The resurrection - restoring relationship with Man

Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying.

He (Jesus) asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”

Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”

 Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” John 20: 13, 15 - 16

The Gospel accounts of the resurrection vary but the basic facts are consistent. Jesus appeared first to the faithful women who had gone to the tomb, not sure what they would do as they could never move the stone, but they had to be there. 

John’s Gospel is my favourite account. Jesus met Mary who only recognised him when he called her name. How precious. 

As I was pondering again the terrible account of the death by crucifixion of our Saviour, I came back to the original thought ‘Why? Why would Jesus do it?’ The answer has to be love and love of a magnitude that we have no comprehension of. 

If we consider all other ‘gods’, and many other leaders only interested in power, all they demand is slavish obedience, fearful worship. They only want people who will bow down and do their will. They may sit in fake grandeur, high and distant from their subjects surrounded by obsequious attendants and ‘ministers’ but all they engender in these people is fear. There is no relationship.  

Instead, our wonderful, magnificent God created a beautiful world with Man as the pinnacle of his creation, made in his image, with whom he desires to walk in the cool of the day. Ever since Man rebelled from God’s plan, He has been working towards restoring the original design and the only way for Man to be redeemed from his sin and rebellion was for His precious, sinless son to pay the penalty in our place. 

The reason he would do this is love. God doesn’t want slavish obedience, he wants relationship based on love, his love for us and our love and adoration in return, freely given. We have only to read the accounts in the Bible of God’s presence and we see clouds of glory, majesty that creates such awe in sinful man that they fall flat upon their faces. Anyone who has come face to face with God in any measure whether Moses, Isaiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, Peter becomes overwhelmed by their sinfulness. Yet God wants to breach that gap between sinful man and holy, holy, holy God and the price was high, extremely high. 

Love always finds a way because love grieves over separation, love wants relationship - face to face relationship and the only way was the death of the sinless, perfect, beautiful Jesus.

As we celebrate again the victory of Easter – not just the death but the glorious resurrection conquering death, sin and all its attendant woes, let us be those who walk in the victory that Jesus won for us, not wallowing in our sin, guilt and shame but letting the work of the cross, the body and blood of Jesus do the work God intended to set us free, to walk in beautiful relationship with him. He loves us and all he wants is our hearts, our love and everything follows on from that. Our salvation and freedom came at a terrible cost, but Jesus says again, ‘I love you. It was worth it.’ 

Love never fails

Recently, I watched the film Quartet again. It is a funny and moving story surrounding an old people’s home for retired musicians. What a lovely idea. Every year they hold a concert to raise funds for the home and every musician who is still able takes part.

Into this scenario comes a retired diva to live in the home, once married to one of the other residents. The air crackles with tension which is gently resolved. The finale is four of the finest operatic voices from their day singing the Quartet from Rigoletto.

 

I love the film which is extremely witty and filled with uplifting music. However I knew nothing about the opera Rigoletto or its storyline. I was shocked therefore to discover it is all about the debauched court of an Italian duke. It is bawdy and frankly vulgar as well as being a story of betrayal, revenge and murder. It is a true tragedy.

 

How can such a terrible tale have such wonderful music? Everything evil wrapped around by everything enriching and beautiful. How can it be?

 

I immediately thought of the Garden of Eden – God’s paradise on Earth. Totally beautiful, perfect and everything that is good into which comes evil incarnate. Why did God permit the devil to enter his perfect world?

 

The answer is love.

 

William Shakespeare wrote ‘Love is not love that alters when alteration finds.’

 

God is love and he does not change even when evil comes into his perfect world.  True love is not fickle, it doesn’t give up. As we read 1 Corinthians 13: 4 - 8, we see what true love is really like.

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.⁸ Love never fails.

The reality is that love has to be freely given and freely received.  Love permits terrible choices to be made - to choose evil over good even though the consequences are terrible.

