My heart and my flesh and my God...

My heart and my flesh and my God...

The loveliness of the Lord causes the worshipper of God to cry out that his soul faints for the Lord, that his heart and his flesh cry out for the living God (Psalm 84:1-2). The one who dwell in His house, who finds strength in Him, who has set decidedly on pilgrimage (which means steadfastly living in anticipation of coming into the Lord's presence), and who trusts in Him—that one is truly blessed. He finds that in the dry valley, pools open up, refreshment comes and he is enable to persevere until he comes to the Lord at the end.

In Psalm 73 Asaph (David's choir master; 'director of music ministry' in Israel) recounts how his faith and hope almost failed. He was vexed to see the progress and prosperity of wickedness. They have no struggle with illness or trouble, and they clothed themselves with an arrogant disregard of those who do. What is worse is that they seem to be the heroes in their culture! Their prosperity and progress seem to be proof that in fact God is not the Lord of all, that His righteousness does not rule the world, that in fact godliness with contentment is not great gain at all. Their progress seems to imply that the Lord is blind, and that faithfulness to Him is a vain thing. In this vexation of spirit, Asaph became oblivious to all the loveliness of God. Like a brute beast, he could not understand the language of the Lord's righteousness. Bitterness closed him up to the refreshment of his soul.

The great thing is that my heart's affections are not the strength of my heart. My flesh may fail, my heart may fail. My heart may fail. Bitterness, held grievances, frustration and even unbelief may (and often do!) invade the fortress which is meant for worship and trust and purity. But even then I am secure, for my security is not in my flesh, nor in my heart, but in my God. There is one in heaven for me, on my behalf. The death and the resurrection and the ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ have done something for me that my failures cannot undo. Even in the bitterness and blindness, he is with me, and is leading me and teaching me, giving me his counsel. And so I progress through the barren places, and I find there refreshment, not from the strength of my faith, my heart, my love, but from the presence of the Lord. And afterwards He will take me into glory. There no frustration or grief or bitterness or unbelief will ever enter again.

Geoff Bingham, a dear friend and mentor, a teacher and encourager in the great grace of God, died early on Wednesday morning and entered the joy of the Lord.

I came to know Geoff through his ministry with university students when I was a young and woolly student at Adelaide University. I had only recently become a believer in Christ, and I wonder now how much of that was of God. Certainly as Geoff taught the grace of God in those days I found myself swinging between two opinions - why does he teach such obvious things? and why does he teach such obscure things? I needed still to discover the secret of the Father's sovereign grace in Jesus Christ. For all my confusion about Geoff's teaching, I found that there was something inescapably compelling about what he brought from the Scriptures.

Through Geoff, and through those who had learned from him, the day came when the truth of God's Fatherhood broke in upon me like a river of flooding love. I came to know that the grace of salvation was in the Father's heart and initiative, and not something forced upon Him by a loving Jesus. It changed my whole life.

Liz and I spent the early days of married life travelling nearly every Saturday morning to hear Geoff teach at the New Creation Teaching Centre. Geoff saw our family grow, and saw us grow as we learned something of being parents. We learned from him that even our family life has to be subordinated to the kingdom of God, and that we must not make an idol of family. At times, this learning seemed to be imparted fiercely, but we know that Geoff has loved us even when it seemed he was strong in his approach to us. Liz and I compared notes today and agreed that quite likely without Geoff's teaching and ministry our marriage may not have lasted the stresses and strains of sin that has had its play in our lives. The grace of God, which we found in his opening of the Scriptures, has been the rock of our lives.

Geoff always wore his heart on his sleeve. He was an unfeigned man. The Geoff you knew was the Geoff with all his warts and wonders. He could be so because he knew that he was a sinner justified freely by the grace of God in Christ.

At one New Creation Ministry School Geoff gave a study on the ministry of encouragement. It was the last study of the school and the culmination of all that had been taught over the week. I was moved to the depths of my being by Geoff's study, and wept and wept for the beauty of the Lord, the glory of His grace, the love of the Father, the kindness of God for the salvation of the world. I simply could not stop the flow of tears of joy that came from the goodness of the Gospel. Geoff was one of only a couple of people who seemed to understand what was happening in me.

Geoff and Laurel have been encouragers and supporters of Liz and me in our ministry. He has helped in the parish at Largs, visiting to preach. He was available for me to come and to talk through the things that were on my heart, and also to bring to me things that I needed to think through. He prayed for me, and cared for me.

I have learned from Geoff how important it is to exercise faithfulness in friendship, and to give to those from whom you receive. A giant of a man like Geoff, towering in his ability, energy and self-control, is one from who I gladly received. I failed to see for too long just how much there is reciprocity in all human relationships, and how much friendship which expresses itself to others in their needs, and seeks to understand their needs, is the gift of the Holy Spirit, and is in fact an expression of the life of God among us.

Geoff's poetry made a large impact on me, and perhaps his simplest and most profound poem, Angel Wings is the best way for me to wind up these personal reflections which could go on for so much longer.

Angel wings, beating my face,
Forcing me into grace.

Dear eyes, loving my soul,
Drawing me to the goal.

Strong word, piercing my brain,
Bringing me holy shame.

Pain's cry welling within,
Lifting me up from sin.

Red hands, clotted with blood,
Thrusting me up to God.

Angel wings, beating my face,
Forcing me into grace.

