Category: Weblogs

Leave

Well, having set up the new blog here on WordPress, I now have two weeks without a computer, so updating may not happen for a little while. I’ll be back soon.

0

Problems With Reading This Blog

In the last couple of weeks, I have now had four people report difficulties with this blog. The latest is Peter Kirk, overnight. Previously, Mary Roberts had difficulties, but solved them by changing from Internet Explorer to Firefox. However, although I dislike Internet Explorer due to its lack of standards compliance, the blog should still be readable. Another person has emailed me privately, and a fourth has said something to my wife. I have checked with Typepad, but no major general faults have been reported in the last fortnight that would explain any of these problems, although they did acknowledged something was awry three days ago.

So, as a first step to recognising a potentially large problem, I thought I would put up this post and invite you to describe in the comments section the problems you are having. (That is assuming you can log onto the site and read it in the first place, of course! If you can only read this in a feed reader and not get onto the site, then email me: dave AT davefaulkner DOT co DOT uk.) If there is a clear pattern, I shall raise a fault with Typepad, if appropriate. Alternatively, it could simply be that I have made the blog bloated with all the graphics and widgets.

Peter recommends WordPress as an alternative. There are two versions of it. One needs the blogger to install it into web space. At the time of setting up this blog, I couldn't do that, because I was using existing web space with my ISP for my old website. I could go that route now, because I no longer use that site. I could take it down, assuming I can access the site, and I've been having trouble on that front. However, the main disadvantage I anticipate would be the time needed to install and learn the WordPress software. What do WordPress aficionados think about the time required to master it? Richard, do you have any wisdom here?

The other is that WordPress also have a slightly less well featured hosted service. This wasn't available when I set up this blog. That would be an attractive alternative, especially as it is free, unlike Typepad. The disadvantage might be the shortage of features. Again, if any wordpress.com users would like to share their experiences, I'd be very interested to hear from you.

I don't want to contemplate Blogger. I tried using it once, in parallel to my old blog, but at the time it was unreliable, and messing about with templates was horrendous. Perhaps it has improved. Pam, Katherine and others, any thoughts? Is it better these days?

Of course, Dave might be on hand to keep me in the Typepad fold and explain everything! But I think, given the number of recent contacts with me about the problem, the question needs raising, so I await your thoughts eagerly.

UPDATE: The main text loads properly in Internet Explorer, but not everything appears in the left-hand column, and the right-hand column is completely blank. This, declares IE, is 'done'. Safari can't open it at all, but I find that's a regular enough problem with Apple's hopeless browser not to use it. Opera displays the page quickly and perfectly.

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

22

More Blog Changes

I’ve made two more changes tonight to the way the blog works. First, at the request of Bill Kinnon, you can now follow RSS feeds for comment on individual posts. This is a recent addition on Typepad, and I hadn’t realised it had been introduced. See, it is as good as WordPress! (OK, I know we have to pay and WP is free, but … ) Thanks for steering me, Bill.

Actually, if you don’t like that method of following a blog conversation that interests you, let me heartily commend Commentful, a tool that integrates into the Firefox browser. (And you are using Firefox, aren’t you?)

Secondly, given recent advice from Typepad, I’m disabling the use of the ‘captcha’ tool for verifying comments. If a lot of spam gets through as a result, I’ll reinstate it. Hat-tip to Dave Warnock for spotting that one before me.

As always, if you have any thoughts on the changes, please feel free to post a comment. After all, it will now be easier to do so, and easier to follow the conversation!

0

Blog Changes

I've made a few alterations to the blog today. I'd be interested in your feedback.

1. Most obviously, I've changed the design scheme in Typepad. I'd had the old one for three years, and thought it was time for a change. Typepad has a huge array of themes. I think it's an improvement, but some might think the main colour is a bit garish. Would a softer pastel be better?

2. Most importantly, I have removed comment moderation. Your comments will now appear instantly. It seems to me that Typepad catches the great majority of the spam, and I also have filters in place to prevent certain profanities appearing. I hope this means that when a post gets popular, the conversation can proceed faster than it currently does. In any case, all comments and trackbacks still get emailed to me, and so I can unpublish or delete anything dodgy. I still don't mind hearty disagreement, it's only the offensive stuff I'd remove. If removing moderation does let a lot of filth through, then even though I can nuke it, I'll reinstate moderation.

