Suddenly, their eyes were opened, and they recognized him (Luke 24:31; NLT).
A few days ago I stood in front of my favourite icon of Jesus, and started to pray. Within seconds, I saw how much easier is to love everyone when I consciously recognise Christ’s presence within each individual, without exception.
Lord,
Please help me to recognise you in everyone, without exception. I ask this in your holy name. Amen.
Christ is all that matters, and he lives in all of us (Colossians 3:11; NLT).
References
Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me (Matthew 25:40; NIV).
May the Lord make your love for one another and for all people grow and overflow (1 Thessalonians 3:12; NLT).
Whilst praying this morning, I reflected on the severely unsettled, and unsettling, state of our world:
Those who hold power are taking their stand, gathering their forces against YHWH (Psalm 2:1; TIB).
But then I saw that God is just as unchanging, powerful and loving as ever:
I am the LORD, and I do not change (Malachi 3:6; NLT).
Thine, O LORD, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O LORD, and thou art exalted as head above all (1 Chronicles 29:11; KJV).
He loves us with unfailing love (Psalm 117:2; NLT).
God waits for us to repent, so we can be forgiven, and start to change:
The LORD must wait for you to come to him so he can show you his love and compassion (Isaiah 30:18; NLT).
Each of you must repent of your sins and turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38; NLT).
So I prayed that we will all repent, turn to God, and start changing our lives before it’s too late: before we destroy the earth, our only home, and all her plants, creatures and people, through our foolish wars, hatred, selfishness, greed and ignorance:
Perhaps even yet they will turn from their evil ways and ask the LORD’s forgiveness before it is too late. For the LORD has threatened them with his terrible anger (Jeremiah 36:7; NLT).
Reading: Psalm 2, The Inclusive Bible
Why are the nations creating such an uproar?Why all this commotion among the peoples?
Those who hold power are taking their stand, gathering their forces against YHWH, against God’s Anointed One. “Let’s break their chains!” they say. “Let’s throw off their shackles!”
But the One who sits enthroned in the heavens laughs; the Sovereign One derides them, then rebukes them in anger and, enraged, terrifies them: “It is I who installed my ruler on Zion, on the mountain of my holiness!”
I will proclaim God’s decree – YHWH said to me: “You are my own; I’ve given birth to you today. Just ask – I’ll give you the nations as your inheritance! I’ll give you the ends of the earth as your possession! You’ll break them with an iron scepter; you’ll shatter them as easily as a clay pot.”
So, you rulers, be wise! And you who hold power, stand warned! Serve YHWH and rejoice – but do so with fear and trembling.Pay homage to God’s Own lest you be destroyed on your way in a blaze of anger – for God’s passion can flare up without warning.
Happiness comes to those who make God their refuge!
Following my blog about being introduced to my ‘Pause’ button a few days ago (see https://wp.me/p45bCr-ccE), I discovered yesterday that I also have available a ‘Slow’ button, a ‘Stop’ button and a ‘Rest’ button. This is very exciting, because I’ve never consciously recognised, or been able to access, any of these inner control buttons before. Here is what sprang from this healing realisation:
Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart…
When I’m rushing,
I press Slow, Lord,
When I want to,
I press Pause;
When I need to,
I press Stop, Lord,
Then I Rest, Within your hands.
…and you will find rest for your souls (Matthew 11:28-9; NLT).
References
Thus the heavens and the earth and all their array were completed. On the seventh day God had finished all the work of creation, and so, on that seventh day, God rested. God blessed the seventh day and called it sacred, because on it God rested from all the work of creation (Genesis 21-3; TIB).
Then Jesus said, “Let’s go off by ourselves to a quiet place and rest awhile” (Mark 6:31; NLT).
I woke very early and began to pray, longing to meet Jesus face to face in heaven. Then this little dialogue came into my mind, starting with a very familiar question:
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? (Psalm 42;2; NIV).
It crossed my mind that there would surely be so many people crowding around Jesus that my chance of even glimpsing him in heaven would be very small. However, I then saw that in heaven we will all be like Jesus:
We will be like him (1 John 3:2; NLT).
This means there will always be more than enough of Jesus to go round, because he will be fully present within everyone in heaven, just as he is on earth:
The kingdom of God is within you (Luke 17:21; NLT).
