I have just finished listening to a talk from CJ Mahaney of Sovereign Grace Ministries on "The Cup", namely the cup of suffering Jesus drank from in the Garden of Gethsemane, before he was taken away to be tried and ultimately crucified. I do not intend to precis that talk, or "review" it as such. But it was so profoundly moving and affecting a talk and I feel compelled to write something down to try to capture my thoughts as a result of what I have heard.
The Cross and Jesus death on it stand at the very centre of the Christian faith. Without it, there is no access to God, no forgiveness of sins, no life with him now or ever, no hope. Paul writes that he resolves to know nothing except Christ and him crucified and I feel similarly resolved myself. It is hard to do so. Hard to dwell on and focus on something so painful. It is hard to be confronted at every turn with reminders of my sinfulness, my fallenness, my helplessness. It is hard to remember every moment of every day that Jesus took upon himself the punishment for everything I have ever done wrong. As CJ puts it, he drank that cup dry so that I would never have to drink of it. Instead of me bearing the punishment for my own sin, as I rightly should, Jesus came, fully God and fully man and said he would take it himself. He had done nothing wrong, ever. He was in fact the one who was wronged, the one against whose perfect holiness all of my sin had been committed. He, who had only ever been hurt by my sin, made perfect atonement for it, by taking the punishment for all of it. God poured out all of his wrath, all of the punishment warranted by all of my sin and he poured it on himself, in the person of his Son.
That Son, who had dwelt forever with the Father in perfect love, fellowship and harmony, offered himself before God as a sacrifice, offered to bear it all. As he prayed and wept in the garden, Jesus contemplated for the first time his impending isolation from the Father. He knew that he would soon be alone and although he would then soon be reunited with his Father, he knew that he must face this hour without the support of and union with the Father that he had enjoyed since before time began.
What pain, what anguish, what a burden to bear! The physical pain of the flogging and crucifixion that awaited himwas hardly something to look forward to, but it was not this that immediately troubled him so. He knew he would die and he knew how, he had told his disciples as much as they approached Jerusalem. Now though, the added element of isolation, of the Father's face turned away for the first time, hit home.
We sing so often of the wonder of Jesus dying for us, of how we are now forgiven and have a clear conscience before God, of how the price has been paid. We read it all the time in our Bibles and we hear it over and over and over again in sermons, but it never gets old. I cried today as I listened to CJ. I cried at the realisation, all over again, that Jesus, who owed me nothing died for me. That Jesus, perfect, blameless, pure, spotless, kind, loving, gentle, holy, God, went through separation from the Father, physical punishment and suffering on a scale I cannot comprehend and then an agonising death, all for me. What do I do? Throw it back in his face. I'll live my life how I please, thank you very much. I won't bother telling anyone about what you've done for me, it might be a bit embarassing. Thank you for what you did, but I cannot really afford to have it make a difference to how I live my life. I've got my own thing that I want to do.
It seems so ridiculous when set out like that, doesn't it? The inescapable truth, logic, whatever is that God MUST have our whole lives. I cannot look at the garden, the cup and the cross and react any other way. I cannot offer a bit of obedience, occasionally, when it suits me. I cannot just worship when I feel like it, or pray if I happen to get a free few minutes every now and then. I cannot fail to share this extraordinary gospel and every opportunity. I cannot.
I cannot earn what Jesus has done, pay him back or balance the scales. I am not expected to and to an extent, all I can really do is drop to my knees in awe-struck surrender and wonder. But I must get up, we must all get up and offer back to God with unending gratitude our whole lives in thankful service of the one who gave it all for us.
Friday, 19 February 2010
Wednesday, 17 February 2010
Lots of input
Okay, so now I have a little mp3 player, I'm maxing on the podcasts/sermons/downloads while travelling to and from work. I'm absolutely loving it and feel like I'm learning lots. There are just so many resources out there, so I am focussing on where I feel weakest (godly manhood, marriage, parenting) or most intrigued (calling, serving God in the workplace) and I am finding that I am feeling very close to God. I'm not suddenly, magically more virtuous than before, but I am more focussed on God, more oriented towards him.
