The 'Judas Complex'

As I sit here at my desk listening to a song I wrote several months ago for little Eden - my new daughter - I am reminded of all that God has overtly done for me and my family.

He has so abundantly blessed me in umpteen ways. From a calling to the pastoral ministry, and that in the service of the greatest church family on the globe, to a wonderful wife and three precious little girls, God has truly showered His blessings on me!

My theology compels me to insert that tribulation and trials and persecution await me...and they do feature, and may well overcome all this for a season or the entirely of my time this side of glory, but my experience at the moment, if 'bottled' and given the erroneous stamp of 'one size fits all' would compare with the prosperity heresy!

So gracious has God been to me!

Even down to the home we enjoy, the car we have been blessed with, my guitar, food sufficient for the family...and delicious in that, awesome friends - here and abroad.

This note is somewhat scatter-brained and my purpose may seem strange, perhaps, to some, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who has this dark cloud, of which I will now speak, over his or her head which I have here called the Judas Complex! If that is plagiarised, I sincerely don’t recall where I heard it!

This is the mentality that says/thinks; ‘It’s just a matter of time before you mess it all up!’, 'Come on Glen, who are you kidding? You don’t have the character to sustain what God has given you! You are and will always be a looser – a problem, you’ll see! You know it...think about your temptations and sins and the gravity of the potential evil you could fall into...just wait - you will prove to be a betrayer of the Lord Jesus.'

In short, ‘in due course you will find it to be so that (given the spread of disciples) you get to be Judas!’

‘Not Peter, not Paul...no not you...Judas is your card!’

‘You’re the runt of the litter, the dud etc.’

Now before someone sends me to a shrink...like that’s going to help! Or a BA (Baptists Anonymous) meeting let me say that God is bigger than this silly - this stupid - this pathetic and utterly ridiculous rubbish!

His love is eternal and so is His gift of salvation and so the preservation of His own!

To hell with the devil!!!

I mean that absolutely literally...in other words, 'get behind me Satan!'

God has given me a 16 years walk with Him that, although peppered with failure and almost every sin imaginable in my disgusting and wretched heart, has proven to me one thing, to say the least, and that is that He is faithful...infinitely so!

I don’t have to fail! He who is able to keep me from stumbling and present me blameless with great joy on that day indwells me! I can’t do it! News flash! No one can! Only He is able to carry me all the way to the finish line! And He will...and even if I blow it hook, line and sinker...nothing can dissolve the eternal life that is mine in Him!

Of course there are false professors who prove to be so over time, but I know I love Christ!

I know He is my life, my all in all...and this alone by His sovereign grace and favour toward me!

I once was blind...O how blackened was my hellish heart...I hated God and all that represented Him to me. This is not true of me now! He changed me...gave me a new heart...wrote His Law on my heart and mind...O how I love that Law!!! I delight in the Law of God in my inner man...impossible for the old me! I know I'm now a God lover by His own doing...unchangeably so!

Nothing can separate me from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus!

Stuff this stupid 'Judas Complex'!!!

Sorry I said 'stuff'! No other word carries sufficient emotional weight right now to capture my utter disgust of the madness of it!

I don’t know if I am even making sense right now...but let me land on a high note...God is awesome, perfect, beautiful, forgiving, slow to anger, holy, a consuming fire, and full of compassion and sympathy toward His children and their struggles!

I love you Jesus Christ my Lord and King and Saviour and Darling Bridegroom!

I will keep trying to love you more and more and your people too and to win sinners to Your worship and Kingdom!

All this by the power you supply alone...for unless you build the house, fight the battle etc. all is hopeless! O but You do build, fight, supply and sustain!

Hallelujah! What a Saviour!!!!