My way, your way, their way, our way ... but all that matters is His way

In Shrek, the ogre, having had his swamp disturbed by Donkey, Pinocchio, the three pigs, the wolf and many other Fairy Tale creatures, decides to address their eviction with Lord Farquaad. On leaving, he shouts, “Fairy tale creatures, don’t get too comfortable”.

It is in the nature of all creatures to settle. No matter what kind of circumstances we find ourselves in, we will soon tame it and make it as comfortable as possible.

The problem with settling, is that it can be at odds with God’s agenda. There are times when His spirit stands still, but such seasons of settlement are never an end. The Kingdom is always advancing.

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Seek first the Kingdom and the things you deem so important will follow

John D Rockerfeller made the point that if all you seek in life is wealth (or power or success), you will never achieve it.

Most who achieve great things in life, do not pursue success. Their goals are narrow and they serve the goal not the other way around. They put their backs into it over a long period, until their inputs derive a greater outcome.

Paul said, “I sowed, another watered but God added the increase” (1 Corinthians 6). He was an “inputs” man, who concerned himself with doing the right things and doing things right, whilst entrusting God to translate that into something significant.

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Arise, shine, for thy light has come and the glory of God is risen upon you

An unbalanced perspective of the Godhead, leads to hues and shades of God that detract from His glory and rob us of power. Just as white light results from the full mix of the visible spectrum, so the truth of God is reflected in the balance of the three sources of divine light: the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

I grew up in an orthodox context. It gave me good foundations but never brought me to a personal knowledge of Christ. My wife had an evangelical background, which was full of sound doctrine but otherwise staid. I guess it was a miracle that I came to know Jesus at all.

I was in the army, when a fellow soldier told me I also needed the Holy Spirit. After a few weeks of seeking God, I was mightily filled with the Spirit: an experience that set me on fire for God. That transformed me from an orthodox pew-warmer to a passionate believer, leaving me with the view that the power of the Holy Spirit is best revealed in a personal conviction of Christ.

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Of the Son He said, "Thy throne Oh God, is forever and ever"

There is a remarkable inter-dependence in the Godhead. For me it describes the ultimate model of leadership, where three roles merge into one entity, functioning co-dependently, whilst presenting human history with a unified, balanced witness. The three are functionally one, not just in terms of their being One God.

One of the best examples of these points is seen in the way the Father defers to the Son in Hebrews 1, saying, “Thy throne Oh God, is forever and ever”. Such words were never uttered to or about angels, because they were reserved for the Son. They are an expression of adoration and praise from the Father to the Son.

If the Godhead is a model of leadership, and for me church authority pertains to leadership, not leaders per se, then we are faced with a contradiction. The head pastor of that divine leadership above, in honoring the Son, effectively shows that His role as the Father is not a level or hierarchy, but a role amongst roles. Jesus reciprocated by saying that He could do nothing without the Father ... and evidently the Father has the same regard for the Son. The same principles apply to the Holy Spirit.

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The church's one and only true foundation, is Jesus Christ her Lord

When Jesus met the woman at the well, He introduced some remarkable truths. Rather typically, our regal king used few words to convey volumes of meaning across many dimensions: He specifically addressed the needs of the woman, but that overflowed to the needs of her community. Beyond that He spoke to Jews and Samarians and ultimately also addressed the church that would follow in His footsteps.

Sometimes I ponder how gainsayers fuel their doubts, for even if I had nothing else I would still be compelled to believe Him: His words are just so profound. Through great economy of language, He managed to reach the poor, the rich, the simple and wise, the Jew and the Gentile.

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The path of the bride is converging with the groom as we enter the climax of the ages

I am told that Voltaire once referred to the Apostle Paul as an “ugly little Jew”. How he even drew his conclusions so many centuries after the great man lived and died, is a bit of a mystery. That said, appearances never defined great men. Rather Paul referred to the sweet fragrance of Christ in His life, the powerful essence that endows the faithful with a regal air. Paul added, that the same fragrance, whilst alluring to many, remained a deep offence to others.

Now Paul also alluded to one of the key factors for that sweet fragrance. In Ephesians 4 he makes the point that, despite many differences in administration there is still one Lord, one Faith, On Baptism, One God and Father over us all.

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He who has the Son has life, He who has not the Son, has nothing

New Testament writers had a wonderful way of using few words to speak great volumes. I am not sure they would have been too popular with today's book publishers or other media channels, because single paragraph books really don't spin the tills.

It has taken me half a lifetime to get a basic grasp of what Paul taught, because he refused to elaborate. He would sometimes reduce significant truth to a paragraph, but Jesus was even more elegant.

It was Jesus who simply stated, "if you will not eat my flesh or drink my blood, you will have no part of me". If I blogged anything like that you would cast a few bricks my way, banish me to Siberia and then delete my URL. Yet He offered no clarification, not even when a substantial part of His support base walked away.

