Black and White - a Gospel of Absolutes

The Gospel is a Gospel of absolutes. In Christianity there is no space for shades of grey. Jesus spoke in parables, but His message was crystal clear. He is the only path to Salvation, righteousness and acceptance by God. Anything else that sets itself up as a path to heaven is at best deluded fantasy, and at worst, antichrist.

Satan would love us to get bogged down in the irrelevant and minutia, as I’ve written previously. The problem for us is discerning where the minutia ends and the meat begins. The best place to start is to look at the Old Testament. This may surprise us, but the absolutes Jesus taught were first shown in the actions God directed in the hands of the Judges and the Kings of David’s heart. The prophets such as Moses, Elijah, Isaiah and the others all spoke in terms of absolutes with no space for compromise. Compromise would have seen Daniel eaten by lions and Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego burned to a crisp. It would have seen Elijah die in a drought or starve.

We are not called to compromise. We must call sin “sin”, even when it’s unpopular to do so. Calling out sins and teaching that we can be freed from their hold over us is not popular today. The world looks to compromise for its religions. It’s only conservative evangelical fanatics who see sin for what it “used” to be. 

Absolutes.

An absolute is, by definition, unmoving. God is an absolute in that He never changes. And if He never changes and His Word is never to be changed, why do we insist on watering it down to make it more palatable to the masses? We voluntarily become lukewarm and invite Him to vomit us out. I’m a tea-drinker, and I can drink iced tea very cold or a strong Ceylon blend very hot. Don’t give me lukewarm tea – it’s revolting. Unpalatable.

We all have food like that in our tastes. Salad that’s gone limp. Stew partially congealed with the fat setting 

but still a bit warm. For most of us it would turn our appetite off completely to be served this kind of food, so why do we suddenly in the 21^st Century expect God after thousands of years accepting only hot or cold to be content with tepid followers?

Obviously this article is aimed at people who are already Christians, not those seeking. Or maybe it is. I was young, just 13, when I gave my life to Christ. But I remember I wanted something that set out black and white, right and wrong in no uncertain terms. I needed the discipline, even when I didn’t like it, of a faith of absolutes that were unshakeable. A God who didn’t blow hot and cold, but was constant so I would have a rock to rest my feet on, something solid on which to stand. My brother had recently died in an accident and I needed something more than my parents alone could offer. I looked into other religions, but I found strength and Truth in Christ simply because of the consistency of the Bible as His Word. Every action was motivated by Love, even the “genocides” of the Old Testament.

Consider the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. They were cities of influence. Modern teaching would have us believe their sin was being inhospitable rather than sexual in nature, but look deeper. The greatest sin was that they no longer considered sexual immorality – both heterosexual and homosexual – to be sin. It was the normal way of life, much like today. So how was their destruction an act of Love? It’s simple really. Their influence was such that had they not been destroyed there may not have been any virgins of child-bearing age by the time Jesus was to be born. The Saviour needed to be a Virgin Birth, and their actions would have rendered it impossible.

And that’s just a single example. Look at the Old Testament, even the slaughters in it, as a Love story, everything designed to make Salvation through Jesus possible, and everything designed to point to Him from the commands of the Law to the Prophet’s writings, it all is one huge story of God pouring out His Love onto an unworthy people to make them – to make us – acceptable in His sight through His own sacrifice on the Cross.

A relationship of Love is not an easy one. God’s kind of Love is sacrificial in nature. It’s not romantic. It’s deeper than brotherly. It requires sacrifice and choice on both sides. We need to choose to give up our sin. He needed to choose to accept it into Himself so we could be absolved.

Repentance is an ongoing choice. Forgiveness is not a one-time deal. It’s ongoing. It’s unchanging.

It’s absolute.

The nature of God is unchanging. What He said was sin 2000 years, 4000 years or longer ago is still unacceptable to Him today. It’s still sin. Pride, sexual immorality, coveting, hatred and all the other issues He declared to be unacceptable in history are still sinful today.

But so is His nature to forgive and heal. Abraham didn’t just believe in God. He believed God, and this is what was credited as righteousness (see Galatians 3:6). We are, as Paul wrote, justified by faith, not by compromise. Our faith must be absolute, but in our bodies, this absolute is a work in progress. I acknowledge my imperfections, and I recognise God’s forgiveness. And I welcome it. Without it I would be lost forever.

But we need to return to the recognition of absolutes in our walk. We need to hear the voice saying to turn right or left. God never said “Hey man, go your own way, I’ll catch up.” We follow Him, not the other way round. We need to recognise His leadership, not ask Him to accept us the way we are and let us in on a pass.

Absolutes. They are essential to us in order to walk with Jesus. Jesus didn’t do half-measures. He didn’t leave the blind as partially sighted. He didn’t leave the lame with a limp. The totally deaf were not hard of hearing, and the lepers didn’t get left with missing parts. Restoration was complete, final and absolute.

He asks no more or less of us. We cannot give more. How dare we give less?

Be uncompromising. Walk as we first accepted Christ, unshaken and unbowed to the whims of the World. Don’t seek to be popular, seek to be right. This isn’t a Dr Phil show. We need to be Right to be able to receive supernatural Joy. That Joy surpasses happiness. It will go on and sustain us long after the transient nature of the notion of “happy” has passed.

The World relies on emotion. It looks to personality not character. It looks to popularity not Truth. It looks to compromise not absolutes.

And in compromise there is nothing but death.

God's Kind of Humble

We all know God opposes the proud. It's in proverbs and most of the scripture says so in a roundabout way. Jesus's entire ministry about the Pharisees had their pride and lack of humility as a central theme.

But what is humility in God's eyes?

It's easier to say what it isn't. It isn't self-deprecation. Putting yourself down is actually pride. Inverted pride, but pride nonetheless. It's obviously not puffing yourself up, making yourself out to be more than you are.

True humility is acknowledging exactly who and what God says we are. No more, no less.

We've lost sight of that kind of humility. Uncertainty has become a virtue of modern times. Classics are re-written for the big screen changing the nature of the central characters. Aragorn becomes hesitant and has to be pursuaded toleave the ranger behind in the movies. In the books, it's him who orders the sword re-forged. Bilbo's heroism against the spiders in the books is eliminated in the movies. In the Narnia movies, Peter's character is more indecisive. Susan's is more abrasive. The natures written by Tolkein and Lewis are lost in the Hollywood themes of the day.

But Tolkein and CS Lewis had a better grasp of what true humility was. You don't find true humility in modern literature. Certainly there are characters who have flaws, but the flaws are played down or overcome easily. In weightier books of the past the protagonists had to wrestle with more difficut hardships, but their characters grew. Consider the end of Lord of the Rings. In the movies, Frodo and the hobbits return to the Shire and resume their old lives as demure and insecure nobodies. In the books, Saruman had escaped to the Shire and the last confrontation they have is with his cohorts - steeled and battle-hardened young men, with a toughness and courage about them that's lost in the movies.

God calls us to be certain of who we are. In this we can then be certain of who He is. Rather it is the other way round.

He calls us to know Him intimately. To enter into a deep and loving relationship with Him where commuication is key and reality is forged by a deep foundation of trust and knowledge. We have the certainty of who Christ is, and building on that we can have the certainty of who we are in Him. Accepting that is central to becoming humble.

