I'm Undone...Stepping into Brokenness

I'm feeling a bit indifferent to things as I write the blog this week; off the back of a busy weekend there is always a delicate balance with our temperament, emotions, tiredness and our willingness to accommodate new experiences or even tolerate existing situations. There are the day-to-day pressures to do with whether we have enough money before pay day, the issues related to family life and the exchanges that occur within our bubble of reality.

For the Christian, we have the added dimension of grappling with our sense of purpose in the world and the challenge to become more Christ-Like. The problem with this is that as we try to move closer to God in our relationship with him, his light shines onto areas we have tried to keep a lid on, and we become a mess! If you've ever heard someone say come to Christ and all of your troubles will be at an end, then they have sold you an incomplete policy and you should have read the small print.

Our problem is that our desire and our ‘will’ are in conflict with the will of our Father in heaven. It’s the age-old problem that has afflicted civilisation since life emerged from what the scientist amongst us might call the primordial gloop. Recognition of a creator God is the first step towards evolving our attitude towards other sensibilities, rather than our own self-centred nature which would exist even if we rejected God and had, as Darwin would suggest, to survive by being the fittest. I read a quote from a commentator in the news that went a bit like this: ‘I think I know there is a God, I just don’t want to believe in him because it will prevent me from sleeping with whomever I like!’

Research has shown that the ancient Egyptians believed in many gods’ that controlled the various aspects of life: fertility, harvest, water, health, protection, the sun… the Pharaoh himself was also a god who was king. As king, he was able to subjugate people to his will, ask for taxation and in return, makes a promise to care for the people through large public building programmes to promote security, health and sanitation, horticulture and food, and the protection of the people through the mobilisation of an army.

The great civilisations that archaeologists discovered in regions such as Egypt and Mesopotamia, and the study of their cultures, has revealed a types of Kingdom pattern or code, that we still use as the foundational principles for the way we live our ordered lives today. We don’t have any kings that rule over us in quite the same way as the past, with royalty being replaced by an elected government. Nor do many countries have such nationalistic tendencies that the population is subjugated to a set of conditions or behaviour’s that service ruling elite. You can see that in those places where political or religious ideology exists for the subjugation of people, such as in North Korea or Iran, the totalitarian hold that these authorities have over the people, are designed to regulate their behaviour through their autocratic direction over them.

We have been appalled at the treatment of protesters in Turkey recently (June 2013), who feeling powerless in their situation has taken to the streets. What started as an eviction of protestors over the redevelopment of a public park, spilled over into arguments about the freedom of the press, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, and the government's encroachment on Turkey's secularism?

In Brazil (June 2013), one million people have taken to the streets because of an initial change of fares in public transport which would lead to financial difficulties affecting many of the poor that it served. Brazilians have been demanding better health and education services, saying they are fed up with paying relatively high taxes and feel that they do not get enough back from the state. Protesters are also angry about corruption and scornful of politicians.

In the UK, we don’t really demonstrate about many issues related to welfare, but we do protest against injustice and for groups in search of equality. Generally in the western world, un-democratic governments are very alien to our experience; we find it hard to accommodate the principles of their commissioning, and it dictates a lot of the direction for our foreign policies. We have no such restrictions in how we can express our freedom of speech and our free will to do what we wish; to enjoy that which we want to enjoy, and be consumers of our cultural and intellectual achievements. In essence, we have each become our own king and queen… a phrase that we use in the UK is: ‘An Englishman’s home is his castle’. It is very apt at describing how we have retreated into our own sense of individualism.

So when an institution or authority challenges our behaviour, we can become quite anarchic in our approach to their accusation when not previously used to it. Especially when we perceive that we have done nothing wrong because of the values we hold within our own sense of personal integrity; to do the right thing. I have to admit to having been caught speeding twice in my driving career. In the UK we have a 70 mph limit on dual carriage way roads. I was overtaking a slower vehicle and a second car was pursuing me along the road; my speed crept up to 74 mph just as I approached a forward facing camera. The person pursuing me roared off into the distance and I was stuck with a fine.

A second time I was on a visit to my home town of Morecambe. During my youth and early driving career, a local road had a 40 mph speed designation. One October when the clocks had just gone back an hour, I was travelling along this very road back to Southend when I caught-sight of a policeman holding a laser speed measurement gun from the side of the road in a lay bay. I was following a Taxi that was travelling much quicker than I was, and I had been undertaken (illegal in the UK) by a local who clearly thought I was driving too slowly. I was doing 38 mph in what I thought was a 40 mph zone, when in fact the speed had been reduced to 30 mph on the road simply by removing the 40 mph signs! I got done for speeding… my thoughts were: ‘What about the other drivers, did they get caught too? And if they didn't  get done,why have I ‘got-done and they haven’t..?’

When you read through the account of my ‘brush-with-the-law’, you can pick up on my defensive language and my efforts in pointing out the mitigating circumstances that might have led to me being let-off from my offence. But in the eyes of the law, speeding of any form is wrong, hence the ability to enforce speed through the use of a machine, rather than the judgement of a watching human eye. We like to think that we can be our own enforcer of personal standards and I happen to think that I am a pretty good driver with no accidents… so I prefer to believe in my mitigating circumstances more than I want to believe in the rule of law… ‘Who are they to tell me I am wrong?’

I had to take it on the chin… I had made a mistake; I wasn't in receipt of all of the facts; ignorance of the law or an unknown change in the law isn't an excuse for not abiding by it. It is clear from my example that as people we don’t like to be told we are wrong, and we question the judgements past onto us from those in authority. Some people see God in the same way as the enforcer of law, holding a big stick, when we are not certain that we agree with his position on certain aspects of our lives. Others see God similar to the totalitarian state, trying to enforce his own set of values onto our lives by restricting what we can say and do. This is how the Pharaoh sought to control the Egyptians through declaring his status as one of the gods so that he could rule as king.

The church in the past has done a reasonable job of instilling ‘Christian’ moral values onto our increasingly secular society, but more and more, these values are rejected because people have rejected the people that represent these values; people have rejected the moral authority behind them, and in so doing, rejected the author. Just as I can argue mitigating circumstances for the quality of my driving at the time of being caught, we can also argue more difficult and complex situations in life, in the same way. We believe in our own integrity and the level of understanding that we have reached through our education and experience, believing that we have got it all sorted. Saying ‘Sorry!’ as Elton John once sang, is a very hard thing to do because we don’t want to admit that we can make mistakes. There is a mixture of pride and a loss-of-face that as emotional people, we find hard to stomach.

