Hearing God Speak

As we prepare to launch into another year one of the best things we can decide to do is to get serious about our relationship with God.    I love this article written by Tim Chester, originally for a great new initiative called Open up the Bible.  www.openupthebible.com    He's right on the money.  

Let me tell you about an amazing experience I had just this morning. Actually “amazing” doesn’t really do it justice. It was out of this world.

This morning God spoke to me.

I know that sounds weird, but I’m sure that’s what happened. The God who made the universe actually spoke to me. I could hear what He was saying just as clearly as you can understand what you’re reading now.

The words He spoke felt like words of life to me.

It was like they resounded deep in my heart.

• There were words of instruction that helped me know Him more and understand his ways.
• There were words of challenge that called me to follow Him better and love Him more.
• There were words of comfort that spoke to my needs and gave me hope. It was like medicine to my soul. It was like a rousing speech before battle. It was like a love song sung to my heart.

But there’s more. Just as God spoke to me, so I spoke to Him. I spoke to Him as someone might speak to their friend. It was like a conversation. He talked to me and I talked to Him. I was able to express my deep appreciation for the words He’d spoken to me. I told Him how I planned to respond. I told Him about my needs and my hopes. I asked for his help, not just for me, but for people I know. I lamented the sorry mess we’ve made of his beautiful world and asked Him to have mercy on specific situations that are weighing heavily on my heart.

I spoke to the God of the universe and He heard me. He listened to what I was saying. And He promised to respond. I don’t know whether He’ll do what I ask. He might have other plans, better plans. But I’m confident He heard me and that He’ll respond in whatever way He thinks best.

What’s more, what happened to me this morning was not a freaky, one-off experience. This happens to me most mornings.

What I did this morning was read my Bible and pray. I just read my Bible and prayed. But there is nothing “just” about just reading your Bible. It really is all that I’ve described. It really is the most amazing, out-of-this-world experience. Every time you read your Bible God really is speaking to you—medicine to the soul, a rousing speech before battle, a love song sung to your heart.

The Holy Spirit spoke through the human authors of the Bible. He ensured that what they wrote truly was the word of God. Their words were God-breathed. So the Bible is the reliable, accurate, sufficient word from God. God has spoken.

But the Holy Spirit is also at work whenever the Bible is read or heard.

He takes the words that were recorded long ago and makes them live afresh. The letter of Hebrews, quoting from the Old Testament, says, “as the Holy Spirit says” (3v7). God has not only spoken in the Bible (past tense). He also speaks through the Bible (present tense).

God speaks to you every time you read the Bible. Personally. Intimately.

I read my Bible regularly because I have to. Not “have to” in the sense that someone might criticise me if I don’t or that God will get miffed with me. But “have to” in the same way I have to eat food every day. This is how I live.

Without God’s word in my life, I too readily get preoccupied with myself, my fears, my insecurities, my reputation. Without God’s word I’m so much more vulnerable to temptation. I need God’s word to realign my heart day by day towards Jesus. I need that medicine for the soul, that battle speech, that love song. And I need it every day.

"I Can't Breathe"

I've just read this from James Emery White who leads a church in the States and who coaches Christians on how to engage more thoughtfully with contemporary culture.  His blog really caught my attention as it gave expression to thoughts that I and perhaps you have had.  

There would be few reading this unaware of the events in Ferguson, Missouri, regarding the shooting death by a police officer of Michael Brown. This was quickly followed by the asphyxiation of Eric Garner in New York as a result of a chokehold during an arrest.

Neither case resulted in a grand jury indicting the officer involved.

Many lumped the two together, but I did not. To my thinking, they were very, very different. Apparently I’m not alone. A USA Today poll found that most Americans supported the Brown decision, but not the Garner decision.

I don’t want to get into the racial elements.

I don’t want to get into the pros and cons of grand jury indictments.

I don’t want to get into the perils of resisting arrest.

I don’t want to get into the difficulties and challenges of police work.

I only want to get into one thing:

“I can’t breathe.”

It’s said a picture is worth a thousand words. If so, a video must be worth ten thousand. Or in this case, an extremely potent three. If you saw it, you know that those three words were repeated eight times. And after he was on the ground, held down by multiple other men, and being handcuffed.

