pressing on

There is much in my life that would stop me in my tracks, distracting me from the goal which we in Jesus are to pursue. Much. Or at least a matter or two that is significant to me. If we could have a conversation over coffee on that, perhaps there is plenty we could each share, enough to fill a morning, and then some.

And in my case it is some of the same old same olds. Some things we do get over, God miraculously answers and all of that is water under the bridge, long gone with maybe only a scar or two left from it. But other matters linger on. We get some sort of victory over them, but they come and go, some staring us in the face, coming to our attention at any moment’s notice.

I’m glad to have a wife who challenges me to stand on the truth revealed in scripture and through Jesus. And a church which stands for truth applied to life in following Jesus.

There is nothing more for me to do than to simply press on. Following the example of Paul. Who had left the old way behind for the new way in Jesus. What had been good, in fact the very best in this world, the very best for its time. But that way had become old because of the new way that had come in Jesus in fulfilling what that old way had laid the groundwork for.

Pressing on. Something I need to do today and every day, really. In following  Jesus with others in Jesus for the world.

standing firm

In scripture we see that our stance in spiritual warfare is to be strengthened in the Lord, to put on the whole armor of God, to face the enemy, but in a resisting kind of mode. God takes the offensive to the enemy, we do not except in unusual cases when we are exerting Christ’s authority over the demonic.

We likely don’t like the idea of not being on the offensive and taking care of business ourselves. But that is the stance we’re to take. A stance which promises us victory in the ongoing skirmishes in this life. We’re told to resist the devil, with the promise that he will flee from us.

Yesterday was one of those “evil days” (if that’s how to interpret “evil day” in the classic Ephesians 6 spiritual warfare passage). I had a time of writing an encouraging post on anticipation as I was thinking of what I was looking forward to for that day, and on the edges of my mind what would be the fulfillment of that in the bye and bye. Actually a simple book signing by probably the one today considered the foremost Christian theological writer and speaker. And I was drawn into worship of God in Jesus. Only to be hit by an ugly attack from the evil ones. So that I was back on my heels. But while all sense of goodness was gone, this was an opportunity to practice the spiritual warfare that is part of this life in Jesus.

Through this we are kept humble, and ever dependent on God. And we learn more and more, hopefully, what we have in and through Christ. It was good for me to be able to repeat the Ephesians 6 passage even if I really couldn’t do much more than that at work. To try to do what God has called me to do in and through Jesus.

Life goes on. No deliverance from such spiritual warfare in this life here and there. But with the promise that the Lord will deliver us from every evil attack, and bring us safely into his heavenly kingdom to come. Part of our calling in following Jesus together for the world.

anticipation

We’re told in scripture that we’re to be seekers of God. That we’re saved in hope (Romans 8:18-30). That we’re to be pressing toward the mark of God’s high calling in Christ Jesus.

Anticipation. It does add a lot to life. Of course the bride and the groom anticipating that wonderful day when they become one, joined together in holy matrimony. Hope is huge in scripture. Faith, hope and love are joined together and remain.

One of my favorite servants of God, Pastor Bill Hesse used to say with that wonderful smile of his emanating from his heaven sent glowing spirit, “Remember, for the child of God, the best is always yet to come.” How wonderful! And how true when we consider the testimony of scripture. Not only in this life, but in the next as well- in the new creation in Jesus.

Anticipation involves living in love. Looking forward to all that a life of faith in love has. Even through the rigors and disappointments, even dark valleys of this life. Not that we look forward to those dark places. But even there we can find God and God’s hand and heart in unique and new ways.

Anticipation does not mean we’re not thankful for blessings past, as well as present. Hope goes together with life in grace and in the Spirit here and now, so that even our trials working endurance into our lives end up with God pouring out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who he has given to us (Romans 5).

Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.

Proverbs 13:12

God will purify our hopes in our anticipation of seeing Jesus when he appears (1 John 3). So some of our old hopes will thankfully die and fall by the wayside. But the hope fixed on that which will last forever and only grow in the love of God is something we begin to anticipate and even experience in this life in and through Jesus. A hope that through God and his promises is indeed an anchor to the soul.

A hope in which we wonderfully live together. Not just for ourselves, but for the world. That others might see and ask us the reason for the hope we have. An opportunity to point us to the one who is our hope, Jesus. Together in Jesus for the world.

theology is open-ended

Richard Wurmbrand once said something like, “Jesus is the truth. The Bible is the truth about the truth. Theology is the truth about the truth about the truth. The farther we go from the truth himself, Jesus, the farther removed we are from truth.” (That last sentence very much a paraphrase, but something of what Wurmbrand was getting at, I think.)

When I post here, or when I teach I want to do so making the points with truth that is clear enough to us. Truth on which we followers of Jesus can agree. Concerning the truth as it is in Jesus.

