January 2009

I have just finished reading this delightful little classic by Mel Tari. The author shares some of the testimonies and iraculous happenings that accompanied a Revival that happened in Indonesia some forty years ago. Mel Tari brings a message of going back to the simplicity of the word of God, and acting on what God promises. By stepping out in faith with childlike trust these men and women saw God back up His word in some amazing and remarkable ways. Let this be a lesson for us all.

Work-Life Balance

One of the lessons that I am constantly struggling with is finding a balance between pouring out into others and trying to meet the demands of a very hectic schedule on the one hand, and finding time to rest, renew myself, replenish and recharge. I am a slow learner by nature…. and more often than not I learn my lessons in the “University of Hard Knocks“.

At the moment I am spread very thin, and I need to consolidate and refocus on one or two “big rocks“, or really important things. I need to keep reminding myself that I cannot boil an ocean – I can only boil ONE kettle at a time! A typical day for me involves responsibilities at home (3 boys and one wife), my career, a degree that I am studying for, two other businesses that I am involved in and a small but very dynamic church that I pastor. Just writing that out makes me want to take 5 and rest.

One portion of the scriptures that is really helping me right now is found in Psalm 126:5,6:

Those who sow in tears Shall reap in joy. He who continually goes forth weeping,bearing seed for sowing, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing,bringing his sheaves with him.

THE DILEMA
I only used to focus on this verse in terms of evangelism, and sowing the “precious seed” of the Word of God through the tears of compassion, in order to see a harvest of souls. Of course it speaks of that, but another dimension to these verses that I am seeing is that there is a life-balance to be sought and found. The dilema in this verse points to that of a family man having seed. This seed can either be used to provide food for his household, or sowed into his fields – delaying the instant satisfaction of consumption in order to achieve a larger, but future, harvest. This “balance” can be applied to many areas of life, such as achieving a work-life balance.

CONSUMPTION
If you place too much focus on “eating”, that is, utlizing the resources at hand, be it money, time, energy, intellectual capital, leisure, you will refreshed, strengthened and renewed, but ultimately you will not have a “harvest”, a multiplied and compounded increase in benefits, or “rewards” that have cost you the “tears” of expending that energy, investing that time, applying that intellectual pursuit, or delaying that leisure, in order to pursue the worthy endeavour that you are focusing on.

INVESTMENT
The other optiohn is to concentrate your attention on “sowing”. This is all about investing your time, energies, focus and pouring-out ninto other people, projects, situations and your ubiquitous To-Do list. This will “get things done” and you will ultimately get projects moving along, but if you overplay your hand at “sowing” and you do not leave enough seed for “eating” then you will start to go hungry – your strengths will start to drain, and you will eventually become weak. The entire future “harvesting” business is put at risk. To be “Sowing” more than “eating” can only work in the short-term.

BURNOUT or PIPE-DREAMS
On the one hand, many today are in the camp of those “dreamers” who have wonderful ideas and always “eat” and never “sow” into the future. Thomas Edison once said that genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration. The same with any worthwhile endeavour that you are pursuing. “Dreamers” need to apply a boot to their derriere.

On the other hand we have the ever-increasing masses of those who are languishing from “burnout” which is essentially caused by “sowing with tears” much more than you “eat” and gain strength. These are slowly getting their strength and vitality drained away because they are expending much more energy than they are receiving. Compulsive “sowers” need prolonged times of rest and renewal – they need to regain their “strengths” through rest.

Whatever your particular situation is, live out life to the max….. but do not get maxed-out! Find a right combination of activities and habits that will recharge your batteries, and also do those things where you invest in your personal development in order to grow as an individual – you will find one day that it is possible to eat your way to a harvest!!!!

On Saturday a group of us went on a “Treasure hunt” to the nearby town of Los Barrios. The treasure hunt was a way of practising some prophetic evangelism in a totally different context to our home town of Gibraltar. In a totally different environment the clues and prompting of the Holy Spirit just had to be spot-on as most of us are not familiar with the town in questions, its landmarks, etc.

