Unforgiven

Unforgiven

I love Clint Eastwood's movies. Especially the westerns. The image of the unstoppable lone gunman fighting for justice - even vengeance - is ingrained in my memory as a young man.

Eastwood's heroes,  or more correctly protagonists, are tough men. They are resourceful and ingenious in their dealings. I admire that.

One protagonist in particular sticks with me. It's the character of William Munney, the central character in the movie "Unforgiven". He's left the world of gunfighting behind, raising pigs with his children since his wife died, and all the time carrying the weight of his former life. He comes face to face with it when a youngster comes to ask for his help as a hired gun to exact vengeance - paid, naturally - for an attack on a town prostitute.

He brings his old partner along, but his heart is obviously heavy. They ride to the town, and before they can carry out the shooting the youngster riles him and his old partner is killed - his body put on display.

In typical Eastwood fashion, he exacts revenge for the killing, violently and swiftly, killing the corrupt town sheriff and what seems to be all the available deputies. He growls at the town to give his friend a decent burial and leaves breathing fury and cursing them, goes back to his children and as the film ends we see the caption saying his late wife's mother came to find her, but found only her grave, the family have gone.

The gunman is shown as innately human. He is haunted by his past, and although his wife forgave it and loved him for who he could be, he clearly never forgave himself. He never truly found peace, and never escaped the guilt he carried.

I find of all the heroes, anti-heroes and protagonists in the movies I've seen in my 40 years, I identify with this character most. I want to be Gibson's William Wallace from "Braveheart", or Aragorn from Lord of the Rings, or Maximus in "Gladiator", but I struggle. My past weighs on me like a millstone I carry.

Jesus said something of this. He invited us to share His yoke instead of our own. To place our burdens, our past, on His shoulders. We were never designed to carry these burdens.

He offers forgiveness to us. Freely. All we need do is accept His sacrifice. But then I look at the way He teaches the disciples to pray. That famous "Lord's Prayer". He tells us to ask God to forgive us as we forgive others. Seems innocuous, but think about it for a moment. As we forgive those who sin against us. That means forgive me the way I forgive them. Use my measure of forgiveness back at me.

Scary stuff.

I still have anger towards some people from my youth who bullied me. I wrestle every day with some of it. Have I forgiven them? Frankly, no! Some of those wounds went so deep I have spent 20 years avoiding school reunions so I don't run into them. I moved away from my home town to avoid them, and while moving to a different country wasn't to get away from them, the knowledge it was so unlikely I'd bump into them at the local store on holiday was a happy thought.

I have friends whose marriages have been damaged by affairs. Some forgave, saw there was fault on both sides and moved on together. Those marriages survived and have thrived since, both partners forgiving and loving one another, putting it behind them and moving on together.

Some have had one partner who refused to forgive the "cheating" partner. They throw away the marriage through unforgiveness and out of spite. Often, these unforgiving partners spend years angry and resentful, holding on to unforgiveness of the other party. The person they won't forgive usually moves on and finds happiness again, and the unforgiven has peace, whilst the unforgiving is twisted by what went before.

Repentance and acceptance of God's forgiveness of us is the key. Eastwood's gunman never embraces it. How many of us walk through life the same way, burdened with guilt or anger over the past, refusing either to forgive or accept forgiveness?

It's a hard way to live. I know this, yet I struggle daily with it. I want to know the freedom of Christ's yoke. I need to know it. But my "old man", as Paul puts it, wants them to suffer.

In the end, the only person unforgiveness hurts is the person who won't forgive.

We should remember that.

The Insidious Nature of the World

I've been having a lot of thoughts recently about sex. Not in the World's way, but from how the World's thinking has permeated the mainstream Christian life.

Over the last few years I have actually heard leaders in local churches state that there are worse things you can do than sleep with your girlfriend. And they said this in youth services, youth groups and I've heard it from individual counselling sessions too.

Comparing this attitude to Paul's letter to the church in Corinth there is a massive difference.

"Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? Certainly not! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her? For “the two,” He says, “shall become one flesh.” But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him.
Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s." (1 Corinthians 6:15-20)


We get this teaching that our bodies are the Temple of the Spirit, but we skip the part often about how to keep it clean. Everywhere we turn today there are images of a sexual nature around us. Walking through the local stores almost every magazine that is not about country life or re-decorationg carries a picture of a girl, usually in little or no clothing, and boasting how to improve sex, increase endurance or prolong orgasm. Even Christian magazines are not always immune from the pictures, although the articles, usually, are less explicit.


The attitude of the World is clear. Sex is normal in any encounter - and the answer to infections is not abstinence but condoms. If you don't experiment sexually then you get branded as wierd. A colleague from my work who is married recently showed me a photo she'd found online and asked me if I'd "tap" the girl in the picture. She was horrified when I said I wouldn't consider looking because I was married.


Now I'll admit I'm not perfect, and as most men are visually visually wired - and I'm no exception - I have to work at not seeing things sometimes. Summer is often a difficult time for me as the outfits women are coerced into wearing by fashion designers are smaller each year, and the women as a result show more and more of themselves. It is put forward as their "right" to wear what they want. There is no understanding that there are consequences for exercising those rights. Men have a responsibility to themselves to behave appropriately under all circumstances, but the World will tell us that it's impossible to do other than your hormone's drive.


The concept of self-regulation when it comes to our sex lives has been laughed at. Young men seem to believe that because they spent money on dinner they are entitled to sex in return. 

The World's views are insipid. They act inside like a cancer, eating away at the fabric of our self until they leave us hollow shells of what God intended us to be. We can treat the cancer by using the Word to overcome it. Our lives can be transformed, or they can be conformed to the World.

Personally, I want to make a difference.

Walking through the Wasteland and fighting Giants

If you didn't know from the titles recently, I'm a big fan of Bruce Wilkinson. I've been reading some of his books over the last few months, and recognising the Truths in them.

In particular, I've been reading 2 of the "dream-giver" series. The original, and also the one for couples.

My experiences in the last 10 years have many of the aspect of Ordinary's life. I left my familiar country, travelled to a new place, enduring trials, experiencing victories and hardships and trying to grow closer to God through all of it.

Recently, well about a year ago actually, I'd started to feel a tug to move on again. My writing was a bit stalled, so I started this blog, and I'd finally completed the degree I'd grown comfortable studying for.

My wife and I started planning the year, what we wanted to do and where we wanted to be, and we pushed off. Immediately, we hit Wasteland. Problems and little issues started cropping up, and then we hit the Giants. To be more accurate, Giant.

We'd been planning many things for 2011, and what we ended up with has pushed it all backwards. I'm not going to go into all the details now, but the highlights have been losing health and financial security. It's been nearly a year, and we're still fighting them both.

But God has been good.

But God has been Faithful.

"But God"

Those 2 words have sustained me over the last year.

Joseph said them to his brothers. The sentiment is echoed through the sufferings in the entire scripture, Old and New Testament. "But God".

The disciples were bailing water from the boat, But Jesus slept in peace. The friends berated Job, But God restored him. Saul persecuted the Disciples, BUT GOD broke through religious mindset.

Giants spring up everywhere. The spies went into the Promised Land and reported they were there. Joshua and Caleb waited 40 years to say "BUT GOD" and claim their inheritance, the only ones who saw slavery and fullness of deliverance.

Peter points out that "your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour" (1 Peter 5,8). He's a giant in many ways, but the authority he has is limited to what we give him. We can fight this giant by simply submitting to God and setting ourselves against him. He's a toothless old cat, and we have to climb into his mouth and allow him to chew us.


It's a hard reality, but our authority to overcome the giants really is as simple as that. In his books, Bruce Wilkinson has Ordinary slay the giants with nothing but a feather. Jesus said we just need faith as a mustard seed to prevail.


I'm still fighting giants, but I'm learning all the time. We all need to.

What are we waiting for?

I realised recently I've been stuck.

I get caught up in a concept, or a paradigm of thought.

