Are you too easily pleased?

Quote of the day: bursting with thanksgiving!

“To be bursting with thanksgiving is a true witness of the Spirit within us. For the voice of thanksgiving speaks without ceasing of the goodness of God. It claims nothing. It sees no merit in man’s receiving but only in God’s giving. It marvels at his mercy. It is the language of joy because it need look no longer to its own resources.

The Christian rejoicing in this blessing of a thankful heart will have his eyes fixed upon the right person and the right place, Christ at God’s right hand. He cannot be taken up with himself without being immediately reminded that everything he possesses is the gift of God.”

R.C. Lucas, The Message of Colossians and Philemon

Quote of the day: What are you wearing?!

It matters what you wear. Whatever you do, don't go making your own clothes. You'll only be constantly wondering if it's enough. Or proud enough to imagine that it is, when everyone around you can see right through it.

I will greatly rejoice in the Lord;
my soul shall exult in my God,
for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation;
he has covered me with the robe of righteousness,
as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress,
and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. [Isaiah 61.10]

I've enjoyed listening to Mike Reeves' talks on Union with Christ on my way to & from the office lately! [Oh, and if you're looking for the quotation, it's from God's word this time. Lush.]

PS Just read Stephen Dancer's paper on Calvin on Union with Christ - a helpful addition to Mike Reeves' talks.

Bless the Lord, my soul - in Christ

Making chicken creole this morning before church, singing:

O Thou my soul, bless God the Lord;
And all that in me is
Be stirrèd up his holy name
To magnify and bless.

Bless, O my soul, the Lord thy God,
And not forgetful be
Of all his gracious benefits
He hath bestowed on thee.
All thine iniquities who doth
Most graciously forgive:
Who thy diseases all and pains
Doth heal, and thee relieve.
Who doth redeem thy life, that thou
To death mayeset not go down;
Who thee with loving-kindness doth
And tender mercies crown:

Who with abundance of good things
Doth satisfy thy mouth;
So that, even as the eagle's age,
Renewèd is thy youth.

God righteous judgement executes
For all oppressèd ones.
His ways to Moses he made known,
His acts to Israel's sons.

The Lord our God is merciful
And he is gracious,
Long-suffering, and slow to wrath,
In mercy plenteous.
He will not chide continually,
Nor keep his anger still.
With us he dealt not as we sinned,
Nor did requite our ill.

For as the heaven in its height
The earth surmounteth far,
So great to those that do him fear
His tender mercies are:
As far as east is distant from
The west, so far hath he
From us removèd in his love,
All our iniquity.

Such pity as father hath
Unto his children dear,
Like pity shows the Lord to such
As worship him in fear.
For he remembers we are dust,
And he our frame well knows.
Frail man, his days are like the grass,
As flower in field he grows:
For over it the wind doth pass,
And it away is gone;
And of the place where once it was
It shall no more be known.

But unto them that do him fear
God's mercy never ends;
And to their children's children still
His righteousness extends:
To such as keep his covenant,
And mindful are alway
Of his commandments just and good,
That they may them obey.

The Lord preparèd hath his throne
In heavens firm to stand;
And every thing that being hath
His kingdom doth command.

O ye his angels, that excel
In strength, bless ye the Lord;
Ye who obey what he commands,
And hearken to his word.
O bless and magnify the Lord,
Ye glorious hosts of his;
Ye ministers that do fulfil
Whate'er his pleasure is.

O bless the Lord, all ye his works,
Wherewith the world is stored
In his dominions every where.
My soul, bless thou the Lord.

[Psalm 103, from the Revised Scottish Metrical psalter]

And bless the Lord, my soul, that vv.17-18 was true of the Messiah Jesus:

But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting
on those who fear him,
and his righteousness to children's children,
to those who keep his covenant
and remember to do his commandments.

And we, in Him, are bound up in his covenant-keeping, his obedience, and his righteousness - my soul, bless thou the Lord!

Sharing delight

We share what we delight in.
And what we rejoice in defines us (the facebook 'like' function has hit on something!)
But ultimately, it is rejoicing in God which sustains us - "the joy of the Lord is your strength."
We are defined in Him, by Him and through Him -
it is in His image we are made, and in Christ, we become like Him.