I was told what gifts I had for many years. I moved in them, spoke out and gave advice, but always denied the nature of the gift itself. Uncertainty was my shield, my "humility". Then it was pointed out to me that not acknowledging the gifting God had placed in me would effectively mean I was disregarding God's call on my life. Part of that call was to write, and the blog and articles I write come from that. There are other things I feel it's not appropriate to share here in this forum, but among the gifts I have are hospitality and a call to pastor and teach. I seek to do this with all my heart, and other gifts come and go as they are needed in respect of the main call on my life - teaching, be it through written or spoken mediums.

But it was a long time in accepting them because I thought denial was humility. I believed I was being humble by making myself out as less than I was created to be. All that happened was that I grew away from God as a result.

God's kind of humility is one simply where we say who He says we are. People's opinions will vary, we will be accused of pride and arrogance sometimes. I know a man called to apostleship who that was said of repeatedly until he quit his ministry. I've seen it with people gifted with generosity and prophecy, where the gift was strong and people abused them for using it to the point that they stopped.

We need to accept who God says we are.

It's central to following Him and walking His path.

So be who God says you are - no more, no less.

That's His kind of Humble.

A Violent Pacifist

We have an image of Christ through stained glass windows and renaissance painters of a pale-faced 120lb wimp who wandered around carrying sheep and ruffling kids hair.

It's only half a story.

He has been held up as the ultimate pacifist, surrendering His own life rather than defending it at the cross on Calvary. But this is a misrepresentation.

The cry from the Cross "It is FINISHED" (see John 19:28-30) was a Battle Cry of Victory. His yell announcing to the Host of Heaven and the Men around His feet and the Demons in Hell itself that Jesus the Man and Christ the God, in flesh made one, had completed the part they had to play - to atone for the Sin of humanity, to take back the ground Satan had claimed as his own with Adam's fall and to wrench the keys of Death and Hell from the enemy. That task was now complete. The Messianic prophecies concerning Jesus's life fulfilled in their entirety - even down to not having a single bone broken in His death - he died before the religious leaders gave the order to break the legs, which allowed them to look on the one who was pierced by a Roman spear when blood and water flowed. No broken bones made the final prophecy complete.

Jesus lived His while life a warrior behind enemy lines, running and withdrawing, gathering His silent army of followers from the commoners for the most part, but an army that were so transformed by the acts of War - Heavenly War - performed in their lives that they could do nothing but sit in awe and tell everyone about it.

He picked His battles. He chose the most strategic locations and people groups, from a synagogue on the Sabbath to a Samaritan woman at a well to a cripple dropped through a roof in front of His feet. Acts of Faith were acts of War in the Heavenlies.

Ask the woman with the issue of blood. Ask Jairus or the Widow of Nain, or Lazarus. Satan threw down the gauntlet and Jesus didnt just pick it up, He shattered it. One Word undid all the enemy's evil. Every time.

And He said we would do greater work than this.

Nut we alk around so pious with our hands folded and afraid to say boo to anyone. We became "politically correct" in the expression of our faith. Now corporations in America hide behind their 1st amendment, never intended to protect a behemoth of a company, to say who can and can't get what health benefits based not on their own choice of belief and interpretation of God's Word, but on the CEO's. And Heaven forid the CEO be challenged.

Jesus would have strung him out with the Pharisees. Forcing man's rules on God's children, and dragging them away from Christ as a result.

Jesus was a peaceful man, yes. But by modern society He could not be described as a pacifist. A pacifist does not see what is going on in a temple, take time to braid a whip from leather cords - and that takes time for the purpose it was used for - then march, eyes on righteous fire, into the centre of corruption (imagine the effect in Wall Street or the Dow Stock Exchange) and screams that they are thieves and defiling His Father's house. He takes His home-made whip and drives the cattle out. He drives the sheep and lambs out. Throws over moneychanger's tables, but stops to gently release the doves. The whip protects him from the cowardly men and incites stampede in the previously docile livestock.

This man is no pacifist. He defended His Father's House - just as we would our family home. He flies in a rage at the dishonest scales and berates them all as he attacks them. Not the peaceful guy with the lamb on his shoulders and the kids at his feet, but the Warrior of Heaven, striking at His enemies - not the men themselves, but the Spirits behind the men. Greed, avarice, selfishness.

Modern pacifism is demonstrated in the movies by the Amish communities in the USA. It's a closed community I know little of, other than what I've seen on TV, but it is portrayed as beyond pacifistic to the point of utter doormatness. They are shown as demonstrating great respect for God and trning the other cheek, but I look at the charicature and wonder how much is fact and how much is exaggeration? How do they reconcile the Jesus who drives men and animals out of the temple with the pacifism they are depicted as demonstrating?

It's a conundrum I know little of, but one I would love to learn more of. A simple faith and a simple life in a modern world. There is definitely much we can learn from a meeting of the minds.

But was Jesus a pacifist?

I would have to say it depended on the situation.

I am a (relatively) peaceful man, but I have a temper. Now I'm older it's less physically violent, but I explode nonetheless. My wife, who needs it least right now, caught a blast of it today. Tired and irritable she asked me to buy food for our dogs. My response - totally out of proportion - was to explode about how much I was already doing.

I was completely out of line. Most of the time that's not me except when my family is threatened. And my family extends beyond my blood kin. You assault my fellowship and I'll take it personally. You physically attack my close friends and they know for your sake not to tell me who they were attacked by. In some ways I am Absalom to Tamar. My ability to exercise vengeance can run for years. I struggle to let go. My cousin was once assaulted with a hammer. It's been years and I still want to return in kind, blow-for-blow the attack.

I try to repent. I try to place myself in Jesus's shoes. Jesus would forgive. So I forgive. Until it crosses my mind again. I have murders in my heart to answer for on the last day if today is my last day. I know at least 8 people who suffered rapes, more who were assaulted by muggers. The only people I can honestly say I harbour no malicious intent towards are the three would-be muggers who attacked me as a teenager from whom I was able to get away bruised but with no loss of dignity, (I gave a "good fight" and they left in worse shape than I did, which may have something to do with it) and two teenagers who attacked me and left me unable to stand in a church in Stamford. Oddly for me, they never received any payback for their actions, and I wish n one to them from me or anyone else.

That is true repentence. On my part. It occurs to me that the wronged party being me is easier to forgive than when it is someone I care about.

That's what makes Jesus so amazing. He is always the wronged party ultimately. What He went through was for us. It looked from the outside like a pacifistic act, but it was actually an act of War. A Violent act to help us end the need to avenge violence with violence in our own life.

So let's follow this violent pacifist. And reveice His kind of Peace as a reward.

Living Deliberately

There's a key to living as a Christian. Deliberate Purpose.

We need to make a conscious choice to live every day in a way fitting someone who claims Christ as their Saviour. It's the problem of being a living sacrifice - we do keep crawling off the altar at any given chance we have. Living sacrificially is often a traumatic experience.

We need to live deliberately.

Deliberate living requires the conscious choice to stay on the altar. We need to make this choice.

The sacrifice we need to make is the sacrifice of Self over God. When we choose our selves over Christ we actually choose the enemy. Our selfish desires, when not quashed, will have a negative effect on our ability to walk in a Christian way.

Christian life is hard, in case we need reminding. It's often easier in the short term to just do what we want and "go with the flow" of our wants. If we've not made the deliberate intent to follow Christ sacrificially on a daily basis then we fail miserably in the long term.

Living a deliberate life is very similar to living a purposed life. It requires effort to maintain momentum and there are times of deep pain and struggle. Time will pass whether you choose to deliberately act or not. As time passes, opportunities change and fade. Some return, just in other forms. When I first felt God telling me to write the internet was in its infancy and "blogging" didn't exist yet. I had an Atari ST computer with no internet connection. In fact I only knew one person who had internet - and that was because he was a computer programmer.

