Ian’s lets listen to Jesus

As I became quiet before the Lord this morning, the words and tune of a beautiful secular song about love were involuntarily going through my mind – “Take my hand I’m a stranger in paradise, lost in a wonderland….” And suddenly I thought “How true”. Here I am, we all are, exiles from paradise due to Adam and Eve’s disobedience. With Adam and Eve and every person since then we have been thrown out of Paradise and eternal life (the right to eat from the tree of life) blocked by two cherubim who are wielding a flaming sword preventing us from entering. Yet, through the huge grace of God and the work of Jesus the true Adam, we have once again been granted entry into this “Wonderland”. Not entirely physically yet, but completely in a spiritual sense. But, heh, we are actually still “strangers” to this magnificent and beautiful garden and we need the One who is completely at home to take us by the hand and lead us through it, so that we can become familiar with it and live in the harmony which it represents, with God Himself and all else in creation. I thought to myself, how much do I need that guidance and yet it just takes my desire to take His hand and He will lead me all the way until I enter the real physical Paradise one day. Whew! What a thought, my heart is bouncing in my throat, my palms are sweaty and my eyes filled with tears at the thought of it.

Now back to he theme of our blog as I invite you to “listen to Jesus”. Coming to the end of the book of Colossians there are a number of verses which appear to have little spiritual significance, if we are not careful. As I went through them I was astounded by what Jesus said to me from them. Maybe you would like to sit down with a pen and paper and write down what Paul is saying in these vss, say 4:2-18. Here are some of the things that I felt He was saying to me:

Paul writes from a position where he is “in chains”, vs 18. Just before that he urges Archippus to complete the work he has received from the Lord. Well what does this say to me? I am sort of “in chains” tied down to my house, as it were. The exciting thing is that that does not mean I am of no use to God. He has put me here. Now, if the message to Archippus is for me too, there is still work for me to do, not just any work, the work the Lord has given me. So here I am at 82 with the promise that God still wants to use me, He still has plans for me, a work He has given me. Even if that work is just loving and caring for Emily, it is a very special work because God Himself has given it to me to do, and I must complete it. There is of course the possibility of other things He wants me to do as well, but that alone gives me a new impetus to joy and thankfulness in my situation, doing the special work he wants me to do.

Then of course going back a bit I read in vs 12 about Epaphrus who is described as always wrestling in prayer for the recipients of the letter. Well actually he had been their pastor earlier so he knew them pretty well. Of course it is not only him that should be wrestling in prayer, we are all to be “devoted in prayer”, 4:2. I am now trying to work through this one. I feel my prayer life falls far short of what it should be. I can’t exactly say I picture myself as wrestling in prayer. I am sure there are some of you out there who are doing it far better. But I do know you and I am praying for each one of you and asking God to help me do it more effectively.

There’s more there in that passage, but I will stop there and urge you to take time and see what God (Jesus) is saying to you. I get so excited when I meet with our Lord and sense His opening up His word for me. That is really what it means to be alive. To not only see words on the paper, but to see the words as a portal, a window which opens and displays a vast and beautiful scenery and Jesus can take you through that window, soar on eagle’s wings into HIs very presence. No wonder I feel “lost in a wonderland”.

This morning I was reminded again about the longing many Christians have for real “Revival” to break out. Myself included, yet I am not sure we are all really prepared for the way revival would turn many of our lives upside down. God has used many means to trigger revival and there are many people who have theories why revival broke out at a certain time and place. Prayer sometimes by an individual other times by a community, has often been pointed out as preceding revival. However one thing stands out to me like the Morning Star, that it is entirely the prerogative of the Holy Spirit. The place and means and who He uses is unique to Him and in each situation. I think many have expected the sort of upheaval that the Covid pandemic may have been the key to revival, if not world-wide at least in local areas.

In the light of what I have been reading in Colossians, I have been reminded that whatever God is doing on the big screen, each one of us has the role to be a witness and be prepared to give an answer or take an opportunity to speak of the gospel all the time. Just look at the attitude of Paul revealed in Col. 4: 2-6. Despite being incarcerated he asks for prayer for an open door for his message, so that he may proclaim the mystery of Christ clearly, He urges the readers to be wise in the way they interact with outsiders, making the most of every opportunity, letting their conversation be seasoned by salt.

