Difficulties

I was recently invited to a conference on the Prophetic. We were asked before hand: What is your gift and how is it used in the body? How do you see your gift developing?

It was the last part of this question that got me thinking the most. And I came up with the answer: With difficulty.

I see that difficulty split into 2 parts:

1: Difficult because as I am finding, when you decide to yield to the Holy Spirit, and make that vow to the Lord, he actually takes you seriously. A lot more seriously than perhaps you would have liked. And he enrols you on a course of discipline and scourging. The word scourge isn't pleasant. For me it brings up images from 'The Passion Of The Christ' where the whip digs into the table and pulls it to pieces before being aimed at Jesus. Yet that is almost exactly the correct image. The whip comes and digs deep at the flesh life and pulls it away. You may pray STOP LORD!, but he will not listen, there is no turning back from what you have signed up for, so you may as well save your breath in that direction. The Lord is determined to make you not into an automaton or slave that will do as your told, but a son or daughter that he can trust with the most costly of gifts and secrets. He sets about refining our response times to obedience. How long does it take you to obey when he highlights something in your life that is wrong and needs to be put right or when he tells you to step out in his name? Years, months, days, minutes, seconds? It's not pleasant. It hurts. It's difficult to go through but if we are going to become the people he wants we have to be stripped of all that is fleshly. The upside to this, of course there is one, is you will find yourself driven to that secret place where Jesus becomes all, and where your relationship is watered and buds. All this happens for enlargement, for blessing, for expansion, but don't be fooled, it takes time, maybe a very long time and is painful. That is why I see this and expect it as a difficult time.

2: The second reason why I see our growth as difficult is because we are up against a huge monster that is masquerading as a beautiful idol. It's our traditions. Make no mistake, this is maybe the biggest obstacle to the Holy Spirit building the church as he sees fit, our traditions. Our agendas. Our plans. Our ideas. You may say that your gatherings are ordered by the Spirit, that it is just right. Let me ask a question then. Do you think the Spirit want's to do the same thing week in, week out in your gatherings? Do you think it is acceptable for the same few people to expect the Spirit to turn up at their beck and call to give them an hour's long preach every week? What about Easter, Christmas, Mothering Sunday, Harvest time etc? We roll out our typical agendas every season with no thought at all that the Spirit may have other plans. This idol of ours is a real monster, because try and cut of it's head by a change of direction, a different agenda and we find it's gone and grown another head! How are we going to kill this thing? This old wineskin that cannot hold the new wine? I think part of the answer is to allow the body to grow in gifting. To allow the prophetic word to be dwelt on and like a rudder, steer the ship. We need to allow worship to reach new heights. So much can be achieved in 5 mins before the Lord in worship. Maybe it's time to get the oil out and anoint our musicians, praying over them to take us to where Jesus is and before long I believe we will realise the idol is toppling.

Is Something Wrong?

Have you ever started making one of those flat pack furniture products? I have, and on more than one occasion I've got to the end to find something didn't fit or was in the wrong position. It's disheartening. You want to take a hammer to the whole thing, but instead you take another look at the instructions and try to find the place where you went wrong, and then take it apart and put it right.

I've just been thinking of this, this lunch time. I think something's wrong. In the Church. Somewhere, quite a long time ago, maybe even before we were born, something has not been done right, and just when we think we are near completion we've ended up with something defective.

What were we building? Maybe some of us don't even have any idea. I'm no expert, I'm nobody, but I was hoping to see the Church, The Body to move and act just like the Body of Christ should. In power, in love, in presence, in a dimension that I've only read about happening someplace else, some time else.

I'm tired. Tired of people talking about the presence in the meeting while I wonder why I missed it, and if it was His Presence, is it possible to miss it? What would it be like, His presence? Maybe I wouldn't even be able to stand. Maybe there would be laughter, tears, maybe even some falling over dead?

And what would His Power be like to see in action. Maybe people being healed there and then on the spot, and that this wouldn't be a one off or a story we drag out from the locker: 'remember when this happened", but a daily thing. Maybe people would be challenged as the Holy Spirit was allowed to take charge of the Church He is building, rooted to the spot in fear of their lives if they do not repent there and then. Maybe miracles would be seen, wonders and signs.

