Jul 27, 2020 | Wens Pen
Hello Everyone,
Planted in the garden of God. A flower garden is place of created beauty. Some of us love to tend our gardens and others simply enjoy the bouquets of beauty. From the beginning of creation to our 21st century villages, with our suburban back yards and balconies, gardens remain a feature of human life; for humanity was born in the most magnificent, flourishing, abundant garden of God. The Bible speaks metaphorically about God as the ultimate Gardener and gardens embody some parallel realities with our journey as Christians as we are all planted in the garden of God.
So, what are some of our parallel realities we find in the garden metaphor? Eden was created as a place of exquisite beauty and delight; it was a Kingdom garden. As a perfect, holy sanctuary for life, it was the meeting place of humans with their God. Humanity was the rarest, most exquisite and unique creation of God. They were planted in perfect union with Him. In this magnificent garden we find God as the ultimate Gardener, tending his creation. Tragically, humanity “uprooted and overturned” the garden of God by trying to garden their way through life on their own terms. They rejected the ultimate Gardener and were expelled from their creational home. Thankfully, God is a passionate Gardener who set out to redeem His garden and every human that was ever to be planted in His grand garden of life.
Even in our wilted state, humanity yearns to be restored to the ultimate Gardener and be securely planted in the garden of God; it’s where we belong; in relationship with Him. It is in God’s garden we find truth, meaning, beauty, purpose and fulfilment.
We cannot go back to the original garden, but we can remember Eden and the promise it originally held. The promises of God have not changed. What God deposited in the seeds of our original creation, He longs to bring to fruition through our salvation. In God’s garden, this side of the resurrection, we find a far more extravagant garden. Being planted in the garden of God is utterly dependent on the utmost sacrifice of the Gardener, and this time, the design of the seed of salvation is a little different. In 1 Peter 1:23 we read about a new kind of seed that still holds the DNA of original creation, but is now imperishable. God replants us into His garden with an imperishable seed, which is tended by His grace, cultivated by His forgiveness, watered by His kindness, and nurtured by His love. We cannot perish in this garden, even though the weeds of destruction may come and try to ruin us. This imperishable seed allows us to bloom and flourish in response to our grand Gardener. Being planted in the garden of God means we can put our roots down in the garden bed of grace and become all God created us to be.
So, friends, get your “garden” on today.
Best days to come
Wen
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Jul 27, 2020 | Care Conversations, Uncategorized
We come to Hope. The last of the virtues in this mini-series (there are more virtues, but we have to stop somewhere).
| VIRTUE |
BIBLICAL INDICATOR |
VALUES |
| HOPE |
“Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the command of God our Saviour and of Christ Jesus our hope.”
1 Timothy 1:1 |
Courage
Conviction
Confidence |
For eleven years I have been daily praying a verse of the Scriptures. On the day Jacob, our first grandchild was born it became my prayer for him, and since then, for all my grandchildren.
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.”
[1]What is this Hope for which I pray?
Again, we see that the triune God is a God of Hope. The word “hope” for us is not wishful thinking but a confident expectation of fulfillment. He is the One who will cause us to abound in Hope. He is the cause and the goal!
The Hope that we have is in His great grace that makes our redemption certain and our eternal future secure. Without that hope we are consumed with anxiety, disabled by fear, and must become disillusioned and hopeless and/or graspingly self-focussed. Hope releases us from hopelessness; it enables us to live with courage, conviction and confidence.
We must encourage our young people to be courageous, not careless risk taking but faithful steps into difficult situations. We will encourage them to operate from conviction that there is meaning and purpose for life, that the vehicle for that will be knowing the love of God and the call to love and serve one another. We must encourage our students to develop a confidence that is built upon the hope that is in Christ not the arrogance that arises from trust in innate abilities.
What a wonderful vocation into which we have been called. We must know the importance of virtues which are expressions of the character of God and encourage attitudes which both inform and reinforce faith in the triune God.
Blessings,
[1] Romans 15:13
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Jul 27, 2020 | Uncategorized
God is all wisdom; in Christ are to be found “all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge”.
Our union with Christ is daily growing us in wisdom which is dependence upon the One who is wisdom.
| VIRTUE |
BIBLICAL INDICATOR |
VALUES |
| WIDSOM |
“Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” Colossians 2:2-3 |
Discernment
Understanding
Insight |
In our communities then, we will firstly encourage a Christ-dependence. We will also seek to develop discernment, understanding and insight. We will do all that we can to ensure that the growth of our students’ knowledge and understanding is applied with as much wisdom as possible.
Discernment can have a negative connotation – it can suggest that we are constantly watching out for what is wrong. We should, and must, critique error, but discernment needs to have a major positive focus. It needs to help us to see truth and rejoice in it. It needs to recognise goodness and justice and mercy and grace. It needs to inform our positive relationship with others and with creation.
Our discernment needs to be applied with Biblical criteria and humility, but there is another factor which will help to prevent us becoming coldly judgemental.
John Piper calls this “discernment by desire”.
