Amidst W i l d n e s s

 "Where is the way to the dwelling of light, and where is the place of darkness, that you may take it to its territory, and that you may discern the paths to its home?"

Job 38:19 &20.

Life untamed. Longing married to potential. Understanding and Intention in unison...

Recently, I had a moment which staggered me. I was reading Genesis 2 and found myself truly astonished at what was described as happening there.

Before Eve, before the rains fell and before Eden became Adam's official residence, The Lord takes the newly alive man and begins all that will be... in the wilderness.

As I mentioned in a recent post here, this is profoundly significant in the light of the commands God will give to Adam, and through him to his offspring, in respect to his purpose and role beyond the homestead God provided.

Listen to what the Lord says about this:

"Subdue (the earth) and have dominion over all the creatures of the sea, and the sky and the earth. Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have these as food" (Genesis 1:28-30).

And again:

"The Lord God took the man and placed him in the garden to work and to keep it".(Genesis 2:15).

The provision of Eden and the creation of Eve was to bestow a home to mankind, but this was but the initial expression of what was meant to unfold.

Eden, then, provides the vital illustration of what was to become evident throughout the world - a realm where a living, renewing communion with God and His continual provision of oversight and care allowed humanity the scope to go outward in its engaging with a world needing, intentionally fashioned, to be shaped by what we were meant to bring upon it.

The fall cripples us in this calling.

With our becoming tethered to the ruin of sin, we see the likes of Cain, offering 'sacrifices' (both of his own rebellious devising and in the blood of his brother), building cities, and creating a lineage, but it is all beneath a 'mark' of the stain of murder and rebellion - a killing of the true, good nature of what had been intended in our poesessing such calling, hence, the march for ourselves is not only a rout, a flight from God, but an avalanche towards the flood and to the anarchy of babel.

The marvel is that God chooses to remain with us in spite of such ruin, urging us to leave the cave of our depravity to once again hear and see Him and thereby begin the return to all that was intended - and with such calling, comes both an ending of ourselves but a renewal of His intentions amongst us.

The Lord is the true ruler of monstrous force and impenetrable darkness.

"Can you draw Leviathan with a hook?" (41:1) or "Pierce Behemoth?" (40:24), the Lord asked Job. Such creatures embody a fierce, untethered strength, and yet the Lord can make and direct such force with but a word.

In this, we begin to see the purposes at work, that will, at His appearing, triumph both in humanity and then in all creation to bring about the original purpose of their existence - a realm "weighted" with the beauty of His nature.

This is the 'vision' which needs to comprehensively clothe and inspire us at this time.

Ours is a time of closure, when men are truly ruled by fear and respond in panic. Ours, indeed, is a day of Plato's cave, where the many choose the spectres upon the cavern walls to the raw beauty and fierceness of the world beyond those flickering illusions. Ours is certainly a moment when men are placing confidence in the 'arm' of their own invention to remedy or at least calm their fretful terrors over disease and death, to shield them from any and all threat, but where they shelter will prove to be a house of cards.

The Lord draws us, like Job, to see the magnitude of what He places in His work, to allow us to see His greatness and entire need of Him, for it is with Him alone that we become able to face what lies before us - it is with Him alone that we must address this moment, for all other devices will become as dust in the wind.

The Eden of His care is ours. The "wilderness" of His purposes is to be worked from that reservoir of abundance that is delivered in the flesh and life of Jesus Christ. Let us hold to that, so we may indeed encounter the powers of this day, not in ourselves, but in the strength He makes perfect in our weakness. 

An English Epistle

 "For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation". Galatians 6:15.

Recently, several hundred church ministers across the UK have signed a letter sent to the Prime Minister to convey why they will not be requiring anyone to present any manner of vaccination paperwork to either enter a church or attend a service in a place of worship. As a partial opening of some commercial venues has been allowed this week, some other groups, especially in the hospitality sector, are beginning to follow along this course with their own manner of petitions to convey the same objection, but the Christian response to this latest Government initiative is worth examining further, so let's unpack it together.

