Pastor Mike Logan has died

My friend and fellow pastor, Mike Logan, died yesterday evening, eight months after being diagnosed with a brain tumor. I don’t know what else to say.

For the Broken Hearted

I’ve left my car, a Peugeot 307, at a specialist garage to have a wiring problem fixed, so I’m spending my time in the Newport church reading, praying, and thinking about my relationship with God. I’m also thinking about who I am and how I relate to others in my life, particularly my wife, Sharon, my friends, and even my casual acquaintances. 

My thoughts have led me to reconsider my beliefs about who God is and what he means to me.

I know from experience that everything else in my life, all the good I desire for myself and others, comes out of my relationship with God. When I remember his goodness, love, mercy, and grace toward me, when I think on him as he truly is, as he has revealed himself from the beginning of creation, I feel satisfied and secure in his love for me. I then pass his love on to others as he leads me by his Spirit.

But sadly, this isn’t how I always live. When I forget, neglect, or doubt his true intentions toward me, when I distrust his love or try to satisfy my deepest needs in some other way, I become more and more like his enemy, the devil, and less like Christ who is the truest revelation of our heavenly Father.

I wish I could tell you this is rare in my life, but that would be a lie. Even today I am doing what I can to renew my love for him by taking in all I can of his love for me. I need to do this because I have neglected him the past several days. Though I spoke in the last post of a blessing on Sabbath, since then I have been taken up with selfishness, a self-centeredness that I recognized but did not resist. I have wasted many hours in meaningless things, even with some things that are often a blessing to me but have been done without the company of his Spirit. I have not cherished his presence and am the worse for missing him.

When I treat the people around me  with the same neglect I have shown Christ, when I have tested the limits of their patience and love for me, I have found only a very few who respond as Christ has done. This isn’t to blame them for not meeting my demands, but to say I cannot depend on them alone for the daily spiritual food that will give me the life I need. They too are dependent on God for what they can pass on to me. They too sin, failing God and failing me. Yet each of us are called to repentance through his grace so that we, as sinful as we have been, may be restored in his love. 

The hardest thing for me in life is to receive the love of God and love others in return. However, the best things in life come when I see and trust his love for me and then pass that love on to others.

I know, again from experience, that I need cherish every revelation of his love, from his work in creating us and our world, to the great sacrifice he has made in redeeming us through the work of his Son.

It is up to me how I spend the rest of this day. What will I do when I finish writing to you? I know that I need to spend more time contemplating his character, learning and correcting my distorted views of him. I need to take time to pray, to talk all of this over with him, pouring out my heart and letting him heal, once again, the things that I have broken.

Update for Family and Friends

I enjoyed a good Sabbath yesterday. The Lord touched my heart as I neared the end of my sermon (from Matt. 18), giving me the relief and assurance I had been praying for during the week. I cried without shame. I’m thankful for his mercy and love, for his forgiveness of my sins and for blessing me with a ministry of reconciliation.

Four people, including a husband and wife, have decided for baptism next Sabbath in Newport, so that will be a high day as well, though we will also be saying goodbye to Davis and Judy Gachuba and their children. The church has planned an afternoon lunch for us all. They are returning to Kenya after more than five years in the UK. Sharon and I will spend an evening with them this coming week and I’m hoping to visit them in Nairobi sooner than later. They are very close to our hearts. It will be hard for me to say goodbye.

This past week we installed black ‘wrought iron’ gates and fencing along the front wall at Newport church, as well as two new gates on the entry doors. I painted those over Thursday and Friday. Earlier in the week plumbers installed a raditor in the baptistry for heating the water.

Next week is ‘International Day’ in the Cardiff church, a colorful time given the many different nationalities of our members. I’m sorry I’ll miss that, but I’m sure many others will fill our place. This is one of the downsides of pastoring more than one church.

I’m taking today and tomorrow off. Sharon is taking the whole week.

Were going to spend today at Slimbridge Wetland Centre, near Gloucester, one of our favourite places to visit with birds. We’ll take our cameras. I also recently bought used binoculars (Zeiss 7x42B T*P), to replace my Nikon HG’s that were stolen several months ago. Those of you who know binoculars will understand how happy I was to find these. I won’t say how much I paid, but it was a reasonable price for some of the best bins in the world. Even used and a model no longer sold, they rate in the top 5% of the newest bins on the market. They are well-known among birders, especially for their brightness and clarity in low-light, something I took advantage of last week while watching a barn owl hunt over marshland for more than 30 minutes as the sun was going down. It did my little birders heart good.

