Joy in the Journey (34) - The certainty of the things you have been taught

"I just don't get it." Ever said that about something in the Bible, about the claims it makes concerning Jesus? Or maybe it's been said to you and you've not been too sure what to say in reply?

Perhaps you've heard that these things just have to be taken on trust - there's no place for thought, for consideration, for exploring questions and finding solid ground to stand on. That the only ground you need is faith. So swallow hard and just believe, come what may.

If you've heard that you likely feel it ought to be true and yet there are moments when you seem to be shrouded in doubt. It's unwelcome and uninvited; you've tried your hardest to believe yet the nagging doubts burrow their way into your heart and mind with a desolating intensity.

That might be true even if you've been a Christian for a long time. There are questions that are knotty and troublesome and, for you, are yet to be answered. There are passages you've read that make no sense and, worse, evoke pain and mistrust of the God who gave his Word. You hate to feel that way but, in all honesty, there are times when you do. And times of stress, as these past months have been, co-opt those questions into a full-blown season of doubt.

It's not entirely untrue to say that 'all you need is faith' but it isn't sufficiently in tune with the Bible itself. Yes, we have to take things on trust - but that is a validated trust; it is belief that is warranted by the facts. You have reliable grounds for such trust.

In the first 4 verses of his gospel, Luke explains that he is writing to Theophilus in order that he "may know the certainty of the things...taught." We don't know if Theophilus is one individual or a group of people; nor do we know if he/they have come to faith in Jesus or are seriously considering owning him as Lord and Saviour. But Theophilus seems concerned that what he's been taught may lack sufficient grounds for that kind of committed belief.

In this brief introduction, Luke writes of his method and the witnesses he has spoken to. His assiduous collating and examination of the various sources and his interviews with eye-witnesses are the sure foundation for what Theophilus has been taught. They give him solid grounds to accept and to trust the good news about Jesus the Messiah. Even though the gospel transcends rationality it doesn't transgress it. It is believable, grounded in historical reality.

One of the surprising sources of strength for the case Luke makes is that he has heard "from those who from the first were...servants of the word." But didn't they have a vested interest in confirming the accounts, even if they knew them to be false? Well, no - these were the very people who were in most danger for saying all that they did about Jesus. Facing martyrdom, they didn't back away from the accounts they gave to Luke - because they knew what they had seen and heard.

The opening chapters of this gospel then take us into the company of people who were fallen but faithful; humble and pious, without any pomp or hype. Believable people. And among Luke's eye-witnesses. Within and through their witness we discover Jesus the Lord - in all his majesty, in all his compelling godliness and the sheer goodness of radiant holiness, self-giving love and tenderest compassion.

Words cannot tell the depths of that simple witness to him. Words cannot fully convey the riches of his character and his work. What Luke writes isn't simplistic; it marries conviction with humble gratitude and heartfelt worship. It encourages and nourishes faith in Jesus as the Messiah, as the Son of God.

Why not open the pages of this gospel again. Bring with you your questions, your doubts and fears. Ask the Lord that as you read he will affirm in the depths of your heart the reality of the truth about his Son. That you may know the joyful certainty of what you have been taught.

(If you're looking for a book that will help you work through some persistently challenging questions about the Christian faith then Confronting Christianity by Rebecca McLaughlin is a great read.)

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Christ is the One who calls,

the One who loved and came,

to whom by right it falls

to bear the highest Name:

  and still today

  our hearts are stirred

  to hear his word

  and walk his way.

Christ is the One who seeks,

to whom our souls are known.

The word of love he speaks

can wake a heart of stone;

  for at that sound

  the blind can see,

  the slave is free,

  the lost are found.

Christ is the One who died,

forsaken and betrayed;

who, mocked and crucified,

the price of pardon paid.

  Our dying Lord,

  what grief and loss,

  what bitter cross,

  our souls restored!

Christ is the One who rose

in glory from the grave,

to share his life with those

whom once he died to save.

  He drew death's sting

  and broke its chains,

  who lives and reigns,

  our risen King.

Christ is the One who sends,

his story to declare;

who calls his servants friends

and gives them news to share.

  His truth proclaim

  in all the earth,

  his matchless worth

  and saving Name.

(Timothy Dudley-Smith, 1926- )

Joy in the Journey (33) - The God of no needs

We so often, and so very easily, entertain wrong views of God and our relationship with him. This isn't deliberate on our part but it is debilitating. Psalm 50 is a great help in addressing and correcting those tendencies.

It begins by highlighting the nature of the LORD - that he is the Mighty God, perfect in beauty, shining forth in glory. He speaks, summoning both heaven and earth, to address the people united to him by a covenant of sacrifice. And his assessment is this (verses 7-13):

They have not been slow in keeping the commandments regarding sacrifices. They have been made and are ever before the Lord. However, those sacrifices have been viewed in overly transactional terms. Through them they would, somehow, sustain the LORD. They would feed him, support him, enable him to be who he claimed to be. His life would, in a strange turn of events, be in their hands.

Their obligations to the covenant had been met, its instructions followed, but from a false and falsifying perspective. The LORD has no needs that his people must meet, as verses 9-13 make so very clear:

I have no need of a bull from your stall
or of goats from your pens,
for every animal of the forest is mine,
and the cattle on a thousand hills.
I know every bird in the mountains,
and the insects in the fields are mine.
If I were hungry I would not tell you,
for the world is mine, and all that is in it.
Do I eat the flesh of bulls
or drink the blood of goats?

The same point needed to be made by Paul in idol-ridden Athens, that the living God "is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else." (Acts 17:25)

To get this wrong, as they had done, is the road into anxious bondage, into a punishing performance-driven relating that has no proper foundation in the love of God. It diminishes the Lord of glory and reduces life with him to a mechanistic, computational chore.

That is not what we are called to by the gospel. The living God has no need of us and we are not saved in order to sustain him. We are not called and chosen because he has limited resources and needs to expand what is available to him. The coming of the Kingdom of God in its majestic fullness will not be an achievement of the church.

The true centre is given in verses 14, and 15. Here is the renewing essence that relies not on human effort and success. Its emphasis is on true, heart-felt worship ("Sacrifice thank-offerings to God"), recognising and receiving the glorious grace of God. It is on a faith that demonstrates it is living through a glad obedience ("fulfil your vows to the Most High"). And it is on a complete dependence upon the Lord to rescue and save ("call on me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you").

Here are the central realities of the Christian life. Gospel outcomes. Called to worship, to a living faith, to a full reliance on the Lord to save. Our service does not in any sense prop-up the living God or make up for some inherent lack in him. Nor is it the missing link in the achieving of his plans to save from every tribe and language and nation.

Getting our perspective true and clear is vital to healthy Christian living, to joy-filled worship and faith-filled obedience. By these "you will honour me" says the Mighty One, God, the LORD.

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O for a heart to praise my God,
A heart from sin set free;
A heart that always feels Thy blood
So freely shed for me;

A heart resigned, submissive, meek,
My great Redeemer's throne,
Where only Christ is heard to speak,
Where Jesus reigns alone;

A humble, lowly, contrite heart,
Believing, true, and clean,
Which neither life nor death can part
From him that dwells within;

A heart in every thought renewed,
And full of love divine;
Perfect and right and pure and good:
A copy, Lord, of Thine.

Thy nature, gracious Lord, impart;
Come quickly from above;
Write Thy new name upon my heart,
Thy new best Name of Love.

(Charles Wesley, 1707-88)

Joy in the Journey (32) - The flesh is weak

In the garden of Gethsemane, our Lord Jesus urged his disciples to sit with him, to keep watch while he went to pray (Mk. 14:32ff). They struggle to do so and he finds them asleep, twice. They have no words of excuse or explanation. The assessment is provided by our Lord himself: "the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak."

