Perfect Love drives out Fear

Our Guest blog is from Robyn Walker, a friend and artist.

The Beatles wrote a song with a very profound chorus that goes like this:

All you need is love
all you need is love
all you need is love, love
Love is all you need.

It really is, but why ?
It's because Perfect Love drives out fear.

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. 1 John 4:18

When anyone is hurt and damaged they have experienced fear.  Some to a greater extent than others.  They want to change.  They don't want to be this hurt, broken person, but they are scared and their fear binds them and traps them.
They are stuck and they need help from outside of them.
This is what they don't need :

• They don't need self help books, because the help they need can't come from self.
• They don't need people saying we love and care for you, but when these people see the extent of the person's brokenness they walk away.
• They don't need to be treated differently to how other people are treated.
• They don't need their faults to be bought up time and time again.
• They don't need anything to be done to them to make them more scared than they are already.

What they need is :
Perfect love
The bible doesn't just say love, it says perfect love.  So what is perfect love and how do we love someone perfectly.
Love is described this way

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 1 Corinthians 13: 4-7

Perfect love means unconditional love.  It is the kind of love that God has for us.
Loving someone perfectly means opening yourself up to God and letting yourself become a channel for God to show his love for someone through you.
It sounds easy but it isn't.
It means loving someone as they are right there and then, in their brokenness.  It means continuing to love them no matter how angry they are towards you.  It might cost a lot, both emotionally, spiritually, and financially.
It might cost emotionally because you get to share in their brokenness and hear their story and weep with them.
It might cost you spiritually because there is a spiritual battle going on

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Ephesians 6:12

It might make you question your beliefs and your faith over and over again.
It might cost you financially because you have to invest time with this person and they may need money from you sometimes.
So why should we do something so hard.
Because love is the basis of Christianity.  Because Jesus said to love God and to love our neighbour as ourselves is the greatest commandment.
Because Perfect Love is the only sort of love God is talking about when he talks about love.  It's always completely unconditional.
Because Christianity means sacrifice.
Because if we dare to love someone perfectly we may think we are doing this big thing for the other person, when really what is happening is that God is doing massive things in us and changing us into the people he wants us to be.
All you need is love, love
LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED
Robyn Walker
Image: B.S. Wise Flicker (Creative Commons)

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‘In-to-me-see’ with No Secret Hidden Agenda

I have lots of relationships, we all do. All my relationships have some degree of intimacy (in-to-me-see). In meeting a complete stranger the in-to-me-see level is pretty small. I don’t disclose much at all. I also have people in my life that I am very close to and there is a very high level of in-to-me-see.

All my relationships would fall along this line of vulnerability. I will be most vulnerable and allow in-to-me-see to those people who I feel carry no agenda for me. They have no desire to manipulate, use me or control me for their own self centred needs.
Do you find you have people come to you with a hidden agenda?
They pretend friendship, love and syrup sweetness, when all along they have quite self centred motives. You feel you are being subtlety used for some purpose they have?
Their spirituality still has their relationships being about them rather we.

Any spirituality that does not lead from a self-centered to an other-centered mode of existence is bankrupt.  Brennan Manning

Its a difficult narrow path journey to take our spirituality from being self-centred to other-centred. To have in–to–me-see relationships rather than relationships based upon results and goals achieved.
I will put it to you this way.
In your relationship with the Family – Daddy, Jesus and Spirit – what is your deepest motivation?
To make your life better, to ease your discomfort in a world of strife. What happens when the Family doesn’t come through on your Christmas wish list? They decide not to be Santa Claus to you.
Does your relationship with the Family have an agenda based on personal comfort? You do so many things for Jesus surely he should do …….. for you.
What really is your motivation for doing all those saintly Godly things in your Church? To get noticed, to get attention, to guilt others into loving you?
There is a strong motivation in all of us that says ‘If you scratch my back I’ll scratch your back’. I will do something for you if you are going to do something for me. The agenda is very clear, its all about me.
Jesus comes and slaps this motivation in the face.

