On finishing Job and Ecclesiastes: Real faith

What a pair of books!
Job tells us that, ultimately, there's no comprehendable answer for the suffering in the world. It asks the question: 'God, why do bad things happen to good people?' and essentially gets the answer: 'Because I am God and you can't hope to understand.'
Ecclesiastes meanwhile tells us that life, in itself, is empty and pointless. A book which tells us that all we can do on this earth, all the friendships we can forge, all the riches we can obtain, even the highest human achievements of kindness and being recognised as good are useless.
Uplifting... right?

I'm going to try and put into words, drawing from my meditations and thoughts on both these books over the past few weeks, exactly why I feel more joyful because of them but it's going to be a struggle because it seems paradoxical and confusing even to me!

I think that sometimes, as Christians, we can see life with God as making sense. It sort of all fits, doesn't it? It all comes together. I have moments of just perfect clarity where I feel like I can see eternity and it's all alright! Do you have them too? But more often than not, life, even with God at our side, is confusing and disturbing. I also have times of just absolute nihilism. I see something and it is just so foreign to my view of the world and my expectations of God that it shakes me to my core, sometimes makes me doubt my own sense of who he is.

My only conclusion is that life with God doesn't make sense. It makes more sense than life without him, that's for sure, but it's still a long way off being total and Job and Ecclesiastes, as books, show us the brick wall of human understanding. Read Job, read God's response to him and ask yourself if you're satisfied with it? I certainly wasn't on a first reading. Surely there must be something missing?! But no, that's it.
Ecclesiastes tells me to enjoy life with God but that a great deal is 'emptiness' or 'vanity'. That means something that we totally fail to comprehend the point or purpose of. A thin facade thrown over chaos.

The first time I really read the truth of God's sovereignty, his complete involvement not just in the world but in my life, my thoughts, my decisions - his sovereign guidance and manipulation of these things - I freaked out a bit, I must say. My mind just screamed in opposition to it and yet, there it was, clearly laid out in the bible; God hardening and softening hearts, God pre-ordaining the decisions of people. It made me feel violated, to be honest.

I prayed about it, long and hard and the more and more I thought about it, the less and less I really THOUGHT about it. It was a truth like a white-hot shard of metal falling into a basin of ice-water. When it first struck the surface of my understanding, it fizzed and hissed, it let off steam and spat but then, after that explosive first encounter, it just cooled and sank to the bottom. I didn't understand it, I went one better and I accepted it. I still can't understand but it's part of my life, part of my thoughts about God and about everything. It underlies my vision of it all, that unfathomable truth.

The same is true for the questions raised by Job and Ecclesiastes. There are no answers here but the books tell us to be satisfied with that. Job is gets a tiny bit of an answer as to why he is suffering from Elihu who tells him it could be training and discipline from God but God gives him the full answer. 'I am God.'

What's our reaction when we reach that brick wall, when we slam our heads into it and look up and just see those words on it? 'I AM GOD'. His very name 'I AM' is the only answer we should ever need.

It's terrifying but it's exhilirating. When I face truths like this I feel like I'm bungee-jumping. My soul at once recoils in protest and, in the same moment, soars in ectasy. I encourage you to take those jumps and those leaps. Go bungee-jumping. Don't shy away because it's hard or because you only want to know about God what you can take in. If you limit yourself to that, you won't understand just how fantastic and wonderful he is.

My prayer for every Christian is that they would take that thin veil of their understanding off God and have their minds blown open by him. When you reach that brick wall, look up in wonder and whisper through the confusion, the frustration, through the pain and suffering, through tears, 'He is God.'
That is real faith and there you will find fullness of peace and abundant joy - free-falling with God.

One day I know I'll get it. When I see him face to face, I will have no questions. I will be completely satisfied. I will look back on every circumstance and every moment and understand. But you can grasp this today through submitting to him in your understanding.

God does not make sense... and it's beautiful.

Food, clothing and God: True riches

Timothy 6:6-8:
'Now godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content.'

Do you know what Paul describes as the essentials of life? First and foremost, godliness - the quality of being like God. Secondly, food and thirdly, clothing. The second two are obvious. No human can dispense with food permanently except by a miracle. Most humans require clothing for at least some of the year in most parts of the world to survive. How are we like God? We draw near to him and we have a good relationship with him, we do not sin and we seek him in all we do. So, number one on this list of essentials for life is a good relationship with God.

Doesn't God want us to have more than just food and clothing though? Yes, I believe for most he does.
Is this a call to voluntary poverty here from Paul? Not at all.
Is it a call to simple living? Yes.
Is it biblical? Yes... it's in the bible!

What the verse is saying is that we should be able to, realistically, imagine a content life in this world with the bare physical essentials and our relationship with God. Just imagine it. You woke up tomorrow morning and, like Job, you'd lost everything except God, the clothes on your back and a bit of food to get by. Would you say: 'Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I shall return there. The LORD gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.' or would you freak out?!

There is a call in this age, in this time and country of relative prosperity and riches, comfort and peace, to simplify and stand out. You want to know why we're going through a recession right now? God's behind it (he's behind everything, by the way!). Isaiah 45:7 says 'I make peace and CREATE CALAMITY; I, the LORD, do all these things.' So listen to the secret, I believe God's been sharing this with me.

God has sent this time of economic recession so that his chosen people might stand out in their generosity, their sound counsel and their peace and serenity in the midst of 'crisis'. Read that again. It's a rare blessing when we're going through hard times and we can actually see what God is doing by sending them!

Trust God's word that with him, food and clothing, you can be perfectly happy, you can be content. That's a reality that you need to pin at the bottom of all your financial thoughts, all your material possessions. Are you willing to step a level closer to that contentment to bless someone else? Are you willing to give away some of your clothes to help those who are REALLY struggling in this recession? You are blessed by giving and you're blessed by simplifying! You can't actually lose when it comes to charity and kindness! When you set your standard low, when you put it down to food, clothing and that unbreakable love which you have for God and he has for you... you will find that your generosity goes through the roof. You will find that the recession doesn't scare you or make you uneasy because there's still going to be clothes, food and God, however bad it gets! You can grow your own food if needs be! God blessed the earth and told the plants to bring forth fruit and vegetable. Are you getting this? God is ALL YOU NEED.

We are truly rich. We are richer than Bill Gates and Richard Branson combined! We have a relationship with God through the blood of Jesus and that is the most valuable thing in the world. God is calling you to display that wealth, flaunt THOSE riches, Paul said that we shouldn't be ashamed to boast about Jesus! As Christians we should be parading our spiritual riches at this time, people should fall down in wonder at our peace, at our joy when we have nothing which they can see! Paul doesn't say that godliness with contentment is the standard, he says it is 'great gain'. It is something we have to attain, it's something that we're likely to lose, something we must strive after, ask God for, set as our target - we can all be lulled into materialism, into capitalism. Step out and take your inheritance today, show the world what it REALLY needs, what will REALLY solve its problems.

Can you truly say: 'God is enough'? It's a biblical truth that God is all we need, in his grace he often blesses us on top of that - but blessing is made to be passed on and we must never forget that it is blessing ON TOP of need and he has said 'I will never leave or forsake you'. In that, he's saying, you can always be content!

Let's finish by praying a prayer from Proverbs: one of the humblest and most moving prayers I've found in scripture. Let's pray for enough! Let's pray that God will give us just the right amount.

'O God, I beg two favors from You; let me have them before I die. First, help me never to tell a lie. Second, give me neither poverty nor riches! Give me just enough to satisfy my needs. For if I grow rich, I may deny You and say, "Who is the LORD?" And if I am too poor, I may steal and thus insult God's holy name.'
Proverbs 30:7-9 NLT

Only by grace

I've got a spare hour on a Tuesday morning to take out of my hectic schedule and share something with you.