Now when Jesus was taken to heaven, the last words He spoke to His disciples were “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you will be my witnesses”. Notice carefully, He did not say go and prepare yourselves to witness on my behalf. On the contrary He later says, do not worry about what to say, The Spirit will give you the right words to say.

Now I want to take you back to Colossians. Underlying the whole message of Colossians is a golden thread. The thread of thanksgiving. This is painted like the backdrop of a beautiful golden sunset across the sky against which the wonderful truths of the Gospel are told in bright shining letters in this astounding book.

Just look with me at a few places it appears Ch 1:9 ff, Paul’s prayer for the Colossian people: climaxes in giving thanks to the Father. This is slap in he middle of his proclamation of the wonders of the gospel and who Christ is in bringing it about. He ends this proclamation in 2:7 with the words “overflowing with thanksgiving”. This sort of brackets the section.

Then in the key paragraph in ch 3:15-17, he begins and ends with “be thankful” vs 15, and whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it in the name of the Lord, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. Finally in 4:2 Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.

I was pondering this and the fact that elsewhere in the Bible, New an O T there are many similar vss, eg Phil 4:6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving present your requests to God. My thoughts started with “that is a very noble attitude to have”. Then I thought a bit deeper. This is not an instruction to add a few words of thanksgiving to our prayers to make them more authentic or whatever. No it should reflect a deep attitude of your heart which pervades your thinking. Yes one can and should give thanks. However real thanksgiving arises like a crystal fountain in the heart of the believer when he/she truly believes and embraces the great and mysterious truths of the gospel. When one is soaked in the truth of the scripture and fused to God through the reconciling work of Jesus and the power of the Spirit. It bursts almost involuntarily to the surface and friends, that is what turns us into true witnesses. That is what results in our conversation being seasoned by salt.

Can it be cultivated? Of course, but on its own it is like a bunch of grapes hanging on a fence, when it is actually fruit which comes spontaneously from a shoot of the vine of Jesus through the sap of the Spirit. It is the stalk which holds all the grapes, the fruit of the Spirit together in the bunch. That is what it means to BE a witness. When you ARE like that, you will be asked questions which you may answer in His power (Col 4:6b). And these are the people that God wants to use to build His revival on.

Just remember we can’t live the gospel by trying harder, it is the natural outflow which comes from our understanding the forgiveness and grace which comes with and from the true gospel message.

A few days ago I was contemplating Colossians 3:1,2 where Paul encourages the readers to set their minds and their hearts on “things above”. I was asking myself “which comes first? My mind is where I make my mental choices, but they only become really part of who I am when my heart echo’s that. So I decided to have a look at my great….great granny Eve in Genesis ch 3. At the process that she went through to end up causing the SPOT of trouble we still live with today. Come with me to the little conversation in Genesis ch 3. Vs 5 Satan says “God knows that when you eat from the tree your eyes will be opened and you will be like God. She looked, saw and desire to sin was awakened in her heart. It started with a mental attack, a challenge to look. Then through her eyes desire was aroused and her heart was moved. (Incidently she saw that she could obtain wisdom through eating, but that for another day)

I want to pass to something else which came to mind. A few days before I had been speaking to God about freedom. In Colossians 2 the readers are warned “not to let anyone take them captive by hollow philosophy”. Col 2:8. Later my conclusion was that God has set us free, Jesus has paid the price, it is up to us to appropriate that freedom. We need very much to use our minds to obtain wisdom and discernment, so that our hearts aren’t swept away by what is worldly and appears to be desirable.

So Sunday as I quietly sat with the Lord the word freedom came up again. I started by thinking again of Eve. Then it occurred to me that she had sought freedom. She had looked past the offer of God in Gen 2:16 “You are FREE to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from this one tree”. So she was so busy looking at the one thing she was not allowed to do that she missed the fact that in ALL other things she and Adam had been given full freedom. But her desire focused on that one prohibition and she wanted to be freed from that. In the process she not only ruined her life but every other person’s life since then.

