Worry

I tell you not to worry about everyday life. Matthew6:25

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. John14:27

I worry. I wasn’t always like this, but as time passes I find more in this world to worry about. To be more accurate, it’s the effect this world has on my family, and as a Grandparent I have family at various stages of life from my oldest child, to my youngest grandchild. I have heard it preached that worry means a distrust in God’s ability to handle your problem. I know God can handle anything and everything in His own time and in His own way and by His own choice. Basically, that’s my worry. God’s timing, and what if He decides not to step in? Or God does step in, but the offer of help to change is rejected through free will?

I am very Blessed in that most of my family are Bible believing, Jesus accepting Christians. I said most, and although that’s good, it’s also my biggest worry. I tend to do the ‘what if’ routine in my mind and that’s not a good thing on any level. Oh, I am not on my own in worrying, because today’s world is a very different place from what it was in my youth. I believe teenagers today have much more to deal with, and there are so many pitfalls and temptations that were not so apparent just a few decades ago. It’s a matter of scale.

There are more readily available drugs of choice from the ‘party/soft’ to the hard stuff. And talking about the hard stuff, alcohol in copious amounts is a right of passage for the student. It is so easy to get lost in the devil’s maze of fun, and the lie is swallowed so well and so easily by any unsuspecting young person who just wants to have some fun and enjoy themselves. At the centre of this maze is a broken life of shattered hopes and dreams. It is so much harder to find your way out of that maze, than it was to get in.

If you recognise any of this lifestyle in your loved ones, whether family or dear friends, perhaps you can understand why the only safe place is in the Saviour’s hands and arms.

Friend or Friendly?

A friend is always loyal, and a brother is born to help in time of need. Proverbs17:17NLT

I can look back to a time when I didn’t want, or need any friends around me. I had brothers in Christ that I counted as friendly and would have responded or helped if I had asked them. But I didn’t need them. Then my wife died and everything changed.

It’s easy to gather friends and followers if you are on any of the social media sites. Some in the younger generation put great store on their friend count because it is important to have someone you can call a friend, and the more the merrier it seems. Sadly these bonds are shallow and do not reflect real or true friendships. But how do you test if someone is a true friend because there will come a time when you need to know as I did.

The tests are obvious, but are only confirmed and found in times of stress, trouble, or need. In my case being left alone, but I had an advantage because around me was a body of believers, some of whom had been where I stood now. In fact, the bigger truth is that the family of God is greater than your local church, and that is what I found. I confess to being surprised at the open willingness to help and support in any way possible, and I should not have been surprised at all. All those sermons about brotherly love, and the love of Jesus were good to hear and welcome at head level, but now the heart was involved.

Real friends are always loyal, and come what may, will be there when you need them. The truth is they were always there in the shadows just like the Saviour, I just didn’t know it then, but I know it now and I am thankful for my friends. To my real friends, true friends, loyal friends who stepped up in my time of need, I say simply Thank You!

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 1John4:7NIV

Too Late?

I think a confession is needed, and I must come clean. If I don’t do it now, I might never be able to muster the courage again. As an explanation, this ‘thing’ didn’t happen to me overnight. It took ages for me to be aware of my failing, and even then only slowly. I called it a failing, but is it? Really??

The human body grows quite slowly compared to other species on our planet. As each phase comes and is replaced by the next one, we accept the changes as necessary. We dare not go into our teen years looking and thinking like a toddler. And similarly, our ageing bodies are not as strong and cannot react the way we did in mid life. By the time we are in the ‘end of life’ phase, we do not even remotely resemble our baby self. This is progress. It’s life, and we embrace it.

Why do I not embrace the changing faith years in the same way? The baby and toddler years when proper teaching was made in simple forms, followed by the teen years when the meat of the word was essential, and outreach performed with ease. The mid life years brought a crisis of the questioning heart, not to doubt but to learn because we never want to stop growing. By the time we reach the ‘end of faith’ years, we try to grasp at the younger times when everything was simpler and easier. Salvation was contagious and churches were full with people being reborn into the Kingdom almost without effort. Simply put, I want to go back.

Here’s the problem with my analogy. Everyone born starts at the same place in growth and progress, right through to our end of life phase. Then the cycle always restarts without change and growth is guaranteed. However, the faith years are not treated in the same way. Our ‘progressive’ church leaders seem to want our successive years of growth to be constant and without repeat. Or to put it another way, each generation at their faith birth, should start where the previous generation’s end of faith years left off. Using this as a model of church growth is it any wonder that we fall short? That kind of growth cannot be sustained in either the human being, or the faith model.

My confession about being too late is this: Do I keep running on the treadmill of artificial church growth, or should I let my faith journey be what it is supposed to be at each stage? If I stay on the treadmill, the progressives will applaud, but will it grow my faith or that of my church? On the other hand if I get off the spinning wheel I will be branded as a dinosaur and no one wants that. What do you think? Is it too late to stop the treadmill and get off? At least that would be good for my blood pressure. Perhaps it might not be a bad thing to be a dinosaur after all! Another, and better question is: Can, or should we even try, to reinvent the gospel or is it fine the way it was originally given for all ages and for all time in the Bible?

