S C A N D A L O U S ! Part Four

 The Gospel re-loaded.

The 'church' is a prostitute, noted Augustine, but also my true mother.

This is because what we actually seek as genuine believers is what Luther defined as the 'invisible church' - the fellowship of that company made free at the Cross amidst those who don religion in the way they would their membership of the golf club or the knitting bee - something 'civil' to wear as a badge of merit. These ugly ingrained caricatures have been known all along - 'Mr Morality' and 'Mr Worldly Wiseman' in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress exude the manner of piety and virtue which, like weeds, easily entangles and muddles many to see health in themselves rather than sin.

Once incarcerated by such counsel, it becomes entirely reasonable that our religious expression should be principally institutional - a tethering of chains that is presumed to launch us into a company of 'nice' and 'reasonable' spirituality.

What the true believer loves is what Christ died to bring - ways and means of faith and fellowship that instantly kills the facade and allows us to share the scope and depth of what God actually has granted - a righteousness not of ourselves, and a salvation entirely derived from that alone - which informs and keeps us amidst our living and our fellowship. What we should entirely renounce and reject is when mere religion acts to block or stifle that from being the single basis of the bond between us, choosing instead to transmit a 'Christ' corrupted by the poison of religiosity, by-passing the singular cleansing depths of God's actual justifying work for the ungodly.

Apostolic Christianity rises from the fact that God is in Christ, reconciling the world, dismissing our sins by the salvation He alone has brought to each of us in His atonement. Christian religiosity sets-in when this single essential becomes buried beneath a mass of 'other'. self-defined, imperatives. We must know and must do what is deemed "good" by us and our pious company to be 'correct'. This manner of "discipleship" seeks to manufacture a self-defined 'worth', whilst establishing a worth-while (seemingly pragmatic) "commitment" to the god of our own thinking - something we imagine to be 'good' and 'respectful' to the real world.

No room here for the tax-collector or the cancelled. Expelled are the actual deaf and blind, the oppressed and the prisoner of evil, and certainly there's no place for a Messiah who yearns for such a company to come and freely find God's glorious goodness and mercy in the gift of His beloved Son. Now we begin to see why Jesus and His Apostles were banished from synagogues and hated by the empire - they called for a freedom the world just cannot entertain.

So, how is it that the church has itself sunk so low? Where did all the fossilised layers of 'moral' requirements come from? How is it that we feel so condemned when we even suggest that faith should always furnish us with a better way?

The 'way' of the religious, notes Jesus, is always to tie heavy burdens upon their subjects, so hard to bear, because of the lies they hold. The care of Christ is to always look upon those without aid with mercy - so a true 'Jehovah-Jireh' - to these, that a company filled with spot and wrinkle become covered by His perfection. There resides our beauty and our holiness.

Worshipful activity in the company of believers is something which naturally occurs in response to the continual giving of such benevolence to beggars and wretches made pure by what was expended freely for them at Calvary.

We therefore gather to delight and revel in this marvel, and live to invite others around us to come and sup at this bounteous table of unmerited magnificence. We, as John Newton noted, are indeed great sinners, but Christ is a great saviour.

Loving 'nice' people is usually pretty easy - you just behave in the manner that says you are being 'nice' back, but what do you do with the soul that isn't consumed with a show of moralism? What do you do with the prodigal, profoundly needing to come home, aching for mercy?

The greatest danger we need to face is that we can fail to speak to such genuine need with the prefect answer - Jesus as all in all. The church isn't a 'process of socialisation' - it's a rag-tag company who are being grafted into the one who has taken their sin and exchanged this for His holiness. Life for them comes from beyond themselves - as with air, and water, and food, and sunlight - we must live by the gifts given by another in respect to eternal life.

Scripture is replete with examples of flawed men and women - people who are then deemed 'righteous' not because they lived some version of the 'victorious spiritual life' (most of them failed, and often miserably... on more than one occasion) - whom God was pleased to favour, entirely because He chooses to do so, out of His singular grace and goodness.

The question we need to ask is 'what impedes your being right with God'? Is it making God's grace the focal-point of our fellowship? Is it centring our liturgy and other activity around the atoning work of Jesus Christ, and enjoying the fruits of that in respect to our redemption? Is it having a Christianity based around something so gifted by another is just seen as 'too risky' by us?

