Setting the Captives Free: 3 New Year's Resolutions from God in 2021

2020—Toilet Paper, Elbow Greeting Rituals, and Mullets

Who would've foreseen the debacle that was 2020? A global pandemic that led ordinary intelligent civilians to hoard toilet paper, establish new greeting rituals involving their elbows, and cheerfully report their every banal movement to the authorities. But let's not dwell on the virtues (or otherwise) of loosely-held civil freedoms, lest the tin-foil hats unfurl. The real elephant in the room is this: where the heck did the mullets come from? It's genuinely perplexing; equally disturbing. I'm not sure 2020 will live it down. It will be that story that gets pulled out at family dinners and repeated for all of eternity... "remember the year people grew mullets again and thought they were cool?" I'm not talking about people that still have them—they are authentic, the real deal, they have staying power: they waited for the full cycle to come around and came out victoriously yet indifferently on the other side. Respect. 

Okay, so happy to put the mullet-year behind us? Great. But let's think twice about starting 2021 the same way we've started all the others—with a bunch of tired promises that we're only half convicted about and less than half committed to. 

Typical New Year's Resolutions

The top 5 New Year's Resolutions (over a 5 year rolling sample), according to Google (so it's probably true) is:

1) Eat healthier / diet (71%)

2) Exercise more (65%)

3) Lose weight (54%)

4) Save money (32%)

5) Learn a new skill or hobby (26%)

Now I'm assuming the top three, being over half of the responses each time, have numerous repeat offenders (me, for one). Recidivism aside, statistics report that 80% of NYRs are dropped by January 19—they don't mention how many limp through the rest of the year on the brink of death. Either way it's a pretty high failure rate. Why are NYRs so ineffectual?

Well perhaps because us humans are not great at keeping promises in general.  Do you know who is though? God. He's promised to redeem this whole mess we've gotten ourselves (and our planet) into. The Old Testament is full of the revelation that he will do so, and the New Testament is about the first stage of that fulfilment—the decisive entry of God into human history in the person and work of Jesus Christ: to save the whole world. Pretty ambitious right? On the cross he defeated evil for good. Unlike the mullet, which we thought died in the late 80s and has made a sudden & gruesome comeback. (Sorry about my obsession, perhaps I secretly want one). Jesus did it right, once and for all. When he said "it is finished" on the cross, he meant it.

But what does this mean for us now, and what does it have to do with those pesky NYRs?

What We're Really Looking For

Look at the list of typical NYRs again and think about this: what do we really want? I'm betting it's something like health, security, identity, which sounds suspiciously like those ancient gods of money, sex and power. Those gods which promise a lot and deliver little; and even if they did deliver, we are pretty short sighted right? I mean, our lives are a blip on the radar of eternity, and none of those prizes are coming along for the ride. 

But health, security, and identity need not have negative connotations. So I ask again, what are we really looking for? Amplify health, security, & identity and you get freedom, assurance, and transformation. In Jesus, we find what we're really looking for. Increase your focus on Christ, rather than on yourself, and you might just get more than you bargained for. As John the Baptist said, "I must decrease, so that he can increase." It's a zero-sum game. This way too, it won't be based on your own self-effort, which is, let's face it, elusive at worst and unreliable at best. 

So what are we to do? Nothing? By no means! Instead of focusing on your own NYRs in 2021, focus on God's instead. No word from God ever fails. Here's 3 to ponder:

GOD'S RESOLUTIONS TO ME IN 2021

1) To set me free - (deliverance)

Jesus said himself that he was in the business of releasing captives. He went about doing just that, both in his 3 year Earthly ministry and in his 2000 year spiritual ministry ever since. If you need proof of this, try hanging out with Christians more, or perhaps (ahem), different Christians.

Set me free from what? Addictions & afflictions, worry & anxiety, anything that oppresses us and prevents us from living out our full potential, and seeing God's blessings come to fruition in our lives. God is our remedy. 

2) To open my eyes - (assurance)

...To know him more. To know that we are loved by him, led by him, known by him. 

