14. Place of Transformation

Wilderness Meditations: 14. The Place of Transformation

Isa 31:1,2  The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy. The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the splendor of Carmel and Sharon; they will see the glory of the Lord, the splendor of our God

And So:  And so I believe we come to the end of this brief series of reflections about the experience and lessons of life in the wilderness, a life most of us would wish to avoid and yet, in 2020, a new life imposed upon us where for a while human resources were limited, freedom of activity was limited, and yet still a time where we learnt that the Lord was still there. For some of us it came as a shock, for others as a welcome respite from the busyness of the life that had been.

Transformation?  Have we been changed by the experience of ‘wilderness’? For the good? Are we more confident in Him or have we allowed ourselves to be almost overwhelmed by the uncertainties and fears? Have we seen this as a time of restriction or a time of potential for God to come and bring glorious transformation? Again and again the prophets of the Bible come out with these amazing pictures of the transformation that God promises. How do our hearts respond? Have we been become those who can reach out to others, or those who have become too beaten down by the circumstances that they need others to reach down into the cistern of mud and despair that they feel they are in, and carefully lift them up again? (see the picture of Jeremiah – Jer 38:11-13) Do the words of the prophets thrill our hearts with an anticipation from the Spirit that this is His goal for this time – transformation of us and the world about us. Let’s put three of these sets of verses before us and ask the Spirit to release faith in us as we read them:

 Isa 31:1,2 The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy. The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the splendor of Carmel and Sharon; they will see the glory of the Lord, the splendor of our God.” What an amazing picture from a land of silence, solitude and barrenness to one where life bursts forth. Have you ever seen one of those films that show life bursting out of the ground after the rains come? It is amazing. Can we pray for the rains to come now?

Isa 35:6 “Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert.”  This is no more than happened when Jesus came (see Mt 11:5) and no more that he said was possible for us (see Jn 14:12). Is it something we have been praying for or had we, as I suggested previously, allowed our expectations to be quashed by the enemy and the unbelief of the world around us? Read it again: healing and an outpouring of His Spirit. Now pray for it – and keep praying.

Joel 2:22 “Do not be afraid, you wild animals, for the pastures in the wilderness are becoming green. The trees are bearing their fruit; the fig tree and the vine yield their riches.”  The wilderness, He promises, is not one of dry lifeless existence, but a place where He seeks to bring transformation in and through His people, a church that is alive with the presence of God by His Spirit,  where life and vitality, fellowship and friendship, power, authority and revelation pour through the congregation of His people, through this potentially wonderful ‘body of Christ’, bringing constant life transformations, with conversions, deliverances and healings being a regular feature of their life, and the world is impacted and transformed. Can we believe for that? Pray for it. Work for it.

Watch: But Joel’s word reminds us that often these things come gradually. How the Lord decrees His coming is up to Him. Maybe He will just suddenly turn up, maybe as in this word there will be gradual signs building and building. Gardeners and horticulturalists know this. They watch for the various stages of development; first the leaves form after winter, blossom appears and falls, tiny fruits gradually appear and grow bigger and bigger until ready for picking. Jesus nudged his disciples on one occasion, “Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.” (Jn 4:35b) But that was after he had just said, “Do you not say, ‘There are still four months and then comes the harvest’?” (v.35a) Don’t look at the natural seasons, he was saying, just look at the people coming, there is the harvest.

Today? “He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” (Lk 4:21) Jesus had just read one of the Isaiah Messianic prophecies. Jesus has done his part; he’s come and done all that was necessary for salvation to be opened up to all who will come. Now we wait on him to see the next phase of his work and he continues to work in the midst of his enemies to bring in the kingdom. Elijah waited for the rain and as soon as he saw the glimpse of a small cloud (1 Kings 18:44) he knew the rest was about to come. Are we looking for it coming? Are we gazing at the horizon to see the signs of the coming of the Lord in power? In recent weeks I have started to make a note of the little signs that ARE appearing of Him moving in our midst in a new way. In the space of two weeks I have noted six specific things, six different people revealing the presence of God coming in a new way. He wants to come and transform the wilderness, He is coming, be alert, be full of faith (Lk 18:8), pray, watch, make ready, you may be His means of bringing it. Yes??? Yes!