There are many examples where people avoid saying that they ‘got-it-wrong’ preferring instead to believe in their own values and interpretation of their accountability to others rather than consider the consequences of their actions on others… Since ex-US President Bill Clinton’s almost impeachment at his affair with Monica Lewinski, we have developed a unique post-modern view about many aspects of the choices we make, compared to the social etiquette of the past.

For Bill Clinton, it was the issue surrounding what constituted for sex… but we have all developed culturally in the same vein, and are equally implicit with the sorts of decisions we can make when it suits us. When we take something from work because we think they won’t miss it or that they can afford to lose it; when we claim falsely on tax returns, personal expenses or deliberately aim to get something from another through falsehood; or more recently, ask someone else to take our speeding tickets so we can avoid loosing our driving licence… These are just a few areas where our moral compass hasn't always read true-north.

When we become more tolerant of indiscretion, we allow another layer of our moral virtue to evaporate; to become the norm. When these virtues have had a spiritual of Christian basis associated with it, then there appears to have been in the UK at least, a greater enthusiasm to abolish of repeal something that is considered today to be anachronistic. I have already viewed stories of professional Christians having their conduct challenged where their personal view is considered to be contrary to the laws of equality or inclusion. The ‘Same-Sex’ marriage bill has already created a new form of inequality in that those who disagree with the law are unable to express their view in the public setting where they are in the service of an employer.

The Christian world view differs to those of more secular ones, because the source to the understanding of our nature is through our association with a creator God, rather than within our own conscience. Christians do not accept that ‘man’ has the moral authority to determine the direction of our civilised society, because we are all intrinsically broken. What we mean by this is that our core nature is somehow corrupted. We make bad choices in favour of good ones when it suits us to do so… we are damaged by many things in life that cause us to make sometimes irrational, sometimes ‘driven’, and sometimes foolish decisions…  

An expression in use in the English language is; ‘One man’s meat is another man’s poison.' This idiom is used to explain where two people can differ on the simplest of ideas, and yet when we talk about the law, one view is always carried forward as truth through the relegation of some other ideal. This is not a fair basis for governing our lives; we are not the kings and queens of our own destiny. What an inflated opinion of ourselves we must have if we think we are worthy to sit in judgement over others? How have we developed our ability to make judgements over others if we have first not received that authority from a moral source? There is enough inequality in the world to realise that humans in authority, presiding in judgement over others, is not necessarily a fair or just cause.

In a creator God, Christians are able to use a moral code that is devolved not from our own understanding, but from God who is able to make judgements about us and through whom is qualified to define truth from falsehood. We can recognise this due to the Godly code that is woven into the very fabric of society. In return for our faithful obedience to God, he enters into a covenant agreement that was established through father Abram and the nation of Israel, and is gloriously displayed in the life and death of his Son Jesus.

God defines his covenant promise to us as timelessly as the kings of the ancient near eastern cultures did. More spectacular is that when we read through the account of when God rescues his people Israel from the hands of the demi god Pharaoh in Exodus, the story tells of how God first systematically defeats the power of the Egyptian gods by eliminating their influence on the culture, and establishing himself as the one true God against whom all other gods are found to be false. As King, God personally vows to offer us security, provide for our needs, protect us from our enemies, and heal our afflictions, all in return for our worship… it sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

‘So why must I worship God?’ you might say, ‘Who is God that I should do that?’ Well the answer to that question is through his actions. You might counter this statement by asking: ‘What actions has God done in this world to make me believe him?’ The answer is simple: God first chose us… he chose to love us first. ‘How do you know that?’ you might say… well I have only one name for that, Jesus.

We love each other because he loved us first. If someone says, "I love God," but hates a Christian brother or sister, that person is a liar; for if we don't love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see? And he has given us this command: Those who love God must also love their Christian brothers and sisters. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has become a child of God. And everyone who loves the Father loves his children, too. We know we love God's children if we love God and obey his commandments. Loving God means keeping his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome. For every child of God defeats this evil world and we achieve this victory through our faith. 

(1 John 4: 19 – 1 John 5: 4)

In Jesus we have all of the authority and the security we need to recognise truth and righteousness… righteousness is where we strive to be free from doing wrong; to be morally upright. In recognising that we are morally bankrupt, we accept God’s judgement of our present state and enter into a relationship where he teaches us how to live. We cannot achieve righteousness on our own… only Jesus could achieve that. In so doing, Jesus is the doorway through which we enter into God’s grace.

Since we believe human testimony, surely we can believe the greater testimony that comes from God. God has testified about his Son. All who believe in the Son of God know in their hearts that this testimony is true. Those who don't believe this are actually calling God a liar because they don't believe what God has testified about his Son. And this is what God has testified: He has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have God's Son does not have life. 

(1 John 5: 9-12)

So when people ask why they should seek out God, then the answer comes in two forms: ‘What do you see God doing in your life?’ and ‘What do you see God doing in the lives of others?’ We may have had a bad experience of those who say they believe in God and yet do not show it in their actions, but please don’t let their humanity cloud your judgement of who God is. As shown in the first scripture above, Christians are called to love and serve one another because Christ first loved and served us.

Secondly, the answer lies within us. I have to make a choice to observe what God would have me do. I have to accept that I might not be right, and I need to ask Jesus to remove my arrogance and pride and be willing to hear his testimony. I can only do that when I recognise the truth of who Jesus really is, rather than what I may have witnessed through my experiences of church.

We have the reassurance through his grace that he died for this sole purpose, and that this action points to his integrity. This integrity now dwells in my heart through the presence of his Holy Spirit in being a lamp to my feet, pointing out the true pathway for my life amongst all of the hazards that come my way. On this truth, I can truly build my life as he is the chief cornerstone on which we can build: "Together, we are his house, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. And the cornerstone is Christ Jesus himself." (Ephesians 2:20) In order to receive more of his Spirit, I need to enter into a deeper relationship with Jesus, and let him have that part of me that resists. He gently breaks the idols I have set up in my life through his love and his grace; and replaces it through the restoration of my soul that fills me with an eternal joy.

So as I stated in the beginning of this blog, the more that God reveals my brokenness through the work of the Holy Spirit in my life, the more I learn to cling to the cross of Jesus. The result of this encounter is that I can become more ‘real’. I become more real because I put aside my foolishness and seek the reassurance of his mercy towards me. I know that through his care, I will make the right choices that will enable me to do right by people, and right by myself. No longer will I be a slave to my selfish ambition, but be free to do his will, and in so doing, receive the blessings of an eternal Father who has proven his power in the creation of the universe and who has granted me with the gift of an eternal life.

