2 Whole Years

My beautiful boy Malachi was two years old last Sunday (07.06). It is startling as a parent how that time rushes by. In one sense you are so very aware that the time is gone because memories fade and do not have the absolute brilliance and clarity they had initially. In another though, it is impossible to believe that you have shared 730 days with this new being, where did those days go? Why does it seem I have missed out on so much?

Two is a glorious age! My little boy is absorbing things into his little mind in a manner and with a speed that just cannot be matched by any adult. His vocabulary literally grows by the hour and his ability to interact and to express himself morphs constantly. It is an age that I have felt myself aching to actually accept will pass. Surely if these years have passed so quickly, and now that he has a gorgeous sister (who herself will demand energy and focus and time and attention) my time with him will be even less and it will pass even more rapidly and soon he will be considering his university or something and I will dream of these moments.

I never thought I would ache this way. There are so many things he does that infuriate and yet I really do not want to have him grow up and lose the beauty of innocence and unhindered passion. My heart is that Jesus will win Malachi to an adventure so enthralling that he will be able to express unhindered passion toward that even when innocence is necessarily lost. He does enthrall me and I hope that the ache will fade as each new season begins, but I am sure I will ache when that one is passing on as well.

How did God offer up His Son, that is love incomprehensible!

Simon

Love & Justice

As I had mentioned in an earlier Blog, this is the pivotal weekend in the history of the Christian faith, and this week I am preaching on the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
Here is another quote from some materials I am reading to prepare. (Please note I would not have as high a view of the free will of man as this author)

"Love does not override either the Holiness of God or the freewill of men. people sometimes ask how a loving God can send even Adolf Hitler to hell. The love of God does not send anyone to hell. The love of God, with arms extended a cross, bars the way to hell. But if that love is ignored, rejected and finally refused, there comes a time when love can only weep while man pushes past into the self-chosen alienation which Christ went to the cross to avert. God sends nobody to hell. But it takes two to make a friendship. If man firmly and repeatedly refuses the proffered hand of God, God will honour and ratify that man's decision to live to himself and die by himself. God respects our free will even in the hell of our own choosing."

Love & Justice, one does not overwhelm the other in some giant wrestling bout so there is a 'you win' tap out. They must, and always will, work in unison in the workings of our Holy King.

SImon

Puritan Talk

Here are two of the real Spiritual Heavies who make me ache for God with all my heart:

"This perfection of God [omniscience] fits Him to be a special object of trust. If He were forgetful, what comfort could we have in any promise? How could we depend on Him if he were ignorant of our state? His compassion to pity us, His readiness to revive us, His power to protect and assist us, would be insignificant without His omniscience to inform His goodness and direct the arm of His power. This perfection is, as it were, God's office of intelligence... You may depend upon His mercy that has promised, and upon his truth to perform, upon His sufficiency to supply and His goodness to relieve, and His righteousness to reward you, because He has an infinite understanding of you and your needs."

- Stephen Charnock (1628-1680)

Prepare to be stunned...

"This Son [Jesus]... was a gift to us; for our sakes he descended from His throne, and dwelt on earth; for our sakes He was made flesh... made a curse, and scorched in the furnace of His Father's wrath... He gave Him to us, to suffer for us as a man, and redeem us as a God; to be a sacrifice to expiate our sin by translating the punishment upon Himself, which was merited by us. Thus he was made low to exalt us, and debased to advance us, made poor to enrich us (II Cor. 8.9)... He was ordered to taste the bitter cup of death, that we might drink the rivers of immortal life... Thus was the righteous given for sin, the innocent for criminals, the glory of Heaven for the dregs of death, and the immense riches of a Deity expended to restock man."

- Charnock

Father's Love

Spent all day with my beautiful son today. He is 8 weeks old and an absolute gem of a dude. I can glance at him repeatedly and each time be captivated by his person. I don't think it is his beauty and obviously it is not because he returns the stare with questions on the state of my soul, it is just because! This 'just because' may be father's love, I cannot really ascertain as this is my first go at this fatherhood thing, but it is all-encompassing.
I delight to rush into his bedroom every morning and wake him up to this world that is all so very new to him. Any response to my attentions causes such delight in my heart and I am sure I am just a bit goofy at times, really lost in the seeming perfection of my progeny who is a recipient of my 'nothing restrained' love. Cliches like, "I would do anything for him," or "I love him with an undying love," actually seem inappropriate as verbalisations of something that probably remains best unsaid.
A good friend (there is that word again) mentioned the relationship between me and my son on Saturday morning as we languished in the sweet, sweet sunshine sipping coffee and talking 'deep talk.' He was alluding to another relationship between father and son.
He is reading The Pleasures of God by John Piper and one of the major discussions in that book is the love of God the Father for His son Jesus Christ. What my friend was alluding to is the infinite magnitude of all that I have described for my son both in perfection and purity that God the Father must have for His son! This side of heaven I can only begin to glimpse ever so slightly into the exuberent exquisite excellencies of the love shared between two perfect beings that are perfectly related. Every time my tongue attempts to declare the beauty of such love I must be attempting language unspeakable.
The astounding thing as we muse upon such love is the immensity of sacrifice and intention there must have been behind the death of Christ so central to the Christian story of hope, redemption and meaning. Both Father and Son must have counted fully the cost of such a sovereignly 'outlandish' (humanly incomprehensible) plan.
Thus, every time I peer upon my son, there is twin delight:
Firstly, I am favoured immensely to know father's love and
Secondly, how delightful it is that I am caught up in the love of the Almighty Father's love for His Son Jesus.
Oh how I am to reflect this divine love somehow if I want to love my son somewhat acceptably!

Completion

'His love is made complete in us' These words are found in the 4th chapter of the Apostle John's epistle within the Holy Bible. There is an astounding truth that these words encapsulate. A truth that strikes me at the core of my being and causes me to linger on the immensity of what is declared in these 7 words.
As someone who does not believe that there is a loving creator God who extends His love to us through the joy of daily life, our relationships, and most spectacularly through the in-flesh God- Jesus- who displayed the true intensity of God's love for us through sacrificial death these words may mean little. But for me, one who has been arrested by an overtaking 'knowledge' of this loving creator God these words are startling.
Here, very briefly, my thoughts:
There is a God, and if He is the essence of those three letters then He is all loving, all knowing, all powerful, everywhere present, eternal (or else He cannot be God), who in His very nature has love for us and wants us to know this love. Yet in His outworking of things He knows that the most obvious, should I say most real way of being loved as a person is to be loved by another person. (For if God did just show up and say, "I love You," the shock would overwhelm the sense of hearing, and all other senses I reckon) Therefore, we are told that we, those who have encountered this most pure of loves, this most excellent of loves- the particular life-changing love of God for man- are the conduits of divine love to a world living mostly without any knowledge of such love.
Any manner of person who is unloved, from the widow and orphan to the cocaine-addicted super-celebrity- is unloved because we are not fulfilling our role. James another apostle says it real well when he notes that for someone to say they love someone and yet do nothing about it is pretty much absurd. We are the means of bringing the love of God to others. There is this Tsunami wave of divine love enough to affect all of us on this planet but often hold back by me, or you!
What a thought. All can know His love, He says He desires that all will, but in His mighty way of organising reality it is us who are to show that love.
So where are we on this? How much are we restraining the love of God?
Are we making complete the love of God or are we a break in the circuit. Maybe we are a 'love rebel' who is too self-loving, consumed in fulfilling personal ambition, busy climbing the career ladder, doing all sorts of Christian activity without any love for those who are unloved. Completion of the love of God! It's our call!