When we think of grace, we tend to imagine it as mainly applying to those of us who know Christ... but I think that's far from the truth.
Grace is a concept which encompasses many aspects of God's character. One aspect of grace is the undeserved forgiveness and love which Christians experience but there's a more general idea of it which I think magnifies its greatness ten-fold!
Even those who don't yet believe live under God's grace and God's grace governs every element of existence. Let me explain by starting with two biblical truths.

God is all-powerful. All things are at his command. Psalm 65 tells us that he stills the roaring of the waves and raises up mountains. Isaiah 45 says: 'I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the LORD, do all these things.' Everything is under God's control, even bad stuff. He can make anything happen, he can do ANYTHING. Some people still struggle to understand this and still limit him.

Everything belongs to God. Psalm 24 says 'The earth is the LORD's, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for he founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters.' So everything which everyone has belongs to God because he made it. This is very important. Everything belongs to God. This verse forms the heart of stewardship (which I'll hopefully get round to doing an entry on soon!) but is also really important to understanding the wider concept of grace.

So those two truths combine to tell us that everything in the world and the world itself belong to God and that he can do anything he wishes with his creation.

When an unbeliever wakes up in the morning, they awake by the grace of God.
We were all rebels living in God's world - some of us still are. If you had slugs in your vegetable patch - crawling all over your lovely plants, covering them with slime and eating big holes in the leaves - would you hesitate before taking every single slug you could find and destroying them? Welcome to God's daily experience of earth - covered in little slugs taking advantage of his lovely vegetables, ruining them at the same time as stuffing their little faces with them. Sin injures God's creation at the same time as feeding off it. As Christians, we should become like bees, pollinating and spreading God's goodness, multiplying our blessings, not feeding off him parasitically. Think about that...

Why should God not just flick each and every little slug into oblivion? Why shouldn't he immediately seize each and every sinner and cast them into eternal damnation? But he gives life! He gives resources for life like oxygen and food and water! It's like putting special slug food out in the midst of your vegetable patch! It's madness... it's grace. God's judgement hangs over every individual, only his patient grace prevents it from falling.

The reason you didn't die in your sleep is grace. When you eat your bowl of cereal and you don't choke to death on it, that's grace! When you step out of your front door and you're not knocked down and killed by a car, that's grace! That is the way the world works; because the world is fallen, people die, people are killed... and its grace which means you're not one of them, that you're kept from that. We all live under God's grace, even unbelievers enjoy God's provision and his protection.

Even more than that though, when we think of God's incredible power and action in our lives, we can see that grace isn't just about survival but about WHO we are! The way we are raised, the way our lives pan out, massively effect who we become when we are older. Serial killers, dictators, mass murderers... there's nothing specially or innately evil about them. OK, brace yourself because grace is about to go even further than just you waking up in the morning. This deserves a line to itself.

It is only by God's grace that you don't go out every day and kill people.

I believe that we are all born equally sinful and it is purely situational and circumstantial as to how evil we become. God gracefully keeps some of us from experiencing the fullest depths which sin could take our lives to. There is nothing to say that when God formed Adolf Hitler in the womb, the life he breathed into him couldn't have been yours. I almost hold back before saying something like that... but it's what I believe. It is only by grace that we are kept from the greatest sins in our lives and from massive evil.
God has been at work in all the circumstances of your life to make you the person you are today.
This will be too far for some people. I ask that you take some time to think on it.

This aspect of grace is amazing and mind-blowing because it reveals God's phenomenal love and patience with humanity. He loves those little slugs so much that he'd rather try and turn them into bees than grind them down into the dirt with his heel. We all deserve that but grace says otherwise and that is just one reason why God is spectacular.

Poetry and symbolism

I've been on holiday for a couple of weeks, hence a lack of posts on here but, praise God, I had some very involving discussions and revelations from conversations and events in the past two weeks which will provide some fuel for several upcoming posts.

The first is about symbolism and metaphor in the bible. It comes from a conversation about one of the biggest issues connected with the topic; how to interpret the account of creation at the beginning of Genesis.

Yes, the beginning of Genesis is poetic. There is no doubt, whereas most of the rest of Genesis appears to be historical, the opening few chapters are rich with poetic devices. The repetition of phrases, the grand descriptive language, the fact that Adam addresses Eve in Hebrew rhyme when he first speaks; all these things point to this segment being poetic. The two most important doctrines or teachings to be taken from the opening chapters are creation (that God created all things good) and the fall (that man, created good, rebelled against God and separated himself from Him).

Now, in poetic terms, the fall is not really a problem. The fall is a spiritual event, easily represented in poetic terms. Although it does result in physical consequences, it's origin and actual happening occur spiritually, in fact, invisibly. Poetry lends itself perfectly to, in fact some might say is defined by, describing the intangible and invisible events that surround us by tying it to objects and situations we can see and understand.

My point is this: whether Adam and Eve literally ate fruit or indulged in some other sinful act which the fruit-eating represents is not the issue - they still sinned. It is rebellion against God whether symbolic or literal. Whether Satan was genuinely disguised as a snake or whether the snake is used to represent Satan as a subtle and dangerous being doesn't matter, Adam and Eve were still tempted by him. Revelation 20:2 shows that the snake is to be regarded as Satan, literal or not. It's true that Genesis does not say this in itself but if we believe the bible is a cohesive document, then Revelation must be correct in its analysis.

In terms of the fall, poetry functions well, in fact actually simplifies and aids our understanding of the complex spiritual event. When it comes to creation, the problems with interpretation begin.

Let's begin by stating this: poetry is a still true but the truth becomes symbolised. If I were to say: 'My girlfriend is a rose' it would be poetic but I would be stating something which I believe to be true; that she is beautiful. In calling her a rose, I have made a link between the generally accepted idea of the beauty of a rose and my girlfriend. I have also made the reader think about the romantic connotations of the flower. Even though the statement is not literally true (my girlfriend is not a thorn-covered flower) it is still true, just in a poetic sense.

Why am I telling you this? Well, because sometimes people take Genesis' quality of being poetry as implying 'It can mean anything'. No! Not at all!

The poetry of the segment doesn't give us license to essentially negate its meaning or twist it. The poetry of Genesis DOES set limits on how far it can be stretched. For instance, some people believe in theistic evolution; the idea that God somehow guided evolution and that this is what Genesis 1 is representing 'poetically' when it talks about God creating animals - but the poetry doesn't match up.

The poetry shows rapid and spontaneous creation, it shows man being created from the dust of the earth. Even when we begin to think of poetic things this might represent, it's still an unfathomable leap to say that Genesis 'supports' the idea of theistic evolution because, even poetically, it doesn't. The quality of truth in God's word is not lessened by the use of poetic language and devices. Psalm 119:160 sums it up really nicely: 'The entirety of [God's] word is truth.'

I think the real issues with interpreting Genesis only really come when non-Christians use it to attack the entirety of Christian faith or biblical reliability but it can also begin to be troublesome when Christians get their priorities wrong.

Don't underestimate the use of science as an idol for many, many people even some Christians. Our primary duty is not to make Genesis fit with scientific discovery - that would as good as saying that the account of creation that God deemed worthy for us to have, Genesis, is insubstantial or lacking when it's not AT ALL. It is totally sufficient to telling us all we NEED to know about how the world began, the involvement God had and the reason for our creation.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the first step of evangelising to someone with a 'creation hang-up' isn't to try and make Genesis fit with what they believe. The first step is to get them to stop idolising science! They must be convinced that it's right to give God and the bible authority over science instead of giving science authority over God and the bible!

Genesis is not a scientific textbook but it tells us the truly essential things we need to understand for our lives and the gospel to make sense.

That is this: God created all things, including humankind, and he created them good. Humankind, cooperating with Satan and failing to trust God, disobeyed God and, as a result, evil entered the world and humankind was cursed with separation from God. Creation, which God made good, became bad because of humans. This is the root cause of all the problems in the world today... and enter Jesus and the gospel of his death and resurrection to reconcile humankind and the rest of creation to their creator!

