Sunday, July 08, 2007

Friendship and a passion for God’s glory

YOU need one thing. The only thing I know how to do? I only know how to burn! And you need it - A Turkish believer

The Turkish believer that spoke those words was a great friend of mine. He died this year and in the wake of his murder, I have done much reflection on the nature of friendship and the passion we can create in others. Kammel taught me many things but one truth that ring clear in this moment is “A man aflame with the passion of God – A man on fire is the only thing Satan can not counterfeit!”

He created deep wells of passion that sustain me to this day and I long for the day I will hug him again and thank him for knowing one thing well. I know much but burn little. At one time I was a man burning alive. Kammel’s words haunt me like the memory of my former self. It is a shameful thing to burn out, more so, it is a devilish to quench your own flame in the name of glowing to the level of lesser lights.

I want to burn again as I have known, giving heat and light to all that witness the heart of my existence. I want to burn as kammel taught me and be known again as the man that did one thing well. But I can not do this alone nor can anyone. We are often only as passionate as the people we surround ourselves with.

The “All” spark
There is power in friendship mostly do not know. Aristotle gives us the three categories of friendship the useful, the pleasurable and the good. For Aristotle, "true friendship" is based on the third category, the good. On this third category, Augustine builds his idea of friendship. For Augustine when the purpose of friendship is based on the good and the nature of friendship is the blood bond made by covenant grace, Augustine believes, the classical idea of friendship is so transforms that the bond of friendship becomes "the gift of the Holy Spirit through grace."

Christ centered friendships are Meta in nature, Bonds beyond self by grace. Grace empowers and lifts friendship to make Christian love richer in its felt experience. Christian love is made all the more enjoyable as friendship adds "the notes of attraction and delight to the Christian charity owed to all" Friendship becomes a blessing of grace given people in the community of the committed. The neglect of this category of human existence has narrowed our view of the horizons for delighting in the good.
The majority of people find it confusing, the live in friendships of usefulness or the pleasurable. The useful is when we spend time with people for what they can give us. They exchange the rich joy of friendship for a shallow triviality called acquaintance. Those that base friendship in the pleasurable enjoy people for the pleasure they can gain from them often leading to bond of shallow manipulation. They only exist in a wasteland of face to face conversations, half hiding behind there words, half reaching thought them for some evidence of life.

Friendship for the good is lost yet not forgotten. When Grace empowers and lifts friendship to a holy category of the good. But what is the good? Well the good is the Glory of God. Friendship in the good is a shared vision of God’s glory. God is most prized in two hearts and all visions turns of this hope. Tow can walk together as one. Part of your flame us a burning to see them rightly desire the glory of God! And you joy is double when your eyes see evidence of the first flicker of such a flame.
I have known friendship in such power. I have felt the great gravity it creates. A bond that exist beyond the ones it holds. Such a bond creates a transcendent space where charity can grow and foster selfless action. This is the true soil, the tera-ferma of faith that life is to exist from and friendship must take root in if it is to be grounded in the Good. Augustine wrote of the joy of friendship is this way:

“All kinds of things rejoiced my soul in their company - to talk and laugh, and to do each other kindnesses; to read pleasant books together; to pass from the lightest jesting to talk of the deepest things and back again: to differ without rancor, as a man might differ with himself, and when, most rarely, dissension arose, to found our normal agreement all the sweeter for it; to teach each other and to learn from each other; to be impatient for the return of the absent, and to welcome them with joy on their home-coming; these, and such like things, proceeding from our hearts as we gave affection and received it back, and shown by face, by voice, by the eyes, and by a thousand other pleasing ways, kindled a flame which fused our very souls together, and, of many, made us one”

The experience of such friendship where an understanding look, and word outspoken, affirms all the hope and dreams one soul can hold. This is a power of oneness in purpose, diversity in expression. Unity and diversity finding convergence in the powerful act of friendship. It is a power reminiscent of the creative joy the trinity shared in the creation event. Friendships are powerful: a creative power.

When friendships start a something.
I have known friendship in depths of prayer, so real and full with authentic honesty. It was as if the earth was cooled by the shade and wind as angles took flight. Friends are fire starters. When you find a friend that is a spark stay near to the light and heat for there is fire. You will soon see, the fire in them is your light and heat. This is true not only of beginnings but all thought the journey.

Seven fires did burn bright
Seven lamps and sevens lights
Seven men from gospel to grave
The Cambridge seven; wholly gospel slaves

In 1885 a spark changed Christianity forever. a band of brothers made a choice that changed world missions, they said “Yes!” to one another and yes to God. They found in one another the strength to do the imposable and be God’s messengers. They are called the Cambridge seven. 1. C.T. Studd, 2. Harry Beauchamp, 3. Stanley Smith, 4. Arthur Polhill-Turner, 5. Dixon Hoste, 6. Cecil Polhill-Turner. 7. William Cassels.

Friendship is the theme of the Cambridge seven. Seven men in their twentrys that changed the course of world missions, together. In china, they lived thue the china uprising and persecution that followed. As men they are sinner, fighters, believers, and as servants of God, they are torches that light the way before us even today.


