A Royal Priesthood

1 Peter 2:16 Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God’s slaves.

How free do you really feel? We are rapidly reaching the point in Western consumer societies where people confuse freedom with choice, as they are dazzled daily by an ever-expanding array of external choices in consumer goods and lifestyle options. But the pursuit of freedom has led to a surfeit of choices and a scarcity of meaning and value - a point at which choice itself, rather than the content of any choice, has become the heart of freedom. The result is that modern people value choice rather than good choice.

In reading of this verse from Peter we  seem to have of two opposite circumstances; namely live as free people and live as God’s slaves. The word slave in the original Greek means someone who belongs to another but in this context it speaks  of believers who willingly live under Christ's authority as His devoted followers; whereas to the world freedom is the opposite;  one who is a not a slave or not under restraint.

Writer Philip Yancey notes that toward the end of his life, Albert Einstein removed the portraits of two scientists–Newton and Maxwell–from his wall. He replaced those with portraits of Gandhi and Schweitzer. Einstein explained that it was time to replace the image of success with the image of service. 

In a similar way, Brother Andrew asserts, “I have come to see clearly that life is more than self. It is more than doing what I want, striving for what will benefit me, dreaming of all I can be. Life is all about my relationship with God. There is no higher calling, no loftier dream, and no greater goal than to live, breathe, and be poured out for Jesus Christ.”

Heavenly Father, thank you for the Holy Spirit working inside me. No matter what my external circumstances are, I know that you are with me and give me the ability to glorify you. I pray that you help me to not use this freedom in vain, but to use my mind and my actions in service to You. Amen.

A Royal Priesthood

29/11  

1 Peter 2:15 For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people. 

Doing the seemingly foolish thing often reveals the wisdom and goodness of God and living God’s goodness can confound the world’s foolishness.

It was a stormy night in Birmingham, and Hudson Taylor was to speak at a meeting at the Severn Street schoolroom. His hostess assured him that nobody would attend on such a stormy night, but Taylor insisted on going. “I must go even if there is no one but the doorkeeper.” Less than a dozen people showed up, but the meeting was marked with unusual spiritual power. Half of those present either became missionaries or gave their children as missionaries; and the rest were faithful supporters of the China Inland Mission for years to come.

To walk the obedient life we must realise the context in which we live. All of God's people are ordinary people who have been made extraordinary by the purpose God has given them. God's commands are designed to guide us to life's very best. We will not obey Him, if you do not believe Him and trust Him. We cannot believe Him if you do not love Him. We cannot love Him unless you know Him.

Lord, help us to trust that you are at work in the seen and the unseen. Guide us in each moment of our day, in big and small ways. May we know your love at work in us and, with the Holy Spirit working through us, help us to show others your love through our words and actions. Amen.

A Royal Priesthood

1 Peter 2:12 Live an exemplary life in your neighbourhood so that your actions will refute their prejudices. Then they’ll be won over to God’s side and be there to join in the celebration when he arrives.

There is a story about a cave that lived under the ground, as caves have the habit of doing. It had spent its life in darkness. It heard a voice calling to it: “Come up into the light; come and see the sunshine.” The cave retorted: “I don’t know what you mean; there isn’t anything but darkness.” Finally the cave ventured forth and was surprised to see light everywhere. Looking up to the sun cave said: “Come with me and see the darkness.” The sun asked: “What is the darkness?” The cave replied: “Come and see.” And so one day the sun accepted the invitation. As it entered the cave it said: “Now show me your darkness.” But there was no darkness! 

One writer suggests that followers of Jesus should, “Learn to light a candle in the darkest moments of someone’s life. Be the light that helps others see; it is what gives life its deepest significance.” 

There is a sense that once we are bathed in the light of Christ that is where we are to walk, in that light and reflect his way of living to others. Elsewhere in the New Testament we read the words “if we walk in the light, God himself being the light, we also experience a shared life with one another…”

Dear Lord, thank you for your many blessings. Thank you for the lives we have been graciously given, and help us to use our limited time for good. Help us to pursue our lives to their fullest. Remind us that living for you is the only path to true fulfilment. Amen

A Royal Priesthood

1 Peter 2:9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvellous light.

Having just celebrated the last Sunday of the liturgical year of Christ the King yesterday, we take a pre-advent look the idea raised in the letter of Peter, the we are chosen to be a Royal Priesthood.

But what does it mean to be chosen according to God’s strategy?

