Ceri Francis: Encounter – being intentional about the unexpected

It's fascinating to me that Moses was the first person in the Bible to press in for a deep, one to one encounter with God. And it wasn't just another encounter for Moses – it was the first time God revealed His true nature – His overwhelmingly glorious goodness.

Moses had seen so much leading up to this point that it is all the more interesting to get a glimpse of his hunger for more revelation. Born a Levite, raised a prince of Egypt, he flees Egypt a murderer as a young adult. Then after his burning bush experience he reluctantly returns to Egypt to free the enslaved Israelites.

Ten plagues later he leads two million or so Israelites in a miraculous escape at night straight through the middle of the sea. His story continues with miracle after miracle – water production, manna, quail, healing, God's presence visible as fire and smoke and His voice audible as thunder. It was as if God used all five human senses and more to make Himself known. Moses had enough stories to give awe-inspiring talks and testimonies for a lifetime!

But after all the signs, wonders and miracles he begs God “let me know Your ways that I may know You” and “I pray You, show me Your glory.” Without the fire and thunder of his previous mountain encounter, the Lord calls him up Mount Sinai and allows His goodness, the fullness of His glory, to pass before Moses. It is then that God reveals His true nature and describes himself for the first time as “the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness and truth.”

Moses was described as the man God would speak with “face to face, just as a man speaks to his friend.” Yet what was revealed to Moses was just a foretaste of what has now been given to us in full. We don't have to beg God to reveal His glory or send His presence to be with us and stay with us.

Through Jesus, His glory is fully revealed and He is with us all the time, dwelling in us, changing us to be more like Him and revealing His nature through us wherever we go. His presence doesn't fade as it did for Moses, who had to put a veil over his shining face so the people wouldn't see the effects of being in God's presence diminishing. Paul writes that we have unveiled faces and see His glory as if we are looking in a mirror and being transformed into the same image. The fruits of the spirit are love, joy peace, patience, kindness, goodness etc – us becoming like Him.

This isn't about us striving to get God's attention; it's about how we position ourselves. He is speaking to us all the time, longing to reveal more to us than we could ever desire, and wanting us to make choices that enable us to see, hear and know Him more. The dictionary defines encounter as something unexpected – a chance meeting or something we stumble across. For me the challenge is to make time for Him so I don't miss the encounters He wants me to have, whether in meetings or when I'm alone.

Interestingly, the Israelites heard God speak audibly for themselves but incredibly they opted to hear Him instead through a man's voice. We too can learn so much from others but this can't replace having our own relationship with God.

Let's be intentional about how we invest in our relationship with the Lord, trusting and believing in His goodness whatever our circumstances or feelings and making time to hear Him for ourselves. I hope and pray we see miracles, healing and more as we focus on the one who is “able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think”!

Colin: A Journey With a Purpose

We are often told that ‘Life is a journey’ and in many ways it is an apt description. The two things that mark out a follower of Jesus are the reason for the journey and the destination, the place we are headed.

For Hindus and Buddhists, the journey has begun because of an unfortunate separation of our spirits from the great and universal spirit, so their purpose is to lose themselves by reabsorption. In a way, that is not dissimilar to atheists who see themselves as an accident of evolution from the dust of the ground, returning to dust after a brief walk on the earth.

The Christian view is very different to this: creation being planned by a loving God who made us in His image, though not yet mature, and gave us the mission of filling the world with His glory - that is, a world filled with people who carry his mature image, as seen in Jesus, by truly loving one another. Jews who believe their scriptures and who were entrusted with the first part of God’s mission, have a similar outlook to us. Where they diverge is around Jesus - they don’t recognise Him as their Saviour and as God’s ultimate destination for all men and women to be like Him. It may come as a surprise to some, given recent events in the Middle East, but Muslims have a similar view to the Jews; indeed Mohammed borrowed most of his worldview from Jews and Christians. Again they don’t recognise Jesus as the Godman Saviour, and seek to bring in the kingdom of heaven through other means – some tragically so.

Therefore, as followers of Jesus, we are all on a mission, a journey with a purpose. That makes us all missionaries! Whatever else we do with our lives, what career we choose, where we choose to live, whom we choose to marry and share life with, our goal is always to be fulfilling our mission to become more and more like Jesus and to help others to follow Him.

