Share the Blessing

“On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.”
(John 7:37-38)

Reflection:
The Holy Spirit is not given to us as our own private possession and only for our own blessing. God always has a greater vision than that. His vision encompasses the whole world.

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus also taught His disciples that they were the ‘light of the world’ a description that had been given to Him. It is clear that it is the light of Christ within us that is to shine out and be a source of hope and life to those around us.

The picture of ‘streams of living water’ is extremely attractive – particularly to thirsty and footsore travellers. Jesus invitation, commencing with the word ‘anyone’ makes it clear that there is no exclusivity involved. The gift is for all ‘whoever’ will believe.

It is important that we remember that whatever situation we may encounter today, and whatever rooms we may walk into, the Holy Spirit is looking for an opportunity to flow out and touch someone’s life. We should be prepared to open the ‘gates’ to allow it to happen. It starts with silently praying for those we meet and then taking whatever loving action is prompted by the Spirit. We all can be the vehicle of a blessing today.

And as the Spirit flows from us He also flows in a fresh stream into us.

Response:
Look with God-directed eyes, pray with God-prompted hearts, reach out with God-empowered words and hands.

Prayer:

Holy Spirit please fill me with this ‘living water’ of Your presence – and flow from me into the lives of those around me who so need Your blessing. Amen.

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Thirsty for God

“As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God”
(Psalm 42:1-2)

 

Reflection:
So many of the problems and dissatisfactions of life come down to this – we are drinking from the wrong sources and they do not satisfy us. Our souls long for something more, something deeper and something more satisfying and helpful. When we don’t find it we are tempted to try new drinks and involvements to find if they might help. But they don’t except through their novelty.

Every one of us has this deep craving which more knowledge, more meetings, more experiments and more relationships don’t satisfy. It is a craving for God Himself – not just any god, the ones we conjure up or the one’s the world produces but – the God of Love who made us for Himself and understands us and all of our needs.  It’s not even more church or more Bible Study, although they should help, it’s more of God Himself.

David put his finger on it when he wrote “my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” Jesus affirmed it when He said to the woman at the well,

“If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water …. a spring of water welling up to eternal life”
(John 4:10 & 14)

Eugene Peterson with his flair for the poetic puts it wonderfully this way in The Message,

“A white-tailed deer drinks from the creek;
I want to drink God, deep draughts of God.
I’m thirsty for God–alive.”
(Psalm 42:1-2)

He interprets Paul like this,

“Don’t drink too much wine.
That cheapens your life.
Drink the Spirit of God,
huge draughts of him.”
(Ephesians 5:18)

Response:
Keep asking God for (more of) the Holy Spirit. Ask God to show you His works during the day. Ask Him to show you His love and reality in Scripture as you read it. Be expectant.

Prayer:

Please open the eyes of my spirit Lord that I may see more of the Lord Jesus in my life. Amen.

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Find Your Treasure

“You will show me the path of life.
 In your presence is fullness of joy.
In your right hand there are pleasures forevermore”
(Psalm 16:11)

 

Reflection:
The Bible is full of treasures that speak to us in particular ways at different times. This one has always been a great friend that seems to keep appearing before me.

It reminds me that God is involved in my life. As the Good Shepherd, and as the Lord, He always goes before me and tells me to follow Him. In this way He will show me the way to go. It will not be merely a good way, or just a pleasant way, or even the easiest way. It will always be the best way for me in any situation. It will be the way of life now that is a part of the Way of Life that brings me fully and finally into His eternal presence and love.

But I may also know the reality of His presence even now – today and every day. Jesus promised to be with us always (Matthew 28:20) and the Holy Spirit whom He has given us resides within us. This means too that I may know the pleasure of this presence. In fact it is far more than pleasure, it is joy – and joy to the fullest possible extent known to humans. Jesus said to us that

“I have told you this so that my joy may be in you
and that your joy may be complete”
(John 15:11)

The final promise always raises a picture for me that comes from my childhood. My father would come home and sometimes hold out his closed right hand to me to indicate that there was a gift inside. I would take his great hand in my own small one and try to peel open his fingers so that I could access the treasure within. Whenever we are in God’s presence He has a gift for us that is either relevant to our need of the moment or is just a love token from our Father of great love. It is there for us to find and grasp.

