Inspiration for the thirsty soul

My way, your way, their way, our way ... but all that matters is His way

2010-09-07T23:07:00.000-07:00

In Shrek, the ogre, having had his swamp disturbed by Donkey, Pinocchio, the three pigs, the wolf and many other Fairy Tale creatures, decides to address their eviction with Lord Farquaad. On leaving, he shouts, “Fairy tale creatures, don’t get too comfortable”.

It is in the nature of all creatures to settle. No matter what kind of circumstances we find ourselves in, we will soon tame it and make it as comfortable as possible.

The problem with settling, is that it can be at odds with God’s agenda. There are times when His spirit stands still, but such seasons of settlement are never an end. The Kingdom is always advancing.

In 2 Corinthians 3, Paul discusses Moses' descent from Mount Sinai, with the tablets of the law. His face was so aglow with the glory of God, that the people asked him to cover his face with a veil. That same glory symbolized the ultimate outworking of the law. In Galatians he adds that the law was a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. It was not meant to be an end in and of itself, but the means to a far greater end.

Paul concludes that the Hebrews were happy to settle for the law. As such they tamed the law, until the resulting institution, not their God, became their identifier. The upshot of the process was that the objective of the law, Christ, was rejected as an inconvenient truth. He came unto His own and His own received Him not.

Now, the church is at a stage where it has also significantly tamed divine revelation and institutionalized its models of church governance. We are at a point where leaders feel they have got it and that it is working fine thank you – but don’t get too comfortable, this is not the end.

The wood, hay and stubble that will be tried in the fires of tribulation (1 Corinthians 3:12), will reveal the underlying gold, silver and precious stones of our faith. Ephesians 1 alludes to the glory of the church when it says, “now unto principalities and powers is known, through the church, the unsearchable mysteries of God”.

We are entering an unsettling time that will strip away our comfort zones until we exchange our proud differences for the common cause of our faith: the Lord Jesus Christ. He, alone, is our separation: which may prove to be a very inconvenient truth to many.

Image source: www.flickriver.com/places/germany/thuringia/jena

Seek first the Kingdom and the things you deem so important will follow

2010-09-05T23:32:00.000-07:00

John D Rockerfeller made the point that if all you seek in life is wealth (or power or success), you will never achieve it.

Most who achieve great things in life, do not pursue success. Their goals are narrow and they serve the goal not the other way around. They put their backs into it over a long period, until their inputs derive a greater outcome.

Paul said, “I sowed, another watered but God added the increase” (1 Corinthians 6). He was an “inputs” man, who concerned himself with doing the right things and doing things right, whilst entrusting God to translate that into something significant.

Jesus was just the same, serving a narrow mandate, whilst entrusting the significance of that mandate to His father. Hebrews 10:5-7, confirms that He came to be a sacrifice, but the outcomes of that single act changed the course of history.

Galatians 5, which teaches on the fruits of the spirit, is often erroneously taught as an endowment, a gift dispensed by the Holy Spirit. But fruits are consequences, not gifts. They follow, never precede. As Jesus observed, we will be known by our fruits. An apple farmer sows and waters, but the proof of his labour is that it bears fruit in time. Similarly, our relationship with Jesus will bear fruit, to make us Christ-like.

Hebrews 2: 4 and Mark 16:14-18, amongst others, also imply that the evidence of God’s power will follow. It is wrong to follow spiritual signs and wonders or to regard them as a prerequisite for the gospel, although many preachers have gone to great lengths to evoke conditions for signs and wonders, even to the point of invoking mantras and formulas. Signs follow us, not the other way around.

God’s way is for us to add line upon line and precept upon precept, whilst entrusting the outcomes to God. The bible does not say we should follow signs, but that signs follow our witness. Jesus was wary of those who followed signs, saying in Matthew 7:7, “seek the kingdom and all those other things will be added”. Jesus is the essence of that Kingdom, so by implication we must put Jesus first and the Spirit will do the rest.

Don’t tell me the church cannot work without signs and wonders and don’t expect the church to be sustained by such signs and wonders. The church works because Jesus is in her midst and the shout of a king is amongst us. Not only that, but we will be sustained, because He will never leave nor forsake us. As such, neither angels nor demons, heights or depths, things present or to come, will ever separate us from His love.

So serve God and focus on what He has called you to do and in due time you will reap if you faint not (Galatians 6:9). I believe that God does great things, but we must focus on what matters to God, which is to build a Christ-centered kingdom. If we do that, we will see His witness confirmed in us.

Arise, shine, for thy light has come and the glory of God is risen upon you

2010-09-02T09:16:00.000-07:00

An unbalanced perspective of the Godhead, leads to hues and shades of God that detract from His glory and rob us of power. Just as white light results from the full mix of the visible spectrum, so the truth of God is reflected in the balance of the three sources of divine light: the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

I grew up in an orthodox context. It gave me good foundations but never brought me to a personal knowledge of Christ. My wife had an evangelical background, which was full of sound doctrine but otherwise staid. I guess it was a miracle that I came to know Jesus at all.

I was in the army, when a fellow soldier told me I also needed the Holy Spirit. After a few weeks of seeking God, I was mightily filled with the Spirit: an experience that set me on fire for God. That transformed me from an orthodox pew-warmer to a passionate believer, leaving me with the view that the power of the Holy Spirit is best revealed in a personal conviction of Christ.

As the years ebbed and waned I came to see that the Pentecostal movement had so swayed to the Holy Spirit that Jesus was almost passé. Many still agonise over the dearth of miracles without fully understanding the profound miracle already extended to all believers through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.

So where does this all leave me? Well I still value my roots, for they gave me solid foundations and I value my Pentecostal experiences, which gave me a dynamic faith. However, I am now more concerned with finding the sweet spot of a balanced faith.

Without knowing the father's will, we are self-serving, but without the indwelling Christ we lack the capacity to do the Father's will. Yet without the Holy Spirit, the will of God and the provision of Jesus, risks a form of Godliness without power.

If Jesus had independent power, He would have been reduced to another miracle man. Rather He obeyed His Father, to which the Holy Spirit, through the gifts described in 1 Corinthians 14, added His independent witness, confirming Him as the Christ. Thus by the mouth of two or three witnesses, every truth was established.

If we want to see real evidence of power in our lives, we must first be in the Father's will. The Father's will is to see all things restored through His Son, whom He made heir of all things. Thus, when our obedience to the Father becomes an expression of Christ in us, the hope of glory, the Spirit will independently ratify our witness, as we read in Hebrews 2:4.

If we focus on the Holy Spirit, we will embarrass Him, for He came to reveal Christ, not to be an independent source of power. But if we focus on Jesus and the will of God in Christ, the Holy Spirit will independently confirm our life witness.

Image source: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3187/3084323266_74962e5f89_o.jpg

Of the Son He said, "Thy throne Oh God, is forever and ever"

2010-08-30T23:56:00.000-07:00

There is a remarkable inter-dependence in the Godhead. For me it describes the ultimate model of leadership, where three roles merge into one entity, functioning co-dependently, whilst presenting human history with a unified, balanced witness. The three are functionally one, not just in terms of their being One God.

One of the best examples of these points is seen in the way the Father defers to the Son in Hebrews 1, saying, “Thy throne Oh God, is forever and ever”. Such words were never uttered to or about angels, because they were reserved for the Son. They are an expression of adoration and praise from the Father to the Son.

