When Strength is Beautiful and Beauty is Strong

You, dear readers, have probably all seen this clip already since, unlike the 0.1% of the population, which includes hippies, monks, eco-boffs, legalistic religious whackos and me, you own a TV, but thanks to wonder of YouTube, and a friend posting this on their social network, I did a little catching up.



As an aside, did you spot the idiotic irony of calling the clip Evolution. There is nothing Darwinian-ly random, accidental or natural about having a flurry of people purposefully scurrying around to transform you from plain Jane into Venus-like Vera, (although I must admit in my prejudice, the name Vera doesn't sound very Venus-like to me! ;-)

In it's so-called wisdom, our culture has tried to divorce just about everything from its source in Christ, including notions of beauty and strength. Beauty is vanity unless it springs from Christ-like reverent holiness. Strength is vanity if it isn't, merciful, just and self-giving like Jesus.

Beauty and strength only finally make sense when they are cross-shaped.

Remember that (and this) the next time (you nearly cycle into a lampost/crash your car/walk into a fellow commuter because) you're gawking at someone who has caught your eye for very shallow reasons.

Our problem is we are far too easily pleased.

The Forgetfulness of Fervour Vs. The Fruitfulness of Faith

If you're like me, you can fall into the trap of thinking the following:

Display of fervour = Faith.

In this thinking, the most important thing in life is to hype yourself up about stuff and make sure you are around those who do the same, but that is not the view of Jesus the master.

We can fool each other (and ourselves) most, if not all of the time if we are all complicit and gullible enough, but God knows the heart. He is not interested in ostentatious displays of devotion per se. Through the Son and in the Spirit, he is in the business of birthing and nurturing a new humanity. One which lives by the obedience of faith.

A famous Old Testament king called Saul, had fervour by the bucket load with the best of them, but his life ended in doom and should serve as a sober warning to all who confess the name of Christ, not to fall into the same trap; starting well but finishing worse than we began.

That is not to say that there should never be great displays of devotion or fervent prayer or that spiritual gifts are not for today, (they most definitely are imho :-). Like a jealous lover, Jesus has no interest in flaccid and lukewarm devotion from his beloved. Moreover, Jesus was not known for being a quiet little church mouse. But it wasn't his volume that got the attention of his Heavenly Father, nor his ability to stir up a crowd, it was his reverent obedience.

As I blogged recently, whose eyes are you looking to grab in the doing of it? What is the outcome of your life? Do you go away from times with other Christians, times of reading your Bible challenged but unchanged? (If so, may I humbly suggest that your Christianity is more about flattering yourself than it is about faith in Christ). Or has God birthed something new in you that (being nurtured in continual private prayer) results in new expressions of the eternal life into which you have now been caught up? It might not be be clear to you which of those that is until some time after.

It takes a while for the seed to bear its fruit. Some seem impressive for a time, but then the cares/pleasures/pains of this short life close in on them and they fall away from their original expression of devotion to Christ, irrespective of how fervent that first declaration was.

The wrong kind of fervour looks good, but all it does is puff up the ego without nourishing the spirit (yours or anyone else's). The right kind of faith loves, exalts and honours Jesus Christ, nourishes the soul and blesses the world.

It is this kind of faith, the only true kind,which leads to godly action, irrespective of our outward displays of fervour, temperament or circumstance that we should prayerfully pursue at all costs.

Monday Merriment

The following video was recently brought to my attention by one of my chères collègues.

It's just a bit of fun, but beware... the syncopated rhythms are catchy! :-) You might find yourself, as I did, singing it as you pop to the shops or stack books or shave or shower, or peel carrots...!

Eyes Not Lies

I'm not sure I've ever heard any Christian preacher say it, but looking back, I've found myself in the bizarre place where I feel I need to lie to cover up good deeds so as to avoid falling into the sin of pride. It stems from (among other things) a misapplication of these words of Jesus.

The theory goes (in my head it worked) that if others find out about some good thing I've done, God will vindictively remove all heavenly reward that would have otherwise come my way for the deed in question. This then leads me into a loony declaration of all kinds of half truths and/or outright lies in a misplaced effort to guard my heavenly treasure.

I have come to realise this is dumb and ridiculous because:

1. It flatly contradicts Jesus' other words that he spoke only a few minutes earlier.
2. It leads me into sin, a guilty conscience and split personality thinking, because it justifies the use of lying and propagates that age old religious myth of sin points. You know, the one that says it's ok to commit a small sin (lying) in order to avoid either committing a bigger one (pride) or to avoid compromising the value of your New Creation Real Estate in the world to come!