Writing for an audience seemed impossible. I dabbled a little, but eventually I stopped and moved away to other ideas. But my heart kept coming back to writing, and computers became more common. So I began to write again and eventually created this little blog. Now over 4000 times people have logged in to see what's written here from countries I'd never dreamed anything I had to say could reach! I was tricked into looking at myself instead of at God, and as a result I was conned out of writing as He had intended for my life for the better part of 20 years. Even now, writing is a battle. I find it hard to concentrate for the time it takes to write. The doctors (who seem to enjoy titles and names) call it Attention Deficit Disorder - ADD. It's the thing they give children ritalin for at school and 25 years ago was known as "he can't be bothered" or "he's too lazy" or "he just daydreams". I got tired of wanting to be able to do what I felt God called me to do but not being capable of following through on it. I went to this doctor, and until such time as my faith matures I now have some tablets that help me concentrate for longer periods of time without turning me into the Terminator in my own home (which the first ones did).

So I write. I submit articles to magazines for publication - no replies so far, but as Churchill said "Never give up! Never give up! Never!" So I will keep sending off ideas and articles and book summaries. I know when I get the right one that the door will fly open and I'll be suddenly catapulted into the direction I should be moving in. But it means living deliberately.

It means facing rejection and success with equal resolve. One rejection does not make an end of a career as a writer any more than one article pubished makes a writer able to quit his day-job. My style is less formal than some magazines like. It's a lot less formal than many book publishers like. But it's what I like to read, and there's a lot of me in my writing. If you took the time to read everything on this blog you'd have a decent idea of the man I am, not only by what I say, but by what I omit and how I say it.

I've been described as conservative, liberal, charismatic, stoic, evangelical, staid and corsetted at various times in my Christian walk. I was born again - deliberate choice - in a Church of England church in Stamford, Lincolnshire in November 1985 and I told precisely noone. Starched ruffs, cassocks and albs. I was a chorister, then a server - the C of E answer to an Altar boy - until the age of 19. I moved away and took time out of church, then joined the local chapter of the Full Gospel Business Man's Fellowship International. I was spiritually so far out of my depth the first time I heard speaking in tongues and prophecy that I was bewildered. But I lived deliberately and kept going back. The first time I gave a prophecyt was in one of those meetings, and it scared me silly. "What if I'm wrong?" "What if it's just me?" All the normal doubt questions were shattered when one of the men responded in tears that it was exactly the answer to prayer he'd been seeking and what he needed to hear.

But it took a deliberate act to give it to him.

Currently I'm between churches. I read a lot, and I sing alone, but I maintain fellowship with other believers, just not on a Sunday in a formal setting. Sometimes over coffee in the local cafe. Sometimes as I give them a lift or vice-versa. Fellowship is central to my life, and always has been, but I do long to be in a church again - I just prefer smaller congregations with sound doctrine. Recent churches have been so large - great teaching, but massive crowds - that I feel lost in the sea. The smaller churches I visited were not centred on God. Trying to find the balance has been tricky. I've been Anglican, Baptist, United Reformed, New Frontiers, and independant local. The tricky part is always making sure I'm where I feel I'm supposed to be.

So for now - deliberately - my focus is on my family and my fellowship. Formal "church" will come later.

I seek each day to deliberately live for Christ. To be His voice and hands. It's not easy as I get in the way, but I try.

I'll put Christian music on, listen to a sermon or two and try to seek what God's plan for the next day is in the evening as I settle into bed. If I can't sleep I come out to my computer and write for half an hour or so. Then sleep comes easily as the enemy would rather see me asleep than writing. Either way, I win!

Live deliberately. Choose wisely.

Be decisive - cut off all other ideas once you know you've found what God has made you for.

And live it to the fullest, deliberately, every day.

The War Zone of Faith

John 10:10 says "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full"

That was this morning's message from John Eldredge's Daily Reading. He speaks of why Jesus would put the two concepts together in his book "Waking the Dead", a book I heartily recommend.

My grandfather was a soldier involved in the D-Day landings in 1944. I don't know the exact details as he never talked about it. In fact it wasn't until after his death in 1988 that we discovered from one of his older friends from the war that he'd been involved in the landings themselves, not part of the general troop movement that followed it.

D-Day was the turning point of World War 2. With the successful invasion of the enemy territory victory became inevitable for the Allied forces.

Christianity has it's own D-Day: Calvary's Cross.

But like the war, the battle continues to rage fiercely around us. Jesus's sacrifice has guaranteed our victory in this life and the next, but we must fight to hold it. In the First World War many troops lost their lives because the commanders of the troops stopped for breakfast on the beaches they had captured, giving the enemy a chance to regroup and repel the invasion.

We do the same. We accept salvation from hell - and I believe hell is a literal place as Jesus referred to it as such - but we don't fight for the victory on this side of death.

I recently came close to losing my right foot as a result of not looking after it properly. I am affected by diabetes and as a result I don't feel my feet any more. The shoes I'd worn were not a good fit, which I wasn't aware of and by the time I realised my foot was badly infected. After over a month of treatment my foot is safe again, but I've got rid of the offending footware! Saving my foot has been a battle - one which still continues as the infection may have gone, but the wound site is still very much an open wound.

Something this episode with my foot has reminded me of is that I need to remember to actively fight to protect what is mine, whether it be my foot or anything that has been won for me spiritually by Christ's Sacrifice - including the healing of my body from diabetes! My problem is that I don't fight on an active level too much. I submit to God, but I don't remember to actively resist the devil, and as a result I find myself making breakfast on the beach and getting into the position where I almost lose my foot. It wasn't always like that.

I used to be more active in my Spiritual battles. I would fight passionately and vehemently for what God had provided, and I wouldn't stop my pursuit until I received the prize satan was blocking me from receiving. Now I find I tire easily, and as a result I don't push as hard as I used to. The consequence is that the enemy wins more battles in my life and the lives of my family, and I get more exhausted from the fight.

Faith is a war zone. If I remember this I fight with all my strength, resisting the lies of the enemy and pushing through until the victory promised has been secured so it can never be taken back. If I don't, I lose ground and I lose heart.

At the moment I'm believing for a fresh start for my business. The battle has been hard, but we've been hugely blessed by funding coming in from very unexpected sources. We will be able to pay our bills and run for some time while the business gets its roots re-established after a time of winter where we were unable to work at all. The doors are opening, and God is moving mountains because we are submitting to Him and actively fighting against the enemy who would seek to steal this blessing from us. Every day we have the opportunity to quit. Every day something comes up which could force us to back down and give up. And every day we commit the project to God once more and tackle the issues until they yield and the door opens.

The trick is to ask for the wisdom to recognise when a door is closed because God closed it, and when it's closed because the enemy is trying to hinder our receiving God's Best. It's often hard to distinguish between the two possibilities, which is why being actively engaged with God is so important.

We must remember to stay in touch with our great Commander.

This war is not one to be taken lightly. Our faith will be tested repeatedly and we will be beaten down time and again, but the key to victory is to keep getting up and fighting on.

And claiming the Victory in the War Zone we call walking by Faith.

Be a Conscious Overcomer

We talk a lot about the "Overcoming Faith" that Jesus gives. Most people think that's either for others or that the writer knows nothing about what he's writing about.

I live in a state of Hope, by choice. It starts by knowing I'm loved, and then Hope and Faith come naturally. But to understand where I come from you need to know my story. Since I can't sleep tonight because it's on my mind I'll share some of it.