If the Godhead is a model of leadership, and for me church authority pertains to leadership, not leaders per se, then we are faced with a contradiction. The head pastor of that divine leadership above, in honoring the Son, effectively shows that His role as the Father is not a level or hierarchy, but a role amongst roles. Jesus reciprocated by saying that He could do nothing without the Father ... and evidently the Father has the same regard for the Son. The same principles apply to the Holy Spirit.

There is no doubt that the role of the Father is to be the final court of appeal, the referee and judge of all that is done in the earth. As such, He validates the works of the Son, but does execute His own mandate. He is independent of the Son's works, a posture that is so vital to preserving and confirming Christ's credentials.

A correct reading of scriptures like John 1:3 or Colossians 1:15-20, amongst others, confirms that whilst in the general sense God made the worlds, the bible specifically attributes the act of creation to the Son. Thus He was the light that shone into the dark void to bring the worlds into being and He will also conclude that work by folding up the heavens like a garment (Hebrews 1: 10-12).

The best confirmation of the interplay between the Father and Son is to be found in 1 Corinthians 15:26-28, which clearly states that when the last enemy, death, is destroyed, Jesus will submit all that was once submitted to Him, back to the Father. Then God shall be all in all. That confirms the mandate of Christ and His terms of reference and helps us to interpret all that He ever done.

The Godhead is analogous to the relationship between a Chairman (who does not do, but holds the CEO accountable), the CEO (who executes the mandate of the board and its shareholders) and the Secretary (the faithful scribe and pace-keeper). That succinctly describes the roles of Father, Son and Spirit.

The centrality of Jesus Christ or Yashua, is paramount to God’s intent and purpose. In recent decades the church has become somewhat sidetracked by the Holy Spirit to the point of following His power, for the sake of power, where in truth the key to all His power is Jesus. The Spirit came to reveal Christ, so when we make the Holy Spirit a focal point, we diminish the power of the Holy Spirit and we also oppose the intent and purpose of God in Christ, thus doubly weakening the church.

The church's one and only true foundation, is Jesus Christ her Lord

2010-08-26T07:14:00.000-07:00

When Jesus met the woman at the well, He introduced some remarkable truths. Rather typically, our regal king used few words to convey volumes of meaning across many dimensions: He specifically addressed the needs of the woman, but that overflowed to the needs of her community. Beyond that He spoke to Jews and Samarians and ultimately also addressed the church that would follow in His footsteps.

Sometimes I ponder how gainsayers fuel their doubts, for even if I had nothing else I would still be compelled to believe Him: His words are just so profound. Through great economy of language, He managed to reach the poor, the rich, the simple and wise, the Jew and the Gentile.

He addressed a long standing dispute over Jacob's well: Samaritans argued that the great patriarch had called it the house of God, and so it should be, whilst the Jews favored Jerusalem, because God covenanted with Abraham on Mount Moriah.

In cutting through the dispute He dispensed with a time or place religion, arguing that the only bases for future worship would be Spirit and Truth. Because God is Spirit and cannot be contained in buildings made by men, He made it possible for us to relate to Him through a mutual engagement of Spirits. Jesus also dismissed time issues, when He said: "The time is coming and has come, for all to worship God in Spirit and Truth", by which He implied that our access through the broken veil would have an inception without an end.

"Truth" in this context means "reality", by which Jesus implied that our experience of God would cease to be a symbolic shadow of dispensations to come. As the realisation of all that went before, Christ became the mediator of a better covenant, His blood speaks better things than Abel and His sacrifice gave us a new and living way, by which we also gained access to the grace wherein we now stand.

It is easy for believers to now stand aloof of all that and see both sides of the argument. However, Jesus did not preclude us from His argument, because, like them, we also contend over models, doctrines and dogmas. Unfortunately events of history are about to overtake all of that, including our wineskins, for all their virtue, and our buildings, for all their majesty. None of those things will ever contain the power and glory of our King or His advancing kingdom. As they rightly said in Narnia, "He is not a tame lion".

The coming struggle will converge believers from diverse contexts around a common position in Christ. The future struggle between the Kingdom of light and its antithesis, will not be about abstractions. They will all be about He who is, was and is to come. That is the foundation and capstone of our faith, its fabric and its life, for in Christ we have a building not made by human hands, a worthy habitation for the most High God.

Christ, and only Christ, became the fulfilment of all that went before. He is the key to every truth, word or prophesy ever uttered by God. As the Lord of the Harvest He will firmly draw the battle lines between those who are for Him and those who are not. It is that simple.

The wood, hay and stubble of our differences will not endure, but the gold, silver and precious stones of a redemptive faith will ... to rise above every distraction until the church victorious becomes the church at rest:.

Mid toil and tribulation, and tumult of her war,

she awaits the consummation of peace forevermore.

Till with vision glorious, her longing eyes are blest,

and the great church victorious, shall be the church at rest ~ S J Stone.

Even so, come Lord Jesus, Amen.

Image source: http://www.cstrikelp.com/

The path of the bride is converging with the groom as we enter the climax of the ages

2010-08-24T00:37:00.000-07:00

I am told that Voltaire once referred to the Apostle Paul as an “ugly little Jew”. How he even drew his conclusions so many centuries after the great man lived and died, is a bit of a mystery. That said, appearances never defined great men. Rather Paul referred to the sweet fragrance of Christ in His life, the powerful essence that endows the faithful with a regal air. Paul added, that the same fragrance, whilst alluring to many, remained a deep offence to others.

Now Paul also alluded to one of the key factors for that sweet fragrance. In Ephesians 4 he makes the point that, despite many differences in administration there is still one Lord, one Faith, On Baptism, One God and Father over us all.

Divergent administrations reflect the many different ways in which believers across cultures have given expression to their faith. Of course I tread on dangerous ground here, for the same Apostle was quick to add that not all who say they are believers are believers.

Indeed, the fringes of our faith are often far from wholesome, but as Jesus once said, “Let the tares and wheat grow together. When the Lord of the Harvest comes, will He not separate them and burn the chaff?”

Despite many differences. I have met believers across the spectrum of life that are substantially in agreement on the most vital tenets of our faith. My sense is that the gathering storm clouds signal a period of great struggle that will drive believers towards a common world view.

Over recent decades, automobiles started to look alike, as they all pursued an elusive aerodynamic ideal. Well maybe force of circumstances will also oblige believers across the earth to join ranks against our common enemies.

Yes we have our differences and maybe we always will have, but the future of the church will not be a celebration of differences. Rather we will converge around the most vital identifiers of our faith, to emerge as a bride adorned for her groom. Sam Stone put it best:

The Church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord, She is His new creation by water and the word. From heaven He came and sought her to be His holy bride, and with His blood He bought her and for her life He died.

The crux of our faith is Jesus Christ. That is why Paul said, “I sought nothing amongst you other than Christ and Him crucified”. He spoke well, for the simple reality is that the coming war will not be about us or our many differences, it will all be about Jesus. He is the scythe of God and the Lord of the Harvest. He is the whole counsel of God. He is the key to all that God is doing in the earth.

Image source: http://www.fotoviva.co.uk/PhotosStock/storm-coming-photograph.jpg

He who has the Son has life, He who has not the Son, has nothing

2010-08-20T03:10:00.000-07:00

New Testament writers had a wonderful way of using few words to speak great volumes. I am not sure they would have been too popular with today's book publishers or other media channels, because single paragraph books really don't spin the tills.

It has taken me half a lifetime to get a basic grasp of what Paul taught, because he refused to elaborate. He would sometimes reduce significant truth to a paragraph, but Jesus was even more elegant.

