The Mustard Seed

Letter from a Birmingham jail - Martin Luther King

There was a time when the church was very powerful--in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being "disturbers of the peace" and "outside agitators."' But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were "a colony of heaven," called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be "astronomically intimidated." By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests. Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent--and often even vocal--sanction of things as they are.

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AW Tozer on the Bible #2

'Sermons are good, but they are not to be compared with the Bible as soul food. Songs and hymns are excellent, but let us not become songbook Christians. Men wrote the songs but God wrote the Bible. A successful Christian must be a Bible Christian.'

Bryn Jones on Restoration

'To the restorer, anything that cannot root itself in God as its source has no place in the life of the Christian or the practices of the community of God.'

'Restoration is not a last-minute interventionist act that will conclude this age; it is a progressive process throughout time.'

'Man is the key to the restoration purpose of God in all creative spheres, including the angelic orders, the cleansing of the heavens, the overthrow of satanic powers, and the establishment of righteousness and justice throughout the earth.'

'Restoration, then, must incorporate the reconciliation of man to God, restoring fellowship between the Creator and His creature. It also must bring family reconciliation between man and man, as well as reconcile man to his responsibility as guardian of the earth and of his environment.'

from The Radical Church (1999)

Rick Warren on Purpose

'Nothing matters more than knowing God's purposes for your life, and nothing can compensate for not knowing them.'

'To make the most of your life, you must keep the vision of eternity continually in your mind and the value of it in your heart.'

from The Purpose Driven Life (2002)

Remembering a Martyr

Yesterday was the anniversary of the death of Jim Elliot, who along with fellow missionaries Ed McCully, Pete Fleming, Roger Youderian and Nate Saint, were killed by members of the Waodani people in 1956. The five were involved in Operation Auca, an evangelistic mission to reach the Waodani with the Good News of Jesus. Elliot was just 28 years old. The killers of the five were later saved. Elliot has left a legacy of radical, costly discipleship that is largely absent today in the western church. This extract is taken from his journal and sums up the man:

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The Old Cross and the New

Happy New Year. I'd like to start it with what might seem a strange post; but I believe it is most apt for the time we are in and for what lies ahead for the Church if it is to be all that God intends. It's a well known devotional piece from the pen of AW Tozer; I think it is one of the finest ever written about the Cross of Christ, and remains as prophetic and therefore relevant as when Tozer wrote it over fifty years ago.

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Arthur Wallis on Praying in the Spirit

'The contexts of the only two references to praying in the Spirit in the New Testament are instructive. The first reference concludes that great passage in Ephesians 6 on the armor of God in the believer's warfare. The other, in Jude, follows the exhortation to build ourselves up on our most holy faith. So it is in the context of battling and building that we are exhorted to "pray in the Spirit." These two figures in fact sum up what the Christian life is all about. We are reminded of Nehemiah and his compatriots engaged in their God-given task of restoring Jerusalem, sword in one hand and trowel in the other. Our Lord emphasised these two aspects when He spoke of the necessity of first counting the cost before committing ourselves to the path of discipleship. He used the twin parables of the man intending to build a tower and the king going out to battle against another king (Luke 14:28-32). So discipleship, too, is a matter of building and battling. If we are to build to a successful conclusion and to wage a victorious warfare against our implacable foe we must learn to pray in the Spirit.'

from Pray in the Spirit (1970)

True Worship

One of my favourite Christian authors is AW Tozer. He was a pastor in the United States and Canada in the mid-twentieth century and displayed a deep, consistent concern that the church would recapture a true sense of the Lord’s presence among them and a deep and real knowledge of the God they served and worshipped. His books, including The Knowledge of the Holy, The Pursuit of God, and Whatever Happened to Worship?, are still in print and are wonderful, timeless classics. The opening of The Knowledge of the Holy has stayed with me every since I read it as a teenager: ‘What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.’ Ponder that for a moment. What comes into your mind when you think about God? And where have you developed that thought? Has it come from truth revealed by his Spirit through his Word? Has that truth from his Word been validated by experience in your life? (After all, you don’t want to know in theory that God is good and not ever experience his goodness!) Or have you allowed other things – disappointments, heartaches, prejudices – to creep in to create a false view of your heavenly Father?