“I can’t breathe.”

I don’t care if he resisted arrest.

I don’t care if he weighed 300 or more pounds.

I don’t care if he had a criminal history.

At the time of the arrest, all I care about are those three words.

“I can’t breathe.”

Why?

Because I am a follower of Christ. I am a follower of Christ before I am a member of a political party, before I am a cultural “conservative” or “liberal,” and certainly before I am either “black” or “white.”

And as a follower of Christ, I understand every human being to be someone made in the very image of God and of immeasurable worth to their Father.

The color of their skin does not matter.

Their arrest record does not matter.

Their non-lethal resistance to arrest does not matter.

What matters is their “imago dei.” The image of God reflected in their very soul. And no human being should have been handled that way, much less in that situation.

Period.

And this includes the breaking news of the extent of torture carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency. [I couldn’t help but think of the connection between water-boarding and a chokehold – both are acts on another that keep them from breathing.] It doesn’t matter whether such acts fell short of a legal definition of torture, or whether they were effective.

Torture is simply wrong. Why? Because no human being, made in the image of God, should be treated that way.

Period.

As I watched the video of Eric Garner’s arrest, I could only imagine one of my sons, resisting arrest for whatever stupid or miscalculated reason, who then found himself thrown to the ground and fighting for air.

And dying.

Dear God. I can barely sustain the thought.

So whatever needs to happen to address racism in our land,

     ...and the great evil is that it does thrive;

...whatever needs to happen to uphold justice,

     ...and only a naïve observer would assume it flows freely;

…whatever needs to happen to support police in their responsibilities, not to mention rid police forces of rogue elements,

     …and both must be pursued;

…whatever needs to happen to end all affronts to the worth and dignity of human beings as made in the image of God;

Whatever needs to happen, until it does,

    …for Christ’s sake,

    …let them breathe.

The Lethal Drug in Your Dream Job

On Sunday I spoke about the importance of living out of the "Rest" that Jesus has won for us.   Even as we labour in all that God has called us to at work, home and through the church (scattered and gathered) we can know a form of rest that can refresh our souls.   

Marshall Segal's blog (below) continues that theme as he talks about the perils of the workplace. Thank God there IS a better way - there really is and it's this that gives us as followers of Jesus a distinctive quality that is compelling and attractive.

Idolatry is a subtle and scary business.

You simply don’t know all the lies lurking in your desires, ambitions, and decisions — even the good ones. In fact, Tim Keller says, “The greater the good, the more likely we are to expect that it can satisfy our deepest needs and hopes” (Counterfeit Gods, xvii). That’s a terrifying proposition. And one I can testify to personally. Some idolatries scream, and others whisper. Some lure us down long, dark alleys. Others creep into the comfort of our more safe, suburban self-righteousness.

Success is a drug of choice among Americans, and it is a slow and subtle killer. I wonder why you want the job you do. There are lots of good motivations. Maybe having a higher salary would free you to give more to ministry. Maybe more power would put you in a position to influence more people with the gospel. Maybe God’s gifted you for more than you’re able to give in your current role.

There are bad reasons, too, though, and one that is especially sinister and murderous. Success at work will play god and make promises to you that it cannot and will not keep. Success promises to fill holes in our hearts. If you only ascend this high or accumulate this much, your fears and insecurities will be resolved once for all. Success promises the love of those around us. They will finally give you the respect and affection you crave. Success says it can cover everything wrong about us. It offers esteem, control, and security — everything we surrendered in our sin. It wears the savior’s costume and presents itself the strong, charming, and trustworthy hero.

But success is a horrible hero, and an even worse god.

Work in Line with the Gospel

There is only one way to deal with the sin that remains and the death we deserve, and it isn’t found at the top of any corporate ladder, or in the size of a 401K, or in the number of people reporting to you, or even in how happy you are in your job. Only God can address the needs nested deep in our weaknesses, insecurities, fears, and failures. Success could never address what we all really need most. Only the gospel will save us — even those who believe success in this life might save them.