I'm 42. Born in the baby boom of the early 1970s. I attended my first family funeral in 1985, but our first taste of family death was in 1981 when my dad's youngest sister was killed in a house-fire. She was my favourite aunt, born-again and vibrant, and always had a smile. It was infections. I was only very little, but I remember a blue elephant playing with her at our home. It's one of my oldest mempries and since I was only 9 when she died it's precious to me.

In 1983 dad's cousin, like Yvonne a nurse, died of cancer. We were a large and close family and her loss was felt although I was only 11.

Dad had suspected throat cancer in 1984. Scared the daylights out of us. I remember Robin being worried about him. He was 8 at the time. The nodules were benign, but we were thrown badly. The in February 1985 Robin, my only brother, was killed in a road accident a month before his 10th birthday and six weeks before my 13th.

Despair became a companion for a long time. My mum was ill, a breast lump removed in 1987, and her dad died of cancer in 1988. Her mum succombed to cancer in 1991. There was pain and heartbreak through my childhood and teens. I was bullied mercilessly and developed a destructive depression with a violent temper that would have got me into serious trouble if I't not been able to only release it when there happened to be several people strong enough to hold me back to help me. By the time I left school at 18 I'd been threatened with expulsion more than once and talked out of suicide four times and dragged off two people who because of intervention live to tell the tale.

I left Lincolnshire to start a new life in Devon, but my ghosts haunted me. I moved in with a girl I'd begun dating because it stopped me getting teased for being single. Naturally, I now was teased for my choice of partner. But into a new environment I was able to begin to find hope. My faith began to grow and has never fully disappeared. Cultivating Hope and Faith has become a big part of who I am. In my last post I mentioned being consciously aware of who God wants us to be. It starts with active pursuit of the vision He has for us, for your life.

Right now for me it's writing. And flying (although I'm careful not to share that too often with my wife). It is difficult to consciously overcome an onslaught.

In the last 5 years alone my wife has had to fight what will eventually be a terminal illness - there is no cure for her condition, we simply have to find hope and Faith each day that at the end of this day there'll be another one. We lost our home, our business and our health as a couple. But still I hold on to God's Love for Me, My wife, and that He has a plan that does not involve defeat. Jeremiah 29:11 is burned in my heart as is Isaiah 40:31, so I wait on God to soar like an eagle and see the good plans and the future He has laid out for me.

Just today I talked to Rene, this morning so despondent she wanted to die - not hypothetically, but for real - and by this evening we had begun to see mountains move towards rebuilding a life with everything and more that we have lost in the last five years restored to us. Yes, it will take work. Dear Lord it will take every ounce of sweat we have for some time, but we will do it. First the recovery of a business, then rebuilding a home on the large plot my mum and I own. But one thing at a time. Hope can only come from accepting love. And Faith can only come from Hope.

And we need all three to live a life as consciously overcoming the trials and tribulations the enemy throws at us. We need to decide - truly decide - to overcome. We must cut ourselves off from any other course of action that would seek to destroy our path to overcoming, no matter how painful it may be - and it will be painful. We're not fighting an enemy who plays fair, and we need to be ruthless spiritually to defeat a ruthless foe. The spiritual war is no place for chivalry. We must take no prisoners, we must on a spiritual level totally eliminate anything and anyone who stands against what we know God has inspired. If people speak against what we know to be God, we must put them away from us, no matter who they are. I'm not advocating "yes-men" attitudes, but rather a untied fellowship who will march with a single purpose. Think of Frodo and the band setting out from Rivendell, 9 warriors to match the 9 wraiths. Some will fall, some will be restored. Some will falter and recover, and all will find strength they did not know they had.

We need fellowship. The importance is essential. We need guidance from a sage like Gandalf, from warriors like Aragorn and Boromir, from down-to-earth character like Gimli and simple honest folk like Merry and Pippin, and faithful friends like Samwise and Legolas. Our fellowhips will look different, but they will be what we need to become a conscious overcomer.

But like Frodo, we must choose to continue the quest God places before us. And please, take the fellowhips based on the books not the movies - there's so much more depthe in Tolkein than in Jackson. Don't get me wrong, the movies were amazing, but there's so much more in the books. Choices emphasised by the book are missed in the movies, consequences in the books are left out completely, and the changes the quest has on the travellers is glossed over in the movies. Aragorn is not the hesitant man of the movies, but the one who calls for the reforging of the shards. The hobbits are fearless because they have no idea the perils that lie before them, but so it is with us. Some of our company will be fearless because they are battle-hardened already. Some because they are naive.

They all have a part to play in our quest. And we all have a quest to play a crucal role in. Frodo is told if He fails the quest will fail. The same is true for all of us. God has a mission only you can complete, whether it's Richard Branson building Space tourism or young john down the road helping the little girl next door tie her shoes the first time. At on point my mission was heping a boy with a learning "disability" - one I've since been diagnosed with myself (Attention Deficit Disorder) - to understand how to tell time and the difference between the 24 hour clock, am and pm time. It took us weeks, working one-on-one, but he mastered it, and the sense of accomplishment as he mastered his quest was one that filled my heart with such joy. Another boy could barely read at the start of the year. By the end of it he had read "The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe" and understood it. He loved it so much he asked his parents to buy him the Narnia set for his birthday - which he proudly showed me the day I left the school.

He became a conscious overcomer. So did I.

So can you. No matter the problem, no matter the size of the issue.

My wife asks me "David, How can I eat an elephant?" I answer "One bite at a time"

One bite at a time. It takes time, but we will overcome if we just keep chewing.

Consciously overcoming. Choosing each day not to quit - and it's hard.

In 1999 I attempted suicide 4 times in just over a month following my dad's death. My wife's illness drives me to despair more that I'd like to admit, but the Cross and the strength of Jesus allows me Hope. Hope gives me Faith. Faith that even though this battle has been long and hard that I will see the victory.

By deciding every day to overcome my enemy.

Consciously.

So can you with God's Power in the Holy Spirit. Don't go it alone. I tried in 1999, and I don't recommend it. Commit your plan to God and if He says "GO", the do it. If He says "NO" then ask "Where?"

Be mindful of God's presence and let Him guide you - He longs to do it.

Be conscious, and be an overcomer.

Your Intended Life

We all grew up with dreams. Many of them get shattered along the way and we grow out of some of them, but there are always a few that stay in the back of our minds, entrenched in our hearts.

For me it's flying. I was in the cadets as a teenager and flew light aircraft - two seaters - many times up to the age of 18. It's over 20 years, but I can't shake the dream of flying again. It drives my wife nuts. She hates that I ride a motorbike where all I have to worry about is left and right. Add up and down into the equation and she has kittens at the thought.

But the dream is still there. The first time I saw the movie "Reach for the Sky" I was hooked. And I was 3 years old. I wanted to watch that movie over and over again - but had to put up with having the music on an old vinyl LP until the BBC saw fit to show it again. A pilot who beat the odds after losing both his legs in an accident but then became a hero in the wartime fighter squadrons. Douglas Bader was my first real hero.

The dream didn't die. I still long to soar on wings over the ground, spitfires, microlights, heck strap a lawnmower to a plank and I'll try it. I just want to get into the air.

I believe God has placed that passion in me, that dream. It's a deliberate placement. I don't know why. When He's given me the time I've not had the money. When the money's been there it's been way tool hectic to find the time. Right now I'm broke, but with all the time in the workd to try. Again.