I found a perfect tree-seat in the park yesterday. The sun warmed my arms, I'd a back-rest, a view out across the park and playground, far enough away from the football to not be bothered by it, with birdsong to listen to, this morning's sermon on which to reflect and a heavenly Father to whom to pray, by His Spirit, through the intercession of the One who will not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax. My beech's new leaves glowed above, delightful yellow-green against the sun; occasionally a delightful little breeze sent them all vibrating without stirring the branches.

Perfect for solitude, but joy must be shared.

We have this of our Father, in Christ, who as Wisdom said,

"The Lord possessed me at the beginning of his work,
the first of his acts of old.
Ages ago I was set up,
at the first, before the beginning of the earth.
When there were no depths I was brought forth,
when there were no springs abounding with water.
Before the mountains had been shaped,
before the hills, I was brought forth,
before he had made the earth with its fields,
or the first of the dust of the world.
When he established the heavens, I was there;
when he drew a circle on the face of the deep,
when he made firm the skies above,
when he established the fountains of the deep,
when he assigned to the sea its limit,
so that the waters might not transgress his command,
when he marked out the foundations of the earth,
then I was beside him, like a master workman,
and I was daily his delight,
rejoicing before him always,
rejoicing in his inhabited world
and delighting in the children of man."

- Proverbs 8.22-31

We share our delight with the Father, in Christ caught up into the joy of the Godhead, even as His creation.

Tabletalk - joyful, deep freedom!

Tim Rudge on joyful freedom deep down - that is, sanctification! Definitely worth 25 minutes listen, as Tim chats to Mike Reeves in UCCF theologynetwork.org's latest Tabletalk podcast. The key to joy is abandoning hope - abandoning all hope outside of Christ.

Rejoice in the Lord!

At the training weekend just run for new CU leaders in the Mighty Midlands, we finished by considering Philippians 3. Then, returning home, I caught BBC2's Trouble in Amish Paradise on iplayer. What an amazing example of Philippians 3 in person, currently!

Having read the Bible in their own language, they discovered Christ, and started trusting Him for salvation, rather than the rules and lifestyle of their religious community. Not that they say those things are bad: they now feel free to obey those rules (or not), and choose to live in that lifestyle, but not to trust in it for merit with God. When the community forces them to choose: community, family, lifestyle, support - or remaining true to what they've found, that salvation is by trusting Jesus, that obeying the church is not right when the church bans the Bible and bans meeting to study it or pray or sing in your own language - then these people chose to obey God rather than men. But they testify that Christ is a thousand times better. Whatever gain they had, they have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.

Indeed, they count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake they have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that they may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of their own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith — that they may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible they may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Not that they have attained that, but this documentary described how they press on to make it their own, because Christ Jesus has made them his own. They work at it - not having good knowledge of English, they study the Bible with a dictionary to hand, as they seek to understand! They don't despise those who haven't yet realised this: they have great love for others, seeking still to be Amish to the Amish, so as to win them for Christ, and to be non-Amish to others, to also win them for Christ. They are hoping in Christ despite hardship. Watch the video and rejoice, and pray for them.

Join the party!

(AKA Free with BUECU, day 5)

God's throwing a party - come and join! Actually, with the number of people in every nation trusting in the infinitely worthy Person and precious work of His Son every minute, God must be constantly joyful. In this instance, a girl studying at Birmingham University decided today to repent from her own ways and trust in God to justify her by His Son. She came looking for something spiritual, and has now found Jesus.

There are hundreds of students at Birmingham Uni now reading Mark's gospel: some with flatmates or coursemates who're in CU, some having chatted with a CU member during the week, some having come to events, most having asked many questions and received some answers - but all reading Mark's gospel. Pray that for many more, they would see that Jesus is the promised Saviour-King, the Son of God, and would repent and believe this good news!

More joy than midnight snow

Have you ever been out before anyone else, and alone in the still air, crunched across newly-laid snow as flakes fall thickly around you? It's a thing of beauty and joy in the early morning, when the snowy sky is red with dawn, but this time, it was beauty and joy at midnight, with not a sound on the street.