We miss out on so much if we dash in and out of the presence of God. There do need to be times when we soak in His presence and His Word – allowing Him to draw closer and to give us more of Himself.

Response:
Ask Him to open these words to you – and for you.

Prayer:

Father help me to enter more fully into Your presence and allow You to choose how to bless me today. Amen.

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Divine Artist

“Where morning dawns and evening fades
you call forth songs of joy”
(Psalm 65:8)

 

Reflection:
I have loved and still love God’s great gifts of morning and evening, sunrise and sunset, dawn and dusk. And I understand fully the translation which proclaims,

“The gates of the morning and evening
sing Your praise.”

I have been fortunate enough to know times when I could sleep next to the ocean with curtains wide. And, as the sun began to show its golden rim above the distant horizon, I have sprung from my bed and gone out to greet the dawn.  There with the surging and whispering sea I have welcomed the morning with wonder and praise. Every part of me has thrilled to the sense of God as He has ushered in another opportunity to know and enjoy His love and life.

At other times I have stood knee-deep in the swirling surf and watched in awe as the sun went down in a sky-wide blaze of glorious colour. And as I gazed in speechless and almost tearful wonder the Artist produced another range of colours from His palette. With gentle hand and loving touch He painted the silent clouds again and again with ever-softening hues – turning often to watch my face and smile.

Eugene Peterson translates it like this.

‘Dawn and dusk take turns
calling ‘come and worship’

It is a message for all to see and hear – if only we will. For a glorious moment it lifts our eyes and our spirits from the obsessions, the pain and the burdens of the moment. It offers us an injection of cleansing beauty, of enlightening truth and of blessed hope. It’s a space in which to pause and say’, ‘Of course; Thank You,’ and to be still. For silence also is praise to You, our great God of love.

Response:
Make time to look and wonder at the God of creation.

Prayer:

Lord help me to hear the voice of Your creation as it reaches out to me in love and blessing. Amen.

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Information or Formation

“God has revealed it to us by his Spirit.”
(1 Corinthians 2:10)

Reflection:
The living truths of God cannot be established and received without the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit who reveals and gives life to these truths within us at a spiritual level. There they become not just knowledge but life-changing and liberating reality.

The Scriptures were inspired by the Holy Spirit.

• “All Scripture is God-breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16)

The Bible can be read and studied as historic literature in the same way as any other and certain truths may be identified and established. However the danger is that they remain a store of knowledge to be used and abused as it suits us. Jesus challenged the religious leaders on this when He exclaimed,

• “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life” (John 5:39-40)

As we read these same Scripture under the guidance and revelation of the Spirit, who inspired them in the first place, we discover that they are both a revelation of God and a revelation within us from God. They are not meant to be merely an historical record and a list of do’s and don’ts – they are meant to be God  speaking His eternal love, light and life into our individual and corporate lives today and every day. We need God’s help because

• “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14)

The Scriptures both invite and demand a response from us – for throughout them the message rings out calling us back to the Living God and into His love, forgiveness and grace. It is a call to abandon the ways of a fallen world and to embrace the Way of Christ. It is an invitation for us to leave the world’s darkness and to enter into the glorious Light. It is an assurance that we no longer have to search for love but to receive Love. It is the comfort of knowing that when we can’t God says simply “I can.” It is the liberating wonder of knowing, when we fear that we will never be good enough for Him, that He is good enough for us!  For

• “We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us”  (1 Corinthians 2:12)

Response:
Keep asking the Holy Spirit for guidance and understanding

Prayer:

Almighty Father pour out Your Spirit on us today that we might walk in Your light, life and love and by Your grace know Your presence. Amen.

