The prodigal's older brother

A couple of days ago I added a message to a thread on the Koinonia Life Discussion Forum. After writing what I had to say (two short paragraphs) I found the Holy Spirit prompting me to continue.

Perhaps you'd like to see it too.

This is what he gave me...

Q - How should we live our lives if we really, really want to honour [the Almighty]? What does he want from us? He rescued us and brought us into the light for a reason. What is that reason? In other words, what does he lack that he wants from us? Does he lack anything? If he already has everything, what can we add?

A - Remember, this is my personal answer. Yours will be different, though all are valid because they are specific to where we are on our particular journey with the Lord.

For me, then, I'd have to say that he wants me to love him with everything that is in me. I think that is basically all he wants, if I do that one thing all the rest will follow day by day. It's not that he lacks anything, just that he loves me like the Father of the prodigal loved his son.

I am so like the prodigal son! The son didn't go home because he loved his father, he went home because he knew he wouldn't starve or die of exposure as his father's worker. He went home because he knew his father was a good person who cared about those under him. He knew that in his father's domain he'd be safe. And he expected nothing more than that.

He left home because he wanted to do things his own way, he wanted to be independent (he sinned). He came home again because he realised how much better that would be (he was convicted and changed his direction). But then he got a big surprise.

When he came close to home (not even there yet) his father came out to meet him and threw his arms around him and kissed him. And a feast was ordered, and new clothes, and a gold ring, and sandals, and a joyful reception as 'my son who was lost and is now found'. Does that sound familiar? It should!

I went to the Father for safety and rescue from death, but I found absolute love and favour as his son. Totally undeserved and totally unexpected.

And now I'm discovering what all prodigal sons and daughters discover. My Father has more for me than mere rescue. His own heart is leaping for joy at my arriving - even before I get to the door. He came out to meet me with a huge beaming grin, a giant hug, and a clean cloak of the finest fabric. He's forgotten the foolish misdeeds of my independent heart, the past is of no interest to him, the only thing he seems to care about is that I am here again - home.

I am not a servant, I am a son! How many believers labour all their lives under the impression they are only paid servants? The thinking goes, 'If I work hard evangelising, preaching, teaching kids, reading the Bible every day, praying regularly and fervently, growing the church, never resting - then I will be rewarded'. But Papa says, 'You are my son, what you have is not earned but inherited. I want your love first: your obedience will follow not because I pay you wages but because you love me.'

He loves me, he always did and (like Wendy Francisco's dog) he is glad I'm back.

If I want to really honour him I will love him back with all of my heart, not just when it suits me but also when it goes against what I want or would naturally choose. I need to stay so close that I hear his voice minute by minute saying, 'This is the way, walk in it'.

And have you ever thought that Jesus is like the older brother? Does that come as a shock? Why would I even say that?

Look at it like this. Jesus is our older brother, he is the firstborn - right? But he didn't behave like the older brother in the story, did he? Instead, he travelled to the country far away from his home, he searched until he found the muddy field where the herd of pigs were eating and discovered his younger brother who was ready to eat pig food because he was starving.

And our older brother not only paid the price for our sin, but he also came and found us and said, 'Come on home, you have wasted your share of the inheritance but half of Dad's infinite supply is still an infinite supply. I will share my portion of everything with you. Come on home, Dad is pacing up and down waiting for us. His heart will leap with joy when he sees you. Leave the pigs, come on home. You are not only forgiven, you are also loved and missed. Come home.

Jesus is the older brother, but with compassion and the same love as the Father. And that's the difference that he wants us to understand. The older brother in the story had no grace, but our older brother IS grace!

So what can I do to honour Papa and my Older Brother? Nothing. Except for one little thing - love Dad with everything that is in me, and love those around me like I love myself. Isn't that what Yahshua said to do? Isn't that exactly what he himself does? He loves his Dad and he loves us. So follow his example. That's all - no paid work! Just love.

Grace and peace to all, from the Father and the Son!