It was for a very practical reason - I was coming home from BUECU's FREE week acoustic night, and need to get back to campus for an 8am prayer meeting in the morning, so as it was snowing heavily, I parked my car in a nearby street which is on a bus route, in the hope that it will be safer to drive from there tomorrow morning. But it's a lovely touch of grace that I have a car to drive in and give lifts - when late at night, cold and snowy - and that I got to enjoy the snow for a few minutes, until I shook myself like a wet Spaniel in my porch, and my coat shed its candyfloss and returned to charcoal grey.

On a not-completely unrelated note, in an excellent acoustic night, Matt Churchouse spoke in the vein of C.S.Lewis and Augustine, with a note of personal testimony, on finding satisfaction. It resonated with me as he shared of his teenage search for satisfaction in the jazz, until he realised that it was an god that didn't deliver - and by considering that all the good things we pursue are temporary, pushed us in the direction of finding Jesus to be our satisfaction and joy. Some non-Christians who came were struck by it, one girl telling me she totally agreed but found herself still living in pursuit of those temporary things anyway (pray for her & her Christian flatmate as they continue this conversation), and another saying Churchy should've said more: pray they'd come back for more about Jesus! Satisfied in Christ, we're free to have such joy in beauty as above. It doesn't have to be spoiled by the fact that it's temporary. It can be received with thanksgiving to the Creator, and enjoyed in hope of Eternity.

Music and Light

Somewhere in the "enlightenment" we lost the light. We lost the numinous. We lost beauty and have only the media used, we lost the music and have only notes and rhythms, our poetry the words and structure. Nothing more. We lost joy, and glory, and are left with only apetite. We fall short of the glory of God, and now we don't even bother to make an idol: we just celebrate the short-fall.

Yet there is something in us, some testimony that rebels. Eternity in our hearts. Denying the numinous doesn't remove its existence. Andris Nelsons, CBSO conductor, said, "All of us need music and culture - it's food to the soul." Some great composers, he said, address civilisations, but Tchaikovsky (of this evening's concert) speaks to each of us personally, to our hearts.

I believe we have a physical body and a soul. It doesn’t matter what religion you are, whether or not you believe in God, I think people believe that there is a soul and a body. You need food for your body, you need to eat and exercise to satisfy your physical body, but there is a soul that needs to be satisfied too, and it can be satisfied of course through love, but for me music is the most beautiful form of satisfaction. Even going to a rock concert can do this, I wish I had time to go, but classical music fills me up and makes me happy. [Nelsons in a BBC interview.]

Thus music could so easily become an idol for me - for joy, glory, beauty, harmony; it stirs the soul. But music is not the highest goal or satisfaction. It is but a pale whisper on the outer edges of the reflection of the outskirts of the glory of God's creation. And music is a punishing idol. Nelsons remarked that never very far from a musician is the question, "To be or not to be?" It is an unending, unquenchable search for joy if limited to music. Is this it?

So how do I avoid idolatry when I feel the pull of the numinous in God's creation? Perspective. Looking through the created to glory in the Creator, for one thing. For another, just as I went into this evening's concert, I heard news from one of my CUs who ran a lunchtime event today for non-Christians - far beyond anyone's expectations, two dozen non-Christians came, and engaged with good questions, and asked for more such events. As I left the concert hall, I heard further that several non-Christian friends then also came to the CU meeting later, and one of these students may yet read Mark's gospel with a CU member. Beauty, joy, and truth? The numinous? Light? "This is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." [John 17.3]

Kill & escape or fix & abide?

Problem:
We're too attached to transient, corruptible things, and therefore are not happy.
Solution:
a) kill these desires and escape the material things which enslave us to unhappiness;
OR
b) fix these desires on an intransient, incorruptible object, to be happy.

Buddhism or Christianity? Read more from Jon Bloom.

The Call to Joy and Pain

I've thought a lot recently about the call to suffer. Pondering treasuring Christ in the call to suffer. Chewing over the fact that it is in sharing in Christ's sufferings that Paul expects to know God's resurrection power at work in him - not in his times of exciting ministry (though they're not mutually exclusive).

