New Year thoughts

I hadn't planned on writing anything for today. However somehow I have been prompted too. Resolutions are not my strong point. I do make them and some I keep and some I fail on. All part of being human I suppose.

I have been carrying around one set of resolutions for years it is a bit dog-eared now as you can see.

My failing is that I can stick to this for a while and then drift off. In 2013 I am going to be more faithful. I will edge forward. Notice I don't say how much more faithful! But I will move forward on this...

The two other things I want to mention are:

On honeymoon Debs and I were prayed with powerfully by the guys at this place Bribie Christian Outreach Centre - the Spirit seems to be moving with these people- have a look at what they were saying to their young people "In a moment Jesus can transform your worlds..." (hoping the link will take you to the right place).

We need to expect more of our God. He is the everlasting, everloving creator of you! You are his work of art. We must not limit his love for us by failing to respond. It is the smallness of our own vision that holds us back from living in the fullness of his love.

The Holy Spirit is breathing his healing grace on humanity. Catch the wind of the Spirit in your sails and let it guide your life's  path.

May the Lord bless you in 2013 may he rescue you.

"God with us" and "God among the poor"

We celebrate the birth of the Christ child. "God With Us" who was born into the humble surroundings of a stable. He dwelt amongst us in grace and truth. Living simply and in solidarity with the poor he taught us about God and the love that God has for each one of us.

So "God with us" and "God among the poor" is what I have been thinking about over Christmas. I felt God prompting me to think again about how radical God is in his deep love for humanity. But how God placed Jesus in quite a simple life style. He was birthed into a workers family not into some cushy number. 

I feel maybe God is also making the point that all we need for our lives is actually a sufficiency to supply our food, clothing and shelter - our true wealth is not in palaces but in our love for family, friends and of course God our saviour.

At the start of his ministry in Luke's tells us that Jesus uses words of the prophet Isaiah to announce his purpose, he read out to those in the synagogue "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour." (Luke 4:17-21) and then said “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
It seems to me that if we are to have a share in his ministry we need also to bring Good News to the poor.

Jesus exercised what some Christians now call a "preferential option for the poor". I need to recognise that when I serve the poor I am responding to a call that comes from God and so in doing so you serve Jesus himself. This may sound strange so I suggest that in order to try and understand further you meditate this week on the following:

"I tell you, indeed whenever you did this for one of the least important of these brothers of mine you did it for me!"(Matthew 25:40). The longer passage can be found between verses 31 and 40

A quote from St. Augustine "God does not demand much of you. He asks back what he gave you, and from him you take what is enough for you. The superfluities of the rich are the necessities of the poor. When you possess superfluities, you possess what belongs to others." from an Exposition on Psalm 147:12.

Dear Lord, help me to find my riches in my relationships and to be generous to those in need. Amen

Why?

I have been hesitating to write about the recent events in America. The shooting of so many innocent school children is so sad and heartbreaking for their parents, and relatives and friends.

The situation as it unfolds shows the worst and best of the human spirit at the same time. The worst being a young man who uses his freedom of will to gather weapons and destroy. The best of the human spirit being the sacrificial courageous action we have heard about of teachers hiding their students but then so sadly losing their own lives as a result.

Life shouldn't be like this! But so often it is.

Our own choice, daily, is to choose to bless and not to curse. We have it in our power to do good or to do bad. Let us choose good. Make us strong Lord. Remove our hardness of heart so that we may love tenderly.

For reflection:

John 1:5 GNT
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has never put it out.

Romans 12:14-21 GNT
Ask God to bless those who persecute you—yes, ask him to bless, not to curse.  Be happy with those who are happy, weep with those who weep.  Have the same concern for everyone. Do not be proud, but accept humble duties. Do not think of yourselves as wise.
If someone has done you wrong, do not repay him with a wrong. Try to do what everyone considers to be good.  Do everything possible on your part to live in peace with everybody.  Never take revenge, my friends, but instead let God's anger do it. For the scripture says, “I will take revenge, I will pay back, says the Lord.”  Instead, as the scripture says: “If your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them a drink; for by doing this you will make them burn with shame.”  Do not let evil defeat you; instead, conquer evil with good.

Wait for the Lord; be strong

Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord! Psalm 27.14

"I know that the messiah will come, and when he comes he will tell us everything!" When I hear those words spoken to Jesus by the woman at the well they trigger in me the memory that Jesus birth, death and resurrection was foretold and written in scriptures centuries before he was born. To me just as exciting is his reply "I am he, I who am talking to you."

In the shopping haze before Christmas it is good to break off a piece of time and use it to stand back and think about the prophecies that foretold Jesus coming.

For centuries the Jews had waited for the coming of the messiah. The prophets had predicted that he was to come. There was a period when to some it seemed that God had gone silent. But his birth was as predicted slowly and inevitably rolling towards them.

We as humans are not very good at waiting. But God is good and sometimes his perfect plan has to unfold slowly, or even majestically, in order to give us the fullness of his mercy. His saving hand is over the lives of all.

Today we live at the crossroads for humanity, and the extraordinary time between the first coming of the messiah and the second coming. It has been preordained. We must be as sure as that Samaritan women was and speak out into our own lives in faith "I know that the messiah will come"

We need also to have the faith of Simeon. A man who listened to the Holy Spirit  - who as he held the baby Jesus in his arms said "with my own eyes I have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples: a light to reveal your will to the Gentiles and bring glory to your people Israel" and then "this child is chosen by God for the destruction and the salvation of many in Israel. He will be a sign from God which many will speak against and so reveal their secret thoughts." Read the whole passage here Luke 2:22-38

Also for reflection Luke 1:39-56 Mary's song as she is full of joy is beautiful!

Dear Lord, as we prepare for this Christmas renew our faith. Give us again the excitement of knowing your joy in out hearts. Amen

Take action to change

This is the last in the mini series "God has a plan for your life" - so it isn't about change for changes sake. It is about changing to be the best version of ourselves that we can be. To do this we need to align our heart with what love requires of us and then take action to try and achieve that. The thing is we are never going to be perfect. But it is better to try to change rather than to think we can stand still. Because the human reality is that we never stand still, we are always changing either for better or for worse. The Dylan song puts it "he who isn't busy being born is busy dying"

So we want to be born anew and know that change is scary for the human heart. Yet we need to put fear aside and realise that when we pray we are entering a spiritual dynamic that inevitably changes us.

So! Here is the check list... Like driving a car some things just need to happen before we proceed.

The key in the ignition is daily prayer and Scripture reading. Allocate some time for this. It doesn't have to be a huge amount of time. Persistence is more important than quantity.

Turning the key gets the engine on. This is the exciting bit - movement is imminent. You are listening to what God and your life is saying to you.

When you reach the point where you want to go forward you need to put your foot on the accelerator. God has shown you what you need to do, perhaps it is who to forgive, who to ask for help, perhaps what you need to give up. You are moving forward in the knowledge that God is with you.

Be bold - take that step

For reflection:

Isaiah 55:6-11 NIV

Seek the Lord  while he may be found;
call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake their ways
and the unrighteous their thoughts.
Let them turn to the Lord , and he will have mercy on them,
and to our God, for he will freely pardon. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,"
declares the Lord . "As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts. As the rain and the snow
come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

Dear Lord, we rely on your mercy, bless our lives with your abundant love, let us fully comprehend it. To know you is to know the beginnings of joy in our life. Amen

Listen to what God has to say about your life

Isaiah 55:1-3 NIV

"Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread,
and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
and you will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me;
listen, that you may live.
I will make an everlasting covenant with you,
my faithful love promised to David.

