Tag: salvation

Everything hinges on

Everything hinges on one key decision.

As you struggle with the profound existential issues that overwhelm the sensitive soul; as you think through what could be the real purpose of your life; as you wonder if there’s a God who could possibly help you; as you resist the temptation to put an end to it all – there is one key decision that confronts you.

You don’t have to go on a long pilgrimage; you don’t have to follow a three-year university course; you don’t have to master some obscure concepts, and you don’t have to pass some test of endurance. 

You have to be humble, open to be taught that the life-philosophy you hold dear may well be wrong. You have to realise that no atheistic worldview can offer you the serious answers you seek. You have to consider not “religion”, but rather God himself, because whether you realise it yet or not, God has demonstrated his existence in coming by a historic incarnation into this world: Jesus Christ is the proof that God exists, and if you do not know that yet, a thoughtful reading of the four Gospels recounting his life, his teaching, his divine claims, his miraculous ministry, his atoning death, and his triumphant resurrection will lead you to conclude that God has indeed sent his divine Son into the world to give us the answers we seek.  Jesus said he “came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19.10); human beings without Christ are lost. He is the key we need to be “saved”.

Jesus is able to save you from your ignorance, for he is “the light of the world” (John 8.12). He is able to reveal to you how much God loves you, for “God so loved the world (including you) that he gave his only Son (Jesus) that whoever (including you) believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3.16). He is able to enter your life by his life-giving Spirit, as if you were born again into a completely wonderful life in relationship with the God who loves you; he is knocking at the door of your heart, eager to come in and forgive all your failures and sins, and renew you in a life that has real meaning and purpose.

Millions the world over have experienced this new life that Jesus gives; it is what corresponds to the deepest needs of our soul. Until we experience this, we are lost, confused and guilty, wandering hopelessly to no apparent purpose. Jesus can heal your inner being; he can save your soul; he can give you new life.

It all hinges on one thing. Surprisingly, one decision, clearly and resolutely taken, can lift you out of the darkness of despair and bring you to the joy of a real, harmonious relationship with God. One decision involving willingness to be made anew. One decision that you will hold to in the days to come. It all hinges on you calling upon the name of Jesus, opening your heart and saying, “Lord Jesus, have mercy on me, the sinner; cleanse me from my sins; make me born again; come into my heart and be my Lord and Saviour; I will follow you with all my heart”.

This prayer of faith and commitment is the key to experiencing God’s loving presence, and proving to yourself that He is real, for he is eager to answer that prayer when it is sincerely prayed. Your wavering and doubting will be over; a relationship with God will begin.

Clive Every-Clayton

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Man’s search for God

Deep in the heart of every human being there is a realisation of God. Helen Keller was a small child, about two years of age, when she became totally blind and deaf. She had a meagre existence, cut off from the outside world, unable either to see or to hear, and her baby vocabulary was inadequate to make her thoughts and her wants known. She endured her existence for a few years, until finally a nurse was engaged who found the way to get through to Helen. It is an amazing true story, but Helen grew up able to talk and live a relatively normal life. At one point in her youth and education she was told about God. This is how she responded: “I always knew there must be a God, but I did not know his name”.

Human attitudes towards that deep-seated notion of God vary between two alternatives. On the one hand, people find it somewhat reassuring to feel that there is a kind-hearted power watching over their daily trials and tribulation, giving hope for a positive turn-out to things. Just to believe that God understands and cares relieves the soul of many worries. On the other hand, there are those who profoundly dislike the idea that a divine power may be watching them constantly, noting their secret sins, hidden from others but not from God.

The first of these two groups of people prefer to think of God as loving and kind; the second have the impression that he is righteous and angry. This second group therefore shun the God they don’t want to believe in, and try in various ways to shut the idea of him out of their minds. They may harden their hearts and plunge into all kinds of evil, dulling the voice of conscience, hoping that this harsh God does not exist. Others remain decent citizens, but calmly side-line God in their thinking; they profess to be atheists or agnostics, so that the perturbing idea of God does not bother them.

Those who recognise within them the hunger for some transcendent reassurance hope that the God who is fairly vague in their imagination does look down in kindness upon them. For them to seek after that God with eagerness of heart, however, is another matter. Some attend worship, without really knowing too much about their God. Others keep him in the background of their minds, in case they ever need some divine help. Some seek God, but fail to find him; he seems distant, absent so they don’t bother too much about practicing any religion.