The hard part is always in making that first step towards what you know is right. Often we can get side tracked by the pressure of modern life; the pursuit of wealth or fame; the security of a home and the joy of family; the thirst for knowledge and academic achievement; the charitable work with the poor and needy; and our support of the infirm and the disabled. We cannot earn God’s love by trying to live well by those we see who are in need… All of this is for nothing if we haven’t got the love of Christ alive in our hearts.

 

Whatever it is that you place your trust, how much greater would the blessing be by having the rock of truth to build upon? Take that first step of faith; reach out and claim your inheritance by looking towards Jesus and see what he has done. John the Baptist when he was imprisoned and awaiting the sentence that was to remove his head, sent his disciples to Jesus to ask him if he was the one to come. This is a bit like in the film the Matrix, where Keanu Reeves’ character Nero, is presumed to be a chosen one to lead their civilisation to victory. In the film, Nero goes to seek the wisdom of the oracle, but here in this story of Jesus from Luke’s gospel, Jesus responds to John’s disciples by asking them what they had observed: ‘The disciples of John the Baptist told John about everything Jesus was doing. So John called for two of his disciples, and he sent them to the Lord to ask him, "Are you the Messiah we've been expecting, or should we keep looking for someone else?"

Now you've got to remember, John is Jesus’ cousin. When his mother Elizabeth was visited by Mary, the mother of Jesus, John leapt in his mother’s womb at the presence of Jesus: 'At the sound of Mary's greeting, Elizabeth's child leaped within her, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.’ (Luke 1:41)  Luke wrote this in his gospel because he was a doctor and for him, it revealed who Jesus is. In his gospel, Luke goes on to write: ‘At that very time, Jesus cured many people of their diseases, illnesses, and evil spirits, and he restored sight to many who were blind. Then he told John's disciples, "Go back to John and tell him what you have seen and heard-the blind see the lame walk, the lepers are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is being preached to the poor. And tell him, “God blesses those who do not turn away because of me.” (Luke 7: 18-23)

In recognising that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, we need to repent of the way that we have previously lived, and ask for his forgiveness. We need to stop arrogantly presuming we have learned all that there is to know; we can pilot our own destiny through our own sense of right and wrong programmed into our consciousness, thank you very much! We need to recognise that we do get it wrong, and we are in need of God… and you know, he will be there in an instant, drawing alongside you, bringing comfort, peace and forgiveness. He will put you back on your feet, and show you how to walk in faith.

Only then will you know true peace. Instead of being bound by our broken reality, we can fix our hearts and minds on the promises of the King. One day there will be a new heaven and a new earth. There will be no mourning there, no more tears and no more pain; sickness and death will be banished, and bitterness and hatred will be extinguished; we will receive new bodies and be restored as co-heirs into the kingdom of God. As we pray today, ‘You’re Kingdom Come’, we invite the father into our reality to begin the process of change in this world, for the glory of the next… come be a part of it.

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone. And I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.

I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.”

And the one sitting on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new!” And then he said to me, “Write this down, for what I tell you is trustworthy and true.” And he also said, “It is finished! I am the Alpha and the Omega—the Beginning and the End. To all who are thirsty I will give freely from the springs of the water of life. All who are victorious will inherit all these blessings, and I will be their God, and they will be my children.” (Revelation 21: 1-7)

Life is a Roller Coaster

It’s finally happened. I had notice this week that my position as an Advanced Skills Teacher has been terminated and my employer has no place for me in their new management structure. I had been expecting the judgement for about a year since the government decided to dispense with the pay scale, so it wasn't a complete shock, however I was not perhaps prepared for how I might feel over time.

Emotions can be a bit of a roller coaster ride… mine were fine until I realised that after 20 years in my teaching career, I am right back where I started. Youth, its value in the current economic climate, and the energy that it can bring to teaching, are attractive ingredients compared to my older, more expensive, and more wizened nature!

A time of change can be either unsettling or liberating. I know that God has a plan for my life. It’s just that I can’t quite see what it is yet. So I have to build my faith in the promise that the Lord has a plan for me, and is anxiously seeking to find out how I will respond to his call. So I press on. My first call is to honour God and to honour my employer. If I give in to my emotion, then I could become ineffective and broody. However I cannot neglect the skills that God has given me, or the ambition that lies behind the sense of purpose that led me to the various promotion’s I have received over the years.

I need to learn how to listen to what God is saying to me, and how I might adapt my life to his call. This can be daunting to us when we feel a bit blind, though how we respond to his call and how we place our trust in the direction our lives are heading is important to God. God desires us to seek his face and to identify his plans within our dreams or rather, fit our dreams into his plans. I know that I have always tried to follow Gods pathway for my life, but it has always tended to be more one sided. Now is the time to stop and reflect on what God wants to use me for, rather than the pursuit of God through my own youthful ambition.

As children when we first start to read, we are shown books without words and are encouraged to tell the story seen in the pictures. The idea is that the adults in the relationship with the child look through the pictures together, exploring their imagination with the aim to forge a story from the pages. As we share in the story we are animated by the possibilities and the drama that flows from them; going through increasingly complex scenarios. The adult picks out the features of the pictures that we might have missed, or gives names to the characters or the objects in the scenes. Adults also use their more sophisticated literacy skills to add depth to the story or to enhance the experience.

I like the idea that God does this with each one of us. He births stories in our hearts and our minds so that we can become connected with the world that he wants us involved in… he shares us his heart for HIS world and we catch the dream. In community we build relationship within our Christian fellowships and build accountability and responsibility, as well as the resourcing and pastoral support towards our collective responsibility to reach out to the lost and broken. This is the exciting thing about being in churches that are looking out rather than always looking in-ward.

The child learning to read is now given picture books with words so that the stories we are telling start to have structure… we have listened to the words being spoken and have developed our spoken vocabulary as we have looked at the stories through the images, but now we have words to help us shape the imagined world into the reality of our existence. 

We first see word’s as shape’s and begin to recognise that the shapes put together become sentences. The randomness of those shapes become more and more familiar to the point that we can build our vocabulary and communicate more effectively. I am sure that you have done the activity where you read a sentence that is completely un-organised and random in appearance, yet your brain can process the writing and you can read it perfectly, perhaps with the odd stumble.

God does the same things with each one of us… first giving us the milk, then progressing to the meat… when we can be trusted with a little, we can be trusted with a lot. It can either be exciting or un-nerving when we don’t see the full picture for the direction that our lives are taking, but we also receive little ‘snippets’ of guidance from our own personal reflections when we are studying God in the scriptures, and from those around us that God uses as they walk alongside. God uses many different methods to ‘flesh-out’ our dreams with words and meaning. It can occur through random people and events, as well as the people we know, or it can be spoken over us in prayer when we meet together to share our experiences.