We had a time of worship and prayer and then sure enough we started writing down the clues…pharmacy, silver, municipal square…. domestic abuse….. and went looking for the places and people on our lists. We stumbled on a little square that was, funnily enough the municipal square…with a pharmacy…bounded on the one hand by a street called “la plata” (the silver) and n the other side by a council-run centre for women suffering from domestic abuse!!!! C’mon!!! At that point I had to leave early but a couple of folks were prayed for and I can say that the group that went on the treasure hunt are just off-the-charts encouraged and excited!!!!! We have several people that want to join our next adventure in spreading the love of Father God far and wide!!!!!!

Last night we kicked-off our first meeting of an evangelism course that we are doing every fortnight. We are using DVDs from Jeff Lewis of the Lakeland Outpouring fame, and Citytaker Ministries, and it was really good. We want to be equipped through these DVDs to go out and move in power evangelism, having faith for the miraculous to occur right now, right here!

Tomorrow we go out for a Treasure hunt – stay tuned to this spot as we will update you on how things went.

Ladies and gentlemen, the church has left the building!

Last year was one of the most awesome years of my life – it was also one of my most stressful! I guess that it was like one of my best years, and one of my hardest years, all rolled into one!

After taking some stock, one crucial area that I would like to focus on and improve is my health. I feel like God is telling me that it is time to get healthy and get in shape (Yes, I know, “round” is a shape….but that is another argument). I have recently been struggling with a bunch of health issues and . although I know that God gives a tonne of grace, I also know that He expects me to take charge of my health in the areas that ARE within my control. The main health issues that I have been facing are these:-

• A stomach ulcer that keeps playing up and is compounded by a “rolling stomach” – I believe that this issue is caused, and aggravated, by stress.
• Hypertension – Linked to stress and also being overweight.
• An irritating skin condition where I regularly get these furuncles on my waist that are very painful.
• Overweight – what can I say? I currently weigh 115KG (253lbs)
• Feeling extremely tired all the time

One of the resources that I have come accross and consider to be extremely valuable is a book called “The Seven Pillars of Health” by a Christian doctor called Don Colbert M.D. This book is full of good and practical wisdom on how to recover your health through focusing on seven pillars of health and wellness. The book deals with lifestyle issues rather than diets and this is a huge deal for me because I HATE diets! I plan on making some long-term changes to my diet and lifestyle and I hope to be able to report my progress regularly.

The seven pillars for good health, according to Colbert, are the following:-

1. Pillar -1: water
2. Pillar -2: sleep and rest
3. Pillar -3: living food
4. Pillar -4: exercise
5. Pillar -5: detoxification
6. Pillar -6: nutritional supplements
7. Pillar -7: coping with stress

I am going to work hard on these areas as I plan on getting and staying healthy. People, its time to get well.

Technorati Tags: health, fitness, stress, exercise, lifestyle,

Image: Christ in the House of Martha and Mary by Johannes Vermeer

I love the Bible. I think the Bible rocks! I especially love it when you get arrested by a verse and something seems to jump up at you and sieze you, and totally mess you up forever.

Well, it’s happened again. I was casually reading Psalm 138 when verse 6 jumped up and grabbed me!:

Though the Lord is on high, yet He regards the lowly; But the proud He knows from afar.

Attracting God’s gaze
After pondering and chewing on this for a while, it started to dawn on me that the Lord will look upon the lowly – he will turn His attention and shift His focus towards the humble. Lowliness and humility attract the Lord’s gaze – it is as if He has a homing device set to “humility” which arrests Him! The lowliness that I am talking about is not some false-humility, self-depreciating mortification of your flesh (Which is none other than a perverted form of pride). It is an attitude of heart that occurs when you find yourself cuddled up in Father God, and being lost in His vast embrace!

The formula for promotion
God is irresistibly attracted to lowliness – but the proud He tends to keep at a distance. In God’s Kingdom, the only way up is down – you do not “grow up” you “grow down”! The only formula for growing in God is to go “lower still” and when you have done that, then you go lower still again.

And [Martha] had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Jesus’ feet and heard His word (Luke 10:39)

Communion with God
In this story we see a real connection between lowliness and communion with Christ. Notice how Mary was not sitting beside Jesus, she was sitting at His feet – the place of going “lower still” – and this posture allowed her to “hear His word” or have communion with Jesus. As Bill Johnson says, “Martha, on the other hand, was fixing some sandwiches that Jesus had never asked for.”