3. If any of you read the blog in syndicated form, you'll now find that instead of just reading the first forty words of a post to judge whether it's worth reading, that has now increased to one hundred. Again, I'd be interested in any reactions to this change.

14

Welcome To Todd World

(And for those of you who don’t get the reference in the
title, you don’t have children who watch CBeebies.)

Last week I read with interest some of the posts on Richard Hall’s blog
regarding the possible ‘revival’ in Florida associated with the ministry of Todd Bentley. At the time, it was just
interesting reading. On Monday, it became more important for me to grapple with
this for myself. I received an email from my friend Peter Balls, the pastor of Chelmsford Community Church,
a church that has a wonderful heart for the community surrounding the school
where it meets for worship (see, for example, Our Cabin). Peter has invited a number of
local church leaders to meet next month and pray about whether we could do
something together for the kingdom of God in Chelmsford, in the light of the
Florida happenings. I am free on the date he suggests, and will attend.

So I watched one of the YouTube videos that Richard had
posted. What struck me first was the similarity to watching clips of the
dreaded Benny Hinn. The associate with the hand-held radio microphone tells the
big name the story of the person who has come onto the stage to testify. Big
Name then briefly interviews, and then prays, expecting the person to fall
under the power of the Spirit. I started comparing and contrasting this with
what I witnessed in 1995, when I visited the Toronto
Airport Christian Fellowship at the height of the ‘Toronto Blessing’. I
thought this would be instructive, because some supporters and opponents of
Bentley seem to have been making connections.

Here’s what I thought: yes, in Toronto, people could offer
testimonies with the hope of being selected to share it on the main stage
during one of the evening renewal meetings. Yes, they would be interviewed and
prayed for. They normally fell under the power of the Spirit. However – I never
had any worries while I was there that they were being pushed in order to fall.
Sometimes I was sitting quite close to the stage: I think I would have noticed
anything that would have made me suspicious. Furthermore, the person leading
the meeting changed from night to night, and so no personality cult developed.
Not only that, the vast majority of prayer ministry there happened at the back
of the auditorium. It was not a show. (You can legitimately debate the way they
asked people receiving prayer to stand on lines marked ten feet apart, with
‘catchers’ behind them. Their reply was that in a culture that resorted quickly
to litigation, they had to protect themselves, and they preferred to risk the
charge that they were suggesting people should fall. Every night I was there, I
accompanied one of their team who was praying for people, and at close hand, I
never saw anyone pushed.)

However, with Bentley, I’m less convinced. Naturally, I have
only the evidence of the YouTube videos. That is inferior to the close personal
observation I was able to engage in at Toronto. However, it looked to me as if
there was movement of the hand and arm as he laid his hand on people’s
foreheads. At least one man in the video didn’t go down to the floor
immediately, and Bentley laid his hand on him two or three times until he did.
Strictly, I’m not offering conclusive proof, but I am disturbed enough about
it.

If that’s what happened, what might it mean? I have no doubt
that falling under the power of the Spirit is a legitimate experience of God.
It has happened to me some times, and it is a feeling that the body cannot cope
with the presence of God. (By the way, I don’t call it being ‘slain in the
Spirit’. That’s an awful term, and as far as I’m concerned, the only people who
have ever been slain in the Spirit were Ananias and Sapphira in Acts chapter
5.) But if you asked all the responsible church leaders who were heavily
involved in the ‘Toronto Blessing’ at least in this country, they would have
said that the outward manifestation was not itself the proof of the Spirit’s
work. Certainly, that was the line I heard David Pytches hold. The
evidence of the Spirit’s work is the fruit. Outward signs at the time may be
commentary on the manifest presence of the Holy Spirit, or they may be
‘fleshly’ human responses.

If that were the case, why would anyone push someone to the
ground? One possibility might be insecurity. Certain immature charismatic
cultures want to see ‘falling under the power’ as the clear sign that God is at
work. Suppose Bentley or others felt they needed to ‘prove’ they were men or
women of God: they might then find it tempting to do something like that. I
don’t know the man, I’m just speculating. But I do know that many Christians,
leaders included, get their sense of security from the wrong source. There is a
great pressure to show results (and not least in elements of North American
Christianity). Does Bentley feel he has to prove he’s getting results? Were
that to be the case for anyone, the antidote is to know that our security is in
the Triune God, and in grace. God has made us in his image; in Christ, he has
redeemed us in love at immeasurable cost; the Holy Spirit indwells us. Results
don’t make us loved and accepted by God: grace does. Someone not acting out of
grace is capable of unintentionally hurting people.