What I am trying to do though is ensure that I do not use up all of my time listening to mp3's and forget to actually spend time with God. Listening to CJ Mahaney talk about gospel-centric parenting is informative and instructive, but listening to God must be at the centre of who I am and how my time is spent. God deserves my very best, the first-fruits of all I have in time, energy, money and resources. It's not good enough for me to check in with God for five minutes as I go off to sleep, to fit him around the ironing and DVD watching. He needs to come first.
PJ Smyth spoke on manhood at New Frontiers in Brighton and quoted John Piper, who said that a man's place in the morning is rising early and spending time before God on behalf of his family and to seek God for direction and strength for himself. That sounds awesome. I tried it for the first time this morning and although I was pretty groggy and felt conflicted about not wanting to seem self-righteous (ooh, look what I do in the morning, aren't I good), it was a good few minutes of focussing on God, presenting my family to him in prayer and getting my day off to a good start.
Lord, help me to spend my time on the right things, to put you at the centre of every day and to make time for all that you would have me do, even if it is to the seeming detriment of things that I, in my own wisdom might mistakenly think are important.
What I am trying to do though is ensure that I do not use up all of my time listening to mp3's and forget to actually spend time with God. Listening to CJ Mahaney talk about gospel-centric parenting is informative and instructive, but listening to God must be at the centre of who I am and how my time is spent. God deserves my very best, the first-fruits of all I have in time, energy, money and resources. It's not good enough for me to check in with God for five minutes as I go off to sleep, to fit him around the ironing and DVD watching. He needs to come first.
PJ Smyth spoke on manhood at New Frontiers in Brighton and quoted John Piper, who said that a man's place in the morning is rising early and spending time before God on behalf of his family and to seek God for direction and strength for himself. That sounds awesome. I tried it for the first time this morning and although I was pretty groggy and felt conflicted about not wanting to seem self-righteous (ooh, look what I do in the morning, aren't I good), it was a good few minutes of focussing on God, presenting my family to him in prayer and getting my day off to a good start.
Lord, help me to spend my time on the right things, to put you at the centre of every day and to make time for all that you would have me do, even if it is to the seeming detriment of things that I, in my own wisdom might mistakenly think are important.
Thursday, 11 February 2010
Priorities
I listened to a podcast recently about priorities and what I might make time for. The suggestion was that if you are (as I am) a husband, father and worker who is involved in church ministry in some capacity, then those are pretty much the only things you are realistically going have time to do well. Initially I kind of bristled at the suggestion, because there are lots of other things I do and enjoy and I want to make sure I find room for them too. In the end, I decided to write down all of the things that are some sort of priority for me. They were in no particular order - I just wrote them down as they came to me and then I sat back and looked:-
Quality time with my wife
Special time with my children
Jogging / Exercise
Work
Preaching / Teaching
Creative writing / reading books and magazines / study
Work on proposal and content for film & theology ministry
Accountability / Mentoring / Discipleship relationships
Housework
Cinema/Films/TV
Church & House Group
Leading youth work
Holidays & rest days
Time with God - Bible/Prayer/Worship/Listening/Reflecting
That is at least 14 things, more if you count all of the "slashes". I think I need to be realistic about my ability to do all of these things well enough. The question then becomes what stays and what goes. Work, time with God, time with family, church, house group, ministry - these are non-negotiable. Exercise and holidays are necessary, essential even. Without a creative outlet, I'm likely to become very frustrated and irritable. If the housework does not get done, we start to find ourselves living in squalor. You see, herein lies the predicament. I just do not have time for everything on that list, but I justify and rationalise so much of it. What I really need to do is bite the bullet and cut some stuff out, make some difficult choices. That is hard. The alternative is to either burn out or do a dozen things in a mediocre fashion rather than a handful excellently.
When talking of reverse engineering our lives, Mark Driscoll says to project yourself forward 10 years, imagine what your life will look like then, how you want it to look then and decide now what you are going to do, how you are going to change your life so that in 10 years time you are there.