As for theology, which I’ll return to soon on The Road, I’m beginning to read G.C. Berkouwer’s, Man, the Image of God. My previous post mentions this book and gives some indictation of where I’ll be heading. This is as much for me as for others. I am overwhelmed with how little I know and how much I want to understand, how much I want to experience with God. I pray continually for grace to grow closer to him, to know him, and to be obedient for the sake of his glory. Pride, unbelief, and a host of other sins threaten me daily, yet I can say how good Christ has been to keep me.

May the Lord bless you with even greater grace than he has given me this week. I know there is so much more to come if we are faithful to him.

Who am I? Who is He?

“Let a man state his understanding of the nature of man and he will state what he thinks of Jesus Christ and His work. Both truths stand or fall together.”

 -Edward Heppenstall, ‘Salvation Unlimited’ (Washington D.C. : Review and Herald Publishing Company, 1974), p. 25.

Take this truth and listen to the theology around you. Listen to your pastor, to the discussions in Sabbath School classes, or to your friends in private conversations. What do you think? Is the statement above true? More than this, apply this truth to your own theology.

Does what you say about others and about yourself, about who you think they are and who you think you are, also reveal your beliefs about Jesus Christ, what he has done, what he is doing, and what he will do for man?

This question reaches much deeper than many imagine, much, much deeper.

Do you know who you are? What do you think of me? How do you know such things? Are you sure of what you know? And if what you know is true, then how does someone like you stand in relation to God? What do you, being who you think you are, need from Christ? Anything, nothing, or do you stand somewhere in between?

Here is what I’ve found: You tell me who you think you are and I can tell you what you think of Christ. Or, tell me what you think of Christ and I can tell what you think of yourself.

Surely, Christ is the light of the world.

“At no time is man viewed as ‘neutral’ or isolated, but always in relationship to God….When the Bible speaks about man it is not expressing some subjective estimate of man, but is speaking about the real actual nature of man, ‘who can simply not be thought of without God.’…That is what the theological approach demands; it asks for the ospposite of an abstract view ofman which treats man as an isolated and self-enclosed unity, which can exist and which can be understood by itself.” 

- G.C. Berkouwer, Man, the Image of God (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1962), pp. 32,33.

On the Talybont Birding

I spent last evening at Talybont Reservoir, staying until sundown. Early in the afternoon I walked along the dam, watching at least three House Martins feeding their last broods of the year in their mud nests under the ledges of the dam’s stone valve tower.  Later, after munching on an oat flapjack by the spillway, I drove the mile or so down to the marsh end of the resevoir, where it’s fed by the Caerfanell river.

For thirty mintues I watched a Barn Owl hunt over the marsh, while a Pochard fed with the Tufted Ducks, as they do. A pair of Mute Swans floated near the shore, just down and across from the bird hide, the only hide I know of at the Reservoir. Several Great Blue Herons were faithful at their post and all this in the midst of more Coots than I had seen in one place all year. 

As the sun went down, a bit early since I was in the valley, surrounded by steep Welsh hills, I thought this was one of the most beautiful moments I could remember.

(I took these pics with my phone’s camera, so I can only apologize for the quality, but at least they give some idea of the place. Google *Talybont Reservoir* for better ones. Flickr has some under *Talybont*).

Like A Weaned Child With Its Mother

I read this Psalm this afternoon as I was coming into the Sabbath. I read it between songs this evening at vespers. I thought I'd share it with you too, since it still fits my feeling so well tonight.

A Song of Ascents. Of David.

O LORD, my heart is not
lifted up;
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my
soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child is my soul
within me.

O Israel, hope in the LORD
from this time forth and
forevermore.

Psalm 131

Update on Friday, August 15, 2008 by Jan McKenzie

I hope I don’t sour this post by continuing with an apology and confession, since I’m feeling good this evening, having come into the Sabbath through a relaxed, peaceful vespers service at the church. What I mean is that the feeling of peace and the spirit of joy I have now in Christ reminds me of the spiritual dangers my naturally mournful melancholy soul can create. There I’ve said it. Now I can get on with being thankful for the forgiveness of my sins, which have been many, and for the comfort the Holy Spirit brings me through the Word of God, through Christian fellowship, and in the love of family and friends. I know I don’t deserve any blessings at all and it is knowing that, knowing that Christ so loves me that he took the responsibility of my sins on himself, it is knowing that that gives me such confidence even in the clear awareness of my faults.

