The two pathways

I came across this last year, and the words continue to ferment in my heart.

The message was given to Christine Larkin in 2007.  That year was life-changing for me and my family: this prophecy confirms how our lives have been caught up in God's greater purposes.

THE TWO PATHWAYS

"As I was praying about the next season I felt strongly that what is coming is not a new season, but a whole new era. A time which is more significant than any other time on earth in terms of the church being shaken into the purposes of God. Seasons will merge as we move forward, just as the seasons on earth are being mixed up and weather patterns are surprising forecasters, so the church will begin to be unsettled as the winds of change begin to blow on all that is ‘known’.

"At the start of this time I saw two pathways opening up before each child of God. One was a flat path – called ‘Known’ and the other was a steep and winding path called ‘Unknown’. Along the first pathway were many words ‘of man’. The way ahead from the beginning of this pathway seemed to be clear – with a clear destiny/destination. Many voices could be heard discussing the best way to walk along this pathway. Along the second pathway were many words of the Lord. The way ahead for this path twists and turns and it is only possible to see a short way ahead. One voice can be clearly heard amidst the stillness and relative silence along the path.

"The ‘known’ path will be for those who have faith to do great things for God. Those who take this path will find that they get what they have faith for. Much ‘success’ will be evident and the Lord will be present to speak wisdom to whoever will hear. Prophetic voices can be heard on this path and they are true voices – those who have seen what the Lord wants to do and many of the saints on this path are courageous and confident in the Lord, eager to serve him and willing to pay the price to see God’s will done on earth.

"I knew that both pathways were costly to build and costly to walk on everywhere there were many places at which a ‘toll’ must be paid in order to go on.The starting point is the same for both paths – they joined together at the beginning and it was possible to start with one foot on each path. But then they widened sharply and the only way to make a step forward was to choose which path to take. Each path was diagonally opposed and it was almost impossible to see the other path once the first steps were taken.Each ‘step’ on both paths required choices – life choices, relationship choices, position and place choices. Once the first steps were taken there was no more opportunity to have a foot on both paths, as one path is the way of human choices and the other is one of abandonment to the leading of the Holy Spirit. However, the Lord was present on both paths. He was close to all who were walking on each of the paths. Once a decision was been made and the path was taken it was impossible to ‘view’ the other path. This was the grace and mercy of God to avoid confusion and judgement among the people.Also, once a path had been chosen it was almost impossible to turn back. Both paths had the presence and purposes of God on each side. But they were very different.

"The ‘unknown’ path looks very different. Everyone on this path starts off on their faces, empty of all confidence in their own ability. These people have faith in God, but have been brought to the end of their own strength. All old visions and dreams have become meaningless to them as they realise this is a new era and that they have nothing in themselves to bring. Badges of success from the past, though valid and true, are irrelevant for the new path. Each one on this path is aware of great weakness in their own ability. They start to walk almost like they are crawling, almost flat on their faces, holding on to hope in the strength of Christ. Few voices can be heard at the start of this path and there is only one prophetic voice to be heard at the beginning – it is a simple phrase repeated over these prostrate saints – “let him who has ears, hear, what the Spirit is saying”.

"The two paths lay before us, Known and Unknown. The Unknown – where the Holy Spirit is totally in control. The Known – where people work hard to serve the Lord.  Both paths are populated with God’s children.The starting point for the Unknown path is realisation, recognition and relinquishment of any vestige of self-reliance or expectation of ability to do anything in human strength. This starting point is not a choice – it’s a position, where self is at an end – personal ‘bankruptcy’; a crashing from self – weakness, wretchedness, blindness, and poverty of spirit – of self.  Helpless but not hopeless.There’s stillness, a silence, not even sights or sobs – for these have gone before. At this place sights are really too deep to be uttered. The last breath of confidence in self is expelled.Leadership on this path will be sacrificial to God and man – it will be to release people.

"A new kind of church will emerge – built by the Spirit of God and populated by the those who have to hear and see what the Spirit is saying and doing. Any other way will be untenable on this path.Badges of success gained before this point in time will be meaningless. They will be a hindrance and distraction. For it is not what has gone before that will count – it will be each step forward into God’s purposes, led by the Spirit. This is a new era.You can’t read about it, learn about it, think about it or talk about it for it is not like any time before. It requires a place and position of surrender – to human plans or God’s leading.

