Richard Dawson, 23 June 2015

Time is one thing none of can escape from. As the old saying goes… ‘Time and tide wait for no man!’ Time is an unconquerable boundary for most of us and yet there are tantalising clues within the material world that time is not nearly as fixed as we might think. Time, according to Einstein, is relative. It changes according to how space is filled and the faster one goes the slower goes time for the person travelling, though this effect is only noticeable when one gets close to the speed of light. The Bible affirms that God is Lord of Time—God is over time—God is not limited by time and we see this in action largely through the Spirit. It is the Spirit who announces ‘ahead of time’ what will happen (prophecy). It is the Spirit who pronounces ‘ahead of time’ the purpose of a person or an event (word of knowledge) and it is the Spirit who takes past events and makes them illuminate present situations (interpretation). The Spirit moves in and out of times to reveal God and to proclaim God’s glory and if we are to understand God we shall have to move in the ‘things of the Spirit.’ This is why relationship with the Spirit is so central to discipleship in the New Testament. Peter is described as being ‘filled with the Holy Spirit’ in Acts 4 as he defends his actions before the Sanhedrin. Paul says ‘Be filled with the Spirit and go on being filled with the Spirit’ in Ephesians 5. Only in the Spirit, who is not limited by time, may we relate properly to the God who is above all time and who works in all times to bring all people revelation of the purposes of the Kingdom of God.

Kent Rickerby, 26 March 2015

God asks us to go into our closet when we pray… I can’t do that because it’s full of other stuff.
A closet can be a place of private and special stuff. My closet has lots of shelves, full of special boxes with stuff in them like hopes, dreams, love. Boxes full of family, friends, church. Boxes full of adventure, memories, some with worries or fears, others with future stuff, not yet happening.
The shelf spaces in my closet will never be full because there’s always room for more. What is this strange closet? It’s the closet of my heart. The most private closet there is. Even those closest to me have limited access except for God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. They know every corner and have unlimited access to everything in there. God knows when my prayers are about wanting things for myself, He knows when my prayers are about things that go on in the world and he knows s when I pray a prayer of thanks to Him for the things He has done and the things He will do.
An amazing thing about the closet space, the private space of the heart is that it can be taken wherever we go, we can pray at any time about anything and God hears it. It doesn’t matter if our words are big or small, long or short, God is not “out there” he’s “in here” He wants us to talk to Him like we talk to a trusted friend, about anything, with openness and honesty. He cares about what we think and feel. What is the condition of the closet of your heart right now? Can you hear God in there having a conversation with you?
What shelf, what box are you looking at? Is it the same one He wants you to look at and pray about?
Open the door to the closet of your heart. Let God in, every minute of every day while your heart beats with the rhythm of life that He gave it. Trust Him with the boxes on the shelves, think of each prayer as a jewel for His crown carefully and lovingly crafted by every good word in the prayers that you speak.

Richard Dawson, 2 December 2014

The Bible encourages us to develop a healthy sense of ‘self.’ Jesus’ teaching prefigured a much later recognition of the importance of the individual when he took seriously the needs of people who were socially ‘nobodies.’ In other words they were ‘non persons’ as far as most of the rest of society was concerned. But they weren’t ‘non-persons’ to Jesus or to God the Father. He praised the actions of the prostitute who wet His feet with her tears. He lauded the actions of a Samaritan in helping a man beaten by thieves. He raised up simple fishermen as leaders and He recognised the faith of people as diverse as Roman Centurions, women with long standing disease of the womb and Canaanite women. He recognised people despite their social, political and personal standing and He told stories about people who deliberately squandered their personhood such as the prodigal son. Personhood and individuality were important to Him and so they should be important to us. We do this by making space for people in our circle of relationships—by honouring them first as worthy human beings and then as worthy members of our community. And yes there has to be some reciprocal response and effort but always the initiative lies with us. As members of the majority group it is our responsibility to reach out to those who aren't and invite them in. Acknowledging someone else in this way also requires that we listen and get to know another. So many people find Christian society rather shallow because we do not use the time we’re together to really get to know others and yet they need this to feel they are ’somebody.’

