In Christ Daily – Day 3
He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
Colossians 1:17
Thought of the Day:
The word ‘before’ typically implies a time reference. God existed before everything was created, in other words, God preceded all creation. The Greek word can also imply prominence or pre-eminence, suggesting that God is above all creation in time, place, rank and purpose.
But God is not separate from creation. The God who imagined and spoke the universe into existence, is one of us, is one with us. God in Christ holds and sustains us and is as close as our next breath. The good news of the Gospel is that Christ is inside creation, sustaining it, caring for it, loving it. Jesus came as a human being to dynamically show us the character of God and how committed God is to us.
Action of the Day:
Stop throughout the day to consciously breathe. With each breath in, imagine God’s life-giving presence sustaining you, giving you life. As you breath out, let go of the stress and strain you are carrying and consciously anticipate another fresh breath of God’ presence.
Prayer of the Day:
Life giver and sustainer, I acknowledge that you are closer than my next breath. Your life is pumping through me as continuously as my heart beats. You have known me from before the foundations of the world, and you love me with unending love.
In Christ Daily – Day 2
For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.
Colossians 1:16
Thought of the Day:
All creation is sacred because Christ is the centre of all that exists—everything was made through Him and for Him. This includes all the natural world and every person who has ever lived. There is no separation between sacred and secular because God created everything through and for Christ.
Action of the Day:
Today I choose to see God in everything around me, therefore I will treat everyone and everything with love and respect knowing that Christ is the centre of all things. Take a moment to reflect on this amazing statement.
Prayer of the Day:
Help me to see you in everything I do and everyone I meet. I believe that everything that exists is created and sustained by you, but I often struggle to live in that awareness. Give me fresh insight to see you in the cold drizzling rain, the unexpected schedule change, or the frustrated person in the car behind me.
In Christ Daily – Day 1
The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
Colossians 1:15
Thought of the Day:
Jesus Christ is the first born of all creation, which means we all carry the spiritual DNA of God; we are the Imago Dei, the image of God.
If we want to know what our Heavenly Father looks like, we only need to look at Jesus. His words and actions show us what God is like making Jesus the best image of our Heavenly Father. We don’t have to live in doubt about this invisible God because Jesus came to show us God’s nature and character. God loves us so much that He doesn’t leave us to speculate about his nature – Jesus shows it to us.
Action of the Day:
We are all created in God’s likeness, so today I will try to live with the awareness that every person I meet carries the DNA of God.
Prayer of the Day:
In the busyness of the day, I often forget to look at you, Jesus. Remind me throughout the day that you are the best image of God that I will ever see. Open my eyes to see your image in everyone I meet.
Love on the Battlefield
These days the wolf of opinion is often disguised in the clothes of news. Much of what we consume is shaped more by media ideology than by a balanced presentation of the facts. Politics is perhaps the most obvious battleground where … Continue reading →
Pentecost, Old and New
As I write this blog, we are approaching the celebration of Pentecost which occurred 50 days after Jesus’ resurrection. It marks the launch of the fledgling church when the promised Holy Spirit filled the 120 people in the upper room.
It’s easy for us non-Jewish Christians to think that this was the only celebration in town, but the Jewish Calendar also celebrated the Feast of Weeks which is seven weeks (50 days) after Passover. The Hebrew festival, (Shavuot) dated back to the time of Moses and was the harvest festival celebrating the first fruits of the wheat harvest. Shavuot later became the celebration of when Moses received the 10 Commandments on Mount Sinai, acknowledging the giving of the first covenant.
There are some amazing parallels between the Jewish Shavuot festival and the Christian Pentecost, all of which serve to show how God has been revealing Himself throughout Jewish history.
Spiritual Symbolism
- Shavuot reveals God’s Law on Mount Sinai, Pentecost reveals God’s Holy Spirit on Mount Zion.
- The first brought Law on stone tablets, the second brought Law written on human hearts.
- God’s presence on both occasions was evidenced as fire, wind.
Historical Parallels
- People Gathered: At Mount Sinai and from all nations at Jerusalem
- Audible Phenomena: Thunder and a loud trumpet blast at Mt. Sinai and a mighty rushing wind in the upper room.