...To see what he sees and feel what he feels. To be his hands and his feet, to help the sick, to feed the poor, to bring the good news to those in need.

...To the person and power of the Holy Spirit in our lives, to the great hope he has called us to, to the great riches of heaven which are already at work in us and through us. 

3) To transform me - (transformation)

You mean like Optimus Prime? Well, yeah sort of. Not so sudden, perhaps. It takes time. 

This is really the flip side of Point 1, God is the ultimate alchemist: he takes our darkness and turns it into light. After all, darkness is only good gone bad. God makes it good again, and uses it for good.

He refines us, transforms us, and makes us more like him. The Bible says he refines us like silver, which is polished until it reflects the face of the refiner. After all, we were made to reflect his image.

Ultimately God promises us peace that surpasses understanding, a joy that surpasses our circumstances, and a hope that shapes our present lives to be a blessing to ourselves and to others.

Who wouldn't want that?

So What Do I Need To Do?

These promises really, reflect an ongoing process in the life of believers saved through grace, by faith in Christ. It is part of God's larger agenda to prepare us (and the world) for the coming kingdom, that final coming together of the New Heavens and the New Earth into a glorious New Creation, of which we are the first fruits. 

God did all the heavy lifting to make these promises possible, he paid a huge price for doing so. He's got skin in the game. He's good to his word. All he asks of you in return is that you spend time with him. Get to know him. Let him into your heart and life each day. Pray, worship, meditate on him and on his promises. Over time, you (and the people around you) will marvel at the results. I'm not saying you need to become a monk—just hang out with him, be you and do what you do, but with him. It's a better you, I assure you. It makes life, well, just better. 

Having said all that, I'm not saying you should write off your regular resolutions. Just pursue them in the right way. Once they're framed within the larger context of the freedom, assurance, and transformation you get from being with Christ; they will no longer rule over you like malevolent gods. They will be in their rightful place in subjection to Christ, and you might just find that they come true after all. 

By spending time with Jesus, his promises will naturally come to fruition in your life. Let me put it this way: when you have freedom, assurance, and transformation; you will get health, security and an identity throw in that cannot be shaken.  

C.S Lewis famously said, "Aim at heaven, and you will get Earth thrown in; aim at Earth and you will get neither."

New Creation: A father's perspective from the delivery room—on birth, rebirth, and the Kingdom of Heaven.

When Nicodemus, a Jewish teacher, asked Jesus what one had to do to inherit eternal life, Jesus answered "you must be born again." Nicodemus mockingly replied, "what, a man must climb back into his mother's womb?" Apparently it was no less strange an idea back then as it is now. What did Jesus mean? Having just witnessed the birth of my son, I’ve been ruminating on just that. Yes that's me in the photo above, which is being used with my wife's permission of course! I write this now sitting by my wife’s bedside in the maternity ward, waiting for our newborn son to recover from the trauma of birth so that we can take him home.

 

My sister (who's given birth 7 times so is an authority on the subject) said to me, "Child-birth is like the gospel in action: our bodies are broken so that new life can come forth. God's presence fills the room." Being present during my son’s delivery, I can absolutely attest to that statement. When my son was being born and things started to go south (pun intended), I could do nothing but pray. I prayed fervently as the room filled with bustling blue-clad masked bandits, wielding cruel-looking utensils to the incessant battle-cry of blatting machines and my wife's anguished moans. If you've been in this situation you would know how useless I felt. Yet perhaps I was doing something crucial. Amidst my prayers the presence of God became suddenly palpable. Amidst the cries, a head, a shoulder, and suddenly a squirming mass flowed into the doctor's red-smeared gloves.

 

My heart overflowed. Then they laid him on the table and began to hook him up to tubes and masks and I could barely breathe, let alone talk. His little chest was heaving and sucking, his head all busted-looking and out of shape. My wife was in shock. There was blood everywhere. I was dumb-stuck. "What's his name?" The midwife asked. To my blank stare she asked again. "Malachi," I breathed, and he began to as well.  My mother-in-law and I exchanged a glance across the room, no words were needed, we were overwhelmed.

