The Omni's!

The kids are going back to school. For my daughter it's a new school. High school. And it can be very daunting.
We spent some time the night before her first day playing a game of encouragement. We basically took it in turns to say encouraging things to each other.
I got a bit carried away, and started talking about God's 'Omni' characteristics.
It's so amazing, I thought I'd share these very pieces of encouragement.
These do not of course fully explain these characteristics, they are just small facets of them.

Omnipotence (from Latin: Omni Potens: "all power") is unlimited power.

God is all powerful. Yep, easy one, got it. But what does that mean? If you are in need and pray, God doesn't just get His eye dropper out and measure out a tiny part of His power to help your need. No, God aims ALL His power at your situation. His power is perfect and complete. It never runs out, never needs to replenished, He never needs a rest for it to build up again. When He helps, He helps completely, and He hasn't then emptied Himself of power, He still has all power to help anyone else.



Omniscience  is the capacity to know everything infinitely

God knows everything. Again, easy. got it. Next. It means God knows everything there is possibly to know about everything in existence. He will never be surprised by something He didn't know. We will never learn something He doesn't know. We just learn things that he allows to be revealed to us. I guess that's what science is. Our learning of his revelations on creation. He knows everything about you, every thought, motive, word spoken. He sees all the secret things.



Omnipresence is the property of being present everywhere.

This one could freak you out. To explain this one to the kids I drew a line on some paper. Marked the beginning of the line as birth, and the end as death. I then marked lots of different events along this line, such as: first time to walk, first word, starting nursery, first day at school, first day at college, first job, getting married, having kids, being a grandpa/granny, being called home to be with Him.
Then I asked the kids, where Jesus was on this timeline? They pointed to various events, but I drew a circle outside of the timeline and said He's there. He's outside of time. Because He's outside of time, He can see all events at once, and can be in all places at once (at every time).
So, right now, he's there at your birth. Right now, He's there when you walk. Right now, He's there at your first day of school, ready to help you, preparing things for you. Right now, he's there at your first day of work. Right now, he's there at your bedside calling you 'come home'.
Absolutely beautiful.

It's the Devil!

I've wanted to work this out for a while.
I get a bit fed up with people when they say things like:
The Devil stopped me.
It's the Devil that has done this.
The Devil is making trouble for me!

Wheras I agree 100% there is a Devil, and he is our adversary, I think a lot of 'stuff' that happens in our lives has absolutely nothing to do with spiritual warfare.

So, I wanted to see just how much time the Devil can give to each person. Because he isn't Omnipresent like God, he can't be everywhere at once. So his time is limited.

There are 6.721 Billion people on the planet. There are 24 hours in a day.
Divide one by the other, and allowing for the speed of light you have exactly .00001285522988 of a second to have his undivided attention.

Seems a bit more unlikely now doesn't it.

Death Strikes Twice

Psalm 68
20 Our God is a God of salvation,
and to GOD, the Lord, belong deliverances from death.

So, Monday 9th I was cycling along, just out of work, making my way to the Taff Trail, a path for cyclists and pedestrians that runs along the River Taff.
It's my usual route and a good time for me to speak in tongues and worship.
This Monday afternoon I was praising God, thanking Him for delivering me, because I had just been missed by a Jeep, which had cut me up on the corner before getting to the Trail. It missed be by a foot, but even closer was the trailer it was pulling, which missed me by about an inch.
I thought It was my time, but Praise God, I lived.

I got on to the trail, praising and then noticed for some reason my coat had come undone at the bottom and was flairing out like a cloak. I did think of just leaving it, but as it looked ridiculous I stopped and re-zipped it.

My next encounter was with a chap standing in the middle of the path urinating.
Some days cycling you see it all.

Then I came to a part of the trail that runs into an underpass. just before I came to it a motorbike roared out of the tunnel. it was going very fast with a teenager driving. He didn't move out of my way, so I had to swerve off the path to not get hit. he was of course riding illegally on the Trail.

I thanked God again that I had not met the bike in the tunnel, as there was no room and I would have just been killed by a bike going at that speed.
And then I thought.
The amount of time it took me to stop my bike and re-zip my coat earlier was the amount of time I missed being in the tunnel when the bike was there.

Truly Our God is a God of salvation,
and to GOD, the Lord, belong deliverances from death.

We See Your Glory

This album was given away on CD at the latest ministries Without Borders Bible Week 2010.
It's also available as a free MP3 download.
It has some superb songs on it and words that you'll be glad you have knocking around in your head.

Download HERE

The Circle Of Life

A superb book. I just e-mailed Roger Aubrey the author to give my thoughts:

Hi Roger,
Just a quick note to say I have just finished reading The Circle Of Life.
As I started reading I thought it was good reading, but when I got to the chapter The Attitude of Gratitude it just hit me with both barrels.
It's been a couple of weeks since I read that chapter (Bible week in the middle) and I am very pleased to see that it has become a part of me.
One last comment, the end chapter and your operation. I thought it was a very powerful message the way you reacted to the hospital ward 'joker', by not accepting his words, even though it was such a subtle attack in joke form. That really made me think a lot as to what I accept.

Thanks Roger
Chris Morse

Cain & Abel

Cain has to be one of the most infamous characters in the Bible. He's known as the first murderer. What he isn't known for is being the first worshipper. And yet...

Genisis 4

1 Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD.