 

God allowed the devil to deceive Eve even though the outworking would be tragic. If he had stopped her or not let the devil into the Garden, it would be a form of manipulation and control, not love. Eve’s decision, freely made, led to the destruction of so much of God’s incredible creation and cost the life of his Son.  

 

But love always wins. Romans 12: 21 says, Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Love overcomes even terrible wickedness. In the end God will have his way – he will restore his beautiful creation, planet Earth to the perfection he always intended. This time evil will be completely destroyed and Man, the highest of God’s creation, his redeemed ones who have freely chosen him, will inhabit this restored world for all eternity.

 

It never fails to move me deeply. The perfect Son of God killed in the most barbaric manner in order to save his wayward, sinful and uncaring creation, Man. That is true love.

Show not tell

As an author, I am constantly encouraged in my writing to ‘show not tell’.  This means that it is not enough to say ‘The sunset was beautiful.’ Far better to write, ‘the sun sank in a magnificent blaze of red, orange, and pink that stretched across the sky, before disappearing below the western horizon, ushering in the night.’

God is the master craftsman of ‘show not tell’. In the book of Genesis, God tells us about creation; what he created, but when we gaze upon the creation, seeing what God has shown us, it makes us exclaim like David,

When I consider your heavens,
   the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,    which you have set in place,

 what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
    human beings that you care for them? Psalm 8: 3- 4

 Creation, despite man’s terrible plundering, abusing and despoiling of this ‘green and blue planet’,  it is still superb, glorious, stunning. The night sky unspoiled by light pollution has to be the light show to surpass all light shows.  There are times when I am literally speechless at the stunning beauty of majestic mountain ranges or overwhelmed by the chilly splendour of the polar regions in all their breath-taking snowiness or the loveliness of solitary marshland, winding rivers and estuaries.

Surely God shows us his glorious creativity in the sheer variety of birds, fish, reptiles and mammals that inhabit planet Earth. One of the creatures that most amuses me most is an extravagant black and white bug that hovers in the heat of South Africa, all quivering frills and tassels. It never fails to make me laugh. However it is fish that amaze me in their incredible diversity and when we think that most of them were unknown, concealed in the depths of the ocean until the technological advances of 20^th century brought them to our television screens. What an extravagant, magnificent Creator God we have!

However the greatness of Creation is nothing compared to how God has shown his love for us. 

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5: 8. 

God did not wait for us to get our lives sorted or even turn to him. He initiated the great sacrifice of his life for ours whilst we were still sinners.

God so desired to restore man’s broken relationship with him that he was prepared to go to any lengths necessary.  It was love, incredible love that took Jesus to the cross and love that kept him on the cross.

How did this amazing gift come to us? By grace – the greatest demonstration of God’s love towards sinful man.  Simon Ponsonby writes: ‘Grace – abundant grace – grace is a gift. Grace is not grace if you earned it; a gift is not a gift if you bought it. Grace is not a reward, or a payment, or a due. It is outrageous, undeserved, unmerited, divine favour’.

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.  Ephesians 2: 8- 9

We have nothing to bring to God, there is no sacrifice we can offer, no treasure that didn’t first come from him, all he asks of us is our love – that rather poor trickle of affection that draws us into the richest of relationship. In his arms we truly learn how valued, loved, appreciated, adored and precious we are to him.

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!  1 John 3: 1.

God is showing us the greatest treasure of all – his love. He doesn’t tell us how much he loves us, he shows us through Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross, taking our punishment, forgiving our sins and as we surrender our lives to him, he takes us on the greatest adventure of all -  the discovery of our true identity as children of God and the amazing plan and purpose he has for our lives.

God's sense of humour

As a grandparent, I love seeing and hearing stories of what our grandchildren have been up to, especially if they are funny. Two year old Samuel was watching his grandfather fill up the bird feeders in the garden and announced that ‘Grandpa was feeling the birds!’ It conjures up such an amusing picture.

