Or 'Follow my Leader'
Or 'Be a Leader'
One Amazing Man!
Kind of a Billy Graham of his day, only combining a salvation message with healings. John Alexander Dowie had an amazing ministry and founded Zion City, however, he was toward the end of his life a very much flawed character, though one wonders if this was simply a mental illness. Dowie influenced many people and his ministry was going on around the time of the Welsh Revival. Alexander Boddy, a C of E minister from Sunderland (Sunderland Revival), visited Zion City in 1913 and this article from a magazine of the time is very interesting and includes something about Mrs Woodworth-Etter as well (last email's 'Amazing Woman'). This from the article, “Thousands have been made whole of every disease known at this age of the world, including one case of leprosy. Most of the cases that were healed were considered chronic by physicians. Many were brought on beds in a dying condition, given up by the best physicians; and many of them are living today, well and happy. Hundreds were saved and healed at the same time, otherwise they would have died in their sins ,and thousands of unbelievers of all classes were brought to Christ by seeing the mighty works of God”
John G Lake also visited Zion City and the Azusa Street Revival. The picture above is a common one from the time of Dowie's ministry and such pictures often had a banner saying, 'Captured From the Enemy!'
I wanted to look at Psalm 85
6 Will You not revive us again,
That Your people may rejoice in You?
7 Show us Your mercy, Lord,
And grant us Your salvation.
8 I will hear what God the Lord will speak,
For He will speak peace
To His people and to His saints;
But let them not turn back to folly.
9 Surely His salvation is near to those who fear Him,
That glory may dwell in our land.
10 Mercy and truth have met together;
Righteousness and peace have kissed.
11 Truth shall spring out of the earth,
And righteousness shall look down from heaven.
12 Yes, the Lord will give what is good;
And our land will yield its increase.
3 Righteousness will go before Him,
And shall make His footsteps our pathway.
Surely our heartfelt prayer for our nation is verse 6, 'revive us again'. The, 'why', is a bit surprising perhaps, 'that Your people may rejoice in you'. Not so we have reformation? justice? an end to crime? an end to poverty?, families restored? No, primarily that we may rejoice in Him! All these other essentials do follow, righteouseness, truth, increase because of God's goodness. Now verse 13 is interesting. It's as if someone is beating a path through the undergrowth, we are meant to follow that person. It's very hard for our leaders to both have the vision, then the courage and strength to begin beating a path forward, they need us to catch the vision, to help to push forward, to support. Even if sometimes they are mistaken. It's like sometimes they beat and hack a path through and we follow and then we have to turn round because it turns out it wasn't that way - we deviated a bit is all that happened. So we must try again in a slightly different direction.
If we look at these people's lives, they suffered hardship and personal loss. John G Lake's wife died on the mission field in South Africa, many of John G Lake's commissioned workers faced death from starvation. Mrs Woodworth-Etter lost children. Yet these people saw things happen that we can hardly dare believe for today! Yet these things are happening in countries like Mozambique today, so what's the key ? Is it all just about God's sovereign will or can we bring about revival again in our lives and in the lives of those around us? See these testimonies from recent IHOP meetings in Manchester and Bolton testimonies - so maybe we can and we can rightly expect. We know anyway, that we are to lay down down and consecrate our lives . .
Dowie got everyone to say this prayer of consecration (or similar) at the end of his meetings, 'My God and Father in Jesus name I come to Thee. Take me as I am. Make me what I ought to be in spirit, in soul, in body, no matter what it costs. Give me thy Holy Spirit. Lead me to thyself my Father. Take away my sins, and give me a pure heart that I may fervently love Thee and all things pure for Jesus sake. Amen.'