20. God of Transformation

Getting to Know God Meditations:  20. God of Transformation

Ezek 37:1-3   The hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. ² He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. ³ He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”  I said, “Sovereign Lord, you alone know.”

No Spectator God:  ‘Deists’ believe in a ‘God’ but one that sits outside of our existence, a mere spectator, having set the whole thing going. How far from the God of the Bible, which is perhaps why deists don’t believe in revelation because the whole book is about revelation. The God of the entire Bible is one who intervenes in this world, who interacts with this world, who seeks to redeem and restore this fallen world, and thus is a God of transformation.

Ezekiel: No more is this seen than in this vision that Ezekiel has that we find in chapter 37.  Ezekiel lived in the closing years of the existence of the southern kingdom (the northern kingdom had gone some 150 years beforehand). The kings of Judah at this time were a bad lot. The God of revelation had spoken to them again and again through Jeremiah in Jerusalem and Ezekiel in Babylon (he had been one of the early Jews to be taken there in exile by Nebuchadnezzar). God had called them again and again to put the nation straight, to deal with all the evil that there was there but they refused. Thus both Jeremiah and Ezekiel brought words of warning that destruction would come.

If you read their writings this is not for the faint-hearted; it is unrestricted horror. There was nothing surprising about this in some ways. Nebuchadnezzar was the all-powerful despot of the region and had already swept through the land and culled it of some of its leaders. (Daniel was one who got taken with his friends into the court of the king in Babylon where he became God’s mouthpiece to this and subsequent reigns in Babylon.  An amazing story – read the first 6 chapters of Daniel to see it.) When armies attacked and there was resistance, there would be fighting, even a siege, and there would be deaths; it is what men do to other men (and women and children – no exceptions in outright war!).

The Future: So Ezekiel has been getting these words from God that suggest that the days are drawing very near for the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of the entire nation brought about by Nebuchadnezzar’s next invasion.  It is clear from his writings that he sees it all coming. It looks like the end of Judah in the same way that Israel (the northern ten tribes) had been removed from the map back in 722BC.  He doesn’t know it for certain but the southern kingdom will cease in 587BC when Jerusalem and its temple is destroyed. Yet within himself, he knows it is coming. He grieves over the certainty of what is about to happen – and then he gets this vision.

The Challenge: A vision, unlike a dream that you get when you are asleep, occurs when you are awake and conscious but suddenly everything before you disappears and you just see the revelation. He sees himself in a valley and the floor of this valley is covered with dry bones. It is the picture of a graveyard where no one has been buried, what happens after a great battle and the invading army has left and the land is now empty. The birds come and pick the carcasses clean. There is nothing left of the inhabitants of the land except their dry bones. As he gazes with horror, I suspect, on all of these bones, God’s voice comes to him: “Can these bones live?” (v.3a)

A Wise Response: I like Ezekiel’s answer, it is an answer of wisdom.  Trying to be smart, we might have said, “Oh yes, Lord, you can do anything,” but Ezekiel knows it is not so much a matter of God’s power and ability but God’s will. He simply says, “Sovereign Lord, you alone know.” (v.3b) God has the power, God can do it, but does He want to do it. There is about to be – and this vision corresponds to it – a mighty act of judgment on this ungodly kingdom by another ungodly, but more powerful, kingdom. The sinfulness of mankind will bring about what God has warned them about. It will happen but after it, what? Is it the utter end of this ‘experiment’ by God with a chosen nation that has refused to let Him  lead them into blessing after blessing (except in the early days under David and then Solomon and once or twice afterwards), is this the end of Israel?  What is God going to say about these dry bones, these ‘left-overs’ of Israel?

New Life, New Future: We won’t work our way through what follows but God instructs Ezekiel to prophesy over these bones, life, breath from God, tendons and flesh to cover them again (v.5-10)  and they will rise up again as a vast army.  It happens as he does and then comes the word of explanation: “Then he said to me: “Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord.’” (v.11-14)

See the things He says through Ezekiel:

• “I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them;
• I will bring you back to the land of Israel.
• Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord,
• I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and
• I will settle you in your own land.
• Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord.’”

And, remember, this is all spoken before the destruction comes. God will sovereignly move to restore Israel to the Land. His plans, that we saw in earlier studies to use Israel in a variety of way, have not changed. Israel will still be there in some four hundred years when the time is ripe for Jesus to come!

