As we emerge from lockdown, however it has been for us, and contemplate the next few weeks, there is an important opportunity to reflect on our lifestyle. What has changed? What needs to change? What are the good things we have learnt about ourselves, living, and being with others, during this time? What are the habits we may have developed, as we found ways to keep going? The next few months are going to be new, strange, challenging and demanding. There will be a need for mutual encouragement and hope-sharing. Also, a need to be gentle with ourselves, and each other.
For the next four Thursdays I am offering a short reflection to help us focus. How does God ask us to live? What is he saying? A foundation text for this series is Romans 12: 1-2:
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
1 Thessalonians 5: 16-24
16 Rejoice always, 17 pray continually, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
19 Do not quench the Spirit. 20 Do not treat prophecies with contempt 21 but test them all; hold on to what is good, 22 reject every kind of evil.
23 May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.
President Obama is a gifted orator. One of his techniques is to use short sentences. This drives the message home. I love this short section of this letter – one of Paul’s first, written maybe twenty years or so after Jesus’s time on earth, to the new church in Thessalonica. I imagine him drawing to a close, and wanting to go back to basics – to say foundation words. He urges:
- Rejoice always
- Pray continually… thinking aloud with the lord helps remind you he is with you
- Give thanks – even in the tough circumstances – God is still there
- Seek the Spirit’s flow
- Listen
- Test
- and discern the good (from God)
Then this beautiful prayer of blessing. I love the Brian Doerksen song:
Purify my heart
Let me be as gold and precious silver
Purify my heart
Let me be as gold, pure goldRefiner's fire,
My heart's one desire
Is to be holy
Set apart for You, Lord
I choose to be holy
Set apart for You, my Master
Ready to do Your willPurify my heart
Cleanse me from within
And make me holy
Purify my heart
Cleanse me from my sin, deep withinRefiner's fire….
And finally, this great verse – particularly for those who feel they are where they are meant to be, but not sure of the way ahead…
24 The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.
Trust, trust and trust.
Amen
Nigel Rawlinson
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