Monday 31 October

Obadiah 1-21

Don’t mistake where history is headed.  That is the message of Obadiah.  And it was a sorely needed message.  For all the world it looked like Israel was copping the thick end of the punishment stick and Edom (or Esau) was wielding it.  For all the world it looked like human powers, intellect and military skill and prime living locations were what dictated the fate of individuals.  It looked like history was defined by the powerful and the influential and the famous and the wealthy.  But God had a different perspective.  “The day of the Lord is near for all nations.”  There are no exceptions to the rule, you can’t buy your way or fame your way or power your way out from under the sovereignty of God.  No matter how things look for a while, the Sovereign Lord will be as his name declares.  Obadiah’s voice needs to be heard today.  Maybe an echo of it is found in Jarvis Cocker’s recent observation that fame is the new heaven - becoming famous is seen to be how you fulfill all your dreams.  If Jarvis is right we need to beware we don’t get sucked in.  Nor to the lure of riches or professional success or good reputation.  Only in the Lord is a future hope found.  Because one day the Lord’s deliverers will govern the mountains of Esau.  One day every kingdom will be the Lord’s.  

Hebrews 2:1-18

I know this is more tightly packed than a flamenco dancers trousers but it all flows from a single premise which I think bears some pondering; Jesus has brought us such a great salvation.  The ‘s’ word is banded around in church like a squash ball on a court but does it ever actually lodge itself in our souls?  Do we pay careful attention to our great salvation?  Do we explore every aspect of it?  Is our being entirely convinced of the credibility and scope of it?  I fear mine is not.  I fear I have sped on too quickly from the words passed on to me.  I regret I have not lingered on the signs, wonders and various miracles that testify to the saving work of my God.  I’ve been too keen to get the washing up done.  But Jesus - the vastly superior Jesus - allowed himself to be made lower than those he was greater than and then he suffered at the hands of men.  And then he died.  He died to make us holy.  He died to call us brothers.  He died to destroy the devil.  He died to free us from our fear of death.  I think my trouble is I so quickly try to deflect myself from thinking about suffering and sin and death and the devil that I don’t appreciate the enormity of my salvation from them.  Salvation has not only brought me happy, happy, joy, joy but has also slashed and severed the horrific and horrendous powers that make life suck.  Jesus has dealt with it all.  I don’t need to deflect myself from thinking about these things any longer.  I can revel in them.  Because Jesus has overcome them.  And Jesus can help me in every single one of them.  What a great salvation this is.

Proverbs 26:13-22

My trouble is I love tasty morsels too much.

Sunday 30 October

Lamentations 3:40-5:22

Didn’t he get it?  It was them who had sinned.  It was them who God had forsaken.  It was them who needed renewing.  Jeremiah was hearing from God and obeying his call.  Jeremiah should have just left them to it and ditched them all.  He should have separated himself from awful Israel both mentally and physically.  Then he would have had a far happier lot and he could have had the pleasure of being smug as well.  But that is not the way of the Lord.  All throughout the bible we have seen people’s identity is corporate.  In God’s eyes we are always part of something bigger than us - a family, a people-group, a nation.  Jeremiah was part of Israel even though his self-understanding, behaviour and perspective were vastly different from all the rest of his people.  He was an Israelite, come what may.  And he embraced that.  That was a picture of holiness.  He prayed for ‘us’ not for ‘them’, he says “woe to us, for we have sinned” even though he personally doesn’t really seem to have sinned at all.  He bought into the identity God had given him - an identity of unbreakable connection to others.  We belong to the church.  We are part of the people of God.  We belong to one another.  Do we criticise ‘them’?  Do we point out ‘their’ wrongs?  Do we list ways that ‘they’ need to change in order to sort themselves out? (I’m talking about the broad, international, inter-denominational church here).  I don’t think we are at liberty to talk and think that way.  We are in this thing with them.  We are called to give ourselves and to pray for ‘us’ to walk into holiness, for us to be all that God has called us to be, for us to repent and turn away from sin.  The Lord’s throne endures for ever, and his reign unites and binds together all of his people across all of the world throughout all of time.  

Hebrews 1:1-14

This is a complex book with intricate arguments addressing certain issues in the church (as you may have noticed it is not addressed to a particular church from a particular person like most of Paul’s letters are - and it has huge strength for being like that).  But the main thrust is a glorification of Jesus as the consummation of the Hebrew religion.  This letter goes crazy for Jesus.  This letter points out other common pretences of greatness or glory and elevates Jesus way above every one of them.  It shows that Jesus is and has always been and always will be the superior majestic glory in this universe.  Jesus is heir of all things - everything ultimately will sit in his house and he will do with them what he likes.  Jesus is the sustainer of all things - pumping lungs and beating hearts, overseeing photosynthesis and spinning the earth.  If he stopped working for even a second, everything would melt and warp into chaotic emptiness.  And Jesus was the source through whom all things were made.  The fabric of life passed through him and was pieced together in him.  He is vastly superior in the past, in the present and in the future.  And, to top it all, he is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being.  So, here’s to Jesus.  Let’s raise a toast to him and not to anyone else.  No-one else could be more worthy or more magnificent.  Jesus is more worthy of worship than anything.

Psalm 119:129-136

“Your statues are wonderful; therefore I obey them”.  If you can’t say the former, you probably won’t do the latter.

Saturday 29 October

Lamentations 2:7-3:39

“Let him sit alone in silence for the LORD has laid it on him.”  Hmm.  There are loads of aspects to the discipline of the Lord that I think are marginalised in my life.  I get that God disciplines those he loves.  I get that bad choices have consequences.  But I fear that there is a richness to the discipline of God that I neither draw on myself not encourage others to draw on either.  When some around me is ‘bearing the yoke’ do I encourage them to sit alone in silence?  Why would I ever do that?  And yet that is the counsel of the word.  Love does not always quickly embrace people in cuddles or smother them with kind words.  Compassion does not always give presents and offer the comfort of companionship.  Love for someone sometimes encourages them to journey into the depth of their soul and to chart some new ground.  It pushes people into silence before their God, in recognition of his greatness and their... well, non-greatness.  Sometimes the best thing for someone is to ponder upon their place of discipline and to benefit from the full extent of it (is that possibly what turn the other cheek is about??).  I need to spend more time sitting alone in silence.  Not rushing back to wannabe ‘joyfulness’ or pelting headlong into acknowledging my forgiveness but understanding the depth of my own waywardness, and seeing how God wants to walk me from that place.

