What Do You Want?
In our series ‘Questions’, looking now at the questions God asks us, we looked at Jesus’ question ‘What do you want?’ This occurs in three places (John 1:38, Matt 20:32, Mark 10:51) and shows us that Jesus is interested in every aspect of our lives. Often, we find this hard to believe, but God is a loving parent who is genuinely interested in our welfare (see Luke 11:9-13); He is a generous Father who seeks our best interests in everything (see James 1:17, Ps 84:11). We may feel diffident about telling Jesus what we want, fearing that He does not really care and will not answer our prayers, but the Bible paints a very different picture of prayer (see 1 John 5:14-15, Mark 11:24).
These verses don’t give us carte blanche to ask only for material things and expect God to work for us like a slot machine or like Father Christmas! As every parent knows, there are times when we have to say ‘no’ or ‘wait’, which can be difficult for our children to understand. But we certainly shouldn’t be afraid of asking for deeply personal things. The blind men to whom Jesus asked this question told Him plainly that they wanted to see; they wanted their sight. (Matt 20:33, Mark 10:51) Jesus told us in the Lord’s Prayer that we are to ask for our daily needs to be met: ‘Give us today our daily bread.’ (Matt 6:11) So we can ask God for personal things, but we need to understand also that what pleases God most is when we link our desires, our wants, our needs to His glory, so that we care about His will being done and His kingdom coming on earth, as it is in heaven. (Matt 6:10) What we want should be aligned to what God wants. Prayer is as much about relationship as it is about petition.
We need, above all, to hear in the question ‘What do you want?’ not the weary, exasperated tone of a worn-out parent, not the scornful tone of someone who doesn’t really care about our deepest longings, not the frustrated, angry, resentful tone of someone who is at the end of their tether… but the gentle, hopeful, caring tones of a Father who loves us more than we will ever know. John speaks about ‘what great love the Father has lavished upon us!’ (1 John 3:1) When Jesus asks us ‘What do you want?’, it’s because He really wants us to articulate to Him those deep desires of our hearts and He wants us to know that He is able to meet those desires.
In The Doldrums
Are you in the doldrums?
This phrase means to be depressed or listless, to have no interest in anything and consequently to do nothing, to be aimless and drifting. The origins of the phrase arise from a popular nautical term that refers to the belt around the Earth near the equator where sailing ships sometimes get stuck on windless waters. The Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone, (ITCZ, pronounced and sometimes referred to as the “itch”), is a belt around the Earth extending approximately five degrees north and south of the equator. Here, the prevailing trade winds of the northern hemisphere blow to the southwest and collide with the southern hemisphere’s driving northeast trade winds. There is often little surface wind in this area and sailing ships can stay there for weeks, unable to move forward.
This NASA satellite image shows the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone, known to sailors around the world as the doldrums.
On the one hand, the thought of no winds and calm water may seem highly desirable in life; many of us are tired of life’s storms! But wind is essential to sailing, and to be becalmed in this area can be highly frustrating. In the same way, whilst we may long for the peace and calm of a life without trials, temptations and troubles, if we are drifting aimlessly without the wind of the Holy Spirit moving us forward, this is a dangerous place to be. Some may feel that to lack ambition or purpose, to aspire to nothing, is the height of contentment (‘if you don’t aim for anything, you’ll never be disappointed!’), but this is not how God wants us to view life. He gives us purpose and dreams; He wants us to move forward with passion and fervour.
May the breath of God’s Spirit fill our sails and move us forward.
The Fruit of Truth
2 Cor 5:16-17 reminds us that all those who have come to faith in Christ are new creations, and as such, we must leave our old ways and old ways of thinking behind. To be a Christian is to live by the truth of God’s word. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was a Russian writer, born in 1918, whose Christian faith clashed many times with Communist dogma. As a writer, he wrote stories about the truth which criticised the government heavily and as a result, he was imprisoned and subsequently lived in exile. One of the things he wrote was that ‘people need to live by the truth. Live not by lies.‘
God’s truth must be the guiding principle of life, but we live in a world where many ideologies clash with it. Our world sees no need for God or His values; the move away from truth has permeated our society, arising in part from the evolutionary view which sees human life as nothing more than an accident (and therefore having no intrinsic worth or value.) In recent years, the Government has even approved DIY abortions, with few checks on this; experimentation on embryos is another example of how little worth we place on human life. Nowadays, ‘relative truth’ is often talked about, but God says that only the truth can set free.
