Summer 2026: ‘Wildfires’ – The Holy Spirit, from Genesis to Revelation
This summer, we’ll immerse ourselves in the person and work of the Holy Spirit: from the first verses of Genesis, to the last verses of Revelation. Often the ‘forgotten’ part of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit is there at Creation, and also at the climax of the New Creation, throughout history revealing the reality of God’s presence and power to the world. So, let’s celebrate the Wildfire of the Holy Spirit, and continue to welcome His presence in our lives today!
Tuesday 28th July – Galatians 5:16-23 ‘The fruit of the Spirit’
How do you test the value of anything? It’s a good question to ask, and nowadays we have lots of clever analytical tools to do just that for almost any type of situation. But Jesus’ answer to this question was disarmingly simple: look at the fruit it produces. Is it good or bad? Is there lots of it, or not much at all? Does it look good, but taste horrible? Or vice versa? The point is: the fruit tells you what the tree is like. It’s a good way of evaluating a project or an investment of time and resources.
It’s also a pretty good test of a life – look at the fruit!
In our passage today, St. Paul likens this process of growing in Christlike character to growing fruit. Indeed, he gives what is produced by the work of the Spirit in our hearts and lives a name which surely picks up Jesus’ own teaching: the fruit of the Spirit. He, like Jesus, encourages us to focus on the inner life and not external behaviour: get the heart right, and the actions will follow. So, these kinds of fruit are attitudes or virtues of character: love, joy, peace, and so on. If we develop such virtues, we can assume that these fruit will in turn produce Christlike words and actions.
We can also reflect today that using this idea of ‘fruit’ also suggests some other things to us about the formation of character:
Time Fruit doesn’t grow overnight, it takes weeks or months. I love pears: but I get frustrated by having to wait a week or so for those pears we bought at the greengrocers or the supermarket to get really ripe and juicy. They seem to just sit and look at me in the fruit bowl. How long does it take? How hard can it be? Much more so, of course, with the months and years to make any real headway in forming a godly character.
Cultivation Good fruit grows when it is looked after. Followers of Jesus needs their own spiritual fertiliser (bible study and prayer) and pesticide (spiritual disciplines and practices), the methods of cultivation which will produce great fruit.
Fragility Fruit is easily spoiled. Any Christian knows how easy it is for hard-won gains in character to be lost by moments of weakness, or periods of inattention to growth.
Taste Good fruit tastes good! The formation of a truly Christ-like character is one which ought to appeal to others, much as Jesus was constantly surrounded by people drawn by his love and grace.
Single source It is ultimately the fruit – singular – of the Spirit. One tree, one source – the Spirit of Jesus, manifesting his character in different ways. Arguably, Paul also put love first as the greatest of all the virtues, and the one which binds the others together. He said as much elsewhere (Colossians 3:14, 1 Corinthians 13:13).
So, the fruit of the Spirit proves to be a lovely metaphor for growing more like Jesus. And a realistic one, too. I’m sure most of us have felt that frustration concerning the time it takes to grow real virtues. But bite into your favourite fruit today and you’ll know that it’s worth it! May God grant us grace to keep cultivating the fruit of the Spirit in our lives today.
Monday 27th July – 2 Corinthians 3:7-18 ‘Ever increasing glory’
When I was a student, I used to earn my money in the long summers working for a builder. Sometimes the work would be nice and easy – glossing outdoor window frames in the sunshine, with factor 15 and the radio on. Other times the work would be much harder. My least favourite job of all was fitting plasterboard ceilings. As the labourer, my job was to hold the board in position above my head while the fitter screwed in the fixings. Even now, I can still remember that feeling of a great weight above my head push, push, pushing down on me, while the muscles in my arms burned. I earned my minimum wage that day!
This idea of a weight pushing down on us is unexpectedly relevant for today’s passage. You’ll have noticed that the key word is ‘glory’, or its variant ‘glorious’ – in Greek, it’s doxa and it appears 11 times. But what is glory?