But there are matters that are open to dispute among us. Some of us hold to a Calvinist understanding, and others like myself do not. Some insist that a Christian can participate in “just war,” while others believe Christians should never kill under any circumstances. I give these examples not to debate them, but to show that there are significant disagreements among us Christians.

Theology is open-ended. I don’t trust any theological scheme that has everything nailed down. In which there is no sense of uncertainty. In which nothing is nebulous, but everything clear. Of course in America I would think such theology which is clear would win the day. We want answers and we’re pragmatists. But scripture is not meant to answer all our questions. And God has given us the truth as he has to make us keep searching, and working through it for our own time and culture.

That is why giving a tentative answer as opposed to one cut and dried and maybe even established may be better. We want to test all by scripture but that itself can be tricky. What is scripture doing, or what is happening in scripture is an important question. (See Scot McKnight’s The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible.)  And where does that leave us. Can we have a systematic theological book which pretty clearly gives us all we need to know. The answer to that in my view would be no.

That takes us back to square one. To Jesus himself, the truth. And then to scripture. And also to a sense or understanding given to us by the Spirit. And the us itself would refer to God’s people in Jesus, the church. This is a plural endeavor, not a bunch of individuals doing it ourselves, and consequently often going our separate ways.

This is why I believe the best theologies and theologians often don’t come from the most conservative of circles. In the conservative circles you have to hold to certain understandings. Some of those I think are non-negotiable, what we would term dogma, what every follower of Jesus must come to accept. But a large portion of our disagreements, while they may well indeed be important we could term doctrine, and not essential as to what we are united on through Jesus. (See Christian Smith on this distinction and much more in his book, The Bible Made Impossible: Why Biblicism Is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture.)

And so I want to continue to major on what we can all agree on. Even if some of that is actually developing in our common understanding. While sometimes pushing the envelope to challenge myself and any reader to an understanding which actually may be more in keeping with the truth as God has revealed it. Or how God wants to lead us where we are now.

This requires humility and an ongoing dependence on God and interdependence on each other in Jesus, as we carry on as Jesus’ followers together for the world.

in its time

He has made everything beautiful in its time.

Ecclessiastes 3:11

Often we want to see something done, and done now. Maybe something that needs to be done. In fact is part of what Jesus has commanded us to do. In other words something we are to play a part in.

And yet it isn’t done. We may have to ask ourselves if we’re holding out somewhere. Sometimes obedience seems rather naked. In fact in some ways it always seems that way for me. I’m not just picked up and moved to obeyed. I have to do it, yes in and because of God’s grace in Jesus, but just the same, I have to obey. And often in such obedience there is a kind of nakedness, in that we may have to humble ourselves. Certainly we’ll be walking in a faith in which we put our trust in God.

But there can be a time or matter in which our part is to pray. Perhaps to examine ourselves, or more precisely to ask God to examine us. We need to seek to obey with a spirit intent on God’s will. Not just obeying for obedience’s sake. But with the intent of obedience which is to be love. Love for God, and for our neighbor. Perhaps in a certain case, for one who seems like an enemy.

When God has something for us to do, he won’t let go. It will be plain enough to us. But sometimes it’s as if we can see or imagine everything together as it should be. And yet we see it apart. That is when we seek God in prayer about it, and hold on to the promise through Jesus that God will indeed make everything beautiful in its time. That he is at work to do that. Even through us in Jesus if only through our groanings by the Spirit. Along with obedience to his revealed will to us. A part of the hope we have in and through Jesus.

self-control

Better a patient person than a warrior,
one with self-control than one who takes a city.

Proverbs 16:32

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

Galatians 5:22-23

In God’s grace in and through Christ and by the Spirit, there are few things more crucial to our lives than maintaining self-control. This may sound unspiritual, as if it is something we are doing ourselves, pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps, as the saying goes.

But as N.T. Wright points out in his book, After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters, moral effort is part and parcel of the equation in God’s grace at work in our lives through Jesus by the Spirit. It is character in formation, and requires work on our part. Beginning with the transformation of our minds. So that our heart as in mind and will and inward disposition, is changed. Then the new way in Jesus spelled out in scripture can become more and more second nature to us, a part of who we are.

Self-control ends up being something we do, inherent in the term. Of course it is by the Spirit as seen in the passage quoted above. And yet we end up having to do it, albeit by the Spirit. As part of our following of Christ together and for the world. What we do is important, as well as what we don’t do.

Hopefully we’ve grown to know better than to say or do something unhelpful in reaction to a perceived wrong done to us. But what about our own spirits before God? Are we submitting to him, to his leading, to the Spirit, when we are tempted to take matters in our own hands?

Best many times to lay low. To bide time. To make such times occasions of drawing near to God, of seeking him and his help. Of retreating rather than advancing or going on in a way that is not wise, according to our own wisdom rather than God’s.

