Straining forward... there must be more

Philippians 3: 1 - 16

This is one of my favorite passages of scripture. There are lots of reasons why I love it, but what strikes me in particular about this passage of scripture is the honesty that Paul writes it with.

He starts out in verses 1 – 3 by pointing us all to the fact that our walk as Christians is something that we cannot do successfully on our own. Human effort, human rules and regulations just do not cut it. His reference to circumcision shows that perhaps there were those that had fallen into the trap of thinking that the Jewish laws and customs were a prerequisite to a relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

In verses 4 – 6, he presses this point further by making statements like, “If others have reason for confidence in their own efforts, I have even more!”

From what we know about Paul, it is safe to assume that Paul was a highly educated man and had achieved a lot not only in terms of his education and scholarliness as shown through the complexity of some of the letters that he writes, but also in his zeal to follow the Jewish law to the letter. He was widely traveled and had been highly successful with planting and building churches all throughout the Roman Empire and yet he looked at all his achievements and still considered them nothing.

Verses 7 – 11 give us a little insight into his thoughts. He says that once he thought of all of these things as important and he worked hard to get them all, but when compared to what Christ had done for him, they paled in comparison.

I could spend time talking about other people and how this should challenge them, but let me make it a little more personal. I think that I’ve done a lot with my life, and one of the things I promised myself is that I would try to spare no expense to experience new things, learn new concepts, and give my time, energy and resources to my faith and profession both in my former life as an IT specialist and in my current role as a paid facilitator of worship.

As I have continued to use whatever gifts God has given me, I have seen doors open and I have seen lives be changed. I have led worship and played music for a handful of people, and I have played before thousands. I’ve been able to use my gifts on more than 2 continents and for the past 3 years I led the really large worship and prayer gathering at the scotiabank place. I have every reason to be confident in these things and boast about them…

However, Paul says something that cuts me down to shape. Compared to the priceless gain of just KNOWING Jesus, everything I can do, have done, or will ever do is nothing! Why? Because I have not yet achieved as much as he had back then; I probably never will! He counts his achievements as garbage and therefore, I MUST count mine as garbage too when compared to knowing and experiencing the fullness of God in Christ Jesus.

Paul resolves that the only way his life shall really count for something is through really knowing Christ, and EXPERIENCING the power that raised him from the dead.

The next couple of verses, 12 – 14, are equally challenging for me. These verses paint a picture of a man in a race. Not a sprint and definitely not a stroll. A marathon! They show a man who has determined that he will continually strive, and focus all his energies on being ALL that Christ Jesus saved him to be. They show a man who realizes that it will not be a short and sweet process, but a long and sometimes painful process. They show a man who is not content to bask in today’s victories and achievements until they become the stagnation and rot of past glory; they show a man who is hungry for more… a man that constantly says to himself:

“There must be more to Christianity than this and I will not stop straining forward to know and experience it! There must be more to Christianity than this and I will not stop straining forward to know and experience it!”

Thinking...

Romans 7

21So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22For in my inner being I delight in God's law; 23 but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

Recently during a moment of private worship and reflection, I was reminded of the above-mentioned scripture. I’ve found that the more I spend time in the presence of God, and have a “no holds barred” approach to him, the more I become aware of my shortcomings, but also of his grace and forgiveness extended to me.

I’m convinced that when a person meets with God, their lives are radically transformed and as they allow the encounter with him to affect and empower their lives, they become a force to contend with. I say this pretty much every week of my life these days. The thing that I realize I have neglected to elaborate is that the encounter with God has to be one in which everything is laid bare before him. Not just because we ALLOW him to, but because God’s presence and the presence of sin in our lives are mutually exclusive. Nothing is hidden from God and when his presence manifests itself in our personal or corporate worship times, everything is laid bare before him whether we think we can hide it or not.

Perhaps this realization inspired Paul to pen the words in Romans 7 mentioned above.

Because I work at Woodvale, my thoughts concerning worship and experiencing the presence of God always come back to the congregation that I am privileged to serve. In light of this realization, can I truly say that people are convicted of sin during the services in which I am a facilitator? Am I convinced that when conviction falls, people are made aware of the forgiveness and mercy extended to them?

The freedom from transgression made possible both by faith, and a sense of God’s grace and mercy is (in my humble opinion) the ignition point of a radical life transformation in any individual.

We are constantly working, praying and believing to see God move in an unprecedented way over our congregation at woodvale... at least I think that we are all on the same page about this. Our hope for the congregation we serve is not only that we shall experience God’s power during our services, but that the experience of his presence shall start a fire that cannot be contained in our church building walls. This experience would subsequently explode us out of our apathy and make us a living, breathing and potent representation of the kingdom of God in Ottawa.

My hope and prayer has recently transformed into a supplication that God would deal with our individual and corporate sinful nature that we may be set on fire for him in light of his grace, mercy and forgiveness.

To God be the glory!

noise

Noise

noise is an unwanted sound
which is why your parents call (called) the music you like noise

but noise isn’t just about sound
it’s about information
noise is whatever drowns out or interferes with or
conceals meaningful information
sound engineers, radio engineers speak of two things, signal and noise
the signal is the message, the meaningful part of transmission
the noise is all the unwanted stuff that interferes with your
ability to hear or decipher the signal
our lives are full of noise
too many messages that don’t add up to any coherent whole
all competing for our attention we can’t find the signal or make
any sense of our lives

and so we go into the desert to escape the noise

but then we can hear our internal noise
some of which is very gross especially during silent
Prayer and some of which is subtle but more deeply
Disturbing like tinnitus which is nerve damage to the
inner ear resulting in a permanent whistling
or hissing noise inside your head
that you can never escape
and that’s just the physical noise inside us
but our heads are full of mental noise
the thoughts that won’t stop chattering that stupid song that
you can’t get out of your head that nagging worry about
something you said or didn’t say
that hurt and anger that you can’t let go of, churning inside you
when you’re supposed to be concentrating on work that dumb
joke that keeps making you giggle on the bus so that people
look at you strangely…
and when you’re alone you can’t pretend any more that any of
these were necessary
so you try and put them aside to pray
and now you become aware of spiritual noise

all those things that compete with God
distracting your attention towards selfish or worldly concerns
drowning out your attempts to hear God’s voice distorting the
message or making you lose bits like a mobile phone passing
under a bridge
sin is a kind of spiritual tinnitus
the closer we get to God’s silence the more we are aware of
the unceasing whine inside ourselves
of want and need and hurt and self
trouble is we’ve lost the volume knob and anyway we’re scared of silence because without all the activity and distractions
we’ll have to face ourselves and God and we are frightened of
what we might find
but God longs to heal us
to still the oscilloscopes of our souls
turn the noise off
and give us peace
because only then
will we be able to hear
the music of heaven

- Steve Collins

Woodvale's first ever master class

The first ever instrument and vocal master class of Woodvale's Worship Ministry



Date: October 11, 2008
Time: 10 am - 12 pm
Location: Woodvale Pentecostal Church - 205 Greenbank Road Ottawa, ON