The apostle Paul in his letter to the Hebrews was desperate for us to grow-up in our spiritual walk, but it is easy to dismiss his charge when we are emotionally challenged and seek comfort in more familiar, and perhaps more damaging behaviour. 

"There is much more we would like to say about this, but it is difficult to explain, especially since you are spiritually dull and don’t seem to listen. You have been believers so long now that you ought to be teaching others. Instead, you need someone to teach you again the basic things about God’s word. You are like babies who need milk and cannot eat solid food. For someone who lives on milk is still an infant and doesn't know how to do what is right. Solid food is for those who are mature, who through training have the skill to recognize the difference between right and wrong." (Hebrews 5: 11-14)

It's quite strong wording that Paul uses here, but when our hearts slowly become assured and we are convicted by the truth of what we begin to understand of God’s vision over our lives, we can begin to grow beyond our child-like nature. As we receive more information like the child learning the words to a book, we can understand what God wants to use us for. Only when we are aware that the story of our lives is unfolding as we live it, will we be able to have the clarity to see God’s hand at work. Sometimes we need to do things with our character or in confession, to clear the fog and be able to see God’s spirit at work in each of our lives? However we might being feeling, God is always speaking if we can tune into his wavelength long enough.

The first is in knowing who we are and that we matter to God. If we have not dealt with the baggage that life can bring, then we will be distracted by life and question where things are heading. I am blessed that God has placed a deep assured in my faith to know that my career is not at an end in teaching, but that a new purpose may be being birthed. I have a pretty good idea of what I would like this to be, but I am not sure how to get from here to there. This last statement reveals the battle I am in at the moment. I have to wait patiently for God to reveal his plan's for me, while being alert to the direction my life is taking and in allowing God to take the lead. If I try to push it, I am guaranteed to miss the real fruit that God wants from my life… to die to self is not an easy path to be on, but one we will all revisit as we seek more of Christ in our lives.

We need to maintain a close relationship with God so that he can protect our heart and mind’s in this delicate arrangement of faith, hope and trust. The enemy will be desperate to break anyone who is learning to wait on God’s calling for their lives, and will use many strategies to distract us from the goal that God has for us. We all know of sin in our lives. There is always ‘stuff’ that we cannot break the cycle of. Paul talks about a thorn in the flesh that prevents him from doing certain parts of his ministry. We need to be sure that our own thorn of the flesh is well and truly dealt with.

"So to keep me from becoming proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from becoming proud. Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he said, "My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness." So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me." (2 Corinthians 12: 7-9)

There are many stories of people involved in ministry who fall from grace due to the issues that they had not dealt with in earlier stages. Sometimes waiting on God allows for these issues to surface so that we can excise them… we have to grow like the child learning to read, grappling with putting sounds to vowels and consonants, constructing words with similar sounds but with different meanings, and placing them into sentences. We need to see that there is no ‘I’ in team… we are not an island; there are those out there whose gifting, wisdom, and knowledge can add a distinctive flavour to our ministry that elevates it beyond that which we could dream of independently.

We each have talents that can be brought into use in the kingdom. Often it is not something that you have to learn, but one which complements the range of skills that exist within our communities. Just as we shouldn't wear masks to conceal our personalities and character, as church, we should get good at doing what we are good at. We have just celebrated Father’s Day in the UK, so an idea was floated to give the men, regardless of whether they were a dad or not, a bacon sandwich and a coffee before the service started. Apart from the logistics’ of catering for the predicted numbers of people, it was something the church community could do. For a month, the flyers went out at all of the activities that occurred each week prior to the event, inviting people to bring their Dad to church. It worked: I had never seen so many men at a church service before!

The point I am making is that as we understand God’s call to live righteous lives, in community we stop putting ‘me-first’ and start thinking of others. We learn to weave together the fabric of our fellowship to enable positive growth. We seek to be inclusive and supportive in our shared responsibility to go into the world and proclaim the gospel. Who is to know what will come of the seed that was planted in the hearts of the men who attended the church for Fathers’ Day, but God? Isn't life more exciting when we have shared dreams, opportunity, and purpose?

We could easily sit back as the church with a sense of depression when we look out at the world and see the hardship that people face; the powerless without a champion; that we have somehow forgotten the hope that Jesus placed in our hearts. Jesus is that hope. I cannot begin to fathom how best to help my schizophrenic friend deal with the turmoil he experiences with the panic of anxiety, dysfunctional social interactions, and spates of homelessness. I know that Jesus can. 

All I can do is reveal Jesus in that place. My family and I can be hospitable, providing food, clothing, fellowship, and give support with claiming his benefits, being the practical extensions of expressing our faith, but deep down we know that he just needs Jesus. I know that if I do what Jesus asks me to do, then God will be in that. When the doorbell rings and my inner self says ‘oh – no’, it is God that enters in. God offers us opportunities to express our faith to others... sometimes we just need to have courage that God goes before us into the midst. "Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord will personally go ahead of you. He will be with you; he will neither fail you nor abandon you." (Deuteronomy 31:8)

There are times when the intensity of the support we give to others is overwhelming, and we seek ways-out to avoid doing things or we simply feel ill-equipped… God will be in that to. There have been times in the last month where my family’s support of my friend has become frazzled around the edges. My wife and daughter went off one bank holiday to buy him some trainers as I sat and worked through a condition of his benefit claim. We ate together, shared stories and departed on good terms. By the end of the week, he had thrown the trainers in the bin because he had apparently walked holes in them, much to my daughter’s dismay, and my wife had heard stories of his behaviour with some other vulnerable adults and in his dealings with our storehouse charity shop manager.

The next time he visited, he began to tell a story that was simply untrue about what had gone on. My wife told him straight how she felt about the disrespect she and others felt about his behaviour towards them. My friend was really shocked by this because he had been taking stuff for granted. He had never considered that people may actually love him and feel upset when he appeared to abuse the trust we have placed in him. We then had a long conversation about his behaviour pattern and lifestyle that did result in some positive changes in his regard for the support he is given. You see, he is on a journey, my wife and I are also on a journey with him, and all the other people connected with this man’s life are also on that shared journey... an opportunity to take courage and trust in God.