We all try to earn love. For many of us, it started in preschool trying to please Mom and Dad with another picture for the fridge. Then it was cultivated in the competition of middle-school classrooms, and confirmed in the grades and awards of high school. In college, for the first time, we were identified by our major — our future job. And then four years later, after our first paycheck, we’re already fighting society’s desire to define us by where we work, who works for us, and how much we make. It all looks like work, but it’s really worship. It wears the responsible nametag of provision, but it’s really the frantic, promiscuous search for redemption.

Again, Keller writes:

God is not on a leash, he cannot be bought or appeased. The gods of religion can be controlled. If we offer them hard work and devotion, then they are beholden to us. However, God cannot be approached like that. Whatever he gives us is a gift of grace. (85)

God will never be won through work. He loves to save, but he will not rescue those who believe they’ve earned it. Grace is the only currency he trades in. Everything else we might offer him is as Monopoly money in his hands. He refuses to love and affirm you like a cosmic CEO, because he’s not “served by human hands, as though he needed anything” (Acts 17:25).

To be clear, success is not a curse. It becomes a curse when it quietly becomes your savior. God prospers the work of our hands in all kinds of ways for his glory. But it is not his method of making you his, and it’s certainly not meant to make much of you. Success is a servant of sovereign Grace, the only means by which anyone is saved.

If you see and embrace this about success, it will free you for Monday morning. We work and succeed as those who’ve already been rescued from our brokenness and need. We labor from the safety of God’s love. We won’t earn anything from God between 9:00 and 5:00, so we work with the security and confidence we have in Christ only because of his cross.

Work in Love for the World

The gospel frees us from going to work to prove ourselves, and it frees us from going to work to serve ourselves. A second great and pervasive sin in the workplace is selfishness, wielding ambition and vocation to satisfy our own needs and desires.

According to Nathan Hatch, President of Wake Forest University:

Students are [pursuing lucrative and powerful professions like finance, law, and specialized medicine] with little reference to the larger questions of meaning and purpose. That is, they choose professions not in answer to the question “What job helps people to flourish?” but “What job will help me to flourish?” (Keller, 79)

It’s the trend at Wake Forest, but what about for you? Maybe you’re not aiming at six-or-seven-digit salaries or a second home somewhere warm or recognition from industry leaders, but are your aspirations fundamentally serving you or others? Is your desire for that job driven by a heart for the world around you or for the one within you? Is your work about making your life count for the good of others or about having your own little heaven here?

The gospel saves us so deeply and satisfies us so fully that we can let ourselves — our gifts, our career, even our lives — be poured out for the sake of others, especially for the sake of their faith and joy in God. The meaning and purpose of history, and the meaning and purpose of our lives specifically — every area of our lives, every day of our lives — is Christ. We never walk away from that, certainly not for eight hours a day, five days a week. He is the freeing, satisfying, and controlling purpose for everything we do. So our work is about worship after all, not of success, but of our Savior.

This does not mean everyone should go into full-time Christian ministry. You do not have to be paid to make much of Christ to make much of Christ. In fact, I’m sure as much or more ministry is happening today in homes, schools, hospitals, and downtown corporate towers as in churches.

It does mean that we’ve been freed to labor not for ourselves, but in love for the world around us. Wherever we work, we’ve been deployed by God as agents of everlasting joy. So, let’s labor and succeed as those who’ve already won in Christ. And let us work — in whatever field — that others might experience the freedom, love, and security we enjoy with God.

I was in two minds as to whether to share Ryan Shelton's post with you.   It made me wince and it may make you squirm but that's not necessarily a bad thing.   One of the big curses of our age and the thing that many of us are significantly influenced by if not enslaved to is consumerism.  50 years ago this wasn't the case but today it's probably the biggest tool in our enemy's arsenal.  

Here's Ryan's post and the warning he gives about not being a church consumer.  Let's be on our guard.

Are You Leaching the Local Church?

When I was a teen, I bought into the very fashionable assumption that the local church would only cramp my style and put a barrier to “authentic spirituality.” I stopped attending for a while until I got wind of a hip, cool church across town that was full of attractive, young, relevant people. The music was great, the preaching was edgy, and the atmosphere was exciting.

For months, I drove all the way across town, nearly an hour each way, to attend services at the church that “got it.” It was a booming place, with six fully packed services each weekend. And if I arrived late, I was turned away because the fire department was keeping a close eye on the safety capacity.

