Brad Newell
Introduction
The beautiful miracle about the Bible is that its message is simple enough for a child to understand and complex enough to keep scholars discussing, debating, and exploring its content for centuries.
There is certainly no shortage of information for Christians to sink their teeth into today, with access to the internet and a book on just about every topic you can imagine. But this can be a rabbit hole and become distracting and even sometimes discouraging.
The focus of this simple message is to help bring us back to the basics, to fall in love with God again and remove some of the shackles that may be hindering us on our Christian journey. I hope and pray it may be especially encouraging to those Christians who may have lost some faith in “organised religion” and bring them back to the simple place of enjoyable worship and living in God’s grace.
Love
“Walk with God in the garden in the cool of the day…”
Sitting in the lounge room one day, admiring the large trees in the front yard, I was suddenly overcome with this thought, “Walk with God in the garden in the cool of the day…”. It was that simple. Remove all my faults, sins, weaknesses and works, and just be. Be with God, as He made us, perfect at creation. God and you in His creation enjoying just being with one another – nothing more. This simple revelation instantly changed my relationship with God. It was not about what I was doing or not doing, it was about being, and being with Him.
It freed me to feel and know God’s perfect and unconditional love as it was when He created us. Nothing more is asked of us.
It is crucial to our Christian life that we start from this place: the simple, complete, unconditional love of our creator God; however, we often lose sight of this when we get lost in our day-to-day activities, stuck in our shortfalls, busy with work and with doing works, so we need to learn to let go and just be with Him. God created us to be with Him, He still is with us, loving us.
It’s a pity we don’t have many more words in English for “love”. It has lost so much of its meaning, but there are many types of love.
Robert Johnson writes: “Sanskrit has 96 words for love; ancient Persian has 80, Greek has 3, and English has only 1”. There is love for your family, love to your partner, falling in love, love for a child, love from a child, love for a pet, fifty years of marriage love and so much more.
Love these days often refers to little more than physical love for someone, or it focuses on the “feelings” of being in love, but love is so much more than that. Feelings come and go, your thoughts and emotions change from day to day – moment to moment sometimes – but the true depth of love goes well beyond feelings.
In long term relationships, this love takes on a depth that is so much more, so much greater, and deeper than just a feeling. We need to refine our view of love. I have heard it said, “if you fall out of love with your wife, then fall back in love again.” Love takes effort and time and sacrifice. It isn’t stagnant, it grows, it strengthens, it deepens.
As we get to know God, we see ALL these different types of love in Him and from Him. The totality of His love is seen on the cross: the death of His Son for us. We must grasp and understand this completeness of God’s love, the total depth of it, without needing to earn it. This is the rock we will build on.
Evil
From the extremes of God’s love, we now move to the opposite extreme: evil. It should be a sharp turn, as evil is as far away from God’s love as you can get. But it is just as important to understand the truth of evil as it is the understand the truth of love.
Many years ago, catching the train to work in the city, I arrived at my penultimate stop. Sitting next to the window, gazing out at the people walking along the platform leaving the train, I was hit suddenly as with a violent shock as I stared at a man walking past me. There was such a sense of pure, ultimate, total evil that it literally shook me as I rushed my glance away from him. He proceeded to walk up next to me and bang violently with his hand against the glass window next to my head before walking off. It was such an intense, sudden, and unexpected experience.
I have reflected on that moment many times pondering its meaning and why it happened. I know it was real as the man’s reaction proved it, he was provoked as much as I was just in the opposite way.
I look back now and see that it was the true “face of evil” that I had experienced, perhaps for just this moment. You see the word “evil” has had the same dumbing down as the word “love”. It has lost its power and meaning. It has been whitewashed and made to look not so bad. We see it so many times in movies and TV shows where evil is good and good is evil. But the truth is evil is EVIL. The true face of evil should shock us to our core. This is the truth: the face that stands behind all evil. We may see it as small and subtle, but it creeps along, hiding in plain sight. Hollywood has portrayed evil as a cute red devil with a pitchfork, but it is much more subtle than that, so it must be called out for what it is. No evil is good, it masquerades as being good, or perhaps just “not that bad, really”. Ask a non-Christian why they will go to Heaven, and they will tell you they are a “good person”, but, compared to God, we are all evil sinners lost to self. Thanks to God, He did not leave us that way. The work of Jesus on the cross has totally paid our debt and fully restored us to our Creator.
It’s important to understand this evil, for “we are not fighting against flesh and blood”. It will help us see what is behind the goings-on in society, our lives, and those around us, as well as the business we work for, Christian or not. It is important as it will help us pray better into those situations, but more on that later. It is also important to remember that God can and has even used evil for His good, He has already overcome this evil. God is the Creator; He has all the power. Jesus tells us “All power is given to me in heaven and in earth”. ALL.
The Struggle
The daily struggle in the Christian life is the fight against this evil. That is why it is so important to better understand it. If we see it as small, weak, or not so bad, then we are less likely moved to do anything about it in our lives. We must work at submitting to God and giving over to him, and that is the “working out of our salvation”.
