At Grace Church Barrow we’re journeying through Revelation 1-5 this term. As well as being actual churches in first-century Asia Minor (what is modern-day Turkey), I’m convinced the seven churches selected (chapters 2-3) are also representative of all churches in time and space. Therefore as we read the letters there will be aspects of challenge and encouragement for all of us in each one.

So as we go through the seven letters to the seven churches (chapters 2-3), I thought it would be personally helpful to myself to write a prayer responding to each letter each week as a pastor…

The first letter in Revelation is to the church in Ephesus (2:1-7). You can read it here.

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Lord Jesus, you are the One who holds us in your sovereign hands. You walk amongst your churches, whatever post-code we may have, whatever point in history we may inhabit (2:1). Church is not something we construct or make happen. We are your body, something you create, the fruit of your Word going forth in the power of your Spirit.

Thank you for encouraging us to persevere. For recognising our service for you. For seeing our desire to uphold your truth and expose error amidst a spirit of ‘this is my truth, tell me yours’ (2:2-3).

And yet you challenge us: you expose us in ways perhaps we would never have expected.

And this is your charge: that we have ‘forsaken the love we had at first’ (2:4).

Oh, our majestic King and beautiful Saviour, our triune God, a tri-unity of love. How far we can indeed fall! How lost we can get ourselves! How much we can miss the point of it all! (2:5)

To forget it was all about love. To assume our worship. To take our eyes of our devotion. To plough on with activity and orthodoxy, but to run on empty in our hearts.

I know this isn’t about you wanting us to work up from within us some momentary feeling. I know you’re not expecting us to always have grins stuck on our faces. But you want us to come back to our first love.

So, take me back to the cross. To your bedazzling salvation plan set forth from before the foundations of the world was even laid. A plan to lavish your triune love upon us. Drench my heart afresh in the glories of Calvary.

As Paul prayed for the Ephesian Christians decades before, would I be so ‘rooted and established in love’ that I would ‘grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge’ (Ephesians 3:17-18).

Help me to repent therefore. Help me to see where I tend to turn for affirmation and love. Help me to see where my heart has been captivated and wooed by other things. Even good things, like ‘rightness’ or ‘ministry’ or ‘knowledge’. How foolish to get excited about those things rather than You.

‘Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so’. My home. My centre. My heartbeat. Simple enough for my young faith to paddle in and yet deep enough for endless delight through every season.

So rekindle my affection for You, the pearl of great price. Keep my heart basking in the sunshine of the gospel.

It is such a privilege to pastor your flock, to teach your word, to hold out your gospel to those who are starved of hope and grace.

But as I do these things, give me an endurance that is not dry or bitter. Give me a faithfulness that always cherishes as well as guards. Give me an orthodoxy that is always captivated by the beauty of the truth it stands for.

Would every part of my sermon preparation; every bible study; every conversation, be shot through with love – for you and for those you have created and placed me alongside.

Would every piece of admin; every email sent; every social media interaction, flow out of a warm heart.

Would every interaction with my family and those I bump into throughout the day at least hint at the manner of someone who can’t believe they have been shown unimaginable generosity.

We hear the words of your Spirit in this letter. Give me ears to hear. In part they are painful words, but words we long to receive and take to heart. Help us, dear Lord and keep my heart loving you through thick and thin, lean and plenty, feast and famine, until the day when you invite us to eat from the tree of life in your eternal presence.

In your precious name,

Amen.

Seven up…

1) Some encouragements for 2020 – Jeremy Marshall takes stock of gospel ministry in the UK at the turn of the decade, and offers some encouraging reflections from his sense of ‘how things are going’.

2) #Megxit – We’ll probably have differing reactions to the announcement from Prince Harry and Meghan this week about them ‘stepping back’ from their royal roles. Rachel Jones looks at what these different responses might tell us. Nick Baines points out that at one level Harry & Meghan are just doing everything our culture tells us all that we can do. Krish K says we should give them some space and asks whether the questions facing the Royal Family could also be asked of the Church.

