Don’t Despair

Depending on ones universal view- that is one’s view on how the world works and how the unseen God works in it, through time, circumstance and people- he might believe that Joseph, or Moses and David…anyone really… had received God’s sovereign word and screwed it up so royally they had to be exiled in their failure to be kept alive. But then, for no apparent or predictable reason, God in his mercy, gave them another chance. If you think that though, you may’ve missed skipped the narrative and the larger picture

As far as I can tell, every word of revelation already has a contradiction built into the world it’s intended to impact. The Word, the environment and the recipients own imperfect humanity joined together guarantees, a hopefully short term but often disastrous, failure while the recipient in his devoted obedience tries to accomplish his task.

The universal truth is that the recipients failures and mistakes are factored into the word. There’s plenty of time. The obedient one must be familiar with the exercise of his own will’s failure in order for God to get his credit.

It’s the failure of his own efforts, joined to his devotion and revived service, that drives the believer back to God in a personally humiliated state, only then aware, that God doesn’t need his strength and ability. The victory is the Lords. He, then gets all of the credit and glory.

So, here’s the simple point: we often think adversity and difficulty indicate we’re off track. That’s not always the case. Sometimes it’s the obstruction we’re facing that’s the very working of God in our lives. Don’t despises difficulty. Certainly don’t despise yourself for not conquering it. Stay steady and keep looking for where he might be hiding in the difficulty. He’s always there, making a way for you to move through it and ever closer to him.

In Whom ….

Isaiah 49:3 says, “….my servant IN whom I will be glorified.”

There’s a qualitative difference between IN and BY. Herein, is the distinction of being and doing unveiled. Both have their rightful place and balance, but doing without first being carries a diminished impact.

Verse 4’s beginning BUT shows the Servant didn’t think his life had glorified God and in fact had been spent in vain labour, for nothing and vanity. The Servant’s rock bottom faith is revealed in his grasp of ‘yet surely.’ This is a place we all come to when life seems to have not borne the fruit we longed for and trusting God knows our intention and effort, will righteously pay us for our efforts.

And He does. Not because we achieved all we set out to do. Nor because we achieved all he wanted us to do but rather because we allowed our responses to the troubles our righteous life incurred to align with his nature and character.

We were willing to be seen agreeing with him, even to our own loss and hurt.

It’s not what we do, per se, that brings God glory. It’s who we are, and are becoming, in the doing of it. In that significance, the testimony of our selfless-stability under pressure reflects beyond us to the author and the finisher of our faith.

Strong in the Lord

Ephesians 6:10.

‘Be strong in the Lord and the power of his might’, to a language oriented soul, might suggest being strong in the Lord AND in his mighty power are 2 different things.

In other words, that one could be strong in the Lord but not in his might, or that one could be strong in his might, but not in the Lord. That reads like too much, doesn’t it.

I said to myself as I thought this ‘I don’t know how to test this thought. There wont be any examples of that.’

The Voice instantly responded, ‘Samson.’ If you were to stop and think about this, it’s really not that radical of an idea.

Firstly, the seas of humanity are awash with the flotsam and jetsam of broken lives trying to sail a spiritual truth before their ship was finished. Put another way, dark spots in the night sky abound where once a light shone briefly. However you see it, the point remains, we’re all surrounded with men and women, once full of potential and brimming with strength, who, in meeting some unforeseen crisis, failed the day. We’ve all, I think, wondered how that happened.

Secondly, Daniel 10:19 affords us a glimpse of how this premise may be biblically seen. Whomever you think this second person in the conversation to be, (I think Jesus) it’s the ‘speaking of the word’ Daniel choose to receive that gives him strength, lifting him up again. (I might add here, the word did strengthen him yet gave him no power to act, whatsoever.)

The book of Daniel closes with nothing changed, except that now we have a record of the event and we have an insight that we may act upon in the future. That’s a spiritual victory in its own right.

There’s no reason for any of us to not be both strong in the Lord and mighty in his power. But in order to do it rightly, I’d suggest we approach the verse in the order it’s laid out. Let’s receive The Word he has for us and let it do its work. Then, we will be safe and fit to administrate his will in the power of his might. The Lord called us first to know him, not just to dabble in his ways.

Christ Alone

I realised recently, perhaps like some of you, that I’ve been reading and studying the bible for nearly 50 years. I’m amazed when I pick it up and find something I’ve never considered before. I’m especially amazed, that after nearly fifty years, at what, and how much, I do not know.

Some of this is just down to the nature of learning. We first notice words and the ideas attached to them. Then we catch glimpses of phrases; like a subject and a verb and then bam! a whole prepositional phrase opens the universe up like never before. (I’ve apparently, often, felt like a mathematician because I mastered grade 1 arithmetic.) The main thing to remember is to not rest at having learned. It is to keep on learning.

