An Overflowing Cup With a Hole

Had an interesting vision today.

I saw a cup with a hole in the bottom, and I saw what can only be described as “blessings” falling from Heaven, into the cup and right through the bottom.

Then I saw two hands held up, cupped together – like you would do to take a drink – only the fingers were spread apart. Again, blessings from Heaven, falling straight through the hands.

I felt the message was pretty straight forward.

There are people who pray for things to happen in life, in their life, in the lives of those around them, maybe praying for a financial blessing, maybe health, I don’t know. But their hearts are not positioned properly to receive what they are asking for, maybe through sin, maybe through habit, or maybe through religion or even just a lack of expectation. When the answer comes, it is being ignored or forgotten – slipping through the fingers – and maybe not even remembered until it hits the ground.

God the FATHER!

Isn’t it exciting how God reveals His character?

Well, I think so.

I’ve been thinking these past few days about God as the Father and what that really means. It’s great!

I’m blessed enough to have a dad who is a decent role model. Bizarrely I was watching a Christmas movie (I know, it’s March already!) when I was thinking about him. See, my dad at Christmas is pretty funny. He doesn’t really care about gifts, or food (though the rest of the year, he cares about food!) – what he really wants most of all is a giant hug and to spend time with his family.

I think that’s great, I really do.  I reckon God’s like that too. He made us in His image, then came down to spend money on us, lavish us with gifts – NO, He came down to WALK with Adam in the garden. So is the most precious thing we can do with Him (and each other) spending time with Him?

The most important gift He gave us was time. Think about it. You can always earn more money, though certainly He enjoys blessing us. You could live for eternity and still be earning more money. You can always get a new job. You can always go on another holiday, etc etc.

The only gift from God that will ever run out is time. We can stretch it, but eventually it goes. It’s the most important expendable gift we have.

And I reckon that God will rank it above a lot of stuff on the Day of Judgement.

So often the emphasis in church is on being faithful with giving, serving, social action, the church family, and so on. And that’s important.

But not as important as getting to know the God who provides it all. And who, as the Father, just wants to spend time with His children.

Jesus, Calmer of Storms

“On that day, when evening came, He said to them, “Let us go over to the other side.” Leaving the crowd, they took Him along with them in the boat, just as He was; and other boats were with Him. And there arose a fierce gale of wind, and the waves were breaking over the boat so much that the boat was already filling up. Jesus Himself was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke Him and said to Him, “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?” And He got up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Hush, be still.” And the wind died down and it became perfectly calm.

And He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

They became very much afraid and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?” “[Mark 4:35-41]

 

I absolutely love this scripture. As a historical record, it’s interesting enough – another source of amazement for the disciples and, on reflection, us as well.

But it’s what it says about Jesus’ nature that I really love. His disciples run to him, terrified that they are “perishing”, and His first reaction is to stand up and calm the storm around them. Then, after they know they’re safe, He turns to them and teaches them their lesson.

What if Jesus stood up and yelled at them before calming the storm? Would they have taken His thoughts on board? Would they have thought of Him in the same way?

I don’t think so.

I love the fact that Jesus calms storms.

Recently in the UK, we’ve been having some pretty bad weather. Or at least, the part of the UK that is totally unprepared for snow has. On the TV and radio, we hear a lot about the people who have suffered most, losing homes and in a few cases, lives.

These are tragic events, and it got me thinking about all the other storms that don’t make the news.

The kind of storm Jesus really came to settle. Those spiritual and emotional storms that eat people’s lives from the inside out.

God, stir us up to a passion to see storms calmed in those around us!

God Isn’t Interested In Guilt

So my blog’s been empty for a while and when I have found the time or inclination to post in it recently, it’s been a bit of a struggle.

I’ve been reflecting on the way I’ve been feeling, and getting stuck into the word a bit, looking at the life of King David, the “man after God’s own heart” and one of the heroes of faith listed in Hebrews 11.

The more I read about him, the more I realise he’s not only a man after God’s own heart, he’s also one of the biggest screwups around. Let’s look at it: when times were bad for him, he had a nation chasing him and a bounty on his head, lost his job, his wife and his closest advisor within a few days, ran away to the one city he should never have gone to (Goliath’s home) for refuge, and then finally lost his dignity when he had to feign insanity. Then he ran off and lived in a cave. And through it all, God was with him, and he was close to God.

