Clinging on

 

Psalm 63:8

"I cling to you; your strong right hand hand holds me securely"

Snickers have a funny ad going at the moment. There is a climber apparently climbing up a vertical rock wall - then he slips and screams for help, clinging on. 

The camera then rotates to show he is actually on a horizontal surface and in no danger at all!! 

Isn't this so often how we are? We're clinging on to God as if we will fall into the abyss if we let go but, if we change our perspective, we find He has us safe in His hand all along. 

How do we change our perspective?

Be still and know that He is God

Stop clinging, flailing and screaming because that just makes you harder to hold

Make a conscious effort to stop worrying and, instead, bring it before the Lord who has pledged eternal love and care for you, bring it with thanksgiving for who He is, all He has done and all He will do - then let the peace of God which passes all understanding fill your heart and mind with the knowledge and love of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Then, in faith, you will come to the point where you can say "Your strong right hand holds me securely"

Just an afterthought here - the right hand is the one which would hold the sword. If God's right  hand is occupied by you, He is protecting you and not fighting against you. 

Be blessed 

Why did Jesus remain silent before Pilate?

 Here's a thought for Good Friday - Why did Jesus remain silent before Pilate?

He could have used this encounter to have a great discussion about the One True God, about the Jewish scriptures, maybe to perform a miracle which would convince Pilate. But he did none of these things. 

I wonder if Pilate was secretly quite pleased to have the chance to personally interview this enigmatic, influential, itinerant preacher about  whom he had heard all the stories. It must have been quite frustrating that, on the one hand, Jesus didn’t seem to be at all swayed by the authority of Pilate and, on the other hand, that Jesus refused to either engage in discussion or refute the charges against him. 

Isaiah prophesied that this was the way it would happen - one could cynically argue that Jesus was simply aware of the prophecy and acting accordingly but considering the torture he was facing this would seem unlikely if he was a fraud. But I'm not cynical and I believe in Jesus!

So after thinking about this for a while I have come to the conclusion that one reason Jesus remained silent was that He was guilty and had no plea bargain to offer. Shock, horror what do I mean by that! 

He was guilty of OUR sin and shame. He bore all OUR iniquities. There was no justifying plea that he could offer. He took it all on himself, everything WE deserve, so that WE can go free. The perfect, sinless Son of God gave up everything He had, became fully human, and took on every failure, every sin that separates us from God, and paid the ultimate price - for us. 

There was no way He could stand before Pilate tell him all that because He would then have been elevating Himself above our wretched, fallen human condition, and then the sacrifice wouldn't have meant anything. He had to be one of us. 

The really awesome thing is that, after all this, He allows us to choose whether or not to believe. 

Greater love has no man than that he lay down his life for his friends - and He calls us His friends. 

You're not you when you're hungry

 The Snickers advert puts this across brilliantly. 

"You're not you when you're hungry" is something we all recognise to the point where a new word has been invented - HANGRY

Can't think straight.

Mental and physical fatigue

Tetchy

No concentration

Unpleasant to be with

Self-preservation kicks in

As Christians we can draw the parallels - we're not us, as in God's original purpose and design, if we're starved of the bread of life, the refreshment He offers, the pure living water, the Word of God. 

We are fearfully and wonderfully made, knitted together in our mother's womb, lovingly designed before the beginning of time to be who He predestined us to be, to do the works He preordained us to do. Then prepared and positioned according to His perfect plan. Should we choose to accept it our mission is ............

So we might be able to fast this Heavenly refreshment for a while but unless we come back to our very source of life we can never achieve who He has designed us to be. 

Think about it. 

When faced with the inevitable trials that this fallen world throws at us, we have a choice. Face them in our own strength with all the limitations and uncertainties involved, or face life as a Child of God, empowered by the Holy Spirit who indwells the Christian, trusting in His almighty power which is the same as that which raised Jesus from death. 

Psalm 23 expresses this in different ways as you work through the text - rich pastures, still waters, following, trusting the Good Shepherd through good times and difficult ones, all the time getting closer to the time when we see Him face-to-face. 

No prizes for placing all the quotes! 😉

Have a blessed day 

A prayer for when you feel like giving up

 

Running at the right pace

 

My previous blog was called "While I was Running" and contained lots of "big thoughts" most often thought whilst I was, well, running. Then I stopped running (long story) and the blog sort of drifted off into old-blog-land. 

