nobrokenreed

We need Saving.

by 1 Comment

We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Saviour of the world – John’s Gospel

The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing – The prophet Zephaniah

A good friend of ours, someone our age died recently. We mourn with his wife, with his family. The speed at which he was taken took our breath away, and I found the nature of death very confronting. I managed to see my friend in the last few days, and as ever his humour was high. We quipped about a few things and talked openly about life in the presence of God. I got to pray with him and his wife.

Since then, I have been amongst a great deal of people it seems, who are bent on self-destruction; consuming drugs at an alarming rate, prone to violence or just generally careless about life itself. Just last night, a woman stepped from the shadows and asked if I would walk her across the road. Likely younger than me, she had an amputated arm, and had already suffered a stroke, and what I thought would be a 5 minute jaunt turned into a half hour mission. Along the way, she spoke of violence, drugs and alcoholism, with 2 children taken away into foster care. When we got there, she lit up a fag as I prayed for her. What struck me though, was the bravado, arrogance even about the way she lived. A life rapidly careering towards death. She is not alone, or even unusual, we know many people who exist in the same vacuous, vacant state. Death will come fast for many.

As I have been pondering about this, I reflected on the immense variance Jesus makes in the entire equation. He is all the difference.

The church at large, has shifted it’s focus far too much toward what is happening in this life; we discuss maybe too much, the kingdom here, the community here, Jesus solving our problems in the here and now. Yet, far and away the greatest achievement of Christ, was his conquering of death.

This world needs saving above all else; I’m not that convinced the condition of the world is ever going to change, even in our Christian communities. From the Old Testament, through to the early passages of the Gospels though, Jesus is announced to us as the one who will save us. In particular he will save us from our sins, which means he will save us from the terrible judgement of God that is coming upon the world. God promises those who believe, an eternity in his presence.

The difference in outcome between the death of my friend, whose hope was set on salvation through Christ, and the woman I met last night, whose hatred of all that was good is immense. She faces total separation of God for all eternity, whereas my friend is merely changing address. He will be more alive than ever.

This means two things. Firstly, it means the Gospel message is hard nosed and raw. It demands action on our behalf to come to God on our knees and ask for his forgiveness. There is absolutely nothing passive in the Gospel, nothing at all. It cost God everything, and the alternatives are unbearable, beyond imagination. We have softened it, watered it down at our peril. In spite of this, the message has not changed, it starts with repentance.

Secondly, it demands that all those who say they believe, us, must do something about it. We cannot take our salvation and pack it away tidily in a suitcase. In our lives, it demands action. I have heard so many, witnessed far too many who do so little with the Gospel in their lives. I am saved, why should I worry?

Friends, if that is your Gospel then it is no Gospel. It is not the Gospel Jesus lived. Every day that goes by, without our having advanced the cause of Christ – you and me, is a day in which the Devil and all darkness has scored.

Even if people do not respond, our job is to make sure they hear from us – everyday, at all times and all the time, that Jesus came to save us from our sins. We do not know where our witness will end in someone else’s life.

Strangely God seems to be willing to take the risk that we will be good messengers of his message – that is, Salvation is found in no one else. Let’s get to it.

The Death of Donna

by Leave a Comment

Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you may now dismiss your servant in peace.
For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all nations:
 a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel. – Simeon, a righteous man

Someday you will read or hear that Billy Graham is dead. Don’t you believe a word of it. I shall be more alive than I am now. I will just have changed my address. I will have gone into the presence of God. – BG

We heard this week that Donna had died. Donna’s life started with her laughing mother force feeding her vodka until she was comatose at 13. It went downhill from there. By the time we met her, she was living with Shane, and in and out of mental institutions for schizophrenia. She couldn’t remember our names, but always called us “the Christians.” When we last saw her, her black eyes were blazing and ‘the Christians’ were followed by a load of expletive in the middle of the street. We were convinced that in amongst everything else, at the heart of it was demonic possession. I desperately wished there had been a breakthrough.