 

I wonder if God feels the same way when someone is choosing whether to accept or reject him. In that moment, the angels in heaven are hovering, tubes ready, masks ready, ready to cut the cord that will only work for a little longer before taking the person to their death (that is, their inevitable natural death whenever that occurs), ready to caress their lungs into their first breaths of new spiritual life. I wonder if God has his heart in his throat like I did. He is an emotional God, a feeling God, a personal God. He loves his creation, longs to be united to his human children. Every time a person says yes to God, all of heaven erupts in joy. A new birth! Another victory! Another person for God to enjoy in eternity! 

Eternal life is about quality, not just quantity. That's why Jesus said that you have to have it, in order to understand it. You have to be born-again. When my son was born, although he was already alive in the womb, he entered a different physical dimension of life previously unfathomable to him. When you accept Jesus, though you were already alive in the world, you will come alive to a new spiritual dimension previously unfathomable to you. New Testament writers use the expression "the eyes of your heart are opened." Just like a newborn baby opening its eyes for the first time, your spiritual eyes will be opened to new realities. Much like a newborn baby, you enter a new dimension of existence. Now you can begin to comprehend what eternal life is. I think this is what Jesus was getting at in response to old Nico: that you can't understand it unless you already have some of it. As well try and explain to a baby in the womb what it's like to breathe air.

The metaphor of birth is powerful in other ways too. Like a physical birth, spiritual birth does not come easily, nor is it pain-free. The difference is that Jesus bore the labour-pains for you. 2,000 years ago he laboured on your behalf, nailed to a wooden cross near Jerusalem. That moment somehow became eternal, stretching forward into the future for all those yet to be born. When you accept Jesus and ask him to lead your life, his suffering on the cross becomes the labour pains that give birth to your new spiritual life. Your old life dies with his death, and your new life is born with his resurrection. You become a new creation. It is not easy to understand, then again, if you didn't know how a baby was conceived and brought into the world, you would probably never guess that either.

When you are born-again, you enter into a new sort of world, you become plugged in to the spiritual realities around you. They were there all along, but you've been recalibrated to see them. Kind of like Morpheus choosing the blue pill. You've now become part of the kingdom of heaven, which Jesus brought with him when he came to earth, but which has not yet been fully instated. It hovers in the background but suddenly becomes foreground to you. You can see it and feel it because you are now of it. You are part of the advance party of the kingdom which is coming soon in force. You have access to the kind of power and life that only heaven bears. You have been given this in order to share it and to bless those around you. To help prepare the world for the next phase: New Creation. You see, Jesus didn't just come for you. God's plan is to recreate the entire cosmos. Jesus came to redeem all of creation, to set everything right and to recreate the world the way it was supposed to be. This is his plan. And it is imminent: it may occur at any moment.

 

If you think this sounds crazy, wait until we get into what happens when Jesus returns for the second time. We are then given new physical bodies, geared for immortal life. No more sickness or sorrows. No more sore joints or bad livers. You will be born again again, in a sense. You will go from Human Flesh 1.0 to Human Flesh 2.0. You might even get to do some of the cool stuff that Jesus did after his resurrection, like walk through walls—who knows? Sound like Sci Fi? No way, it's much crazier, and actually true. But hey, if it doesn't make total sense you are in good company. Paul, one of Jesus' apostles said, "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived, what God has promised to those who love him." 

But we are getting ahead of ourselves. This is not relevant to you unless you are first born-again, as Jesus said. You won't get the second if you don't ask for the first. It's a necessary in-between step. Take the invitation today. Ask Jesus to come into your heart and to change you. Ask for this new sort of life. Breathe for the first time. The agents of heaven are standing by. Like in the picture above, a new father awaits with abated breath, his heart in his throat. The doctor's hands are like the Holy Spirit, skilled, calm and assured, ready to bring you through safely. Jesus stands by to welcome you into a wonderful new creation, which you will enjoy now in part, and will one day inhabit in full for all of eternity.