¹ "Be especially careful when you are trying to be good so that you don't make a performance out of it. It might be good theater, but the God who made you won't be applauding. ^2-4"When you do something for someone else, don't call attention to yourself. You've seen them in action, I'm sure—'playactors' I call them— treating prayer meeting and street corner alike as a stage, acting compassionate as long as someone is watching, playing to the crowds. They get applause, true, but that's all they get. When you help someone out, don't think about how it looks. Just do it—quietly and unobtrusively. That is the way your God, who conceived you in love, working behind the scenes, helps you out. Matthew 6:1-4 (The Message)

Jesus never played the guilt trip card to manipulate people into his agenda.  He never had altar calls with the soft music playing music in the background. He didn't work the crowd, wanting to be seen with the key players. Yuk, I hate that!
Instead he hung out and had in-to-me-see with those who had nothing to scratch his back with. The lepers, the crippled, the poor.
He was ostracised because of it.
Who do you hang out with and why?
His message was extremely clear and succinct. Three little words.
‘Come, follow me’
Have no agenda but to love.
Stop using and trying to control others to get ahead. They are getting squashed and the Family are not pleased!
What challenges do you face to have a type of relationship with others where they are no hidden agendas?
Barry Pearman
Image: Aussiegail Flicker (Creative Commons)

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Peace Making in the Debris of a Gambling Addiction

Guest Blog: Last year I invited a number of people to write sermons on the Beatitudes. Bill Gray wrote about Peacemaking within the battle ground of an addiction to gambling. Here is a condensed version.
My life is anything but peaceful. I have a continuous, on-going, relentless, battle with an addiction to Gambling. This battle has destroyed relationships and left me over and over again in poverty. I have had this battle virtually all my life. I sometimes get the better over it, but it’s always just at the door waiting for me to come and go down a lane called foolishness with it.

The things I battle with are
1. Laziness. I want a quick fix, and I don’t want to do the hard yards. The easiest options are always the most attractive to me.
2. Greed. When you’re gambling you only think of yourself. You become so blind to those who are around you. You only think of what you want to gain. But take it from one who knows. You will lose all the time, the house (casino, etc) always wins
3. My Rebellion against God. I'm going to run my own life, and I will do it my way.
4. Neglecting my responsibilities. Your sense of responsibility to your principles and to others is thrown out of the window so you can pursue your pet love of gambling. Its all about me, stuff anyone else
5. Neglecting friendships. Those who are close to you don't even come into your mind. You are blind, looking to your one goal of where I can get money to have my next bet.
6. Reliving my past. Every time I would put my money in a machine I would be reliving my past. I would revisit all of my old haunts where my past would come out and meet me with open arms whispering ‘This is where you belong’.
God does not want this for my life. He doesn’t want broken relationships, poverty, and strife. He wants peace.
Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount says this ‘Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the sons of God’

God is a God not of disorder but of peace. 1 Corinthians 14:33

My life has been disorderly but God wants to bring peace

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:7

This is what I want, and surely this is what you want too. Its difficult to find at times and its difficult to make when you have got a reputation with others that you are someone that destroys peace.
D. L. Moody said that

Our great problem is the problem of trafficking in unlived truth. We try to communicate what we’ve never experienced in our own lives.

I don’t want to tell you things about peace making that I haven’t done personally myself. There have been many times when I have had to go and make peace with people. I have stolen from them, I have gambled with their friendship. In my gambling addictive state I have forgotten about things I have promised to do, but not come through on. I have done this so many times that I may well have a bad reputation. I want a reputation of being a ‘son of God’ not a ‘son of gambling’.
The A.A. (Alcoholics Anonymous) Twelve steps are used in G.A. (Gamblers Anonymous) and have close links to the Beatitudes. The three steps that relate to being a peace maker are

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

Doing this requires a high level of honesty and brokenness. We admit fully our failures. We go to those we have hurt, we ask for forgiveness, we pay back what we have stolen, we ask for peace, not demand it. We listen to them and the hurt we have caused. We don’t get defensive, we don’t make excuses. We ask for their help to restore relationships broken.
Quite frankly the likelihood of me gambling again is very high. Please don’t reject me, please pray for me and others caught in self destructive patterns of addiction. Please be community for me. Perhaps then the wider community will see that we, you and I, are sons of God because of our example of being peacemakers to each other.