Death is a subject the world avoids at all costs, especially in the West. We watch as family members downsize their lifestyle to the extent that even the memories, the things that are perhaps most precious, begin to fade. The starkness is that we leave this world with precisely what we came into it with.

The salvation that is found in Jesus is his most compelling attribute. What he does in a person’s life today, the transformation of character and personality is glorious, but it pales against an eternity in his presence. The kingdom of God within us is vital to how we live, but for every mortal there is a line in the sand called death, and it determines everything from that moment forward. Jesus came to save us into eternity, and it was principally death that he conquered.

God has also called us to play our part. In the book of Ezekiel, God tells the prophet that if he doesn’t proclaim the words the Lord gives to him, Ezekiel will have the responsibility of people’s eternity on his hands – their blood. This is immensely disturbing, and I have been asking myself this week, whether Jesus implied the same thing throughout the NT. Does God hold me responsible for not proclaiming his truth to my neighbour?

Spurgeon reminded his congregation about their devotion to telling others of Jesus and warned them against complacency. He even went as far as saying if we weren’t that interested in people’s souls, then our own salvation was questionable.

It appears to be getting harder to tell people about Jesus in this country than ever before – now there are so many competing religions and philosophies. But how hard was it for Jesus to convince those around him he was the Messiah, or Paul in Asia Minor that there was an after life beyond the ‘unknown God?’ Simply, it’s always been hard it doesn’t matter where you are.

One thing is for certain, and that is we are running out of time. You, me the clock on our lives is ticking louder than ever. That means less time to achieve the work which God has given us in our neighbourhood.

The devil will put in front of us, every distraction imaginable and then some. Further, he will put in front of those we speak to the same distractions. We must never give up, but always keep coming back to the simple work that is ahead of each of us. That is, proclaiming the name of Jesus to a world that needs him just as much as it always has.

We must open their eyes to the observation that death is coming, but it doesn’t have to be final.

Telling an Old Message in a New Way

by 2 Comments

If a commission by an earthly king is considered a honour, how
can a commission by a Heavenly King be considered a sacrifice? – David Livingstone

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbour as yourself…And so, who is my neighbour?” – Jesus and a Religious Lawyer, Luke 10

In our Discovery Group yesterday, one of us retold this famous story into modern parlance. I hope you like it, we all thought it was wonderful, a little shocking even (one of us is a Bangladeshi Muslim).

An old, dishevelled man was sitting outside the local Community Centre one day, when a group of young men, slightly drunk, stopped by and began to lay into him. They left him, bloodied, bruised and a little bewildered on a seat, where he sat in the cold, shaking.

A well-known pastor walked past, and seeing him sitting, crossed the street, thinking to himself, “I have enough people to deal with in my own congregation to get entangled in that.”

Then, a young banker came out from the local Greek restaurant, flushed after a successful lunch. He saw the old man blinking at him receptively, reaching out with his eyes to the well dressed young man. But, sadly, all he met was a cold, hard stare. Why would I possibly stoop to help you, came back the silent response.

Finally, walking up from the beach came a bearded man with olive skin. He stopped at the sight of the man and crossed the road to sit by him. “What happened?” the man asked. The old man was too shaken to speak; tired, cold and hungry he just looked longingly at the man before him. The man, clearly from afar, helped the old man to his feet and putting his arm under him, walked him to the nearest hostel. Along the way, they stopped at Coles and the olive-skinned man bought him a couple of days of food.

When they reached the local hostel, the olive man explained in his broken English, that he would pay for a bed in a single room for a few nights while the old man could recover. Further, if someone could help the old man, he would pay more when he came back.

It didn’t stop there though. God’s Son turned to his religious lawyer and asked him a question; “which of these proved to be a neighbour?” Of course, said the religious lawyer, the migrant from overseas.

“Go then,” Jesus said, “and do likewise.”

Our challenge to each other, was to go and do likewise this week. After all, is that not his command to us, to live such a life everyday as he did?