The original Old Testament word which doxa copies is ‘kabod’ and it literally means ‘weight’. So when we talk about glory, what we mean is literally the ‘weight’ of God falling on us. Obviously, a spiritual being doesn’t weigh anything, but the sense is that when God’s glory appears it feels like a presence pushing down on us, you could say pushing us to our knees in worship and adoration. On many occasions, when the glory of God ‘fell’ (significant word that), people often went further and fell on their faces in awe (e.g. Leviticus 9:23-24, 2 Chronicles 7:1-3). The weight of God has that effect.
In fact, the reference from Leviticus is helpful, as this was the occasion when Moses dedicated the original tabernacle, and Paul here in this passage describes how Moses had to wear a veil in the presence of God. But now – and what amazing news this is! – because of Christ and His indwelling Spirit, our access to God is no longer veiled. We can experience His manifest presence directly (v16) and not just occasionally, but on an ongoing basis (v11).
The tangible sense of God’s presence, or by extension anything that points to God’s presence, is how we use the word ‘glory’ now. And this is available to us! No wonder Paul gets excited and indicates the sort of effect this kind of realisation can have on us. It makes us bold (v12), we can approach God with confidence, knowing the Spirit of His Son is with us. It brings us freedom (v17), as we live with the truth in our hearts and with eternity as our future. And ultimately it transforms us (v18) – this ‘weight’ of God does not crush us, but shapes us.
Our task? Contemplation. To give our attention to what the Spirit reveals to us, to seek God’s presence – His glory – day by day. As we do that, we slowly become more and more the people we were made to be (v18) – with ‘ever-increasing glory’!
May God grant us grace to contemplate the Lord’s glory today.
Saturday 25th July – 1 Corinthians 15:42-49 ‘Final Reality’
How do you imagine heaven? For many of us, it’s hard to shake that idea of sitting on a cloud, maybe wearing a halo, quite possibly getting a bit bored.
This is not the bible’s view of heaven! The great story of Scripture is that, at the end of time, heaven and earth come together – ‘the new heavens and earth’ (Revelation 21:1) – and the whole creation is renewed. It is not empty sky with a few ghosts wandering around – thankfully! Quite the reverse: a beautiful, busy place, restored to the perfection it was always meant to have.
And in this passage St Paul talks about what that means for us. What will we be like in heaven? The good news is that we aren’t ghosts! We still have bodies – that is the first conclusion of verses 42-44. Professor NT Wright has written extensively on this in scholarly circles, and his compelling conclusion is that this little Greek word ‘soma’ means ‘body’ in the sense that we mean it.
But it’s not quite the body we have now. All its imperfections and weaknesses are healed – which for many of us is very good news indeed. Our heavenly body will be glorious, powerful and immortal (vv42-43).
It will also be spiritual. The true goal of our existence is to enjoy spiritual life with God forever. And we will have a body to match that. The indwelling Spirit of God we enjoy in part now as Christians will so infuse us that we will be fully spiritually alive. The life-giving Spirit of Christ will impart that glorious, eternal life to us: hence this extraordinary (and barely known) promise in v48: ‘as is the heavenly man (i.e. Jesus), so also those who are of heaven (his followers)’.
I doubt many of us think of ourselves as being ‘of heaven’. But, amazingly, that is what we are. And this is what we will become.
As we go through our earthly day today – perhaps feeling decidedly ‘earthly’ – take heart. You are of heaven, and the spiritual life you experience in part will one day be yours in all its fullness. That is where we are all heading… and, with this in mind, let’s pray in faith for that life-giving Spirit of Christ to fill us again today.
Friday 24th July – 1 Corinthians 14:26-33 ‘Everything must be done’
When our kids were little, we didn’t own a car, so all our journeys were by public transport. With a toddler and a baby, our double buggy was effectively our ‘car’ – the kids sat or slept side by side, and the buggy also functioned as our ‘boot’, holding everything on its handles or in the storage space below. Trips to the shops were especially interesting. The trick was to balance the shopping on the handles – too much weight, the buggy tipped backwards; uneven weight on one side, the buggy was hard to push and veered in one direction.
