I was singing these verses this morning, putting a tune to the words and found myself feeling that this song was for our dear friends Charlie and Judy Whitley, as they go through a trying time with Charlie in the hospital. So this is for you guys, hope it is an encouragement, we love you and and thinking of you and praying for you.
Bruce and my quiet time
This morning I was just getting ready to read and sing a psalm. I was ready to get into psalm 87 but I hadn’t looked at it yet. I was looking on my itunes account and came across a version of Bruce Springsteen’s song “My City of Ruins”. For some reason I decided to listen to it. I have loved this song since the first time I heard it in an airport just after 9/11. The first time I heard it I was captivated, it conveys the heartbreaking, soul wrenching tragedy of the terrorist attacks on New York and yet turns to prayer for strength and faith, with the call to “rise up” even from the ashes.
Then maybe getting more distracted I felt that I wanted to play it on the guitar, a strange way to start a quiet time! So I looked up the lyrics and began to sing it…my city of ruins.
After I had done this I looked to psalm 87 and started to sing and knew that what I had been doing hadn’t been mere distraction. “On the holy mount stands the city he founded; the Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwelling places of Jacob. Glorious things of you are spoken, O city of God…. And of Zion it shall be said, ‘This one and that one were born in her’; for the Most High himself will establish her… singers and dancers alike say “all my springs are in you.”
There is another city, that God has established, instead of death and destruction there is life; instead of hopelessness, hope; instead of sadness and tears, joy everlasting. Man’s ways lead to death, but God’s way leads to springs of life. Lord I pray that you would bring your rule and reign into this place, let your kingdom come amongst us, let this one and that one say they were born in you. Lord build your kingdom here, you alone can do this. “The Most High himself will establish her”.
Works of social justice verses a so-called spiritual church.
I watched an interesting interview the other day with Bono from U2 and Bill Hyballs from Willow Creek church. In the interview Bono conveyed the heart of God for the poor and how we must also have a concern for the poor. He said many things that I thought were great and other things that I did not agree with, but it got me thinking about what are we doing to meet the needs of the poor. I thought about how it seems that some groups of people or churches can become very focused on acts of social justice and yet lack what I would describe as the supernatural spiritual power in their churches to see the lost saved, to see signs and wonders, to move in faith for healing. And then there are churches so focused on the so-called spiritual side of life that they sometimes have no regard for the poor, little or no impact on the society around them. These churches can remain isolated, cloistered groups of believers disconnected from the world around them and the desperate needs close at hand.
As we are almost in our 2nd year of leading a church plant Bono’s interview provoked me to think about what we should be doing, where God might lead us to touch the needs of our community… and yet it can also raise up this feeling of stress or striving, “what should we be doing?? Shouldn’t we be doing more?” As I thought about this dilemma, it came to me that these two areas of social justice and moving in signs and wonders are perfectly brought together in the person of Jesus. In Him alone they are interwoven and married together, in fact you can’t find one without the other. In him there is wholeness and when he comes into a situation he brings complete wholeness to every area of our lives, whether we see its completion in this life or the next.
If you seek one area alone to focus on you quickly get off track and miss Jesus. But if you seek Jesus himself, if he alone is our goal, if to know him more is our chief occupation then he changes us from the inside out. If we spend time with him we cannot help but to catch his heart for the lost and broken around us. If this concern for the lost, hurting and poor does not begin to grip us then we are not actually spending time with the real Jesus…. You spend time with the real risen Jesus and the things that affect his heart will begin to affect yours. You let him be Lord and yield to him and his desires and he will start to move you to the broken, to bring his life, to be ambassadors of reconciliation, ministers of healing. You spend time with him and you will have faith to ask for healings and miracles, you will hear his whispers and his promptings and they will push you out of your natural self into his supernatural flow of life and power that can quicken mortal bodies and raise the dead, both physically and spiritually… Everything comes together perfectly in Jesus.