In River, we have three treasured practices that we are convinced will help us do this. The first is to ‘Look on the face of Christ’, to look at Jesus, to meditate on what He said and did, so that we learn how to walk like Him. He is the Beginning and the End, the source of our life and our destination! We could make following Jesus very religious (and some have!), but our second practice prevents us from doing that: ‘Love everyone we meet’. Love fulfils every law and commandment, it does no harm and always seeks to bless the other person. Only when we love from the heart do we truly carry the image of the God who is love.Our third practice is to ‘Live like heaven is near’. That’s the Good News Jesus came declaring, but it’s easy to lose sight of when we hear such awful news much of the time.

When we live like heaven is near, we take Jesus’ announcement seriously and choose to believe that the kingdom ‘is at hand’, that we can grab hold of heavenly things and bring them into our lives here and now. That’s what Jesus modelled and taught His first disciples to do: heal the sick, care for orphans and widows, raise the dead, treat foreigners well, drive out demons and help the poor.

If our churches are filled with people practising these things, there’ll be a heavenly transformation going on through the Spirit! We’ll be transformed as we look at Jesus, we’ll help transform one another through loving discipleship and we’ll be transforming our communities through being missionminded in bringing heaven to earth! He’s calling us out upon the waters; so I beg everyone, let’s be as filled up with Jesus as we possibly can be, let’s devote ourselves to loving those around us, especially our families and small groups, and let’s give ourselves to the mission of bringing heaven to earth in whatever ways we feel the breeze of the Holy Spirit inspiring us!

Colin: Delight Yourself

A few weeks ago I was chatting with Richard in the office about walking in the hills. He mentioned a time when he’d seen a cloud inversion (when the clouds are below you as a blanket with just the peaks of the hills poking through like islands). I said I’d been walking for 25 years and never seen one, but would love to. A week later I was climbing Pavey Ark with my family in the Lake District. It’s one of our favourite hills and we’ve climbed it many times. We always enjoy the climb, but this time was special because we experienced a cloud inversion for the first time! Psalm 37:4 says, “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.” I never asked the Lord to see a cloud inversion, He’d just overheard me telling a friend about it and made it happen for me!

I’ve experienced this kind of favour many times and it always blesses me to know how much our Father loves to give us our hearts’ desires. There’s a confidence that comes from knowing we don’t have to pray for everything, that we’re not in danger of missing out if we don’t remember to pray specifically for all we desire. Of course, praying and talking to God about what we’re hoping for is a good habit to form, but it’s good to know it’s not a legal thing with Him. Like any good friend, He notices what delights us and loves to see us joyfilled.

Sometimes we have to wait years to see our desires fulfilled, like when Sadie & I wanted children. We prayed, waited and were prayed for over a number of years. Then one Sunday morning in Marlow, three ladies came up to us at separate times and gave us the same message, “The Lord is giving you your hearts’ desire”. Within two weeks Sadie fell pregnant and Rachel was born in due time.

When they were with us this week, Shampa & Jonathan Rice (Iris Ministries India) told us of the time they were launching their ministry in India and seeking to build a school. They had quotes of £12,000 to build a high wall around a plot of land to keep the children safe. They wondered how they would ever afford it, but at that time a visitor from England came through and had a sum of money to give to a building project… £12,000!

We could twist this into a self-serving ‘name it and claim it’ gospel, but in reality it’s quite different. The motivation of the latter is self-fulfillment and the focus on what we will get. Whereas our motivation must be ‘Kingdom come’ and our focus on delighting ourselves in Him. That’s what Jesus meant when He said, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” Matthew 6:33.

So how do we know if we’re delighting ourselves in the Lord, and how can we grow in that? Well, trusting our feelings can be dangerous as our hearts can be deceptive. The fruits of delighting in God are seen in how we spend our time, our energy and our money. Do we spend our time in gratitude or complaining? Do we exhaust ourselves with work or do we always have enough energy to love those around us? Do we have good intentions to give once we’re financially more stable and if the gift is deserved, or do we give freely & generously from what we receive each month? All these things flow from our perception of God. The greater the revelation we have of His goodness and kindness, the more our hearts will be motivated to seek Him and delight ourselves in Him. That’s one of the reasons the Ignite course is so good, it’s designed to help us know our Father God better.

If you’re hungry to grow, I recommend you consider signing up to either the daytime or the evening Ignite course starting September (see www.riverchurch.org.uk/ignite for details).