Then it got easy, or easier, because David eventually became King over Israel and Judah, had some generals to fight his battles, and was generally a decent guy.

Then what happened?

David, who lived in close communion with the Lord, looked on a woman as she was bathing, lusted for her – and gave in. He had her husband, one of the Thirty Mighty Men, carry his own death sentence to the general in charge of his armies, and sacrificed thousands of men in a bloody rout to have Uriah killed. His betrayal was great: Uriah was one of the men who had stood by him when he had nothing, hiding in the cave from Saul.

There is some evidence to suggest he didn’t make much effort as a parent either. One of his sons (Absalom) rebelled against him after murdering his brother (Amnon), who had raped his sister (Tamar). Absalom had himself crowned King, and the resulting war cost tens of thousands of lives. Then, later, Adonijah did exactly the same thing.

Maybe he had other, more kingly things to do. Either way, the story cries out about ignorance, at best.

But here’s the interesting bit. David was a prolific writer of psalms, and he comes up with another one in 2 Samuel 22, which is enormous and makes this fantastic claim:-

” I have kept the ways of the Lord; I have not turned away from God to follow evil. For all His laws are constantly before me; I have never abandoned His principles. I am blameless before God; I have kept myself from sin.”

Was he a fool? Or was he right.

Here’s what I think: the bible is full of men like David. Heroes, some, and others not so much. Moses, Jeremiah, Paul, Peter, a couple of examples either side of David.

They all knew about repentance.

David was totally on fire for God. He’s the only man in the bible who God describes as a “man after God’s own heart”. But, like his son after him, he fell into bad habits and completely messed it up.

But David, feeling guilty, repented. We can see that in Psalm 51. Then he stopped being guilty and got on with his life.

Peter, feeling devastated, had the privilege to be forgiven by Jesus, face to face. In later years he didn’t let himself get dragged down by immense guilt – but he did remember the past and the lessons he learned first-hand are laced throughout his letters.

For me, recently I’ve been feeling pretty guilty. Am I worthy? Never. But Jesus is, and he stands in the gap for me. How do you step from burning with passion for God and His ways to being normal? You take your foot off the gas.

How do you step back again?

You stop feeling sorry for yourself, and remember the God has never, ever been about making you feel guilty. And He’s always, always been about repentance, and running to you with open arms. And then you get convicted, get repented, and get moving.

When It Gets Hard

God, I’m desperate for You. I’m desperate to know I’m worth Jesus taking the cross. I’m desperate to know Your love like I used to.

I’m desperate for You to take me away from the way I live and into the way You want me to.

Be the air I breathe.

Be the reason I live.

Be my hope.

Be my life.

On Unity

Been wondering recently about Jesus sending out his disciples in pairs. Did he consider that one would protect the other, or that two together would discourage attacks on the roads? In Luke 10 he seems fairly terrified that they’re going to get hurt.

I thought that he sent them out for those reasons, but also one more, really important reason that isn’t said in the gospels. I think that Jesus sent them out in pairs because two, united in faith, could achieve much more than either of them could on their own.

I started thinking about the times in the New Testament where one disciple fails – what would have happened if they’d always moved in pairs?

• Would Judas have sold out, if two were entrusted to looking after the finances instead of one?

• Would Peter have sunk if the other disciples had gotten out of the boat?

• Would Peter have denied Jesus if another disciple had been with him?

What about their successes? If Jesus had sent them out on their own, would they have returned to him with joy saying “Lord, even the demons obey us when we command them in your name!”? Would Peter have been able to make his great speeches in Acts 2 and 4 if the others hadn’t been with him? Would Stephen have been able to give his life for his cause if he hadn’t known there were others like-minded who believed what he did and were praying for him?

Would you? Could you believe when no-one else did? Have faith to see miracles no-one else expected?

I don’t think I would.

Then there’s the community. Acts 2:43-47 details how the believers met in community with eachother, and grew in faith through praise – and were looked on in favour, presumably because of the openness and integrity with which they conducted their lives and their community.

Then there’s this: Paul describes in 1 Cor 12:4-7 the part that everyone had to play in the church – “a spiritual gift is given to each of us as a means of helping the entire church.”

In 1 Cor 12:12-31 he talks about those gifts and the body of Christ as body parts: vs 21 says “the eye can never say to the hand ‘I don’t need you.’” The head can’t say to the feet ‘I don’t need you’. Neither, then, can the hand deny itself to the rest of the body.