2 And again, she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground.

3 In the course of time Cain brought to the LORD an offering of the fruit of the ground,

It was Cain who made the first offering. We get it into our heads that Cain & Abel perhaps had a competition to see who could offer the best offering and Cain lost. But that's not what happened, some versions of the Bible state it was at a later time that Abel bought his offering.

Is this an important point? probably not, what is important is that Cain was definitely first and the instigator.

So, what went wrong? Why was it rejected?

Both Cain & Abel had good professions, one a keeper of sheep, the other a farmer. The substance of the offering was OK. There's nothing wrong with offering God grain, seed, flour, oil...it's all stuff prescribed by Moses as acceptable.

So, I ask again...what went wrong for Cain's offering of worship to be rejected? Remember, at this point in time there's no murder been committed, and God isn't judging him for something he will do but hasn't yet.

There's a massive clue later in Hebrews:

4 By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks.

So, faith plays a part. But how has it played a part?

Romans 10 tells us: 17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

We really need to pull this verse apart to get to the bottom of things.

By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice. By faith. Faith comes by hearing, and we hear through the word of God.
So, working this out, Abel MUST have heard God say something on the subject of worship/offerings/sacrifices and he then offered something after he heard because he acted on his faith.

Sorry, if I'm really spelling this out, it's just so important to get to grips with this simple story and truth before we answer the big question of Cain.

It would have been impossible for Abel to offer anything in faith if he hadn't have heard God.
So, does this mean then that Cain didn't hear God? there was no offering by faith? it was just a good idea he had?

I think the answer to those questions has to be a yes, yes and yes.

But surely God wouldn't reject Cain's offering because he hadn't heard God say anything on the subject and therefor couldn't offer in faith? Would He?
Surely God would look with kindness on any offering of worship. This just can't be the reason that led to history's first murder. Can it?

Let me ask you, what else could it have been?

The book of Romans talks a lot about the flesh and the Spirit. How both are at war with each other. God cannot accept something done from a fleshly heart, or to put it another way, He will only acknowledge an act birthed from the Spirit.

If this is starting to sound a little far fetched to you, think over some of the Bible's greatest stories, how people responded to God and saw Him reward their faith with His presence and power. Then think of people who did things their own way, and the punishments that followed.

To me this story of Cain & Abel is a huge wake up call to Christianity. It says to me that no matter how holy or religious or kindly an activity is your involved with, if the Holy Spirit has not given you the idea, or it's origins are not in the word, God will not back it. Have you ever been involved with outreaches or events that appear to win no souls and see no fruit. We console ourselves by saying we had maybe 1 good conversation, that we know it may take several conversations before someone accepts Christ, and perhaps this was only the first, we put a spin on our events to cover up the obvious failures they are, but really we need to come clean and say it was a failure that the New Testament would not have seen.

So, should Cain have just done nothing? Yes. Again, I think one of the hardest things for a Christian to do, is nothing. He feels he must in some way work for God, do something for Him, go out and start a Church, put on a meeting, look for the bigger and better. but again, if God is not telling you to do this, then it's origins HAVE to be in the flesh, and therefor God will not back them. In fact God is at war against them.

So how do we know when God is telling us to do something?
Most people will acknowledge that when he has spoken to them, they KNEW. You can also read the Word and have a knowledge of His commands to you.

Thinking this through over the months God showed this to me I have come to a place where I realise God won't micro-manage you. He wants to see you make good decisions yourself. He doesn't really have a lot to say on the subject of whether you should have tea or coffee, where white or black, He want's you to make a decision. There are bigger decisions to be made than this though. Such as where shall I live, where shall I work, who shall I marry, and when it comes to the Church, His body, He has a LOT to say and we exclude Him at our peril. It is in this type of decision we need to hear the Spirit talking, and if we hear nothing, to do nothing until we do.
I will finish this lengthy spiel, to just say that there is also a daily walk with Jesus where we need to hear and obey. A time when we will be walking along and the Lord will tell us to do something unusual, to break from our routine or our plans and turn aside and achieve something specific. this might be to talk to someone, to pray for someone, to do a secret act of kindness...it could be anything the Spirit directs you to do. That is when we need to obey and see God back up that act of obediance and faith with His power and presence. What we mustn't do is then think, WOW, that was great, I'm going to do it again to that person now. That is when we get fleshy.

Tiny Little Things

Strange this. A while ago an idea came into my head about a traveling salesman, that I should make him a music CD to listen to in the car as he's traveling around.

I promptly did nothing. Every now and then as I listened to my iPod I would think, oh, I must put that on his disc, that's a really encouraging song.

So, more than a month later I get another prompting of the Spirit. I need to complete these little tasks. So I started the compilation. It took me about a week or so, but Sunday morning came and I thought I'm going to get this done and finish it, then I can hand it over to him at Church.

Thing is, how on earth can this be the Spirit? It's such a little thing and not really very dramatic. it's not like the Spirit has told me to go and lay hands on someone or raise the dead is it. It's a CD!

So, I'm at Church and the guy gets up to give a testimony of what has happened to him this week.
He tells us all he's got a new job, he's back on the front line of sales and his words were "I need to start wearing the armour again" and also he was given a car! Yes, a car! And not just and car but an E type Mercedes!

So, after Church I go and hand over the CD and say I felt I needed to do this for him.
His face was beaming. He said he hadn't got any music in his new car and he really wanted something encouraging to listen to.
I didn't tell him, but the first track is Phil Driscoll Armour of God.

So.
All I can think is I must complete those little tasks the Spirit gives me a lot sooner. Maybe it will lead to bigger ones.