Peace is not something you wish for; It's something you make, Something you do, Something you are, And something you give away. Robert Fulghum

Bill Gray
1. What things do you battle with, what private addictions do you have?
2. How do you make peace with those you have hurt?
Image: Gambling Problem by Digging for Fire – Flicker (Creative Commons)

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Love –The Missing Ingredient in Change

People change when they …
Hurt enough they have to,
Learn enough they want to, and
Receive enough that they are able to.
John Maxwell 

A question that bounces around my thought blender is this.
Why does sacrificial and costly love change people?
I know people who are hurting deeply, they carry many unshed tears, yet still go unchanged.
These same people learn about the change needed but still they are stuck. They gather knowledge and insight. They go to counsellor after counsellor, course after course, book after book. Yet they are still stuck in a rut that seems impossible to get out of.
There is one factor that I believe tips the scales to quite dramatic change. Seen it many many times, and I am still puzzled by how it works.
It is the Receiving of Love.
Well that was simple wasn't it!
But this is not just ordinary love, this is sacrificial love, it costs something.
I think that as Jesus walked this earth people were so drawn to him because every breathe and action spoke sacrificial love. Demons could not handle it, and they still can’t today. Religious legalists just didn't get it and tried to control him, they still can’t today. But those with tender vulnerable hearts did and allowed it to radically change their lives, and it can still do so today.
If C.S. Lewis had been born before Jesus, then Jesus may well have quoted him - now there's a thought!

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless–it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. C.S. Lewis

I have met many people who say deep in their hearts ‘I will never let my heart be broken again’ yet deep in their hearts they cry out to be held and valued.
How can we receive a love that tips the scales of change?

• Embrace a Jesus story.

Find a Jesus story and become part of that story. Imagine yourself as one of the people in the story.
One of my favourite stories isn't really a story; it’s a comment about John’s relationship with Jesus. Peter describes John as the one who had ‘leaned back’ on his Jesus’ breast (John 21:20). I wonder what that would feel like?
Listening to the heart beating, feeling his chest rise up and down, smelling …? Live the story over in your mind. Go there repeatedly over a number of days, and even months. Let Jesus embrace you, let his kisses fall on your head and his gentle firm arms wrap around you, gently pulling you in. What is he saying to you?

Every word God ever said to you-and will ever say-represents an invitation to know His heart of love and to enter His community of love. Larry Crabb

• Allow someone safe to Embrace you

Now this will probably scare a few of you, especially if you are real religious and are bound by fears, but I believe that in this sterile ‘non contact’ world there are a lot of touch deprived people.
We all need safe touch. Touch that breaks down barriers of isolation and loneliness.
I wonder what it did for the lepers of Jesus day for him to come and touch them. Those considered ‘unclean’ by all, except by the one who dangerously had a habit of trampling over societies norms. The touch of Jesus softened their fearful hearts, bringing hope and banishing loneliness.
Love circled down like a lighting bolt to the core of their pain.
Perhaps love breaks down the self sufficient strategy that I can change on my own, that I don't need anyone else to help me.
We were created by the perfect community – Daddy, Jesus & Spirit – where self giving love is the dominant theme, so isn't it obvious that we are also called to be like this with others? It’s in our image bearing DNA.
What do you think?
What examples can you think of when you have ‘Received enough’ to change?
How have you given costly love to others, empowering them to change?
Barry Pearman
Image: David Hayward – The Naked Pastor

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Responding to a Vulnerable God

Guest blog: Todays guest blog is from our regular contributor Ange Boyson who now lives in Christchurch and will be commencing her studies in Outdoor Education next year.
Genesis is the first book of the Bible; it is also my favourite book in the Bible. I most enjoy the first three chapters of Genesis. It tells of God’s love for us, for His choices and His vulnerability.

God didn’t need to create Earth and humans, but He chose to because His love is so big He wanted to share it with others.
He also chose to make Himself vulnerable and give us choice.

‘And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.”’ Genesis 2:16-17.

This is where God gave us choice, we have the choice to obey or to disobey. He also told us the consequences, so we had knowledge of what would happen if we choose to disobey. Even after we rejected His love He still loved us.

‘The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.’ Genesis 3:21.

God did this for us after we disobeyed and after He punished us.
Jack Canfield describes choice with this mathematically looking formula;

E + R = O  where Event + Response = Outcome.

For example, a friend (let’s call him Bob) and I were sitting at a café. Bob decided to throw a milkshake at me (Event), I decided to punch Bob in the face (Response), we left the café not friends anymore (Outcome).
But if I had decided to ask Bob why he threw the milkshake at me then instead of punching him we may have ended up still friends. His throwing of the milkshake could have been an accident.
We can’t change the event, but we can choose how we respond to it and that will determine the outcome.
If we use E + R = O for what God did for us it would look like this.
Event = ‘For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.’ John 3:16 NIV.
Response = Our choice; we can either accept that Jesus died for our sins or we don’t.
Outcome = We are forgiven! All of us, whether we accept Jesus or not, BUT if we choose to accept Jesus as our Lord and Saviour we go to heaven, if we don’t, well there is no way to put this nicely, we go to hell.
God chose to give us choice.
He doesn’t want puppets. He wants people with free choice to choose to love Him.
That is what I love so much about God; He makes Himself so vulnerable to us, us little humans.

