The aim of our charge is love

1 Timothy 1:5
'The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.'

Paul is saying here, that the aim, the goal of our purpose as children of God is..... LOVE, no new news there. However what struck me is that Paul explains this love as a set of components. It's like a compound. Unless you have all the elements necessary then you won't have the overall compound that is the love Paul is talking about. Paul demonstrates that Love is the compound made up of three elements; A pure heart, good conscience and a sincere faith. All of these elements are essential to love, it's not true love unless you have all three.

So, let's look at these elements.

A pure heart
A heart can only be pure if it's cleaned up from all the bad stuff. If there's; unforgiveness, hate, lust, any kind of ungodly desire, then the heart is not pure. Surely no-one can have a pure heart then? We all have stuff within our hearts which we are not proud of, or thoughts that we aren't happy about but we don't seem to be able to help it.
That's why Jesus came.
He came and died, then rose again in order for us to be cleaned up. He purifies our hearts if we believe and trust in him. Jesus is the greatest demonstration for us of a pure heart. He never did any wrong, He wasn't corrupted by sin and all his motives were good. If you are conscious that your heart isn't pure, ask Jesus to take away the thoughts, the deeds, the desires and purify your heart. He has died for those things so that you too can be set free and have a pure heart.

A good conscience.
Oh my, it seems to get harder! A good conscience. We often have little battles in our minds; what's the right thing to do, the easiest thing, the nicest thing (for others or us), what do I actually want to do.
It's like a constant stream of pondering and decision making. It can be quite tiring.
To have a good conscience is knowing that the decisions we make are the right ones. Not feeling guilty - now that wouldn't that be freedom! Not feeling ashamed of current or past mistakes or decisions, but having a clean slate. Starting afresh. This can be true for you and I.
If we turn to God, admit that we mess up, and accept Jesus died for us, then we can replace our confused conscience with a good one. The old mind is renewed.
The Bible says, when we follow Jesus we are given, 'the mind of Christ' (1 Corinthians 2:16). I think most of us will agree that Christ (Jesus) was a pretty good guy, and made good decisions, so if we have his mind we will have the same ability. I'm not saying that the internal discussions that are within ourselves will stop, but we will have more of a sense of what we should do - it's still up to us to decide to do it though!

Sincere faith. 
Now this is the bit that's left up to us. This is our responsibility. God sorts out the other bits when we repent and believe in him. This part is our duty. Sincere faith.
Just saying we believe in God and Jesus is not enough. Do you live like you know it? Has your life changed from before you discovered the truth about who God is?
Is your faith displayed? Do you practice what you preach? Do you walk in the ways God guides you to go? Or are you harbouring secret sin or avoiding going to church or ignoring what you know is right to do?
Sincere faith knows what is right, and does it.
Sincere faith is not passive, it is active.
Unless your faith is sincere, grounded, wholehearted, then what kind of faith is it?

The aim of our charge is love...
Do you have all the elements necessary to demonstrate God's love through your life?

Hopefully saved

1 Timothy 1
'God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope'

God our saviour 
God has saved us from ourselves. He will rescue us from the danger we put ourselves in. He will free us. Liberate us from all the guilt and shame that we carry around from the past, from the things we know we have done wrong or are continuing to do that we know aren't right. God knows that we carry the weight of it around with us. That's why He sent his son. He freed us by allowing us the opportunity to get to know who he is and accept that; He loves us, He forgives us and accepts us.
God is our champion. He is our liberator. He is our knight in shining armour that has charged along and whisked us away from the brink of death, eternal death.

That would not be enough though.

To be rescued - it's great and all that, but what next?

Unless life has a future it's futile.

Unless there's more to life than this freedom from what we do wrong, then it's pretty pointless. There must be a meaning to it, a purpose, a hope. That's why Christ Jesus is our hope.

Christ Jesus our hope

What does your hope rest on?
Do you hope for good luck? Hope your talents, skill, studies are enough? Do you hope in someone else? Or in a particular organisation? These hopes are fallible. At some point they will let you down. The will break your trust or just not deliver what you expect - then what? Then what is there left to hope for or left to hope in?

Jesus.

That's the answer. He is our hope.

There is no point being saved if we have nothing after that. Hope is the desire and expectation of joy to come.
There is purpose in being rescued - there's better stuff coming. Jesus was and is our hope, and he will be our hope for eternity.
Through Jesus' life and death he has given us hope.

God has promised that, 'whoever believes in him (Jesus) should not perish but have eternal life.' (John 3:16).
For me, that's something to live for, the promise that there will be life after this one. There is more living to be done after this Earthly life vanishes, once this mortal body decays there's even greater hope because of Jesus.

We need both a saviour and a hope. If it's one or the other it wouldn't work. What hope would there be if we were stuck overwhelmed by the weight of our wrongdoing? What purpose would we be rescued for unless there's an expectation that there's something better?

It is good to have a king

Throughout the book of Judges, this phrase continues to occur, 'In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.'

