Johnny and Hannah

After well over 3 weeks it’s good to be back in the blogo-sphere and only right that I should bring you up to speed on what’s been going on for myself and the clan in recent days (and why how I spend my time is now more of a juggling act than ever!)

The day after term ended my uncle died so we headed up to Manchester and had some time with the family before the funeral. My brother Paul gave a lovely family tribute, and a large number of folks came to the service and shared the day with us.

After the funeral we headed across to Pwhelli (a place in Wales which is very difficult to spell!) for New Word Alive, a spring conference. The strapline ‘Serving the Church, Reaching the World’ is very apt and it was a joy to be amongst a vast group of people seeking to serve God and learn from his Word.

A large percentage of the attendees were students which made me feel immensely encouraged and quite nostalgic. I was a student at the first Word Alive 15 years ago (the accommodation hasn’t changed much!) and it’s wonderful to see these guys with the same passion for life and desire to serve God as I had back then, with the same hunger to get into the Bible.

That hunger for God’s word and desire to serve Him still remains, and J and I thoroughly enjoyed the high standard of teaching. Don Carson did the Bible Readings on 1 John, and Terry Virgo and John Piper did some evening meetings. There was also great worship - Stuart Townend and Lou Fellingham led us in some truly God-inspired praise.

Even though there was only about 500 people on site under 18, they put on an excellent kids’ programme and Noah and Esther are keen to return. Although I’m sure we will return many times as a family, my prayer is that one day they return one day as students, with hearts fully committed to their Saviour, and a desire to serve Him wherever He may lead. (I told Noah when he comes as a student he can stay in different digs to dad and me - with his pals in a caravan no doubt!!)

The week flew by, and on Friday we made the 8 hour trek back to Brentwood (Groans for the traffic!). We haven’t had a dull moment since returning, and the kids returned to school with their usual bounce and enthusiasm on Monday. I now have a new job, 20 hours a week as a carer/companion for someone with Huntingdon’s disease so that certainly keeps me busy. I’m still trying to do some writing but I need to be more disciplined in that department. The Inspire website printed some stuff I wrote on the fun run with pics if anyone’s interested.

I have done a fair bit of reading in recent weeks so will fill you in on that in due course with a ‘book-fest’ blog. I have also contemplated doing a ‘nosh blog’ as my eating habits need a little attention!! Have been a bit lazy on the running front as well so need to get back in my trainers… so until the next time…!

our dear ones,

messaging hope in our

townwide outreach a few weeks ago!

from my Easter Day preach today;- The German theologian Jurgen Moltmann expresses in a single sentence the great span from Good Friday to Easter. It is, in fact, a summary of human history, past, present, and future: “God weeps with us so that we may someday share laughter and joy with him.”

Job 19 v 25-27
‘I know that my Redeemer lives,
and that in the end he will stand upon the earth.
And after my skin has been destroyed,
yet in my flesh I will see God;
I myself will see him
with my own eyes - I, and not another.
How my heart yearns within me!’

After an inspiring Easter morning service those words are resonating in my head and with good cause; they were sung beautifully by our dear friend Emma and brought tears to many eyes. God knows those who can sing those words and mean them from the very core of their being:
I know that my Redeemer lives!

May you all know God’s blessing on this wondrous day of celebration and praise.

John 11 v 25,26
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

Jesus is talking to Martha, comforting her after the death of Lazarus (whom he will shortly raise to life).

On this Easter Saturday, these verses are a wonderful reminder that Jesus gives life. Those of us who accept Him in repentance and faith have the assurance that death will never triumph over us. As we read in 1 Corinthians 15 v 54:
‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’

Philippians 3 v 10
“I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings…”

As we reflect on the crucifixion and remember afresh the significance of what happened at calvary, we would do well to echo the words of Paul; following Jesus involves counting the cost and the desire of our hearts should be to know Him better.

‘See from His head, His hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down;
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?’ Watts

Today is Good Friday. Why is it “good?”

• In a culture that is ever so quick to get to the product
• In a culture that is ever so quick to avoid suffering and pain and seek ways to medicate ourselves to avoid pain
• In a culture that is ever so quick to jump to the bunnies and eggs
• In a culture that is ever so quick to commercialize, capitalize, and consumerize
• In a culture that is ever so quick to jump to the good news of Easter Sunday and Resurrection
• In a culture that is ever so quick to minimize the extent of Jesus’ suffering and crucifixion
• In a culture that is ever so quick to ‘disney-ize’ the events of the brutal death of the God-man
• In a culture that is ever so quick to grab hold of grace as if we are entitled to it

Today matters. This Friday matters. His death matters.

While the good news of our beauty is in the glorious news of the Resurrection…the depths of our darkness and depravity is also exposed in the last days of Jesus’ life and crucifixion.