The communique opens with an affirmation to see peace maintained, those saying so referring to the verse 1 Timothy 2:2 as the basis for their prayers for this. Whilst the sentiment is certainly worthwhile, it should be noted here that Paul's reason for expressing a desire for such calm to be evident is so that the Lord may employ such ends for the Gospel, for He "desires all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth" (verses 3 & 4).

We then confront the nub of the present problem - the required 'evidence' that a person is suitably 'free' from the Coronavirus and is thereby allowed to engage in various social activities with others. The message rightly states that the undersigned are entirely opposed to such a requirement, and goes on to give three particular reasons why this is the case.

The first point relates to the 'success' of the vaccines. If a vast proportion of the vulnerable portion of the population have already obtained such protection, then the need for additional assurances such as a card or app become superfluous.

The key issue here, of course, is the vaccines, and if the Prime Minister himself is now making statements such as 'lockdowns not vaccines' are doing what's required (not to mention the growing issues with the vaccines themselves), then you have to at least question what will unfold here, but given what is supposed to have been procured, the point is reasonable.

Next comes the far more weighty ethical matter of how dividing the populace because some cannot participate in this particular vaccination is inherently dangerous and may imperil other realms of public life. Generally, this is a point which should be resounding through the country right now. If we begin to encourage a society where such validation becomes essential in virtually every aspect of life beyond our homes, then we are travelling into very dangerous waters indeed.

Thirdly we come to the matter that motivated me to write this entry.

The signers are keen to emphasise that because of the nature of the faith they profess, they could not close their doors to anyone wanting to enter to fellowship with God and neighbour.

The reason is clear - any person the state deemed a socially undesirable could not be rejected by the churches as this would be entirely contrary to the nature of the Gospel.

As with those affirming this, I whole-heartedly say absolutely, that must be how we understand this, but I do have a query.

I am only too aware that when we faced this present trial back in March last year that none of us understood its ramifications, so the initial compliance for the three week "flatten the curve" obligations seemed sensible and not beyond the realms of precaution, but by the end of April, the situation was very different. Not only were the increasing "requirements" continuing to impede the national church's work, but we knew FAR MORE about the nature of the virus and how it functioned - the well-nigh perfect research situation of the cruise liner Diamond Princess with a population of nearly 3,000 people, quarantined for some 15 days off the coast of Japan provided scientists with a base line regarding infection, deaths and harm that has been repeated almost continually across the globe in the last 12 months. What muted the voices of those experts who commenced speaking out concerning the recognised nature of the virus at that time was the Government response developed from its "advisors" that went into full swing. This presumed only one route for the country to take, which meant, for a very large number of believers, that any manner of engagement had to become almost entirely virtual for much of the past year.

So the question is simple.

Church leaders now see the danger of what is emerging from this crisis and the harm it will cause. Can they also not now look back, with hindsight, and equally see and acknowledge the trials that adhering to Government requirements have brought about in this past year?

The intention here is to in no manner dismiss the virulence or cruelty of the virus, but prior pandemics have shown that effective shielding of the vulnerable is a effective procedure to employ - not the almost total closure of a society, especially when, again, it was quickly known that the most at risk were of a particular age group.

Yes, we must call upon Government to reject such a foolish course of action as the one being addressed in this letter, but if we truly value and seek to live by the letters of the New Testament, then we must also learn from this moment not to be so foolish ourselves in respect to the vital freedom and requirements we are called to as the ones gathered in by the saving faith.

In Perfect Strength

 "The Lord, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which are not as though they are". Romans 4:17.

In my last entry, I touched on how the cross shows us the nature of how God in Christ uses the weakness and folly of becoming empty and overwhelmed to bring about what is the most glorious liberty for creation. 

The same can so often be the case in our experience.

We're familiar with how God so often takes what appears of little or no importance, passing by what outwardly is claimed to impress, to bring about some of His most significant purposes. Time and again in the scriptures, it is those who have failed to aquire greatness or raise to something impressive that God marks as His and sets about to use in some astonishing fashion. This is because He wants us to understand something crucial in respect to the nature of eternity.

