The Vicar and Assistant Minister insisted on coming round to my house to pray for my wife's arthritis again. Well, we didn't resist too much! So they came on Wednesday evening, and prayed over her and annointed her with oil.
We shall see what comes of it.
Showing posts with label prayer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prayer. Show all posts
Friday, November 14
Quality prayer
When the Vicar prayed for my wife (see following post), he asked me to pray for him before he started.
Put on the spot, I entered 'the zone', where in part I was showing off my eloquence and in part i was just trying to make an effective prayer. So afterwards the Vicar says "Simon, you pray very powerfully. Have you done the intercessions at church?" (Shows how much attention he was paying on the many times I have).
So now he thinks I am some kind of superhero "Captain Prayer" or something like that. And today, he bumped into my wife and asked if I could do the prayers this Sunday - fortunately we are away for my parent's Golden Wedding.
Has he not read the verse where Jesus condemns those who think they will be heard by their many words? Did Jesus not criticise anyone who made showy prayers? Is not one word uttered in faith by a humble but godly man not worth far more than my eloquent but 'un-rooted' prayer? (I haven't prayed or read scripture seriously for weeks). In short, you'd think a Vicar would be better at judging these things.
Put on the spot, I entered 'the zone', where in part I was showing off my eloquence and in part i was just trying to make an effective prayer. So afterwards the Vicar says "Simon, you pray very powerfully. Have you done the intercessions at church?" (Shows how much attention he was paying on the many times I have).
So now he thinks I am some kind of superhero "Captain Prayer" or something like that. And today, he bumped into my wife and asked if I could do the prayers this Sunday - fortunately we are away for my parent's Golden Wedding.
Has he not read the verse where Jesus condemns those who think they will be heard by their many words? Did Jesus not criticise anyone who made showy prayers? Is not one word uttered in faith by a humble but godly man not worth far more than my eloquent but 'un-rooted' prayer? (I haven't prayed or read scripture seriously for weeks). In short, you'd think a Vicar would be better at judging these things.
Wednesday, October 8
Rheumatoid arthritis flare-up
Notwithstanding my previous promise to go back to work, I have to request your prayers for my beautiul wife.
It is normal for rheumatoid arthritis to ease off during pregnancy and then flare up visciously afterwards, and right now she can barely walk more than half a mile, and that is very slow and painful, and she can't get out of her chair in a single movement, and she can't do the poppers on the bay's clothes. She has had to delegate all the night feeds to me.
We have in the past testified to the Lord's goodness in providing a partial healing which enabled her to come off drugs and have the baby. And so now, to go back on drugs, would seem to deny the healing. Also, she does not wish to fill her body with chemicals, prefering natural problems to artificial ones.
So, what do we do? Abandon faith and go back to drugs? She also believes God's plan may include another final baby, for which she already has a name which i believe to be prophetic. So we don't want to go back to drugs and deny the vision, but the alternative is looking harder every day.
So please pray for guidance as to what we should do, and more urgently for a full or partial healing so taht she can get on with the practical necessities of life.
It is normal for rheumatoid arthritis to ease off during pregnancy and then flare up visciously afterwards, and right now she can barely walk more than half a mile, and that is very slow and painful, and she can't get out of her chair in a single movement, and she can't do the poppers on the bay's clothes. She has had to delegate all the night feeds to me.
We have in the past testified to the Lord's goodness in providing a partial healing which enabled her to come off drugs and have the baby. And so now, to go back on drugs, would seem to deny the healing. Also, she does not wish to fill her body with chemicals, prefering natural problems to artificial ones.
So, what do we do? Abandon faith and go back to drugs? She also believes God's plan may include another final baby, for which she already has a name which i believe to be prophetic. So we don't want to go back to drugs and deny the vision, but the alternative is looking harder every day.
So please pray for guidance as to what we should do, and more urgently for a full or partial healing so taht she can get on with the practical necessities of life.
Monday, March 10
Theologically Conservative, Liberal at Heart 2
Regular readers will know that I feel the Lord has called me to some form of ministry with homosexual people, and that I want this work to bring together my conservative theology and my liberal heart.
