Mums & Jesus

“Mum” is there a name that could mean more, and to so many?  There is hardly a higher compliment or ambition that could be sought, than to be call mum.

“Jesus” is there a name that could mean so many things, and to so many? This name that is misused, abused and honoured. It is called upon, blamed, praised, adored, cursed and feared. Yet there is no name higher than Jesus.

It’s not easy to become a mum, well, you have to give birth! To the unknowing eye the time of labour is not life giving. The sounds, smells and sights not to mention the pain are not the normal conditions for which you expect something beautiful to happen.
And then it does… New life; beautiful.
I cannot grasp the depths of love between a mum and child at that point. When my wife held our children for the first time she uttered tenderly through the tears and exhaustion… “Hello there”. As I reflect on this moment I can think of no better summary for the mystery and love than a line from JJ Heller’s song ‘I get to be the one‘

“How does someone so small, hold my heart to tightly.
I Don’t even know you; I love you completely.”

Jesus looking lovingly at his disciples said words which echo in a mother’s love.
“This is my body broken for you”
The cross, and the events of the passion week are not the conditions for which you expect something beautiful to happen.
And then it does… New life; beautiful.
The depths of love from God to man are incomprehensible to me, when I think of the new and eternal life God has birthed inside me, when I attempt to think of what it took so that the invite to have this new & eternal life could go out to all the world (inc me) I am left in speechless awe.  What love. I cannot comprehend, I can see a picture of this love as I see how my wife loves our children, it’s a strong love, a sacrificial love, a trusting love, an unconditional love.
God’s love for us is like that but stronger, purer, bigger, completely dependable and absolutely free yet cost the ultimate price.  And why? and how do I know? I can think of no better summary than the song my son was singing this morning.

“Yes Jesus loves me, the Bible tells me so.”

Happy Mothers Day!

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King David – The Imperfect.

Sin sin sin, it provides the backdrop to every broken man, every torn woman. It Is the silent tear in each eye, and the heaviness in each conscience and the beginning of everything that is not right with this place.
David is a huge character in our scriptures, more narrative space is given to David than any other character in the Bible and not only do we have his documented life in detail but also a huge catalogue of his inner thoughts and prayers in the Psalms. Yet with all this space, not even the slightest effort is made to present him as admirable in any sense. The man after God’s own heart, is yet far from perfect. The man who didn’t kill Saul when being pursued by him, also murdered Uriah.
As Jesus followers we must run from 2 things, we must run from Sin and Perfectionism both are soul-wrecking germs which will work their way to hardening our hearts.
As we pray in the company of David’s psalms and live in the company of his story we begin to notice that sin is not ours to address, none of the psalms pray to sin asking it to go away, and in none do we hear the phrase ‘I’ll never do that again’.
We begin to learn the we do not deal with sin on our own, we deal with God and he deals with our sin.  The way he does this is to forgive.  He calls it Grace.
God’s business is to deal with sin, so our business is to deal with God as he continually does His work in and with us.
Our praying and God following companion (King David) keeps us mindful that it is God who does His perfect work through us, not us perfecting ourselves.
Do not fall for the lie that we can deal with sin on our own that’s perfectionist talk, not the talk of a forgiven Grace filled follower.
Sin is God’s business, let Him deal with it.

Standing on Grace

Grieve Well, With Hope. (for those who mourn Leah Whyte)

Leah Whyte.  I was not close to her, but some of my closest friends were some of her closest friends and family.
Words; people say there’s nothing can be said, and though there are times and places where nothing should be said, (and there will be many of those over the next few weeks), words have power.  Having decided not to, I’ve now decided to carefully and with tears write a blog for those who loved Leah not as a tribute but hopefully as a help and to let you know that many are mourning your lost with you.  

