​“I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” Galatians 19-20 (NRSV)

Christ lives His life in us. The exceedingly great and mighty power of Christ dwells in those who are His today. Because of this, we have the strength to separate from sin and the world, to yield to Christ as Lord and Master, to live the life of love for Christ and to follow His commandments. We are partakers of a new nature – Christ’s nature. Like Christ, we are crucified to the pleasures and pride of the world, to its lusts and self-pleasing ways.

And yet there is more. Because our Lord lives in us, we have the very mind of Christ. The same Lord who did not desire equality with God, but in surrender emptied himself and took on the very form of a servant, compels us to behave in the same way. (Philippians 2:5-8)

Do we reflect this same servant-heart? Do we emulate His willingness to deny what we want and consider the needs of others first? As Jesus lived desiring only what pleased His Father, let us commit to doing the same. Is God calling us to die to ourselves today? Jesus trusted His Father even when life didn’t make sense. He was obedient, even unto death. This is the mind Christ wants us to reflect.

Oh the wonder of believing that all the power and blessing that our crucified Lord has won is now in His chosen children! Knowing this, we can go into each new day yielding ourselves to God, considering ourselves dead to sin, but alive to God through Christ Jesus.

​“…giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light…” (Colossians 1:12, NIV)

My father retired as a senior scientist, and while he was in that service, we lived on campus. The guard at the entrance gate knew whose daughter I was, so whenever I crossed that way, he would stand and salute me. I wondered why anyone would do such a thing. What great deed had I done? I was just a graduate student back then and had never interacted with this guard, yet still I was receiving this honour.

It was not because of what I did but because of who my father was. The same thing happens in our spiritual life. We get an inheritance from our parents because of who we are; children of our parents. We not only receive materialistic things from them but we also (hopefully) choose to hold onto their faith and spiritual walk if they are believers.

Just as we receive from our earthly father, we receive from our heavenly Father in a similar way. Our inheritance from God is received by faith because of who we are in Christ — children of God. God calls us to hold onto our inheritance in Him. It’s not about the material things God gives, but about our faith in Christ and the spiritual walk He is calling on us to hold onto.

We receive whatever our Father has in store — love, honour, respect, peace, hope and so much more, along with the honour of being blessed and becoming a blessing to others. A determination to follow Him brings with it the realisation of His qualities and Christ’s strength that lives within us. As we remain in His Word, we understand our heavenly inheritance; the blessings from our Father, the strength of faith, and the endurance of living a life that comes through Him. Make a choice of receiving from your Heavenly Father all that you have in Christ.

​It was in June 2018 that this extraordinary thing happened.
 
I was on a visit to my younger son and his wife, who live and work in the cultural city of Heidelberg, in southwestern Germany. Having spent the morning sightseeing ― Heidelberg, home to Germany’s oldest university, is charged with history ―, I returned home, took a book, and went to sit in the garden. It was early afternoon, and the sky was lightly overcast. The air felt warm, there was hardly any breeze. A few yards to my left stood an old tree trunk, about nine feet high, whose branches had been cut off.
 
I was sitting there reading my book when, all of a sudden, a lightning struck. I saw the bright flash on either side of the trunk and at the same time heard the crushing roar of thunder, like cannon fire. A burning smell diffused in the air, but nothing was in flames.
Neighbours sprang to their balconies to see what happened. It took me a minute to realize that the thunderbolt had struck so close to me.
 
It is in our nature to compare the extraordinary things that happen to us with those of great men, and more often than not, with what the Son of Man had gone through. When I mentally re-enacted the event a few hours later, my mind went to Martin Luther who had a similar experience during a journey to Erfurt in July 1505. As the twenty-two -year-old law student was crossing the fields near Stotternheim, a terrible storm broke out, and a thunderbolt struck very close to him. The young man fell to the ground praying, and took a vow, there and then, to become a monk. “Ich will ein Mönch werden“. The words of the decision that changed the course of his days and the history of the world are engraved on a commemorative stone near the spot.
 
A Christian and a purist to the core, Martin Luther put his own life on the line, and stood firm by his faith against almighty Papal authority. In his sermons and writings, the founder of Protestantism emphasised the value of Grace over punishment and made the Bible accessible to the common man in a plain language that spoke to his heart. “We must become each other’s cover of shame” are the nicest words ever spoken by a religious leader.
 
