JUST ADD WATER AND SHAKE

'Just Add Water And Shake' But Can The Bubbles Last?

We proclaim him... so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ.

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.

That you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God... attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ... be filled with the Spirit.

Others... produce a crop... even a hundred times what was sown.

(Colossians 1:28; Matthew 5:48; Philippians 3:12; Ephesians 3:19, 4:13 and 5:18; Mark 4:20 -- all NIV)



We live in 'a day of the issue' -- smoking, feminism, uranium mining. Good issues: but we can easily be side-tracked from the one quoted in these scriptures. George Bernard Shaw once said, 'A fanatic is one who having forgotten his objectives redoubles his efforts.'

Is Christian maturity forgotten as we are full of overwork rather than overflow7 Our Christian booksellers have all the answers but our Christian counsellors report tragedies in our family and church life, many of which stem from shallow Christian experience. Perhaps we need the 'issue' Paul talked about when he said, 'This one thing I do'(Philippians 3:23).

Every age has its unique conditions which militate against the Christian's reaching his or her full potential. Today, we have an instant society, a paper war, endless demands for seminars and workshops, but rarely do we hear the compulsive call of the Master, 'Be therefore perfect!' So many of us become spiritual dilettantes, avoiding the absoluteness of Christ's demands.

Where then do we start?. 'There is nothing unnatural in an increase of temptations, conflicts and pressures as the Christian goes on with God' (J.l. Packer).

E.M. Bounds says, 'We need an insatiable yearning for the fullness of God.'

A.W. Tozer writes, 'The great god entertainment has taken hold of the minds of the retarded saints of our day and life is intolerable without some form of entertainment.'

Os Guinness believes that 'we have a "copy cat" syndrome so that we do not have to think or evaluate seriously. It is all done for us.'

Let us 'gird up the loins of our minds' (1 Peter 1:13, KJV) or in today's idiom 'grasp the nettle'. It is a false dichotomy to separate our devotional life from Christian maturity, but the former must develop into the latter, rather than the former being our daily 'dosage' to meet the current day's 'aches and pains'.



'I wish you wouldn't squeeze so,' said the Doormouse, who was sitting next to her. 'I can hardly breathe.'

'I can't help it,' said Alice very meekly: 'I'm growing.' 'You've no right to grow here,' said the Doormouse.

'Don't talk nonsense,' said Alice more boldly: 'you know you're growing too.'

'Yes, but I grow at a reasonable pace,' said the Doormouse: 'not in that ridiculous fashion.'

Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

A rosebud is perfect in its season, with its delicate folds overlapping each other, but when you observe it a little later, another perfection has appeared; a full bloom with a captivating fragrance has replaced the bud.

There is no such thing as a once-for-all fullness; it is a continuous appropriation of a continuous supply from Jesus Christ himself... as I trust him he fills me, so long as I trust him he fills me. The moment I begin to believe that moment I begin to receive.

Chas. Inwood, source unknown

The world belongs to the disciplined.

Paul Rees

Although evangelical Christians pay lip service to the principle of the 'quiet time' it seems to be less important in practice in the lives of many than it has been in past years.

Rev. Francis Foulkes, 'In touch with God: The Devotional Life of the Messenger'. An occasional paper.

Nothing less than a whole Bible can make a whole Christian.

A.W. Tozer, Of God and Men

Prayer is vital -- our prayers are the measure of our Christianity. To fail in prayer is to fail in everything else.

Professor E.M. Blaiklock, 'Our Lord's Teaching on Prayer'

Above all, George Fox excelled in prayer... the most awful, living reverent frame I ever felt and beheld I must say, was his when in prayer.

William Penn

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Mary had a little lamb
It should have become a sheep
It joined a local Bible church
And died of lack of sleep.

Gary Inrig, Life in His Body

If thou could'st empty all thyself of self,
Like to a shell dishabited
Then would he find thee on the ocean shelf
And say 'This is not dead'
And fill thee with himself instead.
But thou art so replete with vanity
And hast such rude activity
That when he comes, he says
'This is enough unto itself
Better to let it be
It is too small, and full;
There is no room for me.'

Author unknown

Batter my heart, three person'd God; for, you
As yet but knocke, breathe, shine, and seeke to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow mee, and bend
Your force, to breake, blowe, burn and make me new...
Take mee to you, imprison mee, for I
Except you enthrall mee, never shall be free,
Nor ever chast, except you ravish mee.

John Donne

Not merely in the words you say,
Not only in your deeds confessed,
But in the most unconscious way
Is Christ expressed.

And from your eyes he beckons me
And from your heart his love is shed
Till I lose sight of you and see
The Christ instead!

