This post is one of a series looking at four Scriptural truths about God’s nature. You can read an introduction to the series here.

Back in Genesis 3, when man and woman sin against God, their first response is to sew clothes for themselves because they realise they are naked. In a suddenly-fallen world, they fear exposure. The same is often true of us: we are afraid of what people would think if they knew us as we really are.

This can lead to all kinds of dysfunction in our lives. From the beginning, God created us to live in community, and the distance that comes from living fearfully threatens this communal life. James writes that we should confess our sins to one another¹James 5:16, and John writes that if we “walk in the light” (rather than pretending we are sinless) not only will we be forgiven, but we will also have fellowship with one another²1 John 1:7.

The picture on the right is a fridge magnet that can be found on my mother-in-law’s fridge. While it’s intended as a joke, it hides a deep truth: our friends are those who really know us – not just our wonderful sense of humour or our secret talent for painting watercolour; but all the folly, the pettiness, the failures, the disappointments, the ongoing frustrations, the poor choices and the wrong mindsets.

Those friendships are deep because of the level of trust that is built, but also because we can be friends with no pretence, and no hiding away. You see, with most people, we suspect that the level of our relationship with them is dependent on how we “perform” – whether we produce good work, whether we are fun to be around, whether we post beautiful selfies on social media, whether we are successful, whether we are hard-working. Our identity flows from their perception of how we deliver on all these criteria – so we develop ways of living that are focused on a fearful service of others’ opinions.

God’s glory is not like that. When He reveals His glory to Moses, God proclaims His name – the essence of His being. That’s his glory! And it is entirely based on truth, not on others’ perceptions. He is “the Lord, the Lord, the gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin – yet He does not leave the guilty unpunished.”³Exodus 34:6-7. None of that depends on others’ opinions of Him. Is God’s love misunderstood? Frequently – but that doesn’t diminish His glory. Do people refuse His forgiveness, or reject His right to judge? All the time! But He’s the glorious and forgiving Judge of the world anyway.

How would it change our lives if we let go of others’ perceptions of ourselves, and set all of our identity in God’s glory being revealed in us? This is the mentality of Paul, who describes us as having “treasure in jars of clay”:

• If what I value is God’s glory in me, I can do the right thing, even if it is misunderstood.
• If what I value is God’s glory in me, I won’t shape my behaviour around the brokenness of colleagues or relatives.
• If what I value is God’s glory in me, I can be honest about my failings and seek help for areas of sin and weakness.
• If what I value is God’s glory in me, I don’t have to present the “successful me” all the time.
• If what I value is God’s glory in me, nothing will keep me quiet when I have an opportunity to share it with someone else.
• If what I value is God’s glory in me, being a child of God and a bearer of His image will be something I default to, not something I have to remind myself of.

The truth we want to internalise is this:

Self-diagnosis

It is safer and easier to talk abstractly about “ways in which we might be living fearfully” – but let’s make it real and talk about ways in which I do this. I hope that my vulnerability in offering this up will allow you to look honestly at your own lives, and to be open about your own shortcomings too, so that we can all live better in the light of God’s truth.

The drive to be appear accomplished

There are some good motivations for doing all the various aspects of my job, and some pretty poor ones too. The original intention of writing these blogs every week is to provide a further resource for our community to explore discipleship and devotion, to offer encouragement into our weariness and provocation to any complacency. However, more than once – including yesterday – I’ve sat down to spend time with the Lord, and instead found myself twitching to write this blog, produce a video, or prepare a sermon. Honestly, what’s going on in those moments is not the standard pressure of a to-do list, but a desire for people to think, “he’s a good pastor – he’s always got something positive to share from the Scriptures” – or perhaps, “he must be working hard”. You see, occasionally I get fearful that people will think I’m lazy because I’m not out visiting people at the moment – a fear that’s compounded if (God forbid!) somebody sees me taking some rest. There are times when those things don’t bother me in the slightest, and it’s no surprise that those times are the periods when I’m most consumed with God’s glory, and what He’s up to.