Now I'm trying to run again and found the Couch to 5K app very useful in terms of how to build up the training, how to breathe, how to set the pace. My trainer was Laura and she would constantly advise and encourage during the run.  

Having achieved 5K (absolute maximum distance!!) I then would often listen to something else such as inspirational teaching or worship music. 

Then the bad weather arrived and running went on hold for a bit, as did other fitness training - with the inevitable result. 

So, back into it, I started again and started listening to fantastic sermons by Alistair Begg (Truth for Life - highly recommended) - however the running seemed really hard and I was getting a bit despondent at the thought that maybe I was too old to try and get fit. 

That was until yesterday when I swapped Alistair for my favourite worship tracks and managed a lot better. Then towards the end of the run when I was getting really tired and having to dig deep as they say, the chorus "It is well with my soul" just happened to be playing. Also, I ran at a better pace, in time with the music, so lasted longer. 

Now I don't believe in coincidences and the juxtaposition of my physical state with the words in my ears made me think. This is what I thought:

1 It's really important to run at the right pace - in all of life, not just in fitness training. 

2 We can get excited by inspirational teaching and rush off in our own strength, or too fast. 

3 Worship is really important - it keeps us in tune and in time with the Lord. 

Happy running 

😎

A Prayer

 Father, thank you for having a plan for my life before I was even born. 

Thank you for being at work in every unseen detail of my life.

I am so grateful that I get to go through life with you alongside me.

Please show me how you are shaping my life for your glory and my good.

Help me to become an active participant in Your Kingdom.

I ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen

Good but not safe

 This is how Aslam the lion is described by C S Lewis, and is the allegorical description of Jesus. 

Along with, hopefully, all other born-again believers, I want to experience a closer relationship with this God whom I worship, but do I know what that means? Really? 

In human terms, "a closer relationship" brings to mind a pleasant experience of love, affection, a sharing of hopes and desires, maybe a physical closeness depending on the type of relationship. But who is this God we seek to approach? In asking the question I don't claim to have all the answers, but having recently read through the first few books of the Old Testament I feel the need for caution. 

In the New Testament we find Jesus who is God and who is approachable. We read passages about love, affection, peace, joy, healing, provision, freedom from worry, salvation for all without cost - all very attractive reasons for choosing this god over others who demand more. To our western thinking where the individual is key, where prosperity and ease are the goals, we can distort the true nature of God by concentrating only on the "nice bits"

 If this is where we're at we face the danger of coming unstuck big-time when things get tough. People ask "where is god now?", "How could a good god let this happen?", "Where are my blessings?", "Where is the healing and prosperity?"

 Maybe our vision of God needs to expand to include what he shows of himself before he revealed the plan for salvation through Jesus. 

Adam and Eve met the God who banished them from paradise for eating the wrong fruit. Noah met the God who wiped out the worlds population to start again with a faithful family. Moses met the God who spoke out of burning bushes, delivered plagues to Egypt, shielded Moses in the cleft of a rock so that he wouldn't fry Moses as he passes by, the god who caused the earth to open and swallow thousands of Israelites, the God who commanded rituals, blood sacrifices, glorious tabernacles, who gave detailed laws on who could approach and how it was to be done ........ I could go on but this God doesn't seem very cuddly! 

We must learn about and try to understand this side of the nature of God before we can appreciate the enormity of what Jesus has done for us. Unless we grasp the eternal gulf that is between sinful man and the perfect, holy God we will never really appreciate that from which we are saved. Unless we take on board the fact that we are entering His eternal kingdom and not that He is simply bowing down to ours we will get stuck in some sort of distorted prosperity gospel.

 God is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, self-control. He is good, perfect, holy. This is his nature, not a lifestyle choice. We can truly approach him only on his terms. Yes he longs for fellowship with us as his beloved creation, but we need to understand the cost. We need to understand why Jesus alone was the only one who could bridge the gap. 

Let us be careful to approach Him as He has revealed Himself, and not invent our own God from the best bits as we see them.

 Let us be careful to discover more about this God who loves us with passion we could hardly even imagine, this God who we will one day meet as either judge or saviour, this God who is good but not safe.