There is a balance that needs to be found here. If God is not kind and good, he is not worth believing in; if he is not righteous in his holy requirements of us, he has no moral fibre – which means he is not good. When Jesus was teaching about his Father, he revealed BOTH the awesomeness of God’s righteous demands and his eternal just judgment, AND the extraordinary kindness and grace by which he grants mercy, forgiveness, and acceptance to those who turn sincerely to him in trust and repentance.

So both our inner intuitions about God possess some truth. How they cohere in balance is brilliantly seen in the Cross of Christ. He died “for us”: we are, as sinners, under God’s wrath and judgment; but in amazing love the Father sent his beloved Son to suffer the just penalty on our behalf. On that basis God grants mercy and forgiveness justly when we repent and trust our Saviour.

Clive Every-Clayton

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How to pray

There are times in everyone’s life when the reflex is to turn to prayer. It may be on hearing bad news, on discovering a cancerous tumour, on losing a dear one, or also on finally being chosen for a job, meeting up with a true friend, or being told that the cancer is in remission: either way, in both the bad times and the good, we let out a “Thank God” or an “Oh my God!” to one whose presence does not normally concern us very much.

At times, when facing the tough existential questions about what life is all about and whether our existence has any meaning, our thoughts may turn to God: is he there? Does he know me? Can he help me? In our more hopeful moments, we may consider praying.

But how should we pray? Some people travel far on pilgrimage to be in a place where they think their prayer will be heard. Jesus disagrees with that: “when you pray”, he taught, “go into your room and shut the door”. Pray to God in secret, he said, for he will see in secret and respond to your prayer (Matthew 6.5-6). This means that our secret prayers are heard by God, when no-one else could possibly hear them. Prayer arises from our hearts and we can formulate words to God without even having to express them out loud.

But what should we say? Jesus goes on to give “the Lord’s Prayer”, the “Our Father”. This is the type of prayer that Jesus encourages his followers to pray. It covers worship (“Hallowed be thy name”), entering God’s purposes (“Thy kingdom come”) and yielding our lives to obey his will, (“Thy will be done”). Then come our requests: for our “daily bread” – the necessities of life; for the forgiveness of our sins – that is, our spiritual need to renew our life in harmony with God; and for help to live a truly good life – overcoming temptation and being delivered from evil.

While many repeat this prayer without too much thought, it can be personalised and developed into a meaningful time with God, day by day.

However, the first and most important prayer that everyone should be encouraged to pray is taught by Jesus in one of his parables, where the humble worshipper approaches God almost too afraid to open his mouth, and pleads, “God be merciful to me, a sinner” (Luke 18.13). That kind of prayer God gladly answers, says Jesus. It takes humility, for our pride does not easily acknowledge we are sinners before a holy God. But this first real prayer for forgiveness brings us into relationship with our kind heavenly Father, because without this, the Bible warns, “your sins have hidden God’s face from you, so that he does not hear” (Isaiah 59.2). So our first prayer must be for forgiveness.

Another way of saying the same thing can be found in Romans 10.13: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved”. This prayer is a call on the Lord Jesus for God’s forgiveness and salvation. This is a prayer that God promises to answer – the praying person “will be saved”. One desperate man cried out in prayer: “God, if you exist, save my soul if I have one”. God, who is kind and merciful, seeing the sincerity of this man’s repentance and faith, answered by transforming his life!

Have you prayed that very first prayer? You could pray right now, where you are, and a new life with God will begin. 

Clive Every-Clayton

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Three overwhelming things God did

Those who believe in God normally have some idea of what God is like. Though many imagine nice aspects of God and his character, it must be emphasised that God is not just a human idea. He is objectively there. He acts. He is capable of speaking. He loves. So we should expect to see some of his interventions and deeds, and hear or read some of his words. Otherwise he would be the God of deists who think God created the world, set it going, then vanished over the horizon never to be seen again (though somehow he maintains everything in existence.)

Against such feeble beliefs, the Christian Scriptures relate three overwhelming things that God has actually done (among many others). God has accomplished in our world, in history, these three mind-boggling deeds that are guaranteed to shake up anyone’s feeble and unclear ideas of the divine.
The first is the incarnation of God the Son. Luke, one of the best historians of his age, recounts the whole back-story of Jesus’ mother, Mary, being informed she would become pregnant and give birth to one who will be called the Son of God. Luke recounts how Mary checked out the truth of this divine message, and how she acquiesced to fulfilling this extraordinary project, having this unique baby without any sexual intercourse. Joseph, her fiancé, was informed and acted as a good father to the young Jesus. Their baby grew up to be the powerful preacher, miracle-worker, the greatest moral teacher of all time, the sinless man who gave his life for the salvation of men and women.

