Cast Your Cares On God Alone Who Cares

A meditation to 1 Peter 5:6-11.

ATTACKS of the enemy occur with regular affront when we are won to the Kingdom of God, yet rarely, if ever, are we schooled in these at conversion. We normally have to resist Satan by experience, having been swallowed almost whole at some earlier time. Resisting Satan is a learned competency in the realm of belief upon Jesus.

Note how the apostle Peter warns us to humble ourselves. We must allow God to be Sovereign, for if we don’t we believe a lie, and we give sovereign power to the enemy to do to us what he likes. It will not end well.

We humble ourselves under God’s mighty hand so that he may raise us “in due time,” not before time. The time of humility — even the time of humiliation — is the time for patience and observation; to look at what God is already doing, and what he has already done.

We are told to cast all our anxiety on him, alone, who cares. He is the only one who can alleviate our suffering, and generally he is quick to remind us, through his people, that we are not the only ones suffering.

What can we do? Discipline ourselves. Stay alert. Be watchful. Keep at the ready.

At times of attack that’s probably all we want to do, as we simply rally our resources.

Resources are at something of a premium when that frontal attack comes. But the resources are always there. The enemy’s chief lie is the impotence and disinterest of God. Jesus has overcome and the Holy Spirit is enthralled at our behest. As we rest in the fact of our faith, God himself restores, supports, strengthens and re-establishes us.

***

Whenever we suffer the debilitating indignity of the devil’s attack — when our confidence plummets and we’re filled with doubt — there is encouragement in a simple solution.

God cares for those who believe,

God cares for those the devil would deceive,

Cast your cares on him, alone, who has power,

Cast your cares on him, now, this very hour.

Humble yourself under the Lord’s Almighty hand,

And before he exalts you he’ll give you strength to stand,

Resist that prowling lion; that one who would devour,

Run to Jesus in the Spirit; rest in his mighty power.

And after you have suffered, albeit a little while,

Know that you’ll have suffered in humanity’s common style,

Know also most of all that the God of all good grace,

Will hold you true evermore even until you see his face.

© 2015 Steve Wickham.

Zechariah 8 – Love Truth and Peace

A meditation to Zechariah 7:9 – 8:17.

YAHWEH’S affinity for truth and peace is seen numerous times in Zechariah 7 and 8. If favour is to be experienced extant of life we will enjoin ourselves to God’s will.

There is one way to experience God’s generous compassion — do his will: love truth and peace. And in this chapter of Zechariah there is a movement from judgment to compassion. God is compassionate in his covenant faithfulness, but there is the obligation now for God’s forgiven people to be God’s people: to love truth and peace.

As a people under the New Covenant ushered in under Jesus we make not much ado about grace. Many Christians take grace for granted. We all do from time to time.

If only we could hear the Words of the Lord in Zechariah 8, from the Lord himself, and take them deep inside us, embody them, and allow them to transform us. We would sense that God has the power to judge us severely and bring about disaster. We would feel the weight of God’s glory; the immensity of a life lived before God’s very Presence. We would see nothing as insignificant in life. We might begin to understand the depth of God’s immeasurable grace.

Ours would be a response…

The response of truth: to make the ability of our response — to be responsible for — living a life devoted to the truth. Such a life is devoted to losing in order to gain. To be so devoted to truth means there are times when life will definitely not work out as we would like it. So be it. And to God be that glory. That is to love the truth; to do it all ways.

The response of peace: to make the ability of our response — to be responsible for — living life as a peacemaker, under all circumstances. Again, such a life is devoted to the overall best even if that means a personal worst. This is about giving up what we cannot keep in order to retain what we could not lose; fellowship with friend and foe, alike.

Even when things don’t go our way we have the responsibility to love truth and peace. Indeed, when things don’t go our way, more is the privilege in this upside down gospel life.

Love truth and peace and peace will abide within you and truth will honour you.

Love truth and peace and God will honour you with strength and prosperity.

© 2015 Steve Wickham.

Loving With the Truth

A meditation to Ephesians 4:15.

CARING compassion would found all our affairs in the ministry of the Word with people, but for the case of truth. But isn’t caring compassion founded most in the speaking of truth… gently? Yet, it’s much easier pondered than achieved.

Loving with the truth is a delicate balance that errs toward grace without compromising truth; the allowance of time and space for trust to be protected, nurtured and nourished. But there isn’t always the time and space available. There are also many potential mismatches in perception, conflicting goals and motivations, people’s baggage, and people’s personalities and capacities to take into account.