The temptation to rewrite history

I had a fantastic, wide-ranging conversation with a friend yesterday, and he mentioned the temptation to tell a story about ourselves in such a way that it demonstrates a point we want to make, or shows us to have a particular characteristic – sometimes at the cost of being truthful. Valid points can be made from fictional stories (Jesus did it quite a lot) – that’s not the issue. But if the sum of what I share with someone is a series of anecdotes that have been “upcycled” to display truths about God or noble parts of my character, have I really opened up my life to them? And how will the real me be open to challenge and correction if the real messiness of those anecdotes is edited out?

Disagreeing badly

OK, this is one that I’ve mostly grown out of, but it’s definitely a past failing and an area where I occasionally still have to actively correct myself. To my mind, there are two very common ways of disagreeing with other people – withdrawing and allowing our disagreement and frustration to accumulate in dislike; and arguing defensively or even aggressively. Both avoid the risk of having to understand the other person’s point of view, and maybe even change our own viewpoint. Neither draws us closer to each other or to the truth.

When this happens in a church fellowship, it’s particularly destructive. It’s possible for a group of people to have a veneer of unity when the truth is that they’ve buried their disagreements in a box marked “resentment”. I’ve also been involved in situations where two or more people in a church simply won’t give each other a hearing, and are openly hostile. The second is rarer in the UK because of “Britishness”, but that’s no comfort if it simply pushes us the other way – into resentment. A friend from a church in France, quoting Ephesians 4:15, was known to say quite frequently, “I know we French struggle to speak the truth in love sometimes, but you British struggle to speak the truth!”

Negotiators often talk of reaching “accurate empathy” – the point where we can understand the other person’s viewpoint fully even if we disagree. If our hope is in God’s glory and not our own, that place of humility is easier – if we’re wrong, it doesn’t take away from our value or our identity.

What about you? Can you see ways that you act out of fear of others? Who are you honest with about your failings? What Scripture could you memorise and meditate on, to remind yourself to find your identity in God’s glory and not your own?

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – His good, pleasing and perfect will.

Romans 12:2

This post is one of a series looking at four Scriptural truths about God’s nature. You can read an introduction to the series here.

Thomas the Tank Engine was a staple of my childhood reading: I think my grandparents must have had every single one of the original books; I can still hear Ringo Starr’s Liverpudlian delivery of “You have caused confusion and delay”, and the original theme tune remains a favourite¹but please, please, spare us the new one!.

However, when it came to raising our kids, we rapidly dialled back on Thomas. The main reason was that every new arrival to the island seemed to be treated badly until they had proved to the stern Fat Controller that they were a “really useful engine”. While we are all in favour of a good work ethic, positive attitude, teamwork, and everything else that constitutes “really useful” in the stories, we didn’t like that the proof had to come first, before acceptance and friendship were offered.

When we work to impress others, it so often brings out the worst in us: we focus where our actions will be most noticed, rather than paying attention to more important but less visible things; we seek affirmation of our efforts, rather than giving them selflessly; and we risk prioritising charisma or reputation over integrity. We can also place our identity in the opinions of others, rather than treasuring our status as children of God.

When we work to impress God, things are no better. Jesus tells the parable of the Lost Son primarily as a rebuke to the Pharisees²see Luke 15:2-3 for their attitude, and casts them as the older brother of the story:

But [the older brother] answered his father, “Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!”

Luke 15:29-30

The Pharisees are so caught up in their worldview, in which their hard work is earning them credit with God, that they can’t celebrate the very things that God is seeking to do – reaching the lost. In their implicit criticism of God’s actions, they dishonour Him – just as the older brother dishonours the father in Jesus’s parable. But the truth is, we often see God through the lens of the Fat Controller – despite God making it really clear to us that He doesn’t operate in that way. Paul writes:

But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 5:8

From this world-changing act of sacrifice, there flows a different way of living. Instead of working for love, we respond to God’s unconditional love with wholehearted work. Instead of us measuring out what we do and counting the return, we are loved beyond our ability to repay, and can give unstintingly to God and to others. And of course, knowing and living out the truth about God’s nature always impacts our lives for the better.

