This is the pantomime season and Aladdin’s cry of ‘New lamps for old!’ came to mind as we have been having more work done at church. This time, it was a new front doors to replace the old ones.

The old doors:

The new doors:

Stephen spoke last night about the wonders of creation, especially looking at the starry host.

Genesis 1:14-18 tells us that God made the sun and moon and the stars. That simple statement does not do justice to the amazing creation of God. No matter what man has built to explore the galaxies, he has not come to the end of discovering all that God has made.

Psalm 8 dwells on the glory God has set in the heavens and how magnificent His creation is, yet reminds us that we are individually known and loved by God as well. Psalm 147:4 reminds us that God has determined the exact number of stars and calls each one by name, yet even the number of hairs on our head is also known by God! Isaiah 40:26 reminds us that because of God’s great power and mighty strength, not one star is missing.

The stars act as signs to sacred events, as in the star which led the wise men to Jesus (Matt 2:1-10). Numbers 24:19 prophesied that a star would come out of Jacob and this star led the magi to Jerusalem, and ultimately to Bethlehem. We don’t believe in astrological star signs that predict our day-to-day lives, but we do believe that God uses different methods to speak to us and guide us to Him! Psalm 148:3 tells us that everything should praise God – even the sun, moon and stars!

When we ponder the Christmas story afresh, we are reminded how God worked all things together to announce the birth of His Son. Even the stars did His bidding! Let us also be quick to obey the One who is the mighty Creator and do His will in all things.

Having spent so much time recently on the recurring theme that we need to know who God is (rather than who we think He is or being led astray by our own preconceptions, ideas, and wrong thoughts), it is perhaps time to restate some basic truths about God. I firmly believe that the Bible gives us enough revelation about God to know Him, though I also believe that we will never be able to understand everything about Him! (‘Almighty God, in every way You are above and beyond understanding’ – Tim Hughes, ‘Almighty God’) I also believe that it is more important for us to find what the Bible says about God than to come up with our own ideas.

The following list is not at all exhaustive. But hopefully it will provoke some thought and discussion!

• God is good and all He does is good (Ps 119:68).
• He is faithful and true (Rev 19:11).
• He is loving and faithful (Ps 25:10).
• He doesn’t treat us as our sins deserve (Ps 103:10).
• He is slow to anger and quick to love (Ps 103:8).
• He is almighty and the King of Glory (Ps 24:10).
• He is compassionate and gracious (Ex 34:6).
• He is holy (Lev 20:7-8).
• He is just (Deut 32:4).
• He doesn’t lie (Num 23:19).
• He doesn’t change (Mal 3:6).
• He is a consuming fire (Heb 12:29).
• He never leaves us or forsakes us (Heb 13:5).
• Nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus (Rom
8:38-39)

When you’ve come into the world with angelic messages and prophetic utterances, as John the Baptist did, you might expect an easy ride, a trouble-free existence. Life is rarely like that, even for God’s servants, it seems. In the second part of our study of John the Baptist, we looked at his imprisonment and death and the lessons these things have to teach us.

John was imprisoned for his blunt comments about Herod’s relationship with Herodias (Matt 14:3-5). Honesty, it seemed, was not the best policy for him. He learned, as so many of God’s people have, that suffering and faith often go hand in hand. Perhaps we should not be so surprised by this if we read Scripture faithfully (see John 16:2, 33; 2 Tim 3:12-13; 1 Peter 3). Jesus Himself had strong words of warning for His disciples:

“Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’ “Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Won’t he first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.” (Luke 14:28-33; see also Mark 8:33-34)

Luke 7 narrates some of John’s doubts and uncertainties while he was imprisoned; he sent two of his disciples to Jesus to ask “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?” (Luke 7:19) What John does with his questions and doubts is the same as what we should do with them: he brings them directly to Jesus. The problem is often that Jesus does not act in the way we think He should. He is under no obligation to do things our way. He is not beholden to us. He is God. He will work in ways that are not like our ways. He doesn’t even think the way we do! The key thing we have to learn is to know who God actually is, rather than who we think He is. We have to come
“[With] eyes wide open to the differences, the God we want and the God who is
But will we trade our dreams for His or are we caught in the middle?
Are we caught in the middle?” (Casting Crowns, ‘Somewhere in the Middle’)

Sometimes, our faith is shattered and our lives rocked because we have been expecting God to work in a certain way or answer our prayers in a particular manner. We have to be prepared to let God be God, however much that may leave us with unanswered questions. Job’s questions were often not answered, but at the end of his trials, he had a greater understanding of who God actually was.