Philemon 1:1-25

The slave-thing gets the headlines in Philemon.  But there is some other stuff here that is so groovy that you could put a bass beat behind it and call it a funk.  I particularly like Paul’s prayer for Philemon that he may be active in sharing his faith so that he will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ.  When was the last time I prayed that someone else would be active in sharing their faith?  I don’t think I do it often enough.  And the reason it is such a fantastic thing to pray for people is because it is a win-win result.  When people hear about Jesus they have the chance to have light consume their darkness and hope overcome their despair.  When people hear about Jesus they can have their loneliness adopted out of them and their rage nailed to the cross.  When people hear about Jesus they can have their addictions broken and their maladies healed.  They can have their identity transformed and their futures made secure.  In short they can win.  When people hear about Jesus they can win.  But we also see here that when people share their faith with others that they win also.  When people speak about the gospel they gain a fuller understanding of what Jesus has done.  When people share their testimony they are reminded again of the good things they have in Jesus.  When people talk about Jesus it is like they expand their minds to soak up more wisdom and more revelation.  They win.  This is what is means to have grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  There is good stuff for all.  There is grace for all and peace for all. We speak about Jesus and we grow, we hear about Jesus and are saved.  No wonder it prompts Philemon to embrace his runaway slave.  No wonder Paul calls it refreshing.

Psalm 119:121-128

“My eyes fail, looking for your salvation.”  Wow - he really was super keen.  Or maybe he just knew how badly off he was.

Friday 28 October

Lamentations 1:1-2:6

It’s a little melodramatic - the Lord hasn’t acted without pity towards Judah, he hasn’t cut off every horn of Israel, his flaming fire hasn’t consumed everything around it.  There is still some hope; there is still a remnant.  But this book is a good reminder of the awfulness of being cut off from God.  It wails about the loneliness and the anguish of being thrust from his presence due to sin and rebellion.  These words are worth remembering.  Or rather the tone of these words are worth remembering.  This forlorn sense of bitterness is the fruit of turning away from God.  These are the wages of sin - death in life, just waiting for the grim reaper to come and make final the withering and decaying of the soul and flesh.  There is no life away from God.  There is no joy away from him.  Not really.  Not after the fires of the idol feasts have faded and the consequences have kicked in.  These words are worth remembering - they will help steer us closer to God.

Titus 3:1-15

Again we hear it - we were saved so that we would devote ourselves to doing what is good.  The ship has sailed, the coach has departed, the train has left the station - the goal and purpose of the Christian faith was defined long ago.  When we come to faith we buy into a movement whose purpose is set, we agree to be taken in a certain direction.  We devote ourselves to doing what is good.  If we want to debate that then Paul will listen twice but on the third time he will just throw us overboard.  There comes a time when we just need to submit, we just need to yield ourselves to God’s purpose for Christianity.  So I ask myself whether I actually do good?  What does that mean anyway?  Is getting our kids into the best school part of doing good?  Is earning enough money to keep our family comfortable?  What about being a good employee at work?  Is it getting involved in lots of things at church?  Is it reading my bible?  Well, Paul says at the start of this chapter that doing good is to slander no-one, it is to be peaceable and considerate and to show true humility towards all men.  Doing good is played out in relationships more than in activities.  Doing good is more about what attitude I have to people rather than what I do for them.  I can earn enough money to keep my family comfortable and yet I can ignore them or be harsh towards them.  I can do loads of things at church and yet slag others off or think that I’m better than them.  Doing good I think ultimately comes down to seeing the image of God in people and choosing to actively respect them for it by looking to their interests, by interrupting my preoccupation with myself to attend to them.  But I don’t have to do this on my own.  The Holy Spirit who has been poured out so generously upon me renews me and enables me to do it.  What a great relief that is.

Psalm 119:113-120

“I hate double-minded men”.  He needs to read Titus.

Thursday 27 October

Habakkuk1:1-3:19

My own strength used to be my god (1:11).  But then I realised that my god couldn’t open a pickled onion jar and it suddenly didn’t seem so worthy of worship.  Not compared to the one from everlasting.  Not compared to the one whose glory covered the heaven and whose splendour was like the sunrise.  Not compared to the one who stood and shook the earth and whose ways are eternal.  I was puffed up.  I thought my drag-net was able to provide for all my needs - to help me live in luxury.  And I was pretty good compared to those around me.  But then I realised - or God showed me - that my desires were not upright and that my gains were at the expense of others.  I was arrogant and never at rest.  So I repented.  I wept.  And in his wrath God remembered mercy.  He called me into himself.  I live by his faith now.  I’m done with self-reliance.  I stand in awe of his deeds.  The Sovereign Lord is my strength now.  And pickled onion jars aren’t a challenge for him.

Titus 2:1-15

Titus is a book about purity.  And purity comes through sound doctrine.  Paul repeats again and again that the purpose of life in this present age is to live in an increasingly purified way.  That is what Jesus gave himself for.  And Paul repeats again and again that purity comes through teaching, teaching, teaching, through sound doctrine, encouraging and rebuking with all authority.  I sometimes fear that we are losing this in the ‘charismatic’ church today.  We love to focus on grace so much that we sometimes lose sight of the fact that this life is about ever-increasing purity.  We sometimes dismiss people as legalistic who stress the need for holiness more than we like (or is that just me?).  We also have found and enjoy the hugely rich seams of ministry and worship.  We organise our meetings around celebrating them and pressing into them.  That is a huge blessing.  But it is teaching that leads people into purity.  It is sound doctrine that God uses to purify a people for himself.  It is through teaching that God makes people eager to do good.  We need to explore what teaching sound doctrines actually looks like in our house groups, on Sundays, in one-on-one conversations and we need to never let is slide away.  That is why I love the Vineyard’s focus on worship, teaching and ministry on a Sunday.  I think that is a balance of what Jesus gave himself for.  I think that will prepare us well for the glorious appearing of a great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

Proverbs 26:3-12

There’s little hope for a man who is wise in his own eyes.  But I knew that - I’m so smart that I had worked that out already...

Wednesday 26 October

Jeremiah 52:1-34

Jeremiah wasn’t kidding - just as he said, so it happened.  That is the potency of the word of God.

Titus 1:1-16

This pastoral epistle overflows with every aspect of Christian leadership.  And it could be summed up with the old Vineyard phrase “people do people stuff”.  Although Paul’s summary of the Cretans is so harsh that it makes you weep with joy that he never wrote your school report, he is just stating the bible’s opinion on people - they are naturally wicked.  So people’s minds and consciences are corrupted.  People are mere talkers and deceivers.  People ruin whole households by teaching things they ought not to teach.  People claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him.  So they need pastoring.  So they need leading.  And their leaders must be of a different order.  Their leaders should not do ‘people stuff’ but should have a knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness.  Their leaders should be blameless and hospitable and upright and holy and disciplined.  And this is possible, not because of leaders’ own abilities but because of the grace and peace of the Father has gone to work in their lives.  Leaders can live the life that is real life because of the hope of eternal life that God has promised them and brought to fruition in their lives.  This is the call on leaders - to go to work at making others sound in the faith - in helping them walk away from “people stuff” and towards godliness and holiness and doing things that are good.  This is hard work.  It involves rebuking sharply and silencing and refuting.  Those aren’t too much fun.  But it also involves encouraging.  And it leads people into purity.  It leads people into life.  And we have to do it.  Because they are God’s elect and he has entrusted them to us.  God is our Saviour.  And, through us, He is the saviour of other people too.

