Alternative Xmas

My comment about soup and roll for Xmas supper hit the mark.  It freed up the day for arranging a decent walk, although Harriet did produce an amazing chocolate cheesecake to mark Josh's birthday.  So Clive resolved we should "do" Chee Dale for our traditional walk. 

It's part of the Monsal Dale disused railway Trail between Buxton and Bakewell.  The attraction is that the main track's wheelchair/pushchair friendly; it offers a challenging alternative walk for the keener ones, and there's toilets at the car park.  Clive reccie'd out the route last week, and produced an abundance of travel directions and laminated maps. 

This was more than brotherly thoughtfulness.  We've had incessant heavy rain.  The riverside path and stepping stones (for the adventurous) were already awash, submerged.  So Clive even included an alternative alternative walk in case the river proved impassable.  Customarily, our Xmas Day walk attracts an interesting selection of folks.  Pause and think who may be induced to forgo traditional trimmings and do non-Xmas, indifferent to the weather, with a bunch of radical religious nutters.

 This year was a bumper event.  Viv had a seven or eight friends from the Christian Union international cafe: two Nigerians (brothers), two Iraquis, two Chinese, a Brazilian and a Japanese.  We had an Iranian and Slovakian, and two Chinese, and No 21 had two more Chinese.  Mark the point - these folks had no other invitations.  The hard-core single students would have likely spent the day in their bedsits. 

After a lot of mutual photographing, we cheerfully trekked out of the Millers Dale car park.  A third of the way round the adventurous route, we'd already had the whole party slithering down the river bank several times.  Progress was painfully slow.  Some folks had turned up in woefully unsuitable gear (not really their fault).  So Barrie and I took the Nigerian guys and some others along the relief route.  I didn't even get chance to let Mary know; somehow she was way ahead of me.

Pat and his brother turned out to be engineers.  We chatted about Multiply, Atmos and tent-making.  At the "here's-where-you-turn-back" point, Barrie produced a Snickers bar.  He divided it into six with surgical precision.  We were the last ones back to the car park.  The forty-plus others were crowded round three picnic tables laden with soup, pizza, quiche, crisps, rolls, cake and fruit.  "I'll always remember today," grinned Pat, as his brother took another snap-shot. 

It was dark by the time we got home.  The next thing on the agenda was Agape, starting with celebration worship at the Jesus Centre.  Viv left his international friends (now joined by a Malaysian) at No 25 next door. 

Back home again, we'd just finished the meal and prayed over Josh, when Jan appeared at the door. "Do you know there's smoke coming out of No 14 (our neighbours)?"  This is a women's refuge home.  We've tended to run our separate lives.  Plus, the relationship with the Council management has been - hmmm - asymmetrical, in the "heads they win, tails we lose" way of things.  But Harriet knows the mums from the school gate.

She found them standing in their garden distressed, wet and cold, while the fire engine attendants took over.  Some children were in pyjamas and bare-footed.  So, into our lounge they all trooped, one mum with eight kids, one with three daughters, a policemen, one of the resident staff...  Beyond sympathising with the policemen, we guys kept out of the way.  It emerged that a television set in the boys' bedroom had exploded and set the room on fire.  Nasty Xmas surprise.  They stayed well over an hour, until it was okay to return.

I doubt there would be another home in the street able to be quite so readily comfortable with this intrusion.  So here's a testimony to our alternative Jesus lifestyle.  A brilliant day.  How was Xmas for you?

Keeping us Moving Forward (3)

Jean Varnier prescribes celebration as a nourishment and resource for tired human existence.  It symbolises the unity and joy we hope for as irritations of daily life and little quarrels are swept away.  I've been doing some reflections on what makes sense to me.

5.  Fifth, we need to make up our quota of honour for each other.  The New Testament reserves expressions of thanksgiving almost exclusively for God.  But honour is a big word for the saints.  It’s a fundamental mark of the quality of life in the church.  Sadly, you can mumble thanks in just a shallow or passing expression.  But honour requires a deep and steady disposition of heart towards someone.  Of course, we’re told to honour our father and mother.  Then, in Romans, also each other (Romans 12:10), and public authorities (13:7), too).

