Saturday 2 July

2 Kings 4:38-6:23

Thick. Inadequate. Enslaved. Gormless. Doomed.  That’s probably how the 5 of the characters in this passage saw themselves.  Who on earth doesn’t know the difference between herbs and wild vine gourds.  That is elementary home economics isn’t it?? You’d have to be well thick not to know that. And what kind of a builder sees their axe head spinning off into the river? A gormless one, that’s who.  And what hope is there for a young Israeli girl who is taken captive by a roving Aramean band?  Rape and then murder I presume.  And yet through and around these people glory comes to the King of the Earth.  Nearly 3000 years later we are reading about them and are flabbergasted at the work of God that they saw in their midst.  Nearly every single one of them doubted their ability or doubted their situation and yet God swept in to amaze and redeem.  His power is made perfect in weakness.  His power is made perfect in thickness and in inadequacy and in gormlessness.  He uses the weak to shame the strong.  He uses the enslaved and the doomed and the fearful and the dispirited to highlight his gloriousness to the nations.  When we feel spent, when we feel surrounded, when we doubt our ability to come through a situation, when the city seems surrounded with an army of the enemy we just need to ask the Lord to open our eyes.  Those who are with us - He who is with us - are more than those who are with them...

Acts 21:27-22:21

Maniac.  M-A-N-I-A-C.  What kind of person has a mob the size of a city baying for their blood, trying to rip them apart, trying to smash big stones into their head and yet does not try to run away.  What kind of a man sees hatred in the eyes of those around him and yet begs for a chance to speak to them?  A man who loves his enemies, that is who.  A man who values people, all people, so highly that he is willing even to lose his life for them.  A man who believes so intently in his message - in this glorious gospel of the blessed God - that he believes it can bring hope and healing to all people everywhere even if they are violently opposed to it.  And, on that, I have to just pick up Paul on one slight little porkie pie that he seems to have told to the brothers and the fathers - he says he wants to make his defence.  But he has no intent whatsoever of defending himself.  He doesn’t care a jot for preserving his life or restoring his reputation.  He is not making a defence; he is making an appeal.  He is making the same appeal that he has made everywhere he has gone, every day that he has lived since Ananias prayed for him.  Repent and be reconciled to God.  Accept the life and refreshment that comes through Jesus.  This is not so much a desire to convert as a desire to share.  Not an appeal to change beliefs but to a changing heart, and the huge joy and liberty that that brings.  The people want to kill Paul and Paul just wants to give them life. That way of living is the Jesus Way.  That is what Jesus showed us.  It’s what Jesus put in Paul.  Let’s ask him to put it in us as well.

Psalm 79:1-13

“Pay back into the laps of our neighbours seven times the reproach they have hurled at you...”?  Oh.  Didn’t some guy tell a story about our neighbours one time?  I don’t think it  said much about reproaches being paid back though...