If we keep learning, one day we will break through into a place where all the singular, pithy, thoughts we’ve grasped at become a whole, mutually supporting, system of truth. Perhaps then, tying the bible into God’s agreed upon universal thought instead of our own piecemeal understanding.

At different times in life I was sure I had Paul figured out. More than once I was confident I could explain the depth of my emotion better than my biblical name-sake. Thankfully, those seasons -somehow- didn’t last long. In all of those seasons of life, though, I didn’t ever feel I could adequately explain Christ or his teachings. Hmmmm.

Don’t get me wrong, I knew and do know him. I did teach his words, and the more I taught them the better I grasped his holiness. So, imagine my surprise this last month as I began to seriously restudy his truths, only to discover those little clauses and phrases I’d grasped so well were really just pieces of on-going, sometimes for chapters, long and big thoughts. They contained a wholeness I needed to see.

For in that wholeness, those thoughts bring a harmony and balance to the entire book. A bible thought that doesn’t lead to Christ, into and then through Christ, as it moves through the rest of the book wont have much of a shelf life. It’s a truth for sure, but a dangling truth can’t build the frame until it connects with another.

As we move into ‘24, especially mindful of when and where we are, let me encourage you to take this year to reexamine Christ and his teaching. Let him be the centre of your studies and of your faith, for in him all things…even things in that book….do come and hold together.

Christ will sustain you. Christ will enlarge you. Without him in the centre, from Genesis to Revelation, the powerful truths we hold and hope in would simply break down in our tryings and testings.

Forgive

Matthew 6:15, ASV.

“But if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”

I’ve thought long on this verse but don’t know that I’ve ever managed to say what my heart sees clearly; that is, how much a life of prayer, automatically, opens one up to heaven’s, and satan’s, scrutiny and judgement.

Jesus, in teaching his disciples to pray, told them that by involving God in their lives they’d assumed an obligation to become like him in giving as he gave. It’s the price of participation.

If I don’t forgive, I either get led, or perhaps wander -I’ve certainly done that, into my own wilderness of temptation. The difference is this though, whereas Jesus had nothing in him for the evil one to find and thus bring pain and failure into his life, I almost always do.

Un-forgiveness is the great deal breaker, as my forgiveness of others is the foundation for my entire participation in God’s kingdom. Without practicing open forgiveness, I cannot reflect his identity properly to the world around me. I misrepresent him. To other’s eyes, I make my God over in my fashion. This, on this point, God never aides.

In this shared journey, wherein we need to be provided for in order to do his will here on earth, so that his kingdom comes in ever greater glory, hallowing his name for the world to see; do not fail to remember your weapon of prayer is a two edged sword.

As you hack away into the future, you also in the battle expose your own soul to thrust and parry. Let there be no personal baggage; no rejections or relational damage, exposing your soul to your enemy’s judgment. Let there be not disqualifying un-forgiveness in you.

As it turns out, prayer, especially prayer for others, is a necessary but also a dangerous thing. It’s serious enough that it attract devils and trying circumstances into your life. I suppose….that’s why it’s referred to as warfare.

I still don’t know that I said that clearly :||

Guilt

In a world where personal guilt is considered a toxic concept, justice cannot flourish.

Guilt exists as a consequence of evil. The words for ‘evil’, in both testaments stress ‘’an inherent inferiority that causes pain’’.*

The consistent truth is that the wrongness, or “inferiority”,* in us, even if we don’t think it wrong, causes and sows pain into other’s lives. Guilt is the built in consequence aimed at adjusting our lives so we don’t hurt others. Guilt then, is the needle of one’s moral compass.

If we hurt others, especially with patterns of behaviour we refuse to curb, we need to feel guilty. We should feel guilty. God wants us to feel guilty….so we will take responsibility and STOP causing others pain.

Evil and guilt; the two go hand in glove. And when guilt is treated as nothing more than an emotion to get free of, moral decay and injustice will rule.

It’s as if every man can just do what is right in his own sight. But, there is a cure for guilt, and shame both for that matter….by mercy and truth, iniquity is purged.

*All quotation marks above enclose direct quotes from the ‘discovery bibles’ word studies. Those phrases were not my own. *

Spend and be spent

How far will a ‘covering prayer‘ reach and how lasting of an impact does it make, at it’s full range?

It can go to all generations and circle the globe.

(CF John 17 for example)

For individuals though, where intimacy lacks, more pray-ers and prayers are required. ((where 100$ bills are absent, more 20$’s are required. Even more 10’s, 5’s, toonies and loonies. The smaller the denomination, (generally) the less the giver feels the loss. How, the giver feels the loss goes far towards the gift’s sacrificial, and thus worshipful, nature.)) How the pray-er perceives his prayer goes far towards the prayers effect and staying power. To pray for people, at a remove, is physically easier but much harder spiritually. One has to stir himself up to engage with both the Lord and the prayer’s intended recipient. Low level engagement doesn’t weigh much spiritually.