Our Sunday evening service was lead by a team from another Anglican church, and ended in a time where people wanting prayer for one reason or another could go forwards. Now, normally, they ask you to go to the font. This time, since the team had spent the afternoon running a seminar on healing for our church, the team members paired up in the aisles, and we were supposed to go to them. And then, since the theme was ‘bringing people to Jesus’, they would bring the victim/candidate down to the front. This was also supposed to be less intimidating, but in fact it was worse.
Now as I have said, it was largely about bringing people to Jesus. During the week I had discussed with my wife my urge to work among Homosexuals, and had floated to her my idea of some kind of bridge-building event. She helped me to understand my naivety – that while there would be many gays willing to co-operate sensibly with a bridge-building barrier-breaking event, there could also be a small number with a much more militant, or even malicious agenda, and that I could get me, the church and the family into serious difficulty getting into this kind of thing with strangers.
So I was a bit lost. Nothing has come of my involvement with TFT –maybe I’m rushing? – and nothing was now likely to come of my new idea. I needed a fresh direction. So in church, surrounded by anonymous visitors from another church, quite late in the proceedings when one of them came free, I went forward and asked for prayer regarding my sense of calling in this field. That’s when I got stitched up, because it turned out he was just co-ordinating and he led me to one of the pairs and so I had to reveal my thoughts to a member of my church, whom I have known for a long time but not really someone to whom I would share this kind of thing. You can know people too well!
Anyway, the prayer was good – my church member prayed that any plans would be right for the whole family, and the visitor quoted the verse ‘he will direct your paths’.
Assured of confidentiality, I went back to my seat and opened the Bible. It was a psalm of empowering and commissioning – possibly relevant but not definitely so.
Afterwards, the co-ordinator guy, reputed to have a prophetic ministry and therefore under pressure to come up with clever words, came to me at the coffee area and said the Lord had given him the word ‘compassion’. Yeah well, maybe it was the Lord, but maybe it was also his own human wisdom, trying to stop me rushing in with dogmatic and judgmental biblical pronouncements. Or both. I explained to him about my ‘conservative theology/liberal heart’ dilemma. And I explained that I think this truly represents God, except He is able to square the circle where I cannot.
Then later still, I found myself standing next to the Vicar, who is very rarely free enough for a simple chat. And he was still and quiet for once. And so I took the plunge, given the thrust of the evening, and asked to have a session with him. No session was booked, but we did discuss my sense of calling, and this has developed into a plan to have an extra ‘teaching’ meeting for the church. Two views will be presented, a conservative view and a liberal view. The plan is that the conservative view will be presented by a member who happens to be a university professor, while the liberal view will be presented by me. Not to say that he is conservative and I am liberal, just that we will each present that case respectively.
I think his is really great. It’s right up my street, and gives me the chance to teach some very liberal stuff without being labelled as a liberal, and also to enable me to be conservative without people thinking I am heartless and dogmatic. So God is indeed good.
I hope that I will reap a harvest of righteousness, in the form of conservatives being less judgemental and liberals recognising the authority of scripture.
Our Sunday evening service was lead by a team from another Anglican church, and ended in a time where people wanting prayer for one reason or another could go forwards. Now, normally, they ask you to go to the font. This time, since the team had spent the afternoon running a seminar on healing for our church, the team members paired up in the aisles, and we were supposed to go to them. And then, since the theme was ‘bringing people to Jesus’, they would bring the victim/candidate down to the front. This was also supposed to be less intimidating, but in fact it was worse.
Now as I have said, it was largely about bringing people to Jesus. During the week I had discussed with my wife my urge to work among Homosexuals, and had floated to her my idea of some kind of bridge-building event. She helped me to understand my naivety – that while there would be many gays willing to co-operate sensibly with a bridge-building barrier-breaking event, there could also be a small number with a much more militant, or even malicious agenda, and that I could get me, the church and the family into serious difficulty getting into this kind of thing with strangers.
So I was a bit lost. Nothing has come of my involvement with TFT –maybe I’m rushing? – and nothing was now likely to come of my new idea. I needed a fresh direction. So in church, surrounded by anonymous visitors from another church, quite late in the proceedings when one of them came free, I went forward and asked for prayer regarding my sense of calling in this field. That’s when I got stitched up, because it turned out he was just co-ordinating and he led me to one of the pairs and so I had to reveal my thoughts to a member of my church, whom I have known for a long time but not really someone to whom I would share this kind of thing. You can know people too well!