In the words of her mum ‘Leah was ready to die, we were not ready to say goodbye.’  
Though we can barely believe it we must hold on to the truth that God is faithful. By God is faithful we mean that His faithfulness can be depended on.  We can trust in it fully.
God’s is faithful.  Truth is these words go deep, much deeper than we sometimes give them credit for.  This depth is truly realised when death comes and unapologetically interrupts our lives. 

Death is sad, no matter how ready someone is or how ready we know they are, it’s sad.  Friends please grieve, mourn and grieve because this is not the way it should be. 
God can and does work for the good and bring good out of evil.  But God is the one who gives life and it is this fallen world and the enemy who takes it away…
We do great damage to ourselves and our thoughts about God when we look at something wrong/evil and try to call it good. 
As those who mourn we need to be able to say:
“This is not good:
This is not the way it should be
This is a tear in the fabric of God’s good creation
And God weeps over it and rages against it
And one day will defeat this enemy for good and restore all the goodness”

And that’s the thing, this is not good, but we have a good God.  ‘And what then shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us.’  Not even death can stand against us.
For like Jesus when faced with Jairus’ daughter or standing at the tomb of His friend Lazarus, He wept.  It was not good yet he did not finish with weeping.  Like Jesus we too can mock the clutch of death and call it sleep.  For we know and we trust that the same man who raised Lazarus has been to the cross, has defeated that final enemy and has rose victorious. CHRIST HAS RISEN, CHRIST HAS RISEN INDEED. 
And it is Him, who now says to Horace’s daughter as He did to Jairus’ daughter ‘young girl, its time to wake up’, let me show you heaven for great is your inheritance here. 
And Leah will do what she loved to do…
Worship. 
She is with her Lord, where those of us who’ve trusted Jesus are going too.
So I ask you to:
Grieve well, but with hope.

This is how the story will end. These words have power, not simply because of how beautiful they are, but because they are a promise from our faithful Father.
Revelation 21:3-5a
“I heard a loud voice from the throne saying. ‘Look! God’s dwelling-place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them.  They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.  He will wipe away every tear from their eyes.  There will be no more death, or mourning, or crying, or pain for the old order of things has passed away. He who was seated on the throne said ‘I am making everything new’.”

As those who mourn we’ve a few important choices to make for ourselves…

• Choose to be better not bitter.
• Choose to believe the truth not the lies.
• Choose to rise to Hope not fall to despair.
• Choose to focus on eternity not the temporary.
• Keep your eyes focused on Jesus and your heart in eternity.

Leah is alive, in-fact she is happy.  I know this because we can depend on God’s faithfulness.  God is faithful.  Death is no-longer the final enemy but marks the start of eternity an eternity where we will meet Leah and together with everyone praise the God who is good who gives life.  For he has promised; and he is faithful.

Where O death is your victory. 
Grieve well, with hope…

Standing on Grace, Andrew.

 

Jairus daughter story is in Mark 5:21-43

2 great truths

I wonder do you, like me, often think, man, the Devil is always on my back, always there like this evil influence. Waiting, with a creepy smile that makes your skin crawl for you to walk into temptation. And then, pounce!, he’ll wrestle with your thoughts, make you do something, say something, hurt someone.  

Well, I’ve got quite good news, 1. Satan is not omnipresent! 2. Satan doesn’t know everything about you! 3. Satan is trembling at the thought of the power of the Holy Spirit who’s inside/part-of you.

If we took what we sometimes think the Devil is and flip it, you’ll find a great truth.
The Devil is not with you all the time, wanting to curse you.
But God is always with you, wanting to bless you.

Two great truths.

God is Omnipresent.  There is nowhere where God is not.  God is everywhere.  Think of the darkest most evil place you know, God is there, frustrated with the free-will of people I’m sure, but He is there, seeking to bring home His children, and establish His kingdom and glory.  

God is Love.  There is nothing that we have experienced from God which is outside of love.  Everything, and I write this knowing the suffering life can throw at us, but everything you have experienced and will experience from God is and has been love.