Overview: But what we see here is also a picture of God’s intents for mankind. As we’ve seen before – and again it was through Ezekiel – He doesn’t delight in deaths of people, He wants them to return to Him so that a relationship with Him can be lived out and He can further express His love to us. This is the ongoing message of the Bible. It was a purpose stated from before time began and reiterated again and again and again through the pages of the Bible. God does not want us to remain in the mess we so often create for ourselves, but wants to restore us to lives of peace, harmony, blessing, provision, safety and security. This is the end result of His restoring work.

The terrible thing about this, we should never forget, is that even the weakest of us can resist His will, for He never forces it upon us. All of this goodness is there for the taking but it only comes as the outworking of the relationship with Him for He is peace, He is love, He is goodness and we share all those things as we share in Him.  May we learn that.

8. Mourning & Grieving (2)

Transformation Meditations: 8. Mourning & Grieving (2)

Isa 61:1-3   He has sent me ….. to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion

In the previous study we focused on personal grief, what happens when someone close to us has gone, but I am aware that when Isaiah wrote these words he included, “in Zion” which suggests that he also had in mind the grief that a man or woman of God would have felt when Israel went through times of unbelief and the land was invaded and Jerusalem was plundered, and the glory of God removed.

We find such times of mourning in the life of Israel expressed in its earliest years by David when Saul and Jonathan were killed in battle by the Philistine army. This man, described as a man after God’s own heart, poured out his grief when he heard of their deaths with the refrain, “How the mighty have fallen!” (2 Sam 1:1) and repeated again and again “How the mighty have fallen in battle!” (2 Sam 1:25,27) The song of lament extols them both, despite the fact that again and again Saul had tried to kill him. He extols Saul, honoring his position of king over the people.

Years later Jeremiah (it is believed) lamented over the destroyed Jerusalem after Nebuchadnezzar’s army had burned down both city and Temple: “How deserted lies the city, once so full of people! How like a widow is she, who once was great among the nations! She who was queen among the provinces has now become a slave.” (Lam 1:1) In chapter 2, verses 1 to 8 it is again and again attributed to the Lord. Yet in chapter 3 there is hope: “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.” The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.” (v.22-26) Anguish with hope.

In the New Testament Jesus mourns over what will yet happen to Jerusalem: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate.” (Mt 23:37,38)

In each case there is a mourning over what has happened or what is about to happen to the people of God and, more specifically in the latter two, to Jerusalem, the city that held the Temple where the Lord had revealed His glory, a glory that had gone.

The question arises, are we sensitive to the state of God’s people, do we yearn to see the glory of God revealed in and through His people, do we anguish when that is absent? The song of the Messiah brings hope, because the Messiah is sent to comfort us, even when we mourn over the loss of His glory. One day Jesus WILL return (see Rev 19) and God’s honor will be restored. In the meantime those with eyes to see grieve over so much formal ritualistic religion where the life of God is absent, but they also rejoice when they come across the body of Christ empowered and directed and moving by the Spirit and the glory of the Lord is seen. Pray over both situations.

7. Mourning and Grieving (1)

Transformation Meditations: 7. Mourning & Grieving (1)

Isa 61:1-3   He has sent me ….. to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion

The list of those to whom the Messiah has been sent to minister goes on to include those who mourn and grieve. The synonyms for the two words are almost exactly the same so it suggests Hebrew parallelism, but the action for both is apparently different. A dictionary suggests ‘to comfort’ means, ‘to ease or alleviate a person’s feelings of grief or distress,’ while ‘to provide’ means, ‘to make available something’. So the Messiah comes to alleviate a person’s distress by providing them with something. The implication is that when we mourn we are lacking something which the Messiah then comes to provide.

So when do we mourn? We mourn over loss of someone loved. We have a sense of sadness at their absence. The word grieving is slightly stronger and usually speaks of a more intense sorrow at such loss. Now this is a subject that calls for honesty. We are all different and we all feel differently about people we love. I have taken and attended a number of funerals and watched ‘the mourners’.