Anyway, the prayer was good – my church member prayed that any plans would be right for the whole family, and the visitor quoted the verse ‘he will direct your paths’.
Assured of confidentiality, I went back to my seat and opened the Bible. It was a psalm of empowering and commissioning – possibly relevant but not definitely so.
Afterwards, the co-ordinator guy, reputed to have a prophetic ministry and therefore under pressure to come up with clever words, came to me at the coffee area and said the Lord had given him the word ‘compassion’. Yeah well, maybe it was the Lord, but maybe it was also his own human wisdom, trying to stop me rushing in with dogmatic and judgmental biblical pronouncements. Or both. I explained to him about my ‘conservative theology/liberal heart’ dilemma. And I explained that I think this truly represents God, except He is able to square the circle where I cannot.
Then later still, I found myself standing next to the Vicar, who is very rarely free enough for a simple chat. And he was still and quiet for once. And so I took the plunge, given the thrust of the evening, and asked to have a session with him. No session was booked, but we did discuss my sense of calling, and this has developed into a plan to have an extra ‘teaching’ meeting for the church. Two views will be presented, a conservative view and a liberal view. The plan is that the conservative view will be presented by a member who happens to be a university professor, while the liberal view will be presented by me. Not to say that he is conservative and I am liberal, just that we will each present that case respectively.
I think his is really great. It’s right up my street, and gives me the chance to teach some very liberal stuff without being labelled as a liberal, and also to enable me to be conservative without people thinking I am heartless and dogmatic. So God is indeed good.
I hope that I will reap a harvest of righteousness, in the form of conservatives being less judgemental and liberals recognising the authority of scripture.
Monday, February 4
Prayer works
On Friday, I came to the conclusion that I had dropped an almighty clanger at work. The passive emergency bypass weir that I had designed for the XYZ screen could not possibly work. It would be overflowing all the time, not just in emergencies. What is more, it was impossible to fix the error - it simply can't work. It's the wrong approach to the problem. And I felt that I had gone wrong, negligently, in my calculations.
So my last act on friday was to email the project reviewer - who was working over the weekend - to let him know. (ie we are struggling to meet deadlines which we will be penalised for missing)
I then spent the whole weekend worried and trembling in anticipation of the ... no I can use that word on a Christian blog, lets say 'telling off' that I would get on monday. I asked my woife and kids to pray, which they did.
So, when I arrived, rather than having the usual cup of tea and blog surfing session before starting, I went straight to the reviewer, and found that he wasn't as cross as I expected. For a start, my error was not a negligent one. I had thought I had not completed an iteration or a common sense test, but in fact I had just missed out a required freeboard somewhere else in the calculation - a simple error rather than a really stupid one. And furthermore, I had now discovered a flaw with the type of screen proposed by my mechanical engineering colleagues, and we are now referring the matter to the manufacturer to get it resolved.
Now the cynic will say that all that would still have been the case had we not prayed. But the Bible teaches that our timeless God knows our prayers before we speak them, and I think it says he is already sending the answer.
So I remain convinced - prayer works.
So my last act on friday was to email the project reviewer - who was working over the weekend - to let him know. (ie we are struggling to meet deadlines which we will be penalised for missing)
I then spent the whole weekend worried and trembling in anticipation of the ... no I can use that word on a Christian blog, lets say 'telling off' that I would get on monday. I asked my woife and kids to pray, which they did.
So, when I arrived, rather than having the usual cup of tea and blog surfing session before starting, I went straight to the reviewer, and found that he wasn't as cross as I expected. For a start, my error was not a negligent one. I had thought I had not completed an iteration or a common sense test, but in fact I had just missed out a required freeboard somewhere else in the calculation - a simple error rather than a really stupid one. And furthermore, I had now discovered a flaw with the type of screen proposed by my mechanical engineering colleagues, and we are now referring the matter to the manufacturer to get it resolved.