This leads us to the second astounding thing that God did: God the Son incarnate refused to use his miraculous powers or even to claim his human rights to obtain deliverance from death; he saw his mission as giving himself up to death on the cross – the most vile, shameful, humiliating, and painful death imposed upon him by those who thought they were acting according to law. Unknown to them, they were acting according to prophecy given centuries before, notably in the 53rd chapter of Isaiah which deserves close attention if you are not familiar with it. It explains that the coming Servant of God – Jesus Christ – would bear the sins of others, would be afflicted by God on their behalf, would intercede for them and obtain their justification, their forgiveness by his atoning death in their place. The fact that God, coming into the world, should suffer such agony in order to save us from the agony of hell is totally amazing and a demonstration of divine love.

The third thing is even more mind-boggling: God raised Jesus from the dead. Again the faithful historian Luke recounts how this took place and the apostle Paul recorded various encounters people had with the risen Christ. Despite the efforts of antagonistic non-believers to explain away Christ’s resurrection, it remains the major event which alone can explain both the extraordinary courage of the apostles who announced it as having been eye-witnesses, and the equally extraordinary expansion of the Christian faith as thousands right there in Jerusalem where Jesus was crucified, came to believe he was the risen Saviour and Lord.

Three outstanding accomplishments of what God alone can do: Incarnation, Atonement, Resurrection. Three pillars of the Christian faith. Three demonstrations of the fact that God intervenes in the world. Anyone wanting to prove that it’s true can entrust themselves to the risen Saviour; they will find in their experience that God’s power still works to transform sinners into saints.

Clive Every-Clayton

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Relationship with God?

Where can we find the perfect partner who will love us constantly with perfect love? Only in the God of love who made us. His creative design for humans is that we find fulfilment – whatever may be our principal activities – only when we are in harmony with him. 

The great tragedy of world history was when sin made its entry into the human race – as is depicted in Genesis chapters 2 and 3. The first couple rejected God’s order – thinking they could better judge what is right and wrong. (That same mentality reigns in many today who set aside God’s infinitely wise guidelines – his commandments – and try out some new man-made ethics). 

With the arrival of sin twisting the hearts and perverting the actions of the first couple, their marital harmony was damaged, and this continued down the generations to our day. Hence any life-partner that a man or a woman might find, turns out to be vitiated by an indwelling tendency to selfishness rather than love, to rebellion rather than union, to pride and anger rather than sweetness of temper. Such unloving traits render marital bliss a great challenge to accomplish – though mercifully, by learning to overcome one’s selfishness and to forgive one’s partner’s failures, it is possible for reasonably happy families to exist!

Human hearts nevertheless often suffer from the lack of that steadfast love which ministers to our inner hunger of soul. People still long for a deep and enduring harmonious relationship and can spend their lives unsuccessfully trying to find the perfect partner. Of course the children from such broken relationships begin their lives with a kind of handicap in the area of love and trust. To prevent such harm is one of the reasons why God is against adultery. God is also against adultery because unfaithful lovers do not reflect as they should the loving harmony of God’s own Trinitarian relationship. We were made in his image so as to show forth his divine kind of love, and our inability to do so grieves God, brings distress to ourselves, and trouble to our nearest and dearest. 

In the midst of our depressing failure, however, there is a gleam of hope, for true fulfilment of our passion for love can come when we know in our experience that God loves us very, very much.

Ultimately, the only truly satisfying relationship of love is for us to be in a harmonious relationship with God (as Adam and Eve were in Paradise before sin interrupted their blessedness). We can turn to God and find in him the forgiveness of our failures and an assurance of his eternal love as we enter into spiritual union with Christ. This is the essence of what Christians call salvation from sin: to be loved despite our wretchedness and to be assured of God’s full forgiveness. That is the relationship we were made for. It alone provides true human fulfilment. 