However, it could be worse. It could be a show of power.
‘Look at me and my power.’ If someone takes that attitude, then s/he is trying
to stand in the place of God. Of course, in Bentley’s case he is quick to
attribute the healings to God. However, that falls by the wayside is the rest
of a person’s demeanour is of the ‘Look at me’ variety. While I don’t believe
the nonsense about just being channels for God (it’s rather like ‘worm
theology’ – ‘O Lord, I am just a worm’) and I believe that God uses
personalities, I believe that in every way we must be quick to give the glory
to God and deflect it from ourselves. It comes back to the old Corrie ten Boom quote
about compliments. She said that when she received a compliment, she saw it
like a bunch of flowers. She enjoyed the perfume, and then said, ‘Lord, these
are yours.’

Then we have the question of the healings. Richard referred
in one of his posts to the Gospel story of the ten lepers, where Jesus tells
them to go and show themselves to the priests. I have long felt this is an
important test of healing. Some months ago, a friend of mine was diagnosed with
cancer. At one point, after prayer, he believed he was healed. I understand he
came off his medication. A month or two ago, I attended his funeral. I believe
that God can and does heal in response to prayer (just as I also believe he
gives grace when healing doesn’t materialise). However, if God has done
something like that, it is verifiable. Rushing someone up to testify before
there has been time to test the claim is dangerous. There may be other
explanations for short-term improvements or remissions. In that respect, I
think the Toronto church made mistakes. Clearly, Bentley does, too. If God has
done something, it sticks. It doesn’t matter if we have to wait awhile before
that person gives public testimony. It is probably better for the Gospel that
they do.

Other issues to consider include finances and politics. With
regard to politics, I found the Toronto church was dangerously interested in
Christian Zionism. That isn’t just a question of politics, it’s also the desire
to feel part of God doing something amazing today, but that desire does lead to
a lack of discernment, and hence to a cultural captivity to a kind of politics
that doesn’t always favour the well-being of individuals, especially the poor.
If we care enough about someone’s physical plight to pray for their healing,
then it seems concomitant to me that we care for their social needs, too.
Unfortunately, many Christians don’t make that link. I’ve yet to hear any
connection with ministry with the poor and social justice from Bentley, and –
if he fits the rest of the stereotypes – I’m not expecting to hear anything.
Perhaps I do him an injustice: I hope so, but I suspect not.

Then, what about the issue of finances and the handling of
money? Billy Graham led the move towards financial accountability of
evangelical Christians in the States, especially after the TV evangelist
scandals of the 1980s. I couldn’t find Fresh
Fire on the Evangelical Council for
Financial Accountability website. That may be because FF is a Canadian
organisation, not American, but since Bentley seems to work a lot in the
States, I would have thought he’d have had an official US operation. Maybe
someone who knows the North American scene better than me can offer an
explanation, but it initially looks worrying.

To some people, all that I have written so far will elicit a
reaction of ‘So what?’ It’s all obvious stuff on one level. However, what if
Bentley is dubious? On the other hand, even if he’s perfectly genuine, we need
a lot of reflection on the question of why such people flourish. Yes, there is
what my blogging friend Kim Fabricius calls on one or Richard Hall’s posts
‘gullibilitus’, but why are people gullible? I’ve already mentioned two
paragraphs above that people want to believe they are part of something epic in
the purposes of God. Some believe so in the light of the ‘prophetic movement’
that often speaks in large, visionary terms about what is going on in the
world. Days of small things are despised.

In addition, there is the whole ‘Touch not the Lord’s
anointed’ problem. This mantra has been repeated for decades in certain
Pentecostal and charismatic circles. In its rightful original context in
Scripture, it captures the humility of the fugitive David in the days before he
was King of Israel, while his predecessor, Saul (ironically, a classic example
of someone who practised spiritual abuse) was hounding him. It is never in
Scripture a reason to accept everything a certain person says uncritically, and
surely it is highly unflattering to be compared to Saul! Nevertheless, ‘the
Lord’s anointed’ gets elevated. David was very aware of Saul’s frailties and
sins. In our day, ‘Touch not the Lord’s anointed’ is misused to build up people
who ought instead to be removed by church disciplinary procedures.

