Sunday 24 October 2010

Resurrection Breath

In Christ all things are made new and history is redeemed; the cross deals with all suffering and we are made new creations. Caught up in God we live eternally. The power of the cross is that all sin is taken up and dealt with; the redeemed live beyond the cross where heaven and earth meet. The redeemed live in the resurrection power of God.


This Earth is and will be a new Earth and through the cross the whole universe is seen to be in the will of God, from the beginning freed for eternity. This happens now as grace invades our consciousness and our wills are freed from the bondage of sin to experience the good of creation. What was suffering becomes pure love, received eternally from God and poured out in eternal love for God and our neighbours.

In Christ, grace invades our depravity and by Christ’s suffering and resurrection life we are made whole. If we reject this grace, there is no healing and at death we become what we are, lost in the futility of separation from God; eternally subject to the curse of sin.

Eternity is ever present in Christ. God’s love, justice and mercy are revealed at the moment of death. We die to ourselves now and draw our first resurrection breath or we will die to eternal separation as we draw our last breath.

Jesus comes to breathe his resurrection Spirit into us now. The new creation breath that brings eternal life and empowers us to live a life of service to God and our neighbour.



John 20:19-23

Friday 1 October 2010

Our Response to the Good News of Christ Seals our Eternal Destiny

When we hear the good news of Jesus Christ, God gives us a choice, choose life. The good news of Christ challenges us; do we continue in sin and death or choose blessing and life? (Deuteronomy 30:15-20)
Good is to know and do the will of the Father, evil is to reject the way and voice of God. (Deuteronomy 30:11-14). This is realised in our lifetimes, our deaths and our resurrection. We choose life and know blessing or choose death and perish.
In this life, death is our experience. We know suffering and pain. We know tears. God in his mercy has set before us life and death in Christ. In the good news of Jesus and in the order of creation, even our very being, life is set before us.  Life is the revelation of God; it is in our mouths and in our hearts. Love is experienced in what we feel, speak and do.
In Christ there is a deepening peace, an inner land to explore. In our sins this inner land is a place of death. In this death our inner land is despair and loneliness and we perish. We perish separated from each other and God. We are alive but we are dying. In Christ we experience the consequences of death but are reborn into a new reality.
God has set before us himself, in creation, in his people Israel, and now in the church. He has revealed the way through the cross and the new life of the Spirit. He calls us to worship him in Spirit and Truth, not on a mountain, not in some distant land, not with our head in the clouds but in the normalcy of our everyday lives. He is in our hearts and our minds. In his mercy we encounter him in life, recognising only death in the things of the world. Will we worship God or the world?
And it will ever be so. At the end of time many will perish, some will be blessed. The sovereign LORD, each moment of each day sets before us a path and we choose how we walk it. God calls each of us to walk holy as he is holy. We are not worthy in our walk but because Jesus is worthy, we are made worthy. The life and death of Christ deal with our sin and as we turn to Jesus we are purified.
At the end of time, all will be revealed for what it is. God will consume all in his holy fire. What remains will be precious. The cross stands eternal, high and lifted up. It consumes all sin, eternally, that is its power.
All that rejects God is burned up (Deuteronomy 4:24). The fire purifies (Matthew 3:11-12). To suffer loss in the fire will hurt (1 Corinthians 3:10-15) but what remains is precious. To suffer eternal loss is a fearful thing; to be found with no precious foundation is eternal death. The consequence of turning from the living God is eternal fire. This is hell.
We have life in Christ; we have come through the fire. The cross has brought us into eternal life. Jesus speaks of the realities of the fires of hell and the reality of eternal life which is freely given in Christ. It is anathema that anyone is created for hell, and I believe that nowhere is it taught in scripture. God is fully justified in condemning us all to eternal separation but love is perfected in saving us. Embrace Christ and receive life.

Being Made Holy

The new relationship between God and his people is that faith in Jesus bringing us into eternal life (John 14). Faith in Jesus perfects love, taking away all fear. God’s revelation is that faith in Jesus brings the free gift of his perfect life. Faith in Jesus means we get his perfect life, as on the cross he takes our sinful lives. We are reborn, recreated in the image of the Son, reformed, justified by the life Christ lived, and sanctified, made holy, by the work of the cross.

One of the key ideas in this new relationship is that we all start dead to God and our every motive is utterly evil. Every work is expressed out of rebellion to God. We do good things but because of our sinful hearts, our every action is evil. We choose to separate ourselves from God, condemning ourselves to eternal separation.
The way back to the Father is the work of the Holy Spirit who brings conviction of this sin and our response is to believe in the good news of salvation in Jesus. This is the only work we need do; believe in the Father who sent the Son that we may have eternal life in Christ. We have to have this faith in God, that the mercy of the cross is able to save us. It is God who chooses us and restores us to freedom. The Holy Spirit awakens us to Jesus, the Way, the Truth and the Life.
Our lives are bought back from futility and we who deserve eternal death gain eternal life. We are renewed in our minds and are freed by God’s grace to live our lives safe in the knowledge of God’s purpose. We are made holy in Christ and are perfected through Christ. We are no longer living in the inheritance of Adam but have the inheritance of Christ. We are adopted into God’s family by faith, through grace.
This present reality is worked out through our lives. We are no longer part of the system and have a direction at odds to it. Our purpose is to glorify God by pouring our lives out for him, magnifying his name and making known Christ and the Spirit so that others might be blessed.
We are a blessing to the world, witnesses for the work of the Spirit, proclaiming salvation. Christ goes before us and we are refined and purified by the sufferings of the world, not burned up.
We suffer with the world; we are found with the poor and the needy, we weep with the rejected and touch death, learning a freedom in God we will realise in death. We are not immune from suffering but pour ourselves out in it for others. This love will be consummated in creation on the last day when Christ returns to judge the living and the dead and finally God dwells eternally with his people.