As with currency, so with prayer, as prayer is a currency of a different, higher, sort. The prayer has to cost the pray-er some energy, either as emotions felt, thoughts thought, or words spent; ideally, all of the above.

In that spending, of necessity though, something else in the pray-ers life is temporarily set aside and eventually needs to be made up for. It costs to be a prayer. But it costs like investing costs- the energy is gone but it builds interest clear into eternity promising rewards now and in the world to come. Your prayers, regardless of their weight, are never lost.

Where is the god of justice

I keep coming back, in this last weeks Bible reading, to Malachi Chapters 3&4 . (Well, I actually haven’t made it to 4 yet and I do keep leeching back up into chapter 2, so it may take a while to finish my self designated task here.) When I began decades back as a bible reading believer, I read for volume and found broad content as I moved along. These days, it seems I stop and look at every bolt and rivet in some kind of awe as to how all those little pieces hold the structure together. I don’t get far, quickly, anymore.

This morning, centring on 3:1’s “Behold”, I look uphill to see what it is I’m supposed to stare at. I realise the thought is anchored right above verse 1 in the last two sentences of chapter 2: “Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord.” And “Where is the God of justice?”

“Behold” is anchored there, but the progression of thought in chapter 3 verses 1-4 are the chain links tying the the questions to their answer found in verse 5.

I’m afraid I’ve used many words to get to my point today, namely that anytime society is saying God blesses the evil and does not enforce justice (like now) requires a new message of repentance, beginning at the household of God. Especially beginning with the leaders in the household of God. Long before society in general can begin to be held accountable to righteous standards, those representing Him have to be held accountable.

One might ask why, and I think there are layered reasons for this, but the chiefest reason is that God requires a righteous and just people who both validate, and are validated by Him to carry forth His work on the earth.

UNDERSTANDING

“He who gathered much had not too much, and he who gathered little had not too little.     2 Cor 8:15

The Pauline Epistles: their meaning and Message….James Hudson Translation

This is a beautiful picture of the beginning stages of a divine prosperity isn’t it. The fellow who had gathered much still had his needs met, nothing more. The one who gathered little had his needs met, nothing less. Given, it’s an elementary lesson, taught seemingly to a group of believers who were being given an opportunity and just learning how to be graced as givers but as with all elementary lessons, it needs to be learned and relearned.

Perhaps the largest lesson in this verse is that it isn’t the abundance that meets your need. The need is met in the abundant God who, knowing your need, makes a way.

But with his  way-making, at this stage at least, he wants us to remember that excess can turn our heads and seduce our confidence away from him and towards the abundance itself. That’s never a good  outcome.

You’d all agree with me that it takes a lifetime to mature, even though when young and immature we tend to think we know more than…well, what we actually know. Thank God for his patience!

Having been a Christian for nearly 50 years, I’ve seen some things. Some things that looked good to only realise later were shallow and often had a later painful payment plan.

Those too, are learning experiences and not to be confused with being bad hearted, wilful or even presumptuous. The funny thing about ignorance is that it looks almost exactly like it’s incorrigible brother presumption but really isn’t the same fellow.  Now, Presumption can corrupt Ignorance if the simple fellow isn’t paying attention but if he keeps his heart right, and he almost always does, then one day he breaks fellowship with Presumption and moves on up into greater intimacy and knowledge with God.

I’ve seen some things personally, I’ve experienced some times culturally; church culturally, that looking back with today’s eyes, and thinking with my now mind, I’m embarrassed that I could’ve thought myself as understanding and yet been so clueless.

One thing prevalent in my part of the church,45 years or so ago, was the idea that as one served God, if he saw an opportunity and created a need, God would fill it. And, sometimes he did and sometimes he didn’t. It was hard to sort the algorithm, to be frank.

Looking at this script this morning I, as my older more experienced self, see once again that the miracle working God does meet my needs, regardless of their size. He does want me to prosper, assuming I keep my eyes on him and not my excess provision and the beginning lesson is that he draws the line for what is both too much and too little.

Even if I see an opportunity for service, I have to wait on divine endorsement before I start digging the hole. Over the years, I’ve heard the Lord say ‘you can have that if you want it.’  I’ve had friends say the Lord said the same to them about buildings and large projects, but if you’ll notice- that’s not quite the same thing as saying ‘I want you to have or do that.’

Those things he invariably pays for. Sometimes upfront, ongoing or even at the last minute. The first category, he’s always helped with, but sometimes they required more angst and suffering; more explanations, as we waited. I’ve learned to carefully handle his exact phrasing and NOT, at least try NOT, to add my own interpretations.

Spiritual growth is a wonderful thing, especially those glimpses we catch in ourselves, but it comes with it’s own price tag. It requires the ability to say to yourself, of yourself, ‘that was then, this is now’ and continue to move forward.