Now the cynic will say that all that would still have been the case had we not prayed. But the Bible teaches that our timeless God knows our prayers before we speak them, and I think it says he is already sending the answer.
So I remain convinced - prayer works.
Thursday, December 20
Praying to Saints and Angels
So..
It was my turn to lead the workplace fellowship Bible study. I forgot until it was time to go. So I had a minimum number of minutes to get ready - couldn't even remember where we were up to in the gospel. So I jumped ahead to the story of the Gadarene demoniac, and did some standard questions on that, and in the end the Bible study went reasonably well.
I noticed that the only woman in the group had not said anything, so, by way of drawing her into the topic for inclusiveness I asked her what the perspective is on demons, exorcism etc in her church, which happens to be Roman Catholic. She was glad that I had brought her into the discussion, but was rather caught on the hop, not sure what to say, so she said that they normally pray to the Archangel Michael.
You can imagine that in our predominantly non-conformist evangelical fellowship this was met with a rather stunned pause. I was able to state that other views exist on the topic of praying to angels, and then later on disagreed with the Pentecostal guy so that RC lady wouldn't feel too 'got at'.
But then the next week, she brought along a printed copy of the prayer to Michael, so when while praying for the carol service I prayed against the forces of Darkness, she got out this pre-printed prayer and read it out.
Now in our fellowship prayers are normally net with a whole hearted 'AMEN', so when she had finished it was very obvious that only one person managed a half hearted amen that might have been a cough.
Now personally, I can't say amen to a prayer addressed to anyone other than a member of the trinity. To me the Bible makes it plain that we have access direct to God in prayer, without need for intermediaries. But I did feel sorry for her, trying to contribute, and trying to follow up on my query the previous week, so afterwards I thanked her for bringing the prayer in, and explained why it was not our normal practice. This lead on to a good conversation about the RC view of prayers to angels, the single communion of believers dead and alive, and that we ask each other to pray so why not ask those who have gone before, etc. She also emphasised that they do not worship saints and angels. So we parted as friends.
But on a theological note, I remain convinced that simply saying you don't worship something means little when you bow before its statue, kiss its statue, attribute miracles to the something, or answers to prayer to the something, or assume that anyone in the world can pray simultaneously to the something ie omnipresence/omniscience...then even if you say you don't worship it then you have in practice made a god out of it, and I still think it breaches the first few commandments, and that throughout the Bible any attempt at communication between the dead and the living is forbidden eg the Saul/Samuel incident at Endor, and Lazarus and Dives. And fundamentally, prayer to anyone other than God makes them take the place that should be occupied by God alone. Which is a polite way of saying that despite her assurances to the contrary, it is idolatry.
It was my turn to lead the workplace fellowship Bible study. I forgot until it was time to go. So I had a minimum number of minutes to get ready - couldn't even remember where we were up to in the gospel. So I jumped ahead to the story of the Gadarene demoniac, and did some standard questions on that, and in the end the Bible study went reasonably well.
I noticed that the only woman in the group had not said anything, so, by way of drawing her into the topic for inclusiveness I asked her what the perspective is on demons, exorcism etc in her church, which happens to be Roman Catholic. She was glad that I had brought her into the discussion, but was rather caught on the hop, not sure what to say, so she said that they normally pray to the Archangel Michael.
You can imagine that in our predominantly non-conformist evangelical fellowship this was met with a rather stunned pause. I was able to state that other views exist on the topic of praying to angels, and then later on disagreed with the Pentecostal guy so that RC lady wouldn't feel too 'got at'.
But then the next week, she brought along a printed copy of the prayer to Michael, so when while praying for the carol service I prayed against the forces of Darkness, she got out this pre-printed prayer and read it out.
Now in our fellowship prayers are normally net with a whole hearted 'AMEN', so when she had finished it was very obvious that only one person managed a half hearted amen that might have been a cough.
Now personally, I can't say amen to a prayer addressed to anyone other than a member of the trinity. To me the Bible makes it plain that we have access direct to God in prayer, without need for intermediaries. But I did feel sorry for her, trying to contribute, and trying to follow up on my query the previous week, so afterwards I thanked her for bringing the prayer in, and explained why it was not our normal practice. This lead on to a good conversation about the RC view of prayers to angels, the single communion of believers dead and alive, and that we ask each other to pray so why not ask those who have gone before, etc. She also emphasised that they do not worship saints and angels. So we parted as friends.