The blocks keep going up, but I can't shake the dream. I ask God to take it from me and He doesn't. I ask Him to replace it with something else. He only shows me how I can use it to Glorify Him.

So my prayer has changed. I'm asking for funding and time and my wife's agreement to all come together. Nothing short of a work of God will allow that combination to happen. Especially my wife's agreement.

But what is my intended life?

I feel God's pleasure when I write. Like Eric Liddel, another hero of mine from my childhood, I was made to do God's work, but when I write I feel Him dancing over me.

I like to have a candle burning near me when I write. It's gentle flame flickers and reminds me we are temporal, but the darkness itself cannot snuff it out - only I can do that. I find it's healthy (although if they ever let me near the controls of an airplane I doubt a lit candle in the cockpit will be permitted).

Our dreams are our intended life. They are the Life God designed us for in the womb. He had a specific purpose in mind for every conceived soul - and yes, I am pro-life. Abortion should never, ever be used for birth control following consenting intercourse. I'm less sure about rape, but I believe the "morning after pill" and other emergency contraception methods are not abortion. After the quickening of a heartbeat it is a different matter - that soul has a purpose, and we should not be playing God by destroying it.

But back to the point.

We dream. We have desires we daydream about. I never met anyone working in a cubicle - and I've done my share of time in that environment - who dreamed of coming back the following day and doing the same thing again. Most of them dream of returning with gasoline and matches. Or not returning at all.

I have a simple dream right now. To spend time living in England on a narrow-boat, cruising the canals for a year and writing about the experience. Seeing my homeland slide by at no more than 3 miles per hour and being able to tie up and visit quaint little villages and towns I'd never otherwiose consider going to. Seeing them from a boat, and wherever I tie up is home for the night. Or two.

Escape from the rat-race for a year. See if a publisher will go for it "A Christian's Year Afloat in England", speaking in churches and gently wandering on, meandering through the countryside whatever the weather. It's an attractive though to me - less so for my wife, who I think would go nuts but I think would do her good. But is it my intended life?

Probably not. I have too much of a Warrior's heart. I enjoy the fight of Spiritual Warfare too much, seeing battles fought and won on a daily basis - although a bit more in the way of daily victory would be nice. Poor health has dogged us both for most of the last five years, mostly my wife with surgical complications, more recently emotional stressors and for me a badly septic foot which could have cost me one or more toes if left any later, perhaps more, to be treated. It's ont thing to understand the healing power of the atonement of Christ, but manifesting it 100% of the time is proving to be tricky. I rely on God meeting me where I am and providing miracle healing not miracle health at the moment. It's simply where my faith has grown to, no condemnation, simply a statement of where I've reached. I've prayed for others and seen complete healing instantly. I've received other healings instantly from laying on of hands, but I struggle to let go of some things.

We all do.

It prevents us living our intended life. We need to live it deliberately. That means letting go of certain things. I managed to let go of gout when I got fed up of being crippled every few weeks by a demented bone-dwarf trying to mine out of my foot. I got prayer, and the healing was instant. I put my full faith and I got angry with the enemy for daring to afflict me like that. He's never come back in that way.

I got slightly upset with the diabetes progressing in my body and prayed accordingly. It's not got worse since, but it's still there - I'm not angry with it. Although almost losing my toes this last week has made me more upset to be sure. Time will tell.

But what is my intended life? I keep coming back to preaching and flying, an odd combination. But I feel if the Ozzies can have the Flying Doctor, why shouldn't the South Africans have the "Flying Pastor"? And why not me? My wife's a doctor. We could work as a team (if she'd get into a plane with me at the controls). Me teach their spirits and her treat their bodies. I don't see the problem - except the cost of a plane anyway.

Life's brief candle. We can run a station, we can do what we do best. But we have such limited time. I'm over 40. In fact I'm officially closer to 45 than 40 now. She's closer to 40. We have limited time, but then why do we have to let that stop us? Moses was 80 when they left Egypt and he led them for forty years. Joshua and Caleb scouted the land ad 40 and entered it at 80, then Caleb went to claim the mountains where the Giants lived approaching 100 years old. Abraham was 100. Why not.

It's never too late to begin to live your intended life.

Just have the courage to take the first step.

Insufficient Faith

I reposted an entry from a year or so ago recently about Faith. This is a continuation - albeit a year later - of the thought that inspired it.

I was reading James again, and it really hits me every time recently how we need to act on the Faith God gives us. It's easy to say we have faith, but stepping out in that faith is another matter. It takes courage and the ability to look beyond fear and unbelief that the enemy would throw into our paths. It's easy to overlook the possibility of the supernatural when all the natural is screaming "IT WON'T WORK" for all it's worth.

I sit right now with bandaged feet because I have a lack of sensations in my toes as a result of something called "diabetic neuropathy". Basically I ended up with massive injuries to my toes I don't feel because of this condition. It pre-dates the diabetes diagnosis in my life, but I'm assured it's sugar that caused the problem in my blood and consequently in my nerves. Mostly it's not a problem as it hasn't got worse since I began to understand that healing is part of the atonement, and God will not withold health any more than forgiveness. But my heart has to overcome a lot of years of denial, so it's not as simple for me as "ok, I can feel now".

I believe - since this "progressive" illness has halted in its tracks - that I will eventually see reversal and health return, I just need greater understanding to see the faith manifest in my life.

And it's this manifestation that's the issue.

Having faith alone is not worth a dime. Faith is dead - worthless - unless we act to demonstrate it. Jesus went around forgiving sins, and produced healing and release form demonic possession as a sign of the power He had. But as well as being fully God, we must remember He was fully Man as well. That means He needed to know in Faith that the prayer would produce action. Peter and the disciples had to learn this after the day of Pentecost, and before when Jesus had sent them out in His Name to heal and teach. Their faith, we can surmise from the lack of questions recorded by them on their return from the mission, was 100% successful, nothing left unfinished.

Ours can be the same, but we need to act on that faith we have. Jesus was received back into this world because of Faith powerful enough to reverse death itself in His own body. We have that same faith, and Jesus promised we would do greater works than He had done because He was going to be with the Father.

Now I'll be happy to just equal what Jesus did. I don't feel a need to surpass Him in acts of Faith, in fact the thought scares me. He raised the dead with a word. Three times, plus Himself. I'll be happy if I can receive feeling in my toes!

But we are actually called to exceed Jesus' works. He never spoke on television. He never used radio to broadcast. He was an average-looking guy from Nazareth who wandered around and spoke to people, healed their sickness where they had the faith to receive it - a central part of the process - and restored their souls. Exceeding Jesus' exploits in this world is our mandate, our commission. He told us to.

But how do we do it?

The answer "by Faith" is inadequate to say the least. When Jesus returns from His transfiguration He rebukes the disciples for not being able to heal the boy with epilepsy/demonic influence. He tells them the type comes out only by prayer and fasting, but He doesn't go off and fast for a week before He heals the boy - rather He heals him on the spot. That says something about the lifestyle Jeses calls us to rather than the strength of the demon. Jesus would often go off by Himself to draw close to the Father and recharge Himself spiritually. We know He fasted 40 days in the wilderness before He began His ministry here, but there's no reason to believe He didn't fast again during His Earthly life. There are many festivals in the Jewish calendar that may require fasting, which Jesus would have perhaps observed. We know not always as he rebuked the disciples of John the Baptist for their chastising of the disciples for not fasting at one point (Matthew 9:14-15), but He may well have fasted Himself as a way of staying close to God - and it's implied when He reminds them in Mark 9:28-29 that their attempt to cast out the demon was unsuccessful because "“This kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting.”" (NKJV). The inferrence is not that the demon was stronger, but rather that their life needed to include fasting and prayer to see the intimacy of relationship that allows the manifestation of such mighty works.