So this is what I wrote in my journal: The Lord is saying true love sets free – like you hold a bird – you hold it gently to give it security but it is free to fly away at any time – if you hold too fast that is bondage. He is setting me free – rather reminding me that I have been set free – free from bondage to Satan, sin and the world, but – yes – even bondage to Him. My relationship with Him is not one of a slave in bondage but of a son. He sets me free, but invites me closer – “If you draw near to me I will draw near to you”. You have been set free, do not become enslaved again to rules and regulations Col 2:16. See your relationship as one of mutual joy, free to spend time with each other and an invitation to depend totally on Him as my Father.

Yesterday freedom was on my mind again “Jesus is setting me free so that I can come back to Him of my own free will to walk with Him – I choose intimacy “Lean in to me” He says” and I will give you that intimacy – the intimacy of a real son, even a brother”. I lean in to Him, aware that He is the source of all grace “grace upon grace” John 1:16, grace lavished upon me Ephes 1:7. My grace is sufficient for you, given without measure – as much as you need and desire at any time.

What a privilege to know my Creator, my Redeemer like this – yet there is so much mystery that I am still plumbing the depths of – how exciting. Dear reader this immense privilege which I am experiencing is not an exclusive. It is open and available to each one of us. The promise is just “draw near to me and I will draw near to you” and so let us all start really listening to Jesus.

So listening to a children’s talk in church recently, I realized that the teacher who was teaching from the Old Testament was making the (well meaning) classic mistake many teachers and preachers make when they are proclaiming the Gospel, especially from the Old Testament.

I have started spending time in Colossians after two months in Proverbs and was enthralled afresh at the emphasis on the gospel as it is set out in this beautiful letter of Paul’s. So let me share some of the insights I have picked up so far.

The key of the first section to me was expressed in 1:28 “We proclaim Him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ” and a little further 2:2 “My purpose is …….that you may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that you may know the mystery (not something hidden but something buried deep and integral to who He is) of God, namely Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge”.

Up to now Paul has emphasized the (1.) importance and the power of the gospel 1:5-11, (2.)The central and pivotal role of Jesus, focusing on Him and what He has done (this is perhaps the most beautiful and complete description of Jesus and His sovereignty and what He accomplished on the cross) (3) Paul’s complete devotion and dedication to proclaiming this.

And now the interesting thing – proclaiming a person not a message! Yes it is a message but it is wrapped up in a person, none other that Jesus the Messiah. So if we are not proclaiming Him with the purpose of those who hear getting to know Him more completely then we are not proclaiming the true gospel.

Many messages will mention Jesus and even give some attention to Him, but are really more about what we need to do! How we should live, what we need to do to keep right with God etc. This is NOT the gospel. The true Gospel is GOOD NEWS and should be that when we present that.

Why is Jesus THE Good News? Because we are living with the worst news: dead in our slavery to sin, under the power of this world and the Devil, condemned to eternal separation from God. This is far more awful than we tend to think about it, but the Good News is that God took the initiative and did something about it and that solution lies totally in the person of Jesus. Once we have come to know Jesus however we don’t move into a mode where we live lives according to a set of principles which are aimed at keeping us right with Him. No – we have been set free from this bondage and live in His power, not according to a written code but according to the Spirit. We cannot live perfect lives, we cannot live without sinning, Joh 1 tells us that, we cannot be Christian by trying harder, we can only live lives of freedom from condemnation when we realize this, coming to Jesus in repentance for forgiveness and knowing His continuing love and acceptance which does NOT depend on how good we are but on His love and commitment to us.

Does that mean we can live as we like without regard to Him and His desires? Of course not our lives are changed and if we truly wish to live in a relationship with Him we will desire to live as He has taught us to. Remember His words to His disciples in Mark “deny yourselves, take up your cross and follow Me. That does NOT mean go and live a life of ascetism, this is clearly shown in ch 2 Colossians. It means stop living with yourselves central in all your thoughts and desires and place me and my desires central in your minds and hearts.