Our rebellious side might say why listen to God? For me the reason is that he can speak objective truth into our situation. What God says is a truth for all time and not a temporary fix. His universe is up and running and the laws that apply will continue to apply. Our God is both amazing and perplexing in that way.

The objective truth is still there for us even when circumstances change. To witness from my own life for example. Three weeks ago when I started this mini series on God's Plan I kind of knew which way I was going. Yet the circumstances of my life have changed since then. We have an issue with Debs visa to overcome and have temporarily dropped to one income. Now that all stems from a miscommunication somewhere along the line and needs to be sorted out. We are praying and listening for an answer but holding on to the objective truth that as husband and wife we need to live together. It might knock our faith a little but increases it when we come out the other side with a God blessed solution.

God's plan is the plan for your life but uniquely configured for you in version 1 which involves you and him! You need to align yourself with his personal plan for you. It uses all your strengths and can cover your weaknesses.

Yet when we go wrong he can and does bring us back on track when we turn back to him.

God's only law is love. That law governs the whole of creation and God himself. To love is to be a part of that. The personal bit comes out of how we exercise our free will to discover how and where to love and, of course who to love.

Because we have this free will each one of us also has the exciting prospect of discovering what our God given talents are and then stepping out in faith and using them.

We need to concentrate always on finding the most loving solution to our opportunities and our problems. That way we cause the least collateral damage whilst achieving the most personal growth.

Listening to God is done through living in his words in the Bible, with the help of those who can interpret and pray them with us.

Dear Lord, reveal your path for my life. Help me to walk your path in a way that is loving and unique for me. Amen

The Plan for Your Life (2) - Listen

Amos 5.14 Seek good, not evil, that you may live. Then the LORD God Almighty will be with you, just as you say he is. Hate evil, love good; maintain justice in the courts.

Last week I talked about the plan for your life. I said that the first stage of finding the plan for your life is to Listen to it. By that I mean to pause and ask yourself "what are the events and circumstances of my life saying to me?"

By doing this we introduce to ourselves a habit of self knowledge. It could be that you keep a journal and are already doing this to a point. But you can take things one step further and ask "Did I seek good today?" - it can be a revealing question. If we didn't seek good just how harmful have our actions been?

The reason people change when they encounter God is because he has a disconcerting tendency to hold a mirror up to our lives - so that we can see ourselves as others do. Sometimes we need to do that in order to recognise what is wrong with us as well as what is right with us. The mirror is there so that we can have enough self knowledge to want to change.

If we are struggling with addiction we can find that we haven't "sought good" because we are so busy looking to feed the addiction. It pushes our time for others out of the way.

But remember that the love that comes from God is a free gift for your life. You can exercise your own will as to whether to accept it. Let God in and he will bring you to an exciting new phase of your life.

There is a prayer that has helped a lot of people over the years.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

The plan for your life

The truth is that God has a plan and a purpose that is unique to each one of us. God our creator doesn't want us all to be the same. He calls each one of us daily "out of darkness into his wonderful light." He wants us to be the best version of ourself that we can possibly manage. It might be very hard to believe that today. But take it on your heart.

On my Facebook profile is one of my favourite quotes from St Catherine of Siena."Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire." 

No matter whether your situation is desperate or wonderful. God wants to be able to speak into your life and guide you. No matter what you have done God has a rescuing plan for you to pluck you out of disaster or even from mediocrity.

The first step is to have the strength, or perhaps help from someone, to believe that God is your redeemer.
The next three steps are crucial

• Listen to your life
• Listen to what God has to say about your life
• Take action to change

In the next three weeks I will write more on each of those above subjects.

Meanwhile for reflection I will briefly share what is going on with me. God can be quite insistent to speak sometimes. This week he gave me a very vivid dream about a fire,and in the dream the reading I was given was Jeremiah 4. It wasn't a passage that I was familiar with so I went and looked it up. Here is an excerpt from it.

Circumcise yourselves to the Lord , circumcise your hearts, you people of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, or my wrath will flare up and burn like fire because of the evil you have done— burn with no one to quench it. Jerusalem, wash the evil from your heart and be saved. How long will you harbour wicked thoughts? Jeremiah 4:4

Just to share with you I feel God is saying to me "put sin under lock" and then you will be able to move into the next phase in your life. That quote is from Daniel 10:21.God says "I have come to teach it to you because God loves you. Pay attention to this word and understand the vision"

I know from past experience if I listen to him - he will change my life

Dear Lord, I sense you want to move us into a new awareness of your love for us all. Help me to hear you and respond and not block you.

Guide us Lord!

“Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit says the Lord of Hosts” Zechariah 4.6.

These words are from the prophet Zerubbabel and have always spoken to my heart. I find them useful as an "arrow" prayer to say at various times. Especially before meetings that look as if they have the potential to be stressful and conflicted. We need to keep on track and not be blown around chaotically by our human desires. The words remind me of what God wants.

It seems this week I have had various conversations about this very thing. How to keep on track! I have problem in that I know what God wants from me I just need to find my way though to the delivery of his vision. It is my human fallibility that can get in the way. The prayer reminds me to put God's way of thinking first. To seek not my own objectives but to look for what God wants. His agenda is so often different to ours. It reminds me that the Glory must go to God and that we don't need to strive in order to achieve that. In fact if we find ourselves striving then we can ask ourself are we seeking God correctly? God has been sustaining the universe for all these thousands of years without me being number one, or head honcho! But what we can bring to situations is our genuine desire to seek God's will and to support it. Are we seeking the right sort of power in our life? I don't need to be first to speak or last to speak. Although God does want me to speak if I can contribute something to the meeting.

Although it was "meetings" that started me thinking - "Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit" applies to all parts of our life. Do we make bringing God's spirit a priority in our life, or do we wake in the morning to play with our gadgets, to plot our finances with the Financial Times? Or to feed our News habit? Or to plan our retirement? Maybe? But although those things might have a right place. God first, our loved ones next is how we should prioritise. Then things will fall into place and we will find a more grace filled living experience.

If we "seek first the kingdom of God" we are putting the Spirit first. In prayer this week also I heard God's voice in Galatians 5. At verse 16 he says "What I say is this: let the Spirit direct your lives, and you will not satisfy the desires of the human nature." - one commentary I read points out that if we focus on the Spirit, God's love and Holy Spirit, helps us to push out the sin in our life. The sin is displaced by the presence of the Spirit. So I feel God is saying have more of the Spirit and you will naturally become less sinful.  That means we need to worry less about our besetting sin and let go of it and run straight toward's our God  who is love. He will give us his love, joy and peace which can't fail to change us.

Dear Lord, help me to have more of you in my life. I seek you Lord, show me your face. Amen

.

Jesus for real

“I tell you the truth, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” John 21:18

When we are young we understand Jesus in a very different way to the way adults understand him. Part of this is a conscious decision by adults to only tell the softer stories to their children about Jesus. But it does mean that a lot of children grow into adults with a sacharine image of “gentle” Jesus “meek and mild” wafting around that is nowhere near the character of the real Jesus. I can understand why it happens. As adults we sometimes decide to package information differently that we deem is too hard for children to understand.

What set me thinking about this was remembering an email that my cousin had sent me about the Little   Plastic Jesus. She has given me permission to quote her.

“I was 4, I remember walking into a large room, it was dark, it had old dark furniture and it felt like stepping back in time! In the centre of the dark room behind a huge dark desk was a tiny old lady dressed in black. I remember thinking she looked so, so old with the wrinkliest face I had ever seen......but It was a kind face. I wonder whether I remember this in detail because my mum was probably going through the formalities of me joining the school and I had chance to just stare! Sally, my sister had been at the school previously, there seemed to be no issue with a non catholic family sending their children to Manor House convent. My place was pretty much guaranteed.