A Rider's Guide to Theological Reflection

 

This is a poster I created as an assignment for my theology class at Vose Seminary. At first I must admit that I didn't want to do it. A poster? Please... give me an essay to write any day! Visual art is not my gift. Can I write a song instead? No. It had to be a poster. 

I needed to present a model for reflection with a metaphor of some sort. But then, on my ride home I realised that I already had one. I commute two hours each way to classes on my motorcycle. I began to take note of what I could see around me, and this idea came to life. 

I must admit that despite my resistance this assignment has turned out to be of more practical value than most! The model has been very useful to me in thinking about and sifting through ideas. So if you're grappling with a certain Biblical doctrine or truth, run it through this model. 

This activity is best done on an open road with a full tank and an open mind!

What God says about your weaknesses...

What God says about your weaknesses...

[Transcript from video]

2 Corinthians 12:10, 'That is why for Christ’s sake I delight in weaknesses, in insults in hardships in persecutions in difficulties, for when I am weak, then I am strong.' 

Brothers and sisters, God is okay with our weaknesses.

He doesn’t need our strengths. He just wants us to bring to him what we’ve got and let him in to our deficiencies . When I am weak, I finally get to the end of myself and I get out of the way and I let the Holy Spirit come in and take the drivers seat and that’s when God really gets down to business.

Moses had a stutter and yet was commissioned to speak before a king.

Abraham was 100 years old and yet he fathered a nation.

Jacob was a liar and yet he was entrusted to pass on the great truth of God’s covenant.

Jonah was afraid, and yet he was asked to preach to a hostile city. 

David’s armour didn’t fit and yet he fought the greatest battles.

Elijah was depressed and burnt out and yet he demonstrated God’s power to a great power to a nation that no longer believed in God.

Paul was a murderer of Christians, yet was called as an evangelist to nurture their growth.

Peter was a coward, yet led the Christian movement in a hostile city and became the rock and foundation of the church. 

Be encouraged by this!

You might feel that you’re not worthy. 

Satan will certainly tell you that you’re not worthy.

But the word says to resist him and draw close to God. 

What does God tell you?

In fact God tells you that you aren’t worthy.

But he says, “ I Am”. 

God is the great I AM, and he puts his spirit in you and makes you worthy.

God is worthy and capable of all things and he chooses weakness to demonstrate his power.

God says that for man some things are impossible but for him nothing is impossible. 

God says you have a purpose.

God says you have a mission. 

God says you have power. 

God says you have strength. 

God says you are important. 

If you haven’t pursued God yet, that is okay, but I just want you to understand this:

He is pursing you because he created you for a purpose. 

He’s got a mission for you and he’s chasing after you. 

He’s just waiting for you to turn back to him.

He doesn’t care what you look like.

He doesn’t care what you’ve done.

He doesn’t care how old you are. 

He doesn’t care what colour your skin is, the car your drive, the size of your bank account, the kind of job you have. 

He created you as you.

And he needs you to be you, and you give yourself to him, as you are.

And in return he gives us each day through the Holy spirit what we need to be our best. 

You are called for a time and place such as this. 

You are equipped for a time and place such as this. 

#2Cor1012 #

COVID-19: We Will Not Be Shaken!

We are living in a time marked by fear, and understandably so, our lives have been turned upside-down as COVID-19 sweeps through the world leaving destruction in its wake. Many of us have lost jobs and are racked with uncertainty about the future. Besides this, our relationships have been tainted with distrust as everyone becomes a possible carrier of this rogue virus. Our own family have become estranged. We are under siege in our homes, too scared to venture out. We are prohibited to travel outside our region; the borders under guard by teams of imposing personnel in dark uniforms. It sounds like something from a Hunger Games film—how did we get to this place? 

