No emotions required

Faith really is a gift. Let me give an example: My friend Joan tells me that she has a spare ticket for a Christmas Carol Show and invites me to come with her. I show up, Joan hands in two tickets one for her, one for me, and we sit down and watch the show. Faith in Joan meant that I believed she had the tickets, I believed the show was the time and place she said, and I went along. In the same way faith in Jesus means I believe he was/is speaking the truth and I believe him to be trustworthy.

There are no prerequisites: If faith were a mystery than only mystery solvers could receive faith. If faith is a goal then only certain people can make the journey.

Faith is a gift because the object of my faith is trustworthy, not because I worked up some strange emotion called faith.

Emotion does accompany faith but it comes as a result of God's faithful response to our decision to believe in him. Ecstasy sometimes accompanies faith but it is not required and usually happens to us after some great evidence of the trustworthiness of God.

So if you're working up your faith, rest. The greater part of todays world has found that God can be trusted. God can be relied upon. That's a starting point. Faith grows but you are not asked to grow it before you receive it.

Transformation.

This (today's selection) is one of the happiest stories in the life of Jesus. Its something that I enjoy reading and re-reading, especially on days when the wine runs out.

Some people when they first hear this story of Jesus turning water into wine which tasted even better than the original wine, want to know 'If the story is true?' That is really a false trail to follow; it's the meaning of the story that people need to know. Especially you, the reader, because these stories about Jesus 'speak' to you and to your circumstances. The message of this story is that Jesus is the person who changes crisis into celebration. Your own included.

All the details of the story are happy, except the dismay of the wedding host when he discovers he has invited people to a celebration without providing enough wine for them to drink. Jesus has arrived with the four people who are the first of his hand-picked students, that is happy. It is happy because when his mother confides the problem to her, he tells her that he isn't ready to begin doing public preaching yet, but goes ahead and does what she asks anyway. The servants are happy because they had the courage and confidence in Jesus to do just what he asked, take water from the huge water containers and pour it into the guest's wine cups. The guests are happy because the new wine is better than the old wine.
Everyone of those things is a symbol. They point to the fact that Jesus grants petitions, that people who follow his instructions are part of the solution, and to the fact that Jesus is the person who transforms everything.
Transformation is the key-word of this story. Wine is a symbol for life which gets transformed by Jesus, so that the new life is better than the old life. The servants are symbolic of all the people who trust Jesus enough to obey him and by so doing make life better for others.
Did it really happen? The Christian experience is so full of transforming events that it is easy to believe this story just as it is written, but again that isn't the most important thing.
The most important thing is can it happen in your life? Can sorrow turn to joy? Can things which were failing become things which thrive? Can a good life become even better still? The answer is yes. Christian people are constantly exchanging stories about transformations that took place in their lives. Like the servants in the story they had confidence in Jesus and courage to follow his instructions, Transformations followed.
When the Bible talks about the 'end time' it describes a great marriage feast. where Jesus and the people who have trusted him become united in a close union like a marriage. This close union continues into all the ages that follow this present age.

John, the person who is writing this particular account of the life of Jesus, calls this kind of action a 'sign' it was much more than a miracle, it wasn't done to convince you of Jesus' power, it was done to give you a message and the message is that wherever Jesus is trusted and obeyed life is transformed.

Gospel of John chapter two, first few verses.

God, the invader of his own territory

Suddenly the temple, that sacred, orderly, space, the apex of religious worship and the pinnacle of religious power was in turmoil. Jesus, the so called gentle Jesus, was creating chaos. acting alone, disregarding the dismay of his companions, the outrage of the priests and the bewilderment of frightened pilgrims he began to empty out the merchandise of religion. Tables full of money were up-turned so that their contents mixed and spilled on the ground. Tethered animals, waiting to be sacrificed were untied, and their tether cords turned into a whip with which to drive them through the crowded temple into the street. Why did no one stop him? We know there were temple guards, where were they? What about the priests, were they reluctant to contaminate their ceremonial robes? What about the merchants of religious commodities, surely they were not helpless against this one man.

When it was over, Jesus thundered out his explanation: It is written: "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations, but you have made it a den of thieves."

"A house of prayer for all nations." What a dream! Religion is an easy tool with which to separate nations. Religion is used to incite people to kill in the name of God. Religion blindly practiced makes leaders so blind that they lead their followers into evil. The preachers of religion delight in making laws about the way the Almighty must be served, thus producing a harvest of guilt where God intended righteousness. Freedom is not a holy word to religious leaders; freedom is thought to be an enemy which will change the security of tradition. Some religious leaders even, storefront preachers, demand unquestioning obedience to their own interpretation of the will of God bringing man down to the level of herded animals.

Standing up in the middle of the temple mess, Jesus, the itinerant preacher. dares to remember God's dream and identifies God's hope. The temple shall be a house of prayer for all nations.

So it shall come to happen. Because God said it would be so. All nations shall be united by the praise of Allah rather than killed by the anger of the prophets. All nations shall be united by desiring the simple basic laws of Moses and Jesus, and there will be no more need of religious lawyers to help us evade laws or condemn the forgiven. All nations will be united in the equity of the rule of God and will no longer satisfy their wants at the expense of others. Peace the dream of God will happen, but all the efforts of the religious will not be able to place God on the throne. He will do that himself, when he is ready.