Friends when you tell the gospel, ask yourself is it the real Good News that I am telling, not “some pat on the back feel good news” nor “some try harder and do your best sort of bad news.”

Firstly let me apologize for being silent for so long. Actually I have been bursting to share some of the wonderful insights I have been experiencing. However last Thursday, without warning, Telkom suspended my service. Not just cut me off, suspended me completely. It was entirely illegal and uncalled for. It had to do with a glitch in their bookkeeping system. So finally I was reconnected today, through the intervention of a fellow-Christian who kows someone at Telkom.

Now during the last few days of of frustration, I have been facing a conviction from the Lord. Some time ago I started to ask God to reveal more of what His glory is about. I occasioned to listen to a bit of a course John Piper is giving called “future grace, battling unbelief”, last Wednesday evening. In the introductory section he makes the following 4 points: 1. Our attitude should never be that we are serving God (as if He needs our service). Mark 10:45 summarizes this: “The Son of man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many. Conclusion – God is a giver. Yes we serve but not as it were to enrich God, but rather as a spinoff coming from His bountiful gifts wrapped up in His Son Jesus. 2.Everything God does is aimed at bringing Himself Glory. So our service to others, our behaviour towards the world and in the light of the many difficulties we experience etc should always be to bring Him glory 1 Peter 4:11″ If anyone serves he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To Him be glory and power for ever”.

Now John Piper’s slogan “God desires our good and is most glorified when we are most satisfied in Him!. (In sickness and difficulty as well as health and prosperity.)

Then 3.The importance of Holiness – we cannot see God without holiness Heb 12:14.

Piper also defined what he meant by the term “future grace”. Not some far distant fulfilment of God’s promises, but like a river flowing towards you and minute by minute spilling over you like a wave of His goodness.

So I started meditating on how my attitude must change so that I constantly see God as a giver and serve HIm in such a way that He gets the glory, and also to understand how this is reflected practically in holiness. My attention was drawn to what He seemed to be saying to me: “In your service for me you attract a certain amount of attention and admiration, in all this are you bringing Me glory? From now on be careful to reflect everything you do or say to My glory”. He then reminded me of that beautiful sentence in Ephesians 1 which is bracketed by the phrase “to the praise of His glory”. Everything He has done for us is summarized by that phrase.

So that was the theory on 30th Oct. The practical followed that same day. I discovered, as I said in my introduction that my Telkom service was suspended. During Friday and over the next 4 days I spent several hours on the phone in a fruitless effort to get things sorted out. The temptation was to rant to the world but I kept thinking “how can this be to he praise of God’s glory?” Well so far I am so relieved that things are sorted out, as I look back I can see that God allowed this whole unpleasant affair to happen to test, among other things, my resolve to give Him the glory. I could mention a number of things that have been churning around in my head, but at this stage I will hold my words, except to reflect back on James 1:3:2-4.

May this be the beginning of a renewed effort to give Him the glory in all things and to remind myself to be most satisfied in Him.

TO GOD BE THE GLORY!

John wrote in Revelation 1:10: “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day when….” I felt something like that this Lord’s day and I am going to share some of what I wrote down. Not all, because some has to do with how this has played out in my relationship with Emily.

True love seals you to the person you love and requires complete faithfulness. The problem is that we struggle to maintain even a semblance of faithfulness. Now the Lord is completely faithful and seals us to Himself through the Spirit (Ephes 1:13). Every time we are unfaithful to Him (sin,) this disturbs the seal, that is why we need to keep short shrift by confessing our sin as soon as we realize we have been unfaithful and receive His forgiveness, which enables us to experience His love completely. Our unfaithfulness, because of Jesus will not separate us from God’s love it will merely mar our experience of it.

Now, after meditating for some time on my life and experience with Emily and my walk with the Lord, I am led to recollect an incident which happened on the weekend I met the Lord in His full glory at a camp in Noordhoek. At the end of the weekend (Easter 1980), we had a communion service and as we received the host, Angus Baine laid hands on each one of us and gave us a “personal prophecy”. Now over the years I have been led to be suspicious of that sort of thing but I find I am changing my mind. The prophecy pronounced over me was simple: “I am giving you the power to love”.

