WARNING

The edification value of this blog cannot be guaranteed. Spiritual vigour may go down as well as up and you may not receive back as much as you put in.


I expect you may disagree with at least of some of what I say. I pray that I don’t cause you too much offence and that somehow the gracious and dynamic Spirit of God will use these words to increase faith, inspire hope and impart love.


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Thursday, 17 March 2011

Thursday 17 March

Numbers 5:11-6:27
I don’t know about you but I think I’m going to let this “test for an unfaithful wife” slip down the side of my bible-study-sofa and remain there, never to be thought of again.  This Nazirite stuff though, for me, is one of the best bits of the whole old testament.  I just love the idea of these half-crazed radicals mooching around Israel, wafting their long, unkempt locks here, there and everywhere.  You’d have to be close to crazy to even consider being a Nazirite - looking like a maniac, giving up booze, giving up grapes and raisins, giving up spending time around dead bodies.  This last bit in particular is interesting as it places devotion to God even above the cultural obligation to bury close relatives and thereby brings into stark relief the Nazirites single-minded pursuit of holiness over and above all other ties.  I think the church and the Vineyard has had its fair share of Nazirites in recent years.  People who have given up good and enjoyable things in their frenzied search for holiness.  I deeply appreciate such people, people who push me to treasure holiness more, to be more willing to sacrifice all for the single greatest prize of intimacy with Christ.  They help me continually re-adjust my perspective on the world.  I pray that we will see more and more Chritians with the spirit of the Nazirite emerging across our church.
Luke 2:1-20
We see in the angels’ song the twin goals of the birth of God on earth.  These two things are so deeply entwined that it is impossible to separate them no matter how determined you are.  The first is the glorification of God.  This is glorification, not in the literal sense of deposits of glory actually being passed to God such that his stock of glory is increased.  He already has all glory that has ever existed wrapped up in the cloak of his being and the glory that we humans give is woefully insignificant by comparison with that.  No, we can never make God bigger or more famous or enhance his being in any way at all.  This glorification is rather a recognition among the created that the creator is, and always has been, the highest, the most brilliant and the most powerful being that could ever have existed.  Glorification is people and angels and all living things coming to their senses to acknowledge what has always been the truth about God.  But embedded within this glorification and, which makes the glorification all the greater, is the fact that wherever the truth of God is acknowledged, peace will reign.  God’s character is so endowed with goodness, it is soaked so richly in generosity that to realise who he is to benefit yourself.  To spend time acknowledging God is to spend time bringing favour upon yourself.  This is not the crass form of favour that focusses on health, wealth and happiness but a truly divine favour that imparts knowledge and instills hope.  Where this is true in every place that truth is revealed, it is brought to a monstrous and climactic pinnacle in the birth of Jesus, the direct revelation of truth on earth.  As people who have seen and who can testify to the reality of Jesus in our life, our days are now defined by the twin goals of glory to God and peace to humanity.  To focus on one in the absense of the other would be to step away from the biblical witness and the nature of this good news of great joy.
Proverbs 7:6-20
As fun as this sex-fest would have been, the writer of the proverbs is clear (although, a bit like an episode of 24, we have to wait 4 days to find this out); indulging your sexual desires with someone other than your spouse is like a deer choosing to step into a noose or a bird choosing to dart into a snare