Mealy Mouthed No More

It's in prayer that our real relation to God shows itself, whatever it is that we may say in our theology or at church. In prayer we discover if we actually believe God to be the gracious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has reconciled us to Himself through the same Lord Jesus. Unless and until we believe that is the case, all prayer becomes mealy-mouthed, a timid refusal to say plainly and directly what is thought or felt, but rather wanders and weaves trying to find what may be pleasing or acceptable to God, not wishing that we get him offside.

Mealy-mouthed is an adjective that Martin Luther popularised. When a person has a mouth full of meal (ground grain) it is very difficult for him to speak. The meal is held on one side of the mouth and the person has to speak sideways, around the meal as it were. Mealy-mouthedness is indirect speaking. Try to speak directly with a mouth full of meal and it all sprays out. Mealy-mouthedness is the speaking of one who wants to conceal what is in his or her heart rather than letting it all out.

Such speech is the manner of speech of person who does not have confidence about his or her relationship with the person to whom he or she speaks. In prayer we find by experience whether we have finally come to know the truth that God was, in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself. The person reconciled to God has been brought to Him in an encounter of wills. Where once we lived in an opposition of wills against God, in reconciliation we are brought into an encounter of will which strives to come to a unity of willing. Prayer is an encounter of wills – and it persists until unity of willing is accomplished. True prayer does not rush too quickly to the cry, "Not my will but Thine be done!" This cry may sometimes be a subterfuge of the refusal to pour our hearts and minds into knowing of the action of God in a situation. It may sometimes be a refusal to engage with God. Prayer is often an agonia - an agony, a wrestle, a struggle, even a fight. Remember Abraham, Jacob and Moses our fathers in faith! Each prayed (Genesis 17, 32, Exodus 33) in a tussle with God until there was unity in will and intention. None of them piously laid aside the struggle with an effete "... if it be according to your will."

Confidence in reconciliation is the secret of persistent prayer. This is the secret of boldness in prayer. The reconciled person is shameless and unafraid in asking and seeking and knocking on the door of the Father. Jesus tells the parable of a rude neighbour disturbing his friend in bed with a request for help (Luke 11:1-13). He says of the friend in bed: “I tell you, though he will not get up and give him the bread because he is his friend, yet because of the man’s boldness he will get up and give him as much as he needs.” The story focuses our attention on the man’s boldness. The Greek word used there (anaideia) is used only here in the whole New Testament. It really has the idea around it of shamelessness, impudence, disrespect, disregard, recklessness and ruthlessness! And this is to be the character of our praying to the Father: “So I say to you…” says Jesus and he urges us to ask, seek and knock – literally the sense is “ask and keep on asking, seek and keep on seeking, knock and keep on knocking.” Jesus is urging us to a certain shameless impudence in our seeking from the Father.

What is key in the parable is not what the friend in bed thinks of his rude neighbour, but rather the unstated assumption of the rude neighbour about his friend next door. He clearly has confidence that the friend will do what is needed for him even though it be inconvenient and difficult for him. Clearly he has a high estimation of the character of his neighbour. He knows enough of his neighbour to be sure that if he goes to him in difficulty and need that his neighbour will respond with help. Jesus urges the same confidence on the disciples – everyone who asks receives; everyone who seeks finds; whoever knocks will find the door opened. Jesus illustrates again. No father is going to hand out poisonous, dangerous gifts to their kids when asked for fish or eggs – and this is in the world where we are in slavery to sin. How much more then will the Father give good gifts to his children? Be confident in asking Him! He gives the overflow of the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him.

We need to be taught to pray like this. How does a human being have such confidence in God? Something has to happen in our relation to the Father to turn our praying from mealy-mouthed and halting words into the strong words of confident children before the Father. The real teaching about prayer occurs at the cross of Christ. Nothing teaches prayer like reconciliation with the Father! Our mealy-mouthedness is an inability and an aversion to saying the direct thing. This refusal to speak directly with the Father, to say what is actually in our hearts and minds, comes from our sinning in Adam at the beginning, and has continued down through our tortured history of Religion and her close cousin, Unbelief.

Sin and guilt is the death of prayer. True prayer can only return when confidence in approaching God has been restored – and that only happens when sin and guilt have been dealt with fully and finally. Whilst we are unsure of this, our prayers will be wheedling and manipulative, rather than direct with the Father, full of confidence before Him. At the cross of Christ, at last full and frank ownership of the guilt of the world in the face of the holiness of the Father took place. Christ made a full confession of the Father’s holiness and of human guilt in his bearing of the sin of the world. His cross was the great declaration, “You are just Father, and holy, in judging all this sin that humanity has become.” In Christ, the Father was reconciling the world to Himself by not counting our sins against us, but rather making His Son to be sin for us and judging us and our sin in His Son, thereby enabling all who have faith in this Son and his sin-bearing obedience to approach the Father with confidence and freedom. And so we pray with confidence.

We need a radical rediscovery of all this today. Prayer is often the first thing to go in our public worship when there is "pressure for time." We gather to pray, and hardly anyone prays. We speak such cautious words in prayer, and we go away having barely opened the front gate, let alone banging without stop on the front door. The matters before us for prayer are great and our prayers must surely rise in greatness to them. We receive not because we ask not. Do we have wills so captivated by the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that we will His will that His name be hallowed and that His Kingdom come? Do we wrestle with Him for this in the face of the seeming reversal of that will in our world, where men and women do not hallow His name and where sin and evil prevail in the idolatries of our time? P.T. Forsyth made the point that the judgment for refusing to pray is that we then are unable to pray. For me, I know today that I must ask again - with all urgency and insistency - Lord, teach me to pray.