Who then is this...

"Natural laws were made by Christ and alter at his bidding"

John Piper

"Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?"

Mark 4:37-41

"The God of glory thunders....the voice of the LORD is full of majesty. The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars...the voice of the LORD...strips the forests bare, and in his temple all cry, 'Glory!'"

Psalm 29:3-5,9

More 'Art'...

Same story as last time, but without the trees... Cool huh?

The Power of Forgiveness...

This is something we can often forget as we get so caught up in confidence in the Word of God, apologetics, theological strength of the Bible and so on. This is all good and helpful and so on. But forgiveness is something so powerful that totally goes against what the world has to say about how we respond to others hurting us, sinning against us, whatever. All sorts of things that the world shouts ‘Revenge!’ at us. Part of that comes from our sense of Justice which CS Lewis so clearly argues in the opening chapters of ‘Mere Christianity’ comes from God. But our deceptive hearts (Mark 7:21-23, Jeremiah 17:9) twist that to jealousy, revenge and back biting, amongst other such unsavoury things we are all so often capable of. But we see Jesus forgiving left right and centre. Brother Andrew makes it his priority to offer forgiveness to the Muslims he reaches out to. See this talk at least from Forum 2007, and just read all his great books! It’s so powerful! It messes with people’s minds...we ask for their forgiveness! Listen to this talk from Dr Richard Winter.

The gospels are littered full of parables and Jesus’ teachings on this. I will myself listen to these talks again and come back with a more biblical blog post. And I’ll read through all of the gospels to find the aforementioned parables and teachings from Jesus. But recently talking through with different friends, I realise again just how powerful it is. I struggle to communicate what I mean again trying to repeat words said last Saturday. They aren’t really coming! Ask me in person if you would like to discuss it and get excited about the Gospel together.

But what other religion offers such love and unconditional forgiveness? Can you think of one that compares to what we freely receive? So many arguments and disputs could so easily solved by us putting aside our pride, and apologising for our part –however small- and asking forgiveness. Our pride so often gets in the way. Think of all the films or cartoons that the whole story is based upon two estranged people that both think the other is to blame, and should be the first to apologise. The film ends when, by whatever the plot is, the one of them having the guts to say sorry –probably after some near death incident- which then immediately results in the other stumbling over themselves to take not just thier part of the blame, but often all of it!


Imagine the conversation...here goes me attempt at writing out the one in my mind:

Chap 1: Look, all this, really all my fault. I should’ve ........... I was really .........
Chap 2: No no, it was really my fault. I shouldn’t have ............... If I hadn’t, you wouldn’t have ............. . I was out of order.
Chap 1: But you wouldn’t have had to if only I had .......... I’m very sorry for my actions.
Chap 2: No, I’m the one who should be sorry..... etc!

These two are very polite in their delivery, but can you picture us in our lives living this out?
Asking forgiveness, motivated by the forgiveness we have received and a desire to reconcile (I love that word. I might have to even write a blog on it!), even when it is not deserved, will convict the other of their own need. It heals us and the hurt inside us.

And Reading University Campus needs to hear about this forgiveness. We all secretly long for it:

“I wonder what I’d do, if I could wake up every morning, with a clean slate.”
Keane, ‘Pretend That You’re Alone’, Perfect Symmetry

Well, you know what? You can. God loved us so much that He sent His only Son to die in our sins, and gives us new life having broken the chains of sin, making us slaves of righteousness -and then, not slaves, but as Jesus said, 'friends', even 'brothers' (John 15:15, and somewhere else I'm not sure of...)

Yes theology is great. Yes apologetics works. But at Reading, I feel people here don’t all (many do, which we welcome very much so!) care about the historicity of the Gospel of Mark. They care about love, security, acceptance, exam stress, sex, relationships, freedom, peace... forgiveness. They don’t always realise this, but that’s what people here think about, and they are questions we all have. Most people aren't philosophers, and if we are reaching the whole of campus, we need to engage with the questions that people secretly have. The reasons they drink their loans away, sleep around, get consumed by a social group of club that has no real value, pursue acceptance and glory in sports teams, so many things which are in themselves great things -sports, drinks, money, relationships, sex, friendship, lock picking. But when they get into our sinful hands....we make idols of them (See Will Eley's 'Idol Chatter'). We need to show that we have those questions too, but a different answer to them....Jesus’ blood. Grace. Forgiveness.

