Sixty Stadia

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 09:47:54 +0000

It’s been a little while since I posted here.

That’s because now I post over there.

I still love you though, tumblr.

Just not in a forever kind of way.

Christmas: It's all about a gift!

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 14:31:00 +0000

Some people will tell you Christmas isn’t all about gifts. Pah. Christmas is all about a gift. Let’s be honest - if you asked people for the things that remind them of Christmas then it’s likely that, in true Family Fortunes fashion, gifts would be one of the top answers. Gifts are one of those things that human nature loves. A gift is an opportunity to show someone that you love them, value them and care for them. It’s an opportunity to take a moment out and say to someone that you thought about them and that you wanted them to know their worth to you.

I think that sometimes we can get into a mode where we tell ourselves to remember the reason for the season, and yet still get swept into life and forget to act out our words. We can easily turn inwards and instead of sharing with others who don’t know Christ, become introspective and just talk amongst ourselves. Christmas is not about us. Christmas is about God gifting humanity with His only Son. It’s about the divine becoming flesh to present all of us with the opportunity to be saved. Christmas is about a gift, but it won’t be under any of our trees. Yes, we should celebrate together the reason for the season but a key part of that is sharing it with those who don’t.

Forty days after the birth of Jesus He was taken by His parents to the temple in Jerusalem, as was Jewish tradition. (Luke 2:22-38) Into the hustle and bustle of the temple walked Mary and Joseph; their son was wrapped in a blanket to be redeemed by His father and Mary carried two turtledoves for her own purification. The greatest gift the world has ever received was carried into the temple amidst no fanfare; for the teachers, the pharisees, those bringing offerings, those selling, life carried on as normal. The redemption of the first born was customary and for almost everyone in the temple, the priest included, this was just another baby boy to be redeemed by his father in exchange for five shekels. God’s gift would have went entirely unnoticed were it not for two people, Simeon and Anna.

Simeon had waited for this moment. Simeon had, quite literally, lived for this moment. The significance of the gift was not lost on him; this was the gift of salvation, the revelation of the gentiles, the glory of Israel - this was huge. Simeon grasped the baby and held Him and there and then gave praise and declared his life complete just because He had seen the gift. Then there was Anna, the eighty four year old prophetess whose life was dedicated to worship and prayer. Coming up at the very hour that this was happening she gave thanks to God and then, full of joy, started to tell everyone who would listen. “It’s Him, He is here!”

There is so much happening at this time of year and life can become so frantic. I know that in a few days time I will be rampaging around Newcastle like a frenzied bull in Paloma, desperately seeking presents I should have bought months ago and panicking about irrelevancies. Somehow I need to take up the challenge that when that happens what’s most important isn’t fresh air, a cup of cocoa or actually finding that elusive gift somewhere. All of those things are nice and good, but am I showing anyone love? Am I introducing anyone to the gift the season is really about?

Amongst the rush of life are we getting on with our routine or are we, like Simeon and Anna, giving praise and declaring aloud the great gift? In all of those people around at the time only those two were aware of the magnitude of gift that God was giving and they could not stay silent. All were in the temple carrying out their religious observances but only two were really recognising what God was doing. Are we the same, or do we just get on with our lives and keep the God part restricted to the church service? For Simeon and Anna there was nothing routine about that day, there should be nothing routine about the way that we do Christmas. We should, like Simeon, take the opportunity to praise God within it and, like Anna, miss no opportunity to spread the news of what happened two thousand years ago under a star.

If you’re reading this and you don’t yet know Jesus personally, I want you to think about the fact that you’ve made it this far into the post. Something has stirred interest in you, some thing perhaps suggests that maybe there is more to Christmas than a miniature nativity on the windowsill. I’d love if this Christmas you actually took a chance on getting to know the real Jesus. I’ve known Him many years and yet He still never fails to go beyond expectations, to bring fresh surprises and new things. If you’ve never gotten to know Him, He’s probably not what you expect. Take a chance this Christmas, go to church and actually connect with someone and ask them to help you know more about Him.

Grow Towards The Glow: The Light Threshold...

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 12:32:00 +0000

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
- Matthew 5:14-16 (ESV)

I’ve blogged over the past few weeks on the way we grow, using the analogy of plants that grow towards the light. This post, however, spins that on its head. This post is about how we ourselves are called to be the light of the world and help others to grow. The point of reference is the same, but as followers of Christ growing in Him we have a responsibility to be the light that shows him to others.