In 1 Corinthians 12:23-26, Paul talks about the less presentable parts of the body receiving more honour.  Think just how much we work at our hair styles, faces, finger nails and other visible parts of our bodies.  When it comes down to it, our liver and kidneys are a lot more important to us than our hair (or lack of it) or a few wrinkles or bulges.  Which do you value more (the root word for honour is value or price), or would prefer to be kept working properly? 

There’s even a mention that leaders should get a spot of honour for making a good job of their responsibilities (1 Timothy 5:7).  Initiating the right sort of commendation is a vital antidote to the scourge of today’s celebrity culture.

The longer we’re together and get to know each other – warts and all – the more we need honour.  One Saturday evening I arrived back at our community home late.  I parked where I knew the car wouldn’t be in the way of the sister who regularly loaded up the catering stuff for the Sunday morning meeting.  If her car wasn’t just where she wanted it, she’d move everything round.  Sure enough, at breakfast time, there she was frantically spinning the wheel on another car – the one for the PA kit.  Can you guess what happened?  She bumped a parked-up vehicle.  And, do you know what the killer was for me?  I’d been able to predict every last detail of the whole incident.  A sister I must honour!

6.  Finally, the call to keep pioneering.  The Honeytree song haunts me: “Keep pressing onward to your own frontier…”.  I haven’t reached mine, and it irks me.  Each December, Huw calls in senior leaders for a year-end accountability and review session.  A couple of years ago I related a dream to him.  In it, I was in a car accident.  The mess and damage got progressively worse until I knew I was going to lose my life.  At this point, I exploded, “Is that it?!  Is that all it amounted to?!”  As I told Huw, he laughed.  But I was in dead earnest.  This year I confirmed with him that Pastor Shanta in Kathmandu had just led a conference of 800 Christian workers and leaders.  It’s exactly 12 months after we’d taken Multiply to Nepal.

We make a point of giving wisdom and prophecy at the Agape evening nearest to members’ birthdays.  When I was approaching sixty, Jayne encouraged me to keep on with initiatives, even though I may not live to see them come to pass.  I took this indignantly. 

Now I have little alternative to the prospect that I won’t see anything I set in motion through to completion.  This cuts against my instincts.  I’ve got no respect for “blue skies” ideas that people expect others to do the work for.  My training is to rigorously assess any initiative, and work out the process of implementation, as I will then expect to tackle it.  But equally, I’ve got no respect for folks who’ve awarded themselves premature retirement.  Celibacy is in crisis because church members in their fifties and sixties haven’t seen that they’re pioneering through their declining years how to keep the gift ablaze.  Some have become self-concerned in the most ugly and introverted way imaginable. 

My challenge is to unpack my years of experience so the following generation can take it on.  I have no higher ministry priority.  And I’m finding it massively demanding.  Much of the problem is how learning happens with people who aren’t like me.  So my final conclusion: we must press on to the unreached frontier.

Keeping us Moving Forward (2)

I've been doing some year-end stock taking.  Here's two more of the half a dozen priorities I've distilled.

3.  Third, things aren’t as simple as they were, (or as effective?).  Thirty-five years ago we’d launch into a Jesus March with just a push chair and bottle of squash.  We’d do double runs on the always-inadequate transport, and be fortunate to have anywhere to shelter if the weather turned foul.  We’d sing out by heart our repertoire of popular choruses, until we reached some Town Hall steps.  Here, a speaker addressed us, read from the bible, called up testimonies, and invited a response.  A singing group clustered Peter, Paul and Mary style round one microphone, accompanied by a twelve-string guitar.  We sang our dozen choruses over again, and grinned a blessing at all the passers-by.  Then it was back home for tea.