Col 3:12-14 indicate the kind of fruit we are expected to grow, fruit that will look very different to the things the world prizes. Matt 5:13-16 talks of Christians being salt and light in our society, but we need to let our light shine and not hide it from others. The fruit of truth, of a life lived according to the truth, has to be seen in our actions.
By Their Fruit…
Garry spoke at tonight’s Little Big Church from Matt 7:15-20, a passage warning us that you can’t always judge a book by its cover. Children could easily identify sheep and wolves:
They could even identify the wolf that looked like a sheep:
However, it isn’t quite so easy to tell from a tree what fruit it will bring forth! We looked at different fruit trees and did not always correctly guess which fruit tree they were. Jesus made the point that it’s not always easy to tell what people are like just by looking at them (appearances can be deceptive), but He reminded us that our actions will ultimately point to the kind of people we really are. Actions matter enormously!
Second Homes?
Stephen enjoyed a caravan break last weekend, his caravan being his ‘home from home‘, a portable home which brings peace, joy and rest to him as he explores the UK. He is fortunate in having two homes, therefore: one a fixed abode and one a portable home on wheels!
Second homes may make the news nowadays as people are being forced to ‘staycation’ in the UK, but we have a spiritual home as well to look forward to (see John 14:1-6). Jesus is preparing a home for us with God, and 2 Cor 5:1-10 speaks of the difference between our life on earth (described here as being like camping in a tent!) and our heavenly home when we will live permanently in God’s presence. For all Christians, there is a longing at times to be settled in our second home, but in the meantime, we have purpose and a reason to live right now. God is with us through His Holy Spirit, and how we live now affects eternity (the passage talks about judgment for deeds done in the body). How we live in our earthly ‘body’ (both literally and in the church body) is seen by others; we are called to reflect God’s character and life to others.
Reflections on Acts
As we looked back over the whole of the book of Acts, we discussed a range of things which we have learned from this part of Scripture:
1) the fact that our faith is based on historical events which give us a firm foundation on which to stand. Within the Book of Acts there are over three hundred references to people, places, events, cities, districts and titles of various officials. With so many references of a historical nature, there are many chances to see if this work matches up with known reality; Sir William Ramsey was one historian who found, much to his surprise, that the historicity of this book is trustworthy: “I may fairly claim to have entered on this investigation without prejudice in favour of the conclusions which I shall now seek to justify to the reader. On the contrary, I began with a mind unfavourable to it, for the ingenuity and apparent completeness of the theory, had at one time quite convinced me. It did not then lie in my line of life to investigate the subject minutely, but more recently I found myself brought into contact with the Book of Acts as an authority for the topography, antiquities and society of Asia Minor. It was gradually borne upon me that in various details the narrative showed marvellous truth. In fact, beginning with a fixed idea that the work was essentially a second century composition, and never relying on its evidence as trustworthy for first century conditions, I gradually came to find it a useful ally in some obscure and difficult investigations.” (Sir William Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveler and Roman Citizen. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1962, p. 36) Our faith is based on fact, not fiction.
2) the importance of the Holy Spirit in the life of believers and the church. Throughout the book, we see Him moving in different ways. Ultimately, God’s mission will be completed because of His involvement in it!
3) the amazing fact that God chooses to use ordinary people to share in His work! We talked about the many people who featured in the book, not only the apostles (Peter, John, Paul) but those ‘incidental’ characters (like Ananias, so helpful to Paul after his conversion) whose presence reminds us how God uses each one of us to fulfil His will.
4) the importance of faith and prayer in our lives, looking at how often prayer featured in the book.
5) the corporate nature of the church, where every believer has a part to play and where God works through us, often in miraculous ways
6) the importance of team (the New Testament indicates the need for personal faith, but nowhere do we find ‘solo’ Christians; Acts is the story of the church, God’s people working together; even Paul took people with him on his missionary journeys and relied on the prayers and gifts of other Christians.)
7) the unavoidable fact of suffering and persecution (seen in the martyrdom of Stephen and James, but also in the everyday lives of so many believers and in Paul’s life especially).
8 ) the boldness, confidence and joy known by believers who were filled with the Holy Spirit. The transformation from terrified disciples to fearless apostles and from diffident followers to those who talked boldly wherever they went is astounding, but is testimony to what can happen when we are filled with God’s Spirit.
9) the providence, guidance and sovereignty of God and the mission of the church to be His witnesses to the ends of the earth. This mission is ongoing!