“Mother superior chatted to me, I can't remember what about but as we made to leave she gave me a gift- a little plastic Jesus in a little plastic manger. The little plastic manger didn't last long, it had flimsy legs and soon disintegrated. After a while Little plastic Jesus got put in the drawers under my bed with all my other toys. Like most children the drawers under my bed soon became filled with broken toys, toys that had been grown out of, art projects from school, old plasticine and crayons!

“Mum insisted that the drawers under my bed were subject to periodical sort outs......I would pick up Plastic baby Jesus, invariably found hiding in the far back corner amongst the plasticine and crayons, I would pick him up and he would get the same mental wrestling each previous item had received .... 'Live another day or be relegated to the rubbish pile' Everytime I had a strong feeling ' I can't throw away baby jesus!'

“The thing I find most amazing is the clarity in which I remember being given the gift of plastic baby Jesus -  I also find it amazing that he carried on to survive in the backs of drawers until I was 31 when I became a Christian.   

“ I know recently I have been putting Jesus into a back drawer. little plastic Jesus is a good analogy That's why I wanted to share the story with you. But it has also made me think how I have been chosen by God and how amazingly patient he is waiting for the right time for us to grow. I don't think I could ever throw little plastic Jesus away, I couldn't throw Jesus away. But I was in great danger of relegating him to the back of a drawer.”

What strikes me is that my cousins story illustrates what happens to so many of us. We have to find a point in our lives where we discover that the Plastic Jesus of our childhood is not the only way of thinking about Jesus. That the real Jesus is waiting for us to see him as he is. Son of God, fully human and yet fully divine. Revolutionary, itinerant, prophet, teacher, rabbi, friend, wonderful counseller, lover, challenger, penniless and homeless. This Jesus challenges us to grow from believer to disciple. This real Jesus we can discover and encounter in the Gospels but also in our daily prayer life and the sharing of so many people.

Is the Jesus you know the childhood safe one? Or is it the real Jesus who invites you to be his follower and disciple? Moving out of your comfort zone to travel with him to where you know not. He is the one who challenges us to live a spiritual life in addition to the  material life, thinking beyond what’s next to buy in Ikea  and other shops!

This Jesus is the one who loves you and wants you to discover him. To stay in relationship with him.

Dear Jesus, may I fully discover you! Send your wisdom and love into my life. I need it so much. Amen

Let the Spirit Direct your lives

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart find favour in your sight, O Lord - my redeemer, my rock! Psalm 20:15

The above is a good prayer to start a prayer time with or even to use as just a short plea to God asking him to guide our day.  After all what we say and think are precursors to our actions.

My perception is that my days are better if I have made time to think and pray in the morning. The truth be known it might even make me better tempered!

St Paul advises us to "Let the Spirit direct your lives" (Galatians 5:16) and if we are going to do that we need to find the time to let that happen. We so easily fritter our lives away watching adverts or waiting for computers to boot up or gazing at the back of a cereal packet. All things we have chosen to do in a way albeit unconsciously perhaps. Can we find a little time for God in the midst of this?

But if we take St Paul's words seriously the Holy Spirit should be what gives our lives strategic direction. And listening for it's guidance should be what makes our Christian life move into a more authentic level of being.

In this life when we have so many choices, may one of them be to try and listen to the Spirit.

I can promise that doing this will change your life, lifting it to a different level. Letting God's love break in.

There are plenty of examples in the news of what happens when people make decisions without listening to the Holy Spirit. It's easy to look at the extreme examples of violence and hateful behaviour and say it's clear that whatever they were listening to it wasn't the voice of God. Inevitably too there are cases of so called religious people doing hateful things. Let's make it clear that kind of action is from the deceiver and is the opposite of what God wants.

To listen to the Spirit is to listen to the voice of God who is love. He will inspire us to walk joyfully in his peace, to love as he does.

Dear Lord, help me to see that your Spirit is for me! Help me to listen for your voice for my life and above all help me to respond. Amen

Follow the way of love, the example of Christ who loves you

Some parts of the bible seem to speak to me because of their brevity and truth. It seems God's first messengers discovered a penchant for text message length 'sayings' long before we did. I think some of this is due to God's clarity in communication. He doesn't like to beat around the bush. But quite often these short sayings are really a summary of a longer teaching and meditation on them opens the mind to a whole profound and rich area of thinking.

At an evening meeting this week we used a reading  from Ephesians 5, out of it I plucked the sentence   ^"Follow the way of love, the example of Christ who loved you" - and have been thinking about it since.

It is a phrase that needs unpacking. What for example is the "Way of Love" that is referred to? Love after all is a many faceted thing.  But  Gods way of loving is to show his abundant love to all of humankind, and even creation. This love manifests itself as a sort of unfathomable good will shown to all without exception. This is because God wants the whole of creation to succeed and flourish, including you and me, and also the extreme poor as well as the rich. This demonstrates that the economy of God's world operates differently to the economy of the commercial world.  Life in all it's entirety is given without charge and the conditions to sustain it come readily from the world's resources. And what God requires of us in recompense for all this is that we too should be just as loving in our turn. A radical thought. That we should love in the same unconditional way that God has already loved us.

"Follow the way of love" -then can mean then that we should live our lives with the same kind of radical good will that God manifests. To have an automatic care and concern for other people that is contrary to the way that the world looks at things.  This is the sort of love that Jesus showed after all.  How challenging that is!

The world says charge for everything! Sell your labour and your produce for a good price. Sell your second hand goods. But what God wants for us is subsistence in material terms and super abundance in mercy, love and kindness.

We love a God who challenges us not only to love the loveable but also to turn our efforts to love even our enemies! The way of love challenges us to have a complete heart conversion. “If you happen to see your enemy's cow or donkey running loose, take it back to him. If his donkey has fallen under its load, help him get the donkey to its feet again; don't just walk off. Exodus 23:4-5 GNB

Whereas the prophets challenge those who are rich even further, telling us to not be stingy. Amos particularly warns against over harvesting the world's resources if that means leaving nothing for the poor to pick up. In God's law the gleanings were to be left for the poor.

The way of love requires us to hear the cry of the poor. To no longer live in the hardness of heart that makes us deaf to their appeals.

Dear Jesus, you called me out my darkness. I have been tempted to continue walking in the dark. I have fooled myself into thinking it was easy for you because you are the Son of God. But now I see how completely you surrendered to the will of the father. Call me out of the darkness of my selfishness into your wonderful light. Give me an experience of your love so that I may share it to the ends of the earth. My brother, my saviour Amen 

"Let the one who walks in the dark, who has no light, trust in the name of the LORD." Isaiah 50:10-11

Watching for the invitation

There have been times in my life when I haven't believed in God. But somehow God has always brought me back to himself. How this happens is I think through the invitation of God. He continually invites us into relationship with him. In my unbelief I always stumble upon one of these "invitations" and can't help but respond.

Jesus is one of these invitations. If we study his life and sayings, his behaviour. What he says and does is so extraordinary that it stands out that he is quite unlike any other prophet that ever lived. This is because he ministers to us as God among us. His ministry goes beyond that of prophet. He is messiah, king, Son of God, teacher, revolutionary all rolled nto one.

Other invitations can from friends or family or circumstances of our life. One musician was converted when he was gazing at a painting in a church. Somehow God chose that moment to break through. 

