Jesus
would not entust himself to them………………
These
words jumped out at me a few weeks ago as I read Chapter 2 of John’s Gospel.
Why wouldn’t Jesus trust those who were listening to his message; does
he trust us today? The
passage suggests that he knew the nature of men and I cannot see that we are any
different. But they did
not understand the nature of Jesus’ mission and were not ready to totally
submit to him and trust him. They
expected the Messiah to lead an army against the Romans but Jesus was prepared
to go to the cross carrying the sins of the world without complaint or
resistance. At that stage they did not realise the important
necessity of one man suffering death so that the rest of Israel might live;
Caiaphas prophesied something that he didn’t understand in terms other than
life alongside the Roman occupation. (John 18:14) We might think we now know the truth,
certainly we have the written New Testament to inform us; but today in a
scientific and technical age we live amongst influential and respected people
who deny the truth. They
write in our newspapers, speak on radio and television and teach in our schools,
colleges and universities. But
also we live in a multicultural world and other faiths, even paganism and New
Age vie for equality, we must be politically correct and not offend others with
our “opinion of the truth” !
So is it any wonder that unless children grow up in a Christian
environment they will be confused? It
seems that most of our traditional churches are making very little impact on
them or their parents.
But
it shouldn’t be like this, where are the inspired preachers?
Where are the committed Christians with testimonies to the power of God
acting in their lives?
We
as members of a Renewal organisation know that we have the continuing indwelling
of the Holy Spirit but where is the evidence of His presence?
I am pointing to a gap between our knowledge and our experience.
Within ARM(Wales) we have over the years seen God move but that
experience is not universal and seldom personal.
We believe it possible when we hear of a miraculous healing but most have
not experienced it and doubts predominate.
But
let us look at how we behave in the Anglican Church. We seem to
be bound by a constitution that no one is quite sure about and seems to prevent
us taking risks in the way we act.
Clergy, when they speak of “faith” often tell us to spell it
“risk” but I don’t see the
evidence of this. The
power in our Church seems to belong to the clergy but I thought that it was the
power of God working through the Holy Spirit that should operate in the Church;
and that means clergy and laity.
So I ask again, “does Jesus entrust Himself to us”?
Does He even entrust Himself to ARM(Wales)?
Archbishop
Barry said in his address to the Governing Body in September 2004,
“It’s wake up time for the Church in Wales”, it’s also a wake up
time for us in ARM(Wales). Nick Jones has already asked you to pray for us
and for Flames
of Fire and I say more in the article “The
Way Forward” on page 13 but at this point I want to say that I believe
we have a role to play in the future of the Church in Wales.
That is our calling. How
we interpret that calling must be guided solely by the Holy Spirit.
(Please pause and read again our statement on the inside back cover and
hold that as you read further. )
I
am committed to the Anglican Church and have no desire to leave it but I do get
frustrated by its rules. I
would like to think of myself as a typical Anglican but I look around me and
wonder whether I really fit in.
Flames
of Fire is not the ideal place to learn how to behave on a Sunday
morning, but we can take from it that the Holy Spirit will break through the
singing of our praises and take us all into a silent awareness of His presence.
Why doesn’t that happen in our home churches?
It doesn’t because on the whole we don’t expect it and if it did we
would not know how to respond,
in fact WE DO NOT TRUST HIM AND HIS PROMISES.
We
love and respect the members of our congregations who are happy with the liturgy
as it stands, their expectation of the presence of God is personal and
satisfying and they don’t want to lose what they have.
We must also appreciate that to come to Flames
of Fire is for them a noisy experience and they may not find God in that
environment. To tell
them that they are missing something is a mistake,
to tell them that we must allow more freedom and change things in order
to bring new people in gets us nowhere.
So where has the Church gone wrong?
We declare weekly that we believe in the Holy Spirit but apart from
preaching on the historical coming at Pentecost,
do nothing to teach on the implications.
Thank God for Charles Wesley through whom many of us learned our
theology: but what should we be
doing?
Yes,
we have some renewed clergy who are not afraid to preach on the whole Trinity at
work in us but most of us laity have learned from books and been guided by God
Himself. There
are others who “know” the truth but whose attempts to teach it are
frustrated by fear. How
little we know the Holy Spirit, how little we know God.
How can we expect Him to trust us with His Holy Spirit if we are afraid?
We must deal with that fear and learn to trust Him.
We
should be teaching about Baptism in the Holy Spirit in the churches, it is
essential if we are to be the Church Jesus wants.
I remember when I knew little about the role of the Holy Spirit, I
didn’t realise what I was
missing, at best I thought things were different in the early church.
He was a nice way of rounding off our understanding (but actually lack of
it) of God as Trinity. Now I
just cannot see how the Church can possibly fulfil its mission to the world
unless He is in control.
”Baptism in/with the Holy Spirit”
should follow soon after being “Born
Again”, often there is a gap of many years and sometimes it just never
happens. Recently
I heard David Pawson (on God TV)
suggest that Evangelists fail to preach both and leave new Christians saved but
not sanctified. I think that
is true. He wrote
a book called “The Normal Christian
Birth”, it was his first book and is probably his most important. The Church was not ready for that book and his
wife said then that it will take fifteen years, I
think
that time is close .
I’ll tell you more next time.
Mary Newsom