Chris

PS - So why did Jesus describe the older brother the way he did? I think there are several reasons, including the usual interpretations that are given about the superior way we sometimes treat others, including the way the Jews often viewed the Gentiles 2000 years ago, and the way the church often views Judaism today. Father, forgive us! But perhaps he also wants us to see that he doesn't treat us the way we are used to being treated. Perhaps he's saying, 'Hey, that's an ordinary, worldly brother. But I'm not like that brother'.

We don't need no more trouble

I'm reposting this You Tube video which I first saw on Kent Burgess's Faithfully Dangerous blog.

It's a lovely, laid-back piece of music from 'Playing for Change' with artists from all over the globe. It has a gentle but insistent theme. Everywhere is war. Some dying, some crying. We don't need no more trouble. What we need is love. Beautiful!

While we're on the subject of peace, for some extraordinary stories of reconciliation at work, read Julia Fisher's book 'Israel: the Mystery of Peace'.

And finally, back to the music. If you haven't already heard it, here it is...

Testing Google Wave

I had an invitation from Google to join their Wave preview, and very nice it is too. I invited the limited number of friends I'm allowed and started waving with them, and we did a lot of the instant messaging things that I imagine most people will begin with.

But then I wondered how Wave would work in 'email' mode. The text that follows is copied straight from the Google Wave interface and pasted here. It explains some interesting thoughts that came to me as I wrote my first extended item in Wave.

Note: The 'wave address' in the footer won't work with Wave. It's just represented as an email address. I have no idea how Google will arrange mail to wave connections. But I'm confident that Google has already thought this through, at least in principle.

Using Wave like email - 9:25 am

Hi everyone,

This is my first attempt at using Wave in an email-like fashion. So far we've done quite a bit of instant-message-style waving, but I have a sense that the email approach will feel very different.

Thinking about it all while making the morning cuppa for me and Donna I could see that 'email' would be different (some of my best ideas pop into my head in embryo form at the kitchen sink or weeding the garden or emptying the cat's litter tray).

For one thing it answers a question we'd already pondered. Why have Google given us @googlewave.com addresses, why not use @gmail? Well, I think the answer may simply be that if Wave did have IMAP, SMTP and POP extensions, the new addresses would allow outsiders to email us and the mail would appear in our inboxes as a blip (albeit a large one like the one I'm typing now). And we could send a long blip to a non-Wave address and have it delivered via the SMTP extension. This makes a lot of sense to me. I hope they enable it quite soon, it would make it possible for a user to move entirely from email to Wave.

What other thoughts occur to you guys about the email 'mode'. I think the entire approach of wave is very clever, that a single system can be used in so many different ways. A real breakthrough. And it is probably going to be one of those disruptive innovations that we'll all take for granted in the end. A real brainwave on Google's part to make it both open and extensible and to offer their own client and server code free to everyone to run on their own hardware as well.

One other observation. When I created this wave I just closed the box that lets you select contacts for the wave. So I'm alone in this blip as I type it. When it's finished I'll drag in the contacts I want to send it to. That makes it feel even more email-like.

And I used the first blip as the title with this large, second one as the body. It works well like this.

What do you guys think?

Chris

PS - For fun I cut and pasted my email footer below. Then I added my wave address and made my mail address into a link. It seems so 'normal' like that. And anyone could add a wave address to a real email footer so wavers could click it. Excellent.

PPS - I just found a typo and fixed it - and then added this PPS. You can't do THAT in email!

'Personally I'm always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.' - Winston Churchill (http://quote.scilla.org.uk)

Chris Jefferies (St Neots, UK)
Wave: chris.jefferies@googlewave.com
E-mail: chris@scilla.org.uk
Web: http://chris.scilla.org.uk/

Eaton Ford (day) - a trip to Godmanchester

Paul and I set off at 10:30 to visit our friends Stuart and Jackie in Godmanchester. But then things got a bit muddled. We intended to meet at Paul's at 12:00, but were delayed returning from Godmanchester. By the time we arrived, Roger had given up and driven home again.

So in the end it was just Paul and me. We ate pizza for lunch and then chatted and prayed for friends. We talked about the need for our friends to see us living harmoniously in relationship together as his people.