The temple that Jesus purified, only lasted for 30 or 40 years after his death; not even the ruins remain. Now each man's heart is a temple for God, if he is given entrance. When God has no entrance the Spirit of God continuously whispers around the hearts of humanity. And repeatedly Jesus must clean out the extremities and lies of every man's religion. He enters, often invited, but sometimes unexpectedly to expose mixed motives, discover deceits and unmask cowardice. Since he has done it in the temple of our hearts we are not afraid, but very uncomfortable, when he does it in the gatherings of our various religious groups. Whether we can stand upheaval or be ruined by it, God continues to save his worship by changing it's patterns, opening eyes gone blind and identifying self-indulgence. God has a dream.

One day all nations will agree, one day we will not be worried about how to portray what we inwardly perceive. The laws of God will have become as pleasant as the laws of breathing and eating. Until that time let the religious not shrink from God's correction. Let them not obstruct the visitation of the itinerant preacher when he disrupts whatever has become corrupt. Knowing that God is merciful, let us not fear the anger of God the destroyer of evil.

FAITH: becoming part of the family

It was rumoured and slandered about, that Jesus was mentally ill, or demon possessed. His mother and brothers went to visit him and stood waiting while he talked to the crowds. Someone pointed out to Jesus that his mother was waiting to speak to him, instead of courteously hurrying away to see what she wanted Jesus kept her waiting even longer, because, said Jesus, these disciples, who were standing around him, were his mother and brothers. in fact everyone who practiced doing the will of God was his mother or brother. It seems rather like a snub, and not a bit like we expect Jesus to act, but Mary who had conceived by the Holy Spirit and had been warned to expect something different about Jesus, probably understood, or knew she would one day understand, what Jesus meant.

Have you thought of yourself as the brother of Jesus, or his sister? No, I don't mean think of the word as meaning a person with a religious job, think of yourself as you are right now, write down your name, and in parenthesis beside it write, 'brother of Jesus'. If you are a mother of children, write beside your name, 'mother of Jesus'. That's how true it is. Of course there is a proviso - this family relationship belongs only to those people who do the will of God? Does that include you? “What must we do to perform the works of God?” Jesus was asked that question by a rather hostile crowd, they became even more hostile when Jesus replied, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” So doing the will of God is that simple, simply believe that Jesus came from God, died for your salvation and now shares his spiritual life with you. That's it! That's how you become a younger sibling of Jesus, because he has shared his spiritual life with you.

Jesus often talked about his Father in heaven, it is interesting that he always talked about 'My Father' when he was talking about himself, and said 'Your Father" when he talked about the disciples' relationship to God. He was talking about the same Father because there is only one God, so why the 'My and Your' words? Because he had a different relationship with God to the one we have. He was with God before the world was made, and was, in fact, God. Jesus used the words 'My Father' because of this unique relationship. God is our father in a different sense, he is the cause of all that is, and we are told he made the first humans with great care and shared his own breath with them. Jesus came to call us back to our Father-God whom we had forgotten, disowned, and rejected.

There are a great many generations between those disciples of Jesus then, and you and I now, so how does that affect the brother/mother relationship to Jesus. Belief is not a generational thing, everyone believes for himself, therefore we are all first generation relatives of Jesus.

So what does being family of Jesus involve? It involves a lot more than calling another person brother or sister. The family of Jesus has privilege, not deserved but bestowed. Family members act in the interest of the family and on behalf of the head of the family. Not because they have to but because that is the way that families act, it is (spiritually) natural.

And if we are to act on behalf of the head of the family how does God want us to act? Jesus knew: he said about himself that he always did the will of God. So by looking at what Jesus did we can understand what God wants. Jesus healed the sick, fed the hungry, healed the broken hearted, set people free from limitations. More important than even those things; he taught people; he taught them about God the Father.

So when we do these things we are doing the will of God. Acting in the interests of the Father and family is a strong thing, not a bit like submission or subjection but a vital power, directly inherited from the Father through the act of his spirit. Members of the family of Jesus are often dynamic in their reaction to suffering or oppression, forceful in their opposition to lies, and amazingly powerful when they concertedly undertake any action for the relief of human suffering. Their teachers are an outspoken group of people, often unpopular with people outside the family.

Members of the family of God are free people, they learn how they should act by understanding the record of God's interaction with people as it is written in the Bible, they copy the actions of Jesus as they are recorded in that book. They understand that wisdom is necessary when exercising the privileges of family of God and are always studying the book and learning from each other and from their many teachers. However sometimes, a person come along who claims that God has given him knowledge he hasn't given to the rest of us, these kind of people claim that God tells them things; they claim that God has told them what you should do. Run from people who do this, listen to teachers but run from dictators. God does not give private wisdom, he treats us all equally.

The Head of this family has kept for himself certain powers, only he knows the hearts of humans, only he may say who is a true believer and who is not. Although we may declare what the Bible states about believing in Jesus we are not anywhere given permission to make judgements about other people. We may not exclude or execute anyone because they believe differently to us. Jesus will one day judge the world, But he, not us, will be the judge of all the earth. Until that time all who believe in God are drawn together by a shared reverence of God and a strong desire to do his will. Surely God will help us live together in peace and work together for the benefit of his creation. .

References:
Matthew 12:46 - Matthew 12:50 (NRSV) 46While he was still speaking to the crowds, his mother and his brothers were standing outside, wanting to speak to him. 47Someone told him, “Look, your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.” 48But to the one who had told him this, Jesus replied, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” 49And pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 50For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

Gospel of John chapter six verses 28 & 29 This is the work of God that you believe in him who he has sent.

(First letter of John chapter 3: verses 1-9)
Now we are sons of God and we do not fully understand what that that means, but one day Jesus will appear to all humanity, at that time we shall see him as he is and we shall be like him.