How God created the world is not the issue AT ALL, it's the why which is really important. This 'why?' should be the starting point for how we live our lives as Christians and also the introduction for those who don't yet know God.

Do you want my stance on creation? I believe that because God deemed Genesis as totally sufficient for informing us of our purpose, we should live our lives and evangelise, to all intents and purposes, as if Genesis is entirely literal... whether we believe it is or not.

Honesty: Being a 'Yes Yes, No No person'

I want to talk about a real personal revelation I've had over the past few weeks.

Jesus said in Matthew 5:37: 'Let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.'

Lies hold such a power over us. I especially find that I struggle with telling the truth or, at least, the whole truth. One of the key qualities Jesus attributed to himself was truth; he said 'I am the way, the truth and the life' in John 14:6. If we're trying to imitate and image Jesus to the world, how do we approach simply telling the truth?

This is something God convicts me of again and again. I find the biggest reason for my lies or my withholding of the truth is avoiding awkward situations or conflicts.

If I'm annoyed with someone or upset by something they've done, I tend to just bottle it up. If they ask me, I might tell them, sometimes I don't even do that.

This is easier said than done, but by far the most godly and beneficial way is, as soon as someone upsets you, to tell them in love and grace what they have done and why it upset you or annoyed you. It's so simple. It might be awkward, pride might be hurt on both sides, but the problem will be resolved, issues will be brought to light and it's so much better for everyone involved than the alternative. The alternative is brewing and it happens in the dark of our individuality and pride.

Someone says something which upsets someone else. That person gets down about it, the other person notices their change in attitude and, before you know it, there's miscommunication and ill-feeling, harboured negativity, doubt, mistrust, bitterness, anger. The devil works in the dark of our rugged individualism but God calls us to open, honest, loving community. We can sometimes only believe this open-ness applies only between ourselves and God but it doesn't, it's interpersonal too!

Truth isn't just responsive, it's active, all the time. I wish I could see more and more people just truthfully, lovingly approach their problems head-on. It's one of the deepest desires in my heart for my walk with God to be an honest 'Yes Yes, No No person'. We have to break this power that the enemy has to make us islands. Clear communication, frank and gracious discussion and a valuation of truth and growth over comfort and conflict-avoidance is SO important in all our relationships. We are to be honestly interconnected with God and with each other.

The more we deny truth and suppress it, the more we open ourselves up to the enemy and in reality when we deny truth, we deny Christ. 'I am the truth' he said; part of the quality of God is truth. When we attack it or suppress it in any form, we really attack and suppress God's character and it's reflection in ourselves. I implore you and challenge myself to open up our lives, our thoughts and feelings not just to God but to each other. I'll say my mantra for this just one more time: 'The devil grows his harvest in the darkness of our individualism and pride.'

Pray with me:
'Father God, help me to live a life of honesty, humility and godly communication. Let my 'Yes' be 'Yes' and my 'No' be 'No'. I want to live with integrity and truth because you are integrity and truth. Break down the boundaries between me and yourself and between me and other believers so that we might live in the light of truth. Help me to value communal truth over individual comfort because I know this is the path to peace. Lord, I love you and I love your truth. To your name be all glory, honour and blessing. In Jesus' name which is truth itself, Amen.'

Jesus, our brother and Lord or 'The danger of compartmentalising Jesus'

Doing some research on our adoption into God's family I read an article on the internet yesterday. The jist of it was 'We are comfortable to think of Jesus as our brother, but we don't like to think of him as our lord' I'd include a link but I just don't want to direct people there! Incidentally, for the biblical basis to Jesus being 'our brother' check out Hebrews 2:10-18.

The article drove me a bit mad for a few reasons but the first one was this. It started to compartmentalise Jesus.

Jesus is both our brother and our Lord... but the problem the author has is placing those two things together. He seems to see almost a contradiction. Jesus must either be our brother OR our Lord. It's true that Jesus is both and many, many other things to us (the bible calls him our high priest, our king, our saviour, our friend and a ton more stuff!) but that doesn't mean he's our brother one minute and he's our Lord the next, or that he has some dissociative identity disorder and is flicking between these many faces. He holds them all together in perfect harmony, neither lessening the other. In the same way we think of Jesus as the lion of Judah and the lamb of God, he holds power and might and humble, silent sacrifice TOGETHER.

If I could say one thing to the author of the article, it would be this: Jesus being your brother is integrally, inseparably part of him being your Lord.

I can see the heart behind the article was good and I actually know where it comes from, the motivation. There are some aspects of Jesus character which, separated from the others, suggest we shouldn't respect and have the awe for him we know we should. If Jesus is just my brother then I'm liable to treat him like just my brother and I'm a real pig to my brother sometimes, you can ask him!
Another is that sometimes people start to project onto Jesus things from their own lives which warp and change him into just what they want him to be and not who the bible tells us he is.

Jesus is our loving brother and friend and he brings us into union with our loving Father in heaven but do you know the bible also tells us that he is a mystery? Ephesians 3:4 mentions the 'mystery of Christ' but if you read around it, what does it say? It says that the mystery has been revealed to us. How has it been revealed? It has been revealed via 'the Spirit to God's holy apostles and prophets.' How do we know what was revealed to the apostles and the prophets? Because they wrote it down and it forms the bible, the prophets in the Old Testament, the apostles in the New! Hallelujah!

Now Jesus is a mystery but the answer and solution to that mystery is right before us in the word of God, we can reveal more and more of that mystery when we read. This verse also tells us something else: You can't know Jesus fully through just the New Testament! That's a challenge to someone out there!

The Holy Spirit will bring light as we read the word and we will understand Jesus on a deeper and deeper level. Like a friend, like a brother... we have to get to know him! We can't just stop short at the bits we like, we must continue to strive deeper but, and here's the true blessing, the more we understand about his might and his power, the MORE we will love him as our brother! Every bit of Jesus' character compliments the others perfectly and enhances and deepens the others as well.

Finally, if ever you feel like your view of Jesus is off, just spend an hour looking at Jesus in the gospels. Jesus was still Lord as he walked about the Middle East as a man but does that mean that he puts himself above his brothers and followers? Not at all, he gets down he washes their feet! Think of it! We have a servant king who is worthy of our praise and our unabashed love! Never, ever, ever, EVER, try and pull Jesus into his constituent parts - because you'll just ruin him.
Get to know the mystery through his word by his Spirit because although you know you've got a brother, you don't yet know fully how wonderful that brother is!

Theology: Whether you like it or not!

This is really just a brief challenge to people who shy away from theology.

I think theology is best defined as 'understanding God'. Good theology is entirely biblical, saying only of God what it finds or logically deduces from the pages of the bible.

I'm saying this because I think there's a dangerous trend among Christians to think of theology as dry or impractical. I've heard two main arguments which I'll answer now.

1. 'God is impossible to understand, our minds are too small' - This is a statement which with the addition of one word becomes true. 'God is impossible to understand entirely, our minds are too small'.
The reality is that God has revealed himself to us in the bible and he expects us to use it! There are issues that are difficult to understand, there are complex theological arguments to look at for yourself and determine your personal convictions on, but they're not impossible! Some of the greatest truths about God are the hardest to understand... but the most rewarding to know. They take some mental work, some deep thought, but God is worth it! Theology tries to know God as completely as it can from his word. Don't shy away from knowing God on a deeper level just because it takes work and for you to stir your brain into action!

2. 'I don't want to waste my time with theology, I want to be reaching people with the gospel!' - The passion is great but the truth of it is not. By the gospel, we are trying to introduce people to God... but without theology, we don't know God at all. We are trying to introduce someone we don't know properly ourselves. To evangelise well, we should know God thoroughly! That's not to say we shouldn't give it our all in the meantime, seizing every opportunity with the truth that we have, but we should certainly aim to have a good enough knowledge of what scripture says about God to answer the questions that those we evangelise to will inevitably ask.
The more we know God, the more focused and effective our evangelism will be, even better, the more we know God, the more passionate we will be about his glory, and that is what really convinces people of his worthiness!
Proverbs 19:2 sums this up really well: 'Enthusiasm without knowledge is no good; haste makes mistakes.'
When it comes to evangelism, it's not about quantity but quality. There's a very human pressure to evangelise; theology provides both the ammunition for evangelism but also the fuel that will set you on fire and make that evangelism as natural as breathing!