I am convinced God loves watching his children and laughs over some of our exploits and things we say. I can imagine God’s pleasure as he sees families and friends at rest together enjoying one another’s company. I am sure he laughs along with us at some joke or amusing event. Our sense of humour comes from God. We are made in his image.

He doesn’t just enjoy church services or our ‘quiet times’ or even our good deeds and kind words but all of our life; a piece of work well done, the great golf or football shot, our joy at a bargain we find when shopping, the pleasure we get when taking a walk and marvelling at his creation. When we err or things go wrong God is there to comfort and guide. Every part of our life matters greatly to God.

However there can be a unfortunate tendency to view God as rather distant and even like the spiritual police, waiting to jump on misdemeanours so he can turn his displeasure on us.  This view is prevalent even in the Church. Nothing could be further from the truth. It doesn’t seem to matter how much the Bible speaks of God’s love. No matter how often we take communion and remember Jesus’ incredible sacrifice of love by dying on the cross. Somehow our own sense of shame and unworthiness overwhelms our fragile belief in God’s love.

We would rather believe If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God (Hebrews 10: 26 – 27) than See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! 1 John 3: 1. One is a warning to a few – the other a blessing to us all.

God loves us. God likes us. God enjoys us. God will never leave us but how much better it is to be a joyful child revelling in God’s love than a fearful child only concerned with confessing sin and grovelling in the hope of appeasing a vengeful God. As a parent and grandparent I want to enjoy my family. I don’t want them always talking about their sin and failings even though it’s right to confess them at the time. I want to share life with them, laugh with them, cry with them but be with them and love them. How much more does God want the same.

Deep in love with Jesus

Sitting at Your feet is where I wanna be

I'm home when I am here with You

Ruined by Your grace, enamored by Your gaze

I can't resist the tenderness in You

I'm deep in love with You, Abba Father

I'm deep in love with You, Lord

My heart it beats for You, precious Jesus

I'm deep in love with You, Lord

These words from a song by Michael W Smith touch something deep within me. So often the love of God is very theoretical – we know it to be true but we don’t feel it. Yet love is an emotion and should be felt. It’s not a piece of information.

For years this was my situation. I knew in my head that God loved me. I could pray with great conviction God’s love for another but I just never felt it. I kept talking to God about this. I knew that if only I could feel God’s love, so much else would fall away; feelings of inadequacy, guilt, shame and condemnation. These just would not be able to exist in the warmth of God’s loving gaze.

At this point I just need to say that feelings are not a reliable indicator of truth. Feelings follow truth not the other way around. What do I mean by this?

 ‘Feelings are just feelings. Nothing else,’ my boss used to tell me. He is a Godly man but this saying drove me mad. My feelings were very important to me and I felt that they were a very accurate gauge of reality.  Over the years I discovered by painful circumstances that he was quite right. 

What he meant of course is that feelings are in fact a very poor indicator of both reality and truth. Feelings can make us slaves to lies and whilst I am not for a second suggesting we ignore feelings, they need to be used as what they are – a pointer to our emotional or physical condition at that moment. They can be a signpost to blessings or problems but they are not necessarily an indicator of truth.

‘I feel so alone and rejected’ shows our emotional state. The truth is that Jesus said He would never leave us or forsake us.  We are not alone or rejected. 

So feeling God’s love is vital because the truth is that God loves us so passionately, deeply and dearly that we will never fathom it. We ought to feel his love but so often our feelings condemn us. It is at that moment that declaring the truth is vital.

The truth is that God loves us. The truth is that we are his dearly beloved children. The truth is that we are the apple of his eye. The truth is that there is no more condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. The truth is that we are saved by grace; there is nothing we can do to earn or keep God’s love. The truth is that as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

It was at this point I got my breakthrough. God had forgiven me but I had not forgiven myself. I still condemned myself for my many mistakes but if God had forgiven me, who was I to hold myself in the bondage of unforgiveness? As I released myself, the feelings followed the truth and I knew God loved me and I could feel it.  It was a wonderful moment.