The death of John the Baptist, told somewhat luridly in Mark 6, leaves us feeling somewhat dissatisfied. Why do the Gospel writers spend so much time on this story? What does it mean that John’s life is ended in such a capricious way? What has happened to God’s purposes and destiny, if John’s life, heralded by the angels, proclaimed by Jesus Himself as a prophet and that there was no one greater than he born of women, can be snuffed out on a whim like this?

The danger is that we adopt one of two false views of God. One view says that He is all-powerful and leads us to believe, therefore, that He is cruel and unloving to allow His faithful servant to be killed on the whim of a woman and because of a king’s spineless cowardice. The other view says that He is all-loving, but fundamentally incapable of preventing such injustices. We need to understand that the Biblical view of God is that He is both all-loving and all-powerful. There is no either/ or reasoning; God can be both things! We do not always have answers to the ‘why’ questions that haunt us. All we have to hold on to is what we know is true of who God is.

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.” (Rom 8:28-30)

The actions of God in verses 29-30 – foreknew, predestined, called, justified, glorified – are in the aorist tense in Greek. That tense presents the action of a verb as attained. It states a fact, presenting the action as a point. In other words, God has done these things. He doesn’t need to keep on doing them, because He has already done them. Our ultimate destiny, as John’s, is secure. The first verb in verse 28 is in the present tense, though – God works or is working. In the meantime, in the now, where perhaps we don’t understand what is going on or why God is allowing what is going on in our lives, God is still working. Let’s hold on to all we know of Him, leave our questions and doubts with Him and learn above all to trust in His unfailing love.

After a few weeks away from James (because of meetings connected with organising the joint carol service), we resumed our Bible studies tonight and looked at James 4:1-12. Here, common themes in James are developed: the idea of single-minded and pure-hearted devotion, asking in faith and not unbelief and looking at the desires that battle within us.

The words translated in the NIV as ‘desires’ or ‘pleasures’ and in the KJV as ‘lusts’ convey both the Greek idea of pleasure (from which we get our word hedonism) and also a sexual connotation. God often describes the relationship He has with us as like that of marriage and in the Old Testament (in Isaiah, Ezekiel and Hosea, for example), Israel’s fickleness is often likened to adultery, as here (‘you adulterous generation’). So often, the problems we face arise from conflicting desires or passions. We are like Israel in 1 Kings 18, ‘wavering between two opinions’, literally ‘hopping from foot to foot’. God does not want this kind of double-mindedness. Jesus condemned the Laodicean church for being lukewarm (which is caused by mixing hot and cold!) in Revelation 3 and James too condemns the people for their wayward attitudes: “You’re cheating on God. If all you want is your own way, flirting with the world every chance you get, you end up enemies of God and his way.” (James 4:4, The Message) We may find the language stark and uncompromsing, but God often needs to shock us in order to make us aware of the cold realities of our behaviour and actions.

The desires that battle within us (not all of which may be intrinsically wrong but which, if unsurrendered to God, inevitably lead to inner conflict which is often manifested in ‘fights and quarrels’) often explain our poverty in prayer. James is blunt in telling us that we don’t have because we don’t ask God and when we do ask, we often ask with wrong, selfish motives, thus hindering God. As with so many aspects of prayer, we need to learn submission to God, so that our will can be aligned with His. Prayer arises from a personal relationship with God, a God who longs for us passionately (James 4:5)

The language used in this chapter is strong: ‘desires’, ‘pleasures’, hatred towards God (enmity), adultery, jealously longing. It’s the same language used in Matt 5:28 (where Jesus describes a man looking lustfully at a woman and therefore committing adultery in the heart) or in Matt 13:16–17 (when we read how the prophets longed to see and hear what the people heard when Jesus walked on earth.) Perhaps that kind of language makes us feel uncomfortable. If so, maybe we need to be reminded of the simple truth that God is looking for purity of heart and single-minded devotion to Him (see 2 Cor 11:2, 1 Cor 7:25).

Last night’s sermon on snowflakes made me think of one of my favourite Christmas songs, called ‘Winter Snow’. The song reminds me that Christmas was all about God taking us by surprise, not coming in might or majesty or power, but coming in meekness, vulnerability and lowliness, coming ‘like a winter snow, quiet and soft and slow.’

Could’ve come like a mighty storm
With all the strength of a hurricane
You could’ve come like a forest fire
With the power of Heaven in Your flame

Ooh no, Your voice wasn’t in a bush burning
No, Your voice wasn’t in a rushing wind
It was still, it was small, it was hidden
(‘Winter Snow’, Chris Tomlin & Audrey Assad)
‘Winter Snow’, Chris Tomlin & Audrey Assad