Jesus talks about this when describing how we should look after the poor. He simply states that in serving all those who are in distress, we are serving him: Matthew 25: 31- 46 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ 

The journey that we make in learning to serve is as equally important as the support we give. It’s about our hearts desire. Learning to give of ourselves is contrary to our world today which is take-take-take. When we serve people, it can feel like the world is taking a lot out of us, but you know, everything we have is the Lords, our money, our health, our possessions even our time. Yes we have to have boundaries and there will always be the poor, children who are locked into abusive or neglected lifestyles, or trafficked people… Our heart though, is in our willingness to help. "You will always have the poor among you, and you can help them whenever you want to. But you will not always have me." The psalms put it like this: ‘The Lord is close to all who call on him, yes, to all who call on him in truth.’ (Psalm 145: 18). So our first call is to follow him: through him we will be equipped to serve.

God’s purpose in choosing Abram, his blessing of a family who became a nation; from its exodus from Egypt, it’s wandering in the desert and its entrance to that Promised Land, God’s purpose has always been to reveal himself to the world. When you look at a map of the location of the Promised Land, you will notice that there is Africa to the south west, Asia to the east and Europe to the North. It is an ideal location from which God could execute his plan to spread his name throughout the nations. From that one place, the most significant story ever told was birthed, and through the release of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, spread out across all of the earth. Acts 17: 27 puts it this way, “His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him though he is not far from any one of us.”

We are part of that plan. We are chosen to reach out and change lives by revealing Jesus to all we meet. It may be that we share a bacon sandwich and get to know each other a little, but the truth of that encounter, the spirit that burns in the lives of each one of us who knows Jesus, is to tell his story.

As I wait for the next chapter in my life, I need to thank God for all that I am. Without him, life would be meaningless because in death, no earthly possession has any purpose. But still knowing all this, I am feeling a little depressed today. A mixture of tiredness and mixed emotions regarding my working life; dealing with colleagues has got a little harder because I am not as confident as I once was before my demotion. I have begun to doubt the validity of my experience and also the depth of my knowledge in thinking through strategy. I know that God is with me and wants to work me through what he is teaching me at this time, but I still have to deal with the emotions. Psalm 34:18 puts it like this: ‘The Lord is close to the broken hearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed.’

If we depend purely on our emotions, then our faith is tested by how we feel rather than what we know to be true. Just like the child learning to read, we slowly build up our understanding of truth through experience and practice. When we learn to read, we gradually build up our vocabulary and our literacy expertise when building sentences and reading for longer moments. It’s funny that we go from learning by reading out loud, to one where we are able to read in our head. When we are new Christians we can also be a bit noisy when we are learning about God… it’s exciting. When we encounter the kingdom by the invitation of the king, the wonder of it all can be kind-of overwhelming.

As we grow-up, if ever we do, we start to make connections in our hearts and cement truth in our understanding of how God works with us. We can recognise the peaks and troughs of life and learn to ride the coaster… Paul tells us to consider it ‘Pure Joy’ to suffer trials in his letter to James 1: 2-4 “Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.” 

God knows what we experience and how we can endure it so that we will not fail.

Jesus talks about this in Luke 15 by telling three parables; a short story of how God searches for all of us, and that heaven rejoices when we chose him. The first is of a shepherd who having noticed one of the sheep to be missing, secures the flock, then goes in search for the lost sheep. The second is of the treasure we find in learning to follow God’s will for us rather than our own and the third, which is my favourite of the three, of the lost son who returns to an expectant father. The father is described as being benevolent in dealing with his son’s desire to claim his inheritance and leave, showing a wilful disregard for any sense of loyalty to him.

Yet knowing that the son may suffer uncertainty and perhaps put his life at risk, the father does not stand in his way but is always watching, and always hoping for his son’s return. When the son comes to his senses, he finds his father running to his aid, embracing him, and restoring him to his rightful place as son and heir. These are the stories that I like to read about my father… I know that I just need to turn about and he will be watching and waiting to offer the support that only a father can.

“So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly father give good gifts to those who ask him?” (Matthew 7:11)

I hope that you will take the time to turn about and seek him out.

Then Horses went Riding by...

Life is distracting. We can be full of something one moment, and then we can feel a bit empty in the next. We struggle to maintain an even keel at the best of times, blowing hot and cold; becoming lukewarm in our approach to life and ultimately, to God. We can often breathe a collective sigh when things happen to us such as in our working patterns becoming strained or when the boundaries of friendships are stretched. We get home at the end of a week and feel shattered; physically, mentally and emotionally.

Some are able to live in the expectation of a future event: a night out; meeting friends; sharing a meal; watching that movie we’d been waiting for; going to the pub and onto a club afterwards for a good boogie. Longer term dreams are for that sunshine holiday expedition or the expectation of a pay-raise that might enable us to make that larger purchase you have always wanted, but never thought was possible.

Even these memories can fade quite quickly. In our western culture particularly in the UK, we expect a lot. Fashion and advertising bombards our consciousness to the point that we get bored with perfectly functioning products and covet new ones… mobile phones being the ultimate expression of this. In the UK, we get tied into a mobile-phone contract for 24mths. Just as you start the contract, you see advertised that new model of phone, making your model look obsolete.

You know, we can do the same with our faith in God. I know that I have seasons of going good with God, and seasons where I feel a bit dry. When I look at my experiences of life and the commitment I am willing to make in serving God in church and in my workplace, not too much has changed. But I can still feel like I’ve run out of steam, or that something is missing. Then I recognise it is me... I have changed. I have allowed my mood, my tiredness and the busyness of life, to prevent me from placing quality devotional time with the one who has rescued me from all this stuff!

So why is life so cyclical? Why do I return to that same old place of quiet despairing? Where is my energy to press in when times get harder? People can see the same types of pattern in the world: Wars and rumour of war; natural disasters; disease and sickness; poverty and hunger… Where is God in all of this? 

We have looked at this issue in a previous blog so do not want to dwell too much on this here, but we cannot escape the fact that our emotions respond to the flow of life. If we depend purely on our emotion and neglect our rationality and common sense, we can get side tracked by the passing horses, preferring to hitch a ride to a new destination, when the horse we were on, was perfectly suited to our future hopes and expectations, if only we had persevered.

I have spoken before of my brush with cancer after finding a malignant melanoma and how it could be easy to blame God for something happening to me that I couldn’t control; however I do not know the depths and courage that people need to draw from to withstand the chemotherapy process. This treatment is so invasive that it kills the healthy cells of our immune system as well as the bad, in order to eradicate any chance that the un-healthy cells might return. There are those that will want to blame God for these types of medical predicament's, almost as though it confirms the suspicions they had made about him in the first place.

