Sunday 7 August

1 Chronicles 24:1-26:19

There is a lot of gristle in this but I find it interesting that positions were chosen by lot.  Actually, I guess it is more correct to say that the final decision was made by lot as the criteria of being a Levite had already been used to screen the majority of Israel out.  Drawing lots was an ingenious way of making sure that bribery, bias and bigotry did not factor in the appointment of leaders.  It cut out all the human factors that might lend people to choose certain people over others and left the decision squarely in the hands of God.  We don’t cast lots these days.  Which makes it really tricky to ensure that we are truly following the desires of God and not just our own whim or pre-disposition.  But I don’t hanker for those ways of old.  It is in the leaning into the Spirit, it is in inclining our ears to his whispers that we find intimacy, and we all become better leaders than we would have been.

1 Corinthians 3:1-23

He certainly knows how to get you reaching into your wardrobe for a spare pair of underpants.  “The fire will test the quality of each man’s work”??  “His work will be shown for what it is”??!!  “As one escaping through the flames”??  Were these meant to be words of encouragement?  Were they meant to make us feel good about our faith?  Well I think they were actually meant to be words of rebuke to a people who had got all tied up with the appearance of things.  The Corinthians had got fixated on the status they thought they derived from whichever particular denomination they thought they were part of.  Some thought Paul-followers would receive the richer rewards at the end of the age, some thought it would be the Apollos-followers who would be most favoured.  Paul wanted to slap them back into a real recognition of things - we don’t get status in the kingdom or riches in heaven based on a particular teaching we follow or a particular flag we wave.  What matters is what we do for God, not who we listen to.  This wasn’t warning people that they had to work harder in order to keep their salvation - it was warning them that they should focus on bearing fruit for God, not getting one-up on their fellow believers.  There are a lot of flags waving in the church today.  Lots of conferences we can attend or teachings we can listen to.  God can probably be found at all of them.  But they are worse that useless if people do not leave them to go and build more and better for Jesus.  If we go to these things and come back more critical of church and more dispirited with the believers around us then we should just stop going.  We are of Christ.  We are part of his holy workmanship.  We were saved, and are called to work.  To co-labour with Christ in building the kingdom.  That is far more exciting that any piece of merchandise.  It is far more life-giving than any 3-day retreat.

Psalm 92:1-15

“They will still bear fruit in old age”.  There is little I find more exciting that an old fogie still doing great stuff for Jesus.

Saturday 6 August

1 Chronicles 22:2-23:32

Does the word “micro-manager” come to mind?  The Lord has clearly told David that he is not the one to build the temple but somehow David still finds a way of preparing all the material for the temple and of appointing all the various Levites to their roles.  If I was Solomon I might have felt a little miffed, or at least a little patronised.  But, then again, if I was Solomon I might also have felt slightly pleased with myself that God was going to establish the throne of my kingdom over Israel for ever.  I can’t help feeling that in all of this David has just slightly departed from the word of the Lord.  If the Lord says ‘don’t build the temple’ surely he means ‘don’t prepare the material for the temple’ either.  And as we saw a couple of days ago, the Lord did not say that Solomon would be the one whose kingdom would be established for ever - he said it would be a son of David - and we all know that it was David’s immediate son but his great-great-great-etc grandson Jesus who actually fulfilled this promise.  I’m not trying to have a go at this great man of God.  Rather, I feel I see in this episode so much of myself.  I’m so quick to think I know what the Lord is and isn’t saying and then to rush on ahead with my interpretation of the next appropriate action.  But often this is wrong.  Often my interpretations include me over-stepping the boundaries that the Lord has set for me and anointing someone else with something that the Lord just has not got for them.  “Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands” is what Paul said to Timothy and I think there is great wisdom in that for me in more than just the appointment of leaders.  Generally learning to be still, to wait, to check my thoughts and mull over what the Lord may be saying is something that will do me well, and will avoid a lot of additional difficulties.

1 Corinthians 2:6-16

“We have the mind of Christ” - and it is a good job too because without it we wouldn’t have the foggiest of what Paul is talking about here.  Even with the mind of Christ this passage is slightly baffling.  I think Paul is basically expanding upon the argument he made yesterday - that we are not wise or impressive people but rely wholly on the wisdom and the power of God.  He expands that by saying that while we are unimpressive in human form we don’t just lie flaccid on the rock of God, gibbering like imbeciles and acting like the intellectually inept.  Rather, as we stand on the rock of God we receive from God deep insight, penetrative thought and startling spiritual judgement.  God gifts to us, weak and foolish as we are, a treasury of knowledge and truth.  We can, as it were, think about the world like Jesus does.  This is a pretty momentous statement.  This is an incredibly motivating promise.  We may not be very good at philosophy.  We may not be very good at answering difficult questions.  We may not be hip or on the crest of the cultural wave.  But we do have God’s secret wisdom.  We have understood the thing that has destined us for glory.  We have the mind of Christ.  And it is a glorious, exhilarating journey to explore it, to understand it and to glory in it.  We stand on the rock of God.  And the rock of God is changing who we are.