If the hand denied itself to the rest of the body – could the body function as well without it? Would the body function properly even if it was missing a little toe? I’m no expert, but I imagine the entire rest of the body would have to work harder to keep its balance – and strangely this happens all the time! In every church I’ve seen, maybe 20% of the people do 80% of the work: one church I was once in when I was younger that percentage was more like 5% of the people did 95% of the work.

Too many people today seem to think that if they bring their money to the church, they need do no more. yet Paul said everyone has a spiritual gift to bring to the body – and as far as I’m aware, although it is necessary, money is not a spiritual gift! So are people ignorant, thinking that the church doesn’t need their supply to function properly, or are they arrogant, thinking that they don’t need the church to function properly – a problem that, again, seems all too common! Yet we also know that a hand that cuts itself off from its body will quickly be drained of the blood it needs to stay alive.

Here’s the cruel, horrific truth of it. Without everyone’s supply in the church as a worldwide body, people are dying hell-bound who should be heaven-bound. People are suffering from bad health who should be healed. People are in poverty who should be living a normal life. Christians who do step up are burning out because they’re taking on tasks and responsibilities they were never called to do – because the people called to do it are ignoring the call!

It is essential that we as a worldwide church step up to what God calls us, uniting our faith and our communities, and catch God’s vision for the world in which we live. Sooner, rather than later. Because later might be too late for some.

Faith

I’ve been wondering recently about faith, and what it is to act on faith.

John Ortberg a few years ago wrote an excellent book on the subject – “if you want to walk on water you’ve got to get out of the boat,” which is extensive and an excellent read, and he’s not the only one writing about acting on faith today. Knowing this and having listened to countless sermons about stepping out in faith, I’d usually leave it well alone, since it’s been covered thoroughly by better men than I.

However recently I’ve done some acting in faith of my own, and learned a lot from it. A few months ago I made a list, or two lists, of things I wanted to do in the next year:- “spiritual” and “personal”. The “spiritual” list contains things like prayer habits I want to get into, and specific lines of theology I want to have a decent knowledge of before starting study for ministry. The “personal” list contains goals of personal development like how many new chords I want to learn on the guitar, how much time I want to spend every day practising bass, and where my heart is drawing me to live and work – Stirling, where I’m a student pastor and involved in the worship team, where my girlfriend and many of my friends are as well.

List made, I set about adjusting parts of my life, trying to live according to what I believe is the plan God has for me.

Some of that hasn’t been hard; Ruth and I have a great prayer life together now – though it can always be better – and we’ve had some awesome times with God; I got my guitar back after it was needed elsewhere for a while and I’ve learned some new stuff.

Some of it hasn’t been easy: resigning a well-paid job with nothing else lined up was one of the hardest, however I spent a long time seeking God about it and His will for me is more important to me than being comfortable.

So I resigned, trusting God to provide not only my immediate needs but also a way to return to Stirling. It’s important for me to say that I am only beginning my “faith-walk” with God and I know there are many people much further on in their journey who have taken far bigger risks: I only mention all the above as a background to the real meaning of this post and not to gain kudos or be well-thought of.

What really shocked me was the reaction of many of my Christian contemporaries. A real lack of support from some of those closest to me took me completely by surprise, and I have been trying to make sense of why for a long time – especially as many of these people are quite happy to point to times in their own lives where God has been their only supply and the things He’s done have been nothing short of miraculous.

Not everyone responded like that: Ruth had been through the same thing 6 months earlier and couldn’t have been more encouraging, and the worship pastor at our church was the same:

Hey Bro,

That's awesome news about the job mate, you're walking on the water
mate amen! I'll cover it in prayer with an expectation that all your
needs and more will be met.

Some others have been great, calling and praying when they hear about interviews I have, and so on, and I love them for it because they never questionned me responding to God’s leading.

The whole thing got me thinking an awful lot about what it really means to step out in faith.

I thought about Peter, literally stepping out on water, and the other 11 disciples in the boat who must have watched with amusement and maybe disbelief as he walked.

I thought about pentecost, where Peter, knowing his lack of qualifications for the job and that if he was wrong, he was a dead man, but filled with the Holy Spirit, stood and allowed God to use him to convict three thousand souls and bring them to Christ.

