Who Will You Be in 2024?

Every New Year we find ourselves trying to decide how we will be better in the coming year. Maybe we decide to be thinner, fitter, have a more interesting life, stop some self-destructive habits. And so we enter the New Year full of hope and anticipation.

The trouble is that most of our resolutions don’t make it through January, because transformation is hard. Really hard.

This is the story of the Bible. In the Old Testament, God established a relationship with the Jews. It was based upon The Law – a system of rules that governed every aspect of life, from how you were to worship God, to how you treated your family, to how you harvested your crops.

These comprehensive rules were designed to create a wonderful society where the weak were protected, the powerful were controlled, and where humans lived in harmony with each other, with the natural world, and with God. It was a beautiful system.

The only problem was, no-one could keep the Law. Human beings are weak, selfish, often stupid, sometimes wicked. The reality was that the Law didn’t so much bring about transformation as reveal failure.

St Paul sums up the situation in Romans 7;

“For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing.”

romans 7:19-20

Thankfully, the New Testament shows us God’s response. Here transformation is not attempted through the pressure of The Law from outside ourselves, but rather from renewal inside ourselves.

Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection make possible a real transformation, a lasting transformation, an eternal transformation.

As St Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5;

“if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here!”

2 Corinthians 5:17

In baptism we receive the Holy Spirit to indwell us and to bring about transformation from the inside.

Yes, we have to cooperate. It takes effort. But it is a shared effort.

It is also proven to work. The Christian Church has 2,000-years-worth of amazing stories of transformation to tell.

I wonder, are you ready for a transformation?

Place of the Spirit

Pentecost

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.
Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.
They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.

Acts 2:1-3, NIVUK

I have read this account of Pentecost many, many times. This week someone pointed out to me something I had never noticed before.

The Spirit filled the place, before He filled the people.

A divine encounter can only happen when a place has been made for that encounter to occur.

Think of Moses and the burning bush. God made a space in order for the encounter to take place.

Think of Jacob and his dream of a stairway to heaven at Bethel (Genesis 28).

Think of Balaam and his encounter with God, when his donkey’s spiritual perception was more astute than that of the great international prophet.

‘The angel of the Lord asked him, ‘Why have you beaten your donkey these three times? I have come here to oppose you because your path is a reckless one before me.
The donkey saw me and turned away from me these three times. If it had not turned away, I would certainly have killed you by now, but I would have spared it.’

Numbers 22:32-33, NIVUK

There is a common theme running through these encounters – they occur in a spiritually charged space,

and that space is often entered into unknowingly.

Moses saw only a strange phenomenon,

‘There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up.
So Moses thought, ‘I will go over and see this strange sight – why the bush does not burn up.’
When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, ‘Moses! Moses!’
And Moses said, ‘Here I am.’
‘Do not come any closer,’ God said. ‘Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.’

Exodus 3:2-5, NIVUK

Jacob stated a similar experience,

When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.”

Genesis 28:16-18, NIVUK

What lesson might that have for us today?

That places of spiritual encounter can happen anywhere. In a locked room, out in the desert, on the highway, under the stars – anywhere can become a spiritually charged place.

If there is one thing that Pentecost teaches us it is that,

we cannot now say where the Spirit is not.

The Holy Spirit of God can be anywhere, at any time.

But the second lesson is that we can easily miss those places of encounter.

How many people have walked past burning bushes without the curiosity to explore?

I like a phrase of Barbera Brown Taylor, who explains her sense of God’s call to be a ‘detective of divinity’.

To be alert, looking out for the signs of the activity of God and celebrating it and getting involved with it when it is recognised.

I think that Elizabeth Barret Browning summed up the reality of how the spiritual overlays the physical.

‘Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,’

Elizabeth Barret Browning, ‘Aurora Leigh’

Perhaps the most important lesson of Pentecost is to expect that the Spirit is at large in our everyday world, creating places for divine encounter.

Our role is to be awake, to be alert, to recognise and rejoice in God when we see Him at work and to discover how we can join God in the wonders that He is doing.

Goose or Dove ?

In the Celtic Christian tradition the Holy Spirit was represented, not as the dove of biblical imagery, but rather as the wild goose (An Geadh-Glas).

Their rationale in choosing this image for the Holy Spirit was multiple.