One thing that I find a real challenge is the idea of “being Jesus to my world”. Don’t get me wrong, I know I’m meant to be. I understand that people in my world may not get a chance to see Jesus first hand without first seeing Him in me. Yes. that makes perfect sense. What doesn’t make perfect sense is the fact that some days I struggle enough just to be Pete to the people in my world. How on earth am I supposed to be Jesus? I make a mental list of his attributes and then glance over my own. He is compassionate, loving, kind, brave, intelligent, wise, selfless, patient, generous - oh, yeah, and also the literal Son of God. I’m conscious, some of the time, and have occasional moments where I attain the dizzy heights of the average. See the disparity? How do I bridge that gap?

I had a moment of clarity on this when I read about the light threshold. You see, to start growing towards the light a plant doesn’t need to be in full sunlight, just to have enough light to activate the auxin in the plant’s cells. There is a light threshold and it’s when exposed to that amount of light that the plant starts to grow towards it. There is an experiment you can do where you place a phototrophic plant in a box with a small hole on one side, if the hole exceeds the plant’s light threshold it will grow towards it. A plant in a dark box can grow towards the light let in by a small hole. We in ourselves don’t have all of those attributes that Christ has but we don’t need to be perfect to point someone to Jesus. We just need to show that in our imperfection we have something else that sets us apart and shows strength through our weakness. That can be enough to trigger someone’s spiritual light threshold and start them on their way towards an encounter with Him.

If we’re trying to show all of this stuff through our own strength then you know what? We’re setting ourselves up for a fail. It’s our very weakness and incapability to be Jesus that allows his strength to come through. We just need to place our reliance on Him and let His light show through us. Yeah, we’re not perfect but what we need to do is show enough of Jesus to trigger something in them that sets them growing towards the real thing. I can’t be the fullness of Jesus’ perfection, if I could then what would I need Him for? What I can be is the best likeness I can manage and He will make up the shortfall. That’s what is needed. God knows I’m not perfect, my friends know I’m not perfect, so all they need to see is that despite my flaws Jesus is displayed through me to show them that there is a difference. In fact, this brings us to something that Paul said when struggling with things within his own life and unable to understand why the problem still existed:

“But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
- 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 (ESV)

The people in our worlds are aware of our weak points and flaws but when they see that something in us gets past those and shows strength in spite of those, that’s when they see Jesus. When they see that even though we might be on a short fuse we’re managing to stay patient, then what they’re seeing is a bit of Jesus. When they see that even though we may be flat out of strength and running on empty there is still strength there, they’re seeing a bit of Jesus. When they see us reaching out with compassion to someone no matter how society feels about that person, they’re seeing a bit of Jesus. When they see that we are not conformed to this world but are dedicated to a better more loving way, they are seeing a bit of Jesus. We may not be able to be the full on Jesus experience and heal them while multiplying loaves of hovis in the kitchen and outwitting haters with great wisdom, but what we can do is show through our lives that we have experienced Him first hand.

When I think of the light threshold I remember Paul saying in his letter to the Corinthian church, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.” Only God is going to transform the lives of people, only by personal experience with Him are people going to be saved, but by being Jesus to them to the extent that we can, we can be the ones who point the way for them. We can show them Jesus through our actions and our compassion and sow into them something that will set them growing in God themselves. We’re not expected to be the whole package, that would impossible, what we need to do is live our lives in a way that lets the light shine through us and then in-spite of our imperfections people will see Him.

Grow towards the glow: Life in the light

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 21:29:52 +0000

“But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day.”
- Proverbs 4:18 (ESV)

If there is one life that I think serves as a great example of living life towards the light that person would be Paul. Paul got a literal light that turned his life around and from that moment onwards he lived his life growing closer and closer to that light. One of my favourite portions of scripture is from Philippians 3:10-14 where Paul explains his motivation and purpose in life. I’m going to post it here from the Amplified version because the extra clarification of certain terms really gives a good insight into what Paul is saying.