In reality, our bodies are in a constant state of regeneration. Our cells age as we do, and they begin to fail with the passage of time or mutate due to the level of toxins we have absorbed in our bodies. We are told that our DNA can have identifiable markers that indicate the risk we have towards contracting many different illnesses; our health reflecting what is within. Christians live with the reality of death, the threat of long term illness and the inequality caused in the world, alongside those that have no faith. The difference for Christians is that through Jesus, we recognise that this world is broken and we live in hope for that which is to come. God encourages us to pray that his kingdom come, and that his will be done, no matter what troubles we may face.

This rather old but great song from Andy Williams, (have a look on YouTube) and sung by many including Frank Sinatra, sums up how we can strive for that which might seem too hard to grasp:

To dream the impossible dream,

To fight the unbeatable foe,
To bear with unbearable sorrow,

To run where the brave dare not go
To right the un-right able wrong,

To love pure and chaste from afar
To try when your arms are too weary,

To reach the unreachable star

This is my quest, to follow that star,

No matter how hopeless, no matter how far
To fight for the right, without question or pause
To be willing to march into hell, for that heavenly cause
And I know, If I'll only be true, to this glorious quest

And the world will be better for this
That one man, scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star

Through Jesus we know that God isn’t the unreachable star, but that he is within our grasp; we can wrestle with day to day fears and may feel that he is being distant but in reality, he always draws closer in times of suffering. We don’t deserve to have this closeness to God, but our access to him was bought at a great price. As it says in the final verse of the song: ‘And the world will be better for this; that one man (Jesus), scorned and covered with scars; still strove with his last ounce of courage…’ We already know the ending to the greatest story ever told; God came as a child to redeem the world of its sin – to beat OUR unbeatable foe; to bear OUR unbearable sorrow; to go where the brave dare not go… my GOD did this for me.

It is only natural to struggle with dealing with illnesses such as cancer, but this struggle is also emulated in our spiritual lives too. If I fill my mind with day-to-day ‘life’ stuff, I begin to model the ‘life’ I am living. Just as cancer cells mutate when dysfunctional, I have to recognise that unhealthy acts will lead to dysfunctional living. I have to be aware that some aspects of life can be healthy for me, and others are not so… For example, if I don’t reject pornography, I will allow that aspect of sexual expression to impress upon my character and in doing so ruin the purity of the real relationship I have with my wife. If I give in to my sweet tooth and indulge in excess without exercising and eating healthily in between, then my body shape will reflect that… as it does!

In computer studies we use the phrase: ‘Garbage in, Garbage out!’ It refers to the idea that the computer is just a ‘processor’. It cannot think for itself and does what it is told to do. If the programming is wrong, then the processor will not work correctly, and the computer will perform random functions we did not want... It cannot think for itself and detect problems. Similarly, we might think that we have developed the correct software to run our computer, but it can become corrupted by the user. It may simply be the case that we didn’t have the capacity to think through all of the possible combinations to the action requested of the software. Life can be like this… we simply do not have all of the facts to make informed decisions or contemplate all of the consequences. We take risks… we get hurt... it's painful.

This is how some people view God. People may not believe in God as a creator, but if there is a God, they do believe that somewhere in the programme of creation, something has gone wrong… Some might even add that God doesn’t seem interested in helping fix the problem. It is important however to make a distinction between the limitations in our understanding of life-as we-know-it, and the breadth of what we believe God can do. So is our God still too small?

So who is the God that you believe in? What has led you to make the assumptions you have reached in your determination of how God works? How do those assumptions limit what you believe or expect God to do in his world? The Bible talks about God being King, and as his people, we are his subjects… this needs some explaining.

In the UK, we still have a monarchy that commissions an elected government. Many of us in the UK believe that this is an effective system to prevent the domination of an autocratic leader who has full authority to over-ride the will of others. We favour an egalitarian ideal under a symbolic monarchy where political, economic, social and civil

rights are equally accepted cornerstones to civilisation. We have the democratic process so that in electing a member of parliament, we have been involved in choosing someone to represent the wishes of the community. As voters, we are charged with reading the manifesto of those that pledge to serve our communities, and sign-up to the best fit.

Over time however, we get disenfranchised by the promises of these political leaders and demand change. When no political party can fulfil the needs of the people, we either stop voting or we vote for the political party, rather than the person standing to represent us. This is a common problem in the UK simply because people have become apathetic towards the political system. People do not always feel that their opinion has a voice. To put it more clearly, people distrust the promise of the life-chances implied in the pledges that our political leaders make; they fail to match-up to our reality. Don’t we sometimes view God and his Son Jesus in similar ways?

In the UK, the Queen has sovereignty in name only, representing the wishes of the state and its people, yet wielding little power to make law. Those that see through this arrangement would prefer a truly democratic presidential system and would happily de-value the historicity of the Royal family, and relegate them as a side-show to the main political agenda. The question to ask therefore is whether we believe that God has sovereignty over our lives?

In both positions, the Royal family represented in the UK by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, becomes a pale reflection of the status the Royal family once held as ruling elite. This type of tokenism can become unpalatable at times, particularly in the UK where recent history regarding the popularity and relevance of the Royal family in dealing with major public events, is challenged. At the moment, there is high regard for the pomp and ceremony surrounding the recent 2012 Olympics, and the Diamond Jubilee celebrating 60 years of Her Majesty’s reign. Jesus, by the way, will reign on his throne for eternity…

So when we hear that God is King, we can reflect on the type of experience that we have of knowing a king or queen in the country that we live. If we view God in the same way, we will fail to understand God as our King. If we try to draw comparisons and make judgements about God’s effectiveness as king, we might feel that he fall’s short… where is God with all of this suffering going on in the world? If our perception of earthly kings and queens is of a token monarchy, then we are in danger of placing God on his throne with similar perceptions. We will have completely misunderstood what having a King really means, and it may be why we might question the relevance of God today.

If we believe that God as King is sovereign, do we believe that the earth he created is his kingdom, and that he sits on his throne where he is able to deliver justice? Do we believe that God has the ultimate authority to make judgements about our lives? Are we simply subjects to a heavenly king?

If we understand that God is King, we will demonstrate this in our lives and the choices we want to make… If I believe that God is King in my life, I would follow his commandments and choose against breaking them. For example, if I know that the King tells me to avoid lusting after another person because he has told me that this type of behaviour is un-holy… then if I go ahead and break this rule, my position dishonours the King whom I serve. It would signal to the King that I reject his governance of my life and wish to choose to do my own thing. Are we also like this with God?