It is a measure of his compassion for them that he both acknowledges their willingness to watch with him, while at the same time alerting them to the very real and present danger of their fleshly weakness. He isn't dismissing them, nor is he discounting their commitment to him, but he is laying before them their very real vulnerability. It is something they need to see and to face.

David knew the value of a willing spirit in the face of temptation and on the back of sinful failure (Ps. 51:10). His request remains a key prayer for every disciple of Jesus. But, on its own, a willing spirit is not enough. The innate weakness of our flesh is something that Satan can exploit and disciples who rely on the strength of their own convictions, the willingness of their spirit, will find that they, too, flee in fear (v.50).

These past months have demanded much from each of us, whatever the precise circumstances of our lives. The mental, emotional and physical toll has been high and costly. And it remains so; our flesh is weak and susceptible. Tiredness, distraction, emotional wear-and-tear; all make us prey to temptation, to fear and discouragement.

When we come to faith in Jesus we are not delivered from the weakness of the flesh. We're not yet mended. We still need, very much, to watch and pray so that we do not fall into temptation. A willing spirit is not sufficient protection on its own.

But we are not on our own. The promised Holy Spirit has come. The Comforter is at work within us, to sustain our spirits, to strengthen that willingness and to give enabling grace in the face of our ongoing weaknesses.

There is much we can do to help ourselves; advice on eating, exercising and resting is plentiful and sound. But we need the Spirit's help, both in taking hold of that wisdom and, more deeply, in guarding our hearts, in renewing our minds, in sanctifying to us our deepest distresses, in daily ladling our hearts with the love of our Father in heaven.

We need his insight to "understand the present time, that the hour has already come for [us] to wake up from [our] slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed."  For, truly, "the night is nearly over; the day is almost here." (Rom. 13:11,12)

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'We rest on Thee', our Shield and our Defender!
We go not forth alone against the foe;
Strong in Thy strength, safe in Thy keeping tender,
'We rest on Thee, and in Thy Name we go.'

Yes, 'in Thy Name', O Captain of salvation!
In Thy dear Name, all other names above:
Jesus our righteousness, our sure Foundation,
Our Prince of glory and our King of love.

'We go' in faith, our own great weakness feeling,
And needing more each day Thy grace to know:
Yet from our hearts a song of triumph peeling:
'We rest on Thee, and in Thy Name we go'.

'We rest on Thee', our Shield and our Defender!
Thine is the battle; Thine shall be the praise
When passing through the gates of pearly splendour,
Victors, we rest with Thee through endless days.

(Edith Adeline Gilling Cherry, 1872-97)

Joy in the Journey (31) - Doubly blessed

As Peter wrote his first letter, he was acutely aware of not only where his readers lived but their social location - the daily experience of life in a hostile environment, the struggle for holy lives in an atmosphere of rampant sinfulness.

While empathising with the very real pain that they know and feel, he is also very keen to remind them how blessed they are as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, not to minimise and play-down their sufferings but to equip them to live through such times.

In 1:10-12 he reflects on how they are doubly blessed:

i. The Holy Spirit spoke through the Old Testament prophets, predicting "the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow" in gospel days. The prophets through whom he spoke, realising their words carried lasting significance, “searched intently and with the greatest care” to try to find out the who, the when and the where of the gospel. But they had to be content with what they knew and with what they didn’t - that they were serving others. Their ministry was arced forward in blessing upon those as yet unborn.

Peter’s point is that it is Christians they were serving; his readers then and now. Those who have had the gospel preached to them by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven - applied to their hearts in saving power.

For all that their lives were hampered by harassment and tempered by temptation and trial, they were at the same time recipients of the most astonishing blessing. The Messiah had come, had suffered for sin, once for all, and had ushered in the glories the prophets had seen in outline only: the radical and glorious new birth into a living hope, a new creation dawning, the true grace of God flowing deep and wide in human hearts.

ii. This beautiful and profound work of grace through the sufferings of the Son, so radiant with the glory of God, that Peter’s readers had received by faith, was something that “angels long to look into” and yet cannot. They see many things, have a perspective that is not given to us, have a divinely-given vocation to help those who inherit salvation, but they do not know personally the loving mercies of God in the sacrifice of "the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring [us] to God".

The details of history are not withheld from angels. They attended our Lord in the wilderness and strengthened him in the garden of Gethsemane. Yet there are depths to his saving work that they cannot enter, cannot taste and see the goodness of a grace that bore our pains and our punishment. They have not been redeemed from the empty life of sin and its malign deceitfulness by the precious blood of the Lamb without blemish or defect.

Our privileges are beyond telling. And they are able to sustain us through days that may be bitter and bleak. The fulness of glory is yet to come, it remains in prospect, but we are truly blessed, doubly so, as heirs of the gracious gift of life.

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Jesus, Thou joy of loving hearts,
Thou fount of life, Thou light of men,
From the best bliss that earth imparts,
We turn unfilled to Thee again.

Thy truth unchanged hath ever stood;
Thou savest those that on Thee call;
To them seek Thee Thou art good,
To them that find Thee, all in all.

We taste Thee, O Thou living Bread,
And long to feast upon Thee still;
We drink of Thee, the fountain-head,
And thirst our souls from Thee to fill.

Our restless spirits yearn for Thee
Where’er our changeful lot is cast;
Glad, when Thy gracious smile we see;
Blest, when our faith can hold Thee fast.

O Jesus, ever with us stay;
Make all our moments calm and bright;
Chase the dark night of sin away;
Shed o’er our souls Thy holy light.

(Latin, c. 11th century;
tr. by Ray Palmer, 1808-87)

Joy in the Journey (30) - In a city under siege

Throughout history, in times of war, cities have been besieged. Over weeks and months, even years, they have been surrounded and threatened, assaulted and devastated. Those within the city have experienced terrible suffering and distress. Buildings are pummelled apart, stone by stone. Resources cannot be replenished and inevitably, witheringly, run dry. In the most desperate of times, the lack of food has led to the weakest becoming prey in the cannibalism of despair. Freedom of movement has been completely withdrawn. Open hostility has been the daily diet. Threats unceasing and all hope draining away. Often the siege led to capitulation and surrender or to complete destruction.

In Psalm 31:21 David recalls a time when he was in “a city under siege” - a time of desperation for himself and for the nation. They knew the reality of a horror that goes beyond words. And that suffering was compounded in David’s mind by the alarming thought that he was cut off from God’s sight - invisible, irrelevant, disposed of.

Those experiences are not limited to such specific physical and social realities. Both as individuals and churches we can (and perhaps have) know something of what David meant and what others have experienced. The isolation; the threats and endless hostility. Our resources failing; every day the line dropping a little lower. Relationships descending into emotional and verbal cannibalism (Gal. 5:15). Stone by stone, life is taken apart.

And the capstone of despair: "I am cut off from your sight". Unseen by the Lord. Not in his sight; not on his heart. Could anything feel more empty or desolating than that?

Yet David’s words are a testimony to the grace of God. They are an expression of praise: at his point of need, when he was in that besieged city, “the LORD...showed me the wonders of his love”; far from being unseen by God, his cry for mercy and help was heard (v.22).

The LORD intervened - in wonderful love. Not to fulfil a contractual obligation but in deep, tender, covenant love. David was seen by the God of all comfort and Father of compassion; seen and helped and delivered. When there was no longer any hope, the LORD kept his saving promise.

David’s testimony is written, “to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope” (Rom. 15:4) - even when our lives feel like a city under siege; when our minds are assaulted; when the church seems to be on its last legs; when we believe that we are utterly invisible. The certain hope of mercy and grace to help us in our time of need. The certain hope that his eye is on this sparrow, in all its seeming insignificance and frailty.