Loving and Being loved

In prayer, I’m looking at loving and being loved. The Lord spoke and said ‘’you’ve said for years, ‘hurt people, hurt people’ well, ‘loved people, love people and they love with a reflection of how they themselves have been loved.’” That seemed true to me.

I closed my eyes in prayer and instantly saw the living and life giving Air, flowing in currents through my life and around me. It was beautiful but a bit different than the sky or the air in the room.

For one thing, it had an intentionality to it. It chose where it went. For another, it actually penetrated where it wanted to penetrate. It didn’t just bump into a person or a thing. If it chose, it simply entered and flowed through. Some it went around, some people and objects it moved on through.

As I looked, I saw this wonderful force wasn’t alone. It wasn’t quite pure. It wasn’t really transparent, rather translucent. It carried specks of material that I realised weren’t original to it and weren’t supposed to be there. Irregular, light diffusing particles. The air seemed to know it carried these pollutants and while not exactly in it’s best form, it carried these particles on with it as if the alternative of not flowing was simply not an option.

I thought ‘this is like a smokey day outside.’ The reason smoke can be seen is the pollutants it carries aloft. It may add colour to the sunsets or even be a bit of a sunscreen on a hot day, it’s effect on our life’s systems is always health altering.

I was made to know, in that instant, that the life giving Air was, of course, the Love of God carried into our own world’s by the Holy Spirit. The specks and particles were the debris that rose from the fires in our own lives, past and present. Those places that had been burnt and destroyed. The misunderstandings and misapplications of love in our many relationships. These things taint us and in the tainting, they affect how we love others.

It struck me as inevitable, that no matter how I loved others with what I thought was the purest love of God, it was still flavoured with my own smoke; that the only way to purify what flowed into and through me was to allow that love, within, to put my own flames down, once and for all. To not just manage my own pain’s flame but put completely the embers out, lest once again, with life’s right fuel, they re-ignite into flame and I start fire suppression all over again.

I close by reminding myself that a things nature, carries into it’s future. Flawed materials and designs break down and fail in their replication. In the same way, God’s Spirit, in his perfection, purifies us and our lives as He flows in, around and through. He doesn’t break down and He is not diminished.

It remains true, that for the moment, our love may be less than perfect and so temporarily, have less than ifs best effect as we pass it on but the better part of His love carries the day. He gives life and hope to all in the moment and reminds us that one day we will breath the completely pure breath of God again. It’s right here within us.

Allow that love free reign into your innermost being, let it do it’s work in you, above all, pass on that purified love. It gives life to all who breath it.

Ephesians 4:4-6

Yesterday, I thought a long while on spiritual warfare. Daniel chapter 10 things. Like; why did Jesus require help to break through a barrier in order to get to Daniel? (And, by the way, if that WASN’T Jesus, well, he certainly seemed to have his clothes on, and that individual did have the same effect on Daniel that Jesus had on John in Revelation’s chapter 1. Seems reasonable to start there to me.)

Without elaborating here, it also seems to me that there are ‘skinny spots in the heavens’. Maybe ‘thin spots in the ecosphere’ states more perfectly the idea that there is a barrier in the unseen heavens, made up of demonic authorities still resisting the breakthrough of God’s words into the planet and our prayers upwards into God’s sphere. It explains why the gospels penetration is more prevalent into some cultures and less in others. It ties nicely to Paul’s prayer that the gospel ‘would have free course and be glorified’ too.

There are many things to say, many points to raise about ‘stairways and gates to heaven’ but in the end, and while the Bible alludes to certain unknowns, it intentionally doesn’t spend much time on them. There has to be a reason for that. (I’d suppose that too much knowledge of what opposed us would have a counterintuitive impact on our faith; as in, ‘I can’t fight this battle- it’s too big for me. It’s always good to remember He fights our battles for us.)

Today, I’m stuck on the verb ‘is’ as it’s connected to ‘One’ in Ephesians 4:4-6. ‘Is’…isn’t …actually used in the greek passage, but English sentence construction requires it in order to make sense. This is a safe spot to trust what the translators interpreted because of the combined weight of all the nouns (Spirit, faith, baptism, body, etc.) that Paul piled on top of each other in the passage.)

Since ‘One’ is connected by ‘is’ eight times in that passage, it’s safe to conclude that the idea that we now EXIST as one body, spirit, hope, call, Lord, faith, baptism, God (Father) is the present reality. It’s not only what we are becoming, it’s also where we start life’s battles from.

Perhaps these realms are the ‘heavenly realms’ Paul mentions so frequently (exclusively) in this epistle. Perhaps this is what the forces in the sky above and the air around us are trying to interrupt and destroy. We are definitely in a warfare and some, or all, of those truths are assaulted, daily, in our lives.

But it’s an encouragement for me to see once again the reality is my position in Christ IS the stronghold. I’ve already won life’s battles, and I keep winning, as long as I hold these truths intact.