For my determined purpose is that I may know Him - that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly and more clearly - and that I may in that same way come to know the power outflowing from His resurrection which it exerts over believers, and that I may so share His sufferings as to be continually transformed in spirit into His likeness even to His death, in the hope that if possible I may attain to the spiritual and moral resurrection that lifts me out from among the dead even while in the body.
- Philippians 3:10-11 (AMP*)

What an amazing passage. It’s a fantastic insight not only into Paul’s perspective on life but into what our own lives should be doing. This is what it is to be a follower of Christ; to know Him more deeply and intimately, to understand Him more clearly, and to know the power that flows from Him with the end goal that we become transformed into His likeness. The devil doesn’t give a rip about one more Jack or Jill attending a church, what panics him is the fact that when someone follows Christ they are not one more Jack or Jill they are another Jesus.

How do we grow into what He intends and what He has called us to be? We strive with our whole being to know him better and to turn that knowledge into becoming like Him. Ephesians chapter five starts, quite simply, with the words ‘therefore be imitators of God’. And that is the way that Paul lived his life. As we follow his journey from conversion we see that in everything Paul strives to become more like Jesus.

So what steps did Paul take in becoming an imitator of God that we can learn from?

He made Jesus his clear focus. If you look at any one who sets out to imitate someone the first thing that they do is look at them, they study them. Paul absorbed himself completely in Christ. The letters of Paul show a man entirely confident in the one whom he follows. Now Paul received the gospel straight from the Messiah himself, but was that all of his development? No, he ran a race. He states so many times that his purpose was to know Him more. His spiritual journey did not stop at conversion, it started at conversion. We need to grow more like Him and how do we do that if we don’t show interest in Him? To grow like Him we need to study Him, read about Him, get to know Him. Our life should reflect a growing likeness to Jesus.
He modelled his personality on Jesus. This one is both an effect of encounter with Jesus but also an active life choice. It’s a mix of the two in the same way that the week after you first make your decision to follow Christ you’re walking on cloud nine and not even thinking about your personality but then a little down the line you realise that your personality is still a part of you and you choose to live contrary to your bad traits and to grow in Him instead. Saul was not a nice guy, and I don’t mean in the sense that he was persecuting the faithful - he did that because he felt it was what God wanted - I just mean that he was not a nice guy. It’s clear that his personality was angry, confrontational, aggressive. What we see and are told in the epistles is that he crucifies his flesh. He strives not to give in to his faults but to show love, compassion, patience. In Galatians 5:16-24 he talks about all of the things that are the fruit of the spirit in our lives. Relate the personality points from Galatians 5:22-23 to Saul and you’ll see the extent of the change that occurred. So how did this happen? It’s a result of his encounter and his personal revelation of Jesus, it’s powered by the Holy Spirit living in him, but it still takes Paul to dedicate and submit his life to do it.
He submitted himself to the Holy Spirit. In Paul we see an honest example of submission to the Holy Spirit. I love how frank Paul is about the fact that his flesh fought against the spirit. He admits that he struggles, he admits that sometimes the more he tries the more he seems to fail. But yet we know from his life that he was an amazing man of God. He recognised that he could not do what was needed in his own strength so he relied on the Holy Spirit’s strength. He recognised that there were times his flesh wanted the opposite and chose to go with the Spirit.
He did not shy from the tough choices. A vital part of growing more Christ like is the fact that the resolve to do so shouldn’t change when the journey gets tough. That’s often when you find that the most character defining growth occurs if you choose to keep going towards Jesus. This resolve ran right through Paul. He chose that when it got tough he was going to stand firm, that when he was in prison he was going to worship, that when he was before Festus he was going to say “I appeal to Caesar” knowing full well what doing so would entail.

Now, I know Paul’s life is pretty spectacular. It’s quite possible we won’t go on dramatic missionary journeys, be imprisoned for the gospel, escape from cities in baskets, or end up prosecuted for our faith and having our case heard before Obama or Putin. Chance are we will have a life in which we operate in a much more localised sphere. That doesn’t make the lessons from Paul’s life any less relevant though, it just means we need to apply the same principles of growing more like Jesus into our own lives.

We will most likely never heal anyone with our shadow, but do we reach out and help the sick that we know in day to day life? We may not have an opportunity to stand before Caesar and discuss our faith, but how are we with the old lady next door who actually would just like to know about a God she’s heard of but never experienced? We may not speak to the gathered philosophers and thinkers at Mars Hill but how about the sceptics we work with who have thought about life, reached different conclusions, but what to know how we came to believe as we do? You see the bible tells us that the power that made Jesus conquer death is the same power that lived in Paul and lives in us.