In 10 years' time my kids will be 19, 16 and 13. Do I want them to say to me, of me that I kept a lot of plates spinning and that it was intriguing watching me trying to keep that up? Do I instead want to see them close to God, excited about their relationships with him, pursuing his plans for their lives and saying of me that I always made time for them and never let anything other than God or their mother come before them? Do I want to be frustrated with my relationship with God, knowing it is not what it could be because I refused to lay aside other things in the pursuit of knowing him? Do I want my ministry to have suffered, stagnated or suffocated because I did not devote enough time and energy to it? Will it feel important and worthwhile to have seen every single film I wanted to see, even if my wife is a stranger to me?
I need to confront myself with these difficult questions, because it is the only way to motivate myself towards difficult decisions. If I do not appreciate what is at stake, if I do not reflect on what might happen, I will never focus on how important it is to get my life in order now, before something starts to go horribly wrong.
Next time you see me or talk to me, ask me if I am sorting this out.
Quality time with my wife
Special time with my children
Jogging / Exercise
Work
Preaching / Teaching
Creative writing / reading books and magazines / study
Work on proposal and content for film & theology ministry
Accountability / Mentoring / Discipleship relationships
Housework
Cinema/Films/TV
Church & House Group
Leading youth work
Holidays & rest days
Time with God - Bible/Prayer/Worship/Listening/Reflecting
That is at least 14 things, more if you count all of the "slashes". I think I need to be realistic about my ability to do all of these things well enough. The question then becomes what stays and what goes. Work, time with God, time with family, church, house group, ministry - these are non-negotiable. Exercise and holidays are necessary, essential even. Without a creative outlet, I'm likely to become very frustrated and irritable. If the housework does not get done, we start to find ourselves living in squalor. You see, herein lies the predicament. I just do not have time for everything on that list, but I justify and rationalise so much of it. What I really need to do is bite the bullet and cut some stuff out, make some difficult choices. That is hard. The alternative is to either burn out or do a dozen things in a mediocre fashion rather than a handful excellently.
When talking of reverse engineering our lives, Mark Driscoll says to project yourself forward 10 years, imagine what your life will look like then, how you want it to look then and decide now what you are going to do, how you are going to change your life so that in 10 years time you are there.
In 10 years' time my kids will be 19, 16 and 13. Do I want them to say to me, of me that I kept a lot of plates spinning and that it was intriguing watching me trying to keep that up? Do I instead want to see them close to God, excited about their relationships with him, pursuing his plans for their lives and saying of me that I always made time for them and never let anything other than God or their mother come before them? Do I want to be frustrated with my relationship with God, knowing it is not what it could be because I refused to lay aside other things in the pursuit of knowing him? Do I want my ministry to have suffered, stagnated or suffocated because I did not devote enough time and energy to it? Will it feel important and worthwhile to have seen every single film I wanted to see, even if my wife is a stranger to me?
I need to confront myself with these difficult questions, because it is the only way to motivate myself towards difficult decisions. If I do not appreciate what is at stake, if I do not reflect on what might happen, I will never focus on how important it is to get my life in order now, before something starts to go horribly wrong.
Next time you see me or talk to me, ask me if I am sorting this out.
Wednesday, 10 February 2010
Peace, Joy and Grace
Many trite turns of phrase get trotted out by us Christian types. Where God guides, he provides. God won't bring anything my way today that he and I can't handle together. Let go, let God.
The funny thing is, that they are all not only true, but because they have become cliched they have lost some of their power in our minds.
Last night we met as a house/home group and we talked about God. We reflected on how vast and amazing and powerful he is and although we got bogged down in semantics and small ideas from time to time, we lifted our eyes and saw what a great, awesome God we serve. God guides us into and through the amazing plans, the spectacular adventures that he has for us and he meets our needs along the way. I don't think we can count on God to meet our every need if we are not walking in his will, but where we follow him, he meets us with all of the grace, patience, gifts, energy and perseverance we could possibly need. When I have known I am where God wants me to be, doing what he wants me to do, I have never lacked what I have needed. I can point to a zillion examples of me not getting what I wanted, but that is entirely a different thing.