Psalm 119:105-112

“My heart is set on keeping your decrees to the very end.”  It is God, O it is.

Tuesday 25 October

Jeremiah 51:15-64

What an amazing man he was.  That is the only conclusion I can reach as we get to the end of Jeremiah’s words (we just have a brief epilogue tomorrow which shows how history bore out his words).  If I had been him I would have given up at the death threats.  I would have stopped prophecying when I got threw in the cistern.  I would have turned my back on my calling when I was arrested and accused of treason.  But he didn’t.  He was given difficult message after difficult message and he just kept on giving them.  He just kept of obeying God and being faithful to His desires even though it was less fun than a hemorrhoid.  But while Jeremiah deserves huge respect, it would be inappropriate to give him the plaudits.  Those belong to his God.  It was his God who was his portion.  It was his God who was not like any of these.  It was his God who was the maker of all things.  It was his God who strengthened him on his day of distress.  The Lord Almighty is his name.  When he thunders, the waters in the heavens roar.  When history is being made, it goes to His throne for its bidding.  He is the one who deserves all the plaudits.  I just can’t believe the privilege that I get to be in the tribe of this God’s inheritance.

2 Timothy 4:1-22

Jesus is the judge.  I don’t actually think about him that way very often, but Paul did.  These are possibly the last words Paul ever wrote and they reverberate and hum with the judgement of Jesus.  Jesus will judge the living and the dead.  Every effort will be rewarded.  All those long slogs in prayer, all those preparations for house groups, all those difficult conversations with friends.  All those will be celebrated by The Judge.  All that work of the evangelist, all that preaching the word to every person we meet, all that discharging of the duties given to us by Jesus - He will reward them all.  Some turn from the faith, some do not long for His appearing, some oppose the message of the gospel, some choose to love this world.  They will be repaid for what they have done.  Jesus will judge them and he will give them their dues.  And for us, as we think of his judgement.  Well we know that the Lord stands at our side.  He strengthens us in our weakness and he rescues us from every evil attack.  We do well not because of our own ability but because of his support and his strength.  He is the one in whom we trust - not in our own actions but in his action.  He will bring us safely to his heavenly kingdom.  He will help us fight the good fight.  He will help us keep the faith.  He will help us finish the race.  He will be with our spirit.  To him be glory for ever and ever.  The righteous judge, the Lord and our helper.

Psalm 119:97-104

“I have more insight than all my teachers.”  What a big head.

Monday 24 October

Jeremiah 50:11-51:14

It doesn’t end badly.  The bulk of this book has been the lifetime’s worth of rebukes and warnings that God has issued to Israel.  Even the good news has felt like bad news - encouraging people to go off into exile, to get used to being people’s slaves and to give up on their land and their temple.  But that is not how it ends.  While Babylon was victorious for a while, it is not the final conqueror.  While Israel was crushed for a generation, it will be redeemed.  Israel is being vigorously defended.  Babylon is on the way to being overthrown.  It, like all the other pretenders before and after it, is shown to be just loose change in the pocket of God.  God spends people like he wants.  And his driving motive - the pressing agenda that determines who he spends where - is to bring people into a place of rest in him.  He wants us to have peace in Him.  He wants us to find life in Him.  He wants our neighbours to have peace in Him.  He wants our neighbours to find life in Him.  That is what he is working for.  That is what the hardship is about.  He is vigorously working for our cause.  It doesn’t end badly.

2 Timothy 3:1-17

The verse is really well known.  It is a fantastic description of the scriptures.  But the context adds an extra dimension that I had not picked up on before.  It is a context of hostility.  We live in a world aggressively posed against us.  Men and women come to decry us, to deceive us and to persecute us.  There is trouble all round.  But we need not fear.  Our fortress is strong, our stance is firm.  If we continue in the scriptures then not only do we remain protected from attack but we advance.  We press deeper into righteousness, we become more thoroughly equipped.  These are beautiful words.  Like the greatest ever penknife in the pocket of a man lost in the jungle.  It has a map, it has tools to defend and to forage and to build and to clear.  It is the very provision of God not just for us to survive but for us to flourish and to build a camp and to draw others in.  It enables us to furnish them with the skills and tools they need to join the cause and to draw yet others in as well.  The scriptures are an incredible provision to us.  It’s great to be reading them every day.

Psalm 119:89-96

“Your commands are boundless”.  I hope he means boundless in what they provide rather than boundless in number.

Sunday 23 October

Jeremiah 49:7-50:10

“The people of Israel and the people of Judah together will go in tears to seek the Lord their God.  They will ask the way to Zion and turn their faces towards it.  They will come and bind themselves to the Lord in an everlasting covenant that will not be forgotten.”  This is the way out of exile.  Repentance is the gateway to faith.  It has always been so.  It ever will be so.  If we are wanting to be close to God, if we are seeking intimacy with him then weeping and seeking are the key.  We deeply regret our lack of hunger for him and we mourn our fickleness and our flight.  But regret is not where we end.  After the regret comes a voice ushering us towards Zion and we turn to its call with our eyes.  But the turning is not the end.  After the turning comes the binding.  And after the binding comes the remembering.  Real repentance is short-hand for a range of emotions; it contains a host of activities.   At the moment real repentance feels a bit like my spare room - I go in there every now and then but I couldn’t claim to know its every part; it always feels slightly unfamiliar.  But I want that to change.  I don’t want to live in exile.  And I want to tell others how to escape from it too.  I repent of my lack of repentance.

2 Timothy 2:1-26

I personally love entrusting people with things.  There is very little I enjoy more than getting alongside someone and gradually passing more and more on to them, whether it be responsibility or inspiration or material.  So this passage is really helpful for me.  It celebrates this desire to entrust things to others.  I like that.  And the passage also provides a few little guidelines for how to do it well.  It calls us (or at least calls Timothy but I think we can probably read it as having broader application) to entrust teaching to people.  This is the stuff the writer of the proverbs has been banging on about for 26 chapters - we can make others wise, we can equip them with how to make good decisions in the fear of the Lord.  That is actually a huge potential.  And so we entrust people with the bible.  We unpack it for them and open it up to them.  As well as telling us what to entrust to people, this passage tells us who to entrust these things to - we entrust them to reliable men.  While God’s grace is sufficient and mercy triumphs over justice, time and time again in the new testament we see people reaping what they sow, we see those who have been faithful in small things being the one who get given big things.  So we entrust things to those in whom God is already at work.  We bless what he is doing and work where our Father is working.  If we do that, and are willing to entrust the truth of God into people then a dynamic movement will be unleashed.  A movement that could encircle the Mediterranean and overthrow the greatest kingdom in the world.