The dreadful thing about hell is that those confined there are entirely undefined by anything beyond their pride in themselves, so all they have left is a wilful arrogance which burns as they are continually exposed to the truth of the astonishing nature of God so explicitly expressed in Jesus. That is the anguish touched upon in the story of Lazarus - the rich man knew of God and of Abraham, of Moses and the scriptures, but he neglected and depreciated all of this because he believed himself best served by only indulging his own self interest.

The marvellous truth of the new creation is that it is home to a people just as unworthy as that rich man, but they have seen their misery, and God, so rich in mercy, has raised them to unlimited life purely because of that strength which is so certainly His alone.

Life now is, then, principally about one single thing - the justification of the ungodly (Romans 4).

The Romans killed thousands by the ignominy of crucifixion, and none of them are known to us - the purpose being to entirely erase the victim from record as they were deemed unworthy of such - but ONE such death has marked the entire nature of reality for twenty centuries, because in this particular case, this same Jesus could not be held by death as we are, for He dies, not because such had dominion over Him, but because by His sacrifice, sin and death would be emptied of their rule over each of us.

We dare not make Christianity about our being moral. If the 21st century has taught us anything, it is how quickly we are able to invent all manner of 'moral' movements and crusades from the misshapen core of humanity that lead us further away from God.

"Morality", notes Bunyan, was one of the poisons that seeks to prevent Christian from approaching the Cross by promising less troublesome ways to ease his burden, but taking such a route only leads back to the naked requirements of the Law, leaving us before a terrifying righteousness we can never obtain.

Morality is about to become the means whereby each of us is judged, externally at least, and deemed only "well" if we meet the criteria imposed by others, be it the latest social justice campaign, or, much more immediately, by the imposition of a growing number of rules and requirements to obtain those things which, less than a year ago, we could take for granted in many places as being ours. The punishments for refusing such conformity will be total - exclusion from much of everyday life and thereby exile from a large part of society, so it becomes more and more difficult to be a 'normal' person.

The lie behind such requirements is that such behaviour makes us whole - people that can be defined as 'healthy' and therefore acceptable to the world at large, but the Gospels deny that monstrosity. Time and again, Jesus shows compassion on those who are outcast by the morality of their day whilst bringing uncompromising condemnation upon those who presume to deem themselves as 'good' because they use the Law not as a means to see God, but as a weapon to elevate themselves whilst suppressing any who cannot meet their standards.

It is in these deeds and words, as He journeys towards the Cross, that we see the true nature of God amongst us - the true strength that calls us to look beyond the mis-placed foolishness of our own religious devices. 

My earnest prayer at this moment is that we will grasp and properly comprehend this vital distinction and doing so, amongst our fears, will look to God to define us by Christ alone.

The days ahead are going to be some of the darkest our generation have encountered. Let us look to God in His Son so that life, for us, is defined by the gift and healing that comes only by the life He gave up to set us truly free.

 

W - A - R

 "Bless the Lord, my Rock, who trains my hands for battle and my fingers for war" Psalm 144:1.

"I Am the commander of the army of the Lord, and now I have come".  Joshua 5:14.

If you watched a modern war film like Hacksaw Ridge or We Were Soldiers, then you come away with one very sobering indeed terrifying conclusion - war is absolute hell on earth. Whilst human violence of any kind is cruel, war takes us to the bleakest expression of barbarism and horror. Thousands - hundreds of thousands, can find themselves in moments the casualties of the most dreadful carnage, not just in death, but because of wounds, physical and psychological, that will never truly heal. A battleground is simply one of the most dreadful places on earth, and yet, each of us in reality are born, live and die in such a zone.

The wars we all fight are not often fought with actual guns, though the damage caused by the conflict is just as total as if we had been pierced by shrapnel. Our enemies are ferocious and continually seeking to complete one objective - our destruction by any means necessary.

There are numerous battalions arrayed against us:

Sin (The fifth column that seeks to sever us from all deliverance).

Death (A 'law' of destruction at work in each of us).

The World (A system which seeks to conform us to despair).

Sins (The miserable twin of Sin, which seeks to choke any hope).

