Afternoon Lord! Funny how I’ve actually started to look forward to Mondays to be able to spend a bit of time with just you and me without the interruptions of the weekend. Having said that, though, it was a wonderful weekend. Church yesterday was great, lunch with Ashley was great (although having to not mention it to Ma and Pa Copeland in case they wanted to come too was a challenge) and taking the kids for a windy walk along the beach yesterday afternoon was lovely too.
Daniel was fantastic yesterday. His preaching is getting better all the time on account of that local Bible College programme he’s been doing. I think a lot of people are surprised – not least his wife. I heard Abigail muttering to Sarah that she thought he was taking everything very seriously these days, and looking for changes at home, and it seemed clear this was not a good thing from her outlook at all. You can see that as he goes deeper, Abigail’s life is being thrown into sharp contrast for the shallow shell it is. Mind you, I suppose I shouldn’t judge since I was hardly a model Christian at one point (perhaps still!) – although I was never interested in looking like something out of a fashion catalogue the way Abigail is!
Daniel said that the big thing he had been learning was about how so many Christians believe the essence of Christianity is to be Christlike – which they interpret to mean being as like Christ as they can manage to be. But Daniel said that this attempt to be Christlike can be frustrating and dissatisfying because of how impossible it is for any of us to attain, and that it can lead to hypocrisy when we try to do one thing and end up doing something else instead.
Daniel talked about John 5 and about some of the startling things you said about how you lived. First off, Daniel talked about Philippians 2: 5 -8 which says:
“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross!”
Then Daniel paralleled these verses with two things you say in John 5…
v19 “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.”
v30 “By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.”
He also mentioned John 8:28, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am the one I claim to be, and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me.”
Daniel said that rather than trying to be Christlike we should be trying to be like Christ – like you, Lord. You made yourself nothing, you were humble and obedient – and you testified that you did nothing, said nothing, and made no judgments on your own. You lived entirely under control of the Father, willing and available to do whatever, wherever, whenever – even to death.
Wow, Lord! Here’s me trying desperately to be the person I think you want me to be when, according to Scripture, what you really want me to be is dependent and obedient, and for you to do the work! This is quite revolutionary…
Daniel has said there is much more he wants to teach us on this subject, and I for one can’t wait. Neither can Andrew. As you know we had a huge discussion about Daniel’s message yesterday!
Well, I did pray you would teach us and show us where we were going wrong! I feel as though I’ve just found a big piece of the Christian jigsaw puzzle that I’ve always missed… although quite how I don’t know.
Bring it on, Lord! Amen