We can impact our worlds hugely by growing more Christ like in this way, it’s the very central core of our faith. Everything else flows from that growing relationship with Him. This isn’t about some cheesy mantra where we go around saying “WWJD?” in showy fashion, this is about deep seated change in our lives so that we become in our very being more and more like him. That is what Paul describes in the passage from Philippians, and I’ll leave you with the rest of that passage in which Paul states his continuing commitment to growing more like Christ.

Not that I have now attained this ideal, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to lay hold of (grasp) and make my own, that for which Christ Jesus (the Messiah) has laid hold of me and made me His own. I do not consider, brethren, that I have captured and made it my own yet; but one thing I do, it is my one aspiration: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the supreme and heavenly prize to which God in Christ Jesus is calling us upward.
- Philippians 3:12-14 (AMP*)

Next week I’m going to look at how this effects our relationship with people in our worlds. Previous posts in this series are The Phototrophic Life and Bi-directional Growth.

* When quoting the Amplified bible I removed some of the square brackets to make the text flow readably online. Anyone familiar with this translation will be aware that explanatory sections come in square brackets for clarification. Removing these doesn’t alter the meaning, it’s a syntax distinction so the reader can tell what is explanatory content.

Grow Towards The Glow: Bi-directional growth...

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 16:58:00 +0000

It may surprise you to know that I spent many months, when I was younger, gardening. I know, I’m not exactly what you’d consider when you think of someone doing manual work. I’d like to paint an image of a tanned and muscular self toiling under the midday sun but to be honest I looked pretty much the same, it rained a lot and I sneezed even more. Anyway, one thing you learn very quickly when you’re doing any gardening is that the more impressive the plant, the harder it is to dig out. This is because growth is bi-directional. While the part that we all see flourishes towards the light, the roots are becoming more and more planted.

“The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the house of the LORD; they flourish in the courts of our God. They still bear fruit in old age; they are ever full of sap and green, to declare that the LORD is upright; he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.”
- Psalm 92:12-15 (ESV)

If we want our lives to flourish and to grow towards Jesus then we need to be firmly rooted. Look at the parable of the sower: the depth of your root has a big effect on how your faith grows. I like to look at it like this: all of the good things that grow in your life as you grow in Jesus are the result of the everyday things you’re doing to root your life in the kingdom. The amazing fruits that people should see in our lives are the results of a lifestyle rooted firmly in His house.

We can’t expect to flourish in our lives if we don’t plant ourselves. There is a difference between attending the house of God and being planted within it. It’s possible to spend years in a church and yet not be planted within it; God doesn’t call us to a life of passive Christianity, He calls us to a proactive walk with Him. Sure we can go to church, sit around for a while, clap at the right moments, then go home. Lather, rinse, repeat. We can do that and yet if we don’t take steps to plant ourselves in the House of God then we won’t flourish in the Christian life.

So how do we get planted in the House of God? We get involved. We bring God and His church into our everyday so that He is part of everything we do. We plant ourselves in the house of God by becoming an active part in the life of our churches. Most churches today have small group meetings, and they’re a great way of getting planted. You can’t be part of the crowd when there are only a few of you, when there are a few of you everyone is active and everyone is a part of what happens. Everyone gets opportunity to encourage and everyone gets to be encouraged. You’re part of the community. As you attend a small group regularly you find that church community comes to mean more than just people you nod at on a Sunday and relationships are built.

We become planted when we serve. There is little that speaks more of being planted in a place than the desire to serve there. Your church should have ways that you can serve because in doing so it gives you the opportunity to work for kingdom purpose at whatever level you can meet. I love seeing the way this outworks in the church I attend, there is something particularly special about seeing big groups of people gather to volunteer their time and talents for a common purpose and the potential that is unlocked when they do so is huge. Serving in church is a natural extension of a heart that values the house of God, we are willing to put in effort for things that we value.

The sign of a well planted life is that it’s hard to uproot. I’m not a believer in the theory that life will always be easy, I think that’s unrealistic and flaky. Sometimes life actually sucks. But you know what? If you’re planted in the house of God then if life brings you to your knees, you’ll find that the people in the house are there picking you up again, and you will find that when you turn round in what you feel is your worst moment, Jesus is there with you in the form of His servants.

The promise of that verse in Psalms is that those who are planted will flourish and will bear fruit even when they’re old. Being planted isn’t just about the short term, it’s about our whole lives. God plans for us a life that bears fruit and flourishes and a key to receiving that promise is to be deep rooted in His house.