So how can a person get that? What we have to do is, first of all, realise how much our sin is serious before God; we really have no idea – that’s why we need the Bible to enlighten us. Then we need to realise how great the love of Jesus, God’s Son, was, in coming into our sinful world to seek and save us from all the pains that sin has brought on us. Then we need to open our hearts to Him, inviting him to wash us clean, be our dearest friend and helper, and confirm his love to us. He promises to do just that!

Clive Every-Clayton

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There is no other

The uniqueness of the Christmas event is well worth pondering. Has there ever been a serious claim that the one and only Creator God entered into human history and came to dwell among us? Such is the very essence of the Christian religion. 

Since the historic existence of Jesus of Nazareth cannot seriously be contested, the question of his full identity constitutes one of the most important that anyone can consider. Indeed, the whole search for authentic answers turns on this, for if it can be established that Jesus was, as he affirmed, the unique divine Son of God the Father, then we have in his words a revelation of divine truth about many vital areas of our human condition.

In previous blogs I have quoted many of Jesus’ sayings that express his teaching about his coming into the world from “the Father” to tell us truth that his Father had sent him to tell us. Jesus insists that he is speaking the truth, and the absolute truth of his words is a solid foundation for our faith.

As you read the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ life, you get the impression of reading of a real historic character – unique, certainly – even considerably different from normal humans, yet authentic, real, believable. The simplicity and yet the depth of his teaching make us wonder, as did his first hearers, “Where did this man get this wisdom?” (Matthew 13.54). The record of his amazing miracles corresponds perfectly with what only a divine Son of God could do. The disciples saw how his life fulfilled several predictions made about the Messiah in the Jewish Bible, and these can still be checked out today. His moral teaching, such as he gave in the Sermon on the Mount, has never been surpassed in twenty centuries, and millions of believers throughout the world can testify that following his guidance had led them to a life not only of purity but of profound well-being.

Indeed the most compelling proof of Jesus’ divine identity comes when a man or a woman in the grip of evil passions, realising the need of deliverance from their inner demons, cries out in desperate agony to the Lord Jesus to save them and experiences the radical transformation he operates in their own personal experience. Not everyone feels deeply their need of forgiveness and moral transformation; not many think of turning over a new leaf; not many realise that a miracle of redemption is possible through faith in Jesus Christ. But there are those who do feel their guilt before a holy and righteous God, who understand the seriousness of their position before the divine Judge of all the earth, and who, hearing that Jesus is a Saviour who receives sinners and frees them from their guilt and sin, cry out in earnest prayer, “Lord Jesus, save me”. Such converts can testify to their experience of the reality of the risen Saviour who came down to earth to set people free from their bondage to sin. 

The Bible’s teaching is clear: “There is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all” (1 Timothy 2.5-6). “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4.12). “No one comes to the Father except through me”, said Jesus (John 14.6). 

The Bible’s promise stands valid for all: “Whoever calls on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ will be saved” (Romans 10.13). 

Clive Every-Clayton

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Jesus’ comments on Christmas

Jesus didn’t actually refer to his birthday, but he did make several comments on why he was born. Let’s look at them.

“For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world – to bear witness to the truth” (John 18.37). Here was a man who knew his purpose in life! And he knew “the truth”. This statement of Jesus is as vital as it is radical. Don’t we need to know the truth? Isn’t God the only One who knows the truth and the true answers to our existential questions? Jesus was born into the world to make that truth accessible. 

“I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness” (John 12.46). Jesus sees the world of human being enshrouded in the darkness of sin and ignorance, needing light from beyond this world – divine light. He also said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life” (John 8.12). I wonder if you are “walking in darkness”; here is hope for you.

“I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me” (John 6.38). Jesus saw his primary aim in life was to obey His Father’s will and fulfil the plan for which he was sent. He lived and died in complete accord with the will of God his Father: “I seek not my own will, but the will of him who sent me” (John 5.30).

He said he “came to seek and save the lost” (Luke 19.10). The New Testament explains: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1.15). Jesus taught that we are lost when we are far from God, indifferent to his love, living in disobedience to his will, and careless of loving and pleasing him. Multitudes living like that are lost, they have no idea where they are going, but they are on their way to a lost eternity. Jesus came to seek such people, and to save them both from a life of sin and from an eternity in hell. 

He explained how he would do this, when he said he had come “not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10.45). It’s as if lost sinners are held captive to evil habits and evil powers, subject to righteous judgment. A ransom price would “redeem” or deliver them; that price was Jesus’ own death. Sinless himself, he chose to bear our penalty on the cross, dying to redeem us. Such is his compassion for us in our bondage and our lost state.