Put these two great truths together and you get one great reassuring confidence, one awesome companioning blessed truth.  

No matter where you are, who your with and what your doing, God is close, and God is always looking on you with love wanting, willing, cheering you in love to become more like His Son.  

“God is Love”
“I will never leave you nor forsake you”

Standing on Grace

Give us our Daily Bread (part-2)

“Give us today our daily bread,” is a prayer that acknowledges our need.
To live the life God gives means we need needs, we need to need. As it means not being in control of what goes on/in our lives. Intentionally needing.

When we think of Eden or Heaven, we think of God giving, and women and men receiving gifts of life.  And we pray ‘Your kingdom come on earth (or if you like, ‘in our lives’)as it is in heaven,’ and then we live trying to supply all our own needs thus dulling, even killing our capacity of receiving.
We prefer to live without needs: 

• So we buy (consumerism). Buy buy buy. This dulls our awareness of need. By buying what we need, we think we’re in control of our lives. ‘I bought this with my own money,’ is not the language of a daily bread recipient.
• So we control. We control our health, diaries, other people. This dulls our awareness of need. By controlling our lives, future, health and organisations we replace any sense of need we have in our lives, with the satisfaction of being in control.  ‘I’ve got that sorted,’ is not the language of a daily bread recipient.

We will never have to pray for daily bread as long as our money and management skills hold out.  Yet this is a heavy price to pay, as to care (or pretend to care) for our own need is a refusal to receive life as a gift, and “will dull and finally destroy our capacity for living, feeling, loving, enjoying. And praying.”¹ 

Call me simple minded for thinking so much about daily bread, but to ask for bread is to acknowledge our place in creation. We are not in control. We are recipients from a life giving God, we receive from a provider. 
Needs are not limits that deaden or reduce our lives, needs introduce us to a life of receiving and giving, of free grace, to a life that cannot be bought or controlled but can only be received as a gift from God.

Do you want to live without needs?.. Then you want to live without God!
To live without the need of daily bread is to refuse God’s dusty, wholegrain, real life, everyday, basic, earthy and heavenly Grace which is ‘on tap’ through daily faith and trust in an everyday provider God. 

Our daily need for bread is a daily reminder that we are in need. We live in a Grace filled world, may we keep this prayer active on our lips and constant in how we view our lives… “Lord, give us…”

“So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” Luke 11

Standing on Grace

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1 – Eugene Peterson, The word made flesh, pg. 184

Give us our Daily Bread (part-1)

On Sunday (at Fahan church) we thanked God for the harvest, a service with diminishing relevance in city churches, but one still alive and important in Fahan, a rural, small, 15 family church which my wife and I worship/serve/receive teaching with. 

It’s time for the Harvest Service, and people again are thankful for a year in which God has filled their bellies with good food, food, good and plentiful enough that most of the folk talk about ‘watching their weight’ thus saying that they actually have too much food in front of them.
In a country in which the Devil has so cleverly made living so comfortable, how do we as Jesus followers live out a lifestyle that is dependant, fully reliant on God.

“Give us today our daily bread”, now that’s a prayer.  As it implies that those of us who ask God for a weeks groceries belong to those who have a lack of faith.  Asking daily for your needs, ‘trusting in God day by day,’ as Debbie’s confused yet endearingly wise granny would often say. 
This prayer for daily bread, a lot more than a realization of need (though it is that).  It is a embrace of good creation and our place in it.  
God gives, we receive.
It’s important we don’t forget this fact, we do not produce anything, we simple receive from a God who is consistent in His giving. Consistent on his providence of seasons, measurable and (to an extent) predictable weather, etc. 
Yet.
We want to live without limits, we want to live without the ‘need’ that we so defiantly have. So we pretend to ourselves that we can control the money that comes into our bank account, that I as a farmer can control the profitability of a dairy cow.  We forget the big picture that God has given it all.  