Richard Dawson, 27 June 2013

The key factor linking both salt and light is the work of the Spirit. Firstly Jesus describes the disciples as salt and light—those who have accepted His Word and it’s work in their lives. In doing this they have allowed the Spirit to begin recreating them in the image of their Lord—Jesus. That work makes them both salt and light for it is Jesus who is the true salt and light. So secondly the Spirit works in us to make us into the image of Christ by bringing to life what was once dead spirit. This is, of course, roughly what salt does in a meal—it brings to life what was once rather tasteless and lifeless and in doing so in us it makes us into salt for the world. Again, when we invite the work of the Spirit into our lives we begin to see things we’ve never seen before—both in ourselves and in the world around us. The Spirit gives us new eyes to see with and we become recipients of revelation—the rhema word of God. The Greek word Rhema refers to a spoken word and is used often to denote an immediate or living word of God. There can be no question that God continues to speak today to our immediate circumstances and when we receive and believe such a word it can be described as a ‘rhema.’ There is much more to be said about this but suffice to say that such revelation is, effectively, light in our darkness and warmth for our cold. As we receive such light and bring it to bear on the circumstances of our life we in turn become light and warmth to those around us. Both of these extend from the work of God’s Holy Spirit in our lives and so it is vital that we give God permission to work in this way with us.

Richard Dawson, 27 June 2013

Another fascinating thing about salt and light is that as influential and effective as they are—they are not the ‘main thing.’ Salt isn’t the meal. Light isn’t that which it illuminates. We don’t come to a meal to eat salt and we don’t use light to see light but to see what there is to see—to see the
substance of what is there. This, I believe, tells us something about how we should be in the world. It tells us firstly that we should not expect to be the ones over whom all the fuss is made. Christians and indeed the Church are, in essence, the hidden ones, the ones who are there quietly just as salt is in a meal and just as lights are in dark places. When the lights come on they draw attention to what they illuminate—not to themselves usually. Moreover, since this is the case it reaffirms what we know about God’s relationship to all that is made—that it is essentially good. This statement is specifically used at the end of each day of Creation in Genesis but I think it is easy to forget in a world punctuated by disaster, war and violence. The world God created is essentially good but spoiled. However the spoiling doesn’t take away the goodness, rather it just makes it much harder to see. The Church, important as it is as the chosen vehicle of the revelation of God is not meant to be everything either. It is salt and light and, as such, makes Creation glorious and understandable but it is still not everything. We need to take this to heart and remember our place, for God will use the world and Creation in amazing ways that we cannot yet imagine if only we will play our part—as salt and light.

Richard Dawson, 27 June 2013

Jesus choose salt and light to illustrate what we are to be in the world. One of the fascinating things about these metaphors is that they both imply that there must be contact with the world. Both salt and light work, as it were, by being there. Salt works by being mixed with the thing that it is to effect—by being there. Light also works by being placed in the place which needs illumination—by being there. A candle in the daylight is of little use. A candle in a place of deep darkness is a miracle and a saviour. And this leads naturally to another amazing thing about these metaphors—quantity doesn’t really come into it. I think we so often disqualify ourselves because we estimate the influence we can have and it doesn’t seem much at all. Imagine if the little boy who supplied the 5 loaves and 2 small fish had said “No you can’t have them because they are so small they won’t make any difference!” 5000 people and more would’ve gone hungry that day. Salt must be put with that which it is to influence. It cannot sit back and be apart from it and be at all effective. Light, likewise, works in dark places. As things around us become darker, what we are will always shine more brightly. The Church has always been more effective in times when things around it were difficult and we also will find that our faith becomes more real as it is tested by real trials. The question is, are we prepared to make contact—to be available in a way that allows what God has put within us to shine? If you don’t know, simply ask God to show you the way. What God has put within us is stronger than what is against us!