Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy holy spirit, that we may perfectly love.
For me this is the knowledge and understanding that I am as sick as my secrets, then to get well is to air them which the payer asks God himself to air and cleanse.
Willy Porter wrote a song called breathe. One of the refrains is a call for us to go easy on one another and go easy on ourselves. When we talk of loving thy neighbour as we love ourselves we cannot help but see a parity there.
Like the emergency card in an airplane informs us in super colour cartoons, fit your own oxygen mask first before tending to others.
There was a man and his wife. They had much to be thankful for and they thanked God for their life.
The government said to the couple “you are not paid enough, because you have three young children we will pay you some more money every month”
One day the man said to his wife, come let us find more work so we can earn more money.
The wife said “you are needed at home, God can provide for our needs supernaturally but God cannot be a father to our children. You must physically be there and continue to inspire them as only a father can.”
The man was stubborn but eventually he said come let us pray to God about this.
The next day God sends them a large sum of money. The figure was greater than the monthly amount they would potentially recieve from the new job.
So tell me, who provides the couple with their money?
Their employer?
Their Government?
I tell you this; if you follow money and serve money you are subject to the brutal laws of economics. There will be no solace and money has no power to transform your mind or soul.
If you follow God and serve God you are subject to the supernatural works of the living God. You will know peace and God will renew your mind and transform your soul.
In all that you do, serve God lest you serve that which is below God and bind yourself to it.
Paul read an extract from John at Sunday lunch as part of our “first Sunday of Advent” acknowledgement.
The reading finished with He was born into the darkness but the darkness did not know Him. I never made the connection until this morning that Jesus at his most prominent could be traced by His presence in the darkness.
You want to know where He is? He’s right there with those hookers. He’s right there with those unsavoury types. He’s right there on that cross.
Jesus came into the darkness FOR the darkness. He never came for the light, He came for the sick, for the dark.
Today we find Him where? We find Him in our dark. In the restoration of a broken relationship, a broken person, a broken heart.
The light does not require illumination, but the dark needs salvation.
He was at work in the hearts of men. A place of extreme blackness that knows no boundaries. The blackness was there in Roman and Jew, Religious and revolutionary, Disciples and belivers, Barabas and Lazarus, you and me.
He arrived, no bigger than a loaf of bread, into the darkness. As a man he entered a blackened darkness in Hades. There can be no darkness on earth that cannot be lit by Him.
Remember the Roman who had a poorly son? He had a faith in God without knowing God.
Twenty first century evangelism tells us that ALL are in Darkness if they have not accepted Jesus as their saviour. Maybe it would be more acurate to say we all have a blackened sky, however it is a different soul-scape for everyman.
Jesus spoke into the darkness of men, each time it was different as each mans darkness was different.
To be salt and light we must know what the darkness is and where the darkness is.
This is only my opinion, but there is something desperate about street evangelism. Something almost random. Is there a measure of light and of darkness? Is there a message, an individual message for that person?
I want us to be encouraged to share our faith. To bring light to a blackened sky. Not to assume that the Roman doesn’t have it sussed just because he’s not a follower.
Didn’t Pilate ask, what is truth?
There are many claims today for that prestigious place, from churches to the bible.
Jesus however never said the Bible was the truth nor did he say religion was the truth.
Pilate was asking the question with the answer so close. There is only one truth that will unravel the mysteries of life, who am I? Is there a God? Why? Only one truth that would have satisfied Pilate’s question.
Only one
That magical quality. It resonates with the child within all of us. Narnia used to be covered in it although snow on earth has no less shimmer or brilliance.
All things are made new momentarily.
Covered. No more litter, no more random debris by the curb. All gone. All white. It’s fleeting like our lives but makes an impact as deep as our most vivid memory.
Even the hardest of hearts cannot help but smile watching the thick silence of falling cotton. A silence that drowns out all background noise. The same silence Buechner writes about when turning the volume off for the news. Deafening silence. Silence that draws us and Him closer together.
I think U2 produced a song called One. I only really listened to the
Lyrics properly very recently.
One love, one truth.
The love you and I share comes from the same pot as the love shared by a couple in Tokyo. God made one love. When we love we are not only fulfilling a commandment, some would say the most important according to Jesus, we are sharing.
Our story becomes part of The Story. All our stories connect to make one gargantuan story, a story that started in Eden and continues today.
And Jesus, Jesus is in all our stories. He’s there in the stories of those who believe and he’s there in the stories of those who do not. When he walked on
Earth Jesus became part of The Story in a most profound way. The story writer also became a character in the story and the story teller. Maybe the trinity makes more sense like that as the connection to peoples lives is always constant, a narration.
When we share our story, our life, our faith, we are really letting someone know a chapter of the story that haven’t read yet and vice versa. Everyone is unique and thus every story is integral to the story.
However difficult or easy our lives are they have meaning and depth. They also provide a unique contribution to
a storyline that has been running since the begining of time. A storyline that does not follow the celebrity consumer status of this world but operates on a topsy turvy scale.
Yes, our lives are short but boy do they have meaning! The bible sought hard to portray a link between the Seperate books through time, geneology, land and God. It is saying we are all connected.
We all share in the fall of man. This is afterall Our story, we can only comprehend our parents and the effect that has on our lives but what about their parents and their parents? Lets follow it back all the way to Peter’s denial or Judas’ betrayal, what effect does that have on us?
We all share in the “get up” too. We can all choose to listen to Jesus calling us out of death. We can all choose the Jonah story. We all share from the pot of hope that’s in God’s larder.
Merry Christmas to all travellers, the happy and the less than golden hearted. Be blessed.
One of the many annoying aspects of having a head cold is the temporary loss of taste and smell. This dulls the senses and weakens our decision making in general. I believe when we live a life where we have no time for God, we develop spiritual head colds. Life rapidly develops a greatly reduced sense of taste and smell followed by blurry vision.
We are all prone to a spiritual head cold. Often what could cure it is time with God, listening and praying.
God sharpens our taste for life. Harmony with God gives us better definition and perspective in our world view.
To some, a lack of zeal for life is remedied by working harder, playing harder or partying harder. All these solutions are based on the individual becoming MORE busy and also looking deeper within for the answer.
The fallout of which translates to even less spiritual time and a reduction in the individuals world view.
For a follower of Jesus this is a topsy turvy world no?
Sometimes are problems are not even problems they are what we see through our head cold. Paper tigers.
Sometimes we need to stop. We need to speak to the wind and the sea. Be calm. Be still. Listen. Be.
Gradually the wind picks up, the waves start rolling and normal life is resumed minus the head cold. We can see life for what it is and what it is not.
Maybe evangelism is more about asking God to illuminate the heaven triggers in the individual than it is about presenting facts? Beuchner writes a lot about being homesick. In deep magic terms, undeniably, we are part our parents, part ourselves and wholy miraculous.