Today, a simple outreach picnic involves a 7.5 tonne truck loaded with staging; a camping shop of gazebos, cool boxes and Thermos jugs; and enough cabling and electronic kit to equip a small hospital.  The organisers eventually announce they haven’t actually planned anything, but they’re sure we’re going to have a great time.  A full-on band belts through lyrics you can’t follow (let alone sing to).  If we’re really lucky, there’ll be an in-house stage item.  And a prayer over the bread and wine, “Father, thank You for Your body; bless this blood.”  We’ll tell ourselves we made an impact. 

I mustn’t let impressions or assumption – held with conviction - overtake the reality of engagement with life now.  I’ve already made the biggest pastoral and church-planting mistakes of my life that way!  Teaching stuff that went over people’s heads, and advising them for situations that were exactly where they weren’t at!  Hebrews (3:7,13) tells us we only have today in which to experience salvation.  I just need to engage with life where it’s at, not where I wish it would be.

4.  It gets harder to expect a revival on the fifteenth time round.  The saying goes, ‘the ultimate insanity is to keep repeating an action and hope it will produce a different result from last time’.  But, I declare, the Christian life is entirely built up of keeping doing things because that’s what’s right.  Because, when God’s with you, you can’t predict the outcome, and you have to keep on attempting.  For 38 years Israel wandered round the wilderness.  One morning Moses announced they’d had the last day they would do it! (Deuteronomy 1:6-8). 

I once heard Philip Mohabair explain how the ministry he headed up collapsed when he had a major heart operation.  Returning to office afterwards, he had to rebuild everything.  He quoted from 1 Samuel 16:1, taking in the sense of failure and dismay Samuel felt over Saul.  He pointed out that God said: “Get on, and anoint another king!”  Picture the challenge of hope over disappointment this command represented.

Then, Jesus had to ask the man who had been sick for 38 years if he really wanted to get healed now (John 5:6).  None of us likes to admit we’ve been cheated in life.  It’s bad enough when we’re young and naïve.  But when we’ve grown on in years it can be next to impossible.  So we deflect or rationalise – to our own cost.  We cheat ourselves.  We need to face the reality, and believe we can move on as Jesus touches us.

Paul was a man with a dream to change the world.  We have his final words, after 25 years of ministry, recorded in 2 Timothy 4:1-8.  I tell my rising generation brothers that they’re in no position to exegete this passage.  Equally, I tell my contemporaries, it’s spot-on.  Paul sums up the state of the world, as “bad, and only going to get worse”.  Yet, in those very last recorded verses he calls Timothy, his lieutenant, to get stuck in and keep at it.  There’s no other option (and no retirement).  We must defy conventional wisdom, embrace the hard work, and keep faithful to the task we know is right.

Keeping us Moving Forward (1)

When I was seventeen, the Methodist Mission church I was attending celebrated its 25th Anniversary.  My grandmother, at 72, was the oldest active member.  She gave a speech and cut the celebratory cake.  I’d been a converted Christian less than a year.  Frankly, I wasn’t impressed by what I’d seen of her faith.  I’d witnessed all the petty fussing about what to wear and what to say when going to church.  We teenagers had a phrase for it: “lost her joy”.

My grandparents had been founder members of the church, and my grandfather a trustee.  I never knew him.  He died before I was born, having earned the rare distinction of being our city’s first casualty of the World War Two.  He got knocked down by a slow-moving bus on the third night of the blackout.  That tells you something about our family’s road sense.  My mother’s account of his poor handling of money and weakness for drinking made me doubtful of his faith and character also.

I wasn’t attracted by an event looking backward to a remotely distant time, it seemed to me, when Wesley himself might turn up on the preaching rota.  I was a child of the white hot technological revolution: contemporary was the in word, and the future ours.

Last month, my friend John told me that his Northampton church-household had clocked up 25 years.  He was ruminating that he’d never expected it would be the last planting pioneering he’d do.  He wasn’t in a celebratory frame.  I think he’s done well, but I also knew what he was feeling.  In 2014, Jesus Fellowship could celebrate its 45th Anniversary (as an event, such is unlikely).  I’ll have been a member, and leader, for almost 40 years.  The memory of my teenage boredom sits uncomfortably with my reaction to this relentless advance of time.  What do the two generation younger than mine make of this church?  I’ve found a few personal reactions.

