ARTICLE

Genesis Father?

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Genesis "...let there be..."

I Started reading the Psalms in the message as it was an uncomfortable read, little poetry, etc.   Perhaps I am too classic when reading the Psalms.     But my word what a powerful opening up in understanding it has been to read in, revelational, transforming, full of riches.   keep on coming God!

I came to Psalm 51 in my long walk through this great experience book where other writers relate their inner and every-day feelings and dealings, he exposes some interesting thoughts.   Its a Psalm that visits the a transformation though God’s forgiveness along with the turn around of a forgiven life.        As I read a phrase went through my mind, I considered and thought “…how about getting to Know God as a Genesis God, Father...”   Not an event far off in some distant past, or an argument for Creation V Evolution but to see Genesis as part of God nature, character, now that would be different.     To know you as a Genesis Father, that every month, week, day and hour you are this every moment towards us.

A Father that by your nature not a once off act but the way you are, a demonstration of who you are, a continuation of how you conduct yourself my God, a Genesis God for your creation.

Psalm 51: 9, 10 Message (keep reading the Psalm to the end for other comments below)

“…God, make a fresh start in me, shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life…”

The Psalmist outlines the impact of you the Genesis Father, his life is transformed from a heavy steps to “…foot-tapping…” from sadness and complaint to “…songs…” from a dislocation, broken useless forms “…once-broken bones…” to strengthen functional dancing, with a rhythm infused structure catching the rhythm of Genesis Father, as is there not a sound in creation a rhythm of your voice a creation that is a full of rhythm “…let there be…” a rhythm as pulsars repeat themselves in sound across the universe.      Foot-tapping, dancing rhythm that humanity lost, Just as the Christ dealt with the woman with the 12 year issue of blood he brought her back into rhythm, the 12 year child, daughter in the same passage is connected she is brough back to life’s rhythm.   A Genesis week in that tow!

A mixture of pictures for us to grasp, at least one of these should engage us let your imagination take hold of one of these pictures

Foot-taping…Dancing bones…Greyness removed…Wind in the sail…Live giving way…Unbuttoned lips of praise – true lose lips!

This is enough transformation to consider is it not!        For this is the Genesis Father who can bring transformation like this, rather than know he was a creating in Genesis once why not begin to know him intimately as a Genesis Father.     What a way to know you every second as Genesis for this makes you an overcoming Father a God that is creating weeks that are full of Genesis for us all

“…God, make a fresh start in me, shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life…”

Fresh start, often we heard preach, a new starts but what about living in a Genesis way of life, can my life display this, it should do, that I live in a Genesis week every day.     You O God in your nature moves in my life as Genesis Father.   Creating, forming the formless and filling the void this is you, you are this to me!      Foot tap, bones dance, coloured invading, sail filling-catching, life imparting, unbuttoned lips loosed to praise you have made a genesis week!

Wind of Change blows

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Change in the Harvest

“Rebels make advance…”, “Assad family rule if Syria…”, “Up to a million flee from Ivory Coast…”, what’s happening across Northern Africa and Arab States?

What changing times we are in once again, some of us are not too old to recall when a wind of change blew across Eastern Europe and walls fell, now we see the cracks in other walls.   First Egypt, then Tunisia, now Bahrain, Yemen, Syria and now Libya, which fills our news, screens and papers.
A couple of weeks ago two teenage sisters marched across a stretch of no mans land in central Bahrain with a national flag and a flower to lay at the feet of the police and army,  directly following their walk, they were captured in TV interviews in floods of tears declaring that they would die for freedom sake, O lord help us!
Commentators shout it’s all about “…OIL…” I am not here to comment on political standpoints or take up arguments better fought by intellectuals,  or argue in political circles, who am I to even tread in these arenas?   What ever the cause or reason we see now, we are yet to see what history will say?
I know that the unrest is not localised to Northern Africa or Arab States when we see riots in Athens or riots in Brussels or even in the UK student  protest,  finance cuts protest on the streets of London.   Yet as a follower of Christ we are to be those who can give insight and interpretation to all that is happening.
We have graduated in the church, the called out people of God, to realise that the Holy Spirit does not restrict himself to moving in the church alone only, but moves in the earth, better  thought in creation as the “…. earth is the Lords…”.    We as people have  realised and discovered that the secular/spiritual divide is not one that can be found within the scriptures or in Gods economy,  discovering that its is more a product of a “modernist’ thinking rather than a God established way.
In considering what we see happening, how do we read it?   Let me suggest one issue that has to be dealt with that I see common to all the upheaval today highlighted in Northern Africa and Arab States.   All the upheaval is in areas where there are regimes in power, where dictators have been sitting for many years, single head leadership.    Any regime, single head leadership worldwide better take note that there is a movement to remove that very system.
In the light of this very thought let me say it in simple terms, where single head leadership is in place the Spirit is moving to change, adjust and de-throne them.    The implication of this is that wherever single head leadership is established within the church, be aware the Spirit is transforming in creation.   The hierarchy of church leadership is under scrutiny!
Be aware that there is a need of transformation in our leadership in line with a people move to bring about the headship of Christ back to the church.    The days of hierarchy are certainly coming to an end,  we will find a new form of leadership that serves the body, as a company of people who know how to take lead from the leading of the Holy Spirit.
There is a move of the Spirit in the cosmos to bring about a suitable administration to these end days in which we live.   Be careful if you are the leadership, and you decide upon all that goes on in the church becoming the single leader or even the only one who controls the money,  there is A Spirit move on to bring about a leadership that is commensurate to the Christ and his purpose.  Let us be those who engage with the Spirit and influence transformation, that God might be at home in his body today
Consider our leadership, that it truly displays the Christ like servant leadership in every way, that it enables the advance of the “FAMILY of God” the church, that we practice a new form of leadership that affects the worlds of business, governments, etc.   Let us be a servant leadership to produce a servant family of God as we listen to the Spirits move!

