Step In Time With the Holy Spirit

Step in time with the Spirit

Live by his very power

Living each day

Reconciling every hour.

Step in time with the Spirit

Gathering pace as you walk

Learn by good example

Exactly how to talk.

Step in time with the Spirit

Allow him to anoint

Every move you make

Obey him who does appoint.

Step in time with the Spirit

At times waiting for him to come

For everything without him

Is incomplete in sum.

Step in time with the Spirit

As God begins his work in you

And even as his Spirit continues

To in that hold you true.

Step in time with the Spirit

Knowing he is your power source

Experiencing his dynamism

This ever loving force.

Step in time with the Spirit

Don’t let your flesh drag you down

Enduring the spiritual battle

Having a smile and not a frown

Step in time with the Spirit

Don’t turn to things of desire

Don’t let the enemy

Smother your spiritual fire.

Step in time with the Spirit

Retain the essence of sobriety

For in this way the Spirit will

Protect your integral propriety.

Step in time with the Spirit

Jettisoning every vainglory

Believing in his power

As he invests in your story.

Step in time with the Spirit

In ways to enjoy the fruit

So more and more and more

Christ becomes your dear root.

Step in time with the Spirit

Know his refining grace

Moving as he leads

Running only your very race.

Step in time with the Spirit

So patience and kindness are yours

So when the testing inevitably comes

You are able to open those doors.

Step in time with the Spirit

March in time with unity

For the defining sign of life

Is the prosperity of community.

Step in time with the Spirit

Relate with the offensive

Don’t pridefully reject them

By becoming stubbornly defensive.

Step in time with the Spirit

Resist the want to compete

Reject the envying spirit

There’s no glory in that to repeat.

Step in time with the Spirit

Put off your superior conceit

For if you don’t do this

You’re in line for a commanding defeat.

Step in time with the Spirit

Restore the broken vessel

Promote the Spirit’s work

So in them the Spirit can nestle.

Step in time with the Spirit

Carry the burdens to relief

For in this beautiful way

We will most certainly nurture belief.

Step in time with the Spirit

Settle the onerous demand

And by realistic expectations

We obey God’s command.

Step in time with the Spirit

Notice the moment’s very need

Believe that God provides

And will give us to sow his seed.

Step in time with the Spirit

Look up to heaven alone

Take your counsel from him

And by him your good deeds are sown.

Step in time with the Spirit

Be others’ experience of the Lord

For everyone who doubts

May see him in us who’s adored.

© 2014 S. J. Wickham.

Trust the Holy Spirit

Trust the Holy Spirit

To give you the words to say

To respond well in the confusion

Every night and day.

Trust the Holy Spirit

To give you the things to do

Especially in discerning

The right things that hold you true.

Trust the Holy Spirit

To be inspired in order to know

That very special anointing

In order to prayerfully grow.

Trust the Holy Spirit

Ensure you can be aware

Of every way of accord

To be empowered enough to care.

Trust the Holy Spirit

By seeking God above it all

To desperately want the knowledge

The understanding of his call.

Trust the Holy Spirit

To give you strength and peace

He alone can give it

That unrelenting release.

Trust the Holy Spirit

You know it to be your role

Most certainly it’s your destiny

The everlasting goal.

Trust the Holy Spirit

Whilst you are in the flesh

Ever realigning

Continuing to enmesh.

Trust the Holy Spirit

Put into it your all

For when you do this very thing

Watch your flesh surrender and fall.

Trust the Holy Spirit

Allow God to facilitate transition

And through this astounding miracle

Make that your very mission.

Trust the Holy Spirit

That portent of God in you

This revelation, grace and power

Will always hold you true.

Trust the Holy Spirit

So the message of Christ is proclaimed

Just in order that everyone can

Know the Father has in him salvation named.

Trust the Holy Spirit

As you journey through stormy seas

Holding on valiantly and in accord

And with God it’s you who agrees.

Trust the Holy Spirit

Multiply God’s voice aloud

And in the quietness

Ensure the Spirit’s work is endowed.

Trust the Holy Spirit

Listen to the Holy Voice alone

Even as words aren’t heard

Whether it makes you rejoice or groan.

Trust the Holy Spirit

In the uncertainties of life

Always, ever, and burning

Yes, even in the strife.

Trust the Holy Spirit

Especially when you’re inspired

Don’t worry about others’ fear

And on what they may’ve conspired.

Trust the Holy Spirit

The person of God in you

This is the living God

Not known by just a few.

Trust the Holy Spirit

In Jesus to rejoice

Trust this Beautiful One

Value above it all his voice.

Trust the Holy Spirit

Glory even in lament

For he will assure you

And keep you from becoming bent.

Trust the Holy Spirit

Have faith in unknown gain

For God wills it that the obedient are honoured

Those who step despite their pain.

Trust the Holy Spirit

He lifts you where you are

Every despairing effort

Will ultimately take you far.

Trust the Holy Spirit

Trust alone in his acclaim

Believe every loving story

To the glory of his name.

© 2014 S. J. Wickham.

Risen, Exalted, Worthy, Eternally, Jesus

“But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.”

— Matthew 28:5-6 (NRSV)

He came as a babe born in a squalid manger, yet he was the King of kings and Lord of lords. He was threatened within an inch of his life soon after his birth, yet he would survive another thirty-odd years to be killed at the hand of the worst threats to have faced any human being. He grew up in a poor family and learned the father’s craft, yet he owned everything and he was actually the Maker of all things. He was a child, yet he grew in wisdom that surpassed those of advanced years. He served a long apprenticeship, yet he was fit to practice in any field of his choosing any time he wanted. He was revealed by John the Baptist as the anointed one, yet it was to be the Father’s privilege to make the real announcement.