It was Jesus who simply stated, "if you will not eat my flesh or drink my blood, you will have no part of me". If I blogged anything like that you would cast a few bricks my way, banish me to Siberia and then delete my URL. Yet He offered no clarification, not even when a substantial part of His support base walked away.

As a king he had no need to explain Himself, but as the son of God there just was nothing to explain. God is. That is not an opinion, it is a statement that will defend itself though history, even when there is not one supporter left standing. It matters not what I have to say about it all: heaven and earth will pass away before one, just one, single utterance of God fails.

Jesus also reduced the entire law of Moses to a sentence. I am reminded of a philosophy test that asked, "if this is a question answer it", to which one wise-guy replied, "if this is an answer, mark it". The difference though, is that in Jesus' case, He effectively stated, "this is truth, do it". One small sentence captured the spirit and essence of the entire Mosaic law when He said, "Love the Lord your God and do unto others what you would have them do unto you".

Wow, if you were a student of the law, you would have got by, not through extended study or careful summations, but through your ability to recall that one, single sentence. Well actually, quoting the sentence would have got you 1 mark, whilst your grasp of its significance would have accounted for the other 99.

It was John, in 1 John 5:2, who made one of the most telling statements, when He reduced the totality of the New Testament to a similar yet infinitely elegant equation. Having spent time in the intimate presence of Jesus, he was best qualified to say, "No its not about your much studying (Paul rightly argued that such would make one made), nor is about your institutions or dogmas or doctrines or concepts or bright ideas or original thoughts." Just about anything that we regard as so important pails into insignificance when it comes to Jesus. Thus John aptly stated, "He who has the Son has eternal life, but He who does not obey the Son of God, will not see life: for the wrath of God remains on Him."

All He grasped was what Abel once grasped when, without so much as a word, He brought back to God all that God had once entrusted to Him. He brought none of His sweat capital or original thought, no impressive rereferences or higher debates. He simply offered a lamb to God ... because he had acquired enough of a sense of God's heart to know that was all that God wanted him to bring.

I say again, as I have said a few times of late ... the battle lines are forming around the one and only name given amongst men whereby all might be saved. There is no higher name. At His name, angels and devils, slaves and kings, the bond and free, male and female, Jew and Scyhthian, will all bow their knees. The coming struggle will reduce to one, simple, elegant equation - "what have you done with the son of God?"

Image source: http://amyegraham.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/narnia-lion1.jpg

Giving the finger to God, a sign of the dark times we are now entering into

2010-08-19T02:51:00.000-07:00

Some time ago I was in the Louvre museum, enjoying a Renaissance section of the museum, when my eye caught a very offensive gesture in a crucifixion scene. Off to one side, a bystander in the crowd had raised his hand to flex a rude hand signal to the dying Christ. I have tried searching for the painting in question, to no avail, but it is out there somewhere.

I think it was on the same trip where I saw a Muslim in Hyde Park, wipe his backside on the bible. The act may have been symbolic, but the gesture carried a full weight of meaning.

There was a time when such offences were frowned on by society in general. Nowadays, if anyone dared say a word out of place about Mohammed they would be in quick and serious trouble. Indeed, so sensitive has the world become to the Muslim cause, that US authorities have approved a mosque within sight of ground zero. I don't want to debate that, but I am concerned by the way that everyone is so desperate to appease Islam, whilst having no concern about blasphemous use of the name of Jesus in movies or the offensive portrayal of our Saviour in gay or lewd contexts.

Okay, so far so bad, but let me say again that the battle lines are now forming, around the only legitimate force of God that the hordes of darkness have ever really feared. Ultimately the devil and his minions will war against Christ and His armies on the great plains of Megiddo, to bring all the evil in the earth to a final climax. However, that battle line is emerging even as I speak. Whatever our perspectives, know that satan and his followers fully respect the threat that Jesus poses, so much so that they will even try to present a forged version of the Christ to the world. That is how far they are willing to go to distract humanity from the truth.

The world is no longer weighing the balances as it negotiates moral sensitivities, it is all but bulldozing through everything that is right and good. The storm clouds are gathering and a great darkness is starting to creep over the face of the earth.

Make no mistake, this war will not be about your denomination or dogma or other deviations, it will squarely relate to Jesus, the risen, conquering king, who is preparing to make war against all unrighteousness. The same, fearful king will soon ride out to tread the winepress of God's wrath. As that time nears, believers all around the earth will either stand united by their testimony, or they will, by default, fall to the other side.

There will be no middle ground or the neutral lands so long treasured by some nations. He will spew the lukewarm and indifferent out of His mouth. It is going to be all or nothing. I predict that a percentage of all believers who read this will eventually find themselves on the wrong side of the great Harvester's sickle, for a strong, seducing spirit of delusion is starting to sweep across the multitudes, causing many to stumble over the moral and ethical issues of our generation.

This year alone has seen the world's worst floods, the strongest magnitude earthquake, the worst earthquake disaster, raging fires, soaring summer temperatures and the emergence of super bugs. Yet, rather than repent, the growing crises are evidently raising the ante, resulting in the kind of offences against God that are best described as giving the finger to heaven. Heaven help this generation if that is so, for it is a fearsome thing to fall into the hands of a Living God.

Image source: http://thewaterfront.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/3352476359_61feaabf3d.jpg?w=500

Less is more, more or less, until less becomes less and more becomes more

2010-08-18T07:33:00.000-07:00

A friend appropriately encouraged me by SMS to keep things simple and to take more of God's truth at face value. He closed by saying, "Less is more".

Now, whilst in essence I agree with his challenge and indeed as a family we have significantly simplified our lives of late, I still have some dilemmas, most notably that it is just too easy for outsiders to oversimplify the realities of others.

How do I tell my wife and children that we should find ways to simplify our prevailing challenges, without provoking a cynical response? How do I tell them it will all be okay, whilst in reality it is anything but? How does my friend reconcile mounting debts against a non-existent income? Or how does my missionary friend, who lives in a completely off-the-beaten track village in Zambia, rationalise his trust in God whilst his resources are being consumed by the disease that is threatening the life of his child? I could go on, suffice to say that for those in crisis, life is rarely simple.

I recently reached out to someone in dire straights, but then heard that her daughter, the dux of her school and a fine young woman, was being asked to leave the school because the family could no longer pay her fees. Hmm, that's not a simple issue is it, well not if you are in the middle of it? We could help them to a degree, but with our own resources rather strained I chose to approach the school board and plead her cause, only to be told, "No we can't help her, she must learn to trust the Lord".

To say that I almost choked on my breakfast at the remark, would be an understatement. Look, I know schools have their own challenges and must walk their own tightropes, especially so for smaller, private Christian schools, but I had to counter with arguments about a limited bursary or a fee discount and a few other options, none of which proved to be acceptable to the school. Last I heard they were faced with a dead-end.

Its that kind of oversimplification that James criticised when he said, don't say God bless you to your brother and leave him wretched.

Look, this is not about challenging anyone to help their brother nor am I trying to put you on a guilt trip - that's another issue altogether. But I am inviting a debate about where the balances lie. How far do we take simplification, which, in principle, is a great, vital and biblical call? I concede that we do tend to over-complicate a lot of things, but is over-simplification an appropriate antidote? What do you think? What are your personal experiences and how have you found your own balances?

The unchanging ways of the Great I am, give us an objective faith and great hope

2010-08-16T03:53:00.000-07:00

Our fathers have a great penchant for saying, “Later”. The cat’s in the cradle song put it well, saying, “We’ll get together then and we’ll have a good time then”. For so many of us, a father’s word is somewhat flexible, offering well-meaning promises with no guarantee of fulfillment. This is not a go at Dads – I am one and I know how imperfect I am. Its more about contrasting the consistency of God.