Increase and Abound

“Reading again, from 1 Thess. 3 about love ‘increasing and abounding’ reminds me that quantity and quality of love is never static. If love can increase and abound, and it can, then it can decrease and diminish, and it does.

The memory of having loved is not love itself any more than a Stop sign is a stop. It’s just a sign, a mark, of something that once happened here.

Memories can be good things, but if a relationship is not on-going and nurtured, it dies leaving only memories in it’s wake. Memories can be good reminders, even encouragement to move ahead, but they are not love itself. They can also be tomb stones, ‘here lies, what (who) I once loved.’

As Paul prayed, I too pray, that your love will grow, and as that chapter further says, God himself will make you to increase and abound in love. This is not a ‘try harder’ and ‘work more’ thought. It’s a reminder that the author of love is always working to purify and stretch your heart and soul into a more perfect grasp of Him and what love truly is.”

thoughts on bible translations

An op/ed piece:

As I flicked through Bibles to see which one I thought would teach best today, I was reminded once again some one might think me fickle for the number of Bibles I have and actively use. On the surface, it’s not an unfair point of view.

We all take the view, that as the Word of God, the Bible deserves to be handled with the intention of learning every possible thing it expresses. What better way to do that than carefully go over the same ground looking for new clues and evidence. That’s good spiritual discipline. More’s the better if we can use the same book model for multiple generations. I’ve done this myself in years gone by and it’s a wholesome thing to do…up to a point anyway.

The issue is that the Word of God is more than what that single book you handle can always show you. The Bibles I so dearly love, at the end of the discussion, are the expressions of someone else’s understanding and grasp, shaped by their own prejudices and fears; their own religion and desires for what they want it to say. For what they think God’s said in the basic translated documents. That simply can’t help but embed itself into the book itself. Where the books builder’s blindness, wilful or not, connects with mine, the light of learning grows dim.

We don’t always realise that as we grow accustomed to the word usage and page layout of a specific model and translation, we increasingly become blinded to anything different than anything previously seen, or to the way we’ve previously seen it. As a minister I’ve always felt that the use of different translations helped keep me from building a pet doctrine that wasn’t broadly supported. If I have to have a specific translation to make my case, I need to say that right up front. That doesn’t make it bad, in fact it often adds a flavour of truth and helps us all know how to fit pieces into their rightful positions. It just needs to be owned up to.

Anyway, what I started out to say and want to make certain I at least finish with is this. Reading the same Bible in the same way, at some point- even while it is driving certain truths deeper- also enables mental laziness, keeping us from having a new thought about old truths. The Lord has much to say to us, even about things He knows we already know.

Personally, I want to give him every chance I can to speak old things again. But I also want new thoughts carried by new words and new thought patterns.

Keep your favourite translations, we all have them. But, just for fun, and without having to feel like one has to be better than another (and paradoxically this is true) read a new translation and just dare the Spirit of Truth to teach you something. It’s worth the financial investment. You’ll likely be surprised at the enlarging and depth of what happens. I know I have been.

Treasures, old and new

This morning I woke thinking of simple scriptural truths about temptation and felt a need to go refresh myself in them (What was unusual is that I’m not especially tempted right now so those moments always poke a ‘heads-up’ sort of response from me. You know, a quick look around just in case).

Sure enough, as I thoughtfully began to read, I encountered old truth in new light. I thought ‘I’ve never seen that. I didn’t know that. Hmmmm when was the last time I sat down and just read James to read James?’ I said further ‘Lord, I can’t even live up fully to what I think I know from Paul’s epistles…or the gospels. I can’t even keep myself perfectly oriented on all the truths I’ve worked so hard to build into me and others for your Church’s sake. How will I ever get all of this in proper order?’

It was such an amazing (look it up) moment it required me in my stuck spot to put my Bible down and go make another cup of coffee. When I came back and sat down,I heard within:

‘One needs a working knowledge and understanding of my Script as an entity communicated in it’s fullness.

In that though, you must remember that the Book was written in and for good times and bad- it contains crisis, disasters near and averted, and was written by men and women who did not have the book or the fullness of it’s knowledge in their time or at their disposal. It was written ‘in part’ because they only saw ‘in part.’ They only needed to see in part in order to communicate the moment in which they lived or which they saw.

If a person knew it all, evenly, he still wouldn’t know which or what part to apply simply because he knew it. It’s not possible for you to contain all of the knowledge in the book any more than it was possible for those who wrote it. One at a time they wrote it, over life-times, ultimately over centuries, unaware of what the time coming after them would exactly look like. They were people just like you. People trying to hear, to understand and make my Wisdom clear to the others in their world. If you could know them, you’d be surprised at how much you held in common.

Without excluding any part of the Book of Truth(s), without disregarding another’s message of truth, rely on the True Author and Teacher to take you on your own, personally designed, course of education. That’s the knowledge and wisdom that will enable you and those around you to flourish.