They knew that wild geese aren’t controllable. They do not live tamed or bent to the will of man. They are migratory birds who come and go, with no warning, answerable only to their own internal motivations.

They are also noisy, raucous, birds! No gentle dove-like cooing, but rather a loud honk! Living in the French countryside, as I do, I experience this first-hand. Whenever I go around to my neighbour’s his geese quickly commence a loud honking, a sound which is challenging, not consoling; strong, not weak; confrontational and slightly disturbing. It is for this reason that  geese often functioned as guard-dogs. They are quite scary.

Sometimes the Holy Spirit does come like a gentle dove. He comes bringing healing, consolation, peace.

But sometimes He comes more like a wild, noisy goose. And that it an entirely different matter!

In His goosely-guise the Holy Spirit comes to disturb, shake up, challenge, awaken.

Celtic spirituality valued this goosely ministry even more than the dove-like ministry. Perhaps that is why they were so successful in mission and discipleship?

Are you for the goose or the dove?

5 moments in my life that brought me closer to God

Looking back, my conversion has been a ‘peaks’ and ‘troughs’ experience.

I would say that there have been four key incidents in my life that have been vital in bringing me closer to Jesus.

 Event 1

As a child of 4 years old I remember “asking Jesus into my heart”. Whilst I am sure that this was partly motivated by a desire to please my parents, the fact that I can still remember it now – it is just about my only surviving memory from this age – indicates to me that there was also a deeper dimension.

I’m sure that I had very little idea of what it meant to do this. But I do believe, that notwithstanding my childlike understanding, and mixed motivation, I nevertheless expressed a genuine desire to follow God in some way. I am sure that this was the beginning of my walk with Christ.

Event 2

From this time up until my early teen years things pretty much rumbled along on their own. My father became a pastor and I therefore found myself becoming a ‘pastor’s kid’. This basically meant that most of your life was spent at church and you rarely saw anything other than a late-night, mentally, spiritually and emotionally exhausted version of your father. How many children have been sacrificed on the altar of ministry?

Molech lives…

No doubt this factor contributed to what became a period of rebellion against the church. Significantly, it was not a rebellion against God.

I still believed that I believed.

It was just that I couldn’t stand the fact of being forcibly identified with the church and expected to be a ‘nice Christian young man’. I felt that I should have a right to make my own decisions, to plough my own furrow. To me at this time, the church seemed tame, bland and deeply unexciting.

However in the grace of God, no doubt helped by having the support of a group of church friends, I came to the point where God made me see that my relationship with Him was just that,

MY relationship with Him.

It wasn’t about my parents or my parents’ church. It wasn’t about my upbringing. It was solely down to me to decide what I believed and what I wanted to do. I realised that I did believe in God and that I did want a relationship with Him. This was the second key event in my Christian conversion. I still didn’t much like the church, but I came to realise that that was merely the expression, (or an expression) of a relationship with Christ, it was not the heart.

Event 3

Having made a key decision to follow Christ, my teenage years still didn’t go too well. I wanted to be friends with the world as well as a follower of Christ. This always leads to pain and general disappointment.

My conscience wouldn’t sit easy with the things that I wanted to try, but I resented not trying them. If I can paraphrase St Paul in Romans 7:15ff,

“Those things which I desired to do, I couldn’t really bring myself to do. And if ever I did do them I was full of guilt and shame. I was also generally deeply disappointed with the things themselves, they did not live up to their billing. But nonetheless the desire to do these things remained strong. I was convinced that they were my only chance for fulfilment and happiness, yet I couldn’t bring myself to choose that path. Oh what a miserable man I was!”

As teenage years ended, these excesses pretty much wore themselves out. Not through any great spiritual renewal but mostly because I was disillusioned with them. Also the love of a good woman, who was more sensible and spiritual than I, helped me a lot.

I wasn’t angry any more – either with the hedonistic possibilities in the world, nor with the Christian church – I was just disappointed and disheartened. Neither had lived up to my hopes and expectations.

I was a disappointed ex-would-be-hedonist and a committed but unenthusiastic Christian, if you can be such a thing? All of our social life centred around the church. All our friends were Christians. We were involved in ministry running youth clubs singing in the choir, doing drama, helping lead Bible studies etc. etc. but without much passion.