Alarming still, some people are behaving like those in the Hunger Games, having given in to fear and panic they have become obsessed with saving their own skin above all other considerations. Hoarding supplies, clawing and screaming at people for a roll of toilet paper. Insane. They are driven by fear, and who can blame them? Fear and anxiety are powerful enemies. We have given them a foothold in our lives by putting our hope in material things—in this we have all been exposed. Our fear unveils that in which we had placed too much trust: our jobs, money, health, & education. As COVID-19 spreads its tentacles into our lives, we are realising how little security these things really gave us. As it sucks our routines, our social connections, and our agendas from our grasp, our anxiety gently asks us a different question: why were we holding them so tightly in the first place? This suggests we were looking for security in the wrong places. We were trying to extract something from the world, that the world could never offer us.

We had forgotten that "man does not live by bread alone." No matter how we tried to pick every crumb off the floor, bread alone was never going to satisfy us anyway. We were fooling ourselves, our false confidence robbing us of a larger blessing. We were like chickens scratching through a field of diamonds looking for food, unable to apprehend the glorious wealth all around us while in futile search of a mere grain. We had forgotten that our joy and our hope and our peace are all found in Jesus Christ our Saviour—and these transcend our physical reality. We had forgotten that when we seek first our joy in him, all else is made more joyful. We had forgotten to put the kingdom of God first, and all else will be added to us; we have been too busy trying to establish everything else for ourselves first, and then squeeze the kingdom of God in at the end.

But could this virus be like a Trojan horse in reverse? Rolling resolutely through our gates, the very image of death and destruction; but then pouring out of its belly (as the scripture puts it) rivers of living water? In other words, a blessing in disguise? Something has changed in the spiritual atmosphere: something is brewing, something is coming. Rest assured, it is coming. God is doing something new, do you not see it? He is making a way in the wilderness that had become our lives. A way to seek him. A way to reset our priorities. A way to put him first again. He has given us time back, he has taken away our crutches, so that we may find REAL hope in him. He is making a way for us to trust in him again, to hope in him and not ourselves. To be sustained by him and not our own meagre provisions. Oh if only we'd see it! If only we would put our pride aside and get down and worship him! Really trust him with our lives!

Voltaire once said that, 'In the beginning God made man in his own image, and man has been trying to repay the favour ever since.' If only we would let go of our ideas of God, the tame god, the powerless god, the angry god, the vengeful god, the god in a box, the god we pay lip service to at the end of long day, and let him actually BE who he is. He gave us a verb for a name, have you ever thought about that? His name is an action. "I AM WHO I AM." I will be who I will be. Regardless of your infantile attempts to understand me. I am self-determining. I am a God of action. I love. I create. I hold all things together. I lavish grace and mercy upon you. I pursue you. I reach out to you. If only we would make him the centre of our lives and watch him get to work in our hearts, then our homes, then our communities! What transformation could be unleashed!

God has turned the way we do church on its head—let this be a wake-up call. We were GOING to church, but now it's time to BE the church. Let's make Jesus Christ the first thing again. Let's not make life about anything else. Are the churches empty or deployed? It's a glass half full question. You can do church where you are. God has not left us unprepared or unequipped for this situation. Do you know a single person in your life who doesn't own a phone or computer? My wife and I worshipped tonight with our church community, simultaneously spread across dozens of households using digital technologies. Our friends were able to comment, writing scripture, prophetic words, encouraging words, speaking truth to one another. We came away feeling uplifted. The Holy Spirit was as present in our kitchen as he is in a church with a fancy stage and a few hundred people.

Church: it is time to rise up. It is time to DEMONSTRATE our hope, to ACT our faith, to LIVE our confession in Christ. The time for talk is over. For all its pearls of wisdom, the enlightenment has left us in the dark, ushering religion into the realm of the esoteric and the arcane and pointing society to place its trust in science and reason. It gave us Postmodernism, which has failed the world, and the world knows it. For all our advances in science and medicine our global society has been disabled by a strand of the common flu; our economies shaken and our social institutions brought to their knees as the futility of putting our hope into humanity alone becomes painfully apparent—something the Bible has been saying for a couple of millennia.