And once we understand, if even for a glimpse, the depths of our depravity and brokenness, the amazing depth of God’s grace and mercy is that much more understood and experienced. We understand that our broken image can be restored by the Creator of that original beauty.

Thank you Jesus for this day. For Dark Friday. For Holy Friday, for your horrific Friday. For the cross, sacrifice, and once-for-all-atonement. Thank you that you have redeemed this day to be Good. Lord Jesus Christ, prepare our hearts to walk with you the rest of the way. Help us to find ourselves in this part of your story and not run from the pain and the unanswerable questions contained within it. Draw us to sit with you at the Last Supper where you shared your heart so tenderly with your friends and also faced your betrayer honestly and without malice.

Help us to stay awake in the agonies of the garden on that dark night, as you wrestle with the death and dying that must take place in order for God’s will to come to pass. Give us the wisdom to know, as you did, when it is time to lay down our life so that some day we can take it up again. Give us the grace to endure the pain of witnessing your humiliation and rejection so that we can more gracefully endure our own.

Help us to be as gut-wrenchingly honest as you were when you cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Grant us the courage to let go when it is time. Grant us the patience to wait with you in the silence of death until you call out the resurrection.
Amen.

It’s always a really encouraging occasion. It means a-lot, whenever someone just says,…..“I’m thinking of you……”

In the garden of Gethsemane, when Jesus said, ‘My soul is overwhelmed 
with sorrow to the point of death ……. Matthew 26:38 and when He prayed and His sweat was like drops of blood, Luke 22:44. Jesus said to His Father,….. if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will, Matthew 26:39.

Jesus was thinking of His Father and fulfilling His will but I contend, Jesus was thinking of you.
 One of the central messages of the entire Bible is that God is 
thinking about you.

Starting all the way back with the creation of 
Adam and Eve, and through the life boat God made for Noah & his 
family. The calling of Abraham and singling out of Israel, the 
giving of the Ten Commandments and God’s rescue through Moses and the 
crossing of the Red Sea and the covenants and the promise of the 
Messiah all the way through the Old Testament history, all the 
Prophets and all of Gods miracles and words;- we can see that God 
was thinking of us.…….. leading all the way up to the birth of the baby 
Jesus in Bethlehem.

Actually, the incarnation of God is the 
greatest testimony that God is thinking of us. And you see it in 
Jesus lifetime, His words and miracles and all the way to the 
Cross and Easter morning.
 In the upper room, Jesus said, ‘Take and eat, take and drink, 
this is my body and my blood given for you, for the forgiveness of 
sins.’ He thought of you. He made provision for me, to receive the 
forgiveness of sins, to find a way in this crazy mixed-up world, to 
find the healing, repair and recovery from the brokenness that we 
suffer from so much of the time because of the mortar shells of struggles and sin that keep exploding in our lives.

Jesus by His grace reaches through the centuries, across 
the thousands of miles and the generations as He projects His 
thoughts right here tonight. And He said,
 before I step out and go to the Cross, I’m 
thinking of you.

And what I am about to do, I’m thinking of 
you and what your soul needs. As 
God promises us in
 The Bible, ‘Jesus made himself nothing…..He humbled himself 
and became obedient to death, even death on a cross.’ (Philippians 
2:7-8)

At that one moment in time, all history stopped and pointed to a 
single hill outside of Jerusalem, where God appointed a Saviour to pay 
the penalty for your sin and mine.

He thought of you.

Jesus Christ, Saviour of the World is thinking of you!!

Phil 3 v 7 & 8
“But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord…”

Life without Jesus is meaningless. Only in a life focused on Him do we experience true hope, and everything else pales into insignificance. Knowing Jesus transforms our entire being, and it’s a relationship that continues to grow deeper as we seek to be more like Him.

We are now in holy week, and although circumstances meant I couldn’t get on the website recently (consequently have been unable to post anything in the last few days) I have still been reflecting on Scripture. This week I have been looking at the book of Philippians, which contains a number of texts that are very significant for me.

Just over 14 years ago my mum died and on her gravestone (in both English and Thai) are the words from Phil 1 v 21
‘For me to live is Christ…’

The words challenge and inspire me hugely because they are true: she lived for Jesus. The second half of that verse is also true: ‘to die is gain.‘ Mum is now in heaven. She lived and died with a sure and certain hope, a hope that rejoices because eternity is not lost.

Some people die without hope. I am now in the heart-wrenching situation of seeing my mother’s brother spend his last days in the same hospice where his sister’s life ended all those years ago. He is comfortable physically but describes himself as experiencing ‘anguish’ emotionally… I long that even now he will be reconciled with his creator, calling out to God before he slips into a lost eternity.

Sometimes we want to make decisions on behalf of those we love and yet they must choose…dying without Hope is devastating and we must do all we can to show our loved ones the way to life, because we will all stand before God one day.

“Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.” Phil 2 v 9-11