Let's look at this in a slightly different fashion -

What if the biggest problem that we faced was that we sought to commit ourselves to being just too focused upon the sins we commit?  Where would that place us? Well, we'd probably find ourselves in a state of perpetual anguish and misery, continually troubled by the level of condemnation we (probably rightly) presumed was upon us because of our wrong-doing.

How would you escape that level of trouble?

Would you choose to evade the trauma by jumping on the self-delusional band-wagon of self-defining your way to "health", or would you deeply and genuinely come to know an actual boldness and confidence with the Lord of Glory in the propitiatory work of His Son, that delivers us in our day of need?

Life is transformed when our attachment to our nonsense becomes dwarfed by the astonishing and unexpected grace of God, so we are ravished by a far larger goodness that turns our affections to the intoxicating glory of the beauty of His saving holiness.

You are not called to fix yourself, or others - you are asked to point them elsewhere - to allow each to see Golgotha, where true aid was given for them. Our times together can never be DIY hobby shops, where second-rate, ill-fitting materials are offered as 'devotional'.... "cross and dove" paraphernalia. That makes pagans rightly want to throw-up, and Jesus would join them.

The Gospels shows how much Jesus enjoyed life - He was actually termed a drinker and a glutton - and some of this feasting really caused a disturbance. We would certainly find most of our "devotional equilibrium' off if the manner of commotion that broke-out caused by Jesus, was encountered by us, and yet , in moments when God is deeply at work amongst us, we often witness just this manner of outburst, leading to many rejoicing in God.

Jesus being Himself can really unsettle the smooth waters of piety! Even when the Spirit works quietly, the consequences are monumental (see what occurs in Genesis 1). Notice how often these moments take place when God comes along side an individual or company - that's when our hearts will burn. The truth is God is delighted when such 'disruption' breaks out.

Cultured Christianity (our laying-down of what should be) will leave us merely measuring up against one another, and that leaves us all too easily content with a 'virtue' as fleeting as our mood - far, far below what is truly needed. We will become skewed beyond remedy if that is all we pursue.

True Christianity is all about a righteousness which far exceeds what we can seek to establish, however content that may make us in our own conceits. We find true purity only at one place - in one person, so let us be those who hunger and thirst for His working in us, being conformed to His sufferings and redemption in the power of His life - that is where we're made free indeed.

Seeing with our ears...

 Two helpful messages to start the week that help put us right in the only way that counts.

The first, from the Lutheran Church of the Master in California, re-affirms just how it us that God truly aids and rescues us amidst all our own folly.

The second, from Chad Bird, faces the perpetually key issue of what happens when we go back to ourselves and away from God's astonishing mercy - what happens next?

In these days filled with hate and darkness, there's a 'highway, a way' to a mercy and a love that remains steadfast for us all.

God's grace go with you.

S C A N D A L O U S ! Part Three

Perfectionism

When severed from it's native realm, noted a Jewish scholar, a flower may appear extremely beautiful, but it is still dead. So it is with humanity outside the provided realms of Eden.

If you were to take a good, hard and honest look at yourself now in comparison to, say, where you were a decade ago, how much about what is essentially you has really changed?

We may be richer or poorer, fitter of feeling our age, living somewhere new or where we always have, but isn't it the case that at the heart of all this is still - you.

The "you" that gets up in the morning seeks to live in the 'white picket fence' boundaries of what you have deemed to be 'appropriate' living - no overt bad behaviour, lots of doing good when and where possible, and getting the general things done that you need to - a routine only 'disturbed' when something unexpected comes along. Sometimes, however, there's a nagging concern that you really would like to deal with certain things better - loving certain people, avoiding certain temptations, just being "more" than you currently are.

Admonition, guilt and even depression can be common because of this sense of missing the mark - that's why absolution needs to be front and centre in our corporate times of fellowship; this trouble can literally become something that can kill if our theology leaves us sinking here.

What matters is that we understand that everything necessary for our being 'other' than fallen creatures doesn't rest upon our estimation, right or wrong, of who we are. The 'bad stuff' may still be all too evident, but it's the 'good stuff' of another that counts.

"Holiness", when it becomes defined by anything but His death and resurrection, will always miss the mark - that is why single solution we're offered to this issue as believers is identifying in baptism with the "into" and "out of" of the death of Jesus - its an objective fact that cannot be changed, and will result in our becoming 'like Him' on that new first day.

