Every Day with Jesus

I’ve worked twenty years as a professional mediator. Whilst my call is to prayer and nurturing faith, this provided my income for a long time. Mediation (working with people to resolve real conflict) requires a lot of active listening. In this context the word ‘listen’ means to hear, heed and obey; three actions.

In both Old and New Testaments an encounter with God led to change. Here, the frightened, despondent disciples found a confidence and courage in God to describe the source of their faith. Over the years, the Church seems slowly to have lost its confidence and courage. It tends to answer questions no-one’s asking. Very different from that first Pentecost!

Pentecost celebrates the birth of the Church. The angel told the disciples to gather in Jerusalem and there to wait and pray. After nine days the Holy Spirit hovered over them and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.

Scripture records events that can appear quite strange. They lie outside our normal, everyday experiences. Here, Daniel is greeted by the Angel Gabriel – the same angel who carried the news to Mary that she was to be the mother of Jesus.

In lockdown I discovered the wonder of Zoom. Through Christmas, Waverley Abbey Resources held Evening Prayer sessions on Zoom. It was wonderful as people participated from all around the world.

Reminding God to listen to our prayer requests is more a question of reassuring ourselves, because God has invited us to pray and promised to receive and respond. Yet, there’s often a certain uncertainty within the human heart that God actually listens to our prayers.

We live in a world swamped with multiple 24/7 news feeds. That news is seldom good, or useful. What am I to do in the face of a severe earthquake or unprovoked attack on innocents? Information that I cannot process effectively and respond to with constructive action appears to me of little real value. I can empathise, but such empathy offers little comfort to the sufferer.

Daniel 9:13–14 ‘Just as it is written in the Law of Moses, all this disaster has come on us, yet we have not sought the favour of the LORD our God by turning from our sins and giving attention to your truth.’ (v13)

It is a wonder my parents were capable of extending love towards me given my own love of disobedience and lying as a child. Only as I became a parent, adopted by a seven year old who was in our community, did I discover that a parent’s love never releases the object of its love.

Shame makes us feel uncomfortable. It speaks to all those actions and inner thoughts that we want to keep secret. It’s about our sense of guilt and dishonour, feelings we recognise but too often choose to ignore. It causes confusion and often causes us to blush, an outward sign of inner discomfort.

Penitence is both sorrow for sins committed and a choice made to amend our way of life. It’s repentance, a change of mind. My challenge is that I sincerely repent but then even as I rise from prayer my mind seizes hold of an impure thought or a criticism of someone else. How frustrating and tiresome! Yet what good news that God never tires of us returning to repent and extending complete forgivene...

Discovering I couldn’t have my own children was devastating. It drove me to prayer. Yet, it was a very self-interested prayer – God, sort out my problems! He responded and indicated a range of issues across my life that required my attention. But, still no conception. I had to conceive that God is no slot machine to service my felt needs.

After Jesus left, the disciples returned to Jerusalem to await the promised Spirit. They joined in continuous prayer for nine days from the Ascension to Pentecost. We know it was nine days because the Ascension happened forty days after the Resurrection, and Pentecost was celebrated fifty days after the Passover.

I consistently need to remind myself that I live to love and serve God. I’m too easily consumed by the moment, my aspirations and desires. Yet, I’ll never find fulfilment and self-realisation outside of Jesus, and God’s purpose for my life. My primary point of encounter with God is in prayer, reflecting on all God says through His Word.

God always reveals purpose through His activity. For some, revival is an end in itself. Hence the volume of literature detailing past revivals. Today we also find that there are many attempts to replicate past reawakenings as recorded in historical narratives.

Revival has drawn me for many years. I first met its reality when converted to Christianity. From an unchurched, cynical and critical background, I perceived Christianity as a refuge for the weak and vulnerable. But God intervened.

We have taken a week to consider God’s Word. It is a living Word for it is Jesus we hold when we handle Scripture. The Bible is called God’s Word and this is how Jesus is described. From before the foundation of the earth, God’s Word existed. That same Word is available to us every day as we open and read Scripture.

When I competed as a cross country runner, there were a number of well-known songs that I would play in my head to manage my pace. These enabled me to ensure that I competed effectively, whilst giving me confidence no matter the opposition.

Four key benefits for our enrichment and development as God’s friends are acquired by reading Scripture. First, Scripture refreshes the soul, that essential, immortal, part of us. The soul is that aspect that wonders about life’s meaning, whilst yearning for purpose and destiny. Unsettling, it stirred me to explore answers in my quest for meaning for life, which I found in Christ Jesus.

Hope gives us a sense of expectation. It grows from a root of trust. Approaching Scripture, I anticipate finding something fresh in my friendship with God. For it’s a treasury of blessing and encouragement for all seeking instruction in making sense of and fully appreciating life.

Scripture is God’s complete and final Word for His disciples. Jesus’ final instruction to his disciples was to make Christian disciples who follow Jesus’ teachings; God’s way of life. To help us He left three tremendous gifts: His Word, His Spirit and each other.

The Bible is not one book, but a library of books. It has two testaments; the first, known as the Old Testament, records the laws, history and prophecies that preceded and foretold the ministry of Jesus. The second, known as the New Testament, reveals the life and teaching of Jesus, His passion, and the emergence of the Church made up of His disciples.

I’m grateful for the emails I’ve received from Every Day with Jesus readers. One change I’m delighted to implement is additional scriptures so we can pursue further study related to our daily reading. The joy of Scripture is that it is the Word of God. Jesus, God’s Word, is embedded in every verse of Scripture.

The promise that God watches over us is a great assurance for our faith. Having faith is to place complete confidence in an unseen, often unrealised promise. (Unrealised in as far as our circumstances are concerned.)

Passing through turbulent financial waters can make the present uncomfortable; the future uncertain. Yet, I refuse to nurse and rehearse anxiety. I choose faith over fear and despondency. Life may trigger a ‘counsel of despair’, but wisdom says, ‘Wait on the Lord.’