Some people stand or sit throughout the service in tears, others appear unmoved, and Christians often rejoice at the ‘promotion’ of their loved one to heaven. Yes, there will still be a great gap in our lives at the loss of our loved one, but the reality of heaven and the comfort of the Lord’s presence can turn such a time into a time of praise and worship.  However strong the reality, the anguish is still so great for some that tears are the appropriate expression. There is no ‘right’ way.

But then there is the death of a loved one who has gone through years, perhaps, of suffering, and death is a welcome relief. Most people feel it is unseemly to express such relief at such times, but it is the reality and we should not feel guilty about it. Then, of course, there is the death of a person we hardly knew, and sorrow is almost hypocritical in such a case. Care and concern for those who remain, is something else.

So we said that the Lord, the Messiah, Jesus, comes to provide something that is missing. What can that be? There may be loneliness, an acute sense of being left alone when a life-long partner passes away. The Lord comes to bring comfort through an intense sense of his loving presence. For some grief may be accompanied by fear, an intense worry about how they will cope on their own. Again, perfect love casts out fear (1Jn 4:18 – although that is strictly in a context of judgment, it is nevertheless true).

The assurance that only he can bring also brings a sense of security. Similarly it may be the absence of peace, because of the nature of circumstances surrounding the death, but again it is the Lord’s presence with us that brings that peace. “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles.” (2 Cor 1:3,4) God is known as a God of comfort, not One who stands off at a distance, impartial and uncaring. When Jesus went to the tomb of Lazarus, he wept, he felt for the people. God feels for us, draws alongside us with His comforting presence. If you are grieving, may you know that experience.

5. Darkness?

Transformation Meditations: 5. Darkness?

Isa 61:1b   He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners

The work of the Messiah, we said, is to transform us, to redeem us, to save us, and we are looking at some of the aspects of his mandate in Isaiah 61 and reiterated by Jesus in Luke 4. Previously we considered the broken-hearted, captives and prisoners. Now we need to consider darkness.

There is a specific prison that is referred to here. In a sense the other prisons we referred to are legitimate but this characteristic needs special attention – darkness. Isaiah, speaking about Galilee prophesied, “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.” (Isa 9:1,2 reiterated in Mt 4:15,16) Now why was Galilee in the north of Canaan referred to as being a place of darkness?

First, it may be that being furthest away from the Temple in Jerusalem, the presence of the Lord seemed weakest, if I may put it like that. His light, His glory, seemed at a distance. There are some for whom the presence of the Lord always seems at a distance. You hear it spoken of, but it is mere words.

Second, Galilee being in the north was always the first to bear the brunt of the enemy invaders that so often came from the countries of the north; they were more vulnerable than the south. There are some who, for a variety of reasons, feel more vulnerable to attacks of the enemy.

Third, because of that, there would be what can only be described as a dread of what might be coming. It only need a whisper, a rumour, that countries to the north are arming and a dread would fall afresh. There are some who live with a sense of fear, of dread of what ‘might’ happen. The enemy has imposed a sense of insecurity and you almost expect the worst.

What is the answer to these three things that bring a darkness to our hearts and minds? It has to be, first of all, the truth, the word of God. The Lord is with you and for you (Rom 8:31) and will never leave you or forsake you (Heb 13:5) and is working for your good (Rom 8:28). He has plans and purposes for you (Eph 2:10), plans that are good (Jer 29:11). He loves you (1 Jn 4:4,16) and sent Jesus to die specifically for you as an expression of His love for you (Jn 3:16,17) so that now you are a child of God (1 Jn 3:1) This is the truth. Stand before a mirror every morning and declare these truths. Copy the verses our and declare them every morning.

Second, it has to be the presence of His own Holy Spirit who does indwell you (1 Cor 3:16, 6:19) if you are a Christian, born again of His Spirit (Jn 3:3-8), and He is your inner resource if you will listen to Him, to His words of encouragement and affirmation, but it will mean resisting the lies of the enemy: “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you.” (Jas 4:7,8) He HAS come to release you from darkness (Isa 61:1, Col 1:13). We are children of light (1Thess 5:5) and so darkness – fear, dread etc. – is to no longer be part of our lives. May it be so.

4. Prisoners?

Transformation Meditations: 4. Prisoners?

