Seekers Start With Word From The Beginning

I am back again in the land of blogging after several days away from net access. I’ve got loads more to share which will come in due time. What you’re about to read is the blog entry I had all specially prepared for Thursday. There’ll be more in catching up on what’s been going on in due time.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1)

Of all the gospels, John’s one often comes across often as the most intriguing, mysterious and compelling. Whereas Matthew outlines Jesus as the fulfilment of scripture and Mark’s Jesus is an action man suffering as a servant whilst ruling as Lord and Luke’s appeals to a universal audience, John’s portrait of Jesus is both intimate and familial and divine and magisterial. Nothing conjures that up more than the first chapter where you get those at 11 titles/names for Jesus all on display and we are not just introduced to the Promised Messiah or a Suffering Sovereign or a Man of All Peoples but we are met by this awesome yet very present God.

And then to kick it all of we get those amazing first words of the gospel account that mesmerise me more than virtually any other verse in scripture as it holds me to that which I love most – Jesus is the Word. And the Word was at the beginning. Light brought life indeed as a very real reading of created order, but Light was first thought expressed in Word.

For even as we recall Genesis 1’s account of how things came to be nothing happened until Light – as long as it was ‘let there be’ there was a divine intake of breath in anticipation … let there be what? There it exploded – Light. Word creates and all things thus came from Word.

Now some of us faith dudes get all hung up on it especially running away with verses like ‘life and death is in the power of the tongue’ and believing our words hold the very same creative power as God’s. If that genuinely is the case then there must be a number of disappointed speakers because for all the words spoken for financial prosperity and global harmony neither reality seems to have hit the earth in a very real way for the masses.

This is not to neglect the importance of words, but it is to set the Divine Order above our efforts. It is also to remind us, especially me, that if we are to see results for the words spoken, it is in our/my best interests to go back to aligning ourselves/myself with the original Word. Not only that but in pursuit of God we go back to the beginning and we see Him expressing Himself as, in and through Word.

Today has been a really good day. Part of it was spent walking the streets of Glasgow city centre getting a feel for the place and I must say I like the feel. It is not hectic at all, even with the amount of people that go in and out of it I never got anything near the sense of speed and hyper-activity that characterises a place like London or Birmingham.

It’s hardly a friendly town, but there are a lot more natural smiles on faces than I find in Stoke-on-Trent for example and there’s definitely no sense of depression that is also accustomed with S-o-T. That’s not to decry S-o-T, I still love living there, but some experiences have to be acknowledged and that’s one of them!

Glasgow is a rather imposing and foreboding structured city centre architecturally as the building look over you, but that adds to the feel of the city. I like it. I’d definitely like to come here again and find out a bit more about it experience one or two different things.

I am not here presently though on a sight-seeing tour. In regard to what I am here for it has been a most relaxing, engaging, refreshing and reinvigorating day in the sense of being able to attune myself and focus on who I am and what God has called me to do. The majority of the day was spent with words – words read, words thought, words written and on the rarest of occasions words spoken.

Those words have helped crystallised a lot of things in terms of reaffirming my focus and as with any team building the system around the focus. It is very much like the syndrome of having a star player and building the team to play around his strengths and that can definitely be seen in the engagement I am pursuing.

Herein lies the issue and this is why Jesus as the centre of all life is so crucial. He is the star player around which the team of life plays around. He is the creator – both in the football analogy and in real life. He starts the passes going and He sets up achieving all the main goals in life. He directs traffic and He is the first port of defence to prevent conceding any own goals. He is the one that makes everything happen for the glory of His Father by the power of the Word.

So to guarantee success, today in the cherished city of Glasgow I have been reminded, it is all down to being in the Word.

For His Name's Sake

Shalom

dmcd