Anniversary, or ‘Love song for a Saviour’
One year ago two of the best people I know got married. It was their anniversary recently, and as I saw the status update on Facebook, my memory was filled with images of a flowing white dress, a church packed with loved ones, tears rolling down the strong cheeks of the groom.
I remember the song to which the bride walked down the aisle.
Jars of Clay - Love song for a Saviour
He's more than the laughter or the stars in the heavens
As close a heartbeat or a song on our lips
Someday we'll trust Him and learn how to see Him
Someday He'll call us and we will come running
and fall in His arms and the tears will fall down and we'll pray,"I want to fall in love with You"
Now, to my mind that's the most incredible start to a marriage. Marriage where the pursuit of the love of God is the centre. Marriage which rejoices in being so close to the Lord. Marriage which finds it's security and peace in the arms of the Almighty.
I am very glad that I got to know these two people, since I was not raised in a Christian home. My parents do not pursue the love of God. I don't particularly want my potential future marriage to echo theirs, since I don't perceive it to be the best way to 'do' marriage.
Yet after one year, I think my two friends are onto something. The pursuit of God, knowing him and his grace, falling more in love with him. Yes, a marriage which understands God and the most supreme love, which has it's foundation in that love, is a marriage which I want.
When the time is right.
I just love what God is doing in and through his people.
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Learning how to Die #3
Love is hard.
And I don't mean hard in that it costs money or time or energy.
I mean it is hard to even think lovingly about someone, or a situation, or a group of people. Sunday, I was leading worship in a church which seemed rather unconcerned that I was even there. In fact the only comment I got at the end was the mumble 'you forgot the Lord's Prayer'.
I struggled to love those people. A lot. That was in a worship setting where I was supposed to fix my mind upon Jesus and love and all those sort of good Christian things. In fact, I sort of became frustrated with them. Some of that frustration may well have been legitimate - I mean, I think it's pretty ridiculous for people to refuse to open their bibles in church - but I remember leaving that building with a fair amount of contempt in my heart for them.
That was the start of my week.
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Learning how to Die #2
Learning how to die is rapidly becoming lessons in love. See, the Law of God can be summarised with 2 main ideas:
Love God
Love others
And the New Testament idea is that the law brings death (2 Corinthians 3:7-8). I perceive this death to be necessary, as there can surly only be new life once the old one is gone.
Jesus followed the law perfectly , and his path took him to the cross. And then he was raised from the dead. He asks me to follow his path. To walk with him, the way of life everlasting.
I think it's amazing that I get to walk with Christ, that the path he takes me down is the one he has been down before. He went ahead to make the path clear. He knows where all the tough bits are. He knows where my feet might stumble, where I might get tired. He knows how much it hurts, and how hard temptation is.
He sits with God in the place of joy everlasting, and some day I will be united to him. Sometimes, the heavenly joy bursts into my life like the sunshine breaks through the cloud. That taste of the things of God is the reward for pursuing. Sometimes, I get the privilege of looking like Christ in suffering, sacrificing for others.
'Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends.' Jesus said (John 15:13). This costly love is the price to be paid for everlasting life.
Eternal life is a free gift that will cost you everything.
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Learning how to Die #1
Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.
-Jesus
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
- Paul
The New Testament speaks of following Christ as a new life. The former life is left behind and there is a cosmic shift in which one who choses to follow the way of Jesus is transformed. The writers commonly refer to 'death' of the old self, and the 'new birth' of a new individual.
Paul makes this statement:
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. (Romans 5:5-11)
But my struggle is this: How do I die? Well, how do I make this 'death' idea meet reality?
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What do you mean, ‘saved by grace’?
If you've been around church at all, you might have begun to pick up the language we use there. I like to call it 'Christianese', a strange tongue made of strange words and phrases no one else understands.
"Cleansed by the Blood of the Lamb"
"Washed by the Living Water"
etc
Preachers are the worst for it. Sometimes I think they just make things up. Even things which ought to be the simple, basic truths of our faith can sometimes become completely indecipherable.
Basic truths like 'God loves you', 'Jesus died for you', 'Nothing can make God love you any more, or any less'. These are some of the most basic parts of the faith. Yet these are the hardest truths to grasp.