In 2 Kings 7, there is the most amazing illustration of God Blessing a paradigm shift. Picture the scene: the city has been under seige so long the people have resorted to cannibalism. They are completely surrounded by perhaps the most powerful army in the world. At the city gate sit 4 men. Rejected by society, bodies being eaten away by an incurable disease, these men sit and wait for death.

Then one of them shifts the paradigm.

"Now four men who were lepers were at the entrance of the city's gate; and they said to one another, Why do we sit here until we die?" (2 Kings 7:3)

They get up and go out to the Syrian army. Their reason? We're dead anyway, what more can the enemy do to us?

The last few days I've been mulling this thought over and over. "Why not try?"

The lepers tried, and they brought news back to the city of its salvation by God. Peter tried, and walked on the water to Jesus. The shift in paradigm can change our lives.

Short tonight, maybe. Hopefully a dynamite package.

Why not try? The worst that can happen is you end up where you started.

Lions, Tigers, Rats and Mice

Just recently I've been thinking a lot about what really draws me away from God. I realised something in my musings. The big stuff generally pushes me to Him. When I see a lion I know I'm in danger, so I turn to the One who can shield me from it.

Not so with the little things.

I try to sort out the little things myself. It rarely turns out well.

Jesus said much the same. He looked at the priests and leaders of the people weighing them down with unmanageable burdens. Spiritually they gave a thousand pebbles to every person and told them to start juggling. If one pebble dropped, then go to Hell, directly to Hell, do not pass 'Go', do not collect 200 talents.

Jesus cut through that, and completed it. Not only by not dropping the pebbles they allocated Him, but by collecting ours as well.

I was reading one of my favourite books last night. "Six Hours One Friday" by Max Lucado. I have such respect for this man. His writing has inspired me for 20 years. I'm on my third copy of this book, having read the first two so many times they fell apart. His writings tug my heart 20 years after I first came across them. I heard Mike Yaconelli read a part of this very book at Greenbelt in 1991. The illustration of Jesus arranging to have his hands nailed open to prove he would always accept us haunts me and inspires me.

Re-reading it, I was struck by what draws me away. The little things. Rats and mice. Non-essentials. Wind and waves.

I remember seeing a painting of Jesus walking on the water when I was young. Just taking a stroll across the Sea of Galilee. It only hit me recently that the painting was wrong. In the painting the sea was a flat calm. Jesus walked through the storm to the sinking boat. Peter got out and walked through the storm until he realised what he was doing. But he couldn't walk on a flat, calm sea. The wind and waves were incedental.

Rats and mice scavenge. At first you don't notice the nibbles, then one day you realise how much has gone. In one of the "Death Wish" movies from the 1980's, Charles Bronson's character likens the local villains to cockroaches, pointing out that once you start, you need to wipe them out completely or they come back. Jesus said the same of demons. They are insidious. Apparently in a major city you will never be more than 2 meters (6 feet) horizontally from a rat or mouse, yet we rarely see them.

I became aware I had a mouse in my study a few years ago when I heard it's rustling behind my bookshelf. The alarming thing was less the presence of the rodent, and more the fact that it had built an entire nest there, using my own books and papers as nesting material. Insidious. Naturally, I took the necessary measures to dispose of it. I let Sam, my insane 3-legged dog, into the room. 10 minutes later, no more mouse and one very proud dog!

In this instance, Sam represents Jesus to me. I couldn't find the mouse. It was destroying my things a little at a time, and I let it happen. Sam hunted it out once I invited him to, and that mouse will never be back. Jesus has done that for us. He presents himself to us and awaits our permission to take care of the situation. We tend to let Him deal with the big issues, or we pretend to. Trust is built on foundations. To really fight the lions, tigers, bears and Goliaths in our lives on a spiritual level we must start by battling mice. Before Cancer hits, we should trust implicitly for acne. Before acne, trust for something smaller. Once the foundation is strong, the trust comes naturally.

My resolve continues. I still face battles, but one at a time, and my heart is fixed. No matter what, I will serve Jesus with all I am, and all I have.

New Year, Old tactics, Leaving the Land of Familiar

So 2012 is finally with us. After the attacks of 2011 my family has endured I welcomed the new year with open arms.

As I think I've mentioned in previous posts here, whilst I absolutely believe Healing is part of the atonement Christ bought for us, and it' not an optional extra, it's an absolute Right, it's also something that takes time to walk in fully sometimes. To that end, I still battle some chronic issues, which I make no bones about. Once I began to appropriate the Truth of walking in Divine Health things began to change. I had to get glasses every year because my eyesight was deteriorating. In the last 5 years it has not changed at all - at a time in my life when things normally start getting worse. I battle type 2 diabetes. My sugar control is far from what it should be, but there has been no damage to my eyes or kidneys as a result of the illness. God has been amazing in His Faithfulness to me.

Last year's attacks came insidiously through attacks on my wife's health. Diagnosis followed diagnosis, each worse than the last. This year has started differently.

Despite no change in my general health, my doctor added a new medication to my collection. For the first six weeks it was great. No side-effects, lower blood sugar levels and generally improved health on paper. Suddenly two days ago, my left foot swelled up and my leg up to the knee. No pain, just this swelling. It seems this one is a side-effect of the new medication. It comes and goes, subsides and fluctuates. No problems regarding medical tests, just this ludicrous swelling in my legs.

It started to come out just after I made the decision I mentioned in my last post. My decision to draw closer to God. My attitude to change my attitude and all the decisions I've made. The point is, it feels like a direct assault. My heart is set, and my mind is fixed. I still don't know how things will change, but I am set in my resolve that I will draw closer to Jesus from this point on, and that I will do everything in my power to prevent myself from limiting Him in my life.

I have decided to cut myself off from the past. To burn the bridges that would allow me to retreat to a "safer" place, which is actually just a place of familiarity where I was being dominated by the Enemy so subtly I didn't see it. Bruce Wilkinson wrote a wonderful series of books about the Dream Giver. They are parables of a man named Ordinary who lives in the Land of Familiar who is given a dream. They spoke to me in a new way, and I re-read them regularly. I don't ever want to go back to the land of Familiar. The journey Ordinary goes through is hard and he is tempted to turn back, but every time he has the temptation, the Dream Giver himself sends someone to help him.

Familiar is not safe. It is a place that drains life from us, but the people around us will try to hold us there. To leave is truly terrifying, and the battle for the movement is hard, but set your face like flint, turn away from familiar, and let God Dream through you.

Out with the Old...

So 2011 has finally come to an end. I can't say I'm sorry to see the end of it from a Human perspective. This year has been an incredibly challenging one. My wife's illness, the loss of our business as a result, moving jobs 3 times in 2 months. All this takes a heavy toll on the spirit.

But at the same time, there has been amazing Blessing through the assault.

Objectively, I have seen God come through in many ways for us. My wife's initial diagnosis and consequent immediate prognosis was an immense body-blow. The doctors basically telling us if the treatment failed she had at most six months. The treatment would not show a significant change - according to them - for a minimum of 3 to 4 months. The turnaround was nothing short of miraculous. Whilst a full healing has not yet happened, the original prognosis was totally overturned in less than 2 months. Now, physically anyway, she has a good prognosis. We are still learning to live with the issues that have arisen, but it's not immediately life-threatening now.

Our finances have been decimated by the illness. We lost our business and there have been some massive financial expenses incurred, but we have seen incredible provision. As our situation became more and more dire, we found ourselves needing legal counsel. God opened the door for us to have advice from one of the top lawyers in the country working our case and refusing to take payment from us. He provided jobs for me where I didn't think of looking initially, and then opened the door for me to find a job in one of the top companies in South Africa as a mono-lingual, white, male, foreigner. On paper it looked like I would not be able to be considered for a post, but God can make a way where there is none visible.

Through this, my own health suffered a little to start with, but as I was forced to lean more on God, He has sustained me. I was diagnosed with diabetes in 1999, yet despite poor control of my blood-sugar levels I have not had any of the problems medicine says I should have had. Recently, my blood-pressure has become better controlled and my sugar levels have improved despite no change in my habits. God has and is protecting me and healing me at the pace I allow him to.

