When God Says Lets Reason

I am a sinner. When AA was set up and started encouraging its members to introduce themselves by acknowledging the particular addiction from which they suffered, they were following a confessional tradition that has spanned the ages. I’m not arrogant enough to believe that Christians started it and initiated it and have a patent on it, but it is a crucial part of the confessional element of the faith. The first step of humility is this acknowledgement. Knowing who you are in the eyes of God begins with knowing who you are in the reflection of His holiness and purity and that is way off the mark ... or a sinner as the bible helpfully defines it.

Now you’ll notice that I never started this segment off with I was a sinner. Neither did I allude to being a former sinner. I quite clearly and deliberately stated that I am a sinner. It is not something I revel in, but something that keeps me ever in mind of the fact that I am in need of a Saviour, Redeemer and Guide. A Saviour to rescue me from my sinful nature, a Redeemer to take me from the sinful state to the state where I truly belong and a Guide to draw me ever closer to the source of my existence who helps me realise who I was always created to be.

These things I am in need to be mindful of constantly because it is just my way to slip out of that and get ahead of myself. It is just my way to consider myself as sorted and alright where others have not reached that point of spiritual and intellectual clarity and enlightenment. I catch myself in this state whenever I’m being critical of someone else whether my children, my siblings, my wife, my friends or the other vast cast of characters that comes in my life however fleetingly and for whatever reason. There I am pontificating even albeit internally on just how misguided and ignorant the person in question is from that which is true and how far they have missed the mark. Only to be graciously reminded of how I have been in that position myself and how my natural disposition would keep me there were it not for the love of God.

That’s why I love being a Christian. That dose of humility that you need to keep going and that realisation that it comes from a loving God whose mercy is without end saves us from the extremes of self-pity and despair as well as complacency and self-reliance. I love being a follower of Christ, because I’m invited into a relationship where my Creator seeks me out to lead me back to Him and to straighten me out and in that place I realise how good it is to love because you’ve been loved and how then spiritually it is possible to love without strings attached. Not easy, I said, but possible.

So I’m always perturbed when I read in the Bible the first chapter of the book of Isaiah and how the prophet outlines the charge against Judah for the first 15 verses. I’m perturbed because the allegations strikes every part of a nation’s life – political, economic, social as well as religious and spiritual. Especially the indictment of the religious hypocrisy that rampant throughout the country that made the people of Judah believe they could carry on with their rituals whilst beyond that their relationships were a mess. Now saying relationships are a mess is today translated as cultural breakdown, anti-social behaviour and the kind of circumstances that leads to pensioners bemoaning the fact that whereas back in the day you could leave your front door open, now you need an alarm, CCTV and several locks to keep you safe.

What’s worse about all this is that the charge that God makes in this chapter is against His own people. Not to strangers, not to people who don’t know, but those who have been engrafted in a relationship with Him by his saving power as seen in the Exodus. As seen in repeated episodes of His grace in action as time after time the spiritual adultery, deceit and outright rebellion has always been followed by His return to help whenever they call on Him.

To have similar complaints about the moral decay of countries like America and Britain actually neglects the fact that although there was the concept of Christendom these countries were never in the truest sense Christian – after all no such nation-state was ever due to arise since Jesus ascended. Instead God’s people would be a people out of a people who would come from all people and were not a people but became the people that Christ will return for as His Bride.

In the meantime concepts of a ‘Christian’ country have been misleading, whilst the called out people have slumbered on their ill-gotten political and social influence that has compromised their witness to the world of being called out of sin to be like their Saviour, Redeemer and Guide. So the very same charge that God levels at the people of Judah can often be levelled at the called out people. We make a song and dance of the ritual of church-stuff but the quality of our real relationships is shambolic to be a shame and bring disrepute to the name of our Saviour, Redeemer and Guide. This all comes because of a lack of recognition of that first step of humility. Remembering that first step and that first encounter with the amazing grace and yet startling holiness of God should convict us of the need to remain ever close to the One who has saved, redeemed and guided us.

I don’t say that in accusation to people out there. I say that because I get perturbed when I then read Isaiah 1:18-20.

Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword; for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.

Now why get perturbed at that, you may ask, surely it’s the good news of a God giving a second chance. Well the reason I get perturbed is because here we see that whenever God says let us reason it is not to sit and converse over things as equals, it’s actually to have the riot act read to us and giving a severe warning that unless we do what was always designed for us for our good then there are dire consequences. Oh come on, don’t be so pessimistic, Chris, I hear you remark. Yet I’m an optimistic guy by nature – in the context of where this text goes and what happens to the people, God’s request for reasoning is almost a last saloon time for His people. Reasoning with God is always a time for stiff reminder of how this walk is meant to go and how it’s not about self-pity or self-reliance, but about being like the publican who went away justified because his prayerful approach was to ask God for mercy.