So I don’t have to wait until after my death to meet Jesus, because I can already see him here, if I look with the eyes of love. This makes my life “heaven on earth”:
Christ is all that matters, and he lives in all of us (Colossians 3:11; NLT).
Living in heaven on earth means consciously recognising and loving Christ in everyone, without exception:
Suddenly, their eyes were opened, and they recognized him (Luke 24:31; NLT).
Fortunately, living in heaven on earth doesn’t depend on my being well enough to serve in major ways that require lots of energy and strength:
My grace is sufficient for you, for mystrength is made perfect inweakness (2 Corinthians 12:9; NKJV).
Thus, whatever I do for others serves Christ within them. This includes, for example, every smile, greeting, chat, hug, encouragement, gift, prayer, or kindness, however small:
Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me (Matthew 25:49; NIV).
Context: This is the second of three blogs which arrived in quick succession while I was praying a few days ago. It’s very short, but it had a big impact on me.
God in each atom Overwhelmed by light, I saw afresh that God is present in everyone and everything. However, this time I grasped that this is true right down to the level of the smallest atom (see reference 1 below).
Splitting atoms Then I understood why atomic bombs have such devastating consequences: they split God within each atom. God is one, so this splitting releases God’s awesome, unimaginable power, resulting in terrible destruction (2-5). Truly, the consequences of atomic warfare are a perfect example of “the abomination that causes desolation” (6).
The future If humanity continues on its present course, we must all live with the constant risk that an exchange of atomic bombs will make the world uninhabitable. This is the very opposite of our original, God-given commission to take care of the earth on which we all depend (7).
My prayer So my prayer today is that those with political and military power will ask God to help them change this situation before it’s too late. Unless we all learn to live in peace with one another there will be no need for God to bring the world to an end: we will already have achieved this, entirely of our own volition.
The end of the world is coming soon. Therefore, be earnest and disciplined in your prayers (1 Peter 4:7; NLT).
References
1. There is …one God and Creator of all, who is over all, who works through all and is within all (Ephesians 4:5-6; TIB).
2. The LORD our God, the LORD is one (Deuteronomy 6:4; NIV).
3. Who can comprehend the power of your anger? Your wrath is as awesome as the fear you deserve (Psalm 90:11; NLT).
4. We can’t even imagine the greatness of his power (Job 37:5; NLT).
5. You don’t know the power of God Matthew 22:29; NLT).
6. When you see ‘the abomination that causes desolation’ standing where it does not belong – let the reader understand – then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let no one on the housetop go down or enter the house to take anything out. Let no one in the field go back to get their cloak. How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! Pray that this will not take place in winter, because those will be days of distress unequaled from the beginning, when God created the world, until now – and never to be equaled again (Mark 13:14-19; NIV).
7. Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, to be like us. Let them be stewards of the fish in the sea, the birds of the air, the cattle, the wild animals, and everything that crawls on the ground.” Humankind was created as God’s reflection: in the divine image God created them; female and male, God made them. God blessed them and said, “Bear fruit, increase your numbers, and fill the earth – and be responsible for it!” (Genesis 1: 26-8; TIB).
Context: Following the recent blog about my shadow-self (see https://wp.me/p45bCr-bXF), this related, rather strange, exploratory and deeply metaphorical prayer surfaced yesterday, soon after I woke up. It was very hard to write!
It is what comes from inside that defiles you. For from within, out of a person’s heart, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, lustful desires, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. All these vile things come from within.
(Mark 7:20-3; NLT).
A wolf from the desert will pounce on them (Jeremiah 5:6; NLT).
I’m sensing my inner wolf, Hearing it howl,
Glimpsing my shadow-self,
Watching it prowl;
Dreading my temper, Lord,
Hiding my fear,
Loathing my shameful greed:
Always so near.
Yet, in my heart, Lord, I’m seeing your face,
Asking forgiveness
And seeking your grace.
Mingle my shadow-self
With your pure light,
For I face temptation
All day, and all night.
You are my Shepherd,
My staff and my rod;
You are my All-In-All:
Jesus, my God.
You are my chosen way:
Though I still sin,
You are eternal life –
Jesus, within.
We live in fellowship with the true God because we live in fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ. He is the only true God, and he is eternal life. (1 John 5:20; NLT).
Christ is all that matters, and he lives in all of us.
(Colossians 3:11; NLT).