Matt 5:45
He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

Standing on Grace
part 2 to follow. hope it strikes a chords in you.

for those heading to Uni or College

Mark 6:5f
“He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. He was amazed at their lack of faith.”

Life is a series of opportunities and well… Opportunities pass. Time keeps us in step with passing and coming opportunities but Time wont let us go back and re-live them, even if we’d hoped to ‘do better’. 
All those opportunities you had in school or last year at college/uni are gone, whether you were following/trusting Jesus in those conversations and places or ignoring Him.
Anyway.
Jesus isn’t overly interested in your past.

So this year at college/uni know the God who you are following.  Jesus is not tagging along side you in your life. No. You are following Him into your class, friendships, accommodation, CU leadership. You are following Him, so have faith. 
Whatever you do don’t have a ‘lack of faith’. 
I fear too often we repeat this upsetting passage found in Mark 6, when Jesus was in his hometown.
So above all else have faith. follow Him.
That means to trust in His faithfulness!
And He is faithful.

Standing on Grace

Resurrecting Romance

Love isn’t something talked about too much, I mean love as that in that thing they talk about in songs and the thing that people have to work at, the thing that increases each time you take out the bin without being asked. 
I mean songs, books, movies, poems, card greetings are written about it, or maybe they just hint at it.
But in every day convo, romance, real romance is a rare topic. I guess by ‘romance’ I’m talking about the ability to show someone that they are loved.
Not the ability to string words together to get your way.  

Cause if I’m honest sometimes when Debbie’s doing a pancake making dance (it’s funny and she’ll kill me for saying that) I just think that I’d miss her even if we’d never met.  And yet the Bible doesn’t leave romance un-talked about, you just need to read a wee book between Ecclesiastes and Isaiah.  Man… it’s a book about marriage, insecurities, the vulnerableness of a close relationship, physical passion, the respect of marriage, and the gentleness of love. 
One really interesting thing is an early comment is one of insecurity, ‘She’ says ‘don’t look at me for my skin has been darken by the sun‘ and so on and it takes the man a good few chapters of complementing her beauty to get her round to the idea that she ‘looks the part’.  

you can never tell your wife enough, how awesome she looks.  

One small verse that really has been true to me and pushed me into action in my now year of being married.  Is found in Ch2v15

Catch for us the foxes,
    the little foxes
that ruin the vineyards,
    our vineyards that are in bloom.

The vineyard is a picture of 2 things in the book, The girls beauty and the relationship itself. In this context it’s a metaphor for marriage. Watch for those little foxes, that just ruin the day, ruin the car journey, ruin a ‘night in’, spoil your ministry.  The little things that annoy eachother. 
We’re not talking about huge elephants that tramp on a marriage like being abusive or an affair. 
This is the little things that just spoil the time that is meant to be ‘love’.  Things like, ignoring each-other when in public, always being late, not taking the bin out until asked 3 times, the washing lying in the basket for a month, money being spent on something deemed unapprobate.  Or we could equally say, that the little foxes are, being uptight, unnecessarily annoyed and aggravated that: she’s making you late, he’s not taking out the bin, the washing is lying for weeks. 
There is a casualness and an accepting spirit needed to be married to someone and keep love alive.  I used to say  that’s not the way I’d do it, if living on my own. I needed to wake up.  I’m not living on my own. I’ve got a family.

There is a need and skill to notice the little foxes and there’s a sacrificial spirit needed catch them!  And there is a big need to encourage in your wife/husband in what they are good at, in what their gifts are in.  To build them up so you can love them more. 

Stop the little foxes. Tell your wife she’s beautiful.

Hope this came across ok, I felt the timing was right with my sister getting married at weekend and our 1 year anniversary yesterday.

Standing on Grace.