So on Sunday I find my mind focusing on that prophecy and wondering about it. Maybe it was necessary for God to tell me that then, because of my general self-centredness or maybe in some way He was preparing me for this period of my life which was still far in the future, when my time would be taken up with caring for Emily. I could never give her as much love as she needs, without the help of the Lord. So probably that and much more.

So now my mind turns to the question how do “love” and “wisdom” fit together? It seems to me that you can’t separate what is part of the same thing. It is all part of what it means to have a relationship with the Lord and basically how it is expressed in our behaviour – simply put “Two ways to live”. The way of love expressed in wisdom or maybe shall I say the way of wisdom expressed in love, on the one hand and the way of foolishness on the other. Because Jesus IS our wisdom, how does it look like when we express it in our relationship with Wisdom Himself? So on Saturday Ludwig was saying, in relation with another matter that we should be careful not to try and separate things that are so deeply integrated (like love and wisdom.)

So in my mind’s eye eye I see love, like a huge absolutely beautiful jewel (indescribably beautiful), only not hard like a jewel, scintillating and reflecting a multitude of the most beautiful colours which intermingle and sparkle as it spins around. Every facet is important in our lives and gives us depth and a beauty which makes us attractive to the world so that we become – we ARE His witnesses – not just the words that flow so easily from our mouths.

Now Lilly suggested recently that 1 Corinthians 13 is a summary of the characteristics of love. While I agree with that it is far from complete. I spent time and I challenge you to do this, just looing at 4 places where Paul describes the different characteristics of love: Romans ch 12, Colossians 3″12 ff, Galatians 5:22 and compare them to 1 Cor ch 13. Now that is just some of what Paul says about love and there are negatives as well as positives, just like in Proverbs there are two ways, the way of wisdom and the way of foolishness. Here are the ways of love and the other way which is, can I call it “anti-love”. That is just in these 4 letters of Paul, what about John?

So this is such a composite picture, so deep and many-coloured it is impossible to ingest it all on your own and even less possible to do without the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit. It is a lifetime of work – how exciting! especially as we are already recipients of the complete love of God through Christ, no wonder He asks in Ephesians 3 that the readers should be able to comprehend the height, depth, breadth and length of God’s love and to know (experience) it.

Praise the Lord Hallelujah

So yesterday afternoon I was browsing through a little booklet which was written by Dudley Foord, who came from Australia in the 1980’s to be our presiding Bishop. Dudley and I were completely on the same wavelength especially in the area of discipleship and he gave me a copy of his little booklet called “Life’s Big Questions”. I must admit that, although I really appreciated the signed gift I never really studied the contents seriously. Yesterday I found the copy hiding between some large tomes on my bookshelf and was drawn to read one of the chapters headed “How can I discover genuine joy”. As I dipped deeper into this chapter which is an exposition of Psalm 32, I was more and more blessed and intrigued by the way it linked to James ch 1 which we have looked at a few times recently.

So why don’t we look through this psalm with the promise of discovering genuine joy, together So read through the psalm and then vss 2-8 of James 1 and try and connect some dots. This is what I came up with, with a little help from Dudley:

The first two vss describe this person who is really filled with joy or happy (Blessed). Why does he feel this way? Well he has experienced forgiveness. Now I am convinced that most of us Christians don’t really focus and appreciate that factor in our relationship with God sufficiently. In Ephes 1 Paul speaks about the great benefits of being “in Jesus”. Of prime importance is vs 7,8 “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace which He has lavished upon us with all wisdom and understanding”

There are two extremes here: On the one hand there are some who so focus on sin that they actually fail to see and experience the glory of being forgiven. I know of groups who have gone on retreats were they focused almost exclusively on trying to find and dig out every imaginable sin in their lives. On the other hand the experience of forgiveness in some, maybe because they have not really perceived themselves as great sinners, is really to almost take this aspect of their relationship for granted. I would class myself among these.

