Living and speaking for Jesus

Tag: look to Jesus (Page 2 of 2)

Maturity

Man running

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things. (Philippians 3:12-15a)

Paul is writing as one of the spiritual heavyweights of his day – one of Christ’s apostles, an authoritative teacher. If anyone were considered mature in the faith, it would be Paul. But what does he say characterises such Christian maturity?

I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind, and straining toward what is ahead, I press on…

We don’t mature as Christians and then plateau. This side of the new creation, there’s no stage in the Christian life where we can say we’ve made it. Christian maturity is shown by an attitude that says “we’re not there yet”. We always keep growing; we are continually striving towards our goal. Christian maturity isn’t a passive state we reach, but is shown by striving for… what? What is the goal Paul is striving towards?

I want to know Christ – yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 3:10-11)

What he’s striving for is to know Christ. This is what Christian maturity looks like: a desire to know more of Christ. We shouldn’t be stagnant in our desire to know him better; in fact, if we think we’ve arrived in the Christian life, that only goes to show we’ve missed the heart of it. We are saved for a relationship with the God who made us, and if our relationship with him stops growing, we’ve missed the point of our salvation.

Paul wants to know Christ. It’s the one thing he does – pressing on to know him (3:8), gain him (3:8), and be found in him (3:9). How much does this describe me? Worryingly little. I can end up thinking that maturity means being a leader, being respected, or knowing my Bible better than those around me. But if I’m not wanting to know Christ more and more, and not just about him, then I’m showing my immaturity. Jesus died so that we could know him; knowing him is what we were made for.

Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. (John 17:3)

Let us strive to know the Lord. His appearance is as sure as the dawn. He will come to us like the rain, like the spring showers that water the land. (Hosea 6:3, HCSB)

(Article revised and reposted; original from 27th March 2008)

Cucumbers rather than Christ?

british weather cartoonBritain is sometimes referred to as a nation of grumblers. Complaining about things is somewhat of a national sport. It’s raining? We wish it were sunny. It’s sunny? We complain about the heat. If I’m driving you somewhere you’ll hear exasperated comments like “indicate, why don’t you?” or “do you want to cause an accident?”. I’m not yet thirty and already I’m complaining about “kids these days”.

The British pale into insignificance, however, when compared with the people of Israel on their way to the promised land. In Numbers we hear:

The Israelites started wailing and said, “If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost—also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!” (Numbers 11:4b-6)

The Lord has rescued them from slavery in Egypt, and is taking them to a land full of blessing. Each day he gives them all the nourishment they need by providing manna – bread from heaven. Yet the people long for the days of slavery in Egypt. “We were better off there”, they say. “In Egypt we had cucumbers!”

It’s not just a few grumbles about physical comforts. The Lord tells us the spiritual reality behind what they’re doing:

“You have rejected the Lord, who is among you, and have wailed before him, saying, “Why did we ever leave Egypt?”” (Numbers 11:20)

The Israelites are still in the wilderness. They’ve not yet made it to the promised land. But in the wilderness the Lord is with them. 1 Corinthians 10:4 tells us that they “drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ”. By saying they’d rather be back in Egypt, they are “rejecting the Lord, who is among [them]”. They’d rather have cucumbers in chains, than know freedom with Christ.

As we travel through the wilderness of this world, we too are prone to grumble. The Christian life is hard; we face trials and temptations; we can very easily take our eyes off the Lord. Rather than turn to him in our anguish, we turn away from him and grumble.

What is it that you grumble about? I complain about my job, ill health, wet weather and missed buses. I grumble about how much better other people’s lives seem than mine. In doing so, I forget all the ways the Lord has blessed me and continues to bless me.

How do we address grumbling? Not by excusing it (“everyone does it”), nor by blithely ignoring it (“cheer up, it’s not that bad!”). No – we take our grumbles to our loving Father, who never ceases to do good to his children. He knows that we live in the wilderness, but gives us the true Bread of Heaven to eat (John 6:26-35). We look to Jesus – and as we see him, we find that his goodness outshines all the darkness around us. Who needs cucumbers when you can have Christ?

(Reflections on “Cucumbers rather than Christ”, the talk given at Emmanuel Bristol yesterday. Further reading: Glen Scrivener on the Bread of Heaven and Dan Hames on what the wilderness years point to.)

