CALLED TO BE GENTLE AND LOWLY
Within a culture often hostile to God’s ways of mercy and kindness, Christians are to help to ‘get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behaviour’ around us. Paul goes on to urge us, ‘instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.’ We represent and serve the triune God of goodness, ‘merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness’ and we are called – by the enabling of the Holy Spirit –to reflect those qualities and to be known as the kindest people in the world!
As we come to the end of our financial year, we praise God for His faithfulness to us. Our team is growing, as is our work and impact! As we start a new financial year, we’d love you to consider joining with us in giving financially to our work. A one-off gift, or a monthly direct debit at this time, will make a real difference in increasing our capacity to equip Christians to engage well with the upcoming General Election. Thank you so much for your continued support.
Yours in His kindness,
Rev Lyndon Bowring CO-FOUNDER OF CARE
The most important book that Celia and I have read this past year is Dane Ortlund’s ‘Gentle and Lowly –The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers.’ We can’t recommend it highly enough, and I’m deeply indebted to Dane for his research and insights in the writing of this letter.
This book homes in on the wonderful invitation in Matthew Chapter 11 where Jesus says, ‘Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.’ Charles Spurgeon pointed out that in all the eighty-nine chapters of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John’s gospels, this is the only place where Christ tells us about His own heart.
In the Bible, the heart means a person’s innermost being. Describing Himself as ‘gentle and lowly of heart’ reveals His tender grace and mercy towards us. Jesus is deeply compassionate, ready and willing to forgive us because He cares infinitely about saving sinners and helping sufferers. Just before these verses Jesus gives a stern warning of judgement and woe to people who refused to repent, despite the amazing miracles He did in their towns. Only those who come humbly, keenly aware of their need for forgiveness and healing are welcomed into His presence. We may come feeling truly ‘weary and burdened’ and unworthy of Christ’s love, but the truth is, Ortlund writes, that ‘our sins do not cause His love to take a hit. Our sins cause His love to surge forward all the more.’
THE FATHER’S HEART
What is true of Jesus is also true of His Heavenly Father, for after all, Jesus is described as ‘the very image of the invisible God’ (Colossians 1:15) and ‘the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being’ (Hebrews 1:3).
The heart of our faith is the gospel message that Jesus died on the cross to atone for our sin and to satisfy God’s wrath against all that is evil. The Triune God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – agreed this together before the creation of the world, in what theologians call ‘the covenant of redemption’. If we’re tempted to think that the Father is less inclined to love and forgive than Christ the Son, we couldn’t be further from the truth! It’s not that the Father’s main characteristic is to be judging while the Son’s is to be filled with compassion – they share the very same heart of redeeming merciful love!
‘The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands.’
Exodus 34:6,7
Back in Exodus 33, Moses asked God to show him His glory. And God chose to reveal Himself not in words about His awesome power and His fearful holiness but like this: ‘The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands.’ Apart from Christ’s incarnation, is this not the most remarkable manifestation of God’s character anywhere in the Bible?
THE HOLY SPIRIT
And of course, we must not forget the crucial part the Holy Spirit plays in all of this. Shortly before His arrest, when Jesus told His disciples what was going to happen, He said, ‘because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I don’t go away, the Helper won’t come to you.’ The disciples naturally thought that Jesus’ bodily departure meant His heart leaving them too. But, as the Puritan Thomas Goodwin wrote so eloquently, Jesus wants us to know ‘you shall have my heart as surely and as speedily as if I were with you… the Holy Spirit will tell
you, when I am in heaven, that there is as true dearness of affection in me towards you, as is between my Father and me, and that it is as impossible to break this knot, and to take off my heart from you, as my Father’s from me.’
I believe the Holy Spirit longs to make the loving heart of Jesus real to us, taking what the Bible says about Him and moving it from our heads to our hearts so we can know and experience His love, just like the way we know the sun is warm when we feel it on our faces raised to the sky on a warm day. If you’re not feeling the loving heart of Jesus why not ask the Holy Spirit to help you open the vents of your heart to experience His amazing mercy and grace?
JUSTICE, MERCY AND KINDNESS
The gospels are filled with practical examples of how Jesus demonstrated His gentle and lowly heart and was drawn towards those who suffered, and of how He set people free from oppression – the lepers, the despised tax collectors and the woman who touched His garment and was healed. He both proclaimed good news and did good works.
As with Jesus, so with us! Sadly, all around us are those who need protection and who are victims of wrongdoing. I’m thinking of preborn babies, whose lives are threatened by abortion and whose mothers need compassion and support. Then there are those whose gambling addiction means that they end up in real trouble, receiving no help from big gambling companies whose sole interest is exploiting them for profit. Some vulnerable people, nearing the end of their lives, feel they are a burden and need special care. Children are at risk of being bombarded with dangerous and pornographic material whenever they are online. Many low-income families have to choose between eating or heating. Such examples surely move our hearts.
CARE seeks to pursue justice for people like this, to show mercy and kindness towards those who are suffering and broken. We pray that we can play our part by boldly representing God’s better story for people, by engaging the Church, equipping politicians and empowering future leaders, who will stand up and be counted in the public square.
This has always been CARE’s mandate and it still burns in our hearts to this very day. We want to be a champion for the weak and frail, to speak up for the voiceless and to encourage those who will demonstrate biblical justice in society. All of this takes on an extra dimension this year as we anticipate a General Election. Please watch out for our special General Election website which will be launched later this year, offering a range of resources to help equip Christians to engage and vote in a considered and informed way.