What comes into our minds when we think about God is, I agree with Tozer, the most important thing about us. As Proverbs 23:7 tells us, ‘as a man thinks within himself, so he is’. And what we think about God, what we meditate on and focus our attention on, is so vitally important when it comes to worshipping him. That is why Jesus describes the worshippers his Father seeks as those who worship him ‘in spirit and in truth’ (John 4:23-24). Knowing the truth about God, Jesus says, sets you free; I’m sure you want to be free in your praise and adoration to the God you love! You see, worship is such a privilege, such a wonderful way to spend time and energy; we have in Jesus a Saviour who is awesome, majestic, glorious, holy, blameless, good, loving, gracious, merciful, faithful – I could go on and on! And so our attitude toward him and towards ourselves and brothers and sisters must be right in order to worship God acceptably. Have you ever considered that? It’s possible to worship God in a way that is unacceptable to him – it’s a humbling thought.

In order for us to understand better how we can worship God acceptably, we have to turn to the Scriptures. The Bible is the best guide to worshipping God; better than any hymn, better than any book, better than any worship leader, band or musician. We don’t have time here to explore its rich depths because, unsurprisingly, the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, is a book full exhortations and examples of worship. So I’m going to focus in on one of my favourite books in the Bible, the Book of Hebrews. Every time I read it, it inspires me to worship God. The Book of Hebrews is a wonderful book; it begins by describing to us the unparalleled majesty of Jesus: no angel or other created being can compare with his glory. Hebrews is a book full of hope and faith; it is a book full of exhortations to endure and admonitions to grow up. It makes clear, in no uncertain terms, that not only is Jesus the focus and attention of our worship but also that without his sacrificial death on the cross no-one would be able to worship God acceptably.

Let me make reference to two Scriptures at the end of the epistle in particular:

 

Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our “God is a consuming fire.” (Hebrews 12:28-29)

 

For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come. Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise – the fruit of lips that confess his name. (Hebrews 13:14-15)

 

In these two passages the writer to the Hebrews gives us a valuable key in how we offer to God acceptable worship. We don’t worship God based on how we feel; we don’t worship him based on whether or not we like the songs we’re singing; and we don’t worship God either based on empty form or dead religion. What does the writer show us? That our worship of Jesus in this present age should always be in the light of the realities of the age to come. We are receiving, he tells us, a kingdom that cannot be shaken. How awesome that is! The kingdom of God is a major theme throughout the Bible and we don’t have time to do it justice here, but what we can say is that our worship of Jesus must be informed by the fact that we are receiving a kingdom that is unshakable – immovable, secure, eternal, and ever on the increase. Think of all that’s shaking in the world right now: governments, financial systems, ideologies. But one thing will never be shaken: the kingdom of God. Be thankful, therefore, that your destiny is certain and your hope secure: we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken.

Our worship in this age, in this present world, should also be informed by the fact that our true home and true citizenship as Christians is in heaven. We are not looking for an earthly city as our home; we are ‘looking for the city that is to come’. What does this mean? Well, it refers to the pilgrim life of Abraham. In Hebrews 11:10 we are told Abraham ‘was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God’. This city, we discover in Scripture, is the church, the ‘heavenly Jerusalem’ (Hebrews 12:22). We don’t live here on earth as isolated, individual Christians: we are the church, the people of God, the Bride of Christ. And we will make ourselves ready, mature and spotless for Jesus’ coming (see Ephesians 4). Our worship plays a key part in that, because worship is a transforming experience: as we worship Jesus, he responds by giving us revelation of who he is, who we are and a greater understanding of his purposes. This is why those around the throne in the Book of Revelation never tire of singing his praises (see Revelation 4-5). As we focus on our future and fix our eyes on our destiny, therefore, we ‘continually offer a sacrifice of praise – the fruit of lips that confess his name’. Worship goes from being an act performed to a life lived in loving service to our Saviour.