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. [Philippians 3.8-11]

Ajith Fernando teaches very helpfully on the call to joy and pain in the book of that title by IVP. It confirmed for me much of what I've been chewing over, especially in combining those calls: it seems paradoxical! A while ago Mo raised a query with Piper's "Christian hedonism", with which I sympathised:

"Experientially there is sometimes joy in obeying God. But sometimes not. Jesus
expressed loud groans to God when facing death. Particularly, I don’t know how
the command often expressed by Christian Hedonists to pursue one’s own joy as
hard as you can fits in with the command to deny yourself, which is key to
repentance. Denying yourself is sometimes not joyful, and surely actually means
that the heart of Christian discipleship is NOT doing what will bring you most
joy but denying yourself that."

And Fernando speaks of dying - how often graduates look for ministry in which to be successful, as they're not prepared to die. Not that we're not prepared to be martyred: but are we prepared to die to self, to comfort, to security, to affirmation, to appreciation, to fruit in service, to... take up our cross and follow Christ? This reminded me of a biography of Amy Carmichael, by Elizabeth Elliot: A Chance to Die (very much worth reading). Ajith helpfully speaks of this call to pain together with the call to joy, in a way which reminded me not of Piper's books so much as his sermons on Hebrews, to which I listened while in Belgium, which kept reminding me to keep with Christ and die to self. I'm not entirely sure that we should pursue joy any more than we should pursue pain, yet in pursuing Christ both are inevitable gifts and not to be resented, as we treasure Christ.

But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one. Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. For,

“Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay; but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.”

But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls. [Heb. 10.32-39]

I recommend both books.

Hear

Quietly, in shades of grey, the park lives deserted. I intrude, slipping into its pace, its time: in the steady calm of the evening-scape, the tunes rehearsed fade into the melody of my violin case bumping on my back. Ahead along the path, grey flows strangely into living green, as warm yellow slips down from an old-fashioned lantern. My footsteps wade lightly through its puddle. On this night I could pluck an arm from the lantern and cast it into the soft grassy earth: on this night it would spring and bud and grow - so the still air whispers. The warm night air is sweet; sweet as leafy lungs breathe. On this night, if you listen, listen below the shallow, distant hum of city, you may almost catch a murmur of a Lion, singing low a deep sustaining song, holding together the grassy atoms, the towering trees, the human city lights, the haze above; giving this sweet air, breathing a song to which the silver sliver above smiles a faint reply in keeping with her orbit.

Contentment

I read Bish's thankful post about supervisions on the beach, and it got me thinking about contentment. You see, my first reaction was gladness that Dave and Kenny could have supervisions on the beach. My secondary reaction was, 'I wish I could be beside the sea!' Landlocked Birmingham. Big smelly city Birmingham. No mountains, no sea Birmingham.

But yesterday, even this morning, I was very happy in Birmingham. It was beautiful weather, I've been cycling everywhere (OK; I get the train to Wolverhampton), meeting students for frescatos and enjoying the gospel together, and even if I get tired and headachey in the heat, cycling gives a lovely breeze and I'd taken the evening off. I do miss the sea and the hills, but I was content and thankful to God.

I'd even noted, as I walked down to the corner shop on Wednesday morning, how much nicer Birmingham is on a hot day than Brussels, and expressed gratitude in my heart to God! You may be in a city in Birmingham, but the front gardens on my street are nice, trees line the street, and as I headed down the hill I noticed how fresh and clean the air was. In Brussels, being a compact city, I would walk between tall apartment blocks with no greenery, along the flat, with no sight of anything but the next street, and breathing in a permanent smoggy haze in hot weather. I was thankful to God for his kindness to me in placing me even in Birmingham.

But then I was wishing I could be by the sea, very close to coveting the coast that is my neighbour's.

What had changed?

Nothing had changed. Nothing had changed in my situation. God is still over abundantly, exorbitantly and lavishly kind to me in his grace toward me in his precious Son, and even in his present, passing gifts to me, of where I live, and the job I do, and so much more. Even if something in my situation had changed, it wouldn't change that fact.

So while I may plead with my sister in Inverness to spare me a little mountain (not even a Munroe - just a little one would do), or see whether the Welsh team could send us a bit of coastline (not nice beach - just waves crashing in on rocks would do), I'll not let my evil heart use God's gifts to others as an excuse for discontent.