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Giving the finger to God, a sign of the dark times we are now entering into

Some time ago I was in the Louvre museum, enjoying a Renaissance section of the museum, when my eye caught a very offensive gesture in a crucifixion scene. Off to one side, a bystander in the crowd had raised his hand to flex a rude hand signal to the dying Christ. I have tried searching for the painting in question, to no avail, but it is out there somewhere.

I think it was on the same trip where I saw a Muslim in Hyde Park, wipe his backside on the bible. The act may have been symbolic, but the gesture carried a full weight of meaning.

There was a time when such offences were frowned on by society in general. Nowadays, if anyone dared say a word out of place about Mohammed they would be in quick and serious trouble. Indeed, so sensitive has the world become to the Muslim cause, that US authorities have approved a mosque within sight of ground zero. I don't want to debate that, but I am concerned by the way that everyone is so desperate to appease Islam, whilst having no concern about blasphemous use of the name of Jesus in movies or the offensive portrayal of our Saviour in gay or lewd contexts. 

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Less is more, more or less, until less becomes less and more becomes more

A friend appropriately encouraged me by SMS to keep things simple and to take more of God's truth at face value. He closed by saying, "Less is more".

Now, whilst in essence I agree with his challenge and indeed as a family we have significantly simplified our lives of late, I still have some dilemmas, most notably that it is just too easy for outsiders to oversimplify the realities of others.

How do I tell my wife and children that we should find ways to simplify our prevailing challenges, without provoking a cynical response? How do I tell them it will all be okay, whilst in reality it is anything but? How does my friend reconcile mounting debts against a non-existent income? Or how does my missionary friend, who lives in a completely off-the-beaten track village in Zambia, rationalise his trust in God whilst his resources are being consumed by the disease that is threatening the life of his child? I could go on, suffice to say that for those in crisis, life is rarely simple.

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The unchanging ways of the Great I am, give us an objective faith and great hope

Our fathers have a great penchant for saying, “Later”. The cat’s in the cradle song put it well, saying, “We’ll get together then and we’ll have a good time then”. For so many of us, a father’s word is somewhat flexible, offering well-meaning promises with no guarantee of fulfillment. This is not a go at Dads – I am one and I know how imperfect I am. Its more about contrasting the consistency of God.

Hebrews 12:4 confirms that our fathers discipline us from time to time according to their whim or at their own pleasure, but God chastens us for our good so we can share in His glory. What that means is that God is not capricious, but I will go further in suggesting that God does not even dispense favors. He is not a heavenly butler or vending machine, He is God.

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You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God

The coming battlefield will not be about ideology or faith. It will not be about dogmas, doctrines or denominations. It will not be about Greek, Hebrew, the tongues of men or of angels. It will not be about whether we worship in Jerusalem, Samaria, Canterbury or Rome. It will not relate to the full moon, the sun, the seasons or the time of day.

Future battle lines will be drawn around one subject, the eternal word of God: Jesus the light of the world.

For all our original thought and the initiatives that have characterized church life through the ages, our wood, hay and stubble will all be tried in the fires of tribulation. From the flames will emerge the timeless gold, silver and precious stones of a refined and pure faith that is, was and always will be built on the rock of ages.

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Jesus is the only name given amongst men whereby we might be saved

Just two days ago I posted a blog on Newton's involvement in Arianism and how that signalled one of the great threats to our faith. I made the point that it is not the glaringly obvious errors that we must worry about, especially in this age of compromise, it is more the insiduous, subtle shifts in doctrine that are sadly quite widespread in modern Christendom. The more we try to contemporise the church, the more we expose ourselves to the risk of drifting off course and becoming assimilated into the world culture.

Well, today I found that on this day in 1553, John Servetus was arrested as a heretic and subsequently burnt at the stake. As a scientist and philosopher his public stature was significant, but we must add to that the fact that he actively participated in the reformation. He was no obvious heretic and even his Arianist views were ever so subtly removed from the central dogmas of the Christian faith. He accepted that the Logos, as described in Genesis 1 and John 1, was the eternal word of God and the force of creation. However, that Word only became Jesus when the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us. Accordingly, He regarded Jesus as a created being, less than God. In no other respect did He discredit Jesus. 

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Will this age of compromise lead us astray or will the Lord of the Harvest intervene?

Early this morning I read that Isaac Newton was a closet Arianist, which means that despite his public testimony, privately he questioned the Trinity and believed that Jesus was created, making Him less than God. Later a friend invited me to join a group which advocates a Trinitarian position, but I chose to write instead.

Arius was a dissident of the Nicene position, the council commissioned by Constantine the Great to canonize the bible and its doctrines. He preached his alternative theology around 250 to 336 AD and was significantly influenced by Lucius of Antioch. However, proliferation of Arianism helped to reinforce and cement the Nicene view of a Triune God.

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Praying effectively: What role does Jesus play in our daily trials and struggles

According to Romans 8, "The Spirit makes intersession for us according to the will of God". I don't wish to be contentious, but Romans 8:26-27 is not about the Holy Spirit (in spite of any Greek subtexts in the passage).