Hebrews 12:4 confirms that our fathers discipline us from time to time according to their whim or at their own pleasure, but God chastens us for our good so we can share in His glory. What that means is that God is not capricious, but I will go further in suggesting that God does not even dispense favors. He is not a heavenly butler or vending machine, He is God.

Moses related to Him as the Great I am. Contrast that with a father who loves to say “I will”, but often doesn’t. God is not an “I will” Father, but an “I am” Father. He defines who He is in absolute and unequivocal terms.

The winds blow where they want to said Jesus in John 3:6, because God created a self-adjusting, self-perpetuating universe, that is governed by His laws. Like a great watchmaker He set up the mechanism, wound it up and then left it all to run its own course with little or no intervention. In fact, it is because of that fact that end-time judgments will effectively be self-imposed. God set within the mechanism various self-correcting laws that are now being pushed to their limits by human excesses. As we exceed the design envelope of the created world, the system will self correct, bringing untold troubles and woes on humanity.

Now the same Great I am, wrote the laws and embraced the covenant that now governs the state of grace wherein all believers now live. That state of grace is not subject to moments of whim or expressions of good favor on God’s part, rather it is preordained by an “I am” God. To access His grace and favor we must step into it. It will not come to us or adapt to our perspectives. We must move and change to experience it.

Consider healing. There are two themes of healing in New Testament teaching. Signs are given to unbelievers so that they may turn back to God. Then there is the healing which Jesus defined as “the children’s bread”. James 5:14 links it to biblical authority, but it is equally linked to a predefined outcome, namely, “and they shall be healed”. Jesus also confirmed, "If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you will ask what you need and it shall be given to you" (John 15:7).

I know that many have not been healed, but that deserves a separate discussion. The challenge I must leave you with is to stop being subjective about God, in assuming He does favors or good turns in response to our prayers or subjectively rejects you because you reject yourself. Rather you need to come to Him who is and is able to reward those who diligently seek Him.

Image source: Eagle Nebula, Hubble

You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God

2010-08-14T22:29:00.000-07:00

The coming battlefield will not be about ideology or faith. It will not be about dogmas, doctrines or denominations. It will not be about Greek, Hebrew, the tongues of men or of angels. It will not be about whether we worship in Jerusalem, Samaria, Canterbury or Rome. It will not relate to the full moon, the sun, the seasons or the time of day.

Future battle lines will be drawn around one subject, the eternal word of God: Jesus the light of the world.

For all our original thought and the initiatives that have characterized church life through the ages, our wood, hay and stubble will all be tried in the fires of tribulation. From the flames will emerge the timeless gold, silver and precious stones of a refined and pure faith that is, was and always will be built on the rock of ages.

All our structures will stumble, but Christ, the son over His own house, will sustain that which is founded in Him.

He is the Chief Cornerstone that the builders rejected. It is not patterns or concepts that sustain us, but the revelation of Christ as the son of God. Our grasp of His divinity has changed our lives and will yet lift us from the utmost to utmost. He alone sustains His people in the face of every contradiction. Jesus stood in the heart of darkness and the seat of paganism to say, “on this rock, of revelation, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it”.

It saddens me that the Pentecostals so emphasized the Holy Spirit that Jesus became a symbol. It saddens me that orthodoxy, in trying to rationalize Pentecostalism, compromised the power of the Spirit to deepen our faith in Christ. It also saddens me that in my own life struggles, I have at times forgotten who it is that walks beside me to bring me to glory.

In the coming battlefields, men will ask again, who is this? The manna of Moses had a similar inference, yet they were fed for forty years by a “what is this?” The new world order will not be centered around a system or a logic, but a person: the counterfeit of Christ. That is because, unlike the church, Satan and his hoards do believe in Jesus and tremble at the name. They know He is the key to our strength and faith. That is why they will tolerate almost anything short of a belief in the man Christ Jesus. Thus the final battlefield will once and for all answer that great cry, declaring to all “He is the Christ, the Son of the Living God”.

Image Source: Brian Jekel at http://www.picturesofjesus4you.com/images/baptism_of_christ_jekel.jpg

Jesus is the only name given amongst men whereby we might be saved

2010-08-12T23:16:00.000-07:00

Just two days ago I posted a blog on Newton's involvement in Arianism and how that signalled one of the great threats to our faith. I made the point that it is not the glaringly obvious errors that we must worry about, especially in this age of compromise, it is more the insiduous, subtle shifts in doctrine that are sadly quite widespread in modern Christendom. The more we try to contemporise the church, the more we expose ourselves to the risk of drifting off course and becoming assimilated into the world culture.

Well, today I found that on this day in 1553, John Servetus was arrested as a heretic and subsequently burnt at the stake. As a scientist and philosopher his public stature was significant, but we must add to that the fact that he actively participated in the reformation. He was no obvious heretic and even his Arianist views were ever so subtly removed from the central dogmas of the Christian faith. He accepted that the Logos, as described in Genesis 1 and John 1, was the eternal word of God and the force of creation. However, that Word only became Jesus when the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us. Accordingly, He regarded Jesus as a created being, less than God. In no other respect did He discredit Jesus.

Unfortunately, His position is key to our entire understanding of scripture. It intrigues me that Satan and the system over which he rules, would gladly have us go so far in our faith as to believe in Jesus, accepting Him as a mighty man or a prophet or even as the saviour, but they baulk at His claim to divinity. Someone once made the point that we would never forge monopoly money, but some would forge the real dollar note because of its intrinsic value. Well, the argument went on to say that attempts to forge a false model of Christ, reflect His ultimate value and the fact that He is the keystone of our faith. No wonder that the bible calls Him the stumbling stone of Zion, for it is not our faith that causes such controversy, but our Saviour.

If Jesus were anything less than God, His vicarious act of sacrifice would be worthless. If it were ever possible for a mortal man to intervene before God and secure our salvation, then sin was never sin and the entire gospel is a sham. More than that, as we see in the separation of the prophets, priests and kings of old and the principle that only in the mouth of two or three witnesses can truth be confirmed, the relegation of Jesus to a less than divine position, robs the Godhead of a complete and valid witness.

The only credentials Jesus ever invoked were His submission to the Father, by which He refuted any argument about His being a self-proclaimed saviour. More than that, it was vital for the independent justice of God to witness and validate the cross, without which we would not have had any guarantee of salvation. The only way all that was possible was for God to mediate between His righteousness and our humanity, by casting the eternal spirit of Christ into a human frame. We respect the weight of an oath, which is sworn by a higher reference, but God who could swear by no greater, swore by Himself, when God on earth, who mediated as the Son of man, cut a new covenant on behalf of all men with the great God above.

Christendom may have splitered into many emphases and positions, but there is no doubt in my heart that the final rampart of the war against the church relates to the pinnacle and essence of our faith, Jesus. Thus the only remaining option for Satan in His quest to destroy the work of God and advance His own dark cause, is to produce the ultimate forgery: a false Christ who will seduce many and drag the world away from the rock of all ages. Once that happens, the house as we know it will fall, but what will remain will be that which is rooted and grounded in Christ, the true church of the Living God.

Therefore don't tell me you go to church or believe, only tell me what you have done with the Son of God, for that is the crux on which all of life and eternity hinges. To that same point, salvation is not about how good you have been or what works you have done, nor is it a conciousness of Christ as a prophet, a mighty man or a sacrficial offering, it is about Him being the foundation of our lives and the only gateway to heaven. The struggle of the coming years will hinge entirely on such truths.

