Weekly Reflection

As this week contains Ash Wednesday I am doing an extra Reflection for Wednesday onwards; you can find it immediately following this one.

February 15th to 17th

Sunday before Lent

Reading: Psalm 36:5-9

5 Your love, Lord, reaches to the heavens,

your faithfulness to the skies.

6 Your righteousness is like the highest mountains,

your justice like the great deep.

You, Lord, preserve both people and animals.

7 How priceless is your unfailing love, O God!

People take refuge in the shadow of your wings.

8 They feast on the abundance of your house;

you give them drink from your river of delights.

9 For with you is the fountain of life;

in your light we see light.

I am continuing this week the general theme I began last week, that of drawing closer to God.

The simplest way actually to draw closer to Him is through Praise. God is Almighty, All-powerful, beyond our wildest imaginings in prayer or in contemplation. There’s a wonderful hymn that ends with the line “Lost in wonder, love and praise”[1].

We praise God when we’re happy and joyful, of course; however it is easy to forget the opposite side of the coin: we also need to praise Him when we’re suffering. This is a hard lesson I have had to learn over many years; Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18. “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (emphasis mine). Those three words in italics are telling us to praise God even when we don't feel like it.

Quite often in the Psalms we read of those who are really suffering, yet in most cases by the end of the Psalm they are turning to praise; Psalm 22 (which is liturgically used on Good Friday) starts with anguish in verse 1, then from verse 22 onwards is sheer praise.

Praise is a wonderful weapon to use when we are under any kind of spiritual attack; if you are feeling that everything is going wrong at once and you have no joy in your life, that the enemy is really doing his worst to upset you and damage you, then just take a deep breath, find your favourite song of praise and just sing your heart out! My favourite quote on this theme is the story of the Israelites’ defeat of Jericho (see Joshua 6). One of my favourite songs is “Be exalted, O God, above the heavens”[2].

A friend of ours has a wonderful plaque in her kitchen which is a simple interpretation of the above Thessalonians passage; it simply says: Praise the Lord anyway.

Dear Father. we thank you for sustaining us each day by the power and love of your Spirit. Help us Lord to turn to praise when we are faced with situations which are difficult to cope with and when we cannot see the way forward. May we always turn to praise, Lord, both when life is smooth and when it gets rough. Thank you Jesus that you are always there for us. Amen.

Peter Sebborn

Christian.Footsoldier@gmail.com

- o - o - o -

February 18th to 21st

Ash Wednesday and Lent

Readings: Matthew 6:16–21. 2 Corinthians 5:20b – 6:10

16 ‘When you fast, do not look sombre as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18 so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 19 ‘Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: be reconciled to God. 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 6:1 As God’s fellow workers we urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain. 2 For he says, ‘In the time of my favour I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.’ I tell you, now is the time of God’s favour, now is the day of salvation. 3 We put no stumbling-block in anyone’s path, so that our ministry will not be discredited. 4 Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; 5 in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; 6 in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; 7 in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; 8 through glory and dishonour, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; 9 known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; 10 sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.

We are now in the penitential season of Lent. Jesus spent 40 days fasting in the “desert” to prepare for His Mission to identify with us, to be tested like any other human person.

The word desert here is probably best described by the KJV word of “wilderness”, a rough sterile terrain, a hostile place for Jesus to isolate Himself for nearly six weeks.

Our reading from Matthew is telling us to behave normally when we go through a time of testing, which we do in Lent to deepen our relationship with God. We voluntarily put ourselves through the privations of Lent and we may fail from time to time; when we fail, we need to repent and ask God’s forgiveness, ask for the Holy Spirit to move us forward in our pilgrimage.

Even our normal Christian lifestyle would include periods of reflection and self-examination, combined with repentance and being open to receive God’s chastisement and His forgiveness; Lent is a time when we go through a concentrated focus on this process; this helps us to grow stronger in our walk with God.

But let us go back to the word fasting.

It can mean going without food, though I would not recommend anyone in normal circumstances literally to starve themselves for slx weeks; some see this as giving up particular pleasures in order to focus more on God.

Another approach can be to do more of something, or to do some activity or ministry we have not done before, or to do something differently; let us allow prayer tp be our guide here.

I recommed at this stage you go back to our reading above from Corinthians, especially verses 5:21 to 6:2. Some of you may remember that at more than one New Year recently God gave me a prophetic Word for the church based on part of Isaiah 61:2; He said to us “Now is the time of the Lord’s favour”; even in Lent we are still receiving the Lord’s favour and blessing; He is constantly blessing us through so many positively answered prayers. We may feel that many of our prayers have not been answered, but we must be aware that God is outside of time and our prayers may not be answered straightaway, or in the way we would like, but that is God’s concern and not ours – God is Sovereign. No prayer is ever forgotten (see Revelation 5:8).

We must always remember that as Christian believers we receive, absolutely free, God’s gift of grace and the gift of personal salvation, being with Jesus in His Kingdom for ever at the end of time. We don’t have to earn it in any way, but we have a moral duty to say thank you to God by trying to live our lives so as to match as closely as possible the example which Jesus sets us. As always, we can only achieve this with the help of the Holy Spirit. Also Paul says in our reading from Corinthians, God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Holy Spirit we pray that you will guide and strengthen us through this season of Lent; we need your closeness, your love, your infilling and your inspiration, possibly more even than we do through the rest of the year. We praise and thank you Lord. Amen.

[1] Love Divine, all love excelling, by Charles Wesley, 1747