Look beyond appearances.

What do you see,

When you look at me

Confined though I be

Through age and frailty?

            Look beyond my decrepit form.

            Despise not my senility.

            Peer beneath my wrinkled brow,

                                                                    Discover my true identity.

 A passer-by sees but ‘the outer’

Unaware of the real ‘inner’.

Hidden within are many stories

Of love, loss, faith and glory,

Friendships, family, history,

All which moulded me

Though they, you will not see,

Made me, me!

            To see only my frailty

            Cheapens my humanity.

            If un-mendable,

            I’m expendable,

Come, ask me about my history.

Listen as I share my journey

Of difficult turbulent years,

Upheaval too, but triumph’s tears

And joys shared with my peers.

We had community, we belonged!

Life was tough, friendships strong,

Things for which I do so long.

            Now our importunity

            Is your opportunity

            To give us dignity

            In compassion’s sincerity

 You, like I, must walk from youth to age

Each step you’ll write upon life’s page,

Face it with faith in the God who cares.

Through His word, in times of despair,

Find wisdom and hope so as to endure,

And by His grace stand ‘true blue’ and pure

So when your life’s race and battles end

You’ll be received by the Lord as His friend.

For Christ‘s promise to you, me,

Because of the cross of Calvary

And His resurrection victory,

We can share in His eternity.  

 ©Ray Hawkins Feb.1 2018

 

 

The Energy of a Joyful Heart.

There is enough going on to crush your spirit. There’s no escaping its ‘arrows’. The effect it can, and usually does have, is to make a person a ‘punctured tyre.’ Sure you can keep going, but the movement is hard work and ultimately damaging. The writer of Provers summed it up this way:  A merry heart makes a cheerful countenance: but by sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken.’ Proverbs 15:13. He also wrote in 17:22, ‘A broken spirit dries the bones.’

We live in a ‘wacky’ world. Do yo agree? Do you find it nigh on impossible to have the inner energy required to create a merry heart that doesn’t evaporate? Sure, we have a pleasant moments which touch us and then vanish. Is there something which will grip us, take root within and revive a broken spirit? If there is, and it has a proven track record, are you interested?

The writer of Proverbs likened it to a merry heart. Trouble is we can be merry one moment and mournful the next.  A far better word which also has its own energy power- plant is ‘Joy.’ The term must be linked to someone, something beyond a nice, fuzzy feeling, otherwise it too will crash and burn. The best example from Scripture has to be Jeremiah. This prophet was energised by joy amidst spirit depressing, ‘bone’ crushing experiences.

This prophet had it tough. Branded a traitor, his sermons wasted on the callous and indifferent and being shoved down a stinking well as a prison should crush the spirit. To top it all off, he witnessed the destruction of his beloved city Jerusalem, then was forced to go to Egypt never to return. What legacy did he leave us to verify the case for being energised by joy in a joyless situation?

The book of tears, Lamentations which is the 25^th book in the Bible, reveals the inner energy of joy. This energy is linked with hope grounded in an unconditional promise. Here are Jeremiah’s power-packed words. “This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope. It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. The Lord is my portion; therefore I will hope in Him. The Lord is good to them that wait for him, to the soul that seeks him" 3:21-25.

Was the prophet delirious in his brokenness? No! Where then did he rest his heart? On what was his hope built? The promise of Yahweh that the Messiah would come through Israel. No apostasy of the nation, no captivity by Babylon or others, no device of the Devil would prevent what we call the Christmas event. Jeremiah recorded “Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me joy and rejoicing of mine heart.” Jeremiah 15:16. He also believed the promise that in the future of the nation. “It shall be to me (God) a name of joy, a praise and honour before all the nations of the earth …” Jeremiah 33:9.

Notice the energy supply line. God’s promises, recorded in the Bible, provide hope which can be ‘eaten’ by faith and create joy. In turn this dissolves the darkness of despair and ‘pumps up the tyre’ of the heart. There is something beyond description when a person today feeds upon God’s Word. In the words of Scripture, ‘The joy of the Lord is your strength.’ A faith relationship grounded on the rock of His promise producing hope that energises the spirit.

Next week: What was the joy of Jesus that He promised to share? John 15:11

©Ray Hawkins October 8^th 2017.

health and well-being

Travellers wanting to fly must go through security check points. Electronic surveillance, sniffer dogs and body searches are designed to uncover explosive materials, illicit compounds and dangerous weapons. This is to ensure the safety of others as well as the individual.

The psalmist realised his need to be ‘explosives free’ in his journey through life. “Search me O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts” was his prayer. He wanted God to give him a security check. Why? The reason is quoted by Jeremiah: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? (17:9).

In September 2017 a city in Germany had a number of city blocks evacuated. Why? Because a world war bomb was unearthed on a construction site. It was defused. There are many spiritual bombs often long buried in a person’s heart which one day could explode. The Lord is the ‘Bomb’ unearth-er so as to defuse and destroy the destructive devices of the carnal nature. How sad it is to see lives, relationships, fel

lowships blown apart because a person has put up a sign to God ‘do not enter.’

Doctor or other health professionals are there to provide us with a report on our well-being, health and fitness. They also can recommend the treatments for any ailments causing us concerns. The psalmist in psalm 26:2 has asked the Lord to “Examine me, O Lord, and prove me; try my reins and my heart.” There are times when we have to summon up our courage to seek a health check. We don’t want to know if there’ something amiss. This can apply to our relationship with God. Such an attitude is self-destructive. We can call Jesus the ‘Great Physician’ but steer clear of His surgery. Trouble with that is, one day we will stand before Him anyway but this time as our Judge.

