Hello Everyone,
God is a mighty warrior who is ahead of us, behind us, beside us and within us. He is our utmost protector. His Kingdom is established forever. Nothing, nothing, nothing can come against the King and His Kingdom. We belong to him. He will fight for us, champion our cause and slay the enemy like a consuming fire. No weapon formed against you will stand!
So friends, buckle up and let Him be your shield and warrior.
Best days ahead,
Wen
Time to talk about Truth.
Our Biblical Christian understanding is that God is Truth. That Truth is expressed in His Word, the Bible, and incarnationally in Jesus. But, we cannot get to know Truth unaided.
One of the most profound and true phone messages I have received was an SMS from a student: “Today, God found me.” In that message is the amazing understanding that no matter how much we try, we cannot be reunited in a relationship with God the Father through Jesus Christ, by our own effort. We have to acknowledge that “True Truth” is revealed by God Himself. This is what makes the reading of the Scriptures so fundamental to our lives; they contain the revealed Truths of God. But before we can understand those revealed truths in the Bible, we have to acknowledge, believe in and believe on, the existence of God and the great redemption enabled through Jesus Christ. This can only be by revelation of the Spirit of God. When we are lost, we don’t even know we’re lost until Jesus comes to find us. We cannot find this Truth unaided.
Tom Wright in “Simply Christian”, writes:
Our seeking for knowledge, our probing and questioning, may perhaps lead us in the direction where God might be found, but they cannot break through and claim to have grasped God all by themselves. When we see the enormity of sunlight, all of our efforts to bring light to the world with our matches, candles and torches become so puny. Instead we glory in the light of the sun. We glory in the fact that once the sun is risen we can now see everything so clearly.
Next Term we’ll look at how knowing the virtue of Truth will help us to see some good values for community.
Blessings Brian
In essays written by Timothy Garton Ash he calls the time period since the turn of this millennium ‘no name’. It began with an extreme act of violence and has continued with many economic and moral failures. Through things such as the rise of social media and virtual reality, there has been a loss of meaning and purpose that has hollowed out life. Yet our young people long for connection, watch movies and listen to music which is filled with romantic longings and they yearn to know their identity in a world “without windows.” (Derek Kidner). King Solomon cried out “vanity of vanities . . . all is meaningless under the sun” when one lives as if God doesn’t exist.
Does life just come down to random chance and choice? Yet Solomon reminds us that there is a God who is the Sovereign Creator and His presence makes all the difference. Meaningless is confronted with His glory – weightiness is restored.
During the holidays, I watched with my grandchildren, CS Lewis’ story “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.” When the children Peter, Edmund, Susan and Lucy travel to Narnia, they learn to think and see things differently about the existential questions common to all the ages. They learn what is real and lasting and they learn their true identity. In their amazing adventure to Narnia, they left what is familiar and grappled with these questions in a new way.
A Christian school at its best engenders hope and embodies the way of Jesus. It helps students to see things differently and provide a place where they can learn to trust God. God’s Word says “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight. (Proverbs 3: 4, 5)
The journey through childhood to adolescence is filled with many crooked paths where they can lose their way and feel lost. In the Shalom community, we are to teach our children for tears and help make their direction straight through struggle. Joni Eareckson, who was left a quadriplegic at 17 years of age, says ‘when we learn to lean back into God’s sovereignty, fixing and settling our thoughts on that unshakeable, unmovable reality, we can experience inner peace. Our trouble may not change, our pain may not diminish, our loss may not be restored, our problems may not fade with the new dawn. But the power of those things to harm us is broken as we rest in the fact that God is in control.” [1]
The question to us as teachers is how do we individually and together engender hope in the lives of our children as they journey through school. How does our life together as a school community embody what it means to trust Christ and walk in the way of wisdom? Does our community embody wisdom from heaven that is “pure, peace-loving, considerate, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere” (James 3: 17) and reflects the very nature of God. So we end these talks where we began “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding”. (Proverbs 9:10)
Let us seek the One who is all wise and walk in His Word, empowered by His Spirit. For we walk in the truth that “History, in all its details, even the most minute, is the unfolding of the eternal purposes of God … all parts of one all–comprehending plan.” [2]
Grace and Peace
The Team
The Excellence Centre
[1] J Eareckson. Book title unknown.
