Ramblings along the narrow way

We live in an imperfect world, where we fail to treat each other as we should. It would be very easy to say we should behave better, that we should try to do better, but we would be neglecting the cause of the problem. For the reason we say wrong things and do wrong things is because of our hearts. Not the heart of just the emotions, but the heart in terms of our thoughts as well. For the people of the Old Testament considered the heart to be our essential being.

The problem with our heart is that it is corrupted and needs fixing.

The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks. Lk 6:45

The only person who can fix our heart is Jesus Christ. Through faith in him, he will give us a new heart, one which seeks to do good, to do his will, and to slowly put away the things of the old heart.

In order to nurture this change, we must guard our hearts. We must be careful what habits we form, what literature we read, what situations do we allows ourselves into and what do we allow ourselves to see and hear. This is is prime concern – above all things. Just as eating a poor diet will lead us to a poor physical state, so will having a poor spiritual will lead us to a poor spiritual state. For if our hearts are unguarded, it will take on what it is fed and manifest itself in our behaviour.

Conversely, to enable our new hearts to grow, we must feed on good spiritual food. We must feed on the word of God daily, through private study and through the meeting together to hear the word.

Was up at far too early on a Saturday morning to do some window shopping for carpet with Sarah and Dave. Wandered round Bentalls and John Lewis in Kingston browsing carpet and asking assistants lots of questions about pricing. I think I may have to give this some more thought!

The afternoon was spent playing football with the lads from church and some others who just came along and joined us. I’m slowly remembering the names of some of the people who just turn up!

The day finished off at Ridley Hall Evangelical church in Battersea for a talk entitled, “Is anything worth dying for?” It can be so easy to be so engrossed with the temporal things in life, that we forget the eternal things. For ultimately, only that which is eternal is worth dying for. If it’s worth dying for, it worth living for. If our chief end is not to glorify God, we might as well chase the wind.

Played Dave this evening at snooker. Three very snappy frames within an hour leading to a 2-1 frame defeat. Least it was quick. 🙂

BROWN

You are usually very straight-forward. You have a passive personality and enjoy nurturing those around you. You are very grounded and prefer to keep things simple and honest.

Find out your color at QuizMeme.com!

Was back on the football pitch with my work colleagues yesterday evening. It was as though we’d never stopped. It all came flooding back, the running around, the occasional clatter and the interesting individual styles of play. Surprisingly, I didn’t collapse after 15 minutes, although I did score an own goal, which cancelled out one of my goals…

This evening was spent trying to get to grips with spizzicato – not sure I’ll ever master it! I guess I’ll get the hang of it much like everything else so far, but it’s hard to imagine it some times!

God is love 1 Jn 4:8

Probably one of the most oft-quoted verses from the bible. Yet, this is a fundamental attribute of God. Along with his holiness and grace, he is love. If he were not, our lives would be very different.

How do we know God is love?

This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 1 Jn 4:9,10

For God did not have to send his Son into the world, for the world had turned against him, it had sinned against him. He rightly had the option to punish us without any argument. His justice demanded punishment for sin. Yet, he loved us so much he gave us his Son who willingly took our punishment in our place.

Just as God is love, those who know him should love. For God’s Spirit works in us, enabling us to love, not out of duty, but because God loves us.

This love is shown in our love for one another and others. If we do not love each other, how can we say we love? If we do not love, how can we say we know God? Just as out of love, God saw that we needed salvation from sin, we must seek to address each other’s needs.

Through loving others, our love will be purified, and change from glory into glory, that God love may be complete in us.

Q: What is faith in Jesus Christ?
A: Faith in Jesus Christ is a saving grace, whereby we receive and rest upon him alone for salvation, as he is offered to us in the gospel.

Q: What is repentance unto life?
A: Repentance unto life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin, and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, doth, with grief and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God, with full purpose of, and endeavour after, new obedience.

(Questions LXXXVI and LXXXVII from the Westminster Shorter Catechism.)

Finally gave in to the call of the geeks, I now have a del.icio.us account. After using it for a few days, I think it’s a good idea, with just the right balance of functionality versus simplicity.

I’ve now accumulated a fair number of (what I think are) interesting links, so have a look and see what you think.

“As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.” Ge 8:22

Every harvest, the usual bible passages are rolled out…

Come, ye thankful people, come, raise the song of harvest home;
All is safely gathered in, ere the winter storms begin.
God our Maker doth provide for our wants to be supplied;
Come to God’s own temple, come, raise the song of harvest home. Henry Alford

The usual hymns arise…

Do we thank God for his promises and his provision? Are we able to glorify our maker and sustainer as we should? If we’re honest with ourselves, we know we do not. There’s something wrong with each and every member of the human race. Sin pervades our very being, disabling us from doing what we were originally designed to do – to glorify God.

Yet, even though sin polluted the world God had a plan, set before the creation of the world. He loved the world so much that he would redeem a people from sin, by the work of God the Son, who took on human flesh and went to the cross, through faith in the Son. This people have the righteousness of the Son imputed to them, and the punishment for their sin placed upon him. This people freed from the bondage of sin would be enabled by the Spirit of God to glorify God.

“As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear. Mt 13:40-43

One day the Son will return. He who gives us a harvest each year will carry out his own harvest. He will gather up his people, those who have faith in him, and they shall have eternal life, and he will cast out the rest into hell.

What will be our end at the final harvest?