That's the key. It's the pace we allow Him to work. Ephesians 3:20 & 21 says "Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, ²¹ to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen." (NKJV) He works at the pace we allow Him to. Our actions and inactions can limit how God is able to move and work in us. The Israelites limited God. In Psalm 78, it is recorded "How often they provoked Him in the wilderness, And grieved Him in the desert! Yes, again and again they tempted God, And limited the Holy One of Israel. They did not remember His power: The day when He redeemed them from the enemy". By not keeping what God had done in their lives at the forefront of their minds, they got distracted by the surrounding problems and limited God's ability to help them. Jesus was limited in His home town by the people's lack of faith. Peter took his attention from Jesus and began to sink as he walked on the water.

Unbelief will sink us. we need to focus on Him and let Him guide us through the next 12 months. Yes, 2011 was a tough year. 2012 can be, and I believe will be, a year when we see things turn around in a huge way. I am committed to changing how I think and to stop limiting God so much in my life. It won't be easy, but with His guidance it will happen.

God Bless, dear readers. And a Happy and Blessed New Year!

Christmas Spirit

Ok, so it's not an original thought for an entry on Christmas Day. I don't care.

2011 has not been my happiest year. There have been some major upsets during the year, two in the last week.

In the end, the Spirit of Christ inhabits the day we call Christmas, and every other day. He infuses each and every moment to the level we allow Him to. I accept that this year I have limited God. Even today, I have limited how much He can give me. The Blessing He longs to lavish on each of us are beyond our dreams. His dreams are bigger than ours. His thoughts beyond ours. His desire to give to us far greater than ours to receive.

We hesitate to ask Him for things, yet He longs to give to us, just as a human parent loves to see the delight on their child's face as the gift exceeds the request.

This New Year, 2012, (and what's left of 2011) I'm resolved to be like Jabez. I will ask of God, and expect Him to answer. I don't want to be wealthy or famous particularly. I enjoy my quiet anonymity for the most part in this world. But I want to be where God wants me to be. I know that means changing my thinking, and I know it may take time, but I resolve to place fewer limits on God from now on. I want to live in everything He has for me, and I want those I love to see that in their lives too.

Happy Christmas, dear readers. May God Bless us indeed, enlarge our circle of influence and territories. May His hand be with us, guiding us, and let us cause no harm.

Courage of our convictions

It is a sad indictment of the Catholic Church that Daniel Avila has been forced to resign following his article "Some fundamental questions on same-sex attraction" was withdrawn by The Boston Pilot.

It took some doing to find a copy since the article was deleted by the paper just a couple of days after it was published following pressure from Gay Rights groups, but I managed to eventually. The article suggests, to the horror of the Gay community, that God might not have made homosexuals homosexual, but that sin may actually be a product of the Devil.

Something conveniently avoided by organised religious bodies these recent days seems to be the concept of sin, and its causes. It's odd really, considering that their business is the forgiveness of sin.

This man, Daniel Avila, had conviction enough to write an article stating that "God does not cause same-sex attraction." The Boston Pilot initially had the conviction to publish it. Unfortunately, a little pressure made both retract.

In Genesis 19, God sends two Angels to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah and to save Lot and his family. Lot is an honourable man, and rather than hand the two visitors he has taken into his home over to be raped by the town he offers his own daughters to them. They blind the townspeople and lead Lot and his family out of the town to protect them from the Judgement about to be levelled there.

The people's sin, however, is not homosexuality. I had never thought about it until 1990 when I heard Tony Campolo speak at Greenbelt Christian Arts festival in the UK. He raised an interesting point: the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was that homosexuality had become the norm, to the point that it was no only accepted, but expected. They had removed the concept of God's laws and replaced them with their own lusts. God brought judgement on the cities for this. Lot maintained the courage of his convictions at this point. He failed later, but in this one point he stayed the course. Lot's wife looked back. The implication is more profound, however. The inferrence is that in her heart she never left the city. The pillar of salt she turned into may be literal or figurative, but she died just the same because of where her heart was.

The world today is in turmoil. As Christians, we need to have the strength to not only say what is right, but to stand by it, even when it is unpopular with lobbyists and pressure groups. Sin is always a path to death, emotionally, spiritually and even physically. We die daily. We need to be as Paul wrote, so that for us living is Christ, and dying is gain. We need to focus on Christ so much that the fear of man's wrath and what it can bring is rendered void in our lives.

I accept that not everyone will agree with me and my opinion. But I will stand by it. God declares through the scripture in the Bible that homosexual acts are sinful. Old and New Testament alike share this conviction. If you don't like the rules laid down by God, take it up with the one who wrote the rulebook.

Vital Sequence

In the last few weeks God has been showing me that the order things happen in the Bible is very important. Vitally so.

This was driven home to me tonight when I was talking with my wife. God dropped the 23rd Psalm into my mind, bringing it back to my remembrance so to speak.

Recently we've been through something of a battle. I won't go into details here, but the battles we've been fighting have been life-threatening, literally. Our finances and health have been rocked, and we have been tempted to give up our faith as the onslaught has continued, although we haven't given in to that temptation. It has felt like we have literally and figuratively been walking through the shadow of the valley of death.

This has taken a heavy toll on us emotionally. We're tired and broken and some days it feels like this journey through the valley will never end.

Then Psalm 23 came to me. Specifically the order of the psalm.

In verse 4, we walk through the valley of the shadow of death. God guides us with His rod, correcting us as we move forward through the valley; and protects us with His staff, the primary tool of a shepherd to keep his flock safe from predators that would try to devour them. We have seen this in a very practical way. From the way job opportunities for me opened up from nowhere, to provision to manage our financial worries by professionals whose advice and assistance we could never have hoped to afford being given to us for nothing by those professionals. Legal and medical advice from experts at the top of their fields being placed around us to guide our steps who we could not have approached, or even known of a few short months ago. God has guided our steps at every turn.

Then comes verse 5.

God prepares a table before us in the presence of our enemies.

I used to think that was referring to Heaven. Tonight it hit me: we won't have enemies in Heaven to prepare a table in front of. The Contemporary English Version translates the verse by saying "You treat me to a feast, while my enemies watch." A feast. Bounty. Plenty. Abundance. In the presence of our enemies. That can only refer to this world, this life. In the life beyond this one, no matter whether you believe it's Heaven, a re-created Earth or something in between, there will be no sin, and therefore no enemy to set the feast before.

As Christians, we need to move away from the recent concept that has been taught in some denominations that we must wait for the next world to see Victory manifest. Each of the great men of faith through the last 2000 years has held fast to the conviction that Victory comes in this world. We feast at a table God places before us in our enemy's presence. Peter walked in a powerful anointing of God's Spirit, and saw healings and miracles following in his wake. Recently, men like Smith Wigglesworth saw healings and miracles which have been documented by independant witnesses. A "Feast" of God's Power working through them. Each of them had great hardship in their lives before seeing God's power work to turn their past experiences into powerful testimonies of His Grace in their lives.


Paul writes that Faith, Hope and Love endure eternally. The promised feast gives us Hope, which allows Faith to grow, because He Loves us.


The order remains, however. Be strong, because after the Valley comes the Feast!

Everything changes...

When I was at primary school - under 11 - we had assembly most days. There would be a hymn and a short talk, usually from Mr Ward, the Headmaster. One hymn that has never left my head goes like this:

"

Ev'rything changes,

But God changes not;

The power never changes

That lies in His thought:

Chorus: Splendours three, from God proceeding,

May we ever love them true,

Goodness, Truth, and Beauty heeding

Ev'ry day, in all we do.

Truth never changes,

And Beauty's her dress,

And Good never changes,

Which those two express:

Perfect together

And lovely apart,

These three cannot wither;

They spring from God's heart:

Some things are screening

God's glory below;

But this is the meaning

Of all that we know:"

The meaning in this little hymn is lost on many. Yet it's based on scripture. Hebrews 13:8 to be precise.

I was reminded of it again earlier today when a friend said to me that we should remember the world is changing, and we need to change with it.

That is a lie.