That posture of the contrite spirit and broken heart doesn’t lead to miserable looking people forever condemning themselves for sinning yet again. On the contrary, it leads to compassionate, joyful, thankful people only to aware of being sinners saved by grace and so only too ready to help out wherever possible, but never compromising the call with which they have been called by Christ.

(It’s rather apt that I should be inspired to write this piece towards the end of the year as it bookends nicely with this piece at the beginning of the year about what we are like and why that should determine how we live.)

For His Name’s Sake

Shalom

dmcd

Seeking Makes Sense

This blog entry has been a week in the making. Last Wednesday as I got my laptop out and set up stuff for the evening’s cell group session I reflected on the text I’d sent to Authrine. I told her that we needed to get some smelling stuff for the front room and our bedroom. The thought suddenly occurred to me that in seeking God, He expects us to use all of our senses – smell, see, taste, hear and feel. Searching for Him is not something that can be done by one sense alone, but a combination of all of them. He can be experienced through all of them.

Now I know that there is the thing about being careful not depend n our natural senses. We live in a material world where one of the great deceptions is to get people to depend only on what they can see with the natural and what they can physically attain. That’s the great deception that suckered the first couple and it’s the great deception that Jesus snookered by giving the Word’s supremacy in all things.

Acknowledging this, however, the point about seeking God with all the senses is about recognising God uses these to make Himself known. We look at some of the more immediate examples of this like being in a beautiful natural setting where the senses are bombarded with the beautiful diversity of creation in whatever aspect. The nostrils are tickled with a distinct soul-pleasing scent, the hands and feet are caressed with the soft grass, the eardrums reverberate to the noise of the animal kingdom in all its pomp and majesty, even the taste-buds take in some pleasures available. Of course the sight we behold in itself is breathtaking and led one songwriter to put it all down and say that on reflection when he considers it all he mentioned to the Almighty How Great Thou Art.

So faith-awakened physical senses are capable of receiving evidences of grace and go on to prick the conscience about the Living God. What I am contending further, however, is that for those who have come in contact with God and are privileged to be doing life in search of Him, those self-same sense can be key aids in interacting and engaging with Him. The whole concept of seeking God reminds me of a detective story especially Columbo. That brother is a pest, he is a dog that cannot be put down, he has the sniff in his nose and he pesters and digs and peeks and feels and prods knowing what we all know, that is the identity of the culprit. He knows it, we know it, but we need to seek out the clues that will bring us to the conclusion.

I confess I’m not that diligent in searching for God. As an audio and visual kinda guy unless I read it or see it then I’ll miss it. Even then to apply myself to that Columbo-like pursuit is not always the case for me. Yet in line with the Fast and the Curious series I recognise the great need for such diligence. Not only is it diligence, but it is diligence with delight. Fully engaging the senses in pursuit of God is not in search of a criminal, it is in search of the Creator, the Father, the Giver of good gifts. Using a waft from a nearby kebab house can even get you twitching to think about food that lasts forever rather than for a second. Feeling some sharp object pierce our flesh can remind us of the nails that tore into the flesh of the Saviour. This is not specious connecting for the sake of it, but it is alerting the senses and the heart to seeking God through the senses.

I write this blog on the seventh floor of a hostel in Glasgow where outside, even at this time of night, there is the noise of traffic and a near train track with the trains going from place to place. Hearing these sounds reminds me of the busyness of life and rushing to and fro for noble or ignoble purposes. It reminds me of the call of God to find His still small voice in the busyness, not to be caught up in the hustle and bustle but be driven by another sound, another rhythm, another beat. It reminds me of how easy it is to be distracted by noble or ignoble purposes, but for my heart to find peace I am to practice even in the middle of a hectic life the ability to be still and know God for who He is. I am aware He is not impressed by my busyness or my work outputs for the day. I am aware that it is not in the noise of my activity that I’ll necessarily find His blessing even if it produces the acclaim of those that look on and material benefits. I am aware that fruitfulness comes through dedicated and consistent, diligent and dogged abiding in Christ. Hearing His voice, smelling the fragrance of His presence, seeing His glory, tasting the satisfying nature of the Bread of life and feeling Him near me guiding me along paths of righteousness …

That is why this month is particularly appropriate for a time to seek God with greater fervency. There is a lot of stuff still on the plate of my life, family developments, church developments, personal developments, relational developments – some very exciting, all very challenging and in the midst of it all I know there be the presence of the risen Saviour beckoning me towards Him. Not neglecting these developments but placing them in the proper perspective of allowing them to be conduits towards Him rather than distractions from Him. Should they be the latter to have the courage to dispel them so that there is nothing that hinders me from embracing Him and seeing Him work through my family, work, church and relationships – not because I dictate His movements, but allow my life to directed by His call towards closer intimacy with Him.

I recognise now more than ever that it’s all well and good encouraging others to start or make progress in their spiritual journey to seeking the Saviour, but the best position that I can do that from is as one humble sojourner seeking Him likewise with all the internal and external senses that He places at my use for His glory.

For His Name's Sake

Shalom

dmcd