Spent the morning wandering around Kew Gardens with Nige and some of the people he’d acquainted himself with on PBase. Even though I only live ten minutes down the road, and I’ve been to Kew itself to shop, I’ve never been to the Royal Botanic Gardens. After spending the morning there, I realised I needed more time and will have to go again one day (with a macro lens) to fully appreciate the gardens.

The afternoon was spent playing football at Lampton Park with some of the lads from church and some of their acquaintances. A good run around, as well as a good way to meet other people.

The day ended with a few of the usual suspects watching a couple of DVDs. Spiderman II and The Animatrix.

I must admit, I still think Spiderman II is a great film, with plenty of depth to the story and characters, as well as great action and special effects. None of the characters are stereotypical, with a hero who has failings, a villian who has good points and a heroine with a brain and some guts. Some of life’s difficult questions are beset upon the characters, with good and bad choices made by all which weave together into an well written story.

The Animatrix helps to fill in gaps in The Matrix universe. The whole concept of The Matrix is a very clever allegory of religious thought and practice, and the Animatrix continues to weave Judaeo-Christian biblical imagery, with more Eastern religious thought as well as modern philosophical thoughts on the human condition to produce an interesting fictional world.

Played snooker last night against Ed. I stormed into a 3-1 lead with some not so shoddy potting, even a colour clearance somewhere in there. However complacency kicked in/Ed picked up his game and the evening finished at 4-4 frames each.

This evening was spent learning how to play the scale of B flat minor (harmonic), amongst other things. Usually when I learn a minor scale, I think what the relative major scale is and then sharpen the seventh. However, my brain got into a bit of a twist when I thought of the relative major of B flat minor – D flat! For some reason, flat keys are really difficult on the violin! I then spent the next ten minutes in a rather frustrated state! It’s really easy on the piano! Anyway, at least I appear to be getting better at playing pieces with multiple positions required.

How can we avoid being taken in by those who what what is not from God? Firstly, we need to see who Jesus really is. There’s no denying he’s a figure in history, atheists and non-Christians accept that. It’s what the bible claims he is that is contentious, but also what allows a Christian to know the truth. Just as knowing a fake banknote is best achieved by knowing a true banknote intently, knowing the true Christ enables us to see when people are painting a distorted picture. To know Christ is to know his word. The more we know the word of God, the more we see a correct picture of him.

As our view of Jesus becomes clearer, it becomes easier to distinguish those who are not messengers from God. As our knowledge increases of the difference between the attitudes of God and those of the world, we can spot when the world’s thoughts and teachings corrupt Christian teachings. We can spot when the world’s teachings are veiled in a Christian gloss. When the glory of God is replaced with the glory of men.

To an extent we will be drawn to those who speak words which are in accord with our nature. A Christian should seek to listen to those who speak according to the word of God, but a non-Christian will seek that which is against. We need to look at ourselves as well, that we might check we are seeking that which is from God.

May we always have a true picture of Christ and his word.

After a rather busy week, I wasn’t looking forward to getting up early to travel down to Grove Chapel, Camberwell for ‘Banner South East’, organised by the Banner of Truth Trust. I wrenched myself out of bed at around 8.15am, met up with some of the usual suspects and headed into London. I must admit, I was pleasantly surprised to find myself in Camberwell Grove without getting lost and with a very short journey time of about 40 minutes!

I was glad I’d got up early though, as the day was good. There were two talks on growing closer to Christ, both of which focused on seeing what Christ has done. To try and understand the enormity of God the Son becoming a man and dying that we might not. For Jesus Christ was no mere man, but God in the flesh, the creator and sustainer of the universe. Jesus Christ was the perfect man, without spot or blemish of sin. He deserved nothing but praise and glory, but instead took on the sin of his people out of his great love and grace.

For I deserve nothing but the wrath of God for my sin, but through his great sacrifice, I gain that which I do not deserve – to be made right with God. If Christ did that for me, then he deserves my whole life. There is nothing I should withhold from him.

This was a great reminder of what Christ has done for me.

As well as the biblical exposition, it was great to meet up with old friends and make some new ones. A good, if exhausting day!

Or not as the case might be. It would seem that the recent decision by Pope Benedict XVI to quote Emperor Manuel II Paleologos of the Byzantine Empire by saying, and I quote,

“Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

has caused a bit of a furore in the Islamic world. If someone had said that about any religious leader important to the West, there would’ve been discussion and dialogue, with people at least saying “Yes, no or maybe!”

The response of the Islamic world seems to be one of non-discussion. There have been lots of calls for the Pope to apologise for his words, but very few rebutting the argument. Is submission without reason the true face of Islam? The response to heresy we are used to when Christianity is attacked is not a call for an apology, but a call to apologetics – a reasoned defence of the faith. I may not think the Pope is right a lot of the time, but my response is not to silence his words, but to argue against them from Scripture and with reason.

This is a great opportunity for the defence of Islam, and for discussion and dialogue. Will ignorant silence triumph over intelligent discourse?

Despite my lack of practice on the violin, I seem to be progressing at a reasonable rate. I’m currently trying to get into the habit of shifting position at will when a piece requires it. It’s easy enough to achieve in a scale as it’s all very predictable, but in a piece of music, it isn’t always so obvious. Hopefully I’ll get some practice in a knock this on the head as it’ll make my playing ability much wider.

Played snooker this evening with Ed and Dave. We broke the weird deadlock with Ed and I having 3 frames each and Dave walking off with the wooden spoon. Ed and I decided to have a decider, which Ed won, ah well. 🙂