Will this age of compromise lead us astray or will the Lord of the Harvest intervene?

2010-08-11T00:22:00.000-07:00

Early this morning I read that Isaac Newton was a closet Arianist, which means that despite his public testimony, privately he questioned the Trinity and believed that Jesus was created, making Him less than God. Later a friend invited me to join a group which advocates a Trinitarian position, but I chose to write instead.

Arius was a dissident of the Nicene position, the council commissioned by Constantine the Great to canonize the bible and its doctrines. He preached his alternative theology around 250 to 336 AD and was significantly influenced by Lucius of Antioch. However, proliferation of Arianism helped to reinforce and cement the Nicene view of a Triune God.

The error persisted to the modern era, but it intrigues me that such a seemingly small departure from truth should have had such an influence on the church. Of course Arianism is a big error to Christians, but Arians still believed in Jesus and many other doctrines - they just could not see Jesus as equal with God.

That brings me to the crux of this article. Much of what the church is struggling with now, is not a glaring set of errors, but variations on a theme with significant consequences, which are so veiled that they are being assimilated into the mainstream faith. The orbit of the earth around the sun is just erratic enough for scientists to say that its position 100,000 years from now is unpredictable, just as seemingly little errors will ultimately compromise the essence of our faith.

Thankfully, the Nicenes rallied when their position was challenged. Indeed, it was thanks to persecution that the faith preserved its integrity and stayed on track. Does that predict a coming struggle for us?

Jesus, in the parable of the tares and wheat, makes allowance for the fact that truth and untruth will grow alongside each other in the course of history, until they both reach maturity - at which point He will separate the two and cast the tares into the fire. Given what we read in 1 Peter 4:17 about judgment beginning in the house of God, we must appreciate that the separation process will not be organic, but an act of God - one that will begin with the pain of judgment. It means that tough times will come on the church to force believers out of our prevailing apathy into a decision about what it is we believe.

Jesus despised a lukewarm faith, whilst Hebrews 10:38 adds that if we draw back God will not take pleasure in us.

Sadly I am seeing a growing apathy and indifference in believers. Daily I read trivia that shows no sense of Godly fear and a scant sense of the seriousness of our times. But, that is all about to change. We will be shaken up. Such shakings will renew convictions and redefine the faith, of the faithful, but they will present a very uncomfortable reality to those who have settled into the comfortableness of our collective compromises. The process will force all of us to nail our colors to the mast and choose our paths, but once the moment has come and gone, the gulf between truth and untruth will widen into a great chasm. Then will come the end when the Lord of the Harvest will use His scythe to finally and permanently separate the tares and the wheat.

Praying effectively: What role does Jesus play in our daily trials and struggles

2010-08-08T10:20:00.000-07:00

According to Romans 8, "The Spirit makes intersession for us according to the will of God". I don't wish to be contentious, but Romans 8:26-27 is not about the Holy Spirit (in spite of any Greek subtexts in the passage).

The context is about Jesus and His role in sustaining our walk of faith. Thus Paul opens the chapter saying, "there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ", whilst adding later, "if anyone has not the spirit of Christ, He is none of His." It is Christ's indwelling life that sustains us in our journeys of faith, thus bringing about the transformation of our minds that ultimately reconciles us to the Father's will.

Therefore the interceding Spirit is Christ and the text is not an argument for speaking or praying in tongues. According to a number of New Testament writers (1 Timothy 2:5), there is only one mediator between God and man, and that is Christ. He alone is the great High Priest so adequately described by the writer to the Hebrews. To that end, Hebrews 2 argues that He had to be made like Hs brothers (verse 17) so that He might become a merciful and faithful High priest. No one else was more qualified to intercede between us and the Father, than the Lord Jesus Christ.

Having made a sacrifice for our sins, He also pierced the veil that separated us from God and there made atonement for our sins, so that through His torn flesh He might make a new and living way of access to the Father (Hebrews 10:19). That access is through one of a few thrones in heaven, notably the throne of grace, which God has provided for us as an escape from the judgement throne.

Now, what we see is that Jesus, having passed into the heavens, makes intercession for us. The model used by Paul is a replica of the tabernacle, but aligned vertically (not across the ground), by which He passed not into the sacred chamber at the other side of the tabernacle, but into the very presence of God who is seated in the most sacred of all places: the throne room of glory above us, in the heavens.

His presence there is for the purpose of intercession. That has a passive and active implication. His passive presence, which bears before the Father the perpetual witness of the wounds of Calvary, literally intervenes on our behalf and stays the judgement of God. It is a line that the Father can never cross without invalidating the sacrifice made for our sins. Though the Father may at times be angered by our life choices, the presence of a wounded priest restrains His hand and stays His judgement. That said, never underestimate our ability to step beyond Christ's covering - which will expose us to the wrath of God. It is truly a fearful thing to fall into the hands of such a just, awesome, living God. We do well to fear Him.

The active role of Christ involves "groanings that cannot be uttered", whereby Jesus implores God, as He prays for us and bears us up through all our struggles. That brings me to the crux of this article. As He prays for us, does He too experience the hits and misses we experience in prayer? Do His deepest yearnings go unanswered and unfulfilled?

I would like to leave the question hanging there, but let me bring some perspective.

We must believe that Jesus contends with the Father, else His intercession is just a self-fulfilling act, devoid of the substance of those prayers and groanings that Paul wrote about. If He merely mouths the Father's predetermined will, His prayers are a sham. Rather, Jesus stands between us and the Father. He serves the Father's will, but relates to our weaknesses and serves to reconcile those two poles. Thus He wrestles with many real contradictions.

Okay, that is controversial enough and I think I have said enough for now. However, although I will work through subsequent articles to develop a more comprehensive position, I would love to hear your views, especially as this is a meaty and very relevant debate.

Image source; The cone Nebula, Hubble - the best and most reverend portrayal of the Great Intercessor I can find

There is empirical evidence that prayer heals, as reported by AFP

2010-08-05T23:34:00.000-07:00

The following was so intriguing I replicated in full to be true to the originator, AFP:

Washington - Prayer heals when it's close-up and personal, and there's a study to prove it.

It's not just any kind of prayer, but "proximal intercessory prayer", or PIP - when one or more people pray for someone in that person's presence and often with physical contact - that was found by a team of doctors, scientists and religious experts to have remarkable results in healing some patients.

A team of medical doctors and scientists led by Indiana University professor of religion Candy Gunther Brown found in the study, conducted in rural Mozambique, that prayer brought "highly significant" improvements to hearing-impaired participants and significant changes to the visually impaired.

Fourteen hard-of-hearing and 11 visually impaired study participants were recruited at meetings of Pentecostal Christian groups in Mozambican villages and towns.

They were tested with a handheld audiometer or vision charts, depending on their impairment, before and after they took part in a prayer session.

Clinical effects

"There was a highly significant improvement in hearing across 18 ears of 11 subjects" and "significant visual improvements," says the study, which will be published in September in the peer-reviewed Southern Medical Journal.

Two of the hard-of-hearing study participants were able to hear sounds 50dB lower after the prayer session and three of the visually impaired subjects saw their vision improve from 20/400 or worse to 20/80 or better.

The study focused on the clinical effects of prayer and did not attempt to explain how or why some participants saw such remarkable improvements.

"This study shows that in some instances there are measurable effects that can be demonstrated using clinical studies," said Brown, whose interest in the study was to explore spiritual healing practices.