"Each path will be populated across the span of diversity in the church – from Catholic, Orthodox expressions, through to Pentecostal and Charismatic – all coming together by the Spirit of God.This is the time for choices. Many people have been struggling in the past few weeks, unsure of what is happening and why they are feeling so unsettled. They know that something is about to change but are not seeing the way ahead. The next few months will be a time of significant choices. Even the smallest choice could have great significance. The choices will reflect the chosen path.

"Let us pray for right choices, courage and commitment."

Christine Larkin 2007

How He feeds us

For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me."  For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.  (1 Corinthians 11:23-26)

I've spent many years in churches where the preferred description for the bread and wine is 'emblem'. A peculiar, rather timid word. Not likely to impart faith to us that anything is really happening spiritually when we eat and drink them.

Last night, amongst a small group of worshippers welcoming the Spirit among us, I read the passage above - which felt an odd thing to be moved to do, for we weren't going to take communion - and spoke out what God was showing me.

Each of us present had received the bread and wine many times; and every time, Jesus was infusing His body, His blood, His very life, into ours. If we forget all the theological and historical arguments, isn't this so obvious? How a child can see it? Believer, be of very good cheer: this has been done to you by God, Who is working the miracle through and through you, time and time again.

Then, see how the body He gives to us is broken, and the blood He shares is spilt out. Those are His terms for us to be able to receive Him: His death, His cross.

And there is more: this spiritual work done in me is a proclamation to others. Like every action Jesus took, it is a sign which proclaims that the Kingdom of God is here with power - not just a matter of words. Jesus said His disciples would live on the same terms as He did: by the cross.

So our own lives now make the same proclamation as His: they are given to others broken and spilt. We are little Christs now, becoming identical to Him, and ever more so each time He gives us His body and blood.

I'm an Archbishop too

It has been quite a tumultuous time for elections: Obama's epic struggle and perhaps against-the-odds victory; China's old-fashioned transfer of power, or at least of figurehead; and now the cumbersome, decent, ever-ridiculed Anglican Church has proved herself nimble on her feet and come up with a refreshing surprise: Justin Welby.

What sparks in me a hope and delight is Welby's own delight, humour and optimism in accepting the position. No hint of "poisoned chalice" talk here. And I personally identify with the way he demonstrates an authentic mix of views on different matters, defying our desires to categorise others.  I could trust a man who appreciates his Evangelical inheritance and has a Catholic spiritual director.

For that is what seems to happen as we mature: we become more our true selves, and find ourselves holding convictions in balance which place us outside any one human camp. And gradually, the Kingdom of God takes shape in us and shapes us.

And so to the capricious title of this post (I'm going to blog more light-heartedly in future): it struck me this morning that my role in my immediate family is beginning to resemble that of the A of C. 

Once upon a time we were a family of six and our children naturally fell in with what Mum and Dad believed and where they worshipped.  Simple days, so long ago ...  They grew up, left home, some of them got married and started their own families - and our little closely knit family has expanded to fifteen and has become very diverse.  By the grace of God, every one of us has found a place near God's throne and believes in our Saviour, Jesus the Christ: but He was absolutely right in telling us that there were many rooms in the Father's house!  One family is part of a Baptist fellowship on a deprived estate in Bradford; another is now Roman Catholic, drawn to the most traditional wing of that Church, and in a fellowship in Ipswich; another son is recently married and planting new Christian communities in Helsinki; and our daughter belongs to a large Anglican church in Oxford.  Mum and Dad are between fellowships right now, but looking for one with enough pentecostal freedom and passionate worship - that's where we thrive.

I absolutely love this diversity, and I let all our grown-up children and daughters-in-law enrich my devotion to God by sharing their lives in Him with us.  They will sometimes argue among themselves and reject things another holds dear, but I will not exclude anything or any of them.  Of course, it doesn't rationally add up.  We have become a microcosm of the Church Universal.  But I see the good fruit which validates all this diversity; I appreciate how different we are from each other, and therefore how different a journey God will have planned for each of us, until we all become like Christ.

This made me weep

It seemed like all the anguish and injury of those days swept over me

(St Andrew’s, Cullompton, Devon)

The heart is a slow learner

I owe an immeasurable amount to human teachers, the ones I’ve heard and the ones I’ve read; but my heart only begins to believe things if it hears them from the Spirit, Who has drawn as close as can be to my heart, as Jesus promised.  

This is how I tend to think: ‘If God likes what I do, I don’t have to worry about what someone else thinks.’   But I see that I am selective about thinking like that.  I wouldn’t dream of applying such thinking to those I love and respect - that’s a bit of a give-away!  It’s obviously not a godly principle, but rather self-serving.  To cut to the chase, I love those whom I feel loved by, and ignore those whom I feel I’m not loved by.   But these days, God is correcting my course, adjusting my sails a bit so they can pick up breezes from other directions.