Hope that does not, will never, put us to shame, even when besieged in life, because God’s love has flooded our hearts through the Holy Spirit he has gifted to us.

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Lead us, heavenly Father, lead us
O'er the world's tempestuous sea;
Guard us, guide us, keep us, feed us,
For we have no help but Thee;
Yet possessing every blessing
If our God our Father be.

Saviour, breathe forgiveness o'er us;
All our weakness Thou dost know;
Thou didst tread this earth before us,
Thou didst feel its keenest woe;
Lone and dreary, faint and weary,
Through the desert Thou didst go.

Spirit of our God, descending,
Fill our hearts with heavenly joy,
Love with every passion blending,
Pleasure that can never cloy;
Thus provided, pardoned, guided,
Nothing can our peace destroy.

(James Edmeston, 1791-1867)

Labelling those who turn up - and those who don't - this Sunday

If you're re-starting church in your building this Sunday, can I make this plea to you? You have, as a church leadership, and in consultation with your church membership presumably, made the decision to do so. You've taken all necessary precautions, listened to the best advice you can find and have decided to go for it. God bless your efforts. But, please, if members of your church choose, in good conscience, not to return yet, please don't label them 'unfaithful Christians'.

Please go the extra mile not to put pressure on them to conform their conscience to the decision that you and others have made. It isn't a simple equation of 'the church is gathering physically so if you can do so but choose not to then you're sinning'. Of course, you have never suggested that was the case, but that impression can be communicated in so many small and subtle ways - so you need to be very intentional about making sure no such pressure is felt. Bend over backwards if necessary. They are not weaker brothers and sisters; they have simply made a different choice to you and they have liberty in the Lord to do so. Don't they?

After all, we shouldn't imagine that all those who do gather physically are there because they are, obviously, the faithful ones. Maybe they're there because, against their better judgement, they think they owe it to you as their pastor/elders to do so. Perhaps they're there in fear - not of the virus so much as the disapproval of their brothers and sisters. Fearful of how they will be labelled. Being there for those reasons is not a matter of faith but of fear of man - and you know how that gets described in the Bible.

Faithful Christians? It's not a matter of dividing along lines of who came and who didn't. Surely we know that, don't we? It's not about those who have disappointed you and those who have supported you, right? You're comfortable with liberty of conscience, for all God's people, aren't you?

Learning from failure

Think 'preacher' for 'writer' and this remains spot-on:

It's often failure that forces the writer to reflect on why he has given himself to writing and why he will continue to. Success in writing, however that may be defined, doesn't always promote the right motives in the writer. And as unwelcomed as failure is, in it can lie lessons that will serve the writer well throughout his creative life.

Corey Latta, C S Lewis and the Art of Writing, p.142

Joy in the Journey (29) - "Though he does not know how..."

In Mark 4:26-29, our Lord Jesus continues his teaching with another 'nature parable'. The man who scatters seed into the ground - experienced, well-versed in farming and crop-growing no doubt - has limitations to grasp and a humility to embrace.

The seed is the Word (Mark 4:14). The gospel of the Kingdom. The living and abiding Word of God. We are blessed with opportunities to take that Word into our hearts. That blessing comes with a responsibility, to hear God's Word with "noble and good hearts" (Luke 8:15). That is, with integrity, with humility, with a willingness to hear all that it says to us. To come with open hearts and minds. Which means we need to become careful readers and listeners - engaged, thoughtful, responsive. Not passive, as though our minds were simply a sluice-gate into the soul.

But there is a difference between the kind of active listening we're called to and an over-mechanised view of how the Word works in our or other people's lives. The Word needs to, and will, do its work, even though we (like the man in the parable) do not know how. And that work is always more extensive and more unexpected than we are likely prepared for.

We're to come with a readiness, a willingness, to be humbled, to be challenged, to be encouraged, exhorted, equipped. But those outcomes, in all the reality of their fruitful detail, are the work of the Spirit himself. They are not determined by our own expectations ("I'm going to read this passage so that I can be convicted about that sin ...".) Conviction and comfort are the work of the Counsellor given to us by our Lord Jesus. They are not self-generated.

We simply do not know enough about how he does his work. The motions of a soul are mysteries to us and the intricacies of the mind and the impact upon it of history and life's experiences are far beyond our ability to know or to program. "The Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom" - not only for those liberated into adoption as the children of God but the freedom of the Spirit himself in the loving work of recreation. The wind blows where and as it wills. We know so little of the detail.

As much as that is true for ourselves in our listening to God's Word, it is also true in the scattering of the seed of the Word into other lives that are as yet fruitless, void of the saving grace of Jesus. We cannot contrive the outcome; we cannot properly conceive of what the Lord in his sovereign goodness is already working at. The life is in the seed, not the mind of the sower.

That demands humility of us. The seed is out of our sight but not out of the mind of God. The work is not ours but his. We may have the privilege of being co-workers, but it is only and ever the Lord who gives the increase, who makes the seed bring forth new life.

The humility this calls for can then merge into restfulness. "Whether he sleeps or gets up" the work continues, under the ground, buried deep in the human heart. No amount of staying awake, prodding the ground, watching with anxious hearts for the first signs of life, will hasten the harvest.

That restfulness is not sinful, it isn't laziness. It honours the Lord of the Harvest, the Living Word, the life-giving Spirit.

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I know not why God’s wondrous grace
To me hath been made known;
Nor why, unworthy as I am,
He claimed me for His own.

I know not how this saving faith
To me He did impart;
Or how believing in His word
Wrought peace within my heart.

I know not how the Spirit moves,
Convincing men of sin;
Revealing Jesus through the Word,
Creating faith in Him.

I know not what of good or ill
May be reserved for me,
Of weary ways or golden days
Before His face I see.

I know not when my Lord may come;
I know not how, nor where;
If I shall pass the vale of death,
Or meet Him in the air.

But I know Whom I have believed,
And am persuaded that He is able
To keep that which I've committed
Unto Him, against that day.


(Daniel Webster Whittle, 1840-1901)

Joy in the Journey (28) - The Perfect Law of Freedom

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the ugliest of all? Well, obviously, it's me; it's you. At least that's probably how it feels on the days we're being most honest. Looking into scripture, seeing the real me, the one with unclean lips and a contaminated heart. And being told not to forget what I look like, taking that sight into the day - the crushing awareness of a shattered vision. Thanks, James.

Oh, but that's not it. However much it might sometimes feel that way, it really isn't. Twice James speaks about the law, the perfect law, that gives freedom. He also writes of "the royal law found in scripture", the law of King Jesus, the law of love. He's dealing here with the same thing that Paul wrote about in Romans 10:4 - that the law, the Torah, reached its fulfilment in Jesus. He was its goal, its endpoint, its completion. His life and his death and his resurrection accomplish what the law wanted to see but could never achieve, being weakened by the flesh (Rom. 8:3). The perfect law that gives freedom is the law of Christ (Gal 6:2), the law of love, the law of redemption and adoption and new birth, the law of the Spirit of life that sets us free from the law of sin and death (Rom. 8:2).

So when, in 1:25, James writes of looking intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continuing in it - remembering it, walking in its light and reality - he is calling us to look into the face of Jesus, his perfect life, his redeeming love, and to see there, and hold onto, our union with him. His is the story of our lives. His is the obedience and the sacrifice that has won our freedom. It is his Spirit who empowers us to walk in it. See that in the scriptures; look intently, day by day. As you see the blemishes, the fault-lines of sinful habits and betrayals, also see the forgiveness and the cleansing and the glow of new birth into a living hope. See yourself for the child of God that you now are - in the perfect law that gives liberty.