But on a theological note, I remain convinced that simply saying you don't worship something means little when you bow before its statue, kiss its statue, attribute miracles to the something, or answers to prayer to the something, or assume that anyone in the world can pray simultaneously to the something ie omnipresence/omniscience...then even if you say you don't worship it then you have in practice made a god out of it, and I still think it breaches the first few commandments, and that throughout the Bible any attempt at communication between the dead and the living is forbidden eg the Saul/Samuel incident at Endor, and Lazarus and Dives. And fundamentally, prayer to anyone other than God makes them take the place that should be occupied by God alone. Which is a polite way of saying that despite her assurances to the contrary, it is idolatry.
Monday, December 17
Prayer requests
I have been looking at my site meter and some of the seacrh words people use. It's quite poignant - people trying for pregnancy for example.
Since people are searching for answers, well, i can't pretend to have them. But I can pray, and so i have set up a prayer requests blog here. Realistically, I can't help feeling that the reponse will be a big zero, but that shouldn't stop me trying.
Since people are searching for answers, well, i can't pretend to have them. But I can pray, and so i have set up a prayer requests blog here. Realistically, I can't help feeling that the reponse will be a big zero, but that shouldn't stop me trying.
Tuesday, June 26
A God who answers
Mrs Roman Catholic in my workplace prayer group attributes the 'miraculous' healing of her mother to my prayer at last week's meeting. Well, I'm sure I wasn't the only one who prayed, but it's nice to get this kind of feedback.
Her Mum had gone through surgery many years before and since they stick a tube down your neck as part of the general anasthetic and she has a small windpipe, she was injured and could not eat solids for 12 months. She recently had another operation, and [I don't quite get this bit] didn't tell the anesthetist about the previous problems. So, after she woke up, she found she could not eat any solids again - hence our prayers last week. And now, the 'miracle' is that within a week of that prayer, she is eating virtually normally agian. ie 7 days compared to 12 months.
[I have used inverted commas around 'miracle' etc since that is what we are calling it but I can't prove that that is what it is]
Her Mum had gone through surgery many years before and since they stick a tube down your neck as part of the general anasthetic and she has a small windpipe, she was injured and could not eat solids for 12 months. She recently had another operation, and [I don't quite get this bit] didn't tell the anesthetist about the previous problems. So, after she woke up, she found she could not eat any solids again - hence our prayers last week. And now, the 'miracle' is that within a week of that prayer, she is eating virtually normally agian. ie 7 days compared to 12 months.
[I have used inverted commas around 'miracle' etc since that is what we are calling it but I can't prove that that is what it is]
Monday, June 4
Tight Schedule IV
I managed to swap my warden duty from the 10th to the 3rd of June. this worked great - in fact the other guy phoned me first asking for exactly the same swap!
I didn't have to lead the service, but I was still on the rota for intercessions. I was preparing these, but kept getting called away for stuff and never managed to meet the church pastoral assistant, who normally updates me with appropriate matters for the intercessions. And so my prayers were very good in themselves, but not very comprehensive.
In the second service they were having a Bolivian theme, since we are sending a group of peolpe there this summer to support our missionary's work with the children of prisoners that have to live in the jail with teir parents. So there were Spanish songs, and they asked me to do the Lord's prayer in Spanish. Well, I managed to convince most people that I speak the language.
I didn't have to lead the service, but I was still on the rota for intercessions. I was preparing these, but kept getting called away for stuff and never managed to meet the church pastoral assistant, who normally updates me with appropriate matters for the intercessions. And so my prayers were very good in themselves, but not very comprehensive.
In the second service they were having a Bolivian theme, since we are sending a group of peolpe there this summer to support our missionary's work with the children of prisoners that have to live in the jail with teir parents. So there were Spanish songs, and they asked me to do the Lord's prayer in Spanish. Well, I managed to convince most people that I speak the language.