We are told in the psalms "the fool has said in his heart there is no God." This seems harsh in some ways. But I think that depends on how we think about it. My feeling is that it means that we are a fool to deprive ourselves of the good that true faith in God can bring into our lives. What good do we do ourselves to deny God a chance to speak into our life. Especially if when he does come near he brings good gifts which enrich our love.

The words of one of Jesus followers always stick in my memory as a kind of prayer of belief and praise.

Simon Peter, says to Jesus "Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life.  And now we believe and know that you are the Holy One who has come from God." John 6:68-69 GNT

Dear Lord, I pray that I may see your invitations to me and respond. Your presence can rescue me  from despair and bring me into fullness of life.

Be still and know that I am God

He says, "Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth." The Lord  Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress. Psalm 46:10-11 NIV

It has been a bit of a weird week. There has been a lot of training activity and a lot of things to absorb. At the end of my running around I realise that mostly accidently my quiet time has been missed.

What is interesting to me is that I can already feel that I am off kilter, slightly away from my proper path. I am a morning person so my normal habit is to pray in the morning. For me it allows a sense of peace to enter my life. And a chance to "centre down" as some people say and listen to God and let him speak into my life. Now that I realise this I have resolved to get back on track.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am not a Saint or anything. Just an every day sinner who has discovered that life is better when you pray. Sin separates us from God, so prayer restores us and narrows the gap between us.

As it says in the reading above "be still and know that I am God" - it might take us years to learn that fact, but learn it we should.

If today you feel ragged inside your mind, or distracted, or unhappy. I beg you turn today to your Lord and your God. Experiment at first if you like, especially if you don't believe me.

Find somewhere quiet if you can. Turn your phone off or at least put it on silent. Sit there and say to God, "here I am" that's the hardest part just getting to that point. After that read a psalm or just listen. You need to experiment with what works best for you. But remember it's about slowing down and letting God speak into your life. The more you do it the better you will feel. But it's not just about feelings. Somehow in the quietness God comes in and instructs us and loves us.

For reflection:
The Lord  said, "Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord , for the Lord  is about to pass by."
Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord , but the Lord  was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord  was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord  was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.
Then a voice said to him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" 1 Kings 19:11-13 NIV

High Fidelity

"love must be completely sincere. Hate what is evil hold onto what is good" Romans 12 GNB

There are two ongoing media stories at the moment about integrity in public life. Mit Romney in the USA has been exposed this week at a briefing to rich donors to his party. His video comments reveal what he really thinks about the voters and how he is likely to serve the rich in preference to the poor. No surprises there I can almost hear you say.

The other story is about "thrasher" Mitchell who seems have treated the Police on duty at Downing St with utter contempt. It appears of course that he is suffering a superiority complex.

Both were speaking away from the public forum and didn't expect media attention.

These have set me thinking about the problem we all have between what we profess and what we do. To those who follow Christ there are instructions! These should guide us and challenge us to gradually change.

I called this blog "High Fidelity" because we are called to fidelity or faithfulness to God's plan. God doesn't have favourites. The poor are just as important to him as the rich. The Lord hears the "cry of the poor" and of the 'broken hearted" and that is how we should be too.

God wants us to be deeply anchored in what is good. We need to keep that thought in our head. To try and let his goodness invade and change our heart. It isn't easy and we must be realistic about it and acknowledge that we will fail. But Christianity allows us to live beyond failure - by holding onto good we see beyond our failures and acknowledge that the human heart is born to be noble. The good in people generally outweighs the evil that they do. As it says in John's gospel "the light is stronger than the darkness."

Of course we can never condone or excuse sin in ourselves or others. In ourselves we need to bring it to the light and change.

We are however still called to love the person who sins. We can love them without condoning or agreeing to their sin.

Our sincere love needs to avoid self congratulation. We need purity of intention. Sometimes we are the only people aware of our hidden sin which needs to be brought before the Lord, asking his mercy and forgiveness.

For Reflection

• "As water reflects a face, so one's life reflects the heart" Proverbs 19 NIV
• "God is near us whenever we pray to him" Deuteronomy 4 NIV
• "When you reap the harvest of  your land do not reap to the extreme limits of your field or gather the gleanings after your harvest. 10 Do not strip your vineyard bare and do not gather the grapes that have fallen; leave them for the needy and the stranger. I am Yahweh, your God" Leviticus 19 Christian Community Bible

Dear Lord, you search me and you know me, your love is greater than anything I can imagine. I ask you again into in my life. Help me to commit to you. Help me to allow your love to change my heart and renew my spirit this day. Amen

"What I want is love not sacrifice" Hosea 6.6

“What I want is love, not sacrifice; knowledge of God, not holocausts.” Hosea 6.6 Jerusalem Bible

I feel that God this week has brought my attention back to this message from the Prophet Hosea. His insight into the heart of God has spoken to me many times over the years. It goes to the heart of our attitude to our faith and explodes our mistaken attitudes.

Our God is a patient father and likes to teach us again the lessons that we thought we already knew.This is because there is always more to learn. Or perhaps in my case because he needs to keep me on track.

I met my friend Chris for breakfast the other morning and afterwards we went for a walk by the river. It was deliberately a prayer walk so our chat turned to what God had been saying to him. We started looking at Matthew 9.9. Where God calls Levi (Matthew) the tax collector out of his booth and tells him to follow him. Almost immediately it seems Jesus falls to be criticised by the Pharisees for hanging around with tax collectors . This is his reply to the criticism  “People who are well do not need a doctor, but only those who are sick.  Go and find out what is meant by the scripture that says: ‘It is kindness that I want, not animal sacrifices.’ I have not come to call respectable people, but outcasts.”

 Most bibles show this as a quote from Hosea 6.6. Jesus quotes it to the Pharisees because it is the bible that they have supposedly studied deeply all their lives in order to qualify - and hence they should have known it thoroughly. But sometimes we can know something and not fully put it into practice.

So I am relearning Hosea this week. Jesus is saying to us that when we sin we can atone for it, make things right, by making our love evident in reality. Making our love real and not just a concept. He is saying that the old religious way of atonement, burning an animal as an offering to God is not enough.  God does not want burnt charred animals from me! He wants me to practise Love.  The kind of Love that is mercy and kindness.

A heart conversion is what is needed. Not just a physical action like burning an animal. A change of heart. To consciously be loving in our behaviour. To behave differently to those who we come across in our daily life.  This doesn't only entail being kind and merciful to those we already love but it goes wider to mean virtually anyone that we meet in our daily lives.

By doing this we can participate in redemption. We can make our day better and the day of those we meet.  It is better to build up rather than destroy.

Dear God, change my heart again. Remove any harshness from my daily transactions. Make me tender hearted and prone to kindness. Refuse any "burnt offering" from me - teach me to see through your eyes and live according to your priorities. Amen

Birthday Thoughts

Be joyful always,  pray at all times,  be thankful in all circumstances. This is what God wants from you in your life in union with Christ Jesus. Do not restrain the Holy Spirit;  do not despise inspired messages.  Put all things to the test: keep what is good  and avoid every kind of evil. May the God who gives us peace make you holy in every way and keep your whole being—spirit, soul, and body—free from every fault at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

1 Thessalonians 5:16-23 GNT

Joyful, thankful, praying and spirit driven with an ample dollop of discerning ability! God please help me in this.  You have brought me this far on an amazing journey. I have experienced your joy and your great peace in the midst of huge variety of circumstances. But there is more! More to come and bigger steps to take.

You honour all the attempts that I make to progress in the spiritual life. No matter how tiny they have been - you have been there. Jesus my brother and friend. Leading me on in this adventure called life.

You haven't finished with me yet and I suspect that the best is yet to come, you are encouraging me to move forward in your grace. To take steps that I have never taken before.