God does not dump things on us that he cannot and does not equip us for. We rarely feel equipped, but then it is never sensible to rely on our own resources or deceive ourselves in thinking we can cope on our own. We need to remind ourselves and be reminded by God of our wholesale dependence on him. His grace is available for every trial and circumstance. I would concede that I have little experience of genuine hardship and so I do not want to appear simplistic, but I have met those who have experienced great hardship and they have joined with Paul in declaring, "His grace is sufficient". We can handle it, with God. Admittedly he brings considerably more to the table than we do, like a "bring a dish" dinner party, where he brings all of the food, drink, plates, glasses, cutlery, tables andd chairs and I bring a cocktail stick for a sausage. In reality all we can bring is our trust in God and our determination to continue in that. I guess even that is a gift from God, so maybe we just bring our admission of helplessness and weakness and throw ourselves on our great provider, who does not grow faint or weary, who does not stumble, who gives strength to the down-trodden and whose power and might none can fathom. We need to let go of our dependence on ourselves, let go of the illusion that we have it all under control, that we can cope, that we are up to the challenge. We need to remember our God and his indescribably great love and power and commitment to us. Let him take the reins, let him be in charge, let him pour out his grace and blessings, let him be the bringer of joy and peace and as "Footprints" says so eloquently, so powerfully, allow him to carry us.
The funny thing is, that they are all not only true, but because they have become cliched they have lost some of their power in our minds.
Last night we met as a house/home group and we talked about God. We reflected on how vast and amazing and powerful he is and although we got bogged down in semantics and small ideas from time to time, we lifted our eyes and saw what a great, awesome God we serve. God guides us into and through the amazing plans, the spectacular adventures that he has for us and he meets our needs along the way. I don't think we can count on God to meet our every need if we are not walking in his will, but where we follow him, he meets us with all of the grace, patience, gifts, energy and perseverance we could possibly need. When I have known I am where God wants me to be, doing what he wants me to do, I have never lacked what I have needed. I can point to a zillion examples of me not getting what I wanted, but that is entirely a different thing.
God does not dump things on us that he cannot and does not equip us for. We rarely feel equipped, but then it is never sensible to rely on our own resources or deceive ourselves in thinking we can cope on our own. We need to remind ourselves and be reminded by God of our wholesale dependence on him. His grace is available for every trial and circumstance. I would concede that I have little experience of genuine hardship and so I do not want to appear simplistic, but I have met those who have experienced great hardship and they have joined with Paul in declaring, "His grace is sufficient". We can handle it, with God. Admittedly he brings considerably more to the table than we do, like a "bring a dish" dinner party, where he brings all of the food, drink, plates, glasses, cutlery, tables andd chairs and I bring a cocktail stick for a sausage. In reality all we can bring is our trust in God and our determination to continue in that. I guess even that is a gift from God, so maybe we just bring our admission of helplessness and weakness and throw ourselves on our great provider, who does not grow faint or weary, who does not stumble, who gives strength to the down-trodden and whose power and might none can fathom. We need to let go of our dependence on ourselves, let go of the illusion that we have it all under control, that we can cope, that we are up to the challenge. We need to remember our God and his indescribably great love and power and commitment to us. Let him take the reins, let him be in charge, let him pour out his grace and blessings, let him be the bringer of joy and peace and as "Footprints" says so eloquently, so powerfully, allow him to carry us.
Wednesday, 3 February 2010
Podcasts
I have had so much fun and felt so close to God recently, simply by using my journey to and from work to listen to podcats. Mostly, these are sermons or similar from various churches or conferences. I have been hearing about marriage, parenting, leading my family, Jesus' sacrifice in my place, God's justice and it has all been so uplifting.