Reblog from Gregg Stewart

great post by gregg!
it’s not our mission it’s Christ’s, but wait a minute… …didn’t i die and now Christ live in me? it’s mine now! and not because i’m special but because the one I handed my life over to is special!

the year of the Lord’s favour, it’s now and will be until the return of our King.
I with Gregg call believers in Ireland to: Eat the Bible, Live like Christ, daily ask for filling of the Holy Spirit and intentionally and collectively seek God and His Kingdom come!
And Christ will be with you always!

greggstewart

I am just back home from being away in Romania for two weeks on a missions team. While I was out there my friend found a few verses that he felt were speaking to him very strongly. Since I have been back home I have also had these verses on my heart, so I want to explore them and see what God wants to teach us from them. The verses are from Luke 4:18-19.

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”

The context of these verses is that Jesus is in the synagogue in Nazareth on the Sabbath and he quotes the above verses which are found…

View original post 659 more words

The Devil’s Outreach and the forgotten tool of evangelism (Jesus’ will Jesus’ way part 2)

We cannot live for Jesus without living like Jesus.  
We cannot do the will of Jesus without living the way of Jesus.

Jesus’ will Jesus’ way. (part 2)
please let me know what you think of this, all discussion is welcome! 

Once we have a grasp on the fact that we cannot and should not do the will of God without doing it in the way of God.  That is, for the Father’s glory, copying the life of Jesus and doing it through the Spirits power.  This new age that Jesus brought in, and the mission He left us with, to make disciples in His name teaching them to love.  It must be done in the way of Jesus.  Jesus’ life matters immensely.  It is the example that God choose to show us, how life is meant to be lived, how we are to live this Kingdom Life, this Resurrection Life.  The sermon on the mount, the parables, the encounters He had with people, the way He addressed His parents and followers, the way He played with children, the things He wept about, the things He celebrated, should be the nut’s and bolts of what we use to put our lives together.  All of His weeping, jumping, playing, teaching, story telling, eating, chatting, Sabbath observing, praying, waiting, sacrificing, walking on water, cooking breakfast, these things should be always on our minds, if we are going to live like Jesus; if we are to follow.
The first thing you do when following is observe, and you keep observing that which you’re following as you begin to walk in the pre-trodden footprints.  

So as we specifically look at the mission of Disciple making, the extending of God’s kingdom which we are all called to, I think we need to look at the start of Jesus’ mission when He started. 
When we think about making disciples, I’m beginning to find that Satan is trying to tempt us into doing the right thing the wrong way, he tries to get us so focused on the will of God, that we forget the way of God.   We still give it the label ‘outreach’ and it seems to do the job of making us feel good about our engagement in God’s kingdom.
This seems to be satan’s first tactic. 
He get’s us to simply serve God not be a servant of God.  You can serve someone solely on your terms, however you cannot be a servant on your terms.  You do not follow Jesus by ‘helping’ Him along in his mission. No. You partake in it, you become a servant and follower you personify his mission as a lifestyle.  

Jesus didn’t just tell the truth, He was the truth; Jesus didn’t just show the way, He was the way; Jesus didn’t just introduce you to the life, He lived the life.  

So when Jesus was about to start announcing the Kingdom of God, the kingdom He would rule, He was tempted by Satan in three ways. I believe this is recorded for us as a warning that when we start to think of How we are going to make disciples, we will be tempted in the same way and to watch we don’t fall into the trap of setting up God’s kingdom in a faster, more efficient manner, one which we think God hasn’t yet considered.  The story is in Matt 4 and Luke 4.

Jesus was tempted to make stones into bread.
And He could have, in-fact he could have made all the stones in the world into bread and ended world poverty.  He could have lived showing off His ‘super-powers’ and lets be honest that would have been a real eye catcher. He could have promised bread for all who pledged alliance to him, he could of pointed his finger at trees and made them crumble to dust and then re-grow in 10 seconds.
He could have, but He didn’t. 
He didn’t bribe people into the kingdom, He was no prosperity Gospel preacher, He did not put on a magic show to ‘attract’ people into the church. He built relationships with people, He told people it was their faith that healed them, He wasn’t looking for a pledge of alliance for some surface level “you serve me and I’ll change your stones into bread” contract.  He knew only the world of covenant, a messy relationship filled community.
Jesus didn’t come to save the world by preaching prosperity and bribing people into the kingdom and neither should we.