Psalm 91:9-16

The devil’s favourite psalm.

Friday 5 August

1 Chronicles 19:1-22:1

Hold up.  No mention of Bathsheba, no mention of the murder of Uriah the Hittite, no mention of the rebellion of fancy-locks Absalom? This is like the bible’s version of the South Beach diet - life with all the interesting bits cut out.  The 20 year gap between the close of chapter 20 and the opening of chapter 21 may have been intended to spare David some blushes but, sadly, he crushed too many lemons in his latter years to be completely spared any bitterness.  Why did things turn so sour for David?  He had a heart after God, he wrote sublime poetry about his yearning for his Lord.  He said things like “I will not sacrifice a burnt offering that costs me nothing” and “let me fall into the hands of the Lord, for his mercy is very great”.  In so many ways he was a spiritual rock-star.  And yet he sinned so majorly that 70,000 of his people were put to death for it.  How could this be?  Well the writer of Chronicles identifies the cause of David’s problems as Satan.  Never before in this whole book has that name been uttered.  In Genesis we read of a deceiving Serpent and in Job of a great Adversary but not before was the name Satan used.  Satan tempted David into a great sin of pride, into trusting his future to the increased number of his fighting men rather than to the provision and protection of his God.  And, when Joab gave David the opportunity to recognise his sin and to relent, he chose to pursue it anyway.  I can’t quite work out what would be today’s equivalent of counting the fighting men in Israel.  Would it be counting up our savings or keeping an album of all our live’s achievements?  I just don’t think that is it.  But it could be both of those things if they lead us to self-reliance and pride and a sense that we can do this thing on our own.  Above all things I think this passage urges us to be cautious and to be alert to the work of our Adversary.  After all, even spiritual rock-stars can fall.

1 Corinthians 1:18-2:5

This isn’t about success.  It isn’t about prestige and esteem.  It’s not about sharp suits and brilliant books and incredible sermons and astounding music.  It’s not about mankind’s achievements or any form of human impressiveness.  The point is not that they look at us and stand in amazement.  The point is not that the church gets acclaim.  We are weak.  We are lowly.  We tremble and we fear.  But we do know Christ.  We do know him crucified.  We do know the Spirit’s power demonstrated among us.  Faith should and could never be based on our own nobility or influence.  Faith should and could never focus on our own wisdom (or lack of it).  That is to entirely miss the point.  That is like thinking that a boat has the sea stuck to the bottom of it or that a bird has the sky all around it.  The boat floats on the sea.  The bird flies in the sky.  We rest on the power of God.  We rely on the wisdom of God.  His wisdom makes our greatest minds look foolish and his strength makes Geoff Capes look like Mr Muscle.  Our faith has never been impressive.  We were not called to be impressive.  People won’t come into the kingdom because they are impressed with us.  They will come into the kingdom because they see the power of God at work within in.  We won’t grow in the faith by doing impressive things.  We will grow in the faith by having God demonstrating his wisdom in us.  He is the great one.  He is the impressive one.  Our job is to remain aware of our foolishness and, in doing so, we will point to his wisdom.

Psalm 91:1-8

“He will save you from the fowler’s snare”.  Oh no.  I’ve never been worried about a fowler’s snare before.  I don’t even know what one is.  Oh Lord, thank you that you will save me from these terrible sounding things that I don’t have a clue what they are.

Thursday 4 August

1 Chronicles 16:37-18:17

God is completely amazing.  More than 800 years before the birth of Jesus, God is outlining his plan for him coming.  He is the son who will have his kingdom established.  He is the one who will build a house for God and whose throne will be established for ever.  He is the Son who’s throne will be established for ever.  If you think about it, there is no real point in God speaking these words of prophecy to Nathan - it’s not as if he or David are able to do anything about it.  But it is a sign of God’s love for his people, his desire to share his secrets with them and to inform them of his intentions.  God loves to have relationship with his people.  And, for us, it is interesting that the two defining features of Jesus reign will be his intimacy with his Father and the fact that it will go on for ever.  We have see one of these come to pass - any of us who have spent any time in the gospels will be well aware of the tightness of the relationship between Father and Son.  But are we so alert to the eternal nature of Jesus’ reign - that he is reigning now and will be until the end of this earth?  I know we could probably write it down in a doctrine test but I wonder how much I really believe that Jesus is ruling over and shepherding his people right now.  Do I really live in submissive reverence to him, trusting that he is the boss, that he has a plan, that he knows what should be done and that all I need to do is to look at him and do what he says?  

