Jun 28, 2022 | Care Conversations
Let us try to summarise our discussions regarding: “Hope with Belief”
Our beliefs inform how we view everything. Let us do all that we can to encourage our students to have a true belief in the Triune God. Let us help them to have a clarity of faith that sees that Hope finds its meaning in God.
Having Hope with Belief governs our choices, interprets the world and every circumstance. Our security, our joy, our ability to grieve, our quality of relationships, our understanding of meaning, purpose and identity, our eternal destiny are all determined by our Hope in the Triune God through Christ.
We need to fully trust the One in whom we have Hope; we need to develop in ourselves and our students a prayerful, humble, calm, and confident belief in a sovereign God who is in control of all things.
We are to rejoice in our suffering, which is not to say that we are to celebrate them. We are rejoicing in the truth that God will bring about His purposes through our struggles. We should cry over each other’s pain and see hope through our tears.
We should continue to provide communities that are safe and positive, and which encourage our students to flourish.
Hope with Belief leads us to see God’s guiding hand not only in the gentle and pleasant moments but also in the shadows of disappointment and darkness.
The joy, peace, hope and love that God promises His people is His joy, His peace, His hope, and His love – not something that we fabricate or strive to achieve – we need a confident Hope with Belief that will help us relax into this truth.
We need to strengthen one another’s faith that will overcome fear, and a genuine joy of worship that will triumph over worry.
We, and our students, need to move forward knowing that Jesus is Lord of all things. We can have confidence in having Hope with Belief.
Blessings
Brian
Jun 28, 2022 | Wens Pen
Nothing is a mess from God’s perspective. Standing on the intersection of today, yesterday, and tomorrow, looking back, looking around and looking forward we notice the varying shades of life and the transitions that take place. Yesterday life may have been like a steady silken stream of serenity where we felt a little like we held the reigns of control. Somehow, today, the rain clouds may have rolled in, the storm hits and suddenly we are standing in the rubble of our crumbled castles, looking around wondering what happened. All too quickly, everything can feel like a mess as the rogue threads of our lives become frayed. But nothing is a mess from God’s perspective and over on the horizon of tomorrow is a full rainbow that crosses the sky, painting a picture of hope, reminding us of God’s promises and that not one thing under the sun is outside of the realm of God’s control. What appears to be a mangled mess from our perspective is, at no point, not perfectly held by God. His mighty hand envelopes us and every single detail of the good and the difficult. Nothing, absolutely nothing is a mess from God’s perspective.
The realisation that our lives are lived out in the hands of a good and perfect Father brings a comfort and a relief that enables us to look at our mess and know that God is going to make it all beautiful in His time. Ecclesiastes 3:11. Even though our mess can rock our worlds and remind us we are not in control, and the reigns ultimately belong to God, we are always safe and can be sure that nothing is a mess from God’s perspective. It is only God who is capable of not being constrained by mess and only God who is masterfully capable of taking every strand of life, weaving, and knitting it all together for the good of those who love Him, creating a masterpiece at the other end. In God’s world, mess simply means our benevolent King uses what we encounter as a chaos to create a crowning accomplishment in our lives as He leads us out of the slushy mess and onto His pathway of peace. He is not called kinsman Redeemer for nothing. Take comfort today knowing that nothing is a mess from God’s perspective.
So, friends, get your “mess to masterpiece” on today.
Best days to come.
Wen
Jun 22, 2022 | Care Conversations
Hope with Belief. We believe that God is the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer of life. His actions towards us are always loving and good.
Our next question may be: “Can we suffer, grieve, struggle, weep and lament to the Glory of God?”
I’ve mentioned this book before, it provides one of the best understandings of joy and lament.
“Lament is the honest cry of a hurting heart wrestling with the paradox of pain and the promise of God’s goodness”[1]
Genuine lament brings together grief and hope.
John Chapter 11 tells us the story of the death of Lazarus.
Jesus hears that his friend is dying but delays his return. When He eventually reaches Bethany, Lazarus has died.
Jesus sees Mary, and the people with her, weeping. The account tells us that He was deeply moved in His spirit and greatly troubled. They said to Him, “Lord, come and see.” Then we have the brief but profound statement: “Jesus wept.”