In this life for all kinds of reasons and in all kinds of situations and circumstances we will need self-control. We will save ourselves and others from much grief as we learn to do so. A part of the new life that is ours in and through Jesus. Which we live out not only for ourselves, but for each other and for the world.

N.T. Wright on abortion and capital punishment

You can’t reconcile being pro-life on abortion and pro-death on the death penalty. Almost all the early Christian Fathers were opposed to the death penalty, even though it was of course standard practice across the ancient world. As far as they were concerned, their stance went along with the traditional ancient Jewish and Christian belief in life as a gift from God, which is why (for instance) they refused to follow the ubiquitous pagan practice of ‘exposing’ baby girls (i.e. leaving them out for the wolves or for slave-traders to pick up).

Mind you, there is in my view just as illogical a position on the part of those who solidly oppose the death penalty but are very keen on the ‘right’ of a woman (or couple) to kill their conceived but not yet born child…

From where many of us in the UK sit, American politics is hopelessly polarized. All kinds of issues get bundled up into two great heaps. The rest of the world, today and across the centuries, simply doesn’t see things in this horribly oversimplified way…

While we’re about it, how many folk out there were deeply moved both by the reading of the 9/11 victim names and by the thought that if they’d read the names of Iraqi civilians killed by your country and mine over the last ten years we’d have been there for several days?

N.T. Wright, American Christians and the death penalty, Washington Post.

For N.T. Wright’s take on what is “the big moral issue of our time”, see the last half of this interview by the National Catholic Reporter.

prayer for the third Sunday after the Epiphany

Give us grace, O Lord, to answer readily the call of our Savior Jesus Christ and proclaim to all people the Good News of his salvation, that we and the whole world may perceive the glory of his marvelous works; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Book of Common Prayer

for the long haul

We don’t know what a day may bring forth. We can’t count on tomorrow, really. Our lives are like a vapor, James tells us, which comes and goes. That being said, how should we in Jesus live?

While there should be a sense of urgency in our step, our commitment to God through Jesus must be for the long haul. Our lives are lived over the long haul.

Why is that? God knows all the details concerning our lives. Even in some way the length of them (Psalm 139). God is- painfully for us- patient. His work seems slow to us. But if we’re to be in sync with that work we must proceed accordingly. If we’re in a hurry, we won’t be in step. And there’s always the danger of falling off altogether, or in scriptural terms, falling away (the book of Hebrews).

And so we need to look at this life in terms of a long race, or an ongoing walk with God in fellowship with God’s people through Jesus. And in mission from God through Jesus together for the world. We are in this with each other in Jesus.

Such a commitment requires breadth and depth. The kind we can receive only through painstaking plodding along in faithfulness meeting the issues of our lives as they come.  Seeking to become true followers of Jesus. To be those who like Enoch walked faithfully with God. In all of life. In whatever life may (or may not) bring forth. Come what may.

forgiving others

One important aspect of following Jesus is the ongoing need to forgive those who have wronged us. And to keep forgiving them.

That is part of the prayer Jesus taught us as his followers to pray:

And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.

Or the version in Luke’s gospel:

Forgive us our sins,
for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.

We do well to voice the Lord’s/our Father prayer, offering it as a prayer to God. And I think we do well to say out loud or under our breath, “I forgive so and so.” And on and on. And to keep doing that.

In Galatians we’re told to stop biting and devouring each other, or we may be consumed by each other. In other words being against someone and holding grudges is destructive to one’s spiritual health. Unity together as God’s people brings God’s blessing. Disunity seems to bring something of the opposite.

When I simply voice forgiveness for those who have wronged me, I am released from the hold they may have over me through God’s working in honoring and making real what I’m saying. I can let go of the grudge I have against them. What I’m suggesting is that with our step of faith in obedience comes the beginning of God’s blessing. It must not stop there.

Almost always, as Miroslav Volf has pointed out to us, when we are sinned against, we often sin back. So even if we were in the right in the matter or the victims, we end up sinning against the one who has hurt and victimized us. So that if they are aware of this, we may indeed have to ask them for their forgiveness in the pursuit of reconciliation. There may be exceptions to this rule with reference to people whose sickness may make them dangerous to others.

Of course all of this is possible only through Jesus and what he has done for us through his death on the cross. By offering himself, his body, he has broken down the walls that divide people. In and through himself, through his broken body for us. We are forgiven of our sins through his sacrificial death. And on the basis of what God has done in and through Jesus, we can forgive others. And ask for their forgiveness in the hope of at least the beginning of full reconciliation.

In a post to come I want to think through our need of asking for forgiveness. In the meantime give this video a look if you would, from a dear former pastor of ours, Pastor Ed Dobson. And how God worked in his life, and out from that into the lives of others.