Proverbs 25:21-26:2

If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat.

Saturday 22 October

Jeremiah 48:1-49:6

Hmm.  There is not much greeting card material here.  I just can’t imagine the local Christian bookshop doing a roaring trade in cards bearing the verse “a curse on him who is lax in doing the Lord’s work”.  Or what about “I will bring terror on you from all those around you declares the Lord Almighty”?  It’s not a common theme for the palm-cross and pictures of doves brigade.  And yet it is the word of the Lord.  The word of God is not just here to comfort us but also to challenge us.  The bible is not intended to just be a reassuring document; the literary equivalent or a rub on the shoulders.  It’s purpose is far higher than that.  The bible is an expose on God; it is a hymn of praise to Him.  Reading the bible is a continual exercise of having our faces lifted out of the slurried-puddle of sin and self-obsession, wiped down and turned to gaze on the awesome who who deserves all honour and glory and praise for ever and ever.  Sometimes that realisation - the awakening to the fact that we have been squandering ourselves on a destructive sham - can feel a little bitter.  But that doesn’t make it bad.  God issues these rebukes to us and he weeps as Jazer weeps - his heart laments like a flute.  He doesn’t enjoy our pain but he will not flinch from walking us through it to a place of purity and hope and fortune.  That is the character of our God.  Vey great is he.

2 Timothy 1:1-18

We are called to life (v1).  Sometimes the enormity and beauty of that is lost on me.  Amid the obligations and desires and confessions and consecrations I sometimes lose sight of the fact that this whole thing is about us living.  It is about us playing out in our breakfasts and afternoon meetings and brushing-teeth-before-bed the grace, mercy and peace that we have received from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.  That is an exhilarating thought.  That is a heck of a promise.  We have been saved by Jesus so that we can live the life that is real life.  It is a life soaked in the flavour of immortality.  It is a life of in-your-face power and love and self-discipline; of the gifts of God being fanned into flame and issued forth.  It is a life of suffering for the gospel and finding that that is a deeply joyful place.  It is a life of being deserted by many but being wonderfully refreshed by some.  It is a life of guarding the great deposit that has been put in us.  It is life to the full.  It is the life of eternity.  It is the life of the Kingdom of God lived out in glorious liberation and satisfaction and generosity.  We are called to life.  It’s a call I want to hear.

Psalm 119:81-88

This bloke really loved the bible.

Friday 21 October

Jeremiah 46:1-47:7

That’s got to be embarrassing.  You’ve gone around mouthing off about how something is yours.  You’ve strutted your stuff all over the place.  When other people approached you stuck out you jaw and whooped like a gibbon.  But that thing belonged to the Lord.  And he will fight you for it.  It’s the Lord Almighty who gets to have the final say.  He is the One who owns the day of retribution.  So we can’t get our own back - it’s not ours to get back.  And we don’t need to fear others getting their own back or others enforcing their will.  They may do for a while.  It may chaff a little for the duration but it’s only ever going to be a light and momentary trouble compared to the eternal glory that awaits us.  Because the last day in our history is His. The deciding vote on our destiny is his.  And his will can’t return to its scabbard and it can’t cease and be still because the Almighty is the one who wields it.  So everyone else who says they can tell us what we’re worth and everyone else who tries to make statements about us and everyone else who tries to bribe our allegiance to their next big thing.  Well, they are just going to be embarrassed.  That day belongs to the Lord, the Lord Almighty.

1 Timothy 6:3-21

When I come across verses like 6:15-16 I feel a bit like a pan-handler finding a little nugget of gold.  They nearly send me loopy.  O the greatness of God.  How could he live in a light that is so bright you can’t even approach it?  How can he have ‘might’ that goes on for ever.  What on earth could that look like?  How could it never end? I have no terms of reference for that.  There is an expansiveness and incomprehensibility to him that shudders my kidneys.  O the greatness of God.  And so of course we are content as long as we have got a bit of food and some clothes.  We know the King.  Everything else is just naff by comparison.  All the jiggerypokery of life is just an assortment of trinkets compared to the One who is immortal.  He is the only ruler.  He is King.  He will bring about what he wants to bring about when he wants to bring it about.  He is unmovable and unshakable.  So if I have him why would I be eager for money?  Compared to him it is no better than dust.  He gives life to everything and he has given life to me.  I just want to keep his commands.  Nothing else really matters.

Psalm 119:73-80

‘give me understanding...’

Thursday 20 October

Jeremiah 43:1-45:5

It makes perfect sense in the people’s mind but they are dead wrong.  It was what Paul was talking about in 2 Corinthians when he says that the God of this Age has blinded the eyes of people.  They think they have done the maths.  They are convinced that they have worked out that it is the incense to the Queen of Heaven that is missing.  If only that stinky offering was still around then the algorithm would work and the money would start rolling in.  Forget this nonsense about the Word of the Lord.  Forget these promises of coming trouble.  Forget all the pleas spoken over and over again by the prophets of God.  We have the secret, we know what we are doing and you are just coming to try to restrict us.  It is no surprise that the same is said by many people today.  It should not shock us that people react violently to Jesus and say that Christianity is an out-moded concept.  They eyes are blinded.  Their maths is wrong.  Their algorithms are leading them to tragic loss.  We need to pray and keep on speaking the word of the Lord.  We need to plead with God that he knocks the scales from their eyes.  We don’t want people to die in Egypt.  Pour out your mercy O God.  Bring people to repentance, bring them to life and real hope in your name.

1 Timothy 5:1-6:2

Loads of hugely significant verses here.  The harsh words reserved for those who don’t care for their family (5:8) are a massive challenge to me to always order my priorities God-family-ministry in my life.  But what I think is really freeing for people in this passage is the revelation that Timothy suffered from frequent illnesses and that Paul told him to start drinking a bit of wine.  What I really like about this is that Paul doesn’t tell Timothy to get more prayer ministry or to increase his faith or anything else that a lot of super-spiritual people have said to me over the years.  There is a lot of nonsense spoken about sickness and healing, and I think a lot of it comes from an inadequate understanding of the now and the not yet of the Kingdom.  We live in the now of the Kingdom; we live in a time where healings come.  We pray for people and fully expect that the awesome creator God will heal them.  But we also live in the not yet of the kingdom.  We suffer from frequent illnesses and we rely on a little wine to soothe them rather than prayer to remove them.  We do both-and.  So we know that a lack of healing need not be our fault.  And if people start telling us it is - if they start pointing the finger of accusation and speak about our lack of faith we can just ignore them.  We could even pour ourselves a glass of wine and raise it in a toast to their greater blessing.