We may ‘speak the truth in love’ — according to our own perception — and get it totally wrong: speak truth haphazardly, according to those who disagree. But to speak truth haphazardly fails not only love but truth also.

Truth and love converge and merge in grace. Grace, yes, is the accomplishment of truth.

Truth is never devoid of love.

The giving and receiving of feedback is the primary course for speaking the truth in love. The giving and receiving of feedback, therefore, is where speaking the truth in love is tested. A manager cannot give poor feedback and accuse the receiver that they are too sensitive if there is an outburst; they have failed to speak the truth in love if there is an outburst. Perhaps they misunderstand the dynamic. Maybe they haven’t sufficiently cared to understand. This can be said because the manager is in control of the interaction. But they may not feel in control. Their competence, and history, could be their enemy. There is little trust in the bank, perhaps. See how, at times, it may be impossible to speak the truth in love. Some interactions are broken before they start. External help is required.

This is because it depends on the perception of the receiver, not the giver’s perception.

The giver of the communication — the person seeking to love with the truth — has the burden of proof, and not the receiver. The receiver is in the passive role. It’s easy to submit to feedback that is deemed fair from the view of the receiver. But if the truth offends it’s not spoken in love; not according to the receiver of that love. Love that is given that does not love falls short of love. A husband cannot say he has loved his wife if his wife says he hasn’t. It doesn’t mean he hasn’t attempted to love his wife. A father has fallen short of love if his child rejects him. It doesn’t mean he hasn’t attempted to love his child. Love means to give; but it’s always a giving-receiving transaction. Love didn’t occur unless it was received. There will be exceptions in the case of psychological dysfunction in a person, but these are rarer than we think. Even someone with a personality disorder may be loved with the truth, but, in that case, the truth must fit their perception of truth more than ever. And it needs to be deployed gently, which takes great skill of care.

Like the Father so loved the world he gave his only Son, that perfect love is only completed in the believer when they accept it — when God’s love is received. God’s love, whilst perfect, is useless to a person yet to believe until it’s received. Human love is nowhere near as perfect; we must concentrate ever more on the receiver’s experience.

***

Loving with the truth can be like walking through a minefield. But we can be sure that God gives us a way. It depends on the receiver of our communication. Love is a giving activity.

As we engage someone, loving them with the truth, their response will dictate whether we have spoken the truth in love. It may seem an insufficiently postmodern way of looking at it, but nonetheless, it does us no good whatsoever to speak truth but miss love. It’s a missing of the mark, i.e. sin.

Loving with the truth is evidenced when people are built up; when they’re safe. Only when people feel safe can they grow.

Love with the truth and with the truth you will love.

© 2015 Steve Wickham.

Zechariah 7 – Act Justly, Show Kindness and Mercy

A meditation to Zechariah 7.

OBEDIENCE is shaped in all sorts of forms, and unfortunately obedience may occasionally be shaped by a covertly disobedient heart. Such a legalistic obedience obeys God’s rules but does not genuinely trust in the will of God, for instance, the fasting of the exiles in the fifth and seventh months for seventy years. Somehow they had lost their way; their fasting was not really done to honour the Lord. They fasted but they wasted their ‘devotion’ because they didn’t do it for the right reasons.

We have the same problem. Many times I’ve completed tasks diligently, but without the heart of joy God willed me to have. At other times I’ve done the right thing without the right attitude, which just isn’t right. But much more a concern than these two generalised examples is the ‘obedience’ that also seeks to manipulate.

Many of the rulers and powerbrokers in the Bible ran afoul of God because they were seen to keep the law but with the wrong motive. As a result they used power subversively and people under them, often the vulnerable, were abused.

When the Word of the Lord came to Zechariah at verse 9 it was in the form of the Prophets of old — a pre-exilic Word — a recounting of the sins Israel committed before the exile that caused it. This Word sounds remarkably like Micah 6:8. And this chapter overall has the mood of Hosea 6:6 and Isaiah 58:3.

True leaders act justly, and they show kindness and mercy; their heart — the seat of their intentions — is steadfast in humility before the Lord.

True leaders never expose the vulnerable and they don’t devise evil in their hearts. But if they do either of these things inadvertently they’re quick to repent. They do not do what Zechariah cites of the leaders of old, who “stopped their ears from hearing…” (Verse 11)

***

The key test of our faith in the realm of relational life, whether we’re leaders or not, is an ethical test; a moral scrutiny. The Lord misses nothing. We get away with nothing. And why would we wish to — if we have a conscience?

If we refuse to listen to our Lord he will refuse to listen to us; we’ll end up banished.

