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