Justice for All !

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It sounds like a protest chant a March through the streets of the capital declaring loudly ‘Justice for all’.   I must admit I have never joined intentionally any protest March, any political chanting in the streets so I may be a heathen declaring the chant.    Last Saturday however I met my daughter and her young man in London, she had relocated to the capital in order to take a Masters in Art at Wimbledon Art School, we met to enjoy good company and a walk around the city.   While chatting it came to light that one of our party had never stood outside Buckingham Palace so we went to put that right.   While walking down the Mall towards Trafalgar Square we were amazed to discover that the Pope was due to take that very route later in the day, continuing toward Parliament along Whitehall as we passed all the Government buildings the crowd began to back up and we were caught in political jostling and shouting, some say around 10 ,000 people, finally being stopped in our walk by a 4 deep line of luminous yellow clad police preventing the protestors against the Pope to go any further, we had accidentally found ourselves in the midst of the protest.  People could walk from Parliament to Trafalgar but who ever you were, innocent tourists or not, if you were coming the opposite way you were included as protesters and prevented from walking along Whitehall any further.

So here we were in the middle of shouts and debate, speeches against the Pope and the Catholic Church and his stance on abortion, gay, abuse by priests and everything else.     It was rather a shock to be numbered amongst the shouts and protesters JUSTICE they cried, men dressed as nuns, and popes, women dressed in nun’s attire with extremely short skirts and stockings to make a point even some walked in their underwear to make the point for justice.

Its makes me wonder what Biblical Justice is?    As people of God who have been commissioned to restore this creation/cosmos to Gods ultimate intention, his initial thought, restorers of creation and society, surely it is necessary for us to grasp justice correctly?

In essence Biblical Justice has to do with wholeness and not rights, seeing individuals, communities and the cosmos whole by upholding the grace of God along with being impartial and inclusive and upholding the goodness of God.

James in Chapter 1:27 (Message – Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world) tells us that it is true religion, a Christ centered life style, a way of explaining the Father to our society and world “religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and keep oneself from being polluted by the world”.   If this was only said once here, we would have to deal with it, but this whole direction of instruction is found throughout scripture in word and deed Proverbs 29: says “The Righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern”.

As we read the OT we cannot escape the directness and the narratives that direct us to consider Justice to the differing groups found in society, consider this, you can not fail to see that the Father has a heart towards the widow the lonely and the orphan along with the fatherless, all this comes within the justice heart of God.

Read Ruth and watch how provision is made for the widow and see the justice heart of God being made practical.   Not only that but one has to conclude that the provision in the field for the widow has a direct relation to the coming harvest.   No provision and no harvest next season,  practical justice creates, make sure you are a provider of justice and the future harvest is secured.      Consider this theme taken into the NT, is it not that the first account of challenge in the verging church was a widow issue.   The Father brings the issue of provision for the widow, justice in story form into the NT by showing that justice shown still has an impact along with responsibility.    Interesting that the apostles did not depart from their intimacy and involvement of standing the court room of God but did make  provision that the widows saw justice.   Remember these were good Hebrew people with a strong understanding of God and his dealing from OT,. Not people like you or me who read  the story line from a different vantage point.   They understood provision for the widows justice had an implication of harvest.   When provision was made the story line tells us that priest and governors began to be added to the church from that provision being made towards the widows, a different weight of harvest now came to the church.  They displayed the way to live, to show  justice is to show the heart of God.  Justice opens a harvest in relation to widows!

Justice flows from Gods heart and character, he seeks to make the object of his love whole.