If we can begin to understand who God is as King of our lives, and accept that he needs to be central to our faith, we can build our confidence in his justice over us, and have the freedom to live out our lives within his grace and favour. God as King reveals himself to us through Jesus. I have never met a King, neither have I even set eyes on the Queen even though I was born in the UK and have lived here for 42 years! Yet God as King chooses to reveal himself to me. If I was to meet the Queen, she would expect me to show courtesy by bowing in her presence. As her subject, I am obligated to recognise her moral authority over my life as leader of the nation, and bow in her presence. How much more should I be doing for my God and King?

In the Old Testament, David knew how to respond when he met King Saul. Knowing Saul had become jealous of his status as a defender of the people and one who was seen to have been blessed by Yahweh, he would first bow to the king, then fall prostrate on the floor in the dust at the feet of his leader. Our response to God as King in our lives is a window into our hearts and minds as we approach him. If we use the take-it-or-leave-it approach that UK citizens might have regarding Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, then we will fail to understand how blessed we are by God revealing himself to us. Our response should be to fall prostrate before him… Would we even consider that?

I grew up in the Anglican Church where it is familiar to kneel in prayer; a reflection of who Jesus is as King… it’s amazing how quickly we are put off with all the getting up and sitting down! I was an altar boy whose purpose was to serve the priest in preparing the sacraments for the Eucharist… the point in the service where we remember the significance of what Jesus did through his death and resurrection. 

I always feel a kind of quiet reverence in the sanctuary of these types of churches due to a deep sense of respect in the tradition of the service that takes place there; the numbers of people who have worshipped in that same place over the centuries; and in remembering the sacrificial death of the king, reflecting on my standing as I ponder his presence in the sanctuary, fills me with wonder and awe.  

The Anglican Church floor-layout models that of details for the Tabernacle found in the Old Testament. In the Tabernacle, there was an outer courtyard where people could enter to leave their offering with the priest. There was an inner courtyard that only the priest could enter, and within that, the Holy of Holies that stored the Ark of the Covenant. A curtain divided people from the inner sanctuary and the Holy-of-Holies that contained the Ark of the Covenant, to protect them from the consequences of their and our sin: death 

The Ark of the Covenant contained the treaty that held the law. The law set out the relationship between God the king and his people; Israel. The Law of God – the Ten Commandments, was written on tablets of stone, and given to Moses on the Mountain of Sinai. The Holy of Holies is the place that God dwelt in the Tabernacle, and is symbolized in the sanctuary of the Anglican church design. Jesus reign's as King through his death and resurrection, which we celebrate as we kneel before him at the altar rail. As we take communion, we receive freely, the gift of salvation... Hallelujah!

God was visible to the people in their understanding of the Law, and by witnessing the acts of God in the protection of his people. He had already rescued them out of the slavery of Egypt; and he was about to give the people the land promised to Abraham. If we go back a bit in history, God first promised the land to Abraham for his faithful obedience to God. He promised him descendants as numerous as the stars; and that he will be the father of a Holy nation and a Royal priesthood. With the Ten Commandments, God tells Moses to instruct the people in how they should enter this Promised Land as the descendants of Abraham and as the people of God.

God honours his promise as protector of the people for obedience in following the Law. The King himself will protect the nation from all of its enemies, bringing peace to the land, and all who follow him.

Let me say that again: Moses instructs the people in how to worship God as King; and in response to that, the King will honour the people by keeping his promise to Abraham. When was the last time you considered a King honouring his subjects? In the UK, the Queen honours people who have served the nation with a variety of medals of honour such as the OBE or a knighthood. In Jesus we are not only honoured, but are co-heirs through our faithful obedience in doing his will. However, Jesus came to fulfil the law because the law in itself was not enough:

"Don't misunderstand why I have come. I did not come to abolish the Law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to accomplish their purpose. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not even the smallest detail of God's law will disappear until its purpose is achieved. So if you ignore the least commandment and teach others to do the same, you will be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. But anyone who obeys God's laws and teaches them will be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven.”(Matthew 5: 17)

Humanity is unable to keep the whole law as is evident through the historical writings of the people of Israel. The people simply kept forgetting that Yahweh was King; every time they forgot; they broke the treaty between God and his people, so he was unable to protect them from their enemies… This isn’t because God was negligent or unloving, but because perfect love cannot allow sin to corrupt that which is pure. Parent’s discipline their children in the same way today… they offer unconditional love to their children knowing they will make mistakes. It’s how we deal with the punishment and overcome these failures that define us.

As children, we accept our parent’s correction because we know they want the best for us and that they are our greatest supporters. God through his spirit gently reminds me of my sin because he loves me and wants me to be rid of it! I am aware that he knows what is harmful to me because it was God who wrote the law on the tablets of stone, and it was God who instructed Moses on what the law should contain in the first place!

The writer of 1 John 4:17 can say it far better than I can:

And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the Day of Judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world. Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love.

As we share in the ‘Lords Supper’, we remember what God through his Son Jesus, has done for each one of us. The High Priests in worshiping Yahweh in the Tabernacle at the time of Moses, encountered God through making offerings to Yahweh as King. As Christ is King, we now echo that worship with our very lives. We know that our King Jesus became the ultimate and final sacrifice to end all other sacrifices for our redemption, or to put it more simply, the payment of the ransom that had been placed on my head as a result of my sin was paid by Jesus in full.

Jesus as King has authority to dispense justice, and to pardon sin. He forgives us for the wrong that we are accountable for because he paid for it by his own blood. By owning up and confessing our sin, in repentance, we turn away from our selfish life to become selfless for him. Only Jesus can remove the punishment associated with that sin, by showing us his Grace and his favour. Isn’t that awesome!

But Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. When he was hung on the cross, he took upon himself the curse for our wrongdoing. For it is written in the Scriptures, "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree." (Galatians 3:13)

When we are asking the question, where is God today, we need to be looking not at the world and all of its problems, nor should we even make judgements about God for not meeting our expectations. But rather, we should recognise that our feelings towards God are tempered by our mistrust of who he is. God is powerfully and actively at work in his world. I have seen it. Some cannot handle the truth about God and squirm this way-and-that to avoid the gaze of the King. Yet in our rejection of him, he is still reaching out. Some underestimate the power of our supernatural God through the work of the Holy Spirit. This is his world; he made it; and has made a covenant to bless it through Abraham. Some try to rationalise their view of how God works through what they believe is possible, perceiving God to be powerless today. We only need to look to Jesus to see the untruth of these world views.