Jesus was tempted to show-off His standing with Heaven.
The Devil temps Jesus to jump off the temple into a crowed market place, I’m sure with many important people in the crowd.  The angels from heaven would come to His rescue and everyone would see just how important He is and bow down and worship Him.  What’s wrong with that?  Well, He could have made a celebrity out of Himself, walking around with visible angels at His side. He could of kept that huge choir of angels that appeared at His birth as His opening act when he came to a town near you.
He could have but He didn’t. 
He didn’t try to make a celebrity out of Himself, when He was in Jewish regions and someone said ‘you’re the son of God’ He was like ‘keep that down will you’.  Relationships were so important to Him that He wanted to get right down to our level so He could have real friendships.  He wasn’t looking for some sort of celebrate status so He could increase His influence levels and impact the world.  He knew only the world of humble loving, relationships.
Jesus didn’t come to save the world by showing off and becoming a celebrity whose better than other people and neither should we.

Jesus temped to have control over people by force.
The Devil temps Jesus by showing Him all the kingdoms of the world and saying, “you came to be their king didn’t you? Well, I can make that happen for you right now, no need for Geathsamine no need for the cross just pure lordship.” well I’m sure that was tempting! But then came the decision making comment from the lier, “only if you bow to me first.”  Now He could have became king by force, He could have followed the way of the devil. He could have used his power to manipulate and intimidate people into being subject to His rule. 
He could have but He didn’t.  
He didn’t force people to obey, He didn’t make people come into His kingdom, He didn’t take advantage of people’s emotional state.  Relationships have to be a free choice, Jesus knew this. So many times He let people reject Him sometimes without much care it seems.  He always gave people the choice to follow or not, He didn’t even butter up his kingdom, often telling people how much they’d have to give up. He knew only the world of a trusting, freely following relationship. Jesus didn’t bring people into His kingdom by force or taking advantage of them and neither should we.

Neither should we, preach prosperity Gospel, come into the kingdom and all your stones will turn to bread!

Neither should we, embrace celebrity culture, come to the kingdom because David Beckham thinks it’s a good idea.

Neither should we, leave people with no choice, taking advantage of their emotional state or leaving them with no choice. 

The three big temptations of Jesus, are still very evident as we continue in Jesus’ mission to the world, we are tempted to do the right thing the wrong way:
To preach that all your stones will become bread if you come to our church
To preach that, ‘hey look being a Christian is cool, just look at this cool rock star we have who became a Christian.’
And to force people into the church with threats and bribes into professing Christ. 
Would be to follow the devil’s plan for church outreach.  

We need to study Jesus’ life in detail, we need to read the gospels as part of our routine, to allow them to absorb into our character and into our church mission plans.  What if we were to plan our church’s outreach with using no other references or templates other than the 4 gospels.  The woman at the well, Jesus’ focus on prayer, how he challenged hypocrites, who he spent time with, His over dinner conversations, His public speaking.  How would our churches look if we didn’t follow the:
‘come to our service and get free tea/coffee a KFC voucher, oh, and you’ll get richer’,
‘come to our service and meet a celeb’,
‘come to our service, or else’, approach.

Relationship is the scaffolding of Jesus’ kingdom building, a real one, with a real Jesus.
Is relationship the forgotten tool of evangelism?
my prayer
‘Oh to have a pure witness, unwavering and boldly following Jesus.
Please Holy Spirit lead me to be more like your son. I love you and long for you.’

Standing on Grace.

ps
Sorry if this sounded harsh. I feel I myself fall into the devils temptation to do the right thing the wrong way often. 
I’m hoping to do part 3 of “Jesus’ will Jesus’ way”