- Visual Phenomena: Fire and smoke on the mountain, tongues of fire on the disciples
- Result: Fear and distance resulted in 3000 deaths at Sinai, but joy and closeness with 3000 saved when Peter preached his first sermon.
Theological Significance
- Foundation: The old covenant was the creation of Israel and a nation of God, and the new covenant was the birth of the Church as the body of Christ.
- Access to God: The Old Covenant was by the law, but the new covenant was by faith in Jesus and the empowerment by the Holy Spirit
- Mission: The old covenant focused on the land, whereas the new covenant is to the ends of the earth.
- Limitation: The old covenant was national, with ethnic boundaries, but the new covenant is inclusive of all people (every nation under heaven).
The Old Testament Pentecost (Shavuot) commemorated the giving of the Law to Israel—a national, external covenant written on stone. The Christian Pentecost commemorates the giving of the Spirit, inaugurating a universal, internal covenant written on hearts. What began as a harvest of wheat became a harvest of souls.
In Christ
Facebook post by David Adams 20/1/25 One isn’t born again when they believe Jesus died for their sins and rose again. Even though this is what most churches teach, it is not found in the scriptures. What the scriptures actually … Continue reading →
With God on Our Side
Imagine thinking that you are 100% correct in your beliefs on any given topic, only to have someone come and suggest an alternative view point. What is your response? Most people will think that the other person is blind to the truth, doesn’t understand the nuances or subtleties, or is misinformed. Rarely do we stop to question our own suppositions or allow other perspectives to challenge our conclusions. Deception is diabolical, it narrows our perspectives, heightens our defenses, and enlarges our ego because, of course, we believe we are right.
For decades, I wondered what Jesus meant in Matthew 24:24 when he said, “Even the elect will be deceived.” How could God’s elect be led astray from the truth? I struggled to imagine a scenario where Christ-followers would lose their focus on Jesus, and follow other paths, albeit still in the name of Christ. I should have been a better student of history, because I would have had my answer repeated many times over.
- 160 years before Christ, a family of Jewish priests called the Maccabees revolted against their oppressors.
- The Zealots of Jesus’ day used violence in an attempt to overthrow Roman occupation
- The Catholic Church instigated the Inquisition to root out heresy and maintain orthodoxy
- Most Christians in Germany welcomed the rise of Nazism in 1933 – Holocaust Encyclopedia
The common factor is that the ends justify the means when God is supporting your cause. Singer, songwriter, Bob Dylan challenges this thought in his song ” With God on Our Side”. The fourth verse focuses on Jesus’ betrayal in the name of God, and invites us to question whether our beliefs and actions are like those of Judus, the political zealot and infamous betrayer –
Through many dark hour I been thinkin’ about this
That Jesus Christ was betrayed by a kiss
But I can’t think for you, you’ll have to decide
Whether Judas Iscariot had God on his side
All that to say, it appears we are more easily deceived than I ever imagined.
Returning to Jesus’ warning in Matthew 24:24, it is worth noting several important points:
- The Warning: He warns his disciples to be on guard against false messiahs and prophets who will try to deceive people, even those who are considered “the elect” or God’s chosen ones.
- The Deception: These false figures will perform great signs and wonders, making their deception seem very convincing.
- The “Elect”: The term “elect” refers to those who are chosen by God for salvation or who are faithful to their divine call.
- The “If Possible”: The phrase “if possible” is a rhetorical device emphasizing the severity of the deception, suggesting that even the elect are vulnerable to it.
- The Importance of Discernment: The passage highlights the importance of discernment and vigilance in distinguishing true from false teachings and leaders.
- Ongoing Pattern: The deception Jesus speaks about is part of an ongoing pattern, not just a one-time event.
What happened 2000 years ago is continuing to happen today. We haven’t learned from history, and we are more isolated from it than ever before.
There was a time when oral traditions were passed down through the generations, preserving history in the minds of each new generation. Wisdom was revered, held by the few who had lived long enough to understand or were fortunate enough to be trained. Perhaps it was the invention of the printing press that enabled the mass dissemination of what was treasured wisdom, thus it widened and shallowed the pool of understanding, and in so doing, wisdom was reduced to knowledge, which in turn became information as more and more people could access it. Now, everyone has the wisdom of the ages in their cellphones, and information has become data to be manipulated or discarded if doesn’t fit within the siloed walls of their chosen belief system.