What that amounts to, here and now, is that what you witness about yourself in this fading condition is what you will be to the grave, and that's important, because God has deemed it is these 'dead' creatures that, astonishingly, will be dressed in immortality, and see their messy characters adorned by the astonishing nature of Jesus Christ. It is those who trust in these very certainties, history shows, that naturally become friends of the one who is saving them, and that is the vital kind of being Holy that we all need.

Getting closer to being like our Heavenly Father really comes down to allowing the truth to inform our daily situation. Yes, we're sinners, says Paul in Romans 7. Yes, that means all manner of troubles, as he shows there, but he concludes such honesty by emphasising we cannot be condemned because of what God has done in Christ.

Sometimes, it's not our view of God that's the problem - sometimes it's that we are seeing a particular habit or hinderance in the wrong way. We naturally understand that there is a real distance to travel before said 'trouble' is refined or eliminated, but what we may not allow for is how God chooses certain ways and means as a manner of leading us to the only righteousness that avails for us in life and death. We 'fake' the Christian life when we deny such actions, and the consequence can be a 'perfection in the flesh' which truly perverts us from seeing where we are stumbling into a far greater trouble which is truly working to undo us.

If we remove 'grace alone', then the only other track available is keeping what we propose to be 'the law' - which always proves to be a diluted version of God's unrelenting requirements.

The polarity is often drawn between the legalist (one who sees nothing but law as good) and the antinomian (one who is set against the law), but the fact is that the antinomian is merely someone who has erected a new 'code' to replace the stated rules with his very own.

The only 'law' for the lawless (that, in truth, is ALL of us, by the way) is that "freedom" is only achieved by doing whatever, whenever, but this in truth leaves money worthless, food tasteless, sex pointless and life effectively drained of anything but an insatiable appetite for reducing ourselves to the gutter. Just like the prodigal, we conclude our decent hollowed-out and bereft of all wealth, needing to escape the agony of such folly - it's bad news.

The only 'law' for the legalist, however, is the same. By parading 'morality', they seek to display their own rejection of genuine rescue coming from elsewhere, stating to all that they are confident that they have what it takes to make it, and thereby placing themselves in a terrible trap. The immoralist may reach a point of recognising their total folly of their predicament. The moralist, however, can so raise the walls of pious independence that they sever themselves from mercy, as Jesus shows in the parable of the two sons.

The gospel tells us a vital, two-fold truth. No good thing resides in me, and yet, we were made to express and reflect the image of the Lord of glory. Everything now revolves around these two truths, and the single place they have been reconciled - the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

We only 'find' what has been stripped from us in the humanity of Jesus, and that shows us the place where we finish (once glorified). Until then, it is all about our foretasting what that eternal union has forged and will marry forever.

In our service, our pleasures, even in our mistakes, God is seeking to bring about a growth that knows where genuine joy resides. This time now is about our journey of translation  from death into life, so we comprehend that what is defined as evil is truly something which steals and kills and destroys - that is why we learn to eschew such activities. It isn't simply a matter of externally condemning a particular behaviour - it's understanding where that manner of act begins and what gives it the power to become so total within us.

Luther's last words were 'we are all beggars'. Without what sustains us from beyond ourselves, we are chained to a nature which would end us, whatever 'philosophy' we wear to adorn our manacles! Only Christ breaks the power of cancelled sin in the blood of His sacrifice at the Cross.

The Law is good if it shows us our limitations, and causes us to seek a better wisdom, given with out 'money or price'. Our dilemma is also good if it causes us to look outside of us for our true remedy. These 'tutors' provoke towards the single resolve at Calvary in our continual time of need.

Perfectionism leaves us bereft of our birthright, holding nothing but a bowl filled with self-righteousness, and anger at God for even suggesting you needed such a thing as redemption.

The pretence that we can, in effect, 'better' ourselves into true goodness and thereby heaven's gates will be flung wide will actually destroy genuine righteousness - that alone fixes us upon the saviour as our one true ark and seat of mercy - our only haven of absolute deliverance and freedom. Hypocrisy turns us into despicable bores and hateful caricatures of those actually enjoying heaven-sent life.

When we are left to our own devices, we become those without an actual chart or compass, swept by an inescapable tethering to broken and deceitful whims and follies.