In short, it was all about balance. Get the balance right and even a buggy with 2 children and 40 lbs of food shopping could glide (slowly) along the pavement.
Balance matters in church life too. God gives his people a wide range of spiritual gifts for a reason – he mentions some in v26, or you can check out the list again in chapter 12 if you’ve got time. Sadly churches can often focus on two or three particular (visible) gifts, leading to a lack of balance and the tendency to veer in one direction. St Paul’s advice is very simple: ‘Everything must be done’ (v26). Every gift contributes something special – not only in enabling the whole church to be involved, but in balancing the ministry of the church so that it can move forward in love towards God, and the wonderful richness of the kingdom of God can be displayed.
The reason is equally simple: everything must be done ‘so that the church may be built up’. In God’s community we all get to build, we all get to contribute.
The young church in Corinth certainly had its problems. And Paul wrote much of his advice to correct some of the howlers they’d got mixed up in. Sometimes his correctives are taken as a sign that he was trying to put a lid on things. But that’s not the case; Paul’s passion for the exercise of the gifts of the Spirit is clear, and he concludes his three chapters (12-14) of detailed teaching with this lovely summary: ‘everything must be done’ – i.e. these gifts are all valuable – ‘so that the church may be built up’.
Just as a fire needs a fireplace, so that its heat and light can be channelled to best effect, so the Spirit’s fire needs a fireplace of diversity, shared experience and humble, loving service to manifest the true glory of the kingdom of God.
Today, we’re that fireplace. May God be pleased to blaze his spiritual fire in and through us.
Thursday 23rd July – 1 Corinthians 14:1-5 ‘Seeking the mind of God’
With apologies for late posting today…
What do you think of when you hear the word prophet? Perhaps a wizened old seer living hermit-like in a remote place. Perhaps a gold-toothed charlatan with a white suit and flash car. Perhaps a harmless eccentric stockpiling food and waiting for the end of days.
Or perhaps someone just like us. The remarkable truth in this gem of a passage is that the indwelling Spirit – given to all believers – allows us intimate access to the mind and heart of God. For some, that means the capacity to speak in angelic languages (‘tongues’); for others, to perceive what God is up to, and to share that with the community. This is the gift of prophecy.
The word prophet in the Old Testament literally means ‘mouth’ – a prophet heard from God, and was gifted to speak God’s words to the community. Before Christ, this venerable role was only genuinely given to a few godly individuals – many of whose words were captured in the pages of the Old Testament. However, once the Spirit is poured out, St Paul is now able to write that he would like ‘every one of us’ to prophesy (v5). The capacity to know the wisdom of God is now available to all, through the power of the Spirit. As Paul says earlier in this book: ‘We have the mind of Christ.’ (2:16)
And Paul particularly commends the spiritual gift of prophecy because it enables people to hear God’s word clearly, and to connect it directly to them. It is for our ‘strengthening, encouraging and comfort’ (v3). Even those who do not share our faith may hear something that causes them to ‘fall down and worship God, exclaiming “God is really among you!”’ (v25)
In my experience people overcomplicate prophecy. We tend to assume it is predictive, and difficult to fathom. But prophecy is really the capacity to make God’s word or will relevant to a particular person or people at a particular moment. If you’ve ever read the bible or heard someone speak and thought that it was/they were speaking directly to you, that is prophecy. What you heard or read spoke directly to you in that moment. Put another way, it was what God wanted you to hear that day.
This is why prophecy is so valuable – we don’t just know the mind of God in a general sense, we know what it means for us right now. It’s the difference between saying ‘God loves everyone’ and ‘God loves me’. Or between ‘we should remember to pray for all people’ and ‘we need to pray for this person facing this issue right now!’
Some people have this gift to an unusual degree and might perhaps call themselves prophets. But the amazing thing about spiritual gifts is that they are also situational. We can all sense God saying something – either to us, or for others. In that sense, we can all prophesy.
Why not ask God to reveal something precious to you today? And if what you receive is for you, give thanks! If it’s for someone else – pass it on! It’s all for our strengthening, encouragement and comfort.