In 2:12, James urges his readers to "Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom" and reminds them to be merciful because "mercy triumphs over judgement". We will be judged - all our actions and ambitions, all our words and motives. Every aspect of our lives will be scrutinised and judged - but judged in and through Jesus. Every sin atoned for by his death. A scrutiny not of condemnation but of confirmation - of the life and love of Christ in you and through you. That prospect is what ought to so change our hearts that we act in mercy not in judgement. Even when called to be judicious in our assessments, we will want to be merciful in our ambitions for others. Endeavouring to keep the royal law, "Love your neighbour as yourself."

We are called to freedom, not condemnation; to the realism of redemption and the liberty of saving love. Those glorious truths are the foundation for lives not of sinful indulgence but of mutual love and service.

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Now I have found the ground wherein

Sure my soul’s anchor may remain -

The wounds of Jesus, for my sin

Before the world’s foundation slain;

Whose mercy shall unshaken stay,

When heaven and earth are fled away.

Father, Thine everlasting grace

Our scanty thought surpasses far,

Thy heart still melts with tenderness,

Thy arms of love still open are,

Returning sinners to receive,

That mercy they may taste and live.

O Love, Thou bottomless abyss,

My sins are swallowed up in thee!

Covered is my unrighteousness,

Nor spot of guilt remains on me,

While Jesus’ blood, through earth and skies,

Mercy, free, boundless mercy! cries.

With faith I plunge me in this sea,

Here is my hope, my joy, my rest;

Hither, when hell assails, I flee,

I look into my Saviour’s breast.

Away, sad doubt and anxious fear!

Mercy is all that’s written there.

Though waves and storms go o’er my head,

Though strength, and health, and friends be gone,

Though joys be withered all and dead,

Though every comfort be withdrawn,

On this my steadfast soul relies -

Father, Thy mercy never dies!

Fixed on this ground will I remain,

Though my heart fail and flesh decay;

This anchor shall my soul sustain,

When earth’s foundations melt away:

Mercy’s full power I then shall prove,

Loved with an everlasting love.

(Johann Andreas Rothe, 1688-1758;

tr. John Wesley, 1703-91)

Joy in the Journey (27) - In a foreign country

Having been called by God to go from his country, his people and his father’s household, to the land promised to him by the Lord (Gen. 12:1), how did Abraham live when he arrived there? Hebrews 11:9 tell us that “by faith, he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country.”

He was in the place to which the Lord had sent him, the land gifted to him by the God of the covenant, yet his life there was marked not by privilege and permanence but by a careful humility that recognised it as provisional and penultimate.

The same was true for others listed alongside Abraham. “They didn’t receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth.” (Heb. 11:13) Lives that displayed contentment in God now and confidence in his ultimate purposes.

Do you see the common thread? Strangers; foreigners. In a land that God has freely gifted yet recognising its prophetic witness to a greater reality: the city God had prepared for them, a city with foundations - a better country, a heavenly one. They lived faithfully in the light of the day whose dawn had begun but was as yet incomplete.

The physical land was not the true reality, however promised it was. Abraham knew that. The others knew it, too. And our lives now, for all their truth and substance, still have a shadowy aspect to them. Our adoption as God’s children by faith in Christ, while true and irreversible, awaits its completion in the redemption of our bodies, in the life and experience of the new creation.

Knowing that we have been called into God’s kingdom and into his family; knowing that the meek shall inherit the earth and that the Lord’s people will even judge angels, how ought we to live in this present world?

As Abraham did. As the unnamed others also did. And as Peter exhorts his readers: “Live out your time here as foreigners in reverent fear…As foreigners and exiles…abstain from sinful desires…” (1 Peter 1:17; 2:11)

But what did that mean then and what might it mean now? Many things, clearly, but some things are strikingly consistent. Abraham lived wisely, compassionately and peaceably among those who were also in the land. He was honoured as one whose God made him a blessing to others.

And Peter’s consistent instructions to scattered and harassed believers is to show respect to all, to honour those to whom honour is due, to live such good lives that others may glorify God for them and their lives, and answering questions with a gentleness that authenticates the hope they profess.

Having the promises of God in all their certainty, being assured of the grace of God in Jesus Christ, isn’t licence to live carelessly and dismissively. It is, rather, a call into the deepest humility and service in our present society. And to a consistent, godly yearning for the Day of the Lord, for the final unveiling of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time, for "the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God"..

************

Forth in Thy name, O Lord, I go, 
My daily labour to pursue, 
Thee, only Thee, resolved to know 
In all I think or speak or do. 

The task Thy wisdom hath assigned 
O let me cheerfully fulfil' 
In all my works Thy presence find, 
And prove Thy good and perfect will. 

Thee may I set at my right hand, 
Whose eyes my inmost substance see, 
And labour on at Thy command,
And offer all my works to Thee. 

Give me to bear Thy easy yoke, 
And every moment watch and pray, 
And still to things eternal look ,
And hasten to Thy glorious day;

For Thee delightfully employ
Whate'er Thy bounteous grace hath given
And run my course with even joy,
And closely walk with Thee to heaven.

(Charles Wesley, 1707-88)

Joy in the Journey (26) - Up the hill of the Lord

Are there days when you feel like you’ve lost before you’ve even begun? Many of us would say we’ve often felt like that. And it might be that certain passages of scripture make you feel that way, too - facing a task that is not simply unfinished but that you feel barely able to begin or even to contemplate.

The opening words of Psalm 15 might leave you in quiet despair. The questions of verse 1 - "Who may dwell in your sacred tent? Who may live on your holy mountain?" - and then the catalogue of virtues from verse 2 onwards make you feel like there’s no point in even starting. This is a hill too steep to climb, too sheer to be possible. It’s time to move on, to accept a lesser life in the lowlands.

But, wait. Try reading this psalm from a different starting point. Try reading it with the Saviour in view, as a description of the complete worthiness of Jesus. A blameless life, marked by righteousness and truth all the way through. No slander, not even when placed under the most extreme pressure. Who would not betray the innocent or play the power games of oppressing the poor. Who kept his oath (to save the lost), even when it cost his very life.

He is worthy, beautifully so. He dwells in the sacred tent; he ascended the hill of the Lord, having first climbed Calvary’s steeps. He is unshaken and governs over and bestows on his people a kingdom that cannot be shaken (Heb. 12:28). Stand back and admire such glory in the face of our Lord.

His sacrifice has taken away, torn forever, the dividing curtain and ushered us into the sacred space of God’s presence. “In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord” (Eph. 2:21).

So turn again to the hill before you. Because there is a beauty in holiness that is winsome for those whom Christ has saved and renewed in grace. However much we know we’ll struggle with the climb, to keep up the necessary pace, needing many stops and restarts, there will be the longing to do so, to experience the invigorating clean air, the golden light of purity and integrity. A desire that he births and that he sustains and that he will complete.

When we walk with the Lord, in the light of his Word, step by step up the hill before us, in his company and filled by his Spirit, his radiance lights the way before us and sheds its rays around. Living with these words before us and within us, seeing their realisation in the Lord Jesus, can begin to transform our online conversations, our personal interactions and the quality of all our relationships.

Don’t give up.; in due time there will the harvest that he has planted (Gal. 5:9). Fix your eyes on Jesus; plant your feet in his footsteps.

************

Fight the good fight with all thy might;
Christ is thy strength, and Christ the right;
Lay hold on life, and it shall be
Thy joy and crown eternally.

Run the straight race through God's good grace,
Lift up thine eyes and seek His face;
Life with its path before thee lies,
Christ is the way, and Christ the prize.

Cast care aside, lean on thy Guide;
His boundless mercy will provide;
Trust, and thy trusting soul shall prove
Christ is its life and Christ its love.

Faint not nor fear, His arms are near;
He changeth not, and thou art dear;
Only believe, and thou shalt see
That Christ is all in all to thee.