There is a need in my life to simply sit at His feet….. and listen to His voice! All Christians have the capacity to hear the voice of Christ (John 10:27)but many are not listening to Him. My new year’s resolution is to develop a lifestyle of listening to Jesus whilst going lower still.

I believe God is actively seeking a few lowly ones today. Will you join me on this quest?

Technorati Tags: lowerstill, bible, heidi baker, lowliness, humility, pride, promotion

I’ve just finished reading “Surprised by Hope” by Tom Wright. This guy is the Bishop of Durham in the Church of England, and is arguably one of the most prominent New Testament theologians around. This book contains a little to offend just about everyone from the Pope to the most Reformed of Evangelical Protestants.

In essence, this book deals with the issue that books like “The Late Great Planet Earth” and its eschatology encouraged a changing of the church’s message from “the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand” to “the end of the world is near”. The Church’s message being changed naturally provoked a change in the Church’s mission and/or its defferent emphases within that mission – thus “going to Heaven” became the Christian’s ultimate goal.

In this book Tom Wright attempts to show that the ultimate hope for the Christian is not to die and go to Heaven, and that this planet is not just waiting to be thrown off a cliff at the last judgement. He advances an altogether more biblically grounded understanding of our future hope which is, surprising for many, not at all about “going to Heaven when you die” but rather about being a co-heir with Christ in a new Heaven and a new Earth. This concept comes as a shocker to many within Evangelical Christianity. This shocker naturally changes everything. His explanation of Heaven as another present dimension to life here and now is also extremely useful as well as certain implications of, for example, Jesus being in Heaven in a material and bodily form right now, and not in a non-material state floating somewhere in the by-and-by as most Christians believe.

Wright then moves on to cover what the implications of such a hope are, in terms of the mission of the Church – in my view these chapters are excellent and well worth buying the book for. If the “Kingdom of God” has indeed been breaking-in to Earth since the resurrection of Jesus, this truth must by necessity compell us, as His “Emissaries” to proclaim Jesus’ lordship over the Earth. Accordingly this work, or mission, falls within the following main categories:

1. Social justice
The Jewish concept of “Tikkun Olam” – the healing of a broken world – where suffering is aleviated, wrongs are put to right, and the love of God is expressed in practical and powerful ways. The Church’s mission is as much about feeding the poor and caring for widows as it is about holding Revival meetings and evangelism campaigns – Wright would argue that justice is a precurser and pre-text to true evangelism.

2. Beauty
Art that both embraces the Earth’s woundedness but at the same time points to God’s beauty in anticipation of the judgement (that will right all of the Earth’s wrongs and cover the Earth with the Glory of God as the waters cover the sea). Our hope compells us to be the most creative people on this planet – after all, we do serve the “Creator.”

3. Evangelism
Proclaiming the lordship of Jesus but only within the context of justice being done, and beauty being manifested. Evangelism for many of us has been reduced to getting people to pray a simple “sinner’s prayer” (mantra?) or tick the right boxes on a response card. We have to recover a truer concept of evangelism, proclaiming the risen Christ,especially within an increasingly secularized society. In my view, this has to be done in the power of the Holy Spirit, with signs following.

There are some points that I definitely do not agree with (Praying for the rest and repose of the dead? You’re kidding me!) so be prepared to spit out some bones when you read this. However, I trust you will find that there is much more meat than bones in this piece of work.

Any thoughts?

Technorati Tags: wright, eschatology, Kingdom of Heaven,

Heidi and Rolland Baker have been a tremendous influence in my life.  Through their book “Always Enough” my theology got rocked and my world got turned upside down!!!  Through rivers of tears and gut-wrenching experiences reading these powerful testimonies, I confessed that I did not have the gospel!!!!!  This was several years ago.  This has provoked me and sent me on a quest for MORE of God!!!!!!

Their ministry, Iris Ministries, have just posted their latest Newsletter on their website.  If you want to find out what Revival looks like in the African bush go no further…. Click here and let your world be rocked as was mine!!!!  You will never be the same again.