Wednesday 22nd July – 1 Corinthians 12:4-14 ‘Each gifted to bless others’
I’ve always loved football. Well into my 30s I would play on Wednesday evenings with a group of blokes who were all old enough to know better. We never agreed teams in advance – we would just separate into two teams on the night, depending on who was there. Some nights I would look at the two teams as they lined up and you could tell it was going to be a close game. Other nights, I would look at our team, and theirs, and think, ‘we’re in for a hammering here.’
And occasionally, something beautiful would happen. Despite my worst fears, our team that looked like it should be well beaten suddenly clicked, and we ended up winning the game. Suddenly every player knew their role, we defended together, attacked together, passed to each other, encouraged each other, and also felt that deep joy that comes from knowing that against the odds our team had prevailed, we’d done something that none of us thought we could do when we lined up 50 minutes earlier.
The alchemy of a team is truly a mysterious thing. But when everyone plays their part, it’s amazing.
The life of the Spirit is meant to have the same quality. In this famous passage St Paul talks about some of the gifts given by the Holy Spirit to help us be the church. Literally, they are ‘grace-gifts’ – gifts which reflect the grace of God to us. And what we learn today are three simple things, all of which we can find in verse 7:
First, they are spiritual gifts. We all have natural gifts and these can of course be used for God too. But these particular gifts help us to do God’s work and see God’s kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven. For us to fully live the life of the Spirit – the life we’ve been learning about over the last six or more weeks – we need the gifts of the Spirit.
Second, they are for everyone. So often we limit gifts to the upfront people, but in truth there are no first-class and second-class Christians – since we all receive the Spirit of Christ, Jesus gives gifts to each one of us. Which means you have at least one gift like this that God can use for His glory. If you don’t know what gift that is yet, why not ask God to reveal it to you?
Finally, they are for the common good. With the possible exception of the gift of angelic languages (usually called ‘tongues’) every one of these gifts – and the others described in Ephesians 4 and Romans 12 – are used to bless others: to encourage them, heal them, empower them, pray for them, give to them or serve them. We are blessed for blessing. When we say ‘God bless’ to someone, let’s not forget that sometimes we might be the answer to our greeting.
God’s plan is for each one of us to receive gifts that we can offer to others, for their good and our joy. How might you use such a gift today? And, perhaps, how might God bless you through someone else?
Tuesday 21st July – Romans 15:13 ‘Overflowing with hope’
Hope. It’s a tricky word, isn’t it? I must confess I used to be suspicious of it. I found the word too vague, too intangible. I used to see it as little more than wishful thinking, as do many people.
And yet, as I came to see, this is not the view of the New Testament. Hope is a foundational theme, one of the great outcomes of what we believe. You’ll find the word used no less than 53 times, and here is perhaps its greatest moment – hope is connected directly with God himself. St Paul encourages to us to see our Lord as ‘the God of hope’.
Biblical hope is not just wishful thinking: it is the confident expectation that things will be better than they are: that things will be put right, made whole, that our future with God is secure. As St Paul wrote these words the church, though spreading rapidly, remained a tiny minority in a pagan culture, had already faced some persecution, and was just a few years away from a much greater and more violent oppression under the Emperor Nero. To the outside world they were fragile and insignificant, and those who chose to follow Christ were likely to be ostracised from their ‘home’ culture.
How they needed hope! And Paul reminds them that they have just such a hope, indeed they worship (and place their trust in) the ‘God of hope’. And hope is a good parent, because it produces great children: joy and peace. Knowing that, somehow or other, by the grace of God everything will be alright helps us to take the great challenges of life in our stride, and not be overcome by them: we can find unexpected joy, and the peace ‘that transcends understanding’.
And true hope is infectious. I love the phrase ‘overflow with hope’. A life full of hope ‘spills out’ to those around us. It uplifts people, raises spirits, and speaks beautifully (without words) of the truth of what we believe. Paul calls this deep sense of hope a true work of the Spirit – indeed something that needs the Spirit’s power to be a reality in our lives.