Do stay sensitive to divine diversions though. Take a different course now and again but always know that it’s shining light will bring you back to your own familiar, and increasingly treasured singular pathway…’

Hmmmmm. I’m going to go back and finish James now. At least the first chapter anyway.

Things learned

What I learned this last year…

No, wait, what I learned when I was 70…Ugh, I meant what I learned in school last year…

…What I really mean is ‘what I learned, over my year at school, when I was 70.

I didn’t learn it just because I was 70.

It didn’t take all year to learn it, rather in pieces at a final coalescing moment. And, surprise- it wasn’t even actually taught.

I learned it because I was 70 and no longer believed I had to understand everything at first glance. I learned it because I was in school with others and the atmosphere itself posed questions, beyond us all, really. I learned it because school required me to embrace other lines of thought.

What I did learn- or, in a limited way came to understand- is that the entire universe is adversarial. It’s easy enough to see in our everyday world but what’s sometimes forgotten is that evidently, through Heaven’s rebellion, God faced the same crisis. This is a universal truth with universal consequences. There’s a war being waged.

I learned that adversity was not an accident or a mistake, or something to be glibly attributed to my own, other’s or even God’s inadequacies. I learned adversity was essential part of growth required to become my best self.

In a very real way, and over a lifetime, you are, in part, the sum of all the adversity you’ve encountered and overcome. I do not just say encountered, for we all make choices about what we face and how intimately we engage. We don’t always press through and overcome. Those adversities end up as failed opportunities, some to be repeated, other’s lessons seemingly lost forever. They too shape our identity.

The adversity we face and bring captive to the obedience of Christ though, those things gain us a victory and a faith that will follow us on into eternity. And, if we believe the scriptures, with reward.

The last piece of my thought has to do with suffering and pain. While it’s intuitive to avoid pain and suffering, it’s not a solid or a complete theology to miss it’s importance in our wisdom’s growth and maturity. Pain too is an adversity to be finally faced and brought into the knowledge of Christ.

After all, Jesus bore our pains and our sorrows and we too are instructed to bear, in love, with those around us. It would seem that until we’ve entered into the fellowship of his sufferings, that we’re not entirely qualified to share in his resurrection life, here on this earth.

In short, adversity establishes and eventually brings out the best in us. The pain and sorrow we suffer as we face life gives us an ever increasing capacity for faith as it, forcefully at times, reshapes our inner man after the image of Christ.

A Soul

“A soul, as a great sheet let down, firm in texture, rather thin and gloriously white, but marred with small, regularly spaced, lady-bug like attachments on and through-out it’s surface.

None were close enough to each other to make a solid mass, yet all could agitate, and could agitate each other, whenever something…from the word, or from life…came near their little abode. (About their abode: the entities remained fixed and unmoving. Almost in appearance as freckles.)

The ‘freckles’ had become attached to the soul through different life’s traumas. Salvation, had turned the background canvas of the spots dwelling pure and white, ( most were attached before salvation cleansed the soul, but not all). Salvation changed the soul’s nature, and thus prohibited them from moving from place to place to join, and eventually take the soul over.  ( a soul’s wounds, sustained over a life time, allowed to join together as one big wound would make the best of us perfectly dysfunctional.)

Some had been shaken off through salvation but the salvation experience alone had not dislodged them all either. A stalemate of sorts existed. A spiritual stalemate, fought out in the individual’s soul.

Salvation’s work must always be agreed with in the ‘saved’ individuals soul. I have not always agreed with salvation. The fear driven, power of choice, often slays, or at least hinders, the most ardent soul and on occasion the best of us vote against Salvation at times.

Going through life, one might not be aware of his own ‘ladybugs.’ After all, many of them have lived there for years and their owner may have grown accustomed to their sometimes… comforting…presence. In such a case, only through his own, or another’s, ‘electrical prayers’ would he ever be able to ‘vibrate’ them off of his very nature and personality. “

Good VIBRATIONS

“I’m pickin’ up good vibrations…”

The Beach Boys, 1966.

I recently read “so if you say ‘you’re a piece of junk you stupid car’’ your car responds to your words.’ A good and simple thought, except your car….body…nation…doesn’t, per se, understand the English words you speak to it.

None of it’s forming substance was birthed in english, or by any known tongue, so earthly language isn’t it’s native tongue. Do speak though.

All created things were formed by the energy behind the spoken word, so to the extent that our energy is released back towards ‘it’, the thing in question understands and responds to what your believing empowers those…Urdu…words to mean.

People have an interesting, if not always consciously understood, relationship with vibrations. Whether it’s the shared electrical frequency of attraction, a radio wave length or using a microwave, we’re all surrounded with, touched by and consciously employ currents every day.