As Christians, we have the truth. Not a version of it (relativism was postmodernism's evil progeny) but the ACTUAL truth. We are in possession of the greatest message of hope that humankind has ever known, and now they need it more than ever. That is why we are able to live and breathe hope regardless of what is happening around us. We are to stand, and shine this light for all to see. The world needs this message, they need to be set free. They need to know the truth. They need to know what we know:

We know that God is real, and powerful, and holds our world together by his will.
We know that he deeply loves his creation,
We know that we are made to be in relationship with him,
We know that we are made for a purpose,
We know that despite our failures, we have been made right with God, and;
We know that he has made a way to bring us into his presence.
We know that we are promised freedom (in the here and now), unparalleled by anything else the world can offer.
We know that he is coming to make all things new again, to set things right, and to establish a new creation.

So Christians, let us lift our eyes, as our forerunners did. As the Psalmist wrote, "I lift my eyes to the mountains—where does my help come from? My help comes for the LORD, the maker of heaven and earth" (Psalm 121). Let us say, as our forerunners said: "Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken" (Psalm 62:5-6).

There is a wonderful opportunity in this. We have been, in a way, set free from various illusions and entrapments. We are locked in, commanded to stay at home, to stay with our families, to be still. I want to remind you Church, that God works all things together for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. I want to challenge you to spend some time in the stillness, to shut out the craziness, and really listen to what God is saying. Embrace the opportunity.

I have been doing this a lot lately, and this is what I'm hearing:

"Look forward. The best is yet to come. Look forward."

So we press on, we look forward, we look up, we live in hope, faith, expectation and love.

Amen.

***

'Rather`, as it is written:

"No eye has seen,
      no ear has heard,
and no heart has imagined..."

 ...what God has prepared for those who love him.
        — but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit.'

1 Corinthians 2:9 (BSB)


Leave a comment...

What does 'BEING' the church look like to you?
How are you worshipping at the moment? Are you using virtual spaces? How is it different to 'usual' church? Do you sense the Holy Spirit is present?
How can we demonstrate our hope and our faith during these challenging times?
How do you set aside the time and space for God to speak to you?
Did anything you read here challenge you? Convict you? Do you disagree with anything? Let's get some discussion going!

Knowing Whose You Are: The Power of Your Identity in Christ

A lifetime ago I worked as a branch manager in a small country town bank. One evening just before leaving the branch, my area manager phoned to warn there was trouble coming: a banker had run afoul of some members of a particular motorcycle club, and they were expecting retaliation. 

"All is well however," he said jovially, "we're sending a security guard to protect you." 

I immediately felt better. But the next day I discovered that my confidence was somewhat misplaced. 

It turned out the guard was a pimply-faced youth who fidgeted nervously and jumped a foot every time a motorcycle went past. Despite the tension the most trouble he had to face that morning was with an old lady who reprimanded him for sitting on the job, until that is, five minutes before closing when the roar of a V-Twin came suddenly upon us. 

Moments later a dark figure loomed in the entrance, and our gaze drew unsteadily to the doors as they swung open to reveal that infamous motorcycle insignia bearing down upon us. 

I felt an icy stab of fear and the young guard twitched and almost fell off his chair. 

As he came into the light we saw an old man hobbling with the help of a gnarled walking stick. "Afternoon there chaps. If it’s no trouble, would ya' mind havin' a quick look at me account..." 

***
 
I want to talk about the power of that insignia. This man obviously posed no real threat (and we were able to resolve his issue), but the insignia and patches on his jacket screamed something else. That's why motorcycle clubs have them. So that members can be identified as being part of something bigger. You don't just see the person, you see the club behind them. It protects them. Enlarges them. If you take one member on, you take the whole club on.

Knowing who you are gives you some confidence, perhaps, but knowing whose you are gives you true identity and power. A Spirit-filled believer with their identity firmly rooted in Christ bears the most powerful insignia in the world. If you've accepted Christ as your Saviour, then you've been granted a citizenship in heaven (Eph 2:19). You're a foreign national: in the world, but not of the world. You're a child of God. You are untouchable, spiritually, by the inferior forces of this world.

