Monday 26 September

Isaiah 63:1-65:16

There’s a discrepancy here.  It’s like two teams of builders trying to join a bridge across a chasm and failing to meet in the middle.  The people cry “Look down from your heaven and see.... where are your zeal and your might?... Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down”.  And God replies “I said ‘here I am, here I am’.  All day long I have held out my hands...”.  So what’s going on?  How can both sides feel like they are reaching out to the other but never a connection is never made? The answer is holiness - and this should prick our ears.  The people walk in ways not good.  They offer sacrifices in their gardens and spread tables for Fortune.  They sit among the graves and fill bowls of mixed wine for Destiny.  The people may be speaking prayers and claiming to be building a bridge but their lives are taking them in the opposite direction.  They are playing with things that are dead and are following the prevailing wisdom rather than the word of God.  There is little value in prayer without holiness.  If we are seeking the presence and the blessing of God in our lives and our church and our city then we need to couple intercession with obedience.  God is holding out his hands to us all day long.  He wants to hide our past troubles from our eyes.  And we will see this happen if we routinely prioritise his Word above our own.  If we will trust him and treat him as Lord then we will see the fruit of his Lordship.  This is what Jesus meant when he said “Anything you ask for in my name will be given to you”.  When we come to the Father in the Spirit of Jesus, seeking Jesus, wanting to be like Jesus, wanting to trust the Father like Jesus did and do only what we see the Father doing - then we will see the power of God made manifest among us.

Ephesians 4:17-5:7

Imitate God?  Sorry Paul, have you had a bump on the head?  Have you lost all sense of reality in that noggin of yours?  How can we as worrying, insecure, self-obsessed, weak and fickle humans imitate the One who is and was and will be from Everlasting to Everlasting?  I know I’ve been working on my body recently but I hardly think that I’m going to upgrade from bench-pressing 5KG to holding the universe in my hand.  Surely what you have said - this mumbo jumbo about imitating God - is just plain ridiculous?  But, then again, maybe I’ve been a little over-hasty.  It is true that I’ll never match God in an arm-wrestling contest but maybe I could begin to live like Jesus lived.  After all, He has done quite a work in me.  He has given me a new self that was created for the sole purpose of making me like God in true righteousness and holiness.  It’s like I’ve been given an Iron Man suit (I love that movie) expertly welded to fit me and equip me for miraculous living.  With this new self given to me by God I can deal with my anger in a day and I can stop stealing and I can start working and I can share with others and I can speak things that help others and I can get rid of bitterness and malice and be kind and compassionate and forgive other thickos when they do me wrong.  And - here’s where this new self is truly miraculous - I can be free from even a hint of sexual immorality and from greed.  I can do these things because that is what Jesus died and rose again to achieve in me.  He empowers me for it by his Holy Spirit.  If I root myself down into hearing the voice of the Spirit and knowing I’m a dearly loved child then I can truly live different, I can truly imitate God.  O the love of God - it is so vast and so strong and so rich that I can’t comprehend it.

Psalm 112:1-10

“Blessed is the man who fears the Lord... wealth and riches are in his house”.  I was going to make some joke about me obviously not fearing the Lord enough but I couldn’t do it.  I don’t know anyone richer than me.