(Part one of this series: Grow towards the glow: The Phototrophic Life)

Grow Towards The Glow: The Phototrophic Life...

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 13:35:17 +0000

I don’t really remember a lot of my biology study at school. If my biologist friends could look away now then I’ll admit, I found it really boring. There are seven characteristics of life and to a teenage boy only one is of any interest; to a Christian teenage boy? That was off limits too. Biology felt like it was just a way to give us a science lesson where we couldn’t burn down the science labs. I somehow passed science, however, and one of the things that I do remember is phototropism.

Phototropism is directional growth in which the direction of growth is determined by the direction of the light source.

Or, more simply, it’s the reason so many plants grow towards the sunlight. One of the most amazing things about God is how He permeated all He created with so much purpose. If a plant is full of purpose then how much more us? And if you don’t think a plant is full of purpose, then why would things exist that were both beautiful and are providers of the very oxygen we need to live? Just as we learn about Caravaggio by analysing his brushstrokes, we can learn things about God by looking at His work. We can look at these comparitively simple organisms and learn about the way to grow.

Naturally, of course, any thing we look at in order to learn more can’t come from head knowledge from school or college or wherever. As my Pastor, Jon Cook, spoke about at church a few weeks ago, everything must be calibrated to the word of God. Truth is not relative, it’s absolute and it’s measured by the word. Nature might bare witness to God’s creation but it’s the creator not the created that brings truth. Over the next few blog posts I want to write about growth and health, both personal and as churches, as a response to light.

The importance of light runs right through the bible. If we go right back to the very beginning we see that the first thing God did was command light into being. He did not start His work of creation until He had brought forth light and, after He did so, He saw that it was good.

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness.”
-Genesis 1:1-4

The first thing God did, before He created life, was to create light. Before He created living things He put into place the environment in which they would prosper. He called forth light and then life, likewise His work in our lives begins not with us but as a response to His light. As the apostle Peter says so eloquently he has called out of darkness into his marvellous light.

“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”
- 1 Peter 2:9

We’re called into marvellous light. Our whole lives are called forth to grow into the light. A quick glance into the book of John shows us, if there was any doubt, exactly what the light is.

“Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’”
-John 8:12

For me this scripture is at the centre of the way we do life. If we’re called forth into light then the light source becomes of the greatest importance and here we are again with Jesus in the centre. Growing towards the glow is growing closer to Jesus; like the plant that points itself to get maximum exposure to sunlight we need to angle ourselves towards Jesus. Just as everything about the plant comes from its position in relationship to the sun, everything about us should come from our position in relationship to the son.

Just as at creation God created the environment for life to thrive by setting that light in place, so through Jesus we come into an environment where we can thrive, where growth is a natural effect of His presence and where multiplication, generosity, and life in abundance grow as parts of our very being. The essential and key ingredient to our growth is how we are positioned in relation to Jesus; this effects not only how we ourselves develop but should also effect our relationship to church and to others.

In the next few blog posts I hope to look in a little more depth at how living life in this way positions us for growth not just as an individual but as part of the body of Christ.

Come Into My Kingdom...

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 22:41:00 +0000

A number of days ago my younger sister, Elisabeth Jobes, was taken to hospital unconscious and unable to breathe. For 18 hours the medics did their utmost, some refusing to go home at the end of their shifts, opting instead to stay and help - even a whole department refused to close for the night. For an equal amount of time an ever increasing number of friends turned the waiting room and hospital corridors into a prayer centre. We took communion in the intensive care waiting room, united not by our membership of any church - four different churches were represented - but of the body of Christ. Across the world people prayed together and sent messages of support via social networks and our pastors who were there with us. Lizzie lost her earthly fight but won her heavenly race and her impact on people’s lives has been phenomenal. Already we have seen some of her friends make decisions to follow Christ, people returning to God, and a huge sum raised to help the fight against Human Trafficking. (In lieu of flowers donations were given, and can be given, to the A21 Campaign.) Before normal service resumes on this blog, I decided it would be fitting to post the text of the tribute I gave at her funeral. (A newspaper report and tribute, written by Lindsay Bruce, can be viewed here.)

Some people have two personas. You’ve no doubt heard of Jekyll and Hyde but I’m going to talk about someone who had two personalities - not good and bad but good and better. I’m going to tell you about my sister and the saint. In recent days I’ve came to see quite how much these two personas were actually one and the same.