The Christian understands this, and looks away from such a pathway of shipwreck, continually yearning for the founder and finisher of their faith to be merciful in our voyage. We know that pretence leaves us marooned, that 'faking it' just leaves us isolated and depressed. We must own an authenticity that satisfies us and those watching what we are. That often includes a deep vulnerability to one another in our times of need - a treasure more precious than any gem.

Join with a company, Luther wrote to Spalatin in his struggles, of hard-boiled sinners whose greatness is their genuiness of soul, for there you will need to make Christ far more than the paltry and trifling thing so often accepted by the pious! Here the Lord can be a helper and a healer of the those beyond childish, contrived sins, and a true redeemer of all that is shocking and evil.

Such life only resides beyond miserable religion.

Wisdom and freedom may often, in truth, amount to loneliness. It can be overwhelming in its true strength and stature, but it is certain to bring fellowship of depth and meaning, and it is a realm far better than the eternal loneliness caused by any strain of perfectionism, which never allows anyone to become a true counsellor or proper friend.

The present day is never going to be about trying to make a 'fair show' to impress. When we know Christ well, and He is enjoying walking with us, then true character is forged through the fire of genuine liberty.

We stand by such grace alone, and fellowship with God and men entirely because of this. We live to make it true and to make it known, for it is the world's true remedy.

"Mizrach"

 "For as High as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His steadfast love towards those who revere Him; As far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our iniquities from us". Psalm 103:11-12.

"There are poles for North and South; we can measure the distance between the two, but it is impossible to measure the distance from the east to west - from sunrise to sunset.

This is how far God's love stretches. How far His forgiveness extends. How far our sins have been removed in Christ. When we orient ourselves to such a joyous reality and bathe in the rising light of grace, we will never be lost".

Chad Bird.

S C A N D A L O U S ! Part Two

Freedom and Worship.

Cannibalism, to paraphrase Emerson, breeds strange gods - gods we make all to familiar to our malady. That's particularly apt when we consider the 'strange gods' so popularly venerated now, where any notion of the genuinely divine is no longer in the driving seat, or even situated in the passenger section our car, but is bound and gagged and stowed away in the boot, awaiting "re-location" over a cliff!

The fascinating thing here is that such a mode, far from validating the 'god is dead' notion, clearly shows that He is here and is expected to remain silent so we can evade any reference that isn't entirely negative or totally derogatory. The trouble is, none of us can escape what we might term 'the view in the rear view mirror' presented by creation, or the deepest appetites (needs) in our souls, both which still continue to 'speak' of the profound reality concerning the God who IS there. We may try and push way beyond the speed limit to ignore these bounds, but they are as deep in us as our very DNA.

When we invest value into another, or into something which resonates with goodness of truth or beauty, it evokes within us a right sense of worth, which is readily expressed in honouring and valuing what we behold. In other words, we esteem what is worthy of such value and acclaim - we worship.

Life is replete with these moments, because it has been designed to whisper to each of us regarding the one who reveals something of His power and nature through such encounters - the one who is the furnisher of all that is good.

This certainty is meant to express the manner of the life that was once entirely evident to us in the garden. We were given a realm of wonder to enjoy and appreciate, our Lord's wish being that we eagerly share such discoveries with Him and thereby unfold their true splendour - that is the threshold to a far deeper journey of meaning through the wonder of such unfolding.

The biggest corrosive in our world has always been unbelief - a mindset which nullifies genuine enquiry and pursuit of something worthwhile, and religion can so readily become the driving mechanism of such, seeking to impose requirements and regulations where God never placed them.

The narrative we often open in the epistles verifies just how often the faith falls into this trap. We derive 'value' and feed with teachings that actually undermine the radiance of life bestowed by our Father, and this actually stifles and negates true pleasure and delight in His ways amongst us. By taking these steps, we begin to place people back into another method of incarceration via "instruction" which the Apostles show us can be just as stifling as wickedness, because such activities are, in truth, diabolical.

If we were to reach conclusions on the grounds of what is often expressed amongst those who call themselves believers, we would almost certainly determine that Christianity wasn't about freedom at all, because the focal-point in respects to the 'god' expressed would be remarkably different to the one in whom we are meant to live.