Apollyon (The Devil, The thief who steals, kills and destroys).

Principalities and Powers ('rulers' who seek to end all that is good).

Like the character William Cage in the movie Live, Die, Repeat, we all find ourselves in the midst of a conflict where everything we see, hear and know can prove to be a weapon against us - the enemies are totally overpowering, and there's nothing we can do to change that.

Thankfully, some twenty centuries ago, in a moment where a man was cruelly extinguished on a vicious means of Roman execution, every enemy we have was subdued and made to capitulate to the one person who could vanquish their power amidst total subjection to all of them at once.

The Apostle Paul informs us that as the Lord Jesus hung there upon the cross, seemingly overwhelmed by the powers arrayed against Him, He did the most remarkable thing - His subjugation to such total malevolence didn't eradicate Him as it does us - He was entirely righteous, replete in the nature and power to fully demilitarise every enemy arrayed against us. Included in that victory was not only death, but the forgiveness of our every sin (see Colossians 2:9-14).

So, what is the consequence of this for the person who recognises the certainty of what God has procured in His victorious Son?

Imagine being in a war zone where you know that something which has happened means that victory is absolutely assured, but until that event is evident, you still continue to live in a realm where all the damage, all the shock and trauma that have been incurred, will continue to be present along with the surety of final triumph. That is the Christian life, where both the old reality and the new collide each and every day.

The new reality brings us some vital resources to live through what surrounds us. The essential essence of the victor Himself now lives within and along side us, enabling us to deal with what we face, but the 'equipping' we're provided does not end there.

Back in the 1950's, author Robert Heinlein used his military experience to write a gritty tale about a future mobile infantry unit, whose talent and experience in engaging a frightening enemy were enhanced by the equipment each soldier was provided. Known as power armour, these warriors were equal to anything the opposition threw at them.

To assist us in our continuing struggles, we have been supplied with a complete suit of materials that can help us make each day not only bearable, but worthwhile.

Here's the list of our basic kit:

Head Gear.

We all know it's vital when engaging in certain robust activities to make sure your head is protected, and that's even more the case when it comes to not only what our thoughts dwell upon, but what manner of way we think about and examine the issues that surround us each day. Paul shows us a man that knows about his world - its pursuits, ways of thinking and interests, and he's not afraid to engage with all of these head on because he knows that the message that has so transformed him is equal to the task of contending with the various notions that men would raise in seeking to refute what he was stating.

The excellence of God's word addresses us directly in so many ways, granting us a furnishing of penetrating understanding that is able to hold us through all of life's many phases and changes. It is as we apply this great wisdom to the very roots of what makes us - our thoughts and desires - that we are able to grow and flourish.

Which brings me on to the next realm of central motivations:

Heart Gear.

Seeing our desires and intentions guided and directed in a fashion that guards their strength and power into meaningful, purposeful ends is such a necessary and enriching aspect of what makes life good. It's common for this realm, married to unruly thinking, to become a key source of waywardness which so readily adjusts to habits and practices that can leave us damaged and demeaned. Jesus spoke of our treasure being found where such things are focused, so rather than seeing our lives driven by greed, jealousy, envy and the like, it's wise to see our longing attuned to the things God reveals are good, worthwhile and excellent to pursue.

Soul Gear.

The New Testament speaks of our being dressed as those ready to engage in battle, armed in a manner that we can form up with each other in unity and fellowship to deal effectively with the wiles and onslaughts we're going to confront.

The image employed here, of us as an effective unit in the whole, was something  commonly understood at that time - such legions of troops marched across the known world and were victorious continually against all manner of opponents.

It is as we seek to encourage each other in recalling what's meaningful, pursuing these things, that we truly enrich and cherish the company that Jesus delights to know as His.

The nature of what equips us, then, is complete, but it doesn't merely act to protect us - the intention of such dress and tools is to allow us to take the initiative, to take the battle to the very 'strongholds' of the trends and notions that drive the day and display the far better alternatives in such a manner that what is facile and superficial crumbles into its own smallness as people evidence that surety of the life God is seeking to bestow.