We need to base ourselves on something better than the current whims of the world.

At one point in Holland, tulip bulbs were worth more than houses. Then the world changed and they weren't any more. In the Roman empire at one point tin was the most valuable metal. Things changed. Through the whole of history only one thing has remained constant. God.

God's values don't ebb and flow with the tide of popular opinion. He will always hate Sin, no matter how it is dressed. Even when the world's view is that it isn't sin any more.

I remember reading a story of a man in his late 90's who applied to be re-patriated to England from Australia. He had been in the country for decades, and had never left since his arrival almost 70 years previously. When asked why he now wished to go back to England, he reportedly replied that as a young man when he arrived he was informed the penalty for homosexuality was death, by the time he was 40 it was 20 years hard labour, by 60 it was a fine, and it was legalised a little while after that. When the debate about gay marriage began he decided to leave before it became compulsory...

The world changed, but God didn't.

Sodom and Gomorrah had the opinion of the modern world regarding sexual sin. God judged them. The Greek and Roman empires both fell as they became more and more obsessed with appearances than substance. Israel fell into the trap more than once in scripture. The world's views change constantly, like shifting sands. We build on them at our peril.

 

Walking on Water

I've been looking at things from a worldly perspective for too long. I realised this a few months ago, and with that came the lightning bolt that told me I had to make a change.

My wife, whom I love very dearly, is seriously ill. This has been going on since March, and whilst I've been writing here about health and prosperity I couldn't understand what was going on in my own life. Her health has deteriorated despite my belief and prayers that I know God's atonement buys us healing. Our finances have been depleted massively, we lost our business, and for several months now we have been largely supported by our family, despite knowing God's plan was different than our reality.

In short I have felt for months like I was drowning, which is a big part of why it's been a few weeks since I wrote here.

Then I found a recording online by Andrew Wommack that I used to have a few years ago about becoming a "water walker".

I've been meditating on this for several weeks now, and as I started to really listen to it with my heart instead of my ears things started to change.

Drowning is not a pleasant experience. A few years ago while I was at the beach with some friends we swam out to a buoy in the sea and back. It was great fun, and so a few hours later - after the tide had been coming in for some time - we swam out again. Unfortunately for me, I was too fat and unhealthy (and stubborn) to make it now the distance was almost twice what it was the first time we made the trip. The tide was against me, and by the time I was alomst at the buoy I knew I was in trouble. Not enough strength to turn back, and the shoreline getting further from me. Somehow I made it to the buoy, but barely had the strength to hold on to it.

I knew I was going to die.

Thankfully, the friends I was with also realised this. They were able to get the attention of a lifeguard stationed on the beach with a boat. They helped me hold on to the buoy, then get my terminally exhausted self into the boat. By the time they got me in to it I'd taken more than one breath with my face in the water. It was not good.

Emotionally this year has been much the same as that afternoon on the beach. Over my head, and no possibility of saving myself.

Peter had that experience in Matthew 14. The waves were swamping the boat, the disciples were drowning, and Jesus noncholantly walks towards them on top of the very thing killing them. Peter did something I didn't fully grasp until I really listened with my Heart to Andrew's teaching on the passage.

Peter called to Jesus, and walked on the water to Him. I always remembered that Peter sank. I always remembered that Peter failed. It never occurred to me that Peter had walked most of the distance to Jesus before he started to sink, but when Jesus took his hand there is no indication that Jesus then slung Peter over his shoulder to get back to the boat. Jesus and Peter walked back.

Peter refocussed on Jesus and was able to walk again on the very thing that would otherwise kill him. As soon as I began to understand this, and I in no way claim that I've got it completely nailed, things began to change. I got out of the boat.

In my last post I touched on this. Doors began to open for me that ought to be closed here. I am a white, male, mono-lingual immigrant to South Africa. I should be unemployable. God has opened doors according to my faith in Him. As my understanding of how God works has increased and I have been able to stop limiting His power in me in certain areas of my life.

More accurately, I have begun to understand that it is not so much that I need more faith, but that I need to have less unbelief. Peter didn't stop believing in Jesus's power to let him walk on water, but he allowed his fears and doubts to overwhelm him as he saw the wind and the waves again. As I have focussed on Him again, Jesus has lifted me up and empowered me as I have allowed Him to.

It is almost impossible to lift yourself out of a bad situation. Especially when you're drowning. But God can. One word from God can lift you out of your circumstances and place you on top of them. We are more than conquerors by His strength. No circumstance, no matter how desperate, can overcome the power He has made available to us. We can be Water Walkers in His strength.

Unexpected Blessings

For the last month God has been restoring hope in my life. Since the end of March, my focus has been somewhat skewed by the swipes the enemy has fired at my family.

Since March we have been under a constant attack which has seen our health and finances decimated by the enemy's attacks. In the last month we have seen the tunnel come to an end and the light begin to filter in again.

Daniel had to wait for the answer to his prayers for 21 days when the enemy withstood the angel carrying the answer. Sometimes we end up having to do the same.

Jesus promised that everyone who asks receives - no exceptions. Everyone. But we often find that we limit God because of where we look for the answers.

From March to early July that's what I was doing. I was looking for God to Bless my efforts. I did what looked right to me, and then asked Him to make it successful. Now don't misunderstand what I'm saying here. Sometimes we can reach a place where we are so focussed on God that this behaviour is the exact way to do it. But mostly we do our own thing, and ask God to turn it into His thing.

I realised this in mid-July, and changed my prayer. I asked Him to show me where He had planned for my growth and sustenance, and to guide me in where I should go and what I should do. It took a while for this realisation to get from my head to my heart, and then praying became easier, and answers started to come from unexpected places.

I am a white, male, able-bodied, mono-lingual Englishman living in South Africa at a time when that combination makes it hard in the natural to find employment. This is not necessarily a bad thing after the atrocities my adopted country has witnessed through the decades of Apartheid, but it makes things less friendly in a work environment than they could be. My applications were rarely even acknowledged, and when they were it was always "we are sorry, but..."

Since my heart changed, God has opened doors where I didn't expect to find them. I was blessed by a local businessman who offered me employment as an assistant manager in his business. I have been working there now for a month and finding it incredibly satisfying and fulfilling. I did feel that I should follow up on some of the other applications I had submitted, and out of the blue on following up on one application I had made weeks before I was invited to interview, follow up and aptitude tests, then offered a position with one of the largest businesses in the country! The paths have opened up for me to move there, and all since I changed my heart and started to ask God to direct my steps.

Blessings come from all sides and in many different shapes. We need to recognise that the ways that look right to us might be God's plan, but in a different route than we expect.

But God...

Sometimes life hits you with a side-swipe you don't see coming. God usually counters with something equally as unexpected.

I had to leave a job recently, one I've done for 8 years since I came to South Africa. The business closed and I found myself out of work. My wife has not been well for some time, and this left us without any income.

Major side-swipe.

In the blink of an eye we went from where God was taking us to fighting massive health issues and having creditors from personal and business environments hammering on our door. The enemy hit us hard with a massive attack that we just didn't see coming, and were far from prepared for.

Massive swipe.

One of my favourite phrases in scripture is "But God".

In this case, I had my own "But God" experience.

After applying blindly to as many potential employers as I could I was getting nowhere. We were getting desperate and it felt like I was getting blocked at every turn. Then God came through - from a place I had never applied to, and might never have considered applying to. The owner of the local filling-station and store offered me a job as manager of the shop/station. More than that, he offered it on the understanding that if I got a better offer after I started he would only need 24 hours notice before I moved on! A serious "But God" experience.

There was a man once who went out to do what he fully believed was God's will. He travelled a lot, speaking to everyone who would listen and eventually arresting, judging and imprisoning people. But God knocked him off his donkey one day. Jesus himself spoke to him and overcame the side-swipe of the persecuting ways he'd had. God's swipe gave us nearly two-thirds of the New Testament.