He taught the disciples everything he could, over and over and over again, yet they were still so stubbornly confused as to get it wrong. He loved ‘the least of these’ even though he was ‘the most that had ever been’. He insisted on being associated with those his society considered vile, but the real vile ones were the religious elite of the day. He considered it nothing to be made into a man – fully human, yet also, at the same time, fully divine – yet he suffered the worst death imaginable. He was cast down in despair, yet he gave everyone around him hope. He gave in response to our taking from him – and he kept giving – and keeps giving because of his Holy Spirit.

His name is Jesus. Do you know him?

There are not enough words of paradox that could reveal how his light beckoned in, and destroyed, the darkness.

And the most incredible paradox of all is that the Jesus they crucified for blasphemy proved he was God by rising from the dead.

If one man can defeat death, we surely are able to quash death’s power when we have power in his name. When we believe upon Jesus, we have access to the risen power for life, despite the horror and hopelessness of our circumstances.

Jesus is alive; he’s alive in me and you.

Jesus is alive; his resurrection’s historically true.

© 2014 Garments of Praise. Written by S. J. Wickham.

The Sacrifice In Love and Forgiveness

“The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: ‘If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?’ But... the Good Samaritan reversed the question: ‘If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?’”

― Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (1929 – 1968)

What is forgiveness?

And what is love?

They’re the blessedness of sacrifice,

God’s leading from above.

These two staples,

Are one in kind,

Forgiveness and love,

Are God designed.

Love and forgiveness are two of a kind; both come of God. No human being can claim to love like the Good Samaritan without knowing the love of God. This love does not come independent of the Lord of All Creation.

***

Forgiveness, it may be argued, is a gratuitous portent of life that is completely incomprehensible if not for love. We may ask, “What is forgiveness?” or “How do I forgive?” but both questions are difficult to answer unless we have experienced this thing, forgiveness, either in receipt or as purveyor. Forgiveness cannot be understood apart from love.

The ‘Good Samaritan’ Characterised

When we take our eyes off fear for self-protection, and we allow ourselves to be one for the moment with God, we become characterised more as the Good Samaritan. But, mostly, we cannot take any credit, for it is God that has made us give up on fear for the grander prize – the evolvement in us of his miraculous will.

The love of the Good Samaritan character that sees the vulnerability in the flailing human character – the one needing help – is palpable. There is neither a second thought for assisting, nor is there any ego involved. They are one with God. Their act to help out is completely chivalrous.

So it is with forgiveness.

True forgiveness has come to a place where no other thought of correspondence is entered into. There is no other option. To forgive makes complete sense. God has convinced us and we are glad of it. The act of forgiveness, furthermore, is secondary, but it is the act that reinforces the attitude. The attitude cannot stand without the act, but the act without the attitude is but legalism – it is no sacrifice, but a missing of the mark it is.

True sacrifice does what it does because no other option makes sense. Sacrifice is, therefore, an act of the will that acts because there is nothing but love compelling it. It, for that moment, is so completely under God’s influence.

***

True forgiveness is sacrificial, in that the person forgiving sees no other option than to love. God has taken over. Forgiveness, then, is not about us, but entirely about the other person, so by love we continue to reach into them for as long as it takes.

© 2014 S. J. Wickham.

Why the Holy Bible Is So Full of Failures

Power for understanding,

Is God’s holy Word,

The message is commanding,

Above all we’ve seen and heard.

It’s a series of stories,

Of failure of all kinds,

The majesty in God’s glories,

And his salvation power to unbind.

LITANIES of tragedy, victory, defeat, exile, death, pillage, gore, and even the seemingly unbelievable; that, in sum, partly at least, is the Holy Bible.

As I walked recently – (God always seems to talk to me when I walk) – I was reminded, “My Word is about failures – in person and deed and life experience – as an encouragement for those, like you right now, who feel like failures. My Word reminds you that you are not alone in feeling this way. It reminds you to look beyond your failures unto Me. Life is not about success or failure; it’s about Me, your Saviour and Lord. Fix your eyes, your heart, your senses, and your thought on Me, for I will save you, again and again and again.”

As we cast a glancing eye over the Word of God we see that the good biblical characters – those revealing God’s glory in and through his Word – had anger management issues, were greedy (e.g. several of the kings), lost sight of their calling, wandered from the path of their calling, murdered (Moses and David), ran away from their problems (Jonah), insulted God (Job, David, etc), were prostitutes (Rahab), committed adultery (David), and battled unforgiveness (Peter and Paul). This is only a scraping of the biblical surface.

The object of God’s Word – particularly the Old Testament – is to highlight: 1) how far from God we actually are, and 2) how much we need to desperately cling to God in order to not miss the mark. The object of the New Testament is the revealing of God’s grace through Jesus Christ; our Blessed Assurance.

We are failures in the sense that we are fallen creatures with flesh-held desires we cannot fully control. We are failures in the sense that we either doubt ourselves or we puff ourselves up. We are failures in the sense of being for our own guidance. We are bad guides of ourselves.

The Word of God propounds these truths – over and over again.

Without God we have not a hope and we remain in the actuality of hell – where part of that hell is in simply not knowing.

With God – through the encouragement of his Word, which points us to futility of doing life in our own strength – we have what we need; a day or a moment at a time.

God’s Word is a lamp unto our feet. It lights our way. And that light is contingent on following him steadfastly and earnestly.

***

God’s Word is beautiful in this: from character to character we read of failure upon failure. It encourages us in our failures to keep going, and to refocus on our King, Jesus, who makes all things new.

© 2014 S. J. Wickham.