My sister, or Betty to me, was born on the 18th September 1990. I met her birth with tears, in embarrassingly large quantities. Don’t be mistaken - these weren’t tears of joy, I just really wanted a brother. She sadly died two weeks ago and I met her death with many more tears because for the twenty one years of her life, I loved my baby sister.

She was the one who didn’t bother with crawling, she skipped straight to the walking stage. We were blessed in that she decided not only to walk on her feet but also to walk in God. And so she grew up - and she really did grow. I have many fond memories of the simple things we did, like practicing street hockey in the back lane and letting her win to make her day fun. - At least that’s the official line, no one ever wants to credit a seven year old girl with the ability to smack a hockey puck past them.

The thing with Betty was she always saw the best in everything. She determinedly looked at the positives and was always smiling, even when the rest of us were thinking something wasn’t much fun she could manage to see a good side. I remember her comic little phrase when she was a tween, ‘salalu-salaway’. I don’t to this day know why, it was just her quirky thing she invented to say she was happy with something. I have many happy memories of her from day trips and holidays and many more from day to day life.

I could talk about Betty and our memories for hours but many of you here knew Lizzie J. Lizzie, it would turn out was a saint. Intelligent, creative, beautiful. She was always the kind of girl who would strive to make sure her life was a good one, she would ask advice and was never one to shy from the tough choices if something was for the best. She wasn’t just good in the sense that she tried to follow the rules; ticking boxes didn’t matter to her, impacting lives did. She shared the gospel with zeal and a passion not just for the house of God but for God himself. My recurring memory of her is from a few weeks back at church. She wasn’t ‘serving’ on team that day, but she was serving anyway. Bounding around the foyer in the centre for life, smiling and bubbling with people. She didn’t serve because of any obligation, her service was the overflow of a heart that bubbled with irrepressible joy. - I know this because my many efforts to find what substance she was taking so I could be that happy too were always in vain, it was natural joy.

The main lessons that I’ve been taught by this amazing woman of God are love. She hit it right on that, while I wondered how best to share my faith she was using her love and compassion to help bring the lost home. She just loved people, even in the most adverse circumstances she found the best in people and the reason to love them. In hard times when it would have been so easy to be sullen and moody she instead loved life, loved God and loved people. I’ve never met someone who gave out as much love and who asked so little in return.

At times of great grief the question that comes to mind is why. Why? That question is not one that we will ever fully know, but in Lizzie’s death I don’t question the existence of God, rather God has shown himself in many ways. I don’t know why it was my Sister’s time but every time I pray to him about why Lizzie could possibly go I get one verse. Philippians 1:6 tells us that…

‘The God who began a good work in us will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.’

It is the day of Christ Jesus for Lizzie now. Which means that we can be confident that the God who begun a good work in Lizzie perfected it. Typical Lizzie, she reached it before us all. This does not take away the pain but it is a fact, and I report it as such in the knowledge that when the pain fades that fact will remain.

At 3:20 on Thursday morning Elisabeth Ruth Jobes arrived in heaven surrounded by the prayers of the global church. Matthew 25:34-40 says…

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’”

…Lizzie was dedicated to doing everything for the least of these. When so many people surrounded her with prayers it bore witness to God that her life had done just that and we get to live in the security that Jesus said ‘come into my kingdom’.

As prayers and support have flooded in we have realised the strength, depth and love of the church community. I will always be grateful to the church for praying and supporting both as we were in hospital and in the aftermath, it means an awful lot to us the love that has been shown, it’s an honour to be part of a community that does that.

It turned out that the sister and the saint were the same person. The impact my little sister’s life has had will live on alongside the memories she left us. I will honour the saint and cherish the sister. No amount of goodness that flows from events will make the pain worthwhile but it will stand us in eternal memory of her life and what she did. Thank you for coming to honour my sister and for the impact so many of you had on her life. We love you, Elisabeth, and we will see you soon and spend eternity united with our king.

Perfecting a Masterpiece...