1. First, we need to ungum the flow of relationships - which also means the flow of the Spirit in relationships - by prompt and full forgiveness.  My Methodist background defined holy communion basically as communion with God, not brethren.  Read the full order of service.  It was written in a time when general society was stable and cohesive.  There was barely need to mention the neighbourliness dynamic of one’s faith.  Wesley affirmed that “faith that works by love” was the evidence of its authenticity. 

Our bread and wine tradition embraces reconciliation after the pattern of 1 Corinthians 11:23-26.  In my Methodist beginnings I heard comments about which minister various members had preferred (Mr. Henderson, Mr. Lawson, and Mr. Mitchell), but it never amounted to discerning the body!  As for discipleship, we read the gospels as theological works.  We sifted out and systematised the moral and “sound” teaching.  We never appreciated the amazing significance of Jesus interacting with all kinds of people and creating many levels of relationships.  I’m glad I have come to do so since.  Yes, I knew the verse (Matthew 5:24) about leaving your gift at the altar if you were out of sorts with a brother.  But I’d never witnessed this in practice.

A formative Jesus Fellowship wisdom picture was a river, smooth on the surface, but with ridges, boulders and fractures in its bed.  When you looked deeper, the flow was obstructed.  The river plunged over a high waterfall.  From there on, it flowed on a clear unhindered course.  This depicted the Holy Spirit’s work among us.  So, God would break and unite us.  And He did!  Out of this time of being under His discipline, community was born.  We must tackle offences that build up as a legacy of the years.  One day the time will be right for Jesus to come again.  Our attention to our relationship with our brothers and sisters is part of the necessary conditions.  Keep relationships priority; and keep them open.

2.  Now, there seems to be more to reflect on than to dream about.  I go to a wedding or event in our chapel.  From the balcony or platform, the scene haunts me. I recollect families who once sat just there, or leaders who gathered their cluster of bright young followers on this row.  In fact, they’re more real than the vague faces that I really feel I should know better, or make an effort with, today.  Was it really that long ago that they left us?  My memories are etched clearer than reality. 

It’s the same when I visit a community house, or a public hall where we’ve held our national events.  So many intense and significant memories are burned in my mind.  It’s difficult to throw my focus forward and embrace the future.  Yes, even when that future promises to be equally eventful and gripping. 

The children of Israel were taught rituals and precepts, and erected monuments to preserve an accurate remembrance of their past.  We all need reminders: accurate ones, not subjective impressions.  Perhaps that was the benefit of the 25th anniversary event.  But Paul, in 2 Corinthians 3:3, asserts that we are not like Moses, people of fading revelation from one defining point in history.  We are “all are being transformed” (verse 18) with a future of expanding expectation and glorious manifestation.  Jesus didn’t award any points to the would-be disciples steering their lives through the rear-view mirror (Luke 9:62). 

Experience was the name given to one of the four shepherds that Christian meets in Pilgrim’s Progress.  But, as a church, we got where we are though the power of anointing, too.  I’m dismayed by members who always want the “good old brothers” as Pastors or event leaders.  We were better when we had little that amounted to tradition, and waited for the Holy Spirit.  It’s a massive discipline of mind renewal to keep all the channels of imagination open when the memory takes up most of your capacity, but it must be done.

Prayer (Watch) Survey

A couple of years ago, one of our prayer watch "motivators" quizzed me about prayer.  Here's a compilation of the exchanges.  I didn't have room to add it to my Sunday morning session notes. 

"I've been doing a few interviews of brothers on the prayer watch recently and wondered if you would mind taking part yourself.  If you wouldn't mind- perhaps you could answer the questions below.  The idea is that you just get to express what prayer means to you - what you do, when you do it etc,. if you don't like a question you can ignore it - or you can add anything you think I've missed."

