So you think you are Rubbish?

Rubbish? Failure? Useless? Pointless? Redundant? Out of date? Do you feel that you can't write a good essay? Can't get a job? Nobody notices you? People praise everybody else but you? Ugly?

So do these ring any bells? I can't expect everybody to feel rubbish, but I do expect people to feel rubbish sometimes. Considering the world we live in is scary, broken and full of evil. Yes there is love here too, but it is shadowed by the evil that prowls the land like a roaring lion, waiting to devour someone.

If you look at the emotions that I've listed above and feel like any of them, ever at all. Do you feel like that after looking at somebody else? Or do you feel like that when you just look at yourself. To be honest most emotion and ideas about ourselves are fueled by other people. Not by them directly, but by us making them into something we compare ourselves against.

There was once a Story called the Prodigal Son. It was a story Jesus once told. If you've never read it, then type 'Luke 15 prodigal son' into Google and click the first link.

Taking the idea of comparison, I want us to use this story. The boy leaves with all the money belonging to the Father and lives a life of drink, sex and food. Then after he sees he has made a mistake, he returns home to beg forgiveness.

When he returns the Father runs to meet him, embrace him and kiss him. The Father is so happy to see him and orders a feast.

There is however another Son, the brother of the Prodigal. He compares himself to this brother and says to the Father "Why do you love him so much and not me. You never threw me a party and I work so hard for you all the time". See what he is doing? He is comparing himself to his Brother. He might be a righteous and good guy, but he compares himself. This brings the feelings of bitterness, anger and despair. When to be honest, the Father loved him just as much. He didn't see this though.

As a Child of God, the Father loves you, not more or less than his other Children, but the same. So next time you are tempted to compare yourself to others, take time to think of what the Father thinks of you. Then you will not care or even desire Man's praise. For man's praise is sinful and temporary. But God's Praise is eternal and true.

We all need to preach this to ourselves, because bitterness can lead us away from God, which is Hell.

Lloyd-Jones, Thinking and Faith

This is an extract that I came across on John Piper's Desiring God site. It is a snippet of Jones' thinking on Faith. How is thinking related to faith?

The following passage is from Jones' teaching on the 'Sermon on the Mount'

Faith, according to our Lord’s teaching in this paragraph [Matthew 6:25-34], is primarily thinking; and the whole trouble with a man of little faith is that he does not think. He allows circumstances to bludgeon him.

That is the real difficulty in life. Life comes to us with a club in its hand and strikes us upon the head, and we become incapable of thought, helpless and defeated. The way to avoid that, according to our Lord, is to think. We must spend more time in studying our Lord’s lessons in observation and deduction.

The Bible is full of logic, and we must never think of faith as something purely mystical. We do not just sit down in an armchair and expect marvelous things to happen to us. That is not Christian faith. Christian faith is essentially thinking. Look at the birds, think about them, and draw your deductions. Look at the grass, look at the lilies of the field, consider them.

The trouble with most people, however, is that they will not think. Instead of doing this, they sit down and ask, What is going to happen to me? What can I do? That is the absence of thought; it is surrender, it is defeat. Our Lord, here, is urging us to think, and to think in a Christian manner.

That is the every essence of faith. Faith, if you like, can be defined like this: It is a man insisting upon thinking when everything seems determined to bludgeon and knock him down in an intellectual sense.

Westminster Confession - Chapter 12: Of Adoption

All those that are justified, God vouchsafes, in and for His only Son Jesus Christ, to make partakers of the grace of adoption, by which they are taken into the number, and enjoy the liberties and privileges of the children of God, have His name put upon them, receive the spirit of adoption, have access to the throne of grace with boldness, are enabled to cry, Abba, Father, are pitied, protected, provided for, and chastened by Him as by a Father: yet never cast off, but sealed to the day of redemption; and inherit the promises, as heirs of everlasting salvation.

Orphans in the Universe

He who consciously or unconsciously has chosen to ignore God is an orphan in the universe.......
Emile Cailliet

All who ignore God are Orphans. Not all people are Children of God. People must understand that Jesus wants people to come and know the Father, who is personal, intimate and full of compassion. Jesus does not want converts who express a repentance to a Distant and Cold divine Being, to whom nobody knows. NO! Christianity is Knowing God the Father through Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit!

The Inner Ring, C.S. Lewis.

The Inner Ring is an essay by the great CS Lewis. It addresses the idea a Human pursuit for inclusive meetings. The race to be included, known and recognised. Better yet, to be Heard, Seen and Cared about all at the time. It is a goal, in the modern English to be in the "In Crowd", the "Cool Kids" or worse even "The Group!". Lewis calls "The Inner Ring" by other names also, like, "We" and "Sensible People". But what are these? Simple. They are close collections of people who band together in search for uniformity and certainty. Certainty of course here means a confirmation that you, as you, or me are relevant and worth our atoms of existence.

CS Lewis writes, "Some people are obviously in and some are obviously out, but there are always several on the borderline." I want to discuss the emotions and views of those on the border and those on the 'outside'. Also why we do it? What it also can become.

