Reflections

Conscience - A Compass

Both prayer and daily Bible reading  are essential to the continuance of God's abundant life in our beings. But there is also a third item of priority - the development of a sensitive conscience. Conscience is the capacity within us to decide what is right and what is wrong, but it decides is largely determined by the training it has received. Some people have little or no conscience because their parents did not take the time or trouble to teach  or train them, whilst others have an oversensitive conscience  because their parents made excessive demands upon them. Paul killed people in all good conscience until his conscience was brought into contact with Jesus Christ and then things changed dramatically. Someone said, "We make our conscience and then our conscience makes us."

When we come into the Christian life we bring with us a conscience that was trained  by parents and those connected with us in the early stages of our development. We need, however, to surrender our consciences to the Holy Spirit so that He can refocus them in line with His principles. If conscience approves and disapproves within the framework of what it is taught, then it must be our constant aim to subject it daily to the standards of God's Word so that it can be kept transparent, perfectly balanced and clean. A truly  Christian conscience is one of the highest priorities in Christian living and without it the abundant life which flows in our beings will be neutralised and invalidated to a great degree.

Reflections

Recognising God's Voice 

We turn to the question of how to develop the art of the listening side of prayer which is of great importance and value to every Christian. As the point I want to make has been put most expertly by Mrs Herman in her book Creative power, I can do no better than to quote her deeply  expressive comments: 

"The alert and courageous soul  making its first venture upon the spiritual life is like a wireless operator on his trial trip in the Pacific. At the mercy of a myriad electrical whispers, the novice at the receiver does not know what to think. And then, just as his ear has begun to get adjusted to  the weird babel of crossing sounds, there comes a remote and thrilling whisper that plucks at his taut nerves.... It is the expected message and he nearly missed it. The Christian who waits in silence before God must learn to disentangle the voice of God from the net of other voices-the ghostly whisperings of the subconscious self, the luring voices of the world, the hindering voices of misguided friendship, the clamour of personal ambition and vanity, the murmur of self will, and the song of unbridled imagination."

We learn to listen to God's voice in the same way as we learn any other art - by practice. Begin today to wait before God with your heart and mind fully open to Him. Don't be discouraged if for a few days  (or even weeks) all you hear is voices from your subconscious, or the muffled sound traffic in the distance. The more you practice the more perfect will become the art, and quietly, almost without realising it, you will one day recognise your Master's Voice.

Reflections

Keep A Daily Quiet Time

If we are to know the strengthening power of prayer  in our daily life and experience, then we must make time to have moments of quiet when we can gain the poise and power that will enable us to meet every problem head on. Those who say they can live in a state of prayer without definite times of prayer, will eventually find themselves without both.

In my counselling experiences I have often found that people who complain of spiritual dryness and barrenness do so because they have neglected the place of prayer. One counsellor asked a couple who were living defeated Christian lives if they kept the Quiet Time; and the naive reply was given, "Yes, my husband and I sit and smoke in the quiet, half an hour after breakfast". Those sincere but defeated souls found release and victory when they set up a real Quiet Time, in which they took in the resources of the Living God, instead of the pitiable substitute of nicotine. Breathing the Holy Spirit into your spiritual lungs gives you a pick-you-up with no let- you-down. James Russel Lowell says.

If the chosen soul could never be alone,

In deep mid-silence, open-doored to God

No greatness ever had been dreamed or done;...

The nurse of full grown souls is solitude.

 A watch was running slow and the watchmaker asked the owner when he wound it. When told "at night", he said, "Wind it in the morning. Give it the fresh spring at the most difficult part of the day when you are moving about." If the best Man who ever lived needed to pray in the early part of the day then so must you.

              A very blessed New Year to all of you in the Name of Jesus.

Reflections

The Gates of Pearl

Rev.21:21 tells us that the way into the New Jerusalem is through a gate made of pearl. Scientists agree that a pearl is really the product of pain. The oyster lies in its bed at the bottom of the ocean, and is sometimes invaded by a microscopic worm or a tiny parasite which succeeds in getting into the very heart of the oyster.
Immediately all the resources of the tiny organism rush to bring about healing where the breach has been made. At the moment of invasion, unsuspected healing powers (that apart from the injury would have remained dormant) are called out from inside the little creature, and  marshalled at the point of peril. The tiny irritant, whether it be a speck of sand or a parasite is covered  over at the point of wound. When the wound heals it is a pearl. No other gem in the universe has such a fascinating  history as a pearl. It is an enduring monument to a tiny creature's struggle for survival. Where there are  no wounded oysters, there are no pearls- for a pearl is the product of pain. It is a wound that has been healed.
 As we sit and gaze at those jasper walls of the New Jerusalem and realize we cannot scale them, our eyes are drawn to the only way in- through the gate made of pearl. Is it telling us in symbolic language that the eternal city is only open open to those who will enter through the wounds made at Calvary? Jesus made His pains into a pearl. So can you!