The first trouble here is that the 'god' projected by many isn't related to our lives, but merely some kind of 'cash-point in the sky', whereby the 'elite' can solicit what they want - prosperity, health, blessing, esteem - merely by pressing the right 'faith' button and thereby being rewarded. God becomes little more than an errand-boy, there to fulfil any whim we care to view as our right.

If we become stifled by such attitudes, we will fail to see what we encounter in the here and now - good and bad - and how this is meant to act as stepping-stones to a far larger vision and realm of existence. The 'lands' of the new creation will thereby be so much more 'solid' than those of our fickle ambitions.

The destination of our immediate desires is, so often, a closed, deserted gas station on a highway to loss, but when we are those whom the Son has truly set free, we begin to discover how all we encounter can work for a greater good, defining here and now with the mark of eternal worth, and that facilitates genuine thankfulness.

What we actually need is a good that walks with us through the days of trouble, engendering a character that states to our day that something richer is at work amongst us than the expected futility and travail.

Another typical 'christian' stereotype is that the God we worship isn't worth troubling ourselves with because He merely wants to expel us from anything pleasurable or satisfying, as such material things are entirely "worldly" and therefore wicked to those who are spiritual.

I wonder if you have ever entered a church and heard a statement like this -

"God made beer to show us that He loves us and wants to truly bless us". Well, if you had been in a little place called Wittenberg at the time of a small ripple called the Reformation, then someone named Martin Luther would have been saying this about not only beer, but music, and plays, and natural beauty, and art. His translation of the Bible into German was illustrated in part by Lucas Cranach, an artist so popular, he ran the medieval equivalent of Athena prints from his local workshop. This was a vital expression of Christianity, which then lead to Bach in churches and science in universities - an embracing of all that was true.

The painful truth is that people - inside and outside the church - often lock God in a cell of their own devising where they are content to feed this contained caricature on a diet of bread and water - just enough so they can wheel 'it' out for certain purposes as and when necessary or desired. Thankfully, there are those moments when our defences fail us and the Lord comes forth in all His burning magnificence, and it is in that hour that He 'sings' and delights in His handiwork and re-affirms it to be most good. Christian deism seeks too deny this, and lead us into a slough of despondency - there is no escape from the pre-determined - but God's Spirit waits to underline that all is meant for greatness not baneful drudgery.

We are called to be smart - those who are in-tune with the full nature of reality and live in correspondence with this, so accurately knowing and expressing the Father of all things - thereby worshipping well - is the imperative which enlivens and fulfils everything else, but, clearly, this only comes through a struggle.

Life can often involve elements that overwhelm us, when we grapple with a particular trial or nagging impediment, we know that religious jingles and trite responses are not going to take us through - we need an anchor which holds in the fiercest storms, and that isn't going to be born from us. The real story of creation begins with a God who shapes emptiness and void into vibrant substance, who uses what is planted to bring about the continuing majesty of the forest.

What truly matters in our relationship with anyone which counts is always going to be, principally, visceral rather than intellectual.

When we consider that we need to 'seek God' to get beyond the troubles we've just outlined, then that's where the Incarnation truly comes into its own. We often talk about  Christianity being different because of God getting 'up close and personal' with us, but everything about the Gospel says this is absolutely true.

There are many ways in which this unveiling is remarkable, but the one that should remain foremost in our minds is what Jesus did as a man. When the Prophet Isaiah speaks of this, he focuses upon the fact that in this, the Lord shares our sufferings and our burdens and became the bearer of our sins, that by His actions, we can know a continual healing of care and mercy, purely because of His offering of Himself.

Only in the depths, then, can we begin to escape the superficiality of what we are without rescue - creatures longing for purpose, but without any direction in respect to how to obtain this. The Gospel makes this life as 'user-friendly' as it can get in a broken world. It allows us to leave behind the illusions and engage with the one who came to truly make us whole.

The present reality isn't defined by 'niceness'. John Bunyan had it spot-on when he personified such pleasantry as a deterrent to hearing and acting on truth. Our harsh situation has to be encountered and dealt with for what it is, but the amazing wonder is that it's amidst these troubles that we begin to embrace and enjoy the true bounds of our deliverance.

God generously loves His creation, and is at work to bring about its comprehensive redemption. He is not bent on condemnation, but furnishing a world through His goodness and mercy. The underlying purpose in what He employs in our lives now is reconciliation - peace by the blood shed at the Cross. When we willingly choose to come and trust in that care, then we pass from the domain (the unending region) of death (severance) into a sphere where an abundance of what is truly good is made ours. The 'burden' placed upon us, as it was for Adam, is to cultivate what God provides and to 'hedge' this from the inclusion of evil.