Running after Jesus

Those who know your name will trust in you,
   for you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you.
      (Psalm 9:10)

Christians are those who know the Lord’s name: his identity and character as the God who reveals himself, the God who saves a wretched people, the God we know in and through Jesus. We know him personally and place our trust in him, because he has proven himself trustworthy.

How has he proven himself? The Psalmist could point to the Exodus, and to countless individual stories, to show the trustworthiness of God. He could point to promises made and promises kept. He could speak of the Lord’s covenant with his people. He could confidently assert that God had never forsaken his people in the past, and so they could trust him in the future.

Trust him to do what? Ultimately by God the Son taking on our nature in the person of Jesus, whose name literally means “God our Saviour”. The Lord’s name – his identity as the God who saves – is made known personally. Knowing Jesus and all that he’s done for us, we have perfect grounds for trusting in God. We have confidence he will never leave or forsake us, even in the midst of darkness, because Jesus went through the dark night of death and rose to resurrection life. Like a needle pulling a thread through dark cloth, Jesus takes us through death to new life in him.

Who does he do this for? All those who seek him, who look to him, who find their refuge in him. The Christian life is not about seeking an abstract salvation, or simply a ticket out of hell. The Christian life is about seeking, running after, throwing ourselves on Jesus, our Refuge, our Champion, our Brother and our King. Our ultimate sin is to have rejected the life that is ours in Jesus. Christians are those who run after him, like the Beloved of the Song of Songs searching for her Lover, turning to Jesus for life and salvation.

As another year begins, won’t you join me in running after Jesus? He promises us that those who seek will find.

Bring me to Christ

What the Christian heart needs then is simple: It needs Christ. Bring me to him. He is my great physician, my wonderful healer. He is the fire that warms my heart and sets it ablaze. Bring me to him and not to a list of things to do. Tell me of Christ and not law. Tell me of Christ and not a step by step guide on how to live as a Christian. For if my heart is aflame with the love of Christ and my very being filled with the Spirit of Christ then I will walk in step with His Spirit.

Cat Caird’s reflections on new year’s resolutions, looking at what our hearts really need.

Resolutions

New Year's Resolutions

The new year comes with renewed attempts to get our act together, to pull our socks up, to do better. Our resolutions can be vague (“eat less chocolate”) or specific (“get up at 6.30am to pray”), expensive (“join a gym”) or money-saving (“spend less on clothes”). They can be realistic (“eat an apple each day”) or seemingly unachievable (“stop looking at porn”). They can all be good desires to grow in godliness, but they can also be dangerous attempts at self-justification – trying to save ourselves through our efforts.

By nature we try to gain acceptance from God, others and ourselves through performance. We ask ourselves whether we’ve achieved enough, worked hard enough, or improved enough. If we manage to keep our resolutions, we feel better about ourselves; if we fail, we feel guilty and despondent. Success makes us think that God loves us and is close to us; failure, that he’s angry and aloof.

New year’s resolutions can reinforce the idea that we can save ourselves. For those of us who are generally self-disciplined, we can become confident in our own ability to change, to become acceptable to God. For those of us who are weak-willed, our inevitable failure leads to hopelessness. Either way, we end up focused on ourselves.

Our problems lie deeper than mere behaviour. The eyes of our hearts constantly turn inwards, looking to ourselves for salvation and satisfaction rather than to Jesus. We may try to gain acceptance from God through performance, but we never will. Spiritually, we are dead and in need of resurrection. Resolving to do better by ourselves is like a corpse resolving to learn to tap-dance.

This is why God’s resolutions are such good news. He promises us that “though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow” (Isaiah 1:18). He has raised us with Christ, giving us new, resurrection life in him (Eph 2:4-5), and has promised us an eternal inheritance, giving us his Spirit as a guarantee (Eph 1:13-14). He has resolved to bring us home, and he does not break his word.

How does this change how we think about new year’s resolutions?

First, we must accept that we cannot save ourselves from the death we deserve, but God has graciously done it all. Nothing we can do will change this certainty.

With this foundation, Paul says to “offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness” (Romans 6:13). We don’t do this to earn a relationship with God; we do this because we have a relationship with God that is unshakeable, and our new hearts long to serve their new master.

So this year, let us resolve to constantly look to Jesus, knowing all our salvation and joy comes from him; and consequently resolve to do our utmost to follow him daily, knowing that he has resolved never to leave or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5). His resolutions are never broken.

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