A war which leads to genuine peace and wholeness is a very different affair to the pointless conflicts we so often encounter. Christ comes to conquer to bring that manner of excellence and victory.

There's clearly more to unpack on all of these opening thoughts, but hopefully they'll help point us in the right direction.

Beyond 'Pornification'

Life often makes us fearful, and often leaves us damaged. 2020 has done that to so many in so many different ways, but what has truly encouraged and helped me stay OK for most of it is that there have been some very precious moments of genuine candour and exposure of real thoughts and feelings, and I believe that to be vital to our seeing a way back to health as God's people in the days ahead, so, it is with that in mind, that I share this posting, which wasn't easy to compose...

"Pornography is about hacking male sexuality. It's part of the program to destroy men's confident, daring sense of themselves as men". George Gilder.

"Why is pornography the number one snare for men? He longs for beauty, but without his fierce and passionate heart he cannot find her, win her or keep her.... What makes pornography so addictive is that more than anything else in man's lost life, it makes him feel like a man without ever requiring anything of him. The less a male feels like a real man in the presence of a real woman, the more vulnerable he is to porn.

A man's heart, driven into darker regions of the soul, denied the things he most deeply desires, comes out in darker places".  John Eldredge - Wild at Heart.

We all find ourselves in situations when we're out of our depth. In my childhood, it was when my asthma severely impaired my abilities to engage in physical activities, leaving me obviously hindered compared to others... and when before reaching eleven I discovered my Father's pornography.

"Every boy, in his journey to become a man, takes an arrow in the centre of his heart, in the place of his strength. Because the wound is rarely discussed, and even more rarely healed, every man carries such damage... and the wound is nearly always given by his father" (John Elderedge - 'The Wound').

Some years later, being married to a woman who gracefully taught me so much on how to value and engage with the true worth of images in her vocation as a photographer, and her precious companionship as my wife, I recall meeting with a Christian fine art photographer who focused on creating works of art of the female form. I asked how he found himself called to such a distinct and somewhat surprising profession.

He told me of his prior days involved in engineering with the Royal Air Force. He would travel all over the world in his duties, but the one thing common wherever he went was the display of naked images of women in the quarters from 'mens' magazines. The women were often beautiful, he noted, but the method and means of their presentation in the images was clearly demeaning as it defined them solely as objects for male pleasure. On one such moment, he had a surprising thought - 'one day, I will create images of the female nude, but they will be beautiful, uplifting works'. Some forty years later, he was doing just that amidst some of the remote locations where his air force work had stationed him.

The works he created were simply excellent, and helped affirm to me that beauty isn't the problem, when given and employed well.

"The beauty of the female", noted C S Lewis, "is the root of joy to the female as well as the male... to desire the enjoying of her own beauty is the obedience of Eve, and to both it is in the lover that the beloved tastes of her own delightfulness".

Joy, fulfilment, obedience, solace, pleasure are all meant to derive from the majesty and elegance that God has bestowed upon us. "The naked woman's body is a portion of eternity too great for the eye of man" wrote the artist William Blake, so it is indeed awful to see just how tarnished such glory can become when this radiance becomes squandered in sin. Lies demolish the reality we all need by causing us to buy-in to a narrative that enslaves.

What we are truly needing is a full engagement that brings about a return to the genuine personification and realisation of the beauty and joy that God intends (Philippians 4:8,9).

All of these insights, and many more, have aided in my own personal pursuit to take such virtue and splendour beyond the impaired corruption of our broken world, both in life in general, and my creativity, but they also touch on another trouble - how we can equally so demean the purpose, value and purity of God's living body, the church.

Beyond The Fig Leaves.

Time for some realism.

"I understand the church to be both lovely and broken, full of both desirable and undesirable traits. As such, she is a mirror of who I am... and I have learned to love this disappointing church" (Chad Bird - the Community of the Broken).

Words that echo what the Lord Himself says.

"I caused you, Israel, as the bud thriving in the field, to increase - to come to full maidenhood, tall and noble of stature and alluring, your breasts fully formed and your hair radiant and adorning, naked and bare" (Ezekiel 16:7). This is the majesty that the Lord adorns with His love (verse 8), cleansing her and ennobling her, bedecking with silks and jewels and finery, that the nations might behold her elegance (verses 11-14).

