How to live with God and the difference it makes.

Yesterday I found myself in front of 25 young people who were preparing for confirmation. I was there to witness the difference it had made for me to put God at the centre of my life.

It was a real privilege to be invited to do this and to conclude this time of testimony and sharing God had guided me to the following text. Some words of Jesus that briefly summarize the Christian life.

Jesus replied, ‘Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching.

My Father will love them,

and we will come to them

and make our home with them. John 14: 23 NIVUK

The first thing to note is the necessity of love for God.

It is not for nothing that Jesus said;

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.

This is the first and greatest commandment. Matthew 22: 37-38 NIVUK

This is the very beginning of the Christian life, we have not even started if we do not love God.

But why is this necessary? How can we love someone who is invisible, untouchable? Why put this difficult thing first? Why not start with something easier, something more basic and within our grasp?

The answer is because the Christian life is impossible unless it is motivated by a love for God, except that it is the expression of that love.

Loving God is the only appropriate answer to an encounter with Him. God is so good, so loving, so merciful, so gracious, so full of love that to know Him is to love Him.

So if we do not love God, it is because we have never actually met Him in any real way.

So every Christian life begins with such an encounter with God that triggers in us, as its natural effect, a love for Him.

Following this Jesus tells us how this love for God is expressed – by obedience.

This is also logical, if I love someone I want to please them, to do what will make them happy and to avoid doing things that will hurt or displease them.

So if we love God, this love is expressed by a desire to know what God wants in terms of the way in which we should live in this world – which brings us directly to the Bible. It is through His Word that God gives us all the necessary clarifications about how we can live in a proper manner, a way that pleases Him.

Our love will express itself, then, in a serious engagement with God’s word and the putting into practice of it in our lives.

Jesus continues by explaining the consequences that follow from this activity – and they are massive!

God the Father will love us! Meditate a little on this sentence. The God of the universe, the one who created everything, who keeps everything in existence by His powerful word, He will love us! Us! Creatures of dust that only last a moment! Certainly, it is not we who love first, rather our response of love to an encounter with God enables us to discover that it is God who has loved us from the beginning. Indeed it is only His love that has brought us to Him.

And more than this, Jesus and his Father will come to us! God – the Father and the Son – expresses His love for us by coming to us. Such is His love that He feels the desire to be with us, reflect on that a little!

And more than this, even, God will dwell in us. The God of the universe will live in us! Such is His love He will not accept to be separated from us, not for a moment.

And if all this happens, imagine the consequences! If God Himself dwells in you, if all His power, His love, His creative energy remains in you, can you imagine that an ‘ordinary’ life would even be possible?!

Isn’t it rather more likely that this divine life, present in you, will be expressed in a powerful, transformative and creative way? Imagine the adventure of a life like that!

For me, this is the Christian life, the true Christian life, a loving relationship with God that expresses itself in our turning towards God, in our obeying Him, which, in turn, triggers the experience of His presence in us, with us, which will express itself through His activity in our lives to advance His project for the redemption of the universe!

That’s the gospel.

If you are not blown away by it,

it is because you haven’t understood it!

Faith that drinks mud – Part 2

In part 1 we considered Elijah’s faith as he watched the brook dry up, day by day by day; but refused to move away from the place that God had put him until he heard God speak again.

We saw that these kinds of circumstances are used on our lives by God in order to grow our faith.

God loves faith – did I say that already?

The experience of the silence of God in the face of real need. Urgent need.

Scary.

Doubt creating.

Does God still love me?

Does God still care?

Can God even do anything in this situation?

It is only prolonged exposure to this kind of doubt that grows faith. Weird.

Doubt is the space in which faith can grow.

Ironic.

Pushing through.

Holding on, desperately.

Refusing to bail.

These are the actions of faith.

For a second time Elijah saw God work another miracle. Food was provided. Food not just for one, but for three. Family food.

Not with ravens this time.

Elijah already knew God could do ravens.

He could believe for ravens.

Ravens wouldn’t have grown his faith.

This time it is bottomless jars. A new twist.