Isa 61:1b   He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners

The work of the Messiah is to transform us, to redeem us, to save us, and we are looking at some of the aspects of his mandate in Isaiah 61 and reiterated by Jesus in Luke 4. Yesterday we considered the broken-hearted; today we consider captives and prisoners.

Perhaps when we think of drug addicts or alcoholics, the concept of someone being a prisoner to their addiction is easy to understand. Thinking about humanity being prisoners needs a little more thought. Accepting that there may still be aspects of our present lives that indicate we are still prisoners, requires honesty and grace.

Now it seems there is specific similarity in these two words – captive and prisoner. They both imply in their meaning having had their freedom taken away by someone or something else. A definition of a ‘captive’ is ‘a person who has been taken prisoner’. Definitions of a ‘prisoner’ include, ‘a person captured and kept confined by another’ and ‘a person who is or feels confined or trapped by a situation’.

The first place we can be captives is in our head. First there are the lies we believe. Someone told us again and again when we were young that we were rubbish, worthless, failures, and so now we believe it; it is ingrained in our thinking, but it is a lie. You are made in the image of God and precious to God, you are someone, someone special. If you’ve become a Christian, God loved you so much that He sent His Son to die for you (Jn 3:16,17)

Second, there is the anguish we feel in our minds as we battle with either guilt or fear. Perhaps we did fail and maybe it was big-time and so yes, we were guilty, but Jesus died for that failure, died for that guilt and shame, and having confessed it to him, you can now be free from it. In fact if you feel it is still there and you have confessed it, realise it is the voice of the enemy you are listening to. Draw near to the Lord, resist the enemy and tell him to leave with his lies (Jas 4:7).

But then we may be captive to bad circumstances. Maybe there are those to whom we are related, or those who are over us at work, who impose on us, abuse us, and demean us. Find a spiritual friend or church leader, share it with them; you probably need support to break free from that relationship. It doesn’t have to continue. Stop being a prisoner to other people.

Some of us will be prisoner to a creeping illness, or an infirmity, or just creeping old age. We can’t escape it. We can pray against it and we can ask others to pray for us, but if at the end of that it still seems that this is the path the Lord wants you to walk, remember that His grace is always there for you and as He said to Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Cor 12:9) Those are not glib or trite words but the truth. Even in weakness, even in limitation, His power can be present.

Be a person who draws near to Him and knows His presence and in that presence, you will find power to cope; not merely to survive but to glow, even in adversity, even in affliction, even in illness. You may be a worn ‘earthen vessel’ but you contain the glory of God (2 Cor 4:6,7). May you know it. “He has sent me to … proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.” 

2. The Poor?

Transformation Meditations: 2. The Poor?

Isa 61:1 the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.

We have started to look at the subject of life transformation that takes place when a person encounters God and we have started by looking at the Messiah’s mandate in Isa 61, quoted by Jesus of himself when he started his ministry.  The Messiah comes and says, this is what my Father wants me to do – to proclaim good news. When Jesus started his ministry he declared, “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mk 1:15)

How frustrating; there it is again, ‘good news’. Well, perhaps we have to see Jesus’ summary of what he then went on to do: “The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.” (Mt 11:5) Well good news certainly for the first five in that list, but there it is yet again, this reference to ‘good news’ being proclaimed to ‘the poor’. So what is the ‘good news’ and who are ‘the poor’?

Well I am old enough to remember the excitement in the Christian world when ‘the Cross and the Switchblade’ was published, the story of a young pastor who felt called to the streets of New York. It’s a long time back so my quote may not be completely accurate, but I remember one time when he was looking on the street people as his team was preaching in the slum streets and he pondered on what they were really achieving. A girl, I believe it was, came up to him and said, in respect of the salvation she and a number of others had received as the Gospel was preached there, something like, “Pastor Dave, the streets don’t change, the poverty and drugs are still here, and we still live here, but inside we are utterly different, utterly changed.” Something like that, at least. That stayed with me. The outward circumstances may remain the same – we may still be on low incomes, in poor circumstances – but inwardly we are transformed.