Jesus feels, and expresses, deep grief and sadness born out of great affection. But this is not resignation or despair.
He had great hope in the future; knew the joy that was coming, yet still He wept.
Lazarus was brought back to life. Jesus says the reason was so that, “they may believe that You sent me”
So, again we need to conclude that all that God does is purposeful, not necessarily painless.
God loves His people and keeps His promises
The Triune God creates, rescues, redeems and renews and identifies with us.
He knows our destination and orchestrates our journey; He secures our past present and future.
Our Hope with Belief will result in action; we will put our faith in God’s ability to be God! every moment, every day.
Blessings
Brian
[1] Mark Vroegop, Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy: Discovering the Grace of Lament, (USA: Crossway, 2019), 26.
Jun 22, 2022 | Hope_Tina
Hope-Shaped
Tim Keller recently noted that all humans are hope-shaped.[1] What shapes us determines how we live and how we go forward into the future with confidence. Being hope-shaped is a gift from God. Romans 15:13
Yet, with a world that is rapidly changing, and a growing hostility to the Christian faith, the shift in culture includes an attempt to reshape human identity which of course impacts the shape of human hope.
With Christianity galloping up the racetrack, competing with the varying worldviews running in their own lanes and vying for the finish line, suddenly, Christianity is no longer the favoured one in the race and is now even seen as “the bad guy”[i] or the bad horse in the race, even though we are God’s vessels of hope. Whilst we as Christians are left wondering how we got here,[2] we are also acutely aware that God designed us to be hope-shaped and it is the truth of God as we run the race of faith that enables the renewal of a broken humanity to seek Jesus and sit comfortably in God’s design as hope-shaped because we have a faithful God.
As our world continues to emerge, what looks like a sophisticated society with God in the margins or pushed to the outer track, the continuing attempts to deconstruct the Christian foundations of our society also impacts how those without Jesus live with coherence and confidence on the terrain of an unstable racetrack. God has designed every human being to be hope-shaped. Trying to fit into the shape of hope that is anti-God will never enable humans to live with true hope or with future confidence.
Additionally, if Christianity is being marginalised and the world cannot reconcile the truth, then humanity is in crisis,[3] because they will continue to be curious about their design to be hope-shaped yet without answers. All humans are made in God’s image and are hope-shaped and will by design go on an authentic search for Biblical hope because the collective sub-conscious nature of people knows something is missing and as long as people keep riding on the wrong horse and a sit in a saddle that is not the right fit, they will not find true hope. The God-given hope-shape has been bent out of shape because it has been re-defined by godless people and this is not the prerogative of creaturehood; it is the prerogative of God, our creator. Only the King of Kings can give real hope.
Hope-shaped humans are made to live life orientated to the King, rather than orientated to a cultural concept of God that only wants the fruit of the kingdom or as Sayers says the progressive nature of our current culture means people seek the “kingdom without the King”.[4] God’s people living faithfully to Him will bear the fruit of the kingdom and of a hope-shaped existence. Christians will be the beacon of God’s light in the storm that hits our world and washes humanity up against the serrated rocks of our times, bereft of hope on their godless shores. Christians who are the light of Jesus can show the world what it truly means to be hope-shaped, encouraging them to look again at Jesus and watch as the He shifts the future from a dark passageway that leads to nowhere to one bathed in His light and truth, allowing them to live the way God designed them to live, with hope, fulfilment, and confidence. Matthew 5:16.
Friends, we live with the gift of hope and belief in God and who has created life to be hope-shaped and that’s what the world really wants.
Blessings
Tina
[1] (Quote by Russ Ramsey: “Tim Keller wrote, “Human beings are hope-shaped…” (goodreads.com))
[2] Stephen McAlpine, Being the Bad Guys: How to Live for Jesus in a World that Says You Shouldn’t, (The Good Book Company, 2021), 17
[3] Ibid, 75.
[4] Mark Sayers, Reappearing Church: The Hope of Renewal in the Rise of Our Post=Christian Culture, (Chicago, USA: Moody Publishers, 2019), 24.
[i] McAlpine, Being the Bad Guys, 10.