That does not mean digging a moat and pulling up the drawbridge! The gates of the new city are open, day and night, because their citizens have a 'wisdom' to share and trade that is the true wealth of the world. Born in her, as children of the one who was dead, but is alive forevermore, we have a treasure that truly evokes joy in us and hope in this perilous time - that is the stitching in God's mantle of righteousness. Garbed (Imputed) in such, we are called to befriend those God wants to purchase by His beloved - that's the calling.

We are cherished by the one who furnished creation so that we could be filled with awe and wonder. God is wanting each of us to come and share in that splendour.

Perspective

 Sometimes, it's all about getting our minds and hearts in the right place to do us and others good. Here's a nice reminder of how to do just that.

S C A N D A L O U S ! (Part 1)

 It's almost upon us - the high point of the Christian calendar - so I wanted to share something rich and glorious in regards to what our dear Lord has bestowed. I'm grateful to Steve Brown, and particularly his work, "A Scandalous Freedom", which has inspired this series. I hope and pray it will encourage and enrich your faith in these perilous days. Howard.

The Inheritance of Freedom.

"Have you lived hard enough, sinned deep enough, to understand what's really yours"?

That was the question of the theology teacher to his students, and it's one of those primary questions Jesus Himself placed before the 'super-spiritual' pietists of His day, in the form of the parable of the two sons, which we often, incorrectly (though understandably), label the story of the prodigal.

If you read a book like Chad Bird's excellent "Night Driving", then you begin to gain a notion of what the question and the parable are seeking to address in respect of not only the astonishing, unfathomable depths of Grace, but the glorious endowment of Sonship which is bestowed along with this to every blood-bought child of the most High.

Perhaps the biggest trouble facing the believer today is the negation of the scope and the depth of this vast inheritance. Our engagement, so often stifled by fear of being seen as "too earthy", leaves those around us  witnessing a manner of 'religious' expression that will never venture beyond a social convention, never mind bending or breaking a divine command, and yet, we find the deepest treasures of truth amidst a book composed by grace by some of the most flawed beings in cosmic history! How many of us could have trusted Peter after his denials, or David after acts of Murder and Adultery - yet these men are the vessels of the richest truths delivered from God to men. This, as Martin Luther noted, is the good news we must proclaim to one another, for it is the continual validation of Christ crucified.

"It's the terror of knowing what this world's all about" notes a famous pop song, noting that only genuine love "dares you to care", to unveil what really makes a difference - taking the risk to live. A sculptor and a ballet dancer may both produce art, but only the latter truly engages with flesh and blood in an immediate, continual fashion to convey something vibrant and essentially alive to display something to inspire - Christianity is resurrection, not taxidermy!

If our faith doesn't bridge the miss-match between what we believe to be true and what surrounds us as 'the norm', then we effectively become gnostics, having nothing to invest in this life - we will never see the richness of what God has set Himself to redeem, never catch the fragrance of the heaven that is coming to earth.

Our liberty isn't merely 'conceptual' in nature - it is meant to exude from the very pours and breath of our days here. God's image of the manner of elegance envisaged for us isn't the stifled existence of our present narcotic infusion of a culture which defines us as being pointless - it is the splendour of Eden, where we eat freely and are unashamed. It is David, lost in joy in dance before the ark. It is Jesus, producing gallons of the finest wine at a party.

So often, this manner of freedom scares to the core, because it shouts that we are truly responsible for how we take and use the manifold gifts and qualities we have been bestowed with, not principally in respect to failing - God resolves that - but in regard to denying our calling as His workmanship.

To escape such 'mummification', sadly so often preferred to the call given to us, we have to recognise the genuine bounds of where we have been called. Paul was not seeking to mislead us when he stated that our faith furnishes us to understand that nothing in creation is 'unclean' (literally untouchable) in and of itself, so it clearly depends on how we employ (partake) of something as to whether it becomes good or demeaning in its use.