(John Samuel Bewley Monsell, 1811-75)

Joy in the Journey (25) - Except a grain of wheat...

​"​Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.​..If anyone serves me, he must follow me.​" John 12:24-26

​This statement of our Lord Jesus is both an explanation of his destiny and an invitation to his disciples to view their own lives through the same lens. His words are laden with the reality of the gospel - a truth embedded within creation that is worked-out in the ‘one for the many’ of his own perfect sacrifice.

That sacrifice is unrepeatable and​​, so​,​ the way laid down for his disciples is not identical to his own​.​ ​Its meaning is different, but the outcome has a ​recognisable​ affinity: their lives, laid down in his service, will become genuinely fruitful.

For some of his disciples, the planting of their lives in the ground meant, as for him, their deaths. For others, the meaning was broader but no less consequential: the laying aside of ambitions and comforts, the stripping bare of legitimate joys, the complete paradigm-shift in established ways of thinking - these would lead to deeper and greater life.

The embedding of that truth within God’s good creation is a powerful and ongoing reminder to us. We are taught it every year; the curriculum of the cross is witnessed fall by fall. And yet it is such a hard one to learn, to embrace, because it always comes at a price and has a cost we might not be willing to pay.

The death of dreams, the laying aside of plans and ambitions - holy ones - is very costly. In this present season, they may seem to have been wrenched from our hands and buried in the dirt, even as they live on in our hearts. The death of opportunities and freedoms, of a way of simply being that provided us with much-needed stability - few of us will have been prepared for that and fewer still seeking it.

Yet in the hands of a crucified and risen Saviour such futility and waste have a different aspect: “if it dies, it produces many seeds.”

But that reality has to be framed within two important caveats:

Firstly​,​ nothing about this whole process is quick. We imagine it might be but it seldom is. Seeds fall into the ground in autumn, they are entombed through the long hard winter, only to finally emerge in newness when spring comes on the rays of the renewing sun.

The Canadian pastor and blogger, Daryl Dash, made this point very powerfully in a recent article​. Recognising the almost pathological pressure to “continually spin every event as an opportunity​,​” he wisely notes that “Ministry comes in seasons, and winter is as essential…as spring. What if God is pruning his church right now? Could we miss what he’s trying to teach us by spinning everything as a plus? Perhaps we need to make room for lament.”

His advice to those who are being driven to find the current ‘plus’?​ ​“Sometimes it’s best to let the land lay fallow and to pay attention to the season we’re in even as we look to the future.”

His words are true, in a thoroughgoing way, for the whole Christian life. We don’t lament planting seeds but we do lament our losses. And perhaps it’s also right to recognise that this holds true not just for individuals but also for churches and for mission agencies.

We do well to remember that between the planting into the ground of Good Friday and the new life of Easter Sunday, there was the hard, frozen ground of Holy Saturday to traverse.

Secondly, the falling into the ground that our Lord speaks of was voluntary. He chose to lay down his life, no one took it from him​;​ he was encouraging his disciples to follow him, whatever the details might be in their lives, in a similar willingness.

That’s why his words stand as a call an​d​ invitation, not a callous imposition.

The Lord Jesus does not lay upon us a weight too heavy to bear ​and​ then refuse to ​help us carry it. Knowing our many weaknesses​,​ but convinced of the righteousness of the paths he leads us in, we can confidently ask for​ grace and mercy.

Our application of these words must never be flippant or casual or blasé​, to ourselves or others. ​Ike Miller​ is ​right to say that “Only a Joseph can declare with authority, ‘What you intended for evil, God intended for good’”. But it is possible for our​ own response to become​ the open hand of humility and faith that, over time, grows into a glad and willing submission to the ways and the wisdom of God. ​O​ver time: fall-winter-spring.

The late American poet, Mary Oliver, traced this dying and rising in her poem, Lines Written in the Days of Growing Darkness, where​, observing that "the sweets of the year be doomed," she asks a question we might find ​truly ​pertinent​:​

“who would cry out

to the petals on the ground
to stay,
knowing as we must
how the vivacity of what was is married

to the vitality of what will be?
I don’t say
it’s easy but
what else will do

if the love one claims to have for the world
be true?”

​************​

​Saviour, Thy dying love

Thou gavest me;

Nor should I aught withhold,

My Lord, from Thee;

In love my soul would bow,

My heart fulfil its vow,

Some offering bring Thee now,

Something for Thee.

At the blest mercy-seat

Pleading for me,

My feeble faith looks up,

Jesus, to Thee;

Help me the cross to bear,

Thy wondrous love declare,

Some song to raise, or prayer -

Something for Thee​.

Give me a faithful heart,

Likeness to Thee,

That each departing day

Henceforth may see

Some work of love begun,

Some deed of kindness done,

Some wanderer sought and won -

Something for Thee.

All that I am and have,

Thy gifts so free,

In joy, in grief, through life,

O Lord, for Thee!

And when Thy face I see,

My ransomed soul shall be,

Through all eternity,

Something for Thee.

(Sylvanus Dryden Phelps, 1816-95)

Joy in the Journey (24) - Not fade away

There are times when forgetting the past is the exact right thing to try to do. You've got to move on; maturity demands it, is tied to it, and sanity even. The band Relient K recognised that in a song about the painful aftermath of relational betrayal:

I'd rather forget and not slow down
than gather regrets for the things
that can't change now.

And with piercing clarity and spiritual power the Apostle Paul laid bare his heart:

"forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead, I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenwards in Christ Jesus." (Phil. 3:13f)

Those words deserve to be writ large on all our hearts, through all our days.

But at the same time Scripture counsels us to remember and to remember well. Deuteronomy was, effectively, the last sermon Moses preached to the people of Israel; in chapter 4, verse 9 he urges them,

"Be careful and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them fade from your heart as long as you live."

(His words find an echo in the solemn charge of Prov 4:23, "Guard your heart with all diligence".)

And the Apostle Peter, also conscious he is writing a final letter to Christians he loves deeply, lays bare his heart and their need when he says,

"I will make every effort to see that after my departure you will always be able to remember these things." (2 Peter 1:15)

The Bible repeatedly takes seriously our tendency, personally and collectively, to forgetfulness - not of the facts of gospel truth, but of their force, through a loss of sustained focus and consideration and delight in their wonderful, transforming reality, of the Lord himself.

Moses is urging the people to do all they can to keep in mind what the Lord had done, to keep the truth fresh and unfading in their hearts. We have to acknowledge our frequent sad and slow drift towards the ossifying of our faith and our walk with the Lord. And yet, "because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail" - never dull, never fade. In fact, "they are new every morning."

The challenge to "not...let them fade from your heart" is so graciously provided for in the mercies of God that are anchored in history yet are fresh and vibrant every day, meeting us in our tragic slide into dullness.

Psalm 143:8 gives us words to pray, from within that struggle, for vital, spiritual engagement with the living Lord: "Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you." Every new day affirms God's intent to hear and answer that prayer, for the sun rises "like a bridegroom coming forth from his chamber" (Ps. 19:5) on his wedding day, in testimony to the undying, covenant love of the Lord, so great is his faithfulness!

************

Come, Thou fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious measure,
Sung by flaming tongues above;
O the vast, the boundless treasure
Of my Lord's unchanging love!

Here I raise me Ebenezer,
Hither by Thy help I'm come,
And I hope by Thy good pleasure
Safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed his precious blood.

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I'm constrained to be!
Let that grace, Lord, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Take my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it from Thy courts above.

(Robert Robinson, 1735-90)

Joy in the Journey (23) - Sovereign Protection

So many voices have been silenced during lockdown, but maybe not the ones you long would fade and fall away. The snide remarks, the belittling and withering tones. The insistent, incessant drone of condemnation and cynical barbs.