However, especially recently I have been brought up short more and more by descriptions of the seriousness of sin in the bible. Maybe as Christians we don’t commit the grievous sins of the non-christian, but there are so many almost inapparent sins some of which which I am more and more conscious of committing myself. Lets look at a few: pride, even where we have just dealt with this we so easily slide back into it, self-centredness (an aspect of pride), lack of trust and faith, not being completely honest (the little exaggeration you know), slander (often even in the guise of a prayer request), Relying on ourselves and our own intelligence and not Jesus’ wisdom and so I can go on. Recognize any of these?

So this is the basis of this psalm, really bringing to light the huge benefit of forgiveness which opens the way for his relationship with God. Then he psalmist describes the debilitating health effects of sin. So what did he discover was the answer? vs 5 This is the whole basis of our gospel relationship with the Lord. Don’t try harder to be a good Christian when you realize you’ve messed up again, go in humble confession, receive immediate forgiveness and in the strength of the Spirit and motivated by Jesus’ love and forgiveness you start again.

Then the psalmist opens the door to how we should live to have the full benefit of this forgiveness which is ultimately reflected in an unbounding joy. see if you can pick out his advice to us in our daily pilgrimage. Here is what I found:

vs 6 pray continually. Be in close conversation with the Lord now that you have access to Him. vs 6b and 7, You will have he assurance of God’s ongoing protection. And instead of being surrounded with fear you will be surrounded with great songs of deliverance. vs 8 You will experience God’s guidance. Vs 10 You will experience God’s unfailing love (His covenant love Chesed) surrounding you. Finally vs 11 you will be filled with joy. Notice there are 3 different expressions of joy here to emphasize the reality and extent of that. Rejoice in he Lord, be glad and sing (other translations speak here of shouting out loud).

So what does James say? when you are faced with many trials you must rejoice, but you can only do that if you are aware of the huge work God has done for you and in you starting with forgiveness of your sins. Even then he immediately warns against being double-minded.

I like the way Dudley ends his chapter where he says Jesus invites us to a great banquet with the following beautiful dishes:

A big helping of friendship, the key to friendship is communication so the next dish is prayer then the dish of security in Him. After that comes the promise of comfort and wisdom and then guidance and finally the pudding – unbounded joy.

I have flown into some turbulence the last few days, so sorry that I’ve been silent. I can’t write if I’m trying to catch my own breath. So let me start with sharing a poem by Stuart Holden written in 1931 and published in the little booklet “God-guided pain”.

He led me to the way of pain,

A barren and a starless place;

[I did not know His eyes were wet,

He would not let me see His face]

He left me like a frightened child

Unshielded in a night of storm;

[How should I dream He was so near?

The rain-swept darkness hid His form]

But when the clouds were driven back,

And dawn was breaking into day,

I knew Whose feet had walked with mine!

I saw the Foot-prits all the way.

So on Friday amidst the “turbulence”‘ I become quiet with the Lord and in my minds eye I see a large pool of pristine water surrounded by lush trees and grass. The water is so quiet it is like a mirror – a picture of absolute serenity. Do I hear Jesus saying “this is a picture of the peace I want to give you”?

Yes Lord but what about when the waves of turbulence come? “Remember your decision:

‘If you want to walk on the water, you must first get out of the boat’. Your trust must be in Me completely. Remember James1:6, ‘When he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like the wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.'” I remember the work I have been doing to understand James 1 afresh. There can be no splitting of our trust. It is either God or the world. It is so easy to ‘hedge your bets’. Place your trust in God?? and then make plans to depend on the world’s solutions.

So God is saying to me “you must get out of the secular boat you are in and trust in me completely and I will be your Shield, I will fold you into My arms and hold you close – you will be safe with me. Remember your new identity – you are – “in Jesus”. That makes you a completely new person with a new identity – shielded by a bullet-proof shield of my mercy and grace”

So I cuddle up to the Lord and say “hug me Lord – I need a tight hug from you – I receive your peace.”