Now, like Michael W Smith, I love to sit and enjoy God’s adoring gaze, to reflect on his great tenderness and acceptance of me; to know I never need to do anything to earn this love but I can just sit and bathe in it.  What a blessing to know that God will never reject me, abandon me or get cross with me. I am his precious child. Hallelujah!

Education in God's hands

There has been some correspondence recently on a small corner of Facebook surrounding an article written on the BBC website about Christian education and in particular the use of ACE (Accelerated Christian Education) as a school curriculum.

Now I would be the first to agree that as a curriculum ACE has some difficulties but to say, as some would suggest, that it is ‘a system of indoctrination for fundamental and anti intellectual ideology’ or ‘fascist ideology wrapped in Christian language’ is giving the system more kudos than it deserves.

I would rather my children were educated using ACE than brought up in a system that believes nothing, has few morals and no values; a system that permits everything and then wonders why there are so many problems created by the freedom it cherishes so much.

I may be thought to be narrow minded because of these statements. The reality is I am very broad minded because I believe in a God whose love knows no bounds and whose plan and purpose for both individuals and mankind is so good, so awesome, so incredible and so far reaching that it is worth pursing with an energy and passion.

God does not want us indoctrinated into some sort of religious system and he certainly does not want to limit our knowledge, understanding and experience. God wants to expand our minds from the limitations of human knowledge and experience to the endless possibilities available to those who dare to see things his way.

ACE may be fallible and ‘narrow’ but it has the potential to open minds not only to God himself but also to the wonders of an awesome God who loves his creation because he made it. Creationism is not the last resting place of a few deluded, educationally lacking, intellectually challenged individuals but the only possible conclusion to a universe finely tuned and perfectly balanced for life on earth.

Scientists both Christian and non Christian marvel again and again at the precision of the dimensions and make-up of Earth, our solar system and the universe. It takes a far greater leap of credibility to believe in the random creation of the universe than a universe designed by an awesome Creator, smarter and infinitely more intelligent than his creation.

It is interesting that those who are most vehemently opposed to ACE and sometimes Christian education as well are those who want to exclude God from their lives and the planet. Unfortunately God is too big and too loving to permit that. He never has and never will wash his hands of any of us but will pursue each one of us extravagantly, recklessly and relentlessly till our dying day. His grace and love know no bounds.

ACE may be flawed but God is flawless, loving, kind, good, intelligent, gracious and everything than anyone from any culture, nation or time could ever desire. In him and him alone are found ‘all the treasure of wisdom and knowledge’ and he and he alone will satisfy our very souls. 

Love your neighbour as yourself

Love your neighbour as yourself Leviticus 19: 18

Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” Matthew 19: 26

Joyce Meyer says she found it impossible to love other people when she didn’t love or like herself.  I can agree with that!  I was at my most prickly, awkward and downright difficult when I didn’t love, let alone like myself.  I constantly compared myself to others and came up short every time. In order to try and make myself feel better, I would criticise others. I covered it all over with a veneer of jollity but there was a harsh, unkind edge to it. There was not a lot I could do about it because I needed a God who loves me more than I will never understand to come and set me free from all that criticism and unkindness.

This is the greatest miracle of all; that God, who created the universe with his word, would come down to earth to love and die for me.  He took a hurt, bitter, rejected and under it all dissatisfied person, cross with herself and everyone else, and with love draw her to himself. He took all my sin, shame and guilt and nailed it to the cross and then loved me till all that angry bitterness was soaked away in his love.

I am not perfect but I am forgiven and when I do sin, God in love points it out, not to make me feel bad but to set me free. It truly is incredible – beyond belief but that is the amazing God who loves us. He made each of us to be unique, completely different to everyone else so comparisons are useless. There is no way we can compare ourselves other than we are all humans and some are saved and some are not. God’s command to us is to love them; the saved and the unsaved, the lovely and the unlovely, the disagreeable and agreeable, the friend or enemy.