Three weeks later I left the city of Heidelberg, with the experience in my spiritual luggage. I often recall its reality, the lightning flash trembling in front of me. The bolt that struck so close on that warm summer afternoon, I interpret it as a reminder of God’s infinite grace. Such experiences lead me to believe that we are all part of a highly intricate, inaccessible design whose Author has left nothing to chance. As the Lord declares in Isaiah “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts”.

There is no filial love inspired by an angry God, whose love is contingent upon man lowering his fist first. That’s why God loved first. That’s why God always loves first —and commands that we love each other the same way no matter the cost. Do you doubt that God loved first? The Bible says “…the goodness of God leads you to repentance,” (Romans 2:4).

Repentance is when you put your fist down because God loved first – and you believed it. “For while we were still helpless, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For rarely will someone die for a just person — though for a good person perhaps someone might even dare to die. But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. How much more then since we have now been declared righteous by his blood, will we be saved through him from wrath. For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, then how much more, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life,” (Romans 5:6-10 CSB).

That’s a lot of words to rattle around, but basically, the Bible is telling us ‘God loved first’— without pre-conditions.

That’s why I don’t want to get uppity about giving people the benefit of the doubt, or refuse to give of myself because I don’t think people deserve it, or require them to fix themselves to my satisfaction before I decide to hand them a get out of jail free card. I’m not implying people don’t have a responsibility to make things right when necessary. I’m saying God needs to move first – and he may want to use me to do that. I want the goodness of God to lead people to repentance by letting the goodness of God work first unconditionally through me.

Basically, I want to love people the way Jesus loves them, or I don’t want to pretend I love Jesus at all.​

​So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Cor 4:18 NIV 

The key to walking in the Spirit is to focus on what is unseen, the eternal promises of God. If our focus is on this temporary world, we will struggle in our flesh, trying to survive in our own strength.

Nothing in this world is permanent. Nothing in this world is going to save us from this world. Nothing in this world will go with us when we leave. 

In this trying time, His peace is but a breath away from each of us. It is within our grasp, not dependent on circumstances. For His peace to reign, we must look beyond the storm, shifting our focus once and for all onto our assured eternal destiny.  

Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory. Col 3:1-4 NAS

What Jesus tells us is true. His promises are guaranteed. We lose nothing and gain everything by fully trusting in our Savior with all of our heart. There is no one we can trust more.

Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled; do not be afraid. John 14:27 BSB

Trying to hold on and control things in our own strength doesn’t work. If you are tired of being tired, afraid, and worried, try it God’s way. Nothing else will work. Commit to focusing on the eternal in your thoughts from this day forward, wholeheartedly embracing His promises like never before. Do it one day at a time until you learn to walk boldly in confident agreement with the Holy Spirit.  He rewards us with His peace in the storm when our faith is steadfast in His promises.

​"Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus" (Heb 3:1 AV)

Consider Yourself is the title of a song from Lionel Bart’s famous West End musical, based on Charles Dickens’ novel Oliver Twist.
The song, which captures the moment when Oliver is accepted into Fagin’s young band of thieves, concludes with the following lines:
Consider yourself our mate.
We don't want to have no fuss,
For after some consideration, we can state...
Consider yourself
One of us!
 
Shortly before one of the leading Pharisees, a man named Nicodemus, paid an unexpected visit to Jesus, under cover of darkness, the crowds had been drawn to this new miracle worker and his teaching concerning the Kingdom of God and wanted there and then to identify themselves with him (John 2:23).  Jesus had refused that invitation (24) and now it was the turn of some in the religious establishment to seek to control Jesus by adopting him into their own teaching fraternity.
 
“We know…” Nicodemus attempted to explain to Jesus, “that you are a prophet sent from God…” referring to the acknowledgement by some leading Pharisees of the miracles that were fast becoming a hallmark of Jesus’ ministry. 
 
The Pharisees regarded themselves as the ones ‘in the know’ as far as religious matters were concerned, and the Pharisee, Nicodemus appears to want to grant a Pharisaic ‘seal of approval’ on the new Rabbi from Nazareth, effectively making him one of their own.  “Consider us” they might have said, “and join our company.”
 