The transformation that we have received is so that we can transform society and see communities restored, while we see that morality and immortality flows from the human heart James 3:10-18 justice is centered in God’s heart, and we are to purify our hearts James 4:8 from sin others wise the human heart leads us to sin.   With a transformed life we are not to wait until we get to heaven or be so removed from life and society, waiting for God to do it all, but the transforming work in us must find its way to my neighbor, extending God’s justice to the poor, orphans, widows without any partiality.

Matthew 5 tells us we are to be “…a light on a hill…” “…salt that has a savor…” how can we read that passage and only work to the Church Community.   We are to extend our saltiness into the community of non believers showing the Justice of God as  it flows from his character.   The church being the visible manifestation of God’s kingdom, literally to be his nature, his life,  advancing into every realm, every mountain of influence and every circle of life making the whole of creation, society, cosmos whole so that Christ will “…fill all in all…”

A just society is one that is filled with Christ essence, His likeness in every way, his interest, his way, justice!

Justice flows from Gods’ heart,  one of the greatest injustices we succumb to is self-righteousness – the belief we do not need anything outside of ourselves.   I am so amazed at what I hear especially in the business world as well as from people of all walks of life saying “how they are self-made” I am amazed as none of us are.  The Justice of God starts here causing us to see our need of him to remove our sin and bring us to wholeness.    We live in the light of Jesus restoring of all things.

Karl Barth once wrote that we fail to see Jesus as the righteous “judge, judged in our place” to bring the Fathers justice to us and the cosmos.

As we are restored, experience his justice we then carry this justice into our worlds, education, financial, health, political, art, family…..

James chapter 2:1-13

My dear friends, don’t let public opinion influence how you live out our glorious, Christ-originated faith. 2 If a man enters your church wearing an expensive suit, and a street person wearing rags comes in right after him, 3 and you say to the man in the suit, “Sit here, sir; this is the best seat in the house!” and either ignore the street person or say, “Better sit here in the back row,” 4 haven’t you segregated God’s children and proved that you are judges who can’t be trusted?5 Listen, dear friends. Isn’t it clear by now that God operates quite differently? He chose the world’s down-and-out as the kingdom’s first citizens, with full rights and privileges. This kingdom is promised to anyone who loves God. 6 And here you are abusing these same citizens! Isn’t it the high and mighty who exploit you, who use the courts to rob you blind? 7 Aren’t they the ones who scorn the new name—“Christian”—used in your baptisms?8 You do well when you complete the Royal Rule of the Scriptures: “Love others as you love yourself.” 9 But if you play up to these so-called important people, you go against the Rule and stand convicted by it. 10 You can’t pick and choose in these things, specializing in keeping one or two things in God’s law and ignoring others. 11 The same God who said, “Don’t commit adultery,” also said, “Don’t murder.” If you don’t commit adultery but go ahead and murder, do you think your non-adultery will cancel out your murder? No, you’re a murderer, period.12 Talk and act like a person expecting to be judged by the Rule that sets us free. 13 For if you refuse to act kindly, you can hardly expect to be treated kindly. Kind mercy wins over harsh judgment every time.

James brings attention to injustice being practiced, he opens up the scene and denounces oppression toward the poor, he took by the scruff of the neck the leaders who favored the rich, looking down on the poor or those who were lesser in the society and the shout goes forth to remove and break down these divisions in this restored community as the Father seeks to bring his justice through us into life’s situations.

Even Jesus own words carried the charge to be responsible in the ways of being Just in Matt 23:23 he says “You’re hopeless, you religious scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You keep meticulous account books, tithing on every nickel and dime you get, but on the meat of God’s Law, things like fairness and compassion and commitment—the absolute basics!—you carelessly take it or leave it. Careful bookkeeping is commendable, but the basics are required.” or as the NASB puts it “but you have neglected the more important matters of law – Justice, mercy and faithfulness”

We live in a world that is so different to that of our fathers gone by, especially the days of Jesus and the NT church, we live in a society where many have “rights” and even the ability to influence policies and legislation, we can consider how the justice of God’s Kingdom influences our involvement in matters of community, society, governance.

We cannot read the narrative of Jesus or the people of this new way this restored Kingdom that is restoring and not see Christ like people engaging, involving, ministering to the poor the marginalized and challenging the structures that weigh down on the poor.  Today we are to be the carers, the pastoral ministry of Christ extending to society.   Rather than being concerned about me and me having  a pastor for me, to pray for me, council me “my pastor” but being a people who pastor the cosmos, including in this inclusive Kingdom, reaching out with the justice of the King’s domain.

We must not forget that the kind of life, faith, Christ life the Bible advocates, asks for us to demonstrate and explain is rooted in justice that flows from the throne of the Father, and seeks to bring all things into the fullness of Christ the wholeness of the Father.    We are as those justified by the God of all justice in our own experience we are to extend His justice being the Christ citizen and bring about restoration.