There have been many, many times when I have felt convicted of my sin, my attitudes, thoughts and behaviour, but God is faithful, compassionate and for me and keeps forgiving me and blessing me. I find myself waking up in the morning and rather than feeling anxious (as I had been for a good few weeks and therefore unable to get back to sleep), I find my thoughts automatically turning to God. I find myself praying, worshipping, feeling a sense of peace and joy.
It is not as if I now effortlessly breeze through the day, without a care or concern in the world. Loving my wife, raising my children, doing my job and carrying out my ministry in the church are still not easy and I still fail in these every day. But I feel hopeful. I feel that God is with me, that I am growing and that I am connecting with God. Listening to podcats is no substitute for time with God and I have to be disciplined in continuing to carve time out to be quiet, to pray, to meditate and listen, rather than just adding to my head knowledge, but I am doing well. God is with me, he loves me deeply and enduringly and he will walk with me every step of the way.
There have been many, many times when I have felt convicted of my sin, my attitudes, thoughts and behaviour, but God is faithful, compassionate and for me and keeps forgiving me and blessing me. I find myself waking up in the morning and rather than feeling anxious (as I had been for a good few weeks and therefore unable to get back to sleep), I find my thoughts automatically turning to God. I find myself praying, worshipping, feeling a sense of peace and joy.
It is not as if I now effortlessly breeze through the day, without a care or concern in the world. Loving my wife, raising my children, doing my job and carrying out my ministry in the church are still not easy and I still fail in these every day. But I feel hopeful. I feel that God is with me, that I am growing and that I am connecting with God. Listening to podcats is no substitute for time with God and I have to be disciplined in continuing to carve time out to be quiet, to pray, to meditate and listen, rather than just adding to my head knowledge, but I am doing well. God is with me, he loves me deeply and enduringly and he will walk with me every step of the way.
Tuesday, 26 January 2010
A Brave New World
Okay, time to up my game. I read a lot of ready good blogs and then some thoroughly pointless and vain ones. I do not want my blog to be a big, loud "look at me, aren't I funny". I want it to mean something. It might be about me at times, but hopefully in a way that is helpful, encouraging and thought-provoking for others. Hopefully, it may even make you smile from time to time, but not in a way intended to make myself look good, or (even worse) make others look bad. I want to add a useful meaningful voice to the blogosphere. Let's see how I get on.
The future starts here....
The future starts here....
Monday, 25 January 2010
A godly husband
I was listening to a sermon from Mars Hill's Men's Conference on Men & Marriage. The speaker said that when he was a little younger his wife was diagnosed with cancer. At the time, one of his children, a son, was 20 years old and said to him, "Dad, if mum doesn't make it through this, you could go one of two ways. You could press on in with God, trust Him and follow Him through this, or you could lose it, turn your back on God and have nothing further to do with Him. I feel like you are 50/50 at the moment and could go either way. I need more from you than that. I need to know that you are going to be okay, no matter what happens".
Aside from wondering what kind of pair of brass balls that kid must have had to speak so candidly to his father, I now wonder how I would contend with such a desparate situation. I know of a man, who I cannot claim to be close friends with, whose wife is now losing her battle with cancel. She may pass away any day and his blog is tracking their experiences as she prepares to go to be with Jesus. His most recent post ends with "I intend to escort this woman of God to the gates of glory, as best as I am able". That's how a man of God conducts himself. I am utterly in awe at his courage, faith, strength and godliness and can only pray that should I find myself walking the same path I might have a fraction of such character.
God bless you Craig Mackay.
Aside from wondering what kind of pair of brass balls that kid must have had to speak so candidly to his father, I now wonder how I would contend with such a desparate situation. I know of a man, who I cannot claim to be close friends with, whose wife is now losing her battle with cancel. She may pass away any day and his blog is tracking their experiences as she prepares to go to be with Jesus. His most recent post ends with "I intend to escort this woman of God to the gates of glory, as best as I am able". That's how a man of God conducts himself. I am utterly in awe at his courage, faith, strength and godliness and can only pray that should I find myself walking the same path I might have a fraction of such character.
God bless you Craig Mackay.
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