Worse than that, it is used to create a climate of fear.
‘Woe to you if you speak against the person the Lord has chosen.’ That is
unhealthy and dangerous, creating the conditions for abuse.

‘Touch not …’ is also used as the trump card against
cynicism. Yes, we need to guard against that in the church, although we should
always remember the saying that a cynic is a failed idealist. What needs
recovery is the gift of discerning spirits. Discernment is vital in the church,
and a valuable part of church leaders’ gifts. When someone doesn’t permit me to
weigh things carefully like the Berean people of Acts 17, I have every right to
be worried.

This post has started with Todd Bentley, but has spun off
onto wider issues that may or may not be relevant to him. On Bentley himself,
the jury is out, although I have seen enough to be concerned and need
convincing. He could be a holy man. He could be a charlatan. He could be a
mixture of sincere Christian and someone with dangerous weaknesses. And which
one of us doesn’t have a major weakness? However, unresolved weaknesses are the
fuel for spiritual abuse. As Marc
Dupont argued ten or so years ago in his book ‘Walking
Out Of Spiritual Abuse’ (and see also his more recent ‘Toxic
Churches’), it is not downright evil people who tend to cause spiritual
abuse: it is those with unresolved ‘baggage’. If Bentley’s behaviour stems from
serious insecurities, then watch out: danger is coming. We must not inhibit a
sincere and open process of discernment. No peer pressures should be allowed to
militate against that.

Before I wrap this up, let me put in a good word for a book
I am reading at present, ready to review for Ministry Today. Rob McAlpine knows a lot about spiritual
abuse in charismatic circles. His ‘Post-Charismatic?’
looks like it will be essential reading on topics like this.

27

Is Blogging For Self-Centred Nerds?

Last Thursday, I attended the board meeting for Ministry Today, the small journal for church leaders on which I serve. I came away with a few tasks – four more books to review, someone to contact, and a couple of articles to write.

One of those articles is to address the title of this post. So I thought I’d enlist the help of friends who read this blog. What would you say in response this question? I’d love to incorporate the thoughts of several Christian bloggers into the final piece. If I quote you, I shall credit you and footnote your blog in the article. Just bear in mind I’ve been asked more to address the ‘why’ of blogging than the ‘how’.

Technorati Tags: , , ,

7

Typepad Blog Offers

If any reader is thinking of taking out a Typepad blog, I have three vouchers that entitle you to a free 60-day trial, plus 20% off your first year’s subscription. (I should declare that if you then maintain your blog beyond the trial period, I get a discount on my subscription.)

These vouchers expire on 29th February. If you’re interested, leave a comment on this post and I’ll get in touch.

Technorati Tags: , ,

0

Tomorrow’s Sermon, ‘Being Unprepared’ (Advent Sunday)

Someone said to me at the church Christmas Fayre this morning, ‘You haven’t been on the computer much this week.’ She hadn’t noticed any blog updates (apart from the couple of links I’ve posted), nor had I updated my Facebook profile since Sunday night. A combination of family illness, urgent pastoral visits and so on have kept me from writing anything thoughtful.

So no comments so far (and maybe it will be too late by the time I do) on Adrian Warnock‘s disabling of comments on his blog – in which case, is it still really a blog? And nothing yet on a fascinating blog discussion started over a fortnight ago by Drew Ditzel on the pros and cons of paid ministry in the light of emerging church insights. (I’ve got some Ben Witherington to bring into that topic some time.) I’d love to get back to the fray soon.

I have, however, edited and revised my April post on Digital Faith for publication as an article in Ministry Today. You may get a sneak preview on the ‘Preview’ page of the site. I’ve also reviewed two books for them: ‘A Moral Climate: The Ethics of Global Warming‘ by Michael Northcott, and ‘Earth And Word: Classic Sermons on Saving the Planet‘, edited by David Rhoads.

In the meantime, here is tomorrow’s sermon. Even that is a revised repeat of one I preached three years ago when this Gospel passage featured in the Lectionary.