Reflections

The Secret of Abundant Living

In attempting to make clear the thrilling fact that Abundant Living seeps into our every attitude and thought, and provides us with faith and power to combat every difficult circumstance of life, lets look at this illustration. When a storm trikes an eagle the great bird is not confounded but simply tilts its wings, making the storm bear it upward beyond its fury. The set of the wings makes all the difference. If those wings were set in a downward tilt then it would be dashed to pieces on the rocks below. When the wings, however, are tilted upwards then it is elevated to ride high above the storm.

  This is what God does in the lives of every one of His children who will allow Him to infiltrate their attitude with His abundant life. He gives a set to our souls, so that when trouble and frustration strikes we go up instead of down. The disasters that strike some people cause them to tumble to earth simply because their wings are set in that direction.

  A man whose life and ministry has made a great impact upon me, made Romans 8:28 his life text. When late in life was paralysed by a stroke, someone asked him, "Is Romans 8:28 still your life text?" He said, 'It is still holding good' A young man said to me recently, 'You do not really believe that all things work together for good- pain , suffering, misery- do you?' I pointed out that the things in themselves were not good, but all Christians can, with God's help, make them work together for good. It is not so much what happens to us but what we do with it which makes the difference.

Reflections

The myth of  incompatibility

Someone has defined the difference between a Christian family and a non Christian family in this way: "A non Christian family has many problems which has to face on its own. A Christian family also has many problems, but it handles them in the grace and power of the Lord Jesus Christ."
  Too much is being made of the word incompatibility in many Christian families and many of my counselling sessions with Christian couples  who are in difficulty have scenes where one partner or the other says, 'Well I suppose the real problem is simply that we are incompatible'. The Swiss psychiatrist Paul Tournier suggests that we eliminate the word incompatibility from our vocabulary. He says, "So- called emotional incompatibility is a myth invented by jurists short of arguments in order to plead for divorce. It is likewise a common excuse people use in order to hide their own feelings. I simply do not believe it exists. There are no emotional incompatibilities. There are misunderstandings and mistakes, however, which can be corrected where there is willingness to do so."
Every family has its problems -mine as well as yours- but spiritually mature people will refuse to let them solidify, realising that maturity is the capacity to correct problems in a Christ-like and Biblical way. Let's allow the Lord to be the centre of our family life, and help us achieve the family unity which only a Christian home can truly experience.

Reflections

Should Temptation Be Avoided?

Should we take any steps to prepare ourselves to meet temptation, or should we just go into it, head on, trusting God to help us overcome it? Luke 11:4 seems to suggest that we  should ask God to keep us  from all kinds of temptation. Bus is this really what is saying ? Dr. Fosdick, a famous American preacher, said that, out of many thousands of letters he received, he was asked more questions about

this one text than any other portion of the Bible.

We know that God does not tempt, but He can and does lead us to the place of temptation. We know also that temptation can be the means in His hands of refining our souls and  developing our characters. Why then should we ask not to be led into it?

The real answer, I believe, lies in the fact that, when Jesus framed this prayer for His Disciples, He took into account that there would be times (as He experienced it in the Garden of Gethsemane) when the human heart would seek to draw back from the time of test. At such times, we can either pretend, and put on a mask, or say,'If it is possible let this cup pass from me'. This need for self- honesty is so important that Jesus built it into this classic prayer so that, when we pray it, are we really saying, 'Lord take into account my human weakness, my frailty, and my fears of being tested, and if it is possible let it pass from me'. Courage does not mean that we can never be afraid. It means doing what

 we are supposed to do in spite of it.

 

Reflections

Guidance

We cannot proceed along the Christian path unless we are guided, and God has not left us to wander in doubt, for He has provided a number of ways by which we can be sure the route we are taking is in accordance with His will.

 How are men guided in general? 

1. by what others do, 2. by chance happenings 3.by superstitious beliefs, 4.by impulses 5.by conscience 6.by God.

Those who take their guidance from God must recognise that His guidance is given on certain conditions. He desires to guide us in a way that develops maturity in our beings. Imagine how underdeveloped we would be if every morning we would sit down with pencil and paper and receive by dictation from God the orders for the day. Our growth would be stunted and we would never develop into mature persons. In guiding us, God has in mind our maturity and He desires to bring us to a place where our characters are so much like His that we follow His principles almost automatically, because our thinking is based on His own pattern. "Thy hands made and moulded me, to understand thine orders" (Ps. 119:73)

We are inwardly made to respond to the "orders" of God and when we do them there is an inner sense of freedom, functioning the way we were designed. God's guidance then is intended to bring us to our highest development and achievement , and unless we know His will then something vital is missing from our personalities. The main thing to remember in guidance is this - don't concern yourself too much about where God wants you to be, but what He wants you to be. When you are what He wants you to be then He can put you where He wants you to be.