Psalm 119:65-72

Learning God’s decrees is worth a bit of affliction.

Wednesday 19 October

Jeremiah 40:7-42:22

Don’t be a Johanan; don’t second-guess God.  It is something we all have a propensity to do and I am foremost among us.  We come to God and say “whether it is favourable or unfavourable, we will obey the LORD our God... so that it will go well with us”.  And we really mean it.  But then the LORD says “remain in this land” and it just doesn’t sound like the ‘radical’ call to obedience that we had started to set our hearts upon.  And if we truly examine our hearts we will realise that we had started to believe that what we really needed was not obedience to God but a change in circumstances - not pressing in but moving on.  I have found this to be a huge hindrance in my faith.  This has been a major sin of mine that I deeply mourn.  It is, at root, a doubting of the goodness and the power of God.  It makes us think that what we really need (and therefore what God must be really calling us to) is a move of church, a new home group, a new house, a different job, to get married or to get divorced or a hundred other things like that.  And most of the time they are us second-guessing God, us putting words into the mouth of God that we want Him to repeat back to us.  But he doesn’t do that.  He is not like that.  And that is why community is so important.  The bible makes it clear that we can find Jeremiahs in every church today.  The Spirit pours out expressions of the grace of God to equip and build up the church, and one of these expressions is prophecy.  Prophecy - the direct voice of God into our situation - is crucial for us if we are going to stop second-guessing God.  And prophecy is only really found in community.  So let’s press into community and let’s eagerly desire the gift of prophecy.  Because we don’t want to end up like Johanan.

1 Timothy 4:1-16

There are some verses in here that are so good you could put them in red pants and a cape and people would call them a super-hero.  4:4 is enormous in its scope.  4:8 could inspire a life-time of value.  Verses 9 and 10 are obviously important because they are flagged up in Paul’s little way “here is a trustworthy saying...”.  And there are many others.  But I want to focus on 4:13 because I think it has something prophetic to speak into the broader church today and, possibly, into SWLV.  “Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of scripture, to preaching and to teaching”.  I fear that preaching and teaching and the bible in general is in danger of being maligned today.  I fear that we have begun to think that being Spirit-led will walk us away from sermons and that being Spirit-filled will lead us to worship rather than the word.  I believe that Paul and Timothy and - yes even Jesus himself - would doggedly stand against that.  Right alongside a reference to a ministry time that seems to have changed the life of Timothy, Paul commands him before any other corporate activity to read the bible and to preach.  And so while we must follow the call of the bible and continue to make space for the giving of prophecies and the laying on of hands and sung worship we must take especial care to keep the bible foremost and teaching primary.  Is that what we do in our house group?  Is that what we do in our Vineyard Kid room?  Is that what we do in our life?  The bible is what leaders are called to promote.  Because it is the Spirit-inspired, Spirit-filled book of life.

Proverbs 25:11-20

Am I missing something or would you actually want an apple of gold?  Surely you’d just break your teeth on it?

Tuesday 18 October

Jeremiah 38:1-40:6

Well he had warned them.  And goodness me, I think we all know quite how many times he warned them.  God through Jeremiah had done everything possible to communicate to the people that they were headed for doom - we have had to read about it for 38 long, long chapters.  And yet the only reaction the people made was to shove Jeremiah down a cistern and threaten him with death.  Even King Zedekiah had had the reality of his situation spelled out to him as clearly as a bramble in the eye.  But he had not taken it seriously.  So as Jerusalem falls (as Jeremiah said it would) Zedekiah watches his sons murdered and then has his eyes cut out.  That is what we are dealing with in this book.  The bible is not a nice guide to life.  It is not a heart-warming tale about love and goodness.  It is the decider of our destiny - or at least it is the words of the one who is.  This book cannot be played with.  It cannot be ignored or patronised or stroked and put in a corner.  It must be taken on board.  It must be digested and then applied.  Because if it is not then people end up dead.  It is as stark and as brutal as that.  We are not at liberty to dilute or marginalise the strength of the call of this book.  It can crush nations.  But, on the staggeringly wonderful flip side, if the bible is heeded and if we do follow its words up to the One who spoke them then we do find extravagant wonderfulness.  The bible can usher us into never-ending awesomeness.  

1 Timothy 3:1-16

Leadership is biblical.  Leadership is based on a proven character.  It is amazing how many of the broader church’s problems are based on a swaying from one of those two statements.  We should all cheerfully blow our vuvuzela in championing leadership.  There is nothing better than following someone who is above reproach.  There is huge inspiration in following someone who is worthy of respect.  It is so liberating and exciting and empowering to be under the authority of one who holds to the deep truths of the bible and who has been tested and shown to have nothing against them.  Leadership was what Paul whistled around the Mediterranean appointing and anointing.  Leadership was what Paul planted his churches upon.  Leadership was what Jesus established with his disciples and is what the Christian church has prized and promoted ever since.  To lead is a fine thing.  To lead is a noble thing.  

Psalm 119:57-64

You are my portion, O Lord

Monday 17 October

Jeremiah 35:1-37:21

Burning the scrolls - it’s a powerful symbol.  Jehoiakim’s contempt for the words of his God is deeply shocking.  How could he have been so audacious?  How could he have been so blind to the judgement he was heaping up on himself?  And yet, when I think about it, I realise that I do a very similar thing all the time.  I come to read the word and hear challenges to my life-style, I hear calls to care for others and to stretch out my hands to the poor.  I hear calls to sacrifice my desires and to take up my cross.  I hear calls to repent and truly believe in the awesome provision of my Saviour.  And then I close my book and carry on with my life, jumping back into the rush and rubble of the day as if I’ve not read anything at all.  So often I don’t address the issues raised by the book, so often I don’t carry the words of God around with me during the day, so often I allow my focus to return to me and my little world rather than my neighbour who the word calls me to love.  I may not be physically throwing the pages onto my parents’ wood-burning stove but I might as well be - the effect is nearly the same.  So I do really repent today of when I have lived like Jehoiakim.  I know I deserve to be in exile; I deserve to be cast away from my God.  But I am so deeply grateful that he chooses to show me mercy and he allows me to come back to him today.  His desire is always to forgive wickedness and sin.