Perhaps that describes your world - on social media, at work, in relationships that ought to yield joy. Or maybe it's the world inside your head; try as you might, you're never too sure what is the genuine voice of conscience and what is the serpent's malign speech. Whichever it is, you often feel the accusations are unanswerable, so what does it matter who's making them? Because this is you, guilty as charged.

In Psalm 3, David speaks of having many foes who have risen against him. Their gleeful claim is that "God will not deliver him". David, in their eyes, is without hope and utterly at their mercy, waiting to be devoured.

The opening words of verse 3 oppose that conclusion in the most forthright manner: "But you, O LORD..." The living God is present and active in David's life and his presence brings hope to birth. That hope is two-fold:

Protection: "You, LORD, are a shield around me..." - the living God has committed, in covenant love, to guard and keep David, to keep him from all harm, all evil. No weapon forged against him will stand. No schemes will succeed. He is safe because he is shielded by the LORD.

Vindication: "You are...my glory, the One who lifts my head high" - The taunts and the accusations will be silenced and the disgrace that has gathered around David's head will be dissipated. Because the LORD will raise him, will lift the shame, will declare him vindicated. The LORD himself will be David's glory, his reputation, his unfading star, radiant in splendour.

David prays and knows that he will be answered from the LORD's holy mountain (verse 4). From the place where the temple would be built, where Abraham was prepared to offer his son, his only son, Isaac whom he loved. And in the fulness of time, the answering of prayer - your prayers - comes from the holy hill of Calvary, where God did not spare his own Son but offered him up for us all.

The death of our Lord Jesus is the source of all the protection and vindication we could ever need:

- The shield that bore the brunt of the onslaught against us, that took the blows in order to shelter others from harm, from accusation, from judgement, by submitting himself to the condemnation of sin in our place. "He to rescue me from danger, interposed his precious blood."

- The disgrace heaped upon the holy Son of God was for our vindication. On that cross, unfathomable shame was heaped upon him so that we might be declared righteous through our union with him. He was raised to life for our justification and we are incorporated by faith into that vindication. His spotless reputation is declared to be yours.

The cross of the Lord Jesus Christ both protects and vindicates. It silences all our enemies, within and without; it drains accusations of their power. The love it breathes "lifts me up to glory, for it lifts me up to Thee." The peace it bequeaths passes understanding and is able to keep our hearts and minds secure, through all the blizzards of condemnation.

In all things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

************

A Sovereign Protector I have,
Unseen, yet for ever at hand,
Unchangeably faithful to save,
Almighty to rule and command.
He smiles, and my comforts abound;
His grace as the dew shall descend;
And walls of salvation surround
The soul He delights to defend.

Inspirer and Hearer of prayer,
Thou Shepherd and Guardian of Thine,
My all to Thy covenant care
I sleeping and waking resign.
If Thou art my Shield and my Sun,
The night is no darkness to me;
And fast as my moments roll on,
They bring me but nearer to Thee.

Kind Author and Ground of my hope,
Thee, Thee, for my God I avow;
My glad Ebenezer set up,
And own Thou hast helped me till now.
I muse on the years that are past,
Wherein my defence Thou hast proved;
Nor wilt Thou relinquish at last
A sinner so signally loved!

(Augustus Montague Toplady, 1740-78)

Joy in the Journey (22) - Walking with the Wise

Walking with the Wise (Psalm 1)

When days seem to merge into each other, with few dividing lines, it's important to remind ourselves that each day is full of decisions to make, often taken without much reflection. Some of those choices are mundane; others are weighty.

The beginning of the book of Psalms is a striking portrayal of two ways: the way of the wicked and the way of the righteous; the broad versus the narrow way - one leading to destruction, the other to eternal life.

 The opening verses warn us of dangers to which we must be alert. The counsel of the ungodly; the way of sinners; the company of mockers. If those phrases sound antiquated the dangers they represent remain real and deadly. It's impossible for us to not live 'in the world'; our Lord Jesus deliberately chose not to pray for us to be taken from it (John 17:15). But being in the world means seeing the challenge of the cultural waters we swim in - recognising its potential impact upon us, even while we sleep; seeing the inherent pull of not standing out from a crowd, our hearts courting acceptance. Words and ways, attitudes and actions - all take their baleful toll on us.

Choices have to be made as to how we limit that exposure and defuse its harm. That will inevitably mean thoughtful, prayerful responses to questions about social media, relationships, the cultural 'kool aid' and more besides. None of us find that easy. All of us can readily see where others are in danger but fail so often to see that we are susceptible in ways we're just not alert to. This ought to humble us.

Yet those choices have a positive expression, too. The counter-portrait in the psalm is of one whose delight is in the law of the LORD and who meditates upon it, day and night. That delight and meditation are often taken as a focus on issues of morality and a thoroughgoing commitment to Bible reading. Both of those are deeply significant but neither is the full realisation of what is here.

Christ is the goal, the culmination, of the law, says Paul (Rom 10:4), its final fulfilment. What the law was powerless to do - release from sin and its power and renew the human heart - God did by sending his Son as a sin offering (Rom 8:3) and sending the Spirit of his Son into our hearts (Gal 4:6). To set our minds on things above, where Christ is, seated at God's right hand, is to do all that Psalm 1 proposes but now in full flower. The delight in the law is shown to be a shadow of the heart's cry, "I want to know Christ..." (Phil 3:10).

And it is in our Lord Jesus Christ that the true prosperity spoken of in Psalm 1 reaches its peak, where the conditions for real flourishing are met: the life of God flowing deep and wide within the souls of men and women, being remade in the likeness of the Son; the Spirit working his matchless fruit in lives that once were as insubstantial as chaff and as barren as scorched earth. Such lives, even under adverse circumstances, in the searing heat of trials and temptations, are fed by streams of living water and will not wither and die. The living God dwells within them.

Our Lord divided humanity into the wise and the foolish, according to their response to his words. Once more, today, we have decisions to take, choices to make. May we be given grace to choose wisely, animated in love by the Spirit of the living God.

************

O Lamb of God, still keep me
Close to Thy pierced side:
'Tis only there in safety
And peace I can abide.

What foes and snares surround me,
What lusts and fears within!
The grace that sought and found me
Alone can keep me clean.

'Tis only in Thee hiding
I feel myself secure;
Only in Thee abiding,
The conflict can endure.

Thine arm the victory gaineth
O'er every hateful foe;
Thy love my heart sustaineth
In all its cares and woe.

Soon shall my eyes behold Thee
With rapture face to face;
One half hath not been told me
Of all Thy power and grace.

Thy beauty, Lord, and glory,
The wonders of Thy love,
Shall be the endless story
Of all Thy saints above.

James George Deck, 1802-84

Joy in the Journey (21) - To seek and to save the lost

To seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:1-10)

For a few weeks our society seemed mostly united, gathered around the approach being taken to the crisis. Of course not all spoke in support but there was a genuine feeling of solidarity and something of a wartime spirit seemed to settle over us.

That seems long gone now. Many voices are being raised in opposition not simply to the government’s handling of things but against strangers and colleagues and even neighbours and family, who are either breaking the rules or who want us to stick too firmly to them (you take your pick). Self-justification through damning others is back and in full swing.

We were - and we are - a divided society. Curved-in upon ourselves in sin; biting and devouring each other.

Zacchaeus knew what it was like to be on the wrong side of his society. An excluded, despised man and, many of his fellow citizens would have argued, for good reason: he exploited and cheated them and had got rich at their expense. He collaborated with their pagan overlords; if God was angry with the nation it was on account of people like him. A selfish man, looking after number 1.

What will Jesus make of him?