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He Comes as Truth

“But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes,
he will guide you into all truth”
(John 16:13)

 

Reflection:
The Spirit of God has to be the Spirit of Truth. There can be no untruth in God at all and so Jesus described Himself as “ ..the Truth..” (John 14:6)
As a first priority the Spirit will focus on Jesus Christ in whose birth and baptism, life and ministry He was so involved.

• “He will testify about Me” (John 15:26)
• “He will bring glory to Me” (John 16:14)

The Holy Spirit will also act to do something that the world and humankind is incapable of achieving.

• “When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: (John 16:8)

He will convict the world not only of sin itself but of the greatest sin which is that “men do not believe in Me.” – the Me being Jesus Christ and God’s greatest gift.

He will convict the world of righteousness – the rightness of Jesus Christ as the Lord and Saviour of the World and the only Way to God.

He will convict the world of judgement – in that Jesus Christ has supreme authority over all of creation and He will come again in great power and glory to judge the living and the dead. In this regard the ‘prince of this world now stands condemned’ through the glorious revelation of Jesus Christ.

Both the Church and the world have gone very soft in all of these areas. This means that today the first focus of the Holy Spirit must be to glorify the Lord Jesus, and do His work of convicting, within the Church itself and the individual lives of its members. The world will not be convinced or convicted until the truth and life of the Spirit is revealed in those who believe.  Therefore those who know the Lord must take sin seriously before those who don’t know Him will do the same. When that happens our glorious message will ring out and be heard as we

• “go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him, to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins” (Luke 1:76-77)

Response:
It starts with me

Prayer:

Holy Spirit of God please help me to open myself to You so that You may glorify the Lord Jesus within me and lead me into the knowledge of the Truth in Jesus Christ my Lord. Amen.

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My Lord My Life

 “The Spirit gives life”
(2 Corinthians 3:6)

Reflection:
The Nicene Creed refers to the Holy Spirit as ‘the Lord the giver of life.” That’s exactly what He does and has been doing since the beginning of the history recorded in the Scriptures. He has given life to God’s will and word as well as to God’s creation and creatures.

He is also the One who brings us into the new life offered to us through Jesus Christ. He reveals the truth of the Lord and Saviour to us, enables us to receive and respond to that truth and blesses our spirits with the eternal reality of that new life. For as Jesus taught Nicodemus,

“I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit” (John 3:5-6)

As He takes His place within us as a part of our new birth and life He begins to add to our lives certain qualities and gifts that flow from Himself as God.

• “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23)
• “There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men. Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. .. All these (gifts) are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines.” (1 Corinthians 12:4-11)

As these are allowed to develop and grow they add value and loveliness to our characters and a new empowered purpose to our living. We do not strive to create these qualities – they come from the Spirit as we honour and trust God with our lives. Others may see them before we do!

“For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10)

God’s desire is to make us a part of His life – not for Him to be only a part of ours.

Response:
Pause to consider the truth – God is at work within you to develop the beauty and strengths of your character. How wonderful is that!

Prayer:

Holy Spirit please lead me more deeply into the new life which is in Christ Jesus our Lord and help me to open myself more fully to You. Amen.

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Come Holy Spirit

 

“Not by might nor by power,
but by my Spirit”
says the LORD Almighty.
(Zechariah 4:6)

 

Reflection:
Next Sunday the Christian Church celebrates the Day of Pentecost. It commemorates how on a real day, in a real room, in a real city, real men and real women, received a real blessing and a real experience that impacted and changed their lives in a real way.

In fulfilment of the promise of both Jesus Christ and the Father, and as prophesied by John the Baptist, the Holy Spirit entered into the lives of the believers. It was at once the final act of the saving ministry of the Lord Jesus (before His second coming) as well as the inauguration of the new era of the Holy Spirit.

It marks another crucial moment in the history of humankind. For without it, without the presence and ministry of the Holy Spirit, the life, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus would no longer have any real and personal relevance in the lives of people today.