Another man was excited by what God had shown him. He shared it with his family. His brothers threw him in a pit, sold him as a slave and told his father he was dead. His new owner promoted him, then the owner's wife falsely accused him of rape, he was thrown into prison and forgotten. But God had other plans. In 24 hours he went from imprisoned slave to second only to Pharoah in Egypt and saved the nation and surrounding nations from starvation.

David, Joseph, Abraham, Paul, Peter and the giants in the scripture all experienced "But God" experiences in their lives. Wesley, Luther, Wigglesworth, St Patrick, and so many other Godly men since scripture was closed also experienced these moments.

I don't know any God focussed people who can't look at their lives and see it littered with "But God" moments, big and small.

Look for them. God is just waiting to surprise His children at every opportunity.

Battle Perspective

A few weeks ago I wrote about Perspective. As Christians we almost invariably need to take another look at ourselves in every situation. The most crucial however, is Warfare.

I'm not talking about joining the US Marine Corps here, but rather the Spiritual Warfare we are involved in on a daily basis.

The battles we fight are not against flesh and blood, as Paul puts it, but rather we fight against ideas. "We use our powerful God-tools for smashing warped philosophies, tearing down barriers erected against the truth of God, fitting every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by Christ." (2 Corinthians 10:5 The Message)

Ideas, philosohpies, imaginations. These are what we must fight against.

I heard someone say some time ago that they imagined King David as the shepherd boy going toe to toe against Goliath. It gave them comfort to think of David looking at this giant and being scared. Goliath was a massive figure, and dressed in full battle gear he would have cast an impressive figure, it's true. But when I read the story I see David's heart. He was a young man powerfully driven by the Love of God, whom he had an incredible relationship with already.

He saw a man, nothing more, who dared to defy the army of the Living God. Armed and assured by his knowledge and relationship he went out and fearlessly first stunned the giant with the weapons he was most familiar with, then finally used the enemy's own weapon to behead him. True, the sling may have killed the giant outright, but the removal of his head certainly completed the job!

We need to look at the attacks we endure with the same attitude David had.

Firstly we must look at what we already have in our armoury. God has given each of us tools to use in a fight we are familiar with and can wield with just as deadly accuracy at the enemy as anything he can launch at us. Saul offered David his own armour. David was unfamiliar with the weapons and had he chosen to use it the story would have had a very different outcome. Encumbered with what Saul had given him and unfamiliar with the use of the weapons, David would have died quickly and Israel would have fallen. When we come under attack we must use the familiar. The World will seek to have us use other things. Often, as Saul was at this point, well-meaning people will give advice that will result in our falling, not because the weapons are inherently bad, but simply because we don't know how to use them. David went on to become a battle-hardened warrior in his own right, and fought many campaigns with a sword in his hand. But first he had to learn.

Secondly, once our familiar weapons have felled and stunned the initial attack, we can then look at how our enemy's own weapons can be used to ensure his utter defeat. Ill health, financial loss, even death of a loved one can be turned around to Glorify God and defeat the enemy if we look to God's wisdom on how.

In the midst of the first step it may now be obvious, but as the initial onslaught stops we can often see where God is directing our steps and how we can now use the very thing that the enemy wanted to use to destroy us, be it sickness, death or financial ruin (or any combination thereof!) to rebuild stronger and more Blessed than ever before, while the enemy is utterly defeated.

The Simple Things

Last night for 12 hours we were without water to our home. It was a hassle. I couldn't shower, the dirty clothes needed to wait and I couldn't have my evening cup of tea. This was an inconvenience, not a disaster.

I wasn't well last night. I felt thick headed, my mouth was dry, I was nauseous and I needed to use the bathroom...

The little things like turning on a tap are what get to us. A few years ago I would regularly go camping for the odd conference. These camping trips were well organised with stand-pipes dotted about for supplying water and an ablutions block. But for cooking I had to fetch water. I would walk from my tent site to the tap nearest, which always felt like a trek, fill a couple of 25 litre jerry cans and walk back. That would do me for the day's cooking, washing (don't like to shower on camp) and drinking water. Some campers had mobile homes with fitments allowing them to drive to the tap and fill water butts with enough water for the whole weekend. Some made several trips a day because they had smaller containers.

Overnight last night I was reminded of this as I went and pumped water from the wellpoint in the garden (sulphurous and very much NOT drinking water) into jerry cans again for the toilet cysterns in the house. It struck me that this simple luxury we take for granted is an absolute necessity we cannot do without.

Water.

Jesus didn't stand up and announce that He was the living egg and chips. He didn't reveal himself to be the beer of life. Water. Simple water.

We cannot live more than a couple of days without water. Spiritually we need to be filled constantly with the Living Water of Jesus' Spirit. Why? Because we leak.

Imagine taking a nail and driving it through a 25 litre container about an inch from the bottom and leaving it there. Then fill the can with water. You might not notice immediately, but the water immediately begins to flow out of the hole. The pressure from the air surrounding it forces the water out. Gradually the water all drains out until it reaches the level of the nail, and it levels off there. You can't stop the flow on a camp site, you need to simply return to the source and top up. Regularly.

Spiritually it's no different.

Top up or dry up. And Sundays aren't enough alone. We don't drive big mobile homes with enough storage space for weeks at a time. But we do have a link to the source. What we need to do is to plug ourselves into the source and we can keep going back as often as we need - that tap never dries out.

Jesus would withdraw from the disciples and go alone to pray. He needed to top up. If Jesus needed to, how much more do we.

Single Minded Focus

I really get hung up these days on being single minded. It never really occurred to me that I wasn't until the latest battle I've had to fight. My wife is going through the biggest fight of her life, and as a result I am as well. She's fighting illness in a way I've never had to before now. If she loses, she really loses. Faith requires focus. I firmly believe that it is not God's will for her to be going through this. I have absolutely no doubt that He will ultimately be Glorified through it, but H e didn't cause it. So I need to pray.

Previously when I've had to pray for something there has been an "acceptable" alternative that I could go to when it didn't happen how I expected the answer to come. I shifted my expectations according to what was happening in the natural world around me. As a result my experience was hit and miss to say the least. Every so often I'd hold on despite what was going on and I'd see God work in big ways. It finally dawned on my lightning fast mind that I needed to hold on to my focus and to stick to it no matter what.

I used to be a marksman when I was at school. I was a pretty good shot with a rifle, and reasonable with an air rifle. The key was to focus on a single target. I realised recently that I need to apply that same focus to my Sprirtual battle that I use when I have a gun in my hands.

I used to love the old westerns growing up where there was some old-timer with a "scatter" gun. The sawn down barrel of a shotgun that would spray buckshot over a wide area was something that made me laugh and wish I'd been around then. As I learned more I discovered those guns are only really effective up close. The scattering of the pellets diffuses how powerful the shot is and actually in a fight a pistol was far more use for bringing down your enemy.

Prayer is like being a sniper. A scatter-gun prayer sounds great but is virtually useless. We need to pick out our target and fire directly at it - kill shots only. The enemy does nothing less to us. When our health or finances are attacked we often shout at God about it. We lose our jobs and we shout at Him some more. The sickness deepens and we still just scream impotently at God.

Impotent. Weak. Defeated.

This is not what God made us.

When we pray we should do what Jesus told us. Praise first. It's like a sniper drawing his breath out to steady his hands. It clarifies the mind and puts us into a position where we can really see the target. Line up the kill shot second. Pick the point on the enemy where it will cause most damage to him and the best result for us. Fire and keep firing until he falls. There is no point in shooting once and walking away without making sure the enemy is fully defeated.

King David was a sniper of his day. He was skilled with a sling - deadly from a distance. He loosed the stone at Goliath's head, hit the mark and the giant fell. Then for good measure, despite having buried a fist sized rock between his eyes, David takes the giant's own sword and beheads him with it. The action simply states "This guy's not getting up!"

Peter sees the man at the Gate of the Temple and fixes his gaze on him before he prays, then as if that's not enough he drags the man to his feet. Healed.

Jesus set his face like flint as he moved towards the city of Jerusalem and kept his focus on the Joy set before Him... Us.

Single focus. Single target. Kill shot. Victory. Hallelujah!