I have come to believe in the strong power of your true love and compassion for mankind. Your unquenchable love for each and everyone of us. No exceptions. No love withheld from anyone. Your abundant love inspires me, heals me and embraces me.

Remove every proud obstacle in me that prevents me from being fully your servant. What would happen if I  simply let go and let you have your way?

Give me a servant heart O Lord, a heart that thirsts for you. With a passion for the Word of God, let me share the Good News about Jesus our saviour.

But above all I want to "Live a lovers life" as it says in scripture, to love my children, my wife, sisters and extended family with the same tender hearted love that you have for me.

Send your Spirit to us all again O Lord, Renew us again with your strong Holy Spirit power that brings with it Love, Joy and Peace. And let me be an enabler of your kingdom. Someone who doesn't restrain your Spirit but who instead brings it and unleashes it! Amen

In the past God spoke to our ancestors many times and in many ways through the prophets,  but in these last days he has spoken to us through his Son. He is the one through whom God created the universe, the one whom God has chosen to possess all things at the end.  He reflects the brightness of God's glory and is the exact likeness of God's own being, sustaining the universe with his powerful word. After achieving forgiveness for the sins of all human beings, he sat down in heaven at the right side of God, the Supreme Power. Hebrews 1:1-3 GNT

Stand Ready

Jesus said to his disciples:
  'Stay awake, because you do not know the day when your master is coming. You may be quite sure of this that if the householder had known at what time of the night the burglar would come, he would have stayed awake and would not have allowed anyone to break through the wall of his house. Therefore, you too must stand ready because the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. Matthew 24:42-51 JB

Stand ready then!  The invitation from Jesus is that we should not put off until tomorrow what we should be doing today. Our decision and response is invited today. Now - at this very moment we are called out of our darkness into the very presence of God our creator. The God who knows intimately what is best for us and how he can lead us into wholeness. There is no stuffiness in him just Love, pure love, for us to bathe in and receive and pass onto others. 

God is calling to you just as he did to Samuel in the Old Testament. Remember Samuel did not know that it was possible to hear the voice of God. He was Eli's servant, one night he went to bed and heard the Lord's voice when he was lying down in the house of the Lord, where the ark of God was. Samuel thought it was his master so he ran to Eli and said, "Here I am; you called me." But Eli said, "I did not call; go back and lie down." So he went and lay down. Again the Lord called, "Samuel!" And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, "Here I am; you called me." Eli said, ""My son, I did not call; go back and lie down." This continued, the third time that it happened Eli realized that in fact it was the Lord God who was calling the boy. So Eli told Samuel, "Go and lie down, and if he calls you, say, 'Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.'" So Samuel went and lay down in his place. The Lord came and stood there, calling as at the other times, "Samuel! Samuel!" Then Samuel said, "Speak, for your servant is listening."

Now God had Samuel's attention he says  "See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of everyone who hears about it tingle."  It was through these first words that Samuel heard that God called him into the ministry of a prophet.

God seems to call people in ways that speak to them uniquely. So although he called to Samuel audibly with others he uses different methods adapting to the individual. To some he just gives a quiet certainty. To some he speaks to through his preachers. To some he speaks to through nature and others through art or music. 

Samuel discussed what had happened with Eli and he was guided by him with these words "He is the Lord; let him do what is good in his eyes."  God's voice can only lead us to do good or loving actions.When we hear the Lord like Samuel we need to discern what we hear.

Our difficulty in hearing God and letting him do good in our lives is that there are counter forces at work in us.  These counter forces can let God's words to us fall to the ground. Sometimes we let our self doubt and negativity speak into our lives, telling us pernicious lies, that we are no good and that we should find our fulfilment in the very things that actually kill our spirit and make it harder for us to be happy. The voice that says to us wait until tomorrow and tomorrow before you take any action. And so our time evaporates out of our life before we can respond. 

We can erect barriers against God at the same time as paying lip service to him. I am saying this to myself as much as I am saying this to you. 

There are always areas of our life that God wants us to bring to him in honesty. When we do he will help us to move into a more loving way of being. Seemingly step by step. But if we are to "stand ready" we need to surrender what we can of the barriers to love. God will help you to change some more!

Ask yourself about these barriers

• Money - does my need to tend and protect my money prevent me from loving?
• Power - does my need to control others remove their freedom and hinder their love?
• Sex - as a sexual being am I being loving and also aware of the outcomes of my actions?
• Computer - am I losing aeons of God given time in random internet searches?
• Social Media - am I using words that build up or destroy?

There is something to be said for trying to live each day as if it was the last day on earth. If that was the case today how would you be with the above areas? Remember "stand ready" in love of the Lord.

Remember "with the Lord there is mercy and fullness of redemption."

Dear Lord, Forgive me for the times when I wander away from your Spirit. Help me to focus my life fruitfully on the Kingdom of God. Amen 

How awesome is God?

How awesome is God as he comes from his sanctuary— the God of Israel! He gives strength and power to his people. Praise God!

That quote comes from Psalm 68, a longish triumphant song of jubilation written by David. It also has the phrase in it "Our God is a God who saves"

One of my favourite Dylan albums is Shot of Love. The title song says "I need a shot of love, I don't need a shot of heroin to kill my disease" yes it's true that our disease or our uneasiness is one of the biggest problems that we face in life. We need to find a solution to that feeling. This is probably the reason that some of us get caught up in addictive behaviour. And we all do at times. St Augustine put it like this "'You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you'"

I wonder if you have ever read Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonegut? It's an amazing book. Very funny in places but also darkly addressing the question of war and how it impacts on the human heart. In it Vonegut gets his character Billy Pilgrim to soliquoise about religion. I haven't been able to find the exact quote,but Billy concludes that religion is a "fova" that humankind has invented to cope with life. A fova is a word that Vonegut uses which he says means "harmless lie"

When I read the book as a young man this really impacted on me and made me question my belief in Christ. It made me ask myself was I pursuing a harmless lie? The honest answer this older version of Simon can give you is that God has proved himself too many times to me for me to doubt any more. He has changed my heart through inner healing received (forgive me if I am repeating myself), and through the trickle down of other spiritual experiences. He is a God who can answer prayers in his own unique ways. Sending you people who seem almost like angels.

Today I can honestly say I am convinced that if you turn to him he will bless you. This is true even if you have never had a thought about God before in your life, or if you have been an intellectual Christian your entire life.
Martin Luther King used to talk about three conversions being necessary in a persons life. Conversion of heart, conversion of mind, conversion of wallet.  The last one is about alms giving I think, but the important point is have you let God into your life at more than just an intellectual level? He wants to be in your hearts life. To perform a hearts conversion on you. So that you can feel for the things that he feels for.

He wants to come into your heart and say "today I have become your father" - turn to God, of your own free will, he is a heart changer.

For reflection:
"I will hear what the Lord God has to say, a voice that speaks of peace, peace for his people and his friends, his help is near for those who fear him and his glory will dwell in our land" Psalm 85:9 Grail Translation

Dear Lord, help me to listen to you today. Bless my life and change my thinking. Open my heart to your compassion and healing love. Amen

Live by the Spirit (7) - Our Father

The final message in this series takes us back to a Jesus team basic. This prayer was taught by Jesus to the twelve but also to his disciples and believers.

Our Father, Who art in Heaven, hallowed be 
Thy Name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy Will be done, 
on earth, as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our 
daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we 
forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us 
not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen. (traditional version)

If you have been around Christians awhile you will be aware that this prayer is part of the scenery of Church life but each time we say it we should try our best and hear ourselves saying it for the first time. Why? Because if Jesus taught us to say it daily it is important. The reason is that for the serious disciple it is an aide memoir to help us consistently remember the component parts of prayer. And so! Next time you say or hear it I want the words TEAM PRAYER to flash into your mind. And savour its wisdom and meaning. It is for meditation and for saying daily. Lets's have a look why.

