itself. Joseph refused to sleep with Mrs Potiphar. Saul did not refuse to make the sacrifice. Abel offered blood sacrifice. Cain murdered him in secret. ”As it is written: ‘He catches the wise in their craftiness’”.

3. “But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such ‘wisdom’ does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, of the devil”. Wisdom that comes from envy of our neighbor. Wanting to outwit, outlast, outplay. Wisdom that really is just knowledge that empowers me. True wisdom disempowers me, and empowers the Spirit of Christ within me. Some read for power, learn for power. Most do. This is the great push from parents for their kids to “get an education” – “to get ahead”.

4. “She came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon’s wisdom, and now one greater than Solomon is here”. Wisdom that is borrowed from men more than received from Christ. This is not to say that we should not learn from Christ through men, but “what after all is Apollos? What is Paul? Mere servants through whom you came to believe”…. This is critical. Much of what passes for wisdom is nothing more than borrowed truths and learned behaviour. “Their fear of Me is nothing other than rules taught by men”. Nothing new, fresh, dynamic – all regurgitated, sometimes repackaged. This empties virtues into values, twists Truth into traditions, borrows men’s jewellery while neglecting the treasuries of David. “This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words”

5. “But wisdom is proved right by all her children”. Wisdom that is sterile; wisdom that cannot reproduce in her hearers. I think this happens when a man shares truths more to build his ministry or church, than to build people. Somehow this makes even dynamic teachings sterile. What are the signs of sterility? No leaders, no new preachers, general lack of maturity, people only doing well while in the environment, but falling apart when removed from it. ”We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ”. My great sadness in this season of my life is that I do not have a Paul over me, proclaiming Him to me. So be it. But maybe in my lifetime I can be that Paul to some others. To be that, you and I need to pursue the same relationship with Jesus that Paul had – intimate, total, continuous, uncompromising, heaven-anchored, devoted, body-beating, tender and deep. No lip service. No circumstantial Christianity. Nothing.

6. “For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict”… (and of Stephen the Martyr), “but they could not stand up against his wisdom or the Spirit by whom he spoke”… Wisdom that is contradictable and dismissable according to the Word of God. Sometimes, true wisdom is dismissed anyway, but dismissal is not the same as contradiction. God’ word is flawless, and for true wisdom to pervade the pulpits of the world, now is the time for the called out preachers to be workmen who needs not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of Truth. Mostly, lack of effort, lack of “ergon” - labor that produces a sweat – leaves our preaching contradictable and “controvertible”.

7. ”Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!”... ”For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength”.. Wisdom that lacks depth and mystery; wisdom that is too easily packaged and palatable for carnal minds. That is, wisdom that is acceptable to the modern man. The wisdom of the gospel should be a rock of offence to every fibre of self-righteousness within me. So too should it offend my self-preservation, self-promotion, self-indulgence. The gospel firstly bids me come and die, and then live for another Who firstly I engage with BY FAITH. Not by sight. Not by formula.

8. “For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power”. Wisdom that allows room for idols, for the flesh. The power of the Cross is its ability to slay the flesh and leave space only for God and His new man. Earthly wisdom accommodates modification, reasonableness and decency…but is nothing more than a religious overcoat. It may not take on the crude appearance of the Mosaic law, nor the harsh drabness of the stoics and rigorists, but it remains man’s way of trying to please two masters.

9. “For it is written: ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate’.” Wisdom that never destroys nor frustrates. Wisdom that is full of appeasement; full of false modesty. Wisdom that brands the spiritual man as a zealot; the passionate saint as a hothead. Wisdom that declares peace before God has vanquished hearts. Wisdom that strikes truces with the world even while the Messiah is riding out to command and conquer.

10. “Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” Wisdom that calls something wise that God has called foolishness. This is the source of much Christian compromise. We are not called out of the world, but called out in the world. We are called to be aliens and strangers. We should learn and observe, but always from a place of devotion. Solomon had genuine God-wisdom given as a gift, but his heart was not devoted, so that wisdom accelerated the madness.

11. “For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe”. Any wisdom and preaching of wisdom that does not increase the appetite of the listeners for God Himself, for righteousness – while diminishing and demeaning worldly appetites. “I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better”

12. “Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God”. Wisdom that is not centred on and from worship. This is a great sin of mine, a great opportunity for the devil to admix my wisdom with worldly wisdom. And thus an avenue for every other fleshly sin.

13. “When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God”. Wisdom that positions itself as better, cleverer, more appealing to men in their quest for wisdom and knowledge. The “wisdom of the Impresario”. Those who fall for it show themselves as the idolaters that they are in their hearts, seeking the approval of men above the approval of God (John 5:44). God’s wisdom lowers and condescends itself. God’s wisdom makes the bearer look bad, mostly. It humbles him, debases him, empties him, prostrates him, obliges him downwards, away from fame, away from position. Even though God has blessed me with a good vocabulary, it must remain the servant, not the maestro. Wisdom from above is never shared to impress or wow or gather fans. It is always shared to the advantage, blessing and salvation of its hearers.

14. “To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit”. Wisdom that is possessed rather than stewarded. Wisdom that the wise man claims as his own, his property, his legacy, his prowess. There is no acknowledgement in worship of the gift, the grace, the generosity of God. And so even grace-given wisdom is corrupted, and becomes foolishness. Think of all the mad-scientist evolutionists, desperately trying to disprove God Himself. Think of the empire builders, the corporate bosses who dominate and destroy lives by the very wisdom and gifts given by a loving and merciful God.

15. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence. Rules that parade as wisdom. Anyone who tries to tell you what to do, without living in and living out a personal relationship with Christ. Harshness and harsh treatment is a sure sign of the presence of worldly wisdom.

16. But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Wisdom that celebrates the gifts more than the fruit of the Spirit. The gifts leave a legacy of construction, but the fruit leave a legacy of covenant. Solomon built a great empire, but destroyed his life and his future legacy. Churchill was gifted to deliver the allies from the evil of Hitler and the Nazis, but all the Allied brilliance did nothing to stop England’s slide into a moral abyss in the decades following the war. In fact, the real heroes of the faith were slaughtered in the trenches.