Freeing last words.

I love last words, so this week we are looking at the last words of our time with The Devotional Classics book.

Our final author is Watchman Nee one of the most influential Christian leaders of the 20th century. I am literally going to quote the last paragraph of the book.

"The basic condition of a sinners salvation is not belief or repentance, but just honesty of heart towards God. God requires nothing of us except that we come in that with that attitude. for it is a fact of the Gospel, making possible the initial touch of Jesus Christ, that saves the sinner and not sinners understanding of it." - Watchman Nee

I find this such a freeing statement from this evangelist because it gives a very specific prayer target for the friends or family (or anyone else for that matter) that are not walking with Christ.  We need to pray for an honesty of heart to meet Jesus. There is a huge interest in Jesus and in areas spirituality in the world at the moment.  We can pray that this honesty of attitude can develop, because as it develops it will leave a Jesus size hole, that only he can fill.


Who do you know you can pray for this week?

And next week until the job is done

Despite being last words, we will be back next week!!

Revival the cry of our heart? Really?

We are fast approaching the end of this series that we have been involved in for a year. I have found it an interesting and rewarding journey that has been  a pleasure to share with you over the time. This is our second to last text.


I am going to use this paraphrased text from Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892). He was a phenomenon in his age.
Habakkuk 3:2 "O Lord revive thy work"
" All true religion is the work of God. God is indeed the author of salvation in the world, and religion is the work of grace. If there is anything good or excellent found in his Church, it too, is entirely God's work from first to last.
It is God who quickens the soul which is dead, and it is God who maintains the life of the soul; God who nurtures and protects that life in the Church. We ascribe nothing to ourselves and everything to God. We do not dare for single moment to think our conversion or sanctification is effected by our efforts or the efforts of another."

I am not sure that this a widely held belief in the modern church any more than Spurgeon thought it was wide spread in his own time more than a century ago. At least in his time church was a little more fashionable than it is today. In our modern highly programme driven church there would seem to be little space for God on occasion.

What really grabbed me was his thoughts on revival. We so often say we want revival and begin to pray for someone else. What if we began to pray for revival in ourselves and watch what happens to us and through us. After all as Spurgeon says it really is all down to God. Some of the time we just get in the way.



Allowing God free reign in us. Now that takes some courage!


He also said if we really wanted revival we would pray to God to do whatever he needed to do start revival. That would start with you and me! It would be messy loud and dramatic. Are we ready for this?

I took the road less travelled and it made all the difference

This has certainly got me thinking!

back to basics

Until recently I have spent nearly 35 years of my life working in and around education. In that field one of the huge catch cries that is toted out on a reasonably regular basis is "lets go back to basics". Which is an interesting statement in itself because the fundamental basics in the digital age were not even conceived in the 1970's. I am sure there are skills in reading and writing that are timeless, so back to basics is not without some merit in a crowded modern curriculum.


So the question begs are basics that we should be more conscious of in the complex spiritual age that we live in. Would Christianity be better for going "back to basics? This weeks author would suggest yes and I am inclined to agree with him. John Chrysostom was baptised 386AD and one of the most powerful preachers of his age. A trained orator before conversion he was able to use his skills well for God.

One of his key points that is a basic of Christianity is that we are baptised into death with Christ, so as he was born again, so are we. In that process we are dead to sin. His conjecture is that we have been empowered to reject sinful behaviour, so why don't we? The question was valid then, if not popular. It is also valid now and still not popular! We as Christ have been born into resurrection power to live life differently.

Do we accept too much in the modern Christian church? They certainly did the early church, otherwise Paul wouldn't have had to write so many letters. There are a myriad of things that are part of the culture around us that are not compatible with the House of God. They were there in 386AD and they are here now, but does it make it right?

So the question is not new. Are there areas in your life that are a bit murky? It may be time to do some about it!

We have been empowered to overcome. I guess we just have to use it!

Prayer of the word

Madame Guyon spent 25 years of her life in the Bastille (prison) in Paris. This was to provide a base for her to learn and experience much of the her spiritual life. She worked with a couple of techniques but we shall only look at the the first; "praying the scripture."

In essence her technique seems to be very similar to "Lectio Divina" or "Divine Reading." I have mixed the techniques to produce this list.

This involves four distinct phases:

1. Read: Do not read quickly, read very slowly.
2. Meditate: Do not move on till you have received the heart of what you read. Allow the Holy Spirit to speak to you.
3. Pray: Use that understanding to pray into what the scripture has shown you. Sometimes this can mean literally praying the scripture.
4. Contemplate: What might that mean to you today and tomorrow. Lectio Divina word term it resting in God.
   
   

I have decided to change my practice. I had made a decision to bulk read a chapter a day of the Gospels to immerse my self in the teachings of Jesus. This is fine, but I have noticed that my familiarity tends to mean I gloss over things and miss things out.

So  I am going to practice "praying the scripture" or "Lectio Divina" in the gospels for the rest of the year. I will start with John, because I am near the end of Luke in my bulk reading. I also chose John because it is so different to the other gospels.

Looking forward to starting tomorrow.