If you spent your life living out Romans 12: 9 – 21 you’d be doing a good thing. Here we have 13 verses of instruction on living the Christian life which stands on its own, but is supported by all of Paul’s other writings, and also bears true in his own story.

The key principle of being a person of peace and of love in the army of the God who is love, is that we live at peace with everyone, so far as it depends on us (v18). These ‘enemy-loving’ verses also remind us that our battle isn’t against flesh and blood, as Paul declares elsewhere. If Satan uses people – and he does – he uses them as captives who are in need of God’s freedom. This transforms our view of people – we no longer see them from a worldly point of view. We come seeking to draw people into our peace where the gospel can find a landing place, not to be dragged into their worldly drama.

This is not easy. Try looking in the eyes of a Glasgow pimp, for all his evil acts, and still believe that he’s also one for whom Christ died, and that he’d forgive in a second. In those encounters, if we exercise anger and rage it pushes the man further into his sin – it hardens him further. The key he needs is the gospel of Jesus Christ – this alone will unarm him from everything he clings to. Through the eyes of Christ, he becomes one with whom you plead to turn to Christ and live righteously. This is the scandal of the gospel – that even the vilest offender who truly believes can be a child of grace. I saw this play out many times when I was a chaplain at one of HM’s Prisons.

Paul had been the enemy of the Lord Jesus Christ and of his church. That is a dangerous position to be in, and Jesus deals with him decisively. Whilst the church were rightly unsure about Paul after his conversion, he’s welcomed in and eventually becomes one of the greatest assets the church of Jesus Christ has ever seen. Saul the persecutor becomes Paul the pastor, teacher, apostle and martyr of Jesus Christ. Redemption is the business of God, and in that, we are partners.

Notice, these Romans 12 verses do not demand that we overlook evil – we’re to hate it. Evil is not the people, it is the force that comes from the Evil One and puts others in its bondage. His days are numbered and he reels! The enemy rages as the church arises in love and truth. Separating the force of the enemy from men and women who are made in the image of God, and for whom there is the possibility of redemption, is crucial.

Paul does not negate the reality of the battle either. In Ephesians 6 and 2 Timothy 2:4, Paul leaves us in no doubt that we are in a spiritual battle. But we’re also told that the weapons of our warfare are not the same as the world’s – the are spiritual dynamite, and the same impact also plays out when we live practically in love. Worldly warfare methods are not in our arsenal – we belong to a different Kingdom.

Paul tells us to put on the whole armour of God: truth, righteousness, the Gospel, faith, the hope of our salvation, the Word of God, and prayer…plus all the actions in Romans 9. This living under God pours out ‘burning coals’ on heads of our enemies, but gives no-one a single thing that they can level against us.

The battle is fierce, but we are the soldiers of Christ who live to release the prisoners of war through steady person-to-person encounters. The gospel is the key.

The first appointment post-training for Salvation Army officers back in the day was a three year appointment. They sent us away from training after a year to our first appointment because we both had previous theological and ministry experience and, though we ended up being presented late to the appointments committee, a perfect little appointment arose for us in Pill, Bristol…on the banks of the Avon River, to three urban villages nestled under the M5 Avonmouth bridge. A wee bit more reminiscing…

Anyone reading who remembers those days knows several things: we were not perfect – far from it. We definitely didn’t get everything right. I arrived there at the age of 23! We were also in right at the deep end once again, dealing with some of the most shocking and complicated pastoral situations that I’ve faced in over 20 years of ministry. Even after moving on from there, we had to return to Bristol to give court evidence several times in the most shocking case of child sexual abuse that our ministry had uncovered in that community. We were dealing with those pressured situations confidentially whilst seeking to advance the gospel, and not without internal and external opposition. That was just the context, but even in all that, and some close personal bereavements in that time, there were some great opportunities and adventures! The early days of this blog started in those days, back in 2004! 20 years ago!! Oh boy..

As I look back, there were some key themes of that ministry there at Pill:

• we got the people out of the church building. We initiated a significant programme of outdoor worship and witness. We had a wee brass band, who were valiant, but we also saw the power of simply getting out and worshipping in the streets. We preached the gospel, but believed our worship of Jesus would also impact the spiritual atmosphere of the villages. My conviction was that The Salvation Army was born for the open air and we became colourfully visible. I look back at the photos of those days, and they’re awash with colourful presence and proclamation on the streets.
• we taught the principles of spiritual warfare and we got out to pray for our streets, our land, and its people. Prayer walks in our district, already being undertaken, were intensified: Pill, Ham Green, Easton in Gordono and Portishead…we went for it. We were seeking to demolish spiritual strongholds of the enemy that had persisted for generations. – even John Wesley once proclaimed that he’d never seen anywhere as sinful as Pill! We even had a conference called ‘The Aggressive Christianity Conference’ – we were at battle against Satan and all his schemes!
• we taught personal freedom from sin and the call to holiness of life as well as preaching the gospel – in our tradition, it’s called ‘full salvation’! Remember – my biggest influences at that time were 100 years dead – the Booths, Railton, Cadman, Brengle. I was just thoroughly and passionately convinced that ministry could not just be telling nice stories and regurgitating bible stories – God was a God who moved in power with power to save and cleanse

Our Corps Sergeant Major, Pete (senior local elder and wonderful, wise mentor), said to me when we left that he believed we’d look back on our time at Pill and see it as a great season in spite of the great pains. He said that because he’d been with us one-on-one through the trauma of wading through all the tough pastoral stuff which plunged me into a depression. And, surely enough, the benefit of years means you can see beyond the muck of humanity at its worst to find the treasure of those days.