Our Father, Who art in Heaven - reminds us that our life comes from God. Our dad in heaven - perfect father to us. Our dad like earthly dads is greater than us his children. Perfectly loving us (unlike our fallible earthly dads). This opening phrase reminds us where we are in the relationship. That God is greater than us. That as author of our lives he is greater and more knowledgeable about us. We should enter prayer with that thought.

Hallowed be Thy Name - These days we would say "Holy is your name" - A reminder that there is power in the God's name. As it says in the Acts of the Apostles, there is no other name by which we can be saved. As followers Jesus wants us to have that thought always before us.

Thy Kingdom come - We are here to build your Kingdom here on earth. As Kingdom builders we yearn for  it's coming fully to our neighbourhood. We will do us best to enable it! Not hinder it!

Thy Will be done, on earth, as it is in Heaven - There is no point ever, and I mean ever, praying for something that is against God's will. If we desire something illicit we need to ask God to convert our heart. We align ourselves with his will.

Give us this day our daily bread - We ask God to provide for our needs, through our labour, daily. Notice it doesn't mention a Porsche! Just bread.... asking God that we always have the daily necessaries.

 Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation -  A reminder to live in daily repentance. Daily we have to forgive others and receive their forgiveness. Very necessary in family life. In our immediate family and beyond where would we be without this! No long held grudges are allowed in the Christian life. If you have one lurking in your life surrender it today!

....but deliver us from evil. A reminder that God is more powerful than any evil we will encounter in our daily life. Stronger than the darkness we encounter.

For meditation:

One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”
Jesus said to them, 
“When you pray, say this:
‘Father: May your holy name be honored; may your Kingdom come.
Give us day by day the food we need.
Forgive us our sins, for we forgive everyone who does us wrong.
And do not bring us to hard testing.’”
And Jesus said to his disciples, “Suppose one of you should go to a friend's house at midnight and say, ‘Friend, let me borrow three loaves of bread.  A friend of mine who is on a trip has just come to my house, and I don't have any food for him!’  And suppose your friend should answer from inside, ‘Don't bother me! The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can't get up and give you anything.’  Well, what then? I tell you that even if he will not get up and give you the bread because you are his friend, yet he will get up and give you everything you need because you are not ashamed to keep on asking.  And so I say to you: Ask, and you will receive; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. Luke 11:1-9 GNT

Dear Lord, open our hearts in prayer. Let your Spirit come in to teach us! Amen

Live by the Spirit (6) - Forgive

"As water reflects a face, so one's life reflects the heart" Proverbs

It is an inevitable side effect of being human that we will hurt others and they will hurt us. Sometimes it will be deliberate and at other times it will be the sad side swipe of our own or their own incapacity to deal with life.
It's what we do with that hurt that can radically influence our life by the Spirit. Do we hold onto it letting it work it's damages on our thinking and behaviour. Or are we going to allow ourselves to be different, allow ourselves to be people of the Kingdom?

Sometimes we want to hang onto our hurt because we get an almost masochistic pleasure feeling from turning it over in our mind. And it can be convenient to blame somebody else for what is going on in our life.

We can break that cycle of despair or oppression if we choose to. Some changes are always in our power to make. And in addition there is God's life changing Holy Spirit power available in forgiveness.

Believe me I know what I am talking about. I am the son of a chronic alcoholic and for a long time I held onto (in a spirit of unforgiveness) the damages he had caused to my life. But it was through listening to God's father heart and his teaching on forgiveness, that I learnt that I could surrender that hurt and let God's grace work on it and change my inner life. It was a slow process but I have received my inner healing and I want you to know that, if you dare, you can receive yours.

I think it is essential to the life of the Spirit to ask God who we should be forgiving and also to ask who we have offended.

Once we have his answer (our heart will also help us know who) there are two actions that we need to take. Pray hard for God's grace to change your heart, so that you are given by Jesus the desire to forgive.
When you have reached the moment. Find a wise person and discuss how you can take it forward. God might give you the desire to verbalise your forgiveness but for it to be sincere we have to do it with due consideration. Years or decades may have elapsed since we received the hurt or inflicted the hurt.

I urge you to let God speak to you on this whole area. Remember he is like the father in the parable of the Prodigal Son. Ready to come out on the road to welcome you back. Luke 15:11-32

I wish peace to your heart this day as God speaks to you. May you understand life can be different and that the Holy Spirit has healing powers for us. May the Spirit visit you as you think about this. Amen

Live by the Spirit (5) - Give Up Judging

“Do not judge others, and God will not judge you; do not condemn others, and God will not condemn you; forgive others, and God will forgive you.  Give to others, and God will give to you. Indeed, you will receive a full measure, a generous helping, poured into your hands—all that you can hold. The measure you use for others is the one that God will use for you.” Luke 6:37

To live by the Spirit requires us to have a different world view. This is because God does not see as man sees and so when we start to think like him an alternative way of seeing starts to be evident in our lives. When the Spirit comes and places his stamp of ownership on us he inevitably brings us to a point where something happens within, because the Holy Spirit is a heart changer when he enters our life. When the Spirit comes he brings compassion for others.. This initial conversion and subsequent conversions make us more loving. There are so many accounts in history of transformation in the lives of the Saints. John Wesley for example tells us how his heart was 'strangely warmed' by the Spirit empowering his ministry and changing his life. St Francis encountered God and changed radically.  We change because we start to adopt God's view of others. Compassion pierces our heart and we see our neighbour differently. When we see as God sees we see beyond what people do, to see them with some of the kind of love that God has for them.

But after our initial Holy Spirit experience we need in our more mundane daily lives a mechanism to keep the Spirit's life at work. And that is what we have been talking about these last few weeks. Learning not to judge is an essential component part.

Our problem is that we are prone to lose the ground that we gained previously. To give it away. One of the ways we give it away quickest is when we start to have a critical spirit about other people. Criticising others is like throwing tacks into the path of our spiritual life.

But think on this! The person who helped you most in your life? What were they like? I can almost guarantee that they were someone compassionate who accepted you as you are without judging. Someone who you trusted.

In our daily living we need to think about Jesus words "The measure you use for others is the one that God will use for you.” 

We do all this whilst we are still called daily to discern between good and evil in our choices. Choosing that which gives life.

For reflection

I cry out to God Most High, to God who will fulfill his purpose for me. Psalm 57.2

What measure am I using?

• Who am I judging and why?
• What is the difference between judgement and discernment? 

Dear Lord, I so want to be your disciple but I am so fallible. Have mercy on me a sinner, see the good in me and lift me out of my pit of despair. Instead make me a new creation, called out of darkness into your wonderful light. Help me to love without reserve and to see as you see. Amen

Live by the Spirit (4) Asking

This weeks focus is on "Asking the Holy Spirit what he wants you to do today, sometimes it is only one thing - the Spirit rarely overwhelms us with demands"

It seems novel doesn't it? To Live by the Spirit you listen to it. So why do I find it hard to say to God - “send your Holy Spirit” or “Speak Lord your servant is listening?”

