The Weave of Life

 Sit back, tune it and enjoy this informative and inspiring conversation between R L Solberg and Chad Bird on the excellence of the revelation of scripture.

The Unexpected

 "So out of the ground the Lord formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them". Genesis 2:19.

The book of Genesis is full of surprises. In it's opening chapters, it tells us that humanity was placed in Eden to tend and extend the garden planted there, but it also informs us that man was made of the dust of the ground outside of that realm, and thereby shared a common origin with the creatures God formed and then brought to Adam in the  garden to 'name' according to their kind.

There's a fascinating distinction made here - between the nature of the garden, where humanity are expected to reside and expand the creative work God has begun, and the realm which resides beyond the bounds of this place.

The intention, we presume, was for humanity to gradually extend and expand the borders of the garden as they flourished and began to grow as the human family, but the relationship to this outer realm is clearly seen as one of distinction. It too would flourish as the rains came and plants grew, but there is clearly a difference between the two realms - that of cultivated human society and the "wildness" of what was found beyond that.

It's a distinction that we usually do not consider when we reflect upon what will be true in the coming future of the earth - when God restores creation to an estate where the consequences of sin and death amongst humanity are expunged - and yet, there are places in the scriptures where the Prophets call us to see what will indeed be the case when we inhabit the realm restored to what is intended... and it may well surprise us to do so.

Ezekiel 34 speaks of the new realm as a domain overarched by a covenant of peace, where wild beasts will dwell securely in the wilderness and sleep in the woodlands. Showers will fall and fruit trees grow (25-27). Later, he speaks of the land having restored and fortified cities (36:34-36) - a realm akin to Eden.

We all expect the Lord to restore what was ruined in respect to the paradise once present in the land lost in our fall, but notice that this vision tells us more - that what had been outside the garden is also redeemed and re-established - that which was untamed also has a place in what is coming.

We are often eager to tie our theology into neat bows and pigeon-hole what that tells us, but this reveal is a wonderful example of how the Lord in fact operates outside of those boxes, and has a much larger canvas in play than we can imagine. The Lord once invited Job to consider the Leviathan - a beast so fearful that no man could hope to catch or tame it, but in respect to God, it was merely another creature in the world He had made.

The Lord's plans and purposes are so much above us - that is why He is Lord alone.

Seeing with better eyes

"Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God - through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Romans 7:25).

"Fortunately, this is where my view of God is deeply flawed. God 'knows our frame: He remembers we are dust" (Psalm 103:14). He knows we are weak, gravitating towards the self-destructive habits and wallowing in our sin. Because the death of Jesus has delivered us from this body of death, God clothes us in a righteousness found in His Son and thereby looks at us in an expression of unconditional love, complete acceptance, unwavering mercy, even rejoicing over us as His children - once lost, but now forever found" (Margaret Pope).

This is the reflection we all so deeply need - it is that you and I, at any time, can come to the highest throne and find it to be a seat of total goodness and care for us, because it is occupied by a King who reigned first upon a cruel cross to deal with our iniquity and heal us from such disease. 

Take a moment today to reflect and relax within that everlasting care. 

Plenteous

 "Employ the sickle, for the harvest is now ripe. Go, tread the grapes, for the winepress is indeed full. The vats overflow". Joel 3:13.

What makes us truly happy?

For many of us, it's perhaps memories of those all too brief moments when everything seemed just right with ourselves and the world - where good company or some truly satisfying achievement, or just a moment of deep serenity, marked a day as something very special. It's usually easy to tell such a moment, because it marks us deeply and stays with us for the rest of our days.

I had such a moment last summer. My best friend and my Brother were meeting me in London for a day together - the first time the three of us had met like this in almost a decade. It was great to spend the day enjoying so much, but what made it special more than anything else was the pleasure of each others company - it was wonderful for all of us to be together again.

In Genesis, we read the very same intention of the Lord with Adam and Eve. The place was rich with bounty, lush and sustaining, with literal wealth (precious jewels) flowing out from its four rivers into the world beyond, but what the Lord wanted more than anything else was to gently walk in this place in the cool of the day so He could converse with us and enjoy these marvels together.

Living is supposed to be about the wonder of such moments.

There's a wonderful concluding passage to Carl Sagan's best selling novel, Contact, in which the scientist Ellie Arroway is seeking to digest the final data on her cosmic experience of journeying across the universe -

"The universe was made on purpose. In whatever galaxy you happen to find yourself, you take the circumference of a circle, divide it by its diameter, measure closely enough, and uncover a miracle - another circle, drawn kilometres downstream from the decimal point. There would be richer messages further in. It doesn't matter what you look like, what you're made of or where you came from, as long as you live in the universe, and have a modest talent for maths, you would find it - it's already here. It's inside everything. You don't have to leave where you are to find it. In the very fabric of space and in the nature of matter, as in a great work of art, there is, written small, the artist's signature. Standing over humans, gods, demons, subsuming caretakers and tunnel builders, there is an intelligence the antedates the universe.

The circle had closed. She had found what she had been searching for".

Life finds its deepest point when that 'signature' becomes personal to us.

Christianity is all about how God comes to bring us once more to walk with Him in the garden - to know a reality beyond all of our failures and flaws, where He raises us from our fallen realm into the joy of true friendship and companionship with Him and each other once again.

Eden restored.

That is the aim of it all.