Paul prayed for the kids from the camp back in the summer, for the planned reunion in December, for the next camp in 2010, and for there to be a real impact in the lives of the young people so that they would come to know Jesus for themselves.

Then we spent some time reading from Julia Fisher's book, 'Israel: The Mystery of Peace'. We read about a third of chapter two, 'To Gaza with love' and thought about the need to reach across forbidden lines. Loving our enemies is sometimes the only way to break down the most serious divisions in this world.

Little Paxton - become empty, be filled

We were challenged to think about how Jesus always had compassion on people. We tend to discriminate between 'good' and 'bad' people; but he doesn't distinguish like that, for him nobody is a lost cause. We all start off bad, yet if we trust him and follow him he rescues us without distinction.

Jim spoke about the pain we all face in life, illness, loss, rejection - it's different for each of us but we all suffer pain and difficulty of some kind in our lives. He wondered if the Lord puts us through certain experiences so that we can be healed in some way.

Mary mentioned the words Jesus spoke about forgiving others so that we can be forgiven. (It's worth reading the whole chapter.) If our hearts are not open to forgive others they will be too tightly closed to receive or even recognise his forgiveness towards us. We certainly need to care about others. This reminded Jim of the Roman centurion who cared enough about his servant to find Jesus and ask for help, believing that it would be done. He had remarkable faith, and it was done.

Jim told us about Bethany's forthcoming visit to Auschwitz and how they'd watched the film 'Schindler's List' as a form of preparation. In Schindler we can clearly see how even a 'bad' person can have a deeply caring compassion for others.

Another thought that came to us was that we need to spend time with Jesus and as we do so, little by little we will become more like him. The reason the Holy Spirit was given to us was to reveal him to us and to teach us all about him.

Mary talked about a Pentecostal church she had been to some years ago and how they'd really gone for vigorous praise and worship with an emphasis on spiritual gifts. And although it had seemed quite extreme to her, she was sure in her heart that it was OK. They became quite carried away yet it was clear to her that it was inherently good, and therefore not frightening or alarming.

Jim played us a You Tube video 'Empty Me' by Chris Sligh. We watched it but without sound as the speakers weren't available, so we just read the words. It's even better with the music!



Jim also read Philippians 3:12-16 and reminded us that we have confidence in attaining the goal. But where does our confidence come from? For the Pharisees in Jesus' day education and following the Law gave them confidence. Paul was trained as a Pharisee but the past didn't hold him back. Like him, our confidence is in Christ by the power of his Spirit in us.

It's not about the past or about the things we have done (good or bad), in the end it's only about the direction we are facing now and the goal we are aiming for - which is to come ever closer to Jesus himself.

Colworth (CU) - a passion for life

Dudley brought some thoughts about evangelism based on 'A Passion for Life' a mission planned for next March.

He challenged us to consider whether evangelism seems a fearful thing to attempt or a natural thing to do. He asked why we thought we should evangelise, and he suggested it should be a major part of our lives as believers. What are our motives for evangelising?

We responded that for the individual, evangelism seems to be hard work, we may be afraid of losing our friends, embarrassment can be an issue for us, and we don't always know what to say. And corporately there may be disagreement over the way to do it, and perhaps we are disadvantaged by the fact that we don't really love one another.

Dudley showed a DVD about the Chamaeleon Principle. This is based on the idea that we tend to hide ourselves in the world. We looked at 2 Corinthians 5:9-19 and 6:1-2 in which we see four reasons for sharing the good news. Our fear of Christ should persuade us (5:11), his love for us should compel us (5:14), he has commissioned us (5:19), and there is an opportunity right now (6:1-2).

Kevin mentioned that we reach out from a place of community. David pointed out that we all have different gifts and we need to work together. I mentioned that we shouldn't hawk the gospel around, but we should always be ready to explain the hope that is within us (2 Corinthians 2:17, 1 Peter 3:15). People need to see that there is something unusual about us.

There are also some useful tools that we can use, Alpha courses for example. But these are good tools, not substitutes for personal outreach.