So how do we 'do theology' then? What does that entail? Systematic Theologies are a good place to start. A pastor or author decides to put down everything they believe about all areas of Christian belief and, with scriptures, states the foundations of their views. As you can imagine, these books are usually pretty big but that's only because they're jam-packed full! That's your material for study!
Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology is a fantastic one and get this... you don't have to agree with it all! You can use the theologies to teach yourself but you can also use your disagreement with them to fuel your own study, in fact Grudem's even contains other options along with why he believes them to be untrue! He doesn't try to hide other opinions although he does say why he doesn't share them.
There are some great internet resources too - Mars Hill Church has done a series of sermons called 'Doctrine' which you can find on their website. You can actually watch the series! Have a bible at the ready and read along, pause it to look for yourself.

Another great way to 'do theology' is to sit round with a group of friends and talk about it. Ask people! Challenge people! If someone says something, ask them to back it up biblically, ask them why they believe it. This is really great for areas where there's disagreement or debate such as creation or the end times. Friends are sometimes the best to help you form your opinions. Every Christian you know is a theologist because they believe something about God.

To conclude on a personal level, I think that we tend to see theology as only engaging our brains but this is the truth - some of the most emotionally moving experiences I've had of God have been looking at theology. There are wonders and truths that will bring you to your knees in awe and worship. Theology has a heart and it will touch yours - there is no way you can expose yourself to the word of God in the deep study of it and reference to it that good theological study requires and not be shaken up by it!
Theology is essential and it forms a stable backbone for our Christian lives.

Christian Deconstruction 3 - We do not wrestle against flesh and blood...

An absolutely essential lesson for anyone who's feeling called towards Christian Deconstruction as a discipline.

'For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.'
Ephesians 6:12

This world is an extension of the heavenly realm. The bible shows us that the two places interact heavily, what happens in heaven effects the earth, what happens on earth effects heaven. The warning here from Paul is simple: 'Get your target right!'

I'm not going to labour this point because I think it's fairly obvious. I'm going to point out two things from the verse.

Firstly, there's the one I've already mentioned in part 1; the implication that we DO wrestle with the stuff which isn't flesh and blood! Paul's saying: 'We're not fighting against this... but we are fighting against THAT!' and he's got a huge finger pointed at Satan and his demons.

They are always there, always lying, always deceiving, always at work and you cannot underestimate them but, above and beyond that, you cannot be scared of them! You're a soldier of light wearing the armour of God, he has not given you a spirit of fear but of love, of power and of a sound mind... so that he can send these liars packing through you!

Secondly, look at the impersonalisation that Paul brings in. He doesn't talk about men and women but about this spiritual plain of corruption and deceit and the principalities and powers that they have installed on earth in futile opposition to God.

Let's get one thing straight, God isn't struggling against them. God isn't wrestling. He is calmly and calculatingly crushing some and raising others up for his purposes. God allowed them and there will come a time when he destroys them. Get this, it's a big one and I'll be doing an entire post on it next week: Even the demons exist by God's grace.
Think about it; he's Lord of creation! If he wanted them out, they'd be out! They ARE there for a purpose, and I know that part of that purpose is to drive us ever forward in our lives with God by fighting alongside him in a war that he has already won.

So we're not picking on single people, on Richard Dawkins or Nick Griffin or whoever your personal boogieman is, we're fighting Satan and his legions of fallen angels! It would be useless to write an essay for Christian Deconstruction and attack a person, to blame them or target them. For illustrative purposes, I've named names to get you thinking but we really have no issue with Richard Dawkins; we LOVE the man!
We absolutely love him and if we don't, we don't know Jesus as we should. What we do take issue with is the work which the enemy is doing through him. the lies and the clever deceit which the enemy is using his powerful intellect, that mind with which God blessed him, to establish. Are you beginning to see just how hateful Satan is by the way?

The people, those little shells of flesh and bone like you and me, those fragile little things whose lives are as dust, here one day and blown away the next, are the surface symptoms of spiritual corruption. You're dealing with the lie, not the mouth from which it's uttered. You're engaging the falsehood with the truth of the word of God and with the help of God himself.

So, now we know WHO we're fighting, are we ready to get strapped up for battle? Keep reading, more articles to come...

Praying for means, not ends

How often do we pray: 'Father God, I want... x, y and z because...'?

It's something I've really been challenged on lately in my prayer life, in that intimate conversation with God. I do believe that there's a great deal of sense in actually reasoning through what you want with God, not for his benefit but for ours.

It keeps our priorities and our motives in check. If I say 'Lord, I would like a new bike.' That might be a perfectly reasonable prayer in itself but let's add that dreaded word 'because' into the mix.

'Lord, I would like a new bike because...' Well why do I want it? What's the reasoning? Do you see that it opens a path of inquiry for ourselves? We have to follow that path to its logical end as part of prayer.

There are many possible reasons for why I want a new bike. James 4:3 says this: 'You ask [in prayer] and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.'

And this tells us something about God's will for our prayers. They are to be for means towards him rather than ends towards ourselves. Read that again.

You see, if my prayer is 'Lord, I would like a new bike because riding a bike gives me a rush, a thrill and excitement that I don't find in you', do you think he will answer that prayer?
If it is 'Lord, I would like a new bike because my old one's getting a bit rusty and I need the security and the good feeling that comes when people see me riding past on a shiny, new, state-of-the-art, top-of-the-range model', do you think he will be falling over himself to answer that?

But consider this: 'Lord, I would like a new bike because my old one is broken and I need it to ride to see a friend once a week in town who I know is receiving your gospel in our conversations.'

Let's step it up a notch. 'Lord, I want a wife!'
Because... that's my idea of ultimate security - not in your presence, in relationship with you but in a marriage.
Because... I think sex is the most wonderful thing I'm likely to experience here on earth and I want to have it!
Oh dear... those are some rather poor reasons aren't they?

'Lord, I want a wife because I want to try and mirror to them the extent of your love for your people and I want to feel that love myself.' That's a better reason right?!
'Lord, I want a wife because I feel that I will glorify you better in companionship and through that relationship that on my own as a single man.'

Do you see? The first prayers were making marriage an end. Something final, something through which we only satisfy ourselves. The second prayers made marriage the means to something, namely God's glory, the expression of his character.

And that's what all our prayers should, ultimately, be about; God's glory.

So next time you pray for something, with the honesty of your heart and the conviction of the Holy Spirit, tack because onto your prayer. God's not an idiot, he doesn't need you to explain it for him so he goes 'Oh yeah, I can get more glory out of this by doing that!' but you do need to explain it to yourself so that you know that your heart is in the right place. Take yourself through it in conversation, listening to his correction and rebuke.

If we make God's glory expressed in our lives the number one desire of our hearts (which it should be!) then it's true that, through prayer, we will have our desire answered. He will expose our hearts, our motives. Pray for God to draw you nearer, deeper into himself, look for the pathways in your life he has opened to take you there and pray yourself into them.
Pray for the means to God's glory in which lies your ultimate pleasure!

Christian Deconstruction 2 - Strength and the WHOLE armour

Ephesians 6:10,11: 'Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.'

Outside God, there is no 'Christian' deconstruction. Without him, your efforts will be in vain, like a fish flapping on the dock when those movements should be exerted in moving it through the water. It is only by recognising your complete dependence and reliance on God that your attempts will be successful. Outside that, you needn't bother, you will producing useless cultural studies with scripture thrown in for good measure.