All I want to express for the moment is how grateful I am for his grace toward me. It helps so much to know I have a Saviour who loves me more than I can understand. I suppose my worst sins have been to doubt his love. That in itself has led to many strange and hurtful attempts to meet my needs in ways he never created. Yet I can come to Calvary in my thoughts, look at his willingness to bleed for me, and feel the same peace the thief crucified next to Jesus experienced when Jesus promised him eternal life. Isn’t that a miracle, that in the middle of such suffering by both men, the one with the most to lose could give the other, the one with the most to gain, his hearts desire, eternal life.

Christ, in taking our death, conquered it, transcended it, became the very death of death for all who would believe in him and his work for the world. Isn’t that reason enough, the greatest of reasons, the highest of motives, for a human being to give themselves to the love of God?

Bible Prophecy: A Time to Think

I occasionally receive comments of a rabid intensity, especially when the subject is Bible prophecy. The latest one reveals a marked misunderstanding of why God has given us prophecies. (see Recent Comments, Aug. 13, 2008, from David and my reply on the 14th).

As I read my Bible, I see God revealing truths that will help reunite us with him and one another, a reconciliation that begins in the here and now, and is made complete when Jesus returns the second time, putting an end to sin and ushering us into his eternal joy. The point of prophecy is the everlasting gospel (Revelation 14.6), which is a message full of Jesus Christ and what he has done, can do, and will do for those who place their faith in him.

Some Christians, Adventists as well, can give the impression their Master is a dramatic, fanatical fellow, always demanding, warning, threatening, cajoling men and women to follow him. There certainly was and still is the air of drama around Jesus Christ. He is hardly One people can lightly dismiss. They either loved him or hated him when he was on earth; little seems to have changed. However, this reaction comes from the purity of his love, not because he behaved in a threatening manner. The sword he brought with him, the sword he said would divide families and friends, is the sword of truth, to be sure. But this is no reason to assume he spoke, reasoned, or acted in a harsh, callous, intentionally offensive way. Jesus, the truest of all Reformers, did his work with a gentleness no one else has begun to equal. He is called the Lamb of God for good reason.

I sometimes talk with Christians, the denomination makes no difference, who find very little hope in the promises of God. They are full of fear for the future. They speak of their lives more as a burden given them by God, conveying little, if any, sense of freedom and joy. I have been guilty of this myself. I now believe it comes from a gross misunderstanding of who God is and what he offers us through faith in the work of his Son, Jesus Christ. Such a misunderstanding is in direct proportion to our distance from his cross. The less time we spend meditating on how and why he ‘bore our sins’, the more we see to esteem in our petty achievements. Boasting, manipulating, abusing become easy ways to meet our needs at the expense of others. We become like those who crucified him rather than the Crucified himself.

If you believe, as I do, that we are living in the last moments of earth’s temporal history, riding the crest of a wave about to break in on eternity, I hope you will take some time to wonder how the suffering and death of a Man on a cross two thousand years ago can be your salvation today. That is the message of the gospel, the power of the gospel, the plan of God.

For A Bit Longer?

Should you be wondering, I don’t say much about family matters. It’s out of respect for their privacy and because I tend to write about things that others might want to hide. What I’m willing to say about my own business doesn’t mean others feel the same. I say this because in a private journal, I would write freely about my relationship with my wife, my children, friends and other family members and do from time to time. My handwritten journals did once play a part in the reconciliation of myself and someone I love when they accidentally discovered and read of my true feelings during a painful separation. 

For example, my daughter recently married. I did not attend the wedding, which was in America, for several reasons, some practical and some personal. Just that bit of information can easily lead to gossip or be misconstrued by idle minds. Or because I’ve been married before (twice) and with my prodigal history, much of what fills my thoughts and feelings cannot be expressed here without unnecessarily causing pain to others, including things which should be a reason for celebration. I could freely write of my experiences— my divorces, my step-children, my depressions, my drug addiction, my poverty— possibly in ways that others would find helpful, but how can I when it would expose things some have a right to keep hidden? Perhaps I’ll find a way someday.