Jesus taught this: ‘Love your enemies’.  He added no reservations or conditions.  He loved people, all the time, and most of all as He faced the Cross.  He let His enemies do their will.  Although His Mother and other companions were with Him on the road to Golgotha, I believe He went ahead alone without the reassurance of their comprehension, with a faith unique to Himself that to do so would ‘draw all men’ to the Father and to Himself.  

So does that still work in the same way?  It must!  Serving and loving our enemies, adversaries and uncomprehending strangers is what may free them to find salvation: which means their reconciliation with the Father and their resurrection to life.  Jesus always intended His followers to do this as well, once He’d gone ahead first in living out love to the unimaginable extent of His humiliation, torture and death.  St Paul calls this ‘sharing in the sufferings of Christ’, and teaches that it is a vital part we are to play, as co-workers in the healing and salvation of the world.

Yes, Jesus has finished His one, perfect sacrifice; but that opened the way for us to live like He did. Unless we co-work with Him to do the same things He did, others will not be reached by the Kingdom of God.  It’s not at all enough just to tell people about what Jesus did, and say that they are saved if they believe the story.  My life, and their lives, are intended to change and look like Jesus’ life, and we are intended to become inspired by the same faith which once upon a time, now so long ago, He was the only Person on earth to have.  But no longer.

Beginning a new season

I greet again all my readers in name of the Father of all Mercies and pray His grace be with you.

Five years ago, God started me on a training programme in His love through the ministry of John and Carol Arnott and the 'Catch the Fire' network they founded.  He has brought me into a secret and intimate place with Him, where my heart lies open to His loving gaze and healing, and heaven is open all around me for a thousand loving conversations.

This morning, we talked about what is happening now.  Through our intimacy, I know He is my loving Father all the time, and all my value and identity come now from Him.  If anyone speaks a different word about me, I know immediately it is not true, and I run to hide in Him in safety.

This intimate relationship with God protects me so that when I encounter damaged people - including myself - I will not be damaged.  I will not "return evil for evil" (1 Peter 3:9 ) nor become "spotted by the world" (James 1:27).

But I am sensing a change in season, spiritually.  A first stage of my training is over, and I have had a big shock: when training is over and you start doing what you have been trained for, at first you will mostly fail.  The overwhelming feeling is the cry: 'What then was it all for?'

But He comes to comfort and reassure.  My failures and sins are all necessary and good, to complete everything God loves to change about me.

On the third day He rose again from the dead!

Today, no words - just Piero della Francesca's icon of Christ's resurrection which he painted for the town hall of his native town, Borgo San Sepolcro, in around 1458





Christ has died!  Christ is risen!  Christ will come again!

No 49: So that He Would be Crowned with Glory and Honour

All religions worship and glorify their god or gods, and most stress the transcendent and powerful character of their gods and the huge distance there is between them and a human being.   What differentiates the Way of Jesus' followers is scandalous to that kind of religious thinking.  We carry this revelation in our lives: that God's purpose is to welcome us into His intimate presence, no longer as servants but as sons and daughters.  We are to rejoin His family.  Jesus will share everything He is and has with us.  Our relationship to the Father is to be the same as Christ's.  The very Trinity - Father, Son and Spirit - is expanding to include all redeemed humanity.  Isaiah and Matthew named Jesus "Immanuel, which means God with us" (Isaiah 7:14, Matthew 1:23); Jesus completed this revelation by saying: "I will take you to be with me that you also may be where I am" (John 14:3).  Where we are to be is in eternal communion with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  St Paul describes this as a mystery, in other words a truth kept hidden: "Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Colossians 1:27).

Jesus taught this mystery over and over again, in parables to crowds and more plainly to His disciples.  The parable of the prodigal son has the wayward son returning with the conventional religious attitude of humility and self-abasement: "Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.  I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men"; which his father cuts short and orders the utmost honour and status to be given him: "Quick!  Bring the best robe and put it on him.  Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.  Bring the fattened calf and kill it.  Let's have a feast and celebrate" (Luke 15:11-32).  On the eve of His passion and death, Jesus spoke at length to His disciples, preparing their hearts and minds for these future spiritual realities:  "Before long, the world will not see me any more, but you will see me.  Because I live, you also will live.  On that day you will realise that I am in the Father, and you are in me, and I am in you" (John 14:19).  Perfect communion.