We often miss the understanding of the need to fast, and as a result our prayers become weakened, and we finish off with "if it be your will" as we pray, thereby saying "well ce sera sera" to whether the person is healed or released. Jesus never once left someone with faith to receive unhealed. He never once left someone possessed. Rather He healed and set free all who asked Him. There was never a question of timing. Never a question of learning. It was always done on the spot.

Our faith needs to produce the same results. We need to understand that our faith is completed by our actions, not generated by them. We lose sight of this and as a result we miss out on miracles every day.

I was healed of Gout in my foot. It literally crippled me during an attack. I couldn't walk, drive or even bear to put weight on it. Until in the middle of an attack I rebuked it, and as a sign of my faith I stamped my foot - hard - on the offending joint. The pain left and has never returned. I took action. That was over ten years ago. I've never had the courage to do that with diabetes. As a result I have to inject myself once a day and take several oral medications to control it, but my sugar levels are normal now as a result.

Faith is completed by action. Faith in words only is worthless. Anyone can claim faith, but if there's no action to back it up then there's no evidence. Particularly in this 21st Century world where everyone and his dog asks for "proof" of things, then we need to follow Jesus' example of using miracles as a means of proof to the true Power of the Gospel and the Word of God in our lives and in the World today.

So is faith insufficient?

Alone, yes. But add action to it and the power flows and the Love of God working through us will reach even the coldest of broken hearts and allow healing, love and recovery to Salvation in.

Be true to the Faith. Hold fast to the Confession of Jesus Christ, and the Power of His Word working through our hands to deliver His miracles to the World and fulfil His vision.

Ascension Day and Waiting for the Coming of the Holy Spirit

Pentecost is almost on us. We can sense the entrance of the Holy Spirit in the wings of our theatre, but first there is one final Act from Jesus.

He's beaten Death by rising from the grave and taken our Sin on Himself. Now we need to get into action.

But He doesn't say that.

What Jesus does is leave. And the Saviour of the World tells his most trusted followers to...

...Wait!

Hang on...

Surely He meant "GO!" or "ATTACK!"

No. He said "Wait" so the disciples must wait. They waited three days, the "sign of Jonah" Jesus had mentioned in his talking to them earlier. Then they saw the Risen Jesus. And they hung out with Him, walking, eating and chatting like the friends they are. Now He's leaving them - again.

He'd told them He would be going. He prepared them from John 14 through John 17 about it in fact. So they wait. They go back to the same upper room where six weeks before they'd had a Passover Feast with Jesus and wait. There's no confusion this time though. This is waiting for something that the Risen Christ has told them is coming. The Power of the Holy Spirit.

How frustrating must the next 40 days have been for them though! They know, really know, that Jesus is sending them something so much more than having Him with them physically. They realise now that all the Old Testament Prophets would have given up everything they ever saw for a mere taste of what they are going to receive.

But hours turn into days turn into weeks. I wonder if any of them walked out? We know the remaining 11 didn't, but there were 120 on the day of Pentecost. Were there more who tired of waiting and left? We don't know, but it's human nature for many of us. We don't like to wait for things. Especially good things. If we know something good is coming we get impatient. Like a child on Christmas Eve. I found out about Santa when I was little by waking up too early - and seeing my dad leaving the room and the presents on the bed. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoyed the presents, and I didn't tell my little brother, but something of the magic left. I got impatient and wouldn't wait.

So now the disciples have to make their choice. How long do they wait? I wonder if they got back and expected it that day? Did they get despondent by day 35? It would be natural. Is it ever going to change? Like waiting for winter to lose its grip. But wait they do. And then on Pentecost tongues of Fire, the Holy Spirit in such power they can't stand - literally. And the Power to touch hearts and minds with the Truth of Jesus and to hand on the gift He'd left and they had now finally received.

My wife spent 2 days in ICU this week. I didn't know if she'd live following problems with some medication she'd taken. I prayed and felt God say she'd be home.

It was a good promise - and although I have to still look out for recurrences she's home and should be ok. But the waiting to see the promise I'd heard from God in reality - my wife back home - was torture even though the promise was good.

It gave me a chance to reflect on what the disciples may have felt in the days between Ascension and Pentecost. On a very much smaller scale. (And I reflected after she got home)

If we are to hold heroes as Christians, it needs to be the disciples during those 40 days. They hold fast to a promise despite not seeing it. Even Daniel only had to wait 21 days in Daniel 10. Surely Peter must have been scratching his beard with frustration, but he held the course and preached the first sermon after the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and thousands believed. He saw the cripple dance. His shadow held the same healing power Jesus had held.

So if you're waiting on a promise from God, keep strong.

It's Coming!

Easter: Inverted Priorities

The whole point of the Easter Festival is something we miss most years.

Easter - the Resurrection itself - turns the World on its head.

Jesus challenges us to look at the actions and values through His eyes and through the light of His Cross, Death and Resurrection. When we do we see a horrifying picture.

A few years ago I watched, and thoroughly enjoyed, a TV series called "Angel" starring David Boreanaz in the central role. As the story develops, the character, a re-ensouled vampire named Angel, becomes conflicted by his past and the constant battle he fights with himself. He goes into a deep depression, and ultimately utter despair. The character attempts to end his existence by seeking the source of evil in the world and is taken through magic to that source. He enters an elevator which descends into the source of all pain and suffering and the doors open as it arrives - exactly where he had got in. Earth, this world. He sees nothing but the pain and misery and realises he cannot fight it or destroy it - he simply doesn't have the power to overcome it in himself.

We spend much of our time in the same situation as Angel. We spend our time looking at the world through despairing eyes and see nothing bu the horror of this existence. As we proceed through the days we trudge wearily on, expecting and receiving nothing but pain and suffering. We prioritise the smallest minutia in an effort to numb ourselves to the massive Truth - we're too small to do anything about it ourselves.

And we are.

Our righteousness, as Paul describes it, is filthy rags. The inferrence, I have been told, specifically refers to the cloths a first century woman would have used during menstruation, the most "unclean" item Paul could think of to liken our righteousness outside Christ to.

But the acceptance of Jesus's death and His invitation to New Life does away with that. Our filthy rag is replaced with His Royal Robes, and God Himself looks at us as fully Righteous by means of the ultimate Sacrifice Jesus made on our behalf. We become clothed in Christ's Righteousness, and the whole world turns upside down for us.

Before we accept the Easter Promise, New Birth, we are steeped in a mire of filth so deep we can never hope to get out. The new Birth does that exactly for us. We don't just get clothed in Jesus's Righteousness, in God's eyes we become it. He looks at us and sees the righteousness of His Son as ours.

But there's a price. The price is rejection. It is alienation. Ridicule. In less "evolved" societies it may even be imprisonment and death. As I write, a young Christian woman is sitting in a Sudanese prison awaiting execution for no crime other than being Christian. Her father was Muslim so their sharia law deems her to be. She has never embraced islam, rejects it and married a Christian man. The court refuses to recognise the marriage and has condemned her to death by hanging. Their only "merciful" act is that she may live long enough to wean the baby she is pregnant with.

A price for refusing to reject Christ.

Unlike this lady, Meriam Yehya Ibrahim, Sudanese but married to an American man, how many of us will compromise our statement of faith to avoid offending a neighbour? She risks her very life to stand up for the name of Jesus, and we refuse to risk not being free to borrow they guy next door's lawnmower.