In these challenging days, this verse is a great prayer to pray: not just that we would know this true hope for ourselves, but that we would overflow with hope. May our lives spill out into the lives of our families, neighbours and colleagues, as the God of hope fills us today with peace and joy.
Monday 20th July – Romans 8:19-27 ‘Yearning beyond words’
I confess to being someone who builds their life around words. I love to read, to write, to communicate in words. And we live in a content-rich culture. Wherever we go, whatever we see, on billboards in the streets or screens in our homes, there are words, words, words.
But sometimes there are no words. Sometimes the enormity of life or particular circumstances render words irrelevant. When Job lost everything – his family, his livelihood, his health, his place in the community – his friends simply sat with him on the ground for seven days (Job 2:13). In fact, the problems started when they chose to open their mouths and try and ‘explain’ what had happened.
Perhaps we, too, feel that we live in a time when words fail us. The great changes around us, the fears we carry for the future, mean that we are lost for words. Life is not as it should be.
And that causes us to yearn for something better. For we know that something better is coming. We hold onto the promises of God, we trust that one day all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well. But not yet. And that sense of waiting, of longing, represents a deep spiritual desire inside us. As St. Paul puts it in our passage: we ‘groan inwardly as we wait eagerly’ (v23). We long to see the kingdom come, to see ourselves made fully whole, to see the world made right.
Part of what it means to have the Spirit of God dwelling in us is to feel this. This is not a spiritual failing, but the opposite – proof that the Spirit truly is inside us and helping us to see as Jesus sees, to feel as Jesus feels. It is God-given and God-directed. To love is to long. To grow is to groan. The Spirit unites with our spirit to help us give voice to these longings. Not in words, but in a deep yearning for God’s kingdom to come.
And the Spirit is not just here alongside us in this process. The Spirit also articulates these groans in the very throne room of God. Our longing reaches the ears of God through the groans of the Spirit too deep for words (v26). And it doesn’t matter if we don’t have the words, we don’t know exactly what to pray: the Spirit communicates what is needed.
So let us take heart. Life is confusing currently. We may well not know how or what to pray. But God knows, and our yearning will find its way to Him, through the Spirit who dwells in us and intercedes on our behalf. Amen, come Lord Jesus.
Saturday 18th July – Romans 8:12-18 ‘True heirs’
A few years ago, there was a period drama on TV called ‘Belgravia’. The central character of the story was a young man called Charles Pope. Originally given up by his grandparents to be adopted, ashamed that he was (so it was thought) born out of wedlock, it turns out that Charles was in fact the legitimate heir to a noble title. Overnight, his fortunes changed. He woke up one day as an obscure middle class merchant; he went to bed that night as a peer of the realm.
On one level, it’s an enjoyable fairy tale. But in Romans 8 our journey to faith is described in the same terms. Through Christ, we become heirs to something even more wonderful: we are adopted as God’s children. We might have the same body, the same genes – but our destiny has changed. We come to know our divine parent: ‘By the Spirit we cry “Father”.’ (v15) And this is not just something external – somehow at a deep level our spirits join together with God’s Spirit, assuring us that we are indeed God’s children (v16).
And although this is a lovely picture of intimacy with God, St Paul is at pains to stress that it is more than that too – then as now, children inherit the riches of their parents (or lack of, as may be the case for many of us!). And God’s divine resources, God’s inheritance for each of us, is boundless. It may involve challenges in this life (v17) – but these will pale in comparison with the glory God has planned for us (v18).
This destiny brings with it both rights and responsibilities. The beautiful right to be free from fear (v15) – fear of death, fear of punishment, fear of exclusion: in Christ, we have life, forgiveness and are welcomed into his divine, global family…
…but also the responsibility to lead the new life we are called to (v13). As we saw in earlier reflections, we are born again, new creations. To lead this kind of life we need to be led by the Spirit (v14) carrying the rights and responsibilities of God’s children, his true heirs.
Charles Pope was a fictional character. But your destiny is real. You are a child of God. And because you are his child, God has made you an heir – and a new life awaits. We may battle with fear, but it no longer needs to define us. May God grant us grace to be led by the Spirit and live as his courageous, confident children today.