Note that faith cannot grow in the abstract.

Elijah has already announced God’s drought over the whole land. That’s a big thing.

A whole country without rain. Who could believe for that?

But that is not the kind of thing that will grow Elijah’s faith.

Circumstances that grow faith need to be personal, vital, daily.

For faith to grow it requires that we know the experience of waking up and feeling our stomach churning; will God show up today, again?

Will He come up with the goods?

Are we going to make it, today, again?

There is a humility that only comes from the experience of the weakness of not being able to meet our own needs.

And that over a long period of time.

It is that which throws us into the arms of God.

When there is no safety net.

When only the arms of God can catch us.

That is where faith grows.

For Elijah, faith became a daily requirement. God provided today’s needs. No more. Both with the ravens and with the jars. Long-term, daily faith for survival.

Which is hard.

I know, I’ve done it. In fact that’s pretty much where I am as I write this. Trusting God day by day, week by week, month by month. Just to survive.

Not easy.

Not pleasant.

Wearing even.

But it seems God has no other mechanism for growing faith.

And it is a mechanism that works.

How do I know?

Some time later, the widow’s son, her only son, gets sick.

He gets worse and worse.

Goes on for a while.

Elijah sees the life draining out of this boy just like the water in the brook.

Finally the boy dies.

What does Elijah do?

Consolation?

A hug?

A moment of prayer for God’s peace in these trying circumstances?

No.

“Give me your son”

Elijah has the faith to pray for the resurrection of the dead.

And God responds to his faith. The boy comes back to life.

Could Elijah have done that before the bottomless jars?

Before the ravens?

Three years of having to trust God for survival day by day by day has grown his faith.

Have I, have we, the courage to pray for the kind of faith that drinks mud?

Faith that prays.

Faith that stays.

Faith that one day might raise the dead.

Faith that drinks mud – Part 1

I was musing about the experience of Elijah.

« Some time later the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land » 1 Kings 17 :7

Elijah is in hiding. He prophesies before the king that God’s judgement of drought is about to fall upon the land and then God tells him to hide himself in a ravine.

Not a great assignment, but at least God tells him beforehand that he will be provided for. A brook will provide him with water and ravens will bring him meat.

So far, so good.

God giving us that kind of promise helps us take the step of faith.

But notice what happens then.

The brook dries up.

No advance statement from God this time.

No promise that it is all taken care of.

Elijah just watches, day by day, as the brook gets smaller and smaller,

muddier and muddier,

until finally it stops.

Takes a while for that to happen.

Days.

Weeks.

Elijah’s no fool. He knows there is a drought happening – he knew before anyone.

He knows that droughts cause brooks to dry up.

But he stays put.

Presumably he asked God about this. No doubt his prayers got more and more earnest, frantic even, as the situation worsens. But he stays. And stays. And stays. He has been brought here by God, he will not leave except God command him.

Real faith.

Real commitment.

It is only at the point of disaster that God replies. Gives him a green light, a new directive, a place of provision. Relief !

« Go at once to Zarephath of Sidon and stay there. I have commanded a widow in that place to supply you with food. » I Kings 17 :9

Phew !

Except it doesn’t work out so well.

Elijah arrives,

following God’s precise instructions and stumbles into …

a disaster about to happen.

His divinely ordained provider is all out of provision.

What !

In the valley he was about to die of thirst. Here there is water but no food.

Ironic or what ?

Tough assignment. God seems to go hard on those who you might think deserve the easiest ride – those who are already fully committed to Him, those who already engaged in God’s work.

Why ?

The answer’s always faith. That thing we only do when there’s no other option. When all else fails. When we’re blocked in a corner we can’t get out of.

God loves faith.

He can’t get enough of it.

He wants to grow it everywhere He can.

Unfortunately (for us) circumstances of need are His only tool.

They are the soil in which faith grows.

The only soil.

Do I, do we, have the courage to pray for the faith to drink mud?

Faith that prays.

Faith that stays.

(Part 2 tomorrow – faith grows, stuff happens)