Apart from anything else, I recalled the one time as a student when on a gorgeous sunny day I met my CU staffworker down by the lake on campus (who needs a beach?). I got horrendously sunburned.

God is so immensely kind toward us. Go and celebrate it with Bish :)

Quote of the day: ode to joy

A triple-bill of excellent talks by Mike Reeves on the cross, on theologynetwork.org. In the third talk, applying this, he says:

Isaiah 61.10: I will greatly rejoice in the Lord;my soul shall exult in my God,for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation;he has covered me with the robe of righteousness,...

So the next time you're asked how you're doing in the Christian life, you can say, "How am I doing? I know that in me lives nothing good at all. But I was crucified with Christ. The life I now live I live by faith in the Son of God." That's Paul in Galatians 2. No self-confidence at all does he have. A righteousness we will never have in our hearts covers, clothes, surrounds, envelopes us. And we simply trust Christ.

So, we do not look to our hearts, our feelings or our performance to know how we stand before the Lord. Your heart will lie to you. We don't even look to ourselves to see how much we trust in Christ! You ever done that? You say, "Oh ok, so it's all about trusting Christ - am I trusting him enough?" What's the problem with that? You've just turned faith into the one thing you've got to do! So you're asking, "Am I doing faith enough?" Totally irrelevant! Faith is not a thing you do which pleases God on the basis of which He saves you! It is God's blood, it is Jesus shed blood on the cross alone which saves you, and you simply receive that - that's faith. Accepting that free gift. Not looking to my heart to see, "Am I trusting enough?"; looking to Christ: there is all our righteousness. Now doesn't that bring a smile to your face?

What is the fastest killer of joy? It's not hard times. It's introspection. We live in the most self-obsessed, introspective age I think the world has ever seen. And I believe it's the culture of morbid introspection that is fuelling the spreading problem of depression. The cross is the Christian's ode to joy. And when the darkness comes for you, here in the cross is music so joyous it has the power to drive away every gloom. So when your heart feels cold, when your body closes you down, when your emotions imprison you, what do you do? You fight with God's word for perspective. That whatever I face, whatever I feel, this is the bigger picture. I do NOT depend on myself, I do not trust my heart. I have been taken utterly unworthy from the pit to the throne of heaven. Joy is something you cultivate. And if you can so shape your daily perspective that you know this before anything else, you will have a joy that can overcome death.

Week of thankfulness

1 - My cousin's wedding in Stirling brought my family together from Belfast, Inverness and Birmingham - first time the 5 of us were togther for several years. The joy of seeing my cousin, recently recommitted to Christ following years drifting, marrying her newly converted and lovely bloke. The beautiful highlands: lochs and mountains. Snow. I wanted to bring a little loch (just a wee one!) and mountain back to Brummieland (not even a Munro: just a little one), but my sister wouldn't let me. Sigh.

2) Listening to more of Piper on Romans on the way up on the train, and Haydn's Creation, Saint-Saëns 'organ' symphony, and the Barber and Korngold violin concertos. There's something about watching the highlands go past while listening to such a soundtrack that beats television hands down into the mud every time.

3) Interviewing final year students for the Relay programme - hearing them testify to God's work in their lives, in building character, teaching them his truth, and using them in serving his Church. Joy.

4) Meeting my current Relay worker, considering the humility part of "Humble Orthodoxy" with a talk from Nathan Smith. "Pride is seeking to ungod God." (Thomas Watson)

5) Good Friday with church, swimming in the grace of the cross. The privilege of leading cross-centred worship from the piano in the morning, and serving similarly in outreach services in residential homes in the afternoon. I love doing services in residential homes: these dear people need Christ so much, are mostly only too thrilled to come to a service and talk about the gospel, and yet so few seem to reach out to them.

6) Enjoying the cross with help from Mike Reeves, courtesy of theologynetwork.org

7) Surprising a friend in church with a 50th birthday party this evening - fun!

Swim against the tide of fun

"Have fun!" I've often used that as a well-wishing comment. Seldom seriously meant it: more often I've meant, "I hope what you're heading to will be helpful, or enjoyable, or even painful but good for you in the long run." But I've said, "Have fun!"