Be strong in the Lord. Be strong, but be strong in the Lord! Any other sort of strength is weakness. It is him who gives you the power to do it, it is his wisdom, his insight and his skill which flows through you as your pull apart this world and see its inner workings. You are a vessel, a tool and an instrument bringing his truth to bear and shining the lamp of his word on the darkness of our culture to see what flees in its brilliant light! That's privilege enough, surely?!

How are we strong in the Lord? We do not hold back; we are forceful in our arguments, uncompromising in our approach, ruthless in exposing the lies of the enemy in the workings of our culture but all of this is from a platform of prayer and fellowship with God. Before we begin on any 'text', any film or book, anything, we must ask God for his help. In deconstructing a text, we are not serving God - he is serving us by providing strength and intellect, wisdom and truth, the very air that you breathe as you research, the blood that flows through your veins! He provides it all so that we might glorify him, in the case of Christian Deconstruction by proclaiming his truth in the face of worldy and devilish lies; shining a light into the darkness.

To believe that you are somehow bringing something to God is foolishness. He is bringing his glory back to himself through you... and that's enough!

So, with the right frame of mind, put on the whole armour of God. What follows is the list of this armour, this equipment that God has at our disposal and his command is to use all of it. Not just the bit you think suits your need, not just what you decide. So, in the articles that follows I will be detailing how each specific bit of armour and equipment can be used... but they must all be used together. It's not a case of putting the sword down to take up the shield but of holding them at the same time!

And when we do this we will be able to 'stand against the wiles of the devil.' The word translated as 'wiles' here in more accurately translated as methods or strategies with the implication of trickery and deceit and, most importantly, movement. The devil will come from different angles, he will employ different tactics but with the armour of God, you will see and disable any attack from any direction. Do not grow complacent in deconstruction. Don't settle into patterns or methods, let God guide you in each new attack!

Christian Deconstruction 1 - Introduction and explanation

To begin with, I'd like to start by disassociating the term 'Christian Deconstruction' from deconstruction; the school of thought in philosophy and literary criticism. The two have very little in common! I'd also like to remove the idea of a wrecking ball from your minds, that is destruction whereas what I'd like to discuss is a much more ordered and careful activity.

There is a need, I really do feel, for Christians to begin to carefully examine the world in which they live. More and more, there are things growing up around us in society that are dangerous and powerful influences against us. They are being 'constructed', make no mistake. The enemy and sinful mankind, hand in hand, are creating structures, systems and ideas designed to obscure and remove God and to lead people away from him. These come in all shapes and sizes, a great deal of the time very subtlely and almost subliminally. Genesis says of the devil, in the form of the snake, that he is 'more cunning than any beast of the field' Genesis 3:1.

Films, television, music, magazines, advertising, politics, books. A massive range of things which have input on our minds and our thinking are riddled through with these ungodly influences and I think the time has come where it's either fight or flight... and far too often I see people endorsing the 'flight' option; to totally remove these influences from their lives. No! No! No!!!

A direct biblical response to that: Ephesians 6:12 - 'For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers...' We don't wrestle against flesh and blood but we do and should wrestle against principalities and powers. What follows in Ephesians 6:13-18 is a carefully-considered, divinely-inspired description of how we should go about our 'wrestling'. I'll be unpacking that in another article so that this one doesn't get too long!

Basically I firmly believe, as believers and vessels of the Holy Spirit, we have a role to play in actually dismantling and exposing these 'structures'. As people obsessed with God's truth and justice being seen, we are obliged to counter and destroy the attacks and attempts against him. For us, this takes a really simple, straightforward approach. We apply the principles, the worldview and truth of scripture to aspects of our culture. Advertising, movies, television, books, music etc., should be looked at through the scope of Christian Deconstruction. This brings an added bonus that the positive influences of these things will also become clear! We can see where they are effective and how they might be used for God rather than against him.

The beauty is that all we need do is to write. Essays are the simplest, most practical way to deconstruct something and see into its heart and motivations. I hope that you will listen to this call to arms and benefit greatly from my instructional, scriptural principles which follow in the next few weeks. I sincerely hope that you are already taking this idea and making it your own!

Take up the Word of God as a sword and, using its razor sharp tip, begin to pick apart the world, the culture that you live in!

Praying into sovereignty

Two considerations have been brought up recently when talking to people about God being sovereign - in complete control of everything that happens. One is a direct question, the other is my own thought.

1. What is the point of praying if God has already determined everything he is going to do? If he already knows the end of all things, what difference do our prayers make?

I think that this question is reasonable but answerable fairly quickly. God is clearly using men and women to fulfil the plan which will lead to the new creation. We're not just kicking around, getting in the way as God goes about his business, but his business is being done through us. Also, if God knows everything that will happen, prayer does not come outside that. God knew if you were going to pray and knew the effect he would bring from that prayer. Sovereignty is not an excuse for not praying! God may be at the end, all time might be present to him, but the same is not true of us. We are in his chronology.
I think it shows us just how sinful we are that our almost immediate reaction is:
'Oh, well God's doing to do what he wants with or without me!'
He has chosen to do it with you! Be honoured!

2. God, in his sovereignty, shows us what to pray for.

The things that stay with us, touch our hearts and come into our minds are all directed by God. He also leads us into certain situations and faces us with certain issues that need prayer. He is in complete control and is engineering the universe to bring about these situations. I'll get to the point really quickly. In a sentence...

You are wasting the opportunities and situations which God, in his sovereignty, lays before you when you fail to return them to him in prayer.

Prayer stimulates not only God's actions (however predetermined) but also ignites our hearts for the situations we pray into. If we are not praying into the areas that God has made present to us, we might as well ignore him!

Prayer is one of the areas of my life I personally struggle in commitment towards but this revelation really struck me when thinking of sovereignty and challenged me to take prayer more seriously. Praying into sovereignty is praying into a securely-rooted, eternally-triumphing, unshakable God, but one who listens and acts on the prayers of his people.

'Courting' culture and the bible - Introduction!

Just based on a discussion today, I've got a starter for a line of research that I really want to go down. This is in no way a finished idea but a really interesting starting point for some deep thought.

I was talking with someone about the process of courtship today and actually, among other things, realised that courtship (for me meaning a relationship between a guy and a girl that is initiated on both having strong convictions of God's intention for them to be together in marriage and intended to validate that conviction), although seeming like a sound principle, is not actually a biblical one. It's not necessarily contradicted by the bible but it's not obviously founded in it either and it certainly exposes the couple to greater temptations than a straight proposal after friendship. So 'Is courtship biblical?' will be the basic line of inquiry.

So, what I'll be looking at in some detail, posting hopefully regularly on here, is whether the pros outweigh the cons of courtship, whether the bible provides any principles that support the idea of courtship or 'testing the water for marriage' and whether courtship ultimately lies in insecurity or failure of trust in what God's telling you - undue caution!

I'll also be considering if and where we draw the line regarding cultural relevance in the bible. Obviously, the cultures in which the bible was written are different to our contemporary society. God's principles are obviously the same but how do we go about untangling principle from culture... if at all! I'll be using the bible itself as the source of this opinion. I believe that every word of it is God's and, as such, is entirely truthful and uncontradictory. Therefore, I also trust it to inform me on this issue regarding itself!

I'll also be considering to what extent we should allow our own cultural practices to influence our lives as Christians. Where do we draw the line there?

As someone who is currently courting (and has been doing so for over a year) this is the first time I've really been challenged to actually biblically support my decision for following this particular path into a relationship. In the journey to discover why, I will hopefully gain some deeper insights into the bible's absolute sufficiency as the Christian's guide to living and loving!

So, hopefully, over the next few months, I'll be regularly adding new 'chapters' hopefully going through this whole issue methodically and biblically.

Praise God for Uche whose wisdom inspired me to go after this and challenged me to look deeper into my motivations for 'courting'.

Watch this space...

Sowing for the harvest

'For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, And do not return there, But water the earth, And make it bring forth and bud, That it may give seed to the sower And bread to the eater, So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.'
(Isaiah 55:10-11 NKJV)

In a discussion on Facebook a few months ago, a friend said, regarding the sharing of the gospel:
'The issue isn't whether they're willing to listen but whether we're willing to speak.'
What a great way of summing up our gospel responsibility. Thanks JC!