God Bless you
Andy Harper
Email Response
Monday, 22 November 2010
Send to a friend
Wednesday, 10 November 2010
Affirm the Good
“We should affirm what is good” the Rev Paul Hardingham, Sunday night’s (07/11/10) sermon at St Peter’s
"What I have to say touching visions or dreams, is this: I know several persons in whom this great change was wrought in a dream, or during a strong representation to the eye of their mind, of Christ either on the cross or in the glory. This is the fact; let any judge of it as they please. And that such a change was then wrought appears (not from their shedding tears only, or falling into fit, or crying out; these are not the fruits, as you seem to suppose, whereby I judge, but) from the whole tenor of their life, till then many ways wicked; from that time holy, just, and good” John Wesley Journal
Last week we our church hosted a conference organised by Vinelife UK. There were also three evening meetings at Salford University with over 2000 people each evening. A team came from the International House of Prayer, Kansas City, which is also a bible school. They were instrumental about eleven years ago in setting going the 24/7 prayer movement. They now have about a thousand people praying and worshipping 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. About a year ago, after ten years of praying an awakening/revival occurred. In the year since there have over 1500 baptisms/salvations, many healings, for example, emotional from shame, self hatred as a result of sexual abuse, cancer, over twenty people who no longer need glasses, etc.
The conference was amazing! The main teaching was how much God loves us and that we should be chasing after that love, that everything flows from this amazing intimacy we can enjoy with Jesus. Also that healing is a ministry for all believers. We got to practice this and a number of people were healed from bad backs, joint problems, stiff necks, etc. The evening meetings were also astonishing, with healings including, curvature of the spine, asthma, Lupus, legs from needing leg braces, etc. I received healing from asthma, which I need to confirm, when I have a lung function test next week. There certainly has been a huge improvement, for example, I was on three different kinds of inhalers and have awoken every night since spring this year (bar perhaps two occasions) needing to use my rescue inhaler. Since Wednesday night I have slept soundly right through to my alarm! I love it and feel great!
Now I do have to say that some things were going on that could easily draw our focus away from that which we should be affirming as good – namely healings and salvations. We can get over excited in all sorts of different ways about people falling to the ground (see John Wesley above), shaking, laughing, crying, etc. We don’t need to judge these matters nor do we need to go around telling people it is necessary to experience the Holy Spirit in this way. We are all unique as individuals and churches and God has his special plan and unique way of dealing with us. We all earnestly desire that we move forward with salvations and healings and the last thing we want is division over these lesser matters (not lesser to the individuals concerned, but to us watching on, if you get my meaning) We have our biblical model in Jesus and biblical instructions ( for example, the laying on of hands and anointing with oil). Whatever else happens is God’s business!
We all know and love and trust each other enough to push forward, to tolerate, to have our questions along the way. The main thing is let’s get our ‘shoulders to the boulder’ of sickness and sin and see them defeated! In the name of Jesus!
18 And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. 19 May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God 20 Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think Ephesians 3:18-20
Bless you in Jesus name
Andy
"What I have to say touching visions or dreams, is this: I know several persons in whom this great change was wrought in a dream, or during a strong representation to the eye of their mind, of Christ either on the cross or in the glory. This is the fact; let any judge of it as they please. And that such a change was then wrought appears (not from their shedding tears only, or falling into fit, or crying out; these are not the fruits, as you seem to suppose, whereby I judge, but) from the whole tenor of their life, till then many ways wicked; from that time holy, just, and good” John Wesley Journal
Last week we our church hosted a conference organised by Vinelife UK. There were also three evening meetings at Salford University with over 2000 people each evening. A team came from the International House of Prayer, Kansas City, which is also a bible school. They were instrumental about eleven years ago in setting going the 24/7 prayer movement. They now have about a thousand people praying and worshipping 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. About a year ago, after ten years of praying an awakening/revival occurred. In the year since there have over 1500 baptisms/salvations, many healings, for example, emotional from shame, self hatred as a result of sexual abuse, cancer, over twenty people who no longer need glasses, etc.
The conference was amazing! The main teaching was how much God loves us and that we should be chasing after that love, that everything flows from this amazing intimacy we can enjoy with Jesus. Also that healing is a ministry for all believers. We got to practice this and a number of people were healed from bad backs, joint problems, stiff necks, etc. The evening meetings were also astonishing, with healings including, curvature of the spine, asthma, Lupus, legs from needing leg braces, etc. I received healing from asthma, which I need to confirm, when I have a lung function test next week. There certainly has been a huge improvement, for example, I was on three different kinds of inhalers and have awoken every night since spring this year (bar perhaps two occasions) needing to use my rescue inhaler. Since Wednesday night I have slept soundly right through to my alarm! I love it and feel great!
