"The law, by commanding, forbidding, threatening, corrupt and fallen man, but offering no grace to cure and strengthen, did but stir up the corruption, and, like the sun shining upon a dunghill, excite and draw up the filthy steams."
Why rule-keeping can't rescue
People not structures
"The search for effective programmes will fail. In God’s service there are only effective people."
That's a quote from Mark Ashton's book, 'Christian Youth Work'. Isn't it brilliant? There's all sorts of discussion around about how church structures should work; whole denominations are split over different patterns of church leadership. We could easily get bogged down with making sure we've got the right things happening each week, and could easily think everything is going well with church when our busy programme is working like a well-oiled machine.
Perhaps this is a timely reminder that our energy should be put into people - making each other more godly. That way, whatever programmes we do or don't have really doesn't matter. What we will have are people living and doing right.
Everyone needs compassion
Pa said, “Go to sleep now.”
But Laura lay awake a little while, listening to Pa’s fiddle softly playing and to the lonely sound of the wind in the Big Woods. She looked at Pa sitting on the bench by the hearth, the fire-light gleaming on his brown hair and beard and glistening on the honey-brown fiddle. She looked at Ma, gently rocking and knitting.She thought to herself, “This is now.”
She was glad that the cosy house, and Pa and Ma and the fire-light and the music, were now. They could not be forgotten, she thought, because now is now. It can never be a long time ago.I don't know if you have to read the whole book to feel the emotion of that, or whether you need to be tired, or have small children. But there it is: the beautiful memory of being a small child. "Now is now." The gutting perspective is, of course, that it was written as an older lady, who is now dead.
We have a four-year-old daughter. We have the privilege of giving her special childhood moments. Yet she too will grow old and one day die. You can't hang on to a single moment.
A happy childhood is a wonderful blessing. But all those people out there, whether they have happy memories or not, are just like that little child, who once was, but who quickly grows and will be gone. So fragile. So sad.
A challenge for 2012: instead of viewing people as tough, cold, secure or complete, let's remember what they really are - fragile, and passing. What they need more than anything else is the compassion of a Saviour, who gives a future that can be held on to.
"When [Jesus] saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field."
(Matthew 9:36-38)
Jesus came ... to preach
"It is not often that I make any kind of personal reference from this pulpit but I feel this morning that I must speak of an experience which bears on this very subject. When I came here, people said to me: 'Why give up good work - a good profession - after all the medical profession, why give that up? If you had been a bookie for instance and wanted to give that up to preach the gospel, we should understand and agree with you and say that you were doing a grand thing. But medicine - a good profession, healing the sick and relieving pain!' One man even said this, 'If you were a solicitor and gave it up, I'd give you a pat on the back, but to give up medicine!' 'Ah well!' I felt like saying to them, 'if you knew more about the work of a doctor you would understand. We but spend most of our time rendering people fit to go back to their sin!' I saw men on their sick beds, I spoke to them of their immortal souls, they promised grand things. Then they got better and back they went to their old sin! I saw I was helping these men to sin and I decided that I would do no more of it. I want to heal souls. If a man has a diseased body and his soul is all right, he is all right to the end; but a man with a healthy body and a diseased soul is all right for sixty years or so and then he has to face an eternity of hell. Ah, yes! we have sometimes to give up those things which are good for that which is the best of all - the joy of salvation and newness of life."
Remembering God's priorities
Don Carson, on James 1:1-18, suggests that we ask two questions:
[1] Do we want a God who is like a genie in a bottle, who does only what we wish? (In which case, who is God?)
[2] When we suffer, do we remember that God has given his Son for us? (He is not self-interested, but guarantees our good by what he has already given.)
Therefore, respond to trials by trusting him, growing in maturity, and looking ahead to what God has promised us.
“The truth of the matter is:
- God is more interested in your holiness than your happiness.
He is more interested in your faithfulness than in your financial success.
He is more interested in your purity than in your power.
He is more interested in your endurance than in your reputation.
He is more interested in your self-control than in your sexual prowess.
He is more interested in your eternal life than your external wealth.
He is more interested in your long term joy than your short term fun.
He is more interested in your good than in your desires.”
Don Carson, 1999
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