If we choose to put other things in our lives in place of God, then we will not have a full relationship with God as we tend to worship what we place our interests in. If we live in-the-moment and crave the experiential, pursuing the feeling we get from following after the next new ‘trend’, then we will never settle. We will condition our minds and characters to only recognise contentment through short term ‘fixes’ that have no depth or sense of purpose. When these transient things fail, we can be so determined in our resolve to re-boot these experience’s that we can lose our sense of our immediate reality because it is ‘kind-of boring’.

When things such as our career or the pursuit of money or social standing distracts us from serving the King, we develop a take-it-or leave-it mentality: “I’m not feeling God right now”, “I’m not getting much out of the church services” or “I’m not sure what direction my life is going in right now”, or “I’m still trying to understand where God fits in to all of this…” we lose sight of the reality that God has for us, in favour of our own sense of purpose; we forget the inheritance that we will receive as co-heirs with Christ the King.

God is not at all like this. He established 10 simple laws that help us set our moral compass to ready… ready to do God’s will and not to follow the desire of our own heart. If we recognise God at work in us, our ‘will’ will be reconciled to his, and we will be one with God in both our sense of purpose and in our outlook.

The first law of the King involves our worship of the one true God… the King of kings and Lord of lords. If we have installed other ‘gods’ in our lives, then we need to learn that as King, God wants to have ALL of us. If our God is indeed too small in our world view, then we need to re-evaluate our perspective. The 10 commandments set out the covenant that God has made with us. They teach us how God understands our nature, but more importantly how as King, he will make judgements against us.

² “I am the Lord your God who rescued you from the land of Egypt, the place of your slavery.

³ “You must not have any other god but me.

⁴ “You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind or an image of anything in the heavens or on the earth or in the sea. ⁵ You must not bow down to them or worship them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God who will not tolerate your affection for any other gods. I lay the sins of the parents upon their children; the entire family is affected—even children in the third and fourth generations of those who reject me. ⁶ But I lavish unfailing love for a thousand generations on those who love me and obey my commands.

⁷ “You must not misuse the name of the Lord your God. The Lord will not let you go unpunished if you misuse his name.

⁸ “Remember to observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. ⁹ You have six days each week for your ordinary work, ¹⁰ but the seventh day is a Sabbath day of rest dedicated to the Lord your God. On that day no one in your household may do any work. This includes you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, your livestock, and any foreigners living among you. ¹¹ For in six days the Lord made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and everything in them; but on the seventh day he rested. That is why the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy.

¹² “Honour your father and mother. Then you will live a long, full life in the land the Lord your God is giving you.

¹³ “You must not murder.

¹⁴ “You must not commit adultery.

¹⁵ “You must not steal.
¹⁶ “You must not testify falsely against your neighbour.

¹⁷ “You must not covet your neighbour’s house. You must not covet your neighbour’s wife, male or female servant, ox or donkey, or anything else that belongs to your neighbour.”

As Christian men and women, we are held accountable to these laws so that we reveal the glory of God to all of the nations and all of the people within them that would otherwise reject God as King. If the world held to these 10 simple rules, then society would be a different place. Advertising for example, depends completely on us breaking the command in verse 17: “You must not covet your neighbour’s house. You must not covet your neighbour’s wife, male or female servant, ox or donkey, or anything else that belongs to your neighbour.” It’s because we covet new possessions and aspire to new experiences, that some people develop a deep dissatisfaction with the world, and seek to gain what they don’t have or can’t have through illicit means. Or maybe like me, who has two phone contracts because I wanted a particular design of handset, we stretch our resources, either financially, physically, socially, emotionally or spiritually further than we should.

It is our responsibility to seek the heart of God, as set out in the earlier commandments: to worship him only; to have no idol’s in our lives that takes our attention from God; to declare the name of God as Holy and to be careful with our language; and to keep the Sabbath day Holy so that we can rest and seek God in that time. Then we have the standards that govern our conduct in life: Don’t disrespect you family; don’t murder or steal (murder steals a life and robs people of their relationships born out of the fruit of the life lived); do not take anything that doesn’t belong to you, be it a person’s wife or their possession’s; and don’t even spend time dreaming about owning what isn’t yours as this can corrupt your mind.

My grand-dad used to have a barometer on his wall. It is a simple device for measuring air-pressure. You could determine the weather pattern for the day based on the part of the dial the pointer points to. The dial had been calibrated to identify that high pressure can lead to clear skies and low pressure results in cloud and rain. When you first look at the dial, it will read what the weather ‘used’ to be, rather than what it actually was that day. A good tap on the glass would adjust the needle to the correct reading. You would then look outside the window and check the reading with the weather you were experiencing. It helped to confirm the information you had, so that you could take part in that great British tradition, talking about the weather! More importantly, by checking the weather, you could check whether you could go out in shorts, or whether you need an umbrella.

We need to take a look at the barometer of our lives, giving it a tap to see whether we are still heading in the right direction… We can start this by making Jesus King in our lives. We need to use the forecast we read, to turn-about into the wind of God’s Holy Spirit, so that our sails will be full and our direction secure. If our dial is still pointing to how we used to be, rather than where we are spiritually at today, we might be surprised to find that we have wandered away from God. Unless we keep checking our dials hourly, daily, we may become unaware that the truth we were once secure in, had migrated to one where we respond to our emotions and how we feel about things… calibrating our lives to suit our own truth, rather than that revealed by God in his word, the Bible, and through our experience of him. This is a recipe for a stormy sea. (Jesus can walk on water too)

When we have become distant from what God intended for us… we might feel that God is absent from us when in fact, it is us that has moved into the shallow water; out of the depths of his love. Sometimes when we do an audit like this on our lives, we can find that we’ve backed the wrong horse… we may have been certain of the odds at one time or another, or even spread our bets to make certain that we might get some winnings at least, but time can reveal that we never made the correct bet in the first place.

I appeal to you today to turn about and see the Christ for who he really is:

 The people who walk in darkness will see a great light.

For those who live in a land of deep darkness, a light will shine.

You will enlarge the nation of Israel, and its people will rejoice.

They will rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest and like warriors dividing the plunder. For you will break the yoke of their slavery and lift the heavy burden from their shoulders. You will break the oppressor’s rod, just as you did when you destroyed the army of Midian. The boots of the warrior and the uniforms blood-stained by war will all be burned. They will be fuel for the fire.

For a child is born to us, a son is given to us. The government will rest on his shoulders. And he will be called: Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace. His government and its peace will never end.

He will rule with fairness and justice from the throne of his ancestor David for all eternity.

(Isaiah 9: 2-7)

Put King Jesus at the centre of your life, and you will never be the same person again.