Beatrice Cleland



Father, I thank you for the joy of every new beginning; 'In the beginning God' and so you gave me a life which was absolutely new when I came into the world, and then a new life in Christ when I was born from above.

Father, help me to grow in grace as I have grown in my human life. Let me see the hindrances clearly. Keep me from rationalizing what may grieve you. Give me grace to allow prejudices, narrowness, bigotry, the spirit of the Pharisee, to drop out of my life and enable me to reach out for all the fullness of God. As one of your saints prayed, 'Make me as holy as it is possible for a saved sinner to be.'



Benediction

May the God of peace who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good, for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen (Hebrews 13, NIV).

To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy, to the only God our Saviour be glory, majesty, power and authority through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages now and forever more. Amen (Jude 24, NIV).

Rowland Croucher, ed., Still Waters, Deep Waters, (Albatross/Lion), chapter 10.

GROWING UP IS GROWING DOWN!

Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.

So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity.

One thing I do: forgetting what is behind and striving toward what is ahead, I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenwards in Christ Jesus. All of us who are mature should take such a view of things.

To each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it... to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants... instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.

(Jeremiah 717:7-8; Colossians 2:6-7; 2 Peter 3:18; Hebrews 6:1; Philippians 3:13b-15a; Ephesians 4:7,12-13 -- all NIV)



Many of us have a yearning to know something of our historical roots. We all, no doubt, know some individuals who have painstakingly researched their family history. Many of those adopted -- and their natural parents -- are eagerly taking advantage of recent legislation allowing greater access to adoption records. And in many parts of the world there is a burgeoning pride in racial heritage, exemplified by such slogans as 'black is beautiful'. One's roots are important to one's identity.

But more important than our biological and social roots are our spiritual roots. As Christians, we are exhorted to be like trees planted by streams of water, with roots that dig deeply enough to make us strong and stable, and that draw enough regular nourishment to sustain our life and fruitfulness whatever threats our environment brings. However, because we are human beings, not trees, we have a choice as to where we want to be planted, how deeply we will allow our roots to grow, and how liberally we will drink from the water source. If we so choose, we can be planted in an arid area, or near foul water; we can be content with a shallow root system; and we can try to make do with a spasmodic sip of water. Hardly a recipe for a maturing spiritual life!

Further, spiritual roots are nurtured by both historical and contemporary elements, by 'theory' and 'experience'. It is stimulating for us to develop the ability to ponder the nature of God, and his working in history from creation to consummation: but that has minimal value unless we also let our roots go down deeply into the spiritual life that only comes from him. We are enriched by widening our understanding of the atonement as an historical and theological event: but that cannot nourish our souls unless it motivates us to drink freely of the water of life offered to us by Christ in his atonement. There is a place for discussion about the coming of the Holy Spirit and the significance of his work: but that can never be a substitute for allowing him to grow his fruit in our lives, and equip us with the gifts he wishes us to use in the building up of the Body into maturity.

So we face a paradox: growing up is growing down! Whether we identify more readily with the 'riverside tree' or the 'downtown tree' of Ken Medema's 'Tree Song' -- the one with its visibly lush surroundings, the other with its hidden water source -- we can experientially affirm:

I've got roots growing down to the water, I've got leaves growing up to the sunshine, And the fruit that I bear is a sign of the life in me. I am shade from the hot summer sundown, I am nest for the birds of the heaven. I'm becoming what the Lord of trees has meant me to be, a strong young tree.



Many Christians never grow up. They remain beginners in the faith. The time and effort required to secure the treasures of the spiritual life call for too much effort; the moral and social demands of loyalty to Christ are more than they are prepared to pay; so they remain children in the faith.

E. Ernest Thomas

To some people maturity seems to mean questioning everything and being agnostic on all things. Surely, however, the mark of maturity is to arrive at firm convictions instead of remaining forever in an attitude of adolescent questioning and scepticism. There is a distinction to be drawn between openmindedness (the willingness to examine basic convictions) and empty-mindedness (the principle of throwing everything overboard and then trying to make a fresh start). The [Christian] need not be afraid to submit his deepest convictions to scrutiny, for the truth can stand scrutiny. Nor will he let himself be swept off his feet by superior argument, so that he continually vacillates like a broken weather-vane. Rather he will hold fast to the Word of God, and from this position he will have a proper stance to exercise his critical and self-critical faculties.

