Freedom in Christ #6

Strongholds



The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. ~ 2 Cor 10:4-5

Freedom in Christ defines a stronghold, amongst other things, as; mental habit patterns of thought that are not consistent with Gods word.

In short, these can stop us laying hold of truths because our patterns of thinking are captive to some untruth, some deep rooted lie.

They can be established through our prolonged exposure to this fallen world which conditions us, through traumatic experiences and through repeated falling to temptations. The effects can be to give us a faulty view of reality.


The good news is that they can be broken with this 'divine power'. We can break their power and take captive every thought, making it obedient to Christ.



Again, none of this is teaching that I am unfamiliar with.  I asked myself where the strongholds were in my life, and for the first time in a long time, largely because of what God has been doing through the period I have been on this course, I felt there were no obvious strongholds.

But then, that was the obvious ones. I bet if you asked anyone who lived with me, or knows me well, they may be able to spot some strongholds in my life. What worries me more are the more subtle patterns. By nature, if we are deceived, then we do not realise that we are.

I cant claim to have come that far on the journey, since my last blog. If I am honest, I feel like I have hit a bit of a bottle neck. But it also feels as though there is a lot of pressure in that bottle neck waiting to go phwooosh, when the cork gets popped. I can't help feeling that the 'Steps to freedom' day may be a little bit of an uncorking experience.

Until then I want to ask God for wisdom in discerning these strongholds and in walking by the Spirit.

Holy week; Easter Sunday

 When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them.  Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. ~ Luke 24:30-31


Since we have been following in Luke I want to move to Luke's first recorded encounter with the risen Jesus. The encounter that two disciples have on the road to Emmaus. 

I love this story. Some of the disciples get the shining angel experience, some get the personal revelation, some get indisputable proof. But some of us simply have our eyes open that he has been with us on the way but we didn't perceive it.

Something simple. Something we do every day, something as basic as eating a meal and it is transformed, when our eyes are open.

And for many of us Jesus appears to us, in our mundanity and reveals that our despair was unfounded, our hope was not in vain, that despite appearances, he never left us. And he is, very much alive.

And it gives me hope that when I am not aware, whatever my circumstances and I am lost, once more, that all may not be as it seems. This ordinariness can still be transformed because Jesus is alive, I only need my eyes open to that fact.

The hope of resurrection, the glorious miracle, taking place, unlike the crucifixion, not in public, on display in full view of the world, but in a concealed tomb, Just The Son, The Father and the Holy Spirit and a pile of grave clothes. Do we not perceive it?

And so hope in us begins, very often in a private place, and resurrection hits us in the most ordinary of moments. And Jesus transforms everything.



Happy Easter everyone!

Holy week; Holy Saturday

Low in the grave he lay, Jesus my saviour.


Today I don't want to write much. I watched a short clip this morning from 24/7 Prayer, whose lent series I have been following this year, and It said, pretty much everything I would want to say. So below you will find a link to that clip, please watch it and afford Pete Grieg the space you would have afforded me. He is much more worthy of it and it only lasts a few minutes.

Before I go, I just want to say that I concur completely with what Pete says. We so often want to rush from Good Friday to Easter Sunday. But I think it is so important to dwell on the Saturday experience. We forget, because of how significant the cross is to us in saving us, what a shattering blow it is. The silence of heaven after the death of its champion speaks as strongly as the cross itself. Judgement has been met. Our sin has caused the heaviest of prices to be paid. Before we embrace the hope and power of resurrection we need to sit with that for a while.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2gX_fMa44E

Holy week; Good Friday

This morning, as I write this blog, I can hear the dawn chorus. Good Friday always fills me with hope, even though it is shrouded in solemnity, it is, as it's name suggests, a 'Good day'. It is the day, of all days, that I look to every day.  It is my reason for existence. The beauty of the love of God expressed to me in what Jesus achieved on that cross. A good day indeed. And hearing the birds sing as the light starts to change and the darkness diminishes feels so hopeful.

But on good Friday Jesus enters the day with a rather different perspective. As the Dawn Chorus commences The rooster joins in the song and Jesus catches the eye of his very close friend who has just denied even knowing him. After the night in custody and the grilling it held, dawn promises that the day will not be improving.

Dragged from pillar to post, mocked and beaten repeatedly, facing the jeering of the crowd and their baying for his blood, sripped, whipped and force marched, carrying the instrument of his own torture and execution, before his mother and friends, and then made a public spectacle of, an example, as he is nailed and then raised.