We are sowers and God is the harvester. Our role is to scatter the seed liberally on all the earth and it is God's role to make it work, make it accomplish what he pleases. I say this because, sometimes, I'm guilty of this, we decide who to share the gospel with. We don't consult God and we exercise our own judgement alone in deciding who needs to hear the word of God. We try and identify 'willingness' in our gospel candidates!

I think the big issue that we have is imagining that it requires people to be 'willing to listen' to receive the gospel. Get this right, it is our natural, default setting as human beings to ignore and hate the gospel. Romans 3:10-11 says this of us: 'There is none righteous, no not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God...' and then in 18: 'There is no fear of God before their eyes.'

Before we understand the gospel, it requires a miracle. It requires God to soften our hearts and actually change our fallen nature. To understand the gospel, the good news that Jesus has suffered and died for our sins and made a path for us, clothed in his righteousness, to approach God - to understand that is a miracle. It is the only way that gives God the full glory he deserves for his work of salvation (for salvation belongs to the Lord) and it's the only way that fits with what the bible tells us about ourselves. The gospel is not glow in the dark. To a hardened heart and the spiritually blind, it is nonsense - pure and simple! It requires the light of God and the softening of the heart to be visible and sensible to a person.

This should tell us something about how gracious God is to have revealed himself to US and to have lifted the veil from OUR eyes so that WE might see him. It should also tell us about our gospel responsibility. God will do the whole work of revealing the truth of the gospel to people, but only when they hear it from our lips!

We do not convince people of the gospel's truth. God does.
We do not lead people to salvation. God does.
We scatter the seed though. Rain may fall on the soil but if the seed has no been planted, nothing will grow. We cannot make it rain, we cannot make that seed take root, we cannot improve the quality of the soil, this all happens by the sovereign, perfect will of God. What we can do is to plant the seed.

It's not whether they're willing to listen but whether we're willing to speak.

1YB: 1 Samuel 28, John 11:1-50

I don't believe in coincidences, they don't exist alongside a sovereign God so it's my total belief that these passages in the One Year Bible did not appear next to each other by accident.

Today, we're looking at two incidences of the dead being returned to life.

First things first, let's look at the chapter from 1 Samuel. Here Saul, failing to hear any comforting words from God about the huge Philistine army he was about to face in battle, goes to consult a medium.

It's interesting to note that the word translated medium in Hebrew actually has a pretty derogatory indication to it, deriving from a word meaning to mumble or prattle. It's clear that this woman shouldn't be taken too seriously. She certainly shouldn't be seen as someone who can override the will of God and bring back the dead.
She was quite likely very similar to the mediums of today who pretend to bring back the dead or converse with them, often for financial gain. It certainly seems that she's used to pretending because of her shocked reaction when the spirit of Samuel (whom Saul asks her to conjure up) actually appears to her! Make note, it mentions nothing of her preparing any kind of spell to do it, he just appears.

Saul apparently can't see the spirit of Samuel because he asks the woman what he looks like but he can obviously hear him. The spirit of Samuel tells him something very plain: God has taken his favour from you and given it to David, your time as ruler of Israel is coming to an end - something he already knew.

The message I find in this passage is this. God is the same, no matter who you consult. Necromancy, the art of conjuring the spirits of the dead, was a grevious crime in Israel and Saul committed it in desperation when he didn't hear from God.

How long will we wait on God for an answer before we take matters into our own hands and it leads us to sin? Can you take the pressure of faith, looking potential disaster and ruin in the face, and wait on the Lord or will you turn to something else, will you take a shortcut? Does Saul's shortcut, his quick fix, tell him anything different about God? No, it quite obviously doesn't. God even displays a little bit of his sense of humour by actually sending the spirit of Samuel to pass on the same message as before! This isn't something I imagine God does regularly but, in this circumstance, it makes a valuable point. God doesn't change.

If you're facing ruin, if you're facing the impossible, wait on God, wait for his deliverance. Also be prepared to take the hard road he sends you down because you'll come out stronger; refined.

Isn't this the same message from Jesus' raising of Lazarus? There are many things to point out from this passage but, in the light of the passage from Samuel, God shows me one thing very clearly. He can accomplish what the world, what our judgement says is impossible. Few people in the crowd believe in Jesus' ability to raise Lazarus from the dead but he does it. He blows our expectations out of the water.

Today, we see two sides of the wait on God with a caution. When you're in a tight spot, don't let it tempt you into ungodly tactics to save your skin but remain faithful to him. Even when things look impossible, even when it looks like there's no way out, he can accomplish anything and he doesn't change... and he will raise the dead to show you those truths.

God and music

The first mention of music in the bible is Genesis 4:21.
'His brother’s name was Jubal. He was the father of all those who play the harp and flute.'

Right from the beginning, music has been present in God's story, a background hum that increases in volume, that climaxes in the blowing of horns and deafening chorus of worship in Revelation. I believe that it's always been a part of his plan for music to be used in proclaiming him, worshipping him but also drawing people to himself.

Music is one of the closest things to experiencing God's power we can have when we don't believe in him. There are other things that point us to him but few of them seem to inspire the congregational, public outpour that music does. Watch a concert and look at the front row and you will see people worshipping; pouring out their appreciation, losing themselves in joy and marveling at the artist. Even for the secular world, music can bring happiness and rejoicing or sorrow and melancholy.

Music goes towards creating a spiritual reality because it is something unseen, moving and complex and people are wired, on a deep mysterious level, to be drawn to it. That's why, I believe, it has a near-religious effect on the secular world. It's no wonder that music forms such a big part of our worship in church and in private. The psalms were written to be sung, many of them detailing the instruments to be used with them. God has always intended for us to take up instruments and make a sweet sound to him.

I've heard people get really down because they find it difficult to worship without music. For me, this isn't such a big deal. You should, certainly, be able to be passionate about and praise God without a piano backing but the fact that music draws you into a deeper level of worship isn't a bad thing! It doesn't mean you've got to readjust your spiritual life or feel guilty.
As long as the object of the adoration is God, the means of worship aren't really the issue. King David danced about in a state of near undress when the Ark was returned to near Jerusalem!
2 Samuel 6 (especially verses 14, 16 and 20).

Jesus tells the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4 that where you worship doesn't fuss God but that it's spirit and truth. So when you feel good from singing a song, that's a gift from God, that's your spirit and soul rejoicing at the truth of his character and also the truths in the song.

Take some time to sit down with your favourite worship song today and go through the lyrics and actually consider the truths in it. Get excited about them and then listen to the song and feel the overwhelming explosion of joy at hearing the combination of God's truth and spirit.

I'll finish here with a scripture that blew me away a little while ago.
'Then [Jesus and the disciples] sang a hymn and went out to the Mount of Olives.'
Matthew 26:30.

Jesus is joining the disciples in singing praises to God, but we believe Jesus is God in human form. So we're seeing God joining with his followers to sing his own praises. And that's all that we're created for, to be brought in and add to the volume of God's own praise of himself because he is worthy to be praised. God rejoices in himself and rejoices in our praises so take the gift, the tool of music and give praise by lifting your voice to him!

Why I love the KJV!

So most of my posts are pretty serious, I realise this, but I want to give a fair reflection of myself as a person in this blog so I just thought I'd explain today why I love the King James bible!

There is a power and might in the words, in the archaic construction of sentences, the 'thee's and 'thou's, 'ye's and 'behold's that just makes it feel... holy! Is that weird?

The language is almost set apart for God. It's not like sitting down with the New Living Translation or one of the more contemporary, less literal translations. It's an effort to read, but the rewards are great.

I think it also carries a great deal of authority. The weight of the words, the atmosphere created by the dusty, old-fashioned language, is profound. The KJV inhabits most of the English-speaking, western world's psyche at a deep level. We've all heard something of it, we've all seen it in stitch patterns at our Grandma's or wherever.