Today, the elect are being deceived as quickly and easily as ever. Christians are adopting nationalism and self-interest in the name of God with the result that the life and example of Christ has become a casualty of war against our ideals of individualism and commercialism. It is happening as such a devastating speed that many people will be barely awake as they sip on their first cup of coffee, not realising that life has changed forever.
Thoughts and prayers to all who think God is on their side.
God is Hiding in Plain Sight
God is Hiding in Plain Sight In The Fiddler in the Subway, Gene Weingarten recounts the story of Joshua Bell, a celebrated violinist who traded the grandeur of sold-out concert halls for the humdrum of a Washington, D.C. subway station. … Continue reading →
Consumed by Fire
As a boy, I u
sed to make fishing sinkers from lead-head nails that I melted using my father’s kerosene blow torch. I loved watching the surface start to soften then melt into a liquid pool of metal. When that had happened, I would get a stick and scrape across the molten lead and reveal the bright metal that hid below the surface. I wasn’t aware of it at the time, but I was refining the lead each time I melted it and scraped off the burned impurities. The fire didn’t burn the lead, but it did consume the impurities. All that was left for me to do was scrape the dross away.
I’ve had a number of discussions over the past 6 months that have focused on metaphors used in the Bible. One common metaphor was fire. The first mention in the Bible is the covenant that God made with Abraham (Gen 15:17), and the last is the Revelation 8:5 where the angel throws fire from God’s alter onto the earth. Between those two stories there are many other references to fire, with the most famous being
- the story of Moses and the burning bush,
- the three men in the fiery furnace,
- the tongues of fire on the day of Pentecost
In many, if not most of the discussions I was part of, the primary view of fire was a destroyer. Given that many of the references to fire in the Bible are associated with God, I wonder if this has shaped our view of God, and why some people see God as a destroyer, and Jesus is the saviour who saves us from God’s destruction.
Some people see God as the destroyer, and Jesus’ self-sacrifice on the cross as our means of escape from God’s fiery judgement. Jesus effectively becomes our fire insurance policy protecting us from an angry God.
Given that the Bible says Jesus is the visible image of the invisible God, then why are we willing to keep a judgemental and punishing image of God, when nothing in Jesus’ life lines up with that view? I want to suggest a different perspective.
God’s
fire spoken of throughout the Bible is a purifying fire which only destroys the impurities. The Bible also says that we are made in God’s image, so we know that we are not the impurities which will get consumed in the fire. Remember the story of the men in the fiery furnace? They didn’t get burned, they didn’t even smell of smoke. The only things that were consumed were the bonds that kept them from being free.
God is interested in our freedom, we were made to be free. Free to love, free to live in all that God has for us. Our bonds are what God consumes in the fire, God is setting us free to be who we were created to be. God’s fire is not for our punishment or judgement, it is for our freedom.
PRAYER From Symeon Metaphrastes (900 – 987)
I am communing with fire. Of myself, I am but straw but, O miracle, I feel myself suddenly blazing like Moses’ burning bush of old…. You have given me your flesh as food. You who are a fire which consumes the unworthy, do not burn me, O my Creator, but rather slip into my members, into all my joints, into my loins and into my heart. Consume the thorns of all my sins, purify my soul, sanctify my heart, strengthen the tendons of my knees and my bones, illumine my five senses, and establish my wholly in your love.
Amen.
Attitudes, Actions and Outcomes
Acknowledging and accepting my place on the Autism spectrum was a relatively straightforward task. It required me to be honest about my own habits and ways of living in the world and in my marriage.
Living with it and allowing that acceptance to reshape my marriage was quite another story. This required me to be self-aware in a way that I had never been before.
In my book “An Intentional Marriage – Tools For A Stronger Relationship”, I gave significant space to explore ways that I had to change; firstly looking at my attitudes, those parts of me that no one else could see, then considering my outward actions and how they affected my wife and relationship.
I was aware that restoring my marriage would be a lifetime journey that required me to be intentional on a whole new level but I truly didn’t understand how much effort was required to be consistently intentional.
The book was released earlier this year, and for the remainder of this blog, I’ll use the present tense because I’m still processing these changes in my daily life. I am a work in progress …
Consistently intentional and intentionally consistent.