“. . . when we have narrowed down the choices into a small circle enclosed by biblical principle and spiritual wisdom and careful observation, then inside that circle we prayerfully ask: in which choice do we delight?”[1]
Recalling where we began in this series, desire shapes most of our choices. If we have disciplined our desires to reflect the very nature of God, then the choices that we make out of our desire and delight, should come close to God’s desire and delight.
For our young people we need them to know the criteria by which they engage in discernment, and have hearts and desires progressively shaped by the habits of Christian community and the Spirit of God. Understanding is the ability to apply knowledge to new situations in thoughtful and considered ways. As we, and our students, grow in our relationship with God, then greater degrees of wisdom will begin to influence us. We must provide lots of opportunities for our students to use their knowledge in new situations in wise ways.
Insight suggests the ability to understand deeply and truthfully; this applies both to people and situations. Insight is wisdom which is always applied relationally to every situation and is more intuitive, or holistic, than simply intellectual analysis.
Blessings as you point to God’s wisdom,
Blessings,
[1] John Piper Discernment by Desire
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Jul 27, 2020 | Uncategorized
We are now approaching the end of our series on how important values are for our communities. We have attempted to see how these values need to be informed by virtues, which have their origin in God Himself. We’ve also tried to think about the flow backwards and forwards of understanding virtues and how they inform values; and how the habits of good values help us to understand the virtues from which they arise.
We now arrive at Wisdom. God is unsurpassed and infinite wisdom. Wisdom is the way God is and the reason for everything. We think wisdom is so that we might solve problems; God doesn’t have any problems. He is always intentional.
“…not only does God know the end from the beginning, but God designs the end from the beginning.”[1]
The wonder of God’s character is that each of His attributes are part of His wholeness. Whilst we can try to identify aspects of His character, none of these aspects can actually be isolated. God is complete in Himself and perfection in every way. So, we can talk about His love, righteousness, goodness, faithfulness, truth, humility, grace, compassion, perseverance, joy and so on; but in reality, they cannot be separately identified; they do not stand alone.
His omnipotence (His infinite power) enables Him to do anything and everything He determines; and because He is all wisdom, that will always be good.
| VIRTUE |
BIBLICAL INDICATOR |
VALUES |
| WIDSOM |
“Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” Colossians 2:2-3 |
Discernment
Understanding
Insight |
In a very real sense God cannot be defined in any human terms. Some theologians, have attempted to define the wisdom of God:
“In the Holy Scriptures wisdom, when used of God . . . always carries a strong moral connotation. It is conceived as being pure, loving, and good . . . Wisdom, among other things, is the ability to devise perfect ends and to achieve those ends by the most perfect means. It sees the end from the beginning, so there can be no need to guess or conjecture. Wisdom sees everything in focus, each in proper relation to all, and is thus able to work toward predestined goals with flawless precision.”[2]
James Packer says that:
“Wisdom is the power to see, and the inclination to choose, the best and highest goal, together with the surest means of attaining it . . . As such, it is found in its fulness only in God. He alone is naturally and entirely and invariably wise.”[3]
Enough to say that the wisdom of God along with all His other holistic attributes are beyond our understanding but provide us with great security
More next week.
Blessings,
[1] G.Bingham, Salvation History
[2] A. W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy
[3] J. I. Packer, Knowing God
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Jul 27, 2020 | Care Conversations
“If we are calibrated to the wrong source, then every measurement is wrong”.
We agree that we need to help our young people to understand the world in which they live; they also need to understand history and the great future hope.
Simply giving our own subjective opinion is not helpful or valid; we need to be informed by something that is reliable and true. If there is no yardstick, some reference point, for our understanding and interpretation of things, then we cannot expect to approach accuracy, clarity or truth.
I have shared this story in a previous series; but it’s worth repeating. There is an old tale told about an owner of a clock shop in Manchester, England. The owner lived above the shop, and each morning, when he looked out of his bedroom window, he would notice the same person stop outside his shop. Eventually, the intrigued shop-owner decided to investigate. Early one Monday morning he exited his shop and asked the person why he stopped each morning at the same time.
“I have a very responsible job”, answered the man, “I have to set my pocket-watch by the large clock in your window, because each day I have the task of blowing the factory whistle on time to show the start and finish times of the work day.” The owner laughed. “All this time I’ve been setting the clock in my shop window clock by your factory whistle.”
Relativity does not give us accuracy. If we are calibrated to the wrong source, then every measurement is wrong.
If you visited a market in 12th Century England, it is likely you would find the market stalls selling cloth, were staffed by small and thin people. Why? Because the measurement of “one yard” was originally the length of a man’s belt! The smaller the seller, the smaller the amount of cloth.
To try to deal with the wide variations caused by this practice King Henry I of England fixed the yard as the distance from his nose to the thumb of his out-stretched arm. The problem, of course, was that King Henry was not present at every market.
It took the passing of a few more royal rulers, until Richard 1 declared a standard “yard” measurement and provided a metal rod to every market place in England so that the measurement was standardised. The birth of the “yardstick”.
Calibration to the right source is critically important. Thus, it is vital for us to clearly see the God of the Bible.
How are we doing this in our communities?
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