3) Andrew Peterson interview on creativity, loneliness, ambition & originality – I occasionally listen in to Jonathan Rogers’ fascinating podcast on writing, The Habit. In the opening episode from the current second season he interviews Andrew Peterson and, given the rave reviews of Peterson’s recently published book on creativity as a Christian, I’m looking forward to listening in.

4) Your Ministry Will Take a Lifetime – Ray Ortlund always has so much wisdom, and this piece flows out of a lifetime of ministry. If you’re in the early years of ministry, then this is well worth a read. Actually just read it, however long you’ve been in set-aside pastoral ministry!

5) Dark, SAD and cold: how can I survive the bleak midwinter? – Maybe you’re feeling the January blues? Here’s a helpful brief reflection from Georgie Hosier reflecting on suffering from seasonal affective disorder (SAD).

6) Switch off to Switch on – Did you begin new year with hopes to be less attached to your phone? How’s that going? I appreciated this honest account from Olly Knight on his own struggles and the way he’s trying to be less dependent from his phone and more connected with God and other people.

7) A Beautiful Recognition – For something a bit different, hard not to be touched by this video of a woman with dementia recognising that the carer she’s spending the day with is actually her daughter…

Sharing is caring. Know someone who might find these links interesting? Why not forward it on?

It’s a mark of our hyper-connected age that song-writers can release a song just before Christmas and find it being sung in churches on the other side of the world by early January!

Of course, without doubt it’s also a mark of the power of a strong song.

And that’s certainly the case with the delightful new track from CityAlight, featuring Colin Buchanan, ‘Jesus, Strong and Kind’, which was only released on 12 December 2019. I’ve already heard of a number of churches singing it, and we had our kids’ group learning it and introducing it to the adults this past Sunday.

Dream Team

City Alight are quickly establishing themselves as one of the leading congregational song-writing outfits in the West at present. Based out of St Paul’s Church in North Sydney, they aim to:

‘…get out of the way so the truth upon which all our songs are built can properly shine. We pray that the lyrics and melodies of these songs would fix eyes and hearts and minds on Jesus.’

For example, their 2018 track, ‘Yet Not I But Through Christ In Me’, has been hugely popular, exemplifying their trademark trusted lyrics and captivating melodies.

But this time they have teamed up with Colin Buchanan, an accomplished singer-songwriter in his own right, probably best known for his work performing and writing Christian songs for children (‘10, 9, 8, God is Great’, ‘Remember the Lord’, ‘God Never Says Oops‘, to name but three!).

A Modern Classic?

The result is ‘Jesus, Strong and Kind’, which is hauntingly simple, and very much in the style of the nineteenth-century children’s hymn, ‘Jesus Loves Me This I Know’. The chorus goes like this:

‘For the Lord is good and faithful
He will keep us day and night
We can always run to Jesus
Jesus, strong and kind’

Verses one, two and three recount different experiences, showing how Jesus meets those needs: feeling thirsty but Jesus being our satisfaction; feeling weak but Jesus being our strength; feeling afraid and Jesus being our shield. The repeated refrain at the end of each song invites us therefore to take him at his word and ‘come to him’.

Delightfully, the fourth and final verse then flips that around and speaks of being lost but Jesus coming to us:

‘And he showed me on that cross, He will come to me’

A Song for God’s Children of All Ages

But this isn’t just a song for kids. CityAlight call it a song for ‘God’s children of all ages’. In fact Colin Buchanan shared his hopes for the song during one recent performance:

‘[We wanted to write] the sort of the song that maybe your mum or dad could sing to you when you were small enough to fit in their arms, then maybe when you were two or three you’d start to learn some of the words and join in yourself then maybe when you were a bit older … you’d sing a song like this to your God [in moments of distress]… then maybe when you’re much older, songs like this perhaps can be a help and comfort at the very end of your life…’

Of course, what is it that makes a song such a blessing and source of hope throughout life’s journey? Well, because they simply but meaningfully point us to Jesus.

So, have a listen…

You can get chords and sheet music here.