Our culture militates against taking life seriously. It's one of the serious crimes against British sensibility (cf. Watching the English) - to appear too serious, too much in earnest. People start squirming, a little embarassed, feeling that such enthusiasm for things of import should be locked up somewhere. We know too much to be engagedly committed to ideals. To spend time and effort taking life seriously. We know that our ideals are broken, our previous idols smashed, or philosophies found wanting, our religion dead. We know that our lives are meaningless, our history bunk, our politics mindless and our character predetermined by biological, social and economic factors. We're either patronisingly amused or admiringly puzzled by American political zeal. We know from our neighbours that plus ça change... So we take up with the rest, in mind-numbing media, utilitarian education, and short-fix comfort government, to fill our ears, eyes, bodies and hearts with light relief.

I've found myself recently, when home tired at the end of the day, relaxing to the sound of BBC 7 repeats of radio comedy taking the Mick out of the news, while playing Minesweeper. Light relief. Satirising events in the news may help take life less seriously, but I don't think that's our main problem. Certainly my problem, tuned in to radio satire while numbing my tired mind at the end of a day, is not that I take the world or myself too seriously, but that I don't take God seriously enough.

Listening to better things this morning: Piper on Romans 2.6-10, from 1998 -

I feel such a burden for us as a church to swim against the tide of almost every current in our culture. More and more and more, America is a nation given over to play. The industries of play are huge! Houses are built today with entertainment centers. Computers and videos and television and stereo all coordinate to give us ever more stimulating and captivating distractions from the realities of the world. When we need to be dreaming, for the glory of Christ, about how to spend our lives alleviating ignorance and sickness and misery and lostness, we are becoming more and more addicted to amusement.

Make a little test of evangelical vocabulary, and calculate, for example, the increasing frequency with which we use the world "fun" to describe almost everything we like. But when do we describe our good experiences as "meaningful" or "significant" or "enriching" or "ennobling" or "worthwhile" or "edifying" or "helpful" or "strengthening" or "encouraging" or "deepening" or "transforming"
or "valuable" or "eye-opening" or "God-exalting"?

Examine yourself with this text: Whatever else it teaches, this is clear, it teaches that after death there is eternal life and glory and honor and peace, and there is eternal wrath and indignation and tribulation and distress. And in the twinkling of an eye, even before this service is over, you could be irreversibly in the one or the other. I am a watchman on the wall. And I have warned you as clearly as I know how. Get ready and stay ready.

Live in the light of eternity. And I do mean light, not shadow. When you have come to know your God, and love his Son so much that you can say, "For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain," then living in the light of eternity will replace your "fun" with deeper, higher, wider, longer, more unshakable, more varied, more satisfying, more durable, more solid pleasures than all the fun that entertainment could ever give. O come, and let us be a different breed of people for the few short years we have to live upon this earth! Dream some dream of making your life count for Christ and his Kingdom. "Only one life, 'twill soon be past. Only what's done for Christ will last."

I mean to swim against the tide of fun. Not that I won't be amused by satire. Not that I won't enjoy life to the full. But precisely because I will enjoy life to the full, knowing that under God, life is serious. Enjoying God, I suspect that life (true life) is enjoyably serious, and ultimately seriously enjoyable.

Null gospels

On my current thoughts of gift, giver, idolatry and the desires of our heart, Bish has flagged another vid of Piper, this time engaging with prosperity gospel in Birmingham. It was Birmingham, Alabama, but this Birmingham of the Brum variety has the cathedral to material prosperity with its god offering happiness and acceptance. It doesn't deliver. It is no gospel. And let us make very sure not to preach it.

I sat in aforementioned materialism cathedral earlier today and meditated on Luke 12.13-34. A good and challenging passage. I've spoken on it evangelistically before, but it has such impact for any heart inclined to the idolatry of worshipping the gift rather than the giver, the created rather than the Creator. Something like this...