Such things cause me to question the real value of online journals. What lasting value do they have in a world like ours? In the past personal diaries or journals, whatever you want to call them, had historical value if only because they were rare. They were a source of information not easily found elsewhere. They gave insights into the less public corners of life, with cultural details, revealing prevelent attitudes, world views, and even arcane details that make up the story of humanity. They also helped explain the actions of public figures, political or otherwise, and give us insights into the mistakes and the successes behind great events in history. We learned something about ourselves through this recorded lives of others. And we still read biographies and autobiographies for the same reasons. But with millions of such journals online now, how much of what we share publicly has meaning or purpose behind the interest of a voyeur? With the glut of personal disclosure, can any real sense be made of it all? Who can sort the lies from the truth in such a mass of electronic bytes?

I restrict my more personal communications to email and phone calls, those that are ‘long distance’. I seldom write a letter with pen and paper. If someone doesn’t have a phone or computer, they are not likely to hear from me until I can make a personal visit. For family, that’s about once a year.

I know they find the more mundane things of my life here, as will the random visitor and more regular reader. But if it has any value at all, I would like it to be for the insights the blog gives to my spiritual life, be it good, bad, or somewhere in between. I also want to share my faith in Christ, to say why I am a Christian, remain a Christian, and what I think all of that means. I also want to offer the results of my study and that of others into the revelations God has given in the Bible. It is a significant part of my calling and I can use this space to partially fulfill that calling from God. Such are some reasons for starting this blog and for keeping it. I would hope I could glorify God with the truth.

As you can see, I keep thinking about what I’m doing here from time to time, wondering about why I want to make my thoughts public and what I expect for it all. I’m not always sure of my motives or of the meaning it has for the reader. I still wonder about who I am and what I am doing. Sometimes I am deeply disappointed with what I find. From time to time I think it is just vanity and that I should give it up. But about then someone will write to say how they have been helped by something I’ve said. Then I think I’ll give it a bit more time. And so, that’s what you have here, me giving it a bit more time while I wonder what it means.

"God, have mercy!"

God sent his only Son into our world, conceived of the Holy Spirit, ‘born of a woman’, born a man among men, fully man and fully God. He came to be a complete revelation of God to us, to be God with us, and to offer himself a sacrifice for our sins. Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the Living God came to us with the gift of eternal life. We met him, listened to him, watched him, then took him and nailed him to a tree.

We despised and rejected him, his message, and his work among us. Instead, we asked to have our false gods and be allowed to live in our sins. But refusing to let our pride destroy us, Jesus lived with our unbelief day by day, suffering loneliness and loss while taking our diseases on himself so that we might be healed. Though the Son of God, our immortal King come in the flesh, he did not destroy us but submitted to mocking, spitting, beating, flogging, and finally crucifixion. Treated as a criminal, he treated us with the tenderness of divine love and grace.

Have things changed today in the way we treat the Son of God? How many of us live as if we understand what it means that we nailed the only Son of God to a cross? Christian or not, who appreciates the horror of what we deserve and the mercy he has shown us? Who today is prepared to meet this Lord when he comes a second time—not long now— not then to be beaten like a slave, but to reveal the fulness of God’s glory with a splendour no human being has yet seen? Who will stand, how will we stand, in the ‘day of the Lord’?

Today, if we hear his voice, we have a few more moments of mercy before the great cry comes from heaven once more, ‘It is finished!’. Before Christ, our only High Priest, declares before his Father, ‘Let those who are holy be holy still and let those who are wicked be wicked still’, before that moment when every destiny is sealed, before that moment when time is swallowed up in eternity, who will lay their life on the alter and plead for him to forgive them for what they have done? Who will be the last soul on earth to say, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’? What a place he must have for them, for that last person who understands him for who he is and accepts his forgiveness for their sins.

Though I see so little evidence of repentance for what we have done to the Son of God, I know we have a little longer, just a little longer, to confess our sins and put things right between souls and the Saviour. What time is left for self-indulgent pleasures, pride, the worship of things that are not God? Is there time to waste with entertainment and sports? How will these things compare when Christ appears in the clouds of heaven and it is too late to change our minds? What value will a ludicrous spectacle of human pride like the Olympics be then? What of our celebrity worship, our love for the latest fashions or most beautiful homes? Who will care about Oscars and Golden Globe awards when Jesus returns with millions of angels in the clouds above us? What is a fast car or the best race horse worth then? What will you give in exchange for your soul, the soul of your children, your wife, husband, or dearest friend? Is this how we, children of God, who have crucified the Son of God should be spending our money, our resources, our time, our deep longings and affections? What time have we taken for him? How much have we sacrificed just so some poor soul can know there is a Saviour for them? How will such sins be weighed in the balance of life when we stand before Christ as our judge after rejecting him as our Lord?