The Son has His Being in unending glory with the Father and Holy Spirit - forever and ever, world without end, amen.  But He left that behind to become one of us: "He made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness" (Colossians 2:7).  As a son of man, the glory He was crowned with through His passion, was only ever to be a means to this end: to bring us into the selfsame glory. 

In Jesus' great prayer in John 17, He says this to the Father: "I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one.  I in them and you in me" (John 17:22).  A more fitting title for this chapter, so near the end of Piper's book, might have been: 'So that We Would be Crowned with Glory and Honour'.

No 48: To Gain His Joy and Ours

A few days ago somebody said I was irrepressible.  He spoke it in anger and frustration; but my heart rejoiced at the word and received it as the tenderest encouragement and affirmation from my God, who really knows me.  It is a profound experience to see that sudden conjunction of heaven and earth, where the same words express sanctification from God and condemnation from man.  St John records an extraordinary instance of just this happening to Jesus:  "Caiaphas spoke up. "You know nothing at all!  You do not realise that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish."  He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation" (John 11:49-51).

In fact, these moments are glimpses of redemption in operation.  Not only spoken words, but events and circumstances may seem at first to be evil, but are then discovered as bringing good.  This is so familiar an experience, that everyone knows sayings like 'Every cloud has a silver lining'.  Usually, it is only with hindsight and subsequent events that we realise God's hidden plan and intent; but sometimes, as I said, we realise simultaneously what is going on in heaven and earth, and that is amazing.  Our relationship and intimacy with God has grown to the point that we are aware of both realms at once. 

This was clearly how Jesus experienced things.  For Him, it seems to have been a state of constant 'twin-awareness', not momentary gifts like it is for most of us.  He testified: "I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me.  The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him" (John 8:28,29).  Even in the confusion and terror of his nightime arrest, He remained totally aware of heaven, saying: "Do you not think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?" (Matthew 26:53).  I believe all of us can aspire to be so changed and renewed in mind and spirit that such awareness and consciousness of God become increasingly normal in daily life.  In fact, I think that this is one way of describing what 'faith' is. 

In the verses from Hebrews which preface Piper's chapter today, it is clear to me that this is how Jesus experienced His crucifixion.  At the same time as his physical and emotional agony on earth, he experienced a heavenly joy.  The words chosen by the writer of this letter try to express this profound experience.  The Greek word which is translated 'set before' in verse 2, is the same word which is translated 'surrounded' in verse 1:  "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses ..." (Hebrews 12:1).  Jesus was surrounded by, caught up in, immersed in, drenched by, the Father's love and joy: at the same time as He was "enduring the cross and disregarding its shame" (Hebrews 12:2).

But not for the entire time.  To complete His identification with us, His beloved Bride, as the moment of death approached He suddenly lost all awareness of heaven and all intimacy with His Father.  This had never happened to Him before, and it wrenches agonising words from Him:  "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46).  Of course, His loving Father and our loving Father never had, and never does.

No 47: To Rescue Us from Final Judgment

To reflect properly upon this chapter, we would need to dig deeply into the Bible's shifting and evolving concept of the wrath of God.  For the moment, I  have nothing more to add to what I wrote in my very first Lenten post on this theme:  'Whatever His wrath means, we know that love is His abiding and defining attribute - they aren't opposites.  God doesn't stop loving, to be wrathful.  Clearly, like God's love itself, his wrath lies outside all categories of human experience.  The analogy He has taught me comes from His natural order.  If I am walking along a cliff and fall off, I will experience violent consequences because of gravity.  Nature isn't angry with me, gravity isn't vengeful.  But I am being punished for my action.'

Piper quotes a passage from Revelation, describing it as 'the most graphic glimpse of hell'.  As I have begun a little bit to experience visions and prophetic pictures, I have realised how we can seize on an expression of the spiritual realm and apply it grossly to our physical, material world.  It is rather akin to taking a dream literally - very young children do, but soon learn not to. 

There are several occasions recorded in the Gospels where we see Jesus dealing with this wrong way of receiving spiritual truth.  One is related in John 6:32-58.  Towards the end of a long altercation, Jesus says: "I tell you most emphatically, unless you can eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you" (verse 53), and He goes on to emphasise this message using the same words three more times.  Many of His disciples then said: "This is a hard teaching.  Who can accept it?"  No doubt their imaginations were filling with 'graphic' images.  Jesus replies: "Does this offend you?  The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing.  The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life" (John 6:61, 63).

It is interesting that we have no record of Jesus ever mentioning God's wrath in proclaiming His good news.  He even cut short the reading He had been given to recite in the Nazareth synagogue, omitting "... and the day of vengeance of our God" (Isaiah 61:2).  This makes me wonder why we should, either, when telling others our good news.  Isn't He our model? 