But remember "To be controlled by human nature results in death; to be controlled by the Spirit results in life and peace." Romans 8.6

Perhaps the answer is in conquering our human nature. Again I would say this is not about turning our lives into a joyless dry landscape. The fruits of the Spirit are love, peace and joy. So it stands to reason that when we live more by the Spirit we have more and more of these things in our life. But in order to get to that stage we need to take instructions "to develop a listening ear" for the sweet sound of the Lord's voice on our life saying "this is the way walk in it." With the London 2012 Olympics playing out on our TV screens at present it is easy to draw the comparison to the training of athletes. Listening to an interview yesterday I heard described the training regime of a medal winner in swimming. In order to win you need to get in the water daily.... I would say to you "wade in the Spirit's water daily."

So in your prayer time pause and let the Spirits voice find it's way to you in the peace. Give up the idea that the dialogue with God can happen in a five minute slot that you assign to him first thing in the morning before you brush your teeth! Our God is a very demanding lover and wants more of you than that. What you need to do is give in! Let him have a say in your life - no longer block him out. To block out is from your human nature and is a way of holding God at arm's length so that he cannot influence you with his contagious loving kindness.

Of course we need to discern the Spirit's voice when we hear it. But if it is saying things that ask you to be loving, compassionate, or a builder of relationships then you must be hearing the voice of our God who saves. The one who builds and never diminishes us. The Spirit will never ask us to break or destroy, that voice is the deceiver's voice and the deceiver wants the opposite of what God wants.

You might say how will I know if I get it right? The answer is in the doing. If God tells you to phone a friend and listen to them for half an hour. If you obey and get it wrong God will still honour the fact that you obeyed.

I had the honour of meeting a sweet Benedictine monk once. His name was Fr Ian Petit and he was one of the pioneers of the Charismatic Renewal in the Catholic Church. He was such a kind man. He was fond of reminding us that the scripture doesn't say  "listen Lord your servant is speaking" it says "speak Lord your servant is listening."

We need to dare to believe that God has a purpose and a plan for our lives. That he wants more of us than what we currently give. That he will bless us when we take steps in faith. We need to dare to believe in the loving kindness of "the heart of our God" and let it influence our actions. You can do no wrong by trying to bless another person's life if you do it with kindness and grace.

We are all fellow pilgrims on a journey into the heart of God. I pray that I can remember that. Pilgrims share the good things that they have with others on the journey and don't hide their bread from one another.

Dear Lord, let me listen to your voice. Send again your Holy Spirit to my life, renewing it and refreshing it. Let me be gentle. Amen

Live by the Spirit (3) - Time spent in the Word

Time spent in the Word feeds our spirit and challenges us.

Sometimes God uses something earthly to teach you something heavenly! I remember in the 1970s in a Café style meeting when a young woman insisted on reading the bible to me, passage after passage, eventually literally sitting on my feet whilst she did so. She prayed that the Holy Spirit would fill me with a love for the Word. Her insistence and prayer has been answered. But it amuses me that God had to use an attractive woman to get my attention so He could get the point through to me.

Now God may not be using that luxury this day with you but chances are he will find some way in your life of speaking to your heart.

Let me assure you that it is my lived experience that there is power in the Word of God, the kind of heart changing power that can only come from God himself.

For the sake of clarity I will explain that when we talk about the Word we mean "the Word of God" or the Bible. Christians believe that the bible is inspired by God - inspired in the sense that God has breathed spiritual power into it. It is a Spiritually true account of humankind's faith journey. But even more than that it tells of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus the Son of God. It gives us his teaching and many other messages, prayers and insights that can help us in our every day life. It is also God's instruction manual for a fulfilled and happy life.

The Word helps us to "Live by the Spirit" because it reveals to us day by day the truth about God. To know more about God is to love him more. To know him is to understand him.

To start dwelling in the Word you could experiment with praying with the scriptures open in front of you during your prayer time. What works for me is to read a passage out loud and then pausing praying for the Spirit to speak to my heart. I then re-read it looking for key phrases that speak to my heart. Quite often there are one sentence phrases in scripture that sum up the passage or open up it's meaning. Some psalms have several. SO find in your passage one of these passages and say it out loud a few times, dwelling on it's meaning for you. An example would be "where your treasure is, so too is your heart" which is from Matthew 6:19-24.  Ask God what he wants to tell you in the sentence you have selected. Examine the different meanings it could have.

Debs and I tried this with Psalm 68 the other day and we each got different things out of it and shared with each other. It led to quite a special time of the Spirit speaking to us. I for example reflected on the phrase that says God is  "a father for the fatherless" - which has been true in my life. I grew up in a household with an absent father. From time to time in my life God has provided for me men who have had a father role with me. Good men, it has to be said, who could speak in wisdom to my life. Debs had "Summon your power , God; show us your strength, our God, as you have done before." Sometimes we find things that encourage us. At other times things that challenge us. At other times steps to take in faith.

May Jesus be present to you today. May your life receive the blessing of Christ - the Holy One of God. May his gentle peace be with you, refreshing and renewing you. Amen

Live by the Spirit (2) Prayer

Last week I wrote "Regular daily prayer time changes us. Remember 'to pray is to change.'"

I promised to say more, so here it is! Let's deal with why we pray first. You can view prayer as a chance to be in God's presence. It is intentional face time with God. It begins with us choosing to come into His presence and making ourselves available. But why? To pray is to speak to God - as it says in the bible itself "Speak to God as you would a friend" (Exodus 33:11). I would add that you can speak to God as you would your very best friend. Telling Him the unedited version of your life! In doing this I find that prayer very often brings peace to me although there are times when God like a true friend, gently challenges me with the truth. I find that I do a fair amount of telling God stuff, some asking, some praising God and then there is Listening.

Starting off in prayer can be the biggest challenge for us. Yet God always wants to hear from us. The danger is that we decide to wait until we can make our prayers fully formed and in doing this consequently hold back until we think we can be elequonent. The reality is that we have to start somewhere and that somewhere can be very faltering. I remember years back in the 1970s going to a weekly prayer group and being encouraged by the leader to pray out loud. For weeks at a time all I could manage was one sentence here and there. But I began to realise that God was just as accepting of my one sentence prayers as those of the others.

To praise God is to tell him how great he is. If we look at the psalms we can see the praise language developing in a prayer context, we hear the psalmist say things like "the Lord is King, let the earth rejoice" or "blessed be the name of the Lord."  Although we have heard those words many times out of habit or tradition it is good to remind ourselves that we say things like that  for two reasons. The main being that it reminds us that of the two of us God is definitely greater. God is worthy to be praised because he is our creator, and he made the universe and all that is in it. The second reason for praising God is that he likes it! It's just a fact!

Why or how do we change? I think it is a combination of the Holy Spirit gradually acting on our lives and melting our hearts making them more compassionate and also through prayer and being in a relationship with Jesus we are gradually challenged to be a bit different in our outlook and behaviour.

How did prayer start?  Throughout faith history, going back thousands of years in the bible there are many recorded times of prayer. For our Jewish and Christian ancestors it was just an accepted part of every day life and many of their prayers are written in the bible and can be helpful for us to read.

Here is an example of a prayer of blessing from a father to a child "May the Lord bless you and take care of you, May the Lord be kind and gracious to you: May the Lord look on you with favour and give you peace" GNT Numbers 6:2

Jesus prayed as part of the natural rhythm of his life and we need to be like that too. He would say to his disciples "come away with me to a quiet place" he gave us the "Our Father" and he promised us about prayer that "where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them."

I call you forward into prayer and into relationship with God. May he bless you today as you read this and may his spirit gently infuse your soul with the peace of Christ and his love. When I started writing this there was really heavy rain. I stumbled across a passage which seemed to be like a word from God showing me his sense of humour but also teaching me something. "May my instruction soak in like the rain, and my discourse permeate like the dew, Like a downpour upon the grass, like a shower upon the crops. For I will sing the Lord’s renown."