Wednesday, May 30
Hot Springs to Heresy
As I child I went to Rotorua in New Zealand. This is an area of geysers, hot springs, and boiling mud. The mud made an impression on me because you could see where a bubble was about to appear – the surface would slowly heave up, then it would seem to stretch and get thinner before finally the bubble would burst, splattering hot mud randomly in all directions.
The is how this post is coming – it has been brooding for some time, and now POP..here it is, sending stuff randomly all around.
Some bloke wrote a letter to the Church of England Newspaper, saying that in ‘Penal substitution’ the word penal doesn’t come in the legal sense but in terms of the penalty, ie consequences, of our actions. He argued that Jesus does not take our punishment, just the fallout from our deeds.
This is in line with a lot of other stuff I have read recently, all with his same theme that God is such a loving God that he couldn’t possibly dream of punishing us for our sins, and that God has not written any laws for us to break and so there is no need for punishment: its just a matter of trying to live without hurting anyone and facing natural cause-and-effect consequences of our mistakes. There is a suggestion that God himself is not wronged by our sins, its just our fellow man.
So why do we always repeat in the Lord’s prayer “Forgive us our trespasses…”?
If there is no law, there is no need for forgiveness.
If there is no punishment, there is not need for forgiveness.
If we have not wronged God, he does not need to forgive us.
Therefore, since we regularly beg for forgiveness as Christ taught us, there must be something to be forgiven for.
If there is no law, there is no trespass.
If there is no trespass, there is no need for forgiveness.
So what I am saying is that the Lords Prayer, recognised by every Christian in the world, embodies the concept of breaking God’s law and needing to be forgiven by him for it.
The Penalty is not just a natural consequence, it is punishment according to God’s law. (PS, to say Penalty just means consequences doesn’t make sense, either from the etymology of the word or from its use in common language. If the Police give me a fixed penalty notice for illegal parking, it is a punishment for breaking the law, not just a natural consequence of my action)
Now, without going into a whole "quote scripture" section which would take all day, the punishment for trespassing God’s law is death.
[NB I am not referring particularly to the OT ‘law’, more to God’s instructions and commands generally]
This takes us on to that verse in Hebrews – “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins”.
The punishment for sin is death. That is an absolute eternal principle that even God will not break. Every sin requires a death. Forgiveness is not a casual “oh well, never mind, don’t do it again’. Sin can’t be forgiven without death. If you think about it this makes sense – if I sin against God by injuring my brother, and God were to just dismiss it, my brother would say “Hey, what about me? Where’s my justice?” So my sin against my brother requires justice – it requires a death under the terms of God’s law.
So the only way that we can be forgiven, is for that punishment to be implemented, but not in a way that we feel.
And so, Jesus bore my sins in his body on the cross. In a sense I was in him, crucified with him, but he was the one that felt the pain.
When my victims turn to God and demand their justice, he replies “Yes, those sins have been punished, Simon died in Jesus”.
Yet when I present myself to God, he says, “Yes, you have lived a perfect life in Jesus”
This is the love of God. Not that he ignores sins, but that he deals with them properly in a way that ensures justice for the victim and freedom and forgiveness for me.
And it is only by taking that punishment onto his eternal self that he could bring these opposites together.
And so, I believe in Penal Substitution. I believe that I deserved to be punished because I have broken God’s commands. But I believe that I have been crucified with Christ, and that I live with Christ.
He has substituted himself for me and taken my Penalty.
And I can only say Hallelujah, and worship him with thanksgiving.
But the reason I say all this is that I am really worried that there is a deep, truly sinister heresy growing in the church.
If we deny that God makes laws, and if we deny that he will punish us for breaking them, then we are saying exactly the same as the serpent in the Garden of Eden. And that is Very Dangerous!
And that is why I speak out for the true message of the cross.
The is how this post is coming – it has been brooding for some time, and now POP..here it is, sending stuff randomly all around.
Some bloke wrote a letter to the Church of England Newspaper, saying that in ‘Penal substitution’ the word penal doesn’t come in the legal sense but in terms of the penalty, ie consequences, of our actions. He argued that Jesus does not take our punishment, just the fallout from our deeds.