It doesn't matter who you are in this world, where you've come from, or what you've done—God says this of you, "this is my beloved child, in whom I am well pleased." (Matt 3:17) If you have accepted Christ, God sees Christ when he looks at you. Jesus' perfect track record has been transferred to your record: you stand flawless before God. God says, "though your sins may be scarlet, you shall be white as snow" (Isa 1:18). In Christ you have been brought to fullness (Col 2:9-10). God doesn't see your shortcomings, he sees his own perfect glory. It's about time you started seeing it too.

God has invested heavily in you, you were bought at a price and he will fight for you (1 Cor 6:20). Defeat is not in his vocabulary. He says, "I WILL be exalted among the nations; I WILL be glorified in all the earth.

So if you're feeling outnumbered, outmanoeuvred, or oppressed—remind yourself whose you are.

Bear your insignia with confidence, knowing that:

You are not alone... you are clothed in Christ (Galatians 3:27)
You are not weak... in God you are strong (2 Cor 12:10)
You are not unworthy... God says you are forgiven (Isa 1:18)

You are not defective... God made you purposefully, flaws and all (Psalm 139:13)
You are not a loser... you are more than a conquerer (Romans 8:37)
You are not powerless... the same power that raised Christ from the dead lives in you (Eph 1:18-19)

AND...

You can do all things through him who strengthens you (Philippians 4:13)
You are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14)
You are a child of God, created after his likeness (John 1:12)

IF GOD IS FOR YOU, WHO CAN BE AGAINST YOU? (Rom 8:31)

Recall Post 1: You've faced the storm, relaxed your grip, & focused on Christ. Now remind yourself whose you are, and ask the question—is this storm big enough for a blood-washed holy and righteous son or daughter of the Living God?

#CLAIMIT #FAITHOVERFEAR

Riding The Storm—Fear Into Faith

BEGIN THE YEAR WITH FAITH NOT FEAR

At the foot of the giant whose name is FEAR, lies a million New Year's Resolutions, slain and crippled and broken. Yet FEAR doesn't have a mind of his own—he is controlled by you. When you believe the lies of the enemy, he rises up and lurches toward you, arms outstretched with a leery grin on his grotesque face. While he cripples your dreams, slays your potential, and prevents you from walking the path Christ created you for, you do not sit by powerless. For when you choose faith, FEAR is stopped in his tracks. When you claim God's promises over your life, he flinches as if struck, flailing at an unseen assailant, and when you speak the name of Jesus he is struck down in defeat. Faith and fear are two sides of the same coin. This is the first of a series of posts about flipping that coin, so that it lands faith side up, every time. 

RIDING THE STORM 

 My first motorcycle was a Suzuki VL250, and I rode more kilometres on that beast in one year than I have on my 1100cc in 5. I used it to commute to work in country Victoria—a 45 min perilous expedition down a wind-blown rain-swept cattle-truck-pounded highway. The weight of the 250 was both a blessing and a curse—a blessing because for a beginner you can wield the bike easily, a curse because whilst it would sit on 120 no problem with a tail wind, you'd be pushing 85 with a head wind. Add that this particular stretch of highway was prone to heavy winds and rain, factor in the buffeting of passing trucks and you have a problem—you get blown around like a rag doll.

RELAXING YOUR GRIP

I learnt that to ride in strong winds you have to do something counter-intuitive: relax your grip on the handlebars. You see, when you clutch them like a boa-constrictor around its prey, and the wind pounds you in the chest, it travels straight down your arms into the bike's steering and jolts you all over the road. However if you relax your grip and let your arms go floppy (almost like pretending they're not attached to your wrists), the wind still slams you in the chest but it doesn’t knock you off course. Instead of your own strength you rely on the power of the bike to pull you through the wind; by resisting less, you actually become more in control. It’s counter-intuitive, but it works.

FOCUSING ON CHRIST

 It’s the same with Christ. When you commit yourself to him the world will conspire to steal you back, and it will be like those buffeting winds pushing you this way and that. Whether you’re new in your faith or not, this will happen regularly. The bible promises testing, trials, and also tells us how to get through them. Think of Christ as the motorcycle—pulling you inexorably forward despite the wind and rain and hail, and faith is you focusing on staying on the bike rather than fighting the elements. You let him do the work. The more you try to control the trials and circumstances around you, the less control you’ll have.