One of the dictionary definitions of ‘dinosaur’ is “a person or thing that is outdated or has become obsolete because of failure to adapt to changing circumstances.”

Now What?

It’s not the way I would have wanted it, but my friend of many years was in the hospital Intensive Care Unit having suffered a serious and very unexpected heart attack. I visited when I could, but wanted to make sure his wife and family were not crowded out during visiting hours. I had known Brian since Primary School and Sunday School, and in those early years we were inseparable. As sometimes happens, life steps in and although we stayed friends, we didn’t see each other as much outside of the very occasional church service at weddings and funerals etc..

We were regular church goers, but nowadays only just. Unlike the old days when we were a fixture in serious faith and attendance. Now we were what is called ‘nominal Christians’, but the seed had been sown and we both knew “the way” to the Father’s heart. Brian was in a small room of four patients, each one in ICU and getting the best treatment, but it was evident in all the beds lay a man, suspended between life and death. Unfortunately for the other patients, and even the staff, one of the needy was an ‘aggressive atheist’ and he was very vocal about there being no God, and if He existed, He was never any good to him. He blamed everything on God from his occasional cold, to the serious circumstances which brought him to this hospital ward, and everything in between.

Brian never could suffer fools gladly, but anytime I was there, he remained very composed and quiet, and only responded quietly when a barb was directed straight at him. One night I was putting some fruit into his little bedside cabinet when I noticed a small Bible. That took me right back to the times we would talk endlessly about our faith in Jesus Christ and how much He meant to us. As I left the visit to allow Brian’s wife to spend the last part of the time with him, I could still hear the other man shouting at God, and swearing at anyone who looked like they would listen. The noise followed me down the corridor and only stopped when I got into the lift.

Maria called me early next morning with the news that her husband had passed away, quietly, peacefully, and surrounded by his wife, family and the old, now retired Pastor whom we respected and who had helped to lead us to the salvation that only God can give. Maria confided in me the last words of her husband. He had been talking and praying with the old, saintly Pastor, and Brian told him with a broad smile that he prayed for the first time in years. “I just said I’m sorry God, would you please forgive me”? While this was happening, the aggressive atheist’s life was ebbing away too. He died cursing God with his last breath. Now my question remains: “Now What?” Is the sinner’s prayer ever too late? Does this remind you of anything in another place and time?

One of the criminals hanging beside him scoffed, “So you’re the Messiah, are you? Prove it by saving yourself—and us, too, while you’re at it!” But the other criminal protested, “Don’t you fear God even when you have been sentenced to die? We deserve to die for our crimes, but this man hasn’t done anything wrong.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.” And Jesus replied, “I assure you, today you will be with me in paradise.” Luke23:39-43

Memory

God is able to do much more than we ask or think through His power working in us. Ephesians 3:20 NLV

It was heartbreaking to hear a widow friend say of her husband who had died some years before, “I’m so afraid I will forget what he looks like”. She said this because there were tell tale signs that her memory was fading slowly yes, but surely, and it worried her heart. She recognised that her mind was failing. Her fear was real!

God is not like that because He will never forget us or our love for Him. But it goes deeper and better for me anyway. No matter how we see God now, in all His glory and power, it doesn’t come anywhere close to what He can, and will, do in us. That’s whether our mind is alert or frail and failing.

No matter what we think about God’s love, His love is greater. Whatever we think about His power, He is more powerful still. If we think we know His forgiveness, God’s forgiving Spirit is far greater and for everyone. The phrase is worth repeating: God is able to do much more than we ask or think. When our weakened mind starts to fail us, and sadly we don’t recognise our loved ones, take comfort in the sure and certain fact that God remembers His own. Always, and forever, time without end. Amen and Amen to that simple truth!

God remembers those who suffer; he does not forget their cry. Psalm 9:12

TV Freedom

They say that freedom comes with responsibility, but I don’t see much, if any responsibility shown on TV in the UK, and that horrifies me. As a nation we are buying bigger and bigger TV sets, LED, LCD, OLED Curved screen, 4K, Widescreen, and Cinema with surround sound, so please don’t try to tell me we are watching less media now beamed into our homes and lives.

I constantly hear the words, TV content is rubbish, and the truth is I have said it too. Do you think TV programs reflect our society, or promote life as we (would like to) see it around us? After a hard day, and our evening meal, we like to plop ourselves into our favourite chair and be entertained, filling our heads with anything and everything that is shown for our viewing pleasure. And there are many channels to choose from, so we are drawn into the bright, coloured, strobing lights of the small but getting ever bigger screen.

Think about it for a moment if you can pull yourself away from your program. We are being openly fed just about everything that’s wrong with society, and we accept it as escapism entertainment. So we end up tacitly condoning dramatic and graphic displays of rage, shouting, swearing, partner swapping, sex scenes, adultery, homosexuality etc, and many of these before the so called 9 O’Clock watershed. Do you really believe that censorship (if applied at all) is working to our advantage?