Nothing of significance happens without the Holy Spirit. He was present and involved in all of the great acts of God, as evidenced in the accounts of

• the Creation [Genesis. 1:2]
• the Annunciation [Luke. 1:32]
• the beginning of Jesus’ ministry [Luke. 3:21-22]
• the beginning of the Church’s ministry [Acts 2:1-4]
• the new birth of believers {John 3:5]

We see the Holy Spirit repeatedly engaged in His activity of making the will and word of God into a reality. He is the One who continues to do so today and our lives as Christians are blessed, enriched and given a new purpose and worth through His ministry.

Not all that He does is at the level of the great acts referred to above, for He works in the lives of individual believers in both small and intimate ways as well as in ways that leave us breathless with amazement. He is the ever present reality of the Living God within us – you and me.

Response:

Blessed are You, creator God,
to You be praise and glory for ever.
As Your Spirit moved over the face of the waters
bringing light and life to Your creation,
continue to pour out Your Spirit on us today
that we may walk as children of light
and by Your grace reveal Your presence.
Amen.

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The Lord is Near

“Come to me,
all you who are weary and burdened,
and I will give you rest”
(Matthew 11:28)

Reflection:
After looking at the stories of Hagar, the Samaritan woman and the leper let’s summarise the important truths for us today.

• No one is too insignificant for God to see and to know
• No one has sinned so much that they are now beyond the love and acceptance of God
• No one is too contaminated and disgusting for the Lord
• He will reach out to anyone who wants Him
  • To love and accept them
  • To cleanse them
  • To transform them
  • To guide and help them

Sin comes in many forms

• It defiles and incapacitates
• It cause a limit to – and a breakdown in – relationships with God, with others and with ourselves
• It causes us to feel lonely, rejected, unfulfilled, and in some areas contaminated
• It can grow progressively worse
• And there is no human cure for sin or its guilt

But there is the Lord

• When we despise ourselves – when we are rejected by others – when we feel completely lost and insignificant
  • His hand reaches out to us
  • He touches the untouchable – sees the invisible – loves the unlovable – and forgives the unforgiveable – who turn to Him

Come to Him

• The God who sees you
• The God who accepts you
• The God who reaches out to touch you
• The God who loves you

And as each of the stories makes clear the Lord is already with you. He doesn’t have to travel from somewhere else. He has already found you. He is already reaching out to you. He is already speaking.

Prayer:

Lord Jesus help me to look away from myself towards You – to be still and acknowledge Your presence – to allow You to look into the very depths of me – and to know the words that You speak.  Take me into Your written word Lord and to Your special revelation for me. Amen.

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Ascension Day

“He was taken up before their very eyes,
and a cloud hid him from their sight”
(Acts 1:9)

Reflection:
The Ascension of Christ, celebrated by the Church today, is the wonderful fulfilment of God’s promise that,

“so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:11)

Jesus as the Living Word had now returned to the Father who had spoken, or sent, Him on this mission. It had been accomplished.

The fact that His ascension took place in this way and in front of His disciples is significant. He wanted them to realise and accept that this time He was leaving permanently. He would not suddenly visit them again in another resurrection appearance. This was the testimony also of the angel who spoke to them – confirming that the Lord would not return again until the end.

“Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:11)

There is also a hint of a rebuke in his words as if to say that they should not be gazing hopefully into the sky but preparing themselves for the work that the Lord had committed to them. They needed to lower their eyes and begin to focus on living as His people in a needy world. As do we all.

But although the Lord has gone from us in this visible and recognisable form He has not left us alone. He is still with us in the Holy Spirit whose comiing we will celebrate at Pentecost is just a few days time. And very truly in ways we cannot understand but know full well with Tennyson,

“Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet”

Response:
Where can I  make a difference with Him–and be a blessing – today?

Prayer:

Lord God help me to walk in Your footsteps, to notice the needs that You bring to my attention and to reach out and bless in Your name – and to remember always that You will come back again. Amen.

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