No 46: To Gather All His Sheep from Around the World

Reading this chapter, and reflecting upon the scriptural quotations in it about God's scattered children and Jesus' one flock, God reminded me of another scattering:

Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower which reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth...  The Lord said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.  Come let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other."  So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. (Genesis 11:4-7)

We think divisions and misunderstandings between men a great evil, and work hard to overcome them - and so they are, and so we should.  But the truth is that God decided that we should be confused and scattered, to stop us uniting in rebellion and alienation from Him.  This challenges our simple ideas about God.

The Holy Spirit has linked two scatterings in my mind this morning: that first one in Babel and the second one in the Church, which has also produced division and misunderstanding.  Could it be that in the second as well as the first case, "the Lord scattered them" (Genesis 11:7)?  And for similar reasons?

Nevertheless, Jesus firmly prophesied:  "I have other sheep that are not of this sheepfold.  I must bring them also.  They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd" (John 10:16).  And He is praying this for us:  "May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me" (John 17:23).

One good purpose I discern in the separated denominations, churches, practices, theologies and points of view, is that it forces me to realise that God is greater than the Church, and Jesus stands over and distinct from us all.  Gerard W Hughes in his classic book 'God of Surprises' writes:

'The Church is a sign, and an effective sign, of God's presence among us.  God is not static.  The Church, if it is to be true to its meaning, cannot be static.  We can never adequately describe God: therefore we can never adequately describe the meaning and nature of the Church.  As an organisation of human beings, the Church must have structures, laws, discipline, a body of teaching and ways of communicating, but its structures are provisional and it must be constantly developing.  God is always greater, greater than the Church.  God is at work in all creation and dwells within each one.  God is at work across the Christian denominations, across the religions and in the hearts of those who profess to have no religion.  No religion can monopolise God, although most will try to do so, claiming that unless you follow their particular way, you cannot be saved.'

No 45: To Ransom People from every Tribe and Language and People and Nation

What God has done for us through Jesus' life, death, resurrection and return to the Father, is to ransom us!  To ransom us out of every prison of the mind and spirit so we can all love and serve and call God our Father too!  The new angelic songs St John heard and wrote down for us in Revelation 5:9-13 are some of the most sacred and faith-imparting words in the whole Bible.  That whole chapter brings together earth and heaven, God and man, joy and tears, passion and purpose, victory and poignancy.  Contemplating its visions, all my thinking stops.

This morning I found it next to impossible to still my heart in God in more than a momentary way.  My wife and I had been put through an awful experience four days ago, and despite every tender and affirming word since from my Lord, the memories of the ordeal crowd my mind and my heart speeds up as if for a physical battle.  But do we imagine it was any different for Jesus, through the ordeal of those ghastly inquisitions and show-trial and physical assault?  Do we think He was emotionless and impervious, so no sword could "pierce his soul" (Luke 2:35)?  Jesus bore the limitless love of God for us, and the sufferings of such love spurned were commensurately limitless.

I know my faithful God does not expect me to 'keep it together' under severe trial.  He will carry me, "as a father carries his son" (Deuteronomy 1:31).  He knows how I am formed, and how all my physical systems work - memory, adrenaline, emotion.  No matter what is happening and how I am reacting in the thick of it, no accusation from man or Satan will stick because I have been ransomed.  And this God has said to me this morning: "Your accusers are ransomed too."

We have been ransomed from the power of an enemy, from the forces of evil, from Satan, and from the law of sin and death which he prosecutes.  Never for a moment think of your heavenly Father, the God of all mercies, as your enemy - past, present or future.

No 44: To Destroy the Hostility between Races

Maybe it’s a sign of my age (59 later this year), but I have become much less caught up with the theory and theology of my Christian faith, and far more interested in how to get it to work out in me in practice.  This is probably why Piper’s book has not really been the book for me: it has been 100% theology, all rather abstract.  Such a book could only have been written by a man! 

Take this chapter as an example.  Looking through it, I have found just one indication of a slightly more practical nature, of what we might do about what he says: ‘Ritual and race are not the ground of joyful togetherness.’  Presumably, by race he means here that we should never value our neighbour more or less on grounds of his race.  That’s unquestionably good.  I would hope also that Piper means by ritual that we should never value our neighbour’s spiritual walk more or less on grounds of his rituals.  But I know from his chapter 13 that he really thinks that all rituals must be got rid of. 