We might think; So what? Who cares? That's probably a good thing right?
No king - no-one to pay taxes to, no-one to fuss around, if you don't have a king, then you don't have palaces to maintain, there's no-one to lead wars so it must be peaceful right?

When there's no ultimate authority, like a king, then like the verse says - people can do what they want - great then everyone will be happy right?
If , 'Everyone did what was right in his own eyes'. Then people should be content, people do what they want and get what they want - that's the way to happiness isn't it?

Now, let's think about it - if 'Everyone did what was right in his own eyes' is that such a good thing?
If everyone did what they want, what would that look like?

It would mean we could each make our own individual moral code, and we would justify our own actions. It would be very much every man for himself. Making up their own rules, taking vengeance where and how you see fit. Now, that would be ok if we only had to live with ourselves. However, we are part of; families, villages, towns, cities and countries and within those there are people. These people probably won't have the same kinds of self imposed rules or moral code as you, then there's a problem. Without a specific ruling authority then every man can do what they like when and how they like and the effects the others around them. Families, towns and countries are effected when there is no leader, no king to direct the best order of things.

Israel is a great example of this. They have no king, and often no judge bringing order for periods of time - no one is in charge. Following these times something disastrous happens because the nation takes matters into their own individual hands. We see this in different countries in the world today. Rather than being united under one king, or ruler, people make their own rules for their own individual lives, there's the usurping of governments and guerrilla warfare. Disorder, chaos and oppression reign instead.

For Israel their ultimate king is meant to be God - the Israelites were his chosen people. Time and again their usurp His place by putting themselves first and their desires first. Chaos, disorder and oppression occur when they don't look to their ultimate king.

It's the same for us. Our country has a queen, so we have an authority in this country who is responsible for the wellbeing of her subjects. Yes, we do have to pay taxes, but we also have laws which we are all required to obey for the wellbeing of everyone in this country. Rules are there to protect us and others. They help prevent the whole country from descending into anarchy. they are for the benefit of those within the kingdom. They are to protect and promote the wellbeing of those within the kingdom.

The same is for the kingdom of God. Some people believe Christianity is a bunch of old fashioned rules. What it really is, is a group of people who decide that God is their king. Yes, there are rules and guidelines that God gives, but like for our country and our queen - they are to promote the wellbeing of the people within the kingdom.

He forgives and restores

Judges 17 contains an odd little story.

It starts with a woman cursing a thief because someone has stolen a significant sum of money from her. The curse is so bad that her son feels terrible and decides to confess to stealing the money - he doesn't want that curse on his head! Then the mother praises her son for returning it.
I don't think the situation would be the same if the thief was a stranger or a neighbour even. The woman seems to forgive her son and even uses some of the money to give him a gift.

It's an odd story, I don't know if I'd react the same as the woman. She has lost a considerable amount of money through a their, and she is rightly annoyed about it. When the thief turns out to be her own son, she blesses him for returning the cash. He's only returned the cash because he doesn't want the curse though - there's nothing to do with repentance. He doesn't say sorry or anything, he just tells his Mum that he did it.

It's an odd story because although I don't agree with the morals both of these people exhibit, I can see a strong example of love within it.
The relationship between this mother and son displays love. The mother forgives her son and even returns some of the cash to him in the form of a gift. There no question that a thief would of been punished, but a son is forgiven.

This correlates to how God receives us. We do all sorts of wrong towards God, we disobey him, we ignore him and we are horrid to those around us - who are his family. Yet, God welcomes us into his home, he continues to call us sons and daughters. He knows we mess up, but his heart is big enough to cover over our wrongs because of Jesus. We are part of God's family if we believe that Jesus died for our sins. It's only then that we can know true freedom because we don't need to carry the weight of the stuff we do wrong around with us. God forgives and restores us. Like the woman forgave her son and continued her relationship with him - even blessing him in the process.

God does the same for us. He forgives and he restores.

Samson's humility

I've been reading through Judges and have come across the story of Samson. Now, many of us probably know about Samson and Delilah and that he had unbelievable strength because of his long hair. That's about as much as I've really noticed before.
 Reading this account again, he seems like a man sure of what he wants and determined to get it. Take for instance the circumstances regarding his wife - His parents don't seem too sure about him marrying a Philistine woman, but eventually they agree - it seems Samson is quite persistent and determined about what he wants.
 Let's rewind a bit - Samson is a miracle child whose birth was foretold to his parents before his Mum was pregnant, in fact she was known to be a barren woman, but gets an amazing promise that she will have a child who will begin to free Israel from oppression from the Philistines. Then, fast forward a few years and Samson wants to marry a Philistine woman - yes, a woman from the enemy. No wonder his parents weren't too keen! However, Samson seems quite determined once he decides to do something, and he managed to persuade them to allow it to happen, so they go to meet her. This section of scripture is about when Samson and his parents went out to meet his soon to be wife:

 Judges 14:5-6 'Then Samson went down with his father and mother to Timnah, and they came to the vineyards of Timnah. And behold, a young lion came toward him roaring. 6 Then the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and although he had nothing in his hand, he tore the lion in pieces as one tears a young goat. But he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done.'