There was a boy who did not have much athletic ability. Every time he and his friends would play some game, he was always the last to be chosen. One day two new fellows came to play with them and were allowed to be team captains because they were older. The first team captain chose the boy who had always been chosen last before. Why? Because they were brothers, and he loved his brother. So it is with God. He chose us not because of our abilities, but because he loves us.

Yet, what does being chosen to the Christian Priesthood. R. Paul Stevens is Professor Emeritus in Marketplace Theology, Regent College, Vancouver suggests that “Christian priesthood is not a matter of being religious and Mr. Goody two shoes but of serving God and God’s purposes in the nitty gritty everydayness of life in the world, not a matter of sacred times and sacred places but ordinary times and ordinary places, not a matter of ordained ministers but the whole people of God. Talking about God’s people folded into the world as seed and yeast and salt. Every church of 200 hundred members has two hundred missionaries penetrating neighbourhoods, offices, factories, workshops and schools, into all the powers and places, seven days a week.”

Dear Jesus,

I have belonged to lots of groups in my life but none is so important to me as the family of believers among whom you have placed me. It’s there that I have received mercy. There forgiveness has restored my life to hope. It’s there that I have understood the meaning of my disappointments and successes. It’s there that I found you and the meaning of life. I am so thankful for being included in your church. Help me to warmly reflect to the world around me how loving and faithful you are to all creation. Help me to teach them who you are and what you want to be for them. Help me reach those who otherwise live dejected and rejected lives, in order to give them the rescue of redeeming grace and a place in your family.

AMEN

Fullness of Life

Ephesians 5:15-16 "Be very careful, then, how you live — not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil."

Thomas Edison once said, “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.Take advantage of new opportunities to strengthen your faith and create meaning in your everyday life.” 

A piano sits in a room, gathering dust. It is full of the music of the masters, but in order for such strains to flow from it, fingers must strike the keys… trained fingers, representing endless hours of disciplined dedication. You do not have to practice. The piano neither requires it nor demands it. If, however, you want to draw a beautiful music from the piano, that discipline is required.… You do not have to pay the price to grow and expand intellectually.

The mind neither requires it nor demands it. If, however, you want to experience the joy of discovery and the pleasure of plowing new and fertile soil, effort is required. Light won’t automatically shine upon you nor will truth silently seep into your head by means of rocking-chair osmosis. It’s up to you. It’s your move.

This is an instruction from Scripture we should take each opportunity seriously for each moment is precious. Our days are gifts of time that we should use wisely in order to make their best of each opportunity. This doesn’t mean we spend every waking second in Bible study. That is an unrealistic spiritual solution. What it does mean is that we don’t waste our lives on foolish endeavours or holding grudges. We seek the Lord, love others, and give our lives to His kingdom. 

A prayer from St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582) O my God! Source of all mercy!I acknowledge Your sovereign power.While recalling the wasted years that are past,I believe that You, Lord, can in an instant turn this loss to gain.Miserable as I am, yet I firmly believe that You can do all things.Please restore to me the time lost, giving me Your grace, both now and in the future, that I may appear before You in “wedding garments.” Amen.

Fullness of Live

24/11 John 10:10 A thief comes to steal and kill and destroy. But I came to give life—life in all its fullness.

If you say that someone lives life to the full, you mean that they try to gain a lot from life by being always busy and trying new activities. But is this the gift that Jesus comes to give. There is a difference between fill each moment and living fully in the moment. 

Too often people think about their “spiritual lives” as just one more aspect of their existence, alongside and largely separate from their “financial lives” or their “vocational lives.”  Periodically they may try to “get their spiritual lives together” by praying more regularly or trying to master another spiritual discipline.  It is the religious equivalent of going on a diet or trying to stick to a budget.

The truth is that the term spiritual life is simply a way of referring to one’s life – every moment and facet of it – from God’s perspective. 

Jesus talks a lot about giving life and about the fullness of life. It's not just for hereafter. Eternal life is our faith in him, and in his word. His call is to be life-givers - to facilitate the full life of compassion, justice, reconciliation and peace. We are called to be ministers of life, serving the God who loves all life.

Merciful God, 

who is more than we can ever imagine, 

give us a wider vision of the world; 

give us a broader view of justice; 

give us dreams of peace 

that are not defined by boundaries of geography

or race or religion, 

or by the limitations of worldly structures and systems. 

Open our eyes and our ears 

that wherever we go, 

we may hear your voice calling us by name; 

calling us to serve, 

calling us to share, 

calling us to praise, 

so that we never give up on the promise of your kingdom, 

where the world is transformed, 

and all can enjoy life in all its fullness. 