Q1  You're a well busy apostle...when do you find the time to pray?

Hmm.  Not apostle - member of the apostolic team.  I have a time of prayer and "personal devotion" every morning, which entails getting up early.  I also try to practise "recollection" or spiritual responsiveness, when I'm doing other things and feel a nudge to take a time out - may be a few moments (like 1-1-1), or a bit longer.  If I'm travelling on a long journey, I try to fit in some prayer: I find no problem speaking in tongues at any time.  And, I pray as I prepare for meetings and correspondence, decisions, and counselling/ministry, or church discipline times.

Q2  Do you pray "apostolically"?  How?

A rather sketchy definition is that the apostolic ministry is a bridge between God's purpose and the world's need, with the body of Christ as the unit God uses.  So, you need to be clear on God's side (like, mJa has a very specific call to UK), aware of the spiritual and human context you're operating in, and skilled to build the church so Jesus incarnated again can do what Jesus does - though us!  In Jesus Fellowship structure terms: assistant pastors oversee a group of sheep; elders oversee groups of sheep forming households; senior leaders oversee clusters of households in Regions; and apostolic men oversee clusters of Regions.  All that gives you plenty to go at.  I'm conscious that I may be the "last line of defence"  in a church situation, and so need conclusive wisdom.  I also need clear sight to distinguish what's actually God's vision for us, and what's feasible to bring into application; to weigh up initiatives and to get households over their obstacles.  I need both pace and patience, and I need to understand the powers that are at work in scenes.

(after Q2)....So, how, by praying, do you get to know about, or deal with the "powers at work" in a scene?

I suppose I can most relate this to church planting situations, where you come to recognise territorial opposition, and household building, where people go though various  scrapes.  We need God to reveal stuff to us, not be humanistic or psychological, and that means probing in prayer.  Sometimes it can come as people share their discernment together, but then we need to focus prayer on the challenge that's been unearthed.  In evangelism, too, very uncomfortably, we're the sort of church that provokes spiritual opposition out of its hiding.  But I'm assured that's so that we can press for more victory!  It can seem you're getting shaken to bits, but God says, "Don't lose your nerve".  Most (white) UK churches only know defensive prayer.  Despite the secularism, the UK is very idolatrous: for example, I love to see consumerism overturned by our common purses and simplicity.

Q3  Do you think regular prayer times are important?  Why?

Yes, I do.  We humans arrive a better point of connection with spiritual things when distractions are tamed.  This can include the distractions of constant novelty, irregularity, and disorderliness.  A daily time and place has been my practice for many years - in fact a brother commented recently that he came away from a marquee campaign some 15 years ago with the memory of me sitting praying on the top deck of the bus each morning.

(after Q3) ...What else helps you "tame the distractions of constant novelty, irregularity and disorderliness"

Well, lots of veteran charismatics have got fed up with the happy-clappy, and gone back to traditional churches, even the Orthodox church.  I'm committed to finding long-term satisfaction and meaning in mJa (as well as leading!), so I need to note that it's not always what's spontaneous, or even informal, that carries spiritual life.  The J Generation is the speed-dating, binge-drinking culture.  I love 24/7 because it's the sort of "crash and burn" approach that the J Gen does naturally.  But it can't be everything!  I think our relationship with God is worth costly investment!

Q4  What do you do in your prayer watch hours?

I pray through Together, because my prayer and ministry is for the Church.  I may meditate so I can listen better, and mature a bit.  I value opportunities for any longer time because that shows the Lord - in a little way - that I hold Him as a priority in my busy life.  It also means I'm not just skimming  in the shallows. That's all three times a week on average.

Q5  Do you think we have to have something to say before turning up for a prayer time?

I very rarely haven't, but I'm happy to abandon it for the sake of  touching the spiritual more firmly, by letting God set some agenda.  Having said that, I'm the sort of person who, if things are "flat", gets on with the obvious thing to do - pray about groups of leaders, or events, etc.  I find I do the same thing with meetings - if they're going nowhere, I'm likely to step in and do something to get moving again.

