teachings of jesus christ

Weary?

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“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 12 v28-39)

Writing ‘devotionals’ you’re supposed to be enthusiastic and inspiring,  to give an uplifting message to start people’s day.  But it’s approaching 10 o’clock and it’s been a long day, and sometimes I just feel weary.  I guess we’ve all been there, we’ve committed to do something, and time is running out but we just are weary.  Maybe it’s homework, a letter to a friend, a report for work, a cake for the cake stall – and we plod on wearily trying to finish it as quickly as we can.

What does Jesus tell us to do?  Come to him.  Take his yoke and learn from him.  But what should we learn?  His yoke is easy and his burden is light.  What does that mean?  If I am struggling then it is not his yoke.  If I rush and get stressed it is not his yoke. If I express irritation at my family for distracting me, that’s not his yoke. If I wait ‘till my family are in bed, sit back, relax, put on some music, take a cup of coffee or a glass of wine and decide to enjoy what I am doing, taking my time, accepting that it may mean a late evening, is that his yoke?  Well, it feels better.  It means I’ve spent time with those I love.  It means I’m able to write out of love rather than guilt.

So tonight, maybe that’s his yoke.  Remembering to love, being patient, persevering, having time for others.  And as I sat down to write this, I hadn’t a clue what to write.  Maybe reading this you feel that I might as well have gone to bed – but even if that is the case, does that matter?  Maybe you’ve had a less inspirational devotional – but isn’t that better than getting stressed and angry, and maybe hurting those that I love?

Lord, how easy it is to forget your teaching, and yet how true it is when we listen.  Thank you for sharing your wisdom with us.  Help us to listen and learn from you, especially when our souls need rest.

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I wrote this a few years ago, but post it now for a friend who’s feeling in a rut and tired.

Christianity, rules and regulations

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Christianity is about freedom, yet we keep tying ourselves up with rules and rituals, and then feeling guilty when we break them.

It seems to be in our nature to want rules.  We want to be told what we can do and what we can’t do.  We don’t want to have to think.  Take driving for example.  We know that we shouldn’t go at high speed in built up areas, so why do we need to be told that we mustn’t go above 30 miles per hour?  What’s special about 30, why not 29, or 33?

Setting a rule is a way of avoiding guilt.  We prefer to pretend that we are not guilty rather than that accept we are guilty and ask for forgiveness.  If I go at 29 miles per hour and knock someone over, then you can’t accuse me of going too fast – I was within the speed limit.  I can say “it wasn’t my fault – it was the person who set the speed limit.”

This is living the Old Testament way: “Thou shalt not exceed 30 miles per hour in a built up zone”.

If we were to ask Jesus then he would say “don’t go so fast that you knock someone over”.  It’s a much tougher requirement, and means that there is no way we can escape our personal responsibility.  If we knock someone over it’s our fault and that’s that.  All we can do is to ask for forgiveness, to which he would reply “Are you really sorry? Are you going to change your driving habits so that you don’t do it again? Yes? Then I forgive you.”

Tougher, isn’t it?  I have to take full responsibility, and I have to be humble enough to admit that I was wrong and to ask for forgiveness.

Christians, as anyone else would, find it difficult trying to live a life which is totally without laws, but where the standard is perfection. There is no speed limit, but you are responsible if your driving harms someone. So we make up our own laws.  Some are moral, some are conventions or traditions.  Although Christianity is about freedom, we have tied ourselves up in chains again.

Everybody does it without realising it.  Have you ever been to a conference or meeting that runs over a couple of days.  On day one, we look round the room, and then choose a seat.  Next day, that’s our seat – we go straight there.  It’s easiest, it worked yesterday, but we’ve just made up a little law: “that’s where I sit”.  It’s OK to make up rules, so long as we don’t let the rule become more important than the issue it’s solving.  We need to keep remembering the reason behind the law.  Going 30 miles an hour in itself is not important; avoiding running someone over is the issue.  Christians need to be wary of our natural love of rules and laws; Jesus looks at the heart; do we want to do what is right or do we want just to keep the law?

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If you enjoyed this and like to read reasoned thinking, buy my book The Big Picture

Time to come alive!