In my reflections on that chapter, my main point was that none of us can live without ‘a certain way of doing things’; shared habits and practices and points of view in our particular church – in other words, traditions and rituals.  So abolition is clearly not the answer; and in fact churches which think they have, are the most self-deceived and unable to critique what they do.

In that chapter and this one, St Paul’s letter to the Galatians is most quoted.  What interests me this morning is how much St Paul changed and matured over his lifetime, on this issue.  Galatians is believed to be his earliest letter.  From its polemical tone, the bruising encounter in Jerusalem seems very fresh in his memory, and what is more, he writes unapologetically about the way he handled it.  He is clearly still in the thick of a battle, and we have to forgive him some very unholy words – look at Galatians 5:12.

By the time we get to Romans, which is maybe his last letter, his teaching in chapter 14 is compassionate and inclusive.  He now accepts how precious some traditions and rituals are to their practitioners, and urges Christians not to look down on each other on such grounds.  His decades as a father to many new churches have deepened his understanding of people, and deepened his trust in God’s hand on all of them, in all their diversity.  It’s a wonderful, wise chapter.

“Who are you to judge someone else’s servant?  To his own master he stands or falls.  And he will stand for the Lord is able to make him stand” (Romans 14:4).

“Why do you judge your brother?  Why do you look down on your brother?  For we all stand before God’s judgment seat” (Romans 14:10).

“Whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God.  Blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves” (Romans 14:22).

No 43: To Unleash the Power of the Gospel

The beginnings, the first stirrings, of my faith seem like the first moments of my life: they happened in secret, deep within my mother's body, far from any possibility of recall, for no 'I' had yet been formed to remember.  As I grew inside her, even by the time of my birth when every part of me had been formed, no memories survive.  Were any laid down?  Surely so, but they exist now like deep foundations, invisible, but supporting everything else above ground and familiar.  So with faith: there may be beginnings we remember - key encounters with other believers, or a life crisis in which we cried out for help, or, rarely but wonderfully, an unbidden epiphany like St Paul's on the Damascus road.  But we can all trace a back history to those times, too, which to our new eyes reveal the activity and grace of God long before we realised it.  My spiritual life was gestating in secret before it came to my attention.

It was Bill Johnson, I think, who coined the term 'pre-believers' for those with no confession of faith yet.  I like that.  Not only does it capture a sturdy faith that God will one day reach them, but it also hints at the truth that He has already planted His seeds in them.  It is not really the clear-cut 'them and us', 'saved or not', 'in or out', which typifies attitudes to non-Christians in so many of us.  George Fox, the founder of the Quaker movement, referred to a 'divine light' in every man.

Piper asks: why is the death of Christ not seen as good news by all?  To his two reasons, I would add another.  It may not yet be the right time for them; the seed still has hidden growing to do, or the right season has not yet come round.  This is why Jesus usually framed his teaching to mixed crowds in parables.  Some will understand the parable there and then because they are ready to do so; others will remember it without understanding it, and later understand when they are ready.

No 42: To Disarm the Rulers and Authorities

'The legal case is closed', as Piper writes in this inspiring chapter.  Exactly so. 

One of my favorite words of Self-revelation by God comes in the letter of St James: "Mercy triumphs over judgment" (James 2:13).  Judging is one of the things God can do and will do, but He has always preferred not to.  Jesus, teaching us as He always did to be like our Father, said: "Do not judge, or you too will be judged" (Matthew 7:1).  Indeed, if you think about it, forgiveness is 'breaking the rules'.  It is saying: I have a case here, but I'll drop it.  Not condescendingly, or keeping it on the books; but utterly renouncing it.  That's what God does: He abandons the mechanisms of law.  Why would He do this?  Out of pure love and grace, for "God is love" (1 John 4:16).

And because He can - it's quite easy for Him, for He can sovereignly do what He chooses with all His natural, moral and spiritual creation.  "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion" (Exodus 33:19).  "The Lord your God is a faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations [i.e. forever, poetically] of those who love him and keep his commands" (Deuteronomy 7:9).

But it is not at all easy for us.  In fact, it was impossible.  Our first parents chose to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, rather than the tree of life; and ever since then, laws of good and evil have dictated how our hearts and minds work.  It was to rescue us from this " law of sin and death", as St Paul mystically writes in Romans 8, that God came to live amongst us as an ordinary Jewish man, Jesus of Nazareth.  Jesus perfectly embodied God, and this is what He told us about God's eternal intention: "I do not come to judge the world, but save it" (John 12:47).