It was the early 2000s and I’m starting out on the front line of mission in Glasgow’s East End. My ‘patch’ (or my allotted ‘corps district’ in Sally Army parlance) runs east from Buchanan Street in the city centre of Glasgow, and the communities of Townhead, Calton, The Barras, a bit of Bridgetown, centred in Dennistoun, but as far up as Royston and Riddrie, straddling the M8, but nothing east of Cumbernauld Road. Communities with significant challenges. If you know, you know.

It took this geography – my assignment – seriously. I drove it, walked it, prayed it, lived in it, seeking to advance the Kingdom by any means.

Typically, the work was a mixture of pastoring a small bunch of mainly elderly people, combatting the effects of poverty, and doing what we can to advance the gospel in outreach. We cooked meals for around 200 a week, including soup runs in the red light district. We started parent and toddler clubs, run social groups to share the gospel with the elderly, healing services, community cafes, attempted outreach to fairly wild local kids and youth, and generally just got stuck in. We were young and indefatigable.

We regularly had our windows smashed in with bricks, things stolen from our house, taken advantage of, and all the typical kind of stuff that comes with the territory. We offered hospitality to vulnerable people in our home, wept when they took their lives because life was too much for them, and played Santa to kids with devastated family lives every year.

Of all that time from just 2001 to 2003, there is one day I remember as a pivotal day. It was a hot Saturday in July and, in typical Glasgow style, my community was to be paraded through by hundreds of sectarian Orangemen. What they call, ‘The Big Walk’. I grew up with this movement in my family so I knew the score. Men and women who depict themselves as defenders of the Reformed Protestant faith but would likely have a very hard time explaining the Five Doctrines of Grace, let alone testifying to a saving relationship with Jesus.

Well, this was my patch, and I had to be present at least to pray. Tracy was at home with our new baby, so it was just going to be me. I donned my uniform, put on my peaked cap, grabbed the Trinitarian Salvation Army flag and headed down to take up my place along the parade route. I clearly knew that God was stirring me to do more than pray.

I stood on the corner of Duke Street and Armadale Street for at least two hours. I wept, I prayed, and I pleaded with people to turn to Christ. I mean, I knew I was amongst the toughest crowd in Glasgow. I endured their scorn, abuse, their blasphemies and more. These ‘committed Protestants’ hurled abuse for preaching Christ, and blasphemed him as ‘the Swinging Joiner’ – Jesus the Carpenter being crucified on a Cross, being ridiculed for his sacrificial death for them. I followed on to the place of their ‘religious service’ which consisted of a hymn, political rant about their Protestant freedom, and a rendition of God Save the Queen before they drowned themselves in beer before marching away.

That story has been in my mind for a few reasons in the last month or so as I reflect on life and ministry now. I’m remembering:

– the character of sectarian secular Scotland where so-called Protestants protest against the things they say they march and stand for. I’m thinking of some Christian brothers in ministry who are currently on the receiving end of persecution for taking a stand against Orangism in their community.

– aside from Orangism, the other expressions of cold religion which, even if appearing to be spiritual, lack any power and truth and so become a deception. It’s all around us.

– my foolish (in the eyes of the world) but Holy Spirit boldness which characterised much of my Salvation Army ministry years especially. Was hated, despised and sometimes rejected for it; ridiculed in-house among my ministry peers for being ‘too Army’, being spiritually and methodologically uncouth – ‘he’s a primitive fundamentalist and a trouble maker’. I sense I’d be even further beyond the pale these days.

– the call to repent of the ways and times I’ve allowed others voices to temper my passion and expression of the gospel, and recognising the schemes of the enemy to diminish gospel ministry.

Those two Glasgow years seemed to last for a lifetime. It was hard and exhausting, and yet a good number of the most powerful stories of God at work were from that time…stories I still recount to this day.

The bottom line, I guess, is that I need God to shake the building, empower by the Holy Spirit, and send me out again to proclaim his word with boldness (Acts 4:31).

One of the joys of Christian life over the long haul is the way that we begin to layer our understanding of God in light of new information and experience. Well – perhaps I should qualify that: if we are growing and invested in our discipleship that might be the case.

I’m 43; 27 years or so into following Jesus, 23 or so years in some form of ministry; several geographical locations into doing all of that. And the present joy in the midst are pleasant new rediscoveries.

I say rediscoveries because not all lanes I’ve walked down in pursuit of the novel idea have been fruitful or substantial, but they do play their part when you rest in a rich truth more beautifully illuminated.

Take, for example, repentance. We all know that repentance towards God is necessary but at times difficult and maybe even scary. But years reveal that repentance is also a beautiful gift to be grateful for and entered into without fear because of grace. So, you come to appreciate the gravity and the grace but know that it’s for our healing.

Or, take death as another example. You know that Christ somehow conquers it and yet you know you have to go through it. You theologically know you’ve nothing to fear and yet you fear. Then, perhaps, your horizon expands: you’re kinda middle aged and instead of being solely focussed on you’re present survival, you begin to see life in the context of love and eternity, and so increases your freedom to live fully because nothing needs to be clung to.

New joyful freedoms and new joyful constraints which give everything perspective.

Youth is wasted on the young, but you need to know what life’s container looks like before you know what’s really worth filling it with. Nothing is lost: our earlier formation just gives us a lay of the land. Every new journey reveals something you haven’t seen or loved before. New joys arise.