Friday 17th July – Romans 8:1-6 ‘The Spirit of life’
I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the crown jewels at the Tower of London. It’s a long time since I went, but I still recall the sense of wonder at seeing the breathtaking, dazzling display for the first time as a child. One of the highlights is the Queen Mother’s Crown. Worn at her coronation as Queen Consort in 1937, the crown is decorated with no less than 2,800 diamonds! And at its pinnacle (although it is now shown separately), is the greatest diamond of them all – the famous Koh-i-Noor, weighing in at over 100 carats and still the subject of controversy between Britain and India today.
If the bible is the story of the greatest ruler of them all – Jesus – then many consider the book of Romans to be its crown, describing the beauty of the gospel with great depth and clarity. And in this crown, chapter 8 is arguably the Koh-i-Noor – the greatest treasure of them all. If there is one chapter which summarises the heart of all the great truths we hold onto, it is Romans 8.
And what it tells us, put simply, is that God’s plan for us is life. True life, abundant life, life with God forever. It is a life conferred by the Spirit (v2) – since God is the author and sustainer of life, when His Spirit dwells in us then it cannot help but confer this life on us. We may still have to die a physical death, but our spiritual life is assured.
What does this life look like? In this first of three reflections on this diamond of all diamonds, St Paul gives us three glorious glimpses of what ‘the Spirit who gives life’ offers us. First, no condemnation (v1). Jesus took that on our behalf, that we might be free (v2). In a world where there are always restrictions of different sorts, the reality that we live in the light of a greater and deeper, eternal freedom is a wonderful encouragement.
Second, a new government (v6). We’re not talking here about civil or national government. Rather our minds can now be governed by something other than our own inclinations and desires. This slow adoption of divine government in our lives takes time – a lifetime, for most of us! – but slowly the growing realisation that we live by a new ‘rulebook’ (the ‘law of the Spirit of life’), with a new power source, energises our faith and empowers us to lead lives that were more like the lives we were designed to lead.
And, thirdly, the outcome of this is peace (v6). We all face conflicts – with ourselves, mostly, but also with others, with temptations, occasionally within communities. The Spirit of Christ brings peace. Not with all people, all the time – at least, not this side of heaven. But slowly, steadily, our minds, governed by the Spirit, produce lives characterised by peace.
Deep down, we all think that real life ought to be about freedom and peace. The great news is that this is exactly what Jesus came to bring. The temptation for most of us is to look for this kind of life in things that can’t give it to us. But here, detailed in Romans 8, is the real deal. And may God’s Spirit increasingly govern our minds, that we might live today, and this week, in freedom and peace.
Thursday 16th July – Acts 12:25-13:4 ‘Set apart by the Spirit’
It’s always fascinating watching how people eat a plate of food. You can learn a lot about someone’s personality from how they eat: in particular, when they choose to eat their favourite mouthfuls. Some can’t wait, and have to munch their favourite things first. Others like to space them throughout their meal. When I was younger, I always wanted to finish well – I would make sure that at least one of my favourite mouthfuls was set apart till the very end.
To be set apart is to be special. And this idea of being set apart is also an important one for a follower of Jesus. The word ‘holy’ literally means set apart, and God’s people in the New Testament are frequently referred to as hagioi or ‘holy ones’ – the ‘set apart ones’. It’s the same word used for ‘saint’ and the great news is that all God’s people are saints, because we are all holy, all set apart.
How? That’s the work of the Spirit. When the Spirit dwells in us, we are literally cleaned from the inside – the old word would be ‘sanctified’. The Holy Spirit – the clue is in the name – makes whatever the Spirit dwells in holy (i.e. set apart) too.
But there are several different ways we can understand this set-apartness. We are set apart from sin and wrongdoing. We are set apart in love – for God and each other. We are also set apart for stuff. For good works, for worship, and also for specific callings. God has plans for each one of us, and part of the Spirit’s role in our lives is to reveal them.