I watch, and receive faith.  I watch God on the Cross forgiving and abandoning any case against me, when that crime of all crimes should have surely given Him one.  I receive, finally, faith to be forgiven, accepted and loved - no matter what my past.  My heart and mind are healed and, finally, it becomes possible for me to become like God and no longer to judge.  Then I find myself in the Kingdom of Heaven, where there is no judgment (cf Matthew 7:1).

No 41: To Secure Our Resurrection from the Dead

There's a dramatic moment in St Paul's life when he artfully manages to split the Sanhedrin down the middle by suddenly saying: "I stand on trial because of my hope in the resurrection of the dead!" (Acts 23:6).  At which point "there was a great uproar" - proving that Jews too could sometimes fall out over theology.  It's not just a Christian speciality.

Jesus said to Martha, grieving for her brother Lazarus' death: "I am the resurrection and the life.  He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will not die forever" (John 11:26).  Jesus brought several people back to life, to this life as we know it; and so did Elijah and Elisha before Him.  But they more seem to be examples of 'extreme healing'.  None left any account of what they experienced, if anything. 

Jesus was the first man to die and then return to life with a body of quite a different sort: as physical as ours, not an apparition or ghost, but not confined by the laws of space-time. He could walk through walls!  Disappear and be somewhere else instantly!  So He has provided us with the first real glimpse of what our future resurrected life may look like.

Jesus always said He would take His life up again (e.g. John 10:17), in other places it is said that the Father raised Him to life (e.g. Galatians 1:1).  Both are true because Jesus and the Father are One.  In Jesus, our God totally identified our fate with His Own.  When God suffered death on our behalf and came out on the other side in glorious new life, it has ever since been possible to believe fully His determined intention to rescue us completely and eternally.  Jesus' forefathers did experience God's forgiveness, favour and salvation: but what God planned for them in eternity remained an open question for them.  The only answer they saw then was death, though they hoped for much more.

This is why St Paul calls death "the last enemy" (1 Corinthians 15:26).  When Jesus rose from the dead, complete faith was finally given to us that God would never loose His firm, loving hold on us, "even though we die" (cf John 11:26).

No 40: So that We would be with Him Immediately after Death

It's interesting that the matter of what happens the moment after we die, which people everywhere long to be sure about, remains quite elusive in the Bible - even allowing for the way more becomes revealed as we read from the earlier to the later books.  Piper quotes exclusively from St Paul; always a pity, in my view: it's better to add up a variety of biblical testimonies, for each will only see a part of the truth.

I used to find the 'soul sleep' interpretation made most sense to me; .  It was so odd to conceive of 'disembodied souls'; our resurrection is our great hope; this earth, one day renewed, was made to be our home, not heaven.  But I have long since felt that this was taking too rational an approach and, in particular, it didn't fit everything in the Bible.  It also didn't fit the 'near-death' visions many have experienced - although I regard those very much as 'secondary evidence': the mind can play strange tricks.

My son Anthony, now a Roman Catholic, takes very seriously this 'in-between time' as Piper aptly describes it.  He does not believe all spiritual influence for our salvation ceases on death, so when he comes to see us he usually walks across the field to the graves of my sister, mother and father, and offers up prayers for their salvation.  I find that incredibly moving.

So I let apparently divergent pointers in Scripture co-exist in my heart and mind.  I feel no urgent need to know; the Spirit doesn't encourage me to ask.  Perhaps, like the great scientific conundrum of how relativity fits with quantum mechanics, a uniting truth exists which we simply need different mental 'software' to process. 

What I am confident about, is this promise from Jesus: "In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you.  I am going there to prepare a place for you" (John 14:2).  Actually, I like not knowing exactly what will happen next.  I like adventures.

No 39: To Free Us from the Fear of Death

Through Piper's book so far, it feels to me as if there has been an 'elephant in the room', whom Piper finally turns his attention to.  I am surprised he has taken so long.  That elephant is Satan - that mysterious power in spiritual realms whose name, a Hebrew one, means 'accuser'.

We are introduced to him right at the beginning of the Bible: when God creates Adam and Eve, Satan is already there (Genesis 3:1-15).  The Garden of Eden was not quite the carefree paradise it is usually depicted - there was an evil influence which our first parents had to face.  When they listened to Satan's version of reality rather than God's, they placed themselves under his influence.  We are composite miracles of creation, flesh and spirit interfused, creating our own descendants out of our own bodies: how this influence endures forever down the generations is now much clearer to our understanding, through our recent science of DNA.

