Enjoying getting a better understanding of who Jesus is, as I read Hebrews 1 & 2 and John 1. Christmas truly is a celebration of an amazing event... The Word became flesh! Being encouraged to get a much bigger view of the Lord Jesus Christ - creator, sustainer, redeemer. GOD! Eternal. Life-giver. Know Jesus! These are times when we need to be clear on who he is!
Great to spend a few hours in Don Vegas as The Gentlemen played at St. Mary's Wheatley, and Maz told of the bad news and the good news.
Mike showed his legendary status is well-deserved as he drove the choon-machine all the way to the 'ham, and we enjoyed a full english before driving down to Donny with a big red sun belting through the mist. There's something unique about night-driving. Post-gig we headed back to the north-west with Nancy, another former Durham-er, and it was great to be encouraged by hearing about gospel-work amongst the youth of Liverpool, as well as general post-uni life.
Showing posts with label John. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John. Show all posts
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Looking forward to marriage and the present reality of love...
Yesterday 10GS hosted a surprise Engagement Celebration for my housemate Jenny and her fiancee Simon (I can never remember which term has the accented 'e') - it was wonderful to see a number of our good friends in Durham joining with them as we celebrated their forthcoming marriage (1st Sep?).
There's great pressure in student Christian culture to idolise relationships, and I think this arises particularly out of the want to be loved. But human affection isn't bound to the sexually attracted, for the church is a place of costly, sacrificial love, as Jason Clarke explained from John 15.9-17 at BEC on Sunday.
There is a incredible diversity, yet there is a common acknowledgement of sin, and a common acknowledgement of extravagent forgiveness. The one redmedy for failed human love is to know you are loved, and that is Jesus' is claim: 'As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you' (15.9). We can know we are loved, as Paul says in Romans 5.8, not in the words of novel, but in the sacrifice of history. It was whilst we were still sinners - it was then - that Christ died for us!
And this, only this, is the true motivation to love others, 'this is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you' (15.12). It is our duty and our joy to love, in obedience to the one who first loved us. Real love is to real people, and is really hard! But it's not to be without heart, for it completes our joy (15.11) and it bears fruit, attracting others the love of God.
It is hard, but it is best. It is a command, but it is a response.
There's great pressure in student Christian culture to idolise relationships, and I think this arises particularly out of the want to be loved. But human affection isn't bound to the sexually attracted, for the church is a place of costly, sacrificial love, as Jason Clarke explained from John 15.9-17 at BEC on Sunday.
There is a incredible diversity, yet there is a common acknowledgement of sin, and a common acknowledgement of extravagent forgiveness. The one redmedy for failed human love is to know you are loved, and that is Jesus' is claim: 'As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you' (15.9). We can know we are loved, as Paul says in Romans 5.8, not in the words of novel, but in the sacrifice of history. It was whilst we were still sinners - it was then - that Christ died for us!
And this, only this, is the true motivation to love others, 'this is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you' (15.12). It is our duty and our joy to love, in obedience to the one who first loved us. Real love is to real people, and is really hard! But it's not to be without heart, for it completes our joy (15.11) and it bears fruit, attracting others the love of God.
It is hard, but it is best. It is a command, but it is a response.
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