Christ Jesus also has His health manual for us to do some self-examinations. The Bible is a book for spiritual, moral, mental and relational health and well-being. To disregard it is a sure recipe for unnecessary distress, broken relationships, loss of motivation for worship, witness and walking in truth and righteousness. 2 Corinthians 13:5 challenges us with ‘Examine yourselves, whether you are in the faith; prove your own selves.’ We can be in the ‘the faith’ yet not really enjoying it because of some ungodliness. We can also be a ‘virus’ infecting the life of someone in our family or circle of friends because of our mean spirit and flaying tongue. That is dangerous, especially when we worship the Lord and share in Communion. The account in 1 Corinthians 11:29-30 show the personal and corporate ill-health when a Christian is out of godly well-being. That is why we need to constantly obey 1 Corinthians 11:28 ‘Let a man examine himself. And so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup.’

There is an increasing tendency for those seeking good health to have a personal trainer. That man or woman will put you through the various regimes to build you up and improve your life. The aim is only achieved as you push through the pain barriers, go beyond what you perceive as your limitations. Your coach is there for your fitness and you must rust him or her. This also applies to our relationship with our spiritual and moral personal trainer. The Holy Spirit has His regime for us to be able to walk the narrow way, stand strong against the forces of evil, and run the race set before us.

That involves kneeling before the Lord in worship, feeding upon His word, drinking of the Living Water, sharpening your relationships with faithfulness. Sometimes the personal trainer will take us through what is felt like ‘the trial of fire.’  Opposition to our faith, hurdles of hardship to jump, mountains of difficulties to climb and valleys of grief and confusion to negotiate. When you emerge from any or all of these you will realise that your personal trainer, the Holy Spirit, has been with you all the way. You may have felt alone but His promise is to be with you all the time, all the way. To use the analogy from Zechariah 13:9, “I will … refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, [you are] my people: and they shall say, the Lord is my God!”

“Lord search me! Examine me! Try me! And equip me to be your witness, to walk honourably, to worship you thankfully, to express your wisdom graciously and to express your winsomeness constantly. Amen”

Copyright Ray Hawkins 1 October 2017.

Check the Chains you wear.

A mural from Sheffield, Tas.

Pray for us too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. Colossians 4:3. Paul the apostle of Christ.

When the apostle Paul gave his testimony before Festus and King Agrippa, they heard the greatest offer the heart can hear. Paul’s ministry to the Gentiles included the news that God was offering forgiveness for sins committed against Him. The Roman Governor and the Idumean king Agrippa seemed to have found this too much for their mind to handle. Festus said Paul was mad and Agrippa teased Paul by inferring he, Agrippa, was almost persuaded. This seems to sum up two of the three responses to the message of the cross. The cry of Festus still echoes through many lips to-day. Agrippa also has many ‘spiritual’ descendants who, like him, are ‘almost’, and that’s the state in which they die.

Paul, a shackled prisoner without any earthly abode stood before them. Prisoner though he was he spoke as a liberated man. Paul knew he had hope. It included a place and a kingdom with Jesus who was the One promised by Scripture. How preposterous it must have seemed! The Lord’s people are often in situations similar to Paul They are prisoners of faith but have a hope in a better world to come. Festus, Agrippa, Bernice and the others failed to realise they too were prisoners. Dressed in regal attire outwardly they were inwardly shackled by sin, guilt, shame and fear. They wore not the iron chains around their body but far stronger chains imprisoned their souls. 

We all are prisoners of something or someone. In speaking to the assembled court Paul testified to the fact he was on trial as a prisoner of hope. Such hope was bound up in the promise God had given to Israel. Later on he repeated this truth to Jewish leaders in Rome: ‘It is because of the hope of Israel that I am bound with this chain.’ In effect Paul was a prisoner twice over. One was is in the literal sense of being in chains for his faith. The other was in the spiritual sense by which he was a prisoner of Christ Jesus. On both occasions his hearers were either prisoners of despair, unbelief or playthings of their unholy desires. Paul held on to a promise, they clung to wishful thinking for better things tomorrow.

As prisoners of Christ we are His ambassadors in chains declaring the freedom we have in Jesus. It sounds incongruous but it is real. True freedom is only found when we live in the environment for which we were created. For a brief moment a fish out of water might imagine it is free from its watery home only to die disillusioned. Those who reject the environment of Christ Jesus live under the same disappointment. Imagining themselves free of the Lord’s perimeters they are actually playthings of fads, fashion and futility. We were created to know, enjoy, serve and worship our Creator. To cast that relationship aside causes the soul’s darkness, self-delusion, meaninglessness and a sense of foreboding about death.

As prisoners of Faith speaking to prisoners of unbelief, what we offer can make it worthwhile for them to exchange ‘chains.’  In Acts 25 and 26 are such words as ‘hope in what God has promised’: ‘God has raised the dead (referring to Jesus) to bring light into their darkness: to deliver from Satan’s power:’ ‘receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me (Christ.).’  We must always see beyond the taunts prisoners of unbelief throw our way as they flaunt their seemingly unrestricted lifestyle. As Proverbs says of them, there is a way which seems right unto man but the end of it is death. (Proverbs 16:25) For the prisoners of Christ the end is Life eternal and beautiful. Therefore from one prisoner to another heed these words, ‘As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. (Colossians 4:1.)

Being the Lord Jesus’ prisoner has its limitations morally and ethically. At times we can feel a little despondent as others advance within the World’s scene, accumulating honours, possessions and money while we are despised and ignored. It can hurt when they look with scorn or pity on you as you live under the direction of the Master. Our spiritual sanity can only be assured as we keep our eyes on Jesus Christ through His word. He must be our life, our hope, our true freedom and our message. 

Reflection: What makes being a prisoner of Christ Jesus worthwhile?

Request: May my commitment to you Lord Jesus be something that causes someone somewhere to see it as a magnificent madness. Amen

©Ray Hawkins 31^st July 2016.