The context is about Jesus and His role in sustaining our walk of faith. Thus Paul opens the chapter saying, "there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ", whilst adding later, "if anyone has not the spirit of Christ, He is none of His." It is Christ's indwelling life that sustains us in our journeys of faith, thus bringing about the transformation of our minds that ultimately reconciles us to the Father's will.

Therefore the interceding Spirit is Christ and the text is not an argument for speaking or praying in tongues. According to a number of New Testament writers (1 Timothy 2:5), there is only one mediator between God and man, and that is Christ. He alone is the great High Priest so adequately described by the writer to the Hebrews. To that end, Hebrews 2 argues that He had to be made like Hs brothers (verse 17) so that He might become a merciful and faithful High priest. No one else was more qualified to intercede between us and the Father, than the Lord Jesus Christ.

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There is empirical evidence that prayer heals, as reported by AFP

The following was so intriguing I replicated in full to be true to the originator, AFP:

Washington - Prayer heals when it's close-up and personal, and there's a study to prove it.

It's not just any kind of prayer, but "proximal intercessory prayer", or PIP - when one or more people pray for someone in that person's presence and often with physical contact - that was found by a team of doctors, scientists and religious experts to have remarkable results in healing some patients.

A team of medical doctors and scientists led by Indiana University professor of religion Candy Gunther Brown found in the study, conducted in rural Mozambique, that prayer brought "highly significant" improvements to hearing-impaired participants and significant changes to the visually impaired.

Fourteen hard-of-hearing and 11 visually impaired study participants were recruited at meetings of Pentecostal Christian groups in Mozambican villages and towns.

They were tested with a handheld audiometer or vision charts, depending on their impairment, before and after they took part in a prayer session.

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Its time to let go and move on, time to walk on the waters and live again

No matter what part we play in initiating our own crises, more often than not there is a degree of injustice in it all. If you think back to David's struggle with Saul, you might argue that David got ahead of himself and thus provoked the king to jealousy, but the ongoing persecution of David was still unwarranted and unjust. Yet David submitted to God and did little to defend his own cause until Saul fell on his own sword. The resulting closure enabled David to move on and live again.

Similarly Moses, who had done astonishing things, was challenged by Korah and his sons. Instead of defending himself, Moses turned to God, surrendered his rights and submitted the issue to divine counsel. When the disputing parties met again, God made His own position very clear by causing the earth to open up and swallow Korah and his family. God, not Moses, saw that justice was done.

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In the living years: settling accounts whilst we can so we leave with peace

In the beautiful movie, "The blind side", Lee Ann Touhy bemoans the fact that Michael, her adopted, black giant of a son, so struggles to remember his school work. Her husband then interrupts to say what will stay with me forever: "Michael's greatest gft is forgetting". After years of being rejected, forced to forage for food, facing cold and lonely nights or walking in the rain, Michael learnt to forget, let go and move on.

Today my own father told me of the reasons he wants to die and go. I told him stuff I can't fully share here, except to say that there are many outstanding accounts in his life. I urged him to call in each of his children, to forgve them and secure their forgiveness - as an act of release.

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Poem: Time only time - its all we have, our greatest and most underrated resource

By silver light, the watchman

walks on shadowed walls,

until the night’s last stand

heralds the waking morn.

A sigh goes up, how long

‘ere the break of day,

when all the trees by song,

shall dance to gilded ray?

Soon, he shouts, very soon,
the golden orb shall breech:
for methinks its overdue -
so be gone, blackness, flee.

But then inquires another
“by what means can you tell -
or can this day be summoned
as flows the village well?”

What man could bid the day,
or by the hour the sun?
His light though soon or late
plumbs the line of time.

Raised wrists n’er defined
nor moved the hand divine,
what heav’n alone decides
that now, at last, its time …

.. for by the same decree
grey seasons come to pass,
so fade the stars that lead,
until day dawns, at last …

… to resurrect, by sure degrees
let none say can or can’t,
what God alone decrees -
this day be thus advanced

(c) Peter Eleazar @ www.4u2live.net

The book of Eli - do we own the Word of God or is it written on our hearts?

Denzel Washingon's portrayal of Eli in the Book of Eli, is a dark, apocalyptic movie. I can't say I enjoyed it much, because the violence was quite gratuitous.

What a pity to give such a great idea the Hollywood treatment, which generally translates into: if its a disaster make it in NYC (by now it should be the worst place on earth to live), if its got any romance in it, it must reduce to a sex scene (that must be a directorial interpretation of love. They even dare to call it lovemaking, which it isn't, its just plain sex) and if its a family movie where four-letter words are inappropriate then revert to some Oh my God's or maybe some blasphemy.

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Poem: Starting again - to the end of every season, comes a new beginning

To every brokenness

of our personal hells,

each empty soul ends,

what started so well.

The naked cry of souls,

in search of covering,

to make the broken whole -

is a long road, unending.

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