The Magnet

As I have thought about the Easter message this year, it has become clear to me just how far Jesus’ expectations were shaped by the cross. In no way did it come to Him as a disappointment or a shock. He foresaw that the cross would not be a place of defeat; far from it. Instead it would become a massive magnet to draw people to Him.

“... I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.” (John 12:32 ESV)

I discovered early in life the pull of the magnet. It has drawn me throughout my days. It started when I was six years old and saw a Gospel Hall being built at the bottom of our lane in Guernsey. I was drawn to that place and joined the Sunday school there. I never had a great attendance record. When I was 10 I left, questioning the existence of God.

My mother took seriously her promises, made when I was christened, to bring me up as a Christian. She sought out a church where she could take me, and attend herself, rather than just send me. There the magnet’s drawing power worked on me again. I can't say I was particularly thrilled by the style of this church – very urban, very social gospel – but nonetheless I wanted to belong. This was unusual for me because normally I wasn’t a joiner. None of the youth organisations that were available to me appealed to me at all and I was not very well adjusted socially. However, I enrolled in a membership class and became a member of the church on Easter Day 1967.

I wanted to serve – the magnet was now drawing me into service – and I taught Junior Church. At first I was a poor specimen of a teacher of Christian things. I was not a believer and indeed dismissed many of the essential doctrines. But somehow the attraction of the Lord Jesus Christ simply kept pulling me onwards. I became a committed Christian when I was eighteen. My parents and I then migrated to the UK. My desire to serve now took a different route. I trained as a local preacher and then as a minister.

But it would be wrong to say I had “arrived” at that point. I felt increasingly uneasy with the old denominations and their compromises with the world. Independency seemed the right place to be.

Many times, after making the move, I wondered what on earth had happened to me. In ministry in Independency I seemed to be permanently beating my head against a brick wall. But my sense of being called – and that magnet – never stopped drawing me forward. This late in my pastoral working life, I am delighted to have found a place in an Independent church which allows me space to breathe and to serve.

Why should this magnetic power have drawn me throughout the years while others simply have not felt it? I can offer no explanation for that. I suppose it is same as in the case of real magnets. They may come into contact with a variety of metals. Yet only certain sorts respond to the magnet. Others are immovable and unchanged. But if God has His sovereign hand upon a person, the magnet will unfailingly draw them.

I don’t know whether you feel the pull of the magnet, the drawing power of the Lord Jesus Christ who died on the cross and rose again. Perhaps it is simply a matter of seeing for yourself how attractive His story really is. Other stories may look intriguing and draw you into them, but all eventually display their limits. The drawing power of Christ goes on for ever. I believe I will always be led by Him – to my dying day and beyond.

Neglected Mentors

As I write I am back in Wales, on one of my visits to do guest house ministry. Obviously, now I have been blessed with a pastorate, these episodes are fewer in number. Yet they bring with them happy memories of my continual journeying back and forth to the Principality last year. At that time, guest house ministry was a lifeline. Without it I would hardly have been involved in any meaningful Christian service.

As an icebreaker on this occasion, I asked the guests to say a few words about those who had been an inspiration to them (see my entry on "Role Models" from last December). Some said that different people fulfilled this role at different points in their lives. It almost seemed as though different angels visited them periodically, to minister to them specially at moments of crisis.

All this made my thoughts turn to the example of a young king of Israel called Joash, who was blessed with a mentor in time of need. A high priest called Jehoiada was his inspiration and guide when he first became king, following the violent overthrow of his usurping, grasping grandmother Athaliah. The old priest guided the new monarch wisely. Joash learned good things from him and became zealous for God and transparent in his dealings. Jehoida eventually died, however. Soon the king neglected what he had learned and his reign took a downward spiral. He even had Zechariah, Jehoiada’s son, killed because this man had spoken up against him (2 Chronicles 24). Joash was really bereft without his mentor and sadly there was no one to step in and fill Jehoiada's shoes.

Who is your inspiration? Sometimes, under God, we can be blessed with someone who does us good simply by being the person he or she is. Even if somebody like that is absent from our lives, we can always turn for inspiration to the Bible characters and especially to our Saviour Jesus who is our pattern for life.

The apostle Paul regarded Jesus as his hero and model and constantly invited others to do the same. He pondered long and hard in his devotions on the example Jesus set. Our Lord is thought to be the inspiration for Paul's great so-called love chapter, 1 Corinthians 13.

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. (1 Corinthians 13:4-8 in the ESV.)

God may have sent someone to you to model Christ for you at just the moment you needed it. We neglect our God-given mentors at our peril.