This is in line with a lot of other stuff I have read recently, all with his same theme that God is such a loving God that he couldn’t possibly dream of punishing us for our sins, and that God has not written any laws for us to break and so there is no need for punishment: its just a matter of trying to live without hurting anyone and facing natural cause-and-effect consequences of our mistakes. There is a suggestion that God himself is not wronged by our sins, its just our fellow man.
So why do we always repeat in the Lord’s prayer “Forgive us our trespasses…”?
If there is no law, there is no need for forgiveness.
If there is no punishment, there is not need for forgiveness.
If we have not wronged God, he does not need to forgive us.
Therefore, since we regularly beg for forgiveness as Christ taught us, there must be something to be forgiven for.
If there is no law, there is no trespass.
If there is no trespass, there is no need for forgiveness.
So what I am saying is that the Lords Prayer, recognised by every Christian in the world, embodies the concept of breaking God’s law and needing to be forgiven by him for it.
The Penalty is not just a natural consequence, it is punishment according to God’s law. (PS, to say Penalty just means consequences doesn’t make sense, either from the etymology of the word or from its use in common language. If the Police give me a fixed penalty notice for illegal parking, it is a punishment for breaking the law, not just a natural consequence of my action)
Now, without going into a whole "quote scripture" section which would take all day, the punishment for trespassing God’s law is death.
[NB I am not referring particularly to the OT ‘law’, more to God’s instructions and commands generally]
This takes us on to that verse in Hebrews – “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins”.
The punishment for sin is death. That is an absolute eternal principle that even God will not break. Every sin requires a death. Forgiveness is not a casual “oh well, never mind, don’t do it again’. Sin can’t be forgiven without death. If you think about it this makes sense – if I sin against God by injuring my brother, and God were to just dismiss it, my brother would say “Hey, what about me? Where’s my justice?” So my sin against my brother requires justice – it requires a death under the terms of God’s law.
So the only way that we can be forgiven, is for that punishment to be implemented, but not in a way that we feel.
And so, Jesus bore my sins in his body on the cross. In a sense I was in him, crucified with him, but he was the one that felt the pain.
When my victims turn to God and demand their justice, he replies “Yes, those sins have been punished, Simon died in Jesus”.
Yet when I present myself to God, he says, “Yes, you have lived a perfect life in Jesus”
This is the love of God. Not that he ignores sins, but that he deals with them properly in a way that ensures justice for the victim and freedom and forgiveness for me.
And it is only by taking that punishment onto his eternal self that he could bring these opposites together.
And so, I believe in Penal Substitution. I believe that I deserved to be punished because I have broken God’s commands. But I believe that I have been crucified with Christ, and that I live with Christ.
He has substituted himself for me and taken my Penalty.
And I can only say Hallelujah, and worship him with thanksgiving.
But the reason I say all this is that I am really worried that there is a deep, truly sinister heresy growing in the church.
If we deny that God makes laws, and if we deny that he will punish us for breaking them, then we are saying exactly the same as the serpent in the Garden of Eden. And that is Very Dangerous!
And that is why I speak out for the true message of the cross.
Thursday, May 24
Not pregnant
If i had been numbering the posts on this subject i would be getting quite high by now.
Mrs remains unpregnant.
Why?
We are sure we heard from God to try.
Will we have to wait until our 80s, like Sarai and Elizabeth?
Why has her arthritis been worse since she was prayed for?
How does one keep faith when all the signs are against you?
Mrs remains unpregnant.
Why?
We are sure we heard from God to try.
Will we have to wait until our 80s, like Sarai and Elizabeth?
Why has her arthritis been worse since she was prayed for?
How does one keep faith when all the signs are against you?
Wednesday, May 16
Anointing with oil
We asked the Vicar and Curate to come and anoint Mrs with oil, praying firstly for an end to conception troubles and a succesful pregnancy, and secondly for the easing of her arthritis, particularly during the anticipated flare-up after any birth.
The bad - the Vicar got distracted and started praying for my readership ministry - which showed where the focus of his mind was and served to further rub in my success and her lack of it. Fortunately the (female) curate got him back on track.
The good - after the session, Mrs got up out of the sofa in one smooth movement, for the first time in months! Other problems remain, so we shall see how extensive any healing that may have taken place is over the coming months.