1 Timothy 2:1-15

I don’t know what to do with verses 11-15.  But I mourn the fact that they are the verses that get all the attention in this chapter.  For the first few verses are so  barn-stormingly brilliant that they could get a standing ovation several times over.  I love the fact that God is called Our Saviour.  I know its a phrase we’ve heard time and time again but I really love the fact that a defining feature of the One who holds time in his hands is that he is saving us.  And I love the fact that his desire - when it could be so fixed on the beauty of the stars or the expansiveness of space or the iridescence of His own being - is for us to be saved.  God spends time thinking about and longing for all kind of people from all kinds of places to come to Him for cleansing and healing and empowering and loving.  God actively chooses to fix his attention on ‘them out there’, desiring that they will discover what their life is really about.  And as people who love our God and who want to become like him there is a clear call to action - to lift up holy hands in prayer; to pray for everyone.  Paul sees us coming to the throne-room of our God and gazing upon his splendour and seeing his compassion for the nations and being drawn into that compassion through prayers, intercessions and teaching the true faith.  And so we pray for our work-colleagues and our neighbours and our bosses and our politicians and whoever else we come across.  We lift them up to God in prayer, pleading for their eyes to be opened to His goodness and their ways to be conformed to his will.  It is a magnificent call.  O Jesus please help me live it out.

Psalm 119:49-56

“You have given me hope”

Sunday 16 October

Jeremiah 32:26-34:22

Singleness of heart and action (32:39).  If you added something about beauty or satisfaction then that would be about the best description of holiness you could get.  And under the new covenant that is what we are given when Yahweh is our God.  The Lord Our Righteousness, the righteous branch came and performed the most astonishing heart transplant that the world has ever seen.  When Jesus died on the cross he fulfilled Jeremiah’s promise by effectively ripping out his pure, unadulterated heart and offering it to all of us to place in our chests.  This heart that delighted in the word of God and which had never known any form of rebellion is the heart that now forms the core of our being - that is what it means to live ‘in Christ’ - we have a heart that continually pushes us in the direction of God.  Our hearts, for all the remaining vestiges of our wicked self, is good.  Our heart can be trusted when it is bathed in prayer and soaked in the Spirit and yielded to the fear of God.  And if we are ever unsure, or if we want to help others discern what would be good for them then we can come back to this idea of singleness.  Pure hearts and good hearts have one defining goal - getting closer to Jesus.  Does this desire make me more like Jesus?  Will it bring me closer to him?  If not, we can just let it slide.  But if so, then let’s pursue it like crazy.

1 Timothy 1:1-20

I don’t think Paul was a cockney.  Or at least I’ve not yet seen the verse where he calls Jesus his gov’nor.  So when he calls Timothy his son I think it was more than just a generic term that he’d learnt down the market.  It was a statement.  It really meant something both to him and to Timothy.  These whole letters are potent challenges to my disconnected, boundaried approach to church-life and ministry.  Paul saw Timothy as his true son in the faith.   He invited Timothy into his life like he was the fruit of his loins and the heir to his estate. Paul was deeply committed to Timothy.  He had huge affection for him.  He was willing to spend himself and give himself to see Timothy advance.  And this is such a potent challenge to me because I have to ask myself who is my Timothy?  Who have I really invited into my life?  Who are my true sons in the faith?  The closest I seem to get is to treat a few guys like distant cousins - I send them SMS every now and then and then run into them at family gatherings (church).  But I want to move beyond that.  I want to carve out time to treat people like sons.  I believe that is spiritual leadership.  I believe that is the kingdom.  I believe that is the calling of Jesus.

Psalm 119:41-48

God really has unfailing love for us.

Saturday 15 October

Jeremiah 31:15-32:25

Worse than Gordon Brown’s decision to sell our gold at 1/4 of its current price, worse than all the poor souls who ploughed money into Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme and worse even than all the banks who thought they would invest in sub-prime mortgages,  Jeremiah’s decision to buy the field at Anathoth was a true abysmal investment decision.  The title deed to the land meant absolutely nothing; it was just another patch of dusty grass that the Babylonians were ravaging and were about to plunder.  Their siege ramps were about to take the city.  Jeremiah would be lucky if he would ever see the land, let alone live or work on it.  Jeremiah had completely wasted his money.  And we are called to copy him.  Jeremiah saw a land going into exile; he saw a land effectively destined for destruction and yet he spent his own laboriously-saved cash on buying it.  All around us are people going into the exile of hell.  All around us are people effectively destined for destruction.  We have cash that we have laboriously saved.  We have resources that we would like to invest in all sorts of high-interest schemes.  And yet the Lord calls us to waste it on these people.  The Lord wants us to pour our resources on them and to declare “The Lord Almighty says there is hope for you in the future”.  It is ludicrous.  But it’s what He did for us.

2 Thessalonians 3:1-18

Settle down and earn the bread you eat.  Paul has waxed lyrical about the majestic riches of the coming kingdom.  He has urged the Thessalonians to continually consider the approaching glory and to encourage one another with what is ahead.  So why does he have to go and spoil it by becoming so this-worldly all of a sudden?  Surely Paul should be encouraging us to spend our days gazing glassy-eyed at the distant clouds pondering the beautiful perfection of the heavenly realms rather than lugging stuff around to earn a bit of cash.  Hasn’t Paul read his own letter?  But, interestingly enough for Paul a focus on eternity is itself a drive to good living in the present.  Paul sees a strong tie between how we live now and what life will be like in eternity (maybe he’d watched Gladiator and picked it up from Russell Crowe).  His highly enhanced awareness of his future caused him to want to earn his keep now, to be a provider for people rather than a receiver from people.  Paul saw huge value in his canvas business as a beautiful reflection of the beauty of the Age to Come.  He wasn’t trying to escape for it or apologise for it - he was encouraging others to emulate him in his labour.  Most of us spend most of our time working.  Do we see that work as an unspiritual thing?  Or do we see it as an act of worship, a robust and beautiful reflection of the attractiveness of our God?

Proverbs 25:1-10

Oh, so that’s where Jesus nicked his idea about choosing the lowest seat at the banquet.

Friday 14 October

Jeremiah 29:24-31:14

He has plans for us.  Are you afraid?  Don’t be!  Are you dismayed? Take heart! He is with us and he will save us.  He will restore us to health and will heal our wounds.  Our broken hearts and our wounded souls will be nurtured and restored by Him.  He will have compassion on our houses and he will rebuild our communities.  He will cause us to shout in joy and celebrate our abundance.  He will draw us close to him and we will gaze upon his everlasting love.  He has placed us on the winning side, he will lead us into the land of bounty, into his well-watered garden, and we will congregate there surrounded by the hubbub and clamour of a great and diverse throng.  This is not an individual hope reserved for those times we sit alone looking morosely into the gathering dusk, no this is a community’s hope, this is a nation’s hope, this is seething mass of people’s hope that clings to us like lycra throughout every moment of the day.  We are part of something massive.  We are in a dynamic movement of all kinds of people from all kinds of centuries who are called by God and are being walked by God towards his loving-kindness and ‘the heights of Zion’.  It’s time to dance with joy.  It’s time to take up your tambourine.

