On love!

Today is a day for celebrating love. Artificially selected by the makers of greetings cards it strikes terror in the heart of those dying to express love for someone. I well remember as a young lad the angst of buying and sending anonymously my first valentine card and then being surprised at not getting a response. Doh! I was so diffident then that she probably didn't even know I existed.

But let's think about love today. I can't help smiling to myself having written that. The definition of love itself is nigh impossible but we know it when we see it. One saint put it "to love is to will the good of another" and that is my preferred working definition. C S Lewis adds to that by pointing out that there are four types of love in his book The Four Loves.

Eros
Philia
Agape
Storge

Today's love celebration is all about eros love. Passionate love declared! Passionate love acted upon! Passionate love felt!

It's interesting that the Bible describes God's love vividly in all four ways. It's like God wants us to fully comprehend that he loves in stereo using four speakers instead of dreary old mono.

They say that when the Holy Spirit comes into our life he makes our hearts more tender for one another. We start to, more frequently, desire good for other people.

On the way to the station this morning I remembered that God is described sometimes as a jealous lover. He wants us to love him wholeheartedly in the school of love. We can then express our love more perfectly to others. He doesn't want us to love, or make, other Gods. He is jealous in that sense. He is jealously angry when we seek the face of another God.

He wants us to be bold and courageous in all our loving. He doesn't want us to be watered down and insipid. Or for us to dilute our love with lust. He wants us to be completely sincere too and not lead people on if we can't return their love.

Think on this

Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. Proverbs 3:3 NIV

Dear Lord, I pray a blessing on this day. So that whether single, or in a relationship, our love is blessed. Amen

For reflection:
1 Corinthians 13
1 John 4. 7

Lead a Lover's Life

I had the privilege yesterday of being on the door at church whilst two baptisms were going on. These were two adults who have chosen life in Christ.

It seemed that everyone at church yesterday was moved by the "testimony" or life story that was shared by Gavin and Shirley.

There is something that brings people to that kind of decision point.

For some people it is the discovery that there is a spiritual side to life. That we are body, soul and spirit. That our hearts are hungry. Thirsting for the things of God.

We have a free will of course. But God through his son Jesus and through the prophets has invited us to "choose life" instead of "choosing death" - this is about choosing life in the Holy Spirit. Instead of choosing things that kill our spirit.

Some of our Feet for the Street visitors went through the glass door so they could see and hear things better. My side of the door was a bit muffled. So I missed some of what was said.

I found myself remembering an email sent to me by a friend. He sent me the following verses and said that he had felt prompted by God to do so.

So this is my prayer: that your love will flourish and that you will not only love much but well. Learn to love appropriately. You need to use your head and test your feelings so that your love is sincere and intelligent, not sentimental gush. Live a lover's life, circumspect and exemplary, a life Jesus will be proud of: bountiful in fruits from the soul, making Jesus Christ attractive to all, getting everyone involved in the glory and praise of God. Philippians 1:9-11

As we go through life different phrases get added to the interior soundtrack of our lives. Some are the trigger for jokes we have with the family or friends. Silly little phrases that still make us crease up and we have half forgotten when they were first used and why. 

Some have a more useful role as almost "self talk" little reminders and way markers that are good for us.

For me the phrase "Live a Lover's Life" has become a way marker. A sign post for my life. Reminding me to keep on track. To always choose life, to choose life. To put to death the way of hate.

So the above passage is very important to me it is a 'way marker' for me telling me 'go this way follow the way of wisdom!' I go back to it quite regularly and read it and ask myself "am I doing that?" Of course I wouldn't say I ever succeed in loving like that but it gives me inspiration and a point to aim at.

Dear God, help me to recognise the things that are good for me. Help me to find the things and people who can help me. Send your Spirit to teach me love. May I be tender hearted towards other people. Amen

Follow Jesus

I have been a bit quiet again as I am currently preoccupied for the whole of November see www.nanowrimo.org - but I have broken off for some moments to cast my mind back to this passage.

I have been thinking of how Jesus called Matthew out of his tax booth. See Matthew 9: 9-13 (link)

Matthew left his job to follow Jesus. He didn't work out a period of notice. His encounter with Jesus was enough to knock him off the normal course of his life. Bless him, he was a tax collector, in those days fairly despised individuals known for their corruption and for taking an extra cut from those that they were collecting from. It says in the JB translation that he was by the 'Customs House'. This is a mistranslation. He was by his tax collectors booth! This was a portable construction that was set up where he was collecting his tax. All a bit more vulnerable than we at first think. He must have been challenged by Jesus to leave this and also torn. Do I hang on to the money or follow the Holy Man? Well he became one of the twelve - so he must have opted for the life changing option to follow Jesus. What would we do I wonder? What would I do - if the messiah came walking by?