It all ended for me one week, when the pastor said something that disturbed me. I remember it something like this:

For those of you who come here every week thinking attendance makes you good with God, you’re wrong. Some of you are driving from the other side of the metroplex, and are not really connected to the church at all. If you’re just coming here, not involved in a small group, not serving with nursery, parking, or ushering — if you’re just here to hear the band or listen to me talk — go somewhere else. You’re a leech. And quite frankly, we could use your seat.

That was a harsh thing for me to hear, but I can attest now that it was a most loving gift to me. That was my last weekend at that church, and I began searching for a local body where I could serve in a context of real relationships.

More Than Showing Up

I continue to grow in my love for the local church. One of the ways God has grown my love for the church is by teaching me that worship is more than showing up.

How amazing is God’s design in creating the church! God could immediately and directly pour his grace into us, giving us all the nourishment we need for this Christian life. But in his wisdom, he chooses to operate through people, not just private devotions. And specially so when local church is gathered in worship.

Think about it, the last time you sensed God’s powerful intervention in your life in a corporate worship gathering, consider how many people God used to deliver that grace to you.

• It may have been a preacher who spent days studying a passage to explain it clearly to you.
• It may have been a musician who spent hours practicing songs to make them stirring and musically satisfying.
• It may have been a songwriter who poured over biblical truths to articulate them with beautiful poetry.
• It may have been a parking-lot attendant sweating through his shirt so that your minivan, and so many others, could navigate congested parking lot between services.
• It may have been a kitchen worker who cut up pastries so that your stomach isn’t making noise even though you forgot breakfast.
• Or it may have been the faithful saint sitting beside you raising their hands and encouraging you that some truths are worth getting excited about.

In a thousand ways, the last time God poured grace over you in a weekend service, consider how many people were involved in his decisive work.

Receive from God, Give to Others

I marvel that God meets me in profound ways through un-extraordinary people who do more than just show up for Sunday worship. And it fills me with great joy to think that through my participation, someone else might go home saying “God really met with us today.”

I’m glad I received that harsh word so many years ago, but maybe you don’t need to be called a leech to see the gathering of the church is about more than just showing up. Gather this weekend expecting to receive from God in a hundred different ways, through dozens of different people. And consider how God might have you give of your gifts so that he can bless others through you. Receive from him, and remember the words of Jesus as you orient on others: It is more blessed to give than to receive.

It's Not About Making "A Difference", It's About Making Disciples

On Sunday I spoke about how our core calling is to make disciples, men and women who joyfully organize their lives around Jesus to the glory of God.  If you're part of LBC let me encourage you to have a listen, it's an important message. http://lymingtonbaptist.org/mp3s/Called%20to%20make%20disciples.mp3

I referenced Malcolm Duncan who has done more to mobilize the church in the UK to social action and community engagement than probably anyone else.  But for all that's been done he's the first to say that it's not enough.  All authority was not given to Jesus in order that we could "make a difference" but so that we could make disciples, apprentices of Jesus who, in all areas of life, are becoming like their Savior.

Here's an extract of the lecture he gave at LICC.

“We can build a society that looks healthy, without God. We can create activists and campaigners who change the world, without God. But the change will be temporary and it will not last.

But if we give ourselves to forming Christ in those who have surrendered their lives to him, if we make growing disciples our central purpose as a body of Christ. If we help one another to encounter, walk with, and serve Christ in every area of our lives in the fullest sense of the word, then the world around us will feel the impact and we will also feed the hungry, clothe the naked and end the injustices that we confront.

But we will do it in his power… not in our own.

A Church for the nation must surely seek to enable those who own the name of Christ to live for him, to serve him, to honour him and to obey him in every single area of their lives - even if it means the redefinition of worship, discipleship, teaching and mission.”

Malcolm Duncan

Why I Hate Religion

Love this by Jefferson Bethke

Khan Academy Meets the Bible

This initiative looks amazing.

Look at the Book is kind of like Khan Academy ( http://www.youtube.com/user/khanacademy ) but for studying the Bible.

 http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/the-legacy-i-want-to-leave

I can't wait to see this  in action.  I think it's going to be great.