But Jesus’ reply took Nicodemus completely by surprise.  “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.”  The Kingdom of God, Jesus revealed, was unfolding there and then (Luke 17:21) but, without experience of the new birth, it was impossible even for these religious leaders either to see it or to enter into it.
 
As Jesus demonstrated to Nicodemus, the new birth is a work of the Spirit, not of the flesh and the spirit, just like the wind that blows around us, it is beyond our control, though we hear its sound (or voice) and can only respond to it. We can’t control it (John 3:8).
 
Just like the crowds who had gathered to hear him, we want to take hold of Jesus and make him our own (John 2:23).  We look at ourselves and consider that we want to be more like him and so we strive to re-fashion ourselves in his image.  This all seems very good, but the focus is often more on the self and less on Jesus who must not only the object but also the author and finisher of our faith (Heb 12:2).    
 
Instead, our confidence needs to be, as T.F. Torrance has said, “in Christ’s grasp of us rather than in our grasp of him.”  It is Jesus who has chosen us not we who have chosen him (John 15:16) and we can be confident that, having taken us to himself, he will hold us firmly and securely (10:28).
 
The new birth that Jesus calls us to is a sharing in the new life that he has affected for us through his own life, death and resurrection.  Jesus is the new birth. He is the new man or the ‘second man’ as Paul calls him (1 Cor 15:47) and we can only discover our true identity as we set aside our former selves and consider him, resting in his grace. 
 
Only when we consider Jesus as the very substance of our being do we experience our true self, expressed through a perfect life (his), in full communion with God our heavenly Father.
 
As Paul stated in his letter to the churches in Galatia: “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Gal 2:20).

​​Any talk delivered from on high, so to speak, or ex cathedra, to use the stern Latin term, is fraught with dogmatic overtones.  For many centuries, Christian places of worship reverberated with sermons that sounded more like tirades than talks, inculcating the congregation with a spell-binding sense of fear and anxiety as sins piled up by the minute. The pointing finger, the stentorian voice, and the beady stare of the preacher from the pulpit conferred reproach, punishment, and eternal damnation. Grace, Christianity’s core concept, never entered the picture.
 
Heavy-sounding authority makes us instinctively recoil.  We may abide to it because we have to, but deep inside ourselves we revolt, pretty much like schoolchildren in a classroom run by an overbearing schoolmaster.  We resent pompous persons who claim that they know better than us and pontificate their words of wisdom.  But if someone were to address us in a low, peaceful tone, we might be curious to listen to what he or she has to say. 
 
Jesus Christ, the Man who voiced the word of God, never spoke 'ex cathedra', that is, in an overbearing self pompous tone.  What made Him immensely appealing to audiences, people from all walks of life, was His humble radiance, His utter lack of worldly authority. He spoke in parables so that even the most simple could understand Him.

The common folk, the unsophisticated, non-scholarly populace adored Jesus because they saw Him as one of their own; one who wore a plain garment and rode not on a splendid horse but on a donkey; one who soothed the adulteress and cured the sick woman who merely touched his cloak; one who washed the feet of his disciples and wept in front of the tomb of his friend, Lazarus; one who castigated the hypocrisy of the high priests and chased the traders and money-lenders out of the temple ― a brave, uncompromising Teacher who performed extraordinary things to show to those who doubted, the miracle that faith can work in our hearts.  The Son of Man captivated an ever-increasing number of listeners who craved for the immediate healing effect of His preaching.  They cherished His words of love, spoken in truth and directness.
 
The notions of Good and Evil, Virtue and Sin, Right and Wrong, become tormenting tyrants when taught in a rigid religious framework.  They suppress and desiccate sensitivities, and they tie Christianity to the wrong anchor.
                                                                                                                              
“It is the quietest words that bring the storm” writes Nietzsche. We need inner peace and passion to understand “the thoughts that come with doves’ footsteps and change the world”. 
 
For the Christian, empathy is the passion of faith. Faith in the Man who dissolved all doubt in the heart of Thomas ― one of twelve handpicked disciples ― by the infinitely reassuring words: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one can come to the Father except through me”.
 