Ouch.

Our priorities need to be turned over. We need to return to the way Peter thought when he was arrested for speaking about Jesus - do what you wnat. I won't shut up! That's the basis of the entire book of Acts. Paul, Peter, Stephen and thousands since have been murdered for proclaiming Jesus's name rather than compromise. Their priority lay in John 14's promise that in the Father's House anre many mansions. An eternal perspective, not a temporal one. We cave to the pressures of today's society when we should take a stance against it. Jesus spoke in terms of Black and White. Not a single shade of grey in His teachings on anything. Money? - Give it away if it's your idol and follow me. Not keep a bit and that's ok - I can deal with a bit of idolatry. Sex? Flee immoral behaviour. Whatever the reason you're a eunuch, deal with it. Don't get into sexual sin. Greed? Surrender to Jesus and let Him free you from the weight that crushes you like it was Zaccheus.

Zaccheus was hated by the townspeople. A collaborator with Rome who fleeced for personal gain. When he repented, he would perhaps have been forgiven by the town, but Rome would not have been happy - yet he risked it for the sake of Jesus.

Nicodemus spoke for the Christians in the Sanhedrin having met with Jesus secretly. He would have been ridiculed and faced expulsion as he understood what being Born Again meant - Everything.

And today. In our comfortable Western or semi-Western societies, we pander to the liberals to keep the tax benefit for our businesses. We compromise and surrender what we believe in private in our public lives. As a freelance writer I have a certain latitude as I mainly write articles to submit to Christian publications, but even these need to be "edited" to avoid over-the-top attitudes to some extent. We refer to it as "tailoring". It's so much more palatable than "recanting" or "renouncing" the aspects of the Gospel that are certainties.

The World celebrates doubt and uncertainty. It needs desperately to have something solid to build on. It looks to science, the same thing that has declared the world to be flat, air to be weightless and cannot make up it's mind how many planets there are in our own solar system.

Hardly solid ground. They realised the earth was round, a fact stated in scripture over two millenia before by Isaiah (40:22) air had weight (Job 28:25) and it argues with itself over how many planets there are! Yet we build our worldly priorities on these "facts" deduced by scientists. Evolution is a theory. From the fossil records it can appear to be accurate, but there are still many holes in it. Creation, scientists - who haven't bothered to realise seven "days" may not be literal 24 hour periods due to the complexity of the written language - dismiss the possibility. They can explain how molecules come together in strings, but not why. They can produce synthetic diamonds and even mix synthetic protein chains to reproduce food, but I have yet to hear of a single scientist mixing the elements together and producing an acorn that can grow into an oak tree. They can clone it - but only by using another acorn. Science cannot explain the existence of life or reproduce it.

And yet we prioritise our life on this foundation of quicksand.

Easter should - if we take Jesus seriously - invert our priorities from being politically correct to being right with God - irrespective of numbers.

No matter how many are screaming "Science, Science" we must remember the majority also shouted "Crucify, Crucify".

Following blindly and not realigning our beliefs to a more "primitive" way of thinking may, in fact, lead to the loss of our very salvation if we fail to accept the whole of it.

So even if it costs us everything: friends, family, reputation. Follow Jesus.

And get the Priorities right side up.

Easter: A Matter of Principle

The image says it all.

We are sheep too much of the time, following the false shepherd of the World's opinion.

It's fashionable these days to not condemn certain things but to refer to them as "Lifestyle choices" and sanitise them.

There are things we need to take a stand on as Christians before the ground is eroded like the sand it could so easily be if we don't.

Jesus did what was right, not popular - especially with the religious leaders. They paid their taxes, collected their offerings and lavished themselves with great wealth. Gold and silver and made a show of their offerings. Jesus warned against them. Repeatedly.

He disrupted funerals and mourning. Understand the worst thing you could do after a death was to tell the official mourners wailing outside to shut up - but it's what He did when He got to Jairus's home. You don't roll back the stone from a tomb sealed for four days. You don't interrupt a funeral to speak to the corpse.

Especially in first century Israel.

But Jesus did. Jairus received his daughter, Mary and Martha their brother, and the widow of Nain her son. But the mourners were offended. The religious leaders plotted against Him. Everyone else obeyed their rules, and suddenly here was this insurgent corrupting their way of doing things, changing the natural order by questioning their authority and healing on the Sabbath, raising the dead and forgiving sin seven days a week. He claimed equality with God, declared Himself to be the long awaited Christ and threatened to overturn not only their tables, but their very survival.

He was one Man, doing the right thing, not the popular thing.

They were many men doing what was popular, but clearly not right.

We just had a general election in South Africa. The ANC was voted back into power after 20 years of proven corruption, nepotism and political hypocrisy that would leave then ousted in any other country. Yet they cornered 60% of the vote. Because of sheep voting.

Yes, under Nelson Mandela the ANC stood for change, revolution and righting the injustice of the Apartheid regime. Now it stands for "Another Nkandla Compound".

I'm generally not a political commentator, and I'm not making this about politics, simply using the example of what happens when everyone moves the same way without thought and reflection. You get what you fail to reject rather than what is right.

I could be wrong. Maybe the ANC will change things for the better in the next 5 years. I doubt it, but they have the chance.

In the Church we have to make the right choices, not follow the masses. If Jesus had followed the masses we'd be doomed. If the disciples had followed the masses they'd not have waited in the upper room after the crucifixion. And you wouldn't be reading this blog.

And I wouldn't be writing it.

I love the story of the war where 300 Spartan soldiers held off thousands of troops, securing victory against the odds by not following the sheep but by going out against a seemingly undefeatable army - and winning. The scene in "Lord of the Rings" where Aragorn and Gimli jump into the middle of the advancing orc army and two of them rout the incoming legions long enough for the defenses to be repaired.

The principle is simple: Right is not measured by strength of numbers, but by what is right and what is wrong.

We have compromised so much in the last hundred years. Some of it has been good. Sufferage, women's rights, a legally binding age of consent in most countries. These things were begun by a handful and are now the policies of the strongest nations on Earth. But now they are compared to the struggle for those things not right but are popular to be seen to fight for.

Every day I get mail commending LBGT rights and condemning Christians who oppose them in a non-secular setting. I will fight for secular equality, but there are no shades of grey in the Bible, only right and wrong. The result otherwise is a luke-warm church fit only to be vomited out of Jesus's mouth on the last day. Not a prospect I want to see. There are some actions we should feel guilty about. The Holy Spirit convicts us of Righteousness which highlights for us the areas where that is lacking in it's wake - and the enemy jumps on it. We miss the commendation in the following condemnation and assume the condemning thoughts are from God.

Not so.

God does not condemn us. He heals us. He corrects and leads us.

As a matter of principle, He only guides us and shows us the way - He never forces us to accept His path, He simply lights it for us. We are free to walk it or not.

How sad that so many do not in so many areas.

Sex sells they say. It sells greed, envy, jealousy and covetousness. It causes us to create false idols to worsip and revel in their inevitable fall. And it breed sexual immorality in thought and deed.

How far from God's principle of modesty, generosity, selflessness and holiness.

Yet we all do it. Those who don't are mocked as "Right Wing" or "Fundamentalists" or "Left-Wing" or a combination. But they are Hot or Cold, and will not be spat out.

My wife bothers me about wanting to cook fresh so it is piping hot when I dish it. But I don't like luke-warm steak or room temperature sushi. It needs to be fresh. Who wants warm ice-cream? Who can stomach cold mashed potatoes?