‘Oh Lord, what is man that you care for him, the son of man that you think of him?’ Psalms 8:4, Psalms 144:3, Hebrews 2:6

Angela Boyson
Image: Real Joy by  Todd Baker Flicker (creative commons)
(Canfield, Jack. The success Principles pg6)
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Some call it ‘Camaraderie’, we call it ‘Balcony’

"It has been said that there is no true person unless there are two entering into communication with one another. The isolated individual is not a real person. A real person is one who lives in and for others. And the more personal relationships we form with others, the more we truly realize ourselves as persons." Kallistos Ware

A time, a place, and a friendship. 


We all need friends, and actually really good ones are hard to find. People whom you can be real with and they with you. They are not going to lecture you, they just sit and listen.

I have found that you can’t force meaningful relationships to occur, they don't just automatically happen. You won’t find a program or course to teach this type of relationship. It’s made up of lots of decisions to actually keep pressing into friendship.

It was what I was looking for and I found it.

I have a couple of mates I meet with each week for lunch. It’s an hour long, and we drink coffee, eat lunch and solve all of the world’s problems, well sort of.

A few years ago I watched the T.V. drama ‘Boston Legal’. It was one of those quirky comedy dramas that drew the viewer into the lives of some equally quirky characters.

My favourite scenes were at the end of the show where on the balcony of the legal firm, Crane, Poole & Schmidt, the two lead actors would sip whisky, smoke cigars and ponder the day. The topics mused over were life, love and everything in between.

Alone on their balcony they were free from others listening into their conversation. They were able to talk about whatever they liked and be politically incorrect. Here’s a clip to view.

We call our time ‘Balcony’, but we don't drink whisky or smoke cigars.

It’s not ... 

• A Bible study group, but we do talk about faith and theology from time to time. 
• An accountability group, but we do challenge and stretch other. 
• A formula for success, but we are considering a book launch for the ‘Purpose Driven Balcony Shack of Jabez’. 
• A church program. It’s natural, non-programmed, and there are no work books! We don't have a logo, a brand or an eye catching video to tug your heart. 
• A prayer group, but we do pray for each other when we get the nudge. 
• A place of rules. 
• A hierarchy. 

It is ... 

• A place where we often talk about nothing really serious at all. 
• A place where we can be relationally honest with each other. 
• A place that helps to set the context for the week, causing us to pause and ponder the week. 
• A place where 'something' occurs through just spending time together. 
• A place that when a crisis comes, we know that we have friends who will listen and then continue to listen. We know each other well enough that it’s safe to explore each other if needed. 

Is it good? Oh, yes indeed.

Coffee, conversation, and camaraderie.

We all need these, but how?

How do you form this type of community?

• Find a couple of friends that you feel ‘safe’ with, and that you would like a regularly meet with. 
• Keep it small and exclusive. Three people are enough. Relationships won’t deepen if there are too many involved, and if people float in and out. 
• Get a name. You don't have to use the name ‘Balcony’. In fact we would encourage you to find your own name. Having a name gives the time together an identity and significance. 
• Have a common time and a common place. Make it the same time and place, it just makes things predictable. 
• Keep the time relationally focused. The intent is to have relationship - nothing more and nothing less. 

Please, don't make this into a church program! We don't need more programs.

I wonder if Father, Jesus and Spirit enjoy ‘Balcony’?

Where do you find community, and who with?
Barry PearmanImage: Unlearning

Why I need to be Inadequate

I listen to peoples stories. I sit and turn my ear and my heart to receive the precious gift they have to offer. I never feel adequate. I never feel able to make any sort of difference, but something happens.
I am inadequate, and I want to stay that way.

How do you react to feelings of inadequacy?
Do you run? Do you avoid people who make you feel less than capable? Perhaps you build walls to protect yourself. Walls of rules that people have to meet if they are to have relationship with you.
In commenting about the Christian care for victims of crime, Chris Marshall writes this.