Consistency requires a level of personal awareness that I had avoided, largely because it took so much effort.
I constantly struggle to maintain the level of intentionality that my wife and marriage deserves, especially with my attitudes. Wanting to change is only the first step, albeit a major one! Living out the change is hard. In my book I likened it to high-performance athletes who discipline themselves daily to achieve a goal. On a flight a few years ago, I sat next to a long-distance cyclist who clocks up 1000km (600 miles) each week simply to stay in peak performance. I was stunned at his level of commitment to his sport, but I’m sure he is not alone, because all athletes who are at the peak of their sport must put in hours of hard work every day to reach then maintain that level of fitness.
My daily goal is to think of ways to build strength into my marriage, such as the Long Hug (pg. 123) which we do every morning while our coffee machine does its thing. In the book, I gave this tool a five-star rating for effectiveness, and I still hold that view. While we are hugging for those 20-30 seconds, I focus on my wife and am mindful of her input into my life. However, as with all actions, there can be a temptation to turn it into a habit that becomes a routine, which ends up losing meaning. Being consistently intentional requires that I make a deliberate choice to start fresh every day. I must think differently before I can act differently. Attitudes beget actions. When I think consistently, I start to act consistently.
Being intentionally consistent is subtly different. I have to choose to be consistent in my thoughts, words and actions. I need to apply that same intentionality to my habits and routines. They must become more consistent, more in line with the change I want in my relationship. I find this is much harder than being consistently intentional. Just this week, I was negligent in my thoughts and actions, which hurt my wife and the relationship. I took my eye off the goal, neglected a promise, and I got caught up in old ways of thinking. As a result, my actions lapsed back into old habits.
In a recent “Just The Guys” podcast, I made the comment that my wife’s grace to me is that she holds me to an accountable standard when I miss the mark. She values the relationship enough to call me to account, and to make me stop long enough to recognise what I’ve done that has damaged the relationship. While painful to experience, I appreciate her tenacity and unwillingness to let me slide. She deserves better, she knows it, and I need to be reminded when I forget.
Accepting that I’m on the ASD-1 spectrum is not an excuse for me to stop trying to relate to my wife in a more emotionally mature way. It doesn’t come as naturally as my technical and logical skills, but I keep reminding myself that I do have a right hemisphere in my brain, so I can adapt and learn new ways of relating. I am not defective; I simply need to learn new skills.
In my book, I close the second section with the following comments:
“Success hinges on our intentional decision to hope for a new and better outcome, be honest with ourselves about our own contribution to the issues that are present in the relationship, and our willingness to maintain an unwavering dedication to achieving our goals.
“Earlier (in the book), I asked why most people don’t live the best life now. Perhaps it is time to define what I think that means. Our best life is not based on health, wealth, or possessions. While these might make life easier, they don’t make life more fulfilling. We are at our best when we are in strong, secure, and vibrant relationships with other people, and especially in the deepest and most intimate relationship which is experienced within a marriage or life partnership. I would also add that a strong spiritual belief in the unshakable love of God, and an active spiritual life which celebrates that belief will strengthen our ability to live authentically.
“I know that everyone’s journey is unique, and though experiences may be similar, life is experienced from one’s own individual perspective. I don’t expect that your journey will have the same starting point or destination but I hope there are enough similarities to make this book a useful resource. To the degree that truth is universal, I trust that the truths I learned will apply in your life.
“Living an intentional life requires commitment. First and foremost, it is a daily choice to maintain momentum because nothing in our world is self-sustaining, including our habits. It also requires practical application. Use the ideas in Section 2 of this book, or the myriad of resources about intentionality which are available on the Internet, to inject new life into your relationship. Your partner will thank you and your relationship will improve. On her website, Gone Minimal, Julia Swann summarizes it well,
“By consciously aligning actions with values and priorities, individuals can create a more fulfilling, purpose-driven, and meaningful life”.[i]
“The goal of intentionality is awareness, not perfection, consequently I have yet to gain mastery in any of the subjects covered in this book, but I am making progress. Home is not rebuilt in a day because intentionality is a long game and requires consistency all the way. It is a journey.
“I hope and pray that you find these tips and tools useful and that your relationship becomes all it can be.”
“An Intentional Marriage – Tools For A Stronger Relationship” is available on Amazon in paperback and eBook formats.