God
so loved the world...................
I am writing this during Passion week and I have been
thinking about the relevance of the Cross to Renewal.
Often we are thought of as happy-clappy and yet that is so
far from the truth. How
can we convey the joys of Renewal and retain the sombreness and importance of
Good Friday, and how can we show that the power of the Spirit within us comes
from the same source as the power that raised Jesus from the dead?
We need to promote A.R.M.(Wales) in a way that will
encourage those who are already Christians to move into a closer relationship
with God. Mention
of words like Renewal and Charismatic seem to drive people away
and not necessarily because they are afraid of the Holy Spirit but because they
are content with what they have and they don’t think that there is anymore.
Yet I know from personal experience that I didn’t always think there
was anything else, at least not for ordinary Christians who struggled to do
their best in the knowledge that they were sinners.
Holiness was something to be achieved only at death and on entry into a
new after-life.
But if I remove that one word ‘after’ from the last sentence and
start to think about an application on this earth I get a new and exciting
picture.
Holiness
is to do with being set apart for God’s use, all the implements used in Temple
worship were consecrated,
made clean for his use.
That can apply to us, and it is through dying to sin that it is possible.
Let us look at Romans 6:11
So
you should consider yourselves dead to sin and able to live for the glory of God
through Christ Jesus.
and 1 Peter 2:24
He
personally carried away our sins in his own body on the cross so we can be dead
to sin and live for what is right.
You have been healed by his wounds!
So it is all to do with the cross and is available to all
Christians. Yes
I will continue to sin because I will make mistakes and not think about the
consequences of my actions but I will not deliberately sin because I have a
relationship with God based on love.
Because I am able to feel that love I can start to love him and
acknowledge the debt that I owe.
Jesus Christ died for me!
Those who run away from renewal may well agree with me so
far, but we have a basis now for discussion and we can consider how deep that
relationship can become.
We have been given the gift of the Holy Spirit but how do we know that he
is present within us?
That is
an open
question because we all feel the presence of
God
in different ways and with different degrees of intensity.
Can you say with St.Paul:
I
myself no longer live, but Christ lives in me.
So I live my life in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who
loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians
2:20) ?
There
is so much in that verse, it means a lot to me personally as the Lord drew my
attention to it when singing the chorus Reign in me.
I
was unable to sing it until I realized what it really meant.
This is the meaning of renewal allowing Jesus to live in us through the
Holy Spirit, he is the one through whom we can communicate with God.
But
the Anglican Church knows that, so why don’t we see it in practice?
The Holy
Spirit is present at our baptism and our confirmation but have we really
acknowledged him and allowed him into our lives?
We must not run away from the idea of Baptism in the Holy Spirit we must
actively seek all that God wants to give.
But this is a phrase that worries so many because we don’t agree as to
its meaning. The
more Catholic see it as given at the time of water baptism, even to infants, and
the evangelicals as happening when we are born again and become Christians.
In the early Church this was closer to the truth than it is today, but
there were three cases in the book of Acts when the Holy Spirit’s coming was
either delayed or came before baptism.
Two occasions might easily have been because God himself was teaching
that he wanted the Samaritans and the Gentiles included in his Kingdom. (Acts
8:16 and 11:15-17). In
the one case Peter laid hands on the believers in order that they received the
Holy Spirit but in the other God stepped in first!
But
the third case is especially interesting to us because it happened at Ephesus
where Apollos had been preaching before he received some correction of his
teaching from Priscilla and Aquila. (Acts
18:24-26) Paul
clearly thought it necessary to ask the believers, "Did
you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?"
Their reply shows that they did not know of the importance of Baptism in
the Spirit. That
seems to be the case with many Christians today.
But
it is very easy for us to base our understanding on our own experiences and
there have been few who have attempted to look at the subject theologically.
We need to do this if we are to make an impact on the Anglican Church.
God has already shown us that if we want him to change the Church then we
must allow him to change us first in order that we might speak and act wisely
and lovingly with no contamination from our preconceived ideas.
In this magazine you will find some pretty serious stuff but also some light relief in the form of cartoons produced by Paul and Pat Bond and several poems which remind us of Spring and the way that God renews his creation each year.
May
He bless you all.
Mary Newsom