1. Howard Marshall, from an article 'Towards Maturity'

If prayer were just an intelligent exercise of our mind, we would soon become stranded in fruitless and trivial inner debates with God. If, on the other hand, prayer would involve only our heart, we might soon think that good prayers consist in good feelings. But the prayer of the heart in the most profound sense unites mind and heart in the intimacy of the divine love... It is indeed like a murmuring stream that continues underneath the many waves of every day and opens the possibility of living in the world without being of it and of reaching out to our God from the centre of our solitude.

Henri Nouwen, Reaching Out

Maturity begins to grow when you can sense your concern for others outweighing your concern for yourself.

John MacNaughton, source unknown

The growth and final maturity of the individual Christian contributes to the growth and final maturity of the church, the society of which he is a member. Conversely, this growth and maturity can only be fully attained in the unity of faith and knowledge which typifies the corporate experience of the church. The Christian individual and the Christian society are, therefore, through their mutual organisation about Christ, interdependent.

W.E. Andersen, The Christian Concept of Maturity

Ethical development, as well as intellectual and emotional development, is a necessary condition of maturity... Since ethics always asserts that one kind of conduct is better than another, an ultimate basis for comparison is implied. Therefore, ethical choices are basically theological, since they imply loyalty to God or to some principle that stands in the place of God as an ultimate referent... The intellectual and emotional components of maturity can be developed by effort, such as self-discipline, devotion to learning, and the cultivation of habit. But theological questions demand commitment.

Orville S. Walters, in an article 'Maturity: When.'?'

Temptation is a factor in the psychological and spiritual growth process everyone must go through if we are to become mature individuals, capable of living a full and meaningful life. The function of temptation is always to trigger a choice and provoke a definite stand or action.

Bob Mumford, The Purpose of Temptation

The one who is mature is not he who has achieved all his goals, but who has his goals clearly in mind, and who is, in addition, pursuing them with vigour.

W.E. Andersen, The Christian Concept of Maturity

Real maturity comes when we say to ourselves and to others: 'We know in part and prophesy in part... our seeing now is as through a glass darkly.' This means while I don't now know everything, I do know something, and on the basis of what I do know I can act constructively in the present toward the future... If we will respond in this way, that will be the best proof I know that we have 'put away childish things' and are functioning as mature human beings.

John Claypool, in a sermon 'Absurdity, Causality and Mystery'

Where did the idea ever come from that we should reach total maturity quickly or without lots of falling down and getting up?. If we abandon the expectation that our growth should be another way, then we can live into where we are and use it as an occasion 'to press on to the mark' as St Paul said, rather than giving up in discouragement... Being a slow learner does not disqualify one. It may be death to pride, but not to hope. Listen, the issue is not how long it takes us to be fully graced, but trust in him who, having begun a good work, will see it through to completion.

John Claypool, from a sermon 'Slow Learners and Hope'

The Lord is often in less of a hurry than we are... It was fourteen years from the time of Paul's conversion to the time of his departure with Barnabas from Antioch. Those largely 'hidden' years were not wasted. God was preparing his instrument: tempering and hardening him, hammering him into shape, teaching him. Paul was learning about discipleship.

Michael Griffiths, Give Up Your Small Ambitions

Superficiality is the curse of our age. The doctrine of instant satisfaction is a primary spiritual problem. The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people. The classical Disciplines of the spiritual life call us to move beyond surface living into the .depths. They invite us to explore the inner caverns of the spiritual realm. They urge us to be the answer to a hollow world... Our world is hungry for genuinely changed people. Leo Tolstoy observed, 'Everybody thinks of changing humanity and nobody thinks of changing himself.' Let us be among those who believe that the inner transformation of our lives is a goal worthy of our best effort.

Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline



Our Father, we confess that too often we've put down our roots in the wrong places; we've been more concerned with our human heritage and resources than we have been to experience the riches of our inheritance in Christ; we've not really grown up, because we've not really grown down. Father forgive us.

Lord Jesus, we want to have more than an intellectual understanding of our faith: we want to know you; we want to grow up to be mature in you, to be nourished by the water of life you offer us; we want to be made willing to accept the commitment and discipline of being your disciples.

Lord, inspire us by your example of growth in obedience, so that our goal will be to grow up into you, our Head.

Holy Spirit, we don't want to remain infants, grieving you by our immaturity; we don't want to have such shallow roots that we are unable to produce the fruit you wish to see in our lives; we don't want to ignore the challenges of receiving and using the gifts you allocate to us so we can fulfil our proper functions as part of the Body of Christ.

Spirit, thank you for your power which enables us to grow down, in order that we may grow up.

Our God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we accept your forgiveness, your inspiration and your empowering with grateful hearts. Amen.



A Benediction

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge: that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:16-19, NIV).