Constant Change

Change happens. We can't stop it. In fact, whoever it was that said "change is the only constant" first really knew what they were talking about.

But do things change?

Life moves on at an ever increasing pace, yet on a global scale nothing changes really. A Roman historian I remember studying 20 years or more ago in school lamented the breakdown of the family unit, the lack of respect children showed to their parents and the growing problems teachers faced with disruption and bad manners in the average classroom - 2000 years ago!

Even in our lives we have change that merely makes us more the same than we are different.

We diet to lose weight, yet the more we change our eating patterns, the more that final pound needs to be attacked. We go to work to make more money to buy the new things we "need" to survive, only to find they are obsolete, but just a little more and we can get the latest version, wich will then be obsolete.

I recently found myself in the detestable position of having to get a new cell phone. I'd rather have to find a new kidney. I liked my old phone. I knew how to work it, it didn't use a lot of airtime to receive email and check the odd website online. But it was 3 years old, so the manufacturer has stopped producing the software updates it needs to function and now it is a paperweight.

And so I find myself back at the store being confused by the promises of wonder and hope that each new model brings. I finally pick one, a Nokia - perhaps a bit big, but it comes with the software and hardware I prefer to use (a qwerty keyboard instead of a touchscreen). I tell the assistant my choice and he tells me it's not available on my package. The ones I really like are all not available on my package.

The worst thing in the world to me is to be shown something, convinced it is what I need and have always wanted by the sales department, and then told I can't have it - or that there's a hefty pay-in you don't know about until you sign the paperwork.

So now I sit with my new phone beside me. It's not one I wanted - in fact I distinctly and expressly stated I did NOT want this phone. Repeatedly. But it was what I could afford, and actually now I'm using it I find it is quite a good machine - and even is saving me money because I was able to get everything I need on a cheaper package!

Life sure can be complicated. I look back at this little event playing out over the last couple of weeks and remember 3 years ago I went through much the same before I got the much lamented and very deceased paperweight I mentioned. It happens to be one of those things that doesn't change.

We resist change, but it is forced on us sometimes. But change defines who we are - how we handle the changes in our lives demonstrates to us and the world at large who we are and what we stand for.

Recently we underwent some major changes because of ill health in my family. We will have to make more as a result in a few weeks time. Yet the changes only make us more the same where it matters. On the surface much changes. Jobs come and go, houses rise and fall. Even friendships are transient. I have only occasional contact now with some of the people a few years ago I believed would be major players in my life for ever - even people I have lived with and my own family have drifted away from me as a result of changes, yet at my core I remain the same.

I am, in essence, a fallen man, redeemed by the Grace and Mercy of God through His sacrifice on the Cross, who has been raised to Son-ship and is a joint-heir with Christ in the Kingdom. No matter what cellphone I carry, what job I do or what happens to my family's physical health THAT will never change.

Who's it all about?

I've recently been going through a lot in my life. Sickness has struck my family in a devastating way, our finances have been assaulted in a hard way and our hopes for the coming year and our future in general have been attacked and on the surface it has looked as though much is no longer possible.

It has been difficult to bear the issues we've had to deal with. Physical loss hits hard, the apparent loss of dreams and hopes hits even harder. The Bible tells us "Hope deferred makes the heart sick" (Proverbs 13:12a), which suggests depression, and that we should "Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life" (Proverbs 4:23).

The trick above all else, however, is to retain our perspective.

When our focus is on self, the things of this world will grow massive. They weigh us down and leave us desolated by the sheer enormity of them. Our inability to see past them because of our perspective cripples our ability to move on and beyond the initial pain.

Focus on God, however, allows us to overcome the issues we face in any circumstance - and I do mean any circumstance.

On the night before he was crucified, Jesus took his disciples on a "crash-course" of what they would need to get through the loss of everything they had placed their future on. In the course of the next 24 hours they would face loss and grief, the possibility of arrest, torture and even death. They would apparently lose the hope they had placed in Him, and everything they had built their entire future on.

Jesus took them through His teachings, but the first thing He taught them was to maintain perspective - "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me" (John 14:1)

That perspective alone was enough to keep the disciples strong. In the years after the resurrection they endured much that when we look at it now seems almost unendurable. They were persecuted and executed for their faith in horrific ways, yet their perspective kept them strong - and it can do the same for us. Paul lists some of the things he endured in his life after his conversion en route to Damascus, and then describes them as "our light affliction, which is but for a moment" (2 Corinthians 4:17)

Our perspective is paramount. In the end, everything is about God. We were created to worship, and we all worship something. When we direct that worship where it was designed to be directed - at God - we can deal with anything and everything the world can possibly throw at us. When we direct at self, or anything else for that matter, we inevitably cannot cope when things go wrong because we have no support for our hearts.

It's all about Jesus at the end of the day. We cannot live without Him and we cannot hope to move forward without His perfect guidance in our lives.

Dreaming Big

We all dream. It's natural. God gave us imaginations and the desire to use them. Without dreams we would stagnate and eventually die. It is our imaginations that allow us to look to the future and plan. The longings of our heart spoken of in Proverbs are possible because of our imagination.

Imagination gives us hope. We live in an imagined world all the time, it's just that we don't see it that way. When we give directions, or if someone tells us to describe an elephant, we see in our mind's eye the thing we are describing. That requires our imagination.

Without imagination Donald Trump would never have built Trump Tower in New York, Bill Gates would never have developed the Microsoft organisation, Mozart would never have composed his Great Mass, the Wright Brothers would never have left the ground, and Jesus would not have gone to the Cross.

That's right, Jesus used His imagination in Gethsemane. He used it to see the joy set before Him. He imagined the resurrection - saw it's conclusion and what it would achieve - and it gave Him the human strength to go on through the crucifixion. He encouraged the disciples to use their imaginations the very night He was betrayed. He encouraged them to think about what was to come in His Father's House. We cannot be troubled when we focus on eternity, and that really requires an Eternal perspective - which we cannot have without our imaginations!

Dreaming of the future is something we all do. It is these imaginings that allow us to develop our lives. A God-centric imagination will result in us moving (more-or-less!) in His direction, where focussing on ourselves or the world will draw us away from Him.

In the 1990's I went to a lot of Bible conferences in the UK. There I saw some amazing works of God, from salvation to healing to financial provision. I watched in awe as one of the leaders at one conference prayed for a young boy who had one leg over an inch shorter than the other, and at the prayer the short leg grew to match the length of the other. It sparked my imagination, and I began to pray more for healing, finance and so on. For a while I saw it too. Nothing as dramatic as the young boy's leg, but small healings, finances provided where it was seemingly impossible, hardened atheists joining churches with tears. Then my circumstances changed and I gradually went to fewer conferences and although I still had the memories the imagination I had was not fuelled in the same way and what I began to see was less spectacular than back then.

My imagination had become less potent because I did not feed it in God's way. I studied for 8 years towards a commerce degree which required me to watch the news reports and read the newspapers where I had previously been able to spend that time in more spiritual study, and as a result my thinking became more worldly and I began to expect the world's results - and that's what I started to get. Now I am more concentrated on my Spirit again, although not as much as when I was younger, and the answers I see are more expectant of God showing up and seeing results.

When Peter prayed for the cripple at the Temple he must have imagined him walking. Paul imagined planting a Church in every city he set foot in, and those places he went almost all had a Church when he left.

We must be wary of what we imagine. Books like "The Secret" will make seemingly incredible promises based on using this same concept, and the world will indeed provide some very convincing counterfeits for God's dreams for our lives. I'm not talking about any "law of attraction" or such nonsense. These would be the very things we are told by Paul in 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 "For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God to the casting down of strongholds, casting down imaginations, and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God, and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ"

What we listen to will affect our imaginations. We inevitably burn less brightly when we are set away from the rest of the coals. But we were made to dream, and to dream BIG. But we must go to the one who dreams a dream for us. God has a dream for us. He places it in us whilst we are still being formed and gives us every chance He can to live it. But dreams are risky things to follow. They can cost us everything safe and secure, and most people never leave home in pursuit of our dreams, we rather sit in our comfortable chairs and read articles, blogs or watch tv shows about people living out their "dreams".