We are feeding our children a diet of TV programming which promotes as acceptable, every lifestyle which is contrary to normal moral decency, and that is without mentioning any Biblical or religious overtone. Is it enough to turn the channel when the scene has already been shown? Is it enough to switch it off, only to turn it back on later when the kids are in bed? Some people might go as far as to call that hypocrisy. Ouch. The rule is simple. If you can’t watch the TV program or movie with the kids, then don’t watch it at all.

Extremism

We hear a lot about extremism in the news media, and it always refers to a form of hard Islam. It is called extremism for good reason, and rightly so. That kind of religious mindset has resulted in the loss of many innocent lives, and their only ‘sin’ was to hold differing views from the man holding the sword, who is all too ready to use it to end life. In fact life itself is not seen as precious and is used as a bargaining chip as they pursue their own ends. This is their faith, and no one will move them from it being right. In fact, theirs is the ONLY right way to interpret and use their so called holy book, they say.

Can I be controversial? If not, stop reading now and go no further. I notice that there are some within the Christian Church who see themselves as the keepers of the true gospel, and who will discuss, debate and argue with anyone who might see things differently. Oh deaths do not happen, at least not physically. However, what do you call it when a young tender life is deterred from ever thinking about taking Christianity seriously? That could be considered as a worse death, because it is eternal.

We know about those who promote ‘aggressive atheism’ and we don’t like them or their attitude. In a similar way, the ‘aggressive christian’ would never see themselves as doing the wrong thing, and would not hold themselves responsible for souls being lost. But they are misguided, and souls are being lost. There may be a way to counter this kind of approach, and that is to stand between them and the souls they put at risk. The thing is, the true message is as simple as it is effective. Show love. Real love. Unconditional love. After all, wasn’t it love that took Jesus all the way to Golgotha to die for us on the cross? We may not have to die to prove our faith, but we can show love. We ALL must, and should show love.

All people will know that you are my followers if you love each other. John 13:35

Protest

“The lady doth protest too much” is a line from the play Hamlet, by William Shakespeare. So what is it doing in a Christian blog?

This phrase is typically quoted to suggest that someone is strongly denying something or hiding the whole truth,or to imply doubt in another person's sincerity. It can become obvious when a Christian deliberately becomes very vocal against something or someone, and you can easily see that there is some insincerity being expressed. A simple example are those adolescent expressions that you really don’t like that girl because she annoys you, when it is evident to all around that you really, really like her a lot! The speaker thinks they are covering their feelings, but no one is convinced.

When we repeatedly go on and on against the same people or things, we risk being seen as insincere. We also come across as shallow, not being able to see that there may be some value to someone, to that “false teacher’s” life and work. We become good at picking out the faults in other people, but not noticing our own, or worse still thinking that our sins are less significant to a Holy God which gives the green light to being ‘the judge of all’. That title is already reserved by God as recorded in Genesis 18:25 where it says: Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?

Shakespeare highlighted this flawed character trait in his play around 400 years ago, and the issue is as important today. He was showing a very human flaw, but we can see the direct parallel to the life of some very vocal Christians around us. Maybe the solution is to be less outspoken about the faults of others, lest we ourselves are seen as protesting too much. Put simply, Jesus said, “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, Let me take the speck out of your eye, when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

It is worth noting the one that Jesus said had the sawdust in his eye, and the one who had the plank. Remember it this way, ‘the Pointing Person has the Plank’. Our Saviour calls it right!

Anxious?

When I said, “My foot is slipping,” your unfailing love, Lord, supported me. When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought me joy. Psalm 94:18,19

Thankfully, anxiety isn’t the end game for us. We have the assurance in God that our sorrow can turn to joy as it is recorded for us in John 16:20 when Jesus says “Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy.” Isn’t that a wonderful promise, and from the lips of Jesus no less!

It’s a short step from anxiety to worry or even depression, but I think that other short step to joy is preferable. Joy is that deep, inner, settled peace and not a happy clappy cheery fixed smile condition when our life is in turmoil. Yes, we all get anxious about so many things, but with the Lord as our helper, it doesn’t need to slip backwards into worry. No, we can have joy instead when we place our faith and trust where we know it needs to be, with our Saviour who faced the cross to give us abundant life, as He told us in John chapter 10 and verse 10 where He assures us: I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

Confidence

So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. Hebrews 10:35,36 NIV

In our youth, we feel that we can take on the world, and nothing will be able to get in our way. But as we get older, we start to realise that our confidence ebbs as we find out that there are some things, no make that many things we just can’t do anymore. It’s a stark truth and reality, and something we can’t change.

This verse gives me some comfort because the rich reward is not limited only to those who have boundless confidence. For me, the key word is not ‘confidence’, but to ‘persevere’ doing the will of God. Then, and only then it becomes certain, that we will receive God’s promise.

However, there is a serious note of caution. I started out to say that our confidence can ebb, and that is true as life affects us, but we are warned ‘do not throw away your confidence’. As with many things in the Christian life, we have choices, and here we have a choice to make too. If our God given free will allows us to throw our confidence away, thus losing the promise, we must also have that same free will to retain our confidence! With the strength given by God, we have the certainty of receiving the promise of God. What could be better than to be in the will of God, and in His favour?