Is this all pie in the sky, or is this incredible description actually the life style of what should be your average, normal Christian?

So, where did we go wrong?

A hard thing to say...

Christ in You 
by T. Austin-Sparks

The next thing I am going to say may be difficult to accept, just as it is difficult to say, and yet faithfulness demands that things like this should be said. 

There is going to be a tremendous surprise one day over this matter. 

There is a tremendous amount of energy, and activity, and machinery, and zeal and devotion in the work of the Lord, in the service of the Lord, which seems to be producing something quite big, and carrying on something quite extensive. 

It is not for us to judge, but it is for us to lay down laws and recognize those laws, or, rather, recognize laws that are laid down by God. 

When eventually all work, all service, all activity, is weighed in the balances, which will determine what abides for ever or passes away for ever, all that which was MERELYhuman energy for God will go; all that which was merely man's enterprise for the Lord will go; all that which was in any way out from man himself, even though in devotion to God, will go. 

Only that which was the energy of Christ, the wisdom of Christ, the power of Christ, will remain. 

God is not using your energies and my energies. 
He is calling upon us to use the energies of Christ. 
God cannot set His seal upon anything that is of man. 
God's seal only rests upon that which is of His Son, and we must not say that because a thing is big, extensive, and SEEMS to be a great work for God, that it necessarily is such. 

What we have got to be quite sure about is that that thing is not being carried on by the momentum of man, or the momentum of organization, the momentum of machinery, the momentum of human zeal and energy for God nor by the momentum of a programme, but that it is being energized by the Holy Ghost, that it is Christ Himself who is the life and the power of that thing. 

In so far as human personalities, energies and all that kind of thing are the mainspring, we may be sure that in the end there is going to be a good deal that goes. 
That can be seen as you look back over the history of things which claimed to represent God.

Which one are you?

I woke up thinking of this. Which of these pictures do you realistically think describes your life with the Lord?

Unity

I was praying this morning and I started to think about the church. I immediately thought about an inter-church event I had been to recently where a vicar had asked me what sort of church I went to. I said Christian. To which the reply was I was just being pedantic with an answer like that. Looking up pedantic, because I didn't know it off the top of my head, it says it means: punctilious - donnish - priggish - meticulous

I wasn't trying to be awkward or clever. I genuinely didn't know how else to describe the church I was in without resorting to silly explanations, and why should I need to?
It really disappoints me when I think of the church. There is only one. Only one body. Not lots of separate bodies, that is the Biblical view and if Jesus is to return that is the goal that must be attained.
I heard there was over 250'000 christian sects/denominations. What do i need to do to play my part in making it one?

There's no sync button

I recently bought a new computer, and even more recently upgraded the hard drive. What makes it easy to not lose any information during these upgrades and changes is the ability to sync things. All your old files, web pages, passwords, nearly everything can just be synced so you are right back where you were before the upgrade.
The Holy Spirit doesn't like sync buttons.
When he 'upgrades us' through the process of the Cross, even what we considered the best part of our old lives, the bit we think of as 'not that bad' is unwanted by the Spirit. He doesn't want any of that old life coming through.
What I mean by that is, sure you may have been a good accountant before you were saved, and after you probably are still a good accountant. But, whatever skills you bring with you, or think will be an asset to the body...aren't.
It is only when there is sacrifice (death) does the fire come. Or to put it another way, only after the Cross has done it's work on you or any part of your flesh that has tried to cling on does the Spirit empower.
I know that's not the best news to all those working merrily away in their own power, in their own strength to their own ideas and agendas, but unless the Cross does a thorough work the Spirit will not place his seal of approval in empowering on your work.

Time to stop and think

I was recently sent to Norwich with work. I am being made redundant and my mind was in a whirl. I went for a walk to find a place to have a chat with God and talk through everything. I sat down on a secluded bench I spotted hidden away behind some trees. As I sat I wondered if there was a plaque on it. There was, and even more, I was surprised by what it said. If you have trouble reading the picture, it says:

Rest awhile - Ponder anew what the almighty can do.

So I did.