Beyond the radio, there’s music, which as far as I can tell, moves everyone- not exactly in the same way perhaps, but moves all for sure. Music is nothing more than organised, hopefully somewhat rhythmic, vibrations springing into the air from the energy applied to the drum skin, the guitar strings, the piano keys or the tongue and breath to the Saxophone reed. In the end, we’re not moved by the instruments -which remain silent - until empowered by the released energy of the trained musician. It’s the people themselves who move us. Their own expressions and essence that we often find so beautiful when connected to the others in the band. All that energy of mind and body connecting into attractive sound. We often take the sound’s origin for granted. That is the person behind the instrument.

Paul said in 1 Corinthians 14 ‘that if the trumpet gave an uncertain sound, who’d prepare himself for the battle?’ (I’d encourage the reader to re-read that paragraph like they’d never seen it before.) Because…

beyond the music, beyond personal confession, I’m thinking about the prophetic voice. I hope I’ve adequately raised the point that the musician is the power behind the instrument. In fact, it takes a musician to make the song. At performance, the instrument and the score simply respond to the strength and skill of the user.

In other settings I’ve said ‘the pray-er is more important than the prayer.’ This is not to discount the prayer, or group prayer in any way but to point out that a score to a reader who isn’t a musician never becomes a song and moves nothing. A prayer to a non pray-er is in danger of becoming like the Apostle’s creed, spoken weekly by many who neither understand nor believe it. It just hangs limply in the air.

In prayer, or prophecy, one can have the word but if their spiritually trained energy can’t carry forth what the songs author intended, well the music isn’t moving…for us all…to the place it was intended to move. We might get a mixed bag of results.

Couple this thought with the idea that some of those obstacles that we pit that energy against, are living things and have a will of their own. My car is in fact a stupid piece of metal, plastic, rubber and leather. While I admire and appreciate the energy that went into it’s assembly, in the main it ‘listens and looks at me’ more or less like a rock. And, there are times to use your faith on a rock. If they can ‘cry out’. they can listen, too.

The powers behind a nation though; the forces of evil that actively resist the word of God, well that’s different all together. Different even then when I speak to my own body or circumstances; something within my own jurisdiction. This is an entirely new league requiring new levels of wisdom, strength and experience.

When something expansive, with originating powers behind it (a nation) gets spoken to and doesn’t like it, well it may just fight back. It may say, ‘Jesus I know, Paul I’ve heard of but (as Jerry savelle said years ago ) who in hell are you?’ And, in that chapter of Acts, one antagonist chased, beat, stripped naked, seven men trying to do well. Hmmmm

I’m certainly not saying don’t pray or prophesy. I’m saying it’s not a game. Climbing up onto a national stage requires a lot of second and third chair work before you should become a proclaimed soloist.

Paul’s context in 1 Corinthians above is speaking in tongues. What I really think is that I need to slowly, cognitively, speak in tongues in the way Paul described in Roman’s 8. That I should sigh and moan until my mind quits wandering and that other Spirit within takes hold, walking me past my own thoughts, values and narrow beliefs and into the place where He can freely; praying through me and drawing pictures in my mind as he does, set the future’s course, employing my own strength and energy to pray, or prophecy, it’s existence.

SPIRITUAL Income

I’ve spent a couple of weeks meditating on ‘rejoice evermore, pray constantly and in everything give thanks.’ I’ve taken it apart, found the same three point pattern of Paul’s thought here also in other scriptures, moved pieces, compared verbs and reassembled it into all sorts of different shapes. In all of that, it still holds together just as it’s written here.

Though it’s not exactly the same word for ‘ceasing’ in the phrase “pray without ceasing” the thought reminded me of Luke 18:1 where Jesus said “men ought always to pray and not FAINT” This word ‘faint’ carries the idea and is translated ‘fail’ in Luke 22 in Jesus’ admonition to Peter in verse 32 that he’d ‘prayed that his faith FAIL not.’ This fainting is apparently more than growing tired. It’s some kind of failure. That’s even worse.

I once heard someone say there was ‘a difference between tired and weary.’ If a person is tired, rest will rejuvenate him.’ If one is weary, he’s broken down and all the rest available can’t restore him into a previous condition.

So, Jesus in the two verses just mentioned, told us that our prayers and our faith can fail and be broken down. That’s a frightening thought. There is hope though.

I’ve noticed at times in my life that I didn’t want to believe any more towards a certain faith goal. It makes it awkward to not believe when you’re surrounded with people who do, and/or who do want to believe. One’s tempted to change his theology a bit to justify his exhaustion.

For example, “ if it’s God’s will, it’ll happen.”

I’ve certainly encountered times that I was weary of praying. Of course I was, I’d ceased- or at least let things I had been carrying fall to the ground and be forgotten. The only reason I know of that I’d do such a thing would be, as Jesus warned of in Luke 18, I’d given up hope of being answered. After all, there’s only so much rejection and disappointment a person can bear.

Wonderfully, the remedy for all this is in the passage concerning Peter’s faith failure in Luke 22. Jesus said ‘and when you are CONVERTED…’ Conversion is the solution and conversion is simply a course reversal. The proverbial 180 degree turn about.