I used never to be able to say anything nice about anyone including myself but other Christians by being kind to me showed me the way of kindness; others being gracious to me to showed me grace. I marvel now at the longsuffering patience of people and when I get irritated with other people’s lack of grace or kindness, I remember how I used to be.

Underneath every angry, prickly, difficult person is a hurt, rejected human being who needs the love of God shown to them by those who have already received his love, mercy and grace.  I am so thankful to those people who put up with me long enough to show me the Father’s love and tell me about his forgiveness freely given to everyone who asks. That was the start of the Great Adventure.  It is a process that will continue to the day I die but as I receive more and more of the Father’s love, I am able to love myself and therefore to love other people.

 

Living in the joy of God's truth

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. Ephesians 1: 3 – 6

There are times when words are just not enough to explain the wonder of the things that God has done for us.  These amazing verses which Paul wrote to the Ephesians just cannot really do justice to the enormity of God’s incredible love for us. We need the wonderful revelation from God’s Holy Spirit to bring these words of God’s love to life.

Too often we get through life believing all sorts of things about God and ourselves that are just not true and these lies consistently rob us of the joy that God wants us to live in. Too often when things go wrong or God does not seem as close as he did on another occasion, our first thought can be that we have done something wrong and God is cross with us or something else that is just not true.  We then spend far too much time apologising, repenting and feeling sorry for ourselves but instead II Corinthians 10: 5 tells us to ‘take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ’. We must capture these lies and force them into obedience to Christ. God wants us to live in the joy of the truth and not in the doubt and insecurity of lies and ungodly beliefs.

The truth is that God loves us so much that before the creation of the world he chose us. Yes he chose you – stop and consider that truth for a minute. Why did he choose us? Well it certainly wasn’t because of the wonderful people we were or anything we had or could do but because he loves us. He knows all about us and yet he loves us. Even if we get things wrong he still isn’t cross with us as we may be with our children. He doesn’t deal with us that way. Instead he takes us gently by the hand and asks us to look in the mirror and see the sin. All we have to do is repent and ask God’s forgiveness and the wonderful relationship between us and God that he chose us for is restored. Do not believe the lies; he disciplines those he loves (Proverbs 3: 12) in order to renew and strengthen our close personal relationship with him.

My prayer is that God will increasingly reveal to each one of us just how much God loves us and that these words of life will become so real to us that the truth will shine like a beacon of hope completely eclipsing the lies of the enemy that he has sown in our hearts. May the truth cause the lies to wither and die and be a source of increasing encouragement and joy on the path of life.

God delights in us

The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love,
he will rejoice over you with singing. Zephaniah 3: 17

This has to be one of my favourite verses in the Bible. If ever we want an insight into the Father heart of God's love for us, this verse has to one of the best.

God is with us. At this moment God is with you wherever you are and it is not a passive God is just in the room but God is there, active on our behalf, involved and interested even in the minutiae of our lives. He is mighty to save. There is no situation or circumstance that God cannot save you from even if it is something that has arisen from a mistake or foolishness on your part. God is ready to intervene and save you right now.

God takes delight in us. This is a truth that so many Christians struggle with. How can God love me with my life in such a mess? Or how can the Creator of the universe love little old insignificant me? However, he delights in you – this does not mean just that you please him but that he takes great pleasure in you. He smiles when he looks at you. He laughs with you just as a proud parent laughs and takes great pleasure in their child so God takes great delight in you.

He quiets us with his love. Just as an agitated and upset child needs soothing, so God soothes and quiets us with his unconditional (absolutely no conditions) love. He is singing over us right now, rejoicing in us. We are so pleasing to God.