Q6  Do you think listening is important in prayer?

Always.  I think that our Church wants and needs its leaders to have heard from God.  Sometimes that's the only "different" contribution I can bring, because other guys in my various scenes are better than me at evangelism, organisation, relationship, detail, etc.  To pass on truth and grace you've got from God is just so essential.

Q7  How do you listen?

First you've got to be ready to grapple with whatever it may be that God could say.  That's my inward preparation.  I know saints who, quite frankly, are too afraid of what God might say, ever to level with Him.  That's tragic - living on the run.  Then I find some trigger that has carried "life" in the past few days - maybe something I've read, or that someone has shared, or some incident.  (I jot these things down, too.)  And I say, "Okay Lord, talk to me some more about that..."  Or I may say, "I wasn't very happy about the way I handled that - give me the truth", or, "We didn't seem to get very far in that incident - where was the power?", etc.  And we go on from there.

Q8  What would you say you have learned as a pray-er over the years?

I most enjoy prayer that suits my temperament - you have to discover that for the long haul, and develop it.  But if it's only that, it can be self-indulgent.  So sometimes you have to go another way - just respecting that the Lord isn't made in your image, and the value of any prayer time isn't measured by your own buzz!  I did about three years of contemplative prayer - just sitting for half an hour or more, more or less in silence, and telling God I was doing it 'cos I love Him.  Other times I'll punch the air or whatever.  Equally, I'd be very happy if I could find an isolated spot and bellow my head off - I find that breaks oppressions.  I don't do "union with God" very well; I have to think of Him being somehow "out there".  And I don't know how to get my spirit to other places, like Elisha and Paul did.  So there's lots more to learn.

Q9  What about fasting?

I've fasted one day per week for many years.  I don't find it easy: my attention at work falls off, and I get moody and irritable - actually the second day of a longer fast seems better.  I fast for perhaps a week, two or three times per year, usually when we've got a bigger event coming up, like a campaign, or the AMEN Multiply visit.  Recently, if necessary, I'll have a light breakfast, because I can't afford concentration lapses when I'm driving.  But usually I find an anointing, and, at the end, I find more spiritual flow in my everyday life rather than anything spectacular.  Do people know that seven days is the limit in mJa? So agape to agape is best.

Hope this helps.  Feel free to edit, or ask for clarification - Mary couldn't follow everything on the first time of reading it. 

ohmygosh ...one week two or three times a year...ohmygosh.....Didn't know about a 7 day limit with fasting though, I've heard of some much longer ones going on.  If I manage more than 6 hours, however, I'll throw a big party.

Mmm -  1 Corinthians 7:17.  I will say, on the subject of (longer) fasting, that for us it should be within our covenant commitment, or else it becomes "will worship".  There are times when I'd gladly make 6 hours the limit, too!  Coming off caffeinated drinks once in a while is even more "crawling up the wall".  Bless you

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Relationship with the World (2)

It's a big subject, and I knew I'd stir up more.  I shall give some teaching this Sunday, as it's demonic December and the headlong flight into Xmas.  As a faithful pastor I must warn off any who will listen.  The perennial tragedy of folks on low incomes getting £1,000 or more in debt to "keep up with the neighbours" must be spoken against.  I find it even more distressing when the psychological pressure is put on through kids, because that failure of parental heart exposes - not shields - the next generation.

I heard yesterday of one group of our saints who have bread and soup for Xmas dinner as little reminder that it's absolutely possible to resist all the insanity.

My friend Brian was explaining how his church stages a carol service to invite in fringe people (parents of Sunday school kids, etc).  Then he admitted that his home group disintegrates in apathy, absences and distraction over Xmas, and it takes until mid-January to recover.