1 Corinthians 1:1-17

Sanctification.  There’s a word that rolls off the tongue.  Sanctification.  Ooh, I like the sound of that.  I can’t remember many books I’ve read on it though.  I don’t think we’ve done much on it in house-group.  Not in the positive, almost triumphalist way that Paul talks about it here.  But sanctification is nothing less that we have received from Jesus.  And it is nothing less than we are called to by our God.  In church today, really pushing ourselves to be holy is often associated with legalism or with ‘being a pharisee’.  But I think that betrays a lack of understanding of what pharisees were and what the gospel is about.  We are called to be holy.  We are empowered to be blameless on the last day.  Just the thought of that is extraordinary.  And so Paul starts his letter to the Corinthian church by expounding this extraordinary, radical thought - do not tolerate sin.  Do not shrug your shoulders and turn a blind eye to the practice of sin among you.  Do not feel slightly smug that you are part of a church that is so ‘with it’ that it is filled with issues.  Rather, fix your eyes on where Jesus wants to take you.  Work hard to agree with one another.  Work hard to remove any sense of faction and try to become united in mind and thought.  Not because that is what saves us.  Not because that will look good to others.  But because that is what the cross of Christ was about.  Jesus died to present a holy and blameless people to his Father.  Sanctification is a critical part of our faith.

Proverbs 19:3-12

“It is to a man’s glory to overlook an offence.”  

Wednesday 3 August

1 Chronicles 15:1-16:36

Ahhh.  How refreshing.  This has got it all.  Reverence, diligence, adoration, a sense of privilege, a sense of awe.  And then, at the end, a token of the Lord’s love for all his people being given out in the form of cakes (some fragments of this passage suggest that Krispy Kreme doughnuts were also provided but this has not yet been substantiated).  Worship should be a dramatic event.  A huge summoning of the energy and resources of the people to be lavished at the throne of the King.  It should resound with splendour and majesty, it should reverberate with glory.  It should focus on the attributes of God, with all God’s people ascribing to him the strength and the glory that he is due.  It should be defined by us bringing an offering to Him, by us trembling, worshipping, giving thanks and rejoicing.  It is all about Him.  He should be the sole subject of it.  And then, perhaps at the end, perhaps at the closing verses there is space for some appeal to the God who loves us.  Once we have acknowledged the splendour of his holiness and his enduring love, then perhaps we could cry out to God to save us.  Sure there is intimacy in worship - ecstatic and life-changing intimacy with our heavenly Father, but it is intimacy directed towards him, not towards us.  I fear that in some quarters of the broader church worship is considered to be for us as much as for Jesus.  People talk about prophetic worship and stop during worship slots to speak words of teaching or comfort to the congregation.  I love that we want to hear from God and I love that we want to encourage one another but when does He get His time?  When does He get to be the exclusive centre of attention?  When do we - the simple, sinful recipients of His grace - acknowledge before Him that He is God, and we are not?

Romans 16:1-27

Good old Phoebe, flying the flag for women in leadership.  The NIV calls her a servant but I think the common word would be “deacon” or what we would call.... hmm, what do we actually call those sort of people in the Vineyard?  I guess we’d call her Phoebe.  Or maybe Ma’am.  One thing is clear though - that Phoebe has been foundational for the church in Cenchrea and hugely influential all across the early church.  Women have always been critical to the advancement of The Way.  And so have hard workers.  It’s interesting how many people in this list of greetings are listed as ‘working very hard’ or ‘working hard’ or even ‘risking their lives’.  Church was never meant to be confined to Sunday morning activity.  Church was about showing hospitality, making journeys, hosting meetings, spending time in prison, building loving relationships, caring for each other, supporting one another, supporting the apostles and greeting each other with holy kisses.  Church was about working hard.  Churches were a vibrant hub of 7-day-a-week activity and community.  And it was a community that overlapped and extended across hundreds of cities around the Mediterranean.  This took huge amounts of effort and took its toll on many in the congregations in terms of their finances, energy levels and lack of privacy.  But Paul speaks the words of God here when he expresses his deep gratitude and appreciation to the individuals who have been willing to knuckle down and get on with it.  God is deeply pleased when we work hard for his sake.  Many in SWLV do huge amounts of work, much hidden and much never called out in a letter that all will read.  But the Lord sees it.  And he writes all these things on His heart.  He will repay all people abundantly for even the smallest thing they have done for him.

Psalm 90:11-17

Sometimes life is tough.  And God is the one to turn to in these times.