Maybe your dream is to sing, or act. If it is God's dream for you then ask Him to make a way for you to do it. Maybe your dream is to be a doctor or a lawyer or a teacher. Whatever God's dream is for you, seek it with all your heart. Don't let the world draw you away with shiny baubles that will rob you of the real treasure you will find when you live your real Big Dream.


For further reading on the concept of dreams in a Christian perspective, I recommend Bruce Wilkinson's excellent book "The Dream Giver" ISBN: 978-1-59052-201-1

Half the Story

There's a guy wanders around the place near my home in Cape Town putting up posters he's made himself. They are simple, hand-written messages I'm sure he intends to encourage people. The trouble is, they only tell half the truth.

On these posters he's written "Resist the Devil and he must Flee" along with the James reference.

It's all well meaning, and most people just shrug it off or ignore it completely. Then yesterday I was driving past a church building in the same area with an official notice board outside proudly proclaiming "Belief in God will not get you into Heaven - Obedience will"

This trend worries me. With the increase in number of false prophets proclaiming the end is near - or that we missed it a couple of weeks ago - it is worrying in the extreme that churches and their members are proclaiming half-truths in print like this.

Yes, we must resist the devil and his schemes. But it is fruitless to do that in our own strength. The whole concept in James states "Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded"(James 4:7-8) Before we can resist the devil effectively we must submit ourselves to God. Doing otherwise is fruitless. We must draw close to God. His power is what we must use to defeat the enemy of our souls.

Even blind obedience is pointless. That way leads to legalism and religion rather than a living, breathing relationship. It is the difference between expectation and expectancy. Religion places expectations on us. "We must be obedient or God will not bless us" is the attitude. Paul wrote and spoke against such things by criticising those members of the early church who were insisting new converts be circumcised and follow the teachings of the law. The Truth sets us free, it doesn't tie us to a life of concrete rules with some transcendental Shylock sitting on his throne muttering "you're all going to Hell, directly to Hell, do not pass 'Go', do not collect 200 sheckels". Rather we are yoked to a living Saviour who seeks to lift the burdens of this world from us and free us to be the people He created us to be. Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, and all the other "paths" the world would have us look at to learn the 'right' way to live and find God all set out rules from what to eat, to what direction to face when you pray to how your body must be positioned. Christianity must differentiate itself from these religious ideas or it becomes the very thing it was created to destroy - dead!

Our faith is one of Life, not death. We serve a Living and Loving God who presents Himself to us where we are, He doesn't wait for us to be worthy of His love, for to do so would condemn us all! Paul writes in Romans 5:8 "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us". God is on our side. The world will seek to tear us down and imprison us in itself, "What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?" (Romans 8:31)

That is the real Truth. God is on our side. God is for us.

Wellspring of Life

We all have times when we feel down. Depression hits without warning apparently, and we can be left feeling drained and hollow by the circumstances we find ourselves enveloped by.

The real issue, however, is where we draw our strength fom on a daily basis. What do we treasure most?

The Bible teaches us "Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life."(Proverbs 4:23) This is a particularly true statement. We give our hearts over to all kind of things during the time we have. As young men and women, it is often to a partner. Our whole being becomes wrapped up in that individual, and if the relationship breaks down we are left feeling desolate. Many teen suicides are attributed to this.

As adults we are not exempt from this folly. We put our hearts into getting the corner office or the house with the pool or the Ferrari, then Bob, the 29 year-old newbie gets the promotion, the pool is cracked or the car is stolen and we are left feeling cheated and forgotten. Our hearts get crushed, bruised and beaten.

Sometimes we build our hearts on the hopes we have made for ourselves, hopes and dreams like children or continued health. Then the news comes: "I'm sorry but it looks like you'll never have kids" or "It's cancer", and we are devastated because that's where our hearts are.

We also find irrelevant issues all consuming because of where our hearts lie. I know people who can tell you the names of every player who has put on a Manchester United shirt and kicked a ball in the last 40 years, but can't tell you what their children's favourite food is. The focus of our heart is what will determine the kind of men and women we become. If we focus on the irrelevant then we can never be relevant ourselves to the people who matter.

One of my personal favourite teachers, Andrew Wommack, can quote hundreds, even thousands of scriptures from memory. His heart is focussed on what matters, and this is demonstrated by his expression of his faith, the way he talks of his family and the way he relates to others. I had the priviledge many years ago of meeting him a few times and chatting to him. He struck me then as a man who has a simple faith, uncluttered by caring about people's opinions. "Only Christ matters" was the message I got from the conversations I had with him over a few days in 1997 at a bible week in England. He, Dave Duell and a few others were real and present. They had hearts which radiated love. A wellspring of life which was clearly not their own but was fuelled by something far greater than a mere man could hope to have in his own strength.

This may seem like a shameless advert for these teachers, but it is intended to be an example. I hope that one day people will see that same love and commitment in me, and in you. There is something powerful in a guarded heart. The life in it is not our own, rather it is given to us by a God who sees what we are in ourselves and loves us anyway. He places His own Spirit in us to guide us and speaks to us through our hearts daily if we will only listen.

"Today, if you will hear His voice, Harden not your hearts" (Psalm 95:7b-8a) If we will hear His voice. If we are going to hear God speaking to us, we must keep our hearts fixed on Him. King David understood this and kept his heart inclined towards God so that even after he had tried to hide his sin with Bathsheba he was sensitive enough to God that when the Prophet came to him he immediately repented and humbled himself before God.

We must guard our heart today. There is so much in this world that seeks to depress and destroy our life, but the Good News is "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."

God is for us, and with that as the food for our heart we can live with a wellspring of life in our core being at all times, anduring the light afflictions of this world and moving beyond them by keeping an eternal perspective.

Changes

As we walk life's path we are forever changed by the experiences we ecounter. Sometimes these are easy and incremental, sometimes they are massive and painful.

Change is a constant, which is not a contradiction. The only thing we can be certain of is that we do not leave this day the same person we were when we entered it.

In the last few days I have seen friends experience joy and sorrow. I have seen myself experience much life changing as well as a result of their experience. Every life we touch is changed. One friend has a new love in his life. Another has suffered the breakdown of a relationship where a child is involved. Still another has begun a new life in a foreign country.

These are actually minor pieces of information to me that represent major upheaval to them, both for the good and the bad as they experience it.

Business may be good, health may deteriorate. We cannot know what the world will throw at us this day. There is no constant but change...

...and God.

To give us hope and an anchor in the storm of this life we have a God who is an absolute constant. His love for us is the same yesterday as it will be tomorrow. His desire for us is constant. For God, everything is now.

I believe Einstein surmised that at the speed of light there is no passage of time. Everything is now. Jesus declared Himself to be the Light of the World. "God is light; in Him there is no darkness at all" declares 1 John 1:5. It makes sense. Everything is now.

There is no change outside time. Time exists within God, rather than the other way around. We tend to forget this. It's easy to do that. We get caught up in what's happening in our lives and we forget that God is outside it all. He's bigger than our problems. He knows the beginning from the end. He is the beginning and the end!

What would life be like if, just for a moment, we could perceive it through God's eyes? How would we change things? Would we change things?

Should we change things? What we should perhaps rather do is to understand.

Paul had an eternal perspective, and his life gradually became a constant movement towards God as a result. The world threw everything it had at him and he just kept his heart guarded and followed his path.

"Keep and guard your heart with all vigilance and above all that you guard, for out of it flow the springs of life. Put away from you false and dishonest speech, and willful and contrary talk put far from you. Let your eyes look right on [with fixed purpose], and let your gaze be straight before you. Consider well the path of your feet, and let all your ways be established and ordered aright." (Proverbs 4:23-26 Amplified)

I love that "consider". We move in response to circumstance. Paul considered his path. We are tossed about by the changes in our external conditions. Paul fixed his heart and moved towards Jesus with an unswerving course.