M A N I F E S T

 "No man has ever seen God. The only God, who is at the Father's side, He has revealed Him". John 1:18.

Aside from the 'opening events' surrounding the Incarnation, virtually everything else in the four Gospels concentrates all we know about the fulfilment of this statement into three short years - into moments that centre us upon what Jesus says and what He did.

Everything that matters about Christianity springs from these revelations, both as a fulfilment of the works of the Patriarchs and the Prophets, and as the bedrock of the work of the Apostles - every vital truth is here, and at the centre of this astonishing unveiling, is a Saviour hung upon a tree and then manifestly raised from the grave again just three days after a savage execution.

Inspired insights often provide us with moments of glimpsing the majesty of what is above ourselves, but time and space, heaven and earth, comprehensively stagger at what is unveiled between such realms on the bloodied wood of Golgotha, as the voice of the beloved cries into the thick darkness.

"Who has believed our report?", asked Isaiah, for men and angels are equally shocked and undone by what is evidenced in the nakedness of God revealed as the Lamb slain.

No aspect of creation could begin to conceptualise of what was actually laid at its very root - that shoot which would spring from what could not sustain itself, or find rescue when it collapsed into the decay of sin and death. From the frailty of a world untethered from Eden, pierced by misery and agony, would come one that would fully identify with us and carry our severance and woes upon Himself, in Himself, at the altar called Calvary.

The distance of our souls from God is now measured by the severance that was broken upon that blood stained mound. The need we all bear is to look at the one hung there who lays down all that we might live.

Great indeed is this mystery - the vital nature of Godliness!

The Fortune

 "The Lord Fathered me at the beginning of His work - the very first of His acts of old. Before the beginning of the earth, when there were no depths, I was thus nurtured. Before a world with its fields or the very first dust of the ground. When the heavens were fashioned I was there, when He bound the very face of the deep, establishing the worlds unfathomable fountains, and set the bedrock foundations of the earth, I was there beside Him as a master craftsman, His daily delight, rejoicing in a flourishing realm and the coming of the children of men". Proverbs 8:22-31.

When we look at the place of the skull this easter, we need to understand what is truly manifest there.

In the infinite "age" before creation began, before any angel sang or star burst into brightness, the radiance of all ages was "born" in an era when the Father knew that the eternal beauty and radiance of His beloved Son would be expressed in the exquisite allure of Him revealed to all that would be as... The Lamb (the sublime wisdom and true power of God's vital nature).

The book of Proverbs shows us that the handiwork of God begins in the Fathering of the one who works perpetually beside Him, who is His unique and continual delight, for He genuinely and singularly conveys and reflects the true radiance and eternal glory of the Father.

The purpose to be expressed in all that is made is the majesty of this sublime splendour, and we see it most gloriously and freely extended to us in God's beloved offering Himself up upon the tree, dying there to complete what was intended so long ago - a work that is entirely underpinned by the exquisite excellence of the love continually shared between the Father and the Son.

The Lord has wrought all that has been made evident that it may be brought to a point where this inheritance is fully received, that all will truly come to be defined by the love of God - the profound totality of its richness and thrive within this forever.

That is why we are brought to the Cross.

From the very depths of such anguish and despair, God has wrought a work that will fill all with the goodness of the union shared in the Godhead for every moment of every age that is to come.

This wisdom has prepared her table, and is calling us to her feast - the time is now to eat her bread and drink her wine, so let come with great thanksgiving to the table given to us this season, and fully and freely share in the life that is given for us that we might share in the richness of this astounding inheritance.

A very full and joyful easter!

G O N E

 "I will make the land a desolate waste. The pride of her strength will vanish. The region from its mountains onward will be a ruin that none shall even pass through".

Ezekiel 33:28.

For much of my life, the 'high' culture and values of the Western world, along with it's affluence and capitalism, was something that appeared as certain as the sun above or the self assured behaviour of those around you.

That has vanished in the last decade, and especially since 2020.

Now, we live in a world where we're continually reminded that 'extremism', particular social attitudes in respect to values and the environment, and negligence of participation in what is defined as what's best for us are "criminal" to our future.

The goal is not just the annulment of what was, but the total extermination of anything and everything that even suggests that 'some' of these beliefs and values were essentially good.

The exterminators are upon the world in force, and they do not care what is possible once they are finished, only that they are free to run amuck and incinerate any shred of what is noble and speaks true.

The time has long since past that we can stop this. Educational facilities, Governments, Social initiatives, Religious bodies, and much else besides have long been at the forefront of this revolt and are now working with a frantic fury to complete what is left to be done to grant the 'singularity' of the new era.

What will this look like?

Jesus describes it as a return the age of Noah - when men had no law but their own unbridled desires and their was no appetite for what mattered, socially or individually. Marriage, and thereby family itself became corrupted and tyranny to an order which hated the nature and image of God became commonplace.

We have witnessed this unfolding for some three centuries in Europe, and we now appear close to its strongest manifestation since the age of Nimrod at Babel.

Such evil is only remedied when what is unchecked is emptied by the extraordinary victory of Golgotha; when Christ's atoning blood becomes our safe haven in the tempest and carries through death in life.

Our natural propensity is always to seek to short-circuit what counts - tied to our own remedy to the moment, but these evils are only defeated by the crucified Jesus. He alone denudes such powers and brings health through resurrection to our dying realm.

Allow God to speak that health today, because the alternative is perpetually dreadful.