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 15:49:00 +0100

“For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.”
- Ephesians 2:10, NLT

If there is one strand running through all of the great artists it is the pursuit of perfection. They desire to produce the finest piece of work they can, their masterpiece, their magnum opus, the pièce de résistance. Michelangelo took four years to paint the Sistine chapel and then, much later in life, after Rome was sacked, he returned and spent six further years adding a whole wall to the already impressive ceiling. Hemingway sent off the manuscript for A Farewell to Arms in January 1929 and yet spent the next five months writing and rewriting the final short paragraph. It’s this attention to detail that makes great artists great - they work and they work and they do not finish until they’re satisfied their work is the best it can be.

The bible tells us that God is like this with us. Human artists can’t create perfection, they can only do their best, but God knows perfection for each of us and He will not stop until He’s achieved it.

“And I am convinced and sure of this very thing, that He Who began a good work in you will continue until the day of Jesus Christ [right up to the time of His return], developing [that good work] and perfecting and bringing it to full completion in you.”
- Philippians 1:6 (AMP)

The moment we were saved God started a work in us; salvation wasn’t the crowning moment of our journey, it was the start. It was God saving us, for the rest of our lives on this earth He wants to work to bring us to perfect completion. He knows the best that we can be. He knows everything about us - our strengths and our weaknesses, our good points and our bad points - but more than this He knows what is possible! He knows what he can make us into, what we can end up as.

The bible talks, several times, of us being clay in the Potter’s hand. (Isaiah 64:8) God is the artist. He is the ultimate artist. Look at creation; after thousands of years of humans messing it up, earth is still more awesome than anything man made. He is the one who knows what we will be at the end, He has the vision.

Neither the plaster nor the paint knew what Michelangelo was doing, the chapel is so large (12,000 square feet) that you can’t take in the whole painting at once, only the artist knew what it was going to be like; only in his mind did it exist until he finished and approached the pope and said ‘ta-da!’ - or whatever artists say after completing a masterpiece. We’re the same, we don’t know all of what God wants us to be when His work is done; we don’t know the wonders he can achieve so our only option is to let Him work them.

So if the artist fashions the art, the potter moulds the clay, what is our part in all of this? Be good clay.

In Jeremiah 18:3-4 the potter discards the marred clay and makes a new vessel. God could find other people to make into His masterpieces; if He can make even the rocks praise Him then he could find other clay, but the point is that He has chosen you. God begun work in each of us because He saw what it could be when it was finished. Being a God of faith He looked at what was and saw what could be and called it into being.

We need to submit ourselves to Him. He has the vision and the purpose for our lives and He has the tools and the abilities to make it work. Our part is to submit, to be good clay, to make of our lives something he can work with and use. We do this by listening to the word and applying it to our life, we do this by praying for His guidance and for Him to be in control, by accepting that God knows what is best. We need to be humble enough to know that God who shaped mountains, who crafted the flowers and the animals, God who looked at an earth without form and void and saw that it could be beautiful, God who made the most beautiful things in existence, that same God has looked at each of us and seen what He can make us.

Don’t resist the will of God or the hand of God, He knows what is best even when we can’t comprehend it and sit baffled thinking how can this be getting me anywhere? God knows. He is in control and He knows what you’re going to be when He reaches that perfect completion.

When God makes something He does it right. God makes masterpieces and He wants you to be one of them.

From our hearts to the heavens...

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 22:29:00 +0100

It’s hard to sum up an experience like Hillsong Conference and yet, at the same time, it would seem remiss of me not to blog about something that had that much impact. The thing is, I’m not sure myself quite what is going to hit me the most. So many times during the preaching I got that amazing feeling you get when something directly speaks into your life - that was fantastic but what’s even more exciting is the feeling that there is so much more still to get. In such an intensive conference you don’t get long between messages to really think them out deeper. I loved the initial hit - and believe me T.D Jakes hit like a sixty tonne truck on Saturday morning - but it’s so exciting to think of what’s going to come through on relistening and on rereading the notes.

It’s not the place of my blog to recount the preaching. I’d really encourage you to get hold of a copy of the CDs or DVDs and absorb that for yourself. This blog entry I’m just gonna sum up something direct and practical that God has left impressed on my life after these few days. It’s not the only thing I got, it’s not even what hit me hardest but, while somethings hit you in a way that speaks into a personal circumstance and situation there are things that should challenge the way we all do life and church. You’ll find that if one word ran through the conference like the writing in a stick of rock, if one word was the focus and the centre, if one word summed up not only conference but should sum up our lives and our desires and our entirety, that word was the one written in the amp lights Thursday night: Jesus.