LEAVING ROOM IN THE RING

The human response to fear is fight or flight, and both are insufficient for the spiritual giants in your life—only faith will slay them. When we are afraid, we tense up, we fight, we throw our puny strength at the problem. But the Bible says, "The Lord will fight for you, you need only to be still." If we fight, we take matters into our own hands and leave no room for God. Who wants to take on Mike Tyson themselves when the creator or the universe wants to step into the ring for you?

STAYING CALM IN THE STORM

 The disciples learned this is a fishing boat. A supernatural storm whipped up and they began to thrash about and rock the boat, screaming out, '"Lord, save us! We're going to drown!" To which Jesus replied: "You of little faith, why are you so afraid?" Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm.' Notice that Jesus dealt with the disciples' fear before he dealt with the storm. Why? My guess is because he was also in the boat, and he couldn't do much while the others were thrashing about in panic! We have to learn to ride the storm not fight it. 

CHOOSING THE RIGHT WEAPON

You don't see battles fought against modern armies with bows and arrows—you need the same technology if you stand a chance against your enemies. You need the right weapon for the war, and our war is a spiritual one. We can't fight a storm in our lives with fear. The bible says it's not the people or the circumstances that are the issue—it's the spirit behind them, pulling the strings, and these can’t be fought with your own strength in your flesh. Spirit must be fought with spirit, and that’s why God says he will do it for us.  If you clothe yourself in God’s spirit you are far superior to anything the enemy can throw at you. The weakest person with God is stronger than the strongest without.

BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD

One of the most powerful scriptures in the bible are words from God himself: "Be still and know that I am God." When we choose fear over faith, we whittle our options down to fight or flight, and neither are conducive to being still. Perhaps that's why there are so many scriptures that say, "Do not be afraid." I read a post on Pinterest claiming that the bible has 365 expressions or variations of this—one for each day of the year. I don't know if that's factually correct, but hey it's true that the Bible says it a lot, so let's embrace the hyperbole and claim it anyway.

TRUSTING GOD TO FIGHT FOR YOU

Can you be confident God will fight for you? Yes you can. The rest of the 'Be Still' scripture goes like this: "I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth." God will be exalted, and nothing and nobody can stop him. He will fight for his children, because it glorifies and exalts himself. He will fight for you, O Sons and Daughters of the Living God, oh yeah, he'll fight for you. You just have to be still and stop thrashing about the boat. You have to relax your arms and stop letting the wind jolt your steering. You have to BE STILL.

FACING THE STORM

Is there a storm in your life at the moment? Someone reading this has a wind that is pounding at their chest. You've been holding on for dear life and your grip is weakening, your hands are sore and you've been blown all over the road. If you let any more blasts of wind jolt your steering you’re going to go over. I want to encourage you to relax your grip and try faith over fear. Keep those arms floppy and trust Christ to pull you through.

So try something different today: loosen your grip, despite your instinct telling you to tighten it.
Ride the storm instead of resisting it. As you ride the storm, you move from fear into faith. Put on Christ's strength and power rather than your own and watch awestruck as he fights for you. I can guarantee you'll experience something unusual—peace. That’s why the Bible calls it a "peace that surpasses understanding," because it doesn't match your circumstances. For you've put on the imperishable, the impenetrable, the immovable.

The very creator of the universe is fighting for you.

RIDING THE STORM

As you ride the storm, choose faith over fear.
As you ride the storm, be still and know who your God is.
As you ride the storm, know that God will fight for you.
As you ride the storm, know that your God will be exalted in the earth.
As you ride the storm, know that nothing can separate you from the love of Christ.
As you ride the storm, know that if he is for you, who can be against you?

Stay tuned for the next post on flipping the fear/faith coin. In the meantime, be still.

Exodus 14:14
Psalm 46:10
Matthew 8:23-27
Phillipians 4:6-7