Men alive when friends revive.
The cambridge seven were seven friends that met at cambridge university. They had all become born-again christainsmany in rather dramatic fasion. C T Studd, wrote of his conversion. “I got down on my knees and I did say 'thank you' to God. And right then and there joy and peace came into my soul. I knew then what it was to be 'born again,' and the Bible which had been so dry to me before, became everything." Everything had changed, moved by there beliefs they gained a vision to live beyond there bourders in the uncharted joys of God’s will. One of the them wrote a friend to explain;

“How could I spend the best hours of my life in working for myself and for the honor and pleasures of this world while thousands and thousands of souls are perishing every day without having heard of the Lord Jesus Christ, going down to Christless and hopeless graves?”

After reading a book on mision for hudson taylor each boy begain to weissale with God’s heart for the nations; A weaseiling mach that never ends in victory. The boys encoueaged one another till the fires in each burned in such a degree they wished only to be consumed. Every word a new stiring, every smile a new spark. By 1884, they had each been appointed as missionarys to china but before leaving the seven set out on a tour of collages to speak as voice crying in the wilderness. - it was during this tour that someone dubbed them "The Cambridge Seven." And during this tour that they sparked the student missionary movement sending 2000 missionary into the field by 1900.

They burned
Burning always means sacrifice and the seven in various ways gave up many friends, jobs, C. T. Studd was a world class athlete but all was dust compared to the glory of God. Studd wrote:

“If Jesus Christ be the Son of God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him. …A lost reputation is the best degree for Christ’s service…… Are you living for the day or are you living for life eternal? Are you going to care for the opinion of men here, or for the opinion of God? The opinion of men won't avail us much when we get before the judgment throne. But the opinion of God will. Had we not, then, better take His word and implicitly obey it?"”

Studd also advised one believer:

"What I would have you gather is that God does not deal with you until you are wholly given up to Him, and then He will tell you what He would have you do."

May, we all know the guiding whisper and thundering laugh God makes over one believer totally given to him. May the sound of his joy be the music we march to, no mater how distant the rhythm or oddly measured the meter.

Life well done
Each man left scorch marks on the pages of history.

William Cassels worked in china for 10 years then became the bishop of western china being a leading visionary in the china church.

Stanley Smith was sent to North China and spent many years a preacher and expert in the Chinas language the pure evangelist of the group his heart for people was nearly as big as his vision of the gospel. Many years before he wrote in his diary, “O Lord, save souls and lay upon me the burden of souls, at least twenty-five thousand.” From all accounts he came close to fulfilling his heart cry.

C T Studd wrote and ministered in china till his ill heath made him come home in 1894. He never returned but it was said he cryed offen for the china people. He wet his prayers with tearful request for souls. Studd was a visionary and began the mission institution heart of Africa that later become WEC international. He worked in India and Africa until his death.

Arthur Polhill-Turner preached in china thought the uprising and did not leave until 1928. Until his death in 1935 he clamed his heart belonged to Jesus but his soul remained in china.

Cecil Polhill-Turner, moved to northwest china and became director of Tibet. Him and his wife were nearly killed on 1892 in a violent riot. Later his heath failed him and he moved back to England. While there he become was greatly used in the formation of the Pentecostal Movement in Britain . The doctors advised him to never return to china yet he made 7 prolonged missionary trips to china before passing away in 1938.
Montague Harry Proctor Beauchamp was evacuated from China because of the uprisings but returned in 1902, his son become a second generation missionary to china and he died on 1939 at his son’s mission station. His greatest joy was to die in the land he so loved, around the people of his heart.

Dixon Hoste succeeded Hudson Taylor as the Director of the China Inland Mission. His leadership guided the CIM for 30 years and remained in china till 1945. He died in 1946 and was the last remaining member to die. He once wrote:
The man who does not learn to wait upon the Lord and have his thoughts molded by Him will never possess that steady purpose and calm trust, which is essential to the exercise of wise influence upon others, in times of crisis and difficulty.

How to start a something – with the fire till burns

The journey in God’s will is never safe. Jesus may promise persecution awaits us yet rarely are we given to suffer alone. Friendship is the lighthouse pointing to the Lord. We can laugh together, sing in our chains, and find hope, gospel hope in the words of a friend! Friends weep with us in disappointment and preach to us the unfailing gospel hope. Friends that encourage, aspiring us to greatness in the Lord and race us to finish strong are few and far between but when you find them Love them, they are grace. What would it be to have C T Studd as a friend? One who would challenge you with words like this:

"Some want to live within the sound of church or chapel bells, I want to run a rescue shop within the yard of hell."

All I have to say to that is, HELL YEA!

Dawson

Reprises
God has blessed me with Good friends. People that speak light when my eyes are dark and find a joy in sparking me just to watch me burn. To the band of brothers and sisters grace has given me. Thank you for your companionship. It has helped me make it this far and will be the cheering I hear when the race gets long and my legs feel of lead. In you God ordains strength and may I give the same grace when shadows darken your path.

To those I have yet to meet. In whom Jesus even now waits to be revealed. Let the Joy that is in me be in you, for soon, very soon, as sure as the day dawns, and the sun burns so I will know the refreshing and inspiring power of friendship. May the world look and with certainty say, they are Christians for they love!