I must confess as I have considered this first chapter of James that I have had a bit of a revelation. You know vs 3 that says you “must consider it pure joy when you face trials of diverse kinds”? To my shame I have often thought, now please this is deep down sharing, that God is a bit mean with His trials. Its as if He just wants to keep disturbing my life. OK I don’t think like that with my rational mind, this is just a deep reaction I sometimes have, almost dreading the next one. Well while I was reading this passage over again the other day it hit me (I’m sure it came from Jesus), “Your attitude towards the testing in your life is still a barrier to my relationship with you”. But do you know what, even as He was saying that to me its as if my eyes were opened and I suddenly saw these trials in a completely different light:

I saw them as being allowed by a supremely loving God, taking no joy in any pain I may experience, but allowing the effect of living in a fallen world with an active enemy to be part of my experience to help me to trust Him more. “You are already facing a huge trial Emily’s sickness which will progress. The small things along the way I allow to keep you trusting in Me, to keep your attention on me and to grow your faith in Me as these things get resolved you will be able to trust me more and more in the big things of life. This is all part of the act I have of loving you completely. And hear this; I protect you from many things along the way that you don’t even comprehend or know about”.

So suddenly I could see that these things, and they will continue to irritate, are all part of His benevolent love and NOT a way of making my life difficult. And of course, I am ashamed as I think of the multitude of ways He has shown His love to me, the multitude of issues that have been resolved often in amazing ways and not the least the number of dear Christian friends who love and support me in so many ways.

So what does the gospel say? Repent, confess and trust in Jesus afresh, and He will restore us completely. Wow what a Saviour we have!

I’m speaking today to God – no, I am continuing to try to really learn what it means to listen. First I ask Him to purify my mind, my heart, my tongue – forgive me for every wrong thought and inappropriate word and action I have done.

“Help me to empty my mind of all the thoughts churning around in my head that I am thinking [that means what I am saying to myself in this constant conversation I have with me] because this stops me hearing You speak Lord. Especially the worries and cares of this world (Mark 4:18,19).” Here I am reminded of teaching I had during a course we did to become Life-Line counselors, where the basis of their counseling is listening. What they said, and listen carefully now, because we don’t hear so good do we? “If you are thinking what you are going to say to the person while they are still speaking, you are NOT listening to them”. Ouch – so if you are speaking to yourself while you say you are listening to the Lord then you are not listening to Him.

To show you have been listening properly to your client and to help them to see their own problem, we were then told to feed back to them what you have heard them saying. So it would go something like this “so what you are saying to me is xyz?” (The aim of that sort of counselling is that the client should work out solutions to their problems themselves with you just playing a part in active listening). Now how do we do this, give feed back, when we are listening to God? Well quite simple actually, keep a journal and write down what you feel He has been saying to you, with the scripture references or even the passages written out in full. This will enable you to crystalize what you have “heard” Him say to you.

At he end of my time with Him I write in my journal, “So what is this saying to me today?” as I seek to condense it into action for that day.

Now I want to get back to my discussion last time on what it means when we say “God is love”. Our interesting discussion at our early morning prayer meeting with Ludwig was that we can only know God in as much as He has revealed Himself to us. Thus we know God is love because of many actions He has taken favouring us, like and especially, sending His Son to die for us. The story of Tim Keller of the two bushes in Jerimiah where he was saying that we should love God for who He is and not what we can get from Him through our relationship with Him, refers to an attitude where we seek God merely to receive from Him what we desire. So that means it is quite an OK part of knowing God by seeing His revealed actions as a revelation of who He is.

A picture of the Songs of Solomon then comes to mind, of the love of the bride and the groom for each other. I seem to hear The Lord saying to me “Remember the most exquisite moments of your relationship with Emily, how you felt then. Now multiply that by many times and that is how I feel about my bride, each one of the people who make up that group, and that includes you”

But God’s love for us needs to pass on further, not stop with myself. So what does that mean? lets look at that passage in 1 John, where he repeats twice that God is love. John is warning the readers that their love for Jesus will be known by their love of others revealed, in their actions. It is not enough to say “I love you”, one has to demonstrate that. The problem his readers had was that they claimed to be Christian yet were being nasty to some other Christians. Sound familiar?