In today’s passage we see the Spirit set apart Saul and Barnabas for a specific special task (v2). Notice that it was birthed in worship and prayer (v2), and sealed by the laying on of hands (v3) – a sort of commissioning. The church nowadays still practises this for ordained ministry, but sadly restricts such ‘ordinations’ to one particular type of calling. But biblically, there is a strong case that we could be set apart for all kinds of ‘ordinations’, as the Spirit of God directs.
We’ll say more about the gifts of the Spirit in later instalments, but let’s reflect here that calling is a universal thing for followers of Jesus. We are all called to follow Jesus, and God has prepared in advance good works for each one of us (Ephesians 2:10). The Spirit indwells each Christian, so we are all set apart in one way or another.
You may not feel worthy of any kind of call. But it has often been observed that God does not call the equipped, but equips the called. Even here, the Spirit directs Saul and Barnabas where to go (v4). So, a question to ponder today – if the idea of calling might be far wider than you imagined, where is God calling you? What is God setting you apart for? There’s an exciting thought….
Wednesday 15th July – Acts 10:9-20,44-48 ‘Spirit-led rulebreaking’
All human institutions rely on rules to function. It’s just the way of things. Even those things that start as dynamic movements end up needing protocols and procedures, strategies and systems.
It’s no less true in the Church. As soon as any community grows to any size, it needs some sort of organisation to keep going. We saw two days ago how even the ‘model church’ quickly had to improve its structure, in order to care for people on a long-term basis.
Beyond these human rules, however, lies something deeper too. God’s people had clear laws which determined the pattern of their life. Although we often characterise God’s law as a series of do’s and don’ts, in reality it was a whole vision of life – for individuals, for communities, for lifestyle, for worship.
And two of those rules which any orthodox Jew would observe strictly were: eating certain ‘clean’ foods, and never visiting the home of a non-Jew. Yet, here, in today’s passage, Peter is asked by God to do both of those things. What’s going on? Does God break his own rules?
Well, yes and no. Since Jesus’ resurrection we now live in ‘the age of grace’. Jesus himself taught that his new way fulfilled all the food laws (Mark 7:19), and now people of all cultures and races are welcomed into God’s kingdom. But Peter hadn’t yet grasped the full reality of what this meant. It took this extraordinary series of encounters in Acts 10 to change his mind, and open his eyes to the full reality of the glorious new kingdom of Jesus.
And, significantly, it was the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the non-Jewish Cornelius and his friends (v44) which confirmed to Peter that God was doing a new thing. Even in the new age of grace, God disrupted the ‘order of blessing’ which Peter himself had preached just a few chapters earlier in Acts 2:38-39. The Spirit was supposed to come after profession of faith in Jesus – here it came early!
So, to answer the question: no, God’s laws weren’t being broken, instead fulfilled; but yes, God was also disrupting the ‘natural order of things’ to do something new.
And this is still the way God works. This story is not a free ticket for a kind of ‘if it feels good, do it’ sort of spirituality. But it does remind us that God’s Spirit is wild like the wind, or like fire. It frequently disrupts our cosy human structures to do something new – for God’s greater glory.
The last few years have seen all kinds of unusual things; like Peter, we may feel uncomfortable, even confused. But let’s also pray that, like Peter, we too can see where the Wind is blowing, that God’s creative, disruptive Spirit might birth extraordinary new things in our lives and in our churches today.
Tuesday 14th July – Acts 8:26-35 ‘Divine appointments’
A few years ago I read a superb little book called ‘The 10-Second Rule’ by Clare de Graaf. The rule, as the writer describes it, is very simple: ‘Within ten seconds, do the next thing you’re reasonably sure Jesus wants you to do, and you could change a life forever.’
The point is that (like Simeon in day 20) we all get ‘nudges’ to do certain things. A person to call, a note to write, maybe we see someone while we’re out and feel that we should say hello or offer help. Clare de Graaf encourages us to consider that these might be divine prompts, Spirit-led nudges to live out our faith in lots of small acts of kindness.