2 Thessalonians 2:1-17

Streuth, there are a lot of words in this passage that I’ve only ever seen before on wackoapocalypse.com (I don’t think that website exists but you get what I mean?).  All this talk about rebellion, the man of lawlessness setting himself up over everything and counterfeit miracles just sounds so far from my daily experience of faith.  But the incredible thing is that Paul had only spent about 4 weeks with the Thessalonians and this was the sort of stuff that he told them about (2:5).  This stuff about the End Times was basic routine fayre for the early church - how have we let it slip to the lunatic fringes today?  We need to claim this stuff back.  We need to start talking about ‘the splendour of his coming’.  We need to start grinding this stuff about ‘The Day of the Lord’ into our daily walk.  We can’t just leave it up to likes of The Left Behind series to inform people’s judgements about this (peace to Tim LaHaye).  This is the stuff that helps us stand firm in the faith, this detail about the mechanics of our future salvation is what we are called into by the gospel.  So we need to turn to Jesus and God our Father who love us and who are seeking to encourage us and give us hope - they are the ones who can strengthen us in all our understanding of this, and in every good deed as well.

Psalm 119:33-40

“Teach me, O Lord, to follow your decrees”.  Opening the word and kneeling in prayer need to go hand in hand.

Thursday 13 October

Jeremiah 27:1-29:23

Showtime.  The battle of the heavyweights - Hananiah the glorious showman, the smasher of yokes and the loyal servant to the promises of Abraham, and Jeremiah - the wailing moany-guts who constantly speaks against his land, his people and even his own birth.  They circle each other and land tit-for-tat blows until the wailing one wanders off on his way.  But then wait a minute - ding ding, round two - and this time it’s all Jeremiah, landing blow after blow, insulting both Israel and then its champion.  And then, 60 days later Hananiah is dead.  Killed by the Lord for unqualified rebellion.  But the interesting thing for any onlooker must have been that Jeremiah looked like the rebellious one.  Jeremiah was the one who was insulting the covenant of Abraham and Jeremiah was the one who constantly spoke against Moses.  It must have been a serious shock that it was Hananiah, and not he, who was killed.  So what do we get from this today?  Simply that we need to live on today’s bread and not keep regurgitating yesterdays manna.  God desires daily relationship and constant responsiveness, not rigid observance of historic rules.  We never compromise on the bible but just reading the bible is not enough, we need to use it as our springboard into relationship with Jesus, and the menu for our meal of God.  Just doing what some other bloke told us to do is the way of Hananiah.  Remaining constantly attentive to the dynamic and contrary words of God is the way of Jeremiah, it is the way of life.  

2 Thessalonians 1:1-12

So here is the doctrine of heaven and hell.  But the wording leads us (or me at least) a little distance from the traditional concepts.  On the one side is everlasting destruction and a shutting out from the presence of the Lord.  There is a lot of debate over whether the destruction is everlasting in its duration (ie people are constantly being destroyed for ever - the traditional idea of hell) or everlasting in its effect (ie it happens in a few moments but can never be overturned - the idea of annihilationism).  I personally prefer the latter but don’t really care that much - either way it ain’t good (If you are bothered, Packer has written an interesting article on it http://www.the-highway.com/annihilationism_Packer.html).  What does get my juices flowing is the flip side of the coin - the achingly beautiful image of what is in store for us who are in Christ.  He will come to be glorified among us.  He has plenty of glory already in heaven from the Father and the Spirit but he chooses to let us share in that, in the most captivating and soul-soothing worship time that we will ever, ever know.  And we will be allowed to just marvel at him in a way that will super-exceed any pleasure we have ever derived from epic views or beautiful works of art.  And that will just be the start.  Who knows what pleasure-filled stratosphere we will go into from there.  And I say we because you are going to be part of it along with me.  I know you are, because you have believed the testimony of God’s word.

Psalm 119:25-32

“I run in the paths of your commands for you have set my heart free”.  I love that image of rampant, energetic, exhilarating obedience.

Wednesday 12 October

Jeremiah 25:15-26:24

Gulp.  No wonder they wanted to murder Jeremiah - he has been banging on about the same thing for so long now that even I’m beginning to reach for the kitchen knife.  I know it is not his fault - he was only doing what the Lord was calling him to - but it is getting more than a little boring.  Things do perk up tomorrow though with the explosive letter to the exiles that starts in chapter 29.  I’m afraid that the phrase that most caught my attention today was God saying he will put the wicked to the sword (25:31).  It is not a verse I’m going to get cross-stitched onto my wall but I guess I do need to embrace the sentiment of it.  It seems to attribute to God a brutality that I rarely engage with, a finality that I choose not to dwell upon.  But God is the dictator of everyone’s destiny and he is the most wise and generous God who will never treat anyone unjustly.  Therefore I want to try to celebrate his brutality - because it is a brutality for good; a ruthless and relentless pursuit of beauty and purity.  God will put the wicked to the sword and we will all be better off for it.

1 Thessalonians 5:1-28

Again we see Paul talking about the return of Jesus and saying “therefore encourage one another”.  It seems to be one of the biggest holes in my faith - I so rarely think of Jesus coming back and, when I do, it is with a sense of confusion rather than encouragement.  But that was not the way of the early church.  No matter what questions they had about the coming end - and they had a lot - they continually received the rallying cry - this is going to be an amazing thing, this is something to look forward to, this is something to seek.  I worry that I have become so attached to the here and now that those words just float over my head.  But I don’t want them to.  I want to think of the return of Jesus and be strengthened in my faith.  I want to think of the coming judgement and, rather than feeling a little bit sick, feel my soul soaring in anticipation of hearing Jesus say to me “well done my good and faithful servant, come and live with me!”.  Maybe this lack of enthusiasm about the return of Jesus ties into a general lack of certainty about our standing in Christ, our purity in him and the certainty of our call.  But Jesus did die for us and when he comes back it is to bring us closer to him, not push us away.  And that is something deeply, deeply encouraging.  It’s time to start celebrating His long-promised return.

Psalm 119:17-24

“Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law”.  Haha it’s great to see he struggled waking up for early morning bible-study as much as I do!