 “I have come in my Father’s name” he declared, often alluding to “the Father who sent me” (John 5.43, 36, 37). He so represents God his Father that he says, “Whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. And whoever sees me sees him who sent me” (John 12.44-45). 

Jesus sums up the ultimate aim of his coming: “I came that they might have life and have it abundantly” (John 10.10). His coming was in order to give abundant life (“eternal life” – true human fulfilment) to people who trust in him. God loved us so much “that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3.16)

That’s why Jesus came at that first Christmas. We all need him.

Clive Every-Clayton

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Christmas – why all the fuss?

As Christmas approaches it seems that multitudes are on a spending spree: presents, Christmas trees, food and wine, cakes and puddings, turkeys and trimmings… So many people seem to be looking forward to a great family get-together and such joyous festivities should certainly not be disparaged. However, Christmas is not “all about” these things. Christmas certainly has its reasons for festive celebration but we need to remember exactly what Christmas really is “all about”.

While many Xmas cards wish us “Happy Holidays”, they seem to totally overlook the real meaning of Christmas. What is Christmas all about? It is the enthusiastic and wondering commemoration of the greatest event that has ever taken place since the original “Big Bang”! For that little baby boy, wrapped in cloths and laid in a manger, was none other than a totally unique incarnation of the one and only Creator God. The infinite Deity was clothed with human flesh, lying there helpless, totally dependent on his mother’s care. What wondrous lowliness in the majestic Lord of all!

This baby was Jesus: at Christmas we celebrate the beginning of the life-history of the greatest human being who ever lived – the one whose coming made a more beneficial impact on the history of the world than any number of other people.

This baby was conceived by a miracle: a work of God accomplished his unique conception without the sexual union of two parents. The young mother-to-be, Mary, received the divine message that she would become pregnant with a son who “will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High”; he would “reign on the throne of his ancestor David”, as a king “whose kingdom shall have no end”. On hearing that announcement Mary was baffled and astonished, asking: “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” (Luke 1.31-35)

The answer given to her by the heavenly messenger foretold the miraculous intervention of God’s Holy Spirit so that “the child that will be born will be called holy – the Son of God”.

In other words, here, on this unique occasion, the Son of God who was with the Father in eternity, was now clothed with human flesh, a historic human being, subject to the limitations of time and space. He was to grow up in the home of Joseph and Mary until the day when he was to be revealed to Israel and to begin his public ministry of teaching and working miracles, curing the sick and even raising the dead on three occasions. 

Joseph, who was pledged to be married to Mary, also received a divine communication: “the Lord appeared to him in a dream” saying that this unique baby conceived in her is “from the Holy Spirit… You shall call his name Jesus” he was told, “for he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1.20-21).

This is what we celebrate. The world needed a Saviour and, very humbly, in the town of Bethlehem, about 2,028 years ago, the Saviour of the World was born.

Many great Christmas carols celebrate the big event: “He came down to earth from heaven, who is God and Lord of all”; yet “how silently, how silently the wondrous gift was given!” “Veiled in flesh the Godhead see: hail the incarnate deity! Pleased as man with man to dwell, Jesus our Emmanuel” – which means, “God with us”. God came into the world, demonstrating that he exists! He came to save us from our sins.

That is what Christmas is all about.

Clive Every-Clayton

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The west is not the best

We live in a global village: news is broadcast to our phones as it occurs, wherever in the world it may be happening. The influence of Western thinking still touches the corners of the globe. But people in the majority world need to be informed by those of us in the West who see the bankruptcy of Western scientific philosophy, that the West, dominated by secularistic thinking that ignores the God of creation, is not the best. 

There is hope of an upturn in Western thinking, however, as the hopelessness of atheistic philosophy becomes more and more apparent, bringing in its train all kinds of moral, social, and mental ills. A better story is being sought, though the passing falsehoods of relativistic atheism still hang in the air we breathe and sadly infect lands further away. People in those lands should realise: the West is not the best. To those who look from afar thinking that the West is Christian, I would say that the general life-style of the masses in the west is godless, not Christian. True, there are many Christians in the West, and in past ages they have gone throughout the world proclaiming the Gospel; but as their influence in society waned in the West, vain and futile godless philosophies have risen to supplant the Christian consensus. 