I think it's this, more than anything else, that makes me love it. The tradition and the significance of it. No bible feels so powerful in your hand as a King James. Mine is a tiny black one with browning pages that smell fusty and old, I got it in a charity shop for £1 but it's one of my favourite bibles next to the one my girlfriend bought me my first Christmas as a Christian! I love finding a passage and reading it aloud to myself, just to feel the shape of the words, the texture and rhythm of it... but I am a poet so that might just be me!

I think God loves words, loves expressing himself. The King James is not for beginners, I can understand that it alienates people, it's not great to preach from, but it's magic!

Is the kingdom your treasure?

'The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid again; and from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.' Matthew 13:44

Before we begin to look at this in detail, I want to highlight something. Jesus uses the words 'the kingdom of heaven' to express many different things. It can mean the gospel, God's judgement, the behaviour God expects from us. There is a key thing to note though, they all relate to us. They are about how people should interact with the kingdom of heaven.

It's a strange parable because it doesn't seem to be very Christian behaviour... the field which the man is digging in is not his own (he has to buy the field for himself) so he is either digging in someone else's field which is pretty out of order or he's a labourer digging in his employers field. He finds treasure, something incredibly valuable, realises its worth and then hides it again, goes out and sells all his possessions so that he can finance his purchase of the field and, with it, the treasure.

We can criticise him for a few reasons. The secrecy over the treasure. If this is the gospel, this hidden treasure, surely this is contrary to God's instruction to spread it over the earth? I suspect the problem often found with this parable is that we too easily relate the treasure to a single element of the kingdom. I think it's really about realisation and reaction.

Have we seen the kingdom for what it really is? Have we seen it as the most valuable treasure or have we missed the point? The man is indeed in the wrong to behave the way he does in the situation laid out but what Jesus is telling us is not about how we should behave in the world but about we should feel in our hearts!

Imagine, free of your morals, free of any kind of worry, in full knowledge of your plan's success, being the man in the story. Imagine the absolute dedication, the unstoppable urge, the greed. God says this is how we should feel about his kingdom.

We need to be greedy for God. Ravenous for him.

Greed in this world is bad because things are in limited supply. If someone eats too much food, they deprive others. They put their own desire (they eat because they want to eat of course) above consideration for others. The point is though, God is infinite and inexhaustible, we can gorge ourselves on him and he'll never be depleted! So where are the negative aspects of a greed for God?

If the kingdom isn't your number one priority, your love, think again! Go back to the word and find out exactly why you need to treasure it, why you need to follow it with such drive and determination.

Get hungry to see his kingdom come.

A silent God?

And they said to Moses, "You speak to us, and we will listen. But don't let God speak directly to us, or we will die!"
(Exodus 20:19 NLT)

Just a really short thought.

Speaking with a friend the other day, we both criticised a view in a book that God does not speak to us today but rather eternally through Jesus and through his word found in scripture. Denial of prophecy outside the pages of the bible. Cessationism.

I just can't even begin to list my frustrations with this 'theology'. It's an idea where the God who spoke the world into being, who spoke to Abraham, who continuously spoke to the prophets and people of Israel, who walked this earth and spoke to the people, who then spoke through the apostles in their letters and accounts, this speaking God suddenly falls silent. As far as I can see, it's a belief unsubstantiated in the bible.

The chattiest God in the world suddenly shuts up and seals his lips for 2000-odd years? Are you beginning to see the madness; the way in which cessationism warps the character of God? Abraham, Isaiah, Daniel, David, Esther were great men and women but that's exactly what they were; men and women like you and I.

I think the root of cessationism is sadly obvious. It's the same school of thought that says that spiritual gifts such as healing and speaking in tongues died out in the early church and I will state the cause of it clearly here.

They make people uncomfortable because they're not normal, they're not of this world. These are the supernatural aspects of being a Christian and these are the things that force our heads above the parapet and distinguish us. 'But they make people uncomfortable...', whoever said God wanted us to be comfortable?! God wants us to be active and often that means being uncomfortable! The fact is, these gifts, God's voice, as loud today as it's ever been, make people uncomfortable because they grate and jar against everything this world tells us and that's precisely why they are from God. The kingdom of God and the world clash against each other whenever they meet.

I understand the caution with which people approach these things, don't get me wrong. We are warned against false prophecy in the end times (which surely implies there will still be true prophecy in the end times, otherwise it'd say 'Ignore all prophecy in the end times'?) and some of the spiritual gifts can often become about drama for drama's sake and like all drama, acted or fabricated. But all this does is say to me: 'Spiritually assess and apply the wisdom and intelligence God's given to you to these things.' It doesn't say to discount them entirely!

If spiritual gifts, if the idea of prophecy, God speaking to us here and now, makes you uncomfortable, you need to reassess. You might be living a Christian life, you might be preaching the gospel, you might be regularly attending church, but you're a world-friendly Christian. There's the aspect of being 'all things to all people', certainly but there's also a big thumb plugging up the fountain of spiritual gifts that you're sat on right now! We're to be adaptable, we're to be wise in our treatment of non-Christians and the world but we're also not to be too gentle with it. Why? Because it needs shaking out of its complacency and its sleep and gentle apologetics and comfy chats aren't going to accomplish that!

Ask yourself, am I acting out of fear? Am I only rejecting these things because they make me uncomfortable? God has got an arsenal of supernatural, unearthly and awesome abilities ready for you to access but you've got the door locked out of fear. I speak as someone who was, at one time, extremely scared and dubious (in that order) of the spiritual gifts, of speaking in tongues but the only way past that fear is to dive in - put your inhibitions to one side and step up into the next level of God's blessings for you. I will never forget the feeling of surging power and peace I felt the first time I spoke in tongues, the exhiliration and honour of delivering prophecy... it is not a gift I would want to keep to myself!

This little thought has become a big challenge. Listen for God today and don't be an Israelite, scared of hearing directly from him. Don't get his message second hand, you don't need a commentary or a range of books on grace (even though they might help sometimes)! So stop leaning on the understanding of others and engage directly with God. Let him who has ears listen to what the spirit says: My God still speaks to me, sometimes outside the pages of the bible... does yours?

Amen!

1YB: Judges 9:35-37, Luke 24:13-31

These two passages show us one thing clearly, God is in charge of our eyes and our sight.

In the extract from Judges, Gaal sees an army approaching his city and, even though the traitorous Zebul tries to fool him into believing it is simply the shadow of clouds on the hillside, he stands by his assessment of the truth and is able to mount a counter-attack in defense.

In the extract from Luke, two of Jesus' followers bump into him on a road but God prevents their eyes from recognising him. How weird... If the men had have recognised it was Jesus, what would the harm have been? They'd have been overjoyed! But Jesus, in his God-given disguise from them, explains the prophecy of the ressurection to them and they understand. Only when he breaks bread with them after they invite him for dinner, does the penny finally drop. God releases them from their unrecognition.

Sometimes, God obscures our view for a reason. Perhaps we need to understand the processes of God before we see his results. Perhaps we need to find him rather than him finding us. Sometimes, God blinds us to his own work in our lives. It's where trust really comes in. If God's hand was always clear, if we always knew exactly what he was doing, we wouldn't have to have faith and he wants us to trust him completely, so sometimes he covers our eyes and makes us take a step in the dark.

Sometimes, the enemy can obscure the truth from us as Zebul tried to do. We can hear the lies but we have to stand by what we know first, like Gaal. At the forefront of our minds and lives should be the promises and truths of God. If these go before us, the lies of the enemy that follow will be useless and ineffectual. We set our minds on the truth and we stick to it!

So, pray that God will open your eyes to the lies of the enemy but know that, if you can't see God, it might be because he's hidden himself from you. Your faith and trust are being tested and strengthened in the most loving way possible. Stay true to him, remember his promises, he will never forsake you, he will never let you go. His hand is always upon you but sometimes it's hidden from your sight. Keep trusting and he will reappear, proud and beaming at your faithfulness!