Amen.

Fullness of Life

Proverbs 21:21 "Whoever pursues righteousness and love finds life, prosperity, and honour.

In this phrase from Proverbs most of us would agree that the righteous results of love, life and honour,  but what does the writer mean by prosperity? The Hebrew word from which translators come up with the word prosperity, has a a number of meanings such as abundance, riches, honour, splendour, glory, of external condition and circumstances

Regrettably, a number of well known evangelists have promoted what has become known as the “prosperity gospel”, defined as, “…a religious belief among some Charismatic Christians that financial blessing and physical well-being are always the will of God for them, and that faith, positive speech, and donations to religious causes will increase one's material wealth.” But at the heart of God’s Kingdom Economy, prosperity has quite a different nuance. 

Biblical prosperity, is a state of total wellbeing. It is a condition of having an all-round peace. Prosperity is to be complete in Christ. Money alone is not prosperity. Someone can have money but If they do not have good health to enjoy their money, it will be utterly meaningless to them.  

In his book, Balancing the Tightrope, Barry Powell relates that in a survey of over 200,000 undergraduates, 76% listed financial prosperity as the most important of their life goals. Is it any wonder that one of the top issues in almost every political election is the economy? What has it come to when our top voting priority is our buying power? Even more important than crime, foreign policy or moral values. You see, like the prodigal son, we can buy into this world’s mind set and make the same mistake he did: that life really does consist in the things that we possess. 

One writer suggests that if you are asked how rich you are, tell them to look inside your heart, for love makes you the richest person in the world, no matter how poor you are. Inner riches supersede outer riches. If you have money, you are affluent; if you have joy, you are wealthy; and if you have love, you are rich.”

Lord of true riches, I desire to be truly rich in grace and mercy rather than in material things.  Help me to always keep the proper priorities in life and to be purified in all of my desires. 

Fullness of Life

22/11

Today we move from Well-being to look at Fullness of Life.

Ephesians 5:15-16 "Be very careful, then, how you live — not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil." The Good News bible puts it this way: “Take advantage of new opportunities to strengthen your faith and create meaning in your life.”

While teaching at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Tony Campolo once turned an ordinary lecture into an unforgettable lesson. He asked an unsuspecting student sitting in the front row, "Young man, how long have you lived?" The student answered his age. Tony responded, "No, no, no. That's how long your heart has been pumping blood. That's not how long you have lived."

Tony Campolo then told the class about one of the most memorable moments of his life. In 1944, his fourth-grade class took a field trip to the top of the Empire State Building. It was the tallest building in the world at the time. When nine-year-old Tony got off the elevator and stepped onto the observation deck overlooking New York City, time stood still. He said, "In one mystical, magical moment I took in the city. If I live a million years, that moment will still be part of my consciousness, because I was fully alive when I lived it."

Tony turned back to the student. "Now, let me ask you the question again. How long have you lived?” The student sheepishly said, “When you say it that way, maybe an hour; maybe a minute; maybe two minutes.”

According to psychologists Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert, the average person spends 46.9 percent of their time thinking about something other than what they're doing in the present moment. We're half-present half the time, which means we're half-alive.  

Perhaps we need to wake up to the fact that Jesus came that we might have life in all its fullness.

Merciful God, 

who is more than we can ever imagine, 

give us a wider vision of the world; 

give us a broader view of justice; 

give us dreams of peace 

that are not defined by boundaries of geography

or race or religion, 

or by the limitations of worldly structures and systems. 

Open our eyes and our ears 

that wherever we go, 

we may hear your voice calling us by name; 

calling us to serve, 

calling us to share, 

calling us to praise, 

so that we never give up on the promise of your kingdom, 

where the world is transformed, 

and all can enjoy life in all its fullness. 

Amen.

Wellbeing

Isaiah 58:11 the Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy you with all good things, and keep you healthy too; and you will be like a well-watered garden, like an ever-flowing spring.

The interesting thing about using a GPS system when travelling by car is that, even if I deviate from the suggested route, it continues to track me and even recalculates a route to get me back on the right road. Isaiah is talking about another kind of GPS - God’s Positioning System.

If you open a bible concordance to look up the word "guidance," expecting to find a long list of verses promising guidance from God you’ll won’t find it there. Instead, you will find the word "guide" and a number of verses promising that God Himself would be the guide of His people.