What will he say to us, if we who follow him choose to disobey him, while others around us do what he asks? Is the love of God really in us?

 

The Fullness of Christ – part 3

by Leave a Comment

Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you. – 1 John 2:15

Earlier this week, I skipped onto the David Bowie site. For those who don’t know, though I doubt there are many, Bowie was a music icon who died more than a year ago. I grew up with Bowie and was a big fan for much of my young adult life, who knows, perhaps he was even an idol. I thought it strange that, after just 12 months, so few are talking about him. What does his website look like now?

If you log onto his website, you will see as I did, that his final single release is called ‘No Plan.’ I watched the video and I was intrigued, because in it Bowie describes how, for the first time in his life, he has no need of a plan. He knows he is going to die, therefore, who needs a plan? I’m sure vast epistles have been preached on this subject, but I did spend some time wondering about how I spend so much of my time planning my life in this world, with so little attention devoted to the next. Alas, even the care of my teeth, which are not in great shape I have to report, take careful planning. Should I even bother? Does God shake his head in disbelief at the fact that humans plan every aspect of their lives down to the minutiae, without so much as a cursory consideration as to what might happen when we die? I don’t think so, as he really does know what we are like.

Soon we shall come to Easter, a time of year I personally love, and I have been drawn back to the wonderful work of Isaiah. Nothing speaks more of God’s relationship to his creation through his Son, than that book. Sometimes a little theology is helpful in our understanding of a Heavenly Father. More on that in the coming weeks for those of you who might occasionally glance this way.

Other than that?

Well, last Sunday we met with 2 groups of people, both believers, both very different and both at interesting stages. In the morning, we met with a few believers who perhaps should have been more mature given the length of time in the faith, yet somewhere along the line their faith had grown cold. Why is that so common – is Jesus really that dull?

The answer is that, for whatever reason, Jesus had been replaced in their lives. As is so often the case, Jesus gets replaced by all sorts of things in our lives. Liturgy, doctrine, apathy, the world, all that is shiny, the list can be extensive.  Merely though, that we choose to follow other things than him. He becomes routine.

“I’ll follow you wherever you may go.”

“Do you realise that foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head?”

There’s no mistaking it; you’re not going to have an easy life if you follow the Son of Man. Each of us needs to have that squared away, comprehending who he is and deciding, “yes I want to follow him no matter what.” In the process of following him, there will certainly be a way of life that is like his. Surely that makes sense. John testifies, “anyone who claims to live in Him must walk as Jesus did.”

We grow cold, when we say to ourselves, “I want to follow Jesus but I don’t intend to walk as he walked. I have another way to follow him.” As Paul prophesied would be the case, such events in Christendom are very popular. Most believers (and many non-believers who perhaps think they are believers) think like this.  It’s easy, so it goes, to follow Jesus when he’s going East and you’re going West. Can that truly be the case, that we can follow him without submission? Of course not, but it seems to me, much more practical than that as well.

We go where he goes, live like he lives, think like he does, speak like he does, pray as he does, love like he does. I cannot find any other way to follow Jesus.

As we do, like the Apostles before us, our lives become “testified with great power” and “great grace was upon them all.” There is evident a quality of life that seems to converge with the testimony of Jesus.  As a direct result, other lives became like his, believers walked it out as he walked it out, and understood what made the Father pleased, how relationships should work. As only he can.

It is very important – crucial in fact, that Jesus does not get replaced by some form of religion, or pomp, or formula, or idea or any externals. Else, we shall live impoverished, fabricated lives that are a show to others as to how pious we are, when deep down, the true riches of relationship with the Son of Man are missing. Eventually, tedious routine. It is about walking simply with the Master, and then linking arms with anybody who wants to walk that way too.

As we behold Him, we are transformed into His likeness from one degree of glory to another. We come to him, to each other, eyes-wide-open, all my heart, soul and mind and live it for him. His teaching, His way of life.

Nothing else needed.

SUBSCRIBE

Contact