However, when Jesus spoke those words, he was aiming at these kinds of people.

The question is not who sees you, but whose eyes are you craving? Are you craving the attention of your peer group, or the approval of your Heavenly Father? If it is the former, you have had your reward. What you wanted was the praise of men and you've got it. Well done you! You grow 10 feet tall when they compliment you, and look down your nose at others' shortcomings from your great spiritual height.

But if it is the latter, then like Jesus, you will simply go about your Heavenly Father's business. If people see, so be it, if they don't no problem.

For Jesus, his sole motivation was his love for his heavenly Father. For those who have come to abide in Christ and picked up their cross, the motivation is exactly the same and more.

So the next time someone asks you how much money you gave away or how long you are fasting for; feel free to tell them if you want or to say: "I'd rather keep that between me and God," but don't feel any obligation (like I did for a long time) to play it down and lie about it, for quite apart from anything else, we'll all eventually find out anyway.

A New Season is Sprouting

Above are some of the people with whom I've had the privilege of doing "Lifegroup" for the last three years. We have just multiplied into two new groups. Half coming with me and half going with Rachel, a new Lifegroup leader.

We've met in each other's homes on a Thursday evening to worship the Living God together, read the Bible and pray together, and encourage one another along the highway of life that leads all people to the Judgment Seat of Christ.

Not all the people who were with us over that time are represented above. We had 34 different people (not including kids or random "one-time wonders") with us over that three years. Many moved on due to career/life circumstances and/or because God called them to something exciting and new. They are all remembered with affection and we prayed for them as well as ourselves at our last meeting together as we looked to our Heavenly Dad to continue to guide us into the future.

I feel a bittersweet mix of emotions of a kind that I guess a parent must feel, when he sees his kids leave home; pleased that the normal healthy patterns of life are taking place, but grieving the loss of having a close regular connection with people who have become so dear.

And yet, I look forward with anticipation to a new season. To seeing new expressions of God's immeasurable grace at work amongst us as a new lifegroup and to continue plodding the highway of life in the company of some yet-to-arrive new faces as well as some of the well-established and loved ones.

On Subverting the Present World Order

The following documentary is both chilling and compelling evidence that, despite all its efforts to clean itself up, humanity in its essential fallen rebellious state against God, is far from the Hollywood Happy Ever Afters and no better than any other animal.

There is no hope for humanity outside the cross of Jesus Christ.

You and I can only be in one of two categories. We are either part of a fallen humanity, rejecting the offer of life from Jesus Christ and, along with the rest of the herd, spiralling down from one degree of shame to the next. Or we are part of the renewed humanity, receiving the life of Christ through the Holy Spirit and being changed from one degree of glory to the next.

The foundation in the former humanity is the (occult) will to power, the foundation in the latter is the love of God. This love, the world neither knows nor understands, but to those who are being saved, it is the greatest news of all.

It is also what makes the gospel of Jesus Christ totally subversive in nature. The plot-line of history is not the rich vs. the poor nor the literate vs. the illiterate, nor male vs. female, nor white vs. black, nor Jew vs. Gentile, nor the modern vs the primitive, nor the lucky vs. the unlucky, nor even the hard-working vs. the lazy, but those who have been united to Christ and those who in their insane scrambling, despite all the loving calls of the Spirit, refuse to be.

But receiving this love is not without cost to personal pride and selfish agenda. To come to the tree of life is to come to the cross of Christ, they are one and the same. To be grafted into the vine is to be crucified with Christ. The wild olive branch can only bear fruit once it has been grafted into its new olive tree and so start to bear a new kind of fruit. So too, the life of Christ can only truly flow in a person, once they have been crucified with him.

The life of the Christian then is not like any other. It's marked by joyful submission to, and participation in, the life of God and is motivated in all things by the self-sacrificing love that they meet in the true and living God of the Bible. Christians are not to use the methods of the world to subvert the current world order as they wait for the Appearing; things like shows of power, leading people by the nose and using their fallen fears/desires to motivate them and the like, but rather by love: open, obedient, Calvary-shaped love.

Escape the madness and coming Judgment. Come home to Jesus.

Echoes Actually

Embedding of this video (1min 10secs) has been disabled, otherwise, I would post it.

It's a wonderful reminder that deep down, we were made and long for a world that is not driven by the survival of the fittest, but by love.

Whilst we're having a pretty good go at erasing it completely, the image of God in Mankind is ultimately unsuppressible. I thank God that Natural Selection is not the final word on human existence. Jesus is.

My prayer is that if you ever end up at the church of which I am privileged to be part, (or any church for that matter), it will feel like nothing more and nothing less than coming home.