I spent a week in Trier, in the German Rhineland, during December many years back.  One afternoon's sight-seeing took in the famous Tierer Dom, the Catholic cathedral of St Peter.  It was bustling with visitors, disorientating with candle-lit side chapels, ornate, gaudy, and tacky, but somehow cordial and inviting.  Then we moved on to the old Protestant cathedral.  It was frigidly austere, with no internal decoration or embellishment (beyond a plain altar).  Stark uniform benches were set out in precise rows.  It boasts, if I correctly recall, the largest unsupported roof-span in Germany.  The only relief was the natural sunlight from the large windows.  The two seemed to embody contradictory world-views, how we sit with respect to our broad context.  I didn't really enjoy either: that was perhaps the significant challenge.

In preparation for this Sunday (we're back on the air with our recordings, again, now) I dug up some quotable stuff from Horatius Bonar.  I also acquainted myself with Augustine's City of God: 1,091 pages of further commendable study.  But we'll stick with Bonar.

Love Not The World — Why?
Because the gain of it is the loss of the soul — Matthew 16:25.
Because its friendship is enmity to God — James 4:4.
Because it did not know Christ — John 1:10; 17:25.
Because it hates Christ — John 7:7; 15:18.
Because the Holy Spirit has forbidden us — 1 John 2:15.
Because Christ did not pray for it — John 17:9.
Because Christ’s people do not belong to it — John 17:16.
Because it will not receive the Spirit — John 14:27.
Because its Prince is Satan — John 13:31; 16:11.
Because Christ’s kingdom is not of it — John 18:36.
Because its wisdom is foolishness — 1 Corinthians 1:20.
Because its wisdom is ignorance — 1 Corinthians 1:21.
Because Christ does not belong to it — John 8:23.
Because it is condemned — 1 Corinthians 11:32.
Because the fashion of it passeth away — 1 Corinthians 7:31 .
Because it slew Christ—James 5:6; Matthew 21:39.
Because it is crucified to us — Galatians 6:14.
Because we are crucified to it — Galatians 6:14.
Because it is the seat of wickedness — 2 Peter 1:4; 1 John 5:19.
Because its God is the evil one — 2 Corinthians 4:4.

LOVE not the world!
What is there here to love?
That which is loveable is not of the earth;
Fix thou thine eyes above.

2. The face of time
Is never in one stay;
The beauty of this fascinating world
Endureth but a day.

3. Of things below
The best is but a lie;
The blossoms of the spring and childhood’s buds
Must fade, and fall, and die.

4. Be not deceived!
Through all this earthly air
A hellish poison pours its deadliness:
The plague of sin is there.

5. And who shall heal
Or disinfect the air?
Who disenchant it of the pleasant spell,
Or break the unseen snare?

6. Be not deceived!
Into each human vein
Sin penetrates, and we with opiates seek
To soothe the subtle pain.

7. It dims the eye;
It dulls the inner ear;
It dazzles, and it darkens, and it blinds,
It worketh pain and fear.

8. It worketh wrath,
And woe, and want, and doom;
It leads us darkly to the second death,
The everlasting tomb.

9. Love not the world,—
Its dreams, its songs, its lies;
They who have followed in its train are not
The true, and good, and wise.

10. The wise and good,
They choose the better part;
To the true world that is to come they give
The true and single heart.

11. Love not the world!
He in whose heart the love
Of vanity has found a place, shuts out
The enduring world above.

12. Love not the world!
However fair it seems;
Who loveth this fond world,- the love of God
Abideth not in him.

13. The heart of thine
For God, thy God was made;
Who love this God of love,- he lives;
Who loveth not, is dead.

14. Though this wide earth,
With all its love and gold,
Were his, yet still he liveth not whose heart
To God is sealed and cold.

15. Seek not the world!
‘Tis a vain show at best;
Bow not before its idol-shrine; in God
Find thou thy joy and rest.

16. A better world
We have who all forsake.
This promised land of holiness and love,
More fair than words can speak.

Horatius Bonar © Public Domain
Last verse: NCCC © 1986 Jesus Fellowship
Songs/CopyCare Ltd.