"I consider this very much a first step and an indication of the direction for where research needs to head. Much more needs to be found out about why these effects are noticed, what are the mechanisms, are there structural changes involved," she said.

"But one thing this study tells us is that a major reason that Pentecostalism is growing is the widespread perception that healing takes place."

The Pentecostals typically spent between one and 15 minutes administering PIP, but some spent an hour or more with a "patient".

Psychosomatic improvement

"They placed their hands on the recipient's head and sometimes embraced the person in a hug" while praying softly out loud, according to the study.

The study focussed on hearing and visual conditions because they allow improvements to be objectively and easily measured, and are less susceptible to perceived or psychosomatic improvement than conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis.

Rural areas in Mozambique were chosen for the study because eyeglasses and hearing aids were not readily available there and Pentecostal groups who specialise in prayers for those with hearing and vision impairments were active there.

Brown and colleagues urged more studies "to assess whether PIP may be a useful adjunct to standard medical care for certain patients", especially in countries with limited care options.

"The implications are potentially vast given World Health Organisation estimates that 278 million people, 80% of whom live in developing countries, have moderate to profound hearing loss in both ears and 314 million people are visually impaired," the study says.

Source: AFP, 6 August 2010

Image Source: http://yehudafm.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/yeshua-still-heals-today.jpg

Its time to let go and move on, time to walk on the waters and live again

2010-08-02T23:44:00.000-07:00

No matter what part we play in initiating our own crises, more often than not there is a degree of injustice in it all. If you think back to David's struggle with Saul, you might argue that David got ahead of himself and thus provoked the king to jealousy, but the ongoing persecution of David was still unwarranted and unjust. Yet David submitted to God and did little to defend his own cause until Saul fell on his own sword. The resulting closure enabled David to move on and live again.

Similarly Moses, who had done astonishing things, was challenged by Korah and his sons. Instead of defending himself, Moses turned to God, surrendered his rights and submitted the issue to divine counsel. When the disputing parties met again, God made His own position very clear by causing the earth to open up and swallow Korah and his family. God, not Moses, saw that justice was done.

Recently we watched the wonderful Spielberg movie, The Lovely Bones, which portrays the abduction and murder of a teenage girl. She is then caught between heaven and earth, unable to move on. Likewise her father, thanks to his deep love for her, is unable to let go and live again for lack of closure. The two characters, though separated by a large chasm of reality, stay bound to each other as the wheels of justice grind along with little or no progress in the prosecution of her murder. Her body is never found, so the serial killer then starts plotting his next attack, assured that the trail on his previous deed is fading.

In the process, the father is alienated from his wife, whilst the girl discovers a whole group of girls, all victims of the same perpetrator, who are as unable to move on for lack of justice. The father subsequently gets into deeper trouble and suffers a near fatal incident, whilst his surviving daughter almost becomes the killer's next victim. It occurs to the dead girl that unless she lets go and releases her family, they will continue to be victims. Thus she chooses to move on, as does her father, which brings the story to a climax. Without sharing what happens, suffice to say, God causes the guilty to fall on his own sword. In the final scene the girl influences an outcome that brings release to all the girls with her and to her family below.

Yesterday a family in the Negev shared a scripture with me, from Psalm 69:32, which says, "The humble see, and thus rejoice they who seek God ... that hearts may live (again)." By way of commentary they made the point that the humble can only look up. The proud tend to look down, but the humble always look up.

So, if you find yourself caught up in circumstances that seem unjust, trust God to vindicate you. David actually prayed those very words in Psalm 17, as he looked to God for justice. Don't take matters into your own hands as you will almost certainly compound your crisis. Submit to God and let Him resolve the pain and solve your riddles, for in due course He will bring closure to your crisis. Look up to Him. Don't look down at the problems or whoever you believe to be the cause of your problems, as that will keep you locked in a vicious cycle of crisis that will just carry on spiraling downhill and so reduce you to a perpetual victim.

Don't look at your circumstances, else the waves will overwhelm you. Rather look up and walk on the waters. Again I say, look up, for your redemption is at hand.

Image source: http://www.findingfineart.com/members/1518539/uploaded/Kalwitz-WalkonWater.jpg

In the living years: settling accounts whilst we can so we leave with peace

2010-07-25T06:13:00.000-07:00

In the beautiful movie, "The blind side", Lee Ann Touhy bemoans the fact that Michael, her adopted, black giant of a son, so struggles to remember his school work. Her husband then interrupts to say what will stay with me forever: "Michael's greatest gft is forgetting". After years of being rejected, forced to forage for food, facing cold and lonely nights or walking in the rain, Michael learnt to forget, let go and move on.

Today my own father told me of the reasons he wants to die and go. I told him stuff I can't fully share here, except to say that there are many outstanding accounts in his life. I urged him to call in each of his children, to forgve them and secure their forgiveness - as an act of release.

I made the point that maybe the only real reason why old people are subjected to sad, empty twilight years, is to give them a chance to reflect on their lives before its too late. I also observed that the very things that are getting him down are merely a mirror to his own soul: such is the reflection that God brings to us as the grey shafts of evening filter in through the windows of our hearts. Indeed, our biggest offences will be reflected in one or more of our children - it has always and will always be that way, which is why I first take such offences back to God and pray that God first forgives and releases me so that my children may be free (of my offences and the sins of their fathers).

So now my Dad wants to go, but what is haunting him is the very thing that keeps him from the great moment of release that God intended the grave to be. It is true of us too ... in our living years. God sends issues to us to expose and resolve the unresolved issues that need to be resolved - and it won't go away until we get the victory. When my mom was in a similar state she clung to life for ages, until my Dad sent her a letter of forgiveness and release - she was gone within 24 hours.

For my Dad to really escape the prison of age and the limitations that hang over him, he needs to make a choice to escape long before they carry him out. The only way he can do that is to finally get mastery over the things that have always troubled him. Until he forgives, forgets and lets go, and until he find forgiveness so that others may find release, he will find his closing days increasingly gloomy. But if he chooses now to turn his sorrow into dancing and his mourning into dancing ... he will hear the voice of angels echo through his prison walls, long before he hears the jangle of the keys or the fall of the scythe.

As for you and me ... well can only I pray that we will never let it come to such a sad conclusion. God is speaking into your life and wants you to get victory over the issues that have always haunted you. The cross made adequate provision for your release and forgiveness, but there never was a better time to define the rest of your life, than right now. Let today be the first day of the first month of the rest of your days. Enough of ends, be they yet so sad, 'tis time to start again, to live and love and be what God wanted us to be.

Poem: Time only time - its all we have, our greatest and most underrated resource

2010-07-21T12:18:00.000-07:00

By silver light, the watchman

walks on shadowed walls,

until the night’s last stand

heralds the waking morn.

A sigh goes up, how long

‘ere the break of day,

when all the trees by song,

shall dance to gilded ray?

Soon, he shouts, very soon,
the golden orb shall breech:
for methinks its overdue -
so be gone, blackness, flee.

But then inquires another
“by what means can you tell -
or can this day be summoned
as flows the village well?”

What man could bid the day,
or by the hour the sun?
His light though soon or late
plumbs the line of time.

Raised wrists n’er defined
nor moved the hand divine,
what heav’n alone decides
that now, at last, its time …

.. for by the same decree
grey seasons come to pass,
so fade the stars that lead,
until day dawns, at last …

… to resurrect, by sure degrees
let none say can or can’t,
what God alone decrees -
this day be thus advanced

(c) Peter Eleazar @ www.4u2live.net

The book of Eli - do we own the Word of God or is it written on our hearts?