But if we have a healthy fear of the Lord we’ll prosper. And so will others around us.

The opportunity of leadership is not power for ourselves but blessing for others.

© 2015 Steve Wickham.

Zechariah 6 – The Four Winds of Heaven

A meditation to Zechariah 6:1-8.

DRIVING out over the face of the land, four horse-driven chariots are ridden out from between two mountains shimmering like bronze. This is a vision of the pervasive sweep of God’s Spirit from out of the four corners of heaven onto the earth and out into the four corners of the earth.

These four winds of heaven are symbolic of God’s quiet though compelling activity over the whole earth.

The horses that convey the chariots are red, black, white, and dappled — each set of horses representing God’s divine nature. They drive out with intention over the land, bringing God’s judgment, his message, his grace, and finally, his Presence.

Where the four winds (spirits) go, there, evil can no longer remain. God is a purging Presence, a compelling message, a foreboding grace; a final judgment. Like with the number seven, there is a sense of completion in the number of four chariots; because they are driven to the four corners of the earth.

***

God does not do things by half. And there is nothing unintentional about God’s activity, by his Spirit, over the earth. When God moves he brings the fullness of his divine intent and plan to being. We would be fools to ignore or trivialise this.

How this applies to us is easy to see.

The Lord will reign. Even as he does reign in heaven, and even as he superintends all creation, God is in control. Nothing that happens on earth is irredeemable. Nothing is wasted. And nothing is without purpose.

The four winds blow silently and inevitably into the fabric of our lives: judgment, the message, his grace, and his Presence. These four spirits emanate from mountainous strength; the solidity of bronze. They blow into our lives at conversion and they never stop impelling us toward the heavenly prize — God’s will on earth as it is in heaven.

We are admonished by God’s Spirit of judgment because he loves us so much to correct our wrongdoing — justice. We are edified by the Spirit of God’s message because he loves us so much to teach us — righteousness. We are encouraged by God’s Spirit of grace — favour. Finally, we are strengthened by the assurance of God’s Spiritual Presence — confidence.

Kerbed by justice, grown in righteousness, furnished with favour, gifted confidence.

Four gifts God gives, by his Spirit: a sense for justice, humility to live right, the Lord’s favour, and confidence from his Presence.

© 2015 Steve Wickham.

10 Little Things That Go a Long Way In Relationships

Most people don’t want everything their way,

Just a little respect to bless them in their day.

Most people are quite happy if you look at them and smile,

Just a little consideration goes the extra mile.

Most people are crushed by an insensitive remark when low,

Just a little kindness is a blessing to everyone, you know.

Most people are gentle and humble enough of heart,

Just a little grace their way helps them finish what they start.

Most people don’t need what you think,

Just a little courtesy so they don’t feel you think they stink.

Most people will respond well if you allow them what they feel,

Just a little forethought makes it possible for them to heal.

Most people don’t crave power,

Just a little joy to behold their living hour.

Most people are endeavouring to make the most of their life,

Just a little love can help them avoid a lot of strife.

Most people don’t worry if you’ve made a mistake,

Just a little effort to say sorry is right, for goodness’s sake.

Most people will forgive the hurt you’ve brought their way,

Just a little understanding helps, by letting them have their say.

***

Most people are reasonable, though relational.

They don’t need all we might think they are asking for. They are not as unreasonable as they sound. They don’t think like we think. And they are not wrong because they are different to us.

Respect, consideration, forethought, understanding and courtesy go a long way toward us being able to be kind, graceful and compassionate with others.

Respect, consideration, forethought, understanding and courtesy go a long way toward us having loving credibility with others.

None of us can expect to win the respect and love of others when we don’t issue love and respect on the first hand.

Love and respect win when we choose to respect and love others.

It doesn’t take much:

Just a smile instead of a frown.

Or an ear when someone is down.

Just a little goes a long way when it comes to handling our relationships. Just a little effort, a little time, a little thought. It’s what we’re expecting from them.

If we are prepared to start this way, and maintain this way, we will find others will most often fall into suit. But we don’t do it for their respect and love. We do it because it’s right.

© 2015 Steve Wickham.

Lord, Why Won’t You Fight For Me?

CHORUS

You say you will fight for me,

You who are faithful and true,

You assure me that one day I will see,

You ask me to place my trust in you.

VERSE 1

God Almighty, fight for me,

Stop this injustice against your own,

Oh I pray you might finally agree,

Give me hope beyond my dreary moan.

CHORUS

You say you will fight for me,

You who are faithful and true,

You assure me that one day I will see,

You ask me to place my trust in you.

