Teapot Theology » lent

anguish, hope and Genesis

Johnny Douglas — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 17:39:49 +0000

God says, I want you to realize that I never underestimated how thoroughly you’d mess up your life or how painfully you would struggle and suffer and I don’t want you to underestimate your failures or struggles either. They’re all part of the story I’m telling.

But neither have I underestimated My determination or ability to enter the mess you’ve made and the pain you feel and turn everything around.

I can, and I will, make everything good again. (More than just pass-ably good, but exceedingly great!) Never, never underestimate Me. I have a plan, a very good one, and it will move ahead to completion. Guaranteed! …. so continue to Trust Me!

Why? Because I love you even when you’re messing up badly. I love you in the middle of your pain even though I don’t relieve it as quickly as you wish. I am worthy of your trust, no matter what happens in your life. I have a good plan, and nothing will stop Me from carrying it to completion.

You must live now in the tension between anguish and hope. This is trust: this is Lent.

Lent begins….

Johnny Douglas — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 17:33:15 +0000

Here’s the words and wisdom of Henri Nouwen in a prayer:-
“The Lenten season begins. It is a time to be with you, Lord, in a special way, a time to pray, to fast, and thus to follow you on your way to Jerusalem, to Golgotha, and to the final victory over death.

I am still so divided. I truly want to follow you, but I also want to follow my own desires and lend an ear to the voices that speak about prestige, success, pleasure, power, and influence. Help me to become deaf to these voices and more attentive to your voice, which calls me to choose the narrow road to life.

I know that Lent is going to be a very hard time for me. The choice for your way has to be made every moment of my life. I have to choose thoughts that are your thoughts, words that are your words, and actions that are your actions. There are not times or places without choices. And I know how deeply I resist choosing you.

Please, Lord, be with me at every moment and in every place. Give me the strength and the courage to live this season faithfully, so that, when Easter comes, I will be able to taste with joy the new life that you have prepared for me. Amen.

lent 18

Johnny Douglas — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 06:55:45 +0000

So often as Christians we are locked into a ‘judgement cycle’. Our primary default position is that we judge others. This leaning toward judging is the direct result of the outworking of original sin in our lives. Our desire to be like God by eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil has given us a predisposition to divide the world between what we judge to be good and what we judge to be well less than good!! An intriguing writer called Greg Boyd says, this ‘judgement is the primary thing that keeps us from doing the central thing God created and saved us to do, namely, love like he loves.’

Bonhoeffer maintained that “The knowledge of good and evil seems to be the aim of all ethical reflection. The first task of Christian ethics is to invalidate this knowledge”. Boyd suggests that we have failed to sufficiently integrate the biblical teaching of original sin and its implications in our lives.

“Because we do not usually understand and internalize the nature of our foundational sin, we usually think our job as Christians is to embrace a moral system, live by it, and thus to be good people in contrast to all those who are evil. [however] God’s goal for us is much more profound and much more beautiful than merely being good: it is to do the will of God by being loving, just as God is loving”.

Ever thought about why we so readily judge others, why often our first response to somebody is to sum them up in some way, to categorize them, assess them, and then to make judgements. We all do it, all the time for it is far easier to judge than to love.

The bolded excerpt from the quote is great stuff….. the goal is not goodness, but greatness; not being right but being righteous; not just being, but beauty!!

Judging others is a failure of love, a direct result of original sin, and it keeps us bound to ‘religion’, not to real loving relationships - perhaps this is one of the reasons why Jesus spoke so often and so harshly about the sin of judging.

Choose love, over judgement today….

lent 17

Johnny Douglas — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 07:55:34 +0000

Lyrics from a Danny Daniels song…..

‘ I am a wounded solider, but I will not leave the fight,

Because the Great Physician is healing me,

So I’m standing in the battle, in the armour of His light,

Because His mighty power is real in me.

I am loved, I am accepted by the Saviour of my soul.

I am loved, I am accepted and my wounds will be made whole.’

lent 16

Johnny Douglas — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 07:50:13 +0000

Scratching the surface by Ian Adams

this season
drives me hard
into my disturbing desert
and keeps me here

confronting stones,
pinnacles
and wild possibilities

face in the dust
with only the
hope of a third day

lent 15

Johnny Douglas — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 07:54:59 +0000

We must see from our hearts if we are to be fully alive:

Dallas Willard says this….. ‘Blessed are the physically repulsive, Blessed are those who smell bad. The twisted, mishapen, deformed. The too big, too little, too loud. The bald, the fat and the old, For they are all riotously celebrated in the party of Jesus.’

Do you see it from your heart today?

How much of your life is with eyes of faith, not just sight?

Whoever you are – you are invited to the party of Jesus!

Live life fully from your heart today.

lent 13

Johnny Douglas — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 08:00:35 +0000

In Jesus, there is no such thing as bad luck. While there may be bad days….. Jesus is our brightness.

Today is Friday the 13th! Allegedly a bad luck day!! Superstition frightens or worse, controls……. so if you need too, take the sword of the Spirit to it and kill it. Here’s truth that if we fear God, then we’ll not be afraid of much else!

Here’s a few truth thrusts for your encouragement…..

Galatians 3v3 speaks this, ‘Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.’

So in Christ we cannot be cursed. There is no jinx, no curse, no hex or dread that can stick against those who are in Christ Jesus. Christ took on himself every curse that is against me. God is for me and no one can successfully overcome me.

1 John 4v4 – He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

lent 8

Johnny Douglas — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 07:32:41 +0000

Wild beasts came to Jesus in the wilderness.
Whatever ‘wild beasts’ come to you today, take to prayer about them. Be still.

Remain in prayer.

Be still.

For this silence and battle in prayer is one of the most beautiful secrets of the spiritual life. Solitude, silence and prayer makes for the stuff of a great soul.

lent 7

Johnny Douglas — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 10:47:25 +0000

Mark tells us that Jesus was tempted by Satan in the wilderness.
In the Lords Prayer this morning, and through the unlikely question of a friend, I’m asking myself as I ask you:
What may be your temptations today?

Do you know them?
and, How will you not yield to them?

God of all of me, Help me to stay true today.

lent 6

Johnny Douglas — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 07:26:47 +0000

“I am a sinner, and the church offers me a weekly chance to come clean, and to pray, along with others. We can be so reluctant to use the word ‘sin’ that in church we end up confessing nothing except our highly developed capacity for denial!! One week, for example, the confession began, ‘Our communication with Jesus tends to be too infrequent to experience the transformation in our lives You want us to have,’ which seems less a prayer than a memo from one professional to another. At such times I picture God as a wily writing teacher who leans across a table and says, not at all gently, ‘Could you possibly be troubled to say what you mean?’ It would be refreshing to answer, simply, ‘I have sinned.’”

~ from amazing grace: a vocabulary of faith by Kathleen Norris