Only through the eyes of Faith are we in a position to perceive Jesus Christ as the Agnus Dei, the Innocent Lamb of God who chooses to sacrifice Himself for our sake. Pointing to the good thief on the cross next to the Nazarene, Nietzsche writes “The criminal who while experiencing a painful death says: ― the way this Jesus dies without resistance or enmity, but in greatness and resignation, is the only way to die ― confirms the Gospel and goes to Heaven”.
​
We learn our Lord in admiration so that we can understand Him in love.

The Bible tells us Jesus came to "bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound" (Isaiah 61:1b KJV). Jesus is calling you to believe on Him.

Think of Jesus as the perfect Counselor, better than any other counsellors on earth, because He is. He knows how frightening the world can be, and how difficult it is to live according to His will, but He doesn't want this reality to discourage us or cause us to despair. He said "In the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world" (John 16:33b KJV).

Jesus holds the power - the power that can enable us to be forgiven and live a life that pleases Him. No other counsellor on earth has that kind of power! Living a new life that pleases God is part of His plan for us. All who believe on Jesus Christ were part of his plan even before they knew how to believe.

There are two important parts to God's plan for you. The first is to understand Jesus calls sinners to believe on Him. If you think you are too big of a sinner to hear the call of God consider this; you are not too big of a sinner! You are just the kind of sinner He is calling! Jesus said "I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance, (Matthew 9:13b KJV).

Jesus calls sinners like me and you to turn away from our selves with all our sin and unbelief to Him in faith, believing by grace, our sins are covered by His blood and we are forgiven in Jesus name. His promise is sure, "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life," (John 3:16 KJV.) This takes place when we turn our hearts to God in faith, believing Jesus died on the cross for our sins and rose again to save us from our sin.

That brings us to the second part of God's plan. In the Bible we are told "...He died for all, that they who live should henceforth not live unto themselves, but unto Him who died for them and rose again," (II Corinthians 5:15 KJV).

Jesus did more than reserve a place in heaven for those who would believe in Him. He died and rose again to empower people to live a new life in Him; to overcome destructive patterns in their lives, and honour our Father in heaven.  Sin and failure doesn't have to maintain a stranglehold in our lives anymore. God's plan for us is victory in Jesus, and eternal life in the Kingdom of God.

Lord Jesus, we bring our captive, broken hearts, and we bow before You. Set us free to believe all that you are, and all that you have done on our behalf. Create within us clean hearts willing to forsake all sin, and ready hearts willing to live lives that honour You. In Your Name we pray, Amen.

​I do not pray enough. I do not read the Word enough. I do not give enough. I do not always do the right thing. I do not have enough faith. I do not; I am not; I cannot…..

What is the common denominator and the focus of all these statements? Of course, it is "I." Have these thoughts or anything similar ever entered your mind?

If we are judging ourselves like this, I can guarantee you that we are judging others in the same way. The only reason we would do this is if we believe that Jesus partially saved us and then judges our actions to see if we do good enough to fully qualify. By doing so, we have missed the point. Jesus did not come to judge us or see if we can qualify. We could never qualify, that is why we needed a Saviour. Jesus came to save us, period. Only Satan wants us to think otherwise.

If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. John 12:47 ESV

Sin consciousness instead of being righteousness/forgiveness conscious reveals that our faith is in our actions and not in Jesus' finished work. This dishonours Jesus’s sacrifice and leads us to believe that we are responsible for qualifying to share in the inheritance of the saints when nothing could be further from the truth.

Giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins (Col 1:12-13 ESV).

We have been made righteousness, right with God, through our faith in Jesus.

…by the one man’s obedience (Jesus) the many will be made righteous (Rom 5:19b).

“Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies (makes righteous)” (Rom 8:33 ESV).

Lord, thank you for qualifying me fully to share in the inheritance of the saints. Amen

Providence was kind to Georg Christoph Lichtenberg from early on. His pastor father tried to make ends meet to support a large family, concerned about his youngest child whom an accident left with a permanent deformity of the spine. Yet Georg bore his hunch with wit and stoicism. “Unlike other people, my head lies at least one foot closer to my heart, which makes me fair-minded. Decisions are endorsed while they are still warm” he was to write many years later.