And in all of it he never wavers or cries out for mercy. He forgives even as he dies.

The sky goes dark.

The temple curtain is torn in two.

'Into your hands, Father, I commit my spirit '.

Jesus dies and all is silent.

After the crowd have gone away, beating their breasts, and the air is silent. Jesus lifeless body hangs limp on the cross, the blood congealing. All is still, once more.
Just another day.

I quietly creep in on the scene for a private audience. I stand and gaze in awe and wonder and with pain. So much pain.

This Jesus who has thrilled and excited me, who has moved me to tears with his compassion for the lost, who has inspired me with his purity, dazzled me.with his simplicity and creative brilliance. This Jesus who awakened hope in me, now hangs here, without hope. Lifeless. Hands that touch leppers, hands that held his mother now held by cruel nails.

I did this to you.

Me.

My sin put you here and if I had been in the crowd I may as well as have been shouting 'Crucify'.

The punishment that bought us peace was upon him,
And by his stripes we are healed.

All we, like sheep have gone astray,
Each of us turned to our own way.
And the Lord has laid on him
The sin of us all.

Holy week; Kiss me, Kill me

How many of us have wanted to do what Peter did. To meet out some old fashioned justice on those who had come to arrest Jesus. The unfairness of it all. The best man who ever lived, seized and dragged before some kangaroo court before being unjustly condemned to death in the most disgraceful way possible.

I think we are supposed to feel the sting of it. Because the injustice of it all, the unfairness of an innocent man dying for  a crime he is innocent of, really reflects on the injustice of our getting away with it. That too is unfair. It defies justice on the most basic level. And the first insult of the many Jesus would receive over the next few hours, that awful betrayal with an act of honour, the kiss of Judas.

And here at the start of the hours of darkness, Jesus asks Judas, before he even reaches him, 'are you really betraying me with a kiss? (paraphrase)

Why is the question so poignant, so utterly loaded?

Judas knows Jesus. Judas knows him intimately. Only hours, maybe only minutes ago, Jesus had honoured Judas by dipping the bread with him, a gesture of respect and friendship and, yes, even love. Judas has been present at all the great miracles. from the feeding of the 5000 to the raising of Lazarus. He has witnessed the insightful teaching. He has seen the tender compassion Jesus has on the marginalised. He has laughed at Jesus' jokes', had his feet washed by him. He was part of the closest circle of disciples, even trusted with the money. And he still didn't get it.

We feel sorry for Judas, so often, because he seemed to be predestined to fail. It was a dirty job but it had to be done. But I don't think we can ever negate the role of Judas' choice in the betrayal. He had more opportunity than anyone (apart from the rest of the12) to see Jesus as he truly was.

For whatever reason though, Judas had his own agenda. To reject Christ so utterly, having known him for who he is (betrayal or no) is really to ask for damnation. Judas knew, somehow, and tragically rejected him. We are told that money played a part, but the dark place from which humanity shuns the Lord of life, played a larger part and Judas succumbed to it. Jesus chillingly states that it would be better for him if he were never born.

And the tragedy is that Judas couldn't even be honest in his darkest moment, when his cover was blown. He was still lying to himself and to Jesus.

Jesus Identifies his betrayer with an act of honour and acceptance, as he shares the bread and bestows grace and love on him even then.

And Judas condemns Jesus to disgrace with an act of honour and friendship. And he seals his fate as he does so.

The lesson of Judas is that familiarity with Jesus does not necessarily imply closeness. It is possible to know Jesus and never really know him. It is possible to see the best of what he does and never really have our eyes opened. where are we right now? Are our eyes open? Are we betraying Jesus in small ways with public acts of love that mask our indifference or worse, animosity.

It is a sobering lesson. May we never be so close to Jesus and not see him for who he really is. May we only see the love in his eyes and may we never miss the point. 

Holy week; Gethsemane

Yesterday I looked at Jesus' source of strength; his prayer life. We saw that some of that was devoted to praying for his disciples. Today I want to look a little more at the prayers offered in the garden of Gethsemane.

 Jesus having done all there is to do, fully faces up to what he is about to undergo. Jesus withdraws again from his disciples for what is a very private moment, leaving them with the instruction 'Pray that you will not fall into temptation', he with draws about as far as a stones throw, Luke records. So private, but not that private. I have often wondered how Jesus private words are recorded so accurately when he went off. The answer is simple. We are told how much anguish he is in. So much that he later sweats blood. I have heard preachers cite medical science to say that, however rare that may be, it is possible under immense stress. It hardly bears thinking about. Have you, even in your worst moments been close to that? I know I haven't.