>From Rowland Croucher ed., Still Waters Deep Waters (Albatross/Lion) chapter 9

SHORT CUTS ARE RISKY

Now when Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by the road towards the Philistines, although that was the shortest; for he said, 'the people may change their minds when they see war before them, and turn back to Egypt.' So God made them go round by way of the wilderness towards the Red Sea.

For the moment all discipline seems to be painful rather than pleasant. Later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

Do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow about his promise as some count slowness, but is forbearing towards you, not wishing that any should perish.

I do not claim that I have already succeeded or have already become perfect. I keep striving to win the prize for which Christ Jesus has already won me to himself. Of course, beloved, I really do not think I have already won it; the one thing I do, however, is to forget what is behind me and do my best to reach what is ahead. So I run straight towards the goal in order to win the prize, which is God's call through Christ Jesus to the life above.

Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.

'All this I will give you,' the devil said, 'if you will kneel down and worship me.'

My brothers, whenever you have to face trials of many kinds, count yourselves supremely happy, in the knowledge that such testing of your faith breeds fortitude, and if you give fortitude full play you will go on to complete a balanced character that will fall short in nothing.

You should try your hardest to supplement your faith with virtue, virtue with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with fortitude, fortitude with piety, piety with brotherly kindness and brotherly kindness with love. These are gifts which, if you possess and foster them, will keep you from being either useless or barren in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

(Exodus 13: 17-18, NEB; Hebrews 12: 11, RSV; 2 Peter 3: 8-9, RSV; Philippians 3: 12-14, GNB; Hebrews 5: 8, RSV; Matthew 4: 9, GNB; James 1: 2-4, NEB; 2 Peter 1: 5-8, NEB)



In these days of instant cash, it is well to remind ourselves that there is no such thing as instant Christian character and maturity, and that attempts to find short cuts in these matters can lead to a good deal of disillusionment and frustration. It takes a lifetime to grow to what Paul calls 'the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ'. We are still 'being saved', and the whole process is attended by growing pains and obstacles which may not be dispensed with without stultifying the whole thing. There are no short cuts.

We fall into this trap in many ways. For example, there are some among us who think that all the problems which beset our world would be solved overnight if everybody suddenly became Christians. It is not as simple as that: they would still need to be worked at and thought out by consecrated minds. And many of what we see now as problems, God surely sees as opportunities.

Even Jesus was tempted to try short cuts to his goals: 'All these I will give you if...' But he deliberately took the long way round, past Galilee and Judea, past the high priest's palace, past Gethsemane, past Pilate's court, by way of the cross to the tomb in Joseph's garden. 'It became him, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through suffering -- not 'in spite of it', but 'by means of it'.

God does an infinitely bigger thing for us than giving us a short cut through our difficulties and instant solutions to our problems when he makes us wise enough and strong enough to find our own way through these things. Which of us, in our better moments, would rather stand without sweating on some mountain peak which God had reduced for us to the size of a molehill, than climb to the peak of some mountain of achievement, with torn hands and bleeding feet, but thanking God for the strength he gave us to get there? To people facing the problems of that age, Jesus apparently gave no specific directions, no easy solutions, but he did tell them how to become the kind of people who would know in their hearts what had to be done. And there are no short cuts to that condition of mind and heart.

Think now of some of the ways in which we tend to become victims of this very human failing; when we become a little impatient with bereaved people passing through the long and painful process of working through deep grief, and try to cheer them up, thinking that it is 'time they pulled themselves together'; when we hang labels on people and put them in categories, without the prior arduous attempt to understand them in depth; our giving glib advice on important matters without really listening to the questions; our inadequate ideas and practice of evangelism; our wrong expectations of prayer and guidance, imagining that these are to save us from the often painful task of thinking through our problems, and acting on our own God-given insight; our craving for quick 'results' in God's work -- all that comes into Bonhoeffer's concept of 'cheap grace'. In all these ways we try to find easy short cuts through our difficulties. (An imaginative reading between the lines of the fragment of the story of Paul's second missionary journey in Acts 16:6-9 is to be recommended.)


If the way to the goal of our dreams sometimes seems to be unnecessarily long and devious, and we think that we can find a more direct route, may we have the faith and courage to obey him, believing that when God is leading, the longest way round is indeed the shortest way home. Short cuts are as risky in religion as in hiking, but not nearly as harmless. I have just spent three hours with a young man who was 'soundly converted' at an evangelistic rally some months ago. Now that the emotional excitement has died down, he is back where he started, indeed further back. The glow has faded, and he is distressed because he has fallen down on his conversion, broken his vows and dishonoured Christ...

As we talked, it became obvious to me that here was a young man accepting a premature solution to a problem that had not been sufficiently explored... he had come to terms with Christ on too narrow a front... It was not the whole person who was committed to Christ, but that part which stood in obvious and pressing need.

