Like a thief in the night

Now, brothers, about times and dates we do not need to write to you, for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night   (1 Thessalonians 5.1-2).

Well, life is interesting. We had a visitor last night: an unwelcomed one! One of the guys went downstairs and met a teenager in the diningroom. They looked at one another, ‘visitor’ dived out through this little shower-room window. In an area of Bulgaria where there is such high unemployment and poverty, this is not unusual. Anything lost? A cell ‘phone that can be replaced without too much hassle ….

We felt secure, safe in our nice, big house. Who dare do such a thing?

Which gets me to thinking how Paul speaks of the ‘Day of the Lord’: When God calls ‘time out!’ on creation as it is now. When the time for tallying the score sheet and bringing in God’s complete, restored and renewed Creation will arrive.

What strikes me now is how none of us really finds this a welcome thought. It disturbs and violates our patterns, our securities. Better get rid of such pretensions now. God, like the thief, is close at hand.

Слава на Бога!

O LORD, what is man that you care for him, the son of man that you think of him? Man is like a breath; his days are like a fleeting shadow (Psalm 144.3-4).

It is great to be here again in Bulgaria, joining with Sam and Sally in our house in Mezdreya and having the team come out to join us, from Bristo. I’m sitting in the garden right now, looking out at the incredible growth there has been since we were last here in April. The vegetables, the fruit trees, the grass, the flowers – and the weeds! Everything is green and growing with such profusion.

And it really makes me reflect on the lack of permanency there is to anything in the life that surrounds us. One minute – summer. And then, in six months, the barrenness of winter will be here. Living in the city, it’s so easy to miss this aspect of the seasons. Surrounded by monumental buildings and historic monuments, the illusion is there of a life that goes on with confidence and unwavering changelessness; but it is not so. The country and the village unmasks the illusion.

And where now I sit, I face the central Balkan mountains and think of Serbia on the other side, with all the tragedy and genocide of the ethnic wars that seems only yesterday. The destruction that a sinning, self-assertive and rebellious humanity is capable of engulfing itself in.

At such a time, it is good to remember what it means to be a Christian. To recall that God has not so much ‘crafted’ as ‘is crafting’. Forming and shaping and bringing through to a maturity and permanency that will be expressed in a renewed Creation, a ‘New Heavens and New Earth’.

For the moment, all is passing. But high summer, and a deeper and fuller fruitfulness awaits us. Слава на Бога! Praise the Lord!

Beautiful obedience

Rebellion is a terrible dimension to live in. It is the antithesis of obedience. Rebellion seeks to affirm self to the level of narcissism: me at the centre of my values and purpose in life. Rebellion is the aphrodisiac, the opiate, the intoxicating allure of self annihilation.

Obedience is beauty enfleshed. It is to recognise that the purpose of my life is to ‘glorify God and enjoy Him forever’. Obedience is to delight in the revelation of God’s way in the Holy Scriptures. Obedience is the embracing of true freedom and self-realisation through submission to our heavenly Father’s command. Obedience and submission are the hallmarks of Jesus, the man who is the gift of God's love for all.

And such obedience can be my only reason for seeking the Holy Spirit’s power to infill and flood my life. It is because of such longing to obey God, to rejoice in Him and glorify Him that I want more of the Holy Spirit. For without this power of Pentecost, I can never truly obey. Come, Holy Spirit!

Obedience

Obedience. ‘It is better than sacrifice’. Mmmm. Not a very contemporary thought, eh? But it is at the heart of the New Testament letter of Hebrews, and what is being expressed to the early Christians and also us right there.

It really struck me, in looking at verses 7-8 in Chapter 5 of Hebrews, that Jesus did not find obeying God easy. It led him into places and situations of struggle and suffering. And then I saw that, where it tells us that Jesus cried out in prayer with ‘loud groans and cries’, He was crying out to God for help in order to obey!

So then it really hit me that what every Christian I have ever known or met struggles with the most, is willingness to really obey God. To do it! It’s not easy. So often, we know what we should do but don’t do it.

And then, Jesus’ prayer again. He prayed for help to obey. Enter the Holy Spirit.

It’s Pentecost Sunday coming up. What did the Holy Spirit come for? To increase the ‘feel good’ factor in our lives? To enable us to be achievers of what we want – a sort of Christian alternative to witchcraft?

Nope. He came and comes simply to supply us with the power to obey our heavenly Father. Got it?