It may not be monetary ‘poor’; surely the blind, the lame, the lepers and the dead of that list in Mt 11 are poor. Surely those in Isaiah’s list – the broken-hearted, captives, prisoners, those who mourn and grieve, those in despair, they are all ‘poor’. Surely the reality is that anyone who has not entered into a living relationship with Almighty God, anyone who has not received the riches of God’s kindness, forbearance and patience (Rom 2:4), His shared glory (Rom 9:23), His wisdom and knowledge (Rom 11:33), His grace (Eph 1:7), His glorious inheritance (Eph 1:18), and his power through His Spirit (Eph 3:16).

So what is the good news for these people, for all of us, because whoever we are, if we haven’t entered all of those things, we are ‘poor’. The ‘good news’ that God announces from heaven is that, “I love you, I have sent Jesus to die for you, I want to redeem you, justify you, forgive you, adopt you and empower you, transform you.” THAT is the good news. Let’s exult in the wonder of it, praise and worship Him for it, share it, and ensure it is beyond mere words, but comes with the power of the Spirit to guarantee that complete life transformation.

1. Transformation Declared

PART ONE: The Need

Transformation Meditations: 1. Transformation Declared

Isa 61:1-3 The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners,  to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion — to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.

I recently finished the series entitled, ‘Reaching into Redemption’ which was all about the ongoing redemption process of God which starts when we are saved and continues throughout our lives. Some might prefer to refer to this as our sanctification, but I wanted to put the focus on the Lord and His activity, even though it did involve us. Having completed that series I have pottered in various attempts at other meditations but find myself coming back to this subject of ‘transformation’, the incredible nature of what takes place when God meets with a human being.  The thrust or main purpose of this, I sense as I have prayed, is the potential for life change that comes with encounters with God, something that perhaps we so often take for granted. My intent is that each of these (limited number of) meditations will be a lot shorter that those ‘Redemption’ ones, for I am aware the length of those required a high level of discipline to read, so I am intending to make these more manageable.

In this first study I simply want to take a preliminary look at these amazing verses from Isaiah that Jesus quoted at the beginning of his ministry in a synagogue in Nazareth (see Lk 4:18,19) Let’s be very simple; the intent of the Messiah, empowered and directed by the Spirit of God, was to proclaim good news to the poor, but that wasn’t just a word exercise, it was to be a life transforming exercise:

• He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted,
• to proclaim freedom for the captives and
• release from darkness for the prisoners….
• to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion
• to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes,
• the oil of joy instead of mourning, and
• a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.

Note first of all the people he goes to: the poor, the broken-hearted, the captives, prisoners, those who mourn and grieve and despair, to bring them to a place where there is something beautiful about them, and they are characterized by joy and known as a people of praise. So here’s the questions that must follow: do we see people around us without Christ like this, do we see life transformations like this when they (we) come to Christ, or is our evangelism simply words without power? The activity of Jesus seen through these words is a power ministry and he says to us, “whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing.” (Jn 14:12) May it be so.

17. Are the resources too few?

Meditations on “God of Transformation: 17:  Are the resources too few?

Matt 14:16,17   Jesus replied, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.”   “We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered.

Yesterday we considered the feeding of the five thousand, and even calling it that, highlights the problem – the need is too great – and when the need appears too great we can be made to feel hopeless in the face of it. There are too many starving people in the world. It is hopeless! There are too many non-believers in this country; we are outnumbered, it is hopeless. Well humanly speaking that is true but crisis equations or spiritual conundrums work differently. Imagine it like this: MASSIVE PROBLEM + tiny human resources = inactivity and no change to the MASSIVE PROBLEM and if that is what you work with, that is how it will be.

But consider a different approach: MASSIVE PROBLEM + tiny human resources + intervention of God = Transformation. Our problem, all too often, is that we focus on the tiny resources and say, “We can’t do this!” We allow their smallness to keep us looking at them hopelessly and so we fail to turn to the Lord and say, “Lord, what do you want to do with these resources and what part do you want me to play in this?”

The two feedings of the two crowds have exactly the same elements, MASSIVE PROBLEM + tiny resources.  Well they are resources adequate for one  or maybe two people but look at them in the light of the MASSIVE PROBLEM and they are dwarfed  and appear simply as tiny resources that are completely inadequate for the situation. Both sets of feedings (the 5000 and the 4000) have the same transforming element – Jesus! Size, magnitude, volume, whatever are no problem to the one who helped bring the world into being and now upholds it. Here he changed food; at a wedding he changed water into wine. It’s all the same, he is the God who can transform our material circumstances; we’ve just got to believe in him and believe he is here for us – and then be available, because as we said previously, he loves involving us.

