Children of Abraham by Faith
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I have spent most of January wrestling with complex theological thought. Not everyone’s cup of tea I know and it is as frustrating as it is rewarding. I haven’t quite finished yet as I have another assignmnet to hand in next Friday.
The two areas that I have been focussing on are the socio-political and ethical implications of Paul’s theology and Feminist theology. Within both I have found much that I have agreed with, much that I have been challenged by and some that is easy to discount as plainly heretical.
Why am I sharing this? Because I have come to the conclusion that, no matter how much we think we know about our great faith, there is always more to learn. No matter how much we think we understand there is always somewhere deeper to go.
As evengelicals, we tend to think that our belief system has come to us as a fait accompli, passed down to us from Christ, via the Apostles and dumped in our lap in the form of the completed canon of scripture. But the reality is that, over the last two thousand years, people have argued, fought, died, separated and been persecuted over differences of interpretation of scripture. Today, the Christian church incorporates a wide spectrum of perspectives on what is the truth with many nuances in between.
What none who are really Christians disagree on, however, is that God revealed himself to us in the person of His son; Jesus came to make known to us the love of the Father and to bring us into relationship with Him; and that the Holy Spirit lives with us to make the presence of God real to us as he shapes us into the likeness of Jesus.
As I conclude, I pray that in this month, the reality of God’s presence may carry you through all you encounter.
God bless
Richard
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One of the greatest privileges and biggest heartaches of being human is the opportunity to produce and nurture children. They fill our hearts with joy and cost us the most tears of any other experience in life.
Children are a sharing in the divine – an insight into the fatherhood and motherhood of God. He it is who loves us, nurtures us and weeps over us, and as parents we share in a minute manner the deep resonances of the heart of God.
As a father, there are times when I want to sweep my children up in my arms and just hold them to myself. At other times, the missed opportunity of not strangling them at birth seems a little closer to my heart. But, as a child of the King, this bittersweet experience remains one of the great privileges in life.
In this season, we remember the moment when God stepped into history and became a man. He never ceased to be God, but in clothing himself in human flesh, he became truly man – feeling our suffering, knowing our tragedy, experiencing our joy. He subjected himself to our constraints, wrapped himself in the mantle of our dust, so that he could lift us up into relationship with our heavenly father – the father who, despite the disappointment, pain and tears we cost him, loves us with a love so immense that he was willing to pay for relationship with us through the death of his own son.
‘How great the love the father has bestowed upon us that we should be called children of God!’ (1 John 3:1)
God bless!
The Promise Is Given (27th November2011)
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