Luke’s Gospel was written to someone who was probably fairly well-to-do and Luke accents Jesus’ teaching about riches in a number of ways, essentially saying 2 things: use your wealth to benefit others and don’t rely on it to give you standing before God. The status it confers is fleeting and deceptive.

So you could imagine his response to someone like Zacchaeus is going to be pretty sharp. Yet one word sums it up: Lost (v.10). He is a man who needs to be found. A man needing rescue, from himself at the very least. A man whose social isolation is killing him. He needs to be rehabilitated, restored into true relationship with God and others.

The initiative to do so is taken by Jesus. He sees him, calls him down and demands they be friends. And it is these overtures of grace that change Zacchaeus and renew his heart, leading him to repentance ('If I have cheated anybody...I’ll pay back') and faith (which marks him out as a son of Abraham, not his ancestry). It is the sheer kindness of God that leads him to repentance and to owning Jesus as Lord.

Our Lord Jesus came "to seek and to save the lost", not to leave them high and dry, nor to engage in the politics of division. He rehabilitates into fellowship with God and pulls down the walls of hostility that divide us from each other. He saw us when we were hopelessly lost, badly scarred and prisoners of sin. He gave himself, to the death of the cross, to find us, to save us. "Amazing pity, grace unknown and love beyond degree!"

And that lays before us a pattern to follow, a spirit to imbibe. Where accusations fly and tempers fray, it is easy to see others as troublemakers, bitter-minded people who turn everything they touch into ashes, perpetually on the take and self-consumed. The reality is that they are lost. They need to be found by the grace and compassion of Jesus.

Let’s pray that our words - in person or online - will be “full of grace and seasoned with salt”; words that are flavoured with the winsome invitation of Jesus, words that are soft and calming, compassionate and humane. Words that open the path to friendship and perhaps even into God’s family.

************

Not what I am, O Lord, but what Thou art!
That, that alone, can be my soul’s true rest;
Thy love, not mine, bids fear and doubt depart,
And stills the tempest of my tossing breast.

Thy Name is Love! I hear it from yon cross;
Thy Name is Love! I read it in yon tomb;
All meaner love is perishable dross,
But this shall light me through time’s thickest gloom.

Girt with the love of God on every side,
Breathing that love as heaven's own healing air,
I work or wait, still following my Guide,
Braving each foe, escaping every snare.

’Tis what I know of Thee, my Lord and God,
That fills my soul with peace, my lips with song;
Thou art my health, my joy, my staff and rod;
Leaning on Thee, in weakness I am strong.

More of Thyself, O show me, hour by hour,
More of Thy glory, O my God and Lord;
More of Thyself, in all Thy grace and power;
More of Thy love and truth, incarnate Word.

Horatius Bonar, 1808-89

Joy in the Journey (20) - The renewal of all things

The renewal of all things (Mt. 19:28)

For the past weeks - in reality, months - the sound of birdsong has been heard with unusual clarity, as though the air has been thinned and its humidity lifted. But, slowly, the background hum is returning - the grey noise of traffic, distant and near, takes the edge off the birds’ tremulous praise.

We’re well attuned to that hum in our lives: the incessant drone of anxiety, of compromise and senseless suffering. Our souls long for mornings that are free of that kind of traffic, void of the heat-haze of earth’s sorrows.

In such a world, the words of Jesus sparkle with hope as crystal-clear as the morning dew: “At the renewal of all things…”. All things made new, all harm removed, all that is sullied made clean. The prospect is climactic.

This renewal of all things will happen, our Lord says, “when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne”, when “a King shall reign in righteousness”. Ascension Day has reminded us that day has come - in honour of Jesus’ obedience to the death of the cross, “God exalted him to the highest place”. But all things are clearly not yet renewed.

No, not yet, not finally. But the renewal has begun: “He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit”; “If anyone is in Christ - new creation!”.

Lives made new, washed clean and repristinated into the glad and holy service of the King of Kings. “Born again into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,” a hope that sustains by a joy that is inexpressibly glorious, in the salvation of our souls.

The heaviness that characterises much of our life now is testimony to the unfinished work of renewal. But it is also, in itself, evidence of its certain coming. Hearts of stone turned into hearts of flesh in the new birth, made sensitive by the Spirit, feeling their own weakness and touched with the pains of this present world. These are the signs and the fruit of renewal.

And as that daily renewal continues, slowly silencing the intrusive noise that weights our hearts with sorrows, the final renewal of all things will mean that “The former things will not be remembered”. They will not come to mind, for full atonement has been made through the sufferings of the Saviour and all wounds will have been finally healed by the love of God. No longer the background hum of ache or anguish, no nagging doubts to cloud the skies, but the sheer, endless joy of delight in the living God.

“At the renewal of all things.” Even so, come Lord Jesus.

************

The sands of time are sinking;
The dawn of heaven breaks;
The summer morn I’ve sighed for,
The fair, sweet morn, awakes:
Dark, dark hath been the midnight,
But day-spring is at hand,
And glory, glory dwelleth
In Immanuel’s land.

The King there in His beauty,
Without a veil is seen;
It were a well-spent journey,
Though seven deaths lay between;
The Lamb with His fair army,
Doth on Mount Zion stand,
And glory, glory dwelleth
In Immanuel’s land.

O Christ, He is the fountain,
The deep, sweet well of love;
The streams on earth I’ve tasted,
More deep I’ll drink above;
There, to an ocean fullness,
His mercy doth expand,
And glory, glory dwelleth
In Immanuel’s land.

With mercy and with judgement
My web of time He wove,
And aye the dews of sorrow
Were lustred with His love:
I'll bless the hand that guided,
I'll bless the heart that planned,
When throned where glory dwelleth
In Immanuel's land.

The bride eyes not her garment,
But her dear bridegroom’s face;
I will not gaze at glory,
But on my King of grace;
Not at the crown He giveth,
But on His pierced hand:
The Lamb is all the glory
Of Immanuel’s land.

I've wrestled on towards heaven,
'Gainst storm and wind and tide;
Now, like a weary traveller
That leans upon his guide,
Amid the shades of evening,
While sinks life's lingering sand,
I hail the glory dawning
From Immanuel's land.

Anne Ross Cousin, 1824-1906

(References: Mt. 19:28; Is. 32:1; Phil. 2:9; Titus 3:5; 2 Cor. 5:17; 1 Peter 1:3; Is. 65:17)

Joy in the Journey (19) - Do you love me?

Do you love me? (John 21:15-22)

"Do you love me?" That's quite a question to be asked. Sometimes the answer can be a casual but sincere 'Of course I do' and all is well. But in John 21:15ff things are far from casual. And they have been anything but well.

Peter was acutely conscious of his sin in denying the Lord Jesus and wept bitter tears of repentance. Now, after the glorious joy of the resurrection, the disciples are in an in-between moment, during the time that our Lord gave them many convincing proofs of being alive and readying them for his departure to the Father. Part of that preparation in Peter's case was being recovered from his terrible fall.

It feels almost callous on Jesus' part to ask Peter if he loves him - weren't the tears enough? And not once, nor twice, but three times the question is asked: "Do you love me?" Persistent, insistent. And Peter is grieved at the repetition. Why is his Lord rubbing salt in his wounds? Wasn't the first affirmation of love enough?

Our Lord Jesus is never callous. He wasn't making Peter squirm as payback for his denials in the courtyard of the High Priest. This is the loving work of the true physician of souls. Peter's shame has gone to the deepest part of his being. True recovery from such a fall can never be shallow or swift. And so Jesus goes as deep as the self-inflicted wounds; for every wretched denial he offers the opportunity to replace it with an expression of humble, honest love. Rolling the shame back upon itself; rolling the disgrace away.