Now I do have to say that some things were going on that could easily draw our focus away from that which we should be affirming as good – namely healings and salvations. We can get over excited in all sorts of different ways about people falling to the ground (see John Wesley above), shaking, laughing, crying, etc. We don’t need to judge these matters nor do we need to go around telling people it is necessary to experience the Holy Spirit in this way. We are all unique as individuals and churches and God has his special plan and unique way of dealing with us. We all earnestly desire that we move forward with salvations and healings and the last thing we want is division over these lesser matters (not lesser to the individuals concerned, but to us watching on, if you get my meaning) We have our biblical model in Jesus and biblical instructions ( for example, the laying on of hands and anointing with oil). Whatever else happens is God’s business!
We all know and love and trust each other enough to push forward, to tolerate, to have our questions along the way. The main thing is let’s get our ‘shoulders to the boulder’ of sickness and sin and see them defeated! In the name of Jesus!
18 And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. 19 May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God 20 Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think Ephesians 3:18-20
Bless you in Jesus name
Andy
Friday, 5 November 2010
Joy and Offense
Hi Folks
“Our identity must be rooted in His desire for us” and “the greatest hindrance to prayer is because we don’t believe God enjoys us” - Wes Hall, International House of Prayer, Kansas
Recently, visiting a church, the pastor introduced the speaker this way, “come on William, offend us, shake us up’. Offend us ?!?! Offend us? No thanks! I came here for a quiet sit and to be entertained! How many of us can remember, before we were Christians, being offended by the gospel, the struggle, accepting Jesus, then the joy? Now, how many of us know that that is just the start of a journey (yes, we are saved and nothing can change that). Sometimes it’s like we have let Jesus into the hallway of our lives, we run off and fetch a chair and say, “now Jesus, you just sit here and keep quiet, I’ll handle things from here on in” Then when the kitchen’s on fire we run back into the hall and say, “Jesus, help me, help me, don’t you know the kitchen’s on fire?” Before running back into the kitchen . . So in some ways the ‘struggle, accepting Jesus, joy’ process is meant to be repeated as we journey on. Let’s ask God to make us willing to submit, for wisdom to recognise the devil’s lies. Here’s one I fell for without realising it. Looking back I think that I didn’t fully believe that God is good to me and good all the time. If we don’t fully believe this then the devil can sneak in and during hard times we become resentful. We stay too long with the ‘why has God allowed this to happen’ question and rebellion or self pity become our routes of choice. And to be honest I know I have a good long way to go with this . .
Sometimes we have a problem with Joy, in that we feel it is selfish to seek it or to be seeking to be joyful all the time. I’m not talking about chasing happiness as an end in itself, rather the joy from having an ever more intimate relationship with Jesus. And expecting, as we grow in this relationship, to be more joyful , more of the time. Scripture confirms this, church history also gives some clues, we can trust the Holy Spirit to guide as to what is truth and God has also given us the ability to ‘reason’ ie work things out with our brains! And learning from experience is also valid!
Evan Roberts, one the main characters in the Welsh Revival, was thought by some to be insane because he was, “too happy”. The welsh revival produced 100,000 new Christians, oh that I was that happy!
“Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever”, the Westminster Catechism
“17 For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of what we eat or drink, but of living a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. 18 If you serve Christ with this attitude, you will please God, and others will approve of you, too. 19 So then, let us aim for harmony in the church and try to build each other up “ Romans 14: 17-19
Here Paul tells us that living a life of ‘goodness’, ‘peace’ and ‘joy’ in the Holy Spirit will please God. Doing good is linked with living a life of peace and joy
“16 Always be joyful. 17 Never stop praying. 18 Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.
19 Do not stifle the Holy Spirit. 20 Do not scoff at prophecies, 21 but test everything that is said. Hold on to what is good. 22 Stay away from every kind of evil” 1 Thessalonians 5: 16-22
“Always be joyful” is fairly unequivocal – it couldn’t be much clearer really !
My plea to you and for me, is this – submit, ask Him to show you areas of your life you need to hand over. Get hold of “God is good to me, all the time!”, say it out loud! Ask the Holy Spirit to nudge you when you have a thought or say anything contrary to God is good, so that you will say “No, wait a minute God is good to me/you, all the time”. Run after Him, because He is running after you, He totally loves you, you are unique, loved with a unique love, His favourite, with a unique job to do for the Lord that no one else can do! Be humble/courageous enough to ask someone you trust at your church to pray with you (or if you have a regular ministry time, get up there!), ask them to put their hand on your shoulder and tell them , look I always feel rejected like nobody likes me or I just can't believe God loves me, or that God would ever use me or that God would ever heal me or whatever it is - because God has something for you!