How would it change our lives if we looked to what God has done for our identity, and saw anything we do as a loving offering of worship?

• If God is in control, I can rest – even when there are still things on my to-do list.
• If God is in control, I can pray for outcomes that go beyond my own abilities.
• If God is in control, I don’t have to be anxious about things I’ve prayed about.
• If God is in control, I don’t have to fear the unforeseen things that might happen tomorrow, because they didn’t catch Him unawares.
• If God is in control, I have enough hours in each day and each week to do the things that He wants me to do. (maybe not to do all the things I want!)
• If God is in control, prayer is never a waste of my time.

The truth we want to internalise is this:

Self-diagnosis

As always, it’s good to look at our own lives to see where we fall short of believing the truth about God. We can then counter these by “renewing our mind” with Scripture, and asking the Holy Spirit to change our hearts. Here are three of the most common ways in which an attitude of “I have to prove myself” can play out in our lives:

Demanding or controlling behaviour towards others

If we believe that we have to prove ourselves to our Heavenly Father, we will often display this behaviour towards others who we “father” – our own children, or perhaps employees at work – as well as in peer relationships. This is the one that I have to watch most myself, as it can easily creep into my own behaviour. When I find myself becoming demanding or hard to please, particularly with my children, I am greatly helped by reading passages that talk of God’s great love for us, offered without preconditions – passages like this one:

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. We love because he first loved us.

1 John 4:18-19

Boastfulness, self-promotion and pride

Perhaps you have spent time with someone who always brings the conversation back to themselves, or who responds to someone else’s story with one of their own to outdo them³some light-hearted reading!? Perhaps, if you take a long hard look at yourself, you are that person sometimes! This behaviour is countered by understanding the lengths that God has gone to in order to justify us, the vast significance of God’s view of us, and the near-irrelevance of others’ opinions about us. Two great prompts for this:

God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood … he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

Romans 3:25-26

Blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their ancestors treated the prophets. Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.

Luke 6:22-23,26

But perhaps even more common is simple pride – putting on the mask of everything being fine, while underneath we are hurting, broken or tangled up in sin. The truth is that God desires to bring everything into the light, not to shame us, but to free us – the book of 1 John, which is all about how God’s unconditional love for us overflows, says this:

If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

1 John 1:7-9

Low self-esteem

Lastly, there is the low self-esteem that comes from a belief that we are constantly being evaluated on the basis of our works. If that were the case – if our value was tied up in our usefulness to God, or our faithfulness to His commands – we would rightly feel worthless. However, the love and status that God gives us is unrelated to our achievements or lack thereof. Psalm 8 puts this in beautiful perspective, showing how vast and powerful God is, how tiny we are, and how seemingly insignificant, and yet:

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
human beings that you care for them?
You have made them a little lower than the angels
and crowned them with glory and honour.
You made them rulers over the works of your hands

Psalm 8:3-6

What about you? Can you see mindsets or actions in your own life that stem from a need to prove yourself? What Scripture could you memorise and meditate on, to anchor it deeper in your life that God is gracious?

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – His good, pleasing and perfect will.

Romans 12:2

This post is one of a series looking at four Scriptural truths about God’s nature. You can read an introduction to the series here.

Over recent years I have come to realise that one of the hardest things about prayer is that it involves doing nothing. I don’t mean that prayer is itself passive, but when we pray, we take time that could be spent doing, fixing, thinking, writing, researching and we give it to God¹of course, you can also pray while doing things – I’m talking here about dedicated times of prayer!. Essentially we say, “I trust that God can do more with this time than I can.” We take something out of our own control and give it to God.