Last year my husband and I were in New York having lunch in the very crowded Grand Central Station Food Court. There were only two spaces to sit at a table with two men who were already having a deep discussion. As we ate our meal I listened to the conversation and it was obviously a pastoral meeting and one of the two men’s lives seemed to be in a bit of a mess. As I continued to listen I asked if I could say something which the pastor graciously agreed to. I just started to share with this big black American how much God loved him and had such a wonderful plan for his life so much better than the things he was planning or doing (all of which seemed to be not much help). As we shared the love of God and his desire to draw this man back into his arms, tears fell down his face.  He was deeply touched.  We left promising to pray for him and reminding him that if he doubted God’s love, he must remember that God sent two British people to sit next to him in Grand Central Station to tell him how much he loved him.

God delights in us. We please him greatly. There are no circumstances that exclude you from his love and pleasure. None.  If circumstances have overtaken you recently and you feel like God is far off or even if you are struggling to grasp how much you please God; just declare over yourself right now ‘God delights in me. He is rejoicing over me with singing. I am pleasing to God.’

The Lord is near

The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. Psalm 145: 18

The whole of Psalm 145 is a wonderful psalm of praise extolling the Lord. From this psalm come the wonderful words that the Lord is gracious and compassionate; slow to anger and rich in love The Lord is good to all, he has compassion on all he has made.

There can be times when we feel like God is far off and usually these will be times when we have made mistakes, sinned or just done something we are not proud of. We may even have forgotten or chickened out of doing something we should have done.

It is at moments like this we need to remember the Lord is near. We may feel we have moved away from God but God never moves away from us. We may be turning our head away in shame or frustration at our shortcomings but God is right there lifting our head to look into his eyes and he wants us to see the encouragement and compassion he has for us, in the midst of our mistakes. So often we see success and failure in terms of what we do or don’t do and God wants to remind us today that who we are is what matters. We are God’s chosen children, holy and dearly loved (Colossians 3:12). We are not failures, we are not disappointments, and God is not shaking his head at us in sorrow at our shortcomings. God’s eyes are burning with love and compassion for us.

Take heart child of God. Call out to God in truth, repent if necessary, forgive anyone if needed including yourself and stand tall as a precious, precious child of God. The Lord is near; feel his hand of encouragement on you today, right now, in Jesus’ Name.

I am a child of God

These words too often conjure up trite or twee images of Jesus with a crowd of multi-ethnic children clustered  around his long robes or of a little lamb on Jesus' shoulders.

The truth though of these words is profound once grasped and completely life changing.

Too many of us grew up in the faith as spiritual orphans with no spiritual fathers and mothers to love, guide and watch over us.  Spiritual mums and dads help us find our identity in our spiritual family. We have many spiritual brothers and sisters and together we have made it up as we went along, helping each other but lacking anyone of spiritual maturity to help us discover our identity as children of God.  This can cause us to have great difficulty connecting with our heavenly Father.  So many Christians are spiritual orphans struggling to know how much the Father loves and approves of them. Too many are still trying to clean themselves up or get their act together so that Father will love them.  The truth is he already loves us unconditionally and approves of us completely.  The prodigal son was accepted back into the family by his adoring father, stinking of the pig pen and with nothing other to offer than a heartfelt apology and yet the father, barely listened to the apology but drew him into his arms and put on a feast.

This story alone illustrates God's heart towards us. But should we need further convincing, Jesus' continual acceptance of the down and outs of society and gracious patience with the shortcomings of the disciples is evidence enough that how God feels about us is nothing like anyone else's love or affection. 

Once we get hold of the corner of this truth and start pulling on it, our lives are changed forever.  Not only is God our loving, adoring, accepting Father but that means we are his children.  The closest analogy I can come up with is that this means we are part of the Royal Family with access to the king at all times, all the privileges of this position and all the resources of the Kingdom available to us at all times. 

There is no need to feel worthless, useless, insecure, undervalued, condemned and inadequate.  Indeed to do so is to fly in the face of all that Jesus has done on the cross to give us this privileged position.  We are indeed children of God and as this revelation grows in our hearts so will our love for the lost, the poor, the needy and  the undervalued of society.  Sharing God's love with others is the greatest privilege.

Knowing we are a child of God changes everything both for us and for all those we come into contact with.