Tuesday 11 October

Jeremiah 23:9-25:14

God judges people.  Just to write that statement feels like I’m intentionally wrapping myself up in a huge spider web and tinkling the cord to beckon the tarantula.  I might as well be saying “please whack me on the head with a tennis racquet”. Judgement is just such an unpopular concept today that we go to great lengths never to speak of it.  We like to hold back on making definitive statements and we talk about journeys and things being ‘difficult’.  And while that all can be fabulously helpful for us as we relate to one another we have to always maintain the fact that God judges us all.  God looks at every single one of us and calls some of us good and some of us bad.  It is as black and white as that.  But before we leap into Dante’s inferno, it is worth checking out Jeremiah’s baskets of figs.  God does see some people as good and some people as bad but his judgement is not based on human terms and is, in fact, quite shocking.  The dividing line for people was not whether they were living in the promised land or offering their sacrifices at the temple or paying their tythe to the priests.  It wasn’t about how many good things people were doing.  The diving line for God between good and bad was determined purely by whether people had tried to obey His call to go into exile or whether they had ignored it and tried to doggedly cling onto their own fortunes in Israel.  The judgement was on how people had responded to God, not about how much better they were than each other.  And - get this for a head funk - those who God judged to be good were actually the ones who were in bondage and despair.  The prisoners and the deportees and the slaves and the displaced were the ones who God saw as good, not because of their impoverished status but because they were willing to become poor for the sake of obeying Him.  God will judge us all and he will reward those who pay the price for him.

1 Thessalonians 4:1-18

And so we will be with the Lord for ever.  That is a phrase worth repeating over and over and over and over.  That is a phrase so monumental that I want to tattoo it on my soul.  I want to exude it with every pump of my lungs and every beat of my heart.  Whatever life looks like now, no matter how beautiful or how savage, it will all fade into nothingness when He comes.  Never mind about this cloud image and being caught up in the air - N T Wright has written really insightfully on this if you want to explore it further - what is really being rattled out here is the defining hope of the early church.  That all the saints will go marching into the kingdom of Jesus to join him reigning over his flawless eternal paradise.  Whether we die or remain alive, whether we are ugly or beautiful, knackered or full of beans we will be swung into his victory parade to dance arm in arm with people from every century and nation and people-group and culture.  And he will be over us all and close to us all and fulfilling us all and smiling at us all.  Let’s encourage each other with this thought.  Let’s encourage each other with these words.

Proverbs 24:23-34

“An honest answer is like a kiss on the lips”.  I’ll remind Lesley of that next time she wants my opinion on her outfit.

Monday 10 October

Jeremiah 21:1-23:8

It is always helpful when the bible says things like “is that not what it means to know me?” (22:16).  It feels like the Hebrew equivalent of a highlighter pen and double underline.  And so we find today that knowing God means defending the cause of the poor and the needy.  Now this is particularly directed at the king of Israel so might need a little application.  The king of Israel was charged with shepherding the whole flock of Israel.  As a king it must have been so tempting to focus on the movers and shakers of Israel, on those who could cut you a deal and drop you a nice favour.  As a king it must have been so easy to spend time with the rich and the important, looking to the GDP figures of your country and ensuring that the bold and the brilliant had enough space to expand and excel.  If you as the king benefitted from this surge in your country’s fortunes, well, that would be just what you deserved for your excellent leadership skills.  But the Lord wanted the king to look to the poor, to the marginalised and the sick.  The Lord was less bothered about Israel’s GDP than the degree of Israel’s justice, the extent to which Israel took care of its weak.  We all have spheres of influence.  Some of us at work, some of us at home, some of us in our neighbourhood.  What is our priority in these places - our success or caring for the struggling?

1 Thessalonians 2:17-3:13

What really counts in the faith?  What is it that will bring us glory in the presence of Jesus?  It is not how many books we have read or conferences we have attended or how long our quiet times have been.  It is people.  It is saints who we have edged up to and prayed for and put and arm around and spoken words of encouragement to.  It is believers in Jesus who we have mourned with and rejoiced with and built up in the faith.  It is the people we have chosen to befriend and give our lives to for their growth and their maturity.  It is house-group and prayer groups and people we have spoken to at coffee on a Sunday.  When Jesus comes back all the work we have done for others in the spiritual realm will suddenly be exposed like UV rays under one of those special glow lamps.  And people will walk up to us and say “thank you so much for praying for me that time”, “thank you would helping me understand a bit more of who Jesus was”, “thank you for challenging me about my addiction and my sin”, “thank you for helping me become a Christian”.  And it will be a source of huge huge joy for us.  We will see the work that the Lord has done through us and it will be like a sparkling crown we place on our heads.  Building others up - that’s what really counts in the faith.

Psalm 119:9-16

I’ve often asked that question - How can a young man keep his way pure?

Sunday 9 October

Jeremiah 18:1-20:18

Oh dear.  It seems Jeremiah’s mental state has dropped about as low as Barry White’s voice.  I suspect it was the clay jar smashing incident that really tipped him over the edge.  All that broken earthenware must have been quite a harrowing sight, especially when you know you’ve got to point at it, look at your friends and say “that’s you that is; that’s what God’s going to do to you”.  But that is the reality of relationship with this Mighty Warrior.  You can sometimes find yourselves in a head-lock and you wriggle and you beg and you wriggle some more but you haven’t got a hope of breaking his hold.  When the Lord Almighty has got a lock on you, you just have to let him him crack on. Jeremiah moaned that everyone ridiculed him all day long and his friends were desperate for him to slip but the truth was that he was better off in that place.  People hated him but God had his back.  People wanted to harm him but God wanted his good.  It was better for him to have the word of God burning in his heart than the fire of a false altar flickering at his hands.  God has to be obeyed.  But his directions - while tough - do lead us to life.

1 Thessalonians 1:1-2:16

They served God and waited for his Son from heaven.  I think I’ve blogged a lot about serving - obeying God, serving one another, looking for ways to show care to the world.  So I’m grateful for this nudge in the other direction - for a push towards waiting.  I want to be both-and person, serving God with all I’ve God but also waiting for Jesus in as full a sense as I can.  Waiting I think is about looking forward but it is also about more than that.  I think waiting is where faith really kicks in - it admits that we do not decide our own fate, that we rely on another for our destiny.  Waiting is an act of trust and waiting is an abandonment of control - it is in Jesus’ time that he will come, in his way, when he decides.  I am just a grateful recipient of all that he will choose to bring to me.  In that sense I think waiting is almost a form of worship - it is placing trust in Jesus that he will come and get me; that he won’t leave me hanging like a child forgotten after school.  And in that sense I think waiting is probably a way of living - an attitude more than an activity.  It is a slant towards reliance on another and grateful expectation of good thing I could never earn.  I want to press into this.  I want to wait for Jesus more, while I continue to try to serve.

Psalm 119:1-8

“Do not utterly forsake me”.  Goodness, I would usually set the bar for my prayers slightly higher than that.