In Peter’s case, that conversion was associated with all sorts of failures within and around him, forcing him to take another look at himself. That still happens today, but thank God there is an easier way.

Jesus called it in another parable ‘sitting down and counting the cost.’ There are times to sit and think before acting any further. Weariness can be overcome but to be overcome it requires more than ceasing from action. It requires renewal.

That renewal takes the shape of making sure one is putting more truth into his soul about whatever he may be believing or praying than he is sending forth into the air around him. Spiritual overdrafts come in different sizes. If my spiritual overdraft has an allowance of 2,000 faith units, putting a 20 unit deposit back during a tv commercial wont change much, quickly. Frankly, a chapter of the Bible a day wont likely do it either.

The more you spend, the greater your income must be. In these days requiring great spending of soul in faith and prayer, I choose to be mindful I need to maintain a pretty large spiritual income.

His workmanship

One of the things that I’ve noticed over my years of service was a bias towards thinking everyone should be like me spiritually. It showed up in me thinking (assuming) if I could do something (teach) anyone could. It was honest hearted cause I didn’t really see anything I did that I thought all that special. I was also inclined to think if something helped me (getting up in the middle of the night to pray?) then getting up in the middle of the night to pray would probably get the same kind of traction for everyone. Again, it was honest hearted because I didn’t really think my prayer life needed to be all that special. No matter my intentions though, I was not completely right in this. Even today I have to remind myself that the two Timothy’s, while good for everyone, were primarily written to a Bishop. If I forget that, I may do something Jesus himself wouldn’t do: burden people with something that it wasn’t their time or weight to carry. All of his disciples have a different relationship with the Lord.

Jesus had Three, whom he invited, brought along to encounters, told secrets and gave select corrections to. He had nine other first tier team members he allowed to watch his interaction with the Three. Sometimes at a bit of a distance.

The other nine first tier leaders, along with the three, were taught the general secrets of the kingdom and were sent to work miracles and preach His message. These twelve constituted those disciples he called and named apostles. But even they weren’t the same.

There were seventy others, disciples but not apostles, he sent out to work miracles and preach his message. He certainly spoke with them but I can’t find any place where he spoke to any one of them individually.

The nine other apostles, plus the seventy non-apostles did not go to secret spiritual encounters, have no recorded individual secrets told them or personal corrections given.

Not all disciples are treated equally. They don’t share the same capacities, qualifications or have the same responsibilities.

What I overlooked was this: Peter, James and John, evidently were able to look to Jesus, get all they needed directly from him and follow without others to help guide them along the way.

The nine, and the seventy, apparently needed to have some human examples to help them figure out their next steps. I realise if pushed too far someone might think I intended to say that none of us could approach Jesus on our own. That is not my point at all. It’s clear from the scriptures that Jesus interacted with everyone equally, just as they came to him. Especially with needs or questions.

What I do mean to say though is that none of us are ever completely free of needing spiritual examples. I also mean to say that for a number of reasons, all of us approach him differently, and that some of us just know how to ask the right questions a little more often than others of us. (For example, you’ll recall the way the remaining disciples followed Peter back into the fishing business in John ch.20. You’ll also remember that Jesus struck right at the heart of the problem by feeding everyone but instructing the ring leader, Peter. Nobody else in the group received a known corrective instruction.)

I don’t think, as a pastor, that my call or responsibilities, make me any more spiritual than anyone else. For all of us, our spirituality is measured rather by how we involve him into and then face our lives.

What I think important as we go on into the future is that we remain vigilant to help others become their best spiritual version and that we don’t insist that it look or that they believe becoming us, and our practices, is the best way to do that. God give us all grace and wisdom!

Prayer

Did you ever notice that Jesus never really taught prayer? He taught and exhorted faith, obedience- righteousness but he never really openly taught prayer.

Don’t misunderstand, he practiced a prayer lifestyle for everyone to see. I think we can assume he wants us all to pray but he addressed it as it naturally came up or he was asked about it.

This makes me wonder if prayer, beyond a need for prayer, can be taught. It seems to me that prayer has to be learned. And that changes the dynamic. The impetus shifts from the teacher’s experience to the student’s need and it’s accompanying hunger.

As it goes, there are so many different important kinds of prayer, all shaped somewhat according to the times and call for every individual’s life. I’m writing here of something different than our shared Godward approaches for needs, fears and help in life. I’m thinking more of that kind of prayer that is required of us all to bring the Kingdom of God into our own, or someone else’s, world.

This kind of prayer, be it intercession for a spared life or the releasing of revelation to expand the kingdom, can’t be taught by any other, any less than the master of prayer Himself, the Holy Spirit.

I think that’s why the approach of the would be Pray-er is the opening move for that great and intimate course to be taught.

“Lord, teach us to pray…”

“….WHEN you pray…”