We don’t need to be sure – as humans, we’ll get it wrong sometimes. But the point is: if the thought that crosses your mind is a good one, if it seeks the other person’s good and wellbeing, then it’s pretty likely that God would smile if we did it, indeed we might even conclude that He put the thought there in the first place.
Ultimately, the underlying theology – and I think it’s a very good way to live – is that Christian character is shaped less by our big, dramatic decisions than by the cumulative impact of thousands of small acts of simple obedience. But de Graaf is right to observe that we shouldn’t ‘overthink’ these nudges – which I have to admit is what I do all the time. That’s why he calls it the 10-Second Rule: you’ve got to act on the impulse quickly, because if you wait more than ten seconds thinking it over, debating with yourself, the moment will have gone. The person you saw in the street will have walked past, the phone call that flitted through your mind will be replaced by thoughts of what’s for lunch, or whatever.
In today’s reading, Philip got one of these nudges. A random chariot trundled past on the road and the Spirit said to Philip: ‘Go and approach it’ (v29). Philip had to respond quickly: wait a while thinking it over, and the chariot would be gone. Philip – who had learned to trust these nudges – acted immediately (v30), and the result was amazing. Just by ‘coincidence’ the chap in the chariot was reading the best chapter in the whole Old Testament pointing to the sacrificial death of the Messiah, and wanted someone to explain it! The result: a new follower of Jesus, and moreover an influential leader travelling back to another country, taking the message there with him.
Not all of our ‘divine appointments’ will be so spectacular. But let’s not ignore those nudges we get to contact or to bless someone else. They might just be God’s idea… and if we act on them, just like Philip or Clare de Graaf, who knows, we might get to change a life forever.
Why not pray for a ‘nudge’ today… and for grace to act upon it, too!
Monday 13th July – Acts 6:1-7 ‘Practically spiritual’
The spiritual life is often thought to exist ‘in another dimension’. And sometimes, it does. Miracles, prophetic words of knowledge, angelic languages – these are not ‘worldly’ things. But sometimes, we can fall into the trap of believing that unless it’s a bit weird or quite obviously ‘supernatural’, that the Spirit of God isn’t in it. We need to beware this line of thinking.
This lovely passage in Acts reminds us that the life of the Spirit celebrates practical gifts, and is well able to affirm them as God-given and extremely valuable for the kingdom. The ‘ideal church’ of Acts quickly gets its problems just like any other church. In this case, their social care programme – dedicated to feeding those in need – is not going well: some are being fed, others aren’t. And it’s causing arguments and allegations of discrimination.
The solution is wonderfully sensible. The apostles appoint seven new leaders to look after the church’s social care, which proves to be a spectacular ‘win-win’: both freeing up the apostles to focus on their core gifting, and blessing the practical care ministry, such that everyone is fed. The result, in fact, is not just practical benefit, but spiritual too – the church grows more quickly and reaches into new areas (v7).
What is notable in the appointment of the new leaders is that the first qualification is that they should be ‘full of the Spirit’. It assumes that they will have practical organisational gifts, but also looks for signs of spiritual maturity as well. The spiritual and the practical blend together for God’s glory.
Too often the church has neglected practical gifts. Yet the early church affirmed them. If you’re a gifted organiser, or good with your hands, or creative and artistic, these are God-given talents, which the Lord has given you for a reason. Rather than separating them from your ‘spiritual life’, it is far better to surrender them to God, that He might use them for His glory. That might be in the workplace, but it might also be in the Christian community. I couldn’t have produced the online services which we’ve done for the last six years without some wonderful people offering their technical gifts to create them. What a blessing they have been to us!
But there is a further encouragement here. As we grow spiritually, we might also find our practical gifting grow too. As we become more Christlike, so those Christlike qualities will enhance the things we’re good at. We’ll see things with God’s eyes, care for people better, including those we work with or serve as clients, understand our own fears and motivations. These all help us to be more fruitful.
We humans are a marvellous, divinely-inspired concoction of body, soul and spirit. May God continue to grow our whole lives, that our practical gifts, surrendered to God, may be used for His glory – both this week, and beyond.
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