Before all ages, before anything else came into being, the Father was with the Son and the Holy Spirit, eternally sharing their life, so united that they are one essence, one being, yet distinct in a mutual relationship of thought, harmony, joy and self-giving love. Unchanging, yet forever dynamic and moving.

The doctrine of the Trinity touches on a mystery that human minds cannot fully grasp. It is a beautiful vision of God to be perceived by the heart, not be viewed as dry dogma or philosophical speculation.

Jesus said, “I and the Father are one,” and “He who has seen me has seen the Father.”

Consider the beauty, the grace, the strength, the authority and self-giving of Jesus. He is, in a sense, our Father personified in human flesh, sharing our life and bearing the brokenness of our world in atoning self-sacrifice.

Ancient theologians took a Greek word, perichoresis, to denote the intimate intertwining of the Father, Son and Spirit in an eternal dance of love, mutual self-giving and sharing.

Jesus spoke of us thus in John 17:26, which I paraphrase here: “I have revealed to them what you are like, your character, power and love, and I will keep revealing it, so that they can share in our fellowship of love and self-giving as I indwell them (and they abide in me).”

We are invited to join the dance!

Let’s throw ourselves into the grace and love of God, turning constantly from darkness to the light in joyful abandonment.

Peter Mountain

9th June 2018

The word grace is a very important word in the Bible.

In the Hebrew language the word is hēn (pronounce the ‘h’ as ‘ch’, as in the Scottish word loch.) It means (i) favour, grace, elegance (of form or appearance, e.g. of a woman) or of speech, (ii) favour, acceptance with men or with God. You can see that the word has a range of meaning.

The Greek word is charis. This word was used in classical Greek long before the time of Jesus and the apostles. Over time, as is often the case in language, the original meaning developed. At first it referred to beauty, (just as we might also say in English that a woman has beauty or grace.) A person may be outwardly beautiful, but also inwardly, so charis also developed the meaning that a person was good, gracious and of beautiful character. Next, because a beautiful or good person is likely to do things that are good, his or her actions came to be called gracious; the actions were also grace. Finally the person who benefitted from the grace of the giver received grace.

Usually we think of grace in this last sense; as favour we receive from God. But consider the whole range of meaning of charis and apply it to God himself. God is utterly beautiful and good – isn’t this what we really mean when we say God is holy or God is love?

Because God is beautiful in his own being or nature, he has beautiful attitudes, (even to the unlovely and wicked), and because of his inner orientation of grace, he does gracious, beautiful things. The benefits that we receive from God, who sends the rain on the just and the unjust, are grace, but never forget that all blessings and even ‘educational’ experiences or the discipline of God, flow from One who is utterly beautiful, flawless and holy in every way. When we truly understand this, we are able to trust and worship him.

God is grace.

A few years ago I was chatting to a friend, who remarked, “There are two kinds of people in the world, those who see it as negative, dangerous and threatening – the majority- and those who see it as full of opportunity – the minority.” It was an off-hand remark, but it struck me. Immediately I knew which group I was in.  It seemed that the Holy Spirit was speaking to me. I was reminded of a saying that my mother often repeated, “Two men looked through prison bars, one saw mud and one saw stars.”  Do I tend to see the negative things rather than the positive?

In English the word ‘hope’ has the idea of a wish – “I hope you have a good day,” for example. The Greek word in the Bible has the idea of expectancy. If we have hope in the Biblical sense, we are expectant about the future, anticipating good things.

Our world seems to be getting worse. You may have health challenges, financial worries or relationship problems. Life has many troubles, (Jesus said we would have troubles in this world).

I think faith is built on confidence in God’s goodness. Hope or expectancy is important. Having such an attitude is not accidental. We can chose to think this way by reminding ourselves of the truth, instead of being cast down by lies and unbelief.

I’ve been challenged lately to do a bit of “self-encouragement.”  By this I mean that I need to exhort myself to ‘forget what lies behind, refuse to be influenced by what present circumstance look like and to choose to look to the future expecting God to be present with me and that he will ultimately give success in all that pertains to me.

Let’s be self-encouragers

Peter

10 Feb 2018