Many are uneasy with “the coarse, unedited feelings that spew from deep inside the one who has been victimised - the pain, anger, despair, grief, and desire for revenge”. Such raw emotions are hard to hear, and trite responses are common. Chris Marshall

I often sit with people who share their pain. I feel totally inadequate. Reverberating in the brain is a whisper of ‘What can I do, what can I offer to them’?
I need to be inadequate.
My inadequacy has been the tipping point for spiritual growth. Its the place God takes me to time and time again.
Do I like this? No, never!
I have learnt however to listen to the reassuring whispers of Spirit – ‘Trust me on this, go on, your inadequacy is met by my adequacy, and together were up to the task’
I have also learnt to listen to the stories of fellow ‘inadequate's’.

• Peter, walk on water
• Moses, lead my people
• Esther, save my people
• David, take on that giant

Inadequacy is an opportunity for us to move from self reliance to reliance on others and God. We self reliantly tell ourselves ‘I can run this life, on my own, and on my terms’.
I can’t tell you the number of times I have seen people come to a point of being stuck, on whether they will simply trust or not. To move from a position of self reliance to a vulnerable situation of inadequacy.
They say, in not so many words,  ‘If your going to help me then your going to do it my way’.
The demand arises. ‘My inadequacy, my needs must be met by this person, this organisation, this group in this way’.
Are we inadequately waiting with empty hands for Daddy, Jesus and Spirit to meet our inadequacy with their adequacy, their way, their time.

Supernatural goals need supernatural resources. Larry Crabb

I have learnt that the more I try and become adequate for the task the greater the potential there is of slipping seductively away from God providing in a miraculous and surprising way.
My inadequacy becomes an opportunity for dependence on Spirit in a way that can actually help me listen to Spirit rather relying on my natural strength, and coming up will all the right things to say and do.
How do we learn to embrace inadequacy?

1. Look back and trust past learning experiences. You will have had past experiences of being inadequate, yet you kept going ahead.
2. Trust that God will be with you, even if you fail. ‘Only uncertainty breeds stable hope.  Only failure and fear escort you to the centre of your God-filled soul and will then release you to be the poem of God’s making.’ Larry Crabb
3. Take risks. Allow yourself to be in places of inadequacy.Little by little learn to trust. "Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step." Martin Luther King
4. Listen, deeply. Listen to yourself, to others, to Daddy, Jesus and Spirit. Learn to trust.

I wonder what would happen if we all embraced our inadequacy. If we came out of our protective self – sufficiency. Perhaps more giants would be slain and more miracles would abound.
How do you respond to moments of inadequacy?
Comment below about learning from inadequacy?
Barry Pearman
 Image: Free Souls Embrace by Pink Sherbet (Flicker: Creative Commons)

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Jesus was not one of the ‘beautiful people’

Our Guest blog is from Robyn Walker, a friend and artist.
What does Jesus look like to you? Glowing hair, droopy eyes, perfect complexion?

Jesus really is nothing like the beautiful, fine featured, nice and good man that churches portray him to be.
I watched a BBC documentary and they have unearthed skulls of Jewish men around the time of Jesus and have modelled what he would look like and according to them he was ugly, plus he would have had bad skin.
He looked closer to a version of a cave man. 
He was born a Jew.  He looked like a Jewish man did at the time.  This means he was much much shorter than men are now.  Anthropologists have examined bodies of that era and the average height for a man was around 5 feet 5 inches.
He was not good looking.  He didn't have fine features and piercing blue eyes.  This is what it says in the Bible.

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
   nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. Isaiah 53:2

WHAT WAS HIS MESSAGE ?
His message was love.  To love God and to love your neighbour as yourself.

WHO DID HE WANT US TO LOVE ?
Jesus surrounded himself with the kind of people no one loved.  Tax collectors, sinners, lepers, prostitutes, disabled people, demonized people. 
These were who he most wanted to be with. 
This is who he wanted us to love.
This is who he came for

¹⁰ While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. ¹¹ When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

¹² On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. ¹³ But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” Matthew 9: 10-13

So this is what I really wonder about Jesus.
If a short ugly homeless man in dirty ragged clothes walked into a church, and he had alongside him prostitutes, people with big sores on their skins, disabled people, people acting crazy, and anyone else that looks like no one loved them, what would happen?

• Would people go up to him and say ‘sit with us’? 
• Would people show him love, acceptance and befriend him?
• Would people have him in their homes?

If you are one of his least and you are very broken then the message here is that Jesus loves you incredibly and he will stick with you through anything and if you believe he is the Son of God and accept him as your personal saviour  he will honour that commitment and he will always love you incredibly and never reject you.
Robyn Walker
Image: BBC

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