As with Adam and Eve, Satan acted swiftly on the news of Jesus' birth: firstly by trying to kill Him by getting Herod to order the slaughter of all young boys in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:16), and secondly by testing Him in the desert the moment after the Father confirmed His Son's mission (Matthew 3:16-4:11).

Jesus makes it clear what His prime objective is, when He cooly picks apart the accusation that He was acting for Satan: "How can Satan drive out Satan?  If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.  If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand.  And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand; his end has come.  In fact, no one can enter a strong man’s house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man. Then he can rob his house.  I tell you the truth, all the sins and blasphemies of men will be forgiven them" (Mark 3:23-28).  Jesus was going to overpower Satan and dispossess him of all his power and influence over mankind.  When His 72 disciples returned astonished at their power over demons, Jesus said:  "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.  I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you."  St John simply writes: "The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work" (1 John 3:8).

Contrary to what Piper says, the devil has no power to damn.  God is the One and Only Judge of all mankind.  Amongst the Trinity, this work will be done by the Son:  "The Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father" (John 5:22-23).

Jesus came to settle a score with the devil, not with God.  God's intentions have always been loving towards us, and His single purpose from the beginning has been to save us from the power of Satan, whom Jesus called "the prince of this world" (e.g. John 12:31).  God has always known that we cannot do this ourselves; nor would there be any victory for God simply to swat Satan into oblivion, as He always could.  A Man had to win the victory, reversing the defeat of another man, long ago.

No 38: To Create a Band of Crucified Followers

We each see different things in that image of Jesus crucified, although much will be shared, because at each point in our life our view from that point is different.  I wrote yesterday about how we have to experience suffering before Christ's suffering really strikes home in our heart and becomes life-saving.  The same applies across all experiences in our life - we are all on a journey, and at different points along the way.  This is why the first believers just called their new life with God 'the Way'.  Our diversity of experience, of age, of our pasts, of our spiritual maturity, of our reasoning capacity, makes mutual understanding and empathy difficult.

But Piper's theme today is the ground where all believers stand completely undivided from each other, for it is about how the message of the Cross actually gets to work in me by setting me free from the worst tyrant I ever have to face: my own self, my 'ego'.  When I venture into this interior territory, I find myself fighting the hardest battles. 

But wherever we are along the Way, this work of the Cross, this dying to ourselves, is the practical answer to our misunderstandings, disagreements and antagonisms.  It truly enables me "in honour, to prefer one another" (Romans 12:10) because there's no point any longer in asserting myself.  God has something far better in store: "Humble yourself under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time" (1 Peter 5:6).

No 37: To Call Us to Follow His Example of Lowliness and Costly Love

To recognise and honour the redemptive power of suffering is by no means unknown before or outside the influence of the Christian message, as we find out if we read the literature of other cultures.  But Christianity places it at its heart, and reveals something previously unknown to mankind: that God Himself suffers - has suffered - before we ever do.  That is why the simplest and most complete expression of the gospel is and always has been the image of Jesus crucified.  It has been painted and sculpted and filmed, hung outside and inside churches and homes and places of government.  St Paul said: "I resolved to know nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified" (1 Corinthians 2:2).  Jesus prophesied: "When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men to myself" (John 12:32).

We have to go through suffering ourself to discover the transformational power of this part of the gospel.  Many of us welcomed the message of God's love and forgiveness, and entered life in His Kingdom, without noteworthy prior suffering; nevertheless Father God doesn't hold back His intimacy and blessing to us.  Life may go on in calm waters, in a well-governed era in our native country.  But that doesn't last forever: "Man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward" as one of Job's friends philosophically observed (Job 5:8).  If we care about others, there is suffering to be witnessed all the time, perhaps in other lands.  Suffering is well known to every son of Adam, and it raises the hardest questions about the goodness of our existence.  It comes up quickly in conversations with unbelievers.

Jesus' life and death tested His faith in His Father's ultimate good intentions to the absolute limit.  He was without sin, so there were no grounds at all for persecuting Him.  Whatever was done or said to Him, He forebore from retaliating or calling upon heaven's hosts to do so.  Like His Father, He never wavered from love.  He stood firm until He died, entrusting His future and His fragile band of disciples to God.

When we face suffering, His faith will be imparted into us to have exactly "the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus" (Philippians 2:5), and the same divine power to do so. And then we will have the extraordinary privilege of co-working with Jesus, in our sufferings, to redeem the world.  This is one of St Paul's most faith-stretching revelations:  "Now I am full of joy to be suffering for you. In my own body I am doing my share of what has to be done to make Christ’s sufferings complete. This is for His body which is the Church" (Colossians 1:24).