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As you walk round this weekend, look at the faces of those you pass.  Look perhaps at the men pushing the trolleys in Aldi, Asda or Sainsbury’s.  How many of them are lifeless, pursuing the daily trudge?  Then look in the mirror – are we the same?

Life is not meant to be like that.  We are made for life in abundance, life in all its fullness.  A great man once said “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

What does life in abundance mean?  Perhaps we should see what the man said.  When asked he answered: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.'”

It’s not so much what you do as how you live that brings life in abundance.  It’s not so much climbing the mountain or sailing the seas – although I recommend both – it’s about choosing to love, every moment of every day, even in the aisles in Asda.

It’s been said “Find out what makes you come alive, and go and do it.” If you are not alive today, you need to follow that advice.  Perhaps you feel you don’t have the energy to love at the moment, perhaps your work is just so draining that it deadens you.  If so then it is worth looking for a change.  Perhaps there’s an addiction that you need to break; it’s possible, you can break it!

But the key to coming alive is love; positive, hardworking, determined expending of ourselves for the benefit of others.

Does injustice make you angry?  Don’t just grumble, go and do something about it. Come alive fighting it.

Does poverty make you angry? Don’t just grumble, go and do something about it. Come alive fighting it.

Does child abuse make you angry? Don’t just grumble, go and do something about it. Come alive fighting it.

Does the sex trade make you angry? Don’t just grumble, go and do something about it. Come alive fighting it.

Does human trafficking make you angry? Don’t just grumble, go and do something about it. Come alive fighting it.

Does the hopeless plight of teenagers make you angry? Don’t just grumble, go and do something about it. Come alive fighting it.

The list goes on.

St. Irenaeus said that “Man Fully Alive is the Glory of God”

It is time to come alive.

 

Tony

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Tony was a man of action.  He had always enjoyed sport as a boy, and loved adventure books.   At work he would be frustrated by rules and regulations, red tape put in place just to avoid being blamed in case something went wrong.  Why didn’t people just get on and do what was needed?

Tony had committed his life to Christ.  He was convinced of the truth, read his bible daily and tried his best to follow Jesus teaching.  Jesus was his hero, and he was constantly challenged by what Jesus taught – but liberated too!  He went to church each week.

But somehow he often wondered what church was about.  He found the songs would have him singing words that didn’t represent how he felt towards Christ; love songs and adoration of Christ’s beauty, songs more about being ‘in love’ than selfless love.  He would look around at others who appeared in raptures of delight and wonder what was wrong with him.  He couldn’t help drifting off in the sermons, and couldn’t see what they had to do with his day-to-day life.

He often came away saddened; if church left him cold he presumed that he can’t have been a very good Christian!  Satan smiled, but Jesus led Tony to the verse:

Those who obey my commandments are the ones who love me. And because they love me, my Father will love them, and I will love them. (John 14:21)

“We love you Tony” he whispered.

Terry, and the wrong stuff.

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Terry worked long hours.  True, he earned a good living, but he was generous too.  He tithed to the church, and gave to charities and good causes.   Once a friend of the family’s car failed it’s MOT and she couldn’t afford a new one, so Terry and his wife bought her one – Terry enjoyed hunting out a good model and fixing the minor faults that it had.

He was in a friendly church and a small group from the church met weekly too.  He would enjoy the evening meetings, although he couldn’t always get to them with work commitments.  One particularly busy week Terry’s small group leader told them that an elderly neighbour of his was having trouble keeping the garden up and suggested that the group all spend an evening or two clearing it up.  Looking at his calendar, Terry realised that this would be the only evening he would be in that week and suggested that they pay for a gardening firm to do the job.  “That’s not what I’m asking for” said the leader, “I was hoping it would be an act of love”.

The leader felt that Terry was offering the wrong stuff, and Terry felt that God didn’t want what he had to give.

Jesus sighed.  “Why don’t they listen to me?”  “Give whatever you can according to what you have.” (2 Corinthians 8:11)

Pete and Graham

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Pete and Graham had worked with each other for years.  Pete went to church every week, a fact that Graham was unaware of.