 There are a couple of bits that struck me, 'he had nothing in his hand' he had NOTHING, no tool, no weapon, nothing with which to defend himself when a lion came towards him - how terrifying that would of been! I don't know about you, but I'd be legging it in the opposite direction or trying to find a tree to get out of the way, but Samson, determined as ever, stands his ground, and he manages to tear it apart! That is incredible! It is only because, 'the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him' that he was able to do it, what incredible, super strength is available through the Holy Spirit! Samson had the guts to stand up and fight his enemy, which was about to destroy him, and God helped him in the battle. Sometimes we need to be prepared to stand up and fight before we see God step in.

 What also struck me is what it says next, 'he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done'. Now, I don't know about you, but if I'd just defeated a lion or overcome a massive obstacle or challenge in my life- I'd let people know about it! Samson keeps silent.
In fact he meets up with his parents, just afterwards and they don't even notice anything different about him - no hair out of place, no massive grin spread across his face, he's not skipping with joy. It's as if nothing uncommon has happened here. Just an everyday occurrence, battling a lion! What humility Samson demonstrates. He is not full of pride, he doesn't brag, he carries on in gentle humility.

He must of acknowledged to himself that this was an incredible feat, but he doesn't let it go to his head. That's where we sometimes go wrong. Instead of acknowledging that we've been given unusual; grace, favour, strength or knowledge in situations, we can sometimes accept that we have done such a wonderful thing that WE end up being praised rather than the one who helps us. Samson seems to of got it right here. He knows what he's done, but he doesn't need other people's acclamation, adoration or approval to know who he is and what he's capable of.
He is content with knowing who he is and what God can do with him.

Later on, Samson even has opportunity to boast when he finds honey in the carcass, but he still keeps quiet about it all. He knows. That's enough.

 When we achieve great things, when we overcome amazing obstacles, help people in need or gain what seems to be impossible we should ask ourselves; do I need to tell anyone about it? If we are sharing our successes, is it about us? Is it about us getting approval, acclamation or adoration?

What is the purpose of sharing even the amazing feats God performs in us?

Samson's parents knew who he was, they knew his strength and that he had an amazing purpose. Samson didn't need to tell them this amazing feat in order for them to believe in him, they already did. They already know the amazing power and benefit of following God.

 I ask you to consider Samson, and consider who your stories need to be told to. Are they to puff you up? is it because you feel proud or desire praise in wanting to share your successes? Consider the humility of Samson, make sure you are keep your lion defeating moments to honour God. The Bible tells us in the New Testament that those who boast about their generosity, how faithful they are etc have, 'received their reward in full', make sure you're not receiving all your rewards now, and save some up in heaven.

Jephthah's daughter

In Judges 11 we hear about a guy called Jephthah. He rises up to lead Israel against the people now oppressing them, the Ammonites. He makes a vow, he promises that if he is victorious against the Ammonites, then he will sacrifice the first thing that comes out of his house.

His daughter is the first thing to come out of his house.

What a terrible dilemma Jephthah is in. He has made a promise to God, which he doesn't want to back out of. His daughter is his beloved, only child. His daughters response? “My father, you have opened your mouth to the Lord; do to me according to what has gone out of your mouth, now that the Lord has avenged you on your enemies, on the Ammonites.” (V36).

What incredible obedience!

This daughter must be devoted to her Dad, she completely upholds his word, no matter the cost to herself, she accepts what her Dad says, and recognises that promises to God mean more than anything else. She is obedient even unto death. I don't even know if she's aware exactly of what her father has promised, but she's willing and obedient anyway.

This is the kind of obedience that God wants from us. Complete, total, sacrificial obedience.

Are you happy?

Are you happy?

This profound question was asked of me last week by my lovely husband. The answer? No! I hadn't thought about it, and I am not a person who asks myself those kind of questions, I just get on with life. My answer even surprised myself.
I should explain, I am not happy like full of joy and laughter, but I'm not unhappy either. I am not depressed, anxious or worried about anything really. Most of the time I am content, but at present, no im not happy.

The last few weeks have been tough, and I admitted to my wonderful husband that I am 'trudging on'.

The next day I went for a run. Oh, that was hard! I didn't want to do it, I didn't have a lot of energy and I didn't think I could make the distance. Then I was reminded about the conversation with my husband -I just had to keep 'trudging on'.

Sometimes life is hard, we are tired, have no energy, don't really know what's going on, and at times and we can feel alone. However, we've just got to keep lifting those heavy feet. In order to get that run done I had to concentrate on lifting one foot and putting it down, lifting the other one and putting it down.
Sometimes the steps are slow and arduous, but I was reminded that each step we take is closer to the finish line. 
Hebrews 12:1 says; 'Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us'.
We have got to keep moving forward. Endurance is about keeping in going even when it gets tough.

That's as true for life as it is for running.
We are all heading for the finish line, so keep lifting those feet. Sometimes it'll seem like you're as light-footed as a gazelle, at others you'll be trudging like an elephant, but at least you're moving. Keep going towards those goals. The finish line is getting closer.