And he did not suffer in silence. I think that Jesus words "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done" was an anguished, gut wrenching cry, so loud that it was audible from a good distance, depending on how far you can throw a stone.

This is one of my favourite moments in the gospels. It is the most beautiful and terrible, simultaneously. The son of God, at his most vulnerable, the weight of the fate of the world hanging on his manifest love for and trust of His Father.

 I felt God show me a while ago, that Jesus, though he had much yet to undergo, won the battle of Calvary, here in Gethsemane's garden. That the real wrestling, the real sacrifice was made, by Jesus, on his knees, when he fully gave his will over to the Father. From then on in, the outcome was a certainty.

The angel then came and strengthened him. It only occurred to me today, that the strength (which is sometimes translated as comfort, literally 'with strength') may well have been more than just strength for the moment, but strength for the task ahead.

And somehow, it has always escaped my attention that he sweats blood, after the Angel has ministered to him. The scripture says, he prayed even more earnestly. Whatever was going on here, we know that Jesus was doing serious business with his Father. The hymn that I quoted yesterday contains the line 'He shed no tears for his own grief but sweat drops of blood for mine'. I have to say that that seems, as poetic and lovely as it sounds, like it is utter fiction. I am not saying that he had no thought towards what he would achieve for us but the grief was all his own. If Calvary was about us, Gethsemane was all about Jesus.

Isn't it amazing that he did not waver for a second in all his trial? Where did he get his strength from? I think he made his peace, here on his knees. Gethsemane held the last temptation of Christ. But the deal was sealed in the agony of his prayer and the submission to the father.

Remember what Jesus said to his disciples as he left them, 'Pray that you will not fall into temptation.'
That was exactly what he was doing himself. He was saying, follow my example. The disciples slept and they fell into temptation, but Jesus never wavered or wobbled.

The power endued on him is tangible as he steps forwards to his would be captors in the same Garden.

We're looking for Jesus of Nazareth, they say.
'I am he' says the Lord.
And they drew back and fell to the ground.

Holy Week: Before the storm

Holy week is building and Jesus ordeal is just days away. He must have been painfully aware of what was to come but the signs of stress are not evident from the text.

I think one little clue to his coping strategy is apparent in the verse that tells us;

Each day Jesus was teaching at the temple, and each evening he went out to spend the night on the hill called the Mount of Olives ~Luke 21:37

We know that the mount of olives was a  place Jesus liked to withdraw to and pray. What he did out there to recharge his batteries, to draw on the Fathers strength, we can only speculate, but from the glimpse we are given in Gethsemane, we can see that he is not averse to pouring out his heart. I see the wrestling that is in Gethsemane is, in terms of the story, the tip of the iceberg of emotions and fears that will almost sink him. In other words, I would be very surprised if this was the first and only conversation they had had on this issue.

Nightly Jesus would withdraw, as was his habit, to a place of peace and he would pray. I would give an awful lot to have been an eavesdropper on those moments. To hear the intimacy, hinted at in John 16, to hear the passion, to see the transformation from deep prayer that came over Jesus as he communed with his heavenly father. What did he say? What did he ask for?

We are, though, given a little glimpse in Luke 22:31 when Jesus seems to take the opportunity afforded by a conversation about greatness, and who is the greatest, to address something that has been on his heart.  We are not told who was involved in the squabble but afterwards Jesus singles out Peter with the chilling words; 'Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat'. We are not told when Satan had asked but presumably not on the spot, then and there. Jesus had obviously been dealing with this issue privately, and in prayer because he says;

 ^"But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”

Whenever I have gone through issues that cause me to be in turmoil, I often find that I cannot really address anything else. I find it becomes all absorbing. That whatever conversations I am having I am only really half present. And when I pray I find that it fills my prayers.

Again, I only speculate to what Jesus prayed, and to how he felt, but presuming his impending death and torture were things that he would have preferred to avoid (as his 'take this cup from me' statement indicates) it is even more astonishing that he almost certainly spent time praying for his friends. Friends that he knew were going to let him down, deny him, even betray him.

How great is the love of the son of God. As he moves ever closer to his own dark hour, he weaves around those he loves, a protective cocoon of prayer, that they too may be kept through their own  trial, fail as they will, that they may also emerge transformed in the power of resurrection.

And this same Jesus prays for us now.


Such love. Such grace.

In pity Angels beheld him,

And came from the world of light,

To comfort him in the sorrows,

He bore for my soul that night.