The "publican" who never set foot over the threshold of the temple doorway was deemed by Christ to be righteous, because he refused to see the Lord as anything but good - the one who was totally merciful to one so undeserving as himself - the true justifier of the wicked. What is wicked, then, becomes good solely because God deems it to be so - He alone makes everything beautiful in its time, and makes that truth eternal. If our faith becomes a rite which drains us of this manner of renewal, then we have truly become unclean - inhabiting a realm where we deem our own merits to be what makes us worthy creatures - we have become content with a facsimile of dignity at the cost of loosing our birthright.

Paganism seeks to marry the impaired nature and dreams of humanity to a broken creation, marred by us. Christianity redeems all of this purely by Christ's substitutionary death and resurrection, clothing our misery in fallen Adam with a imperishable righteousness. It is in the light of this alone that we are now called to live well, because God is well pleased entirely by the nature of His beloved Son - that alone facilitates the rightness of our days, now and forever.

Hopefully, we're beginning to "hear" and thereby see the magnitude of what we have been brought into - a banqueting house in which the banner placed above our heads spells out unmerited mercy and care. It means God isn't going to expel us when we forget what we are by grace and become wild once again, but it does mean that we have to allow that love to ravish us and win us continually by its overwhelming splendour. To spurn such by a dogma of false self-confidence is death. To go deeper, further in our union, even when make mistakes, is what is desired.

The Prodigal was free to leave - free even to take his father's riches and abuse their intended good use. None of this changed his father's longing for him, or impeded the deep joy and affection which flowed when he returned from the misery of his folly - that is all included in the goodness which God gives - hence, redemption is found exclusively in His love.

We live in a world where people commonly beg, steal or borrow to obtain what little happiness they can hoard. We are called to show a wealth that is fathomless in comparison - a true adorning with a beauty that cannot be tarnished or ruined, in whatever circumstances we are presently housed. Paul could rejoice in prison because what he was at the core wasn't determined by the 'downtown' notions of life and death - he was a free man, even whilst placed in chains. Being fed and clothed, or hungry and naked, isn't the criteria - it's the fellowship with our merciful Father who translates into an eternal citizenship defined by His Son.

If and when we begin to seek to conform our behaviour to lesser criteria - what you must do/not do, eat, drink wear, and the like - we can then so easily become a manner of people serving up a 'form' of reward which the world revolves around 24/7. What we must understand is that the 'offence of the Cross' as Paul unpacks to the Galatians, is a total freedom from such peripherals, hence the charge so often laid at the feet of the 'religious' - that they are evidenced as 'hypocrites'... law-breakers, without a Gospel which allows for our errors.

Standing and living for this freedom isn't often appreciated. It means our devotion and behaviour won't be defined by what others deem to be best, because we, in unreserved love for the one who continually tells us we are at liberty to live, and to live to the full. He is the one who has promised to stay with you no matter what - the vilest of things we have done was nailed to His cross, and they're dealt with - that is the single place God deals with us in respect to this trouble, and makes us His - that is why we now come to a seat of authority entirely defined by unmerited mercy. This is what underpins us here, whatever our external circumstances.

We all know the famous verses that state that nothing severs us from this manner of love, but how many times do pressures work in a fashion to undermine our astonishing liberty? God's freedom allows us to stand with the oppressed, the beguiled, the discarded - it refuses to allow others to remain under such burdens, wherever encountered.

Freedom alone breaks evil, because it shows the sham of a piety derived from manipulation - it narrows the access to deliverance to a man hung upon a tree by us, and cries out, from this singular place, "The Lord Reigns!" His 'least-ness' is our one true greatness.

Naturally, we want to invest a great deal into 'our' purity - there's an inclination in the natural man to seek to 'be' something in the eyes of others that can be esteemed as virtuous and even holy, but such excursions can so quickly distance us to what actually needs to be our adornment - the beauty, the richness, the endearing sweetness, of another.

Where is freedom found?

Does it vary in respect to situations and circumstances, judgements and determinations, or is it anchored in the overshadowing of the one who is gloriously rich in what satisfies us, beyond our present, merely temporal, capacities?

Christians need to be free!

Going back to where we started - are those around you practicing this manner of freedom, or something else?

How do we encourage a church of people nourished and flourishing in this freedom?

More next time.

Y E S !

So, in the week when, here in the UK, we've seen even some of the national press finally conceding that pretty well ALL of the national Covid policies failed, here is an apt little analysis by Mr Doug Wilson on why it's time Christians grew up (ahem), I mean took note of the reality of the last couple of years...