Jun 22, 2022 | Teachers Talking
Game of Thrones is a fictional fantasy series about a civil war set in the medieval seven kingdoms of Westeros on the continent of Essos. It is based on an adaptation of the novel ‘A Song of Ice & Fire’ by George RR Martin. It was inspired by the War of the Roses (1455 – 1485 AD) between the English houses of Lancaster and York. The theme first follows a war of succession amongst competing rivals who want to claim the Iron Throne and is the battle between good and evil. Its historical realism was intended to show the truth about history and human nature in the midst of war and explore the relationship between good and evil and questions of redemption. In response to the critics about the extreme violence and explicit sex, Martin commented that he was obliged to depict the truth about history and human nature in the midst of war.
This story captivated the hearts and minds of record audiences. Why was that? Tim Van Laer [1] cited reasons for its popularity. Humans all need to make sense of the world. People use stories to make sense of individual experiences, especially in the battle between good and evil being fought chiefly in the human heart. There is a need to not only investigate our own beliefs, desires, intentions, and perspectives, but to vicariously navigate other lives that are alien to our own.
We live in dark times. Death and the fear of death is stalking our world – the COVID pandemic and political violence and war. Our world is now reeling from so many broken dreams – from the rising mental health issues of our young people to the plight of so many refugees from Ukraine.
The story we unfold to our children is about our creator God, who comes to the place where we are suffering, both personally and communally and in the midst of it, reveals the glory of His self-giving love. When Jesus was put to death it looked like Caesar ran the world. He thinks he has won the Game of Thrones and this is what he does with someone who thinks they are king. But in the darkest hour of human history, God’s Son won the throne – through His cross and resurrection, setting us free from the present evil age that has attacked His good creation.
“Our story is fully ‘earthed’ in the historical reality of our world, of a God who comes to meet us, not at the top of the ladder we can construct, but at the bottom of the heap, the place of hopes, broken dreams and broken signposts.” [2]
The first World War poet, Edward Shillito, wrote ‘Jesus of the Scars’ from which comes these lines:
“The other gods were strong; but thou wast weak;
They rode; but you didst stumble to a throne.
But to our wounds, only God’s wounds can speak;
And not a god has wounds, but Thou alone.”[3]
Just as the Word became flesh, so now Word becomes flesh by His Spirit, working through loving and wise humans who are called to be His image-bearers and bring rescue and renewal to His world. The worship of idols enables the power of sin and death to tighten their grip on us and our world. When we choose to enthrone King Jesus, we choose to leave the power of the idols and live for God’s Kingdom. As we teach, we are to attune their loving not to the way of the idolatrous culture but to the way things are meant to be and will be one day.
Let’s consider ways we can train our students to be people of true justice, where there is injustice, to be those of truth in a world of lies; to appreciate beauty in a world of ugliness and demonstrate the power of healing love in a world of cohesion and brutality.
The last word in tearing down idols is the first command of discipleship, “Love the Lord with all your heart and with all your soul and all your mind.” (Matthew 22: 37)[4]
As we draw these talks to a close may we be ever vigilant about idols that can grip our hearts and embrace the heart of true worship of the living God as beautifully penned by William Temple who was a past Archbishop of Canterbury
“To worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God,
to feed the mind with the truth of God,
to purge the imagination by the beauty of God,
to open the heart to the love of God
to devote the will to the purpose of God.”[5]
Grace and Peace
TEC Team
[1] Tim Laer, The 5 Psychological Reasons Why Game of Thrones is so Satisfying, (Sydney Morning Herald, 14-07-2017).
[2] Nicholas Thomas Wright, Preaching the Cross in Dark Times, (https://www.ntwrightonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Preaching-the-Cross-V2.pdf?mc_cid=b3cbf3d68e&mc_eid=70ea4cc0f8 , 2021), 8.
[3] Edward Shillito, Jesus of the Scars, (1919). https://thejesusquestion.org/2013/10/28/jesus-of-the-scars-by-edward-shillito/#:~:text=Jesus%20of%20the%20scars%20by%20Edward%20Shillito%20was,scars%20we%20go%20through%20are%20new%20to%20Him
[4] NIV
[5] William Temple, Quotable Quotes, Accessed 19 April 2022. (www.goodreads.com)