What a startling image of how God cares for His own, but it is one sadly absent from what is often evidenced.

This people abused what was gifted, and became confident in themselves (vs 15), giving their virtue to idols (other loves), hence her beauty was made abominable (vs 17). Because of such squandering, the beloved became stripped of her dignity by the nations she had courted in idolatry (vs 39), clothed only in shame and disgrace.

All of us know that manner of murder through the brutality of sin (Romans 7:8-24).

Mercifully, events do not end there. Such shaming clarity will finally lead to their repentance, and then, they will be healed (verses 53,59-62).

As with Israel, so with the church (1 John 1:7-10).

"The ugly side of life in the church often goes unmentioned or, at best, is sanitised and downplayed" (Bird). Eugene Peterson equates such behaviour to believers seeking to photo-shop their understanding of pietistic pornography, "parish glamorisation is ecclesiastical pornography" (Under the Unpredictable Plant). Such 'images', notes Bird, 'excite a lust' for gratifying uninvolved and impersonal spirituality - the 'pornographic unreality, "free" of deep and abiding flaws' creates dangerously unrealistic expectations. This can lead to our buying-in to a surrogacy to a conception of "church" devoid of both Christ and the reality of us.

We're a congregation - clergy and laity - of sinners, and scripture is very often there to remind us of the dark side of that malady, often in candid detail.

Chad invites us to look at the stories - Jacob's sons, or the poison amidst the people as they obtain the promised land, which festers and thrives as you see what unfolds in the books of Samuel, Judges and Kings, leading even to the abomination of child sacrifice. The disciples don't fare any better, often entirely misunderstanding or seeking to prevent what Jesus states is vital, before falling away as He goes to the cross, and heresies and apostasy would abound as the church grew into the gentile world.

They were just like us, underneath the veneer - saints by grace, sinners when they turned to their own devices. Life in the church is life amongst fellow sinners. It's amidst that mire that we discover the shocking, beautiful truth that God is here, with us. The horror of Hell is not that God is not present - He is - but it is God without the mantle, the shelter, of His beloved disclosure in His saving 'Immanuel', Jesus Christ.

That's essential to understand right now, as we all begin to move, God willing, out of this period, in some measure, of acute crisis.

Loving a people that make you angry, disappoint you, provoke you, because they show their true selves rather than the cosmetics, is essential if we are to grow in His all-sufficient grace. Look again at the description in Ezekiel 16, and see that the only thing that made Israel precious was the unmerited and unrelenting care, attention and certainty of God's nurture towards them, even in judgement, to bring them to His unceasing hold.

I know that I have sought to say and do things this year that have often been difficult to accept, and I'd be the first to admit that I have often done so with quite a bit of 'me' in the mix (sorry about that), but the desire has, at least in part, been because we all need to be brought together in a care much greater than ourselves.

Naturally, we're all often highly unattractive because of the selfishness that resides in our core. Thankfully, Christ's death and resurrection are the remedy (Romans 6), and full resurrection is on the way (Romans 8). That is what the Gospel alone brings about (Romans 3: 21-26), so let our fellowship, our life together, be found in and bound to the beauty of this extraordinary grace alone.

That needs to sober, humble and gorgeously enrich each of us, in our own lives and our union together, so we can become that beautiful bride.

God is at work, mercifully, in spite of us - as the good Dr Luther notes, 'The Whole Gospel is Outside of Us'. That is the cleft, the hiding place, that keeps us all.

Easter Theology.

“God is a crucified Jew who lived briefly, died violently, and rose unexpectedly.” 

Good Friday needs a defining moment, when we stand before the one who gave Himself to the Cross. This year, for me, it was this superb piece. Enjoy.

Easter (2)

Easter breaks the power of sin alone. 

It's liberty frees us from the spiral of silence. 

It's astonishing mercy restores God's image to us. 

It allows us to become those made to be truly free.

Behold, the one who makes it so.