If you focus on works of social justice without it being led and guided by the Holy Spirit it becomes just that “Works”, and no matter how good they appear they are as filthy rags compared to the righteousness that is offered us through Jesus alone. If a church is focused on just having a so-called “spiritual” isolated time together and that’s all it is then you probably are meeting around a different spirit all together because the life of Jesus always breaks out. If you are meeting with and through the Spirit of Jesus you will find that he will put on your heart and mind concern for the broken.
I don’t want to be side tracked into seeking anything else, I want to seek Jesus and him alone and let his life move me and infuse me. I want it to control me, for his passions to me my passions, his desires my desires. As Paul said “But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 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. Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on towards the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Jesus Christ. Philippians 3 v 7 – 14.
Jesus and Jesus alone is our goal, our great pursuit, our consuming ambition, our resting place and home, our life source… everything is found in Him and is held together in him. I want to know him and let the rest flow from that place.
Disciplined prayer from joy not duty...
I have just listened to a great sermon on prayer by John piper, all about discipline, freedom and spontaneity in prayer. There is a need for both discipline and spontaneity in prayer and there can be freedom in either. The link is: http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/MediaPlayer/4451/Audio/
I want to become more disciplined in prayer. When I want to get time with Rachelle and life is hurtling past at breakneck speed, with all that is going on with kids, work, church etc, we book time in, we plan it. It’s simple… we need to have time together, we want to relate together, we want to grow in relationship with each other. It’s all to easy to let too long go by without that time and we start to feel disconnected unsure of how the other one is doing, or what they are doing, we can feel distanced.
That is the same in our relationship with God… it doesn’t all just suddenly happen, there are wonderful times of spontaneity, but also if we want to make sure we are hearing the heart of God, knowing what he is thinking, taking time to enjoy being with him, growing in relationship with him there is a need to plan time with him. If we treasure that relationship we will set time apart.
This doesn’t come out of duty and drudgery, but out of relationship and joy. If we have lost that sense of joy in prayer then we need to go back to the cross, to the finished work of Jesus, to the freedom that he purchased there, the right relationship that was won there. We are right with God, counted righteous, acceptable, made new, our sin cast away and paid for… when we look again at the cross, O, then how again we will love him, again the joy will start rising up, the thankfulness of the price that he paid in our place, the love that he showed that when it is looked upon by us, it can not help but start to stir again a passion and a love for Jesus.
He is our life, he is our all and we can know him… he calls us in, he longs for us to know him in prayer. I want to go there again and again and again… not out of duty and legalism but out of the completed work of Jesus that causes me to stand free. Not out of drudgery, but out of great joy and peace at all he has done for me, and his heart of love for me. Not out of striving, but out of resting in him alone. Not for what I can get, but because he has already purchased it all, and all the fullness of life is found in him. Not because I should, but because I desire him, to enjoy him fully, to be with Him.
Lord let everything I do flow out of what you have already done.
The Gospel is that everyone has the opportunity to become rich, not in worldly possessions but in relationship with Jesus, who takes away our sorrow, who heals our brokenness, restores us from bareness, banishes our loneliness, saves us from waywardness, destroys our sinfulness, who takes away our filthy rags, who washes us clean, who clothes us in righteousness, who sits us with princes, who raises us from death to life, to reign with Christ. The Gospel is liberating, it’s exhilarating, it is astounding in its breadth and depth, unbelievable to human minds, yet of supreme wisdom in its design, fulfilling every demand of righteousness. It reaches to the lowest hell and raises to the highest heaven, it saves and it snatches, it crushes and destroys, it’s life filled and it infuses.
He heals our brokenness,
restores us from bareness,
banishes our loneliness,
saves us from waywardness,
destroys our sinfulness,
rids us of our filthiness
Clothes us in His righteousness,
Raises us in Holiness
From death to life, to reign with Christ.
I can’t last long without you
I can’t last long without you
It doesn’t take long before I’ve fallen to my knees
People may say that’s a weak thing
But with you, the weak are made strong
It’s a good thing to be in need,
Coz that need, leads me to you
I’d rather be weak than to have no need of you
I’d rather lean heavy than be going my own way
I’d rather be in the dark with you as my lamp
Coz your light turns darkest night to day
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