May the Lord be in our hearts and in our love today. Help us to step forward O Lord in prayer. Free us to praise you and listen to you. You are worthy to be praised. Amen

Live by the Spirit

Those who live as their human nature tells them to, have their minds controlled by what human nature wants. Those who live as the Spirit tells them to, have their minds controlled by what the Spirit wants. To be controlled by human nature results in death; to be controlled by the Spirit results in life and peace.(Romans 8:5-6 GNT)

I have been giving some thought to the renovation of my personal life. Asking myself what does it mean to walk daily in the Spirit. Without being antsy fancy just thinking what could be better in my life? However remember God doesn't require us to be a stuffed shirt or without humour. If the three most important fruits of a Holy Spirit led life are Love, Peace and Joy then glumness has no place in Christianity!

What follows though is a rough guide to walking in the Spirit... when followed it will inevitably promote growth in the things of God and in our personal life. Try these components together for three months and I guarantee that your interior life will change. I said previously that I had learnt over the years that Christianity is a relationship and not a religion. Well, listed below is what will help that relationship with God grow. Furthermore your relationships with others will also change.

• Regular daily prayer time changes us. Remember "to pray is to change" 
• Time spent in the Word feeds our spirit and challenges us. Read the bible because it is the "Word of God" and contains God's message for us which is relevant for all even to this moment
• Asking the Holy Spirit what he wants you to do today, sometimes it is only one thing - the Spirit rarely overwhelms us with demands
• Give up judging other people! 
• Ask God who you should be forgiving (also think about who you have offended and go to them asking to be forgiven) 
• Live in community! This is harder if you are housebound but if possible spend time with other Christians. Find people who are trying to grow up in the Lord and be with them. (it says in Proverbs "iron sharpens iron" and this is the community effect, it sharpens us so that we are more alert to the things of the Lord) 
• Meditating on the Our Father. There is a reason why Jesus told his disciples to pray using this prayer read/say it often and you will start to get why

All components to be taken daily as the master physician Doctor Jesus has directed us. Start out with at least 10 minutes a day and then eventually build it up to thirty minutes or more each day. Components can be taken in any order but a good way to start is by reading a psalm out loud. Always talk to Jesus as you would a friend. Give time to listening too because in our pauses God can inspire us Follow this blog for the next seven weeks and I will talk in more detail about each of the steps above. But don't delay start today!

Dear Jesus, I desire my life to be different - renew in me your Holy Spirit so that I may grow in the things of God. Send your peace to my life. Give me a listening heart. Amen

If we live we live for the Lord, and if we die we die for the Lord

In loving memory of my mother Jean who died on 3rd July 2009. The following is the homily I preached at her funeral

The words from Romans “The life and death of each one of us has its influence on others, if we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die we die for the Lord...” seem very appropriate for Jean's funeral.

Jean our mother, sister, grandma, great grandma and friend.

To know Jean was to know someone who had inherited a very strong Christian faith from her father. She did her best to put that faith into action. She wasn't a saint by any means but what she did understand was that at the heart of the Christian gospel is the overwhelming transforming power of love. To simply love other people has an influence. The kind of love a Christian has (they call it agape) simply does invite a response.

This isn't the eulogy – we will come to that later. I just want to try and explain what motivated my mother to be the person she was. If I understand correctly ( and I think I do) her life's motivation came from knowing her father Harold Wesley Bardwell and knowing Jesus.

They say faith is caught not taught. She caught her faith from her father. And I think that she would want me to explain (briefly) about Faith Hope and Love.

St Paul famously said “to have faith is to be sure of the things we hope for, to be certain of the things that we cannot see.”

Faith is not a step into the dark. It is a step into the light. From the faith giving moment we go forward, shakily at first, like a child taking first steps. But the amazing thing is the more we walk in faith the more steady we become and the more we experience God's love and the certainty that there is a God who cares about us. It is something that you have to do for yourself before you can be truly convinced about the truth of what I am saying. She was always supporting people in their faith. In quite a discreet and kind way. Always willing to chat about the difficult subjects and very sure Jean's certainty was that there is life after death.

She chose today's gospel and pretty much all the hymns we are singing. She wanted you to hear those words from Jesus “ I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me will live, even though they die; and those who live and believe in me will never die.”

Jean had quite a few experiences that made her convinced that there was a life after death. That when she died her life would change but not end. We talked about it a lot over the last few months. When it came to it she was ready to die and unshakeable in her faith. We can take consolation in that. She believed what Jesus said about the resurrection. I share that faith with her. Her great joy would be in you sharing it too.

She wouldn't want us to be especially sad at her passing and would want us to be glad for her in our tears. And she would want us to know love and to give and receive it today.

May your hearts be at peace. May you find consolation in your grief. May you find hope in the resurrection today as we celebrate the Life and love of Jean Frances Cockshutt.

Be Careful how you think

What does today hold for you? What has gone on for you or what is about to happen? Whatever our belief system it is important to know which way is up on any particular day. If we wander around like a loon in a haze, or interfering in things, and never settling down to do something we will just be static noise on the soundtrack of history. Just how do we make the best of our lives? How do we do being "me" the best way that we can?

Consider this advice from the book of proverbs...

Be careful how you think; your life is shaped by your thoughts. Never say anything that isn't true. Have nothing to do with lies and misleading words. Look straight ahead with honest confidence; don't hang your head in shame. Plan carefully what you do, and whatever you do will turn out right. Avoid evil and walk straight ahead. Don't go one step off the right way. Proverbs 4:23-27 GNT

Oh! To be a person with the passion of "honest confidence" who is living and loving in the freedom of the Holy Spirit. That is my dream.  This passage is about being someone with discernment, someone who can grow into the things of God. 

As St Paul puts it we have the choice between the two paths in our life. The choice between Good and Evil. When it says "Be careful how you think; your life is shaped by your thoughts" - The inkling or precursor of Good or Evil comes from our thoughts. What we think we so easily end up doing.  This is why we need an understanding of God's law of love in our hearts. When we choose love we choose good and our lives are enriched. If we choose to do the opposite our lives are impoverished.

Our actions have a cause and effect on other people. Very few of our actions are totally neutral. But that shouldn't scare us. But it should make us want to seize God's creative power for the positive. The power to bless and not to curse. The joy of compassionate tender hearted love in our loves.

So dear reader! Seize this day be wise in the use of your time. Try to be able to recognise when it is God's given time to act. Look for moments when it is time to bless! Even if it is time to bless a complete stranger. Or time to bless our spouse or friend or relative. Bless doen't just mean words or prayers it means, actions and listenings. Taking part in the ordinary and somehow converting it into special moments.The bible has two words for time

• Chronos = the time that we have to spend, elapsed time so to speak 
• Kairos = special God chosen moments time of blessing, times of Grace that come when we co-author them with God, when we co-operate with him and cease to struggle!

When we don't have thinking in our life we have Chaos = life jumbled up and messy

God does pardon our errors and loves us in spite of them. We are given the chance to redeem our past. I am living proof of that. An unfinished work of a person being redeemed. Seeking the positive.

Dear Lord, send your inspiration into my thinking. Breathe your creative power into it and use me for your kingdom. Help me to build it here on earth. Teach me gently, or even strongly (!) how to tap into your love. Amen


For Reflection:
Galatians 5:16-18 GNT "What I say is this: let the Spirit direct your lives, and you will not satisfy the desires of the human nature.  For what our human nature wants is opposed to what the Spirit wants, and what the Spirit wants is opposed to what our human nature wants. These two are enemies, and this means that you cannot do what you want to do.  If the Spirit leads you, then you are not subject to the Law."