2010-07-17T02:18:00.000-07:00

Denzel Washingon's portrayal of Eli in the Book of Eli, is a dark, apocalyptic movie. I can't say I enjoyed it much, because the violence was quite gratuitous.

What a pity to give such a great idea the Hollywood treatment, which generally translates into: if its a disaster make it in NYC (by now it should be the worst place on earth to live), if its got any romance in it, it must reduce to a sex scene (that must be a directorial interpretation of love. They even dare to call it lovemaking, which it isn't, its just plain sex) and if its a family movie where four-letter words are inappropriate then revert to some Oh my God's or maybe some blasphemy.

I am not convinced that any of that sells movies - it reflects the soul of the movie maker, not the soul of the audience. I have watched aspects of Idols and saw the soul of America reflected in the voting, convincing me that a lot of Americans remain conservative and God-fearing.

Accordingly, I must question whether any of the aforesaid techniques reflect audience interests. They rarely enhance the movie and almost always detract from the soul of the story.

Anyway, regarding Eli, at least I can say that the movie has a good moral. Eli carries a book that later proves to be a decoy - it is well bound, looks like a bible, but has no printed text inside. That is analogous to the sad reality that for so many homes, ornately bound, family bibles are often simply dust collectors. They may be full of truth but empty of revelation and devoid of impact. How sad.

The darkest character of the movie, Carnegie, sees real power in the book, for it he knows that it can be used in the way it was never meant to be used, but has in any case been used - to darken the minds of the masses and control the people. What a sad alternative use of such a profound anthology of insight, enlightenment and wisdom. Yet in many cases it was religion who so misused it.

That brings Eli to the fore, who emerges as the real book. Having memorized every verse and chapter of the world's last remaining King James bible, his pursuers claim the physical book and miss the whole point - that the word of God is words and counsel, not a relic of antiquity.

Even then, the point is lost, because the remnants of a museum on the west coast, whilst so very interested in recovering the bible and putting it back into pring, choose to cynically file it in their library alongside the Koran and other religious works.

That brings me to the only character capable of doing real justice to that great book - the audience. For it is not in owning it or having it on our shelves or even being capable of reciting it from memory that the power of the word is released - it is only when the Holy Spirit writes truth and a divine interpretation of every nuance and facet of the word in the human heart, that the word becomes the Living Word.

The New Covenant promises to write the word on our hearts so that none need teach us. For God is committed to showing us the way - so much for the presumptuous posture of the clergy of history. The word of God is accessible to all men and confounds the wise, because it is a living, breathing wonder. It is indwelt by the spirit of God. If the tree in the garden was the Pandora's box that unleashed the dark reality of sin, then the Word of God is the wellspring that releases the life and mystery of God to all people.

Poem: Starting again - to the end of every season, comes a new beginning

2010-07-07T18:51:00.000-07:00

To every brokenness

of our personal hells,

each empty soul ends,

what started so well.

The naked cry of souls,

in search of covering,

to make the broken whole -

is a long road, unending.

Until our searching finds,

the approval of His love,

to firmly set in sound mind

the eye that looks above.

The closure of approval

heals each open wound,

bending levers of evil

to the fulcrum of His will.

Until, in turning they find,

the path that leads home.

But, though our ways wind,

we will never walk alone.

Seasons come and go - does God orbit our lives or do we orbit His?

2010-07-06T11:26:00.000-07:00

The comings and going of seasons are never because the sun moves, but because we move around a fixed sun. So much for the science lesson – I am sure you knew it was always that way, even if the dark ages had the sun dancing around our insignificant orb.

The principle is as true of our relationship with God. We move into and out of seasons, but God never moves. He is the independent variable of this universe. The picture of a divine constant is also seen in heaven, where the glory of God is its eternal light.

The point here is potentially as radical as the moment when the inquisition finally buckled under the compelling evidence of Galileo’s heliocentric universe model.

I have spent years in churches listening to people deeply imploring God to “come and be with us”, or “visit this place or that meeting” – as though that is what God does. It just is not so. He never, ever moves. He is an absolute standard and we, through Christ, move toward and become reconciled to Him, not the other way around.

As any human standing on the face of the earth has observed, we rotate into and out of the sun’s rays, but the sun stays where it has always been. Similarly, our journeys in Christ bring us closer to and at times pull us away from, the constant presence of God. Whether by force of daily routines or adversity, we move in and out of fellowship with God, for as Jesus confirmed, “the sheep go in and come out and find pasture”.

It is so futile to implore God to come down and be with us, when He has made a new and living way for us to be where He is. We are even seated with Him in heavenly places.

The crux of this argument relates to our life seasons. Sometimes life has its virtues and other times it is a grind. That is as true of trees and plants. The sunlight fades, winter chills blow in, days shorten and nights lengthen: inducing trees to shed leaves and prepare for winter. Inexorably the warmth returns, to clothe the trees in bridal blooms and glorious greens, in anticipation of their destined moment of fruitfulness.

At the heart of this observation is a point that I have battled to grasp. The trees do not toil and sweat to reclaim their glory, they merely respond to the warmth of the returning sun and so become what they were destined to be. The path to recovery from your own wintry seasons of crisis, will likewise reflect our response to the energy, life and vitality that God pours into us as we move back towards Him. He appoints all times and seasons, so when the time is right, you will revive … without sweat or toil, because the light and glory of God will clothe you again and bring you to fruitfulness.

If you do not faint or pull back in the tough times, you will feel the subtle changes that mark the returning sun – and once it starts it will not stop until it is fulfilled.

Flying the meatball to find the sweet spot of God

2010-06-30T04:14:00.000-07:00

One of the most demanding skills around involves landing a high powered jet on the deck of an aircraft carrier. With only 500 feet of landing space on a surface that often heaves on the sea, it is a very dangerous activity.

There are all kinds of support systems, including approach guidance systems, flight deck communications and a triple arrestor system that is used to snag the plane’s arrestor hook and bring it to a safe, albeit quick stop.

One of the systems used is the long range line-up system or Lens, which uses a number of green, orange and red Fresnel lights supported by a gyroscopically stabilised platform. If a jet has the right angle of approach, the pilot will see what is called, “The meatball” – the amber lights in line with a row of green lights. If coming in too high, the green lights will be above the orange lights. Too low and the pilot will see red light.

Thus, a final approach is generally dubbed as “flying the meatball”.

In one of my books I describe how a spacecraft returning from space also faces the challenge of an ideal glide slope. If it comes in too steep it will burn out, but if comes in too shallow it will bounce back into the abyss of space.

That is analogous of what I call the sweet spot of God. Spiritual immaturity is often too steep, full of unguided enthusiasm and energy that burns out quite quickly. We have all faced such reality checks, where our presumptions clatter into the immoveable presence of a great father. The resulting comeuppance is vital to adjusting our boundaries and our approach, the way that a child’s stumbles and falls slowly lend to skilfulness.

Sadly, many then pull back so much that they have little or no commitment. They then bounce out – ending up in a meaningless orbit that forever skirts a deeper walk with God, resulting in many regrets over “what might have been”.

The same model applies to our spiritual meatball. Too many come at their life issues, challenges and decisions with an angle of attack that predicts a serious crash. We don’t inquire of God or stand still to hear His voice, resulting in serious navigational flaws that must eventually fail us. But others are so cautious in their approach that they run out fuel and stamina long before they can ever land.

