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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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Tuesday, 23 August 2011

Tuesday 23 August


2 Chronicles 18:28-21:3
I’ve heard a few bad singers in my time.  My darling wife, beautiful though she is, is surely one of their number; I’ve often mistaken her heartfelt songs for a rat getting caught in our drain.  But I have never heard a group that are so bad at singing that they turn their audience to destruction and slaughter.  And that, it seems, is what happened at the Pass of Ziz.  But really, this wasn’t a story of human activity or achievement.  It wasn’t a story of the courage of Jehoshaphat or the faith-filled worship of the people.  It wasn’t the singing that saved them - “the battle was not (theirs), but God’s”.  So often we miss this.  So often we focus on ourselves.  We think we need more skills or to attend more conferences or to have been in this thing longer or to ‘do it like them’.  So often we think the battle is ours.  So often we live with this gnawing doubt that everything depends on us and that “we don’t know what to do” (20:12).  So we get consumed by paralysis and settle down to a life of stultifying boredom.   But the bible begs to differ.  The bible calls us to something more.  It agrees that we don’t know what we are doing, but it calls us to fix our eyes on Him.  It knows we are afraid and discouraged but it urges us to take up our positions.  It even describes us as wicked but it calls us to watch the deliverance of the Lord.  Our singing may indeed suck, we may be far from able to carry a tune, but that is not the point.  The battle is the Lord’s, it does not depend on our skill.  Our part is to fix our eyes on the Lord, to take up our positions and stand firm and trust in the faithfulness of Him.
1 Corinthians 15:35-49
Just like yesterday’s, this isn’t a theological passage so much as a pastoral one.  So often 1 Corinthians 15 is examined under a microscope, ripped out of the context of Paul’s letter as if it is not the writings of a man - crazy-for-Jesus - who is reassuring, guiding and correcting his beloved church members about the hope that is before them.  So often we approach these passages as if they are meant to give us details, details, details.  And as we get stuck on these little details our brains just chuck out the whole ruddy concept.  “How could that actually happen??” we ask, “surely our bodies won’t just jump out of the grave??” and “what about the ones who have been cremated?”  So we begin to dismiss this resurrection idea as an out-moded concept or a ploy used to make life seem less tough.  We choose to focus on today, and ignore death and what lies beyond.  But we have to climb out of the weeds, we’ve got to scale this heady peak mapped by Paul.  Up here in this rarefied place we are too high for the details, the horizon is too vast for small specifics.  But what is clear, what the horizon screams at our minds is that it goes on well beyond death.  We will be raised imperishable.  We will be raised in glory.  What Paul impels us to grasp is that we will bear the likeness of Him, we will be formed of heaven’s dust.  Our hope goes on for ever; even death is not the end.  Our hope can overcome every weakness; the best is yet to come.
Psalm 102:12-17
He will respond to the prayer of the destitute.

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