Andy
“Our identity must be rooted in His desire for us” and “the greatest hindrance to prayer is because we don’t believe God enjoys us” - Wes Hall, International House of Prayer, Kansas
Recently, visiting a church, the pastor introduced the speaker this way, “come on William, offend us, shake us up’. Offend us ?!?! Offend us? No thanks! I came here for a quiet sit and to be entertained! How many of us can remember, before we were Christians, being offended by the gospel, the struggle, accepting Jesus, then the joy? Now, how many of us know that that is just the start of a journey (yes, we are saved and nothing can change that). Sometimes it’s like we have let Jesus into the hallway of our lives, we run off and fetch a chair and say, “now Jesus, you just sit here and keep quiet, I’ll handle things from here on in” Then when the kitchen’s on fire we run back into the hall and say, “Jesus, help me, help me, don’t you know the kitchen’s on fire?” Before running back into the kitchen . . So in some ways the ‘struggle, accepting Jesus, joy’ process is meant to be repeated as we journey on. Let’s ask God to make us willing to submit, for wisdom to recognise the devil’s lies. Here’s one I fell for without realising it. Looking back I think that I didn’t fully believe that God is good to me and good all the time. If we don’t fully believe this then the devil can sneak in and during hard times we become resentful. We stay too long with the ‘why has God allowed this to happen’ question and rebellion or self pity become our routes of choice. And to be honest I know I have a good long way to go with this . .
Sometimes we have a problem with Joy, in that we feel it is selfish to seek it or to be seeking to be joyful all the time. I’m not talking about chasing happiness as an end in itself, rather the joy from having an ever more intimate relationship with Jesus. And expecting, as we grow in this relationship, to be more joyful , more of the time. Scripture confirms this, church history also gives some clues, we can trust the Holy Spirit to guide as to what is truth and God has also given us the ability to ‘reason’ ie work things out with our brains! And learning from experience is also valid!
Evan Roberts, one the main characters in the Welsh Revival, was thought by some to be insane because he was, “too happy”. The welsh revival produced 100,000 new Christians, oh that I was that happy!
“Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever”, the Westminster Catechism
“17 For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of what we eat or drink, but of living a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. 18 If you serve Christ with this attitude, you will please God, and others will approve of you, too. 19 So then, let us aim for harmony in the church and try to build each other up “ Romans 14: 17-19
Here Paul tells us that living a life of ‘goodness’, ‘peace’ and ‘joy’ in the Holy Spirit will please God. Doing good is linked with living a life of peace and joy
“16 Always be joyful. 17 Never stop praying. 18 Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.
19 Do not stifle the Holy Spirit. 20 Do not scoff at prophecies, 21 but test everything that is said. Hold on to what is good. 22 Stay away from every kind of evil” 1 Thessalonians 5: 16-22
“Always be joyful” is fairly unequivocal – it couldn’t be much clearer really !
My plea to you and for me, is this – submit, ask Him to show you areas of your life you need to hand over. Get hold of “God is good to me, all the time!”, say it out loud! Ask the Holy Spirit to nudge you when you have a thought or say anything contrary to God is good, so that you will say “No, wait a minute God is good to me/you, all the time”. Run after Him, because He is running after you, He totally loves you, you are unique, loved with a unique love, His favourite, with a unique job to do for the Lord that no one else can do! Be humble/courageous enough to ask someone you trust at your church to pray with you (or if you have a regular ministry time, get up there!), ask them to put their hand on your shoulder and tell them , look I always feel rejected like nobody likes me or I just can't believe God loves me, or that God would ever use me or that God would ever heal me or whatever it is - because God has something for you!
Andy
Thursday, 28 October 2010
A Woman's Role ?
These are my notes from a recent Bill Johnson sermon I listened to, so apologies Bill and to you guys, hopefully though I have captured something of the essence of the message, the Lord bless it to you! It's a fantastically encouraging message!
Genesis2:18 And the Lord God said, “ It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.”
Ephesians 2:31 “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.