I would love to be like Paul, keep my eyes fixed on the prize and not be swayed by the troubles of this life. But I'm not. I have my moments, we all do, but generally I'm thrown about by the troubles of this world. Changes overpower me and I wrestle with decisions I need to make and those I already made. Only where I have actually cut off the possibility of change do I have peace about staying the course - my Faith in Jesus and my marriage. These areas are the strongest in my life. They are also suffering the greatest attack. I am challenged to change what I believe about both by circumstances daily.

My Faith is based on a secure and unchanging foundation - the person of Jesus. My marriage is built on this same foundation - the person of Jesus.

Change in our external circumstances is inevitable. This life brings troubles and sorrow with it much of the time, especially if you choose following Jesus as a life to live. But we must guard our hearts against being undermined by circumstances.

We must be single minded and focussed if we are to survive the constant onslaught of the changes in the world.
 

Blindsided

Even as Christians we are susceptible to attack. Our health and finances are the enemy's favourite targets. We lose sight of what Christ bought for us through the atonement and when we do we are open to assault in any area.

We stop watching our backs and we become complacent because of modern medicine and credit agreements. We get sucked into darker places easily once we start relying on our own strength and "street-smarts" to move on in the world. Then once the circle is big enough to trap us, the enemy moves in ans snaps shut, then suddenly we are serving two masters. The trap catches us unaware and our life changes.

We are not aware in this modern world of the battle we are caught up in. John Eldridge likens this world to the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan. From a Spiritual perspective we are storming the beaches of Normandy and taking heavy fire all the time. Many of us are walking around broken and bleeding from life-threatening wounds that left untended will eventually kill us.

We leave ourselves open to heartache, sickness and death both physical and spiritual when we lose sight of the battle we are in.

Paul writes to the Ephesians about the Armour of God and lists the items - breastplate, shield, sword, helmet, foot-guards and belt. The list is based around the armour of the Roman empire. Roman legionaries were famous in antiquity for not retreating or turning their back on the enemy. There's no protection for the back. It's a blind side.

If we keep facing the enemy we are fully protected. The Belt of Truth holds all the rest of the armour in place. The Helmet of Salvation protects our minds. The Sword of the Word is an offensive weapon which Paul says is mighty to tear down strongholds. The armour of preparedness on the feet lets us move forward to spread the Gospel.

All of this is great, but the most essential part that gets forgotten so often is the shield. Faith is our shield. It protects our blind side. The "fiery darts" Paul speaks of in Ephesians 6 are a likening to the flaming arrows fired in ancient warfare. The shield in Roman armour was thick and heavy. The wood it was backed with would absorb the arrow deeply enough to extinguish the arrows fired. It had to be hooked onto the belt because of the weight. It was not enough to have the shield alone. Truth supports the shield.

What much of the trap of the 21st Century has delivered to us is a false truth. Medicine, although useful - it must be added that right now I myself take several medicines daily for unresolved chronic medical conditions - is not God's first choice. We are comfortable with it because we can live with the issues that just 50 years ago were almost always fatal unless God intervened. When we need finances we turn straight to a bank or "micro-finance" lender. The concept of turning to God to meet financial needs, despite being a central theme through Jesus's own teaching, is virtually condemned by most churches (note the lower case "c" there). Christ's teaching of reliance on God for our daily needs has almost been completely lost. We need to get back to basics, and it protects our blind side.

The enemy will sometimes get a shot past us. We may get wounded or even killed by those shots, but if we keep our mind set on the Truth and build our Faith on that Truth, then we can overcome even potentially fatal wounds.

Walking the Talk

It's easy to sit back in our comfortable chairs and spout platitudes about how to live as a Christian. Platitudes are easy. They are pure theory, like the scientist who sits looking at pieces of paper and uses mathematics to explain how a star can exist, or more accurately a business man called in to "streamline" a company talking about how many jobs must be cut, then returning to his million dollar job in his million dollar car.

Reality is harder.

In World War One the soldiers doing the fighting sat up to their knees in filth, mud, water and rats. Many lives were lost because of the conditions the men were forced to live in. Even today, you can visit places and see sanitised versions of the trenches. I saw the reconstructions as a teenager at Vimy Ridge. I saw the massive memorial at Thiepval to over 70 000 men whose bodies were never recovered on the Somme battlefields.

But the Generals who sent these men to their deaths sat growing fat at HQ, eating steak and attending dances whilst their men were close to starving and waiting for death to call.

As Christians we can fall into the trap of believing we're Generals.

We sit and spout theory about why things are the way they are. God being God allows certain things to happen to teach us. He has His "master-plan" and we can't understand it.

We're living in a world where we are at war but we think we're at HQ. Then the shells start falling around us. Cancer, unemployment, death of loved ones strike at us and we are reminded that we are not safe behind the lines, but rather we are stuck in the middle of the front line, and the enemy soldiers are well trained and relentless.

Suddenly we have to start to walk the talk. And we usually fail.

Peter was so filled with the Holy Spirit that people placed the sick in the street so his shadow could touch them. When it came time for them to look for someone to wait on the tables they sought out those anointed men to do it - Primarily Stephen, the first martyr.

They talked the talk, yes. But they walked what they talked. Peter laid hands on the sick, He raised the dead. He had freely received - not in theory, but in reality - and he now freely gave. He taught others what he knew, sometimes he even used words to do it.

We are quick to talk, but walking it is another matter. It's hard to stay strong when it looks like your life is falling apart. Death and sickness haunt your every step. Loved ones die and are diagnosed with terrible illness. Fear is a natural response. Grief hammers on the door of our heart and we open it up and weep.

It's normal. It's part of healing. It opens the door to what comes next...

hang on...

Next?

Next...


"Therefore, when Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her weeping, He groaned in the spirit and was troubled. And He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to Him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus wept.  Then the Jews said, 'See how He loved him!'" (John 11:33-36)

Jesus wept because He loved Lazarus and He loved Martha. He felt the grief tey felt. He felt the loss. He wept.

Then He acted.



Then Jesus, again groaning in Himself, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it.  Jesus said, 'Take away the stone.' Martha, the sister of him who was dead, said to Him, 'Lord, by this time there is a stench, for he has been dead four days.' Jesus said to her, 'Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?' Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead man was lying.^[c] And Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, 'Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. ⁴² And I know that You always hear Me, but because of the people who are standing by I said this, that they may believe that You sent Me.' Now when He had said these things, He cried with a loud voice, 'Lazarus, come forth!' ⁴⁴ And he who had died came out bound hand and foot with graveclothes, and his face was wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, 'Loose him, and let him go.'" (John 11:38-44)

First Jesus felt the grief, then He acted. And Lazarus came out of the grave.

Jesus walked the talk. Peter and Paul and Timothy and all the apostles walked the talk. They saw miracles. Jail cells opened, blind eyes seeing, lame walking, deaf hearing.

When my dad was diagnosed with cancer in 1999 I tried to believe for a miracle. I wanted him to live and recover. He didn't. I didn't understand at that point. I said all the right things, even outwardly did all of them, but my heart saw him die when the doctors made the diagnosis. As a result I prepared for his death in my heart, and not for his health being restored.

I talked the talk, but I didn't walk it. I know that now, and although I'm saddened I don't feel guilt or shame about it. It's been taken care of by giving it over to Christ, something we all must do.

Walking the talk is hard. It means taking hits, often from people we are very close to.

It means having to watch sometimes and wait for the moment to call our Lazarus out.

We weep. We bleed. We feel the despair and the heartache this world holds.

We drown it out most of the time. Numb ourselves to the cry of our hearts by watching TV or drinking, or partying. Sex, drugs and rock and roll. But then we go to sleep alone, and in the darkness He calls to us, and our thoughts return to where we should be.

So we get up and we talk the fight. Once in a while we even fight the fight.

Then a new attack comes and we crumple.

Unless we consistently walk out our faith. We can build ourselves up through fellowship to a point where when the storm comes we can weather it. The wave breaks on the Rock on which we stand, rather than swamping us

Talk the talk, yes. But we must walk out what we believe, whatever the cost personally if we are to stand.

Walk the talk. "But be doers of the word, and not hearers only" (James 1:22)