Meditation I Aspects of love

LOVE’S PRIZE

Major Jim Bryden concludes his series by looking at the race to the finish

COULD seven-year-old Rudolph Ingram, nicknamed Blaze, who ran 100 metres in just 13.48 seconds in February, one day break Usain Bolt’s world record of 9.58 seconds? Few people are in Bolt’s league, but Rudolph might be in a few years.

By contrast, Mike Bushell, a sports presenter for the BBC, does not claim to be an athlete. He does, though, take on challenging and fun activities in his reporting. Recently he put on his running shoes and officially ran with champions from other nations. At the blast of the starting pistol, Mike bolted forward. In a second he trailed well behind but kept on to the finish as fast as he could. Interviewed afterwards he said, smilingly: ‘We can all get involved in this race, even if you come in last!’

We can all be involved in the race of faith, which Paul said was ‘to win the prize for which God has called me heavenwards in Christ Jesus’ (Philippians 3:14). But there’s a prize to be won on Earth too. John speaks of the prized trophy of God’s amazing love and grace: ‘See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!’ (1 John 3:1). These ‘children of God’ have been born again! How can this be? God made it happen. His abundant love has been lavished on them. They didn’t bring it about – they couldn’t.

As children of God we have received his life. We’re not the people we were. We now have a new identity. It is this ‘new you’ that puzzles the world. We

really have been transformed. We may look the same but we think and act differently. Our choice of lifestyle, our standards and our perspective on life and on other people are directed by God’s Holy Spirit. He’s the one who brings about the change, not us. We’re no longer free to ‘do our own thing’. If this sounds like spoilsport stuff it’s anything but.

As God’s children, we prize knowing and doing his will above all. It is a ‘knowing’ that can’t be learnt; it’s not naturally acquired. This truth is elucidated in the modern version of John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, which says, ‘There is knowledge and there is knowledge: knowledge that knows about things and knowledge that is accompanied with the grace of faith and love, which causes a man to do the will of God from the heart.’

How well I remember as a young teenager coming to faith in Christ. The change God made in my life was utterly amazing and my eyes searched for the path God had set out for me. One Christian gentleman told me: ‘Follow God’s will.’ It was a cold winter’s day. There was no central heating in our home. In the lounge, the coal fire blazed with a red, flickering glow. In the kitchen, the potatoes and vegetables were on the boil and steam spread like thick mist into the stairwell. I stood on the landing and, with my index finger, wrote on the misty glass window: ‘To know and to do the will of God’. This inspired desire has remained with me all my life.

Some verses in Hebrews sum up the race of life: ‘Do you see what this means – all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running – and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed – that exhilarating finish in and with God – he could put up with anything along the way: cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honour, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he ploughed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!’ (Hebrews 12:1–3 The Message.) Let us follow Christ wherever he leads, not counting the cost, secure in the knowledge that we who were lost are now found; we who shrunk from daring have been made courageous; we who were orphans have been chosen and adopted into God’s family. By the power of his Spirit we are being made like our Lord Jesus Christ here and now, and are guaranteed one day to see him as he really is!

MAJOR BRYDEN LIVES IN RETIREMENT IN BELLSHILL

Captain Stephen Oliver considers the life-changing potential of the Resurrection

STUDY PASSAGE: LUKE 24:36–49

THE New International Version translators have seen fit to subtitle Luke 24:36–49: ‘Jesus Appears to the Disciples’. Luke never bothered with subtitles, and neither was this the first time Jesus had appeared to the disciples following the events of that first resurrection Sunday. At this point in Luke’s narrative, a number of people have encountered the risen Christ. One can imagine the irritation on the faces of Cleopas and his companion, who, having walked the seven miles back from Emmaus to Jerusalem with the news that Jesus was alive, were told, in effect: ‘Yes. We know!’ (see Luke 24:34).

This is an important detail, for it was ‘while they were still talking about this’ (v36), that Jesus appeared and proclaimed his peace upon them. Luke’s language is rather understated here. The gathered community was talking about Jesus and the Resurrection, but surely they would have been doing so in animated terms. Perhaps, their conversation was a mixture of celebration, confusion and doubt all at the same time.

QUESTIONS O How often do we have conversations of wonder and amazement at the presence and work of the risen Lord Jesus in our gathered communities of faith? O How easy would it be to make the Resurrection the focus of conversation over coffee after your next worship service? O How might intentional conversations about the presence of the risen Lord Jesus affect the community of faith to which you belong?

Fear and peace Jesus brought peace. The disciples responded with fear (v37). There is more than a simple greeting in Jesus’ words. He knows the disciples will be bewildered at the turn of events. He knows that the Emmaus road story, which is so familiar to us, is being told for the first time. For the trembling, gathered community of disciples, the reality of the Resurrection is about to change everything.

Jesus’ greeting ‘Peace be with you’ (v36) is the same as the greeting he taught the disciples to proclaim to the households they visited (see Luke 10:5 and 6). He is doing what he previously taught the 72 disciples to do. Yet he is doing so much more. As he graciously issues the invitation to look, see and touch, his presence transforms the conversation and his peace covers the fear of the disciples.

Jesus’ invitation to the disciples is to examine him physically and to weigh the evidence in front of their eyes that he really is alive. As Jesus eats with them, they encounter his risen humanity and become witnesses to the Resurrection. In these encounters apostles were made. The eating of the broiled fish (v42) will surely have reminded them of another miracle involving fish (see Luke 9:16). Jesus carefully connects the disciples to events they had already witnessed.

Through the week with Salvationist – a devotional thought for each day by Major Freda Benneyworth SUNDAY Those first disciples of the Lord/ Received the promise of his word/ And in their lives such power did dwell/ To speed the message they should tell/ To all mankind, that Jesus lives,/ And grace to each believer gives;/ May that same grace inspire today/ To live for Christ, the life and way.

(SASB 680) MONDAY ‘I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me any more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realise that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.

( John 14:18–20) TUESDAY O Christ, who rose victorious over death/ To loose thy living presence on our earth,/ Teach us to feel thy greatness till we know,/ In life and death, the soul’s enduring worth.

(SASB 187)