People who have a visual impairment need guide dogs, not guidance dogs! Even if dogs were capable of talking, how unsatisfactory it would be if they were mere bystanders, shouting warnings from a distance: "Careful now! You’re approaching a hole. Watch out for the curb!"

Writing about God’s sure guidance, British pastor Frank W. Boreham recounted a time when a minister visited his home in New Zealand. Being young and inexperienced, Boreham sought the counsel of his guest. He said that one morning they were sitting on the veranda, looking out over the golden plains to the purple sunlit mountains. He asked the minister, "Can a man be sure that in the hour of perplexity he will be rightly led by God? Can he feel secure against making a false step?" "I am certain of it," exclaimed the minister, "if he will but give God time! As long as you live, remember that. Give God time!"

Dear God, Please help me trust You and trust Your timing. I tend to get impatient and I tend to take matters into my own hands. I know this is a weakness of mine. I am so sorry. Holy Spirit, please transform this part of me. Help me to trust in You, Lord, and trust that Your timing is best. I pray for patience and I pray I would understand that Your ways are better than my ways. I do not always know how to have patience. My flesh is weak when it comes to waiting. Please help me to be stronger in this area! I also pray that my husband would have patience and trust in Your timing. We rely on You, Lord. I pray that as we wait on You, we would encourage each other to remain patient and faithful in Jesus’ name. Amen

Wellbeing

Proverbs 4:20-22 

Dear friend, listen well to my words;
    tune your ears to my voice.
Keep my message in plain view at all times.
    Concentrate! Learn it by heart!
Those who discover these words live, really live;
    body and soul, they’re bursting with health.

What is your prescription for a good life, a life of fullness, inner satisfaction and health?

Here, in this verse from proverbs we find a prescription to be followed. I recall an lovely elderly lady who, when speaking of the medication that she had been prescribed said, “That she must have a signpost inside her that directed each dose to the right place in her body to do its work.”

A number of folk have through the years, recited their own prescription for living, here are just a few.

“Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it." — Charles R. Swindoll

“Change your thoughts, and you change your world.”— Norman Vincent Peale

"It always seems impossible until it's done." — Nelson Mandela

“"If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way." — Napoleon Hill

"If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door." — Milton Berle

But just like a prescription, it is not the reading of it that brings about the result in our lives, it is following its instructions.

On a walking pilgrimage to Assisi in Italy, the writer Patricia Hampl began to make a list in answer to the question, What is prayer? She wrote down a few words. Praise. Gratitude. Begging/pleading/cutting deals. Fruitless whining and pulling. Focus. And then the list broke off, for she discovered that prayer only seems like an act of language: “Fundamentally it is a position, a placement of oneself.”

She went on to discover that “prayer as focus is not a way of limiting what can be seen; it is a habit of attention brought to bear on all that is.” Ah, a habit of attention. Be still. In that focus, all else comes into focus. In that rift in my routine, the universe falls into alignment.

God our Father,
only You can give meaning and purpose to life.
Let Your Word, rich as it is,
pierce deeply into our hearts
and change our lives,
so that we may know life at its best,
and learn to live for You and for others.
Through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Wellbeing

Romans 8:21 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

This kind of knowing can be difficult when things are dark around us. I recall the saying a College Principal often would use, “Don’t get out of a train in a tunnel.” 

I heard someone give an illustration once about a wooden well bucket he came upon. He thought it was useless at first, because it had been sitting next to a barn in the sun, unused for a long time. He could see daylight between the wooden slats of the bucket. Certainly, this thing would never hold water again.

But an older man with him tied the bucket to the well rope and let it drop into the water below. In a couple of days they came back and turned the crank to draw the bucket back up. It was full of clear, cool well water and was not leaking a drop.

The water had re-hydrated the wooden slats until they fit together as originally designed, and the bucket was useful again.

In this chapter of Romans, Paul has been clear that the story is not over, though. Creation is waiting, longing, for God's children to be revealed in glory. That's the day when all will begin to be made right. Somehow, at some level, the creation knows this and anticipates it. Mysteriously, a key component of what will happen on that day is that God's glory will be revealed to all and revealed in those who have faith in Christ.

Father, sometimes I can’t understand how you can bring beauty from the ashes of my life. I struggle to trust you with the broken pieces. You say in your Word that without faith it is impossible to please you, and I want to please you. I want to trust you. I want you to make me more like Jesus and use my trials for my good and your glory. Help me believe the promise of Romans 8:28. In the strong name of Jesus, I ask. Amen.