[2] L Boettner, “The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination” S Larsen ed
In following this series, I think by now you’re probably seeing my pattern. The values we wish to see in our school communities are informed by virtues which arise from the character of God.
Time to look at Faithfulness.
| VIRTUE | BIBLICAL INDICATOR | VALUES |
| Faithfulness | “The One who calls you is faithful and He will do it.” 1 Thessalonians 5:24 | Commitment Cooperation Diligence |
The first thing we need to say is that God is faithful to Himself; He is true and constant and trustworthy. He does everything for the glory of His Name. Just as we can say that God IS Love, we can say that He IS faithfulness.
The flow on to us is that when He calls us to something, His faithfulness to Himself and His call means that it will be done. Maybe not in the way we presume, but His purposes are sure.
It’s easy now to see how the values of commitment, cooperation and diligence flow from this virtue.
Commitment arises out of the faithfulness of the one who commits – it is not a transactional or conditional thing. Commitment comes from knowing the purpose and knowing the One who calls us to that purpose. Commitment means responsibility and loyalty; it means steadfastness and devotion.
Faithfulness is delivered via cooperation. God the Father is faithful in truth and intent; Jesus is faithful in obedience and sacrifice; the Spirit faithfully witnesses truth to us. The Persons of the Triune God cooperate (they simply cannot do otherwise) in their faithfulness; fully cooperating in Creation, in Redemption and in Sustaining.
Faithfulness causes diligence – the determination to continue and to keep going persistently. We must encourage, even insist, that all members of our community be diligent. This is a virtue characteristic that is often being neglected by parents and educators. We are living in a world where we prize ease and comfort. Diligence calls us to engage, to struggle, and to overcome adversity.
| God’s Faithfulness |  | Commitment, Cooperation, Diligence |
Again, as we seek to live out these values, we must be constantly pointing to the virtue that demands our response.
Blessings
As we take up the theme of Perseverance for the year, it is well worth us looking at a Biblical framework for what this means.
Firstly, settling on our position is essential. Scripture is clear in that it tells us we are already positioned to persevere, and Ephesians 1 gives us a firm affirmation of this position – we are redeemed, chosen, holy, blameless, adopted, forgiven, and sealed with the Holy Spirit. Every spiritual blessing is ours and on top of all of this, we are seated with Christ in the heavenly places. The authority of Jesus is within us. What an affirmation of our position!
It appears that in our humanity we are wired to function according to our original design, with a deep seated, probably unconscious expectation, desire and hope that nothing will go wrong in life. We should remember that God never designed life to be lived in brokenness, and that His original design for creation did not include difficulty or suffering or death. As a result of sin, we became fractured image bearers and the consequence of sin opened the door to our broken or fallen state. As such, when we encounter suffering and hardship, it not only takes us by surprise, but we are often left bewildered by the reality.
What I love about God is that he has never changed His intention about His creation. He hates our brokenness and whilst humanity rejected God’s ultimate rule and the consequence was a dislocation from all we were created to be, God steps in and makes it possible for us to persevere through struggle because he has personally positioned and equipped us for this journey.
Jesus tells us that in this world, we will encounter trouble (John 16:33), but He did not leave us with that statement alone. He went on to the cross, and overcame the world, making it possible for us to live redemptively, positioning us to have both hope and the capacity to persevere. It is a priceless gift. If we were not positioned in Jesus, we would face being crushed by the blows of life and left adrift without hope.
When difficulty and suffering crash into our lives what does it mean to be positioned so we can persevere? We are:
Our prayer is that you will go forward in the strength of Jesus, with a deep awareness and experience of His love, justice, grace, power and might when every trials hit hard. You are positioned and that makes perseverance possible. It is the place of authentic hope. Our hope is sealed because Jesus, who is far above every power and realm, every kingdom and throne, in this age and the age to come is our hope. He is with us and ahead of us and leads us through all things.