Take time to consider where you are today or tonight or whenever you have read these words. Think about your life in relation to His life. Ask yourself how God sees you when all your excuses are stripped away and you stand in your bareness before him. Do you need a Saviour, do you want one? Will you surrender your entire being into the nail-scarred hands of the only Man worthy of your worship? May God help us see Christ in his humility and love while there is still time. May God have mercy on us, who have done such things to him.

Home With the Gospel of Christ

Just after eight in the evening and I’m about to leave for home. I’ve been reading in the book of Galatians and some from James Denney’s, The Death of Christ, a favourite theologian and book. In fact, I ordered another of his few books today from Amazon, Jesus and the Gospels.

In the past week I’ve also purchased, used through Amazon, three more commentaries on the book of Galatians, so you can expect a few thoughts in that vein over the coming months.

The gospel of Christ not only remains the ‘power of God unto salvation’ for my own life, but I believe it is daily supplanted in the Church with false theories about how we are reconciled to God, to ourselves, to others, and to the world as a whole. It is this supplanting of the gospel that I argue against, resist, and sometimes fall to in my ministry. It is for these two reasons, the meaning of Christ death and resurrection for my own life and the attack on him within and without the church, that I am motivated to work each day in Christ’ service. I find no other hope than in his ‘work’ of bearing my sin, yours, and that of the whole world. So, if I will work in hope I must hope in his work. Amen (let it be).

It Ends Where It Begins

The longer I live the Christian life the more I’m convinced that the core problem of a human being is unreconciled guilt and the feelings of shame that go with it. Time after time I have experienced the paralysis of unresolved guilt. I still do not understand all of the mechanism, but I am fully aware of the experience. And I am also aware of the relief that comes when I am again reconciled with God through repentance and faith in Christ as my ‘sin-bearer’. Try as I might, I have never found another way of peace.

Why I still delude myself is sad, but no mystery. It is just too painful at times to humble my pride. Then, after paying the price of my stupidity, I turn back to Christ for help.

There is nothing for me but his mercy. I know it. Will I accept it….again?

Performing Church

I’ve been reading and studying several things this week. John Owen, the long dead Puritan theologian of the 17th century, has been one. I find his book on the Holy Spirit deep and satisfying. I’ve also been reading the passages in the gospels about Jesus and his Sabbath keeping. And I’ve been wandering around in Paul’s letter to the Galatians as well. What this will mean for my Sabbath sermon is still open.

I lay awake last night, getting up, doing some work, going to sleep, then getting up again. It was fitful but productive. My mind is still filled with questions about

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How We Are Doing

Just a little update for family and friends.

First, the weather. It’s very grey this morning with light rain, off and on. Those who know say it will only reach 20 C (68 F) in Newport, though the London forecast, only three hours drive away, is for 27 C (80.6 F). So, a little more sun in London today.

Grey skies are typical any time of year for Wales. I’m used to it mostly, but

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They Took Jesus: The Crucifixion

So they took Jesus. And he went out bearing his own cross, to the place called the place of a skull, which in Aramaic is Golgotha. There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them. John 19. 16b-17

‘So they took Jesus’.

Jesus was taken to the place of a skull; he did not walk to Calvary alone. Silent, uncomplaining, yielding to cruel, envious cowards, Jesus receives his escort from Pilate’s judgment hall and begins his torturous walk to Golgotha. How confident, powerful, and secure they felt, their enemy so submissive and pliable in their callous hands. Bleeding freely from the open wounds of his double scourging, the twisted crown of thorns piercing his scalp, the heavy wooden cross pressing down on his lacerated back, the Lamb of God is led to the slaughter.

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He Lets Me Walk With Him

Jesus was an accepting, pleasant person to be with. There is no other way to explain the large crowds of ‘sinners’, people with true guilt and shame, who were constantly drawn to him. It was the self-righteous, angry, bitter, jealous and proud who felt condemned in his presence. But even for them,

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