The Age To Come

I guess I am following what now appears to be a well-worn trail when I say that it is time to take a little pause in the world of blogging. The reasons are numerous and not entirely clear yet to me.

Certainly I feel the need for some time to recharge the spiritual batteries. The intent of this blog has always been twofold – to glorify God and build up His Church; as much as it is given to me to so do. Right now, it feels that all that can be said, has been. My heart has been to call the Church to prepare, to be ready, to be found in the only place that will stand firm, that is Jesus Christ. I hope I have played a small part in doing that.

I sense the seasons are changing, and time for new things comes to pass. I wonder, does the time of warning and exhortation now slip into a time for us to enter into what the Lord has prepared for His Church; the arks if you will, for the times to come? Well, I do not yet know, certainly this is something I want to reflect on more fully.

How does it go? “The world is changing. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air.”

I shall be back, God willing, but it seems time, at least for a season (short, or long, I do not know) to lay down the keyboard, and to seek Him first and hear His heart.

Gods richest blessings be upon you!

UPDATE: A little clarification for you. I’m not planning at this moment to give up blogging entirely, but rather take a timeout. My current thought is that I’ll take August off and then may rejoin the fray come September.

Check out this parable.

Like the wise sea Captain, God is choosing vessels for his own fleet and for his own purpose, and those vessels do not always conform to our ideas. The question is, what type of ship will you be?

Just thought I’d link up to a dream I found edifying.

I do not think we can hear this kind of thing enough. Pride is in my estimation one of our most insidious enemies. It has a capacity to worm its way secretly into just about any of our thoughts and actions. We can even be proud of our own humility!

Actually, I think this is one of the reasons to have a good sense of humour. You want to know the definition of a fanatic? Someone with no sense of humour. Why? Because they have no sense of proportion.

A sense of proportion is essential to a sense of humour, which in its turn is a great weapon against the kind of prideful building up of self which we can all indulge in, often without being aware of it.

Course, the real thing here is our utter need, our desperate need for God. Recently, I have become more and more aware of my various faults and foibles, and intensely aware that without God I would drown in them.

The best we are able to do in our own strength is to concentrate in one area where we can, possibly, whitewash it to the extent where it looks better from the outside. At the same time the half-dozen other things we are not aware of are steadily getting worse. Yes, without God we are truly lost and ruined. It is His grace, I think, that opens our eyes to our true state.

Certainly recently it seems that there has been an alarming increase in the number of areas in which I fall short. 😉 Indeed, I thank God for it!

Anyway, in dealing with pride, C S Lewis mentioned spiritual pride as being the very worst sort of pride, and one to which religious people easily fall prey to. As Christians we have grace – mercy and forgiveness undeserved, which can help somewhat in this area. However it is easy for pride to rear its ugly head in other areas, as in the dream, areas of our ‘ministry’.

I know, from experience, that once you invest something of yourself in any area of ministry, there is a corresponding danger of idolatry. You’ve put your time and money into something, and you feel that you partly own it. Pride in ‘my’ ministry is never far away then.

The antidote? Give it over to God. Not superficially – give it over and do not complain if you do not get it back. You may indeed get it back, and find your fruit-picking ability enhanced a hundred-fold. However you may, like in the dream, find yourself a picking fruit in an entirely different place, one with a much reduced perception of glory and honour. Would you do this?

The analogy of migrant fruit picker is a good one, for it is what we are called to be, even if we do not fully realise it. Migrant labourers in a world not our own, seeking to pick some of the fruit for our Father. Let’s never forget that!

Jonah 3 v10 – 4 v11 (NIV)
Jonah’s Anger at the Lord ‘s Compassion

Ch 3
10 When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.
Ch 4
1 But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry. 2 He prayed to the LORD, “O LORD, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. 3 Now, O LORD, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.”
4 But the LORD replied, “Have you any right to be angry?”

10 But the LORD said, “You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. 11 But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?”

I reflect that it is easy, in these polarised times, to end up just like Jonah – wanting judgment over our enemies, taking secret delight in their perfidies and cursing them in our hearts. What a difference between our attitude and the Lord’s attitude as seen in 2 Peter 3 v9:

9The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

Judgment may come, but that will not be our doing, as vengeance belongs to the Lord. Better then that we have a heart close to His, a heart that brims with sorrow for the lost and foolish sinner bound in wickedness. How long has it been since we were there, how long has it been since we realised the immensity of our salvation? That we were no less lost, foolish and sinful, but that we were found by the Great High King and Shepherd of our souls. How long has it been since we looked on at the depths of our ruin and loss, and wondered at the love that would bear our burden?

Therefore, knowing this, how can we wish to deny others, even those lost and fast bound to their sin – hating the redeemed, and by extension their creator – how can we deny them the hope, the only hope there is, that they too may be found and rescued, even in the extremity of their distress?

But so often this is how it is – in the heat of battle and in standing against the enemy, that our hearts become hardened, our tone scornful, and we forget that they also bear the image of God, no matter how distorted and darkened. We lose our compassion as we confirm ourselves as the righteous, forgetting the heart of the one who made us righteous, the one who would shrug off the fancy arguments and religious formularies of His day, to rescue one lost sheep along the way.

His heart burns in the unquenchable fire of judgment against sin, the deepest offense against holiness. But this selfsame heart is filled to the brim and overflowing with a burning, extravagant and outrageous love for His people, who follow Him, however imperfectly. This love does not willingly judge and condemn, though these things must come, but goes to the ends to woo one sinner back home.

This love was the love that compelled Jesus to the cross, there to pay the ultimate sacrifice for all our sin, to death and separation from His Father. Can we understand the depth of this sacrifice or the outrageous love that prompted it? I think we are doing well if we catch but a dim reflection.

I am convinced that in Gods economy, mercy crowns judgment. For, friends, the same heart that burns in judgment is the heart that grieves in love. If our eyes could have their scales removed, we would see it.

My prayer is that our hearts would become more and more like His. Where we are dulled and lacking compassion; where we do not grieve over the lost; where we condemn and delight in the incipient judgment of those that raise themselves up against You; Lord have mercy.

May my heart become one with yours Lord, a heart of outrageous love – burning in holiness against those who would desecrate your kingdom, and burning in love and grief for those who are lost, wandering in the darkness.

Maranatha, Lord have mercy!