Context: Earlier this week I unexpectedly got in touch with some deeply-buried aspects of my shadow-self, which was absolutely shattering (see https://wp.me/p45bCr-bWz). Lots of tears, prayers and much painful honesty followed. In the end, of course, it proved to be a very healing experience.
What is the shadow-self?
Robert Johnson describes the shadow-self as the “…dumping-ground for all those characteristics of our personality that we disown.”
He goes on to remark that “These disowned parts are extremely valuable and cannot be disregarded.” This is because “To honor and accept one’s own shadow is a profound spiritual discipline. It is whole-making and thus holy, and the most important experience of a lifetime” (see pp ix-x, “Owning your own shadow – understanding the dark side of the psyche”, Robert A. Johnson; HarperCollins 1993).
The same author later comments that “To own one’s own shadow is to reach a holy place– an inner centre – not attainable in any other way. To fail this is to fail one’s own sainthood and to miss the purpose of life” (Ibid, p17).
The Bible shows that Jesus, too, had a shadow-self. Some of his most significant experiences brought him face-to-face with his inner temptations, anger, anguish, fear, doubt and despair. Thus, as we strive to become more like him, we, too, need to face, own, accept and integrate our shadow selves, just as he did.
Following the dramatic emergence of parts of my own buried shadow-self, this prayer surfaced whilst I was saying grace before breakfast:
Trust in God always, my people;
pour out your hearts before God our refuge. (Psalm 62:8; TIB).
1. I face my shadow-self with God, Like Jesus, in the wilderness,
2. And show my shadow-self to God,
Like Jesus, in the Temple.
3. I share my shadow-self with God,
Like Jesus, in Gethsemane,
4. And give my shadow-self to God,
Like Jesus, on the cross.
Then at three o’clock Jesus called out with a loud voice,
“Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means
“My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”
(Mark 15:34; NLT). Jesus called out with a loud voice,
“Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”
When he had said this, he breathed his last.
(Luke 23:46; NLT).
References
1. Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted there by the devil. For forty days and forty nights he fasted and became very hungry. During that time the devil came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become loaves of bread” (Matthew 4:1-3; NLT).
Then the devil took him to the holy city, Jerusalem, to the highest point of the Temple, and said, “If you are the Son of God, jump off! For the Scriptures say, ‘He will order his angels to protect you. And they will hold you up with their hands so you won’t even hurt your foot on a stone’ ” (Matthew 4:5-6; NLT).
Next the devil took him to the peak of a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. “I will give it all to you,” he said, “if you will kneel down and worship me” (Matthew 4:8-9; NLT).
2. Jesus went to Jerusalem. In the Temple area he saw merchants selling cattle, sheep, and doves for sacrifices; he also saw dealers at tables exchanging foreign money. Jesus made a whip from some ropes and chased them all out of the Temple. He drove out the sheep and cattle, scattered the money changers’ coins over the floor, and turned over their tables. Then, going over to the people who sold doves, he told them, “Get these things out of here. Stop turning my Father’s house into a marketplace!” (John 2:13-16; NLT).
3. He took Peter and Zebedee’s two sons, James and John, and he became anguished and distressed. He told them, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” He went on a little farther and bowed with his face to the ground, praying, “My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine” (Matthew 26:37-39; NLT).
Context: As soon as I woke and started to pray today, this is what I saw:
Only God is worthy to be worshipped by all people, creatures and things.
God makes, maintains and ends them all.
God lives over, in and through them all.
God can never be destroyed.
God is the First and the Last: infinite and eternal.
God is Love.
Then, as soon as I began to worship, this little prayer arrived:
God:
1. My Father, And my Mother;
2. Spirit: Sister;
Jesus: Brother;
3. Maker, Shepherd, Saviour, Lover:
4. You are all;
I want no other.
God will be all in all (1 Corinthians 15:28; TIB).
The Lord is my shepherd; I have all that I need.
(Psalm 23:1; NLT).
References
1. You are our mother and father, YHWH; we are the clay and you are the potter, we are all the work of your hands (Isaiah 64:8; TIB).
2. Say to wisdom, “You are my sister” (Proverbs 7:4; NIV).
God has revealed this wisdom to us through the Holy Spirit. She searches out all things, even the deep things of God (1 Corinthians 2:10; TIB).
Anyone who does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother (Mark 3:35; NLT).
3. You cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things (Ecclesiastes 11:5; NIV).
The Lord is my shepherd (Psalm 23:1; NLT).
I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior (Isaiah 43:3; NLT).