What is our obsession with being in control? Deep down, we know that it’s far better for God to be in charge – but when it’s our goals, our hopes or our reputation on the line, we’d rather have the “certainty” of relying on ourselves!

One of the longest-standing enmities in the Bible stems from a man wresting control from God. Abraham, carrying a miraculous promise of a son but getting on in years, agrees with his wife Sarah to father a child by her servant Hagar. Surely this is a way to fulfil the promise within what was culturally acceptable practice? Isaac and Ishmael are still enemies to this day.

Of course, things left in God’s hands are so much safer anyway. God sees everything and – far from being overwhelmed – He both understands it all, and is able to deal with it all. As one of King Asa’s seers explains to him in another episode of a man seeking to control instead of trusting God:

Yet when you relied on the Lord, he delivered them into your hand. For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.

2 Chronicles 16:8b-9a

If we can learn to trust God in ordinary, everyday things, I’m convinced that we’ll fare much better when faced with situations we have no illusion of being able to control: a broken dream, a bereavement, or even a global pandemic.

How would it change our lives if we looked to God as the One who is really in control, and owned our own limited authority? It could have such a profound effect on us:

• If God is in control, I can rest – even when there are still things on my to-do list.
• If God is in control, I can pray for outcomes that go beyond my own abilities.
• If God is in control, I don’t have to be anxious about things I’ve prayed about.
• If God is in control, I don’t have to fear the unforeseen things that might happen tomorrow, because they didn’t catch Him unawares.
• If God is in control, I have enough hours in each day and each week to do the things that He wants me to do. (maybe not to do all the things I want!)
• If God is in control, prayer is never a waste of my time.

The truth we want to internalise is this:

Self-diagnosis

One character issue that this speaks to in particular is time management and busyness. How many times have you said, or heard it said, “I’m snowed under!” or perhaps “There just aren’t enough hours in the day!” If we work this attitude back to its root, it comes down to one of three sentiments:

1. “God got my workload wrong”
2. “Someone other than God is calling the shots on my time”
3. “The world needs me!”

All three of these point to a root belief that is at odds with “God is great”. If we were looking to throw off stress by challenging these mindsets from Scripture, where might we go?

1. “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”²Psalm 139:16, or perhaps “we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”³Ephesians 2:10
2. Our work for others is a subset of our obedience to Christ: “Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Obey them not only to win their favour when their eye is on you, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people, because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do”⁴Ephesians 6:5-8
3. “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.”⁵Acts 17:24-25

What about you? Do you think, speak or act in ways that are not in line with “God is great”? Are there areas where you feel yourself grasping for control? What Scripture could you memorise and meditate on, to see that shift?

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – His good, pleasing and perfect will.

Romans 12:2

This post is one of a series looking at four Scriptural truths about God’s nature. You can read an introduction to the series here.

A few months ago, as I was walking down Windmill Lane, I realised that I had been thinking completely wrong about God’s goodness. In my head when I prayed and worshipped, I always thought of a whole set of attributes – good, loving, kind, faithful – and tried to express to God that he was fully all of those things. Perhaps that doesn’t sound very wrong to you, but the difficulty is that it sets up the idea of a “scoring system” that’s independent of God – as though on some objective cosmic checklist, God alone gets full marks. The fact is, God doesn’t score 100% – he defines what 100% is. To be fully good is to be fully like God – no other concept or person works as a yardstick for God.

This can affect how we think about things. Perhaps you struggle when you read passages about God’s judgment on sin, or struggle with the idea of His wrath, or His jealousy? Certainly outside the Church, people frequently make claims that God isn’t good because He does x or y¹for some idea of how deep this goes, read for instance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_in_the_Hebrew_Bible#Prophetic_books. Wittingly or unwittingly, we often develop our own ideas of “good” and “evil”, and expect God to conform to them, and this independence, this determination to decide for ourselves what is good and what is evil, is the sin of our ancestors Adam and Eve.

