Around eighteen months ago I wrote a blog post on the joy of attending a prayer meeting; so in the spirit of better late than never here's the next part to it! Truth be told, this was not a post I could have written back then because it has only been over the last six months or so that I've actually regularly started to look forward to going to church. Although it still surprises me when I wake up on Sunday and I find that I'm actually eager to attend.
Before I get started I'd also like to say that while the title to this piece speaks of abundant joy then that is still very much an aim for me. Most of us will hopefully know the partial joy of church attendance and it is my hope and prayer that this will spur us on to seek its abundant joy. The first and most basic joy is that of obedience. As the 4th commandment goes: "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God." (Exodus 20v9-10) Even if our Lord's day is otherwise a joyless affair and we can see no point in attending church at least we do go. When all other joys fail there can still be the joy of duty, however minor such a joy may be.
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“Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.”
1 John 3 v 18 This verse has been on my mind a lot recently for I think it does a good job of summing up one of the failures of my own walk with God and, if I can be so bold as to generalise, the church as a whole. We know that the essence of Christianity is love: “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13v13) and we know the summary of all of God’s commandments: “Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.” (Matthew 22 v 37 – 39). And yet when push comes to shove then we are not very good at loving others. Oh, we are very good with loving with words and speech! It is easy to say “I’ll pray for you”, it is also pretty easy to actually pray, but if that’s all we ever do for our friends then we’ve missed the glaring point of Christian love. Don’t get me wrong, there is always room for encouraging words, promises to pray, a cheerful word, a reminder of a bible verse, these are good and we should overflow with them. But if that’s the extent of our love then we have a problem. And that problem is that we are not truly loving. Take the Lord Jesus Christ, he doesn’t just say he loves us, he doesn’t just pray for us, he doesn’t just give many encouraging promises to us (though he does all these things), Jesus also died for us. You can’t get more nitty gritty practical than that. As John writes a few verses earlier: “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.” (1 John 3v16). In fact, if you follow John’s argument the reason why he calls us to love with actions is this is exactly what Jesus did! We have not known Thee as we ought,
Nor learned Thy wisdom, grace and power; The things of earth have filled our thought, And trifles of the passing hour. Lord, give us light Thy truth to see, And make us wise in knowing Thee. We have not feared Thee as we ought, Nor bowed beneath Thine awful eye, Nor guarded deed and word and thought, Remembering that God was nigh. Lord, give us faith to know Thee near, And grant the grace of holy fear. We have not loved Thee as we ought, Nor cared that we are loved by Thee; Thy presence we have coldly sought, And feebly longed Thy face to see. Lord, give a pure and loving heart To feel and know the love Thou art. We have not served Thee as we ought, Alas, the duties left undone, The work with little fervor wrought, The battles lost or scarcely won! Lord, give the zeal, and give the might, For Thee to toil, for Thee to fight. When shall we know Thee as we ought, And fear and love and serve aright? When shall we, out of trial brought, Be perfect in the land of light? Lord, may we day by day prepare To see Thy face and serve Thee there. “And if by grace, then it cannot be based on works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace.” Romans 11 v 6
Almost immediately any attempt to earn grace runs in a problem, and as problems go this is right up there with what to have for breakfast. Grace is defined as the unmerited favour of God to man. It’s pretty easy to see then that if grace could be earned it would cease to become grace and instead become the merited favour of God to man or the ‘wage’ of God to man. As Paul writes in the above verse if there’s work involved in grace then grace ceases to be grace. |
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