Apparently the Hebrew word for 'helper' is two words, Hebrew often has no vowels so you can get a word with two or three words squashed together. The word is best translated as, 'power', 'strength', and 'rescue' - the King James translaters made this into 'helper'. Comparable means 'face to face' or 'reflecting' or 'doing on behalf of' or 'doing together'
Paul in Ephesians 2:31 reflects on the relationship between a man and a woman being like that between Christ and the church or you and me and Jesus
My orginal notes are below . . ( a woman's role? of course in relation to Christ it's a man's as well and I'm sure equally applies to a husband and wife . .)
Stand face to face to God - like a wife (a mans strength, power, rescue - true meaning of 'helper' in Genesis 2) and you will go past what Jesus did
God doesn't need anything except you
God has chosen you as an individual, by grace something unique in your being that only you can do
I want to represent Jesus well, actually be Jesus to people
You represent Him in a way that only you could, you represent a unique aspect of God
Each of us has the privilege of representing Him uniquely and differently
A realm where we are co labourers with God to bring about His will - as oppose to those occasions where a sovereign act of God brings His will about
It's tragic to wait for a sovereign act not realising that in His definition of sovereignty, your obediance, your desires, your dreams were all written into His definition of sovereignty . .
Bethel Church sermon of the week podcasts (inc Bill Johnson) here
Bethel Church Video, free registration and some videos free, quite alot of the previews play all the way through! here - watch and listen on your PC !
*As a side note it's worth reflecting on the sovereignty of God further, the great battle evangelicals fought over this in relation to salvation, yet the incongruity many (most?) evangelicals have in relation to healing! In other words the truths evangelicals fought for in relation to salvation absolutely must apply to healing! One for another email . . .
Genesis2:18 And the Lord God said, “ It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.”
Ephesians 2:31 “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.
Apparently the Hebrew word for 'helper' is two words, Hebrew often has no vowels so you can get a word with two or three words squashed together. The word is best translated as, 'power', 'strength', and 'rescue' - the King James translaters made this into 'helper'. Comparable means 'face to face' or 'reflecting' or 'doing on behalf of' or 'doing together'
Paul in Ephesians 2:31 reflects on the relationship between a man and a woman being like that between Christ and the church or you and me and Jesus
My orginal notes are below . . ( a woman's role? of course in relation to Christ it's a man's as well and I'm sure equally applies to a husband and wife . .)
Stand face to face to God - like a wife (a mans strength, power, rescue - true meaning of 'helper' in Genesis 2) and you will go past what Jesus did
God doesn't need anything except you
God has chosen you as an individual, by grace something unique in your being that only you can do
I want to represent Jesus well, actually be Jesus to people
You represent Him in a way that only you could, you represent a unique aspect of God
Each of us has the privilege of representing Him uniquely and differently
A realm where we are co labourers with God to bring about His will - as oppose to those occasions where a sovereign act of God brings His will about
It's tragic to wait for a sovereign act not realising that in His definition of sovereignty, your obediance, your desires, your dreams were all written into His definition of sovereignty . .
Bethel Church sermon of the week podcasts (inc Bill Johnson) here
Bethel Church Video, free registration and some videos free, quite alot of the previews play all the way through! here - watch and listen on your PC !
*As a side note it's worth reflecting on the sovereignty of God further, the great battle evangelicals fought over this in relation to salvation, yet the incongruity many (most?) evangelicals have in relation to healing! In other words the truths evangelicals fought for in relation to salvation absolutely must apply to healing! One for another email . . .
Tuesday, 19 October 2010
Strength Comes From Joy
" . .and perhaps as we consider it, and remark the multiplied reasons for its existence, some of those reasons may operate upon our own hearts, and we may go out of this house of prayer ourselves partakers of the exceeding great joy" Spurgeon Sermon
"Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid.
The Lord, the Lord, is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation.
WITH JOY YOU WILL DRAW WATER FROM THE WELLS OF SALVATION" Isaiah 12:2-3
"You will show me the path of life;
In Your presence is fullness of joy;
At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore" Psalm 16:11
For You have made him most blessed forever;
You have made him exceedingly glad with Your presence. Psalm 21:6
When I first stop to think on these verses they seem unrealistic, 'fullness of joy' ok I can accept that, maybe from time to time. 'pleasures forevermore', now hold on a minute, forevermore ! Perhaps that's only in heaven when we are his right hand, well actually Christ is at God's right hand and Ephesians 2:6 tells we are also sat there with Him!