Jesus doesn't ask him if he's sorry. He doesn't make him promise he'll never do it again. What he wants to hear - and what Peter needs to speak - is the affirmation of love, "Yes, Lord". And it's a love that is more than a pallid, callow claim: "You know that I love you." The heart that was broken by sin was visible to his Lord and Saviour. Nothing was or could be hidden from him. Nothing needed to be.

Whatever your own history with the Lord Jesus, the same hands that skilfully healed Peter's soul are at work in your life. He speaks in order to uncover and then to banish our shame, to renew our hearts, to grant us the holy privilege of affirming our own love for him.

And those he heals, he honours with the dignity of service: for Peter, "Feed my lambs"; for every disciple, "Follow me". The details of other disciples' service is not to be our concern (v.22); we must follow him, in service that is the expression of our own unfeigned love.

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O Love, that wilt not let me go,

I rest my weary soul in Thee;

I give Thee back the life I owe,

That in Thine ocean depths its flow

May richer, fuller be.

O Light, that followest all my way,

I yield my flickering torch to Thee;

My heart restores its borrowed ray,

That in Thy sunshine's blaze its day

May brighter, fairer be.

O Joy, that seekest me through pain,

I cannot close my heart to Thee;

I trace the rainbow through the rain,

And feel the promise is not vain

That morn shall tearless be.

O Cross, that liftest up my head,

I dare not ask to fly from thee;

I lay in dust life's glory dead,

And from the ground there blossoms red,

Life that shall endless be.

(George Matheson, 1842-1906)

Joy in the Journey (18) - Power to grasp the love of Christ

You couldn't accuse the apostle Paul of being conservative in his praying, of being limited in what he asked and hoped for. Ephesians 3:14-21 is beyond our ability to adequately describe and delineate; it stands as one of the most exalted prayers in scripture and one for us to embrace with the deepest reverence. Taken line by line and phrase by phrase, it drenches the soul in wonder.

Twice Paul speaks of power, albeit using different terms. The power of God's Spirit at work within his people and his church. The second of those has to do with our experience of the love of Christ.

But that might sound like an error on Paul's part. Being rooted and established in love, isn't it something else we need to experience the furthest reaches of this love? Intelligence, perhaps, to understand dense doctrine? Some exotic and esoteric experience for the lucky few? Or maybe artistic ability, to be able to somehow portray and depict the sublime? Or perhaps we just need a bit more common sense, since God's love isn't just for sophisticates?

Yet his prayer is not for any of those. Having prayed that we might know power by the Spirit, "that Christ might dwell in your hearts by faith" (v.17), he prays here for adequate strength to be able to grasp the untold dimensions of the love of Christ. Power, in and through the Spirit of God, to grasp the full reality of love.

So, why power?

Sometimes the facts of our lives seem to deny the reality of that love, seem to contradict it. Life can be harsh and brutalising. Paul allies power with faith in these verses and there are many times our faith needs to be encouraged to believe that the love of Christ is real and remains so for us, in all that has or will happen to us. And not just to believe but to experience it in all its sweetness.

The power of cleansing love is needed to overcome the self-loathing and shame that still haunt our hearts. We need divine enabling to take hold of a reality that is simply beyond our wildest dreams: we are loved by God; I am loved by God. Not repulsive to him but loved by him. Is that something you struggle to accept? The Spirit's work in your heart is the solvent for such struggles.

And, as those who are created and finite, it cannot but be true that we need power from above to know the dimensions of a love that is uncreated and infinite - to grasp something of how wide and long and high and deep this love is, to know what simply cannot be known, and so to be filled with all the fulness of God.

We're here at the edge of our ability to comprehend and to articulate. And maybe that's part of Paul's point: it's not a matter of words; the need is for God to work in our hearts in power, that we might be grasped by the love that saves and transforms. And to be so captivated by this love that our hearts will be filled with God himself.

Would you make this prayer yours?

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O love of God, how strong and true;
Eternal, and yet ever new,
Uncomprehended and unbought,
Beyond all knowledge and all thought!

O love of God, how deep and great,
Far deeper than man's deepest hate;
Self-fed, self-kindled, like the light,
Changeless, eternal, infinite!

O heavenly love, how precious still,
In days of weariness and ill,
In nights of pain and helplessness,
To heal, to comfort, and to bless!

O wide-embracing, wondrous love,
We read thee in the sky above;
We read thee in the earth below,
In seas that swell and streams that flow.

We read thee best in him who came
To bear for us the cross of shame,
Sent by the Father from on high,
Our life to live, our death to die.

We read thy power to bless and save,
E'en in the darkness of the grave;
Still more in resurrection light
We read the fullness of thy might.

O love of God, our shield and stay
Through all the perils of our way;
Eternal love, in thee we rest,
For ever safe, for ever blest.

Horatius Bonar, 1808-89

Joy in the Journey (17) - Delighting in the Servant of the LORD

Delighting in the Servant of the LORD (Isaiah 42:1-4)

In the first of Isaiah's servant songs, the LORD speaks of his Servant, with unalloyed delight. He is the one who will be filled with the Spirit to the brim. And he will bring justice to the nations, establishing it on earth: the saving, restoring, beautifying justice of God. Justice that flows from the cross, from the death of Jesus as Messiah. Justice that reconciles guilty sinners to God and to each other, across all divides (Eph 2:12ff).

These verses describe the nature of his work and his approach to it. Notice that,


"He will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets" : He will not restore harmony and goodness to his creation by a disruptive social media presence, by abrasive argumentation or the most cohesive and compelling ad campaign. Those are not the means to this kind of justice. And it won't be achieved through revolution; he wasn't leading a rebellion and therefore in need of weapons (Lk. 22:52).

This is about the work of God in the human heart. The marred image is to be reclaimed and restored. It is redeeming work in the most fractured of places, and so the Servant's task requires that:

"A bruised reed he will not break, and a smouldering wick he will not snuff out" : His work of healing and restoration will be carried out with tender care and precise sensitivity. Our complete enthrallment to sin and its shame makes us desperately vulnerable, but he will not exploit it. His grace enables us to remove the masks we use to conceal or protect, that we might come to him for complete recovery. Our hearts and minds are beyond bruised and so he will work on them with a love that deeply soothes and with long-suffering determination to fully heal.

Such an undertaking with flawed and foolish patients will be as extended as it is extensive. Our propensity to harm ourselves and others in continued sin needs ongoing eradication. There will be times when we tax him to the limit. But his heart is such that:

"He will not falter or be discouraged" : How often must he be grieved and troubled in his work. There is so much in us and in his world to cause him to grow despondent. But he will not be overcome; he will not become so weary in well-doing that he resigns his vocation. The resolve of his heart is fixed and firm; his determination to restore and renew is unbroken and driven by holy love.


The means by which he pursues his calling as the Servant of the LORD has much to say to the whole life of the church, as the reference to his law/instruction in verse 4 makes clear. The people of the Messiah are to act and live and serve his mission in continuity with their Saviour's character and work.

And as he continues his work among us and within us, we look to delight ourselves in him, to worship and honour him, putting all our hope in him, even as the Father himself delights in his Chosen One.

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Immortal honours rest on Jesus’ head,

My God, my portion, and my living Bread;

In Him I live, upon Him cast my care;

He saves from death, destruction, and despair.

He is my refuge in each deep distress,

The Lord my strength and glorious righteousness.

Through floods and flames He leads me safely on,

And daily makes His sovereign goodness known.

My every need He richly will supply,

Nor will His mercy ever let me die;

In Him there dwells a treasure all divine,

And matchless grace has made that treasure mine.

O that my soul could love and praise Him more,

His beauties trace, His majesty adore,

Live near His heart, upon His bosom lean,

Obey His voice, and all His will esteem.

William Gadsby, 1773-1844