Whilst we were made to “walk with God in the cool of the day”, we are always going to face struggles. Our natural sinful selves lose sight of that, and we set out to please ourselves in other ways. Becoming self-centred and self-focused we lose sight of what we once had.
If you look back to your early Christian life, do you remember the zeal you had for Jesus and the excitement and passion you once had? Like love, I think this passion can deepen and grow; it may not look like it used to, but that does not necessarily mean that it has gone away. It may have just changed or been lost or drowned out in our lives.
There is so much that takes away this passion: the business of life, work, family, and sin. We can often feel so distant from God, and we lose sight of His love and warmth. It’s important to remember that we did not earn His favour and, once saved, we cannot lose it!
As we struggle through our daily lives, we must take time to just “walk with God”, being with Him and His love with no strings attached. This will look different for everyone, but it does not need to be hard. It’s more about surrender, letting go, and resting in Him. This then becomes the strength for us to lean on. As we better understand God’s unconditional love for us and fall back in love with Him again, we become more focused on pleasing Him, not for gain (that we already have) but as you would want to please anyone you are in love with.
You see it is quite easy to want to please someone you are in “love” with – it comes naturally. If you have fallen out of love with God, then fall back in love again!
The Mission
This is where we are going to be spending most of our lives and this is where the struggle will be played out. There has been a lot of rules and regulations born within the church coming from society, denomination, history and culture, but Jesus summed up the entire law simply by telling us to love God and love one another. Paul frees the Gentiles, telling them simply to follow only these rules: “abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality”. Simple!
In overcomplicating the modern church, have we lost sight of the basics and been so overwhelmed by expectations (ours and others) that we have given up all together?
Prayer – Loving God
We can do nothing on our own for God that does not involve prayer, but once again I want to perhaps change our perception of prayer. When we think of prayer, we often think of sitting in church with our eyes closed and speaking to God. We present our requests and end with “Amen”, open our eyes, and go on our way. It is like we turn prayer and God on and off. Whilst this may help us focus our attention and thoughts, we can let it become the only time and way in which we pray to God, and it does not need to be that way. We can begin to feel that if we are not sitting with our eyes closed, we are not praying to God; however, every moment in our day can be prayer to God. There is nowhere we can go that we can hide from God. We are always in His presence.
As we draw close to God, we will find ourselves thinking more and more of Him and of others – loving God, and loving others – the two commandments summed up by Jesus. As the shackles of our Christian performance fall off, we can be more inclined to include God in our thoughts throughout the day. Thankfulness for the sunrise. Forgiveness for my attitude in traffic. Thoughts of the needs of those around us petitioned to God as they come across our minds. The wonder of His creation. These all form part of our prayers and, before you know it, you are spending so much more time with God than just the five minutes in the morning that you used to. You find God travelling with you throughout your day.
As we humble ourselves and draw near to God, we find God’s spirit moving in us, moving us to praise and thanksgiving, asking forgiveness and interceding for the needs of others. If you find you are treating Jesus like Santa and running off a list of needs and wants, you may need to go back to the start and focus on God’s love and come from there: who He is and what He has done and already provided to you.
Charity – Loving Others
For a while now I have looked at the many, many secular charities that have popped up over the years. There are so many to choose from and it seems there is a new Foundation or GoFundMe page setup every day. I feel this used to be the domain of Christians, but I feel we are being outdone by the mainstream society. Are they out-loving me?
Whilst it is great there are so many people wanting to help, these secular charities cannot offer what the Christian has. They cannot provide hope to the lost and food for the soul. They cannot offer prayer to the one true living God.
I know Christian charities have been built on the Christian faith, but you will find that the message behind many of these organisations has been “watered down” these days. The focus is more on providing for the physical needs rather than spiritual needs, but there is no good in feeding a corpse!
Of course, charity is not just about Aid organisations or Foundations, “charity begins at home”. Charity also refers to helping those who surround us in our everyday lives: our family, friends, and neighbours. You won’t have to look too far these days to find someone in need, and simply being there to help out may be making more of an impact than you can imagine. A meal for a sick family, helping with travel arrangements to an appointment, helping tidy up a garden or a simple phone call to say, “hi, how are you going?” … the options to help out are just as endless as the need. This is where people can see the love for God in us pour out into their lives. They also feel God’s love through us.
Never underestimate the difference one person can make! It is important for Christians not to lose sight of the hope they offer and provide more than just physical comfort. It is also crucial that prayer be behind this.
Close
Finally, I hope that you feel you have been freed to live the life God wants for you. He wants to have an intimate personal relationship with you. He wants you to show and have love for Him and each other.
With so much uncertainty surrounding us, I pray that you will be freed from the “worries of this world” and have so much more hope, excitement, and energy to enjoy the life that God has given us, to walk with Him in every moment of your day.
If you have been encouraged by this, find a fellow brother or sister in Jesus to share and discuss it with, especially if you are not physically attending a church anymore.
“… let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another” – Hebrews 10: 24-25
To Him be the Glory for ever and ever, AMEN
Aussie born and bred, Brad has spent some time in short term missionary roles overseas, including Moscow, learning to lean on God. Retired from IT, Brad now enjoys time with his family: his beautiful wife and two wonderful young children.