To encounter Jesus at that time was something that knocked people off the normal course of their lives. I believe this was because Jesus personality was so arresting that you had to stop in your tracks and say to yourself. Who is he? Is he for real? What is he offering?

Well what Jesus offers is something that is contrary to the material world's values. The Good News is something for our spirit, something for the inner man or woman. That lifts us up and alters our lives and changes them for the better. To live outside Christianity is to live a life without hope. To live as a Christian implies a commitment to change.

Yes, Jesus comes to sinners, tax collectors and prostitutes to the shock and dismay of the Pharisees, but it is so that he can bring the healing power of God's love. As he says he comes as a doctor into their lives. He doesn't feast with the Matthews of this world to pick up tax collecting hints. He doesn't feast with prostitutes in order to pimp. He is at the feast because he has something of real value to give he is offering rescue. REAL RESCUE..

To the Pharisees he says 'Go and learn the meaning of the words what I want is mercy, not sacrifice.'

The irony is that the Pharisees were sinners too. The difference between them and the others were that they didn't know it. They were too busy looking at other peoples lives to assess their own.

If you look at the passage again you will see that Jesus is ministering to everyone including the Pharisees.

This is why his ministry is so effecting. It speaks to everyone and to us - even now across time. The quote he offers the Pharisees is from the Bible. From the book of Hosea.  Which says 'What I want is love, not sacrifice; knowledge of God, not holocausts.'

That is interesting isn't it? In OT times they used to try and appease God by killing and burning animals as a sin offering in the hope that this would put them right with God. Hosea says that God doesn't want this kind of material response. He wants us to change so that we love more. This requires a change of heart - are we ready?

Here is a quote from Rick Warren
"No matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love."

Dear Lord, help me to leave the things I do that are the old way of living. Allow me to follow you. Please give me the spiritual strength in order to do so. Amen

The sea is so wide!

Protect me, dear Lord!
My boat is so small,
And your sea is so big
(Bretton fisherman's prayer)

The above is one of my favourite prayers. I am fond of the short ones that go straight to the heart of the matter.

Debs and I watched Fiddler on the Roof last Sunday. A film that always moves me. The final scene is a definite "ending" as all the lead characters of the film have been driven out of their village. They are leaving mainly on foot. Finally, Terkel looks back and sees the Fiddler playing his tune on the road behind him...

As I watched that ending, this time, a fleeting thought went through my head, how lucky am I that I have never had to journey at short notice into the unknown. Travelling with only that which I could carry.

To be a stranger in a strange land, as Moses was, as so many people are (even now), is a vulnerable scary thing. When we travel we rely so often on strangers. Dependant on their goodwill and hoping to God that they will not show us ill will. Fear is something that people have to deal with. Hope is something that they definitely need to hold onto.

The only way to cope with change is to embrace it. I know it's not easy.

People sometimes have said to me "it's easier for you because you have faith" - it doesn't feel easier but maybe it actually is!

However, even though brought up in a Christian church, I don't consider that I really believed in God until I was given the gift of faith. Yes I do mean given! As in getting a present from someone. I remember someone praying for me, saying "please give Simon the gift of faith"

So I see faith as within God's gifting to give somebody. We need to be bold enough to recognise this. And to ask. A relationship with God is possible.

If we are facing uncertainty then that is the time to ask, to even plead with God. God is our rock and our stronghold, he gives us peace and hope in times of difficulty. Step up to meet him. Be the one to move towards him. As it says in the scripture "when you seek him, when you seek him with all your heart, then you will find him"

Dear Jesus, I pray that I may come to know you. Please increase the gift of faith within me. Bless me today and always. Amen

Draw near to God and he will draw near to you

The Watchman Blog has been silent through out September. To be truthful my thoughts have been elsewhere for a while following a bereavement. But it is time to write again now I think...

The last month has shown me God's capacity to touch our lives even in someone's dying moments. Our God reaches down to touch us when we call to him. He is ever present and ever loving. We make ourselves absent to him sometimes. But that can be mainly through the distraction of every day life but only very occasionally through deliberate intent.

God is love and he commands us also to love, to "live a lovers life" in all purity. Sometimes it seems difficult to love. But the commandment is about us changing our way of life to that which makes us more whole.
Love.

