Selah2020: Pause and Reflect

[This reflection was published in the weekly news bulletin of Horley Baptist Church, 12/Jul/2020]

Walking in the unforced rhythms of grace (Matthew 11 in The Message)

The good thing I’ve learnt during lock down is you can’t rush it!I thought my daughter was joking when she said to me, at the beginning of this Corona virus,“Mum, you have to stay in your house and garden, you can’t drive and you’re only allowed to go out once a day for a walk for just one hour”

What me – who needs to be out socialising, going out for coffee and lunches, going to toddler group, hugging all and sundry, laying hands on the sick, blessing those who need loving and a hundred other things that need doing, YOU ARE JOKING!!

I love to buck the season. In April I was looking for bedding plants when they hadn’t arrived yet, wondering why the roses hadn’t come out and where were the baby birds? It seemed like Jesus was saying in quietness and confidence will be your strength.

During this time of enforced separation from church and fellowship I’ve learnt to come apart with Jesus and sit in His presence and listen to His voice.I love the words to this old song:

I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses
And the voice I hear falling on my ear the son of God discloses,
And He walks with me and he talks with me and He tells me I am His own
And the joy we share as we tarry there None other has ever known

As the days go on I realise God has a plan and a purpose to bless His people. He wants us to hear His voice and be obedient to His nudges. To learn to prophesy and declare His word.

Happy social distancing to all my lovely Christian brothers and sisters, may we reach out for words and visions that will bless and encourage each other, growing closer to Him who doesn’t require any distancing at all.
Every blessing, Chris

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[Transcript of a midweek message published by Horley Baptist Church on YouTube^[1], July 2020]

Are you feeling it difficult to find any get up and go? Has lockdown left you feeling listless and unsure of your purpose? Are you being honest about the reasons why?

A few years ago now myself and a bunch of other teachers took a group of school children on a coach trip to Austria. It was going to involve a 24 hour coach journey which I was dreading so I splashed out the cash and I bought myself a portable DVD player. This is in the days before smartphones so I turned up at the coach and I got on with my portable DVD player and a bunch of DVDs, and I found a space at the back of the coach and got myself comfortable. The weird thing was was that in all of those 24 hours not once did I manage to switch the DVD player on; I was too comfortable, I was just felt unable to pluck up the energy to push that button and set myself up with a film.

I think that we are finding ourselves in a similar sort of situation. We’ve been in lockdown for a while now and although restrictions are easing, although we are able to do more than we were able to before, I sense and I sense it in myself, this reluctance to actually do anything. There’s a dormancy, there’s an inertia that has kicked in. We’ve become settled, we’ve become comfortable and we’re feeling it really difficult to actually get up and do anything now.

In Matthew’s Gospel in chapter 25 we’re told of an occasion when Jesus told one of his most famous parables. Parables are stories about earthly things but which have a heavenly, a Godly meaning. He tells a story of a master who goes away on a journey and he summons three of his servants to him and he gives each servant a different sum of money. To one he gives five bags of gold, to another he gives two bags of gold and to the final one he gives one bag of gold. The master sets off on his journey and the guys with the five bags of gold and two bags of gold straightaway go off and invest the money and they double what they have got but the last servant, instead of investing, instead of maybe taking a bit of a risk, he goes away and buries the money in the ground.

When the master returns he calls these three servants to him. The first two come along and said “Look, I’ve doubled your money” and he says to them “good and faithful servants I’ve entrusted you with a few things; I’m going to give you even more things to look after”. But when it comes to the final servant the servant says “look, I know you’re a hard master master, you reap what you don’t sow and I was a scared so I buried the money and here’s your money back” The Master’s reply was “You wicked and lazy servant!”. He wasn’t very impressed and ended up taking the money that that servant had and gave it to the other two servants instead.

You see, we need to ask ourself the questions “what is stopping us from stepping out of our comfort zones? What’s stopping us from doing what God has called us to do? What has created this inertia in our life?” We seem to have lost momentum and at this time of a virus it’s very easy to come up with the excuse of fear – we’re fearful, we’re scared of what might happen, we’re scared of catching the virus. Well actually, maybe our fear is fear of the unknown. Perhaps you’ve always been used to being on church rotas and doing things within the church context and suddenly find yourself out of that context and unsure of how you are supposed to serve God in these circumstances.

It’s very easy to blame fear but we’ve got to ask ourselves the question “Is that really the reason?” The master saw past the servant’s claim of fear and instead saw the real reason behind his inability to do what he had been asked to do and that was laziness.

You see, you have a purpose, you have a task, you are God’s workmanship and you have been created for a reason – to do good works. This isn’t about salvation, this isn’t about earning your way into heaven because we know that’s just not possible and it’s been done by Jesus already. No, this is about you being who you have been designed to be, who you have been called to be. There are many things that stop us but when I come to the end of my life I want to be able to stand before God and hear him say the words “good and faithful servant” because I’ve stepped out, I’ve taken risks and I have used the gifts and the opportunities given to me by God. I certainly don’t want to hear the words “you wicked and lazy servant”.

[1] YouTube link: Have You Lost Momentum?
Bible references: Matthew 25 v14-30

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[This mid-week Reflection was published by Horley Baptist Church on 7th July 2020]

For most of us there are one or two events in contemporary history that have stuck in our memories. For example, many people can recall exactly where they were when they heard that President John Kennedy had been assassinated. That particular event has not stuck with me but I can recall exactly where I was when I heard that the government of Rhodesia had unilaterally declared independence and similarly with the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York. Today is the 15th anniversary of one such event.