Matthew 24:36-44

Introduction
Today may be Advent Sunday, but the official countdown to Christmas in our household began yesterday. Rather than buying the conventional Advent calendars, Debbie had bought two (one for each of our children) into which you could place the chocolate or gift of your choice. (We had also bought a fair trade calendar from Traidcraft.) Rebekah had spied one of these calendars hanging up the other day, but had somehow resisted the temptation to raid it. However, she has been on Christmas countdown since July – slightly earlier than the shops. Mark, on the other hand, didn’t even want to unwrap his chocolate coin. When he did, he informed us that it wanted to go to sleep, and he delicately placed it under a dirty handkerchief.

Preparing for Christmas is quite simple for small children – even if frustrating. It involves counting down. For the rest of us, the preparation time is more frantic (although I have a wife who aims to have bought all her presents each year by the end of November).>

But being prepared in the Christian sense is about more than buying and wrapping the presents, sending the cards and hoping that bird flu won’t prevent you getting a turkey. Furthermore, we are not preparing for the first coming of Christ, but his second. In our Gospel reading, Jesus warns us about the nature of people who are unprepared for his return.

1. Counterfeit Faith<
When we lived in Medway, our manse was near the major general hospital. Parking was a nightmare, and we had to buy residents’ parking permits, both for ourselves and our visitors. One day, a friend came to visit Debbie. When Jackie was about to leave, we realised that she had not asked for our visitor’s parking permit to place on the dashboard of her car in order to ward off evil spirits and traffic wardens. I accompanied Jackie to her car, but they had not been doing their rounds and she was safe. The traffic wardens hadn’t been, either. But we never knew when they were on duty. We had no access to their duty roster.

Jesus said, 

“No-one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” (verse 36)

Anyone who claims they know when Jesus will return is claiming knowledge that even Jesus himself doesn’t have. Of many examples from history, take just this one:

In 1992, a South Korean church leader named Lee Jang Rim persuaded 20,000 followers that the Rapture would occur on 28th October that year. To prepare for the Lord’s coming, people abandoned their jobs and their education, sold their homes, divorced their spouses and deserted the army. Some women even reportedly had abortions so that they wouldn’t be too heavy to be lifted up to heaven. In all, these gullible followers gave over $4 million to Lee and his church.

As the midnight deadline approached, the South Korean government sent 1,500 riot police to Lee’s ‘Mission for the Coming Days’, and placed the fire and ambulance services on alert. The deadline passed uneventfully, and next day forty-six-year-old Lee apologised to his followers for misleading them, and dissolved his church. The authorities were unimpressed, however, and sentenced the prophet to two years’ imprisonment for fraud and illegal possession of US currency. The prosecution successfully argued that if Lee truly believed what he preached, what was he doing holding bank bonds, which would only mature in May 1993?[1]

When you claim to know details of the Second Coming that even Jesus himself says he doesn’t know, what are you doing? You are claiming an intimacy with Almighty God that simply doesn’t exist.

Now as far as I know no-one in this church has predicted a date for Christ’s return. But the danger of false intimacy, of a counterfeit faith where we try to be spiritual show-offs claiming some kind of hotline to the will of God that others don’t have – well, that’s a far more common temptation than we’d like to admit.

It breaches the commandments, taking the Lord’s name in vain. There is more to blasphemy than using the name of God or Jesus as a swearword. When we make idle claims that “The Lord has spoken to me” when he hasn’t, surely that is taking his name in vain, too.

Not only does it breach the commandments, it denies the Gospel. Essentially this false faith is a form of boasting, a superiority complex. Hence it flies in the face of our need for grace. The Gospel shows our need for humility, because we depend on the mercy of God. You have to wonder sometimes whether a person who spends their time boasting of their spiritual knowledge has spent enough time kneeling at the Cross seeking forgiveness.

“Keep watch,” says Jesus (verse 42, “Be ready” (verse 44). One way of being ready is to keep watch over our lives in this sense: do we know as much today as when faith first became real for us that we rely entirely on the grace of God? Or have we become a spiritual fraud, full of outwardly impressive signs but inwardly shallow and proud, playing religious games as a way of impressing or having power over others?

2. Shallow Lives
It’s a typical conversation when you visit a family in preparation for a funeral. “Fred wasn’t a religious man, but he lived a Christian life.” They describe the life of a supposed saint who certainly loved his family but had no time for God. You grit your teeth or edit out of the eulogyl the references to the gambling, smoking and foul temper. But he was a Christian man, remember.