I know, right? Of course it was about Jesus, it was a Christian conference. No, this was about JESUS. This was about our saviour, our grace, our everything. It was peeling back the layers of stuff that have built up over the years on the church and on our lives; layers not just of tradition but of a focus that becomes about what we do and not why we do it. Something Graham Draper said in his preach a few weeks back spoke to me in a similar way when he asked us if we think the lighting impresses a God who wakes up to the sunrise and the heavens. It’s not about what we do, it’s about why we do it. It was Priscilla Shirer’s opener that really drove this home and made me think of how we, as Christians, can lose the Christ focus. We can throw our selves into service with vigour and energy but, if we can go to something she said on Saturday about the director directing Michael Jackson in the Billy Jean video: “You’re a fantastic dancer, you can put all your energy and talent into dancing but if you’re not dancing on the path I’ve illuminated for you, it won’t work.” If our focus as we serve isn’t Jesus then all we’re really getting is tired.

I think this thought is so relevant in all we do at church, and I think we’re blessed with so many Christ-focussed servants in the house, but it’s still so easy to get distracted by the what instead of the why. It’s especially timely with Servolution week this week. We can go there everyday and be nice people. We can pick up dog dirt, clear litter, make people drinks and talk. We can cut lawns, clean cars, we can serve up a storm, but if all we’re being is nice people then we just get a warm fuzzy feeling and some blisters if we overdo it. When Christ is the focus, however, that is when a nice deed becomes an eternal spark. When we do something in His name it’s no longer just about making someone a little happier for the day, it’s about showing them Love and pointing the way to eternity. Jesus makes the difference between a warm hug and a life changed.

We all get to feel good after doing good, that’s the human way, but it’s not about us. Feeling good is great but it’s a side effect. Our own happiness is not the aim. Putting on a good show is not the aim. If God wants a good show he can just poke his head in on Aurora Borealis. It’s about making Jesus the centre, it’s about directing our all to Him and pointing other people in the direction of His grace; that is the ultimate thing we can ever do for someone.

As Israel Houghton finished us off in song the whole arena rang out with, “from our hearts to the heavens, Jesus be the centre, it’s all about you”. The lasting challenge for us all is to walk away and live it out everyday.

Sixty Stadia

Thu, 14 Jul 2011 00:36:00 +0100

I understand that the title of this blog will raise all kinds of questions. Why sixty stadia? Is that like Old Trafford or the Nou Camp? Neither, it’s like seven miles.

Sixty stadia is the distance between Jerusalem and Emmaus; it’s also the distance between confused despair and hope, between mourning and gladness, between fear and boldness. It’s the difference between trudging off with our shoulders slumped and taking the gospel to our world with vigour.

For Cleopas and his fellow traveller their world lay in disarray. The one they had trusted and followed had been hung from a tree, the future they had believed in seemed all but gone and the light of their hope had been extinguished. Heck, even the sky itself went dark and did you hear about the veil in the temple? Rent clean in two.

A walk of sixty stadia would take between two and three hours and as they go they find they have company. Good company. Company that talks with knowledge and with clarity, that shows them so much and fans the flames of their soul back into life so that by the time they reach Emmaus they beg him to stay longer. This isn’t calm in their storm, oh no, this is a bigger storm. This is a tempest, this is hope rising.

So the traveller stays. He breaks bread and as he blesses it everything becomes clear. He disappears. The jaws of the inn keeper and patrons hit the floor - how’d that guy do that? And now Cleopas is clammering for the bill. He’s not staying the night after all - can’t wait to get out of the door and head back to Jerusalem.

The return journey is quicker, their hearts are burning and they have news to give. It took sixty stadia to turn their lives back around. It took sixty stadia for hopelessness to exit the stage and be replaced by hope. Their reaction is as ours should be when we hear the word; ‘didn’t our hearts burn within us?’ The word hit them in raw and powerful form and then? They had to act, they didn’t waste a moment.

That’s the effect that the word should have on us. They didn’t know who was speaking when they walked but yet their hearts burned and set them to action. This is because Jesus is the word. Always was, John tells us that. When we hear the word, when we talk together about the word, then Jesus is there and we’re called to act.

This is my blog. It’s my personal blog but I’m a Christian and what I want to talk about is relative and relevant to that. Most of what I post will be directly a result of faith. Telling you what I had for lunch, while highly tempting, won’t benefit either of us. Talking about the Word, however, will.