Love nourishes us in our Spirit.

The commandment to Love is a command to live out love in our lives. To love God, to love our neighbour, to love ourselves. Although it is a commandment it is actually "best policy" advice from our creator about how to have a full and happy life. Choose love and you will find joy and peace. Choose hate and you will feel forever jagged. It is a daily choice.

Think about Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) words quoted below :

"If you wish,  you can keep the commandments, to behave faithfully is within your power. He has set fire and water before you; put out your hand to whichever you prefer.  Man has life and death before him; whichever a man likes better will be given him. For vast is the wisdom of the Lord; he is almighty and all-seeing. His eyes are on those that fear him, he notes every action of man. He never commanded anyone to be Godless he has given no one permission to sin."

Peace to your hearts this day!

My prayer is that you may be blessed this day to the core of your being. That God will be evident to you. May you come to know peace. Amen

"I call you friends"

Jesus speaks words that cut through our everyday, thinking and living. Son of God, Saviour he comes out with words that challenge us. Consider these words from the last supper...

"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: Love each other."

Those words from Jesus really reach me.  They are the extraordinary statement of the new relationship that exists between humankind and God. They are in a way a declaration of love for humankind. After all true friendship is a love.  There can be a stage in a relationship between two people where it changes and grows and there is a dawning realisation that it has moved on to a deeper level. Sometimes it is verbalised "we are friends"  In a similar way this is Jesus speaking out loud, words of friendship" maybe what he and the disciples might have known in their hearts for some time.

"I call you friends" could be thought just a tiny phrase, words to us  hidden away in a longer speech that Jesus made at that last meal that he had with his companions before crucifixion.  But my belief is that it is very important.  The other things that were said at the meal are also important.  But they all stem from, or are motivated by, the friendship love expressed.  Jesus is the tenderness of God expressed in human form.  Jesus fully human yet fully divine is the message of God for all of us.  He teaches us that God is not too far away for us to reach.  And that His command to love (though difficult) is not impossible.  In fact it is the only thing that can make our lives worthwhile.

Of course the next thought is how do we respond to the friendship that God is offering us.  I was thinking about that and remembered a poem by Kahlil Gibran that I have kept in a little notebook for years.

"and let your best be for your friend.
if he must know the ebb of your tide,
let him know its flood also.
for what is your friend that you should
seek him with hours to kill?
seek him always with hours to live."

That is true friendship - being able to share the good and the bad times. To not shut out a friend is important and a test of friendship. I think if Jesus is a friend I should "seek him always with hours to live" - seek this friend Jesus who has commanded me to love!

Dear Jesus, thank you for your words that challenge us. Help me to respond. We ask your blessing on us in good times and in difficult times. Help us to grow in your love, and rejoice in each other. Amen

Face time

It's holiday season and the newspapers take on a different tone. One thing reported this week in the Metro was the research showing how much time people spend with their computer or gadget. The full story is here. The bit that struck me is that males are spending up to twelve hours a day looking  at the screen of their gadget.

They wouldn't spend that much time looking at the face of their wife or girlfriend! Or talking to them.

Yet we all know that face time with the ones we love is important. Face times with our gadgets can be fun, can even be useful, but also can suck away the time we can be using for friends, family and significant others.

As a lover of gadgets I struggle with this too. For example, I was bereft recently when my Motorola RAZR i fell into my shaving water and ceased to function. But I decided a long time ago that human relationships trump time on the computer or in front of the television. In other words if someone wants to come round for a chin wag, bring it on! Don't say to them  "sorry I am busy staring into the face of my beloved computer thingy!" After all our lives are really about relationships, that is where true fulfilment comes.

God recognises that too. Where we spend our time is after all so telling. And God wants a piece of your time too. Because he is a loving God, he also wants a love relationship with you. That doesn't happen without face time. If we allocate some of our time to God a relationship can build.

Strange perhaps to think about that in a holiday season. But right now you have a little extra time. So remember the saying "seek the face of God and live" - you might find a new sense of peace in your life.

For reflection :

 ‘Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.’ Jeremiah 33:3 

Try to be at peace with everyone, and try to live a holy life, because no one will see the Lord without it. Guard against turning back from the grace of God. Let no one become like a bitter plant that grows up and causes many troubles with its poison. Hebrews 12:14-15 GNT

Trust in the Lord. Have faith, do not despair. Trust in the Lord. Psalm 27:14 GNT