Tuesday 2 August

1 Chronicles 12:23-14:27

It’s always trouble when you get something second hand.  It’s as if David has looked up “Ark of Covenant” on ebay and found some bloke in Kiriath Jearim was doing a collection only deal on it.  But, when he got halfway back he discovered that some bits were missing.  And they were pretty crucial bits.  They ended up causing a fatality.  But David can’t just blame the previous owner.  The strangely redundant two gold rings on either side of the Ark should have given the game away as soon as David saw the Ark.  His research into Exodus 25 also should have alerted him to the need of two long poles of acacia wood that must never be removed from the Ark.  But David seemed to be strangely ambivalent about such things.  He seemed to think he could come up with his own way of transporting the Ark. Maybe he thought he was doing God a bit of a favour.  Maybe he thought God would be so pleased that someone was finally paying some interest in Him that He wouldn’t care about His Ark being treated in a slap-dash way.  But, he misjudged his God.  He failed to grasp the unapproachable holiness of Yahweh.  David hadn’t properly understood the inexplicable privilege of even being able to think about the Lord, let alone touch him.  This passage calls us to check our own selves.  Are we still feeling as privileged about all this stuff as we used to be?  Do we mirror David’s slap-dash approach?  Are we being diligent in our observance of what he is calling us to do?  But the passage also gives us a huge bit of encouragement - any family who does manage to have the Ark of God with them will be blessed in every way.  The presence of God in a household will bring huge and rich peace and life and hope.

Romans 15:14-33

Paul said he had the ‘duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit’.  What a fruitcake.  What a ludicrously grandiose claim. Paul’s talking about changing the lives of millions of people and doing something so significant that even God himself is affected by it.  Surely he is suffering from a slightly over-indulged ego?  Surely he is yet another small man with a Messiah-complex?  Well, the early apostles didn’t think so.  They saw Paul’s claim as being in tune with the common understanding of the early church - that followers of Jesus were ‘priests’.  That followers of Jesus were not just to be worshippers of God but also rescuers of men.  That followers of Jesus had all been given a God-ordained status as administrators of God’s blessings to those who did not yet know Him.  As full of braggadocio as it sounds, the early believers were fully convinced of the immense potential of every single human being.  I think we need to reclaim this idea.  I think it needs to smash up much of the insecurity and uncertainty that surrounds Christians today.  It could revolutionise our approach to life.  OK, Priest is now a slightly jaded term - perhaps ‘chaplain’ would be more helpful - but the idea remains as potent as ever.  We have been called, trained up and equipped by God to go and meet all the people we normally come across in our day and to bring grace and hope to them in Jesus.  And we have been empowered to be effective in this.  Jesus will accomplish things through us and he will bring people into glorious, freeing and joyful obedience to God.  Paul’s ambition was to perform this role as dynamically as he possibly could.  I want that to become my ambition too.

Psalm 90:1-10

“Lord, you have been our dwelling-place throughout all generations.”  Hmm.  I’m not sure I’d say I actually dwell in God.  I need to spend more time in prayer....

Monday 1 August

1 Chronicles 11:1-12:22

“If you have come to me in peace, to help me, I am ready to have you unite with me”.  That was what David said to any old bloke who showed up at his doorstep.  And it had remarkable results.  Barely any of the 30 hail from the same tribe as each other.  Quite a few are from Israel’s expressed enemies (Moab etc). This gang surely could have featured in an ancient-time-equivalent of a United Colours of Beneton advert.  I wish the same was true of the church today.  I think a lot lies in David’s understanding of the word ‘unity’.  When he says he will unite with anyone who comes to him in peace surely he is more welcoming and more open to any sort of person that I tend to be.  But also, surely his call to them goes far further than I would normally go.  He doesn’t just say he wants to be their buddy.  He doesn’t just want to put his arm round them and sing “bind us together Lord” while watching the dying embers of a moody camp-fire.  No.  David calls them to join him in his purpose of extending his rule over the whole territory of Canaan.  The unity is one of purpose, the bond is formed around the challenging will of God.  If as a church we pursue God’s will, if we welcome anyone who comes to us and challenge them to join us in straining every sinew to do the same, then, day after day, we will see people coming to help us until we have a great army, like the army of God.

Romans 14:19-15:13

We are in the edification business.  And what does that mean?  It means one of our primary tasks is to help others in the church to overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Nit-picking isn’t likely to promote hope.  Nor is isolationism.  Sunday mornings and small group meetings are about us trying to find ways to encourage the people who sit next to us; about trying to build them up into a greater level of hope in Jesus.  This does not rule out rebuking and correcting.  These things can be huge imparters of hope into someone’s life if they are done in the right way and at the right time.  But it does mean that our primary currency is encouragement.  Our most common interchanges will be calling out of someone what we see God doing in them.  Our instinct will be to tell each other how Jesus is for them and can overcome any problems they find themselves in.  Our desire will be to say simple words of hope to the people around us.  In many ways it sounds naff.  In many ways it sounds mundane.  But it has a really huge impact, with eternal consequences.  We must never underestimate the power of giving each other hope.

Psalm 89:46-52

“O Lord, will you hide yourself for ever?”  That’s an interesting question.  But who was hiding in the garden of Eden?