The bad - the Vicar got distracted and started praying for my readership ministry - which showed where the focus of his mind was and served to further rub in my success and her lack of it. Fortunately the (female) curate got him back on track.
The good - after the session, Mrs got up out of the sofa in one smooth movement, for the first time in months! Other problems remain, so we shall see how extensive any healing that may have taken place is over the coming months.
Tuesday, May 15
Not pregnant
As usual, having dared to believe, we are knocked down.
We go again through the usual cycle of depression, despondancy, flatness, questions, tension, lack of faith and huge faith simultaneously, wondering how to counsel without patronising, confusion, despair, hope.
We still believe God has given us a vision for another child.
This blog is about walking on water.
We are sinking in the waves.
We cry out, and wait for Him to lift us up again.
This is in my verse of the day at left...
“As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother's womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things.” (Ecclesiastes 11:5)
We go again through the usual cycle of depression, despondancy, flatness, questions, tension, lack of faith and huge faith simultaneously, wondering how to counsel without patronising, confusion, despair, hope.
We still believe God has given us a vision for another child.
This blog is about walking on water.
We are sinking in the waves.
We cry out, and wait for Him to lift us up again.
This is in my verse of the day at left...
“As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother's womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things.” (Ecclesiastes 11:5)
Flood
A water pipe broke in our basement last night. Our youngest thinks that it was his fault, but all he did was bang on the wall and he's not exactly the Incredible Hulk.
I rushed home from work when my wife phoned me, but by the time I had got there she had alreqady organised a plumber who was already part way through the repair job.
Nevertheless, the water was about 1.5 inches deep, and being the man of the house (Quote Kyle "Oh, and Simon - cleaning is a woman's work. Scientific fact." see here) I just had to do a lot of moving furniture, mopping, and dragging of carpets into the yard.
But, the Lord knows what he is doing......
It turns out our neighbour's house uses the same water supply as us (this needs to be rectified for legal reasons) and when we turned off the water supply she was cut off too.
This got us talking, and I discovered she suffers osteo-arthritis in her knee which has done damage to surrounding tissue which the doctor says is inoperable. She will have to leave her job and sell her house. Now our church has been encouraging us to bring CHrist into the community and to pray for people's needs. So here was a perfect chance to put that into practice. I asked if she would like me to pray for her, either in our private devotions or on the spot. She asked me to pray on the spot - and seemed very appreciative when I had finished. I was too chicken (or lacking faith?) for an instant miracle, so I prayed for a diffrent doctor to be able to do something for her and for it to be a new beginning rather than an end. No- I didn't lay hands on her - it would have looked very dodgy. No she wasn't instantly healed, but she does know that in her time of desperation the Kingdom of God came to her house.
Not sure how to follow this up. I don't want to be pushy, nor to be neglectful, and it's hard to get the balance right.
I rushed home from work when my wife phoned me, but by the time I had got there she had alreqady organised a plumber who was already part way through the repair job.
Nevertheless, the water was about 1.5 inches deep, and being the man of the house (Quote Kyle "Oh, and Simon - cleaning is a woman's work. Scientific fact." see here) I just had to do a lot of moving furniture, mopping, and dragging of carpets into the yard.
But, the Lord knows what he is doing......
It turns out our neighbour's house uses the same water supply as us (this needs to be rectified for legal reasons) and when we turned off the water supply she was cut off too.
This got us talking, and I discovered she suffers osteo-arthritis in her knee which has done damage to surrounding tissue which the doctor says is inoperable. She will have to leave her job and sell her house. Now our church has been encouraging us to bring CHrist into the community and to pray for people's needs. So here was a perfect chance to put that into practice. I asked if she would like me to pray for her, either in our private devotions or on the spot. She asked me to pray on the spot - and seemed very appreciative when I had finished. I was too chicken (or lacking faith?) for an instant miracle, so I prayed for a diffrent doctor to be able to do something for her and for it to be a new beginning rather than an end. No- I didn't lay hands on her - it would have looked very dodgy. No she wasn't instantly healed, but she does know that in her time of desperation the Kingdom of God came to her house.
Not sure how to follow this up. I don't want to be pushy, nor to be neglectful, and it's hard to get the balance right.
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