More on that when I get hold of the NWA 09 seminar talks...I will return to this issue with Biblical ammunition...but don’t hold your breath! Go listen and read for yourself, and unleash the power of forgiveness to the people around your and mend broken relationships. Do it now. The blog won't have been updated and will still be here when you get back...

Ed Goode: "How everything is about footb...the Gospel"

http://edsfalliblethoughts.blogspot.com/2009/03/how-everything-is-about-footbthe-gospel.html

Man....this is true.

Intersting little things in John 8...

I bumped into John chapter 8 the other night when chasing up references from the book I'm reading over these holidays, 'The Pursuit Of Holiness' by Jerry Bridges (which, I will be summarising and noting bits which challenge me soon in this blog, chapter by chapter).

Though, it was a bit of a combination of not wanting to go to sleep till a more student-like hour (does anyone else get that? I mean, staying up for abcolutly no reason..? I do hope so!) and the fact I've noticed how good it can be to keep on reading large chunks of scripture. So often in the gospels, with Paul and I'm sure the rest of the bible, things continue on from one another, and you most often find insight into the niext passage from reading the previous one. Its a pretty obvious thing to do, but when you read whole chapters at a go, you get a great big picture of what is going on, and are able to so much more clearly capture what Jesus/Paul is on about.

So, in the light of that, I, in my state of wanting to stay up longer, decided to read the whole of chapter 8, where JB (Jerry Bridges) points you to some great verses on Jesus' holiness (more cracking stuff on that in the reviews! See if you can spot them before I write up chaper 4/5).

Having said that, I blitzed through 1-11 through thinking I knew that quite well already (but will re read with the rest of the chapter now in mind) and focused on 12-59.

Now, there is so much to dig out of this chapter, but there are a few minor (probably irrelevant things that surprised me and excited me. Check out verses 23&24. Jesus says in answer to a question:

"23. You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. 24. I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins."

1. Now that's cool! Jesus says it straight out -he is the one who will take our sin upon himself! That is the gospel according to Jesus: that we will die because of our sins, our rebellion and rejection of God unless we accept and believe that Jesus has died in our place, specifically: "in your sins", and he has done just that! 2. As I've just pointed out, he uses 'in' instead of what we as a student talking to mates might use, something like 'for', but 'in' gets it 'dead on' just as much. We are now 'in christ' (Col 3:3, Rom 6:11, Rom 8:1&2). It reminds me of the analogy of how Christ takes and wears our filthy rags and we get his pure unspoiled white robes instead. He swaps shirts with us, like at the end of a football game -we get his winner's shirt and he gets our worthless one.

One other minor one is v28: "When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me." -I wonder if he is refering to the cross when he says "lifted up"...maybe that tells us something about Mark 15:39, but I'm not sure just yet.

Ok, so skip over more good stuff from the big man, to verse 58. But...pause to look at v51 first! This got me to think for a second...

"51. Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death."

Never see death huh? But we all die don't we? So how is it that we, as followers of Christ, avoid death? Well, as it was pointed out to me over the summer, 'death' means/meant seperation from God, not 'ceasing to exist' (which helps think out the Trinity/Jesus-God 'dying' if you've ever come across that attack on the trinty doctrine). And so, now we are trusting in Jesus for salvation, we are Romans 8:37 -more than conquerers. Thats because death no longer means separation from God, but we now join God in heaven, we receive the inheritance we have been hoping for. Look at 1 Cor 15:55: "O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?" What a triumphant shout we all can join in! The sting of death, separation from death has been taken away! So, when Jesus says that we shall never see death, we join in being conquerors of death and will never see the effects of it. But then we are more than that, because it takes us to be with our saviour.

Now, finally, v58. Here is the full little section, to clearly see whats going on:

54. Jesus answered, "If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say, 'He is our God.' 55. But you have not known him. I know him. If I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and I keep his word. 56. Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad." 57. So the Jews said to him, "You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?" 58. Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am."

Now, that seems to me to have 'Trinity' all over it...anyone else see that? Jesus says about himself, "I AM" which shows 1) his eternal nature and 2) his 'oneness' with the Father. That just about says it all really. How great is that! Oh, and as Jesus will not/does not/etc lie (most people will accept he's pretty 'good', then he can't possibly be lying when he says "truly, truly". He has to be telling the truth. Nice!

Phew. Well, there we go. Serious blog post number one done. Hopefully I haven't said anything heretical, though probably at least one thing wrong. Do correct me if you think so!

Chapter by chapter summaries of Jerry Bridge's 'The Pursuit of Holiness' coming soon.