VERSE 2

God Almighty, make this right for me,

Begin to do what only you can put right,

Turn this situation that I might be,

Put right in my world in the day of my sight.

CHORUS

You say you will fight for me,

You who are faithful and true,

You assure me that one day I will see,

You ask me to place my trust in you.

VERSE 3

God Almighty, you won me long ago,

Now I wonder whose side you’re on,

You seem to watch on when I’m so low,

You made me weak when I need to be strong.

CHORUS

You say you will fight for me,

You who are faithful and true,

You assure me that one day I will see,

You ask me to place my trust in you.

Psalms of imprecation are bellows from the depths of our being against the injustices we’ve suffered where God appears silent. The above song is an example.

I’ve been in these situations and so have many of my friends; indeed, I really do think we’ve all been in these situations — we’ve been faithful to God in trusting him, yet things occur that are always beyond our control and seemingly beyond God’s intervention. We wonder, “Why, God… why are you so impotent?”

Then, finally, we find ourselves sitting silently when the Lord speaks up: the wrath of God, Almighty. This is the Word of the Lord in the mood of Job 38 and following, where God dresses Job and all his ‘friends’ down. “What on all the earth do you know? Did you create that which you now criticise?”

Again, we sit.

Again, we lament.

Again, we are faced with a horrible reality.

No longer is this about how impotent God is. Now it’s about how conditional our faith was on being blessed. Now it’s about us being exposed. God is vindicated and we are guilty. We realise that God is no cause-and-effect God. He cannot be coerced. We can no more bargain with God than we can bring about pleasure and ward off pain.

Then we sit. We repent. We turn back to God. We have nothing left.

Then we sing:

You say you will fight for me,

You who are faithful and true,

You assure me that one day I will see,

You ask me to place my trust in you.

Then we simply respond: “I WILL.”

A prescription for someone angry with God: have a conversation with God like Job did in chapters 38 – 41. Go and read these chapters. Understand that Job was written for people like me and you. We need to know the truth:

Faith has nothing to do with twisting God’s arm for a blessing.

Faith has everything to do with waiting on and trusting the Lord.

With time we will see that the Lord was fighting for us all along. But we will only see that reality if we have faith enough to trust.

© 2015 Steve Wickham.

Do What Is Right and God Will Make Right of What You Do

Now who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good? But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed.

1 Peter 3:13-14 (NRSV)

RIGHTEOUS precedes peace. The Bible speaks of it no less than on seventeen occasions. So it is to peace that we go when we have chosen to do what is right — if we have faith that God will look after us… that blessing will follow.

If we suffer for doing what is right we know that we are blessed as our account is paid. But if we suffer and don’t do what is right, we must pay as well as suffer. Who do we pay? God, of course! If we have done what is right, even if we’ve suffered, God is pleased in heaven and we might be here on earth via his Spirit. Don’t you feel pleased when you miss out knowing you’ve done nothing wrong? I can assure you that blessing can be known in and through you when you cheerfully recognise that God knows and God commends, and that no commendation is like his!

Yet we still struggle knowing the injustice meted out is just unfair.

And this is why reading our Bibles for the encouragement they bring is so vital. We need to be reminded that we can be blessed for doing what is right under duress. We need to reclaim, afresh, the knowledge that an application of grace to others bequeaths grace all over us, like a boomerang. As we forgive in the mode of injustice, by doing what is right in any case, we are blessed with a sense of purity’s assurance — there is no self-righteousness in this, whatsoever.

We know that grace bestowed is a relational investment. For an enemy we determine cause that one day they may be a friend. What a wonderful way to love others by doing what is right in advance! We love because we can. Simple.

***

We tend to make of ourselves a very small target for others’ misuse and abuse when we try to do what is right. Mostly. Generally.

The more we do what’s right, the more life works out right.

Whilst this is no perfect rule, it’s worth applying.

Doing what is right is the chief way we learn the wisdom in life: God blesses what is blessed. He curses what is already cursed. It’s wisdom to follow what anyone can observe about the way life works.

© 2015 Steve Wickham.

Zechariah 5 – The LORD Will Dispose of Evil

A meditation to Zechariah 5.

TWO NIGHT VISIONS connect in Zechariah 5 to confirm what the Lord is doing.

The Lord is acquitting his faithful who have been driven into exile, and more so, he is also condemning those who have been wrongly acquitted.