Be careful! Guard yourself against all covetousness (for what you don't have; or over-care for what you do have: your life isn't made up of how much you own! You've lost the plot if you gather stuff for yourself and you aren't rich toward God. Don't go chasing after nice clothes, food, drink, seeking after them as if you get your life from them. That's what the pagans do - who don't know that life comes from God. He's your heavenly Father, and knows what you need - so you concentrate on seeking after his kingdom, which isn't a pointless search, either, cos he loves to give it to you. So hold your stuff really lightly - and hold onto God, your treasure in heaven. Whatever you count as your treasure, you'll set your heart on it. And you don't want to have your heart bound up with what'll wear out in a few years!

Fulness of joy

1. 1 John 5 with BUECU small group leaders.

"I write these things to you who believe in the name
of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life."

2. Students in Starbucks. Many coffees & meals with students as they prepare to flee university for the summer, and Starbucks now do Fairtrade coffee (finally... but not tea - still working on that one) - x2 in Brum & one in Leicester with an interesting basement layout. Also patronised were the good ol' Selly Sausage with its marvellous blueberry pancakes, Pizza Express (Aston CU grub crawl!), student houses, my house, and the Bennetts' (which has admitted tea other than Earl Grey). The encouragement of students testifying to growing throughout the year - and a friend of some Aston CU members putting her trust in the Lord for the first time a week ago :D

3. A sunny Saturday afternoon cycling along canal towpaths, followed by an evening listening to Bach's St Matthew's Passion.

4. Heartily piano-ing in worship with church, with everyone praising our Father and our Saviour Jesus Christ. We've been enjoying learning Keith & Stuart's Speak O Lord - a brilliant prayer before hearing God's word preached, which, in new songs I'm teaching, has followed The Power of the Cross which we're deepening appreciation of when celebrating Communion.

5. Hosea with Midlands staff and Tim Rudge. God as the wounded lover & our adulterous hearts which make desires inordinate and thus fashion idols. Our sin is not only judicial but deeply personal. Deeply hurtful, shameful, gut-wrenching. Chs.9-12 pictures of God's people in the past, like a deserted husband mourning over pictures from the wedding album. In punishment also God is being faithful! Yet the question raised: how will this adulterous whore of a people (and us included, in these heart adulteries) become faithful (1.8-11) when divorce would be just? Christ's fulfilment - the faithful people, the true vine (Hos.10), the obedient life - removed the sting of sin & death (Hos.13), so in him we are faithful.

6. The joy of Brahm's violin concerto and Tchaik.4 with Weller conducting the CBSO. Best seats in the house on standby tickets. I wondered if one could have a heart attack from joy. If it could actually burst. The Brahms (Steinbacher) is the first violin concerto I remember hearing in concert, and still thrills me. The Tchaikovsky just makes me want to burst. And reminded me of when we played it on tour in Italy: with the oboe solo rising in the Symphony Hall, I could feel the air of an open air evening concert in Florence in July. The third movement pizzicato is a wonderful playfulness in the violins, respite from the rest of the symphony while still flying the tune with energy. With the wonderful brilliance of the start of the 4th movement I felt the launch of joy of throwing bow, fingers and violin into the music when too épuisée from the previous three movements in late evening heat to feel anything any more. But this was Tchaik 4 as we never played it - Weller's brilliance drew the CBSO into the work as I can't describe. It made me think, 'joy unspeakable and full of glory', which challenged me as my housemate said afterwards - we should be even more engaged with God, as he is so much more than wonderful music. As David said in Psalm 4, in persecutions and troubling times, "You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound." I am challenged - do I have more joy in my heart from God than when my Brahms and Tchaikovsky abound? It makes me feel alive. But is an idol not something to which we turn for life, not recognising that it is God who makes us live? (See Hosea 2.2-8.) Oh that I truly and joyfully acknowledge the giver, and may my heart see the glory of the gift reflect to his praise, as it does. Yet I think I need a resurrection body before this following can be fulfilled:

You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. [Ps. 16]

Fullness of joy in God's presence? Entering into the joy of our Master? I think my heart would break from joy, if it can barely cope now with the dim, shadow-joys of his creation, and knowing him in part. Yet we'll be transformed to be a joy (Isa 65.18)! So the challenge of

7. Psalm 27 -

You have said, “Seek my face.”
My heart says to you,“Your face, Lord, do I seek.”

is a challenge for joy. That he would be my highest joy.