To be on the outside, Lewis says "From outside, if you have dispaired of getting into it, you call it “That gang” or “they” or “So-and-so and his set” or “The Caucus” or “The Inner Ring.” Yet even though this might be the case, we all most indeed want to be inside the Inner Ring. I must say that the Inner Ring from my perspective is a collection of people, not an individual. We want to be in the crown and avoid the single group like a Malaria Invested Tribe.

We spend lifetimes trying to enter the Inner Ring. But why? I think as Lewis does, so that we can be free! Free from Fear, rejection and purposelessness. Groups provide this. Especially groups that are set apart and different. The crave for us to be Unique is satisfied here. But Lewis and myself would argue that the loss of originality and identity can be the side effect of Inner Ring Membership.

I like Lewis do not hold to the idea that the Inner Ring is evil, sometimes they are needed for accountability and secrecy. But in their use for Identity and self worth, I would argue on this matter, they are Evil.

Searching to be in an Inner Ring for purpose is evil. In our search for the Inner Ring Membership Lewis says we "may already be compromised. I must not assume that you have ever first neglected, and finally shaken off, friends whom you really loved and who might have lasted you a lifetime, in order to court the friendship of those who appeared to you more important, more esoteric." So in this vain search we lose the gift of single intimate friendships. The single person can be more interesting than a Nation of people! So why do we not see this. Simple. The Inner Ring is by natural consequence, bigger, therefore more noticeable, resulting in an ego.

Therefore we must avoid the Inner Ring at all costs if they are to destruction of the unknown and less interesting members of the room. Lewis says "And if in your spare time you consort simply with the people you like, you will again find that you have come unawares to a real inside: that you are indeed snug and safe at the centre of something which, seen from without, would look exactly like an Inner Ring"

So in conclusion since the Inner Ring is not meant to be a place of Identity or security, only God can do this. The Inner Ring will fail and we blindly will look for another, unless we belong to the Only good Inner Ring, that is the Church. So I end with a warning from Lewis. "The old ring will now be only the drab background for your endeavor to enter the new one."

Let us not be blind in searching to enter a Inner Ring for meaning. Let us seek the single and individual to know then the World will be one Inner Ring, good and perfect.

To read the full article "http://www.lewissociety.org/innerring.php

"If you don't get Adoption, then you don't get Christianity"

"Our understanding of Christianity cannot be better than our grasp of adoption... If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God's child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all."

J.I.Packer, Knowing God.

Praying your Heart.

Suffering and Depression is common illness that many if not all feel during their momentary life here on Earth. But if you are a Child of God. There is hope! God is your Father and Divine Parent. A parent who takes you in! A parent who wants to train you in righteousness and justice. He wants you to be like your Big Brother, Jesus. All things that happen to you are for the good. Not for our advancement in life, but for our advancement in becoming more like Christ. This is the best thing that you could want or ask for! Do you agree with me?

I have gone through some bad stuff and still do and will do! But I remember my Heavenly Father, who I dare to call Abba Father, or Close Dad! I dare to approach the throne of Grace and ask for help! I boldly claim the Crown through Christ my own! We as his Children are in the Throne-room of Heaven, closer to the Father than you could ever know!

But my question for us as Children is this. Do we treat Our Father as Father or scared to approach because he is 'Holy Holy Holy' What if I told you both are true! Yes God is Holy Holy Holy, but he is also Father, close and personal!

God asks you this question.....
"Am I a God at hand, declares the Lord, and not a God far away?" Jeremiah 23:23.

What is your answer? How do you know him? Close or Far? He tells you he is close!

So let's be honest with our Father, let us no longer mock him by not telling him what is on our hearts! Because he already knows! But he wants you to trust Him in spilling your heart to him today and forever! God listening to you is like a sweet smell to Him! If you dare to think your prayers aren't sweet to God, then remember this...
"Another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense to offer, with the prayers of all the saints, on the golden altar before the throne." Rev 8:3

I leave you with a prayer from Canon Bob Smith, a man who prayed his Heart! Let us do the same...........

Son of Man, tempted at all points as I am, yet sinless, I turn in desperation to you. I feel so hemmed in. The tunnel of life before me is black and has no exit. I am so frustrated, so utterly imprisoned. The future is one of unrelieved gloom, an endless prayer-wheel of sameness, a mere joyless, soulless existence!

You Lord, you seem so distant and far away, unmoved by and uninvolved in my plight! To feel your absence is the deepest Hell, the unkindest cut of all. O God my rock, why have you forsaken me? Why must I be at the mercy of my enemies?

Lord, you know me as no other and you fully understand me. This I believe, despite all my doubts. Divine Deliverer, I want to grasp the nettle of my depression. I long to be freed from my narrow-eyed calculation, my loveless, merciless criticism; my ugly suspicions; my engendered unforgiveness; my consuming bitterness; my deep sense of hopelessness. Most of all, Lord, my consuming fear of being unwanted, unloved and rejected!

Son of Man, flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone, have mercy on me. Help me to receive in the right spirit of haunting, devastating depression. Assist me as I face these unwelcome experiences of life which come to me with your permission, or are sent to me under your direction.

Son of Man, who knows me, loves me, cares for me and who alone can help me, I come - I come to you!
Amen