“Hi Pete”, said Graham, “Did I see you coming out of the Christian book shop yesterday?”

“Yes, I was buying a Christening card for a friend.  I’m going to the Christening this weekend.”

“Ah, that explains it,” said Graham, “I didn’t imagine that you could be a Christian, after knowing you all these years!” said Graham smiling.

“No” mumbled Pete, embarrassed.

Graham went away just hoping that he could find someone to talk to about the lump that he’d got on his stomach, and the questions that the possibility of cancer and death had raised in his mind about whether God existed.

Pete went away ashamed, but after a day or two he felt better … after all God forgives everything (doesn’t he?).  Still, he found it rather hard in the singing that Sunday, “I will offer up my life ….”

Jesus sighed,  “was this the sort of forgiveness that I went through it all for?”

“But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven.” Matthew 10:33

What do we do with our money?

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Through no virtue of my own, I was born with skills that have allowed me to find a good job, and to manage my money. Before I was a Christian I thought that this was just good luck, and that I didn’t have to thank anyone for this. I could do with my money what I pleased (of course, in consultation with my wife!).

We have always had a joint bank account, but when she became a Christian many years before me, she suggested that we each have an additional private account which we can use completely as we please. I was happy with this, as I could then ‘treat’ myself without feeling guilty, and also it seemed to make the act of giving each other presents a bit more meaningful, and it allowed her to give money to charity without having to ask my permission.

I used to think myself reasonably charitable. I’d give to people in the street, and I gave a little to Macmillan nurses after my father died of cancer. I was probably like most of the rest of the country, quite happily giving less than 1% of my income away. And following worldly advice I set some financial targets for my life – I decided to have saved £100,000 by retirement age. (I have to admit I struggled to know what I was going to do with it, but it is something that you have to do, isn’t it).

On the road to becoming a Christian I read ‘challenging lifestyles’ by Nicky Gumbell. I decided that it was OK to give more away. I didn’t have to keep it all for myself for the future, and so I made a standing order from my bank to a Charity Card account, of a relatively small proportion of my income. Perhaps the surprising rate at which the amount I had in the account built up showed how little I was really giving away. But having that account meant that I had to give it away – and I found that really quite rewarding. “Now, who can I give this to” is quite a nice feeling. And I didn’t feel any poorer!

But when I first visited Mozambique I learned so much more!  It was so liberating to see how much closer people come to God when they have no money.  And if you put a Mozambican and an Englishman next to each other and dressed them the same, how would you know who was the richer?

But I also saw again the massive amount of good work that is not happening because of lack of money.  I wept when Pastor Caetano described how he had started the orphanage at the House of the Sparrow with all he had – how they don’t know each day where food is coming from, but God always provides.  Forty-seven children, being cared for and loved by a Christian pastor with nothing but what God provides.  I learned that God really cares what we do with our money.

If someone asks us to give to charity the first thought is, “Can we afford it?”  Of course we can – we still have so much more than the children in Mozambique.  Can we afford not to?  No, not unless we want to harden our hearts.

Do not store up riches for yourselves here on earth, where moths and rust destroy, and robbers break in and steal.  Instead, store up riches for yourselves in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and robbers cannot break in and steal. For your heart will always be where your riches are. (Matthew 6:19-21)

My experience is that my giving to charity has increased twenty-fold or more since choosing to follow Christ, and my financial savings goals have disappeared.  Where is the logic in saving for something that might be needed in the future when you can see something that is needed today?

Oswald Chambers

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If you’ve never come across him, I recommend Oswald Chambers.  I feel he has great insight into so much of life.  See http://utmost.org/ for daily thoughts.  From this morning:

“The golden rule to follow to obtain spiritual understanding is not one of intellectual pursuit, but one of obedience. If a person wants scientific knowledge, then intellectual curiosity must be his guide. But if he desires knowledge and insight into the teachings of Jesus Christ, he can only obtain it through obedience. If spiritual things seem dark and hidden to me, then I can be sure that there is a point of disobedience somewhere in my life. Intellectual darkness is the result of ignorance, but spiritual darkness is the result of something that I do not intend to obey.”