Early on the 7th of July 2005 I was at work as usual in a secure location close to the Houses of Parliament. A little later it started to rain and I decided to check on our data management system which was housed in a basement that had been known to leak. As I entered the computer suite everything seemed normal but suddenly that changed – monitors went blank, control boards started glowing and there was a distinct smell of over-heated electronics.

I discovered very quickly that London had been attacked by suicide bombers and what I had seen was Scotland Yard commandeering our traffic camera system as part of its emergency response procedures. Fifty-two citizens going about their ordinary business were killed and over 700 injured, tens of thousands of people had their plans disrupted.

In Luke 12, Jesus tells a story about a man whose plans were disrupted. The man’s business had brought him great profit and he decided to retire and live off the resources he had acquired. Verse 20 tells what happened next:

‘But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?”’

In the parallel account in Matthew Jesus adds a further comment

“store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also”

As you consider your plans for the day, can you echo the words of Anna Waring – “my Saviour has my treasure, and He will walk with me”?

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[This is one in a series of mid-week Reflections published by Horley Baptist Church during July 2020]

In an earlier reflection we looked at Nehemiah chapter 2, specifically at the way in which Nehemiah responded to the king’s question about his plans. However, there is far more in the book of Nehemiah than his account of how a person in a position of influence used the surplus resources of a rich nation to help restore the fortunes of a needy one.

In chapter 1 of the book we read how Nehemiah offered repentance for the sins of an earlier generation – sins that he personally had nothing to do with. To what extent is that appropriate at a time when many societies are attempting to come to terms with their own history? He also recalled God’s promise to restore the nation of Israel from exile and return them to the land that He had given them. Do we make a practice of recalling God’s promises when we pray? We must first be aware of God’s promises before we can ask Him to act upon them, and that entails spending time with His word.

Chapter 3 gives us details of how the walls of Jerusalem were rebuilt and, perhaps more importantly, it gives the names of those who took responsibility for the work. It was a team effort involving people with various different skills and from both genders; their names are preserved for all to see. But the account also records that certain people did not want to get their hands dirty. Are you willing to muck-in, or even muck out if that is what God requests of you?

Nehemiah is best-known for the rebuilding of the wall of Jerusalem but the later chapters of the book record how he re-established a number of social reforms within the people of Israel. He remonstrated with those wealthy Israelites who forced their compatriots into debt and then sold them into slavery. He took exception to the charging of interest at 1% – image how he would react to the 30+% being charged today. He rebuked those who had formed partnerships with non-Israelites, whether business or domestic, he stopped the misuse of the Sabbath and he reinstated the supply of resources for the priests and the proper worship of God.

I suspect that Nehemiah would have a lot to say about our modern lifestyles, and not much of it would be positive.

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[This is one in a series of mid-week Reflections published by Horley Baptist Church during July 2020]

I don’t know if it is appropriate to have ‘favourite’ Bible verses – all Scripture should be of great value to us – but one of my regular visits is to the second chapter of the book of Nehemiah.

Nehemiah was a Hebrew in exile but, like Joseph and Daniel, he had achieved a position of great importance in the government of his host state. Where are God’s people in similar positions today? Has politics become ‘too dirty’ for Christians to get involved?

Nehemiah was cup-bearer to the king Artaxerxes I, the king of Persia from 465-424BC. As cup-bearer he not only had the responsibility of ensuring that the king’s wine was to his liking (and not poisoned) but he also would be party to most of the great decisions of state.

Despite his closeness to the king, Nehemiah retained a great deal of respect for the monarch – perhaps he had heard about the fate of Joseph’s colleague in Genesis 40. So when Artaxerxes detected that Nehemiah was preoccupied and sad in his presence Nehemiah had cause to fear for his position.

After Nehemiah explained that Jerusalem, the historic focus of the Jewish people, lay desolate and neglected, the king asked Nehemiah “What is it you want?” I suspect that most of us would have blurted out “I’ve got a little list” but it is at that point that Nehemiah sets us an example that we should heed:

“Then I prayed to the God of heaven, and I answered the king”

Note the sequence – we know that Nehemiah had already prayed at length and prepared a response but still he prayed again before answering. We do not know the nature of that second prayer – was it thanking God for the opportunity to speak or asking God for courage to continue with the request? Either way, it would have been brief and spoken from the heart. It was also successful.

We face many situations where a brief, heart-felt prayer is appropriate but we must not neglect the essential foundation of regular personal prayer and the readiness to act when God requires it.

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[This reflection was published in the weekly news bulletin of Horley Baptist Church, 05/Jul/2020]

Do you like your names? As a child, mine led to a lot of teasing. Oddly enough, it was the shouts of Helen Shapiro and the shortening to Hell which I minded more than the endless comments over my surname. The teasing over the latter largely stopped after I told the bullies defiantly “I like having an unusual name!” My sister became Mrs Hook on her marriage, but even this ordinary and easy to spell name had its drawbacks as it meant she and her husband felt they couldn’t call their son Robin, a name they really liked.

Naming a child is a privilege of parenthood and one that is generally denied to adoptive parents nowadays, especially if the child is old enough to know their name. Fortunately for me David’s birth parents chose my favourite boy’s name for their son, which felt like a sign that he was meant for me. I was able to add my father’s name as a second name when I adopted him at age 13 months, as well as my surname. When Michael came at 6 months he was young enough for me to choose a new first name, keeping his original one as a second name.

The Bible tells us that God also gives us a new name when he adopts us (Isaiah 62 v 2, Revelation 2 v 17). We may not like the name our birth parents gave us or the surname we inherited, but we can trust our adoptive Father to give us a name of which we will never be ashamed.

Just for fun, here are some anagrams of names of people from this church.

 
Article written by: Feel fur hen had

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