So maybe we can begin to accept what these verses say in our head. And we know we have a living relationship with Jesus and "fullness of joy" and "with joy" and being "exceedingly glad" can't be just head knowledge, surely we are to experience this? So what could practically help us?
Someone once explained to me and Emma (thank you Rick!) that we each have in us a well of salvation, from which joy flows. It can get a little stopped up though, like a real well. Busyness, family concerns, worry, etc. Can we think of times when these things seem to become smaller and we have experienced peace and joy? Presence is mentioned in the verses above, so maybe it's when we come into His presence? It might help us to reflect a little , for example, can you think of a worship CD you used to listen to, at home or in the car. Or may be a church service you used to go to fairly regularly, or a prayer time you used to have, a group you used to belong to or someone you still get together with and you used to pray more together?
Perhaps it would be good to try and do these things again or similar, or do them more? I have found that when I try to do this there is an initial resistance, sometimes quite strong!. So at first there is a bit of determination needed. Often in the past when the time for evening service approached, though I had been fully intending to go, I suddenly felt I didn't want to. All sorts of things would come into my head, like, Iv'e not had my tea, why not take it easy and watch telly, I'm not in the mood for mixing with people, my wife/husband won't be pleased, and so on! A few years ago this happened and guess what? I dropped off going! And yet I've found that if I push through and go, there is tremendous blessing, worry goes peace returns, joy comes, etc. Similarly I can sat in the car and think, I'll put that Christian worship CD on and there can be an immediate resistance, no I prefer Radio 4 or the news, or Radio 1 or whatever. Occasionaly even if I put the worship music on, the first song starts and I think, 'no, I don't like this', it jarrs, doesn't sound right, However, at some point I am drawn into His presence, sometimes there is something I need to confess, and/or a conversation starts, 'you know what God I've been worrying about . . or I've been rushing around and hardly thought of you or asked you for help' Apply the same principle to whatever it is you used to do. Perhaps a key here is determine in your own mind that you will use the negative feeling as a trigger to do that thing, ie pray, listen to worship music, go to church, whatever it is that used to bring you into His presence After a while you will realise you have established a new habit and that negative feeling will come rarely, but, remember and say to yourself, 'you know what if it does come, that's my trigger to do, to go'.
I meant to talk about strength coming from joy, but, maybe the above is right for now
"Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid.
The Lord, the Lord, is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation.
WITH JOY YOU WILL DRAW WATER FROM THE WELLS OF SALVATION" Isaiah 12:2-3
"You will show me the path of life;
In Your presence is fullness of joy;
At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore" Psalm 16:11
For You have made him most blessed forever;
You have made him exceedingly glad with Your presence. Psalm 21:6
When I first stop to think on these verses they seem unrealistic, 'fullness of joy' ok I can accept that, maybe from time to time. 'pleasures forevermore', now hold on a minute, forevermore ! Perhaps that's only in heaven when we are his right hand, well actually Christ is at God's right hand and Ephesians 2:6 tells we are also sat there with Him!
So maybe we can begin to accept what these verses say in our head. And we know we have a living relationship with Jesus and "fullness of joy" and "with joy" and being "exceedingly glad" can't be just head knowledge, surely we are to experience this? So what could practically help us?
Someone once explained to me and Emma (thank you Rick!) that we each have in us a well of salvation, from which joy flows. It can get a little stopped up though, like a real well. Busyness, family concerns, worry, etc. Can we think of times when these things seem to become smaller and we have experienced peace and joy? Presence is mentioned in the verses above, so maybe it's when we come into His presence? It might help us to reflect a little , for example, can you think of a worship CD you used to listen to, at home or in the car. Or may be a church service you used to go to fairly regularly, or a prayer time you used to have, a group you used to belong to or someone you still get together with and you used to pray more together?
