Be
Holy ……because I AM Holy……………….
In
the last two issues we have questioned the nature of the 21st century
church. We continue to be a
prophetic voice calling on the churches in Wales to become what God wants
for today.
The
Church in Wales is examining itself
and has issued a video “Smouldering Wick - Shining Light?” to
all clergy, challenging them to look for radical solutions to prevent our death!
Bob Pitcher has responded on page 10 and Marian Barge has
reported on the church which is striking new ground at Wyllie on Page 5.
At
this time there are many prayer initiatives, to see Revival in Wales, much
prayer being raised overseas as well as here and we might question why the land
hasn’t yet turned to God. I praise the Lord for Christians like Marian who are
listening to both God and the cries of the people.
For people use words that we do not easily recognise because
they do not know what is on offer and they do not notice that we have
Good News that is for all the world.
But
why do they not notice Christ on earth today?
We know His presence don’t we?
For we, the Church are His body, we are called to live in Christ and we must take this seriously for “
Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did" (
1 John 2:6) This is a call for holiness so we must respond.
Revival cannot come in
a vacuum, nor would it be sustained in a luke-warm church, it has to
start with us and so we are right to examine our churches and ourselves.
God has already waited 2000 years for us, how much longer will He wait?
God
led me to pray for a Holy Church some years ago now and I soon realised that I
could not pray this unless I was prepared to have Him change me.
As a result I’ve read much about holiness and see a number of different
attitudes to it, but no matter whether the writer is anglo-catholic or
evangelical there is the same certainty of
the need for us to take this matter seriously.
In
the mid eighties I discovered a new printing of a classic book “Holiness”
by Bishop J.C.Ryle first published in 1877.
The foreword amazed me because it indicated that little had been written
on this subject since this great work.
This sparked an interest for me as I realised that it was such a
neglected subject. Ryle’s
prose was excellent and I was not deterred by the Victorian writing, the book
left an impression on me. Ryle wrote his book to counteract the
ideas of the “Holiness Movement” which was imported from America following
the publication of a book called
“Holiness Through Faith” by an American Quaker Robert Pearsall Smith
Ryle
wrote his book on Holiness because he was afraid that the personal holiness
teaching was seriously defective on sin, and
would lead to an untenable doctrine of sinless perfection.
He was a brilliant theologian and loving pastor, his starting point was
always the Bible and he was concerned that his flock received the best teaching.
More
recently, 1992, I found a new book J.I. Packer’s “A Passion for
Holiness” and I just had to buy it.
He starts by describing how he sees Holiness speaking of the “loss
of a precious past” He
teaches that “holiness, like prayer must be learned through experience,
commitments have to be made, habits formed and battles fought.
The process of learning can be thought of as a school but it is God’s
school under His sovereign
providence and in that school our Lord Jesus Christ is with us.
It is a controlling relationship of master and servant, leader and
follower, teacher and student”. He
stresses that it is crucially important to appreciate this for progress in the
school has nothing to do with intelligence but on the quality of one’s
relationship with Jesus. He
also quotes J.C.Ryle’s book which enumerates a twelve-point profile of a holy
“man” - for man also read “woman”, Ryle used inclusive language and was
incidentally an advocate of women serving in the church.
It
is starting to sound hard and when we look at the conservative evangelical
churches we see how it often became a set of moral rules rather than a loving
obedient relationship with Jesus, but don’t give up on the evangelical
teaching for it will produce a Biblical understanding of Holiness.
Nevertheless Packer wrote his book to stress the importance of Holiness
and starts by quoting Hebrews 12:14: Make every effort to live in peace
with all men and be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.
Notice
the word effort, Jesus never promised us an easy life and
the closer we come to God the more we are aware of temptation and sin.
It is as I have looked at different types of prayer
that I have also read books with a Catholic origin.
Much can be learned from the mystics of the past, St.Teresa of Avila,
St.John of the Cross, Mother Julian to name but three.
We can get ourselves very confused if we read too much beyond the state
we are in but slowly we learn that Jesus is our guide - (Packer just said that).
I found that I was attracted to the various forms of silent prayer.
God was gracious and I received great blessing from it but I had to learn
to trust Him in this for it sometimes seemed like “Day-dreaming” or
“wasting time”. I
didn’t understand “The Cloud of Unknowing” by an unknown 14th
century monk but I realised that here was a special relationship if I was
willing to pursue it. I
was so grateful to Joyce Huggett for her book “Listening to God”,
here was an evangelical willing to embrace Catholic methods in order to draw
closer to God.
It
was at this time that I came into Renewal and realised that books I was reading
seldom mentioned churchmanship, they were so full of the Holy Spirit that
differences came to be seen as a wonderful diversity of Christians who knew that
God loved them and wanted to celebrate His presence.
Some of the early Renewal meetings I went to were run jointly by the
St.Albans Dioscesan Renewal Group and the Hertfordshire Charismatic Union which
was a Roman Catholic Group!
God was clearly saying, “You’ve all got some of it right and I love
you all”
So
please be willing to learn from any source that God puts in front of you.
Although
my background is mainly evangelical I believe that we should recover something
of the Catholic traditions of prayer.
On the matters of holiness and the Spirit, the Catholic - Reformation
divide was not so great, we see that in ARM (Wales) for we are a mixture of
anglo-catholics and evangelicals.
We all recognise that we have the Holy Spirit within, but are we really
aware of His presence? The
classic book “The Interior Castle” by Teresa of Avila is only
one that describes the search but we need to journey into self not only to find
God but to discover our true selves.
This is in fact prayer.
True
prayer and holiness grow together, as we sit silently in the presence of God we
give ourselves a chance to hear Him and learn to love Him.
For how can we love Him unless we know Him and how can we really obey Him
unless we love Him? (John 14:15, 30)
Loving God, like being Holy is a command, but it is an act of will
or do we need to feel something in order to really make a response? The love which leads to obedience and surrender
can only come by spending a lot of time in God’s presence.
As our hearts are given to God in love He writes His law on them (Jer.
31:33) - then this law becomes love
in us and we become what we really are - His children. This is scriptural and some will say just
believe the scriptures, but it is not easy for most of us and it is necessary to
meditate on the scriptures for love takes time to mature and we have to see our
hidden sins in order to repent of them and confess them .
God
has made all the necessary provision for us to become holy but we have to
acknowledge our responsibility for our sins.
We must first realise the need to become Holy and start to question how?
Remember that Jesus is our guide.
We don’t need to struggle to follow a rule book but we do have a part
to play in our sanctification, we have to be willing to give up sins - even what
we think are little ones! For
the real reason we must give up on sin is that it hurts Jesus , the One we love.
I
urge you therefore to consider what it means to be a Christian, we need to
meditate on suitable texts (some are suggested on page 9) and let God speak into
our hearts. It is not easy, suffering is to be expected for we are asked to
become like Jesus and walk the Way of the Cross.
We will be regularly tested
but never more than we can bear (1 Cor.10:13)
Do
we want to see God? Note what Phil says in his letter and pray expectantly
remembering that “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God” (Matt.5:8)
and
Blessed
are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled
(Matt 5:6)
What
a promise!
Mary Newsom