Stars and Sand: Roger Aubrey

Reformation + Revival = Revolution

Reformation is restoration to pure doctrine; revival is restoration in the Christian's life. Reformation speaks of the return to the teachings of Scripture; revival speaks of a life brought into its proper relationship with the Holy Spirit. The great moments in church history have come when these two restorations have simultaneously come into action, so that the church has returned to pure doctrine and the lives of the Christians in the church have known the power of the Holy Spirit. There cannot be true revival unless there has been reformation; and reformation is not complete without revival. Such a combination of reformation and revival would be revolutionary in our day. We need to be those who know the reality of both reformation and revival, so that this poor dark world may have an exhibition of...a church returned to both pure doctrine and Spirit-filled life. (Francis Schaeffer: Death in the City)

Start walking

'To the man who says he will follow him, Jesus answers that he will have to do a lot of walking. He will have to abandon human comforts and securities, because, as a matter of pure fact, the Son of Man has no place to call home.' (Jacques Ellul)

Bryn Jones on covenant life

'The bonding of the early Christian communities was the result of something stronger than a set of common beliefs; they were joined together by covenant...Covenant extends beyond Scripture and Christianity. It permeates the whole of life...the truth is that covenant is pervasive to the whole of life, and its understanding and practice affect all people, whether they are aware of it or not. That is why its violation and the consequences that follow its violation are far more wide-reaching than commonly realised...Individualism had no place in the thinking of the covenant society of Israel. Indeed, to the Hebrew the greatest curse of all to befall man is to find himself alone...The people of God are not a collection of individuals, but are a community of people joined and integrated in Christ as one new man. The new covenant does for the people of God, the Church, what the old covenant did for Israel, only more. The covenant caused them to enjoy peaceful relations together. Shalom was their word not simply of greeting, but expressed their whole life as a people.' (Bryn Jones: The Radical Church)

God's heavenly ground

'God has nothing to say to men, nothing to do with them, on any other ground than that of the Heavenly Man. His attitude is that, if you want Him to speak to you, to have anything to do with you, then you must come on to His ground, which is that of the Heavenly Man. You have to leave your own ground of nature, whatever be your thought of it, and you have to come on to His ground. You must leave the ground of the earthly man, the fallen Adam, leave natural ground, and come on to the ground of the last Adam, on to heavenly ground, which is spiritual ground...The Father has set forth the Son as His ground of dealing with men, and He will deal with no man on any other ground.' (T. Austin-Sparks)

John 3:16 v Plato

There have been unusual men of great intellect and learning and understanding in the history of mankind. We immediately think back to Plato and Aristotle and that cluster of great minds several hundred years before the coming of Jesus into the world. Yet I would seriously say and would contend that if everything all of them had written could be placed on one side of a measure and John 3:16 in the other, they would all prove to be as light as air by comparison. (AW Tozer: Christ the Eternal Son)

The time is ripe to do right

In this second extract from Martin Luther King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail, King writes about the tragic misconception of time that excuses many Christians from righteous and prophetic action:

I have just received a letter from a white brother in Texas. He writes: "All Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is possible that you are in too great a religious hurry. It has taken Christianity almost two thousand years to accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth." Such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of time, from the strangely rational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right.

Letter from a Birmingham jail - Martin Luther King

This extract from Martin Luther King's famous Letter from a Birmingham Jail, written in April 1963, still resonates today:

There was a time when the church was very powerful--in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being "disturbers of the peace" and "outside agitators."' But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were "a colony of heaven," called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be "astronomically intimidated." By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests. Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent--and often even vocal--sanction of things as they are.

Remembering a Martyr

Yesterday was the anniversary of the death of Jim Elliot, who along with fellow missionaries Ed McCully, Pete Fleming, Roger Youderian and Nate Saint, were killed by members of the Waodani people in 1956. The five were involved in Operation Auca, an evangelistic mission in Ecuador to reach the Waodani with the Good News of Jesus. Elliot was just 28 years old. The killers of the five were later saved. Elliot has left a legacy of radical, costly discipleship that is largely absent today in the western church. This extract is taken from his journal and sums up the man:

I walked out to the hill just now. It is exalting, delicious, to stand embraced by the shadows of a friendly tree with the wind tugging at your coat-tail and the heavens hailing your heart, to gaze and glory and give oneself again to God – what more could a man ask? Oh, the fullness, pleasure, sheer excitement of knowing God on earth! I care not if I never raise my voice again for him, if only I may love him, please him. Mayhap in mercy he shall give me a host of children that I may lead them through the vast star fields to explore his delicacies whose finger-ends set them to burning. But if not, if only I may see him, touch his garments, and smile into his eyes – ah then, not stars nor children shall matter, only himself.  Oh Jesus, Master and Centre and End of all; how long before that glory is yours which has so long waited you? Now there is no thought of you among men; then there shall be thought for nothing else. Now, other men are praised; then none shall care for any other’s merits. Hasten, hasten, Glory of Heaven; take your crown, subdue your kingdom, enthral your creatures!

The Old Cross and the New

Happy New Year. I'd like to start it with what might seem a strange post; but I believe it is most apt for the time we are in and for what lies ahead for the Church if it is to be all that God intends. It's a well known devotional piece from the pen of AW Tozer; I think it is one of the finest ever written about the Cross of Christ, and remains as prophetic and therefore relevant as when Tozer wrote it over fifty years ago.

Gems from Tozer

I'm in the mood for some thoughts from that giant of the faith: A.W. Tozer, a prophet of God if ever there was one.

“I can safely say, on the authority of all that is revealed in the Word of God, that any man or woman on this earth who is bored and turned off by worship is not ready for heaven.”

“True faith rests upon the character of God and asks no further proof than the moral perfections of the One who cannot lie.”

“We can never know who or what we are till we know at least something of what God is.”

“The fact of God is necessary for the fact of man. Think God away and man has no ground of existence.”

“Philosophy and science have not always been friendly toward the idea of God, the reason being they are dedicated to the task of accounting for things and are impatient with anything that refuses to give an account of itself. The philosopher and the scientist will admit that there is much that they do not know; but that is quite another thing from admitting there is something which they can never know, which indeed they have no technique for discovering.”

“An infinite God can give all of Himself to each of His children. He does not distribute Himself that each may have a part, but to each one He gives all of Himself as fully as if there were no others.”

“We can be in our day what the heroes of faith were in their day - but remember at the time they didn't know they were heroes.”