Perhaps it would be good to try and do these things again or similar, or do them more? I have found that when I try to do this there is an initial resistance, sometimes quite strong!. So at first there is a bit of determination needed. Often in the past when the time for evening service approached, though I had been fully intending to go, I suddenly felt I didn't want to. All sorts of things would come into my head, like, Iv'e not had my tea, why not take it easy and watch telly, I'm not in the mood for mixing with people, my wife/husband won't be pleased, and so on! A few years ago this happened and guess what? I dropped off going! And yet I've found that if I push through and go, there is tremendous blessing, worry goes peace returns, joy comes, etc. Similarly I can sat in the car and think, I'll put that Christian worship CD on and there can be an immediate resistance, no I prefer Radio 4 or the news, or Radio 1 or whatever. Occasionaly even if I put the worship music on, the first song starts and I think, 'no, I don't like this', it jarrs, doesn't sound right, However, at some point I am drawn into His presence, sometimes there is something I need to confess, and/or a conversation starts, 'you know what God I've been worrying about . . or I've been rushing around and hardly thought of you or asked you for help' Apply the same principle to whatever it is you used to do. Perhaps a key here is determine in your own mind that you will use the negative feeling as a trigger to do that thing, ie pray, listen to worship music, go to church, whatever it is that used to bring you into His presence After a while you will realise you have established a new habit and that negative feeling will come rarely, but, remember and say to yourself, 'you know what if it does come, that's my trigger to do, to go'.
I meant to talk about strength coming from joy, but, maybe the above is right for now
Thursday, 23 September 2010
Beloved Children
Hi Folks
“As beloved children, we are called to live according to the same pattern as the Lord Jesus: love for God, resulting in dependency upon God, resulting in obedience to God. It is only as we approach the Christian life in this order that we will be experiencing the true freedom and life that God has purposed for us, and it’s the only way we will be truly obeying God according to His will. Unfortunately though, most Christian teaching throughout history and today has been directed at getting Christians to live obediently, while ignoring the necessity of love and dependency. It can never work.”
Bob George, Classic Christianity, “Life’s too short to miss the real thing “ An absolutely fantastic book, if you only read one Christian book in the next year, read this one! Easy to read with lots of real stories and only £6-89 inc delivery from here
“As beloved children, we are called to live according to the same pattern as the Lord Jesus: love for God, resulting in dependency upon God, resulting in obedience to God. It is only as we approach the Christian life in this order that we will be experiencing the true freedom and life that God has purposed for us, and it’s the only way we will be truly obeying God according to His will. Unfortunately though, most Christian teaching throughout history and today has been directed at getting Christians to live obediently, while ignoring the necessity of love and dependency. It can never work.”
Bob George, Classic Christianity, “Life’s too short to miss the real thing “ An absolutely fantastic book, if you only read one Christian book in the next year, read this one! Easy to read with lots of real stories and only £6-89 inc delivery from here
Saturday, 18 September 2010
Live in His Love and His Strength
How weary we sometimes get ! Either through the troubles this world sometimes brings or through our efforts to live for Christ in our own strength - so here's some encouragement!
If it's troubles you know that you can "cast(ing) all your care upon Him, for He cares for you". And that's certainly a great comfort to me! I love the way The Message translation puts it, "Live carefree before God; he is most careful with you. He Gets the Last Word" 1 Peter 5:7 So like children we are to be 'carefree', it's His job to look after us, not ours. Or another way of putting it, "I’ve loved you the way my Father has loved me. Make yourselves at home in my love" John 15:9 Make yourself at home in His love!
Living in our own strength: Sometimes we subtly forget that our Father totally accepts us for who we are. We may even be able to explain to someone the difference between 'Law' and 'Grace'*, yet suddenly we find that all the things we are doing for Jesus have become a real chore. We can easily start being really hard on ourselves. A sign we are being hard on ourselves is when we are hard on others, perhaps bemoaning that others aren't, 'doing enough'. Perhaps at these times we think God will only fully accept us if we do certain things . . We need an antidote to this . . !
All our past and future sins are forgiven, God accepts us completely. More, our Father rejoices in who we are and rejoices in the friendship He has with us. It is from Him we receive our strength. Psalm 105 v4 'Look to the Lord and his strength; seek his face always'.
"Seek his strength; that is, his grace; the strength of his Spirit to work in us that which is good, which we cannot do but by strength derived from him, for which he will be sought." Matthew Henry Commentary. I think 'for which he will be sought' is old english for 'He's willing to be found' and willing to give this.