These simple statements have become irritating clichés, the worst sort of Christianese.
It rings, loudly and unavoidably, like a fire alarm in my ears. The words of the the Apostle Paul:
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9)
I don't know if you're anything like me. I mean, yes you have skin, a pulse and two eyes but I can't be sure if you're like me. When you read those words, you probably understand them. I, however, don't.
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Couch Mouse House – Responding to Jon Acuff
I read this provoking article by Jon Acuff, a frankly brilliant writer whom you should all make certain to connect with.
In it, he discusses how those with attachment disorders hoard rubbish.
'Often, the people lose their kids in order to maintain their hoarding lifestyle. The trash is more important. The numbness that hoarding offers is too enticing and you watch in shock as everything in life is given up so that a homeowner can crawl back inside a warm rubbish cocoon.'
Sin is often costly and like the hoarding disorder, often irrational. Hoarding pain, guilt, anxiety for many is a dangerous obsession. It packs the heart full of bitterness. As cliché as it sounds, 'hurt people, hurt people'. To hoard guilt is to inflict that pain on others.
I am challenged by Jon's prophetic words which indeed speak into my heart. Perhaps I should stop denying that I do it. That is, hoarding self-hate as if I'm making an investment into the 'piety' account. All I am really doing is dishing out pain to those who are close and warning off those who might want to come near.
Perhaps Jon's words challenge what I believe about repentance and forgiveness. I totally believe the Lord transforms one's social experience when one repents. Perhaps I have forgotten that the Lord also gave us things like thoughts, feelings, emotions which are also redeemed when he forgives us.
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Valentines Blessing
It hurts me to write this. Really, I'd rather dip my face in burning acid than admit it, but one of the clearest and most blessed ways by which God reveals himself is by the union of man and woman.
Marriage shows the perfect representation of the invisible God, as together man and woman are in his likeness. Similarly, those who are married can testify to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the mystery of his love for the Church.
So these words I want to bless those who are married and those who are on the way towards it.
May the Spirit of the Divine
Bind you to one another
With the ties of love and service
Obedience and honour
Which are good and right in the sight of God
May you learn together what it means to be human
Formed in the image of the Most Holy
May you bring honour to Jesus through your conduct and conscience
Glorifying our Risen Saviour
And baring witness to the great Lover
The Bridegroom who loves his people
May God be pleased to manifest his presence with you
And may he rejoice over you
His dear children
Amen
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Born again, again
It happened again. You know, that thing.
I don't know what it is for you, but for me it's always that one thing which seems to be the measure of my faith. If I do this thing, or don't do that thing, then I know I'm a Christian. I know I'm saved.
But I failed again. I did that act or thought that thought or didn't do that thing I was supposed to do.
And so, I know I must again pray:
Dear God, forgive me.
I'm sorry for failing you.
Help me not do do it again, please be near me now
Amen
I've memorised several of these prayers and I cycle them round each time I fail God. I pray them fairly often. I come to Christ to be forgiven and receive new birth, again.
What about you? I spend vast amounts of my time feeling like a failure, failing God, failing the expectations of others and failing my expectations of myself.
I just don't want to do that one thing anymore!
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If I shall not be one with a woman, who shall I be one with?
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. (Gen 2:24)
I was created with the desire to be with a woman.
Adam, in the garden of Eden - even before sin seperated him from God - desired the company of another person. God heard this desire, and made for man a companion, like him yet different. Equally in God's image, yet not in the image of the man. She was woman. Different. Unique. The only one right for the man.
And so the Biblical theology of marriage is that it is a union that existed first in the perfect presence of God.
Marriage, the union of man and woman for life, was the climax of the creation. You can see this, because it was the last act before sin entered the Garden. Humans most fully reflect the nature of God in this union.
So then it is natural for man to desire woman.
He comes pre-loaded with all these desires and feelings he wants to share with a woman.
He comes with a space ready in his spirit that the woman can fill.
I was created with the desire to be with a woman.
I have this space in my spirit for a woman to fill.
I am pre-loaded with desires and feelings I want to share with a woman.
Yet as it is, and as it may be for many years, I am single.
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