My lover is mine and I am his (Song of Songs 2:16; NLT).
4. I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with him (Philippians 3:8-9; NLT).
God has put all things under Christ’s feet and made Christ, as the ruler of everything, the head of the church, and the church is Christ’s body; it’s the fullness of the One who fills all of creation (Ephesians 1:22; TIB).
He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all (Ephesians 1:22; NKJV).
This is what the Lord says – Israel’s King and Redeemer, the LORD of Heaven’s Armies: “I am the First and the Last; there is no other God” (Isaiah 44:6; NLT).
We do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, justaswe are – yet he did notsin (Hebrews 4:15; NIV).
On Monday morning, a friend asked me how I understand Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness, which prompted me to re-read Luke’s familiar story:
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan River. He was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where he was tempted by the devil for forty days (Luke 4:1; NLT).
During this time, Jesus had to wrestle against the temptations caused by his desperate physical hunger (vv2-4), his desire for earthly power (vv5-8), and his longing to test out his trust in God (vv9-12).
Discussion
Many people have written extensively about what Jesus experienced in the wilderness, but I would like to focus briefly on the mysterious, alarming figure who tempted him.
An immediate problem is raised by the Greek word “diabolou”, which is often translated as “the devil”. However, this word is actually an adjective, rather than a name or a noun. It means “prone to slander, slanderous, or accusing falsely” (Strong’s Greek). Thus, “the devil” is clearly not a being of any kind.
I find this interesting and helpful, as I have never seen the “devil” as a being. Rather, I understand the personification of “accusing falsely”as a way of representing Christ’s inner struggles with the temptations to which all human beings are subject. Welling up spontaneously from the unconscious mind, powerful, disturbing desires and impulses can assail us at any time, especially when we are very vulnerable, as was Jesus in the desert.
Jesus’ understanding of temptation
Jesus came to understand the inner, psychological process of temptation very well, both from personal experience and through observing others. This how he explained it to a crowd one day:
It is what comes from inside that defiles you. For from within, out of a person’s heart, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, lustful desires, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness…
It is interesting to note that there is no suggestion at all here that people are tempted by any kind of external force or being. Rather, Jesus concludes his teaching by stating firmly that:
…All these vile things come from within (Mark 7:20-23; NLT).
Conclusion
As a human being, though also divine, Jesus was subject to temptations, just like us (Hebrews 4:15; NIV), and how strong they must have been during those challenging days alone in the wilderness. He had just experienced one of the high points of his life: hearing God’s approving voice, and receiving the Holy Spirit at his baptism. Then, immediately afterwards, he felt compelled to spend many days alone in the wilderness, facing extreme heat, cold, hunger, thirst, and the constant threat posed by wild animals.
What a strange, challenging experience this must have been, causing him much deep physical and mental suffering, so it’s not surprising that the Gospel-writers’ accounts faithfully reflect the vivid, hallucinatory quality of Jesus’ desert retreat. Perhaps this is what leads so many translators to personify the powerful reality of his inner temptations, by turning them into an external being they called “the devil”.
Context: When I woke up yesterday, I said the Lord’s Prayer, closed my eyes again, and continued to pray, using very few words. This went on in darkness for some minutes, until I was suddenly flooded with bright, golden light. Then today’s prayer started to flow. It was a wrench to open my eyes and start writing, but I knew it was essential, for the words would otherwise disappear as quickly as they arrived.
My expectation is that only when I’m dying will I see this wonderful light and not need to break off to write. From that moment onwards there will be no more need for words: I will simply be absorbed into God’s brilliant, beautiful, infinite light, peace and love.
Though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light. (Micah 7:8; NLT).
Yahweh,
When I sit in darkness,
You re-fill me with your light,
And, when I am weak and weary,
You restore me with your might.
Jesus,
When I’m stressed and anxious,
You refresh me with your peace,
And, when I am judged and censured,
Your protection does not cease.
Spirit, When I’m sad and lonely,
You surround me with your love,
And, when I must leave this world,
You’ll bear my soul to heaven above.
Threefold God, My source, my goal,
My Father, Mother, kith and kin,
You are here, and live forever –
All around me, and within.
The Spirit of God has made me,
and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.
(Job 33:4; NLT).
The dust returns to the ground it came from,
and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
(Ecclesiastes 12:7; NIV).
We know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love.
Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
(1 John 4:16; NIV).