I thought about Moses, who tried his own way to achieve God’s will, and spent 40 years in desert penitentiary being corrected by God before he finally followed God’s way and went before a king who could have him killed on a whim, and then led millions into a desert with no food or water.

I thought about “the rest of them” – all the great men of God who have gone before us, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Nehemiah, Daniel, John, Paul, Stephen, Joshua and Caleb – and I realised that all of them were willing to take risks for God that could have them killed, homeless or exiled.

I have no regrets about my own risks as the bible is full of providence and God’s supply for every need, and I know He will meet mine because that is His nature. I have no ambition to be known as a great man of God, but neither do I want to go before God at the end of it all and be judged mediocre. If that means obeying God and taking risks, then I will be able to testify all the more when I see the answers come to the challenges that lie ahead.

When I started writing this I set out to comment about walking in faith, but I feel I should end on a different note.

If someone is considering stepping out of the boat, then please, please offer encouragement and not the criticism that I faced. Criticism to a person trying to be faithful is like poison to the soul, discouraging them from the start. Encouragement to seek God and prayer, and maybe some gentle guidance, is what people in that situation crave. It could be the difference between someone being a faithful Great, or a mediocre Christian.

Living on a Prayer

——- edited ——-

Things Are Looking Up

So I was walking back down from the summit of Snowdon a few days ago when, as is want to happen at these times, something of an epiphany struck me.

Not the kind of epiphany that strikes like a bolt of lightning, fast and bright, but the kind of slow dawning – a gradual realisation of something about myself that I’d never realised before.

And here it is: I don’t look up enough.

See, when you’re climbing a hill, you can do it one of two ways. You can look as far ahead as possible, or you can look where you’re putting your feet – pretty much straight down.

When I’m climbing I tend to watch where I’m placing my feet. Maybe something to do with a fear of heights, maybe something to do with habit – I don’t know, but I know that I’m doing it.

The guy I was climbing with, however, looks at the distant path. He knows each step to take because he saw it coming ages ago: he might occasionally have to look down, if a rock slipped, but not often and not for long.

But here’s the funny thing. Both of us knew where the peak was – our destination for the day – but I, taking my steps and looking down, could only ever comment on how far we’d come, rather than how far we had to go. My friend, looking up to the end of the path, could see the end approaching and was concentrating much more on how far there was left to go.

And typically it was me, not him, who would get weary and look for an opportunity to stop, breathe, eat or drink.

The rest of that day and most of the following I considered this, about other areas of my life. I find it really easy looking at how far I’ve gone – I find it harder to see what the next steps are, and harder still to see the end destination getting closer and closer.

Maybe it’s better, I’ve been thinking, to keep our eyes firmly on the goal we’ve set ourselves. Maybe that way, stops for a rest become less necessary and we wouldn’t get discouraged so easily.

And here’s the really important thing: if your goal is God-inspired, and you keep your eyes firmly on the goal, then there is a cast-iron guarantee you will not put a single foot wrong on the way.

So You Call Yourself a Christian

So you call yourself a Christian:

• You sponsor five children in Africa: what about the hundreds of desperate families right across the street?

• You take your well-dressed, good-smelling friends out for coffee and maybe mention Jesus now and again: what about the stinking, diseased, addicted homeless guy sitting outside the coffee shop?

• You give your 10% to the church and 5% to world mission: nevermind that in the time it took you to write the cheque someone died without knowing Christ within 25 miles of your front door.

• You hear of your neighbour, held up with a knife: “thank God is was them and not me!”: Did you stop complaining about drink, drugs, knives and guns long enough to take the time to listen to the very people you fear?

• Did you realise yet that your life isn’t your own, your belongings and time belong to God and choices are God’s to make?

• Does your heart break every time you walk down the street and see need?

Jesus’ heart did.

You can’t meet every need; but God can, and He uses you to do so.

You can’t save every person, but Jesus can, and He uses you to do so.

You can’t give up your time, your money, your love, your life to save the world. But Jesus did, and didn’t you say you would do whatever it took for Him to use you?

Got some news for you, ladies and gentlemen. Our work isn’t done. Not every person in this world is destined for Heaven. Not every addiction has been defeated. Not every adult and child is properly fed, and not every crime is never going to be committed again.

Our work is not yet finished, that God told us to do.

So, one more time, do you call yourself a Christian?