If you want an Old Testament picture of transformation that we have not covered (well not this part anyway) look at Moses arguing with God at the burning bush. Moses has shrugged off all of the Lord’s arguments to use him until eventually, “the LORD said to him, “What is that in your hand?” (Ex 4:2) Now, as we’ve said many times before, when the Lord asks questions it is not because He needs knowledge but He wants to draw your attention to something.  Moses looks at his hand: “A staff,” he replied.”  You see, it doesn’t need a great deal of revelation to see what you have that the Lord wants to transform; you just have to stop, pause, think, look and take note of what you have.

“The LORD said, “Throw it on the ground.”  What? Let go of it and let me do something with it. You have a gift (yes, you do) but you hold it tight because it is precious to you, you value it, it’s all you’ve got. All right, now let go of it and let me transform it!

“Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake, and he ran from it!”  Wooah! What happened, that’s not my gift anymore! No it’s not, it’s God’s and He’s showing it to you in a different form, the form of the snake, Satan the enemy  because even a gift or an ability can be used by the enemy to bolster you and stop you going on to receive the full blessing of the Lord. It is still yours but it’s being shown you in a different form.

Now you need to take hold of it and use it for God’s purposes: “Then the LORD said to him, “Reach out your hand and take it by the tail.” So Moses reached out and took hold of the snake and it turned back into a staff in his hand. “This,” said the LORD, “is so that they may believe that the LORD, the God of their fathers–the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob–has appeared to you.” (v.4,5) When you take control of it as the Lord directs, it will be transformed again and that transformation will convince others and bring changes. It may be that that picture may be a picture of what has to happen to your life. You may need to lay it down for the Lord and He may need to transform it, initially into something that does not look good, but then He will transform it back into something that in His hand can do great things. Moses is going to take this staff and hold it out over the land and see things change. The ‘staff’ may your gifts or it may simply be your will. Very often the first tiny resources to be changed are us, but the Lord looks for our willingness and availability.

Jesus takes the tiny resources, the loaves and fish, gives thanks, breaks them and hands them to the disciples. OK, you take them and feed the MASSIVE PROBLEM with them, and when they do, the tiny resources appear as MASSIVE RESOURCES feeding a TINY PROBLEM! Heavenly algebra is good isn’t it!

Sometimes it simply needs the wisdom of God to bring transformation. This happened many years ago. I caught a vision from heaven about reaching out to a local needy community providing a Saturday morning club for 6 to 8 year olds (I didn’t see those younger and those older seemed too daunting, so this was the age group I was left with). I shared it with the church and only one person responded with enthusiasm. In fact most other people said, “We’re too busy or too tired, and there’s not enough of us to do something like this.”  We prayed and felt we should go to the youngest house group we had and ask their advice. We went to them and said, “Look this is what we’re going to do but we need ideas and we think you’d do better at coming up with ideas than us. Can we brainstorm ideas for ten minutes and see what we come up with for us?” Ten minutes later we had a board covered with about thirty ideas and then one of the group said, “Hey I like those, I could do that” and another joined in and said, “Yes, me too.” Before we left that evening we had a full team and shortly after started a work that lasted a number of years. It needed a vision that people could buy into but to get there we needed the Lord’s wisdom first.

What MASSIVE PROBLEM is there, out there in your community, that the Lord wants to do something about? What has He put on your heart but you’ve said, “Oh no, it’s too big and my resources are too small!”  Talk to Him about your need of His wisdom and then listen and get ready to move.  He’s just waiting to transform your tiny resources!

15. Is this too impossible?

Meditations on “God of Transformation: 15:  Is this too impossible?

John 3:4   How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born!”

There is a form of religious life that is content with a religion that reveals itself through ritual “in church” and in “being nice”. These people, when asked, say they are Christians for, after all, they go to church regularly don’t they and they ARE by many standards, nice people. The apostle Paul wrote to his young protégé, Timothy, about such people – “having a form of godliness but denying its power.” (2 Tim 3:5) These are people who take on a form niceness or religiosity but who have not been impacted by the power of God.

