Skip to main content

Will you have some of it?

I trust that you are feeling refreshed and ready for all that the Lord has prepared in advance for you to do in 2010!

As I was seeking the Lord for a word for 2010 I believe He led me to Isaiah 30:15-18, which says;
This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: "In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.
Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!
What struck me most powerfully from my initial reflections on this short passage was the immensity of the promise. We face many huge challenges in the coming year - some we are already aware of, others are yet to be revealed, but we can look forward with confidence as daily we learn to 'return, rest, be quiet and trust' that we might know deliverance, salvation and strength. However, as powerful as the promise is so to the sense of sadness if we should ever be like the Israelites who 'would have none of it'! Certainly there have been seasons where I have tried to 'work things out for myself' and insodoing exhausted myself and quickly realized that my human resources are totally inadequate - only to eventually come to my senses and find a Father who is just waiting for me to look to Him, that He might glorify Himself by fulfilling His promise. Let us wait on Him and be Blessed!!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Thoughts from a previous incumbent ...

In reference to 2 Tim 1:7 "For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of p o wer, of love a nd of sel f-discipli ne."   Norman Grubb decl are d that; "We are set in our day and generation to be overcomers, not to sail through calm seas but to walk on storms, to replace need with supply, to transform aspiration into realization. The language of defeatism, fear, lack and weakness is not to be in our vocabulary. "Let us go up at once and possess it, for we are well able to overcome it. As for these giants, they are bread for us," we say with sturdy Caleb.  We are to act as the men of faith of old; we are to visualize our goal in clear outline; we are to take it for granted that we shall reach it, for we have both the commission and anointing of God?   We lay our plans ,build our organisations, produce our written and verbal pronouncements,  prayer our prayers, do our work, not as those who will fail and fall by the way, but...

What is poverty?

I have been very exercised recently for a number of reasons; 1/ Extended conversations with my teenage children about Sex trafficking (Initiated by the recent LZ7 track!) 2/ The dialogue online concerning the relative merits of Kony2012 campaign. 3/ Spending a morning praying for Street Children in Senegal (Talibes) and Prostitutes in Cambodia. 4/ Recently listening to a Dr M Loyd-Jones podcast - in which he refers to the state of 'apostasy' that the Church had got itself into at the end of the 19th, beginning of the 20th Century, as it cared so much for social, justice and poverty issues that it ceased to preach the gospel. (His words of course!) Now, where do my kids find their place in the midst of all of this? Our discussion centred around how meaningful is it to download a track and feel justified that you are doing something about sex trafficking? Is that simply consumer activism ... would we be so concerned to spend our 69p if we weren't getting a download out ...

Labels

Who are you? I have never been a great fan of labels when it comes to describing members of the body of Christ. eg. he is anglican, she is Baptist, they are Charismatic, etc. etc. I remember once causing a man to become increasingly hot under the collar when he asked me who I was? To which I replied I was a disciple (follower) of Jesus. He was meaning which Church did I attend (presumably so he could classify me and decide whether I was bona fide or not) and my answer did not bring him peace, but I refused to go any further.  Why? Because, as I said, I am not a great fan of labels, but also because for me there is a very important distinction between primarily identifying myself with Jesus and identifying myself with Church. Of course, I recognise that by becoming a follower of Jesus I become part of the body of Christ, but that can be very distinct from being a member of a Church. To me this is the crucial difference between vibrant faith and dusty religion.  ...