This state of affairs is due to change, however; the West needs a revival of Christianity, and believers need to regain the confidence to proclaim afresh the life-enhancing truth of the Gospel. This Gospel message speaks of world history in four stages:

First, Creation. God made all that is, and he declared his creation “good”. There was no fault in his working: he made man and woman to reflect his own nature as they were made in his likeness. He made them in relationship with himself where they found deep joy and fulfilment.

Second, the first couple turned away from God’s will, expressed in his commandment. Thinking (as many still do today) that they knew better than God what was right and wrong, they chose to disobey, and in doing so their nature – human nature – became twisted, corrupted, sinful. Banished from enjoying close and friendly relationship with their Creator, they founded their social order independently of God, even antagonistic to his will. All the people of the world suffered from that original perversion; all are born sinners, out of fellowship with God – indeed, under his holy displeasure.

Third, God set in motion his major opus – the salvation of lost men and women. Beginning with revealing to Abraham promises that through his posterity all the world would one day be blessed, God spoke to men of old through the prophets until finally his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, was born, an incarnate human revelation of God. Jesus grew up to teach God’s truth and ultimately to give his life for the redemption of humankind. Thanks to his atoning sacrifice, as the Gospel is proclaimed throughout the world, millions find, through faith in him, the forgiveness he promised and new life, eternal life, in renewed friendship with God.

The fourth stage is still to come, foretold by the prophets whose predictions of the first coming of Christ proved true. Jesus himself revealed that at the end of the age he would come in glory to judge the world in righteousness, ushering his believing flock into eternal life, and punishing the unrighteous with the just penalty that is their due.
Throughout the world, this Gospel message gains believers who escape that ultimate judgment. Will you be among them?

Clive Every-Clayton

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Ultimate human fulfilment

The fullness of human happiness – or blessedness, which means the same – is to be found only in a harmonious relationship with the Creator God and Saviour, who loves us with infinite tenderness, warmth, compassion, and wisdom. If you’re looking for an authentic answer to our human predicament – be forgiven and get into that relationship. That is to “know God”, which is how Jesus defines “eternal life” (John 17.3). It means hearing Jesus’ call to repent, deny our selfishness, and commit to following him. Having taught his disciples for three years, Jesus said to them, “If you know these things, happy/blessed are you if you do them” (John 13.17). The obedient disciple is the fulfilled human being; the holier you are, the happier you are.

As Jesus began to delight his hearers with his passionate proclamations, from the very start in his famous Sermon on the Mount (found in Matthew’s Gospel chapters 5 to 7), he cried out, “Blessed are those who…” followed by virtues to acquire. By these beatitudes which include being “pure in heart”, and “hungering and thirsting after righteousness”, he was indicating the way to true happiness. The word Jesus used in the Greek original for “blessed” means “most fortunate” – but not just because of good fortune or luck. Rather, this is the greatest human fulfilment that God himself grants to those who come into that intimate personal relationship with him, where we receive and follow his wisdom, spurn the sins that he hates, entrust our whole lives into his loving hands, share our joys, our sorrows and our worries with him, and seek to please him in all that we do. 

I can say that this is no mere theory; I have lived this way as best I could from my youth, and can testify that in the good days as in the bad days (like when I had cancer, when my daughter was long in hospital, and when my wife died) God’s goodness and love upheld me.

True, at the beginning I struggled to yield all of my life without reserve to do the will of God, because I thought my way was best; but the day I did surrender was one of the happiest days of my life. If you’re afraid of totally submitting your will to the will of God, so was I. What helped me was to realise just how much God’s love, shown in the total self-dedication of Christ on the cross, dying to save me from hell, was the same attitude of love God has to me all the time. And it is from that kind and loving heart that my Lord and Saviour in his wisdom would choose what he considered would be the very best path for me. So I trusted him, and gave him my all, without reserve, and have kept that attitude all my life.

My recent blog posts have spoken about heaven. Why is heaven a place of supreme happiness and blessedness? Because the will of God is done perfectly there! Jesus indicated this when he taught us to pray, “Father… your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”. On earth, we see a lot of terrible things that sin and wickedness do, and that God allows, as he respects our freedom. The prayer asks God to prevent the worst and instead see his holy will accomplished, “as it is done in heaven”. In heaven there will be no sin or evil, that’s why it is a place of supreme happiness.  

Will you be there? 

Clive Every-Clayton

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