Too poor to attend school he received home tuition from his father who had a flair for mixing science with religion. But when Johann Lichtenberg died suddenly, the eight-year-old felt lost. Fortunately for Georg, an uncle offered to pay his school fees and the boy attended the Gymnasium of Darmstadt where his intellect shone at once. Shortness of funds would postpone university indefinitely had not his mother taken it upon herself to see the Elector of Hesse-Darmstadt and ask for a stipend for her son. Georg enrolled in the newly founded, forward-looking university of Göttingen, in the faculty of Natural Sciences. He took a special interest in physics, astronomy, and mathematics, and seven years later became a lecturer at twenty-eight. He was the first professor to occupy the chair of Experimental Physics at Göttingen where he lectured to audience-packed lecture halls. “The prince of mathematics” Karl Friedrich Gauss sat in on his lectures.

Lichtenberg the scientist had a distinguished career. He associated with the leading lights of his day, such as Alessandro Volta with whom he carried out experiments in electricity, his field of expertise. He corresponded with Goethe on the latter’s theory of colours, associated with chemists and geologists on his trips to England ―which transformed him into an ardent Anglophile― and wrote on a variety of topics, from lightning conductors to Willian Hogarth’s engravings and David Garrick’s performance in Drury Lane. He was the first to install a lightning conductor on his house in Göttingen. His own contributions to physics are the tree-like electric discharge patterns that bear his name ― the Lichtenberg figures. He led an active social life, married twice, as his first wife died young, and raised three sons and three daughters, before his ailing health forced him to resign from Göttingen, and spend the last ten years of his life bedridden. Among the corpus he left behind it is his notebooks, the “waste-books” as he liked to call them, which single him out as the foremost wit of the German Enlightenment.

What intrigues me in Lichtenberg, whom Kierkegaard extols in his journals, is his religious intuition. Being a scientist, he relied on careful observation and deduction, but on the issue of faith this is what he writes: “Faith in one God is an instinct, as natural as walking on two legs. In some men it exists in a modified form, in others it is quite restrained, but where it is normal, it is indispensable to our inner balance and wellbeing”.

God for Lichtenberg is not a vengeful taskmaster who punishes those who disobey Him. “The correct worship of God entails to do our duty and to act on our reason. For me, the fact that God exists means that with all my freedom of will, I must do what is right. A God who intervenes objectively when I commit a sin, does not exist. Intervention is the duty of the judge who handles the law.” And when it comes to his lifelong occupation, which is writing, he notes “What holds for gardening also holds for writing: no matter how much you care and water your plant, only God can make it grow. Let me explain myself. Many of the things we think that we consciously do, are not in fact our own doing. Mental effort is like sunshine and weather, it does not depend on ourselves. When I write, I cannot specify where does my best thought come from.” Words that bring to mind a beautiful passage from James, which Kierkegaard singles out as his favourite: “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows”.

In matters metaphysical, Lichtenberg the physicist exhibits unusual empathy. In the Psalms, which he always read with pleasure, he identifies with king David because “such a great man goes through what I go through, and despite his harsh trials praises the Lord for his salvation, just as I praise Him for mine. It soothes me to know that the fate of a man much superior to myself is not unlike mine, and that after thousands of years people seek solace in his words.” And referring to his favourite psalm, he writes: “Certain lines, like those of the Fourth Psalm are not recited as often as they ought to be. What an infinity of meaning hides in these words: Stand in awe and sin not; commute with your own heart upon your bed and be still. Offer the sacrifices of righteousness and put your trust in the Lord. An entire religion!”
  
   In an age such as the Enlightenment, where reason held full sway over religion, Lichtenberg the thinker writes: “I profoundly believe, having long reflected on the matter, that the original teaching of Christ, adapted for our age, is the ideal system to attain peace and happiness in the fastest, surest and most ecumenical way. I also believe in another system that stems from pure reason and leads to the same result, but it is addressed to accomplished thinkers and not to the common man, and even if it did meet with wide approval, the teaching of Christ would be preferable on practical terms. People are guided by what is true and widely understandable, even if it is presented in images that are interpreted differently on the way to knowledge”.

​Let us all be guided by the Light of Peace and Happiness, into the path of reason.