F B Meyer was on the deck of ship in a stormy sea and inquired how the crew could know when their harbour approach was safe. The captain pointed to a row of three red lights and said, “When we can see all three lights, we are on target”.

That brings me to the rub – if you want to find the sweet spot of God, get your lights properly lined up. Ensure that your decisions are based on the circumstantial leading of God, confirmed by scripture and sealed by His inner voice. Don’t pull back when He does lead you into a new challenge, else you will regret the consequences and bounce away from God-given opportunities, but don’t be rash and impulsive either or you will burn out and blow your chances.

Where do we stand?

2010-06-18T00:44:00.000-07:00

One of the greatest causes for human crisis results from misrepresentations of God. The dark ages marked a significant eon of human crisis driven by ignorance about God and His heart for humanity. Fear of the unknown reduced all unknowns to the devil’s work which enslaved humanity to ignorance, suspicion, superstition, fear and all the more obvious consequences of that age: dungeons, death and disease.

Aside from many other obvious social deviations, we each have our own personal misconceptions of God. It all reminds me of a little Church Mouse cartoon, which shows a mouse saying “Lord, just look at what is now available in the Internet”, to which a voice in heaven replies, “I’d rather not”.

Okay, enough of the more patently negative aspects of human attitudes to God. To me it is more tragic that believers are getting into trouble because of their misconceptions.

I have seen too many slam into brick walls naively believing that God has led them into this or that. They spiritualize mere feelings and amplify the softest nuances into conceptualizations of God, but never stop to blame their golden calves when it all goes wrong. In essence they end up tempting God and then wonder why God opts out.

Others live their lives to their own rules, following their own instincts with barely any reference to God, the bible or sound counsel and then wonder why their marriages, homes, finances, businesses and other contexts are in a mess. They forget a fundamental rule: The Lord is God, and there is none beside Him.

Then there are those whose lives are more subtly outlived. They apply the word of God selectively, to vindicate all kinds of deviations, thus defying the principle that we cannot live by bread alone, but by every word of God.

More tragic, for me, is the number of really meaningful souls who are in trouble, not because they defy God or follow Him in error, but because they just don’t grasp their spiritual position. I am certainly in that camp at the moment, although all the previous mentioned errors applied to me at one stage or another in my life. Yesterday I cried to God for a deliverance that has so long eluded me, until I sensed the still, small voice of God saying, “Why do you reduce my objective will and the historic facts of the cross to a subjective exercise? Why don’t you just live in what I have done? It can’t be taken from you, but whatever my Son did for you will only extend to theory until you grasp that He died to set you free and give you victory over sin. That is your heritage, so live in it.”

God means no harm in our lives and has given us all that pertains to life and Godliness. It is up to us to decide how we outwork and appropriate such truth, but we will never rise above the human condition until we shift our positions and walk in the light.

Experience builds hope

2010-06-17T02:48:00.000-07:00

In Romans 5, Paul contends that Hope is a product of experience. His contention brings a very practical angle to an otherwise spiritual debate. Believers are very good at over-spiritualizing life. That alludes to a branch of logic in psychology called paranoid-schizoid defenses that describes how the mind develops internal bulwarks against threats.

Splitting … involves a process of simply dividing the world into two and identifying the more attractive world as friendly, thus reducing everything else to a wrong or a threat. It sadly erodes all sense of hope, because it denies reality and inhibits real experience.

There is a third way in all binary debates – good may exist, bad also exists, but it is always better to find out for yourself and then form an opinion or view based on real experience. Such experiences reshape our perspectives and help us to move from a threatening, denialist posture to an engaging, hopeful lifestyle – based on experience.

Projection – is a process whereby we externalize our threats and give those threats a face. A woman with a troubled background may link everything bad to a male face, a process that will rob her of a fulfilling life. Somehow she will need to remove the haunting mask of a past tormentor and find out for herself what lies beyond. It would be sad if her fears were reinforced, but we all unconsciously gravitate to experiences that reinforce our prejudices, so it will take a lot of courage to shatter our death masks and step into a new reality – the experience will bring hope that there are other good experiences out there.

Denial – is implied in the other defensive tactics, but manifests in a deliberate avoidance of anything that could reframe prejudices. Denialists tend to avoid news or views that explore alternative views. Instead it reinforces surrounding walls by simply shutting out the light and closing the windows of the soul. But a soul that opens up and dares to go outside, will always find that 99% of our fears are ill-founded. We generally have nothing to fear as much as fear itself, but in opening up we will allow our experiences to shift and confirm the merits of an alternative perspective, resulting in hope.

Paul was saying that experience of God brings hope. In spite of many negative experiences and times when we have had to patiently wait for His deliverance, He always comes through. He never forsakes us. He always fulfills His promises. Enough experiences of His provisions, for all their subtleties, will give us hope in whatever new crises we face in the future.

Now we get to Paul’s logic chain. He argues that hardship works patience: the patience to persist through our crises until we come out the other side and the patience to trust God through the long and lonely nights. That patience is always and will always be rewarded with a positive experience and that in turn will build faith and hope. It is that logical. If you expect the worst of God, then like Israel of old you will only ever see a desert, but if you look out for the best and build on His faithfulness, you will see wells in the desert.

Image source: www.hevallo.blogspot.com

Work in progress

2010-06-07T03:31:00.000-07:00

Wendell Phillips said, “Every step of progress the world has made has been from scaffold to scaffold, and from stake to stake”. Of course there is a double meaning, for our world as we know it was as much formed on the scaffold of the stone-mason as on the scaffolds where truth died to spare the lies of thrones. Our own lives are also under the scaffold, an incomplete work whose time must surely come.

Many years ago I lay on the floor of the Sistine chapel to admire Michelangelo’s profound adornment of the ceiling. At the time the last supper was under renovation, masked behind scaffolding and workers sheets. For all the wonder of that equally famous painting, I was denied something of its true greatness.

At the time many other great buildings across Europe were undergoing renovations, so I found similar scenes of scaffolding and workers tools in a number of cities. Right now my own part of the world is facing similar refurbishment, so many of our buildings and other public places are encased in their own frameworks of scaffolding.

When God starts to work intensely with you, He also puts up scaffolding around you. He hems you in and restrains all progress, so you can stand still long enough for Him to reach your heart and renew your mind. That always leads to painful contradictions, where we just cannot seem to move on, for all the trying. Wave after wave of setback and disappointment will typically break over our lives and the winds of life will strip our branches to leave us standing naked in confusion and uncertainty.

It may take months, years, even decades for Him to chisel away the grime of sin and equip us for our regal purpose, for He is a master-craftsman. He will not skimp or shortcut the process until He has completely uprooted all that inhibits your potential. When He is done, and only when He is done, He will tear down the restraints, fold away the sheets, collapse the scaffolding and release us to take our rightful place – out in the sun, in open view of all who pass by.

I daily come across people in various states of crisis and the patterns are all so similar. I thank God for such patterns, as they enable the past to speak so relevantly to our present. Lives like Abraham, Jacob, Sarah, Ruth, Moses and Paul, all faced long journeys and years of scaffolding before God released them to become history makers and those great souls still make sense today, because nothing is new under the sun.

God’s intent is to bless you and not harm you. His plans for you are good. We have to believe that. One of the reasons Jesus walked on water and would not be made a king nor cast off a hill was because He found a place of perfect peace in the Father’s will. There is room enough for you there too, but you need to let Him finish what He is doing so that you can emerge as one set free to be what He destined you to be – then you too will make history.

(c) Peter Eleazar @ www.4u2live.net