So Pslam 105 says, 'seek his face always'. When I come in from work sometimes, one or both of my kids come running, shouting, 'Daddy, Daddy'. They are 'seeking my face'. In the same way we need to run into the arms of our heavenly Daddy and the verse says 'seek his face always' ! Always, not one off top ups! Instead we should be seeking the romance of that fantasic relationship ALWAYS. After all He wants us ALL THE TIME! Loves us ALL THE TIME, is rejoicing, laughing and singing over us ALL THE TIME. He's just waiting for you to come running shouting 'Daddy, Daddy' !
Andy
ps What we do for Jesus should be out of the overflow of a love relationship, but, how do we get back to this? In Ephesians 3 Paul prays that we would have power to know the height and breadth of God's love for us. Notice, not the power 'to do', instead the power to 'know' God's love. And I'm pretty sure that's a 'know' as in 'experience' God's love. (However, re-learning or getting to 'know' some scriptural truths can, with the help of the Holy Spirit, unblock the overflow. Bob George's book, 'Classic Christianity' is packed with these truths, see below*)
* Classic Christianity by Bob George is a fantastic book, I've just borrowed it from Steph (who borrowed it from Genese, who couldn't stop telling everyone how fantastic it was!), I had to wait because Steph wanted to read it a second time! It's a very easy read with lots of real life stories and illustrations, all about us being a 'new creation', God's acceptance of us, etc, Get it here or from your local christian bookshop
If it's troubles you know that you can "cast(ing) all your care upon Him, for He cares for you". And that's certainly a great comfort to me! I love the way The Message translation puts it, "Live carefree before God; he is most careful with you. He Gets the Last Word" 1 Peter 5:7 So like children we are to be 'carefree', it's His job to look after us, not ours. Or another way of putting it, "I’ve loved you the way my Father has loved me. Make yourselves at home in my love" John 15:9 Make yourself at home in His love!
Living in our own strength: Sometimes we subtly forget that our Father totally accepts us for who we are. We may even be able to explain to someone the difference between 'Law' and 'Grace'*, yet suddenly we find that all the things we are doing for Jesus have become a real chore. We can easily start being really hard on ourselves. A sign we are being hard on ourselves is when we are hard on others, perhaps bemoaning that others aren't, 'doing enough'. Perhaps at these times we think God will only fully accept us if we do certain things . . We need an antidote to this . . !
All our past and future sins are forgiven, God accepts us completely. More, our Father rejoices in who we are and rejoices in the friendship He has with us. It is from Him we receive our strength. Psalm 105 v4 'Look to the Lord and his strength; seek his face always'.
"Seek his strength; that is, his grace; the strength of his Spirit to work in us that which is good, which we cannot do but by strength derived from him, for which he will be sought." Matthew Henry Commentary. I think 'for which he will be sought' is old english for 'He's willing to be found' and willing to give this.
So Pslam 105 says, 'seek his face always'. When I come in from work sometimes, one or both of my kids come running, shouting, 'Daddy, Daddy'. They are 'seeking my face'. In the same way we need to run into the arms of our heavenly Daddy and the verse says 'seek his face always' ! Always, not one off top ups! Instead we should be seeking the romance of that fantasic relationship ALWAYS. After all He wants us ALL THE TIME! Loves us ALL THE TIME, is rejoicing, laughing and singing over us ALL THE TIME. He's just waiting for you to come running shouting 'Daddy, Daddy' !
Andy
ps What we do for Jesus should be out of the overflow of a love relationship, but, how do we get back to this? In Ephesians 3 Paul prays that we would have power to know the height and breadth of God's love for us. Notice, not the power 'to do', instead the power to 'know' God's love. And I'm pretty sure that's a 'know' as in 'experience' God's love. (However, re-learning or getting to 'know' some scriptural truths can, with the help of the Holy Spirit, unblock the overflow. Bob George's book, 'Classic Christianity' is packed with these truths, see below*)
* Classic Christianity by Bob George is a fantastic book, I've just borrowed it from Steph (who borrowed it from Genese, who couldn't stop telling everyone how fantastic it was!), I had to wait because Steph wanted to read it a second time! It's a very easy read with lots of real life stories and illustrations, all about us being a 'new creation', God's acceptance of us, etc, Get it here or from your local christian bookshop
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