In the sixth night vision, a massive flying scroll resembling a sheet is symbolic for the imposing power of God’s Word as it hovers over the earth, bringing judgment through righteousness — the faithful will be vindicated; the wicked, judged. Everyone in the vicinity on earth can see it. It’s literally “a curse over the face of all the land.” It’s a curse for covenant violators. The two crimes-of-covenant in view are 1) those who swear falsely (i.e. liars) (3rd commandment); and 2) those who steal (8th commandment). The first is a sin against Yahweh, the second is a sin against one’s neighbour. Those who seem to get away with these kinds of treachery will get away with nothing.

Proverbs tells us that the Lord detests the acquitting of the guilty and the condemning of the innocent; that the innocent deserve justice (Proverbs 17:15; 18:15; 24:24-25).

From verse 5 we see the seventh night vision unfold. The guilty are the focus here. Those who have transgressed the Lord’s covenant are designated as “Iniquity.” They are not only incarcerated (in a basket), they are also about to be carried off to Babylon — a hell of their own just desserts. There they will be set down and founded permanently. There they will receive no chance for redemption. There the judgment is damning. There is where those who sin capriciously will go. This means great hope for those who are truly endeavouring to be faithful to the Lord; the repentant.

***

What does all this mean?

There are people who wreak havoc in our lives without seeming to care. There are also times when we don’t care sufficiently. This is an encouragement to us in the first instance — those who have spelt injustices out into our lives will not get away with it. This is a challenge to us in the second instance — it’s not too late for us to go back and make things right.

God will not let the innocent suffer forever. He cannot let the guilty go free.

We are urged to tell the truth, even when it hurts (Psalm 15:4). We are also urged to steal, covet, and lust after, nothing. Faithfulness to God is honesty and contentedness.

Remember, all in his timing! “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years” (2 Peter 3:8; cf. Psalm 90:4). Justice will come, but not today. Patience decrees we wait as if we were not waiting at all. Justice will come!

© 2015 Steve Wickham.

Where the Holy Spirit Alone Leads No Person Can Persuade

EVERY now and then God reminds me of a truth that we possibly all rail against: we cannot control the direction others go in, no matter how apt — for their situation — we think our advice might be. (Please forgive, for a moment, the possible arrogance of such a position as to ‘know’ what is good for others — much of the time it’s a folly, I agree…)

It’s the very definition of frustration: to expect a result that is unreasonable to expect.

It’s unreasonable to expect another person to see what we see, to believe what we believe they should do, and to require they act how we would act if we were them.

It’s unreasonable to expect that they, too, won’t get frustrated. Frustration meets frustration, as one party frustrated frustrates another. We have to get beyond our mutual frustration. We have to stop expecting things of one another. We have to stop looking externally, and allow God to wring us out internally.

Only God Himself

If God himself won’t convict a person to an attitude or an action, we have no chance.

In that way, it’s easier to conceive someone coming up with their own ideas for change than it is for that person to listen to us.

Much of the time I’ve repented of rebellion or evil against God it’s generally been about others in my orbit being used by the Holy Spirit. But I, alone, decided. Only the Holy Spirit has the ability to cause my heart to see the truth in what others say. My pride would otherwise castigate what God intends that I hear.

Only God’s truth can convince us of that which our pride might conceal from us.

We are ruined without God’s speaking of others’ truth into our hearts. This is why we need each other.

But only God himself will ever convince us of anything. And God’s role is to humble us enough that we might simply be open to listening, in order that we might finally see the truth in what others are saying.

A Recent Example

The person who speaks most truth into my life is my wife. Yet some of the time I cannot bear to hear it; until that is I get that nudge of the Spirit, that warm wash of shame, to listen and admit my error. I’m not rebelling against her when I can’t bear her truth, I’m rebelling against God himself.

I often like to think I’m further along ‘the journey’ than I am. I can resent where God has placed me, in this season and in his perfect will. But the truth is God — in all our lives — has us exactly where we need to be.

This doesn’t mean that our lives are always great. Remember that life (from a Christian perspective) is not about our comfort and pleasure, but it’s about our character development and practice.

When Sarah reminds me what God would have me acknowledge, it’s only his Spirit that enlivens me to repent and to acknowledge it. Sarah, though I love her unconditionally, has little or no influence. It’s all the Holy Spirit in me.

***

We can’t take people where God is not leading.

We can’t take people into their Promised Land if God hasn’t yet shown them.

Helping people with their problems is about learning how and where God is leading them. Then it’s simply about affirming and challenging their theology and practice.

This seems like a worthwhile saying:

When the Holy Spirit convicts,

The person within commits.

© 2015 Steve Wickham.