Nature

When [Jesus] reached the place where the road started down the Mount of Olives, all of His followers began to shout and sing as they walked along, praising God for all the wonderful miracles they had seen. "Blessings on the King who comes in the name of the LORD! Peace in heaven, and glory in highest heaven!" But some of the Pharisees among the crowd said, "Teacher, rebuke Your followers for saying things like that!" He replied, "If they kept quiet, the stones along the road would burst into cheers!"
(Luke 19:37-40 NLT)

From scripture to nature, this is the breadth of the Christian life. I engage with God in the quiet of my bedroom on pages compressed from the lignin of felled trees or out in the fields where trees stand tall and skeletal against the day's grey sky.

Indeed, the truths of nature are found in the words on the page but the experience of those truths, the validation of them (for how will we know something is true before we try it?), is in the depths of the woods or on the heights of the hills.

Man rejected the love of God, brought down a curse on the whole of creation, nature must be imperfect but man could not reject the image of God. I do not believe the image of God only exists in man but resides in all that he made. Romans 1:20 says 'For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see His invisible qualities—His eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.' Any aspect of nature can be traced down to God and I firmly believe that nature still retains some quality of Eden in it, however hard man tries to bring it to ruin.

When the trees are gone, how will man know God? The world will stand and point at concrete and steelwork rising on all sides and say 'God had no part in this; I can introduce you to the men who built all of this with there own weathered hands! One is my brother, one is my cousin's son.' The words of the bible would become senseless when creation was overcrowded and choked by buildings and machinery. It's part of our duty as Christians. Romans 8:19-21 says: 'For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who His children really are. Against its will, all creation was subjected to God's curse. But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God's children in glorious freedom from death and decay.'

God never originally intended for us even to live in houses. Adam and Eve lived in nature but the fall changed that and made the earth inhospitable. The first city was built out of Cain's rejection and mistrust of God's protection over him (Genesis 4:13-17). I don't believe God's calling us to be a rural community, I believe he intends to have his influence in the city as well, but we need that contact with nature to fully understand him. Jesus spoke in rural parables, he spoke of shepherds, farmers, fishermen; men who interact directly with nature and creation for their livelihood.

Every aspect of nature reflects him in some way; the might of the river, the majestic eagle, the towering mountain, the tranquility and ferocity of the ocean. The Romantic poets called it 'the sublime'. The personal response to an external object of awe, reverence, an agreeable fear. That knowledge of ones own miniscule existence against the vastness of creation; the glimpse of the eternal. We define ourselves against God's greatness and the knowledge of his love and consideration of us.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, part of the American Romantic movement put it beautifully like this: 'To the body and mind which have been cramped by noxious work or company, nature is medicinal and restores their tone. The tradesmen, the attorney comes out of the din and craft of the street, and sees the sky and the woods, and is a man again. In their eternal calm, he finds himself.' We find our identity in God.

The bible gives creation a personality, especially in the Psalms. The rivers clap their hands, the mountains sing. Some might say that this is poetic license but I think it's totally true. Nature is alive with the spirit of God. God's word is also alive through his spirit.
God's call is to learn about him through his word, but also through his creation. Pantheists stop short at worshipping the creation, we should use the creation as a pathway into a deeper worship of God. Like any act of profound worship it also echoes into our world, our lives and our situations.

So today, even in the rain which God sends, go into the woods. On a clear night, go out, lie in a field and look at the stars. Draw on the energy and life that comes from spending time in reverence of God and his creativity. God's spirit cannot dwell where it is not reverenced but I believe it is irresistably attracted to a place where it is. Take that life and that energy and give it to your friends, your colleagues, your family.

Like leaking vessels, we must constantly be topped up with the spirit, and the word is important in that, so is prayer, meditation, worship, praise but today, my challenge to you in to draw that spirit from creation itself. The stones still burst into cheers, the trees of the field still clap their hands; we just need to take a moment to adjust our ears to hear the sound of creation's anthem of praise.

Amen.

One Year Bible: An explanation

So, alongside my usual thoughts and ponderings, I'll be putting up some posts in my 'One Year Bible' thread.

I use the One Year Bible to make sure I read some of the bible every day. For those of you that don't know, the One Year Bible is a bible (NLT for me) that is arranged into 365 readings so you can read on every day of the year and do the whole thing. I tried a reading plan but I was really poorly disciplined and I find this a lot easier... so if you've struggled like me I'd really recommend it.

Anyway, every day you read a bit of the Old Testament and a bit of the New, a psalm and a couple of proverbs. These are arranged in order (so you start with Genesis next to Matthew...etc) but I've started to notice that you can often link up the themes or little aspects of the Old Testament and New passages they include... and they didn't even plan this!

It's not a surprise, God's word is totally unified in its purpose, our God is the God of Israel, but I've been really blessed at seeing these little connections. Sometimes it even goes into the psalm and the proverb as well!

So here's what I'll do: whenever I find these little links and connections (and sometimes it's easier than others!) I'll post them up here with all the references you need to study them for yourselves.

They'll be formatted like this example:
'1YB: Genesis 1:1-2:25, Matthew 1:1-2:12, Psalm 1, Proverbs 1:1-6'

Just so you're not confused by these little extras...
Bless you!

John 9:1-7: A strange cure?

I'd stumbled across this bit of John quite a few times before but never really gave it sufficient thought. Why did Jesus make clay out of his own spit and put it on the man's eyes?
I was thinking about this last night and a bit more this morning and I really believe that, with God, I've made some progress so I thought I'd share my thoughts.

What's the immediate reaction you have to this? For me, I think:
'Surely putting mud in someone's eyes or even near them is actually more likely to make them blind than cure them!'
You might think so, muddy clay made from spit seems a pretty unlikely cure for blindness but God uses the most unlikely to perform his will. He uses the underdog, the deceiver, the wimp, the guy with the stammer to lead the people of Israel. He uses the cross, surely the most humiliating symbol of defeat, to save us. He uses mud to cure the blind. We can't question or apply our logic to God's means.
Look at the results, the man regains his sight and tells people exactly how. We should never try and alter the exactness of the gospel. We should never edit or sugarcoat how God has accomplished what he has in our lives. We should be honest with all who ask.
'The message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction! But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God.'
(1 Corinthians 1:18 NLT)
And yeah, occasionally we shouldn't be afraid to look foolish in our defense of God; it shows we're doing it right!

And I was just about to wrap up the thoughts there with the conclusion that John 9:1-7 is a emblem of God's counter-intuitive logic and the importance of allowing his judgement to overrule ours and then he showed me something else.

'Then the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man's nostrils, and the man became a living person.'
(Genesis 2:7 NLT)
God created man from dust, but dust in itself cannot form a shape, it requires something to bond it together. I believe Jesus is illustrating something far more profound than the simple message above. He presumably made the clay which restored the man's sight out of the dust on the ground too.

We are held together, bonded into a living being by God with such an intimacy that he could have used his own spittle to do it. We are created in his image; God is such a part of us that he's inseperable from us. Even as sinners, God is still woven through our being. Without God, we would crumble back into dust. Collosians 1:17 says that he 'holds all creation together'. He sustains our existence even when we don't acknowledge his! That's grace.

God created Adam from the dust of the ground, he puts us together in our mothers' wombs (Psalm 139); God is utterly sovereign over his created beings and that means when he says heal, we're healed. Jesus mimics that initial creation (and he should know, he was there! Hebrews 1:2 says 'through the Son He created the universe') in his 'recreation' of the man's eyes. He's saying: 'I made these eyes in the first place and I can fix them' and he's also foreshadowing the day when he returns to renew and perfect all of creation, when all blind eyes will see! What an awesome illustration of his power, purpose and his infinite control over all he has created. Even when the enemy, through the power of sin in this world, has determined that this man should be blinded from birth, Jesus says otherwise. Hallelujah!

I hope this has blessed you.