W.B.J. Martin, Five Minutes to Twelve

There is no expeditious road
to pack and label men for God,
And save them by the barrel load.

Francis Thompson, A Judgment in Heaven

The trouble is that the modern world is so dynamic and explosive that we cannot continue for long without becoming conscious of our need for answers to ultimate questions. When we do, our chief danger is that, in our desperation and inexperience, we try to take religious short cuts, like the idolaters of the ancient world. There is already plenty of evidence that this is just as much one of the dangers of the modern world as so-called ‘irreligion’.

Daniel Jenkins, The Christian Belief in God

In the language of psychoanalysis, we are in conflict with ourselves, in the grip of neurotic patterns. How wonderful it would be if we could be saved from the pain of such conflicts! Well, there is help at hand... fanaticism, drugs, religion, sex, power: all of these will help relieve the pain of inner conflict, and save us the trouble of striving for a mature way of being in the world. They will also enable us to elude love, and will prevent us from finding our way 'home'.

Alan Jones, Soul Making

There are no supersonic flights to the Celestial City or even to the Palace Beautiful. Increased awareness can only be obtained by a journey on foot by way of the Slough of Despond, the Hill Difficulty, Doubting Castle and the rest.

H.A. Williams, 'Theology and Self-Awareness'

Nothing is too early or late for me which is due time for thee.

John Baillie, A Diary of Private Prayer

...the devil urges upon [Jesus] the well-tried methods of all human reformers. They had failed only because they were not able to back their programs with the power to carry them out. But link the irresistibility of the divine omnipotence to the politician's dream of universal plenty, or to the known ability of sheer display to dazzle the human mind... or to the 'realism' of skilful diplomacy -- and with any such program how could he fail to win the world? But Jesus rejects in turn each of these suggestions... There could be no short cuts to the kingdom of God.

John A.T. Robinson, Twelve New Testament Studies

One of the most important factors in the Gesell studies is their working hypothesis that the stages of growth [in children] are not evenly related to each other. There is a jagged rhythm of growth. There will be a spurt of growth and activity, a time of breaking out and vigorous expansion, a time of... troubled and confused behaviour, and a time of rounded, balanced, smooth and consolidated behaviour...

Parents tend to interpret the behaviour of children as being good or bad in terms of the spurts of growth and the periods of quiescent consolidation. Growth is considered to be times of difficulty, badness and unmanageableness... On the other hand, the times of quiescence and consolidation are likely to be identified with goodness, virtue and perfection in behaviour.

Wayne E. Oates, The Psychology of Religion

It is not for you to turn the buds into blossoms.
Your touch spoils them,
You tear the petals and scatter them in the dust.
He who can open the bud
Does it so simply.

D.T. Niles, The Preacher's Task and the Stone of Stumbling

What all life does say to us is that God does not conduct his rivers, like arrows, to the sea. The ruler and compass are only for finite mortals who labour, by taking thought, to overcome their limitations, and are not... infinite... The expedition demanded by humanity's small power produces the canal, but nature, with a beneficent and picturesque circumambulancy, the work of a more spacious and less precipitate mind, produces the river. Why should we assume that, in all the rest of his ways, he rejoices in the river, but in religion, can use no more adequate method save the canal?

John Oman, Grace and Personality



The day returns and brings us the petty round of irritating concerns and duties... Help us to perform them with laughter and kind faces; let cheerfulness abound with industry. [Enable] us to go blithely on our business all this day; bring us to our resting beds weary and content and undishonoured, and grant us in the end the gift of sleep.

R.L. Stevenson

O God, in whose strong hands are the threads of every person's life, I thank you that you have a purpose for the world, and that in that purpose my little life has its place and a part to play. Forgive me that so often I want life on other terms than you have granted, and that so often I seek the easiest way through the obstacles that beset me, thus robbing myself of the real fruit of pain and frustration. For often I forget that these experiences are the means by which we grow into the likeness of our Lord, who learned obedience by the things he suffered. Keep me from seeking easy short cuts, and from the snare of cheap, quick results from the service I try to render. Let me never forget the way Jesus deliberately set himself. Let my life fulfil your gracious design, and increasingly display the qualities of the life he seeks to live in me. Amen.

Book of Prayers for Students



A Benediction

Be thou within me, Lord, to purify me; above me, to draw me higher; beneath me, to sustain me; before me, to lead me; behind me, to restrain me; round about me, to protect me. Amen.

Book of Prayers for Students

Rivers in the Desert ed. By Rowland Croucher pp. 195-201