We have now seen two week’s worth of these studies (assuming you read one a day) and so what we have seen again and again is God changing people or situations by His power. Again the apostle Paul wrote, “the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power.” (1 Cor 4:20) Mere words do not take a person into God’s kingdom, the place where God’s presence is, where God’s reign is expressed. It is power – God’s power. This is the truth that many do not like, that we can only enter God’s kingdom, we can only be truly changed on the inside, by HIS power working in us and transforming us.

And this brings us to Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus and the use by Jesus of the phrase being ‘born again’. Oh, say some defensively, this is just those people who try and be super-spiritual, trying to make it all sound something more complex that it is. Well actually you cannot be more simple that to accept Jesus’ very simple analogy: “Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” (Jn 3:3)  Make that more simple and you might say, “No one can enter into a living relationship with God unless he or she receives a completely new life.”

Now note the words “new life”. This is not “a new set of rules to follow” which is what we put on and try to work on, but it is an absolute change of life, which starts on the inside and works outwards. It means the things you start saying or doing come  about because of the change that is taking place on the inside. There is a transformation here that goes beyond mere superficial behaviour; this is heart change, attitude change, belief change, life transformation.

Oh this is too complicated, says the nice religious person, you don’t need to make it that complicated! No, precisely, it is not complicated it is ultra simple. I don’t normally try and distil things down to ‘three point sermons’  but let’s try and do that for simplicity sake here.

First there is a change in belief. In fact there are two beliefs that change and they may come in different orders with different people. The first change in belief is about me. I come to realise that I am lost, I am not the good person I kidded myself I was, as much as I put on a good front. I try to be nice but every now and then I get a flash of insight and realise that I am actually not nice and this comes when I say or do things less than are worthy of a nice person. Most of the time I used to cover it up and pretend that’s not how things were but it didn’t matter how much I tried, when I was being honest with myself, I knew I was still just a self-centred individual and God seems miles away. I could go to church but it was mere ritual and the thought of God being close or even speaking to me was completely foreign.

It was my recognition that I needed help that turned me in God’s direction and I found that I was confronted by a God of love who wanted to come and bring change to me. This God was revealed through the person of Jesus Christ, God’s unique Son, who came and expressed the love of God in a most wonderful way but then, allowed himself to be crucified, put to death in the most horrendous way possible. Why? I was told it was to take the punishment that was due to me for all the sins of my life. So how does that affect me, I asked. It means the way is open for you to come close to God and receive His love and forgiveness. How can that happen?

Thus we come to the second thing which is a simple action by me. I bow before Him and surrender my life to Him and ask Him to forgive me. It IS that simple.

Then the third thing is what God does for me. First there is His declarations – I am forgiven, I am cleansed and I am adopted as His child. Second, there is His action, which is to put His own Holy Spirit within my life, within me, inside me – yes, that’s it. His Spirit is His power and so He doesn’t just call us children, He gives us power or the ability to live as His children. We have this new power source on the inside and it is that which transforms us.  His very presence within me, picks up the change of attitude that I offered to Him – for Him to take and lead and transform my life – and He does just that. He communicates with my by His Spirit within, as well as by His word, the Bible, and He guides me, teaches me and leads me on. I am a new person, from the inside out, but it is not just me, it is Him in me.  Again the apostle Paul put it, “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Cor 5:17)

I could not do this because it is not merely a wish to change – I had had that before but couldn’t do it when I strived to. No, this only happens when I invite Him in and He comes in the power that is His Spirit, and He changes me from the inside out and empowers me to walk or live it out every day until I die and go to be with Him in heaven. Yes, it IS impossible humanly speaking, but this isn’t humanly speaking, this is the God of transformation being invited in and He comes and transforms.

To take out of context a beautiful little word from Jesus, “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.” (Rev 3:20) How that encapsulates what happens. He comes knocking on our lives. We probably don’t realise that it is Him but when we start questioning who we are, that is Him knocking. He brings us to a point of surrender where we open the door of our lives – our will – and we invite Him in. Then look at the promise – He will come in and sit and share most intimately with us, that is what eating together is all about. That is the most beautiful picture possible perhaps that distinguishes the new life from that old self-centred and (in truth) godless life that we had previously. What an incredible transformation! Hallelujah!