If I'm like that with y supper, imagine my horror at seeing my beliefs whittled away by leaders who should be unflinching in their resolve, not cooling down the meal. A luke warm fire will not keep off the chill. A cold radiator will not heat a room.

A lukewarm heart will be vomited out.

As a matter of principle as Pentecost approaches in a few days time, let's focus on catching fire. Let's focus on growing hotter in the passions of God so we can ask that tongues of fire descend on us as they did Peter and the others on the first day of Pentecost - the Baptism of Fire of the Holy Spirit.

Let our light so shine before us that we cannot be mistaken as Children of God.

Stand for the Principles of Jesus Christ, no matter the cost.

He did. We owe Him nothing less.

Easter: The Gospel You First Accepted

There's a lot of versions of Christianity around at the moment. The pseudo-christian organisations like mormonism and jehovah's witnesses are the most obvious, but there are many which have come from legitimate parts of the church which have sought to make the Faith of Jesus more "accessible" and "acceptable" to people in the 21st Century.

The problem is that by making it more "acceptable" it becomes diluted. There is panantheism and arguments of truth being non-exclusive to Christianity - exactly the issues that Paul had to deal with in his travels. People would teach a form of cross-less salvation - that Jesus was an option for Salvation, noth The option. This panantheistic notion was one he had to deal with repeatedly i his letters, now reduced to our New Testament and referred to as interpretive documents not intended to be taken literally, but I disagree.

Paul wrote passionately about Jesus. He wrote with all his heart about the single way a man can be saved. The writer of Hebrews dedicates the entire book to the subject - especially chapter 11 - demonstrating over and over that the Faith in God through Jesus is the only way to reach Salvation.

Yet today we accept a watered down and weak semi-good news version.

Last night a dear friend of mine - I named her Helen - passed away from a long fight with Cancer. I find myself wondering what Gospel she was presented with? Did she ever have the Truth put to her unequivocally and unmistakeably? Some of her family were church goers who would get on a soap-box and "preach" at her, but how many real believers sat down with her and talked to her. How many asked her what her understanding was?

My guess is not many.

If any.

I know I didn't. I didn't share the simple Gospel I hold in my heart and try to live by on a daily basis. I let her - and many other people in my past - go through her life without allowing the Love I've had lavished on me to spill over in a real way to them. When I do - and it does happen - I feel embarrassed afterwards. I feel accused and judged. Generally I take that as a sign I got it right these days, but I often wondered when I was younger if I was wrong.

The Gospel I met - the Jesus I met - is a real, warm and true emodiment of Love. But He has things he disapproves of. Those things which seek to drive a wedge between us or to draw us away from His friendship. He gets mad at those things. We should too.

We should be mad at anything that seeks to water down the Jesus we first fell in love with. I'd take major issue if someone came and told me my wife is not the person I know her to be after over ten years of marriage - how dare they! But after almost 30 years of walking with Jesus I find myself allowing contemplations in that draw me away from the Saviour I know and Love, the God I fell in Love with in 1985. Why do I not defend my Faith as vigourously as I defend my relationship with my wife?

I don't doubt my marriage. We've endured storms. I shouldn't doubt my faith - it's been through the worst of me and my experiences.

Yet people drop in the thought "If God..." Add what you like there. If He's all powerful, why cancer. If he's all loving, why suffering. The questions are innumerable. The answer is surprising in its simplicity.

In the True Gospel, we were given authority and power to work God's miracles, see His strength and have signs and wonders follow our belief.

That's the key.

Belief.

We believed the Gospel for Salvation, but we doubt the continuation of the Gospel through confirmation be miracles - even though the early disciples who had not walked with Jesus saw them.

We need to return to the first Love. I'm ot talking about sexuality, theft or anything else here except the First Command Jesus gave - Love God with everything in you.

Then watch as miracles flow and your desperation can become Joy, your disaster triumph, and even your death, LIFE...

Easter: Life and Death

It's been brought home to me - again - this week just how fragile life is.

I say "again" as I've actually known since I was about 10 years old how fragile things are, and how quickly it all ends. But today there's a difference.

Up until today I've been fairly certain of the spiritual standpoint of every person I've known who's passed away. Today I went to say goodbye to a very dear friend that I don't know about.

Last I heard, this friend was pretty pissed off with God actually. I won't list everything, but the last blow was cancer. The big "C". Doctors have estimated it will only be days.

It's had me thinking all day. Hence me writing at 1:40am instead of sleeping I guess.

This friend - I'll call her Helen - is actually more of a second mother to my wife. She's been to our home for scrabble evenings and dinner and the night I proposed to my wife she was staying at their home.

Helen's been an amazing life. And I mean she's been an amazing life, not just had one.

She's come back from adversity repeatedly and raised amazing children and seen grandchildren born and begin to grow. It's not fair that she's leaving right now. But then the World's life isn't fair.

The World doesn't play fair. It sends curves to people who we see don't deserve it and easy walks to those who should be at Gitmo. We read about people thrust every day into situations where they had too much too soon and died as a result. Heath Ledger, Philip Seymour-Hoffman, and a myriad of other stars whose lives were cut short because they couldn't handle their success.

But Helen's life has been cut short after enduring so much and reaching a place where she could finally begin to live freely. Free from a bad situation, loving kids and a fresh start.

Then Cancer.

How do you say a farewell to someone in Helen's position? Especially in mine? I pray for her, I hope she has found peace with God, and I told her today I wished her Peace, but I "blinked". The room was full of family and friends and it was "inappropriate" to mention God. So I didn't.

I truly pray He will or has already sent someone across Helen's path who can communicate Him to her. As I saw her today I knew I couldn't. I also feel I should have.

I sit here tonight contemplating my own Life in Jesus and I wonder what it actually means. My life has to be more than the sum of a few blog pages and articles, more than a few sermons and private chats.

But I choked at the last moment.

Again.

Life I can handle. I can even deal with death, the thought of my own anyway. But when I'm confronted with someone in Helen's position I find myself paralysed. I can talk to the fit and healthy. Tell them to get themselves in order before it's too late. But asking someone if they have got in order at that point where it really is the last time is too much for me - mainly because I wouldn't have the first clue how to deal with it if the answer was "no".

So what if the answer is "No"? I tell myself I don't ask because then they may have the chance from someone else, after all, it does say that nobody will be condemned if they never had the choice until they make one.

But I'm kidding myself.

We all are. This isn't self-flagellation here, it's an insight into the human existence. We don't deal well with death for one simple reason: God didn't design us to.

We're designed to live, not die. To have Life in abundance. Yet we perish in a mortal skin-suit. I heard someone describe healthy living as "the slowest possible rate of progression towards the grave" recently. I laughed at the time, but it's true. From the moment of conception our days are numbered. Most of us just want it to be a really BIG number.

It wasn't for Robin - my brother. He was not quite ten when he died 30 years ago. Helen isn't "old". Her spirit until today meant I had to remind myself her children are my generational peers, not her. But today she was tired.

I don't know what I'll say to God about today when I meet Him face to face. I trust He'll say "I forgive you" to me. I rely on that trust; that faith is what keeps me going. At the end of it all, a big part of our expression of Faith comes down to being prepared to be a fool for Christ.

It's life and death being foolish and inappropriate for Jesus.

I still have a way to go on that road, but I hope it's something that I've set off.

I hope I'll get more chances to be foolish in the future. To ask the "inappropriate" question.

To make the difference between Life and Death for someone.