How would it change our lives if we saw God as the source and benchmark of all goodness? It would change our motivation for so many things:

• If God is my reward²Genesis 15:1, I don’t need to make myself feel better by looking important.
• If God satisfies me³Psalm 103:5, I can live celibately in singleness or faithfully in marriage because I don’t need to seek pleasure outside that status.
• If God is my treasure⁴Philippians 3:8, I don’t need to find fulfillment in what money buys, and I can live generously.

The truth we want to internalise is this:

Self-diagnosis

One really helpful application of this is in shaking engrained sinful habits or mindsets. If you find yourself wanting to get free of an addiction or a besetting sin, one tool in the inventory is to ask, “what is going on in my heart when I …?” Very often, the answer is that we are plugging a hole – perhaps loneliness, low self-worth or boredom. We can then go to the Scriptures and ask, “what does the Bible tell us about God which meets that need?” We can then make it part of our self-discipline to memorise those Scriptures, and to make them part of our daily thoughts. Rather than simply “trying not to sin” (also important!) we are also seeking goodness where it should be found – in the Lord.

As a worked example, we could take jealousy – let’s imagine that Arthur really struggles not to envy other people – in particular Beatrice, who is younger but has already been promoted above him. As he sits down and prays it over, it dawns on him that underneath all the comparisons, he doesn’t really believe that God has given him enough. He also realises that he really wants affirmation from other professionals, and the lack of it is leaving him feeling unvalued.

Going to the Scriptures, he reads this:

Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

2 Peter 1:2-4

As he reflects on what a great treasure it is to have received God’s grace and peace, he is struck that he hasn’t fully appreciated how amazing that is. He’s provoked by the statement that “[God’s] divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life”, and decides to memorise that Scripture, and make a daily habit of repenting for his past ungratefulness and reciting that verse.

Other changes might be needed – he may need to confess his jealous thoughts to another believer, or perhaps rethink his approach to work and identity – but he has identified a weak foundation and shored it up from the Scriptures.

What about you? Are there areas of your life where you struggle to believe that God is good, and that you don’t have to look elsewhere for satisfaction? What Scriptures might you call to mind, and how might you see those areas changed?

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – His good, pleasing and perfect will.

Romans 12:2

This post is one of a series looking at four Scriptural truths highlighted by Tim Chester in his book You Can Change. You can read more about Tim and the “4 Gs” here.

What we believe matters, and has a concrete effect on our lives. We can see this in the simplest of examples: my car might be roadworthy, with a clean MOT and a full fuel tank – but if I believe that it’s unsafe or out of fuel, I’m not going to drive it. For me to fully benefit from having a car, I need to know the truth about the car, and I then need to exercise faith that it’s true by getting in and turning the key.

This works itself out in our beliefs about God too. Scripture is full of truths about God’s nature; however, if we don’t believe them, we don’t live in the full good of them. This is seen very clearly in the parable of the talents. Two of the servants are confident enough in the character of their master that they are happy to risk their talents in order to see them put to good use – sure enough, their master is pleased with their actions; the last servant has the same master, but believes wrong things about him:

Sir, here is your mina; I have kept it laid away in a piece of cloth. I was afraid of you, because you are a hard man. You take out what you did not put in and reap what you did not sow.

Luke 19:20-21

Because of his wrong beliefs, the servant acts wrongly- to the master’s detriment and his own.

Over four blog posts, I’m going to be looking at each of four fundamental statements about God’s nature, how it affects our lives if we fully believe it, and how we can “be transformed by the renewing of our mind” where we find our belief lacking.

• God is great
• God is glorious
• God is good
• God is gracious

Lastly, if these posts challenge or provoke you, I’d encourage you not to process it on your own. We are made for community, and “as iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” Talk it over with a prayer partner, with someone from your home group, or with a church leader. I am convinced that this is the most effective way to grow in faith!