>It’s interesting to think of those conversations in the light of Jesus’ comparison with the days of Noah.

“As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.”
(verses 37 to 41)

Here are people just getting on with the ordinary routine things of life (‘eating and drinking’, working in a field or ‘grinding with a hand mill’), going through the conventional staging posts of life’s journey (‘marrying and giving in marriage’), without any real sense that the journey is going anywhere. It is the tragedy of being consumed with the mundane without realising that we were made for more than this. It’s the body and maybe the soul but not the spirit. It’s all earthbound when we were made for friendship with God. There is more to life than food, work and family. It’s about empty lives that were meant to be full.

Jesus said,

“I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”
(John 10:10)

I say this not to make us feel smug, superior and condescending to others. No. We need to think about ourselves, and our relationship with those who have not met Jesus.

For one thing, it means that we need to re-evaluate the whole way we conduct ourselves as church. It’s easier to value maintenance over mission, when we are called to mission first and then only do the maintenance to support the mission.

If we are to be more outward-looking we need to drop some baggage. We need to be a living testimony to the abundant life. Might it be that many people lead shallow lives without an awareness of Christ and his coming because so many Christians are also shallow?

3. Spiritually Asleep
In John’s Gospel Jesus gives a whole variety of attractive descriptions of himself. He is the Bread of Life; he is the Light of the World; he is the Good Shepherd; he is the Resurrection and the Life; he is the Way, the Truth and the Life, and so on. They are all appealing images. An advertising agency couldn’t beat them for slogans – thankfully.

But here in Matthew 24 we have a less appealing image of Jesus:

“If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into.”
(verse 43)

Jesus likens himself to a thief. Does that make you want to follow him?

Of course, the image isn’t meant to be pushed too far. It indicates that his coming will be sudden and unexpected. Thus Jesus goes on to say,

“So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.”
(verse 44)

Now you can’t be physically awake and ready twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. If you tried, you would not be ready for anything, least of all Jesus!

Jesus warns us we need to be spiritually awake and ready. What does that mean? One commentator says it means that 

‘disciples should be acting as disciples are supposed to act.’[2]

He goes on to quote a scholar by the name of Lövestam, who said it means the living of life

‘in communion with the Lord and in faithfulness to him’.[3]

Do you want to be ready for the coming of Jesus? You can’t install an alarm system to keep him out; you’ll still be taken by surprise when he comes; but you can be ready. The basic disciplines of the disciple are the key: communion with the Lord and faithfulness to him.

Steve Chalke calls this ‘Intimacy and Involvement’. In terms of intimacy or communion we practise those things that draw us into a close relationship with our God: prayer, Scripture reading, worship, fellowship, fasting, a holy lifestyle and so on. But alongside comes the faithfulness and involvement: we get our hands dirty in the world by being his witnesses in word and deed. As the Father sent Jesus into the world, so he sends us.

Don’t we often find, though, that many Christians prefer one or the other of these two? Some prefer the intimacy, that is, the praise, worship and prayer. Three years ago a Scotswoman called Catherine Brown founded a movement  called ‘A Million Hours Of Praise’[4]. She said at the time, 

‘God has given me a vision to mobilise the church and the nations of the earth to worship Jesus for one million hours, and we at million hours of praise believe that this worship will carry on past many millions of hours. You may ask why? Because Jesus is worth it!’

There are some Christians who would wrongly read her call as meaning that all we are meant to do is engage in some ongoing bless-up and everything will be fine. That would mean favouring communion over faithfulness, intimacy over involvement.

But some go to the opposite extreme. So consumed are they – and often rightly – with the needs of the world and those who are missing from the family of Jesus that the relationship with God is neglected. It’s like failing to tend a plant: they wither. They privilege faithfulness over communion and involvement over intimacy. They are like Martha without Mary.

Yet we need these two wings of the Christian life. A bird with one wing cannot fly, and neither can we. Spiritual wakefulness requires a combination of the two. The communion with the Lord fuels the faithfulness, else it is self-indulgence; the faithfulness requires the communion, else it is running on empty.

But have the two wings together and we shall not have counterfeit faith and nor will we live a shallow life. We shall be spiritually alive, and ready for our Lord.

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

0

Create a website or blog at WordPress.com

Up ↑