I am reminded of a revelation I had many years ago about the meaning of the word “attitude”. This was the definition I found: “An attitude is a way of seeing others in relation to ourselves and it is expressed in actions”. So our experience and appreciation of God’s love for us is demonstrated in the attitude we have towards others in relation to ourselves. OK that means not only to family, not only to other like-minded Christian brothers and sisters, but to every one of the people we interact with. Paul, in his letter to the Philippians, says our attitude should be like that of Christ Jesus. We should consider others better than ourselves (Phil 2:3) .

Wow – does he really mean that? Its easy to regard the good, nice, distinguished people, especially those who love us, as better than ourselves, but Paul is saying “everyone”. The meanest, the lowest, the dirtiest most detestable, cruel ??? Jesus said in Matt 5:43 we must love even our enemies. Can I do that? Can you do that?

I have good news for you. The gospel isn’t about trying to do the impossible, just trying harder and harder every time we fail. No, the gospel is – first experience God’s love for you, Really experience it believe it and receive it and from that flows the power and desire to love even the most unlovable. Will we fail? Of course. Should we try harder?…. NO the gospel tells us when we fail we go to Jesus, the foot of His cross, confess our failure and draw again from His love and go out. And no matter how often we fail, that is the Good News, He will always forgive us and fill us afresh with His love. Read 1 John, first chapter, that explains it.

Dear reader there are so many of our brothers and sisters who are trying so hard to be good Christians, but it is no more than legalism. The Good News is that we have been transformed by Jesus, filled with His love, all we have to do is go out in that knowledge and strength of the Holy Spirit and do it.

Hallelujah that is why it is called “The Gospel” in other words “The Good News of Christ Jesus”.

The mist is dense outside, like a thick grey blanket. Cold? or Warm and covering you like a blanket?

At the end of my journal entry for yesterday I wrote, following Paul Tripp’s poem on God’s pleasure: “One day my deepest pleasures are nowhere to be found in creation and only to be found in the Creator and He finds pleasure in His glory.

So today I spend time meditating on the fact that I must love the Creator for Who He is and not for what He has done and will do for me.

So who is my God? mmmm 1 John says twice that “God is love” 1 John 4:8,16. What does that mean? Can we define what that means without the context of what John says in this letter? Because John’s definition is all about what God has done through Jesus for us and in us – urging the reader to take this to heart, by demonstrating the same sacrificial care for one another that God has shown for us, which is original. That is He demostrated His love for us unprovoked by us or any merit in us. We are to love like that.

So I quietly ask God “what does the statement “God is love” mean intrinsically to His character? The thought comes to me that His whole being is wrapped up in the benevolent attitude which He has demonstrated and is demonstrating towards His creation. His anger is only demonstrated towards those who reject Him. Further to that I think of the only picture in the bible where we get a glimpse of God is in Revelation 4, where it is all about His holiness and His glory.

So I consult “The New Bible Dictionary”. Their discussion starts with the revelation of God’s love for Jesus which has existed since before creation. John 17:24 “Where Jesus prays “Father I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see My glory, the glory You have given Me, because you loved Me before the creation of the world”. Notice the link between glory and love.

Jesus is also the only one of whom it is written that He is God’s beloved Son. eg Mark 9:7 “This is my Son whom I love.”

Furthermore they say that God’s love can only be known to men as it is revealed in Jesus Christ and our redemption by Him (Romans 5:8). It is the very nature of the God-Head – Jesus Christ, who is love incarnate and personified (1Jo 3:16) and is God’s Self revelation.

Heh and that is not all. There is an emotional aspect to God’s love – revealed especially through the book of Hoseah where God gets Hoseah to marry a prostitute so that He can experience the pain God feels when his bride is unfaithful to him.

There is more, but lets leave that for the moment. Just something more to chew on. In Malachi 1:2ff He speaks about some whom He hates. Read that and ponder and we will speak again about it and if you have the courage post your thoughts on the idea that God is love on the blog.

May you consciously experience that unimaginable love in a special way as you read this and consider it.