Event 4

It was the birth of our first child which God used to be the next big step forward in my relationship with Him. This process began when I discovered what it meant to experience having a father’s love for a child. As my wife and I approached parenthood, I expected that I would eventually come to love our baby. Perhaps when it could respond to us, or when it could move around and play, or speak. In other words I thought that my father’s love would gradually develop in response to my child’s ability and willingness to relate to me.

I was completely unprepared for the shock of the father’s love which suddenly flooded through my body when I held my newborn son in my arms. Nothing had prepared me for this. I was genuinely stunned by this experience. Where did this love come from? The child had done nothing to inspire it, or to merit it. It was just there. I was staggered.

On the day we brought Benjamin home from the hospital I sat on our sofa with him sleeping in my arms. Again, my love for him just overwhelmed me.

As this happened, God clearly spoke to me and said,

‘If you, as a human father, can experience such a depth of love for your son – how much do you think I, your heavenly father, love you?’

And whilst I was trying to come to terms with this dramatic insight, another thought from God drove like a spike into my mind,

“Wouldn’t it be the biggest heartbreak imaginable if Benjamin were to fail to love you back?”

In this moment my whole spiritual condition was laid naked and bare before me.

I realised for the first time why the first commandment is

“Love the Lord your God…”

I was broken and in pieces as I realised my total failure to respond with love to the love of God. Whilst I could speak with conviction about the Christian faith,

whilst I could demonstrate obedience and commitment in living out the Christian life,

I couldn’t actually say that I genuinely loved God.

I realised that I had absolutely failed to grasp the heart of what it meant to be a Christian –

a love relationship with God.

My faith was a ten-storey building built on a matchstick.

Event 5

But how could I come to love God?

I could only pray that the Holy Spirit would birth this love in me.

So this was what I did –

for several years.

God answered these prayers in a gentle and steady way over a long period of time.

I began to have moments when the love of God would sweep over me.

When the grace and mercy of God would evoke an emotional response in my heart.

However, I still felt that there was something more that I was missing.

My involvement in ministry started to grow and deepen. I did pretty much the same things but with a new passion, and with more fruit. I became much more serious about my relationship with God and sought to live much more closely to him.

My wife and I eventually sensed God’s call on our lives to go into full-time Christian service. So we gave up our careers and sold our home so that I could go to Bible school.

A few weeks after this major change I was obliged to go through the Alpha course. This is an evangelism model developed by the charismatic arm of the Anglican church in England.

I was obliged to do this as we were involved in a church-planting activity in the village to which we had moved and the church was going to use the Alpha course as part of its outreach activities.

One Saturday had been set aside for what is known in Alpha as the “Holy Spirit Weekend”. A time of teaching on the person and ministry of the Holy Spirit and a time when people can be prayed for to be filled with the Spirit.

I went to this unwillingly, as I was already feeling under pressure with my studies and would have much preferred to have the time to study.

To be honest the teaching was not too impressive.

I pretty much knew everything already.

But when a pastor prayed for me to be filled with the Spirit something incredible happened.

The love of God flooded my being in a way I had never felt before.

I started to speak in tongues, well actually to shout in tongues – it was like a dam burst in my heart.

After I stopped crying out the pastor prayed that God would now give me the interpretation of what I had been saying.

I started to speak again, but this time in English. I poured out my love for God, my commitment to Him, my desire to love Him and serve Him before all else. It was amazing, and actually quite embarrassing. I said things that I would not have dared to consciously say to God for fear of what others might think.

That night I lay awake most of the night just praising God in tongues.

Filled with love for Him.

I realised that finally my prayer had been answered. The Holy Spirit had birthed a love for God in my heart. For me the speaking in tongues was only incidental, it was the new, deep love for God that was the amazing, wonderful and glorious thing.

As I reflect on this pilgrimage I am amazed by so many aspects of it.

How could I have so completely missed the essence of the Christian faith, when I grew up my whole life in an evangelical Bible-centred church surrounded by people who loved God?

Why did the many youth discipleship activities so singularly fail to take me to a healthy place with God?

Why did it take until my 32nd year for God to finally get me to where I could have been at the age of 4?

So many mysteries.

But the greatest one is that I am here, writing this at all.

Praise to Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith (Hebrews 12:2).